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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Road to Understanding, by Eleanor H.
+Porter, Illustrated by Mary Greene Blumenschein
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Road to Understanding
+
+
+Author: Eleanor H. Porter
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2011  [eBook #35093]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Annie McGuire from scanned images of public domain
+material generously made available by the Google Books Library Project
+(http://books.google.com/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file
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+      See 35093-h.htm or 35093-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35093/35093-h/35093-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35093/35093-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      the the Google Books Library Project. See
+      http://books.google.com/books?vid=mtceAAAAMAAJ&id
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING
+
+
+[Illustration: AT SIGHT OF HER THE DOCTOR LEAPED FORWARD WITH A LOW CRY
+(p. 174)]
+
+
+THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING
+
+by
+
+ELEANOR H. PORTER
+
+Author of "Just David"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Boston and New York
+Houghton Mifflin Company
+1917
+
+Copyright, 1917, by Eleanor H. Porter
+
+
+
+
+TO
+MY FRIEND
+_Miss Grace Wheeler_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+      I. FROSTED CAKES AND SHOTGUNS                                    1
+     II. AN ONLY SON                                                  24
+    III. HONEYMOON DAYS                                               33
+     IV. NEST-BUILDING                                                43
+      V. THE WIPE                                                     61
+     VI. THE HUSBAND                                                  75
+    VII. STUMBLING-BLOCKS                                             82
+   VIII. DIVERGING WAYS                                              104
+     IX. A BOTTLE OF INK                                             125
+      X. BY ADVICE OF COUNSEL                                        155
+     XI. IN QUEST OF THE STARS                                       172
+    XII. THE TRAIL OF THE INK                                        182
+   XIII. A WOMAN'S WON'T                                             199
+    XIV. AN UNDERSTUDY                                               210
+     XV. A WOMAN'S WILL                                              225
+    XVI. EMERGENCIES                                                 241
+   XVII. PINK TEAS TO FLIGHTY BLONDES                                258
+  XVIII. A LITTLE BUNCH OF DIARIES                                   265
+    XIX. THE STAGE IS SET                                            284
+     XX. THE CURTAIN RISES                                           293
+    XXI. THE PLAY BEGINS                                             302
+   XXII. ACTOR AND AUDIENCE                                          314
+  XXIII. "THE PLOT THICKENS"                                         330
+   XXIV. COUNTER-PLOTS                                               339
+    XXV. ENIGMAS                                                     348
+   XXVI. THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING                                   357
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  AT SIGHT OF HER THE DOCTOR LEAPED FORWARD WITH A LOW
+      CRY (p. 174)                                        _Frontispiece_
+  HE WAS LOOKING AT HER LOVELY, GLORIFIED FACE                         6
+  JOHN DENBY WENT STRAIGHT TO HIS SON AND LAID BOTH HANDS ON HIS
+       SHOULDERS                                                     150
+  "SO I RANG THE BELL"                                               310
+
+_From drawings by Mary Greene Blumenschein_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FROSTED CAKES AND SHOTGUNS
+
+
+If Burke Denby had not been given all the frosted cakes and toy shotguns
+he wanted at the age of ten, it might not have been so difficult to
+convince him at the age of twenty that he did not want to marry Helen
+Barnet.
+
+Mabel, the beautiful and adored wife of John Denby, had died when Burke
+was four years old; and since that time, life, for Burke, had been
+victory unseasoned with defeat. A succession of "anything-for-peace"
+rulers of the nursery, and a father who could not bring himself to be
+the cause of the slightest shadow on the face of one who was the
+breathing image of his lost wife, had all contributed to these
+victories.
+
+Nor had even school-days brought the usual wholesome discipline and
+democratic leveling; for a pocketful of money and a naturally generous
+disposition made a combination not to be lightly overlooked by boys and
+girls ever alert for "fun"; and an influential father and the scarcity
+of desirable positions made another combination not to be lightly
+overlooked by impecunious teachers anxious to hold their "jobs." It was
+easy to ignore minor faults, especially as the lad had really a
+brilliant mind, and (when not crossed) a most amiable disposition.
+
+Between the boy and his father all during the years of childhood and
+youth, the relationship was very beautiful--so beautiful that the entire
+town saw it and expressed its approval: in public by nods and admiring
+adjectives; in private by frequent admonitions to wayward sons and
+thoughtless fathers to follow the pattern so gloriously set for them.
+
+Of all this John Denby saw nothing; nor would he have given it a thought
+if he had seen it. John Denby gave little thought to anything, after his
+wife died, except to business and his boy, Burke. Business, under his
+skillful management and carefully selected assistants, soon almost ran
+itself. There was left then only the boy, Burke.
+
+From the first they were comrades, even when comradeship meant the
+poring over a Mother Goose story-book, or mastering the intricacies of a
+game of tiddledywinks. Later, together, they explored the world of
+music, literature, science, and art, spending the long summer playtimes,
+still together, traveling in both well-known and little-known lands.
+
+Toward everything fine and beautiful and luxurious the boy turned as a
+flower turns toward the light, which pleased the man greatly. And as the
+boy had but to express a wish to have it instantly find an echo in his
+father's heart, it is not strange, perhaps, that John Denby did not
+realize that, notwithstanding all his "training," self-control and
+self-sacrifice were unknown words to his son.
+
+One word always, however, was held before the boy from the very
+first--mother; yet it was not as a word, either, but as a living
+presence. Always he was taught that she was with them, a bright,
+beauteous, gracious being, loving, tender, perfect. Whatever they saw
+was seen through her eyes. Whatever they did was done as with her.
+Stories of her beauty, charm, and goodness filled many an hour of
+intimate talk. She was the one flawless woman born into the world--so
+said Burke's father to his son.
+
+Burke was nearly twenty-one, and half through college, when he saw Helen
+Barnet. She was sitting in the big west window in the library, with the
+afternoon sun turning her wonderful hair to gold. In her arms she held a
+sleeping two-year-old boy. With the marvelous light on her face, and the
+crimson velvet draperies behind her, she looked not unlike a pictured
+Madonna. It was not, indeed, until a very lifelike red swept to the
+roots of the girl's hair that the young man, staring at her from the
+doorway, realized that she was not, in truth, a masterpiece on an
+old-time wall, but a very much alive, very much embarrassed young woman
+in his father's library.
+
+With a blush that rivaled hers, and an incoherent apology, he backed
+hastily from the room. He went then in search of his father. He had
+returned from college an hour before to find his father's youngest
+sister, Eunice, and her family, guests in the house. But this
+stranger--this bewilderingly beautiful girl--
+
+In the upper hall he came face to face with his father.
+
+"Dad, who in Heaven's name is she?" he demanded without preamble.
+
+"_She?_"
+
+"That exquisitely beautiful girl in the library. Who is she?"
+
+"In the library? Girl? Nonsense! You're dreaming, Burke. There's no one
+here but your aunt."
+
+"But I just came from there. I saw her. She held a child in her arms."
+
+"Ho!" John Denby gave a gesture as if tossing a trivial something aside.
+"You're dreaming again, Burke. The nursemaid, probably. Your aunt
+brought one with her. But, see here, son. I was looking for you. Come
+into my room. I wanted to know--" And he plunged into a subject far
+removed from nursemaids and their charges.
+
+Burke, however, was not to be so lightly diverted. True, he remained for
+ten minutes at his father's side, and he listened dutifully to what his
+father said; but the day was not an hour older before he had sought and
+found the girl he had seen in the library.
+
+She was not in the library now. She was on the wide veranda, swinging
+the cherubic boy in the hammock. To Burke she looked even more
+bewitching than she had before. As a pictured saint, hung about with
+the aloofness of the intangible and the unreal, she had been beautiful
+and alluring enough; but now, as a breathing, moving creature treading
+his own familiar veranda and touching with her white hands his own
+common hammock, she was bewilderingly enthralling.
+
+Combating again an almost overwhelming desire to stand in awed worship,
+he advanced hastily, speaking with a diffidence and an incoherence
+utterly foreign to his usual blithe boyishness.
+
+"Oh, I hope--I didn't, did I? _Did_ I wake--the baby up?"
+
+With a start the girl turned, her blue eyes wide.
+
+"_You?_ Oh, in the library--"
+
+"Yes; an hour ago. I do hope I didn't--wake him up!"
+
+Before the ardent admiration in the young man's eyes, the girl's fell.
+
+"Oh, no, sir. He just--woke himself."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad! And--and I want you to forgive me for--for staring at
+you so rudely. You see, I was so surprised to--to see you there
+like--like a picture, and-- You will forgive me--er-- I don't know your
+name."
+
+"Barnet--Helen Barnet." She blushed prettily; then she laughed, throwing
+him a mischievous glance. "Oh, yes, I'll forgive you; but--I don't know
+your name, either."
+
+"Thank you. I knew you'd--understand. I'm Denby--Burke Denby."
+
+"Mr. Denby's son?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh-h!"
+
+At the admiration in her eyes and voice he unconsciously straightened
+himself.
+
+"And do you live--here?" breathed the girl.
+
+To hide the inexplicable emotion that seemed suddenly to be swelling
+within him, the young man laughed lightly.
+
+"Of course--when I'm not away!" His eyes challenged her, and she met the
+sally with a gurgle of laughter.
+
+"Oh, I meant--when you're not away," she bridled.
+
+He watched the wild-rose color sweep to her temples--and stepped nearer.
+
+"But you haven't told me a thing of yourself--yet," he complained.
+
+She sighed--and at the sigh an unreasoning wrath against an unknown
+something rose within him.
+
+"There's nothing to tell," she murmured. "I'm just here--a nurse to
+Master Paul and his brother." Denby's wrath became reasoning and
+definite. It was directed against the world in general, and his aunt in
+particular, that they should permit for one instant this glorious
+creature to sacrifice her charm and sweetness on the altar of menial
+services to a couple of unappreciative infants.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry!" he breathed, plainly aglow at the intimate
+nearness of this heart-to-heart talk. "But I'm glad--you're _here_!"
+
+Once more, before he turned reluctantly away, he gazed straight into her
+blue eyes--and the game was on.
+
+It was a pretty game. The young man was hard hit, and it was his first
+wound from Cupid's dart. Heretofore in his curriculum girls had not been
+included; and the closeness of his association with his father had not
+been conducive to incipient love affairs. Perhaps, for these reasons, he
+was all the more ardent a wooer. Certainly an ardent wooer he was. There
+was no gainsaying that--though the boy himself, at first, did not
+recognize it as wooing at all.
+
+It began with pity.
+
+He was so sorry for her--doomed to slave all day for those two rascally
+small boys. He could not keep her out of his mind. As he tramped the
+hills the next morning the very blue of the sky and the softness of the
+air against his cheek became a pain to him--_she_ was tied to a stuffy
+nursery. His own freedom of will and movement became a source of actual
+vexation--_she_ was bound to a "do this" and a "do that" all day. He
+wondered then, suddenly, if he could not in some way help. He sought her
+as soon as possible.
+
+"Come, I want you to go to walk with me. I want to show you the view
+from Pike's Hill," he urged.
+
+"Me? To walk? Why, Mr. Denby, I can't!"
+
+Again the wild-rose flush came and went--and again Burke Denby stepped
+nearer.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, I couldn't leave the children; besides--it's Master Paul's nap
+hour."
+
+"What a pity--when it's so beautiful out! To-morrow, then, in the
+morning?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I couldn't, Mr. Denby."
+
+"The afternoon, then?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is it because you don't _want_ to?"
+
+"_Want to!_"
+
+At the look of longing that leaped to her face, the thwarted youth felt
+again the fierce wrath he had known the first day of their meeting.
+
+"Then, by Jove, you shall!" he vowed. "Don't they ever give you any time
+to yourself?"
+
+She dimpled into shy laughter.
+
+"I shall have a few hours Thursday--after three."
+
+"Good! I'll remember. We'll go then."
+
+And they went.
+
+To Burke Denby it was a wonderful and a brand-new experience. Never had
+the sky been so blue, the air so soft, the woods so enchantingly
+beautiful. And he was so glad that they were thus--for her. She was
+enjoying it so much, and he was so glad that he could give this
+happiness to her! Enthusiastically he pointed out here a bird and there
+a flower; carefully he helped her over every stick and stone;
+determinedly he set himself to making her forget her dreary daily tasks.
+And when she lifted her wondering eyes to his face, or placed her
+half-reluctant fingers in his extended hand, how he thrilled and tingled
+through his whole being--he had not supposed that unselfish service to a
+fellow-being could bring to one such a warm sense of gratification.
+
+At the top of the hill they sat down to rest, before them the wonderful
+panorama of grandeur--the green valley, the silvery river, the
+far-reaching mauve and purple mountains.
+
+"My, isn't this real pretty!" exclaimed the girl.
+
+[Illustration: HE WAS LOOKING AT HER LOVELY, GLORIFIED FACE]
+
+The young man scarcely heard the words, else he would have frowned
+unconsciously at the "real pretty." He was looking at her lovely,
+glorified face.
+
+"I thought you'd like it," he breathed.
+
+"Oh, I do."
+
+"I know another just as fine. We'll go there next."
+
+A shadow like a cloud crossed her face.
+
+"But I have so little time!"
+
+The cloud leaped to his face now and became thunderous.
+
+"Shucks! I forgot. What a nuisance! Oh, I say, you know, I don't think
+you ought to be doing--such work. Do you--forgive me, but do you
+really--have to?"
+
+"Yes, I have to."
+
+She had turned her face half away, but he thought he could see tears in
+her eyes.
+
+"Are you--all alone, then? Haven't you any--people?" His voice had grown
+very tender.
+
+"No--no one. Father died, then mother. There was no one else--to care;
+and no--money."
+
+"Oh, I'm so--so sorry!"
+
+He spoke awkwardly, with obvious restraint. He wanted suddenly to take
+her in his arms--to soothe and comfort her as one would a child. But she
+was not a child, and it would not do, of course. But she looked so
+forlorn, so appealing, so sweet, so absolutely dear--
+
+He got abruptly to his feet.
+
+"Come, come, this will never do!" he exclaimed blithely. "Here I
+am--making you talk of your work and your troubles, when I took you up
+here with the express intention of making you forget them. Suppose we go
+through this little path here. There's a dandy spring of cold water
+farther on. And--and forgive me, please. I won't make you--talk any
+more."
+
+And he would not, indeed, he vowed to himself. She was no child. She was
+a young woman grown, and a very beautiful one, at that. He could not
+console her with a kiss and a caress, and a bonbon, of course. But he
+could give her a bit of playtime, now and then--and he would, too. He
+would see to it that, for the rest of her stay under his father's roof,
+she should not want for the companionship of some one who--who "cared."
+He would be her kind and thoughtful good friend. Indeed, he would!
+
+Burke Denby began the very next morning to be a friend to Miss Barnet.
+Accepting as irrevocable the fact that she could not be separated from
+her work, he made no plans that did not include Masters Paul and Percy
+Allen.
+
+"I'm going to take your sons for a drive this morning, if you don't
+mind," he said briskly to his aunt at the breakfast table.
+
+"Mind? Of course I don't, you dear boy," answered the pleased mother,
+fondly. "_You're_ the one that will mind--as you'll discover, I fear,
+when you find yourself with a couple of mischievous small boys on your
+hands!"
+
+"I'm not worrying," laughed the youth. "I shall take Miss Barnet along,
+too."
+
+"Oh--Helen? That's all right, then. You'll do nicely with her," smiled
+Mrs. Allen, as she rose from the table. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go
+and see that the boys are made ready for their treat."
+
+Burke Denby took the boys for a drive almost every day after that. He
+discovered that Miss Barnet greatly enjoyed driving. There were picnics,
+too, in the cool green of the woods, on two or three fine days. Miss
+Barnet also liked picnics. Still pursuant of his plan to give the
+forlorn little nursemaid "one good time in her life," Burke Denby
+contrived to be with her not a little in between drives and picnics.
+Ostensibly he was putting up swings, building toy houses, playing ball
+with Masters Paul and Percy Allen; but in reality he was trying to put a
+little "interest" into Miss Helen Barnet's daily task. He was so sorry
+for her! It was such a shame that so gloriously beautiful a girl should
+be doomed to a slavery like that! He was so glad that for a time he
+might bring some brightness into her life!
+
+"And do you see how perfectly devoted Burke is to Paul and Percy?" cried
+Mrs. Allen, one day, to her brother. "I had no idea the dear boy was so
+fond of children!"
+
+"Hm-m. Is he really, indeed," murmured John Denby. "No, I had not
+noticed."
+
+John Denby spoke vaguely, yet with a shade of irritation. Fond as he was
+of his sister and of his small nephews, he was finding it difficult to
+accustom himself to the revolutionary changes in his daily routine that
+their presence made necessary. He was learning to absent himself more
+and more from the house.
+
+For a week, therefore, unchallenged, and cheerfully intent on his
+benevolent mission, Burke Denby continued his drives and picnics and
+ball-playing with Masters Paul and Percy Allen; then, very suddenly,
+four little words from the lips of Helen Barnet changed for him the
+earth and the sky above.
+
+"When I go away--" she began.
+
+"When you--_go--away_!" he interrupted.
+
+"Yes. Why, Mr. Denby, what makes you look so--queer?"
+
+"Nothing. I was thinking--that is, I had forgotten--I--" He rose to his
+feet abruptly, and crossed the room. At the window, for a full minute,
+he stood motionless, looking out at the falling rain. When he turned
+back into the room there was a new expression on his face. With a quick
+glance at the children playing on the rug before the fireplace, he
+crossed straight to the plainly surprised young woman and dropped
+himself in a chair at her side.
+
+"Helen Barnet, will you--marry me?" he asked softly.
+
+"_Mr. Denby!_"
+
+With a boyish laugh Burke Denby drew his chair nearer. His face was
+alight with the confident happiness of one who has never known rebuff.
+
+"You are surprised--and so was I, a minute ago. You see, it came to me
+all in a flash--what it would be to live--without you." His voice grew
+tender. "Helen, you will stay, and be my wife?"
+
+"Oh, no, no--I mustn't, I can't! Why, of course I can't, Mr. Denby,"
+fluttered the girl, in a panic of startled embarrassment. "I'm sure
+you--you don't want me to."
+
+"But I do. Listen!" He threw another quick glance at the absorbed
+children as he reached out and took possession of her hand. "It all came
+to me, back there at the window--the dreariness, the emptiness
+of--everything, without _you_. And I saw then what you've been to me
+every day this past week. How I've watched for you and waited for you,
+and how everything I did and said and had was just--something for you.
+And I knew then that I--I loved you. You see, I--I never loved any one
+before,"--the boyish red swept to his forehead as he laughed
+whimsically,--"and so I--I didn't recognize the symptoms!" With the
+lightness of his words he was plainly trying to hide the shake in his
+voice. "Helen, you--will?"
+
+"Oh, but I--I--!" Her eyes were frightened and pleading.
+
+"Don't you _care_ at all?"
+
+She turned her head away.
+
+"If you don't, then won't you let me _make_ you care?" he begged. "You
+said you had no one now to care--at all; and I care so much! Won't you
+let--"
+
+Somewhere a door shut.
+
+With a low cry Helen Barnet pulled away her hand and sprang to her feet.
+She was down on the rug with the children, very flushed of face, when
+Mrs. Allen appeared in the library doorway.
+
+"Oh, here you are!" Mrs. Allen frowned and spoke a bit impatiently.
+"I've been hunting everywhere for you. I supposed you were in the
+nursery. Won't you put the boys into fresh suits? I have friends calling
+soon, and I want the children brought to the drawing-room when I ring,
+and left till I call you again."
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+With a still more painful flush on her face Helen Barnet swept the
+blocks into her apron, rose to her feet, and hurried the children from
+the room. She did not once glance at the young man standing by the
+window.
+
+Mrs. Allen tossed her nephew a smile and a shrug which might have been
+translated into "You see what we have to endure--so tiresome!" as she,
+too, disappeared.
+
+Burke Denby did not smile. He did frown, however. He felt vaguely
+irritated and abused. He wished his aunt would not be so "bossy" and
+disagreeable. He wished Helen would not act so cringingly submissive. As
+if she-- But then, it would be different right away, of course, as soon
+as he had made known the fact that she was to be his wife. Everything
+would be different. For that matter, Helen herself would be different.
+Not only would she hold her head erect and take her proper place, but
+she would not--well, there were various little ways and expressions
+which she would drop, of course. And how beautiful she was! How sweet!
+How dear! And how she had suffered in her loneliness! How he would love
+to make for her a future all gloriously happy and tender with his
+strong, encircling arms!
+
+It was a pleasant picture. Burke Denby's heart quite swelled within him
+as he turned to leave the room.
+
+Upstairs, the girl, the cause of it all, hurried with palpitating
+nervousness through the task of clothing two active little bodies in
+fresh garments. That her thoughts were not with her fingers was evident;
+but not until the summoning bell from the drawing-room gave her a few
+minutes' respite from duty did she have an opportunity really to think.
+Even then she could not think lucidly or connectedly. Always before her
+eyes was Burke Denby's face, ardent, pleading, confident. And he
+expected-- Before she saw him again she must be ready, she knew, with
+her answer. But how _could_ she answer?
+
+Helen Barnet was lonely, heartsick, and frightened--a combination that
+could hardly aid in the making of a wise, unprejudiced decision,
+especially when one was very much in love. And Helen Barnet knew that
+she was that.
+
+Less than two years before, Helen Barnet had been the petted daughter of
+a village storekeeper in a small Vermont town. Then, like the proverbial
+thunderbolt, had come death and financial disaster, throwing her on her
+own resources. And not until she had attempted to utilize those
+resources for her support, had she found how frail they were.
+
+Though the Barnets had not been wealthy, the village store had been
+profitable; and Helen (the only child) had been almost as greatly
+overindulged as was Burke Denby himself. Being a very pretty girl, she
+had become the village belle before she donned long dresses. Having been
+shielded from work and responsibility, and always carefully guarded from
+everything unpleasant, she was poorly equipped for a struggle of any
+sort, even aside from the fact that there was, apparently, nothing that
+she could do well enough to be paid for doing it. In the past twenty
+months she had obtained six positions--and had abandoned five of them:
+two because of incompetency, two because of lack of necessary strength,
+one because her beauty was plainly making the situation intolerable. For
+three months now she had been nurse to Masters Paul and Percy Allen. She
+liked Mrs. Allen, and she liked the children. But the care, the
+confinement, the never-ending task of dancing attendance upon the whims
+and tempers of two active little boys, was proving to be not a little
+irksome to young blood unused to the restraints of self-sacrifice. Then,
+suddenly, there had come the visit to the Denby homestead, and the
+advent into her life of Burke Denby; and now here, quite within her
+reach, if she could believe her eyes and ears, was this dazzling,
+unbelievable thing--Burke Denby's love.
+
+Helen Barnet knew all about love. Had she not lisped its praises in odes
+to the moon in her high-school days? It had to do with flowers and music
+and angels. On the old porch back home--what was it that long-haired boy
+used to read to her? Oh, Tennyson. That was it.
+
+And now it had come to _her_--love. Not that it was exactly unexpected:
+she had been waiting for her lover since she had put up her hair, of
+course. But to have him come like this--and such a lover! So rich--and
+he was such a grand, handsome young man, too! And she loved him. She
+loved him dearly. If only she dared say "yes"! No more poverty, no more
+loneliness, no more slaving at the beck and call of some hated employer.
+Oh, if she only dared!
+
+For one delirious moment Helen Barnet almost thought she did--dare.
+Then, bitterly, the thought of his position--and hers--rolled in upon
+her. Whatever else the last two wretched years had done for her, it had
+left her no illusions. She had no doubts as to her reception, as Burke
+Denby's wife, at the hands of Burke Denby's friends and relatives. And
+again, whatever the last two years had done for her, they had not robbed
+her of her pride. And the Barnets, away back in the little Vermont town,
+had been very proud. To Helen Barnet now, therefore, the picture of
+herself as Burke Denby's wife, flouted and frowned upon by Burke Denby's
+friends, was intolerable. Frightened and heartsick, she determined to
+beat a hasty retreat. It simply could not be. That was all. Very likely,
+anyway, Burke Denby had not been more than half in earnest himself.
+
+The bell rang then again from the drawing-room, and Helen went down to
+get the children. In the hall she met Burke Denby; but she only shook
+her head in answer to his low "Helen, when may I see you?" and hurried
+by without a word, her face averted.
+
+Three times again within the next twenty-four hours she pursued the same
+tactics, only to be brought up sharply at last against a peremptory
+"Helen, you shall let me talk to you a minute! Why do you persist in
+hiding behind those two rascally infants all the time, when you know
+that you have only to say the word, and you are as free as the air?"
+
+"But I must--that is--I can't say the word, Mr. Denby. Truly I can't!"
+
+His face fell a little.
+
+"What do you mean? You can't mean--you _can't_ mean--you won't--marry
+me?"
+
+She threw a hurried look about her. He had drawn her into the curtained
+bay window of the upper hallway, as she was passing on to the nursery.
+
+"Yes, I mean--that," she panted, trying to release her arm from his
+clasp.
+
+"Helen! Do you mean you don't _care_?" he demanded passionately.
+
+"Yes, yes--that's what I mean." She pulled again at her arm.
+
+"Helen, look at me. You can't look me straight in the eye and say you
+don't--_care_!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I can. I--I--" The telltale color flooded her face. With a
+choking little breath she turned her head quite away.
+
+"You do--you do! And you shall marry me!" breathed the youth, his lips
+almost brushing the soft hair against her ear.
+
+"No, no, Mr. Denby, I can't--I--_can't_!" With a supreme effort she
+wrenched herself free and fled down the hall.
+
+If Helen Barnet thought this settled the matter, she ill-judged the
+nature of the man with whom she had to deal. Unlimited frosted
+cakes and shotguns had not taught Burke Denby to accept no for an
+answer--especially for an answer to something he had so set his heart
+upon as he had this winning of Helen Barnet for his wife.
+
+Burke Denby did not know anything about love. He had never sung odes to
+the moon, or read Tennyson to pretty girls on secluded verandas. He had
+not been looking for love to meet him around the bend of the next
+street. Love had come now as an Event, capitalized. Love was Life, and
+Life was Heaven--if it might be passed with Helen Barnet at his side.
+Without her it would be-- But Burke ignored the alternative. It was not
+worth considering, anyway, for of course she would be at his side.
+
+She loved him; he was sure of that. This fancied obstacle in the way
+that loomed so large in her eyes, he did not fear in the least. He
+really rather liked it. It added zest and excitement, and would make his
+final triumph all the more heart-warming and satisfying. He had only to
+convince Helen, of course, and the mere convincing would not be without
+its joy and compensation.
+
+It was with really pleasurable excitement, therefore, that Burke Denby
+laid his plans and carried them to the triumphant finish of a carefully
+arranged tête-à-tête in the library, when he knew that they would have
+at least half an hour to themselves.
+
+"There, I've got you now, you little wild thing!" he cried, closing the
+library door, and standing determinedly with his back to it, as she made
+a frightened move to go, at finding herself alone with him.
+
+"But, Mr. Denby, I can't. I really must go," she palpitated.
+
+"No, you can't go. I've had altogether too much trouble getting you
+here, and getting those blessed youngsters safely away with their mamma
+for a bit of a drive with my dad."
+
+"Then you _planned_ this?"
+
+"I did." He was regarding her with half-quizzical, wholly fond eyes.
+"And I had you summoned to the library--but I was careful not to say who
+wanted you. Oh, Helen, Helen, how can you seek to avoid me like this,
+when you know how I love you!" There was only tenderness now in his
+voice and manner. He had taken both her hands in his.
+
+"But you mustn't love me."
+
+"Not love--my wife?"
+
+"I'm not your wife."
+
+"You're going to be, dear."
+
+"I can't. I told you I couldn't, Mr. Denby."
+
+"My name is 'Burke,' my love."
+
+His voice was whimsically light again. Very plainly Mr. Burke Denby was
+not appreciating the seriousness of the occasion.
+
+She flushed and bit her lip.
+
+"I think it's real mean of you to--to make it so hard for me!" she half
+sobbed.
+
+With sudden passion he caught her in his arms.
+
+"Hard? _Hard?_ Then if it's hard, it means you _do_ love me. As if I'd
+give you up now! Helen, why do you torture me like this? Dearest, _when_
+will you marry me?"
+
+She struggled feebly in his arms.
+
+"I told you; never."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Helen, why not?" He loosened his clasp and held her off at arms'
+length.
+
+"Because."
+
+"Because what?"
+
+No answer again.
+
+"You aren't--promised to any one else?" For the first time a shadow of
+uneasy doubt crossed his face.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"Then what is it?"
+
+Her eyes, frightened and pleading, searched his face. There was a tense
+moment of indecision. Then in a tragic burst it came.
+
+"Maybe you think I'd--marry you, and be your wife, and have all your
+folks look down on me!"
+
+"Look _down_ on you?"
+
+"Yes, because I'm not so swell and grand as they are. I'm only--"
+
+With a quick cry he caught her to himself again, and laid a reproving
+finger on her lips.
+
+"Hush! Don't you let me hear you say that again--those horrid words! You
+are you, _yourself_, the dearest, sweetest little woman that was ever
+made, and I love you, and I'm going to marry you. Look down on you,
+indeed! I'd like to see them try it!"
+
+"But they will. I'm only a nurse-girl."
+
+"Hush!" He almost shook her in his wrath. "I tell you, you are
+_you_--and that's all I want to know. And that's all anybody will want
+to know. I'm not in love with your ancestors, or with your relatives, or
+your friends. I don't love you because you are, or are not, a
+nurse-girl, or a school-teacher, or a butterfly of fashion. I even don't
+love you because your eyes are blue, or because your wonderful hair is
+like the softest of spun gold. It's just because you are you,
+sweetheart; and you, _just you_, are the whole wide world to me!"
+
+"But--your father?"
+
+"He will love you because I love you. Dad is my good chum--he's always
+been that. What I love, he'll love. You'll see."
+
+"Do you think he really will?" A dawning hope was coming into her eyes.
+
+"I'm sure he will. Why, dad is the other half of myself. Always, all the
+way up, dad has been like that. And everything I've wanted, he's always
+let me have."
+
+She drew a tremulous breath of surrender.
+
+"Well, of course, if I thought you all _wanted_ me--"
+
+"_Want you!_" With his impulsive lips on hers she had her answer, and
+there Burke Denby found his.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+AN ONLY SON
+
+
+Proud, and blissfully happy in his victory, Burke went to his father;
+and to his father (so far as the latter himself was concerned) he
+carried a bombshell.
+
+For two reasons John Denby had failed to see what was taking place in
+his own home. First, because it would never have occurred to him that
+his son could fall in love with a nursemaid; secondly, because he had
+systematically absented himself from the house during the most of his
+sister's visit, preferring to take his sister away with him for drives
+and walks rather than to stay in the noisy confusion of toys and babies
+that his home had become. Because of all this, therefore, he was totally
+unprepared for what his son was bringing to him.
+
+He welcomed the young man with affectionate heartiness.
+
+"Well, my boy, it's good to see you! Where have you been keeping
+yourself all these two weeks?"
+
+"Why, dad, I've been right here--in fact, I've been very much right
+here!"
+
+The conscious color that crept to the boy's forehead should have been
+illuminating. But it was not.
+
+"Yes, yes, very likely, very likely," frowned the man. "But, of course,
+with so many around-- But soon we'll be by ourselves again. Not but
+what I'm enjoying your aunt's visit, of course," he added hastily. "But
+here are two weeks of your vacation gone, and I've scarcely seen you a
+minute."
+
+"Yes; and that's one thing I wanted to talk about--college," plunged in
+the boy. "I've decided I don't want to finish my course, dad. I'd rather
+go into business right away."
+
+The man drew his brows together, but did not look entirely displeased.
+
+"Hm-m, well," he hesitated. "While I should hate not to see you
+graduated, yet--it's not so bad an idea, after all. I'd be glad to have
+you here for good that much earlier, son. But why this sudden
+right-about-face? I thought you were particularly keen for that degree."
+
+Again the telltale color flamed in the boyish cheeks.
+
+"I was--once. But, you see, then I wasn't thinking of--getting married."
+
+"Married!" To John Denby it seemed suddenly that a paralyzing chill
+clutched his heart and made it skip a beat. This possible future
+marriage of his son, breaking into their close companionship, was the
+dreaded shadow that loomed ever ahead. "Nonsense, boy! Time enough to
+think of that when you've found the girl."
+
+"But I have found her, dad."
+
+John Denby paled perceptibly.
+
+"You have--what?" he demanded. "You don't mean that you've-- Who is
+she?"
+
+"Helen. Why, dad, you seem surprised," laughed the boy. "Haven't you
+noticed--suspected?"
+
+"Well, no I haven't," retorted the man grimly. "Why should I? I never
+heard of the young lady before. What is this--some college tomfoolery? I
+might have known, I suppose, what would happen."
+
+"College! Why, dad, she's _here_. You know her. It's Helen,--Miss
+Barnet."
+
+"Here! There's no one here but your aunt and--" He stopped, and half
+started from his chair. "You don't--you can't mean--your aunt's
+nursemaid!"
+
+At the scornful emphasis an indignant red dyed the boy's face.
+
+"I didn't think that of you, dad," he rebuked.
+
+Angry as he was, the man was conscious of the hurt the words gave him.
+But he held his ground.
+
+"And I did not think this of you, Burke," he rejoined coldly.
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"I mean that I supposed my son would show some consideration as to the
+woman he chose for his wife."
+
+"Father!" The boyish face set into stern lines. The boyish figure drew
+itself erect with a majesty that would have been absurd had it not been
+so palpably serious. "I can't stand much of this sort of thing, even
+from you. Miss Barnet is everything that is good and true and lovely.
+She is in every way worthy--more than worthy. Besides, she is the woman
+I love--the woman I have asked to be my wife. Please remember that when
+you speak of her."
+
+John Denby laughed lightly. Sharp words had very evidently been on the
+end of his tongue, when, with a sudden change of countenance, he relaxed
+in his chair, and said:--
+
+"Well done, Burke. Your sentiments do you credit, I'm sure. But aren't
+we getting a little melodramatic? I feel as if I were on the stage of a
+second-rate theater! However, I stand corrected; and we'll speak very
+respectfully of the lady hereafter. I have no doubt she is very good and
+very lovely, as you say; but"--his mouth hardened a little--"I must
+still insist that she is no fit wife for my son."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Obvious reasons."
+
+"I suppose you mean--because she has to work for her living," flashed
+the boy. "But that--excuse me--seems to me plain snobbishness. And I
+must say again I didn't think it of you, dad. I supposed--"
+
+"Come, come, this has gone far enough," interrupted the distraught,
+sorely tried father of an idolized son. "You're only a boy. You don't
+know your own mind. You'll fancy yourself in love a dozen times yet
+before the time comes for you to marry."
+
+"I'm not a boy. I'm a man grown."
+
+"You're not twenty-one yet."
+
+"I shall be next month. And I _do_ know my own mind. You'll see, father,
+when I'm married."
+
+"But you're not going to be married at present. And you're never going
+to marry this nursemaid."
+
+"Father!"
+
+"I mean what I say."
+
+"You won't give your consent?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Then-- I'll do it without, after next month."
+
+There was a tense moment of silence. Father and son faced each other,
+angry resentment in their eyes. Then, with a sharp ejaculation, John
+Denby got to his feet and strode to the window. When he turned a minute
+later and came back, the angry resentment was gone. His mouth was stern,
+but his eyes were pleading. He came straight to his son and put both
+hands on his shoulders.
+
+"Burke, listen to me," he begged. "I'm doing this for two reasons.
+First, to save you from yourself. You've known this girl scarcely two
+weeks--hardly an adequate preparation for a lifetime of living together.
+And just here comes in the second reason. However good and lovely she
+may be, she couldn't possibly qualify for that long lifetime together,
+Burke. Simply because she works for her living has nothing to do with
+it. She has not the tastes or the training that should belong to your
+wife--that _must_ belong to your wife if she is to make you happy, if
+she is to take the place of--your mother. And that is the place your
+wife will take, of course, Burke."
+
+Under the restraining hands on his shoulders the boy stirred restlessly.
+
+"Tastes! Training! What do I care for that? She suits my tastes."
+
+"She wouldn't--for long."
+
+"You wait and see."
+
+"Too great a risk to run, my boy."
+
+"I'll risk it. I'm going to risk it."
+
+Again there was a moment's silence. Again the stern lines deepened
+around the man's lips. Then very quietly there came the words:--
+
+"Burke, if you marry this girl, you will choose between her and me. It
+seems to me that I ought not to need to tell you that you cannot bring
+her here. She shall never occupy your mother's chair as the mistress of
+this house."
+
+"That settles it, then: I'll take her somewhere else."
+
+If Burke had not been so blind with passion he would have seen and felt
+the anguish that leaped to his father's eyes. But he did not stop to see
+or to feel. He snapped out the words, jerked himself free, and left the
+room.
+
+This did not "settle it," however. There were more words--words common
+to stern parents and amorous youths and maidens since time immemorial. A
+father, appalled at the catastrophe that threatened, not only his
+cherished companionship with his only son, but, in his opinion, the
+revered sanctity of his wife's memory, wrapped himself in forbidding
+dignity. An impetuous lover, torn between the old love of years and the
+new, quite different one of weeks, alternately stormed and pleaded. A
+young girl, undisciplined, very much in love, and smarting with hurt
+pride and resentment, blew hot and cold in a manner that tended to drive
+every one concerned to distraction. As soon as possible a shocked,
+distressed Sister Eunice packed her trunks and betook herself and her
+offending household away.
+
+In time, then, a compromise was effected. Burke should leave college
+immediately and go into the Works with his father, serving a short
+apprenticeship from the bottom up, as had been planned for him, that he
+might be the master of the business, in deed as well as in name, when he
+should some day take his father's place. Meanwhile, for one year, he was
+not to see or to communicate with Helen Barnet. If at the end of the
+year, he was still convinced that his only hope of happiness lay in
+marriage to this girl, all opposition would be withdrawn and he might
+marry when he pleased--though even then he must not expect to bring his
+bride to the old home. They must set up an establishment for themselves.
+
+"We should prefer that,--under the circumstances," had been the prompt
+and somewhat haughty rejoinder, much to the father's discomfiture.
+
+Grieved and dismayed as he was at the airy indifference with which his
+son appeared to face a fatherless future, John Denby was yet pinning his
+faith on that year of waiting. Given twelve months with the boy quite to
+himself, free from the hateful spell of this designing young woman, and
+there could be no question of the result--in John Denby's mind. In all
+confidence, therefore, and with every sense alert to make this year as
+perfect as a year could be, John Denby set himself to the task before
+him.
+
+It was just here, however, that for John Denby the ghosts walked--ghosts
+of innumerable toy pistols and frosted cakes. Burke Denby, accustomed
+all his life to having what he wanted, and having it _when_ he wanted
+it, moped the first week, sulked the second, covertly rebelled the
+third, and ran away the last day of the fourth, leaving behind him the
+customary note, which, in this case, read:--
+
+     _Dear Dad_: I've gone to Helen. I had to. I've lived a
+     _year_ of misery in this last month: so, as far as I am
+     concerned, I _have_ waited my year already. We shall be
+     married at once. I wrote Helen last week, and she consented.
+
+     Now, dad, you'll just have to forgive me. I'm twenty-one.
+     I'm a man now, not a boy, and a man has to decide these
+     things for himself. And Helen's a dear. You'll see, when you
+     know her. We'll be back in two weeks. Now don't bristle up.
+     I'm not going to bring her home, of course (at present),
+     after the very cordial invitation you gave me not to! We're
+     going into one of the Reddington apartments. With my
+     allowance and my--er--wages (!) we can manage that all
+     right--until "the stern parent" relents and takes his
+     daughter home--as he should!
+
+
+  Good-bye,
+  BURKE.
+
+John Denby read the letter once, twice; then he pulled the telephone
+toward him and gave a few crisp orders to James Brett, his general
+manager. His voice was steady and--to the man at the other end of the
+wire--ominously emotionless. When he had finished talking five minutes
+later, certain words had been uttered that would materially change the
+immediate future of a certain willful youth just then setting out on
+his honeymoon.
+
+There would be, for Burke Denby, no "Reddington apartment." There would
+also be no several-other-things; for there would be no "allowance" after
+the current month. There would be only the "wages," and the things the
+wages could buy.
+
+There was no disputing the fact that John Denby was very angry. But he
+was also sorely distressed and grieved. Added to his indignation that
+his son should have so flouted him was his anguish of heart that the old
+days of ideal companionship were now gone forever. There was, too, his
+very real fear for the future happiness of his boy, bound in marriage to
+a woman he believed would prove to be a most uncongenial mate. But
+overtopping all, just now, was his wrath at the flippant assurance of
+his son's note, and the very evident confidence in a final forgiveness
+that the note showed. It was this that caused the giving of those stern,
+momentous orders over the telephone--John Denby himself had been
+somewhat in the habit of having his own way!
+
+The harassed father did not sleep much that night. Until far into the
+morning hours he sat before the fireless grate in his library, thinking.
+He looked old, worn, and wholly miserable. In his hand, and often under
+his gaze, was the miniature of a beautiful woman--his wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HONEYMOON DAYS
+
+
+It was on a cool, cloudy day in early September that Mr. and Mrs. Burke
+Denby arrived at Dalton from their wedding trip.
+
+With characteristic inclination to avoid anything unpleasant, the young
+husband had neglected to tell his wife that they were not to live in the
+Denby Mansion. He had argued with himself that she would find it out
+soon enough, anyway, and that there was no reason why he should spoil
+their wedding trip with disagreeable topics of conversation. Burke
+always liked to put off disagreeable things till the last.
+
+Helen was aware, it is true, that Burke's father was much displeased at
+the marriage; but that this displeasure had gone so far as to result in
+banishment from the home, she did not know. She had been planning,
+indeed, just how she would win her father-in-law over--just how sweet
+and lovely and daughterly she would be, as a member of the Denby
+household; and so sure was she of victory that already she counted the
+battle half won.
+
+In the old days of her happy girlhood, Helen Barnet had taken as a
+matter of course the succumbing of everything and everybody to her charm
+and beauty. And although this feeling had, perforce, been in abeyance
+for some eighteen months, it had been very rapidly coming back to her
+during the past two weeks, under the devoted homage of her young husband
+and the admiring eyes of numberless strangers along their honeymoon way.
+
+It was a complete and disagreeable surprise to her now, therefore, when
+Burke said to her, a trifle nervously, as they were nearing Dalton:--
+
+"We'll have to go to a hotel, of course, Helen, for a few days, till we
+get the apartment ready. But 'twon't be for long, dear."
+
+"Hotel! Apartment! Why, Burke, aren't we going home--to _your_ home?"
+
+"Oh, no, dear. We're going to have a home of our own, you know--_our_
+home."
+
+"No, I didn't know." Helen's lips showed a decided pout.
+
+"But you'll like it, dear. You just wait and see." The man spoke with
+determined cheeriness.
+
+"But I can't like it better than your old home, Burke. I _know_ what
+that is, and I'd much rather go there."
+
+"Yes, yes, but--" Young Denby paused to wet his dry lips. "Er--you know,
+dear, dad wasn't exactly--er--pleased with the marriage, anyway, and--"
+
+"That's just it," broke in the bride eagerly. "That's one reason I
+wanted to go there--to show him, you know. Why, Burke, I'd got it all
+planned out lovely, how nice I was going to be to him--get his paper and
+slippers, and kiss him good-morning, and--"
+
+"Holy smoke! Kiss--" Just in time the fastidious son of a still more
+fastidious father pulled himself up; but to a more discerning bride, his
+face would already have finished his sentence. "Er--but--well, anyhow,
+dear," he stammered, "that's very kind of you, of course; but you see
+it's useless even to think of it. He--he has forbidden us to go there."
+
+"Why, the mean old thing!"
+
+"Helen!"
+
+Helen's face showed a frown as well as a pout.
+
+"I don't care. He is mean, if he is your father, not to let--"
+
+"Helen!"
+
+At the angry sharpness of the man's voice Helen stopped abruptly. For a
+moment she gazed at her husband with reproachful eyes. Then her chin
+began to quiver, her breath to come in choking little gasps, and the big
+tears to roll down her face.
+
+"Why, Burke, I--"
+
+"Oh, great Scott! Helen, dearest, don't, _please_!" begged the dismayed
+and distracted young husband, promptly capitulating at the awful sight
+of tears of which he was the despicable cause. "Darling, don't!"
+
+"But you never sp-poke like that to me b-before," choked the wife of a
+fortnight.
+
+"I know. I was a brute--so I was! But, sweetheart, _please_ stop," he
+pleaded desperately. "See, we're just pulling into Dalton. You don't
+want them to see you crying--a bride!"
+
+Mrs. Burke Denby drew in her breath convulsively, and lifted a hurried
+hand to brush the tears from her eyes. The next moment she smiled,
+tremulously, but adorably. She looked very lovely as she stepped from
+the car a little later; and Burke Denby's heart swelled with love and
+pride as he watched her. If underneath the love and pride there was a
+vague something not so pleasant, the man told himself it was only a
+natural regret at having said anything to cast the slightest shadow on
+the home-coming of this dear girl whom he had asked to share his life.
+Whatever this vague something was, anyway, Burke resolutely put it
+behind him, and devoted himself all the more ardently to the comfort of
+his young wife.
+
+In spite of himself, Burke could not help looking for his father's face
+at the station. Never before had he come home (when not with his
+father), and not been welcomed by that father's eager smile and
+outstretched hand. He missed them both now. Otherwise he was relieved to
+see few people he knew, as he stepped to the platform, though he fully
+realized, from the sly winks and covert glances, that every one knew who
+he was, and who also was the lady at his side.
+
+With only an occasional perfunctory greeting, and no introductions,
+therefore, the somewhat embarrassed and irritated bridegroom hurried his
+bride into a public carriage, and gave the order to drive to the Hancock
+Hotel.
+
+All the way there he talked very fast and very tenderly of the new home
+that was soon to be theirs.
+
+"'Twill be only for a little--the hotel, dear," he plunged in at once.
+"And you won't mind it, for a little, while we're planning, will you,
+darling? I'm going to rent one of the Reddington apartments. You
+remember them--on Reddington Avenue; white stone with dandy little
+balconies between the big bay windows. They were just being finished
+when you were here. They're brand-new, you see. And we'll be so happy,
+there, dearie,--just us two!"
+
+"Us two! But, Burke, there'll be three. There'll have to be the hired
+girl, too, you know," fluttered the new wife, in quick panic. "Surely
+you aren't going to make me do without a hired girl!"
+
+"Oh, no--no, indeed," asserted the man, all the more hurriedly, because
+he never had thought of a "hired girl," and because he was rather
+fearfully wondering how much his father paid for the maids, anyway.
+There would have to be one, of course; but he wondered if his allowance
+would cover it, with all the rest. Still, he _could_ smoke a cigar or
+two less a day, he supposed, if it came to a pinch, and--but Helen was
+speaking.
+
+"Dear, dear, but you did give me a turn, Burke! You see, there'll just
+have to be a hired girl--that is, if you want anything to eat, sir," she
+laughed, showing all her dimples. (And Burke loved her dimples!) "I
+can't cook a little bit. I never did at home, you know, and I should
+hate it, I'm sure. It's so messy--sticky dough and dishes, and all
+that!" Again she laughed and showed all her dimples, looking so
+altogether bewitching that Burke almost--but not quite--stole a kiss. He
+decided, too, on the spot, that he would rather never smoke another
+cigar than to subject this adorable little thing at his side to any task
+that had to do with the hated "messy dough and sticky dishes." Indeed he
+would!
+
+Something of this must have shown in his face, for the little bride
+beamed anew, and the remainder of the drive was a blissfully happy duet
+of fascinating plans regarding this new little nest of a home.
+
+All this was at four o'clock. At eight o'clock Burke Denby came into
+their room at the hotel with a white face and tense lips.
+
+"Well, Helen, we're in for it," he flung out, dropping himself into the
+nearest chair.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Father has cut off my allowance."
+
+"But you--you've gone to work. There's your wages!"
+
+"Oh, yes, there are my--wages."
+
+Something in his tone sent a swift suspicion to her eyes.
+
+"Do you mean--they aren't so big as your allowance?"
+
+"I certainly do."
+
+"How perfectly horrid! Just as if it wasn't mean enough for him not to
+let us live there, without--"
+
+"Helen!" Burke Denby pulled himself up in his chair. "See here, dear, I
+shan't let even you say things like that about dad. Now, for heaven's
+sake, don't let us quarrel about it," he pleaded impatiently, as he saw
+the dreaded quivering coming to the pouting lips opposite.
+
+"But I--I--"
+
+"Helen, dearest, don't cry, please don't! Crying won't help; and I tell
+you it's serious business--this is."
+
+"But are you sure--do you know it's true?" faltered the young wife, too
+thoroughly frightened now to be angry. "Did you see--your father?"
+
+"No; I saw Brett."
+
+"Who's he? Maybe he doesn't know."
+
+"Oh, yes, he does," returned Burke, with grim emphasis. "He knows
+everything. They say at the Works that he knows what father's going to
+have for breakfast before the cook does."
+
+"But who is he?"
+
+"He's the head manager of the Denby Iron Works and father's right-hand
+man. He came here to-night to see me--by dad's orders, I suspect."
+
+"Is your father so awfully angry, then?" Her eyes had grown a bit
+wistful.
+
+"I'm afraid he is. He says I've made my bed and now I must lie in it.
+He's cut off my allowance entirely. He's raised my wages--a little, and
+he says it's up to me now to make good--with my wages."
+
+There was a minute's silence. The man's eyes were gloomily fixed on the
+opposite wall. His whole attitude spelled disillusion and despair. The
+woman's eyes, questioning, fearful, were fixed on the man.
+
+Plainly some new, hidden force was at work within Helen Denby's heart.
+Scorn and anger had left her countenance. Grief and dismay had come in
+their place.
+
+"Burke, _why_ has your father objected so to--to me?" she asked at last,
+timidly.
+
+Abstractedly, as if scarcely conscious of what he was saying, the man
+shrugged:--
+
+"Oh, the usual thing. He said you weren't suited to me; you wouldn't
+make me happy."
+
+The wife recoiled visibly. She gave a piteous little cry. It was too
+low, apparently, to reach her husband's ears. At all events, he did not
+turn. For fully half a minute she watched him, and in her shrinking eyes
+was mirrored each eloquent detail of his appearance, the lassitude, the
+gloom, the hopelessness. Then, suddenly, to her whole self there came an
+electric change. As if throwing off bonds that held her she flung out
+her arms and sprang toward him.
+
+"Burke, it isn't true, it isn't true," she flamed. "I'm going to make
+you happy! You just wait and see. And we'll show him. We'll show him we
+can do it! He told you to make good; and you must, Burke! I won't have
+him and everybody else saying I dragged you down. I won't! _I won't!_ I
+WON'T!"
+
+Burke Denby's first response was to wince involuntarily at the shrill
+crescendo of his wife's voice. His next was to shrug his shoulders
+irritably as the meaning of her words came to him.
+
+"Nonsense, Helen, don't be a goose!" he scowled.
+
+"I'm not a goose. I'm your wife," choked Helen, still swayed by the
+exaltation that had mastered her. "And I'm going to help you win--_win_,
+I say! Do you hear me, Burke?"
+
+"Of course I hear you, Helen; and--so'll everybody else, if you don't
+look out. _Please_ speak lower, Helen!"
+
+She was too intent and absorbed to be hurt or vexed. Obediently she
+dropped her voice almost to a whisper.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know, Burke; and I will, I will, dear." She fell on her
+knees at his side. "But it seems as if I must shout it to the world. I
+want to go out on the street here and scream it at the top of my voice,
+till your father in his great big useless house on the hill just has to
+hear me."
+
+"Helen, Helen!" shivered her husband.
+
+But she hurried on feverishly.
+
+"Burke, listen! You're going to make good. Do you hear? We'll show them.
+We'll never let them say they--beat us!"
+
+"But--but--"
+
+"We aren't going to say 'but' and hang back. We're going to _do_!"
+
+"But, Helen, how? What?" demanded the man, stirred into a show of
+interest at last. "How can we?"
+
+"I don't know, but we're going to do it."
+
+"There won't be--hardly any money."
+
+"I'll get along--somehow."
+
+"And we'll have to live in a cheap little hole somewhere--we can't have
+one of the Reddingtons."
+
+"I don't want it--now."
+
+"And you'll have to--to work."
+
+"Yes, I know." Her chin was still bravely lifted.
+
+"There can't be any--maid now."
+
+"Then you'll have to eat--what I cook!" She drew in her breath with a
+hysterical little laugh that was half a sob.
+
+"You darling! I shall love it!" He caught her to himself in a revulsion
+of feeling that was as ardent as it was sudden. "Only I'll so hate to
+have you do it, sweetheart--it's so messy and doughy!"
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"You told me it was."
+
+"But I didn't know then--what they were saying about me. Burke, they
+just shan't say I'm dragging you down."
+
+"Indeed they shan't, darling."
+
+"Then you will make good?" she regarded him with tearful, luminous eyes.
+
+"Of course I will--with _you_ to help me."
+
+Her face flamed into radiant joy.
+
+"Yes, _with me to help_! That's it, that's it--I'm going to _help_ you,"
+she breathed fervently, flinging her arms about his neck.
+
+And to each, from the dear stronghold of the other's arms, at the
+moment, the world looked, indeed, to be a puny thing, scarcely worth the
+conquering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+NEST-BUILDING
+
+
+It is so much easier to say than to do. But nothing in the experience of
+either Burke Denby or of Helen, his wife, had demonstrated this fact for
+them. Quite unprepared, therefore, and with confident courage, they
+proceeded to pass from the saying to the doing.
+
+True, in the uncompromising sunlight of the next morning, the world did
+look a bit larger, a shade less easily conquerable; and a distinctly
+unpleasant feeling of helplessness assailed both husband and wife. Yet
+with a gay "Now we'll go house-hunting right away so as to save paying
+here!" from Helen, and an adoring "You darling--but it's a burning
+shame!" from Burke, the two sallied forth, after the late hotel
+breakfast.
+
+The matter of selecting the new home was not a difficult one--at first.
+They decided at once that, if they could not have an apartment in the
+Reddington Chambers, they would prefer a house. "For," Burke said, "as
+for being packed away like sardines in one of those abominable little
+cheap flat-houses, I won't!" So a house they looked for at the start.
+And very soon they found what Helen said was a "love of a place"--a
+pretty little cottage with a tiny lawn and a flower-bed.
+
+"And it's so lucky it's for rent," she exulted. "For it's just what we
+want, isn't it, dearie?"
+
+"Y-yes; but--"
+
+"Why, Burke, don't you like it? _I_ think it's a dear! Of course it
+isn't like your father's house. But we can't expect that."
+
+"Expect that! Great Scott, Helen,--we can't expect this!" cried the man.
+
+"Why, Burke, what do you mean?"
+
+"It'll cost too much, dear,--in this neighborhood. We can't afford it."
+
+"Oh, that'll be all right. I'll economize somewhere else. Come; it says
+the key is next door."
+
+"Yes, but, Helen, dearest, I know we can't--" But "Helen, dearest," was
+already halfway up the adjoining walk; and Burke, with a despairing
+glance at her radiant, eager face, followed her. There was, indeed, no
+other course open to him, as he knew, unless he chose to make a scene on
+the public thorough-fare--and Burke Denby did not like scenes.
+
+The house was found to be as attractive inside as it was out; and
+Helen's progress from room to room was a series of delighted
+exclamations. She was just turning to go upstairs when her husband's
+third desperate expostulation brought her feet and her tongue to a
+pause.
+
+"Helen, darling, I tell you we can't!" he was exclaiming. "It's out of
+the question."
+
+"Burke!" Her lips began to quiver. "And when you know how much I want
+it!"
+
+"Sweetheart, don't, please, make it any harder for me," he begged. "I'd
+give you a dozen houses like this if I could--and you know it. But we
+can't afford even this one. The rent is forty dollars. I heard her tell
+you when she gave you the key."
+
+"Never mind. We can economize other ways."
+
+"But, Helen, I only get sixty all told. We can't pay forty for rent."
+
+"Oh, but, Burke, that leaves twenty, and we can do a lot on twenty. Just
+as if what we ate would cost us that! I don't care for meat, anyhow,
+much. We'll cut that out. And I hate grapefruit and olives. They cost a
+lot. Mrs. Allen was always having them, and--"
+
+The distraught husband interrupted with an impatient gesture.
+
+"Grapefruit and olives, indeed! And as if food were all of it! Where are
+our clothes and coal and--and doctor's bills, and I don't-know-what-all
+coming from? Why, great Scott, Helen, I smoke half that in a week,
+sometimes,--not that I shall now, of course," he added hastily. "But,
+honestly, dearie, we simply can't do it. Now, come, be a good girl, and
+let's go on. We're simply wasting time here."
+
+Helen, convinced at last, tossed him the key, with a teary "All
+right--take it back then. I shan't! I know I should c-cry right before
+her!" The next minute, at sight of the abject woe and dismay on her
+husband's face, she flung herself upon him with a burst of sobs.
+
+"There, there, Burke, here I am, so soon, making a fuss because we can't
+afford things! But I won't any more--truly I won't! I was a mean, horrid
+old thing! Yes, I was," she reiterated in answer to his indignant
+denial. "Come, let's go quick!" she exclaimed, pulling herself away, and
+lifting her head superbly. "I don't want the old place, anyhow. Truly, I
+don't!" And, with a dazzling smile, she reached out her hand and tripped
+enticingly ahead of him toward the door; while the man, bewildered, but
+enthralled by this extraordinary leap from fretful stubbornness to gay
+docility, hurried after her with an incoherent jumble of rapturous
+adjectives.
+
+Such was Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby's first experience of home-hunting.
+The second, though different in detail, was similar in disappointment.
+So also were the third and the fourth experiences. Not, indeed, until
+the weary, distracted pair had spent three days in time, all their
+patience, and most of their good nature, did they finally arrive at a
+decision. And then their selection, alas, proved to be one of the
+despised tiny flats, in which, according to the unhappy young
+bridegroom, they were destined to be packed like sardines.
+
+After all, it had been the "elegant mirror in the parlor," and the "just
+grand" tiled and tessellated entrance, that had been the determining
+factors in the decision; for Burke, thankful that at last something
+within reach of his pocketbook had been found to bring a sparkle to his
+beloved's eyes, had stifled his own horror at the tawdry cheapness of
+it all, and had given a consent that was not without a measure of relief
+born of the three long days of weary, well-nigh hopeless search.
+
+Dalton, like most manufacturing towns of fifteen or twenty thousand
+souls, had all the diversity of a much larger place. There was West
+Hill, where were the pillared and porticoed residences of the
+pretentious and the pretending, set in painfully new, wide-sweeping,
+flower-bordered lawns; and there was Valley Street, a double line of
+ramshackle wooden buildings with broken steps and shutterless windows,
+where a blade of grass was a stranger and a flower unknown, save for
+perhaps a sickly geranium on a tenement window sill. There was Old
+Dalton, with its winding, tree-shaded streets clambering all over the
+slope of Elm Hill, where old colonial mansions, with an air of aloofness
+(borrowed quite possibly from their occupants), seemed ever to be
+withdrawing farther and farther away from plebeian noise and publicity.
+There was, of course, the mill district, where were the smoke-belching
+chimneys and great black buildings that meant the town's bread and
+butter; and there were the adjoining streets of workmen's houses, fitted
+to give a sensitive soul the horrors, so seemingly endless was the
+repetition of covered stoop and dormer window, always exactly the same,
+as far as eye could reach. There was, too, the bustling, asphalted,
+brick-blocked business center; and there were numerous streets of
+simple, pretty cottages, and substantial residences, among which, with
+growing frequency, there were beginning to appear the tall,
+many-windowed apartment houses, ranging all the way from the exclusive,
+expensive Reddington Chambers down to the flimsy structures like the one
+whose tawdry ornamentation had caught the fancy of Burke Denby's
+village-bred wife.
+
+To Burke Denby himself, late of Denby House (perhaps the most aloof of
+all the "old colonials"), the place was a nightmare of horror. But
+because his wife's eyes had glistened, and because his wife's lips had
+caroled a joyous "Oh, Burke, I'd _love_ this place, darling!"--and
+because, most important of all, if it must be confessed, the rent was
+only twenty dollars a month, he had uttered a grim "All right, we'll
+take it." And the selection of the home was accomplished.
+
+Not until they were on the way to the hotel that night did there come to
+the young husband the full realizing sense that housekeeping meant
+furniture.
+
+"Oh, of course I _knew_ it did," he groaned, half-laughingly, after his
+first despairing ejaculation. "But I just didn't think; that's all. Our
+furniture at home we'd always had. But of course it does have to be
+bought--at first."
+
+"Of course! And _I_ didn't think, either," laughed Helen. "You see, we'd
+always had _our_ furniture, too, I guess. But then, it'll be grand to
+buy it. I love new things!"
+
+Burke Denby frowned.
+
+"Buy it! That's all right--if we had the money to pay. Heaven only
+knows how much it'll cost. I don't."
+
+"But, Burke, you've got _some_ money, haven't you? You took a big roll
+out of your pocket last night."
+
+He gave her a scornful glance.
+
+"Big roll, indeed! How far do you suppose that would go toward
+furnishing a home? Of course I've got some money--a little left from my
+allowance--but that doesn't mean I've got enough to furnish a home."
+
+"Then let's give up housekeeping and board," proposed Helen. "Then we
+won't have to buy any furniture. And I think I'd like it better anyhow;
+and I _know_ you would--after you'd sampled my cooking," she finished
+laughingly.
+
+But her husband did not smile. The frown only deepened as he
+ejaculated:--
+
+"Board! Not much, Helen! We _couldn't_ board at a decent place. 'Twould
+cost too much. And as for the cheap variety--great Scott, Helen! I
+wonder if you think I'd stand for that! Heaven knows we'll be enough
+gossiped about, as it is, without our planting ourselves right under the
+noses of half the tabby-cats in town for them to 'oh' and 'ah' and 'um'
+every time we turn around or don't turn around! No, ma'am, Helen! We'll
+shut ourselves up somewhere within four walls we can call home, even if
+we have to furnish it with only two chairs and a bed and a kitchen
+stove. It'll be ours--and we'll be where we won't be stared at."
+
+Helen laughed lightly.
+
+"Dear, dear, Burke, how you do run on! Just as if one minded a little
+staring! I rather like it, myself,--if I know my clothes and my back
+hair are all right."
+
+"Ugh! Helen!"
+
+"Well, I do," she laughed, uptilting her chin. "It makes one feel so
+sort of--er--important. But I won't say 'board' again, _never_,--unless
+you begin to scold at my cooking," she finished with an arch glance.
+
+"As if I could do that!" cried the man promptly, again the adoring
+husband. "I shall love everything you do--just because it's _you_ that
+do it. The only trouble will be, _you_ won't get enough to eat--because
+I shall want to eat it all!"
+
+"You darling! Aren't you the best ever!" she cooed, giving his arm a
+surreptitious squeeze. "But, really, you know, I am going to be a
+bang-up cook. I've got a cookbook."
+
+"So soon? Where did you get that?"
+
+"Yesterday, while you went into Stoddard's for that house-key. I saw one
+in the window next door and I went in and bought it. 'Twas two dollars,
+so it ought to be a good one. And that makes me think. It took all the
+money I had, 'most, in my purse. So I--I'm afraid I'll have to have some
+more, dear."
+
+"Why, of course, of course! You mustn't go without money a minute." And
+the young husband, with all the alacrity of a naturally generous nature
+supplemented by the embarrassment of this new experience of being asked
+for money by the girl he loved, plunged his hand into his pocket and
+crowded two bills into her unresisting fingers. "There! And I won't be
+so careless again, dear. I don't ever mean you to have to _ask_ for
+money, sweetheart."
+
+"Oh, thank you," she murmured, tucking the bills into her little
+handbag. "I shan't need any more for ever so long, I'm sure. I'm going
+to be economical _now_, you know."
+
+"Of course you are. You're going to be a little brick. _I_ know."
+
+"And we won't mind anything if we're only together," she breathed.
+
+"There won't be anything to mind," he answered fervently, with an ardent
+glance that would have been a kiss had it not been for the annoying
+presence of a few score of Dalton's other inhabitants on the street
+together with themselves.
+
+The next minute they reached the hotel.
+
+At nine o'clock the following morning Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby sallied
+forth to buy the furniture for their "tenement," as Helen called it,
+until her husband's annoyed remonstrances changed the word to
+"apartment."
+
+Burke Denby learned many things during the next few hours. He learned
+first that tables and chairs and beds and stoves--really decent ones
+that a fellow could endure the sight of--cost a prodigious amount of
+money. But, to offset this, and to make life really worth the living,
+after all, it seemed that one might buy a quantity sufficient for one's
+needs, and pay for them in installments, week by week. This idea, while
+not wholly satisfactory, seemed the only way of stretching their limited
+means to cover their many needs; and, after some hesitation, it was
+adopted.
+
+There remained then only the matter of selection; and it was just here
+that Burke Denby learned something else. He learned that two people,
+otherwise apparently in perfect accord, could disagree most violently
+over the shape of a chair or the shade of a rug. Indeed, he would not
+have believed it possible that such elements of soul torture could lie
+in a mere matter of color or texture. And how any one with eyes and
+sensibilities could wish to select for one's daily companions such a
+mass of gingerbread decoration and glaring colors as seemed to meet the
+fancy of his wife, he could not understand. Neither could he understand
+why all his selections and preferences were promptly dubbed "dingy" and
+"homely," nor why nothing that he liked pleased her at all. As such was
+certainly the case, however, he came to express these preferences less
+and less frequently. And in the end he always bought what she wanted,
+particularly as the price on her choice was nearly always lower than the
+one on his--which was an argument in its favor that he found it hard to
+refute.
+
+Tractable as he was as to quality, however, he did have to draw a sharp
+line as to quantity; for Helen;--with the cheerful slogan, "Why, it's
+only twenty-five cents a week more, Burke!"--seemed not to realize that
+there was a limit even to the number of those one might spend--on sixty
+dollars a month. True, at the beginning she did remind him that they
+could "eat less" till they "got the things paid for," and that her
+clothes were "all new, anyhow, being a bride, so!" But she had not said
+that again. Perhaps because she saw the salesman turn his back to laugh,
+and perhaps because she was a little frightened at the look on her
+husband's face. At all events, when Burke did at last insist that they
+had bought quite enough, she acquiesced with some measure of grace.
+
+Burke himself, when the shopping was finished, drew a sigh of relief,
+yet with an inward shudder at the recollection of certain things marked
+"Sold to Burke Denby."
+
+"Oh, well," he comforted himself. "Helen's happy--and that's the main
+thing; and I shan't see them much. I'm away days and asleep nights." Nor
+did it occur to him that this was not the usual attitude of a supposedly
+proud bridegroom toward his new little nest of a home.
+
+Getting settled in the little Dale Street apartment was, so far as Burke
+was concerned, a mere matter of moving from the hotel and dumping the
+contents of his trunk into his new chiffonier and closet. True, Helen,
+looking tired and flurried (and not nearly so pretty as usual), brought
+to him some borrowed tools, together with innumerable curtains and rods
+and nails and hooks that simply must be put up, she said, before she
+could do a thing. But Burke, after a half-hearted trial,--during which
+he mashed his thumb and bored three holes in wrong places,--flew into a
+passion of irritability, and bade her get the janitor who "owned the
+darn things" to do the job, and to pay him what he asked--'twould be
+worth it, no matter what it was!
+
+With a very hasty kiss then Burke banged out of the house and headed for
+the Denby Iron Works.
+
+It was not alone the curtains or the offending hammer that was wrong
+with Burke Denby that morning. The time had come when he must not only
+meet his fellow employees, and take his place among them, but he must
+face his father. And he was dreading yet longing to see his father. He
+had not seen him since he bade him good-night and went upstairs to his
+own room the month before--to write that farewell note.
+
+Once, since coming back from his wedding trip, he had been tempted to
+leave town and never see his father again--until he should have made for
+himself the name and the money that he was going to make. Then he would
+come back and cry: "Behold, this is I, your son, and this is Helen, my
+wife, who, you see, has _not_ dragged me down!" He would not, of course,
+_talk_ like that. But he would show them. He would! This had been when
+he first learned from Brett of the allowance-cutting, and of his
+father's implacable anger.
+
+Then had come the better, braver decision. He would stay where he was.
+He would make the name and the money right here, under his father's very
+eyes. It would be harder, of course; but there would then be all the
+more glory in the winning. Besides, to leave now would look like
+defeat--would make one seem almost like a quitter. And his father hated
+quitters! He would like to show his father. He _would_ show his father.
+And he would show him right here. And had not Helen, his dear wife, said
+that she would aid him? As if he could help winning out under those
+circumstances!
+
+It was with thoughts such as these that he went now to meet his father.
+Especially was he thinking of Helen, dear Helen,--poor Helen, struggling
+back there with those abominable hooks and curtains. And he had been
+such a brute to snap her up so crossly! He would not do it again. It was
+only that he was so dreading this first meeting with his father. After
+that it would be easier. There would not be anything then only just to
+keep steadily going till he'd made good--he and Helen. But now--father
+would be proud to see how finely he was taking it!
+
+With chin up and shoulders back, therefore, Burke Denby walked into his
+father's office.
+
+"Well, father," he began, with cheery briskness. Then, instantly, voice
+and manner changed as he took a hurried step forward. "Dad, what is it?
+Are you ill?"
+
+So absorbed had Burke Denby been over the part he himself was playing in
+this little drama of Denby and Son, that he had given no thought as to
+the probable looks or actions of any other member of the cast. He was
+quite unprepared, therefore, for the change in the man he now saw before
+him--the pallor, the shrunken cheeks, the stooped shoulders, the
+unmistakable something that made the usually erect, debonair man look
+suddenly worn and old.
+
+"Dad, you are ill!" exclaimed Burke in dismay.
+
+John Denby got to his feet at once. He even smiled and held out his
+hand. Yet Burke, who took the hand, felt suddenly that there were
+uncounted miles of space between them.
+
+"Ah, Burke, how are you? No, I'm not ill at all. And you--are you well?"
+
+"Er--ah--oh, yes, very well--er--very well."
+
+"That's good. I'm glad."
+
+There was a brief pause. A torrent of words swept to the tip of the
+younger man's tongue; but nothing found voice except another faltering
+"Er--yes, very well!" which Burke had not meant to say at all. There was
+a second brief pause, then John Denby sat down.
+
+"You will find Brett in his office. You have come to work, I dare say,"
+he observed, as he turned to the letters on his desk.
+
+"Er--yes," stammered the young man. The next moment he found himself
+alone, white and shaken, the other side of his father's door.
+
+To work? Oh, yes, he had come to work; but he had come first to talk.
+There were a whole lot of things he had meant to say to his father.
+First, of course, there would have had to be something in the nature of
+an apology or the like to patch up the quarrel. Then he would tell him
+how he was really going to make good--he and Helen. After that they
+could get down to one of their old-time chats. They always had been
+chums--he and dad; and they hadn't had a talk for four weeks. Why, for
+three weeks he had been saving up a story, a dandy story that dad would
+appreciate! And there were other things, serious things, that--
+
+And here already he had seen his father, and it was over. And he had not
+said a word--nothing of what he had meant to say. He believed he would
+go back--
+
+With an angry gesture Burke Denby turned and extended his hand halfway
+toward the closed door. Then, with an impatient shrug, he whirled about
+and strode toward the door marked "J. A. Brett, General Manager."
+
+If young Denby had obeyed his first impulse and reëntered his father's
+office he would have found the man with his head bowed on the desk, his
+arms outflung.
+
+John Denby, too, was white and shaken. He, too, had been dreading this
+meeting, and longing for it--that it might be over. There was now,
+however, on his part, no feeling of chagrin and impotence because of
+things that had not been said. There was only a shuddering relief that
+things had _not_ been said; that he had been able to carry it straight
+through as he had planned; that he had not shown his boy how much
+he--cared. He was glad that his pride had been equal to the strain; that
+he had not weakly succumbed at the first glimpse of his son's face, the
+first touch of his son's hand, as he had so feared that he would do.
+
+And he had not succumbed--though he had almost gone down before the
+quick terror and affectionate dismay that had leaped into his son's
+voice and eyes at sight of his own changed appearance. (Why _could_ not
+he keep those abominable portions of his anatomy from being so
+wretchedly telltale?) But he had remembered in time. Did the boy think,
+then, that a mere word of sympathy now could balance the scale against
+so base a disregard of everything loyal and filial a month ago? Then he
+would show that it could not.
+
+And he had shown it.
+
+What if he did know now, even better than he had known it all these last
+miserable four weeks, that his whole world had lain in his boy's hand,
+that his whole life had been bounded by his boy's smile, his whole soul
+immersed in his boy's future? What if he did know that all the power and
+wealth and fame of name that he had won were as the dust in his
+fingers--if he might not pass them on to his son? He was not going to
+let Burke know this. Indeed, no!
+
+Burke had made his own bed. He should lie in it. Deliberately he had
+chosen to cast aside the love and companionship of a devoted father at
+the beck of an almost unknown girl's hand. Should the father then offer
+again the once-scorned love and companionship? Had he no pride--no
+proper sense of simple right and justice? No self-respect, even?
+
+It was thus, and by arguments such as these, that John Denby had lashed
+himself into the state of apparently cool, courteous indifference that
+had finally carried him successfully through the interview just closed.
+
+For a long time John Denby sat motionless, his arms outflung across the
+letters that might have meant so much, but that did mean so little, to
+him--now. Then slowly he raised his head and fixed somber, longing eyes
+on the door that had so recently closed behind his son.
+
+The boy was in there with Brett now--his boy. He was being told that his
+wages for the present were to be fifteen dollars a week, and that he was
+expected to live within his income--that the wages were really very
+liberal, considering his probable value to the company at the first. He
+_would_ begin at the bottom, as had been planned years ago; but with
+this difference: he would be promoted now only when he had earned it. He
+would have been pushed rapidly ahead to the top, had matters been as
+they once were. Now he must demonstrate and prove his ability.
+
+All this Brett was telling Burke now. Poor Burke! Brett was so harsh, so
+uncompromising. As if it weren't tough enough to have to live on a
+paltry fifteen dollars a week, without--
+
+John Denby sighed and rose to his feet. Aimlessly he fidgeted about the
+spacious, well-appointed office. Twice he turned toward the door as if
+to leave the room. Once he reached a hesitating hand toward the
+push-button on this desk. Then determinedly he sat down and picked up
+one of his letters.
+
+Brett was right. It was the best way; the only way. And it was well,
+indeed, that Brett had been delegated to do the telling. If it had been
+himself now--! Shucks! If it had been himself, the boy would only have
+had to _look_ his reproach--and his wages would have been doubled on the
+spot! Fifteen dollars a week--_Burke!_ Why, the boy could not-- Well,
+then, he need not have been so foolish, so headstrong, so heartlessly
+disregardful of his father's wishes. He had brought it upon himself,
+entirely, entirely!
+
+Whereupon, with an angry exclamation, John Denby shifted about in his
+hand the letter which for three minutes he had been holding before his
+eyes upside down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE WIFE
+
+
+Helen Denby had never doubted her ability to be a perfect wife. As a
+girl, her vision had pictured a beauteous creature moving through a
+glorified world of love and admiration, ease and affluence.
+
+Later, at the time of her marriage to Burke Denby, her vision had
+altered sufficiently to present a picture of herself as the sweet
+good-angel of the old Denby Mansion, the forgiving young wife who lays
+up no malice against an unappreciative father-in-law. Even when, still
+later (upon their return from their wedding trip and upon her learning
+of John Denby's decree of banishment), the vision was necessarily warped
+and twisted all out of semblance to its original outlines, there yet
+remained unchanged the basic idea of perfect wifehood.
+
+Helen saw herself now as the martyr wife whose superb courage and
+self-sacrifice were to be the stepping-stones of a husband's magnificent
+success. She would be guide, counselor, and friend. (Somewhere she had
+seen those words. She liked them very much.) Unswervingly she would hold
+Burke to his high purpose. Untiringly she would lead him ever toward his
+goal of "making good."
+
+She saw herself the sweet, loving wife, graciously presiding over the
+well-kept home, always ready, daintily gowned, to welcome his coming
+with a kiss, and to speed his going with a blessing. Then, when in due
+course he had won out, great would be her reward. With what sweet pride
+and gentle dignity would she accept the laurel wreath of praise (Helen
+had seen this expression somewhere, too, and liked it), which a
+remorseful but grateful world would hasten to lay at the feet of her who
+alone had made possible the splendid victory--the once despised, flouted
+wife--the wife who was to drag him down!
+
+It was a pleasant picture, and Helen frequently dwelt upon
+it--especially the sweet-and-gentle-dignity-wife part. She found it
+particularly soothing during those first early days of housekeeping in
+the new apartment.
+
+Not that she was beginning in the least to doubt her ability to be that
+perfect wife. It was only that to think of things as they would be was a
+pleasant distraction from thinking of things as they were. But of course
+it would be all right very soon, anyway,--just as soon as everything got
+nicely to running.
+
+Helen did wonder sometimes why the getting of "everything nicely to
+running" was so difficult. That a certain amount of training and
+experience was necessary to bring about the best results never occurred
+to her. If Helen had been asked to take a position as stenographer or
+church soloist, she would have replied at once that she did not know how
+to do the work. Into the position of home-maker, however, she stepped
+with cheerful confidence, her eyes only on the wonderful success she was
+going to make.
+
+To Helen housekeeping was something like a clock that you wound up in
+the morning to run all day. And even when at the end of a week she could
+not help seeing that not once yet had she got around to being the
+"sweet, daintily gowned wife welcoming her husband to a well-kept home,"
+before that husband appeared at the door, she still did not doubt her
+own capabilities. It was only that "things hadn't got to running yet."
+And it was always somebody else's fault, anyway,--frequently her
+husband's. For if he did not come to dinner too early, before a thing
+was done, he was sure to be late, and thus spoil everything by her
+trying to keep things hot for him. And, of course, under such
+circumstances, nobody could _expect_ one to be a sweet and daintily
+gowned wife!
+
+Besides, there was the cookbook.
+
+"Do you know, Burke," she finally wailed one night, between sobs, "I
+don't believe it's good for a thing--that old cookbook! I haven't got a
+thing out of it yet that's been real good. I've half a mind to take it
+back where I got it, and make them change it, or else give me back my
+money. I have, so there!"
+
+"But, dearie," began her husband doubtfully, "you said yourself
+yesterday that you forgot the salt in the omelet, and the baking powder
+in the cake, and--"
+
+"Well, what if I did?" she contended aggrievedly. "What's a little salt
+or baking powder? 'Twasn't but a pinch or a spoonful, anyhow, and I
+remembered all the other things. Besides, if those rules were any good
+they'd be worded so I _couldn't_ forget part of the things. And, anyhow,
+I don't think it's very nice of you to b-blame me all the time when I'm
+doing the very best I can. I _told_ you I couldn't cook, but you _said_
+you'd like anything I made, because I did it, and--"
+
+"Yes, yes, darling, and so I do," interrupted the remorseful husband,
+hurriedly. And, to prove it, he ate the last scrap of the unappetizing
+concoction on his plate, which his wife said was a fish croquette.
+Afterwards still further to show his remorse, he helped her wash the
+dishes and set the rooms in order. Then together they went for a walk in
+the moonlight.
+
+It was a beautiful walk, and it quite restored Helen to good nature.
+They went up on West Hill (where Helen particularly loved to go), and
+they laid wonderful plans of how one day they, too, would build a big
+stone palace of a home up there--though Burke did say that, for his
+part, he liked Elm Hill quite as well; but Helen laughed him out of that
+"old-fashioned idea." At least he said no more about it.
+
+They talked much of how proud Burke's father was going to be when Burke
+had made good, and of how ashamed and sorry he would be that he had so
+misjudged his son's wife. And Helen uttered some very sweet and
+beautiful sentiments concerning her intention of laying up no malice,
+her firm determination to be loving and forgiving.
+
+Then together they walked home in the moonlight; and so thrilled and
+exalted were they that even the cheap little Dale Street living-room
+looked wonderfully dear. And Helen said that, after all, love was the
+only thing that mattered--that they just loved each other. And Burke
+said, "Yes, yes, indeed."
+
+The vision of the sweet, daintily gowned wife and the perfect home was
+very clear to Helen as she dropped off to sleep that night; and she was
+sure that she could begin to realize it at once. But unfortunately she
+overslept the next morning--which was really Burke's fault, as she said,
+for he forgot to wind the alarm clock, and she was not used to getting
+up at such an unearthly hour, anyway, and she did not see why _he_ had
+to do it, for that matter--he was really the son of the owner, even if
+he was _called_ an apprentice.
+
+This did not help matters any, for Burke never liked any reference to
+his position at the Works. To be sure, he did not say much, this time,
+except to observe stiffly that he _would_ like his breakfast, if she
+would be so good as to get it--as if she were not already hurrying as
+fast as she could, and herself only half-dressed at that!
+
+Of course the breakfast was a failure. Helen said that perhaps some
+people could get a meal of victuals on to the table, with a hungry man
+eyeing their every move, but she could not. Burke declared then that he
+really did not want any breakfast anyway, and he started to go; but as
+Helen only cried the more at this, he had to come back and comfort
+her--thereby, in the end, being both breakfastless and late to his work.
+
+Helen, after he had gone, spent a blissfully wretched ten minutes
+weeping over the sad fate that should doom such a child of light and
+laughter as herself to the somber rôle of martyr wife, and wondered if,
+after all, it would not be really more impressive and more
+soul-torturing-with-remorse for the cruel father-in-law, if she should
+take poison, or gas, or something (not disfiguring), and lay herself
+calmly down to die, her beautiful hands crossed meekly upon her bosom.
+
+Attractive as was this picture in some respects, it yet had its
+drawbacks. Then, too, there was the laurel wreath of praise due her
+later. She had almost forgotten that. On the whole, that would be
+preferable to the poison, Helen decided, as she began, with really
+cheerful alacrity, to attack the messy breakfast dishes.
+
+It was not alone the cooking that troubled the young wife during that
+first month of housekeeping. Everywhere she found pitfalls for her
+unwary feet, from managing the kitchen range to keeping the living-room
+dusted.
+
+And there was the money.
+
+Helen's idea of money, in her happy, care-free girlhood, had been that
+it was one of the common necessities of life; and she accepted it as she
+did the sunshine--something she was entitled to; something everybody
+had. She learned the fallacy of this, of course, when she attempted to
+earn her own living; but in marrying the son of the rich John Denby, she
+had expected to step back into the sunshine, as it were. It was not easy
+now to adjust herself to the change.
+
+She did not like the idea of asking for every penny she spent, and it
+seemed as if she was always having to ask Burke for money; and, though
+he invariably handed it over with a nervously quick, "Why, yes,
+certainly! I don't mean you to have to ask for it, Helen"; yet she
+thought she detected a growing irritation in his manner each time. And
+on the last occasion he had added a dismayed "But I hadn't any idea you
+could have got out so soon as this again!" And it made her feel very
+uncomfortable indeed.
+
+As if _she_ were to blame that it took so much butter and coffee and
+sugar and stuff just to get three meals a day! And as if it were her
+fault that that horrid cookbook was always calling for something she did
+not have, like mace, or summer savory, or thyme, and she had to run out
+and buy a pound of it! Didn't he suppose it took _some_ money to stock
+up with things, when one hadn't a thing to begin with?
+
+Helen had been on the point of saying something of this sort to her
+husband, simply as a matter of self-justification, when there
+unexpectedly came a most delightful solution of her difficulty.
+
+It was the grocer who pointed the way.
+
+"Why don't you open an account with us, Mrs. Denby?" he asked smilingly
+one day, in reply to her usual excuse that she could not buy something
+because she did not have the money to pay for it.
+
+"An account? What's that? That wouldn't make me have any more money,
+would it? Father was always talking about accounts--good ones and bad
+ones. He kept a store, you know. But I never knew what they were,
+exactly. I never thought of asking. I never had to pay any attention to
+money at home. What is an account? How can I get one?"
+
+"Why, you give your orders as usual, but let the payment go until the
+end of the month," smiled the grocer. "We'll charge it--note it down,
+you know--then send the bill to your husband."
+
+"And I won't have to ask him for any money?"
+
+"Not to pay us." The man's lips twitched a little.
+
+"Oh, that would be just grand," she sighed longingly. "I'd like that.
+And it's something the way we're buying our furniture, isn't
+it?--installments, you know."
+
+The grocer's lips twitched again.
+
+"Er--y-yes, only we send a bill for the entire month."
+
+"And he pays it? Oh, I see. That's just grand! And he'd like it all
+right, wouldn't he?--because of course he'd have to pay some time,
+anyhow. And this way he wouldn't have to have me bothering him so much
+all the time asking for money. Oh, thank you. You're very kind. I think
+I will do that way if you don't mind."
+
+"We shall be glad to have you, Mrs. Denby. So we'll call that settled.
+And now you can begin right away this morning."
+
+"And can I get those canned peaches and pears and plums, and the grape
+jelly that I first looked at?"
+
+"Certainly--if you decide you want 'em," mumbled the grocer, throwing
+the last six words as a sop to his conscience which was beginning to
+stir unpleasantly.
+
+"Oh, yes, I want 'em," averred Helen, her eager eyes sweeping the
+alluringly laden shelves before her. "I wanted them all the time, you
+know, only I didn't have enough money to pay for them. Now it'll be all
+right because Burke'll pay--I mean, Mr. Denby," she corrected with a
+conscious blush, suddenly remembering what her husband had said the
+night before about her calling him "Burke" so much to strangers.
+
+Helen found she wanted not only the fruits and jelly, but several other
+cans of soups, meats, and vegetables. And it was such a comfort, for
+once, to select what she wanted, and not have to count up the money in
+her purse! She was radiantly happy when she went home from market that
+morning (instead of being tired and worried as was usually the case);
+and the glow on her face lasted all through the day and into the
+evening--so much so that even Burke must have noticed it, for he told
+her he did not know when he had seen her looking so pretty. And he gave
+her an extra kiss or two when he greeted her.
+
+The second month of housekeeping proved to be a great improvement over
+the first. It was early in that month that Helen learned the joy and
+comfort of having "an account" at her grocer's. And she soon discovered
+that not yet had she probed this delight to its depths, for not only the
+grocer, but the fishman and the butcher were equally kind, and allowed
+her to open accounts with them. Coincident with this came the discovery
+that there were such institutions as bakeries and delicatessen shops,
+which seemed to have been designed especially to meet the needs of just
+such harassed little martyr housewives as she herself was; for in them
+one might buy bread and cakes and pies and even salads and cold meats,
+and fish balls. One might, indeed, with these delectable organizations
+at hand, snap one's fingers at all the cookbooks in the world--cookbooks
+that so miserably failed to cook!
+
+The baker and the little Dutch delicatessen man, too (when they found
+out who she was), expressed themselves as delighted to open an account;
+and with the disagreeable necessity eliminated of paying on the spot for
+what one ordered, and with so great an assortment of ready-to-eat foods
+to select from, Helen found her meal-getting that second month a much
+simpler matter.
+
+Then, too, Helen was much happier now that she did not have to ask her
+husband for money. She accepted what he gave her, and thanked him; but
+she said nothing about her new method of finance.
+
+"I'm going to keep it secret till the stores send him the bills," said
+Helen to herself. "Then I'll show him what a lot I've saved from what he
+has given me, and he'll be so glad to pay things all at once without
+being bothered with my everlasting teasing!"
+
+She only smiled, therefore, enigmatically, when he said one day, as he
+passed over the money:--
+
+"Jove, girl! I quite forgot. You must be getting low. But I'm glad you
+didn't have to ask me for it, anyhow!"
+
+Ask him for it, indeed! How pleased he would be when he found out that
+she was never going to ask him for money again!
+
+Helen was meaning to be very economical these days. When she went to
+market she always saw several things she would have liked, that she did
+not get, for of course she wanted to make the bills as small as she
+could. Naturally Burke would wish her to do that. She tried to save,
+too, a good deal of the money Burke gave her; but that was not always
+possible, for there were her own personal expenses. True, she did not
+need many clothes--but she was able to pick up a few bargains in bows
+and collars (one always needed fresh neckwear, of course); and she found
+some lovely silk stockings, too, that were very cheap, so she bought
+several pairs--to save money. And of course there were always car-fares
+and a soda now and then, or a little candy.
+
+There were the "movies" too. She had fallen into the way of going rather
+frequently to the Empire with her neighbor on the same floor. It did her
+good, and got her out of herself. (She had read only recently how every
+wife should have some recreation; it was a duty she owed herself and her
+husband--to keep herself youthful and attractive.) She got lonesome and
+nervous, sitting at home all day; and now that she had systematized her
+housekeeping so beautifully by buying almost everything all cooked, she
+had plenty of leisure. Of course she would have preferred to go to the
+Olympia Theater. They had a stock company there, and real plays. But
+their cheapest seats were twenty-five cents, while she might go to the
+Empire for ten. So very bravely she put aside her expensive longings,
+and chose the better part--economy and the movies. Besides, Mrs. Jones,
+the neighbor on the same floor, said that, for her part, she liked the
+movies the best,--you got "such a powerful lot more for your dough."
+
+Mrs. Jones always had something bright and original like that to
+say--Helen liked her very much! Indeed, she told Burke one day that Mrs.
+Jones was almost as good as a movie show herself. Burke, however, did
+not seem to care for Mrs. Jones. For that matter, he did not care for
+the movies, either.
+
+No matter where Helen went in the afternoon, she was always very careful
+to be at home before Burke. She hoped she knew what pertained to being
+a perfect wife better than to be careless about matters like that! Mrs.
+Jones was not always so particular in regard to her husband--which only
+served to give Helen a pleasant, warm little feeling of superiority at
+the difference.
+
+Perhaps Mrs. Jones detected the superiority, for sometimes she laughed,
+and said:--
+
+"All right, we'll go if you must; but you'll soon get over it. This
+lovey-dovey-I'm-right-here-hubby business is all very well for a while,
+but--you wait!"
+
+"All right, I'm waiting. But--you see!" Helen always laughed back,
+bridling prettily.
+
+Hurrying home from shopping or the theater, therefore, Helen always
+stopped and got her potato salad and cold meat, or whatever else she
+needed. And the meal was invariably on the table before Burke's key
+sounded in the lock.
+
+Helen was, indeed, feeling quite as if she were beginning to realize her
+vision now. Was she not each night the loving, daintily gowned wife
+welcoming her husband to a well-ordered, attractive home? There was even
+quite frequently a bouquet of flowers on the dinner table. Somewhere she
+had read that flowers always added much to a meal; and since then she
+had bought them when she felt that she could afford them. And in the
+market there were almost always some cheap ones, only a little faded. Of
+course, she never bought the fresh, expensive ones.
+
+After dinner there was the long evening together. Sometimes they went
+to walk, after the dishes were done--Burke had learned to dry dishes
+beautifully. More often they stayed at home and played games, or
+read--Burke was always wanting to read. Sometimes they just talked,
+laying wonderful plans about the fine new house they were going to
+build. Now that Helen did not have to ask Burke for money, there did not
+seem to be so many occasions when he was fretful and nervous; and they
+were much happier together.
+
+All things considered, therefore, Helen felt, indeed, before this second
+month of housekeeping was over, that she had now "got things nicely to
+running."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE HUSBAND
+
+
+Burke Denby had never given any thought as to whether he were going to
+be a perfect husband or not. He had wanted to marry Helen, and he had
+married her. That was all there was to it, except, of course, that they
+had got to show his father that they could make good.
+
+So far as being a husband--good, bad, or indifferent--was concerned,
+Burke was not giving any more thought to it now than he had given before
+his marriage. He was quite too busy giving thought to other
+matters--many other matters.
+
+There was first his work. He hated it. He hated the noise, the smell,
+the grime, the overalls, the men he worked with, the smug
+superciliousness of his especial "boss." He felt abused and indignant
+that he had to endure it all. As if it were necessary to put him through
+such a course of sprouts as this! As if, when the time came, he could
+not run the business successfully without all these years of dirt and
+torture! Was an engineer, then, made to _build_ an engine before he
+could be taught to handle the throttle? Was a child made to set the type
+of a primer before he could be taught his letters? Of course not! But
+they were making him not only set the type, but go down into the mines
+and dig the stuff the type was made of before they would teach him his
+letters. Yet they pretended it all must be done if he would ever learn
+to read--that is, to run the Denby Iron Works. Bah! He had a mind to
+chuck it all. He would if it weren't for dad. Dad hated quitters. And
+dad was looking wretched enough, as it was.
+
+And that was another thing--dad.
+
+Undeniably Burke was very unhappy over his father. He did not like to
+think of him, yet his face was always before him, pale and drawn, as he
+had seen it at that first interview after his return. As the days
+passed, Burke, in spite of his wish not to see his father, found himself
+continually seizing every opportunity that might enable him to see him.
+Daily he found himself haunting doorways and corridors, quite out of his
+way, when there was a chance that his father might pass.
+
+He told himself that it was just that he wanted to convince himself that
+his father did not look quite so bad, after all. But he knew in his
+heart that it was because he hoped his father would speak to him in the
+old way, and that it might lead to the tearing down of this horrible
+high wall of indifference and formality that had risen between them.
+Burke hated that wall.
+
+The wall was there, however, always. Nothing ever came of these
+connivings and loiterings except (if it were during working hours) a
+terse hint from the foreman, perhaps, to get back on his job. How Burke
+hated that foreman!
+
+And that was another thing--his position among his fellow workmen. He
+was with them, but not of them. His being among them at all was plainly
+a huge joke--and when one is acting a tragedy in all seriousness, one
+does not like to hear chuckles as at a comedy. But, for that matter,
+Burke found the comedy element always present, wherever he went. The
+entire town took himself, his work, and his marriage as a huge joke--a
+subject for gay badinage, jocose slaps on the back, and gleeful cries
+of:--
+
+"Well, Denby, how goes it? How doth the happy bridegroom?"
+
+And Burke hated that, too.
+
+It seemed to Burke, indeed, sometimes, that he hated everything but
+Helen. Helen, of course, was a dear--the sweetest little wife in the
+world. As if any one could help loving Helen! And however disagreeable
+the day, there was always Helen to go home to at night.
+
+Oh, of course, he had to take that abominable flat along with
+Helen--naturally, as long as he could not afford to put her in a more
+expensive place. But that would soon be remedied--just as soon as he got
+a little ahead.
+
+This "going home to Helen" had been one of Burke's happiest
+anticipations ever since his marriage. It would be so entrancing to find
+Helen and Helen's kiss waiting for him each night! Often had such
+thoughts been in his mind during his honeymoon trip; but never had they
+been so poignantly promising of joy as they were on that first day at
+the Works, after his disheartening interview with his father. All the
+rest of that miserable day it seemed to Burke that the only thing he was
+living for was the going home to Helen that night.
+
+"Home," to Burke, had always meant a place of peace and rest, of
+luxurious ease and noiseless servants, of orderly rooms and well-served
+meals, of mellow lights and softly blended colors. Unconsciously now
+home still meant the same, with the addition of Helen--Helen, the center
+of it all. It was this dear vision, therefore, that he treasured all
+through his honeymoon trip, that he hugged to himself all that wretched
+first day of work, and that was still his star of hope as he hurried
+that night toward the Dale Street flat. If he had stopped to think, he
+would have realized at once that this new home of a day was not the old
+home of years. But he did not stop to think of anything except that for
+the first time in his life he was going home from work to Helen, his
+wife.
+
+Burke Denby never forgot the shock of that first home-going. He opened
+the door of his apartment--and confronted chaos: a surly janitor
+struggling with a curtain pole, a confusion of trunks, chairs, a
+stepladder, and a floor-pail, a disorder of dishes on a coverless table,
+a smell of burned milk, and a cross, tired, untidy wife who flung
+herself into his arms with a storm of sobs.
+
+"Home," after that, meant quite something new to Burke Denby. It meant
+Helen, of course, but--
+
+Still it would be only for a little while, after all, he consoled
+himself each day. Just as soon as he got ahead a little, it would be
+different. He could sell the stuff, then; and the very first thing to go
+would be that hideous purple pillow on the red plush sofa--for that
+matter, the sofa would follow after mighty quick. And the chairs, too.
+They were a little worse to sit on than to look at--which was
+unnecessary. As for the rugs--when it came to those, it would be his
+turn to select next time. At all events, he would not be obliged to have
+one that, the minute you opened the door, bounced into your face and
+screamed "Hullo! I'm here. See me!" How he hated that rug! And the
+pictures and those cheap gilt vases--everything, of course, would be
+different in the new home.
+
+Nor did Burke stop to think that this constant shifting, in one's mind,
+of things that are, to things that may some time be, scarcely makes for
+content.
+
+Still, Burke could not have forgotten his house-furnishings, even if he
+had tried to do so, for he had to make payments on them "every few
+minutes," as he termed it. Indeed, one of the unsolved riddles of his
+life these days was as to why there were so many more Mondays (the day
+he paid his installments) than there were Saturdays (the day the Works
+paid him) in a week. For that matter, after all was said and done,
+perhaps to nothing was Burke Denby giving more thought these days than
+to money.
+
+Burke's experience with money heretofore had been to draw a check for
+what he wanted. True, he sometimes overdrew his account a trifle; but
+there was always his allowance coming the first of the month; and
+neither he nor the bank worried.
+
+Now it was quite different. There was no allowance, and no bank--save
+his pocket, and there was only fifteen dollars a week coming into that.
+He would not have believed that fifteen dollars a week could go so
+quickly, and buy so little. Very early in the first month of
+housekeeping all that remained of his allowance was gone. What did not
+go at once to make payments on the furniture was paid over to Helen to
+satisfy some of her many requests for money.
+
+And that was another of Burke's riddles--why Helen needed so much money
+just to get them something to eat. True, of late, she had not asked for
+it so frequently. She had not, indeed, asked for any for some time--for
+which he was devoutly thankful. He would not have liked to refuse her;
+and he certainly was giving her all that he could afford to give,
+without her asking. A fellow must smoke some--though Heaven knew he had
+cut his cigars down, both in quantity and quality, until he had cut out
+nearly all the pleasure!
+
+Still he was glad to do it for Helen. Helen was a little brick. How
+pretty she looked when she was holding forth on his "making good," and
+her not "dragging" him "down"! Bless her heart! As if she could be
+guilty of such a thing as that! Why, she was going to drag him up--Helen
+was!
+
+And she was doing pretty well, too, running the little home, for a girl
+who did not know a thing about it, to begin with. She was doing a whole
+lot better than at first. Breakfast had not been late for two weeks, nor
+dinner, either. And she was almost always at the door to kiss him now,
+too, while at the first he had to hunt her up, only to find her crying
+in the kitchen, probably--something wrong somewhere.
+
+Oh, to be sure, he _was_ getting a little tired of potato salad, and he
+always had abhorred those potato-chippy things; and he himself did not
+care much for cold meat. But, of course, after she got a little more
+used to things she wouldn't serve that sort of trash quite so often. He
+would be getting real things to eat, pretty soon--good, juicy beefsteaks
+and roasts, and nice fresh vegetables and fruit shortcakes, with muffins
+and griddle-cakes for breakfast. But Helen was a little brick--Helen
+was. And she was doing splendidly!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+STUMBLING-BLOCKS
+
+
+Mrs. Burke Denby was a little surprised at the number of letters
+directed to her husband in the morning mail that first day of November,
+until she noticed the familiar names in the upper left-hand corners of
+several of the envelopes.
+
+"Oh, it's the bills," she murmured, drawing in her breath a little
+uncertainly. "To-day's the first, and they said they'd send them then.
+But I didn't think there'd be such a lot of them. Still, I've had things
+at all those places. Well, anyway, he'll be glad to pay them all at
+once, without my teasing for money all the time," she finished with
+resolute insistence, as she turned back to her work.
+
+If, now that the time had come, and the bills lay before her in all
+their fearsome reality, Helen was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her
+financial system, she would not admit it, even to herself. And she still
+wore a determinedly cheerful face when her husband came home to dinner
+that night. She went into the kitchen as he began to open his mail--she
+was reminded of a sudden something that needed her attention. Two
+minutes later she nearly dropped the dish of potato salad she was
+carrying, at the sound of his voice from the doorway.
+
+"Helen, what in Heaven's name is the meaning of these bills?" He was in
+the kitchen now, holding out a sheaf of tightly clutched papers in each
+hand.
+
+Helen set the potato salad down hastily.
+
+"Why, Burke, don't--don't look at me so!"
+
+"But what does this mean? What are these things?"
+
+"Why, they--they're just bills, I suppose. They _said_ they'd be."
+
+"Bills! Great Cæsar, Helen! You don't mean to say that you _do_ know
+about them--that you bought all this stuff?"
+
+Helen's lip began to quiver.
+
+"Burke, don't--please don't look like that. You frighten me."
+
+"Frighten you! What do you think of _me_?--springing a thing like this!"
+
+"Why, Burke, I--I thought you'd _like_ it."
+
+"_Like_ it!"
+
+"Y-yes--that I didn't have to ask you for money all the time. And you'd
+have to p-pay 'em some time, anyhow. We had to eat, you know."
+
+"But, great Scott, Helen! We aren't a hotel! Look at
+that--'salad'--'salad'--'salad,'" he exploded, pointing a shaking finger
+at a series of items on the uppermost bill in his left hand. "There's
+tons of the stuff there, and I always did abominate it!"
+
+"Why, Burke, I--I--" And the floods came.
+
+"Oh, thunderation! Helen, Helen, don't--please don't!"
+
+"But I thought I was going to p-please you, and you called me a h-hotel,
+and said you a-abominated it!" she wailed, stumbling away blindly.
+
+With a despairing ejaculation Burke flung the bills to the floor, and
+caught the sob-shaken little figure of his wife in his arms.
+
+"There, there, I was a brute, and I didn't mean it--not a word of it.
+Sweetheart, don't, please don't," he begged. "Why, girlie, all the bills
+in Christendom aren't worth a tear from your dear eyes. Come, _won't_
+you stop?"
+
+But Helen did not stop, at once. The storm was short, but tempestuous.
+At the end of ten minutes, however, together they went into the
+dining-room. Helen carried the potato salad (which Burke declared he was
+really hungry for to-day), and Burke carried the bills crumpled in one
+hand behind his back, his other arm around his wife's waist.
+
+That evening a remorseful, wistful-eyed wife and a husband with an
+"I'll-be-patient-if-it-kills-me" air went over the subject of household
+finances, and came to an understanding.
+
+There were to be no more charge accounts. For the weekly expenses Helen
+was to have every cent that could possibly be spared; but what she could
+not pay cash for, they must go without, if they starved. In a pretty
+little book she must put down on one side the money received. On the
+other, the money spent. She was a dear, good little wife, and he loved
+her 'most to death; but he couldn't let her run up bills when he had
+not a red cent to pay them with. He would borrow, of course, for
+these--he was not going to have any dirty little tradesmen pestering him
+with bills all the time! But this must be the last. Never again!
+
+And Helen said yes, yes, indeed. And she was very sure she would love to
+keep the pretty little book, and put down all the money she got, and all
+she spent.
+
+All this was very well in theory. But in practice--
+
+At the end of the first week Helen brought her book to her husband, and
+spread it open before him with great gusto.
+
+On the one side were several entries of small sums, amounting to eight
+dollars received. On the other side were the words: "Spent all but
+seventeen cents."
+
+"Oh, but you should put down what you spent it for," corrected Burke,
+with a merry laugh.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why, er--so you can see--er--what the money goes for."
+
+"What's the difference--if it goes?"
+
+"Oh, shucks! You can't keep a cash account that way! You have to put 'em
+both down, and then--er--balance up and see if your cash comes right.
+See, like this," he cried, taking a little book from his pocket. "I'm
+keeping one." And he pointed to a little list which read:--
+
+  Lunch       $.25
+  Cigar        .10
+  Car-fare     .10
+  Paper        .02
+  Helen       2.00
+  Cigars       .25
+  Paper        .02
+
+"Now that's what I spent yesterday. You want to put yours down like
+that, then add 'em up and subtract it from what you receive. What's left
+should equal your cash on hand."
+
+"Hm-m; well, all right," assented Helen dubiously, as she picked up her
+own little book.
+
+Helen looked still more dubious when she presented her book for
+inspection the next week.
+
+"I don't think I like it this way," she announced, with a pout.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, Burke, the mean old thing steals--actually steals! It says I ought
+to have one dollar and forty-five cents; and I haven't got but fourteen
+cents! It's got it itself--somewhere!"
+
+"Ho, that's easy, dear!" The man gave an indulgent laugh. "You didn't
+put 'em all down--what you spent."
+
+"But I did--everything I could remember. Besides, I borrowed fifty cents
+of Mrs. Jones. I didn't put that down anywhere. I didn't know where to
+put it."
+
+"Helen! You borrowed money--of that woman?"
+
+"She isn't 'that woman'! She's my friend, and I like her," flared Helen,
+hotly. "I had to have some eggs, and I didn't have a cent of money. I
+shall pay her back, of course,--next time you pay me."
+
+Burke frowned.
+
+"Oh, come, come, Helen, this will never do," he remonstrated. "Of course
+you'll pay her back; but I can't have my wife borrowing of the
+neighbors!"
+
+"But I had to! I had to have some eggs," she choked, "and--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. But I mean, we won't again," interrupted the man
+desperately, fleeing to cover in the face of the threatening storm of
+sobs. "And, anyhow, we'll see that you have some money now," he cried
+gayly, plunging his hands into his pockets, and pulling out all the
+bills and change he had. "There, 'with all my worldly goods I thee
+endow,'" he laughed, lifting his hands above her bright head, and
+showering the money all over her.
+
+Like children then they scrambled for the rolling nickels and elusive
+dimes; and in the ensuing frolic the tiresome account-book was
+forgotten--which was exactly what Burke had hoped would happen.
+
+This was the second week. At the end of the third, the "mean old thing"
+was in a worse muddle than ever, according to Helen; and, for her part,
+she would rather never buy anything at all if she had got to go and tell
+that nuisance of a book every time!
+
+The fourth Saturday night Helen did not produce the book at all.
+
+"Oh, I don't keep that any longer," she announced, with airy
+nonchalance, in answer to Burke's question. "It never came right, and I
+hated it, anyhow. So what's the use? I've got what I've got, and I've
+spent what I've spent. So what's the difference?" And Burke, after a
+feeble remonstrance, gave it up as a bad job. Incidentally it might be
+mentioned that Burke was having a little difficulty with his own cash
+account, and was tempted to accuse his own book of stealing--else where
+did the money go?
+
+It was the next Monday night that Burke came home with a radiant
+countenance.
+
+"Gleason's here--up at the Hancock House. He's coming down after
+dinner."
+
+"Who's Gleason?"
+
+Helen's tone was a little fretful--there was a new, intangible something
+in her husband's voice that Helen did not understand, and that she did
+not think she liked.
+
+"Gleason! Who's Doc Gleason!" exclaimed Burke, with widening eyes. "Oh,
+I forgot. You don't know him, do you?" he added, with a slight frown.
+Burke Denby was always forgetting that Helen knew nothing of his friends
+or of himself until less than a year before. "Well, Doc Gleason is the
+best ever. He went to Egypt with us last year, and to Alaska the year
+before."
+
+"How old is he?"
+
+"Old? Why, I don't know--thirty--maybe more. He must be a little more,
+come to think of it. But you never think of age with the doctor. He'll
+be young when he's ninety."
+
+"And you like him--so well?" Her voice was a little wistful.
+
+"Next to dad--always have. You'll like him, too. You can't help it. He's
+mighty interesting."
+
+"And he's a doctor?"
+
+"Yes, and no. Oh, he graduated and hung out his shingle; but he never
+practiced much. He had money enough, anyway, and he got interested in
+scientific research--antiquarian, mostly, though he's done a bit of
+mountain-climbing and glacier-studying for the National Geographic
+Society."
+
+"Antiquarian? Oh, yes, I know--old things. Mother was that way, too. She
+had an old pewter plate, and a dark blue china teapot, homely as a hedge
+fence, I thought, but she doted on 'em. And she doted on ancestors, too.
+She had one in that old ship--Mayflower, wasn't it?"
+
+Burke laughed.
+
+"Mayflower! My dear child, the Mayflower is a mere infant-in-arms in the
+doctor's estimation. The doctor goes back to prehistoric times for his
+playground, and to the men of the old Stone Age for his preferred
+playmates."
+
+"Older than the Mayflower, then?"
+
+"A trifle--some thousands of years."
+
+"Goodness! How can he? I thought the Mayflower was bad enough. But what
+does he do--collect things?"
+
+"Yes, to some extent; he has a fine collection of Babylonian tablets,
+and--"
+
+"Oh, I know--those funny little brown and yellow cakes like soap, all
+cut into with pointed little marks--what do you call it?--like your
+father has in his library!"
+
+"The cuneiform writing? Yes. As I said, the doctor has a fine collection
+of tablets, and of some other things; but principally he studies and
+goes on trips. It was a trip to the Spanish grottoes that got him
+interested in the archæological business in the first place, and put him
+out of conceit with doctoring. He goes a lot now, sometimes
+independently, sometimes in the interest of some society. He does in a
+scientific way what dad and I have done for fun--traveling and
+collecting, I mean. Then, too, he has written a book or two which are
+really authoritative in their line. He's a great chap--the doctor is.
+Wait till you see him. I've told him about you, too."
+
+"Then you told him--that is--he knows--about the marriage."
+
+"Why, sure he does!" Burke's manner was a bit impatient. "What do you
+suppose, when he's coming here to-night? Now, mind, put on your
+prettiest frock and your sweetest smile. I want him to see _why_ I
+married you," he challenged banteringly. "I want him to see what a
+treasure I've got. And say, dearie, _do_ you suppose--_could_ we have
+him to dinner, or something? Could you manage it? I wanted to ask him
+to-night; but of course I couldn't--without your knowing beforehand."
+
+"Mercy, no, Burke!" shuddered the young housekeeper. "Don't you
+dare--when I don't know it."
+
+"But if you do know it--" He paused hopefully.
+
+"Why, y-yes, I guess so. Of course I could get things I was sure of,
+like potato salad and--"
+
+Burke sat back in his chair.
+
+"But, Helen, I'm afraid--I don't think--that is, I'm 'most sure Gleason
+doesn't like potato salad," he stammered.
+
+"Doesn't he? Well, he needn't eat it, then. We'll have all the more left
+for the next day."
+
+"But, Helen, er--"
+
+"Oh, I'll have chips, too; don't worry, dear. I'll give him something to
+eat," she promised gayly. "Do you suppose I'm going to have one of your
+swell friends come here, and then have you ashamed of me? You just wait
+and see!"
+
+"Er, no--no, indeed, of course not," plunged in her husband feverishly,
+trying to ward off a repetition of the "swell"--a word he particularly
+abhorred.
+
+Several times in the last two months he had heard Helen use this
+word--twice when she had informed him with great glee that some swell
+friends of his from Elm Hill had come in their carriage to call; and
+again quite often when together on the street they met some one whom he
+knew. He thought he hated the word a little more bitterly every time he
+heard it.
+
+For several weeks now the Denbys had been receiving calls--Burke Denby
+was a Denby of Denby Mansion even though he was temporarily marooned on
+Dale Street at a salary of sixty dollars a month. Besides, to many, Dale
+Street and the sixty dollars, with the contributory elements of
+elopement and irate parent, only added piquancy and interest to what
+would otherwise have been nothing but the conventional duty call.
+
+To Helen, in the main, these calls were a welcome diversion--"just
+grand," indeed. To Burke, on whom the curiosity element was not lost,
+they were an impertinence and a nuisance. Yet he endured them, and even
+welcomed them, in a way; for he wanted Helen to know his friends, and to
+like them--better than she liked Mrs. Jones. He did not care for Mrs.
+Jones. She talked too loud, and used too much slang. He did not like to
+have Helen with her. Always, therefore, after callers had been there,
+his first eager question was: "How did you like them, dear?" He wanted
+so much that Helen should like them!
+
+To-night, however, in thinking of the prospective visit from Gleason, he
+was wondering how the doctor would like Helen--not how Helen would like
+the doctor. The change was significant but unconscious--perhaps all the
+more significant because it was unconscious.
+
+Until he had reached home that night, Burke had been so overjoyed at the
+prospect of an old-time chat with his friend that he had given little
+thought to Gleason's probable opinion of the Dale Street flat and its
+furnishings. Now, with his eyes on the obtrusive unharmony all about
+him, and his memory going back to the doctor's well-known fastidiousness
+of taste, he could think of little else. He did hope Gleason would not
+think _he_ had selected those horrors! Of course he had already
+explained--a little--about his father's disapproval of the marriage, and
+the resulting cutting-off of his allowance; but even that would not
+excuse (to Gleason) the riot of glaring reds and pinks and purples in
+his living-rooms; and one could not very well explain that one's wife
+_liked_ the horrors-- He pulled himself up sharply. Of course Helen
+herself was a dear. He hoped Gleason would see how dear she was. He
+wanted Gleason to like Helen.
+
+As the hour drew near for the expected guest's arrival, Burke Denby,
+greatly to his vexation, found himself growing more and more nervous. He
+asked himself indignantly if he were going to let a purple cushion
+entirely spoil the pleasure of the evening. Not until he had seen
+Gleason that afternoon had he realized how sorely he had missed his
+father's companionship all these past weeks. Not until he had found
+himself bubbling over with the things he wanted to talk about that
+evening had he realized how keenly he had missed the mental stimulus of
+that father's comradeship. And now, for the sake of a purple cushion,
+was he to lose the only chance he had had for weeks of conversing with
+an intelligent--
+
+With an almost audible gasp the shocked and shamed husband pulled
+himself up again.
+
+Well, of course Helen was intelligent. It was only that she was not
+interested in, and did not know about, these things he was thinking of;
+and--
+
+The doorbell rang sharply, and Burke leaped to his feet and hastened to
+press the button that would release the catch of the lock at the
+entrance below.
+
+"Why, Burke, you never called down through the tube at all, and asked
+who it was," remonstrated Helen, hurrying in, her fingers busy with the
+final fastenings of her dress.
+
+"You bet your life I didn't," laughed Burke, a bit grimly. "You've got
+another guess coming if you think I'm going to hold Doc Gleason off at
+the end of a 'Who is it?' bellowed into his ear from that impertinent
+copper trumpet down there."
+
+"Why, Burke, that's all right. Everybody does it," maintained Helen. "We
+have to, else we'd be letting all sorts of folks in, and--"
+
+At a warning gesture from her husband she stopped just as a tall,
+smooth-shaven man with kind eyes and a grave smile appeared at the open
+hallway door.
+
+"Glad to see you, doctor," cried Burke, extending a cordial hand, that
+yet trembled a little. "Let me present you to my wife."
+
+"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure," bobbed Helen. And because she was
+nervous she said the next thing that came into her head. "And I hope
+you're pleased to meet me, too. All Burke's friends are so swell, you
+know, that--"
+
+"Er--ah--" broke in the dismayed husband.
+
+But the visitor advanced quietly, still with that same grave smile, and
+clasped Mrs. Denby's extended hand.
+
+"I am very sure Burke's friends are, indeed, very glad to meet you," he
+said. "Certainly I am," he finished, with a cordial heartiness so nicely
+balanced that even Burke Denby's sensitive alertness could find in it
+neither the overzealousness of insincerity nor the indifference of
+disdain.
+
+Even when, a minute later, they turned and went into the living room,
+Burke's still apprehensive watchfulness could detect in his friend's
+face not one trace of the dismayed horror he had been dreading to see
+there.
+
+"Gleason's a brick," he sighed to himself, trying to relax his tense
+muscles. "As if I didn't know that every last gimcrack in this miserable
+room would fairly scream at him the moment he entered that door!"
+
+In spite of everybody's very evident efforts to have everything pass off
+pleasantly, the evening was anything but a success. Helen, at first shy
+and ill at ease, said little. Then, as if suddenly realizing her
+deficiencies as a hostess, she tried to remedy it by talking very loud
+and very fast about anything that came into her mind, reveling
+especially in minute details concerning their own daily lives, ranging
+all the way from stories of the elopement and the house-furnishing on
+the installment plan to hilarious accounts of her experiences with the
+cookbook and the account-book.
+
+Very plainly Helen was doing her best to "show off." From one to the
+other she looked, with little nods and coquettish smiles.
+
+To Gleason her manner said: "You see now why Burke fell in love with me,
+don't you?" To Burke it said: "There, now I guess you ain't ashamed of
+me!"
+
+The doctor, still with the grave smile and kindly eyes, listened
+politely, uttering now and then a pleasant word or two, in a way that
+even the distraught husband could not criticize. As for the husband
+himself, between his anger at Helen and his anger at himself because of
+his anger at Helen, he was in a woeful condition of nervousness and
+ill-humor. Vainly trying to wrest the ball of conversation from Helen's
+bungling fingers, he yet felt obliged to laugh in apparent approval at
+her wild throws. Nor was he unaware of the sorry figure he thus made of
+himself. Having long since given up all hope of the anticipated chat
+with his friend, his one aim now was to get the visit over, and the
+doctor out of the house as soon as possible. Yet the very fact that he
+did want the visit over and the doctor gone only angered him the more,
+and put into his mouth words that were a mockery of cordiality. No
+wonder, then, that for Burke the evening was a series of fidgetings,
+throat-clearings, and nervous laughs that (if he had but known it) were
+fully as distressing to the doctor as they were to himself.
+
+At half-past nine the doctor rose to his feet.
+
+"Well, good people, I must go," he announced cheerily. (For the last
+half-hour the doctor had been wondering just how soon he might make that
+statement.) "It's half-past nine."
+
+"Pshaw! That ain't late," protested Helen.
+
+"No, indeed," echoed Burke--though Burke had promptly risen with his
+guest.
+
+"Perhaps not, to you; but to me--" The doctor let a smile finish his
+sentence.
+
+"But you're coming again," gurgled Helen. "You're coming to dinner.
+Burke said you was."
+
+Burke's mouth flew open--but just in time he snapped it shut. He had
+remembered that hospitable husbands do not usually retract their wives'
+invitations with a terrified "For Heaven's sake, no!"--at least, not in
+the face of the prospective guest. Before he could put the new, proper
+words into his mouth, the doctor spoke.
+
+"Thank you. You're very kind; but I'm afraid not--this time, Mrs. Denby.
+My stay is to be very short. But I'm glad to have had this little
+visit," he finished, holding out his hand.
+
+And again Burke, neither then, nor when he looked straight into the
+doctor's eyes a moment later, could find aught in word or manner upon
+which to pin his watchful suspicions.
+
+The next moment the doctor was gone.
+
+Helen yawned luxuriously, openly-- Helen never troubled to hide her
+yawns.
+
+"Now I like _him_," she observed emphatically, but not very distinctly
+(owing to the yawn). "If all your swell friends were--"
+
+"Helen, for Heaven's sake, _isn't_ there any word but that abominable
+'swell' that you can use?" interrupted her husband, seizing the first
+pretext that offered itself as a scapegoat for his irritation.
+
+Helen laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"All right; 'stuck up,' then, if you like that better. But, for my part,
+I like 'swell' best. It's so expressive, so much more swell--there, you
+see," she laughed, with another shrug; "it just says itself. But,
+really, I do like the doctor. I think he's just grand. Where does he
+live?"
+
+"Boston." Burke hated "grand" only one degree less than "swell."
+
+"Is he married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How old did you say he was?"
+
+"I didn't say. I don't know. Thirty-five, probably."
+
+"Why, Burke, what's the matter? What are you so short about? Don't you
+_like_ it that I like him? I thought you wanted me to like your
+friends."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know; and I do, Helen, of course." Burke got to his feet
+and took a nervous turn about the tiny room.
+
+Helen watched him with widening eyes. The look of indolent satisfaction
+was gone from her face. She was not yawning now.
+
+"Why, Burke, what _is_ the matter?" she catechized. "Wasn't I nice to
+him? Didn't I talk to him, and just lay myself out to entertain him?
+Didn't I ask him to dinner, and--"
+
+"Dinner!" Burke fairly snarled the word out as he wheeled sharply. "Holy
+smoke, Helen! I wonder if you think I'd have that man come here to
+dinner, or come here ever again to hear you-- Oh, hang it all, what am I
+saying?" he broke off, jerking himself about with a despairing gesture.
+
+Helen came now to her feet. Her eyes blazed.
+
+"I know. You was ashamed of me," she panted.
+
+"Oh, come, come; nonsense, Helen!"
+
+"You was."
+
+"Of course I wasn't."
+
+"Then what was the matter?"
+
+"Nothing; nothing, Helen."
+
+"There was, too. Don't you suppose I know? But I tried to do all right.
+I tried to make you p-proud of me," she choked. "I know I didn't talk
+much at first. I was scared and stupid, he was so fine and grand. And I
+didn't know a thing about all that Egyptian stuff you was talking about.
+Then I thought how 'shamed you'd be of me, and I just made up my mind I
+_would_ talk and show him it wasn't a--a little fool that you'd married;
+and I s'posed I was doing what you wanted me to. But I see now I
+wasn't. I wasn't fine enough for your grand friend. I ain't never fine
+enough for 'em. But I don't care. I hate 'em all--every one of 'em! I'd
+rather have Mrs. Jones twice over. _She_ isn't ashamed of me. I thought
+I was p-pleasing you; and now--now--" Her words were lost in a storm of
+sobs.
+
+There was but one thing to be done, of course; and Burke did it. He took
+her in his arms and soothed and petted and praised her. What he said he
+did not know--nor care, for that matter, so long as it served ever so
+slightly to dam the flood of Helen's tears. That, for the moment, was
+the only thing worth living for. The storm passed at last, as storms
+must; but it was still a teary little wife that received her husband's
+good-night kiss some time later. Burke did not go to sleep very readily
+that night. In his mind he was going over his prospective meeting with
+his friend Gleason the next day.
+
+What would Gleason say? How would he act? What would he himself say?
+What _could_ he say? He could not very well apologize for--
+
+Even to himself Burke would not finish the sentence.
+
+Apologize? Indeed, no! As if there were anything, anyway, to apologize
+for! He would meet Gleason exactly as usual. He would carry his head
+high. There should be about him no air of apology or appeal. By his
+every act and word he would show that he was not in need of sympathy,
+and that he should resent comment. He might even ask Gleason to dinner.
+He believed he _would_ ask him to dinner. In no other way, certainly,
+could he so convincingly show how--er--proud he was of his wife.
+
+Burke went to sleep then.
+
+It had been arranged that the two men should meet at noon for luncheon;
+and promptly on time Burke appeared at the hotel. His chin was indeed
+high, and for the first two minutes he was painfully guarded and
+self-conscious in his bearing. But under the unstudied naturalness of
+the doctor's manner, he speedily became his normal self; and in five
+minutes the two were conversing with their old ease and enthusiasm.
+
+The doctor had with him an Egyptian scarab with a rarely interesting
+inscription, a new acquisition; also a tiny Babylonian tablet of great
+value. In both of them Burke was much interested. In the wake then of a
+five-thousand-year-old stylus, it is not strange that he forgot present
+problems.
+
+"I'm taking these up to-night for your father to see," smiled the
+doctor, after a short silence. "He writes me he's got a new tablet
+himself; a very old one. He thinks he's made a discovery on it, too. He
+swears he's picked out a veritable thumb-mark on one side."
+
+"Nonsense! Dad's always discovering things," grinned Burke. "You know
+dad."
+
+"But he says this is a sure thing. It's visible with the naked eye; but
+under the microscope it's wonderful. And-- But, never mind! We'll see
+for ourselves to-night. You're coming up, of course."
+
+"Sure! And I want to see--" The young man stopped abruptly. A painful
+color had swept to his forehead. "Er--no. On second thoughts I--I can't
+to-night," he corrected. In its resolute emphasis his voice sounded
+almost harsh. "But you--you're coming to dinner with us--to-morrow
+night, aren't you?"
+
+"Oh, no; no, thank you," began the doctor hastily. Then, suddenly, he
+encountered his friend's steadfast eye upon him. "Er--that is," he
+amended in his turn, "unless you--you are willing to let me come very
+informally, as I shall have to leave almost at once afterwards. I'm
+taking the eight-thirty train that evening."
+
+"Very good. We shall expect you," answered the younger man, with a
+curious relaxation of voice and manner--a relaxation that puzzled and
+slightly worried the doctor, who was wondering whether it were the
+relaxation of relief or despair. The doctor was not sure yet that he had
+rightly interpreted that steadfast gaze. Two minutes later, Burke, once
+again self-conscious, constrained, and with his head high, took his
+leave.
+
+On his way back to work Burke berated himself soundly. Having
+deliberately bound himself to the martyrdom of a dinner to his friend,
+he was now insufferably angry that he should regard it as a martyrdom at
+all. Also he knew within himself that there seemed, for the moment,
+nothing that he would not give to spend the coming evening in the quiet
+restfulness of his father's library with the doctor and an Egyptian
+scarab.
+
+As if all the Egyptian scarabs and Babylonian tablets in the world
+_could_ balance the scale with Helen on the other side!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+DIVERGING WAYS
+
+
+Of course the inevitable happened. However near two roads may be at the
+start, if they diverge ever so slightly and keep straight ahead, there
+is bound to be in time all the world between them.
+
+In the case of Burke and Helen, their roads never started together at
+all: they merely crossed; and at the crossing came the wedding. They
+were miles apart at the start--miles apart in tastes, traditions, and
+environment. In one respect only were they alike: undisciplined
+self-indulgence--a likeness that meant only added differences when it
+came to the crossing; and that made it all the more nearly impossible to
+merge those two diverging roads into one wide way leading straight on to
+wedded happiness.
+
+All his life Burke had consulted no one's will but his own. It was not
+easy now to walk when he wanted to sit still, nor to talk when he wanted
+to read; especially as the one who wanted him to walk and to talk
+happened to be a willful young person who all _her_ life had been in the
+habit of walking and talking when _she_ wanted to.
+
+Burke, accustomed from babyhood to leaving his belongings wherever he
+happened to drop them, was first surprised and then angry that he did
+not find them magically restored to their proper places, as in the days
+of his boyhood and youth. Burke abhorred disorder. Helen, accustomed
+from her babyhood to being picked-up after, easily drifted into the way
+of letting all things, both hers and his, lie as they were. It saved a
+great deal of work.
+
+Even so simple a matter as the temperature of a sleeping-room had its
+difficulties. Burke liked air. He wanted the windows wide open. Helen,
+trained to think night air was damp and dangerous, wanted them shut. And
+when two people are sleepy, cross, and tired, it is appalling what a
+range of woe can lie in the mere opening and shutting of a window.
+
+Burke was surprised, annoyed, and dismayed. Being unaccustomed to
+disappointments he did not know how to take them gracefully. This being
+married was not proving to be at all the sort of thing he had pictured
+to himself. He had supposed that life, married life, was to be a new
+wonder every day; an increasing delight every hour. It was neither.
+Living now was a matter of never-ending adjustment, self-sacrifice, and
+economy. And he hated them all. In spite of himself he was getting into
+debt, and he hated debt. It made a fellow feel cheap and mean.
+
+Even Helen was not what he had thought she was. He was ashamed to own
+it, even to himself, but there was a good deal about Helen that he did
+not like. She was not careful about her appearance. She was actually
+almost untidy at times. He hated those loose, sloppy things she
+sometimes wore, and he abominated those curl-paper things in her hair.
+She was willful and fretful, and she certainly did not know how to give
+a fellow a decent meal or a comfortable place to stay. For his part, he
+did not think a girl had any right to marry until she knew something
+about running a simple home.
+
+Then there was her constant chatter. Was she not ever going to talk
+about anything but the silly little everyday happenings of her work? A
+fellow wanted to hear something, when he came home tired at night,
+besides complaints that the range didn't work, or that the grocer forgot
+his order, or that the money was out.
+
+Why, Helen used to be good company, cheerful, often witty. Where were
+her old-time sparkle and radiance? Her talk now was a meaningless
+chatter of trivial things, or an irritating, wailing complaint of
+everything under the sun, chiefly revolving around the point of "how
+different everything was" from what she expected. Great Scott! As if
+_he_ had not found some things different! _That_ evidently was what
+marriage was--different. But talking about it all the time did not help
+any.
+
+Couldn't she read? But, then, if she did read, it would be only the
+newspaper account of the latest murder; and then she would want to talk
+about that. She never read anything worth while.
+
+And it was for this, this being married to Helen, that he had given up
+so much: dad, his home, everything. She didn't appreciate it--Helen
+didn't. She did not rightly estimate what he was being made to suffer.
+
+That there was any especial meaning in all this that he himself should
+take to heart--that there was any course open to him but righteous
+discontent and rebellion--never occurred to Burke. His training of
+frosted cakes and toy shotguns had taught him nothing of the traditional
+"two bears," "bear" and "forbear." The marriage ceremony had not meant
+to him "to be patient, tender, and sympathetic." It had meant the "I
+will" of self-assertion, not the "I will" of self-discipline. That Helen
+ought to change many of _her_ traits and habits he was convinced. That
+there might be some in himself that needed changing, or that the mere
+fact of his having married Helen might have entailed upon himself
+certain obligations as to making the best of what he had deliberately
+chosen, did not once occur to him.
+
+As for Helen--Helen was facing her own disillusions. She was not trying
+now to be the daintily gowned wife welcoming her husband to a well-kept
+home. She had long since decided that that was impossible--on sixty
+dollars a month. She was tired of being a martyr wife. Even the laurel
+wreath of praise had lost its allurement: she would not get it,
+probably, even if she earned it; and, anyway, she would be dead from
+trying to get it. And for her part she would rather have some fun while
+she was living.
+
+But she wasn't having any fun. Things were so different. Everything was
+different. She had not supposed being married was like this: one long
+grind of housework from morning till night, and for a man who did not
+care. And Burke did not care--now. Once, the first thing he wanted when
+he came into the house was a kiss and a word from her. Now he wanted his
+dinner. And he was so fussy, too! _She_ could get along with cold
+things; but he wanted hot ones, and lots of them. And he always wanted
+finger-bowls and lots of spoons, and everything fixed just so on the
+table, too. He said it wasn't that he wanted "style." It was just that
+he wanted things decent. As if she hadn't had things decent herself--and
+without all that fuss and clutter!
+
+After dinner he never wanted to talk now, or to go to walk. He just
+wanted to read or study. He said he was studying; something about his
+work. As if once he would have cared more for any old work than for her!
+
+And she was so lonely! There was nobody now for her to be with. Mrs.
+Jones had moved away, and there were never any callers now. She had
+returned every one of the calls she had had from Burke's fine friends.
+She had put on her new red dress and her best hat with the pink roses;
+and she had tried to be just as bright and entertaining as she knew how
+to be. But they never came again, so of course she could not go to see
+them. She _had_ gone, once or twice. But Burke said she must not do
+that. It was not proper to return your own calls. If they wanted to see
+her they would come themselves. But they never came. Probably, anyhow,
+they did not want to see her; and that was the trouble. Not that she
+cared! They were a "stuck-up" lot, anyway; and she was just as good as
+they were. She had told one woman so, once--the woman that carried her
+eyeglasses on the end of a little stick and stared. That woman always
+had made her mad. So it was just as well, perhaps, that they did not
+come any more, after all. Burke was ashamed of her, anyway, when they
+did come. She knew that. He did not like anything she did nowadays. He
+was always telling her he did wish she would stop saying "you was," or
+holding her fork like that, or making so much noise eating soup, and a
+dozen other things. As if nobody in the house had a right to do anything
+but _his_ way!
+
+It had been so different at home! There everything she did was just
+right. And she was never lonely. There were the parties and the frolics
+and the sleigh-rides, and the girls running in all the time, and the
+boys every evening on the porch, or in the parlor, or taking her
+buggy-riding. Nothing there was ever complete without her. While here--
+Well, who supposed being married meant working like a slave all day, and
+being cooped up all the evening with a man whose nose was buried in a
+book, and who scarcely spoke to you!
+
+And there was the money. Burke acted, for all the world, as if he
+thought she ate money, and ate it whether she was hungry or not, just
+to spite him. As if she didn't squeeze every penny till it fairly
+shrieked, now; and as if anybody could make ten dollars a week go
+further than she did! To be sure, at first she had been silly and
+extravagant, running up bills, and borrowing of Mrs. Jones, as she did.
+And of course she was a little unreasonable and childish about keeping
+that account-book. But that was only at the first, when she was quite
+ignorant and inexperienced. It was very different now. She kept a cash
+account, and most of the time it came right. How she wished she had an
+allowance, though! But Burke utterly refused to give her that. Said
+she'd be extravagant and spend it all the first day. As if she had not
+learned better than that by bitter experience! And as if anything could
+be worse than the way they were trying to get along now, with her
+teasing for money all the time, and him insisting on seeing the bills,
+and then asking how they _could_ manage to eat so many eggs, and saying
+he should think she used butter to oil the floors with. He didn't see
+how it could go so fast any other way!
+
+And wasn't he always telling her she did not manage right? And didn't he
+give her particular fits one day and an awful lecture on wastefulness,
+just because he happened to find half a loaf of mouldy bread in the jar?
+Just as if _he_ didn't spend something--and a good big something,
+too!--on all those cigars he smoked. Yet he flew into fits over a bit of
+mouldy bread of _hers_.
+
+To be sure, when she cried, he called himself a brute, and said he
+didn't mean it, and it was only because he hated so to have her pinching
+and saving all the time that it made him mad--raving mad. Just as if she
+was to blame that they did not have any money!
+
+But she was to blame, of course, in a way. If it had not been for her,
+he would be living at home with all the money he wanted. Sometimes it
+came to her with sickening force that maybe Burke was thinking that,
+too. Was he? Could it be that he was sorry he had married her? Very
+well--her chin came up proudly. He need not stay if he did not want to.
+He could go. But--the chin was not so high, now--he was all there was.
+She had nobody but Burke now. _Could_ it be--
+
+She believed she would ask Dr. Gleason some time. She liked the doctor.
+He had been there several times now, and she felt real well acquainted
+with him. Perhaps he would know. But, after all, she was not going to
+worry. She did not believe that really Burke wished he had not married
+her. It was only that he was tired and fretted with his work. It would
+be better by and by, when he had got ahead a little. And of course he
+would get ahead. They would not always have to live like this!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in March that Burke came home to dinner one evening with a
+radiant face, yet with an air of worried excitement.
+
+"It's dad. He's sent for me," he explained, in answer to his wife's
+questions.
+
+"Sent for you!"
+
+"Yes. He isn't very well, Brett says. He wants to see me."
+
+"Humph! After all this time! I wouldn't go a step if I was you."
+
+"Helen! Not go to my father?"
+
+Helen quaked a little under the fire in her husband's eyes; but she held
+her ground.
+
+"I don't care. He's treated you like dirt. You know he has."
+
+"I know he's sick and has sent for me. And I know I'm going to him.
+That's enough for me to know--at present," retorted the man, getting to
+his feet, and leaving his dinner almost untasted.
+
+Half an hour later he appeared before her, freshly shaved, and in the
+radiant good humor that seems to follow a bath and fresh garments as a
+natural consequence. "Come, chicken, give us a kiss," he cried gayly;
+"and don't sit up for me: I may be late."
+
+"My, but ain't we fixed up!" pouted Helen jealously. "I should think you
+was going to see your best girl."
+
+"I am," laughed Burke boyishly. "Dad was my best girl--till I got you.
+Good-bye! I'm off."
+
+"Good-bye." Helen's lips still pouted, and her eyes burned somberly as
+she sat back in her chair.
+
+Outside the house Burke drew a long breath, and yet a longer one. It
+seemed as if he could not inhale deeply enough the crisp, bracing air.
+Then, with an eager stride that would cover the distance in little more
+than half the usual time, he set off toward Elm Hill. There was only
+joyous anticipation in his face now. The worry was all gone. After all,
+had not Brett said that this illness of dad's was nothing serious?
+
+For a week Burke had known that something was wrong--that his father was
+not at the Works. In vain had he haunted office doors and corridors for
+a glimpse of a face that never appeared. Then had come the news that
+John Denby was ill. A paralyzing fear clutched the son's heart.
+
+Was this to be the end, then? Was dad to--die, and never to know, never
+to read his boy's heart? Was this the end of all hopes of some day
+seeing the old look of love and pride in his father's eyes? Then it
+would, indeed, be the end of--everything, if dad died; for what was the
+use of struggling, of straining every nerve to make good, if dad was not
+to be there to--know?
+
+It had been at this point that Burke, in spite of his hurt pride, and of
+his very lively doubts as to the cordiality of his reception, had almost
+determined to go himself to the old home and demand to see his father.
+Then, just in time, had come Brett's wonderful message that his father
+wished to see him, and that he was not, after all, fatally or even
+seriously ill.
+
+Dad was not going to die, then; and dad wished to see him--_wished_ to
+see him!
+
+Burke drew in his breath now again, and bounded up the great stone steps
+of Denby Mansion, two at a time. The next minute, for the first time
+since his marriage the summer before, he stood in the wide, familiar
+hallway.
+
+Benton, the old butler, took his hat and coat; and the way he took them
+had in it all the flattering deference of the well-trained servant, and
+the rapturous joy of the head of a house welcoming a dear wanderer home.
+
+Burke looked into the beaming old face and shining eyes--and swallowed
+hard before he could utter an unsteady "How are you, Benton?"
+
+"I'm very well, sir, thank you, sir. And it's glad I am to see you,
+Master Burke. This way, please. The master's in the library, sir."
+
+Unconsciously Burke Denby lifted his chin. A long-lost something seemed
+to have come back to him. He could not himself have defined it; and he
+certainly could not have told why, at that moment, he should suddenly
+have thought of the supercilious face of his hated "boss" at the Works.
+
+Behind Benton's noiseless steps Burke's feet sank into luxurious velvet
+depths. His eyes swept from one dear familiar object to another, in the
+great, softly lighted hall, and leaped ahead to the open door of the
+library. Then, somehow, he found himself face to face with his father in
+the dear, well-remembered room.
+
+"Well, Burke, my boy, how are you?"
+
+They were the same words that had been spoken months before in the
+President's office at the Denby Iron Works, and they were spoken by the
+same voice. They were spoken to the accompaniment of an outstretched
+hand, too, in each case. But, to Burke, who had heard them on both
+occasions, they were as different as darkness and daylight. He could not
+have defined it, even to himself; but he knew, the minute he grasped the
+outstretched hand and looked into his father's eyes, that the hated,
+impenetrable, insurmountable "wall" was gone. Yet there was nothing
+said, nothing done, except a conventional "Just a little matter of
+business, Burke, that I wanted to talk over with you," from the elder
+man; and an equally conventional "Yes, sir," from his son.
+
+Then the two sat down. But, for Burke, the whole world had burst
+suddenly into song.
+
+It was, indeed, a simple matter of business. It was not even an
+important one. Ordinarily it would have been Brett's place, or even one
+of his assistants', to speak of it. But the President of the Denby Iron
+Works took it up point by point, and dwelt lovingly on each detail. And
+Burke, his heart one wild pæan of rejoicing, sat with a grave
+countenance, listening attentively.
+
+And when there was left not one small detail upon which to pin another
+word, and when Burke was beginning to dread the moment of dismissal,
+John Denby turned, as if casually, to a small clay tablet on the desk
+near him. And Burke, following his father into a five-thousand-year-old
+past to decipher a Babylonian thumb-print, lost all fear of that dread
+dismissal.
+
+Later came old Benton with the ale and the little cakes that Burke had
+always loved. With a pressure of his thumb, then, John Denby switched
+off half the lights, and the two, father and son, sat down before the
+big fireplace, with the cakes and ale between them on a low stand.
+
+Behind the century-old andirons, the fire leaped and crackled, throwing
+weird shadows over the beamed ceiling, the book-lined walls, the
+cabinets of curios, bringing out here and there a bit of gold tooling
+behind a glass door or a glinting flash from bronze or porcelain. With a
+body at ease and a mind at rest, Burke leaned back in his chair with a
+long-drawn sigh, each tingling sense ecstatically responsive to every
+charm of light and shade and luxury.
+
+Half an hour later he rose to go. John Denby, too, rose to his feet.
+
+"You'll come again, of course," the father said, as he held out his
+hand. For the first time that evening there was a faint touch of
+constraint in his manner. "Suppose you come to dinner--Sunday. Will
+you?"
+
+"Surely I will, and be glad--" With a swift surge of embarrassed color
+Burke Denby stopped short. In one shamed, shocked instant it had come to
+him that he had forgotten Helen--_forgotten_ her! Not for a long hour
+had he even remembered that there was such a person in existence.
+"Er--ah--that is," he began again, stammeringly.
+
+An odd expression crossed John Denby's countenance.
+
+"You will, of course, bring your wife," he said. "Good-night."
+
+Burke mumbled an incoherent something and fled. The next moment he found
+himself in the hall with Benton, deferential and solicitous, holding his
+coat.
+
+Again out in the crisp night air, Burke drew a long breath. Was it true?
+Had dad invited him to dinner next Sunday? _And with Helen?_ What had
+happened? Had dad's heart got the better of his pride? Had he decided
+that quarreling did not pay? Did this mean the beginning of the end? Was
+he ready to take his son back into his heart? He had not said anything,
+_really_. He had just talked in the usual way, as if nothing had
+happened. But that would be like dad. Dad hated scenes. Dad would never
+say: "I'm sorry I was so harsh with you; come back--you and Helen. I
+want you!"--and then fall to crying and kissing like a woman. Dad would
+never do that.
+
+It would be like dad just to pick up the thread of the old comradeship
+exactly where he had dropped it months ago. And that was what he had
+seemed to be doing that evening. He had talked just as he used to
+talk--except that never once had he mentioned--mother. Burke remembered
+this now, and wondered at it. It was so unusual--in dad. Had he done it
+purposely? Was there a hidden meaning back of it? He himself had not
+liked to think of mother, lately; yet, somehow, she seemed always to be
+in his mind. In spite of himself he was always wondering what she would
+think of--Helen. But, surely, dad--
+
+With his thoughts in a dizzy whirl of excitement and questionings, Burke
+thrust his key into the lock and let himself into his own apartment.
+
+The hall--never had it looked so hopelessly cheap and small. Burke,
+still under the spell of Benton's solicitous ministrations, jerked off
+his hat and coat and hung them up. Then he strode into the living-room.
+
+Helen, fully dressed, was sitting at the table, reading a magazine.
+
+"Hullo! Sitting up, are you, chicken?" he greeted her, brushing her
+cheek with his lips. "I told you not to; but maybe it's just as well you
+did-- I might have waked you," he laughed boyishly. "Guess what's
+happened!"
+
+"Got a raise?" Helen's voice was eager.
+
+Her husband frowned.
+
+"No. I got one last month, you know. I'm getting a hundred now. What
+more can you expect--in my position?" He spoke coldly, with a tinge of
+sharpness. He was wondering why Helen always managed to take the zest
+out of anything he was going to do, or say. Then, with an obvious
+effort at gayety, he went on: "It's better than a raise, chicken. Dad's
+invited us to dinner next Sunday--both of us."
+
+"To dinner! Only to dinner?"
+
+"_Only_ to dinner! Great Cæsar, Helen--_only_ to dinner!"
+
+"Well, I can't help it, Burke. It just makes me mad to see you jump and
+run and be so pleased over just a dinner, when it ought to be for every
+dinner and all the time; and you know it."
+
+"But, Helen, it isn't the _dinner_. It's that--that dad _cares_." The
+man's voice softened, and became not quite steady. "That maybe he's
+forgiven me. That he's going to be now the--the old dad that I used to
+know. Oh, Helen, I've _missed_ him so! I've--"
+
+But his wife interrupted tartly.
+
+"Well, I should think 'twas time he did forgive you--and I'm not saying
+I think there was anything to forgive, either. There wouldn't have been,
+if he hadn't tried to interfere with what was our own business--yours
+and mine."
+
+There was a brief silence. Burke, looking very white and stern, had got
+to his feet, and was moving restlessly about the room.
+
+"Did you think he was--giving in?" asked Helen at last.
+
+"He was very kind."
+
+"What did you tell him?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"About the dinner, Sunday."
+
+"I don't know, exactly. I said--something; yes, I think. I meant it for
+yes--then." The man spoke with sudden utter weariness.
+
+There was another brief silence. A dawning shrewdness was coming into
+Helen's eyes.
+
+"Oh, of course, yes. We'd want to go," she murmured. "It _might_ mean he
+was giving in, couldn't it?"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Do you think he _was_ giving in?"
+
+Still no reply.
+
+Helen scowled.
+
+"Burke, why in the world don't you answer me?" she demanded crossly.
+"You were talkative enough a minute ago, when you came in. I should
+think you might have enough thought of _my_ interests to want us to go
+to live with your father, if there's any chance of it. And while
+'twouldn't be _my_ way to jump the minute he held out his hand, yet if
+this dinner really means that we'll be going up there to live pretty
+soon, why--"
+
+"Helen!" Burke had winced visibly, as if from a blow. "_Can't_ you see
+anything, or talk anything, but our going up there to live? It's enough
+for me that dad just looked at me to-night with the old look in his
+eyes; that somehow he's smashed that confounded wall between us; that--
+But what's the use? Never mind the dinner. We won't go."
+
+"Nonsense, Burke! Don't be silly. Of course--we're going! I wouldn't
+miss it for the world--under the circumstances." And Helen, with an air
+of finality, rose to her feet to prepare for bed.
+
+Her husband, looking after her with eyes that were half resigned, half
+rebellious, for the second time that evening gave a sigh of utter
+weariness, and turned away.
+
+They went to the dinner. Helen became really very interested and
+enthusiastic in her preparations for it; and even Burke, after a time,
+seemed to regain a little of his old eagerness. They had, to be sure,
+nearly a quarrel over the dress and hat that Helen wished to wear. But
+after some argument, and not a few tears, she yielded to her husband's
+none too gently expressed abhorrence of the hat in question (which was a
+new one), and of the dress--one he had always disliked.
+
+"But I wanted to make a good impression," pouted Helen.
+
+"Exactly! So do I want you to," returned her husband significantly. And
+there the matter ended.
+
+It was not a success--that dinner. Helen, intent on making her "good
+impression," very plainly tried to be admiring, entertaining, and
+solicitous of her host's welfare and happiness. She resulted in being
+nauseatingly flattering, pert, and inquisitive. John Denby, at first
+very evidently determined to give no just cause for criticism of his own
+behavior, was the perfection of courtesy and cordiality. Even when,
+later, he was unable quite to hide his annoyance at the persistent and
+assiduous attentions and questions of his daughter-in-law, he was yet
+courteous, though in unmistakable retreat.
+
+Burke Denby--poor Burke! With every sense and sensitiveness keyed to
+instant response to each tone and word and gesture of the two before
+him, each passing minute was, to Burke, but a greater torture than the
+one preceding it. Long before dinner was over, he wished himself and
+Helen at home; and as soon as was decently possible after the meal, he
+peremptorily suggested departure.
+
+"I couldn't stand it! I couldn't stand it another minute," he told
+himself passionately, as he hurried Helen down the long elm-shaded walk
+leading to the street. "But dad--dad was a brick! And he asked us to
+come again. _Again!_ Good Heavens! As if I'd go through that again! It
+was so much worse _there_ than at home. But I'm glad he didn't put her
+in mother's chair. I don't think even I could have stood that--to-day!"
+
+"Well, that's over," murmured Helen complacently, as they turned into
+the public sidewalk,--"and well over! Still, I didn't enjoy myself so
+very much, and I don't believe you did, either," she laughed, "else you
+wouldn't have been in such a taking to get away."
+
+There was no answer. Helen, however, evidently sure of her ground, did
+not seem to notice. She yawned pleasantly.
+
+"Guess I'm sleepy. Ate too much. _'Twas_ a good dinner; and, just as I
+told your father, things always taste especially good when you don't
+get much at home. I said it on purpose. I thought maybe 'twould make him
+think."
+
+Still silence.
+
+Helen turned sharply and peered into her husband's face.
+
+"What's the matter?" she demanded suspiciously. "Why are you so glum?"
+
+Burke, instantly alert to the danger of having another scene such as had
+followed Gleason's first visit, desperately ran to cover.
+
+"Nothing, nothing!" He essayed a gay smile, and succeeded. "I'm stupid,
+that's all. Maybe I'm sleepy myself."
+
+"It can't be you're put out 'cause we came away so early! You suggested
+it yourself." Her eyes were still suspiciously bent upon him.
+
+"Not a bit of it! I wanted to come."
+
+She relaxed and took her gaze off his face. The unmistakable sincerity
+in his voice this last time had carried conviction.
+
+"Hm-m; I thought you did," she murmured contentedly again. "Still, I was
+kind of scared when you proposed it. I didn't suppose 'twas proper to
+eat and run. Mother always said so. Do you think he minded it--your
+father?"
+
+"Not a bit!" Burke, in his thankfulness to have escaped the threatened
+scene, was enabled to speak lightly, almost gayly.
+
+"Hm-m. Well, I'm glad. I wouldn't have wanted him to mind. I _tried_ to
+be 'specially nice to him, didn't I?"
+
+"You did, certainly." Burke's lips came together a little grimly; but
+Helen's eyes were turned away; and after a moment's pause she changed
+the subject--to her husband's infinite relief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A BOTTLE OF INK
+
+
+Burke Denby did not attempt to deceive himself after that Sunday dinner.
+His marriage had been a mistake, and he knew it. He was disappointed,
+ashamed, and angry. He told himself that he was heartbroken; that he
+still loved Helen dearly--only he did not like to be with her now. She
+made him nervous, and rubbed him the wrong way. Her mood never seemed to
+fit in with his. She had so many little ways--
+
+Sometimes he told himself irritably that he believed that, if it were a
+big thing like a crime that Helen had committed, he could be heroic and
+forgiving, and glory in it. But forever to battle against a succession
+of never-ending irritations, always to encounter the friction of
+antagonistic aims and ideals--it was maddening. He was ashamed of
+himself, of course. He was ashamed of lots of things that he said and
+did. But he could not help an explosion now and then. He felt as if
+somewhere, within him, was an irresistible force driving him to it.
+
+And the pity of it! Was he not, indeed, to be pitied? What had he not
+given up? As if it were his fault that he was now so disillusioned! He
+had supposed that marriage with Helen would be a fresh joy every
+morning, a new delight every evening, an unbelievable glory of
+happiness--just being together.
+
+Now--he did not want to be together. He did not want to go home to
+fretfulness, fault-finding, slovenliness, and perpetual criticism. He
+wanted to go home to peace and harmony, big, quiet rooms, servants that
+knew their business, and--dad.
+
+And that was another thing--dad. Dad had been right. He himself had been
+wrong. But that did not mean that it was easy to own up that he had been
+wrong. Sometimes he hardly knew which cut the deeper: that he had been
+proved wrong, thus losing his happiness, or that his father had been
+proved right, thus placing him in a position to hear the hated "I told
+you so."
+
+That Helen could never make him happy Burke was convinced now. Never had
+he realized this so fully as since seeing her at his father's table that
+Sunday. Never had her "ways" so irritated him. Never had he so
+poignantly realized the significance of what he had lost--and won. Never
+had he been so ashamed--or so ashamed because he was ashamed--as on that
+day. Never, he vowed, would he be placed in the same position again.
+
+As to Helen's side of the matter--Burke quite forgot that there was such
+a thing. When one is so very sorry for one's self, one forgets to be
+sorry for anybody else. And Burke was, indeed, very sorry for himself.
+Having never been in the habit of taking disagreeable medicine, he did
+not know how to take it now. Having been always accustomed to consider
+only himself, he considered only himself now. That Helen, too, might be
+disappointed and disillusioned never occurred to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was perhaps a month later that another invitation to dinner came from
+John Denby. This time Burke did not stutter out a joyous, incoherent
+acceptance. He declined so promptly and emphatically that he quite
+forgot his manners, for the moment, and had to attach to the end of his
+refusal a hurried and ineffectual "Er--thank you; you are very kind, I'm
+sure!" He looked up then and met his father's eyes. But instantly his
+gaze dropped.
+
+"Er--ah--Helen is not well at all, dad," he still further added,
+nervously. "Of course I'll speak to her. But I don't think we can come."
+
+There was a moment's pause. Then, very gravely, John Denby said: "Oh, I
+am sorry, son."
+
+Burke, with a sudden tightening of his throat, turned and walked away.
+
+"He didn't laugh, he didn't sneer, he didn't look _anyhow_, only just
+plain sorry," choked the young man to himself. "And he had such a
+magnificent chance to do--all of them. But he just--understood."
+
+Burke "spoke to Helen" that night.
+
+"Father asked us to dinner next Sunday; but--I said I didn't think we
+could go. I told him you weren't feeling well. I didn't think you'd want
+to go; and--I didn't want to go myself."
+
+Helen frowned and pouted.
+
+"Well, I've got my opinion of folks who refuse an invitation without
+even asking 'em if they want to go," she bridled. "Not that I mind much,
+in this case, though,--if it's just a dinner. I thought once, maybe he
+meant something--that he was giving in, you know. But I haven't seen any
+signs of _that_. And as for just going to dinner--I can't say I am
+'specially anxious for that--mean as I feel now."
+
+"No, I thought not," said Burke.
+
+And there the matter ended. As the summer passed, Burke fell into the
+way of going often to see his father, though never at meal-time. He went
+alone. Helen said she did not care to go, and that she did not _see_
+what fun Burke could find in it, anyway.
+
+To Burke, these hours that he spent with his father chatting and smoking
+in the dim old library, or on the vine-shaded veranda, were like a
+breeze blowing across the desert of existence--like water in a thirsty
+land. From day to day he planned for these visits. From hour to hour he
+lived upon them.
+
+To all appearances John Denby and his son had picked up their old
+comradeship exactly where the marriage had severed it. Even to Burke's
+watchful, sensitive eyes the "wall" seemed quite gone. There was,
+however, one difference: mother was never mentioned. John Denby never
+spoke of her now.
+
+There was plenty to talk about. There were all the old interests, and
+there was business. Burke was giving himself heart and soul to business
+these days. In July he won another promotion, and was given an advance
+in wages. Often, to Burke's infinite joy, his father consulted him about
+matters and things quite beyond his normal position, and showed in other
+ways his approval of his son's progress. Helen, the marriage, and the
+Dale Street home life were never mentioned--for which Burke was
+thankful.
+
+"He _couldn't_ say anything I'd want to hear," said Burke to himself, at
+times. "And I--_I_ can't say anything _he_ wants to hear. Best forget
+it--if we can."
+
+To "forget it" seemed, indeed, in these days, to be Burke's aim and
+effort. Always had Burke tried to forget things. From the day his
+six-months-old fingers had flung the offending rattle behind him had
+Burke endeavored to thrust out of sight and mind everything that
+annoyed--and Helen and marriage had become very annoying.
+Systematically, therefore, he was trying to forget them. His attitude,
+indeed, was not unlike that of a small boy who, weary of his game of
+marbles, cries, "Oh, come, let's play something else. I'm tired of
+this!"--an attitude which, naturally, was not conducive to happiness,
+either for himself or for any one else--particularly as the game he was
+playing was marriage, not marbles.
+
+The summer passed and October came. Life at the Dale Street flat had
+settled into a monotony of discontent and dreariness. Helen,
+discouraged, disappointed, and far from well, dragged through the
+housework day by day, wishing each night that it were morning, and each
+morning that it were night--a state of mind scarcely conducive to
+happiness on her part.
+
+For all that Burke was away so many evenings now, Helen was not so
+lonely as she had been in the spring; for in Mrs. Jones's place had come
+a new neighbor, Mrs. Cobb. And Mrs. Cobb was even brighter and more
+original than Mrs. Jones ever was, and Helen liked her very much. She
+was a mine of information as to housekeeping secrets, and she was
+teaching Helen how to make the soft and dainty little garments that
+would be needed in November. But she talked even more loudly than Mrs.
+Jones had talked; and her laugh was nearly always the first sound that
+Burke heard across the hall every morning. Moreover, she possessed a
+phonograph which, according to Helen, played "perfectly grand tunes";
+and some one of these tunes was usually the first thing that Burke heard
+every night when he came home. So he called her coarse and noisy, and
+declared she was even worse than Mrs. Jones; whereat Helen retorted that
+of course he _wouldn't_ like her, if _she_ did--which (while possibly
+true) did not make him like either her or Mrs. Cobb any better.
+
+The baby came in November. It was a little girl. Helen wanted to call
+her "Vivian Mabelle." She said she thought that was a swell name, and
+that it was the name of her favorite heroine in a perfectly grand book.
+But Burke objected strenuously. He declared very emphatically that no
+daughter of his should have to go through life tagged like a vaudeville
+fly-by-night.
+
+Of course Helen cried, and of course Burke felt ashamed of himself.
+Helen's tears had always been a potent weapon--though, from over-use,
+they were fast losing a measure of their power. The first time he saw
+her cry, the foundations of the earth sank beneath him, and he dropped
+into a fathomless abyss from which he thought he would never rise. It
+was the same the next time, and the next. The fourth time, as he felt
+the now familiar sensation of sinking down, down, down, he outflung
+desperate hands and found an unexpected support--his temper. After that
+it was always with him. It helped to tinge with righteous indignation
+his despair, and it kept him from utterly melting into weak
+subserviency. Still, even yet, he was not used to them--his wife's
+tears. Sometimes he fled from them; sometimes he endured them in dumb
+despair behind set teeth; sometimes he raved and ranted in a way he was
+always ashamed of afterwards. But still they had the power, in a
+measure, to make his heart like water within him.
+
+So now, about the baby's name, he called himself a brute and a beast to
+bring tears to the eyes of the little mother--toward whom, since the
+baby's advent, he felt a remorseful tenderness. But he still maintained
+that he could have no man, or woman, call his daughter "Vivian Mabelle."
+
+"But I should think you'd let me name my own baby," wailed his wife.
+
+Burke choked back a hasty word and assumed his pet
+"I'll-be-patient-if-it-kills-me" air.
+
+"And you shall name it," he soothed her. "Listen! Here are pencil and
+paper. Now, write down a whole lot of names that you'd like, and I'll
+promise to select one of them. Then you'll be naming the baby all right.
+See?"
+
+Helen did not "see," quite, that she would be naming the baby; but,
+knowing from past experience of her husband's temper that resistance
+would be unpleasant, she obediently took the paper and spent some time
+writing down a list of names.
+
+Burke frowned a good deal when he saw the list, and declared that it was
+pretty poor pickings, and that he ought to have known better than to
+have bound himself to a silly-fool promise like that. But he chose a
+name (he said he would keep his word, of course), and he selected
+"Dorothy Elizabeth" as being less impossible than its accompanying
+"Veras," "Violets," and "Clarissa Muriels."
+
+For the first few months after the baby's advent, Burke spent much more
+time at home, and seemed very evidently to be trying to pay especial
+attention to his wife's comfort and welfare. He was proud of the baby,
+and declared it was the cutest little kid going. He poked it in its
+ribs, thrust a tentative finger into the rose-leaf of a hand (emitting a
+triumphant chuckle of delight when the rose-leaf became a tightly
+clutching little fist), and even allowed the baby to be placed one or
+twice in his rather reluctant and fearful arms. But, for the most part,
+he contented himself with merely looking at it, and asking how soon it
+would walk and talk, and when would it grow its teeth and hair.
+
+Burke was feeling really quite keenly these days the solemnity and
+responsibility of fatherhood. He had called into being a new soul. A
+little life was in his hands to train. By and by this tiny pink roll of
+humanity would be a prattling child, a little girl, a young lady. And
+all the way she would be turning to him for companionship and guidance.
+It behooved him, indeed, to look well to himself, that he should be in
+all ways a fit pattern.
+
+It was a solemn thought. No more tempers, tantrums, and impatience. No
+more idle repinings and useless regrets. What mattered it if he were
+disillusioned and heartsick? Did he want this child of his, this
+beautiful daughter, to grow up in such an atmosphere? Never! At once,
+therefore, he must begin to cultivate patience, contentment,
+tranquillity, and calmness of soul. He, the pattern, must be all things
+that he would wish her to be.
+
+And how delightful it would be when she was old enough to meet him on
+his own ground--to be a companion for him, the companion he had not
+found in his wife! She would be pretty, of course, sweet-tempered, and
+cheerful. (Was he not to train her himself?) She would be capable and
+sensible, too. He would see to that. To no man, in the future, should
+she bring the tragedy of disillusionment that her mother had brought to
+_him_. No, indeed! For that matter, however, he should not let her marry
+any one for a long time. He should keep her himself. Perhaps he would
+not let her marry at all. He did not think much of this marriage
+business, anyway. Not that he was going to show that feeling any longer
+now, of course. From now on he was to show only calm contentment and
+tranquillity of soul, no matter what the circumstances. Was he not a
+father? Had he not, in the hollow of his hand, a precious young life to
+train?
+
+Again all this was very well in theory. But in practice--
+
+Dorothy Elizabeth was not six months old before the young father
+discovered that parenthood changed conditions, not people. He felt just
+as irritated at the way Helen buttered a whole slice of bread at a time,
+and said "swell" and "you was," as before; just as impatient because he
+could not buy what he wanted; just as annoyed at the purple cushion on
+the red sofa.
+
+He was surprised and disappointed. He told himself that he had supposed
+that when a fellow made good resolutions, he was given some show of a
+chance to keep them. But as if any one _could_ cultivate calm
+contentment and tranquillity of soul as he was situated!
+
+First, there were not only all his old disappointments and annoyances to
+contend with, but a multitude of new ones. It was as if, indeed, each
+particular torment had taken unto itself wife and children, so numerous
+had they become. There was really now no peace at home. There was
+nothing but the baby. He had not supposed that any one thing or person
+could so monopolize everything and everybody.
+
+When the baby was awake, Helen acted as if she thought the earth swung
+on its axis solely to amuse it. When it slept, she seemed to think the
+earth ought to stand still--lest it wake Baby up. With the same
+wholesale tyranny she marshaled into line everything and everybody on
+the earth, plainly regarding nothing and no one as of consequence,
+except in its relationship to Baby.
+
+Such unimportant things as meals and housework, in comparison with Baby,
+were of even less than second consequence; and Burke grew to feel
+himself more and more an alien and a nuisance in his own home. Moreover,
+where before he had found disorder and untidiness, he now found positive
+chaos. And however fond he was of the Baby, he grew unutterably weary of
+searching for his belongings among Baby's rattles, balls, shirts, socks,
+milk bottles, blankets, and powder-puffs.
+
+The "cool, calm serenity" of his determination he found it difficult to
+realize; and the delights and responsibilities of fatherhood began to
+pall upon him. It looked to be so long a way ahead, even to teeth,
+talking, and walking, to say nothing of the charm and companionship of a
+young lady daughter!
+
+Children were all very well, of course,--very desirable. But did they
+never do anything but cry? Couldn't they be taught that nights were for
+sleep, and that other people in the house had some rights besides
+themselves? And must they _always_ choose four o'clock in the morning
+for a fit of the colic? Helen said it was colic. For his part, he
+believed it was nothing more or less than temper--plain, right-down
+temper!
+
+And so it went. Another winter passed, and spring came. Matters were no
+better, but rather worse. A series of incompetent maids had been adding
+considerably to the expense--and little to the comfort--of the
+household. Helen, as a mistress, was not a success. She understood
+neither her own duties nor those of the maid--which resulted in short
+periods of poor service and frequent changes.
+
+July came with its stifling heat, and Dorothy Elizabeth, now twenty
+months old, showed a daily increasing disapproval of life in general and
+of her own existence in particular. Helen, worn and worried, and half
+sick from care and loss of sleep, grew day by day more fretful, more
+difficult to get along with. Burke, also half sick from loss of sleep,
+and consumed with a fierce, inward rebellion against everything and
+everybody, including himself, was no less difficult to get along with.
+
+Of course this state of affairs could not continue forever. The tension
+had to snap sometime. And it snapped--over a bottle of ink in a baby's
+hand.
+
+It happened on Bridget's "afternoon out," when Helen was alone with the
+baby. Dorothy Elizabeth, propped up in her high-chair beside the
+dining-room table, where her mother was writing a letter, reached
+covetous hands toward the fascinating little fat black bottle. The next
+instant a wild shout of glee and an inky tide surging from an
+upside-down bottle, held high above a golden head, told that the quest
+had been successful.
+
+Things happened then very fast. There were a dismayed cry from Helen,
+half a-dozen angry spats on a tiny hand, a series of shrieks from
+Dorothy Elizabeth, and a rapidly spreading inky pall over baby, dress,
+table, rug, and Helen's new frock.
+
+At that moment Burke appeared in the door.
+
+With wrathful eyes he swept the scene before him, losing not one detail
+of scolding woman, shrieking child, dinnerless table, and inky chaos.
+Then he strode into the room.
+
+"Well, by George!" he snapped. "Nice restful place for a tired man to
+come to, isn't it? This is your idea of a happy home, I suppose!"
+
+The overwrought wife and mother, with every nerve tingling, turned
+sharply.
+
+"Oh, yes, that's right--blame me! Blame me for everything! Maybe you
+think _I_ think this is a happy, restful place, too! Maybe you think
+this is what _I_ thought 'twould be--being married to you! But I can
+tell you it just isn't! Maybe you think I ain't tired of working and
+pinching and slaving, and never having any fun, and being scolded and
+blamed all the time because I don't eat and walk and stand up and sit
+down the way you want me to, and-- Where are you goin'?" she broke off,
+as her husband reached for the hat he had just tossed aside, and started
+for the door.
+
+Burke turned quietly. His face was very white.
+
+"I'm going down to the square to get something to eat. Then I'm going up
+to father's. And--you needn't sit up for me. I shall stay all night."
+
+"_All--night!_"
+
+"Yes. I'd like to sleep--for once. And that's what I can't do--here."
+The next moment the door had banged behind him.
+
+Helen, left alone with the baby, fell back limply.
+
+"Why, Baby, he--he--" Then she caught the little ink-stained figure to
+her and began to cry convulsively.
+
+In the street outside Burke strode along with his head high and his jaw
+sternly set. He was very angry. He told himself that he had a right to
+be angry. Surely a man was entitled to _some_ consideration!
+
+In spite of it all, however, there was, in a far-away corner of his
+soul, an uneasy consciousness of a tiny voice of scorn dubbing this
+running away of his the act of a coward and a cad.
+
+Very resolutely, however, he silenced this voice by recounting again to
+himself how really abused he was. It was a long story. It served to
+occupy his mind all through the unappetizing meal he tried to eat at the
+cheap restaurant before climbing Elm Hill.
+
+His father greeted him cordially, and with no surprise in voice or
+manner--which was what Burke had expected, inasmuch as he had again
+fallen into the way of spending frequent evenings at the old home.
+To-night, however, Burke himself was constrained and ill at ease. His
+jaw was still firmly set and his head was still high; but his heart was
+beginning to fail him, and his mind was full of questionings.
+
+How would his father take it--this proposition to stay all night? He
+would understand something of what it meant. He could not help but
+understand. But what would he say? How would he act? Would he say in
+actions, if not in words, that dreaded "I told you so"? Would it unseal
+his lips on a subject so long tabooed, and set him into a lengthy
+dissertation on the foolishness of his son's marriage? Burke believed
+that, as he felt now, he could not stand that; but he could stand less
+easily going back to the Dale Street flat that night. He could go to a
+hotel, of course. But he did not want to do that. He wanted dad. But he
+did not want dad--to talk.
+
+"How's the baby?" asked John Denby, as Burke dropped himself into a
+chair on the cool, quiet veranda. "I thought she was not looking very
+well the last time Helen wheeled her up here." Always John Denby's first
+inquiry now was for his little granddaughter.
+
+"Eh? The baby? Oh, she--she's all right. That is"--Burke paused for a
+short laugh--"she's _well_."
+
+John Denby took his cigar from his lips and turned sharply.
+
+"But she's _not_--all right?"
+
+Burke laughed again.
+
+"Oh, yes, she's all right, too, I suppose," he retorted, a bit grimly.
+"But she was--er--humph! Well, I'll tell you." And he gave a graphic
+description of his return home that night.
+
+"Jove, what a mess!--and _ink_, too," ejaculated John Denby, with more
+than a tinge of sympathy in his voice. "How'd she ever manage to clean
+it up?"
+
+Burke shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Ask me something easy. I don't know, I'm sure. I cleared out."
+
+"Without--your dinner?" John Denby asked the question after a very
+brief, but very tense, silence.
+
+"My dinner--I got in the square."
+
+Burke's lips snapped together again tight shut. John Denby said nothing.
+His eyes were gravely fixed on the glowing tip of the cigar in his hand.
+
+Burke cleared his throat and hesitated. He had not intended to ask his
+question quite so soon; but suddenly he was consumed with an
+overwhelming desire to speak out and get it over. He cleared his throat
+again.
+
+"Dad--would you mind--my sleeping here to-night? It's just that I--I
+want a good night's sleep, for once," he plunged on hurriedly, in answer
+to a swift something that he saw leap to his father's eyes. "And I can't
+get it there--with the baby and all."
+
+There was a perceptible pause. Then, steadily, and with easy cordiality,
+came John Denby's reply.
+
+"Why, certainly, my boy. I'm glad to have you. I'll ring at once for
+Benton to see that--that your old room is made ready for you," he added,
+touching a push-button near his chair.
+
+Later, when Benton had come and gone, with his kindly old face alight
+and eager, Burke braced himself for what he thought was inevitable.
+Something would come, of course. The only question was, what would it
+be?
+
+But nothing came--that is, nothing in the nature of what Burke had
+expected. John Denby, after Benton had left the veranda, turned to his
+son with a pleasantly casual--
+
+"Oh, Brett was saying to-day that the K. & O. people had granted us an
+extension of time on that bridge contract."
+
+"Er--yes," plunged in Burke warmly. And with the words, every taut nerve
+and muscle in his body relaxed as if cut in twain.
+
+It came later, though, when he had ceased to look for it. It came just
+as he was thinking of saying good-night.
+
+"It has occurred to me, son," broached John Denby, after a short pause,
+"that Helen may be tired and in sore need of a rest."
+
+Burke caught his breath, and held it a moment suspended. When before had
+his father mentioned Helen, save to speak of her casually in connection
+with the baby?
+
+"Er--er--y-yes, very likely," he stammered, a sudden vision coming to
+him of Helen as he had seen her on the floor in the midst of the inky
+chaos a short time before.
+
+"You're not the only one that isn't finding the present state of affairs
+a--a bed of roses, Burke," said John Denby then.
+
+"Er--ah--n-no," muttered the amazed husband. In his ears now rang
+Helen's--"Maybe you think I ain't tired of working and pinching and
+slaving!" Involuntarily he shivered and glanced at his father--dad could
+not, of course, have _heard_!
+
+"I have a plan to propose," announced John Denby quietly, after a
+moment's silence. "As I said, I think Helen needs a rest--and a change.
+I've seen quite a little of her since the baby came, you know, and I've
+noticed--many things. I will send her a check for ten thousand dollars
+to-morrow if she will take the baby and go away for a time--say, to her
+old home for a visit. But there is one other condition," he continued,
+lifting a quick hand to silence Burke's excited interruption. "I need a
+rest and change myself. I should like to go to Alaska again; and I'd
+like to have you go with me. Will you go?"
+
+Burke sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down the wide veranda.
+(From boyhood Burke had always "thrashed things out" on his feet.) For a
+full minute now he said nothing. Then, abruptly, he stopped and wheeled
+about. His face was very white.
+
+"Dad, I can't. It seems too much like--like--"
+
+"No, it isn't in the least like quitting, or running away," supplied
+John Denby, reading unerringly his son's hesitation. "You're not
+quitting at all. I'm asking you to go. Indeed, I'm begging you to go,
+Burke. I want you. I need you. I'm not an old man, I know; but I feel
+like one. These last two years have not been--er--a bed of roses for me,
+either." In spite of a certain lightness in his words, the man's voice
+shook a little. "I don't think you know, boy, how your old dad
+has--missed you."
+
+"Don't I? I can--guess." Burke wheeled and resumed his nervous stride.
+The words, as he flung them out, were at once a challenge and an
+admission. "But--Helen--" He stopped short, waiting.
+
+"I've answered that. I've told you. Helen needs a rest and a change."
+
+Again to the distraught husband's ears came the echo of a woman's
+wailing--"Maybe you think I ain't tired of working and pinching and
+slaving--"
+
+"Then you don't think Helen will feel that I'm running away?" A growing
+hope was in his eyes, but his brow still carried its frown of doubt.
+
+"Not if she has a check for--ten thousand dollars," replied John Denby,
+a bit grimly.
+
+Burke winced. A painful red reached his forehead.
+
+"It is, indeed, a large sum, sir,--too large," he resented, with sudden
+stiffness. "Thank you; but I'm afraid we can't accept it, after all."
+
+John Denby saw his mistake at once; but he did not make the second
+mistake of showing it.
+
+"Nonsense!" he laughed lightly, with no sign of the sudden panic of
+fear within him lest the look on his son's face meant the downfall of
+all his plans. "I made it large purposely. Remember, I'm borrowing her
+husband for a season; and she needs some recompense! Besides, it'll mean
+a playday for herself. You'll not be so unjust to Helen as to refuse her
+the means to enjoy that!--not that she'll spend it all for that, of
+course. But it will be a comfortable feeling to know that she has it."
+
+"Y-yes, of course," hesitated Burke, still frowning.
+
+"Then we'll call that settled."
+
+"I know; but-- Of course if you put it _that_ way, why, I--"
+
+"Well, I do put it just that way," nodded the father lightly. "Now,
+let's go in. I've got some maps and time-tables I want you to see. I'm
+planning a different route from the one we took with the doctor--a
+better one, I think. But let's see what you say. Come!" And he led the
+way to the library.
+
+Burke's head came up alertly. His shoulders lost their droop and his
+brow its frown. A new light flamed into his eyes and a new springiness
+leaped into his step. Always, from the time his two-year-old lips had
+begged to "see the wheels go 'round," had Burke's chief passion and
+delight been traveling. As he bent now over the maps and time-tables
+that his father spread before him, voice and hands fairly trembled with
+eagerness. Then suddenly a chance word sent him to his feet again, the
+old look of despair on his face.
+
+"Dad, I can't," he choked. "I can't be a quitter. You don't want me to
+be!"
+
+[Illustration: JOHN DENBY WENT STRAIGHT TO HIS SON AND LAID BOTH HANDS
+ON HIS SHOULDERS]
+
+With a sharp word John Denby, too, leaped to his feet. Something of the
+dogged persistence that had won for him wealth and power glowed in his
+eyes as he went straight to his son and laid both hands on his
+shoulders.
+
+"Burke, I had not meant to say this," he began quietly; "but perhaps
+it's just as well that I do. Possibly you think I've been blind all
+these past months; but I haven't. I've seen--a good deal. Now I want you
+and Helen to be happy. I don't want to see your life--or hers--wrecked.
+I believe there's a chance yet for you two people to travel together
+with some measure of peace and comfort, and I'm trying to give you that
+chance. There's just one thing to do, I believe, and that is--to be away
+from each other for a while. You both need it. For weeks I've been
+planning and scheming how it could be done. How do you suppose I
+happened to have this Alaska trip all cut and dried even down to the
+train and boat schedules, if I hadn't done some thinking? To-night came
+my chance. So I spoke."
+
+"But--to be a quitter!"
+
+"You're not quitting. You're--stopping to get your breath."
+
+"There's--my work."
+
+"You've made good, and more than good there, son. I've been proud of
+you--every inch of the way. You're no quitter there."
+
+"Thanks, dad!" Only the sudden mist in his eyes and the shake in his
+voice showed how really moved Burke was. "But--Helen," he stammered
+then.
+
+"Will be better off without you--for a time."
+
+"And--I?"
+
+"Will be better off without her--for the same time. While I--shall be,
+oh, so infinitely better off _with_ you. Ah, son, but I've missed you
+so!" It was the same longing cry that had gone straight to Burke's heart
+a few minutes before. "You'll come?"
+
+There was a tense silence. Burke's face plainly showed the struggle
+within him. A moment more, and he spoke.
+
+"Dad, I'll have to think it out," he temporized brokenly. "I'll let you
+know in the morning."
+
+"Good!" If John Denby was disappointed, he did not show it. "We'll let
+it go till morning, then. Meanwhile, it can do no harm to look at these,
+however," he smiled, with a wave of his hand toward the maps and
+time-tables.
+
+"No, of course not," acquiesced Burke promptly, relieved that his father
+agreed so willingly to the delay.
+
+Half an hour later he went upstairs to his old room to bed.
+
+It was a fine old room. He had forgotten that a bedroom could be so
+large--and so convenient. Benton, plainly, had been there. Also,
+plainly, his hand had not lost its cunning, nor his brain the memory of
+how Master Burke "liked things."
+
+The arrangement of the lights, the glass of milk by his bed, the
+turned-down spread and sheet, the latest magazine ready to his
+hand--even the size and number of towels in his bathroom testified to
+Benton's loving hand and good memory.
+
+With a sigh that was almost a sob Burke dropped himself into a chair and
+looked about him.
+
+It was all so peaceful, so restful, so comfortable. And it was so quiet.
+He had forgotten that a room could be so quiet.
+
+In spite of his weariness, Burke's preparations for bed were both
+lengthy and luxurious--he had forgotten what absolute content lay in
+plenty of space, towels, and hot water, to say nothing of soap that was
+in its proper place, and did not have to be fished out of a baby-basket
+or a kitchen sink.
+
+Burke did not intend to go to sleep at once. He intended first to settle
+in his mind what he would do with this proposition of his father's. He
+would have to refuse it, of course. It would not do. Still, he ought to
+give it proper consideration for dad's sake. That much was due dad.
+
+He stretched himself luxuriously on the bed (he had forgotten that a bed
+could be so soft and so "just right") and began to think. But the next
+thing he knew he was waking up.
+
+His first feeling was a half-unconscious but delightful sensation of
+physical comfort. His next a dazed surprise as his slowly opened eyes
+encountered shapes and shadows and arc-light beams on the walls and
+ceiling quite unlike those in his Dale Street bedroom. Then instantly
+came a vague but poignant impression that "something had happened,"
+followed almost as quickly by full realization.
+
+Like a panorama, then, the preceding evening lay before him: Helen, the
+crying baby, the trailing ink, the angry words, the flight, dad, his
+welcome, the pleasant chat, the remarkable proposition. Oh, yes! And it
+was of the proposition that he was going to think. He could not accept
+it, of course, but--
+
+What a trump dad had been to offer it! What a trump he had been in the
+_way_ he offered it, too! What a trump he had been all through about it,
+for that matter. Not a word of reproach, not a hint of patronage. Not
+even a look that could be construed into that hated "I told you so."
+Just a straight-forward offer of this check for Helen, and the trip for
+himself, and actually in a casual, matter-of-fact tone of voice as if
+ten-thousand-dollar checks and Alaskan trips were everyday occurrences.
+
+But they weren't! A trip like that did not drop into a man's plate every
+day. Of course he could not take it--but what a dandy one it would be!
+And with dad--!
+
+For that matter, dad really needed him. Dad ought not to go off like
+that alone, and so far. Besides, dad _wanted_ him. How his voice had
+trembled when he had said, "I don't think you know, boy, how your old
+dad has missed you"! As if he didn't, indeed! As if he hadn't done
+_some_ missing on his own account!
+
+And the check. Of course he could not let Helen accept that,
+either,--ten thousand dollars! But how generous of dad to offer it--and
+of course it _would_ be good for Helen. Poor Helen! She needed a rest,
+all right, and she deserved one. It _would_ be fine for her to go back
+to her old home town for a little while, and no mistake. Not that she
+would need to spend the whole ten thousand dollars on that, of course.
+But even a little slice of a sum like that would give her all the frills
+and furbelows she wanted for herself and the baby, and send them into
+the country for all the rest of the summer, besides leaving nine-tenths
+of it for a nest-egg for the future. And what a comfortable feeling it
+would give her--always a little money when she wanted it for anything!
+No more of the hated pinching and starving, for he should tell her to
+spend it and take some comfort with it. That was what it was for.
+Besides, when it was gone, _he_ would have some for her. What a boon it
+would be to her--that ten thousand dollars! Of course, looking at it in
+that light, it was almost his _duty_ to accept the proposition, and give
+her the chance to have it.
+
+But then, after all, he couldn't. Why, it was like accepting charity; he
+hadn't earned it. Still, if hard work and anguish of mind counted, he
+_had_ earned it twice over, slaving away at the beck of Brett and his
+minions. And he had made good--so far. Dad had said so. What a trump dad
+was to speak as he did! And when _dad_ said a thing like that, it meant
+something!
+
+Well, there was nothing to do, of course, but to go back and buckle down
+to work--and to life in the Dale Street flat. To be sure, there was the
+baby. Of course he was fond of the baby; and it was highly interesting
+to see her achieve teeth, hair, a backbone, and sense--if only she would
+hurry up a little faster, though. Did babies always take so long to grow
+up?
+
+Burke stretched himself luxuriously and gazed about the room. The
+arc-light outside had gone out and dawn was approaching. More and more
+distinctly each loved object in the room was coming into view. To his
+nostrils came the perfume of the roses and honeysuckles in the garden
+below his window. To his ears came the chirp and twitter of the
+bird-calls from the trees. Over his senses stole the soothing peace of
+absolute physical ease.
+
+Once more, drowsily, he went back to his father's offer. Once more, in
+his mind, he argued it--but this time with a difference. Thus, so
+potent, sometimes, is the song of a bird, the scent of a flower, the
+shape of a loved, familiar object, or even the feel of a soft bed
+beneath one.
+
+After all, might he not be making a serious mistake if he did not accede
+to his father's wishes? Of course, so far as he, personally, was
+concerned, the answer would be an unequivocal refusal of the offer. But
+there was his father to consider, and there was Helen to think of; yes,
+and the baby. How much better it would be for them--for all of them, if
+he accepted it!
+
+Helen and the baby could have months of fresh air, ease, and happiness
+without delay, to say nothing of innumerable advantages later. Why, when
+you came to think of it, that would be enough, if there were nothing
+else! But there was something else. There was dad. Good old dad! How
+happy he'd be! Besides, dad really needed him. How ever had he thought
+for a moment of sending dad off to Alaska alone, and just after an
+illness, too! What could he be thinking of to consider it for a moment?
+That settled it. He should go. He would stifle all silly feelings of
+pride and the like, and he would make dad, Helen, and the baby happy.
+
+Which question having been satisfactorily decided, Burke turned over and
+settled himself for a doze before breakfast. He did not get it, however.
+His mind was altogether too full of time-tables, boat schedules,
+mountain peaks, and forest trails.
+
+Jove, but that was going to be a dandy trip!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was later, while Burke was leisurely dressing and planning out the
+day before him, that the bothersome question came to him as to how he
+should tell Helen. He was reminded, also, emphatically, of the probable
+scene in store for him when he should go home at six o'clock that night.
+And he hated scenes. For that matter, there would probably be another
+one, too, when he told her that he was going away for a time. To be
+sure, there was the ten-thousand-dollar check; and of course very soon
+he could convince her that it was really all for her best happiness.
+After she gave it a little thought, it would be all right, he was
+positive, but there was certain to be some unpleasantness at first,
+particularly as she was sure to be not a little difficult over his
+running--er--rather, _going_ away the night before. And he wished he
+could avoid it in some way. If only he did not have to go home--
+
+His face cleared suddenly. Why, of course! He would write. How stupid of
+him not to have thought of it before! He could say, then, just what he
+wanted to say, and she would have a chance to think it over calmly and
+sensibly, and see how really fine it was for her and the baby. That was
+the way to do it, and the only way. Writing, he could not be unnerved by
+her tears (of course she would cry at first--she always cried!) or
+exasperated into saying things he would be sorry for afterwards. He
+could say just enough, and not too much, in a letter, and say it right.
+Then, early in the following week, just before he was to start on his
+trip he would go down to the Dale Street house and spend the last two or
+three days with Helen and the baby, picking up his traps, and planning
+with Helen some of the delightful things she could do with that ten
+thousand dollars. By that time she would, of course, have entirely
+come around to his point of view (even if she had not seen it quite
+that way at first), and they could have a few really happy days
+together--something which would be quite impossible if they should meet
+now, with the preceding evening fresh in their minds, and have one of
+their usual wretched scenes of tears, recriminations, and wranglings.
+
+For the present, then, he would stay where he was. Helen would be all
+right--with Bridget. His father would be overjoyed, he knew; and as for
+the few toilet necessities--he could buy those. He needed some new
+things to take away. So that was settled.
+
+With a mind at rest again and a heart aflame with joy, Burke hurried
+into his garments and skipped downstairs like a boy.
+
+His face, before his lips got a chance, told his father of his decision.
+But his lips did not lag long behind. He had expected that his father
+would be pleased; but he was not quite prepared for the depth of emotion
+that shook his father's voice and dimmed his father's eyes, and that
+ended the half-uttered declaration of joy with what was very near a sob.
+If anything, indeed, were needed to convince Burke that he was doing
+just right in taking this trip with his father, it could be needed no
+longer after the look of ineffable peace and joy on that father's face.
+
+Breakfast, with so much to talk of, prolonged itself like a college
+spread, until Burke, with a cry of dismay, pulled out his watch and
+leaped to his feet.
+
+"Jove! Do you know what time it is, dad?" he cried laughingly. "Behold
+how this life of luxury has me already in its clutches! I should have
+been off an hour ago."
+
+John Denby lifted a detaining hand.
+
+"Not so fast, my boy," he smiled. "I've got you, and I mean to keep
+you--a few minutes longer."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Oh, I telephoned Brett this morning that you wouldn't be down till
+late, if you came at all."
+
+"You telephoned _this morning_!" puzzled Burke, sinking slowly into his
+chair again. "But you didn't know then that I--" He stopped once more.
+
+"No, I didn't know then that you'd agree to my proposition," answered
+John Denby, with a characteristically grim smile. "But I knew, if you
+did agree, we'd _both_ have some talking to do. And if you didn't--_I_
+should. I meant still to convince you, you see."
+
+"I see," nodded the younger man, smiling in his turn.
+
+"So I wouldn't go down this morning. We've lots of plans to make.
+Besides, there's your letter."
+
+"Yes, there's--my--letter." This time the young man did not smile. "I've
+got to write my letter, of course."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BY ADVICE OF COUNSEL
+
+
+Helen Denby received the letter from her husband at two o'clock by a
+special messenger.
+
+Helen had passed a sleepless night and an unhappy morning. The surge of
+bitter anger which at first, like the ink, had blackened everything it
+touched, soon spent itself, and left her weak and trembling. Dorothy
+Elizabeth, after her somewhat upsetting day, sank into an unusually
+sound slumber; but her mother, all through the long night watches, lay
+with sleepless eyes staring into the dark, thinking.
+
+Helen was very angry with Burke. There was no gainsaying that. She was a
+little frightened, too, at what she herself had said. In a soberer
+moment she would not have spoken quite like that, certainly. But it had
+been so hateful--his asking if she called that a happy home! As if she
+did not want a happy home as much as he ever could!
+
+To Helen, then, came her old vision of the daintily gowned wife
+welcoming her husband to the well-kept home; and all in the dark her
+cheek flushed hot.
+
+How far short, indeed, of that ideal had she fallen! And she was going
+to be such a help to Burke; such an inspiration; such a guide,
+counselor, and friend! (Swiftly the words came galloping out of that
+long-forgotten honeymoon.) Had she helped him? Had she been an
+inspiration, and a guide, and a counselor, and a friend? Poor Burke! He
+_had_ given up a good deal for her sake. (With the consciousness of that
+vacant pillow by her side, a wave of remorseful tenderness swept over
+her.) And of course it must have been hard for him. They had told him
+not to marry her, too. They had warned him that she was not suited to
+him, that she would drag him--
+
+With a low cry Helen sat up in bed suddenly.
+
+"_Drag him down!_"
+
+Had she dragged him down? No, no, not that--never that! She had been
+careless and thoughtless. She had not been a good housekeeper; and maybe
+sometimes she had been fretful and fault-finding, and--and horrid. But
+she loved him dearly. She had always loved him. It only needed something
+like this to show her how much she loved him. Why, he was Burke, her
+husband--Baby's father! As if ever she could let it be said that she had
+dragged him down!
+
+Quivering, shaken with sobs, she fell back on the pillow. For a few
+moments she cried on convulsively. Then, with a tremulous indrawn
+breath, she opened her eyes and stared into the dark again. A new
+thought had come to her.
+
+But there was time yet. Nothing dreadful had happened. She would show
+Burke, his friends, everybody, that she had not dragged him down. From
+now on she would try. Oh, how she would try! He should see. He _should_
+find a happy home when he came at night. She knew more, now, than she
+did, about housekeeping. Besides, there was more money now,--a little
+more,--and she had some one to help her with the work. Bridget was
+really doing very well; and there was Mrs. Cobb, so kind and helpful.
+She would go to her for advice always. Never again should Burke come
+home and find such a looking place. Baby should be washed and dressed.
+She herself would be dressed and waiting. Dinner, too, even on Bridget's
+day out, should be all ready and waiting. As if ever again she would run
+the risk of Burke's having to flee from his own home because he could
+not stand it! He should see!
+
+It was in this softened, exalted state of mind that Helen rose the next
+morning and proceeded to begin the carrying-out of her vows, by essaying
+the almost hopeless task (with Bridget's not overcheerful assistance) of
+putting into spotless order the entire apartment.
+
+At two o'clock, when Burke's letter came, she was utterly weary and
+almost sick; but she was still in the softened, exalted state of the
+early morning.
+
+With a wondering, half-frightened little cry at sight of the familiar
+writing, she began to read. John Denby's check for ten thousand dollars
+had fallen into her lap unnoticed.
+
+     _My dear Helen_ [she read]: First let me apologize for
+     flying off the handle the way I did last night. I shouldn't
+     have done it. But, do you know? I believe I'm glad I
+     did--for it's taught me something. Maybe you've discovered
+     it, too. It's this: you and I have been getting on each
+     other's nerves, lately. We need a rest from each other.
+
+     Now, don't bristle up and take it wrong, my dear. Just be
+     sensible and think. How many times a day do we snap and
+     snarl at each other? You're tired and half sick with the
+     work and the baby. I'm tired and half sick with _my_ work,
+     and we're always rubbing each other the wrong way. That's
+     why I think we need a vacation from each other. And dad has
+     made it possible for us to take one. He wants me to go to
+     Alaska with him on a little trip. I want to go, of course.
+     Then, too, I think I ought to go. Dad needs me. Not that he
+     is old, but he is just getting over an illness, and his head
+     bothers him a lot. I can be of real use to him.
+
+     At his own suggestion he is sending you the enclosed check.
+     He wants you to accept it with his best wishes for a
+     pleasant vacation. He suggests--and I echo him--that it
+     would be a fine idea if you should take the baby and go back
+     to your home town for a visit. I know your father and mother
+     are not living; but there must be some one there whom you
+     would like to visit. Or, better yet, now that you have the
+     means, you would probably prefer a good hotel for
+     headquarters, and then make short visits to all your
+     friends. It would do you worlds of good, and Baby, too.
+
+     And now--I'm writing this instead of coming to tell it face
+     to face, because I believe it's the best way. I'll be frank.
+     After last night, we might say things when we first met that
+     we'd be sorry for. And I don't want that to happen. So I'm
+     going to stay up here for a day or two.
+
+     Let me see--to-day is Friday. We are due to leave next
+     Wednesday. I'll be down the first of the week to say
+     good-bye and pick up my traps. Meanwhile, chicken, you'll be
+     all right with Bridget there; and just you put your wits to
+     work and go to planning out that vacation of yours, and how
+     you're going to spend the money. Then you can be ready to
+     tell me all about it when I come down.
+
+  Your affectionate husband,
+  BURKE.
+
+Helen's first feeling, upon finishing the note, was one of utter
+stupefaction. With a dazed frown and a low ejaculation she turned the
+letter over and began to read it again--more slowly. This time she
+understood. But her thoughts were still in a whirl of surprised
+disbelief. Then, gradually, came a measure of conviction.
+
+Fresh from her vigils of the night before, with its self-accusations and
+its heroic resolutions, she was so chastened and softened that there was
+more of grief than of anger in her first outburst.
+
+She began to cry a little wildly.
+
+Burke was going away. He _wanted_ to go. He said they--they got on each
+other's nerves. He said they needed a vacation from each other. _Needed_
+one! As if they did! It wasn't that. It was his father's idea. _She_
+knew. It was all his fault! But he was going--Burke was. He said he was.
+There would not be any chance now to show him the daintily gowned wife
+welcoming her husband home to a well-kept house. There would not be any
+chance to show how she had changed. There would not be--
+
+But there would be--after he came back.
+
+Helen stopped sobbing, and caught her breath with a new hope in her
+eyes. Dorothy Elizabeth began to cry, and Helen picked her up and
+commenced to rock her.
+
+Of course there _would_ be time after he came back. And, after all,
+might it not be the wisest thing, to be away from each other for a time?
+Why, even this little while--a single night of Burke's being gone--had
+shown her where she stood!--had shown her where it was all leading to!
+Of course it was the best way, and Burke had seen it. It was right that
+he should go. And had they not provided for her? She was to go-- There
+was a check somewhere--
+
+Burrowing in her lap under Dorothy Elizabeth's warm little body, Helen
+dragged forth an oblong bit of crumpled paper. Carefully she spread it
+flat. The next moment her eyes flew wide open.
+
+One thousand dollars! No, _ten_ thousand! It couldn't be! But it was.
+Ten thousand dollars! And she had been scolding and blaming them, when
+all the time they had been so generous! And it really _was_ the best
+way, too, that they should be apart for a while. It would give her a
+chance to adjust herself and practice--and it would need some practice
+if she were really going to be that daintily gowned young wife welcoming
+her husband to a well-kept home! And with ten thousand dollars! What
+couldn't they get with ten thousand dollars?
+
+Dorothy Elizabeth, at that moment, emitted a sharp, frightened cry. For
+how was Dorothy Elizabeth to know that the spasmodic pressure that so
+hurt her was really only a ten-thousand-dollar hug of joy?
+
+In less than half an hour, Helen, leaving the baby with Bridget, had
+sought Mrs. Cobb. She could keep her good news no longer.
+
+"I came to tell you. I'm going away--Baby and I," she announced
+joyously. "We're going next week."
+
+"Jiminy! You don't say so! But you don't mean you're goin' away ter
+_live_?"
+
+"Oh, no. Just for a visit to my old home town where I was born--only
+'twill be a good long one. You see, we need a rest and a change so
+much--Baby and I do." There was a shade of importance in voice and
+manner.
+
+"That you do!" exclaimed Mrs. Cobb, with emphasis. "And I'm glad you're
+goin'. But, sakes alive, I'm goin' ter miss ye, child!"
+
+"I shall miss you, too," beamed Helen cordially.
+
+"How long you goin' ter be gone?"
+
+"I don't know, exactly. It'll depend, some, on Burke--I mean Mr.
+Denby--when he wants me to come back."
+
+"Oh, ain't he goin', too?" An indefinable change came to Mrs. Cobb's
+voice.
+
+"Oh, no, not with us," smiled Helen. "He's going to Alaska."
+
+"To--_Alaska_! And, pray, what's he chasin' off to a heathen country
+like that for?"
+
+"Tisn't heathen--Alaska isn't," flashed Helen, vaguely irritated without
+knowing why. "Heathen countries are--are always hot. Alaska's cold.
+Isn't Alaska up north--to the pole, 'most? It used to be, when I went to
+school."
+
+"Maybe 'tis; but that ain't sayin' why he's goin' there, instead of with
+you," retorted Mrs. Cobb. In spite of the bantering tone in which this
+was uttered, disapproval was plainly evident in Mrs. Cobb's voice.
+
+"He's going with his father," answered Helen, with some dignity.
+
+"His father! Humph!"
+
+This time the disapproval was so unmistakably evident that Helen flamed
+into prompt defense, in righteous, wifely indignation.
+
+"I don't know why you speak like that, Mrs. Cobb. Hasn't he got a right
+to go with his father, if he wants to? Besides, his father needs him.
+Burke says he does."
+
+"And _you_ don't need him, I s'pose," flamed Mrs. Cobb, in her turn,
+nettled that her sympathetic interest should meet with so poor a
+welcome. "Of course it's none of my business, Mis' Denby, but it seems a
+shame to me for him ter let you and the baby go off alone like this, and
+so I spoke right out. I always speak right out--what I think."
+
+Helen flushed angrily. However much she might find fault with her
+husband herself, she suddenly discovered a strong disinclination to
+allowing any one else to do so. Besides, now, when he and his father
+had been so kind and generous--! She had not meant to tell Mrs. Cobb of
+the ten-thousand-dollar check, lest it lead to unpleasant questioning as
+to why it was sent. But now, in the face of Mrs. Cobb's unjust
+criticism, she flung caution aside.
+
+"You're very kind," she began, a bit haughtily; "but, you see, this time
+you have made a slight mistake. I don't think it's a shame at all for
+him to go away with his father who needs him; and you won't, when you
+know what they've sent me. They sent me a check this afternoon for ten
+thousand dollars."
+
+"_Ten--thousand--dollars!_"
+
+"Yes," bowed Helen, with a triumphant "I-told-you-so" air, as Mrs.
+Cobb's eyes seemed almost to pop out of her head. "They sent it this
+very afternoon."
+
+"For the land's sake!" breathed Mrs. Cobb. Then, as her dazed wits began
+to collect themselves, a new look came to her eyes. "They _sent_ it?"
+she cried.
+
+"By special messenger--yes," bowed Helen, again importantly.
+
+"But how funny to _send_ it, instead of bringing it himself--your
+husband, I mean."
+
+Too late Helen saw her mistake. In a panic, now, lest unpleasant truths
+be discovered, she assumed an especially light, cheerful manner.
+
+"Oh, no, I don't think it was funny a bit. He--he wanted it a surprise,
+I guess. And he wrote--a letter, you know. A lovely letter, all about
+what a good time Baby and I could have with the money."
+
+The suspicion in Mrs. Cobb's eyes became swift conviction. An angry red
+stained her cheeks--but it was not anger at Helen. That was clearly to
+be seen.
+
+"Look a-here, Mis' Denby," she began resolutely, "I'm a plain woman, and
+I always speak right out. And I'm your friend, too, and I ain't goin'
+ter stand by and see you made a fool of, and not try ter lift a hand ter
+help. There's somethin' wrong here. If you don't know it, it's time you
+did. If you _do_ know it, and are tryin' ter keep it from me, you might
+just as well stop right now, and turn 'round and tell me all about it.
+As I said before, I'm your friend, and--if it's what I think it
+is--you'll _need_ a friend, you poor little thing! Now, what is it?"
+
+Helen shook her head feebly. Her face went from white to red, and back
+again to white. Still determined to keep her secret if possible, she
+made a brave attempt to regain her old airiness of manner.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Cobb, it's nothing--nothing at all!"
+
+Mrs. Cobb exploded into voluble wrath.
+
+"Nothin', is it?--when a man goes kitin' off ter Alaska, and sendin' his
+wife ten thousand dollars ter go somewheres else in the opposite
+direction! Maybe you think I don't know what that means. But I do! And
+he's tryin' ter play a mean, snivelin' trick on ye, and I ain't goin'
+ter stand for it. I never did like him, with all his fine, lordly airs,
+a-thinkin' himself better than anybody else what walked the earth. But
+if I can help it, I ain't goin' ter see you cheated out of your just
+deserts."
+
+"_Mrs. Cobb!_" expostulated the dismayed, dumfounded wife; but Mrs. Cobb
+had yet more to say.
+
+"I tell you they're rich--them Denbys be--rich as mud; and as for pokin'
+you off with a measly ten thousand dollars, they shan't--and you with a
+baby ter try ter bring up and edyercate. The idea of your standin' for a
+separation with only ten thousand--"
+
+"Separation!" interrupted Helen indignantly, as soon as she could find
+her voice. "It isn't a separation. Why, we never thought of such a
+thing;--not for--for _always_, the way you mean it."
+
+"What is it, then?"
+
+"Why, it's just a--a playday," stammered Helen, still trying to cling to
+the remnant of her secret. "He _said_ it was a playday--that I was to go
+off and have a good time with Baby."
+
+"If it's just a playday, why didn't he give it to you ter take it
+_tergether_, then? Tell me that!"
+
+"Why, he--he's going with his father."
+
+"You bet he is," retorted Mrs. Cobb grimly. "And he's goin' ter keep
+with his father, too."
+
+"What do you mean?" Helen's lips were very white.
+
+Mrs. Cobb gave an impatient gesture.
+
+"Look a-here, child, do you think I'm blind? Don't ye s'pose I know how
+you folks have been gettin' along tergether?--or, rather, _not_ gettin'
+along tergether? Don't ye s'pose I know how he acts as if you wasn't the
+same breed o' cats with him?"
+
+"Then you've seen--I mean, you think he's--ashamed of me?" faltered
+Helen.
+
+"Think it! I _know_ it," snapped Mrs. Cobb, ruthlessly freeing her mind,
+regardless of the very evident suffering on her listener's face; "and
+it's just made my blood boil. Time an' again I've thought of speakin' up
+an' tellin' ye I jest wouldn't stand it, if I was you. But I didn't. I
+ain't no hand ter butt in where it don't concern me. But ter see you so
+plumb fooled with that ten thousand dollars--I jest can't stand it no
+longer. I _had_ ter speak up. Turnin' you off with a beggarly ten
+thousand dollars--and them with all that money! Bah!"
+
+"But, Mrs. Cobb, maybe he's coming back," stammered Helen faintly, with
+white lips.
+
+"Pshaw! So maybe the sun'll rise in the west termorrer," scoffed Mrs.
+Cobb; "but I ain't pullin' down my winder shades for it yet. No, he
+won't come back--ter _you_, Mis' Denby."
+
+"But he--he don't say it's for--for all time."
+
+"'Course he don't. But, ye see, he thinks he's lettin' ye down
+easy--a-sendin' ye that big check, an' tellin' ye ter take a playday. He
+don't want ye ter suspect, yet, an' make a fuss. He's countin' on bein'
+miles away when ye _do_ wake up an' start somethin'. That's why I'm
+a-talkin' to ye now--ter put ye wise ter things. I ain't goin' ter
+stand by an' see you bamboozled. Now do you go an' put on your things
+an' march up there straight. I'll take care of the baby, an' be glad to,
+if you don't want ter leave her with Bridget."
+
+"_I go up there?_" Helen's voice was full of dismayed protest.
+
+"Sure! You brace right up to 'em, an' tell 'em you've caught on ter
+their little scheme, and you ain't goin' ter stand for no such nonsense.
+If he wants ter git rid of you an' the baby, all well an' good. That is,
+I'm takin' it for granted that you wouldn't fight it--the divorce, I
+mean."
+
+"_Divorce!_" almost shrieked Helen.
+
+"But that he's got ter treat ye fair and square, an' give ye somewheres
+near what's due ye," went on Mrs. Cobb, without apparently noticing
+Helen's horrified exclamation. "Now don't cry; and, above all things,
+don't let 'em think they've scared ye. Just brace right up an' tell 'em
+what's what."
+
+"Oh, but Mrs. Cobb, I--I--" With a choking sob and a hysterical shake of
+her head, Helen turned and fled down the hall to her own door. Once
+inside her apartment she stumbled over to the crib and caught the
+sleeping Dorothy Elizabeth into her arms.
+
+"Oh, Baby, Baby, it's all over--all over," she moaned. "I can't ever be
+a daintily gowned wife welcoming him to a well-kept home now.
+Never--never! I can't welcome him at all. He isn't coming back. He
+doesn't _want_ to come back. He's ashamed of us, Baby,--_ashamed of
+us_!"
+
+Dorothy Elizabeth, roused from her nap and convulsively clutched in a
+pair of nervous hands, began to whimper restlessly.
+
+"No, no, Baby, not of you," sobbed Helen, rocking the child back and
+forth in her arms. "It was me--just me he was ashamed of. What shall I
+do, what _shall_ I do?"
+
+"And I thought it was just as he said," she went on chokingly, after a
+moment's pause. "I thought it was a vacation he wanted us to take,
+'cause we--we got on each other's nerves. But it wasn't, Baby,--it
+wasn't; and I see it now. He's ashamed of me. He's always been ashamed
+of me, 'way back when Dr. Gleason first came--he was ashamed of me then,
+Baby. He was. I know he was. And now he wants to get away--quite away,
+and never come back. And he calls it a _vacation_! And he says _I'm_ to
+have one, too, and I must tell him all about it when he comes down next
+week. Maybe he thinks I will. _Maybe he thinks I will!_
+
+"We won't be here, Baby,--we won't! We'll go
+somewhere--somewhere--anywhere!--before he gets here," she raved,
+burying her face in the baby's neck and sobbing hysterically.
+
+Once again Helen passed a sleepless night. Never questioning now Mrs.
+Cobb's interpretation of her husband's conduct, there remained only a
+decision as to her own course of action. That she could not be there
+when her husband came to make ready for his journey, she was convinced.
+She told herself fiercely that she would take herself and the baby
+away--quite away out of his sight. He should not be shamed again by the
+sight of her. But she knew in her heart that she was fleeing because she
+dared not go through that last meeting with her husband, lest she should
+break down. And she did not want to break down. If Burke did not want
+_her_, was it likely she was going to cry and whine, and let him know
+that she _did_ want him? Certainly not!
+
+Helen's lips came together in a thin, straight line, in spite of her
+trembling chin. Between her hurt love and her wounded pride, Helen was
+in just that state of hysterics and heroics to do almost
+anything--except something sane and sober.
+
+First, to get away. On that she was determined. But where to go--that
+was the question. As for going back to the old home town--as Burke had
+suggested--_that_ she would not do--now. Did they think, then, that she
+was going back there among her old friends to be laughed at, and gibed
+at? What if she did have ten thousand dollars to spend on frills and
+finery to dazzle their eyes? How long would it be before the whole town
+found out, as had Mrs. Cobb, that that ten thousand dollars was the
+price Burke Denby had paid for his freedom from the wife he was ashamed
+of? Never! She would not go there. But where could she go?
+
+It was then that a plan came to her--a plan so wild and dazzling that
+even her frenzied aspiration scouted it at first as impossible. But it
+came again and again; and before long her fancy was playing with it, and
+turning it about with a wistful "Of course, if I could!" which in time
+became a hesitating "And maybe, after all, I _could_ do it," only to
+settle at last into a breathlessly triumphant "I will!"
+
+After that things moved very swiftly in the little Denby flat. It was
+Saturday morning, and there was no time to lose.
+
+First, Helen gathered all the cash she had in the house, not forgetting
+the baby's bank (which yielded the biggest sum of all), and counted it.
+She had nineteen dollars and seventeen cents. Then she rummaged among
+her husband's letters and papers until she found a letter from Dr.
+Gleason bearing his Boston address. Next, with Bridget to help her, she
+flung into her trunk everything belonging to herself and the baby that
+it was possible to crowd in, save the garments laid out to wear. By
+three o'clock Bridget was paid and dismissed, and Helen, with Dorothy
+Elizabeth, was waiting for the carriage to take them to the railroad
+station.
+
+With the same tearless exaltation that had carried her through the
+prodigious tasks of the morning, Helen picked up her bag and Dorothy
+Elizabeth, and followed her trunk down the stairs and out to the street.
+She gave not one backward glance to the little home, and she carefully
+avoided anything but an airy "Good-bye" to the watching Mrs. Cobb in
+the window on the other side. Not until the wheels began to turn, and
+the journey was really begun, did Helen's tearless exaltation become the
+frightened anxiety of one who finds herself adrift on an uncharted sea.
+
+Then Helen began to cry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IN QUEST OF THE STARS
+
+
+In a roomy old house on Beacon Hill Dr. Frank Gleason made his home with
+his sister, Mrs. Ellery Thayer. The family were at their North Shore
+cottage, however, and only the doctor was at home on the night that
+Hawkins, the Thayers' old family butler, appeared at the library door
+with the somewhat disconcerting information that a young person with a
+baby and a bag was at the door and wished to speak to Dr. Gleason.
+
+The doctor looked up in surprise.
+
+"Me?" he questioned. "A woman? She must mean Mrs. Thayer."
+
+"She said you, sir. And she isn't a patient. I asked her, thinking she
+might have made a mistake and took you for a real doctor what practices.
+She said she didn't want doctoring. She wanted you. She's a young person
+I never saw before, sir."
+
+"But, good Heavens, man, it's after eleven o'clock!"
+
+"Yes, sir." On the manservant's face was an expression of lively
+curiosity and disapproval, mingled with a subdued but unholy mirth which
+was not lost on the doctor, and which particularly exasperated him.
+
+"What in thunder can a woman with a baby want of me at this time of--
+What's her name?" demanded the doctor.
+
+"She didn't say, sir."
+
+"Well, go ask her."
+
+The butler coughed slightly, but made no move to leave the room.
+
+"I did ask her, sir. She declined to give it."
+
+"Declined to-- Well, I like her impertinence."
+
+"Yes, sir. She said you'd"--the servant's voice faltered and swerved
+ever so slightly from its well-trained impassiveness--"er--understand,
+sir."
+
+"She said I'd--the deuce she did!" exploded the doctor under his breath,
+flushing an angry red and leaping to his feet. "Didn't you tell her Mrs.
+Thayer was gone?" he demanded at last, wheeling savagely.
+
+"I did, sir, and--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"She said she was glad; that she wanted only you, anyway."
+
+"_Wanted only--!_ Comes here at this time of night with a bag and a
+baby, refuses to give her name, and says I'll understand!" snarled the
+doctor. "Oh, come, Hawkins, this is some colossal mistake, or a fool
+hoax, or-- What kind of looking specimen is she?"
+
+Hawkins, who had known the doctor from his Knickerbocker days, was
+guilty of a slow grin.
+
+"She's a--a very good looker, sir."
+
+"Oh, she is! Well--er, tell her I can't possibly see her; that I've gone
+to bed--away--sick--something! Anything! Tell her she'll have to see
+Mrs. Thayer."
+
+"Yes, sir." Still the man made no move to go. "She--er--beg pardon,
+sir--but she'll be that cut up, I fear, sir. You see, she's been cryin'.
+And she's young--very young."
+
+"Crying!"
+
+"Yes, sir. And she was that powerful anxious to see you, sir. I had hard
+work to keep her from coming _with_ me. I did, sir. She's in the hall.
+And--it's raining outside, sir."
+
+"Oh, good Heavens! Well, bring her in," capitulated the doctor in
+obvious desperation.
+
+"Yes, sir." This time the words were scarcely out of his mouth before
+the old man was gone. In an incredibly short time he was back with a
+flushed-faced, agitated young woman carrying a sleeping child in her
+arms.
+
+At sight of her, the doctor, who had plainly braced himself behind a
+most forbidding aspect, leaped forward with a low cry and a complete
+change of manner.
+
+"_Mrs. Denby!_" he gasped. But instantly he fell back; for the young
+woman, for all the world like a tenpenny-dreadful stage heroine, hissed
+out a tragic "Sh-h! I don't want anybody to know my name!" with a
+cautious glance toward the none-too-rapidly disappearing Hawkins.
+
+"But what does this mean?" demanded Frank Gleason, when he could find
+words. "Where's Burke?"
+
+"He's left me."
+
+"Left you! Impossible!"
+
+"Yes." She drew in her breath convulsively. "He says it's only to Alaska
+with his father; but that's just to let me down easy."
+
+"Oh, but, Mrs. Denby--"
+
+"You needn't try to make me think any different," she interposed
+wearily, sinking into the chair the doctor placed for her; "'cause you
+can't. I've been over everything you could say. All the way down here I
+didn't have anything to do only just to think and think. And I see
+now--such lots of things that I never saw before."
+
+"But, why--how do you know--what made you think he has--left you?"
+stammered the doctor.
+
+"Because he's ashamed of me; and--"
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Denby!"
+
+"You don't have to say anything about that, either," said Mrs. Denby
+very quietly. And before the dumb agony in the eyes turned full upon
+him, he fell silent.
+
+"There ain't any question as to what _has_ been done; it's just what I'm
+_going_ to _do_," she went on wearily again. "He sent me ten thousand
+dollars--Burke's father did; and--"
+
+"John Denby sent you ten thousand dollars!" exploded the doctor, sitting
+erect.
+
+"Yes; a check. I've got it here. He sent it for a playday, you know,"
+nodded Mrs. Denby, shifting the weight of the heavy baby in her arms.
+"And--and that's why I came to you."
+
+"To--to me," stammered the doctor, growing suddenly alertly miserable
+and nervous again. "A--a playday! But I--I--that is--how--"
+
+"Oh, I'm not going to take the playday. I couldn't even _think_
+play--now," she choked. "It's--" Then in a breathless burst it came.
+"Doctor, you can--you _will_ help me, won't you?--to learn to stand and
+walk and talk and eat soup and wear the right clothes and finger nails
+and hair, you know, and not say the wrong things, and everything the way
+Burke's friends do--you and all the rest of them--_you_ know, so _I_ can
+be swell and grand, too, and he won't be ashamed of me! And _is_ ten
+thousand dollars enough to pay--for learning all that?"
+
+From sheer inability to speak, the man could only fall back in his chair
+and stare dumbly.
+
+"Please, _please_ don't look at me like that," besought the young woman
+frenziedly. "It's just as if you said you _couldn't_ help me. But you
+can! I know you can. And I can _do_ it. I know that, too. I read it in a
+book, once, about a girl who--who was like me. And she went away and got
+perfectly grand clothes, and learning, and all; and then she came back;
+and he--he didn't know her at first--her husband, and he fell in love
+with her all over again. And she didn't have near so much money as I've
+got. Doctor, you _will_ help me?"
+
+The doctor, with his shocked, amazed eyes on the piteously pleading face
+opposite, threw up his hands in despair.
+
+"But I--you--Burke-- Oh, Heavens, my dear lady! How utterly, utterly
+impossible this all is! Come, come, what am I thinking of?--and you with
+not even your hat off yet! And that child! I'll call Hawkins at once. He
+and his wife are all there are left here, just now,--my sister's at the
+beach. But they'll make you and little Miss Dorothy Elizabeth here
+comfortable for the night. Then, to-morrow, after a good sleep,
+we'll--we'll fix it all up. I'll get Burke on the long distance, and--"
+
+"Dr. Gleason," interrupted Helen Denby, with a calmness that would have
+deceived him had he not seen her eyes, "my husband isn't worrying about
+me. He thinks I'm at home now. When he finds I'm not, he'll think I've
+gone to my old home town where he _told_ me to go for a visit. He won't
+worry then. So that's all right. Don't you see? He's sent me
+away--_sent_ me. If you tell him now that I am here, I will walk right
+straight out of that door, and neither you nor him nor anybody else I
+know shall ever see me again."
+
+"Oh, come, come," protested the doctor, again helplessly.
+
+Once more Helen interrupted.
+
+"Doctor, why can't you be straight with me?" she pleaded. "I had to come
+to you. There wasn't anybody else I _could_ go to. And there isn't any
+other way out of it--but this. I tell you I've been doing some
+_thinking_. All the way down here it's been just think, think, think."
+
+The doctor wet his lips.
+
+"But, if--if Burke knew--"
+
+"Look a-here," cut in Helen resolutely, "you've been to our house quite
+a lot since Burke and me was married. You think I made Burke real happy,
+don't you?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"You might just as well say the words with your lips, Doctor. Your face
+has said them," observed Helen, a little dryly.
+
+"Well--no, then;--but I feel like a brute to say it."
+
+"You needn't. I made you. Besides, I'm glad to have you say it. We're
+right out in the open, now, and maybe we can get somewhere. Look a-here,
+do you know?--for the first time in my life to-day I was sorry for John
+Denby. I was! I got to thinking, with Dorothy Elizabeth all safe and
+snug in my arms, how, by and by, she'd be a little girl, and then a
+young lady. And she was so sweet and pretty, and--and I _loved_ her so!
+And I got to thinking how I'd feel if somebody took her away from me the
+way I took Burke away from his father, and married her when I didn't
+want her to, any more 'n Burke's father wanted _him_ to; and I--I could
+see then how he must have felt, worshiping Burke as he did. I know--I
+used to see them together, when I was nurse there with Mrs. Allen's
+children. I never saw a father and son so much like--chums. He doted on
+Burke. I know now how he felt. And--and it's turned out the way he
+said. I hain't been the one for Burke at all. I've--I've dragged him
+down."
+
+"Mrs. Denby, please--" begged the doctor.
+
+But she paused only long enough to shake her head.
+
+"Yes, I have. I know. I've been thinking it all over--the life we've led
+together, and what he might have had, if he hadn't had--if it hadn't
+been for me. And that's why, now, I want to see if--if I can't learn how
+to--to make him not ashamed of me. And it ain't for me, only, it's for
+Dorothy Elizabeth. I want to teach her. It's bad enough to have him
+ashamed of me; but I--I just couldn't stand it if he should ever be--be
+ashamed of--_her_. And now--won't you help me, please? Remember, Burke
+don't _want_ me at home, now, so I'm not displeasing him. _Won't_ you
+help me? It's my only--chance!"
+
+The doctor sprang to his feet. His eyes were moist and his voice shook
+when he spoke.
+
+"Help you! I'll help you to--to bring down the moon and all the stars,
+if you say the word! Mrs. Denby, you're a--a little brick, and there's
+no end to the way I respect and admire you. Of course I'll help
+you--somehow. Though _how_ I haven't the faintest idea. Meanwhile you
+must get some rest. As I told you, my sister is at the beach, and there
+are only Hawkins and his wife here to keep the house open. But they'll
+make you comfortable for the night, and we'll see to-morrow what can be
+done. We'll have some kind of a plan," he finished, as he crossed the
+room to ring the bell.
+
+"Oh, thank you, thank you!" breathed Helen. "But, remember, please, I'm
+not Mrs. Denby. I'm Mrs. Darling--my mother's maiden name," she begged
+in a panic, as the doctor touched the bell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+True to his promise, Frank Gleason had a plan, of a sort, ready by
+morning. He told it at the breakfast table.
+
+"I'm going to take you to my sister, provided, of course, that you
+agree," he announced. "Five minutes' talk with her on this matter will
+be worth five years' with me. I shouldn't wonder if she kept you
+herself,--for a time, with her. And you couldn't be in a better place.
+Perhaps you'll be willing to help her with the children--and she'll be
+glad of that, I know."
+
+"But--my money--can't I pay--money?" faltered Helen.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Not if we can help it. Your money you'll need later for Miss
+Dorothy--unless you are willing to make yourself known to your husband
+sooner than you seem now to be willing to. We'll invest it in something
+safe and solid, and it'll bring you in a few hundred a year. You'll have
+that to spend; and that will go quite a way--under some circumstances."
+
+"But I--I want to--to learn things, you know," stammered Helen; "how to
+be--be--"
+
+"You'll learn--lots of things, if you live with my sister," remarked the
+doctor significantly.
+
+"Oh!" smiled Helen, with a sigh of relief and content.
+
+The doctor sighed, too,--though not at all with either relief or
+content. To the doctor, the task before him loomed as absurd and unreal
+as if it were, indeed, the pulling-down of the stars and the moon--the
+carrying-out of his extravagant promise of the night before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE TRAIL OF THE INK
+
+
+Burke Denby was well pleased with the letter that he had sent to his
+wife, enclosing the ten-thousand-dollar check. He felt that it was both
+conclusive and diplomatic; and he believed that it carried a frankness
+that would prove to be disarming. He had every confidence that Helen
+would eventually (if not at once) recognize its logic and
+reasonableness, and follow its suggestions. With a light heart,
+therefore, he gave himself up to the enjoyment of the day with his
+father. By Saturday, however, a lively curiosity began to assail him as
+to just how Helen did take the note, after all. There also came
+unpleasantly to him a recurrence of the uncomfortable feeling that his
+abrupt departure from home Thursday night had been neither brave nor
+kind, and, in fact, hardly decent, under the circumstances. He decided
+that he would, when he saw Helen, really quite humble himself and
+apologize roundly. It was no more than her due, poor girl!
+
+By Sunday, between his curiosity and his uneasy remorse, he was too
+nervous really to enjoy anything to the full; but he sternly adhered to
+his original plan of not going down to the Dale Street flat before
+Monday, believing, in his heart, that nothing could do so much good to
+both of them, under the circumstances, as a few days of thought apart
+from each other. Monday, however, found him headed for Dale Street; but
+in an hour he was back at Elm Hill. He was plainly very angry.
+
+"She's gone," he announced, with a brevity more eloquent of his state of
+mind than a flood of words would have been.
+
+"Gone! Where?"
+
+"Home--to spend that ten thousand dollars, of course. She left this."
+
+With a frown John Denby took the proffered bit of paper upon which had
+been scrawled:--
+
+     I hope you'll enjoy your playday as much as I shall mine.
+     Address me at Wenton--if you care to write.
+
+  HELEN.
+
+"Where did you find this?"
+
+"On my chiffonier. I didn't think that--of Helen."
+
+"And there was nothing to show _when_ she left?"
+
+"Nothing--except that the apartment was in spick-and-span order from end
+to end; and _that_ must have taken _some_ time to accomplish."
+
+"But perhaps the neighbors would--"
+
+"There's no one she knows but Mrs. Cobb," interrupted Burke, with an
+impatient gesture. "Do you suppose I'm going to her and whimper, 'My
+wife's gone. Please, do you know when she went?' Not much! I saw
+her--the dear creature! And one glance at her face showed that she was
+dying to be asked. But I didn't afford her that satisfaction. I gave
+her a particularly blithe 'Good-morning,' and then walked away as if I'd
+_known_ I was coming home to an empty house all the time. But, I repeat,
+I'm disappointed. I didn't think this of Helen--running off like this!"
+
+"You think she was angry, then, at your letter?"
+
+"Of course she was--at that, and at the way I left her the other night.
+I _was_ a bit of a cad there, I'll admit; but that doesn't excuse her
+for doing a trick like this. I wrote her a good letter, and you sent her
+a very generous check; and I told her I was coming to-day to pick up my
+traps and say good-bye. She didn't care to see me--that's all. But she
+might have had some thought that I'd like to see my daughter before I
+go. If there was time I'd run up there. But it's out of the
+question--with only to-morrow before we start."
+
+"Wenton is her home town, I suppose."
+
+"Yes. She left there, you know, two years before I saw her. Her father
+died and then her mother; and she had to look out for herself. I shall
+write, of course, and send it up before I go. And I shall try to write
+decently; but I will own up, father, I'm mad clear through."
+
+"Too bad, too bad!" John Denby frowned and shook his head again. "I must
+confess, Burke, that I, too, didn't quite think this--of Helen."
+
+"I don't know her street address, of course." Burke was on his feet,
+pacing back and forth. "But that isn't necessary. It's a small town--I
+know that. I told her I thought she'd like the hotel best; but she may
+prefer to go to some friend's home. However, that doesn't signify.
+She'll get it all right, if I direct it simply to Wenton. But I can't
+have a reply before I leave. There isn't time, even if she deigned to
+write--which I doubt, in her present evident frame of mind. Pleasant,
+isn't it? Makes me feel real happy to start off with, to-morrow!"
+
+"No, of course it doesn't," admitted John Denby, with a sigh. "But,
+come, Burke,"--his eyes grew wistful,--"don't let this silly whim of
+Helen's spoil everything. Fretting never did help anything, and perhaps,
+after all, it's the best thing that could have happened. A meeting
+between you, in Helen's present temper, could have resulted only in
+unhappiness. Obviously Helen is piqued and angry at your suggesting a
+separation for a time. She determined to give it to you--but to give it
+to you a little sooner than you wanted. That's her way of getting back
+at you. That's all. Let her alone. She'll come to her senses in time.
+Oh, _write_, of course," he hastened to add, in answer to the expression
+on his son's face. "But don't expect a reply too soon. You must remember
+you gave Helen a pretty big blow to her pride. I _wish_ she had looked
+at the matter sensibly, of course; but probably that was too much to
+expect."
+
+"I'm afraid it was--of--" Biting his lips, Burke pulled himself up
+sharply. "I'll go and write my letter," he finished wearily, instead.
+
+And John Denby echoed the long sigh he drew.
+
+It was January when John Denby and his son returned from their Alaskan
+trip. The long and rather serious illness of John Denby in November, and
+the necessary slowness of their journeying thereafter, had caused a
+series of delays very trying to both father and son.
+
+To neither John Denby nor Burke had the trip been an entire success.
+Burke, in spite of his joy at being with his father and his delight in
+the traveling itself, could not get away from the shadow of an upturned
+bottle of ink in a Dale Street flat. At times, with all the old boyish
+enthusiasm and lightness of heart, he entered into whatever came; but
+underneath it all, and forever cropping uppermost, was a surge of anger,
+a bitterness of heart.
+
+Not once, through the entire trip, had Burke heard from his wife. Their
+mail, of course, had been infrequent and irregular; but, from time to
+time, a batch of letters would be found waiting for them, and always,
+with feverish eagerness, Burke had scanned the envelopes for a sight of
+Helen's familiar scrawl. He had never found it, and he was very angry
+thereat. He was not worried or frightened. Any Denby of the Dalton
+Denbys was too well known not to have any vital information concerning
+him or her communicated to the family headquarters. If anything had
+happened to either Helen or the child, he would have known of it, of
+course, through Brett. This silence could mean, therefore, but one
+thing: Helen's own wish that he should not hear. He felt that he had a
+right to be angry. He pictured Helen happy, gay in her new finery,
+queening it over her old school friends in Wenton, and nursing wrath and
+resentment against himself (else why did she not write?)--and the
+picture did not please him.
+
+He had suggested separation (for a time), to be sure; but he had not
+suggested total annihilation of all intercourse! If she did not care to
+say anything for herself, she might, at least, be decent enough to let
+him hear as to the welfare of his child, he reasoned indignantly.
+
+On one course of action he was determined. As soon as he returned home
+he would go to Helen and have it out with her. If she _wished_ to carry
+to such absurd lengths her unreasonable pique at his perfectly
+reasonable suggestion, he wanted to know it at once, and not live along
+this way!
+
+Under these circumstances it is not strange, perhaps, that the trip, for
+Burke, was not an unalloyed joy; and the delays, in addition to giving
+him no little anxiety for his father, fretted him almost beyond
+endurance.
+
+As to John Denby--he, too, could not get away from the shadow of an
+upturned bottle of ink. Besides suffering the reflection of its effect
+on his son, in that son's moodiness and frequent lack of enthusiasm, he
+had no small amount of it on his own account.
+
+Burke's word-picture of that evening's catastrophe had been a vivid one;
+and John Denby could not forget it. He realized that it meant much in
+many ways. The fact that it had been followed by Helen's ominous
+silence did not lessen his uneasy questionings. He wondered if, after
+all, he had done the wise thing in bringing about this temporary
+separation. He still believed, in his heart, that he had. But he did not
+seem to find much happiness in that belief. In spite of his supreme joy
+and content in his son's companionship, he found himself many a time
+almost wishing the trip were over. And the delays at the end were fully
+as great a source of annoyance to himself, as they were to his son. He,
+as well as Burke, therefore, heaved a long sigh of relief as the train
+drew into the Dalton station, bringing into view the old Denby family
+carriage (John Denby did not care for motor cars), with old Horace on
+the box, and with Brett near by, plainly waiting to extend a welcoming
+hand. Brett's face was white and a little strained-looking. John Denby,
+noticing it through the car window, remarked to his son:--
+
+"Guess Brett will be glad to see us. He looks tired. Overworked, I fear.
+Faithful fellow--that, Burke! We owe him our trip, anyway. But who
+supposed it was going to prolong itself away into January like this?"
+
+"Who did, indeed?" murmured Burke, as he followed his father from the
+car.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Burke Denby had not been at home half an hour, when, his face drawn and
+ashen, he strode into the library where his father was sitting before
+the fire.
+
+"Father, Helen has not been at Wenton at all," he said in the tragically
+constrained voice of a man who is desperately trying to keep himself
+from exploding into ravings and denunciations.
+
+John Denby came erect in his chair.
+
+"_Not been there_-- What do you mean? How do you know?"
+
+"Brett. I found these upstairs in my room--_every letter I've written
+her_--even the first one from here before I left--returned unopened,
+marked 'unclaimed, address unknown,' together with a letter from Brett
+in explanation. I've just been talking with him on the 'phone, too."
+
+"So that's it--why he looked so at the station! What did he say? Why
+didn't he let you know before?"
+
+"He says it was a long time before the first letter came back. He knew
+we were away up in the mountains, and would be very likely started for
+home before he could reach us with it, anyway. And there wouldn't be a
+thing we could do--up there, except to come home; and we'd already be
+doing that, anyway. And this would only worry us, and trouble us, and
+make our return trip a horror--without helping a bit."
+
+"Quite right. Brett is always right," nodded John Denby.
+
+"Then, of course, came the delay, your sickness, and all. Of course he
+wouldn't let us know then--when we _couldn't_ come. By that time other
+letters I had written on the way out began to come back from Wenton. (I
+always used my own envelopes with the Dalton address in the corner, so
+of course they all showed up here in time.) When the second and third
+came he knew it wasn't a mistake. He'd been hoping the first one was,
+somehow, he said."
+
+"Yes, yes, I see. And of course it might have been. But what did he do?
+Didn't he do--anything?"
+
+"Yes. First, he said, he kept his own counsel--here in town. He knew
+we'd want to avoid all gossip and publicity."
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"He put the thing into the hands of a private detective whom he could
+trust; and he went himself to Wenton--for a vacation, apparently."
+
+"Good old Brett! Wise, as usual. What did he find?"
+
+"Nothing--except that she was not there, and hadn't been there since she
+left some years ago, soon after her mother's death. He says he's
+positive of that. So he had to come back no wiser than he went."
+
+"But--the detective."
+
+"Very little there. Still, there was something. He traced her to
+Boston."
+
+"_Boston!_"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What friends has she in Boston?"
+
+"None, so far as I know. I never heard her mention knowing a soul there.
+Still, I believe she had a--a position there with some one, before she
+went to Aunt Eunice; but I don't know who it was."
+
+"There's Gleason--she knows him."
+
+Burke gave his father a glance from scornful eyes.
+
+"My best friend! She'd be apt to go to him, wouldn't she, if she were
+running away from me? Besides, we've had three or four letters from him
+since we've been gone. Don't you suppose he'd tell us of it, if she'd
+gone to him?"
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," frowned John Denby, biting his lips. "It's only
+that I was trying to get hold of some one--or something. Think of
+it--that child alone in Boston, and--no friends! Of course she had
+money--that is, I suppose she cashed it--that check?" John Denby turned
+with a start.
+
+"Oh, yes. I asked Brett about that. I hoped maybe there'd be a clue
+there, if she got somebody to cash it for her. But there was nothing.
+She got the money herself, at the bank here, not long after we went. So
+she must have come back for a time, anyway. Brett says Spawlding, at the
+bank, knew her, of course, and so there was no question as to
+identification. Still it was so large a one that he telephoned to Brett,
+before he paid it, asking if it were all right--you being away. Brett
+evidently knew you had given her such a check--"
+
+"Yes, I had told him," nodded John Denby.
+
+"So he said yes, it was. He says he supposed she had come down from
+Wenton to get it cashed, and that she would leave the bulk of it there
+in the bank to her credit. Anyway, all he could do was to assure
+Spawlding that you had given her such a check just before you went
+away."
+
+"Yes, yes, I see," nodded John Denby again.
+
+"She didn't leave any of the money, however. She took it all with her."
+
+"Took it _all_--ten thousand dollars!"
+
+"Yes. The detective, of course, is still working on the case. He got to
+Boston, but there he's up against a blank wall. He's run a fine-tooth
+comb through all sorts of public and private institutions in Boston and
+vicinity without avail. He's made a thorough search at the railroad
+station. He can't find a person who has any recollection of a young
+woman and child answering their description, arriving on that date, who
+seemed to be troubled or in doubt where to go. He questioned the matron,
+ticket-men, cabbies, policemen--everybody. Of course every one had seen
+plenty of young women with babies in their arms--young women who had the
+hair and eyes and general appearance of Helen, and who were anxious and
+fretted. (They said young women with babies were apt to be anxious and
+fretted.) But they didn't remember one who asked frantic questions as to
+what to do, and where to go, and all that--acting as we think Helen
+would have acted, alone in a strange city."
+
+"Poor child, poor child!" groaned John Denby. "Where can--"
+
+But his son interrupted sternly.
+
+"I don't _know_ where she is, of course. But don't be too sure it is
+'poor child' with her, dad. She's doing this thing because she _wants_
+to do it. Don't forget that. Didn't she purposely mislead us by that
+note she left on my chiffonier? She didn't say she _had_ gone to Wenton,
+but she let me think she had. 'Address me at Wenton, if you care to
+write,' she said. And don't forget that she also said: 'I hope you'll
+enjoy your playday as much as I shall mine.' Don't you worry about
+Helen. She's taken my child and your ten thousand dollars, and she's off
+somewhere, having a good time;--and Helen could have a good time--on ten
+thousand dollars! Incidentally she's also punishing us. She means to
+give us a good scare. She's waiting till we get home, and till the
+money's gone. Then she'll let herself be found."
+
+"Oh, come, come, Burke, aren't you just a little bit--harsh?"
+remonstrated John Denby.
+
+"I don't think so. She deserves--something for taking that child away
+like this. Honestly, as my temper is now, if it wasn't for the baby, I
+should feel almost like saying that I hoped she wouldn't ever come back.
+I don't want to see her. But, of course, with the baby, that's another
+matter."
+
+"I should say so!" exclaimed John Denby emphatically.
+
+"Yes; but, see here, dad! Helen knew where she was going. She's gone to
+friends. Wouldn't she have left some trace in that station if she'd been
+frightened and uncertain where to go? Brett says the detective found one
+cabby who remembered taking just such a young woman and child from an
+evening train at about that time. He didn't recollect where he took her,
+and he couldn't say as to whether she had been crying, or not; but he's
+positive she directed him where to go without a moment's hesitation. If
+that was Helen, she knew where she was going all right."
+
+John Denby frowned and did not answer. His eyes were troubled.
+
+"But perhaps here--at the flat--" he began, after a time.
+
+"The detective tried that. He went as a student, or something, and
+managed to hire a room of Mrs. Cobb. He became very friendly and chatty,
+and showed interest in all the neighbors, not forgetting the vacant flat
+on the same floor. But he didn't learn--much."
+
+"But he learned--something?"
+
+An angry red mounted to Burke's forehead.
+
+"Oh, yes; he learned that it belonged to a poor little woman whose
+husband was as rich as mud, but quite the meanest thing alive, in that
+he'd tried to buy her off with ten thousand dollars, because he was
+ashamed of her! Just about what I should think would come from a woman
+of Mrs. Cobb's mentality!"
+
+"Then she knew about the ten-thousand-dollar check?"
+
+"Apparently. But she didn't know Helen had gone to Boston. The detective
+found out that. She told him she believed she'd gone back home to her
+folks. So Helen evidently did not confide in her--or perhaps she
+intentionally misled her, as she did us."
+
+"I see, I see," sighed John Denby.
+
+For a minute the angry, perplexed, baffled young husband marched back
+and forth, back and forth, in the great, silent room. Then, abruptly, he
+stopped short, and faced his father.
+
+"I shall try to find her, of course,--though I think she'll let us hear
+from her of her own accord, pretty soon, now. But I shan't wait for
+that. First I shall go to Aunt Eunice and see if she knows the names of
+any of the people with whom Helen used to live, before she came to her.
+Then, whatever clues I find I shall endeavor to follow to the end.
+Meanwhile, so far as Dalton is concerned,--_my wife is out of town_.
+That's all. It's no one's business. The matter will be hauled over every
+dinner-table and rolled under the tongue of every old tabby in town. But
+they can only surmise and suspect. They can't know anything about it.
+And we'll be mighty careful that they don't. Brett--bless him!--has been
+the soul of discretion. We'll see that we follow suit. _My wife is out
+of town!_ That's all!" And he turned and flung himself from the room.
+
+As soon as possible Burke Denby went to his Aunt Eunice and told her his
+sorry tale. From her he obtained one or two names, and--what he eagerly
+grasped at--an address in Boston. Each of these clues he followed
+assiduously, only to find that it led nowhere. Angrier, but no wiser, he
+went back home.
+
+The detective, too, reported no progress. And as the days became weeks,
+and the weeks a month, with no word of Helen, Burke settled into a
+bitterness of wrath and resentment that would not brook the mention of
+Helen's name in his presence.
+
+Burke was feeling very much abused these days. He was, indeed, thinking
+of himself and pitying himself almost constantly. The woman to whom he
+had given his name (and for whom he had sacrificed so much) had made
+that name a byword and a laughing stock in his native town. He was
+neither bachelor nor husband. He was not even a widower, but a
+nondescript thing to be pointed out as a sort of monster. Even his child
+was taken away from him; and was doubtless being brought up to hate
+him--Burke forgot that Dorothy Elizabeth was as yet but slightly over
+two years old.
+
+As for Helen's side of the matter--Burke was too busy polishing his own
+shield of defense to give any consideration to hers. When he thought of
+his wife, it was usually only to say bitterly to himself: "Humph! When
+that ten thousand dollars is gone we'll hear from her all right!" And he
+was not worrying at all about her comfort--with ten thousand dollars to
+spend.
+
+"She knows where _she_ is, and she knows where _I_ am," he would declare
+fiercely to himself. "When she gets good and ready she'll come--and not
+until then, evidently!"
+
+In March a line from Dr. Gleason said that he would be in town a day or
+two, and would drop in to see them.
+
+With the letter in his hand, Burke went to his father.
+
+"Gleason's coming Friday," he announced tersely.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"We've got to settle on what to tell him."
+
+"About--"
+
+"Helen--yes. Of course--he'll have to know something; but--I shall tell
+him mighty little." Burke's lips snapped together in the grim manner
+that was becoming habitual with him.
+
+Gleason came on Friday. There was an odd constraint in his manner. At
+the same time there was a nervous wistfulness that was almost an appeal.
+Yet he was making, obviously, a great effort to appear as usual.
+
+Not until Burke found himself alone with his guest did he speak of his
+wife. Then he said:--
+
+"You know, of course, that Helen has--er--that she is not here."
+
+"Yes." There was a subdued excitement in the doctor's voice.
+
+"Of course! Everybody knows that, I suppose," retorted Burke bitterly.
+He hesitated, then went on, with manifest effort: "If you don't mind,
+old fellow, we'll leave it--right there. There's really nothing that I
+care to say."
+
+A look of keen disappointment crossed the doctor's face.
+
+"But, Burke, if you knew that your wife--" began the doctor imploringly.
+
+"There are no 'ifs' about it," interrupted Burke, with stern
+implacability. "Helen knows very well where I am, and--she isn't here.
+That's enough for me."
+
+"But, my dear boy--" pleaded the doctor again.
+
+"Gleason, please, I'd rather not talk about it," interrupted Burke Denby
+decidedly. And the doctor, in the face of the stern uncompromisingness
+of the man before him, and of his own solemn, but hard-wrung promise,
+given to a no less uncompromising little woman whom he had left only the
+day before, was forced to drop the matter. His face, however, still
+carried its look of troubled disappointment. And he steadfastly refused
+to remain at the house even for a meal--a most extraordinary proceeding
+for him.
+
+"He's angry, and he's angry with me," muttered Burke Denby to himself,
+his eyes moodily fixed on the doctor's hurrying figure as it disappeared
+down the street. "He wanted to preach and plead, and tell me my 'duty.'
+As if I didn't know my own business best myself! Bah! A fig for his
+'ifs' and 'buts'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A WOMAN'S WON'T
+
+
+Two days after his visit to Dalton, Frank Gleason dropped himself into a
+low chair in his sister's private sitting-room in the Beacon Hill house.
+
+"Well?" prompted Mrs. Thayer, voice and manner impatiently eager.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing! But there must have been something!"
+
+"There wasn't a thing--that will help."
+
+"But, aren't they frightened--anxious--anything? Don't they _care_ where
+she is?"
+
+"Oh, yes; they care very much," smiled the doctor wearily; "but not in
+the way that is going to help any. I couldn't get _anything_ out of
+Burke, and I didn't get much more out of his father. But I did a
+little."
+
+"They don't know, of course, that she's here?"
+
+"Heavens, I hope not!--under the circumstances. But I felt all kinds of
+a knave and a fool and a traitor. I got away as soon as possible. I
+couldn't stay. I hoped to get something--anything--that I could use for
+a cudgel over Helen, to get her to go back, you know. But I couldn't get
+a thing. However, I shall keep on urging, of course."
+
+"But what _did_ they say?"
+
+"Burke said nothing, practically. Nor would he let me say anything. He
+is very angry (his father told me that), and very bitter."
+
+"But isn't he frightened, or worried?"
+
+"Not according to his father. It seems they have had a detective on the
+case, and have traced her to Boston. There the trail ends. But they have
+found out enough to feel satisfied that no evil has befallen her. Burke
+argues that Helen is staying somewhere (with friends, he believes)
+because she wants to. Such being the case he doesn't want her back until
+she gets good and ready to come. He does want the baby. John Denby told
+me, in fact, that he believed if Burke found them now, as he's feeling,
+he'd insist on a separation; and that the baby should be given to him."
+
+"Given to him, indeed!" flashed Mrs. Thayer angrily. "And yet, in the
+face of that, you sit there and say you shall urge her to go back, of
+course."
+
+Frank Gleason stirred uneasily.
+
+"I know, Edith, but--"
+
+"There isn't any question about it," interrupted Mrs. Thayer decidedly.
+"That poor child stays where she is now."
+
+"Oh, but, Edith, this sort of thing can't go on forever, you know,"
+remonstrated the doctor nervously, his forehead drawn into an anxious
+frown.
+
+"I wasn't talking about forever," returned the lady, with tranquil
+confidence. "I was talking about _now_, to-day, next week, next year, if
+it's necessary."
+
+"_Next year!_"
+
+"Certainly--if Burke Denby hasn't come to his senses by that time. Why,
+Frank Gleason, don't you suppose I'd do anything, _everything_, to help
+that child keep her baby? She worships it. Besides, it's going to be the
+making of her."
+
+"I know; but if they could be brought together--Burke and his wife, I
+mean--it seems as if--as if--" The man came to a helpless pause.
+
+"Frank, see here," began Edith Thayer resolutely. "You know as well as I
+do that those two people have been wretched together for a year or more.
+They are not suited to each other. They weren't in the first place. To
+make matters worse, they were both nothing but petted, spoiled children,
+no more fit to take on the responsibilities of marriage than my Bess and
+Charlie would be. All their lives they'd had their own dolls and
+shotguns to do as they pleased with; and when it came to marrying and
+sharing everything, including their time and their tempers, they flew
+into bits--both of them."
+
+"Yes, I know," sighed the man, still with a troubled frown.
+
+"Well, they're apart now. Never mind who was to blame for it, or whether
+it was or wasn't a wise move. It's done. They're apart. They've got a
+chance to think things over--to stand back and get a perspective, as it
+were. Helen thinks she can metamorphose herself into the perfect wife
+that Burke will love. Perhaps she can. Let us say she has one chance in
+a million of doing so;--well, I mean she shall have that chance,
+especially as the alternative--that is, her going back home now--is sure
+to be nothing but utter wretchedness all round."
+
+Frank Gleason shook his head.
+
+"Yes, yes, very plausible--to _say_, of course. I see she's talked you
+over. She did me. I was ready to pull the moon down for her footstool
+that first night she came to me. I'm ready to do it now--when I'm with
+her. But away from her, with a chance to think,--it really is absurd,
+you know, when you come right down to it. Here are Burke and his father,
+my good friends, hunting the country over for Burke's wife and child.
+And here am I, harboring her and abetting her, and never opening my
+head. Really, it's the sort of thing that you'd say--er--couldn't
+happen, you know."
+
+"But it _is_ happening; and so far as their finding her is concerned,
+you said yourself, long ago, that it was the safest hiding-place in the
+world, for they'd never think of looking in it. They've never been in
+the habit of coming here, and their friends don't know us. As for the
+servants, and the few of my friends who see her, she's merely Mrs.
+Darling. That's all. Besides, you're entirely leaving out of
+consideration Helen's own attitude in the matter. I haven't a doubt but
+that, if you did tell, she'd at least _attempt_ to carry out her crazy
+threats of flight and oblivion. Really, Frank, so far as being a friend
+is concerned, you're being the truest friend, both to Burke and his
+father, and to Helen, by keeping her and protecting her from herself
+and others--to say nothing of the real help I hope I'm being to her."
+
+"I know, I know," sighed the man, thrusting his hands into his pockets,
+and scowling at the toe of his shoe. "You 're a brick, Edith! It's been
+simply marvelous to me--the way you've taken hold. Even that first awful
+Sunday morning last July, when I showed you what I'd brought you, didn't
+quite bowl you over."
+
+"It did almost," laughed Edith; "especially when she blurted out that
+alarming speech, after you'd told me who she was."
+
+"What _did_ she say? I don't remember."
+
+"She said, tragically, frenziedly: 'Oh, Mrs. Thayer, you will help me,
+won't you?--to be swell and grand and _know_ things, so's Burke won't be
+ashamed of me. And if you can't make _me_ so, you will Baby, won't you?
+I'll do anything--everything you say. Oh, please say you will. I _know_
+you're Burke's kind of folks, just to look at you, and at this--the
+house, and all these swell fixings! You will, won't you? Oh, please say
+you will!'"
+
+"Gorry! Did she say that--all that?"
+
+"Every bit of it--and more, that I can't remember. You see, I couldn't
+say anything--not anything, for a minute. And the more she said, the
+less I _could_ say. Probably she saw something of the horror and dismay
+in my face, and that's what made her so frenzied in her appeal."
+
+"No wonder you were struck dumb at her nerve and at mine in asking you
+to take her in," laughed the doctor softly.
+
+"Oh, but 'twas for only a minute. I capitulated at once, first because
+of the baby--she was such a dear!--then because of the mother's love for
+it. I thought I'd seen devotion, Frank, but never have I seen it like
+hers."
+
+"How is she doing, really, about--well, er--this private
+self-improvement association of hers?" The doctor's smile was eager and
+quizzical. "I've been away so much, and I've seen so little of her for
+months past--how _is_ she doing?"
+
+"Splendidly! She's a daily marvel to me, she's so patient and
+painstaking. Oh, of course, she hasn't _learned_ so very much--yet. But
+she's so alert and earnest, and she watches everything so! Indeed, if it
+weren't really so pitiful and so tragic, it would be perfectly funny and
+absurd. The things she does and says--the things she asks me to teach
+her! Feverishly and systematically she's set herself to becoming 'swell'
+and 'grand.'"
+
+"Swell! Grand!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I know," laughed the lady, answering his shuddering words and
+gesture. "And--we've nearly eliminated those expressions from our
+vocabulary now. Burke didn't like them either, she says."
+
+"I can imagine not," observed the doctor dryly.
+
+"Of course all the teaching in the world isn't going to accomplish the
+thing she wants," went on Mrs. Thayer, a little soberly. "I might teach
+her till doomsday that clothes, jewels, grooming, and perfume don't
+make the lady; and unless she learns by intuition and absorption what
+_does_ make the lady, she'll be little better off than she was before.
+But she puts me now through a daily catechism until sometimes I am
+nearly wild. 'Do ladies do this?' 'Do ladies do that?' she queries at
+every turn, so that I am almost ready to fly off into a veritable orgy
+of slang and silliness, just from sheer contrariety. I can tell you,
+Frank, this attempting to teach the intangible, evanescent thing I'm
+trying to teach Helen Denby isn't very easy. If you think it is, you try
+it yourself."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" shrugged the man. "But I'll risk you, Edith. But, tell
+me--does she help you any, in any way? Do you think you can--keep her,
+for a while?"
+
+"Keep her? Of course I shall keep her! Do you suppose I'd turn that
+child adrift now? Besides, she's a real help to me with the children.
+And I know--and she knows--that in helping me she is helping herself,
+and helping Dorothy Elizabeth--'Betty' she calls her now. We're getting
+along beautifully. We--"
+
+There came the sound of hurried steps, then the sudden wide flinging of
+the door, and the appearance of a breathless young woman.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Thayer, they said the doctor had come, and--" Helen Denby
+stopped short, her abashed eyes going from one to the other of the
+expressive faces before her. "Oh, I--I beg your pardon," she faltered.
+"I hadn't ought to have burst in like this. Ladies don't. You said
+yesterday that ladies never did. But I--I--doctor, you went to--to
+Dalton?" she appealed to the man.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Denby."
+
+"And you saw--them? Burke and his father?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But, you didn't--you _didn't_ tell them I was here?"
+
+"Of course not! Didn't I promise you I wouldn't?"
+
+Helen Denby relaxed visibly, and dropped herself into a low chair near
+by. The color came back to her face.
+
+"I know; but I was so afraid they'd find out--some way."
+
+"They didn't--from me."
+
+She raised startled eyes to his face.
+
+"You don't mean they _do_ know where I am?"
+
+"Oh, no. But--" The doctor stirred uneasily. "Mrs. Denby, don't you
+think-- Won't you let me tell them where you are?"
+
+"Do they want to know?"
+
+"Yes. They are trying very hard to find you."
+
+"Of course. But if they find me--what then? Does Burke--want me?"
+
+The doctor flushed.
+
+"Well, he--yes--that is, he--well, of course--"
+
+"You don't have to say any more, doctor," interposed Helen Denby,
+smiling a little sadly.
+
+The red deepened on the doctor's face.
+
+"Well, of course, Burke is very angry and very bitter, just now," he
+explained defensively. "But if you two could be brought together--" He
+paused helplessly.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"'Twould be the same old story--only worse. I see so many things now
+that I never saw before. Even if he said right now that he wanted me, I
+wouldn't go back. I wouldn't dare to. 'Twouldn't be a day before he'd be
+ashamed of me again. Maybe some time I'll learn--" She paused, her eyes
+wistfully fixed out the window. "But if I don't"--she turned almost
+frenziedly--"Betty will. Betty is going to be a lady from right now.
+Then some day I'll show her to him. He won't be ashamed of Betty. You
+see if he is!"
+
+Again the doctor stirred uneasily.
+
+"But, think! How can I go on from day to day and not let your husband
+know--"
+
+Helen Denby sprang to her feet. The wild look of that first night of
+flight came into her eyes, but her voice, when she spoke, was very calm.
+
+"Dr. Gleason," she began resolutely, "it's just as I told you before.
+Unless you'll promise not to tell Burke where I am, till I say the word,
+I shall take Betty and go--somewhere. I don't know where. But it'll be
+where you can't find me--any of you."
+
+"Oh, come, come, my dear child--"
+
+"Will you promise?"
+
+"But just think how--"
+
+"I _am_ thinking!" choked Helen. "But _you_ don't seem to be. _Can't_
+you see how I want to stay here? I've got a chance, maybe, to be like
+you and your sister, and all the rest of Burke's swell--I mean, like
+Burke's friends," she corrected, with a hot blush. "And, anyhow, Betty's
+got a chance. We've made a start. We've begun. And here you want to go
+and tip it all over by telling Burke. And there can't anything good
+happen, if Burke knows. Besides, didn't he say himself that we _needed_
+to have a vacation from each other? Now, won't you promise, please?"
+
+With a despairing cry the doctor threw up his hands.
+
+"Oh, good Heavens, yes! Of course I'll promise," he groaned. "I suspect
+you could make me promise to shave my head and dance the tango
+barefooted down Washington Street, if you set out to. Oh, yes, I'll
+promise. But I can tell you right now that I shall wake up in the dead
+of night and pinch myself to make sure I _have_ promised," he finished
+with wrathful emphasis.
+
+Helen laughed light-heartedly. She even tossed the doctor a playful
+glance as she turned to go.
+
+"All right! I don't care a mite how much you pinch yourself," she
+declared. "You've promised--and that's all I care for!" And she left the
+room with buoyant step.
+
+"You see," observed Mrs. Thayer significantly, as the door closed behind
+her.
+
+"Yes, I see--so far," nodded Dr. Frank Gleason with a sigh. "But I do
+wish I could see--what the end is going to be."
+
+"It isn't given to us to see ends," responded Mrs. Thayer sententiously.
+"We can only attend to the beginnings and make them right."
+
+"Humph!" grunted her brother, with some asperity. "I'm not saying I like
+the beginning, in this case. Honestly, to speak plainly, my dear Edith,
+I consider this thing one big fool business, from beginning to end."
+
+There was a moment's pause; then very quietly Mrs. Thayer asked:--
+
+"Can you suggest, dear, all things considered, anything else for us to
+do than what we _are_ doing?"
+
+"No--confound it! And that's what's the matter," groaned Frank Gleason.
+"But that isn't saying that I _like_ to play the fool."
+
+"Well, I shouldn't worry. I'm not worrying," replied his sister, with an
+enigmatic smile.
+
+"Maybe not. But I'm glad I'm going on that Arctic trip, and that it's
+just next month. I'd as soon not see much of the Denbys just now. Feel
+too much like the evil-eyed, double-dyed villain in a dime movie,"
+growled the doctor, getting to his feet, and striding from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AN UNDERSTUDY
+
+
+Soon after the doctor started on his trip to the North the Thayers
+closed their Beacon Street home and went to their North Shore cottage.
+The move was made a little earlier than usual this year, a fact which
+pleased the children not a little and delighted Helen Denby especially.
+
+"You see, I'm always so afraid in Boston," she explained to Mrs. Thayer,
+as the train pulled out of the North Station.
+
+"Afraid?"
+
+"That somewhere--on the street, or somewhere--I'll meet some one from
+Dalton, or somebody that knew--my husband."
+
+Mrs. Thayer frowned slightly.
+
+"Yes, I know. And there was danger, of course! But--Helen, that brings
+up exactly the subject that I'd been intending to speak to you about.
+Thus far--and advisedly, I know--we have kept you carefully in the
+background, my dear. But this isn't going to do forever, you know."
+
+"Why not? I--I like it."
+
+Mrs. Thayer smiled, but she frowned again thoughtfully.
+
+"I know, dear; but if you are to learn this--this--" Mrs. Thayer
+stumbled and paused as she always stumbled and paused when she tried to
+reduce to words her present extraordinary mission. "You will have to--to
+learn to meet people and mingle with them easily and naturally."
+
+The earnest look of the eager student came at once to Helen Denby's
+face.
+
+"You mean, I'll have to meet and mingle with swell people if I, too,
+am-- Oh, that horrid word again! Mrs. Thayer, _why_ can't I learn to
+stop using it? But you mean-- I know what you mean. You mean I'll have
+to meet and mingle with--with ladies and gentlemen if I'm to be one
+myself. Isn't that it?"
+
+"Y-yes, of course; only--the very words 'lady' and 'gentleman' have been
+so abused that we--we--Oh, Helen, Helen, you do put things so baldly,
+and it sounds so--so-- Don't you see, dear? It's all just as I've told
+you lots of times. The minute you begin to talk about it, you lose it.
+It's something that comes to you by absorption and intuition."
+
+"But there are things I have to learn, Mrs. Thayer,--real things, like
+holding your fork, and clothes, and finger nails, and not speaking so
+loud, and not talking about 'folks' being 'swell' and 'tony,' and--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," interrupted Mrs. Thayer, with a touch of
+desperation. "But, after all, it's all so--so impossible! And--" She
+stopped abruptly at the look of terrified dismay that always leaped to
+Helen Denby's eyes in response to such a word. "No, no, I don't mean
+that. But, really, Helen," she went on hurriedly, "the time has come
+when you must be seen more. And it will be quite safe at the shore, I am
+sure. You'll meet no one who ever saw you in Dalton; that is certain."
+
+"Then, of course, if you say I'll have to--I'll have to. That's all."
+
+"I do say it."
+
+"My, but I dread it!" Helen drew in her breath and bit her lip.
+
+"All the more reason why you should do it then," smiled Mrs. Thayer
+briskly. "You're to learn _not_ to dread it. See? And it'll be easier
+than you think. There are some very pleasant people coming down. The
+Gillespies, Mrs. Reynolds and her little Gladys,--about Betty's age, by
+the way,--and next month there'll be the Drew girls and Mr. Donald Estey
+and his brother John. Later there will be others--the Chandlers, and Mr.
+Eric Shaw. And I'm going to begin immediately to have them see you, and
+have you see them."
+
+"They'll know me as 'Mrs. Darling'?"
+
+"Of course--a friend of mine."
+
+"But I want to--to help in some way."
+
+"You do help. You help with the children--your companionship."
+
+"But that's the way I've learned--so many things, Mrs. Thayer."
+
+"Of course. And that's the way you'll learn--many other things. But
+there are others--still others--that you can learn in no way as well as
+by association with the sort of well-bred men and women you will meet
+this summer. I don't mean that you are _always_ to be with them, my
+dear; but I do mean that you must be with them enough so that it is a
+matter of supreme indifference to you whether you are with them or not.
+Do you understand? You must learn to be at ease with--anybody. See?"
+
+Helen sighed and nodded her head slowly.
+
+"Yes, I think I do, Mrs. Thayer; and I will try--so hard!" She
+hesitated, then asked abruptly, "Who is Mr. Donald Estey, please?"
+
+There was an odd something in Mrs. Thayer's laugh as she answered.
+
+"And why, pray, do you single him out?"
+
+"Because of something--different in your voice, when you said his name."
+
+Mrs. Thayer laughed again.
+
+"That's more cleverly put than you know, child," she shrugged. "I never
+thought of it before, but I fancy we all do say Mr. Donald Estey's
+name--with a difference."
+
+"Is he so very important, then?"
+
+"In his own estimation--yes! There! I was wrong to say that, Helen, and
+you must forget it. Mr. Donald Estey is a very wealthy, very capable,
+very delightful and brilliant young bachelor. He is a little spoiled,
+perhaps; but that's our fault and not his, I suspect, for he's petted
+and made of enough to turn any man's head. He's very entertaining. He
+knows something about everything. He can talk Egyptian scarabs with my
+brother, and Irish crochet with me, and then turn around and discuss
+politics with my husband, and quote poetry to Phillis Drew in the next
+breath. All this, of course, makes him a very popular man."
+
+"But he's a--a real gentleman, the kind that my husband would like?"
+
+"Why, of--of course!" Mrs. Thayer frowned slightly; then, suddenly, she
+laughed. "To tell the truth he's very like your husband, in some ways,
+I've heard my brother say--tastes, temperament, and so forth."
+
+An odd something leaped to Helen Denby's eyes.
+
+"You mean, what _he_ likes, Burke likes?" she questioned.
+
+"Why, y-yes; you might put it that way, I suppose. But never mind.
+You'll see for yourself when you see him."
+
+"Yes, I'll see--when I see him." Helen Denby nodded and relaxed in her
+seat. The odd something was still smouldering in her eyes.
+
+"Then it's all settled, remember," smiled Mrs. Thayer. "You're not to
+run and hide now when somebody comes. You're to learn to meet people.
+That's your next lesson."
+
+"My next lesson--my next lesson," repeated Helen Denby, half under her
+breath. "Oh, I hope I'll learn so much--in this next lesson! I won't run
+and hide now, indeed, I won't, Mrs. Thayer!"
+
+And at the glorified earnestness of her face, Mrs. Thayer, watching,
+felt suddenly her own throat tighten convulsively.
+
+In spite of her valiant promise, Helen Denby, a week later, did almost
+run and hide when the Gillespies, the first of Mrs. Thayer's guests,
+arrived. Held, however, by a stern something within her, she bravely
+stood her ground and forced herself to meet Mr. and Mrs. Gillespie and
+their daughters, Miss Alice and Miss Maud. It was not so difficult the
+next week when Mrs. Reynolds came, perhaps because of the pretty little
+Gladys, so near her own Betty's age.
+
+Fully alive to her own shortcomings, however, embarrassed, and
+distrustful of herself, Helen was careful never to push herself forward,
+never to take the initiative. And because she was so quiet and
+unobtrusive, her intense watchfulness, and slavish imitation of what she
+saw, passed unnoticed. Gradually, as the days came and went, the
+tenseness of her concentration relaxed, and she began to move and speak
+with less studied caution. It was at this juncture that Mr. Donald Estey
+arrived. Instantly into her bearing sprang an entirely new, alert
+eagerness. But this, too, passed unnoticed, for the change was not in
+herself alone. The entire household had made instant response to the
+presence of Mr. Donald Estey. The men sharpened their wits, and the
+women freshened their furbelows. Breakfast was served on the minute with
+never a vacant chair; and even the steps of the maids in the kitchen
+quickened.
+
+Because Mr. Donald Estey was always surrounded by an admiring group, the
+fact that "that quiet little Mrs. Darling" was almost invariably one of
+the group did not attract attention. It was Mr. Donald Estey himself, in
+fact, who first noticed it; and the reason that he noticed it was
+because once, when she was not there, he found himself looking for her
+eager face. He realized then that for some time he had been in the habit
+of finding his chief inspiration in a certain pair of wondrously
+beautiful blue eyes bent full upon himself.
+
+Not that the encountering of admiring feminine eyes bent full upon him
+was a new experience to Mr. Donald Estey; but that these eyes were
+different. There was something strangely fascinating and compelling in
+their earnest gaze. It was on the day that he first missed them that he
+suddenly decided to cultivate their owner.
+
+He began by asking casual questions of his fellow guests, but he could
+find out very little concerning the lady. She was a Mrs. Darling, a
+friend of their hostess (which he knew already). She was a widow, they
+believed, though they had never heard her husband mentioned. She was
+pleasant enough--but so shy and retiring! Charming face she had, though,
+and beautiful eyes. But did he not think she was--well, a little
+peculiar?
+
+Mr. Donald Estey did not answer this, directly. He became, indeed,
+always very evasive when his fellow guests turned about and began to
+question him. Very soon, too, he ceased his own questioning. But that
+he had not lost his interest in Mrs. Darling was most unmistakably shown
+at once, for openly and systematically he began to seek her society--to
+the varying opinions (but unvarying interest) of the rest of the house
+party.
+
+If Mr. Donald Estey had expected Mrs. Darling to be shy and coy at his
+advances, he found himself entirely mistaken. She welcomed him with a
+frank delight that was most flattering, at the same time most puzzling,
+owing to a certain elusive quality that he could not name.
+
+Mr. Donald Estey thought that he knew women well. It pleased his fancy
+to think that he had his feminine friends nicely pigeonholed and
+labeled, and that he had but to pass an hour or two of intimate talk
+with any woman to be able at once to ticket her accurately. His first
+hour of intimate talk with Mrs. Darling, however, left him confused and
+baffled--but mightily interested: in the course of that one hour he had
+shelved her in almost every one of his pigeonholes, only to find at the
+end of it that she was still free and uncatalogued.
+
+She was a flirt; she was not a flirt. She was sincere; she was
+hypocritical. She was brilliantly subtle; she was incredibly stupid. She
+was charming; she was commonplace. She was as clear as crystal; she was
+as inscrutable as a sphinx--and she was all these things in that one
+short first hour. At the end of it, Mr. Donald Estey, with a long breath
+and a frown, but with a quickened pulse, decided that he would have
+another hour with her as soon as possible.
+
+He had no difficulty in obtaining it. Mrs. Darling, indeed, seemed quite
+as desirous of his society as he was of hers; yet there was still the
+elusive something in her manner that robbed it of all offensive
+eagerness. Again to-day, after the hour's intimate talk, Estey found
+himself confused and baffled, with the lady still outside his
+pigeonholes. Nor did he find the situation changed the next day, or the
+next. Then suddenly he awoke to a new element in the case--the
+extraordinary deference that was being paid his lightest wish or
+preference on the part of Mrs. Darling.
+
+At first, doubting the accuracy of his suspicions, he systematically put
+her to the test, choosing purposely the most obvious and unmistakable.
+
+Blue was his favorite color, he said: she appeared in blue the next day.
+Browning was his best-loved poet, he declared: in less than an hour he
+found her poring over "Pippa Passes" in the library. A woman who could
+talk, and talk well, on current events won his sincere admiration every
+time, he told her: he wondered the next morning how late she must have
+sat up the night before, studying the merits and demerits of the four
+presidential candidates.
+
+Mr. Donald Estey was flattered, amused, and curiously interested. Not
+that what looked to be a determined assault upon his heart was exactly a
+new experience for him; but that the circumstances in this case were so
+out of the ordinary, and that he was still trying to "place" this young
+woman. He was not sure even, always, that she was trying to make a bid
+for his affections. He was not sure, either, of his own mind regarding
+her. In spite of his interest, he was conscious, sometimes, of a
+distinct feeling of aversion toward her. She was not always, to his
+mind, quite--the lady, though she was improving in that respect. (Even
+in his thoughts the word gave him a shock: he could hardly imagine a
+candidate for the position of Mrs. Donald Estey in need
+of--improvement!) But she was beautiful, and there was something
+wonderfully alluring in her eager way of listening to his every word.
+She was, indeed, not a little refreshing after the languid conservatism
+of some of the sophisticated young women one usually found at these
+country houses. Besides, was she, after all, really in love with him?
+Very likely she was not. At all events, it could do no harm--this mild
+flirtation--if flirtation it were! He would not worry about it. Plenty
+of time yet to--to withdraw. He had but to receive (apparently) a
+summoning message, and he could go at once. That would, of course, end
+the affair. Meanwhile-- But just exactly what type of woman was she,
+anyway?
+
+Still amused, interested, and contentedly secure, therefore, Mr. Donald
+Estey pursued for another week his pleasant pastime of finding just the
+proper pigeonhole for this tantalizing will-o'-the-wisp of femininity;
+then, sharply, he received a jolt that left him figuratively--almost
+literally--breathless and gasping.
+
+They were talking of marriage.
+
+"But you yourself have never married," she said.
+
+"No, I have never married."
+
+"I wonder why."
+
+Mr. Donald Estey frowned and stirred restlessly--there were times when
+Mrs. Darling's unconventionality was not "refreshing."
+
+"Perhaps--the right girl has never found me," he shrugged.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Estey, please, what sort of a girl would be the right one--for
+you?"
+
+"Well, really--er--" He stopped and stirred again uneasily--there was an
+almost frenzied earnestness in her face and manner that was somewhat
+disconcerting.
+
+"That might be hard telling," he evaded banteringly.
+
+"But you _could_ tell me, Mr. Estey. I know you could. And, oh, won't
+you, please?"
+
+"Why, er--Mrs. Darling!" He gave an embarrassed laugh as he sought for
+just the right word to say. "You seem--er--extraordinarily interested."
+He laughed again--to hide the fact that he knew that he had said just
+the _wrong_ thing.
+
+"I am interested. Indeed, Mr. Estey, it would mean--you cannot know what
+it would mean--if you'd tell me."
+
+"Why--er--really--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. I hadn't ought to talk like this. Ladies don't. I can
+see it in your face. But it's because I want to _know_ so--because I
+must know. Please, won't you tell me?"
+
+With a quick lifting of his head Mr. Donald Estey pulled himself sharply
+together. Flattering as it was to be thus deferred to, this
+flirtation--if flirtation it were--had gone quite far enough. He laughed
+again lightly and sprang to his feet.
+
+"Couldn't think of it, Mrs. Darling. Really, I couldn't, you know!"
+
+"Mr. Estey!" She, too, was on her feet. She had laid a persuasive hand
+on his arm. "Please, you think I'm joking; but I'm not. I really mean
+it. If you only would do it--it would mean so much to me! And
+don't--don't look at me like that. I _know_ I'm not being proper, and I
+know ladies don't do so--what I'm doing. But when I saw it--such a
+splendid chance to ask you, I--I just had to do it."
+
+"But--but--" The startled, nonplussed man stuttered like a bashful
+schoolboy; "it really is so--so absurd, Mrs. Darling, when you--er--stop
+to think of it."
+
+She sighed despairingly, but she did not take her hand from his arm.
+
+"Then, if"--she spoke hurriedly, and with evident embarrassment--"if you
+won't tell me that way, won't you please tell me another? Could
+you--would you-- Am I _any_ like that girl, Mr. Estey?"
+
+Mr. Donald Estey was guilty of an actual gasp of dismay. In a whirl of
+vexation at the situation in which he found himself, he groped blindly
+for a safe way out. Of course young women (young women such as he knew)
+did not really propose to one; but was it possible that that was exactly
+what this somewhat remarkable young widow was doing? It seemed
+incredible. And yet--
+
+"Am I, Mr. Estey? Or do you think I could--learn?"
+
+"Why, er--er--"
+
+"I mean, would you--could you marry--_me_?"
+
+Every vestige of self-control slipped from the tortured man like a
+garment. Conscious only of an insane desire to flee from this wretched
+woman who was about to march him to the altar willy-nilly, he quite
+jerked his arm free.
+
+"Well, really, Mrs. Darling, I--I--"
+
+"You wouldn't, I can see you wouldn't!" There was a heartbroken little
+sob in her voice.
+
+"But--but, Mrs. Darling! Oh, hang it all! What a perfectly preposterous
+situation!" he stormed wrathfully. "I don't want--to marry anybody. I
+tell you I'm not a marrying man! I--" He stopped short at the astounding
+change that had come to the little woman opposite.
+
+She was staring into his face with a growing terror that suddenly, at
+its height, broke into a gale of hysterical laughter. She covered her
+face with her hands and dropped into the chair behind her.
+
+"Oh, oh, you didn't--you didn't--but you _did_!" she choked, swaying
+her body back and forth. The next moment she was on her feet, facing
+him, a new something in her eyes. The laughter was quite gone. "You
+needn't worry, Mr. Donald Estey." She spoke hurriedly, and with all the
+wild _abandon_ of her old self. "I wasn't asking you to marry me--so you
+don't have to refuse." Her voice quivered with hurt pride.
+
+"Why, of course not, of course not, my dear lady!" He caught at the
+straw. "I never thought--"
+
+"Yes, you did; and you was floundering around trying to find a way to
+say no. I wasn't good enough for you. And that's just what I was trying
+to find out, too,--but it hurt, just the same, when I did find out!"
+
+"Oh, but, Mrs. Darling, I didn't mean--"
+
+"Yes, you did. I saw it in your eyes, and in the way you drew back. Only
+I--I didn't mean _you_. I never thought of your taking it that way--that
+I wanted to marry _you_. It was some one else that I meant."
+
+"Some one _else_?" The stupefaction in the man's face deepened.
+
+"Yes. You don't know him. But they said you was--_were_, I mean, like
+him; that what _you_ liked, he would like. See? And that's why I tried
+to find out what--what you did like, so I could learn to be what would
+please him."
+
+The petted idol of unnumbered drawing-rooms blinked his eyes.
+
+"You mean you were using _me_ as an--er--understudy?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes--no--I don't know. I was just trying to walk and talk and breathe
+and move the way you wanted me to, so I could do it by and by for--him."
+
+Mr. Donald Estey drew in his breath.
+
+"Well, by--Jove!"
+
+"And I'm going to." She lifted her chin determinedly. "_I'm going to!_
+And now you know--why I asked you what I did. I was hoping I--I had
+gained a little in all these weeks. I've been trying so hard. And before
+you came, when Mrs. Thayer told me you were like--like the man I love, I
+determined then to watch you and study you, and do everything the way
+you liked, if I could find out what it was. And now to have you think I
+was _asking_ you to--to-- As if I'd ever marry--_you_!" she choked. The
+next moment, with a wild fling of her arms, she was gone.
+
+Alone, Mr. Donald Estey drew a long breath. As he turned, he faced his
+own image in the mirror across the room. Slowly he advanced toward it.
+There was a quizzical smile in his eyes.
+
+"Donald, me boy," he apostrophized, "you have been rejected. Do you
+hear? _Rejected!_ Jove! But what an extraordinary young woman!" His eyes
+left the mirror and sought the door by which she had gone.
+
+Mr. Donald Estey did not see Mrs. Darling again during his stay. A
+sudden indisposition prevented her from being among the guests for some
+days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A WOMAN'S WILL
+
+
+Dr. Gleason's Arctic trip, designed to cover a year of research and
+discovery, prolonged itself into three years and two months. Shipwrecks,
+thrilling escapes, months of silence, and a period when hope for the
+safety of the party was quite gone, all figured in the story before the
+heroic rescue brought a happier ending to what had come so near to being
+another tragedy of the ice-bound North.
+
+It was June when Frank Gleason, in the care of a nurse and a physician,
+arrived at his sister's summer cottage by the sea.
+
+For a month after his coming Frank Gleason was too ill to ask many
+questions. But with returning strength came an insistence upon an answer
+to a query he had already several times put to his sister.
+
+"Edith, what of the Denbys? Where is Helen? Why do you always evade any
+questions about her?"
+
+"She is here with me."
+
+"Here--_still_?"
+
+"Yes. And she's a great comfort and help to me."
+
+"And Burke doesn't know yet where she is?"
+
+"Not that we know of."
+
+"Impossible--all this time!"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. All our friends know her as 'Mrs. Darling.' The
+Denbys never come here, and they'd never think of looking here for her,
+anyway. We figured that out long ago."
+
+"But it can't go on forever! When is she going back?"
+
+An odd look crossed Mrs. Thayer's face.
+
+"I don't know, Frank; but not for some time--if ever--I should judge,
+from present indications."
+
+"'If ever'! Good Heavens, Edith, what do you mean?" demanded the doctor,
+pulling himself up in his chair. "I _knew_ no good would come of this
+tom-foolishness!"
+
+"There, there, dear, never mind all this now," begged his sister.
+"Please don't try to talk about it any more."
+
+"But I will talk about it, Edith. I want to know--and you might just as
+well tell me in the first place, and not hang back and hesitate,"
+protested the doctor, with all the irritability of a naturally strong
+man who finds himself so unaccountably weak in his convalescence.
+"What's the trouble? Hasn't that--er--fool-improvement business worked
+out? Well, I didn't think it would!"
+
+Edith Thayer laughed softly.
+
+"On the contrary, it's working beautifully. Wait till you see her. She's
+a dear--a very charming woman. She's developed wonderfully. But along
+with it all has come to her a very deep and genuine, and rather curious,
+humility, together with a pride, the chief aim of which is to avoid
+anything like the position in which she found herself as the
+mortifying, distress-causing wife of Burke Denby."
+
+"Humph!" commented the doctor.
+
+"That Burke doesn't love her, she is thoroughly convinced. To go to him
+now, tacitly asking to be taken back, she feels to be impossible. She
+has no notion of going where she isn't wanted; and she feels very sure
+she _isn't_ wanted by either Burke or his father. Of course the longer
+it runs, and the longer she stays away, the harder it seems for her to
+make herself known."
+
+"Oh, but this _can't_ go on forever," protested Frank Gleason again,
+restlessly. "I'll see Burke. As soon as I'm on my feet again I shall run
+up there."
+
+"But you've given your promise not to tell, remember."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. I shan't tell, of course. But I can bring back
+something, I'm sure, that will--will cause this stubborn young woman to
+change her mind."
+
+"I doubt it. Helen says she's not ready to go back yet, anyway."
+
+"Not sufficiently 'improved,' I suppose," laughed the doctor, a little
+grimly.
+
+"Perhaps. Then, too, she has other plans all made."
+
+"Oh, she has!"
+
+"Yes. She's going abroad. Do you remember Angie Reynolds?--Angie Ried,
+you know--married Ned Reynolds."
+
+"Yes. Nice girl!"
+
+"Well, they're going abroad for some years--some business for the firm,
+I believe. Anyway, Ned will have to be months at a time in different
+cities, and Angie and little Gladys are going with him. They have asked
+Helen and Betty to go, too; and Helen has agreed to go."
+
+"And leave you?"
+
+At the indignant expression on her brother's face, Edith Thayer laughed
+merrily.
+
+"But, my dear Frank, I thought you were just threatening to _get_ Helen
+to leave me!" she challenged.
+
+"So I was," retorted the doctor, nothing daunted. "But it was to get her
+to go home, where she belonged; not on any wild-goose chase like this
+abroad business. What does she want?--to be presented at court? Maybe
+she thinks that's going to do the job!"
+
+"Oh, come, come, Frank, now you're sarcastic!" Mrs. Thayer's voice was
+earnest, though her eyes were twinkling. "It isn't a wild-goose chase a
+bit. It's a very sensible plan. In the first place, it takes Helen out
+of the country--which is wise, if she's still going to try to keep her
+whereabouts a secret from Burke; for eventually some one, somewhere,
+would see her--some one who knew her face. She can't always live so
+secluded a life as she has these past three years, of course,--we have
+spent the greater share of that time at the beach here, coming early and
+staying late.
+
+"But that isn't all. Angie has taken a great fancy to both Helen and
+Dorothy Elizabeth, and she likes to have Gladys with them. The children
+are the same age--about five, you know--and great cronies. Angie is
+taking Helen as a sort of companion-governess. Her duties will be light
+and congenial. Both the children will be in her charge, and their
+treatment and advantages will be identical. There will be a nursery
+governess under her, and she herself will be much with Angie, which will
+be invaluable to her, in many ways. And, by the way, Frank, the fact
+that a woman like Angie Reynolds is taking her for a traveling companion
+shows, more conclusively than anything else could, how greatly improved
+Helen is--what a really charming woman she has come to be. But it is a
+splendid chance for her, certainly, and especially for Betty--her whole
+life centers now in Betty--and I urged her taking it. At first she
+demurred, on account of leaving me; but I succeeded in convincing her
+that it was altogether too good an opportunity to lose."
+
+"Opportunity, indeed! When does she go?"
+
+"The last of next month."
+
+"Oh, that's all right, then. I shall see Burke long before that." The
+doctor settled back in his chair with a relieved sigh.
+
+His sister eyed him with a disturbed frown.
+
+"Frank, dear, you can't do anything," she ventured at last. "Didn't I
+tell you she wasn't ready to go back?"
+
+"But she'll have to go--some time."
+
+"Perhaps. But wait. I'm not going to say another word now, nor let you.
+Wait till you see her--and you shall see her in a day or two--just as
+soon as you are strong enough. But not another word now." And to make
+sure that he obeyed, Mrs. Thayer rose laughingly and left the room.
+
+It was four days later that Frank Gleason for the first time ventured
+downstairs and out into the warm sunshine on the south veranda. Hearing
+a child's gleeful laugh and a woman's gently remonstrative voice,--a
+voice that he thought he recognized,--he walked the length of the
+veranda and rounded the corner.
+
+His slippered feet made no sound, so quite unheralded he came upon the
+woman and the little girl on the wide veranda steps. Neither one saw
+him, and he stopped short at the corner, his eyes alight with sudden
+admiration.
+
+Frank Gleason thought he had never seen a more lovely little girl.
+Blue-eyed, golden-haired, and rosy-cheeked, she was the typical
+child-beautiful of picture and romance. A-tiptoe on the topmost step she
+was reaching one dimpled hand for a gorgeous red geranium blooming in a
+pot decorating the balustrade. In the other hand, tightly clutched, was
+another gorgeous blossom, sadly crushed and broken. She was laughing
+gleefully. Near her, but not attempting to touch her, was a woman the
+doctor recognized at once. It was Helen--but Helen with a subtle
+difference of face, eyes, hair, dress, and manner that was at once
+illuminating but baffling.
+
+"Betty, dear," she was saying gently, "no, no! Mother said not to pick
+the flowers."
+
+The child turned roguish, willful eyes.
+
+"But I wants to pick 'em."
+
+"Mother can't let you, dear. And see, they are so much prettier
+growing!"
+
+The small red lips pouted. The little curly head gave a vigorous shake.
+
+"But I wants 'em to grow in my hands--so," insisted a threateningly
+tearful voice, as the tightly clutched flower was thrust forward for
+inspection.
+
+"But they won't grow there, darling. See!--this one is all crumpled and
+broken now. It can't even lift its poor little head. Come, we don't want
+the rest to be like that, do we? Come! Come away with me."
+
+The young eyes grew mutinous.
+
+"I wants 'em to grow in my hand," insisted the red lips again.
+
+"But mother doesn't." There was a resolute note of decision in the quiet
+voice now; but suddenly it grew wonderfully soft and vibrant. "And daddy
+wouldn't, either, dearie. Only think how sorry daddy would be to see
+that poor little flower in Betty's hand!"
+
+As if in response to a potent something in her mother's voice, Betty's
+eyes grew roundly serious.
+
+"Why--would daddy--be sorry?"
+
+"Because daddy loves all beautiful things, and he wants them to stay
+beautiful. And this poor little flower in Betty's hand won't be
+beautiful much longer, I fear. It is all broken and crushed; and
+daddy--"
+
+With a sudden sense of guilt, as if trespassing on holy ground, the
+doctor strode forward noisily.
+
+"So this is Dorothy Elizabeth and her mother--" he began gayly; but he
+could get no further.
+
+Helen Denby turned with a joyous cry and an eagerly extended hand.
+
+"Oh, Dr. Gleason, I'm so glad! You _are_ better, aren't you? I'm so glad
+to see you!"
+
+"Yes, I'm better. I'm well--only I can't seem to make people believe it.
+And you-- I don't need to ask how you are. And so this big girl is the
+little Dorothy Elizabeth I used to know. You have your mother's eyes, my
+dear. Come, won't you shake hands with me?"
+
+The little girl advanced slowly, her gaze searching the doctor's face.
+Then, in her sweet, high-pitched treble, came the somewhat disconcerting
+question:--
+
+"Is you--daddy?"
+
+The doctor laughed lightly.
+
+"No, my dear. I'm a poor unfortunate man who hasn't any little girl like
+you; but we'll hope, one of these days, you'll see--daddy." He turned to
+Helen Denby with suddenly grave, questioning eyes.
+
+"Betty, dear,"--Mrs. Denby refused to meet the doctor's gaze,--"go carry
+the flower to Annie and ask her please to put it in water for you; then
+run out and play with Bessie in the garden. Mother wants to talk to Dr.
+Gleason a few minutes." Then, to the doctor, she turned an agitated
+face. "Surely, didn't your sister--tell you? I'm going to London with
+Mrs. Reynolds."
+
+"Yes, she told me. But perhaps I was hoping to persuade you--to do
+otherwise."
+
+Her eyes grew troubled.
+
+"But it's such a fine chance--"
+
+"For more of this 'improvement' business, I suppose," cut in the doctor,
+a bit brusquely.
+
+She turned reproachful eyes upon him.
+
+"Oh, please, doctor, don't make fun of me like--"
+
+"As if I'd make fun of you, child!" cut in the doctor, still more
+sharply.
+
+"Oh, but I can't blame you, of course," she smiled wistfully; "and
+especially now that I see myself how absurd I was to think, for a
+minute, that I could make myself over into a--a--the sort of wife that
+Burke Denby would wish to have."
+
+"Absurd that you could-- Come, come! _Now_ what nonsense are you
+talking?" snapped the doctor.
+
+"But it isn't nonsense," objected Helen Denby earnestly. "Don't you
+suppose I know _now_? I used to think it was something you could learn
+as you would a poem, or that you could put on to you, as you would a new
+dress. But I know now it's something inside of you that has to grow and
+grow just as you grow; and I'm afraid all the putting on and learning in
+the world won't get _me_ there."
+
+"Oh, come, come, Mrs. Denby!" expostulated the doctor, in obvious
+consternation.
+
+"But it's so. Listen," she urged tremulously. "Now I--I just can't like
+the kind of music Burke does,--discords, and no tune, you know,--though
+I've tried and tried to. Day after day I've gone into the music-room and
+put in those records,--the classics and the operatic ones that are the
+real thing, you know,--but I can't like them; and I still keep liking
+tunes and ragtime. And there are the books, too. I can't help liking
+jingles and stories that _tell_ something; and I don't like poetry--not
+real poetry like Browning and all the rest of them."
+
+"Browning, indeed! As if that counted, child!"
+
+"Oh, but it's other things--lots of them; vague, elusive things that I
+can't put my finger on. But I know them now, since I've been here with
+your sister and her friends. Why, sometimes it isn't anything more than
+the way a woman speaks, or the way she sits down and gets up, or even
+the way a bit of lace falls over her hand. But they all help. And
+they've helped me, too,--oh, so much. I'm so glad now of this chance to
+thank you. You don't know--you can't know, what it's been for me--to be
+here."
+
+"But I thought you just said that you--you _couldn't_--that is, that
+you'd--er--given up," floundered the doctor miserably, as if groping for
+some sort of support on a topsy-turvy world.
+
+"Given up? Perhaps I have--in a way--for myself. You see, I know now
+that you have to begin young. That's why I'm so happy about Betty. I
+don't mind about myself any more, if only I can make it all right for
+her. Dr. Gleason, I couldn't--I just _couldn't_ have her father ashamed
+of--Betty!"
+
+"Ashamed of that child! Well, I should say not," blustered the doctor
+incoherently; "nor of you, either, you brave little woman. Why--"
+
+"Betty _is_ a dear, isn't she?" interrupted the mother eagerly. "You
+_do_ think she'll--she'll be everything he could wish? I'm keeping him
+always before her--what he likes, how he'd want her to do, you know. And
+almost always I can make her mind now, with daddy's name, and--"
+
+The doctor interrupted with a gesture of impatience.
+
+"My dear lady, can't you see that now--right _now_ is just the time for
+you to go back to your husband?"
+
+The eager, pleading, wistful-eyed little mother opposite became suddenly
+the dignified, stern-eyed woman.
+
+"Has he said he wanted me, Dr. Gleason?"
+
+"Why--er--y-yes; well, that is, he-- I know he has wanted to know where
+you were."
+
+"Very likely; but that isn't wanting _me_. Dr. Gleason, don't you think
+I have any pride, any self-respect, even? My husband was ashamed of me.
+He asked me to go away for a time. He wrote me with his own hand that he
+wanted a vacation from me. Do you think _now_, without a sign or a word
+from him, that I am going creeping back to him and ask him to take me
+back?"
+
+"But he doesn't know where you are, to _give_ you a sign," argued the
+doctor.
+
+"You've seen him, haven't you?"
+
+"Why, y-yes--but not lately. But--I'm going to."
+
+A startled look came into her eyes. The next minute she smiled sadly.
+
+"Are you? Very well; we'll see--if he says anything. You won't tell him
+where I am, I know. I have your promise. But, Dr. Gleason,"--her voice
+grew very sweet and serious,--"I shall not be satisfied now with
+anything short of a happy married life. I know now what marriage is,
+where there is love, and trust in each other, and where they like to do
+and talk about the same things. I've seen your sister and her husband.
+Unless I can _know_ that I'm going to bring that kind of happiness to
+Burke, I shall not consent to go back to him. I will give him his
+daughter. Some time, when she is old enough, I want him to see her. When
+I know that he is proud of my Betty, I may not--mind the rest so much,
+perhaps. But now--now--" With a choking little cry she turned and fled
+down the steps and out on to the garden path.
+
+Baffled, irritated, yet frowningly admiring, the doctor stalked into the
+house.
+
+In the hall he came face to face with his sister. She fluttered into
+instant anxiety.
+
+"Why, Frank--_outdoors_? Who said you could do that?"
+
+"I did. Oh, the doctor said so, too," he flung out hurriedly, answering
+the dawning disapproval in her eyes. "I'm going to Dalton next week."
+
+"Oh, but, Frank--"
+
+"Now, please don't argue. I'm going. If you and the doctor can get me
+well enough to go--all right. But I'm going whether I'm well enough or
+not."
+
+"But, Frank, dear, you can't _do_ anything. You know you promised."
+
+"Oh, I shan't break any promises, of course. But I'm going to see Burke.
+I'm going to find out if he really is ninny enough to keep on holding
+off, at the end of a silly quarrel, the sweetest little wife a man ever
+had, and--"
+
+"I opine you've seen Helen," smiled Edith Thayer, with a sudden twinkle.
+
+"I have, and--doesn't like Browning, indeed! And can't help liking
+tunes! Oh, good Heavens, Edith, if Burke Denby doesn't-- Well, we'll see
+next week," he glowered, striding away, followed by the anxious but
+still twinkling eyes of his sister.
+
+In accordance with his threat, and in spite of protests, the doctor went
+to Dalton the next week. But almost by return train he was back again,
+stern-lipped and somber-eyed.
+
+"Why, Frank, so soon as this?" cried his sister. "Surely Burke Denby
+didn't--"
+
+"I didn't see him."
+
+"His father, then?"
+
+"Neither one. They're gone. South America. Bridge contract. Went
+themselves this time."
+
+"Oh, that explains it--why we haven't heard from them since you came
+back. I _had_ thought it strange, Frank, that not a word of
+congratulation or even inquiry had come from them."
+
+"Yes, I know. I--I'd thought it strange myself--a little. But that
+doesn't help this thing any. I can't very well go to South America to
+see Burke, just now--though I'd like to."
+
+"Of course not. Besides, don't forget that you very likely wouldn't
+accomplish anything if you did see him."
+
+So deep was the sudden gloom on the doctor's face at her words that the
+lady added quickly: "You did find out something in Dalton, Frank! I know
+you did by your face. You saw some one."
+
+"Oh, I saw--Brett."
+
+"Who's he?"
+
+"Denby's general manager and chief factotum."
+
+"Well, he ought to know--something."
+
+"He does--everything. But he won't tell--anything."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And it's right that he shouldn't, of course. It's his business to keep
+his mouth shut--and he knows his business as well as any man I can think
+of. Oh, he was perfectly civil, and apparently very gracious and
+open-hearted in what he said."
+
+"What _did_ he say?"
+
+"He said that they had gone to South America on a big bridge contract,
+and that they wouldn't be home for four or five months yet. He said that
+they were very well, and that, probably, when they came back from this
+trip, they would go to South Africa for another six months. I couldn't
+get anywhere near asking about Helen, and Burke's present state of mind
+concerning her. He could scent a question of that sort forty words away;
+and he invariably veered off at a tangent long before I got to it. It
+was like starting for New York and landing in Montreal! I had to give it
+up. So far as anything I could learn to the contrary, Mr. Burke Denby
+and his father are well, happy, and perfectly content to build bridges
+for heathens and Hottentots the rest of their natural existence. And
+there you are! How, pray, in the face of that, are we going to keep
+Helen from running off to London?"
+
+"I shouldn't try."
+
+"But--oh, hang it all, Edith! This can't go on."
+
+"Oh, yes, it can, my dear; and I'm inclined to think it's going on just
+right. Very plainly they aren't ready for each other--yet. Let her go to
+London and make the best of all these advantages for herself and Betty;
+and let him go on with his bridge-building for the Hottentots. 'Twill do
+them good--both of them, and will be all the better for them when they
+do come together."
+
+"Oh, then they _are_ to come together some time!"
+
+"Why, Frank, of course they are! You couldn't keep them apart,"
+declared the lady, with smiling confidence.
+
+"But, Edith, you haven't ever talked like this--before," puzzled the
+doctor, frowning.
+
+"I've never known before that Burke Denby was building bridges for the
+Hottentots."
+
+"Nonsense! That's their business. They've always built bridges."
+
+"Yes, but Master Burke and his father haven't always gone to superintend
+their construction," she flashed. "In other words, if Burke Denby is
+trying so strenuously to get away from himself, it's a pretty sure sign
+that there's something in himself that he wants to get away from! You
+see?"
+
+"Well, I should like to see," sighed the doctor, with very evident
+doubt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+EMERGENCIES
+
+
+In September Helen Denby and Dorothy Elizabeth went to London. With
+their going, a measure of peace came to Frank Gleason. Not having their
+constant presence to remind him of his friend's domestic complications,
+he could the more easily adopt his sister's complacent attitude of
+cheery confidence that it would all come out right in time--that it
+_must_ come out right. Furthermore, with Helen not under his own roof,
+he was not so guiltily conscious of "aiding and abetting" a friend's
+runaway wife.
+
+Soon after Helen's departure for London, a letter from Burke Denby in
+far-away South America told of the Denbys' rejoicing at the happy
+outcome of the Arctic trip, and expressed the hope that the doctor was
+well, and that they might meet him as soon as possible after their
+return from South America in December.
+
+The letter was friendly and cordial, but not long. It told little of
+their work, and nothing of themselves. And, in spite of its verbal
+cordiality, the doctor felt, at its conclusion, that he had, as it were,
+been attending a formal reception when he had hoped for a cozy chat by
+the fire.
+
+In December, at Burke's bidding, he ran up to Dalton for a brief visit,
+but it proved to be as stiff and unsatisfying as the letter had been.
+Burke never mentioned his wife; but he wore so unmistakable an
+"Of-course-I-understand-you-are-angry-with-me" air, that the doctor
+(much to his subsequent vexation when he realized it) went out of his
+way to be heartily cordial, as if in refutation of the disapproval
+idea--which was not the impression the doctor really wished to convey at
+all. He was, in fact, very angry with Burke. He wanted nothing so much
+as to give him a piece of his mind. Yet, so potent was Burke's dignified
+aloofness that he found himself chattering of Inca antiquities and
+Babylonian tablets instead of delivering his planned dissertation on the
+futility of quarrels in general and of Burke's and Helen's in
+particular.
+
+With John Denby he had little better success, so far as results were
+concerned; though he did succeed in asking a few questions.
+
+"You have never heard from--Mrs. Denby?" he began abruptly, the minute
+he found himself alone with Burke's father.
+
+"Never."
+
+"But you--you would like to!"
+
+The old man's face became suddenly mask-like--a phenomenon with which
+John Denby's business associates were very familiar, but which Dr. Frank
+Gleason had never happened to witness before.
+
+"If you will pardon me, doctor," began John Denby in a colorless voice,
+"I would rather not discuss the lady. There isn't anything new that I
+can say, and I am beginning to feel--as does my son--that I would
+rather not hear her name mentioned."
+
+This ended it, of course. There was nothing the doctor could say or do.
+Bound by his promise to Helen Denby, he could not tell the facts; and
+silenced by his host's words and manner, he could not discuss
+potentialities. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to drop the
+subject. And he dropped it. He went home the next day. Resolutely then
+he busied himself with his own affairs. Determinedly he set himself to
+forget the affairs of the Denbys. This was the more easily accomplished
+because of the long silences and absences of the Denby men themselves,
+and because Helen Denby still remained abroad with Angie Reynolds.
+
+In London Helen Denby was living in a new world. Quick to realize the
+advantages that were now hers, she determined to make the most of
+them--especially for Betty. Always everything now centered around Betty.
+
+In Mrs. Reynolds Helen had found a warm friend and sympathetic ally, one
+who, she knew, would keep quite to herself the story Helen had told her.
+Even Mr. Reynolds was not let into the inner secret of Helen's presence
+with them. To him she was a companion governess, a friend of the
+Thayers', to whom his wife had taken a great fancy--a most charming
+little woman, indeed, whom he himself liked very much.
+
+Freed from the fear of meeting Burke Denby or any of his friends, Helen,
+for the first time since her flight from Dalton, felt that she was
+really safe, and that she could, with an undivided mind, devote her
+entire attention to her self-imposed task.
+
+From London to Berlin, and from Berlin to Genoa, she went happily, as
+Mr. Reynolds's business called him. To Helen it made little difference
+where she was, so long as she could force every picture, statue,
+mountain, concert, book, or individual to pay toll to her insatiable
+hunger "to know"--that she might tell Betty.
+
+Mrs. Reynolds, almost as eager and interested as Helen herself,
+conducted their daily lives with an eye always alert as to what would be
+best for Helen and Betty. Teachers for Gladys and Betty--were teachers
+for Helen, too; and carefully Mrs. Reynolds made it a point that her own
+social friends should also be Helen's--which Helen accepted with
+unruffled cheerfulness. Helen, indeed, had now almost reached the goal
+long ago set for her by Mrs. Thayer: it was very nearly a matter of
+supreme indifference to her whether she met people or not, so far as the
+idea of meeting them was concerned. There came a day, however, when, for
+a moment, Helen almost yielded to her old run-and-hide temptation.
+
+They were back in London, and it was near the close of Helen's third
+year abroad.
+
+"I met Mr. Donald Estey this morning," said Mrs. Reynolds at the
+luncheon table that noon. "I asked him to dine with us to-morrow night.
+He is here for the winter."
+
+"So? Good! I shall be glad to see Estey," commented her husband.
+
+Once Helen would have given a cry, dropped her fork with a clatter, or
+otherwise made her startled perturbation conspicuous to all. That only
+an almost imperceptible movement and a slight change of color resulted
+now showed something of what Helen Denby had learned during the last few
+years.
+
+"You say Mr. Donald Estey will be--here, to-morrow?" she asked quietly.
+
+"Yes. You remember him," nodded Mrs. Reynolds. "He was at the Thayers'
+at the same time I was there six years ago--tall, good-looking fellow
+with glasses."
+
+"Yes, I remember," smiled Helen. And never would one have imagined that
+behind the quiet words was a wild clamor of "Oh, what shall I do--what
+shall I do--what _shall_ I do?"
+
+What Helen Denby wanted to do was to run away--far away, where Mr.
+Donald Estey could never find her. Next best would be to tell Mrs.
+Reynolds that she could not see him; but to do that, she would have to
+tell why--and she did not want to tell even Mrs. Reynolds the story of
+that awful hour at the Thayers' North Shore cottage. True, she might
+feign illness and plead a headache; but Mrs. Reynolds had said that Mr.
+Estey was to be in London all winter--and she could not very well have a
+headache all winter! There was plainly no way but to meet this thing
+fairly and squarely. Besides, had not Mrs. Thayer said long ago that
+emergencies were the greatest test of manners, as well as of ropes and
+housewives, and that she must always be ready for emergencies? Was she
+to fail now at this, her first real test?
+
+Mr. Donald Estey was already in the drawing-room when Helen Denby came
+down to dinner the following evening. She had put on a simple white
+dress--after a horrified rejection of a blue one, her first choice. (She
+had remembered just in time that Mr. Donald Estey's favorite color was
+blue.) She was pale, but she looked charmingly pretty as she entered the
+room.
+
+"You remember Mr. Estey," Mrs. Reynolds murmured. The next moment Helen
+found her hand in a warm clasp, and a pair of laughing gray eyes looking
+straight into hers.
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember him very well," she contrived to say cheerfully.
+
+"And I remember Mrs. Darling very well," came to her ears in Mr. Donald
+Estey's smoothly noncommittal voice. Then she forced herself to walk
+calmly across the room and to sit down leisurely.
+
+What anybody said next she did not hear. Somewhere within her a voice
+was exulting: "I've done it, I've done it, and I didn't make a break!"
+
+It was a small table, and conversation at dinner was general. At first
+Helen said little, not trusting herself to speak unless a question made
+speech imperative; but gradually she found the tense something within
+her relaxing. She was able then to talk more freely; and before the
+dinner was over she was apparently quite her usual self.
+
+As to Mr. Donald Estey--Mr. Donald Estey was piqued and surprised, but
+mightily interested. Half his anticipated pleasure in this dinner had
+been the fact that he was to see Mrs. Darling again. She would blush and
+stammer, and be adorably embarrassed, of course. He had not forgotten
+how distractingly pretty she was when she blushed. He would like to see
+her blush again.
+
+But here she was--and she had not blushed at all. What had happened? A
+cool little woman in a cool little gown had put a cool little hand in
+his, with a cool "Oh, yes, I remember him very well." And that was all.
+Yet she was the same Mrs. Darling that he had met six years before, and
+that had-- But was she the same, really the same? _That_ Mrs. Darling
+could never have carried off a meeting like this with such sweet
+serenity. He wondered--
+
+Mr. Donald Estey was still trying to pigeonhole the women he met.
+
+Mr. Donald Estey found frequent opportunity for studying his new-old
+friend during the days that followed, for they were much together. In
+Mrs. Reynolds's eyes he made a very convenient fourth for a day's
+sight-seeing trip or a concert, and she often asked him to join them.
+Also he made an even more convenient escort for herself and Helen when,
+as often happened, Mr. Reynolds was unable to accompany them.
+
+In one way and another, therefore, he was thrown often with this
+somewhat baffling young woman, who refused to be catalogued. The very
+fact that he still could not place her made him more persistent than
+ever. Besides, to himself he owned that he found her very charming--and
+very charming all the time. There was never on his part now that old
+feeling of aversion, of which he used to be conscious at times. And she
+was always quite the lady. He wondered how he could ever have thought
+her anything else. True, on that remarkable occasion six years before,
+she had said something about learning how to please--But he was trying
+to forget that scene. He did not believe that everything was quite
+straight about that extraordinary occasion. There must have been, in
+some way, a mistake. He did not believe, anyway, that it signified. At
+all events, he was not going to worry about a dead and gone past like
+that.
+
+Mr. Donald Estey was not the only one that was trying to forget that
+occasion. Helen herself was putting it behind her whenever the thought
+of it entered her head. Thinking of it brought embarrassment; and she
+did not like to feel embarrassed. She believed that he was trying to
+show that he had forgotten it; and if he were disposed to forget the
+ridiculous affair, surely she should be more than glad to do it. And she
+considered it very fine of him--very fine, indeed. She liked him, too.
+She liked him very much, and she enjoyed being with him. And there could
+be no harm now, either, in being with him all she liked, for he could
+never make the mistake of thinking she cared for him particularly. He
+understood that she loved some one else. They might be as friendly as
+they pleased. There could never--thank Heaven!--be any misunderstanding
+about their relationship.
+
+Confidently serene, therefore, Helen Denby enjoyed to the full the
+stimulus of Mr. Donald Estey's companionship. Then, abruptly, her house
+of cards tumbled about her ears.
+
+"Mrs. Darling, will you marry me?" the man asked one day. He spoke
+lightly, so lightly that she could not believe him serious. Yet she gave
+him a startled glance before she answered.
+
+"Mr. Estey, please don't jest!"
+
+"I'm not jesting. I'm in earnest. Will you marry me?"
+
+"_Mr. Estey!_" She could only gasp her dismay.
+
+"You seem surprised." He was still smiling.
+
+"But you can't--you can't be in earnest, Mr. Estey."
+
+"Why not, pray?"
+
+"Why, you know--you must remember--what I--I told you, six years ago."
+The red suffused her face.
+
+"You mean--that you cared for some one else?" He spoke gravely now. The
+smile was quite gone from his eyes. "But, Mrs. Darling, it's just there
+that I can't believe _you're_ in earnest. Besides, that was six years
+ago."
+
+"But I am in earnest, and it's the same--_now_," she urged feverishly.
+"Oh, Mr. Estey, please, please, don't let's spoil our friendship--this
+way. I thought you understood--I supposed, of course, you understood
+that I--I loved some one else very much."
+
+"But, Mrs. Darling, you said that six years ago, and--and you're still
+free _now_. Naturally no man would be such a fool as to let-- So I
+thought, of course, that you had--had--" He came to a helpless pause.
+
+The color swept her face again.
+
+"But I told you then that I was--was learning--was trying to learn-- Oh,
+why do you make me say it?"
+
+He glanced at her face, then jerked himself to his feet angrily.
+
+"Oh, come, come, Mrs. Darling, you don't expect me to believe that you
+now, _now_ are still trying to learn to please (as you call it) some
+mythically impossible man!"
+
+"He's not mythically impossible. He's real."
+
+"Then he's blind, deaf, and dumb, I suppose!" Mr. Donald Estey's voice
+was still wrathful.
+
+In spite of herself Helen Denby laughed.
+
+"No, no, oh, no! He's--" Suddenly her face grew grave, and very earnest.
+"Mr. Estey, I can't tell you. You wouldn't understand. If you--you care
+anything for me, you will not question me any more. I _can't_ tell you.
+Please, please don't say any more."
+
+But Mr. Donald Estey did say more--a little more. He did not say much,
+for the piteous pleading in the blue eyes stayed half the words on his
+lips before they were uttered. In the end he went away with a baffled,
+hurt pain in his own eyes, and Helen did not see him again for some
+days. But he came back in time. The pain still lurked in his eyes, but
+there was a resolute smile on his lips.
+
+"If you'll permit, I want things to be as they were before," he told
+her. "I'm still your friend, and I hope you are mine."
+
+"Why, of course, of course," she stammered. "Only, I--you--"
+
+As she hesitated, plainly disturbed, he raised a quick hand of protest.
+
+"Don't worry." His resolute smile became almost gay. "You'll see how
+good a friend I can be!"
+
+If Mr. Donald Estey was hoping to take by strategy the citadel that had
+refused to surrender, he gave no sign. As the days came and went, he was
+clearly and consistently the good friend he had said he would be; and
+Helen Denby found no cause to complain, or to fear untoward results.
+
+And so the winter passed and spring came; and it was on a beautiful day
+in early spring that Helen took Betty (now nine years old) to one of
+London's most famous curio-shops. There was to be an auction shortly of
+a very valuable collection of books and curios, and the advertising
+catalogue sent to Mr. Reynolds had fallen into Helen's hands.
+
+It was no new thing for Helen to haunt curio-shops and museum-cabinets
+given over to Babylonian tablets and Egyptian scarabs. Helen had never
+forgotten the little brown and yellow "soap-cakes" which were so
+treasured by Burke and his father, and of which she had been so jealous
+in the old days at Dalton. At every opportunity now she studied them.
+She wanted to know something about them; but especially she wanted Betty
+to know about them. Betty must know something about everything--that was
+of interest to Burke Denby.
+
+To-day, standing with Betty before a glass case of carefully numbered
+treasures, she was so assiduously studying the catalogue in her hand
+that she did not notice the approach of the tall man wearing glasses,
+until an amused voice reached her ears.
+
+"Going in for archæology, Mrs. Darling?"
+
+So violent was her start that it looked almost like one of guilt.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Estey! I--I didn't see you."
+
+His eyes twinkled.
+
+"I should say not--or hear me, either. I spoke twice before you deigned
+to turn. I did not know you were so interested in archæology, Mrs.
+Darling."
+
+She laughed lightly.
+
+"I'm not. I think it's--" Her face changed suddenly. "Oh, yes, I'm
+interested--very much interested," she corrected hastily. "But I mean
+I--I don't know anything about it. But I--I'm trying to learn. Perhaps
+you-- _Can_ you tell me anything about these things?"
+
+Something in her face, the fateful "learn," and her embarrassed manner,
+sent his thoughts back to the scene between them years before. Stifling
+an almost uncontrollable impulse to query, "Is it to please _him_, then,
+that you must learn archæology?" he shrugged his shoulders and shook his
+head.
+
+"I'm afraid not," he smiled. "Oh, I know a _little_ something of them,
+it's true; but I've just been chatting with a man out in the front shop
+who could talk to you by the hour about those things--and grow fat on
+it. He's looking at a toby jug now. Shall I bring him in?"
+
+"No, no, Mr. Estey, of course not!"
+
+"But, really, you'd find him interesting, I'm sure. I met him in Egypt
+last year. His name is Denby--a New Englander like-- Why, Mrs. Darling,
+what is the matter? Are you faint? You're white as chalk!"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No, no, I'm all right. Did you mean"--with white lips she asked the
+question--"Mr. John Denby?" She threw a quick look at Betty, who was now
+halfway across the room standing in awed wonder before a huge Buddha.
+
+"No, this is Burke Denby, John Denby's son. I met them both last year.
+But you seem to-- Do you know them?"
+
+"Yes." She said the word quietly, yet with an odd restraint that puzzled
+him. He saw that the color was coming back to her face--what he could
+not see or know was that underneath that calm exterior the little woman
+at his side was wildly adjuring herself: "Now, mind, mind, this is an
+emergency. Mind you meet it right!" He saw that she took one quick step
+toward Betty, only to stop and look about her a little uncertainly.
+
+"Mr. Estey,"--she was facing him now. Her chin was lifted determinedly,
+but he noticed that her lips were trembling. "I do not want to see Mr.
+Burke Denby, and he _must not_ see me. There is no way out of this
+place, apparently, except through the front shop, where he is. I want
+you to go out there and--and talk to him. Then Betty and I can slip by
+unnoticed."
+
+"But--but--" stammered the dumfounded man.
+
+"Mr. Estey, you _will_ do what I ask you to--and please go--_quickly_!
+He's sure to come out to see--these." She just touched the case of
+Babylonian tablets.
+
+To the man, looking into her anguished eyes, came a swift, overwhelming
+revelation. He remembered, suddenly, stories he had heard of a tragedy
+in Burke Denby's domestic affairs. He remembered words--illuminating
+words--that this woman had said to him. It could not be-- And yet--
+
+He caught his breath.
+
+"Is he--are you--"
+
+"I am Mrs. Burke Denby," she interrupted quietly. "You will not betray
+me, I know. Now, will you go, please?"
+
+For one appalled instant he gazed straight into her eyes; then without a
+word he turned and left her.
+
+He knew, a minute later, that he was saying something (he wondered
+afterward what it was) to Mr. Burke Denby out in the main shop. He knew,
+too, without looking up, that a woman and a little girl passed quietly
+by at the other side of the room and disappeared through the open
+doorway. Then, dazedly, Mr. Donald Estey looked about him. He was
+wondering if, after all, he had not been dreaming.
+
+That evening he learned that it was not a dream. Freely, and with a
+frank confidence that touched him deeply, the woman he had known as Mrs.
+Darling told him the whole story. He heard it with naturally varying
+emotions. He tried to be just, to be coolly unprejudiced. He tried also,
+to hide his own heartache. He even tried to be glad that she loved her
+husband, as she so unmistakably did.
+
+"And you'll tell him now, of course--where you are," he said, when she
+had finished.
+
+"No, no! I can't do that."
+
+"But do you think that is--right?"
+
+"I am sure it is."
+
+"But if your husband wants you--"
+
+"He doesn't want me."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Very sure."
+
+A curious look came to the man's eyes, a grim smile to his lips.
+
+"Er"--he hesitated a little--"you don't want to forget that--er--you
+have long ago qualified for--that _understudy_. You remember that--_I_
+wanted you."
+
+The rich color that flamed into her face told that she fully understood
+what he meant, yet she shook her head vehemently.
+
+"No, no! Ah, please, don't jest about--that. I was very much in
+earnest--indeed, I was! And I thought then--that I really could--could--
+But I understand--lots of things now that I never understood before. It
+is really all for Betty that I am working now. I want to make
+_her_--what he would want her to be."
+
+"Nonsense, my dear woman! As if you yourself were not the most--"
+
+She stopped him with a gesture. Her eyes had grown very serious.
+
+"I don't want you to talk that way, please. I would rather think--just
+of Betty."
+
+"But what about--him?"
+
+"I don't know." Her eyes grew fathomless. She turned them toward the
+window. "Of course I think and think and think. And of course I
+wonder--how it's all coming out. I'm sure I'm doing right now, and I
+think--I was doing right--then."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"When I went away--at the first. I can't see how I could have done
+anything else, as things were. Some way, all along, I've felt as if I
+were traveling a--a long road, and that on each side was a tall hedge. I
+can't look over it, nor through it. I can't even look ahead--very far.
+The road turns--so often. But there have never been any
+crossroads--there's never been any other way I could take, as I looked
+at it. Don't you see, Mr. Estey?"
+
+"Yes, I think I see." The old baffled pain had come back to his eyes,
+but she did not seem to notice it. Her gaze had drifted back to the
+window.
+
+"And so I feel that now I'm still on that road and that it's
+leading--somewhere; and some day I shall know. Until then, there isn't
+anything I can do--don't you see?--there isn't anything I can do but to
+keep--straight ahead. There really isn't, Mr. Estey."
+
+"No, I suppose there isn't," said Mr. Donald Estey, rising to his feet
+with a long sigh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+PINK TEAS TO FLIGHTY BLONDES
+
+
+One by one the years slipped by, swiftly, with little change. In Boston,
+the doctor, trying not to count them, still had not forgotten. From
+Helen, through his sister, came glowing accounts of concerts, lectures,
+travels, and language-lessons for herself and Betty. From Dalton, both
+directly and indirectly, began to come reports of a new gayety at the
+old Denby Mansion. Dinners and house-parties, and even a ball or two,
+figured in the reports.
+
+Vexed and curious, the doctor--who had, of late, refused most of his
+invitations to Dalton--took occasion, between certain trips of his own,
+to go up to the little town, to see for himself the meaning of this, to
+him, unaccountable phase of the situation.
+
+There was a big reception at Denby Mansion on the evening of the day of
+his arrival. The hotel parlor and office were abuzz with stories of the
+guests, decorations, and city caterer. There came to the doctor's ears,
+too, sundry rumors--some vague, others unpleasantly explicit--concerning
+a pretty little blonde widow, who was being frequently seen these days
+in the company of Burke Denby, the son.
+
+"Of course he'd have to get a divorce--but he could do that easy,"
+overheard the doctor in the corridor. "His wife ran away, didn't she,
+years ago? I heard she did."
+
+Uninvited and unheralded, the doctor attended the reception. Passing up
+the old familiar walk, he came to an unfamiliar, garish blaze of lights,
+a riot of color and perfume, a din of shrieking violins, the swish of
+silken skirts, and the peculiarly inane babble that comes from a
+multitude of chattering tongues.
+
+Gorgeous lackeys reached unfamiliar hands for his hat and coat, and the
+doctor was nearly ready to turn and flee the delirium of horror, when he
+suddenly almost laughed aloud at sight of the half-perplexed,
+half-terrified, wholly disgusted face of Benton. At that moment the old
+manservant's eyes met his own, and the doctor's eyes grew suddenly moist
+at the beatific joy which illumined that harassed, anxious old face.
+
+Regardless of the trailing silks and billowing tulle between them,
+Benton leaped to his side.
+
+"Praise be, if it ain't Dr. Gleason!" he exulted, incoherent, but
+beaming.
+
+"Yes; but what is this, Benton?" laughed the doctor. "What is the
+meaning of all this?"
+
+The old butler rolled his eyes.
+
+"Blest if I know, sir--indeed, I don't. But I'm thinking it's gone crazy
+I am. And sometimes I think maybe the master and young Master Burke,
+too, are going crazy with me. I do, sir!"
+
+"I can well imagine it, Benton," smiled the doctor dryly, as he began to
+make his way toward the big drawing-room where John Denby and his son
+were receiving their guests.
+
+The doctor could find no cause to complain of his welcome. It was
+cordial and manifestly sincere. He was introduced at once as an old and
+valued friend, and he soon found himself the center of a plainly
+admiring group. It was very evidently soon whispered about that he was
+_the_ Dr. Frank Gleason of archæological and Arctic fame; and his only
+difficulty, after his first introduction, was to find any time for his
+own observations and reflections. He contrived, however, in spite of his
+embarrassing popularity, to see something of his hosts. He talked with
+them, when possible, and he watched them with growingly troubled eyes.
+
+Many times that evening he saw the mask drop over John Denby's face.
+Twice he saw a slow turning away as of ineffable weariness. Once he saw
+a spasm as of pain twitch his lips; and he noted the quick, involuntary
+lifting of his hand to his side. He saw that usually, however, the
+master of Denby House stood tall and straight and handsome, with the
+cordial, genial smile of a perfect host.
+
+As to Burke--it was when the doctor was watching Burke that the trouble
+in his eyes grew deepest. True, on Burke's face there was no mask of
+inscrutability, in his eyes was no weariness, on his lips no quick spasm
+of pain. He was gay, alert, handsome, and apparently happy.
+Nevertheless, the frown on the doctor's face did not diminish.
+
+There was a look of too much wine--slight, perhaps, but unmistakable--on
+Burke Denby's face, that the doctor did not like. The doctor also did
+not like the way Burke devoted himself to the blonde young woman who was
+so eternally at his elbow.
+
+This was the widow, of course. The doctor surmised this at once.
+Besides, he had met her. Her name was Mrs. Carrolton, and Mrs. Carrolton
+was the name he had heard so frequently in the hotel. The doctor did not
+like the looks of Mrs. Carrolton. She was beautiful, undeniably, in a
+way; but her blue eyes were shifting, and her mouth, when in repose, had
+hard lines. She was not the type of woman he liked to have Burke with,
+and he would not have supposed she was the sort of woman that Burke
+himself would care for. And to see him now, hanging upon her every
+word--
+
+With a gesture of disgust the doctor turned his back and stalked to the
+farther side of the room, much to the surprise of a vapid young woman,
+to whom (he remembered when it was too late) he had been supposed to be
+talking.
+
+A little later, in the dining-room, where he had passed so many restful
+hours with Burke and his father, about the softly lighted table, the
+doctor now, in the midst of a chattering, thronging multitude, attempted
+to keep his own balance, and that of a tiny, wobbly plate,
+intermittently heaped with salads, sandwiches, cakes, and creams, which
+he was supposed to eat, but which he momentarily and terrifyingly
+expected to deposit upon a silken gown or a spotless shirt-front.
+
+The doctor was one of the first of John Denby's guests to make his
+adieus. He had decided suddenly that he must get away, quite away, from
+the sight of Burke and the little widow. Otherwise he should say
+something--a very strong something; and, for obvious reasons, he really
+could say--nothing.
+
+Disgusted, frightened, annoyed, and aggrieved, he went home the next
+morning. To his sister he said much. He could talk to his sister. He
+gave first a full account of what he had seen and heard in Dalton,
+omitting not one detail. Then, wrathfully, he reproached her:--
+
+"So you see what's come of your foolishness. Burke isn't building
+bridges for the Hottentots now. He's giving pink teas to flighty
+blondes."
+
+Mrs. Thayer laughed softly.
+
+"But that's only another way of trying to get away from himself, Frank,"
+she argued.
+
+"Yes, but I notice he isn't trying to get away from the widow," he
+snapped.
+
+A disturbed frown came to the lady's face.
+
+"I know." She bit her lips. "I am a little worried at that, Frank, I'll
+own. I've wondered, often, if--if there was ever any danger of something
+like that happening."
+
+"Well, you wouldn't wonder any longer, if you should see Mrs. Nellie
+Carrolton," observed the doctor, with terse significance.
+
+There was a moment's silence; then, sharply, the doctor spoke again.
+
+"I'm going to write to Helen."
+
+"Oh, Frank!"
+
+"I am. I've got to. I don't think it's right not to."
+
+"But what shall you--tell her?"
+
+"That she'd better come home and look after her property; if she
+doesn't, she's likely to lose it. That's what I'm going to tell her."
+
+"Oh, Frank!" murmured his distressed sister again; but she made no
+further demur. And that night the letter went.
+
+In due course came the answer. It was short, but very much to the point.
+The doctor read it, and said a sharp something behind his teeth. Without
+another word he handed the note to his sister. And this is what she
+read:--
+
+     _Dear Dr. Gleason_:--
+
+     He isn't my property. I can't lose him, for I haven't him to
+     lose. He took himself away from me years ago. If ever I'm to
+     win him back, I must win him--not compel him. If he thinks
+     he's found some one else--all the more reason why I can't
+     come back now, until he knows whether he wants her or not.
+     But if I came now, and he should want her-- Really, Dr.
+     Gleason, I don't want the same man to tell me twice to--go.
+
+  HELEN D.
+
+"Hm-m; just about what I expected she'd say," commented the doctor's
+sister tranquilly, as she laid the letter down.
+
+"Oh, you women!" flung out the doctor, springing to his feet and turning
+wrathfully on his heel.
+
+The doctor was relieved, but not wholly eased in his mind some days
+later when he heard indirectly that Denby Mansion was closed, and that
+the Denbys were off again to some remote corner of the world.
+
+"Well, anyhow, the widow isn't with him now," he comforted himself
+aloud.
+
+"Building bridges for the Hottentots again?" smiled his sister.
+
+"Yes. Australia this time."
+
+"Hm-m; that's nice and far," mused the lady.
+
+"Oh, yes, it's far, all right," growled the doctor, somewhat
+belligerently. "Anyhow, it's too far for the widow, thank Heaven!"
+
+The doctor went himself "far" before the month was out. Already his
+plans were made for a six months' trip with a research party to his pet
+hunting-ground--the grotto land of northern Spain. Once more the
+calmness of silence and absence left Edith Thayer with only Helen
+Denby's occasional letters to remind her of Burke Denby and his
+matrimonial problem.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A LITTLE BUNCH OF DIARIES
+
+
+It was three years before the doctor went up to Dalton again. It was on
+a sad errand this time. John Denby had died suddenly, and after an
+hour's hesitation, the doctor went up to the funeral.
+
+There were no garish lights and shrieking violins to greet him as he
+passed once more up the long, familiar walk. The warm September sun
+touched lovingly the old brass knocker, and peeped behind the stately
+colonial pillars of the long veranda. It gleamed for a moment on the
+bald heads of the somber-coated men filing slowly through the wide
+doorway, and it tried to turn to silver the sable crape hanging at the
+right of the door.
+
+Not until that evening, after the funeral, did the doctor have the
+opportunity for more than a formal word of greeting and sympathy with
+Burke Denby. He had been shocked in the afternoon at the changes in the
+young man's face; but he was more so when, at eight o'clock, he called
+at the house.
+
+He found Burke alone in the library--the library whose every book and
+chair and curio spoke with the voice of the man who was gone--the man
+who had loved them so well.
+
+Burke himself, to the doctor, looked suddenly old and worn, and
+infinitely weary of life. He did not at once speak of his father. But
+when he did speak of him, a little later, he seemed then to want to talk
+of nothing else. Things that his father had done and said, his little
+ways, his likes and dislikes, the hours of delight they had passed
+together, the trips they had taken, even the tiddledywinks and Mother
+Goose of childhood came in for their share. On and on until far into the
+night he talked, and the doctor listened, with a word now and then of
+sympathy or appreciation; but with a growing ache in his heart.
+
+"You have been, indeed, a wonderful father and son," he said at last
+unsteadily.
+
+"There was never another like us." The son's voice was very low.
+
+There was a moment's silence. The doctor, his beseeching eyes on the
+younger man's half-averted face, was groping in his mind for the right
+words to introduce the subject which all the evening had been at the
+door of his lips--Helen. He felt that now, with Burke's softened heart
+to lend lenience, and with his lonely life in prospect to plead the need
+of companionship, was the time, if ever, that an appeal for Helen might
+be successful. But the right words of introduction had not come to him
+when Burke himself began to speak again.
+
+"And it's almost as if I'd lost both father and mother," he went on
+brokenly; "for dad talked so much of mother. To him she was always with
+us, I think. I can remember, when I was a little boy, how real she was
+to me. In all we did or said she seemed to have a part. And always, all
+the way up, he used to talk of her--except for the time when--"
+
+He stopped abruptly. The doctor, watching, wondered at the white
+compression that came suddenly to his lips. In a moment it was gone,
+however, and he had resumed speaking.
+
+"Of late years, dad has seemed to talk more than ever of mother, and he
+spoke always as if she were with us. And now I'm alone--so utterly
+alone. Gleason--how ever am I going to live--without--dad!"
+
+The doctor's heart leaped with mingled fear and elation: fear at what he
+was about to do; elation that his chance to do it had come. He cleared
+his throat and began, courageously, though not quite steadily.
+
+"But--there's your wife, Burke. If only you--" He stopped short in
+dismay at the look that had come into Burke Denby's face.
+
+"My wife! My wife! Don't speak of my wife now, man, if you want me to
+keep my reason! The woman who brought more sorrow to my father than any
+other living being! What do you think I wouldn't give if I could blot
+out the memory of the anguish my marriage brought to dad? I can see his
+eyes now, when he was pleading with me--_before_ it. Afterwards--Do you
+know what a brick dad was afterwards? Well, I'll tell you. Never by so
+much as a look--much less a word--has he reproached or censured me. At
+first he--he just put up a wall between us. But it was a wall of grief
+and sore hurt. It was never anger. I know that now. Then, one day,
+somehow, I found that wall down, and I looked straight into dad's eyes.
+It was never there again--that wall. I knew, of course, that dad had
+never--forgotten. The hurt and grief were still there,--that I could so
+disobey him, disregard his wishes,--but he would not let them be a wall
+between us any longer. Then, when it all turned out as it did-- But he
+never once said, 'I told you so,' nor even looked it. And he was kind
+and good to Helen always. But when I think how I--I, who love him
+so--brought to him all that grief and anguish of heart, I-- My wife,
+indeed! Gleason, I never want to see her face again, or hear her name
+spoken!"
+
+"But your--your child," stammered the dismayed doctor faintly.
+
+A shadow of quick pain crossed the other's face.
+
+"I know. And that's another thing that grieved dad. He was fond of his
+little granddaughter. He used to speak of her, often, till I begged him
+not to. She's mine, of course; but she's Helen's, too,--and she is being
+brought up by Helen--not me. I can imagine what she's being
+taught--about her father," he finished bitterly.
+
+"Oh, but I'm sure-- I know she's--" With a painful color the doctor,
+suddenly warned from within just in time, came to a frightened pause.
+
+Burke, however, lifting a protesting hand, changed the subject abruptly;
+and the relieved doctor was glad, for once, not to have him wish to talk
+longer of his missing wife and daughter.
+
+Very soon the doctor said good-night and left the house. But his heart
+was heavy.
+
+"Perhaps, after all," he sighed to himself, "it wasn't just the time to
+get him to listen to reason about Helen--when it was his runaway
+marriage that had so grieved his father years ago; and his father
+now--just gone."
+
+From many lips, before he left town the next morning, Dr. Gleason
+learned much of the life and doings of the Denbys during the past few
+years. Perhaps the death of John Denby had made the Dalton tongues
+garrulous. At all events they were nothing loath to talk; and the
+doctor, eager to obtain anything that would enable him to understand
+Burke Denby, was nothing loath to listen.
+
+"Yes, sir, he hain't been well for years--John Denby hain't," related
+one old man into the doctor's attentive, sympathetic ears. "And I ain't
+sayin' I wonder, with all he's been through. But you said you was a
+friend of his, didn't ye?"
+
+The doctor inclined his head.
+
+"I am, indeed, an old friend of the family."
+
+"Well, it's likely, then, you know something yourself of what's
+happened--though 'course you hain't lived here to see it all. First, ye
+know, there was his son's marriage. And that cut the old man all
+up--runaway, and not what the family wanted at all. _You_ know that, of
+course. But they made the best of it, apparently, after a while, and
+young Denby took hold first-rate at the Works. Right down to the
+beginnin' he went, too,--overalls and day wages. And he done
+well--first-rate!--but it must 'a' galled some. Why, once, fur a spell,
+he worked _under my son_--he did. The men liked him, too, when they got
+over their grinnin' and nonsense, and see he was in earnest. _You_ know
+what a likely chap young Denby _can_ be, when he wants to."
+
+"None better!" smiled the doctor.
+
+"Yes. Well, to resume and go on. Somethin' happened one day--in his
+domestic affairs, I mean. The pretty young wife and kid lit out for
+parts unknown. And the son went back to his dad. (He and his dad always
+was more like pals than anythin' else.) Some says he sent her away--the
+wife, I mean. Some says she runned away herself. Like enough _you_ know
+the rights of it."
+
+There was a suggestion of a pause, and a sly, half-questioning glance;
+but at the absolute non-committalism of the other's face, the narrator
+went on hastily.
+
+"Well, whatever was the rights or wrongs of it, she went, and hain't
+been seen in these 'ere parts since, as I know of. Not that I _should_
+know her if I did see her, howsomever! Well, that was a dozen--yes,
+fourteen years ago, I guess, and the old man hain't been the same since.
+He hain't been the same since the boy's marriage, for that matter.
+
+"Well, at first, after she went, the Denbys went kitin' off on one o'
+them trips o' theirn, that they're always takin'; then they come home
+and opened up the old house, and things went on about as they used to
+'fore young Denby was married. But the old man fell sick--first on the
+trip, then afterwards, once or twice. He wa'n't well; but that didn't
+hinder his goin' off again. This time they went with one of their
+bridges. Always, before, they'd let Henry or Grosset manage the job; but
+this time they went themselves. After that they went lots--to South
+America, Africa, Australia, and I don't know where. They seemed restless
+and uneasy--both of 'em.
+
+"Then they begun ter bring folks home with 'em: chaps who wore purple
+silk socks and neckties, and looked as if they'd never done a stroke of
+work in their lives; and women with high heels and false hair. My, but
+there was gay doin's there! Winters there was balls and parties and
+swell feeds with nigger waiters from Boston, and even the dishes and
+what they et come from there, too, sometimes, they say. Summers they
+rode in hayracks and autymobiles, and danced outdoors on the
+grass--shows, you know. And they was a show with the women barefooted
+and barearmed, and--and not much on generally. My wife seen 'em once,
+and she was that shocked she didn't get over it for a month. She said
+she was brought up to keep a modest dress on her that had a decent waist
+and skirt to it. But my Bill (he's been in Boston two years now) says
+it's a pageant and Art, and all right. That you can do it in pageants
+when you can't just walkin' along the street, runnin' into the
+neighbors'. See?"
+
+"I see," nodded the doctor gravely.
+
+"Oh, well, of course they didn't go 'round like that all the time. They
+played that thing lots where they have them little balls and
+queer-looking sticks to knock 'em with. They played it all over Pike's
+Hill and the Durgin pasture in Old Dalton; and they got my grandson to
+be a--a--"
+
+"Caddie?" hazarded the doctor.
+
+"Yes; that's what they called it. And he made good money, too,--doin'
+nothin'. Wish't they'd want me for one! Well, as I was sayin', they had
+all this comp'ny, an' more an' more of it; and they give receptions an'
+asked the hull town, sometimes. My wife went, and my darter. They said
+it was fine and grand, and all that, but that they didn't believe old
+John liked it very well. But Mr. Burke liked it. That was easy to be
+seen. And there was a pretty little widder there lots, and _she_ liked
+it. Some said as how they thought there'd be a match there, sometime, if
+he could get free. But I guess there wa'n't anythin' ter that. Anyhow,
+all of a sudden, somethin' happened. Everythin' stopped right off
+short--all the gay doin's and parties--and everybody went home. Then,
+the next thing we knew, the old house was dark and empty again, and the
+Denbys gone to Australia with another bridge."
+
+"Yes, I know. I remember--that," interposed the doctor, alert and
+interested.
+
+"Did you see 'em--when they come back?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, they didn't look like the same men. And ever since they've been
+different, somehow. Stern and silent, with never a smile for anybody,
+skursley. No balls an' parties now, you bet ye! Week in and week out,
+jest shut up in that big silent house--never goin' out at all except to
+the Works! Then we heard he was sick--Mr. John. But he got better, and
+was out again. The end come sudden. Nobody expected that. But he was a
+good man--a grand good man--John Denby was!"
+
+"He was, indeed," agreed the doctor, with a long sigh, as he turned
+away.
+
+This story, with here and there a new twist and turn, the doctor heard
+on all sides. And always he listened attentively, hopefully, eager, if
+possible, to find some detail that would help him in some further plea
+to Burke Denby in behalf of the far-away wife. Even the women wanted to
+talk to him, and did, sometimes to his annoyance. Once, only, however,
+did his irritation get the better of his manners. It was when the woman
+of whom he bought his morning paper at the station newsstand, accosted
+him--
+
+"Stranger in these parts, ain't ye? Come to the fun'ral, didn't ye?"
+
+"Why--y-yes."
+
+"Hm-m; I thought so. He was a fine man, I s'pose. Still, I didn't think
+much of him myself. Used to know him too well, maybe. Used to live next
+his son--same floor. My name's Cobb--and I used to see--" But the doctor
+had turned on his heel without even the semblance of an apology.
+
+Ten minutes later he boarded the train for Boston.
+
+To his sister again he told the story of a Dalton trip, and, as before,
+he omitted not one detail.
+
+"But I can't write, of course, to Helen, now," he finished gloomily.
+"That is, I can't urge her coming back--not in the face of Burke's angry
+assertion that he never wants to see her again."
+
+"Of course not. But don't worry, dear. I haven't given up hope, by any
+means. Burke worshiped his father. His heart is almost breaking now, at
+his loss. It is perfectly natural, under the circumstances, that he
+should have this intense anger toward anything that ever grieved his
+loved father. But wait. That's all we can do, anyway. I'll write to
+Helen, of course, and tell her of her father-in-law's death, but--"
+
+"You wouldn't tell her what Burke said, Edith!"
+
+"Oh, no, no, indeed!--unless I _have_ to, Frank--unless she asks me."
+
+But Helen did ask her. By return steamer came her letter expressing her
+shocked distress at John Denby's death, and asking timidly, but
+urgently, if, in Mrs. Thayer's opinion, it were the time now when she
+should come home--if she would be welcomed by her husband. To this, of
+course, there was but one answer possible; and reluctantly Mrs. Thayer
+gave it.
+
+"And to think," groaned the doctor, "that when now, for the first time,
+Helen is willing to come, we have to tell her--she can't!"
+
+"I know, but"--Edith Thayer resolutely blinked off the tears--"I haven't
+given up yet. Just wait."
+
+And the doctor waited. It was, indeed, as his sister said, all that he
+could do. From time to time he went up to Dalton and made his way up the
+old familiar walk to have a chat with the taciturn, somber-eyed man
+sitting alone in the great old library. The doctor never spoke of Helen.
+He dared not take the risk. Burke Denby's only interests plainly were
+business, books, and the rare curios he and his father had collected. A
+Mrs. Gowing, a distant cousin, had come to be his housekeeper, but the
+doctor saw little of her. She seemed to be a quiet, inoffensive little
+woman, plainly very much in the background.
+
+There came an evening finally, however, when, much to the doctor's
+beatific surprise, Burke Denby, of his own accord, mentioned his wife.
+
+It was nearly two years after John Denby's death. The doctor had run up
+to Dalton for an overnight visit, and had noticed at once a peculiar
+restlessness in his host's manner, an odd impatience of voice and
+gesture. Then, abruptly, in answer to the doctor's own assertion that
+Burke needed something to get him away from his constant brooding in the
+old library,--
+
+"Need something?" he exclaimed. "Of course I need something! I need my
+wife and child. I need to live a normal life like other men. I need--
+But what's the use?" he finished, with outflung hands.
+
+"I know; but--you, yourself--" By a supreme effort the doctor was
+keeping himself from shouting aloud with joy.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know it's all my own fault," cut in Burke crisply. "You
+can't tell me anything new on that score, that I haven't told myself.
+Yes, and I know I haven't even been willing to have her name spoken," he
+went on recklessly, answering the amazement in the doctor's face. "For
+that matter, I don't know why I'm talking like this now--unless it's
+because I've always said to you more than I've said to any one
+else--except dad--about Helen. And now, after being such a cad, it seems
+almost--due to her that I should say--something. Besides, doesn't
+somebody say somewhere that confession is good for the soul?"
+
+There was a quizzical smile on his lips, but there was no smile in his
+eyes.
+
+The doctor nodded dumbly. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, he dared not
+open his lips. But, terrified at the long silence that followed, he
+finally ventured unsteadily:--
+
+"But why--this sudden change, Burke?"
+
+"It's not so sudden as you think." Burke's eyes, gloomily fixed on the
+opposite wall, did not turn as he spoke. "It's been coming gradually for
+a long time. I can see that now. Still, the real eye-opener finally came
+from--mother."
+
+"_Your--mother!_"
+
+"Yes, her diary--or, rather, diaries. I found them a month ago among
+father's things. I can't tell you what was in them. I wouldn't, of
+course, if I could. They're too--sacred. Perhaps you think even I should
+not have read them; perhaps I shouldn't. But I did, and I'm glad I did;
+and I believe she'd have wanted me to.
+
+"Of course, at first, when I picked one of them up, I didn't know what
+it was. Then I saw my name, and I read--page after page. I was a
+baby--her baby. Gleason, can you imagine what it would be to look deep
+down into the soul of a good woman and read there all her love, hopes,
+prayers, and ambitions for her boy--and then suddenly realize that you
+yourself were that boy?"
+
+There was no answer; and Burke, evidently expecting none, went on with
+the rush of abandonment that told of words suddenly freed from long
+restraint.
+
+"I took up then the first one--the diary she kept that first year of her
+marriage; and if I had felt small and mean and unworthy before-- On and
+on I read; and as I read, I began to see, dimly, what marriage
+means--for a woman. They were very poor then. Father was the grandson of
+the younger, runaway son, Joel, and had only his trade and his day
+wages. They lived in a shabby little cottage on Mill Street, long since
+destroyed. This house belonged to the other branch of the family, and
+was occupied by a rich old man and his daughter. Mother was gently
+reared, and was not used to work. Those first years of poverty and
+privation must have been wickedly hard for her. But the little diaries
+carried no complaints. They did carry weariness, often, and sometimes a
+pitiful terror lest she be not strong enough for what was before her,
+and so bring disappointment and grief to 'dear John.' But always, for
+'dear John,' I could see there was to be nothing but encouragement and a
+steadfast holding forth of high aims and the assurance of ultimate
+success.
+
+"Then, one by one, came the babies, with all the agony and fears and
+hopes they brought with them. Three came and slipped away into the great
+unknown before I came--to stay. About that time father's patents began
+to bring success, and soon the money was pouring in. They bought this
+house. It had been one of their dreams that they would buy it. The old
+man had died, and the daughter had married and moved away, and the house
+had been for sale for some time. So they bought it, and soon after I was
+born we came here to live. Then, when I was four years old, mother died.
+
+"That is the story--the bald story. But that doesn't tell you anything
+of what those diaries were to me. In the light they shed I saw my own
+marriage--and I was ashamed. I never thought of marriage before from
+Helen's standpoint. I never thought what she had to suffer and endure,
+and adapt herself to. I know now. Of course, very soon after our
+marriage, I realized that she and I weren't suited to each other. But
+what of it? I had married her. I had effectually prevented her from
+finding happiness with any other man; yet it didn't seem to occur to me
+that I had thereby taken on myself the irrevocable duty of trying to
+make her happy. I have no doubt that my ways and aims and likes and
+dislikes annoyed her as much as hers did me. But it never occurred to
+me that my soft greens and browns and Beethoven harmonies got on her
+nerves just exactly as her pinks and purples and ragtime got on mine. I
+was never in the habit of looking at anybody's happiness but my own; and
+_I_ wasn't happy. So I let fling, regardless."
+
+Burke paused, and drew a long sigh. The doctor, puffing slowly at his
+cigar, sedulously kept his face the other way. The doctor, in his fancy,
+had already peopled the old room with a joyous Helen and Dorothy
+Elizabeth; and he feared, should he turn, that his face would sing a
+veritable Hallelujah Chorus--to the consequent amazement of his host.
+
+"Mother had trials of her own--lots of them," resumed Burke, after a
+moment's silence. "She even had some not unlike mine, I believe, for I
+think I could read between the lines that dad was more than a bit
+careless at times in manner and speech compared to the polished ways of
+the men of her family and social circle. But mother neither whined nor
+ran away. She just smiled and kept bravely straight ahead; and by and by
+they were under her feet, where they belonged--all those things that
+plagued. But I--I both whined and ran away--because I didn't like the
+way my wife ate her soup and spread her bread. They seem so small
+now--all those little ways I hated--small beside the big things that
+really counted. Do you know? I believe if more people would stop making
+the little things big and the big things little, there'd be a whole heap
+more happiness lying around in this old world! And Helen--poor Helen!
+She tried-- I know she tried. Lots of times, when I was reading in the
+diaries what mother said about dad,--how she mustn't let him get
+discouraged or downhearted; how she must tell him she just knew he was
+going to succeed,--lots of times then I'd think of Helen. Helen used to
+talk that way to me at the first! I wonder now if Helen kept a diary!
+And I can't help wondering if, supposing I had been a little less apt to
+notice the annoyances, and a little more inclined to see the good-- Bah!
+There, there, old man, forgive me," he broke off, with a shrug. "I
+didn't mean to run on like this. I really didn't--for all the world like
+the heart-to-heart advice to the lovelorn in a daily news column!"
+
+"I'm glad you did, Burke." The doctor's carefully controlled voice
+expressed cheery interest; that was all. "And now what do you propose to
+do?"
+
+"Do? How? What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, about--your wife, of course."
+
+"Nothing. There's nothing I can do. And that's the pity of it. She will
+go on, of course, to the end of her life, thinking me a cad and a
+coward."
+
+"But if you could be--er--brought together again," suggested the doctor
+in a voice so coldly impersonal it was almost indifferent.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course--perhaps. But that's not likely. I don't know where
+she is, remember; and she's not likely to come back of her own accord,
+after all this time. Besides, if she did, who's to guarantee that a few
+old diaries have changed me from an unbearably selfish brute to a
+livably patient and pleasant person to have about the house? Not but
+what I'd jump at the chance to try, but-- Well, we'll wait till I get
+it," he finished dryly, with a lightness that was plainly assumed.
+
+"Well, anyway, Burke, you've never found any one else!" The Hallelujah
+Chorus did almost sing through the doctor's voice this time.
+
+"No, I've been spared that, thank Heaven. There was one--a Mrs.
+Carrolton."
+
+"Yes, I met her--at that reception, you know," said the doctor,
+answering the unspoken question.
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember. Well, I did come near--but I pulled myself up in
+time. I knew, in my heart, she wasn't the kind of woman-- Then, too,
+there was Helen. It was only that I was feeling particularly reckless
+that fall. Besides, I know now that I've cared for Helen--the real
+Helen--all the time. And there _is_ a real Helen, I believe, underneath
+it all. As I look back at them--all those years--I know that during
+every single one of them I've been trying to get away from myself. If it
+hadn't been for dad--and that's the one joy I have: that I was able to
+be with dad. They weren't quite lost--those years, for they brought him
+joy."
+
+"No, they've not been lost, Burke," said the doctor, with quiet
+emphasis.
+
+Burke laughed a little grimly.
+
+"Oh, I know what you mean, of course. I've been 'tried as by fire'--eh?
+Well, I dare say I have--and I've been found woefully wanting. But
+enough of this!" he broke off abruptly, springing to his feet. "You
+don't happen to know of a young woman who has the skill of experience,
+the wisdom of age, the adaptability of youth, and the patience of Job
+all in one, do you?" he demanded.
+
+The doctor turned with startled eyes.
+
+"Why, Burke, after all this, you don't mean--"
+
+"No, it's not a wife I'm looking for," interposed Burke, with a
+whimsical shrug. "It's a--a stenographer or private secretary, only she
+must be much more than the ordinary kind. I want to catalogue all this
+truck father and I have accumulated. She must know French and German--a
+little Greek and Hebrew wouldn't be amiss. And I want one that would be
+interested in this sort of thing--one who will realize she isn't
+handling--er--potatoes, say. My eyes are going back on me, too, and I
+shall want her to read to me; so I must like her voice. I don't want
+anything, you see," he smiled grimly.
+
+"I should say not," laughed the doctor, rising. "But before you can give
+me any more necessary qualifications, I guess I'd better be going to
+bed."
+
+"I don't wonder, after the harangue I've given you. But--you don't know
+of such a person, do you?"
+
+"I don't."
+
+"No, I suppose not--nor anybody else," finished Burke Denby, a profound
+gloom that had become habitual settling over his face.
+
+"If I do I'll send her to you," nodded the doctor, halfway through the
+door. The doctor was in a hurry to get up to his room--he had a letter
+to write.
+
+"Thanks," said Burke Denby, still dryly, as he waved his hand in
+good-night.
+
+"Stenographer, indeed!" sang the doctor under his breath, bounding up
+the stairs like a boy. "Wait till he sees what I am going to get him!"
+he finished, striding down the hall and into his own room.
+
+Before he slept the doctor wrote his letter to Helen. It was a long one,
+and a joyous one. It told everything that Burke had said, even to his
+plaintive plea for a private secretary.
+
+There could be no doubt now, no further delay, declared the doctor.
+Helen would come home at once, of course. It only remained for them to
+decide on the mere details of just how and when. Meanwhile, when might
+they expect her in Boston? She would come, of course, to his sister's
+first; and he trusted it would be soon--very soon.
+
+Addressing the letter to Mrs. Helen Darling, the doctor tucked it into
+his pocket to be mailed at the station in the morning. Then, for the few
+hours before rising time, he laid himself down to sleep. But he did not
+sleep. His brain was altogether too actively picturing the arrival of
+Helen Denby and her daughter at the old Denby Mansion, and the meeting
+between them and the master of the house. And to think that at last it
+was all coming out right!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE STAGE IS SET
+
+
+Impatient as was the doctor for an answer to his letter, it came before
+he expected, for a cablegram told of Helen's almost immediate departure
+for America.
+
+"I thought that would fetch her," he crowed to his sister. "And she'll
+be here just next week Wednesday. That'll get her up to Dalton before
+Sunday."
+
+"Perhaps," observed Mrs. Thayer cautiously.
+
+"No 'perhaps' to it," declared the doctor,--"if the boat gets here. You
+don't suppose she's going to delay any longer now, do you? Besides,
+isn't she starting for America about as soon as she can? Does that look
+as if she were losing much time?"
+
+"No, it doesn't," she admitted laughingly.
+
+The doctor and his sister were not surprised to see a very lovely and
+charming Helen with the distinction and mellow maturity that the dozen
+intervening years had brought. Her letters had shown them something of
+that. But they were not prepared for the changes those same years had
+wrought in Dorothy Elizabeth.
+
+To Helen, their frank start of amazement and quick interchange of
+glances upon first sight of the girl were like water to a long-parched
+throat.
+
+"You do think she's lovely?" she whispered to the frankly staring
+doctor, as Mrs. Thayer welcomed the young girl.
+
+"Lovely! She's the most beautiful thing I ever saw!" avowed the doctor,
+with a laughing shrug at his own extravagance.
+
+"And she's just as sweet and dear as she is lovely," whispered back the
+adoring mother, as the girl turned to meet the doctor.
+
+"You've your mother's eyes, my dear," said the doctor, very much as he
+had said it to the little Betty years before.
+
+"Have I?" The girl smiled happily. "I'm so glad! I love mother's eyes."
+
+It was not until hours later, when Betty had gone to bed, that there was
+any opportunity to talk over plans. Then, before the fire in the
+library, Helen found herself alone with the doctor and his sister.
+
+"You see, I came almost as soon as I could," she began at once. "I did
+stay one day--for a wedding."
+
+"A wedding?"
+
+"Yes, and some one you know, too-- Mr. Donald Estey."
+
+"Really?" cried Mrs. Thayer.
+
+"Jove! After all this time?" The doctor's eyebrows went up.
+
+"Yes. And I'm so glad--especially glad for--for he thought once, years
+ago, that he cared for some one else. And I like to know he's
+happy--now."
+
+"Hm-m," murmured the doctor, with a shrewd smile and a sidelong glance
+at his sister. "So he's happy--_now_, eh?"
+
+"Oh, very! And she's a beautiful girl."
+
+"As beautiful as--Betty, say?" The doctor's voice was teasing.
+
+A wonderful light came to Helen's face.
+
+"You do think she's beautiful, don't you?" she cried, with a smile that
+told she needed no answer.
+
+"She's a dear--in every way," avowed Mrs. Thayer.
+
+"And to think of all this coming to Burke Denby, without even a turn of
+his hand," envied the doctor. "Lucky dog! And to get you _both_! He
+doesn't deserve it!"
+
+"But he isn't going to get us both!" Helen's eyes were twinkling, but
+her mouth showed suddenly firm lines.
+
+The doctor wheeled sharply.
+
+"What do you mean? Surely, _now_ you aren't going to--to--" He stopped
+helplessly.
+
+"He's going to get _her_--but not me."
+
+"Oh, come, come, Helen, my dear!" protested two dismayed voices.
+
+But Helen shook her head decidedly.
+
+"Listen. I've got it all planned. You said he wanted a--a sort of
+private secretary or stenographer, didn't you?"
+
+"Why, y-yes."
+
+"Well, I'm going to send Betty."
+
+"Betty!"
+
+"Certainly. She can fill the position--you needn't worry about that.
+She's eighteen, you know, and she's really very self-reliant and
+capable. She doesn't understand shorthand, of course; but she can write
+his letters for him, just the same, and in three or four languages, if
+he wants her to. She can typewrite. Mr. Reynolds got a typewriter for
+the girls long ago. And she _loves_ to fuss over old books and curios.
+She and Gladys have spent days in those old London shops."
+
+"A real Denby digger--eh?" smiled the doctor.
+
+"Yes. And I've been so glad she was interested--like her father."
+
+"But you don't mean you're going to give your daughter up," cried Mrs.
+Thayer, aghast, "and not go yourself!"
+
+"You couldn't! Besides, as if Burke would stand for that," cut in the
+doctor.
+
+"But he isn't going to know she _is_ his daughter," smiled Helen.
+
+"Not know she is his daughter!" echoed two voices, in stupefaction.
+
+"No--not yet. She'll be his private secretary. That is all. I'm relying
+on you to--er--apply for the situation for her." Helen's eyes were
+merry.
+
+"Oh, nonsense! This is too absurd for words," spluttered the doctor.
+
+"I don't think so."
+
+"His own daughter writing his letters for him, and living with him day
+by day, and he not to know it? Bosh! Sounds like a plot from a shilling
+shocker!"
+
+"Does it? Well, I ought not to mind that, ought I?--you know 'twas a
+book in the first place that set me to making myself 'swell' and
+'grand,' sir." In Helen's eyes was still twinkling mischief.
+
+"Oh, but, my dear," remonstrated Mrs. Thayer with genuine concern. "I do
+think this is impossible."
+
+The expression on Helen Denby's face changed instantly. Her eyes grew
+very grave, but luminously tender. Her lips trembled a little.
+
+"People, dear people, if you'll listen just a minute I think I can
+convince you," she begged. "I have it all planned out. Betty and I will
+go to Dalton and find a quiet little home somewhere. Oh, I shall keep
+well out of sight--never fear," she nodded, in reply to the quick doubt
+in the doctor's eyes. "Betty shall go every morning to her father's
+house, and--I'm not afraid of Betty. He will love her. He can't help it.
+And he will see how dear and sweet and good she is. Then, by and by, he
+shall know that she is his--his very own."
+
+"But--but Betty herself! Can she act her part in this remarkable
+scheme?" demanded the doctor.
+
+"She won't be acting a part. She'll just be acting herself. She is not
+to know anything except that she is his secretary."
+
+"Impossible!" ejaculated two voices.
+
+"I don't think so. Anyway, it's worth trying; and if it works it'll
+mean--everything." The last word was so low it was scarcely above a
+whisper.
+
+"But--yourself, my dear," pleaded Mrs. Thayer. "Where do you come in?
+What part have you in this--play?"
+
+The rich red surged from neck to brow. The doctor and his sister could
+see that, though they could not see Helen Denby's face. It was turned
+quite away. There was a moment's silence; then, a little breathlessly,
+came the answer.
+
+"I--don't--know. I suppose that will be--the 'curtain,' won't it?
+And--I've never been sure of the ending--yet. But--" She hesitated; then
+suddenly she turned, her eyes shining and deeply tender. "Don't you see?
+It's the only way, after all. I can't very well go up to Dalton and ring
+his doorbell and say, 'Here, behold your wife and daughter. Won't you
+please take us in?'--can I? Though at first, when I heard of his
+father's death and thought of him so lonely there, I did want to
+do--just that. But I knew that wasn't best, even before your letter came
+telling me--what he said.
+
+"But now--why, this is just what I've wanted from the first--to show
+Betty to him, some time, when he didn't dream who she was. I wanted to
+_know_ that he wasn't--ashamed of her. And this (his wanting a
+secretary) gave me a better chance than I ever thought I could have.
+Why, people, dear people, don't you see?--with this I shan't mind now
+one bit all these long, long years of waiting. Won't you help
+me--please? I can't, of course, do it without your help."
+
+The doctor threw up both his hands--his old gesture of despair.
+
+"Help you? Of course we'll help you, just as we did before--to get the
+moon, if you ask for it. I feel like a comic opera and a movie farce all
+in one; but never mind. I'll do it. Now, what is it I _am_ to do?"
+
+Helen relaxed into such radiant joyousness and relief, that she looked
+almost like the girl Burke Denby had married nineteen years before.
+
+"You dear! I knew you would!" she breathed.
+
+"Yes; but what is it?" he groaned in mock despair. "Speak out. I want to
+know the worst at once. What _am_ I to do?"
+
+"Please, you're to go up to Dalton and tell Mr. Burke Denby you think
+you've found a young woman who will make him an excellent secretary.
+Then, if he consents to try her, you're to find a little furnished
+apartment on a nice, quiet street, not too far from the Denby Mansion,
+of course, where we can live. Then I'd like a note of introduction for
+Betty to take to her father: she's the daughter of an old friend whom
+you've known for years--see?--and you are confident she will give
+satisfaction. That's all. Now, I'm sure--isn't all that quite--easy?"
+
+"Oh, very easy,--very easy, indeed!" replied the doctor, with another
+groan. "You little witch! I declare I believe you'll carry this absurd,
+preposterous thing through to a triumphant finish, after all."
+
+"Thank you. I _knew_ you wouldn't fail me," smiled Helen, with tear-wet
+eyes.
+
+"But, my dear, I don't think yet that everything is quite clear,"
+demurred Mrs. Thayer. "How about Betty? Just what does Betty know of her
+father?"
+
+A look very like fear crossed the bright face opposite. "She knows
+nothing, of course, of--of my leaving home and the cause of it. I've
+never told her anything of her father except to hold him up as a symbol
+of everything good and lovable. When she was a little girl, you know, I
+could always do anything with her by just telling her that daddy wanted
+it so."
+
+"But where does she think he is? Now that she is older, she must have
+asked some questions," murmured Mrs. Thayer.
+
+Helen shook her head. A faint smile came to her lips. "She hasn't; but
+I've been so afraid she would, and I've been dreading it always. Then
+one day Mrs. Reynolds told me something Betty said to her. Since then
+I've felt a little easier."
+
+"Does Mrs. Reynolds know who you really are?" interposed the doctor.
+
+"Yes, oh, yes. I told her long ago--even before she took me to London
+with her, in fact. I thought she ought to know. I've been so glad,
+since, that I did. It saved me from lots of awkward moments. Besides, it
+enabled her to be all the more help to me."
+
+"But what was it Betty said to her?" asked Mrs. Thayer.
+
+"Oh, yes; I didn't tell you, did I? It was this. She asked Mrs. Reynolds
+one day: 'Did you ever know my father?' And of course Mrs. Reynolds
+said, 'No.' Then Betty said: 'He is dead, you know. Oh, mother never
+told me so, in words; but I understand that he is, of course. She just
+used to say that I mustn't ask for daddy. He couldn't be with us now.
+That was all. At first, when I was little, I thought he was away on a
+journey. Then, when I got older, I realized it was just mother's
+beautiful way of putting it. So now I like to think of him as being just
+away on a journey. And of _course_ I never say anything to mother. But I
+do wish I could have known him. He must have been so fine and
+splendid!'"
+
+"The dear child!" murmured Mrs. Thayer.
+
+The doctor turned on his heel and walked over to the window abruptly.
+
+There was a moment's silence; then softly, Helen said, as she rose to
+her feet: "So you see now I'm not worrying so much for fear she will
+question me; and I shall be so happy, by and by, when she finds that
+daddy has been, after all, only on a journey."
+
+Edith Thayer, alone with her brother, after Helen Denby had gone
+upstairs, wiped her eyes.
+
+It was the doctor who spoke first.
+
+"If Burke Denby doesn't fall head over heels in love with that little
+woman and _know_ he's got the dearest treasure on earth, I--I shall do
+it myself," he declared savagely. He, too, was wiping his eyes.
+
+His sister laughed tremulously.
+
+"Well, I am in love with her--and I'm not ashamed to own it," she
+declared. "How altogether dear and charming and winsome she is! And when
+you think--what these years have done for her!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE CURTAIN RISES
+
+
+It was, indeed, quite "easy"--surprisingly so, as the doctor soon found
+out. Not without some trepidation, however, had he taken the train for
+Dalton the next morning and presented his proposition to the master of
+Denby House.
+
+"I think I've found your private secretary," he began blithely, hoping
+that his pounding heart-throbs did not really sound like a drum.
+
+"You have? Good! What's her name? Somebody you know?" questioned Burke
+Denby, with a show of interest.
+
+"Yes. She's a Miss Darling, and I've known her family for years." (The
+doctor gulped and swallowed a bit convulsively. The doctor was feeling
+that the very walls of the room must be shouting aloud his secret--but
+he kept bravely on.) "She doesn't know shorthand, but she can typewrite,
+and she's very quick at taking dictation in long hand, I fancy; and she
+knows several languages, I believe. I'm sure you'll find her capable and
+trustworthy in every way."
+
+"Very good! Sounds well, sure," smiled Burke. "And here, for my needs,
+speed and shorthand are not so necessary. I do only personal business at
+the house. What salary does she want?"
+
+So unexpected and disconcerting was this quite natural question that the
+doctor, totally unprepared for it, nearly betrayed himself by his
+confusion.
+
+"Eh? Er--ah--oh, great Scott! Why didn't they--I might have known--" he
+floundered. Then, sharply, he recovered himself. "Well, really," he
+laughed lightly, "I'm a crackerjack at applying for a job, and no
+mistake! I quite forgot to ask what salary she did expect. But I don't
+believe that will matter materially. She'll come for what is right, I'm
+sure; and you'll be willing to pay that."
+
+"Oh, yes; it doesn't matter. I'll be glad to give her a trial, anyway;
+and if she's all you crack her up to be I'll pay her _more_ than what's
+right. When can she come? Where does she live?"
+
+"Well, she's going to live here in Dalton," evaded the doctor
+cautiously. "She's not here yet; but she and her mother are
+coming--er--next week, I believe. Better not count on her beginning work
+till the first, though, perhaps. That'll be next week Thursday. I should
+think they ought to be--er--settled by that time." The doctor drew a
+long breath, much after the fashion of a man who has been crossing a bit
+of particularly thin ice.
+
+"All right. Send her along. The sooner the better," nodded Burke, the
+old listless weariness coming back to his eyes. "I certainly need--some
+one."
+
+"Oh, well, I reckon you'll have--some one, now," caroled the doctor, so
+jubilantly that it brought a frown of mild wonder to Burke Denby's
+face.
+
+Later, the doctor, still jubilant and confident, hurried down the Denby
+walk intent on finding the "modest little apartment" for Helen.
+
+"Oh, well, I don't know!" he exulted to himself, wagging his head like a
+cocksure boy. "This comic-opera-farce affair may not be so bad, after
+all. Anyhow, I've made my first exit--and haven't spilled anything yet.
+Now for scene second!"
+
+Finding a satisfactory little furnished apartment, not too far from the
+Denby home, proved to be no small task. But by sacrificing a little on
+the matter of distance, the doctor was finally enabled to engage one
+that he thought would answer.
+
+"Only she'll have to ride back and forth, I'm afraid," he muttered to
+himself, as he started for the station to take his train. "Anyhow, I'm
+glad I didn't take that one on Dale Street. She'd meet too many ghosts
+of old memories on Dale Street."
+
+Buying his paper at the newsstand in the station, the doctor himself
+encountered the ghost of a memory. But he could not place it until the
+woman behind the counter cried:--
+
+"There! I thought I'd seen you before. You come two years ago to the
+Denby fun'ral, now, didn't ye? I tell ye it takes me ter remember
+faces." Then, as he still frowned perplexedly, she explained: "Don't ye
+remember? My name's Cobb. I used ter live--" But the doctor had turned
+away impatiently. He remembered now. This was the woman who didn't
+"think much of old Denby" herself.
+
+On Monday Helen Denby and her daughter went to Dalton. At Helen's urgent
+insistence the doctor refrained from accompanying them.
+
+"I don't want you to be seen with us," Helen had protested.
+
+"But why not?" he had argued rebelliously. "I thought I was a friend of
+your family for years."
+
+"I know; but I--I just feel that I'd rather not have you with us. I
+prefer to go alone, please," she had begged. And perforce he had let her
+have her own way.
+
+It was on a beautiful day in late September that Helen Denby and her
+daughter arrived at the Dalton station. Helen, fearful either that her
+features would be recognized, or that she would betray by word or look
+her knowledge of the place, and so bring an amazed question to Betty's
+lips, had drawn a heavy veil over her face. Betty, cheerily interested
+in everything she saw, kept up a running fire of comment.
+
+"And so this is Dalton! What a funny little station--and for so big a
+place, too! It seemed to be big, as we came into it. Is Dalton a large
+town, mother?"
+
+"Why, rather large. It used to be--that is, it must be a good deal over
+fifteen thousand now, I suppose," murmured the mother, speaking very
+unconcernedly.
+
+"Then you've been here before?"
+
+Helen, realizing that already she had made one mistake, suddenly became
+convinced that safety--and certainly tranquillity of mind--lay in
+telling the truth--to a certain extent.
+
+"Oh, yes, I was here years ago. But the place is much changed, I fancy,"
+she answered lightly. "Come, dear, we'll take a taxi. But first I want a
+paper. I want to look at the advertisements for a maid, and--"
+
+She had almost reached the newsstand when, to Betty's surprise, she
+turned sharply about and walked the other way.
+
+"Why, mother, I thought you said you wanted a paper," cried Betty,
+hurrying after her and plucking at her arm.
+
+"But I didn't-- I don't-- I've changed my mind. I won't get it, after
+all, just now. I'd rather hurry right home."
+
+She spoke rapidly, almost feverishly; and Betty noticed that she engaged
+the first cabby she saw, and seemed impatiently anxious to be off. What
+she did not see, however, was that twice her mother covertly glanced
+back at the newsstand, and that her face behind the veil was gray-white
+and terrified. And what Betty did not know was that, as the taxi
+started, her mother whispered frenziedly to herself:--
+
+"That was--that was--Mrs. Cobb. She's older and grayer, but she's got
+Mrs. Cobb's eyes and nose. And the wart! I'd know that wart anywhere.
+And to think how near I came to _speaking_ to her!"
+
+It was a short drive, and Helen and her daughter were soon in the
+apartment the doctor had found for them. To Helen it looked like a haven
+of refuge, indeed. Her near encounter with Mrs. Cobb at the station had
+somewhat unnerved her. But with four friendly walls to protect her, and
+with no eyes but her daughter's in sight, Helen drew a long breath of
+relief, and threw off her veil, hat, and coat.
+
+"Oh, isn't this dear!" she exclaimed, sinking into a chair, and looking
+admiringly about the pretty rooms. "And just think--this is home, our
+home! Oh, dearie, we're going to be happy here, I'm sure."
+
+"Of course we are! And it is lovely here." The words were all right, but
+voice and eyes showed a trace of uneasiness.
+
+"Why, dearie, _don't_ you like it?" asked the girl's mother anxiously.
+
+"Yes, oh, yes; I like it all--_here_. It's only that I was thinking, all
+of a sudden, about that Mr. Denby. I was wondering if I should like it
+there--with him."
+
+"I think you will, dear."
+
+"But it'll all be so new and--and different from what I've been used to.
+Don't you see?"
+
+"Of course, my dear; but that's the way we grow--by encountering things
+new and different, you see. But come, we've got lots of things new and
+different right here that we haven't even seen yet. I'm going hunting
+for a wardrobe," finished the mother lightly, springing to her feet and
+picking up her hat and coat.
+
+It was a pretty little apartment of five rooms up one flight,
+convenient, and tastefully furnished.
+
+"I don't think even Burke could find fault with this," thought Helen, a
+bit wistfully, as her eyes lingered on the soft colorings and
+harmonious blendings of rugs and hangings. Aloud she said:--
+
+"Dear me! I feel just like a little girl with a new doll-house, don't
+you?"
+
+"Yes; and when our trunks come, and we get our photographs and things
+out, it will be lovely, won't it?"
+
+Helen, at one of the windows, gave a sudden exclamation.
+
+"Why, Betty, from this window we can see--"
+
+"See what?" cried Betty, hurrying to the window, as her mother's words
+came to an abrupt halt.
+
+"The city, dear, so much of it, and--and all those beautiful houses over
+there," stammered Helen. "See that church with the big dome, and the
+tall spire next it; and all those trees--that must be a park," she
+hurried on, pointing out anything and everything but the one big old
+colonial house with its tall pillars that stood out so beautifully fine
+and clear against the green of a wide lawn on the opposite hill.
+
+"Oh-h! what a lovely view!" exclaimed Betty, at her side. "Why, I hadn't
+noticed it at all before, but we're on a hill ourselves, aren't we?"
+
+"Yes, dear,--West Hill. That's what I think they used to call it."
+
+Helen was not at the window now. She had turned back into the room with
+almost an indifferent air. But afterwards, when Betty was busy
+elsewhere, she went again to the window and stood for long minutes
+motionless, her eyes on the big old house on the opposite hill. It was
+ablaze, now, for the last rays of the sun had set every window
+gorgeously aflame. And not until it stood again gray and cold in the
+gathering dusk did Helen turn back into the room; and then it was with
+tear-wet eyes and a long sigh.
+
+Getting settled was much the same thing that getting settled is always
+apt to be. There were the same first scrappy, unsatisfying meals, the
+same slow-emerging order from seemingly hopeless confusion, the same
+shifting of one's belongings from shelf to drawer and back again. In
+this case, however, there were only the trunks and their contents to be
+disposed of, and the getting settled was, after all, a short matter.
+
+Much to Betty's disapproval, her mother early announced her intention of
+doing without a maid.
+
+"Oh, but, mother, dear, you shouldn't. Besides, I thought you said you
+were going to have one."
+
+"I thought at first I would, but I've changed my mind. There will be
+just us two, and I'd rather have a stout woman come twice a week for the
+laundry and cleaning. With you gone all day I shall need something--to
+take up my mind."
+
+Betty said more, much more; but to no purpose. Her mother was still
+obdurate. It was then that into Betty's mind came a shrewd suspicion,
+but she did not give it voice. When evening came, however, she did ask
+some questions. It was the night before she was to go for the first time
+to take up her work.
+
+"Mother, how did we happen to come up here, to Dalton?"
+
+"Happen to come up--here?" Helen was taken by surprise. She was fencing
+for time.
+
+"Yes. What made us come here?"
+
+"Why, I--I wanted to be near to make a home for you, of course, while
+you were at work."
+
+"But why am I going to work?"
+
+Helen stirred restlessly.
+
+"Why, my dear, I've told you. I think every girl should have something
+whereby she could earn her bread, if it were necessary. And when this
+chance came, through Dr. Gleason, I thought it was just the thing for
+you to do."
+
+Indifferently Betty asked two or three other questions--immaterial,
+irrelevant questions that led her quite away from the matter in hand.
+Then, as if still casually, she uttered the one question that had been
+the purpose of the whole talk.
+
+"Mother, have we very much--money?"
+
+"Why, no, dear, not so very much. But I wouldn't worry about the money."
+
+The answer had come promptly and with a reassuring smile. But Betty
+tossed both the promptness and the reassuring smile into the limbo of
+disdain. Betty had her answer. She was convinced now. Her mother was
+poor--very poor. That was why there was to be no maid. That was why she
+herself was to go as secretary to this Mr. Denby the next day. Mother,
+poor, dear mother, was poor! As if _now_ she cared whether she liked the
+place or not! As if she would not be glad to work her fingers off for
+mother!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE PLAY BEGINS
+
+
+"I shall take you over, myself," said Helen to her daughter as they rose
+from the breakfast table that first day of October. "And I shall show
+you carefully just how to come back this afternoon; but I'm afraid I
+shall have to let you come back alone, dear. In the first place, I
+shouldn't know when you were ready; and in the second place, I shouldn't
+want to go and wait for you."
+
+"Of course not!" cried Betty. "As if I'd let you--and you don't even
+have to go with me. I can find out by asking."
+
+"No, I shall go with you." Betty noticed that her mother's cheeks were
+very pink and her eyes very bright. "Don't forget the doctor's letter;
+and remember, dear, just be--be your own dear sweet self."
+
+"Why, mother, you're--_crying_!" exclaimed the dismayed Betty.
+
+"Crying? Not a bit of it!" The head came proudly erect.
+
+"But does it mean so much to you that I--that I--that he--likes me?"
+asked Betty softly.
+
+The next moment, alarmed and amazed, she found her mother's convulsive
+arms about her, her mother's trembling voice in her ears.
+
+"It'll mean all the world to me, Betty--oh, Betty, my baby!"
+
+"Why, mother!" exclaimed the girl, aghast and shaken.
+
+But already her mother had drawn herself up, and was laughing through
+her tears.
+
+"Dear, dear, but only look at the fuss this old mother-bird is making at
+the first flight of her young one!" she chattered gayly. "Come, no more
+of this! We'll be late. We'll get ready right away. You say you have the
+letter from the doctor. Don't forget that."
+
+"No, I won't. I have it all safe," tossed the girl over her shoulder, as
+she hurried away for her hat and coat. A minute later she came back to
+find her mother shrouding herself in the black veil. "Oh, mother, dear,
+_please_! You aren't going to wear that horrid veil to-day, are you?"
+she remonstrated.
+
+"Why, yes, dear. Why not?"
+
+"I don't like it a bit. And it's so thick! I can't see a bit of _you_
+through it."
+
+"Can't you? Good!" (Vaguely Betty wondered at the almost gleeful tone of
+the voice.) "Then nobody can see my eyes--and know that I've been
+crying."
+
+"Ho! they wouldn't, anyway," frowned Betty. "Your eyes aren't red at
+all, mother."
+
+But the mother only laughed again gleefully--and fastened the veil with
+still another pin. A minute later mother and daughter left the house
+together.
+
+It was not a long ride to the foot of the street that led up the hill to
+Burke Denby's home. With carefully minute directions as to the return
+home at night, Helen left her daughter halfway up the hill, with the
+huge wrought-iron gates of the Denby driveway just before her.
+
+"And now remember everything--_everything_, dear," she faltered,
+clinging a little convulsively to her daughter's arm. "Dear, dear, but
+I'm not sure I ought to let you go--after all," she choked.
+
+"Nonsense, mumsey! Of course you ought to let me go!"
+
+"Then you must remember to tell me everything--when you come home
+to-night--_everything_. I shall want to know every single little thing
+that's happened!"
+
+"I will, dear, I will. And don't worry. I'm sure I'm going to do all
+right," comforted the girl, plainly trying to quiet the anxious fear in
+her mother's voice. "And what a beautiful old place it is!" she went on,
+her admiring eyes sweeping the handsome house and spacious grounds
+beyond the gates. "I shall love it there, I know. And I'm so glad the
+doctor got it for me. Now, don't worry!" she finished with a gay wave of
+her hand as she turned and sped up the hill.
+
+The mother, with a last lingering look and a sob fortunately smothered
+in the enshrouding veil, turned and hurried away in the opposite
+direction.
+
+Many times before Betty's return late that afternoon, Helen wondered
+that a day, just one little day, could be so long. It seemed to her that
+each minute was an hour, and each hour a day, so slowly did the clock
+tick the time away. She tried to work, to sew, to read. But there
+seemed really nothing that she wanted to do except to stand at one of
+the windows, her eyes on the massive, white-pillared old house set in
+its wide sweep of green on the opposite hill.
+
+What was happening over there? Was there a possible chance that Burke
+would question, suspect, discover--anything? How would he like--Betty?
+How would Betty like him? How would Betty do, anyway, in such a
+position? It was Betty's first experience in--in working for any one;
+and Betty--sweet and dear and loving as she was--had something of the
+Denby will and temper, as her mother had long since discovered. Betty
+was fearless and high-spirited. If she did not like--but what was
+happening over there?
+
+And what would the outcome be? After all, perhaps, as the doctor had
+said, it was something of a comic opera and farce all in one--this thing
+she was doing. Very likely the whole thing, from the first, when she ran
+away years ago, had been absurd and preposterous, just as the doctor had
+said. And very likely Burke himself, when he found out, would think so,
+too. It was a fearsome thing--to take matters in her own hands as she
+had done, and attempt to twist the thread in Fate's hands, and wrest it
+away from what she feared was destruction--as if her own puny fingers
+could deal with Destiny!
+
+And might it not be, after all, that she had been chasing a
+will-o'-the-wisp of fancied "culture" all these years? True, she no
+longer said "swell" and "grand," and she knew how to eat her soup
+quietly; but was that going to make Burke--love her? She realized now
+something of what it was that she had undertaken when she fled to the
+doctor years ago. She realized, too, that during these intervening years
+there had come to her a very real sense of what love, marriage, and a
+happy home ought to mean--and what they must mean if she were ever to be
+happy with Burke, or to make him happy.
+
+But what was taking place--over there?
+
+At ten minutes before five Betty reached home. Her mother met her
+halfway down the stairs.
+
+"Oh, Betty, you--you _are_ here!" she panted. "Now, tell me
+everything--every single thing," she reiterated, almost dragging the
+girl into the apartment, in her haste and excitement. "Don't skip
+anything--not the least little thing; for a little thing might mean so
+much--to me."
+
+"Why, mother!" exclaimed Betty, her laughing eyes growing vaguely
+troubled. "Do you really _care_ so much?"
+
+With a sudden tightening of the throat Helen pulled herself up sharply.
+She gave a light laugh.
+
+"Care? Of course I care! Don't you suppose I want to know what my baby
+has been doing all the long day away from me? Now, tell me. Sit right
+down and tell me from the beginning."
+
+"All right, I will," smiled Betty. To herself she said: "Poor mother! As
+if I wouldn't work my fingers off before I'd fail her, when she cares so
+much--when she _needs_ so much--what I earn!" Then, aloud, cheerily,
+she began:--
+
+[Illustration: "SO I RANG THE BELL."]
+
+"Well, first, I walked up that long, long walk through that beautiful
+lawn to the house; but for a minute I didn't ring the bell. It was so
+beautiful--the view from that veranda, with the sun on the reds and
+browns and yellows of the trees everywhere! Then I remembered suddenly
+that I hadn't come to make a call and admire the view, but that I was a
+business woman now. So I rang the bell. There was a lovely old brass
+knocker on the great door; but I saw a very conspicuous push-button, and
+I concluded that was for real use."
+
+"Yes, yes. And were you--frightened, dear?"
+
+"Well, 'nervous,' we'll call it. Then, as I was planning just what to
+say, the door opened and the oldest little old man I ever saw stood
+before me."
+
+"Yes, go on!"
+
+"He was the butler, I found out afterwards. They called him Benton. He
+seemed surprised, somehow, to see me, or frightened, or something.
+Anyway, he started queerly, as his eyes met mine, and he muttered a
+quick something under his breath; but all I could hear was the last,
+'No, no, it couldn't be!'"
+
+"Yes--yes!" breathed Helen, her face a little white.
+
+"The next minute he became so stiff and straight and dignified that even
+his English cousin might have envied him. I told him I was Miss Darling,
+and that I had a note to Mr. Denby from Dr. Gleason.
+
+"'Yes, Miss. The master is expecting you. He said to show you right in.
+This way, please,' he said then, pompously. And then I saw that great
+hall. Oh, mother, if you could see it! It's wonderful, and so full of
+treasures! I could hardly take off my hat and coat properly, for
+devouring a superb specimen of old armor right in front of me. Then
+Benton took me into the library, and I saw--something even more
+wonderful."
+
+"You mean your--er--Mr. Denby?" The mother's face was aglow.
+
+Betty gave a merry laugh.
+
+"Indeed, I don't! Oh, he was there, but he was no wonder, mother, dear.
+The wonder was cabinet after cabinet filled with jades and bronzes and
+carved ivories and Babylonian tablets and-- But I couldn't begin to tell
+you! I couldn't even begin to see for myself, for, of course, I had to
+say something to Mr. Denby."
+
+"Of course! And tell me--what was he--he like?"
+
+"Oh, he was just a man, tall and stern-looking, and a little gray. He's
+old, you know. He isn't young at all"--spoken with all the serene
+confidence of Betty's eighteen years. "He has nice eyes, and I imagine
+_he'd_ be nice, if he'd let himself be. But he won't."
+
+"Why, Betty, what--what do you mean?"
+
+Betty laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, mother, dear, you'd have to see him really to know. It's just
+that--that he's so used to having his own way that he takes it as a
+matter of course, as his right."
+
+"Oh, my dear!"
+
+"But he does. It shows up in everything that everybody in that house
+does. I could see that, even in this one day I was there. Benton, Sarah
+(the maid), Mrs. Gowing (the old cousin housekeeper)--even the dog and
+the cat show that they've stood at attention for Master Burke Denby all
+their lives. You just wait till I get _my_ chance. I'll show him
+somebody that isn't standing at salute all the time."
+
+"_Betty!_" There was real horror in the woman's voice this time.
+
+Again Betty's merry laugh rang out.
+
+"Don't look so shocked, dearie. I shan't do anything or say anything to
+imperil my--my job." (Betty's eyes twinkled even more merrily over the
+last word.) "It's just that I don't think any living man has a right to
+make everybody so afraid of him as Mr. Denby very plainly has done. And
+I only mean that if the occasion ever came up, I should let him know
+that I am not afraid of him."
+
+"Oh, Betty, Betty, be careful, be _careful_. I beg of you, be careful!"
+
+"Oh, I will. Don't worry," laughed the girl. "But, listen, don't you
+want me to go on with my story?"
+
+"Yes--oh, yes!"
+
+"Well, where was I? Oh, I know--just inside the library door. Very good,
+then. Ruthlessly suppressing my almost overwhelming longing to pounce
+on one of those alluring cabinets, I advanced properly and held out my
+note to Mr. Denby. As I came near I fancied that he, too, gave a slight
+start as he looked sharply into my face; and I thought I caught a real
+gleam of life in his eyes. The next instant it was gone, however (if
+indeed it had ever been there!), and he had taken my note and waved me
+politely to a chair."
+
+"Yes, go on, go on!"
+
+"Yes; well, do you know?--that's exactly what I felt like saying to
+him," laughed Betty softly. "He just glanced at the note with a low
+ejaculation; then he sat there staring at nothing for so long that I
+began to think I should scream from sheer nervousness. Then, perhaps I
+stirred a little. At all events, he turned with a start, and then is
+when I saw, for just a minute, how kind his eyes could be.
+
+"'There, there, my child, I beg your pardon,' he cried. 'I quite forgot
+you were here. Something--your eyes, I think--set me to dreaming. Now to
+business! Perhaps you'll be good enough to take some letters for me.
+You'll find pencils, pen, and paper there at your right.' And I did. And
+I began. And that's all."
+
+"All! But surely there was more!"
+
+"Not much. I took dictation in long hand for perhaps a dozen
+letters--most of them short ones. He said he was behind on his personal
+correspondence. Then he went away and left me. He goes down to his
+office at the Denby Iron Works every forenoon, I understand. Anyway,
+there I was, left in that fascinating room with all those cabinets full
+of treasures that I so longed to explore, but tied to a lot of scrawly
+notes and a typewriter. I forgot to say there was one of those
+disappearing typewriters in a desk over by the window. It wasn't quite
+like Gladys's, but the keyboard was, and I very soon got the run of it.
+
+"At one o'clock he came back. I had the letters all done, and they
+looked lovely. I was rather proud of them. I passed them over for
+him to sign, and waited expectantly for a nice little word of
+commendation--which I didn't get."
+
+"Oh, but I'm sure he didn't--didn't realize that--that--"
+
+"Oh, no, he didn't realize, of course, that this was my maiden effort at
+private secretarying," laughed Betty, a little ruefully, "and that I
+wanted to be patted on the head with a 'Well done, little girl!' He just
+shoved them back for me to fold and put in the envelopes; and just then
+Benton came to announce luncheon."
+
+"But tell me about the luncheon."
+
+"There isn't much to tell. There were just us three at the table, Mr.
+Denby, Mrs. Gowing, and myself. There was plenty to eat, and it was very
+nice. But, dear, dear, the dreariness of it! With the soup Mrs. Gowing
+observed that it was a nice day. With the chicken patties she asked if I
+liked Dalton; and with the salad she remarked that we had had an
+unusually cold summer. Dessert was eaten in utter silence. Why, mother,
+I should die if I had to spend my life in an atmosphere like that!"
+
+"But didn't Mr. Denby say--anything?"
+
+"Oh, yes. He asked me for the salt, and he gave an order to Benton. Oh,
+he's such fascinating company--he is!"
+
+At the disturbed expression on her mother's face, Betty gave a playful
+shrug. "Oh, I know, he's my respected employer, and all that," she
+laughed; "and I shall be very careful to do his bidding. Never fear! But
+that doesn't mean that I've got to love him."
+
+Helen Denby flushed a painful red.
+
+"But I wanted--I hoped you would--er--l-like him, my dear," she
+faltered.
+
+"Maybe I shall--when I get him--er--trained," retorted Betty, flashing a
+merry glance into her mother's dismayed eyes. "Don't worry, dear. I was
+a perfect angel to him to-day. Truly I was. Listen! After luncheon Mr.
+Denby brought me three or four newspapers which he had marked here and
+there; and for an hour then I read to him. And what do you think?--when
+I had finished he said, in that crisp short way of his: 'You have a good
+voice, Miss Darling. I hope you won't mind if I ask you to read to me
+often.' And of course I smiled and said no, indeed, I should be glad to
+read as often as he liked."
+
+"Of course!" beamed the mother, with so decided an emphasis that Betty
+exclaimed warningly:--
+
+"Tut, tut, now! Don't _you_ go to tumbling down and worshiping him like
+all the rest."
+
+"W-worshiping him!" Helen Denby's cheeks were scarlet.
+
+"Yes," nodded Betty, with tranquil superiority. "It isn't good for him,
+I tell you. He doesn't get anything but worship from every single one of
+those people around him. Honestly, if he should declare that the earth
+was flat, I think that ridiculous old butler and that scared cousin
+housekeeper would bow: 'Just as you say, sir, just as you say.' Humph!
+He'd better tell _me_ the world is flat, some day."
+
+"Oh, Betty! Betty!" implored Betty's mother.
+
+But Betty only went on with a merry toss of her head:--
+
+"Well, after the reading there were other letters, then some work on a
+card-index record of his correspondence. After that I came home. But,
+mother, oh, mother, only think what it'll be when we begin to catalogue
+all those treasures in his cabinets. And we're going to do it. He said
+we were. It seems as if I just couldn't wait!"
+
+"But you will be careful what you say to him, dear," begged the mother
+again, anxiously. "He wouldn't understand your mischief, dear, and
+I--I'm sure he wouldn't like it."
+
+Betty stooped to give a playful kiss.
+
+"Careful? Why, mumsey, dear, when we get at those cabinets he may tell
+me a dozen times the earth is flat, if he wants to, and I won't so much
+as blink--if I think there's any danger of my getting cheated out of
+that cataloguing!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+ACTOR AND AUDIENCE
+
+
+Helen did not go with her daughter to Denby House the second morning.
+Betty insisted that she was quite capable of taking the short trip by
+herself and Helen seemed nothing loath to remain at home. Helen never
+seemed, indeed, loath to remain at home these days--especially during
+daylight. In the evening, frequently, she went out for a little walk
+with Betty. Then was when she did her simple marketing. Then, too, was
+the only time she would go out without the heavy black veil. Betty,
+being away all day, and at home only after five o'clock, did not notice
+all these points at first. As time passed, however, she did wonder why
+her mother never would go out on Sunday. Still, Betty was too thoroughly
+absorbed in her own new experiences to pay much attention to anything
+else. Every morning at nine o'clock she left the house, eager for the
+day's work; and every afternoon, soon after five, she was back in the
+tiny home, answering her mother's hurried questions as to what had
+happened through the day.
+
+"And you're so lovely and interested in every little thing!" she
+exclaimed to her mother one day.
+
+"But I _am_ interested, my dear, in every little thing," came the quick
+answer. And Betty, looking at her mother's flushed face and trembling
+lips felt suddenly again the tightening at her throat--that her success
+or failure should mean so much to mother--dear mother who was trying so
+hard not to show how poor they were!
+
+For perhaps a week Betty reported little change in the daily routine of
+her work. She wrote letters, read from books, magazines, or newspapers,
+worked on the card-index record of correspondence, and sorted papers,
+pamphlets, and circulars that had apparently been accumulating for
+weeks.
+
+"But I'm getting along beautifully," she declared one day. "I've got
+Mrs. Gowing thawed so she actually says as many as three sentences to a
+course now. And you should see the beaming smile Benton gives me every
+morning!"
+
+"And--Mr. Denby?" questioned her mother, with poorly concealed
+eagerness.
+
+Betty lifted her brows and tossed her young head.
+
+"Well, he's improving," she flashed mischievously. "He asked for the
+salt _and_ the pepper, yesterday. And to-day he actually observed that
+he thought it looked like snow--at the table, I mean. Of course he
+speaks to me about my work through the day; but he doesn't say any more
+than is necessary. Truly, mother, dear, I'd never leave my happy home
+for _him_."
+
+"Oh, Betty, how can you say--such dreadful things!"
+
+Betty laughed again mischievously.
+
+"Don't worry, mumsey. He'll never ask me to do it! But, honestly,
+mother, I can't see any use in a man's being so stern and glum all the
+time."
+
+"Does he really act so unhappy, then?"
+
+At an unmistakable something in her mother's voice Betty looked up in
+surprise.
+
+"Why, mother, that sounded exactly as if you were _glad_ he was
+unhappy!" she exclaimed.
+
+Helen, secretly dismayed and terrified, boldly flaunted the flag of
+courage.
+
+"Did I? Oh, no," she laughed easily. "Still, I'm not so sure but I am a
+little glad: if he's unhappy, all the more chance for you to make
+yourself indispensable by helping him and making him happy. See?"
+
+"Happy!" scoffed Betty with superb disdain; "why, the man doesn't know
+what the word means."
+
+"But perhaps he has seen--a great deal of trouble, dear." The mother's
+eyes were gravely tender.
+
+"Perhaps he has. But is that any reason for inflicting it on other
+people by reflection?" demanded Betty, with all of youth's intolerance
+for age and its incomprehensible attitudes. "Does it do any possible
+good, either to himself or to anybody else, to retire behind a frown and
+a grunt, and look out upon all those beautiful things around him through
+eyes that are like a piece of cold steel? Of course it doesn't!"
+
+"Oh, Betty, how can you!" protested the dismayed mother again.
+
+But Betty, with a laugh and a spasmodic hug that ended in a playful
+little shake, retorted with all her old gay sauciness:--
+
+"Don't you worry, mumsey. I'm a perfect angel to that man." Then,
+wickedly, she added as she whisked off: "You see, I haven't yet had a
+chance to poke even one finger inside of one of those cabinets!"
+
+It was three days later that Betty, having put on her hat and coat at
+Denby House, had occasion to go back into the library to speak to her
+employer.
+
+"Mr. Denby, shall I--" she began; then fell back in amazement. The man
+before her had leaped to his feet and started toward her, his face white
+like paper.
+
+"Good God!--_you!_" he exclaimed. The next instant he stopped short, the
+blood rushing back to his face. "Oh, _Miss Darling_! I--er--I thought,
+for a moment, you were-- _What a fool!_" With the last low muttered
+words he turned and sat down heavily.
+
+Betty, to whom the whole amazing sentence was distinctly audible, lifted
+demure eyes to his face.
+
+"I beg your pardon, you said--" The sentence came to a suggestive pause.
+Into Betty's demure eyes flashed an unmistakable twinkle.
+
+The man stared, frowned, then flushed a deeper red as full comprehension
+came. He gave a grim laugh.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Darling. That epithet was meant for me--not
+you." He hesitated, his eyes still searching her face. "Strange--strange!"
+he muttered then; "but I wonder what made you suddenly look so much
+like-- Take off your hat, please," he directed abruptly. "There!" he
+exclaimed triumphantly, as Betty pulled out the pins and lifted the hat
+from her head, "that explains it--your hat! Before, when I first saw
+you, your eyes reminded me of--of some one, and with your hat on the
+likeness is much more striking. For a moment I was actually fool enough
+to think--and I forgot she must be twice your age now, too," he finished
+under his breath.
+
+Betty waited a silent minute at the door; then, apparently still
+unnoticed, she turned and left the room, pinning her hat on again in the
+hall.
+
+To her mother that afternoon she carried a jubilant countenance. "Well,
+mother, he's alive! I've found out that much," she announced merrily.
+
+"He? Who?"
+
+"Mr. Burke Denby, to be sure."
+
+"Alive! Why, Betty, what do you mean?"
+
+"He's alive--like folks," twinkled Betty. "He's got memory, a heart, and
+I _think_ a sense of humor. I'm sure he did laugh a little over calling
+me a fool."
+
+"A fool! Child, what have you done now?" moaned Betty's mother.
+
+"Nothing, dear, nothing--but put on my hat," chuckled Betty
+irrepressibly. "Listen, and I'll tell you." And she drew a vivid picture
+of the scene in the library. "There, what did I tell you?" she demanded
+in conclusion. "Did I do anything but put on my hat?"
+
+"Oh, but Betty, you mustn't, you can't--that is, you must-- I mean,
+_please_ be careful!" On Helen's face joy and terror were fighting a
+battle royal.
+
+"Careful? Of course I'm careful," cried Betty. "Didn't I stand as still
+as a mouse while he was sitting there with his beetling brows bent in
+solemn thought? And then didn't I turn without a word and pussy-step out
+of the room when I saw that he had ceased to realize that there was such
+a being in the world as little I? Indeed, I did! And not till I got out
+of doors did I remember that I had gone into that library in the first
+place to ask a question. But I didn't go back. The question would
+keep--and that was more than I could promise of his temper, if I
+disturbed him then. So I came home. But I just can't wait now to get
+back. Only think how much more interesting things are going to be now!"
+
+"Why, y-yes, I suppose so," breathed Helen, a little doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, yes, I shall be watching always for him to come alive again.
+Besides, it's so romantic! It's a love-story, of course."
+
+"Why, Betty, what an idea!" The mother's face flamed instantly scarlet.
+
+"Why, of course it is, mother. If you could have seen his face you'd
+have known that no one but somebody he cared very much for could have
+brought _that_ look to it. You see, he thought for a moment that I was
+she. Then he said, 'What a fool!' and sat down. Next he just looked at
+me; and, mother, in his eyes there were just years and years of sorrow
+all rolled into that one minute."
+
+"Were there--really?" The mother's face was turned quite away now.
+
+"Yes. And don't you see? I'm not going to mind now ever what he says and
+does, nor how glum he is; for I _know_ down inside, he's got a heart.
+And only think, _I look like her_!" finished Betty, suddenly springing
+to her feet, and whirling about in ecstasy. "Oh, it's so exciting, isn't
+it?"
+
+But her mother did not answer. She did not seem to have heard, perhaps
+because her back was turned. She had crossed the room to the window.
+Betty, following her, put a loving arm about her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, and, mother, look!" she exclaimed eagerly. "I was going to tell
+you. I discovered it last Sunday. You can see the Denby House from here.
+Did you know it? It's so near dark now, it isn't very clear, but there's
+a light in the library windows, and others upstairs, too. See? Right
+through there at the left of that dark clump of trees, set in the middle
+of that open space. That's the lawn, and you can just make out the tall
+white pillars of the veranda. See?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I see. Yes, so you can, can't you?"
+
+Helen's voice was light and cheery, and carefully impersonal, carrying
+no hint of her inward tumult, for which she was devoutly thankful.
+
+In spite of her high expectations, Betty came from Denby House the next
+afternoon with pouting lips.
+
+"He's just exactly the same as ever, only more so, if anything," she
+complained to her mother. "He dictated his letters, then for an hour, I
+think, he just sat at his desk doing nothing, with his hand shielding
+his eyes. Twice, though, I caught him looking at me. But his eyes
+weren't kind and--and human, as they were yesterday. They were their
+usual little bits of cold steel. He went off then to his office at the
+Works (he said he was going there), and he never came home even to
+luncheon. I didn't have half work enough to do, and--and the cabinets
+were locked. I tried them. At four he came in, signed the letters, said
+good-afternoon and stalked upstairs. And that's the last I saw of him."
+
+Nightly, after this, for a time, Betty gave forth what she called the
+"latest bulletin concerning the patient":--
+
+"No change."
+
+"Sat up and took notice."
+
+"Slight rise in temper."
+
+"Dull and listless."
+
+Such were her reports. Then came the day when she impressively announced
+that the patient showed really marked improvement. He asked her to pass
+not only the salt and the pepper, but the olives.
+
+"And, indeed, when you come to think of it," she went on with mock
+gravity, "there's mighty little else he can ask me to pass, in the way
+of making voluntary conversation; for Benton and Sarah do everything
+almost, except lift the individual mouthfuls for our consumption."
+
+"Oh, Betty, Betty!" protested her mother.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know--that was dreadful, wasn't it, dearie?" laughed Betty
+contritely. "But you see I have to be so still and proper up there that
+home becomes a regular safety-valve; and you know safety-valves are
+necessary--absolutely necessary."
+
+Helen, gazing with fond, meditative eyes at the girl's bright face, drew
+a tremulous sigh.
+
+"Yes, I know, dear; but, you see, I'm so--afraid."
+
+"You shouldn't be--not with a safety-valve," retorted Betty. "But,
+really," she added, turning back laughingly, "there is one funny thing:
+he never stays around now when there's any chance of his seeing me with
+my hat on again. I've noticed it. Every single night since that time he
+did see me a week ago, he's bade me his stiff good-afternoon and gone
+upstairs _before_ I'm ready to leave."
+
+"Betty, really?" cried Helen so eagerly that Betty wheeled and faced her
+with a mischievous laugh.
+
+"Who's interested _now_ in Mr. Burke Denby's love-story?" she
+challenged. But her mother, her hands to her ears, had fled.
+
+It was the very next afternoon that Betty came home so wildly excited
+that not for a full five minutes could her startled mother obtain
+anything like a lucid story of the day. Then it came.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know, dear, of course you can't make anything out of what I
+say. But listen. I'll begin at the beginning. It was like this: This
+morning he had only a few letters for me. Then, in that tired voice he
+uses most of the time, he said: 'I think perhaps now, we might as well
+begin on the cataloguing. Everything else is pretty well caught up.' I
+jumped up and down and clapped my hands, and--"
+
+"You did _what_?" demanded her mother aghast.
+
+Betty's nose wrinkled in a saucy little grimace.
+
+"Oh, I mean _inside of me_. _Outside_ I just said, 'Yes, sir,' or 'Very
+well, Mr. Denby,' or something prim and proper like that.
+
+"Well, then he showed me huge drawers full of notes and clippings in a
+perfectly hopeless mass of confusion, and he unlocked one of the
+cabinets and took out the dearest little squat Buddha with diamond eyes,
+and showed me a number on the base. 'There, Miss Darling,' he began
+again in that tired voice of his, 'some of these notes and clippings are
+numbered in pencil to correspond with numbers like these on the curios;
+but many of them are not numbered at all. Unfortunately, many of the
+curios, too, lack numbers. All you can do, of course, is to sort out the
+papers by number, separating into a single pile all those that bear no
+number. I shall have to help you about those. You won't, of course, know
+where they go. I may have trouble myself to identify some of them.
+Later, after the preliminary work is done, each object will be entered
+on a card, together with a condensed tabulation of when and where I
+obtained it, its age, history--anything, in short, that we can find
+pertaining to it. The thing to do first, however, is to go through these
+drawers and sort out their contents by number."
+
+"Having said this (still in that weary voice of his), he put back the
+little Buddha,--which my fingers were just tingling to get hold
+of,--waved his hand toward the drawers and papers, and marched out of
+the room. Then I set to work."
+
+"But what did you do? How did you do it? What were those papers?"
+
+"They were everything, mumsey: clippings from magazines and papers and
+sales catalogues of antiques, typewritten notes, and scrawls in long
+hand telling when and where and how Mr. Burke Denby or his father had
+found this or that thing. But what a mess they were in! And such a lot
+of them without the sign of a number!
+
+"First, of course, I took a drawer and sorted the numbers into little
+piles on the big flat library table. Some of them had ten or a dozen,
+all one number. That work was very easy--only I did so want to read
+every last one of those notes and clippings! But of course I couldn't
+stop for that then. But I did read some of the unnumbered ones, and
+pretty quick I found one that I just knew referred to the little
+diamond-eyed Buddha Mr. Denby had taken out of the cabinet. I couldn't
+resist then. I just had to go and get it and find out. And I did--and it
+was; so I put them together on the library table.
+
+"Then I noticed in the same cabinet a little old worn toby jug--a
+shepherd plaid--about the oldest and rarest there is, you know; and I
+knew I had three or four unnumbered notes on toby jugs--and, sure
+enough! three of them fitted this toby; and I put _them_ together, with
+the jug on top, on the library table. Of course I was wild then to find
+some more. In the other cabinets that weren't unlocked, I could see,
+through the glass doors, a lot more things, and some of them, I was
+sure, fitted some of my unnumbered notes; but of course they didn't do
+me any good, as I couldn't get at them. One perfectly beautiful Oriental
+lacquered cabinet with diamond-paned doors was full of tablets, big and
+little, and I was crazy to get at those-- I had a lot of notes about
+tablets. I did find in my cabinet, though, a little package of Chinese
+bank-notes, and I was sure I had something on those. And I had. I knew
+about them, anyway. I had seen some in London. These dated 'way back to
+the Tang dynasty--sixth century, you know--and were just as smooth!
+They're made of a kind of paper that crumples up like silk, but doesn't
+show creases. They had little rings printed on them of different sizes
+for different values, so that even the ignorant people couldn't be
+deceived, and--"
+
+"Yes, yes, dear, but go on--go on," interrupted the eager-eyed mother,
+with a smile. "I want to know what happened _here_--not back in the
+sixth century!"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," breathed Betty; "but they were _so_
+interesting--those things were! Well, of course I put the bank-notes
+with their clippings on the table; then I began on another drawer. It
+got to be one o'clock very soon, and Mr. Denby came home to luncheon. I
+wish you could have seen his face when he entered the library and saw
+what I had done. His whole countenance lighted up. Why, he looked
+actually handsome!--and he's forty, if he's a day! And there wasn't a
+shred of tiredness in his voice.
+
+"Then when he found the bank-notes and the Buddha and the toby jug with
+the unnumbered clippings belonging to them, he got almost as excited as
+I was. And when he saw how interested I was, he unlocked the other
+cabinets--and how we did talk, both at once! Anyhow, whenever I stopped
+to get my breath he was always talking; and I never could wait for him
+to finish, there was so much I wanted to ask.
+
+"Poor old Benton! I don't know how many times he announced luncheon
+before it dawned over us that he was there at all; and he looked
+positively apoplectic when we did turn and see him. I don't dare to
+think how long we kept luncheon waiting. But everything had that flat,
+kept-hot-too-long taste, and Benton and Sarah served it with the air of
+injured saints. Mrs. Gowing showed meek disapproval, and didn't make
+even one remark to a course--but perhaps, after all, that was because
+she didn't have a chance. You see, Mr. Denby and I talked all the time
+ourselves."
+
+"But I thought he--he never talked."
+
+"He hasn't--before. But you see to-day he had such a lot to tell me
+about the things--how he came by them, and all that. And every single
+one of them has got a story. And he has such wonderful things! After
+luncheon he showed them to me--some of them: such marvelous bronzes and
+carved ivories and Babylonian tablets. He's got one with a real
+thumb-print on it--think of it, a thumb-print five thousand years old!
+And he's got a wonderful Buddha two thousand years old from a Chinese
+temple, and he knows the officer who got it--during the Boxer Rebellion,
+you know. And he's got another, not so old, of Himalayan Indian wood,
+exquisitely carved, and half covered with jewels.
+
+"Why, mother, he's traveled all over the world, and everywhere he's
+found something wonderful or beautiful to bring home. I couldn't begin
+to tell you, if I talked all night. And he seemed so pleased because I
+was interested, and because I could appreciate to some extent, their
+value."
+
+"I can--imagine it!" There was a little catch in Helen Denby's voice,
+but Betty did not notice it.
+
+"Yes, and that makes me think," she went on blithely. "He said such a
+funny thing once. It was when I held in my hand the Babylonian tablet
+with the thumb-mark. I had just been saying how I wished the little
+tablet had the power to transport the holder of it back to a vision of
+the man who had made that thumb-print, when he looked at me so queerly,
+and muttered: 'Humph! they _are_ more than potatoes to you, aren't
+they?' Potatoes, indeed! What do you suppose made him say that? Oh, and
+that is when he asked me, too, how I came to know so much about jades
+and ivories and Egyptian antiques."
+
+"What did you tell him?"
+
+At the startled half terror in her mother's voice Betty's eyes widened.
+
+"Why, that I learned in London, of course, with you and Gladys and Miss
+Hughes, poking around old shops there--and everywhere else that we could
+find them, wherever we were. _You_ know how we used to go 'digging,' as
+Gladys called it."
+
+"Yes, I know," subsided the mother, a little faintly.
+
+"Well, we worked all the afternoon--_together!_--Mr. Denby and I did.
+What do you think of that?" resumed Betty, after a moment's pause. "And
+not once since this morning have I heard any tiredness in Mr. Burke
+Denby's voice, if you please."
+
+"But how--how long is this going to take you?"
+
+"Oh, ages and ages! It can't help it. Why, mother, there are such a lot
+of them, and such a whole lot about some of them. Others, that he
+doesn't know so much about, we're going to look up. He has lots of books
+on such things, and he's buying more all the time. Then all this stuff
+has got to be condensed and tabulated and put on cards and filed away.
+But I love it--every bit of it; and I'm so excited to think I've really
+begun it. And he's every whit as excited as I am, mother. Listen! He
+actually forgot all about running away to-night before I put on my hat.
+And I never thought of it till just as I was pinning it on. He had
+followed me out into the hall to tell me something about the old armor
+in the corner; then, all of a sudden, he stopped--_off--short_, just
+like that, and said, 'Good-night, Miss Darling,' in his old stiff way.
+As he turned and went upstairs I caught sight of his face. I knew then.
+It was the hat. I had reminded him again of--_her_. But I shan't mind,
+now, if he is stern and glum sometimes--not with a Babylonian tablet or
+a Chinese Buddha for company. Oh, mother, if you could see those
+wonderful things. But maybe sometime you will. I shouldn't wonder."
+
+"Maybe sometime--I--will!" faltered the mother, growing a little white.
+"Why, Betty, what do you mean?"
+
+"Why, I mean, maybe I can take you sometime-- I'll ask Mr. Denby by and
+by, after we get things straightened out, if he won't let me bring you
+some day to see them."
+
+"Oh, no, no, Betty, don't--_please_ don't! I--I couldn't think of such a
+thing!"
+
+Betty laughed merrily.
+
+"Why, mumsey, you needn't look so frightened. They won't bite you. There
+aren't any of those things _alive_, dear!"
+
+"No, of course not. But I'm--I'm sure I--I wouldn't be able to
+appreciate them at all."
+
+"But in London you were _trying_ to learn to be interested in such
+things," persisted Betty, still earnestly. "Don't you know? You said you
+_wanted_ to learn to like them, and to appreciate them."
+
+"Yes, I know. But I'm sure I wouldn't like to--to trouble Mr.
+Denby--here," stammered the mother, her face still very white.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+"THE PLOT THICKENS"
+
+
+It was shortly before Christmas that Frank Gleason ran up to Dalton. He
+went first to see Burke Denby.
+
+Burke greeted him with hearty cordiality.
+
+"Hullo, Gleason! Good--you're just in time for dinner. But where's your
+bag? You aren't going back to-night!"
+
+"No, but I am to-morrow morning, very early, so I left my grip at the
+hotel. Yes, yes, I know--you'd have had me here, and routed the whole
+house up at midnight," he went on laughingly, shaking his head at
+Burke's prompt remonstrations, "if I but said the word. But I'm not
+going to trouble you this time. I'll be delighted to stay to dinner,
+however,--if I get an invitation," he smiled.
+
+"An invitation! As if you needed an invitation for--anything, in this
+house," scoffed Denby. "All mine is thine, as you know very well."
+
+"Thanks. I've half a mind to put you to the test--say with that pet
+thumb-marked tablet of yours," retorted the doctor, with a lift of his
+eyebrows. "However, we'll let it go at a dinner this time.--You're
+looking better, old man," he said some time later, as they sat at the
+table, his eyes critically bent on the other's face.
+
+"I am better."
+
+"Glad to hear it. How's business?"
+
+"Very good--that is, it _was_ good. I haven't been near the Works for a
+week."
+
+"So? Not--sick?"
+
+"Oh, no; busy." There was the briefest of pauses; then, with
+disconcerting abruptness, came the question: "Where'd you get that girl,
+Gleason?"
+
+"G-girl?" The doctor wanted a minute to think. Incidentally he was
+trying to swallow his heart--he thought it must be his heart--that big
+lump in his throat.
+
+"Miss Darling."
+
+"Miss Darling! Oh!" The doctor waved his hand inconsequently. He still
+wanted time. He was still swallowing at that lump. "Why, she--she--I
+told you. She's the daughter of an old friend. Why, isn't she all
+right?" He feigned the deepest concern.
+
+"_All right!_"
+
+Voice and manner carried a message of satisfaction that was
+unmistakable. But the doctor chose to ignore it. The doctor felt himself
+now on sure ground. He summoned a still deeper concern to his
+countenance.
+
+"Why, Denby, you don't mean she _isn't_ all right? What's the trouble?
+Isn't she capable?--or don't you like her ways?"
+
+"But I mean she _is_ all right, man," retorted the other impatiently.
+"Why, Gleason, she's a wonder!"
+
+Gleason, within whom the Hallelujah Chorus had become such a shout of
+triumph that he half expected to see Burke Denby cover his ears,
+managed to utter a cool--
+
+"Really? Well, I'm glad, I'm sure."
+
+"Well, she is. She's no ordinary girl." ("If Helen could but hear that!"
+exulted the doctor to himself.) "Why, what do you think? She can
+actually tell _me_ some things about my own curios!"
+
+"Then they are more than--er--potatoes to her? You know you said--"
+
+"Yes, I know I did. But just hear this. In spite of her seeming
+intelligence and capability, I'd been dreading to open those cabinets
+and let her touch those things dad and I had spent so many dear years
+together gathering. But, of course, I knew that that was silly. One of
+my chief reasons for getting her was the cataloguing; and it was absurd
+not to set her at it. So one day, after everything else was done, I
+explained what I wanted, and told her to go ahead."
+
+"Well, and--did she?" prompted the doctor, as the other paused.
+
+"She did--_exactly_ that. She went ahead--'way ahead of what I'd told
+her to do. Why, when I got home, I was amazed to see what she'd done.
+But best of all was her interest and her enthusiasm, and the fact that
+she knew and appreciated what they were. You see that's one of the
+things I'd been dreading--her ignorance--her indifference; but I dreaded
+more that she might gush and say, 'Oh, how pretty!' And I knew if she
+did I'd--I'd want to knock her down."
+
+"So glad--she didn't!" murmured the doctor.
+
+His host laughed shamefacedly.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know. That was rather a strong statement. But you see I felt
+strongly. And then to find-- But, Gleason, she really is a wonder. We're
+working together now-- _I'm_ working. As I said, I haven't been to the
+office for a week."
+
+"Is she agreeable--personally?"
+
+"Yes, very. She's pleasant and cheerful, bright, and very much of a
+lady. She's capable, and has uncommon good sense. Her voice, too, is
+excellent for reading. In short, she is, as I told you, a wonder; and
+I'm more than indebted to you for finding her. Let's see, you say you do
+know her family?"
+
+Gleason got suddenly to his feet.
+
+"Yes, oh, yes. Good family, too! Now I'm sorry to eat and run, as the
+children say, but I'll have to, Burke, to-night. One or two other little
+matters I'll have to attend to before I sleep. But, as I said a few
+minutes ago, I'm glad to see you in better spirits. Keep on with the
+good work."
+
+The doctor seemed nervous, and anxious to get away; and in another
+minute the great outer door had closed behind him.
+
+"Hm-m! Wonder what's his rush," puzzled Burke Denby, left standing in
+the hall.
+
+There was a slight frown on his face. But in another minute it was gone:
+he had remembered suddenly that he had promised Miss Darling that he
+would try to find certain obscure data regarding the tablet they had
+been at work upon that afternoon. It was just as well, perhaps, after
+all, that the doctor had had to leave early--it would give more time for
+work.
+
+With an eager lifting of his head Burke Denby turned and strode into the
+library.
+
+Meanwhile, hurrying away from Denby House was the doctor, his whole self
+a Hallelujah Chorus of rejoicing. His countenance was still aglow with
+joy when, a little later, he rang the bell of a West Hill
+apartment-house suite bearing the name, "Mrs. Helen Darling."
+
+To his joy he found Helen alone; but hardly had he given her a hasty
+account of his visit to Burke Denby, and assured her that he was
+positive everything was working out finely, when Betty came in from the
+corner grocery store, breezy and smiling.
+
+"Oh, it's Dr. Gleason!" she welcomed him. "Now, I'm glad mother didn't
+go with me to-night, after all,--for we'd both been out then, and we
+shouldn't have seen you."
+
+"Which would have been my great loss," bowed the man gallantly, his
+approving eyes on Betty's glowing face.
+
+"Oh, but ours, too,--especially mine," she declared. "You see, I've been
+wishing you'd come. I wanted to thank you."
+
+"To thank me?"
+
+"Yes; for finding this lovely place for me."
+
+"You like it, then?"
+
+"I love it. Why, Dr. Gleason, you have no idea of the wonderful things
+that man-- But you said you knew him," she broke off suddenly. "Don't
+you know him?"
+
+"Oh, yes, very well."
+
+"Then you've been there, of course."
+
+"Many times."
+
+"Oh, how silly of me!" she laughed. "As if I could tell _you_ anything
+about antiques and curios! But hasn't he some beautiful things?"
+
+"He has, indeed. But how about the man? You haven't told me at all how
+you like Mr. Denby himself."
+
+Betty glanced at her mother with a roguish shrug.
+
+"Well, as I tell mother, now that I've got him trained, he does very
+well."
+
+"My _dear_!" murmured her mother.
+
+"Trained?" The question was the doctor's.
+
+"Yes. You see at first he was such a bear."
+
+"Oh, Betty!" exclaimed her mother, in very genuine distress.
+
+But Betty plainly was in one of her most mischievous moods. With another
+merry glance at her mother she turned to the doctor.
+
+"It's only this, doctor. You see, at first he was so silent and solemn,
+and Benton and Sarah and Mrs. Gowing were so scared, and the whole house
+was so scared and silent and solemn, that it seemed some days as if I
+should scream, just to make a little excitement. But it's all very
+different now. Benton and Sarah are all smiles, Mrs. Gowing actually
+laughs sometimes, and the only trouble is there isn't time enough for
+Mr. Denby to get in all the talking he wants to."
+
+"Then Mr. Denby seems happier?"
+
+"Oh, very much. Of course, at first it was just about the work--we're
+cataloguing the curios; but lately it's been in other ways. Why, the
+other day he found I could play and sing a little, and to-day he asked
+me to sing for him. And I did."
+
+Helen sat suddenly erect in her chair.
+
+"Sing? You sang for Mr. Denby?" she cried, plainly very much agitated.
+"But you hadn't told me--that!"
+
+"I hadn't done it till this afternoon, just before I came home," laughed
+Betty.
+
+"But what did you sing? Oh, you--you didn't sing any of those foolish,
+nonsensical songs, did you?" implored Helen, half rising from her chair.
+
+"But I did," bridled Betty. Then, as her mother fell back dismayed, she
+cried: "Did you suppose I'd risk singing solemn things to a man who had
+just learned to laugh?"
+
+"But, _ragtime_!" moaned Helen, "when he's always hated it so!"
+
+"'Always hated it so'!" echoed Betty, with puzzled eyes. "Why, I hadn't
+played it before, dearie. I hadn't played anything!"
+
+"No, no, I--I mean always hated everything gay and lively _like_
+ragtime," corrected Helen, her cheeks abnormally pink, as she carefully
+avoided the doctor's eyes. "Why didn't you play some of your good music,
+dear?"
+
+"Oh, I did, afterwards, of course,--MacDowell and Schubert, and that
+lullaby we love. But he liked the ragtime, too, all right. I know he
+did. Besides, it just did me good to liven up the old house a bit. I
+know Benton was listening in the hall, and I'm positive Sarah and the
+cook had the dining-room door open. As for Mrs. Gowing, she--dear old
+soul--just sat and frankly cried. And the merrier I sang, the faster the
+tears rolled down her face--but it was for joy. I could see that. And
+once I heard her mutter: 'To think that ever again I should hear music
+and laughter--_here_!' Dr. Gleason, did Mr. Denby ever love somebody
+once, and do I look like her?"
+
+Taken utterly by surprise, the doctor, for one awful minute, floundered
+in appalled confusion. It was Helen this time who came to the rescue.
+
+"I shall tell the doctor he needn't answer that question, Betty," she
+said, with just a shade of reproval in her voice. "If he did know of
+such a thing, do you think he ought to tell you, or anybody else?"
+
+Betty laughed and colored a little.
+
+"No, dear, of course not. And I shouldn't have asked it, should I?"
+
+"But what makes you think he has?" queried the doctor, with very much
+the air of a small boy who is longing yet fearing to investigate the
+reason for the non-explosion of a firecracker.
+
+"Because he said twice that I reminded him of some one, particularly
+with my hat on; and both times, afterward, he looked so romantic and
+solemn"--Betty's eyes began to twinkle--"that I thought maybe I was on
+the track of a real, live love-story, you see. But he hasn't said
+anything about it lately; so perhaps I was mistaken, after all. You see,
+really, he's quite like folks, now, since we've been working on the
+curios."
+
+"And how are you getting along with those?"
+
+"Very well, only it's slow, of course. There is such a mass of material,
+and so much to look up and study up besides. We're just getting it
+together and tabulating it now on temporary sheets. We shan't begin the
+real cataloguing on the final cards until we have all our material in
+hand, Mr. Denby says."
+
+"But you aren't getting tired of it?"
+
+"Not a bit! I love it--even the digging after dates. I'm sure _you_ can
+understand that," she smiled.
+
+"Yes, I can understand that," he smiled back at her. And now, for the
+first time for long minutes, he dared to look across the room into Helen
+Denby's eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+COUNTER-PLOTS
+
+
+In thinking it over afterwards Burke Denby tried to place the specific
+thing that put into his mind that most astounding suggestion. He knew
+very well the precise moment of the inception of the idea--it had been
+on Christmas night as he sat before the fire in his gloomy library. But
+what had led to it? Of just what particular episode concerning his
+acquaintance with this girl had he been thinking when, like a blinding
+flash out of the dark, had leaped forth those startling words?
+
+He had been particularly lonely that evening, perhaps because it was
+Christmas, and he could not help comparing his own silent fireside with
+the gay, laughter-filled, holly-trimmed homes all about him. Being
+Christmas, he had not had even the divertisement of his secretary's
+presence--companionship. Yes, it was companionship, he decided. It could
+not but be that when she brought so much love and enthusiasm to the
+work, as well as the truly remarkable skill and knowledge she displayed.
+And she was, too, such a charming girl, so bright and lovable. The house
+had not been the same since she came into it. He hoped he might keep
+her. He should not like to let her go--now. But if only she could be
+there all the time! It would be much easier for _her_--winter storms
+were coming on now; and as for him--he should like it very much. The
+evenings were interminably long sometimes. He wondered if, after all, it
+might not be arranged. There was a mother, he believed. They lived in an
+apartment on West Hill. But she could doubtless be left all right, or
+she might even come, too, if it were necessary. Surely the house was
+large enough, and she might be good company for his cousin. And it would
+be nice for the daughter. It might, indeed, be a very suitable
+arrangement all around.
+
+Of course, if he had a wife and daughter of his own, he would not have
+to be filling his house with strangers like this. If Helen had not--
+Curious, too, how the girl was always making him think of Helen--her
+eyes, especially when she had on her hat, and little ways she had--
+
+It came then, with an electric force that brought him to his feet with
+almost a cry:--
+
+"What if she were--maybe she _is_--your daughter!"
+
+As he paced the room feverishly, Burke Denby tried to bring the chaos of
+thoughts into something like order.
+
+It was absurd, of course. It could not be. And yet--there were her eyes
+so like Helen's, and the way she had of pushing back her hair, and of
+lifting her chin when she was determined about something. There were,
+too, actually some little things in her that reminded him of--himself.
+And surely her remarkable love and aptitude for the work she was doing
+for him now ought to mean--something.
+
+But could it be? Was it _possible_? Would Helen do such a fantastic
+thing--send him his own daughter like this? And the doctor--this girl
+had been introduced by him. Then he, too, must be in the plot. "A
+daughter of an old friend." Yes, that might be. But would Gleason lend
+himself to such a wild scheme? It seemed too absurd to be possible. And
+yet--
+
+His mind still played with the idea.
+
+Just what did he know about this young woman? Very little. What if,
+after all, it were Dorothy Elizabeth? And it might be, for all he _knew_
+to the _contrary_. She was about the right age, he should judge--his
+little girl would be eighteen--by now. Her name was Elizabeth; she had
+told him that, at the same time saying that she was always called
+"Betty." There was a mother--but he had never heard the girl mention her
+father. And they had dropped, as it were, right out of a clear sky into
+Dalton, and into his life. Could it be? Of course it really was too
+absurd; but yet--
+
+With a sudden setting of his jaws the man determined to put his
+secretary through a course of questions, the answers to which would
+forever remove all doubt, one way or another. If at the onset of the
+questioning she grew suddenly evasive and confused, he would have his
+answer at once: she was his daughter, and was attempting to keep the
+knowledge from him until such time as her mother should wish to let the
+secret out. On the other hand, even if she were not confused or evasive
+as to her answers, she still might be his daughter--and not know of the
+relationship. In which case his questions, of course, must be carried to
+the point where he himself would be satisfied. Meanwhile he would think
+no more about it; and, above all, he would keep his thoughts from
+dwelling on what it would be if--she were.
+
+Having reached this wise decision, Burke Denby tossed his half-smoked
+cigar into the fire and attempted to toss as lightly the whole subject
+from his mind--an attempt which met with sorry success.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Burke Denby plumed himself that he was doing his questioning most
+diplomatically when, the next morning, he began to carry out his plans.
+With almost superhuman patience he had waited until the morning letters
+were out of the way, and until he and his secretary were working
+together over sorting the papers in a hitherto unopened drawer.
+
+"Did you have a pleasant Christmas, Miss Darling?" Careless as was his
+apparent aim, it was the first gun of his campaign.
+
+"Yes, thank you, very pleasant."
+
+"I didn't. Too quiet. A house needs young people at Christmas. If only I
+had a daughter now--" He watched her face closely, but he could detect
+no change of color. There was only polite, sympathetic interest. "Let me
+see, you live with your mother, I believe," he finished somewhat
+abruptly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you lived in Dalton long?"
+
+"Only since October, when I came to you."
+
+"Do you like it here?"
+
+"Oh, yes, very well."
+
+"Still, not so well as where you came from, perhaps," he smiled
+pleasantly.
+
+Betty laughed.
+
+"But I came--from so many places."
+
+"That so?"
+
+"Paris, Berlin, London, Genoa,--mostly London, of late."
+
+"But you are American born!"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"I thought so. Still, it is a little singular, having been gone so long,
+that you are so American in your speech and manner. You aren't a bit
+English, Miss Darling."
+
+Betty laughed again merrily.
+
+"How mother would love to hear you say that!" she cried. "You see,
+mother was so afraid I would be--English, or something foreign--educated
+as I was almost entirely across the water. But we were with Americans
+all the time, and our teachers, except for languages, were Americans,
+whenever possible."
+
+"Hm-m; I see. And now you are here in America again. And does your
+mother like it--here?"
+
+"Why, I think so."
+
+"And does she like Dalton, too? Perhaps she has been here before,
+though." The casual way in which the question was put gave no
+indication of the way the questioner was holding his breath for the
+answer.
+
+"Oh, yes. She was here several years ago, she says."
+
+"Indeed!" To Burke Denby it was as if something within him had suddenly
+snapped. He relaxed in his chair. His eyes were still covertly searching
+Betty's serene face bent over her work. Within himself he was saying:
+"Well, _she_ doesn't know, whatever it is." Aloud he resumed: "And were
+you, too, ever here?"
+
+"Why, yes; but I don't remember it. I was only a year or two old, mother
+said."
+
+The man almost leaped from his chair. Then, sternly, he forced himself
+to work one full minute without speaking. A dozen agitated questions
+were clamoring for utterance, but he knew better than to give them
+voice. With a cheery casualness of manner, that made him inordinately
+proud of himself, he said:--
+
+"Well, I certainly am glad you came now. I'm sure I don't know what I
+should have done, if you hadn't. But, by the way, how did you happen to
+come to me?" Again he held his breath.
+
+"Why, through Dr. Gleason. You knew that!"
+
+"Yes, but I know only that. You never did--exactly this sort of work
+before, did you?"
+
+"No--oh, no. But there has to be a beginning, you know; and mother says
+she thinks every girl ought to know how to do something, so that she
+can support herself if it is necessary. And in our case I think--it is
+necessary."
+
+Low as the last words were, the man's sensitively alert ear caught them.
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"I mean--I think mother is--is poor, and is trying to keep it from me."
+The words came with all the impetuosity of one who has found suddenly a
+sympathetic ear for a long-pent secret. "I can see it in so many
+ways--not keeping a maid, and being so--so anxious that I shall do well
+here. And--and she doesn't seem natural, some way, lately. She's
+unhappy, or something. And she goes out so little--almost never, except
+in the evening."
+
+"She doesn't care to--to see people, perhaps." By a supreme effort Burke
+Denby hid the fever of excitement and rejoicing within him, and toned
+his voice to just the right shade of solicitous interest.
+
+"No, she doesn't," admitted Betty, with a long sigh. Then, impulsively,
+she added: "She seems so very afraid of meeting people that I've
+wondered sometimes if maybe she had old friends here and--and didn't
+want to meet them because--perhaps, her circumstances were changed now.
+That isn't like mother, but-- Oh, I shouldn't say all this to you, Mr.
+Denby. I--I didn't think, really. I spoke before I thought. You seemed
+so--interested."
+
+"I am interested, my dear--Miss Darling," returned the man, not quite
+steadily. "I--I think I should like to know--your mother."
+
+"She's lovely."
+
+"Are you--like her?" He had contrived to throw into his eyes a merry
+challenge--against her taking this as she might take it.
+
+But Betty was too absorbed to be flippant, or even merrily
+self-conscious.
+
+"Why, I don't know, but I don't think so--except my eyes. Every one says
+my eyes _are_ like hers."
+
+Burke Denby got suddenly to his feet and walked quite across the room.
+Apparently he was examining a rare old Venetian glass Tear Vase,
+especially prized by him for its associations. In reality he was trying
+to master the tumult within him. He had now not one remaining doubt.
+This stupendous thing was really so. She was his Elizabeth; his--Betty.
+Yet there remained still one more test. He must ask about her--father.
+And for this he must especially brace himself: he could imagine what
+Helen must have taught her--of him.
+
+Very slowly, the vase still unconsciously clutched in his hand, Burke
+Denby walked back to the table and sat down.
+
+"Well, as I said, I should like to see your mother," he smiled. "I feel
+that I know her already. But--your father; I don't think you have told
+me a thing about your father yet."
+
+A rapt wistfulness came to the girl's face.
+
+"Father! Oh, but I never stop talking when I get to telling of him. You
+see, I never knew him."
+
+"No?"
+
+Infinite longing and tenderness were coming into the man's eyes.
+
+"But I know _about_ him. Mother has told me, you see. So I know just how
+fine and noble and splendid he was, and--"
+
+"_Fine--he--was?_" The words, as they fell from Burke Denby's dry lips
+were barely audible.
+
+"Oh, yes. You see, all the way, ever since I could remember, daddy has
+been held up to me as so fine and splendid. Why, I learned to hold my
+fork--and my temper!--the way daddy would want me to. And there wasn't a
+song or a sunset or a beautiful picture that I wasn't told how daddy
+would have loved it. Mother was always talking of him, and telling me
+about him; so I feel that I know him, just as if he were alive."
+
+"As--if--he--_were_--alive!" Burke Denby half started from his chair,
+his face a battle-ground for contending emotions.
+
+"Yes. But he isn't, you see. He died many, many years ago."
+
+There was the sudden tinkling of shattered glass on a polished floor.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Denby!" exclaimed Betty in consternation. "Your beautiful
+vase!"
+
+The man, however, did not even glance at the ruin at his feet. Still, he
+must have realized what he had done, thought Betty, for, as he crossed
+to his desk and sat down heavily, she heard him mutter:--
+
+"To think I _could_ have been--such a fool!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+ENIGMAS
+
+
+Not until Burke Denby became convinced that Miss Elizabeth Darling was
+not his daughter did he realize how deeply the thought that she might be
+had taken hold of his very life--how closely entwined in his affections
+she had become. From the first minute the electrifying idea of her
+possible relationship had come to him, he had (in spite of his
+determination to the contrary) reveled in pictures of what his home
+would be with a daughter like that to love--and to love him. Helen, too,
+was in the pictures--true, a vague, shadowy Helen, yet a Helen idealized
+and glorified by the remorseful repentance born of a bunch of worn
+little diaries. Then to have the beautiful vision shattered by one word
+from the girl's own lips--and just when he had attained the pinnacle of
+joyous conviction that she was, indeed, his little girl of the long
+ago--it seemed as though he could not bear it.
+
+And, most anguishing of all, there was no chance that there was a
+mistake. Even if the incongruity of her description of her father as
+applied to himself could be explained away, there was yet the
+insurmountable left. With his own ears he had heard her say that her
+father was dead--had been dead for many years. That settled it, of
+course. There could be no mistake about--death.
+
+After the first stunning force of the disappointment, there came to
+Burke Denby the reaction--in the case of Burke Denby a characteristic
+reaction. It became evident, to some extent, the very next day. For the
+first time in weeks he did not work with his secretary over the
+cataloguing at all during the day. He dictated his letters, then left at
+once for his office at the Works. At luncheon he relapsed into his old
+stern silence; and in the afternoon, beyond giving a few crisp
+directions, he showed no interest in Betty's work, absenting himself
+most of the time from the room.
+
+Yet not in the least was all this consciously planned on his part. He
+felt simply an aversion to being with this girl. Even the sight of her
+bright head bent over her work gave him a pang, the sound of her voice
+brought bitterness. Above all, he dreaded a glance from her
+eyes--Helen's eyes, that had lured him for a brief twenty-four hours
+into a fool's paradise of thinking they might, indeed, be--Helen's eyes.
+
+Burke was grievously disappointed, ashamed, and angry; and being
+accustomed always to acting exactly as he felt, he acted now--as he
+felt. He was grievously disappointed that his brief dream of a daughter
+in his home should have come to naught. He was ashamed that he should
+have allowed himself to be deluded into such a dream, and angry that the
+thing had so stirred him--that he could be so stirred by the failure of
+so absurd and preposterous a supposition to materialize into fact.
+
+As the days passed, matters became worse rather than better. Added to
+his disappointment and chagrin there came to be an unreasoning wrath
+that this girl was not his daughter, together with a rebellion at his
+lonely life, and an overmastering self-pity that he should be so abused
+of Fate. It was then that he began systematically to avoid, so far as
+was possible, being with the girl at all, save for the necessary
+dictation and instructions. This was the more easily accomplished, as
+the cataloguing now had almost arrived at the stage where it was a mere
+matter of copying and tabulating the mass of material already carefully
+numbered to correspond with the equally carefully numbered curios in the
+cabinets.
+
+In spite of it all, however, Burke Denby knew, in his heart, that he was
+becoming more and more fond of this young girl, more and more interested
+in her welfare, more and more restless and dissatisfied when not in her
+presence, more and more poignantly longing to make her his daughter by
+adoption, now that it was settled beyond question that she was not his
+by the ties of flesh and blood. Outwardly, however, he remained the
+stern, unsmiling man, silent, morose, and anything but delightful as a
+daily companion.
+
+To Betty he had become the unsolvable enigma. That this most unhappy
+change should have been brought about by the breaking of the Venetian
+Tear Vase, she could not believe--valuable and highly treasured as it
+was; yet, as she looked back, the change seemed to have dated from the
+moment of the vase's shattering on the library floor, the day after
+Christmas.
+
+At first she had supposed the man's sudden reversion to gloom and
+silence was a mere whim of the mind or a passing distemper of the body.
+But when day after day brought no light to his eye, no smile to his lip,
+no elasticity to his step, she became seriously disturbed, particularly
+as she could not help noticing that he no longer worked with her; that
+he no longer, in fact, seemed to want to remain in the library even to
+hear her read to him.
+
+She was sorely troubled. Not only did she miss the pleasure and stimulus
+of his presence and interest in the work, but she feared lest in some
+way she had disappointed or offended him. She began to question herself
+and to examine critically her work.
+
+She could find nothing. Her work had been well done. She knew that.
+There was absolutely no excuse for this sudden taciturn aloofness on his
+part. After all, it was probably nothing more than what might be
+expected of him--a going back to his usual self. Without doubt the
+strange thing was, not that he was stern and silent and morose now, but
+that, for a brief golden period, he had come out of his shell and acted
+like a human being. Doubtless it was under the sway of his interest in
+his curios, and his first delight at seeing them being brought into
+something like order, that he had, for a moment, as it were, stirred
+into something really human. And his going back to his original sour
+unpleasantness now was merely a reversion to first principles.
+
+That it should be so vexed Betty not a little.
+
+And when they were having such a good time! Surely, for a man that
+_could_ be so altogether charming and delightful to be habitually so
+extremely undesirable and disagreeable was most exasperating. And he had
+been such good company! How kind he had been, too, when she had told him
+so much of her own life and home! How interested he had shown himself to
+be in every little detail, just as if he really cared. And now--
+
+With a tense biting of her lip Betty reproached herself bitterly for
+being so free to tell of her own small affairs. She ought to have known
+that any interest a man like that could show was bound to be superficial
+and insincere. What a pity she should lose, for once, her reserve! Well,
+at least she had learned her lesson. Never again would she be guilty of
+making a confidant of Mr. Burke Denby, no matter how suave and
+human-like he might elect to become for some other brief week in the
+future!
+
+To her mother Betty said very little of all this. True, at the first, in
+her surprise at the remarkable change in her employer's attitude, she
+had told her mother of his reversion to gloom and sternness; but it had
+seemed to worry and disturb her mother so much that Betty had stopped at
+once. And always since then she had avoided speaking of his continued
+disagreeableness, and skillfully evaded answering pertinent questions.
+She told herself that she realized, of course, it was because her mother
+was so fearful that something would happen that this fine position, with
+the generous pay, should be lost. Dear mother--who thought she was
+hiding so shrewdly the fact of how poor they were!
+
+There was something else that Betty did not tell her mother, also, and
+that was of her first peculiar and annoying experience with the woman at
+the newsstand at the station. It was about two weeks after Christmas
+that Betty had first seen the woman. Mr. Denby had asked her to go
+around by the station on her way home and purchase for him the December
+issue of "Research." He said it was not a very popular magazine, and
+that the woman was one of the few agents in town who kept it for sale.
+There was an article on Babylonian tablets in the December number, and
+he wished to see it.
+
+The station was not very far from her home, and Betty was glad to do the
+errand, of course; but when she arrived at the newsstand she found a
+most offensive person who annoyed her with questions--a large woman with
+unpleasantly prominent eyes and a wart on her chin.
+
+"Yes, Miss, I've got the magazine right here," she said with alacrity,
+in reply to Betty's request. "But, say, hain't I seen you before
+somewheres?"
+
+Betty shook her head.
+
+"I don't think so," she smiled. "At least, I do not remember seeing you
+anywhere."
+
+"Well, don't you come here often, to the station, or somethin'?"
+persisted the woman.
+
+"No, I have never been here before--except the day I arrived in town
+last September."
+
+"H-m; funny!" frowned the woman musingly. "I'm a great case fur faces,
+an' I don't very often make a mistake. I could swear I'd seen you
+somewheres."
+
+Betty smiled and shook her head again, as she turned away with her
+magazine.
+
+Twice after that Mr. Denby had sent her to this same newsstand for a
+desired periodical; and on both occasions the woman had been cheerfully
+insistent in her questions, and in her reiterations that somewhere she
+certainly had seen her, as she never made mistakes in faces.
+
+"An' yer workin' fur Burke Denby on the hill, ain't ye?" she asked at
+last.
+
+Betty colored.
+
+"I am working for Mr. Denby--yes."
+
+"H-m; like him?"
+
+"If you'll give me my change, please," requested Betty then, the flush
+deepening on her cheeks. "I am in some haste."
+
+The woman laughed none too pleasantly.
+
+"You don't want ter answer, an' I ain't sayin' I wonder," she chuckled.
+"He's a queer bug, an' no mistake, an' I don't wonder ye don't like
+him."
+
+"On the contrary, I like him very much," flashed Betty, hurriedly
+catching up her magazine, and almost snatching the coins from the
+woman's hand, in her haste to be away.
+
+Betty had not told her mother of these encounters. More and more plainly
+Betty was seeing how keenly averse to meeting people her mother was, and
+how evasive she was in her answers to the questions the market-men
+sometimes put to her. Instinctively Betty felt that these questions of
+the newsstand woman would distress her mother very much; so Betty kept
+them carefully to herself.
+
+The conviction that her mother was fearful of meeting old friends in
+Dalton was growing on Betty these days, and it disturbed her greatly.
+Moreover she did not like a certain growing restless nervousness in her
+mother's manner, nor did she like the increasing pallor of her mother's
+cheek. Something, somewhere, was wrong. Of this Betty became more and
+more strongly convinced. Nor did a little episode that took place late
+in January tend to weaken this belief.
+
+They had gone to market--Betty and her mother. Lured by an attractive
+"ad," they had gone farther from home than usual, and were in a store
+not often visited by them. They had given their order and turned to go,
+when suddenly Betty found herself whisked about by her mother's frantic
+clutch on her arm and led swiftly quite across the store to the opposite
+door. There, still impelled by that unyielding clutch on her arm, she
+found herself dodging in and out of the throngs of customers on their
+way to the street outside. Even there their pace did not slacken until
+they were well around the corner of the block.
+
+"Why, mother," panted Betty then, laughing, "I should think you were
+running away from all the plagues of Egypt."
+
+"I--I was--worse than the plagues of Egypt," laughed her mother, a bit
+hysterically.
+
+"Why, mother!" cried Betty, growing suddenly alert and anxious.
+
+"There, there, dear, it was nothing. Never mind!" declared her mother.
+But even as she spoke she looked back fearfully over her shoulder.
+
+"But, mother, what _was_ it?"
+
+"Nothing. Just a--a woman I didn't want to see. I used to know her years
+ago, and she was--such a talker! We wouldn't have got home to-night."
+
+"But we shan't now--if we keep on this way," laughed Betty uneasily, her
+troubled eyes on her mother's face. "We're going in quite the opposite
+direction from home."
+
+"Dear, dear, so we are! We must have turned the wrong way when we came
+out from the store."
+
+"Yes, we--did," agreed Betty. Her words were light--but the troubled
+look had not left her eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING
+
+
+It was on a gray morning early in February that Betty found her employer
+pacing the library from end to end like the proverbial caged lion. When
+he turned and spoke, she was startled at the look on his face--a worn,
+haggard look that told of sleeplessness--and of something else that she
+could not name.
+
+He ignored her conventional morning greeting.
+
+"Miss Darling, I want to speak to you."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Denby."
+
+"Will you come here to live--as my daughter?"
+
+"Will I--what?" The amazement in Betty's face was obviously genuine.
+
+"You are surprised, of course; and no wonder. I didn't exactly what you
+call 'break it gently,' did I? And I forgot that you haven't been
+thinking of this thing every minute for the last--er--month, as I have.
+Won't you sit down, please." With an abrupt gesture he motioned her to a
+chair, and dropped into one himself. "I can't, of course, beat about the
+bush now. I want you to come here to this house and be a daughter to me.
+Will you?"
+
+"But, _Mr. Denby_!"
+
+"'This is so sudden!' Yes, I know," smiled the man grimly. "That's what
+your face says, and no wonder. It may seem sudden to you--but it is not
+at all so to me. Believe me, I have given it a great deal of thought. I
+have debated it--longer than you can guess. And let me tell you at once
+that of course I want your mother to come, too. That will set your mind
+at rest on that point."
+
+"But I--I don't think yet that I--I quite understand," faltered the
+girl.
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"I can't understand yet why--why you want me. You see, I--I have thought
+lately that--that you positively disliked me, Mr. Denby." Her chin came
+up with the little determined lift so like her mother.
+
+With a jerk Burke Denby got to his feet and resumed his nervous stride
+up and down the room.
+
+"My child,"--he turned squarely about and faced her,--"I want you. I
+need you. This house has become nothing but a dreary old pile of horror
+to me. You, by some sweet necromancy of your own, have contrived to make
+the sun shine into its windows. It's the first time for years that there
+has been any sun--for me. But when you go, the sun goes. That's why I
+want you here all the time. Will you come? Of course, you understand I
+mean adoption--legally. But I don't want to dwell on that part. I want
+you to _want_ to come. I want you to be happy here. Won't you come?"
+
+Betty drew in her breath tremulously. For a long minute her gaze
+searched the man's face.
+
+"Well, Miss Betty?" There was a confident smile in his eyes. He had the
+air of a man who has made a certain somewhat dreaded move, but who has
+no doubt as to the outcome.
+
+"I'm afraid I--can't, Mr. Denby."
+
+"You--_can't_!"
+
+Betty, in spite of her very real and serious concern and anxiety, almost
+laughed at the absolute amazement on the man's face.
+
+"No, Mr. Denby."
+
+"May I ask why?" There was the chill of ice in his voice.
+
+Again Betty felt the almost hysterical desire to laugh. Still her face
+was very grave.
+
+"You-- I-- In the end you would not want me, Mr. Denby," she faltered,
+"because I--I should not be--happy here."
+
+"May I ask why--_that_?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Miss Darling, why wouldn't you be happy here?"
+
+Genuine distress came into Betty's face.
+
+"I would rather not say, Mr. Denby."
+
+"But I prefer that you should."
+
+"I can't. You would think me--impertinent."
+
+"Not if I tell you to say it, Miss Betty. Why can't you be happy here?
+You know very well that you would have everything that money could buy."
+
+"But what I want is something--money can't buy."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+No reply.
+
+"Miss Darling, what do you mean?"
+
+With a sudden fierce recklessness the girl turned and faced him.
+
+"I mean _that_--just that--what you did now, and a minute ago. The way
+you have of--of expecting everybody and everything to bend to your will
+and wishes. Oh, I know, it's silly and horrible and everything for me to
+say this. But you _made_ me do it. I told you it was impertinent! Don't
+you see? I'd have to have love and laughter and sympathy and interest
+and--and all that around me. I _couldn't_ be happy here. This house is
+like a tomb, and you--sometimes you are jolly and kind and--and _fine_.
+But I never know _how_ you're going to be. And I'd die if I had to worry
+and fret and fear all the time how you _were_ going to be! Mr. Denby,
+I--I couldn't live in such a place, and mother couldn't either. And I--
+Oh, what have I said? But you made me do it, you made me do it!"
+
+For one long minute there was utter silence in the room. Burke Denby, at
+the library table, sat motionless, his hand shading his eyes. Betty, in
+her chair, wet her lips and swallowed convulsively. Her eyes were
+frightened--but her chin was high.
+
+Suddenly he stirred. His hand no longer shaded his face. Betty, to her
+amazement, saw that his lips were smiling, though his eyes, she knew,
+were moist.
+
+"Betty, my dear child, I thought before that I wanted you. I know now
+I've _got_ to have you."
+
+Betty, as if the smile were contagious, found her own lips twitching.
+
+"What--do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that your fearless little tirade was just what I needed, my
+dear. I _have_ expected everything and everybody to bend to my will and
+wishes. I suspect that's what's been the matter, too, all the way up. I
+thought once, long ago, I'd learned my lesson. But it seems I haven't.
+Here I am up to the same old tricks again. Will you come and--er--train
+me, Betty? I will promise to be very docile."
+
+Betty did laugh this time--and the tension snapped. "Train"--the very
+word with which she had shocked her mother weeks before!
+
+"Seriously, my dear,"--the man's face was very grave now,--"I want you
+to talk this thing over with your mother. I am a lonely old man--yes,
+old, in spite of the fact that I'm barely forty--I feel sixty! I want
+you, and I need you, and--notwithstanding your unflattering opinion of
+me, just expressed--I believe I can make you happy, and your mother,
+too. She shall have every comfort, and you shall have love and laughter
+and sympathy and interest, I promise you. Now, isn't your heart
+softening just a wee bit? _Won't_ you come?"
+
+"Why, of course, I--appreciate your kindness, Mr. Denby, and"--Betty
+drew a tremulous breath and looked wistfully into the man's pleading
+eyes--"it would be lovely for--mother, wouldn't it? She wouldn't have to
+worry any more, or--or--"
+
+Burke Denby lifted an imperative hand. His face lighted. He sprang to
+his feet and spoke with boyish enthusiasm.
+
+"The very thing! Miss Darling, I want you to go home and bring your
+mother back to luncheon with you. Never mind the work," he went on, as
+he saw her quick glance toward his desk. "I don't want to work. I
+couldn't--this morning. And I don't want you to. I want to see your
+mother. I want to tell her--many things--of myself. I want her to see
+me, and see if she thinks she could give you to me as a daughter, and
+yet not lose you herself, but come here with you to live."
+
+"But I--I could tell her this to-night," stammered Betty, knowing still
+that, in spite of herself, she was being swept quite off her feet by the
+extraordinary enthusiasm of the eager man before her.
+
+"I don't want to wait till to-night. I want to see her now.
+Besides,"--he cocked his head whimsically with the confident air of one
+who knows his point is gained,--"I want a magazine, and I forgot to ask
+you to get it for me last night. I want the February 'Research.' So
+we'll just let it go that I'm sending you to the station newsstand for
+that. Incidentally, you may come back around by your mother's place and
+bring her with you. There, now surely you won't object to--to running an
+errand for me!" he finished triumphantly.
+
+"No, I surely can't object to--to running an errand for you," laughed
+Betty, as she rose to her feet, a pretty color in her face. "And
+I--I'll try to bring mother."
+
+It was in a tumult of excitement and indecision that Betty hurried down
+the long Denby walk that February morning. What would her mother say?
+How would she take it? Would she consent? Would she consent even to go
+to luncheon--she who so seldom went anywhere? It was a wonderful
+thing--this proposal of Mr. Denby's. It meant, of course,--everything,
+if they accepted it, a complete metamorphosis of their whole lives and
+future. It could not help meaning that. But would they be happy there?
+Could they be happy with a man like Mr. Denby? To be sure, he said he
+would be willing to be--trained. (Betty's face dimpled into a broad
+smile somewhat to the mystification of the man she chanced to be meeting
+at the moment.) But would he be really kind and lovable like this all
+the time? He had been delightful once before--for a few days. What
+guaranty had they that he would not again, at the first provocation,
+fall back into his old glum unbearableness?
+
+But what would her mother say? Well, she would soon know. She would get
+the magazine, then hurry home--and find out.
+
+It was between trains at the station, and the waiting-room was deserted.
+Betty hurriedly told the newsstand woman what she wanted, and tried to
+assume a forbidding aspect that would discourage questions. But the
+woman made no move to get the magazine. She did not seem even to have
+heard the request. Instead she leaned over the counter and caught
+Betty's arm in a vise-like grip. Her face was alight with joyous
+excitement.
+
+"Well, I am glad to see you! I've been watchin' ev'ry day fur you. What
+did I tell ye? _Now_ I guess you'll say I know when I've seen a face
+before! _Now_ I know who you are. I see you with your mother at Martin's
+grocery last Sat'day night, and I tried ter get to ye, but I lost ye in
+the crowd. I see _you_ first, then I see her, and I knew then in a
+minute who you was, and why I'd thought I'd seen ye somewheres. I
+hadn't--not since you was a kid, though; but I knew yer mother, an'
+you've got her eyes. You're Helen Denby's daughter. My, but I'm glad ter
+see ye!"
+
+Betty, plainly distressed, had been attempting to pull her arm away from
+the woman's grasp; but at the name a look of relief crossed her face.
+
+"You are quite mistaken, madam," she said coldly. "My mother's name is
+not Helen Denby."
+
+"But I see her myself with my own eyes, child! Of course she's older
+lookin', but I'd swear on my dyin' bed 'twas her. Ain't you Dorothy
+Elizabeth?"
+
+Betty's eyes flew wide open.
+
+"You--know--my--_name_?"
+
+"There! I knew 'twas," triumphed the woman. "An' ter think of you comin'
+back an' workin' fur yer father like this, an'--"
+
+"My--_what_?"
+
+It was the woman's turn to open wide eyes of amazement.
+
+"Do you mean to say you don't know Burke Denby is your father?"
+
+"But he isn't my father! My father is dead!"
+
+"Who said so?"
+
+"Why, mother--that is--I mean--she never said-- What do you mean? He
+can't be my father. My mother's name is Helen Darling!" Betty was making
+no effort to get away now. She was, indeed, clutching the woman's arm
+with her free hand.
+
+The woman scowled and stared. Suddenly her face cleared.
+
+"My Jiminy! so that's her game! She's keepin' it from ye, I bet ye," she
+cried excitedly.
+
+"Keeping it from me! Keeping what from me? What are you talking about?"
+Betty's face had paled. The vague questions and half-formed fears
+regarding her mother's actions for the past few months seemed suddenly
+to be taking horrible shape and definiteness.
+
+"Sakes alive! Do you mean ter say that you don't know that Burke Denby
+is your father, an' that he give your mother the go-by when you was a
+kid, an' she lit out with you an' hain't been heard of since?"
+
+"No, no, it can't be--it can't be! My father was good and fine, and--"
+
+"Rats! Did she stuff ye ter that, too? I tell ye _'tis_ so. Say, look
+a-here! Wa'n't you down ter Martin's grocery last Sat'day night at nine
+o'clock?"
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+"Well, wa'n't you there with yer mother?"
+
+"Y-yes." A power entirely outside of herself seemed to force the answers
+from Betty's lips.
+
+"Well, I see ye. You was tergether, talkin' to the big fat man with the
+red nose. I started towards ye, but I lost ye in the crowd."
+
+Betty's face had grown gray-white. She remembered now. That was the
+night her mother had run away from--something.
+
+"But I knew her," nodded the woman. "I knew she was Helen Denby."
+
+"But maybe you were--mistaken."
+
+"Mistaken? Me? Not much! I don't furgit faces. You ask yer mother if she
+don't remember Mis' Cobb. Didn't I live right on the same floor with her
+fur months? Hain't yer mother ever told ye she lived here long ago?"
+
+Betty nodded dumbly, miserably.
+
+"Well, I lived next to her, and I knew the whole thing--how she got the
+letter tellin' her ter go, an' the money Burke Denby sent her--"
+
+"Letter! Money! You mean he wrote her to--go--away? He _paid_ her?" The
+girl had become suddenly galvanized into blazing anger.
+
+"Sure! That's what I'm tellin' ye. An' yer mother went. I tried ter stop
+her. I told her ter go straight up ter them Denbys an' demand her
+rights--an' _your_ rights. But she wouldn't. She hadn't a mite o' spunk.
+Just because he was ashamed of her she--"
+
+"Ashamed of her! _Ashamed_ of my mother!"--if but Helen Denby could have
+seen the flash in Betty's eyes!
+
+"Sure! She wa'n't so tony, an' her folks wa'n't grand like his, ye know.
+That's why old Denby objected ter the marriage in the first place. But,
+say, didn't you know any of this I'm tellin' ye? Jiminy! but it does
+seem queer ter be tellin' ye yer own family secrets like this--an' you
+here workin' in his very home, an' not knowin' it, too. If that ain't
+the limit--like a regular story-book! Now, I ain't never one ter butt in
+where 'tain't none of my affairs, but I've got ter say this. You're a
+Denby, an' ought ter have some spunk; an' if I was you I'd brace right
+up an'-- Here, don't ye want yer magazine? What are ye goin' ter do?"
+
+But the girl was already halfway across the waiting-room.
+
+If Betty's thoughts and emotions had been in a tumult on the way to the
+station, they were in a veritable chaos on the return trip. She did not
+go home. She turned her steps toward the Denby Mansion; and because she
+knew she could not possibly sit still, she walked all the way.
+
+So this was the meaning of it--the black veil daytimes, the walks only
+at night, the nervous restlessness, the unhappiness. Her mother _had_
+had something to conceal, something to fear. Poor mother--dear
+mother--how she must have suffered!
+
+But why, _why_ had she come back here and put her into that man's home?
+And why had she told her always how fine and noble and splendid her
+father was. Fine! Noble! Splendid, indeed! Still, it was like
+mother,--dear mother,--always so sweet and gentle, always seeing the
+good in everything and everybody! But why had she put her there--in that
+man's house? How could she have done it?
+
+And Burke Denby himself--did he know? Did he suspect that she was his
+daughter? Adopt her, indeed! Was _that_ the way he thought he could pay
+her mother back for all those years? And the grief and the hurt and the
+mortification--where did they come in? Ashamed of her! _Ashamed of her,
+indeed!_ Why, her little finger was as much finer and nobler and-- But
+just wait till she saw him, that was all!
+
+Like the overwrought, half-beside-herself young hurricane of
+wrathfulness that she was, Betty burst into the library at Denby House a
+few minutes later.
+
+The very sight of her face brought the man to his feet.
+
+"Why, Betty, what's the matter? Where's your mother? Couldn't she come?
+What is the matter?"
+
+"Come? No, she didn't come. She'll never come--never!"
+
+Before the blazing wrath in the young eyes the man fell back limply.
+
+"Why, Betty, didn't you tell her--"
+
+"I've told her nothing. I haven't seen her," cut in the girl crisply.
+"But I've seen somebody else. I know now--everything!"
+
+From sheer stupefaction the man laughed.
+
+"Aren't we getting a little--theatrical, my child?" he murmured mildly.
+
+"You needn't call me that. I refuse to recognize the relationship," she
+flamed. "Perhaps we are getting theatrical--that woman said it was like
+a story-book. And perhaps you thought you could wipe it all out by
+adopting me. Adopting me, indeed! As if I'd let you! I can tell you it
+isn't going to _end_ like a story-book, with father and mother and
+daughter--'and they all lived happily ever after'--because I won't let
+it!"
+
+"What do you mean by that?" The man's face had grown suddenly very
+white.
+
+Betty fixed searching, accusing eyes on his countenance.
+
+"Are you trying to make me think you don't know I'm your daughter;
+that--"
+
+"Betty! Are you really, really--my little Betty?"
+
+At the joyous cry and the eagerly outstretched arms Betty shrank back.
+
+"Then you _didn't_ know--that?"
+
+"No, no! Oh, Betty, Betty, is it true? Then it'll all be right now. Oh,
+Betty, I'm so glad," he choked. "My little girl! Won't you--come to me?"
+
+She shook her head and retreated still farther out of his reach. Her
+eyes still blazed angrily.
+
+"Betty, dear, hear me! I don't know-- I don't understand. It's all too
+wonderful--to have it come--_now_. Once, for a little minute, the wild
+thought came to me that you might be. But, Betty, you yourself told me
+your father was--dead!"
+
+"And so he is--to me," sobbed Betty. "You aren't my father. My father
+was good and true and noble and--you--"
+
+"And your mother _told_ you that?" breathed the man, brokenly. "Betty,
+I--I-- Where is she? Is she there--at home--now? I want to--see her!"
+
+"I shan't let you see her." Betty had blazed again into unreasoning
+wrath. "You don't deserve it. You told her you were ashamed of her.
+_Ashamed of her!_ And she's the best and the loveliest and dearest
+mother in the world! She's as much above and beyond anything you--you--
+_Why_ she let me come to you I don't know. I can't think why she did it.
+But now I--I--"
+
+"Betty, if you'll only let me explain--"
+
+But the great hall door had banged shut. Betty had gone.
+
+Betty took a car to her own home. She was too weak and spent to walk.
+
+It was a very white, shaken Betty that climbed the stairs to the little
+apartment a short time later.
+
+"Why, Betty, darling!" exclaimed her mother, hurrying forward. "You are
+ill! Are you ill?"
+
+With utter weariness Betty dropped into a chair.
+
+"Mother, why didn't you tell me?" she asked dully, heartbrokenly. "Why
+did you let me come here and go to that house day after day and not
+know--anything?"
+
+"Why, what--what do you mean?" All the color had drained from Helen
+Denby's face.
+
+"Did you ever know a Mrs. Cobb?"
+
+"That woman! Betty, she hasn't--has she been--talking--to you?"
+
+Betty nodded wearily.
+
+"Yes, she's been talking to me, and-- Oh, mother, mother, _why_ did you
+come here--_now_?" cried Betty, springing to her feet in sudden frenzy
+again. "How could you let me go there? And only to-day--this morning, he
+told me he wanted to adopt me! And you--he was going to have us both
+there--to live. He said he was so lonely, and that I--I made the sun
+shine for the first time for years. And afterwards, when I found out
+_who_ he was, I thought he meant it as a salve to heal all the
+unhappiness he'd caused you. I thought he was trying to _pay_; and I
+told him--"
+
+"You _told_ him! You mean you've seen him since--Mrs. Cobb?"
+
+"Yes. I went back. I told him--"
+
+"Oh, Betty, Betty, what are you saying?" moaned her mother. "What have
+you done? You didn't tell him _that_ way!"
+
+"Indeed I did! I told him I knew--everything now; and that he needn't
+think he could wipe it out. And he wanted to see you, and I said he
+couldn't. I--"
+
+An electric bell pealed sharply through the tiny apartment.
+
+"Mother, that's he! I know it's he! Mother, don't let him in," implored
+Betty. But her mother already was in the hall.
+
+Betty, frightened, despairing, and angry, turned her back and walked to
+the window. She heard the man's quick cry and the woman's sobbing
+answer. She heard the broken, incoherent sentences with which the man
+and the woman attempted to crowd into one brief delirious minute all the
+long years of heartache and absence. She heard the pleading, the
+heart-hunger, the final rapturous bliss that vibrated through every tone
+and word. But she did not turn. She did not turn even when some minutes
+later her father's voice, low, unsteady, but infinitely tender, reached
+her ears.
+
+"Betty, your mother has forgiven me. Can't--you?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Betty, dear, he means--we've forgiven each other, and--if _I_ am happy,
+can't you be?" begged Betty's mother, tremulously.
+
+Still no answer.
+
+"Betty," began the woman again pleadingly.
+
+But the man interposed, a little sadly:--
+
+"Don't urge her, Helen. After all, I deserve everything she can say, or
+do."
+
+"But she doesn't understand," faltered Helen.
+
+The man shook his head. A wistful smile was on his lips.
+
+"No, she doesn't--understand," he said. "It's a long road
+to--understanding, dear. You and I have found it so."
+
+"Yes, I know." Helen's voice was very low.
+
+"And there are sticks and stones and numberless twigs to trip one's
+feet," went on the man softly. "And there are valleys of despair and
+mountains of doubt to be encountered--and Betty has come only a little
+bit of the way. Betty is young."
+
+"But"--it was Helen's tremulous voice--"it's on the mountain-tops
+that--that we ought to be able to see the end of the journey, you know."
+
+"Yes; but there are all those guideboards, remember," said the man, "and
+Betty hasn't come to the guideboards yet--regret--remorse--forgiveness--
+patience, and--atonement."
+
+There was a sudden movement at the window. Then Betty, misty-eyed, stood
+before them.
+
+"I know I am--on the mountain of doubt now, but"--she paused, her gaze
+going from one to the other of the wondrously glorified faces before
+her--"I'll try so hard to see--the end of the journey," she faltered.
+
+"Betty!" sobbed two adoring voices, as loving arms enfolded her.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING***
+
+
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Road to Understanding, by Eleanor H. Porter</title>
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Road to Understanding, by Eleanor H.
+Porter, Illustrated by Mary Greene Blumenschein</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Road to Understanding</p>
+<p>Author: Eleanor H. Porter</p>
+<p>Release Date: January 27, 2011  [eBook #35093]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>E-text prepared by Annie McGuire<br />
+    from scanned images of public domain material generously made available by the<br />
+    Google Books Library Project<br />
+    (<a href="http://books.google.com/">http://books.google.com/</a>)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Note:
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      the the Google Books Library Project. See
+      <a href="http://books.google.com/books?vid=mtceAAAAMAAJ&amp;id">
+      http://books.google.com/books?vid=mtceAAAAMAAJ&amp;id</a>
+	</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING</h1>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 371px;"><a name="ILL_001" id="ILL_001"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_001.jpg" width="371" height="600" alt="AT SIGHT OF HER THE DOCTOR LEAPED FORWARD WITH A LOW CRY (p. 174)" title="" />
+<span class="caption">AT SIGHT OF HER THE DOCTOR LEAPED FORWARD WITH A LOW CRY (p. 174)</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE ROAD</h2>
+
+<h2>TO UNDERSTANDING</h2>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>ELEANOR H. PORTER</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Author of "Just David"</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 72px;">
+<img src="images/ill_002.jpg" width="72" height="100" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h4>BOSTON AND NEW YORK</h4>
+
+<h4>HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</h4>
+
+<h4>1917</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY ELEANOR H. PORTER</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h4>TO</h4>
+
+<h4>MY FRIEND</h4>
+
+<h4><i>Miss Grace Wheeler</i></h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b><span class="smcap">Frosted Cakes and Shotguns</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b><span class="smcap">An Only Son</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b><span class="smcap">Honeymoon Days</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b><span class="smcap">Nest-building</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b><span class="smcap">The Wife</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b><span class="smcap">The Husband</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b><span class="smcap">Stumbling-blocks</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b><span class="smcap">Diverging Ways</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b><span class="smcap">A Bottle of Ink</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b><span class="smcap">By Advice of Counsel</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b><span class="smcap">In Quest of the Stars</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b><span class="smcap">The Trail of the Ink</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b><span class="smcap">A Woman's Won't</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b><span class="smcap">An Understudy</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XV.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b><span class="smcap">A Woman's Will</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVI.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b><span class="smcap">Emergencies</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVII.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b><span class="smcap">Pink Teas to Flighty Blondes</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b><span class="smcap">A Little Bunch of Diaries</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIX.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b><span class="smcap">The Stage is set</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XX.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b><span class="smcap">The Curtain rises</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXI.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b><span class="smcap">The Play begins</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXII.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b><span class="smcap">Actor and Audience</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIII.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>"<span class="smcap">The Plot thickens</span>"</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIV.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b><span class="smcap">Counter-plots</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXV.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b><span class="smcap">Enigmas</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXVI.</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b><span class="smcap">The Road to Understanding</span></b></a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_001"><b><span class="smcap">At sight of her the doctor leaped forward with a low cry</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_003"><b><span class="smcap">He was looking at her lovely, glorified face</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_004"><b><span class="smcap">John Denby went straight to his son and laid both hands on his shoulders</span></b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ILL_005"><b>"<span class="smcap">So I rang the bell</span>"</b></a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<h4><i>From drawings by Mary Greene Blumenschein</i></h4>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>FROSTED CAKES AND SHOTGUNS</h3>
+
+<p>If Burke Denby had not been given all the frosted cakes and toy shotguns
+he wanted at the age of ten, it might not have been so difficult to
+convince him at the age of twenty that he did not want to marry Helen
+Barnet.</p>
+
+<p>Mabel, the beautiful and adored wife of John Denby, had died when Burke
+was four years old; and since that time, life, for Burke, had been
+victory unseasoned with defeat. A succession of "anything-for-peace"
+rulers of the nursery, and a father who could not bring himself to be
+the cause of the slightest shadow on the face of one who was the
+breathing image of his lost wife, had all contributed to these
+victories.</p>
+
+<p>Nor had even school-days brought the usual wholesome discipline and
+democratic leveling; for a pocketful of money and a naturally generous
+disposition made a combination not to be lightly overlooked by boys and
+girls ever alert for "fun"; and an influential father and the scarcity
+of desirable positions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> made another combination not to be lightly
+overlooked by impecunious teachers anxious to hold their "jobs." It was
+easy to ignore minor faults, especially as the lad had really a
+brilliant mind, and (when not crossed) a most amiable disposition.</p>
+
+<p>Between the boy and his father all during the years of childhood and
+youth, the relationship was very beautiful&mdash;so beautiful that the entire
+town saw it and expressed its approval: in public by nods and admiring
+adjectives; in private by frequent admonitions to wayward sons and
+thoughtless fathers to follow the pattern so gloriously set for them.</p>
+
+<p>Of all this John Denby saw nothing; nor would he have given it a thought
+if he had seen it. John Denby gave little thought to anything, after his
+wife died, except to business and his boy, Burke. Business, under his
+skillful management and carefully selected assistants, soon almost ran
+itself. There was left then only the boy, Burke.</p>
+
+<p>From the first they were comrades, even when comradeship meant the
+poring over a Mother Goose story-book, or mastering the intricacies of a
+game of tiddledywinks. Later, together, they explored the world of
+music, literature, science, and art, spending the long summer playtimes,
+still together, traveling in both well-known and little-known lands.</p>
+
+<p>Toward everything fine and beautiful and luxurious the boy turned as a
+flower turns toward the light, which pleased the man greatly. And as the
+boy had but to express a wish to have it instantly find an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> echo in his
+father's heart, it is not strange, perhaps, that John Denby did not
+realize that, notwithstanding all his "training," self-control and
+self-sacrifice were unknown words to his son.</p>
+
+<p>One word always, however, was held before the boy from the very
+first&mdash;mother; yet it was not as a word, either, but as a living
+presence. Always he was taught that she was with them, a bright,
+beauteous, gracious being, loving, tender, perfect. Whatever they saw
+was seen through her eyes. Whatever they did was done as with her.
+Stories of her beauty, charm, and goodness filled many an hour of
+intimate talk. She was the one flawless woman born into the world&mdash;so
+said Burke's father to his son.</p>
+
+<p>Burke was nearly twenty-one, and half through college, when he saw Helen
+Barnet. She was sitting in the big west window in the library, with the
+afternoon sun turning her wonderful hair to gold. In her arms she held a
+sleeping two-year-old boy. With the marvelous light on her face, and the
+crimson velvet draperies behind her, she looked not unlike a pictured
+Madonna. It was not, indeed, until a very lifelike red swept to the
+roots of the girl's hair that the young man, staring at her from the
+doorway, realized that she was not, in truth, a masterpiece on an
+old-time wall, but a very much alive, very much embarrassed young woman
+in his father's library.</p>
+
+<p>With a blush that rivaled hers, and an incoherent apology, he backed
+hastily from the room. He went then in search of his father. He had
+returned from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> college an hour before to find his father's youngest
+sister, Eunice, and her family, guests in the house. But this
+stranger&mdash;this bewilderingly beautiful girl&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>In the upper hall he came face to face with his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Dad, who in Heaven's name is she?" he demanded without preamble.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>She?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"That exquisitely beautiful girl in the library. Who is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the library? Girl? Nonsense! You're dreaming, Burke. There's no one
+here but your aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"But I just came from there. I saw her. She held a child in her arms."</p>
+
+<p>"Ho!" John Denby gave a gesture as if tossing a trivial something aside.
+"You're dreaming again, Burke. The nursemaid, probably. Your aunt
+brought one with her. But, see here, son. I was looking for you. Come
+into my room. I wanted to know&mdash;" And he plunged into a subject far
+removed from nursemaids and their charges.</p>
+
+<p>Burke, however, was not to be so lightly diverted. True, he remained for
+ten minutes at his father's side, and he listened dutifully to what his
+father said; but the day was not an hour older before he had sought and
+found the girl he had seen in the library.</p>
+
+<p>She was not in the library now. She was on the wide veranda, swinging
+the cherubic boy in the hammock. To Burke she looked even more
+bewitching than she had before. As a pictured saint, hung about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> with
+the aloofness of the intangible and the unreal, she had been beautiful
+and alluring enough; but now, as a breathing, moving creature treading
+his own familiar veranda and touching with her white hands his own
+common hammock, she was bewilderingly enthralling.</p>
+
+<p>Combating again an almost overwhelming desire to stand in awed worship,
+he advanced hastily, speaking with a diffidence and an incoherence
+utterly foreign to his usual blithe boyishness.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope&mdash;I didn't, did I? <i>Did</i> I wake&mdash;the baby up?"</p>
+
+<p>With a start the girl turned, her blue eyes wide.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You?</i> Oh, in the library&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; an hour ago. I do hope I didn't&mdash;wake him up!"</p>
+
+<p>Before the ardent admiration in the young man's eyes, the girl's fell.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, sir. He just&mdash;woke himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm so glad! And&mdash;and I want you to forgive me for&mdash;for staring at
+you so rudely. You see, I was so surprised to&mdash;to see you there
+like&mdash;like a picture, and&mdash; You will forgive me&mdash;er&mdash; I don't know your
+name."</p>
+
+<p>"Barnet&mdash;Helen Barnet." She blushed prettily; then she laughed, throwing
+him a mischievous glance. "Oh, yes, I'll forgive you; but&mdash;I don't know
+your name, either."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I knew you'd&mdash;understand. I'm Denby&mdash;Burke Denby."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Denby's son?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh-h!"</p>
+
+<p>At the admiration in her eyes and voice he unconsciously straightened
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you live&mdash;here?" breathed the girl.</p>
+
+<p>To hide the inexplicable emotion that seemed suddenly to be swelling
+within him, the young man laughed lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course&mdash;when I'm not away!" His eyes challenged her, and she met the
+sally with a gurgle of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I meant&mdash;when you're not away," she bridled.</p>
+
+<p>He watched the wild-rose color sweep to her temples&mdash;and stepped nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"But you haven't told me a thing of yourself&mdash;yet," he complained.</p>
+
+<p>She sighed&mdash;and at the sigh an unreasoning wrath against an unknown
+something rose within him.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing to tell," she murmured. "I'm just here&mdash;a nurse to
+Master Paul and his brother." Denby's wrath became reasoning and
+definite. It was directed against the world in general, and his aunt in
+particular, that they should permit for one instant this glorious
+creature to sacrifice her charm and sweetness on the altar of menial
+services to a couple of unappreciative infants.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm so sorry!" he breathed, plainly aglow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> at the intimate
+nearness of this heart-to-heart talk. "But I'm glad&mdash;you're <i>here</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Once more, before he turned reluctantly away, he gazed straight into her
+blue eyes&mdash;and the game was on.</p>
+
+<p>It was a pretty game. The young man was hard hit, and it was his first
+wound from Cupid's dart. Heretofore in his curriculum girls had not been
+included; and the closeness of his association with his father had not
+been conducive to incipient love affairs. Perhaps, for these reasons, he
+was all the more ardent a wooer. Certainly an ardent wooer he was. There
+was no gainsaying that&mdash;though the boy himself, at first, did not
+recognize it as wooing at all.</p>
+
+<p>It began with pity.</p>
+
+<p>He was so sorry for her&mdash;doomed to slave all day for those two rascally
+small boys. He could not keep her out of his mind. As he tramped the
+hills the next morning the very blue of the sky and the softness of the
+air against his cheek became a pain to him&mdash;<i>she</i> was tied to a stuffy
+nursery. His own freedom of will and movement became a source of actual
+vexation&mdash;<i>she</i> was bound to a "do this" and a "do that" all day. He
+wondered then, suddenly, if he could not in some way help. He sought her
+as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, I want you to go to walk with me. I want to show you the view
+from Pike's Hill," he urged.</p>
+
+<p>"Me? To walk? Why, Mr. Denby, I can't!"</p>
+
+<p>Again the wild-rose flush came and went&mdash;and again Burke Denby stepped
+nearer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I couldn't leave the children; besides&mdash;it's Master Paul's nap
+hour."</p>
+
+<p>"What a pity&mdash;when it's so beautiful out! To-morrow, then, in the
+morning?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't, Mr. Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"The afternoon, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it because you don't <i>want</i> to?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Want to!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>At the look of longing that leaped to her face, the thwarted youth felt
+again the fierce wrath he had known the first day of their meeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, by Jove, you shall!" he vowed. "Don't they ever give you any time
+to yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>She dimpled into shy laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have a few hours Thursday&mdash;after three."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! I'll remember. We'll go then."</p>
+
+<p>And they went.</p>
+
+<p>To Burke Denby it was a wonderful and a brand-new experience. Never had
+the sky been so blue, the air so soft, the woods so enchantingly
+beautiful. And he was so glad that they were thus&mdash;for her. She was
+enjoying it so much, and he was so glad that he could give this
+happiness to her! Enthusiastically he pointed out here a bird and there
+a flower; carefully he helped her over every stick and stone;
+determinedly he set himself to making her forget her dreary daily tasks.
+And when she lifted her wondering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> eyes to his face, or placed her
+half-reluctant fingers in his extended hand, how he thrilled and tingled
+through his whole being&mdash;he had not supposed that unselfish service to a
+fellow-being could bring to one such a warm sense of gratification.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the hill they sat down to rest, before them the wonderful
+panorama of grandeur&mdash;the green valley, the silvery river, the
+far-reaching mauve and purple mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"My, isn't this real pretty!" exclaimed the girl.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 329px;"><a name="ILL_003" id="ILL_003"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_003.jpg" width="329" height="500" alt="HE WAS LOOKING AT HER LOVELY, GLORIFIED FACE" title="" />
+<span class="caption">HE WAS LOOKING AT HER LOVELY, GLORIFIED FACE</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The young man scarcely heard the words, else he would have frowned
+unconsciously at the "real pretty." He was looking at her lovely,
+glorified face.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you'd like it," he breathed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I do."</p>
+
+<p>"I know another just as fine. We'll go there next."</p>
+
+<p>A shadow like a cloud crossed her face.</p>
+
+<p>"But I have so little time!"</p>
+
+<p>The cloud leaped to his face now and became thunderous.</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks! I forgot. What a nuisance! Oh, I say, you know, I don't think
+you ought to be doing&mdash;such work. Do you&mdash;forgive me, but do you
+really&mdash;have to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have to."</p>
+
+<p>She had turned her face half away, but he thought he could see tears in
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you&mdash;all alone, then? Haven't you any&mdash;people?" His voice had grown
+very tender.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no one. Father died, then mother. There was no one else&mdash;to care;
+and no&mdash;money."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm so&mdash;so sorry!"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke awkwardly, with obvious restraint. He wanted suddenly to take
+her in his arms&mdash;to soothe and comfort her as one would a child. But she
+was not a child, and it would not do, of course. But she looked so
+forlorn, so appealing, so sweet, so absolutely dear&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He got abruptly to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, this will never do!" he exclaimed blithely. "Here I
+am&mdash;making you talk of your work and your troubles, when I took you up
+here with the express intention of making you forget them. Suppose we go
+through this little path here. There's a dandy spring of cold water
+farther on. And&mdash;and forgive me, please. I won't make you&mdash;talk any
+more."</p>
+
+<p>And he would not, indeed, he vowed to himself. She was no child. She was
+a young woman grown, and a very beautiful one, at that. He could not
+console her with a kiss and a caress, and a bonbon, of course. But he
+could give her a bit of playtime, now and then&mdash;and he would, too. He
+would see to it that, for the rest of her stay under his father's roof,
+she should not want for the companionship of some one who&mdash;who "cared."
+He would be her kind and thoughtful good friend. Indeed, he would!</p>
+
+<p>Burke Denby began the very next morning to be a friend to Miss Barnet.
+Accepting as irrevocable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> the fact that she could not be separated from
+her work, he made no plans that did not include Masters Paul and Percy
+Allen.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to take your sons for a drive this morning, if you don't
+mind," he said briskly to his aunt at the breakfast table.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind? Of course I don't, you dear boy," answered the pleased mother,
+fondly. "<i>You're</i> the one that will mind&mdash;as you'll discover, I fear,
+when you find yourself with a couple of mischievous small boys on your
+hands!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not worrying," laughed the youth. "I shall take Miss Barnet along,
+too."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;Helen? That's all right, then. You'll do nicely with her," smiled
+Mrs. Allen, as she rose from the table. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go
+and see that the boys are made ready for their treat."</p>
+
+<p>Burke Denby took the boys for a drive almost every day after that. He
+discovered that Miss Barnet greatly enjoyed driving. There were picnics,
+too, in the cool green of the woods, on two or three fine days. Miss
+Barnet also liked picnics. Still pursuant of his plan to give the
+forlorn little nursemaid "one good time in her life," Burke Denby
+contrived to be with her not a little in between drives and picnics.
+Ostensibly he was putting up swings, building toy houses, playing ball
+with Masters Paul and Percy Allen; but in reality he was trying to put a
+little "interest" into Miss Helen Barnet's daily task. He was so sorry
+for her! It was such a shame that so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> gloriously beautiful a girl should
+be doomed to a slavery like that! He was so glad that for a time he
+might bring some brightness into her life!</p>
+
+<p>"And do you see how perfectly devoted Burke is to Paul and Percy?" cried
+Mrs. Allen, one day, to her brother. "I had no idea the dear boy was so
+fond of children!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m. Is he really, indeed," murmured John Denby. "No, I had not
+noticed."</p>
+
+<p>John Denby spoke vaguely, yet with a shade of irritation. Fond as he was
+of his sister and of his small nephews, he was finding it difficult to
+accustom himself to the revolutionary changes in his daily routine that
+their presence made necessary. He was learning to absent himself more
+and more from the house.</p>
+
+<p>For a week, therefore, unchallenged, and cheerfully intent on his
+benevolent mission, Burke Denby continued his drives and picnics and
+ball-playing with Masters Paul and Percy Allen; then, very suddenly,
+four little words from the lips of Helen Barnet changed for him the
+earth and the sky above.</p>
+
+<p>"When I go away&mdash;" she began.</p>
+
+<p>"When you&mdash;<i>go</i>&mdash;<i>away</i>!" he interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Why, Mr. Denby, what makes you look so&mdash;queer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. I was thinking&mdash;that is, I had forgotten&mdash;I&mdash;" He rose to his
+feet abruptly, and crossed the room. At the window, for a full minute,
+he stood motionless, looking out at the falling rain. When he turned
+back into the room there was a new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> expression on his face. With a quick
+glance at the children playing on the rug before the fireplace, he
+crossed straight to the plainly surprised young woman and dropped
+himself in a chair at her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Helen Barnet, will you&mdash;marry me?" he asked softly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mr. Denby!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>With a boyish laugh Burke Denby drew his chair nearer. His face was
+alight with the confident happiness of one who has never known rebuff.</p>
+
+<p>"You are surprised&mdash;and so was I, a minute ago. You see, it came to me
+all in a flash&mdash;what it would be to live&mdash;without you." His voice grew
+tender. "Helen, you will stay, and be my wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, no&mdash;I mustn't, I can't! Why, of course I can't, Mr. Denby,"
+fluttered the girl, in a panic of startled embarrassment. "I'm sure
+you&mdash;you don't want me to."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do. Listen!" He threw another quick glance at the absorbed
+children as he reached out and took possession of her hand. "It all came
+to me, back there at the window&mdash;the dreariness, the emptiness
+of&mdash;everything, without <i>you</i>. And I saw then what you've been to me
+every day this past week. How I've watched for you and waited for you,
+and how everything I did and said and had was just&mdash;something for you.
+And I knew then that I&mdash;I loved you. You see, I&mdash;I never loved any one
+before,"&mdash;the boyish red swept to his forehead as he laughed
+whimsically,&mdash;"and so I&mdash;I didn't recognize the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> symptoms!" With the
+lightness of his words he was plainly trying to hide the shake in his
+voice. "Helen, you&mdash;will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I&mdash;I&mdash;!" Her eyes were frightened and pleading.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you <i>care</i> at all?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her head away.</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't, then won't you let me <i>make</i> you care?" he begged. "You
+said you had no one now to care&mdash;at all; and I care so much! Won't you
+let&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere a door shut.</p>
+
+<p>With a low cry Helen Barnet pulled away her hand and sprang to her feet.
+She was down on the rug with the children, very flushed of face, when
+Mrs. Allen appeared in the library doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, here you are!" Mrs. Allen frowned and spoke a bit impatiently.
+"I've been hunting everywhere for you. I supposed you were in the
+nursery. Won't you put the boys into fresh suits? I have friends calling
+soon, and I want the children brought to the drawing-room when I ring,
+and left till I call you again."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>With a still more painful flush on her face Helen Barnet swept the
+blocks into her apron, rose to her feet, and hurried the children from
+the room. She did not once glance at the young man standing by the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Allen tossed her nephew a smile and a shrug which might have been
+translated into "You see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> what we have to endure&mdash;so tiresome!" as she,
+too, disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Burke Denby did not smile. He did frown, however. He felt vaguely
+irritated and abused. He wished his aunt would not be so "bossy" and
+disagreeable. He wished Helen would not act so cringingly submissive. As
+if she&mdash; But then, it would be different right away, of course, as soon
+as he had made known the fact that she was to be his wife. Everything
+would be different. For that matter, Helen herself would be different.
+Not only would she hold her head erect and take her proper place, but
+she would not&mdash;well, there were various little ways and expressions
+which she would drop, of course. And how beautiful she was! How sweet!
+How dear! And how she had suffered in her loneliness! How he would love
+to make for her a future all gloriously happy and tender with his
+strong, encircling arms!</p>
+
+<p>It was a pleasant picture. Burke Denby's heart quite swelled within him
+as he turned to leave the room.</p>
+
+<p>Upstairs, the girl, the cause of it all, hurried with palpitating
+nervousness through the task of clothing two active little bodies in
+fresh garments. That her thoughts were not with her fingers was evident;
+but not until the summoning bell from the drawing-room gave her a few
+minutes' respite from duty did she have an opportunity really to think.
+Even then she could not think lucidly or connectedly. Always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> before her
+eyes was Burke Denby's face, ardent, pleading, confident. And he
+expected&mdash; Before she saw him again she must be ready, she knew, with
+her answer. But how <i>could</i> she answer?</p>
+
+<p>Helen Barnet was lonely, heartsick, and frightened&mdash;a combination that
+could hardly aid in the making of a wise, unprejudiced decision,
+especially when one was very much in love. And Helen Barnet knew that
+she was that.</p>
+
+<p>Less than two years before, Helen Barnet had been the petted daughter of
+a village storekeeper in a small Vermont town. Then, like the proverbial
+thunderbolt, had come death and financial disaster, throwing her on her
+own resources. And not until she had attempted to utilize those
+resources for her support, had she found how frail they were.</p>
+
+<p>Though the Barnets had not been wealthy, the village store had been
+profitable; and Helen (the only child) had been almost as greatly
+overindulged as was Burke Denby himself. Being a very pretty girl, she
+had become the village belle before she donned long dresses. Having been
+shielded from work and responsibility, and always carefully guarded from
+everything unpleasant, she was poorly equipped for a struggle of any
+sort, even aside from the fact that there was, apparently, nothing that
+she could do well enough to be paid for doing it. In the past twenty
+months she had obtained six positions&mdash;and had abandoned five of them:
+two because of incompetency, two because of lack of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> necessary strength,
+one because her beauty was plainly making the situation intolerable. For
+three months now she had been nurse to Masters Paul and Percy Allen. She
+liked Mrs. Allen, and she liked the children. But the care, the
+confinement, the never-ending task of dancing attendance upon the whims
+and tempers of two active little boys, was proving to be not a little
+irksome to young blood unused to the restraints of self-sacrifice. Then,
+suddenly, there had come the visit to the Denby homestead, and the
+advent into her life of Burke Denby; and now here, quite within her
+reach, if she could believe her eyes and ears, was this dazzling,
+unbelievable thing&mdash;Burke Denby's love.</p>
+
+<p>Helen Barnet knew all about love. Had she not lisped its praises in odes
+to the moon in her high-school days? It had to do with flowers and music
+and angels. On the old porch back home&mdash;what was it that long-haired boy
+used to read to her? Oh, Tennyson. That was it.</p>
+
+<p>And now it had come to <i>her</i>&mdash;love. Not that it was exactly unexpected:
+she had been waiting for her lover since she had put up her hair, of
+course. But to have him come like this&mdash;and such a lover! So rich&mdash;and
+he was such a grand, handsome young man, too! And she loved him. She
+loved him dearly. If only she dared say "yes"! No more poverty, no more
+loneliness, no more slaving at the beck and call of some hated employer.
+Oh, if she only dared!</p>
+
+<p>For one delirious moment Helen Barnet almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> thought she did&mdash;dare.
+Then, bitterly, the thought of his position&mdash;and hers&mdash;rolled in upon
+her. Whatever else the last two wretched years had done for her, it had
+left her no illusions. She had no doubts as to her reception, as Burke
+Denby's wife, at the hands of Burke Denby's friends and relatives. And
+again, whatever the last two years had done for her, they had not robbed
+her of her pride. And the Barnets, away back in the little Vermont town,
+had been very proud. To Helen Barnet now, therefore, the picture of
+herself as Burke Denby's wife, flouted and frowned upon by Burke Denby's
+friends, was intolerable. Frightened and heartsick, she determined to
+beat a hasty retreat. It simply could not be. That was all. Very likely,
+anyway, Burke Denby had not been more than half in earnest himself.</p>
+
+<p>The bell rang then again from the drawing-room, and Helen went down to
+get the children. In the hall she met Burke Denby; but she only shook
+her head in answer to his low "Helen, when may I see you?" and hurried
+by without a word, her face averted.</p>
+
+<p>Three times again within the next twenty-four hours she pursued the same
+tactics, only to be brought up sharply at last against a peremptory
+"Helen, you shall let me talk to you a minute! Why do you persist in
+hiding behind those two rascally infants all the time, when you know
+that you have only to say the word, and you are as free as the air?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I must&mdash;that is&mdash;I can't say the word, Mr. Denby. Truly I can't!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His face fell a little.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? You can't mean&mdash;you <i>can't</i> mean&mdash;you won't&mdash;marry
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>She threw a hurried look about her. He had drawn her into the curtained
+bay window of the upper hallway, as she was passing on to the nursery.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I mean&mdash;that," she panted, trying to release her arm from his
+clasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Helen! Do you mean you don't <i>care</i>?" he demanded passionately.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes&mdash;that's what I mean." She pulled again at her arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Helen, look at me. You can't look me straight in the eye and say you
+don't&mdash;<i>care</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I can. I&mdash;I&mdash;" The telltale color flooded her face. With a
+choking little breath she turned her head quite away.</p>
+
+<p>"You do&mdash;you do! And you shall marry me!" breathed the youth, his lips
+almost brushing the soft hair against her ear.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Mr. Denby, I can't&mdash;I&mdash;<i>can't</i>!" With a supreme effort she
+wrenched herself free and fled down the hall.</p>
+
+<p>If Helen Barnet thought this settled the matter, she ill-judged the
+nature of the man with whom she had to deal. Unlimited frosted cakes and
+shotguns had not taught Burke Denby to accept no for an
+answer&mdash;especially for an answer to something he had so set his heart
+upon as he had this winning of Helen Barnet for his wife.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Burke Denby did not know anything about love. He had never sung odes to
+the moon, or read Tennyson to pretty girls on secluded verandas. He had
+not been looking for love to meet him around the bend of the next
+street. Love had come now as an Event, capitalized. Love was Life, and
+Life was Heaven&mdash;if it might be passed with Helen Barnet at his side.
+Without her it would be&mdash; But Burke ignored the alternative. It was not
+worth considering, anyway, for of course she would be at his side.</p>
+
+<p>She loved him; he was sure of that. This fancied obstacle in the way
+that loomed so large in her eyes, he did not fear in the least. He
+really rather liked it. It added zest and excitement, and would make his
+final triumph all the more heart-warming and satisfying. He had only to
+convince Helen, of course, and the mere convincing would not be without
+its joy and compensation.</p>
+
+<p>It was with really pleasurable excitement, therefore, that Burke Denby
+laid his plans and carried them to the triumphant finish of a carefully
+arranged t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te in the library, when he knew that they would have
+at least half an hour to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"There, I've got you now, you little wild thing!" he cried, closing the
+library door, and standing determinedly with his back to it, as she made
+a frightened move to go, at finding herself alone with him.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Denby, I can't. I really must go," she palpitated.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you can't go. I've had altogether too much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> trouble getting you
+here, and getting those blessed youngsters safely away with their mamma
+for a bit of a drive with my dad."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you <i>planned</i> this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did." He was regarding her with half-quizzical, wholly fond eyes.
+"And I had you summoned to the library&mdash;but I was careful not to say who
+wanted you. Oh, Helen, Helen, how can you seek to avoid me like this,
+when you know how I love you!" There was only tenderness now in his
+voice and manner. He had taken both her hands in his.</p>
+
+<p>"But you mustn't love me."</p>
+
+<p>"Not love&mdash;my wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not your wife."</p>
+
+<p>"You're going to be, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't. I told you I couldn't, Mr. Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"My name is 'Burke,' my love."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was whimsically light again. Very plainly Mr. Burke Denby was
+not appreciating the seriousness of the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>She flushed and bit her lip.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's real mean of you to&mdash;to make it so hard for me!" she half
+sobbed.</p>
+
+<p>With sudden passion he caught her in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard? <i>Hard?</i> Then if it's hard, it means you <i>do</i> love me. As if I'd
+give you up now! Helen, why do you torture me like this? Dearest, <i>when</i>
+will you marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>She struggled feebly in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you; never."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Helen, why not?" He loosened his clasp and held her off at arms'
+length.</p>
+
+<p>"Because."</p>
+
+<p>"Because what?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer again.</p>
+
+<p>"You aren't&mdash;promised to any one else?" For the first time a shadow of
+uneasy doubt crossed his face.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes, frightened and pleading, searched his face. There was a tense
+moment of indecision. Then in a tragic burst it came.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe you think I'd&mdash;marry you, and be your wife, and have all your
+folks look down on me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look <i>down</i> on you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, because I'm not so swell and grand as they are. I'm only&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>With a quick cry he caught her to himself again, and laid a reproving
+finger on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! Don't you let me hear you say that again&mdash;those horrid words! You
+are you, <i>yourself</i>, the dearest, sweetest little woman that was ever
+made, and I love you, and I'm going to marry you. Look down on you,
+indeed! I'd like to see them try it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But they will. I'm only a nurse-girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" He almost shook her in his wrath. "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> tell you, you are
+<i>you</i>&mdash;and that's all I want to know. And that's all anybody will want
+to know. I'm not in love with your ancestors, or with your relatives, or
+your friends. I don't love you because you are, or are not, a
+nurse-girl, or a school-teacher, or a butterfly of fashion. I even don't
+love you because your eyes are blue, or because your wonderful hair is
+like the softest of spun gold. It's just because you are you,
+sweetheart; and you, <i>just you</i>, are the whole wide world to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;your father?"</p>
+
+<p>"He will love you because I love you. Dad is my good chum&mdash;he's always
+been that. What I love, he'll love. You'll see."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he really will?" A dawning hope was coming into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure he will. Why, dad is the other half of myself. Always, all the
+way up, dad has been like that. And everything I've wanted, he's always
+let me have."</p>
+
+<p>She drew a tremulous breath of surrender.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course, if I thought you all <i>wanted</i> me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Want you!</i>" With his impulsive lips on hers she had her answer, and
+there Burke Denby found his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>AN ONLY SON</h3>
+
+<p>Proud, and blissfully happy in his victory, Burke went to his father;
+and to his father (so far as the latter himself was concerned) he
+carried a bombshell.</p>
+
+<p>For two reasons John Denby had failed to see what was taking place in
+his own home. First, because it would never have occurred to him that
+his son could fall in love with a nursemaid; secondly, because he had
+systematically absented himself from the house during the most of his
+sister's visit, preferring to take his sister away with him for drives
+and walks rather than to stay in the noisy confusion of toys and babies
+that his home had become. Because of all this, therefore, he was totally
+unprepared for what his son was bringing to him.</p>
+
+<p>He welcomed the young man with affectionate heartiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my boy, it's good to see you! Where have you been keeping
+yourself all these two weeks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, dad, I've been right here&mdash;in fact, I've been very much right
+here!"</p>
+
+<p>The conscious color that crept to the boy's forehead should have been
+illuminating. But it was not.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, very likely, very likely," frowned the man. "But, of course,
+with so many around&mdash; But soon we'll be by ourselves again. Not but
+what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> I'm enjoying your aunt's visit, of course," he added hastily. "But
+here are two weeks of your vacation gone, and I've scarcely seen you a
+minute."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and that's one thing I wanted to talk about&mdash;college," plunged in
+the boy. "I've decided I don't want to finish my course, dad. I'd rather
+go into business right away."</p>
+
+<p>The man drew his brows together, but did not look entirely displeased.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m, well," he hesitated. "While I should hate not to see you
+graduated, yet&mdash;it's not so bad an idea, after all. I'd be glad to have
+you here for good that much earlier, son. But why this sudden
+right-about-face? I thought you were particularly keen for that degree."</p>
+
+<p>Again the telltale color flamed in the boyish cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"I was&mdash;once. But, you see, then I wasn't thinking of&mdash;getting married."</p>
+
+<p>"Married!" To John Denby it seemed suddenly that a paralyzing chill
+clutched his heart and made it skip a beat. This possible future
+marriage of his son, breaking into their close companionship, was the
+dreaded shadow that loomed ever ahead. "Nonsense, boy! Time enough to
+think of that when you've found the girl."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have found her, dad."</p>
+
+<p>John Denby paled perceptibly.</p>
+
+<p>"You have&mdash;what?" he demanded. "You don't mean that you've&mdash; Who is
+she?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Helen. Why, dad, you seem surprised," laughed the boy. "Haven't you
+noticed&mdash;suspected?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no I haven't," retorted the man grimly. "Why should I? I never
+heard of the young lady before. What is this&mdash;some college tomfoolery? I
+might have known, I suppose, what would happen."</p>
+
+<p>"College! Why, dad, she's <i>here</i>. You know her. It's Helen,&mdash;Miss
+Barnet."</p>
+
+<p>"Here! There's no one here but your aunt and&mdash;" He stopped, and half
+started from his chair. "You don't&mdash;you can't mean&mdash;your aunt's
+nursemaid!"</p>
+
+<p>At the scornful emphasis an indignant red dyed the boy's face.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't think that of you, dad," he rebuked.</p>
+
+<p>Angry as he was, the man was conscious of the hurt the words gave him.
+But he held his ground.</p>
+
+<p>"And I did not think this of you, Burke," he rejoined coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that I supposed my son would show some consideration as to the
+woman he chose for his wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Father!" The boyish face set into stern lines. The boyish figure drew
+itself erect with a majesty that would have been absurd had it not been
+so palpably serious. "I can't stand much of this sort of thing, even
+from you. Miss Barnet is everything that is good and true and lovely.
+She is in every way worthy&mdash;more than worthy. Besides, she is the woman
+I love&mdash;the woman I have asked to be my wife. Please remember that when
+you speak of her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>John Denby laughed lightly. Sharp words had very evidently been on the
+end of his tongue, when, with a sudden change of countenance, he relaxed
+in his chair, and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well done, Burke. Your sentiments do you credit, I'm sure. But aren't
+we getting a little melodramatic? I feel as if I were on the stage of a
+second-rate theater! However, I stand corrected; and we'll speak very
+respectfully of the lady hereafter. I have no doubt she is very good and
+very lovely, as you say; but"&mdash;his mouth hardened a little&mdash;"I must
+still insist that she is no fit wife for my son."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Obvious reasons."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you mean&mdash;because she has to work for her living," flashed
+the boy. "But that&mdash;excuse me&mdash;seems to me plain snobbishness. And I
+must say again I didn't think it of you, dad. I supposed&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, this has gone far enough," interrupted the distraught,
+sorely tried father of an idolized son. "You're only a boy. You don't
+know your own mind. You'll fancy yourself in love a dozen times yet
+before the time comes for you to marry."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a boy. I'm a man grown."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not twenty-one yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be next month. And I <i>do</i> know my own mind. You'll see, father,
+when I'm married."</p>
+
+<p>"But you're not going to be married at present. And you're never going
+to marry this nursemaid."</p>
+
+<p>"Father!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I mean what I say."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't give your consent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash; I'll do it without, after next month."</p>
+
+<p>There was a tense moment of silence. Father and son faced each other,
+angry resentment in their eyes. Then, with a sharp ejaculation, John
+Denby got to his feet and strode to the window. When he turned a minute
+later and came back, the angry resentment was gone. His mouth was stern,
+but his eyes were pleading. He came straight to his son and put both
+hands on his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Burke, listen to me," he begged. "I'm doing this for two reasons.
+First, to save you from yourself. You've known this girl scarcely two
+weeks&mdash;hardly an adequate preparation for a lifetime of living together.
+And just here comes in the second reason. However good and lovely she
+may be, she couldn't possibly qualify for that long lifetime together,
+Burke. Simply because she works for her living has nothing to do with
+it. She has not the tastes or the training that should belong to your
+wife&mdash;that <i>must</i> belong to your wife if she is to make you happy, if
+she is to take the place of&mdash;your mother. And that is the place your
+wife will take, of course, Burke."</p>
+
+<p>Under the restraining hands on his shoulders the boy stirred restlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Tastes! Training! What do I care for that? She suits my tastes."</p>
+
+<p>"She wouldn't&mdash;for long."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You wait and see."</p>
+
+<p>"Too great a risk to run, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll risk it. I'm going to risk it."</p>
+
+<p>Again there was a moment's silence. Again the stern lines deepened
+around the man's lips. Then very quietly there came the words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Burke, if you marry this girl, you will choose between her and me. It
+seems to me that I ought not to need to tell you that you cannot bring
+her here. She shall never occupy your mother's chair as the mistress of
+this house."</p>
+
+<p>"That settles it, then: I'll take her somewhere else."</p>
+
+<p>If Burke had not been so blind with passion he would have seen and felt
+the anguish that leaped to his father's eyes. But he did not stop to see
+or to feel. He snapped out the words, jerked himself free, and left the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>This did not "settle it," however. There were more words&mdash;words common
+to stern parents and amorous youths and maidens since time immemorial. A
+father, appalled at the catastrophe that threatened, not only his
+cherished companionship with his only son, but, in his opinion, the
+revered sanctity of his wife's memory, wrapped himself in forbidding
+dignity. An impetuous lover, torn between the old love of years and the
+new, quite different one of weeks, alternately stormed and pleaded. A
+young girl, undisciplined, very much in love, and smarting with hurt
+pride and resentment, blew hot and cold in a manner that tended to drive
+every one concerned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> to distraction. As soon as possible a shocked,
+distressed Sister Eunice packed her trunks and betook herself and her
+offending household away.</p>
+
+<p>In time, then, a compromise was effected. Burke should leave college
+immediately and go into the Works with his father, serving a short
+apprenticeship from the bottom up, as had been planned for him, that he
+might be the master of the business, in deed as well as in name, when he
+should some day take his father's place. Meanwhile, for one year, he was
+not to see or to communicate with Helen Barnet. If at the end of the
+year, he was still convinced that his only hope of happiness lay in
+marriage to this girl, all opposition would be withdrawn and he might
+marry when he pleased&mdash;though even then he must not expect to bring his
+bride to the old home. They must set up an establishment for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"We should prefer that,&mdash;under the circumstances," had been the prompt
+and somewhat haughty rejoinder, much to the father's discomfiture.</p>
+
+<p>Grieved and dismayed as he was at the airy indifference with which his
+son appeared to face a fatherless future, John Denby was yet pinning his
+faith on that year of waiting. Given twelve months with the boy quite to
+himself, free from the hateful spell of this designing young woman, and
+there could be no question of the result&mdash;in John Denby's mind. In all
+confidence, therefore, and with every sense alert to make this year as
+perfect as a year could be, John Denby set himself to the task before
+him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was just here, however, that for John Denby the ghosts walked&mdash;ghosts
+of innumerable toy pistols and frosted cakes. Burke Denby, accustomed
+all his life to having what he wanted, and having it <i>when</i> he wanted
+it, moped the first week, sulked the second, covertly rebelled the
+third, and ran away the last day of the fourth, leaving behind him the
+customary note, which, in this case, read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Dear Dad</i>: I've gone to Helen. I had to. I've lived a
+<i>year</i> of misery in this last month: so, as far as I am
+concerned, I <i>have</i> waited my year already. We shall be
+married at once. I wrote Helen last week, and she consented.</p>
+
+<p>Now, dad, you'll just have to forgive me. I'm twenty-one.
+I'm a man now, not a boy, and a man has to decide these
+things for himself. And Helen's a dear. You'll see, when you
+know her. We'll be back in two weeks. Now don't bristle up.
+I'm not going to bring her home, of course (at present),
+after the very cordial invitation you gave me not to! We're
+going into one of the Reddington apartments. With my
+allowance and my&mdash;er&mdash;wages&nbsp;(!) we can manage that
+all right&mdash;until "the stern parent" relents and takes his
+daughter home&mdash;as he should!</p></div>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 32em;">Good-bye,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 34em;"><span class="smcap">Burke</span>.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>John Denby read the letter once, twice; then he pulled the telephone
+toward him and gave a few crisp orders to James Brett, his general
+manager. His voice was steady and&mdash;to the man at the other end of the
+wire&mdash;ominously emotionless. When he had finished talking five minutes
+later, certain words had been uttered that would materially change the
+immediate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> future of a certain willful youth just then setting out on
+his honeymoon.</p>
+
+<p>There would be, for Burke Denby, no "Reddington apartment." There would
+also be no several-other-things; for there would be no "allowance" after
+the current month. There would be only the "wages," and the things the
+wages could buy.</p>
+
+<p>There was no disputing the fact that John Denby was very angry. But he
+was also sorely distressed and grieved. Added to his indignation that
+his son should have so flouted him was his anguish of heart that the old
+days of ideal companionship were now gone forever. There was, too, his
+very real fear for the future happiness of his boy, bound in marriage to
+a woman he believed would prove to be a most uncongenial mate. But
+overtopping all, just now, was his wrath at the flippant assurance of
+his son's note, and the very evident confidence in a final forgiveness
+that the note showed. It was this that caused the giving of those stern,
+momentous orders over the telephone&mdash;John Denby himself had been
+somewhat in the habit of having his own way!</p>
+
+<p>The harassed father did not sleep much that night. Until far into the
+morning hours he sat before the fireless grate in his library, thinking.
+He looked old, worn, and wholly miserable. In his hand, and often under
+his gaze, was the miniature of a beautiful woman&mdash;his wife.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>HONEYMOON DAYS</h3>
+
+<p>It was on a cool, cloudy day in early September that Mr. and Mrs. Burke
+Denby arrived at Dalton from their wedding trip.</p>
+
+<p>With characteristic inclination to avoid anything unpleasant, the young
+husband had neglected to tell his wife that they were not to live in the
+Denby Mansion. He had argued with himself that she would find it out
+soon enough, anyway, and that there was no reason why he should spoil
+their wedding trip with disagreeable topics of conversation. Burke
+always liked to put off disagreeable things till the last.</p>
+
+<p>Helen was aware, it is true, that Burke's father was much displeased at
+the marriage; but that this displeasure had gone so far as to result in
+banishment from the home, she did not know. She had been planning,
+indeed, just how she would win her father-in-law over&mdash;just how sweet
+and lovely and daughterly she would be, as a member of the Denby
+household; and so sure was she of victory that already she counted the
+battle half won.</p>
+
+<p>In the old days of her happy girlhood, Helen Barnet had taken as a
+matter of course the succumbing of everything and everybody to her charm
+and beauty. And although this feeling had, perforce, been in abeyance
+for some eighteen months, it had been very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> rapidly coming back to her
+during the past two weeks, under the devoted homage of her young husband
+and the admiring eyes of numberless strangers along their honeymoon way.</p>
+
+<p>It was a complete and disagreeable surprise to her now, therefore, when
+Burke said to her, a trifle nervously, as they were nearing Dalton:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to go to a hotel, of course, Helen, for a few days, till we
+get the apartment ready. But 'twon't be for long, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Hotel! Apartment! Why, Burke, aren't we going home&mdash;to <i>your</i> home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, dear. We're going to have a home of our own, you know&mdash;<i>our</i>
+home."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't know." Helen's lips showed a decided pout.</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll like it, dear. You just wait and see." The man spoke with
+determined cheeriness.</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't like it better than your old home, Burke. I <i>know</i> what
+that is, and I'd much rather go there."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, but&mdash;" Young Denby paused to wet his dry lips. "Er&mdash;you know,
+dear, dad wasn't exactly&mdash;er&mdash;pleased with the marriage, anyway, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it," broke in the bride eagerly. "That's one reason I
+wanted to go there&mdash;to show him, you know. Why, Burke, I'd got it all
+planned out lovely, how nice I was going to be to him&mdash;get his paper and
+slippers, and kiss him good-morning, and&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Holy smoke! Kiss&mdash;" Just in time the fastidious son of a still more
+fastidious father pulled himself up; but to a more discerning bride, his
+face would already have finished his sentence. "Er&mdash;but&mdash;well, anyhow,
+dear," he stammered, "that's very kind of you, of course; but you see
+it's useless even to think of it. He&mdash;he has forbidden us to go there."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the mean old thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Helen!"</p>
+
+<p>Helen's face showed a frown as well as a pout.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care. He is mean, if he is your father, not to let&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Helen!"</p>
+
+<p>At the angry sharpness of the man's voice Helen stopped abruptly. For a
+moment she gazed at her husband with reproachful eyes. Then her chin
+began to quiver, her breath to come in choking little gasps, and the big
+tears to roll down her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, great Scott! Helen, dearest, don't, <i>please</i>!" begged the dismayed
+and distracted young husband, promptly capitulating at the awful sight
+of tears of which he was the despicable cause. "Darling, don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you never sp-poke like that to me b-before," choked the wife of a
+fortnight.</p>
+
+<p>"I know. I was a brute&mdash;so I was! But, sweetheart, <i>please</i> stop," he
+pleaded desperately. "See, we're just pulling into Dalton. You don't
+want them to see you crying&mdash;a bride!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Burke Denby drew in her breath convulsively,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> and lifted a hurried
+hand to brush the tears from her eyes. The next moment she smiled,
+tremulously, but adorably. She looked very lovely as she stepped from
+the car a little later; and Burke Denby's heart swelled with love and
+pride as he watched her. If underneath the love and pride there was a
+vague something not so pleasant, the man told himself it was only a
+natural regret at having said anything to cast the slightest shadow on
+the home-coming of this dear girl whom he had asked to share his life.
+Whatever this vague something was, anyway, Burke resolutely put it
+behind him, and devoted himself all the more ardently to the comfort of
+his young wife.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of himself, Burke could not help looking for his father's face
+at the station. Never before had he come home (when not with his
+father), and not been welcomed by that father's eager smile and
+outstretched hand. He missed them both now. Otherwise he was relieved to
+see few people he knew, as he stepped to the platform, though he fully
+realized, from the sly winks and covert glances, that every one knew who
+he was, and who also was the lady at his side.</p>
+
+<p>With only an occasional perfunctory greeting, and no introductions,
+therefore, the somewhat embarrassed and irritated bridegroom hurried his
+bride into a public carriage, and gave the order to drive to the Hancock
+Hotel.</p>
+
+<p>All the way there he talked very fast and very tenderly of the new home
+that was soon to be theirs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'Twill be only for a little&mdash;the hotel, dear," he plunged in at once.
+"And you won't mind it, for a little, while we're planning, will you,
+darling? I'm going to rent one of the Reddington apartments. You
+remember them&mdash;on Reddington Avenue; white stone with dandy little
+balconies between the big bay windows. They were just being finished
+when you were here. They're brand-new, you see. And we'll be so happy,
+there, dearie,&mdash;just us two!"</p>
+
+<p>"Us two! But, Burke, there'll be three. There'll have to be the hired
+girl, too, you know," fluttered the new wife, in quick panic. "Surely
+you aren't going to make me do without a hired girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no&mdash;no, indeed," asserted the man, all the more hurriedly, because
+he never had thought of a "hired girl," and because he was rather
+fearfully wondering how much his father paid for the maids, anyway.
+There would have to be one, of course; but he wondered if his allowance
+would cover it, with all the rest. Still, he <i>could</i> smoke a cigar or
+two less a day, he supposed, if it came to a pinch, and&mdash;but Helen was
+speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, dear, but you did give me a turn, Burke! You see, there'll just
+have to be a hired girl&mdash;that is, if you want anything to eat, sir," she
+laughed, showing all her dimples. (And Burke loved her dimples!) "I
+can't cook a little bit. I never did at home, you know, and I should
+hate it, I'm sure. It's so messy&mdash;sticky dough and dishes, and all
+that!" Again she laughed and showed all her dimples,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> looking so
+altogether bewitching that Burke almost&mdash;but not quite&mdash;stole a kiss. He
+decided, too, on the spot, that he would rather never smoke another
+cigar than to subject this adorable little thing at his side to any task
+that had to do with the hated "messy dough and sticky dishes." Indeed he
+would!</p>
+
+<p>Something of this must have shown in his face, for the little bride
+beamed anew, and the remainder of the drive was a blissfully happy duet
+of fascinating plans regarding this new little nest of a home.</p>
+
+<p>All this was at four o'clock. At eight o'clock Burke Denby came into
+their room at the hotel with a white face and tense lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Helen, we're in for it," he flung out, dropping himself into the
+nearest chair.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Father has cut off my allowance."</p>
+
+<p>"But you&mdash;you've gone to work. There's your wages!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, there are my&mdash;wages."</p>
+
+<p>Something in his tone sent a swift suspicion to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean&mdash;they aren't so big as your allowance?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly do."</p>
+
+<p>"How perfectly horrid! Just as if it wasn't mean enough for him not to
+let us live there, without&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Helen!" Burke Denby pulled himself up in his chair. "See here, dear, I
+shan't let even you say things like that about dad. Now, for heaven's
+sake,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> don't let us quarrel about it," he pleaded impatiently, as he saw
+the dreaded quivering coming to the pouting lips opposite.</p>
+
+<p>"But I&mdash;I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Helen, dearest, don't cry, please don't! Crying won't help; and I tell
+you it's serious business&mdash;this is."</p>
+
+<p>"But are you sure&mdash;do you know it's true?" faltered the young wife, too
+thoroughly frightened now to be angry. "Did you see&mdash;your father?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I saw Brett."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's he? Maybe he doesn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, he does," returned Burke, with grim emphasis. "He knows
+everything. They say at the Works that he knows what father's going to
+have for breakfast before the cook does."</p>
+
+<p>"But who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's the head manager of the Denby Iron Works and father's right-hand
+man. He came here to-night to see me&mdash;by dad's orders, I suspect."</p>
+
+<p>"Is your father so awfully angry, then?" Her eyes had grown a bit
+wistful.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid he is. He says I've made my bed and now I must lie in it.
+He's cut off my allowance entirely. He's raised my wages&mdash;a little, and
+he says it's up to me now to make good&mdash;with my wages."</p>
+
+<p>There was a minute's silence. The man's eyes were gloomily fixed on the
+opposite wall. His whole attitude spelled disillusion and despair. The
+woman's eyes, questioning, fearful, were fixed on the man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Plainly some new, hidden force was at work within Helen Denby's heart.
+Scorn and anger had left her countenance. Grief and dismay had come in
+their place.</p>
+
+<p>"Burke, <i>why</i> has your father objected so to&mdash;to me?" she asked at last,
+timidly.</p>
+
+<p>Abstractedly, as if scarcely conscious of what he was saying, the man
+shrugged:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the usual thing. He said you weren't suited to me; you wouldn't
+make me happy."</p>
+
+<p>The wife recoiled visibly. She gave a piteous little cry. It was too
+low, apparently, to reach her husband's ears. At all events, he did not
+turn. For fully half a minute she watched him, and in her shrinking eyes
+was mirrored each eloquent detail of his appearance, the lassitude, the
+gloom, the hopelessness. Then, suddenly, to her whole self there came an
+electric change. As if throwing off bonds that held her she flung out
+her arms and sprang toward him.</p>
+
+<p>"Burke, it isn't true, it isn't true," she flamed. "I'm going to make
+you happy! You just wait and see. And we'll show him. We'll show him we
+can do it! He told you to make good; and you must, Burke! I won't have
+him and everybody else saying I dragged you down. I won't! <i>I won't!</i> <span class="smcap">I
+won't</span>!"</p>
+
+<p>Burke Denby's first response was to wince involuntarily at the shrill
+crescendo of his wife's voice. His next was to shrug his shoulders
+irritably as the meaning of her words came to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Helen, don't be a goose!" he scowled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a goose. I'm your wife," choked Helen, still swayed by the
+exaltation that had mastered her. "And I'm going to help you win&mdash;<i>win</i>,
+I say! Do you hear me, Burke?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I hear you, Helen; and&mdash;so'll everybody else, if you don't
+look out. <i>Please</i> speak lower, Helen!"</p>
+
+<p>She was too intent and absorbed to be hurt or vexed. Obediently she
+dropped her voice almost to a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know, Burke; and I will, I will, dear." She fell on her
+knees at his side. "But it seems as if I must shout it to the world. I
+want to go out on the street here and scream it at the top of my voice,
+till your father in his great big useless house on the hill just has to
+hear me."</p>
+
+<p>"Helen, Helen!" shivered her husband.</p>
+
+<p>But she hurried on feverishly.</p>
+
+<p>"Burke, listen! You're going to make good. Do you hear? We'll show them.
+We'll never let them say they&mdash;beat us!"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We aren't going to say 'but' and hang back. We're going to <i>do</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Helen, how? What?" demanded the man, stirred into a show of
+interest at last. "How can we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, but we're going to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"There won't be&mdash;hardly any money."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get along&mdash;somehow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And we'll have to live in a cheap little hole somewhere&mdash;we can't have
+one of the Reddingtons."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want it&mdash;now."</p>
+
+<p>"And you'll have to&mdash;to work."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know." Her chin was still bravely lifted.</p>
+
+<p>"There can't be any&mdash;maid now."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll have to eat&mdash;what I cook!" She drew in her breath with a
+hysterical little laugh that was half a sob.</p>
+
+<p>"You darling! I shall love it!" He caught her to himself in a revulsion
+of feeling that was as ardent as it was sudden. "Only I'll so hate to
+have you do it, sweetheart&mdash;it's so messy and doughy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>"You told me it was."</p>
+
+<p>"But I didn't know then&mdash;what they were saying about me. Burke, they
+just shan't say I'm dragging you down."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed they shan't, darling."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will make good?" she regarded him with tearful, luminous eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will&mdash;with <i>you</i> to help me."</p>
+
+<p>Her face flamed into radiant joy.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, <i>with me to help</i>! That's it, that's it&mdash;I'm going to <i>help</i> you,"
+she breathed fervently, flinging her arms about his neck.</p>
+
+<p>And to each, from the dear stronghold of the other's arms, at the
+moment, the world looked, indeed, to be a puny thing, scarcely worth the
+conquering.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>NEST-BUILDING</h3>
+
+<p>It is so much easier to say than to do. But nothing in the experience of
+either Burke Denby or of Helen, his wife, had demonstrated this fact for
+them. Quite unprepared, therefore, and with confident courage, they
+proceeded to pass from the saying to the doing.</p>
+
+<p>True, in the uncompromising sunlight of the next morning, the world did
+look a bit larger, a shade less easily conquerable; and a distinctly
+unpleasant feeling of helplessness assailed both husband and wife. Yet
+with a gay "Now we'll go house-hunting right away so as to save paying
+here!" from Helen, and an adoring "You darling&mdash;but it's a burning
+shame!" from Burke, the two sallied forth, after the late hotel
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>The matter of selecting the new home was not a difficult one&mdash;at first.
+They decided at once that, if they could not have an apartment in the
+Reddington Chambers, they would prefer a house. "For," Burke said, "as
+for being packed away like sardines in one of those abominable little
+cheap flat-houses, I won't!" So a house they looked for at the start.
+And very soon they found what Helen said was a "love of a place"&mdash;a
+pretty little cottage with a tiny lawn and a flower-bed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And it's so lucky it's for rent," she exulted. "For it's just what we
+want, isn't it, dearie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes; but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, don't you like it? <i>I</i> think it's a dear! Of course it
+isn't like your father's house. But we can't expect that."</p>
+
+<p>"Expect that! Great Scott, Helen,&mdash;we can't expect this!" cried the man.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"It'll cost too much, dear,&mdash;in this neighborhood. We can't afford it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that'll be all right. I'll economize somewhere else. Come; it says
+the key is next door."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but, Helen, dearest, I know we can't&mdash;" But "Helen, dearest," was
+already halfway up the adjoining walk; and Burke, with a despairing
+glance at her radiant, eager face, followed her. There was, indeed, no
+other course open to him, as he knew, unless he chose to make a scene on
+the public thorough-fare&mdash;and Burke Denby did not like scenes.</p>
+
+<p>The house was found to be as attractive inside as it was out; and
+Helen's progress from room to room was a series of delighted
+exclamations. She was just turning to go upstairs when her husband's
+third desperate expostulation brought her feet and her tongue to a
+pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Helen, darling, I tell you we can't!" he was exclaiming. "It's out of
+the question."</p>
+
+<p>"Burke!" Her lips began to quiver. "And when you know how much I want
+it!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Sweetheart, don't, please, make it any harder for me," he begged. "I'd
+give you a dozen houses like this if I could&mdash;and you know it. But we
+can't afford even this one. The rent is forty dollars. I heard her tell
+you when she gave you the key."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. We can economize other ways."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Helen, I only get sixty all told. We can't pay forty for rent."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but, Burke, that leaves twenty, and we can do a lot on twenty. Just
+as if what we ate would cost us that! I don't care for meat, anyhow,
+much. We'll cut that out. And I hate grapefruit and olives. They cost a
+lot. Mrs. Allen was always having them, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The distraught husband interrupted with an impatient gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Grapefruit and olives, indeed! And as if food were all of it! Where are
+our clothes and coal and&mdash;and doctor's bills, and I don't-know-what-all
+coming from? Why, great Scott, Helen, I smoke half that in a week,
+sometimes,&mdash;not that I shall now, of course," he added hastily. "But,
+honestly, dearie, we simply can't do it. Now, come, be a good girl, and
+let's go on. We're simply wasting time here."</p>
+
+<p>Helen, convinced at last, tossed him the key, with a teary "All
+right&mdash;take it back then. I shan't! I know I should c-cry right before
+her!" The next minute, at sight of the abject woe and dismay on her
+husband's face, she flung herself upon him with a burst of sobs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There, there, Burke, here I am, so soon, making a fuss because we can't
+afford things! But I won't any more&mdash;truly I won't! I was a mean, horrid
+old thing! Yes, I was," she reiterated in answer to his indignant
+denial. "Come, let's go quick!" she exclaimed, pulling herself away, and
+lifting her head superbly. "I don't want the old place, anyhow. Truly, I
+don't!" And, with a dazzling smile, she reached out her hand and tripped
+enticingly ahead of him toward the door; while the man, bewildered, but
+enthralled by this extraordinary leap from fretful stubbornness to gay
+docility, hurried after her with an incoherent jumble of rapturous
+adjectives.</p>
+
+<p>Such was Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby's first experience of home-hunting.
+The second, though different in detail, was similar in disappointment.
+So also were the third and the fourth experiences. Not, indeed, until
+the weary, distracted pair had spent three days in time, all their
+patience, and most of their good nature, did they finally arrive at a
+decision. And then their selection, alas, proved to be one of the
+despised tiny flats, in which, according to the unhappy young
+bridegroom, they were destined to be packed like sardines.</p>
+
+<p>After all, it had been the "elegant mirror in the parlor," and the "just
+grand" tiled and tessellated entrance, that had been the determining
+factors in the decision; for Burke, thankful that at last something
+within reach of his pocketbook had been found to bring a sparkle to his
+beloved's eyes, had stifled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> his own horror at the tawdry cheapness of
+it all, and had given a consent that was not without a measure of relief
+born of the three long days of weary, well-nigh hopeless search.</p>
+
+<p>Dalton, like most manufacturing towns of fifteen or twenty thousand
+souls, had all the diversity of a much larger place. There was West
+Hill, where were the pillared and porticoed residences of the
+pretentious and the pretending, set in painfully new, wide-sweeping,
+flower-bordered lawns; and there was Valley Street, a double line of
+ramshackle wooden buildings with broken steps and shutterless windows,
+where a blade of grass was a stranger and a flower unknown, save for
+perhaps a sickly geranium on a tenement window sill. There was Old
+Dalton, with its winding, tree-shaded streets clambering all over the
+slope of Elm Hill, where old colonial mansions, with an air of aloofness
+(borrowed quite possibly from their occupants), seemed ever to be
+withdrawing farther and farther away from plebeian noise and publicity.
+There was, of course, the mill district, where were the smoke-belching
+chimneys and great black buildings that meant the town's bread and
+butter; and there were the adjoining streets of workmen's houses, fitted
+to give a sensitive soul the horrors, so seemingly endless was the
+repetition of covered stoop and dormer window, always exactly the same,
+as far as eye could reach. There was, too, the bustling, asphalted,
+brick-blocked business center; and there were numerous streets of
+simple, pretty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> cottages, and substantial residences, among which, with
+growing frequency, there were beginning to appear the tall,
+many-windowed apartment houses, ranging all the way from the exclusive,
+expensive Reddington Chambers down to the flimsy structures like the one
+whose tawdry ornamentation had caught the fancy of Burke Denby's
+village-bred wife.</p>
+
+<p>To Burke Denby himself, late of Denby House (perhaps the most aloof of
+all the "old colonials"), the place was a nightmare of horror. But
+because his wife's eyes had glistened, and because his wife's lips had
+caroled a joyous "Oh, Burke, I'd <i>love</i> this place, darling!"&mdash;and
+because, most important of all, if it must be confessed, the rent was
+only twenty dollars a month, he had uttered a grim "All right, we'll
+take it." And the selection of the home was accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>Not until they were on the way to the hotel that night did there come to
+the young husband the full realizing sense that housekeeping meant
+furniture.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course I <i>knew</i> it did," he groaned, half-laughingly, after his
+first despairing ejaculation. "But I just didn't think; that's all. Our
+furniture at home we'd always had. But of course it does have to be
+bought&mdash;at first."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! And <i>I</i> didn't think, either," laughed Helen. "You see, we'd
+always had <i>our</i> furniture, too, I guess. But then, it'll be grand to
+buy it. I love new things!"</p>
+
+<p>Burke Denby frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"Buy it! That's all right&mdash;if we had the money<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> to pay. Heaven only
+knows how much it'll cost. I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Burke, you've got <i>some</i> money, haven't you? You took a big roll
+out of your pocket last night."</p>
+
+<p>He gave her a scornful glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Big roll, indeed! How far do you suppose that would go toward
+furnishing a home? Of course I've got some money&mdash;a little left from my
+allowance&mdash;but that doesn't mean I've got enough to furnish a home."</p>
+
+<p>"Then let's give up housekeeping and board," proposed Helen. "Then we
+won't have to buy any furniture. And I think I'd like it better anyhow;
+and I <i>know</i> you would&mdash;after you'd sampled my cooking," she finished
+laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>But her husband did not smile. The frown only deepened as he
+ejaculated:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Board! Not much, Helen! We <i>couldn't</i> board at a decent place. 'Twould
+cost too much. And as for the cheap variety&mdash;great Scott, Helen! I
+wonder if you think I'd stand for that! Heaven knows we'll be enough
+gossiped about, as it is, without our planting ourselves right under the
+noses of half the tabby-cats in town for them to 'oh' and 'ah' and 'um'
+every time we turn around or don't turn around! No, ma'am, Helen! We'll
+shut ourselves up somewhere within four walls we can call home, even if
+we have to furnish it with only two chairs and a bed and a kitchen
+stove. It'll be ours&mdash;and we'll be where we won't be stared at."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Helen laughed lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, dear, Burke, how you do run on! Just as if one minded a little
+staring! I rather like it, myself,&mdash;if I know my clothes and my back
+hair are all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! Helen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I do," she laughed, uptilting her chin. "It makes one feel so
+sort of&mdash;er&mdash;important. But I won't say 'board' again, <i>never</i>,&mdash;unless
+you begin to scold at my cooking," she finished with an arch glance.</p>
+
+<p>"As if I could do that!" cried the man promptly, again the adoring
+husband. "I shall love everything you do&mdash;just because it's <i>you</i> that
+do it. The only trouble will be, <i>you</i> won't get enough to eat&mdash;because
+I shall want to eat it all!"</p>
+
+<p>"You darling! Aren't you the best ever!" she cooed, giving his arm a
+surreptitious squeeze. "But, really, you know, I am going to be a
+bang-up cook. I've got a cookbook."</p>
+
+<p>"So soon? Where did you get that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday, while you went into Stoddard's for that house-key. I saw one
+in the window next door and I went in and bought it. 'Twas two dollars,
+so it ought to be a good one. And that makes me think. It took all the
+money I had, 'most, in my purse. So I&mdash;I'm afraid I'll have to have some
+more, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, of course! You mustn't go without money a minute." And
+the young husband, with all the alacrity of a naturally generous nature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+supplemented by the embarrassment of this new experience of being asked
+for money by the girl he loved, plunged his hand into his pocket and
+crowded two bills into her unresisting fingers. "There! And I won't be
+so careless again, dear. I don't ever mean you to have to <i>ask</i> for
+money, sweetheart."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you," she murmured, tucking the bills into her little
+handbag. "I shan't need any more for ever so long, I'm sure. I'm going
+to be economical <i>now</i>, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you are. You're going to be a little brick. <i>I</i> know."</p>
+
+<p>"And we won't mind anything if we're only together," she breathed.</p>
+
+<p>"There won't be anything to mind," he answered fervently, with an ardent
+glance that would have been a kiss had it not been for the annoying
+presence of a few score of Dalton's other inhabitants on the street
+together with themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The next minute they reached the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>At nine o'clock the following morning Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby sallied
+forth to buy the furniture for their "tenement," as Helen called it,
+until her husband's annoyed remonstrances changed the word to
+"apartment."</p>
+
+<p>Burke Denby learned many things during the next few hours. He learned
+first that tables and chairs and beds and stoves&mdash;really decent ones
+that a fellow could endure the sight of&mdash;cost a prodigious amount of
+money. But, to offset this, and to make life really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> worth the living,
+after all, it seemed that one might buy a quantity sufficient for one's
+needs, and pay for them in installments, week by week. This idea, while
+not wholly satisfactory, seemed the only way of stretching their limited
+means to cover their many needs; and, after some hesitation, it was
+adopted.</p>
+
+<p>There remained then only the matter of selection; and it was just here
+that Burke Denby learned something else. He learned that two people,
+otherwise apparently in perfect accord, could disagree most violently
+over the shape of a chair or the shade of a rug. Indeed, he would not
+have believed it possible that such elements of soul torture could lie
+in a mere matter of color or texture. And how any one with eyes and
+sensibilities could wish to select for one's daily companions such a
+mass of gingerbread decoration and glaring colors as seemed to meet the
+fancy of his wife, he could not understand. Neither could he understand
+why all his selections and preferences were promptly dubbed "dingy" and
+"homely," nor why nothing that he liked pleased her at all. As such was
+certainly the case, however, he came to express these preferences less
+and less frequently. And in the end he always bought what she wanted,
+particularly as the price on her choice was nearly always lower than the
+one on his&mdash;which was an argument in its favor that he found it hard to
+refute.</p>
+
+<p>Tractable as he was as to quality, however, he did have to draw a sharp
+line as to quantity; for Helen;&mdash;with the cheerful slogan, "Why, it's
+only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> twenty-five cents a week more, Burke!"&mdash;seemed not to realize that
+there was a limit even to the number of those one might spend&mdash;on sixty
+dollars a month. True, at the beginning she did remind him that they
+could "eat less" till they "got the things paid for," and that her
+clothes were "all new, anyhow, being a bride, so!" But she had not said
+that again. Perhaps because she saw the salesman turn his back to laugh,
+and perhaps because she was a little frightened at the look on her
+husband's face. At all events, when Burke did at last insist that they
+had bought quite enough, she acquiesced with some measure of grace.</p>
+
+<p>Burke himself, when the shopping was finished, drew a sigh of relief,
+yet with an inward shudder at the recollection of certain things marked
+"Sold to Burke Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well," he comforted himself. "Helen's happy&mdash;and that's the main
+thing; and I shan't see them much. I'm away days and asleep nights." Nor
+did it occur to him that this was not the usual attitude of a supposedly
+proud bridegroom toward his new little nest of a home.</p>
+
+<p>Getting settled in the little Dale Street apartment was, so far as Burke
+was concerned, a mere matter of moving from the hotel and dumping the
+contents of his trunk into his new chiffonier and closet. True, Helen,
+looking tired and flurried (and not nearly so pretty as usual), brought
+to him some borrowed tools, together with innumerable curtains and rods
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> nails and hooks that simply must be put up, she said, before she
+could do a thing. But Burke, after a half-hearted trial,&mdash;during which
+he mashed his thumb and bored three holes in wrong places,&mdash;flew into a
+passion of irritability, and bade her get the janitor who "owned the
+darn things" to do the job, and to pay him what he asked&mdash;'twould be
+worth it, no matter what it was!</p>
+
+<p>With a very hasty kiss then Burke banged out of the house and headed for
+the Denby Iron Works.</p>
+
+<p>It was not alone the curtains or the offending hammer that was wrong
+with Burke Denby that morning. The time had come when he must not only
+meet his fellow employees, and take his place among them, but he must
+face his father. And he was dreading yet longing to see his father. He
+had not seen him since he bade him good-night and went upstairs to his
+own room the month before&mdash;to write that farewell note.</p>
+
+<p>Once, since coming back from his wedding trip, he had been tempted to
+leave town and never see his father again&mdash;until he should have made for
+himself the name and the money that he was going to make. Then he would
+come back and cry: "Behold, this is I, your son, and this is Helen, my
+wife, who, you see, has <i>not</i> dragged me down!" He would not, of course,
+<i>talk</i> like that. But he would show them. He would! This had been when
+he first learned from Brett of the allowance-cutting, and of his
+father's implacable anger.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then had come the better, braver decision. He would stay where he was.
+He would make the name and the money right here, under his father's very
+eyes. It would be harder, of course; but there would then be all the
+more glory in the winning. Besides, to leave now would look like
+defeat&mdash;would make one seem almost like a quitter. And his father hated
+quitters! He would like to show his father. He <i>would</i> show his father.
+And he would show him right here. And had not Helen, his dear wife, said
+that she would aid him? As if he could help winning out under those
+circumstances!</p>
+
+<p>It was with thoughts such as these that he went now to meet his father.
+Especially was he thinking of Helen, dear Helen,&mdash;poor Helen, struggling
+back there with those abominable hooks and curtains. And he had been
+such a brute to snap her up so crossly! He would not do it again. It was
+only that he was so dreading this first meeting with his father. After
+that it would be easier. There would not be anything then only just to
+keep steadily going till he'd made good&mdash;he and Helen. But now&mdash;father
+would be proud to see how finely he was taking it!</p>
+
+<p>With chin up and shoulders back, therefore, Burke Denby walked into his
+father's office.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, father," he began, with cheery briskness. Then, instantly, voice
+and manner changed as he took a hurried step forward. "Dad, what is it?
+Are you ill?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So absorbed had Burke Denby been over the part he himself was playing in
+this little drama of Denby and Son, that he had given no thought as to
+the probable looks or actions of any other member of the cast. He was
+quite unprepared, therefore, for the change in the man he now saw before
+him&mdash;the pallor, the shrunken cheeks, the stooped shoulders, the
+unmistakable something that made the usually erect, debonair man look
+suddenly worn and old.</p>
+
+<p>"Dad, you are ill!" exclaimed Burke in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>John Denby got to his feet at once. He even smiled and held out his
+hand. Yet Burke, who took the hand, felt suddenly that there were
+uncounted miles of space between them.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Burke, how are you? No, I'm not ill at all. And you&mdash;are you well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;ah&mdash;oh, yes, very well&mdash;er&mdash;very well."</p>
+
+<p>"That's good. I'm glad."</p>
+
+<p>There was a brief pause. A torrent of words swept to the tip of the
+younger man's tongue; but nothing found voice except another faltering
+"Er&mdash;yes, very well!" which Burke had not meant to say at all. There was
+a second brief pause, then John Denby sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"You will find Brett in his office. You have come to work, I dare say,"
+he observed, as he turned to the letters on his desk.</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;yes," stammered the young man. The next moment he found himself
+alone, white and shaken, the other side of his father's door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To work? Oh, yes, he had come to work; but he had come first to talk.
+There were a whole lot of things he had meant to say to his father.
+First, of course, there would have had to be something in the nature of
+an apology or the like to patch up the quarrel. Then he would tell him
+how he was really going to make good&mdash;he and Helen. After that they
+could get down to one of their old-time chats. They always had been
+chums&mdash;he and dad; and they hadn't had a talk for four weeks. Why, for
+three weeks he had been saving up a story, a dandy story that dad would
+appreciate! And there were other things, serious things, that&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And here already he had seen his father, and it was over. And he had not
+said a word&mdash;nothing of what he had meant to say. He believed he would
+go back&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>With an angry gesture Burke Denby turned and extended his hand halfway
+toward the closed door. Then, with an impatient shrug, he whirled about
+and strode toward the door marked "J.&nbsp;A. Brett, General Manager."</p>
+
+<p>If young Denby had obeyed his first impulse and re&euml;ntered his father's
+office he would have found the man with his head bowed on the desk, his
+arms outflung.</p>
+
+<p>John Denby, too, was white and shaken. He, too, had been dreading this
+meeting, and longing for it&mdash;that it might be over. There was now,
+however, on his part, no feeling of chagrin and impotence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> because of
+things that had not been said. There was only a shuddering relief that
+things had <i>not</i> been said; that he had been able to carry it straight
+through as he had planned; that he had not shown his boy how much
+he&mdash;cared. He was glad that his pride had been equal to the strain; that
+he had not weakly succumbed at the first glimpse of his son's face, the
+first touch of his son's hand, as he had so feared that he would do.</p>
+
+<p>And he had not succumbed&mdash;though he had almost gone down before the
+quick terror and affectionate dismay that had leaped into his son's
+voice and eyes at sight of his own changed appearance. (Why <i>could</i> not
+he keep those abominable portions of his anatomy from being so
+wretchedly telltale?) But he had remembered in time. Did the boy think,
+then, that a mere word of sympathy now could balance the scale against
+so base a disregard of everything loyal and filial a month ago? Then he
+would show that it could not.</p>
+
+<p>And he had shown it.</p>
+
+<p>What if he did know now, even better than he had known it all these last
+miserable four weeks, that his whole world had lain in his boy's hand,
+that his whole life had been bounded by his boy's smile, his whole soul
+immersed in his boy's future? What if he did know that all the power and
+wealth and fame of name that he had won were as the dust in his
+fingers&mdash;if he might not pass them on to his son? He was not going to
+let Burke know this. Indeed, no!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Burke had made his own bed. He should lie in it. Deliberately he had
+chosen to cast aside the love and companionship of a devoted father at
+the beck of an almost unknown girl's hand. Should the father then offer
+again the once-scorned love and companionship? Had he no pride&mdash;no
+proper sense of simple right and justice? No self-respect, even?</p>
+
+<p>It was thus, and by arguments such as these, that John Denby had lashed
+himself into the state of apparently cool, courteous indifference that
+had finally carried him successfully through the interview just closed.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time John Denby sat motionless, his arms outflung across the
+letters that might have meant so much, but that did mean so little, to
+him&mdash;now. Then slowly he raised his head and fixed somber, longing eyes
+on the door that had so recently closed behind his son.</p>
+
+<p>The boy was in there with Brett now&mdash;his boy. He was being told that his
+wages for the present were to be fifteen dollars a week, and that he was
+expected to live within his income&mdash;that the wages were really very
+liberal, considering his probable value to the company at the first. He
+<i>would</i> begin at the bottom, as had been planned years ago; but with
+this difference: he would be promoted now only when he had earned it. He
+would have been pushed rapidly ahead to the top, had matters been as
+they once were. Now he must demonstrate and prove his ability.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All this Brett was telling Burke now. Poor Burke! Brett was so harsh, so
+uncompromising. As if it weren't tough enough to have to live on a
+paltry fifteen dollars a week, without&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>John Denby sighed and rose to his feet. Aimlessly he fidgeted about the
+spacious, well-appointed office. Twice he turned toward the door as if
+to leave the room. Once he reached a hesitating hand toward the
+push-button on this desk. Then determinedly he sat down and picked up
+one of his letters.</p>
+
+<p>Brett was right. It was the best way; the only way. And it was well,
+indeed, that Brett had been delegated to do the telling. If it had been
+himself now&mdash;! Shucks! If it had been himself, the boy would only have
+had to <i>look</i> his reproach&mdash;and his wages would have been doubled on the
+spot! Fifteen dollars a week&mdash;<i>Burke!</i> Why, the boy could not&mdash; Well,
+then, he need not have been so foolish, so headstrong, so heartlessly
+disregardful of his father's wishes. He had brought it upon himself,
+entirely, entirely!</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon, with an angry exclamation, John Denby shifted about in his
+hand the letter which for three minutes he had been holding before his
+eyes upside down.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE WIFE</h3>
+
+<p>Helen Denby had never doubted her ability to be a perfect wife. As a
+girl, her vision had pictured a beauteous creature moving through a
+glorified world of love and admiration, ease and affluence.</p>
+
+<p>Later, at the time of her marriage to Burke Denby, her vision had
+altered sufficiently to present a picture of herself as the sweet
+good-angel of the old Denby Mansion, the forgiving young wife who lays
+up no malice against an unappreciative father-in-law. Even when, still
+later (upon their return from their wedding trip and upon her learning
+of John Denby's decree of banishment), the vision was necessarily warped
+and twisted all out of semblance to its original outlines, there yet
+remained unchanged the basic idea of perfect wifehood.</p>
+
+<p>Helen saw herself now as the martyr wife whose superb courage and
+self-sacrifice were to be the stepping-stones of a husband's magnificent
+success. She would be guide, counselor, and friend. (Somewhere she had
+seen those words. She liked them very much.) Unswervingly she would hold
+Burke to his high purpose. Untiringly she would lead him ever toward his
+goal of "making good."</p>
+
+<p>She saw herself the sweet, loving wife, graciously presiding over the
+well-kept home, always ready,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> daintily gowned, to welcome his coming
+with a kiss, and to speed his going with a blessing. Then, when in due
+course he had won out, great would be her reward. With what sweet pride
+and gentle dignity would she accept the laurel wreath of praise (Helen
+had seen this expression somewhere, too, and liked it), which a
+remorseful but grateful world would hasten to lay at the feet of her who
+alone had made possible the splendid victory&mdash;the once despised, flouted
+wife&mdash;the wife who was to drag him down!</p>
+
+<p>It was a pleasant picture, and Helen frequently dwelt upon
+it&mdash;especially the sweet-and-gentle-dignity-wife part. She found it
+particularly soothing during those first early days of housekeeping in
+the new apartment.</p>
+
+<p>Not that she was beginning in the least to doubt her ability to be that
+perfect wife. It was only that to think of things as they would be was a
+pleasant distraction from thinking of things as they were. But of course
+it would be all right very soon, anyway,&mdash;just as soon as everything got
+nicely to running.</p>
+
+<p>Helen did wonder sometimes why the getting of "everything nicely to
+running" was so difficult. That a certain amount of training and
+experience was necessary to bring about the best results never occurred
+to her. If Helen had been asked to take a position as stenographer or
+church soloist, she would have replied at once that she did not know how
+to do the work. Into the position of home-maker, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> she stepped
+with cheerful confidence, her eyes only on the wonderful success she was
+going to make.</p>
+
+<p>To Helen housekeeping was something like a clock that you wound up in
+the morning to run all day. And even when at the end of a week she could
+not help seeing that not once yet had she got around to being the
+"sweet, daintily gowned wife welcoming her husband to a well-kept home,"
+before that husband appeared at the door, she still did not doubt her
+own capabilities. It was only that "things hadn't got to running yet."
+And it was always somebody else's fault, anyway,&mdash;frequently her
+husband's. For if he did not come to dinner too early, before a thing
+was done, he was sure to be late, and thus spoil everything by her
+trying to keep things hot for him. And, of course, under such
+circumstances, nobody could <i>expect</i> one to be a sweet and daintily
+gowned wife!</p>
+
+<p>Besides, there was the cookbook.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Burke," she finally wailed one night, between sobs, "I
+don't believe it's good for a thing&mdash;that old cookbook! I haven't got a
+thing out of it yet that's been real good. I've half a mind to take it
+back where I got it, and make them change it, or else give me back my
+money. I have, so there!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, dearie," began her husband doubtfully, "you said yourself
+yesterday that you forgot the salt in the omelet, and the baking powder
+in the cake, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what if I did?" she contended aggrievedly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> "What's a little salt
+or baking powder? 'Twasn't but a pinch or a spoonful, anyhow, and I
+remembered all the other things. Besides, if those rules were any good
+they'd be worded so I <i>couldn't</i> forget part of the things. And, anyhow,
+I don't think it's very nice of you to b-blame me all the time when I'm
+doing the very best I can. I <i>told</i> you I couldn't cook, but you <i>said</i>
+you'd like anything I made, because I did it, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, darling, and so I do," interrupted the remorseful husband,
+hurriedly. And, to prove it, he ate the last scrap of the unappetizing
+concoction on his plate, which his wife said was a fish croquette.
+Afterwards still further to show his remorse, he helped her wash the
+dishes and set the rooms in order. Then together they went for a walk in
+the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful walk, and it quite restored Helen to good nature.
+They went up on West Hill (where Helen particularly loved to go), and
+they laid wonderful plans of how one day they, too, would build a big
+stone palace of a home up there&mdash;though Burke did say that, for his
+part, he liked Elm Hill quite as well; but Helen laughed him out of that
+"old-fashioned idea." At least he said no more about it.</p>
+
+<p>They talked much of how proud Burke's father was going to be when Burke
+had made good, and of how ashamed and sorry he would be that he had so
+misjudged his son's wife. And Helen uttered some very sweet and
+beautiful sentiments concerning her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> intention of laying up no malice,
+her firm determination to be loving and forgiving.</p>
+
+<p>Then together they walked home in the moonlight; and so thrilled and
+exalted were they that even the cheap little Dale Street living-room
+looked wonderfully dear. And Helen said that, after all, love was the
+only thing that mattered&mdash;that they just loved each other. And Burke
+said, "Yes, yes, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>The vision of the sweet, daintily gowned wife and the perfect home was
+very clear to Helen as she dropped off to sleep that night; and she was
+sure that she could begin to realize it at once. But unfortunately she
+overslept the next morning&mdash;which was really Burke's fault, as she said,
+for he forgot to wind the alarm clock, and she was not used to getting
+up at such an unearthly hour, anyway, and she did not see why <i>he</i> had
+to do it, for that matter&mdash;he was really the son of the owner, even if
+he was <i>called</i> an apprentice.</p>
+
+<p>This did not help matters any, for Burke never liked any reference to
+his position at the Works. To be sure, he did not say much, this time,
+except to observe stiffly that he <i>would</i> like his breakfast, if she
+would be so good as to get it&mdash;as if she were not already hurrying as
+fast as she could, and herself only half-dressed at that!</p>
+
+<p>Of course the breakfast was a failure. Helen said that perhaps some
+people could get a meal of victuals on to the table, with a hungry man
+eyeing their every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> move, but she could not. Burke declared then that he
+really did not want any breakfast anyway, and he started to go; but as
+Helen only cried the more at this, he had to come back and comfort
+her&mdash;thereby, in the end, being both breakfastless and late to his work.</p>
+
+<p>Helen, after he had gone, spent a blissfully wretched ten minutes
+weeping over the sad fate that should doom such a child of light and
+laughter as herself to the somber r&ocirc;le of martyr wife, and wondered if,
+after all, it would not be really more impressive and more
+soul-torturing-with-remorse for the cruel father-in-law, if she should
+take poison, or gas, or something (not disfiguring), and lay herself
+calmly down to die, her beautiful hands crossed meekly upon her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>Attractive as was this picture in some respects, it yet had its
+drawbacks. Then, too, there was the laurel wreath of praise due her
+later. She had almost forgotten that. On the whole, that would be
+preferable to the poison, Helen decided, as she began, with really
+cheerful alacrity, to attack the messy breakfast dishes.</p>
+
+<p>It was not alone the cooking that troubled the young wife during that
+first month of housekeeping. Everywhere she found pitfalls for her
+unwary feet, from managing the kitchen range to keeping the living-room
+dusted.</p>
+
+<p>And there was the money.</p>
+
+<p>Helen's idea of money, in her happy, care-free girlhood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> had been that
+it was one of the common necessities of life; and she accepted it as she
+did the sunshine&mdash;something she was entitled to; something everybody
+had. She learned the fallacy of this, of course, when she attempted to
+earn her own living; but in marrying the son of the rich John Denby, she
+had expected to step back into the sunshine, as it were. It was not easy
+now to adjust herself to the change.</p>
+
+<p>She did not like the idea of asking for every penny she spent, and it
+seemed as if she was always having to ask Burke for money; and, though
+he invariably handed it over with a nervously quick, "Why, yes,
+certainly! I don't mean you to have to ask for it, Helen"; yet she
+thought she detected a growing irritation in his manner each time. And
+on the last occasion he had added a dismayed "But I hadn't any idea you
+could have got out so soon as this again!" And it made her feel very
+uncomfortable indeed.</p>
+
+<p>As if <i>she</i> were to blame that it took so much butter and coffee and
+sugar and stuff just to get three meals a day! And as if it were her
+fault that that horrid cookbook was always calling for something she did
+not have, like mace, or summer savory, or thyme, and she had to run out
+and buy a pound of it! Didn't he suppose it took <i>some</i> money to stock
+up with things, when one hadn't a thing to begin with?</p>
+
+<p>Helen had been on the point of saying something of this sort to her
+husband, simply as a matter of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> self-justification, when there
+unexpectedly came a most delightful solution of her difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>It was the grocer who pointed the way.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you open an account with us, Mrs. Denby?" he asked smilingly
+one day, in reply to her usual excuse that she could not buy something
+because she did not have the money to pay for it.</p>
+
+<p>"An account? What's that? That wouldn't make me have any more money,
+would it? Father was always talking about accounts&mdash;good ones and bad
+ones. He kept a store, you know. But I never knew what they were,
+exactly. I never thought of asking. I never had to pay any attention to
+money at home. What is an account? How can I get one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you give your orders as usual, but let the payment go until the
+end of the month," smiled the grocer. "We'll charge it&mdash;note it down,
+you know&mdash;then send the bill to your husband."</p>
+
+<p>"And I won't have to ask him for any money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not to pay us." The man's lips twitched a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that would be just grand," she sighed longingly. "I'd like that.
+And it's something the way we're buying our furniture, isn't
+it?&mdash;installments, you know."</p>
+
+<p>The grocer's lips twitched again.</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;y-yes, only we send a bill for the entire month."</p>
+
+<p>"And he pays it? Oh, I see. That's just grand! And he'd like it all
+right, wouldn't he?&mdash;because of course he'd have to pay some time,
+anyhow. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> this way he wouldn't have to have me bothering him so much
+all the time asking for money. Oh, thank you. You're very kind. I think
+I will do that way if you don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be glad to have you, Mrs. Denby. So we'll call that settled.
+And now you can begin right away this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"And can I get those canned peaches and pears and plums, and the grape
+jelly that I first looked at?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;if you decide you want 'em," mumbled the grocer, throwing
+the last six words as a sop to his conscience which was beginning to
+stir unpleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I want 'em," averred Helen, her eager eyes sweeping the
+alluringly laden shelves before her. "I wanted them all the time, you
+know, only I didn't have enough money to pay for them. Now it'll be all
+right because Burke'll pay&mdash;I mean, Mr. Denby," she corrected with a
+conscious blush, suddenly remembering what her husband had said the
+night before about her calling him "Burke" so much to strangers.</p>
+
+<p>Helen found she wanted not only the fruits and jelly, but several other
+cans of soups, meats, and vegetables. And it was such a comfort, for
+once, to select what she wanted, and not have to count up the money in
+her purse! She was radiantly happy when she went home from market that
+morning (instead of being tired and worried as was usually the case);
+and the glow on her face lasted all through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> day and into the
+evening&mdash;so much so that even Burke must have noticed it, for he told
+her he did not know when he had seen her looking so pretty. And he gave
+her an extra kiss or two when he greeted her.</p>
+
+<p>The second month of housekeeping proved to be a great improvement over
+the first. It was early in that month that Helen learned the joy and
+comfort of having "an account" at her grocer's. And she soon discovered
+that not yet had she probed this delight to its depths, for not only the
+grocer, but the fishman and the butcher were equally kind, and allowed
+her to open accounts with them. Coincident with this came the discovery
+that there were such institutions as bakeries and delicatessen shops,
+which seemed to have been designed especially to meet the needs of just
+such harassed little martyr housewives as she herself was; for in them
+one might buy bread and cakes and pies and even salads and cold meats,
+and fish balls. One might, indeed, with these delectable organizations
+at hand, snap one's fingers at all the cookbooks in the world&mdash;cookbooks
+that so miserably failed to cook!</p>
+
+<p>The baker and the little Dutch delicatessen man, too (when they found
+out who she was), expressed themselves as delighted to open an account;
+and with the disagreeable necessity eliminated of paying on the spot for
+what one ordered, and with so great an assortment of ready-to-eat foods
+to select from, Helen found her meal-getting that second month a much
+simpler matter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then, too, Helen was much happier now that she did not have to ask her
+husband for money. She accepted what he gave her, and thanked him; but
+she said nothing about her new method of finance.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to keep it secret till the stores send him the bills," said
+Helen to herself. "Then I'll show him what a lot I've saved from what he
+has given me, and he'll be so glad to pay things all at once without
+being bothered with my everlasting teasing!"</p>
+
+<p>She only smiled, therefore, enigmatically, when he said one day, as he
+passed over the money:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Jove, girl! I quite forgot. You must be getting low. But I'm glad you
+didn't have to ask me for it, anyhow!"</p>
+
+<p>Ask him for it, indeed! How pleased he would be when he found out that
+she was never going to ask him for money again!</p>
+
+<p>Helen was meaning to be very economical these days. When she went to
+market she always saw several things she would have liked, that she did
+not get, for of course she wanted to make the bills as small as she
+could. Naturally Burke would wish her to do that. She tried to save,
+too, a good deal of the money Burke gave her; but that was not always
+possible, for there were her own personal expenses. True, she did not
+need many clothes&mdash;but she was able to pick up a few bargains in bows
+and collars (one always needed fresh neckwear, of course); and she found
+some lovely silk stockings, too, that were very cheap, so she bought
+several pairs&mdash;to save money. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> of course there were always car-fares
+and a soda now and then, or a little candy.</p>
+
+<p>There were the "movies" too. She had fallen into the way of going rather
+frequently to the Empire with her neighbor on the same floor. It did her
+good, and got her out of herself. (She had read only recently how every
+wife should have some recreation; it was a duty she owed herself and her
+husband&mdash;to keep herself youthful and attractive.) She got lonesome and
+nervous, sitting at home all day; and now that she had systematized her
+housekeeping so beautifully by buying almost everything all cooked, she
+had plenty of leisure. Of course she would have preferred to go to the
+Olympia Theater. They had a stock company there, and real plays. But
+their cheapest seats were twenty-five cents, while she might go to the
+Empire for ten. So very bravely she put aside her expensive longings,
+and chose the better part&mdash;economy and the movies. Besides, Mrs. Jones,
+the neighbor on the same floor, said that, for her part, she liked the
+movies the best,&mdash;you got "such a powerful lot more for your dough."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Jones always had something bright and original like that to
+say&mdash;Helen liked her very much! Indeed, she told Burke one day that Mrs.
+Jones was almost as good as a movie show herself. Burke, however, did
+not seem to care for Mrs. Jones. For that matter, he did not care for
+the movies, either.</p>
+
+<p>No matter where Helen went in the afternoon, she was always very careful
+to be at home before Burke.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> She hoped she knew what pertained to being
+a perfect wife better than to be careless about matters like that! Mrs.
+Jones was not always so particular in regard to her husband&mdash;which only
+served to give Helen a pleasant, warm little feeling of superiority at
+the difference.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps Mrs. Jones detected the superiority, for sometimes she laughed,
+and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"All right, we'll go if you must; but you'll soon get over it. This
+lovey-dovey-I'm-right-here-hubby business is all very well for a while,
+but&mdash;you wait!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, I'm waiting. But&mdash;you see!" Helen always laughed back,
+bridling prettily.</p>
+
+<p>Hurrying home from shopping or the theater, therefore, Helen always
+stopped and got her potato salad and cold meat, or whatever else she
+needed. And the meal was invariably on the table before Burke's key
+sounded in the lock.</p>
+
+<p>Helen was, indeed, feeling quite as if she were beginning to realize her
+vision now. Was she not each night the loving, daintily gowned wife
+welcoming her husband to a well-ordered, attractive home? There was even
+quite frequently a bouquet of flowers on the dinner table. Somewhere she
+had read that flowers always added much to a meal; and since then she
+had bought them when she felt that she could afford them. And in the
+market there were almost always some cheap ones, only a little faded. Of
+course, she never bought the fresh, expensive ones.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner there was the long evening together.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> Sometimes they went
+to walk, after the dishes were done&mdash;Burke had learned to dry dishes
+beautifully. More often they stayed at home and played games, or
+read&mdash;Burke was always wanting to read. Sometimes they just talked,
+laying wonderful plans about the fine new house they were going to
+build. Now that Helen did not have to ask Burke for money, there did not
+seem to be so many occasions when he was fretful and nervous; and they
+were much happier together.</p>
+
+<p>All things considered, therefore, Helen felt, indeed, before this second
+month of housekeeping was over, that she had now "got things nicely to
+running."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HUSBAND</h3>
+
+<p>Burke Denby had never given any thought as to whether he were going to
+be a perfect husband or not. He had wanted to marry Helen, and he had
+married her. That was all there was to it, except, of course, that they
+had got to show his father that they could make good.</p>
+
+<p>So far as being a husband&mdash;good, bad, or indifferent&mdash;was concerned,
+Burke was not giving any more thought to it now than he had given before
+his marriage. He was quite too busy giving thought to other
+matters&mdash;many other matters.</p>
+
+<p>There was first his work. He hated it. He hated the noise, the smell,
+the grime, the overalls, the men he worked with, the smug
+superciliousness of his especial "boss." He felt abused and indignant
+that he had to endure it all. As if it were necessary to put him through
+such a course of sprouts as this! As if, when the time came, he could
+not run the business successfully without all these years of dirt and
+torture! Was an engineer, then, made to <i>build</i> an engine before he
+could be taught to handle the throttle? Was a child made to set the type
+of a primer before he could be taught his letters? Of course not! But
+they were making him not only set the type, but go down into the mines
+and dig the stuff the type was made of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> before they would teach him his
+letters. Yet they pretended it all must be done if he would ever learn
+to read&mdash;that is, to run the Denby Iron Works. Bah! He had a mind to
+chuck it all. He would if it weren't for dad. Dad hated quitters. And
+dad was looking wretched enough, as it was.</p>
+
+<p>And that was another thing&mdash;dad.</p>
+
+<p>Undeniably Burke was very unhappy over his father. He did not like to
+think of him, yet his face was always before him, pale and drawn, as he
+had seen it at that first interview after his return. As the days
+passed, Burke, in spite of his wish not to see his father, found himself
+continually seizing every opportunity that might enable him to see him.
+Daily he found himself haunting doorways and corridors, quite out of his
+way, when there was a chance that his father might pass.</p>
+
+<p>He told himself that it was just that he wanted to convince himself that
+his father did not look quite so bad, after all. But he knew in his
+heart that it was because he hoped his father would speak to him in the
+old way, and that it might lead to the tearing down of this horrible
+high wall of indifference and formality that had risen between them.
+Burke hated that wall.</p>
+
+<p>The wall was there, however, always. Nothing ever came of these
+connivings and loiterings except (if it were during working hours) a
+terse hint from the foreman, perhaps, to get back on his job. How Burke
+hated that foreman!</p>
+
+<p>And that was another thing&mdash;his position among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> his fellow workmen. He
+was with them, but not of them. His being among them at all was plainly
+a huge joke&mdash;and when one is acting a tragedy in all seriousness, one
+does not like to hear chuckles as at a comedy. But, for that matter,
+Burke found the comedy element always present, wherever he went. The
+entire town took himself, his work, and his marriage as a huge joke&mdash;a
+subject for gay badinage, jocose slaps on the back, and gleeful cries
+of:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Denby, how goes it? How doth the happy bridegroom?"</p>
+
+<p>And Burke hated that, too.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Burke, indeed, sometimes, that he hated everything but
+Helen. Helen, of course, was a dear&mdash;the sweetest little wife in the
+world. As if any one could help loving Helen! And however disagreeable
+the day, there was always Helen to go home to at night.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, of course, he had to take that abominable flat along with
+Helen&mdash;naturally, as long as he could not afford to put her in a more
+expensive place. But that would soon be remedied&mdash;just as soon as he got
+a little ahead.</p>
+
+<p>This "going home to Helen" had been one of Burke's happiest
+anticipations ever since his marriage. It would be so entrancing to find
+Helen and Helen's kiss waiting for him each night! Often had such
+thoughts been in his mind during his honeymoon trip; but never had they
+been so poignantly promising of joy as they were on that first day at
+the Works,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> after his disheartening interview with his father. All the
+rest of that miserable day it seemed to Burke that the only thing he was
+living for was the going home to Helen that night.</p>
+
+<p>"Home," to Burke, had always meant a place of peace and rest, of
+luxurious ease and noiseless servants, of orderly rooms and well-served
+meals, of mellow lights and softly blended colors. Unconsciously now
+home still meant the same, with the addition of Helen&mdash;Helen, the center
+of it all. It was this dear vision, therefore, that he treasured all
+through his honeymoon trip, that he hugged to himself all that wretched
+first day of work, and that was still his star of hope as he hurried
+that night toward the Dale Street flat. If he had stopped to think, he
+would have realized at once that this new home of a day was not the old
+home of years. But he did not stop to think of anything except that for
+the first time in his life he was going home from work to Helen, his
+wife.</p>
+
+<p>Burke Denby never forgot the shock of that first home-going. He opened
+the door of his apartment&mdash;and confronted chaos: a surly janitor
+struggling with a curtain pole, a confusion of trunks, chairs, a
+stepladder, and a floor-pail, a disorder of dishes on a coverless table,
+a smell of burned milk, and a cross, tired, untidy wife who flung
+herself into his arms with a storm of sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"Home," after that, meant quite something new to Burke Denby. It meant
+Helen, of course, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Still it would be only for a little while, after all, he consoled
+himself each day. Just as soon as he got ahead a little, it would be
+different. He could sell the stuff, then; and the very first thing to go
+would be that hideous purple pillow on the red plush sofa&mdash;for that
+matter, the sofa would follow after mighty quick. And the chairs, too.
+They were a little worse to sit on than to look at&mdash;which was
+unnecessary. As for the rugs&mdash;when it came to those, it would be his
+turn to select next time. At all events, he would not be obliged to have
+one that, the minute you opened the door, bounced into your face and
+screamed "Hullo! I'm here. See me!" How he hated that rug! And the
+pictures and those cheap gilt vases&mdash;everything, of course, would be
+different in the new home.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did Burke stop to think that this constant shifting, in one's mind,
+of things that are, to things that may some time be, scarcely makes for
+content.</p>
+
+<p>Still, Burke could not have forgotten his house-furnishings, even if he
+had tried to do so, for he had to make payments on them "every few
+minutes," as he termed it. Indeed, one of the unsolved riddles of his
+life these days was as to why there were so many more Mondays (the day
+he paid his installments) than there were Saturdays (the day the Works
+paid him) in a week. For that matter, after all was said and done,
+perhaps to nothing was Burke Denby giving more thought these days than
+to money.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Burke's experience with money heretofore had been to draw a check for
+what he wanted. True, he sometimes overdrew his account a trifle; but
+there was always his allowance coming the first of the month; and
+neither he nor the bank worried.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was quite different. There was no allowance, and no bank&mdash;save
+his pocket, and there was only fifteen dollars a week coming into that.
+He would not have believed that fifteen dollars a week could go so
+quickly, and buy so little. Very early in the first month of
+housekeeping all that remained of his allowance was gone. What did not
+go at once to make payments on the furniture was paid over to Helen to
+satisfy some of her many requests for money.</p>
+
+<p>And that was another of Burke's riddles&mdash;why Helen needed so much money
+just to get them something to eat. True, of late, she had not asked for
+it so frequently. She had not, indeed, asked for any for some time&mdash;for
+which he was devoutly thankful. He would not have liked to refuse her;
+and he certainly was giving her all that he could afford to give,
+without her asking. A fellow must smoke some&mdash;though Heaven knew he had
+cut his cigars down, both in quantity and quality, until he had cut out
+nearly all the pleasure!</p>
+
+<p>Still he was glad to do it for Helen. Helen was a little brick. How
+pretty she looked when she was holding forth on his "making good," and
+her not "dragging" him "down"! Bless her heart! As if she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> could be
+guilty of such a thing as that! Why, she was going to drag him up&mdash;Helen
+was!</p>
+
+<p>And she was doing pretty well, too, running the little home, for a girl
+who did not know a thing about it, to begin with. She was doing a whole
+lot better than at first. Breakfast had not been late for two weeks, nor
+dinner, either. And she was almost always at the door to kiss him now,
+too, while at the first he had to hunt her up, only to find her crying
+in the kitchen, probably&mdash;something wrong somewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, to be sure, he <i>was</i> getting a little tired of potato salad, and he
+always had abhorred those potato-chippy things; and he himself did not
+care much for cold meat. But, of course, after she got a little more
+used to things she wouldn't serve that sort of trash quite so often. He
+would be getting real things to eat, pretty soon&mdash;good, juicy beefsteaks
+and roasts, and nice fresh vegetables and fruit shortcakes, with muffins
+and griddle-cakes for breakfast. But Helen was a little brick&mdash;Helen
+was. And she was doing splendidly!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>STUMBLING-BLOCKS</h3>
+
+<p>Mrs. Burke Denby was a little surprised at the number of letters
+directed to her husband in the morning mail that first day of November,
+until she noticed the familiar names in the upper left-hand corners of
+several of the envelopes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's the bills," she murmured, drawing in her breath a little
+uncertainly. "To-day's the first, and they said they'd send them then.
+But I didn't think there'd be such a lot of them. Still, I've had things
+at all those places. Well, anyway, he'll be glad to pay them all at
+once, without my teasing for money all the time," she finished with
+resolute insistence, as she turned back to her work.</p>
+
+<p>If, now that the time had come, and the bills lay before her in all
+their fearsome reality, Helen was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her
+financial system, she would not admit it, even to herself. And she still
+wore a determinedly cheerful face when her husband came home to dinner
+that night. She went into the kitchen as he began to open his mail&mdash;she
+was reminded of a sudden something that needed her attention. Two
+minutes later she nearly dropped the dish of potato salad she was
+carrying, at the sound of his voice from the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Helen, what in Heaven's name is the meaning of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> these bills?" He was in
+the kitchen now, holding out a sheaf of tightly clutched papers in each
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Helen set the potato salad down hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, don't&mdash;don't look at me so!"</p>
+
+<p>"But what does this mean? What are these things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, they&mdash;they're just bills, I suppose. They <i>said</i> they'd be."</p>
+
+<p>"Bills! Great C&aelig;sar, Helen! You don't mean to say that you <i>do</i> know
+about them&mdash;that you bought all this stuff?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen's lip began to quiver.</p>
+
+<p>"Burke, don't&mdash;please don't look like that. You frighten me."</p>
+
+<p>"Frighten you! What do you think of <i>me</i>?&mdash;springing a thing like this!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, I&mdash;I thought you'd <i>like</i> it."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Like</i> it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes&mdash;that I didn't have to ask you for money all the time. And you'd
+have to p-pay 'em some time, anyhow. We had to eat, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"But, great Scott, Helen! We aren't a hotel! Look at
+that&mdash;'salad'&mdash;'salad'&mdash;'salad,'" he exploded, pointing a shaking finger
+at a series of items on the uppermost bill in his left hand. "There's
+tons of the stuff there, and I always did abominate it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, I&mdash;I&mdash;" And the floods came.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thunderation! Helen, Helen, don't&mdash;please don't!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But I thought I was going to p-please you, and you called me a h-hotel,
+and said you a-abominated it!" she wailed, stumbling away blindly.</p>
+
+<p>With a despairing ejaculation Burke flung the bills to the floor, and
+caught the sob-shaken little figure of his wife in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"There, there, I was a brute, and I didn't mean it&mdash;not a word of it.
+Sweetheart, don't, please don't," he begged. "Why, girlie, all the bills
+in Christendom aren't worth a tear from your dear eyes. Come, <i>won't</i>
+you stop?"</p>
+
+<p>But Helen did not stop, at once. The storm was short, but tempestuous.
+At the end of ten minutes, however, together they went into the
+dining-room. Helen carried the potato salad (which Burke declared he was
+really hungry for to-day), and Burke carried the bills crumpled in one
+hand behind his back, his other arm around his wife's waist.</p>
+
+<p>That evening a remorseful, wistful-eyed wife and a husband with an
+"I'll-be-patient-if-it-kills-me" air went over the subject of household
+finances, and came to an understanding.</p>
+
+<p>There were to be no more charge accounts. For the weekly expenses Helen
+was to have every cent that could possibly be spared; but what she could
+not pay cash for, they must go without, if they starved. In a pretty
+little book she must put down on one side the money received. On the
+other, the money spent. She was a dear, good little wife, and he loved
+her 'most to death; but he couldn't let her run up bills<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> when he had
+not a red cent to pay them with. He would borrow, of course, for
+these&mdash;he was not going to have any dirty little tradesmen pestering him
+with bills all the time! But this must be the last. Never again!</p>
+
+<p>And Helen said yes, yes, indeed. And she was very sure she would love to
+keep the pretty little book, and put down all the money she got, and all
+she spent.</p>
+
+<p>All this was very well in theory. But in practice&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the first week Helen brought her book to her husband, and
+spread it open before him with great gusto.</p>
+
+<p>On the one side were several entries of small sums, amounting to eight
+dollars received. On the other side were the words: "Spent all but
+seventeen cents."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you should put down what you spent it for," corrected Burke,
+with a merry laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, er&mdash;so you can see&mdash;er&mdash;what the money goes for."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the difference&mdash;if it goes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shucks! You can't keep a cash account that way! You have to put 'em
+both down, and then&mdash;er&mdash;balance up and see if your cash comes right.
+See, like this," he cried, taking a little book from his pocket. "I'm
+keeping one." And he pointed to a little list which read:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td align='left'>Lunch</td><td align='right'>$.25</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cigar</td><td align='right'>.10</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Car-fare</td><td align='right'>.10</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Paper</td><td align='right'>.02</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Helen</td><td align='right'>2.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Cigars</td><td align='right'>.25</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Paper</td><td align='right'>.02</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>"Now that's what I spent yesterday. You want to put yours down like
+that, then add 'em up and subtract it from what you receive. What's left
+should equal your cash on hand."</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m; well, all right," assented Helen dubiously, as she picked up her
+own little book.</p>
+
+<p>Helen looked still more dubious when she presented her book for
+inspection the next week.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I like it this way," she announced, with a pout.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, the mean old thing steals&mdash;actually steals! It says I ought
+to have one dollar and forty-five cents; and I haven't got but fourteen
+cents! It's got it itself&mdash;somewhere!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, that's easy, dear!" The man gave an indulgent laugh. "You didn't
+put 'em all down&mdash;what you spent."</p>
+
+<p>"But I did&mdash;everything I could remember. Besides, I borrowed fifty cents
+of Mrs. Jones. I didn't put that down anywhere. I didn't know where to
+put it."</p>
+
+<p>"Helen! You borrowed money&mdash;of that woman?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She isn't 'that woman'! She's my friend, and I like her," flared Helen,
+hotly. "I had to have some eggs, and I didn't have a cent of money. I
+shall pay her back, of course,&mdash;next time you pay me."</p>
+
+<p>Burke frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, come, Helen, this will never do," he remonstrated. "Of course
+you'll pay her back; but I can't have my wife borrowing of the
+neighbors!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I had to! I had to have some eggs," she choked, "and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know. But I mean, we won't again," interrupted the man
+desperately, fleeing to cover in the face of the threatening storm of
+sobs. "And, anyhow, we'll see that you have some money now," he cried
+gayly, plunging his hands into his pockets, and pulling out all the
+bills and change he had. "There, 'with all my worldly goods I thee
+endow,'" he laughed, lifting his hands above her bright head, and
+showering the money all over her.</p>
+
+<p>Like children then they scrambled for the rolling nickels and elusive
+dimes; and in the ensuing frolic the tiresome account-book was
+forgotten&mdash;which was exactly what Burke had hoped would happen.</p>
+
+<p>This was the second week. At the end of the third, the "mean old thing"
+was in a worse muddle than ever, according to Helen; and, for her part,
+she would rather never buy anything at all if she had got to go and tell
+that nuisance of a book every time!</p>
+
+<p>The fourth Saturday night Helen did not produce the book at all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't keep that any longer," she announced, with airy
+nonchalance, in answer to Burke's question. "It never came right, and I
+hated it, anyhow. So what's the use? I've got what I've got, and I've
+spent what I've spent. So what's the difference?" And Burke, after a
+feeble remonstrance, gave it up as a bad job. Incidentally it might be
+mentioned that Burke was having a little difficulty with his own cash
+account, and was tempted to accuse his own book of stealing&mdash;else where
+did the money go?</p>
+
+<p>It was the next Monday night that Burke came home with a radiant
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Gleason's here&mdash;up at the Hancock House. He's coming down after
+dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's Gleason?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen's tone was a little fretful&mdash;there was a new, intangible something
+in her husband's voice that Helen did not understand, and that she did
+not think she liked.</p>
+
+<p>"Gleason! Who's Doc Gleason!" exclaimed Burke, with widening eyes. "Oh,
+I forgot. You don't know him, do you?" he added, with a slight frown.
+Burke Denby was always forgetting that Helen knew nothing of his friends
+or of himself until less than a year before. "Well, Doc Gleason is the
+best ever. He went to Egypt with us last year, and to Alaska the year
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"How old is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Old? Why, I don't know&mdash;thirty&mdash;maybe more. He must be a little more,
+come to think of it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> But you never think of age with the doctor. He'll
+be young when he's ninety."</p>
+
+<p>"And you like him&mdash;so well?" Her voice was a little wistful.</p>
+
+<p>"Next to dad&mdash;always have. You'll like him, too. You can't help it. He's
+mighty interesting."</p>
+
+<p>"And he's a doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and no. Oh, he graduated and hung out his shingle; but he never
+practiced much. He had money enough, anyway, and he got interested in
+scientific research&mdash;antiquarian, mostly, though he's done a bit of
+mountain-climbing and glacier-studying for the National Geographic
+Society."</p>
+
+<p>"Antiquarian? Oh, yes, I know&mdash;old things. Mother was that way, too. She
+had an old pewter plate, and a dark blue china teapot, homely as a hedge
+fence, I thought, but she doted on 'em. And she doted on ancestors, too.
+She had one in that old ship&mdash;Mayflower, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Burke laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Mayflower! My dear child, the Mayflower is a mere infant-in-arms in the
+doctor's estimation. The doctor goes back to prehistoric times for his
+playground, and to the men of the old Stone Age for his preferred
+playmates."</p>
+
+<p>"Older than the Mayflower, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"A trifle&mdash;some thousands of years."</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness! How can he? I thought the Mayflower was bad enough. But what
+does he do&mdash;collect things?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, to some extent; he has a fine collection of Babylonian tablets,
+and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know&mdash;those funny little brown and yellow cakes like soap, all
+cut into with pointed little marks&mdash;what do you call it?&mdash;like your
+father has in his library!"</p>
+
+<p>"The cuneiform writing? Yes. As I said, the doctor has a fine collection
+of tablets, and of some other things; but principally he studies and
+goes on trips. It was a trip to the Spanish grottoes that got him
+interested in the arch&aelig;ological business in the first place, and put him
+out of conceit with doctoring. He goes a lot now, sometimes
+independently, sometimes in the interest of some society. He does in a
+scientific way what dad and I have done for fun&mdash;traveling and
+collecting, I mean. Then, too, he has written a book or two which are
+really authoritative in their line. He's a great chap&mdash;the doctor is.
+Wait till you see him. I've told him about you, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you told him&mdash;that is&mdash;he knows&mdash;about the marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sure he does!" Burke's manner was a bit impatient. "What do you
+suppose, when he's coming here to-night? Now, mind, put on your
+prettiest frock and your sweetest smile. I want him to see <i>why</i> I
+married you," he challenged banteringly. "I want him to see what a
+treasure I've got. And say, dearie, <i>do</i> you suppose&mdash;<i>could</i> we have
+him to dinner, or something? Could you manage it? I wanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> to ask him
+to-night; but of course I couldn't&mdash;without your knowing beforehand."</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy, no, Burke!" shuddered the young housekeeper. "Don't you
+dare&mdash;when I don't know it."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you do know it&mdash;" He paused hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, y-yes, I guess so. Of course I could get things I was sure of,
+like potato salad and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Burke sat back in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Helen, I'm afraid&mdash;I don't think&mdash;that is, I'm 'most sure Gleason
+doesn't like potato salad," he stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't he? Well, he needn't eat it, then. We'll have all the more left
+for the next day."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Helen, er&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll have chips, too; don't worry, dear. I'll give him something to
+eat," she promised gayly. "Do you suppose I'm going to have one of your
+swell friends come here, and then have you ashamed of me? You just wait
+and see!"</p>
+
+<p>"Er, no&mdash;no, indeed, of course not," plunged in her husband feverishly,
+trying to ward off a repetition of the "swell"&mdash;a word he particularly
+abhorred.</p>
+
+<p>Several times in the last two months he had heard Helen use this
+word&mdash;twice when she had informed him with great glee that some swell
+friends of his from Elm Hill had come in their carriage to call; and
+again quite often when together on the street they met some one whom he
+knew. He thought he hated the word a little more bitterly every time he
+heard it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For several weeks now the Denbys had been receiving calls&mdash;Burke Denby
+was a Denby of Denby Mansion even though he was temporarily marooned on
+Dale Street at a salary of sixty dollars a month. Besides, to many, Dale
+Street and the sixty dollars, with the contributory elements of
+elopement and irate parent, only added piquancy and interest to what
+would otherwise have been nothing but the conventional duty call.</p>
+
+<p>To Helen, in the main, these calls were a welcome diversion&mdash;"just
+grand," indeed. To Burke, on whom the curiosity element was not lost,
+they were an impertinence and a nuisance. Yet he endured them, and even
+welcomed them, in a way; for he wanted Helen to know his friends, and to
+like them&mdash;better than she liked Mrs. Jones. He did not care for Mrs.
+Jones. She talked too loud, and used too much slang. He did not like to
+have Helen with her. Always, therefore, after callers had been there,
+his first eager question was: "How did you like them, dear?" He wanted
+so much that Helen should like them!</p>
+
+<p>To-night, however, in thinking of the prospective visit from Gleason, he
+was wondering how the doctor would like Helen&mdash;not how Helen would like
+the doctor. The change was significant but unconscious&mdash;perhaps all the
+more significant because it was unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>Until he had reached home that night, Burke had been so overjoyed at the
+prospect of an old-time chat with his friend that he had given little
+thought to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> Gleason's probable opinion of the Dale Street flat and its
+furnishings. Now, with his eyes on the obtrusive unharmony all about
+him, and his memory going back to the doctor's well-known fastidiousness
+of taste, he could think of little else. He did hope Gleason would not
+think <i>he</i> had selected those horrors! Of course he had already
+explained&mdash;a little&mdash;about his father's disapproval of the marriage, and
+the resulting cutting-off of his allowance; but even that would not
+excuse (to Gleason) the riot of glaring reds and pinks and purples in
+his living-rooms; and one could not very well explain that one's wife
+<i>liked</i> the horrors&mdash; He pulled himself up sharply. Of course Helen
+herself was a dear. He hoped Gleason would see how dear she was. He
+wanted Gleason to like Helen.</p>
+
+<p>As the hour drew near for the expected guest's arrival, Burke Denby,
+greatly to his vexation, found himself growing more and more nervous. He
+asked himself indignantly if he were going to let a purple cushion
+entirely spoil the pleasure of the evening. Not until he had seen
+Gleason that afternoon had he realized how sorely he had missed his
+father's companionship all these past weeks. Not until he had found
+himself bubbling over with the things he wanted to talk about that
+evening had he realized how keenly he had missed the mental stimulus of
+that father's comradeship. And now, for the sake of a purple cushion,
+was he to lose the only chance he had had for weeks of conversing with
+an intelligent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>With an almost audible gasp the shocked and shamed husband pulled
+himself up again.</p>
+
+<p>Well, of course Helen was intelligent. It was only that she was not
+interested in, and did not know about, these things he was thinking of;
+and&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The doorbell rang sharply, and Burke leaped to his feet and hastened to
+press the button that would release the catch of the lock at the
+entrance below.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, you never called down through the tube at all, and asked
+who it was," remonstrated Helen, hurrying in, her fingers busy with the
+final fastenings of her dress.</p>
+
+<p>"You bet your life I didn't," laughed Burke, a bit grimly. "You've got
+another guess coming if you think I'm going to hold Doc Gleason off at
+the end of a 'Who is it?' bellowed into his ear from that impertinent
+copper trumpet down there."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, that's all right. Everybody does it," maintained Helen. "We
+have to, else we'd be letting all sorts of folks in, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At a warning gesture from her husband she stopped just as a tall,
+smooth-shaven man with kind eyes and a grave smile appeared at the open
+hallway door.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad to see you, doctor," cried Burke, extending a cordial hand, that
+yet trembled a little. "Let me present you to my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure," bobbed Helen. And because she was
+nervous she said the next thing that came into her head. "And I hope
+you're pleased<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> to meet me, too. All Burke's friends are so swell, you
+know, that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;ah&mdash;" broke in the dismayed husband.</p>
+
+<p>But the visitor advanced quietly, still with that same grave smile, and
+clasped Mrs. Denby's extended hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sure Burke's friends are, indeed, very glad to meet you," he
+said. "Certainly I am," he finished, with a cordial heartiness so nicely
+balanced that even Burke Denby's sensitive alertness could find in it
+neither the overzealousness of insincerity nor the indifference of
+disdain.</p>
+
+<p>Even when, a minute later, they turned and went into the living room,
+Burke's still apprehensive watchfulness could detect in his friend's
+face not one trace of the dismayed horror he had been dreading to see
+there.</p>
+
+<p>"Gleason's a brick," he sighed to himself, trying to relax his tense
+muscles. "As if I didn't know that every last gimcrack in this miserable
+room would fairly scream at him the moment he entered that door!"</p>
+
+<p>In spite of everybody's very evident efforts to have everything pass off
+pleasantly, the evening was anything but a success. Helen, at first shy
+and ill at ease, said little. Then, as if suddenly realizing her
+deficiencies as a hostess, she tried to remedy it by talking very loud
+and very fast about anything that came into her mind, reveling
+especially in minute details concerning their own daily lives, ranging
+all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> the way from stories of the elopement and the house-furnishing on
+the installment plan to hilarious accounts of her experiences with the
+cookbook and the account-book.</p>
+
+<p>Very plainly Helen was doing her best to "show off." From one to the
+other she looked, with little nods and coquettish smiles.</p>
+
+<p>To Gleason her manner said: "You see now why Burke fell in love with me,
+don't you?" To Burke it said: "There, now I guess you ain't ashamed of
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, still with the grave smile and kindly eyes, listened
+politely, uttering now and then a pleasant word or two, in a way that
+even the distraught husband could not criticize. As for the husband
+himself, between his anger at Helen and his anger at himself because of
+his anger at Helen, he was in a woeful condition of nervousness and
+ill-humor. Vainly trying to wrest the ball of conversation from Helen's
+bungling fingers, he yet felt obliged to laugh in apparent approval at
+her wild throws. Nor was he unaware of the sorry figure he thus made of
+himself. Having long since given up all hope of the anticipated chat
+with his friend, his one aim now was to get the visit over, and the
+doctor out of the house as soon as possible. Yet the very fact that he
+did want the visit over and the doctor gone only angered him the more,
+and put into his mouth words that were a mockery of cordiality. No
+wonder, then, that for Burke the evening was a series of fidgetings,
+throat-clearings,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> and nervous laughs that (if he had but known it) were
+fully as distressing to the doctor as they were to himself.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past nine the doctor rose to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, good people, I must go," he announced cheerily. (For the last
+half-hour the doctor had been wondering just how soon he might make that
+statement.) "It's half-past nine."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! That ain't late," protested Helen.</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed," echoed Burke&mdash;though Burke had promptly risen with his
+guest.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not, to you; but to me&mdash;" The doctor let a smile finish his
+sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"But you're coming again," gurgled Helen. "You're coming to dinner.
+Burke said you was."</p>
+
+<p>Burke's mouth flew open&mdash;but just in time he snapped it shut. He had
+remembered that hospitable husbands do not usually retract their wives'
+invitations with a terrified "For Heaven's sake, no!"&mdash;at least, not in
+the face of the prospective guest. Before he could put the new, proper
+words into his mouth, the doctor spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. You're very kind; but I'm afraid not&mdash;this time, Mrs. Denby.
+My stay is to be very short. But I'm glad to have had this little
+visit," he finished, holding out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>And again Burke, neither then, nor when he looked straight into the
+doctor's eyes a moment later, could find aught in word or manner upon
+which to pin his watchful suspicions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The next moment the doctor was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Helen yawned luxuriously, openly&mdash; Helen never troubled to hide her
+yawns.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I like <i>him</i>," she observed emphatically, but not very distinctly
+(owing to the yawn). "If all your swell friends were&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Helen, for Heaven's sake, <i>isn't</i> there any word but that abominable
+'swell' that you can use?" interrupted her husband, seizing the first
+pretext that offered itself as a scapegoat for his irritation.</p>
+
+<p>Helen laughed and shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"All right; 'stuck up,' then, if you like that better. But, for my part,
+I like 'swell' best. It's so expressive, so much more swell&mdash;there, you
+see," she laughed, with another shrug; "it just says itself. But,
+really, I do like the doctor. I think he's just grand. Where does he
+live?"</p>
+
+<p>"Boston." Burke hated "grand" only one degree less than "swell."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he married?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"How old did you say he was?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say. I don't know. Thirty-five, probably."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, what's the matter? What are you so short about? Don't you
+<i>like</i> it that I like him? I thought you wanted me to like your
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know; and I do, Helen, of course." Burke got to his feet
+and took a nervous turn about the tiny room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Helen watched him with widening eyes. The look of indolent satisfaction
+was gone from her face. She was not yawning now.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, what <i>is</i> the matter?" she catechized. "Wasn't I nice to
+him? Didn't I talk to him, and just lay myself out to entertain him?
+Didn't I ask him to dinner, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dinner!" Burke fairly snarled the word out as he wheeled sharply. "Holy
+smoke, Helen! I wonder if you think I'd have that man come here to
+dinner, or come here ever again to hear you&mdash; Oh, hang it all, what am I
+saying?" he broke off, jerking himself about with a despairing gesture.</p>
+
+<p>Helen came now to her feet. Her eyes blazed.</p>
+
+<p>"I know. You was ashamed of me," she panted.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, come; nonsense, Helen!"</p>
+
+<p>"You was."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I wasn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what was the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing; nothing, Helen."</p>
+
+<p>"There was, too. Don't you suppose I know? But I tried to do all right.
+I tried to make you p-proud of me," she choked. "I know I didn't talk
+much at first. I was scared and stupid, he was so fine and grand. And I
+didn't know a thing about all that Egyptian stuff you was talking about.
+Then I thought how 'shamed you'd be of me, and I just made up my mind I
+<i>would</i> talk and show him it wasn't a&mdash;a little fool that you'd married;
+and I s'posed I was doing what you wanted me to. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> I see now I
+wasn't. I wasn't fine enough for your grand friend. I ain't never fine
+enough for 'em. But I don't care. I hate 'em all&mdash;every one of 'em! I'd
+rather have Mrs. Jones twice over. <i>She</i> isn't ashamed of me. I thought
+I was p-pleasing you; and now&mdash;now&mdash;" Her words were lost in a storm of
+sobs.</p>
+
+<p>There was but one thing to be done, of course; and Burke did it. He took
+her in his arms and soothed and petted and praised her. What he said he
+did not know&mdash;nor care, for that matter, so long as it served ever so
+slightly to dam the flood of Helen's tears. That, for the moment, was
+the only thing worth living for. The storm passed at last, as storms
+must; but it was still a teary little wife that received her husband's
+good-night kiss some time later. Burke did not go to sleep very readily
+that night. In his mind he was going over his prospective meeting with
+his friend Gleason the next day.</p>
+
+<p>What would Gleason say? How would he act? What would he himself say?
+What <i>could</i> he say? He could not very well apologize for&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Even to himself Burke would not finish the sentence.</p>
+
+<p>Apologize? Indeed, no! As if there were anything, anyway, to apologize
+for! He would meet Gleason exactly as usual. He would carry his head
+high. There should be about him no air of apology or appeal. By his
+every act and word he would show that he was not in need of sympathy,
+and that he should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> resent comment. He might even ask Gleason to dinner.
+He believed he <i>would</i> ask him to dinner. In no other way, certainly,
+could he so convincingly show how&mdash;er&mdash;proud he was of his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Burke went to sleep then.</p>
+
+<p>It had been arranged that the two men should meet at noon for luncheon;
+and promptly on time Burke appeared at the hotel. His chin was indeed
+high, and for the first two minutes he was painfully guarded and
+self-conscious in his bearing. But under the unstudied naturalness of
+the doctor's manner, he speedily became his normal self; and in five
+minutes the two were conversing with their old ease and enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had with him an Egyptian scarab with a rarely interesting
+inscription, a new acquisition; also a tiny Babylonian tablet of great
+value. In both of them Burke was much interested. In the wake then of a
+five-thousand-year-old stylus, it is not strange that he forgot present
+problems.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm taking these up to-night for your father to see," smiled the
+doctor, after a short silence. "He writes me he's got a new tablet
+himself; a very old one. He thinks he's made a discovery on it, too. He
+swears he's picked out a veritable thumb-mark on one side."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! Dad's always discovering things," grinned Burke. "You know
+dad."</p>
+
+<p>"But he says this is a sure thing. It's visible with the naked eye; but
+under the microscope it's wonderful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> And&mdash; But, never mind! We'll see
+for ourselves to-night. You're coming up, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure! And I want to see&mdash;" The young man stopped abruptly. A painful
+color had swept to his forehead. "Er&mdash;no. On second thoughts I&mdash;I can't
+to-night," he corrected. In its resolute emphasis his voice sounded
+almost harsh. "But you&mdash;you're coming to dinner with us&mdash;to-morrow
+night, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no; no, thank you," began the doctor hastily. Then, suddenly, he
+encountered his friend's steadfast eye upon him. "Er&mdash;that is," he
+amended in his turn, "unless you&mdash;you are willing to let me come very
+informally, as I shall have to leave almost at once afterwards. I'm
+taking the eight-thirty train that evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. We shall expect you," answered the younger man, with a
+curious relaxation of voice and manner&mdash;a relaxation that puzzled and
+slightly worried the doctor, who was wondering whether it were the
+relaxation of relief or despair. The doctor was not sure yet that he had
+rightly interpreted that steadfast gaze. Two minutes later, Burke, once
+again self-conscious, constrained, and with his head high, took his
+leave.</p>
+
+<p>On his way back to work Burke berated himself soundly. Having
+deliberately bound himself to the martyrdom of a dinner to his friend,
+he was now insufferably angry that he should regard it as a martyrdom at
+all. Also he knew within himself that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> there seemed, for the moment,
+nothing that he would not give to spend the coming evening in the quiet
+restfulness of his father's library with the doctor and an Egyptian
+scarab.</p>
+
+<p>As if all the Egyptian scarabs and Babylonian tablets in the world
+<i>could</i> balance the scale with Helen on the other side!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>DIVERGING WAYS</h3>
+
+<p>Of course the inevitable happened. However near two roads may be at the
+start, if they diverge ever so slightly and keep straight ahead, there
+is bound to be in time all the world between them.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of Burke and Helen, their roads never started together at
+all: they merely crossed; and at the crossing came the wedding. They
+were miles apart at the start&mdash;miles apart in tastes, traditions, and
+environment. In one respect only were they alike: undisciplined
+self-indulgence&mdash;a likeness that meant only added differences when it
+came to the crossing; and that made it all the more nearly impossible to
+merge those two diverging roads into one wide way leading straight on to
+wedded happiness.</p>
+
+<p>All his life Burke had consulted no one's will but his own. It was not
+easy now to walk when he wanted to sit still, nor to talk when he wanted
+to read; especially as the one who wanted him to walk and to talk
+happened to be a willful young person who all <i>her</i> life had been in the
+habit of walking and talking when <i>she</i> wanted to.</p>
+
+<p>Burke, accustomed from babyhood to leaving his belongings wherever he
+happened to drop them, was first surprised and then angry that he did
+not find<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> them magically restored to their proper places, as in the days
+of his boyhood and youth. Burke abhorred disorder. Helen, accustomed
+from her babyhood to being picked-up after, easily drifted into the way
+of letting all things, both hers and his, lie as they were. It saved a
+great deal of work.</p>
+
+<p>Even so simple a matter as the temperature of a sleeping-room had its
+difficulties. Burke liked air. He wanted the windows wide open. Helen,
+trained to think night air was damp and dangerous, wanted them shut. And
+when two people are sleepy, cross, and tired, it is appalling what a
+range of woe can lie in the mere opening and shutting of a window.</p>
+
+<p>Burke was surprised, annoyed, and dismayed. Being unaccustomed to
+disappointments he did not know how to take them gracefully. This being
+married was not proving to be at all the sort of thing he had pictured
+to himself. He had supposed that life, married life, was to be a new
+wonder every day; an increasing delight every hour. It was neither.
+Living now was a matter of never-ending adjustment, self-sacrifice, and
+economy. And he hated them all. In spite of himself he was getting into
+debt, and he hated debt. It made a fellow feel cheap and mean.</p>
+
+<p>Even Helen was not what he had thought she was. He was ashamed to own
+it, even to himself, but there was a good deal about Helen that he did
+not like. She was not careful about her appearance. She was actually
+almost untidy at times. He hated those loose, sloppy things she
+sometimes wore, and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> abominated those curl-paper things in her hair.
+She was willful and fretful, and she certainly did not know how to give
+a fellow a decent meal or a comfortable place to stay. For his part, he
+did not think a girl had any right to marry until she knew something
+about running a simple home.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was her constant chatter. Was she not ever going to talk
+about anything but the silly little everyday happenings of her work? A
+fellow wanted to hear something, when he came home tired at night,
+besides complaints that the range didn't work, or that the grocer forgot
+his order, or that the money was out.</p>
+
+<p>Why, Helen used to be good company, cheerful, often witty. Where were
+her old-time sparkle and radiance? Her talk now was a meaningless
+chatter of trivial things, or an irritating, wailing complaint of
+everything under the sun, chiefly revolving around the point of "how
+different everything was" from what she expected. Great Scott! As if
+<i>he</i> had not found some things different! <i>That</i> evidently was what
+marriage was&mdash;different. But talking about it all the time did not help
+any.</p>
+
+<p>Couldn't she read? But, then, if she did read, it would be only the
+newspaper account of the latest murder; and then she would want to talk
+about that. She never read anything worth while.</p>
+
+<p>And it was for this, this being married to Helen, that he had given up
+so much: dad, his home, everything. She didn't appreciate it&mdash;Helen
+didn't.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> She did not rightly estimate what he was being made to suffer.</p>
+
+<p>That there was any especial meaning in all this that he himself should
+take to heart&mdash;that there was any course open to him but righteous
+discontent and rebellion&mdash;never occurred to Burke. His training of
+frosted cakes and toy shotguns had taught him nothing of the traditional
+"two bears," "bear" and "forbear." The marriage ceremony had not meant
+to him "to be patient, tender, and sympathetic." It had meant the "I
+will" of self-assertion, not the "I will" of self-discipline. That Helen
+ought to change many of <i>her</i> traits and habits he was convinced. That
+there might be some in himself that needed changing, or that the mere
+fact of his having married Helen might have entailed upon himself
+certain obligations as to making the best of what he had deliberately
+chosen, did not once occur to him.</p>
+
+<p>As for Helen&mdash;Helen was facing her own disillusions. She was not trying
+now to be the daintily gowned wife welcoming her husband to a well-kept
+home. She had long since decided that that was impossible&mdash;on sixty
+dollars a month. She was tired of being a martyr wife. Even the laurel
+wreath of praise had lost its allurement: she would not get it,
+probably, even if she earned it; and, anyway, she would be dead from
+trying to get it. And for her part she would rather have some fun while
+she was living.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But she wasn't having any fun. Things were so different. Everything was
+different. She had not supposed being married was like this: one long
+grind of housework from morning till night, and for a man who did not
+care. And Burke did not care&mdash;now. Once, the first thing he wanted when
+he came into the house was a kiss and a word from her. Now he wanted his
+dinner. And he was so fussy, too! <i>She</i> could get along with cold
+things; but he wanted hot ones, and lots of them. And he always wanted
+finger-bowls and lots of spoons, and everything fixed just so on the
+table, too. He said it wasn't that he wanted "style." It was just that
+he wanted things decent. As if she hadn't had things decent herself&mdash;and
+without all that fuss and clutter!</p>
+
+<p>After dinner he never wanted to talk now, or to go to walk. He just
+wanted to read or study. He said he was studying; something about his
+work. As if once he would have cared more for any old work than for her!</p>
+
+<p>And she was so lonely! There was nobody now for her to be with. Mrs.
+Jones had moved away, and there were never any callers now. She had
+returned every one of the calls she had had from Burke's fine friends.
+She had put on her new red dress and her best hat with the pink roses;
+and she had tried to be just as bright and entertaining as she knew how
+to be. But they never came again, so of course she could not go to see
+them. She <i>had</i> gone, once or twice. But Burke said she must not do
+that. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> was not proper to return your own calls. If they wanted to see
+her they would come themselves. But they never came. Probably, anyhow,
+they did not want to see her; and that was the trouble. Not that she
+cared! They were a "stuck-up" lot, anyway; and she was just as good as
+they were. She had told one woman so, once&mdash;the woman that carried her
+eyeglasses on the end of a little stick and stared. That woman always
+had made her mad. So it was just as well, perhaps, that they did not
+come any more, after all. Burke was ashamed of her, anyway, when they
+did come. She knew that. He did not like anything she did nowadays. He
+was always telling her he did wish she would stop saying "you was," or
+holding her fork like that, or making so much noise eating soup, and a
+dozen other things. As if nobody in the house had a right to do anything
+but <i>his</i> way!</p>
+
+<p>It had been so different at home! There everything she did was just
+right. And she was never lonely. There were the parties and the frolics
+and the sleigh-rides, and the girls running in all the time, and the
+boys every evening on the porch, or in the parlor, or taking her
+buggy-riding. Nothing there was ever complete without her. While here&mdash;
+Well, who supposed being married meant working like a slave all day, and
+being cooped up all the evening with a man whose nose was buried in a
+book, and who scarcely spoke to you!</p>
+
+<p>And there was the money. Burke acted, for all the world, as if he
+thought she ate money, and ate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> it whether she was hungry or not, just
+to spite him. As if she didn't squeeze every penny till it fairly
+shrieked, now; and as if anybody could make ten dollars a week go
+further than she did! To be sure, at first she had been silly and
+extravagant, running up bills, and borrowing of Mrs. Jones, as she did.
+And of course she was a little unreasonable and childish about keeping
+that account-book. But that was only at the first, when she was quite
+ignorant and inexperienced. It was very different now. She kept a cash
+account, and most of the time it came right. How she wished she had an
+allowance, though! But Burke utterly refused to give her that. Said
+she'd be extravagant and spend it all the first day. As if she had not
+learned better than that by bitter experience! And as if anything could
+be worse than the way they were trying to get along now, with her
+teasing for money all the time, and him insisting on seeing the bills,
+and then asking how they <i>could</i> manage to eat so many eggs, and saying
+he should think she used butter to oil the floors with. He didn't see
+how it could go so fast any other way!</p>
+
+<p>And wasn't he always telling her she did not manage right? And didn't he
+give her particular fits one day and an awful lecture on wastefulness,
+just because he happened to find half a loaf of mouldy bread in the jar?
+Just as if <i>he</i> didn't spend something&mdash;and a good big something,
+too!&mdash;on all those cigars he smoked. Yet he flew into fits over a bit of
+mouldy bread of <i>hers</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To be sure, when she cried, he called himself a brute, and said he
+didn't mean it, and it was only because he hated so to have her pinching
+and saving all the time that it made him mad&mdash;raving mad. Just as if she
+was to blame that they did not have any money!</p>
+
+<p>But she was to blame, of course, in a way. If it had not been for her,
+he would be living at home with all the money he wanted. Sometimes it
+came to her with sickening force that maybe Burke was thinking that,
+too. Was he? Could it be that he was sorry he had married her? Very
+well&mdash;her chin came up proudly. He need not stay if he did not want to.
+He could go. But&mdash;the chin was not so high, now&mdash;he was all there was.
+She had nobody but Burke now. <i>Could</i> it be&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She believed she would ask Dr. Gleason some time. She liked the doctor.
+He had been there several times now, and she felt real well acquainted
+with him. Perhaps he would know. But, after all, she was not going to
+worry. She did not believe that really Burke wished he had not married
+her. It was only that he was tired and fretted with his work. It would
+be better by and by, when he had got ahead a little. And of course he
+would get ahead. They would not always have to live like this!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was in March that Burke came home to dinner one evening with a
+radiant face, yet with an air of worried excitement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's dad. He's sent for me," he explained, in answer to his wife's
+questions.</p>
+
+<p>"Sent for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He isn't very well, Brett says. He wants to see me."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! After all this time! I wouldn't go a step if I was you."</p>
+
+<p>"Helen! Not go to my father?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen quaked a little under the fire in her husband's eyes; but she held
+her ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care. He's treated you like dirt. You know he has."</p>
+
+<p>"I know he's sick and has sent for me. And I know I'm going to him.
+That's enough for me to know&mdash;at present," retorted the man, getting to
+his feet, and leaving his dinner almost untasted.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he appeared before her, freshly shaved, and in the
+radiant good humor that seems to follow a bath and fresh garments as a
+natural consequence. "Come, chicken, give us a kiss," he cried gayly;
+"and don't sit up for me: I may be late."</p>
+
+<p>"My, but ain't we fixed up!" pouted Helen jealously. "I should think you
+was going to see your best girl."</p>
+
+<p>"I am," laughed Burke boyishly. "Dad was my best girl&mdash;till I got you.
+Good-bye! I'm off."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye." Helen's lips still pouted, and her eyes burned somberly as
+she sat back in her chair.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the house Burke drew a long breath, and yet a longer one. It
+seemed as if he could not inhale<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> deeply enough the crisp, bracing air.
+Then, with an eager stride that would cover the distance in little more
+than half the usual time, he set off toward Elm Hill. There was only
+joyous anticipation in his face now. The worry was all gone. After all,
+had not Brett said that this illness of dad's was nothing serious?</p>
+
+<p>For a week Burke had known that something was wrong&mdash;that his father was
+not at the Works. In vain had he haunted office doors and corridors for
+a glimpse of a face that never appeared. Then had come the news that
+John Denby was ill. A paralyzing fear clutched the son's heart.</p>
+
+<p>Was this to be the end, then? Was dad to&mdash;die, and never to know, never
+to read his boy's heart? Was this the end of all hopes of some day
+seeing the old look of love and pride in his father's eyes? Then it
+would, indeed, be the end of&mdash;everything, if dad died; for what was the
+use of struggling, of straining every nerve to make good, if dad was not
+to be there to&mdash;know?</p>
+
+<p>It had been at this point that Burke, in spite of his hurt pride, and of
+his very lively doubts as to the cordiality of his reception, had almost
+determined to go himself to the old home and demand to see his father.
+Then, just in time, had come Brett's wonderful message that his father
+wished to see him, and that he was not, after all, fatally or even
+seriously ill.</p>
+
+<p>Dad was not going to die, then; and dad wished to see him&mdash;<i>wished</i> to
+see him!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Burke drew in his breath now again, and bounded up the great stone steps
+of Denby Mansion, two at a time. The next minute, for the first time
+since his marriage the summer before, he stood in the wide, familiar
+hallway.</p>
+
+<p>Benton, the old butler, took his hat and coat; and the way he took them
+had in it all the flattering deference of the well-trained servant, and
+the rapturous joy of the head of a house welcoming a dear wanderer home.</p>
+
+<p>Burke looked into the beaming old face and shining eyes&mdash;and swallowed
+hard before he could utter an unsteady "How are you, Benton?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm very well, sir, thank you, sir. And it's glad I am to see you,
+Master Burke. This way, please. The master's in the library, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Unconsciously Burke Denby lifted his chin. A long-lost something seemed
+to have come back to him. He could not himself have defined it; and he
+certainly could not have told why, at that moment, he should suddenly
+have thought of the supercilious face of his hated "boss" at the Works.</p>
+
+<p>Behind Benton's noiseless steps Burke's feet sank into luxurious velvet
+depths. His eyes swept from one dear familiar object to another, in the
+great, softly lighted hall, and leaped ahead to the open door of the
+library. Then, somehow, he found himself face to face with his father in
+the dear, well-remembered room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Burke, my boy, how are you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They were the same words that had been spoken months before in the
+President's office at the Denby Iron Works, and they were spoken by the
+same voice. They were spoken to the accompaniment of an outstretched
+hand, too, in each case. But, to Burke, who had heard them on both
+occasions, they were as different as darkness and daylight. He could not
+have defined it, even to himself; but he knew, the minute he grasped the
+outstretched hand and looked into his father's eyes, that the hated,
+impenetrable, insurmountable "wall" was gone. Yet there was nothing
+said, nothing done, except a conventional "Just a little matter of
+business, Burke, that I wanted to talk over with you," from the elder
+man; and an equally conventional "Yes, sir," from his son.</p>
+
+<p>Then the two sat down. But, for Burke, the whole world had burst
+suddenly into song.</p>
+
+<p>It was, indeed, a simple matter of business. It was not even an
+important one. Ordinarily it would have been Brett's place, or even one
+of his assistants', to speak of it. But the President of the Denby Iron
+Works took it up point by point, and dwelt lovingly on each detail. And
+Burke, his heart one wild p&aelig;an of rejoicing, sat with a grave
+countenance, listening attentively.</p>
+
+<p>And when there was left not one small detail upon which to pin another
+word, and when Burke was beginning to dread the moment of dismissal,
+John Denby turned, as if casually, to a small clay tablet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> on the desk
+near him. And Burke, following his father into a five-thousand-year-old
+past to decipher a Babylonian thumb-print, lost all fear of that dread
+dismissal.</p>
+
+<p>Later came old Benton with the ale and the little cakes that Burke had
+always loved. With a pressure of his thumb, then, John Denby switched
+off half the lights, and the two, father and son, sat down before the
+big fireplace, with the cakes and ale between them on a low stand.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the century-old andirons, the fire leaped and crackled, throwing
+weird shadows over the beamed ceiling, the book-lined walls, the
+cabinets of curios, bringing out here and there a bit of gold tooling
+behind a glass door or a glinting flash from bronze or porcelain. With a
+body at ease and a mind at rest, Burke leaned back in his chair with a
+long-drawn sigh, each tingling sense ecstatically responsive to every
+charm of light and shade and luxury.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he rose to go. John Denby, too, rose to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll come again, of course," the father said, as he held out his
+hand. For the first time that evening there was a faint touch of
+constraint in his manner. "Suppose you come to dinner&mdash;Sunday. Will
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely I will, and be glad&mdash;" With a swift surge of embarrassed color
+Burke Denby stopped short. In one shamed, shocked instant it had come to
+him that he had forgotten Helen&mdash;<i>forgotten</i> her! Not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> for a long hour
+had he even remembered that there was such a person in existence.
+"Er&mdash;ah&mdash;that is," he began again, stammeringly.</p>
+
+<p>An odd expression crossed John Denby's countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"You will, of course, bring your wife," he said. "Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>Burke mumbled an incoherent something and fled. The next moment he found
+himself in the hall with Benton, deferential and solicitous, holding his
+coat.</p>
+
+<p>Again out in the crisp night air, Burke drew a long breath. Was it true?
+Had dad invited him to dinner next Sunday? <i>And with Helen?</i> What had
+happened? Had dad's heart got the better of his pride? Had he decided
+that quarreling did not pay? Did this mean the beginning of the end? Was
+he ready to take his son back into his heart? He had not said anything,
+<i>really</i>. He had just talked in the usual way, as if nothing had
+happened. But that would be like dad. Dad hated scenes. Dad would never
+say: "I'm sorry I was so harsh with you; come back&mdash;you and Helen. I
+want you!"&mdash;and then fall to crying and kissing like a woman. Dad would
+never do that.</p>
+
+<p>It would be like dad just to pick up the thread of the old comradeship
+exactly where he had dropped it months ago. And that was what he had
+seemed to be doing that evening. He had talked just as he used to
+talk&mdash;except that never once had he mentioned&mdash;mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> Burke remembered
+this now, and wondered at it. It was so unusual&mdash;in dad. Had he done it
+purposely? Was there a hidden meaning back of it? He himself had not
+liked to think of mother, lately; yet, somehow, she seemed always to be
+in his mind. In spite of himself he was always wondering what she would
+think of&mdash;Helen. But, surely, dad&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>With his thoughts in a dizzy whirl of excitement and questionings, Burke
+thrust his key into the lock and let himself into his own apartment.</p>
+
+<p>The hall&mdash;never had it looked so hopelessly cheap and small. Burke,
+still under the spell of Benton's solicitous ministrations, jerked off
+his hat and coat and hung them up. Then he strode into the living-room.</p>
+
+<p>Helen, fully dressed, was sitting at the table, reading a magazine.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! Sitting up, are you, chicken?" he greeted her, brushing her
+cheek with his lips. "I told you not to; but maybe it's just as well you
+did&mdash; I might have waked you," he laughed boyishly. "Guess what's
+happened!"</p>
+
+<p>"Got a raise?" Helen's voice was eager.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I got one last month, you know. I'm getting a hundred now. What
+more can you expect&mdash;in my position?" He spoke coldly, with a tinge of
+sharpness. He was wondering why Helen always managed to take the zest
+out of anything he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> going to do, or say. Then, with an obvious
+effort at gayety, he went on: "It's better than a raise, chicken. Dad's
+invited us to dinner next Sunday&mdash;both of us."</p>
+
+<p>"To dinner! Only to dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Only</i> to dinner! Great C&aelig;sar, Helen&mdash;<i>only</i> to dinner!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't help it, Burke. It just makes me mad to see you jump and
+run and be so pleased over just a dinner, when it ought to be for every
+dinner and all the time; and you know it."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Helen, it isn't the <i>dinner</i>. It's that&mdash;that dad <i>cares</i>." The
+man's voice softened, and became not quite steady. "That maybe he's
+forgiven me. That he's going to be now the&mdash;the old dad that I used to
+know. Oh, Helen, I've <i>missed</i> him so! I've&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But his wife interrupted tartly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I should think 'twas time he did forgive you&mdash;and I'm not saying
+I think there was anything to forgive, either. There wouldn't have been,
+if he hadn't tried to interfere with what was our own business&mdash;yours
+and mine."</p>
+
+<p>There was a brief silence. Burke, looking very white and stern, had got
+to his feet, and was moving restlessly about the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you think he was&mdash;giving in?" asked Helen at last.</p>
+
+<p>"He was very kind."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you tell him?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"About the dinner, Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, exactly. I said&mdash;something; yes, I think. I meant it for
+yes&mdash;then." The man spoke with sudden utter weariness.</p>
+
+<p>There was another brief silence. A dawning shrewdness was coming into
+Helen's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course, yes. We'd want to go," she murmured. "It <i>might</i> mean he
+was giving in, couldn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he <i>was</i> giving in?"</p>
+
+<p>Still no reply.</p>
+
+<p>Helen scowled.</p>
+
+<p>"Burke, why in the world don't you answer me?" she demanded crossly.
+"You were talkative enough a minute ago, when you came in. I should
+think you might have enough thought of <i>my</i> interests to want us to go
+to live with your father, if there's any chance of it. And while
+'twouldn't be <i>my</i> way to jump the minute he held out his hand, yet if
+this dinner really means that we'll be going up there to live pretty
+soon, why&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Helen!" Burke had winced visibly, as if from a blow. "<i>Can't</i> you see
+anything, or talk anything, but our going up there to live? It's enough
+for me that dad just looked at me to-night with the old look in his
+eyes; that somehow he's smashed that confounded wall between us; that&mdash;
+But what's the use? Never mind the dinner. We won't go."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Burke! Don't be silly. Of course&mdash;we're going! I wouldn't
+miss it for the world&mdash;under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> the circumstances." And Helen, with an air
+of finality, rose to her feet to prepare for bed.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband, looking after her with eyes that were half resigned, half
+rebellious, for the second time that evening gave a sigh of utter
+weariness, and turned away.</p>
+
+<p>They went to the dinner. Helen became really very interested and
+enthusiastic in her preparations for it; and even Burke, after a time,
+seemed to regain a little of his old eagerness. They had, to be sure,
+nearly a quarrel over the dress and hat that Helen wished to wear. But
+after some argument, and not a few tears, she yielded to her husband's
+none too gently expressed abhorrence of the hat in question (which was a
+new one), and of the dress&mdash;one he had always disliked.</p>
+
+<p>"But I wanted to make a good impression," pouted Helen.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly! So do I want you to," returned her husband significantly. And
+there the matter ended.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a success&mdash;that dinner. Helen, intent on making her "good
+impression," very plainly tried to be admiring, entertaining, and
+solicitous of her host's welfare and happiness. She resulted in being
+nauseatingly flattering, pert, and inquisitive. John Denby, at first
+very evidently determined to give no just cause for criticism of his own
+behavior, was the perfection of courtesy and cordiality. Even when,
+later, he was unable quite to hide his annoyance at the persistent and
+assiduous attentions and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> questions of his daughter-in-law, he was yet
+courteous, though in unmistakable retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Burke Denby&mdash;poor Burke! With every sense and sensitiveness keyed to
+instant response to each tone and word and gesture of the two before
+him, each passing minute was, to Burke, but a greater torture than the
+one preceding it. Long before dinner was over, he wished himself and
+Helen at home; and as soon as was decently possible after the meal, he
+peremptorily suggested departure.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't stand it! I couldn't stand it another minute," he told
+himself passionately, as he hurried Helen down the long elm-shaded walk
+leading to the street. "But dad&mdash;dad was a brick! And he asked us to
+come again. <i>Again!</i> Good Heavens! As if I'd go through that again! It
+was so much worse <i>there</i> than at home. But I'm glad he didn't put her
+in mother's chair. I don't think even I could have stood that&mdash;to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's over," murmured Helen complacently, as they turned into
+the public sidewalk,&mdash;"and well over! Still, I didn't enjoy myself so
+very much, and I don't believe you did, either," she laughed, "else you
+wouldn't have been in such a taking to get away."</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer. Helen, however, evidently sure of her ground, did
+not seem to notice. She yawned pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess I'm sleepy. Ate too much. <i>'Twas</i> a good dinner; and, just as I
+told your father, things always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> taste especially good when you don't
+get much at home. I said it on purpose. I thought maybe 'twould make him
+think."</p>
+
+<p>Still silence.</p>
+
+<p>Helen turned sharply and peered into her husband's face.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" she demanded suspiciously. "Why are you so glum?"</p>
+
+<p>Burke, instantly alert to the danger of having another scene such as had
+followed Gleason's first visit, desperately ran to cover.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, nothing!" He essayed a gay smile, and succeeded. "I'm stupid,
+that's all. Maybe I'm sleepy myself."</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be you're put out 'cause we came away so early! You suggested
+it yourself." Her eyes were still suspiciously bent upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it! I wanted to come."</p>
+
+<p>She relaxed and took her gaze off his face. The unmistakable sincerity
+in his voice this last time had carried conviction.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m; I thought you did," she murmured contentedly again. "Still, I was
+kind of scared when you proposed it. I didn't suppose 'twas proper to
+eat and run. Mother always said so. Do you think he minded it&mdash;your
+father?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit!" Burke, in his thankfulness to have escaped the threatened
+scene, was enabled to speak lightly, almost gayly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m. Well, I'm glad. I wouldn't have wanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> him to mind. I <i>tried</i> to
+be 'specially nice to him, didn't I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You did, certainly." Burke's lips came together a little grimly; but
+Helen's eyes were turned away; and after a moment's pause she changed
+the subject&mdash;to her husband's infinite relief.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>A BOTTLE OF INK</h3>
+
+<p>Burke Denby did not attempt to deceive himself after that Sunday dinner.
+His marriage had been a mistake, and he knew it. He was disappointed,
+ashamed, and angry. He told himself that he was heartbroken; that he
+still loved Helen dearly&mdash;only he did not like to be with her now. She
+made him nervous, and rubbed him the wrong way. Her mood never seemed to
+fit in with his. She had so many little ways&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he told himself irritably that he believed that, if it were a
+big thing like a crime that Helen had committed, he could be heroic and
+forgiving, and glory in it. But forever to battle against a succession
+of never-ending irritations, always to encounter the friction of
+antagonistic aims and ideals&mdash;it was maddening. He was ashamed of
+himself, of course. He was ashamed of lots of things that he said and
+did. But he could not help an explosion now and then. He felt as if
+somewhere, within him, was an irresistible force driving him to it.</p>
+
+<p>And the pity of it! Was he not, indeed, to be pitied? What had he not
+given up? As if it were his fault that he was now so disillusioned! He
+had supposed that marriage with Helen would be a fresh joy every
+morning, a new delight every evening,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> an unbelievable glory of
+happiness&mdash;just being together.</p>
+
+<p>Now&mdash;he did not want to be together. He did not want to go home to
+fretfulness, fault-finding, slovenliness, and perpetual criticism. He
+wanted to go home to peace and harmony, big, quiet rooms, servants that
+knew their business, and&mdash;dad.</p>
+
+<p>And that was another thing&mdash;dad. Dad had been right. He himself had been
+wrong. But that did not mean that it was easy to own up that he had been
+wrong. Sometimes he hardly knew which cut the deeper: that he had been
+proved wrong, thus losing his happiness, or that his father had been
+proved right, thus placing him in a position to hear the hated "I told
+you so."</p>
+
+<p>That Helen could never make him happy Burke was convinced now. Never had
+he realized this so fully as since seeing her at his father's table that
+Sunday. Never had her "ways" so irritated him. Never had he so
+poignantly realized the significance of what he had lost&mdash;and won. Never
+had he been so ashamed&mdash;or so ashamed because he was ashamed&mdash;as on that
+day. Never, he vowed, would he be placed in the same position again.</p>
+
+<p>As to Helen's side of the matter&mdash;Burke quite forgot that there was such
+a thing. When one is so very sorry for one's self, one forgets to be
+sorry for anybody else. And Burke was, indeed, very sorry for himself.
+Having never been in the habit of taking disagreeable medicine, he did
+not know how to take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> it now. Having been always accustomed to consider
+only himself, he considered only himself now. That Helen, too, might be
+disappointed and disillusioned never occurred to him.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was perhaps a month later that another invitation to dinner came from
+John Denby. This time Burke did not stutter out a joyous, incoherent
+acceptance. He declined so promptly and emphatically that he quite
+forgot his manners, for the moment, and had to attach to the end of his
+refusal a hurried and ineffectual "Er&mdash;thank you; you are very kind, I'm
+sure!" He looked up then and met his father's eyes. But instantly his
+gaze dropped.</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;ah&mdash;Helen is not well at all, dad," he still further added,
+nervously. "Of course I'll speak to her. But I don't think we can come."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's pause. Then, very gravely, John Denby said: "Oh, I
+am sorry, son."</p>
+
+<p>Burke, with a sudden tightening of his throat, turned and walked away.</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't laugh, he didn't sneer, he didn't look <i>anyhow</i>, only just
+plain sorry," choked the young man to himself. "And he had such a
+magnificent chance to do&mdash;all of them. But he just&mdash;understood."</p>
+
+<p>Burke "spoke to Helen" that night.</p>
+
+<p>"Father asked us to dinner next Sunday; but&mdash;I said I didn't think we
+could go. I told him you weren't feeling well. I didn't think you'd want
+to go; and&mdash;I didn't want to go myself."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Helen frowned and pouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've got my opinion of folks who refuse an invitation without
+even asking 'em if they want to go," she bridled. "Not that I mind much,
+in this case, though,&mdash;if it's just a dinner. I thought once, maybe he
+meant something&mdash;that he was giving in, you know. But I haven't seen any
+signs of <i>that</i>. And as for just going to dinner&mdash;I can't say I am
+'specially anxious for that&mdash;mean as I feel now."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I thought not," said Burke.</p>
+
+<p>And there the matter ended. As the summer passed, Burke fell into the
+way of going often to see his father, though never at meal-time. He went
+alone. Helen said she did not care to go, and that she did not <i>see</i>
+what fun Burke could find in it, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>To Burke, these hours that he spent with his father chatting and smoking
+in the dim old library, or on the vine-shaded veranda, were like a
+breeze blowing across the desert of existence&mdash;like water in a thirsty
+land. From day to day he planned for these visits. From hour to hour he
+lived upon them.</p>
+
+<p>To all appearances John Denby and his son had picked up their old
+comradeship exactly where the marriage had severed it. Even to Burke's
+watchful, sensitive eyes the "wall" seemed quite gone. There was,
+however, one difference: mother was never mentioned. John Denby never
+spoke of her now.</p>
+
+<p>There was plenty to talk about. There were all the old interests, and
+there was business. Burke was giving himself heart and soul to business
+these days.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> In July he won another promotion, and was given an advance
+in wages. Often, to Burke's infinite joy, his father consulted him about
+matters and things quite beyond his normal position, and showed in other
+ways his approval of his son's progress. Helen, the marriage, and the
+Dale Street home life were never mentioned&mdash;for which Burke was
+thankful.</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>couldn't</i> say anything I'd want to hear," said Burke to himself, at
+times. "And I&mdash;<i>I</i> can't say anything <i>he</i> wants to hear. Best forget
+it&mdash;if we can."</p>
+
+<p>To "forget it" seemed, indeed, in these days, to be Burke's aim and
+effort. Always had Burke tried to forget things. From the day his
+six-months-old fingers had flung the offending rattle behind him had
+Burke endeavored to thrust out of sight and mind everything that
+annoyed&mdash;and Helen and marriage had become very annoying.
+Systematically, therefore, he was trying to forget them. His attitude,
+indeed, was not unlike that of a small boy who, weary of his game of
+marbles, cries, "Oh, come, let's play something else. I'm tired of
+this!"&mdash;an attitude which, naturally, was not conducive to happiness,
+either for himself or for any one else&mdash;particularly as the game he was
+playing was marriage, not marbles.</p>
+
+<p>The summer passed and October came. Life at the Dale Street flat had
+settled into a monotony of discontent and dreariness. Helen,
+discouraged, disappointed, and far from well, dragged through the
+housework day by day, wishing each night that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> were morning, and each
+morning that it were night&mdash;a state of mind scarcely conducive to
+happiness on her part.</p>
+
+<p>For all that Burke was away so many evenings now, Helen was not so
+lonely as she had been in the spring; for in Mrs. Jones's place had come
+a new neighbor, Mrs. Cobb. And Mrs. Cobb was even brighter and more
+original than Mrs. Jones ever was, and Helen liked her very much. She
+was a mine of information as to housekeeping secrets, and she was
+teaching Helen how to make the soft and dainty little garments that
+would be needed in November. But she talked even more loudly than Mrs.
+Jones had talked; and her laugh was nearly always the first sound that
+Burke heard across the hall every morning. Moreover, she possessed a
+phonograph which, according to Helen, played "perfectly grand tunes";
+and some one of these tunes was usually the first thing that Burke heard
+every night when he came home. So he called her coarse and noisy, and
+declared she was even worse than Mrs. Jones; whereat Helen retorted that
+of course he <i>wouldn't</i> like her, if <i>she</i> did&mdash;which (while possibly
+true) did not make him like either her or Mrs. Cobb any better.</p>
+
+<p>The baby came in November. It was a little girl. Helen wanted to call
+her "Vivian Mabelle." She said she thought that was a swell name, and
+that it was the name of her favorite heroine in a perfectly grand book.
+But Burke objected strenuously. He declared very emphatically that no
+daughter of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> should have to go through life tagged like a vaudeville
+fly-by-night.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Helen cried, and of course Burke felt ashamed of himself.
+Helen's tears had always been a potent weapon&mdash;though, from over-use,
+they were fast losing a measure of their power. The first time he saw
+her cry, the foundations of the earth sank beneath him, and he dropped
+into a fathomless abyss from which he thought he would never rise. It
+was the same the next time, and the next. The fourth time, as he felt
+the now familiar sensation of sinking down, down, down, he outflung
+desperate hands and found an unexpected support&mdash;his temper. After that
+it was always with him. It helped to tinge with righteous indignation
+his despair, and it kept him from utterly melting into weak
+subserviency. Still, even yet, he was not used to them&mdash;his wife's
+tears. Sometimes he fled from them; sometimes he endured them in dumb
+despair behind set teeth; sometimes he raved and ranted in a way he was
+always ashamed of afterwards. But still they had the power, in a
+measure, to make his heart like water within him.</p>
+
+<p>So now, about the baby's name, he called himself a brute and a beast to
+bring tears to the eyes of the little mother&mdash;toward whom, since the
+baby's advent, he felt a remorseful tenderness. But he still maintained
+that he could have no man, or woman, call his daughter "Vivian Mabelle."</p>
+
+<p>"But I should think you'd let me name my own baby," wailed his wife.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Burke choked back a hasty word and assumed his pet
+"I'll-be-patient-if-it-kills-me" air.</p>
+
+<p>"And you shall name it," he soothed her. "Listen! Here are pencil and
+paper. Now, write down a whole lot of names that you'd like, and I'll
+promise to select one of them. Then you'll be naming the baby all right.
+See?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen did not "see," quite, that she would be naming the baby; but,
+knowing from past experience of her husband's temper that resistance
+would be unpleasant, she obediently took the paper and spent some time
+writing down a list of names.</p>
+
+<p>Burke frowned a good deal when he saw the list, and declared that it was
+pretty poor pickings, and that he ought to have known better than to
+have bound himself to a silly-fool promise like that. But he chose a
+name (he said he would keep his word, of course), and he selected
+"Dorothy Elizabeth" as being less impossible than its accompanying
+"Veras," "Violets," and "Clarissa Muriels."</p>
+
+<p>For the first few months after the baby's advent, Burke spent much more
+time at home, and seemed very evidently to be trying to pay especial
+attention to his wife's comfort and welfare. He was proud of the baby,
+and declared it was the cutest little kid going. He poked it in its
+ribs, thrust a tentative finger into the rose-leaf of a hand (emitting a
+triumphant chuckle of delight when the rose-leaf became a tightly
+clutching little fist), and even allowed the baby to be placed one or
+twice in his rather reluctant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> and fearful arms. But, for the most part,
+he contented himself with merely looking at it, and asking how soon it
+would walk and talk, and when would it grow its teeth and hair.</p>
+
+<p>Burke was feeling really quite keenly these days the solemnity and
+responsibility of fatherhood. He had called into being a new soul. A
+little life was in his hands to train. By and by this tiny pink roll of
+humanity would be a prattling child, a little girl, a young lady. And
+all the way she would be turning to him for companionship and guidance.
+It behooved him, indeed, to look well to himself, that he should be in
+all ways a fit pattern.</p>
+
+<p>It was a solemn thought. No more tempers, tantrums, and impatience. No
+more idle repinings and useless regrets. What mattered it if he were
+disillusioned and heartsick? Did he want this child of his, this
+beautiful daughter, to grow up in such an atmosphere? Never! At once,
+therefore, he must begin to cultivate patience, contentment,
+tranquillity, and calmness of soul. He, the pattern, must be all things
+that he would wish her to be.</p>
+
+<p>And how delightful it would be when she was old enough to meet him on
+his own ground&mdash;to be a companion for him, the companion he had not
+found in his wife! She would be pretty, of course, sweet-tempered, and
+cheerful. (Was he not to train her himself?) She would be capable and
+sensible, too. He would see to that. To no man, in the future, should
+she bring the tragedy of disillusionment that her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> mother had brought to
+<i>him</i>. No, indeed! For that matter, however, he should not let her marry
+any one for a long time. He should keep her himself. Perhaps he would
+not let her marry at all. He did not think much of this marriage
+business, anyway. Not that he was going to show that feeling any longer
+now, of course. From now on he was to show only calm contentment and
+tranquillity of soul, no matter what the circumstances. Was he not a
+father? Had he not, in the hollow of his hand, a precious young life to
+train?</p>
+
+<p>Again all this was very well in theory. But in practice&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy Elizabeth was not six months old before the young father
+discovered that parenthood changed conditions, not people. He felt just
+as irritated at the way Helen buttered a whole slice of bread at a time,
+and said "swell" and "you was," as before; just as impatient because he
+could not buy what he wanted; just as annoyed at the purple cushion on
+the red sofa.</p>
+
+<p>He was surprised and disappointed. He told himself that he had supposed
+that when a fellow made good resolutions, he was given some show of a
+chance to keep them. But as if any one <i>could</i> cultivate calm
+contentment and tranquillity of soul as he was situated!</p>
+
+<p>First, there were not only all his old disappointments and annoyances to
+contend with, but a multitude of new ones. It was as if, indeed, each
+particular torment had taken unto itself wife and children, so numerous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+had they become. There was really now no peace at home. There was
+nothing but the baby. He had not supposed that any one thing or person
+could so monopolize everything and everybody.</p>
+
+<p>When the baby was awake, Helen acted as if she thought the earth swung
+on its axis solely to amuse it. When it slept, she seemed to think the
+earth ought to stand still&mdash;lest it wake Baby up. With the same
+wholesale tyranny she marshaled into line everything and everybody on
+the earth, plainly regarding nothing and no one as of consequence,
+except in its relationship to Baby.</p>
+
+<p>Such unimportant things as meals and housework, in comparison with Baby,
+were of even less than second consequence; and Burke grew to feel
+himself more and more an alien and a nuisance in his own home. Moreover,
+where before he had found disorder and untidiness, he now found positive
+chaos. And however fond he was of the Baby, he grew unutterably weary of
+searching for his belongings among Baby's rattles, balls, shirts, socks,
+milk bottles, blankets, and powder-puffs.</p>
+
+<p>The "cool, calm serenity" of his determination he found it difficult to
+realize; and the delights and responsibilities of fatherhood began to
+pall upon him. It looked to be so long a way ahead, even to teeth,
+talking, and walking, to say nothing of the charm and companionship of a
+young lady daughter!</p>
+
+<p>Children were all very well, of course,&mdash;very desirable. But did they
+never do anything but cry?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> Couldn't they be taught that nights were for
+sleep, and that other people in the house had some rights besides
+themselves? And must they <i>always</i> choose four o'clock in the morning
+for a fit of the colic? Helen said it was colic. For his part, he
+believed it was nothing more or less than temper&mdash;plain, right-down
+temper!</p>
+
+<p>And so it went. Another winter passed, and spring came. Matters were no
+better, but rather worse. A series of incompetent maids had been adding
+considerably to the expense&mdash;and little to the comfort&mdash;of the
+household. Helen, as a mistress, was not a success. She understood
+neither her own duties nor those of the maid&mdash;which resulted in short
+periods of poor service and frequent changes.</p>
+
+<p>July came with its stifling heat, and Dorothy Elizabeth, now twenty
+months old, showed a daily increasing disapproval of life in general and
+of her own existence in particular. Helen, worn and worried, and half
+sick from care and loss of sleep, grew day by day more fretful, more
+difficult to get along with. Burke, also half sick from loss of sleep,
+and consumed with a fierce, inward rebellion against everything and
+everybody, including himself, was no less difficult to get along with.</p>
+
+<p>Of course this state of affairs could not continue forever. The tension
+had to snap sometime. And it snapped&mdash;over a bottle of ink in a baby's
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>It happened on Bridget's "afternoon out," when Helen was alone with the
+baby. Dorothy Elizabeth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> propped up in her high-chair beside the
+dining-room table, where her mother was writing a letter, reached
+covetous hands toward the fascinating little fat black bottle. The next
+instant a wild shout of glee and an inky tide surging from an
+upside-down bottle, held high above a golden head, told that the quest
+had been successful.</p>
+
+<p>Things happened then very fast. There were a dismayed cry from Helen,
+half a-dozen angry spats on a tiny hand, a series of shrieks from
+Dorothy Elizabeth, and a rapidly spreading inky pall over baby, dress,
+table, rug, and Helen's new frock.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Burke appeared in the door.</p>
+
+<p>With wrathful eyes he swept the scene before him, losing not one detail
+of scolding woman, shrieking child, dinnerless table, and inky chaos.
+Then he strode into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, by George!" he snapped. "Nice restful place for a tired man to
+come to, isn't it? This is your idea of a happy home, I suppose!"</p>
+
+<p>The overwrought wife and mother, with every nerve tingling, turned
+sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, that's right&mdash;blame me! Blame me for everything! Maybe you
+think <i>I</i> think this is a happy, restful place, too! Maybe you think
+this is what <i>I</i> thought 'twould be&mdash;being married to you! But I can
+tell you it just isn't! Maybe you think I ain't tired of working and
+pinching and slaving, and never having any fun, and being scolded and
+blamed all the time because I don't eat and walk and stand up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> and sit
+down the way you want me to, and&mdash; Where are you goin'?" she broke off,
+as her husband reached for the hat he had just tossed aside, and started
+for the door.</p>
+
+<p>Burke turned quietly. His face was very white.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going down to the square to get something to eat. Then I'm going up
+to father's. And&mdash;you needn't sit up for me. I shall stay all night."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>All&mdash;night!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'd like to sleep&mdash;for once. And that's what I can't do&mdash;here."
+The next moment the door had banged behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Helen, left alone with the baby, fell back limply.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Baby, he&mdash;he&mdash;" Then she caught the little ink-stained figure to
+her and began to cry convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>In the street outside Burke strode along with his head high and his jaw
+sternly set. He was very angry. He told himself that he had a right to
+be angry. Surely a man was entitled to <i>some</i> consideration!</p>
+
+<p>In spite of it all, however, there was, in a far-away corner of his
+soul, an uneasy consciousness of a tiny voice of scorn dubbing this
+running away of his the act of a coward and a cad.</p>
+
+<p>Very resolutely, however, he silenced this voice by recounting again to
+himself how really abused he was. It was a long story. It served to
+occupy his mind all through the unappetizing meal he tried to eat at the
+cheap restaurant before climbing Elm Hill.</p>
+
+<p>His father greeted him cordially, and with no surprise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> in voice or
+manner&mdash;which was what Burke had expected, inasmuch as he had again
+fallen into the way of spending frequent evenings at the old home.
+To-night, however, Burke himself was constrained and ill at ease. His
+jaw was still firmly set and his head was still high; but his heart was
+beginning to fail him, and his mind was full of questionings.</p>
+
+<p>How would his father take it&mdash;this proposition to stay all night? He
+would understand something of what it meant. He could not help but
+understand. But what would he say? How would he act? Would he say in
+actions, if not in words, that dreaded "I told you so"? Would it unseal
+his lips on a subject so long tabooed, and set him into a lengthy
+dissertation on the foolishness of his son's marriage? Burke believed
+that, as he felt now, he could not stand that; but he could stand less
+easily going back to the Dale Street flat that night. He could go to a
+hotel, of course. But he did not want to do that. He wanted dad. But he
+did not want dad&mdash;to talk.</p>
+
+<p>"How's the baby?" asked John Denby, as Burke dropped himself into a
+chair on the cool, quiet veranda. "I thought she was not looking very
+well the last time Helen wheeled her up here." Always John Denby's first
+inquiry now was for his little granddaughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh? The baby? Oh, she&mdash;she's all right. That is"&mdash;Burke paused for a
+short laugh&mdash;"she's <i>well</i>."</p>
+
+<p>John Denby took his cigar from his lips and turned sharply.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But she's <i>not</i>&mdash;all right?"</p>
+
+<p>Burke laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, she's all right, too, I suppose," he retorted, a bit grimly.
+"But she was&mdash;er&mdash;humph! Well, I'll tell you." And he gave a graphic
+description of his return home that night.</p>
+
+<p>"Jove, what a mess!&mdash;and <i>ink</i>, too," ejaculated John Denby, with more
+than a tinge of sympathy in his voice. "How'd she ever manage to clean
+it up?"</p>
+
+<p>Burke shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask me something easy. I don't know, I'm sure. I cleared out."</p>
+
+<p>"Without&mdash;your dinner?" John Denby asked the question after a very
+brief, but very tense, silence.</p>
+
+<p>"My dinner&mdash;I got in the square."</p>
+
+<p>Burke's lips snapped together again tight shut. John Denby said nothing.
+His eyes were gravely fixed on the glowing tip of the cigar in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Burke cleared his throat and hesitated. He had not intended to ask his
+question quite so soon; but suddenly he was consumed with an
+overwhelming desire to speak out and get it over. He cleared his throat
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Dad&mdash;would you mind&mdash;my sleeping here to-night? It's just that I&mdash;I
+want a good night's sleep, for once," he plunged on hurriedly, in answer
+to a swift something that he saw leap to his father's eyes. "And I can't
+get it there&mdash;with the baby and all."</p>
+
+<p>There was a perceptible pause. Then, steadily, and with easy cordiality,
+came John Denby's reply.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why, certainly, my boy. I'm glad to have you. I'll ring at once for
+Benton to see that&mdash;that your old room is made ready for you," he added,
+touching a push-button near his chair.</p>
+
+<p>Later, when Benton had come and gone, with his kindly old face alight
+and eager, Burke braced himself for what he thought was inevitable.
+Something would come, of course. The only question was, what would it
+be?</p>
+
+<p>But nothing came&mdash;that is, nothing in the nature of what Burke had
+expected. John Denby, after Benton had left the veranda, turned to his
+son with a pleasantly casual&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Brett was saying to-day that the K.&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;O. people had granted us an
+extension of time on that bridge contract."</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;yes," plunged in Burke warmly. And with the words, every taut nerve
+and muscle in his body relaxed as if cut in twain.</p>
+
+<p>It came later, though, when he had ceased to look for it. It came just
+as he was thinking of saying good-night.</p>
+
+<p>"It has occurred to me, son," broached John Denby, after a short pause,
+"that Helen may be tired and in sore need of a rest."</p>
+
+<p>Burke caught his breath, and held it a moment suspended. When before had
+his father mentioned Helen, save to speak of her casually in connection
+with the baby?</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;er&mdash;y-yes, very likely," he stammered,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> a sudden vision coming to
+him of Helen as he had seen her on the floor in the midst of the inky
+chaos a short time before.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not the only one that isn't finding the present state of affairs
+a&mdash;a bed of roses, Burke," said John Denby then.</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;ah&mdash;n-no," muttered the amazed husband. In his ears now rang
+Helen's&mdash;"Maybe you think I ain't tired of working and pinching and
+slaving!" Involuntarily he shivered and glanced at his father&mdash;dad could
+not, of course, have <i>heard</i>!</p>
+
+<p>"I have a plan to propose," announced John Denby quietly, after a
+moment's silence. "As I said, I think Helen needs a rest&mdash;and a change.
+I've seen quite a little of her since the baby came, you know, and I've
+noticed&mdash;many things. I will send her a check for ten thousand dollars
+to-morrow if she will take the baby and go away for a time&mdash;say, to her
+old home for a visit. But there is one other condition," he continued,
+lifting a quick hand to silence Burke's excited interruption. "I need a
+rest and change myself. I should like to go to Alaska again; and I'd
+like to have you go with me. Will you go?"</p>
+
+<p>Burke sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down the wide veranda.
+(From boyhood Burke had always "thrashed things out" on his feet.) For a
+full minute now he said nothing. Then, abruptly, he stopped and wheeled
+about. His face was very white.</p>
+
+<p>"Dad, I can't. It seems too much like&mdash;like&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't in the least like quitting, or running<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> away," supplied
+John Denby, reading unerringly his son's hesitation. "You're not
+quitting at all. I'm asking you to go. Indeed, I'm begging you to go,
+Burke. I want you. I need you. I'm not an old man, I know; but I feel
+like one. These last two years have not been&mdash;er&mdash;a bed of roses for me,
+either." In spite of a certain lightness in his words, the man's voice
+shook a little. "I don't think you know, boy, how your old dad
+has&mdash;missed you."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I? I can&mdash;guess." Burke wheeled and resumed his nervous stride.
+The words, as he flung them out, were at once a challenge and an
+admission. "But&mdash;Helen&mdash;" He stopped short, waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"I've answered that. I've told you. Helen needs a rest and a change."</p>
+
+<p>Again to the distraught husband's ears came the echo of a woman's
+wailing&mdash;"Maybe you think I ain't tired of working and pinching and
+slaving&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you don't think Helen will feel that I'm running away?" A growing
+hope was in his eyes, but his brow still carried its frown of doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"Not if she has a check for&mdash;ten thousand dollars," replied John Denby,
+a bit grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Burke winced. A painful red reached his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"It is, indeed, a large sum, sir,&mdash;too large," he resented, with sudden
+stiffness. "Thank you; but I'm afraid we can't accept it, after all."</p>
+
+<p>John Denby saw his mistake at once; but he did not make the second
+mistake of showing it.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" he laughed lightly, with no sign of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> the sudden panic of
+fear within him lest the look on his son's face meant the downfall of
+all his plans. "I made it large purposely. Remember, I'm borrowing her
+husband for a season; and she needs some recompense! Besides, it'll mean
+a playday for herself. You'll not be so unjust to Helen as to refuse her
+the means to enjoy that!&mdash;not that she'll spend it all for that, of
+course. But it will be a comfortable feeling to know that she has it."</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes, of course," hesitated Burke, still frowning.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll call that settled."</p>
+
+<p>"I know; but&mdash; Of course if you put it <i>that</i> way, why, I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I do put it just that way," nodded the father lightly. "Now,
+let's go in. I've got some maps and time-tables I want you to see. I'm
+planning a different route from the one we took with the doctor&mdash;a
+better one, I think. But let's see what you say. Come!" And he led the
+way to the library.</p>
+
+<p>Burke's head came up alertly. His shoulders lost their droop and his
+brow its frown. A new light flamed into his eyes and a new springiness
+leaped into his step. Always, from the time his two-year-old lips had
+begged to "see the wheels go 'round," had Burke's chief passion and
+delight been traveling. As he bent now over the maps and time-tables
+that his father spread before him, voice and hands fairly trembled with
+eagerness. Then suddenly a chance word sent him to his feet again, the
+old look of despair on his face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dad, I can't," he choked. "I can't be a quitter. You don't want me to
+be!"</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 332px;"><a name="ILL_004" id="ILL_004"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_004.jpg" width="332" height="500" alt="JOHN DENBY WENT STRAIGHT TO HIS SON AND LAID BOTH HANDS ON HIS SHOULDERS" title="" />
+<span class="caption">JOHN DENBY WENT STRAIGHT TO HIS SON AND LAID BOTH HANDS ON HIS SHOULDERS</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>With a sharp word John Denby, too, leaped to his feet. Something of the
+dogged persistence that had won for him wealth and power glowed in his
+eyes as he went straight to his son and laid both hands on his
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Burke, I had not meant to say this," he began quietly; "but perhaps
+it's just as well that I do. Possibly you think I've been blind all
+these past months; but I haven't. I've seen&mdash;a good deal. Now I want you
+and Helen to be happy. I don't want to see your life&mdash;or hers&mdash;wrecked.
+I believe there's a chance yet for you two people to travel together
+with some measure of peace and comfort, and I'm trying to give you that
+chance. There's just one thing to do, I believe, and that is&mdash;to be away
+from each other for a while. You both need it. For weeks I've been
+planning and scheming how it could be done. How do you suppose I
+happened to have this Alaska trip all cut and dried even down to the
+train and boat schedules, if I hadn't done some thinking? To-night came
+my chance. So I spoke."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;to be a quitter!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're not quitting. You're&mdash;stopping to get your breath."</p>
+
+<p>"There's&mdash;my work."</p>
+
+<p>"You've made good, and more than good there, son. I've been proud of
+you&mdash;every inch of the way. You're no quitter there."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, dad!" Only the sudden mist in his eyes and the shake in his
+voice showed how really moved Burke was. "But&mdash;Helen," he stammered
+then.</p>
+
+<p>"Will be better off without you&mdash;for a time."</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will be better off without her&mdash;for the same time. While I&mdash;shall be,
+oh, so infinitely better off <i>with</i> you. Ah, son, but I've missed you
+so!" It was the same longing cry that had gone straight to Burke's heart
+a few minutes before. "You'll come?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a tense silence. Burke's face plainly showed the struggle
+within him. A moment more, and he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Dad, I'll have to think it out," he temporized brokenly. "I'll let you
+know in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" If John Denby was disappointed, he did not show it. "We'll let
+it go till morning, then. Meanwhile, it can do no harm to look at these,
+however," he smiled, with a wave of his hand toward the maps and
+time-tables.</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not," acquiesced Burke promptly, relieved that his father
+agreed so willingly to the delay.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he went upstairs to his old room to bed.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fine old room. He had forgotten that a bedroom could be so
+large&mdash;and so convenient. Benton, plainly, had been there. Also,
+plainly, his hand had not lost its cunning, nor his brain the memory of
+how Master Burke "liked things."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The arrangement of the lights, the glass of milk by his bed, the
+turned-down spread and sheet, the latest magazine ready to his
+hand&mdash;even the size and number of towels in his bathroom testified to
+Benton's loving hand and good memory.</p>
+
+<p>With a sigh that was almost a sob Burke dropped himself into a chair and
+looked about him.</p>
+
+<p>It was all so peaceful, so restful, so comfortable. And it was so quiet.
+He had forgotten that a room could be so quiet.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his weariness, Burke's preparations for bed were both
+lengthy and luxurious&mdash;he had forgotten what absolute content lay in
+plenty of space, towels, and hot water, to say nothing of soap that was
+in its proper place, and did not have to be fished out of a baby-basket
+or a kitchen sink.</p>
+
+<p>Burke did not intend to go to sleep at once. He intended first to settle
+in his mind what he would do with this proposition of his father's. He
+would have to refuse it, of course. It would not do. Still, he ought to
+give it proper consideration for dad's sake. That much was due dad.</p>
+
+<p>He stretched himself luxuriously on the bed (he had forgotten that a bed
+could be so soft and so "just right") and began to think. But the next
+thing he knew he was waking up.</p>
+
+<p>His first feeling was a half-unconscious but delightful sensation of
+physical comfort. His next a dazed surprise as his slowly opened eyes
+encountered shapes and shadows and arc-light beams on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> walls and
+ceiling quite unlike those in his Dale Street bedroom. Then instantly
+came a vague but poignant impression that "something had happened,"
+followed almost as quickly by full realization.</p>
+
+<p>Like a panorama, then, the preceding evening lay before him: Helen, the
+crying baby, the trailing ink, the angry words, the flight, dad, his
+welcome, the pleasant chat, the remarkable proposition. Oh, yes! And it
+was of the proposition that he was going to think. He could not accept
+it, of course, but&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>What a trump dad had been to offer it! What a trump he had been in the
+<i>way</i> he offered it, too! What a trump he had been all through about it,
+for that matter. Not a word of reproach, not a hint of patronage. Not
+even a look that could be construed into that hated "I told you so."
+Just a straight-forward offer of this check for Helen, and the trip for
+himself, and actually in a casual, matter-of-fact tone of voice as if
+ten-thousand-dollar checks and Alaskan trips were everyday occurrences.</p>
+
+<p>But they weren't! A trip like that did not drop into a man's plate every
+day. Of course he could not take it&mdash;but what a dandy one it would be!
+And with dad&mdash;!</p>
+
+<p>For that matter, dad really needed him. Dad ought not to go off like
+that alone, and so far. Besides, dad <i>wanted</i> him. How his voice had
+trembled when he had said, "I don't think you know, boy, how your old
+dad has missed you"! As if he didn't, indeed! As if he hadn't done
+<i>some</i> missing on his own account!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And the check. Of course he could not let Helen accept that,
+either,&mdash;ten thousand dollars! But how generous of dad to offer it&mdash;and
+of course it <i>would</i> be good for Helen. Poor Helen! She needed a rest,
+all right, and she deserved one. It <i>would</i> be fine for her to go back
+to her old home town for a little while, and no mistake. Not that she
+would need to spend the whole ten thousand dollars on that, of course.
+But even a little slice of a sum like that would give her all the frills
+and furbelows she wanted for herself and the baby, and send them into
+the country for all the rest of the summer, besides leaving nine-tenths
+of it for a nest-egg for the future. And what a comfortable feeling it
+would give her&mdash;always a little money when she wanted it for anything!
+No more of the hated pinching and starving, for he should tell her to
+spend it and take some comfort with it. That was what it was for.
+Besides, when it was gone, <i>he</i> would have some for her. What a boon it
+would be to her&mdash;that ten thousand dollars! Of course, looking at it in
+that light, it was almost his <i>duty</i> to accept the proposition, and give
+her the chance to have it.</p>
+
+<p>But then, after all, he couldn't. Why, it was like accepting charity; he
+hadn't earned it. Still, if hard work and anguish of mind counted, he
+<i>had</i> earned it twice over, slaving away at the beck of Brett and his
+minions. And he had made good&mdash;so far. Dad had said so. What a trump dad
+was to speak as he did! And when <i>dad</i> said a thing like that, it meant
+something!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Well, there was nothing to do, of course, but to go back and buckle down
+to work&mdash;and to life in the Dale Street flat. To be sure, there was the
+baby. Of course he was fond of the baby; and it was highly interesting
+to see her achieve teeth, hair, a backbone, and sense&mdash;if only she would
+hurry up a little faster, though. Did babies always take so long to grow
+up?</p>
+
+<p>Burke stretched himself luxuriously and gazed about the room. The
+arc-light outside had gone out and dawn was approaching. More and more
+distinctly each loved object in the room was coming into view. To his
+nostrils came the perfume of the roses and honeysuckles in the garden
+below his window. To his ears came the chirp and twitter of the
+bird-calls from the trees. Over his senses stole the soothing peace of
+absolute physical ease.</p>
+
+<p>Once more, drowsily, he went back to his father's offer. Once more, in
+his mind, he argued it&mdash;but this time with a difference. Thus, so
+potent, sometimes, is the song of a bird, the scent of a flower, the
+shape of a loved, familiar object, or even the feel of a soft bed
+beneath one.</p>
+
+<p>After all, might he not be making a serious mistake if he did not accede
+to his father's wishes? Of course, so far as he, personally, was
+concerned, the answer would be an unequivocal refusal of the offer. But
+there was his father to consider, and there was Helen to think of; yes,
+and the baby. How much better it would be for them&mdash;for all of them, if
+he accepted it!</p>
+
+<p>Helen and the baby could have months of fresh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> air, ease, and happiness
+without delay, to say nothing of innumerable advantages later. Why, when
+you came to think of it, that would be enough, if there were nothing
+else! But there was something else. There was dad. Good old dad! How
+happy he'd be! Besides, dad really needed him. How ever had he thought
+for a moment of sending dad off to Alaska alone, and just after an
+illness, too! What could he be thinking of to consider it for a moment?
+That settled it. He should go. He would stifle all silly feelings of
+pride and the like, and he would make dad, Helen, and the baby happy.</p>
+
+<p>Which question having been satisfactorily decided, Burke turned over and
+settled himself for a doze before breakfast. He did not get it, however.
+His mind was altogether too full of time-tables, boat schedules,
+mountain peaks, and forest trails.</p>
+
+<p>Jove, but that was going to be a dandy trip!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was later, while Burke was leisurely dressing and planning out the
+day before him, that the bothersome question came to him as to how he
+should tell Helen. He was reminded, also, emphatically, of the probable
+scene in store for him when he should go home at six o'clock that night.
+And he hated scenes. For that matter, there would probably be another
+one, too, when he told her that he was going away for a time. To be
+sure, there was the ten-thousand-dollar check; and of course very soon
+he could convince her that it was really all for her best happiness.
+After<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> she gave it a little thought, it would be all right, he was
+positive, but there was certain to be some unpleasantness at first,
+particularly as she was sure to be not a little difficult over his
+running&mdash;er&mdash;rather, <i>going</i> away the night before. And he wished he
+could avoid it in some way. If only he did not have to go home&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>His face cleared suddenly. Why, of course! He would write. How stupid of
+him not to have thought of it before! He could say, then, just what he
+wanted to say, and she would have a chance to think it over calmly and
+sensibly, and see how really fine it was for her and the baby. That was
+the way to do it, and the only way. Writing, he could not be unnerved by
+her tears (of course she would cry at first&mdash;she always cried!) or
+exasperated into saying things he would be sorry for afterwards. He
+could say just enough, and not too much, in a letter, and say it right.
+Then, early in the following week, just before he was to start on his
+trip he would go down to the Dale Street house and spend the last two or
+three days with Helen and the baby, picking up his traps, and planning
+with Helen some of the delightful things she could do with that ten
+thousand dollars. By that time she would, of course, have entirely
+come around to his point of view (even if she had not seen it quite
+that way at first), and they could have a few really happy days
+together&mdash;something which would be quite impossible if they should meet
+now, with the preceding evening fresh in their minds, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> have one of
+their usual wretched scenes of tears, recriminations, and wranglings.</p>
+
+<p>For the present, then, he would stay where he was. Helen would be all
+right&mdash;with Bridget. His father would be overjoyed, he knew; and as for
+the few toilet necessities&mdash;he could buy those. He needed some new
+things to take away. So that was settled.</p>
+
+<p>With a mind at rest again and a heart aflame with joy, Burke hurried
+into his garments and skipped downstairs like a boy.</p>
+
+<p>His face, before his lips got a chance, told his father of his decision.
+But his lips did not lag long behind. He had expected that his father
+would be pleased; but he was not quite prepared for the depth of emotion
+that shook his father's voice and dimmed his father's eyes, and that
+ended the half-uttered declaration of joy with what was very near a sob.
+If anything, indeed, were needed to convince Burke that he was doing
+just right in taking this trip with his father, it could be needed no
+longer after the look of ineffable peace and joy on that father's face.</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast, with so much to talk of, prolonged itself like a college
+spread, until Burke, with a cry of dismay, pulled out his watch and
+leaped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Jove! Do you know what time it is, dad?" he cried laughingly. "Behold
+how this life of luxury has me already in its clutches! I should have
+been off an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>John Denby lifted a detaining hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not so fast, my boy," he smiled. "I've got you, and I mean to keep
+you&mdash;a few minutes longer."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I telephoned Brett this morning that you wouldn't be down till
+late, if you came at all."</p>
+
+<p>"You telephoned <i>this morning</i>!" puzzled Burke, sinking slowly into his
+chair again. "But you didn't know then that I&mdash;" He stopped once more.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I didn't know then that you'd agree to my proposition," answered
+John Denby, with a characteristically grim smile. "But I knew, if you
+did agree, we'd <i>both</i> have some talking to do. And if you didn't&mdash;<i>I</i>
+should. I meant still to convince you, you see."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," nodded the younger man, smiling in his turn.</p>
+
+<p>"So I wouldn't go down this morning. We've lots of plans to make.
+Besides, there's your letter."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there's&mdash;my&mdash;letter." This time the young man did not smile. "I've
+got to write my letter, of course."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>BY ADVICE OF COUNSEL</h3>
+
+<p>Helen Denby received the letter from her husband at two o'clock by a
+special messenger.</p>
+
+<p>Helen had passed a sleepless night and an unhappy morning. The surge of
+bitter anger which at first, like the ink, had blackened everything it
+touched, soon spent itself, and left her weak and trembling. Dorothy
+Elizabeth, after her somewhat upsetting day, sank into an unusually
+sound slumber; but her mother, all through the long night watches, lay
+with sleepless eyes staring into the dark, thinking.</p>
+
+<p>Helen was very angry with Burke. There was no gainsaying that. She was a
+little frightened, too, at what she herself had said. In a soberer
+moment she would not have spoken quite like that, certainly. But it had
+been so hateful&mdash;his asking if she called that a happy home! As if she
+did not want a happy home as much as he ever could!</p>
+
+<p>To Helen, then, came her old vision of the daintily gowned wife
+welcoming her husband to the well-kept home; and all in the dark her
+cheek flushed hot.</p>
+
+<p>How far short, indeed, of that ideal had she fallen! And she was going
+to be such a help to Burke; such an inspiration; such a guide,
+counselor, and friend! (Swiftly the words came galloping out of that
+long-forgotten honeymoon.) Had she helped him? Had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> she been an
+inspiration, and a guide, and a counselor, and a friend? Poor Burke! He
+<i>had</i> given up a good deal for her sake. (With the consciousness of that
+vacant pillow by her side, a wave of remorseful tenderness swept over
+her.) And of course it must have been hard for him. They had told him
+not to marry her, too. They had warned him that she was not suited to
+him, that she would drag him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>With a low cry Helen sat up in bed suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Drag him down!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Had she dragged him down? No, no, not that&mdash;never that! She had been
+careless and thoughtless. She had not been a good housekeeper; and maybe
+sometimes she had been fretful and fault-finding, and&mdash;and horrid. But
+she loved him dearly. She had always loved him. It only needed something
+like this to show her how much she loved him. Why, he was Burke, her
+husband&mdash;Baby's father! As if ever she could let it be said that she had
+dragged him down!</p>
+
+<p>Quivering, shaken with sobs, she fell back on the pillow. For a few
+moments she cried on convulsively. Then, with a tremulous indrawn
+breath, she opened her eyes and stared into the dark again. A new
+thought had come to her.</p>
+
+<p>But there was time yet. Nothing dreadful had happened. She would show
+Burke, his friends, everybody, that she had not dragged him down. From
+now on she would try. Oh, how she would try! He should see. He <i>should</i>
+find a happy home when he came at night. She knew more, now, than she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+did, about housekeeping. Besides, there was more money now,&mdash;a little
+more,&mdash;and she had some one to help her with the work. Bridget was
+really doing very well; and there was Mrs. Cobb, so kind and helpful.
+She would go to her for advice always. Never again should Burke come
+home and find such a looking place. Baby should be washed and dressed.
+She herself would be dressed and waiting. Dinner, too, even on Bridget's
+day out, should be all ready and waiting. As if ever again she would run
+the risk of Burke's having to flee from his own home because he could
+not stand it! He should see!</p>
+
+<p>It was in this softened, exalted state of mind that Helen rose the next
+morning and proceeded to begin the carrying-out of her vows, by essaying
+the almost hopeless task (with Bridget's not overcheerful assistance) of
+putting into spotless order the entire apartment.</p>
+
+<p>At two o'clock, when Burke's letter came, she was utterly weary and
+almost sick; but she was still in the softened, exalted state of the
+early morning.</p>
+
+<p>With a wondering, half-frightened little cry at sight of the familiar
+writing, she began to read. John Denby's check for ten thousand dollars
+had fallen into her lap unnoticed.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>My dear Helen</i> [she read]: First let me apologize for
+flying off the handle the way I did last night. I shouldn't
+have done it. But, do you know? I believe I'm glad I
+did&mdash;for it's taught me something. Maybe you've discovered
+it, too. It's this: you and I have been getting on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> each
+other's nerves, lately. We need a rest from each other.</p>
+
+<p>Now, don't bristle up and take it wrong, my dear. Just be
+sensible and think. How many times a day do we snap and
+snarl at each other? You're tired and half sick with the
+work and the baby. I'm tired and half sick with <i>my</i> work,
+and we're always rubbing each other the wrong way. That's
+why I think we need a vacation from each other. And dad has
+made it possible for us to take one. He wants me to go to
+Alaska with him on a little trip. I want to go, of course.
+Then, too, I think I ought to go. Dad needs me. Not that he
+is old, but he is just getting over an illness, and his head
+bothers him a lot. I can be of real use to him.</p>
+
+<p>At his own suggestion he is sending you the enclosed check.
+He wants you to accept it with his best wishes for a
+pleasant vacation. He suggests&mdash;and I echo him&mdash;that it
+would be a fine idea if you should take the baby and go back
+to your home town for a visit. I know your father and mother
+are not living; but there must be some one there whom you
+would like to visit. Or, better yet, now that you have the
+means, you would probably prefer a good hotel for
+headquarters, and then make short visits to all your
+friends. It would do you worlds of good, and Baby, too.</p>
+
+<p>And now&mdash;I'm writing this instead of coming to tell it face
+to face, because I believe it's the best way. I'll be frank.
+After last night, we might say things when we first met that
+we'd be sorry for. And I don't want that to happen. So I'm
+going to stay up here for a day or two.</p>
+
+<p>Let me see&mdash;to-day is Friday. We are due to leave next
+Wednesday. I'll be down the first of the week to say
+good-bye and pick up my traps. Meanwhile, chicken, you'll be
+all right with Bridget there; and just you put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> your wits to
+work and go to planning out that vacation of yours, and how
+you're going to spend the money. Then you can be ready to
+tell me all about it when I come down.</p></div>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 32em;">Your affectionate husband,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 34em;"><span class="smcap">Burke</span>.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Helen's first feeling, upon finishing the note, was one of utter
+stupefaction. With a dazed frown and a low ejaculation she turned the
+letter over and began to read it again&mdash;more slowly. This time she
+understood. But her thoughts were still in a whirl of surprised
+disbelief. Then, gradually, came a measure of conviction.</p>
+
+<p>Fresh from her vigils of the night before, with its self-accusations and
+its heroic resolutions, she was so chastened and softened that there was
+more of grief than of anger in her first outburst.</p>
+
+<p>She began to cry a little wildly.</p>
+
+<p>Burke was going away. He <i>wanted</i> to go. He said they&mdash;they got on each
+other's nerves. He said they needed a vacation from each other. <i>Needed</i>
+one! As if they did! It wasn't that. It was his father's idea. <i>She</i>
+knew. It was all his fault! But he was going&mdash;Burke was. He said he was.
+There would not be any chance now to show him the daintily gowned wife
+welcoming her husband home to a well-kept house. There would not be any
+chance to show how she had changed. There would not be&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But there would be&mdash;after he came back.</p>
+
+<p>Helen stopped sobbing, and caught her breath<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> with a new hope in her
+eyes. Dorothy Elizabeth began to cry, and Helen picked her up and
+commenced to rock her.</p>
+
+<p>Of course there <i>would</i> be time after he came back. And, after all,
+might it not be the wisest thing, to be away from each other for a time?
+Why, even this little while&mdash;a single night of Burke's being gone&mdash;had
+shown her where she stood!&mdash;had shown her where it was all leading to!
+Of course it was the best way, and Burke had seen it. It was right that
+he should go. And had they not provided for her? She was to go&mdash; There
+was a check somewhere&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Burrowing in her lap under Dorothy Elizabeth's warm little body, Helen
+dragged forth an oblong bit of crumpled paper. Carefully she spread it
+flat. The next moment her eyes flew wide open.</p>
+
+<p>One thousand dollars! No, <i>ten</i> thousand! It couldn't be! But it was.
+Ten thousand dollars! And she had been scolding and blaming them, when
+all the time they had been so generous! And it really <i>was</i> the best
+way, too, that they should be apart for a while. It would give her a
+chance to adjust herself and practice&mdash;and it would need some practice
+if she were really going to be that daintily gowned young wife welcoming
+her husband to a well-kept home! And with ten thousand dollars! What
+couldn't they get with ten thousand dollars?</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy Elizabeth, at that moment, emitted a sharp, frightened cry. For
+how was Dorothy Elizabeth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> to know that the spasmodic pressure that so
+hurt her was really only a ten-thousand-dollar hug of joy?</p>
+
+<p>In less than half an hour, Helen, leaving the baby with Bridget, had
+sought Mrs. Cobb. She could keep her good news no longer.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to tell you. I'm going away&mdash;Baby and I," she announced
+joyously. "We're going next week."</p>
+
+<p>"Jiminy! You don't say so! But you don't mean you're goin' away ter
+<i>live</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. Just for a visit to my old home town where I was born&mdash;only
+'twill be a good long one. You see, we need a rest and a change so
+much&mdash;Baby and I do." There was a shade of importance in voice and
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>"That you do!" exclaimed Mrs. Cobb, with emphasis. "And I'm glad you're
+goin'. But, sakes alive, I'm goin' ter miss ye, child!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall miss you, too," beamed Helen cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"How long you goin' ter be gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, exactly. It'll depend, some, on Burke&mdash;I mean Mr.
+Denby&mdash;when he wants me to come back."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ain't he goin', too?" An indefinable change came to Mrs. Cobb's
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, not with us," smiled Helen. "He's going to Alaska."</p>
+
+<p>"To&mdash;<i>Alaska</i>! And, pray, what's he chasin' off to a heathen country
+like that for?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Tisn't heathen&mdash;Alaska isn't," flashed Helen, vaguely irritated without
+knowing why. "Heathen countries are&mdash;are always hot. Alaska's cold.
+Isn't Alaska up north&mdash;to the pole, 'most? It used to be, when I went to
+school."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe 'tis; but that ain't sayin' why he's goin' there, instead of with
+you," retorted Mrs. Cobb. In spite of the bantering tone in which this
+was uttered, disapproval was plainly evident in Mrs. Cobb's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"He's going with his father," answered Helen, with some dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"His father! Humph!"</p>
+
+<p>This time the disapproval was so unmistakably evident that Helen flamed
+into prompt defense, in righteous, wifely indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why you speak like that, Mrs. Cobb. Hasn't he got a right
+to go with his father, if he wants to? Besides, his father needs him.
+Burke says he does."</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>you</i> don't need him, I s'pose," flamed Mrs. Cobb, in her turn,
+nettled that her sympathetic interest should meet with so poor a
+welcome. "Of course it's none of my business, Mis' Denby, but it seems a
+shame to me for him ter let you and the baby go off alone like this, and
+so I spoke right out. I always speak right out&mdash;what I think."</p>
+
+<p>Helen flushed angrily. However much she might find fault with her
+husband herself, she suddenly discovered a strong disinclination to
+allowing any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> one else to do so. Besides, now, when he and his father
+had been so kind and generous&mdash;! She had not meant to tell Mrs. Cobb of
+the ten-thousand-dollar check, lest it lead to unpleasant questioning as
+to why it was sent. But now, in the face of Mrs. Cobb's unjust
+criticism, she flung caution aside.</p>
+
+<p>"You're very kind," she began, a bit haughtily; "but, you see, this time
+you have made a slight mistake. I don't think it's a shame at all for
+him to go away with his father who needs him; and you won't, when you
+know what they've sent me. They sent me a check this afternoon for ten
+thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ten&mdash;thousand&mdash;dollars!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," bowed Helen, with a triumphant "I-told-you-so" air, as Mrs.
+Cobb's eyes seemed almost to pop out of her head. "They sent it this
+very afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"For the land's sake!" breathed Mrs. Cobb. Then, as her dazed wits began
+to collect themselves, a new look came to her eyes. "They <i>sent</i> it?"
+she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"By special messenger&mdash;yes," bowed Helen, again importantly.</p>
+
+<p>"But how funny to <i>send</i> it, instead of bringing it himself&mdash;your
+husband, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>Too late Helen saw her mistake. In a panic, now, lest unpleasant truths
+be discovered, she assumed an especially light, cheerful manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, I don't think it was funny a bit. He&mdash;he wanted it a surprise,
+I guess. And he wrote&mdash;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> letter, you know. A lovely letter, all about
+what a good time Baby and I could have with the money."</p>
+
+<p>The suspicion in Mrs. Cobb's eyes became swift conviction. An angry red
+stained her cheeks&mdash;but it was not anger at Helen. That was clearly to
+be seen.</p>
+
+<p>"Look a-here, Mis' Denby," she began resolutely, "I'm a plain woman, and
+I always speak right out. And I'm your friend, too, and I ain't goin'
+ter stand by and see you made a fool of, and not try ter lift a hand ter
+help. There's somethin' wrong here. If you don't know it, it's time you
+did. If you <i>do</i> know it, and are tryin' ter keep it from me, you might
+just as well stop right now, and turn 'round and tell me all about it.
+As I said before, I'm your friend, and&mdash;if it's what I think it
+is&mdash;you'll <i>need</i> a friend, you poor little thing! Now, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen shook her head feebly. Her face went from white to red, and back
+again to white. Still determined to keep her secret if possible, she
+made a brave attempt to regain her old airiness of manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mrs. Cobb, it's nothing&mdash;nothing at all!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Cobb exploded into voluble wrath.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothin', is it?&mdash;when a man goes kitin' off ter Alaska, and sendin' his
+wife ten thousand dollars ter go somewheres else in the opposite
+direction! Maybe you think I don't know what that means. But I do! And
+he's tryin' ter play a mean, snivelin' trick on ye, and I ain't goin'
+ter stand for it. I never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> did like him, with all his fine, lordly airs,
+a-thinkin' himself better than anybody else what walked the earth. But
+if I can help it, I ain't goin' ter see you cheated out of your just
+deserts."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mrs. Cobb!</i>" expostulated the dismayed, dumfounded wife; but Mrs. Cobb
+had yet more to say.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you they're rich&mdash;them Denbys be&mdash;rich as mud; and as for pokin'
+you off with a measly ten thousand dollars, they shan't&mdash;and you with a
+baby ter try ter bring up and edyercate. The idea of your standin' for a
+separation with only ten thousand&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Separation!" interrupted Helen indignantly, as soon as she could find
+her voice. "It isn't a separation. Why, we never thought of such a
+thing;&mdash;not for&mdash;for <i>always</i>, the way you mean it."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's just a&mdash;a playday," stammered Helen, still trying to cling to
+the remnant of her secret. "He <i>said</i> it was a playday&mdash;that I was to go
+off and have a good time with Baby."</p>
+
+<p>"If it's just a playday, why didn't he give it to you ter take it
+<i>tergether</i>, then? Tell me that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he&mdash;he's going with his father."</p>
+
+<p>"You bet he is," retorted Mrs. Cobb grimly. "And he's goin' ter keep
+with his father, too."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" Helen's lips were very white.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Cobb gave an impatient gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Look a-here, child, do you think I'm blind? Don't ye s'pose I know how
+you folks have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> gettin' along tergether?&mdash;or, rather, <i>not</i> gettin'
+along tergether? Don't ye s'pose I know how he acts as if you wasn't the
+same breed o' cats with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you've seen&mdash;I mean, you think he's&mdash;ashamed of me?" faltered
+Helen.</p>
+
+<p>"Think it! I <i>know</i> it," snapped Mrs. Cobb, ruthlessly freeing her mind,
+regardless of the very evident suffering on her listener's face; "and
+it's just made my blood boil. Time an' again I've thought of speakin' up
+an' tellin' ye I jest wouldn't stand it, if I was you. But I didn't. I
+ain't no hand ter butt in where it don't concern me. But ter see you so
+plumb fooled with that ten thousand dollars&mdash;I jest can't stand it no
+longer. I <i>had</i> ter speak up. Turnin' you off with a beggarly ten
+thousand dollars&mdash;and them with all that money! Bah!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mrs. Cobb, maybe he's coming back," stammered Helen faintly, with
+white lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! So maybe the sun'll rise in the west termorrer," scoffed Mrs.
+Cobb; "but I ain't pullin' down my winder shades for it yet. No, he
+won't come back&mdash;ter <i>you</i>, Mis' Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"But he&mdash;he don't say it's for&mdash;for all time."</p>
+
+<p>"'Course he don't. But, ye see, he thinks he's lettin' ye down
+easy&mdash;a-sendin' ye that big check, an' tellin' ye ter take a playday. He
+don't want ye ter suspect, yet, an' make a fuss. He's countin' on bein'
+miles away when ye <i>do</i> wake up an' start somethin'. That's why I'm
+a-talkin' to ye now&mdash;ter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> put ye wise ter things. I ain't goin' ter
+stand by an' see you bamboozled. Now do you go an' put on your things
+an' march up there straight. I'll take care of the baby, an' be glad to,
+if you don't want ter leave her with Bridget."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I go up there?</i>" Helen's voice was full of dismayed protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure! You brace right up to 'em, an' tell 'em you've caught on ter
+their little scheme, and you ain't goin' ter stand for no such nonsense.
+If he wants ter git rid of you an' the baby, all well an' good. That is,
+I'm takin' it for granted that you wouldn't fight it&mdash;the divorce, I
+mean."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Divorce!</i>" almost shrieked Helen.</p>
+
+<p>"But that he's got ter treat ye fair and square, an' give ye somewheres
+near what's due ye," went on Mrs. Cobb, without apparently noticing
+Helen's horrified exclamation. "Now don't cry; and, above all things,
+don't let 'em think they've scared ye. Just brace right up an' tell 'em
+what's what."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but Mrs. Cobb, I&mdash;I&mdash;" With a choking sob and a hysterical shake of
+her head, Helen turned and fled down the hall to her own door. Once
+inside her apartment she stumbled over to the crib and caught the
+sleeping Dorothy Elizabeth into her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Baby, Baby, it's all over&mdash;all over," she moaned. "I can't ever be
+a daintily gowned wife welcoming him to a well-kept home now.
+Never&mdash;never! I can't welcome him at all. He isn't coming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> back. He
+doesn't <i>want</i> to come back. He's ashamed of us, Baby,&mdash;<i>ashamed of
+us</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy Elizabeth, roused from her nap and convulsively clutched in a
+pair of nervous hands, began to whimper restlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Baby, not of you," sobbed Helen, rocking the child back and
+forth in her arms. "It was me&mdash;just me he was ashamed of. What shall I
+do, what <i>shall</i> I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"And I thought it was just as he said," she went on chokingly, after a
+moment's pause. "I thought it was a vacation he wanted us to take,
+'cause we&mdash;we got on each other's nerves. But it wasn't, Baby,&mdash;it
+wasn't; and I see it now. He's ashamed of me. He's always been ashamed
+of me, 'way back when Dr. Gleason first came&mdash;he was ashamed of me then,
+Baby. He was. I know he was. And now he wants to get away&mdash;quite away,
+and never come back. And he calls it a <i>vacation</i>! And he says <i>I'm</i> to
+have one, too, and I must tell him all about it when he comes down next
+week. Maybe he thinks I will. <i>Maybe he thinks I will!</i></p>
+
+<p>"We won't be here, Baby,&mdash;we won't! We'll go
+somewhere&mdash;somewhere&mdash;anywhere!&mdash;before he gets here," she raved,
+burying her face in the baby's neck and sobbing hysterically.</p>
+
+<p>Once again Helen passed a sleepless night. Never questioning now Mrs.
+Cobb's interpretation of her husband's conduct, there remained only a
+decision as to her own course of action. That she could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> be there
+when her husband came to make ready for his journey, she was convinced.
+She told herself fiercely that she would take herself and the baby
+away&mdash;quite away out of his sight. He should not be shamed again by the
+sight of her. But she knew in her heart that she was fleeing because she
+dared not go through that last meeting with her husband, lest she should
+break down. And she did not want to break down. If Burke did not want
+<i>her</i>, was it likely she was going to cry and whine, and let him know
+that she <i>did</i> want him? Certainly not!</p>
+
+<p>Helen's lips came together in a thin, straight line, in spite of her
+trembling chin. Between her hurt love and her wounded pride, Helen was
+in just that state of hysterics and heroics to do almost
+anything&mdash;except something sane and sober.</p>
+
+<p>First, to get away. On that she was determined. But where to go&mdash;that
+was the question. As for going back to the old home town&mdash;as Burke had
+suggested&mdash;<i>that</i> she would not do&mdash;now. Did they think, then, that she
+was going back there among her old friends to be laughed at, and gibed
+at? What if she did have ten thousand dollars to spend on frills and
+finery to dazzle their eyes? How long would it be before the whole town
+found out, as had Mrs. Cobb, that that ten thousand dollars was the
+price Burke Denby had paid for his freedom from the wife he was ashamed
+of? Never! She would not go there. But where could she go?</p>
+
+<p>It was then that a plan came to her&mdash;a plan so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> wild and dazzling that
+even her frenzied aspiration scouted it at first as impossible. But it
+came again and again; and before long her fancy was playing with it, and
+turning it about with a wistful "Of course, if I could!" which in time
+became a hesitating "And maybe, after all, I <i>could</i> do it," only to
+settle at last into a breathlessly triumphant "I will!"</p>
+
+<p>After that things moved very swiftly in the little Denby flat. It was
+Saturday morning, and there was no time to lose.</p>
+
+<p>First, Helen gathered all the cash she had in the house, not forgetting
+the baby's bank (which yielded the biggest sum of all), and counted it.
+She had nineteen dollars and seventeen cents. Then she rummaged among
+her husband's letters and papers until she found a letter from Dr.
+Gleason bearing his Boston address. Next, with Bridget to help her, she
+flung into her trunk everything belonging to herself and the baby that
+it was possible to crowd in, save the garments laid out to wear. By
+three o'clock Bridget was paid and dismissed, and Helen, with Dorothy
+Elizabeth, was waiting for the carriage to take them to the railroad
+station.</p>
+
+<p>With the same tearless exaltation that had carried her through the
+prodigious tasks of the morning, Helen picked up her bag and Dorothy
+Elizabeth, and followed her trunk down the stairs and out to the street.
+She gave not one backward glance to the little home, and she carefully
+avoided anything but an airy "Good-bye" to the watching Mrs. Cobb in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+the window on the other side. Not until the wheels began to turn, and
+the journey was really begun, did Helen's tearless exaltation become the
+frightened anxiety of one who finds herself adrift on an uncharted sea.</p>
+
+<p>Then Helen began to cry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>IN QUEST OF THE STARS</h3>
+
+<p>In a roomy old house on Beacon Hill Dr. Frank Gleason made his home with
+his sister, Mrs. Ellery Thayer. The family were at their North Shore
+cottage, however, and only the doctor was at home on the night that
+Hawkins, the Thayers' old family butler, appeared at the library door
+with the somewhat disconcerting information that a young person with a
+baby and a bag was at the door and wished to speak to Dr. Gleason.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor looked up in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Me?" he questioned. "A woman? She must mean Mrs. Thayer."</p>
+
+<p>"She said you, sir. And she isn't a patient. I asked her, thinking she
+might have made a mistake and took you for a real doctor what practices.
+She said she didn't want doctoring. She wanted you. She's a young person
+I never saw before, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But, good Heavens, man, it's after eleven o'clock!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir." On the manservant's face was an expression of lively
+curiosity and disapproval, mingled with a subdued but unholy mirth which
+was not lost on the doctor, and which particularly exasperated him.</p>
+
+<p>"What in thunder can a woman with a baby want<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> of me at this time of&mdash;
+What's her name?" demanded the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't say, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go ask her."</p>
+
+<p>The butler coughed slightly, but made no move to leave the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I did ask her, sir. She declined to give it."</p>
+
+<p>"Declined to&mdash; Well, I like her impertinence."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. She said you'd"&mdash;the servant's voice faltered and swerved
+ever so slightly from its well-trained impassiveness&mdash;"er&mdash;understand,
+sir."</p>
+
+<p>"She said I'd&mdash;the deuce she did!" exploded the doctor under his breath,
+flushing an angry red and leaping to his feet. "Didn't you tell her Mrs.
+Thayer was gone?" he demanded at last, wheeling savagely.</p>
+
+<p>"I did, sir, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"She said she was glad; that she wanted only you, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Wanted only&mdash;!</i> Comes here at this time of night with a bag and a
+baby, refuses to give her name, and says I'll understand!" snarled the
+doctor. "Oh, come, Hawkins, this is some colossal mistake, or a fool
+hoax, or&mdash; What kind of looking specimen is she?"</p>
+
+<p>Hawkins, who had known the doctor from his Knickerbocker days, was
+guilty of a slow grin.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a&mdash;a very good looker, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she is! Well&mdash;er, tell her I can't possibly see her; that I've gone
+to bed&mdash;away&mdash;sick&mdash;something!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> Anything! Tell her she'll have to see
+Mrs. Thayer."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir." Still the man made no move to go. "She&mdash;er&mdash;beg pardon,
+sir&mdash;but she'll be that cut up, I fear, sir. You see, she's been cryin'.
+And she's young&mdash;very young."</p>
+
+<p>"Crying!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. And she was that powerful anxious to see you, sir. I had hard
+work to keep her from coming <i>with</i> me. I did, sir. She's in the hall.
+And&mdash;it's raining outside, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, good Heavens! Well, bring her in," capitulated the doctor in
+obvious desperation.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir." This time the words were scarcely out of his mouth before
+the old man was gone. In an incredibly short time he was back with a
+flushed-faced, agitated young woman carrying a sleeping child in her
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>At sight of her, the doctor, who had plainly braced himself behind a
+most forbidding aspect, leaped forward with a low cry and a complete
+change of manner.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mrs. Denby!</i>" he gasped. But instantly he fell back; for the young
+woman, for all the world like a tenpenny-dreadful stage heroine, hissed
+out a tragic "Sh-h! I don't want anybody to know my name!" with a
+cautious glance toward the none-too-rapidly disappearing Hawkins.</p>
+
+<p>"But what does this mean?" demanded Frank Gleason, when he could find
+words. "Where's Burke?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's left me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Left you! Impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." She drew in her breath convulsively. "He says it's only to Alaska
+with his father; but that's just to let me down easy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but, Mrs. Denby&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't try to make me think any different," she interposed
+wearily, sinking into the chair the doctor placed for her; "'cause you
+can't. I've been over everything you could say. All the way down here I
+didn't have anything to do only just to think and think. And I see
+now&mdash;such lots of things that I never saw before."</p>
+
+<p>"But, why&mdash;how do you know&mdash;what made you think he has&mdash;left you?"
+stammered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Because he's ashamed of me; and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mrs. Denby!"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't have to say anything about that, either," said Mrs. Denby
+very quietly. And before the dumb agony in the eyes turned full upon
+him, he fell silent.</p>
+
+<p>"There ain't any question as to what <i>has</i> been done; it's just what I'm
+<i>going</i> to <i>do</i>," she went on wearily again. "He sent me ten thousand
+dollars&mdash;Burke's father did; and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"John Denby sent you ten thousand dollars!" exploded the doctor, sitting
+erect.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; a check. I've got it here. He sent it for a playday, you know,"
+nodded Mrs. Denby, shifting the weight of the heavy baby in her arms.
+"And&mdash;and that's why I came to you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"To&mdash;to me," stammered the doctor, growing suddenly alertly miserable
+and nervous again. "A&mdash;a playday! But I&mdash;I&mdash;that is&mdash;how&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm not going to take the playday. I couldn't even <i>think</i>
+play&mdash;now," she choked. "It's&mdash;" Then in a breathless burst it came.
+"Doctor, you can&mdash;you <i>will</i> help me, won't you?&mdash;to learn to stand and
+walk and talk and eat soup and wear the right clothes and finger nails
+and hair, you know, and not say the wrong things, and everything the way
+Burke's friends do&mdash;you and all the rest of them&mdash;<i>you</i> know, so <i>I</i> can
+be swell and grand, too, and he won't be ashamed of me! And <i>is</i> ten
+thousand dollars enough to pay&mdash;for learning all that?"</p>
+
+<p>From sheer inability to speak, the man could only fall back in his chair
+and stare dumbly.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, <i>please</i> don't look at me like that," besought the young woman
+frenziedly. "It's just as if you said you <i>couldn't</i> help me. But you
+can! I know you can. And I can <i>do</i> it. I know that, too. I read it in a
+book, once, about a girl who&mdash;who was like me. And she went away and got
+perfectly grand clothes, and learning, and all; and then she came back;
+and he&mdash;he didn't know her at first&mdash;her husband, and he fell in love
+with her all over again. And she didn't have near so much money as I've
+got. Doctor, you <i>will</i> help me?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, with his shocked, amazed eyes on the piteously pleading face
+opposite, threw up his hands in despair.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But I&mdash;you&mdash;Burke&mdash; Oh, Heavens, my dear lady! How utterly, utterly
+impossible this all is! Come, come, what am I thinking of?&mdash;and you with
+not even your hat off yet! And that child! I'll call Hawkins at once. He
+and his wife are all there are left here, just now,&mdash;my sister's at the
+beach. But they'll make you and little Miss Dorothy Elizabeth here
+comfortable for the night. Then, to-morrow, after a good sleep,
+we'll&mdash;we'll fix it all up. I'll get Burke on the long distance, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Gleason," interrupted Helen Denby, with a calmness that would have
+deceived him had he not seen her eyes, "my husband isn't worrying about
+me. He thinks I'm at home now. When he finds I'm not, he'll think I've
+gone to my old home town where he <i>told</i> me to go for a visit. He won't
+worry then. So that's all right. Don't you see? He's sent me
+away&mdash;<i>sent</i> me. If you tell him now that I am here, I will walk right
+straight out of that door, and neither you nor him nor anybody else I
+know shall ever see me again."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, come," protested the doctor, again helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>Once more Helen interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor, why can't you be straight with me?" she pleaded. "I had to come
+to you. There wasn't anybody else I <i>could</i> go to. And there isn't any
+other way out of it&mdash;but this. I tell you I've been doing some
+<i>thinking</i>. All the way down here it's been just think, think, think."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The doctor wet his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"But, if&mdash;if Burke knew&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Look a-here," cut in Helen resolutely, "you've been to our house quite
+a lot since Burke and me was married. You think I made Burke real happy,
+don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You might just as well say the words with your lips, Doctor. Your face
+has said them," observed Helen, a little dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;no, then;&mdash;but I feel like a brute to say it."</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't. I made you. Besides, I'm glad to have you say it. We're
+right out in the open, now, and maybe we can get somewhere. Look a-here,
+do you know?&mdash;for the first time in my life to-day I was sorry for John
+Denby. I was! I got to thinking, with Dorothy Elizabeth all safe and
+snug in my arms, how, by and by, she'd be a little girl, and then a
+young lady. And she was so sweet and pretty, and&mdash;and I <i>loved</i> her so!
+And I got to thinking how I'd feel if somebody took her away from me the
+way I took Burke away from his father, and married her when I didn't
+want her to, any more 'n Burke's father wanted <i>him</i> to; and I&mdash;I could
+see then how he must have felt, worshiping Burke as he did. I know&mdash;I
+used to see them together, when I was nurse there with Mrs. Allen's
+children. I never saw a father and son so much like&mdash;chums. He doted on
+Burke. I know now how he felt. And&mdash;and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> it's turned out the way he
+said. I hain't been the one for Burke at all. I've&mdash;I've dragged him
+down."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Denby, please&mdash;" begged the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>But she paused only long enough to shake her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have. I know. I've been thinking it all over&mdash;the life we've led
+together, and what he might have had, if he hadn't had&mdash;if it hadn't
+been for me. And that's why, now, I want to see if&mdash;if I can't learn how
+to&mdash;to make him not ashamed of me. And it ain't for me, only, it's for
+Dorothy Elizabeth. I want to teach her. It's bad enough to have him
+ashamed of me; but I&mdash;I just couldn't stand it if he should ever be&mdash;be
+ashamed of&mdash;<i>her</i>. And now&mdash;won't you help me, please? Remember, Burke
+don't <i>want</i> me at home, now, so I'm not displeasing him. <i>Won't</i> you
+help me? It's my only&mdash;chance!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor sprang to his feet. His eyes were moist and his voice shook
+when he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Help you! I'll help you to&mdash;to bring down the moon and all the stars,
+if you say the word! Mrs. Denby, you're a&mdash;a little brick, and there's
+no end to the way I respect and admire you. Of course I'll help
+you&mdash;somehow. Though <i>how</i> I haven't the faintest idea. Meanwhile you
+must get some rest. As I told you, my sister is at the beach, and there
+are only Hawkins and his wife here to keep the house open. But they'll
+make you comfortable for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> night, and we'll see to-morrow what can be
+done. We'll have some kind of a plan," he finished, as he crossed the
+room to ring the bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you, thank you!" breathed Helen. "But, remember, please, I'm
+not Mrs. Denby. I'm Mrs. Darling&mdash;my mother's maiden name," she begged
+in a panic, as the doctor touched the bell.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>True to his promise, Frank Gleason had a plan, of a sort, ready by
+morning. He told it at the breakfast table.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to take you to my sister, provided, of course, that you
+agree," he announced. "Five minutes' talk with her on this matter will
+be worth five years' with me. I shouldn't wonder if she kept you
+herself,&mdash;for a time, with her. And you couldn't be in a better place.
+Perhaps you'll be willing to help her with the children&mdash;and she'll be
+glad of that, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;my money&mdash;can't I pay&mdash;money?" faltered Helen.</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Not if we can help it. Your money you'll need later for Miss
+Dorothy&mdash;unless you are willing to make yourself known to your husband
+sooner than you seem now to be willing to. We'll invest it in something
+safe and solid, and it'll bring you in a few hundred a year. You'll have
+that to spend; and that will go quite a way&mdash;under some circumstances."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But I&mdash;I want to&mdash;to learn things, you know," stammered Helen; "how to
+be&mdash;be&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll learn&mdash;lots of things, if you live with my sister," remarked the
+doctor significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" smiled Helen, with a sigh of relief and content.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor sighed, too,&mdash;though not at all with either relief or
+content. To the doctor, the task before him loomed as absurd and unreal
+as if it were, indeed, the pulling-down of the stars and the moon&mdash;the
+carrying-out of his extravagant promise of the night before.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TRAIL OF THE INK</h3>
+
+<p>Burke Denby was well pleased with the letter that he had sent to his
+wife, enclosing the ten-thousand-dollar check. He felt that it was both
+conclusive and diplomatic; and he believed that it carried a frankness
+that would prove to be disarming. He had every confidence that Helen
+would eventually (if not at once) recognize its logic and
+reasonableness, and follow its suggestions. With a light heart,
+therefore, he gave himself up to the enjoyment of the day with his
+father. By Saturday, however, a lively curiosity began to assail him as
+to just how Helen did take the note, after all. There also came
+unpleasantly to him a recurrence of the uncomfortable feeling that his
+abrupt departure from home Thursday night had been neither brave nor
+kind, and, in fact, hardly decent, under the circumstances. He decided
+that he would, when he saw Helen, really quite humble himself and
+apologize roundly. It was no more than her due, poor girl!</p>
+
+<p>By Sunday, between his curiosity and his uneasy remorse, he was too
+nervous really to enjoy anything to the full; but he sternly adhered to
+his original plan of not going down to the Dale Street flat before
+Monday, believing, in his heart, that nothing could do so much good to
+both of them, under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> circumstances, as a few days of thought apart
+from each other. Monday, however, found him headed for Dale Street; but
+in an hour he was back at Elm Hill. He was plainly very angry.</p>
+
+<p>"She's gone," he announced, with a brevity more eloquent of his state of
+mind than a flood of words would have been.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone! Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Home&mdash;to spend that ten thousand dollars, of course. She left this."</p>
+
+<p>With a frown John Denby took the proffered bit of paper upon which had
+been scrawled:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I hope you'll enjoy your playday as much as I shall mine.
+Address me at Wenton&mdash;if you care to write.</p></div>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 34em;"><span class="smcap">Helen</span>.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you find this?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my chiffonier. I didn't think that&mdash;of Helen."</p>
+
+<p>"And there was nothing to show <i>when</i> she left?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing&mdash;except that the apartment was in spick-and-span order from end
+to end; and <i>that</i> must have taken <i>some</i> time to accomplish."</p>
+
+<p>"But perhaps the neighbors would&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There's no one she knows but Mrs. Cobb," interrupted Burke, with an
+impatient gesture. "Do you suppose I'm going to her and whimper, 'My
+wife's gone. Please, do you know when she went?' Not much! I saw
+her&mdash;the dear creature! And one glance at her face showed that she was
+dying to be asked. But I didn't afford her that satisfaction. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> gave
+her a particularly blithe 'Good-morning,' and then walked away as if I'd
+<i>known</i> I was coming home to an empty house all the time. But, I repeat,
+I'm disappointed. I didn't think this of Helen&mdash;running off like this!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think she was angry, then, at your letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she was&mdash;at that, and at the way I left her the other night.
+I <i>was</i> a bit of a cad there, I'll admit; but that doesn't excuse her
+for doing a trick like this. I wrote her a good letter, and you sent her
+a very generous check; and I told her I was coming to-day to pick up my
+traps and say good-bye. She didn't care to see me&mdash;that's all. But she
+might have had some thought that I'd like to see my daughter before I
+go. If there was time I'd run up there. But it's out of the
+question&mdash;with only to-morrow before we start."</p>
+
+<p>"Wenton is her home town, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. She left there, you know, two years before I saw her. Her father
+died and then her mother; and she had to look out for herself. I shall
+write, of course, and send it up before I go. And I shall try to write
+decently; but I will own up, father, I'm mad clear through."</p>
+
+<p>"Too bad, too bad!" John Denby frowned and shook his head again. "I must
+confess, Burke, that I, too, didn't quite think this&mdash;of Helen."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know her street address, of course." Burke was on his feet,
+pacing back and forth. "But that isn't necessary. It's a small town&mdash;I
+know that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> I told her I thought she'd like the hotel best; but she may
+prefer to go to some friend's home. However, that doesn't signify.
+She'll get it all right, if I direct it simply to Wenton. But I can't
+have a reply before I leave. There isn't time, even if she deigned to
+write&mdash;which I doubt, in her present evident frame of mind. Pleasant,
+isn't it? Makes me feel real happy to start off with, to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course it doesn't," admitted John Denby, with a sigh. "But,
+come, Burke,"&mdash;his eyes grew wistful,&mdash;"don't let this silly whim of
+Helen's spoil everything. Fretting never did help anything, and perhaps,
+after all, it's the best thing that could have happened. A meeting
+between you, in Helen's present temper, could have resulted only in
+unhappiness. Obviously Helen is piqued and angry at your suggesting a
+separation for a time. She determined to give it to you&mdash;but to give it
+to you a little sooner than you wanted. That's her way of getting back
+at you. That's all. Let her alone. She'll come to her senses in time.
+Oh, <i>write</i>, of course," he hastened to add, in answer to the expression
+on his son's face. "But don't expect a reply too soon. You must remember
+you gave Helen a pretty big blow to her pride. I <i>wish</i> she had looked
+at the matter sensibly, of course; but probably that was too much to
+expect."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it was&mdash;of&mdash;" Biting his lips, Burke pulled himself up
+sharply. "I'll go and write my letter," he finished wearily, instead.</p>
+
+<p>And John Denby echoed the long sigh he drew.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was January when John Denby and his son returned from their Alaskan
+trip. The long and rather serious illness of John Denby in November, and
+the necessary slowness of their journeying thereafter, had caused a
+series of delays very trying to both father and son.</p>
+
+<p>To neither John Denby nor Burke had the trip been an entire success.
+Burke, in spite of his joy at being with his father and his delight in
+the traveling itself, could not get away from the shadow of an upturned
+bottle of ink in a Dale Street flat. At times, with all the old boyish
+enthusiasm and lightness of heart, he entered into whatever came; but
+underneath it all, and forever cropping uppermost, was a surge of anger,
+a bitterness of heart.</p>
+
+<p>Not once, through the entire trip, had Burke heard from his wife. Their
+mail, of course, had been infrequent and irregular; but, from time to
+time, a batch of letters would be found waiting for them, and always,
+with feverish eagerness, Burke had scanned the envelopes for a sight of
+Helen's familiar scrawl. He had never found it, and he was very angry
+thereat. He was not worried or frightened. Any Denby of the Dalton
+Denbys was too well known not to have any vital information concerning
+him or her communicated to the family headquarters. If anything had
+happened to either Helen or the child, he would have known of it, of
+course, through Brett. This silence could mean, therefore, but one
+thing: Helen's own wish that he should not hear. He felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> that he had a
+right to be angry. He pictured Helen happy, gay in her new finery,
+queening it over her old school friends in Wenton, and nursing wrath and
+resentment against himself (else why did she not write?)&mdash;and the
+picture did not please him.</p>
+
+<p>He had suggested separation (for a time), to be sure; but he had not
+suggested total annihilation of all intercourse! If she did not care to
+say anything for herself, she might, at least, be decent enough to let
+him hear as to the welfare of his child, he reasoned indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>On one course of action he was determined. As soon as he returned home
+he would go to Helen and have it out with her. If she <i>wished</i> to carry
+to such absurd lengths her unreasonable pique at his perfectly
+reasonable suggestion, he wanted to know it at once, and not live along
+this way!</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances it is not strange, perhaps, that the trip, for
+Burke, was not an unalloyed joy; and the delays, in addition to giving
+him no little anxiety for his father, fretted him almost beyond
+endurance.</p>
+
+<p>As to John Denby&mdash;he, too, could not get away from the shadow of an
+upturned bottle of ink. Besides suffering the reflection of its effect
+on his son, in that son's moodiness and frequent lack of enthusiasm, he
+had no small amount of it on his own account.</p>
+
+<p>Burke's word-picture of that evening's catastrophe had been a vivid one;
+and John Denby could not forget it. He realized that it meant much in
+many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> ways. The fact that it had been followed by Helen's ominous
+silence did not lessen his uneasy questionings. He wondered if, after
+all, he had done the wise thing in bringing about this temporary
+separation. He still believed, in his heart, that he had. But he did not
+seem to find much happiness in that belief. In spite of his supreme joy
+and content in his son's companionship, he found himself many a time
+almost wishing the trip were over. And the delays at the end were fully
+as great a source of annoyance to himself, as they were to his son. He,
+as well as Burke, therefore, heaved a long sigh of relief as the train
+drew into the Dalton station, bringing into view the old Denby family
+carriage (John Denby did not care for motor cars), with old Horace on
+the box, and with Brett near by, plainly waiting to extend a welcoming
+hand. Brett's face was white and a little strained-looking. John Denby,
+noticing it through the car window, remarked to his son:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Guess Brett will be glad to see us. He looks tired. Overworked, I fear.
+Faithful fellow&mdash;that, Burke! We owe him our trip, anyway. But who
+supposed it was going to prolong itself away into January like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who did, indeed?" murmured Burke, as he followed his father from the
+car.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Burke Denby had not been at home half an hour, when, his face drawn and
+ashen, he strode into the library where his father was sitting before
+the fire.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Father, Helen has not been at Wenton at all," he said in the tragically
+constrained voice of a man who is desperately trying to keep himself
+from exploding into ravings and denunciations.</p>
+
+<p>John Denby came erect in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Not been there</i>&mdash; What do you mean? How do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Brett. I found these upstairs in my room&mdash;<i>every letter I've written
+her</i>&mdash;even the first one from here before I left&mdash;returned unopened,
+marked 'unclaimed, address unknown,' together with a letter from Brett
+in explanation. I've just been talking with him on the 'phone, too."</p>
+
+<p>"So that's it&mdash;why he looked so at the station! What did he say? Why
+didn't he let you know before?"</p>
+
+<p>"He says it was a long time before the first letter came back. He knew
+we were away up in the mountains, and would be very likely started for
+home before he could reach us with it, anyway. And there wouldn't be a
+thing we could do&mdash;up there, except to come home; and we'd already be
+doing that, anyway. And this would only worry us, and trouble us, and
+make our return trip a horror&mdash;without helping a bit."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right. Brett is always right," nodded John Denby.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, of course, came the delay, your sickness, and all. Of course he
+wouldn't let us know then&mdash;when we <i>couldn't</i> come. By that time other
+letters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> I had written on the way out began to come back from Wenton. (I
+always used my own envelopes with the Dalton address in the corner, so
+of course they all showed up here in time.) When the second and third
+came he knew it wasn't a mistake. He'd been hoping the first one was,
+somehow, he said."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I see. And of course it might have been. But what did he do?
+Didn't he do&mdash;anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. First, he said, he kept his own counsel&mdash;here in town. He knew
+we'd want to avoid all gossip and publicity."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!"</p>
+
+<p>"He put the thing into the hands of a private detective whom he could
+trust; and he went himself to Wenton&mdash;for a vacation, apparently."</p>
+
+<p>"Good old Brett! Wise, as usual. What did he find?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing&mdash;except that she was not there, and hadn't been there since she
+left some years ago, soon after her mother's death. He says he's
+positive of that. So he had to come back no wiser than he went."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;the detective."</p>
+
+<p>"Very little there. Still, there was something. He traced her to
+Boston."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Boston!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"What friends has she in Boston?"</p>
+
+<p>"None, so far as I know. I never heard her mention knowing a soul there.
+Still, I believe she had a&mdash;a position there with some one, before she
+went to Aunt Eunice; but I don't know who it was."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There's Gleason&mdash;she knows him."</p>
+
+<p>Burke gave his father a glance from scornful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"My best friend! She'd be apt to go to him, wouldn't she, if she were
+running away from me? Besides, we've had three or four letters from him
+since we've been gone. Don't you suppose he'd tell us of it, if she'd
+gone to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, of course," frowned John Denby, biting his lips. "It's only
+that I was trying to get hold of some one&mdash;or something. Think of
+it&mdash;that child alone in Boston, and&mdash;no friends! Of course she had
+money&mdash;that is, I suppose she cashed it&mdash;that check?" John Denby turned
+with a start.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. I asked Brett about that. I hoped maybe there'd be a clue
+there, if she got somebody to cash it for her. But there was nothing.
+She got the money herself, at the bank here, not long after we went. So
+she must have come back for a time, anyway. Brett says Spawlding, at the
+bank, knew her, of course, and so there was no question as to
+identification. Still it was so large a one that he telephoned to Brett,
+before he paid it, asking if it were all right&mdash;you being away. Brett
+evidently knew you had given her such a check&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I had told him," nodded John Denby.</p>
+
+<p>"So he said yes, it was. He says he supposed she had come down from
+Wenton to get it cashed, and that she would leave the bulk of it there
+in the bank to her credit. Anyway, all he could do was to assure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+Spawlding that you had given her such a check just before you went
+away."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I see," nodded John Denby again.</p>
+
+<p>"She didn't leave any of the money, however. She took it all with her."</p>
+
+<p>"Took it <i>all</i>&mdash;ten thousand dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The detective, of course, is still working on the case. He got to
+Boston, but there he's up against a blank wall. He's run a fine-tooth
+comb through all sorts of public and private institutions in Boston and
+vicinity without avail. He's made a thorough search at the railroad
+station. He can't find a person who has any recollection of a young
+woman and child answering their description, arriving on that date, who
+seemed to be troubled or in doubt where to go. He questioned the matron,
+ticket-men, cabbies, policemen&mdash;everybody. Of course every one had seen
+plenty of young women with babies in their arms&mdash;young women who had the
+hair and eyes and general appearance of Helen, and who were anxious and
+fretted. (They said young women with babies were apt to be anxious and
+fretted.) But they didn't remember one who asked frantic questions as to
+what to do, and where to go, and all that&mdash;acting as we think Helen
+would have acted, alone in a strange city."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child, poor child!" groaned John Denby. "Where can&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But his son interrupted sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't <i>know</i> where she is, of course. But don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> be too sure it is
+'poor child' with her, dad. She's doing this thing because she <i>wants</i>
+to do it. Don't forget that. Didn't she purposely mislead us by that
+note she left on my chiffonier? She didn't say she <i>had</i> gone to Wenton,
+but she let me think she had. 'Address me at Wenton, if you care to
+write,' she said. And don't forget that she also said: 'I hope you'll
+enjoy your playday as much as I shall mine.' Don't you worry about
+Helen. She's taken my child and your ten thousand dollars, and she's off
+somewhere, having a good time;&mdash;and Helen could have a good time&mdash;on ten
+thousand dollars! Incidentally she's also punishing us. She means to
+give us a good scare. She's waiting till we get home, and till the
+money's gone. Then she'll let herself be found."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, come, Burke, aren't you just a little bit&mdash;harsh?"
+remonstrated John Denby.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so. She deserves&mdash;something for taking that child away
+like this. Honestly, as my temper is now, if it wasn't for the baby, I
+should feel almost like saying that I hoped she wouldn't ever come back.
+I don't want to see her. But, of course, with the baby, that's another
+matter."</p>
+
+<p>"I should say so!" exclaimed John Denby emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but, see here, dad! Helen knew where she was going. She's gone to
+friends. Wouldn't she have left some trace in that station if she'd been
+frightened and uncertain where to go? Brett says the detective found one
+cabby who remembered taking just such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> a young woman and child from an
+evening train at about that time. He didn't recollect where he took her,
+and he couldn't say as to whether she had been crying, or not; but he's
+positive she directed him where to go without a moment's hesitation. If
+that was Helen, she knew where she was going all right."</p>
+
+<p>John Denby frowned and did not answer. His eyes were troubled.</p>
+
+<p>"But perhaps here&mdash;at the flat&mdash;" he began, after a time.</p>
+
+<p>"The detective tried that. He went as a student, or something, and
+managed to hire a room of Mrs. Cobb. He became very friendly and chatty,
+and showed interest in all the neighbors, not forgetting the vacant flat
+on the same floor. But he didn't learn&mdash;much."</p>
+
+<p>"But he learned&mdash;something?"</p>
+
+<p>An angry red mounted to Burke's forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; he learned that it belonged to a poor little woman whose
+husband was as rich as mud, but quite the meanest thing alive, in that
+he'd tried to buy her off with ten thousand dollars, because he was
+ashamed of her! Just about what I should think would come from a woman
+of Mrs. Cobb's mentality!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then she knew about the ten-thousand-dollar check?"</p>
+
+<p>"Apparently. But she didn't know Helen had gone to Boston. The detective
+found out that. She told him she believed she'd gone back home to her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+folks. So Helen evidently did not confide in her&mdash;or perhaps she
+intentionally misled her, as she did us."</p>
+
+<p>"I see, I see," sighed John Denby.</p>
+
+<p>For a minute the angry, perplexed, baffled young husband marched back
+and forth, back and forth, in the great, silent room. Then, abruptly, he
+stopped short, and faced his father.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall try to find her, of course,&mdash;though I think she'll let us hear
+from her of her own accord, pretty soon, now. But I shan't wait for
+that. First I shall go to Aunt Eunice and see if she knows the names of
+any of the people with whom Helen used to live, before she came to her.
+Then, whatever clues I find I shall endeavor to follow to the end.
+Meanwhile, so far as Dalton is concerned,&mdash;<i>my wife is out of town</i>.
+That's all. It's no one's business. The matter will be hauled over every
+dinner-table and rolled under the tongue of every old tabby in town. But
+they can only surmise and suspect. They can't know anything about it.
+And we'll be mighty careful that they don't. Brett&mdash;bless him!&mdash;has been
+the soul of discretion. We'll see that we follow suit. <i>My wife is out
+of town!</i> That's all!" And he turned and flung himself from the room.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as possible Burke Denby went to his Aunt Eunice and told her his
+sorry tale. From her he obtained one or two names, and&mdash;what he eagerly
+grasped at&mdash;an address in Boston. Each of these clues he followed
+assiduously, only to find that it led nowhere. Angrier, but no wiser, he
+went back home.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The detective, too, reported no progress. And as the days became weeks,
+and the weeks a month, with no word of Helen, Burke settled into a
+bitterness of wrath and resentment that would not brook the mention of
+Helen's name in his presence.</p>
+
+<p>Burke was feeling very much abused these days. He was, indeed, thinking
+of himself and pitying himself almost constantly. The woman to whom he
+had given his name (and for whom he had sacrificed so much) had made
+that name a byword and a laughing stock in his native town. He was
+neither bachelor nor husband. He was not even a widower, but a
+nondescript thing to be pointed out as a sort of monster. Even his child
+was taken away from him; and was doubtless being brought up to hate
+him&mdash;Burke forgot that Dorothy Elizabeth was as yet but slightly over
+two years old.</p>
+
+<p>As for Helen's side of the matter&mdash;Burke was too busy polishing his own
+shield of defense to give any consideration to hers. When he thought of
+his wife, it was usually only to say bitterly to himself: "Humph! When
+that ten thousand dollars is gone we'll hear from her all right!" And he
+was not worrying at all about her comfort&mdash;with ten thousand dollars to
+spend.</p>
+
+<p>"She knows where <i>she</i> is, and she knows where <i>I</i> am," he would declare
+fiercely to himself. "When she gets good and ready she'll come&mdash;and not
+until then, evidently!"</p>
+
+<p>In March a line from Dr. Gleason said that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> would be in town a day or
+two, and would drop in to see them.</p>
+
+<p>With the letter in his hand, Burke went to his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Gleason's coming Friday," he announced tersely.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"We've got to settle on what to tell him."</p>
+
+<p>"About&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Helen&mdash;yes. Of course&mdash;he'll have to know something; but&mdash;I shall tell
+him mighty little." Burke's lips snapped together in the grim manner
+that was becoming habitual with him.</p>
+
+<p>Gleason came on Friday. There was an odd constraint in his manner. At
+the same time there was a nervous wistfulness that was almost an appeal.
+Yet he was making, obviously, a great effort to appear as usual.</p>
+
+<p>Not until Burke found himself alone with his guest did he speak of his
+wife. Then he said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You know, of course, that Helen has&mdash;er&mdash;that she is not here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." There was a subdued excitement in the doctor's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! Everybody knows that, I suppose," retorted Burke bitterly.
+He hesitated, then went on, with manifest effort: "If you don't mind,
+old fellow, we'll leave it&mdash;right there. There's really nothing that I
+care to say."</p>
+
+<p>A look of keen disappointment crossed the doctor's face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But, Burke, if you knew that your wife&mdash;" began the doctor imploringly.</p>
+
+<p>"There are no 'ifs' about it," interrupted Burke, with stern
+implacability. "Helen knows very well where I am, and&mdash;she isn't here.
+That's enough for me."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear boy&mdash;" pleaded the doctor again.</p>
+
+<p>"Gleason, please, I'd rather not talk about it," interrupted Burke Denby
+decidedly. And the doctor, in the face of the stern uncompromisingness
+of the man before him, and of his own solemn, but hard-wrung promise,
+given to a no less uncompromising little woman whom he had left only the
+day before, was forced to drop the matter. His face, however, still
+carried its look of troubled disappointment. And he steadfastly refused
+to remain at the house even for a meal&mdash;a most extraordinary proceeding
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>"He's angry, and he's angry with me," muttered Burke Denby to himself,
+his eyes moodily fixed on the doctor's hurrying figure as it disappeared
+down the street. "He wanted to preach and plead, and tell me my 'duty.'
+As if I didn't know my own business best myself! Bah! A fig for his
+'ifs' and 'buts'!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A WOMAN'S WON'T</h3>
+
+<p>Two days after his visit to Dalton, Frank Gleason dropped himself into a
+low chair in his sister's private sitting-room in the Beacon Hill house.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" prompted Mrs. Thayer, voice and manner impatiently eager.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing! But there must have been something!"</p>
+
+<p>"There wasn't a thing&mdash;that will help."</p>
+
+<p>"But, aren't they frightened&mdash;anxious&mdash;anything? Don't they <i>care</i> where
+she is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; they care very much," smiled the doctor wearily; "but not in
+the way that is going to help any. I couldn't get <i>anything</i> out of
+Burke, and I didn't get much more out of his father. But I did a
+little."</p>
+
+<p>"They don't know, of course, that she's here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens, I hope not!&mdash;under the circumstances. But I felt all kinds of
+a knave and a fool and a traitor. I got away as soon as possible. I
+couldn't stay. I hoped to get something&mdash;anything&mdash;that I could use for
+a cudgel over Helen, to get her to go back, you know. But I couldn't get
+a thing. However, I shall keep on urging, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"But what <i>did</i> they say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Burke said nothing, practically. Nor would he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> let me say anything. He
+is very angry (his father told me that), and very bitter."</p>
+
+<p>"But isn't he frightened, or worried?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not according to his father. It seems they have had a detective on the
+case, and have traced her to Boston. There the trail ends. But they have
+found out enough to feel satisfied that no evil has befallen her. Burke
+argues that Helen is staying somewhere (with friends, he believes)
+because she wants to. Such being the case he doesn't want her back until
+she gets good and ready to come. He does want the baby. John Denby told
+me, in fact, that he believed if Burke found them now, as he's feeling,
+he'd insist on a separation; and that the baby should be given to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Given to him, indeed!" flashed Mrs. Thayer angrily. "And yet, in the
+face of that, you sit there and say you shall urge her to go back, of
+course."</p>
+
+<p>Frank Gleason stirred uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"I know, Edith, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't any question about it," interrupted Mrs. Thayer decidedly.
+"That poor child stays where she is now."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but, Edith, this sort of thing can't go on forever, you know,"
+remonstrated the doctor nervously, his forehead drawn into an anxious
+frown.</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't talking about forever," returned the lady, with tranquil
+confidence. "I was talking about <i>now</i>, to-day, next week, next year, if
+it's necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Next year!</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;if Burke Denby hasn't come to his senses by that time. Why,
+Frank Gleason, don't you suppose I'd do anything, <i>everything</i>, to help
+that child keep her baby? She worships it. Besides, it's going to be the
+making of her."</p>
+
+<p>"I know; but if they could be brought together&mdash;Burke and his wife, I
+mean&mdash;it seems as if&mdash;as if&mdash;" The man came to a helpless pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Frank, see here," began Edith Thayer resolutely. "You know as well as I
+do that those two people have been wretched together for a year or more.
+They are not suited to each other. They weren't in the first place. To
+make matters worse, they were both nothing but petted, spoiled children,
+no more fit to take on the responsibilities of marriage than my Bess and
+Charlie would be. All their lives they'd had their own dolls and
+shotguns to do as they pleased with; and when it came to marrying and
+sharing everything, including their time and their tempers, they flew
+into bits&mdash;both of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," sighed the man, still with a troubled frown.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, they're apart now. Never mind who was to blame for it, or whether
+it was or wasn't a wise move. It's done. They're apart. They've got a
+chance to think things over&mdash;to stand back and get a perspective, as it
+were. Helen thinks she can metamorphose herself into the perfect wife
+that Burke will love. Perhaps she can. Let us say she has one chance in
+a million of doing so;&mdash;well, I mean she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> shall have that chance,
+especially as the alternative&mdash;that is, her going back home now&mdash;is sure
+to be nothing but utter wretchedness all round."</p>
+
+<p>Frank Gleason shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, very plausible&mdash;to <i>say</i>, of course. I see she's talked you
+over. She did me. I was ready to pull the moon down for her footstool
+that first night she came to me. I'm ready to do it now&mdash;when I'm with
+her. But away from her, with a chance to think,&mdash;it really is absurd,
+you know, when you come right down to it. Here are Burke and his father,
+my good friends, hunting the country over for Burke's wife and child.
+And here am I, harboring her and abetting her, and never opening my
+head. Really, it's the sort of thing that you'd say&mdash;er&mdash;couldn't
+happen, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"But it <i>is</i> happening; and so far as their finding her is concerned,
+you said yourself, long ago, that it was the safest hiding-place in the
+world, for they'd never think of looking in it. They've never been in
+the habit of coming here, and their friends don't know us. As for the
+servants, and the few of my friends who see her, she's merely Mrs.
+Darling. That's all. Besides, you're entirely leaving out of
+consideration Helen's own attitude in the matter. I haven't a doubt but
+that, if you did tell, she'd at least <i>attempt</i> to carry out her crazy
+threats of flight and oblivion. Really, Frank, so far as being a friend
+is concerned, you're being the truest friend, both to Burke and his
+father, and to Helen, by keeping her and protecting her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> from herself
+and others&mdash;to say nothing of the real help I hope I'm being to her."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, I know," sighed the man, thrusting his hands into his pockets,
+and scowling at the toe of his shoe. "You 're a brick, Edith! It's been
+simply marvelous to me&mdash;the way you've taken hold. Even that first awful
+Sunday morning last July, when I showed you what I'd brought you, didn't
+quite bowl you over."</p>
+
+<p>"It did almost," laughed Edith; "especially when she blurted out that
+alarming speech, after you'd told me who she was."</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>did</i> she say? I don't remember."</p>
+
+<p>"She said, tragically, frenziedly: 'Oh, Mrs. Thayer, you will help me,
+won't you?&mdash;to be swell and grand and <i>know</i> things, so's Burke won't be
+ashamed of me. And if you can't make <i>me</i> so, you will Baby, won't you?
+I'll do anything&mdash;everything you say. Oh, please say you will. I <i>know</i>
+you're Burke's kind of folks, just to look at you, and at this&mdash;the
+house, and all these swell fixings! You will, won't you? Oh, please say
+you will!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Gorry! Did she say that&mdash;all that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every bit of it&mdash;and more, that I can't remember. You see, I couldn't
+say anything&mdash;not anything, for a minute. And the more she said, the
+less I <i>could</i> say. Probably she saw something of the horror and dismay
+in my face, and that's what made her so frenzied in her appeal."</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder you were struck dumb at her nerve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> and at mine in asking you
+to take her in," laughed the doctor softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but 'twas for only a minute. I capitulated at once, first because
+of the baby&mdash;she was such a dear!&mdash;then because of the mother's love for
+it. I thought I'd seen devotion, Frank, but never have I seen it like
+hers."</p>
+
+<p>"How is she doing, really, about&mdash;well, er&mdash;this private
+self-improvement association of hers?" The doctor's smile was eager and
+quizzical. "I've been away so much, and I've seen so little of her for
+months past&mdash;how <i>is</i> she doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Splendidly! She's a daily marvel to me, she's so patient and
+painstaking. Oh, of course, she hasn't <i>learned</i> so very much&mdash;yet. But
+she's so alert and earnest, and she watches everything so! Indeed, if it
+weren't really so pitiful and so tragic, it would be perfectly funny and
+absurd. The things she does and says&mdash;the things she asks me to teach
+her! Feverishly and systematically she's set herself to becoming 'swell'
+and 'grand.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Swell! Grand!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I know," laughed the lady, answering his shuddering words and
+gesture. "And&mdash;we've nearly eliminated those expressions from our
+vocabulary now. Burke didn't like them either, she says."</p>
+
+<p>"I can imagine not," observed the doctor dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course all the teaching in the world isn't going to accomplish the
+thing she wants," went on Mrs. Thayer, a little soberly. "I might teach
+her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> till doomsday that clothes, jewels, grooming, and perfume don't
+make the lady; and unless she learns by intuition and absorption what
+<i>does</i> make the lady, she'll be little better off than she was before.
+But she puts me now through a daily catechism until sometimes I am
+nearly wild. 'Do ladies do this?' 'Do ladies do that?' she queries at
+every turn, so that I am almost ready to fly off into a veritable orgy
+of slang and silliness, just from sheer contrariety. I can tell you,
+Frank, this attempting to teach the intangible, evanescent thing I'm
+trying to teach Helen Denby isn't very easy. If you think it is, you try
+it yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven forbid!" shrugged the man. "But I'll risk you, Edith. But, tell
+me&mdash;does she help you any, in any way? Do you think you can&mdash;keep her,
+for a while?"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep her? Of course I shall keep her! Do you suppose I'd turn that
+child adrift now? Besides, she's a real help to me with the children.
+And I know&mdash;and she knows&mdash;that in helping me she is helping herself,
+and helping Dorothy Elizabeth&mdash;'Betty' she calls her now. We're getting
+along beautifully. We&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There came the sound of hurried steps, then the sudden wide flinging of
+the door, and the appearance of a breathless young woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mrs. Thayer, they said the doctor had come, and&mdash;" Helen Denby
+stopped short, her abashed eyes going from one to the other of the
+expressive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> faces before her. "Oh, I&mdash;I beg your pardon," she faltered.
+"I hadn't ought to have burst in like this. Ladies don't. You said
+yesterday that ladies never did. But I&mdash;I&mdash;doctor, you went to&mdash;to
+Dalton?" she appealed to the man.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mrs. Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"And you saw&mdash;them? Burke and his father?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But, you didn't&mdash;you <i>didn't</i> tell them I was here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not! Didn't I promise you I wouldn't?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen Denby relaxed visibly, and dropped herself into a low chair near
+by. The color came back to her face.</p>
+
+<p>"I know; but I was so afraid they'd find out&mdash;some way."</p>
+
+<p>"They didn't&mdash;from me."</p>
+
+<p>She raised startled eyes to his face.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean they <i>do</i> know where I am?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. But&mdash;" The doctor stirred uneasily. "Mrs. Denby, don't you
+think&mdash; Won't you let me tell them where you are?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do they want to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. They are trying very hard to find you."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. But if they find me&mdash;what then? Does Burke&mdash;want me?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he&mdash;yes&mdash;that is, he&mdash;well, of course&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't have to say any more, doctor," interposed Helen Denby,
+smiling a little sadly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The red deepened on the doctor's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course, Burke is very angry and very bitter, just now," he
+explained defensively. "But if you two could be brought together&mdash;" He
+paused helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twould be the same old story&mdash;only worse. I see so many things now
+that I never saw before. Even if he said right now that he wanted me, I
+wouldn't go back. I wouldn't dare to. 'Twouldn't be a day before he'd be
+ashamed of me again. Maybe some time I'll learn&mdash;" She paused, her eyes
+wistfully fixed out the window. "But if I don't"&mdash;she turned almost
+frenziedly&mdash;"Betty will. Betty is going to be a lady from right now.
+Then some day I'll show her to him. He won't be ashamed of Betty. You
+see if he is!"</p>
+
+<p>Again the doctor stirred uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"But, think! How can I go on from day to day and not let your husband
+know&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Helen Denby sprang to her feet. The wild look of that first night of
+flight came into her eyes, but her voice, when she spoke, was very calm.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Gleason," she began resolutely, "it's just as I told you before.
+Unless you'll promise not to tell Burke where I am, till I say the word,
+I shall take Betty and go&mdash;somewhere. I don't know where. But it'll be
+where you can't find me&mdash;any of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, come, my dear child&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you promise?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But just think how&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> thinking!" choked Helen. "But <i>you</i> don't seem to be. <i>Can't</i>
+you see how I want to stay here? I've got a chance, maybe, to be like
+you and your sister, and all the rest of Burke's swell&mdash;I mean, like
+Burke's friends," she corrected, with a hot blush. "And, anyhow, Betty's
+got a chance. We've made a start. We've begun. And here you want to go
+and tip it all over by telling Burke. And there can't anything good
+happen, if Burke knows. Besides, didn't he say himself that we <i>needed</i>
+to have a vacation from each other? Now, won't you promise, please?"</p>
+
+<p>With a despairing cry the doctor threw up his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, good Heavens, yes! Of course I'll promise," he groaned. "I suspect
+you could make me promise to shave my head and dance the tango
+barefooted down Washington Street, if you set out to. Oh, yes, I'll
+promise. But I can tell you right now that I shall wake up in the dead
+of night and pinch myself to make sure I <i>have</i> promised," he finished
+with wrathful emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>Helen laughed light-heartedly. She even tossed the doctor a playful
+glance as she turned to go.</p>
+
+<p>"All right! I don't care a mite how much you pinch yourself," she
+declared. "You've promised&mdash;and that's all I care for!" And she left the
+room with buoyant step.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," observed Mrs. Thayer significantly, as the door closed behind
+her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I see&mdash;so far," nodded Dr. Frank Gleason with a sigh. "But I do
+wish I could see&mdash;what the end is going to be."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't given to us to see ends," responded Mrs. Thayer sententiously.
+"We can only attend to the beginnings and make them right."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" grunted her brother, with some asperity. "I'm not saying I like
+the beginning, in this case. Honestly, to speak plainly, my dear Edith,
+I consider this thing one big fool business, from beginning to end."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's pause; then very quietly Mrs. Thayer asked:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Can you suggest, dear, all things considered, anything else for us to
+do than what we <i>are</i> doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;confound it! And that's what's the matter," groaned Frank Gleason.
+"But that isn't saying that I <i>like</i> to play the fool."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I shouldn't worry. I'm not worrying," replied his sister, with an
+enigmatic smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe not. But I'm glad I'm going on that Arctic trip, and that it's
+just next month. I'd as soon not see much of the Denbys just now. Feel
+too much like the evil-eyed, double-dyed villain in a dime movie,"
+growled the doctor, getting to his feet, and striding from the room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>AN UNDERSTUDY</h3>
+
+<p>Soon after the doctor started on his trip to the North the Thayers
+closed their Beacon Street home and went to their North Shore cottage.
+The move was made a little earlier than usual this year, a fact which
+pleased the children not a little and delighted Helen Denby especially.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I'm always so afraid in Boston," she explained to Mrs. Thayer,
+as the train pulled out of the North Station.</p>
+
+<p>"Afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>"That somewhere&mdash;on the street, or somewhere&mdash;I'll meet some one from
+Dalton, or somebody that knew&mdash;my husband."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Thayer frowned slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know. And there was danger, of course! But&mdash;Helen, that brings
+up exactly the subject that I'd been intending to speak to you about.
+Thus far&mdash;and advisedly, I know&mdash;we have kept you carefully in the
+background, my dear. But this isn't going to do forever, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? I&mdash;I like it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Thayer smiled, but she frowned again thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I know, dear; but if you are to learn this&mdash;this&mdash;" Mrs. Thayer
+stumbled and paused as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> always stumbled and paused when she tried to
+reduce to words her present extraordinary mission. "You will have to&mdash;to
+learn to meet people and mingle with them easily and naturally."</p>
+
+<p>The earnest look of the eager student came at once to Helen Denby's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, I'll have to meet and mingle with swell people if I, too,
+am&mdash; Oh, that horrid word again! Mrs. Thayer, <i>why</i> can't I learn to
+stop using it? But you mean&mdash; I know what you mean. You mean I'll have
+to meet and mingle with&mdash;with ladies and gentlemen if I'm to be one
+myself. Isn't that it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes, of course; only&mdash;the very words 'lady' and 'gentleman' have been
+so abused that we&mdash;we&mdash;Oh, Helen, Helen, you do put things so baldly,
+and it sounds so&mdash;so&mdash; Don't you see, dear? It's all just as I've told
+you lots of times. The minute you begin to talk about it, you lose it.
+It's something that comes to you by absorption and intuition."</p>
+
+<p>"But there are things I have to learn, Mrs. Thayer,&mdash;real things, like
+holding your fork, and clothes, and finger nails, and not speaking so
+loud, and not talking about 'folks' being 'swell' and 'tony,' and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know," interrupted Mrs. Thayer, with a touch of
+desperation. "But, after all, it's all so&mdash;so impossible! And&mdash;" She
+stopped abruptly at the look of terrified dismay that always leaped to
+Helen Denby's eyes in response to such a word. "No, no, I don't mean
+that. But, really, Helen,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> she went on hurriedly, "the time has come
+when you must be seen more. And it will be quite safe at the shore, I am
+sure. You'll meet no one who ever saw you in Dalton; that is certain."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, of course, if you say I'll have to&mdash;I'll have to. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>"I do say it."</p>
+
+<p>"My, but I dread it!" Helen drew in her breath and bit her lip.</p>
+
+<p>"All the more reason why you should do it then," smiled Mrs. Thayer
+briskly. "You're to learn <i>not</i> to dread it. See? And it'll be easier
+than you think. There are some very pleasant people coming down. The
+Gillespies, Mrs. Reynolds and her little Gladys,&mdash;about Betty's age, by
+the way,&mdash;and next month there'll be the Drew girls and Mr. Donald Estey
+and his brother John. Later there will be others&mdash;the Chandlers, and Mr.
+Eric Shaw. And I'm going to begin immediately to have them see you, and
+have you see them."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll know me as 'Mrs. Darling'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course&mdash;a friend of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"But I want to&mdash;to help in some way."</p>
+
+<p>"You do help. You help with the children&mdash;your companionship."</p>
+
+<p>"But that's the way I've learned&mdash;so many things, Mrs. Thayer."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. And that's the way you'll learn&mdash;many other things. But
+there are others&mdash;still others&mdash;that you can learn in no way as well as
+by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> association with the sort of well-bred men and women you will meet
+this summer. I don't mean that you are <i>always</i> to be with them, my
+dear; but I do mean that you must be with them enough so that it is a
+matter of supreme indifference to you whether you are with them or not.
+Do you understand? You must learn to be at ease with&mdash;anybody. See?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen sighed and nodded her head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think I do, Mrs. Thayer; and I will try&mdash;so hard!" She
+hesitated, then asked abruptly, "Who is Mr. Donald Estey, please?"</p>
+
+<p>There was an odd something in Mrs. Thayer's laugh as she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"And why, pray, do you single him out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because of something&mdash;different in your voice, when you said his name."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Thayer laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"That's more cleverly put than you know, child," she shrugged. "I never
+thought of it before, but I fancy we all do say Mr. Donald Estey's
+name&mdash;with a difference."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he so very important, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"In his own estimation&mdash;yes! There! I was wrong to say that, Helen, and
+you must forget it. Mr. Donald Estey is a very wealthy, very capable,
+very delightful and brilliant young bachelor. He is a little spoiled,
+perhaps; but that's our fault and not his, I suspect, for he's petted
+and made of enough to turn any man's head. He's very entertaining. He
+knows something about everything. He can talk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> Egyptian scarabs with my
+brother, and Irish crochet with me, and then turn around and discuss
+politics with my husband, and quote poetry to Phillis Drew in the next
+breath. All this, of course, makes him a very popular man."</p>
+
+<p>"But he's a&mdash;a real gentleman, the kind that my husband would like?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of&mdash;of course!" Mrs. Thayer frowned slightly; then, suddenly, she
+laughed. "To tell the truth he's very like your husband, in some ways,
+I've heard my brother say&mdash;tastes, temperament, and so forth."</p>
+
+<p>An odd something leaped to Helen Denby's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, what <i>he</i> likes, Burke likes?" she questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, y-yes; you might put it that way, I suppose. But never mind.
+You'll see for yourself when you see him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'll see&mdash;when I see him." Helen Denby nodded and relaxed in her
+seat. The odd something was still smouldering in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's all settled, remember," smiled Mrs. Thayer. "You're not to
+run and hide now when somebody comes. You're to learn to meet people.
+That's your next lesson."</p>
+
+<p>"My next lesson&mdash;my next lesson," repeated Helen Denby, half under her
+breath. "Oh, I hope I'll learn so much&mdash;in this next lesson! I won't run
+and hide now, indeed, I won't, Mrs. Thayer!"</p>
+
+<p>And at the glorified earnestness of her face, Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> Thayer, watching,
+felt suddenly her own throat tighten convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of her valiant promise, Helen Denby, a week later, did almost
+run and hide when the Gillespies, the first of Mrs. Thayer's guests,
+arrived. Held, however, by a stern something within her, she bravely
+stood her ground and forced herself to meet Mr. and Mrs. Gillespie and
+their daughters, Miss Alice and Miss Maud. It was not so difficult the
+next week when Mrs. Reynolds came, perhaps because of the pretty little
+Gladys, so near her own Betty's age.</p>
+
+<p>Fully alive to her own shortcomings, however, embarrassed, and
+distrustful of herself, Helen was careful never to push herself forward,
+never to take the initiative. And because she was so quiet and
+unobtrusive, her intense watchfulness, and slavish imitation of what she
+saw, passed unnoticed. Gradually, as the days came and went, the
+tenseness of her concentration relaxed, and she began to move and speak
+with less studied caution. It was at this juncture that Mr. Donald Estey
+arrived. Instantly into her bearing sprang an entirely new, alert
+eagerness. But this, too, passed unnoticed, for the change was not in
+herself alone. The entire household had made instant response to the
+presence of Mr. Donald Estey. The men sharpened their wits, and the
+women freshened their furbelows. Breakfast was served on the minute with
+never a vacant chair; and even the steps of the maids in the kitchen
+quickened.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Because Mr. Donald Estey was always surrounded by an admiring group, the
+fact that "that quiet little Mrs. Darling" was almost invariably one of
+the group did not attract attention. It was Mr. Donald Estey himself, in
+fact, who first noticed it; and the reason that he noticed it was
+because once, when she was not there, he found himself looking for her
+eager face. He realized then that for some time he had been in the habit
+of finding his chief inspiration in a certain pair of wondrously
+beautiful blue eyes bent full upon himself.</p>
+
+<p>Not that the encountering of admiring feminine eyes bent full upon him
+was a new experience to Mr. Donald Estey; but that these eyes were
+different. There was something strangely fascinating and compelling in
+their earnest gaze. It was on the day that he first missed them that he
+suddenly decided to cultivate their owner.</p>
+
+<p>He began by asking casual questions of his fellow guests, but he could
+find out very little concerning the lady. She was a Mrs. Darling, a
+friend of their hostess (which he knew already). She was a widow, they
+believed, though they had never heard her husband mentioned. She was
+pleasant enough&mdash;but so shy and retiring! Charming face she had, though,
+and beautiful eyes. But did he not think she was&mdash;well, a little
+peculiar?</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Donald Estey did not answer this, directly. He became, indeed,
+always very evasive when his fellow guests turned about and began to
+question<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> him. Very soon, too, he ceased his own questioning. But that
+he had not lost his interest in Mrs. Darling was most unmistakably shown
+at once, for openly and systematically he began to seek her society&mdash;to
+the varying opinions (but unvarying interest) of the rest of the house
+party.</p>
+
+<p>If Mr. Donald Estey had expected Mrs. Darling to be shy and coy at his
+advances, he found himself entirely mistaken. She welcomed him with a
+frank delight that was most flattering, at the same time most puzzling,
+owing to a certain elusive quality that he could not name.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Donald Estey thought that he knew women well. It pleased his fancy
+to think that he had his feminine friends nicely pigeonholed and
+labeled, and that he had but to pass an hour or two of intimate talk
+with any woman to be able at once to ticket her accurately. His first
+hour of intimate talk with Mrs. Darling, however, left him confused and
+baffled&mdash;but mightily interested: in the course of that one hour he had
+shelved her in almost every one of his pigeonholes, only to find at the
+end of it that she was still free and uncatalogued.</p>
+
+<p>She was a flirt; she was not a flirt. She was sincere; she was
+hypocritical. She was brilliantly subtle; she was incredibly stupid. She
+was charming; she was commonplace. She was as clear as crystal; she was
+as inscrutable as a sphinx&mdash;and she was all these things in that one
+short first hour. At the end of it, Mr. Donald Estey, with a long breath
+and a frown,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> but with a quickened pulse, decided that he would have
+another hour with her as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p>He had no difficulty in obtaining it. Mrs. Darling, indeed, seemed quite
+as desirous of his society as he was of hers; yet there was still the
+elusive something in her manner that robbed it of all offensive
+eagerness. Again to-day, after the hour's intimate talk, Estey found
+himself confused and baffled, with the lady still outside his
+pigeonholes. Nor did he find the situation changed the next day, or the
+next. Then suddenly he awoke to a new element in the case&mdash;the
+extraordinary deference that was being paid his lightest wish or
+preference on the part of Mrs. Darling.</p>
+
+<p>At first, doubting the accuracy of his suspicions, he systematically put
+her to the test, choosing purposely the most obvious and unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>Blue was his favorite color, he said: she appeared in blue the next day.
+Browning was his best-loved poet, he declared: in less than an hour he
+found her poring over "Pippa Passes" in the library. A woman who could
+talk, and talk well, on current events won his sincere admiration every
+time, he told her: he wondered the next morning how late she must have
+sat up the night before, studying the merits and demerits of the four
+presidential candidates.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Donald Estey was flattered, amused, and curiously interested. Not
+that what looked to be a determined assault upon his heart was exactly a
+new experience for him; but that the circumstances in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> case were so
+out of the ordinary, and that he was still trying to "place" this young
+woman. He was not sure even, always, that she was trying to make a bid
+for his affections. He was not sure, either, of his own mind regarding
+her. In spite of his interest, he was conscious, sometimes, of a
+distinct feeling of aversion toward her. She was not always, to his
+mind, quite&mdash;the lady, though she was improving in that respect. (Even
+in his thoughts the word gave him a shock: he could hardly imagine a
+candidate for the position of Mrs. Donald Estey in need
+of&mdash;improvement!) But she was beautiful, and there was something
+wonderfully alluring in her eager way of listening to his every word.
+She was, indeed, not a little refreshing after the languid conservatism
+of some of the sophisticated young women one usually found at these
+country houses. Besides, was she, after all, really in love with him?
+Very likely she was not. At all events, it could do no harm&mdash;this mild
+flirtation&mdash;if flirtation it were! He would not worry about it. Plenty
+of time yet to&mdash;to withdraw. He had but to receive (apparently) a
+summoning message, and he could go at once. That would, of course, end
+the affair. Meanwhile&mdash; But just exactly what type of woman was she,
+anyway?</p>
+
+<p>Still amused, interested, and contentedly secure, therefore, Mr. Donald
+Estey pursued for another week his pleasant pastime of finding just the
+proper pigeonhole for this tantalizing will-o'-the-wisp of femininity;
+then, sharply, he received a jolt that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> left him figuratively&mdash;almost
+literally&mdash;breathless and gasping.</p>
+
+<p>They were talking of marriage.</p>
+
+<p>"But you yourself have never married," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have never married."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder why."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Donald Estey frowned and stirred restlessly&mdash;there were times when
+Mrs. Darling's unconventionality was not "refreshing."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps&mdash;the right girl has never found me," he shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Estey, please, what sort of a girl would be the right one&mdash;for
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, really&mdash;er&mdash;" He stopped and stirred again uneasily&mdash;there was an
+almost frenzied earnestness in her face and manner that was somewhat
+disconcerting.</p>
+
+<p>"That might be hard telling," he evaded banteringly.</p>
+
+<p>"But you <i>could</i> tell me, Mr. Estey. I know you could. And, oh, won't
+you, please?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, er&mdash;Mrs. Darling!" He gave an embarrassed laugh as he sought for
+just the right word to say. "You seem&mdash;er&mdash;extraordinarily interested."
+He laughed again&mdash;to hide the fact that he knew that he had said just
+the <i>wrong</i> thing.</p>
+
+<p>"I am interested. Indeed, Mr. Estey, it would mean&mdash;you cannot know what
+it would mean&mdash;if you'd tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;er&mdash;really&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know. I hadn't ought to talk like this. Ladies don't. I can
+see it in your face. But it's because I want to <i>know</i> so&mdash;because I
+must know. Please, won't you tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>With a quick lifting of his head Mr. Donald Estey pulled himself sharply
+together. Flattering as it was to be thus deferred to, this
+flirtation&mdash;if flirtation it were&mdash;had gone quite far enough. He laughed
+again lightly and sprang to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't think of it, Mrs. Darling. Really, I couldn't, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Estey!" She, too, was on her feet. She had laid a persuasive hand
+on his arm. "Please, you think I'm joking; but I'm not. I really mean
+it. If you only would do it&mdash;it would mean so much to me! And
+don't&mdash;don't look at me like that. I <i>know</i> I'm not being proper, and I
+know ladies don't do so&mdash;what I'm doing. But when I saw it&mdash;such a
+splendid chance to ask you, I&mdash;I just had to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but&mdash;" The startled, nonplussed man stuttered like a bashful
+schoolboy; "it really is so&mdash;so absurd, Mrs. Darling, when you&mdash;er&mdash;stop
+to think of it."</p>
+
+<p>She sighed despairingly, but she did not take her hand from his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, if"&mdash;she spoke hurriedly, and with evident embarrassment&mdash;"if you
+won't tell me that way, won't you please tell me another? Could
+you&mdash;would you&mdash; Am I <i>any</i> like that girl, Mr. Estey?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Donald Estey was guilty of an actual gasp of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> dismay. In a whirl of
+vexation at the situation in which he found himself, he groped blindly
+for a safe way out. Of course young women (young women such as he knew)
+did not really propose to one; but was it possible that that was exactly
+what this somewhat remarkable young widow was doing? It seemed
+incredible. And yet&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Am I, Mr. Estey? Or do you think I could&mdash;learn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, er&mdash;er&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, would you&mdash;could you marry&mdash;<i>me</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Every vestige of self-control slipped from the tortured man like a
+garment. Conscious only of an insane desire to flee from this wretched
+woman who was about to march him to the altar willy-nilly, he quite
+jerked his arm free.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, really, Mrs. Darling, I&mdash;I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't, I can see you wouldn't!" There was a heartbroken little
+sob in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but, Mrs. Darling! Oh, hang it all! What a perfectly preposterous
+situation!" he stormed wrathfully. "I don't want&mdash;to marry anybody. I
+tell you I'm not a marrying man! I&mdash;" He stopped short at the astounding
+change that had come to the little woman opposite.</p>
+
+<p>She was staring into his face with a growing terror that suddenly, at
+its height, broke into a gale of hysterical laughter. She covered her
+face with her hands and dropped into the chair behind her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh, you didn't&mdash;you didn't&mdash;but you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> <i>did</i>!" she choked, swaying
+her body back and forth. The next moment she was on her feet, facing
+him, a new something in her eyes. The laughter was quite gone. "You
+needn't worry, Mr. Donald Estey." She spoke hurriedly, and with all the
+wild <i>abandon</i> of her old self. "I wasn't asking you to marry me&mdash;so you
+don't have to refuse." Her voice quivered with hurt pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course not, of course not, my dear lady!" He caught at the
+straw. "I never thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you did; and you was floundering around trying to find a way to
+say no. I wasn't good enough for you. And that's just what I was trying
+to find out, too,&mdash;but it hurt, just the same, when I did find out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but, Mrs. Darling, I didn't mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you did. I saw it in your eyes, and in the way you drew back. Only
+I&mdash;I didn't mean <i>you</i>. I never thought of your taking it that way&mdash;that
+I wanted to marry <i>you</i>. It was some one else that I meant."</p>
+
+<p>"Some one <i>else</i>?" The stupefaction in the man's face deepened.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You don't know him. But they said you was&mdash;<i>were</i>, I mean, like
+him; that what <i>you</i> liked, he would like. See? And that's why I tried
+to find out what&mdash;what you did like, so I could learn to be what would
+please him."</p>
+
+<p>The petted idol of unnumbered drawing-rooms blinked his eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You mean you were using <i>me</i> as an&mdash;er&mdash;understudy?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;no&mdash;I don't know. I was just trying to walk and talk and breathe
+and move the way you wanted me to, so I could do it by and by for&mdash;him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Donald Estey drew in his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, by&mdash;Jove!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I'm going to." She lifted her chin determinedly. "<i>I'm going to!</i>
+And now you know&mdash;why I asked you what I did. I was hoping I&mdash;I had
+gained a little in all these weeks. I've been trying so hard. And before
+you came, when Mrs. Thayer told me you were like&mdash;like the man I love, I
+determined then to watch you and study you, and do everything the way
+you liked, if I could find out what it was. And now to have you think I
+was <i>asking</i> you to&mdash;to&mdash; As if I'd ever marry&mdash;<i>you</i>!" she choked. The
+next moment, with a wild fling of her arms, she was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Alone, Mr. Donald Estey drew a long breath. As he turned, he faced his
+own image in the mirror across the room. Slowly he advanced toward it.
+There was a quizzical smile in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Donald, me boy," he apostrophized, "you have been rejected. Do you
+hear? <i>Rejected!</i> Jove! But what an extraordinary young woman!" His eyes
+left the mirror and sought the door by which she had gone.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Donald Estey did not see Mrs. Darling again during his stay. A
+sudden indisposition prevented her from being among the guests for some
+days.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>A WOMAN'S WILL</h3>
+
+<p>Dr. Gleason's Arctic trip, designed to cover a year of research and
+discovery, prolonged itself into three years and two months. Shipwrecks,
+thrilling escapes, months of silence, and a period when hope for the
+safety of the party was quite gone, all figured in the story before the
+heroic rescue brought a happier ending to what had come so near to being
+another tragedy of the ice-bound North.</p>
+
+<p>It was June when Frank Gleason, in the care of a nurse and a physician,
+arrived at his sister's summer cottage by the sea.</p>
+
+<p>For a month after his coming Frank Gleason was too ill to ask many
+questions. But with returning strength came an insistence upon an answer
+to a query he had already several times put to his sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Edith, what of the Denbys? Where is Helen? Why do you always evade any
+questions about her?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is here with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Here&mdash;<i>still</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And she's a great comfort and help to me."</p>
+
+<p>"And Burke doesn't know yet where she is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that we know of."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible&mdash;all this time!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know. All our friends know her as 'Mrs. Darling.' The
+Denbys never come here, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> they'd never think of looking here for her,
+anyway. We figured that out long ago."</p>
+
+<p>"But it can't go on forever! When is she going back?"</p>
+
+<p>An odd look crossed Mrs. Thayer's face.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Frank; but not for some time&mdash;if ever&mdash;I should judge,
+from present indications."</p>
+
+<p>"'If ever'! Good Heavens, Edith, what do you mean?" demanded the doctor,
+pulling himself up in his chair. "I <i>knew</i> no good would come of this
+tom-foolishness!"</p>
+
+<p>"There, there, dear, never mind all this now," begged his sister. "Please
+don't try to talk about it any more."</p>
+
+<p>"But I will talk about it, Edith. I want to know&mdash;and you might just as
+well tell me in the first place, and not hang back and hesitate,"
+protested the doctor, with all the irritability of a naturally strong
+man who finds himself so unaccountably weak in his convalescence.
+"What's the trouble? Hasn't that&mdash;er&mdash;fool-improvement business worked
+out? Well, I didn't think it would!"</p>
+
+<p>Edith Thayer laughed softly.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, it's working beautifully. Wait till you see her. She's
+a dear&mdash;a very charming woman. She's developed wonderfully. But along
+with it all has come to her a very deep and genuine, and rather curious,
+humility, together with a pride, the chief aim of which is to avoid
+anything like the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> position in which she found herself as the
+mortifying, distress-causing wife of Burke Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" commented the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"That Burke doesn't love her, she is thoroughly convinced. To go to him
+now, tacitly asking to be taken back, she feels to be impossible. She
+has no notion of going where she isn't wanted; and she feels very sure
+she <i>isn't</i> wanted by either Burke or his father. Of course the longer
+it runs, and the longer she stays away, the harder it seems for her to
+make herself known."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but this <i>can't</i> go on forever," protested Frank Gleason again,
+restlessly. "I'll see Burke. As soon as I'm on my feet again I shall run
+up there."</p>
+
+<p>"But you've given your promise not to tell, remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know. I shan't tell, of course. But I can bring back
+something, I'm sure, that will&mdash;will cause this stubborn young woman to
+change her mind."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt it. Helen says she's not ready to go back yet, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Not sufficiently 'improved,' I suppose," laughed the doctor, a little
+grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. Then, too, she has other plans all made."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she has!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. She's going abroad. Do you remember Angie Reynolds?&mdash;Angie Ried,
+you know&mdash;married Ned Reynolds."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Nice girl!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, they're going abroad for some years&mdash;some business for the firm,
+I believe. Anyway, Ned will have to be months at a time in different
+cities, and Angie and little Gladys are going with him. They have asked
+Helen and Betty to go, too; and Helen has agreed to go."</p>
+
+<p>"And leave you?"</p>
+
+<p>At the indignant expression on her brother's face, Edith Thayer laughed
+merrily.</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear Frank, I thought you were just threatening to <i>get</i> Helen
+to leave me!" she challenged.</p>
+
+<p>"So I was," retorted the doctor, nothing daunted. "But it was to get her
+to go home, where she belonged; not on any wild-goose chase like this
+abroad business. What does she want?&mdash;to be presented at court? Maybe
+she thinks that's going to do the job!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, come, Frank, now you're sarcastic!" Mrs. Thayer's voice was
+earnest, though her eyes were twinkling. "It isn't a wild-goose chase a
+bit. It's a very sensible plan. In the first place, it takes Helen out
+of the country&mdash;which is wise, if she's still going to try to keep her
+whereabouts a secret from Burke; for eventually some one, somewhere,
+would see her&mdash;some one who knew her face. She can't always live so
+secluded a life as she has these past three years, of course,&mdash;we have
+spent the greater share of that time at the beach here, coming early and
+staying late.</p>
+
+<p>"But that isn't all. Angie has taken a great fancy to both Helen and
+Dorothy Elizabeth, and she likes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> to have Gladys with them. The children
+are the same age&mdash;about five, you know&mdash;and great cronies. Angie is
+taking Helen as a sort of companion-governess. Her duties will be light
+and congenial. Both the children will be in her charge, and their
+treatment and advantages will be identical. There will be a nursery
+governess under her, and she herself will be much with Angie, which will
+be invaluable to her, in many ways. And, by the way, Frank, the fact
+that a woman like Angie Reynolds is taking her for a traveling companion
+shows, more conclusively than anything else could, how greatly improved
+Helen is&mdash;what a really charming woman she has come to be. But it is a
+splendid chance for her, certainly, and especially for Betty&mdash;her whole
+life centers now in Betty&mdash;and I urged her taking it. At first she
+demurred, on account of leaving me; but I succeeded in convincing her
+that it was altogether too good an opportunity to lose."</p>
+
+<p>"Opportunity, indeed! When does she go?"</p>
+
+<p>"The last of next month."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right, then. I shall see Burke long before that." The
+doctor settled back in his chair with a relieved sigh.</p>
+
+<p>His sister eyed him with a disturbed frown.</p>
+
+<p>"Frank, dear, you can't do anything," she ventured at last. "Didn't I
+tell you she wasn't ready to go back?"</p>
+
+<p>"But she'll have to go&mdash;some time."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. But wait. I'm not going to say another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> word now, nor let you.
+Wait till you see her&mdash;and you shall see her in a day or two&mdash;just as
+soon as you are strong enough. But not another word now." And to make
+sure that he obeyed, Mrs. Thayer rose laughingly and left the room.</p>
+
+<p>It was four days later that Frank Gleason for the first time ventured
+downstairs and out into the warm sunshine on the south veranda. Hearing
+a child's gleeful laugh and a woman's gently remonstrative voice,&mdash;a
+voice that he thought he recognized,&mdash;he walked the length of the
+veranda and rounded the corner.</p>
+
+<p>His slippered feet made no sound, so quite unheralded he came upon the
+woman and the little girl on the wide veranda steps. Neither one saw
+him, and he stopped short at the corner, his eyes alight with sudden
+admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Frank Gleason thought he had never seen a more lovely little girl.
+Blue-eyed, golden-haired, and rosy-cheeked, she was the typical
+child-beautiful of picture and romance. A-tiptoe on the topmost step she
+was reaching one dimpled hand for a gorgeous red geranium blooming in a
+pot decorating the balustrade. In the other hand, tightly clutched, was
+another gorgeous blossom, sadly crushed and broken. She was laughing
+gleefully. Near her, but not attempting to touch her, was a woman the
+doctor recognized at once. It was Helen&mdash;but Helen with a subtle
+difference of face, eyes, hair, dress, and manner that was at once
+illuminating but baffling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Betty, dear," she was saying gently, "no, no! Mother said not to pick
+the flowers."</p>
+
+<p>The child turned roguish, willful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"But I wants to pick 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother can't let you, dear. And see, they are so much prettier
+growing!"</p>
+
+<p>The small red lips pouted. The little curly head gave a vigorous shake.</p>
+
+<p>"But I wants 'em to grow in my hands&mdash;so," insisted a threateningly
+tearful voice, as the tightly clutched flower was thrust forward for
+inspection.</p>
+
+<p>"But they won't grow there, darling. See!&mdash;this one is all crumpled and
+broken now. It can't even lift its poor little head. Come, we don't want
+the rest to be like that, do we? Come! Come away with me."</p>
+
+<p>The young eyes grew mutinous.</p>
+
+<p>"I wants 'em to grow in my hand," insisted the red lips again.</p>
+
+<p>"But mother doesn't." There was a resolute note of decision in the quiet
+voice now; but suddenly it grew wonderfully soft and vibrant. "And daddy
+wouldn't, either, dearie. Only think how sorry daddy would be to see
+that poor little flower in Betty's hand!"</p>
+
+<p>As if in response to a potent something in her mother's voice, Betty's
+eyes grew roundly serious.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;would daddy&mdash;be sorry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because daddy loves all beautiful things, and he wants them to stay
+beautiful. And this poor little flower in Betty's hand won't be
+beautiful much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> longer, I fear. It is all broken and crushed; and
+daddy&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden sense of guilt, as if trespassing on holy ground, the
+doctor strode forward noisily.</p>
+
+<p>"So this is Dorothy Elizabeth and her mother&mdash;" he began gayly; but he
+could get no further.</p>
+
+<p>Helen Denby turned with a joyous cry and an eagerly extended hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Dr. Gleason, I'm so glad! You <i>are</i> better, aren't you? I'm so glad
+to see you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'm better. I'm well&mdash;only I can't seem to make people believe it.
+And you&mdash; I don't need to ask how you are. And so this big girl is the
+little Dorothy Elizabeth I used to know. You have your mother's eyes, my
+dear. Come, won't you shake hands with me?"</p>
+
+<p>The little girl advanced slowly, her gaze searching the doctor's face.
+Then, in her sweet, high-pitched treble, came the somewhat disconcerting
+question:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is you&mdash;daddy?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor laughed lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear. I'm a poor unfortunate man who hasn't any little girl like
+you; but we'll hope, one of these days, you'll see&mdash;daddy." He turned to
+Helen Denby with suddenly grave, questioning eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Betty, dear,"&mdash;Mrs. Denby refused to meet the doctor's gaze,&mdash;"go carry
+the flower to Annie and ask her please to put it in water for you; then
+run out and play with Bessie in the garden. Mother wants to talk to Dr.
+Gleason a few minutes." Then,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> to the doctor, she turned an agitated
+face. "Surely, didn't your sister&mdash;tell you? I'm going to London with
+Mrs. Reynolds."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she told me. But perhaps I was hoping to persuade you&mdash;to do
+otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes grew troubled.</p>
+
+<p>"But it's such a fine chance&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For more of this 'improvement' business, I suppose," cut in the doctor,
+a bit brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>She turned reproachful eyes upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please, doctor, don't make fun of me like&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"As if I'd make fun of you, child!" cut in the doctor, still more
+sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I can't blame you, of course," she smiled wistfully; "and
+especially now that I see myself how absurd I was to think, for a
+minute, that I could make myself over into a&mdash;a&mdash;the sort of wife that
+Burke Denby would wish to have."</p>
+
+<p>"Absurd that you could&mdash; Come, come! <i>Now</i> what nonsense are you
+talking?" snapped the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"But it isn't nonsense," objected Helen Denby earnestly. "Don't you
+suppose I know <i>now</i>? I used to think it was something you could learn
+as you would a poem, or that you could put on to you, as you would a new
+dress. But I know now it's something inside of you that has to grow and
+grow just as you grow; and I'm afraid all the putting on and learning in
+the world won't get <i>me</i> there."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, come, Mrs. Denby!" expostulated the doctor, in obvious
+consternation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But it's so. Listen," she urged tremulously. "Now I&mdash;I just can't like
+the kind of music Burke does,&mdash;discords, and no tune, you know,&mdash;though
+I've tried and tried to. Day after day I've gone into the music-room and
+put in those records,&mdash;the classics and the operatic ones that are the
+real thing, you know,&mdash;but I can't like them; and I still keep liking
+tunes and ragtime. And there are the books, too. I can't help liking
+jingles and stories that <i>tell</i> something; and I don't like poetry&mdash;not
+real poetry like Browning and all the rest of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Browning, indeed! As if that counted, child!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but it's other things&mdash;lots of them; vague, elusive things that I
+can't put my finger on. But I know them now, since I've been here with
+your sister and her friends. Why, sometimes it isn't anything more than
+the way a woman speaks, or the way she sits down and gets up, or even
+the way a bit of lace falls over her hand. But they all help. And
+they've helped me, too,&mdash;oh, so much. I'm so glad now of this chance to
+thank you. You don't know&mdash;you can't know, what it's been for me&mdash;to be
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought you just said that you&mdash;you <i>couldn't</i>&mdash;that is, that
+you'd&mdash;er&mdash;given up," floundered the doctor miserably, as if groping for
+some sort of support on a topsy-turvy world.</p>
+
+<p>"Given up? Perhaps I have&mdash;in a way&mdash;for myself. You see, I know now
+that you have to begin young. That's why I'm so happy about Betty. I
+don't mind about myself any more, if only I can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> make it all right for
+her. Dr. Gleason, I couldn't&mdash;I just <i>couldn't</i> have her father ashamed
+of&mdash;Betty!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ashamed of that child! Well, I should say not," blustered the doctor
+incoherently; "nor of you, either, you brave little woman. Why&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Betty <i>is</i> a dear, isn't she?" interrupted the mother eagerly. "You
+<i>do</i> think she'll&mdash;she'll be everything he could wish? I'm keeping him
+always before her&mdash;what he likes, how he'd want her to do, you know. And
+almost always I can make her mind now, with daddy's name, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor interrupted with a gesture of impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear lady, can't you see that now&mdash;right <i>now</i> is just the time for
+you to go back to your husband?"</p>
+
+<p>The eager, pleading, wistful-eyed little mother opposite became suddenly
+the dignified, stern-eyed woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he said he wanted me, Dr. Gleason?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;er&mdash;y-yes; well, that is, he&mdash; I know he has wanted to know where
+you were."</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely; but that isn't wanting <i>me</i>. Dr. Gleason, don't you think
+I have any pride, any self-respect, even? My husband was ashamed of me.
+He asked me to go away for a time. He wrote me with his own hand that he
+wanted a vacation from me. Do you think <i>now</i>, without a sign or a word
+from him, that I am going creeping back to him and ask him to take me
+back?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But he doesn't know where you are, to <i>give</i> you a sign," argued the
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"You've seen him, haven't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, y-yes&mdash;but not lately. But&mdash;I'm going to."</p>
+
+<p>A startled look came into her eyes. The next minute she smiled sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you? Very well; we'll see&mdash;if he says anything. You won't tell him
+where I am, I know. I have your promise. But, Dr. Gleason,"&mdash;her voice
+grew very sweet and serious,&mdash;"I shall not be satisfied now with
+anything short of a happy married life. I know now what marriage is,
+where there is love, and trust in each other, and where they like to do
+and talk about the same things. I've seen your sister and her husband.
+Unless I can <i>know</i> that I'm going to bring that kind of happiness to
+Burke, I shall not consent to go back to him. I will give him his
+daughter. Some time, when she is old enough, I want him to see her. When
+I know that he is proud of my Betty, I may not&mdash;mind the rest so much,
+perhaps. But now&mdash;now&mdash;" With a choking little cry she turned and fled
+down the steps and out on to the garden path.</p>
+
+<p>Baffled, irritated, yet frowningly admiring, the doctor stalked into the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>In the hall he came face to face with his sister. She fluttered into
+instant anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Frank&mdash;<i>outdoors</i>? Who said you could do that?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I did. Oh, the doctor said so, too," he flung out hurriedly, answering
+the dawning disapproval in her eyes. "I'm going to Dalton next week."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but, Frank&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, please don't argue. I'm going. If you and the doctor can get me
+well enough to go&mdash;all right. But I'm going whether I'm well enough or
+not."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Frank, dear, you can't <i>do</i> anything. You know you promised."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I shan't break any promises, of course. But I'm going to see Burke.
+I'm going to find out if he really is ninny enough to keep on holding
+off, at the end of a silly quarrel, the sweetest little wife a man ever
+had, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I opine you've seen Helen," smiled Edith Thayer, with a sudden twinkle.</p>
+
+<p>"I have, and&mdash;doesn't like Browning, indeed! And can't help liking
+tunes! Oh, good Heavens, Edith, if Burke Denby doesn't&mdash; Well, we'll see
+next week," he glowered, striding away, followed by the anxious but
+still twinkling eyes of his sister.</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with his threat, and in spite of protests, the doctor went
+to Dalton the next week. But almost by return train he was back again,
+stern-lipped and somber-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Frank, so soon as this?" cried his sister. "Surely Burke Denby
+didn't&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't see him."</p>
+
+<p>"His father, then?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Neither one. They're gone. South America. Bridge contract. Went
+themselves this time."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that explains it&mdash;why we haven't heard from them since you came
+back. I <i>had</i> thought it strange, Frank, that not a word of
+congratulation or even inquiry had come from them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know. I&mdash;I'd thought it strange myself&mdash;a little. But that
+doesn't help this thing any. I can't very well go to South America to
+see Burke, just now&mdash;though I'd like to."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. Besides, don't forget that you very likely wouldn't
+accomplish anything if you did see him."</p>
+
+<p>So deep was the sudden gloom on the doctor's face at her words that the
+lady added quickly: "You did find out something in Dalton, Frank! I know
+you did by your face. You saw some one."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I saw&mdash;Brett."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Denby's general manager and chief factotum."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he ought to know&mdash;something."</p>
+
+<p>"He does&mdash;everything. But he won't tell&mdash;anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"And it's right that he shouldn't, of course. It's his business to keep
+his mouth shut&mdash;and he knows his business as well as any man I can think
+of. Oh, he was perfectly civil, and apparently very gracious and
+open-hearted in what he said."</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>did</i> he say?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He said that they had gone to South America on a big bridge contract,
+and that they wouldn't be home for four or five months yet. He said that
+they were very well, and that, probably, when they came back from this
+trip, they would go to South Africa for another six months. I couldn't
+get anywhere near asking about Helen, and Burke's present state of mind
+concerning her. He could scent a question of that sort forty words away;
+and he invariably veered off at a tangent long before I got to it. It
+was like starting for New York and landing in Montreal! I had to give it
+up. So far as anything I could learn to the contrary, Mr. Burke Denby
+and his father are well, happy, and perfectly content to build bridges
+for heathens and Hottentots the rest of their natural existence. And
+there you are! How, pray, in the face of that, are we going to keep
+Helen from running off to London?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't try."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;oh, hang it all, Edith! This can't go on."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, it can, my dear; and I'm inclined to think it's going on just
+right. Very plainly they aren't ready for each other&mdash;yet. Let her go to
+London and make the best of all these advantages for herself and Betty;
+and let him go on with his bridge-building for the Hottentots. 'Twill do
+them good&mdash;both of them, and will be all the better for them when they
+do come together."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then they <i>are</i> to come together some time!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Frank, of course they are! You couldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> keep them apart,"
+declared the lady, with smiling confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Edith, you haven't ever talked like this&mdash;before," puzzled the
+doctor, frowning.</p>
+
+<p>"I've never known before that Burke Denby was building bridges for the
+Hottentots."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! That's their business. They've always built bridges."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but Master Burke and his father haven't always gone to superintend
+their construction," she flashed. "In other words, if Burke Denby is
+trying so strenuously to get away from himself, it's a pretty sure sign
+that there's something in himself that he wants to get away from! You
+see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I should like to see," sighed the doctor, with very evident
+doubt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>EMERGENCIES</h3>
+
+<p>In September Helen Denby and Dorothy Elizabeth went to London. With
+their going, a measure of peace came to Frank Gleason. Not having their
+constant presence to remind him of his friend's domestic complications,
+he could the more easily adopt his sister's complacent attitude of
+cheery confidence that it would all come out right in time&mdash;that it
+<i>must</i> come out right. Furthermore, with Helen not under his own roof,
+he was not so guiltily conscious of "aiding and abetting" a friend's
+runaway wife.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after Helen's departure for London, a letter from Burke Denby in
+far-away South America told of the Denbys' rejoicing at the happy
+outcome of the Arctic trip, and expressed the hope that the doctor was
+well, and that they might meet him as soon as possible after their
+return from South America in December.</p>
+
+<p>The letter was friendly and cordial, but not long. It told little of
+their work, and nothing of themselves. And, in spite of its verbal
+cordiality, the doctor felt, at its conclusion, that he had, as it were,
+been attending a formal reception when he had hoped for a cozy chat by
+the fire.</p>
+
+<p>In December, at Burke's bidding, he ran up to Dalton for a brief visit,
+but it proved to be as stiff and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> unsatisfying as the letter had been.
+Burke never mentioned his wife; but he wore so unmistakable an
+"Of-course-I-understand-you-are-angry-with-me" air, that the doctor
+(much to his subsequent vexation when he realized it) went out of his
+way to be heartily cordial, as if in refutation of the disapproval
+idea&mdash;which was not the impression the doctor really wished to convey at
+all. He was, in fact, very angry with Burke. He wanted nothing so much
+as to give him a piece of his mind. Yet, so potent was Burke's dignified
+aloofness that he found himself chattering of Inca antiquities and
+Babylonian tablets instead of delivering his planned dissertation on the
+futility of quarrels in general and of Burke's and Helen's in
+particular.</p>
+
+<p>With John Denby he had little better success, so far as results were
+concerned; though he did succeed in asking a few questions.</p>
+
+<p>"You have never heard from&mdash;Mrs. Denby?" he began abruptly, the minute
+he found himself alone with Burke's father.</p>
+
+<p>"Never."</p>
+
+<p>"But you&mdash;you would like to!"</p>
+
+<p>The old man's face became suddenly mask-like&mdash;a phenomenon with which
+John Denby's business associates were very familiar, but which Dr. Frank
+Gleason had never happened to witness before.</p>
+
+<p>"If you will pardon me, doctor," began John Denby in a colorless voice,
+"I would rather not discuss the lady. There isn't anything new that I
+can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> say, and I am beginning to feel&mdash;as does my son&mdash;that I would
+rather not hear her name mentioned."</p>
+
+<p>This ended it, of course. There was nothing the doctor could say or do.
+Bound by his promise to Helen Denby, he could not tell the facts; and
+silenced by his host's words and manner, he could not discuss
+potentialities. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to drop the
+subject. And he dropped it. He went home the next day. Resolutely then
+he busied himself with his own affairs. Determinedly he set himself to
+forget the affairs of the Denbys. This was the more easily accomplished
+because of the long silences and absences of the Denby men themselves,
+and because Helen Denby still remained abroad with Angie Reynolds.</p>
+
+<p>In London Helen Denby was living in a new world. Quick to realize the
+advantages that were now hers, she determined to make the most of
+them&mdash;especially for Betty. Always everything now centered around Betty.</p>
+
+<p>In Mrs. Reynolds Helen had found a warm friend and sympathetic ally, one
+who, she knew, would keep quite to herself the story Helen had told her.
+Even Mr. Reynolds was not let into the inner secret of Helen's presence
+with them. To him she was a companion governess, a friend of the
+Thayers', to whom his wife had taken a great fancy&mdash;a most charming
+little woman, indeed, whom he himself liked very much.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Freed from the fear of meeting Burke Denby or any of his friends, Helen,
+for the first time since her flight from Dalton, felt that she was
+really safe, and that she could, with an undivided mind, devote her
+entire attention to her self-imposed task.</p>
+
+<p>From London to Berlin, and from Berlin to Genoa, she went happily, as
+Mr. Reynolds's business called him. To Helen it made little difference
+where she was, so long as she could force every picture, statue,
+mountain, concert, book, or individual to pay toll to her insatiable
+hunger "to know"&mdash;that she might tell Betty.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Reynolds, almost as eager and interested as Helen herself,
+conducted their daily lives with an eye always alert as to what would be
+best for Helen and Betty. Teachers for Gladys and Betty&mdash;were teachers
+for Helen, too; and carefully Mrs. Reynolds made it a point that her own
+social friends should also be Helen's&mdash;which Helen accepted with
+unruffled cheerfulness. Helen, indeed, had now almost reached the goal
+long ago set for her by Mrs. Thayer: it was very nearly a matter of
+supreme indifference to her whether she met people or not, so far as the
+idea of meeting them was concerned. There came a day, however, when, for
+a moment, Helen almost yielded to her old run-and-hide temptation.</p>
+
+<p>They were back in London, and it was near the close of Helen's third
+year abroad.</p>
+
+<p>"I met Mr. Donald Estey this morning," said Mrs. Reynolds at the
+luncheon table that noon. "I asked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> him to dine with us to-morrow night.
+He is here for the winter."</p>
+
+<p>"So? Good! I shall be glad to see Estey," commented her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Once Helen would have given a cry, dropped her fork with a clatter, or
+otherwise made her startled perturbation conspicuous to all. That only
+an almost imperceptible movement and a slight change of color resulted
+now showed something of what Helen Denby had learned during the last few
+years.</p>
+
+<p>"You say Mr. Donald Estey will be&mdash;here, to-morrow?" she asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You remember him," nodded Mrs. Reynolds. "He was at the Thayers'
+at the same time I was there six years ago&mdash;tall, good-looking fellow
+with glasses."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I remember," smiled Helen. And never would one have imagined that
+behind the quiet words was a wild clamor of "Oh, what shall I do&mdash;what
+shall I do&mdash;what <i>shall</i> I do?"</p>
+
+<p>What Helen Denby wanted to do was to run away&mdash;far away, where Mr.
+Donald Estey could never find her. Next best would be to tell Mrs.
+Reynolds that she could not see him; but to do that, she would have to
+tell why&mdash;and she did not want to tell even Mrs. Reynolds the story of
+that awful hour at the Thayers' North Shore cottage. True, she might
+feign illness and plead a headache; but Mrs. Reynolds had said that Mr.
+Estey was to be in London all winter&mdash;and she could not very well have a
+headache<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> all winter! There was plainly no way but to meet this thing
+fairly and squarely. Besides, had not Mrs. Thayer said long ago that
+emergencies were the greatest test of manners, as well as of ropes and
+housewives, and that she must always be ready for emergencies? Was she
+to fail now at this, her first real test?</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Donald Estey was already in the drawing-room when Helen Denby came
+down to dinner the following evening. She had put on a simple white
+dress&mdash;after a horrified rejection of a blue one, her first choice. (She
+had remembered just in time that Mr. Donald Estey's favorite color was
+blue.) She was pale, but she looked charmingly pretty as she entered the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"You remember Mr. Estey," Mrs. Reynolds murmured. The next moment Helen
+found her hand in a warm clasp, and a pair of laughing gray eyes looking
+straight into hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I remember him very well," she contrived to say cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"And I remember Mrs. Darling very well," came to her ears in Mr. Donald
+Estey's smoothly noncommittal voice. Then she forced herself to walk
+calmly across the room and to sit down leisurely.</p>
+
+<p>What anybody said next she did not hear. Somewhere within her a voice
+was exulting: "I've done it, I've done it, and I didn't make a break!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a small table, and conversation at dinner was general. At first
+Helen said little, not trusting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> herself to speak unless a question made
+speech imperative; but gradually she found the tense something within
+her relaxing. She was able then to talk more freely; and before the
+dinner was over she was apparently quite her usual self.</p>
+
+<p>As to Mr. Donald Estey&mdash;Mr. Donald Estey was piqued and surprised, but
+mightily interested. Half his anticipated pleasure in this dinner had
+been the fact that he was to see Mrs. Darling again. She would blush and
+stammer, and be adorably embarrassed, of course. He had not forgotten
+how distractingly pretty she was when she blushed. He would like to see
+her blush again.</p>
+
+<p>But here she was&mdash;and she had not blushed at all. What had happened? A
+cool little woman in a cool little gown had put a cool little hand in
+his, with a cool "Oh, yes, I remember him very well." And that was all.
+Yet she was the same Mrs. Darling that he had met six years before, and
+that had&mdash; But was she the same, really the same? <i>That</i> Mrs. Darling
+could never have carried off a meeting like this with such sweet
+serenity. He wondered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Donald Estey was still trying to pigeonhole the women he met.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Donald Estey found frequent opportunity for studying his new-old
+friend during the days that followed, for they were much together. In
+Mrs. Reynolds's eyes he made a very convenient fourth for a day's
+sight-seeing trip or a concert, and she often asked him to join them.
+Also he made an even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> more convenient escort for herself and Helen when,
+as often happened, Mr. Reynolds was unable to accompany them.</p>
+
+<p>In one way and another, therefore, he was thrown often with this
+somewhat baffling young woman, who refused to be catalogued. The very
+fact that he still could not place her made him more persistent than
+ever. Besides, to himself he owned that he found her very charming&mdash;and
+very charming all the time. There was never on his part now that old
+feeling of aversion, of which he used to be conscious at times. And she
+was always quite the lady. He wondered how he could ever have thought
+her anything else. True, on that remarkable occasion six years before,
+she had said something about learning how to please&mdash;But he was trying
+to forget that scene. He did not believe that everything was quite
+straight about that extraordinary occasion. There must have been, in
+some way, a mistake. He did not believe, anyway, that it signified. At
+all events, he was not going to worry about a dead and gone past like
+that.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Donald Estey was not the only one that was trying to forget that
+occasion. Helen herself was putting it behind her whenever the thought
+of it entered her head. Thinking of it brought embarrassment; and she
+did not like to feel embarrassed. She believed that he was trying to
+show that he had forgotten it; and if he were disposed to forget the
+ridiculous affair, surely she should be more than glad to do it. And she
+considered it very fine of him&mdash;very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> fine, indeed. She liked him, too.
+She liked him very much, and she enjoyed being with him. And there could
+be no harm now, either, in being with him all she liked, for he could
+never make the mistake of thinking she cared for him particularly. He
+understood that she loved some one else. They might be as friendly as
+they pleased. There could never&mdash;thank Heaven!&mdash;be any misunderstanding
+about their relationship.</p>
+
+<p>Confidently serene, therefore, Helen Denby enjoyed to the full the
+stimulus of Mr. Donald Estey's companionship. Then, abruptly, her house
+of cards tumbled about her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Darling, will you marry me?" the man asked one day. He spoke
+lightly, so lightly that she could not believe him serious. Yet she gave
+him a startled glance before she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Estey, please don't jest!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not jesting. I'm in earnest. Will you marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mr. Estey!</i>" She could only gasp her dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem surprised." He was still smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"But you can't&mdash;you can't be in earnest, Mr. Estey."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, pray?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you know&mdash;you must remember&mdash;what I&mdash;I told you, six years ago."
+The red suffused her face.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean&mdash;that you cared for some one else?" He spoke gravely now. The
+smile was quite gone from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> his eyes. "But, Mrs. Darling, it's just there
+that I can't believe <i>you're</i> in earnest. Besides, that was six years
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>"But I am in earnest, and it's the same&mdash;<i>now</i>," she urged feverishly.
+"Oh, Mr. Estey, please, please, don't let's spoil our friendship&mdash;this
+way. I thought you understood&mdash;I supposed, of course, you understood
+that I&mdash;I loved some one else very much."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mrs. Darling, you said that six years ago, and&mdash;and you're still
+free <i>now</i>. Naturally no man would be such a fool as to let&mdash; So I
+thought, of course, that you had&mdash;had&mdash;" He came to a helpless pause.</p>
+
+<p>The color swept her face again.</p>
+
+<p>"But I told you then that I was&mdash;was learning&mdash;was trying to learn&mdash; Oh,
+why do you make me say it?"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at her face, then jerked himself to his feet angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, come, Mrs. Darling, you don't expect me to believe that you
+now, <i>now</i> are still trying to learn to please (as you call it) some
+mythically impossible man!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's not mythically impossible. He's real."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he's blind, deaf, and dumb, I suppose!" Mr. Donald Estey's voice
+was still wrathful.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of herself Helen Denby laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, oh, no! He's&mdash;" Suddenly her face grew grave, and very earnest.
+"Mr. Estey, I can't tell you. You wouldn't understand. If you&mdash;you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> care
+anything for me, you will not question me any more. I <i>can't</i> tell you.
+Please, please don't say any more."</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Donald Estey did say more&mdash;a little more. He did not say much,
+for the piteous pleading in the blue eyes stayed half the words on his
+lips before they were uttered. In the end he went away with a baffled,
+hurt pain in his own eyes, and Helen did not see him again for some
+days. But he came back in time. The pain still lurked in his eyes, but
+there was a resolute smile on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"If you'll permit, I want things to be as they were before," he told
+her. "I'm still your friend, and I hope you are mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, of course," she stammered. "Only, I&mdash;you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>As she hesitated, plainly disturbed, he raised a quick hand of protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry." His resolute smile became almost gay. "You'll see how
+good a friend I can be!"</p>
+
+<p>If Mr. Donald Estey was hoping to take by strategy the citadel that had
+refused to surrender, he gave no sign. As the days came and went, he was
+clearly and consistently the good friend he had said he would be; and
+Helen Denby found no cause to complain, or to fear untoward results.</p>
+
+<p>And so the winter passed and spring came; and it was on a beautiful day
+in early spring that Helen took Betty (now nine years old) to one of
+London's most famous curio-shops. There was to be an auction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> shortly of
+a very valuable collection of books and curios, and the advertising
+catalogue sent to Mr. Reynolds had fallen into Helen's hands.</p>
+
+<p>It was no new thing for Helen to haunt curio-shops and museum-cabinets
+given over to Babylonian tablets and Egyptian scarabs. Helen had never
+forgotten the little brown and yellow "soap-cakes" which were so
+treasured by Burke and his father, and of which she had been so jealous
+in the old days at Dalton. At every opportunity now she studied them.
+She wanted to know something about them; but especially she wanted Betty
+to know about them. Betty must know something about everything&mdash;that was
+of interest to Burke Denby.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, standing with Betty before a glass case of carefully numbered
+treasures, she was so assiduously studying the catalogue in her hand
+that she did not notice the approach of the tall man wearing glasses,
+until an amused voice reached her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Going in for arch&aelig;ology, Mrs. Darling?"</p>
+
+<p>So violent was her start that it looked almost like one of guilt.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Estey! I&mdash;I didn't see you."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes twinkled.</p>
+
+<p>"I should say not&mdash;or hear me, either. I spoke twice before you deigned
+to turn. I did not know you were so interested in arch&aelig;ology, Mrs.
+Darling."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not. I think it's&mdash;" Her face changed suddenly. "Oh, yes, I'm
+interested&mdash;very much interested,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> she corrected hastily. "But I mean
+I&mdash;I don't know anything about it. But I&mdash;I'm trying to learn. Perhaps
+you&mdash; <i>Can</i> you tell me anything about these things?"</p>
+
+<p>Something in her face, the fateful "learn," and her embarrassed manner,
+sent his thoughts back to the scene between them years before. Stifling
+an almost uncontrollable impulse to query, "Is it to please <i>him</i>, then,
+that you must learn arch&aelig;ology?" he shrugged his shoulders and shook his
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid not," he smiled. "Oh, I know a <i>little</i> something of them,
+it's true; but I've just been chatting with a man out in the front shop
+who could talk to you by the hour about those things&mdash;and grow fat on
+it. He's looking at a toby jug now. Shall I bring him in?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Mr. Estey, of course not!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, really, you'd find him interesting, I'm sure. I met him in Egypt
+last year. His name is Denby&mdash;a New Englander like&mdash; Why, Mrs. Darling,
+what is the matter? Are you faint? You're white as chalk!"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, I'm all right. Did you mean"&mdash;with white lips she asked the
+question&mdash;"Mr. John Denby?" She threw a quick look at Betty, who was now
+halfway across the room standing in awed wonder before a huge Buddha.</p>
+
+<p>"No, this is Burke Denby, John Denby's son. I met them both last year.
+But you seem to&mdash; Do you know them?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes." She said the word quietly, yet with an odd restraint that puzzled
+him. He saw that the color was coming back to her face&mdash;what he could
+not see or know was that underneath that calm exterior the little woman
+at his side was wildly adjuring herself: "Now, mind, mind, this is an
+emergency. Mind you meet it right!" He saw that she took one quick step
+toward Betty, only to stop and look about her a little uncertainly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Estey,"&mdash;she was facing him now. Her chin was lifted determinedly,
+but he noticed that her lips were trembling. "I do not want to see Mr.
+Burke Denby, and he <i>must not</i> see me. There is no way out of this
+place, apparently, except through the front shop, where he is. I want
+you to go out there and&mdash;and talk to him. Then Betty and I can slip by
+unnoticed."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but&mdash;" stammered the dumfounded man.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Estey, you <i>will</i> do what I ask you to&mdash;and please go&mdash;<i>quickly</i>!
+He's sure to come out to see&mdash;these." She just touched the case of
+Babylonian tablets.</p>
+
+<p>To the man, looking into her anguished eyes, came a swift, overwhelming
+revelation. He remembered, suddenly, stories he had heard of a tragedy
+in Burke Denby's domestic affairs. He remembered words&mdash;illuminating
+words&mdash;that this woman had said to him. It could not be&mdash; And yet&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He caught his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he&mdash;are you&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am Mrs. Burke Denby," she interrupted quietly. "You will not betray
+me, I know. Now, will you go, please?"</p>
+
+<p>For one appalled instant he gazed straight into her eyes; then without a
+word he turned and left her.</p>
+
+<p>He knew, a minute later, that he was saying something (he wondered
+afterward what it was) to Mr. Burke Denby out in the main shop. He knew,
+too, without looking up, that a woman and a little girl passed quietly
+by at the other side of the room and disappeared through the open
+doorway. Then, dazedly, Mr. Donald Estey looked about him. He was
+wondering if, after all, he had not been dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>That evening he learned that it was not a dream. Freely, and with a
+frank confidence that touched him deeply, the woman he had known as Mrs.
+Darling told him the whole story. He heard it with naturally varying
+emotions. He tried to be just, to be coolly unprejudiced. He tried also,
+to hide his own heartache. He even tried to be glad that she loved her
+husband, as she so unmistakably did.</p>
+
+<p>"And you'll tell him now, of course&mdash;where you are," he said, when she
+had finished.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! I can't do that."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you think that is&mdash;right?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure it is."</p>
+
+<p>"But if your husband wants you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't want me."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Very sure."</p>
+
+<p>A curious look came to the man's eyes, a grim smile to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Er"&mdash;he hesitated a little&mdash;"you don't want to forget that&mdash;er&mdash;you
+have long ago qualified for&mdash;that <i>understudy</i>. You remember that&mdash;<i>I</i>
+wanted you."</p>
+
+<p>The rich color that flamed into her face told that she fully understood
+what he meant, yet she shook her head vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Ah, please, don't jest about&mdash;that. I was very much in
+earnest&mdash;indeed, I was! And I thought then&mdash;that I really could&mdash;could&mdash;
+But I understand&mdash;lots of things now that I never understood before. It
+is really all for Betty that I am working now. I want to make
+<i>her</i>&mdash;what he would want her to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, my dear woman! As if you yourself were not the most&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped him with a gesture. Her eyes had grown very serious.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want you to talk that way, please. I would rather think&mdash;just
+of Betty."</p>
+
+<p>"But what about&mdash;him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know." Her eyes grew fathomless. She turned them toward the
+window. "Of course I think and think and think. And of course I
+wonder&mdash;how it's all coming out. I'm sure I'm doing right now, and I
+think&mdash;I was doing right&mdash;then."</p>
+
+<p>"Then?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When I went away&mdash;at the first. I can't see how I could have done
+anything else, as things were. Some way, all along, I've felt as if I
+were traveling a&mdash;a long road, and that on each side was a tall hedge. I
+can't look over it, nor through it. I can't even look ahead&mdash;very far.
+The road turns&mdash;so often. But there have never been any
+crossroads&mdash;there's never been any other way I could take, as I looked
+at it. Don't you see, Mr. Estey?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think I see." The old baffled pain had come back to his eyes,
+but she did not seem to notice it. Her gaze had drifted back to the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>"And so I feel that now I'm still on that road and that it's
+leading&mdash;somewhere; and some day I shall know. Until then, there isn't
+anything I can do&mdash;don't you see?&mdash;there isn't anything I can do but to
+keep&mdash;straight ahead. There really isn't, Mr. Estey."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I suppose there isn't," said Mr. Donald Estey, rising to his feet
+with a long sigh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>PINK TEAS TO FLIGHTY BLONDES</h3>
+
+<p>One by one the years slipped by, swiftly, with little change. In Boston,
+the doctor, trying not to count them, still had not forgotten. From
+Helen, through his sister, came glowing accounts of concerts, lectures,
+travels, and language-lessons for herself and Betty. From Dalton, both
+directly and indirectly, began to come reports of a new gayety at the
+old Denby Mansion. Dinners and house-parties, and even a ball or two,
+figured in the reports.</p>
+
+<p>Vexed and curious, the doctor&mdash;who had, of late, refused most of his
+invitations to Dalton&mdash;took occasion, between certain trips of his own,
+to go up to the little town, to see for himself the meaning of this, to
+him, unaccountable phase of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>There was a big reception at Denby Mansion on the evening of the day of
+his arrival. The hotel parlor and office were abuzz with stories of the
+guests, decorations, and city caterer. There came to the doctor's ears,
+too, sundry rumors&mdash;some vague, others unpleasantly explicit&mdash;concerning
+a pretty little blonde widow, who was being frequently seen these days
+in the company of Burke Denby, the son.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he'd have to get a divorce&mdash;but he could do that easy,"
+overheard the doctor in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> corridor. "His wife ran away, didn't she,
+years ago? I heard she did."</p>
+
+<p>Uninvited and unheralded, the doctor attended the reception. Passing up
+the old familiar walk, he came to an unfamiliar, garish blaze of lights,
+a riot of color and perfume, a din of shrieking violins, the swish of
+silken skirts, and the peculiarly inane babble that comes from a
+multitude of chattering tongues.</p>
+
+<p>Gorgeous lackeys reached unfamiliar hands for his hat and coat, and the
+doctor was nearly ready to turn and flee the delirium of horror, when he
+suddenly almost laughed aloud at sight of the half-perplexed,
+half-terrified, wholly disgusted face of Benton. At that moment the old
+manservant's eyes met his own, and the doctor's eyes grew suddenly moist
+at the beatific joy which illumined that harassed, anxious old face.</p>
+
+<p>Regardless of the trailing silks and billowing tulle between them,
+Benton leaped to his side.</p>
+
+<p>"Praise be, if it ain't Dr. Gleason!" he exulted, incoherent, but
+beaming.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but what is this, Benton?" laughed the doctor. "What is the
+meaning of all this?"</p>
+
+<p>The old butler rolled his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Blest if I know, sir&mdash;indeed, I don't. But I'm thinking it's gone crazy
+I am. And sometimes I think maybe the master and young Master Burke,
+too, are going crazy with me. I do, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can well imagine it, Benton," smiled the doctor dryly, as he began to
+make his way toward the big<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> drawing-room where John Denby and his son
+were receiving their guests.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor could find no cause to complain of his welcome. It was
+cordial and manifestly sincere. He was introduced at once as an old and
+valued friend, and he soon found himself the center of a plainly
+admiring group. It was very evidently soon whispered about that he was
+<i>the</i> Dr. Frank Gleason of arch&aelig;ological and Arctic fame; and his only
+difficulty, after his first introduction, was to find any time for his
+own observations and reflections. He contrived, however, in spite of his
+embarrassing popularity, to see something of his hosts. He talked with
+them, when possible, and he watched them with growingly troubled eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Many times that evening he saw the mask drop over John Denby's face.
+Twice he saw a slow turning away as of ineffable weariness. Once he saw
+a spasm as of pain twitch his lips; and he noted the quick, involuntary
+lifting of his hand to his side. He saw that usually, however, the
+master of Denby House stood tall and straight and handsome, with the
+cordial, genial smile of a perfect host.</p>
+
+<p>As to Burke&mdash;it was when the doctor was watching Burke that the trouble
+in his eyes grew deepest. True, on Burke's face there was no mask of
+inscrutability, in his eyes was no weariness, on his lips no quick spasm
+of pain. He was gay, alert, handsome, and apparently happy.
+Nevertheless, the frown on the doctor's face did not diminish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a look of too much wine&mdash;slight, perhaps, but unmistakable&mdash;on
+Burke Denby's face, that the doctor did not like. The doctor also did
+not like the way Burke devoted himself to the blonde young woman who was
+so eternally at his elbow.</p>
+
+<p>This was the widow, of course. The doctor surmised this at once.
+Besides, he had met her. Her name was Mrs. Carrolton, and Mrs. Carrolton
+was the name he had heard so frequently in the hotel. The doctor did not
+like the looks of Mrs. Carrolton. She was beautiful, undeniably, in a
+way; but her blue eyes were shifting, and her mouth, when in repose, had
+hard lines. She was not the type of woman he liked to have Burke with,
+and he would not have supposed she was the sort of woman that Burke
+himself would care for. And to see him now, hanging upon her every
+word&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture of disgust the doctor turned his back and stalked to the
+farther side of the room, much to the surprise of a vapid young woman,
+to whom (he remembered when it was too late) he had been supposed to be
+talking.</p>
+
+<p>A little later, in the dining-room, where he had passed so many restful
+hours with Burke and his father, about the softly lighted table, the
+doctor now, in the midst of a chattering, thronging multitude, attempted
+to keep his own balance, and that of a tiny, wobbly plate,
+intermittently heaped with salads, sandwiches, cakes, and creams, which
+he was supposed to eat, but which he momentarily and terrifyingly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+expected to deposit upon a silken gown or a spotless shirt-front.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was one of the first of John Denby's guests to make his
+adieus. He had decided suddenly that he must get away, quite away, from
+the sight of Burke and the little widow. Otherwise he should say
+something&mdash;a very strong something; and, for obvious reasons, he really
+could say&mdash;nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Disgusted, frightened, annoyed, and aggrieved, he went home the next
+morning. To his sister he said much. He could talk to his sister. He
+gave first a full account of what he had seen and heard in Dalton,
+omitting not one detail. Then, wrathfully, he reproached her:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"So you see what's come of your foolishness. Burke isn't building
+bridges for the Hottentots now. He's giving pink teas to flighty
+blondes."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Thayer laughed softly.</p>
+
+<p>"But that's only another way of trying to get away from himself, Frank,"
+she argued.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I notice he isn't trying to get away from the widow," he
+snapped.</p>
+
+<p>A disturbed frown came to the lady's face.</p>
+
+<p>"I know." She bit her lips. "I am a little worried at that, Frank, I'll
+own. I've wondered, often, if&mdash;if there was ever any danger of something
+like that happening."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you wouldn't wonder any longer, if you should see Mrs. Nellie
+Carrolton," observed the doctor, with terse significance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence; then, sharply, the doctor spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to write to Helen."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Frank!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am. I've got to. I don't think it's right not to."</p>
+
+<p>"But what shall you&mdash;tell her?"</p>
+
+<p>"That she'd better come home and look after her property; if she
+doesn't, she's likely to lose it. That's what I'm going to tell her."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Frank!" murmured his distressed sister again; but she made no
+further demur. And that night the letter went.</p>
+
+<p>In due course came the answer. It was short, but very much to the point.
+The doctor read it, and said a sharp something behind his teeth. Without
+another word he handed the note to his sister. And this is what she
+read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Dear Dr. Gleason</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He isn't my property. I can't lose him, for I haven't him to
+lose. He took himself away from me years ago. If ever I'm to
+win him back, I must win him&mdash;not compel him. If he thinks
+he's found some one else&mdash;all the more reason why I can't
+come back now, until he knows whether he wants her or not.
+But if I came now, and he should want her&mdash; Really, Dr.
+Gleason, I don't want the same man to tell me twice to&mdash;go.</p></div>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 34em;"><span class="smcap">Helen D</span>.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m; just about what I expected she'd say," commented the doctor's
+sister tranquilly, as she laid the letter down.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you women!" flung out the doctor, springing to his feet and turning
+wrathfully on his heel.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was relieved, but not wholly eased in his mind some days
+later when he heard indirectly that Denby Mansion was closed, and that
+the Denbys were off again to some remote corner of the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow, the widow isn't with him now," he comforted himself
+aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Building bridges for the Hottentots again?" smiled his sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Australia this time."</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m; that's nice and far," mused the lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, it's far, all right," growled the doctor, somewhat
+belligerently. "Anyhow, it's too far for the widow, thank Heaven!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor went himself "far" before the month was out. Already his
+plans were made for a six months' trip with a research party to his pet
+hunting-ground&mdash;the grotto land of northern Spain. Once more the
+calmness of silence and absence left Edith Thayer with only Helen
+Denby's occasional letters to remind her of Burke Denby and his
+matrimonial problem.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A LITTLE BUNCH OF DIARIES</h3>
+
+<p>It was three years before the doctor went up to Dalton again. It was on
+a sad errand this time. John Denby had died suddenly, and after an
+hour's hesitation, the doctor went up to the funeral.</p>
+
+<p>There were no garish lights and shrieking violins to greet him as he
+passed once more up the long, familiar walk. The warm September sun
+touched lovingly the old brass knocker, and peeped behind the stately
+colonial pillars of the long veranda. It gleamed for a moment on the
+bald heads of the somber-coated men filing slowly through the wide
+doorway, and it tried to turn to silver the sable crape hanging at the
+right of the door.</p>
+
+<p>Not until that evening, after the funeral, did the doctor have the
+opportunity for more than a formal word of greeting and sympathy with
+Burke Denby. He had been shocked in the afternoon at the changes in the
+young man's face; but he was more so when, at eight o'clock, he called
+at the house.</p>
+
+<p>He found Burke alone in the library&mdash;the library whose every book and
+chair and curio spoke with the voice of the man who was gone&mdash;the man
+who had loved them so well.</p>
+
+<p>Burke himself, to the doctor, looked suddenly old and worn, and
+infinitely weary of life. He did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> at once speak of his father. But
+when he did speak of him, a little later, he seemed then to want to talk
+of nothing else. Things that his father had done and said, his little
+ways, his likes and dislikes, the hours of delight they had passed
+together, the trips they had taken, even the tiddledywinks and Mother
+Goose of childhood came in for their share. On and on until far into the
+night he talked, and the doctor listened, with a word now and then of
+sympathy or appreciation; but with a growing ache in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been, indeed, a wonderful father and son," he said at last
+unsteadily.</p>
+
+<p>"There was never another like us." The son's voice was very low.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence. The doctor, his beseeching eyes on the
+younger man's half-averted face, was groping in his mind for the right
+words to introduce the subject which all the evening had been at the
+door of his lips&mdash;Helen. He felt that now, with Burke's softened heart
+to lend lenience, and with his lonely life in prospect to plead the need
+of companionship, was the time, if ever, that an appeal for Helen might
+be successful. But the right words of introduction had not come to him
+when Burke himself began to speak again.</p>
+
+<p>"And it's almost as if I'd lost both father and mother," he went on
+brokenly; "for dad talked so much of mother. To him she was always with
+us, I think. I can remember, when I was a little boy, how real she was
+to me. In all we did or said she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> seemed to have a part. And always, all
+the way up, he used to talk of her&mdash;except for the time when&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped abruptly. The doctor, watching, wondered at the white
+compression that came suddenly to his lips. In a moment it was gone,
+however, and he had resumed speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"Of late years, dad has seemed to talk more than ever of mother, and he
+spoke always as if she were with us. And now I'm alone&mdash;so utterly
+alone. Gleason&mdash;how ever am I going to live&mdash;without&mdash;dad!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor's heart leaped with mingled fear and elation: fear at what he
+was about to do; elation that his chance to do it had come. He cleared
+his throat and began, courageously, though not quite steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;there's your wife, Burke. If only you&mdash;" He stopped short in
+dismay at the look that had come into Burke Denby's face.</p>
+
+<p>"My wife! My wife! Don't speak of my wife now, man, if you want me to
+keep my reason! The woman who brought more sorrow to my father than any
+other living being! What do you think I wouldn't give if I could blot
+out the memory of the anguish my marriage brought to dad? I can see his
+eyes now, when he was pleading with me&mdash;<i>before</i> it. Afterwards&mdash;Do you
+know what a brick dad was afterwards? Well, I'll tell you. Never by so
+much as a look&mdash;much less a word&mdash;has he reproached or censured me. At
+first he&mdash;he just put up a wall between us. But it was a wall of grief
+and sore hurt. It was never anger. I know that now. Then, one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> day,
+somehow, I found that wall down, and I looked straight into dad's eyes.
+It was never there again&mdash;that wall. I knew, of course, that dad had
+never&mdash;forgotten. The hurt and grief were still there,&mdash;that I could so
+disobey him, disregard his wishes,&mdash;but he would not let them be a wall
+between us any longer. Then, when it all turned out as it did&mdash; But he
+never once said, 'I told you so,' nor even looked it. And he was kind
+and good to Helen always. But when I think how I&mdash;I, who love him
+so&mdash;brought to him all that grief and anguish of heart, I&mdash; My wife,
+indeed! Gleason, I never want to see her face again, or hear her name
+spoken!"</p>
+
+<p>"But your&mdash;your child," stammered the dismayed doctor faintly.</p>
+
+<p>A shadow of quick pain crossed the other's face.</p>
+
+<p>"I know. And that's another thing that grieved dad. He was fond of his
+little granddaughter. He used to speak of her, often, till I begged him
+not to. She's mine, of course; but she's Helen's, too,&mdash;and she is being
+brought up by Helen&mdash;not me. I can imagine what she's being
+taught&mdash;about her father," he finished bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I'm sure&mdash; I know she's&mdash;" With a painful color the doctor,
+suddenly warned from within just in time, came to a frightened pause.</p>
+
+<p>Burke, however, lifting a protesting hand, changed the subject abruptly;
+and the relieved doctor was glad, for once, not to have him wish to talk
+longer of his missing wife and daughter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Very soon the doctor said good-night and left the house. But his heart
+was heavy.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, after all," he sighed to himself, "it wasn't just the time to
+get him to listen to reason about Helen&mdash;when it was his runaway
+marriage that had so grieved his father years ago; and his father
+now&mdash;just gone."</p>
+
+<p>From many lips, before he left town the next morning, Dr. Gleason
+learned much of the life and doings of the Denbys during the past few
+years. Perhaps the death of John Denby had made the Dalton tongues
+garrulous. At all events they were nothing loath to talk; and the
+doctor, eager to obtain anything that would enable him to understand
+Burke Denby, was nothing loath to listen.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, he hain't been well for years&mdash;John Denby hain't," related
+one old man into the doctor's attentive, sympathetic ears. "And I ain't
+sayin' I wonder, with all he's been through. But you said you was a
+friend of his, didn't ye?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor inclined his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I am, indeed, an old friend of the family."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's likely, then, you know something yourself of what's
+happened&mdash;though 'course you hain't lived here to see it all. First, ye
+know, there was his son's marriage. And that cut the old man all
+up&mdash;runaway, and not what the family wanted at all. <i>You</i> know that, of
+course. But they made the best of it, apparently, after a while, and
+young Denby took hold first-rate at the Works. Right down to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> the
+beginnin' he went, too,&mdash;overalls and day wages. And he done
+well&mdash;first-rate!&mdash;but it must 'a' galled some. Why, once, fur a spell,
+he worked <i>under my son</i>&mdash;he did. The men liked him, too, when they got
+over their grinnin' and nonsense, and see he was in earnest. <i>You</i> know
+what a likely chap young Denby <i>can</i> be, when he wants to."</p>
+
+<p>"None better!" smiled the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Well, to resume and go on. Somethin' happened one day&mdash;in his
+domestic affairs, I mean. The pretty young wife and kid lit out for
+parts unknown. And the son went back to his dad. (He and his dad always
+was more like pals than anythin' else.) Some says he sent her away&mdash;the
+wife, I mean. Some says she runned away herself. Like enough <i>you</i> know
+the rights of it."</p>
+
+<p>There was a suggestion of a pause, and a sly, half-questioning glance;
+but at the absolute non-committalism of the other's face, the narrator
+went on hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, whatever was the rights or wrongs of it, she went, and hain't
+been seen in these 'ere parts since, as I know of. Not that I <i>should</i>
+know her if I did see her, howsomever! Well, that was a dozen&mdash;yes,
+fourteen years ago, I guess, and the old man hain't been the same since.
+He hain't been the same since the boy's marriage, for that matter.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at first, after she went, the Denbys went kitin' off on one o'
+them trips o' theirn, that they're always takin'; then they come home
+and opened up the old house, and things went on about as they used<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> to
+'fore young Denby was married. But the old man fell sick&mdash;first on the
+trip, then afterwards, once or twice. He wa'n't well; but that didn't
+hinder his goin' off again. This time they went with one of their
+bridges. Always, before, they'd let Henry or Grosset manage the job; but
+this time they went themselves. After that they went lots&mdash;to South
+America, Africa, Australia, and I don't know where. They seemed restless
+and uneasy&mdash;both of 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"Then they begun ter bring folks home with 'em: chaps who wore purple
+silk socks and neckties, and looked as if they'd never done a stroke of
+work in their lives; and women with high heels and false hair. My, but
+there was gay doin's there! Winters there was balls and parties and
+swell feeds with nigger waiters from Boston, and even the dishes and
+what they et come from there, too, sometimes, they say. Summers they
+rode in hayracks and autymobiles, and danced outdoors on the
+grass&mdash;shows, you know. And they was a show with the women barefooted
+and barearmed, and&mdash;and not much on generally. My wife seen 'em once,
+and she was that shocked she didn't get over it for a month. She said
+she was brought up to keep a modest dress on her that had a decent waist
+and skirt to it. But my Bill (he's been in Boston two years now) says
+it's a pageant and Art, and all right. That you can do it in pageants
+when you can't just walkin' along the street, runnin' into the
+neighbors'. See?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see," nodded the doctor gravely.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, of course they didn't go 'round like that all the time. They
+played that thing lots where they have them little balls and
+queer-looking sticks to knock 'em with. They played it all over Pike's
+Hill and the Durgin pasture in Old Dalton; and they got my grandson to
+be a&mdash;a&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Caddie?" hazarded the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; that's what they called it. And he made good money, too,&mdash;doin'
+nothin'. Wish't they'd want me for one! Well, as I was sayin', they had
+all this comp'ny, an' more an' more of it; and they give receptions an'
+asked the hull town, sometimes. My wife went, and my darter. They said
+it was fine and grand, and all that, but that they didn't believe old
+John liked it very well. But Mr. Burke liked it. That was easy to be
+seen. And there was a pretty little widder there lots, and <i>she</i> liked
+it. Some said as how they thought there'd be a match there, sometime, if
+he could get free. But I guess there wa'n't anythin' ter that. Anyhow,
+all of a sudden, somethin' happened. Everythin' stopped right off
+short&mdash;all the gay doin's and parties&mdash;and everybody went home. Then,
+the next thing we knew, the old house was dark and empty again, and the
+Denbys gone to Australia with another bridge."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know. I remember&mdash;that," interposed the doctor, alert and
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see 'em&mdash;when they come back?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, they didn't look like the same men. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> ever since they've been
+different, somehow. Stern and silent, with never a smile for anybody,
+skursley. No balls an' parties now, you bet ye! Week in and week out,
+jest shut up in that big silent house&mdash;never goin' out at all except to
+the Works! Then we heard he was sick&mdash;Mr. John. But he got better, and
+was out again. The end come sudden. Nobody expected that. But he was a
+good man&mdash;a grand good man&mdash;John Denby was!"</p>
+
+<p>"He was, indeed," agreed the doctor, with a long sigh, as he turned
+away.</p>
+
+<p>This story, with here and there a new twist and turn, the doctor heard
+on all sides. And always he listened attentively, hopefully, eager, if
+possible, to find some detail that would help him in some further plea
+to Burke Denby in behalf of the far-away wife. Even the women wanted to
+talk to him, and did, sometimes to his annoyance. Once, only, however,
+did his irritation get the better of his manners. It was when the woman
+of whom he bought his morning paper at the station newsstand, accosted
+him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Stranger in these parts, ain't ye? Come to the fun'ral, didn't ye?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;y-yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m; I thought so. He was a fine man, I s'pose. Still, I didn't think
+much of him myself. Used to know him too well, maybe. Used to live next
+his son&mdash;same floor. My name's Cobb&mdash;and I used to see&mdash;" But the doctor
+had turned on his heel without even the semblance of an apology.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later he boarded the train for Boston.</p>
+
+<p>To his sister again he told the story of a Dalton trip, and, as before,
+he omitted not one detail.</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't write, of course, to Helen, now," he finished gloomily.
+"That is, I can't urge her coming back&mdash;not in the face of Burke's angry
+assertion that he never wants to see her again."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. But don't worry, dear. I haven't given up hope, by any
+means. Burke worshiped his father. His heart is almost breaking now, at
+his loss. It is perfectly natural, under the circumstances, that he
+should have this intense anger toward anything that ever grieved his
+loved father. But wait. That's all we can do, anyway. I'll write to
+Helen, of course, and tell her of her father-in-law's death, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't tell her what Burke said, Edith!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, no, indeed!&mdash;unless I <i>have</i> to, Frank&mdash;unless she asks me."</p>
+
+<p>But Helen did ask her. By return steamer came her letter expressing her
+shocked distress at John Denby's death, and asking timidly, but
+urgently, if, in Mrs. Thayer's opinion, it were the time now when she
+should come home&mdash;if she would be welcomed by her husband. To this, of
+course, there was but one answer possible; and reluctantly Mrs. Thayer
+gave it.</p>
+
+<p>"And to think," groaned the doctor, "that when now, for the first time,
+Helen is willing to come, we have to tell her&mdash;she can't!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know, but"&mdash;Edith Thayer resolutely blinked off the tears&mdash;"I haven't
+given up yet. Just wait."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And the doctor waited. It was, indeed, as his sister said, all that he
+could do. From time to time he went up to Dalton and made his way up the
+old familiar walk to have a chat with the taciturn, somber-eyed man
+sitting alone in the great old library. The doctor never spoke of Helen.
+He dared not take the risk. Burke Denby's only interests plainly were
+business, books, and the rare curios he and his father had collected. A
+Mrs. Gowing, a distant cousin, had come to be his housekeeper, but the
+doctor saw little of her. She seemed to be a quiet, inoffensive little
+woman, plainly very much in the background.</p>
+
+<p>There came an evening finally, however, when, much to the doctor's
+beatific surprise, Burke Denby, of his own accord, mentioned his wife.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly two years after John Denby's death. The doctor had run up
+to Dalton for an overnight visit, and had noticed at once a peculiar
+restlessness in his host's manner, an odd impatience of voice and
+gesture. Then, abruptly, in answer to the doctor's own assertion that
+Burke needed something to get him away from his constant brooding in the
+old library,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Need something?" he exclaimed. "Of course I need something! I need my
+wife and child. I need to live a normal life like other men. I need&mdash;
+But what's the use?" he finished, with outflung hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I know; but&mdash;you, yourself&mdash;" By a supreme effort the doctor was
+keeping himself from shouting aloud with joy.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I know it's all my own fault," cut in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> Burke crisply. "You
+can't tell me anything new on that score, that I haven't told myself.
+Yes, and I know I haven't even been willing to have her name spoken," he
+went on recklessly, answering the amazement in the doctor's face. "For
+that matter, I don't know why I'm talking like this now&mdash;unless it's
+because I've always said to you more than I've said to any one
+else&mdash;except dad&mdash;about Helen. And now, after being such a cad, it seems
+almost&mdash;due to her that I should say&mdash;something. Besides, doesn't
+somebody say somewhere that confession is good for the soul?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a quizzical smile on his lips, but there was no smile in his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor nodded dumbly. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, he dared not
+open his lips. But, terrified at the long silence that followed, he
+finally ventured unsteadily:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But why&mdash;this sudden change, Burke?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not so sudden as you think." Burke's eyes, gloomily fixed on the
+opposite wall, did not turn as he spoke. "It's been coming gradually for
+a long time. I can see that now. Still, the real eye-opener finally came
+from&mdash;mother."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Your&mdash;mother!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, her diary&mdash;or, rather, diaries. I found them a month ago among
+father's things. I can't tell you what was in them. I wouldn't, of
+course, if I could. They're too&mdash;sacred. Perhaps you think even I should
+not have read them; perhaps I shouldn't.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> But I did, and I'm glad I did;
+and I believe she'd have wanted me to.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, at first, when I picked one of them up, I didn't know what
+it was. Then I saw my name, and I read&mdash;page after page. I was a
+baby&mdash;her baby. Gleason, can you imagine what it would be to look deep
+down into the soul of a good woman and read there all her love, hopes,
+prayers, and ambitions for her boy&mdash;and then suddenly realize that you
+yourself were that boy?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer; and Burke, evidently expecting none, went on with
+the rush of abandonment that told of words suddenly freed from long
+restraint.</p>
+
+<p>"I took up then the first one&mdash;the diary she kept that first year of her
+marriage; and if I had felt small and mean and unworthy before&mdash; On and
+on I read; and as I read, I began to see, dimly, what marriage
+means&mdash;for a woman. They were very poor then. Father was the grandson of
+the younger, runaway son, Joel, and had only his trade and his day
+wages. They lived in a shabby little cottage on Mill Street, long since
+destroyed. This house belonged to the other branch of the family, and
+was occupied by a rich old man and his daughter. Mother was gently
+reared, and was not used to work. Those first years of poverty and
+privation must have been wickedly hard for her. But the little diaries
+carried no complaints. They did carry weariness, often, and sometimes a
+pitiful terror lest she be not strong enough for what was before her,
+and so bring disappointment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> and grief to 'dear John.' But always, for
+'dear John,' I could see there was to be nothing but encouragement and a
+steadfast holding forth of high aims and the assurance of ultimate
+success.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, one by one, came the babies, with all the agony and fears and
+hopes they brought with them. Three came and slipped away into the great
+unknown before I came&mdash;to stay. About that time father's patents began
+to bring success, and soon the money was pouring in. They bought this
+house. It had been one of their dreams that they would buy it. The old
+man had died, and the daughter had married and moved away, and the house
+had been for sale for some time. So they bought it, and soon after I was
+born we came here to live. Then, when I was four years old, mother died.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the story&mdash;the bald story. But that doesn't tell you anything
+of what those diaries were to me. In the light they shed I saw my own
+marriage&mdash;and I was ashamed. I never thought of marriage before from
+Helen's standpoint. I never thought what she had to suffer and endure,
+and adapt herself to. I know now. Of course, very soon after our
+marriage, I realized that she and I weren't suited to each other. But
+what of it? I had married her. I had effectually prevented her from
+finding happiness with any other man; yet it didn't seem to occur to me
+that I had thereby taken on myself the irrevocable duty of trying to
+make her happy. I have no doubt that my ways and aims and likes and
+dislikes annoyed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> her as much as hers did me. But it never occurred to
+me that my soft greens and browns and Beethoven harmonies got on her
+nerves just exactly as her pinks and purples and ragtime got on mine. I
+was never in the habit of looking at anybody's happiness but my own; and
+<i>I</i> wasn't happy. So I let fling, regardless."</p>
+
+<p>Burke paused, and drew a long sigh. The doctor, puffing slowly at his
+cigar, sedulously kept his face the other way. The doctor, in his fancy,
+had already peopled the old room with a joyous Helen and Dorothy
+Elizabeth; and he feared, should he turn, that his face would sing a
+veritable Hallelujah Chorus&mdash;to the consequent amazement of his host.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother had trials of her own&mdash;lots of them," resumed Burke, after a
+moment's silence. "She even had some not unlike mine, I believe, for I
+think I could read between the lines that dad was more than a bit
+careless at times in manner and speech compared to the polished ways of
+the men of her family and social circle. But mother neither whined nor
+ran away. She just smiled and kept bravely straight ahead; and by and by
+they were under her feet, where they belonged&mdash;all those things that
+plagued. But I&mdash;I both whined and ran away&mdash;because I didn't like the
+way my wife ate her soup and spread her bread. They seem so small
+now&mdash;all those little ways I hated&mdash;small beside the big things that
+really counted. Do you know? I believe if more people would stop making
+the little things big and the big things little, there'd be a whole heap
+more happiness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> lying around in this old world! And Helen&mdash;poor Helen!
+She tried&mdash; I know she tried. Lots of times, when I was reading in the
+diaries what mother said about dad,&mdash;how she mustn't let him get
+discouraged or downhearted; how she must tell him she just knew he was
+going to succeed,&mdash;lots of times then I'd think of Helen. Helen used to
+talk that way to me at the first! I wonder now if Helen kept a diary!
+And I can't help wondering if, supposing I had been a little less apt to
+notice the annoyances, and a little more inclined to see the good&mdash; Bah!
+There, there, old man, forgive me," he broke off, with a shrug. "I
+didn't mean to run on like this. I really didn't&mdash;for all the world like
+the heart-to-heart advice to the lovelorn in a daily news column!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you did, Burke." The doctor's carefully controlled voice
+expressed cheery interest; that was all. "And now what do you propose to
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do? How? What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, about&mdash;your wife, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. There's nothing I can do. And that's the pity of it. She will
+go on, of course, to the end of her life, thinking me a cad and a
+coward."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you could be&mdash;er&mdash;brought together again," suggested the doctor
+in a voice so coldly impersonal it was almost indifferent.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, of course&mdash;perhaps. But that's not likely. I don't know where
+she is, remember; and she's not likely to come back of her own accord,
+after all this time. Besides, if she did, who's to guarantee<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> that a few
+old diaries have changed me from an unbearably selfish brute to a
+livably patient and pleasant person to have about the house? Not but
+what I'd jump at the chance to try, but&mdash; Well, we'll wait till I get
+it," he finished dryly, with a lightness that was plainly assumed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyway, Burke, you've never found any one else!" The Hallelujah
+Chorus did almost sing through the doctor's voice this time.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I've been spared that, thank Heaven. There was one&mdash;a Mrs.
+Carrolton."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I met her&mdash;at that reception, you know," said the doctor,
+answering the unspoken question.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I remember. Well, I did come near&mdash;but I pulled myself up in
+time. I knew, in my heart, she wasn't the kind of woman&mdash; Then, too,
+there was Helen. It was only that I was feeling particularly reckless
+that fall. Besides, I know now that I've cared for Helen&mdash;the real
+Helen&mdash;all the time. And there <i>is</i> a real Helen, I believe, underneath
+it all. As I look back at them&mdash;all those years&mdash;I know that during
+every single one of them I've been trying to get away from myself. If it
+hadn't been for dad&mdash;and that's the one joy I have: that I was able to
+be with dad. They weren't quite lost&mdash;those years, for they brought him
+joy."</p>
+
+<p>"No, they've not been lost, Burke," said the doctor, with quiet
+emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>Burke laughed a little grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know what you mean, of course. I've<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> been 'tried as by fire'&mdash;eh?
+Well, I dare say I have&mdash;and I've been found woefully wanting. But
+enough of this!" he broke off abruptly, springing to his feet. "You
+don't happen to know of a young woman who has the skill of experience,
+the wisdom of age, the adaptability of youth, and the patience of Job
+all in one, do you?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor turned with startled eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Burke, after all this, you don't mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's not a wife I'm looking for," interposed Burke, with a
+whimsical shrug. "It's a&mdash;a stenographer or private secretary, only she
+must be much more than the ordinary kind. I want to catalogue all this
+truck father and I have accumulated. She must know French and German&mdash;a
+little Greek and Hebrew wouldn't be amiss. And I want one that would be
+interested in this sort of thing&mdash;one who will realize she isn't
+handling&mdash;er&mdash;potatoes, say. My eyes are going back on me, too, and I
+shall want her to read to me; so I must like her voice. I don't want
+anything, you see," he smiled grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"I should say not," laughed the doctor, rising. "But before you can give
+me any more necessary qualifications, I guess I'd better be going to
+bed."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wonder, after the harangue I've given you. But&mdash;you don't know
+of such a person, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I suppose not&mdash;nor anybody else," finished Burke Denby, a profound
+gloom that had become habitual settling over his face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If I do I'll send her to you," nodded the doctor, halfway through the
+door. The doctor was in a hurry to get up to his room&mdash;he had a letter
+to write.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," said Burke Denby, still dryly, as he waved his hand in
+good-night.</p>
+
+<p>"Stenographer, indeed!" sang the doctor under his breath, bounding up
+the stairs like a boy. "Wait till he sees what I am going to get him!"
+he finished, striding down the hall and into his own room.</p>
+
+<p>Before he slept the doctor wrote his letter to Helen. It was a long one,
+and a joyous one. It told everything that Burke had said, even to his
+plaintive plea for a private secretary.</p>
+
+<p>There could be no doubt now, no further delay, declared the doctor.
+Helen would come home at once, of course. It only remained for them to
+decide on the mere details of just how and when. Meanwhile, when might
+they expect her in Boston? She would come, of course, to his sister's
+first; and he trusted it would be soon&mdash;very soon.</p>
+
+<p>Addressing the letter to Mrs. Helen Darling, the doctor tucked it into
+his pocket to be mailed at the station in the morning. Then, for the few
+hours before rising time, he laid himself down to sleep. But he did not
+sleep. His brain was altogether too actively picturing the arrival of
+Helen Denby and her daughter at the old Denby Mansion, and the meeting
+between them and the master of the house. And to think that at last it
+was all coming out right!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE STAGE IS SET</h3>
+
+<p>Impatient as was the doctor for an answer to his letter, it came before
+he expected, for a cablegram told of Helen's almost immediate departure
+for America.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought that would fetch her," he crowed to his sister. "And she'll
+be here just next week Wednesday. That'll get her up to Dalton before
+Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," observed Mrs. Thayer cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>"No 'perhaps' to it," declared the doctor,&mdash;"if the boat gets here. You
+don't suppose she's going to delay any longer now, do you? Besides,
+isn't she starting for America about as soon as she can? Does that look
+as if she were losing much time?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it doesn't," she admitted laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor and his sister were not surprised to see a very lovely and
+charming Helen with the distinction and mellow maturity that the dozen
+intervening years had brought. Her letters had shown them something of
+that. But they were not prepared for the changes those same years had
+wrought in Dorothy Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>To Helen, their frank start of amazement and quick interchange of
+glances upon first sight of the girl were like water to a long-parched
+throat.</p>
+
+<p>"You do think she's lovely?" she whispered to the frankly staring
+doctor, as Mrs. Thayer welcomed the young girl.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Lovely! She's the most beautiful thing I ever saw!" avowed the doctor,
+with a laughing shrug at his own extravagance.</p>
+
+<p>"And she's just as sweet and dear as she is lovely," whispered back the
+adoring mother, as the girl turned to meet the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"You've your mother's eyes, my dear," said the doctor, very much as he
+had said it to the little Betty years before.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I?" The girl smiled happily. "I'm so glad! I love mother's eyes."</p>
+
+<p>It was not until hours later, when Betty had gone to bed, that there was
+any opportunity to talk over plans. Then, before the fire in the
+library, Helen found herself alone with the doctor and his sister.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I came almost as soon as I could," she began at once. "I did
+stay one day&mdash;for a wedding."</p>
+
+<p>"A wedding?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and some one you know, too&mdash; Mr. Donald Estey."</p>
+
+<p>"Really?" cried Mrs. Thayer.</p>
+
+<p>"Jove! After all this time?" The doctor's eyebrows went up.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And I'm so glad&mdash;especially glad for&mdash;for he thought once, years
+ago, that he cared for some one else. And I like to know he's
+happy&mdash;now."</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m," murmured the doctor, with a shrewd smile and a sidelong glance
+at his sister. "So he's happy&mdash;<i>now</i>, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very! And she's a beautiful girl."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"As beautiful as&mdash;Betty, say?" The doctor's voice was teasing.</p>
+
+<p>A wonderful light came to Helen's face.</p>
+
+<p>"You do think she's beautiful, don't you?" she cried, with a smile that
+told she needed no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a dear&mdash;in every way," avowed Mrs. Thayer.</p>
+
+<p>"And to think of all this coming to Burke Denby, without even a turn of
+his hand," envied the doctor. "Lucky dog! And to get you <i>both</i>! He
+doesn't deserve it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But he isn't going to get us both!" Helen's eyes were twinkling, but
+her mouth showed suddenly firm lines.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor wheeled sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? Surely, <i>now</i> you aren't going to&mdash;to&mdash;" He stopped
+helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>"He's going to get <i>her</i>&mdash;but not me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, come, Helen, my dear!" protested two dismayed voices.</p>
+
+<p>But Helen shook her head decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen. I've got it all planned. You said he wanted a&mdash;a sort of
+private secretary or stenographer, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, y-yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm going to send Betty."</p>
+
+<p>"Betty!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. She can fill the position&mdash;you needn't worry about that.
+She's eighteen, you know, and she's really very self-reliant and
+capable. She doesn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> understand shorthand, of course; but she can write
+his letters for him, just the same, and in three or four languages, if
+he wants her to. She can typewrite. Mr. Reynolds got a typewriter for
+the girls long ago. And she <i>loves</i> to fuss over old books and curios.
+She and Gladys have spent days in those old London shops."</p>
+
+<p>"A real Denby digger&mdash;eh?" smiled the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And I've been so glad she was interested&mdash;like her father."</p>
+
+<p>"But you don't mean you're going to give your daughter up," cried Mrs.
+Thayer, aghast, "and not go yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't! Besides, as if Burke would stand for that," cut in the
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"But he isn't going to know she <i>is</i> his daughter," smiled Helen.</p>
+
+<p>"Not know she is his daughter!" echoed two voices, in stupefaction.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not yet. She'll be his private secretary. That is all. I'm relying
+on you to&mdash;er&mdash;apply for the situation for her." Helen's eyes were
+merry.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nonsense! This is too absurd for words," spluttered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so."</p>
+
+<p>"His own daughter writing his letters for him, and living with him day
+by day, and he not to know it? Bosh! Sounds like a plot from a shilling
+shocker!"</p>
+
+<p>"Does it? Well, I ought not to mind that, ought I?&mdash;you know 'twas a
+book in the first place that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> set me to making myself 'swell' and
+'grand,' sir." In Helen's eyes was still twinkling mischief.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but, my dear," remonstrated Mrs. Thayer with genuine concern. "I do
+think this is impossible."</p>
+
+<p>The expression on Helen Denby's face changed instantly. Her eyes grew
+very grave, but luminously tender. Her lips trembled a little.</p>
+
+<p>"People, dear people, if you'll listen just a minute I think I can
+convince you," she begged. "I have it all planned out. Betty and I will
+go to Dalton and find a quiet little home somewhere. Oh, I shall keep
+well out of sight&mdash;never fear," she nodded, in reply to the quick doubt
+in the doctor's eyes. "Betty shall go every morning to her father's
+house, and&mdash;I'm not afraid of Betty. He will love her. He can't help it.
+And he will see how dear and sweet and good she is. Then, by and by, he
+shall know that she is his&mdash;his very own."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but Betty herself! Can she act her part in this remarkable
+scheme?" demanded the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"She won't be acting a part. She'll just be acting herself. She is not
+to know anything except that she is his secretary."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!" ejaculated two voices.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so. Anyway, it's worth trying; and if it works it'll
+mean&mdash;everything." The last word was so low it was scarcely above a
+whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;yourself, my dear," pleaded Mrs. Thayer. "Where do you come in?
+What part have you in this&mdash;play?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The rich red surged from neck to brow. The doctor and his sister could
+see that, though they could not see Helen Denby's face. It was turned
+quite away. There was a moment's silence; then, a little breathlessly,
+came the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;don't&mdash;know. I suppose that will be&mdash;the 'curtain,' won't it?
+And&mdash;I've never been sure of the ending&mdash;yet. But&mdash;" She hesitated; then
+suddenly she turned, her eyes shining and deeply tender. "Don't you see?
+It's the only way, after all. I can't very well go up to Dalton and ring
+his doorbell and say, 'Here, behold your wife and daughter. Won't you
+please take us in?'&mdash;can I? Though at first, when I heard of his
+father's death and thought of him so lonely there, I did want to
+do&mdash;just that. But I knew that wasn't best, even before your letter came
+telling me&mdash;what he said.</p>
+
+<p>"But now&mdash;why, this is just what I've wanted from the first&mdash;to show
+Betty to him, some time, when he didn't dream who she was. I wanted to
+<i>know</i> that he wasn't&mdash;ashamed of her. And this (his wanting a
+secretary) gave me a better chance than I ever thought I could have.
+Why, people, dear people, don't you see?&mdash;with this I shan't mind now
+one bit all these long, long years of waiting. Won't you help
+me&mdash;please? I can't, of course, do it without your help."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor threw up both his hands&mdash;his old gesture of despair.</p>
+
+<p>"Help you? Of course we'll help you, just as we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> did before&mdash;to get the
+moon, if you ask for it. I feel like a comic opera and a movie farce all
+in one; but never mind. I'll do it. Now, what is it I <i>am</i> to do?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen relaxed into such radiant joyousness and relief, that she looked
+almost like the girl Burke Denby had married nineteen years before.</p>
+
+<p>"You dear! I knew you would!" she breathed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but what is it?" he groaned in mock despair. "Speak out. I want to
+know the worst at once. What <i>am</i> I to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, you're to go up to Dalton and tell Mr. Burke Denby you think
+you've found a young woman who will make him an excellent secretary.
+Then, if he consents to try her, you're to find a little furnished
+apartment on a nice, quiet street, not too far from the Denby Mansion,
+of course, where we can live. Then I'd like a note of introduction for
+Betty to take to her father: she's the daughter of an old friend whom
+you've known for years&mdash;see?&mdash;and you are confident she will give
+satisfaction. That's all. Now, I'm sure&mdash;isn't all that quite&mdash;easy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very easy,&mdash;very easy, indeed!" replied the doctor, with another
+groan. "You little witch! I declare I believe you'll carry this absurd,
+preposterous thing through to a triumphant finish, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I <i>knew</i> you wouldn't fail me," smiled Helen, with tear-wet
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear, I don't think yet that everything is quite clear,"
+demurred Mrs. Thayer. "How about Betty? Just what does Betty know of her
+father?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A look very like fear crossed the bright face opposite. "She knows
+nothing, of course, of&mdash;of my leaving home and the cause of it. I've
+never told her anything of her father except to hold him up as a symbol
+of everything good and lovable. When she was a little girl, you know, I
+could always do anything with her by just telling her that daddy wanted
+it so."</p>
+
+<p>"But where does she think he is? Now that she is older, she must have
+asked some questions," murmured Mrs. Thayer.</p>
+
+<p>Helen shook her head. A faint smile came to her lips. "She hasn't; but
+I've been so afraid she would, and I've been dreading it always. Then
+one day Mrs. Reynolds told me something Betty said to her. Since then
+I've felt a little easier."</p>
+
+<p>"Does Mrs. Reynolds know who you really are?" interposed the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, oh, yes. I told her long ago&mdash;even before she took me to London
+with her, in fact. I thought she ought to know. I've been so glad,
+since, that I did. It saved me from lots of awkward moments. Besides, it
+enabled her to be all the more help to me."</p>
+
+<p>"But what was it Betty said to her?" asked Mrs. Thayer.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; I didn't tell you, did I? It was this. She asked Mrs. Reynolds
+one day: 'Did you ever know my father?' And of course Mrs. Reynolds
+said, 'No.' Then Betty said: 'He is dead, you know. Oh, mother never
+told me so, in words; but I understand that he is, of course. She just
+used to say that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> mustn't ask for daddy. He couldn't be with us now.
+That was all. At first, when I was little, I thought he was away on a
+journey. Then, when I got older, I realized it was just mother's
+beautiful way of putting it. So now I like to think of him as being just
+away on a journey. And of <i>course</i> I never say anything to mother. But I
+do wish I could have known him. He must have been so fine and
+splendid!'"</p>
+
+<p>"The dear child!" murmured Mrs. Thayer.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor turned on his heel and walked over to the window abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence; then softly, Helen said, as she rose to
+her feet: "So you see now I'm not worrying so much for fear she will
+question me; and I shall be so happy, by and by, when she finds that
+daddy has been, after all, only on a journey."</p>
+
+<p>Edith Thayer, alone with her brother, after Helen Denby had gone
+upstairs, wiped her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It was the doctor who spoke first.</p>
+
+<p>"If Burke Denby doesn't fall head over heels in love with that little
+woman and <i>know</i> he's got the dearest treasure on earth, I&mdash;I shall do
+it myself," he declared savagely. He, too, was wiping his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>His sister laughed tremulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am in love with her&mdash;and I'm not ashamed to own it," she
+declared. "How altogether dear and charming and winsome she is! And when
+you think&mdash;what these years have done for her!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CURTAIN RISES</h3>
+
+<p>It was, indeed, quite "easy"&mdash;surprisingly so, as the doctor soon found
+out. Not without some trepidation, however, had he taken the train for
+Dalton the next morning and presented his proposition to the master of
+Denby House.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I've found your private secretary," he began blithely, hoping
+that his pounding heart-throbs did not really sound like a drum.</p>
+
+<p>"You have? Good! What's her name? Somebody you know?" questioned Burke
+Denby, with a show of interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. She's a Miss Darling, and I've known her family for years." (The
+doctor gulped and swallowed a bit convulsively. The doctor was feeling
+that the very walls of the room must be shouting aloud his secret&mdash;but
+he kept bravely on.) "She doesn't know shorthand, but she can typewrite,
+and she's very quick at taking dictation in long hand, I fancy; and she
+knows several languages, I believe. I'm sure you'll find her capable and
+trustworthy in every way."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good! Sounds well, sure," smiled Burke. "And here, for my needs,
+speed and shorthand are not so necessary. I do only personal business at
+the house. What salary does she want?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So unexpected and disconcerting was this quite natural question that the
+doctor, totally unprepared for it, nearly betrayed himself by his
+confusion.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh? Er&mdash;ah&mdash;oh, great Scott! Why didn't they&mdash;I might have known&mdash;" he
+floundered. Then, sharply, he recovered himself. "Well, really," he
+laughed lightly, "I'm a crackerjack at applying for a job, and no
+mistake! I quite forgot to ask what salary she did expect. But I don't
+believe that will matter materially. She'll come for what is right, I'm
+sure; and you'll be willing to pay that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; it doesn't matter. I'll be glad to give her a trial, anyway;
+and if she's all you crack her up to be I'll pay her <i>more</i> than what's
+right. When can she come? Where does she live?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she's going to live here in Dalton," evaded the doctor
+cautiously. "She's not here yet; but she and her mother are
+coming&mdash;er&mdash;next week, I believe. Better not count on her beginning work
+till the first, though, perhaps. That'll be next week Thursday. I should
+think they ought to be&mdash;er&mdash;settled by that time." The doctor drew a
+long breath, much after the fashion of a man who has been crossing a bit
+of particularly thin ice.</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Send her along. The sooner the better," nodded Burke, the
+old listless weariness coming back to his eyes. "I certainly need&mdash;some
+one."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, I reckon you'll have&mdash;some one, now," caroled the doctor, so
+jubilantly that it brought a frown of mild wonder to Burke Denby's
+face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Later, the doctor, still jubilant and confident, hurried down the Denby
+walk intent on finding the "modest little apartment" for Helen.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, I don't know!" he exulted to himself, wagging his head like a
+cocksure boy. "This comic-opera-farce affair may not be so bad, after
+all. Anyhow, I've made my first exit&mdash;and haven't spilled anything yet.
+Now for scene second!"</p>
+
+<p>Finding a satisfactory little furnished apartment, not too far from the
+Denby home, proved to be no small task. But by sacrificing a little on
+the matter of distance, the doctor was finally enabled to engage one
+that he thought would answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Only she'll have to ride back and forth, I'm afraid," he muttered to
+himself, as he started for the station to take his train. "Anyhow, I'm
+glad I didn't take that one on Dale Street. She'd meet too many ghosts
+of old memories on Dale Street."</p>
+
+<p>Buying his paper at the newsstand in the station, the doctor himself
+encountered the ghost of a memory. But he could not place it until the
+woman behind the counter cried:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There! I thought I'd seen you before. You come two years ago to the
+Denby fun'ral, now, didn't ye? I tell ye it takes me ter remember
+faces." Then, as he still frowned perplexedly, she explained: "Don't ye
+remember? My name's Cobb. I used ter live&mdash;" But the doctor had turned
+away impatiently. He remembered now. This was the woman who didn't
+"think much of old Denby" herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On Monday Helen Denby and her daughter went to Dalton. At Helen's urgent
+insistence the doctor refrained from accompanying them.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want you to be seen with us," Helen had protested.</p>
+
+<p>"But why not?" he had argued rebelliously. "I thought I was a friend of
+your family for years."</p>
+
+<p>"I know; but I&mdash;I just feel that I'd rather not have you with us. I
+prefer to go alone, please," she had begged. And perforce he had let her
+have her own way.</p>
+
+<p>It was on a beautiful day in late September that Helen Denby and her
+daughter arrived at the Dalton station. Helen, fearful either that her
+features would be recognized, or that she would betray by word or look
+her knowledge of the place, and so bring an amazed question to Betty's
+lips, had drawn a heavy veil over her face. Betty, cheerily interested
+in everything she saw, kept up a running fire of comment.</p>
+
+<p>"And so this is Dalton! What a funny little station&mdash;and for so big a
+place, too! It seemed to be big, as we came into it. Is Dalton a large
+town, mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, rather large. It used to be&mdash;that is, it must be a good deal over
+fifteen thousand now, I suppose," murmured the mother, speaking very
+unconcernedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you've been here before?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen, realizing that already she had made one mistake, suddenly became
+convinced that safety&mdash;and certainly tranquillity of mind&mdash;lay in
+telling the truth&mdash;to a certain extent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I was here years ago. But the place is much changed, I fancy,"
+she answered lightly. "Come, dear, we'll take a taxi. But first I want a
+paper. I want to look at the advertisements for a maid, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She had almost reached the newsstand when, to Betty's surprise, she
+turned sharply about and walked the other way.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother, I thought you said you wanted a paper," cried Betty,
+hurrying after her and plucking at her arm.</p>
+
+<p>"But I didn't&mdash; I don't&mdash; I've changed my mind. I won't get it, after
+all, just now. I'd rather hurry right home."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke rapidly, almost feverishly; and Betty noticed that she engaged
+the first cabby she saw, and seemed impatiently anxious to be off. What
+she did not see, however, was that twice her mother covertly glanced
+back at the newsstand, and that her face behind the veil was gray-white
+and terrified. And what Betty did not know was that, as the taxi
+started, her mother whispered frenziedly to herself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That was&mdash;that was&mdash;Mrs. Cobb. She's older and grayer, but she's got
+Mrs. Cobb's eyes and nose. And the wart! I'd know that wart anywhere.
+And to think how near I came to <i>speaking</i> to her!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a short drive, and Helen and her daughter were soon in the
+apartment the doctor had found for them. To Helen it looked like a haven
+of refuge, indeed. Her near encounter with Mrs. Cobb at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> station had
+somewhat unnerved her. But with four friendly walls to protect her, and
+with no eyes but her daughter's in sight, Helen drew a long breath of
+relief, and threw off her veil, hat, and coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, isn't this dear!" she exclaimed, sinking into a chair, and looking
+admiringly about the pretty rooms. "And just think&mdash;this is home, our
+home! Oh, dearie, we're going to be happy here, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we are! And it is lovely here." The words were all right, but
+voice and eyes showed a trace of uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, dearie, <i>don't</i> you like it?" asked the girl's mother anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, oh, yes; I like it all&mdash;<i>here</i>. It's only that I was thinking, all
+of a sudden, about that Mr. Denby. I was wondering if I should like it
+there&mdash;with him."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you will, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"But it'll all be so new and&mdash;and different from what I've been used to.
+Don't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, my dear; but that's the way we grow&mdash;by encountering things
+new and different, you see. But come, we've got lots of things new and
+different right here that we haven't even seen yet. I'm going hunting
+for a wardrobe," finished the mother lightly, springing to her feet and
+picking up her hat and coat.</p>
+
+<p>It was a pretty little apartment of five rooms up one flight,
+convenient, and tastefully furnished.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think even Burke could find fault with this," thought Helen, a
+bit wistfully, as her eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> lingered on the soft colorings and
+harmonious blendings of rugs and hangings. Aloud she said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! I feel just like a little girl with a new doll-house, don't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and when our trunks come, and we get our photographs and things
+out, it will be lovely, won't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen, at one of the windows, gave a sudden exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Betty, from this window we can see&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"See what?" cried Betty, hurrying to the window, as her mother's words
+came to an abrupt halt.</p>
+
+<p>"The city, dear, so much of it, and&mdash;and all those beautiful houses over
+there," stammered Helen. "See that church with the big dome, and the
+tall spire next it; and all those trees&mdash;that must be a park," she
+hurried on, pointing out anything and everything but the one big old
+colonial house with its tall pillars that stood out so beautifully fine
+and clear against the green of a wide lawn on the opposite hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh-h! what a lovely view!" exclaimed Betty, at her side. "Why, I hadn't
+noticed it at all before, but we're on a hill ourselves, aren't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear,&mdash;West Hill. That's what I think they used to call it."</p>
+
+<p>Helen was not at the window now. She had turned back into the room with
+almost an indifferent air. But afterwards, when Betty was busy
+elsewhere, she went again to the window and stood for long minutes
+motionless, her eyes on the big old house on the opposite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> hill. It was
+ablaze, now, for the last rays of the sun had set every window
+gorgeously aflame. And not until it stood again gray and cold in the
+gathering dusk did Helen turn back into the room; and then it was with
+tear-wet eyes and a long sigh.</p>
+
+<p>Getting settled was much the same thing that getting settled is always
+apt to be. There were the same first scrappy, unsatisfying meals, the
+same slow-emerging order from seemingly hopeless confusion, the same
+shifting of one's belongings from shelf to drawer and back again. In
+this case, however, there were only the trunks and their contents to be
+disposed of, and the getting settled was, after all, a short matter.</p>
+
+<p>Much to Betty's disapproval, her mother early announced her intention of
+doing without a maid.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but, mother, dear, you shouldn't. Besides, I thought you said you
+were going to have one."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought at first I would, but I've changed my mind. There will be
+just us two, and I'd rather have a stout woman come twice a week for the
+laundry and cleaning. With you gone all day I shall need something&mdash;to
+take up my mind."</p>
+
+<p>Betty said more, much more; but to no purpose. Her mother was still
+obdurate. It was then that into Betty's mind came a shrewd suspicion,
+but she did not give it voice. When evening came, however, she did ask
+some questions. It was the night before she was to go for the first time
+to take up her work.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, how did we happen to come up here, to Dalton?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Happen to come up&mdash;here?" Helen was taken by surprise. She was fencing
+for time.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. What made us come here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I&mdash;I wanted to be near to make a home for you, of course, while
+you were at work."</p>
+
+<p>"But why am I going to work?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen stirred restlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, my dear, I've told you. I think every girl should have something
+whereby she could earn her bread, if it were necessary. And when this
+chance came, through Dr. Gleason, I thought it was just the thing for
+you to do."</p>
+
+<p>Indifferently Betty asked two or three other questions&mdash;immaterial,
+irrelevant questions that led her quite away from the matter in hand.
+Then, as if still casually, she uttered the one question that had been
+the purpose of the whole talk.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, have we very much&mdash;money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no, dear, not so very much. But I wouldn't worry about the money."</p>
+
+<p>The answer had come promptly and with a reassuring smile. But Betty
+tossed both the promptness and the reassuring smile into the limbo of
+disdain. Betty had her answer. She was convinced now. Her mother was
+poor&mdash;very poor. That was why there was to be no maid. That was why she
+herself was to go as secretary to this Mr. Denby the next day. Mother,
+poor, dear mother, was poor! As if <i>now</i> she cared whether she liked the
+place or not! As if she would not be glad to work her fingers off for
+mother!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PLAY BEGINS</h3>
+
+<p>"I shall take you over, myself," said Helen to her daughter as they rose
+from the breakfast table that first day of October. "And I shall show
+you carefully just how to come back this afternoon; but I'm afraid I
+shall have to let you come back alone, dear. In the first place, I
+shouldn't know when you were ready; and in the second place, I shouldn't
+want to go and wait for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not!" cried Betty. "As if I'd let you&mdash;and you don't even
+have to go with me. I can find out by asking."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I shall go with you." Betty noticed that her mother's cheeks were
+very pink and her eyes very bright. "Don't forget the doctor's letter;
+and remember, dear, just be&mdash;be your own dear sweet self."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother, you're&mdash;<i>crying</i>!" exclaimed the dismayed Betty.</p>
+
+<p>"Crying? Not a bit of it!" The head came proudly erect.</p>
+
+<p>"But does it mean so much to you that I&mdash;that I&mdash;that he&mdash;likes me?"
+asked Betty softly.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment, alarmed and amazed, she found her mother's convulsive
+arms about her, her mother's trembling voice in her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll mean all the world to me, Betty&mdash;oh, Betty, my baby!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother!" exclaimed the girl, aghast and shaken.</p>
+
+<p>But already her mother had drawn herself up, and was laughing through
+her tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, dear, but only look at the fuss this old mother-bird is making at
+the first flight of her young one!" she chattered gayly. "Come, no more
+of this! We'll be late. We'll get ready right away. You say you have the
+letter from the doctor. Don't forget that."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't. I have it all safe," tossed the girl over her shoulder, as
+she hurried away for her hat and coat. A minute later she came back to
+find her mother shrouding herself in the black veil. "Oh, mother, dear,
+<i>please</i>! You aren't going to wear that horrid veil to-day, are you?"
+she remonstrated.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, dear. Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like it a bit. And it's so thick! I can't see a bit of <i>you</i>
+through it."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you? Good!" (Vaguely Betty wondered at the almost gleeful tone of
+the voice.) "Then nobody can see my eyes&mdash;and know that I've been
+crying."</p>
+
+<p>"Ho! they wouldn't, anyway," frowned Betty. "Your eyes aren't red at
+all, mother."</p>
+
+<p>But the mother only laughed again gleefully&mdash;and fastened the veil with
+still another pin. A minute later mother and daughter left the house
+together.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a long ride to the foot of the street that led up the hill to
+Burke Denby's home. With carefully minute directions as to the return
+home at night,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> Helen left her daughter halfway up the hill, with the
+huge wrought-iron gates of the Denby driveway just before her.</p>
+
+<p>"And now remember everything&mdash;<i>everything</i>, dear," she faltered,
+clinging a little convulsively to her daughter's arm. "Dear, dear, but
+I'm not sure I ought to let you go&mdash;after all," she choked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, mumsey! Of course you ought to let me go!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must remember to tell me everything&mdash;when you come home
+to-night&mdash;<i>everything</i>. I shall want to know every single little thing
+that's happened!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will, dear, I will. And don't worry. I'm sure I'm going to do all
+right," comforted the girl, plainly trying to quiet the anxious fear in
+her mother's voice. "And what a beautiful old place it is!" she went on,
+her admiring eyes sweeping the handsome house and spacious grounds
+beyond the gates. "I shall love it there, I know. And I'm so glad the
+doctor got it for me. Now, don't worry!" she finished with a gay wave of
+her hand as she turned and sped up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>The mother, with a last lingering look and a sob fortunately smothered
+in the enshrouding veil, turned and hurried away in the opposite
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>Many times before Betty's return late that afternoon, Helen wondered
+that a day, just one little day, could be so long. It seemed to her that
+each minute was an hour, and each hour a day, so slowly did the clock
+tick the time away. She tried to work, to sew, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> read. But there
+seemed really nothing that she wanted to do except to stand at one of
+the windows, her eyes on the massive, white-pillared old house set in
+its wide sweep of green on the opposite hill.</p>
+
+<p>What was happening over there? Was there a possible chance that Burke
+would question, suspect, discover&mdash;anything? How would he like&mdash;Betty?
+How would Betty like him? How would Betty do, anyway, in such a
+position? It was Betty's first experience in&mdash;in working for any one;
+and Betty&mdash;sweet and dear and loving as she was&mdash;had something of the
+Denby will and temper, as her mother had long since discovered. Betty
+was fearless and high-spirited. If she did not like&mdash;but what was
+happening over there?</p>
+
+<p>And what would the outcome be? After all, perhaps, as the doctor had
+said, it was something of a comic opera and farce all in one&mdash;this thing
+she was doing. Very likely the whole thing, from the first, when she ran
+away years ago, had been absurd and preposterous, just as the doctor had
+said. And very likely Burke himself, when he found out, would think so,
+too. It was a fearsome thing&mdash;to take matters in her own hands as she
+had done, and attempt to twist the thread in Fate's hands, and wrest it
+away from what she feared was destruction&mdash;as if her own puny fingers
+could deal with Destiny!</p>
+
+<p>And might it not be, after all, that she had been chasing a
+will-o'-the-wisp of fancied "culture" all these years? True, she no
+longer said "swell" and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> "grand," and she knew how to eat her soup
+quietly; but was that going to make Burke&mdash;love her? She realized now
+something of what it was that she had undertaken when she fled to the
+doctor years ago. She realized, too, that during these intervening years
+there had come to her a very real sense of what love, marriage, and a
+happy home ought to mean&mdash;and what they must mean if she were ever to be
+happy with Burke, or to make him happy.</p>
+
+<p>But what was taking place&mdash;over there?</p>
+
+<p>At ten minutes before five Betty reached home. Her mother met her
+halfway down the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Betty, you&mdash;you <i>are</i> here!" she panted. "Now, tell me
+everything&mdash;every single thing," she reiterated, almost dragging the
+girl into the apartment, in her haste and excitement. "Don't skip
+anything&mdash;not the least little thing; for a little thing might mean so
+much&mdash;to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother!" exclaimed Betty, her laughing eyes growing vaguely
+troubled. "Do you really <i>care</i> so much?"</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden tightening of the throat Helen pulled herself up sharply.
+She gave a light laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Care? Of course I care! Don't you suppose I want to know what my baby
+has been doing all the long day away from me? Now, tell me. Sit right
+down and tell me from the beginning."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, I will," smiled Betty. To herself she said: "Poor mother! As
+if I wouldn't work my fingers off before I'd fail her, when she cares so
+much&mdash;when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> she <i>needs</i> so much&mdash;what I earn!" Then, aloud, cheerily,
+she began:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 332px;"><a name="ILL_005" id="ILL_005"></a>
+<img src="images/ill_005.jpg" width="332" height="500" alt="&quot;SO I RANG THE BELL.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;SO I RANG THE BELL.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Well, first, I walked up that long, long walk through that beautiful
+lawn to the house; but for a minute I didn't ring the bell. It was so
+beautiful&mdash;the view from that veranda, with the sun on the reds and
+browns and yellows of the trees everywhere! Then I remembered suddenly
+that I hadn't come to make a call and admire the view, but that I was a
+business woman now. So I rang the bell. There was a lovely old brass
+knocker on the great door; but I saw a very conspicuous push-button, and
+I concluded that was for real use."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes. And were you&mdash;frightened, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, 'nervous,' we'll call it. Then, as I was planning just what to
+say, the door opened and the oldest little old man I ever saw stood
+before me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"He was the butler, I found out afterwards. They called him Benton. He
+seemed surprised, somehow, to see me, or frightened, or something.
+Anyway, he started queerly, as his eyes met mine, and he muttered a
+quick something under his breath; but all I could hear was the last,
+'No, no, it couldn't be!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes!" breathed Helen, her face a little white.</p>
+
+<p>"The next minute he became so stiff and straight and dignified that even
+his English cousin might have envied him. I told him I was Miss Darling,
+and that I had a note to Mr. Denby from Dr. Gleason.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, Miss. The master is expecting you. He said to show you right in.
+This way, please,' he said then, pompously. And then I saw that great
+hall. Oh, mother, if you could see it! It's wonderful, and so full of
+treasures! I could hardly take off my hat and coat properly, for
+devouring a superb specimen of old armor right in front of me. Then
+Benton took me into the library, and I saw&mdash;something even more
+wonderful."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean your&mdash;er&mdash;Mr. Denby?" The mother's face was aglow.</p>
+
+<p>Betty gave a merry laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I don't! Oh, he was there, but he was no wonder, mother, dear.
+The wonder was cabinet after cabinet filled with jades and bronzes and
+carved ivories and Babylonian tablets and&mdash; But I couldn't begin to tell
+you! I couldn't even begin to see for myself, for, of course, I had to
+say something to Mr. Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! And tell me&mdash;what was he&mdash;he like?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he was just a man, tall and stern-looking, and a little gray. He's
+old, you know. He isn't young at all"&mdash;spoken with all the serene
+confidence of Betty's eighteen years. "He has nice eyes, and I imagine
+<i>he'd</i> be nice, if he'd let himself be. But he won't."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Betty, what&mdash;what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Betty laughed and shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mother, dear, you'd have to see him really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> to know. It's just
+that&mdash;that he's so used to having his own way that he takes it as a
+matter of course, as his right."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"But he does. It shows up in everything that everybody in that house
+does. I could see that, even in this one day I was there. Benton, Sarah
+(the maid), Mrs. Gowing (the old cousin housekeeper)&mdash;even the dog and
+the cat show that they've stood at attention for Master Burke Denby all
+their lives. You just wait till I get <i>my</i> chance. I'll show him
+somebody that isn't standing at salute all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Betty!</i>" There was real horror in the woman's voice this time.</p>
+
+<p>Again Betty's merry laugh rang out.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look so shocked, dearie. I shan't do anything or say anything to
+imperil my&mdash;my job." (Betty's eyes twinkled even more merrily over the
+last word.) "It's just that I don't think any living man has a right to
+make everybody so afraid of him as Mr. Denby very plainly has done. And
+I only mean that if the occasion ever came up, I should let him know
+that I am not afraid of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Betty, Betty, be careful, be <i>careful</i>. I beg of you, be careful!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I will. Don't worry," laughed the girl. "But, listen, don't you
+want me to go on with my story?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;oh, yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, where was I? Oh, I know&mdash;just inside the library door. Very good,
+then. Ruthlessly suppressing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> my almost overwhelming longing to pounce
+on one of those alluring cabinets, I advanced properly and held out my
+note to Mr. Denby. As I came near I fancied that he, too, gave a slight
+start as he looked sharply into my face; and I thought I caught a real
+gleam of life in his eyes. The next instant it was gone, however (if
+indeed it had ever been there!), and he had taken my note and waved me
+politely to a chair."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, go on, go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; well, do you know?&mdash;that's exactly what I felt like saying to
+him," laughed Betty softly. "He just glanced at the note with a low
+ejaculation; then he sat there staring at nothing for so long that I
+began to think I should scream from sheer nervousness. Then, perhaps I
+stirred a little. At all events, he turned with a start, and then is
+when I saw, for just a minute, how kind his eyes could be.</p>
+
+<p>"'There, there, my child, I beg your pardon,' he cried. 'I quite forgot
+you were here. Something&mdash;your eyes, I think&mdash;set me to dreaming. Now to
+business! Perhaps you'll be good enough to take some letters for me.
+You'll find pencils, pen, and paper there at your right.' And I did. And
+I began. And that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"All! But surely there was more!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much. I took dictation in long hand for perhaps a dozen
+letters&mdash;most of them short ones. He said he was behind on his personal
+correspondence. Then he went away and left me. He goes down to his
+office at the Denby Iron Works every forenoon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> I understand. Anyway,
+there I was, left in that fascinating room with all those cabinets full
+of treasures that I so longed to explore, but tied to a lot of scrawly
+notes and a typewriter. I forgot to say there was one of those
+disappearing typewriters in a desk over by the window. It wasn't quite
+like Gladys's, but the keyboard was, and I very soon got the run of it.</p>
+
+<p>"At one o'clock he came back. I had the letters all done, and they
+looked lovely. I was rather proud of them. I passed them over for
+him to sign, and waited expectantly for a nice little word of
+commendation&mdash;which I didn't get."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I'm sure he didn't&mdash;didn't realize that&mdash;that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, he didn't realize, of course, that this was my maiden effort at
+private secretarying," laughed Betty, a little ruefully, "and that I
+wanted to be patted on the head with a 'Well done, little girl!' He just
+shoved them back for me to fold and put in the envelopes; and just then
+Benton came to announce luncheon."</p>
+
+<p>"But tell me about the luncheon."</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't much to tell. There were just us three at the table, Mr.
+Denby, Mrs. Gowing, and myself. There was plenty to eat, and it was very
+nice. But, dear, dear, the dreariness of it! With the soup Mrs. Gowing
+observed that it was a nice day. With the chicken patties she asked if I
+liked Dalton; and with the salad she remarked that we had had an
+unusually cold summer. Dessert was eaten in utter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> silence. Why, mother,
+I should die if I had to spend my life in an atmosphere like that!"</p>
+
+<p>"But didn't Mr. Denby say&mdash;anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. He asked me for the salt, and he gave an order to Benton. Oh,
+he's such fascinating company&mdash;he is!"</p>
+
+<p>At the disturbed expression on her mother's face, Betty gave a playful
+shrug. "Oh, I know, he's my respected employer, and all that," she
+laughed; "and I shall be very careful to do his bidding. Never fear! But
+that doesn't mean that I've got to love him."</p>
+
+<p>Helen Denby flushed a painful red.</p>
+
+<p>"But I wanted&mdash;I hoped you would&mdash;er&mdash;l-like him, my dear," she
+faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe I shall&mdash;when I get him&mdash;er&mdash;trained," retorted Betty, flashing a
+merry glance into her mother's dismayed eyes. "Don't worry, dear. I was
+a perfect angel to him to-day. Truly I was. Listen! After luncheon Mr.
+Denby brought me three or four newspapers which he had marked here and
+there; and for an hour then I read to him. And what do you think?&mdash;when
+I had finished he said, in that crisp short way of his: 'You have a good
+voice, Miss Darling. I hope you won't mind if I ask you to read to me
+often.' And of course I smiled and said no, indeed, I should be glad to
+read as often as he liked."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" beamed the mother, with so decided an emphasis that Betty
+exclaimed warningly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tut, tut, now! Don't <i>you</i> go to tumbling down and worshiping him like
+all the rest."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"W-worshiping him!" Helen Denby's cheeks were scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," nodded Betty, with tranquil superiority. "It isn't good for him,
+I tell you. He doesn't get anything but worship from every single one of
+those people around him. Honestly, if he should declare that the earth
+was flat, I think that ridiculous old butler and that scared cousin
+housekeeper would bow: 'Just as you say, sir, just as you say.' Humph!
+He'd better tell <i>me</i> the world is flat, some day."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Betty! Betty!" implored Betty's mother.</p>
+
+<p>But Betty only went on with a merry toss of her head:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, after the reading there were other letters, then some work on a
+card-index record of his correspondence. After that I came home. But,
+mother, oh, mother, only think what it'll be when we begin to catalogue
+all those treasures in his cabinets. And we're going to do it. He said
+we were. It seems as if I just couldn't wait!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you will be careful what you say to him, dear," begged the mother
+again, anxiously. "He wouldn't understand your mischief, dear, and
+I&mdash;I'm sure he wouldn't like it."</p>
+
+<p>Betty stooped to give a playful kiss.</p>
+
+<p>"Careful? Why, mumsey, dear, when we get at those cabinets he may tell
+me a dozen times the earth is flat, if he wants to, and I won't so much
+as blink&mdash;if I think there's any danger of my getting cheated out of
+that cataloguing!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>ACTOR AND AUDIENCE</h3>
+
+<p>Helen did not go with her daughter to Denby House the second morning.
+Betty insisted that she was quite capable of taking the short trip by
+herself and Helen seemed nothing loath to remain at home. Helen never
+seemed, indeed, loath to remain at home these days&mdash;especially during
+daylight. In the evening, frequently, she went out for a little walk
+with Betty. Then was when she did her simple marketing. Then, too, was
+the only time she would go out without the heavy black veil. Betty,
+being away all day, and at home only after five o'clock, did not notice
+all these points at first. As time passed, however, she did wonder why
+her mother never would go out on Sunday. Still, Betty was too thoroughly
+absorbed in her own new experiences to pay much attention to anything
+else. Every morning at nine o'clock she left the house, eager for the
+day's work; and every afternoon, soon after five, she was back in the
+tiny home, answering her mother's hurried questions as to what had
+happened through the day.</p>
+
+<p>"And you're so lovely and interested in every little thing!" she
+exclaimed to her mother one day.</p>
+
+<p>"But I <i>am</i> interested, my dear, in every little thing," came the quick
+answer. And Betty, looking at her mother's flushed face and trembling
+lips felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> suddenly again the tightening at her throat&mdash;that her success
+or failure should mean so much to mother&mdash;dear mother who was trying so
+hard not to show how poor they were!</p>
+
+<p>For perhaps a week Betty reported little change in the daily routine of
+her work. She wrote letters, read from books, magazines, or newspapers,
+worked on the card-index record of correspondence, and sorted papers,
+pamphlets, and circulars that had apparently been accumulating for
+weeks.</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm getting along beautifully," she declared one day. "I've got
+Mrs. Gowing thawed so she actually says as many as three sentences to a
+course now. And you should see the beaming smile Benton gives me every
+morning!"</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;Mr. Denby?" questioned her mother, with poorly concealed
+eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>Betty lifted her brows and tossed her young head.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's improving," she flashed mischievously. "He asked for the
+salt <i>and</i> the pepper, yesterday. And to-day he actually observed that
+he thought it looked like snow&mdash;at the table, I mean. Of course he
+speaks to me about my work through the day; but he doesn't say any more
+than is necessary. Truly, mother, dear, I'd never leave my happy home
+for <i>him</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Betty, how can you say&mdash;such dreadful things!"</p>
+
+<p>Betty laughed again mischievously.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry, mumsey. He'll never ask me to do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> it! But, honestly,
+mother, I can't see any use in a man's being so stern and glum all the
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he really act so unhappy, then?"</p>
+
+<p>At an unmistakable something in her mother's voice Betty looked up in
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother, that sounded exactly as if you were <i>glad</i> he was
+unhappy!" she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Helen, secretly dismayed and terrified, boldly flaunted the flag of
+courage.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I? Oh, no," she laughed easily. "Still, I'm not so sure but I am a
+little glad: if he's unhappy, all the more chance for you to make
+yourself indispensable by helping him and making him happy. See?"</p>
+
+<p>"Happy!" scoffed Betty with superb disdain; "why, the man doesn't know
+what the word means."</p>
+
+<p>"But perhaps he has seen&mdash;a great deal of trouble, dear." The mother's
+eyes were gravely tender.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he has. But is that any reason for inflicting it on other
+people by reflection?" demanded Betty, with all of youth's intolerance
+for age and its incomprehensible attitudes. "Does it do any possible
+good, either to himself or to anybody else, to retire behind a frown and
+a grunt, and look out upon all those beautiful things around him through
+eyes that are like a piece of cold steel? Of course it doesn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Betty, how can you!" protested the dismayed mother again.</p>
+
+<p>But Betty, with a laugh and a spasmodic hug that ended in a playful
+little shake, retorted with all her old gay sauciness:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you worry, mumsey. I'm a perfect angel to that man." Then,
+wickedly, she added as she whisked off: "You see, I haven't yet had a
+chance to poke even one finger inside of one of those cabinets!"</p>
+
+<p>It was three days later that Betty, having put on her hat and coat at
+Denby House, had occasion to go back into the library to speak to her
+employer.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Denby, shall I&mdash;" she began; then fell back in amazement. The man
+before her had leaped to his feet and started toward her, his face white
+like paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!&mdash;<i>you!</i>" he exclaimed. The next instant he stopped short, the
+blood rushing back to his face. "Oh, <i>Miss Darling</i>! I&mdash;er&mdash;I thought,
+for a moment, you were&mdash; <i>What a fool!</i>" With the last low muttered
+words he turned and sat down heavily.</p>
+
+<p>Betty, to whom the whole amazing sentence was distinctly audible, lifted
+demure eyes to his face.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, you said&mdash;" The sentence came to a suggestive pause.
+Into Betty's demure eyes flashed an unmistakable twinkle.</p>
+
+<p>The man stared, frowned, then flushed a deeper red as full comprehension
+came. He gave a grim laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, Miss Darling. That epithet was meant for me&mdash;not
+you." He hesitated, his eyes still searching her face. "Strange&mdash;strange!"
+he muttered then; "but I wonder what made you suddenly look so much
+like&mdash; Take off your hat, please," he directed abruptly. "There!" he
+exclaimed triumphantly, as Betty pulled out the pins and lifted the hat
+from her head, "that explains it&mdash;your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> hat! Before, when I first saw
+you, your eyes reminded me of&mdash;of some one, and with your hat on the
+likeness is much more striking. For a moment I was actually fool enough
+to think&mdash;and I forgot she must be twice your age now, too," he finished
+under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>Betty waited a silent minute at the door; then, apparently still
+unnoticed, she turned and left the room, pinning her hat on again in the
+hall.</p>
+
+<p>To her mother that afternoon she carried a jubilant countenance. "Well,
+mother, he's alive! I've found out that much," she announced merrily.</p>
+
+<p>"He? Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Burke Denby, to be sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Alive! Why, Betty, what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's alive&mdash;like folks," twinkled Betty. "He's got memory, a heart, and
+I <i>think</i> a sense of humor. I'm sure he did laugh a little over calling
+me a fool."</p>
+
+<p>"A fool! Child, what have you done now?" moaned Betty's mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, dear, nothing&mdash;but put on my hat," chuckled Betty
+irrepressibly. "Listen, and I'll tell you." And she drew a vivid picture
+of the scene in the library. "There, what did I tell you?" she demanded
+in conclusion. "Did I do anything but put on my hat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but Betty, you mustn't, you can't&mdash;that is, you must&mdash; I mean,
+<i>please</i> be careful!" On Helen's face joy and terror were fighting a
+battle royal.</p>
+
+<p>"Careful? Of course I'm careful," cried Betty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> "Didn't I stand as still
+as a mouse while he was sitting there with his beetling brows bent in
+solemn thought? And then didn't I turn without a word and pussy-step out
+of the room when I saw that he had ceased to realize that there was such
+a being in the world as little I? Indeed, I did! And not till I got out
+of doors did I remember that I had gone into that library in the first
+place to ask a question. But I didn't go back. The question would
+keep&mdash;and that was more than I could promise of his temper, if I
+disturbed him then. So I came home. But I just can't wait now to get
+back. Only think how much more interesting things are going to be now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, y-yes, I suppose so," breathed Helen, a little doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I shall be watching always for him to come alive again.
+Besides, it's so romantic! It's a love-story, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Betty, what an idea!" The mother's face flamed instantly scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course it is, mother. If you could have seen his face you'd
+have known that no one but somebody he cared very much for could have
+brought <i>that</i> look to it. You see, he thought for a moment that I was
+she. Then he said, 'What a fool!' and sat down. Next he just looked at
+me; and, mother, in his eyes there were just years and years of sorrow
+all rolled into that one minute."</p>
+
+<p>"Were there&mdash;really?" The mother's face was turned quite away now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And don't you see? I'm not going to mind now ever what he says and
+does, nor how glum he is; for I <i>know</i> down inside, he's got a heart.
+And only think, <i>I look like her</i>!" finished Betty, suddenly springing
+to her feet, and whirling about in ecstasy. "Oh, it's so exciting, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>But her mother did not answer. She did not seem to have heard, perhaps
+because her back was turned. She had crossed the room to the window.
+Betty, following her, put a loving arm about her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, and, mother, look!" she exclaimed eagerly. "I was going to tell
+you. I discovered it last Sunday. You can see the Denby House from here.
+Did you know it? It's so near dark now, it isn't very clear, but there's
+a light in the library windows, and others upstairs, too. See? Right
+through there at the left of that dark clump of trees, set in the middle
+of that open space. That's the lawn, and you can just make out the tall
+white pillars of the veranda. See?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I see. Yes, so you can, can't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Helen's voice was light and cheery, and carefully impersonal, carrying
+no hint of her inward tumult, for which she was devoutly thankful.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of her high expectations, Betty came from Denby House the next
+afternoon with pouting lips.</p>
+
+<p>"He's just exactly the same as ever, only more so, if anything," she
+complained to her mother. "He dictated his letters, then for an hour, I
+think, he just sat at his desk doing nothing, with his hand shielding
+his eyes. Twice, though, I caught him looking at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> me. But his eyes
+weren't kind and&mdash;and human, as they were yesterday. They were their
+usual little bits of cold steel. He went off then to his office at the
+Works (he said he was going there), and he never came home even to
+luncheon. I didn't have half work enough to do, and&mdash;and the cabinets
+were locked. I tried them. At four he came in, signed the letters, said
+good-afternoon and stalked upstairs. And that's the last I saw of him."</p>
+
+<p>Nightly, after this, for a time, Betty gave forth what she called the
+"latest bulletin concerning the patient":&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No change."</p>
+
+<p>"Sat up and took notice."</p>
+
+<p>"Slight rise in temper."</p>
+
+<p>"Dull and listless."</p>
+
+<p>Such were her reports. Then came the day when she impressively announced
+that the patient showed really marked improvement. He asked her to pass
+not only the salt and the pepper, but the olives.</p>
+
+<p>"And, indeed, when you come to think of it," she went on with mock
+gravity, "there's mighty little else he can ask me to pass, in the way
+of making voluntary conversation; for Benton and Sarah do everything
+almost, except lift the individual mouthfuls for our consumption."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Betty, Betty!" protested her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know&mdash;that was dreadful, wasn't it, dearie?" laughed Betty
+contritely. "But you see I have to be so still and proper up there that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>
+home becomes a regular safety-valve; and you know safety-valves are
+necessary&mdash;absolutely necessary."</p>
+
+<p>Helen, gazing with fond, meditative eyes at the girl's bright face, drew
+a tremulous sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know, dear; but, you see, I'm so&mdash;afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't be&mdash;not with a safety-valve," retorted Betty. "But,
+really," she added, turning back laughingly, "there is one funny thing:
+he never stays around now when there's any chance of his seeing me with
+my hat on again. I've noticed it. Every single night since that time he
+did see me a week ago, he's bade me his stiff good-afternoon and gone
+upstairs <i>before</i> I'm ready to leave."</p>
+
+<p>"Betty, really?" cried Helen so eagerly that Betty wheeled and faced her
+with a mischievous laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's interested <i>now</i> in Mr. Burke Denby's love-story?" she
+challenged. But her mother, her hands to her ears, had fled.</p>
+
+<p>It was the very next afternoon that Betty came home so wildly excited
+that not for a full five minutes could her startled mother obtain
+anything like a lucid story of the day. Then it came.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know, dear, of course you can't make anything out of what I
+say. But listen. I'll begin at the beginning. It was like this: This
+morning he had only a few letters for me. Then, in that tired voice he
+uses most of the time, he said: 'I think perhaps now, we might as well
+begin on the cataloguing. Everything else is pretty well caught up.' I
+jumped up and down and clapped my hands, and&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You did <i>what</i>?" demanded her mother aghast.</p>
+
+<p>Betty's nose wrinkled in a saucy little grimace.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I mean <i>inside of me</i>. <i>Outside</i> I just said, 'Yes, sir,' or 'Very
+well, Mr. Denby,' or something prim and proper like that.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then he showed me huge drawers full of notes and clippings in a
+perfectly hopeless mass of confusion, and he unlocked one of the
+cabinets and took out the dearest little squat Buddha with diamond eyes,
+and showed me a number on the base. 'There, Miss Darling,' he began
+again in that tired voice of his, 'some of these notes and clippings are
+numbered in pencil to correspond with numbers like these on the curios;
+but many of them are not numbered at all. Unfortunately, many of the
+curios, too, lack numbers. All you can do, of course, is to sort out the
+papers by number, separating into a single pile all those that bear no
+number. I shall have to help you about those. You won't, of course, know
+where they go. I may have trouble myself to identify some of them.
+Later, after the preliminary work is done, each object will be entered
+on a card, together with a condensed tabulation of when and where I
+obtained it, its age, history&mdash;anything, in short, that we can find
+pertaining to it. The thing to do first, however, is to go through these
+drawers and sort out their contents by number."</p>
+
+<p>"Having said this (still in that weary voice of his), he put back the
+little Buddha,&mdash;which my fingers were just tingling to get hold
+of,&mdash;waved his hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> toward the drawers and papers, and marched out of
+the room. Then I set to work."</p>
+
+<p>"But what did you do? How did you do it? What were those papers?"</p>
+
+<p>"They were everything, mumsey: clippings from magazines and papers and
+sales catalogues of antiques, typewritten notes, and scrawls in long
+hand telling when and where and how Mr. Burke Denby or his father had
+found this or that thing. But what a mess they were in! And such a lot
+of them without the sign of a number!</p>
+
+<p>"First, of course, I took a drawer and sorted the numbers into little
+piles on the big flat library table. Some of them had ten or a dozen,
+all one number. That work was very easy&mdash;only I did so want to read
+every last one of those notes and clippings! But of course I couldn't
+stop for that then. But I did read some of the unnumbered ones, and
+pretty quick I found one that I just knew referred to the little
+diamond-eyed Buddha Mr. Denby had taken out of the cabinet. I couldn't
+resist then. I just had to go and get it and find out. And I did&mdash;and it
+was; so I put them together on the library table.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I noticed in the same cabinet a little old worn toby jug&mdash;a
+shepherd plaid&mdash;about the oldest and rarest there is, you know; and I
+knew I had three or four unnumbered notes on toby jugs&mdash;and, sure
+enough! three of them fitted this toby; and I put <i>them</i> together, with
+the jug on top, on the library table. Of course I was wild then to find
+some more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> In the other cabinets that weren't unlocked, I could see,
+through the glass doors, a lot more things, and some of them, I was
+sure, fitted some of my unnumbered notes; but of course they didn't do
+me any good, as I couldn't get at them. One perfectly beautiful Oriental
+lacquered cabinet with diamond-paned doors was full of tablets, big and
+little, and I was crazy to get at those&mdash; I had a lot of notes about
+tablets. I did find in my cabinet, though, a little package of Chinese
+bank-notes, and I was sure I had something on those. And I had. I knew
+about them, anyway. I had seen some in London. These dated 'way back to
+the Tang dynasty&mdash;sixth century, you know&mdash;and were just as smooth!
+They're made of a kind of paper that crumples up like silk, but doesn't
+show creases. They had little rings printed on them of different sizes
+for different values, so that even the ignorant people couldn't be
+deceived, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, dear, but go on&mdash;go on," interrupted the eager-eyed mother,
+with a smile. "I want to know what happened <i>here</i>&mdash;not back in the
+sixth century!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I know," breathed Betty; "but they were <i>so</i>
+interesting&mdash;those things were! Well, of course I put the bank-notes
+with their clippings on the table; then I began on another drawer. It
+got to be one o'clock very soon, and Mr. Denby came home to luncheon. I
+wish you could have seen his face when he entered the library and saw
+what I had done. His whole countenance lighted up. Why, he looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>
+actually handsome!&mdash;and he's forty, if he's a day! And there wasn't a
+shred of tiredness in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Then when he found the bank-notes and the Buddha and the toby jug with
+the unnumbered clippings belonging to them, he got almost as excited as
+I was. And when he saw how interested I was, he unlocked the other
+cabinets&mdash;and how we did talk, both at once! Anyhow, whenever I stopped
+to get my breath he was always talking; and I never could wait for him
+to finish, there was so much I wanted to ask.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Benton! I don't know how many times he announced luncheon
+before it dawned over us that he was there at all; and he looked
+positively apoplectic when we did turn and see him. I don't dare to
+think how long we kept luncheon waiting. But everything had that flat,
+kept-hot-too-long taste, and Benton and Sarah served it with the air of
+injured saints. Mrs. Gowing showed meek disapproval, and didn't make
+even one remark to a course&mdash;but perhaps, after all, that was because
+she didn't have a chance. You see, Mr. Denby and I talked all the time
+ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought he&mdash;he never talked."</p>
+
+<p>"He hasn't&mdash;before. But you see to-day he had such a lot to tell me
+about the things&mdash;how he came by them, and all that. And every single
+one of them has got a story. And he has such wonderful things! After
+luncheon he showed them to me&mdash;some of them: such marvelous bronzes and
+carved ivories<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> and Babylonian tablets. He's got one with a real
+thumb-print on it&mdash;think of it, a thumb-print five thousand years old!
+And he's got a wonderful Buddha two thousand years old from a Chinese
+temple, and he knows the officer who got it&mdash;during the Boxer Rebellion,
+you know. And he's got another, not so old, of Himalayan Indian wood,
+exquisitely carved, and half covered with jewels.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother, he's traveled all over the world, and everywhere he's
+found something wonderful or beautiful to bring home. I couldn't begin
+to tell you, if I talked all night. And he seemed so pleased because I
+was interested, and because I could appreciate to some extent, their
+value."</p>
+
+<p>"I can&mdash;imagine it!" There was a little catch in Helen Denby's voice,
+but Betty did not notice it.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and that makes me think," she went on blithely. "He said such a
+funny thing once. It was when I held in my hand the Babylonian tablet
+with the thumb-mark. I had just been saying how I wished the little
+tablet had the power to transport the holder of it back to a vision of
+the man who had made that thumb-print, when he looked at me so queerly,
+and muttered: 'Humph! they <i>are</i> more than potatoes to you, aren't
+they?' Potatoes, indeed! What do you suppose made him say that? Oh, and
+that is when he asked me, too, how I came to know so much about jades
+and ivories and Egyptian antiques."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you tell him?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the startled half terror in her mother's voice Betty's eyes widened.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that I learned in London, of course, with you and Gladys and Miss
+Hughes, poking around old shops there&mdash;and everywhere else that we could
+find them, wherever we were. <i>You</i> know how we used to go 'digging,' as
+Gladys called it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," subsided the mother, a little faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we worked all the afternoon&mdash;<i>together!</i>&mdash;Mr. Denby and I did.
+What do you think of that?" resumed Betty, after a moment's pause. "And
+not once since this morning have I heard any tiredness in Mr. Burke
+Denby's voice, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>"But how&mdash;how long is this going to take you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ages and ages! It can't help it. Why, mother, there are such a lot
+of them, and such a whole lot about some of them. Others, that he
+doesn't know so much about, we're going to look up. He has lots of books
+on such things, and he's buying more all the time. Then all this stuff
+has got to be condensed and tabulated and put on cards and filed away.
+But I love it&mdash;every bit of it; and I'm so excited to think I've really
+begun it. And he's every whit as excited as I am, mother. Listen! He
+actually forgot all about running away to-night before I put on my hat.
+And I never thought of it till just as I was pinning it on. He had
+followed me out into the hall to tell me something about the old armor
+in the corner; then, all of a sudden, he stopped&mdash;<i>off&mdash;short</i>, just
+like that, and said, 'Good-night, Miss Darling,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> in his old stiff way.
+As he turned and went upstairs I caught sight of his face. I knew then.
+It was the hat. I had reminded him again of&mdash;<i>her</i>. But I shan't mind,
+now, if he is stern and glum sometimes&mdash;not with a Babylonian tablet or
+a Chinese Buddha for company. Oh, mother, if you could see those
+wonderful things. But maybe sometime you will. I shouldn't wonder."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe sometime&mdash;I&mdash;will!" faltered the mother, growing a little white.
+"Why, Betty, what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I mean, maybe I can take you sometime&mdash; I'll ask Mr. Denby by and
+by, after we get things straightened out, if he won't let me bring you
+some day to see them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, no, Betty, don't&mdash;<i>please</i> don't! I&mdash;I couldn't think of such a
+thing!"</p>
+
+<p>Betty laughed merrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mumsey, you needn't look so frightened. They won't bite you. There
+aren't any of those things <i>alive</i>, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not. But I'm&mdash;I'm sure I&mdash;I wouldn't be able to
+appreciate them at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But in London you were <i>trying</i> to learn to be interested in such
+things," persisted Betty, still earnestly. "Don't you know? You said you
+<i>wanted</i> to learn to like them, and to appreciate them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know. But I'm sure I wouldn't like to&mdash;to trouble Mr.
+Denby&mdash;here," stammered the mother, her face still very white.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>"THE PLOT THICKENS"</h3>
+
+<p>It was shortly before Christmas that Frank Gleason ran up to Dalton. He
+went first to see Burke Denby.</p>
+
+<p>Burke greeted him with hearty cordiality.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Gleason! Good&mdash;you're just in time for dinner. But where's your
+bag? You aren't going back to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I am to-morrow morning, very early, so I left my grip at the
+hotel. Yes, yes, I know&mdash;you'd have had me here, and routed the whole
+house up at midnight," he went on laughingly, shaking his head at
+Burke's prompt remonstrations, "if I but said the word. But I'm not
+going to trouble you this time. I'll be delighted to stay to dinner,
+however,&mdash;if I get an invitation," he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"An invitation! As if you needed an invitation for&mdash;anything, in this
+house," scoffed Denby. "All mine is thine, as you know very well."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks. I've half a mind to put you to the test&mdash;say with that pet
+thumb-marked tablet of yours," retorted the doctor, with a lift of his
+eyebrows. "However, we'll let it go at a dinner this time.&mdash;You're
+looking better, old man," he said some time later, as they sat at the
+table, his eyes critically bent on the other's face.</p>
+
+<p>"I am better."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Glad to hear it. How's business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very good&mdash;that is, it <i>was</i> good. I haven't been near the Works for a
+week."</p>
+
+<p>"So? Not&mdash;sick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no; busy." There was the briefest of pauses; then, with
+disconcerting abruptness, came the question: "Where'd you get that girl,
+Gleason?"</p>
+
+<p>"G-girl?" The doctor wanted a minute to think. Incidentally he was
+trying to swallow his heart&mdash;he thought it must be his heart&mdash;that big
+lump in his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Darling."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Darling! Oh!" The doctor waved his hand inconsequently. He still
+wanted time. He was still swallowing at that lump. "Why, she&mdash;she&mdash;I
+told you. She's the daughter of an old friend. Why, isn't she all
+right?" He feigned the deepest concern.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>All right!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Voice and manner carried a message of satisfaction that was
+unmistakable. But the doctor chose to ignore it. The doctor felt himself
+now on sure ground. He summoned a still deeper concern to his
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Denby, you don't mean she <i>isn't</i> all right? What's the trouble?
+Isn't she capable?&mdash;or don't you like her ways?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I mean she <i>is</i> all right, man," retorted the other impatiently.
+"Why, Gleason, she's a wonder!"</p>
+
+<p>Gleason, within whom the Hallelujah Chorus had become such a shout of
+triumph that he half expected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> to see Burke Denby cover his ears,
+managed to utter a cool&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Really? Well, I'm glad, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she is. She's no ordinary girl." ("If Helen could but hear that!"
+exulted the doctor to himself.) "Why, what do you think? She can
+actually tell <i>me</i> some things about my own curios!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then they are more than&mdash;er&mdash;potatoes to her? You know you said&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know I did. But just hear this. In spite of her seeming
+intelligence and capability, I'd been dreading to open those cabinets
+and let her touch those things dad and I had spent so many dear years
+together gathering. But, of course, I knew that that was silly. One of
+my chief reasons for getting her was the cataloguing; and it was absurd
+not to set her at it. So one day, after everything else was done, I
+explained what I wanted, and told her to go ahead."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and&mdash;did she?" prompted the doctor, as the other paused.</p>
+
+<p>"She did&mdash;<i>exactly</i> that. She went ahead&mdash;'way ahead of what I'd told
+her to do. Why, when I got home, I was amazed to see what she'd done.
+But best of all was her interest and her enthusiasm, and the fact that
+she knew and appreciated what they were. You see that's one of the
+things I'd been dreading&mdash;her ignorance&mdash;her indifference; but I dreaded
+more that she might gush and say, 'Oh, how pretty!' And I knew if she
+did I'd&mdash;I'd want to knock her down."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So glad&mdash;she didn't!" murmured the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>His host laughed shamefacedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I know. That was rather a strong statement. But you see I felt
+strongly. And then to find&mdash; But, Gleason, she really is a wonder. We're
+working together now&mdash; <i>I'm</i> working. As I said, I haven't been to the
+office for a week."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she agreeable&mdash;personally?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, very. She's pleasant and cheerful, bright, and very much of a
+lady. She's capable, and has uncommon good sense. Her voice, too, is
+excellent for reading. In short, she is, as I told you, a wonder; and
+I'm more than indebted to you for finding her. Let's see, you say you do
+know her family?"</p>
+
+<p>Gleason got suddenly to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, oh, yes. Good family, too! Now I'm sorry to eat and run, as the
+children say, but I'll have to, Burke, to-night. One or two other little
+matters I'll have to attend to before I sleep. But, as I said a few
+minutes ago, I'm glad to see you in better spirits. Keep on with the
+good work."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor seemed nervous, and anxious to get away; and in another
+minute the great outer door had closed behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m! Wonder what's his rush," puzzled Burke Denby, left standing in
+the hall.</p>
+
+<p>There was a slight frown on his face. But in another minute it was gone:
+he had remembered suddenly that he had promised Miss Darling that he
+would try to find certain obscure data regarding the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> tablet they had
+been at work upon that afternoon. It was just as well, perhaps, after
+all, that the doctor had had to leave early&mdash;it would give more time for
+work.</p>
+
+<p>With an eager lifting of his head Burke Denby turned and strode into the
+library.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, hurrying away from Denby House was the doctor, his whole self
+a Hallelujah Chorus of rejoicing. His countenance was still aglow with
+joy when, a little later, he rang the bell of a West Hill
+apartment-house suite bearing the name, "Mrs. Helen Darling."</p>
+
+<p>To his joy he found Helen alone; but hardly had he given her a hasty
+account of his visit to Burke Denby, and assured her that he was
+positive everything was working out finely, when Betty came in from the
+corner grocery store, breezy and smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's Dr. Gleason!" she welcomed him. "Now, I'm glad mother didn't
+go with me to-night, after all,&mdash;for we'd both been out then, and we
+shouldn't have seen you."</p>
+
+<p>"Which would have been my great loss," bowed the man gallantly, his
+approving eyes on Betty's glowing face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but ours, too,&mdash;especially mine," she declared. "You see, I've been
+wishing you'd come. I wanted to thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"To thank me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; for finding this lovely place for me."</p>
+
+<p>"You like it, then?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I love it. Why, Dr. Gleason, you have no idea of the wonderful things
+that man&mdash; But you said you knew him," she broke off suddenly. "Don't
+you know him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, very well."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you've been there, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Many times."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how silly of me!" she laughed. "As if I could tell <i>you</i> anything
+about antiques and curios! But hasn't he some beautiful things?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has, indeed. But how about the man? You haven't told me at all how
+you like Mr. Denby himself."</p>
+
+<p>Betty glanced at her mother with a roguish shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as I tell mother, now that I've got him trained, he does very
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"My <i>dear</i>!" murmured her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Trained?" The question was the doctor's.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You see at first he was such a bear."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Betty!" exclaimed her mother, in very genuine distress.</p>
+
+<p>But Betty plainly was in one of her most mischievous moods. With another
+merry glance at her mother she turned to the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"It's only this, doctor. You see, at first he was so silent and solemn,
+and Benton and Sarah and Mrs. Gowing were so scared, and the whole house
+was so scared and silent and solemn, that it seemed some days as if I
+should scream, just to make a little excitement. But it's all very
+different now. Benton and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> Sarah are all smiles, Mrs. Gowing actually
+laughs sometimes, and the only trouble is there isn't time enough for
+Mr. Denby to get in all the talking he wants to."</p>
+
+<p>"Then Mr. Denby seems happier?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very much. Of course, at first it was just about the work&mdash;we're
+cataloguing the curios; but lately it's been in other ways. Why, the
+other day he found I could play and sing a little, and to-day he asked
+me to sing for him. And I did."</p>
+
+<p>Helen sat suddenly erect in her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Sing? You sang for Mr. Denby?" she cried, plainly very much agitated.
+"But you hadn't told me&mdash;that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hadn't done it till this afternoon, just before I came home," laughed
+Betty.</p>
+
+<p>"But what did you sing? Oh, you&mdash;you didn't sing any of those foolish,
+nonsensical songs, did you?" implored Helen, half rising from her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"But I did," bridled Betty. Then, as her mother fell back dismayed, she
+cried: "Did you suppose I'd risk singing solemn things to a man who had
+just learned to laugh?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, <i>ragtime</i>!" moaned Helen, "when he's always hated it so!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Always hated it so'!" echoed Betty, with puzzled eyes. "Why, I hadn't
+played it before, dearie. I hadn't played anything!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, I&mdash;I mean always hated everything gay and lively <i>like</i>
+ragtime," corrected Helen, her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> cheeks abnormally pink, as she carefully
+avoided the doctor's eyes. "Why didn't you play some of your good music,
+dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I did, afterwards, of course,&mdash;MacDowell and Schubert, and that
+lullaby we love. But he liked the ragtime, too, all right. I know he
+did. Besides, it just did me good to liven up the old house a bit. I
+know Benton was listening in the hall, and I'm positive Sarah and the
+cook had the dining-room door open. As for Mrs. Gowing, she&mdash;dear old
+soul&mdash;just sat and frankly cried. And the merrier I sang, the faster the
+tears rolled down her face&mdash;but it was for joy. I could see that. And
+once I heard her mutter: 'To think that ever again I should hear music
+and laughter&mdash;<i>here</i>!' Dr. Gleason, did Mr. Denby ever love somebody
+once, and do I look like her?"</p>
+
+<p>Taken utterly by surprise, the doctor, for one awful minute, floundered
+in appalled confusion. It was Helen this time who came to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall tell the doctor he needn't answer that question, Betty," she
+said, with just a shade of reproval in her voice. "If he did know of
+such a thing, do you think he ought to tell you, or anybody else?"</p>
+
+<p>Betty laughed and colored a little.</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear, of course not. And I shouldn't have asked it, should I?"</p>
+
+<p>"But what makes you think he has?" queried the doctor, with very much
+the air of a small boy who is longing yet fearing to investigate the
+reason for the non-explosion of a firecracker.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Because he said twice that I reminded him of some one, particularly
+with my hat on; and both times, afterward, he looked so romantic and
+solemn"&mdash;Betty's eyes began to twinkle&mdash;"that I thought maybe I was on
+the track of a real, live love-story, you see. But he hasn't said
+anything about it lately; so perhaps I was mistaken, after all. You see,
+really, he's quite like folks, now, since we've been working on the
+curios."</p>
+
+<p>"And how are you getting along with those?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, only it's slow, of course. There is such a mass of material,
+and so much to look up and study up besides. We're just getting it
+together and tabulating it now on temporary sheets. We shan't begin the
+real cataloguing on the final cards until we have all our material in
+hand, Mr. Denby says."</p>
+
+<p>"But you aren't getting tired of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit! I love it&mdash;even the digging after dates. I'm sure <i>you</i> can
+understand that," she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I can understand that," he smiled back at her. And now, for the
+first time for long minutes, he dared to look across the room into Helen
+Denby's eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>COUNTER-PLOTS</h3>
+
+<p>In thinking it over afterwards Burke Denby tried to place the specific
+thing that put into his mind that most astounding suggestion. He knew
+very well the precise moment of the inception of the idea&mdash;it had been
+on Christmas night as he sat before the fire in his gloomy library. But
+what had led to it? Of just what particular episode concerning his
+acquaintance with this girl had he been thinking when, like a blinding
+flash out of the dark, had leaped forth those startling words?</p>
+
+<p>He had been particularly lonely that evening, perhaps because it was
+Christmas, and he could not help comparing his own silent fireside with
+the gay, laughter-filled, holly-trimmed homes all about him. Being
+Christmas, he had not had even the divertisement of his secretary's
+presence&mdash;companionship. Yes, it was companionship, he decided. It could
+not but be that when she brought so much love and enthusiasm to the
+work, as well as the truly remarkable skill and knowledge she displayed.
+And she was, too, such a charming girl, so bright and lovable. The house
+had not been the same since she came into it. He hoped he might keep
+her. He should not like to let her go&mdash;now. But if only she could be
+there all the time! It would be much easier for <i>her</i>&mdash;winter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> storms
+were coming on now; and as for him&mdash;he should like it very much. The
+evenings were interminably long sometimes. He wondered if, after all, it
+might not be arranged. There was a mother, he believed. They lived in an
+apartment on West Hill. But she could doubtless be left all right, or
+she might even come, too, if it were necessary. Surely the house was
+large enough, and she might be good company for his cousin. And it would
+be nice for the daughter. It might, indeed, be a very suitable
+arrangement all around.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, if he had a wife and daughter of his own, he would not have
+to be filling his house with strangers like this. If Helen had not&mdash;
+Curious, too, how the girl was always making him think of Helen&mdash;her
+eyes, especially when she had on her hat, and little ways she had&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>It came then, with an electric force that brought him to his feet with
+almost a cry:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What if she were&mdash;maybe she <i>is</i>&mdash;your daughter!"</p>
+
+<p>As he paced the room feverishly, Burke Denby tried to bring the chaos of
+thoughts into something like order.</p>
+
+<p>It was absurd, of course. It could not be. And yet&mdash;there were her eyes
+so like Helen's, and the way she had of pushing back her hair, and of
+lifting her chin when she was determined about something. There were,
+too, actually some little things in her that reminded him of&mdash;himself.
+And surely her remarkable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> love and aptitude for the work she was doing
+for him now ought to mean&mdash;something.</p>
+
+<p>But could it be? Was it <i>possible</i>? Would Helen do such a fantastic
+thing&mdash;send him his own daughter like this? And the doctor&mdash;this girl
+had been introduced by him. Then he, too, must be in the plot. "A
+daughter of an old friend." Yes, that might be. But would Gleason lend
+himself to such a wild scheme? It seemed too absurd to be possible. And
+yet&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>His mind still played with the idea.</p>
+
+<p>Just what did he know about this young woman? Very little. What if,
+after all, it were Dorothy Elizabeth? And it might be, for all he <i>knew</i>
+to the <i>contrary</i>. She was about the right age, he should judge&mdash;his
+little girl would be eighteen&mdash;by now. Her name was Elizabeth; she had
+told him that, at the same time saying that she was always called
+"Betty." There was a mother&mdash;but he had never heard the girl mention her
+father. And they had dropped, as it were, right out of a clear sky into
+Dalton, and into his life. Could it be? Of course it really was too
+absurd; but yet&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden setting of his jaws the man determined to put his
+secretary through a course of questions, the answers to which would
+forever remove all doubt, one way or another. If at the onset of the
+questioning she grew suddenly evasive and confused, he would have his
+answer at once: she was his daughter, and was attempting to keep the
+knowledge from him until such time as her mother should wish to let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> the
+secret out. On the other hand, even if she were not confused or evasive
+as to her answers, she still might be his daughter&mdash;and not know of the
+relationship. In which case his questions, of course, must be carried to
+the point where he himself would be satisfied. Meanwhile he would think
+no more about it; and, above all, he would keep his thoughts from
+dwelling on what it would be if&mdash;she were.</p>
+
+<p>Having reached this wise decision, Burke Denby tossed his half-smoked
+cigar into the fire and attempted to toss as lightly the whole subject
+from his mind&mdash;an attempt which met with sorry success.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Burke Denby plumed himself that he was doing his questioning most
+diplomatically when, the next morning, he began to carry out his plans.
+With almost superhuman patience he had waited until the morning letters
+were out of the way, and until he and his secretary were working
+together over sorting the papers in a hitherto unopened drawer.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you have a pleasant Christmas, Miss Darling?" Careless as was his
+apparent aim, it was the first gun of his campaign.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thank you, very pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't. Too quiet. A house needs young people at Christmas. If only I
+had a daughter now&mdash;" He watched her face closely, but he could detect
+no change of color. There was only polite, sympathetic interest. "Let me
+see, you live with your mother, I believe," he finished somewhat
+abruptly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you lived in Dalton long?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only since October, when I came to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like it here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, very well."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, not so well as where you came from, perhaps," he smiled
+pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>Betty laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"But I came&mdash;from so many places."</p>
+
+<p>"That so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Paris, Berlin, London, Genoa,&mdash;mostly London, of late."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are American born!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so. Still, it is a little singular, having been gone so long,
+that you are so American in your speech and manner. You aren't a bit
+English, Miss Darling."</p>
+
+<p>Betty laughed again merrily.</p>
+
+<p>"How mother would love to hear you say that!" she cried. "You see,
+mother was so afraid I would be&mdash;English, or something foreign&mdash;educated
+as I was almost entirely across the water. But we were with Americans
+all the time, and our teachers, except for languages, were Americans,
+whenever possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m; I see. And now you are here in America again. And does your
+mother like it&mdash;here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"And does she like Dalton, too? Perhaps she has been here before,
+though." The casual way in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> the question was put gave no
+indication of the way the questioner was holding his breath for the
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. She was here several years ago, she says."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!" To Burke Denby it was as if something within him had suddenly
+snapped. He relaxed in his chair. His eyes were still covertly searching
+Betty's serene face bent over her work. Within himself he was saying:
+"Well, <i>she</i> doesn't know, whatever it is." Aloud he resumed: "And were
+you, too, ever here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes; but I don't remember it. I was only a year or two old, mother
+said."</p>
+
+<p>The man almost leaped from his chair. Then, sternly, he forced himself
+to work one full minute without speaking. A dozen agitated questions
+were clamoring for utterance, but he knew better than to give them
+voice. With a cheery casualness of manner, that made him inordinately
+proud of himself, he said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I certainly am glad you came now. I'm sure I don't know what I
+should have done, if you hadn't. But, by the way, how did you happen to
+come to me?" Again he held his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, through Dr. Gleason. You knew that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I know only that. You never did&mdash;exactly this sort of work
+before, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;oh, no. But there has to be a beginning, you know; and mother says
+she thinks every girl ought to know how to do something, so that she
+can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> support herself if it is necessary. And in our case I think&mdash;it is
+necessary."</p>
+
+<p>Low as the last words were, the man's sensitively alert ear caught them.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean&mdash;I think mother is&mdash;is poor, and is trying to keep it from me."
+The words came with all the impetuosity of one who has found suddenly a
+sympathetic ear for a long-pent secret. "I can see it in so many
+ways&mdash;not keeping a maid, and being so&mdash;so anxious that I shall do well
+here. And&mdash;and she doesn't seem natural, some way, lately. She's
+unhappy, or something. And she goes out so little&mdash;almost never, except
+in the evening."</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't care to&mdash;to see people, perhaps." By a supreme effort Burke
+Denby hid the fever of excitement and rejoicing within him, and toned
+his voice to just the right shade of solicitous interest.</p>
+
+<p>"No, she doesn't," admitted Betty, with a long sigh. Then, impulsively,
+she added: "She seems so very afraid of meeting people that I've
+wondered sometimes if maybe she had old friends here and&mdash;and didn't
+want to meet them because&mdash;perhaps, her circumstances were changed now.
+That isn't like mother, but&mdash; Oh, I shouldn't say all this to you, Mr.
+Denby. I&mdash;I didn't think, really. I spoke before I thought. You seemed
+so&mdash;interested."</p>
+
+<p>"I am interested, my dear&mdash;Miss Darling," returned the man, not quite
+steadily. "I&mdash;I think I should like to know&mdash;your mother."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She's lovely."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you&mdash;like her?" He had contrived to throw into his eyes a merry
+challenge&mdash;against her taking this as she might take it.</p>
+
+<p>But Betty was too absorbed to be flippant, or even merrily
+self-conscious.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I don't know, but I don't think so&mdash;except my eyes. Every one says
+my eyes <i>are</i> like hers."</p>
+
+<p>Burke Denby got suddenly to his feet and walked quite across the room.
+Apparently he was examining a rare old Venetian glass Tear Vase,
+especially prized by him for its associations. In reality he was trying
+to master the tumult within him. He had now not one remaining doubt.
+This stupendous thing was really so. She was his Elizabeth; his&mdash;Betty.
+Yet there remained still one more test. He must ask about her&mdash;father.
+And for this he must especially brace himself: he could imagine what
+Helen must have taught her&mdash;of him.</p>
+
+<p>Very slowly, the vase still unconsciously clutched in his hand, Burke
+Denby walked back to the table and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as I said, I should like to see your mother," he smiled. "I feel
+that I know her already. But&mdash;your father; I don't think you have told
+me a thing about your father yet."</p>
+
+<p>A rapt wistfulness came to the girl's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Father! Oh, but I never stop talking when I get to telling of him. You
+see, I never knew him."</p>
+
+<p>"No?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Infinite longing and tenderness were coming into the man's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"But I know <i>about</i> him. Mother has told me, you see. So I know just how
+fine and noble and splendid he was, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Fine&mdash;he&mdash;was?</i>" The words, as they fell from Burke Denby's dry lips
+were barely audible.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. You see, all the way, ever since I could remember, daddy has
+been held up to me as so fine and splendid. Why, I learned to hold my
+fork&mdash;and my temper!&mdash;the way daddy would want me to. And there wasn't a
+song or a sunset or a beautiful picture that I wasn't told how daddy
+would have loved it. Mother was always talking of him, and telling me
+about him; so I feel that I know him, just as if he were alive."</p>
+
+<p>"As&mdash;if&mdash;he&mdash;<i>were</i>&mdash;alive!" Burke Denby half started from his chair,
+his face a battle-ground for contending emotions.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But he isn't, you see. He died many, many years ago."</p>
+
+<p>There was the sudden tinkling of shattered glass on a polished floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Denby!" exclaimed Betty in consternation. "Your beautiful
+vase!"</p>
+
+<p>The man, however, did not even glance at the ruin at his feet. Still, he
+must have realized what he had done, thought Betty, for, as he crossed
+to his desk and sat down heavily, she heard him mutter:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To think I <i>could</i> have been&mdash;such a fool!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>ENIGMAS</h3>
+
+<p>Not until Burke Denby became convinced that Miss Elizabeth Darling was
+not his daughter did he realize how deeply the thought that she might be
+had taken hold of his very life&mdash;how closely entwined in his affections
+she had become. From the first minute the electrifying idea of her
+possible relationship had come to him, he had (in spite of his
+determination to the contrary) reveled in pictures of what his home
+would be with a daughter like that to love&mdash;and to love him. Helen, too,
+was in the pictures&mdash;true, a vague, shadowy Helen, yet a Helen idealized
+and glorified by the remorseful repentance born of a bunch of worn
+little diaries. Then to have the beautiful vision shattered by one word
+from the girl's own lips&mdash;and just when he had attained the pinnacle of
+joyous conviction that she was, indeed, his little girl of the long
+ago&mdash;it seemed as though he could not bear it.</p>
+
+<p>And, most anguishing of all, there was no chance that there was a
+mistake. Even if the incongruity of her description of her father as
+applied to himself could be explained away, there was yet the
+insurmountable left. With his own ears he had heard her say that her
+father was dead&mdash;had been dead for many years. That settled it, of
+course. There could be no mistake about&mdash;death.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After the first stunning force of the disappointment, there came to
+Burke Denby the reaction&mdash;in the case of Burke Denby a characteristic
+reaction. It became evident, to some extent, the very next day. For the
+first time in weeks he did not work with his secretary over the
+cataloguing at all during the day. He dictated his letters, then left at
+once for his office at the Works. At luncheon he relapsed into his old
+stern silence; and in the afternoon, beyond giving a few crisp
+directions, he showed no interest in Betty's work, absenting himself
+most of the time from the room.</p>
+
+<p>Yet not in the least was all this consciously planned on his part. He
+felt simply an aversion to being with this girl. Even the sight of her
+bright head bent over her work gave him a pang, the sound of her voice
+brought bitterness. Above all, he dreaded a glance from her
+eyes&mdash;Helen's eyes, that had lured him for a brief twenty-four hours
+into a fool's paradise of thinking they might, indeed, be&mdash;Helen's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Burke was grievously disappointed, ashamed, and angry; and being
+accustomed always to acting exactly as he felt, he acted now&mdash;as he
+felt. He was grievously disappointed that his brief dream of a daughter
+in his home should have come to naught. He was ashamed that he should
+have allowed himself to be deluded into such a dream, and angry that the
+thing had so stirred him&mdash;that he could be so stirred by the failure of
+so absurd and preposterous a supposition to materialize into fact.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As the days passed, matters became worse rather than better. Added to
+his disappointment and chagrin there came to be an unreasoning wrath
+that this girl was not his daughter, together with a rebellion at his
+lonely life, and an overmastering self-pity that he should be so abused
+of Fate. It was then that he began systematically to avoid, so far as
+was possible, being with the girl at all, save for the necessary
+dictation and instructions. This was the more easily accomplished, as
+the cataloguing now had almost arrived at the stage where it was a mere
+matter of copying and tabulating the mass of material already carefully
+numbered to correspond with the equally carefully numbered curios in the
+cabinets.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of it all, however, Burke Denby knew, in his heart, that he was
+becoming more and more fond of this young girl, more and more interested
+in her welfare, more and more restless and dissatisfied when not in her
+presence, more and more poignantly longing to make her his daughter by
+adoption, now that it was settled beyond question that she was not his
+by the ties of flesh and blood. Outwardly, however, he remained the
+stern, unsmiling man, silent, morose, and anything but delightful as a
+daily companion.</p>
+
+<p>To Betty he had become the unsolvable enigma. That this most unhappy
+change should have been brought about by the breaking of the Venetian
+Tear Vase, she could not believe&mdash;valuable and highly treasured as it
+was; yet, as she looked back, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> change seemed to have dated from the
+moment of the vase's shattering on the library floor, the day after
+Christmas.</p>
+
+<p>At first she had supposed the man's sudden reversion to gloom and
+silence was a mere whim of the mind or a passing distemper of the body.
+But when day after day brought no light to his eye, no smile to his lip,
+no elasticity to his step, she became seriously disturbed, particularly
+as she could not help noticing that he no longer worked with her; that
+he no longer, in fact, seemed to want to remain in the library even to
+hear her read to him.</p>
+
+<p>She was sorely troubled. Not only did she miss the pleasure and stimulus
+of his presence and interest in the work, but she feared lest in some
+way she had disappointed or offended him. She began to question herself
+and to examine critically her work.</p>
+
+<p>She could find nothing. Her work had been well done. She knew that.
+There was absolutely no excuse for this sudden taciturn aloofness on his
+part. After all, it was probably nothing more than what might be
+expected of him&mdash;a going back to his usual self. Without doubt the
+strange thing was, not that he was stern and silent and morose now, but
+that, for a brief golden period, he had come out of his shell and acted
+like a human being. Doubtless it was under the sway of his interest in
+his curios, and his first delight at seeing them being brought into
+something like order, that he had, for a moment, as it were, stirred
+into something really human. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> his going back to his original sour
+unpleasantness now was merely a reversion to first principles.</p>
+
+<p>That it should be so vexed Betty not a little.</p>
+
+<p>And when they were having such a good time! Surely, for a man that
+<i>could</i> be so altogether charming and delightful to be habitually so
+extremely undesirable and disagreeable was most exasperating. And he had
+been such good company! How kind he had been, too, when she had told him
+so much of her own life and home! How interested he had shown himself to
+be in every little detail, just as if he really cared. And now&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>With a tense biting of her lip Betty reproached herself bitterly for
+being so free to tell of her own small affairs. She ought to have known
+that any interest a man like that could show was bound to be superficial
+and insincere. What a pity she should lose, for once, her reserve! Well,
+at least she had learned her lesson. Never again would she be guilty of
+making a confidant of Mr. Burke Denby, no matter how suave and
+human-like he might elect to become for some other brief week in the
+future!</p>
+
+<p>To her mother Betty said very little of all this. True, at the first, in
+her surprise at the remarkable change in her employer's attitude, she
+had told her mother of his reversion to gloom and sternness; but it had
+seemed to worry and disturb her mother so much that Betty had stopped at
+once. And always since then she had avoided speaking of his continued
+disagreeableness, and skillfully evaded answering pertinent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> questions.
+She told herself that she realized, of course, it was because her mother
+was so fearful that something would happen that this fine position, with
+the generous pay, should be lost. Dear mother&mdash;who thought she was
+hiding so shrewdly the fact of how poor they were!</p>
+
+<p>There was something else that Betty did not tell her mother, also, and
+that was of her first peculiar and annoying experience with the woman at
+the newsstand at the station. It was about two weeks after Christmas
+that Betty had first seen the woman. Mr. Denby had asked her to go
+around by the station on her way home and purchase for him the December
+issue of "Research." He said it was not a very popular magazine, and
+that the woman was one of the few agents in town who kept it for sale.
+There was an article on Babylonian tablets in the December number, and
+he wished to see it.</p>
+
+<p>The station was not very far from her home, and Betty was glad to do the
+errand, of course; but when she arrived at the newsstand she found a
+most offensive person who annoyed her with questions&mdash;a large woman with
+unpleasantly prominent eyes and a wart on her chin.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Miss, I've got the magazine right here," she said with alacrity,
+in reply to Betty's request. "But, say, hain't I seen you before
+somewheres?"</p>
+
+<p>Betty shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so," she smiled. "At least, I do not remember seeing you
+anywhere."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't you come here often, to the station, or somethin'?"
+persisted the woman.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have never been here before&mdash;except the day I arrived in town
+last September."</p>
+
+<p>"H-m; funny!" frowned the woman musingly. "I'm a great case fur faces,
+an' I don't very often make a mistake. I could swear I'd seen you
+somewheres."</p>
+
+<p>Betty smiled and shook her head again, as she turned away with her
+magazine.</p>
+
+<p>Twice after that Mr. Denby had sent her to this same newsstand for a
+desired periodical; and on both occasions the woman had been cheerfully
+insistent in her questions, and in her reiterations that somewhere she
+certainly had seen her, as she never made mistakes in faces.</p>
+
+<p>"An' yer workin' fur Burke Denby on the hill, ain't ye?" she asked at
+last.</p>
+
+<p>Betty colored.</p>
+
+<p>"I am working for Mr. Denby&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>"H-m; like him?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you'll give me my change, please," requested Betty then, the flush
+deepening on her cheeks. "I am in some haste."</p>
+
+<p>The woman laughed none too pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't want ter answer, an' I ain't sayin' I wonder," she chuckled.
+"He's a queer bug, an' no mistake, an' I don't wonder ye don't like
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, I like him very much," flashed Betty, hurriedly
+catching up her magazine, and almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> snatching the coins from the
+woman's hand, in her haste to be away.</p>
+
+<p>Betty had not told her mother of these encounters. More and more plainly
+Betty was seeing how keenly averse to meeting people her mother was, and
+how evasive she was in her answers to the questions the market-men
+sometimes put to her. Instinctively Betty felt that these questions of
+the newsstand woman would distress her mother very much; so Betty kept
+them carefully to herself.</p>
+
+<p>The conviction that her mother was fearful of meeting old friends in
+Dalton was growing on Betty these days, and it disturbed her greatly.
+Moreover she did not like a certain growing restless nervousness in her
+mother's manner, nor did she like the increasing pallor of her mother's
+cheek. Something, somewhere, was wrong. Of this Betty became more and
+more strongly convinced. Nor did a little episode that took place late
+in January tend to weaken this belief.</p>
+
+<p>They had gone to market&mdash;Betty and her mother. Lured by an attractive
+"ad," they had gone farther from home than usual, and were in a store
+not often visited by them. They had given their order and turned to go,
+when suddenly Betty found herself whisked about by her mother's frantic
+clutch on her arm and led swiftly quite across the store to the opposite
+door. There, still impelled by that unyielding clutch on her arm, she
+found herself dodging in and out of the throngs of customers on their
+way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> to the street outside. Even there their pace did not slacken until
+they were well around the corner of the block.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother," panted Betty then, laughing, "I should think you were
+running away from all the plagues of Egypt."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I was&mdash;worse than the plagues of Egypt," laughed her mother, a bit
+hysterically.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother!" cried Betty, growing suddenly alert and anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"There, there, dear, it was nothing. Never mind!" declared her mother.
+But even as she spoke she looked back fearfully over her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"But, mother, what <i>was</i> it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. Just a&mdash;a woman I didn't want to see. I used to know her years
+ago, and she was&mdash;such a talker! We wouldn't have got home to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"But we shan't now&mdash;if we keep on this way," laughed Betty uneasily, her
+troubled eyes on her mother's face. "We're going in quite the opposite
+direction from home."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, dear, so we are! We must have turned the wrong way when we came
+out from the store."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we&mdash;did," agreed Betty. Her words were light&mdash;but the troubled
+look had not left her eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING</h3>
+
+<p>It was on a gray morning early in February that Betty found her employer
+pacing the library from end to end like the proverbial caged lion. When
+he turned and spoke, she was startled at the look on his face&mdash;a worn,
+haggard look that told of sleeplessness&mdash;and of something else that she
+could not name.</p>
+
+<p>He ignored her conventional morning greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Darling, I want to speak to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come here to live&mdash;as my daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will I&mdash;what?" The amazement in Betty's face was obviously genuine.</p>
+
+<p>"You are surprised, of course; and no wonder. I didn't exactly what you
+call 'break it gently,' did I? And I forgot that you haven't been
+thinking of this thing every minute for the last&mdash;er&mdash;month, as I have.
+Won't you sit down, please." With an abrupt gesture he motioned her to a
+chair, and dropped into one himself. "I can't, of course, beat about the
+bush now. I want you to come here to this house and be a daughter to me.
+Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, <i>Mr. Denby</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"'This is so sudden!' Yes, I know," smiled the man grimly. "That's what
+your face says, and no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> wonder. It may seem sudden to you&mdash;but it is not
+at all so to me. Believe me, I have given it a great deal of thought. I
+have debated it&mdash;longer than you can guess. And let me tell you at once
+that of course I want your mother to come, too. That will set your mind
+at rest on that point."</p>
+
+<p>"But I&mdash;I don't think yet that I&mdash;I quite understand," faltered the
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>"In what way?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand yet why&mdash;why you want me. You see, I&mdash;I have thought
+lately that&mdash;that you positively disliked me, Mr. Denby." Her chin came
+up with the little determined lift so like her mother.</p>
+
+<p>With a jerk Burke Denby got to his feet and resumed his nervous stride
+up and down the room.</p>
+
+<p>"My child,"&mdash;he turned squarely about and faced her,&mdash;"I want you. I
+need you. This house has become nothing but a dreary old pile of horror
+to me. You, by some sweet necromancy of your own, have contrived to make
+the sun shine into its windows. It's the first time for years that there
+has been any sun&mdash;for me. But when you go, the sun goes. That's why I
+want you here all the time. Will you come? Of course, you understand I
+mean adoption&mdash;legally. But I don't want to dwell on that part. I want
+you to <i>want</i> to come. I want you to be happy here. Won't you come?"</p>
+
+<p>Betty drew in her breath tremulously. For a long minute her gaze
+searched the man's face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, Miss Betty?" There was a confident smile in his eyes. He had the
+air of a man who has made a certain somewhat dreaded move, but who has
+no doubt as to the outcome.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I&mdash;can't, Mr. Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;<i>can't</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Betty, in spite of her very real and serious concern and anxiety, almost
+laughed at the absolute amazement on the man's face.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mr. Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask why?" There was the chill of ice in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>Again Betty felt the almost hysterical desire to laugh. Still her face
+was very grave.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash; I&mdash; In the end you would not want me, Mr. Denby," she faltered,
+"because I&mdash;I should not be&mdash;happy here."</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask why&mdash;<i>that</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Darling, why wouldn't you be happy here?"</p>
+
+<p>Genuine distress came into Betty's face.</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather not say, Mr. Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"But I prefer that you should."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't. You would think me&mdash;impertinent."</p>
+
+<p>"Not if I tell you to say it, Miss Betty. Why can't you be happy here?
+You know very well that you would have everything that money could buy."</p>
+
+<p>"But what I want is something&mdash;money can't buy."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>No reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Darling, what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden fierce recklessness the girl turned and faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean <i>that</i>&mdash;just that&mdash;what you did now, and a minute ago. The way
+you have of&mdash;of expecting everybody and everything to bend to your will
+and wishes. Oh, I know, it's silly and horrible and everything for me to
+say this. But you <i>made</i> me do it. I told you it was impertinent! Don't
+you see? I'd have to have love and laughter and sympathy and interest
+and&mdash;and all that around me. I <i>couldn't</i> be happy here. This house is
+like a tomb, and you&mdash;sometimes you are jolly and kind and&mdash;and <i>fine</i>.
+But I never know <i>how</i> you're going to be. And I'd die if I had to worry
+and fret and fear all the time how you <i>were</i> going to be! Mr. Denby,
+I&mdash;I couldn't live in such a place, and mother couldn't either. And I&mdash;
+Oh, what have I said? But you made me do it, you made me do it!"</p>
+
+<p>For one long minute there was utter silence in the room. Burke Denby, at
+the library table, sat motionless, his hand shading his eyes. Betty, in
+her chair, wet her lips and swallowed convulsively. Her eyes were
+frightened&mdash;but her chin was high.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he stirred. His hand no longer shaded his face. Betty, to her
+amazement, saw that his lips were smiling, though his eyes, she knew,
+were moist.</p>
+
+<p>"Betty, my dear child, I thought before that I wanted you. I know now
+I've <i>got</i> to have you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Betty, as if the smile were contagious, found her own lips twitching.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that your fearless little tirade was just what I needed, my
+dear. I <i>have</i> expected everything and everybody to bend to my will and
+wishes. I suspect that's what's been the matter, too, all the way up. I
+thought once, long ago, I'd learned my lesson. But it seems I haven't.
+Here I am up to the same old tricks again. Will you come and&mdash;er&mdash;train
+me, Betty? I will promise to be very docile."</p>
+
+<p>Betty did laugh this time&mdash;and the tension snapped. "Train"&mdash;the very
+word with which she had shocked her mother weeks before!</p>
+
+<p>"Seriously, my dear,"&mdash;the man's face was very grave now,&mdash;"I want you
+to talk this thing over with your mother. I am a lonely old man&mdash;yes,
+old, in spite of the fact that I'm barely forty&mdash;I feel sixty! I want
+you, and I need you, and&mdash;notwithstanding your unflattering opinion of
+me, just expressed&mdash;I believe I can make you happy, and your mother,
+too. She shall have every comfort, and you shall have love and laughter
+and sympathy and interest, I promise you. Now, isn't your heart
+softening just a wee bit? <i>Won't</i> you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, I&mdash;appreciate your kindness, Mr. Denby, and"&mdash;Betty
+drew a tremulous breath and looked wistfully into the man's pleading
+eyes&mdash;"it would be lovely for&mdash;mother, wouldn't it? She wouldn't have to
+worry any more, or&mdash;or&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Burke Denby lifted an imperative hand. His face lighted. He sprang to
+his feet and spoke with boyish enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"The very thing! Miss Darling, I want you to go home and bring your
+mother back to luncheon with you. Never mind the work," he went on, as
+he saw her quick glance toward his desk. "I don't want to work. I
+couldn't&mdash;this morning. And I don't want you to. I want to see your
+mother. I want to tell her&mdash;many things&mdash;of myself. I want her to see
+me, and see if she thinks she could give you to me as a daughter, and
+yet not lose you herself, but come here with you to live."</p>
+
+<p>"But I&mdash;I could tell her this to-night," stammered Betty, knowing still
+that, in spite of herself, she was being swept quite off her feet by the
+extraordinary enthusiasm of the eager man before her.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to wait till to-night. I want to see her now.
+Besides,"&mdash;he cocked his head whimsically with the confident air of one
+who knows his point is gained,&mdash;"I want a magazine, and I forgot to ask
+you to get it for me last night. I want the February 'Research.' So
+we'll just let it go that I'm sending you to the station newsstand for
+that. Incidentally, you may come back around by your mother's place and
+bring her with you. There, now surely you won't object to&mdash;to running an
+errand for me!" he finished triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I surely can't object to&mdash;to running an errand for you," laughed
+Betty, as she rose to her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> feet, a pretty color in her face. "And
+I&mdash;I'll try to bring mother."</p>
+
+<p>It was in a tumult of excitement and indecision that Betty hurried down
+the long Denby walk that February morning. What would her mother say?
+How would she take it? Would she consent? Would she consent even to go
+to luncheon&mdash;she who so seldom went anywhere? It was a wonderful
+thing&mdash;this proposal of Mr. Denby's. It meant, of course,&mdash;everything,
+if they accepted it, a complete metamorphosis of their whole lives and
+future. It could not help meaning that. But would they be happy there?
+Could they be happy with a man like Mr. Denby? To be sure, he said he
+would be willing to be&mdash;trained. (Betty's face dimpled into a broad
+smile somewhat to the mystification of the man she chanced to be meeting
+at the moment.) But would he be really kind and lovable like this all
+the time? He had been delightful once before&mdash;for a few days. What
+guaranty had they that he would not again, at the first provocation,
+fall back into his old glum unbearableness?</p>
+
+<p>But what would her mother say? Well, she would soon know. She would get
+the magazine, then hurry home&mdash;and find out.</p>
+
+<p>It was between trains at the station, and the waiting-room was deserted.
+Betty hurriedly told the newsstand woman what she wanted, and tried to
+assume a forbidding aspect that would discourage questions. But the
+woman made no move to get the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> magazine. She did not seem even to have
+heard the request. Instead she leaned over the counter and caught
+Betty's arm in a vise-like grip. Her face was alight with joyous
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am glad to see you! I've been watchin' ev'ry day fur you. What
+did I tell ye? <i>Now</i> I guess you'll say I know when I've seen a face
+before! <i>Now</i> I know who you are. I see you with your mother at Martin's
+grocery last Sat'day night, and I tried ter get to ye, but I lost ye in
+the crowd. I see <i>you</i> first, then I see her, and I knew then in a
+minute who you was, and why I'd thought I'd seen ye somewheres. I
+hadn't&mdash;not since you was a kid, though; but I knew yer mother, an'
+you've got her eyes. You're Helen Denby's daughter. My, but I'm glad ter
+see ye!"</p>
+
+<p>Betty, plainly distressed, had been attempting to pull her arm away from
+the woman's grasp; but at the name a look of relief crossed her face.</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite mistaken, madam," she said coldly. "My mother's name is
+not Helen Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"But I see her myself with my own eyes, child! Of course she's older
+lookin', but I'd swear on my dyin' bed 'twas her. Ain't you Dorothy
+Elizabeth?"</p>
+
+<p>Betty's eyes flew wide open.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;know&mdash;my&mdash;<i>name</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"There! I knew 'twas," triumphed the woman. "An' ter think of you comin'
+back an' workin' fur yer father like this, an'&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My&mdash;<i>what</i>?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was the woman's turn to open wide eyes of amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say you don't know Burke Denby is your father?"</p>
+
+<p>"But he isn't my father! My father is dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who said so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, mother&mdash;that is&mdash;I mean&mdash;she never said&mdash; What do you mean? He
+can't be my father. My mother's name is Helen Darling!" Betty was making
+no effort to get away now. She was, indeed, clutching the woman's arm
+with her free hand.</p>
+
+<p>The woman scowled and stared. Suddenly her face cleared.</p>
+
+<p>"My Jiminy! so that's her game! She's keepin' it from ye, I bet ye," she
+cried excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Keeping it from me! Keeping what from me? What are you talking about?"
+Betty's face had paled. The vague questions and half-formed fears
+regarding her mother's actions for the past few months seemed suddenly
+to be taking horrible shape and definiteness.</p>
+
+<p>"Sakes alive! Do you mean ter say that you don't know that Burke Denby
+is your father, an' that he give your mother the go-by when you was a
+kid, an' she lit out with you an' hain't been heard of since?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, it can't be&mdash;it can't be! My father was good and fine, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Rats! Did she stuff ye ter that, too? I tell ye <i>'tis</i> so. Say, look
+a-here! Wa'n't you down ter Martin's grocery last Sat'day night at nine
+o'clock?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, wa'n't you there with yer mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes." A power entirely outside of herself seemed to force the answers
+from Betty's lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I see ye. You was tergether, talkin' to the big fat man with the
+red nose. I started towards ye, but I lost ye in the crowd."</p>
+
+<p>Betty's face had grown gray-white. She remembered now. That was the
+night her mother had run away from&mdash;something.</p>
+
+<p>"But I knew her," nodded the woman. "I knew she was Helen Denby."</p>
+
+<p>"But maybe you were&mdash;mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"Mistaken? Me? Not much! I don't furgit faces. You ask yer mother if she
+don't remember Mis' Cobb. Didn't I live right on the same floor with her
+fur months? Hain't yer mother ever told ye she lived here long ago?"</p>
+
+<p>Betty nodded dumbly, miserably.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I lived next to her, and I knew the whole thing&mdash;how she got the
+letter tellin' her ter go, an' the money Burke Denby sent her&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Letter! Money! You mean he wrote her to&mdash;go&mdash;away? He <i>paid</i> her?" The
+girl had become suddenly galvanized into blazing anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure! That's what I'm tellin' ye. An' yer mother went. I tried ter stop
+her. I told her ter go straight up ter them Denbys an' demand her
+rights&mdash;an' <i>your</i> rights. But she wouldn't. She hadn't a mite o' spunk.
+Just because he was ashamed of her she&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ashamed of her! <i>Ashamed</i> of my mother!"&mdash;if but Helen Denby could have
+seen the flash in Betty's eyes!</p>
+
+<p>"Sure! She wa'n't so tony, an' her folks wa'n't grand like his, ye know.
+That's why old Denby objected ter the marriage in the first place. But,
+say, didn't you know any of this I'm tellin' ye? Jiminy! but it does
+seem queer ter be tellin' ye yer own family secrets like this&mdash;an' you
+here workin' in his very home, an' not knowin' it, too. If that ain't
+the limit&mdash;like a regular story-book! Now, I ain't never one ter butt in
+where 'tain't none of my affairs, but I've got ter say this. You're a
+Denby, an' ought ter have some spunk; an' if I was you I'd brace right
+up an'&mdash; Here, don't ye want yer magazine? What are ye goin' ter do?"</p>
+
+<p>But the girl was already halfway across the waiting-room.</p>
+
+<p>If Betty's thoughts and emotions had been in a tumult on the way to the
+station, they were in a veritable chaos on the return trip. She did not
+go home. She turned her steps toward the Denby Mansion; and because she
+knew she could not possibly sit still, she walked all the way.</p>
+
+<p>So this was the meaning of it&mdash;the black veil daytimes, the walks only
+at night, the nervous restlessness, the unhappiness. Her mother <i>had</i>
+had something to conceal, something to fear. Poor mother&mdash;dear
+mother&mdash;how she must have suffered!</p>
+
+<p>But why, <i>why</i> had she come back here and put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> her into that man's home?
+And why had she told her always how fine and noble and splendid her
+father was. Fine! Noble! Splendid, indeed! Still, it was like
+mother,&mdash;dear mother,&mdash;always so sweet and gentle, always seeing the
+good in everything and everybody! But why had she put her there&mdash;in that
+man's house? How could she have done it?</p>
+
+<p>And Burke Denby himself&mdash;did he know? Did he suspect that she was his
+daughter? Adopt her, indeed! Was <i>that</i> the way he thought he could pay
+her mother back for all those years? And the grief and the hurt and the
+mortification&mdash;where did they come in? Ashamed of her! <i>Ashamed of her,
+indeed!</i> Why, her little finger was as much finer and nobler and&mdash; But
+just wait till she saw him, that was all!</p>
+
+<p>Like the overwrought, half-beside-herself young hurricane of
+wrathfulness that she was, Betty burst into the library at Denby House a
+few minutes later.</p>
+
+<p>The very sight of her face brought the man to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Betty, what's the matter? Where's your mother? Couldn't she come?
+What is the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come? No, she didn't come. She'll never come&mdash;never!"</p>
+
+<p>Before the blazing wrath in the young eyes the man fell back limply.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Betty, didn't you tell her&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I've told her nothing. I haven't seen her," cut in the girl crisply.
+"But I've seen somebody else. I know now&mdash;everything!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From sheer stupefaction the man laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't we getting a little&mdash;theatrical, my child?" he murmured mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't call me that. I refuse to recognize the relationship," she
+flamed. "Perhaps we are getting theatrical&mdash;that woman said it was like
+a story-book. And perhaps you thought you could wipe it all out by
+adopting me. Adopting me, indeed! As if I'd let you! I can tell you it
+isn't going to <i>end</i> like a story-book, with father and mother and
+daughter&mdash;'and they all lived happily ever after'&mdash;because I won't let
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that?" The man's face had grown suddenly very
+white.</p>
+
+<p>Betty fixed searching, accusing eyes on his countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you trying to make me think you don't know I'm your daughter;
+that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Betty! Are you really, really&mdash;my little Betty?"</p>
+
+<p>At the joyous cry and the eagerly outstretched arms Betty shrank back.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you <i>didn't</i> know&mdash;that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Oh, Betty, Betty, is it true? Then it'll all be right now. Oh,
+Betty, I'm so glad," he choked. "My little girl! Won't you&mdash;come to me?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head and retreated still farther out of his reach. Her
+eyes still blazed angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Betty, dear, hear me! I don't know&mdash; I don't understand. It's all too
+wonderful&mdash;to have it come&mdash;<i>now</i>. Once, for a little minute, the wild<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>
+thought came to me that you might be. But, Betty, you yourself told me
+your father was&mdash;dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"And so he is&mdash;to me," sobbed Betty. "You aren't my father. My father
+was good and true and noble and&mdash;you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And your mother <i>told</i> you that?" breathed the man, brokenly. "Betty,
+I&mdash;I&mdash; Where is she? Is she there&mdash;at home&mdash;now? I want to&mdash;see her!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't let you see her." Betty had blazed again into unreasoning
+wrath. "You don't deserve it. You told her you were ashamed of her.
+<i>Ashamed of her!</i> And she's the best and the loveliest and dearest
+mother in the world! She's as much above and beyond anything you&mdash;you&mdash;
+<i>Why</i> she let me come to you I don't know. I can't think why she did it.
+But now I&mdash;I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Betty, if you'll only let me explain&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But the great hall door had banged shut. Betty had gone.</p>
+
+<p>Betty took a car to her own home. She was too weak and spent to walk.</p>
+
+<p>It was a very white, shaken Betty that climbed the stairs to the little
+apartment a short time later.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Betty, darling!" exclaimed her mother, hurrying forward. "You are
+ill! Are you ill?"</p>
+
+<p>With utter weariness Betty dropped into a chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, why didn't you tell me?" she asked dully, heartbrokenly. "Why
+did you let me come here and go to that house day after day and not
+know&mdash;anything?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why, what&mdash;what do you mean?" All the color had drained from Helen
+Denby's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever know a Mrs. Cobb?"</p>
+
+<p>"That woman! Betty, she hasn't&mdash;has she been&mdash;talking&mdash;to you?"</p>
+
+<p>Betty nodded wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she's been talking to me, and&mdash; Oh, mother, mother, <i>why</i> did you
+come here&mdash;<i>now</i>?" cried Betty, springing to her feet in sudden frenzy
+again. "How could you let me go there? And only to-day&mdash;this morning, he
+told me he wanted to adopt me! And you&mdash;he was going to have us both
+there&mdash;to live. He said he was so lonely, and that I&mdash;I made the sun
+shine for the first time for years. And afterwards, when I found out
+<i>who</i> he was, I thought he meant it as a salve to heal all the
+unhappiness he'd caused you. I thought he was trying to <i>pay</i>; and I
+told him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>told</i> him! You mean you've seen him since&mdash;Mrs. Cobb?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I went back. I told him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Betty, Betty, what are you saying?" moaned her mother. "What have
+you done? You didn't tell him <i>that</i> way!"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I did! I told him I knew&mdash;everything now; and that he needn't
+think he could wipe it out. And he wanted to see you, and I said he
+couldn't. I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>An electric bell pealed sharply through the tiny apartment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mother, that's he! I know it's he! Mother, don't let him in," implored
+Betty. But her mother already was in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>Betty, frightened, despairing, and angry, turned her back and walked to
+the window. She heard the man's quick cry and the woman's sobbing
+answer. She heard the broken, incoherent sentences with which the man
+and the woman attempted to crowd into one brief delirious minute all the
+long years of heartache and absence. She heard the pleading, the
+heart-hunger, the final rapturous bliss that vibrated through every tone
+and word. But she did not turn. She did not turn even when some minutes
+later her father's voice, low, unsteady, but infinitely tender, reached
+her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Betty, your mother has forgiven me. Can't&mdash;you?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Betty, dear, he means&mdash;we've forgiven each other, and&mdash;if <i>I</i> am happy,
+can't you be?" begged Betty's mother, tremulously.</p>
+
+<p>Still no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Betty," began the woman again pleadingly.</p>
+
+<p>But the man interposed, a little sadly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Don't urge her, Helen. After all, I deserve everything she can say, or
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"But she doesn't understand," faltered Helen.</p>
+
+<p>The man shook his head. A wistful smile was on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"No, she doesn't&mdash;understand," he said. "It's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> a long road
+to&mdash;understanding, dear. You and I have found it so."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know." Helen's voice was very low.</p>
+
+<p>"And there are sticks and stones and numberless twigs to trip one's
+feet," went on the man softly. "And there are valleys of despair and
+mountains of doubt to be encountered&mdash;and Betty has come only a little
+bit of the way. Betty is young."</p>
+
+<p>"But"&mdash;it was Helen's tremulous voice&mdash;"it's on the mountain-tops
+that&mdash;that we ought to be able to see the end of the journey, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but there are all those guideboards, remember," said the man, "and
+Betty hasn't come to the guideboards yet&mdash;regret&mdash;remorse&mdash;forgiveness&mdash;patience, and&mdash;atonement."</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden movement at the window. Then Betty, misty-eyed, stood
+before them.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I am&mdash;on the mountain of doubt now, but"&mdash;she paused, her gaze
+going from one to the other of the wondrously glorified faces before
+her&mdash;"I'll try so hard to see&mdash;the end of the journey," she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Betty!" sobbed two adoring voices, as loving arms enfolded her.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Road to Understanding, by Eleanor H.
+Porter, Illustrated by Mary Greene Blumenschein
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Road to Understanding
+
+
+Author: Eleanor H. Porter
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2011  [eBook #35093]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Annie McGuire from scanned images of public domain
+material generously made available by the Google Books Library Project
+(http://books.google.com/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file
+      which includes the original illustrations in color.
+      See 35093-h.htm or 35093-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35093/35093-h/35093-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35093/35093-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      the the Google Books Library Project. See
+      http://books.google.com/books?vid=mtceAAAAMAAJ&id
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING
+
+
+[Illustration: AT SIGHT OF HER THE DOCTOR LEAPED FORWARD WITH A LOW CRY
+(p. 174)]
+
+
+THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING
+
+by
+
+ELEANOR H. PORTER
+
+Author of "Just David"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Boston and New York
+Houghton Mifflin Company
+1917
+
+Copyright, 1917, by Eleanor H. Porter
+
+
+
+
+TO
+MY FRIEND
+_Miss Grace Wheeler_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+      I. FROSTED CAKES AND SHOTGUNS                                    1
+     II. AN ONLY SON                                                  24
+    III. HONEYMOON DAYS                                               33
+     IV. NEST-BUILDING                                                43
+      V. THE WIPE                                                     61
+     VI. THE HUSBAND                                                  75
+    VII. STUMBLING-BLOCKS                                             82
+   VIII. DIVERGING WAYS                                              104
+     IX. A BOTTLE OF INK                                             125
+      X. BY ADVICE OF COUNSEL                                        155
+     XI. IN QUEST OF THE STARS                                       172
+    XII. THE TRAIL OF THE INK                                        182
+   XIII. A WOMAN'S WON'T                                             199
+    XIV. AN UNDERSTUDY                                               210
+     XV. A WOMAN'S WILL                                              225
+    XVI. EMERGENCIES                                                 241
+   XVII. PINK TEAS TO FLIGHTY BLONDES                                258
+  XVIII. A LITTLE BUNCH OF DIARIES                                   265
+    XIX. THE STAGE IS SET                                            284
+     XX. THE CURTAIN RISES                                           293
+    XXI. THE PLAY BEGINS                                             302
+   XXII. ACTOR AND AUDIENCE                                          314
+  XXIII. "THE PLOT THICKENS"                                         330
+   XXIV. COUNTER-PLOTS                                               339
+    XXV. ENIGMAS                                                     348
+   XXVI. THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING                                   357
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  AT SIGHT OF HER THE DOCTOR LEAPED FORWARD WITH A LOW
+      CRY (p. 174)                                        _Frontispiece_
+  HE WAS LOOKING AT HER LOVELY, GLORIFIED FACE                         6
+  JOHN DENBY WENT STRAIGHT TO HIS SON AND LAID BOTH HANDS ON HIS
+       SHOULDERS                                                     150
+  "SO I RANG THE BELL"                                               310
+
+_From drawings by Mary Greene Blumenschein_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FROSTED CAKES AND SHOTGUNS
+
+
+If Burke Denby had not been given all the frosted cakes and toy shotguns
+he wanted at the age of ten, it might not have been so difficult to
+convince him at the age of twenty that he did not want to marry Helen
+Barnet.
+
+Mabel, the beautiful and adored wife of John Denby, had died when Burke
+was four years old; and since that time, life, for Burke, had been
+victory unseasoned with defeat. A succession of "anything-for-peace"
+rulers of the nursery, and a father who could not bring himself to be
+the cause of the slightest shadow on the face of one who was the
+breathing image of his lost wife, had all contributed to these
+victories.
+
+Nor had even school-days brought the usual wholesome discipline and
+democratic leveling; for a pocketful of money and a naturally generous
+disposition made a combination not to be lightly overlooked by boys and
+girls ever alert for "fun"; and an influential father and the scarcity
+of desirable positions made another combination not to be lightly
+overlooked by impecunious teachers anxious to hold their "jobs." It was
+easy to ignore minor faults, especially as the lad had really a
+brilliant mind, and (when not crossed) a most amiable disposition.
+
+Between the boy and his father all during the years of childhood and
+youth, the relationship was very beautiful--so beautiful that the entire
+town saw it and expressed its approval: in public by nods and admiring
+adjectives; in private by frequent admonitions to wayward sons and
+thoughtless fathers to follow the pattern so gloriously set for them.
+
+Of all this John Denby saw nothing; nor would he have given it a thought
+if he had seen it. John Denby gave little thought to anything, after his
+wife died, except to business and his boy, Burke. Business, under his
+skillful management and carefully selected assistants, soon almost ran
+itself. There was left then only the boy, Burke.
+
+From the first they were comrades, even when comradeship meant the
+poring over a Mother Goose story-book, or mastering the intricacies of a
+game of tiddledywinks. Later, together, they explored the world of
+music, literature, science, and art, spending the long summer playtimes,
+still together, traveling in both well-known and little-known lands.
+
+Toward everything fine and beautiful and luxurious the boy turned as a
+flower turns toward the light, which pleased the man greatly. And as the
+boy had but to express a wish to have it instantly find an echo in his
+father's heart, it is not strange, perhaps, that John Denby did not
+realize that, notwithstanding all his "training," self-control and
+self-sacrifice were unknown words to his son.
+
+One word always, however, was held before the boy from the very
+first--mother; yet it was not as a word, either, but as a living
+presence. Always he was taught that she was with them, a bright,
+beauteous, gracious being, loving, tender, perfect. Whatever they saw
+was seen through her eyes. Whatever they did was done as with her.
+Stories of her beauty, charm, and goodness filled many an hour of
+intimate talk. She was the one flawless woman born into the world--so
+said Burke's father to his son.
+
+Burke was nearly twenty-one, and half through college, when he saw Helen
+Barnet. She was sitting in the big west window in the library, with the
+afternoon sun turning her wonderful hair to gold. In her arms she held a
+sleeping two-year-old boy. With the marvelous light on her face, and the
+crimson velvet draperies behind her, she looked not unlike a pictured
+Madonna. It was not, indeed, until a very lifelike red swept to the
+roots of the girl's hair that the young man, staring at her from the
+doorway, realized that she was not, in truth, a masterpiece on an
+old-time wall, but a very much alive, very much embarrassed young woman
+in his father's library.
+
+With a blush that rivaled hers, and an incoherent apology, he backed
+hastily from the room. He went then in search of his father. He had
+returned from college an hour before to find his father's youngest
+sister, Eunice, and her family, guests in the house. But this
+stranger--this bewilderingly beautiful girl--
+
+In the upper hall he came face to face with his father.
+
+"Dad, who in Heaven's name is she?" he demanded without preamble.
+
+"_She?_"
+
+"That exquisitely beautiful girl in the library. Who is she?"
+
+"In the library? Girl? Nonsense! You're dreaming, Burke. There's no one
+here but your aunt."
+
+"But I just came from there. I saw her. She held a child in her arms."
+
+"Ho!" John Denby gave a gesture as if tossing a trivial something aside.
+"You're dreaming again, Burke. The nursemaid, probably. Your aunt
+brought one with her. But, see here, son. I was looking for you. Come
+into my room. I wanted to know--" And he plunged into a subject far
+removed from nursemaids and their charges.
+
+Burke, however, was not to be so lightly diverted. True, he remained for
+ten minutes at his father's side, and he listened dutifully to what his
+father said; but the day was not an hour older before he had sought and
+found the girl he had seen in the library.
+
+She was not in the library now. She was on the wide veranda, swinging
+the cherubic boy in the hammock. To Burke she looked even more
+bewitching than she had before. As a pictured saint, hung about with
+the aloofness of the intangible and the unreal, she had been beautiful
+and alluring enough; but now, as a breathing, moving creature treading
+his own familiar veranda and touching with her white hands his own
+common hammock, she was bewilderingly enthralling.
+
+Combating again an almost overwhelming desire to stand in awed worship,
+he advanced hastily, speaking with a diffidence and an incoherence
+utterly foreign to his usual blithe boyishness.
+
+"Oh, I hope--I didn't, did I? _Did_ I wake--the baby up?"
+
+With a start the girl turned, her blue eyes wide.
+
+"_You?_ Oh, in the library--"
+
+"Yes; an hour ago. I do hope I didn't--wake him up!"
+
+Before the ardent admiration in the young man's eyes, the girl's fell.
+
+"Oh, no, sir. He just--woke himself."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad! And--and I want you to forgive me for--for staring at
+you so rudely. You see, I was so surprised to--to see you there
+like--like a picture, and-- You will forgive me--er-- I don't know your
+name."
+
+"Barnet--Helen Barnet." She blushed prettily; then she laughed, throwing
+him a mischievous glance. "Oh, yes, I'll forgive you; but--I don't know
+your name, either."
+
+"Thank you. I knew you'd--understand. I'm Denby--Burke Denby."
+
+"Mr. Denby's son?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh-h!"
+
+At the admiration in her eyes and voice he unconsciously straightened
+himself.
+
+"And do you live--here?" breathed the girl.
+
+To hide the inexplicable emotion that seemed suddenly to be swelling
+within him, the young man laughed lightly.
+
+"Of course--when I'm not away!" His eyes challenged her, and she met the
+sally with a gurgle of laughter.
+
+"Oh, I meant--when you're not away," she bridled.
+
+He watched the wild-rose color sweep to her temples--and stepped nearer.
+
+"But you haven't told me a thing of yourself--yet," he complained.
+
+She sighed--and at the sigh an unreasoning wrath against an unknown
+something rose within him.
+
+"There's nothing to tell," she murmured. "I'm just here--a nurse to
+Master Paul and his brother." Denby's wrath became reasoning and
+definite. It was directed against the world in general, and his aunt in
+particular, that they should permit for one instant this glorious
+creature to sacrifice her charm and sweetness on the altar of menial
+services to a couple of unappreciative infants.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry!" he breathed, plainly aglow at the intimate
+nearness of this heart-to-heart talk. "But I'm glad--you're _here_!"
+
+Once more, before he turned reluctantly away, he gazed straight into her
+blue eyes--and the game was on.
+
+It was a pretty game. The young man was hard hit, and it was his first
+wound from Cupid's dart. Heretofore in his curriculum girls had not been
+included; and the closeness of his association with his father had not
+been conducive to incipient love affairs. Perhaps, for these reasons, he
+was all the more ardent a wooer. Certainly an ardent wooer he was. There
+was no gainsaying that--though the boy himself, at first, did not
+recognize it as wooing at all.
+
+It began with pity.
+
+He was so sorry for her--doomed to slave all day for those two rascally
+small boys. He could not keep her out of his mind. As he tramped the
+hills the next morning the very blue of the sky and the softness of the
+air against his cheek became a pain to him--_she_ was tied to a stuffy
+nursery. His own freedom of will and movement became a source of actual
+vexation--_she_ was bound to a "do this" and a "do that" all day. He
+wondered then, suddenly, if he could not in some way help. He sought her
+as soon as possible.
+
+"Come, I want you to go to walk with me. I want to show you the view
+from Pike's Hill," he urged.
+
+"Me? To walk? Why, Mr. Denby, I can't!"
+
+Again the wild-rose flush came and went--and again Burke Denby stepped
+nearer.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, I couldn't leave the children; besides--it's Master Paul's nap
+hour."
+
+"What a pity--when it's so beautiful out! To-morrow, then, in the
+morning?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I couldn't, Mr. Denby."
+
+"The afternoon, then?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is it because you don't _want_ to?"
+
+"_Want to!_"
+
+At the look of longing that leaped to her face, the thwarted youth felt
+again the fierce wrath he had known the first day of their meeting.
+
+"Then, by Jove, you shall!" he vowed. "Don't they ever give you any time
+to yourself?"
+
+She dimpled into shy laughter.
+
+"I shall have a few hours Thursday--after three."
+
+"Good! I'll remember. We'll go then."
+
+And they went.
+
+To Burke Denby it was a wonderful and a brand-new experience. Never had
+the sky been so blue, the air so soft, the woods so enchantingly
+beautiful. And he was so glad that they were thus--for her. She was
+enjoying it so much, and he was so glad that he could give this
+happiness to her! Enthusiastically he pointed out here a bird and there
+a flower; carefully he helped her over every stick and stone;
+determinedly he set himself to making her forget her dreary daily tasks.
+And when she lifted her wondering eyes to his face, or placed her
+half-reluctant fingers in his extended hand, how he thrilled and tingled
+through his whole being--he had not supposed that unselfish service to a
+fellow-being could bring to one such a warm sense of gratification.
+
+At the top of the hill they sat down to rest, before them the wonderful
+panorama of grandeur--the green valley, the silvery river, the
+far-reaching mauve and purple mountains.
+
+"My, isn't this real pretty!" exclaimed the girl.
+
+[Illustration: HE WAS LOOKING AT HER LOVELY, GLORIFIED FACE]
+
+The young man scarcely heard the words, else he would have frowned
+unconsciously at the "real pretty." He was looking at her lovely,
+glorified face.
+
+"I thought you'd like it," he breathed.
+
+"Oh, I do."
+
+"I know another just as fine. We'll go there next."
+
+A shadow like a cloud crossed her face.
+
+"But I have so little time!"
+
+The cloud leaped to his face now and became thunderous.
+
+"Shucks! I forgot. What a nuisance! Oh, I say, you know, I don't think
+you ought to be doing--such work. Do you--forgive me, but do you
+really--have to?"
+
+"Yes, I have to."
+
+She had turned her face half away, but he thought he could see tears in
+her eyes.
+
+"Are you--all alone, then? Haven't you any--people?" His voice had grown
+very tender.
+
+"No--no one. Father died, then mother. There was no one else--to care;
+and no--money."
+
+"Oh, I'm so--so sorry!"
+
+He spoke awkwardly, with obvious restraint. He wanted suddenly to take
+her in his arms--to soothe and comfort her as one would a child. But she
+was not a child, and it would not do, of course. But she looked so
+forlorn, so appealing, so sweet, so absolutely dear--
+
+He got abruptly to his feet.
+
+"Come, come, this will never do!" he exclaimed blithely. "Here I
+am--making you talk of your work and your troubles, when I took you up
+here with the express intention of making you forget them. Suppose we go
+through this little path here. There's a dandy spring of cold water
+farther on. And--and forgive me, please. I won't make you--talk any
+more."
+
+And he would not, indeed, he vowed to himself. She was no child. She was
+a young woman grown, and a very beautiful one, at that. He could not
+console her with a kiss and a caress, and a bonbon, of course. But he
+could give her a bit of playtime, now and then--and he would, too. He
+would see to it that, for the rest of her stay under his father's roof,
+she should not want for the companionship of some one who--who "cared."
+He would be her kind and thoughtful good friend. Indeed, he would!
+
+Burke Denby began the very next morning to be a friend to Miss Barnet.
+Accepting as irrevocable the fact that she could not be separated from
+her work, he made no plans that did not include Masters Paul and Percy
+Allen.
+
+"I'm going to take your sons for a drive this morning, if you don't
+mind," he said briskly to his aunt at the breakfast table.
+
+"Mind? Of course I don't, you dear boy," answered the pleased mother,
+fondly. "_You're_ the one that will mind--as you'll discover, I fear,
+when you find yourself with a couple of mischievous small boys on your
+hands!"
+
+"I'm not worrying," laughed the youth. "I shall take Miss Barnet along,
+too."
+
+"Oh--Helen? That's all right, then. You'll do nicely with her," smiled
+Mrs. Allen, as she rose from the table. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go
+and see that the boys are made ready for their treat."
+
+Burke Denby took the boys for a drive almost every day after that. He
+discovered that Miss Barnet greatly enjoyed driving. There were picnics,
+too, in the cool green of the woods, on two or three fine days. Miss
+Barnet also liked picnics. Still pursuant of his plan to give the
+forlorn little nursemaid "one good time in her life," Burke Denby
+contrived to be with her not a little in between drives and picnics.
+Ostensibly he was putting up swings, building toy houses, playing ball
+with Masters Paul and Percy Allen; but in reality he was trying to put a
+little "interest" into Miss Helen Barnet's daily task. He was so sorry
+for her! It was such a shame that so gloriously beautiful a girl should
+be doomed to a slavery like that! He was so glad that for a time he
+might bring some brightness into her life!
+
+"And do you see how perfectly devoted Burke is to Paul and Percy?" cried
+Mrs. Allen, one day, to her brother. "I had no idea the dear boy was so
+fond of children!"
+
+"Hm-m. Is he really, indeed," murmured John Denby. "No, I had not
+noticed."
+
+John Denby spoke vaguely, yet with a shade of irritation. Fond as he was
+of his sister and of his small nephews, he was finding it difficult to
+accustom himself to the revolutionary changes in his daily routine that
+their presence made necessary. He was learning to absent himself more
+and more from the house.
+
+For a week, therefore, unchallenged, and cheerfully intent on his
+benevolent mission, Burke Denby continued his drives and picnics and
+ball-playing with Masters Paul and Percy Allen; then, very suddenly,
+four little words from the lips of Helen Barnet changed for him the
+earth and the sky above.
+
+"When I go away--" she began.
+
+"When you--_go--away_!" he interrupted.
+
+"Yes. Why, Mr. Denby, what makes you look so--queer?"
+
+"Nothing. I was thinking--that is, I had forgotten--I--" He rose to his
+feet abruptly, and crossed the room. At the window, for a full minute,
+he stood motionless, looking out at the falling rain. When he turned
+back into the room there was a new expression on his face. With a quick
+glance at the children playing on the rug before the fireplace, he
+crossed straight to the plainly surprised young woman and dropped
+himself in a chair at her side.
+
+"Helen Barnet, will you--marry me?" he asked softly.
+
+"_Mr. Denby!_"
+
+With a boyish laugh Burke Denby drew his chair nearer. His face was
+alight with the confident happiness of one who has never known rebuff.
+
+"You are surprised--and so was I, a minute ago. You see, it came to me
+all in a flash--what it would be to live--without you." His voice grew
+tender. "Helen, you will stay, and be my wife?"
+
+"Oh, no, no--I mustn't, I can't! Why, of course I can't, Mr. Denby,"
+fluttered the girl, in a panic of startled embarrassment. "I'm sure
+you--you don't want me to."
+
+"But I do. Listen!" He threw another quick glance at the absorbed
+children as he reached out and took possession of her hand. "It all came
+to me, back there at the window--the dreariness, the emptiness
+of--everything, without _you_. And I saw then what you've been to me
+every day this past week. How I've watched for you and waited for you,
+and how everything I did and said and had was just--something for you.
+And I knew then that I--I loved you. You see, I--I never loved any one
+before,"--the boyish red swept to his forehead as he laughed
+whimsically,--"and so I--I didn't recognize the symptoms!" With the
+lightness of his words he was plainly trying to hide the shake in his
+voice. "Helen, you--will?"
+
+"Oh, but I--I--!" Her eyes were frightened and pleading.
+
+"Don't you _care_ at all?"
+
+She turned her head away.
+
+"If you don't, then won't you let me _make_ you care?" he begged. "You
+said you had no one now to care--at all; and I care so much! Won't you
+let--"
+
+Somewhere a door shut.
+
+With a low cry Helen Barnet pulled away her hand and sprang to her feet.
+She was down on the rug with the children, very flushed of face, when
+Mrs. Allen appeared in the library doorway.
+
+"Oh, here you are!" Mrs. Allen frowned and spoke a bit impatiently.
+"I've been hunting everywhere for you. I supposed you were in the
+nursery. Won't you put the boys into fresh suits? I have friends calling
+soon, and I want the children brought to the drawing-room when I ring,
+and left till I call you again."
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+With a still more painful flush on her face Helen Barnet swept the
+blocks into her apron, rose to her feet, and hurried the children from
+the room. She did not once glance at the young man standing by the
+window.
+
+Mrs. Allen tossed her nephew a smile and a shrug which might have been
+translated into "You see what we have to endure--so tiresome!" as she,
+too, disappeared.
+
+Burke Denby did not smile. He did frown, however. He felt vaguely
+irritated and abused. He wished his aunt would not be so "bossy" and
+disagreeable. He wished Helen would not act so cringingly submissive. As
+if she-- But then, it would be different right away, of course, as soon
+as he had made known the fact that she was to be his wife. Everything
+would be different. For that matter, Helen herself would be different.
+Not only would she hold her head erect and take her proper place, but
+she would not--well, there were various little ways and expressions
+which she would drop, of course. And how beautiful she was! How sweet!
+How dear! And how she had suffered in her loneliness! How he would love
+to make for her a future all gloriously happy and tender with his
+strong, encircling arms!
+
+It was a pleasant picture. Burke Denby's heart quite swelled within him
+as he turned to leave the room.
+
+Upstairs, the girl, the cause of it all, hurried with palpitating
+nervousness through the task of clothing two active little bodies in
+fresh garments. That her thoughts were not with her fingers was evident;
+but not until the summoning bell from the drawing-room gave her a few
+minutes' respite from duty did she have an opportunity really to think.
+Even then she could not think lucidly or connectedly. Always before her
+eyes was Burke Denby's face, ardent, pleading, confident. And he
+expected-- Before she saw him again she must be ready, she knew, with
+her answer. But how _could_ she answer?
+
+Helen Barnet was lonely, heartsick, and frightened--a combination that
+could hardly aid in the making of a wise, unprejudiced decision,
+especially when one was very much in love. And Helen Barnet knew that
+she was that.
+
+Less than two years before, Helen Barnet had been the petted daughter of
+a village storekeeper in a small Vermont town. Then, like the proverbial
+thunderbolt, had come death and financial disaster, throwing her on her
+own resources. And not until she had attempted to utilize those
+resources for her support, had she found how frail they were.
+
+Though the Barnets had not been wealthy, the village store had been
+profitable; and Helen (the only child) had been almost as greatly
+overindulged as was Burke Denby himself. Being a very pretty girl, she
+had become the village belle before she donned long dresses. Having been
+shielded from work and responsibility, and always carefully guarded from
+everything unpleasant, she was poorly equipped for a struggle of any
+sort, even aside from the fact that there was, apparently, nothing that
+she could do well enough to be paid for doing it. In the past twenty
+months she had obtained six positions--and had abandoned five of them:
+two because of incompetency, two because of lack of necessary strength,
+one because her beauty was plainly making the situation intolerable. For
+three months now she had been nurse to Masters Paul and Percy Allen. She
+liked Mrs. Allen, and she liked the children. But the care, the
+confinement, the never-ending task of dancing attendance upon the whims
+and tempers of two active little boys, was proving to be not a little
+irksome to young blood unused to the restraints of self-sacrifice. Then,
+suddenly, there had come the visit to the Denby homestead, and the
+advent into her life of Burke Denby; and now here, quite within her
+reach, if she could believe her eyes and ears, was this dazzling,
+unbelievable thing--Burke Denby's love.
+
+Helen Barnet knew all about love. Had she not lisped its praises in odes
+to the moon in her high-school days? It had to do with flowers and music
+and angels. On the old porch back home--what was it that long-haired boy
+used to read to her? Oh, Tennyson. That was it.
+
+And now it had come to _her_--love. Not that it was exactly unexpected:
+she had been waiting for her lover since she had put up her hair, of
+course. But to have him come like this--and such a lover! So rich--and
+he was such a grand, handsome young man, too! And she loved him. She
+loved him dearly. If only she dared say "yes"! No more poverty, no more
+loneliness, no more slaving at the beck and call of some hated employer.
+Oh, if she only dared!
+
+For one delirious moment Helen Barnet almost thought she did--dare.
+Then, bitterly, the thought of his position--and hers--rolled in upon
+her. Whatever else the last two wretched years had done for her, it had
+left her no illusions. She had no doubts as to her reception, as Burke
+Denby's wife, at the hands of Burke Denby's friends and relatives. And
+again, whatever the last two years had done for her, they had not robbed
+her of her pride. And the Barnets, away back in the little Vermont town,
+had been very proud. To Helen Barnet now, therefore, the picture of
+herself as Burke Denby's wife, flouted and frowned upon by Burke Denby's
+friends, was intolerable. Frightened and heartsick, she determined to
+beat a hasty retreat. It simply could not be. That was all. Very likely,
+anyway, Burke Denby had not been more than half in earnest himself.
+
+The bell rang then again from the drawing-room, and Helen went down to
+get the children. In the hall she met Burke Denby; but she only shook
+her head in answer to his low "Helen, when may I see you?" and hurried
+by without a word, her face averted.
+
+Three times again within the next twenty-four hours she pursued the same
+tactics, only to be brought up sharply at last against a peremptory
+"Helen, you shall let me talk to you a minute! Why do you persist in
+hiding behind those two rascally infants all the time, when you know
+that you have only to say the word, and you are as free as the air?"
+
+"But I must--that is--I can't say the word, Mr. Denby. Truly I can't!"
+
+His face fell a little.
+
+"What do you mean? You can't mean--you _can't_ mean--you won't--marry
+me?"
+
+She threw a hurried look about her. He had drawn her into the curtained
+bay window of the upper hallway, as she was passing on to the nursery.
+
+"Yes, I mean--that," she panted, trying to release her arm from his
+clasp.
+
+"Helen! Do you mean you don't _care_?" he demanded passionately.
+
+"Yes, yes--that's what I mean." She pulled again at her arm.
+
+"Helen, look at me. You can't look me straight in the eye and say you
+don't--_care_!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I can. I--I--" The telltale color flooded her face. With a
+choking little breath she turned her head quite away.
+
+"You do--you do! And you shall marry me!" breathed the youth, his lips
+almost brushing the soft hair against her ear.
+
+"No, no, Mr. Denby, I can't--I--_can't_!" With a supreme effort she
+wrenched herself free and fled down the hall.
+
+If Helen Barnet thought this settled the matter, she ill-judged the
+nature of the man with whom she had to deal. Unlimited frosted
+cakes and shotguns had not taught Burke Denby to accept no for an
+answer--especially for an answer to something he had so set his heart
+upon as he had this winning of Helen Barnet for his wife.
+
+Burke Denby did not know anything about love. He had never sung odes to
+the moon, or read Tennyson to pretty girls on secluded verandas. He had
+not been looking for love to meet him around the bend of the next
+street. Love had come now as an Event, capitalized. Love was Life, and
+Life was Heaven--if it might be passed with Helen Barnet at his side.
+Without her it would be-- But Burke ignored the alternative. It was not
+worth considering, anyway, for of course she would be at his side.
+
+She loved him; he was sure of that. This fancied obstacle in the way
+that loomed so large in her eyes, he did not fear in the least. He
+really rather liked it. It added zest and excitement, and would make his
+final triumph all the more heart-warming and satisfying. He had only to
+convince Helen, of course, and the mere convincing would not be without
+its joy and compensation.
+
+It was with really pleasurable excitement, therefore, that Burke Denby
+laid his plans and carried them to the triumphant finish of a carefully
+arranged tete-a-tete in the library, when he knew that they would have
+at least half an hour to themselves.
+
+"There, I've got you now, you little wild thing!" he cried, closing the
+library door, and standing determinedly with his back to it, as she made
+a frightened move to go, at finding herself alone with him.
+
+"But, Mr. Denby, I can't. I really must go," she palpitated.
+
+"No, you can't go. I've had altogether too much trouble getting you
+here, and getting those blessed youngsters safely away with their mamma
+for a bit of a drive with my dad."
+
+"Then you _planned_ this?"
+
+"I did." He was regarding her with half-quizzical, wholly fond eyes.
+"And I had you summoned to the library--but I was careful not to say who
+wanted you. Oh, Helen, Helen, how can you seek to avoid me like this,
+when you know how I love you!" There was only tenderness now in his
+voice and manner. He had taken both her hands in his.
+
+"But you mustn't love me."
+
+"Not love--my wife?"
+
+"I'm not your wife."
+
+"You're going to be, dear."
+
+"I can't. I told you I couldn't, Mr. Denby."
+
+"My name is 'Burke,' my love."
+
+His voice was whimsically light again. Very plainly Mr. Burke Denby was
+not appreciating the seriousness of the occasion.
+
+She flushed and bit her lip.
+
+"I think it's real mean of you to--to make it so hard for me!" she half
+sobbed.
+
+With sudden passion he caught her in his arms.
+
+"Hard? _Hard?_ Then if it's hard, it means you _do_ love me. As if I'd
+give you up now! Helen, why do you torture me like this? Dearest, _when_
+will you marry me?"
+
+She struggled feebly in his arms.
+
+"I told you; never."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Helen, why not?" He loosened his clasp and held her off at arms'
+length.
+
+"Because."
+
+"Because what?"
+
+No answer again.
+
+"You aren't--promised to any one else?" For the first time a shadow of
+uneasy doubt crossed his face.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"Then what is it?"
+
+Her eyes, frightened and pleading, searched his face. There was a tense
+moment of indecision. Then in a tragic burst it came.
+
+"Maybe you think I'd--marry you, and be your wife, and have all your
+folks look down on me!"
+
+"Look _down_ on you?"
+
+"Yes, because I'm not so swell and grand as they are. I'm only--"
+
+With a quick cry he caught her to himself again, and laid a reproving
+finger on her lips.
+
+"Hush! Don't you let me hear you say that again--those horrid words! You
+are you, _yourself_, the dearest, sweetest little woman that was ever
+made, and I love you, and I'm going to marry you. Look down on you,
+indeed! I'd like to see them try it!"
+
+"But they will. I'm only a nurse-girl."
+
+"Hush!" He almost shook her in his wrath. "I tell you, you are
+_you_--and that's all I want to know. And that's all anybody will want
+to know. I'm not in love with your ancestors, or with your relatives, or
+your friends. I don't love you because you are, or are not, a
+nurse-girl, or a school-teacher, or a butterfly of fashion. I even don't
+love you because your eyes are blue, or because your wonderful hair is
+like the softest of spun gold. It's just because you are you,
+sweetheart; and you, _just you_, are the whole wide world to me!"
+
+"But--your father?"
+
+"He will love you because I love you. Dad is my good chum--he's always
+been that. What I love, he'll love. You'll see."
+
+"Do you think he really will?" A dawning hope was coming into her eyes.
+
+"I'm sure he will. Why, dad is the other half of myself. Always, all the
+way up, dad has been like that. And everything I've wanted, he's always
+let me have."
+
+She drew a tremulous breath of surrender.
+
+"Well, of course, if I thought you all _wanted_ me--"
+
+"_Want you!_" With his impulsive lips on hers she had her answer, and
+there Burke Denby found his.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+AN ONLY SON
+
+
+Proud, and blissfully happy in his victory, Burke went to his father;
+and to his father (so far as the latter himself was concerned) he
+carried a bombshell.
+
+For two reasons John Denby had failed to see what was taking place in
+his own home. First, because it would never have occurred to him that
+his son could fall in love with a nursemaid; secondly, because he had
+systematically absented himself from the house during the most of his
+sister's visit, preferring to take his sister away with him for drives
+and walks rather than to stay in the noisy confusion of toys and babies
+that his home had become. Because of all this, therefore, he was totally
+unprepared for what his son was bringing to him.
+
+He welcomed the young man with affectionate heartiness.
+
+"Well, my boy, it's good to see you! Where have you been keeping
+yourself all these two weeks?"
+
+"Why, dad, I've been right here--in fact, I've been very much right
+here!"
+
+The conscious color that crept to the boy's forehead should have been
+illuminating. But it was not.
+
+"Yes, yes, very likely, very likely," frowned the man. "But, of course,
+with so many around-- But soon we'll be by ourselves again. Not but
+what I'm enjoying your aunt's visit, of course," he added hastily. "But
+here are two weeks of your vacation gone, and I've scarcely seen you a
+minute."
+
+"Yes; and that's one thing I wanted to talk about--college," plunged in
+the boy. "I've decided I don't want to finish my course, dad. I'd rather
+go into business right away."
+
+The man drew his brows together, but did not look entirely displeased.
+
+"Hm-m, well," he hesitated. "While I should hate not to see you
+graduated, yet--it's not so bad an idea, after all. I'd be glad to have
+you here for good that much earlier, son. But why this sudden
+right-about-face? I thought you were particularly keen for that degree."
+
+Again the telltale color flamed in the boyish cheeks.
+
+"I was--once. But, you see, then I wasn't thinking of--getting married."
+
+"Married!" To John Denby it seemed suddenly that a paralyzing chill
+clutched his heart and made it skip a beat. This possible future
+marriage of his son, breaking into their close companionship, was the
+dreaded shadow that loomed ever ahead. "Nonsense, boy! Time enough to
+think of that when you've found the girl."
+
+"But I have found her, dad."
+
+John Denby paled perceptibly.
+
+"You have--what?" he demanded. "You don't mean that you've-- Who is
+she?"
+
+"Helen. Why, dad, you seem surprised," laughed the boy. "Haven't you
+noticed--suspected?"
+
+"Well, no I haven't," retorted the man grimly. "Why should I? I never
+heard of the young lady before. What is this--some college tomfoolery? I
+might have known, I suppose, what would happen."
+
+"College! Why, dad, she's _here_. You know her. It's Helen,--Miss
+Barnet."
+
+"Here! There's no one here but your aunt and--" He stopped, and half
+started from his chair. "You don't--you can't mean--your aunt's
+nursemaid!"
+
+At the scornful emphasis an indignant red dyed the boy's face.
+
+"I didn't think that of you, dad," he rebuked.
+
+Angry as he was, the man was conscious of the hurt the words gave him.
+But he held his ground.
+
+"And I did not think this of you, Burke," he rejoined coldly.
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"I mean that I supposed my son would show some consideration as to the
+woman he chose for his wife."
+
+"Father!" The boyish face set into stern lines. The boyish figure drew
+itself erect with a majesty that would have been absurd had it not been
+so palpably serious. "I can't stand much of this sort of thing, even
+from you. Miss Barnet is everything that is good and true and lovely.
+She is in every way worthy--more than worthy. Besides, she is the woman
+I love--the woman I have asked to be my wife. Please remember that when
+you speak of her."
+
+John Denby laughed lightly. Sharp words had very evidently been on the
+end of his tongue, when, with a sudden change of countenance, he relaxed
+in his chair, and said:--
+
+"Well done, Burke. Your sentiments do you credit, I'm sure. But aren't
+we getting a little melodramatic? I feel as if I were on the stage of a
+second-rate theater! However, I stand corrected; and we'll speak very
+respectfully of the lady hereafter. I have no doubt she is very good and
+very lovely, as you say; but"--his mouth hardened a little--"I must
+still insist that she is no fit wife for my son."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Obvious reasons."
+
+"I suppose you mean--because she has to work for her living," flashed
+the boy. "But that--excuse me--seems to me plain snobbishness. And I
+must say again I didn't think it of you, dad. I supposed--"
+
+"Come, come, this has gone far enough," interrupted the distraught,
+sorely tried father of an idolized son. "You're only a boy. You don't
+know your own mind. You'll fancy yourself in love a dozen times yet
+before the time comes for you to marry."
+
+"I'm not a boy. I'm a man grown."
+
+"You're not twenty-one yet."
+
+"I shall be next month. And I _do_ know my own mind. You'll see, father,
+when I'm married."
+
+"But you're not going to be married at present. And you're never going
+to marry this nursemaid."
+
+"Father!"
+
+"I mean what I say."
+
+"You won't give your consent?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Then-- I'll do it without, after next month."
+
+There was a tense moment of silence. Father and son faced each other,
+angry resentment in their eyes. Then, with a sharp ejaculation, John
+Denby got to his feet and strode to the window. When he turned a minute
+later and came back, the angry resentment was gone. His mouth was stern,
+but his eyes were pleading. He came straight to his son and put both
+hands on his shoulders.
+
+"Burke, listen to me," he begged. "I'm doing this for two reasons.
+First, to save you from yourself. You've known this girl scarcely two
+weeks--hardly an adequate preparation for a lifetime of living together.
+And just here comes in the second reason. However good and lovely she
+may be, she couldn't possibly qualify for that long lifetime together,
+Burke. Simply because she works for her living has nothing to do with
+it. She has not the tastes or the training that should belong to your
+wife--that _must_ belong to your wife if she is to make you happy, if
+she is to take the place of--your mother. And that is the place your
+wife will take, of course, Burke."
+
+Under the restraining hands on his shoulders the boy stirred restlessly.
+
+"Tastes! Training! What do I care for that? She suits my tastes."
+
+"She wouldn't--for long."
+
+"You wait and see."
+
+"Too great a risk to run, my boy."
+
+"I'll risk it. I'm going to risk it."
+
+Again there was a moment's silence. Again the stern lines deepened
+around the man's lips. Then very quietly there came the words:--
+
+"Burke, if you marry this girl, you will choose between her and me. It
+seems to me that I ought not to need to tell you that you cannot bring
+her here. She shall never occupy your mother's chair as the mistress of
+this house."
+
+"That settles it, then: I'll take her somewhere else."
+
+If Burke had not been so blind with passion he would have seen and felt
+the anguish that leaped to his father's eyes. But he did not stop to see
+or to feel. He snapped out the words, jerked himself free, and left the
+room.
+
+This did not "settle it," however. There were more words--words common
+to stern parents and amorous youths and maidens since time immemorial. A
+father, appalled at the catastrophe that threatened, not only his
+cherished companionship with his only son, but, in his opinion, the
+revered sanctity of his wife's memory, wrapped himself in forbidding
+dignity. An impetuous lover, torn between the old love of years and the
+new, quite different one of weeks, alternately stormed and pleaded. A
+young girl, undisciplined, very much in love, and smarting with hurt
+pride and resentment, blew hot and cold in a manner that tended to drive
+every one concerned to distraction. As soon as possible a shocked,
+distressed Sister Eunice packed her trunks and betook herself and her
+offending household away.
+
+In time, then, a compromise was effected. Burke should leave college
+immediately and go into the Works with his father, serving a short
+apprenticeship from the bottom up, as had been planned for him, that he
+might be the master of the business, in deed as well as in name, when he
+should some day take his father's place. Meanwhile, for one year, he was
+not to see or to communicate with Helen Barnet. If at the end of the
+year, he was still convinced that his only hope of happiness lay in
+marriage to this girl, all opposition would be withdrawn and he might
+marry when he pleased--though even then he must not expect to bring his
+bride to the old home. They must set up an establishment for themselves.
+
+"We should prefer that,--under the circumstances," had been the prompt
+and somewhat haughty rejoinder, much to the father's discomfiture.
+
+Grieved and dismayed as he was at the airy indifference with which his
+son appeared to face a fatherless future, John Denby was yet pinning his
+faith on that year of waiting. Given twelve months with the boy quite to
+himself, free from the hateful spell of this designing young woman, and
+there could be no question of the result--in John Denby's mind. In all
+confidence, therefore, and with every sense alert to make this year as
+perfect as a year could be, John Denby set himself to the task before
+him.
+
+It was just here, however, that for John Denby the ghosts walked--ghosts
+of innumerable toy pistols and frosted cakes. Burke Denby, accustomed
+all his life to having what he wanted, and having it _when_ he wanted
+it, moped the first week, sulked the second, covertly rebelled the
+third, and ran away the last day of the fourth, leaving behind him the
+customary note, which, in this case, read:--
+
+     _Dear Dad_: I've gone to Helen. I had to. I've lived a
+     _year_ of misery in this last month: so, as far as I am
+     concerned, I _have_ waited my year already. We shall be
+     married at once. I wrote Helen last week, and she consented.
+
+     Now, dad, you'll just have to forgive me. I'm twenty-one.
+     I'm a man now, not a boy, and a man has to decide these
+     things for himself. And Helen's a dear. You'll see, when you
+     know her. We'll be back in two weeks. Now don't bristle up.
+     I'm not going to bring her home, of course (at present),
+     after the very cordial invitation you gave me not to! We're
+     going into one of the Reddington apartments. With my
+     allowance and my--er--wages (!) we can manage that all
+     right--until "the stern parent" relents and takes his
+     daughter home--as he should!
+
+
+  Good-bye,
+  BURKE.
+
+John Denby read the letter once, twice; then he pulled the telephone
+toward him and gave a few crisp orders to James Brett, his general
+manager. His voice was steady and--to the man at the other end of the
+wire--ominously emotionless. When he had finished talking five minutes
+later, certain words had been uttered that would materially change the
+immediate future of a certain willful youth just then setting out on
+his honeymoon.
+
+There would be, for Burke Denby, no "Reddington apartment." There would
+also be no several-other-things; for there would be no "allowance" after
+the current month. There would be only the "wages," and the things the
+wages could buy.
+
+There was no disputing the fact that John Denby was very angry. But he
+was also sorely distressed and grieved. Added to his indignation that
+his son should have so flouted him was his anguish of heart that the old
+days of ideal companionship were now gone forever. There was, too, his
+very real fear for the future happiness of his boy, bound in marriage to
+a woman he believed would prove to be a most uncongenial mate. But
+overtopping all, just now, was his wrath at the flippant assurance of
+his son's note, and the very evident confidence in a final forgiveness
+that the note showed. It was this that caused the giving of those stern,
+momentous orders over the telephone--John Denby himself had been
+somewhat in the habit of having his own way!
+
+The harassed father did not sleep much that night. Until far into the
+morning hours he sat before the fireless grate in his library, thinking.
+He looked old, worn, and wholly miserable. In his hand, and often under
+his gaze, was the miniature of a beautiful woman--his wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HONEYMOON DAYS
+
+
+It was on a cool, cloudy day in early September that Mr. and Mrs. Burke
+Denby arrived at Dalton from their wedding trip.
+
+With characteristic inclination to avoid anything unpleasant, the young
+husband had neglected to tell his wife that they were not to live in the
+Denby Mansion. He had argued with himself that she would find it out
+soon enough, anyway, and that there was no reason why he should spoil
+their wedding trip with disagreeable topics of conversation. Burke
+always liked to put off disagreeable things till the last.
+
+Helen was aware, it is true, that Burke's father was much displeased at
+the marriage; but that this displeasure had gone so far as to result in
+banishment from the home, she did not know. She had been planning,
+indeed, just how she would win her father-in-law over--just how sweet
+and lovely and daughterly she would be, as a member of the Denby
+household; and so sure was she of victory that already she counted the
+battle half won.
+
+In the old days of her happy girlhood, Helen Barnet had taken as a
+matter of course the succumbing of everything and everybody to her charm
+and beauty. And although this feeling had, perforce, been in abeyance
+for some eighteen months, it had been very rapidly coming back to her
+during the past two weeks, under the devoted homage of her young husband
+and the admiring eyes of numberless strangers along their honeymoon way.
+
+It was a complete and disagreeable surprise to her now, therefore, when
+Burke said to her, a trifle nervously, as they were nearing Dalton:--
+
+"We'll have to go to a hotel, of course, Helen, for a few days, till we
+get the apartment ready. But 'twon't be for long, dear."
+
+"Hotel! Apartment! Why, Burke, aren't we going home--to _your_ home?"
+
+"Oh, no, dear. We're going to have a home of our own, you know--_our_
+home."
+
+"No, I didn't know." Helen's lips showed a decided pout.
+
+"But you'll like it, dear. You just wait and see." The man spoke with
+determined cheeriness.
+
+"But I can't like it better than your old home, Burke. I _know_ what
+that is, and I'd much rather go there."
+
+"Yes, yes, but--" Young Denby paused to wet his dry lips. "Er--you know,
+dear, dad wasn't exactly--er--pleased with the marriage, anyway, and--"
+
+"That's just it," broke in the bride eagerly. "That's one reason I
+wanted to go there--to show him, you know. Why, Burke, I'd got it all
+planned out lovely, how nice I was going to be to him--get his paper and
+slippers, and kiss him good-morning, and--"
+
+"Holy smoke! Kiss--" Just in time the fastidious son of a still more
+fastidious father pulled himself up; but to a more discerning bride, his
+face would already have finished his sentence. "Er--but--well, anyhow,
+dear," he stammered, "that's very kind of you, of course; but you see
+it's useless even to think of it. He--he has forbidden us to go there."
+
+"Why, the mean old thing!"
+
+"Helen!"
+
+Helen's face showed a frown as well as a pout.
+
+"I don't care. He is mean, if he is your father, not to let--"
+
+"Helen!"
+
+At the angry sharpness of the man's voice Helen stopped abruptly. For a
+moment she gazed at her husband with reproachful eyes. Then her chin
+began to quiver, her breath to come in choking little gasps, and the big
+tears to roll down her face.
+
+"Why, Burke, I--"
+
+"Oh, great Scott! Helen, dearest, don't, _please_!" begged the dismayed
+and distracted young husband, promptly capitulating at the awful sight
+of tears of which he was the despicable cause. "Darling, don't!"
+
+"But you never sp-poke like that to me b-before," choked the wife of a
+fortnight.
+
+"I know. I was a brute--so I was! But, sweetheart, _please_ stop," he
+pleaded desperately. "See, we're just pulling into Dalton. You don't
+want them to see you crying--a bride!"
+
+Mrs. Burke Denby drew in her breath convulsively, and lifted a hurried
+hand to brush the tears from her eyes. The next moment she smiled,
+tremulously, but adorably. She looked very lovely as she stepped from
+the car a little later; and Burke Denby's heart swelled with love and
+pride as he watched her. If underneath the love and pride there was a
+vague something not so pleasant, the man told himself it was only a
+natural regret at having said anything to cast the slightest shadow on
+the home-coming of this dear girl whom he had asked to share his life.
+Whatever this vague something was, anyway, Burke resolutely put it
+behind him, and devoted himself all the more ardently to the comfort of
+his young wife.
+
+In spite of himself, Burke could not help looking for his father's face
+at the station. Never before had he come home (when not with his
+father), and not been welcomed by that father's eager smile and
+outstretched hand. He missed them both now. Otherwise he was relieved to
+see few people he knew, as he stepped to the platform, though he fully
+realized, from the sly winks and covert glances, that every one knew who
+he was, and who also was the lady at his side.
+
+With only an occasional perfunctory greeting, and no introductions,
+therefore, the somewhat embarrassed and irritated bridegroom hurried his
+bride into a public carriage, and gave the order to drive to the Hancock
+Hotel.
+
+All the way there he talked very fast and very tenderly of the new home
+that was soon to be theirs.
+
+"'Twill be only for a little--the hotel, dear," he plunged in at once.
+"And you won't mind it, for a little, while we're planning, will you,
+darling? I'm going to rent one of the Reddington apartments. You
+remember them--on Reddington Avenue; white stone with dandy little
+balconies between the big bay windows. They were just being finished
+when you were here. They're brand-new, you see. And we'll be so happy,
+there, dearie,--just us two!"
+
+"Us two! But, Burke, there'll be three. There'll have to be the hired
+girl, too, you know," fluttered the new wife, in quick panic. "Surely
+you aren't going to make me do without a hired girl!"
+
+"Oh, no--no, indeed," asserted the man, all the more hurriedly, because
+he never had thought of a "hired girl," and because he was rather
+fearfully wondering how much his father paid for the maids, anyway.
+There would have to be one, of course; but he wondered if his allowance
+would cover it, with all the rest. Still, he _could_ smoke a cigar or
+two less a day, he supposed, if it came to a pinch, and--but Helen was
+speaking.
+
+"Dear, dear, but you did give me a turn, Burke! You see, there'll just
+have to be a hired girl--that is, if you want anything to eat, sir," she
+laughed, showing all her dimples. (And Burke loved her dimples!) "I
+can't cook a little bit. I never did at home, you know, and I should
+hate it, I'm sure. It's so messy--sticky dough and dishes, and all
+that!" Again she laughed and showed all her dimples, looking so
+altogether bewitching that Burke almost--but not quite--stole a kiss. He
+decided, too, on the spot, that he would rather never smoke another
+cigar than to subject this adorable little thing at his side to any task
+that had to do with the hated "messy dough and sticky dishes." Indeed he
+would!
+
+Something of this must have shown in his face, for the little bride
+beamed anew, and the remainder of the drive was a blissfully happy duet
+of fascinating plans regarding this new little nest of a home.
+
+All this was at four o'clock. At eight o'clock Burke Denby came into
+their room at the hotel with a white face and tense lips.
+
+"Well, Helen, we're in for it," he flung out, dropping himself into the
+nearest chair.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Father has cut off my allowance."
+
+"But you--you've gone to work. There's your wages!"
+
+"Oh, yes, there are my--wages."
+
+Something in his tone sent a swift suspicion to her eyes.
+
+"Do you mean--they aren't so big as your allowance?"
+
+"I certainly do."
+
+"How perfectly horrid! Just as if it wasn't mean enough for him not to
+let us live there, without--"
+
+"Helen!" Burke Denby pulled himself up in his chair. "See here, dear, I
+shan't let even you say things like that about dad. Now, for heaven's
+sake, don't let us quarrel about it," he pleaded impatiently, as he saw
+the dreaded quivering coming to the pouting lips opposite.
+
+"But I--I--"
+
+"Helen, dearest, don't cry, please don't! Crying won't help; and I tell
+you it's serious business--this is."
+
+"But are you sure--do you know it's true?" faltered the young wife, too
+thoroughly frightened now to be angry. "Did you see--your father?"
+
+"No; I saw Brett."
+
+"Who's he? Maybe he doesn't know."
+
+"Oh, yes, he does," returned Burke, with grim emphasis. "He knows
+everything. They say at the Works that he knows what father's going to
+have for breakfast before the cook does."
+
+"But who is he?"
+
+"He's the head manager of the Denby Iron Works and father's right-hand
+man. He came here to-night to see me--by dad's orders, I suspect."
+
+"Is your father so awfully angry, then?" Her eyes had grown a bit
+wistful.
+
+"I'm afraid he is. He says I've made my bed and now I must lie in it.
+He's cut off my allowance entirely. He's raised my wages--a little, and
+he says it's up to me now to make good--with my wages."
+
+There was a minute's silence. The man's eyes were gloomily fixed on the
+opposite wall. His whole attitude spelled disillusion and despair. The
+woman's eyes, questioning, fearful, were fixed on the man.
+
+Plainly some new, hidden force was at work within Helen Denby's heart.
+Scorn and anger had left her countenance. Grief and dismay had come in
+their place.
+
+"Burke, _why_ has your father objected so to--to me?" she asked at last,
+timidly.
+
+Abstractedly, as if scarcely conscious of what he was saying, the man
+shrugged:--
+
+"Oh, the usual thing. He said you weren't suited to me; you wouldn't
+make me happy."
+
+The wife recoiled visibly. She gave a piteous little cry. It was too
+low, apparently, to reach her husband's ears. At all events, he did not
+turn. For fully half a minute she watched him, and in her shrinking eyes
+was mirrored each eloquent detail of his appearance, the lassitude, the
+gloom, the hopelessness. Then, suddenly, to her whole self there came an
+electric change. As if throwing off bonds that held her she flung out
+her arms and sprang toward him.
+
+"Burke, it isn't true, it isn't true," she flamed. "I'm going to make
+you happy! You just wait and see. And we'll show him. We'll show him we
+can do it! He told you to make good; and you must, Burke! I won't have
+him and everybody else saying I dragged you down. I won't! _I won't!_ I
+WON'T!"
+
+Burke Denby's first response was to wince involuntarily at the shrill
+crescendo of his wife's voice. His next was to shrug his shoulders
+irritably as the meaning of her words came to him.
+
+"Nonsense, Helen, don't be a goose!" he scowled.
+
+"I'm not a goose. I'm your wife," choked Helen, still swayed by the
+exaltation that had mastered her. "And I'm going to help you win--_win_,
+I say! Do you hear me, Burke?"
+
+"Of course I hear you, Helen; and--so'll everybody else, if you don't
+look out. _Please_ speak lower, Helen!"
+
+She was too intent and absorbed to be hurt or vexed. Obediently she
+dropped her voice almost to a whisper.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know, Burke; and I will, I will, dear." She fell on her
+knees at his side. "But it seems as if I must shout it to the world. I
+want to go out on the street here and scream it at the top of my voice,
+till your father in his great big useless house on the hill just has to
+hear me."
+
+"Helen, Helen!" shivered her husband.
+
+But she hurried on feverishly.
+
+"Burke, listen! You're going to make good. Do you hear? We'll show them.
+We'll never let them say they--beat us!"
+
+"But--but--"
+
+"We aren't going to say 'but' and hang back. We're going to _do_!"
+
+"But, Helen, how? What?" demanded the man, stirred into a show of
+interest at last. "How can we?"
+
+"I don't know, but we're going to do it."
+
+"There won't be--hardly any money."
+
+"I'll get along--somehow."
+
+"And we'll have to live in a cheap little hole somewhere--we can't have
+one of the Reddingtons."
+
+"I don't want it--now."
+
+"And you'll have to--to work."
+
+"Yes, I know." Her chin was still bravely lifted.
+
+"There can't be any--maid now."
+
+"Then you'll have to eat--what I cook!" She drew in her breath with a
+hysterical little laugh that was half a sob.
+
+"You darling! I shall love it!" He caught her to himself in a revulsion
+of feeling that was as ardent as it was sudden. "Only I'll so hate to
+have you do it, sweetheart--it's so messy and doughy!"
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"You told me it was."
+
+"But I didn't know then--what they were saying about me. Burke, they
+just shan't say I'm dragging you down."
+
+"Indeed they shan't, darling."
+
+"Then you will make good?" she regarded him with tearful, luminous eyes.
+
+"Of course I will--with _you_ to help me."
+
+Her face flamed into radiant joy.
+
+"Yes, _with me to help_! That's it, that's it--I'm going to _help_ you,"
+she breathed fervently, flinging her arms about his neck.
+
+And to each, from the dear stronghold of the other's arms, at the
+moment, the world looked, indeed, to be a puny thing, scarcely worth the
+conquering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+NEST-BUILDING
+
+
+It is so much easier to say than to do. But nothing in the experience of
+either Burke Denby or of Helen, his wife, had demonstrated this fact for
+them. Quite unprepared, therefore, and with confident courage, they
+proceeded to pass from the saying to the doing.
+
+True, in the uncompromising sunlight of the next morning, the world did
+look a bit larger, a shade less easily conquerable; and a distinctly
+unpleasant feeling of helplessness assailed both husband and wife. Yet
+with a gay "Now we'll go house-hunting right away so as to save paying
+here!" from Helen, and an adoring "You darling--but it's a burning
+shame!" from Burke, the two sallied forth, after the late hotel
+breakfast.
+
+The matter of selecting the new home was not a difficult one--at first.
+They decided at once that, if they could not have an apartment in the
+Reddington Chambers, they would prefer a house. "For," Burke said, "as
+for being packed away like sardines in one of those abominable little
+cheap flat-houses, I won't!" So a house they looked for at the start.
+And very soon they found what Helen said was a "love of a place"--a
+pretty little cottage with a tiny lawn and a flower-bed.
+
+"And it's so lucky it's for rent," she exulted. "For it's just what we
+want, isn't it, dearie?"
+
+"Y-yes; but--"
+
+"Why, Burke, don't you like it? _I_ think it's a dear! Of course it
+isn't like your father's house. But we can't expect that."
+
+"Expect that! Great Scott, Helen,--we can't expect this!" cried the man.
+
+"Why, Burke, what do you mean?"
+
+"It'll cost too much, dear,--in this neighborhood. We can't afford it."
+
+"Oh, that'll be all right. I'll economize somewhere else. Come; it says
+the key is next door."
+
+"Yes, but, Helen, dearest, I know we can't--" But "Helen, dearest," was
+already halfway up the adjoining walk; and Burke, with a despairing
+glance at her radiant, eager face, followed her. There was, indeed, no
+other course open to him, as he knew, unless he chose to make a scene on
+the public thorough-fare--and Burke Denby did not like scenes.
+
+The house was found to be as attractive inside as it was out; and
+Helen's progress from room to room was a series of delighted
+exclamations. She was just turning to go upstairs when her husband's
+third desperate expostulation brought her feet and her tongue to a
+pause.
+
+"Helen, darling, I tell you we can't!" he was exclaiming. "It's out of
+the question."
+
+"Burke!" Her lips began to quiver. "And when you know how much I want
+it!"
+
+"Sweetheart, don't, please, make it any harder for me," he begged. "I'd
+give you a dozen houses like this if I could--and you know it. But we
+can't afford even this one. The rent is forty dollars. I heard her tell
+you when she gave you the key."
+
+"Never mind. We can economize other ways."
+
+"But, Helen, I only get sixty all told. We can't pay forty for rent."
+
+"Oh, but, Burke, that leaves twenty, and we can do a lot on twenty. Just
+as if what we ate would cost us that! I don't care for meat, anyhow,
+much. We'll cut that out. And I hate grapefruit and olives. They cost a
+lot. Mrs. Allen was always having them, and--"
+
+The distraught husband interrupted with an impatient gesture.
+
+"Grapefruit and olives, indeed! And as if food were all of it! Where are
+our clothes and coal and--and doctor's bills, and I don't-know-what-all
+coming from? Why, great Scott, Helen, I smoke half that in a week,
+sometimes,--not that I shall now, of course," he added hastily. "But,
+honestly, dearie, we simply can't do it. Now, come, be a good girl, and
+let's go on. We're simply wasting time here."
+
+Helen, convinced at last, tossed him the key, with a teary "All
+right--take it back then. I shan't! I know I should c-cry right before
+her!" The next minute, at sight of the abject woe and dismay on her
+husband's face, she flung herself upon him with a burst of sobs.
+
+"There, there, Burke, here I am, so soon, making a fuss because we can't
+afford things! But I won't any more--truly I won't! I was a mean, horrid
+old thing! Yes, I was," she reiterated in answer to his indignant
+denial. "Come, let's go quick!" she exclaimed, pulling herself away, and
+lifting her head superbly. "I don't want the old place, anyhow. Truly, I
+don't!" And, with a dazzling smile, she reached out her hand and tripped
+enticingly ahead of him toward the door; while the man, bewildered, but
+enthralled by this extraordinary leap from fretful stubbornness to gay
+docility, hurried after her with an incoherent jumble of rapturous
+adjectives.
+
+Such was Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby's first experience of home-hunting.
+The second, though different in detail, was similar in disappointment.
+So also were the third and the fourth experiences. Not, indeed, until
+the weary, distracted pair had spent three days in time, all their
+patience, and most of their good nature, did they finally arrive at a
+decision. And then their selection, alas, proved to be one of the
+despised tiny flats, in which, according to the unhappy young
+bridegroom, they were destined to be packed like sardines.
+
+After all, it had been the "elegant mirror in the parlor," and the "just
+grand" tiled and tessellated entrance, that had been the determining
+factors in the decision; for Burke, thankful that at last something
+within reach of his pocketbook had been found to bring a sparkle to his
+beloved's eyes, had stifled his own horror at the tawdry cheapness of
+it all, and had given a consent that was not without a measure of relief
+born of the three long days of weary, well-nigh hopeless search.
+
+Dalton, like most manufacturing towns of fifteen or twenty thousand
+souls, had all the diversity of a much larger place. There was West
+Hill, where were the pillared and porticoed residences of the
+pretentious and the pretending, set in painfully new, wide-sweeping,
+flower-bordered lawns; and there was Valley Street, a double line of
+ramshackle wooden buildings with broken steps and shutterless windows,
+where a blade of grass was a stranger and a flower unknown, save for
+perhaps a sickly geranium on a tenement window sill. There was Old
+Dalton, with its winding, tree-shaded streets clambering all over the
+slope of Elm Hill, where old colonial mansions, with an air of aloofness
+(borrowed quite possibly from their occupants), seemed ever to be
+withdrawing farther and farther away from plebeian noise and publicity.
+There was, of course, the mill district, where were the smoke-belching
+chimneys and great black buildings that meant the town's bread and
+butter; and there were the adjoining streets of workmen's houses, fitted
+to give a sensitive soul the horrors, so seemingly endless was the
+repetition of covered stoop and dormer window, always exactly the same,
+as far as eye could reach. There was, too, the bustling, asphalted,
+brick-blocked business center; and there were numerous streets of
+simple, pretty cottages, and substantial residences, among which, with
+growing frequency, there were beginning to appear the tall,
+many-windowed apartment houses, ranging all the way from the exclusive,
+expensive Reddington Chambers down to the flimsy structures like the one
+whose tawdry ornamentation had caught the fancy of Burke Denby's
+village-bred wife.
+
+To Burke Denby himself, late of Denby House (perhaps the most aloof of
+all the "old colonials"), the place was a nightmare of horror. But
+because his wife's eyes had glistened, and because his wife's lips had
+caroled a joyous "Oh, Burke, I'd _love_ this place, darling!"--and
+because, most important of all, if it must be confessed, the rent was
+only twenty dollars a month, he had uttered a grim "All right, we'll
+take it." And the selection of the home was accomplished.
+
+Not until they were on the way to the hotel that night did there come to
+the young husband the full realizing sense that housekeeping meant
+furniture.
+
+"Oh, of course I _knew_ it did," he groaned, half-laughingly, after his
+first despairing ejaculation. "But I just didn't think; that's all. Our
+furniture at home we'd always had. But of course it does have to be
+bought--at first."
+
+"Of course! And _I_ didn't think, either," laughed Helen. "You see, we'd
+always had _our_ furniture, too, I guess. But then, it'll be grand to
+buy it. I love new things!"
+
+Burke Denby frowned.
+
+"Buy it! That's all right--if we had the money to pay. Heaven only
+knows how much it'll cost. I don't."
+
+"But, Burke, you've got _some_ money, haven't you? You took a big roll
+out of your pocket last night."
+
+He gave her a scornful glance.
+
+"Big roll, indeed! How far do you suppose that would go toward
+furnishing a home? Of course I've got some money--a little left from my
+allowance--but that doesn't mean I've got enough to furnish a home."
+
+"Then let's give up housekeeping and board," proposed Helen. "Then we
+won't have to buy any furniture. And I think I'd like it better anyhow;
+and I _know_ you would--after you'd sampled my cooking," she finished
+laughingly.
+
+But her husband did not smile. The frown only deepened as he
+ejaculated:--
+
+"Board! Not much, Helen! We _couldn't_ board at a decent place. 'Twould
+cost too much. And as for the cheap variety--great Scott, Helen! I
+wonder if you think I'd stand for that! Heaven knows we'll be enough
+gossiped about, as it is, without our planting ourselves right under the
+noses of half the tabby-cats in town for them to 'oh' and 'ah' and 'um'
+every time we turn around or don't turn around! No, ma'am, Helen! We'll
+shut ourselves up somewhere within four walls we can call home, even if
+we have to furnish it with only two chairs and a bed and a kitchen
+stove. It'll be ours--and we'll be where we won't be stared at."
+
+Helen laughed lightly.
+
+"Dear, dear, Burke, how you do run on! Just as if one minded a little
+staring! I rather like it, myself,--if I know my clothes and my back
+hair are all right."
+
+"Ugh! Helen!"
+
+"Well, I do," she laughed, uptilting her chin. "It makes one feel so
+sort of--er--important. But I won't say 'board' again, _never_,--unless
+you begin to scold at my cooking," she finished with an arch glance.
+
+"As if I could do that!" cried the man promptly, again the adoring
+husband. "I shall love everything you do--just because it's _you_ that
+do it. The only trouble will be, _you_ won't get enough to eat--because
+I shall want to eat it all!"
+
+"You darling! Aren't you the best ever!" she cooed, giving his arm a
+surreptitious squeeze. "But, really, you know, I am going to be a
+bang-up cook. I've got a cookbook."
+
+"So soon? Where did you get that?"
+
+"Yesterday, while you went into Stoddard's for that house-key. I saw one
+in the window next door and I went in and bought it. 'Twas two dollars,
+so it ought to be a good one. And that makes me think. It took all the
+money I had, 'most, in my purse. So I--I'm afraid I'll have to have some
+more, dear."
+
+"Why, of course, of course! You mustn't go without money a minute." And
+the young husband, with all the alacrity of a naturally generous nature
+supplemented by the embarrassment of this new experience of being asked
+for money by the girl he loved, plunged his hand into his pocket and
+crowded two bills into her unresisting fingers. "There! And I won't be
+so careless again, dear. I don't ever mean you to have to _ask_ for
+money, sweetheart."
+
+"Oh, thank you," she murmured, tucking the bills into her little
+handbag. "I shan't need any more for ever so long, I'm sure. I'm going
+to be economical _now_, you know."
+
+"Of course you are. You're going to be a little brick. _I_ know."
+
+"And we won't mind anything if we're only together," she breathed.
+
+"There won't be anything to mind," he answered fervently, with an ardent
+glance that would have been a kiss had it not been for the annoying
+presence of a few score of Dalton's other inhabitants on the street
+together with themselves.
+
+The next minute they reached the hotel.
+
+At nine o'clock the following morning Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby sallied
+forth to buy the furniture for their "tenement," as Helen called it,
+until her husband's annoyed remonstrances changed the word to
+"apartment."
+
+Burke Denby learned many things during the next few hours. He learned
+first that tables and chairs and beds and stoves--really decent ones
+that a fellow could endure the sight of--cost a prodigious amount of
+money. But, to offset this, and to make life really worth the living,
+after all, it seemed that one might buy a quantity sufficient for one's
+needs, and pay for them in installments, week by week. This idea, while
+not wholly satisfactory, seemed the only way of stretching their limited
+means to cover their many needs; and, after some hesitation, it was
+adopted.
+
+There remained then only the matter of selection; and it was just here
+that Burke Denby learned something else. He learned that two people,
+otherwise apparently in perfect accord, could disagree most violently
+over the shape of a chair or the shade of a rug. Indeed, he would not
+have believed it possible that such elements of soul torture could lie
+in a mere matter of color or texture. And how any one with eyes and
+sensibilities could wish to select for one's daily companions such a
+mass of gingerbread decoration and glaring colors as seemed to meet the
+fancy of his wife, he could not understand. Neither could he understand
+why all his selections and preferences were promptly dubbed "dingy" and
+"homely," nor why nothing that he liked pleased her at all. As such was
+certainly the case, however, he came to express these preferences less
+and less frequently. And in the end he always bought what she wanted,
+particularly as the price on her choice was nearly always lower than the
+one on his--which was an argument in its favor that he found it hard to
+refute.
+
+Tractable as he was as to quality, however, he did have to draw a sharp
+line as to quantity; for Helen;--with the cheerful slogan, "Why, it's
+only twenty-five cents a week more, Burke!"--seemed not to realize that
+there was a limit even to the number of those one might spend--on sixty
+dollars a month. True, at the beginning she did remind him that they
+could "eat less" till they "got the things paid for," and that her
+clothes were "all new, anyhow, being a bride, so!" But she had not said
+that again. Perhaps because she saw the salesman turn his back to laugh,
+and perhaps because she was a little frightened at the look on her
+husband's face. At all events, when Burke did at last insist that they
+had bought quite enough, she acquiesced with some measure of grace.
+
+Burke himself, when the shopping was finished, drew a sigh of relief,
+yet with an inward shudder at the recollection of certain things marked
+"Sold to Burke Denby."
+
+"Oh, well," he comforted himself. "Helen's happy--and that's the main
+thing; and I shan't see them much. I'm away days and asleep nights." Nor
+did it occur to him that this was not the usual attitude of a supposedly
+proud bridegroom toward his new little nest of a home.
+
+Getting settled in the little Dale Street apartment was, so far as Burke
+was concerned, a mere matter of moving from the hotel and dumping the
+contents of his trunk into his new chiffonier and closet. True, Helen,
+looking tired and flurried (and not nearly so pretty as usual), brought
+to him some borrowed tools, together with innumerable curtains and rods
+and nails and hooks that simply must be put up, she said, before she
+could do a thing. But Burke, after a half-hearted trial,--during which
+he mashed his thumb and bored three holes in wrong places,--flew into a
+passion of irritability, and bade her get the janitor who "owned the
+darn things" to do the job, and to pay him what he asked--'twould be
+worth it, no matter what it was!
+
+With a very hasty kiss then Burke banged out of the house and headed for
+the Denby Iron Works.
+
+It was not alone the curtains or the offending hammer that was wrong
+with Burke Denby that morning. The time had come when he must not only
+meet his fellow employees, and take his place among them, but he must
+face his father. And he was dreading yet longing to see his father. He
+had not seen him since he bade him good-night and went upstairs to his
+own room the month before--to write that farewell note.
+
+Once, since coming back from his wedding trip, he had been tempted to
+leave town and never see his father again--until he should have made for
+himself the name and the money that he was going to make. Then he would
+come back and cry: "Behold, this is I, your son, and this is Helen, my
+wife, who, you see, has _not_ dragged me down!" He would not, of course,
+_talk_ like that. But he would show them. He would! This had been when
+he first learned from Brett of the allowance-cutting, and of his
+father's implacable anger.
+
+Then had come the better, braver decision. He would stay where he was.
+He would make the name and the money right here, under his father's very
+eyes. It would be harder, of course; but there would then be all the
+more glory in the winning. Besides, to leave now would look like
+defeat--would make one seem almost like a quitter. And his father hated
+quitters! He would like to show his father. He _would_ show his father.
+And he would show him right here. And had not Helen, his dear wife, said
+that she would aid him? As if he could help winning out under those
+circumstances!
+
+It was with thoughts such as these that he went now to meet his father.
+Especially was he thinking of Helen, dear Helen,--poor Helen, struggling
+back there with those abominable hooks and curtains. And he had been
+such a brute to snap her up so crossly! He would not do it again. It was
+only that he was so dreading this first meeting with his father. After
+that it would be easier. There would not be anything then only just to
+keep steadily going till he'd made good--he and Helen. But now--father
+would be proud to see how finely he was taking it!
+
+With chin up and shoulders back, therefore, Burke Denby walked into his
+father's office.
+
+"Well, father," he began, with cheery briskness. Then, instantly, voice
+and manner changed as he took a hurried step forward. "Dad, what is it?
+Are you ill?"
+
+So absorbed had Burke Denby been over the part he himself was playing in
+this little drama of Denby and Son, that he had given no thought as to
+the probable looks or actions of any other member of the cast. He was
+quite unprepared, therefore, for the change in the man he now saw before
+him--the pallor, the shrunken cheeks, the stooped shoulders, the
+unmistakable something that made the usually erect, debonair man look
+suddenly worn and old.
+
+"Dad, you are ill!" exclaimed Burke in dismay.
+
+John Denby got to his feet at once. He even smiled and held out his
+hand. Yet Burke, who took the hand, felt suddenly that there were
+uncounted miles of space between them.
+
+"Ah, Burke, how are you? No, I'm not ill at all. And you--are you well?"
+
+"Er--ah--oh, yes, very well--er--very well."
+
+"That's good. I'm glad."
+
+There was a brief pause. A torrent of words swept to the tip of the
+younger man's tongue; but nothing found voice except another faltering
+"Er--yes, very well!" which Burke had not meant to say at all. There was
+a second brief pause, then John Denby sat down.
+
+"You will find Brett in his office. You have come to work, I dare say,"
+he observed, as he turned to the letters on his desk.
+
+"Er--yes," stammered the young man. The next moment he found himself
+alone, white and shaken, the other side of his father's door.
+
+To work? Oh, yes, he had come to work; but he had come first to talk.
+There were a whole lot of things he had meant to say to his father.
+First, of course, there would have had to be something in the nature of
+an apology or the like to patch up the quarrel. Then he would tell him
+how he was really going to make good--he and Helen. After that they
+could get down to one of their old-time chats. They always had been
+chums--he and dad; and they hadn't had a talk for four weeks. Why, for
+three weeks he had been saving up a story, a dandy story that dad would
+appreciate! And there were other things, serious things, that--
+
+And here already he had seen his father, and it was over. And he had not
+said a word--nothing of what he had meant to say. He believed he would
+go back--
+
+With an angry gesture Burke Denby turned and extended his hand halfway
+toward the closed door. Then, with an impatient shrug, he whirled about
+and strode toward the door marked "J. A. Brett, General Manager."
+
+If young Denby had obeyed his first impulse and reentered his father's
+office he would have found the man with his head bowed on the desk, his
+arms outflung.
+
+John Denby, too, was white and shaken. He, too, had been dreading this
+meeting, and longing for it--that it might be over. There was now,
+however, on his part, no feeling of chagrin and impotence because of
+things that had not been said. There was only a shuddering relief that
+things had _not_ been said; that he had been able to carry it straight
+through as he had planned; that he had not shown his boy how much
+he--cared. He was glad that his pride had been equal to the strain; that
+he had not weakly succumbed at the first glimpse of his son's face, the
+first touch of his son's hand, as he had so feared that he would do.
+
+And he had not succumbed--though he had almost gone down before the
+quick terror and affectionate dismay that had leaped into his son's
+voice and eyes at sight of his own changed appearance. (Why _could_ not
+he keep those abominable portions of his anatomy from being so
+wretchedly telltale?) But he had remembered in time. Did the boy think,
+then, that a mere word of sympathy now could balance the scale against
+so base a disregard of everything loyal and filial a month ago? Then he
+would show that it could not.
+
+And he had shown it.
+
+What if he did know now, even better than he had known it all these last
+miserable four weeks, that his whole world had lain in his boy's hand,
+that his whole life had been bounded by his boy's smile, his whole soul
+immersed in his boy's future? What if he did know that all the power and
+wealth and fame of name that he had won were as the dust in his
+fingers--if he might not pass them on to his son? He was not going to
+let Burke know this. Indeed, no!
+
+Burke had made his own bed. He should lie in it. Deliberately he had
+chosen to cast aside the love and companionship of a devoted father at
+the beck of an almost unknown girl's hand. Should the father then offer
+again the once-scorned love and companionship? Had he no pride--no
+proper sense of simple right and justice? No self-respect, even?
+
+It was thus, and by arguments such as these, that John Denby had lashed
+himself into the state of apparently cool, courteous indifference that
+had finally carried him successfully through the interview just closed.
+
+For a long time John Denby sat motionless, his arms outflung across the
+letters that might have meant so much, but that did mean so little, to
+him--now. Then slowly he raised his head and fixed somber, longing eyes
+on the door that had so recently closed behind his son.
+
+The boy was in there with Brett now--his boy. He was being told that his
+wages for the present were to be fifteen dollars a week, and that he was
+expected to live within his income--that the wages were really very
+liberal, considering his probable value to the company at the first. He
+_would_ begin at the bottom, as had been planned years ago; but with
+this difference: he would be promoted now only when he had earned it. He
+would have been pushed rapidly ahead to the top, had matters been as
+they once were. Now he must demonstrate and prove his ability.
+
+All this Brett was telling Burke now. Poor Burke! Brett was so harsh, so
+uncompromising. As if it weren't tough enough to have to live on a
+paltry fifteen dollars a week, without--
+
+John Denby sighed and rose to his feet. Aimlessly he fidgeted about the
+spacious, well-appointed office. Twice he turned toward the door as if
+to leave the room. Once he reached a hesitating hand toward the
+push-button on this desk. Then determinedly he sat down and picked up
+one of his letters.
+
+Brett was right. It was the best way; the only way. And it was well,
+indeed, that Brett had been delegated to do the telling. If it had been
+himself now--! Shucks! If it had been himself, the boy would only have
+had to _look_ his reproach--and his wages would have been doubled on the
+spot! Fifteen dollars a week--_Burke!_ Why, the boy could not-- Well,
+then, he need not have been so foolish, so headstrong, so heartlessly
+disregardful of his father's wishes. He had brought it upon himself,
+entirely, entirely!
+
+Whereupon, with an angry exclamation, John Denby shifted about in his
+hand the letter which for three minutes he had been holding before his
+eyes upside down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE WIFE
+
+
+Helen Denby had never doubted her ability to be a perfect wife. As a
+girl, her vision had pictured a beauteous creature moving through a
+glorified world of love and admiration, ease and affluence.
+
+Later, at the time of her marriage to Burke Denby, her vision had
+altered sufficiently to present a picture of herself as the sweet
+good-angel of the old Denby Mansion, the forgiving young wife who lays
+up no malice against an unappreciative father-in-law. Even when, still
+later (upon their return from their wedding trip and upon her learning
+of John Denby's decree of banishment), the vision was necessarily warped
+and twisted all out of semblance to its original outlines, there yet
+remained unchanged the basic idea of perfect wifehood.
+
+Helen saw herself now as the martyr wife whose superb courage and
+self-sacrifice were to be the stepping-stones of a husband's magnificent
+success. She would be guide, counselor, and friend. (Somewhere she had
+seen those words. She liked them very much.) Unswervingly she would hold
+Burke to his high purpose. Untiringly she would lead him ever toward his
+goal of "making good."
+
+She saw herself the sweet, loving wife, graciously presiding over the
+well-kept home, always ready, daintily gowned, to welcome his coming
+with a kiss, and to speed his going with a blessing. Then, when in due
+course he had won out, great would be her reward. With what sweet pride
+and gentle dignity would she accept the laurel wreath of praise (Helen
+had seen this expression somewhere, too, and liked it), which a
+remorseful but grateful world would hasten to lay at the feet of her who
+alone had made possible the splendid victory--the once despised, flouted
+wife--the wife who was to drag him down!
+
+It was a pleasant picture, and Helen frequently dwelt upon
+it--especially the sweet-and-gentle-dignity-wife part. She found it
+particularly soothing during those first early days of housekeeping in
+the new apartment.
+
+Not that she was beginning in the least to doubt her ability to be that
+perfect wife. It was only that to think of things as they would be was a
+pleasant distraction from thinking of things as they were. But of course
+it would be all right very soon, anyway,--just as soon as everything got
+nicely to running.
+
+Helen did wonder sometimes why the getting of "everything nicely to
+running" was so difficult. That a certain amount of training and
+experience was necessary to bring about the best results never occurred
+to her. If Helen had been asked to take a position as stenographer or
+church soloist, she would have replied at once that she did not know how
+to do the work. Into the position of home-maker, however, she stepped
+with cheerful confidence, her eyes only on the wonderful success she was
+going to make.
+
+To Helen housekeeping was something like a clock that you wound up in
+the morning to run all day. And even when at the end of a week she could
+not help seeing that not once yet had she got around to being the
+"sweet, daintily gowned wife welcoming her husband to a well-kept home,"
+before that husband appeared at the door, she still did not doubt her
+own capabilities. It was only that "things hadn't got to running yet."
+And it was always somebody else's fault, anyway,--frequently her
+husband's. For if he did not come to dinner too early, before a thing
+was done, he was sure to be late, and thus spoil everything by her
+trying to keep things hot for him. And, of course, under such
+circumstances, nobody could _expect_ one to be a sweet and daintily
+gowned wife!
+
+Besides, there was the cookbook.
+
+"Do you know, Burke," she finally wailed one night, between sobs, "I
+don't believe it's good for a thing--that old cookbook! I haven't got a
+thing out of it yet that's been real good. I've half a mind to take it
+back where I got it, and make them change it, or else give me back my
+money. I have, so there!"
+
+"But, dearie," began her husband doubtfully, "you said yourself
+yesterday that you forgot the salt in the omelet, and the baking powder
+in the cake, and--"
+
+"Well, what if I did?" she contended aggrievedly. "What's a little salt
+or baking powder? 'Twasn't but a pinch or a spoonful, anyhow, and I
+remembered all the other things. Besides, if those rules were any good
+they'd be worded so I _couldn't_ forget part of the things. And, anyhow,
+I don't think it's very nice of you to b-blame me all the time when I'm
+doing the very best I can. I _told_ you I couldn't cook, but you _said_
+you'd like anything I made, because I did it, and--"
+
+"Yes, yes, darling, and so I do," interrupted the remorseful husband,
+hurriedly. And, to prove it, he ate the last scrap of the unappetizing
+concoction on his plate, which his wife said was a fish croquette.
+Afterwards still further to show his remorse, he helped her wash the
+dishes and set the rooms in order. Then together they went for a walk in
+the moonlight.
+
+It was a beautiful walk, and it quite restored Helen to good nature.
+They went up on West Hill (where Helen particularly loved to go), and
+they laid wonderful plans of how one day they, too, would build a big
+stone palace of a home up there--though Burke did say that, for his
+part, he liked Elm Hill quite as well; but Helen laughed him out of that
+"old-fashioned idea." At least he said no more about it.
+
+They talked much of how proud Burke's father was going to be when Burke
+had made good, and of how ashamed and sorry he would be that he had so
+misjudged his son's wife. And Helen uttered some very sweet and
+beautiful sentiments concerning her intention of laying up no malice,
+her firm determination to be loving and forgiving.
+
+Then together they walked home in the moonlight; and so thrilled and
+exalted were they that even the cheap little Dale Street living-room
+looked wonderfully dear. And Helen said that, after all, love was the
+only thing that mattered--that they just loved each other. And Burke
+said, "Yes, yes, indeed."
+
+The vision of the sweet, daintily gowned wife and the perfect home was
+very clear to Helen as she dropped off to sleep that night; and she was
+sure that she could begin to realize it at once. But unfortunately she
+overslept the next morning--which was really Burke's fault, as she said,
+for he forgot to wind the alarm clock, and she was not used to getting
+up at such an unearthly hour, anyway, and she did not see why _he_ had
+to do it, for that matter--he was really the son of the owner, even if
+he was _called_ an apprentice.
+
+This did not help matters any, for Burke never liked any reference to
+his position at the Works. To be sure, he did not say much, this time,
+except to observe stiffly that he _would_ like his breakfast, if she
+would be so good as to get it--as if she were not already hurrying as
+fast as she could, and herself only half-dressed at that!
+
+Of course the breakfast was a failure. Helen said that perhaps some
+people could get a meal of victuals on to the table, with a hungry man
+eyeing their every move, but she could not. Burke declared then that he
+really did not want any breakfast anyway, and he started to go; but as
+Helen only cried the more at this, he had to come back and comfort
+her--thereby, in the end, being both breakfastless and late to his work.
+
+Helen, after he had gone, spent a blissfully wretched ten minutes
+weeping over the sad fate that should doom such a child of light and
+laughter as herself to the somber role of martyr wife, and wondered if,
+after all, it would not be really more impressive and more
+soul-torturing-with-remorse for the cruel father-in-law, if she should
+take poison, or gas, or something (not disfiguring), and lay herself
+calmly down to die, her beautiful hands crossed meekly upon her bosom.
+
+Attractive as was this picture in some respects, it yet had its
+drawbacks. Then, too, there was the laurel wreath of praise due her
+later. She had almost forgotten that. On the whole, that would be
+preferable to the poison, Helen decided, as she began, with really
+cheerful alacrity, to attack the messy breakfast dishes.
+
+It was not alone the cooking that troubled the young wife during that
+first month of housekeeping. Everywhere she found pitfalls for her
+unwary feet, from managing the kitchen range to keeping the living-room
+dusted.
+
+And there was the money.
+
+Helen's idea of money, in her happy, care-free girlhood, had been that
+it was one of the common necessities of life; and she accepted it as she
+did the sunshine--something she was entitled to; something everybody
+had. She learned the fallacy of this, of course, when she attempted to
+earn her own living; but in marrying the son of the rich John Denby, she
+had expected to step back into the sunshine, as it were. It was not easy
+now to adjust herself to the change.
+
+She did not like the idea of asking for every penny she spent, and it
+seemed as if she was always having to ask Burke for money; and, though
+he invariably handed it over with a nervously quick, "Why, yes,
+certainly! I don't mean you to have to ask for it, Helen"; yet she
+thought she detected a growing irritation in his manner each time. And
+on the last occasion he had added a dismayed "But I hadn't any idea you
+could have got out so soon as this again!" And it made her feel very
+uncomfortable indeed.
+
+As if _she_ were to blame that it took so much butter and coffee and
+sugar and stuff just to get three meals a day! And as if it were her
+fault that that horrid cookbook was always calling for something she did
+not have, like mace, or summer savory, or thyme, and she had to run out
+and buy a pound of it! Didn't he suppose it took _some_ money to stock
+up with things, when one hadn't a thing to begin with?
+
+Helen had been on the point of saying something of this sort to her
+husband, simply as a matter of self-justification, when there
+unexpectedly came a most delightful solution of her difficulty.
+
+It was the grocer who pointed the way.
+
+"Why don't you open an account with us, Mrs. Denby?" he asked smilingly
+one day, in reply to her usual excuse that she could not buy something
+because she did not have the money to pay for it.
+
+"An account? What's that? That wouldn't make me have any more money,
+would it? Father was always talking about accounts--good ones and bad
+ones. He kept a store, you know. But I never knew what they were,
+exactly. I never thought of asking. I never had to pay any attention to
+money at home. What is an account? How can I get one?"
+
+"Why, you give your orders as usual, but let the payment go until the
+end of the month," smiled the grocer. "We'll charge it--note it down,
+you know--then send the bill to your husband."
+
+"And I won't have to ask him for any money?"
+
+"Not to pay us." The man's lips twitched a little.
+
+"Oh, that would be just grand," she sighed longingly. "I'd like that.
+And it's something the way we're buying our furniture, isn't
+it?--installments, you know."
+
+The grocer's lips twitched again.
+
+"Er--y-yes, only we send a bill for the entire month."
+
+"And he pays it? Oh, I see. That's just grand! And he'd like it all
+right, wouldn't he?--because of course he'd have to pay some time,
+anyhow. And this way he wouldn't have to have me bothering him so much
+all the time asking for money. Oh, thank you. You're very kind. I think
+I will do that way if you don't mind."
+
+"We shall be glad to have you, Mrs. Denby. So we'll call that settled.
+And now you can begin right away this morning."
+
+"And can I get those canned peaches and pears and plums, and the grape
+jelly that I first looked at?"
+
+"Certainly--if you decide you want 'em," mumbled the grocer, throwing
+the last six words as a sop to his conscience which was beginning to
+stir unpleasantly.
+
+"Oh, yes, I want 'em," averred Helen, her eager eyes sweeping the
+alluringly laden shelves before her. "I wanted them all the time, you
+know, only I didn't have enough money to pay for them. Now it'll be all
+right because Burke'll pay--I mean, Mr. Denby," she corrected with a
+conscious blush, suddenly remembering what her husband had said the
+night before about her calling him "Burke" so much to strangers.
+
+Helen found she wanted not only the fruits and jelly, but several other
+cans of soups, meats, and vegetables. And it was such a comfort, for
+once, to select what she wanted, and not have to count up the money in
+her purse! She was radiantly happy when she went home from market that
+morning (instead of being tired and worried as was usually the case);
+and the glow on her face lasted all through the day and into the
+evening--so much so that even Burke must have noticed it, for he told
+her he did not know when he had seen her looking so pretty. And he gave
+her an extra kiss or two when he greeted her.
+
+The second month of housekeeping proved to be a great improvement over
+the first. It was early in that month that Helen learned the joy and
+comfort of having "an account" at her grocer's. And she soon discovered
+that not yet had she probed this delight to its depths, for not only the
+grocer, but the fishman and the butcher were equally kind, and allowed
+her to open accounts with them. Coincident with this came the discovery
+that there were such institutions as bakeries and delicatessen shops,
+which seemed to have been designed especially to meet the needs of just
+such harassed little martyr housewives as she herself was; for in them
+one might buy bread and cakes and pies and even salads and cold meats,
+and fish balls. One might, indeed, with these delectable organizations
+at hand, snap one's fingers at all the cookbooks in the world--cookbooks
+that so miserably failed to cook!
+
+The baker and the little Dutch delicatessen man, too (when they found
+out who she was), expressed themselves as delighted to open an account;
+and with the disagreeable necessity eliminated of paying on the spot for
+what one ordered, and with so great an assortment of ready-to-eat foods
+to select from, Helen found her meal-getting that second month a much
+simpler matter.
+
+Then, too, Helen was much happier now that she did not have to ask her
+husband for money. She accepted what he gave her, and thanked him; but
+she said nothing about her new method of finance.
+
+"I'm going to keep it secret till the stores send him the bills," said
+Helen to herself. "Then I'll show him what a lot I've saved from what he
+has given me, and he'll be so glad to pay things all at once without
+being bothered with my everlasting teasing!"
+
+She only smiled, therefore, enigmatically, when he said one day, as he
+passed over the money:--
+
+"Jove, girl! I quite forgot. You must be getting low. But I'm glad you
+didn't have to ask me for it, anyhow!"
+
+Ask him for it, indeed! How pleased he would be when he found out that
+she was never going to ask him for money again!
+
+Helen was meaning to be very economical these days. When she went to
+market she always saw several things she would have liked, that she did
+not get, for of course she wanted to make the bills as small as she
+could. Naturally Burke would wish her to do that. She tried to save,
+too, a good deal of the money Burke gave her; but that was not always
+possible, for there were her own personal expenses. True, she did not
+need many clothes--but she was able to pick up a few bargains in bows
+and collars (one always needed fresh neckwear, of course); and she found
+some lovely silk stockings, too, that were very cheap, so she bought
+several pairs--to save money. And of course there were always car-fares
+and a soda now and then, or a little candy.
+
+There were the "movies" too. She had fallen into the way of going rather
+frequently to the Empire with her neighbor on the same floor. It did her
+good, and got her out of herself. (She had read only recently how every
+wife should have some recreation; it was a duty she owed herself and her
+husband--to keep herself youthful and attractive.) She got lonesome and
+nervous, sitting at home all day; and now that she had systematized her
+housekeeping so beautifully by buying almost everything all cooked, she
+had plenty of leisure. Of course she would have preferred to go to the
+Olympia Theater. They had a stock company there, and real plays. But
+their cheapest seats were twenty-five cents, while she might go to the
+Empire for ten. So very bravely she put aside her expensive longings,
+and chose the better part--economy and the movies. Besides, Mrs. Jones,
+the neighbor on the same floor, said that, for her part, she liked the
+movies the best,--you got "such a powerful lot more for your dough."
+
+Mrs. Jones always had something bright and original like that to
+say--Helen liked her very much! Indeed, she told Burke one day that Mrs.
+Jones was almost as good as a movie show herself. Burke, however, did
+not seem to care for Mrs. Jones. For that matter, he did not care for
+the movies, either.
+
+No matter where Helen went in the afternoon, she was always very careful
+to be at home before Burke. She hoped she knew what pertained to being
+a perfect wife better than to be careless about matters like that! Mrs.
+Jones was not always so particular in regard to her husband--which only
+served to give Helen a pleasant, warm little feeling of superiority at
+the difference.
+
+Perhaps Mrs. Jones detected the superiority, for sometimes she laughed,
+and said:--
+
+"All right, we'll go if you must; but you'll soon get over it. This
+lovey-dovey-I'm-right-here-hubby business is all very well for a while,
+but--you wait!"
+
+"All right, I'm waiting. But--you see!" Helen always laughed back,
+bridling prettily.
+
+Hurrying home from shopping or the theater, therefore, Helen always
+stopped and got her potato salad and cold meat, or whatever else she
+needed. And the meal was invariably on the table before Burke's key
+sounded in the lock.
+
+Helen was, indeed, feeling quite as if she were beginning to realize her
+vision now. Was she not each night the loving, daintily gowned wife
+welcoming her husband to a well-ordered, attractive home? There was even
+quite frequently a bouquet of flowers on the dinner table. Somewhere she
+had read that flowers always added much to a meal; and since then she
+had bought them when she felt that she could afford them. And in the
+market there were almost always some cheap ones, only a little faded. Of
+course, she never bought the fresh, expensive ones.
+
+After dinner there was the long evening together. Sometimes they went
+to walk, after the dishes were done--Burke had learned to dry dishes
+beautifully. More often they stayed at home and played games, or
+read--Burke was always wanting to read. Sometimes they just talked,
+laying wonderful plans about the fine new house they were going to
+build. Now that Helen did not have to ask Burke for money, there did not
+seem to be so many occasions when he was fretful and nervous; and they
+were much happier together.
+
+All things considered, therefore, Helen felt, indeed, before this second
+month of housekeeping was over, that she had now "got things nicely to
+running."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE HUSBAND
+
+
+Burke Denby had never given any thought as to whether he were going to
+be a perfect husband or not. He had wanted to marry Helen, and he had
+married her. That was all there was to it, except, of course, that they
+had got to show his father that they could make good.
+
+So far as being a husband--good, bad, or indifferent--was concerned,
+Burke was not giving any more thought to it now than he had given before
+his marriage. He was quite too busy giving thought to other
+matters--many other matters.
+
+There was first his work. He hated it. He hated the noise, the smell,
+the grime, the overalls, the men he worked with, the smug
+superciliousness of his especial "boss." He felt abused and indignant
+that he had to endure it all. As if it were necessary to put him through
+such a course of sprouts as this! As if, when the time came, he could
+not run the business successfully without all these years of dirt and
+torture! Was an engineer, then, made to _build_ an engine before he
+could be taught to handle the throttle? Was a child made to set the type
+of a primer before he could be taught his letters? Of course not! But
+they were making him not only set the type, but go down into the mines
+and dig the stuff the type was made of before they would teach him his
+letters. Yet they pretended it all must be done if he would ever learn
+to read--that is, to run the Denby Iron Works. Bah! He had a mind to
+chuck it all. He would if it weren't for dad. Dad hated quitters. And
+dad was looking wretched enough, as it was.
+
+And that was another thing--dad.
+
+Undeniably Burke was very unhappy over his father. He did not like to
+think of him, yet his face was always before him, pale and drawn, as he
+had seen it at that first interview after his return. As the days
+passed, Burke, in spite of his wish not to see his father, found himself
+continually seizing every opportunity that might enable him to see him.
+Daily he found himself haunting doorways and corridors, quite out of his
+way, when there was a chance that his father might pass.
+
+He told himself that it was just that he wanted to convince himself that
+his father did not look quite so bad, after all. But he knew in his
+heart that it was because he hoped his father would speak to him in the
+old way, and that it might lead to the tearing down of this horrible
+high wall of indifference and formality that had risen between them.
+Burke hated that wall.
+
+The wall was there, however, always. Nothing ever came of these
+connivings and loiterings except (if it were during working hours) a
+terse hint from the foreman, perhaps, to get back on his job. How Burke
+hated that foreman!
+
+And that was another thing--his position among his fellow workmen. He
+was with them, but not of them. His being among them at all was plainly
+a huge joke--and when one is acting a tragedy in all seriousness, one
+does not like to hear chuckles as at a comedy. But, for that matter,
+Burke found the comedy element always present, wherever he went. The
+entire town took himself, his work, and his marriage as a huge joke--a
+subject for gay badinage, jocose slaps on the back, and gleeful cries
+of:--
+
+"Well, Denby, how goes it? How doth the happy bridegroom?"
+
+And Burke hated that, too.
+
+It seemed to Burke, indeed, sometimes, that he hated everything but
+Helen. Helen, of course, was a dear--the sweetest little wife in the
+world. As if any one could help loving Helen! And however disagreeable
+the day, there was always Helen to go home to at night.
+
+Oh, of course, he had to take that abominable flat along with
+Helen--naturally, as long as he could not afford to put her in a more
+expensive place. But that would soon be remedied--just as soon as he got
+a little ahead.
+
+This "going home to Helen" had been one of Burke's happiest
+anticipations ever since his marriage. It would be so entrancing to find
+Helen and Helen's kiss waiting for him each night! Often had such
+thoughts been in his mind during his honeymoon trip; but never had they
+been so poignantly promising of joy as they were on that first day at
+the Works, after his disheartening interview with his father. All the
+rest of that miserable day it seemed to Burke that the only thing he was
+living for was the going home to Helen that night.
+
+"Home," to Burke, had always meant a place of peace and rest, of
+luxurious ease and noiseless servants, of orderly rooms and well-served
+meals, of mellow lights and softly blended colors. Unconsciously now
+home still meant the same, with the addition of Helen--Helen, the center
+of it all. It was this dear vision, therefore, that he treasured all
+through his honeymoon trip, that he hugged to himself all that wretched
+first day of work, and that was still his star of hope as he hurried
+that night toward the Dale Street flat. If he had stopped to think, he
+would have realized at once that this new home of a day was not the old
+home of years. But he did not stop to think of anything except that for
+the first time in his life he was going home from work to Helen, his
+wife.
+
+Burke Denby never forgot the shock of that first home-going. He opened
+the door of his apartment--and confronted chaos: a surly janitor
+struggling with a curtain pole, a confusion of trunks, chairs, a
+stepladder, and a floor-pail, a disorder of dishes on a coverless table,
+a smell of burned milk, and a cross, tired, untidy wife who flung
+herself into his arms with a storm of sobs.
+
+"Home," after that, meant quite something new to Burke Denby. It meant
+Helen, of course, but--
+
+Still it would be only for a little while, after all, he consoled
+himself each day. Just as soon as he got ahead a little, it would be
+different. He could sell the stuff, then; and the very first thing to go
+would be that hideous purple pillow on the red plush sofa--for that
+matter, the sofa would follow after mighty quick. And the chairs, too.
+They were a little worse to sit on than to look at--which was
+unnecessary. As for the rugs--when it came to those, it would be his
+turn to select next time. At all events, he would not be obliged to have
+one that, the minute you opened the door, bounced into your face and
+screamed "Hullo! I'm here. See me!" How he hated that rug! And the
+pictures and those cheap gilt vases--everything, of course, would be
+different in the new home.
+
+Nor did Burke stop to think that this constant shifting, in one's mind,
+of things that are, to things that may some time be, scarcely makes for
+content.
+
+Still, Burke could not have forgotten his house-furnishings, even if he
+had tried to do so, for he had to make payments on them "every few
+minutes," as he termed it. Indeed, one of the unsolved riddles of his
+life these days was as to why there were so many more Mondays (the day
+he paid his installments) than there were Saturdays (the day the Works
+paid him) in a week. For that matter, after all was said and done,
+perhaps to nothing was Burke Denby giving more thought these days than
+to money.
+
+Burke's experience with money heretofore had been to draw a check for
+what he wanted. True, he sometimes overdrew his account a trifle; but
+there was always his allowance coming the first of the month; and
+neither he nor the bank worried.
+
+Now it was quite different. There was no allowance, and no bank--save
+his pocket, and there was only fifteen dollars a week coming into that.
+He would not have believed that fifteen dollars a week could go so
+quickly, and buy so little. Very early in the first month of
+housekeeping all that remained of his allowance was gone. What did not
+go at once to make payments on the furniture was paid over to Helen to
+satisfy some of her many requests for money.
+
+And that was another of Burke's riddles--why Helen needed so much money
+just to get them something to eat. True, of late, she had not asked for
+it so frequently. She had not, indeed, asked for any for some time--for
+which he was devoutly thankful. He would not have liked to refuse her;
+and he certainly was giving her all that he could afford to give,
+without her asking. A fellow must smoke some--though Heaven knew he had
+cut his cigars down, both in quantity and quality, until he had cut out
+nearly all the pleasure!
+
+Still he was glad to do it for Helen. Helen was a little brick. How
+pretty she looked when she was holding forth on his "making good," and
+her not "dragging" him "down"! Bless her heart! As if she could be
+guilty of such a thing as that! Why, she was going to drag him up--Helen
+was!
+
+And she was doing pretty well, too, running the little home, for a girl
+who did not know a thing about it, to begin with. She was doing a whole
+lot better than at first. Breakfast had not been late for two weeks, nor
+dinner, either. And she was almost always at the door to kiss him now,
+too, while at the first he had to hunt her up, only to find her crying
+in the kitchen, probably--something wrong somewhere.
+
+Oh, to be sure, he _was_ getting a little tired of potato salad, and he
+always had abhorred those potato-chippy things; and he himself did not
+care much for cold meat. But, of course, after she got a little more
+used to things she wouldn't serve that sort of trash quite so often. He
+would be getting real things to eat, pretty soon--good, juicy beefsteaks
+and roasts, and nice fresh vegetables and fruit shortcakes, with muffins
+and griddle-cakes for breakfast. But Helen was a little brick--Helen
+was. And she was doing splendidly!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+STUMBLING-BLOCKS
+
+
+Mrs. Burke Denby was a little surprised at the number of letters
+directed to her husband in the morning mail that first day of November,
+until she noticed the familiar names in the upper left-hand corners of
+several of the envelopes.
+
+"Oh, it's the bills," she murmured, drawing in her breath a little
+uncertainly. "To-day's the first, and they said they'd send them then.
+But I didn't think there'd be such a lot of them. Still, I've had things
+at all those places. Well, anyway, he'll be glad to pay them all at
+once, without my teasing for money all the time," she finished with
+resolute insistence, as she turned back to her work.
+
+If, now that the time had come, and the bills lay before her in all
+their fearsome reality, Helen was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her
+financial system, she would not admit it, even to herself. And she still
+wore a determinedly cheerful face when her husband came home to dinner
+that night. She went into the kitchen as he began to open his mail--she
+was reminded of a sudden something that needed her attention. Two
+minutes later she nearly dropped the dish of potato salad she was
+carrying, at the sound of his voice from the doorway.
+
+"Helen, what in Heaven's name is the meaning of these bills?" He was in
+the kitchen now, holding out a sheaf of tightly clutched papers in each
+hand.
+
+Helen set the potato salad down hastily.
+
+"Why, Burke, don't--don't look at me so!"
+
+"But what does this mean? What are these things?"
+
+"Why, they--they're just bills, I suppose. They _said_ they'd be."
+
+"Bills! Great Caesar, Helen! You don't mean to say that you _do_ know
+about them--that you bought all this stuff?"
+
+Helen's lip began to quiver.
+
+"Burke, don't--please don't look like that. You frighten me."
+
+"Frighten you! What do you think of _me_?--springing a thing like this!"
+
+"Why, Burke, I--I thought you'd _like_ it."
+
+"_Like_ it!"
+
+"Y-yes--that I didn't have to ask you for money all the time. And you'd
+have to p-pay 'em some time, anyhow. We had to eat, you know."
+
+"But, great Scott, Helen! We aren't a hotel! Look at
+that--'salad'--'salad'--'salad,'" he exploded, pointing a shaking finger
+at a series of items on the uppermost bill in his left hand. "There's
+tons of the stuff there, and I always did abominate it!"
+
+"Why, Burke, I--I--" And the floods came.
+
+"Oh, thunderation! Helen, Helen, don't--please don't!"
+
+"But I thought I was going to p-please you, and you called me a h-hotel,
+and said you a-abominated it!" she wailed, stumbling away blindly.
+
+With a despairing ejaculation Burke flung the bills to the floor, and
+caught the sob-shaken little figure of his wife in his arms.
+
+"There, there, I was a brute, and I didn't mean it--not a word of it.
+Sweetheart, don't, please don't," he begged. "Why, girlie, all the bills
+in Christendom aren't worth a tear from your dear eyes. Come, _won't_
+you stop?"
+
+But Helen did not stop, at once. The storm was short, but tempestuous.
+At the end of ten minutes, however, together they went into the
+dining-room. Helen carried the potato salad (which Burke declared he was
+really hungry for to-day), and Burke carried the bills crumpled in one
+hand behind his back, his other arm around his wife's waist.
+
+That evening a remorseful, wistful-eyed wife and a husband with an
+"I'll-be-patient-if-it-kills-me" air went over the subject of household
+finances, and came to an understanding.
+
+There were to be no more charge accounts. For the weekly expenses Helen
+was to have every cent that could possibly be spared; but what she could
+not pay cash for, they must go without, if they starved. In a pretty
+little book she must put down on one side the money received. On the
+other, the money spent. She was a dear, good little wife, and he loved
+her 'most to death; but he couldn't let her run up bills when he had
+not a red cent to pay them with. He would borrow, of course, for
+these--he was not going to have any dirty little tradesmen pestering him
+with bills all the time! But this must be the last. Never again!
+
+And Helen said yes, yes, indeed. And she was very sure she would love to
+keep the pretty little book, and put down all the money she got, and all
+she spent.
+
+All this was very well in theory. But in practice--
+
+At the end of the first week Helen brought her book to her husband, and
+spread it open before him with great gusto.
+
+On the one side were several entries of small sums, amounting to eight
+dollars received. On the other side were the words: "Spent all but
+seventeen cents."
+
+"Oh, but you should put down what you spent it for," corrected Burke,
+with a merry laugh.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why, er--so you can see--er--what the money goes for."
+
+"What's the difference--if it goes?"
+
+"Oh, shucks! You can't keep a cash account that way! You have to put 'em
+both down, and then--er--balance up and see if your cash comes right.
+See, like this," he cried, taking a little book from his pocket. "I'm
+keeping one." And he pointed to a little list which read:--
+
+  Lunch       $.25
+  Cigar        .10
+  Car-fare     .10
+  Paper        .02
+  Helen       2.00
+  Cigars       .25
+  Paper        .02
+
+"Now that's what I spent yesterday. You want to put yours down like
+that, then add 'em up and subtract it from what you receive. What's left
+should equal your cash on hand."
+
+"Hm-m; well, all right," assented Helen dubiously, as she picked up her
+own little book.
+
+Helen looked still more dubious when she presented her book for
+inspection the next week.
+
+"I don't think I like it this way," she announced, with a pout.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, Burke, the mean old thing steals--actually steals! It says I ought
+to have one dollar and forty-five cents; and I haven't got but fourteen
+cents! It's got it itself--somewhere!"
+
+"Ho, that's easy, dear!" The man gave an indulgent laugh. "You didn't
+put 'em all down--what you spent."
+
+"But I did--everything I could remember. Besides, I borrowed fifty cents
+of Mrs. Jones. I didn't put that down anywhere. I didn't know where to
+put it."
+
+"Helen! You borrowed money--of that woman?"
+
+"She isn't 'that woman'! She's my friend, and I like her," flared Helen,
+hotly. "I had to have some eggs, and I didn't have a cent of money. I
+shall pay her back, of course,--next time you pay me."
+
+Burke frowned.
+
+"Oh, come, come, Helen, this will never do," he remonstrated. "Of course
+you'll pay her back; but I can't have my wife borrowing of the
+neighbors!"
+
+"But I had to! I had to have some eggs," she choked, "and--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. But I mean, we won't again," interrupted the man
+desperately, fleeing to cover in the face of the threatening storm of
+sobs. "And, anyhow, we'll see that you have some money now," he cried
+gayly, plunging his hands into his pockets, and pulling out all the
+bills and change he had. "There, 'with all my worldly goods I thee
+endow,'" he laughed, lifting his hands above her bright head, and
+showering the money all over her.
+
+Like children then they scrambled for the rolling nickels and elusive
+dimes; and in the ensuing frolic the tiresome account-book was
+forgotten--which was exactly what Burke had hoped would happen.
+
+This was the second week. At the end of the third, the "mean old thing"
+was in a worse muddle than ever, according to Helen; and, for her part,
+she would rather never buy anything at all if she had got to go and tell
+that nuisance of a book every time!
+
+The fourth Saturday night Helen did not produce the book at all.
+
+"Oh, I don't keep that any longer," she announced, with airy
+nonchalance, in answer to Burke's question. "It never came right, and I
+hated it, anyhow. So what's the use? I've got what I've got, and I've
+spent what I've spent. So what's the difference?" And Burke, after a
+feeble remonstrance, gave it up as a bad job. Incidentally it might be
+mentioned that Burke was having a little difficulty with his own cash
+account, and was tempted to accuse his own book of stealing--else where
+did the money go?
+
+It was the next Monday night that Burke came home with a radiant
+countenance.
+
+"Gleason's here--up at the Hancock House. He's coming down after
+dinner."
+
+"Who's Gleason?"
+
+Helen's tone was a little fretful--there was a new, intangible something
+in her husband's voice that Helen did not understand, and that she did
+not think she liked.
+
+"Gleason! Who's Doc Gleason!" exclaimed Burke, with widening eyes. "Oh,
+I forgot. You don't know him, do you?" he added, with a slight frown.
+Burke Denby was always forgetting that Helen knew nothing of his friends
+or of himself until less than a year before. "Well, Doc Gleason is the
+best ever. He went to Egypt with us last year, and to Alaska the year
+before."
+
+"How old is he?"
+
+"Old? Why, I don't know--thirty--maybe more. He must be a little more,
+come to think of it. But you never think of age with the doctor. He'll
+be young when he's ninety."
+
+"And you like him--so well?" Her voice was a little wistful.
+
+"Next to dad--always have. You'll like him, too. You can't help it. He's
+mighty interesting."
+
+"And he's a doctor?"
+
+"Yes, and no. Oh, he graduated and hung out his shingle; but he never
+practiced much. He had money enough, anyway, and he got interested in
+scientific research--antiquarian, mostly, though he's done a bit of
+mountain-climbing and glacier-studying for the National Geographic
+Society."
+
+"Antiquarian? Oh, yes, I know--old things. Mother was that way, too. She
+had an old pewter plate, and a dark blue china teapot, homely as a hedge
+fence, I thought, but she doted on 'em. And she doted on ancestors, too.
+She had one in that old ship--Mayflower, wasn't it?"
+
+Burke laughed.
+
+"Mayflower! My dear child, the Mayflower is a mere infant-in-arms in the
+doctor's estimation. The doctor goes back to prehistoric times for his
+playground, and to the men of the old Stone Age for his preferred
+playmates."
+
+"Older than the Mayflower, then?"
+
+"A trifle--some thousands of years."
+
+"Goodness! How can he? I thought the Mayflower was bad enough. But what
+does he do--collect things?"
+
+"Yes, to some extent; he has a fine collection of Babylonian tablets,
+and--"
+
+"Oh, I know--those funny little brown and yellow cakes like soap, all
+cut into with pointed little marks--what do you call it?--like your
+father has in his library!"
+
+"The cuneiform writing? Yes. As I said, the doctor has a fine collection
+of tablets, and of some other things; but principally he studies and
+goes on trips. It was a trip to the Spanish grottoes that got him
+interested in the archaeological business in the first place, and put him
+out of conceit with doctoring. He goes a lot now, sometimes
+independently, sometimes in the interest of some society. He does in a
+scientific way what dad and I have done for fun--traveling and
+collecting, I mean. Then, too, he has written a book or two which are
+really authoritative in their line. He's a great chap--the doctor is.
+Wait till you see him. I've told him about you, too."
+
+"Then you told him--that is--he knows--about the marriage."
+
+"Why, sure he does!" Burke's manner was a bit impatient. "What do you
+suppose, when he's coming here to-night? Now, mind, put on your
+prettiest frock and your sweetest smile. I want him to see _why_ I
+married you," he challenged banteringly. "I want him to see what a
+treasure I've got. And say, dearie, _do_ you suppose--_could_ we have
+him to dinner, or something? Could you manage it? I wanted to ask him
+to-night; but of course I couldn't--without your knowing beforehand."
+
+"Mercy, no, Burke!" shuddered the young housekeeper. "Don't you
+dare--when I don't know it."
+
+"But if you do know it--" He paused hopefully.
+
+"Why, y-yes, I guess so. Of course I could get things I was sure of,
+like potato salad and--"
+
+Burke sat back in his chair.
+
+"But, Helen, I'm afraid--I don't think--that is, I'm 'most sure Gleason
+doesn't like potato salad," he stammered.
+
+"Doesn't he? Well, he needn't eat it, then. We'll have all the more left
+for the next day."
+
+"But, Helen, er--"
+
+"Oh, I'll have chips, too; don't worry, dear. I'll give him something to
+eat," she promised gayly. "Do you suppose I'm going to have one of your
+swell friends come here, and then have you ashamed of me? You just wait
+and see!"
+
+"Er, no--no, indeed, of course not," plunged in her husband feverishly,
+trying to ward off a repetition of the "swell"--a word he particularly
+abhorred.
+
+Several times in the last two months he had heard Helen use this
+word--twice when she had informed him with great glee that some swell
+friends of his from Elm Hill had come in their carriage to call; and
+again quite often when together on the street they met some one whom he
+knew. He thought he hated the word a little more bitterly every time he
+heard it.
+
+For several weeks now the Denbys had been receiving calls--Burke Denby
+was a Denby of Denby Mansion even though he was temporarily marooned on
+Dale Street at a salary of sixty dollars a month. Besides, to many, Dale
+Street and the sixty dollars, with the contributory elements of
+elopement and irate parent, only added piquancy and interest to what
+would otherwise have been nothing but the conventional duty call.
+
+To Helen, in the main, these calls were a welcome diversion--"just
+grand," indeed. To Burke, on whom the curiosity element was not lost,
+they were an impertinence and a nuisance. Yet he endured them, and even
+welcomed them, in a way; for he wanted Helen to know his friends, and to
+like them--better than she liked Mrs. Jones. He did not care for Mrs.
+Jones. She talked too loud, and used too much slang. He did not like to
+have Helen with her. Always, therefore, after callers had been there,
+his first eager question was: "How did you like them, dear?" He wanted
+so much that Helen should like them!
+
+To-night, however, in thinking of the prospective visit from Gleason, he
+was wondering how the doctor would like Helen--not how Helen would like
+the doctor. The change was significant but unconscious--perhaps all the
+more significant because it was unconscious.
+
+Until he had reached home that night, Burke had been so overjoyed at the
+prospect of an old-time chat with his friend that he had given little
+thought to Gleason's probable opinion of the Dale Street flat and its
+furnishings. Now, with his eyes on the obtrusive unharmony all about
+him, and his memory going back to the doctor's well-known fastidiousness
+of taste, he could think of little else. He did hope Gleason would not
+think _he_ had selected those horrors! Of course he had already
+explained--a little--about his father's disapproval of the marriage, and
+the resulting cutting-off of his allowance; but even that would not
+excuse (to Gleason) the riot of glaring reds and pinks and purples in
+his living-rooms; and one could not very well explain that one's wife
+_liked_ the horrors-- He pulled himself up sharply. Of course Helen
+herself was a dear. He hoped Gleason would see how dear she was. He
+wanted Gleason to like Helen.
+
+As the hour drew near for the expected guest's arrival, Burke Denby,
+greatly to his vexation, found himself growing more and more nervous. He
+asked himself indignantly if he were going to let a purple cushion
+entirely spoil the pleasure of the evening. Not until he had seen
+Gleason that afternoon had he realized how sorely he had missed his
+father's companionship all these past weeks. Not until he had found
+himself bubbling over with the things he wanted to talk about that
+evening had he realized how keenly he had missed the mental stimulus of
+that father's comradeship. And now, for the sake of a purple cushion,
+was he to lose the only chance he had had for weeks of conversing with
+an intelligent--
+
+With an almost audible gasp the shocked and shamed husband pulled
+himself up again.
+
+Well, of course Helen was intelligent. It was only that she was not
+interested in, and did not know about, these things he was thinking of;
+and--
+
+The doorbell rang sharply, and Burke leaped to his feet and hastened to
+press the button that would release the catch of the lock at the
+entrance below.
+
+"Why, Burke, you never called down through the tube at all, and asked
+who it was," remonstrated Helen, hurrying in, her fingers busy with the
+final fastenings of her dress.
+
+"You bet your life I didn't," laughed Burke, a bit grimly. "You've got
+another guess coming if you think I'm going to hold Doc Gleason off at
+the end of a 'Who is it?' bellowed into his ear from that impertinent
+copper trumpet down there."
+
+"Why, Burke, that's all right. Everybody does it," maintained Helen. "We
+have to, else we'd be letting all sorts of folks in, and--"
+
+At a warning gesture from her husband she stopped just as a tall,
+smooth-shaven man with kind eyes and a grave smile appeared at the open
+hallway door.
+
+"Glad to see you, doctor," cried Burke, extending a cordial hand, that
+yet trembled a little. "Let me present you to my wife."
+
+"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure," bobbed Helen. And because she was
+nervous she said the next thing that came into her head. "And I hope
+you're pleased to meet me, too. All Burke's friends are so swell, you
+know, that--"
+
+"Er--ah--" broke in the dismayed husband.
+
+But the visitor advanced quietly, still with that same grave smile, and
+clasped Mrs. Denby's extended hand.
+
+"I am very sure Burke's friends are, indeed, very glad to meet you," he
+said. "Certainly I am," he finished, with a cordial heartiness so nicely
+balanced that even Burke Denby's sensitive alertness could find in it
+neither the overzealousness of insincerity nor the indifference of
+disdain.
+
+Even when, a minute later, they turned and went into the living room,
+Burke's still apprehensive watchfulness could detect in his friend's
+face not one trace of the dismayed horror he had been dreading to see
+there.
+
+"Gleason's a brick," he sighed to himself, trying to relax his tense
+muscles. "As if I didn't know that every last gimcrack in this miserable
+room would fairly scream at him the moment he entered that door!"
+
+In spite of everybody's very evident efforts to have everything pass off
+pleasantly, the evening was anything but a success. Helen, at first shy
+and ill at ease, said little. Then, as if suddenly realizing her
+deficiencies as a hostess, she tried to remedy it by talking very loud
+and very fast about anything that came into her mind, reveling
+especially in minute details concerning their own daily lives, ranging
+all the way from stories of the elopement and the house-furnishing on
+the installment plan to hilarious accounts of her experiences with the
+cookbook and the account-book.
+
+Very plainly Helen was doing her best to "show off." From one to the
+other she looked, with little nods and coquettish smiles.
+
+To Gleason her manner said: "You see now why Burke fell in love with me,
+don't you?" To Burke it said: "There, now I guess you ain't ashamed of
+me!"
+
+The doctor, still with the grave smile and kindly eyes, listened
+politely, uttering now and then a pleasant word or two, in a way that
+even the distraught husband could not criticize. As for the husband
+himself, between his anger at Helen and his anger at himself because of
+his anger at Helen, he was in a woeful condition of nervousness and
+ill-humor. Vainly trying to wrest the ball of conversation from Helen's
+bungling fingers, he yet felt obliged to laugh in apparent approval at
+her wild throws. Nor was he unaware of the sorry figure he thus made of
+himself. Having long since given up all hope of the anticipated chat
+with his friend, his one aim now was to get the visit over, and the
+doctor out of the house as soon as possible. Yet the very fact that he
+did want the visit over and the doctor gone only angered him the more,
+and put into his mouth words that were a mockery of cordiality. No
+wonder, then, that for Burke the evening was a series of fidgetings,
+throat-clearings, and nervous laughs that (if he had but known it) were
+fully as distressing to the doctor as they were to himself.
+
+At half-past nine the doctor rose to his feet.
+
+"Well, good people, I must go," he announced cheerily. (For the last
+half-hour the doctor had been wondering just how soon he might make that
+statement.) "It's half-past nine."
+
+"Pshaw! That ain't late," protested Helen.
+
+"No, indeed," echoed Burke--though Burke had promptly risen with his
+guest.
+
+"Perhaps not, to you; but to me--" The doctor let a smile finish his
+sentence.
+
+"But you're coming again," gurgled Helen. "You're coming to dinner.
+Burke said you was."
+
+Burke's mouth flew open--but just in time he snapped it shut. He had
+remembered that hospitable husbands do not usually retract their wives'
+invitations with a terrified "For Heaven's sake, no!"--at least, not in
+the face of the prospective guest. Before he could put the new, proper
+words into his mouth, the doctor spoke.
+
+"Thank you. You're very kind; but I'm afraid not--this time, Mrs. Denby.
+My stay is to be very short. But I'm glad to have had this little
+visit," he finished, holding out his hand.
+
+And again Burke, neither then, nor when he looked straight into the
+doctor's eyes a moment later, could find aught in word or manner upon
+which to pin his watchful suspicions.
+
+The next moment the doctor was gone.
+
+Helen yawned luxuriously, openly-- Helen never troubled to hide her
+yawns.
+
+"Now I like _him_," she observed emphatically, but not very distinctly
+(owing to the yawn). "If all your swell friends were--"
+
+"Helen, for Heaven's sake, _isn't_ there any word but that abominable
+'swell' that you can use?" interrupted her husband, seizing the first
+pretext that offered itself as a scapegoat for his irritation.
+
+Helen laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"All right; 'stuck up,' then, if you like that better. But, for my part,
+I like 'swell' best. It's so expressive, so much more swell--there, you
+see," she laughed, with another shrug; "it just says itself. But,
+really, I do like the doctor. I think he's just grand. Where does he
+live?"
+
+"Boston." Burke hated "grand" only one degree less than "swell."
+
+"Is he married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How old did you say he was?"
+
+"I didn't say. I don't know. Thirty-five, probably."
+
+"Why, Burke, what's the matter? What are you so short about? Don't you
+_like_ it that I like him? I thought you wanted me to like your
+friends."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know; and I do, Helen, of course." Burke got to his feet
+and took a nervous turn about the tiny room.
+
+Helen watched him with widening eyes. The look of indolent satisfaction
+was gone from her face. She was not yawning now.
+
+"Why, Burke, what _is_ the matter?" she catechized. "Wasn't I nice to
+him? Didn't I talk to him, and just lay myself out to entertain him?
+Didn't I ask him to dinner, and--"
+
+"Dinner!" Burke fairly snarled the word out as he wheeled sharply. "Holy
+smoke, Helen! I wonder if you think I'd have that man come here to
+dinner, or come here ever again to hear you-- Oh, hang it all, what am I
+saying?" he broke off, jerking himself about with a despairing gesture.
+
+Helen came now to her feet. Her eyes blazed.
+
+"I know. You was ashamed of me," she panted.
+
+"Oh, come, come; nonsense, Helen!"
+
+"You was."
+
+"Of course I wasn't."
+
+"Then what was the matter?"
+
+"Nothing; nothing, Helen."
+
+"There was, too. Don't you suppose I know? But I tried to do all right.
+I tried to make you p-proud of me," she choked. "I know I didn't talk
+much at first. I was scared and stupid, he was so fine and grand. And I
+didn't know a thing about all that Egyptian stuff you was talking about.
+Then I thought how 'shamed you'd be of me, and I just made up my mind I
+_would_ talk and show him it wasn't a--a little fool that you'd married;
+and I s'posed I was doing what you wanted me to. But I see now I
+wasn't. I wasn't fine enough for your grand friend. I ain't never fine
+enough for 'em. But I don't care. I hate 'em all--every one of 'em! I'd
+rather have Mrs. Jones twice over. _She_ isn't ashamed of me. I thought
+I was p-pleasing you; and now--now--" Her words were lost in a storm of
+sobs.
+
+There was but one thing to be done, of course; and Burke did it. He took
+her in his arms and soothed and petted and praised her. What he said he
+did not know--nor care, for that matter, so long as it served ever so
+slightly to dam the flood of Helen's tears. That, for the moment, was
+the only thing worth living for. The storm passed at last, as storms
+must; but it was still a teary little wife that received her husband's
+good-night kiss some time later. Burke did not go to sleep very readily
+that night. In his mind he was going over his prospective meeting with
+his friend Gleason the next day.
+
+What would Gleason say? How would he act? What would he himself say?
+What _could_ he say? He could not very well apologize for--
+
+Even to himself Burke would not finish the sentence.
+
+Apologize? Indeed, no! As if there were anything, anyway, to apologize
+for! He would meet Gleason exactly as usual. He would carry his head
+high. There should be about him no air of apology or appeal. By his
+every act and word he would show that he was not in need of sympathy,
+and that he should resent comment. He might even ask Gleason to dinner.
+He believed he _would_ ask him to dinner. In no other way, certainly,
+could he so convincingly show how--er--proud he was of his wife.
+
+Burke went to sleep then.
+
+It had been arranged that the two men should meet at noon for luncheon;
+and promptly on time Burke appeared at the hotel. His chin was indeed
+high, and for the first two minutes he was painfully guarded and
+self-conscious in his bearing. But under the unstudied naturalness of
+the doctor's manner, he speedily became his normal self; and in five
+minutes the two were conversing with their old ease and enthusiasm.
+
+The doctor had with him an Egyptian scarab with a rarely interesting
+inscription, a new acquisition; also a tiny Babylonian tablet of great
+value. In both of them Burke was much interested. In the wake then of a
+five-thousand-year-old stylus, it is not strange that he forgot present
+problems.
+
+"I'm taking these up to-night for your father to see," smiled the
+doctor, after a short silence. "He writes me he's got a new tablet
+himself; a very old one. He thinks he's made a discovery on it, too. He
+swears he's picked out a veritable thumb-mark on one side."
+
+"Nonsense! Dad's always discovering things," grinned Burke. "You know
+dad."
+
+"But he says this is a sure thing. It's visible with the naked eye; but
+under the microscope it's wonderful. And-- But, never mind! We'll see
+for ourselves to-night. You're coming up, of course."
+
+"Sure! And I want to see--" The young man stopped abruptly. A painful
+color had swept to his forehead. "Er--no. On second thoughts I--I can't
+to-night," he corrected. In its resolute emphasis his voice sounded
+almost harsh. "But you--you're coming to dinner with us--to-morrow
+night, aren't you?"
+
+"Oh, no; no, thank you," began the doctor hastily. Then, suddenly, he
+encountered his friend's steadfast eye upon him. "Er--that is," he
+amended in his turn, "unless you--you are willing to let me come very
+informally, as I shall have to leave almost at once afterwards. I'm
+taking the eight-thirty train that evening."
+
+"Very good. We shall expect you," answered the younger man, with a
+curious relaxation of voice and manner--a relaxation that puzzled and
+slightly worried the doctor, who was wondering whether it were the
+relaxation of relief or despair. The doctor was not sure yet that he had
+rightly interpreted that steadfast gaze. Two minutes later, Burke, once
+again self-conscious, constrained, and with his head high, took his
+leave.
+
+On his way back to work Burke berated himself soundly. Having
+deliberately bound himself to the martyrdom of a dinner to his friend,
+he was now insufferably angry that he should regard it as a martyrdom at
+all. Also he knew within himself that there seemed, for the moment,
+nothing that he would not give to spend the coming evening in the quiet
+restfulness of his father's library with the doctor and an Egyptian
+scarab.
+
+As if all the Egyptian scarabs and Babylonian tablets in the world
+_could_ balance the scale with Helen on the other side!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+DIVERGING WAYS
+
+
+Of course the inevitable happened. However near two roads may be at the
+start, if they diverge ever so slightly and keep straight ahead, there
+is bound to be in time all the world between them.
+
+In the case of Burke and Helen, their roads never started together at
+all: they merely crossed; and at the crossing came the wedding. They
+were miles apart at the start--miles apart in tastes, traditions, and
+environment. In one respect only were they alike: undisciplined
+self-indulgence--a likeness that meant only added differences when it
+came to the crossing; and that made it all the more nearly impossible to
+merge those two diverging roads into one wide way leading straight on to
+wedded happiness.
+
+All his life Burke had consulted no one's will but his own. It was not
+easy now to walk when he wanted to sit still, nor to talk when he wanted
+to read; especially as the one who wanted him to walk and to talk
+happened to be a willful young person who all _her_ life had been in the
+habit of walking and talking when _she_ wanted to.
+
+Burke, accustomed from babyhood to leaving his belongings wherever he
+happened to drop them, was first surprised and then angry that he did
+not find them magically restored to their proper places, as in the days
+of his boyhood and youth. Burke abhorred disorder. Helen, accustomed
+from her babyhood to being picked-up after, easily drifted into the way
+of letting all things, both hers and his, lie as they were. It saved a
+great deal of work.
+
+Even so simple a matter as the temperature of a sleeping-room had its
+difficulties. Burke liked air. He wanted the windows wide open. Helen,
+trained to think night air was damp and dangerous, wanted them shut. And
+when two people are sleepy, cross, and tired, it is appalling what a
+range of woe can lie in the mere opening and shutting of a window.
+
+Burke was surprised, annoyed, and dismayed. Being unaccustomed to
+disappointments he did not know how to take them gracefully. This being
+married was not proving to be at all the sort of thing he had pictured
+to himself. He had supposed that life, married life, was to be a new
+wonder every day; an increasing delight every hour. It was neither.
+Living now was a matter of never-ending adjustment, self-sacrifice, and
+economy. And he hated them all. In spite of himself he was getting into
+debt, and he hated debt. It made a fellow feel cheap and mean.
+
+Even Helen was not what he had thought she was. He was ashamed to own
+it, even to himself, but there was a good deal about Helen that he did
+not like. She was not careful about her appearance. She was actually
+almost untidy at times. He hated those loose, sloppy things she
+sometimes wore, and he abominated those curl-paper things in her hair.
+She was willful and fretful, and she certainly did not know how to give
+a fellow a decent meal or a comfortable place to stay. For his part, he
+did not think a girl had any right to marry until she knew something
+about running a simple home.
+
+Then there was her constant chatter. Was she not ever going to talk
+about anything but the silly little everyday happenings of her work? A
+fellow wanted to hear something, when he came home tired at night,
+besides complaints that the range didn't work, or that the grocer forgot
+his order, or that the money was out.
+
+Why, Helen used to be good company, cheerful, often witty. Where were
+her old-time sparkle and radiance? Her talk now was a meaningless
+chatter of trivial things, or an irritating, wailing complaint of
+everything under the sun, chiefly revolving around the point of "how
+different everything was" from what she expected. Great Scott! As if
+_he_ had not found some things different! _That_ evidently was what
+marriage was--different. But talking about it all the time did not help
+any.
+
+Couldn't she read? But, then, if she did read, it would be only the
+newspaper account of the latest murder; and then she would want to talk
+about that. She never read anything worth while.
+
+And it was for this, this being married to Helen, that he had given up
+so much: dad, his home, everything. She didn't appreciate it--Helen
+didn't. She did not rightly estimate what he was being made to suffer.
+
+That there was any especial meaning in all this that he himself should
+take to heart--that there was any course open to him but righteous
+discontent and rebellion--never occurred to Burke. His training of
+frosted cakes and toy shotguns had taught him nothing of the traditional
+"two bears," "bear" and "forbear." The marriage ceremony had not meant
+to him "to be patient, tender, and sympathetic." It had meant the "I
+will" of self-assertion, not the "I will" of self-discipline. That Helen
+ought to change many of _her_ traits and habits he was convinced. That
+there might be some in himself that needed changing, or that the mere
+fact of his having married Helen might have entailed upon himself
+certain obligations as to making the best of what he had deliberately
+chosen, did not once occur to him.
+
+As for Helen--Helen was facing her own disillusions. She was not trying
+now to be the daintily gowned wife welcoming her husband to a well-kept
+home. She had long since decided that that was impossible--on sixty
+dollars a month. She was tired of being a martyr wife. Even the laurel
+wreath of praise had lost its allurement: she would not get it,
+probably, even if she earned it; and, anyway, she would be dead from
+trying to get it. And for her part she would rather have some fun while
+she was living.
+
+But she wasn't having any fun. Things were so different. Everything was
+different. She had not supposed being married was like this: one long
+grind of housework from morning till night, and for a man who did not
+care. And Burke did not care--now. Once, the first thing he wanted when
+he came into the house was a kiss and a word from her. Now he wanted his
+dinner. And he was so fussy, too! _She_ could get along with cold
+things; but he wanted hot ones, and lots of them. And he always wanted
+finger-bowls and lots of spoons, and everything fixed just so on the
+table, too. He said it wasn't that he wanted "style." It was just that
+he wanted things decent. As if she hadn't had things decent herself--and
+without all that fuss and clutter!
+
+After dinner he never wanted to talk now, or to go to walk. He just
+wanted to read or study. He said he was studying; something about his
+work. As if once he would have cared more for any old work than for her!
+
+And she was so lonely! There was nobody now for her to be with. Mrs.
+Jones had moved away, and there were never any callers now. She had
+returned every one of the calls she had had from Burke's fine friends.
+She had put on her new red dress and her best hat with the pink roses;
+and she had tried to be just as bright and entertaining as she knew how
+to be. But they never came again, so of course she could not go to see
+them. She _had_ gone, once or twice. But Burke said she must not do
+that. It was not proper to return your own calls. If they wanted to see
+her they would come themselves. But they never came. Probably, anyhow,
+they did not want to see her; and that was the trouble. Not that she
+cared! They were a "stuck-up" lot, anyway; and she was just as good as
+they were. She had told one woman so, once--the woman that carried her
+eyeglasses on the end of a little stick and stared. That woman always
+had made her mad. So it was just as well, perhaps, that they did not
+come any more, after all. Burke was ashamed of her, anyway, when they
+did come. She knew that. He did not like anything she did nowadays. He
+was always telling her he did wish she would stop saying "you was," or
+holding her fork like that, or making so much noise eating soup, and a
+dozen other things. As if nobody in the house had a right to do anything
+but _his_ way!
+
+It had been so different at home! There everything she did was just
+right. And she was never lonely. There were the parties and the frolics
+and the sleigh-rides, and the girls running in all the time, and the
+boys every evening on the porch, or in the parlor, or taking her
+buggy-riding. Nothing there was ever complete without her. While here--
+Well, who supposed being married meant working like a slave all day, and
+being cooped up all the evening with a man whose nose was buried in a
+book, and who scarcely spoke to you!
+
+And there was the money. Burke acted, for all the world, as if he
+thought she ate money, and ate it whether she was hungry or not, just
+to spite him. As if she didn't squeeze every penny till it fairly
+shrieked, now; and as if anybody could make ten dollars a week go
+further than she did! To be sure, at first she had been silly and
+extravagant, running up bills, and borrowing of Mrs. Jones, as she did.
+And of course she was a little unreasonable and childish about keeping
+that account-book. But that was only at the first, when she was quite
+ignorant and inexperienced. It was very different now. She kept a cash
+account, and most of the time it came right. How she wished she had an
+allowance, though! But Burke utterly refused to give her that. Said
+she'd be extravagant and spend it all the first day. As if she had not
+learned better than that by bitter experience! And as if anything could
+be worse than the way they were trying to get along now, with her
+teasing for money all the time, and him insisting on seeing the bills,
+and then asking how they _could_ manage to eat so many eggs, and saying
+he should think she used butter to oil the floors with. He didn't see
+how it could go so fast any other way!
+
+And wasn't he always telling her she did not manage right? And didn't he
+give her particular fits one day and an awful lecture on wastefulness,
+just because he happened to find half a loaf of mouldy bread in the jar?
+Just as if _he_ didn't spend something--and a good big something,
+too!--on all those cigars he smoked. Yet he flew into fits over a bit of
+mouldy bread of _hers_.
+
+To be sure, when she cried, he called himself a brute, and said he
+didn't mean it, and it was only because he hated so to have her pinching
+and saving all the time that it made him mad--raving mad. Just as if she
+was to blame that they did not have any money!
+
+But she was to blame, of course, in a way. If it had not been for her,
+he would be living at home with all the money he wanted. Sometimes it
+came to her with sickening force that maybe Burke was thinking that,
+too. Was he? Could it be that he was sorry he had married her? Very
+well--her chin came up proudly. He need not stay if he did not want to.
+He could go. But--the chin was not so high, now--he was all there was.
+She had nobody but Burke now. _Could_ it be--
+
+She believed she would ask Dr. Gleason some time. She liked the doctor.
+He had been there several times now, and she felt real well acquainted
+with him. Perhaps he would know. But, after all, she was not going to
+worry. She did not believe that really Burke wished he had not married
+her. It was only that he was tired and fretted with his work. It would
+be better by and by, when he had got ahead a little. And of course he
+would get ahead. They would not always have to live like this!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in March that Burke came home to dinner one evening with a
+radiant face, yet with an air of worried excitement.
+
+"It's dad. He's sent for me," he explained, in answer to his wife's
+questions.
+
+"Sent for you!"
+
+"Yes. He isn't very well, Brett says. He wants to see me."
+
+"Humph! After all this time! I wouldn't go a step if I was you."
+
+"Helen! Not go to my father?"
+
+Helen quaked a little under the fire in her husband's eyes; but she held
+her ground.
+
+"I don't care. He's treated you like dirt. You know he has."
+
+"I know he's sick and has sent for me. And I know I'm going to him.
+That's enough for me to know--at present," retorted the man, getting to
+his feet, and leaving his dinner almost untasted.
+
+Half an hour later he appeared before her, freshly shaved, and in the
+radiant good humor that seems to follow a bath and fresh garments as a
+natural consequence. "Come, chicken, give us a kiss," he cried gayly;
+"and don't sit up for me: I may be late."
+
+"My, but ain't we fixed up!" pouted Helen jealously. "I should think you
+was going to see your best girl."
+
+"I am," laughed Burke boyishly. "Dad was my best girl--till I got you.
+Good-bye! I'm off."
+
+"Good-bye." Helen's lips still pouted, and her eyes burned somberly as
+she sat back in her chair.
+
+Outside the house Burke drew a long breath, and yet a longer one. It
+seemed as if he could not inhale deeply enough the crisp, bracing air.
+Then, with an eager stride that would cover the distance in little more
+than half the usual time, he set off toward Elm Hill. There was only
+joyous anticipation in his face now. The worry was all gone. After all,
+had not Brett said that this illness of dad's was nothing serious?
+
+For a week Burke had known that something was wrong--that his father was
+not at the Works. In vain had he haunted office doors and corridors for
+a glimpse of a face that never appeared. Then had come the news that
+John Denby was ill. A paralyzing fear clutched the son's heart.
+
+Was this to be the end, then? Was dad to--die, and never to know, never
+to read his boy's heart? Was this the end of all hopes of some day
+seeing the old look of love and pride in his father's eyes? Then it
+would, indeed, be the end of--everything, if dad died; for what was the
+use of struggling, of straining every nerve to make good, if dad was not
+to be there to--know?
+
+It had been at this point that Burke, in spite of his hurt pride, and of
+his very lively doubts as to the cordiality of his reception, had almost
+determined to go himself to the old home and demand to see his father.
+Then, just in time, had come Brett's wonderful message that his father
+wished to see him, and that he was not, after all, fatally or even
+seriously ill.
+
+Dad was not going to die, then; and dad wished to see him--_wished_ to
+see him!
+
+Burke drew in his breath now again, and bounded up the great stone steps
+of Denby Mansion, two at a time. The next minute, for the first time
+since his marriage the summer before, he stood in the wide, familiar
+hallway.
+
+Benton, the old butler, took his hat and coat; and the way he took them
+had in it all the flattering deference of the well-trained servant, and
+the rapturous joy of the head of a house welcoming a dear wanderer home.
+
+Burke looked into the beaming old face and shining eyes--and swallowed
+hard before he could utter an unsteady "How are you, Benton?"
+
+"I'm very well, sir, thank you, sir. And it's glad I am to see you,
+Master Burke. This way, please. The master's in the library, sir."
+
+Unconsciously Burke Denby lifted his chin. A long-lost something seemed
+to have come back to him. He could not himself have defined it; and he
+certainly could not have told why, at that moment, he should suddenly
+have thought of the supercilious face of his hated "boss" at the Works.
+
+Behind Benton's noiseless steps Burke's feet sank into luxurious velvet
+depths. His eyes swept from one dear familiar object to another, in the
+great, softly lighted hall, and leaped ahead to the open door of the
+library. Then, somehow, he found himself face to face with his father in
+the dear, well-remembered room.
+
+"Well, Burke, my boy, how are you?"
+
+They were the same words that had been spoken months before in the
+President's office at the Denby Iron Works, and they were spoken by the
+same voice. They were spoken to the accompaniment of an outstretched
+hand, too, in each case. But, to Burke, who had heard them on both
+occasions, they were as different as darkness and daylight. He could not
+have defined it, even to himself; but he knew, the minute he grasped the
+outstretched hand and looked into his father's eyes, that the hated,
+impenetrable, insurmountable "wall" was gone. Yet there was nothing
+said, nothing done, except a conventional "Just a little matter of
+business, Burke, that I wanted to talk over with you," from the elder
+man; and an equally conventional "Yes, sir," from his son.
+
+Then the two sat down. But, for Burke, the whole world had burst
+suddenly into song.
+
+It was, indeed, a simple matter of business. It was not even an
+important one. Ordinarily it would have been Brett's place, or even one
+of his assistants', to speak of it. But the President of the Denby Iron
+Works took it up point by point, and dwelt lovingly on each detail. And
+Burke, his heart one wild paean of rejoicing, sat with a grave
+countenance, listening attentively.
+
+And when there was left not one small detail upon which to pin another
+word, and when Burke was beginning to dread the moment of dismissal,
+John Denby turned, as if casually, to a small clay tablet on the desk
+near him. And Burke, following his father into a five-thousand-year-old
+past to decipher a Babylonian thumb-print, lost all fear of that dread
+dismissal.
+
+Later came old Benton with the ale and the little cakes that Burke had
+always loved. With a pressure of his thumb, then, John Denby switched
+off half the lights, and the two, father and son, sat down before the
+big fireplace, with the cakes and ale between them on a low stand.
+
+Behind the century-old andirons, the fire leaped and crackled, throwing
+weird shadows over the beamed ceiling, the book-lined walls, the
+cabinets of curios, bringing out here and there a bit of gold tooling
+behind a glass door or a glinting flash from bronze or porcelain. With a
+body at ease and a mind at rest, Burke leaned back in his chair with a
+long-drawn sigh, each tingling sense ecstatically responsive to every
+charm of light and shade and luxury.
+
+Half an hour later he rose to go. John Denby, too, rose to his feet.
+
+"You'll come again, of course," the father said, as he held out his
+hand. For the first time that evening there was a faint touch of
+constraint in his manner. "Suppose you come to dinner--Sunday. Will
+you?"
+
+"Surely I will, and be glad--" With a swift surge of embarrassed color
+Burke Denby stopped short. In one shamed, shocked instant it had come to
+him that he had forgotten Helen--_forgotten_ her! Not for a long hour
+had he even remembered that there was such a person in existence.
+"Er--ah--that is," he began again, stammeringly.
+
+An odd expression crossed John Denby's countenance.
+
+"You will, of course, bring your wife," he said. "Good-night."
+
+Burke mumbled an incoherent something and fled. The next moment he found
+himself in the hall with Benton, deferential and solicitous, holding his
+coat.
+
+Again out in the crisp night air, Burke drew a long breath. Was it true?
+Had dad invited him to dinner next Sunday? _And with Helen?_ What had
+happened? Had dad's heart got the better of his pride? Had he decided
+that quarreling did not pay? Did this mean the beginning of the end? Was
+he ready to take his son back into his heart? He had not said anything,
+_really_. He had just talked in the usual way, as if nothing had
+happened. But that would be like dad. Dad hated scenes. Dad would never
+say: "I'm sorry I was so harsh with you; come back--you and Helen. I
+want you!"--and then fall to crying and kissing like a woman. Dad would
+never do that.
+
+It would be like dad just to pick up the thread of the old comradeship
+exactly where he had dropped it months ago. And that was what he had
+seemed to be doing that evening. He had talked just as he used to
+talk--except that never once had he mentioned--mother. Burke remembered
+this now, and wondered at it. It was so unusual--in dad. Had he done it
+purposely? Was there a hidden meaning back of it? He himself had not
+liked to think of mother, lately; yet, somehow, she seemed always to be
+in his mind. In spite of himself he was always wondering what she would
+think of--Helen. But, surely, dad--
+
+With his thoughts in a dizzy whirl of excitement and questionings, Burke
+thrust his key into the lock and let himself into his own apartment.
+
+The hall--never had it looked so hopelessly cheap and small. Burke,
+still under the spell of Benton's solicitous ministrations, jerked off
+his hat and coat and hung them up. Then he strode into the living-room.
+
+Helen, fully dressed, was sitting at the table, reading a magazine.
+
+"Hullo! Sitting up, are you, chicken?" he greeted her, brushing her
+cheek with his lips. "I told you not to; but maybe it's just as well you
+did-- I might have waked you," he laughed boyishly. "Guess what's
+happened!"
+
+"Got a raise?" Helen's voice was eager.
+
+Her husband frowned.
+
+"No. I got one last month, you know. I'm getting a hundred now. What
+more can you expect--in my position?" He spoke coldly, with a tinge of
+sharpness. He was wondering why Helen always managed to take the zest
+out of anything he was going to do, or say. Then, with an obvious
+effort at gayety, he went on: "It's better than a raise, chicken. Dad's
+invited us to dinner next Sunday--both of us."
+
+"To dinner! Only to dinner?"
+
+"_Only_ to dinner! Great Caesar, Helen--_only_ to dinner!"
+
+"Well, I can't help it, Burke. It just makes me mad to see you jump and
+run and be so pleased over just a dinner, when it ought to be for every
+dinner and all the time; and you know it."
+
+"But, Helen, it isn't the _dinner_. It's that--that dad _cares_." The
+man's voice softened, and became not quite steady. "That maybe he's
+forgiven me. That he's going to be now the--the old dad that I used to
+know. Oh, Helen, I've _missed_ him so! I've--"
+
+But his wife interrupted tartly.
+
+"Well, I should think 'twas time he did forgive you--and I'm not saying
+I think there was anything to forgive, either. There wouldn't have been,
+if he hadn't tried to interfere with what was our own business--yours
+and mine."
+
+There was a brief silence. Burke, looking very white and stern, had got
+to his feet, and was moving restlessly about the room.
+
+"Did you think he was--giving in?" asked Helen at last.
+
+"He was very kind."
+
+"What did you tell him?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"About the dinner, Sunday."
+
+"I don't know, exactly. I said--something; yes, I think. I meant it for
+yes--then." The man spoke with sudden utter weariness.
+
+There was another brief silence. A dawning shrewdness was coming into
+Helen's eyes.
+
+"Oh, of course, yes. We'd want to go," she murmured. "It _might_ mean he
+was giving in, couldn't it?"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Do you think he _was_ giving in?"
+
+Still no reply.
+
+Helen scowled.
+
+"Burke, why in the world don't you answer me?" she demanded crossly.
+"You were talkative enough a minute ago, when you came in. I should
+think you might have enough thought of _my_ interests to want us to go
+to live with your father, if there's any chance of it. And while
+'twouldn't be _my_ way to jump the minute he held out his hand, yet if
+this dinner really means that we'll be going up there to live pretty
+soon, why--"
+
+"Helen!" Burke had winced visibly, as if from a blow. "_Can't_ you see
+anything, or talk anything, but our going up there to live? It's enough
+for me that dad just looked at me to-night with the old look in his
+eyes; that somehow he's smashed that confounded wall between us; that--
+But what's the use? Never mind the dinner. We won't go."
+
+"Nonsense, Burke! Don't be silly. Of course--we're going! I wouldn't
+miss it for the world--under the circumstances." And Helen, with an air
+of finality, rose to her feet to prepare for bed.
+
+Her husband, looking after her with eyes that were half resigned, half
+rebellious, for the second time that evening gave a sigh of utter
+weariness, and turned away.
+
+They went to the dinner. Helen became really very interested and
+enthusiastic in her preparations for it; and even Burke, after a time,
+seemed to regain a little of his old eagerness. They had, to be sure,
+nearly a quarrel over the dress and hat that Helen wished to wear. But
+after some argument, and not a few tears, she yielded to her husband's
+none too gently expressed abhorrence of the hat in question (which was a
+new one), and of the dress--one he had always disliked.
+
+"But I wanted to make a good impression," pouted Helen.
+
+"Exactly! So do I want you to," returned her husband significantly. And
+there the matter ended.
+
+It was not a success--that dinner. Helen, intent on making her "good
+impression," very plainly tried to be admiring, entertaining, and
+solicitous of her host's welfare and happiness. She resulted in being
+nauseatingly flattering, pert, and inquisitive. John Denby, at first
+very evidently determined to give no just cause for criticism of his own
+behavior, was the perfection of courtesy and cordiality. Even when,
+later, he was unable quite to hide his annoyance at the persistent and
+assiduous attentions and questions of his daughter-in-law, he was yet
+courteous, though in unmistakable retreat.
+
+Burke Denby--poor Burke! With every sense and sensitiveness keyed to
+instant response to each tone and word and gesture of the two before
+him, each passing minute was, to Burke, but a greater torture than the
+one preceding it. Long before dinner was over, he wished himself and
+Helen at home; and as soon as was decently possible after the meal, he
+peremptorily suggested departure.
+
+"I couldn't stand it! I couldn't stand it another minute," he told
+himself passionately, as he hurried Helen down the long elm-shaded walk
+leading to the street. "But dad--dad was a brick! And he asked us to
+come again. _Again!_ Good Heavens! As if I'd go through that again! It
+was so much worse _there_ than at home. But I'm glad he didn't put her
+in mother's chair. I don't think even I could have stood that--to-day!"
+
+"Well, that's over," murmured Helen complacently, as they turned into
+the public sidewalk,--"and well over! Still, I didn't enjoy myself so
+very much, and I don't believe you did, either," she laughed, "else you
+wouldn't have been in such a taking to get away."
+
+There was no answer. Helen, however, evidently sure of her ground, did
+not seem to notice. She yawned pleasantly.
+
+"Guess I'm sleepy. Ate too much. _'Twas_ a good dinner; and, just as I
+told your father, things always taste especially good when you don't
+get much at home. I said it on purpose. I thought maybe 'twould make him
+think."
+
+Still silence.
+
+Helen turned sharply and peered into her husband's face.
+
+"What's the matter?" she demanded suspiciously. "Why are you so glum?"
+
+Burke, instantly alert to the danger of having another scene such as had
+followed Gleason's first visit, desperately ran to cover.
+
+"Nothing, nothing!" He essayed a gay smile, and succeeded. "I'm stupid,
+that's all. Maybe I'm sleepy myself."
+
+"It can't be you're put out 'cause we came away so early! You suggested
+it yourself." Her eyes were still suspiciously bent upon him.
+
+"Not a bit of it! I wanted to come."
+
+She relaxed and took her gaze off his face. The unmistakable sincerity
+in his voice this last time had carried conviction.
+
+"Hm-m; I thought you did," she murmured contentedly again. "Still, I was
+kind of scared when you proposed it. I didn't suppose 'twas proper to
+eat and run. Mother always said so. Do you think he minded it--your
+father?"
+
+"Not a bit!" Burke, in his thankfulness to have escaped the threatened
+scene, was enabled to speak lightly, almost gayly.
+
+"Hm-m. Well, I'm glad. I wouldn't have wanted him to mind. I _tried_ to
+be 'specially nice to him, didn't I?"
+
+"You did, certainly." Burke's lips came together a little grimly; but
+Helen's eyes were turned away; and after a moment's pause she changed
+the subject--to her husband's infinite relief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A BOTTLE OF INK
+
+
+Burke Denby did not attempt to deceive himself after that Sunday dinner.
+His marriage had been a mistake, and he knew it. He was disappointed,
+ashamed, and angry. He told himself that he was heartbroken; that he
+still loved Helen dearly--only he did not like to be with her now. She
+made him nervous, and rubbed him the wrong way. Her mood never seemed to
+fit in with his. She had so many little ways--
+
+Sometimes he told himself irritably that he believed that, if it were a
+big thing like a crime that Helen had committed, he could be heroic and
+forgiving, and glory in it. But forever to battle against a succession
+of never-ending irritations, always to encounter the friction of
+antagonistic aims and ideals--it was maddening. He was ashamed of
+himself, of course. He was ashamed of lots of things that he said and
+did. But he could not help an explosion now and then. He felt as if
+somewhere, within him, was an irresistible force driving him to it.
+
+And the pity of it! Was he not, indeed, to be pitied? What had he not
+given up? As if it were his fault that he was now so disillusioned! He
+had supposed that marriage with Helen would be a fresh joy every
+morning, a new delight every evening, an unbelievable glory of
+happiness--just being together.
+
+Now--he did not want to be together. He did not want to go home to
+fretfulness, fault-finding, slovenliness, and perpetual criticism. He
+wanted to go home to peace and harmony, big, quiet rooms, servants that
+knew their business, and--dad.
+
+And that was another thing--dad. Dad had been right. He himself had been
+wrong. But that did not mean that it was easy to own up that he had been
+wrong. Sometimes he hardly knew which cut the deeper: that he had been
+proved wrong, thus losing his happiness, or that his father had been
+proved right, thus placing him in a position to hear the hated "I told
+you so."
+
+That Helen could never make him happy Burke was convinced now. Never had
+he realized this so fully as since seeing her at his father's table that
+Sunday. Never had her "ways" so irritated him. Never had he so
+poignantly realized the significance of what he had lost--and won. Never
+had he been so ashamed--or so ashamed because he was ashamed--as on that
+day. Never, he vowed, would he be placed in the same position again.
+
+As to Helen's side of the matter--Burke quite forgot that there was such
+a thing. When one is so very sorry for one's self, one forgets to be
+sorry for anybody else. And Burke was, indeed, very sorry for himself.
+Having never been in the habit of taking disagreeable medicine, he did
+not know how to take it now. Having been always accustomed to consider
+only himself, he considered only himself now. That Helen, too, might be
+disappointed and disillusioned never occurred to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was perhaps a month later that another invitation to dinner came from
+John Denby. This time Burke did not stutter out a joyous, incoherent
+acceptance. He declined so promptly and emphatically that he quite
+forgot his manners, for the moment, and had to attach to the end of his
+refusal a hurried and ineffectual "Er--thank you; you are very kind, I'm
+sure!" He looked up then and met his father's eyes. But instantly his
+gaze dropped.
+
+"Er--ah--Helen is not well at all, dad," he still further added,
+nervously. "Of course I'll speak to her. But I don't think we can come."
+
+There was a moment's pause. Then, very gravely, John Denby said: "Oh, I
+am sorry, son."
+
+Burke, with a sudden tightening of his throat, turned and walked away.
+
+"He didn't laugh, he didn't sneer, he didn't look _anyhow_, only just
+plain sorry," choked the young man to himself. "And he had such a
+magnificent chance to do--all of them. But he just--understood."
+
+Burke "spoke to Helen" that night.
+
+"Father asked us to dinner next Sunday; but--I said I didn't think we
+could go. I told him you weren't feeling well. I didn't think you'd want
+to go; and--I didn't want to go myself."
+
+Helen frowned and pouted.
+
+"Well, I've got my opinion of folks who refuse an invitation without
+even asking 'em if they want to go," she bridled. "Not that I mind much,
+in this case, though,--if it's just a dinner. I thought once, maybe he
+meant something--that he was giving in, you know. But I haven't seen any
+signs of _that_. And as for just going to dinner--I can't say I am
+'specially anxious for that--mean as I feel now."
+
+"No, I thought not," said Burke.
+
+And there the matter ended. As the summer passed, Burke fell into the
+way of going often to see his father, though never at meal-time. He went
+alone. Helen said she did not care to go, and that she did not _see_
+what fun Burke could find in it, anyway.
+
+To Burke, these hours that he spent with his father chatting and smoking
+in the dim old library, or on the vine-shaded veranda, were like a
+breeze blowing across the desert of existence--like water in a thirsty
+land. From day to day he planned for these visits. From hour to hour he
+lived upon them.
+
+To all appearances John Denby and his son had picked up their old
+comradeship exactly where the marriage had severed it. Even to Burke's
+watchful, sensitive eyes the "wall" seemed quite gone. There was,
+however, one difference: mother was never mentioned. John Denby never
+spoke of her now.
+
+There was plenty to talk about. There were all the old interests, and
+there was business. Burke was giving himself heart and soul to business
+these days. In July he won another promotion, and was given an advance
+in wages. Often, to Burke's infinite joy, his father consulted him about
+matters and things quite beyond his normal position, and showed in other
+ways his approval of his son's progress. Helen, the marriage, and the
+Dale Street home life were never mentioned--for which Burke was
+thankful.
+
+"He _couldn't_ say anything I'd want to hear," said Burke to himself, at
+times. "And I--_I_ can't say anything _he_ wants to hear. Best forget
+it--if we can."
+
+To "forget it" seemed, indeed, in these days, to be Burke's aim and
+effort. Always had Burke tried to forget things. From the day his
+six-months-old fingers had flung the offending rattle behind him had
+Burke endeavored to thrust out of sight and mind everything that
+annoyed--and Helen and marriage had become very annoying.
+Systematically, therefore, he was trying to forget them. His attitude,
+indeed, was not unlike that of a small boy who, weary of his game of
+marbles, cries, "Oh, come, let's play something else. I'm tired of
+this!"--an attitude which, naturally, was not conducive to happiness,
+either for himself or for any one else--particularly as the game he was
+playing was marriage, not marbles.
+
+The summer passed and October came. Life at the Dale Street flat had
+settled into a monotony of discontent and dreariness. Helen,
+discouraged, disappointed, and far from well, dragged through the
+housework day by day, wishing each night that it were morning, and each
+morning that it were night--a state of mind scarcely conducive to
+happiness on her part.
+
+For all that Burke was away so many evenings now, Helen was not so
+lonely as she had been in the spring; for in Mrs. Jones's place had come
+a new neighbor, Mrs. Cobb. And Mrs. Cobb was even brighter and more
+original than Mrs. Jones ever was, and Helen liked her very much. She
+was a mine of information as to housekeeping secrets, and she was
+teaching Helen how to make the soft and dainty little garments that
+would be needed in November. But she talked even more loudly than Mrs.
+Jones had talked; and her laugh was nearly always the first sound that
+Burke heard across the hall every morning. Moreover, she possessed a
+phonograph which, according to Helen, played "perfectly grand tunes";
+and some one of these tunes was usually the first thing that Burke heard
+every night when he came home. So he called her coarse and noisy, and
+declared she was even worse than Mrs. Jones; whereat Helen retorted that
+of course he _wouldn't_ like her, if _she_ did--which (while possibly
+true) did not make him like either her or Mrs. Cobb any better.
+
+The baby came in November. It was a little girl. Helen wanted to call
+her "Vivian Mabelle." She said she thought that was a swell name, and
+that it was the name of her favorite heroine in a perfectly grand book.
+But Burke objected strenuously. He declared very emphatically that no
+daughter of his should have to go through life tagged like a vaudeville
+fly-by-night.
+
+Of course Helen cried, and of course Burke felt ashamed of himself.
+Helen's tears had always been a potent weapon--though, from over-use,
+they were fast losing a measure of their power. The first time he saw
+her cry, the foundations of the earth sank beneath him, and he dropped
+into a fathomless abyss from which he thought he would never rise. It
+was the same the next time, and the next. The fourth time, as he felt
+the now familiar sensation of sinking down, down, down, he outflung
+desperate hands and found an unexpected support--his temper. After that
+it was always with him. It helped to tinge with righteous indignation
+his despair, and it kept him from utterly melting into weak
+subserviency. Still, even yet, he was not used to them--his wife's
+tears. Sometimes he fled from them; sometimes he endured them in dumb
+despair behind set teeth; sometimes he raved and ranted in a way he was
+always ashamed of afterwards. But still they had the power, in a
+measure, to make his heart like water within him.
+
+So now, about the baby's name, he called himself a brute and a beast to
+bring tears to the eyes of the little mother--toward whom, since the
+baby's advent, he felt a remorseful tenderness. But he still maintained
+that he could have no man, or woman, call his daughter "Vivian Mabelle."
+
+"But I should think you'd let me name my own baby," wailed his wife.
+
+Burke choked back a hasty word and assumed his pet
+"I'll-be-patient-if-it-kills-me" air.
+
+"And you shall name it," he soothed her. "Listen! Here are pencil and
+paper. Now, write down a whole lot of names that you'd like, and I'll
+promise to select one of them. Then you'll be naming the baby all right.
+See?"
+
+Helen did not "see," quite, that she would be naming the baby; but,
+knowing from past experience of her husband's temper that resistance
+would be unpleasant, she obediently took the paper and spent some time
+writing down a list of names.
+
+Burke frowned a good deal when he saw the list, and declared that it was
+pretty poor pickings, and that he ought to have known better than to
+have bound himself to a silly-fool promise like that. But he chose a
+name (he said he would keep his word, of course), and he selected
+"Dorothy Elizabeth" as being less impossible than its accompanying
+"Veras," "Violets," and "Clarissa Muriels."
+
+For the first few months after the baby's advent, Burke spent much more
+time at home, and seemed very evidently to be trying to pay especial
+attention to his wife's comfort and welfare. He was proud of the baby,
+and declared it was the cutest little kid going. He poked it in its
+ribs, thrust a tentative finger into the rose-leaf of a hand (emitting a
+triumphant chuckle of delight when the rose-leaf became a tightly
+clutching little fist), and even allowed the baby to be placed one or
+twice in his rather reluctant and fearful arms. But, for the most part,
+he contented himself with merely looking at it, and asking how soon it
+would walk and talk, and when would it grow its teeth and hair.
+
+Burke was feeling really quite keenly these days the solemnity and
+responsibility of fatherhood. He had called into being a new soul. A
+little life was in his hands to train. By and by this tiny pink roll of
+humanity would be a prattling child, a little girl, a young lady. And
+all the way she would be turning to him for companionship and guidance.
+It behooved him, indeed, to look well to himself, that he should be in
+all ways a fit pattern.
+
+It was a solemn thought. No more tempers, tantrums, and impatience. No
+more idle repinings and useless regrets. What mattered it if he were
+disillusioned and heartsick? Did he want this child of his, this
+beautiful daughter, to grow up in such an atmosphere? Never! At once,
+therefore, he must begin to cultivate patience, contentment,
+tranquillity, and calmness of soul. He, the pattern, must be all things
+that he would wish her to be.
+
+And how delightful it would be when she was old enough to meet him on
+his own ground--to be a companion for him, the companion he had not
+found in his wife! She would be pretty, of course, sweet-tempered, and
+cheerful. (Was he not to train her himself?) She would be capable and
+sensible, too. He would see to that. To no man, in the future, should
+she bring the tragedy of disillusionment that her mother had brought to
+_him_. No, indeed! For that matter, however, he should not let her marry
+any one for a long time. He should keep her himself. Perhaps he would
+not let her marry at all. He did not think much of this marriage
+business, anyway. Not that he was going to show that feeling any longer
+now, of course. From now on he was to show only calm contentment and
+tranquillity of soul, no matter what the circumstances. Was he not a
+father? Had he not, in the hollow of his hand, a precious young life to
+train?
+
+Again all this was very well in theory. But in practice--
+
+Dorothy Elizabeth was not six months old before the young father
+discovered that parenthood changed conditions, not people. He felt just
+as irritated at the way Helen buttered a whole slice of bread at a time,
+and said "swell" and "you was," as before; just as impatient because he
+could not buy what he wanted; just as annoyed at the purple cushion on
+the red sofa.
+
+He was surprised and disappointed. He told himself that he had supposed
+that when a fellow made good resolutions, he was given some show of a
+chance to keep them. But as if any one _could_ cultivate calm
+contentment and tranquillity of soul as he was situated!
+
+First, there were not only all his old disappointments and annoyances to
+contend with, but a multitude of new ones. It was as if, indeed, each
+particular torment had taken unto itself wife and children, so numerous
+had they become. There was really now no peace at home. There was
+nothing but the baby. He had not supposed that any one thing or person
+could so monopolize everything and everybody.
+
+When the baby was awake, Helen acted as if she thought the earth swung
+on its axis solely to amuse it. When it slept, she seemed to think the
+earth ought to stand still--lest it wake Baby up. With the same
+wholesale tyranny she marshaled into line everything and everybody on
+the earth, plainly regarding nothing and no one as of consequence,
+except in its relationship to Baby.
+
+Such unimportant things as meals and housework, in comparison with Baby,
+were of even less than second consequence; and Burke grew to feel
+himself more and more an alien and a nuisance in his own home. Moreover,
+where before he had found disorder and untidiness, he now found positive
+chaos. And however fond he was of the Baby, he grew unutterably weary of
+searching for his belongings among Baby's rattles, balls, shirts, socks,
+milk bottles, blankets, and powder-puffs.
+
+The "cool, calm serenity" of his determination he found it difficult to
+realize; and the delights and responsibilities of fatherhood began to
+pall upon him. It looked to be so long a way ahead, even to teeth,
+talking, and walking, to say nothing of the charm and companionship of a
+young lady daughter!
+
+Children were all very well, of course,--very desirable. But did they
+never do anything but cry? Couldn't they be taught that nights were for
+sleep, and that other people in the house had some rights besides
+themselves? And must they _always_ choose four o'clock in the morning
+for a fit of the colic? Helen said it was colic. For his part, he
+believed it was nothing more or less than temper--plain, right-down
+temper!
+
+And so it went. Another winter passed, and spring came. Matters were no
+better, but rather worse. A series of incompetent maids had been adding
+considerably to the expense--and little to the comfort--of the
+household. Helen, as a mistress, was not a success. She understood
+neither her own duties nor those of the maid--which resulted in short
+periods of poor service and frequent changes.
+
+July came with its stifling heat, and Dorothy Elizabeth, now twenty
+months old, showed a daily increasing disapproval of life in general and
+of her own existence in particular. Helen, worn and worried, and half
+sick from care and loss of sleep, grew day by day more fretful, more
+difficult to get along with. Burke, also half sick from loss of sleep,
+and consumed with a fierce, inward rebellion against everything and
+everybody, including himself, was no less difficult to get along with.
+
+Of course this state of affairs could not continue forever. The tension
+had to snap sometime. And it snapped--over a bottle of ink in a baby's
+hand.
+
+It happened on Bridget's "afternoon out," when Helen was alone with the
+baby. Dorothy Elizabeth, propped up in her high-chair beside the
+dining-room table, where her mother was writing a letter, reached
+covetous hands toward the fascinating little fat black bottle. The next
+instant a wild shout of glee and an inky tide surging from an
+upside-down bottle, held high above a golden head, told that the quest
+had been successful.
+
+Things happened then very fast. There were a dismayed cry from Helen,
+half a-dozen angry spats on a tiny hand, a series of shrieks from
+Dorothy Elizabeth, and a rapidly spreading inky pall over baby, dress,
+table, rug, and Helen's new frock.
+
+At that moment Burke appeared in the door.
+
+With wrathful eyes he swept the scene before him, losing not one detail
+of scolding woman, shrieking child, dinnerless table, and inky chaos.
+Then he strode into the room.
+
+"Well, by George!" he snapped. "Nice restful place for a tired man to
+come to, isn't it? This is your idea of a happy home, I suppose!"
+
+The overwrought wife and mother, with every nerve tingling, turned
+sharply.
+
+"Oh, yes, that's right--blame me! Blame me for everything! Maybe you
+think _I_ think this is a happy, restful place, too! Maybe you think
+this is what _I_ thought 'twould be--being married to you! But I can
+tell you it just isn't! Maybe you think I ain't tired of working and
+pinching and slaving, and never having any fun, and being scolded and
+blamed all the time because I don't eat and walk and stand up and sit
+down the way you want me to, and-- Where are you goin'?" she broke off,
+as her husband reached for the hat he had just tossed aside, and started
+for the door.
+
+Burke turned quietly. His face was very white.
+
+"I'm going down to the square to get something to eat. Then I'm going up
+to father's. And--you needn't sit up for me. I shall stay all night."
+
+"_All--night!_"
+
+"Yes. I'd like to sleep--for once. And that's what I can't do--here."
+The next moment the door had banged behind him.
+
+Helen, left alone with the baby, fell back limply.
+
+"Why, Baby, he--he--" Then she caught the little ink-stained figure to
+her and began to cry convulsively.
+
+In the street outside Burke strode along with his head high and his jaw
+sternly set. He was very angry. He told himself that he had a right to
+be angry. Surely a man was entitled to _some_ consideration!
+
+In spite of it all, however, there was, in a far-away corner of his
+soul, an uneasy consciousness of a tiny voice of scorn dubbing this
+running away of his the act of a coward and a cad.
+
+Very resolutely, however, he silenced this voice by recounting again to
+himself how really abused he was. It was a long story. It served to
+occupy his mind all through the unappetizing meal he tried to eat at the
+cheap restaurant before climbing Elm Hill.
+
+His father greeted him cordially, and with no surprise in voice or
+manner--which was what Burke had expected, inasmuch as he had again
+fallen into the way of spending frequent evenings at the old home.
+To-night, however, Burke himself was constrained and ill at ease. His
+jaw was still firmly set and his head was still high; but his heart was
+beginning to fail him, and his mind was full of questionings.
+
+How would his father take it--this proposition to stay all night? He
+would understand something of what it meant. He could not help but
+understand. But what would he say? How would he act? Would he say in
+actions, if not in words, that dreaded "I told you so"? Would it unseal
+his lips on a subject so long tabooed, and set him into a lengthy
+dissertation on the foolishness of his son's marriage? Burke believed
+that, as he felt now, he could not stand that; but he could stand less
+easily going back to the Dale Street flat that night. He could go to a
+hotel, of course. But he did not want to do that. He wanted dad. But he
+did not want dad--to talk.
+
+"How's the baby?" asked John Denby, as Burke dropped himself into a
+chair on the cool, quiet veranda. "I thought she was not looking very
+well the last time Helen wheeled her up here." Always John Denby's first
+inquiry now was for his little granddaughter.
+
+"Eh? The baby? Oh, she--she's all right. That is"--Burke paused for a
+short laugh--"she's _well_."
+
+John Denby took his cigar from his lips and turned sharply.
+
+"But she's _not_--all right?"
+
+Burke laughed again.
+
+"Oh, yes, she's all right, too, I suppose," he retorted, a bit grimly.
+"But she was--er--humph! Well, I'll tell you." And he gave a graphic
+description of his return home that night.
+
+"Jove, what a mess!--and _ink_, too," ejaculated John Denby, with more
+than a tinge of sympathy in his voice. "How'd she ever manage to clean
+it up?"
+
+Burke shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Ask me something easy. I don't know, I'm sure. I cleared out."
+
+"Without--your dinner?" John Denby asked the question after a very
+brief, but very tense, silence.
+
+"My dinner--I got in the square."
+
+Burke's lips snapped together again tight shut. John Denby said nothing.
+His eyes were gravely fixed on the glowing tip of the cigar in his hand.
+
+Burke cleared his throat and hesitated. He had not intended to ask his
+question quite so soon; but suddenly he was consumed with an
+overwhelming desire to speak out and get it over. He cleared his throat
+again.
+
+"Dad--would you mind--my sleeping here to-night? It's just that I--I
+want a good night's sleep, for once," he plunged on hurriedly, in answer
+to a swift something that he saw leap to his father's eyes. "And I can't
+get it there--with the baby and all."
+
+There was a perceptible pause. Then, steadily, and with easy cordiality,
+came John Denby's reply.
+
+"Why, certainly, my boy. I'm glad to have you. I'll ring at once for
+Benton to see that--that your old room is made ready for you," he added,
+touching a push-button near his chair.
+
+Later, when Benton had come and gone, with his kindly old face alight
+and eager, Burke braced himself for what he thought was inevitable.
+Something would come, of course. The only question was, what would it
+be?
+
+But nothing came--that is, nothing in the nature of what Burke had
+expected. John Denby, after Benton had left the veranda, turned to his
+son with a pleasantly casual--
+
+"Oh, Brett was saying to-day that the K. & O. people had granted us an
+extension of time on that bridge contract."
+
+"Er--yes," plunged in Burke warmly. And with the words, every taut nerve
+and muscle in his body relaxed as if cut in twain.
+
+It came later, though, when he had ceased to look for it. It came just
+as he was thinking of saying good-night.
+
+"It has occurred to me, son," broached John Denby, after a short pause,
+"that Helen may be tired and in sore need of a rest."
+
+Burke caught his breath, and held it a moment suspended. When before had
+his father mentioned Helen, save to speak of her casually in connection
+with the baby?
+
+"Er--er--y-yes, very likely," he stammered, a sudden vision coming to
+him of Helen as he had seen her on the floor in the midst of the inky
+chaos a short time before.
+
+"You're not the only one that isn't finding the present state of affairs
+a--a bed of roses, Burke," said John Denby then.
+
+"Er--ah--n-no," muttered the amazed husband. In his ears now rang
+Helen's--"Maybe you think I ain't tired of working and pinching and
+slaving!" Involuntarily he shivered and glanced at his father--dad could
+not, of course, have _heard_!
+
+"I have a plan to propose," announced John Denby quietly, after a
+moment's silence. "As I said, I think Helen needs a rest--and a change.
+I've seen quite a little of her since the baby came, you know, and I've
+noticed--many things. I will send her a check for ten thousand dollars
+to-morrow if she will take the baby and go away for a time--say, to her
+old home for a visit. But there is one other condition," he continued,
+lifting a quick hand to silence Burke's excited interruption. "I need a
+rest and change myself. I should like to go to Alaska again; and I'd
+like to have you go with me. Will you go?"
+
+Burke sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down the wide veranda.
+(From boyhood Burke had always "thrashed things out" on his feet.) For a
+full minute now he said nothing. Then, abruptly, he stopped and wheeled
+about. His face was very white.
+
+"Dad, I can't. It seems too much like--like--"
+
+"No, it isn't in the least like quitting, or running away," supplied
+John Denby, reading unerringly his son's hesitation. "You're not
+quitting at all. I'm asking you to go. Indeed, I'm begging you to go,
+Burke. I want you. I need you. I'm not an old man, I know; but I feel
+like one. These last two years have not been--er--a bed of roses for me,
+either." In spite of a certain lightness in his words, the man's voice
+shook a little. "I don't think you know, boy, how your old dad
+has--missed you."
+
+"Don't I? I can--guess." Burke wheeled and resumed his nervous stride.
+The words, as he flung them out, were at once a challenge and an
+admission. "But--Helen--" He stopped short, waiting.
+
+"I've answered that. I've told you. Helen needs a rest and a change."
+
+Again to the distraught husband's ears came the echo of a woman's
+wailing--"Maybe you think I ain't tired of working and pinching and
+slaving--"
+
+"Then you don't think Helen will feel that I'm running away?" A growing
+hope was in his eyes, but his brow still carried its frown of doubt.
+
+"Not if she has a check for--ten thousand dollars," replied John Denby,
+a bit grimly.
+
+Burke winced. A painful red reached his forehead.
+
+"It is, indeed, a large sum, sir,--too large," he resented, with sudden
+stiffness. "Thank you; but I'm afraid we can't accept it, after all."
+
+John Denby saw his mistake at once; but he did not make the second
+mistake of showing it.
+
+"Nonsense!" he laughed lightly, with no sign of the sudden panic of
+fear within him lest the look on his son's face meant the downfall of
+all his plans. "I made it large purposely. Remember, I'm borrowing her
+husband for a season; and she needs some recompense! Besides, it'll mean
+a playday for herself. You'll not be so unjust to Helen as to refuse her
+the means to enjoy that!--not that she'll spend it all for that, of
+course. But it will be a comfortable feeling to know that she has it."
+
+"Y-yes, of course," hesitated Burke, still frowning.
+
+"Then we'll call that settled."
+
+"I know; but-- Of course if you put it _that_ way, why, I--"
+
+"Well, I do put it just that way," nodded the father lightly. "Now,
+let's go in. I've got some maps and time-tables I want you to see. I'm
+planning a different route from the one we took with the doctor--a
+better one, I think. But let's see what you say. Come!" And he led the
+way to the library.
+
+Burke's head came up alertly. His shoulders lost their droop and his
+brow its frown. A new light flamed into his eyes and a new springiness
+leaped into his step. Always, from the time his two-year-old lips had
+begged to "see the wheels go 'round," had Burke's chief passion and
+delight been traveling. As he bent now over the maps and time-tables
+that his father spread before him, voice and hands fairly trembled with
+eagerness. Then suddenly a chance word sent him to his feet again, the
+old look of despair on his face.
+
+"Dad, I can't," he choked. "I can't be a quitter. You don't want me to
+be!"
+
+[Illustration: JOHN DENBY WENT STRAIGHT TO HIS SON AND LAID BOTH HANDS
+ON HIS SHOULDERS]
+
+With a sharp word John Denby, too, leaped to his feet. Something of the
+dogged persistence that had won for him wealth and power glowed in his
+eyes as he went straight to his son and laid both hands on his
+shoulders.
+
+"Burke, I had not meant to say this," he began quietly; "but perhaps
+it's just as well that I do. Possibly you think I've been blind all
+these past months; but I haven't. I've seen--a good deal. Now I want you
+and Helen to be happy. I don't want to see your life--or hers--wrecked.
+I believe there's a chance yet for you two people to travel together
+with some measure of peace and comfort, and I'm trying to give you that
+chance. There's just one thing to do, I believe, and that is--to be away
+from each other for a while. You both need it. For weeks I've been
+planning and scheming how it could be done. How do you suppose I
+happened to have this Alaska trip all cut and dried even down to the
+train and boat schedules, if I hadn't done some thinking? To-night came
+my chance. So I spoke."
+
+"But--to be a quitter!"
+
+"You're not quitting. You're--stopping to get your breath."
+
+"There's--my work."
+
+"You've made good, and more than good there, son. I've been proud of
+you--every inch of the way. You're no quitter there."
+
+"Thanks, dad!" Only the sudden mist in his eyes and the shake in his
+voice showed how really moved Burke was. "But--Helen," he stammered
+then.
+
+"Will be better off without you--for a time."
+
+"And--I?"
+
+"Will be better off without her--for the same time. While I--shall be,
+oh, so infinitely better off _with_ you. Ah, son, but I've missed you
+so!" It was the same longing cry that had gone straight to Burke's heart
+a few minutes before. "You'll come?"
+
+There was a tense silence. Burke's face plainly showed the struggle
+within him. A moment more, and he spoke.
+
+"Dad, I'll have to think it out," he temporized brokenly. "I'll let you
+know in the morning."
+
+"Good!" If John Denby was disappointed, he did not show it. "We'll let
+it go till morning, then. Meanwhile, it can do no harm to look at these,
+however," he smiled, with a wave of his hand toward the maps and
+time-tables.
+
+"No, of course not," acquiesced Burke promptly, relieved that his father
+agreed so willingly to the delay.
+
+Half an hour later he went upstairs to his old room to bed.
+
+It was a fine old room. He had forgotten that a bedroom could be so
+large--and so convenient. Benton, plainly, had been there. Also,
+plainly, his hand had not lost its cunning, nor his brain the memory of
+how Master Burke "liked things."
+
+The arrangement of the lights, the glass of milk by his bed, the
+turned-down spread and sheet, the latest magazine ready to his
+hand--even the size and number of towels in his bathroom testified to
+Benton's loving hand and good memory.
+
+With a sigh that was almost a sob Burke dropped himself into a chair and
+looked about him.
+
+It was all so peaceful, so restful, so comfortable. And it was so quiet.
+He had forgotten that a room could be so quiet.
+
+In spite of his weariness, Burke's preparations for bed were both
+lengthy and luxurious--he had forgotten what absolute content lay in
+plenty of space, towels, and hot water, to say nothing of soap that was
+in its proper place, and did not have to be fished out of a baby-basket
+or a kitchen sink.
+
+Burke did not intend to go to sleep at once. He intended first to settle
+in his mind what he would do with this proposition of his father's. He
+would have to refuse it, of course. It would not do. Still, he ought to
+give it proper consideration for dad's sake. That much was due dad.
+
+He stretched himself luxuriously on the bed (he had forgotten that a bed
+could be so soft and so "just right") and began to think. But the next
+thing he knew he was waking up.
+
+His first feeling was a half-unconscious but delightful sensation of
+physical comfort. His next a dazed surprise as his slowly opened eyes
+encountered shapes and shadows and arc-light beams on the walls and
+ceiling quite unlike those in his Dale Street bedroom. Then instantly
+came a vague but poignant impression that "something had happened,"
+followed almost as quickly by full realization.
+
+Like a panorama, then, the preceding evening lay before him: Helen, the
+crying baby, the trailing ink, the angry words, the flight, dad, his
+welcome, the pleasant chat, the remarkable proposition. Oh, yes! And it
+was of the proposition that he was going to think. He could not accept
+it, of course, but--
+
+What a trump dad had been to offer it! What a trump he had been in the
+_way_ he offered it, too! What a trump he had been all through about it,
+for that matter. Not a word of reproach, not a hint of patronage. Not
+even a look that could be construed into that hated "I told you so."
+Just a straight-forward offer of this check for Helen, and the trip for
+himself, and actually in a casual, matter-of-fact tone of voice as if
+ten-thousand-dollar checks and Alaskan trips were everyday occurrences.
+
+But they weren't! A trip like that did not drop into a man's plate every
+day. Of course he could not take it--but what a dandy one it would be!
+And with dad--!
+
+For that matter, dad really needed him. Dad ought not to go off like
+that alone, and so far. Besides, dad _wanted_ him. How his voice had
+trembled when he had said, "I don't think you know, boy, how your old
+dad has missed you"! As if he didn't, indeed! As if he hadn't done
+_some_ missing on his own account!
+
+And the check. Of course he could not let Helen accept that,
+either,--ten thousand dollars! But how generous of dad to offer it--and
+of course it _would_ be good for Helen. Poor Helen! She needed a rest,
+all right, and she deserved one. It _would_ be fine for her to go back
+to her old home town for a little while, and no mistake. Not that she
+would need to spend the whole ten thousand dollars on that, of course.
+But even a little slice of a sum like that would give her all the frills
+and furbelows she wanted for herself and the baby, and send them into
+the country for all the rest of the summer, besides leaving nine-tenths
+of it for a nest-egg for the future. And what a comfortable feeling it
+would give her--always a little money when she wanted it for anything!
+No more of the hated pinching and starving, for he should tell her to
+spend it and take some comfort with it. That was what it was for.
+Besides, when it was gone, _he_ would have some for her. What a boon it
+would be to her--that ten thousand dollars! Of course, looking at it in
+that light, it was almost his _duty_ to accept the proposition, and give
+her the chance to have it.
+
+But then, after all, he couldn't. Why, it was like accepting charity; he
+hadn't earned it. Still, if hard work and anguish of mind counted, he
+_had_ earned it twice over, slaving away at the beck of Brett and his
+minions. And he had made good--so far. Dad had said so. What a trump dad
+was to speak as he did! And when _dad_ said a thing like that, it meant
+something!
+
+Well, there was nothing to do, of course, but to go back and buckle down
+to work--and to life in the Dale Street flat. To be sure, there was the
+baby. Of course he was fond of the baby; and it was highly interesting
+to see her achieve teeth, hair, a backbone, and sense--if only she would
+hurry up a little faster, though. Did babies always take so long to grow
+up?
+
+Burke stretched himself luxuriously and gazed about the room. The
+arc-light outside had gone out and dawn was approaching. More and more
+distinctly each loved object in the room was coming into view. To his
+nostrils came the perfume of the roses and honeysuckles in the garden
+below his window. To his ears came the chirp and twitter of the
+bird-calls from the trees. Over his senses stole the soothing peace of
+absolute physical ease.
+
+Once more, drowsily, he went back to his father's offer. Once more, in
+his mind, he argued it--but this time with a difference. Thus, so
+potent, sometimes, is the song of a bird, the scent of a flower, the
+shape of a loved, familiar object, or even the feel of a soft bed
+beneath one.
+
+After all, might he not be making a serious mistake if he did not accede
+to his father's wishes? Of course, so far as he, personally, was
+concerned, the answer would be an unequivocal refusal of the offer. But
+there was his father to consider, and there was Helen to think of; yes,
+and the baby. How much better it would be for them--for all of them, if
+he accepted it!
+
+Helen and the baby could have months of fresh air, ease, and happiness
+without delay, to say nothing of innumerable advantages later. Why, when
+you came to think of it, that would be enough, if there were nothing
+else! But there was something else. There was dad. Good old dad! How
+happy he'd be! Besides, dad really needed him. How ever had he thought
+for a moment of sending dad off to Alaska alone, and just after an
+illness, too! What could he be thinking of to consider it for a moment?
+That settled it. He should go. He would stifle all silly feelings of
+pride and the like, and he would make dad, Helen, and the baby happy.
+
+Which question having been satisfactorily decided, Burke turned over and
+settled himself for a doze before breakfast. He did not get it, however.
+His mind was altogether too full of time-tables, boat schedules,
+mountain peaks, and forest trails.
+
+Jove, but that was going to be a dandy trip!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was later, while Burke was leisurely dressing and planning out the
+day before him, that the bothersome question came to him as to how he
+should tell Helen. He was reminded, also, emphatically, of the probable
+scene in store for him when he should go home at six o'clock that night.
+And he hated scenes. For that matter, there would probably be another
+one, too, when he told her that he was going away for a time. To be
+sure, there was the ten-thousand-dollar check; and of course very soon
+he could convince her that it was really all for her best happiness.
+After she gave it a little thought, it would be all right, he was
+positive, but there was certain to be some unpleasantness at first,
+particularly as she was sure to be not a little difficult over his
+running--er--rather, _going_ away the night before. And he wished he
+could avoid it in some way. If only he did not have to go home--
+
+His face cleared suddenly. Why, of course! He would write. How stupid of
+him not to have thought of it before! He could say, then, just what he
+wanted to say, and she would have a chance to think it over calmly and
+sensibly, and see how really fine it was for her and the baby. That was
+the way to do it, and the only way. Writing, he could not be unnerved by
+her tears (of course she would cry at first--she always cried!) or
+exasperated into saying things he would be sorry for afterwards. He
+could say just enough, and not too much, in a letter, and say it right.
+Then, early in the following week, just before he was to start on his
+trip he would go down to the Dale Street house and spend the last two or
+three days with Helen and the baby, picking up his traps, and planning
+with Helen some of the delightful things she could do with that ten
+thousand dollars. By that time she would, of course, have entirely
+come around to his point of view (even if she had not seen it quite
+that way at first), and they could have a few really happy days
+together--something which would be quite impossible if they should meet
+now, with the preceding evening fresh in their minds, and have one of
+their usual wretched scenes of tears, recriminations, and wranglings.
+
+For the present, then, he would stay where he was. Helen would be all
+right--with Bridget. His father would be overjoyed, he knew; and as for
+the few toilet necessities--he could buy those. He needed some new
+things to take away. So that was settled.
+
+With a mind at rest again and a heart aflame with joy, Burke hurried
+into his garments and skipped downstairs like a boy.
+
+His face, before his lips got a chance, told his father of his decision.
+But his lips did not lag long behind. He had expected that his father
+would be pleased; but he was not quite prepared for the depth of emotion
+that shook his father's voice and dimmed his father's eyes, and that
+ended the half-uttered declaration of joy with what was very near a sob.
+If anything, indeed, were needed to convince Burke that he was doing
+just right in taking this trip with his father, it could be needed no
+longer after the look of ineffable peace and joy on that father's face.
+
+Breakfast, with so much to talk of, prolonged itself like a college
+spread, until Burke, with a cry of dismay, pulled out his watch and
+leaped to his feet.
+
+"Jove! Do you know what time it is, dad?" he cried laughingly. "Behold
+how this life of luxury has me already in its clutches! I should have
+been off an hour ago."
+
+John Denby lifted a detaining hand.
+
+"Not so fast, my boy," he smiled. "I've got you, and I mean to keep
+you--a few minutes longer."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Oh, I telephoned Brett this morning that you wouldn't be down till
+late, if you came at all."
+
+"You telephoned _this morning_!" puzzled Burke, sinking slowly into his
+chair again. "But you didn't know then that I--" He stopped once more.
+
+"No, I didn't know then that you'd agree to my proposition," answered
+John Denby, with a characteristically grim smile. "But I knew, if you
+did agree, we'd _both_ have some talking to do. And if you didn't--_I_
+should. I meant still to convince you, you see."
+
+"I see," nodded the younger man, smiling in his turn.
+
+"So I wouldn't go down this morning. We've lots of plans to make.
+Besides, there's your letter."
+
+"Yes, there's--my--letter." This time the young man did not smile. "I've
+got to write my letter, of course."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BY ADVICE OF COUNSEL
+
+
+Helen Denby received the letter from her husband at two o'clock by a
+special messenger.
+
+Helen had passed a sleepless night and an unhappy morning. The surge of
+bitter anger which at first, like the ink, had blackened everything it
+touched, soon spent itself, and left her weak and trembling. Dorothy
+Elizabeth, after her somewhat upsetting day, sank into an unusually
+sound slumber; but her mother, all through the long night watches, lay
+with sleepless eyes staring into the dark, thinking.
+
+Helen was very angry with Burke. There was no gainsaying that. She was a
+little frightened, too, at what she herself had said. In a soberer
+moment she would not have spoken quite like that, certainly. But it had
+been so hateful--his asking if she called that a happy home! As if she
+did not want a happy home as much as he ever could!
+
+To Helen, then, came her old vision of the daintily gowned wife
+welcoming her husband to the well-kept home; and all in the dark her
+cheek flushed hot.
+
+How far short, indeed, of that ideal had she fallen! And she was going
+to be such a help to Burke; such an inspiration; such a guide,
+counselor, and friend! (Swiftly the words came galloping out of that
+long-forgotten honeymoon.) Had she helped him? Had she been an
+inspiration, and a guide, and a counselor, and a friend? Poor Burke! He
+_had_ given up a good deal for her sake. (With the consciousness of that
+vacant pillow by her side, a wave of remorseful tenderness swept over
+her.) And of course it must have been hard for him. They had told him
+not to marry her, too. They had warned him that she was not suited to
+him, that she would drag him--
+
+With a low cry Helen sat up in bed suddenly.
+
+"_Drag him down!_"
+
+Had she dragged him down? No, no, not that--never that! She had been
+careless and thoughtless. She had not been a good housekeeper; and maybe
+sometimes she had been fretful and fault-finding, and--and horrid. But
+she loved him dearly. She had always loved him. It only needed something
+like this to show her how much she loved him. Why, he was Burke, her
+husband--Baby's father! As if ever she could let it be said that she had
+dragged him down!
+
+Quivering, shaken with sobs, she fell back on the pillow. For a few
+moments she cried on convulsively. Then, with a tremulous indrawn
+breath, she opened her eyes and stared into the dark again. A new
+thought had come to her.
+
+But there was time yet. Nothing dreadful had happened. She would show
+Burke, his friends, everybody, that she had not dragged him down. From
+now on she would try. Oh, how she would try! He should see. He _should_
+find a happy home when he came at night. She knew more, now, than she
+did, about housekeeping. Besides, there was more money now,--a little
+more,--and she had some one to help her with the work. Bridget was
+really doing very well; and there was Mrs. Cobb, so kind and helpful.
+She would go to her for advice always. Never again should Burke come
+home and find such a looking place. Baby should be washed and dressed.
+She herself would be dressed and waiting. Dinner, too, even on Bridget's
+day out, should be all ready and waiting. As if ever again she would run
+the risk of Burke's having to flee from his own home because he could
+not stand it! He should see!
+
+It was in this softened, exalted state of mind that Helen rose the next
+morning and proceeded to begin the carrying-out of her vows, by essaying
+the almost hopeless task (with Bridget's not overcheerful assistance) of
+putting into spotless order the entire apartment.
+
+At two o'clock, when Burke's letter came, she was utterly weary and
+almost sick; but she was still in the softened, exalted state of the
+early morning.
+
+With a wondering, half-frightened little cry at sight of the familiar
+writing, she began to read. John Denby's check for ten thousand dollars
+had fallen into her lap unnoticed.
+
+     _My dear Helen_ [she read]: First let me apologize for
+     flying off the handle the way I did last night. I shouldn't
+     have done it. But, do you know? I believe I'm glad I
+     did--for it's taught me something. Maybe you've discovered
+     it, too. It's this: you and I have been getting on each
+     other's nerves, lately. We need a rest from each other.
+
+     Now, don't bristle up and take it wrong, my dear. Just be
+     sensible and think. How many times a day do we snap and
+     snarl at each other? You're tired and half sick with the
+     work and the baby. I'm tired and half sick with _my_ work,
+     and we're always rubbing each other the wrong way. That's
+     why I think we need a vacation from each other. And dad has
+     made it possible for us to take one. He wants me to go to
+     Alaska with him on a little trip. I want to go, of course.
+     Then, too, I think I ought to go. Dad needs me. Not that he
+     is old, but he is just getting over an illness, and his head
+     bothers him a lot. I can be of real use to him.
+
+     At his own suggestion he is sending you the enclosed check.
+     He wants you to accept it with his best wishes for a
+     pleasant vacation. He suggests--and I echo him--that it
+     would be a fine idea if you should take the baby and go back
+     to your home town for a visit. I know your father and mother
+     are not living; but there must be some one there whom you
+     would like to visit. Or, better yet, now that you have the
+     means, you would probably prefer a good hotel for
+     headquarters, and then make short visits to all your
+     friends. It would do you worlds of good, and Baby, too.
+
+     And now--I'm writing this instead of coming to tell it face
+     to face, because I believe it's the best way. I'll be frank.
+     After last night, we might say things when we first met that
+     we'd be sorry for. And I don't want that to happen. So I'm
+     going to stay up here for a day or two.
+
+     Let me see--to-day is Friday. We are due to leave next
+     Wednesday. I'll be down the first of the week to say
+     good-bye and pick up my traps. Meanwhile, chicken, you'll be
+     all right with Bridget there; and just you put your wits to
+     work and go to planning out that vacation of yours, and how
+     you're going to spend the money. Then you can be ready to
+     tell me all about it when I come down.
+
+  Your affectionate husband,
+  BURKE.
+
+Helen's first feeling, upon finishing the note, was one of utter
+stupefaction. With a dazed frown and a low ejaculation she turned the
+letter over and began to read it again--more slowly. This time she
+understood. But her thoughts were still in a whirl of surprised
+disbelief. Then, gradually, came a measure of conviction.
+
+Fresh from her vigils of the night before, with its self-accusations and
+its heroic resolutions, she was so chastened and softened that there was
+more of grief than of anger in her first outburst.
+
+She began to cry a little wildly.
+
+Burke was going away. He _wanted_ to go. He said they--they got on each
+other's nerves. He said they needed a vacation from each other. _Needed_
+one! As if they did! It wasn't that. It was his father's idea. _She_
+knew. It was all his fault! But he was going--Burke was. He said he was.
+There would not be any chance now to show him the daintily gowned wife
+welcoming her husband home to a well-kept house. There would not be any
+chance to show how she had changed. There would not be--
+
+But there would be--after he came back.
+
+Helen stopped sobbing, and caught her breath with a new hope in her
+eyes. Dorothy Elizabeth began to cry, and Helen picked her up and
+commenced to rock her.
+
+Of course there _would_ be time after he came back. And, after all,
+might it not be the wisest thing, to be away from each other for a time?
+Why, even this little while--a single night of Burke's being gone--had
+shown her where she stood!--had shown her where it was all leading to!
+Of course it was the best way, and Burke had seen it. It was right that
+he should go. And had they not provided for her? She was to go-- There
+was a check somewhere--
+
+Burrowing in her lap under Dorothy Elizabeth's warm little body, Helen
+dragged forth an oblong bit of crumpled paper. Carefully she spread it
+flat. The next moment her eyes flew wide open.
+
+One thousand dollars! No, _ten_ thousand! It couldn't be! But it was.
+Ten thousand dollars! And she had been scolding and blaming them, when
+all the time they had been so generous! And it really _was_ the best
+way, too, that they should be apart for a while. It would give her a
+chance to adjust herself and practice--and it would need some practice
+if she were really going to be that daintily gowned young wife welcoming
+her husband to a well-kept home! And with ten thousand dollars! What
+couldn't they get with ten thousand dollars?
+
+Dorothy Elizabeth, at that moment, emitted a sharp, frightened cry. For
+how was Dorothy Elizabeth to know that the spasmodic pressure that so
+hurt her was really only a ten-thousand-dollar hug of joy?
+
+In less than half an hour, Helen, leaving the baby with Bridget, had
+sought Mrs. Cobb. She could keep her good news no longer.
+
+"I came to tell you. I'm going away--Baby and I," she announced
+joyously. "We're going next week."
+
+"Jiminy! You don't say so! But you don't mean you're goin' away ter
+_live_?"
+
+"Oh, no. Just for a visit to my old home town where I was born--only
+'twill be a good long one. You see, we need a rest and a change so
+much--Baby and I do." There was a shade of importance in voice and
+manner.
+
+"That you do!" exclaimed Mrs. Cobb, with emphasis. "And I'm glad you're
+goin'. But, sakes alive, I'm goin' ter miss ye, child!"
+
+"I shall miss you, too," beamed Helen cordially.
+
+"How long you goin' ter be gone?"
+
+"I don't know, exactly. It'll depend, some, on Burke--I mean Mr.
+Denby--when he wants me to come back."
+
+"Oh, ain't he goin', too?" An indefinable change came to Mrs. Cobb's
+voice.
+
+"Oh, no, not with us," smiled Helen. "He's going to Alaska."
+
+"To--_Alaska_! And, pray, what's he chasin' off to a heathen country
+like that for?"
+
+"Tisn't heathen--Alaska isn't," flashed Helen, vaguely irritated without
+knowing why. "Heathen countries are--are always hot. Alaska's cold.
+Isn't Alaska up north--to the pole, 'most? It used to be, when I went to
+school."
+
+"Maybe 'tis; but that ain't sayin' why he's goin' there, instead of with
+you," retorted Mrs. Cobb. In spite of the bantering tone in which this
+was uttered, disapproval was plainly evident in Mrs. Cobb's voice.
+
+"He's going with his father," answered Helen, with some dignity.
+
+"His father! Humph!"
+
+This time the disapproval was so unmistakably evident that Helen flamed
+into prompt defense, in righteous, wifely indignation.
+
+"I don't know why you speak like that, Mrs. Cobb. Hasn't he got a right
+to go with his father, if he wants to? Besides, his father needs him.
+Burke says he does."
+
+"And _you_ don't need him, I s'pose," flamed Mrs. Cobb, in her turn,
+nettled that her sympathetic interest should meet with so poor a
+welcome. "Of course it's none of my business, Mis' Denby, but it seems a
+shame to me for him ter let you and the baby go off alone like this, and
+so I spoke right out. I always speak right out--what I think."
+
+Helen flushed angrily. However much she might find fault with her
+husband herself, she suddenly discovered a strong disinclination to
+allowing any one else to do so. Besides, now, when he and his father
+had been so kind and generous--! She had not meant to tell Mrs. Cobb of
+the ten-thousand-dollar check, lest it lead to unpleasant questioning as
+to why it was sent. But now, in the face of Mrs. Cobb's unjust
+criticism, she flung caution aside.
+
+"You're very kind," she began, a bit haughtily; "but, you see, this time
+you have made a slight mistake. I don't think it's a shame at all for
+him to go away with his father who needs him; and you won't, when you
+know what they've sent me. They sent me a check this afternoon for ten
+thousand dollars."
+
+"_Ten--thousand--dollars!_"
+
+"Yes," bowed Helen, with a triumphant "I-told-you-so" air, as Mrs.
+Cobb's eyes seemed almost to pop out of her head. "They sent it this
+very afternoon."
+
+"For the land's sake!" breathed Mrs. Cobb. Then, as her dazed wits began
+to collect themselves, a new look came to her eyes. "They _sent_ it?"
+she cried.
+
+"By special messenger--yes," bowed Helen, again importantly.
+
+"But how funny to _send_ it, instead of bringing it himself--your
+husband, I mean."
+
+Too late Helen saw her mistake. In a panic, now, lest unpleasant truths
+be discovered, she assumed an especially light, cheerful manner.
+
+"Oh, no, I don't think it was funny a bit. He--he wanted it a surprise,
+I guess. And he wrote--a letter, you know. A lovely letter, all about
+what a good time Baby and I could have with the money."
+
+The suspicion in Mrs. Cobb's eyes became swift conviction. An angry red
+stained her cheeks--but it was not anger at Helen. That was clearly to
+be seen.
+
+"Look a-here, Mis' Denby," she began resolutely, "I'm a plain woman, and
+I always speak right out. And I'm your friend, too, and I ain't goin'
+ter stand by and see you made a fool of, and not try ter lift a hand ter
+help. There's somethin' wrong here. If you don't know it, it's time you
+did. If you _do_ know it, and are tryin' ter keep it from me, you might
+just as well stop right now, and turn 'round and tell me all about it.
+As I said before, I'm your friend, and--if it's what I think it
+is--you'll _need_ a friend, you poor little thing! Now, what is it?"
+
+Helen shook her head feebly. Her face went from white to red, and back
+again to white. Still determined to keep her secret if possible, she
+made a brave attempt to regain her old airiness of manner.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Cobb, it's nothing--nothing at all!"
+
+Mrs. Cobb exploded into voluble wrath.
+
+"Nothin', is it?--when a man goes kitin' off ter Alaska, and sendin' his
+wife ten thousand dollars ter go somewheres else in the opposite
+direction! Maybe you think I don't know what that means. But I do! And
+he's tryin' ter play a mean, snivelin' trick on ye, and I ain't goin'
+ter stand for it. I never did like him, with all his fine, lordly airs,
+a-thinkin' himself better than anybody else what walked the earth. But
+if I can help it, I ain't goin' ter see you cheated out of your just
+deserts."
+
+"_Mrs. Cobb!_" expostulated the dismayed, dumfounded wife; but Mrs. Cobb
+had yet more to say.
+
+"I tell you they're rich--them Denbys be--rich as mud; and as for pokin'
+you off with a measly ten thousand dollars, they shan't--and you with a
+baby ter try ter bring up and edyercate. The idea of your standin' for a
+separation with only ten thousand--"
+
+"Separation!" interrupted Helen indignantly, as soon as she could find
+her voice. "It isn't a separation. Why, we never thought of such a
+thing;--not for--for _always_, the way you mean it."
+
+"What is it, then?"
+
+"Why, it's just a--a playday," stammered Helen, still trying to cling to
+the remnant of her secret. "He _said_ it was a playday--that I was to go
+off and have a good time with Baby."
+
+"If it's just a playday, why didn't he give it to you ter take it
+_tergether_, then? Tell me that!"
+
+"Why, he--he's going with his father."
+
+"You bet he is," retorted Mrs. Cobb grimly. "And he's goin' ter keep
+with his father, too."
+
+"What do you mean?" Helen's lips were very white.
+
+Mrs. Cobb gave an impatient gesture.
+
+"Look a-here, child, do you think I'm blind? Don't ye s'pose I know how
+you folks have been gettin' along tergether?--or, rather, _not_ gettin'
+along tergether? Don't ye s'pose I know how he acts as if you wasn't the
+same breed o' cats with him?"
+
+"Then you've seen--I mean, you think he's--ashamed of me?" faltered
+Helen.
+
+"Think it! I _know_ it," snapped Mrs. Cobb, ruthlessly freeing her mind,
+regardless of the very evident suffering on her listener's face; "and
+it's just made my blood boil. Time an' again I've thought of speakin' up
+an' tellin' ye I jest wouldn't stand it, if I was you. But I didn't. I
+ain't no hand ter butt in where it don't concern me. But ter see you so
+plumb fooled with that ten thousand dollars--I jest can't stand it no
+longer. I _had_ ter speak up. Turnin' you off with a beggarly ten
+thousand dollars--and them with all that money! Bah!"
+
+"But, Mrs. Cobb, maybe he's coming back," stammered Helen faintly, with
+white lips.
+
+"Pshaw! So maybe the sun'll rise in the west termorrer," scoffed Mrs.
+Cobb; "but I ain't pullin' down my winder shades for it yet. No, he
+won't come back--ter _you_, Mis' Denby."
+
+"But he--he don't say it's for--for all time."
+
+"'Course he don't. But, ye see, he thinks he's lettin' ye down
+easy--a-sendin' ye that big check, an' tellin' ye ter take a playday. He
+don't want ye ter suspect, yet, an' make a fuss. He's countin' on bein'
+miles away when ye _do_ wake up an' start somethin'. That's why I'm
+a-talkin' to ye now--ter put ye wise ter things. I ain't goin' ter
+stand by an' see you bamboozled. Now do you go an' put on your things
+an' march up there straight. I'll take care of the baby, an' be glad to,
+if you don't want ter leave her with Bridget."
+
+"_I go up there?_" Helen's voice was full of dismayed protest.
+
+"Sure! You brace right up to 'em, an' tell 'em you've caught on ter
+their little scheme, and you ain't goin' ter stand for no such nonsense.
+If he wants ter git rid of you an' the baby, all well an' good. That is,
+I'm takin' it for granted that you wouldn't fight it--the divorce, I
+mean."
+
+"_Divorce!_" almost shrieked Helen.
+
+"But that he's got ter treat ye fair and square, an' give ye somewheres
+near what's due ye," went on Mrs. Cobb, without apparently noticing
+Helen's horrified exclamation. "Now don't cry; and, above all things,
+don't let 'em think they've scared ye. Just brace right up an' tell 'em
+what's what."
+
+"Oh, but Mrs. Cobb, I--I--" With a choking sob and a hysterical shake of
+her head, Helen turned and fled down the hall to her own door. Once
+inside her apartment she stumbled over to the crib and caught the
+sleeping Dorothy Elizabeth into her arms.
+
+"Oh, Baby, Baby, it's all over--all over," she moaned. "I can't ever be
+a daintily gowned wife welcoming him to a well-kept home now.
+Never--never! I can't welcome him at all. He isn't coming back. He
+doesn't _want_ to come back. He's ashamed of us, Baby,--_ashamed of
+us_!"
+
+Dorothy Elizabeth, roused from her nap and convulsively clutched in a
+pair of nervous hands, began to whimper restlessly.
+
+"No, no, Baby, not of you," sobbed Helen, rocking the child back and
+forth in her arms. "It was me--just me he was ashamed of. What shall I
+do, what _shall_ I do?"
+
+"And I thought it was just as he said," she went on chokingly, after a
+moment's pause. "I thought it was a vacation he wanted us to take,
+'cause we--we got on each other's nerves. But it wasn't, Baby,--it
+wasn't; and I see it now. He's ashamed of me. He's always been ashamed
+of me, 'way back when Dr. Gleason first came--he was ashamed of me then,
+Baby. He was. I know he was. And now he wants to get away--quite away,
+and never come back. And he calls it a _vacation_! And he says _I'm_ to
+have one, too, and I must tell him all about it when he comes down next
+week. Maybe he thinks I will. _Maybe he thinks I will!_
+
+"We won't be here, Baby,--we won't! We'll go
+somewhere--somewhere--anywhere!--before he gets here," she raved,
+burying her face in the baby's neck and sobbing hysterically.
+
+Once again Helen passed a sleepless night. Never questioning now Mrs.
+Cobb's interpretation of her husband's conduct, there remained only a
+decision as to her own course of action. That she could not be there
+when her husband came to make ready for his journey, she was convinced.
+She told herself fiercely that she would take herself and the baby
+away--quite away out of his sight. He should not be shamed again by the
+sight of her. But she knew in her heart that she was fleeing because she
+dared not go through that last meeting with her husband, lest she should
+break down. And she did not want to break down. If Burke did not want
+_her_, was it likely she was going to cry and whine, and let him know
+that she _did_ want him? Certainly not!
+
+Helen's lips came together in a thin, straight line, in spite of her
+trembling chin. Between her hurt love and her wounded pride, Helen was
+in just that state of hysterics and heroics to do almost
+anything--except something sane and sober.
+
+First, to get away. On that she was determined. But where to go--that
+was the question. As for going back to the old home town--as Burke had
+suggested--_that_ she would not do--now. Did they think, then, that she
+was going back there among her old friends to be laughed at, and gibed
+at? What if she did have ten thousand dollars to spend on frills and
+finery to dazzle their eyes? How long would it be before the whole town
+found out, as had Mrs. Cobb, that that ten thousand dollars was the
+price Burke Denby had paid for his freedom from the wife he was ashamed
+of? Never! She would not go there. But where could she go?
+
+It was then that a plan came to her--a plan so wild and dazzling that
+even her frenzied aspiration scouted it at first as impossible. But it
+came again and again; and before long her fancy was playing with it, and
+turning it about with a wistful "Of course, if I could!" which in time
+became a hesitating "And maybe, after all, I _could_ do it," only to
+settle at last into a breathlessly triumphant "I will!"
+
+After that things moved very swiftly in the little Denby flat. It was
+Saturday morning, and there was no time to lose.
+
+First, Helen gathered all the cash she had in the house, not forgetting
+the baby's bank (which yielded the biggest sum of all), and counted it.
+She had nineteen dollars and seventeen cents. Then she rummaged among
+her husband's letters and papers until she found a letter from Dr.
+Gleason bearing his Boston address. Next, with Bridget to help her, she
+flung into her trunk everything belonging to herself and the baby that
+it was possible to crowd in, save the garments laid out to wear. By
+three o'clock Bridget was paid and dismissed, and Helen, with Dorothy
+Elizabeth, was waiting for the carriage to take them to the railroad
+station.
+
+With the same tearless exaltation that had carried her through the
+prodigious tasks of the morning, Helen picked up her bag and Dorothy
+Elizabeth, and followed her trunk down the stairs and out to the street.
+She gave not one backward glance to the little home, and she carefully
+avoided anything but an airy "Good-bye" to the watching Mrs. Cobb in
+the window on the other side. Not until the wheels began to turn, and
+the journey was really begun, did Helen's tearless exaltation become the
+frightened anxiety of one who finds herself adrift on an uncharted sea.
+
+Then Helen began to cry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IN QUEST OF THE STARS
+
+
+In a roomy old house on Beacon Hill Dr. Frank Gleason made his home with
+his sister, Mrs. Ellery Thayer. The family were at their North Shore
+cottage, however, and only the doctor was at home on the night that
+Hawkins, the Thayers' old family butler, appeared at the library door
+with the somewhat disconcerting information that a young person with a
+baby and a bag was at the door and wished to speak to Dr. Gleason.
+
+The doctor looked up in surprise.
+
+"Me?" he questioned. "A woman? She must mean Mrs. Thayer."
+
+"She said you, sir. And she isn't a patient. I asked her, thinking she
+might have made a mistake and took you for a real doctor what practices.
+She said she didn't want doctoring. She wanted you. She's a young person
+I never saw before, sir."
+
+"But, good Heavens, man, it's after eleven o'clock!"
+
+"Yes, sir." On the manservant's face was an expression of lively
+curiosity and disapproval, mingled with a subdued but unholy mirth which
+was not lost on the doctor, and which particularly exasperated him.
+
+"What in thunder can a woman with a baby want of me at this time of--
+What's her name?" demanded the doctor.
+
+"She didn't say, sir."
+
+"Well, go ask her."
+
+The butler coughed slightly, but made no move to leave the room.
+
+"I did ask her, sir. She declined to give it."
+
+"Declined to-- Well, I like her impertinence."
+
+"Yes, sir. She said you'd"--the servant's voice faltered and swerved
+ever so slightly from its well-trained impassiveness--"er--understand,
+sir."
+
+"She said I'd--the deuce she did!" exploded the doctor under his breath,
+flushing an angry red and leaping to his feet. "Didn't you tell her Mrs.
+Thayer was gone?" he demanded at last, wheeling savagely.
+
+"I did, sir, and--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"She said she was glad; that she wanted only you, anyway."
+
+"_Wanted only--!_ Comes here at this time of night with a bag and a
+baby, refuses to give her name, and says I'll understand!" snarled the
+doctor. "Oh, come, Hawkins, this is some colossal mistake, or a fool
+hoax, or-- What kind of looking specimen is she?"
+
+Hawkins, who had known the doctor from his Knickerbocker days, was
+guilty of a slow grin.
+
+"She's a--a very good looker, sir."
+
+"Oh, she is! Well--er, tell her I can't possibly see her; that I've gone
+to bed--away--sick--something! Anything! Tell her she'll have to see
+Mrs. Thayer."
+
+"Yes, sir." Still the man made no move to go. "She--er--beg pardon,
+sir--but she'll be that cut up, I fear, sir. You see, she's been cryin'.
+And she's young--very young."
+
+"Crying!"
+
+"Yes, sir. And she was that powerful anxious to see you, sir. I had hard
+work to keep her from coming _with_ me. I did, sir. She's in the hall.
+And--it's raining outside, sir."
+
+"Oh, good Heavens! Well, bring her in," capitulated the doctor in
+obvious desperation.
+
+"Yes, sir." This time the words were scarcely out of his mouth before
+the old man was gone. In an incredibly short time he was back with a
+flushed-faced, agitated young woman carrying a sleeping child in her
+arms.
+
+At sight of her, the doctor, who had plainly braced himself behind a
+most forbidding aspect, leaped forward with a low cry and a complete
+change of manner.
+
+"_Mrs. Denby!_" he gasped. But instantly he fell back; for the young
+woman, for all the world like a tenpenny-dreadful stage heroine, hissed
+out a tragic "Sh-h! I don't want anybody to know my name!" with a
+cautious glance toward the none-too-rapidly disappearing Hawkins.
+
+"But what does this mean?" demanded Frank Gleason, when he could find
+words. "Where's Burke?"
+
+"He's left me."
+
+"Left you! Impossible!"
+
+"Yes." She drew in her breath convulsively. "He says it's only to Alaska
+with his father; but that's just to let me down easy."
+
+"Oh, but, Mrs. Denby--"
+
+"You needn't try to make me think any different," she interposed
+wearily, sinking into the chair the doctor placed for her; "'cause you
+can't. I've been over everything you could say. All the way down here I
+didn't have anything to do only just to think and think. And I see
+now--such lots of things that I never saw before."
+
+"But, why--how do you know--what made you think he has--left you?"
+stammered the doctor.
+
+"Because he's ashamed of me; and--"
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Denby!"
+
+"You don't have to say anything about that, either," said Mrs. Denby
+very quietly. And before the dumb agony in the eyes turned full upon
+him, he fell silent.
+
+"There ain't any question as to what _has_ been done; it's just what I'm
+_going_ to _do_," she went on wearily again. "He sent me ten thousand
+dollars--Burke's father did; and--"
+
+"John Denby sent you ten thousand dollars!" exploded the doctor, sitting
+erect.
+
+"Yes; a check. I've got it here. He sent it for a playday, you know,"
+nodded Mrs. Denby, shifting the weight of the heavy baby in her arms.
+"And--and that's why I came to you."
+
+"To--to me," stammered the doctor, growing suddenly alertly miserable
+and nervous again. "A--a playday! But I--I--that is--how--"
+
+"Oh, I'm not going to take the playday. I couldn't even _think_
+play--now," she choked. "It's--" Then in a breathless burst it came.
+"Doctor, you can--you _will_ help me, won't you?--to learn to stand and
+walk and talk and eat soup and wear the right clothes and finger nails
+and hair, you know, and not say the wrong things, and everything the way
+Burke's friends do--you and all the rest of them--_you_ know, so _I_ can
+be swell and grand, too, and he won't be ashamed of me! And _is_ ten
+thousand dollars enough to pay--for learning all that?"
+
+From sheer inability to speak, the man could only fall back in his chair
+and stare dumbly.
+
+"Please, _please_ don't look at me like that," besought the young woman
+frenziedly. "It's just as if you said you _couldn't_ help me. But you
+can! I know you can. And I can _do_ it. I know that, too. I read it in a
+book, once, about a girl who--who was like me. And she went away and got
+perfectly grand clothes, and learning, and all; and then she came back;
+and he--he didn't know her at first--her husband, and he fell in love
+with her all over again. And she didn't have near so much money as I've
+got. Doctor, you _will_ help me?"
+
+The doctor, with his shocked, amazed eyes on the piteously pleading face
+opposite, threw up his hands in despair.
+
+"But I--you--Burke-- Oh, Heavens, my dear lady! How utterly, utterly
+impossible this all is! Come, come, what am I thinking of?--and you with
+not even your hat off yet! And that child! I'll call Hawkins at once. He
+and his wife are all there are left here, just now,--my sister's at the
+beach. But they'll make you and little Miss Dorothy Elizabeth here
+comfortable for the night. Then, to-morrow, after a good sleep,
+we'll--we'll fix it all up. I'll get Burke on the long distance, and--"
+
+"Dr. Gleason," interrupted Helen Denby, with a calmness that would have
+deceived him had he not seen her eyes, "my husband isn't worrying about
+me. He thinks I'm at home now. When he finds I'm not, he'll think I've
+gone to my old home town where he _told_ me to go for a visit. He won't
+worry then. So that's all right. Don't you see? He's sent me
+away--_sent_ me. If you tell him now that I am here, I will walk right
+straight out of that door, and neither you nor him nor anybody else I
+know shall ever see me again."
+
+"Oh, come, come," protested the doctor, again helplessly.
+
+Once more Helen interrupted.
+
+"Doctor, why can't you be straight with me?" she pleaded. "I had to come
+to you. There wasn't anybody else I _could_ go to. And there isn't any
+other way out of it--but this. I tell you I've been doing some
+_thinking_. All the way down here it's been just think, think, think."
+
+The doctor wet his lips.
+
+"But, if--if Burke knew--"
+
+"Look a-here," cut in Helen resolutely, "you've been to our house quite
+a lot since Burke and me was married. You think I made Burke real happy,
+don't you?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"You might just as well say the words with your lips, Doctor. Your face
+has said them," observed Helen, a little dryly.
+
+"Well--no, then;--but I feel like a brute to say it."
+
+"You needn't. I made you. Besides, I'm glad to have you say it. We're
+right out in the open, now, and maybe we can get somewhere. Look a-here,
+do you know?--for the first time in my life to-day I was sorry for John
+Denby. I was! I got to thinking, with Dorothy Elizabeth all safe and
+snug in my arms, how, by and by, she'd be a little girl, and then a
+young lady. And she was so sweet and pretty, and--and I _loved_ her so!
+And I got to thinking how I'd feel if somebody took her away from me the
+way I took Burke away from his father, and married her when I didn't
+want her to, any more 'n Burke's father wanted _him_ to; and I--I could
+see then how he must have felt, worshiping Burke as he did. I know--I
+used to see them together, when I was nurse there with Mrs. Allen's
+children. I never saw a father and son so much like--chums. He doted on
+Burke. I know now how he felt. And--and it's turned out the way he
+said. I hain't been the one for Burke at all. I've--I've dragged him
+down."
+
+"Mrs. Denby, please--" begged the doctor.
+
+But she paused only long enough to shake her head.
+
+"Yes, I have. I know. I've been thinking it all over--the life we've led
+together, and what he might have had, if he hadn't had--if it hadn't
+been for me. And that's why, now, I want to see if--if I can't learn how
+to--to make him not ashamed of me. And it ain't for me, only, it's for
+Dorothy Elizabeth. I want to teach her. It's bad enough to have him
+ashamed of me; but I--I just couldn't stand it if he should ever be--be
+ashamed of--_her_. And now--won't you help me, please? Remember, Burke
+don't _want_ me at home, now, so I'm not displeasing him. _Won't_ you
+help me? It's my only--chance!"
+
+The doctor sprang to his feet. His eyes were moist and his voice shook
+when he spoke.
+
+"Help you! I'll help you to--to bring down the moon and all the stars,
+if you say the word! Mrs. Denby, you're a--a little brick, and there's
+no end to the way I respect and admire you. Of course I'll help
+you--somehow. Though _how_ I haven't the faintest idea. Meanwhile you
+must get some rest. As I told you, my sister is at the beach, and there
+are only Hawkins and his wife here to keep the house open. But they'll
+make you comfortable for the night, and we'll see to-morrow what can be
+done. We'll have some kind of a plan," he finished, as he crossed the
+room to ring the bell.
+
+"Oh, thank you, thank you!" breathed Helen. "But, remember, please, I'm
+not Mrs. Denby. I'm Mrs. Darling--my mother's maiden name," she begged
+in a panic, as the doctor touched the bell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+True to his promise, Frank Gleason had a plan, of a sort, ready by
+morning. He told it at the breakfast table.
+
+"I'm going to take you to my sister, provided, of course, that you
+agree," he announced. "Five minutes' talk with her on this matter will
+be worth five years' with me. I shouldn't wonder if she kept you
+herself,--for a time, with her. And you couldn't be in a better place.
+Perhaps you'll be willing to help her with the children--and she'll be
+glad of that, I know."
+
+"But--my money--can't I pay--money?" faltered Helen.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Not if we can help it. Your money you'll need later for Miss
+Dorothy--unless you are willing to make yourself known to your husband
+sooner than you seem now to be willing to. We'll invest it in something
+safe and solid, and it'll bring you in a few hundred a year. You'll have
+that to spend; and that will go quite a way--under some circumstances."
+
+"But I--I want to--to learn things, you know," stammered Helen; "how to
+be--be--"
+
+"You'll learn--lots of things, if you live with my sister," remarked the
+doctor significantly.
+
+"Oh!" smiled Helen, with a sigh of relief and content.
+
+The doctor sighed, too,--though not at all with either relief or
+content. To the doctor, the task before him loomed as absurd and unreal
+as if it were, indeed, the pulling-down of the stars and the moon--the
+carrying-out of his extravagant promise of the night before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE TRAIL OF THE INK
+
+
+Burke Denby was well pleased with the letter that he had sent to his
+wife, enclosing the ten-thousand-dollar check. He felt that it was both
+conclusive and diplomatic; and he believed that it carried a frankness
+that would prove to be disarming. He had every confidence that Helen
+would eventually (if not at once) recognize its logic and
+reasonableness, and follow its suggestions. With a light heart,
+therefore, he gave himself up to the enjoyment of the day with his
+father. By Saturday, however, a lively curiosity began to assail him as
+to just how Helen did take the note, after all. There also came
+unpleasantly to him a recurrence of the uncomfortable feeling that his
+abrupt departure from home Thursday night had been neither brave nor
+kind, and, in fact, hardly decent, under the circumstances. He decided
+that he would, when he saw Helen, really quite humble himself and
+apologize roundly. It was no more than her due, poor girl!
+
+By Sunday, between his curiosity and his uneasy remorse, he was too
+nervous really to enjoy anything to the full; but he sternly adhered to
+his original plan of not going down to the Dale Street flat before
+Monday, believing, in his heart, that nothing could do so much good to
+both of them, under the circumstances, as a few days of thought apart
+from each other. Monday, however, found him headed for Dale Street; but
+in an hour he was back at Elm Hill. He was plainly very angry.
+
+"She's gone," he announced, with a brevity more eloquent of his state of
+mind than a flood of words would have been.
+
+"Gone! Where?"
+
+"Home--to spend that ten thousand dollars, of course. She left this."
+
+With a frown John Denby took the proffered bit of paper upon which had
+been scrawled:--
+
+     I hope you'll enjoy your playday as much as I shall mine.
+     Address me at Wenton--if you care to write.
+
+  HELEN.
+
+"Where did you find this?"
+
+"On my chiffonier. I didn't think that--of Helen."
+
+"And there was nothing to show _when_ she left?"
+
+"Nothing--except that the apartment was in spick-and-span order from end
+to end; and _that_ must have taken _some_ time to accomplish."
+
+"But perhaps the neighbors would--"
+
+"There's no one she knows but Mrs. Cobb," interrupted Burke, with an
+impatient gesture. "Do you suppose I'm going to her and whimper, 'My
+wife's gone. Please, do you know when she went?' Not much! I saw
+her--the dear creature! And one glance at her face showed that she was
+dying to be asked. But I didn't afford her that satisfaction. I gave
+her a particularly blithe 'Good-morning,' and then walked away as if I'd
+_known_ I was coming home to an empty house all the time. But, I repeat,
+I'm disappointed. I didn't think this of Helen--running off like this!"
+
+"You think she was angry, then, at your letter?"
+
+"Of course she was--at that, and at the way I left her the other night.
+I _was_ a bit of a cad there, I'll admit; but that doesn't excuse her
+for doing a trick like this. I wrote her a good letter, and you sent her
+a very generous check; and I told her I was coming to-day to pick up my
+traps and say good-bye. She didn't care to see me--that's all. But she
+might have had some thought that I'd like to see my daughter before I
+go. If there was time I'd run up there. But it's out of the
+question--with only to-morrow before we start."
+
+"Wenton is her home town, I suppose."
+
+"Yes. She left there, you know, two years before I saw her. Her father
+died and then her mother; and she had to look out for herself. I shall
+write, of course, and send it up before I go. And I shall try to write
+decently; but I will own up, father, I'm mad clear through."
+
+"Too bad, too bad!" John Denby frowned and shook his head again. "I must
+confess, Burke, that I, too, didn't quite think this--of Helen."
+
+"I don't know her street address, of course." Burke was on his feet,
+pacing back and forth. "But that isn't necessary. It's a small town--I
+know that. I told her I thought she'd like the hotel best; but she may
+prefer to go to some friend's home. However, that doesn't signify.
+She'll get it all right, if I direct it simply to Wenton. But I can't
+have a reply before I leave. There isn't time, even if she deigned to
+write--which I doubt, in her present evident frame of mind. Pleasant,
+isn't it? Makes me feel real happy to start off with, to-morrow!"
+
+"No, of course it doesn't," admitted John Denby, with a sigh. "But,
+come, Burke,"--his eyes grew wistful,--"don't let this silly whim of
+Helen's spoil everything. Fretting never did help anything, and perhaps,
+after all, it's the best thing that could have happened. A meeting
+between you, in Helen's present temper, could have resulted only in
+unhappiness. Obviously Helen is piqued and angry at your suggesting a
+separation for a time. She determined to give it to you--but to give it
+to you a little sooner than you wanted. That's her way of getting back
+at you. That's all. Let her alone. She'll come to her senses in time.
+Oh, _write_, of course," he hastened to add, in answer to the expression
+on his son's face. "But don't expect a reply too soon. You must remember
+you gave Helen a pretty big blow to her pride. I _wish_ she had looked
+at the matter sensibly, of course; but probably that was too much to
+expect."
+
+"I'm afraid it was--of--" Biting his lips, Burke pulled himself up
+sharply. "I'll go and write my letter," he finished wearily, instead.
+
+And John Denby echoed the long sigh he drew.
+
+It was January when John Denby and his son returned from their Alaskan
+trip. The long and rather serious illness of John Denby in November, and
+the necessary slowness of their journeying thereafter, had caused a
+series of delays very trying to both father and son.
+
+To neither John Denby nor Burke had the trip been an entire success.
+Burke, in spite of his joy at being with his father and his delight in
+the traveling itself, could not get away from the shadow of an upturned
+bottle of ink in a Dale Street flat. At times, with all the old boyish
+enthusiasm and lightness of heart, he entered into whatever came; but
+underneath it all, and forever cropping uppermost, was a surge of anger,
+a bitterness of heart.
+
+Not once, through the entire trip, had Burke heard from his wife. Their
+mail, of course, had been infrequent and irregular; but, from time to
+time, a batch of letters would be found waiting for them, and always,
+with feverish eagerness, Burke had scanned the envelopes for a sight of
+Helen's familiar scrawl. He had never found it, and he was very angry
+thereat. He was not worried or frightened. Any Denby of the Dalton
+Denbys was too well known not to have any vital information concerning
+him or her communicated to the family headquarters. If anything had
+happened to either Helen or the child, he would have known of it, of
+course, through Brett. This silence could mean, therefore, but one
+thing: Helen's own wish that he should not hear. He felt that he had a
+right to be angry. He pictured Helen happy, gay in her new finery,
+queening it over her old school friends in Wenton, and nursing wrath and
+resentment against himself (else why did she not write?)--and the
+picture did not please him.
+
+He had suggested separation (for a time), to be sure; but he had not
+suggested total annihilation of all intercourse! If she did not care to
+say anything for herself, she might, at least, be decent enough to let
+him hear as to the welfare of his child, he reasoned indignantly.
+
+On one course of action he was determined. As soon as he returned home
+he would go to Helen and have it out with her. If she _wished_ to carry
+to such absurd lengths her unreasonable pique at his perfectly
+reasonable suggestion, he wanted to know it at once, and not live along
+this way!
+
+Under these circumstances it is not strange, perhaps, that the trip, for
+Burke, was not an unalloyed joy; and the delays, in addition to giving
+him no little anxiety for his father, fretted him almost beyond
+endurance.
+
+As to John Denby--he, too, could not get away from the shadow of an
+upturned bottle of ink. Besides suffering the reflection of its effect
+on his son, in that son's moodiness and frequent lack of enthusiasm, he
+had no small amount of it on his own account.
+
+Burke's word-picture of that evening's catastrophe had been a vivid one;
+and John Denby could not forget it. He realized that it meant much in
+many ways. The fact that it had been followed by Helen's ominous
+silence did not lessen his uneasy questionings. He wondered if, after
+all, he had done the wise thing in bringing about this temporary
+separation. He still believed, in his heart, that he had. But he did not
+seem to find much happiness in that belief. In spite of his supreme joy
+and content in his son's companionship, he found himself many a time
+almost wishing the trip were over. And the delays at the end were fully
+as great a source of annoyance to himself, as they were to his son. He,
+as well as Burke, therefore, heaved a long sigh of relief as the train
+drew into the Dalton station, bringing into view the old Denby family
+carriage (John Denby did not care for motor cars), with old Horace on
+the box, and with Brett near by, plainly waiting to extend a welcoming
+hand. Brett's face was white and a little strained-looking. John Denby,
+noticing it through the car window, remarked to his son:--
+
+"Guess Brett will be glad to see us. He looks tired. Overworked, I fear.
+Faithful fellow--that, Burke! We owe him our trip, anyway. But who
+supposed it was going to prolong itself away into January like this?"
+
+"Who did, indeed?" murmured Burke, as he followed his father from the
+car.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Burke Denby had not been at home half an hour, when, his face drawn and
+ashen, he strode into the library where his father was sitting before
+the fire.
+
+"Father, Helen has not been at Wenton at all," he said in the tragically
+constrained voice of a man who is desperately trying to keep himself
+from exploding into ravings and denunciations.
+
+John Denby came erect in his chair.
+
+"_Not been there_-- What do you mean? How do you know?"
+
+"Brett. I found these upstairs in my room--_every letter I've written
+her_--even the first one from here before I left--returned unopened,
+marked 'unclaimed, address unknown,' together with a letter from Brett
+in explanation. I've just been talking with him on the 'phone, too."
+
+"So that's it--why he looked so at the station! What did he say? Why
+didn't he let you know before?"
+
+"He says it was a long time before the first letter came back. He knew
+we were away up in the mountains, and would be very likely started for
+home before he could reach us with it, anyway. And there wouldn't be a
+thing we could do--up there, except to come home; and we'd already be
+doing that, anyway. And this would only worry us, and trouble us, and
+make our return trip a horror--without helping a bit."
+
+"Quite right. Brett is always right," nodded John Denby.
+
+"Then, of course, came the delay, your sickness, and all. Of course he
+wouldn't let us know then--when we _couldn't_ come. By that time other
+letters I had written on the way out began to come back from Wenton. (I
+always used my own envelopes with the Dalton address in the corner, so
+of course they all showed up here in time.) When the second and third
+came he knew it wasn't a mistake. He'd been hoping the first one was,
+somehow, he said."
+
+"Yes, yes, I see. And of course it might have been. But what did he do?
+Didn't he do--anything?"
+
+"Yes. First, he said, he kept his own counsel--here in town. He knew
+we'd want to avoid all gossip and publicity."
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"He put the thing into the hands of a private detective whom he could
+trust; and he went himself to Wenton--for a vacation, apparently."
+
+"Good old Brett! Wise, as usual. What did he find?"
+
+"Nothing--except that she was not there, and hadn't been there since she
+left some years ago, soon after her mother's death. He says he's
+positive of that. So he had to come back no wiser than he went."
+
+"But--the detective."
+
+"Very little there. Still, there was something. He traced her to
+Boston."
+
+"_Boston!_"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What friends has she in Boston?"
+
+"None, so far as I know. I never heard her mention knowing a soul there.
+Still, I believe she had a--a position there with some one, before she
+went to Aunt Eunice; but I don't know who it was."
+
+"There's Gleason--she knows him."
+
+Burke gave his father a glance from scornful eyes.
+
+"My best friend! She'd be apt to go to him, wouldn't she, if she were
+running away from me? Besides, we've had three or four letters from him
+since we've been gone. Don't you suppose he'd tell us of it, if she'd
+gone to him?"
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," frowned John Denby, biting his lips. "It's only
+that I was trying to get hold of some one--or something. Think of
+it--that child alone in Boston, and--no friends! Of course she had
+money--that is, I suppose she cashed it--that check?" John Denby turned
+with a start.
+
+"Oh, yes. I asked Brett about that. I hoped maybe there'd be a clue
+there, if she got somebody to cash it for her. But there was nothing.
+She got the money herself, at the bank here, not long after we went. So
+she must have come back for a time, anyway. Brett says Spawlding, at the
+bank, knew her, of course, and so there was no question as to
+identification. Still it was so large a one that he telephoned to Brett,
+before he paid it, asking if it were all right--you being away. Brett
+evidently knew you had given her such a check--"
+
+"Yes, I had told him," nodded John Denby.
+
+"So he said yes, it was. He says he supposed she had come down from
+Wenton to get it cashed, and that she would leave the bulk of it there
+in the bank to her credit. Anyway, all he could do was to assure
+Spawlding that you had given her such a check just before you went
+away."
+
+"Yes, yes, I see," nodded John Denby again.
+
+"She didn't leave any of the money, however. She took it all with her."
+
+"Took it _all_--ten thousand dollars!"
+
+"Yes. The detective, of course, is still working on the case. He got to
+Boston, but there he's up against a blank wall. He's run a fine-tooth
+comb through all sorts of public and private institutions in Boston and
+vicinity without avail. He's made a thorough search at the railroad
+station. He can't find a person who has any recollection of a young
+woman and child answering their description, arriving on that date, who
+seemed to be troubled or in doubt where to go. He questioned the matron,
+ticket-men, cabbies, policemen--everybody. Of course every one had seen
+plenty of young women with babies in their arms--young women who had the
+hair and eyes and general appearance of Helen, and who were anxious and
+fretted. (They said young women with babies were apt to be anxious and
+fretted.) But they didn't remember one who asked frantic questions as to
+what to do, and where to go, and all that--acting as we think Helen
+would have acted, alone in a strange city."
+
+"Poor child, poor child!" groaned John Denby. "Where can--"
+
+But his son interrupted sternly.
+
+"I don't _know_ where she is, of course. But don't be too sure it is
+'poor child' with her, dad. She's doing this thing because she _wants_
+to do it. Don't forget that. Didn't she purposely mislead us by that
+note she left on my chiffonier? She didn't say she _had_ gone to Wenton,
+but she let me think she had. 'Address me at Wenton, if you care to
+write,' she said. And don't forget that she also said: 'I hope you'll
+enjoy your playday as much as I shall mine.' Don't you worry about
+Helen. She's taken my child and your ten thousand dollars, and she's off
+somewhere, having a good time;--and Helen could have a good time--on ten
+thousand dollars! Incidentally she's also punishing us. She means to
+give us a good scare. She's waiting till we get home, and till the
+money's gone. Then she'll let herself be found."
+
+"Oh, come, come, Burke, aren't you just a little bit--harsh?"
+remonstrated John Denby.
+
+"I don't think so. She deserves--something for taking that child away
+like this. Honestly, as my temper is now, if it wasn't for the baby, I
+should feel almost like saying that I hoped she wouldn't ever come back.
+I don't want to see her. But, of course, with the baby, that's another
+matter."
+
+"I should say so!" exclaimed John Denby emphatically.
+
+"Yes; but, see here, dad! Helen knew where she was going. She's gone to
+friends. Wouldn't she have left some trace in that station if she'd been
+frightened and uncertain where to go? Brett says the detective found one
+cabby who remembered taking just such a young woman and child from an
+evening train at about that time. He didn't recollect where he took her,
+and he couldn't say as to whether she had been crying, or not; but he's
+positive she directed him where to go without a moment's hesitation. If
+that was Helen, she knew where she was going all right."
+
+John Denby frowned and did not answer. His eyes were troubled.
+
+"But perhaps here--at the flat--" he began, after a time.
+
+"The detective tried that. He went as a student, or something, and
+managed to hire a room of Mrs. Cobb. He became very friendly and chatty,
+and showed interest in all the neighbors, not forgetting the vacant flat
+on the same floor. But he didn't learn--much."
+
+"But he learned--something?"
+
+An angry red mounted to Burke's forehead.
+
+"Oh, yes; he learned that it belonged to a poor little woman whose
+husband was as rich as mud, but quite the meanest thing alive, in that
+he'd tried to buy her off with ten thousand dollars, because he was
+ashamed of her! Just about what I should think would come from a woman
+of Mrs. Cobb's mentality!"
+
+"Then she knew about the ten-thousand-dollar check?"
+
+"Apparently. But she didn't know Helen had gone to Boston. The detective
+found out that. She told him she believed she'd gone back home to her
+folks. So Helen evidently did not confide in her--or perhaps she
+intentionally misled her, as she did us."
+
+"I see, I see," sighed John Denby.
+
+For a minute the angry, perplexed, baffled young husband marched back
+and forth, back and forth, in the great, silent room. Then, abruptly, he
+stopped short, and faced his father.
+
+"I shall try to find her, of course,--though I think she'll let us hear
+from her of her own accord, pretty soon, now. But I shan't wait for
+that. First I shall go to Aunt Eunice and see if she knows the names of
+any of the people with whom Helen used to live, before she came to her.
+Then, whatever clues I find I shall endeavor to follow to the end.
+Meanwhile, so far as Dalton is concerned,--_my wife is out of town_.
+That's all. It's no one's business. The matter will be hauled over every
+dinner-table and rolled under the tongue of every old tabby in town. But
+they can only surmise and suspect. They can't know anything about it.
+And we'll be mighty careful that they don't. Brett--bless him!--has been
+the soul of discretion. We'll see that we follow suit. _My wife is out
+of town!_ That's all!" And he turned and flung himself from the room.
+
+As soon as possible Burke Denby went to his Aunt Eunice and told her his
+sorry tale. From her he obtained one or two names, and--what he eagerly
+grasped at--an address in Boston. Each of these clues he followed
+assiduously, only to find that it led nowhere. Angrier, but no wiser, he
+went back home.
+
+The detective, too, reported no progress. And as the days became weeks,
+and the weeks a month, with no word of Helen, Burke settled into a
+bitterness of wrath and resentment that would not brook the mention of
+Helen's name in his presence.
+
+Burke was feeling very much abused these days. He was, indeed, thinking
+of himself and pitying himself almost constantly. The woman to whom he
+had given his name (and for whom he had sacrificed so much) had made
+that name a byword and a laughing stock in his native town. He was
+neither bachelor nor husband. He was not even a widower, but a
+nondescript thing to be pointed out as a sort of monster. Even his child
+was taken away from him; and was doubtless being brought up to hate
+him--Burke forgot that Dorothy Elizabeth was as yet but slightly over
+two years old.
+
+As for Helen's side of the matter--Burke was too busy polishing his own
+shield of defense to give any consideration to hers. When he thought of
+his wife, it was usually only to say bitterly to himself: "Humph! When
+that ten thousand dollars is gone we'll hear from her all right!" And he
+was not worrying at all about her comfort--with ten thousand dollars to
+spend.
+
+"She knows where _she_ is, and she knows where _I_ am," he would declare
+fiercely to himself. "When she gets good and ready she'll come--and not
+until then, evidently!"
+
+In March a line from Dr. Gleason said that he would be in town a day or
+two, and would drop in to see them.
+
+With the letter in his hand, Burke went to his father.
+
+"Gleason's coming Friday," he announced tersely.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"We've got to settle on what to tell him."
+
+"About--"
+
+"Helen--yes. Of course--he'll have to know something; but--I shall tell
+him mighty little." Burke's lips snapped together in the grim manner
+that was becoming habitual with him.
+
+Gleason came on Friday. There was an odd constraint in his manner. At
+the same time there was a nervous wistfulness that was almost an appeal.
+Yet he was making, obviously, a great effort to appear as usual.
+
+Not until Burke found himself alone with his guest did he speak of his
+wife. Then he said:--
+
+"You know, of course, that Helen has--er--that she is not here."
+
+"Yes." There was a subdued excitement in the doctor's voice.
+
+"Of course! Everybody knows that, I suppose," retorted Burke bitterly.
+He hesitated, then went on, with manifest effort: "If you don't mind,
+old fellow, we'll leave it--right there. There's really nothing that I
+care to say."
+
+A look of keen disappointment crossed the doctor's face.
+
+"But, Burke, if you knew that your wife--" began the doctor imploringly.
+
+"There are no 'ifs' about it," interrupted Burke, with stern
+implacability. "Helen knows very well where I am, and--she isn't here.
+That's enough for me."
+
+"But, my dear boy--" pleaded the doctor again.
+
+"Gleason, please, I'd rather not talk about it," interrupted Burke Denby
+decidedly. And the doctor, in the face of the stern uncompromisingness
+of the man before him, and of his own solemn, but hard-wrung promise,
+given to a no less uncompromising little woman whom he had left only the
+day before, was forced to drop the matter. His face, however, still
+carried its look of troubled disappointment. And he steadfastly refused
+to remain at the house even for a meal--a most extraordinary proceeding
+for him.
+
+"He's angry, and he's angry with me," muttered Burke Denby to himself,
+his eyes moodily fixed on the doctor's hurrying figure as it disappeared
+down the street. "He wanted to preach and plead, and tell me my 'duty.'
+As if I didn't know my own business best myself! Bah! A fig for his
+'ifs' and 'buts'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A WOMAN'S WON'T
+
+
+Two days after his visit to Dalton, Frank Gleason dropped himself into a
+low chair in his sister's private sitting-room in the Beacon Hill house.
+
+"Well?" prompted Mrs. Thayer, voice and manner impatiently eager.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing! But there must have been something!"
+
+"There wasn't a thing--that will help."
+
+"But, aren't they frightened--anxious--anything? Don't they _care_ where
+she is?"
+
+"Oh, yes; they care very much," smiled the doctor wearily; "but not in
+the way that is going to help any. I couldn't get _anything_ out of
+Burke, and I didn't get much more out of his father. But I did a
+little."
+
+"They don't know, of course, that she's here?"
+
+"Heavens, I hope not!--under the circumstances. But I felt all kinds of
+a knave and a fool and a traitor. I got away as soon as possible. I
+couldn't stay. I hoped to get something--anything--that I could use for
+a cudgel over Helen, to get her to go back, you know. But I couldn't get
+a thing. However, I shall keep on urging, of course."
+
+"But what _did_ they say?"
+
+"Burke said nothing, practically. Nor would he let me say anything. He
+is very angry (his father told me that), and very bitter."
+
+"But isn't he frightened, or worried?"
+
+"Not according to his father. It seems they have had a detective on the
+case, and have traced her to Boston. There the trail ends. But they have
+found out enough to feel satisfied that no evil has befallen her. Burke
+argues that Helen is staying somewhere (with friends, he believes)
+because she wants to. Such being the case he doesn't want her back until
+she gets good and ready to come. He does want the baby. John Denby told
+me, in fact, that he believed if Burke found them now, as he's feeling,
+he'd insist on a separation; and that the baby should be given to him."
+
+"Given to him, indeed!" flashed Mrs. Thayer angrily. "And yet, in the
+face of that, you sit there and say you shall urge her to go back, of
+course."
+
+Frank Gleason stirred uneasily.
+
+"I know, Edith, but--"
+
+"There isn't any question about it," interrupted Mrs. Thayer decidedly.
+"That poor child stays where she is now."
+
+"Oh, but, Edith, this sort of thing can't go on forever, you know,"
+remonstrated the doctor nervously, his forehead drawn into an anxious
+frown.
+
+"I wasn't talking about forever," returned the lady, with tranquil
+confidence. "I was talking about _now_, to-day, next week, next year, if
+it's necessary."
+
+"_Next year!_"
+
+"Certainly--if Burke Denby hasn't come to his senses by that time. Why,
+Frank Gleason, don't you suppose I'd do anything, _everything_, to help
+that child keep her baby? She worships it. Besides, it's going to be the
+making of her."
+
+"I know; but if they could be brought together--Burke and his wife, I
+mean--it seems as if--as if--" The man came to a helpless pause.
+
+"Frank, see here," began Edith Thayer resolutely. "You know as well as I
+do that those two people have been wretched together for a year or more.
+They are not suited to each other. They weren't in the first place. To
+make matters worse, they were both nothing but petted, spoiled children,
+no more fit to take on the responsibilities of marriage than my Bess and
+Charlie would be. All their lives they'd had their own dolls and
+shotguns to do as they pleased with; and when it came to marrying and
+sharing everything, including their time and their tempers, they flew
+into bits--both of them."
+
+"Yes, I know," sighed the man, still with a troubled frown.
+
+"Well, they're apart now. Never mind who was to blame for it, or whether
+it was or wasn't a wise move. It's done. They're apart. They've got a
+chance to think things over--to stand back and get a perspective, as it
+were. Helen thinks she can metamorphose herself into the perfect wife
+that Burke will love. Perhaps she can. Let us say she has one chance in
+a million of doing so;--well, I mean she shall have that chance,
+especially as the alternative--that is, her going back home now--is sure
+to be nothing but utter wretchedness all round."
+
+Frank Gleason shook his head.
+
+"Yes, yes, very plausible--to _say_, of course. I see she's talked you
+over. She did me. I was ready to pull the moon down for her footstool
+that first night she came to me. I'm ready to do it now--when I'm with
+her. But away from her, with a chance to think,--it really is absurd,
+you know, when you come right down to it. Here are Burke and his father,
+my good friends, hunting the country over for Burke's wife and child.
+And here am I, harboring her and abetting her, and never opening my
+head. Really, it's the sort of thing that you'd say--er--couldn't
+happen, you know."
+
+"But it _is_ happening; and so far as their finding her is concerned,
+you said yourself, long ago, that it was the safest hiding-place in the
+world, for they'd never think of looking in it. They've never been in
+the habit of coming here, and their friends don't know us. As for the
+servants, and the few of my friends who see her, she's merely Mrs.
+Darling. That's all. Besides, you're entirely leaving out of
+consideration Helen's own attitude in the matter. I haven't a doubt but
+that, if you did tell, she'd at least _attempt_ to carry out her crazy
+threats of flight and oblivion. Really, Frank, so far as being a friend
+is concerned, you're being the truest friend, both to Burke and his
+father, and to Helen, by keeping her and protecting her from herself
+and others--to say nothing of the real help I hope I'm being to her."
+
+"I know, I know," sighed the man, thrusting his hands into his pockets,
+and scowling at the toe of his shoe. "You 're a brick, Edith! It's been
+simply marvelous to me--the way you've taken hold. Even that first awful
+Sunday morning last July, when I showed you what I'd brought you, didn't
+quite bowl you over."
+
+"It did almost," laughed Edith; "especially when she blurted out that
+alarming speech, after you'd told me who she was."
+
+"What _did_ she say? I don't remember."
+
+"She said, tragically, frenziedly: 'Oh, Mrs. Thayer, you will help me,
+won't you?--to be swell and grand and _know_ things, so's Burke won't be
+ashamed of me. And if you can't make _me_ so, you will Baby, won't you?
+I'll do anything--everything you say. Oh, please say you will. I _know_
+you're Burke's kind of folks, just to look at you, and at this--the
+house, and all these swell fixings! You will, won't you? Oh, please say
+you will!'"
+
+"Gorry! Did she say that--all that?"
+
+"Every bit of it--and more, that I can't remember. You see, I couldn't
+say anything--not anything, for a minute. And the more she said, the
+less I _could_ say. Probably she saw something of the horror and dismay
+in my face, and that's what made her so frenzied in her appeal."
+
+"No wonder you were struck dumb at her nerve and at mine in asking you
+to take her in," laughed the doctor softly.
+
+"Oh, but 'twas for only a minute. I capitulated at once, first because
+of the baby--she was such a dear!--then because of the mother's love for
+it. I thought I'd seen devotion, Frank, but never have I seen it like
+hers."
+
+"How is she doing, really, about--well, er--this private
+self-improvement association of hers?" The doctor's smile was eager and
+quizzical. "I've been away so much, and I've seen so little of her for
+months past--how _is_ she doing?"
+
+"Splendidly! She's a daily marvel to me, she's so patient and
+painstaking. Oh, of course, she hasn't _learned_ so very much--yet. But
+she's so alert and earnest, and she watches everything so! Indeed, if it
+weren't really so pitiful and so tragic, it would be perfectly funny and
+absurd. The things she does and says--the things she asks me to teach
+her! Feverishly and systematically she's set herself to becoming 'swell'
+and 'grand.'"
+
+"Swell! Grand!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I know," laughed the lady, answering his shuddering words and
+gesture. "And--we've nearly eliminated those expressions from our
+vocabulary now. Burke didn't like them either, she says."
+
+"I can imagine not," observed the doctor dryly.
+
+"Of course all the teaching in the world isn't going to accomplish the
+thing she wants," went on Mrs. Thayer, a little soberly. "I might teach
+her till doomsday that clothes, jewels, grooming, and perfume don't
+make the lady; and unless she learns by intuition and absorption what
+_does_ make the lady, she'll be little better off than she was before.
+But she puts me now through a daily catechism until sometimes I am
+nearly wild. 'Do ladies do this?' 'Do ladies do that?' she queries at
+every turn, so that I am almost ready to fly off into a veritable orgy
+of slang and silliness, just from sheer contrariety. I can tell you,
+Frank, this attempting to teach the intangible, evanescent thing I'm
+trying to teach Helen Denby isn't very easy. If you think it is, you try
+it yourself."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" shrugged the man. "But I'll risk you, Edith. But, tell
+me--does she help you any, in any way? Do you think you can--keep her,
+for a while?"
+
+"Keep her? Of course I shall keep her! Do you suppose I'd turn that
+child adrift now? Besides, she's a real help to me with the children.
+And I know--and she knows--that in helping me she is helping herself,
+and helping Dorothy Elizabeth--'Betty' she calls her now. We're getting
+along beautifully. We--"
+
+There came the sound of hurried steps, then the sudden wide flinging of
+the door, and the appearance of a breathless young woman.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Thayer, they said the doctor had come, and--" Helen Denby
+stopped short, her abashed eyes going from one to the other of the
+expressive faces before her. "Oh, I--I beg your pardon," she faltered.
+"I hadn't ought to have burst in like this. Ladies don't. You said
+yesterday that ladies never did. But I--I--doctor, you went to--to
+Dalton?" she appealed to the man.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Denby."
+
+"And you saw--them? Burke and his father?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But, you didn't--you _didn't_ tell them I was here?"
+
+"Of course not! Didn't I promise you I wouldn't?"
+
+Helen Denby relaxed visibly, and dropped herself into a low chair near
+by. The color came back to her face.
+
+"I know; but I was so afraid they'd find out--some way."
+
+"They didn't--from me."
+
+She raised startled eyes to his face.
+
+"You don't mean they _do_ know where I am?"
+
+"Oh, no. But--" The doctor stirred uneasily. "Mrs. Denby, don't you
+think-- Won't you let me tell them where you are?"
+
+"Do they want to know?"
+
+"Yes. They are trying very hard to find you."
+
+"Of course. But if they find me--what then? Does Burke--want me?"
+
+The doctor flushed.
+
+"Well, he--yes--that is, he--well, of course--"
+
+"You don't have to say any more, doctor," interposed Helen Denby,
+smiling a little sadly.
+
+The red deepened on the doctor's face.
+
+"Well, of course, Burke is very angry and very bitter, just now," he
+explained defensively. "But if you two could be brought together--" He
+paused helplessly.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"'Twould be the same old story--only worse. I see so many things now
+that I never saw before. Even if he said right now that he wanted me, I
+wouldn't go back. I wouldn't dare to. 'Twouldn't be a day before he'd be
+ashamed of me again. Maybe some time I'll learn--" She paused, her eyes
+wistfully fixed out the window. "But if I don't"--she turned almost
+frenziedly--"Betty will. Betty is going to be a lady from right now.
+Then some day I'll show her to him. He won't be ashamed of Betty. You
+see if he is!"
+
+Again the doctor stirred uneasily.
+
+"But, think! How can I go on from day to day and not let your husband
+know--"
+
+Helen Denby sprang to her feet. The wild look of that first night of
+flight came into her eyes, but her voice, when she spoke, was very calm.
+
+"Dr. Gleason," she began resolutely, "it's just as I told you before.
+Unless you'll promise not to tell Burke where I am, till I say the word,
+I shall take Betty and go--somewhere. I don't know where. But it'll be
+where you can't find me--any of you."
+
+"Oh, come, come, my dear child--"
+
+"Will you promise?"
+
+"But just think how--"
+
+"I _am_ thinking!" choked Helen. "But _you_ don't seem to be. _Can't_
+you see how I want to stay here? I've got a chance, maybe, to be like
+you and your sister, and all the rest of Burke's swell--I mean, like
+Burke's friends," she corrected, with a hot blush. "And, anyhow, Betty's
+got a chance. We've made a start. We've begun. And here you want to go
+and tip it all over by telling Burke. And there can't anything good
+happen, if Burke knows. Besides, didn't he say himself that we _needed_
+to have a vacation from each other? Now, won't you promise, please?"
+
+With a despairing cry the doctor threw up his hands.
+
+"Oh, good Heavens, yes! Of course I'll promise," he groaned. "I suspect
+you could make me promise to shave my head and dance the tango
+barefooted down Washington Street, if you set out to. Oh, yes, I'll
+promise. But I can tell you right now that I shall wake up in the dead
+of night and pinch myself to make sure I _have_ promised," he finished
+with wrathful emphasis.
+
+Helen laughed light-heartedly. She even tossed the doctor a playful
+glance as she turned to go.
+
+"All right! I don't care a mite how much you pinch yourself," she
+declared. "You've promised--and that's all I care for!" And she left the
+room with buoyant step.
+
+"You see," observed Mrs. Thayer significantly, as the door closed behind
+her.
+
+"Yes, I see--so far," nodded Dr. Frank Gleason with a sigh. "But I do
+wish I could see--what the end is going to be."
+
+"It isn't given to us to see ends," responded Mrs. Thayer sententiously.
+"We can only attend to the beginnings and make them right."
+
+"Humph!" grunted her brother, with some asperity. "I'm not saying I like
+the beginning, in this case. Honestly, to speak plainly, my dear Edith,
+I consider this thing one big fool business, from beginning to end."
+
+There was a moment's pause; then very quietly Mrs. Thayer asked:--
+
+"Can you suggest, dear, all things considered, anything else for us to
+do than what we _are_ doing?"
+
+"No--confound it! And that's what's the matter," groaned Frank Gleason.
+"But that isn't saying that I _like_ to play the fool."
+
+"Well, I shouldn't worry. I'm not worrying," replied his sister, with an
+enigmatic smile.
+
+"Maybe not. But I'm glad I'm going on that Arctic trip, and that it's
+just next month. I'd as soon not see much of the Denbys just now. Feel
+too much like the evil-eyed, double-dyed villain in a dime movie,"
+growled the doctor, getting to his feet, and striding from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AN UNDERSTUDY
+
+
+Soon after the doctor started on his trip to the North the Thayers
+closed their Beacon Street home and went to their North Shore cottage.
+The move was made a little earlier than usual this year, a fact which
+pleased the children not a little and delighted Helen Denby especially.
+
+"You see, I'm always so afraid in Boston," she explained to Mrs. Thayer,
+as the train pulled out of the North Station.
+
+"Afraid?"
+
+"That somewhere--on the street, or somewhere--I'll meet some one from
+Dalton, or somebody that knew--my husband."
+
+Mrs. Thayer frowned slightly.
+
+"Yes, I know. And there was danger, of course! But--Helen, that brings
+up exactly the subject that I'd been intending to speak to you about.
+Thus far--and advisedly, I know--we have kept you carefully in the
+background, my dear. But this isn't going to do forever, you know."
+
+"Why not? I--I like it."
+
+Mrs. Thayer smiled, but she frowned again thoughtfully.
+
+"I know, dear; but if you are to learn this--this--" Mrs. Thayer
+stumbled and paused as she always stumbled and paused when she tried to
+reduce to words her present extraordinary mission. "You will have to--to
+learn to meet people and mingle with them easily and naturally."
+
+The earnest look of the eager student came at once to Helen Denby's
+face.
+
+"You mean, I'll have to meet and mingle with swell people if I, too,
+am-- Oh, that horrid word again! Mrs. Thayer, _why_ can't I learn to
+stop using it? But you mean-- I know what you mean. You mean I'll have
+to meet and mingle with--with ladies and gentlemen if I'm to be one
+myself. Isn't that it?"
+
+"Y-yes, of course; only--the very words 'lady' and 'gentleman' have been
+so abused that we--we--Oh, Helen, Helen, you do put things so baldly,
+and it sounds so--so-- Don't you see, dear? It's all just as I've told
+you lots of times. The minute you begin to talk about it, you lose it.
+It's something that comes to you by absorption and intuition."
+
+"But there are things I have to learn, Mrs. Thayer,--real things, like
+holding your fork, and clothes, and finger nails, and not speaking so
+loud, and not talking about 'folks' being 'swell' and 'tony,' and--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," interrupted Mrs. Thayer, with a touch of
+desperation. "But, after all, it's all so--so impossible! And--" She
+stopped abruptly at the look of terrified dismay that always leaped to
+Helen Denby's eyes in response to such a word. "No, no, I don't mean
+that. But, really, Helen," she went on hurriedly, "the time has come
+when you must be seen more. And it will be quite safe at the shore, I am
+sure. You'll meet no one who ever saw you in Dalton; that is certain."
+
+"Then, of course, if you say I'll have to--I'll have to. That's all."
+
+"I do say it."
+
+"My, but I dread it!" Helen drew in her breath and bit her lip.
+
+"All the more reason why you should do it then," smiled Mrs. Thayer
+briskly. "You're to learn _not_ to dread it. See? And it'll be easier
+than you think. There are some very pleasant people coming down. The
+Gillespies, Mrs. Reynolds and her little Gladys,--about Betty's age, by
+the way,--and next month there'll be the Drew girls and Mr. Donald Estey
+and his brother John. Later there will be others--the Chandlers, and Mr.
+Eric Shaw. And I'm going to begin immediately to have them see you, and
+have you see them."
+
+"They'll know me as 'Mrs. Darling'?"
+
+"Of course--a friend of mine."
+
+"But I want to--to help in some way."
+
+"You do help. You help with the children--your companionship."
+
+"But that's the way I've learned--so many things, Mrs. Thayer."
+
+"Of course. And that's the way you'll learn--many other things. But
+there are others--still others--that you can learn in no way as well as
+by association with the sort of well-bred men and women you will meet
+this summer. I don't mean that you are _always_ to be with them, my
+dear; but I do mean that you must be with them enough so that it is a
+matter of supreme indifference to you whether you are with them or not.
+Do you understand? You must learn to be at ease with--anybody. See?"
+
+Helen sighed and nodded her head slowly.
+
+"Yes, I think I do, Mrs. Thayer; and I will try--so hard!" She
+hesitated, then asked abruptly, "Who is Mr. Donald Estey, please?"
+
+There was an odd something in Mrs. Thayer's laugh as she answered.
+
+"And why, pray, do you single him out?"
+
+"Because of something--different in your voice, when you said his name."
+
+Mrs. Thayer laughed again.
+
+"That's more cleverly put than you know, child," she shrugged. "I never
+thought of it before, but I fancy we all do say Mr. Donald Estey's
+name--with a difference."
+
+"Is he so very important, then?"
+
+"In his own estimation--yes! There! I was wrong to say that, Helen, and
+you must forget it. Mr. Donald Estey is a very wealthy, very capable,
+very delightful and brilliant young bachelor. He is a little spoiled,
+perhaps; but that's our fault and not his, I suspect, for he's petted
+and made of enough to turn any man's head. He's very entertaining. He
+knows something about everything. He can talk Egyptian scarabs with my
+brother, and Irish crochet with me, and then turn around and discuss
+politics with my husband, and quote poetry to Phillis Drew in the next
+breath. All this, of course, makes him a very popular man."
+
+"But he's a--a real gentleman, the kind that my husband would like?"
+
+"Why, of--of course!" Mrs. Thayer frowned slightly; then, suddenly, she
+laughed. "To tell the truth he's very like your husband, in some ways,
+I've heard my brother say--tastes, temperament, and so forth."
+
+An odd something leaped to Helen Denby's eyes.
+
+"You mean, what _he_ likes, Burke likes?" she questioned.
+
+"Why, y-yes; you might put it that way, I suppose. But never mind.
+You'll see for yourself when you see him."
+
+"Yes, I'll see--when I see him." Helen Denby nodded and relaxed in her
+seat. The odd something was still smouldering in her eyes.
+
+"Then it's all settled, remember," smiled Mrs. Thayer. "You're not to
+run and hide now when somebody comes. You're to learn to meet people.
+That's your next lesson."
+
+"My next lesson--my next lesson," repeated Helen Denby, half under her
+breath. "Oh, I hope I'll learn so much--in this next lesson! I won't run
+and hide now, indeed, I won't, Mrs. Thayer!"
+
+And at the glorified earnestness of her face, Mrs. Thayer, watching,
+felt suddenly her own throat tighten convulsively.
+
+In spite of her valiant promise, Helen Denby, a week later, did almost
+run and hide when the Gillespies, the first of Mrs. Thayer's guests,
+arrived. Held, however, by a stern something within her, she bravely
+stood her ground and forced herself to meet Mr. and Mrs. Gillespie and
+their daughters, Miss Alice and Miss Maud. It was not so difficult the
+next week when Mrs. Reynolds came, perhaps because of the pretty little
+Gladys, so near her own Betty's age.
+
+Fully alive to her own shortcomings, however, embarrassed, and
+distrustful of herself, Helen was careful never to push herself forward,
+never to take the initiative. And because she was so quiet and
+unobtrusive, her intense watchfulness, and slavish imitation of what she
+saw, passed unnoticed. Gradually, as the days came and went, the
+tenseness of her concentration relaxed, and she began to move and speak
+with less studied caution. It was at this juncture that Mr. Donald Estey
+arrived. Instantly into her bearing sprang an entirely new, alert
+eagerness. But this, too, passed unnoticed, for the change was not in
+herself alone. The entire household had made instant response to the
+presence of Mr. Donald Estey. The men sharpened their wits, and the
+women freshened their furbelows. Breakfast was served on the minute with
+never a vacant chair; and even the steps of the maids in the kitchen
+quickened.
+
+Because Mr. Donald Estey was always surrounded by an admiring group, the
+fact that "that quiet little Mrs. Darling" was almost invariably one of
+the group did not attract attention. It was Mr. Donald Estey himself, in
+fact, who first noticed it; and the reason that he noticed it was
+because once, when she was not there, he found himself looking for her
+eager face. He realized then that for some time he had been in the habit
+of finding his chief inspiration in a certain pair of wondrously
+beautiful blue eyes bent full upon himself.
+
+Not that the encountering of admiring feminine eyes bent full upon him
+was a new experience to Mr. Donald Estey; but that these eyes were
+different. There was something strangely fascinating and compelling in
+their earnest gaze. It was on the day that he first missed them that he
+suddenly decided to cultivate their owner.
+
+He began by asking casual questions of his fellow guests, but he could
+find out very little concerning the lady. She was a Mrs. Darling, a
+friend of their hostess (which he knew already). She was a widow, they
+believed, though they had never heard her husband mentioned. She was
+pleasant enough--but so shy and retiring! Charming face she had, though,
+and beautiful eyes. But did he not think she was--well, a little
+peculiar?
+
+Mr. Donald Estey did not answer this, directly. He became, indeed,
+always very evasive when his fellow guests turned about and began to
+question him. Very soon, too, he ceased his own questioning. But that
+he had not lost his interest in Mrs. Darling was most unmistakably shown
+at once, for openly and systematically he began to seek her society--to
+the varying opinions (but unvarying interest) of the rest of the house
+party.
+
+If Mr. Donald Estey had expected Mrs. Darling to be shy and coy at his
+advances, he found himself entirely mistaken. She welcomed him with a
+frank delight that was most flattering, at the same time most puzzling,
+owing to a certain elusive quality that he could not name.
+
+Mr. Donald Estey thought that he knew women well. It pleased his fancy
+to think that he had his feminine friends nicely pigeonholed and
+labeled, and that he had but to pass an hour or two of intimate talk
+with any woman to be able at once to ticket her accurately. His first
+hour of intimate talk with Mrs. Darling, however, left him confused and
+baffled--but mightily interested: in the course of that one hour he had
+shelved her in almost every one of his pigeonholes, only to find at the
+end of it that she was still free and uncatalogued.
+
+She was a flirt; she was not a flirt. She was sincere; she was
+hypocritical. She was brilliantly subtle; she was incredibly stupid. She
+was charming; she was commonplace. She was as clear as crystal; she was
+as inscrutable as a sphinx--and she was all these things in that one
+short first hour. At the end of it, Mr. Donald Estey, with a long breath
+and a frown, but with a quickened pulse, decided that he would have
+another hour with her as soon as possible.
+
+He had no difficulty in obtaining it. Mrs. Darling, indeed, seemed quite
+as desirous of his society as he was of hers; yet there was still the
+elusive something in her manner that robbed it of all offensive
+eagerness. Again to-day, after the hour's intimate talk, Estey found
+himself confused and baffled, with the lady still outside his
+pigeonholes. Nor did he find the situation changed the next day, or the
+next. Then suddenly he awoke to a new element in the case--the
+extraordinary deference that was being paid his lightest wish or
+preference on the part of Mrs. Darling.
+
+At first, doubting the accuracy of his suspicions, he systematically put
+her to the test, choosing purposely the most obvious and unmistakable.
+
+Blue was his favorite color, he said: she appeared in blue the next day.
+Browning was his best-loved poet, he declared: in less than an hour he
+found her poring over "Pippa Passes" in the library. A woman who could
+talk, and talk well, on current events won his sincere admiration every
+time, he told her: he wondered the next morning how late she must have
+sat up the night before, studying the merits and demerits of the four
+presidential candidates.
+
+Mr. Donald Estey was flattered, amused, and curiously interested. Not
+that what looked to be a determined assault upon his heart was exactly a
+new experience for him; but that the circumstances in this case were so
+out of the ordinary, and that he was still trying to "place" this young
+woman. He was not sure even, always, that she was trying to make a bid
+for his affections. He was not sure, either, of his own mind regarding
+her. In spite of his interest, he was conscious, sometimes, of a
+distinct feeling of aversion toward her. She was not always, to his
+mind, quite--the lady, though she was improving in that respect. (Even
+in his thoughts the word gave him a shock: he could hardly imagine a
+candidate for the position of Mrs. Donald Estey in need
+of--improvement!) But she was beautiful, and there was something
+wonderfully alluring in her eager way of listening to his every word.
+She was, indeed, not a little refreshing after the languid conservatism
+of some of the sophisticated young women one usually found at these
+country houses. Besides, was she, after all, really in love with him?
+Very likely she was not. At all events, it could do no harm--this mild
+flirtation--if flirtation it were! He would not worry about it. Plenty
+of time yet to--to withdraw. He had but to receive (apparently) a
+summoning message, and he could go at once. That would, of course, end
+the affair. Meanwhile-- But just exactly what type of woman was she,
+anyway?
+
+Still amused, interested, and contentedly secure, therefore, Mr. Donald
+Estey pursued for another week his pleasant pastime of finding just the
+proper pigeonhole for this tantalizing will-o'-the-wisp of femininity;
+then, sharply, he received a jolt that left him figuratively--almost
+literally--breathless and gasping.
+
+They were talking of marriage.
+
+"But you yourself have never married," she said.
+
+"No, I have never married."
+
+"I wonder why."
+
+Mr. Donald Estey frowned and stirred restlessly--there were times when
+Mrs. Darling's unconventionality was not "refreshing."
+
+"Perhaps--the right girl has never found me," he shrugged.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Estey, please, what sort of a girl would be the right one--for
+you?"
+
+"Well, really--er--" He stopped and stirred again uneasily--there was an
+almost frenzied earnestness in her face and manner that was somewhat
+disconcerting.
+
+"That might be hard telling," he evaded banteringly.
+
+"But you _could_ tell me, Mr. Estey. I know you could. And, oh, won't
+you, please?"
+
+"Why, er--Mrs. Darling!" He gave an embarrassed laugh as he sought for
+just the right word to say. "You seem--er--extraordinarily interested."
+He laughed again--to hide the fact that he knew that he had said just
+the _wrong_ thing.
+
+"I am interested. Indeed, Mr. Estey, it would mean--you cannot know what
+it would mean--if you'd tell me."
+
+"Why--er--really--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. I hadn't ought to talk like this. Ladies don't. I can
+see it in your face. But it's because I want to _know_ so--because I
+must know. Please, won't you tell me?"
+
+With a quick lifting of his head Mr. Donald Estey pulled himself sharply
+together. Flattering as it was to be thus deferred to, this
+flirtation--if flirtation it were--had gone quite far enough. He laughed
+again lightly and sprang to his feet.
+
+"Couldn't think of it, Mrs. Darling. Really, I couldn't, you know!"
+
+"Mr. Estey!" She, too, was on her feet. She had laid a persuasive hand
+on his arm. "Please, you think I'm joking; but I'm not. I really mean
+it. If you only would do it--it would mean so much to me! And
+don't--don't look at me like that. I _know_ I'm not being proper, and I
+know ladies don't do so--what I'm doing. But when I saw it--such a
+splendid chance to ask you, I--I just had to do it."
+
+"But--but--" The startled, nonplussed man stuttered like a bashful
+schoolboy; "it really is so--so absurd, Mrs. Darling, when you--er--stop
+to think of it."
+
+She sighed despairingly, but she did not take her hand from his arm.
+
+"Then, if"--she spoke hurriedly, and with evident embarrassment--"if you
+won't tell me that way, won't you please tell me another? Could
+you--would you-- Am I _any_ like that girl, Mr. Estey?"
+
+Mr. Donald Estey was guilty of an actual gasp of dismay. In a whirl of
+vexation at the situation in which he found himself, he groped blindly
+for a safe way out. Of course young women (young women such as he knew)
+did not really propose to one; but was it possible that that was exactly
+what this somewhat remarkable young widow was doing? It seemed
+incredible. And yet--
+
+"Am I, Mr. Estey? Or do you think I could--learn?"
+
+"Why, er--er--"
+
+"I mean, would you--could you marry--_me_?"
+
+Every vestige of self-control slipped from the tortured man like a
+garment. Conscious only of an insane desire to flee from this wretched
+woman who was about to march him to the altar willy-nilly, he quite
+jerked his arm free.
+
+"Well, really, Mrs. Darling, I--I--"
+
+"You wouldn't, I can see you wouldn't!" There was a heartbroken little
+sob in her voice.
+
+"But--but, Mrs. Darling! Oh, hang it all! What a perfectly preposterous
+situation!" he stormed wrathfully. "I don't want--to marry anybody. I
+tell you I'm not a marrying man! I--" He stopped short at the astounding
+change that had come to the little woman opposite.
+
+She was staring into his face with a growing terror that suddenly, at
+its height, broke into a gale of hysterical laughter. She covered her
+face with her hands and dropped into the chair behind her.
+
+"Oh, oh, you didn't--you didn't--but you _did_!" she choked, swaying
+her body back and forth. The next moment she was on her feet, facing
+him, a new something in her eyes. The laughter was quite gone. "You
+needn't worry, Mr. Donald Estey." She spoke hurriedly, and with all the
+wild _abandon_ of her old self. "I wasn't asking you to marry me--so you
+don't have to refuse." Her voice quivered with hurt pride.
+
+"Why, of course not, of course not, my dear lady!" He caught at the
+straw. "I never thought--"
+
+"Yes, you did; and you was floundering around trying to find a way to
+say no. I wasn't good enough for you. And that's just what I was trying
+to find out, too,--but it hurt, just the same, when I did find out!"
+
+"Oh, but, Mrs. Darling, I didn't mean--"
+
+"Yes, you did. I saw it in your eyes, and in the way you drew back. Only
+I--I didn't mean _you_. I never thought of your taking it that way--that
+I wanted to marry _you_. It was some one else that I meant."
+
+"Some one _else_?" The stupefaction in the man's face deepened.
+
+"Yes. You don't know him. But they said you was--_were_, I mean, like
+him; that what _you_ liked, he would like. See? And that's why I tried
+to find out what--what you did like, so I could learn to be what would
+please him."
+
+The petted idol of unnumbered drawing-rooms blinked his eyes.
+
+"You mean you were using _me_ as an--er--understudy?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes--no--I don't know. I was just trying to walk and talk and breathe
+and move the way you wanted me to, so I could do it by and by for--him."
+
+Mr. Donald Estey drew in his breath.
+
+"Well, by--Jove!"
+
+"And I'm going to." She lifted her chin determinedly. "_I'm going to!_
+And now you know--why I asked you what I did. I was hoping I--I had
+gained a little in all these weeks. I've been trying so hard. And before
+you came, when Mrs. Thayer told me you were like--like the man I love, I
+determined then to watch you and study you, and do everything the way
+you liked, if I could find out what it was. And now to have you think I
+was _asking_ you to--to-- As if I'd ever marry--_you_!" she choked. The
+next moment, with a wild fling of her arms, she was gone.
+
+Alone, Mr. Donald Estey drew a long breath. As he turned, he faced his
+own image in the mirror across the room. Slowly he advanced toward it.
+There was a quizzical smile in his eyes.
+
+"Donald, me boy," he apostrophized, "you have been rejected. Do you
+hear? _Rejected!_ Jove! But what an extraordinary young woman!" His eyes
+left the mirror and sought the door by which she had gone.
+
+Mr. Donald Estey did not see Mrs. Darling again during his stay. A
+sudden indisposition prevented her from being among the guests for some
+days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A WOMAN'S WILL
+
+
+Dr. Gleason's Arctic trip, designed to cover a year of research and
+discovery, prolonged itself into three years and two months. Shipwrecks,
+thrilling escapes, months of silence, and a period when hope for the
+safety of the party was quite gone, all figured in the story before the
+heroic rescue brought a happier ending to what had come so near to being
+another tragedy of the ice-bound North.
+
+It was June when Frank Gleason, in the care of a nurse and a physician,
+arrived at his sister's summer cottage by the sea.
+
+For a month after his coming Frank Gleason was too ill to ask many
+questions. But with returning strength came an insistence upon an answer
+to a query he had already several times put to his sister.
+
+"Edith, what of the Denbys? Where is Helen? Why do you always evade any
+questions about her?"
+
+"She is here with me."
+
+"Here--_still_?"
+
+"Yes. And she's a great comfort and help to me."
+
+"And Burke doesn't know yet where she is?"
+
+"Not that we know of."
+
+"Impossible--all this time!"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. All our friends know her as 'Mrs. Darling.' The
+Denbys never come here, and they'd never think of looking here for her,
+anyway. We figured that out long ago."
+
+"But it can't go on forever! When is she going back?"
+
+An odd look crossed Mrs. Thayer's face.
+
+"I don't know, Frank; but not for some time--if ever--I should judge,
+from present indications."
+
+"'If ever'! Good Heavens, Edith, what do you mean?" demanded the doctor,
+pulling himself up in his chair. "I _knew_ no good would come of this
+tom-foolishness!"
+
+"There, there, dear, never mind all this now," begged his sister.
+"Please don't try to talk about it any more."
+
+"But I will talk about it, Edith. I want to know--and you might just as
+well tell me in the first place, and not hang back and hesitate,"
+protested the doctor, with all the irritability of a naturally strong
+man who finds himself so unaccountably weak in his convalescence.
+"What's the trouble? Hasn't that--er--fool-improvement business worked
+out? Well, I didn't think it would!"
+
+Edith Thayer laughed softly.
+
+"On the contrary, it's working beautifully. Wait till you see her. She's
+a dear--a very charming woman. She's developed wonderfully. But along
+with it all has come to her a very deep and genuine, and rather curious,
+humility, together with a pride, the chief aim of which is to avoid
+anything like the position in which she found herself as the
+mortifying, distress-causing wife of Burke Denby."
+
+"Humph!" commented the doctor.
+
+"That Burke doesn't love her, she is thoroughly convinced. To go to him
+now, tacitly asking to be taken back, she feels to be impossible. She
+has no notion of going where she isn't wanted; and she feels very sure
+she _isn't_ wanted by either Burke or his father. Of course the longer
+it runs, and the longer she stays away, the harder it seems for her to
+make herself known."
+
+"Oh, but this _can't_ go on forever," protested Frank Gleason again,
+restlessly. "I'll see Burke. As soon as I'm on my feet again I shall run
+up there."
+
+"But you've given your promise not to tell, remember."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know. I shan't tell, of course. But I can bring back
+something, I'm sure, that will--will cause this stubborn young woman to
+change her mind."
+
+"I doubt it. Helen says she's not ready to go back yet, anyway."
+
+"Not sufficiently 'improved,' I suppose," laughed the doctor, a little
+grimly.
+
+"Perhaps. Then, too, she has other plans all made."
+
+"Oh, she has!"
+
+"Yes. She's going abroad. Do you remember Angie Reynolds?--Angie Ried,
+you know--married Ned Reynolds."
+
+"Yes. Nice girl!"
+
+"Well, they're going abroad for some years--some business for the firm,
+I believe. Anyway, Ned will have to be months at a time in different
+cities, and Angie and little Gladys are going with him. They have asked
+Helen and Betty to go, too; and Helen has agreed to go."
+
+"And leave you?"
+
+At the indignant expression on her brother's face, Edith Thayer laughed
+merrily.
+
+"But, my dear Frank, I thought you were just threatening to _get_ Helen
+to leave me!" she challenged.
+
+"So I was," retorted the doctor, nothing daunted. "But it was to get her
+to go home, where she belonged; not on any wild-goose chase like this
+abroad business. What does she want?--to be presented at court? Maybe
+she thinks that's going to do the job!"
+
+"Oh, come, come, Frank, now you're sarcastic!" Mrs. Thayer's voice was
+earnest, though her eyes were twinkling. "It isn't a wild-goose chase a
+bit. It's a very sensible plan. In the first place, it takes Helen out
+of the country--which is wise, if she's still going to try to keep her
+whereabouts a secret from Burke; for eventually some one, somewhere,
+would see her--some one who knew her face. She can't always live so
+secluded a life as she has these past three years, of course,--we have
+spent the greater share of that time at the beach here, coming early and
+staying late.
+
+"But that isn't all. Angie has taken a great fancy to both Helen and
+Dorothy Elizabeth, and she likes to have Gladys with them. The children
+are the same age--about five, you know--and great cronies. Angie is
+taking Helen as a sort of companion-governess. Her duties will be light
+and congenial. Both the children will be in her charge, and their
+treatment and advantages will be identical. There will be a nursery
+governess under her, and she herself will be much with Angie, which will
+be invaluable to her, in many ways. And, by the way, Frank, the fact
+that a woman like Angie Reynolds is taking her for a traveling companion
+shows, more conclusively than anything else could, how greatly improved
+Helen is--what a really charming woman she has come to be. But it is a
+splendid chance for her, certainly, and especially for Betty--her whole
+life centers now in Betty--and I urged her taking it. At first she
+demurred, on account of leaving me; but I succeeded in convincing her
+that it was altogether too good an opportunity to lose."
+
+"Opportunity, indeed! When does she go?"
+
+"The last of next month."
+
+"Oh, that's all right, then. I shall see Burke long before that." The
+doctor settled back in his chair with a relieved sigh.
+
+His sister eyed him with a disturbed frown.
+
+"Frank, dear, you can't do anything," she ventured at last. "Didn't I
+tell you she wasn't ready to go back?"
+
+"But she'll have to go--some time."
+
+"Perhaps. But wait. I'm not going to say another word now, nor let you.
+Wait till you see her--and you shall see her in a day or two--just as
+soon as you are strong enough. But not another word now." And to make
+sure that he obeyed, Mrs. Thayer rose laughingly and left the room.
+
+It was four days later that Frank Gleason for the first time ventured
+downstairs and out into the warm sunshine on the south veranda. Hearing
+a child's gleeful laugh and a woman's gently remonstrative voice,--a
+voice that he thought he recognized,--he walked the length of the
+veranda and rounded the corner.
+
+His slippered feet made no sound, so quite unheralded he came upon the
+woman and the little girl on the wide veranda steps. Neither one saw
+him, and he stopped short at the corner, his eyes alight with sudden
+admiration.
+
+Frank Gleason thought he had never seen a more lovely little girl.
+Blue-eyed, golden-haired, and rosy-cheeked, she was the typical
+child-beautiful of picture and romance. A-tiptoe on the topmost step she
+was reaching one dimpled hand for a gorgeous red geranium blooming in a
+pot decorating the balustrade. In the other hand, tightly clutched, was
+another gorgeous blossom, sadly crushed and broken. She was laughing
+gleefully. Near her, but not attempting to touch her, was a woman the
+doctor recognized at once. It was Helen--but Helen with a subtle
+difference of face, eyes, hair, dress, and manner that was at once
+illuminating but baffling.
+
+"Betty, dear," she was saying gently, "no, no! Mother said not to pick
+the flowers."
+
+The child turned roguish, willful eyes.
+
+"But I wants to pick 'em."
+
+"Mother can't let you, dear. And see, they are so much prettier
+growing!"
+
+The small red lips pouted. The little curly head gave a vigorous shake.
+
+"But I wants 'em to grow in my hands--so," insisted a threateningly
+tearful voice, as the tightly clutched flower was thrust forward for
+inspection.
+
+"But they won't grow there, darling. See!--this one is all crumpled and
+broken now. It can't even lift its poor little head. Come, we don't want
+the rest to be like that, do we? Come! Come away with me."
+
+The young eyes grew mutinous.
+
+"I wants 'em to grow in my hand," insisted the red lips again.
+
+"But mother doesn't." There was a resolute note of decision in the quiet
+voice now; but suddenly it grew wonderfully soft and vibrant. "And daddy
+wouldn't, either, dearie. Only think how sorry daddy would be to see
+that poor little flower in Betty's hand!"
+
+As if in response to a potent something in her mother's voice, Betty's
+eyes grew roundly serious.
+
+"Why--would daddy--be sorry?"
+
+"Because daddy loves all beautiful things, and he wants them to stay
+beautiful. And this poor little flower in Betty's hand won't be
+beautiful much longer, I fear. It is all broken and crushed; and
+daddy--"
+
+With a sudden sense of guilt, as if trespassing on holy ground, the
+doctor strode forward noisily.
+
+"So this is Dorothy Elizabeth and her mother--" he began gayly; but he
+could get no further.
+
+Helen Denby turned with a joyous cry and an eagerly extended hand.
+
+"Oh, Dr. Gleason, I'm so glad! You _are_ better, aren't you? I'm so glad
+to see you!"
+
+"Yes, I'm better. I'm well--only I can't seem to make people believe it.
+And you-- I don't need to ask how you are. And so this big girl is the
+little Dorothy Elizabeth I used to know. You have your mother's eyes, my
+dear. Come, won't you shake hands with me?"
+
+The little girl advanced slowly, her gaze searching the doctor's face.
+Then, in her sweet, high-pitched treble, came the somewhat disconcerting
+question:--
+
+"Is you--daddy?"
+
+The doctor laughed lightly.
+
+"No, my dear. I'm a poor unfortunate man who hasn't any little girl like
+you; but we'll hope, one of these days, you'll see--daddy." He turned to
+Helen Denby with suddenly grave, questioning eyes.
+
+"Betty, dear,"--Mrs. Denby refused to meet the doctor's gaze,--"go carry
+the flower to Annie and ask her please to put it in water for you; then
+run out and play with Bessie in the garden. Mother wants to talk to Dr.
+Gleason a few minutes." Then, to the doctor, she turned an agitated
+face. "Surely, didn't your sister--tell you? I'm going to London with
+Mrs. Reynolds."
+
+"Yes, she told me. But perhaps I was hoping to persuade you--to do
+otherwise."
+
+Her eyes grew troubled.
+
+"But it's such a fine chance--"
+
+"For more of this 'improvement' business, I suppose," cut in the doctor,
+a bit brusquely.
+
+She turned reproachful eyes upon him.
+
+"Oh, please, doctor, don't make fun of me like--"
+
+"As if I'd make fun of you, child!" cut in the doctor, still more
+sharply.
+
+"Oh, but I can't blame you, of course," she smiled wistfully; "and
+especially now that I see myself how absurd I was to think, for a
+minute, that I could make myself over into a--a--the sort of wife that
+Burke Denby would wish to have."
+
+"Absurd that you could-- Come, come! _Now_ what nonsense are you
+talking?" snapped the doctor.
+
+"But it isn't nonsense," objected Helen Denby earnestly. "Don't you
+suppose I know _now_? I used to think it was something you could learn
+as you would a poem, or that you could put on to you, as you would a new
+dress. But I know now it's something inside of you that has to grow and
+grow just as you grow; and I'm afraid all the putting on and learning in
+the world won't get _me_ there."
+
+"Oh, come, come, Mrs. Denby!" expostulated the doctor, in obvious
+consternation.
+
+"But it's so. Listen," she urged tremulously. "Now I--I just can't like
+the kind of music Burke does,--discords, and no tune, you know,--though
+I've tried and tried to. Day after day I've gone into the music-room and
+put in those records,--the classics and the operatic ones that are the
+real thing, you know,--but I can't like them; and I still keep liking
+tunes and ragtime. And there are the books, too. I can't help liking
+jingles and stories that _tell_ something; and I don't like poetry--not
+real poetry like Browning and all the rest of them."
+
+"Browning, indeed! As if that counted, child!"
+
+"Oh, but it's other things--lots of them; vague, elusive things that I
+can't put my finger on. But I know them now, since I've been here with
+your sister and her friends. Why, sometimes it isn't anything more than
+the way a woman speaks, or the way she sits down and gets up, or even
+the way a bit of lace falls over her hand. But they all help. And
+they've helped me, too,--oh, so much. I'm so glad now of this chance to
+thank you. You don't know--you can't know, what it's been for me--to be
+here."
+
+"But I thought you just said that you--you _couldn't_--that is, that
+you'd--er--given up," floundered the doctor miserably, as if groping for
+some sort of support on a topsy-turvy world.
+
+"Given up? Perhaps I have--in a way--for myself. You see, I know now
+that you have to begin young. That's why I'm so happy about Betty. I
+don't mind about myself any more, if only I can make it all right for
+her. Dr. Gleason, I couldn't--I just _couldn't_ have her father ashamed
+of--Betty!"
+
+"Ashamed of that child! Well, I should say not," blustered the doctor
+incoherently; "nor of you, either, you brave little woman. Why--"
+
+"Betty _is_ a dear, isn't she?" interrupted the mother eagerly. "You
+_do_ think she'll--she'll be everything he could wish? I'm keeping him
+always before her--what he likes, how he'd want her to do, you know. And
+almost always I can make her mind now, with daddy's name, and--"
+
+The doctor interrupted with a gesture of impatience.
+
+"My dear lady, can't you see that now--right _now_ is just the time for
+you to go back to your husband?"
+
+The eager, pleading, wistful-eyed little mother opposite became suddenly
+the dignified, stern-eyed woman.
+
+"Has he said he wanted me, Dr. Gleason?"
+
+"Why--er--y-yes; well, that is, he-- I know he has wanted to know where
+you were."
+
+"Very likely; but that isn't wanting _me_. Dr. Gleason, don't you think
+I have any pride, any self-respect, even? My husband was ashamed of me.
+He asked me to go away for a time. He wrote me with his own hand that he
+wanted a vacation from me. Do you think _now_, without a sign or a word
+from him, that I am going creeping back to him and ask him to take me
+back?"
+
+"But he doesn't know where you are, to _give_ you a sign," argued the
+doctor.
+
+"You've seen him, haven't you?"
+
+"Why, y-yes--but not lately. But--I'm going to."
+
+A startled look came into her eyes. The next minute she smiled sadly.
+
+"Are you? Very well; we'll see--if he says anything. You won't tell him
+where I am, I know. I have your promise. But, Dr. Gleason,"--her voice
+grew very sweet and serious,--"I shall not be satisfied now with
+anything short of a happy married life. I know now what marriage is,
+where there is love, and trust in each other, and where they like to do
+and talk about the same things. I've seen your sister and her husband.
+Unless I can _know_ that I'm going to bring that kind of happiness to
+Burke, I shall not consent to go back to him. I will give him his
+daughter. Some time, when she is old enough, I want him to see her. When
+I know that he is proud of my Betty, I may not--mind the rest so much,
+perhaps. But now--now--" With a choking little cry she turned and fled
+down the steps and out on to the garden path.
+
+Baffled, irritated, yet frowningly admiring, the doctor stalked into the
+house.
+
+In the hall he came face to face with his sister. She fluttered into
+instant anxiety.
+
+"Why, Frank--_outdoors_? Who said you could do that?"
+
+"I did. Oh, the doctor said so, too," he flung out hurriedly, answering
+the dawning disapproval in her eyes. "I'm going to Dalton next week."
+
+"Oh, but, Frank--"
+
+"Now, please don't argue. I'm going. If you and the doctor can get me
+well enough to go--all right. But I'm going whether I'm well enough or
+not."
+
+"But, Frank, dear, you can't _do_ anything. You know you promised."
+
+"Oh, I shan't break any promises, of course. But I'm going to see Burke.
+I'm going to find out if he really is ninny enough to keep on holding
+off, at the end of a silly quarrel, the sweetest little wife a man ever
+had, and--"
+
+"I opine you've seen Helen," smiled Edith Thayer, with a sudden twinkle.
+
+"I have, and--doesn't like Browning, indeed! And can't help liking
+tunes! Oh, good Heavens, Edith, if Burke Denby doesn't-- Well, we'll see
+next week," he glowered, striding away, followed by the anxious but
+still twinkling eyes of his sister.
+
+In accordance with his threat, and in spite of protests, the doctor went
+to Dalton the next week. But almost by return train he was back again,
+stern-lipped and somber-eyed.
+
+"Why, Frank, so soon as this?" cried his sister. "Surely Burke Denby
+didn't--"
+
+"I didn't see him."
+
+"His father, then?"
+
+"Neither one. They're gone. South America. Bridge contract. Went
+themselves this time."
+
+"Oh, that explains it--why we haven't heard from them since you came
+back. I _had_ thought it strange, Frank, that not a word of
+congratulation or even inquiry had come from them."
+
+"Yes, I know. I--I'd thought it strange myself--a little. But that
+doesn't help this thing any. I can't very well go to South America to
+see Burke, just now--though I'd like to."
+
+"Of course not. Besides, don't forget that you very likely wouldn't
+accomplish anything if you did see him."
+
+So deep was the sudden gloom on the doctor's face at her words that the
+lady added quickly: "You did find out something in Dalton, Frank! I know
+you did by your face. You saw some one."
+
+"Oh, I saw--Brett."
+
+"Who's he?"
+
+"Denby's general manager and chief factotum."
+
+"Well, he ought to know--something."
+
+"He does--everything. But he won't tell--anything."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And it's right that he shouldn't, of course. It's his business to keep
+his mouth shut--and he knows his business as well as any man I can think
+of. Oh, he was perfectly civil, and apparently very gracious and
+open-hearted in what he said."
+
+"What _did_ he say?"
+
+"He said that they had gone to South America on a big bridge contract,
+and that they wouldn't be home for four or five months yet. He said that
+they were very well, and that, probably, when they came back from this
+trip, they would go to South Africa for another six months. I couldn't
+get anywhere near asking about Helen, and Burke's present state of mind
+concerning her. He could scent a question of that sort forty words away;
+and he invariably veered off at a tangent long before I got to it. It
+was like starting for New York and landing in Montreal! I had to give it
+up. So far as anything I could learn to the contrary, Mr. Burke Denby
+and his father are well, happy, and perfectly content to build bridges
+for heathens and Hottentots the rest of their natural existence. And
+there you are! How, pray, in the face of that, are we going to keep
+Helen from running off to London?"
+
+"I shouldn't try."
+
+"But--oh, hang it all, Edith! This can't go on."
+
+"Oh, yes, it can, my dear; and I'm inclined to think it's going on just
+right. Very plainly they aren't ready for each other--yet. Let her go to
+London and make the best of all these advantages for herself and Betty;
+and let him go on with his bridge-building for the Hottentots. 'Twill do
+them good--both of them, and will be all the better for them when they
+do come together."
+
+"Oh, then they _are_ to come together some time!"
+
+"Why, Frank, of course they are! You couldn't keep them apart,"
+declared the lady, with smiling confidence.
+
+"But, Edith, you haven't ever talked like this--before," puzzled the
+doctor, frowning.
+
+"I've never known before that Burke Denby was building bridges for the
+Hottentots."
+
+"Nonsense! That's their business. They've always built bridges."
+
+"Yes, but Master Burke and his father haven't always gone to superintend
+their construction," she flashed. "In other words, if Burke Denby is
+trying so strenuously to get away from himself, it's a pretty sure sign
+that there's something in himself that he wants to get away from! You
+see?"
+
+"Well, I should like to see," sighed the doctor, with very evident
+doubt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+EMERGENCIES
+
+
+In September Helen Denby and Dorothy Elizabeth went to London. With
+their going, a measure of peace came to Frank Gleason. Not having their
+constant presence to remind him of his friend's domestic complications,
+he could the more easily adopt his sister's complacent attitude of
+cheery confidence that it would all come out right in time--that it
+_must_ come out right. Furthermore, with Helen not under his own roof,
+he was not so guiltily conscious of "aiding and abetting" a friend's
+runaway wife.
+
+Soon after Helen's departure for London, a letter from Burke Denby in
+far-away South America told of the Denbys' rejoicing at the happy
+outcome of the Arctic trip, and expressed the hope that the doctor was
+well, and that they might meet him as soon as possible after their
+return from South America in December.
+
+The letter was friendly and cordial, but not long. It told little of
+their work, and nothing of themselves. And, in spite of its verbal
+cordiality, the doctor felt, at its conclusion, that he had, as it were,
+been attending a formal reception when he had hoped for a cozy chat by
+the fire.
+
+In December, at Burke's bidding, he ran up to Dalton for a brief visit,
+but it proved to be as stiff and unsatisfying as the letter had been.
+Burke never mentioned his wife; but he wore so unmistakable an
+"Of-course-I-understand-you-are-angry-with-me" air, that the doctor
+(much to his subsequent vexation when he realized it) went out of his
+way to be heartily cordial, as if in refutation of the disapproval
+idea--which was not the impression the doctor really wished to convey at
+all. He was, in fact, very angry with Burke. He wanted nothing so much
+as to give him a piece of his mind. Yet, so potent was Burke's dignified
+aloofness that he found himself chattering of Inca antiquities and
+Babylonian tablets instead of delivering his planned dissertation on the
+futility of quarrels in general and of Burke's and Helen's in
+particular.
+
+With John Denby he had little better success, so far as results were
+concerned; though he did succeed in asking a few questions.
+
+"You have never heard from--Mrs. Denby?" he began abruptly, the minute
+he found himself alone with Burke's father.
+
+"Never."
+
+"But you--you would like to!"
+
+The old man's face became suddenly mask-like--a phenomenon with which
+John Denby's business associates were very familiar, but which Dr. Frank
+Gleason had never happened to witness before.
+
+"If you will pardon me, doctor," began John Denby in a colorless voice,
+"I would rather not discuss the lady. There isn't anything new that I
+can say, and I am beginning to feel--as does my son--that I would
+rather not hear her name mentioned."
+
+This ended it, of course. There was nothing the doctor could say or do.
+Bound by his promise to Helen Denby, he could not tell the facts; and
+silenced by his host's words and manner, he could not discuss
+potentialities. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to drop the
+subject. And he dropped it. He went home the next day. Resolutely then
+he busied himself with his own affairs. Determinedly he set himself to
+forget the affairs of the Denbys. This was the more easily accomplished
+because of the long silences and absences of the Denby men themselves,
+and because Helen Denby still remained abroad with Angie Reynolds.
+
+In London Helen Denby was living in a new world. Quick to realize the
+advantages that were now hers, she determined to make the most of
+them--especially for Betty. Always everything now centered around Betty.
+
+In Mrs. Reynolds Helen had found a warm friend and sympathetic ally, one
+who, she knew, would keep quite to herself the story Helen had told her.
+Even Mr. Reynolds was not let into the inner secret of Helen's presence
+with them. To him she was a companion governess, a friend of the
+Thayers', to whom his wife had taken a great fancy--a most charming
+little woman, indeed, whom he himself liked very much.
+
+Freed from the fear of meeting Burke Denby or any of his friends, Helen,
+for the first time since her flight from Dalton, felt that she was
+really safe, and that she could, with an undivided mind, devote her
+entire attention to her self-imposed task.
+
+From London to Berlin, and from Berlin to Genoa, she went happily, as
+Mr. Reynolds's business called him. To Helen it made little difference
+where she was, so long as she could force every picture, statue,
+mountain, concert, book, or individual to pay toll to her insatiable
+hunger "to know"--that she might tell Betty.
+
+Mrs. Reynolds, almost as eager and interested as Helen herself,
+conducted their daily lives with an eye always alert as to what would be
+best for Helen and Betty. Teachers for Gladys and Betty--were teachers
+for Helen, too; and carefully Mrs. Reynolds made it a point that her own
+social friends should also be Helen's--which Helen accepted with
+unruffled cheerfulness. Helen, indeed, had now almost reached the goal
+long ago set for her by Mrs. Thayer: it was very nearly a matter of
+supreme indifference to her whether she met people or not, so far as the
+idea of meeting them was concerned. There came a day, however, when, for
+a moment, Helen almost yielded to her old run-and-hide temptation.
+
+They were back in London, and it was near the close of Helen's third
+year abroad.
+
+"I met Mr. Donald Estey this morning," said Mrs. Reynolds at the
+luncheon table that noon. "I asked him to dine with us to-morrow night.
+He is here for the winter."
+
+"So? Good! I shall be glad to see Estey," commented her husband.
+
+Once Helen would have given a cry, dropped her fork with a clatter, or
+otherwise made her startled perturbation conspicuous to all. That only
+an almost imperceptible movement and a slight change of color resulted
+now showed something of what Helen Denby had learned during the last few
+years.
+
+"You say Mr. Donald Estey will be--here, to-morrow?" she asked quietly.
+
+"Yes. You remember him," nodded Mrs. Reynolds. "He was at the Thayers'
+at the same time I was there six years ago--tall, good-looking fellow
+with glasses."
+
+"Yes, I remember," smiled Helen. And never would one have imagined that
+behind the quiet words was a wild clamor of "Oh, what shall I do--what
+shall I do--what _shall_ I do?"
+
+What Helen Denby wanted to do was to run away--far away, where Mr.
+Donald Estey could never find her. Next best would be to tell Mrs.
+Reynolds that she could not see him; but to do that, she would have to
+tell why--and she did not want to tell even Mrs. Reynolds the story of
+that awful hour at the Thayers' North Shore cottage. True, she might
+feign illness and plead a headache; but Mrs. Reynolds had said that Mr.
+Estey was to be in London all winter--and she could not very well have a
+headache all winter! There was plainly no way but to meet this thing
+fairly and squarely. Besides, had not Mrs. Thayer said long ago that
+emergencies were the greatest test of manners, as well as of ropes and
+housewives, and that she must always be ready for emergencies? Was she
+to fail now at this, her first real test?
+
+Mr. Donald Estey was already in the drawing-room when Helen Denby came
+down to dinner the following evening. She had put on a simple white
+dress--after a horrified rejection of a blue one, her first choice. (She
+had remembered just in time that Mr. Donald Estey's favorite color was
+blue.) She was pale, but she looked charmingly pretty as she entered the
+room.
+
+"You remember Mr. Estey," Mrs. Reynolds murmured. The next moment Helen
+found her hand in a warm clasp, and a pair of laughing gray eyes looking
+straight into hers.
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember him very well," she contrived to say cheerfully.
+
+"And I remember Mrs. Darling very well," came to her ears in Mr. Donald
+Estey's smoothly noncommittal voice. Then she forced herself to walk
+calmly across the room and to sit down leisurely.
+
+What anybody said next she did not hear. Somewhere within her a voice
+was exulting: "I've done it, I've done it, and I didn't make a break!"
+
+It was a small table, and conversation at dinner was general. At first
+Helen said little, not trusting herself to speak unless a question made
+speech imperative; but gradually she found the tense something within
+her relaxing. She was able then to talk more freely; and before the
+dinner was over she was apparently quite her usual self.
+
+As to Mr. Donald Estey--Mr. Donald Estey was piqued and surprised, but
+mightily interested. Half his anticipated pleasure in this dinner had
+been the fact that he was to see Mrs. Darling again. She would blush and
+stammer, and be adorably embarrassed, of course. He had not forgotten
+how distractingly pretty she was when she blushed. He would like to see
+her blush again.
+
+But here she was--and she had not blushed at all. What had happened? A
+cool little woman in a cool little gown had put a cool little hand in
+his, with a cool "Oh, yes, I remember him very well." And that was all.
+Yet she was the same Mrs. Darling that he had met six years before, and
+that had-- But was she the same, really the same? _That_ Mrs. Darling
+could never have carried off a meeting like this with such sweet
+serenity. He wondered--
+
+Mr. Donald Estey was still trying to pigeonhole the women he met.
+
+Mr. Donald Estey found frequent opportunity for studying his new-old
+friend during the days that followed, for they were much together. In
+Mrs. Reynolds's eyes he made a very convenient fourth for a day's
+sight-seeing trip or a concert, and she often asked him to join them.
+Also he made an even more convenient escort for herself and Helen when,
+as often happened, Mr. Reynolds was unable to accompany them.
+
+In one way and another, therefore, he was thrown often with this
+somewhat baffling young woman, who refused to be catalogued. The very
+fact that he still could not place her made him more persistent than
+ever. Besides, to himself he owned that he found her very charming--and
+very charming all the time. There was never on his part now that old
+feeling of aversion, of which he used to be conscious at times. And she
+was always quite the lady. He wondered how he could ever have thought
+her anything else. True, on that remarkable occasion six years before,
+she had said something about learning how to please--But he was trying
+to forget that scene. He did not believe that everything was quite
+straight about that extraordinary occasion. There must have been, in
+some way, a mistake. He did not believe, anyway, that it signified. At
+all events, he was not going to worry about a dead and gone past like
+that.
+
+Mr. Donald Estey was not the only one that was trying to forget that
+occasion. Helen herself was putting it behind her whenever the thought
+of it entered her head. Thinking of it brought embarrassment; and she
+did not like to feel embarrassed. She believed that he was trying to
+show that he had forgotten it; and if he were disposed to forget the
+ridiculous affair, surely she should be more than glad to do it. And she
+considered it very fine of him--very fine, indeed. She liked him, too.
+She liked him very much, and she enjoyed being with him. And there could
+be no harm now, either, in being with him all she liked, for he could
+never make the mistake of thinking she cared for him particularly. He
+understood that she loved some one else. They might be as friendly as
+they pleased. There could never--thank Heaven!--be any misunderstanding
+about their relationship.
+
+Confidently serene, therefore, Helen Denby enjoyed to the full the
+stimulus of Mr. Donald Estey's companionship. Then, abruptly, her house
+of cards tumbled about her ears.
+
+"Mrs. Darling, will you marry me?" the man asked one day. He spoke
+lightly, so lightly that she could not believe him serious. Yet she gave
+him a startled glance before she answered.
+
+"Mr. Estey, please don't jest!"
+
+"I'm not jesting. I'm in earnest. Will you marry me?"
+
+"_Mr. Estey!_" She could only gasp her dismay.
+
+"You seem surprised." He was still smiling.
+
+"But you can't--you can't be in earnest, Mr. Estey."
+
+"Why not, pray?"
+
+"Why, you know--you must remember--what I--I told you, six years ago."
+The red suffused her face.
+
+"You mean--that you cared for some one else?" He spoke gravely now. The
+smile was quite gone from his eyes. "But, Mrs. Darling, it's just there
+that I can't believe _you're_ in earnest. Besides, that was six years
+ago."
+
+"But I am in earnest, and it's the same--_now_," she urged feverishly.
+"Oh, Mr. Estey, please, please, don't let's spoil our friendship--this
+way. I thought you understood--I supposed, of course, you understood
+that I--I loved some one else very much."
+
+"But, Mrs. Darling, you said that six years ago, and--and you're still
+free _now_. Naturally no man would be such a fool as to let-- So I
+thought, of course, that you had--had--" He came to a helpless pause.
+
+The color swept her face again.
+
+"But I told you then that I was--was learning--was trying to learn-- Oh,
+why do you make me say it?"
+
+He glanced at her face, then jerked himself to his feet angrily.
+
+"Oh, come, come, Mrs. Darling, you don't expect me to believe that you
+now, _now_ are still trying to learn to please (as you call it) some
+mythically impossible man!"
+
+"He's not mythically impossible. He's real."
+
+"Then he's blind, deaf, and dumb, I suppose!" Mr. Donald Estey's voice
+was still wrathful.
+
+In spite of herself Helen Denby laughed.
+
+"No, no, oh, no! He's--" Suddenly her face grew grave, and very earnest.
+"Mr. Estey, I can't tell you. You wouldn't understand. If you--you care
+anything for me, you will not question me any more. I _can't_ tell you.
+Please, please don't say any more."
+
+But Mr. Donald Estey did say more--a little more. He did not say much,
+for the piteous pleading in the blue eyes stayed half the words on his
+lips before they were uttered. In the end he went away with a baffled,
+hurt pain in his own eyes, and Helen did not see him again for some
+days. But he came back in time. The pain still lurked in his eyes, but
+there was a resolute smile on his lips.
+
+"If you'll permit, I want things to be as they were before," he told
+her. "I'm still your friend, and I hope you are mine."
+
+"Why, of course, of course," she stammered. "Only, I--you--"
+
+As she hesitated, plainly disturbed, he raised a quick hand of protest.
+
+"Don't worry." His resolute smile became almost gay. "You'll see how
+good a friend I can be!"
+
+If Mr. Donald Estey was hoping to take by strategy the citadel that had
+refused to surrender, he gave no sign. As the days came and went, he was
+clearly and consistently the good friend he had said he would be; and
+Helen Denby found no cause to complain, or to fear untoward results.
+
+And so the winter passed and spring came; and it was on a beautiful day
+in early spring that Helen took Betty (now nine years old) to one of
+London's most famous curio-shops. There was to be an auction shortly of
+a very valuable collection of books and curios, and the advertising
+catalogue sent to Mr. Reynolds had fallen into Helen's hands.
+
+It was no new thing for Helen to haunt curio-shops and museum-cabinets
+given over to Babylonian tablets and Egyptian scarabs. Helen had never
+forgotten the little brown and yellow "soap-cakes" which were so
+treasured by Burke and his father, and of which she had been so jealous
+in the old days at Dalton. At every opportunity now she studied them.
+She wanted to know something about them; but especially she wanted Betty
+to know about them. Betty must know something about everything--that was
+of interest to Burke Denby.
+
+To-day, standing with Betty before a glass case of carefully numbered
+treasures, she was so assiduously studying the catalogue in her hand
+that she did not notice the approach of the tall man wearing glasses,
+until an amused voice reached her ears.
+
+"Going in for archaeology, Mrs. Darling?"
+
+So violent was her start that it looked almost like one of guilt.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Estey! I--I didn't see you."
+
+His eyes twinkled.
+
+"I should say not--or hear me, either. I spoke twice before you deigned
+to turn. I did not know you were so interested in archaeology, Mrs.
+Darling."
+
+She laughed lightly.
+
+"I'm not. I think it's--" Her face changed suddenly. "Oh, yes, I'm
+interested--very much interested," she corrected hastily. "But I mean
+I--I don't know anything about it. But I--I'm trying to learn. Perhaps
+you-- _Can_ you tell me anything about these things?"
+
+Something in her face, the fateful "learn," and her embarrassed manner,
+sent his thoughts back to the scene between them years before. Stifling
+an almost uncontrollable impulse to query, "Is it to please _him_, then,
+that you must learn archaeology?" he shrugged his shoulders and shook his
+head.
+
+"I'm afraid not," he smiled. "Oh, I know a _little_ something of them,
+it's true; but I've just been chatting with a man out in the front shop
+who could talk to you by the hour about those things--and grow fat on
+it. He's looking at a toby jug now. Shall I bring him in?"
+
+"No, no, Mr. Estey, of course not!"
+
+"But, really, you'd find him interesting, I'm sure. I met him in Egypt
+last year. His name is Denby--a New Englander like-- Why, Mrs. Darling,
+what is the matter? Are you faint? You're white as chalk!"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No, no, I'm all right. Did you mean"--with white lips she asked the
+question--"Mr. John Denby?" She threw a quick look at Betty, who was now
+halfway across the room standing in awed wonder before a huge Buddha.
+
+"No, this is Burke Denby, John Denby's son. I met them both last year.
+But you seem to-- Do you know them?"
+
+"Yes." She said the word quietly, yet with an odd restraint that puzzled
+him. He saw that the color was coming back to her face--what he could
+not see or know was that underneath that calm exterior the little woman
+at his side was wildly adjuring herself: "Now, mind, mind, this is an
+emergency. Mind you meet it right!" He saw that she took one quick step
+toward Betty, only to stop and look about her a little uncertainly.
+
+"Mr. Estey,"--she was facing him now. Her chin was lifted determinedly,
+but he noticed that her lips were trembling. "I do not want to see Mr.
+Burke Denby, and he _must not_ see me. There is no way out of this
+place, apparently, except through the front shop, where he is. I want
+you to go out there and--and talk to him. Then Betty and I can slip by
+unnoticed."
+
+"But--but--" stammered the dumfounded man.
+
+"Mr. Estey, you _will_ do what I ask you to--and please go--_quickly_!
+He's sure to come out to see--these." She just touched the case of
+Babylonian tablets.
+
+To the man, looking into her anguished eyes, came a swift, overwhelming
+revelation. He remembered, suddenly, stories he had heard of a tragedy
+in Burke Denby's domestic affairs. He remembered words--illuminating
+words--that this woman had said to him. It could not be-- And yet--
+
+He caught his breath.
+
+"Is he--are you--"
+
+"I am Mrs. Burke Denby," she interrupted quietly. "You will not betray
+me, I know. Now, will you go, please?"
+
+For one appalled instant he gazed straight into her eyes; then without a
+word he turned and left her.
+
+He knew, a minute later, that he was saying something (he wondered
+afterward what it was) to Mr. Burke Denby out in the main shop. He knew,
+too, without looking up, that a woman and a little girl passed quietly
+by at the other side of the room and disappeared through the open
+doorway. Then, dazedly, Mr. Donald Estey looked about him. He was
+wondering if, after all, he had not been dreaming.
+
+That evening he learned that it was not a dream. Freely, and with a
+frank confidence that touched him deeply, the woman he had known as Mrs.
+Darling told him the whole story. He heard it with naturally varying
+emotions. He tried to be just, to be coolly unprejudiced. He tried also,
+to hide his own heartache. He even tried to be glad that she loved her
+husband, as she so unmistakably did.
+
+"And you'll tell him now, of course--where you are," he said, when she
+had finished.
+
+"No, no! I can't do that."
+
+"But do you think that is--right?"
+
+"I am sure it is."
+
+"But if your husband wants you--"
+
+"He doesn't want me."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Very sure."
+
+A curious look came to the man's eyes, a grim smile to his lips.
+
+"Er"--he hesitated a little--"you don't want to forget that--er--you
+have long ago qualified for--that _understudy_. You remember that--_I_
+wanted you."
+
+The rich color that flamed into her face told that she fully understood
+what he meant, yet she shook her head vehemently.
+
+"No, no! Ah, please, don't jest about--that. I was very much in
+earnest--indeed, I was! And I thought then--that I really could--could--
+But I understand--lots of things now that I never understood before. It
+is really all for Betty that I am working now. I want to make
+_her_--what he would want her to be."
+
+"Nonsense, my dear woman! As if you yourself were not the most--"
+
+She stopped him with a gesture. Her eyes had grown very serious.
+
+"I don't want you to talk that way, please. I would rather think--just
+of Betty."
+
+"But what about--him?"
+
+"I don't know." Her eyes grew fathomless. She turned them toward the
+window. "Of course I think and think and think. And of course I
+wonder--how it's all coming out. I'm sure I'm doing right now, and I
+think--I was doing right--then."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"When I went away--at the first. I can't see how I could have done
+anything else, as things were. Some way, all along, I've felt as if I
+were traveling a--a long road, and that on each side was a tall hedge. I
+can't look over it, nor through it. I can't even look ahead--very far.
+The road turns--so often. But there have never been any
+crossroads--there's never been any other way I could take, as I looked
+at it. Don't you see, Mr. Estey?"
+
+"Yes, I think I see." The old baffled pain had come back to his eyes,
+but she did not seem to notice it. Her gaze had drifted back to the
+window.
+
+"And so I feel that now I'm still on that road and that it's
+leading--somewhere; and some day I shall know. Until then, there isn't
+anything I can do--don't you see?--there isn't anything I can do but to
+keep--straight ahead. There really isn't, Mr. Estey."
+
+"No, I suppose there isn't," said Mr. Donald Estey, rising to his feet
+with a long sigh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+PINK TEAS TO FLIGHTY BLONDES
+
+
+One by one the years slipped by, swiftly, with little change. In Boston,
+the doctor, trying not to count them, still had not forgotten. From
+Helen, through his sister, came glowing accounts of concerts, lectures,
+travels, and language-lessons for herself and Betty. From Dalton, both
+directly and indirectly, began to come reports of a new gayety at the
+old Denby Mansion. Dinners and house-parties, and even a ball or two,
+figured in the reports.
+
+Vexed and curious, the doctor--who had, of late, refused most of his
+invitations to Dalton--took occasion, between certain trips of his own,
+to go up to the little town, to see for himself the meaning of this, to
+him, unaccountable phase of the situation.
+
+There was a big reception at Denby Mansion on the evening of the day of
+his arrival. The hotel parlor and office were abuzz with stories of the
+guests, decorations, and city caterer. There came to the doctor's ears,
+too, sundry rumors--some vague, others unpleasantly explicit--concerning
+a pretty little blonde widow, who was being frequently seen these days
+in the company of Burke Denby, the son.
+
+"Of course he'd have to get a divorce--but he could do that easy,"
+overheard the doctor in the corridor. "His wife ran away, didn't she,
+years ago? I heard she did."
+
+Uninvited and unheralded, the doctor attended the reception. Passing up
+the old familiar walk, he came to an unfamiliar, garish blaze of lights,
+a riot of color and perfume, a din of shrieking violins, the swish of
+silken skirts, and the peculiarly inane babble that comes from a
+multitude of chattering tongues.
+
+Gorgeous lackeys reached unfamiliar hands for his hat and coat, and the
+doctor was nearly ready to turn and flee the delirium of horror, when he
+suddenly almost laughed aloud at sight of the half-perplexed,
+half-terrified, wholly disgusted face of Benton. At that moment the old
+manservant's eyes met his own, and the doctor's eyes grew suddenly moist
+at the beatific joy which illumined that harassed, anxious old face.
+
+Regardless of the trailing silks and billowing tulle between them,
+Benton leaped to his side.
+
+"Praise be, if it ain't Dr. Gleason!" he exulted, incoherent, but
+beaming.
+
+"Yes; but what is this, Benton?" laughed the doctor. "What is the
+meaning of all this?"
+
+The old butler rolled his eyes.
+
+"Blest if I know, sir--indeed, I don't. But I'm thinking it's gone crazy
+I am. And sometimes I think maybe the master and young Master Burke,
+too, are going crazy with me. I do, sir!"
+
+"I can well imagine it, Benton," smiled the doctor dryly, as he began to
+make his way toward the big drawing-room where John Denby and his son
+were receiving their guests.
+
+The doctor could find no cause to complain of his welcome. It was
+cordial and manifestly sincere. He was introduced at once as an old and
+valued friend, and he soon found himself the center of a plainly
+admiring group. It was very evidently soon whispered about that he was
+_the_ Dr. Frank Gleason of archaeological and Arctic fame; and his only
+difficulty, after his first introduction, was to find any time for his
+own observations and reflections. He contrived, however, in spite of his
+embarrassing popularity, to see something of his hosts. He talked with
+them, when possible, and he watched them with growingly troubled eyes.
+
+Many times that evening he saw the mask drop over John Denby's face.
+Twice he saw a slow turning away as of ineffable weariness. Once he saw
+a spasm as of pain twitch his lips; and he noted the quick, involuntary
+lifting of his hand to his side. He saw that usually, however, the
+master of Denby House stood tall and straight and handsome, with the
+cordial, genial smile of a perfect host.
+
+As to Burke--it was when the doctor was watching Burke that the trouble
+in his eyes grew deepest. True, on Burke's face there was no mask of
+inscrutability, in his eyes was no weariness, on his lips no quick spasm
+of pain. He was gay, alert, handsome, and apparently happy.
+Nevertheless, the frown on the doctor's face did not diminish.
+
+There was a look of too much wine--slight, perhaps, but unmistakable--on
+Burke Denby's face, that the doctor did not like. The doctor also did
+not like the way Burke devoted himself to the blonde young woman who was
+so eternally at his elbow.
+
+This was the widow, of course. The doctor surmised this at once.
+Besides, he had met her. Her name was Mrs. Carrolton, and Mrs. Carrolton
+was the name he had heard so frequently in the hotel. The doctor did not
+like the looks of Mrs. Carrolton. She was beautiful, undeniably, in a
+way; but her blue eyes were shifting, and her mouth, when in repose, had
+hard lines. She was not the type of woman he liked to have Burke with,
+and he would not have supposed she was the sort of woman that Burke
+himself would care for. And to see him now, hanging upon her every
+word--
+
+With a gesture of disgust the doctor turned his back and stalked to the
+farther side of the room, much to the surprise of a vapid young woman,
+to whom (he remembered when it was too late) he had been supposed to be
+talking.
+
+A little later, in the dining-room, where he had passed so many restful
+hours with Burke and his father, about the softly lighted table, the
+doctor now, in the midst of a chattering, thronging multitude, attempted
+to keep his own balance, and that of a tiny, wobbly plate,
+intermittently heaped with salads, sandwiches, cakes, and creams, which
+he was supposed to eat, but which he momentarily and terrifyingly
+expected to deposit upon a silken gown or a spotless shirt-front.
+
+The doctor was one of the first of John Denby's guests to make his
+adieus. He had decided suddenly that he must get away, quite away, from
+the sight of Burke and the little widow. Otherwise he should say
+something--a very strong something; and, for obvious reasons, he really
+could say--nothing.
+
+Disgusted, frightened, annoyed, and aggrieved, he went home the next
+morning. To his sister he said much. He could talk to his sister. He
+gave first a full account of what he had seen and heard in Dalton,
+omitting not one detail. Then, wrathfully, he reproached her:--
+
+"So you see what's come of your foolishness. Burke isn't building
+bridges for the Hottentots now. He's giving pink teas to flighty
+blondes."
+
+Mrs. Thayer laughed softly.
+
+"But that's only another way of trying to get away from himself, Frank,"
+she argued.
+
+"Yes, but I notice he isn't trying to get away from the widow," he
+snapped.
+
+A disturbed frown came to the lady's face.
+
+"I know." She bit her lips. "I am a little worried at that, Frank, I'll
+own. I've wondered, often, if--if there was ever any danger of something
+like that happening."
+
+"Well, you wouldn't wonder any longer, if you should see Mrs. Nellie
+Carrolton," observed the doctor, with terse significance.
+
+There was a moment's silence; then, sharply, the doctor spoke again.
+
+"I'm going to write to Helen."
+
+"Oh, Frank!"
+
+"I am. I've got to. I don't think it's right not to."
+
+"But what shall you--tell her?"
+
+"That she'd better come home and look after her property; if she
+doesn't, she's likely to lose it. That's what I'm going to tell her."
+
+"Oh, Frank!" murmured his distressed sister again; but she made no
+further demur. And that night the letter went.
+
+In due course came the answer. It was short, but very much to the point.
+The doctor read it, and said a sharp something behind his teeth. Without
+another word he handed the note to his sister. And this is what she
+read:--
+
+     _Dear Dr. Gleason_:--
+
+     He isn't my property. I can't lose him, for I haven't him to
+     lose. He took himself away from me years ago. If ever I'm to
+     win him back, I must win him--not compel him. If he thinks
+     he's found some one else--all the more reason why I can't
+     come back now, until he knows whether he wants her or not.
+     But if I came now, and he should want her-- Really, Dr.
+     Gleason, I don't want the same man to tell me twice to--go.
+
+  HELEN D.
+
+"Hm-m; just about what I expected she'd say," commented the doctor's
+sister tranquilly, as she laid the letter down.
+
+"Oh, you women!" flung out the doctor, springing to his feet and turning
+wrathfully on his heel.
+
+The doctor was relieved, but not wholly eased in his mind some days
+later when he heard indirectly that Denby Mansion was closed, and that
+the Denbys were off again to some remote corner of the world.
+
+"Well, anyhow, the widow isn't with him now," he comforted himself
+aloud.
+
+"Building bridges for the Hottentots again?" smiled his sister.
+
+"Yes. Australia this time."
+
+"Hm-m; that's nice and far," mused the lady.
+
+"Oh, yes, it's far, all right," growled the doctor, somewhat
+belligerently. "Anyhow, it's too far for the widow, thank Heaven!"
+
+The doctor went himself "far" before the month was out. Already his
+plans were made for a six months' trip with a research party to his pet
+hunting-ground--the grotto land of northern Spain. Once more the
+calmness of silence and absence left Edith Thayer with only Helen
+Denby's occasional letters to remind her of Burke Denby and his
+matrimonial problem.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A LITTLE BUNCH OF DIARIES
+
+
+It was three years before the doctor went up to Dalton again. It was on
+a sad errand this time. John Denby had died suddenly, and after an
+hour's hesitation, the doctor went up to the funeral.
+
+There were no garish lights and shrieking violins to greet him as he
+passed once more up the long, familiar walk. The warm September sun
+touched lovingly the old brass knocker, and peeped behind the stately
+colonial pillars of the long veranda. It gleamed for a moment on the
+bald heads of the somber-coated men filing slowly through the wide
+doorway, and it tried to turn to silver the sable crape hanging at the
+right of the door.
+
+Not until that evening, after the funeral, did the doctor have the
+opportunity for more than a formal word of greeting and sympathy with
+Burke Denby. He had been shocked in the afternoon at the changes in the
+young man's face; but he was more so when, at eight o'clock, he called
+at the house.
+
+He found Burke alone in the library--the library whose every book and
+chair and curio spoke with the voice of the man who was gone--the man
+who had loved them so well.
+
+Burke himself, to the doctor, looked suddenly old and worn, and
+infinitely weary of life. He did not at once speak of his father. But
+when he did speak of him, a little later, he seemed then to want to talk
+of nothing else. Things that his father had done and said, his little
+ways, his likes and dislikes, the hours of delight they had passed
+together, the trips they had taken, even the tiddledywinks and Mother
+Goose of childhood came in for their share. On and on until far into the
+night he talked, and the doctor listened, with a word now and then of
+sympathy or appreciation; but with a growing ache in his heart.
+
+"You have been, indeed, a wonderful father and son," he said at last
+unsteadily.
+
+"There was never another like us." The son's voice was very low.
+
+There was a moment's silence. The doctor, his beseeching eyes on the
+younger man's half-averted face, was groping in his mind for the right
+words to introduce the subject which all the evening had been at the
+door of his lips--Helen. He felt that now, with Burke's softened heart
+to lend lenience, and with his lonely life in prospect to plead the need
+of companionship, was the time, if ever, that an appeal for Helen might
+be successful. But the right words of introduction had not come to him
+when Burke himself began to speak again.
+
+"And it's almost as if I'd lost both father and mother," he went on
+brokenly; "for dad talked so much of mother. To him she was always with
+us, I think. I can remember, when I was a little boy, how real she was
+to me. In all we did or said she seemed to have a part. And always, all
+the way up, he used to talk of her--except for the time when--"
+
+He stopped abruptly. The doctor, watching, wondered at the white
+compression that came suddenly to his lips. In a moment it was gone,
+however, and he had resumed speaking.
+
+"Of late years, dad has seemed to talk more than ever of mother, and he
+spoke always as if she were with us. And now I'm alone--so utterly
+alone. Gleason--how ever am I going to live--without--dad!"
+
+The doctor's heart leaped with mingled fear and elation: fear at what he
+was about to do; elation that his chance to do it had come. He cleared
+his throat and began, courageously, though not quite steadily.
+
+"But--there's your wife, Burke. If only you--" He stopped short in
+dismay at the look that had come into Burke Denby's face.
+
+"My wife! My wife! Don't speak of my wife now, man, if you want me to
+keep my reason! The woman who brought more sorrow to my father than any
+other living being! What do you think I wouldn't give if I could blot
+out the memory of the anguish my marriage brought to dad? I can see his
+eyes now, when he was pleading with me--_before_ it. Afterwards--Do you
+know what a brick dad was afterwards? Well, I'll tell you. Never by so
+much as a look--much less a word--has he reproached or censured me. At
+first he--he just put up a wall between us. But it was a wall of grief
+and sore hurt. It was never anger. I know that now. Then, one day,
+somehow, I found that wall down, and I looked straight into dad's eyes.
+It was never there again--that wall. I knew, of course, that dad had
+never--forgotten. The hurt and grief were still there,--that I could so
+disobey him, disregard his wishes,--but he would not let them be a wall
+between us any longer. Then, when it all turned out as it did-- But he
+never once said, 'I told you so,' nor even looked it. And he was kind
+and good to Helen always. But when I think how I--I, who love him
+so--brought to him all that grief and anguish of heart, I-- My wife,
+indeed! Gleason, I never want to see her face again, or hear her name
+spoken!"
+
+"But your--your child," stammered the dismayed doctor faintly.
+
+A shadow of quick pain crossed the other's face.
+
+"I know. And that's another thing that grieved dad. He was fond of his
+little granddaughter. He used to speak of her, often, till I begged him
+not to. She's mine, of course; but she's Helen's, too,--and she is being
+brought up by Helen--not me. I can imagine what she's being
+taught--about her father," he finished bitterly.
+
+"Oh, but I'm sure-- I know she's--" With a painful color the doctor,
+suddenly warned from within just in time, came to a frightened pause.
+
+Burke, however, lifting a protesting hand, changed the subject abruptly;
+and the relieved doctor was glad, for once, not to have him wish to talk
+longer of his missing wife and daughter.
+
+Very soon the doctor said good-night and left the house. But his heart
+was heavy.
+
+"Perhaps, after all," he sighed to himself, "it wasn't just the time to
+get him to listen to reason about Helen--when it was his runaway
+marriage that had so grieved his father years ago; and his father
+now--just gone."
+
+From many lips, before he left town the next morning, Dr. Gleason
+learned much of the life and doings of the Denbys during the past few
+years. Perhaps the death of John Denby had made the Dalton tongues
+garrulous. At all events they were nothing loath to talk; and the
+doctor, eager to obtain anything that would enable him to understand
+Burke Denby, was nothing loath to listen.
+
+"Yes, sir, he hain't been well for years--John Denby hain't," related
+one old man into the doctor's attentive, sympathetic ears. "And I ain't
+sayin' I wonder, with all he's been through. But you said you was a
+friend of his, didn't ye?"
+
+The doctor inclined his head.
+
+"I am, indeed, an old friend of the family."
+
+"Well, it's likely, then, you know something yourself of what's
+happened--though 'course you hain't lived here to see it all. First, ye
+know, there was his son's marriage. And that cut the old man all
+up--runaway, and not what the family wanted at all. _You_ know that, of
+course. But they made the best of it, apparently, after a while, and
+young Denby took hold first-rate at the Works. Right down to the
+beginnin' he went, too,--overalls and day wages. And he done
+well--first-rate!--but it must 'a' galled some. Why, once, fur a spell,
+he worked _under my son_--he did. The men liked him, too, when they got
+over their grinnin' and nonsense, and see he was in earnest. _You_ know
+what a likely chap young Denby _can_ be, when he wants to."
+
+"None better!" smiled the doctor.
+
+"Yes. Well, to resume and go on. Somethin' happened one day--in his
+domestic affairs, I mean. The pretty young wife and kid lit out for
+parts unknown. And the son went back to his dad. (He and his dad always
+was more like pals than anythin' else.) Some says he sent her away--the
+wife, I mean. Some says she runned away herself. Like enough _you_ know
+the rights of it."
+
+There was a suggestion of a pause, and a sly, half-questioning glance;
+but at the absolute non-committalism of the other's face, the narrator
+went on hastily.
+
+"Well, whatever was the rights or wrongs of it, she went, and hain't
+been seen in these 'ere parts since, as I know of. Not that I _should_
+know her if I did see her, howsomever! Well, that was a dozen--yes,
+fourteen years ago, I guess, and the old man hain't been the same since.
+He hain't been the same since the boy's marriage, for that matter.
+
+"Well, at first, after she went, the Denbys went kitin' off on one o'
+them trips o' theirn, that they're always takin'; then they come home
+and opened up the old house, and things went on about as they used to
+'fore young Denby was married. But the old man fell sick--first on the
+trip, then afterwards, once or twice. He wa'n't well; but that didn't
+hinder his goin' off again. This time they went with one of their
+bridges. Always, before, they'd let Henry or Grosset manage the job; but
+this time they went themselves. After that they went lots--to South
+America, Africa, Australia, and I don't know where. They seemed restless
+and uneasy--both of 'em.
+
+"Then they begun ter bring folks home with 'em: chaps who wore purple
+silk socks and neckties, and looked as if they'd never done a stroke of
+work in their lives; and women with high heels and false hair. My, but
+there was gay doin's there! Winters there was balls and parties and
+swell feeds with nigger waiters from Boston, and even the dishes and
+what they et come from there, too, sometimes, they say. Summers they
+rode in hayracks and autymobiles, and danced outdoors on the
+grass--shows, you know. And they was a show with the women barefooted
+and barearmed, and--and not much on generally. My wife seen 'em once,
+and she was that shocked she didn't get over it for a month. She said
+she was brought up to keep a modest dress on her that had a decent waist
+and skirt to it. But my Bill (he's been in Boston two years now) says
+it's a pageant and Art, and all right. That you can do it in pageants
+when you can't just walkin' along the street, runnin' into the
+neighbors'. See?"
+
+"I see," nodded the doctor gravely.
+
+"Oh, well, of course they didn't go 'round like that all the time. They
+played that thing lots where they have them little balls and
+queer-looking sticks to knock 'em with. They played it all over Pike's
+Hill and the Durgin pasture in Old Dalton; and they got my grandson to
+be a--a--"
+
+"Caddie?" hazarded the doctor.
+
+"Yes; that's what they called it. And he made good money, too,--doin'
+nothin'. Wish't they'd want me for one! Well, as I was sayin', they had
+all this comp'ny, an' more an' more of it; and they give receptions an'
+asked the hull town, sometimes. My wife went, and my darter. They said
+it was fine and grand, and all that, but that they didn't believe old
+John liked it very well. But Mr. Burke liked it. That was easy to be
+seen. And there was a pretty little widder there lots, and _she_ liked
+it. Some said as how they thought there'd be a match there, sometime, if
+he could get free. But I guess there wa'n't anythin' ter that. Anyhow,
+all of a sudden, somethin' happened. Everythin' stopped right off
+short--all the gay doin's and parties--and everybody went home. Then,
+the next thing we knew, the old house was dark and empty again, and the
+Denbys gone to Australia with another bridge."
+
+"Yes, I know. I remember--that," interposed the doctor, alert and
+interested.
+
+"Did you see 'em--when they come back?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, they didn't look like the same men. And ever since they've been
+different, somehow. Stern and silent, with never a smile for anybody,
+skursley. No balls an' parties now, you bet ye! Week in and week out,
+jest shut up in that big silent house--never goin' out at all except to
+the Works! Then we heard he was sick--Mr. John. But he got better, and
+was out again. The end come sudden. Nobody expected that. But he was a
+good man--a grand good man--John Denby was!"
+
+"He was, indeed," agreed the doctor, with a long sigh, as he turned
+away.
+
+This story, with here and there a new twist and turn, the doctor heard
+on all sides. And always he listened attentively, hopefully, eager, if
+possible, to find some detail that would help him in some further plea
+to Burke Denby in behalf of the far-away wife. Even the women wanted to
+talk to him, and did, sometimes to his annoyance. Once, only, however,
+did his irritation get the better of his manners. It was when the woman
+of whom he bought his morning paper at the station newsstand, accosted
+him--
+
+"Stranger in these parts, ain't ye? Come to the fun'ral, didn't ye?"
+
+"Why--y-yes."
+
+"Hm-m; I thought so. He was a fine man, I s'pose. Still, I didn't think
+much of him myself. Used to know him too well, maybe. Used to live next
+his son--same floor. My name's Cobb--and I used to see--" But the doctor
+had turned on his heel without even the semblance of an apology.
+
+Ten minutes later he boarded the train for Boston.
+
+To his sister again he told the story of a Dalton trip, and, as before,
+he omitted not one detail.
+
+"But I can't write, of course, to Helen, now," he finished gloomily.
+"That is, I can't urge her coming back--not in the face of Burke's angry
+assertion that he never wants to see her again."
+
+"Of course not. But don't worry, dear. I haven't given up hope, by any
+means. Burke worshiped his father. His heart is almost breaking now, at
+his loss. It is perfectly natural, under the circumstances, that he
+should have this intense anger toward anything that ever grieved his
+loved father. But wait. That's all we can do, anyway. I'll write to
+Helen, of course, and tell her of her father-in-law's death, but--"
+
+"You wouldn't tell her what Burke said, Edith!"
+
+"Oh, no, no, indeed!--unless I _have_ to, Frank--unless she asks me."
+
+But Helen did ask her. By return steamer came her letter expressing her
+shocked distress at John Denby's death, and asking timidly, but
+urgently, if, in Mrs. Thayer's opinion, it were the time now when she
+should come home--if she would be welcomed by her husband. To this, of
+course, there was but one answer possible; and reluctantly Mrs. Thayer
+gave it.
+
+"And to think," groaned the doctor, "that when now, for the first time,
+Helen is willing to come, we have to tell her--she can't!"
+
+"I know, but"--Edith Thayer resolutely blinked off the tears--"I haven't
+given up yet. Just wait."
+
+And the doctor waited. It was, indeed, as his sister said, all that he
+could do. From time to time he went up to Dalton and made his way up the
+old familiar walk to have a chat with the taciturn, somber-eyed man
+sitting alone in the great old library. The doctor never spoke of Helen.
+He dared not take the risk. Burke Denby's only interests plainly were
+business, books, and the rare curios he and his father had collected. A
+Mrs. Gowing, a distant cousin, had come to be his housekeeper, but the
+doctor saw little of her. She seemed to be a quiet, inoffensive little
+woman, plainly very much in the background.
+
+There came an evening finally, however, when, much to the doctor's
+beatific surprise, Burke Denby, of his own accord, mentioned his wife.
+
+It was nearly two years after John Denby's death. The doctor had run up
+to Dalton for an overnight visit, and had noticed at once a peculiar
+restlessness in his host's manner, an odd impatience of voice and
+gesture. Then, abruptly, in answer to the doctor's own assertion that
+Burke needed something to get him away from his constant brooding in the
+old library,--
+
+"Need something?" he exclaimed. "Of course I need something! I need my
+wife and child. I need to live a normal life like other men. I need--
+But what's the use?" he finished, with outflung hands.
+
+"I know; but--you, yourself--" By a supreme effort the doctor was
+keeping himself from shouting aloud with joy.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know it's all my own fault," cut in Burke crisply. "You
+can't tell me anything new on that score, that I haven't told myself.
+Yes, and I know I haven't even been willing to have her name spoken," he
+went on recklessly, answering the amazement in the doctor's face. "For
+that matter, I don't know why I'm talking like this now--unless it's
+because I've always said to you more than I've said to any one
+else--except dad--about Helen. And now, after being such a cad, it seems
+almost--due to her that I should say--something. Besides, doesn't
+somebody say somewhere that confession is good for the soul?"
+
+There was a quizzical smile on his lips, but there was no smile in his
+eyes.
+
+The doctor nodded dumbly. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, he dared not
+open his lips. But, terrified at the long silence that followed, he
+finally ventured unsteadily:--
+
+"But why--this sudden change, Burke?"
+
+"It's not so sudden as you think." Burke's eyes, gloomily fixed on the
+opposite wall, did not turn as he spoke. "It's been coming gradually for
+a long time. I can see that now. Still, the real eye-opener finally came
+from--mother."
+
+"_Your--mother!_"
+
+"Yes, her diary--or, rather, diaries. I found them a month ago among
+father's things. I can't tell you what was in them. I wouldn't, of
+course, if I could. They're too--sacred. Perhaps you think even I should
+not have read them; perhaps I shouldn't. But I did, and I'm glad I did;
+and I believe she'd have wanted me to.
+
+"Of course, at first, when I picked one of them up, I didn't know what
+it was. Then I saw my name, and I read--page after page. I was a
+baby--her baby. Gleason, can you imagine what it would be to look deep
+down into the soul of a good woman and read there all her love, hopes,
+prayers, and ambitions for her boy--and then suddenly realize that you
+yourself were that boy?"
+
+There was no answer; and Burke, evidently expecting none, went on with
+the rush of abandonment that told of words suddenly freed from long
+restraint.
+
+"I took up then the first one--the diary she kept that first year of her
+marriage; and if I had felt small and mean and unworthy before-- On and
+on I read; and as I read, I began to see, dimly, what marriage
+means--for a woman. They were very poor then. Father was the grandson of
+the younger, runaway son, Joel, and had only his trade and his day
+wages. They lived in a shabby little cottage on Mill Street, long since
+destroyed. This house belonged to the other branch of the family, and
+was occupied by a rich old man and his daughter. Mother was gently
+reared, and was not used to work. Those first years of poverty and
+privation must have been wickedly hard for her. But the little diaries
+carried no complaints. They did carry weariness, often, and sometimes a
+pitiful terror lest she be not strong enough for what was before her,
+and so bring disappointment and grief to 'dear John.' But always, for
+'dear John,' I could see there was to be nothing but encouragement and a
+steadfast holding forth of high aims and the assurance of ultimate
+success.
+
+"Then, one by one, came the babies, with all the agony and fears and
+hopes they brought with them. Three came and slipped away into the great
+unknown before I came--to stay. About that time father's patents began
+to bring success, and soon the money was pouring in. They bought this
+house. It had been one of their dreams that they would buy it. The old
+man had died, and the daughter had married and moved away, and the house
+had been for sale for some time. So they bought it, and soon after I was
+born we came here to live. Then, when I was four years old, mother died.
+
+"That is the story--the bald story. But that doesn't tell you anything
+of what those diaries were to me. In the light they shed I saw my own
+marriage--and I was ashamed. I never thought of marriage before from
+Helen's standpoint. I never thought what she had to suffer and endure,
+and adapt herself to. I know now. Of course, very soon after our
+marriage, I realized that she and I weren't suited to each other. But
+what of it? I had married her. I had effectually prevented her from
+finding happiness with any other man; yet it didn't seem to occur to me
+that I had thereby taken on myself the irrevocable duty of trying to
+make her happy. I have no doubt that my ways and aims and likes and
+dislikes annoyed her as much as hers did me. But it never occurred to
+me that my soft greens and browns and Beethoven harmonies got on her
+nerves just exactly as her pinks and purples and ragtime got on mine. I
+was never in the habit of looking at anybody's happiness but my own; and
+_I_ wasn't happy. So I let fling, regardless."
+
+Burke paused, and drew a long sigh. The doctor, puffing slowly at his
+cigar, sedulously kept his face the other way. The doctor, in his fancy,
+had already peopled the old room with a joyous Helen and Dorothy
+Elizabeth; and he feared, should he turn, that his face would sing a
+veritable Hallelujah Chorus--to the consequent amazement of his host.
+
+"Mother had trials of her own--lots of them," resumed Burke, after a
+moment's silence. "She even had some not unlike mine, I believe, for I
+think I could read between the lines that dad was more than a bit
+careless at times in manner and speech compared to the polished ways of
+the men of her family and social circle. But mother neither whined nor
+ran away. She just smiled and kept bravely straight ahead; and by and by
+they were under her feet, where they belonged--all those things that
+plagued. But I--I both whined and ran away--because I didn't like the
+way my wife ate her soup and spread her bread. They seem so small
+now--all those little ways I hated--small beside the big things that
+really counted. Do you know? I believe if more people would stop making
+the little things big and the big things little, there'd be a whole heap
+more happiness lying around in this old world! And Helen--poor Helen!
+She tried-- I know she tried. Lots of times, when I was reading in the
+diaries what mother said about dad,--how she mustn't let him get
+discouraged or downhearted; how she must tell him she just knew he was
+going to succeed,--lots of times then I'd think of Helen. Helen used to
+talk that way to me at the first! I wonder now if Helen kept a diary!
+And I can't help wondering if, supposing I had been a little less apt to
+notice the annoyances, and a little more inclined to see the good-- Bah!
+There, there, old man, forgive me," he broke off, with a shrug. "I
+didn't mean to run on like this. I really didn't--for all the world like
+the heart-to-heart advice to the lovelorn in a daily news column!"
+
+"I'm glad you did, Burke." The doctor's carefully controlled voice
+expressed cheery interest; that was all. "And now what do you propose to
+do?"
+
+"Do? How? What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, about--your wife, of course."
+
+"Nothing. There's nothing I can do. And that's the pity of it. She will
+go on, of course, to the end of her life, thinking me a cad and a
+coward."
+
+"But if you could be--er--brought together again," suggested the doctor
+in a voice so coldly impersonal it was almost indifferent.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course--perhaps. But that's not likely. I don't know where
+she is, remember; and she's not likely to come back of her own accord,
+after all this time. Besides, if she did, who's to guarantee that a few
+old diaries have changed me from an unbearably selfish brute to a
+livably patient and pleasant person to have about the house? Not but
+what I'd jump at the chance to try, but-- Well, we'll wait till I get
+it," he finished dryly, with a lightness that was plainly assumed.
+
+"Well, anyway, Burke, you've never found any one else!" The Hallelujah
+Chorus did almost sing through the doctor's voice this time.
+
+"No, I've been spared that, thank Heaven. There was one--a Mrs.
+Carrolton."
+
+"Yes, I met her--at that reception, you know," said the doctor,
+answering the unspoken question.
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember. Well, I did come near--but I pulled myself up in
+time. I knew, in my heart, she wasn't the kind of woman-- Then, too,
+there was Helen. It was only that I was feeling particularly reckless
+that fall. Besides, I know now that I've cared for Helen--the real
+Helen--all the time. And there _is_ a real Helen, I believe, underneath
+it all. As I look back at them--all those years--I know that during
+every single one of them I've been trying to get away from myself. If it
+hadn't been for dad--and that's the one joy I have: that I was able to
+be with dad. They weren't quite lost--those years, for they brought him
+joy."
+
+"No, they've not been lost, Burke," said the doctor, with quiet
+emphasis.
+
+Burke laughed a little grimly.
+
+"Oh, I know what you mean, of course. I've been 'tried as by fire'--eh?
+Well, I dare say I have--and I've been found woefully wanting. But
+enough of this!" he broke off abruptly, springing to his feet. "You
+don't happen to know of a young woman who has the skill of experience,
+the wisdom of age, the adaptability of youth, and the patience of Job
+all in one, do you?" he demanded.
+
+The doctor turned with startled eyes.
+
+"Why, Burke, after all this, you don't mean--"
+
+"No, it's not a wife I'm looking for," interposed Burke, with a
+whimsical shrug. "It's a--a stenographer or private secretary, only she
+must be much more than the ordinary kind. I want to catalogue all this
+truck father and I have accumulated. She must know French and German--a
+little Greek and Hebrew wouldn't be amiss. And I want one that would be
+interested in this sort of thing--one who will realize she isn't
+handling--er--potatoes, say. My eyes are going back on me, too, and I
+shall want her to read to me; so I must like her voice. I don't want
+anything, you see," he smiled grimly.
+
+"I should say not," laughed the doctor, rising. "But before you can give
+me any more necessary qualifications, I guess I'd better be going to
+bed."
+
+"I don't wonder, after the harangue I've given you. But--you don't know
+of such a person, do you?"
+
+"I don't."
+
+"No, I suppose not--nor anybody else," finished Burke Denby, a profound
+gloom that had become habitual settling over his face.
+
+"If I do I'll send her to you," nodded the doctor, halfway through the
+door. The doctor was in a hurry to get up to his room--he had a letter
+to write.
+
+"Thanks," said Burke Denby, still dryly, as he waved his hand in
+good-night.
+
+"Stenographer, indeed!" sang the doctor under his breath, bounding up
+the stairs like a boy. "Wait till he sees what I am going to get him!"
+he finished, striding down the hall and into his own room.
+
+Before he slept the doctor wrote his letter to Helen. It was a long one,
+and a joyous one. It told everything that Burke had said, even to his
+plaintive plea for a private secretary.
+
+There could be no doubt now, no further delay, declared the doctor.
+Helen would come home at once, of course. It only remained for them to
+decide on the mere details of just how and when. Meanwhile, when might
+they expect her in Boston? She would come, of course, to his sister's
+first; and he trusted it would be soon--very soon.
+
+Addressing the letter to Mrs. Helen Darling, the doctor tucked it into
+his pocket to be mailed at the station in the morning. Then, for the few
+hours before rising time, he laid himself down to sleep. But he did not
+sleep. His brain was altogether too actively picturing the arrival of
+Helen Denby and her daughter at the old Denby Mansion, and the meeting
+between them and the master of the house. And to think that at last it
+was all coming out right!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE STAGE IS SET
+
+
+Impatient as was the doctor for an answer to his letter, it came before
+he expected, for a cablegram told of Helen's almost immediate departure
+for America.
+
+"I thought that would fetch her," he crowed to his sister. "And she'll
+be here just next week Wednesday. That'll get her up to Dalton before
+Sunday."
+
+"Perhaps," observed Mrs. Thayer cautiously.
+
+"No 'perhaps' to it," declared the doctor,--"if the boat gets here. You
+don't suppose she's going to delay any longer now, do you? Besides,
+isn't she starting for America about as soon as she can? Does that look
+as if she were losing much time?"
+
+"No, it doesn't," she admitted laughingly.
+
+The doctor and his sister were not surprised to see a very lovely and
+charming Helen with the distinction and mellow maturity that the dozen
+intervening years had brought. Her letters had shown them something of
+that. But they were not prepared for the changes those same years had
+wrought in Dorothy Elizabeth.
+
+To Helen, their frank start of amazement and quick interchange of
+glances upon first sight of the girl were like water to a long-parched
+throat.
+
+"You do think she's lovely?" she whispered to the frankly staring
+doctor, as Mrs. Thayer welcomed the young girl.
+
+"Lovely! She's the most beautiful thing I ever saw!" avowed the doctor,
+with a laughing shrug at his own extravagance.
+
+"And she's just as sweet and dear as she is lovely," whispered back the
+adoring mother, as the girl turned to meet the doctor.
+
+"You've your mother's eyes, my dear," said the doctor, very much as he
+had said it to the little Betty years before.
+
+"Have I?" The girl smiled happily. "I'm so glad! I love mother's eyes."
+
+It was not until hours later, when Betty had gone to bed, that there was
+any opportunity to talk over plans. Then, before the fire in the
+library, Helen found herself alone with the doctor and his sister.
+
+"You see, I came almost as soon as I could," she began at once. "I did
+stay one day--for a wedding."
+
+"A wedding?"
+
+"Yes, and some one you know, too-- Mr. Donald Estey."
+
+"Really?" cried Mrs. Thayer.
+
+"Jove! After all this time?" The doctor's eyebrows went up.
+
+"Yes. And I'm so glad--especially glad for--for he thought once, years
+ago, that he cared for some one else. And I like to know he's
+happy--now."
+
+"Hm-m," murmured the doctor, with a shrewd smile and a sidelong glance
+at his sister. "So he's happy--_now_, eh?"
+
+"Oh, very! And she's a beautiful girl."
+
+"As beautiful as--Betty, say?" The doctor's voice was teasing.
+
+A wonderful light came to Helen's face.
+
+"You do think she's beautiful, don't you?" she cried, with a smile that
+told she needed no answer.
+
+"She's a dear--in every way," avowed Mrs. Thayer.
+
+"And to think of all this coming to Burke Denby, without even a turn of
+his hand," envied the doctor. "Lucky dog! And to get you _both_! He
+doesn't deserve it!"
+
+"But he isn't going to get us both!" Helen's eyes were twinkling, but
+her mouth showed suddenly firm lines.
+
+The doctor wheeled sharply.
+
+"What do you mean? Surely, _now_ you aren't going to--to--" He stopped
+helplessly.
+
+"He's going to get _her_--but not me."
+
+"Oh, come, come, Helen, my dear!" protested two dismayed voices.
+
+But Helen shook her head decidedly.
+
+"Listen. I've got it all planned. You said he wanted a--a sort of
+private secretary or stenographer, didn't you?"
+
+"Why, y-yes."
+
+"Well, I'm going to send Betty."
+
+"Betty!"
+
+"Certainly. She can fill the position--you needn't worry about that.
+She's eighteen, you know, and she's really very self-reliant and
+capable. She doesn't understand shorthand, of course; but she can write
+his letters for him, just the same, and in three or four languages, if
+he wants her to. She can typewrite. Mr. Reynolds got a typewriter for
+the girls long ago. And she _loves_ to fuss over old books and curios.
+She and Gladys have spent days in those old London shops."
+
+"A real Denby digger--eh?" smiled the doctor.
+
+"Yes. And I've been so glad she was interested--like her father."
+
+"But you don't mean you're going to give your daughter up," cried Mrs.
+Thayer, aghast, "and not go yourself!"
+
+"You couldn't! Besides, as if Burke would stand for that," cut in the
+doctor.
+
+"But he isn't going to know she _is_ his daughter," smiled Helen.
+
+"Not know she is his daughter!" echoed two voices, in stupefaction.
+
+"No--not yet. She'll be his private secretary. That is all. I'm relying
+on you to--er--apply for the situation for her." Helen's eyes were
+merry.
+
+"Oh, nonsense! This is too absurd for words," spluttered the doctor.
+
+"I don't think so."
+
+"His own daughter writing his letters for him, and living with him day
+by day, and he not to know it? Bosh! Sounds like a plot from a shilling
+shocker!"
+
+"Does it? Well, I ought not to mind that, ought I?--you know 'twas a
+book in the first place that set me to making myself 'swell' and
+'grand,' sir." In Helen's eyes was still twinkling mischief.
+
+"Oh, but, my dear," remonstrated Mrs. Thayer with genuine concern. "I do
+think this is impossible."
+
+The expression on Helen Denby's face changed instantly. Her eyes grew
+very grave, but luminously tender. Her lips trembled a little.
+
+"People, dear people, if you'll listen just a minute I think I can
+convince you," she begged. "I have it all planned out. Betty and I will
+go to Dalton and find a quiet little home somewhere. Oh, I shall keep
+well out of sight--never fear," she nodded, in reply to the quick doubt
+in the doctor's eyes. "Betty shall go every morning to her father's
+house, and--I'm not afraid of Betty. He will love her. He can't help it.
+And he will see how dear and sweet and good she is. Then, by and by, he
+shall know that she is his--his very own."
+
+"But--but Betty herself! Can she act her part in this remarkable
+scheme?" demanded the doctor.
+
+"She won't be acting a part. She'll just be acting herself. She is not
+to know anything except that she is his secretary."
+
+"Impossible!" ejaculated two voices.
+
+"I don't think so. Anyway, it's worth trying; and if it works it'll
+mean--everything." The last word was so low it was scarcely above a
+whisper.
+
+"But--yourself, my dear," pleaded Mrs. Thayer. "Where do you come in?
+What part have you in this--play?"
+
+The rich red surged from neck to brow. The doctor and his sister could
+see that, though they could not see Helen Denby's face. It was turned
+quite away. There was a moment's silence; then, a little breathlessly,
+came the answer.
+
+"I--don't--know. I suppose that will be--the 'curtain,' won't it?
+And--I've never been sure of the ending--yet. But--" She hesitated; then
+suddenly she turned, her eyes shining and deeply tender. "Don't you see?
+It's the only way, after all. I can't very well go up to Dalton and ring
+his doorbell and say, 'Here, behold your wife and daughter. Won't you
+please take us in?'--can I? Though at first, when I heard of his
+father's death and thought of him so lonely there, I did want to
+do--just that. But I knew that wasn't best, even before your letter came
+telling me--what he said.
+
+"But now--why, this is just what I've wanted from the first--to show
+Betty to him, some time, when he didn't dream who she was. I wanted to
+_know_ that he wasn't--ashamed of her. And this (his wanting a
+secretary) gave me a better chance than I ever thought I could have.
+Why, people, dear people, don't you see?--with this I shan't mind now
+one bit all these long, long years of waiting. Won't you help
+me--please? I can't, of course, do it without your help."
+
+The doctor threw up both his hands--his old gesture of despair.
+
+"Help you? Of course we'll help you, just as we did before--to get the
+moon, if you ask for it. I feel like a comic opera and a movie farce all
+in one; but never mind. I'll do it. Now, what is it I _am_ to do?"
+
+Helen relaxed into such radiant joyousness and relief, that she looked
+almost like the girl Burke Denby had married nineteen years before.
+
+"You dear! I knew you would!" she breathed.
+
+"Yes; but what is it?" he groaned in mock despair. "Speak out. I want to
+know the worst at once. What _am_ I to do?"
+
+"Please, you're to go up to Dalton and tell Mr. Burke Denby you think
+you've found a young woman who will make him an excellent secretary.
+Then, if he consents to try her, you're to find a little furnished
+apartment on a nice, quiet street, not too far from the Denby Mansion,
+of course, where we can live. Then I'd like a note of introduction for
+Betty to take to her father: she's the daughter of an old friend whom
+you've known for years--see?--and you are confident she will give
+satisfaction. That's all. Now, I'm sure--isn't all that quite--easy?"
+
+"Oh, very easy,--very easy, indeed!" replied the doctor, with another
+groan. "You little witch! I declare I believe you'll carry this absurd,
+preposterous thing through to a triumphant finish, after all."
+
+"Thank you. I _knew_ you wouldn't fail me," smiled Helen, with tear-wet
+eyes.
+
+"But, my dear, I don't think yet that everything is quite clear,"
+demurred Mrs. Thayer. "How about Betty? Just what does Betty know of her
+father?"
+
+A look very like fear crossed the bright face opposite. "She knows
+nothing, of course, of--of my leaving home and the cause of it. I've
+never told her anything of her father except to hold him up as a symbol
+of everything good and lovable. When she was a little girl, you know, I
+could always do anything with her by just telling her that daddy wanted
+it so."
+
+"But where does she think he is? Now that she is older, she must have
+asked some questions," murmured Mrs. Thayer.
+
+Helen shook her head. A faint smile came to her lips. "She hasn't; but
+I've been so afraid she would, and I've been dreading it always. Then
+one day Mrs. Reynolds told me something Betty said to her. Since then
+I've felt a little easier."
+
+"Does Mrs. Reynolds know who you really are?" interposed the doctor.
+
+"Yes, oh, yes. I told her long ago--even before she took me to London
+with her, in fact. I thought she ought to know. I've been so glad,
+since, that I did. It saved me from lots of awkward moments. Besides, it
+enabled her to be all the more help to me."
+
+"But what was it Betty said to her?" asked Mrs. Thayer.
+
+"Oh, yes; I didn't tell you, did I? It was this. She asked Mrs. Reynolds
+one day: 'Did you ever know my father?' And of course Mrs. Reynolds
+said, 'No.' Then Betty said: 'He is dead, you know. Oh, mother never
+told me so, in words; but I understand that he is, of course. She just
+used to say that I mustn't ask for daddy. He couldn't be with us now.
+That was all. At first, when I was little, I thought he was away on a
+journey. Then, when I got older, I realized it was just mother's
+beautiful way of putting it. So now I like to think of him as being just
+away on a journey. And of _course_ I never say anything to mother. But I
+do wish I could have known him. He must have been so fine and
+splendid!'"
+
+"The dear child!" murmured Mrs. Thayer.
+
+The doctor turned on his heel and walked over to the window abruptly.
+
+There was a moment's silence; then softly, Helen said, as she rose to
+her feet: "So you see now I'm not worrying so much for fear she will
+question me; and I shall be so happy, by and by, when she finds that
+daddy has been, after all, only on a journey."
+
+Edith Thayer, alone with her brother, after Helen Denby had gone
+upstairs, wiped her eyes.
+
+It was the doctor who spoke first.
+
+"If Burke Denby doesn't fall head over heels in love with that little
+woman and _know_ he's got the dearest treasure on earth, I--I shall do
+it myself," he declared savagely. He, too, was wiping his eyes.
+
+His sister laughed tremulously.
+
+"Well, I am in love with her--and I'm not ashamed to own it," she
+declared. "How altogether dear and charming and winsome she is! And when
+you think--what these years have done for her!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE CURTAIN RISES
+
+
+It was, indeed, quite "easy"--surprisingly so, as the doctor soon found
+out. Not without some trepidation, however, had he taken the train for
+Dalton the next morning and presented his proposition to the master of
+Denby House.
+
+"I think I've found your private secretary," he began blithely, hoping
+that his pounding heart-throbs did not really sound like a drum.
+
+"You have? Good! What's her name? Somebody you know?" questioned Burke
+Denby, with a show of interest.
+
+"Yes. She's a Miss Darling, and I've known her family for years." (The
+doctor gulped and swallowed a bit convulsively. The doctor was feeling
+that the very walls of the room must be shouting aloud his secret--but
+he kept bravely on.) "She doesn't know shorthand, but she can typewrite,
+and she's very quick at taking dictation in long hand, I fancy; and she
+knows several languages, I believe. I'm sure you'll find her capable and
+trustworthy in every way."
+
+"Very good! Sounds well, sure," smiled Burke. "And here, for my needs,
+speed and shorthand are not so necessary. I do only personal business at
+the house. What salary does she want?"
+
+So unexpected and disconcerting was this quite natural question that the
+doctor, totally unprepared for it, nearly betrayed himself by his
+confusion.
+
+"Eh? Er--ah--oh, great Scott! Why didn't they--I might have known--" he
+floundered. Then, sharply, he recovered himself. "Well, really," he
+laughed lightly, "I'm a crackerjack at applying for a job, and no
+mistake! I quite forgot to ask what salary she did expect. But I don't
+believe that will matter materially. She'll come for what is right, I'm
+sure; and you'll be willing to pay that."
+
+"Oh, yes; it doesn't matter. I'll be glad to give her a trial, anyway;
+and if she's all you crack her up to be I'll pay her _more_ than what's
+right. When can she come? Where does she live?"
+
+"Well, she's going to live here in Dalton," evaded the doctor
+cautiously. "She's not here yet; but she and her mother are
+coming--er--next week, I believe. Better not count on her beginning work
+till the first, though, perhaps. That'll be next week Thursday. I should
+think they ought to be--er--settled by that time." The doctor drew a
+long breath, much after the fashion of a man who has been crossing a bit
+of particularly thin ice.
+
+"All right. Send her along. The sooner the better," nodded Burke, the
+old listless weariness coming back to his eyes. "I certainly need--some
+one."
+
+"Oh, well, I reckon you'll have--some one, now," caroled the doctor, so
+jubilantly that it brought a frown of mild wonder to Burke Denby's
+face.
+
+Later, the doctor, still jubilant and confident, hurried down the Denby
+walk intent on finding the "modest little apartment" for Helen.
+
+"Oh, well, I don't know!" he exulted to himself, wagging his head like a
+cocksure boy. "This comic-opera-farce affair may not be so bad, after
+all. Anyhow, I've made my first exit--and haven't spilled anything yet.
+Now for scene second!"
+
+Finding a satisfactory little furnished apartment, not too far from the
+Denby home, proved to be no small task. But by sacrificing a little on
+the matter of distance, the doctor was finally enabled to engage one
+that he thought would answer.
+
+"Only she'll have to ride back and forth, I'm afraid," he muttered to
+himself, as he started for the station to take his train. "Anyhow, I'm
+glad I didn't take that one on Dale Street. She'd meet too many ghosts
+of old memories on Dale Street."
+
+Buying his paper at the newsstand in the station, the doctor himself
+encountered the ghost of a memory. But he could not place it until the
+woman behind the counter cried:--
+
+"There! I thought I'd seen you before. You come two years ago to the
+Denby fun'ral, now, didn't ye? I tell ye it takes me ter remember
+faces." Then, as he still frowned perplexedly, she explained: "Don't ye
+remember? My name's Cobb. I used ter live--" But the doctor had turned
+away impatiently. He remembered now. This was the woman who didn't
+"think much of old Denby" herself.
+
+On Monday Helen Denby and her daughter went to Dalton. At Helen's urgent
+insistence the doctor refrained from accompanying them.
+
+"I don't want you to be seen with us," Helen had protested.
+
+"But why not?" he had argued rebelliously. "I thought I was a friend of
+your family for years."
+
+"I know; but I--I just feel that I'd rather not have you with us. I
+prefer to go alone, please," she had begged. And perforce he had let her
+have her own way.
+
+It was on a beautiful day in late September that Helen Denby and her
+daughter arrived at the Dalton station. Helen, fearful either that her
+features would be recognized, or that she would betray by word or look
+her knowledge of the place, and so bring an amazed question to Betty's
+lips, had drawn a heavy veil over her face. Betty, cheerily interested
+in everything she saw, kept up a running fire of comment.
+
+"And so this is Dalton! What a funny little station--and for so big a
+place, too! It seemed to be big, as we came into it. Is Dalton a large
+town, mother?"
+
+"Why, rather large. It used to be--that is, it must be a good deal over
+fifteen thousand now, I suppose," murmured the mother, speaking very
+unconcernedly.
+
+"Then you've been here before?"
+
+Helen, realizing that already she had made one mistake, suddenly became
+convinced that safety--and certainly tranquillity of mind--lay in
+telling the truth--to a certain extent.
+
+"Oh, yes, I was here years ago. But the place is much changed, I fancy,"
+she answered lightly. "Come, dear, we'll take a taxi. But first I want a
+paper. I want to look at the advertisements for a maid, and--"
+
+She had almost reached the newsstand when, to Betty's surprise, she
+turned sharply about and walked the other way.
+
+"Why, mother, I thought you said you wanted a paper," cried Betty,
+hurrying after her and plucking at her arm.
+
+"But I didn't-- I don't-- I've changed my mind. I won't get it, after
+all, just now. I'd rather hurry right home."
+
+She spoke rapidly, almost feverishly; and Betty noticed that she engaged
+the first cabby she saw, and seemed impatiently anxious to be off. What
+she did not see, however, was that twice her mother covertly glanced
+back at the newsstand, and that her face behind the veil was gray-white
+and terrified. And what Betty did not know was that, as the taxi
+started, her mother whispered frenziedly to herself:--
+
+"That was--that was--Mrs. Cobb. She's older and grayer, but she's got
+Mrs. Cobb's eyes and nose. And the wart! I'd know that wart anywhere.
+And to think how near I came to _speaking_ to her!"
+
+It was a short drive, and Helen and her daughter were soon in the
+apartment the doctor had found for them. To Helen it looked like a haven
+of refuge, indeed. Her near encounter with Mrs. Cobb at the station had
+somewhat unnerved her. But with four friendly walls to protect her, and
+with no eyes but her daughter's in sight, Helen drew a long breath of
+relief, and threw off her veil, hat, and coat.
+
+"Oh, isn't this dear!" she exclaimed, sinking into a chair, and looking
+admiringly about the pretty rooms. "And just think--this is home, our
+home! Oh, dearie, we're going to be happy here, I'm sure."
+
+"Of course we are! And it is lovely here." The words were all right, but
+voice and eyes showed a trace of uneasiness.
+
+"Why, dearie, _don't_ you like it?" asked the girl's mother anxiously.
+
+"Yes, oh, yes; I like it all--_here_. It's only that I was thinking, all
+of a sudden, about that Mr. Denby. I was wondering if I should like it
+there--with him."
+
+"I think you will, dear."
+
+"But it'll all be so new and--and different from what I've been used to.
+Don't you see?"
+
+"Of course, my dear; but that's the way we grow--by encountering things
+new and different, you see. But come, we've got lots of things new and
+different right here that we haven't even seen yet. I'm going hunting
+for a wardrobe," finished the mother lightly, springing to her feet and
+picking up her hat and coat.
+
+It was a pretty little apartment of five rooms up one flight,
+convenient, and tastefully furnished.
+
+"I don't think even Burke could find fault with this," thought Helen, a
+bit wistfully, as her eyes lingered on the soft colorings and
+harmonious blendings of rugs and hangings. Aloud she said:--
+
+"Dear me! I feel just like a little girl with a new doll-house, don't
+you?"
+
+"Yes; and when our trunks come, and we get our photographs and things
+out, it will be lovely, won't it?"
+
+Helen, at one of the windows, gave a sudden exclamation.
+
+"Why, Betty, from this window we can see--"
+
+"See what?" cried Betty, hurrying to the window, as her mother's words
+came to an abrupt halt.
+
+"The city, dear, so much of it, and--and all those beautiful houses over
+there," stammered Helen. "See that church with the big dome, and the
+tall spire next it; and all those trees--that must be a park," she
+hurried on, pointing out anything and everything but the one big old
+colonial house with its tall pillars that stood out so beautifully fine
+and clear against the green of a wide lawn on the opposite hill.
+
+"Oh-h! what a lovely view!" exclaimed Betty, at her side. "Why, I hadn't
+noticed it at all before, but we're on a hill ourselves, aren't we?"
+
+"Yes, dear,--West Hill. That's what I think they used to call it."
+
+Helen was not at the window now. She had turned back into the room with
+almost an indifferent air. But afterwards, when Betty was busy
+elsewhere, she went again to the window and stood for long minutes
+motionless, her eyes on the big old house on the opposite hill. It was
+ablaze, now, for the last rays of the sun had set every window
+gorgeously aflame. And not until it stood again gray and cold in the
+gathering dusk did Helen turn back into the room; and then it was with
+tear-wet eyes and a long sigh.
+
+Getting settled was much the same thing that getting settled is always
+apt to be. There were the same first scrappy, unsatisfying meals, the
+same slow-emerging order from seemingly hopeless confusion, the same
+shifting of one's belongings from shelf to drawer and back again. In
+this case, however, there were only the trunks and their contents to be
+disposed of, and the getting settled was, after all, a short matter.
+
+Much to Betty's disapproval, her mother early announced her intention of
+doing without a maid.
+
+"Oh, but, mother, dear, you shouldn't. Besides, I thought you said you
+were going to have one."
+
+"I thought at first I would, but I've changed my mind. There will be
+just us two, and I'd rather have a stout woman come twice a week for the
+laundry and cleaning. With you gone all day I shall need something--to
+take up my mind."
+
+Betty said more, much more; but to no purpose. Her mother was still
+obdurate. It was then that into Betty's mind came a shrewd suspicion,
+but she did not give it voice. When evening came, however, she did ask
+some questions. It was the night before she was to go for the first time
+to take up her work.
+
+"Mother, how did we happen to come up here, to Dalton?"
+
+"Happen to come up--here?" Helen was taken by surprise. She was fencing
+for time.
+
+"Yes. What made us come here?"
+
+"Why, I--I wanted to be near to make a home for you, of course, while
+you were at work."
+
+"But why am I going to work?"
+
+Helen stirred restlessly.
+
+"Why, my dear, I've told you. I think every girl should have something
+whereby she could earn her bread, if it were necessary. And when this
+chance came, through Dr. Gleason, I thought it was just the thing for
+you to do."
+
+Indifferently Betty asked two or three other questions--immaterial,
+irrelevant questions that led her quite away from the matter in hand.
+Then, as if still casually, she uttered the one question that had been
+the purpose of the whole talk.
+
+"Mother, have we very much--money?"
+
+"Why, no, dear, not so very much. But I wouldn't worry about the money."
+
+The answer had come promptly and with a reassuring smile. But Betty
+tossed both the promptness and the reassuring smile into the limbo of
+disdain. Betty had her answer. She was convinced now. Her mother was
+poor--very poor. That was why there was to be no maid. That was why she
+herself was to go as secretary to this Mr. Denby the next day. Mother,
+poor, dear mother, was poor! As if _now_ she cared whether she liked the
+place or not! As if she would not be glad to work her fingers off for
+mother!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE PLAY BEGINS
+
+
+"I shall take you over, myself," said Helen to her daughter as they rose
+from the breakfast table that first day of October. "And I shall show
+you carefully just how to come back this afternoon; but I'm afraid I
+shall have to let you come back alone, dear. In the first place, I
+shouldn't know when you were ready; and in the second place, I shouldn't
+want to go and wait for you."
+
+"Of course not!" cried Betty. "As if I'd let you--and you don't even
+have to go with me. I can find out by asking."
+
+"No, I shall go with you." Betty noticed that her mother's cheeks were
+very pink and her eyes very bright. "Don't forget the doctor's letter;
+and remember, dear, just be--be your own dear sweet self."
+
+"Why, mother, you're--_crying_!" exclaimed the dismayed Betty.
+
+"Crying? Not a bit of it!" The head came proudly erect.
+
+"But does it mean so much to you that I--that I--that he--likes me?"
+asked Betty softly.
+
+The next moment, alarmed and amazed, she found her mother's convulsive
+arms about her, her mother's trembling voice in her ears.
+
+"It'll mean all the world to me, Betty--oh, Betty, my baby!"
+
+"Why, mother!" exclaimed the girl, aghast and shaken.
+
+But already her mother had drawn herself up, and was laughing through
+her tears.
+
+"Dear, dear, but only look at the fuss this old mother-bird is making at
+the first flight of her young one!" she chattered gayly. "Come, no more
+of this! We'll be late. We'll get ready right away. You say you have the
+letter from the doctor. Don't forget that."
+
+"No, I won't. I have it all safe," tossed the girl over her shoulder, as
+she hurried away for her hat and coat. A minute later she came back to
+find her mother shrouding herself in the black veil. "Oh, mother, dear,
+_please_! You aren't going to wear that horrid veil to-day, are you?"
+she remonstrated.
+
+"Why, yes, dear. Why not?"
+
+"I don't like it a bit. And it's so thick! I can't see a bit of _you_
+through it."
+
+"Can't you? Good!" (Vaguely Betty wondered at the almost gleeful tone of
+the voice.) "Then nobody can see my eyes--and know that I've been
+crying."
+
+"Ho! they wouldn't, anyway," frowned Betty. "Your eyes aren't red at
+all, mother."
+
+But the mother only laughed again gleefully--and fastened the veil with
+still another pin. A minute later mother and daughter left the house
+together.
+
+It was not a long ride to the foot of the street that led up the hill to
+Burke Denby's home. With carefully minute directions as to the return
+home at night, Helen left her daughter halfway up the hill, with the
+huge wrought-iron gates of the Denby driveway just before her.
+
+"And now remember everything--_everything_, dear," she faltered,
+clinging a little convulsively to her daughter's arm. "Dear, dear, but
+I'm not sure I ought to let you go--after all," she choked.
+
+"Nonsense, mumsey! Of course you ought to let me go!"
+
+"Then you must remember to tell me everything--when you come home
+to-night--_everything_. I shall want to know every single little thing
+that's happened!"
+
+"I will, dear, I will. And don't worry. I'm sure I'm going to do all
+right," comforted the girl, plainly trying to quiet the anxious fear in
+her mother's voice. "And what a beautiful old place it is!" she went on,
+her admiring eyes sweeping the handsome house and spacious grounds
+beyond the gates. "I shall love it there, I know. And I'm so glad the
+doctor got it for me. Now, don't worry!" she finished with a gay wave of
+her hand as she turned and sped up the hill.
+
+The mother, with a last lingering look and a sob fortunately smothered
+in the enshrouding veil, turned and hurried away in the opposite
+direction.
+
+Many times before Betty's return late that afternoon, Helen wondered
+that a day, just one little day, could be so long. It seemed to her that
+each minute was an hour, and each hour a day, so slowly did the clock
+tick the time away. She tried to work, to sew, to read. But there
+seemed really nothing that she wanted to do except to stand at one of
+the windows, her eyes on the massive, white-pillared old house set in
+its wide sweep of green on the opposite hill.
+
+What was happening over there? Was there a possible chance that Burke
+would question, suspect, discover--anything? How would he like--Betty?
+How would Betty like him? How would Betty do, anyway, in such a
+position? It was Betty's first experience in--in working for any one;
+and Betty--sweet and dear and loving as she was--had something of the
+Denby will and temper, as her mother had long since discovered. Betty
+was fearless and high-spirited. If she did not like--but what was
+happening over there?
+
+And what would the outcome be? After all, perhaps, as the doctor had
+said, it was something of a comic opera and farce all in one--this thing
+she was doing. Very likely the whole thing, from the first, when she ran
+away years ago, had been absurd and preposterous, just as the doctor had
+said. And very likely Burke himself, when he found out, would think so,
+too. It was a fearsome thing--to take matters in her own hands as she
+had done, and attempt to twist the thread in Fate's hands, and wrest it
+away from what she feared was destruction--as if her own puny fingers
+could deal with Destiny!
+
+And might it not be, after all, that she had been chasing a
+will-o'-the-wisp of fancied "culture" all these years? True, she no
+longer said "swell" and "grand," and she knew how to eat her soup
+quietly; but was that going to make Burke--love her? She realized now
+something of what it was that she had undertaken when she fled to the
+doctor years ago. She realized, too, that during these intervening years
+there had come to her a very real sense of what love, marriage, and a
+happy home ought to mean--and what they must mean if she were ever to be
+happy with Burke, or to make him happy.
+
+But what was taking place--over there?
+
+At ten minutes before five Betty reached home. Her mother met her
+halfway down the stairs.
+
+"Oh, Betty, you--you _are_ here!" she panted. "Now, tell me
+everything--every single thing," she reiterated, almost dragging the
+girl into the apartment, in her haste and excitement. "Don't skip
+anything--not the least little thing; for a little thing might mean so
+much--to me."
+
+"Why, mother!" exclaimed Betty, her laughing eyes growing vaguely
+troubled. "Do you really _care_ so much?"
+
+With a sudden tightening of the throat Helen pulled herself up sharply.
+She gave a light laugh.
+
+"Care? Of course I care! Don't you suppose I want to know what my baby
+has been doing all the long day away from me? Now, tell me. Sit right
+down and tell me from the beginning."
+
+"All right, I will," smiled Betty. To herself she said: "Poor mother! As
+if I wouldn't work my fingers off before I'd fail her, when she cares so
+much--when she _needs_ so much--what I earn!" Then, aloud, cheerily,
+she began:--
+
+[Illustration: "SO I RANG THE BELL."]
+
+"Well, first, I walked up that long, long walk through that beautiful
+lawn to the house; but for a minute I didn't ring the bell. It was so
+beautiful--the view from that veranda, with the sun on the reds and
+browns and yellows of the trees everywhere! Then I remembered suddenly
+that I hadn't come to make a call and admire the view, but that I was a
+business woman now. So I rang the bell. There was a lovely old brass
+knocker on the great door; but I saw a very conspicuous push-button, and
+I concluded that was for real use."
+
+"Yes, yes. And were you--frightened, dear?"
+
+"Well, 'nervous,' we'll call it. Then, as I was planning just what to
+say, the door opened and the oldest little old man I ever saw stood
+before me."
+
+"Yes, go on!"
+
+"He was the butler, I found out afterwards. They called him Benton. He
+seemed surprised, somehow, to see me, or frightened, or something.
+Anyway, he started queerly, as his eyes met mine, and he muttered a
+quick something under his breath; but all I could hear was the last,
+'No, no, it couldn't be!'"
+
+"Yes--yes!" breathed Helen, her face a little white.
+
+"The next minute he became so stiff and straight and dignified that even
+his English cousin might have envied him. I told him I was Miss Darling,
+and that I had a note to Mr. Denby from Dr. Gleason.
+
+"'Yes, Miss. The master is expecting you. He said to show you right in.
+This way, please,' he said then, pompously. And then I saw that great
+hall. Oh, mother, if you could see it! It's wonderful, and so full of
+treasures! I could hardly take off my hat and coat properly, for
+devouring a superb specimen of old armor right in front of me. Then
+Benton took me into the library, and I saw--something even more
+wonderful."
+
+"You mean your--er--Mr. Denby?" The mother's face was aglow.
+
+Betty gave a merry laugh.
+
+"Indeed, I don't! Oh, he was there, but he was no wonder, mother, dear.
+The wonder was cabinet after cabinet filled with jades and bronzes and
+carved ivories and Babylonian tablets and-- But I couldn't begin to tell
+you! I couldn't even begin to see for myself, for, of course, I had to
+say something to Mr. Denby."
+
+"Of course! And tell me--what was he--he like?"
+
+"Oh, he was just a man, tall and stern-looking, and a little gray. He's
+old, you know. He isn't young at all"--spoken with all the serene
+confidence of Betty's eighteen years. "He has nice eyes, and I imagine
+_he'd_ be nice, if he'd let himself be. But he won't."
+
+"Why, Betty, what--what do you mean?"
+
+Betty laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, mother, dear, you'd have to see him really to know. It's just
+that--that he's so used to having his own way that he takes it as a
+matter of course, as his right."
+
+"Oh, my dear!"
+
+"But he does. It shows up in everything that everybody in that house
+does. I could see that, even in this one day I was there. Benton, Sarah
+(the maid), Mrs. Gowing (the old cousin housekeeper)--even the dog and
+the cat show that they've stood at attention for Master Burke Denby all
+their lives. You just wait till I get _my_ chance. I'll show him
+somebody that isn't standing at salute all the time."
+
+"_Betty!_" There was real horror in the woman's voice this time.
+
+Again Betty's merry laugh rang out.
+
+"Don't look so shocked, dearie. I shan't do anything or say anything to
+imperil my--my job." (Betty's eyes twinkled even more merrily over the
+last word.) "It's just that I don't think any living man has a right to
+make everybody so afraid of him as Mr. Denby very plainly has done. And
+I only mean that if the occasion ever came up, I should let him know
+that I am not afraid of him."
+
+"Oh, Betty, Betty, be careful, be _careful_. I beg of you, be careful!"
+
+"Oh, I will. Don't worry," laughed the girl. "But, listen, don't you
+want me to go on with my story?"
+
+"Yes--oh, yes!"
+
+"Well, where was I? Oh, I know--just inside the library door. Very good,
+then. Ruthlessly suppressing my almost overwhelming longing to pounce
+on one of those alluring cabinets, I advanced properly and held out my
+note to Mr. Denby. As I came near I fancied that he, too, gave a slight
+start as he looked sharply into my face; and I thought I caught a real
+gleam of life in his eyes. The next instant it was gone, however (if
+indeed it had ever been there!), and he had taken my note and waved me
+politely to a chair."
+
+"Yes, go on, go on!"
+
+"Yes; well, do you know?--that's exactly what I felt like saying to
+him," laughed Betty softly. "He just glanced at the note with a low
+ejaculation; then he sat there staring at nothing for so long that I
+began to think I should scream from sheer nervousness. Then, perhaps I
+stirred a little. At all events, he turned with a start, and then is
+when I saw, for just a minute, how kind his eyes could be.
+
+"'There, there, my child, I beg your pardon,' he cried. 'I quite forgot
+you were here. Something--your eyes, I think--set me to dreaming. Now to
+business! Perhaps you'll be good enough to take some letters for me.
+You'll find pencils, pen, and paper there at your right.' And I did. And
+I began. And that's all."
+
+"All! But surely there was more!"
+
+"Not much. I took dictation in long hand for perhaps a dozen
+letters--most of them short ones. He said he was behind on his personal
+correspondence. Then he went away and left me. He goes down to his
+office at the Denby Iron Works every forenoon, I understand. Anyway,
+there I was, left in that fascinating room with all those cabinets full
+of treasures that I so longed to explore, but tied to a lot of scrawly
+notes and a typewriter. I forgot to say there was one of those
+disappearing typewriters in a desk over by the window. It wasn't quite
+like Gladys's, but the keyboard was, and I very soon got the run of it.
+
+"At one o'clock he came back. I had the letters all done, and they
+looked lovely. I was rather proud of them. I passed them over for
+him to sign, and waited expectantly for a nice little word of
+commendation--which I didn't get."
+
+"Oh, but I'm sure he didn't--didn't realize that--that--"
+
+"Oh, no, he didn't realize, of course, that this was my maiden effort at
+private secretarying," laughed Betty, a little ruefully, "and that I
+wanted to be patted on the head with a 'Well done, little girl!' He just
+shoved them back for me to fold and put in the envelopes; and just then
+Benton came to announce luncheon."
+
+"But tell me about the luncheon."
+
+"There isn't much to tell. There were just us three at the table, Mr.
+Denby, Mrs. Gowing, and myself. There was plenty to eat, and it was very
+nice. But, dear, dear, the dreariness of it! With the soup Mrs. Gowing
+observed that it was a nice day. With the chicken patties she asked if I
+liked Dalton; and with the salad she remarked that we had had an
+unusually cold summer. Dessert was eaten in utter silence. Why, mother,
+I should die if I had to spend my life in an atmosphere like that!"
+
+"But didn't Mr. Denby say--anything?"
+
+"Oh, yes. He asked me for the salt, and he gave an order to Benton. Oh,
+he's such fascinating company--he is!"
+
+At the disturbed expression on her mother's face, Betty gave a playful
+shrug. "Oh, I know, he's my respected employer, and all that," she
+laughed; "and I shall be very careful to do his bidding. Never fear! But
+that doesn't mean that I've got to love him."
+
+Helen Denby flushed a painful red.
+
+"But I wanted--I hoped you would--er--l-like him, my dear," she
+faltered.
+
+"Maybe I shall--when I get him--er--trained," retorted Betty, flashing a
+merry glance into her mother's dismayed eyes. "Don't worry, dear. I was
+a perfect angel to him to-day. Truly I was. Listen! After luncheon Mr.
+Denby brought me three or four newspapers which he had marked here and
+there; and for an hour then I read to him. And what do you think?--when
+I had finished he said, in that crisp short way of his: 'You have a good
+voice, Miss Darling. I hope you won't mind if I ask you to read to me
+often.' And of course I smiled and said no, indeed, I should be glad to
+read as often as he liked."
+
+"Of course!" beamed the mother, with so decided an emphasis that Betty
+exclaimed warningly:--
+
+"Tut, tut, now! Don't _you_ go to tumbling down and worshiping him like
+all the rest."
+
+"W-worshiping him!" Helen Denby's cheeks were scarlet.
+
+"Yes," nodded Betty, with tranquil superiority. "It isn't good for him,
+I tell you. He doesn't get anything but worship from every single one of
+those people around him. Honestly, if he should declare that the earth
+was flat, I think that ridiculous old butler and that scared cousin
+housekeeper would bow: 'Just as you say, sir, just as you say.' Humph!
+He'd better tell _me_ the world is flat, some day."
+
+"Oh, Betty! Betty!" implored Betty's mother.
+
+But Betty only went on with a merry toss of her head:--
+
+"Well, after the reading there were other letters, then some work on a
+card-index record of his correspondence. After that I came home. But,
+mother, oh, mother, only think what it'll be when we begin to catalogue
+all those treasures in his cabinets. And we're going to do it. He said
+we were. It seems as if I just couldn't wait!"
+
+"But you will be careful what you say to him, dear," begged the mother
+again, anxiously. "He wouldn't understand your mischief, dear, and
+I--I'm sure he wouldn't like it."
+
+Betty stooped to give a playful kiss.
+
+"Careful? Why, mumsey, dear, when we get at those cabinets he may tell
+me a dozen times the earth is flat, if he wants to, and I won't so much
+as blink--if I think there's any danger of my getting cheated out of
+that cataloguing!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+ACTOR AND AUDIENCE
+
+
+Helen did not go with her daughter to Denby House the second morning.
+Betty insisted that she was quite capable of taking the short trip by
+herself and Helen seemed nothing loath to remain at home. Helen never
+seemed, indeed, loath to remain at home these days--especially during
+daylight. In the evening, frequently, she went out for a little walk
+with Betty. Then was when she did her simple marketing. Then, too, was
+the only time she would go out without the heavy black veil. Betty,
+being away all day, and at home only after five o'clock, did not notice
+all these points at first. As time passed, however, she did wonder why
+her mother never would go out on Sunday. Still, Betty was too thoroughly
+absorbed in her own new experiences to pay much attention to anything
+else. Every morning at nine o'clock she left the house, eager for the
+day's work; and every afternoon, soon after five, she was back in the
+tiny home, answering her mother's hurried questions as to what had
+happened through the day.
+
+"And you're so lovely and interested in every little thing!" she
+exclaimed to her mother one day.
+
+"But I _am_ interested, my dear, in every little thing," came the quick
+answer. And Betty, looking at her mother's flushed face and trembling
+lips felt suddenly again the tightening at her throat--that her success
+or failure should mean so much to mother--dear mother who was trying so
+hard not to show how poor they were!
+
+For perhaps a week Betty reported little change in the daily routine of
+her work. She wrote letters, read from books, magazines, or newspapers,
+worked on the card-index record of correspondence, and sorted papers,
+pamphlets, and circulars that had apparently been accumulating for
+weeks.
+
+"But I'm getting along beautifully," she declared one day. "I've got
+Mrs. Gowing thawed so she actually says as many as three sentences to a
+course now. And you should see the beaming smile Benton gives me every
+morning!"
+
+"And--Mr. Denby?" questioned her mother, with poorly concealed
+eagerness.
+
+Betty lifted her brows and tossed her young head.
+
+"Well, he's improving," she flashed mischievously. "He asked for the
+salt _and_ the pepper, yesterday. And to-day he actually observed that
+he thought it looked like snow--at the table, I mean. Of course he
+speaks to me about my work through the day; but he doesn't say any more
+than is necessary. Truly, mother, dear, I'd never leave my happy home
+for _him_."
+
+"Oh, Betty, how can you say--such dreadful things!"
+
+Betty laughed again mischievously.
+
+"Don't worry, mumsey. He'll never ask me to do it! But, honestly,
+mother, I can't see any use in a man's being so stern and glum all the
+time."
+
+"Does he really act so unhappy, then?"
+
+At an unmistakable something in her mother's voice Betty looked up in
+surprise.
+
+"Why, mother, that sounded exactly as if you were _glad_ he was
+unhappy!" she exclaimed.
+
+Helen, secretly dismayed and terrified, boldly flaunted the flag of
+courage.
+
+"Did I? Oh, no," she laughed easily. "Still, I'm not so sure but I am a
+little glad: if he's unhappy, all the more chance for you to make
+yourself indispensable by helping him and making him happy. See?"
+
+"Happy!" scoffed Betty with superb disdain; "why, the man doesn't know
+what the word means."
+
+"But perhaps he has seen--a great deal of trouble, dear." The mother's
+eyes were gravely tender.
+
+"Perhaps he has. But is that any reason for inflicting it on other
+people by reflection?" demanded Betty, with all of youth's intolerance
+for age and its incomprehensible attitudes. "Does it do any possible
+good, either to himself or to anybody else, to retire behind a frown and
+a grunt, and look out upon all those beautiful things around him through
+eyes that are like a piece of cold steel? Of course it doesn't!"
+
+"Oh, Betty, how can you!" protested the dismayed mother again.
+
+But Betty, with a laugh and a spasmodic hug that ended in a playful
+little shake, retorted with all her old gay sauciness:--
+
+"Don't you worry, mumsey. I'm a perfect angel to that man." Then,
+wickedly, she added as she whisked off: "You see, I haven't yet had a
+chance to poke even one finger inside of one of those cabinets!"
+
+It was three days later that Betty, having put on her hat and coat at
+Denby House, had occasion to go back into the library to speak to her
+employer.
+
+"Mr. Denby, shall I--" she began; then fell back in amazement. The man
+before her had leaped to his feet and started toward her, his face white
+like paper.
+
+"Good God!--_you!_" he exclaimed. The next instant he stopped short, the
+blood rushing back to his face. "Oh, _Miss Darling_! I--er--I thought,
+for a moment, you were-- _What a fool!_" With the last low muttered
+words he turned and sat down heavily.
+
+Betty, to whom the whole amazing sentence was distinctly audible, lifted
+demure eyes to his face.
+
+"I beg your pardon, you said--" The sentence came to a suggestive pause.
+Into Betty's demure eyes flashed an unmistakable twinkle.
+
+The man stared, frowned, then flushed a deeper red as full comprehension
+came. He gave a grim laugh.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Darling. That epithet was meant for me--not
+you." He hesitated, his eyes still searching her face. "Strange--strange!"
+he muttered then; "but I wonder what made you suddenly look so much
+like-- Take off your hat, please," he directed abruptly. "There!" he
+exclaimed triumphantly, as Betty pulled out the pins and lifted the hat
+from her head, "that explains it--your hat! Before, when I first saw
+you, your eyes reminded me of--of some one, and with your hat on the
+likeness is much more striking. For a moment I was actually fool enough
+to think--and I forgot she must be twice your age now, too," he finished
+under his breath.
+
+Betty waited a silent minute at the door; then, apparently still
+unnoticed, she turned and left the room, pinning her hat on again in the
+hall.
+
+To her mother that afternoon she carried a jubilant countenance. "Well,
+mother, he's alive! I've found out that much," she announced merrily.
+
+"He? Who?"
+
+"Mr. Burke Denby, to be sure."
+
+"Alive! Why, Betty, what do you mean?"
+
+"He's alive--like folks," twinkled Betty. "He's got memory, a heart, and
+I _think_ a sense of humor. I'm sure he did laugh a little over calling
+me a fool."
+
+"A fool! Child, what have you done now?" moaned Betty's mother.
+
+"Nothing, dear, nothing--but put on my hat," chuckled Betty
+irrepressibly. "Listen, and I'll tell you." And she drew a vivid picture
+of the scene in the library. "There, what did I tell you?" she demanded
+in conclusion. "Did I do anything but put on my hat?"
+
+"Oh, but Betty, you mustn't, you can't--that is, you must-- I mean,
+_please_ be careful!" On Helen's face joy and terror were fighting a
+battle royal.
+
+"Careful? Of course I'm careful," cried Betty. "Didn't I stand as still
+as a mouse while he was sitting there with his beetling brows bent in
+solemn thought? And then didn't I turn without a word and pussy-step out
+of the room when I saw that he had ceased to realize that there was such
+a being in the world as little I? Indeed, I did! And not till I got out
+of doors did I remember that I had gone into that library in the first
+place to ask a question. But I didn't go back. The question would
+keep--and that was more than I could promise of his temper, if I
+disturbed him then. So I came home. But I just can't wait now to get
+back. Only think how much more interesting things are going to be now!"
+
+"Why, y-yes, I suppose so," breathed Helen, a little doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, yes, I shall be watching always for him to come alive again.
+Besides, it's so romantic! It's a love-story, of course."
+
+"Why, Betty, what an idea!" The mother's face flamed instantly scarlet.
+
+"Why, of course it is, mother. If you could have seen his face you'd
+have known that no one but somebody he cared very much for could have
+brought _that_ look to it. You see, he thought for a moment that I was
+she. Then he said, 'What a fool!' and sat down. Next he just looked at
+me; and, mother, in his eyes there were just years and years of sorrow
+all rolled into that one minute."
+
+"Were there--really?" The mother's face was turned quite away now.
+
+"Yes. And don't you see? I'm not going to mind now ever what he says and
+does, nor how glum he is; for I _know_ down inside, he's got a heart.
+And only think, _I look like her_!" finished Betty, suddenly springing
+to her feet, and whirling about in ecstasy. "Oh, it's so exciting, isn't
+it?"
+
+But her mother did not answer. She did not seem to have heard, perhaps
+because her back was turned. She had crossed the room to the window.
+Betty, following her, put a loving arm about her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, and, mother, look!" she exclaimed eagerly. "I was going to tell
+you. I discovered it last Sunday. You can see the Denby House from here.
+Did you know it? It's so near dark now, it isn't very clear, but there's
+a light in the library windows, and others upstairs, too. See? Right
+through there at the left of that dark clump of trees, set in the middle
+of that open space. That's the lawn, and you can just make out the tall
+white pillars of the veranda. See?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I see. Yes, so you can, can't you?"
+
+Helen's voice was light and cheery, and carefully impersonal, carrying
+no hint of her inward tumult, for which she was devoutly thankful.
+
+In spite of her high expectations, Betty came from Denby House the next
+afternoon with pouting lips.
+
+"He's just exactly the same as ever, only more so, if anything," she
+complained to her mother. "He dictated his letters, then for an hour, I
+think, he just sat at his desk doing nothing, with his hand shielding
+his eyes. Twice, though, I caught him looking at me. But his eyes
+weren't kind and--and human, as they were yesterday. They were their
+usual little bits of cold steel. He went off then to his office at the
+Works (he said he was going there), and he never came home even to
+luncheon. I didn't have half work enough to do, and--and the cabinets
+were locked. I tried them. At four he came in, signed the letters, said
+good-afternoon and stalked upstairs. And that's the last I saw of him."
+
+Nightly, after this, for a time, Betty gave forth what she called the
+"latest bulletin concerning the patient":--
+
+"No change."
+
+"Sat up and took notice."
+
+"Slight rise in temper."
+
+"Dull and listless."
+
+Such were her reports. Then came the day when she impressively announced
+that the patient showed really marked improvement. He asked her to pass
+not only the salt and the pepper, but the olives.
+
+"And, indeed, when you come to think of it," she went on with mock
+gravity, "there's mighty little else he can ask me to pass, in the way
+of making voluntary conversation; for Benton and Sarah do everything
+almost, except lift the individual mouthfuls for our consumption."
+
+"Oh, Betty, Betty!" protested her mother.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know--that was dreadful, wasn't it, dearie?" laughed Betty
+contritely. "But you see I have to be so still and proper up there that
+home becomes a regular safety-valve; and you know safety-valves are
+necessary--absolutely necessary."
+
+Helen, gazing with fond, meditative eyes at the girl's bright face, drew
+a tremulous sigh.
+
+"Yes, I know, dear; but, you see, I'm so--afraid."
+
+"You shouldn't be--not with a safety-valve," retorted Betty. "But,
+really," she added, turning back laughingly, "there is one funny thing:
+he never stays around now when there's any chance of his seeing me with
+my hat on again. I've noticed it. Every single night since that time he
+did see me a week ago, he's bade me his stiff good-afternoon and gone
+upstairs _before_ I'm ready to leave."
+
+"Betty, really?" cried Helen so eagerly that Betty wheeled and faced her
+with a mischievous laugh.
+
+"Who's interested _now_ in Mr. Burke Denby's love-story?" she
+challenged. But her mother, her hands to her ears, had fled.
+
+It was the very next afternoon that Betty came home so wildly excited
+that not for a full five minutes could her startled mother obtain
+anything like a lucid story of the day. Then it came.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know, dear, of course you can't make anything out of what I
+say. But listen. I'll begin at the beginning. It was like this: This
+morning he had only a few letters for me. Then, in that tired voice he
+uses most of the time, he said: 'I think perhaps now, we might as well
+begin on the cataloguing. Everything else is pretty well caught up.' I
+jumped up and down and clapped my hands, and--"
+
+"You did _what_?" demanded her mother aghast.
+
+Betty's nose wrinkled in a saucy little grimace.
+
+"Oh, I mean _inside of me_. _Outside_ I just said, 'Yes, sir,' or 'Very
+well, Mr. Denby,' or something prim and proper like that.
+
+"Well, then he showed me huge drawers full of notes and clippings in a
+perfectly hopeless mass of confusion, and he unlocked one of the
+cabinets and took out the dearest little squat Buddha with diamond eyes,
+and showed me a number on the base. 'There, Miss Darling,' he began
+again in that tired voice of his, 'some of these notes and clippings are
+numbered in pencil to correspond with numbers like these on the curios;
+but many of them are not numbered at all. Unfortunately, many of the
+curios, too, lack numbers. All you can do, of course, is to sort out the
+papers by number, separating into a single pile all those that bear no
+number. I shall have to help you about those. You won't, of course, know
+where they go. I may have trouble myself to identify some of them.
+Later, after the preliminary work is done, each object will be entered
+on a card, together with a condensed tabulation of when and where I
+obtained it, its age, history--anything, in short, that we can find
+pertaining to it. The thing to do first, however, is to go through these
+drawers and sort out their contents by number."
+
+"Having said this (still in that weary voice of his), he put back the
+little Buddha,--which my fingers were just tingling to get hold
+of,--waved his hand toward the drawers and papers, and marched out of
+the room. Then I set to work."
+
+"But what did you do? How did you do it? What were those papers?"
+
+"They were everything, mumsey: clippings from magazines and papers and
+sales catalogues of antiques, typewritten notes, and scrawls in long
+hand telling when and where and how Mr. Burke Denby or his father had
+found this or that thing. But what a mess they were in! And such a lot
+of them without the sign of a number!
+
+"First, of course, I took a drawer and sorted the numbers into little
+piles on the big flat library table. Some of them had ten or a dozen,
+all one number. That work was very easy--only I did so want to read
+every last one of those notes and clippings! But of course I couldn't
+stop for that then. But I did read some of the unnumbered ones, and
+pretty quick I found one that I just knew referred to the little
+diamond-eyed Buddha Mr. Denby had taken out of the cabinet. I couldn't
+resist then. I just had to go and get it and find out. And I did--and it
+was; so I put them together on the library table.
+
+"Then I noticed in the same cabinet a little old worn toby jug--a
+shepherd plaid--about the oldest and rarest there is, you know; and I
+knew I had three or four unnumbered notes on toby jugs--and, sure
+enough! three of them fitted this toby; and I put _them_ together, with
+the jug on top, on the library table. Of course I was wild then to find
+some more. In the other cabinets that weren't unlocked, I could see,
+through the glass doors, a lot more things, and some of them, I was
+sure, fitted some of my unnumbered notes; but of course they didn't do
+me any good, as I couldn't get at them. One perfectly beautiful Oriental
+lacquered cabinet with diamond-paned doors was full of tablets, big and
+little, and I was crazy to get at those-- I had a lot of notes about
+tablets. I did find in my cabinet, though, a little package of Chinese
+bank-notes, and I was sure I had something on those. And I had. I knew
+about them, anyway. I had seen some in London. These dated 'way back to
+the Tang dynasty--sixth century, you know--and were just as smooth!
+They're made of a kind of paper that crumples up like silk, but doesn't
+show creases. They had little rings printed on them of different sizes
+for different values, so that even the ignorant people couldn't be
+deceived, and--"
+
+"Yes, yes, dear, but go on--go on," interrupted the eager-eyed mother,
+with a smile. "I want to know what happened _here_--not back in the
+sixth century!"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," breathed Betty; "but they were _so_
+interesting--those things were! Well, of course I put the bank-notes
+with their clippings on the table; then I began on another drawer. It
+got to be one o'clock very soon, and Mr. Denby came home to luncheon. I
+wish you could have seen his face when he entered the library and saw
+what I had done. His whole countenance lighted up. Why, he looked
+actually handsome!--and he's forty, if he's a day! And there wasn't a
+shred of tiredness in his voice.
+
+"Then when he found the bank-notes and the Buddha and the toby jug with
+the unnumbered clippings belonging to them, he got almost as excited as
+I was. And when he saw how interested I was, he unlocked the other
+cabinets--and how we did talk, both at once! Anyhow, whenever I stopped
+to get my breath he was always talking; and I never could wait for him
+to finish, there was so much I wanted to ask.
+
+"Poor old Benton! I don't know how many times he announced luncheon
+before it dawned over us that he was there at all; and he looked
+positively apoplectic when we did turn and see him. I don't dare to
+think how long we kept luncheon waiting. But everything had that flat,
+kept-hot-too-long taste, and Benton and Sarah served it with the air of
+injured saints. Mrs. Gowing showed meek disapproval, and didn't make
+even one remark to a course--but perhaps, after all, that was because
+she didn't have a chance. You see, Mr. Denby and I talked all the time
+ourselves."
+
+"But I thought he--he never talked."
+
+"He hasn't--before. But you see to-day he had such a lot to tell me
+about the things--how he came by them, and all that. And every single
+one of them has got a story. And he has such wonderful things! After
+luncheon he showed them to me--some of them: such marvelous bronzes and
+carved ivories and Babylonian tablets. He's got one with a real
+thumb-print on it--think of it, a thumb-print five thousand years old!
+And he's got a wonderful Buddha two thousand years old from a Chinese
+temple, and he knows the officer who got it--during the Boxer Rebellion,
+you know. And he's got another, not so old, of Himalayan Indian wood,
+exquisitely carved, and half covered with jewels.
+
+"Why, mother, he's traveled all over the world, and everywhere he's
+found something wonderful or beautiful to bring home. I couldn't begin
+to tell you, if I talked all night. And he seemed so pleased because I
+was interested, and because I could appreciate to some extent, their
+value."
+
+"I can--imagine it!" There was a little catch in Helen Denby's voice,
+but Betty did not notice it.
+
+"Yes, and that makes me think," she went on blithely. "He said such a
+funny thing once. It was when I held in my hand the Babylonian tablet
+with the thumb-mark. I had just been saying how I wished the little
+tablet had the power to transport the holder of it back to a vision of
+the man who had made that thumb-print, when he looked at me so queerly,
+and muttered: 'Humph! they _are_ more than potatoes to you, aren't
+they?' Potatoes, indeed! What do you suppose made him say that? Oh, and
+that is when he asked me, too, how I came to know so much about jades
+and ivories and Egyptian antiques."
+
+"What did you tell him?"
+
+At the startled half terror in her mother's voice Betty's eyes widened.
+
+"Why, that I learned in London, of course, with you and Gladys and Miss
+Hughes, poking around old shops there--and everywhere else that we could
+find them, wherever we were. _You_ know how we used to go 'digging,' as
+Gladys called it."
+
+"Yes, I know," subsided the mother, a little faintly.
+
+"Well, we worked all the afternoon--_together!_--Mr. Denby and I did.
+What do you think of that?" resumed Betty, after a moment's pause. "And
+not once since this morning have I heard any tiredness in Mr. Burke
+Denby's voice, if you please."
+
+"But how--how long is this going to take you?"
+
+"Oh, ages and ages! It can't help it. Why, mother, there are such a lot
+of them, and such a whole lot about some of them. Others, that he
+doesn't know so much about, we're going to look up. He has lots of books
+on such things, and he's buying more all the time. Then all this stuff
+has got to be condensed and tabulated and put on cards and filed away.
+But I love it--every bit of it; and I'm so excited to think I've really
+begun it. And he's every whit as excited as I am, mother. Listen! He
+actually forgot all about running away to-night before I put on my hat.
+And I never thought of it till just as I was pinning it on. He had
+followed me out into the hall to tell me something about the old armor
+in the corner; then, all of a sudden, he stopped--_off--short_, just
+like that, and said, 'Good-night, Miss Darling,' in his old stiff way.
+As he turned and went upstairs I caught sight of his face. I knew then.
+It was the hat. I had reminded him again of--_her_. But I shan't mind,
+now, if he is stern and glum sometimes--not with a Babylonian tablet or
+a Chinese Buddha for company. Oh, mother, if you could see those
+wonderful things. But maybe sometime you will. I shouldn't wonder."
+
+"Maybe sometime--I--will!" faltered the mother, growing a little white.
+"Why, Betty, what do you mean?"
+
+"Why, I mean, maybe I can take you sometime-- I'll ask Mr. Denby by and
+by, after we get things straightened out, if he won't let me bring you
+some day to see them."
+
+"Oh, no, no, Betty, don't--_please_ don't! I--I couldn't think of such a
+thing!"
+
+Betty laughed merrily.
+
+"Why, mumsey, you needn't look so frightened. They won't bite you. There
+aren't any of those things _alive_, dear!"
+
+"No, of course not. But I'm--I'm sure I--I wouldn't be able to
+appreciate them at all."
+
+"But in London you were _trying_ to learn to be interested in such
+things," persisted Betty, still earnestly. "Don't you know? You said you
+_wanted_ to learn to like them, and to appreciate them."
+
+"Yes, I know. But I'm sure I wouldn't like to--to trouble Mr.
+Denby--here," stammered the mother, her face still very white.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+"THE PLOT THICKENS"
+
+
+It was shortly before Christmas that Frank Gleason ran up to Dalton. He
+went first to see Burke Denby.
+
+Burke greeted him with hearty cordiality.
+
+"Hullo, Gleason! Good--you're just in time for dinner. But where's your
+bag? You aren't going back to-night!"
+
+"No, but I am to-morrow morning, very early, so I left my grip at the
+hotel. Yes, yes, I know--you'd have had me here, and routed the whole
+house up at midnight," he went on laughingly, shaking his head at
+Burke's prompt remonstrations, "if I but said the word. But I'm not
+going to trouble you this time. I'll be delighted to stay to dinner,
+however,--if I get an invitation," he smiled.
+
+"An invitation! As if you needed an invitation for--anything, in this
+house," scoffed Denby. "All mine is thine, as you know very well."
+
+"Thanks. I've half a mind to put you to the test--say with that pet
+thumb-marked tablet of yours," retorted the doctor, with a lift of his
+eyebrows. "However, we'll let it go at a dinner this time.--You're
+looking better, old man," he said some time later, as they sat at the
+table, his eyes critically bent on the other's face.
+
+"I am better."
+
+"Glad to hear it. How's business?"
+
+"Very good--that is, it _was_ good. I haven't been near the Works for a
+week."
+
+"So? Not--sick?"
+
+"Oh, no; busy." There was the briefest of pauses; then, with
+disconcerting abruptness, came the question: "Where'd you get that girl,
+Gleason?"
+
+"G-girl?" The doctor wanted a minute to think. Incidentally he was
+trying to swallow his heart--he thought it must be his heart--that big
+lump in his throat.
+
+"Miss Darling."
+
+"Miss Darling! Oh!" The doctor waved his hand inconsequently. He still
+wanted time. He was still swallowing at that lump. "Why, she--she--I
+told you. She's the daughter of an old friend. Why, isn't she all
+right?" He feigned the deepest concern.
+
+"_All right!_"
+
+Voice and manner carried a message of satisfaction that was
+unmistakable. But the doctor chose to ignore it. The doctor felt himself
+now on sure ground. He summoned a still deeper concern to his
+countenance.
+
+"Why, Denby, you don't mean she _isn't_ all right? What's the trouble?
+Isn't she capable?--or don't you like her ways?"
+
+"But I mean she _is_ all right, man," retorted the other impatiently.
+"Why, Gleason, she's a wonder!"
+
+Gleason, within whom the Hallelujah Chorus had become such a shout of
+triumph that he half expected to see Burke Denby cover his ears,
+managed to utter a cool--
+
+"Really? Well, I'm glad, I'm sure."
+
+"Well, she is. She's no ordinary girl." ("If Helen could but hear that!"
+exulted the doctor to himself.) "Why, what do you think? She can
+actually tell _me_ some things about my own curios!"
+
+"Then they are more than--er--potatoes to her? You know you said--"
+
+"Yes, I know I did. But just hear this. In spite of her seeming
+intelligence and capability, I'd been dreading to open those cabinets
+and let her touch those things dad and I had spent so many dear years
+together gathering. But, of course, I knew that that was silly. One of
+my chief reasons for getting her was the cataloguing; and it was absurd
+not to set her at it. So one day, after everything else was done, I
+explained what I wanted, and told her to go ahead."
+
+"Well, and--did she?" prompted the doctor, as the other paused.
+
+"She did--_exactly_ that. She went ahead--'way ahead of what I'd told
+her to do. Why, when I got home, I was amazed to see what she'd done.
+But best of all was her interest and her enthusiasm, and the fact that
+she knew and appreciated what they were. You see that's one of the
+things I'd been dreading--her ignorance--her indifference; but I dreaded
+more that she might gush and say, 'Oh, how pretty!' And I knew if she
+did I'd--I'd want to knock her down."
+
+"So glad--she didn't!" murmured the doctor.
+
+His host laughed shamefacedly.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know. That was rather a strong statement. But you see I felt
+strongly. And then to find-- But, Gleason, she really is a wonder. We're
+working together now-- _I'm_ working. As I said, I haven't been to the
+office for a week."
+
+"Is she agreeable--personally?"
+
+"Yes, very. She's pleasant and cheerful, bright, and very much of a
+lady. She's capable, and has uncommon good sense. Her voice, too, is
+excellent for reading. In short, she is, as I told you, a wonder; and
+I'm more than indebted to you for finding her. Let's see, you say you do
+know her family?"
+
+Gleason got suddenly to his feet.
+
+"Yes, oh, yes. Good family, too! Now I'm sorry to eat and run, as the
+children say, but I'll have to, Burke, to-night. One or two other little
+matters I'll have to attend to before I sleep. But, as I said a few
+minutes ago, I'm glad to see you in better spirits. Keep on with the
+good work."
+
+The doctor seemed nervous, and anxious to get away; and in another
+minute the great outer door had closed behind him.
+
+"Hm-m! Wonder what's his rush," puzzled Burke Denby, left standing in
+the hall.
+
+There was a slight frown on his face. But in another minute it was gone:
+he had remembered suddenly that he had promised Miss Darling that he
+would try to find certain obscure data regarding the tablet they had
+been at work upon that afternoon. It was just as well, perhaps, after
+all, that the doctor had had to leave early--it would give more time for
+work.
+
+With an eager lifting of his head Burke Denby turned and strode into the
+library.
+
+Meanwhile, hurrying away from Denby House was the doctor, his whole self
+a Hallelujah Chorus of rejoicing. His countenance was still aglow with
+joy when, a little later, he rang the bell of a West Hill
+apartment-house suite bearing the name, "Mrs. Helen Darling."
+
+To his joy he found Helen alone; but hardly had he given her a hasty
+account of his visit to Burke Denby, and assured her that he was
+positive everything was working out finely, when Betty came in from the
+corner grocery store, breezy and smiling.
+
+"Oh, it's Dr. Gleason!" she welcomed him. "Now, I'm glad mother didn't
+go with me to-night, after all,--for we'd both been out then, and we
+shouldn't have seen you."
+
+"Which would have been my great loss," bowed the man gallantly, his
+approving eyes on Betty's glowing face.
+
+"Oh, but ours, too,--especially mine," she declared. "You see, I've been
+wishing you'd come. I wanted to thank you."
+
+"To thank me?"
+
+"Yes; for finding this lovely place for me."
+
+"You like it, then?"
+
+"I love it. Why, Dr. Gleason, you have no idea of the wonderful things
+that man-- But you said you knew him," she broke off suddenly. "Don't
+you know him?"
+
+"Oh, yes, very well."
+
+"Then you've been there, of course."
+
+"Many times."
+
+"Oh, how silly of me!" she laughed. "As if I could tell _you_ anything
+about antiques and curios! But hasn't he some beautiful things?"
+
+"He has, indeed. But how about the man? You haven't told me at all how
+you like Mr. Denby himself."
+
+Betty glanced at her mother with a roguish shrug.
+
+"Well, as I tell mother, now that I've got him trained, he does very
+well."
+
+"My _dear_!" murmured her mother.
+
+"Trained?" The question was the doctor's.
+
+"Yes. You see at first he was such a bear."
+
+"Oh, Betty!" exclaimed her mother, in very genuine distress.
+
+But Betty plainly was in one of her most mischievous moods. With another
+merry glance at her mother she turned to the doctor.
+
+"It's only this, doctor. You see, at first he was so silent and solemn,
+and Benton and Sarah and Mrs. Gowing were so scared, and the whole house
+was so scared and silent and solemn, that it seemed some days as if I
+should scream, just to make a little excitement. But it's all very
+different now. Benton and Sarah are all smiles, Mrs. Gowing actually
+laughs sometimes, and the only trouble is there isn't time enough for
+Mr. Denby to get in all the talking he wants to."
+
+"Then Mr. Denby seems happier?"
+
+"Oh, very much. Of course, at first it was just about the work--we're
+cataloguing the curios; but lately it's been in other ways. Why, the
+other day he found I could play and sing a little, and to-day he asked
+me to sing for him. And I did."
+
+Helen sat suddenly erect in her chair.
+
+"Sing? You sang for Mr. Denby?" she cried, plainly very much agitated.
+"But you hadn't told me--that!"
+
+"I hadn't done it till this afternoon, just before I came home," laughed
+Betty.
+
+"But what did you sing? Oh, you--you didn't sing any of those foolish,
+nonsensical songs, did you?" implored Helen, half rising from her chair.
+
+"But I did," bridled Betty. Then, as her mother fell back dismayed, she
+cried: "Did you suppose I'd risk singing solemn things to a man who had
+just learned to laugh?"
+
+"But, _ragtime_!" moaned Helen, "when he's always hated it so!"
+
+"'Always hated it so'!" echoed Betty, with puzzled eyes. "Why, I hadn't
+played it before, dearie. I hadn't played anything!"
+
+"No, no, I--I mean always hated everything gay and lively _like_
+ragtime," corrected Helen, her cheeks abnormally pink, as she carefully
+avoided the doctor's eyes. "Why didn't you play some of your good music,
+dear?"
+
+"Oh, I did, afterwards, of course,--MacDowell and Schubert, and that
+lullaby we love. But he liked the ragtime, too, all right. I know he
+did. Besides, it just did me good to liven up the old house a bit. I
+know Benton was listening in the hall, and I'm positive Sarah and the
+cook had the dining-room door open. As for Mrs. Gowing, she--dear old
+soul--just sat and frankly cried. And the merrier I sang, the faster the
+tears rolled down her face--but it was for joy. I could see that. And
+once I heard her mutter: 'To think that ever again I should hear music
+and laughter--_here_!' Dr. Gleason, did Mr. Denby ever love somebody
+once, and do I look like her?"
+
+Taken utterly by surprise, the doctor, for one awful minute, floundered
+in appalled confusion. It was Helen this time who came to the rescue.
+
+"I shall tell the doctor he needn't answer that question, Betty," she
+said, with just a shade of reproval in her voice. "If he did know of
+such a thing, do you think he ought to tell you, or anybody else?"
+
+Betty laughed and colored a little.
+
+"No, dear, of course not. And I shouldn't have asked it, should I?"
+
+"But what makes you think he has?" queried the doctor, with very much
+the air of a small boy who is longing yet fearing to investigate the
+reason for the non-explosion of a firecracker.
+
+"Because he said twice that I reminded him of some one, particularly
+with my hat on; and both times, afterward, he looked so romantic and
+solemn"--Betty's eyes began to twinkle--"that I thought maybe I was on
+the track of a real, live love-story, you see. But he hasn't said
+anything about it lately; so perhaps I was mistaken, after all. You see,
+really, he's quite like folks, now, since we've been working on the
+curios."
+
+"And how are you getting along with those?"
+
+"Very well, only it's slow, of course. There is such a mass of material,
+and so much to look up and study up besides. We're just getting it
+together and tabulating it now on temporary sheets. We shan't begin the
+real cataloguing on the final cards until we have all our material in
+hand, Mr. Denby says."
+
+"But you aren't getting tired of it?"
+
+"Not a bit! I love it--even the digging after dates. I'm sure _you_ can
+understand that," she smiled.
+
+"Yes, I can understand that," he smiled back at her. And now, for the
+first time for long minutes, he dared to look across the room into Helen
+Denby's eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+COUNTER-PLOTS
+
+
+In thinking it over afterwards Burke Denby tried to place the specific
+thing that put into his mind that most astounding suggestion. He knew
+very well the precise moment of the inception of the idea--it had been
+on Christmas night as he sat before the fire in his gloomy library. But
+what had led to it? Of just what particular episode concerning his
+acquaintance with this girl had he been thinking when, like a blinding
+flash out of the dark, had leaped forth those startling words?
+
+He had been particularly lonely that evening, perhaps because it was
+Christmas, and he could not help comparing his own silent fireside with
+the gay, laughter-filled, holly-trimmed homes all about him. Being
+Christmas, he had not had even the divertisement of his secretary's
+presence--companionship. Yes, it was companionship, he decided. It could
+not but be that when she brought so much love and enthusiasm to the
+work, as well as the truly remarkable skill and knowledge she displayed.
+And she was, too, such a charming girl, so bright and lovable. The house
+had not been the same since she came into it. He hoped he might keep
+her. He should not like to let her go--now. But if only she could be
+there all the time! It would be much easier for _her_--winter storms
+were coming on now; and as for him--he should like it very much. The
+evenings were interminably long sometimes. He wondered if, after all, it
+might not be arranged. There was a mother, he believed. They lived in an
+apartment on West Hill. But she could doubtless be left all right, or
+she might even come, too, if it were necessary. Surely the house was
+large enough, and she might be good company for his cousin. And it would
+be nice for the daughter. It might, indeed, be a very suitable
+arrangement all around.
+
+Of course, if he had a wife and daughter of his own, he would not have
+to be filling his house with strangers like this. If Helen had not--
+Curious, too, how the girl was always making him think of Helen--her
+eyes, especially when she had on her hat, and little ways she had--
+
+It came then, with an electric force that brought him to his feet with
+almost a cry:--
+
+"What if she were--maybe she _is_--your daughter!"
+
+As he paced the room feverishly, Burke Denby tried to bring the chaos of
+thoughts into something like order.
+
+It was absurd, of course. It could not be. And yet--there were her eyes
+so like Helen's, and the way she had of pushing back her hair, and of
+lifting her chin when she was determined about something. There were,
+too, actually some little things in her that reminded him of--himself.
+And surely her remarkable love and aptitude for the work she was doing
+for him now ought to mean--something.
+
+But could it be? Was it _possible_? Would Helen do such a fantastic
+thing--send him his own daughter like this? And the doctor--this girl
+had been introduced by him. Then he, too, must be in the plot. "A
+daughter of an old friend." Yes, that might be. But would Gleason lend
+himself to such a wild scheme? It seemed too absurd to be possible. And
+yet--
+
+His mind still played with the idea.
+
+Just what did he know about this young woman? Very little. What if,
+after all, it were Dorothy Elizabeth? And it might be, for all he _knew_
+to the _contrary_. She was about the right age, he should judge--his
+little girl would be eighteen--by now. Her name was Elizabeth; she had
+told him that, at the same time saying that she was always called
+"Betty." There was a mother--but he had never heard the girl mention her
+father. And they had dropped, as it were, right out of a clear sky into
+Dalton, and into his life. Could it be? Of course it really was too
+absurd; but yet--
+
+With a sudden setting of his jaws the man determined to put his
+secretary through a course of questions, the answers to which would
+forever remove all doubt, one way or another. If at the onset of the
+questioning she grew suddenly evasive and confused, he would have his
+answer at once: she was his daughter, and was attempting to keep the
+knowledge from him until such time as her mother should wish to let the
+secret out. On the other hand, even if she were not confused or evasive
+as to her answers, she still might be his daughter--and not know of the
+relationship. In which case his questions, of course, must be carried to
+the point where he himself would be satisfied. Meanwhile he would think
+no more about it; and, above all, he would keep his thoughts from
+dwelling on what it would be if--she were.
+
+Having reached this wise decision, Burke Denby tossed his half-smoked
+cigar into the fire and attempted to toss as lightly the whole subject
+from his mind--an attempt which met with sorry success.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Burke Denby plumed himself that he was doing his questioning most
+diplomatically when, the next morning, he began to carry out his plans.
+With almost superhuman patience he had waited until the morning letters
+were out of the way, and until he and his secretary were working
+together over sorting the papers in a hitherto unopened drawer.
+
+"Did you have a pleasant Christmas, Miss Darling?" Careless as was his
+apparent aim, it was the first gun of his campaign.
+
+"Yes, thank you, very pleasant."
+
+"I didn't. Too quiet. A house needs young people at Christmas. If only I
+had a daughter now--" He watched her face closely, but he could detect
+no change of color. There was only polite, sympathetic interest. "Let me
+see, you live with your mother, I believe," he finished somewhat
+abruptly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you lived in Dalton long?"
+
+"Only since October, when I came to you."
+
+"Do you like it here?"
+
+"Oh, yes, very well."
+
+"Still, not so well as where you came from, perhaps," he smiled
+pleasantly.
+
+Betty laughed.
+
+"But I came--from so many places."
+
+"That so?"
+
+"Paris, Berlin, London, Genoa,--mostly London, of late."
+
+"But you are American born!"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"I thought so. Still, it is a little singular, having been gone so long,
+that you are so American in your speech and manner. You aren't a bit
+English, Miss Darling."
+
+Betty laughed again merrily.
+
+"How mother would love to hear you say that!" she cried. "You see,
+mother was so afraid I would be--English, or something foreign--educated
+as I was almost entirely across the water. But we were with Americans
+all the time, and our teachers, except for languages, were Americans,
+whenever possible."
+
+"Hm-m; I see. And now you are here in America again. And does your
+mother like it--here?"
+
+"Why, I think so."
+
+"And does she like Dalton, too? Perhaps she has been here before,
+though." The casual way in which the question was put gave no
+indication of the way the questioner was holding his breath for the
+answer.
+
+"Oh, yes. She was here several years ago, she says."
+
+"Indeed!" To Burke Denby it was as if something within him had suddenly
+snapped. He relaxed in his chair. His eyes were still covertly searching
+Betty's serene face bent over her work. Within himself he was saying:
+"Well, _she_ doesn't know, whatever it is." Aloud he resumed: "And were
+you, too, ever here?"
+
+"Why, yes; but I don't remember it. I was only a year or two old, mother
+said."
+
+The man almost leaped from his chair. Then, sternly, he forced himself
+to work one full minute without speaking. A dozen agitated questions
+were clamoring for utterance, but he knew better than to give them
+voice. With a cheery casualness of manner, that made him inordinately
+proud of himself, he said:--
+
+"Well, I certainly am glad you came now. I'm sure I don't know what I
+should have done, if you hadn't. But, by the way, how did you happen to
+come to me?" Again he held his breath.
+
+"Why, through Dr. Gleason. You knew that!"
+
+"Yes, but I know only that. You never did--exactly this sort of work
+before, did you?"
+
+"No--oh, no. But there has to be a beginning, you know; and mother says
+she thinks every girl ought to know how to do something, so that she
+can support herself if it is necessary. And in our case I think--it is
+necessary."
+
+Low as the last words were, the man's sensitively alert ear caught them.
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"I mean--I think mother is--is poor, and is trying to keep it from me."
+The words came with all the impetuosity of one who has found suddenly a
+sympathetic ear for a long-pent secret. "I can see it in so many
+ways--not keeping a maid, and being so--so anxious that I shall do well
+here. And--and she doesn't seem natural, some way, lately. She's
+unhappy, or something. And she goes out so little--almost never, except
+in the evening."
+
+"She doesn't care to--to see people, perhaps." By a supreme effort Burke
+Denby hid the fever of excitement and rejoicing within him, and toned
+his voice to just the right shade of solicitous interest.
+
+"No, she doesn't," admitted Betty, with a long sigh. Then, impulsively,
+she added: "She seems so very afraid of meeting people that I've
+wondered sometimes if maybe she had old friends here and--and didn't
+want to meet them because--perhaps, her circumstances were changed now.
+That isn't like mother, but-- Oh, I shouldn't say all this to you, Mr.
+Denby. I--I didn't think, really. I spoke before I thought. You seemed
+so--interested."
+
+"I am interested, my dear--Miss Darling," returned the man, not quite
+steadily. "I--I think I should like to know--your mother."
+
+"She's lovely."
+
+"Are you--like her?" He had contrived to throw into his eyes a merry
+challenge--against her taking this as she might take it.
+
+But Betty was too absorbed to be flippant, or even merrily
+self-conscious.
+
+"Why, I don't know, but I don't think so--except my eyes. Every one says
+my eyes _are_ like hers."
+
+Burke Denby got suddenly to his feet and walked quite across the room.
+Apparently he was examining a rare old Venetian glass Tear Vase,
+especially prized by him for its associations. In reality he was trying
+to master the tumult within him. He had now not one remaining doubt.
+This stupendous thing was really so. She was his Elizabeth; his--Betty.
+Yet there remained still one more test. He must ask about her--father.
+And for this he must especially brace himself: he could imagine what
+Helen must have taught her--of him.
+
+Very slowly, the vase still unconsciously clutched in his hand, Burke
+Denby walked back to the table and sat down.
+
+"Well, as I said, I should like to see your mother," he smiled. "I feel
+that I know her already. But--your father; I don't think you have told
+me a thing about your father yet."
+
+A rapt wistfulness came to the girl's face.
+
+"Father! Oh, but I never stop talking when I get to telling of him. You
+see, I never knew him."
+
+"No?"
+
+Infinite longing and tenderness were coming into the man's eyes.
+
+"But I know _about_ him. Mother has told me, you see. So I know just how
+fine and noble and splendid he was, and--"
+
+"_Fine--he--was?_" The words, as they fell from Burke Denby's dry lips
+were barely audible.
+
+"Oh, yes. You see, all the way, ever since I could remember, daddy has
+been held up to me as so fine and splendid. Why, I learned to hold my
+fork--and my temper!--the way daddy would want me to. And there wasn't a
+song or a sunset or a beautiful picture that I wasn't told how daddy
+would have loved it. Mother was always talking of him, and telling me
+about him; so I feel that I know him, just as if he were alive."
+
+"As--if--he--_were_--alive!" Burke Denby half started from his chair,
+his face a battle-ground for contending emotions.
+
+"Yes. But he isn't, you see. He died many, many years ago."
+
+There was the sudden tinkling of shattered glass on a polished floor.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Denby!" exclaimed Betty in consternation. "Your beautiful
+vase!"
+
+The man, however, did not even glance at the ruin at his feet. Still, he
+must have realized what he had done, thought Betty, for, as he crossed
+to his desk and sat down heavily, she heard him mutter:--
+
+"To think I _could_ have been--such a fool!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+ENIGMAS
+
+
+Not until Burke Denby became convinced that Miss Elizabeth Darling was
+not his daughter did he realize how deeply the thought that she might be
+had taken hold of his very life--how closely entwined in his affections
+she had become. From the first minute the electrifying idea of her
+possible relationship had come to him, he had (in spite of his
+determination to the contrary) reveled in pictures of what his home
+would be with a daughter like that to love--and to love him. Helen, too,
+was in the pictures--true, a vague, shadowy Helen, yet a Helen idealized
+and glorified by the remorseful repentance born of a bunch of worn
+little diaries. Then to have the beautiful vision shattered by one word
+from the girl's own lips--and just when he had attained the pinnacle of
+joyous conviction that she was, indeed, his little girl of the long
+ago--it seemed as though he could not bear it.
+
+And, most anguishing of all, there was no chance that there was a
+mistake. Even if the incongruity of her description of her father as
+applied to himself could be explained away, there was yet the
+insurmountable left. With his own ears he had heard her say that her
+father was dead--had been dead for many years. That settled it, of
+course. There could be no mistake about--death.
+
+After the first stunning force of the disappointment, there came to
+Burke Denby the reaction--in the case of Burke Denby a characteristic
+reaction. It became evident, to some extent, the very next day. For the
+first time in weeks he did not work with his secretary over the
+cataloguing at all during the day. He dictated his letters, then left at
+once for his office at the Works. At luncheon he relapsed into his old
+stern silence; and in the afternoon, beyond giving a few crisp
+directions, he showed no interest in Betty's work, absenting himself
+most of the time from the room.
+
+Yet not in the least was all this consciously planned on his part. He
+felt simply an aversion to being with this girl. Even the sight of her
+bright head bent over her work gave him a pang, the sound of her voice
+brought bitterness. Above all, he dreaded a glance from her
+eyes--Helen's eyes, that had lured him for a brief twenty-four hours
+into a fool's paradise of thinking they might, indeed, be--Helen's eyes.
+
+Burke was grievously disappointed, ashamed, and angry; and being
+accustomed always to acting exactly as he felt, he acted now--as he
+felt. He was grievously disappointed that his brief dream of a daughter
+in his home should have come to naught. He was ashamed that he should
+have allowed himself to be deluded into such a dream, and angry that the
+thing had so stirred him--that he could be so stirred by the failure of
+so absurd and preposterous a supposition to materialize into fact.
+
+As the days passed, matters became worse rather than better. Added to
+his disappointment and chagrin there came to be an unreasoning wrath
+that this girl was not his daughter, together with a rebellion at his
+lonely life, and an overmastering self-pity that he should be so abused
+of Fate. It was then that he began systematically to avoid, so far as
+was possible, being with the girl at all, save for the necessary
+dictation and instructions. This was the more easily accomplished, as
+the cataloguing now had almost arrived at the stage where it was a mere
+matter of copying and tabulating the mass of material already carefully
+numbered to correspond with the equally carefully numbered curios in the
+cabinets.
+
+In spite of it all, however, Burke Denby knew, in his heart, that he was
+becoming more and more fond of this young girl, more and more interested
+in her welfare, more and more restless and dissatisfied when not in her
+presence, more and more poignantly longing to make her his daughter by
+adoption, now that it was settled beyond question that she was not his
+by the ties of flesh and blood. Outwardly, however, he remained the
+stern, unsmiling man, silent, morose, and anything but delightful as a
+daily companion.
+
+To Betty he had become the unsolvable enigma. That this most unhappy
+change should have been brought about by the breaking of the Venetian
+Tear Vase, she could not believe--valuable and highly treasured as it
+was; yet, as she looked back, the change seemed to have dated from the
+moment of the vase's shattering on the library floor, the day after
+Christmas.
+
+At first she had supposed the man's sudden reversion to gloom and
+silence was a mere whim of the mind or a passing distemper of the body.
+But when day after day brought no light to his eye, no smile to his lip,
+no elasticity to his step, she became seriously disturbed, particularly
+as she could not help noticing that he no longer worked with her; that
+he no longer, in fact, seemed to want to remain in the library even to
+hear her read to him.
+
+She was sorely troubled. Not only did she miss the pleasure and stimulus
+of his presence and interest in the work, but she feared lest in some
+way she had disappointed or offended him. She began to question herself
+and to examine critically her work.
+
+She could find nothing. Her work had been well done. She knew that.
+There was absolutely no excuse for this sudden taciturn aloofness on his
+part. After all, it was probably nothing more than what might be
+expected of him--a going back to his usual self. Without doubt the
+strange thing was, not that he was stern and silent and morose now, but
+that, for a brief golden period, he had come out of his shell and acted
+like a human being. Doubtless it was under the sway of his interest in
+his curios, and his first delight at seeing them being brought into
+something like order, that he had, for a moment, as it were, stirred
+into something really human. And his going back to his original sour
+unpleasantness now was merely a reversion to first principles.
+
+That it should be so vexed Betty not a little.
+
+And when they were having such a good time! Surely, for a man that
+_could_ be so altogether charming and delightful to be habitually so
+extremely undesirable and disagreeable was most exasperating. And he had
+been such good company! How kind he had been, too, when she had told him
+so much of her own life and home! How interested he had shown himself to
+be in every little detail, just as if he really cared. And now--
+
+With a tense biting of her lip Betty reproached herself bitterly for
+being so free to tell of her own small affairs. She ought to have known
+that any interest a man like that could show was bound to be superficial
+and insincere. What a pity she should lose, for once, her reserve! Well,
+at least she had learned her lesson. Never again would she be guilty of
+making a confidant of Mr. Burke Denby, no matter how suave and
+human-like he might elect to become for some other brief week in the
+future!
+
+To her mother Betty said very little of all this. True, at the first, in
+her surprise at the remarkable change in her employer's attitude, she
+had told her mother of his reversion to gloom and sternness; but it had
+seemed to worry and disturb her mother so much that Betty had stopped at
+once. And always since then she had avoided speaking of his continued
+disagreeableness, and skillfully evaded answering pertinent questions.
+She told herself that she realized, of course, it was because her mother
+was so fearful that something would happen that this fine position, with
+the generous pay, should be lost. Dear mother--who thought she was
+hiding so shrewdly the fact of how poor they were!
+
+There was something else that Betty did not tell her mother, also, and
+that was of her first peculiar and annoying experience with the woman at
+the newsstand at the station. It was about two weeks after Christmas
+that Betty had first seen the woman. Mr. Denby had asked her to go
+around by the station on her way home and purchase for him the December
+issue of "Research." He said it was not a very popular magazine, and
+that the woman was one of the few agents in town who kept it for sale.
+There was an article on Babylonian tablets in the December number, and
+he wished to see it.
+
+The station was not very far from her home, and Betty was glad to do the
+errand, of course; but when she arrived at the newsstand she found a
+most offensive person who annoyed her with questions--a large woman with
+unpleasantly prominent eyes and a wart on her chin.
+
+"Yes, Miss, I've got the magazine right here," she said with alacrity,
+in reply to Betty's request. "But, say, hain't I seen you before
+somewheres?"
+
+Betty shook her head.
+
+"I don't think so," she smiled. "At least, I do not remember seeing you
+anywhere."
+
+"Well, don't you come here often, to the station, or somethin'?"
+persisted the woman.
+
+"No, I have never been here before--except the day I arrived in town
+last September."
+
+"H-m; funny!" frowned the woman musingly. "I'm a great case fur faces,
+an' I don't very often make a mistake. I could swear I'd seen you
+somewheres."
+
+Betty smiled and shook her head again, as she turned away with her
+magazine.
+
+Twice after that Mr. Denby had sent her to this same newsstand for a
+desired periodical; and on both occasions the woman had been cheerfully
+insistent in her questions, and in her reiterations that somewhere she
+certainly had seen her, as she never made mistakes in faces.
+
+"An' yer workin' fur Burke Denby on the hill, ain't ye?" she asked at
+last.
+
+Betty colored.
+
+"I am working for Mr. Denby--yes."
+
+"H-m; like him?"
+
+"If you'll give me my change, please," requested Betty then, the flush
+deepening on her cheeks. "I am in some haste."
+
+The woman laughed none too pleasantly.
+
+"You don't want ter answer, an' I ain't sayin' I wonder," she chuckled.
+"He's a queer bug, an' no mistake, an' I don't wonder ye don't like
+him."
+
+"On the contrary, I like him very much," flashed Betty, hurriedly
+catching up her magazine, and almost snatching the coins from the
+woman's hand, in her haste to be away.
+
+Betty had not told her mother of these encounters. More and more plainly
+Betty was seeing how keenly averse to meeting people her mother was, and
+how evasive she was in her answers to the questions the market-men
+sometimes put to her. Instinctively Betty felt that these questions of
+the newsstand woman would distress her mother very much; so Betty kept
+them carefully to herself.
+
+The conviction that her mother was fearful of meeting old friends in
+Dalton was growing on Betty these days, and it disturbed her greatly.
+Moreover she did not like a certain growing restless nervousness in her
+mother's manner, nor did she like the increasing pallor of her mother's
+cheek. Something, somewhere, was wrong. Of this Betty became more and
+more strongly convinced. Nor did a little episode that took place late
+in January tend to weaken this belief.
+
+They had gone to market--Betty and her mother. Lured by an attractive
+"ad," they had gone farther from home than usual, and were in a store
+not often visited by them. They had given their order and turned to go,
+when suddenly Betty found herself whisked about by her mother's frantic
+clutch on her arm and led swiftly quite across the store to the opposite
+door. There, still impelled by that unyielding clutch on her arm, she
+found herself dodging in and out of the throngs of customers on their
+way to the street outside. Even there their pace did not slacken until
+they were well around the corner of the block.
+
+"Why, mother," panted Betty then, laughing, "I should think you were
+running away from all the plagues of Egypt."
+
+"I--I was--worse than the plagues of Egypt," laughed her mother, a bit
+hysterically.
+
+"Why, mother!" cried Betty, growing suddenly alert and anxious.
+
+"There, there, dear, it was nothing. Never mind!" declared her mother.
+But even as she spoke she looked back fearfully over her shoulder.
+
+"But, mother, what _was_ it?"
+
+"Nothing. Just a--a woman I didn't want to see. I used to know her years
+ago, and she was--such a talker! We wouldn't have got home to-night."
+
+"But we shan't now--if we keep on this way," laughed Betty uneasily, her
+troubled eyes on her mother's face. "We're going in quite the opposite
+direction from home."
+
+"Dear, dear, so we are! We must have turned the wrong way when we came
+out from the store."
+
+"Yes, we--did," agreed Betty. Her words were light--but the troubled
+look had not left her eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING
+
+
+It was on a gray morning early in February that Betty found her employer
+pacing the library from end to end like the proverbial caged lion. When
+he turned and spoke, she was startled at the look on his face--a worn,
+haggard look that told of sleeplessness--and of something else that she
+could not name.
+
+He ignored her conventional morning greeting.
+
+"Miss Darling, I want to speak to you."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Denby."
+
+"Will you come here to live--as my daughter?"
+
+"Will I--what?" The amazement in Betty's face was obviously genuine.
+
+"You are surprised, of course; and no wonder. I didn't exactly what you
+call 'break it gently,' did I? And I forgot that you haven't been
+thinking of this thing every minute for the last--er--month, as I have.
+Won't you sit down, please." With an abrupt gesture he motioned her to a
+chair, and dropped into one himself. "I can't, of course, beat about the
+bush now. I want you to come here to this house and be a daughter to me.
+Will you?"
+
+"But, _Mr. Denby_!"
+
+"'This is so sudden!' Yes, I know," smiled the man grimly. "That's what
+your face says, and no wonder. It may seem sudden to you--but it is not
+at all so to me. Believe me, I have given it a great deal of thought. I
+have debated it--longer than you can guess. And let me tell you at once
+that of course I want your mother to come, too. That will set your mind
+at rest on that point."
+
+"But I--I don't think yet that I--I quite understand," faltered the
+girl.
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"I can't understand yet why--why you want me. You see, I--I have thought
+lately that--that you positively disliked me, Mr. Denby." Her chin came
+up with the little determined lift so like her mother.
+
+With a jerk Burke Denby got to his feet and resumed his nervous stride
+up and down the room.
+
+"My child,"--he turned squarely about and faced her,--"I want you. I
+need you. This house has become nothing but a dreary old pile of horror
+to me. You, by some sweet necromancy of your own, have contrived to make
+the sun shine into its windows. It's the first time for years that there
+has been any sun--for me. But when you go, the sun goes. That's why I
+want you here all the time. Will you come? Of course, you understand I
+mean adoption--legally. But I don't want to dwell on that part. I want
+you to _want_ to come. I want you to be happy here. Won't you come?"
+
+Betty drew in her breath tremulously. For a long minute her gaze
+searched the man's face.
+
+"Well, Miss Betty?" There was a confident smile in his eyes. He had the
+air of a man who has made a certain somewhat dreaded move, but who has
+no doubt as to the outcome.
+
+"I'm afraid I--can't, Mr. Denby."
+
+"You--_can't_!"
+
+Betty, in spite of her very real and serious concern and anxiety, almost
+laughed at the absolute amazement on the man's face.
+
+"No, Mr. Denby."
+
+"May I ask why?" There was the chill of ice in his voice.
+
+Again Betty felt the almost hysterical desire to laugh. Still her face
+was very grave.
+
+"You-- I-- In the end you would not want me, Mr. Denby," she faltered,
+"because I--I should not be--happy here."
+
+"May I ask why--_that_?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Miss Darling, why wouldn't you be happy here?"
+
+Genuine distress came into Betty's face.
+
+"I would rather not say, Mr. Denby."
+
+"But I prefer that you should."
+
+"I can't. You would think me--impertinent."
+
+"Not if I tell you to say it, Miss Betty. Why can't you be happy here?
+You know very well that you would have everything that money could buy."
+
+"But what I want is something--money can't buy."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+No reply.
+
+"Miss Darling, what do you mean?"
+
+With a sudden fierce recklessness the girl turned and faced him.
+
+"I mean _that_--just that--what you did now, and a minute ago. The way
+you have of--of expecting everybody and everything to bend to your will
+and wishes. Oh, I know, it's silly and horrible and everything for me to
+say this. But you _made_ me do it. I told you it was impertinent! Don't
+you see? I'd have to have love and laughter and sympathy and interest
+and--and all that around me. I _couldn't_ be happy here. This house is
+like a tomb, and you--sometimes you are jolly and kind and--and _fine_.
+But I never know _how_ you're going to be. And I'd die if I had to worry
+and fret and fear all the time how you _were_ going to be! Mr. Denby,
+I--I couldn't live in such a place, and mother couldn't either. And I--
+Oh, what have I said? But you made me do it, you made me do it!"
+
+For one long minute there was utter silence in the room. Burke Denby, at
+the library table, sat motionless, his hand shading his eyes. Betty, in
+her chair, wet her lips and swallowed convulsively. Her eyes were
+frightened--but her chin was high.
+
+Suddenly he stirred. His hand no longer shaded his face. Betty, to her
+amazement, saw that his lips were smiling, though his eyes, she knew,
+were moist.
+
+"Betty, my dear child, I thought before that I wanted you. I know now
+I've _got_ to have you."
+
+Betty, as if the smile were contagious, found her own lips twitching.
+
+"What--do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that your fearless little tirade was just what I needed, my
+dear. I _have_ expected everything and everybody to bend to my will and
+wishes. I suspect that's what's been the matter, too, all the way up. I
+thought once, long ago, I'd learned my lesson. But it seems I haven't.
+Here I am up to the same old tricks again. Will you come and--er--train
+me, Betty? I will promise to be very docile."
+
+Betty did laugh this time--and the tension snapped. "Train"--the very
+word with which she had shocked her mother weeks before!
+
+"Seriously, my dear,"--the man's face was very grave now,--"I want you
+to talk this thing over with your mother. I am a lonely old man--yes,
+old, in spite of the fact that I'm barely forty--I feel sixty! I want
+you, and I need you, and--notwithstanding your unflattering opinion of
+me, just expressed--I believe I can make you happy, and your mother,
+too. She shall have every comfort, and you shall have love and laughter
+and sympathy and interest, I promise you. Now, isn't your heart
+softening just a wee bit? _Won't_ you come?"
+
+"Why, of course, I--appreciate your kindness, Mr. Denby, and"--Betty
+drew a tremulous breath and looked wistfully into the man's pleading
+eyes--"it would be lovely for--mother, wouldn't it? She wouldn't have to
+worry any more, or--or--"
+
+Burke Denby lifted an imperative hand. His face lighted. He sprang to
+his feet and spoke with boyish enthusiasm.
+
+"The very thing! Miss Darling, I want you to go home and bring your
+mother back to luncheon with you. Never mind the work," he went on, as
+he saw her quick glance toward his desk. "I don't want to work. I
+couldn't--this morning. And I don't want you to. I want to see your
+mother. I want to tell her--many things--of myself. I want her to see
+me, and see if she thinks she could give you to me as a daughter, and
+yet not lose you herself, but come here with you to live."
+
+"But I--I could tell her this to-night," stammered Betty, knowing still
+that, in spite of herself, she was being swept quite off her feet by the
+extraordinary enthusiasm of the eager man before her.
+
+"I don't want to wait till to-night. I want to see her now.
+Besides,"--he cocked his head whimsically with the confident air of one
+who knows his point is gained,--"I want a magazine, and I forgot to ask
+you to get it for me last night. I want the February 'Research.' So
+we'll just let it go that I'm sending you to the station newsstand for
+that. Incidentally, you may come back around by your mother's place and
+bring her with you. There, now surely you won't object to--to running an
+errand for me!" he finished triumphantly.
+
+"No, I surely can't object to--to running an errand for you," laughed
+Betty, as she rose to her feet, a pretty color in her face. "And
+I--I'll try to bring mother."
+
+It was in a tumult of excitement and indecision that Betty hurried down
+the long Denby walk that February morning. What would her mother say?
+How would she take it? Would she consent? Would she consent even to go
+to luncheon--she who so seldom went anywhere? It was a wonderful
+thing--this proposal of Mr. Denby's. It meant, of course,--everything,
+if they accepted it, a complete metamorphosis of their whole lives and
+future. It could not help meaning that. But would they be happy there?
+Could they be happy with a man like Mr. Denby? To be sure, he said he
+would be willing to be--trained. (Betty's face dimpled into a broad
+smile somewhat to the mystification of the man she chanced to be meeting
+at the moment.) But would he be really kind and lovable like this all
+the time? He had been delightful once before--for a few days. What
+guaranty had they that he would not again, at the first provocation,
+fall back into his old glum unbearableness?
+
+But what would her mother say? Well, she would soon know. She would get
+the magazine, then hurry home--and find out.
+
+It was between trains at the station, and the waiting-room was deserted.
+Betty hurriedly told the newsstand woman what she wanted, and tried to
+assume a forbidding aspect that would discourage questions. But the
+woman made no move to get the magazine. She did not seem even to have
+heard the request. Instead she leaned over the counter and caught
+Betty's arm in a vise-like grip. Her face was alight with joyous
+excitement.
+
+"Well, I am glad to see you! I've been watchin' ev'ry day fur you. What
+did I tell ye? _Now_ I guess you'll say I know when I've seen a face
+before! _Now_ I know who you are. I see you with your mother at Martin's
+grocery last Sat'day night, and I tried ter get to ye, but I lost ye in
+the crowd. I see _you_ first, then I see her, and I knew then in a
+minute who you was, and why I'd thought I'd seen ye somewheres. I
+hadn't--not since you was a kid, though; but I knew yer mother, an'
+you've got her eyes. You're Helen Denby's daughter. My, but I'm glad ter
+see ye!"
+
+Betty, plainly distressed, had been attempting to pull her arm away from
+the woman's grasp; but at the name a look of relief crossed her face.
+
+"You are quite mistaken, madam," she said coldly. "My mother's name is
+not Helen Denby."
+
+"But I see her myself with my own eyes, child! Of course she's older
+lookin', but I'd swear on my dyin' bed 'twas her. Ain't you Dorothy
+Elizabeth?"
+
+Betty's eyes flew wide open.
+
+"You--know--my--_name_?"
+
+"There! I knew 'twas," triumphed the woman. "An' ter think of you comin'
+back an' workin' fur yer father like this, an'--"
+
+"My--_what_?"
+
+It was the woman's turn to open wide eyes of amazement.
+
+"Do you mean to say you don't know Burke Denby is your father?"
+
+"But he isn't my father! My father is dead!"
+
+"Who said so?"
+
+"Why, mother--that is--I mean--she never said-- What do you mean? He
+can't be my father. My mother's name is Helen Darling!" Betty was making
+no effort to get away now. She was, indeed, clutching the woman's arm
+with her free hand.
+
+The woman scowled and stared. Suddenly her face cleared.
+
+"My Jiminy! so that's her game! She's keepin' it from ye, I bet ye," she
+cried excitedly.
+
+"Keeping it from me! Keeping what from me? What are you talking about?"
+Betty's face had paled. The vague questions and half-formed fears
+regarding her mother's actions for the past few months seemed suddenly
+to be taking horrible shape and definiteness.
+
+"Sakes alive! Do you mean ter say that you don't know that Burke Denby
+is your father, an' that he give your mother the go-by when you was a
+kid, an' she lit out with you an' hain't been heard of since?"
+
+"No, no, it can't be--it can't be! My father was good and fine, and--"
+
+"Rats! Did she stuff ye ter that, too? I tell ye _'tis_ so. Say, look
+a-here! Wa'n't you down ter Martin's grocery last Sat'day night at nine
+o'clock?"
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+"Well, wa'n't you there with yer mother?"
+
+"Y-yes." A power entirely outside of herself seemed to force the answers
+from Betty's lips.
+
+"Well, I see ye. You was tergether, talkin' to the big fat man with the
+red nose. I started towards ye, but I lost ye in the crowd."
+
+Betty's face had grown gray-white. She remembered now. That was the
+night her mother had run away from--something.
+
+"But I knew her," nodded the woman. "I knew she was Helen Denby."
+
+"But maybe you were--mistaken."
+
+"Mistaken? Me? Not much! I don't furgit faces. You ask yer mother if she
+don't remember Mis' Cobb. Didn't I live right on the same floor with her
+fur months? Hain't yer mother ever told ye she lived here long ago?"
+
+Betty nodded dumbly, miserably.
+
+"Well, I lived next to her, and I knew the whole thing--how she got the
+letter tellin' her ter go, an' the money Burke Denby sent her--"
+
+"Letter! Money! You mean he wrote her to--go--away? He _paid_ her?" The
+girl had become suddenly galvanized into blazing anger.
+
+"Sure! That's what I'm tellin' ye. An' yer mother went. I tried ter stop
+her. I told her ter go straight up ter them Denbys an' demand her
+rights--an' _your_ rights. But she wouldn't. She hadn't a mite o' spunk.
+Just because he was ashamed of her she--"
+
+"Ashamed of her! _Ashamed_ of my mother!"--if but Helen Denby could have
+seen the flash in Betty's eyes!
+
+"Sure! She wa'n't so tony, an' her folks wa'n't grand like his, ye know.
+That's why old Denby objected ter the marriage in the first place. But,
+say, didn't you know any of this I'm tellin' ye? Jiminy! but it does
+seem queer ter be tellin' ye yer own family secrets like this--an' you
+here workin' in his very home, an' not knowin' it, too. If that ain't
+the limit--like a regular story-book! Now, I ain't never one ter butt in
+where 'tain't none of my affairs, but I've got ter say this. You're a
+Denby, an' ought ter have some spunk; an' if I was you I'd brace right
+up an'-- Here, don't ye want yer magazine? What are ye goin' ter do?"
+
+But the girl was already halfway across the waiting-room.
+
+If Betty's thoughts and emotions had been in a tumult on the way to the
+station, they were in a veritable chaos on the return trip. She did not
+go home. She turned her steps toward the Denby Mansion; and because she
+knew she could not possibly sit still, she walked all the way.
+
+So this was the meaning of it--the black veil daytimes, the walks only
+at night, the nervous restlessness, the unhappiness. Her mother _had_
+had something to conceal, something to fear. Poor mother--dear
+mother--how she must have suffered!
+
+But why, _why_ had she come back here and put her into that man's home?
+And why had she told her always how fine and noble and splendid her
+father was. Fine! Noble! Splendid, indeed! Still, it was like
+mother,--dear mother,--always so sweet and gentle, always seeing the
+good in everything and everybody! But why had she put her there--in that
+man's house? How could she have done it?
+
+And Burke Denby himself--did he know? Did he suspect that she was his
+daughter? Adopt her, indeed! Was _that_ the way he thought he could pay
+her mother back for all those years? And the grief and the hurt and the
+mortification--where did they come in? Ashamed of her! _Ashamed of her,
+indeed!_ Why, her little finger was as much finer and nobler and-- But
+just wait till she saw him, that was all!
+
+Like the overwrought, half-beside-herself young hurricane of
+wrathfulness that she was, Betty burst into the library at Denby House a
+few minutes later.
+
+The very sight of her face brought the man to his feet.
+
+"Why, Betty, what's the matter? Where's your mother? Couldn't she come?
+What is the matter?"
+
+"Come? No, she didn't come. She'll never come--never!"
+
+Before the blazing wrath in the young eyes the man fell back limply.
+
+"Why, Betty, didn't you tell her--"
+
+"I've told her nothing. I haven't seen her," cut in the girl crisply.
+"But I've seen somebody else. I know now--everything!"
+
+From sheer stupefaction the man laughed.
+
+"Aren't we getting a little--theatrical, my child?" he murmured mildly.
+
+"You needn't call me that. I refuse to recognize the relationship," she
+flamed. "Perhaps we are getting theatrical--that woman said it was like
+a story-book. And perhaps you thought you could wipe it all out by
+adopting me. Adopting me, indeed! As if I'd let you! I can tell you it
+isn't going to _end_ like a story-book, with father and mother and
+daughter--'and they all lived happily ever after'--because I won't let
+it!"
+
+"What do you mean by that?" The man's face had grown suddenly very
+white.
+
+Betty fixed searching, accusing eyes on his countenance.
+
+"Are you trying to make me think you don't know I'm your daughter;
+that--"
+
+"Betty! Are you really, really--my little Betty?"
+
+At the joyous cry and the eagerly outstretched arms Betty shrank back.
+
+"Then you _didn't_ know--that?"
+
+"No, no! Oh, Betty, Betty, is it true? Then it'll all be right now. Oh,
+Betty, I'm so glad," he choked. "My little girl! Won't you--come to me?"
+
+She shook her head and retreated still farther out of his reach. Her
+eyes still blazed angrily.
+
+"Betty, dear, hear me! I don't know-- I don't understand. It's all too
+wonderful--to have it come--_now_. Once, for a little minute, the wild
+thought came to me that you might be. But, Betty, you yourself told me
+your father was--dead!"
+
+"And so he is--to me," sobbed Betty. "You aren't my father. My father
+was good and true and noble and--you--"
+
+"And your mother _told_ you that?" breathed the man, brokenly. "Betty,
+I--I-- Where is she? Is she there--at home--now? I want to--see her!"
+
+"I shan't let you see her." Betty had blazed again into unreasoning
+wrath. "You don't deserve it. You told her you were ashamed of her.
+_Ashamed of her!_ And she's the best and the loveliest and dearest
+mother in the world! She's as much above and beyond anything you--you--
+_Why_ she let me come to you I don't know. I can't think why she did it.
+But now I--I--"
+
+"Betty, if you'll only let me explain--"
+
+But the great hall door had banged shut. Betty had gone.
+
+Betty took a car to her own home. She was too weak and spent to walk.
+
+It was a very white, shaken Betty that climbed the stairs to the little
+apartment a short time later.
+
+"Why, Betty, darling!" exclaimed her mother, hurrying forward. "You are
+ill! Are you ill?"
+
+With utter weariness Betty dropped into a chair.
+
+"Mother, why didn't you tell me?" she asked dully, heartbrokenly. "Why
+did you let me come here and go to that house day after day and not
+know--anything?"
+
+"Why, what--what do you mean?" All the color had drained from Helen
+Denby's face.
+
+"Did you ever know a Mrs. Cobb?"
+
+"That woman! Betty, she hasn't--has she been--talking--to you?"
+
+Betty nodded wearily.
+
+"Yes, she's been talking to me, and-- Oh, mother, mother, _why_ did you
+come here--_now_?" cried Betty, springing to her feet in sudden frenzy
+again. "How could you let me go there? And only to-day--this morning, he
+told me he wanted to adopt me! And you--he was going to have us both
+there--to live. He said he was so lonely, and that I--I made the sun
+shine for the first time for years. And afterwards, when I found out
+_who_ he was, I thought he meant it as a salve to heal all the
+unhappiness he'd caused you. I thought he was trying to _pay_; and I
+told him--"
+
+"You _told_ him! You mean you've seen him since--Mrs. Cobb?"
+
+"Yes. I went back. I told him--"
+
+"Oh, Betty, Betty, what are you saying?" moaned her mother. "What have
+you done? You didn't tell him _that_ way!"
+
+"Indeed I did! I told him I knew--everything now; and that he needn't
+think he could wipe it out. And he wanted to see you, and I said he
+couldn't. I--"
+
+An electric bell pealed sharply through the tiny apartment.
+
+"Mother, that's he! I know it's he! Mother, don't let him in," implored
+Betty. But her mother already was in the hall.
+
+Betty, frightened, despairing, and angry, turned her back and walked to
+the window. She heard the man's quick cry and the woman's sobbing
+answer. She heard the broken, incoherent sentences with which the man
+and the woman attempted to crowd into one brief delirious minute all the
+long years of heartache and absence. She heard the pleading, the
+heart-hunger, the final rapturous bliss that vibrated through every tone
+and word. But she did not turn. She did not turn even when some minutes
+later her father's voice, low, unsteady, but infinitely tender, reached
+her ears.
+
+"Betty, your mother has forgiven me. Can't--you?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Betty, dear, he means--we've forgiven each other, and--if _I_ am happy,
+can't you be?" begged Betty's mother, tremulously.
+
+Still no answer.
+
+"Betty," began the woman again pleadingly.
+
+But the man interposed, a little sadly:--
+
+"Don't urge her, Helen. After all, I deserve everything she can say, or
+do."
+
+"But she doesn't understand," faltered Helen.
+
+The man shook his head. A wistful smile was on his lips.
+
+"No, she doesn't--understand," he said. "It's a long road
+to--understanding, dear. You and I have found it so."
+
+"Yes, I know." Helen's voice was very low.
+
+"And there are sticks and stones and numberless twigs to trip one's
+feet," went on the man softly. "And there are valleys of despair and
+mountains of doubt to be encountered--and Betty has come only a little
+bit of the way. Betty is young."
+
+"But"--it was Helen's tremulous voice--"it's on the mountain-tops
+that--that we ought to be able to see the end of the journey, you know."
+
+"Yes; but there are all those guideboards, remember," said the man, "and
+Betty hasn't come to the guideboards yet--regret--remorse--forgiveness--
+patience, and--atonement."
+
+There was a sudden movement at the window. Then Betty, misty-eyed, stood
+before them.
+
+"I know I am--on the mountain of doubt now, but"--she paused, her gaze
+going from one to the other of the wondrously glorified faces before
+her--"I'll try so hard to see--the end of the journey," she faltered.
+
+"Betty!" sobbed two adoring voices, as loving arms enfolded her.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING***
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