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diff --git a/39434.txt b/39434.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..52cf60d --- /dev/null +++ b/39434.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6095 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vistas of New York, by Brander Matthews + +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/license + + +Title: Vistas of New York + +Author: Brander Matthews + +Release Date: April 12, 2012 [EBook #39434] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VISTAS OF NEW YORK *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: See page 7 + +"WHAT THEY CALL THE FRONT HALL-BEDROOM"] + + +[Illustration: Vistas + +of + +New York] + +BY + +BRANDER MATTHEWS + +AUTHOR OF +"VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN" +"OUTLINES IN LOCAL COLOR," ETC. + +ILLUSTRATED + +[Illustration] + +NEW YORK AND LONDON + +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS +1912 + +COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HARPER & BROTHERS + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PUBLISHED MARCH, 1912 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +I. A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 1 + +II. ON THE STEPS OF THE CITY HALL 35 + +III. "SISTERS UNDER THEIR SKINS" 55 + +IV. UNDER AN APRIL SKY 71 + +V. AN IDYL OF CENTRAL PARK 99 + +VI. IN A HANSOM 123 + +VII. THE FROG THAT PLAYED THE TROMBONE 139 + +VIII. ON AN ERRAND OF MERCY 159 + +IX. IN A BOB-TAIL CAR 177 + +X. IN THE SMALL HOURS 189 + +XI. HER LETTER TO HIS SECOND WIFE 205 + +XII. THE SHORTEST DAY IN THE YEAR 229 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"WHAT THEY CALL THE FRONT HALL-BEDROOM" _Frontispiece_ + +"I'M SURE HE'D RATHER TALK TO YOU, MY +DEAR; SO YOU TWO CAN RUN ALONG TOGETHER" _Facing p._ 104 + +THIS YEAR THE GIRLS WERE PRETTIER THAN +USUAL " 128 + +"I WENT TO SEE THE WOMAN MY FRIEND +LOVED" " 148 + +"MY! AIN'T IT AWFUL? IT BLEW HIS LEGS +OFF!" " 170 + +SHE FLUNG HERSELF INTO HIS ARMS " 226 + + + + +NOTE + + +In one of those romances in which Hawthorne caught the color and +interpreted the atmosphere of his native New England, he declared that +"destiny, it may be, the most skillful of stage managers, seldom chooses +to arrange its scenes and carry forward its drama without securing the +presence of at least one calm observer." It is the character of this +calm observer that the writer has imagined himself to be assuming in the +dozen little sketches and stories garnered here into a volume. They are +snapshots or flashlights of one or another of the shifting aspects of +this huge and sprawling metropolis of ours. + +In purpose and in method these episodes and these incidents of the urban +panorama are closely akin to the experiments in story-telling which were +gathered a few years ago into the pair of volumes entitled _Vignettes of +Manhattan_ and _Outlines in Local Color_. The earliest of these stories +in this third volume--replevined here from another collection long out +of print--was written more than a quarter of a century ago; and the +latest of them first saw the light only within the past few months. To +each of the dozen sketches the date of composition has been appended as +evidence that it was outlined in accord with the actual fact at the +time it came into being, even if the metropolitan kaleidoscope has +revolved so rapidly that more than one of these studies from life now +records what is already ancient history. The bob-tailed car, for +example, is already a thing of the past; the hansom is fast following it +into desuetude; and no longer is it the fashion for family parties to +bicycle through Central Park in the afternoon. + +Slight as these fleeting impressions may seem, this much at least may be +claimed for them--that they are the result of an honest effort to catch +and to fix a vision of this mighty city in which the writer has dwelt +now for more than half a century. + +B. M. + +_February 21, 1912._ + + + + +[Illustration: A Young Man from the Country] + + +I + +NEW YORK, Sept. 7, 1894. + +MY Dear Miriam,--For you are mine now, all mine, and yet not so much as +you will be some day--soon, I hope. You can't guess how much bolder I +feel now that you are waiting for me. And it won't be so long that you +will have to wait, either, for I am going to make my way here. There's +lots of young fellows come to New York from the country with no better +start than I've got, and they've died millionaires. I'm in no hurry to +die yet, not before I've got the million, anyway; and I'm going to get +it if it can be got honestly and by hard work and by keeping my eyes +open. And when I get it, I'll have you to help me spend it. + +I came here all right last night, and this morning I went down to the +store with your father's letter. It's an immense big building Fassiter, +Smith & Kiddle keep store in. Mr. Kiddle was busy when I asked for him, +but he saw me at last and he said anybody recommended by your father +was sure to be just the sort of clerk they wanted. So he turned me over +to one of his assistants and he set me to work at once. As I've come +from the country, he said, and know what country people want, he's put +me in the department where the storekeepers get their supplies. It isn't +easy to get the hang of the work, there's so much noise and confusion; +but when we quit at six o'clock he said he thought I'd do. When night +came I was most beat out, I don't mind telling you. It was the noise +mostly, I think. I've never minded noise before, but here it is all +around you all the time and you can't get away from it. Nights it isn't +so bad, but it's bad enough even then. And there isn't a let-up all day. +It seems as though it kept getting worse and worse; and at one time I +thought there was a storm coming or something had happened. But it +wasn't anything but the regular roar they have here every day, and none +of the New-Yorkers noticed it, so I suppose I shall get wonted to it +sooner or later. + +The crowd is 'most as bad as the noise. Of course, I wasn't green enough +to think that there must be a circus in town, but I came near it. Even +on the side streets here there's as many people all day long as there is +in Auburnvale on Main Street when the parade starts--and more, too. And +they say it is just the same every day--and even at night it don't thin +out much. At supper this evening I saw a piece in the paper saying that +summer was nearly over and people would soon be coming back to town. I +don't know where the town is going to put them, if they do come, for it +seems to me about as full now as it will hold. How they can spend so +much time in the street, too, that puzzles me. My feet were tired out +before I had been down-town an hour. Life is harder in the city than it +is in the country, I see that already. I guess it uses up men pretty +quick, and I'm glad I'm strong. + +But then I've got something to keep me up to the mark; I've got a little +girl up in Auburnvale who is waiting for me to make my way. If I needed +to be hearted up, that would do it. I've only got to shut my eyes tight +and I can see you as you stood by the door of the school-house yesterday +as the cars went by. I can see you standing there, so graceful and +delicate, waving your hand to me and making believe you weren't crying. +I know, you are ever so much too good for me; but I know, too, that if +hard work will deserve you, I shall put in that, anyhow. + +It is getting late now and I must go out and post this. I wish I could +fold you in my arms again as I did night before last. But it won't be +long before I'll come back to Auburnvale and carry you away with me. + +Your own + +JACK. + + +II + +NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 1894. + +DEAREST MIRIAM,--I would have written two or three days ago, but when +I've had supper I'm too tired to think even. It isn't the work at the +store, either. I'm getting on all right there, and I see how I can make +myself useful already. I haven't been living in Auburnvale all these +years with my eyes shut, and I've got an idea or two that I'm going to +turn to account. No, it's just the city itself that's so tiring. It's +the tramp, tramp, tramp of the people all the time, day and night, never +stopping. And they are all so busy always. They go tearing through the +streets with their faces set, just as if they didn't know anybody. And +sometimes their mouths are working, as if they were thinking aloud. They +don't waste any time; they are everlastingly doing something. For +instance, I've an hour's nooning; and I go out and get my dinner in a +little eating-house near the rear of our store--ten cents for a plate of +roast beef; pretty thin the cut is, but the flavor is all right. Well, +they read papers while they are having their dinner. They read papers in +the cars coming down in the morning, and they read papers in the cars +going up at night. They don't seem to take any rest. Sometimes I don't +believe they sleep nights. And if they do, I don't see how they can help +walking in their sleep. + +I couldn't sleep myself first off, but I'm getting to now. It was the +pressure of the place, the bigness of it, and the roar all round me. I'd +wake up with a start, and, tired as I was, sometimes I wouldn't get to +sleep again for half an hour. + +I've given up the place I boarded when I first come and I've got a room +all to myself in a side street just off Fourth Avenue, between Union +Square and the depot. It's a little bit of a house, only fifteen feet +wide, I guess. It's two stories and a half, and I've got what they call +the front hall-bedroom on the top floor. It's teeny, but it's clean and +it's comfortable. It's quiet, too. The lady who keeps the house is a +widow. Her husband was killed in the war, at Gettysburg, and she's got a +pension. She's only one daughter and no son, so she takes three of us +young fellows to board. And I think I'm going to like it. + +Of course, I don't want to spend any more than I have to, for I've got +to have some money saved up if I ever expect to do anything for myself. +And the sooner I can get started the sooner I can come back and carry +away Miriam Chace--Miriam Forthright, as she will be then. + +It seems a long way off, sometimes, and I don't know that it wouldn't be +better to give up the idea of ever being very rich. Then we could be +married just as soon as I get a raise, which I'm hoping for by New +Year's, if I can show them that I am worth it. But I'd like to be rich +for your sake, Miriam--very rich, so that you could have everything you +want, and more too! + +Your loving + +JACK. + + +III + +NEW YORK, Sept. 24, 1894. + +MY DEAR MIRIAM,--I'm glad you don't want me to give up before I get to +the top. I can't see why I shouldn't succeed just as well as anybody +else. You needn't think I'm weakening, either. I guess I was longing for +you when I wrote that about being satisfied with what I'll have if I get +my raise. + +But what do you want to know about the people in this house for? The +landlady's name is Janeway, and she's sixty or seventy, I don't know +which. As for the daughter you're so curious about, I don't see her +much. Her name's Sally--at least that's what her mother calls her. And I +guess she's forty if she's a day. She don't pretty much, either. Her +hair is sort of sandy, and I don't know what color eyes she has. I never +knew you to take such an interest in folks before. + +You ask me how I like the people here--I suppose you mean the +New-Yorkers generally. Well, I guess I shall get to like them in time. +They ain't as stuck up as you'd think. That sassy way of theirs don't +mean anything half the time. They just mind their own business and they +haven't got time for anything else. They don't worry their heads about +anybody. If you can keep up with the procession, that's all right; and +they're glad to see you. If you drop out or get run over, that's all +right, too; and they don't think of you again. + +That's one thing I've found out already. A man's let alone in a big +city--ever so much more than he is in a village. There isn't anybody +watching him here; and his neighbors don't know whether it's baker's +bread his wife buys or what. Fact is, in a big city a man hasn't any +neighbors. He knows the boys in the store, but he don't know the man who +lives next door. That's an extraordinary thing to say, isn't it? I've +been in this house here for a fortnight and I don't even know the names +of the folks living opposite. I don't know them by sight, and they don't +know me. The man who sleeps in the next house on the other side of the +wall from me--he's got a bad cold, for I can hear him cough, but that's +all I know about him. And he don't know me, either. We may be getting +our dinners together every day down-town and we'll never find out except +by accident that we sleep side by side with only a brick or two between +us. It's thinking of things like that that comes pretty near making me +feel lonely sometimes; and I won't deny that there's many a night when +I've wished I had only to go down street to see the welcome light of +your father's lamp--and to find Somebody Else who was glad to see me, +even if she did sometimes fire up and make it hot for me just because +I'd been polite to some other girl. + +If you were only here you'd have such lots of sharp things to say about +the sights, for there's always something going on here. Broadway beats +the circus hollow. New York itself is the Greatest Show on Earth. You'd +admire to see the men, all handsomed up, just as if they were going to +meeting; and you'd find lots of remarks to pass about the women, dressed +up like summer boarders all the time. And, of course, they are summer +boarders really--New York is where the summer boarders come from. When +they are up in Auburnvale they call us the Natives--down here they call +us Jays. Every now and then on the street here I come across some face I +seem to recognize, and when I trace it up I find it's some summer +boarder that's been up in Auburnvale. Yesterday, for instance, in the +car I sat opposite a girl I'd seen somewhere--a tall, handsome girl with +rich golden hair. Well, I believe it was that Miss Stanwood that boarded +at Taylor's last June--you know, the one you used to call the Gilt-Edged +Girl. + +But the people here don't faze me any more. I'm going in strong; and I +guess I'll come out on top one of these fine days. And then I'll come +back to Auburnvale and I'll meet a brown-haired girl with dark-brown +eyes--and I'll meet her in church and her father will marry us! Then +we'll go away in the parlor-car to be New-Yorkers for the rest of our +lives and to leave the Natives way behind us. + +I don't know but it's thinking of that little girl with the dark-brown +eyes that makes me lonelier sometimes. Here's my love to her. + +Your own + +JACK. + + +IV + +NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 1894. + +DEAR MIRIAM,--You mustn't think that I'm lonely every day. I haven't +time to be lonely generally. It's only now and then nights that I feel +as if I'd like to have somebody to talk to about old times. But I don't +understand what you mean about this Miss Stanwood. I didn't speak to her +in the car that day, and I haven't seen her since. You forget that I +don't know her except by sight. It was you who used to tell me about the +Gilt-Edged Girl, and her fine clothes and her city ways, and all that. + +This last week I've been going to the Young Men's Christian Association, +where there's a fine library and a big reading-room with all sorts of +papers and magazines--I never knew there were so many before. It's going +to be a great convenience to me, that reading-room is, and I shall try +to improve myself with the advantages I can get there. But whenever +I've read anything in a magazine that's at all good, then I want to talk +it over with you as we used to do. You know so much more about books and +history than I do, and you always make me see the fine side of things. +I'm afraid my appreciation of the ideal needs to be cultivated. But you +are a good-enough ideal for me; I found that out ages ago, and it didn't +take me so very long, either. You weren't meant to teach school every +winter; and it won't be so very many winters before you will be down +here in New York keeping house for a junior partner in Fassiter, Smith & +Kiddle--or some firm just as big. + +I can write that way to you, Miriam, but I couldn't say anything like +that down at the store. It isn't that they'd jeer at me, though they +would, of course--because most of them haven't any ambition and just +spend their money on their backs, or on the races, or anyhow. No, I +haven't the confidence these New-Yorkers have. Why, I whisper to the car +conductors to let me off at the corner, and I do it as quietly as I can, +for I don't want them all looking at me. But a man who was brought up in +the city, he just glances up from his paper and says "Twenty-third!" And +probably nobody takes any notice of him, except the conductor. I wonder +if I'll ever be so at home here as they are. + +Even the children are different here. They have the same easy +confidence, as though they'd seen everything there was to see long +before they were born. But they look worn, too, and restless, for all +they take things so easy. + +You ask if I've joined a church yet. Well, I haven't. I can't seem to +make up my mind. I've been going twice every Sunday to hear different +preachers. There's none of them with the force of your father--none of +them as powerful as he is, either in prayer or in preaching. I'm going +to Dr. Thurston's next Sunday; he's got some of the richest men in town +in his congregation. + +There must be rich men in all the churches I've been to, for they've got +stained-glass windows, and singers from the opera, they say, at some of +them. I haven't heard anybody sing yet whose voice is as sweet as a +little girl's I know--a little bit of a girl who plays the organ and +teaches in Sunday-school--and who doesn't know how much I love her. + +JACK. + + +V + +NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 1894. + +DEAR MIRIAM,--Yes, it is a great comfort to me always to get your bright +letters, so full of hope and love and strength. You are grit, clear +through, and I'm not half good enough for you. Your last letter came +Saturday night; and that's when I like to get them, for Sunday is the +only day I have time to be lonely. + +I go to church in the forenoon and in the evening again; in the +afternoon I've been going up to Central Park. There's a piece of woods +there they call the Ramble, and I've found a seat on a cobble up over +the pond. The trees are not very thrifty, but they help me to make +believe I am back in Auburnvale. Sometimes I go into the big Museum +there is in the Park, not a museum of curiosities, but full of pictures +and statuary, ever so old some of it, and very peculiar. Then I wish for +you more than ever, for that's the sort of thing you'd be interested in +and know all about. + +Last Sunday night I went to Dr. Thurston's church, and I thought of you +as soon as the music began. I remember you said you did wish you were an +organist in a Gothic church where they had a pipe-organ. Well, the organ +at Dr. Thurston's would just suit you, it's so big and deep and fine. +And you'd like the singing, too; it's a quartet, and the tenor is a +German who came from the Berlin opera; they say he gets three thousand +dollars a year just for singing on Sunday. + +But I suppose it pays them to have good voices like his, for the church +was crowded; and even if some of the congregation came for the music, +they had to listen to Dr. Thurston's sermon afterward. And it was a very +good sermon, indeed--almost as good as one of your father's, practical +and chockful of common sense. And Dr. Thurston isn't afraid of talking +right out in meeting, either. He was speaking of wealth and he said it +had to be paid for just like anything else, and that many a man buys his +fortune at too high a price, especially if he sacrifices for it either +health or character. And just in front of him sat old Ezra Pierce, one +of the richest men in the city--and one of the most unscrupulous, so +they say. He's worth ten or twenty millions at least; I was up in the +gallery and he was in the pew just under me, so I had a good look at +him. I wonder how it must feel to be as rich as all that. + +And who do you suppose was in the pew just across the aisle from old +Pierce? Nobody but the Gilt-Edged Girl, as you call her, that Miss +Stanwood. So you see it's a small world even in a big city, and we keep +meeting the same people over and over again. + +I rather think I shall go to Dr. Thurston's regularly now. I like to +belong to a church and not feel like a tramp every Sunday morning. Dr. +Thurston is the most attractive preacher I've heard yet, and the music +there is beautiful. + +I don't suppose I shall ever be as rich as old Ezra Pierce, although I +don't see why not, but if ever I am really rich I'll have a big house, +with a great big Gothic music-room, with a pipe-organ built in one end +of it. I guess I could get Some One to play on it for me when I come +home evenings tired out with making money down-town. I wonder if she +guesses how much I love her? + +JACK. + + +VI + +NEW YORK, Oct. 28, 1894. + +DEAR MIRIAM,--Your account of your rehearsal of the choir was very +amusing. I'm glad you are having such a good time. But then you always +could make a good story out of anything. You must have had a hard job +managing the choir, and smoothing them down, and making them swallow +their little jealousies. I wish I had half your tact. I can sell a man a +bill of goods now about as well as any of the clerks in the store; but +if I could rub them down gently as you handle the soprano and the +contralto, I'd be taken into the firm inside of two years. + +And I never wished for your tact and your skill in handling children +more than I did last Sunday. I wrote you I'd made up my mind to go to +Dr. Thurston's, and last Sunday he called for teachers for the +Sunday-school. So I went up and they gave me a class of street boys, +Italians, some of them, and Swedes. They're a tough lot, and I guess +that some of them are going to drop by the wayside after the Christmas +tree. I had hard work to keep order, but I made them understand who was +the master before I got through. All the English they know they pick up +from the gutter, I should say; and yet they want books to take home. So +I told them if they behaved themselves all through the hour I'd go to +the library with them to pick out a book for each of them. They don't +call it a book, either--they say, "Give me a good library, please." + +And what do you suppose happened when I took them all up to the library +desk? Well, I found that the librarian was the tall girl you call the +Gilt-Edged. It is funny how I keep meeting her, isn't it? I was quite +confused at first; but of course she didn't know me and she couldn't +guess that you used to make fun of her. So she was just businesslike and +helped me pick out the books for the boys. + +Considering the hard times, we have been doing a big business down at +the store. Two or three nights a week now I've had to stay down till +ten. We get extra for this, and I don't mind the work. By degrees I'm +getting an insight into the business. But there isn't any short cut to a +fortune that I can see. There's lots of hard work before me and lots of +waiting, too--and it's the waiting for you I mind the most. + +JACK. + + +VII + +NEW YORK, Nov. 4, 1894. + +DEAR MIRIAM,--I was beginning to wonder what the matter was when I +didn't have a letter for a week and more. And now your letter has come, +I don't quite make it out. You write only a page and a half; and the +most of that is taken up with asking about Miss Stanwood. + +Yes, I see her Sundays, of course, and she is always very pleasant. +Indeed, I can't guess what it is that you have against her or why it is +you are always picking at her. I feel sure that she doesn't dye her +hair, but I will look at the roots as you suggest and see if it's the +same color there. Her name is Hester--I've seen her write it in the +library cards. Her father is very rich, they say--at least he's +president of a railroad somewhere down South. + +She strikes me as a sensible girl, and I think you would like her if you +knew her. She has helped me to get the right kind of books into the +hands of the little Italians and other foreigners I have to teach. Most +Sunday-school books are very mushy, I think, and I don't believe it's a +healthy moral when the good boy dies young. Miss Stanwood says that +sometimes when one of my scholars takes home a book it is read by every +member of the family who knows how to read, and they all talk it over. +So it's very important to give them books that will help to make good +Americans of them. She got her father to buy a lot of copies of lives of +Washington and Franklin and Lincoln. They are not specially religious, +these books, but what of it? Miss Stanwood says she thinks we must all +try first of all to make men of these rough boys, to make them manly, +and then they'll be worthy to be Christians. She is thinking not only of +the boys themselves, but of the parents too, and of the rest of the +family; and she says that a little leaven of patriotism suggested by +one of these books may work wonders. But you are quite right in saying +that I'm not as lonely as I was a month ago. Of course not, for I'm +getting used to the bigness of the place and the noise no longer wears +on me. Besides, I've found out that the New-Yorkers are perfectly +willing to be friendly. They'll meet you half-way always, not only in +the church, but even down-town, too. I ain't afraid of them any more, +and I can tell a conductor to let me out at the corner now without +wishing to go through the floor of the car. Fact is, I've found out how +little importance I am. Up at Auburnvale people knew me; I was old John +Forthright's only son; I was an individual. Here in New York I am nobody +at all, and everybody is perfectly willing to let me alone. I think I +like it better here; and before I get through I'll force these +New-Yorkers to know me when they see me in the street--just as they +touch each other now and whisper when they pass old Ezra Pierce. + +Write soon and tell me there's nothing the matter with you. I'm all +right and I'd send you my love--but you got it all already. + +JACK. + + +VIII + +NEW YORK, Nov. 16, 1894. + +DEAR MIRIAM,--I asked you to write me soon, and yet you've kept me +waiting ten days again. Even now your letter has come I can't seem to +get any satisfaction out of it. I have never known you to write so +stiffly. Is there anything the matter? Are you worried at home? Is your +mother sick or your father? + +I wish I could get away for a week at Thanksgiving to run up and see +you. But we are kept pretty busy at the store. There isn't one of the +firm hasn't got his nose down to the grindstone, and that's where they +keep ours. That's how they've made their money; it's all good training +for me, of course. + +All the same I'd like to be with you this Thanksgiving, even if it isn't +as beautiful a day as last Thanksgiving was. I don't know when I've +enjoyed a dinner as I did your mother's that night, but I guess it +wasn't the turkey I liked so much or the pumpkin pie, but the welcome I +got and the sight of the girl who sat opposite to me and who wouldn't +tell me what she had wished for when we pulled the wishbone. I think it +was only that morning in church when I looked across and saw you at the +organ that I found out I had been in love with you for a long while. You +were so graceful, as you sat there and the sunlight came down on your +beautiful brown hair, that I wanted to get up and go over on the spot +and tell you I loved you. Then at dinner your fiery eyes seemed to burn +right into me, and I wondered if you could see into my heart that was +just full of love of you. + +It is curious, isn't it, that I didn't get a chance to tell you all +these things for nearly six months? I don't know how it was, but first +one thing and then another made me put off asking you. I was afraid, +too. I dreaded to have you say you didn't care for me. And you were +always so independent with me. I couldn't guess what your real feelings +were. Then came that day in June when I mustered up courage at last! +Since then I've been a different man--a better man, I hope, too. + +But I don't know why I should write you this way in answer to a letter +of yours that was too short almost to be worth the postage! + +JACK. + + +IX + +NEW YORK, Dec. 2, 1894. + +DEAR MIRIAM,--You don't know how much good it did me to get your long +letter last week. You wrote just like your old self--just like the dear +little girl you are! I was beginning to wonder what had come over you. I +thought you had changed somehow, and I couldn't understand it. + +Of course, I wished I was in Auburnvale on Thanksgiving. I'd like to +have seen you sitting in the seats and singing with your whole soul; and +I'd have liked to hear your father preach one of his real inspiring +sermons that lift up the heart of man. + +To be all alone here in New York was desolate--and then it rained all +the afternoon, too. It didn't seem a bit like a real Thanksgiving. + +I went to church, of course, but I didn't think Dr. Thurston rose to the +occasion. He didn't tell us the reasons why we ought to be grateful as +strongly as your father did last year. + +Coming out of church it had just begun to rain, and so there was a crowd +around the doors. As I was just at the foot of the stairs I tripped over +Miss Stanwood's dress. I tell you it made me uncomfortable when I heard +it tear. But these New York girls have the pleasantest manners. She +didn't even frown. She smiled and introduced me to her father, who +seemed like a nice old gentleman. He was very friendly, too, and we +stood there chatting for quite a while until the crowd thinned out. + +He said that if I really wanted to understand some of the Sunday-school +lessons I ought to go to the Holy Land, since there are lots of things +there that haven't changed in two thousand years. He's been there and so +has his daughter. He brought back ever so many photographs, and he's +asked me to drop in some evening and look at them, as it may help me in +making the boys see things clearly. It was very kind of him, wasn't it? +I think I shall go up some night next week. + +I've been here nearly three months now, and Mr. Stanwood's will be the +first private house I shall have been to--and in Auburnvale I knew +everybody and every door was open to me. I feel it will be a real +privilege to see what the house of a rich man like Mr. Stanwood is like. +I'll write you all about it. + +And some day I'll buy you a house just as fine as his. That some day +seems a long way off, sometimes, don't it? + +JACK. + + +X + +NEW YORK, Dec. 4, 1894. + +DEAR MIRIAM,--You have never before answered so promptly, and so I write +back the very day I get your letter. + +I begin by saying I don't understand it--or at least I don't want to +understand it. You ask me not to accept Mr. Stanwood's invitation. Now +that's perfectly ridiculous, and you know it is. Why shouldn't I go to +Mr. Stanwood's house if he asks me? He's a rich man, and very +influential, and has lots of friends. He's just the kind of man it's +very useful for me to know. You ought to be able to see that. I've got +to take advantage of every chance I get. If I ever start in business for +myself, it will be very helpful if I could find a man like Mr. Stanwood +who might be willing to put in money as a special partner. + +Fact is, I'm afraid you are jealous. That's what I don't like to think. +But it seems to me I can see in your letter just the kind of temper you +were in last Fourth of July when I happened to get in conversation with +Kitty Parsons. Your eyes flashed then and there was a burning red spot +on your cheeks, and I thought I'd never seen you look so pretty. But I +knew you hadn't any right to be mad clear through. And you were then, as +you are now. I hadn't done anything wrong then, and I'm not going to do +anything wrong now. Jealousy is absurd, anyhow, and it's doubly absurd +in this case! You know how much I love you--or you ought to know it. And +you ought to know that a rich man like Mr. Stanwood isn't going to ask a +clerk in Fassiter, Smith & Kiddle's up to his house just on purpose to +catch a husband for his daughter. + +I guess I've got a pretty good opinion of myself. You told me once I was +dreadfully stuck up--it was the same Fourth of July you said it, too. +But I'm not conceited enough to think that a New York girl like Miss +Stanwood would ever look at me. I don't trot in her class. And a +railroad president isn't so hard up for a son-in-law that he has to pick +one up on the church steps. So you needn't be alarmed about me. + +But if it worries you I'll go some night this week and get it over. Then +I'll write you all about it. I guess there's lots of things in Mr. +Stanwood's house you would like to see. + +So sit down and write me a nice letter soon, and get over this jealousy +as quick as you can. It isn't worthy of the little girl I love so much. + +Your only + +JACK. + + +XI + +NEW YORK, Dec. 9, 1894. + +DEAR MIRIAM,--I haven't had a line from you since I wrote you last, but +according to promise I write at once to tell you about my visit to the +Stanwoods. + +I went there last night. They live on the top of Murray Hill, just off +Madison Avenue. It's a fine house, what they call a four-story, +high-stooped, brownstone mansion. The door was opened by a man in a +swallow-tail coat, and he showed me into the sitting-room, saying they +hadn't quite finished dinner yet--and it was almost eight o'clock! That +shows you how different things are here in New York, don't it? The +sitting-room was very handsome, with satin furniture, and hand-painted +pictures on the walls, and a blazing soft-coal fire. There were +magazines and books on the center-table, some of them French. + +In about ten minutes they came in, Mr. Stanwood and his daughter; and +they begged my pardon for keeping me waiting. Then Mr. Stanwood said he +was sorry but he had to attend a committee meeting at the club. Of +course, I was for going, too, but he said to Hester--that's Miss +Stanwood's name; pretty, isn't it?--she'd show me the photographs. So he +stayed a little while and made me feel at home and then he went. + +He's a widower, and his daughter keeps house for him; but I guess +housekeeping's pretty easy if you've got lots of money and don't care +how fast you spend it. I felt a little awkward, I don't mind telling +you, in that fine room, but Miss Stanwood never let on if she saw it, +and I guess she did, for she's pretty sharp, too. She sent for the +photographs; and she gave me a wholly new idea of the Holy Land, and she +told me lots of things about their travels abroad. When you called her +the Gilt-Edged Girl I suppose you thought she was stiff and stuck up. +But she isn't--not a bit. She's bright, too, and she was very funny the +way she took off the people they'd met on the other side. She isn't as +good a mimic as you, perhaps, but she can be very amusing. She's very +well educated, I must say; she's read everything and she's been +everywhere. In London two years ago she was presented to the Queen--it +was the Princess of Wales, really, but she stood for the Queen--and she +isn't set up about it either. + +So I had an enjoyable evening in spite of my being so uncomfortable; and +when Mr. Stanwood came back and I got up to go, he asked me to come +again. + +Now I've told you everything, as I said I would, so that you can judge +for yourself how fortunate in having made friends in a house like Mr. +Stanwood's. You can't help seeing that, I'm sure. + +JACK. + + +XII + +NEW YORK, Dec. 18, 1894. + +MY DEAR MIRIAM,--What is the matter with you? What have I done to offend +you? You keep me waiting ten days for a letter, and then when it comes +it's only four lines and it's cold and curt; and there isn't a word of +love in it. + +If it means you are getting tired of me and want to break off, say so +right out, and I'll drop everything and go up to Auburnvale on the first +train and make love to you all over again and just insist on your +marrying me. You needn't think I've changed. Distance don't make any +difference to me. If anybody's changed it's you. I'm just the same. I +love you as much as ever I did; more, too, I guess. Why, what would I +have to look forward to in life if I didn't have you? + +Now, I simply can't stand the way you have been treating me. + +First off I thought you might be jealous, but I knew I couldn't give you +any cause for that, so I saw that wasn't it. The only thing I can think +of is that separation is a strain on you. I know it is on me, but I +felt I just had to stand it. And if I could stand it when what I wanted +was you, well, I guessed you could stand it when all you had to do +without was me. + +Now, I tell you what I'll do, if you say so. I'll drop everything here +and give up trying. What's the use of a fortune to me if I don't have +you to share it with me? Of course, I'd like to be rich some day, but +that's because I want you to have money and to hold your own with the +best of them. Now, you just say the word and I'll quit. I'll throw up my +job with Fassiter, Smith & Kiddle, though they are going to give me a +raise at New Year's. Mr. Smith told me yesterday. I'll quit and I'll go +back to Auburnvale for the rest of my life. I don't care if it is only a +little country village--_you_ live in it, and that's enough for me. I'll +clerk in the store, if I can get the job there, or I'll farm it, or I'll +do anything you say. Only you must tell me plainly what it is you want. +What I want most in the world is you! + +JACK. + + +XIII + +NEW YORK, Jan. 1, 1895. + +DEAREST MIRIAM,--That was a sweet letter you wrote me Christmas--just +the kind of letter I hope you will always write. + +And so you have decided that I'm to stay here and work hard and make a +fortune and you will wait for me and you won't be cold to me again. +That's the way I thought you would decide; and I guess it's the decision +that's best for both of us. + +What sets me up, too, is your saying you may be able to come down here +for a little visit. Come as soon as you can. If the friend you're going +to stay with is really living up at One Hundredth Street, she's a long +way off, but that won't prevent my getting up to see you as often as I +can. + +I shall like to show you the town and take you to see the interesting +places. It will amuse me to watch the way you take things here. You'll +find out that Auburnvale is a pretty small place, after you've seen New +York. + +Of course, you'll come to Dr. Thurston's on Sunday with me. I wonder if +you wouldn't like to help in the Sunday-school library while you are in +town? Mr. Stanwood's going down to Florida to see about his railroad +there, and he's to take his daughter with him, so there's nobody to give +out books on Sunday. + +But no matter about that, so long as you come soon. You know who will be +waiting for you on the platform, trying to get a sight of you again +after all these months. + +JACK. + + +XIV + +NEW YORK, Feb. 22, 1895. + +DEAR MIRIAM,--Do be reasonable! That's all I ask. Don't get excited +about nothing! I confess I don't understand you at all. I've heard of +women carrying on this way, but I thought _you_ had more sense! You +can't think how you distress me. + +After a long month in town here, when I'd seen you as often as I could +and three or four times a week most always, suddenly you break out as +you did yesterday after church; and then when I go to see you this +evening you've packed up and gone home. + +Now, what had I done wrong yesterday? I can't see. After Sunday-school +you were in the library and Miss Stanwood came in unexpectedly, just +back from Florida. I introduced you to her, and she was very pleasant +indeed. She wouldn't have been if she'd known how you made fun of her +and called her the Gilt-Edged and all that--but then she didn't know. +She was very friendly to you and said she hoped you were to be in town +all winter, since Auburnvale must be so very dull. Well, it _is_ dull, +and you know it, so you needn't have taken offense at that. Then she +said the superintendent had asked her to get up a show for the +Sunday-school--a sort of magic-lantern exhibition of those photographs +of the Holy Land, and she wanted to know if I wouldn't help her. Of +course, I said I would, and then you said the library was very hot and +wouldn't I come out at once. + +And when we got out on the street you forbid my having anything to do +with the show. Now, that's what I call unreasonable; and I'm sure you +will say so, too, when you've had time to think it over. And why have +you run away, so that I can't talk things over with you quietly and +calmly? + +JACK. + + +XV + +NEW YORK, March 3, 1895. + +MY DEAR MIRIAM,--Your letter is simply absurd. You say you "don't +believe in that Miss Stanwood," and you want me to promise never to +speak to her again. Now you can't mean that. It is too ridiculous. I +confess you puzzle me more and more. I don't pretend to understand +women, but you go beyond anything I ever heard of. What you ask is +unworthy of you; it's unworthy of me. It's more--it's unchristian. + +But I'll do what I can to please you. Since you have taken such a +violent dislike to Miss Stanwood, I'll agree not to go to her house +again--although that will be very awkward if Mr. Stanwood asks me, won't +it? However, I suppose I can trump up some excuse. I'll agree not to go +to her house, I say; but of course, I've got to be polite to her when I +meet her in the Sunday-school--that is, unless you want me to give up +the Sunday-school, too! And I've got to help in the show for the boys +and girls. To give up now after I've said I would, that would make me +feel as mean as pusley. Besides, that show is going to attract a great +deal of attention. All the prominent people in the church are going to +come to it--people you don't know, of course, but high-steppers, all of +them. It wouldn't really be fair to back out now. + +Now that's what I'll do. I'll meet you half-way. Since you seem to have +taken such a violent dislike to Miss Stanwood, for no reason at all that +I can see--excepting jealousy, and that's out of the question, of +course--but since you don't like her, I'll agree not to go to her house +again. But I must go on with the photographs, and I can't help passing +the time of day when I meet her on Sunday in the library. + +Will that satisfy you? + +JACK. + + +XVI + +NEW YORK, March 17, 1895. + +DEAR MIRIAM,--It's two weeks now since I wrote you in answer to your +letter saying you would break off our engagement unless I promised never +to speak to Miss Stanwood again--and you have never sent me a line +since. You seemed to think I cared for her--but I don't. How could I +care for any other girl, loving you as I do? Besides, even if I did care +for her, I'd have to get over it now--since she is going to marry an +officer in the navy. The wedding is set for next June, and then he takes +her with him to Japan. For all you are so jealous of her, I think she is +a nice girl and I hope she will be happy. + +And I want to be happy, too--and I've been miserable ever since I got +that letter of yours, so cold and so hard. I don't see how a little bit +of a girl like you can hold so much temper! But I love you in spite of +it, and I don't believe I'd really have you different if I could. So sit +right down as soon as you get this and write me a good long letter, +forgiving me for all I haven't done and saying you still love me a +little bit. You do, don't you, Miriam? And if you do what's the use of +our waiting ever so long? Why shouldn't we be married in June, too? + +I'm getting on splendidly in the store and guess I'll get another raise +soon; and even now I have enough for two, if you are willing to start in +with a little flat somewhere up in Harlem. We'd have to try light +housekeeping at first, maybe, and perhaps table-board somewhere. But I +don't care what I eat or where I eat if only I can have you sitting at +the table with me. Say you will, Miriam dear, say you will! There's no +use in our putting it off and putting it off till we've both got gray +hair, is there? + +JACK. + + +XVII + +NEW YORK, March 19, 1895. + +DEAREST MIRIAM,--You don't know how happy your letter has made me. I +felt sure you would get over your tantrums sooner or later. Now you are +my own little girl again, and soon you'll be my own little wife! + +But why must we put it off till June? The store closes on Decoration +Day, you know, and I guess I can get the firm to let me have a day or +two. So make it May 30th, won't you?--and perhaps we can take that trip +to Niagara as you said you'd like to. + +JACK. + + (1895) + + + + +[Illustration: On the Steps of the + +City Hall] + + +A thin inch of dusty snow littered the frozen grass-plots surrounding +the municipal buildings, and frequent scurries of wind kept swirling it +again over the concrete walks whence it had been swept. The February +sun--although it was within an hour of noon--could not break through the +ashen clouds that shut out the sky. + +It was a depressing day, and yet there was no relaxation of energy in +the men who were darting here and there eagerly, each intent on his +errand, with eyes fixed on the goal and with lips set in stern +determination. As Curtis Van Dyne thrust himself through the throng on +the Broadway sidewalk, leaving the frowning Post-office behind him, and +passing before the blithe effigy of Nathan Hale, he almost laughed aloud +as it suddenly struck him how incongruous it was that a statue of a man +who had gladly died for his country should be stuck there between two +buildings filled with men who were looking to their country, to the +nation or to the city, to provide them with a living. But he was in no +mood for laughter, even saturnine; and if anything could have aroused +his satire, it would have been not a graven image, but himself. + +He was in the habit of having a good opinion of himself, and he clung to +his habits, especially to this one. Yet he was then divided between +self-pity and self-contempt. For a good reason, so it seemed to him--and +he was pleased to be able to think that it was an unselfish reason--he +was going to take a step he did not quite approve of. He went all over +the terms of the situation again as he turned from Broadway toward the +City Hall; and the pressure of circumstances as he saw them brought him +again to the same conclusion. Then he resolved not to let himself be +worried by his own decision; if it was for the best, then there was no +sense in not making the best of it. + +So intent was he on his own thought that he did not observe the +expectant smile of an older man who was walking across the park in front +of the City Hall, and who slackened his gait, supposing that the young +lawyer would greet him. + +When Van Dyne passed on unseeing, the other man waited for a second and +then called, "Curtis!" + +The young man had already begun to mount the steps. He turned sharply, +as though any conversation would then be unwelcome, but when he saw who +had hailed him he smiled cheerfully and held out his hand cordially. + +"Why, Judge," he began, "I didn't know you were home again! I'm glad you +are better. They told me you might have to go away for the rest of the +winter." + +"That's what they told me, too," answered Judge Jerningham; "and I told +them I wouldn't go. I'm paid for doing my work here, and I don't intend +to shirk it. I expect to take my seat again next week." + +There was a striking contrast between the two men as they stood there on +the steps of the City Hall. Judge Jerningham was nearly sixty; he had a +stalwart frame, almost to be called stocky; his black hair was grizzled +only, and his full beard was only streaked with white. He had large, +dark eyes, deep-set under cavernous brows. His clothes fitted him +loosely, and, although not exactly out of style, they were not to be +called modish in either cut or material. Curtis Van Dyne was full thirty +years younger; he was fair and slight, and he wore a drooping mustache. +He was dressed with obvious care, and his garments suited him. He looked +rather like a man of fashion than like a young fellow who had his way to +make at the bar. + +"By the way," said the Judge, after a little pause, which gave Van Dyne +time to wonder why it was that the elder man had called him--"by the +way, how is your sister? I saw her in church on Sunday, and she looked a +little pale and peaked, I thought." + +"Oh, Martha's all right," the young man answered, briskly. "Aunt Mary +attends to that." + +"Do you know what struck me on Sunday as I looked at Martha?" asked the +Judge. "It was her likeness to her mother at the same age." + +"Yes," Van Dyne replied, "Aunt Mary says Martha's very like mother as a +girl." + +"And your mother was never very hearty," pursued the Judge. "Don't you +think it might be well to get the girl out of town for a little while +next month? March is very hard on those whose bronchial tubes are +weakened." + +"I guess Martha can stand another March in New York," the young man +responded. "She's all right enough. I don't say it wouldn't be good for +her to go South for a few weeks, but--Well, you know I can't telephone +for my steam-yacht to be brought round to the foot of Twenty-third +Street, and I don't own any stock in Jekyll Island." + +The Judge made no immediate answer, and again there was an awkward +silence. + +The younger man broke it. He held out his hand once more. "It's pleasant +to see you looking so fit," he said, cordially. + +The other took his hand and held it. "Curtis," he began, "it isn't any +of my business, I suppose, and yet I don't know. Who is to speak if I +don't?" + +"Speak about what?" asked Van Dyne, as the Judge released his hand. + +The elder man did not answer this question. Apparently he found it +difficult to say what he wished. + +"I happened to see a paragraph in the political gossip in the _Dial_ +this morning," he began again; "I don't often read that sort of stuff, +but your name caught my eye. It said that the organization was enlisting +recruits from society as an answer to the slanderous attacks that had +been made on it, and that people could see how much there was in these +malignant assaults when they found the better element eager to be +enrolled. And then it gave half a dozen names of men who had just +joined, including yours and Jimmy Suydam's. I suppose there is no truth +in it?" + +"It's about as near to the truth as a newspaper ever gets, I fancy," Van +Dyne answered. His color had risen a little, and his speech had become a +little more precise. "I haven't joined yet, but I'm going to join this +week. Pat McCann is to take us in hand, Jimmy and me; he's our district +leader." + +"Pat McCann!" and the Judge spoke the name with horrified contempt. + +"Yes," responded the young man. "Pat McCann has taken quite a shine to +Jimmy and me. He gives us the glad hand and never the marble heart." + +"It's no matter about Suydam," said the Judge, with an impatient +gesture; "he's a foolish young fellow and he doesn't know any better. I +suppose he expects to be a colonel on the staff of the first governor +they elect. But you--" + +It was with a hint of bravado that Van Dyne returned: "I don't see that +I'm any better than Jimmy. He hasn't committed any crime that I know +of--except the deadly sin of inheriting a fortune. And as far as that +goes, I wish old man Suydam had adopted me and divided his money between +us. Then I could have that steam-yacht and take Martha down to Jekyll +Island next month." + +The Judge hesitated again, and then he said: "Curtis, I suppose you +think I have no right to speak to you about this, and perhaps I haven't. +But I have known you since you were born, and I went to school with your +father. We were classmates in college, and I was his best man when he +married your mother. You know his record in the war, and you are proud +of it, of course. He left you--you will excuse my putting it +plainly?--he left you an honorable name." + +"And that was about all he did leave me!" the young man returned. "I +want to leave my children something more." + +"If you join the organization, if you are a hail-fellow-well-met with +all the Pat McCanns of the city," retorted the Judge, sternly--"if you +sink to that level, you would certainly leave your children something +very different from what your father left you. If you do, I doubt +whether the organization will go out of its way to offer inducements to +your son. It will expect to get him cheap." + +The young lawyer flushed again, and then he laughed uneasily. + +"You are hard on me, Judge," he said at last. + +"I want you to be hard on yourself now," the older man returned. "I know +you, Curtis; I know the stock you come of, and I am sure you will be +hard enough on yourself--when it is too late." + +"I'm not going to rob a bank, am I?" urged the younger man. + +"You are going to rob yourself," was the swift answer. "You are going to +rob your children, if you ever have any, of what your father left +you--the priceless heritage of an honored name." + +"Come, now, Judge," said Van Dyne, "is that quite fair? You speak as if +I were going to enroll in the Forty Thieves." + +"If I thought you capable of doing that I should not be speaking to you +at all," was the reply. + +"Pat McCann isn't a bad fellow really," the young man declared. "He +means well enough. And the rest of them are not rascals, either; they +are not the crew of pirates the papers call them. They are giving the +city as good a government now as our mixed population will stand. They +have their ambition to do right; and I sincerely believe that they mean +to do the best they know how." + +"That's it precisely," the Judge asserted. "They mean to do the best +they know how. But how much do they know?" + +"Well, they are not exactly fools, are they?" was the evasive answer. + +"Don't misunderstand me," the elder man continued. "I am perfectly +aware that the organization is not so black as it is painted. The men at +the head of it are not a crew of pirates, as you say--of course not; if +they were they would have been made to walk the plank long ago. Probably +they mean well, as you say again. I should be sorry to believe that they +do not." + +"Well, then--" returned Van Dyne. + +But the Judge went on, regardless of what the young lawyer was going to +say: + +"They may mean well, but what of it if the result is what we see? The +fact is that the men at the head of the organization are of an arrested +type of civilization. They are two or three hundred years behind the +age. They have retained the methods--perhaps not of Claude Duval, as +their enemies allege, but of Sir Robert Walpole, as their friends could +not deny. Here in America to-day they are anachronisms. They stand +athwart our advance. I have no wish to call them names or to think them +worse than they are; but I know that association with them is not good +for you or for me. It is our duty--your duty and mine, and the duty of +all who have a little enlightenment--to arouse the public against these +survivals of a lower stage, and to fight them incessantly, and now and +then to beat them, so that they may be made to respect our views. You +say they are giving the city as good a government as our mixed +population will stand. Well, that may be true; I don't think it is +quite true; but even if it is, what of it? Are we to be satisfied with +that? The best way to educate our mixed population to stand a better +government is to fight these fellows steadily. Nothing educates them +more than an election, followed by an object lesson." + +"That's all very well," responded Van Dyne, when the Judge had made an +end of his long speech. "But I don't believe the organization leaders +are really so far behind other people, or so much worse. They're not +hypocrites, that's all. They know what they want, and they take it the +easiest way they can." + +"If that is the best defense you can make for them, they are worse than +I thought," retorted the Judge. "Sometimes the easiest way to take what +you want is to steal it." + +"I don't claim that they are perfect, all of them," the younger man +declared. "I suppose they are all sorts--good, bad, and indifferent. But +we are all miserable sinners, you know--at least we say so every Sunday. +And I have known bad men in the church." + +"Come, come, Curtis," the Judge replied, "that's unworthy of you, isn't +it? You would not be apologizing to me for joining the church, would +you?" + +Van Dyne was about to answer hastily, but he checked the words on his +lips. He looked away and across the frozen park to the pushing crowd on +Broadway; but he did not really see the huge wagons rumbling in and out +of Mail Street, nor did he hear the insistent clang of the cable-car. + +His tone was deprecatory when he spoke at last. + +"I suppose you are right," he began, "and I don't quite see myself in +that company. I'll be frank, Judge, for you are an old friend, and I +know you wish me well, and I'd be glad to stand well in your eyes. I +don't really want to join the organization; I don't like the men in it +any more than you do; and I don't know that I approve of their ways much +more than you do. But I've got to do it." + +"Got to?" echoed the Judge, in surprise. "Why have you got to? They +can't force you to join if you don't wish it." + +"I've got to do it because I've got to have money," was the young man's +explanation. + +"Do you mean that you are to be paid for associating with these people?" +the Judge asked. + +"That's about it," was the answer. "I wouldn't do it if I wasn't going +to make something out of it, would I? Not that there is any bargain, of +course; but Pat McCann has dropped hints, and I know how easy it will be +for them to throw things my way." + +"I didn't know you needed money so badly," said the Judge. "I thought +you were doing well at the bar." + +"I'm doing well enough, I suppose," Van Dyne explained; "but I could do +better. In fact, I must do better. I must have money. There's--well, +there's Martha. She came out last fall, and I gave her a coming-out tea, +of course. Well, I want her to have a good time. Mother had a good time +when she was a girl, and why shouldn't Martha? She won't be nineteen +again." + +"Yes," said the Judge, "your mother had a good time when she was a girl. +Your father and I saw to that." + +"Martha's just got her first invitation to the Assembly," Van Dyne went +on. "You should have seen how delighted she was, too; it did me good to +see it. Mrs. Jimmy Suydam sent it to her. But all that will cost money; +of course, she's got to have a new gown and gloves and flowers and a +carriage and so on. I don't begrudge it to her. I'm only too glad to +give it to her. But I'm in debt now for that coming-out tea and for +other things. I ran behind last year, and this year I shall spend more. +That's why I've got to join the organization and pick up a reference now +and then, and maybe a receivership by and by; and perhaps they'll elect +me to an office, sooner or later. I know I'm too young yet, but I'd like +to be a judge, too." + +"So it is for your sister you are selling yourself, is it?" asked the +elder man. "Do you think she would be willing if she knew?" + +"I'm not selling myself!" declared the young man, laughing a little +nervously. "I haven't signed any compact with my own blood amid a blaze +of red fire." + +"Do you think your sister would approve if she knew?" persisted the +Judge. + +"Oh, but she won't know!" was the answer. "I'll admit she wouldn't like +it overmuch. She takes after father, and she has very strict ideas. You +ought to hear her talk about the corruption of our politics!" + +"Curtis," said the Judge, earnestly, "if _you_ take after your father, +you ought to be able to look things in the face. That's what I want you +to do now. Have you any right to sacrifice yourself for your sister's +sake in a way she would not like?" + +"I'm not sacrificing myself at all," the young man declared. "I want +some of the good things of life for myself. Besides, what do girls know +about politics? They are always dreamy and impracticable. If they had +their noses down to the grindstone of life for a little while it would +sharpen their eyes, and they would see things differently." + +"It will be a sad world when women like your sister and your mother see +things differently, as you put it," the elder man retorted. + +"If I want more money, I don't admit that it is any of Martha's business +how I make it," Van Dyne asserted. "I'll let her have the spending of +some of it--that will be her duty. I want her to have a summer in +Europe, too. She knows that mother was abroad a whole year when she was +eighteen." + +"I know that, too," said the Judge. "It was in Venice that your father +and I first met her; she was feeding the pigeons in front of St. Mark's, +and--" + +The Judge paused a moment, and then he laid his hand on Van Dyne's +shoulder. + +"Curtis," he continued, "if a thousand dollars now will help you out, or +two thousand, or even five, if you need it, I shall be glad to let you +have the money." + +"Thank you, Judge," was the prompt reply. "I can't take your money, +because I don't know how or when I could pay you back." + +"What matter about that?" returned the other. "I have nobody to leave it +to." + +"You were my father's friend and my mother's," said Van Dyne. "I would +take money from you if I could take it from anybody. But I can't do +that. You wouldn't in my place, would you?" + +The Judge did not answer this directly. "It is not easy to say what we +should do if one were to stand in the other's place," he declared. "And +if you change your mind, the money is ready for you whenever you want +it." + +"You are very good to me, Judge," said the young man, "and I appreciate +your kindness--" + +"Then don't say anything more about it," the elder man interrupted. "And +you must forgive me for my plain speaking about that other matter." + +"About my joining the organization?" said Van Dyne. "Well, I'll think +over what you have said. I don't want you to believe that I don't +understand the kindness that prompted you to say what you did. I haven't +really decided absolutely what I had best do." + +"It is a decision you must make for yourself, after all," the Judge +declared. "I will not urge you further." + +He held out his hand once more, and the young man grasped it heartily. + +"Perhaps you and Martha and 'Aunt Mary' could come and dine with me some +night next week," the Judge suggested. "I should like to hear about your +sister's first experience in society." + +"Of course we will all come, with pleasure," said Van Dyne. + +As the elder man walked away, the younger followed him with his eyes. +Then he turned and went up the steps of the City Hall. + +Almost at the top of the flight stood two men, who parted company as Van +Dyne drew near. One of them waited for him to come up. The other started +down, smiling at the young lawyer as they met, and saying: "Good +morning, Mr. Van Dyne. It's rain we're going to have, I'm thinking." + +"Good morning, Mr. O'Donnell," returned Van Dyne, roused from his +reverie. + +"There's Mr. McCann waiting to have a word with you," cried O'Donnell +over his shoulder, as he passed. + +The young lawyer looked up and saw the other man at the top of the +steps. He wanted time to think over his conversation with Judge +Jerningham, and he had no desire for a talk just then with the district +leader. Perhaps he unconsciously revealed this feeling in the coolness +with which he returned the other's greeting, courteous as he always was, +especially toward those whom he did not consider his equal. + +"It's glad I am to see you, Mr. Van Dyne," said the politician, patting +the young man on the shoulder as they shook hands. + +Van Dyne drew back instinctively. Never before had Pat McCann's high hat +seemed so very shiny to him, or Pat McCann's fur overcoat so very furry. +The big diamond in Pat McCann's shirt-front was concealed by the tightly +buttoned coat; but Van Dyne knew that it was there all the same, and he +detested it more than ever before. + +"It's a dark morning it is," said McCann. "Will we take a little drop of +something warm?" + +"Thank you," returned the young lawyer, somewhat stiffly; "I never drink +in the morning." + +"No more do I," declared the other; "but it's a chill day this is. Well, +and when are you coming round to see the boys? Terry O'Donnell and me, +we was just talking about you and Mr. Suydam." + +Van Dyne did not see why it should annoy him to know that he had been +the subject of conversation between Pat McCann and Terry O'Donnell, but +he was instantly aware of the annoyance. If he intended to throw in his +lot with these people, he must look forward to many intimacies not quite +to his liking. + +"Oh, you were talking about me, were you?" he said. + +"We was that," continued the district leader. "We want you to meet the +boys and let them know you, don't you see? We want you to give them the +glad hand." + +When Van Dyne had used this slang phrase to the Judge, it had seemed to +him amusing; now it struck him as vulgar. + +"We want you to jolly them up a bit," McCann went on. "The boys will be +glad to know you better." + +"Yes," was the monosyllabic response to this invitation. + +The district leader looked at the young lawyer, and his manner changed. + +"We'd like to get acquainted with you, Mr. Van Dyne," he said, "if +you're going to be one of us." + +"If I'm going to be one of you," Van Dyne repeated. "That's just the +question. Am I going to be one of you?" + +"I thought we had settled all that last week," cried McCann. + +"I don't think I told you that I would join you," Van Dyne declared, +wondering just how far he had committed himself at that last interview. + +"You told me you thought you would," McCann declared. + +"Oh, maybe I thought so then," Van Dyne answered. + +The district leader was generally wary and tactful. Among people of his +own class he was a good judge of men; and he owed his position largely +to his persuasive powers. But on this occasion he made a mistake, due +perhaps in some measure to his perception of the other's assumption of +superiority. + +"And now you don't think so?" he retorted, swiftly. "Is that what it is? +Well, it's for you to say, not me. I'm not begging any man to come into +the organization if they don't want. But I can't waste my time any more +on them that don't want. It's for you to say the word, and it's now or +never." + +"Since you put it that way, Mr. McCann," said Van Dyne, "it's never." + +"Then you don't want to join the organization?" asked the district +leader, a little taken aback by the other's sudden change of +determination. + +"No," Van Dyne replied, "I don't." + +And when he was left alone on the top of the City Hall steps, the young +lawyer was puzzled to know whether it was Judge Jerningham or Pat McCann +that had most influenced his decision. + + (1898) + + + + +[Illustration: "Sisters + +Under Their Skins"] + + +The light March rain, which had been intermittent all the morning, +ceased falling before Minnie Henryson and her mother had reached Sixth +Avenue. The keen wind sprang up again, and a patch of blue sky appeared +here and there down the vista of Twenty-third Street, as they were +walking westward. There was even a suggestion of sunshine far away over +the Jersey hills. + +The two ladies closed their umbrellas, which the west wind had made it +hard for them to hold. + +"I believe we are going to have a pleasant afternoon, after all," said +Mrs. Henryson. "Perhaps we had better lunch down here and get all our +shopping done to-day." + +"Just as you say, mamma," the daughter answered, a little listlessly, +accustomed to accept all her mother's sudden changes of plans. + +They turned the corner and went a little way down the avenue, as the +brakes of an up-town train scraped and squeaked when it stopped at the +station high above their heads. + +Mrs. Henryson paused to look into one of the broad windows of a gigantic +store. + +"Minnie," she said, solemnly, "I don't believe hats are going to be any +smaller this summer, in spite of all they say in the papers." + +"It doesn't seem like it," responded her daughter, perfunctorily. She +had already bought her own hat for the spring, and just then her mind +was wandering far afield. She was dutifully accompanying her mother for +a morning's shopping, although she would rather have had the time to +herself, so that she could think out the question that was puzzling her. + +Her mother continued to peer into the window, comparing the hats with +one another, and Minnie's attention was arrested by a little girl of +eight who stopped almost at her side and stamped three times on the iron +cover of an opening in the sidewalk, nearly in front of the window where +the two ladies were standing. After giving this signal the child drew +back; and in less than a minute the covers opened wide, and then an +elevator began to rise, bringing up a middle-aged man begrimed with oil +and coal-dust. + +"Hello, dad," cried the child. + +"Hello, kid!" he answered. "How's mother?" + +"She's better," the girl answered. "Not so much pain." + +"That's good," the man responded. + +"An' the doctor's been, an' he says she's doin' fine," the child +continued. "Maybe she can get up for good next week." + +"That'll be a sight for sore eyes, won't it, kid?" the father asked. +"What you got for me to-day?" + +Minnie was listening, although she was apparently gazing intently at the +shop-window. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the child hand a tin +dinner-pail to the man who had risen from the depths below. Then she +heard the young voice particularize its contents. + +"There's roast-beef sandwiches--I made 'em myself--and pie, apple pie--I +got that at the bakery--and coffee." + +"Coffee, eh?" said the man. "That's what I want most of all. My throat's +all dried up with the dust. Guess I'd better begin on that now." He +opened the dinner-pail and took a long drink out of it. "That's pretty +good, that coffee. That went right to the spot!" + +"I made it," the child explained, proudly. + +"Did you now?" he answered. "Well, it's as good as your mother's." Then +a bell rang down below; he pulled on one of the chains and the elevator +began to go down slowly. + +"So-long, kid," he called, as his head sank to the level of the +sidewalk. + +"Good-by, dad," she answered, leaning forward; "come home as early as +you can. Mother'll be so glad to see you." + +The child waited until the covers had again closed over her father, and +then she started away. Minnie Henryson turned and watched her as she +slipped across the avenue, avoiding the cars and the carts with the +skill born of long experience. + +At last Mrs. Henryson tore herself away from the window with its +flamboyant head-gear. "No," she said, emphatically, "I don't believe +really they're going to be any smaller." + +The daughter did not answer. She was thinking of the little domestic +episode she had just witnessed; and her sympathy went out to the sick +woman, laid up in some dark tenement and waiting through the long hours +for her husband's return. Her case was sad; and yet she had a husband +and a child and a home of her own; her life was fuller than the empty +existence of a girl who had nothing to do but to go shopping with her +mother and to gad about to teas, with now and then a dinner or a dance +or the theater. A home of her own and a husband!--what was a woman's +life without them? And so it was that what Minnie had just seen tied +itself at once into the subject of her thoughts as she walked silently +down the avenue by the side of her mother. + +The trains rattled and ground on the Elevated almost over their heads; +the clouds scattered and a faint gleam of pale March sunshine at last +illumined the grayness of the day. The noon-hour rush was at its height, +and the sidewalks were often so thronged that mother and daughter were +separated for a moment as they tried to pick their way through the +crowd. + +When they came to the huge department-store they were seeking, Mrs. +Henryson stood inside the vestibule as though deciding on her plan of +campaign. + +"Minnie," she promulgated at last, "you had better try and match those +ribbons, and I'll go and pick out the rug for your father." + +"Shall I wait for you at the ribbon-counter?" the daughter asked. + +"Just sit down, and I'll come back as soon as I can. You look a little +tired this morning, anyhow." + +"I'm not the least tired, I assure you--but I didn't sleep well last +night," she answered, as she went with her mother to the nearest +elevator. + +When she was left alone, she had a little sigh of relief, as though she +was glad to be able to let her thoughts run where they would without +interruption. She walked slowly to the ribbon-counter in a far corner of +the store, unconscious of the persons upon whom her eyes rested. She was +thinking of herself and of her own future. She wondered whether that +future was then hanging in the balance. + +She had early discovered that she was not very pretty, although her +mother was always telling her that she had a good figure; and she had +reached the age of twenty-two without having had any particular +attention from any man. She had begun to ask herself whether any man +ever would single her out and make her interested in him and implore her +to be his wife. And now in the past few months it seemed to her as if +this dream might come true. There was no doubt that Addison Wyngard had +been attentive all through the winter. Other girls had noticed it, too, +and had teased her about it. He had been her partner three times at the +dances of the Cotillion of One Hundred. And when some of the men of that +wide circle had got up the Thursday Theater Club, he had joined only +after he had found out that she was going to be a member. She recalled +that he had told her that he did not care for the theater, and that he +was so busy he felt he had no right to go out in the evening. The +managing clerk of a pushing law firm could not control his own time even +after office hours; and there had been one night when he was to be her +escort at the Theater Club a box of flowers had come at six o'clock, +with a note explaining that unexpected business forced him to break the +engagement. And the seat beside her had been vacant all the evening. + +Even when she came to the ribbon-counter she did what she had to do +mechanically, with her thoughts ever straying from her duty of matching +widths and tints. Her mind kept escaping from the task in hand and +persisted in recalling the incidents of her intimacy with him. + +After she had made her purchases she took a seat at the end of the +counter, which happened to be more or less deserted just then. Three +shop-girls, who had gathered to gossip during the noon lull in trade, +looked at her casually as she sat down, and then went on with their own +conversation, which was pitched in so shrill a key that she could not +help hearing it. + +"She says to him, she says, 'Willy, I'll report you every time I catch +you, see?' and she's reported him three times this morning already. That +ain't what a real lady ought to do, I don't think." + +"Who'd she report him to?" one of the other salesladies asked. + +"Twice to Mr. Maguire. Once she reported him to Mr. Smith, and he didn't +take no notice. He just laughed. But Mr. Maguire, he talked to Willy +somethin' fierce. And you know Willy's got to stand it, for he's got +that cross old mother of his to keep; he has to get her four quarts of +paralyzed milk every day, Sundays too." + +Then the third of the group broke in: "Mr. Maguire tried it on me once, +but I gave it to him back, straight from the shoulder. I ain't going to +have him call me down; not much. I know my business, don't I? I don't +need no little snip of a red-headed Irishman to tell me what to do. I +was born here, I was, and I'm not taking any back talk from him, even if +he has a front like the court-house!" + +The second girl, whose voice was gentler, then remarked: "Well, I +wouldn't be too hard on Mr. Maguire to-day. I guess he's got troubles of +his own." + +"What's that?" cried the first of the three, whose voice was the +sharpest. "Has Sadie Jones thrown him down again?" + +"I didn't know a thing about it till this mornin', when I saw the ring +on her other finger," the second saleslady explained, delighted to be +the purveyor of important information. "Mazie says Sadie didn't break it +off again till last night after he'd brought her back from the Lady +Dazzlers' Mask and Civic. And she waited till they got into the trolley +comin' home. An' he'd taken her in to supper, too." + +"That's so," the third girl said, "and Mr. Maguire's takin' it terrible. +He came across the street this morning just before me, and he had his +skates on. I was waitin' to see him go in the mud-gutter. Then he saw +the copper on the beat, and he made an awful brace. Gee, but I thought +he was pinched sure!" + +"Mr. Smith caught on to him," said the first, with her sharp voice, "and +Willy heard him say he'd be all right again, and he had only the fill of +a pitcher." + +"And Sadie's going to keep the ring, too. She says she earned it trying +to keep him straight," the third girl went on. "It's a dead ringer for a +diamond, even if it ain't the real thing. He says it is." + +Two customers came up at this juncture, and the group of salesladies had +to dissolve. A series of shrill whistles came in swift succession and a +fire-engine rushed down the avenue, followed by a hook-and-ladder truck; +and the girl with the kindly voice went over toward the door to look at +them, leaving Minnie Henryson again to her own thoughts. + +She asked herself if she was really getting interested in Addison +Wyngard. And she could not answer her own question. Of course it had +been very pleasant to feel that he was interested in her. And she +thought he really was interested. He had told her that he did not like +his position with Smyth, Mackellar & Hubbard, and a classmate at +Columbia had offered him a place with a railroad company down in Texas. +But he had said that he hated to give up the law and to leave New +York--and all his friends. And as he said that, he looked at her. She +had felt that he was implying that she was the reason why he was +unwilling to go. She remembered that she had laughed lightly as she +rejoined that she would feel homesick herself if she went out of sight +of the Madison Square Tower. He had answered that there were other +things in New York besides the Diana, things just as distant and just as +unattainable. And to that she had made no response. + +Then he had told her that he had another classmate in the office of the +Corporation Counsel, Judge McKinley; there was a vacancy there, and his +name had been suggested to the judge. She had smiled and expressed the +hope that he might get the appointment. And now, as she sat there alone, +with the stir and bustle of the department-store all about her, she felt +certain as never before that if he did get the place he would be +assured that he had at last money enough to marry on, and that he would +ask her to be his wife. If she accepted him she would have a husband and +a home of her own. She would have her chance for the fuller life that +can come to a woman only when she is able to fulfil her destiny. + +Later he had found a chance to say that he was going to stick it out in +New York a little longer--and then, if the Texas offer was still open, +he'd have to take it. He had paused to hear what she would say to that. +And all she had said was that Texas did seem a long way off. She had +given him no encouragement; she had been polite--nothing more. If he did +ever propose, and if she should refuse him, he could never reproach her +for having lured him on. + +Suddenly it seemed to her that this chilly attitude of hers was +contemptible. The man wanted her--and for the first time she began to +suspect that all the woman in her wanted him to want her. She hated +herself for having been so unresponsive, so discouraging, so cold. She +knew that he was a man of character and of ability, a clean man, a man +his wife might be proud of. And she had looked ahead sharply and +realized how desolate the Cotillion of One Hundred and the Thursday +Theater Club would be for her if Addison Wyngard should go to Texas, +after all. She began to fear that, if he did decide to leave New York, +he would never dare to ask her to marry him. + +Then she looked around her and began to wonder what could be keeping +her mother so long. She happened to see the door of the store open, as a +tall girl came in with a high pompadour and an immense black hat adorned +with three aggressive silver feathers. + +The new-comer advanced toward the ribbon-counter, where she was greeted +effusively by two of the salesladies. + +"For pity's sake," cried one of them, "I ain't seen you for a month of +Sundays!" + +"Addie Brown!" said the other. "And you haven't been back here to see us +old friends since I don't know when." + +"Addie Cameron now, if you please," and the new-comer bridled a little +as she gave herself her married name. "An' I was comin' in last +Saturday, but I had to have my teeth fixed first, and I went to dentist +after dentist and they were all full, and I was tired out." + +"Well, it's Addie, any way you fix it," responded one of the +salesladies, "and we're glad to see you back, even if we did think you'd +shook us for keeps. Is this gettin' married all it's cracked up to be?" + +"It's fine," the bride replied, "an' I wouldn't never come back here on +no account. Not but what things ain't what I'd like altogether. I went +to the Girls' Friendly last night, and there was that Miss Van Antwerp +that runs our class, and she was so interested, for all she's one of the +Four Hundred. An' she wanted to know about Sam, an' I told her he was a +good man an' none better, an' I was perfectly satisfied. 'But, Miss Van +Antwerp,' I says to her, I says, 'don't you never marry a +policeman--their hours are so inconvenient. You can't never tell when +he's comin' home.' That's what I told her, for she's always interested." + +The other two salesladies laughed, and one of them asked, "What did Miss +Van Antwerp say to that?" + +"She just said that she wasn't thinkin' of gettin' married, but she'd +remember my advice." + +"I ain't thinkin' of gettin' married, either," said one of the +salesladies, the one with the gentler voice, "but I've had a dream an' +it may come true. I dreamed there was a young feller, handsome he was, +too, and the son of a charge customer. You've seen her, the old stiff +with those furs and the big diamond ear-rings, that's so fussy always +and so partic'lar, for all she belongs to the Consumers' League." + +"I know who you mean; horrid old thing she is, too," interrupted the +other; "but I didn't know she had a son." + +"I don't know it, either," was the reply. "But that's what I +dreamed--and I dreamed it three nights runnin', too. Fierce, wasn't it? +An' he kept hangin' round and wantin' to make a date to take me to the +opera. Said he could talk French an' he'd tell me what it was all about. +An'--" + +Just then the floor-walker called "Forward!" as a customer came to the +other end of the counter; and the girl with the gentle voice moved away. + +Minnie Henryson wondered whether this floor-walker was Mr. Maguire or +Mr. Smith. Under the suggestion of his stare, whichever he was, Addie +Cameron and the other shop-girl moved away toward the door, and the rest +of their conversation was lost to the listener. + +She did not know how long she continued to sit there, while customers +loitered before the ribbon-counter and fingered the stock and asked +questions. She heard the fire-engines come slowly back; and above the +murmur which arose all over the store she caught again the harsh +grinding of the brakes on the Elevated in the avenue. Then she rose, as +she saw her mother looking for her. + +"I didn't mean to keep you waiting so long," Mrs. Henryson explained; +"but I couldn't seem to find just the rug I wanted for your father. You +know he's always satisfied with anything, so I have to be particular to +get something he'll really like. And then I met Mrs. McKinley, and we +had to have a little chat." + +Minnie looked at her mother. She had forgotten that the wife of the +Corporation Counsel was a friend of her mother's; and she wondered +whether she could get her mother to say a good word for Addison Wyngard. + +Mother and daughter threaded their way through the swarm of shoppers +toward the door of the store. + +"By the way, Minnie," said her mother, just as they came to the +entrance, "didn't you tell me that young Mr. Wyngard sat next you at the +theater the other night at that Thursday Club of yours? That's his name, +isn't it?" + +"Mr. Wyngard did sit next to me one evening," the daughter answered, not +looking up. + +"Well, Mrs. McKinley saw you, and so did the Judge. He says that this +young Wyngard is a clever lawyer--and he's going to take him into his +office." + +And then they passed out into the avenue flooded with spring sunshine. + +Minnie took a long breath of fresh air and she raised her head. It +seemed to her almost as though she could already feel a new ring on the +third finger of her left hand. + + (1910) + + + + +[Illustration: Under an April Sky] + + +The swirling rain bespattered the window as the fitful April wind +changed about; and the lonely woman, staring vacantly upon the plumes of +steam waving from the roofs below her, saw them violently twisted and +broken and scattered. The new hotel towered high above all the +neighboring buildings, and she could look down on the private houses +that filled block after block, until the next tall edifice rose abruptly +into view half a mile to the northward. Through the drizzle the prospect +seemed to her drearier than ever, and the ugly monotony of it weighed on +her like a nightmare. With an impatient sigh she turned from the window, +but as her eye traveled around the walls she saw nothing that might +relieve her melancholy. + +It was not a large room, this private parlor on an upper story of the +immense hotel; and its decorations, its ornaments, its furniture, its +carpets, had the characterless commonplace befitting an apartment which +might have a score of occupants in a single month. Yet she had spent the +most of the winter in it; those were her pretty cushions (on the hard +sofa), and that was her tea equipage on the low table by the fireplace +(with its gas-log). The photographs in their silver frames were hers +also, and so were the violets that filled a Rookwood bowl on the top of +the writing-desk near the window. But as she glanced about in search of +something that might make her feel at home, she found nothing to satisfy +her longing. The room was a room in a hotel, after all; and she had +failed wholly to impress her own individuality upon it. To recall her +vain efforts only intensified her loneliness. + +The hotel was full, so they said, and it held a thousand souls and more; +and as she walked aimlessly to and fro within her narrow space, she +wondered whether any one of the thousand felt as detached and as +solitary as she did then--as she had felt so often during the long +winter. She paused at the window again, and gazed at the houses far down +below her on the other side of the narrow street; they were at least +homes, and the women who dwelt there had husbands or sons or +fathers--had each of them a man of some sort for her to lean on, for her +to cling to, for her to love, for her to devote herself to, and for her +to sacrifice herself for. + +Sometimes she had delighted in the loftiness of her position, lifted +high in air; she had fancied almost that she was on another plane from +the people in the thick of the struggle down below. Now as she pressed +her forehead against the chill pane and peered down to watch the +umbrellas that crawled here and there on the sidewalk, more than a +hundred feet beneath her, she had a fleeting vision of her own mangled +body lying down there on the stones, if she should ever yield to the +temptation that came to her in these moments of depression. She +shuddered at the sight, and turned away impetuously, while the rain +again rattled against the window, as though demanding instant admission. + +An observer would have declared that this woman, weary as she might be +with solitude, was far too young for life already to have lost its +savor. Her figure was slight and girlish yet. Her walk was brisk and +youthful. Her thick, brown hair was abundant, and untouched by gray. Her +dark-brown eyes kept their freshness still, although they were older +than they might seem at first. She was perhaps a scant thirty years of +age, although it might well be that she was three or four years younger. +No doubt the observer would have found her ill at ease and restless, as +though making ready for an ordeal that she was anxious to pass through +as soon as possible. + +The clock on the mantelpiece began to strike, and she looked up eagerly; +but when she saw that it was only three, she turned away petulantly, +almost like a spoiled child who cannot bear to wait. + +Her eye fell on the desk with an unfinished letter lying on it. With her +usual impulsive swiftness she sat herself down and hastily ran over +what she had written. + +"Dear Margaret," the letter began, "it was a surprise, of course, to +hear from you again, for it must be three or four years since last we +corresponded. But your kindly inquiries were very welcome, and it did me +good to feel that there was a woman really interested in me, even though +she was thousands of miles away. It is with a glow of gratitude that I +think of you and your goodness to me when I was suddenly widowed. You +took pity on my loneliness then, and you can't guess how often I have +longed for a friend like you in these last years of bitter solitude--a +friend I could go to for sympathy, a friend I could unburden my heart +to." + +Having read this almost at a glance, she seized her pen and continued: + +"I feel as if I simply must talk out to somebody--and so I'm going to +write to you, sure you will not misunderstand me, for your insight and +your perceptions were always as kindly as they were keen. + +"You ask me what I am going to do. And I answer you frankly. I am going +to marry a man I don't love--and who doesn't love me. So we shall +swindle each other! + +"I can see your shocked look as you read this--but you don't know what +has brought me to it. I've come to the end of my tether at last. My +money has nearly all gone. I don't know how I can support myself--and +so I'm going to let somebody support me, that's all! + +"The settlement of poor George's affairs has dragged along all these +years, and it was only last December that I got the few hundred dollars +that were coming to me. I took the cash and I came here to New York to +see if something wouldn't turn up. What--well, I didn't know and I +didn't care. I just hoped that the luck might change at last--and +perhaps I did dream of a Prince Charming at the end of the perspective; +not a mere boy, of course, not the pretty little puppet Cinderella +married, but a Prince Charming of middle age, with his hair dashed with +gray at the temples, a man of position and sound judgment and good +taste, who might still find his ideal in a thin little widow like me. Of +course the dream hasn't come true; it's only the nightmares that are +realized. I haven't seen any Prince Charmings, either pretty little +puppets or mature men of the world. I guess the race is extinct, like +the dodo. At any rate, nothing has turned up, and the winter is over, +and my money is nearly all gone. + +"But I don't regret the past few months. New York is very interesting, +and I'd dearly love to talk it over with you. It is a sort of a +stock-pot; everything goes in--good meat, and bones, and scraps of all +sorts--and you never know just what the flavor will be like, but it's +sure to be rich and stimulating and unexpected. I've been to very +exclusive houses here sometimes, and I enjoyed that immensely; I think +I could learn easily to live up to any income, no matter how big it was. +I've been mostly in the society absurdly called the Four Hundred; it +used to be called the Upper Ten Thousand; there are pleasant men and +women there, and dull ones too, just as there are everywhere else, I +suppose. And I've even gone a little into artistic and literary +circles--but I don't really like untidy people. + +"You see, I am here at the newest and swellest hotel. It's true I have +only a tiny little parlor and a teeny little bedroom, 'way up near the +top of the house, with a room in the attic somewhere for my maid +Jemima--you remember Jemima? Well, she's watching over me still, and +she's the only real friend I have in all New York! She'd give me all her +savings gladly if I was mean enough to take them; but I couldn't live on +that pittance, could I? + +"I brought very good letters, and I had very good advice from an old +maid who knew George's father when he was a boy--Miss Marlenspuyk; dear +old soul she is. Then, as it happened, somebody remembered that poor +George had been interested in that strike in Grass Valley, and had +received one-third of the stock when the Belinda and the Lone Star were +consolidated. I've got that stock still, and I could paper a house with +it--if I had one. At any rate, somebody started the story that I was +immensely rich, and of course I didn't contradict it, I hope I've too +much tact to refuse any help that chance throws in my way. I don't know +whether it was the reported wealth, or the excellent letters I brought, +or Miss Marlenspuyk's good advice, or even my own personal +attractiveness--but, whatever the cause, I just walked into Society here +almost without an effort; so easily, indeed, that the social strugglers +who have seen doors open wide for me where they have been knocking in +vain for years--well, they are mad enough to die! It's enough to make us +despise ourselves even more than we do when we see the weeping and +wailing and gnashing of teeth there is among the outsiders who are +peeking over the barbed-wire fence of Society! I'm afraid I've been +horrid enough to get a good deal of satisfaction out of the envy of +those outside the pale. + +"And I've enjoyed the thing for its own sake, too. I like to give a +little dinner here to a woman from whom I expect favors and to a couple +of agreeable men. I like to go to other people's dinners, and to a ball +now and then. Why is it I haven't really the half-million or more that +they think I have? I'm sure I could spend it better than most of those I +know who have it. As it is, I've about enough money left in the bank at +the corner to carry me another month--and then? And then I wonder +sometimes whether I hadn't better take the last half-dollar for a poison +of some sort--painless, of course. Jemima would see me decently buried. +But of course I sha'n't do anything of the sort; I'm too big a coward! + +"And the winter has almost gone, and nothing has turned up. Oh yes, I +forgot--poor George's brother, who doesn't like me, and never did; he +knows how poor I am, and he wouldn't give me a dollar out of his own +pocket. But he wrote me last week, asking if I would like a place as +matron in a girl's boarding-school in Milwaukee. Of course I haven't +answered him! I don't exactly see myself as a matron. What a hideous +word it is! + +"_Mais il faut faire un fin_, and my end is matrimony, I suppose. +There's a man here called Stone; he's a lieutenant-commander in the +navy, and I think he's going to ask me to marry him--and I'm going to +accept the proposal promptly! + +"He's not the mature Prince Charming of my dreams, but he is really not +ill-looking. He's a manly fellow, and I confess I thought he was rather +nice, until I discovered that he was after me for my money--which was a +shock to my vanity, too. Little Mat Hitchcock--you must remember that +withered little old beau? Well, he is still extant, and as detestable as +ever; he told me that John Stone had proposed to half the wealthy girls +in New York. Of course, I don't believe that, but I thought it was very +suspicious when he took me in to dinner a month ago and tried to +question me about my stock in the Belinda and Lone Star. I told him I +had the stock--and I have, indeed!--and I let him believe that it was +worth anything you please. It wasn't what I said, of course, for I was +careful not to commit myself; but I guess he got the right impression. +And since then he has been very attentive; so it must be the money he is +after and not me. I rather liked him, till I began to suspect; and even +now I find it hard to have the thorough contempt I ought to have for a +fortune-hunter. + +"Why is it that we think a man despicable who marries for money, and yet +it is what we expect a woman to do? I've asked Miss Marlenspuyk about +Mr. Stone, and she knows all about him, as she does about everybody +else. She says he has three or four or five thousand dollars a year +besides his pay--and yet he wants to marry me for my money! It will just +serve him right if I marry him for his. He's at the Brooklyn Navy-Yard +for a few months more, and then his shore duty will be up; so that if we +are married, he'll be ordered to sea soon, and I shall be free from him +for three years. When I write like that I don't know whether I have a +greater contempt for him or for myself. _Mais il faut vivre, n'est-ce +pas?_ And what am I to live on next month? I can't be a matron in +Milwaukee, can I? The world owes me a living, after all, and I've simply +got to collect the debt from a man. And how I hate myself for doing it! + +"He sent me flowers this morning--a big bunch of violets--and of course +he will come in this afternoon to get thanked. If I am engaged before +dinner I'll put in a postscript to tell you--so that you can get your +wedding-present ready!" + +As she wrote this last sentence she gave a hard little laugh. + +Then she heard a brisk rattle from the telephone-box near the door. + +She dropped her pen and went across the room and put the receiver to her +ear. + +"Yes--I'm Mrs. Randolph," she said. "Yes--I'm at home. Yes. Have Mr. +Stone shown up to my parlor." + +Then she replaced the receiver and stood for a moment in thought. She +went back to the desk and closed her portfolio, with the unfinished +letter inside. She changed the position of the bowl of violets and +brought it into the full light. She glanced about the room to see if it +was in order; and she crossed to the fireplace and looked at herself in +the mirror above. + +"I do wish I had slept better last night," she said to herself. "I +always show it so round the eyes." + +She crossed swiftly to the door which opened into the next room. + +"Jemima!" she called. + +"Yes, Miss Evelyn," responded a voice from within. + +"Mr. Stone is coming up--and my hair is all wrong. I simply must do it +over. You tell him I'll be here in a minute." + +"Yes, Miss Evelyn," was the answer. + +"And after Mr. Stone comes you get the water ready for the tea," said +Mrs. Randolph, as she went into the bedroom. "Be sure that you have a +fresh lemon. The last time Mr. Stone was here his slice was all dried +up--and men don't like that sort of thing." + +A minute or two after she had disappeared there was a rap at the door, +and Jemima came from the bedroom and admitted Mr. Stone. She told him +that Mrs. Randolph would see him at once, and then she went back to her +mistress, after giving him a curiously inquisitive look. + +Mr. Stone had the walk of a sailor, but he carried himself like a +soldier. His eyes were blue and penetrating; his ashen mustache curled +over a firm mouth; his clean-shaven chin was square and resolute. + +He stood near the door for a moment, and then he went toward the window. +The rain had dwindled, and as he looked out he thought he saw a break in +the clouds. + +It was full five minutes before Mrs. Randolph returned. + +"Oh, Mr. Stone," she began, in voluble apology, "it's a shame to keep +you waiting so, but honestly I couldn't help it. You took me by surprise +so, I really wasn't fit to be seen!" + +Mr. Stone gallantly expressed a doubt as to this last statement of +hers. + +"It's very good of you to think that," she responded, "but I hardly +hoped to see any one this afternoon, in this awful weather. How did you +ever have the courage to venture out? It's so kind of you to come and +visit a lonely woman, for it has been such a long day!" + +Mr. Stone informed her that it looked as though it was about to clear +up. + +"Of course you sailors have to know all about the weather, don't you?" +she replied. "That's the advantage of being a man--you can do things. +Now a woman can't do anything--she can't even go out in the rain for +fear of getting her skirts wet!" + +In her own ears her voice did not ring quite true. She knew that her +liveliness was a little factitious. She wondered whether he had detected +it. She looked up at him, and found that he was gazing full at her. She +had never before recognized how clear his eyes were and how piercing. + +"I haven't thanked you yet for those lovely violets," she began again, +hastily. "They are exquisite! But then you have always such good taste +in flowers. They have made the day less dreary for me--really they have. +They were company in my loneliness." + +He looked at her in surprise. "You lonely?" he asked. "How can that be?" + +"Why not?" she returned. + +"You have made yourself a home here," he answered, looking about the +room. "You have hosts of friends in New York. Whenever I see you in +society you are surrounded by admirers. How can you be lonely?" + +She was about to make an impetuous reply, but she checked herself. + +"I am not really a New-Yorker, you know," she said at last. "I am a +stranger in a strange city. You don't know what that means." + +"I think I do," he responded. "The city is even stranger to me than it +can be to you." + +"I doubt it," she responded. + +"I was once at sea alone in an open boat for three days," he went on, +"and--it must seem absurd to you, very absurd, I suppose--but I was not +as lonely as I am, now and then, in the midst of the millions of people +here in New York." + +"So you have felt that way too, have you?" she asked. "You have been +overwhelmed by the immensity of the metropolis? You have known what it +is to sink into the multitude, knowing that nobody cares who you are, or +where you are going, or what you are doing, or what hopes and desires +and dreams fill your head? You have found out that it is only in a great +city that one can be really isolated--for in a village nobody is ever +allowed to be alone. But in a human whirlpool like this you can be +sucked down to death and nobody will answer your outcry." + +He gave her another of his penetrating glances. "It surprises me that +you can have such feelings--or even that you can know what such feelings +are," he said, "you who lead so brilliant a life, with dinners every +day, and parties, and--" + +"Yes," she interrupted, with a hard little laugh, "but I have been +lonely even at a dinner of twenty-four. I go to all these things, as you +say--I've had my share of gaiety this winter, I'll admit--and then I +come back here to this hideous hotel, where I don't know a single soul. +Why, I haven't a real friend--not what I call a _friend_--in all New +York." + +She saw that he had listened to her as though somewhat surprised, not +only by what she was saying, but also by the tone in which she said it. +She observed that her last remark struck him as offering an opening for +the proposal which she felt certain he had come to make that afternoon. + +"You must not say that, Mrs. Randolph," he began. "Surely you know that +I--" + +Then he broke off suddenly as the door of the next room opened and +Jemima entered with a tray in her hands. + +"You will let me give you a cup of tea, won't you?" the widow asked, as +Jemima poured out the steaming water. + +"Thank you," the sailor answered. "Your tea is always delicious." + +Jemima lighted the lamp under the silver kettle. Then she left the room, +silently, and Stone was about to take up the conversation where she had +interrupted it, when she came back with a plate of thin +bread-and-butter, and a little glass dish with slices of lemon. + +He checked himself again, not wanting to talk before the servant. Jemima +stole a curious glance at him, as though wondering what manner of man he +was. Then she turned down the flame of the little lamp and left the +room. + +Mrs. Randolph was glad that the conversation had been interrupted at +that point. She had made up her mind to accept Stone's offer when he +should ask her to marry him, but her immediate impulse was to +procrastinate. She did not doubt that he would propose before he left +her that afternoon, and yet she wanted to keep him at arm's-length as +long as she could. There were imperative reasons, she thought, why she +should marry him; but she knew she would bitterly regret having to give +up her liberty--having to surrender the control of herself. + +"You don't take sugar, I remember," she said, as she poured out his cup +of tea. "And only one slice of lemon, isn't it?" + +"Only one," he answered, as he took the cup. "Thank you." + +There was a change of tone in his voice, and she knew that it was +hopeless for her to try to postpone what he had to say. But she could +not help making the effort. + +"I'm so glad you like this tea," she said, hastily. "It is part of a +chest Miss Marlenspuyk had sent to her from Japan, and she let me have +two or three pounds. Wasn't it nice of her?" + +But the attempt failed. The sailor had gulped his tea, and now he set +the cup down. + +"Mrs. Randolph--" he began, with a break in his voice. + +"Mr. Stone!" she answered, laughingly; "that's a solemn way of +addressing me, isn't it? At least it's serious, if it isn't solemn." + +"Mrs. Randolph," he repeated, "what I have to say is serious--very +serious to me, at least." + +Then she knew that it was idle to try to delay matters. She drew a long +breath and responded as lightly as she could: + +"Yes?" + +"I hope I am not going to take you by surprise, Mrs. Randolph," he went +on. "You are so bright and so quick that you must have seen that I +admired you." + +He waited for her response, and she was forced to say something. Even +though the man was trying to marry her for the money he thought she had, +he was at least exhibiting a most becoming ardor. + +"Well," she declared, "I didn't suppose you were very much bored in my +society." + +"I have never before seen a woman in whose society I have taken so much +pleasure," he answered. "You cannot imagine how great a joy it has been +for me to know you, and how much I have enjoyed the privilege of coming +to see you here in your charming home." + +She glanced at the commonplace parlor of the hotel she hated, but she +said nothing. + +"You spoke just now of loneliness," he continued. "I hope you don't know +what that really is--at least that you don't know it as I know it. But +if you have felt it at all, I shall have the less hesitation in asking +if you--if you are willing to consider what it would mean to me if you +could put an end to my loneliness." + +"Mr. Stone!" she said, as she dropped her eyes. + +"It is not your beauty alone that has drawn me to you," he urged, "not +your charm, although I have felt that from the first day I met you. No; +it is more than that, I think--it is your goodness, your gentleness, +your kindness, your womanliness. I don't know how to find words for what +I want to say, but you must know what I mean. I mean that I love you, +and I beg you to be my wife." + +"This is very sudden, Mr. Stone," she replied. + +"Is it?" he asked, honestly. "I thought everybody must have seen how I +felt toward you." + +"Oh, I supposed you liked me a little," she went on. + +"I love you with all my heart," he said, and she wondered at the +sincerity with which he said it. She wished she had never heard that +little Mat Hitchcock talk against him. + +"Of course, I can't expect that you should love me all at once," he +continued; "no; that's too much to hope. But if you only like me a +little now, and if you will only let me love you, I shall be satisfied." +And he leaned forward and took her hand. + +"I do like you, Mr. Stone," she forced herself to answer. She thrilled a +little at his fervor, doubtful as she was as to the reason for his +wooing. And as his eyes were fixed on her she thought that she had never +before done justice to his looks. He was a strong figure of a man. His +mouth was masterful; but the woman who yielded herself to him was likely +to have a satisfactory defender. + +"Well," he asked, when she said nothing, "is it to be yes or no?" And +his voice trembled. + +"Will you be satisfied if I do not say 'no'--even if I do not say 'yes,' +all at once?" she returned. + +"I shall have to be, I suppose," he answered, and there was a ring of +triumph in his voice. "But I shall never let go of you till I get you to +say 'yes.'" And he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. + +She made no resistance; she would have made none had he clasped her in +his arms; she was even a little surprised that he did not. She was +irritatingly conscious that his warmth was not displeasing to her--that +she seemed not to resent his making love to her although she suspected +him of a base motive. + +For a moment or more nothing was said. He still held her hand firmly +clasped in his. + +At last he spoke: "You have granted me so much that I have no right to +ask for more. But I have not a great deal of time now to persuade you to +marry me. Some day this summer I expect to be ordered to sea again--some +day in July or August; and I want to have you for my wife before I go." + +"Oh, Mr. Stone," she cried, "that is very soon!" + +"Can't you call me John?" he asked, following up his advantage. "Can't I +call you Evelyn?" + +She smiled, and did not deny him, and he kissed her hand again. He kept +hold of it now as though he felt sure of it. She acknowledged to herself +that he was making progress. + +They talked for a while about his term of sea service. He thought that +he might be assigned to the Mediterranean squadron, and, if he were, she +could come to Europe to him and spend the next winter at Villefranche. +Then they discussed travel in France and in Italy, and the places they +had visited. + +With her delicate feminine perceptions she soon discovered that there +was something he wished to say but did not know how to lead up to. +Curious to learn what this might be, she let the conversation drop, so +that he could make a fresh start in his blunt fashion. + +Finally he came to the point. "Evelyn," he began, abruptly, "do you know +the Pixleys in San Francisco--Tom Pixley, I mean?" + +"I think I have met him," she answered, wondering what this might lead +to. + +"He is an old friend of mine," Stone continued. "He was here a fortnight +ago, and I had a long talk with him. He knows all about those Grass +Valley mines." + +She smiled a little bitterly and withdrew her hand. She thought that +perhaps the stock was worth more than she had supposed, and that Stone +had been told so by Pixley. All her contempt for a man who could marry a +woman for money rose hot within her. + +"Does he?" she asked, carelessly, not trusting herself to say more. + +"You have--it's not my business, I know," urged the sailor, "but I don't +mind, if I can spare you any worry in the future--you have a lot of +stock in the Belinda and Lone Star, haven't you?" + +"Yes," she replied. + +"It does not pay at all, does it?" he asked. + +She looked at him coldly as she responded, "I have not received any +dividends this year." + +"But you spoke to me once as if you counted on this stock," he +returned--"as if you thought that the dividends were only deferred." + +"Did I?" she said, distantly, as though the matter interested her very +little. + +"That was why I took the liberty of getting the facts out of Tom +Pixley," Stone continued. "It wasn't my business, I know, but, loving +you as I did, I was afraid you might be bitterly disappointed." + +"No," she interrupted, "I am not likely to be bitterly disappointed." + +"Then you were aware already that the Belinda and Lone Star is a +failure?" he asked. "I am very glad you were, for I was afraid I might +be the bearer of bad news." + +She gazed at him in intense astonishment. "Do you mean to say that my +stock is worthless?" she inquired. + +"I fear it is worth very little," he answered. "Tom Pixley told me he +believed that they were going to abandon the workings, and that the +interest on the mortgage had not been paid for two years." + +"So you knew all along that I was poor?" she asked. "Then why did you +ask me to marry you?" + +John Stone looked at her for a moment in amazement, while his cheeks +flamed. Then he rose to his feet and stood before her. + +"Did you suppose that I wanted to marry you for your money?" he said, +making an obvious effort for self-control. + +"Yes," she answered, lowering her eyes. "And that is why I was going to +accept you." + +She felt that the man was still staring at her, wholly unable to +understand. + +"I am poor, very poor," she went on, hurriedly. "I don't know how I am +going to live next month. I believed that you thought I was wealthy. It +seemed to me a mean thing for a man to do, to marry a woman for her +money, so I didn't mind deceiving you." + +He stood silently gazing at her for a minute, and she could not but +think that a man was very slow to understand. + +Then he sat down again, and took her hand once more, and petted it. + +"You must have been sadly tried if you were willing to do a thing like +that," he said, with infinite pity in his voice. "You poor child!" + +It was her turn then to be astonished, but she was swifter of +comprehension. + +"Do you mean to say that you still want to marry me," she asked, looking +him full in the face, "even after I have insulted you?" + +"Yes," he answered. "I want to marry you--and more than ever now, so +that you may never again be exposed to a temptation like this." + +"But now I refuse to marry you," she returned, forcibly, as she withdrew +her hand. "I say 'no' now--without hesitation this time." + +"Why?" he asked. + +"Because it isn't fair now," she responded. + +"Fair?" he repeated, puzzled. + +"I couldn't do it now; it would be too mean for anything," she +explained. "As long as I supposed you thought I was rich and were going +to marry me for my money, I didn't mind cheating you. I could let you +marry me even if I didn't love you, and it would only be serving you +right. But now!--now I couldn't! It wouldn't be fair to you. I am pretty +mean, I confess, but I'm not mean enough for that, I hope." + +Again he took a moment to think before he spoke. + +"I don't know what to make of you," he began. "Am I to understand that +you were going to marry me, though you did not love me, so long as you +thought I did not love you, but that now, when you know that I really do +love you, for that very reason you refuse to marry me?" + +"That's it," she cried. "You must see how I feel about it. It wouldn't +be fair to marry you now I know you are in earnest, would it?" + +"But if I am willing," he urged; "if I want you as much as ever; if I +feel confident that I can get you to love me a little in time; if you +will only let me hope--" + +"Oh, I couldn't," she answered. "I couldn't cheat you now I really know +you--now that I like you a great deal better than I did." + +He was about to protest again, when she interrupted him. + +"Don't let's talk about it any more," she said, impetuously; "it has +given me a headache already." + +Forbidden to speak upon the one subject about which he had something to +say, the man said nothing, and for a minute or more there was silence. + +They could hear the patter of the rain as it pelted against the window +near which they were sitting. Then there was a slight flash of +lightning, followed by a distant growl of thunder. + +A shiver ran through Mrs. Randolph, and she gave a little nervous laugh. + +"I hate lightning," she explained, "and I detest a storm--don't you? I +don't see how any one can ever choose to be a sailor." + +He smiled grimly. "I am a sailor," he said. + +"And are you going to sea again soon?" she returned. "I shall miss you +dreadfully. I'm glad I sha'n't be here in New York when you are gone. +Perhaps I shall leave first." + +"Where are you going?" he asked, eagerly. + +"I've got to go somewhere," she answered, "now that I've had to change +all my plans. I'm going to Milwaukee." + +"To Milwaukee?" he repeated. "I did not know you had any friends there." + +"I haven't," she answered, with a repetition of the hard little laugh. +"Not a friend in Milwaukee, and not a friend in New York." + +"Then why are you going?" + +"I must earn my living, somehow," she responded, "and I can't paint, and +I can't embroider, and I can't teach whist, and I'm not young enough to +go on the stage--so I'm to settle down as the matron of a girl's school +in Milwaukee. The place has been offered to me, and I intend to accept +it." + +"When must you be there?" he inquired. + +"Oh, I don't know," she answered. "Next week some time, or perhaps not +till next month. I'm not sure when." + +John Stone rose to go. "Then I may come to see you again--Evelyn?" he +asked. + +Her heart throbbed a little as she heard her name from his lips. + +"Oh yes," she replied, cordially. "Come and see me as often as you can. +I hate to be as lonely as I was this afternoon." + +And she held out her hand. + +"Good-by, then," he responded, and he raised her hand again and kissed +it. + +When he had gone she walked restlessly to and fro for several minutes. +At last she opened her desk and took out the unfinished letter and tore +it up impatiently. Then she went to the window and peered out. + +Twilight was settling down over the city, but the sky was leaden, with +not a gleam of sunset along the horizon. Lights were already twinkling +here and there over the vast expanse of irregular roofs across which she +was looking. The rain was heavier than ever, and it fell in sheets, now, +as though it would never cease. + +Yet the solitary woman looking out at the dreary prospect did not feel +so lonely as she had felt two hours earlier. She had meant to accept +John Stone, and she had rejected him. But it was a comfort to her to +know that somewhere in the immense city that spread out before her there +was a man who really loved her. + + (1898) + + + + +[Illustration: An Idyl of Central Park] + + +It was nearly five o'clock on an afternoon early in May when Dr. Richard +Demarest bicycled up Fifth Avenue and into Central Park. He looked at +his watch to make sure of the hour, and then he dismounted on the +western side of the broad drive, whence he could see everybody who might +seek to enter the Park long before they were likely to discover him. He +had reason to believe that Miss Minnie Contoit, who had refused to marry +him only a fortnight before, and whom he had not seen since, was going +to take a little turn on her wheel in the Park that afternoon. + +As it had happened, he had gone into the club to lunch that morning, and +he had met her only brother, with whom he had always carefully +maintained the most pleasant relations. By ingeniously pumping Ralph +Contoit he had ascertained that the girl he loved was going out at five +with her father and her grandfather. The brother had been even franker +than brothers usually are. + +"I say," he had declared, "I don't know what has come over Minnie this +last ten days; she's been as cross as two sticks, and generally she's +pretty even-tempered for a girl, you know. But she's been so touchy +lately; she nearly took my head off this morning! I guess you had better +have Dr. Cheever come around and prescribe for her. Cocaine for a bad +temper is what she needs now, I can tell you!" + +Although he was a rejected lover, he was not melancholy. In the +springtime youth feels the joy of living, and Richard Demarest took +delight in the beauty of the day. The foliage was everywhere fresh and +vigorous after the persistent rains of April, and a scent of young +blossoms came to him from a clump of bushes behind the path. A group of +half a dozen girls flashed past him on their wheels, laughing lightly as +they sped along home, each of them with a bunch of fragrant lilacs +lashed to her handle-bar. + +He followed them with his eye till they turned out of the Park; and then +at the entrance he saw the girl he was waiting for riding her bicycle +carefully across the car-tracks in Fifty-ninth Street. Her father and +grandfather were with her, one on each side. + +Dr. Demarest sprang on his wheel and sped on ahead. When he came to the +foot of the Mall he swerved to the westward. Then he turned and retraced +his path, reaching the branching of the ways just as General Contoit +with his son and granddaughter arrived there. + +The General was nearly seventy, but he sat his wheel with a military +stiffness, holding himself far more carefully than his son, the +Professor. Between them came Miss Minnie Contoit, a slim slip of a girl, +in a light-brown cloth suit, with her pale, blond hair coiled tightly +under a brown alpine hat. They had just come up a hill, and the +General's face was ruddy, but the girl's was as colorless as ever. +Demarest had often wondered why it was that no exercise ever brought a +flush to her ivory cheeks. + +He watched her now as her grandfather caught sight of him, and cried +out: "Hello, Doctor! Out for a spin?" + +He saw her look up, and then she glanced away swiftly, as though to +choose her course of conduct before she acknowledged his greeting. + +"Good afternoon, General; how well you are looking this spring!" said +Demarest. "Good afternoon, Professor. And you, too, Miss Contoit. Going +round the Park, are you? May I join you?" He looked at her as he asked +the question. + +It was her grandfather who answered: "Come along, come along! We shall +be delighted to have you!" + +She said nothing. They were all four going up on the east side of the +Mall, and they had already left behind them the bronze mass-meeting of +misshapen celebrities which disfigures that broad plateau. A Park +omnibus was loitering in front of them, and they could not pass it four +abreast. + +"Come on, papa," cried the girl; "let's leave grandpa and Dr. Demarest +to take care of each other! We had better go ahead and show them the +way!" + +It struck Dr. Demarest that she was glad to get away from him, as though +her sudden flight was an instinctive shrinking from his wooing. He +smiled and held this for a good sign. He was in no hurry to have his +talk out with her, and he did not mean to begin it until a proper +opportunity presented itself. He was glad to have her in front of him, +where he could follow her movements and get delight out of the play of +the sunshine through the branches as it fell molten on her fine, light +hair. It pleased him to watch her firm strokes as they came to a hill +and to see that she rode with no waste of energy. + +The General had done his duty in the long years of the war, and he liked +to talk about what he had seen. Dr. Demarest was a good listener, and +perhaps this was one reason why the old soldier was always glad of his +company. The young doctor was considerate, also, and he never increased +his pace beyond the gait most comfortable for his elder companion; and +as they drew near to the Metropolitan Museum he guided the General away +to the Fifth Avenue entrance and thence back to the main road, by which +excursion they avoided the long and steep hill at the top of which +stands Cleopatra's Needle. And as they had ridden on the level rather +rapidly they almost caught up with the General's son and +granddaughter. + +[Illustration: "I'M SURE HE'D RATHER TALK TO YOU, MY DEAR, SO YOU CAN +RUN ALONG TOGETHER"] + +The two couples were close to each other as they went around the +reservoir, along the shaded road on the edge of the Park, with the +sidewalk of Fifth Avenue down below. Everywhere the grass was fresh and +fragrant; and everywhere the squirrels were frequent and impertinent, +cutting across the road almost under the wheels, or sitting up on the +narrow sward in impudent expectation of the nuts gently thrown to them +from the carriages. + +When they came to McGowan's Pass he saw the Professor suddenly dismount, +and he thought that Minnie was going on alone and that her father had to +call her back. + +"Shall we rest here for a while, father?" asked the Professor, as the +General and the Doctor dismounted. + +"Just as you say," the old soldier answered; "just as you say. I'm not +at all fatigued, not at all. But don't let us old fogies keep you young +folks from your exercise. Minnie, you and the Doctor can ride on--" + +"But, grandpa--" she began, in protest. + +"I'll stay here a minute or two with your father," the General +continued. "The Doctor is very kind to let me talk to him, but I'm sure +he'd rather talk to you, my dear; so you two can run along together." + +"I shall be delighted to accompany Miss Contoit if she cares to have a +little spin," said Dr. Demarest, turning to her. + +"Oh, well," she answered, a little ungraciously; then she smiled +swiftly, and added: "I always do what grandpa wants. Don't you think I'm +a very good little girl?" And with that she started forward, springing +lightly to her seat after her bicycle was in motion. + +Demarest was jumping on his wheel to follow, when her father called out, +"Don't let her ride up-hill too fast, Doctor!" + +"Isn't papa absurd?" she asked, laughing; "and grandpa, too? They are +always wanting me to take care of myself, just as if I didn't!" + +They overtook and passed a woman weighing two hundred pounds and full +forty years of age, who was toiling along on a bicycle, dressed in a +white skirt, a pink shirt-waist, and a straw sailor-hat. The Doctor +turned and bowed to this strange apparition, but the plump lady was too +fully occupied in her arduous task to be able to do more than gasp out: +"Good--after--noon--Doctor." + +When they had gone one hundred yards ahead the Doctor's companion +expressed her surprise. "You do know the funniest people!" she cried. +"Who on earth was that?" + +"That?" he echoed. "Oh, that's a patient of Dr. Cheever's. He advised +her to get a bicycle if she wanted to be thinner--" + +"And he told me to get one if I wanted to be a little fatter!" the girl +interrupted. "Isn't that inconsistent?" + +"I don't think so," the young man answered, glad that the conversation +had taken this impersonal turn, and yet wondering how he could twist it +to the point where he wanted it. "Outdoor exercise helps people to +health, you see, and if they are unhealthily fat it tends to thin them +down, and if they are very thin it helps them to put on flesh." + +"I'd bike fourteen hours a day if I was a porpoise like that," said the +girl, glancing back at the plump struggler behind them. + +Just then a horn tooted and a coach came around the next turn. There +were on it three or four girls in gay spring costumes, and two of them +bowed to Dr. Demarest. + +Behind the four-in-hand followed a stylish victoria, in which sat a +handsome young woman alone. She was in black. Her somber face lighted +with a smile as she acknowledged the young doctor's bow. + +"I've seen her somewhere," said the girl by his side. "Who is she?" + +"That's Mrs. Cyrus Poole," he answered; "the widow of the Wall Street +operator who died two years ago." + +"What lots of people you know," she commented. + +"How is a young doctor to get on unless he knows lots of people?" was +his answer. + +She said nothing for a minute or two, as they threaded their way through +a tangle of vehicles stretching along the northernmost drive of the +Park. + +Then she asked: "Why is it that most of the women we have passed this +afternoon sitting back in their carriages look bored to death?" + +"I suppose it's because they've got all they want," the Doctor +responded. "They have nothing left to live for; they have had +everything. That's what makes them so useful to our profession. They +send for us because they are bored, and they want sympathy. I suppose +everybody likes to talk about himself, especially when he's out of +sorts; now, you see, the family doctor can always be sent for, and it's +his business to listen to your account of your symptoms. That's what +he's paid for." + +"I don't think that's a nice way of earning a living, do you?" returned +the girl. + +"Oh, I don't know," he answered. "Why not? It's our duty to relieve +suffering, and these women are just suffering for a chance to describe +all their imaginary ailments." + +"Women?" she cried, indignantly. "Are all these old fools women?" + +"There must be men sometimes, I suppose," he replied; "but most of a +family physician's work is with the women, of course." + +Then it seemed to him that he saw before him the opportunity he had been +awaiting. They were now climbing the hill at the northwestern corner of +the Park. He slowed up so that she should not be tempted to overexert +herself. He even went so far as to lag a little behind. When they began +to go down again gently, he came alongside. + +"By the way," he began, "speaking of what a family physician has to do +reminds me that I want to ask your advice." + +"My advice?" she echoed, with the light little laugh that thrilled +through him always. "Why, I don't know anything about medicine." + +"It isn't a professional consultation I want," he answered, laughing +himself, "it's friendly counsel. Don't you remember that when you told +me you couldn't love me you went on to say you hoped we should always be +good friends?" + +"Yes," she responded, calmly, "I remember that. And I hope that if I can +really show any friendliness in any way, you will let me." + +"That's what I am coming to," he returned. "You know, I've been helping +Dr. Cheever as a sort of third man while Dr. Aspinwall has been ill? +Well, Dr. Aspinwall isn't getting any better, and he's got to quit for a +year, anyhow. So Dr. Cheever is going to take me with him--" + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" she broke in, heartily. "That's splendid for you, +isn't it?" + +"It will be splendid for me if I can keep the place and do the work to +his satisfaction," he answered. + +"Oh, I guess Dr. Cheever knows what he is about," retorted the girl, +gaily. "He knows how clever you are." + +"Thank you," the young man returned. "I felt sure you would be pleased, +because you have always been so kind to me." + +He hesitated for a moment, and then continued: "I feel as if I owe you +an apology--" + +"What for?" she asked, in surprise. + +"For the way I behaved last time we--we had a talk," he answered. + +"Oh, _then_," she commented; and it seemed to him that she had almost +made an effort to retain the non-committal expression she was affecting. + +"You may remember," he went on, "that I asked you to marry me, and that +you refused, and that you told me you didn't love me at all, but you did +like me--" + +"What's the use of going over all that again?" she asked. + +"I must make myself right with you, Miss Minnie," he urged. "You said we +could be friends, and I was all broke up then, and I didn't know just +what I was saying, and I told you friendship wasn't any good to me, and +if I couldn't have you there wasn't anything else I wanted. I must have +been rude, indeed, and it has worried me ever since." + +"I'll forgive you, if that's what you mean," she responded. "I hadn't +really thought about it twice. It isn't of any consequence." + +"It is to me," he returned. "Now I've changed my mind, and if you will +offer the friendship again I'll accept it gladly." + +"Why, Dr. Demarest!" she said, smiling, but with a flash in her gray +eyes, "of course we can be good friends, just as we have always been. +And now you needn't talk any more about this foolish misunderstanding." + +So saying she started ahead. They had been climbing a hill, and now they +had on their left a broad meadow, gay with groups of tennis-players. At +an opening on the right a mounted policeman sat his horse as immovable +as an equestrian statue. Just before them were two gentlemen with +impatient trotters trying to get a clear space; and there was also a +double file of young men and girls from some riding-school, under the +charge of a robust German riding-master. + +It was not for two or three minutes that Dr. Demarest was able to resume +his position by the side of Miss Contoit. + +"I had to set myself right," he began, abruptly, "because if we really +are friends I want you to help me." + +"I shall be very glad, I'm sure," she replied. "I've told you so +already." + +"But what I want is something very serious," he continued. + +"What is it?" she asked, drawing away from him a little. + +"It's advice," he explained. + +She gave a light laugh of relief. "Oh, _advice_," she repeated; "anybody +can give advice." + +"Not the advice I want," he responded, gravely. "It's a very solemn +thing for me, I can assure you." + +"And what is this very solemn thing?" she inquired, airily. + +"It's marriage," he answered. "I've got to get married, and--and--" + +"Don't let's go back to that again," she said, with frank impatience. "I +thought we had settled that once for all." + +"Oh, I didn't mean you," he returned, apologetically. + +"You didn't mean me?" she repeated, in amazement. "Why, I thought--well, +it's no matter what I thought, of course." + +"I'm afraid I'm getting things all mixed up," he said, calmly. "Of +course, you are the only woman I love, and the only woman I ever shall +love. I told you that the last time we met, and you told me that you +didn't love me--so that settled it." + +"Well?" she interrogated. + +"Well, if I can't have what I want," he explained, "I'd better get what +I need." + +"I confess I do not know what you are talking about," she declared. + +"It's simple enough," he returned. "I'm a doctor, and I'm young--I'm +only thirty--and I haven't a bald spot yet, so people think I'm even +younger than I am, and they haven't confidence in it. So I've got to get +married." + +The girl laughed out merrily. "Can't you get a bald spot any other way?" +she asked. + +"If I have a wife I don't need a bald spot," he responded. "A wife is a +warrant of respectability. Every doctor will tell you that's the way +patients feel. I'm tired of going to see some old woman for Dr. Cheever, +and sending up my card and overhearing her say: 'I won't see him! I +don't want Dr. Demarest! I sent for Dr. Cheever, and it's Dr. Cheever I +want to see!' That has happened to me, and not only once or twice, +either." + +"How could any woman be so unlady-like?" the girl asked, indignantly. +"She must have been a vulgar old thing!" + +"There's more than one of her in New York," the young doctor asserted, +"and that's one reason why I've got to get married. And between you and +me, I think my chance of staying with Dr. Cheever would be better if I +had a wife. Of course, he doesn't say so, but I can't help knowing what +he thinks." + +The girl made no comment on this, and they rode along side by side. They +were now on the crest of a hill, and they overlooked the broad expanse +of the reservoir. The almost level rays of the sinking sun thrust +themselves through the leafy branches and made a rosy halo about her +fair head. + +"So that's why I've come to you for advice," he began again. + +"But I don't see what good my advice will be to you," she returned. "You +don't expect me to pick out a wife for you, do you?" + +"Well, that's about it!" he admitted. + +"The idea!" she retorted. "Why, it's perfectly absurd!" + +"So long as I cannot get the girl I love, marriage ceases to be a matter +of sentiment with me," he went on, stolidly. "I come to you as a friend +who knows girls--knows them in a way no man can ever know them. I want +your help in selecting a woman who will make a good wife for a doctor." + +"How do you know she will have you?" she thrust at him. + +"Of course, I don't know," he admitted. "I can't know till I try, can I? +And if at first I don't succeed I must try, try again. If the one you +pick out refuses me I'll have to get you to pick out another." + +"So it's a mere marriage of convenience you are after?" the girl asked. +"That's all very well for you, no doubt; but how about the woman who +marries you? I don't think it's a very nice lookout for her, do you? +That's just the way with you men always! You never think about the +woman's feelings!" + +"I'll do my duty to her," he answered. + +"Your _duty_!" sniffed the girl, indignantly. + +"I'll be so attentive to her that she will never guess my heart is given +to another," he went on. + +"Don't be too sure of that," she returned. "Women have very sharp +eyes--sharper than you men think--especially about a thing like that!" + +"I am not going to borrow trouble," the Doctor declared, suavely. "I +shall always be as nice to her as I can, and if it is in my power to +make her happy, then she will be happy. But we needn't anticipate. What +I want you to do now is to help me to find the right woman. It will be +my business to take care of her afterward." + +"Oh, very well," said the girl, rather sharply. "Have you anybody in +particular in view?" + +"I haven't really fixed on anybody yet," he explained. "I wanted your +advice first, for I'm going to rely on that. I feel sure you won't let +me make a mistake about a matter so important to me." + +"Then don't let's waste any time!" she cried, peremptorily. + +"Really," he declared, "it's astonishing how a little bit of a thing +like you can be so bossy." She looked at him fiercely, so he made haste +to add, "But I like it--I like it!" + +The girl laughed, but with a certain constraint, so it seemed to him. + +"Come, now," she said, "if I must help you, let me see your list of +proposed victims!" + +"Do you know Dr. Pennington, the rector of St. Boniface's, in +Philadelphia?" he began. "Well, he has two daughters--nice girls, both +of them--" + +"Which one do you want?" asked the girl. "The tall one who squints, or +the fat one with red hair?" + +"Come, now," he returned, "she doesn't really squint, you know." + +"Call it a cast in her eye if you like; I don't mind. It isn't anything +to me," she asserted. "Is it the tall one you want?" + +"I don't care," he answered. + +"You don't care?" she repeated. + +"No," he returned; "that's why I've come to you. I don't care. Which one +do you recommend?" + +"I don't recommend either of them!" she responded, promptly. "I +shouldn't be a true friend if I let you throw yourself away on one of +those frights!" + +"I'll give them up, if you say so," said he; "but I've always heard that +they are good, quiet girls--domesticated, you know--and--" + +"Who is next?" she pursued, with a return of her arbitrary manner. + +"Well," he suggested, bashfully, "I haven't any reason to suppose she +would look at me, and it sounds so conceited in me to suggest that such +a handsome woman--and so rich, too--would listen to me, but--" + +"Who is this paragon?" his companion demanded. + +"Didn't I mention her name?" he responded. "I thought I had. We passed +her only a little while ago--Mrs. Poole." + +"Mrs. Poole?" the girl replied. "That was the sick-looking creature in +black lolling back in a victoria, wasn't it?" + +"She isn't sick, really," he retorted; "but I don't think mourning is +becoming to her. Of course, if we are married she will wear colors +and--" + +"I didn't know you were willing to take up with a widow!" she +interrupted, with a slight touch of acerbity. "I thought it was a girl +you were looking for!" + +"It was a wife of some sort," he replied. "I don't know myself what +would suit me best. That's why I am consulting you. I'm going to rely on +your judgment--" + +"But you mustn't do that!" she cried. + +"It is just what I've got to do!" he insisted. "And if you think it +would be a mistake for me to marry a widow, why--it's for you to say." + +"I must say that I think it would be a great mistake for a doctor to +marry a woman who looks as if she couldn't live through the week," she +responded. "I should suppose it would ruin any physician's practice to +have a wife as woebegone as that Mrs. Poole! Of course, I don't know +her, and I've nothing to say against her, and she may be as beautiful +and as charming as you say she is." + +"I give her up at once," he declared, laughing. "She shall never even +know how near she came to having a chance to reject me." + +"Is that all?" the girl asked, a little spitefully. "Have you anybody +else on your list?" + +"I have only just one more," he replied. + +"Who is she?" was the girl's quick question. + +"I'm not sure that you have met her," he returned. "She's from the South +somewhere, or the Southwest, I don't know--" + +"What's her name?" was the impatient query. + +"Chubb," he answered. "It's not a pretty name, is it? But that doesn't +matter if I'm to persuade her to change it." + +"Chubb?" the girl repeated, as though trying to recall the name. "Chubb? +Not Virgie Chubb?" + +"Her name is Virginia," he admitted. + +The girl by his side laughed a little shrilly. "Virgie Chubb?" she +cried. "That scrawny thing?" + +The Doctor confessed that Miss Chubb was not exactly plump. + +"Not plump? I should think not, indeed," the girl declared. "Do you know +what Miss Marlenspuyk said about her? She said that Virgie Chubb looked +like a death's-head on a toothpick! That's what she said!" + +They were approaching the Mall, and the Doctor knew that his time was +now very brief. They had to slow up just then, as a policeman was +conveying across the broad road three or four nurses with a +baby-carriage or two, and then they had to steer clear of half a dozen +working-men going home across the Park, with pipes in their mouths and +dinner-pails swinging in their hands. + +"So you don't think Miss Chubb would be a good wife for me?" he +inquired. + +"I have nothing to say at all! It isn't really any of my business!" she +replied. "It is simply absurd of you to ask me!" + +"But you must help me out," he urged. "So far you have only told me that +I mustn't marry any of the girls I had on my list." + +"I don't want to see you throw yourself away," she returned. "A pretty +kind of a friend I should be if I encouraged you to marry your Virgie +Chubb and your Widow Poole!" + +"That's it, precisely," he asserted; "that's why I've come to you. Of +course, I don't want to throw myself away. Your advice has been +invaluable to me--simply invaluable. But so far you have only shown me +how it is that none of these girls will suit. That brings me no nearer +my object. I've simply got to have a wife." + +"I don't see why you need be in such a hurry," she replied. + +"I must, I must!" he retorted. "And there's one more girl I haven't +mentioned so far--" + +"You've kept her to the last!" she snapped. + +"Yes, I've kept her to the last, because I haven't any right even to +hope that she would have me. She is not a widow, and she hasn't a cast +in her eye, and she is neither fat nor scrawny; she is just a lovely +young girl--" + +"You speak of her with more enthusiasm than you did of any of the +others," she broke in. "Do I know her?" + +"You ought to know her," he answered; "but I doubt if you think as well +of her as I do." + +"Who is she?" was her swift question. + +"You won't be offended?" he asked. + +"Of course not! How absurd! Why should I be offended?" she responded. +"Who is she? Who is she?" + +The Doctor answered seriously, and with a quaver of emotion in his +voice, "She is the girl I have loved for a long time, and her name is +Minnie Contoit!" + +The girl did not say anything. Her face was as pale as ever, but there +was a light in the depths of her cool gray eyes. + +"Listen to me once more, Minnie!" implored the young fellow by her side. +"You say that none of these other girls will suit me, and I knew that +before you said it. I knew that you are the only girl I ever wanted. You +promised me your friendship the last time we talked this over, and now +I've had a chance to tell you how much I need a wife I have hoped you +would look at the matter in a clearer light." + +She said nothing. He gave a hasty glance backward and he saw that her +father and her grandfather were only a hundred yards or so behind them. +The reddening sunset on their right cast lengthening shadows across the +road. The spring day was drawing to an end, and the hour had come when +he was to learn his fate forever. + +"Minnie," he urged once more, "don't you think it is your duty--as a +friend, you know--to give me the wife I ought to have?" + +She looked at him, and laughed nervously, and then dropped her eyes. + +"Oh, _well_," she said at last, "if I must!" + + (1900) + + + + +[Illustration: In a Hansom] + + +There were two men in the cab as it turned into Fifth Avenue and began +to skirt the Park on its way down-town. One of them was perhaps fifty; +he had grizzled hair, cold, gray eyes, and a square jaw. The other +appeared to be scant thirty; he had soft brown eyes, and a soft brown +mustache drooped over his rather irresolute mouth. The younger man was +the better-looking of the two, and the better dressed; and he seemed +also to be more at home in New York, while the elder was probably a +stranger in the city--very likely a Westerner, if the black slouch hat +was a true witness. + +They sat side by side in silence, having nothing to say, the one to the +other. The shadows that were slowly stretching themselves across the +broad walk on the Park side of the Avenue shivered as the spring breeze +played with the tender foliage of the trees that spread their ample +branches almost over the wall. The languid scent of blossoming bushes +was borne fitfully beyond the border of the Park. To the eyes of the +younger of the two men in the hansom the quivering play of light and +shade brought no pleasure; and he had no delight in the fragrance of the +springtime--although in former years he had been wont to thrill with +unspoken joy at the promise of summer. + +The elder of the two took no thought of such things; it was as though he +had no time to waste. Of course, he was aware that winter followed the +fall, and that summer had come in its turn; but this was all in the +day's work. He had the reputation of being a good man in his business; +and although the spring had brought no smile to his firm lips, he was +satisfied with his success in the latest task intrusted to him. He had +in his pocket a folded paper, signed by the Governor of a State in the +Mississippi Valley, and sealed with the seal of that commonwealth; and +in the little bag on his knees he carried a pair of handcuffs. + +As the hansom approached the Plaza at the entrance to the Park, the +gray-eyed Westerner caught sight of the thickening crowd, and of the +apparent confusion in which men and women and children were mixed, +bicycles and electric cabs, carriages and cross-town cars, all weltering +together; and he wondered for a moment whether he had done wisely in +allowing so much apparent freedom to his prisoner. He looked right and +left swiftly, as though sizing up the chances of escape, and then he +glanced down at the bag on his knees. + +"You needn't be afraid of my trying to run," said the younger man. "What +good would it do me? You've caught me once, and I don't doubt you could +do it again." + +"That's so," returned the other, with just a tinge of self-satisfaction +in his chilly smile. "I shouldn't wonder if I could." + +"Besides, I don't want to get away now," insisted the first speaker. +"I've got to face the music sooner or later, and I don't care how quick +the brass band strikes up. I want to take my punishment and have it +over. That's what I want. I'm going to plead guilty and save the State +the trouble of trying me, and the expense, too. That ought to count in +cutting down the sentence, oughtn't it? And then I shall study the rules +of--of that place, and I mean to learn them by heart. There won't be +anybody there in a greater hurry to get out than I, and so I'm going to +be a model of good conduct." + +"It ain't every fellow that talks like that who's able to keep it up," +commented the officer of the law. + +"I guess I can, anyhow," replied his prisoner. "I've made up my mind to +get this thing over as soon as possible, and to have a little life left +for me when I'm let out." + +The elder man made no answer. He thought that his companion was sincere +and that there would be no attempt to escape, whatever the opportunity. +But his experience trained him to take no chances, and he did not relax +his vigilance. + +A horn sounded behind him; and a minute later a four-in-hand passed with +tinkling chains and rumbling wheels. The top of the coach was filled +with elaborately attired men and with girls in all the gayety of their +spring gowns; and they seemed to be having a good time. They did not +mean to hurt the younger of the two men in the hansom; they did not +know, of course; but just then their mirth smote him to the heart. + +Fifth Avenue is an alluring spectacle late in the afternoon of the first +Saturday in June; and when the hansom-cab topped the crest of a hill, +the two men could see far down the vista of the broad street. The +roadway was a solid mass of vehicles in ceaseless motion; and the +sidewalks were filled with humanity. To the man who was being taken to +his trial the bright color and the brisk joyousness of the scene were +actually painful. Of the countless men and women scattered up and down +the Avenue in the glaring sunshine, how many knew him to call him by +name and to take him by the hand? More than a hundred, no doubt, for he +had been popular. And how many of them would give him a second thought +after they had read of his arrest and of his trial and his sentence? + +How many of them would miss him?--would be conscious even of his +absence? And he recalled the disgust of a friend who had gone around the +world, and had come back after a year or more with picturesque stories +of his wanderings in far countries, only to have the first man he met in +his club ask him casually where he'd been "for the last week or so." + +[Illustration: THIS YEAR THE GIRLS WERE PRETTIER THAN USUAL] + +And now he, too, was going to a strange land; and he foresaw that when +he returned--if he ever got back alive!--he would not know what to +answer if any one should inquire where he had been for the last week or +so. The world was a bitterly selfish place where men had no time to +think except of themselves. If a fellow could not keep up with the +procession, he had to drop out of the ranks and be glad if the rest of +them did not tramp over him. He knew how hard he had tried not to be +left behind, and how little the effort had profited him. + +With an aggressive movement that made his companion even more alert than +usual, the brown-eyed young man shook himself erect, as though to cast +behind him these evil thoughts. It was a beautiful day, and flowers +blazed in the broad windows of the florists--roses and carnations and +lilacs. There were lilacs also in the arbitrary hats the women were +wearing, and the same tint was often echoed in their costumes. He had +always been attentive to the changes of fashion--always subject to the +charm of woman. As he was borne down the Avenue by the side of the man +in whose custody he was, it struck him that this year the girls were +prettier than usual--younger, more graceful, more fascinating, more +desirable. He followed with his eyes first one and then another, noting +the sweep of the skirt, the curve of the bodice, the grace of gesture, +the straggling tendril of hair that had escaped upon the neck. For a +brief moment the pleasure of his eye took his thoughts away from his +future; and then swiftly his mind leaped forward to the next spring, +when no woman's face would chance within the range of his vision, and +when the unseen blossoming of nature would bring only impotent desire. +What zest could there be in life when life was bounded in a whitewashed +cell? + +At Thirty-fourth Street the hansom was halted to let a funeral cross the +current of the Avenue. An open carriage came first, its seats covered +with flowers, tortured into stiff set pieces; the white hearse followed, +with a satin-covered coffin visible through its plate-glass sides; and +then half a dozen carriages trailed after. The prisoner in the hansom +noticed that the shades were drawn in the one that followed the hearse; +it bore a grief too sacred for observation--a mother's, no doubt. He was +suddenly glad that his parents had both died when he was yet a boy. To +be alone in the world, with no family to keep him warm with tolerant +affection--this had often saddened him; now at last he rejoiced at it. +When a man is on his way to prison to serve a term of years, the fewer +those who cherish him, the luckier for them. That he loved a +woman--that, indeed, he was going to jail because of his love for +her--this might add poignancy to his pain; but he felt himself manly for +once in trying to believe it was better now that she did not love him, +that she did not even know of his love for her. + +In time the hansom turned from Fifth Avenue into Broadway; it went on +down-town past Union Square, with its broad trees, and past Grace +Church, with its grateful greenery; but the younger of the two men was +no longer taking note of what sped before his gaze. He was wondering +what the woman he loved would think when she would hear of his going to +prison--whether she would care very much--whether she would suspect that +his crime was due to his passion for her. That, of course, she could not +guess--that he had yielded to the temptation to lay hands on what was +not his, solely because he wanted more money to place at her feet. For +himself, he had been making enough; but for her he must have more. He +could not have ventured to invite her to give up anything for his sake. +He wanted to be able to offer her all she had been accustomed to +have--and more too, were that possible. He was conceited enough +ordinarily, he feared; and yet when he thought of her he felt so humble +that he had never dared to dream of going to her empty-handed--of asking +her to make any sacrifice in loving him. He had never told her of his +love, and perhaps she did not even guess it; and yet women are swift to +discover a thing like that. It might be that she had seen it; and that +when others should speak of him as he knew he deserved to be spoken of, +she might come to his defence and find some word of extenuation for his +misdeed. This possibility, remote as it was, gave him pleasure; and he +smiled at the suggestion as it came to him. + +From this day-dream he was aroused as the driver of the hansom jerked +the horse back on his haunches to avoid running down a little old woman +who was trying to cross Broadway with a bundle of sticks balanced on her +head. As the animal almost touched her she looked up, and her glance +crossed that of the prisoner. He perceived instantly that she was an +Italian, that she was not so old as she looked, and that she had been +beautiful not so long ago. Then he wondered whether any man had done +wrong for her sake--whether or not two of her lovers had fought in the +soft Sicilian moonlight and one had done the other to death. Well, why +not? There were worse things than death, after all. + +As they went on farther and farther down-town, Broadway began to seem +emptier. It was the first Saturday in June, and most of the stores were +closed. When they drew near to the City Hall, the great street, although +not so desolate as it is on a Sunday, lacked not a little of its +week-day activity. It was as though a truce had been proclaimed in the +battle of business; but the forts were guarded, and the fight would +begin again on the Monday morning. + +After the hansom passed the Post Office the buildings on the right and +the left raised themselves higher and higher, until the cab was at last +rolling along what might be the bottom of a canyon. And it seemed to +him that the cliff-dwellers who inhabited the terraces of this man-made +gorge, and who spent the best part of their lives a hundred feet above +the level of the sidewalk, were no peaceable folk withdrawn from the +strife of the plains; they were relentless savages ever on the war-path, +and always eager to torture every chance captive. Wars may be less +frequent than they were and less cruel, but the struggle for existence +is bitterer than ever, and as meanly waged as any Apache raid. + +The young man in the hansom felt his hatred hot within him for those +with whom he had meant to match himself. He had been beaten in the first +skirmish, and yet--but for the one thing--he could hold himself as good +as the best of them. How many of the men under the shadow of Trinity +were more honest than he? Some of them, no doubt--but how many? How many +names now honorable would be disgraced if the truth were suddenly made +known? How many of those who thought themselves honest, and who were +honest now, had in the past yielded to a temptation once, as he had +done, and having been luckier than he in escaping detection then, had +never again risked it? That was what he had intended to do; he knew +himself not to be dishonest, although the alluring opportunity had been +too much for him. If only he could have held on for another day, all +would have been well--no one would have had cause ever to suspect him; +and never again would he have stepped aside from the narrow path of +rectitude. + +There was no use in repining. Luck had been against him, that was all. +Some men had been guilty of what he had done, and they had been able to +bluff it out. His bluff had been called, and he was now going to jail to +pay his debt of honor. Perhaps the copy-book was right when it declared +honesty to be the best policy. And yet he could not help feeling that +fate had played him a mean trick. To put in his possession at the same +moment a large sum of money and the information that the most powerful +group of capitalists in America had determined to take hold of a certain +railroad and re-establish it, and to have thus the possibility put +before him at the very hour when he had discovered that perhaps he had a +chance to win the woman he loved, if only he could approach her on an +equality of fortune--this temptation just then was too great to +withstand. He had yielded, and for a little while it had seemed as +though he was about to succeed. Twenty-four hours more and he could have +put back the money he had borrowed--for so he liked to look on his act. +That money once restored, he would have waited patiently for the rest of +his profit. Thereafter he could have afforded to be honest; he was +resolved never to overstep the law again; he would have kept the letter +of it vigorously--if only he had escaped detection that once. + +But blind chance smote him down from behind. Suddenly, without an hour's +warning, the leader of the group of sustaining capitalists dropped dead; +his heart had failed, worn out by the friction and the strain. The +market broke; and all who had bought stocks on a margin were sold out +instantly and inexorably. Then the supporting orders came in and prices +were pushed up again; but it was too late. Two days before, or a day +after, that capitalist might have died without having by his death +unwittingly caused an arrest. And as the hansom rolled on toward the +Battery the prisoner had again a resentment against the capitalist for +choosing so unfortunate a day to die. + +Now the end had come; of course, he had been unable to replace the money +he had taken, and there was nothing for him to do but to fly. But +instead of going to Canada, and hiding his trail, and then slipping +across to Europe, he had been foolish enough to come here to New York to +have another glimpse of the woman for the love of whom he had become a +thief. Once more luck had been against him; as it happened, she had gone +out of town for Decoration Day; and instead of taking ship to Europe, he +had waited. Only that Saturday morning he had met her brother and had +been told of her return to town. But when he was about to call on her +that afternoon, the gray-eyed man had called on him; and here he was on +his way to his trial, and he had not seen her, after all. + +Then he went back to the last time he had had speech with her. It was +during one of his frequent visits to New York, and he had dined at the +club with her brother, who had told him that she was going to the play +that night with her mother. So he had betaken himself to the theater +also, and he had gazed at her across the house; and then he had put her +and her mother into their carriage, and the old lady had asked him to +dinner the next evening. He had supposed it was an eleventh-hour +invitation and that he was to fill the seat of some man who had +unexpectedly backed out; but none the less he had accepted with obvious +pleasure. And it was from a few casual words of her father's, after +dinner, that he got the first inkling of the railroad deal; and then, +before the time came for him to go, he had been fortunate enough to have +her to himself for a quarter of an hour. She had been graciousness +itself, and for the first time he had begun to have hope. He could not +recall what he had said, but his memory was clear as to how she had +looked. He could not remember whether he had allowed her even a glimpse +of his deep passion. It might be that she had guessed it, although she +had made no sign; he knew that women were as keen as they were +inscrutable. + +The hansom was at last under the ugly framework of the Elevated almost +at the South Ferry gate. The tide was coming in strongly, and there was +a salt savor in the breeze that blew up from the lower bay. The +prisoner relished it as he filled his lungs with the fresh air; and then +he asked himself how long it would be before that saline taste would +touch his nostrils again. + +As the cab drew up, the elder of the two men in it laid his hand on the +arm of the younger. + +"I can trust you without the wristlets, can't I?" he asked. + +The other flushed. "Put them on if you want," he answered, "but you +needn't. I'm not going to make a fool of myself again. I've told you I'm +going to plead guilty and do everything else I can to get the thing over +as soon as possible." + +The gray-eyed man looked at him firmly. + +"You're talking sense," he declared. "I'll trust you." + +As they were about to step out, their horse was somewhat startled by an +electric automobile that rolled past clumsily and drew up immediately in +front of them. + +The prisoner stood stock-still, with his foot vainly reaching out for +the sidewalk, as he saw the brother of the woman he loved help her out +of the vehicle. Then the brother asked a newsboy to point the way to the +boat for Governors Island; and she went with him as the urchin eagerly +guided them. She did not look around; she never saw the man who loved +her; and in a minute she turned the corner and was out of sight. + +The officer of the law tapped his prisoner on the arm again. + +"Come on," he said. "What's the matter with you? Have you seen a +ghost?" + + (1899) + + + + +[Illustration: The Frog that Played the Trombone] + + +On a corner of my desk there stands a china shell; its flat and oval +basin is about as broad as the palm of my hand; it is a spotted +brownish-yellow on the outside, and a purply-pinkish white on the +inside; and on the crinkled edge of one end there sits a green frog with +his china mouth wide open, thus revealing the ruddy hollow of his +interior. At the opposite end of the shell there is a page of china +music, purporting to be the first four bars of a song by Schubert. Time +was when the frog held in his long greenish-yellow arms a still longer +trombone made of bright brass wire, bent into shape, and tipped with a +flaring disk of gilded porcelain. In the days when the china frog was +young he pretended to be playing on the brass trombone. Despite its +musical assertiveness, the function of the frog that played the trombone +was humble enough: the shell was designed to serve as a receiver for the +ashes of cigars and cigarettes. But it is a score of years at least +since the china frog has held the brass trombone to its open lips. Only +a few months after he gave his first mute concert on the corner of my +table the carelessness of a chance visitor toppled him over on the +floor, and broke off both his arms and so bent the trombone that even +the barren pretense of his solo became an impossibility. A week or two +later the battered musical instrument disappeared; and ever since then +the gaping mouth of the frog has seemed to suggest that he was trying to +sing Schubert's song. His open countenance, I am sorry to say, has often +tempted my friends to make sport of him. They have filled the red +emptiness of his body with the gray ashes of their cigars; they have +even gone so far as to put the stump of a half-smoked cigarette between +his lips, as though he were solacing himself thus for the loss of his +voice. + +Although the frog is no longer playing an inaudible tune on an immovable +instrument, I keep it on a corner of my desk, where it has been for +nearly twenty years. Sometimes of a winter's night, when I take my seat +at the desk before the crackling and cheerful hickory fire, the frog +that played the trombone catches my eye, and I go back in memory to the +evening when it performed its first solo in my presence, and I see again +the beautiful liquid eyes of the friend who brought it to me. We were +very young then, both of us, that night before Christmas, and our hearts +kept time with the lilt of the tune that the frog played silently on his +trombone. Now I am young no longer, I am even getting old, and my friend +has been dead this many a year. Sometimes, as I look at the gaping frog, +I know that if I could hear the song he is trying to sing I should hate +it for the memories it would recall. + +He who gave it to me was not a school fellow, a companion of my boyhood, +but he was the friend of my youth and a classmate in college. It was in +our Junior year that he joined us, bringing a good report from the +fresh-water college where he had been for two years. I can recall his +shy attitude the first morning in chapel when we were wondering what +sort of a fellow the tall, dark, handsome new-comer might be. The +accidents of the alphabet put us side by side in certain class-rooms, +and I soon learned to know him, and to like him more and more with +increasing knowledge. He was courteous, gentle, kindly, ever ready to do +a favor, ever grateful for help given him, and if he had a fault it was +this, that he was jealous of his friends. Although his nature was +healthy and manly, he had a feminine craving for affection, and an +almost womanly unreason in the exactions he made on his friends. Yet he +was ever ready to spend himself for others, and to do to all as he would +be done by. + +Although fond of out-door sports, his health was not robust. He lacked +stamina. There was more than a hint of consumption in the brightness of +his eye, in the spot of color on his cheek, in the hollowness of his +chest, and in the cough which sometimes seized him in the middle of a +recitation. Toward the end of our senior year he broke down once, and +was kept from college a week; but the spring came early, and with the +returning warmth of the sunshine he made an effort and took his place +with us again. He was a good scholar, but not one of the best in the +class. He did his work faithfully in the main, having no relish for +science, but enjoying the flavor of the classics. He studied German that +year, and he used to come to me reciting Heine's poems with enthusiasm, +carried away by their sentiment, but shocked by the witty cynicism which +served as its corrective. He wrote a little verse now and then, as young +men do, immature, of course, and individual only in so far as it was +morbid. I think that he would have liked to devote himself to literature +as a career, but it had been decided that he was to study law. + +After Class Day and Commencement the class scattered forever. In +September, when I returned to New York and settled down to my +profession, I found my friend at the Columbia Law School. His father had +died during the summer, leaving nothing but a life-insurance policy, on +the income of which the mother and son could live modestly until he +could get into a law office and begin to make his way in the world. They +had taken a floor in a little boarding-house in a side street, and they +were very comfortable; their money had been invested for them by one of +his father's business associates, who had so arranged matters that their +income was much larger than they had expected. In this modest home he +and his mother lived happily. I guessed that the father had been hard +and unbending, and that my friend and his mother had been drawn closer +together. Of a certainty I never saw a man more devoted than he was to +her, or more tender, and she was worthy of the affection he lavished on +her. + +In those days the Law School course extended over two years only, and it +did not call for very hard work on the part of the student, so he was +free to pass frequent evenings in my library. I used to go and see him +often, for I liked his mother, and I liked to see them sitting side by +side, he holding her hand often as he debated vehemently with me the +insoluble questions which interested us then. During the second winter I +sometimes saw there a brown-eyed girl of perhaps twenty, pretty enough, +but with a sharp, nervous manner I did not care for. This was the +daughter of the lady who kept the boarding-house; and my friend was +polite to her, as he was to all women; he was attentive even, as a young +man is wont to be toward a quick-witted girl. But nothing in the manner +led me to suppose that he was interested in her more than in any other +woman. I did not like her myself, for she struck me as sharp-tongued. + +It is true that I saw less of my friend that second winter, being hard +at work myself. It was in the spring, two years after our graduation, +that I received a letter from him announcing his engagement to the +young lady I had seen him with, his landlady's daughter. My first +thought, I remember, was to wonder how his mother would feel at the +prospect of another woman's coming between them. His letter was a long +dithyramb, and it declared that never had there been a man so happy, and +that great as was his present joy, it was as nothing compared with the +delight in store for him. He wrote me that each had loved the other from +the first, and each had thought the other did not care, until at last he +could bear it no longer; so he had asked her, and got his answer. "You +cannot know," he wrote, "what this is to me. It is my life--it is the +making of my life; and if I should die to-night, I should not have lived +in vain, for I have tasted joy, and death cannot rob me of that." + +Of course the engagement must needs be long, because he was as yet in no +position to support a wife; but he had been admitted to the bar, and he +could soon make his way, with the stimulus he had now. + +I was called out of town suddenly about that time, and I saw him for a +few minutes only before I left New York. He was overflowing with +happiness, and he could talk about nothing but the woman he loved--how +beautiful she was! how clever! how accomplished! how devoted to his +mother! In the midst of his rhapsody he was seized by a fit of violent +coughing, and I saw the same danger signal in his cheeks which had +preceded the break-down in his senior year. I begged him to take care +of himself. With a light laugh he answered that he intended to do so--it +was his duty to do so, now that he did not belong to himself. + +In the fall, when I came back to the city, I found him in the office of +a law firm, the head of which had been an intimate of his father's. The +girl he was to marry went one night a week to dine with her grandmother, +and he came to me that evening and talked about her. As the cold weather +stiffened, his cough became more frequent, and long before Christmas I +was greatly alarmed by it. He consulted a distinguished doctor, who told +him that he ought to spend the winter in a drier climate--in Colorado, +for example. + +It was on Christmas eve that year that he brought me the frog that +played the trombone. Ever since the first Christmas of our friendship we +had made each other little presents. + +"This is hardly worth giving," he said, as he placed the china shell on +the corner of my desk, where it stands to this day. "But it is quaint +and it caught my fancy. Besides, I've a notion that it is the tune of +one of Heine's lyrics set by Schubert that the fellow is trying to play. +And then I've a certain satisfaction in thinking that I shall be +represented here by a performer of marvelous force of lung, since you +seem to think my lungs are weak." + +A severe cough seized him then, but, when he had recovered his breath, +he laughed lightly, and said: "That's the worst one I've had this week. +However, when the spring warms me up again I shall be all right once +more. It wasn't on me that the spring poet wrote the epitaph: + + 'It was a cough + That carried him off; + It was a coffin + They carried him off in.'" + +"You ought to go away for a month at least," I urged. "Take a run down +South and fill your lungs with the balsam of the pines." + +"That's what my mother wants me to do," he admitted; "and I've half +promised to do it. If I go to Florida for January, can you go with me?" + +I knew how needful it was for him to escape from the bleakness of our +New York winter, so I made a hasty mental review of my engagements. +"Yes," I said, "I will go with you." + +He held out his hand and clasped mine firmly. "We'll have a good time," +he responded, "just we two. But you must promise not to object if I +insist on talking about her all the time." + +[Illustration: "I WENT TO SEE THE WOMAN MY FRIEND LOVED"] + +As it turned out, I was able to keep all my engagements, for we never +went away together. Before the new year came there was a change in my +friend's fortunes. The man who had pretended to invest for them the +proceeds of his father's life-insurance policy absconded, leaving +nothing behind but debts. For the support of his mother and himself +my friend had only his own small salary. A vacation, however necessary, +became impossible, and the marriage, which had been fixed for the +spring, was postponed indefinitely. He offered to release the girl, but +she refused. + +Through a classmate of ours I was able to get my friend a place in the +law department of the Denver office of a great insurance company. In the +elevated air of Colorado he might regain his strength, and in a new city +like Denver he might find a way to mend his fortunes. His mother went +with him, of course, and it was beautiful to see her devotion to him. I +saw them off. + +"She bore the parting very bravely," he said to me. "She is braver than +I am, and better in every way. I wish I were more worthy of her. You +will go and see her, won't you? There's a good fellow and a good friend. +Go and see her now and then, and write and tell me all about her--how +she looks and what she says." + +I promised, of course, and about once a month I went to see the woman my +friend loved. He wrote me every fortnight, but it was often from her +that I got the latest news. His health was improving; his cough had +gone; Denver agreed with him, and he liked it. He was working hard, and +he saw the prospect of advancement close before him. Within two years he +hoped to take a month off, and return to New York and marry her, and +bear his bride back to Colorado with him. + +When I returned to town the next October I expected to find two or three +letters from my friend awaiting me. I found only one, a brief note, +telling me that he had been too busy to write the month before, and that +he was now too tired with overwork to be able to do more than say how +glad he was that I was back again in America, adding that a friend at +hand might be farther away than one who was on the other side of the +Atlantic. The letter seemed to me not a little constrained in manner. I +did not understand it; and with the hope of getting some light by which +to interpret its strangeness, I went to call on her. She refused to see +me, pleading a headache. + +It was a month before I had a reply to my answer to his note, and the +reply was as short as the note, and quite as constrained. He told me +that he was well enough himself, but that his mother's health worried +him, since Denver did not agree with her, and she was pining to be back +in New York. He added a postscript, in which he told me that he had +dined a few nights before with the local manager of the insurance +company, and that he had met the manager's sister, a wealthy widow from +California, a most attractive woman, indeed. With needless emphasis he +declared that he liked a woman of the world old enough to talk +sensibly. + +Another month passed before I heard from him again, and Christmas had +gone and the new year had almost come. The contents of this letter, +written on Christmas eve, when the frog that played the trombone had +been sitting on the corner of my desk for just a year, was as startling +as its manner was strange. He told me that his engagement was broken off +irrevocably. + +If my own affairs had permitted it, I should have taken the first train +to Denver to discover what had happened. As it was I went again to call +on the landlady's daughter. But she refused to see me again. Word was +brought me that she was engaged, and begged to be excused. + +About a fortnight later I chanced to meet on a street corner the +classmate who had got my friend the Denver appointment. I asked if there +was any news. + +"Isn't there!" was the response. "I should think there was, and lots of +it! You know our friend in Denver? Well, we have a telegram this +morning: his health is shaky, and so he has resigned his position." + +"Resigned his position!" I echoed. "What does that mean?" + +"That's what we wanted to know," replied my classmate, "so we +telegraphed to our local manager, and he gave us an explanation right +off the reel. The manager has a sister who is the widow of a California +millionaire, and she has been in Denver for the winter, and she has met +our friend; and for all she is a good ten years older than he is, she +has been fascinated by him--you know what a handsome fellow he is--and +she's going to marry him next week, and take him to Egypt for his +health." + +"He's going to marry the California widow?" I asked, in astonishment. +"Why, he's enga--" Then I suddenly held my peace. + +"He's going to marry the California widow," was the answer,--"or she's +going to marry him; it's all the same, I suppose." + +Two days later I had a letter from Denver confirming this report. He +wrote that he was to be married in ten days to a most estimable lady, +and that they were to leave his mother in New York as they passed +through. Fortunately he had been able to make arrangements whereby his +mother would be able to live hereafter where she pleased, and in +comfort. He invited me to come out to Colorado for the wedding, but +hardly hoped to persuade me, he said, knowing how pressing my +engagements were. But as their steamer sailed on Saturday week they +would be at a New York hotel on the Friday night, and he counted on +seeing me then. + +I went to see him then, and I was shocked by his appearance. He was +thin, and his chest was hollower than ever. There were dark lines below +his liquid eyes, brighter then than I had ever seen them before. There +were two blazing spots on his high cheek-bones. He coughed oftener than +I had ever known him, and the spasms were longer and more violent. His +hand was feverishly hot. His manner, too, was restless. To my surprise, +he seemed to try to avoid being alone with me. He introduced me to his +wife, a dignified, matronly woman with a full figure and a cheerful +smile. She had a most motherly manner of looking after him and of +anticipating his wants; twice she jumped up to close a door which had +been left open behind him. He accepted her devotion as a matter of +course, apparently. Once, when she was telling me of their projects--how +they were going direct to Egypt to remain till late in the spring, and +then to return to Paris for the summer, with a possible run over to +London before the season was over--he interrupted her to say that it +mattered little where he went or what he did--one place was as good as +another. + +When I rose to go he came with me out into the hotel corridor, despite +his wife's suggestion that there was sure to be a draught there. + +He thrust into my hand a note-book. "There," he said, "take that; it's a +journal I started to keep, and never did. Of course you can read it if +you like. In the pocket you will find a check. I want you to get some +things for me after I've gone; I've written down everything. You will do +that for me, I know." + +I promised to carry out his instructions to the letter. + +"Then that's all right," he answered. + +At that moment his wife came to the door of their parlor. "I know it +must be chilly out in the hall there," she said. + +"Oh, I'm coming," he responded. + +Then he grasped my fingers firmly in his hot hand. "Good-by, old man," +he whispered. "You remember how I used to think the frog that played the +trombone was trying to execute a Heine-Schubert song? Well, perhaps it +is--I don't know; but what I do know is that it has played a wedding +march, after all. And now good-by. God bless you! Go and see my mother +as often as you can." + +He gave my hand a hearty shake, and went back into the parlor, and his +wife shut the door after him. + +I had intended to go down to the boat and see him off the next morning, +but at breakfast I received a letter from his wife saying that he had +passed a very restless night, and that she thought it would excite him +still more if I saw him again, and begging me, therefore, not to come to +the steamer if such had been my intention. And so it was that he sailed +away and I never saw him again. + +In the note-book I found a check for five hundred dollars, and a list of +the things he wished me to get and to pay for. They were for his mother +mostly, but one was a seal-ring for myself. And there was with the check +a jeweler's bill, "To articles sent as directed," which I was also +requested to pay. + +The note-book itself I guarded with care. It was a pocket-journal, and +my friend had tried to make it a record of his life for the preceding +year. There were entries of letters received and sent, of money earned +and spent, of acquaintances made, of business appointments, of dinner +engagements, and of visits to the doctor. Evidently his health had been +failing fast, and he had been struggling hard to keep the knowledge not +only from his mother, but even from himself. While he had set down these +outward facts of his life, he had also used the note-book as the record +of his inward feelings. To an extent that he little understood, that +journal, with its fragmentary entries and its stray thoughts, told the +story of his spiritual experience. + +Many of the entries were personal, but many were not; they were merely +condensations of the thought of the moment as it passed through his +mind. Here are two specimens: + +"We judge others by the facts of life--by what we hear them say and see +them do. We judge ourselves rather by our own feelings--by what we +intend and desire and hope to do some day in the future. Thus a poor man +may glow with inward satisfaction at the thought of the hospital he is +going to build when he gets rich. And a wealthy man can at least pride +himself on the fortitude with which he would, if need be, bear the +deprivations of poverty." + +"To pardon is the best and the bitterest vengeance." + +Toward the end of the year the business entries became fewer and fewer, +as though he had tired of keeping the record of his doings. But the +later pages were far fuller than the earlier of his reflections--sometimes +a true thought happily expressed, sometimes, more often than not +perhaps, a mere verbal antithesis, such as have furnished forth many an +aphorism long before my friend was born. And these later sentiments had +a tinge of bitterness lacking in the earlier. + +"There are few houses," he wrote, in October, apparently, "where +happiness is a permanent boarder; generally it is but a transient guest; +and sometimes, indeed, it is only a tramp that knocks at the side door +and is refused admittance." + +"Many a man forgets his evil deeds so swiftly that he is honestly +surprised when any one else recalls them." + +Except the directions to me for the expenditure of the five hundred +dollars, the last two entries in the book were written on Christmas +morning. One of these was the passage which smote me most when I first +read it, for it struck me as sadness itself when written by a young man +not yet twenty-five: + +"If we had nothing else to wish, we should at least wish to die." + +At the time I did not seize the full significance of the other passage, +longer than this, and far sadder when its meaning was finally grasped. + +"The love our parents gave us we do not pay back, nor a tithe of it, +even. We may bestow it to our children, but we never render it again to +our father and our mother. And what can equal the love of a woman for +the son she has borne? No peak is as lofty, and no ocean is as wide; it +is fathomless, boundless, immeasurable; it is poured without stint, +unceasing and unfailing. And how do we men meet it? We do not even make +a pretense of repaying it, most of us. Now and again there may be a son +here and there who does what he can for his mother, little as it is, and +much as he may despise himself for doing it: and why not? Are there not +seven swords in the heart of the Mater Dolorosa? And what sort of a son +is he who would add another?" + +Although I had already begun to guess at the secret of my friend's +conduct, a mystery to all others, it was the first of these two final +entries in his note-book which came flashing back into my memory one +evening toward the end of March, ten weeks or so after he had bidden me +good-by and had gone away to Egypt. I was seated in my library, smoking, +when there came a ring at the door, and a telegram was handed to me. I +laid my cigar down on the brownish-yellow shell, at the crinkled edge of +which the green frog was sitting, reaching out his broken arms for the +trombone whereon he had played in happier days. I saw that the despatch +had come by the cable under the ocean, and I wondered who on the other +side of the Atlantic had news for me that would not keep till a letter +could reach me. + +I tore open the envelope. The message was dated Alexandria, Egypt, and +it was signed by my friend's widow. He had died that morning, and I was +asked to break the news to his mother. + + (1893) + + + + +[Illustration: On an Errand of Mercy] + + +The ambulance clanged along, now under the elevated railroad, and now +wrenching itself outside to get ahead of a cable-car. + +With his little bag in his hand, the young doctor sat wondering whether +he would know just what to do when the time came. This was his first day +of duty as ambulance surgeon, and now he was going to his first call. It +was three in the afternoon of an August day, when the hot spell had +lasted a week already, and yet the young physician was chill with +apprehension as he took stock of himself, and as he had a realizing +sense of his own inexperience. + +The bullet-headed Irishman who was driving the ambulance as skilfully as +became the former owner of a night-hawk cab glanced back at the doctor +and sized up the situation. + +"There's no knowin' what it is we'll find when we get there," he began. +"There's times when it's no aisy job the doctor has. Say you give the +man ether, now, or whatever it is you make him sniff, and maybe he's +dead when he comes out of it. Where are you then?" + +The young man decided instantly that if anything of that sort should +happen to him that afternoon, he would go back to Georgia at once and +try for a place in the country store. + +"But nothing ever fazed Dr. Chandler," the driver went on. "It's Dr. +Chandler's place you're takin' now, ye know that?" + +It seemed to the surgeon that the Irishman was making ready to patronize +him, or at least to insinuate the new-comer's inferiority to his +predecessor, whereupon his sense of humor came to his rescue, and a +smile relieved the tension of his nerves as he declared that Dr. +Chandler was an honor to his profession. + +"He is that!" the driver returned, emphatically, as with a dextrous jerk +he swung the ambulance just in front of a cable-car, to the sputtering +disgust of the gripman. "An' it's many a dangerous case we've had to +handle together, him and me." + +"I don't doubt that you were of great assistance," the young Southerner +suggested. + +"Many's the time he's tould me he never knew what he'd ha' done without +me," the Irishman responded. "There was that night, now--the night when +the big sailor come off the Roosian ship up in the North River there, +an' he got full, an' he fell down the steps of a barber shop, an' he +bruck his leg into three paces, so he did; an' that made him mad, the +pain of it, an' he was just wild when the ambulance come. Oh, it was a +lovely jag he had on him, that Roosian--a lovely jag! An' it was a +daisy scrap we had wid him!" + +"What did he do?" asked the surgeon. + +"What didn't he do?" the driver replied, laughing at the memory of the +scene. "He tried to do the doctor--Dr. Chandler it was, as I tould you. +He'd a big knife--it's mortial long knives, too, them Roosians +carry--an' he was so full he thought it was Dr. Chandler that was +hurtin' him, and he med offer to put his knife in him, when, begorra, I +kicked it out of his hand." + +"I have often heard Dr. Chandler speak of you," said the doctor, with an +involuntary smile, as he recalled several of the good stories that his +predecessor had told him of the driver's peculiarities. + +"An' why w'u'dn't he?" the Irishman replied. "It's more nor wanst I had +to help him out of trouble. An' never a worrd we had in all the months +he drove out wid me. But it 'll be some aisy little job we'll have now, +I'm thinkin'--a sun-stroke, maybe, or a kid that's got knocked down by a +scorcher, or a thrifle of that kind; you'll be able to attend to that +yourself aisy enough, no doubt." + +To this the young Southerner made no response, for his mind was busy in +going over the antidotes for various poisons. Then he aroused himself +and shook his shoulders, and laughed at his own preoccupation. + +The Irishman did not approve of this. "An' of coorse," he continued, +"it may be a scrap 'twixt a ginny and a Polander; or maybe, now, a coon +has gone for a chink wid a razzer, and sliced him most in two, I +dunno'." + +Then he clanged the bell unexpectedly, and swerved off the track and +down a side street toward the river. + +The doctor soon found a curious crowd flattening their noses against the +windows of a drug-store on a corner of the Boulevard. He sprang off as +the driver slowed down to turn and back up. + +A policeman stood in the doorway of the pharmacist's, swinging his club +by its string as he kept the children outside. He drew back to let the +young surgeon pass, saying, as he did so: "It's no use now, I think, +Doctor. You are too late." + +The body of the man lay flat on the tile pavement of the shop. He was +decently dressed, but his shoes were worn and patched. He was a very +large man, too, stout even for his length. His cravat had been untied +and his collar had been opened. His face was covered with a torn +handkerchief. + +As the doctor dropped on his knees by the side of the body, the +druggist's clerk came from behind the prescription counter--a thin, +undersized, freckled youngster, with short red hair and a trembling +voice. + +"He's dead, ain't he?" asked this apparition. + +The doctor finished his examination of the man on the floor, and then he +answered, as he rose to his feet: "Yes, he's dead. How did it happen?" + +The delivery of the young druggist was hesitating and broken. "Well, it +was this way, you see. The boss was out, and I was in charge here, and +there wasn't anything doing except at the fountain. Then this man came +in; he was in a hurry, and he told me he was feeling faint--kind of +suffocated, so he said--and couldn't I give him something. Well, I'm a +graduate in pharmacy, you know, and so I fixed him up a little aromatic +spirits of ammonia in a glass of soda-water. You know that won't hurt +anybody. But just as he took the glass out of my hand his knees gave way +and he squashed down on the floor there. The glass broke, and he hadn't +paid for the spirits of ammonia, either; and when I got round to him he +was dead--at least I thought so, but I rang you up to make sure." + +"Yes," the doctor returned, "apparently he died at once--heart failure. +Probably he had fatty degeneration, and this heat has been too much for +him." + +"I don't think any man has a right to come in here and die like that +without warning, heart failure or no heart failure, do you?" asked the +red-headed assistant. "I don't know what the boss will say. That's the +kind of thing that spoils trade, and it ain't any too good here, anyway, +with a drug-store 'most every block." + +"Do you know who he is?" the doctor inquired. + +"I went through his pockets, but he hadn't any watch nor any letters," +the druggist answered; "but he's got about a dollar in change in his +pants." + +The doctor looked around the shop. The policeman was still in the +doorway, and a group of boys and girls blocked the entrance. + +"Does anybody here know this man?" asked the surgeon. + +A small boy twisted himself under the policeman's arm and slipped into +the store. "I know him," he cried, eagerly. "I see him come in. I was +here all the time, and I see it all. He's Tim McEcchran." + +"Where does he live?" the doctor asked, only to correct himself +swiftly--"where did he live?" + +"I thought he was dead when I saw him go down like he was sandbagged," +said the boy. "He lives just around the corner in Amsterdam Avenue--at +least his wife lives there." + +The doctor took the address, and with the aid of the policeman he put +the body on the stretcher and lifted it into the ambulance. The driver +protested against this as unprecedented. + +"Sure it's none of our business to take a stiff home!" he declared. +"That's no work at all, at all, for an ambulance. Dr. Chandler never +done the like in all the months him an' me was together. Begob, I never +contracted to drive hearses." + +The young Southerner explained that this procedure might not be regular, +but it revolted him to leave the body of a fellow-mortal lying where it +had fallen on the floor of a shop. The least he could do, so it seemed +to him, was to take it to the dead man's widow, especially since this +was scarcely a block out of their way as they returned to the hospital. + +The driver kept on grumbling as they drove off. "Sure he give ye no +chance at all, at all, Doctor, to go and croak afore iver ye got at him, +and you only beginnin' yer work! Dr. Chandler, now, he'd get 'em into +the wagon ennyway, an' take chances of there bein' breath in 'em. Three +times, divil a less, they died on us on the stretcher there, an' me +whippin' like the divil to get 'em into the hospital ennyhow, where it +was their own consarn whether they lived or died. That's the place for +'em to die in, an' not in the wagon; but the wagon's better than dyin' +before we can get to 'em, an' the divil thank the begrudgers! It's +unlucky, so it is; an' by the same token, to-day's Friday, so it is!" + +The small boy who had identified the dead man ran alongside of them, +accompanied by his admiring mates; and when the ambulance backed up +again before a pretentious tenement-house with a brownstone front and +beveled plate-glass doors, the small boy rang Mrs. McEcchran's bell. + +"It's the third floor she lives on," he declared. + +The janitor came up from the basement and he and the driver carried the +stretcher up to Mrs. McEcchran's landing. + +The doctor went up before them, and found an insignificant little old +woman waiting for him on the landing. + +"Is this Mrs. McEcchran?" he asked. + +"Yes," she answered; then, as she saw the burden the men were carrying, +she cried: "My God! What's that? What are they bringing it here for?" + +The young Southerner managed to withdraw her into the front room of the +flat, and he noticed that it was very clean and very tidy. + +"I am a doctor," he began, soothingly, "and I am sorry to say that there +has been an accident--" + +"An accident?" she repeated. "Oh, my God! And is it Tim?" + +"You must summon all your courage, Mrs. McEcchran," the doctor returned. +"This is a serious matter--a very serious matter." + +"Is he hurt very bad?" she cried. "Is it dangerous?" + +"I may as well tell you the truth, Mrs. McEcchran," said the physician. +"I cannot say that your husband will ever be able to be out again." + +By that time the stretcher had been brought into the room, with the body +on it entirely covered by a blanket. + +"You don't mean to tell me that he is going to die?" she shrieked, +wringing her hands. "Don't say that, Doctor! don't say that!" + +The bearers set the stretcher down, and the woman threw herself on her +knees beside it. + +"Tim!" she cried. "Speak to me, Tim!" + +Getting no response, she got to her feet and turned to the surgeon. "You +don't mean he's dead?" And the last word died away in a wail. + +"I'm afraid there is no hope for him," the doctor replied. + +"He's dead! Tim's dead! Oh, my God!" she said, and then she dropped into +a chair and threw her apron over her head and rocked to and fro, sobbing +and mourning. + +The young Southerner was not yet hardened to such sights, and his heart +was sore with sympathy. Yet it seemed to him that the woman's emotion +was so violent that it would not last long. + +While he was getting ready to have the body removed from the stretcher +to a bed in one of the other rooms, Mrs. McEcchran unexpectedly pulled +the apron from her head. + +"Can I look at him?" she asked, as she slipped to the side of the body +and stealthily lifted a corner of the covering to peek in. Suddenly she +pulled it back abruptly. "Why, this ain't Tim!" she cried. + +"That is not your husband?" asked the doctor, in astonishment. "Are you +sure?" + +"Of course I'm sure!" she answered, laughing hysterically. "Of course +I'm sure! As if I didn't know Tim, the father of my children! Why, this +ain't even like him!" + +The doctor did not know what to say. "Allow me to congratulate you, +madam," he began. "No doubt Mr. McEcchran is still alive and well; no +doubt he will return to you. But if this is not your husband, whose +husband is he?" + +The room had filled with the neighbors, and in the crowd the small boy +who had brought them there made his escape. + +"Can any one tell me who this is?" the surgeon asked. + +"I knew that weren't Mr. McEcchran as soon as I see him," said another +boy. "That's Mr. Carroll." + +"And where does--did Mr. Carroll live?" the doctor pursued, repenting +already of his zeal as he foresaw a repetition of the same painful scene +in some other tenement-house. + +"It's only two blocks off--on the Boulevard," explained the second boy. +"It's over a saloon on the corner. I'll show you if I can ride on the +wagon." + +"Very well," agreed the doctor; and the body was carried down and placed +again in the ambulance. + +As the ambulance started he overheard one little girl say to another: +"He was killed in a blast! My! ain't it awful? It blew his legs off!" + +To which the other little girl answered, "But I saw both his boots as +they carried him out." + +And the first little girl then explained: "Oh, I guess they put his legs +back in place so as not to hurt his wife's feelings. Turrible, ain't +it?" + +[Illustration: "MY! AIN'T IT AWFUL? IT BLEW HIS LEGS OFF!"] + +When the ambulance started, the driver began grumbling again: "It's +not Dr. Chandler that 'ud have a thing like this happen to him. Him an' +me never went traipsing round wid a corp that didn't belong to nobody. +We knew enough to take it where the wake was waitin'." + +The boy on the box with the driver guided the ambulance to a two-story +wooden shanty with a rickety stairway outside leading up to the second +floor. + +He sprang down as the ambulance backed up, and he pointed out to the +doctor the sign at the foot of these external steps--"Martin Carroll, +Photographer." + +"That's where he belongs," the boy explained. "He sleeps in the gallery +up there. The saloon belongs to a Dutchman that married his sister. This +is the place all right, if it really is Mr. Carroll." + +"What do you mean by that?" shouted the doctor. "Are you not sure about +it?" + +"I ain't certain sure," the fellow replied. "I ain't as sure as I was +first off. But I think it's Mr. Carroll. Leastways, if it ain't, it +looks like him!" + +It was with much dissatisfaction at this doubtfulness of his guide that +the doctor helped the driver slide out the stretcher. + +Then the side door of the saloon under the landing of the outside stairs +opened and a stocky little German came out. + +"What's this? What's this?" he asked. + +The young surgeon began his explanation again. "This is where Mr. +Carroll lived, isn't it? Well, I am sorry to say there has been an +accident, and--" + +"Is that Martin there?" interrupted the German. + +"Yes," the Southerner replied, "and I'm afraid it is a serious case--a +pretty serious case--" + +"Is he dead?" broke in the saloon-keeper again. + +"He is dead," the doctor answered. + +"Then why didn't you say so?" asked the short man harshly. "Why waste +all that time talking if he's dead?" + +The Southerner was inclined to resent this rudeness, but he checked +himself. + +"I understand that you are Mr. Carroll's brother-in-law," he began +again, "so I suppose I can leave the body in your charge--" + +The German went over to the stretcher and turned down the blanket. + +"No, you don't leave him here," he declared. "I'm not going to take him. +This ain't my sister's husband!" + +"This is not Mr. Carroll?" and this time the doctor looked around for +the boy who had misinformed him. "I was told it was." + +"The man who told you was a liar, that's all. This ain't Martin Carroll, +and the sooner you take him away the better. That's what I say," +declared the saloon-keeper, going back to his work. + +The doctor looked around in disgust. What he had to do now was to take +the body to the morgue, and that revolted him. It seemed to him an +insult to the dead and an outrage toward the dead man's family. Yet he +had no other course of action open to him, and he was beginning to be +impatient to have done with the thing. The week of hot weather had worn +on his nerves also, and he wanted to be back again in the cool hospital +out of the oven of the streets. + +As he and the driver were about to lift up the stretcher again, a man in +overalls stepped up to the body and looked at it attentively. + +"It's Dick O'Donough!" he said at once. "Poor old Dick! It's a sad day +for her--and her that excitable!" + +"Do you know him?" asked the doctor. + +"Don't I?" returned the man in overalls, a thin, elderly man, with wisps +of hair beneath his chin and a shrewd, weazened face. "It's Dick +O'Donough!" + +"But are you sure of it?" the young surgeon insisted. "We've had two +mistakes already." + +"Sure of it?" repeated the other. "Of course I'm sure of it! Didn't I +work alongside of him for five years? And isn't that the scar on him he +got when the wheel broke?" And he lifted the dead man's hair and showed +a cicatrix on the temple. + +"Very well," said the doctor. "If you are sure, where did he live?" + +"It's only a little way." + +"I'm glad of that. Can you show us?" + +"I can that," replied the man in overalls. + +"Then jump in front," said the doctor. + +As they started again, the driver grumbled once more. "Begorra, April +Day's a fool to ye," he began. "Them parvarse gossoons, now, if I got +howld of 'em, they'd know what it was hurt 'em, I'm thinkin'." + +The man in overalls directed them to a shabby double tenement in a side +street swarming with children. There was a Chinese laundry on one side +of the doorway, and on the other side a bakery. The door stood open, and +the hallway was dark and dirty. + +"It's a sad day it'll be for Mrs. O'Donough," sighed the man in +overalls. "I don't know what it is she's got, but she's very queer, now, +very queer." + +He went into the bakery and got a man to help the driver carry up the +stretcher. Women came out of the shops on both sides of the street, and +leaned out of their windows with babies in their arms, and stepped out +on the fire-escapes. There were banana peelings and crumpled newspapers +and rubbish of one sort or another scattered in the street, and the +savor of it all was unpleasant even to a man who was no stranger to the +casual ward of a hospital. + +The man in overalls went up-stairs with the doctor, warning him where a +step was broken or where a bit of the hand-rail was missing. They groped +their way along the passage on the first floor and knocked. + +The door opened suddenly, and they saw an ill-furnished room, glaring +with the sun reflected from its white walls. Two women stood just within +the door. One was tall and spare, with gray streaks in her coal-black +hair, and with piercing black eyes; the other was a comfortable body +with a cheerful smile. + +"That's Mrs. O'Donough," said the doctor's guide--"the tall one. See the +eyes of her now! The other's a neighbor woman, who's with her a good +deal, she's that excitable." + +The doctor stepped into the room, and began once more to break the news. +"This is Mrs. O'Donough, is it not?" he said. "I'm a doctor, and I am +sorry to have to say there has been an accident, and Mr. O'Donough +is--is under treatment." + +Here the driver and the man from the bakery brought in the stretcher. + +When the tall woman saw this she gripped the arm of the other and hissed +out, "Is it _it_?" Then she turned her back on the body and sank her +head on her friend's shoulder. + +The other woman made signs to the doctor to say little or nothing. + +The driver and the baker took a thin counterpane off the bed, which +stood against the wall. Then they lifted the body from the stretcher to +the bed, and covered it with the counterpane. + +The doctor did not know what to say in the face of the signals he was +receiving from the widow's friend. + +"In case I can be of any assistance at any time," he suggested--and then +Mrs. O'Donough lifted her head and looked at him with her burning +eyes--"if I can be of service, do not hesitate to call on me. Here is my +card." + +As he felt his way down-stairs again he heard a hand-organ break out +suddenly into a strident waltz. + +When he came out into the street a few little children were dancing in +couples, although most of them stood around the ambulance, gazing with +morbid curiosity at the driver as he replaced the stretcher. At the door +of the baker's shop stood a knot of women talking it over; but in the +Chinese laundry the irons went back and forth steadily, with no interest +in what might happen in the street outside. + +As the doctor took his seat in the vehicle a shriek came from the room +he had just left--a shuddering, heartrending wail--then another--and +then there was silence. + +The ambulance started forward, the bell clanged to clear the way, the +horse broke into a trot, and in a minute or two they turned into the +broad avenue. + +Then the driver looked at the doctor. "The widdy's takin' it harrd, I'm +thinkin', but she'll get over it before the wake," he said. "An' it's +good lungs she has, ennyhow." + + (1898) + + + + +[Illustration: In a Bob-tail Car] + + +It was about noon of a dark day late in September, and a long-threatened +drizzle of hail chilled the air, as Harry Brackett came out of the +Apollo House and stood on the corner of Fourth Avenue, waiting for a +cross-town car. He was going down-town to the office of the _Gotham +Gazette_ to write up an interview he had just had with the latest +British invader of these United States, Lady Smith-Smith, the fair +authoress of the very popular novel _Smile and be a Villain Still_, five +rival editions of which were then for sale everywhere in New York. Harry +Brackett intended to ride past Union Square to Sixth Avenue in the +cross-town car, and then to go to the _Gotham Gazette_ by the elevated +railway, so he transferred ten cents for the fare of the latter and five +cents for the fare of the former from his waistcoat pocket to a little +pocket in his overcoat. Then he buttoned the overcoat tightly about him, +as the raw wind blew harshly across the city from river to river. He +looked down the street for the car; it was afar off, on the other side +of Third Avenue, and he was standing on the corner of Fourth Avenue. + +"A bob-tail car," said Harry Brackett to himself, "is like a policeman: +it is never here just when it is wanted. And yet it is a necessary +evil--like the policeman again. Perhaps there is here a philosophical +thought that might be worked up as a comic editorial article for the +fifth column. 'The Bob-tail Car'--why, the very name is humorous. And +there are lots of things to be said about it. For instance, I can get +something out of the suggestion that the heart of a coquette is like a +bob-tail car, there is always room for one more; but I suppose I must +not venture on any pun about 'ringing the belle.' Then I can say that +the bob-tail car is a one-horse concern, and is therefore a victim of +the healthy American hatred of one-horse concerns. It has no past; no +gentleman of the road ever robbed its passengers; no road-agent nowadays +would think of 'holding it up.' Perhaps that's why there is no poetry +about a bob-tail car, as there is about a stage-coach. Even Rudolph +Vernon, the most modern of professional poets, wouldn't dream of writing +verses on 'Riding in a Bob-tail Car.' Wasn't it Heine who said that the +monks of the Middle Ages thought that Greek was a personal invention of +the devil, and that he agreed with them? That's what the bob-tail car +is--a personal invention of the devil. The stove-pipe hat, the +frying-pan, the tenement-house, and the bob-tail car--these are the +choicest and the chief of the devil's gifts to New York. Why doesn't +that car come? confound it! Although it cannot swear itself, it is the +cause of much swearing!" + +Just then the car came lumbering along and bumping with a repeated jar +as its track crossed the tracks on Fourth Avenue. Harry Brackett jumped +on it as it passed the corner where he stood. His example was followed +by a stranger, who took the seat opposite to him. + +As the car sped along toward Broadway, Harry Brackett mechanically read, +as he had read a dozen times before, the printed request to place the +exact fare in the box. "Suppose I don't put it in?" he mused; "what will +happen? The driver will ask for it--if he has time and happens to think +of it. This is very tempting to a man who wants to try the Virginian +plan of readjusting his debts. Here is just the opportunity for any one +addicted to petty larceny. I think I shall call that article 'The +Bob-tail Car as a Demoralizer.' It is most demoralizing for a man to +feel that he can probably evade the payment of his fare, since there is +no conductor to ask for it. However, I suppose the main reliance of the +company is on the honesty of the individual citizen who would rather pay +his debts than not. I doubt if there is any need to dun the average +American for five cents." + +Harry Brackett lowered his eyes from the printed notice at which he had +been staring unconsciously for a minute, and they fell on the man +sitting opposite to him--the man who had entered the car as he did. + +"I wonder if he is the average American?" thought Brackett. "He hasn't +paid his fare yet. I wonder if he will? It isn't my business to dun him +for it, and yet I'd like to know whether his intentions are honorable or +not." + +The car turned sharply into Broadway, and then came to a halt to allow +two young ladies to enter. A third young lady escorted them to the car, +and kissed them affectionately, and said: + +"Good-by! You will be _sure_ to come again! I have enjoyed your visit so +much." + +Then the two young ladies kissed her, and they said, both speaking at +once, and very rapidly: + +"Oh yes. We've had _such_ a good time! We'll write you! And you _must_ +come out to Orange and see us soon! Good-by! Good-by! Remember us to +your mother! _Good-by!_" + +At last the sweet sorrow of this parting was over; the third young lady +withdrew to the sidewalk; the two young ladies came inside the car; the +other passengers breathed more freely; the man opposite to Harry +Brackett winked at him slyly, and the car went on again. + +There was a vacant seat on the side of the car opposite to Harry +Brackett--or, at least, there would have been one if the ladies on that +side had not, with characteristic coolness, spread out their skirts so +as to occupy the whole space. The two young ladies stood for a moment +after they had entered the car; they looked for a seat, but no one of +the other ladies made a sign of moving to make room for them. The man +opposite to Harry Brackett rose and proffered his seat. They did not +thank him, or even so much as look at him. + +"_You_ take it, Nelly," said one. + +"I sha'n't do anything of the sort. I'm not a bit tired!" returned the +other. "I _insist_ on your sitting down!" + +"But I'm not tired _now_." + +"Louise Valeria Munson," her friend declared, with humorous emphasis, +"if you don't sit right down, I'll call a _policeman!_" + +"Well, I guess there's room for us both," said Louise Valeria Munson; +"I'm sure there ought to be." + +By this time some of the other ladies on the seat had discovered that +they were perhaps taking up a little more than their fair share of +space, and there was a readjustment of frontier. The vacancy was +slightly broadened, and both young ladies sat down. + +The man who had got in just after Harry Brackett and who had given up +his seat stood in the center of the car with his hand through a strap. +But he made no effort to pay his fare. The driver rang his bell, the +passengers looked at each other inquiringly, and one of the two young +ladies who had just seated themselves produced a dime, which was passed +along and dropped into the fare-box in accordance with the printed +instructions of the company. + +Three ladies left the car just before it turned into Fourteenth Street; +and after it had rounded the curve two elderly gentlemen entered and sat +down by the side of Harry Brackett. The man who had not paid his fare +kindly volunteered to drop their money into the box, but did not put in +any of his own. Harry Brackett was certain of this, for he had watched +him closely. + +The two elderly gentlemen continued a conversation began before they +entered the car. "I'll tell you," said one of them, so loudly that Harry +Brackett could not help overhearing, "the most remarkable thing that man +Skinner ever did. One day he got caught in one of his amusing little +swindles; by some slip-up of his ingenuity he did not allow himself +quite rope enough, and so he was brought up with a round turn in the +Tombs. He got two years in Sing Sing, but he never went up at all--he +served his time by substitute!" + +"What?" cried his companion, in surprise. + +"He did!" answered the first speaker. "That's just what he did! He had a +substitute to go to State's Prison for him, while he went up to Albany +to work for his own pardon!" + +"How did he manage that?" asked the other, in involuntary admiration +before so splendid an audacity. + +"You've no idea how fertile Skinner was in devices of all kinds," +replied the gentleman who was telling the story. "He got out on bail, +and he arranged for a light sentence if he pleaded guilty. Then one +day, suddenly, a man came into court, giving himself up as Skinner, +pleading guilty, and asking for immediate sentence. Of course, nobody +inquired too curiously into the identity of a self-surrendered prisoner +who wanted to go to Sing Sing. Well--" + +The car stopped at the corner of Fifth Avenue, several passengers +alighted, and a party of three ladies came in. There were two vacant +seats by the side of Harry Brackett, and as he thought these three +ladies wished to sit together, he gave up his place and took another +farther down the car. Here he found himself again opposite the man who +had entered the car almost simultaneously with him, and who had not yet +paid his fare. Harry Brackett wondered whether this attempt to steal a +ride was intentional or whether it was merely inadvertent. His +consideration of this metaphysical problem was interrupted by another +conversation. His right-hand neighbor, who was apparently a physician, +was telling the friend next to him of the strange desires of +convalescents. + +"I think," said he, "that the queerest request I ever heard was down in +Connecticut. There was a man there, a day-laborer, but a fine young +fellow, who had a crowbar driven clean through his head by a forgotten +blast. Well, I happened to be the first doctor on the spot, and it was +nip-and-tuck whether anything could be done for him; it was a most +interesting case. But he was in glorious condition physically. I found +out afterward that he was the champion sprint-runner of the place. I got +him into the nearest hotel, and in time I managed to patch him up as +best I could. At last we pulled him through, and the day came when I was +able to tell him that I thought he would recover, and that he was quite +out of danger, and that all he had to do was to get his strength back +again as fast as he could, and he would be all right again soon. He was +lying in bed, emaciated and speechless, when I said this, and when I +added that he could have anything to eat he might fancy, his eyes +brightened and his lips moved. 'Is there anything in particular you +would prefer?' I asked him, and his lips moved again as though he had a +wish to express. You see, he hadn't spoken once since the accident, but +he seemed to be trying to find his tongue; so I bent over the bed and +put my head over his mouth, and finally I heard a faint voice saying, +'Quail on toast!' and as I drew back in surprise, he gave me a wink. +Feeble as his tones were, there was infinite gusto in the way he said +the words. I suppose he had never had quail on toast in all his life; +probably he had dreamed of it as an unattainable luxury." + +"Did he get it?" asked the doctor's friend. + +"He got it every day," answered the doctor, "until he said he didn't +want any more. I remember another man who--" + +But now, with many a jolt and jar, the car was rattling noisily across +Sixth Avenue under the dripping shadow of the station of the elevated +railway. Harry Brackett rose to his feet, and as he did so he glanced +again at the man opposite to him, to see if, even then, at the eleventh +hour, he did intend to pay his fare. But the man caught Harry Brackett's +eye hardily, and looked him in the face, with a curiously knowing smile. + +There was something very odd about the expression of the man's face, so +Harry Brackett thought, as he left the car and began to mount the steps +which led to the station of the elevated railroad. He could not help +thinking that there was a queer suggestion in that smile--a suggestion +of a certain complicity on his part: it was as though the owner of the +smile had ventured to hint that they were birds of a feather. + +"Confound his impudence!" said Harry Brackett to himself, as he stood +before the window of the ticket-agent. + +Then he put his fingers into the little pocket in his overcoat and took +from it a ten-cent piece and a five-cent piece. And he knew at once why +the man opposite had smiled so impertinently--it was the smile of the +pot at the kettle. + + (1886) + + + + +[Illustration: In the Small Hours] + + +Suddenly he found himself wide awake. He had been lost in sleep, +dreamless and spaceless; and now, without warning, his slumber had left +him abruptly and for no reason that he could guess. Although he strained +his ear, he caught the echo of no unusual sound. He listened in vague +doubt whether there might not be some one moving about in the apartment; +but he could hear nothing except the shrill creak of the brakes of a +train on the elevated railroad nearly a block away. Wilson Carpenter was +in the habit of observing his own feelings, and he was surprised to note +that he did not really expect to detect any physical cause for his +unexpected awakening. Sleep had left him as inexplicably as it had +swiftly. + +He lay there in bed with no restlessness; he heard the regular breathing +of his wife, who was sleeping at his side; he saw the faint illumination +from the door open into the next room where the baby was also asleep. He +looked toward the window, but no ray of light was yet visible; and he +guessed it to be about four o'clock in the morning, perhaps a little +earlier. In that case he had not been in bed more than two or three +hours at the most. He wondered why he had waked thus unexpectedly, +since he had had a fatiguing day. Perhaps it was the excitement--there +was no doubt that he had had his full share of excitement that +evening--and he thrilled again as he recalled the delicious sensation of +dull dread yielding at last to the certainty of success. + +He had played for a heavy stake and he had won. That was just what he +had been doing--gambling with fate, throwing dice with fortune itself. +That was what every dramatic author had to do every time he brought out +a new play. The production of a piece at an important New York theater +was a venture as aleatory almost as cutting a pack of cards, and the +odds were always against the dramatist. And as the young man quietly +recalled the events of the evening it seemed to him that the excitement +of those who engineer corners in Wall Street must be like his own +anxiety while the future of his drama hung in the balance, only theirs +could not but be less keen than his, less poignant, for he was playing +his game with men and women, while what they touched were but inanimate +stocks. His winning depended upon the actors and actresses who had +bodied forth his conception. A single lapse of memory or a single slip +of the tongue, and the very sceptical audience of the first night might +laugh in the wrong place, and so cut themselves off from sympathy; and +all his labor would shrivel before his eyes. Of a truth it is the ordeal +by fire that the dramatist must undergo; and there had been moments +that long, swift evening when he had felt as though he were tied to the +stake and awaiting only the haggard squaw who was to apply the torch. + +Now the trial was over and the cause was gained. There had been too many +war-pieces of late, so the croakers urged, and the public would not +stand another drama of the Rebellion. But he had not been greatly +discouraged, for in his play the military scenes were but the setting +for a story of everyday heroism, of human conflict, of man's conquest of +himself. It was the simple strength of this story that had caught the +spectators before the first act was half over and held them breathless +as situation followed situation. At the adroitly spaced comic scenes the +audience had gladly relaxed, joyously relieving the emotional strain +with welcome laughter. The future of the play was beyond all question; +of that the author felt assured, judging not so much by the mere +applause as by the tensity of the interest aroused, and by the +long-drawn sigh of suspense he had heard so often in the course of the +evening. He did not dread the acrid criticisms he knew he should find in +some of the morning papers, the writers of which would be bitterer than +usual, since the writer of the new play had been a newspaper man +himself. + +The author of _A Bold Stroke_ knew what its success meant to him. It +meant a fortune. The play would perhaps run the season out in New York, +and this was only the middle of October. With matinees on Wednesday as +well as on Saturday, two hundred performances in the city were not +impossible. Then next season there would be at least two companies on +the road. He ought to make $25,000 by the piece, and perhaps more. The +long struggle just to keep his head above water, just to get his daily +bread, just to make both ends meet--that was over forever. He could move +out of the little Harlem flat to which he had brought his bride two +years before; and he could soon get her the house she was longing for +somewhere in the country, near New York, where the baby could grow up +under the trees. + +The success of the play meant more than mere money, so the ambitious +young author was thinking as he lay there sleepless. It meant praise, +too--and praise was pleasant. It meant recognition--and recognition was +better than praise, for it would open other opportunities. The money he +made by the play would give him a home, and also leisure for thought and +for adequate preparation before he began his next piece. He had done his +best in writing the war-drama; he had spared no pains and neglected no +possibility of improvement; it was as good as he could make it. But +there were other plays he had in mind, making a different appeal, +quieter than his military piece, subtler; and these he could now risk +writing, since the managers would believe in him after the triumph of A +Bold Stroke. + +It would be possible for him hereafter to do what he wanted to do and +what he believed himself best fitted to do. It had always seemed to him +that New York opened an infinity of vistas to the dramatist. He intended +to seize some of this opulent material and to set on the stage the life +of the great city as he had seen it during his five years of journalism. +He knew that it did a man good to be a reporter for a little while, if +he had the courage to cut himself loose before it was too late, before +journalism had corroded its stigma. His reporting had taken him into +strange places now and again; but it had also taken him into the homes +of the plain people who make New York what it is. Society, as Society +was described in the Sunday papers, he knew little about, and he cared +less; he was not a snob, if he knew himself. But humanity was +unfailingly interesting and unendingly instructive; and it was more +interesting and more instructive in the factories and in the tenements +than it was in the immense mansions on Lenox Hill. + +His work as a reporter had not only sharpened his eyes and broadened his +sympathies; it had led him to see things that made him think. He had not +inherited his New England conscience for nothing; and his college +studies in sociology, that seemed so bare to him as an undergraduate, +had taken on a new aspect since he had seen for himself the actual +working of the inexorable laws of life. To sneer at the reformers who +were endeavoring to make the world better had not been easy for him, +even when he was straining to achieve the false brilliance of the star +reporter; and now that he was free to say what he thought, he was going +to seize the first opportunity to help along the good cause, to show +those rich enough to sit in the good seat in the theater that the boy +perched up in the gallery in his shirt-sleeves was also a man and a +brother. + +The young playwright held that a play ought to be amusing, of course, +but he held also that it might give the spectators something to think +about after they got home. He was going to utilize his opportunity to +show how many failures there are, and how many there must be if the +fittest is to survive, and how hard it is to fail, how bitter, how +pitiful! With an effort he refrained from saying out loud enough to +waken his wife the quotation that floated back to his memory: + + Whether at Naishapur or Babylon, + Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run, + The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, + The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one. + +His own success, now it had come, found him wondering at it. He was a +modest young fellow at bottom, and he really did not know why he had +attained the prize so many were striving to grasp. Probably it was due +to the sturdiness of the stock he came from; and he was glad that his +ancestors had lived cleanly and had left him a healthy body and a sober +mind. His father and his mother had survived long enough to see him +through college and started in newspaper work in New York. They had been +old-fashioned in their ways, and he was aware that they might not have +approved altogether of his choice of a profession, since it would have +seemed very strange to them that a son of theirs should earn his living +by writing plays. Yet he grieved that they had gone before he was able +to repay any of the sacrifices they had made for him; it was the one +blot on his good-fortune that he could not share it with them in the +future. + +The future! Yes, the future was in his power at last. As he lay there in +the darkness he said to himself that all his ambitions were now almost +within his grasp. He was young and well educated; he had proved ability +and true courage; he had friends; he had a wife whom he loved and who +loved him; his first-born was a son, already almost able to walk. Never +before had his prospects appeared so smiling, and never before had he +foreseen how his hopes might be fulfilled. And yet now, as he thought of +the future, for the first time his pulse did not beat faster. When it +was plain to him that he might soon have the most of the things he cared +for, he found himself asking whether, after all, he really did care for +them so much. He was happy, but just then his happiness was passive. +The future might be left to take care of itself all in good time. He was +wide awake, yet he had almost the languor of slumber; it surprised him +to find himself thus unenergetic and not wanting to be roused to battle, +even if the enemy were in sight. He thought of the Nirvana that the +Oriental philosophers sought to gain as the final good; and he asked +himself if perhaps the West had not still something to learn from the +East. + +Afar, in the silence of the night, he heard the faint clang of an +ambulance-bell, and he began to think of the huge city now sunk in +slumber all around him. He had nearly four million fellow-citizens; and +in an hour or two or three they would awaken and go forth to labor. They +would fill the day with struggle, vying one with another, each trying to +make his footing secure; and now and again one of them would fall and be +crushed to the ground. They would go to bed again at night, wearied out, +and they would sleep again, and waken again, and begin the battle again. +Most of them would take part in the combat all in vain, since only a few +of them could hope to escape from the fight unvanquished. Most of them +would fall by the wayside or be trampled under foot on the highroad. +Most of them would be beaten in the battle and would drop out of the +fight, wounded unto death. And for the first time all this ceaseless +turmoil and unending warfare seemed to him futile and purposeless. + +What was victory but a chance to engage again in the combat? To win +to-day was but to have a right to enter the fray again to-morrow. His +triumph that evening in the theater only opened the door for him; and if +he was to hold his own he must make ready to wrestle again and again. +Each time the effort would be harder than the last. And at the end, +what? He would be richer in money, perhaps, but just then money seemed +to have no absolute value. He would do good, perhaps; but perhaps also +he might do harm, for he knew himself not to be infallible. He would not +be more contented, he feared, for he had discovered already that +although success is less bitter than failure, it rarely brings complete +satisfaction. If it were contentment that he really was seeking, why not +be satisfied now with what he had won? Why not quit? Why not step out of +the ranks and throw down his musket and get out of the way and leave the +fighting to those who had a stomach for it? + +As he asked himself these questions a gray shroud of melancholy was +wrapped about him and all the brightness of youth was quenched in him. +Probably this was the inevitable reaction after the strain of his long +effort. But none the less it left him looking forward to the end of his +life, and he saw himself withered and racked with pain; he saw his young +wife worn and ugly, perhaps dead--and the ghastly vision of the grave +glimpsed before him; he saw his boy dead also, dead in youth; and he saw +himself left alone and lonely in his old age, and still struggling, +struggling, struggling in vain and forever. + +Then he became morbid even, and he felt he was truly alone now, as every +one of us must be always. He loved his wife and she loved him, and there +was sympathy and understanding between them; but he doubted if he really +knew her, for he felt sure she did not really know him. There were +thoughts in his heart sometimes that he was glad she did not guess; and +no doubt she had emotions and sentiments she did not reveal to him. +After all, every human being must be a self-contained and repellent +entity; and no two of them can ever feel alike or think alike. He and +his wife came of different stocks, with a different training, with a +different experience of life, with different ideals; and although they +were united in love, they could not but be separate and distinct to all +eternity. And as his wife was of another sex from his, so his boy was of +another generation, certain to grow up with other tastes and other +aspirations. + +Wilson Carpenter's marriage had been happy, and his boy was all he could +wish,--and yet--and yet--Is this all that life can give a man? A little +joy for the few who are fortunate, a little pleasure, and then--and +then--For the first time he understood how it was that a happy man +sometimes commits suicide. And he smiled as he thought that if he wished +to choose death at the instant of life when the outsider would suppose +his future to be brightest, now was the moment. He knew that there +ought to be a revolver in the upper drawer of the table at the side of +the bed. He turned gently; and then he lay back again, smiling bitterly +at his own foolishness. + +A heavy wagon rumbled along down the next street, and he heard also the +whistle of a train on the river-front. These signs of returning day did +not interest him at that moment when--so it seemed to him, although he +was aware this was perfectly unreasonable--when he was at a crisis in +his life. + +Then there came to him another quatrain of Omar's, a quatrain he had +often quoted with joy in its stern vigor and its lofty resolve: + + So when the Angel of the darker Drink + At last shall find you by the river-brink, + And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul + Forth to your Lips to quaff--you shall not shrink. + +And youth came to his rescue again, and hope rose within him once more; +and his interest in the eternal conflict of humanity sprang up as keen +as ever. + +The mood of craven surrender passed from him as abruptly as it had come, +leaving him older, and with a vague impression as though he had had a +strange and unnatural experience. He knew again that life is infinitely +various, and that it is worth while for its own sake; and he wondered +how it was that he had ever doubted it. Even if struggle is the rule of +our existence in this world, the fight is its own reward; it brings its +own guerdon; it gives a zest to life; and sometimes it even takes the +sting from defeat. The ardor of the combat is bracing; and fate is a +foeman worthy of every man's steel. + +So long as a man does his best always, his pay is secure; and the +ultimate success or failure matters little after all, for, though he be +the sport of circumstance, he is the master of himself. To be alone--in +youth or in age--is not the worst thing that can befall, if the man is +not ashamed of the companionship of his own soul. If his spirit is +unafraid and ready to brave the bludgeon of chance, then has man a +stanch friend in himself, and he can boldly front whatever the future +has in store for him. Only a thin-blooded weakling casts down his +weapons for nothing and flees around the arena; the least that a man of +even ordinary courage can do is to stand to his arms and to fight for +his life to the end. + +Wilson Carpenter had no idea how long it was that he had been lying +awake motionless, staring at the ceiling. There were signs of dawn now, +and he heard a cart rattle briskly up to the house next door. + +Perhaps his wife heard this also, for she turned and put out one arm +caressingly, smiling at him in her sleep. He took her hand in his gently +and held it. Peace descended upon him, and his brain ceased to torment +itself with the future or with the present or with the past. + +He was conscious of no effort not to think, nor indeed of any +unfulfilled desire on his part. It seemed to him that he was floating +lazily on a summer sea, not becalmed, but bound for no destination. And +before he knew it, he was again asleep. + + (1899) + + + + +[Illustration: Her Letter + +to His Second Wife] + + +She was gayly humming a lilting tune as she flitted about the spacious +sitting-room, warm with the mellow sunshine of the fall. From the broad +bow-window she looked down on the reddened maples in Gramercy Park, +where a few lingering leaves were dancing in the fitful autumn breeze. +Turning away with a graceful, bird-like movement, she floated across to +the corner and glanced again into a tall and narrow mirror set in the +door of a huge wardrobe. She smiled back at the pretty face she saw +there reflected. Then she laughed out merrily, that she had caught +herself again at her old trick. Yet she did not turn away until she had +captured two or three vagrant wisps of her pale-gold hair, twisting them +back into conformity with their fellows. When at last she glided off +with a smile still lingering on her dainty little mouth, the whole room +seemed to be illuminated by her exuberant happiness. + +And this was strong testimony to the brightness of the bride herself, +for there was nothing else attractive in that sitting-room or in the +rest of the house. The furniture was stiff and old-fashioned throughout, +and the hangings were everywhere heavy and somber. The mantelpiece was +of staring white marble; and on each side of this was a tall bookcase of +solid black walnut highly varnished and overladen with misplaced +ornament. The rectangular chairs were covered with faded maroon reps. +The window curtains were of raw silk, thickly lined and held back by +cords with black-walnut tassels. The least forbidding object in the room +was a shabby little desk, of which the scratched white paint contrasted +sharply with the dull decorum of the other furniture. + +The bride had brought this desk from the home of her youth to her +husband's house, and she cherished it as a possession of her girlhood. +By the side of it was a low, cane-backed rocking-chair, and in this she +sat herself down at last. A small rectangular package was almost under +her hand on the corner of the desk; and she opened it eagerly and +blushed prettily as she discovered it to contain her new +visiting-cards--"Mrs. John Blackstock." She repeated the name to herself +with satisfaction at its sonorous dignity. _John Blackstock_ seemed to +her exactly the name that suited her husband, with his gentleness and +his strength. Next to the cards was another package, a belated present +from a schoolmate; it contained a silver-mounted calendar. She held it +in her hand and counted back the days to her wedding--just twenty, and +it seemed to her hardly a week. Then she remarked that in less than a +fortnight it would be Thanksgiving; and she thought at once of the many +blessings she would have to give thanks for this year, many more than +ever before--above all, for John! + +Suddenly it struck her that a year could make startling changes in a +woman's life--or even half a year. Twelve months ago in the New England +mill-town where her parents lived she had no thought of ever coming to +New York to stay or of marrying soon. Last Thanksgiving she had never +seen John; and indeed, it was not till long after Decoration Day that +she had first heard his name; and now there was a plain gold ring on her +finger, and John and she were man and wife. If she had not accepted Mary +Morton's invitation she might never have met John! She shuddered at the +fatal possibility; and she marveled how the long happiness of a woman's +life might hang on a mere chance. When the Mortons had asked her to go +to Saratoga with them to spend the Fourth of July she had hesitated, and +she came near refusing after Mary had said that Mr. Blackstock was going +to be there, and that he was a widower now, and that there was a chance +for her. She detested that kind of talk and thought it was always in bad +taste. But then Mary Morton was a dear, good girl; and it was natural +that Mr. Morton should be interested in Mr. Blackstock, since Mr. +Blackstock was the head of the New York house that took all the output +of the Morton mills. She had decided to go to Saratoga at last, partly +because her father thought it would amuse her, and partly just to show +Mary Morton that she was not the kind of girl to be thrown at a man's +head. + +The morning after their arrival in Saratoga, when they were walking in +Congress Park, Mary had pointed out John to her, and she remembered that +he had seemed to her very old. Of course, he was not really old; she +knew now that he was just forty; but she was only twenty herself, and at +first sight he had impressed her as an elderly man. That evening he came +over to their hotel to call on Mr. Morton, and he was presented to her. +Mary had been telling her how his wife had died the summer before, and +how he had been inconsolable; and so she could not help sympathizing +with him, nor could she deny that he had seemed to be taken with her +from the beginning. Instead of talking to Mr. Morton or to Mary, he kept +turning to her and asking her opinion. Before he got up to go he had +invited them all to go down to the lake with him the next day for a fish +dinner. Twenty-four hours later he had asked her to drive with him +alone, and while she was wavering Mary had accepted for her; and really +she did not see why she should not go with him. She had liked him from +the first, he was so quiet and reserved, and then he had been so lonely +since the death of his wife. On Sunday he had taken her to church; and +the next morning he had moved over to their hotel. She had been afraid +that Mary might tease her; but she did not care, for she was getting to +like to have him attentive to her. She had made up her mind not to pay +any regard to anything Mary might say. What Mary did say was to ask her +to stay on another fortnight. She wondered now what would have happened +if her father had refused his permission. As it was, she remained in +Saratoga two weeks longer--and so did John, though Mr. Morton said that +the senior partner of Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron had lots of things +to do in New York. Then Mary used to smile and to tell her husband that +Mr. Blackstock had more pressing business on hand in Saratoga than in +New York. + +At last they all started for home again, and John had come with them as +far as Albany. When he held her hand just as the car was going and said +good-by, it was rather abruptly that he asked her if he might come and +see her at Norwich--and he had blushed as he explained that he might be +called there soon on important business. + +As the picture of this scene rose before the eyes of the young bride she +smiled again. She knew now what she had guessed then--that she was the +important business that was bringing the senior partner of Blackstock, +Rawlings & Cameron to Norwich. When he came up the next Saturday and had +made the acquaintance of her father and mother she began to think that +perhaps he was really interested in her. She spent the next twenty-four +hours in a strange dream of ecstasy; and when he walked home with her +after the evening service she knew that she had found her fate most +unexpectedly. As they neared her father's door he had asked her if she +were willing to trust her future to him, and she had answered solemnly +that she was his whenever he might choose to claim her. + +Although she had said this, she was taken aback when he had wished her +to be married early in September. She had had to beg to have the wedding +postponed till the end of October, assuring him that she could not be +ready before then. Now, as she sat there rocking silently in the +sitting-room of his house in New York, with a smile of happiness curving +her lips, and as she recalled the swiftness of time's flight during the +few weeks of her engagement, she did not regret that his neglected +business would keep him in town all winter and that the promised trip to +Europe was postponed until next summer. They had gone on their brief +wedding journey to Niagara and Montreal and Quebec; and they had +returned only the day before. Last night for the first time had she sat +at the head of his table as the mistress of his house. For the first +time that morning had she poured out his coffee in their future home, +smiling at him across the broad table in the dingy dining-room with its +black horsehair chairs. + +Then he had sent for a cab, and he had insisted on her coming down to +the office with him. It was the first time that she had seen the immense +building occupied by Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron, with the +packing-cases piled high on the sidewalk and with half a dozen drays +unloading the goods just received from Europe. Although two or three of +the clerks were looking at him when he got out of the cab, he had kissed +her; and although she supposed she must have blushed, she did not really +object. She was John's wife now, and it did not matter who knew it. He +had called to the driver to come back so that he might tell her to stop +anywhere she pleased on her way up-town and to buy anything she fancied. +She had come straight home without buying anything, for, of course, she +was not going to waste John's money. + +All the same the house was very old-fashioned, and it sadly needed to be +refurnished. John was rich, and John was generous with his money; and +she felt sure he would let her do over the house just as she pleased. +Then her thoughts went back to the days when she had been sent to a +boarding-school in New York to finish her education and to the afternoon +walks when she and the other girls, two by two, had again and again +passed in front of that very house; and now it was her home for the rest +of her life. It was hers to brighten and to beautify and to make over to +suit herself. She did not want to say a word against John's first wife, +but it did seem to her that the elder woman had lacked taste at least. +The wall-papers and the hangings were all hopeless, and the furniture +was simply prehistoric. The drawing-room looked as though nobody had +ever dared to sit in it; and it was so repellent that she did not wonder +everybody kept out of it. + +Probably his first wife was a plain sort of person who did not care to +entertain at all; perhaps she was satisfied with the narrow circle of +church work. The young woman remarked how her mind kept on returning to +her predecessor. She was ready to confess that this was natural enough, +and yet it made her a little impatient nevertheless. Her eyes filled +with tears when she thought of the swiftness with which a woman is +forgotten when once she is dead. + +She went to the window of the sitting-room and looked down on Gramercy +Park again. The November twilight was settling down, and the rays of the +setting sun were obscured by a heavy bank of gray clouds. The wind had +risen and was whirling the dead leaves in erratic circles. Rain was +threatened and might come at any minute. The day that had begun in +glorious sunshine was about to end in gloom. The young bride was +conscious of a vague feeling of loneliness and homesickness; she found +herself longing for John's return. + +As she turned away she heard the front door close heavily. With the +swift hope that her husband might have come home earlier than he had +promised, she flew to the head of the stairs. She was in time to see the +butler gravely bowing an elderly gentleman into the drawing-room. + +Disappointed that it was not John, she went back to the sitting-room and +dropped into the rocking-chair by her old desk. She wondered who it was +that hastened to call on her the day after her home-coming. + +A minute later the butler was standing before her with the salver in his +hand and a card on it. + +She took it with keen curiosity. + +"Dr. Thurston!" she cried. "Did you tell him Mr. Blackstock was not home +yet?" + +"Yes, m'am," the butler responded; "and he said it was Mrs. Blackstock +he wished to see particularly." + +"Oh, very well," she returned. "Say I will be down in a minute." + +When the butler had gone, she ran to the tall mirror and readjusted her +hair once more and felt to make sure that her belt was in position on +her lithe young waist. She was glad that she happened to have on a +presentable dress, so that she need not keep the minister waiting. + +As she slowly went down-stairs she tried in vain to guess why it was +that Dr. Thurston wanted to see her particularly. She knew that John had +had a pew in Dr. Thurston's church for years and that he was accustomed +to give liberally to all its charities. She had heard of the beautiful +sermon the doctor had preached when John was left a widower, and so she +almost dreaded meeting the minister for the first time all alone. She +lost a little of her habitual buoyancy at the fear lest he should not +like her. When she entered the drawing-room--which seemed so ugly in +her eyes then that she was ready to apologize for it--the minister +greeted her with a reserved smile. + +"I trust you will pardon this early visit, Mrs. Blackstock--" he began. + +"It is very good of you to come and see me so soon, Dr. Thurston," she +interrupted, a little nervously, as she dropped into a chair. + +"It is a privilege no less than a duty, my dear young lady," he +returned, affably, resuming his own seat, "for me to be one of the first +to welcome to her new home the wife of an old friend. There is no man in +all my congregation for whom I have a higher regard than I have for John +Blackstock." + +The young wife did not quite like to have her husband patronized even by +the minister of his church, but smiled sweetly as she replied, "It is so +kind of you to say that--and I am sure that there is no one whose +friendship John values more than he does yours, Doctor." + +The minister continued gravely, as though putting this compliment aside. +"Yes, I think I have a right to call your husband an old friend. He +joined my church only a few months after I was called to New York, and +that is nearly fifteen years ago--a large part of a man's life. I have +observed him under circumstances of unusual trial, and I can bear +witness that he is made of sterling stuff. I was with him when he had to +call upon all his fortitude to bear what is perhaps the hardest blow +any man is required to submit to--the unexpected loss of the beloved +companion of his youth." + +Dr. Thurston paused here; and the bride did not know just what to say. +She could not see why the minister should find it necessary to talk to +her of the dead woman, who had been in her thoughts all the afternoon. + +"Perhaps it may seem strange to you, Mrs. Blackstock," he went on, after +an awkward silence, "that I should at this first visit and at this +earliest opportunity of speech with you--that I should speak to you of +the saintly woman who was John Blackstock's first wife. I trust that you +will acquit me of any intention of offending you, and I beg that you +will believe that I have mentioned her only because I have a solemn duty +before me." + +With wide-open eyes the bride sat still before him. She could not +understand what these words might mean. When her visitor paused for a +moment, all she could say was, "Certainly--certainly," and she would +have been greatly puzzled to explain just what it was she wished to +convey by the word. A vague apprehension thrilled her, for which she +could give no reason. + +"I will be brief," the doctor began again. "Perhaps you are aware that +the late Mrs. Blackstock died of heart failure?" + +The bride nodded and answered, "Yes, yes." She wanted to say "What of +it? And what have I to do with her now? She is dead and gone; and I am +alive. Why cannot she leave me alone?" + +"But it may be you do not know," Dr. Thurston continued, "that she +herself was aware of the nature of her disease? She learned the fatal +truth two or three years before she died. She kept it a secret from her +husband, and to him she was always cheerful and hopeful. But she made +ready for death, not knowing when it might come, but feeling assured +that it could not long delay its call. She was a brave woman and a +devout Christian; and she could face the future fearlessly. Then, as +ever, her first thought was for her husband, and she grieved at leaving +him alone and lonely whom she had cared for so many years. If she were +to die soon her husband would not be an old man, and perhaps he might +take another wife. This suggestion was possibly repugnant to her at +first; but in time she became reconciled to it." + +The bride was glad to hear this. Somehow this seemed a little to lighten +the gloom which had been settling down upon her. + +"Then it was that the late Mrs. Blackstock, dwelling upon her husband's +second marriage, decided to write a letter to you," and as the minister +said this he took an envelope from his coat pocket. + +"To me?" cried the young wife, springing to her feet, as though in +self-defense. Her first fear was that she was about to learn some dread +mystery. + +"To you," Dr. Thurston answered calmly--"at least to the woman, whoever +she might be, whom John Blackstock should take to wife." + +"Why--" began the bride, with a little hysteric laugh, "why, what could +she possibly have to say to me?" And her heart was chilled within her. + +"That I cannot tell you," the minister answered; "she did not read the +letter to me. She brought it to me one dark day the winter before last; +and she besought me to take it and to say nothing about it to her +husband; and to hand it myself to John Blackstock's new wife whenever +they should return from their wedding trip and settle down in this +house." + +Then Dr. Thurston rose to his feet and tendered her the envelope. + +"You want me to read that?" the bride asked, in a hard voice, fearful +that the dead hand might be going to snatch at her young happiness. + +"I have fulfilled my promise in delivering the letter to you," the +minister responded. "But if you ask my advice, I should certainly +recommend you to read it. The writer was a good woman, a saintly woman; +and whatever the message she has sent you from beyond the grave, as it +were, I think it would be well for you to read it." + +The young wife took the envelope. "Very well," she answered, "since I +must read it, I will." + +"I am conscious that this interview cannot but have been somewhat +painful to you, Mrs. Blackstock," said the minister, moving toward the +door. "Certainly the situation is strangely unconventional. But I trust +you will forgive me for my share in the matter--" + +"Forgive you?" she rejoined, finding phrases with difficulty. "Oh +yes--yes, I forgive you, of course." + +"Then I will bid you good afternoon," he returned. + +"Good afternoon," she answered, automatically. + +"I beg that you will give my regards to your husband." + +"To my husband?" she repeated. "Of course, of course." + +When Dr. Thurston had gone at last, the bride stood still in the center +of the drawing-room with the envelope gripped in her hand. Taking a long +breath, she tore it open with a single motion and took out the +half-dozen sheets that were folded within it. She turned it about and +shook it suspiciously, but nothing fell from it. This relieved her dread +a little, for she feared that there might be some inclosure--something +that she would be sorry to have seen. + +With the letter in her hand at last, she hesitated no longer; she +unfolded it and began to read. + +The ink was already faded a little, for the date was nearly two years +old. The handwriting was firm but girlishly old-fashioned; it was +perfectly legible, however. This is what the bride read: + + "MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND,--I must begin by begging your pardon for + writing you this letter. I hope you will forgive it as the strange + act of a foolish old woman who wants to tell you some of the things + her heart is full of. + + "You do not know me--at least, I think it most likely you do not, + although I cannot be sure of this, for you may be one of the girls + I have seen growing up. And I do not know you for sure; but all the + same I have been thinking of you very often in the past few weeks. + I have thought about you so often that at last I have made up my + mind to write you this letter. When I first had the idea, I did not + want to, but now I have brooded over it so long that I simply must. + + "I have been wondering how you will take it, but I can't help that + now. I have something to say, and I am going to say it. I have been + wondering, too, what you will be like. I suppose that you are + young, very young perhaps, for John has always been fond of young + people. You are a good woman, I am sure, for John could never have + anything to do with a woman who was not good. Young and good I feel + sure you will be; and that is all I know about you. + + "I cannot even guess how you have been brought up or what your + principles are or your ideas of duty. I wish I could. I am very + old-fashioned myself, I find, and so very few young people nowadays + seem to have the same opinion about serious things that I have. I + wish I could be sure you were a sincere Christian. I wish I were + certain you held fast to the old ideas of duty and self-sacrifice + that have been the honor and the glory of the good women of the + past. But I have no right to expect that you will think about all + these things just as I do. And I know only too well how weak I am + myself and how neglectful I have been in improving my own + opportunities. The most I can do is to hope that you will do what I + have always tried to do ever since I married John--and long before, + too--and that is to make him happy and to watch over him. + + "If you are very young perhaps you do not yet know that men are not + like us women; they need to be taken care of just like children. It + is a blessed privilege to be a mother, but a childless wife can at + least be a mother to her husband. That is what I have been trying + to do all these years. I have tried to watch over John as though he + were my only son. Perhaps if our little girl had lived to grow up I + might have seen a divided duty before me. But it pleased God to + take her to Himself when she was only a baby in arms, and He has + never given me another. Many a night I have lain awake with my arms + aching to clasp that little body again; but the Lord gave and the + Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord! So I have + had nothing to draw me away from my duty to John. If you have + children some day--and God grant that you may, for John's heart is + set on a boy--if you have children, don't let your love for them + draw you away from John. Remember that he was first in your love, + and see that he is last also. He will say nothing, for he is good + and generous; but he is quick to see neglect, and it would be + bitter if he were left alone in his old age. + + "You will find out in time that he is very sensitive, for all he is + a man and does not complain all the time. So be cheerful always, as + it annoys him to see anybody in pain or suffering in any way. It is + a great comfort to me now that the disease that is going to take me + away from him sooner or later, I cannot know when--that it is + sudden and not disfiguring, and that he need not know anything at + all about it until it is all over. I have made the doctor promise + not to tell him till I am dead. + + "You see, John has his worries down-town--not so many now as he + used to have, I am thankful to say; and I have tried always to make + his home bright for him so that he could forget unpleasant things. + I hope you will always do that, too; it is a wife's duty, I think. + You will forgive my telling you these things, won't you? You see I + am so much older than you are, and I have known John for so many + years. I have found that it relieves his feelings sometimes to tell + me his troubles and to talk over things with me. Of course, I don't + know much about business, and I suppose that what I say is of no + value; but it soothes him to have sympathy. So I hope you will + never be impatient when he wants to tell you about his partners and + the clerks and things of that sort. I have seen women foolish + enough not to want to listen when their husbands talked about + business. I do hope that you are wiser, or, at any rate, that you + will take advice from an old woman like me, thinking only of the + happiness of the man you have promised to love, honor, and obey. + You will learn in time how good John is. Perhaps you may think you + know now--but you can't know that as well as I do. + + "You see I am older than John--not so much older, either, only a + little more than two years. He doesn't like me to admit it, but it + is true; and of late I have been afraid that everybody could see + it, for I am past forty now and I feel very old sometimes, while + John is as young as ever. He looks just as he did twenty years ago; + he has not a gray hair in his head yet. He comes up-stairs to me, + after he gets back from the office, with the same boyish step I + know so well. + + "He was only a boy when I first saw him in the little village + school-house. His family had just moved into our neighborhood, and + the school he had been to before was not very good, and so I was + able to help him with his lessons. The memory of that first winter + when we were boy and girl together has always been very precious to + me; and I can see him now as he used to come into the school, + panting with his hard run to get there in time. + + "I don't know when it was that I began to love him, but it was + long before he had grown to be a man. That early love of mine gave + me many a sorrowful hour in those days, for there were other girls + who saw how handsome John was. One girl there was he used to say + was pretty, but I never could see it, for she had red hair and + freckles--but perhaps John said this to tease me, for he was always + fond of a joke. This girl made up to him, and John came near + marrying her; but fortunately a new minister came to town and she + gave up John and took him. So John came back to me, and that spring + we were married. + + "John was not rich then; he had his way to make, but when an old + family friend offered him a place in New York City he hesitated. He + did not want to take me away from my mother; he has always been so + good to me. But mother would not hear of it; and so we came to this + big city, and John succeeded from the very first. It was not ten + years before he was taken into the firm; and now for two years he + has been at the head of it. I doubt if there is another man as + young as he is in all New York at the head of so large a business. + + "When we first came to New York we boarded; and then after a while + we found a little house in Grove Street. It was there baby was born + and there she died; and perhaps that is why I was so ungrateful as + to be sorry when John bought this big house here on Gramercy Park. + He said he wanted his wife to have as good a house as anybody + else. Of course, I ought to have known that a man of John's + prominence could not go on living in Grove Street; he had to take + his position in the world. He let me have my own way about + furnishing this house, although he did pretend to scold me for not + spending enough money. I have been very happy here, although I will + not say that I have never regretted the little house where my only + child died; but, of course, I never told this to John, and it has + always pleased me to see the pride he took in this handsome house. + And now in a few weeks or a few months I shall leave it forever, + and I leave him also. + + "But I must not talk about myself any more. It is about John I + wanted to speak. I meant to tell you how good he is and how he + deserves to be loved with your whole heart. I intended to ask you + to take care of him as I have tried to do, to watch over him, to + comfort him, to sympathize with him, to be truly his helpmate. + +[Illustration: SHE FLUNG HERSELF INTO HIS ARMS] + + "Especially must you watch over him, for he will not take care of + himself. For instance, he is so busy all day that he will forget to + eat any luncheon unless you keep at him; and if he goes without his + lunch sometimes he has bad attacks of indigestion. And even when it + is raining he does not always think to take his overshoes or even + his umbrella; and he ought to be particular, because he is + threatened with rheumatism. If he has a cold, send for Dr. + Cheever at once, and John seems to catch cold very easily; once, + three years ago, he came near having pneumonia. You must see that + he changes his flannels early in the fall; he will never do it + unless you get them out for him. You will have to look after him as + if he were a baby; and that is one reason why I am writing this + long, long letter, just to tell you what you will have to do. + + "Perhaps I had another reason, too--the joy I take always in + talking about him and in praising him and in telling how good he + is. I hope he has been happy with me all these years, and I know I + have been very happy with him. It may be very fanciful in me, but I + like the idea that these words of mine praising him will be read + after my death. If you love him, as I hope you do, with your whole + heart and soul, you will understand why I have written this and you + will forgive me. + + "Yours sincerely, + + "SARAH BLACKSTOCK." + +Before the young bride had read the half of this unexpected +communication her eyes had filled with tears, and when she came to the +end her face was wet. + +She stood silently in the center of the room where the minister had left +her, and she held the open sheets of the letter in her hand. Then the +front door was closed with a jar to be felt all over the house; and in +a moment she had heard her husband's footsteps in the hall. + +"John!" she cried. + +When he came to the door she flung herself into his arms, sobbing +helplessly. + +"Oh, John," she managed to say, at last. "Your first wife was an angel! +I don't believe I can ever be as good as she was. But you will love me +too--won't you, dear?" + + (1897) + + + + +[Illustration: The Shortest + +Day in the Year] + + +The snow was still falling steadily, although it had already thickly +carpeted the avenue. It was a soft, gentle snow, sifting down calmly and +clinging moistly to the bare branches of the feeble trees, which stood +out starkly sheathed in white, spectral in the grayness of the late +afternoon. Gangs of men were clearing the cross-paths at the corners and +shoveling the sodden drifts into carts of various sizes, impressed into +sudden service. It was not yet dusk, but the street-lamps had been +lighted; and the tall hotel almost opposite was already illuminated here +and there by squares of yellow. + +Elinor stood at the window of her aunt's house, gazing out, and yet not +seeing the occasional carriages and the frequent automobiles that filled +the broad avenue before her. The Christmas wreath that hung just over +her head was scarcely more motionless than she was, as she stared +straight before her, unconscious of anything but the deadness of her own +outlook on life. + +She looked very handsome in her large hat and her black furs, which set +off the pallor of her face, relieved by the deep eyes, now a little +sunken, and with a dark line beneath them. She took no notice of the +laborers as they stood aside to allow her aunt's comfortable carriage to +draw up before the door. She did not observe the laughing children at an +upper window of the house exactly opposite, highly excited at the vision +of a huge Christmas tree which towered aloft in a cart before the door. +She was waiting for Aunt Cordelia to take her to a tea, and then to a +studio, where her portrait was to be shown to a few of her friends. + +Her thoughts were not on any of these things; they were far away from +wintry New York. Her thoughts were centered on the new-made grave in +distant Panama, in which they had buried the man she loved less than a +week ago. + +And it was just a year ago to-day, on the twenty-second of December, the +shortest day in the year, that she had promised to be his wife. Only a +year--and it seemed to her that those twelve months had made up most of +her life. What were the score of years that had gone before in +comparison with the richness of those happy twelve months, when life had +at last seemed worth while? + +As a girl she had wondered sometimes what life was for, and why men and +women had been sent on this earth. What was the purpose of it all? But +this question had never arisen again since she had met him; or, rather, +it had been answered, once for all. Life was love; that was plain enough +to her. At last her life had taken on significance, since she had +yielded herself to his first kiss, and since the depth of her own +passion had been revealed to her swiftly and unexpectedly. + +As she looked back at his unexpected appeal to her, and as she +remembered that when he had told her his love and asked her to be his +they had met only ten days before and had spoken to each other less than +half a dozen times, she realized that it was her fate which had brought +them together. Although she did not know it, she had been waiting for +him, as he had been waiting for her. She was his mate, and he was hers, +chosen out of all others--a choice foreordained through all eternity. + +Their wooing was a precious secret, shared by no one else. They knew it +themselves, and that was enough; and perhaps the enforced mystery made +the compact all the sweeter. Ever since they had plighted their troth +she had gone about with joy in her heart and with her head in a heaven +of hope, hardly aware that she was touching the earth. All things were +glad around her; and a secret song of happiness was forever caroling in +her ears. + +And yet she knew that it might be years before he could claim her, for +he was only now beginning his professional career as an engineer. He had +just been appointed to a good place on the canal. His chief was +encouraging, and put responsibilities on him; he had felt sure that he +would have a chance to show what he could do. And she had been almost +angry how any one could ever doubt that he would rise to the head of his +profession. She had told him that she would wait seven years, and twice +seven years, if need be. + +Aunt Cordelia was hoping that she would make a splendid match. Within a +week after John Grant had said good-by she had rejected Reggie Eames, +whom her aunt had been encouraging for a year or two. She liked Reggie +well enough; he was a good fellow. When he had asked her if there was +another suitor standing in his way, she had looked him in the face and +told him that there was; and Reggie had taken it like a man, and had +made a point of being nice to her ever since, whenever they met in +society. + +As she stood there at the window she gave a slight start and nodded +pleasantly to Reggie, who had bowed as he passed the house on the way to +the Union Club. And then the avenue, with all its passers-by, its +carriages and automobiles, its shoveling laborers and its falling snow, +its Christmas greens and its lighted windows, faded again from her +vision, as she tried to imagine that unseen grave far away in Panama. + +She wished that she could have been with him--that they could have had +those last few hours together. She had had so little of him, after all. +An unexpected summons had come to him less than a week after they were +engaged; and he had gone at once. Of course, he had written by every +steamer, but what were letters when she was longing for the clasp of his +arms? And every month, on the twenty-second, there had come a bunch of +violets, with the single word "Sweetheart." He had laughed when he told +her that the twenty-second of December was the shortest day in the +year--which was not very promising if they expected to be "as happy as +the day is long"! + +The months had gone, one after another; she had not seen him again; and +now she would never see him again. He had been hoping for leave of +absence early in the spring; and she had been looking forward to it. He +had written that he did not know how the work would get along without +him, but he did know that he could not get along without her. Hereafter +she would have to get along without him; and she had never longed for +him so much, wanted him, needed him. + +The long years to come stretched out before her vision, as she stood +there in the window, lovely in her youthful beauty; and she knew that +for her they would be desolate, barren, and empty years. The flame of +love burned within her as fiercely as ever; but there was now nothing +for it to feed on but a memory; yet the fire was hot in its ashes. + +She opened her heavy furs, for she felt as if they were stifling her. +She knew that they had been admired by her friends, and even envied by +some of them. Aunt Cordelia had given them to her for Christmas, +insisting on her wearing them as soon as they came home, since they were +so becoming. + +Aunt Cordelia meant to be kind; she had always meant to be kind, ever +since Elinor had come to her as an orphan of ten. Her kindness was a +little exacting at times; and her narrow matrimonial ambitions Elinor +could not help despising. What did it profit a girl to make a splendid +match, if she did not marry the one man she was destined to love? + +The furs were beautiful, and they were costly. Were they the price of +her freedom? Was it due to these expensive things she did not really +want that she had not been able to take John Grant for her husband a +month or a week after he had asked her? + +Everything in this world had to be paid for; and perhaps she had sold +her liberty too cheap. If it had not been for the furs, and for all the +other things that her aunt had accustomed her to, she might have gone +with him to Panama and nursed him when he fell ill. She felt sure that +she could have saved him. She would have tried so hard! She would have +put her soul into it. Her soul? She felt as if the sorrow of the past +week had made her acquainted with her own soul for the first time. And +she confessed herself to be useless and feeble and weak. + +That was what made it all so strange. Why could she not have died in his +place? Why could not she have died for him? She had lived, really lived, +only since she had known him; and it was only since he had gone that +she had known herself. She had meant to help him--not that he needed any +assistance from anybody. Now she could help no one in all the wide +world. She was useless again--a girl, ignorant and helpless. + +Why could she not have been taken, and why could not he have been +spared? He had a career before him; he would have been able to do +things--strong things, brave things, noble things, delicate things. And +he was gone before he had been able to do anything, with all his +possibilities of honor and fame, with all his high hope of honest, hard +work in the years of his manly youth, with everything cut short, just as +if a candle had been blown out by a chance wind. + +She marveled how it was that she had been able to live through the long +days since she had read the brief announcement of his death. She did not +see how it was that she had not cried out, how it was that she had not +shouted aloud the news of her bereavement. She supposed it must be +because she had inherited self-control, because she had been trained to +keep her feelings to herself, and never to make a scene. + +Fortunately she was alone when she learned that he was dead. She had +been up late at a ball the night before, and, as usual, Aunt Cordelia +had insisted on her staying in bed all the morning to rest. When she +had finished her chocolate, Aunt Cordelia had brought in the morning +paper, and had raised the window-shade for her to read, before going +down for a long talk with the lawyer who managed their affairs. + +Elinor had glanced over the society reporter's account of the ball and +his description of her own gown; she had read the announcement of the +engagement of a girl she knew to a foreign count; and then she was +putting the paper down carelessly when her eye caught the word "Panama" +at the top of a paragraph. Then, at a flash, she had read the +inconspicuous paragraph which told how John Grant, a very promising +young engineer in charge of a section of the work on the canal, had died +suddenly of pneumonia, after only two days' illness, to the great grief +of all his associates, especially of the chief, who had thought very +highly of him. + +The words danced before her eyes in letters of fire; and she felt as if +an icy hand had clutched her heart. She was as stunned as if the end of +the world had come; and it was the end of her world. + +She did not recall how long she had held the paper clutched in her hand; +and she did not know why she had not wept. It seemed to her as if her +tears would be a profanation of her grief, too deep to be washed away by +weeping. She had not cried once. Perhaps it would have been a relief if +she could have had a good cry, petty and pitiful as it would be. + +When Aunt Cordelia had called her, at last, to get ready for luncheon, +she had arisen as if she had been somebody else. She had dressed and +gone down-stairs and sat opposite her aunt and chatted about the ball. +She recalled that her aunt had said that there was nothing in the paper +that morning except the account of the ball. Nothing in the paper! She +had kept her peace, and made no confession. It seemed to her that it +could not have been herself who sat there calmly and listened and +responded. It seemed as if she was not herself, but another girl--a girl +she did not know before. + +So the days had gone, one after another, and so they would continue to +go in the future. She was young, and she came of a sturdy stock; she +might live to be three-score and ten. + +As she stood there at the window, staring straight before her, she saw +herself slowly changing into an old maid like Aunt Cordelia, well +meaning and a little fidgety, a little fussy, and quite useless. She +recoiled as she surveyed the long vista of time, with no husband to take +her into his arms, and with no children for her to hold up to him when +he came back from his work. And she knew that she was fit to be a wife +and a mother; and now she would never be either. + +What was there left for her to do in life? She could not go into a +convent, and she could not study to be a trained nurse. There she was at +twenty-one, a broken piece of driftwood washed up on an unknown island. +She had no hope any more; the light of her life had gone out. + +She asked herself whether she had any duty toward others--duty which +would make life worth living once more. She wished that there was +something for her to do; but she saw nothing. She set her teeth and +resolved that she would go through life, whatever it might bring, and +master it for his sake, as he would have expected her to do. He was +dead, and lying alone in that distant, lonely grave; and she would have +to live on and on--but at least she would live as he would approve. + +But whatever her life might be, it would not be easy without him. She +had lived on his letters; and she had taken a new breath of life every +month when his violets came. And now nothing would come any more--no +message, no little words of love, nothing to cheer her and to sustain +her. Never before had she longed so much for a message from him--a line +only--a single word of farewell. + +It was again the shortest day of the year, and it was to her the longest +of all her life. But all the days would be long hereafter, and the +nights would be long, and life would be long; and all would be empty, +since he would never again be able to communicate with her. If only she +believed in spiritualism, if only she could have even the dimmest hope +that some day, somehow, some sort of communication might come to her +from him, from the shadowy realm where he had gone, and where she could +not go until the summons came to join him! + +So intent was she upon her own thoughts that she did not hear the ring +of the door-bell; and a minute later she started when the butler entered +the room with a small parcel in his hand. + +"What is it, Dexter?" she asked, mechanically. + +"This has just come for you, Miss," he answered, handing her the parcel. + +She held it without looking at it until Dexter had left the room. +Probably it was a Christmas present from one of her friends; and she +loosened the strings listlessly. + +It was a box from a florist; and she wondered who could have sent her +any flowers on the day sacred to him. It might be Reggie, of course; but +he had not done that for nearly a year now. + +She opened the box carelessly, and found a bunch of violets. There was a +card with it. + +She took it nearer to the window, to read it in the fading light. It +bore the single word, "Sweetheart." + +She stood for a moment, silent and trembling. + +"John!" she cried aloud. "From you!" + +She sank into a chair, with the violets pressed against her heart, +sobbing; and the tears came at last, plentifully. + +Then she heard footsteps on the stairs; and in a moment more her aunt +was standing at the door and calling: + +"Elinor, are you ready? We are late." + + (1910) + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vistas of New York, by Brander Matthews + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VISTAS OF NEW YORK *** + +***** This file should be named 39434.txt or 39434.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/4/3/39434/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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