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diff --git a/old/51921.txt b/old/51921.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 43d6a69..0000000 --- a/old/51921.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5839 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lay Anthony, by Joseph Hergesheimer - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Lay Anthony - A Romance - -Author: Joseph Hergesheimer - -Release Date: May 1, 2016 [EBook #51921] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAY ANTHONY *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - - - - - - - -THE LAY ANTHONY - -A Romance - -By Joseph Hergesheimer - -New York & London - -Mitchell Kennerley 1914 - - -"_... if in passing from this deceitful world into true life love is -not forgotten,... I know that among the most joyous souls of the third -heaven my Fiametta sees my pain. Pray her, if the sweet draught of Lethe -has not robbed me of her,... to obtain my ascent to her._" - ---Giovanni Boccaccio - - -TO - -DOROTHY - -THIS - -FIGMENT OF A PERPETUAL FLOWERING - -THE LAY ANTHONY - - - - -I--A ROMANCE - -NOT for the honor of winning the Vanderbilt Cup, nor for the glory of -pitching a major league baseball team into the world's championship, -would Tony Ball have admitted to the familiar and derisive group in the -drugstore that he was--in the exact, physical aspect of the word--pure. -Secretly, and in an entirely natural and healthy manner, he was ashamed -of his innocence. He carefully concealed it in an elaborate assumption -of wide worldly knowledge and experience, in an attitude of cynical -comprehension, and indifference toward _girls_. - -But he might have spared himself the effort, the fictions, of his -pose--had he proclaimed his ignorance aloud from the brilliantly lighted -entrance to the drugstore no one who knew him in the midweek, night -throng on Ellerton's main street would have credited Anthony with -anything beyond a thin and surprising joke. He was, at twenty, the -absolute, adventurous opposite of any conscious or cloistered virtue: -the careless carriage of his big, loose frame; his frank, smiling grey -eyes and ample mouth; his very, drawling voice--all marked him for a -loiterer in the pleasant and sunny places of life, indifferent to the -rigors of a mental or moral discipline. - -The accumulated facts of his existence fully bore this out: the number -of schools from which, playing superlative baseball, he had been still -obliged to leave, carrying with him the cordial good will of master -and fellow, for an unconquerable, irresponsible laxity; the number and -variety of occupations that had claimed him in the past three years, -every one of which at their inception certain, he felt confident, to -carry him beyond all dreams and necessity of avarice; and every one, in -his rapidly diminishing interest, attention, or because of persistent, -adverse conditions over which, he asseverated, he had no control, -turning into a fallow field, a disastrous venture; and, conclusively, -the group of familiars, the easy companions of idle hours, to which he -had gravitated. - -He met his mates by appointment at Doctor Allhop's drugstore, or by an -elaborate system of whistled formulas from the street, at which he would -rise with a muttered excuse from the dinner table and disappear.--He -was rarely if ever sought outright at his father's house; it was quite -another sort of boy who met and discoursed easily with sisters, who -unperturbed greeted mothers face to face. - -It would have been useless, had he known it, to protest his virtue -inside the drugstore or out; a curious chain of coincidents had -preserved it. Again and again he had been at the point of surrendering -his involuntary Eden, and always the accident, the interruption, had -befallen, always he had retired in a state of more or less orderly -celibacy. On the occasion of one of those nocturnal, metropolitan -escapades by which matured boys, in a warm, red veil of whiskey, assert -their manhood and independence, he had been thrust in a drunken stupor -into the baggage car of the "owl" train to Ellerton. Instances might -be multiplied: life, in its haphazard manner, its uncharted tides -and eddies sweeping arbitrarily up and down the world, had carelessly -preserved in him that concrete ideal which myriads of heroic and -agonized beings had striven terribly and in vain to ward. - -And so it happened, when Doctor Allhop turned with an elaborate -impropriety from the pills he was compounding in a porcelain pestle, -that Anthony's laugh was loudest, his gusto most marked, in the group -gathered at the back of the drugstore. A wooden screen divided them, -hid the shelves of bottles, the water sink, and the other properties and -ingredients of the druggist's profession, from the glittering and public -exhibition of the finished article, the marble slab and silver mouths of -the sodawater fountain, the uninitiated throng. - -He was sitting on a case of prepared food, his legs thrust out before -him, and a thread of smoke coiling bluely from the cigarette held in -his broad, scarred hand. There was a little gay song on his lips, and a -roving, gay glint in his direct gaze. At frequent intervals he surveyed -with approbation maroon socks and a pair of new and shining pumps; the -rest of his apparel was negligent. - -The sole chair was occupied by the plump bulk of Thomas Addington -Meredith, to whom a sharp nose in a moonlike countenance lent an -expression of constant inquiry and foxy caution. He was elaborately -apparelled in a suit which boasted a waistcoat draped with the gold -chain of an authentic timepiece; while, closing a silver cigarette case -scrolled large with his initials, a fat finger bore a ruby that, rumor -circulated, had been the gift of a married woman. - -Lounging against a shelf Alfred Craik gazed absently at his blackened -and broken fingernails, his greasy palms. He was Anthony's partner -in the current industry of a machine shop and garage, maintained in a -dilapidated stable on the outskirts of Ellerton. It was a concern -mainly upheld by a daily levy on the Ball family for necessary tools and -accessories. He was, as always, silent, detached. - -But William Williams amply atoned for any taciturnity on the part of the -others; he had returned a short while before from two checkered years -in the West; and, a broad felt hat cinched with a carved leather hand -pushed back from his brow, and waving the formidable stump of a cigar, -he expiated excitedly on the pleasures of that far, liberal land. - -"Why," he proclaimed, "I owe a saloon keeper in San Francisco sixty-five -dollars for one round of drinks--the joint was full and it was up to -me... nothing but champagne went, understand! He knows he'll get it. -Why, I collared ten dollars a day overseeing sheep. I cleaned up three -thousand in one little deal; it was in Butte City; it lasted nine days. -But 'Frisco's the place--all the girls there are good sports, all the -men spenders." - -"What did you come back East for?" Alfred Craik demanded; "why didn't -you stay right with it?" - -"I got up against it," William grinned; "the old man wouldn't give -me another stake." The thought of the glories he had been forced -to relinquish started him afresh. "I cleaned up enough in a week at -billiards," he boasted, "to keep me in Ellerton a year." - -"Didn't Bert Dingley take four bits from you last night at Hinkle's?" -Anthony lazily asked. - -"That farmer!" the other scoffed; "I had a rank cue; they are all rank -at Hinkle's. I'll match him in a decent parlor for any amount." - -"How much will you put up?" Meredith demanded; "I will back Bert." - -"How much have you got?" William queried. - -"How much have you?" - -"If this was San Francisco I could get a hundred." - -"What have you got in real coin, Bill?" Tony joined in. - -"Three nickles," William Williams admitted moodily. - -"I've got thirty-five cents," Thomas added. "I wish I could get a piece -of change." - -"How's the car?" Anthony turned to hiss partner in the lull that -followed. The "car," their sole professional charge, had been placed in -their hands by an optimistic and benevolent connection of the Balls. - -"I had the differential apart again to-day," Alfred responded, "but I -can't find that grinding anywhere. It will have to be all torn down," he -announced with sombre enthusiasm. - -"You have had that dam' thing apart three times in the last four weeks, -and every time you put it together it's worse," Anthony protested; "the -cylinder casing leaks, and God knows what you did to the gears." - -"I wish I had a piece of change," Thomas Meredith repeated, in a manner -patently mysterious. - -"A temporary sacrifice of your tin shop--" Doctor Allhop suggested, -tinning from the skilful moulding of the pills on a glass slab. - -"Not a chance! the family figurehead announced that he had taken my -watch 'out' for the last time." - -"He wants to plaster it on some Highschool skirt," Alfred announced -unexpectedly. - -"This robbing the nursery makes me ill," William protested. "Out in -Denver there are real queens with gold hair--" - -His period was lost in a yapping chorus from the west-wearied circle. -"Take it to bed with you," he was entreated. - -"Nothing in the Highschool can reach these," Meredith assured them, -"this is the real thing--an all night seance. They have just moved in by -the slaughter house; a regular pipe--their father is dead, and the old -woman's deaf. Two sisters... one has got red hair, and the other can -kick higher'n you can hold your hand. The night I went I had to leave -early, but they told me to come hack... any night after nine, and bring -a friend." - -"I'll walk around with you," William Williams remarked negligently. - -"Not on three nickles. They told me to fetch around a couple of bottles -of port wine, and have a genuine party." - -Anthony Ball listened with rapidly growing attention, while he fingered -three one dollar bills wadded into the bottom of his pocket. He felt his -blood stir more rapidly, beating in his ears: vague pictures thronged -his brain of girls with flaming hair, dexterous, flashing limbs, white -frills, garters. With an elaborate air of unconcern he asked: - -"Are they goodlookers?" - -"Oh, Boy! they have got that hidden fascination." - -Anthony made a swift reckoning of the price of port; it would wipe out -the sum he was getting together for badly needed baseball shoes.--Red -hair!--He could count on no further assistance from his father that -month; the machine shop at present was an expense. - -"Got any coin?" Meredith demanded. - -"A few." - -The other consulted with importance the ostentatious watch. "Just the -minute," he announced. "Come along; we can get the port at the Eagle; -we'll have a Paris of a time." - -Doctor Allhop offered an epigrammatic parallel between two celebrated -planets. - -"I need new ball shoes," Anthony temporized; "I ripped mine the last -game." - -Meredith rose impatiently. "Charge them to the family," he ejaculated. -"But if you don't want to get in on this, there are plenty of others. -Two or three dollars are easy to raise in a good cause. Why, the last -night I spent in the city cost me seventeen bucks." - -"I guess I'll come." Anthony instinctively barred his sudden eagerness -from his voice. He rose, and was surprised to find that his knees were -trembling. His face was hot too.--he wondered if it was red? if it would -betray his inexperience? "If they hand me any Sundayschool stuff," he -proclaimed bigly, "I'll step right on it; I'm considerably wise to these -dames." - -"This is the real, ruffled goods." Meredith settled a straw hat with a -blue band on his sleek head, and Anthony dragged a faded cap from his -pocket, which he drew far over his eyes. William Williams regarded them -enviously. Craik's thoughts had wandered far, his lips moved silently. -And Doctor Allhop had disappeared into the front of the drugstore. - - - - -II. - -LET'S get along," Anthony said in a a thick, strange voice. He stumbled -forward; his eyes were hot, blurred; he tried in vain to wink clear his -vision. Suddenly his elbow struck sharply against a shelf, and there was -an answering crash, the splintering of glass smashing upon the floor. -Doctor Allhop hurried in to the scene of the disaster. "You young bull -among the bottles!" he exclaimed in exasperated tones; "a whole gross of -perfume, all the white lilac, lost." - -Anthony Ball stood motionless, embarrassed and annoyed by the accident; -and great, heavy coils of the scent rose about him; they filled his -nostrils with wave on wave of pungent odor, and stung his eyes so that -he shut them. The scent seemed to press about him, to obstruct his -breathing, weigh upon his heart; he put out a hand as if to ward it -off. It seemed to him that great masses of the flower surrounded him, -shutting him with a white, sweet wall from the world. He swayed dizzily; -then vanquished the illusion with an expression of regret for the damage -he had wrought. - -The Doctor was on his knees, brushing together the debris; William -Williams guffawed; and Craik smiled idly. Meredith swore, tapping a -cigarette on his silver case. "You're a parlor ornament, you are," he -told Anthony. - -A feeling of impotence enveloped the latter, a sullen resentment against -an occurrence the inevitable result of which must descend like a shower -of cold water upon his freshly-stirred desires. "I am sorry as hell, -Doctor," he repeated; "what did that box cost you?" - -"Six seventy," Allhop shot impatiently over his shoulder. - -Anthony produced his three dollars, and, smoothing them, laid the sum on -a table. "I will stop in with the rest to-morrow morning," he said. The -Doctor rose and turned, partly mollified; but, to avoid the argument -which, he felt, might follow, Anthony strode quickly out into the -drugstore. There at the white marble sodawater fountain a bevy of youth -was consuming colorific cones of ice cream, drinking syrupy concoctions -from tall, glistening glasses. They called him by name, but he passed -them without a sign of recognition, still the victim of his jangling -sensibilities. - - - - -III - -BAY STREET was thronged; the shops displayed broad, lighted windows -filled with their various merchandise; in front of a produce store a row -of chickens hung bare, bright blue and yellow, head down; from within -came the grinding of a coffee machine, the acrid voices of women -bargaining. The glass doors to the fire-engine house stood open, the -machines glimmering behind a wide demilune of chairs holding a motley -assemblage of men. Further along, from above, came the shuffle of -dancing feet, the thin, wiry wail of violins. At the corners groups of -youths congregated, obstructing the passerby, smirking and indulging in -sudden, stridulous hursts of laughter. - -The sky was infinitely remote, intensely, tenderly blue, the stars white -as milk; from the immediately surrounding countryside came the scented -breaths of early summer--the trailing sweetness of locust blooms, of -hidden hedges of honeysuckle, of June roses, and all the pungent aroma -of growing grasses, leaves, of fragile and momentary flowers. - -Anthony made his way brusquely through the throng, nodding shortly to -the countless salutations that marked his progress. The youths all knew -him, and the majority of the men; women stopped in their sharp haggling -to smile at him; garlands of girls gay in muslins "Mistered" him with -pretty propriety, or followed him more boldly over their shoulders with -inviting eyes. - -He impatiently disregarded his facile popularity: the tumult within him -settled into a dull, unreasoning anger against the universe at large. He -still owed Doctor Allhop four dollars and seventy cents; he had told -the Doctor that he would pay to-morrow; and he would have to go to his -father. The latter was a rigorously just man, Anthony gladly recognized, -the money would be instantly forthcoming; but he was not anxious to -recall the deficiencies of his present position to his father just then. -He had passed twenty, and--beyond his ability to cause a baseball to -travel in certain unexpected tangents, and a limited comprehension of -the conduct of automobiles--he was totally without assets, and without -any light on the horizon. - -He had been willing to work, he reminded himself resentfully, but bad -luck had overtaken him at every turn. The venture before the machine -shop--a scheme of squabs, the profits of which, calculated from an -advertisement, soared with the birthrate of those prolific birds, had -been ruined by rats. The few occasions when he had neglected to feed the -pigeons, despite the frank and censorious opinion of the family, had -had little or nothing to do with that misfortune. And, before that, -his kennel of rabbit dogs had met with an untimely fate when a favorite -bitch had gone mad, and a careful commonwealth had decreed the death -of the others. If his mother could but be won from the negative she had -placed upon baseball as a professional occupation, he might easily rise -through the minor leagues to a prideful position in the ranks of the -national pastime--"Lonnie This" was paid fourteen hundred yearly for -his prowess with the leather sphere, "Hans That's" removal from one to -another club had involved thousands of dollars. - -He heard his name pronounced in a peremptory manner, and stopped to -see the relative whose automobile had been placed in his care cross the -street. - -"What in the name of the Lord have you young dunces done to my car?" the -older man demanded. - -"We have been trying to locate that grinding," Anthony told him in as -conciliatory manner as he could assume. - -"Well," the other proceeded angrily, "you have ruined it this time; the -gears slid around like a plate of ice cream." - -"It was nothing but a pile of junk when we took it," Tony exploded; "why -don't you loosen up and get a real car?" - -"I took it to Feedler's. You can send me a bill to-morrow." - -"There will be no bill. I'm sorry you were not satisfied, Sam." - -"You are the most shiftless young dog in the county," the other told him -in kindlier tones; "why don't you take hold of something, Anthony?" - -Anthony swung on his heel and abruptly departed. He had taken hold, he -thought hotly, times without number, but everything broke in his grasp. - -The stores on Bay Street grew more infrequent, the rank of monotonous -brick dwellings closed up, family groups occupied the steps that led to -the open doors. The crowd grew less, dwindling to a few aimless couples, -solitary pedestrians. He soon stopped, before his home. Opposite the -gaunt skeleton of a building operation rose blackly against the pale -stars. The aged lindens above him, lushly leaved, cast an intenser -gloom, filled with the warm, musty odor of the sluiced pavement, about -the white marble steps. The hall, open before him, was a cavern of -coolness; beyond, from the garden shut from the street by an intricate, -rusting iron fence, he heard the deliberate tones of his sister Ellie. -Evidently there was a visitor, and he entered the hall noiselessly, -intent upon passing without notice to his room above. But Ellie had -been watching for him, and called before he had reached the foot of the -stairs. - - - - -IV - -HE made his way diffidently through a long window to the lawn; where -he saw his sister, a glimmering, whitish shape in the heavily overgrown -garden, conversing with a figure without form or detail, by a trellis -sagging beneath a verdurous weight. - -"Oh, Tony!" she called; "here's Mrs. Dreen." - -He leaned forward awkwardly, and grasped a slim, jewelled hand. "I -didn't know you were back from France," he told the indistinct woman -before him. - -"But you read that Mr. Dreen had resigned the consulship at Lyons," a -delicate, rounded voice rejoined, "and you should have guessed that we -would come home to Ellerton. My dear Ellie," she turned to the girl, -"you have no idea how delighted James is at being here once more. He has -given the farmer notice, and insists that he is going to cultivate his -own acres. He was up this morning at six; fancy, after France and -his late _dejeuner._ And Eliza adores it; she spends the day with a -gardener, planning flowerbeds." - -Anthony slipped into an easy posture on the thick, damp sod. Although -he had not seen Mrs. James Dreen since his childhood, when she had -accompanied her husband abroad to a consular post, he still retained -a pleasant memory of her magnetic and precise charm, the memory of her -harmonious personality, the beauty of her apparel and rings. - -"How is Eliza?" he asked politely, and with no inward interest; "she -must be a regular beauty by now." - -"No," Mrs. Dreen returned crisply, "she is not particularly goodlooking, -but she has always told me the truth. Eliza is a dear." Anthony lit a -cigarette, and flipped the match in a minute gold arc, extinguished in -the night. - -"I am decidedly uneasy about Eliza though," she continued to Ellie; "to -tell the truth, I am not sure how she will take over here. She is a -serious child; I would say temperamental, but that's such an impossible -word. She is absolutely and transparently honest and outspoken--it's -_ghastly_ at times. The most unworldly person alive; with her thought -and action are one, and often as not her thoughts are appalling. All -that, you know, doesn't spell wisdom for a girl." - -"Yet James and I couldn't bear to... make her harder. A great deal of -care... If she is my daughter, Ellie, she is exquisite--so sensitive, -sympathetic..." - -Anthony, absorbed in the misfortune that had overtaken the machine shop, -the impending, inevitable interview with his father, so justly rigorous, -hardly gathered the sense of Mrs. Dreen's discourse. Occasional phrases, -familiar and unfamiliar terms, pierced his abstraction.--"Colombin's." -"James' siatica." "Camille Marchais." Then her words, centering about a -statement that had captured his attention, became coherent, significant. - -"Only a small affair," Mrs. Dreen explained; "to introduce Eliza to -Ellerton. Nothing on a large scale until winter.... Dancing, or rather -what goes down for dancing to-day. I am asking our old intimates, and -have written a few informal cards." - -An automobile drew up smoothly before the Balls; its rear light winked -like an angry red eye through the iron fence. Mrs. Dreen rose. In the -gloom her face was girlish; there was a blur of lace at her throat, a -glimmer of emeralds. "Mind you come," she commanded Ellie. "And you too, -without fail," to Anthony. "Now that Hydrangea House is open again we -must have our friends about us. Heavens! Howard Ball's children and -mine grown up!" She moved gracefully across to a garden gate. Anthony -assisted her into the motorcar; the door closed with a snap. - -Ellie had sunk back into her chair, and was idly twisting her fingers -in the grass at her side. At her back the ivied wall of the house beyond -stirred faintly with sparrows. A misshapen moon swung apparently up from -and through the building frame opposite, and faint shadows unfolded on -the grass. Anthony flung himself moodily by his sister. - -"Sam's taken his car from us," he informed her; "that will about shut up -the shop." - -"Then perhaps you will bring back the screwdrivers." - -"To-morrow." - -"What are you going to do, Tony?" - -"Tell me." - -"A big strong fellow... there mast be something." - -"Mother won't let me play ball in the leagues." - -"Perhaps she will; we'll talk to her; it's better than nothing." - -"I broke a box of rotten perfume at the drugstore, and owe the Doctor -four seventy." - -"It's too bad--father is never free from little worries; you are -always getting into difficulties. You are different from other boys, -Anthony--there don't seem to be any place in life for you; or you don't -make a place, I can't tell which. You have no constructive sense, and no -feeling of responsibility. What do you want to do with yourself?" - -"I don't know, Ellie, honestly," he confessed. "I try like the devil, -make a thousand resolutions, and then--I go off fishing. Or if I don't -things go to the rats just the same." - -"Well," she rose, "I'm going up. Don't bother father about that money, -I'll let you have it. It's perfectly useless to tell you to return it." - -"I swear you will get it next week," he proclaimed gratefully. "The -baseball association owes me for two games." - -"Haven't you promised it?" - -"That's so!" he exclaimed ruefully. She laughed and disappeared into the -house. - - - - -V - -A BLACK depression settled over him; life appeared a huge conspiracy -against his success, his happiness. The future, propounded by Ellie, was -suddenly stripped of all glamor, denuded of all optimistic dreams; he -passed through one of those dismaying periods when the world, himself, -his pretentions, were revealed in the clear and pitiless light of -reality. His friends, his circumstances, his hopes, held out no promise, -no thought of pleasure. Behind him his life lay revealed as a series -of failures, before him it was plotted without security. The plan, the -order, that others saw, or said that they saw, presented to him only a -cloudy confusion. The rewards for which others struggled, aspired, which -they found indispensable, had been ever meaningless to him--to money -he never gave a thought; a society organized into calls, dancing, -incomprehensible and petty values, never rose above his horizon. - -He was happiest in the freedom of the open, the woods; in the easy -company of casual friends, black or white, kindly comment. He would -spend a day with his dogs and gun, sitting on a stump in a snowy field, -listening to the eager yelping in the distant, blue wood, shooting -a rare rabbit. Or tramping tirelessly the leafy paths of autumn. Or, -better still, swinging through the miry October swales, coonhunting -after midnight with lantern and climbers. - -But now those pleasures, in anticipated retrospect, appeared bald, -unprofitable. Prolonged indefinitely, he divined, they would pall; they -did not offer adequate material, aim, for the years. For a moment he -saw, grinning hatefully at him, the spectre of what he might become; he -passed such men, collarless and unshaven, on the street comers, flinging -them a scornful salutation. He had paid for their drinks, hearkening -negligently to their stereotyped stories, secretly gibing at their -obvious goodfellowship, their eager, tremulous smiles. They had been, in -their day, great rabbit hunters... detestable. - -The mood vanished, the present closed mercifully about him, leaving him -merely defiant. The townclock announced the hour in slow, jarring -notes. A light shone above from Ellie's room, and he heard his father's -deliberate footsteps in the hall, returning from the Ellerton Club, -where, as was his invariable nightly habit, he had played cooncan. The -moon, freed from the towering beams, was without color. - -Anthony rose, and flung away a cold, stale cigarette; the world was just -like that--stale and cold. He proceeded toward the house, when he heard -footfalls on the pavement; in the obscurity he barely made out a man and -woman, walking so closely as to be hardly distinguishably separate. They -stopped by the fence, only a few feet from where he stood concealed in -the shadows, and the man took the woman's hands in his own, bending over -her. Then, suddenly, clasping her in his arms, he covered her upturned -face with passionate kisses. With a little, frightened gasp she clung -to his shoulders. The kisses ceased. Their strained, desperate embrace -remained unbroken.--It seemed that each was the only reality for the -other in a world of unsubstantial gloom, veiled in the shifting, silvery -mist of a cold and removed planet. The woman breathed with a deep, -sobbing inspiration; and, when she spoke, Anthony realized that he was -eavesdropping, and walked swiftly and cautiously into the house. - -But the memory of that embrace; accompanied him up the stairs, into his -room. It haunted him as he lay, cool and nearly bare, on his bed. -It filled him with a profound and unreasoning melancholy, new to his -customary, unconscious animal exuberance. All at once he thought of the -redhaired girl who liked port wine; and, as he fell asleep, she stood -before him, leering slyly at the side of that other broken shape which -threatened him out of the future. - - - - -VI - -THE shed that held the machine shop and garage fronted upon an informal -lane skirting the verdurous border of the town. Beyond the fence -opposite a broad pasturage dipped and rose to the blackened ruins of -a considerable brick mansion, now tenanted by a provident colony of -Italians; further hill topped green hill, the orchards drawn like -silvery scarves about their shoulders, undulating to the sky. Back of -the shed ranged the red roofs and tree-tops of the town. - -When Anthony arrived at the seat of his industry the grass was flashing -with dew and the air a thrill with the buoyant piping of robins. He -found the door open, and Alfred Craik awaiting him. - -"She's gone," Alfred informed him. - -"Sam told me last night; it was your infernal tinkering... you can't let -a machine alone," Anthony dropped beside the other on the door sill. - -"Could we get another car, do you think?" Alfred demanded; "I had almost -finished a humming experiment on Sam's." - -"This garage is closed," Anthony pronounced; "it's out of existence. The -family are yelping for the screwdrivers. What do we owe?" - -"Three ninety to Feedler for 'gas,' and a month's rent." - -"We're bankrupt," the other immediately declared. He rose, and proceeded -to collect the tools that littered the floor; then he removed the sign, -"Ball and Craik. Machine Shop and Garage.", from the door, and the shed -relapsed into its nondescript, somnolent decay. - -"There's a game with Honeydale to-day," Anthony resumed his seat; "I'm -to pitch that, and another Saturday; and, hear me, boy, I need the -money." - -Alfred gazed over the orchards, beyond the hills, into the sky, and made -no answer. It was evident that he was lost in a vision of gloriously -disrupted machinery. His silence spread to Anthony, who settled back -with a cigarette into the drowsy stillness. The minutes passed, hovering -like bees, and merged into an hour. They could hear a horse champing in -the pasture; the wail of an Italian infant came to them thinly across -the green; behind them sounded mellow the tin horn of the shad vendor. - -Anthony roused himself reluctantly, recalling the debt he had to -discharge at the drugstore. Elbe's crisp five dollar bill lay in his -pocket. "Later," he nodded, and made his way over the shady brick -pavements, through the cool perspective of maple-lined streets, where -summer dresses fluttered in spots of subdued, bright color, to Doctor -Allhop's. The Doctor was absent, and Anthony tendered the money, with a -short explanation, to the clerk. The latter smartly rang the amount on -the cash register, and placed thirty cents on the counter. - -"Two packs of Dulcinas," Anthony required, and dropped the cigarettes -into his pocket. He made his way in a leisurely fashion toward home and -the midday meal. At the table his mother's keen grey eyes regarded him -with affectionate concern. "How do you feel, Tony?" she asked. "You were -coughing last night... take such wretched care of yourself--" His father -glanced up from the half-masted sheet of the Ellerton _Bugle_. He was a -spare man, of few words, with a square-cut beard about the lower part -of an austere countenance. "What's the matter with him?" he demanded -crisply. - -"Nothing," Anthony hastily protested; "you ought to know mother." - -After lunch he extended himself smoking on the horsehair sofa in the -front room. It was a spacious chamber, with a polished floor, and -well-worn, comfortable chairs; in a corner a lacquered table bore old -blue Canton china; by the door a jar of roses dropped their pink petals; -over the fireplace a tall mirror held all in silvery replica. - -"Thirty cents, please," Ellie demanded; "I must get some stamps." - -A wave of conscious guilt, angry self condemnation, swept over him. "I'm -sorry, Ellie," he admitted; "I haven't got it." - -She stood regarding him for a moment with cold disapproval. She was a -slender woman, past thirty, with dark, regular features and tranquil -eyes; carelessly dressed, her hair slipped over her shoulder in a cool -plait. - -"I am sorry," he repeated, "I didn't think." - -"But it wasn't yours." - -"You'll get every pretty penny of it." He rose and in orderly discretion -sought his room, where he changed into his worn, grey playing flannels. - - - - -VII - -A HIGH board fence enclosed the grounds of the Ellerton Baseball -Association; over one side rose the rude scaffolding of a grandstand, -protected from sun and rain by a covering of tarred planks; a circular -opening by a narrow entrance framed the ticket seller; while around the -base of the fence, located convenient to a small boy's eye, ran a -girdle of unnatural knotholes, highly improved cracks, through which an -occasional fleeting form might be observed, a segment of torn sod, and -the fence opposite. - -A shallow flood of spectators, drawn from the various quarters of the -town, converged in a dense stream at the entrance to the Grounds; -troops of girls with brightly-hued ribbands about their vivacious arms, -boisterous or superior squads of young males, alternated with their more -sober elders--shabby and dejected men, out at elbows and work, in search -of the respite of the sun and the play; baseball enthusiasts, rotund -individuals with ruddy countenances, saturnine experts with scorecards. - -Anthony observed the throng indifferently as he drew near the scene of -his repeated, past triumphs, the metal plates in his shoes grinding into -the pavement. A small procession followed him, led by a colored youth, -to whose dilapidated garments clung the unmistakable straws and aroma of -the stable, bearing aloft Anthony's glove, and "softing" it vigorously -from a natural source; a boy as round and succulent as a boiled pudding, -with Anthony's cap beneath his arm, leaving behind him a trail of peanut -shells, brought up the rear of this democratic escort. - -There was little question in Anthony's mind of his ability to triumph -that afternoon over his opponents from a near-by town; their "battery," -he told himself, was an open book to him--a slow, dropping ball here, a -speedy one across the fingers of that red-haired fielder who habitually -flinched... and yet he wished that it had not been so hot. He thought -of the game without particular pleasure; he was conscious of a lack of -energy; his thoughts, occupied with Elli's patent contempt, stung him -waspishly. - -A throng of players and hangerson filled the contracted dressing -quarters beneath the grandstand, and he was instantly surrounded by -vociferous familiars. The captain of the Ellerton team drew him aside, -and tersely outlined a policy of play, awaiting his opinion. Anthony -nodded gravely: suddenly he found the other's earnestness a little -absurd--the fate of a nation appeared to color his accents, to hang upon -the result of his decision. "Sure," he said absently, "keep the field -in; they won't hit me." - -The other regarded him with a slight frown. "Hate yourself to-day, don't -you?" he remarked. "Lay that crowd cold on the plate, though," he added; -"there's a man here from the major league to look you over. Hinkle told -my old man." - -A quickening of interest took possession of Anthony; they had heard of -him then in the cities, they had discovered him worthy of the journey to -Ellerton, of investigation. A vision of his name acclaimed from coast to -coast, his picture in the playing garb of a famous organization filling -the Sunday sheets, occupied his mind as he turned toward the field. The -captain called mysteriously, "Don't get patted up with any purple stuff -handed you before the game." - -The opposing team, widely scattered, were warming; a pitcher, assuming -the attitudes of an agonising cramp, was indulging in a preliminary -practice; the ball sped with a dull, regular thud into the catcher's -mit. A ball was tossed to Anthony, a team mate backed against the fence, -and, raising his hands on high, he apparently overcame all the natural -laws of flight. He was conscious of Hinkle, prosperous proprietor of the -Ellerton Pool Parlor, at his back with a stranger, an ungainly man, -close lipped, keen of vision. There were intimations of approval. "A -fine wing," the stranger said. "He's got 'em all," Hinkle declared. -"Hundreds of lads can pitch a good game," the other told him, "now and -again, they are amatoors. One in a thousand, in ten thousand, can play -ball all the time; they're professionals; they're worth money... I want -to see him act..." they moved away. - -The players were called in from the field, the captains bent over a -tossed coin; and, first to bat, the Ellerton team ranged itself on -benches. Then, as the catcher was drawing on his mask, Hinkle and -another familiar town figure, who dedicated his days to speeding weedy -horses in red flannel anklets from a precarious wire vehicle, stepped -forward from the grandstand. "Mr. Anthony Ball!" Hinkle called. A -sudden, tense silence enveloped the spectators, the players stopped -curiously. Anthony turned with mingled reluctance and surprise. -Something shone in Hinkle's hand: he saw that it was a watch. "As a -testimonial from your Ellerton friends," the other commenced loudly. -Anthony's confused mind lost part of the short oration which followed -"... recognition of your sportsmanship and skill... happy disposition. -The good fame of the Ellerton Baseball team... predict great future on -the national diamond." - -A storm of applause from the grandstand rippled away in opposite -directions along the line sitting by the fence; boys with their mouths -full of fingers whistled incredibly. Hinkle held out the watch, but -Anthony's eyes were fixed upon the ground. He shook the substantial mark -of Ellerton's approval, so that the ornate fob glittered in the sun, -but Anthony's arms remained motionless at his sides. "Take it, you -leatherkop," a voice whispered fiercely in his ear. 'And with a start, -he awkwardly grasped the gift. "Thank you," he muttered, his voice -inaudible five yards away. He wished with passionate resentment that the -fiend who was yelling "speech!" would drop dead. He glanced up, and the -sight of all those excited, kindly faces deepened his confusion until -it rose in a lump in his throat, blurred his vision, in an idiotic, -childish manner. "Ah, _call_ the game, can't you," he urged over his -shoulder. - -The first half inning was soon over, without incident; and, as Anthony -walked to the pitcher's "box," the necessity to surpass all previous -efforts was impressed upon him by the watch, by the presence of that -spectator from a major league who had come to see him "act." He wished -again, in a passing irritation, that it had not been so hot. Behind the -batter he could see the countenance of "Kag" Lippit staring through the -wires of his mask. "Kag" executed a cabalistic signal with his left arm, -and Anthony pitched. The umpire hoarsely informed the world at large -that it had been a strike. A blast of derisive catcalls arose from the -Ellerton partisans; another strike, shriller catcalls, and the batter -retired after a third ineffectual lunge amid a tempest of banter. - -The second batter hit a feeble fly negligently attached by the third -baseman, who "put it over to first" in the exuberance of his contempt. -The third Anthony disposed of with equal brevity. - -He next faced the pitcher, and, succumbing to the pressure of -extraordinary events, he swung the bat with a tremendous effort, and the -flattened ball described a wide arc into the ready palms of the right -fielder. "You're _Out!_" the umpire vociferated. The uncritical portion -of the spectators voiced their pleasure in the homeric length of the -hit, but the captain was contemptuously cold as Anthony returned to the -bench. "The highschool hero," he remarked; "little Willie the Wallop. If -you don't bat to the game," he added in a different tone, "if you were -Eddie Plank I'd bench you." - -That inning the Ellerton team scored a run: a youth hurtling headlong -through the dust pressed his cheek affectionately upon the dingy square -of marble dignified by the title of home, while a second hammered him -violently in the groin with the ball; one chorus shrieked, "out by -a block!" another, "safe! safe!" he was "safe as safe!" the girls -declared. The umpire's voice rose authoritatively above the tumult. -"Play ball! he's safe!" - -Anthony pitched that inning faultlessly; never had ball obeyed him so -absolutely; it dropped, swung to the right, to the left, revolved or -sped dead. The batters faded away like ice cream at a church supper. As -he came in from the "box" the close-lipped stranger strode forward and -grasped his shoulder. "I want to see you after the game," he declared; -"don't sign up with no one else. I'm from--" he whispered his persuasive -source in Anthony's ear. The captain commended him pithily. "He's got -'em all," Hinkle proclaimed to the assembled throng. - -When Anthony batted next it was with calculated nicety; he drove the -ball between shortstop and second base, and, by dint of hard running, -achieved a rapturously acclaimed "two bagger." The captain then merely -tapped the ball--breathlessly it was described as a "sacrifice"--and -Anthony moved to the third base, and a succeeding hit sent him "home." -Another run was added to the Ellerton score, it now stood three to -nothing in their favor, before Anthony returned to the dusty depression -from which he pitched. - -He was suddenly and unaccountably tired; the cursed heat was worse than -ever, he thought, wiping a wet palm on his grimy leg; above him the sky -was an unbroken, blazing expanse of blue; short, sharp shadows shifted -under the feet of the tense players; in the shade of the grandstand the -dresses, mostly white, showed here and there a vivid note of yellow -and violet, the crisp note of crimson. The throbbing song of a -thrush floated from a far hedge... it stirred him with a new unrest, -dissatisfaction... "Kag" looked like a damned fool grimacing at him -through the wire mask--exactly like a monkey in a cage. The umpire in -his inflated protector, crouching in a position of rigorous attention, -resembled a turtle. He pitched, and a spurt of dust rose a yard before -the plate. "Ball one!" That wouldn't do, he told himself, recalling the -substantially expressed confidence, esteem, of Ellerton. The captain's -sibilant "steady" was like the flick of a whip. With an effort which -taxed his every resource he marshalled his relaxed muscles into an -aching endeavor, centred his unstable thoughts upon the exigencies of -the play, and retired the batter before him. But he struck the next -upon the arm, sending him, nursing the bruise, to first base. He saw -the captain grimly wave the outfielders farther back; and, determined, -resentful, he struck out in machinelike order the remaining batters. But -he was unconscionably weary; his arm felt as though he had been pitching -for a week, a month; and he dropped limp and surly upon the sod at a -distance from the players' bench. - -He batted once more, but a third "out" on the bases saved him from the -fluke which, he had been certain, must inevitably follow. As he stood -with the ball in his hand, facing the batter, he was conscious of an air -of uncertainty spreading like a contagion through the Ellerton team; -he recognized that it radiated from himself--his lack of confidence -magnified to a promised panic. The centre fielder fumbled a fly directly -in his hands; there was a shout from Ellerton's opponents, silence in -the ranks of Ellerton. - -Anthony pitched with a tremendous effort, his arm felt brittle; it felt -as though it was made of glass, and would break off. He could put no -speed into the ball, his fingers seemed swollen, he was unable to grip -it properly, control its direction. The red-haired player whom he had -despised faced him, he who habitually flinched, and Anthony essayed to -drive the ball across his fingers. The bat swung with a vicious crack -upon the leather sphere, a fielder ran vainly back, back.... - -The runner passed first base, and, wildly urged by a small but -adequately vocal group of wellwishers, scorned second base, repudiated -third, from which another player tallied a run, and loafed magnificently -"home." - -From the fence some one called to Anthony, "what time is it?" and -achieved a huge success among the opposition. His captain besought him -desperately to "come back. Where's your pep' went? you're pitching like -a dead man!" Confusion fell upon the team in the field, and, in its -train, a series of blunders which cost five runs. After the inning -Anthony stood with a lowered, moody countenance. "You're out of this -game," the captain shot at him; "go home and play with mother and the -girls." - -He left the field under a dropping fire of witticisms, feebly stemmed by -half-hearted applause; Hinkle frowned heavily at him; the man from the -major league had gone. Anthony proceeded directly through the gate -and over the street toward home. The taste of profound Humiliation, of -failure, was bitter in his mouth, that failure which seemed to lie at -the heart of everything he attempted, which seemed to follow him like -his shadow, like the malicious influence of a powerful spite, an enmity -personal and unrelenting. The sun centred its heat upon his bared head -with an especial fervor; the watch, thrust hastily in a pocket, swung -against his leg mockingly; the abrupt departure of that keeneyed -spectator added its hurt to his self pride. - - - - -VIII - -HE maintained a surly silence throughout dinner; but later, on -discovering a dress shirt laid in readiness on his bed, and recalling -the purport of Mrs. James Dreen's call, he announced on the crest of an -overwhelming exasperation that he would go to no condemmed dance. "Ellie -can't go alone," his mother told him from the landing below; "and do -hurry, Tony, she's almost dressed." The flaring gas jet seemed to coat -his room with a heavy yellow dust; the night came in at the window as -thickly purple as though it had been paint squeezed from a tube. He -slowly assembled his formal clothes. An extended search failed to reveal -the whereabouts of his studs, and he pressed into service the bone -buttons inserted by the laundry. The shirt was intolerably hot and -uncomfortable, his trousers tight, a white waistcoat badly shrunken; -but a collar with a frayed and iron-like edge the crowning misery. When, -finally, he was garbed, he felt as though he had been compressed into an -iron boiler; a stream of perspiration coursed down the exact middle -of his back; his tie hung in a limp knot. Fiery epithets escaped at -frequent intervals. - -On the contrary, Ellie was delightfully cool, orderly; she waved a lacy -fan in her long, delicate fingers. The public vehicle engaged to convey -them to the Dreens, a mile or more beyond the town, drew up at the door -with a clatter of hoofs. It was an aged hack, with complaining joints, -and a loose iron tire. A musty smell rose from the threadbare cushions, -the rotting leather. The horse's hoofs were now muffled in the dusty -country road; shadowy hedges were passed, dim, white farmhouses with -orange, lighted windows, the horizon outspread in a shimmering blue -circle under the swimming stars. - -Anthony smoked a cigarette in acute misery; already his neck felt -scraped raw; a button flew jubilantly from his waistcoat; and his -improvised studs failed in their appointed task. "I'm having the hell of -a good time, I am," he told Ellie satirically. - -They turned between stone pillars supporting a lighted grill, advanced -over a winding driveway to Hydrangea House, where they waited for -a motor to move from the brilliantly-illuminated portal. A servant -directed Anthony to the second floor, where he found a bedchamber -temporarily in service as coat room, occupied by a number of _men_. -Most of them he knew, and nodded shortly in return to their careless -salutations. They belonged to a variety that he at once envied and -disdained: here they were thoroughly at ease, their ties irreproachable, -their shirts without a crease. Drawing on snowy gloves they discussed -women and society with fluency, gusto, emanating an atmosphere of -cocktails. - -Anthony produced his gloves in a crumpled wad from the tail of his coat -and fought his way into them. He felt rather than saw the restrained -amusement of his fellows. They spoke to him gravely, punctiliously -proffered cigarettes; yet, in a vague but unmistakable manner, he was -made to feel that he was outside their interests, ignorant of their -shibboleth. In the matter of collars alone he was as a Patagonian to -them. He recalled with regret the easy familiarity, the comfort, of -Doctor Allhop's drugstore. - -Then, throwing aside cigarettes, patting waistcoats into position, they -streamed down to the music. The others found partners immediately, and -swung into a onestep, but Anthony stood irresolutely in the doorway. -The girls disconcerted him with their formal smiles, their bright, ready -chatter. But Ellie rescued him, drawing him into the dance. After which -he sought the porch that, looped with rosevines, crossed the face of the -long, low house. There, with his back against a pillar, he found a cool -spot upon the tiles, and sought such comfort as he could command. - -Long windows opening from the ballroom were now segments of whirling -color, now filled with gay streams, ebbing and returning. Fragmentary -conversation, glowing cigarettes, surrounded him. Behind the pillar at -his back a girl said, softly, "please don't." - -Then he saw Ellie, obviously searching for him, and he rose. At her -side was a slim figure with a cloud of light hair. "There he is!" Ellie -exclaimed; "Eliza... my brother, Anthony." - -He saw that her eyes opened widely, and that her hair was a peculiar, -bright shade. Ginger-colored, he thought. "I made Ellie find you," she -told him; "you know, you must ask me to dance; I won't be ignored at my -own party." - -He muttered awkwardly some conventional period, annoyed at having -been found, intensely uncomfortable. In a minute more he found himself -dancing, conscious of his limp tie, his crumpled and gaping shirt. He -swung his partner heavily across the room, colliding with a couple -that he shouldered angrily aside. The animation swiftly died from Eliza -Dreen's countenance; she grew indifferent, then cold. And, when the -music ceased, she escaped with a palpable sigh of relief. He was -savagely mopping his heated face on the porch when, at his elbow, a -clear voice captured his attention. "A dreadful person," it said, "... -like dancing with a locomotive... A regular Apache." - -He turned and saw that it was Eliza Dreen, gathering from her swift -concern both that he had been the subject of her discourse, and that she -was aware that he had overheard it. Back at his post at the pillar -he promised himself grimly that never again would he be found in such -specified company. He stripped his gloves from his wet palms, and flung -them far across the lawn, then recklessly eased his collar. There was -a sudden whisper of skirts behind him, when Eliza seated herself on the -porch's edge, at his side. - - - - -IX - -I AM a loathsome person at times," she informed him; "and to-night I -was rather worse than usual." - -"I do dance like a--locomotive," involuntarily. - -"It doesn't matter how you dance," she proceeded, "and you mustn't -repeat it, it isn't generous." Suddenly she laughed uncontrollably. -"You looked so uncomfortable... your collar," it was lost in a bubbling, -silvery peal. "Forgive me," she gasped. - -"I don't mind," he assured her. All at once he didn't; the sting had -vanished from his pride; he smiled. He saw that she wore a honey-colored -dress, with a strand of pearls about her slim throat, and that her feet, -in satin, were even smaller than Ellie's. Her hair resembled more a -crown of light than the customary adornment. "I didn't want to come," he -confided: "I hate, well--going out, dancing." - -"It doesn't suit you," she admitted frankly; "you are so splendidly -bronzed and strong; you need," she paused, "lots of room." - -For this Anthony had no adequate reply. "I have this with some one," -she declared as the music recommenced, "but I hope they don't find me; -I hate it for the moment... I'll show you a place; it's very wicked of -me." She rose and, waving him to follow, slipped over the grass. Beyond -the house she stopped in the shadowy vista of a pergola; vines shut out -the stars, walled them in a virid, still gloom. She sank on a low stone -bench, and he found the grass at her feet. A mantle of fine romance -descended upon his shoulders, of subtile adventure, prodigious daring. -Immaculate men, pearl-studded, were searching for her, and she -had hidden herself from them with him. A new and pleasant sense of -importance warmed him, flattered his self-esteem. He felt strangely at -ease, and sat in silent contentment. The faint sound of violins, a burst -of distant laughter, floated to him. - -"It seems as if the world were rushing on, out there, without us," Eliza -finally broke the silence, "as if they were keeping a furious pace, -while we sat in some everlasting, quiet wood, like Fontainebleau. Don't -you adore nature?" - -"I knock about a lot outside," he admitted cautiously, "often I stay out -all night, by the Wingohocking Creek. There's a sort of cave where -you can hear the falls, and the owls hunting about. I cook things in -clay--fish, chickens," he paused abruptly at the latter item, recalling -the questionable source of his supply. "In winter I shoot rabbits with -Bert Woods, he's a barber, and Doctor Allhop, you know--the druggist." - -"I am sure that your friends are very nice," she promptly assured him. - -"Bert's crazy about girls," he remarked, half contemptuously. - -"And you... don't care for them?" - -"I don't know anything about them," he admitted with an abrupt, -unconscious honesty. - -"But there must have been--there must be--one," she persisted. - -She leaned forward, and he met her gaze with unwavering candor. "Not -that many," he returned. - -"It would be wonderful to care for just one person, _always_," she -continued intently: "I had a dream when I was quite young.... I dreamed -that a marvellous happiness would follow a constancy like that. Father -rather laughs at me, and quotes Shakespeare--the 'one foot on land and -one on shore' thing. Perhaps, but it's too bad." - -Anthony gravely considered this new idea in relation to his own, -hitherto lamented, lack of experience. It dawned upon him that the idea -of manly success he had cherished would appear distasteful to Eliza -Dreen. She had indirectly extolled the very thing of which he had been -secretly ashamed. He thought in conjunction with her of the familiar -group at the drugstore, and in this light the latter retreat suffered -a disconcerting change: Thomas Meredith appeared sly and trivial, and -unhealthy; Williams an empty braggard; Craik ineffectual, untidy. He -surveyed himself without enthusiasm. - -"You are different from any one I ever knew," he told her. - -"Oh, there are millions of me," she returned; "but you are different. -I didn't like you for a sou at first; but there is something about you -like--like a very clear spring of water. That's idiotic, but it's what -I mean. There is an early morning feeling about you. I am very sensitive -to people," she informed him, "some make me uncomfortable directly they -come into the room. There was a cure at Etretat I perfectly detested, -and he turned out to be an awful person." - -Her name was called unmistakably across the lawn, and she rose. "They're -all furious," she announced, without moving further. Her face was pale, -immaterial, in the gloom; her wide eyes dark, disturbing. A minute gold -watch on her wrist ticked faintly, and--it seemed to Anthony--in furious -haste. Something within him, struggling inarticulately for expression, -hurt; an oppressive emotion beat upon his heart. He uttered a period -about seeing her again. - -"Some day you may show me the place where the fall sounds and the owls -hunt. No, don't come with me." She turned and fled. - -An unreasoning conviction seized Anthony that a momentous occasion had -overtaken him; he was unable to distinguish its features, discover it -grave or gay; but, wrapped in the impenetrable veil of the future, -it enveloped and permeated him, swept in the circle of his blood's -circulation, vibrated in the cords of his sensitive ganglia. He returned -slowly to the house: the brilliantly-lit, dancing figures seemed the -mere figments of a febrile dream; but the music apparently throbbed -within his brain. - -Ellie's cool voice recreated his actual sphere. He found their hack, -the driver slumbering doubled on the seat. The latter rose stiffly, -and stirred his drowsing animal into a stumbling walk. Beyond the -illuminated entrance to Hydrangea House the countryside lay profoundly -dim to where the horizon flared with the pale reflection of distant -lightning. - -"Eliza's a sweet," Ellie pronounced. Anthony brooded without reply upon -his opinion. The iron-like collar had capitulated, and rested limply -upon his limp shirt; at the sacrifice of a second button his waistcoat -offered complete comfort. "I am going to get a new dress suit," he -announced decisively. Ellie smiled with sisterly malice. "Eliza is a -sweet," she reiterated. - -"You go to thunder!" he retorted. But, "she's wonderful," he admitted, -and--out of his conclusive experience, "there is not another girl like -her in all the world." - -"I'll agitate for the new suit," Ellie promised. - - - - -X - -THE following morning he reorganized his neckties, left a pair of white -flannels to be pressed at the tailor's; then, his shoulders swathed in a -crisp, sprigged muslin, sat circumspectly under the brisk shears of Bert -Woods. Bert hovered above him, and commented on yesterday's fiasco. "It -comes to the best of 'em," Bert assured him: "'member how Ollie Stitcher -fell down in the world's series at Chicago." He recited, for Anthony's -comfort, the names of eminent pitchers who had "fell down" when every -necessity demanded that they should have remained splendidly erect. - -His defeat still rankled in Anthony's mind, but the bitterness had -vanished, the sting salved by that other memory of the impulsive charm -of Eliza Dreen. He recalled all that she had said to him; her words, -thoughtfully considered, were just those employed by humdrum individuals -in their commonplace discourses; but, spoken by her, they were a -thrill with an especial, a significant, importance and beauty. It was -inevitable that she should have dreamed things immaculate, rare; things -like... white flowers. - -"Shampoo?" Bert inquired absent-mindedly. - -"_And_ singed, and curled, and sprinkled with violets," Anthony promptly -returned. With a flourish, Bert swept aside the muslin folds. - -Then, in the pursuit of a neglected duty, he crossed the town to a -quiet corner, occupied by a small dwelling built of smooth, green stone, -crowned with a fantastic and dingy froth of wood. A shallow, untended -garden was choked with weeds and bushes, sprawling upward against -closely-shuttered windows. He had not been to see Mrs. Bosbyshell for -two weeks, he realized, with a stir of mild self-reproach. He was aware -that his visits to that solitary and eccentric old woman formed her -sole contact with a world she regarded with an increasing, unbalanced -suspicion. - -A minute or more after his knock--the bell handle was missing--a shutter -shifted a fraction, upon which he was admitted to a narrow, dark hall, -and the door bolted sharply behind him. A short, stout woman, in -a formless wrap of grotesquely gorgeous design, faced him with a -quivering, apprehensive countenance and prodigiously bright eyes. Her -scant, yellowish-white hair was gathered aloft in a knot that slipped -oddly from side to side; and, as she walked, shabby Juliet slippers -loudly slapped the bare floor. - -"Do you want some wood brought in?" Anthony inquired; "and how does the -washer I put on the hot water spigot work?" - -"A little wood, if you please; and the spigot's good as new." She sat on -a chair, lifting a harassed gaze to his serious solicitation. "I've -had a dreadful time since you were here last--an evilish-appearing man -knocked and knocked, at one door and again at another." - -Her voice sank to a shrill whisper, "he was after the money." She nodded -so vigorously that the knot fell in a straggling whisp across her eyes. -"Cousin Alonzo sent him." - -"Your cousin Alonzo has been dead ten years," he interposed patiently, -going once more over that familiar ground. "Probably it was a man -wanting to sell gas stoves." - -"You don't know Alonzo," she persisted, unconvinced; "I should have to -see his corp'. He knows I've a comfortable sum put by, and's hard after -it for his wenching and such practices: small good, or bad, he'll get of -it when my time comes." - -He passed through the hall to the kitchen, and, unchaining the back -door, brought a basket of cut wood from a shed, and piled it beside the -stove. Mrs. Bosbyshell inspected with a critical eye the fastening of -the door. There was a swollen window sash to release above, a mattress -to turn, when he was waved ceremoniously into a formal, darkened -chamber. The musty spice of rose pot-pourri lingered in the flat air; -old mahogany--rush bottomed chairs, flute-legged table, a highboy and -Dutch clock--glimmered about the walls. A marble topped stand bore -orderly volumes in maroon and primrose morocco, the top one entitled, -"The Gentlewoman's Garland. A Gift Book." - -From a triangular cupboard, she produced a decanter with a carved design -of bees and cobalt clover, and a plate of crumbling currant cake. "A -sup of dandelion cordial," she announced, "a bite of sweet. Growing boys -must be fed." - -She sat, and with patent satisfaction watched Anthony consume the ropy -syrup and cake. - -"I met a girl last night," he told her intimately; "she had hair -like--like a roman candle." - -"Did you burn your heart up in it?" - -"She told me that I was like the early morning," he confided with a -rush. - -Mrs. Bosbyshell nodded her approval. - -"An understandable remark; exactly what I should have said fifty years -ago; I didn't know the girls of to-day had it in 'em. You've got a good -heart, Anthony," she enunciated. Anthony shuffled his feet. "A good -heart is a rare thing to find in the young. But I misdoubt, in a -world of mammon, you'll pay for it dear; I'm afraid you will never be -successful, so called. It's selling men that that success is got, and -buying women, and it's never in you to do those. _You_ wouldn't wish -an old woman gone for the sum she'd laid aside." Her fancies had been -wilder than usual, he concluded, as the holt of the door at his hack -slid home. Alonzo and her money, one he considered as actual, as -imminent, as the other, occupied to the exclusion of all else her -dimming brain. He had hoped to converse with her more fully on the -inexhaustible subject of Eliza Dreen, but her vagaries had interrupted -him continuously. He decided that she was an antiquated bore, but made a -mental note to return before the store of wood was consumed. - - - - -XI - -IN the evening he stopped from force of habit at Doctor Allhop's -drugstore: the familiar group was assembled behind the screen at the -rear, the conversation flowed in the old channels. Anthony lounged and -listened, but his attention continually wandered--he heard other, -more musical, tones; his vision was filled with a candid face and -widely-opened eyes in the green gloom of a pergola. He passed out by the -bevy at the sodawater fountain to the street. - -In the artificial day of the electric lights the early summer foliage -was as virulently green as the toy trees of a miniature ark; the sky was -a breathless vault filled with blue mists that veiled the stars; under -the locust trees the blooms were spilled odorously, whitely, on the -pavement. He walked aimlessly to the outskirts of the town. Across the -dim valley, against the hills merged into the night and sky, he could -see glimmering the low lights of Hydrangea House. It would be pleasant, -he thought, to be closer to that abode of delight; and, crossing the -road, he vaulted a fence, and descended through a tangle of aromatic -grass to the brook that threaded the meadow below. A star swam imaged -on the black, wrinkled surface of the water: it suggested vague, happy -images--Eliza was the star, and he was the brook, holding her mirrored -in his dreams. - -He passed cows, blowing softly into the sod; a flock of sheep broke -before him like an argent cloud on the heaven of the fields; and, -finally, reached the boundary of James Dreen's acres. He forced his way -through the budding hedge from which the place had its name, and, in a -cup of the lawn like a pool of brimming, fragrant shadows, sat watching -the lights of the house. - -Indistinct shapes passed the windows, each--since it might be -she--carrying to him a thrill; indistinguishable voices reached him, -the vague tones--they might be hers--chiming like bells on his straining -senses. The world, life, was so beautiful that it brought an obstruction -into his throat; he drew the back of his hand across his eyes, and, to -his surprise, found that it was wet. - -Presently, the lights sank on the lower floor and reappeared above. The -blinding whiteness of the thought of Eliza sleeping seared his brain -like a flare of powder. When the house retreated unrelieved into the -gloom he rose and slowly retraced his steps. He lit a cigarette; the -match burned with a steady flame in the stillness; but, in an unnamed -impulse, he flung both aside, and filled his lungs with the elysian June -air. - - - - -XII - -THE next afternoon, returning from the unloading of a grain car at his -father's warehouse, he discovered a smartly saddled horse fast to the -marble hitchingpost before his door. It hardly required the glance at -the silver "D" on the headstall to inform him who was within. He found -Ellie and Eliza Dreen in the corner by the Canton tea service, consuming -Pekoe and gingerbread dicky birds. Eliza nodded and smiled over her -shoulder, and resumed an animated projection of an excursion in canoes -on the Wingohocking. She wore a severe coat over white breeches and -immaculate boots with diminutive gold spurs. Beneath a flat straw hat -her hair was confined by a broad ribband low upon her neck, while a pink -stock was held in position by a gaily-checked waistcoat. - -Anthony dropped with affected ease on the sofa, and covertly studied the -delicate line of her cheek. He now recalled indignantly that Mrs. Dreen -had said Eliza was not good-looking; while her reference to Eliza's -veracity had been entirely superfluous. She turned toward him, finally, -with an engaging query. He saw across her nose a faint trail of the most -delightful freckles in the world; her eyes were blue, that amazing blue -of bachelor's buttons; while her mouth--he would have sworn this the -first time such simile had been applied to that feature--was like a -roseleaf. He made a totally inadequate reply, when Ellie rose, and, -plate in hand, vanished in quest of a fresh supply of gingerbread. A -sort of desperate, blundering courage took possession of him: - -"I have been thinking a lot about you," he told her; "last night I sat -on your grass and wondered which was your window." - -"What a silly I--we were on the porch all evening." - -"It wasn't that I wanted to talk to you so much," he tried to explain -his instinctive impulses, desires, "as just to be near you." - -"I think," she said slowly, "yes, I know--that is the prettiest thing -that has ever been said to me. I thought about you... a little; really -more about myself. I haven't recognized myself at all very lately; I -suppose it's being home again." She gazed at him candidly, critically. -"You have very unusual eyes," she remarked unexpectedly; "they are so -transparent. Haven't you _anything_ to hide?" - -"Some chicken feathers," he affirmed. He grew serious immediately. "Your -eyes are like--like--" the name of the flower so lately suggested by -her lucid vision had flown his mind. Suspenders, bachelor's suspenders, -exclusively occurred to him. "An awfully blue flower," he temporized. - -She crossed the room, and bent over the tea roses, freshly placed in the -jar by the door. "I must go," she said, her back to him; "I have been -here a terrific length of time... I thought perhaps you'd come in.... -Wasn't it shocking of me?" - -The knowledge that she had considered the possibility of seeing him -filled Anthony with incredulous joy. Then, sitting silently, gazing -fixedly at the floor, he became acutely miserable at the sudden -conviction of his worthlessness; shame prevented him from looking -at her--surely she must see that he, Anthony Ball, the unsuccessful, -without prospect, the truant from life, was an improper object for her -interest. She was so absolutely desirable, so fine. - -He recalled what she had said on the night of the dance... about -constancy: if the single devotion of his life would mean anything to -her, he thought grandiloquently, it was hers. He was considering the -possibility of telling her this when Ellie unnecessarily returned with -a replenished plate. He was grateful when neither included him in the -remarks which followed. And he speedily left the room, proceeding to -the pavement, where he stood with his palm resting on the flank of her -horse. - -In the slanting rays of the sun the street was a way of gold; when Eliza -appeared she was ringed in the molten glory. She placed her heel in his -hand, and sprang lightly into the saddle; the horse shied, there was -a clatter of hoofs, and she cantered away. Ellie stood on the steps, -graceful, unconcerned; he watched until the upright, mounted figure was -out of sight, then silently passed his sister into the house. - - - - -XIII - -HE was in his room when the familiar formula of a whistled signal -sounded from the darkening street. It was Alfred Craik, he recognized -the halt ending of the bar; he whistled like an old hinge, Anthony -thought impatiently. He made his way to the lawn, and called shortly, -over the crumbling iron fence. Alfred Craik was agog with weighty -information. - -"The circus is coming in at three-thirty tomorrow morning," he -announced. "The station agent told me... old Giller's lot on Newberry -Street. 'Member last year we had breakfast with the elephant trainer!" - -Circuses, Anthony told him in large unconcern, were for infantile minds; -they might put their circus on top the Courthouse without calling forth -the slightest notice from him; horses were no better than old cows; and -as for clowns, the ringmaster, they made him specifically ill. - -The greater part of this diatribe Alfred chose to ignore; he impatiently -besought Anthony to "come off"; and warned him strenuously against a -tardy waking. Once more in his room Anthony smiled at the other's pretty -enthusiasm. Yet at half past three he woke sharply, starting up on his -elbow as though he had been called. He heard in the distance the faint, -shrill whistle of the locomotive drawing the circus into Ellerton. -He sank back, but, with the face of Eliza radiant against the gloom, -slumber deserted him. It occurred to him that he might, after all, rise -and witness from his rarer elevation the preparations that had once -aroused in him such immature joy. - -The circus ground was an apparently inexplicable tangle of canvas and -lumber, threaded by men like unsubstantial, hurrying shadows. At the -fence corner loomed the vague bulks of elephants, heaving ceaselessly, -stamping with the dull clank of chains; a line of cages beyond was still -indistinguishable. The confusion seemed hopeless--the hasty, desperate -labor at the edges of the billowing, grey canvas, the virulent curses as -feet slipped in the torn sod, the shrill, passionate commands, resembled -an inferno of ineffectual toil for shades condemned to never-ending -labor. The tent rose slowly, hardly detached from the thin morning -gloom, and the hammering of stakes uprose with a sharp, furious energy. -A wagonload of hay creaked into the lot; a horse whinnied; and, from a -cage, sounded a longdrawn, despondent howl. The fusillade of hammering, -the ringing of boards, increased. A harried and indomitable voice -maintained an insistent grip upon the clamor. It grew lighter; pinched -features emerged, haggard individuals in haphazard garbs stood with the -sweat glistening on their blue brows. - -The elephants, tearing apart a bale of hay, appeared ancient beyond all -computation, infinitely patient, infinitely weary. Out of the sudden -crimson that stained the east a ray of sunlight flashed like a pointed, -accusing finger and rested on the garish, gilded bars and tarnished -fringe of the cages; it hit the worn and dingy fur of an aged, gaunt -lioness, the dim and bleared topaz of her eyes blinking against the -flood of day; it fell upon a pair of lean wolves trotting in a quick, -constricted circle; upon a ragged hyena with a dry and uplifted snout; -upon a lithe leopard with a glittering, green gaze of unquenchable hate. - -"Take a hold," a husky voice had urged Anthony; "help the circus men put -up the big tent, and get a free pass." In the contagion of work he had -pulled upon the hard canvas, the stiff ropes that cut like scored -iron, and held stakes to be driven into the slushy sod. Thin shoulders -strained against his own, gasping and maculate breaths assailed him. -The flesh was tom from a man's palm; another, hit a glancing blow on the -head with a mall, wandered about dazed, falling over ropes, blundering -in paths of hasty brutality. - -Anthony rested with aching muscles in the orient flood of the sun. -The tent was erected, flags fluttered gaily aloft, the posters of the -sideshow flung their startling colors abroad. A musical call floated -upward from an invisible bugle: an air of gala, of triumphant and -irresponsible pleasure, permeated the scene. "She's all right, isn't -she?" Alfred Craik demanded at his side. He nodded silently, and turned -toward home, his pulses leaping with joy at the dewy freshness of the -morning, the knowledge of Eliza--a sparkling, singing optimism drawn -from the unstained fountain of his youth. - - - - -XIV - -LATER, engaged in repairing a shelf--at a super-union scale--for his -mother, he heard the steam shriek of a calliope announcing the parade. -From a window he could see the thronged sidewalks, the crudely fantastic -figures of the clowns, enveloped in a dusty haze of light. His thoughts -withdrew from that vapid spectacle to the rapt contemplation of Eliza -Dreen. He pictured Eliza and himself in the dramatic situations which -diversified the moving pictures of his nightly attendance: he rescued -her from the wiles of Mexicans, counts, weirdly-wicked Hindoos; now -he dragged her from the chimney into which she had been bricked by -a Brotherhood of Blood; now, driving a monoplane above the hurtling -express that bore her toward a fiendish revenge, he descended to halt -the train at a river's brink while the bridge sank dynamited into the -swirling stream--"Mercy, Tony!" his mother's practical voice rent the -resplendent vision; "don't crush your greatuncle's epaulets." - -After the midday meal a minute review of the places where Eliza might -be found discovered the Ellerton Country Club to hold the greatest -possibility. Anthony was a virtual stranger to that focus of the -newer Ellerton; except for the older enthusiasts who played golf every -afternoon that it was humanly possible to remain outside it was the -stronghold of the species Anthony had encountered in the dressing room -at the Dreens' dance. The space at the back of the drugstore where he -had lounged held unbroken the elder tradition of Ellerton. There he -had cultivated a mild contempt for the studied urbanity, the formally -organized converse and games, of the Club. But as a setting for Eliza it -gained a compelling attraction. And, in his freshly-ironed flannels, he -ordered his steps toward that goal. The Club House overhung the rolling -green of the golf links; from a place of vantage he saw that Eliza was -not on the veranda; at one end a group of young men were drinking--teal -Beyond his father and three companions, followed by caddies, rose above -a hill. His father grasped a club and bent over the turf; the club -described a short arc, the ball flashed whitely through the air, and -the group trotted eagerly forward, mingling explanation, chagrin and -prediction with heated and simple sums in arithmetic. - -Then he saw Eliza... she was on the tennis court, playing with a -vigorous girl with a bare and stalwart forearm. He divined that the -latter was winning, and conceived a sweeping distaste for her flushed, -perspiring countenance and thickset ankles. "How beautiful you look!" -Eliza called, as he propped himself against the wire netting that, -overrun with honeysuckle, enclosed the courts. He watched her fleeting -form, heard her breathless exclamations, with warm stirs of delight. -When her opponent played the ball beyond her reach his dislike for that -efficiency became an obsession. The flying shadows lengthened on the -rolled, yellow surface of the court; the group on the porch emptied -their teacups and moved away; and the final set of games won by the -"beefsteak." - -Eliza slipped into a formless chocolate-colored coat: racket in hand she -smiled at him. "I'm rather done," she admitted. She hesitated, then: "I -wonder--are you doing anything?--if you would drive me home?" He assured -her upon that point with a celerity that wrought a momentary confusion -upon them. "The Meadowbrook and roan at the sheds," she directed. In the -basketlike cart they swung easily over the road toward Hydrangea House. -Checked relentlessly into a walk the roan stepped in a dainty fume. - -Eliza's countenance was as tenderly hued as the pearly haze that overlay -the far hills; faint, mauve shadows deepened the blueness of her eyes; -her mouth, slightly parted, held the fragile pink of coral; a tinge of -weariness upon her bore an infinite appeal--her relaxed, drooping body -filled him with a gusty longing to put his arms about her shoulders -and hold her secure against all fatigue, against the assaults of time -itself. - -He had never before driven such an impatient and hasty animal; at the -slightest slackening of the reins the horse broke into a sharp trot; -and, beyond doubt, he could walk faster than any other brute alive. -Already they were at the entrance to the driveway; the house appeared -to hurry forward to intercept them. Eliza pressed a button, and a man -crossed the grass to the roan's head. They descended, and she lingered -on the steps with a murmur of gratitude. "Mrs. Dreen telephoned Ranke -to meet the eight-forty," a servant in the doorway replied to Eliza's -query; "she's having dinner in town with Mr. Dreen." - -Eliza turned with a gesture of appeal. "Save me from a solitary -pudding," she petitioned Anthony; "you can go back with Ranke.... On the -porch, such fun--father detests candles." The voicing of his acceptance -he felt to be an absurd formality. "Then if you can amuse yourself," -she announced, "I'll vanish for a little... cigars in the library and -victrola in the hall." - -He crossed the sod to the porch on the other face of the house, and -sat watching the day fade from the valley below. A violet blur of smoke -overhung the chimney of the Ellerton Waterworks, printed thinly on the -sky. A sense of detachment from that familiar scene enveloped him--the -base ball field, the defunct garage, places and details, customary, -normal, retreated into the distance, it seemed into the past, gathering -upon the horizon of his thoughts as the roofs of Ellerton huddled beyond -the hills, vanishing into shadows that inexorably deepened, blotted out -the old aspects, stilled the accustomed voices, sounds. - -A servant appeared, and placed a table upon the tiles, spreading a -blanched cloth, gleaming crystal and silver. A low bowl of shadowy wood -violets was ranged in the centre, and hooded candles lighted, spilling -over the table, the flowers, a pale, auriferous pool of light in the -purpling dusk. When Eliza followed, in filmy white, she seemed half -materialized from the haunting vision of poignant beauty at the back of -his brain. She was like moonlight, still and yet disturbing, veiled in -illusion, in strange, ethereal influences that set athrill within him -emotions immaterial, potent, snowy longing, for which he had no name. - -The last plate removed, Anthony stirred his coffee in a state of dreamy -happiness. The candlelight spread a wan gold veil over Eliza's delicate -countenance, it slid over the pearls about her slim throat, and fell -upon her fragile wrists. "It's been wonderful," he pronounced solemnly. - -"I've been terribly rude," she told him, "I have hardly spoken. I have -been busy studying you." - -"There's not much to study," he disclaimed; "Mrs. Bosbyshell thinks -I'm marked for failure." In reply to her demand he gave a brief and -diffident account of that eccentric old woman. "But," Eliza discerned -among the meagre details, "she trusts you, she lets you into her house. -And you are perfect to her, of course. - -"Any one could trust you, I think. Yet you are not a particle tiresome; -most trustworthy people are so--so unexciting. But monotony is far -as possible from your vicinity. What did you do, for instance, this -morning?" He described to her the advent of the circus, the labor in -the obscurity. "I was surprised to see the old thing up," he ended: "it -seemed so hopeless at first." - -"How wonderfully poetic!" she cried. - -Until that moment poetry had occupied in his thoughts a place analogous -to tea.--In his brief passage through the last school he had been -forcibly fed with Gray's Elegy, discovering it unmitigated and sickening -rot. When now, in view of her obvious pleasure, he would have to -reconsider his judgment. - -"That blind effort," she continued, leaning forward, flushed with the -warmth of her image, "all those men struggling, building in the dark, -unable to see what they were accomplishing, or what part the others -had. And then--oh! don't you see!--the great, snowy tent in the morning -sun--a figure of the success, the reward, of all labor, all living." - -"How about the ones that loafed--didn't pull, or were drunk?" - -"For all," she insisted, "sober and drunk and shrinking. Can you think -that any supreme judgment would be cheaply material, or in need of -any of our penny abilities? do you suppose the supreme beauty has no -standard higher than those practical minds that hold out heaven as a -sort of reward for washed faces? Anthony," it was the first time she had -called him that, and it rang in his brain in a long peal of rapture, "if -there isn't a heaven for every one, there isn't any at all. You, singing -an idle song, must be as valuable as the greatest apostle to any supreme -love, or else it isn't supreme, it isn't love." - -"You are so wonderfully good," he muttered, "that you think every one -else is good too." - -"But I'm hardly a bit good," she assured him, "and I wouldn't be good -if I could--in the Christian kind of way." She gazed about with an -affectation of secretiveness, then leaned across her coffee cup. "It -would bore me horribly," she confided, "that 'other cheek' thing; -I'm not a grain humble; and I spend a criminal amount of money on -my clothes. I have even put a patch upon my cheek to be a gin and -stumbling-block to a young man." - -She had! - -He surveyed with absurd pleasure that minute black crescent on the pale -rose of her countenance. If she had been good before she was adorable -now: her confession had drawn her out of the transplendid cloud where -he had elevated her down to his side; she was infinitely more desirable, -more warmly and delightfully human. - -"I have been asking about you," she told him later, with a slight frown; -"the accounts are, well--various. I don't mind your--your friends of the -stables, Anthony; they are, what Ellerton will never learn, the careless -choice of a born aristocrat; I don't care a Tecla pearl whether you are -'a steady young man' or not. And one doesn't hear a whisper of meanness -about you anywhere. But I have an exaggerated affection for things that -are beautiful, I suppose it's a weakness, really, and ugly people or -surroundings, harsh voices even, terrify me. The thought of cruelty -makes me cold. And, since you will come into my thoughts, and smile your -funny little smile at me out of walls and other impossible places, I -should like to picture you, not in pool rooms, but on the hills that you -know so well. I should like to think of your mind echoing with the rush -of those streams, the hunting of those owls, you told me about, and not -sounding with coarse and silly and brutal words and ideas." - -"It echoes with you," he replied, "and you are more beautiful than hills -and streams." - -For a moment she held his gaze full in the blue depths of her vision; -then, with a troubled smile, evaded it. "I'm a patched jade," she -announced. - -Ranke, the servant informed them, was ready to meet the train. - -"You're going... Elbe's affair on the Wingohocking?" - -"Absolutely." She stood illusive against the saffron blur of the -candles, the sweeping hem of night. - -"I'll remember," he blundered; "whatever you would wish... you have -changed everything. The dinner was--I don't remember what it was," he -confessed; "but I remember an olive." - -He left the automobile at the edge of Ellerton, and proceeded on foot, -passing the dully-shinning bulk of the circus tent. He heard the brassy -dissonance of the band within, the monotonous thud of horses' hoofs -on the tanbark; a raucous voice rose at the entrance to the side-show -dwelling unctuously on the monstrosities to be viewed within for the -price of a dime, of a dime, a dime. He recalled the spent lioness in her -painted cage, the haggard and sick hyena, the abject trot of the wolves -to nowhere.--A sudden exhalation of hatred swept over him for the -hideous inhumanity of circuses and men. Eliza had lifted him from the -meaningless babble of trivial and hard voices into a high and immaculate -region of shining space and quietude. He didn't want to come down again, -he protested, to _this_. - - - - -XV - -ANTHONY passed the few, intervening days to the excursion on the -Wingohocking in a state of rapt absorption: his brain sounded with -every tone of Eliza's voice; she smiled at him, in riding garb, over -that delicate trail of freckles; he saw her in the misty, amber dress of -the dance; in white, illusively lit by the candles against the shadowy -veranda. Now, for the first time, day that had succeeded haphazard -to day, without relation or plan, were strung together, bound into an -intelligible whole, by the thread of romance. He must get a firm grip -upon reality, construct a solid existence out of the unsubstantial -elements of his living; but, in his new felicity, he was unable to -direct his thoughts to details inevitably sordid; he was lost in the -miracle of Eliza Dreen's mere presence; material considerations might, -must, be deferred a short while longer. - -A stainless afternoon sky overspread finally the group gathered about -covered willow baskets on the green bank of the stream. Behind them the -meadow swept level, turning back the flood of the sun with a blaze of -aureate flowers, to a silver band of birch; the upstream reach, wrinkled -and dark, was lost between tangles of wild grapes; below, with a smooth, -virid rush, the water poured and broke over rocky shallows. - -Anthony launched his canoe from a point of crystalline sand, and, -holding it against the hank, gazed covertly at Eliza. She was once more -in white, with a broad apple-green ribband about her waist: she stood -above him, slenderly poised against the sky; and she was so rare, he -thought, so ethereal, that she seemed capable of floating off into -the blue. Then he bent, hastily rearranging a cushion, for she was -descending toward him. He stepped skilfully after her into the craft, -and they drifted silently over the surface of the stream. A thrust of -the paddle, in a swirl of white bubbles, turned them about, and they -advanced steadily against the sliding current. - -The still, watery facsimile of the banks were broken into liquid blots -of emerald and bronze by the bow of the canoe. The air rose coldly from -the surface to Anthony's face; from the meadows on either hand came the -light, dry fragrance of newly cut hay; before them trees, meeting above, -formed a sombrous reach, barred with dusty gold shafts of sunlight that -sank into the clear depths. He heard behind the distant dip of paddles, -and floating voices, worlds removed. - -Eliza trailed her hand in the water. An idyllic silence folded them -which he was loath to break.... He had rolled up his sleeves, and the -muscles of his forearms swelled rhythmically under the clear, brown -skin. - -"You are preposterously strong," she approved. His elation, however, -collapsed at the condition following. "But strength is simply brutality -until it's wisely directed. Mazzini and not Napoleon was my ideal in -history." Who, he wondered unhappily, was Mazzini? "I hated school," he -told her briefly; "I don't believe I have ever read a book through; I'd -rather paddle about--with _you_." - -"But you have read deep in the book of nature," she reassured him; "only -a very favorite few open those pages. You are such a child," she added -obliquely, "appallingly unsophisticated: that's what's nicest about you, -really." That form of laudation left him cold, and he drove the canoe -with a vicious rush against the reflections. "A dear child," she added, -without materially increasing his pleasure. - -"Words are rot!" he exploded suddenly; "they can't say any of the -important things. I could talk a year to you without telling you what -I feel--here," he laid a hand momentarily on his spare, powerful chest; -"it's all mixed up, like lead and fire; or that feeling when ice cream -goes to your head. You see," he ended moodily, "all rot." - -"It's very picturesque... and apparently painful. Words aren't necessary -for the truly important things, Anthony." - -"Then you know--what I think of you; you know... how everything else has -moved away and left only you; you know a hundred things, all important, -all about yourself." - -She set an uncertain smile against the rush of his words. The stream -narrowed between high banks drawn against the sheer deeps of sky; the -water flowed swiftly, with a sustained whisper at the edges, and, for -a silent space, he paddled vigorously. Then a profound, glassy pool -opened, sodded bluely to the shores, with low, silvery clumps of willows -casting sooty shadows across the verd water; and, with a sharp twist, -he beached the canoe with a soft shock upon the shelving pebbles. As -he held the craft steady he felt the light, thrilling impact of Eliza's -palm as she sprang ashore. - -The others followed rapidly. The canoes were drawn out of the water, and -preparations for supper commenced. Eliza and Ellie Ball, accompanied by -a youth with a pail, proceeded to a nearby farmhouse in quest of milk. -Anthony lingered at the water's edge, ignoring the appeal for firewood. -The glow of the westering sun faded from the air, and the reflection -of the fire lighted behind him danced ruddy op the grass. At intervals -small fish splashed invisibly, and a kingfisher cried downstream. Then -he heard his sister's voice, and a familiar and moving perfume hovered -in his nostrils. He turned and saw Eliza with her arms full of white -lilacs. Her loveliness left him breathless, mingled with the low sun it -blinded him. She seemed all made of misty bloom--a fragrant spirit -of ineffable flowers. The scent of the lilacs stirred profound, -inarticulate emotions within him, like the poignant impression left by a -forgotten dream of shivering delight. - -He scorned the fare soon spread on the clothed sod, burning his throat -stoically with a cup of unsweetened coffee. Eliza sat beyond the -charring remains of the fire sinking from cherry-red embers to -impalpable white ash. He observed with secret satisfaction that she -too ate little: an appetite on her part, he felt, would have been a -calamity. - -'The meadows and distant woods were vague against the primrose west, -the cyanite curtain of the east, when the baskets were assembled for the -return. Anthony delayed over the arrangement of his craft until Eliza -and himself were last in the floating procession. Dense shadows, -drooping from the trees, filled the banks; overhead the sky was clear -green. They swept silently forward with the current, a rare dip of the -paddle. Eliza's countenance was just palely visible. The lilacs lay in a -pallid heap at their feet. On either hand the world floated back darkly -like an immaterial void through which an ebon stream bore them beyond -the stars. - -At a bend he reached up and caught hold of an overhanging branch, and -they swung into a shallow backwater. A deep shelf of stone lay under the -face of the bank, closed in by a network of wildgrape stems. "This is -where I sometimes stay at night," he told her; "no one knows but you." - - - - -XVI - -SHE rose, and, without warning, stepped out upon the rock. "Here's -where you build your fire," she cried at the discovery of a blackened -heap of ashes. He secured the canoe and followed her. "Ideal," she -breathed. The sound of the fall below was faintly audible; the quavering -cry of an owl, the beating of heavy wings, rose above the bank. "Don't -you envy the old pastoral people following their flocks from land to -land, setting up their tents by streams like this, waking with the dawn -on the world? or gipsies... you must read 'Lavengro.'" - -"I don't envy any one on God's little globe," he asserted; "to be here -with you is the best thing possible." - -"Something more desirable would soon occur to you." - -"Than you!" he protested; "than you!" - -"But people get tired of what they have." - -"It's what they don't have that makes them old and tired," he told her -with sudden prescience; "when I think of what I am going to lose, of -what I can never have, it makes me crazy." - -"Why do you say that?... How can you know?" - -She was standing close to him in the constricted space, the tangible -shock of her nearness sweeping over him in waves of heady emotion. The -water gurgling by the rock was the only sound in a world-stillness. - -"I mean you." - -"Well, I'm not fairy gold; I'm not the end of the rainbow. I am just -Eliza." - -"Just Eliza!" he scoffed. Then the possibility contained in her words -struck him dumb. The feeling irresistibly returned that because of -her heavenly ignorance, her charity, she mistook him to be worthy. The -necessity to guard her from her own divinity impelled him to repeat, -miserably, all that she had ignored. - -"I'm not much account," he said laboriously; "you see, I never stuck at -anything, and, somehow, things have never stuck to me. It was that way -at school--I was expelled from four. I'm supposed to be shiftless." - -"I don't care in the least for that!" she declared; "only one thing is -really important to me... something, oh, so different." Suddenly she -laid her hand upon his sleeve, and, pitifully white, faced him. "I've -had the beautifullest feeling about you," she whispered; "Anthony, tell -me truly, are you... good?" A sob rose uncontrollably in his throat, and -his eyes filled with tears that spilled over his cheeks. For a moment he -struggled to check them, then, unashamed, slipped onto his knees before -her and held her tightly in his arms. "No one in the world can say that -I am not--what you mean." - -She stooped, and sat beside him on the stone, holding his hand close to -her slight body. "My dream," she said simply. "I didn't understand it at -first; you see, I was only a child. And then when I grew older, and--and -heard things, it seemed impossible. That sort of goodness only bored -other girls... they liked men of the world, men with a past. I thought -perhaps I was only morbid, and lost trust in--in you." - -"It was a kind of accident," he admitted; "I never thought about it the -way you did. It seemed young to me." - -"I don't believe it was an accident in the least," she insisted. A mist -rose greyly from the darker surface of the stream, and settled cold and -clammy about Anthony's face. It drew about them in wavering garlands, -growing steadily denser. Eliza was sitting now pressed against him, and -he felt a shiver run through her. "You are cold!" he cried instantly, -and rose, lifting her to her feet. She smiled, in his arms, and he bent -down and kissed her. She clung to him with a deep sigh, and met his lips -steadily with her own. The mist slipped like a veil over Eliza's head -and drops of moisture shone in her hair. Anthony turned and unfastened -the canoe; and, suddenly conscious of the length of their delay, he -urged it with long sweeps over the stream. Beyond the lilacs, distilling -their potent sweetness in the dark, Eliza was motionless, silent, a -flicker of white in the gloom. - -They swept almost immediately into the broad reach where they had -started. The lights from the windows of a boat house, the voices of -the others, streamed gaily over the water. He felt Eliza tremble as he -lifted her ashore. - -"It's happiness," she told him; "I am ever so warm inside." - - - - -XVII - -BY his plate at the lunch table he discovered, the following day, a -small, lavender envelope stamped and addressed to Anthony Ball, Esq. -He slipped it hastily into his pocket, and managed but a short-lived -pretext of eating. Then, with the letter yet unopened, he left Ellerton, -and penetrated into the heart of the countryside. - -He stopped, finally, under a fence that crossed a hill, on a slope -of wild strawberries. The hill fell away in an unbroken sweep of -undulating, blue-green wheat; trees filled the hollow, with a roof and -thread of silver water drawn through the lush leaves; on either hand -chocolate loam bore the tender ripple of young com; and beyond, crossed -by the shifting shadows of slow-drifting clouds, hill and wood and -pasture spread a mellow mosaic of summer. - -He tore open the envelope with a reluctant delight. At the top of the -sheet E D was stamped severely in mauve. "My very dear," he read. He -stopped, suddenly unable to proceed; the countryside swam in his vision; -he gulped an ecstatic, convulsive breath, and proceeded: - -"It's too wonderful--I can't realize that you exist, and that I have -found you in such a great world. Isn't it strange how real dreams are; -just now the real world seems the dream, and my dear home, my mother, -shadows compared to the thoughts that fill my brain of you, you, you. - -"But I am writing mostly to tell you something that, perhaps, you didn't -fully understand yesterday--and yet I think you must have--that, if you -really want me, I am absolutely your own. I couldn't help it if I wanted -to, and, oh, I don't want to! I let a man at Etretat kiss me, and I am -glad I did, for it made me understand that I must wait for you. - -"I won't write any more now because my head aches. From Eliza who loves -you utterly." Then he saw that she had written on the following page: -"Don't worry about money and the future; I have my own, all we shall -need for years, and we can do something together." - -He laid the letter beside him on the grass. The welling song of a -catbird sounded unsupportably sweet, and a peaceful column of smoke -rose bluely from the chimney below: it carried him in imagination to a -dwelling set in a still, green garden, where birds filled the branches -with melody, and Eliza and himself walked hand in hand and kissed. Night -would gather in about their joy, their windows would shine with the -golden lamp of their seclusion, their voices mingle... sink... sacred. - -He dreamed for a long while; the sunlight vanished from the slope below -him, from the darkling trees, touched only the farthest hills with a -rosy glow. As the sun sank an errant air whispered in the wheat, and -scattered the pungent aroma of the wild strawberries. A voice called -thinly from the swales, and cows gathered indistinctly about a gate. -Anthony rose. The world was one vast harmony in which he struck the -highest, happiest note. Beyond the near hills the lilac glitter of the -Ellerton lights sprang palely up on the blue dusk. As he made his way -home, Anthony's brain teemed with delightful projects, with -anticipation, the thought of the house in the hollow--abode of love, -steeped in night. - - - - -XVIII - -ELLIE was in the garden, and interrupted his progress toward a belated -dinner. "Father wants to see you," she called; "at the Club, of course." -He wondered absently, approaching the Club, what his father wanted. -The rooms occupied the second story of the edifice that housed the -administration of the county; the main corridor was choked by a crowd -that moved noisily toward an auditorium in the rear, but the Club was -silent, save for the click of invisible billiard balls. - -His father was asleep in the reading room, a newspaper spread upon his -knees, and one thin hand twisted in his beard. Through an open window -drifted the strains of a band on the Courthouse lawn. The older man -woke, clearing his throat sharply. "Well, Anthony," he nodded. Anthony -found a chair. - -His father leaned forward, regarding him with a keen, kindly gaze. "I'm -told the garage has gone up," he commenced. - -"Sam took his car away; it was Alfred's infernal tinkering; he can't -leave a machine alone." - -"Did you close affairs satisfactorily, stop solvent?" - -"There's a little debt of about six dollars." - -The other sought his wallet, and, removing a rubber band, counted six -dollars into Anthony's hand. "Meet that in the morning." He leaned hack, -tapping the wallet with deliberate fingers. "I suppose you have no plan -for the immediate future," he observed. - -"Nothing right now." - -"I have one for you, though, as 'right now' as this week." - -Anthony listened respectfully, his thoughts still dwelling upon the -beauty of the dusk without, of life. "You have tried a number of things -in the past few years without success. I have started you in a small -way again and again, only to observe the familiar course of a failure -inevitable from your shiftless habits. You are not a bad boy, but -you have no ability to concentrate, like a stream spread all over the -meadow--you have no course. You're a loiterer." - -"Yes, sir," said Anthony, from the midst of his abstraction. - -"You are too old for that now, either it must stop at once, or you will -become definitely worthless. I am going to make a determined effort--I -am going to send you to California, your brother-in-law writes that he -can give you something." - -The term California sounded in Anthony's brain like the unexpected -clash of an immense hell. It banished his pleasant revery in disordered -shreds, filling him with sudden dismay. - -"I telegraphed Albert yesterday," the even tones continued, "and have -his answer in my pocket. You are to go out to him immediately." - -"But that's impossible," Anthony interrupted; "it just can't be done." - -"Why not?" - -He found himself completely at a loss to give adequate expression to -his reason for remaining in Ellerton. His joy was so new that he -had scarcely formulated it to himself, it evaded words, defied -definition--it was a thing of dreams, a vision in a shining garment, a -fountain of life at the bottom of his heart. - -"Come; why not?" - -"I don't want to go away from Ellerton... just now." - -"That is precisely what you must do. I can understand your desire to -remain close by your mother--she has an excuse for you, assistance, at -every turn." - -"That isn't the reason; it's... it's," he boggled horribly, "a girl." - -"Indeed," his father remarked dryly. - -Anthony shrunk painfully from the unsympathetic voice of the elder. A -new defiance of his father welled hotly within him, corrupting the bonds -of discipline that had held him lovingly to his parent throughout the -past. A chasm opened between them; and, when Anthony spoke again, it was -with a voice of insipient insubordination. - -"It isn't the silly stuff you think," he told the other; "I'm engaged!" - -"What on?" pithily came the inquiry. "Unfortunately I can't afford the -luxury of a daughter-in-law. I thought you were something more of a man -than to bring your wife into your mother's house." - -"I sha'n't; we can get along until I... find work." - -"Do you mean that your wife will support you?" - -"Not altogether; she will help until--until--" he stopped miserably -before the anger confronting him in the other's gaze: it was useless to -explain, he thought; But if his father laughed at him, at his love, he -would leave the room and never see him again. "I can't see why money is -so damned holy!" he broke out; "why it matters so infernally where it -comes from; it seems to me only a dirty detail." - -"It is the measure of a man's honor," the elder Ball told him -inexorably; "how it is made or got stamps you in the world. I am -surprised to hear that you would even consider taking it from a woman, -surprised and hurt. It shows all the more clearly the necessity for your -going at once into a hard, healthy existence. Your mother will get you -ready; a couple of days should do it." - -"... all unexpected," Anthony muttered; "I must think about it, see some -one. I'll--I'll talk to you to-morrow. That's it," he enunciated more -hopefully, "to-morrow--" - -"Entirely unnecessary," his father interrupted, "nothing to be gained by -delay or further talk. The thing's arranged." - -"I think I won't go," Anthony told him slowly. The other picked up the -paper, smoothing out the creases. "Very well," he replied; "I dare say -your mother will do something for you.--Women are the natural source of -supplies for the sort of person you seem at the point of becoming." A -barrier of paper, covered with print in regular columns, shut one from -the other. - -Anthony burned under a whelming sense of injustice. He decided that he -would leave the room, his father, forever; but, somehow, he remained -motionless in his chair, casting about in his thoughts for words with -which to combat the elder's scorn. He thought of Eliza; she smiled -at him with appealing loveliness; he felt her letter in his pocket, -remembered her boundless generosity. He couldn't leave her! The band in -the square below was playing a familiar operatic lament, and the refrain -beat on his consciousness in waves of despairing and poignant longing. -A sea of misery swept over him in which he struggled like a spent -swimmer--Eliza was the far, silver shore toward which he fought. It -wasn't fair--a sob almost mastered him--to ask him to go away now, when -he had but found her. - -"It's not Siberia," he heard his father say, "nor a life sentence; if -this--this 'girl' is serious, you will be closer working for her in -California than idle in Ellerton." - -"I don't want to go away from her," he whispered; "the world's such -a hell of a big, empty place... things happen." He dashed some bright -tears from his eyes, and, turning his back on the other, gazed through -the window at the tops of the maple trees--a black tracery of foliage -against the lights below. - -"Two or three years should set you on your feet, give you an opportunity -to return." Eternity could scarcely have seemed more appalling than the -term casually indicated by his father, it was unthinkable! A club member -entered, fingering the racked journals on the long table, exchanging -trivial comments with the older Ball. It seemed incredible to Anthony, -in the face of the cataclysm which threatened him, that the world should -continue to revolve callously about such topics. It was an affront to -the gravity, the dignity, of his suffering. He swiftly left the room. - - - - -XIX - -IT was Saturday night, Bay Street was thronged, the stores brilliantly -lit. He saw in the distance the red and blue jars of illuminated water -that advertised Doctor Allhop's drugstore, and turned abruptly on his -heel. In the seclusion of his room he once more read Eliza's letter: it -was a superlative document of sweet commonsense, the soul of nobility, -of wisdom, of tenderness, of divine generosity. In its light all other -suggestions, considerations, courses, seemed tawdry and ignoble. The -boasted wisdom of a world of old men, of material experience, seemed -only the mean makeshifts for base and unworthy ends. The ecstasy -sweeping from his heart to his brain, the delicious fancies, the -rare harmonies, that haunted him, the ineffable perfume of invisible -lilacs--these were the true material from which to fashion life, these -were the high things, the important. And youth was the time to grasp -them: a swift premonition seized him of the coldness, the ineptitude, -the disease, of old age. - -For the first time in his life he thought of death in definite -connection with himself: he was turning out the gas, preparatory for -sleep; and, at the instantaneous darkness, he thought, with a gasp of -fear, it would be like that. He stood trembling as a full realization of -disillusion mastered him; all his hot, swinging blood, the instinctive -longing for perpetuation aroused in him by Eliza, in sick revolt. -Fearsome images filled his mind... the hole in the clay--closed; -putrefaction; the linked mass of worms. In feverish haste he lit the -gas; his body was wet with sweat; his heart pounding unsteadily. - -The familiar aspect of his room somewhat reassured him; the thought -dimmed, slowly conquered by the flooding tide of his living. Then he -realized that Eliza too must die, and his terrors vanished before a -loving pity for her earthly fragility. Finally, death itself assumed -a less threatening guise; peace stole imperceptibly into his heart. A -vague belief, new born of his passion, that dying was not the end of -all, rose within him--there must be a struggle, heights to win, gulfs -to cross, a faith to keep. With steady fingers he turned out the -gas.--Eliza was his faith: he fell into a sound slumber. - - - - -XX - -HE made no comment when, in the morning, his mother made tentative -piles of his clothing. He would see Eliza that afternoon, and then -announce their decision. His mother attempted to fathom his feeling -at the prospect of the journey, the separation from Ellerton; but, the -memory of his father's cutting words still rankling in his mind, he -evaded her questioning. - -"If you are going to be miserable out there," she told him, enveloping -him in the affection of her steady, grey gaze, "something else might be -found. I can always help--" - -"You don't understand these things," he interrupted her brusquely, -annoyed by his father's prescience. They were sitting in her sewing -room, a pile of his socks at her side. She wore her familiar, severe -garb, the steelbowed spectacles directed upon the needle flashing -steadily in her assured fingers. She was eternally laboring for her -children, Anthony realized with a pang of affection. His earliest -memories were charged with her unflagging care, the touch of her smooth -and tireless hands, the defense of her energetic voice. - -He must tell her about his engagement, but not until he had seen Eliza -again, when something definite would be agreed upon. It was immensely -difficult for him to talk about the subject nearest his heart-words -diminished and misrepresented it: he wanted to brood over it, secretly, -for days. - - - - -XXI - -LATER he dressed with scrupulous exactitude, and proceeded directly to -Hydrangea House. The afternoon was sultry, the air full of the soothing -drone of summer insects, the dust of the road rose in heavy puffs about -his feet. He crossed the stream and fields, saturated with sunlight, and -came to the pillared portico of his destination. - -"Miss Dreen," Anthony said, stepping forward into the opening door. - -"Miss Dreen cannot see you," the servant returned without hesitation. -Anthony drew back, momentarily repelled; but, before he could question -this announcement, he heard grinding wheels on the gravel drive. -Turning, he saw a motor stop, and Mrs. Dreen descend, followed by a man -with a somber, deeply-scored countenance. Anthony moved forward eagerly -as she mounted the steps. "Mrs. Dreen," he asked; "can you tell me-" She -passed with a confused, blank face, without stopping or acknowledging -his salutation, and the door closed softly upon her and her companion. - -A momentary flame of anger within Anthony quickly sank to cold -consternation. Eliza had told her parents and they had dismissed the -idea and him. It was evident they had forbidden her to see him. He -walked indecisively down the steps, still carrying his hat, and stopped -mechanically on the driveway. He gazed blindly over a brilliant, scarlet -bed of geraniums, over the extended lawn, the rolling hills of Ellerton. -Then his courage returned, stiffened by the obstacles which apparently -confronted him: he would show them that he was not to be lightly -dismissed; no power on earth should separate him from Eliza. - -The servant had only obeyed Mrs. Dreen's direction; Eliza, he -was certain, had no choice in the matter of his reception. Then, -unexpectedly, he remembered his father's words, the latter's -contemptuous reference to all appeals to women. He must go to Mr. Dreen, -and straightforwardly state his position, tell him... _what?_ Why, that -he, Anthony Ball, loved Eliza, desired her, had come to take her away... -_where?_ In all the world he had no place prepared for her. He drove his -hand into his pocket, and discovered a quarter of a dollar and some -odd pennies--all that he possessed. Suddenly he laughed, a short, sorry -merriment that stopped in a dry gasp. He turned and ran, stumbling over -the grass, through the hot dust, toward Ellerton. Two years, he thought, -California; California and two years. - - - - -XXII - -ANTHONY sat late into the night composing an explanatory and farewell -letter to Eliza: - -"Your family would laugh at me," he wrote; "I couldn't show them a -dollar. And although my father has done a great deal for me he wouldn't -do this. I couldn't expect him to. Mother might help, she is like you, -but I could not very well live between two women, could I? The only hope -is California for a couple of years. You know how much I want to stay -with you, how hard this is to write, when our engagement, everything, is -so new and wonderful. But it would only be harder later. If I had seen -you this afternoon I would never have left you. I am going to-morrow -night. This will come to you in the morning, and I will be home if you -send me a message. I would like to see you again before I go away in -order to come back to you forever. I would like to hear you say again -that you love me. Sometimes I think it never really happened. If I don't -see you again before I leave, remember I shall never change, I shall -love you always and not forget the least thing you said. I wish now I -had studied so that I could write better. Remember that I belong to you, -when you want me I will come to you if it's around the world, I would -come to you if I were dead I think. Good-bye, dear, dear Eliza, until -tomorrow anyhow, and that's a long while to be without seeing you or -hearing your voice." - -At the announcement of his agreement to go West, the attitude of his -father had changed greatly; his hand continually sought Anthony's -shoulder; he consulted gravely, as it were with an equal, with regard -to trains, precautions, new climates. His mother busied herself over -his clothes, her rare speech brusque and hurried. To Anthony she seemed -suddenly old, _grey_; her hands trembled, and necessary stitches were -uneven. - -He was aware that the mail for Hydrangea House was collected before -noon, and he sat expectantly in the room overlooking the street. It was -dark and cool, there were creamy tea roses in the Canton jar now, -while in the street it was hot and bright. A sere engraving of Joseph -Bonaparte in regal robes gazed serenely from the wall. The hour for -lunch arrived without any message from Eliza. Throughout the afternoon -he dropped his pressing affairs find descended to the street... nothing. - -His heart grew heavy with doubts, with fears--his letter had been -intercepted; or, if Eliza had received it, her answer had been diverted. -Perhaps she had at last realized that he was unfit for her love. The -impulse almost mastered him to go once more to Hydrangea House, but -pride prevented; his unhappiness hardened, grew bitter, suspicious. Then -he again read her letter, and its patent sincerity swept away all doubt; -Eliza was unwavering; if not now he would find her at the end of two -years, unchanged, warm, beautiful. - -He was summoned to dinner, where he found the delicacies he especially -liked. The plates were liberally filled, all made a pretence at -eating, but, at the end, the food remained hardly touched. The forced -conversation fell into sudden, disturbing silences. His father sharpened -the carving knife twice, which, for shad roe, was scarcely necessary; -his mother scolded the servant without cause; even Ellie was affected, -and smiled at him with a bright tenderness. - -He was to leave Ellerton at midnight, when he would be enabled to -connect with a western express, and it was arranged for him to spend a -last hour at the Club with his father. Ellie and the servant stood upon -the pavement, his mother was upstairs in the sewing room... where he -entered softly. - -At the Club the billiard room was dark, the tables shrouded, but from -a room at the end of the hall came the murmur of the nightly coon-can -players. They seated themselves at a table, and his father ordered beer -and cigars. It was the first time that he had acknowledged Anthony to -possess the discretion of maturity, and he raised the stein to his lips -with the feeling that it was a sacrament of his manhood, an earnest and -pledge of his success. - -The midnight train emerged from the gloom of the station, passed through -the outskirts of Ellerton, detached rows of dark dwellings, by the -grounds of the Baseball Association, its fence still plastered with the -gaudy circus posters, into the dim fields and shining streams. Anthony -stood on the last, swinging platform, gazing back at the gloom that -enveloped Ellerton, at the place where Hydrangea House was hid by -the hills. An acute misery possessed him--the unsettled maimer of his -departure from Eliza, her silence, struggled in his thoughts with the -attempt to realize the necessity of the course he had adopted to bring -about a final and lasting joy. He wondered if Eliza would understand the -need for his going; but, assured of her wise sympathy, he felt that she -would; and a measure of content settled upon him. The engine swung about -a curve, disappearing into the obscurity of a wood. "Eliza," he cried -aloud, "Eliza, be here when I come back to you!" - -He sat for the greater part of an hour on the deserted platform of the -junction, where signal lamps glistened on the steel rails that vanished -into the night, into the west, the inscrutable future. The headlight -of the massive locomotive flared unexpectedly, whitely upon him; the -engine, with a brief glimpse of a sanguinary heart of fire illuminating -a sooty human countenance, gleaming, liquid eyeballs, passed and -stopped; and Anthony hastily mounted the train. He made his way through -the narrow passage of buttoned, red curtains, and found his berth, when -he sank into a weary, dreamless sleep. - - - - -XXIII - -IN the morning his was the last berth made up for the day; the car, -shaded against the sun, was rolling slightly, and he braced himself as -he made his way toward breakfast. The tables were all occupied; but, at -a carelessly hospitable nod, he found a place with two men. They were, -he immediately saw, Jews. One was robustly middle aged, with a pinkly -smooth countenance, a slightly flattened nose, and eyes as colorless as -clear water in a goblet. He was carefully dressed in shepherd's plaid, -with a gay tie that held a noticeably fine pearl. His companion was -thin and dark, with a heavy nose irritated to rawness by the constant -application of a blue silk handkerchief. The latter, Anthony discovered -in the course of the commonplaces which followed, was sycophant and -henchman of the first--a never failing source of applause for the -former's witticisms. - -"How far out are you bound?" queried the owner of the pearl. Then, when -Anthony had told him his destination, "no business opportunities in -California for a young man without capital behind him; only hard work -and a day laborer's wages. Nothing West but fruit, land and politics on -a large scale. My chauffeur at a hundred a month does better than eighty -per cent, of the young ones in the West." - -This information fell like a dark cloud over Anthony's sanguine hopes -for a speedy and opulent return. A sense of imminent misfortune pressed -upon him, a sudden, unreasoning dread of what might be in store for -Eliza and himself, of the countless perils of a protracted delay. At the -end of two years he might be no better off than he was at present. His -brother-in-law, he knew, would only pay him a nominal amount at first. -The two years stretched out interminably in his imagination. - -The more prosperous of his companions selected a cigar from a silk case, -and, cutting it with a gold penknife, they removed to the smoking car. -"I drove a car for a while," Anthony informed them later, mingling the -acidulous smoke of a Dulcina with the more fragrant clouds of Habana; -"it was a Challenger six." - -"Hartmann here is a director in the Challenger factory," the sycophant -told him. "The factory's in our home city, where we are going. It's -a great car." Hartmann examined Anthony with a new and more personal -interest. "Did you like it?" he demanded. - -"It's all right, for the price," Anthony assured him; "it's the most -sporting looking car on the American market." - -"That's the thing," the other declared with satisfaction; "big sales and -a quick return on investment. A showy car is what the public want, the -engine's unimportant, it's paint that counts." - -"Do you have any radiator trouble?" Anthony demanded. The other regarded -him shrewdly. "I run a Berliet," he announced; "I was discussing a -popular article." He arranged himself more comfortably in his leather -chair, and prepared for sleep. - -Anthony returned to his place in the coach, where he brooded dejectedly -upon what he had heard about California. He thought of the distance -widening at a dizzy rate between Eliza and himself, and plunged into a -vast pit of loneliness... he had made a terrible mistake in leaving her. -It seemed to him now that he had deserted her, perhaps she was suffering -on account of him--had expected him to free her from an intolerable -condition. Again he cursed in his heart the prudent counsel of old -men, the cold sapience of the world, that had betrayed him, that had -prevailed over him against his instinct, his longing. - - - - -XXIV - -AT lunch he was progressing toward an empty table when Hartmann waved -him imperiously to a place at his side. "Have a drink," he advised -genially; "this is my affair." Beer followed the initial cocktail, -and brandy wound the meal to a comfortable conclusion. A Habana in the -smoking car completed Anthony's bodily satisfaction. - -"California's no place for a young man without capital," Hartmann -reiterated; "you work like a dog for two and a half a day; no future." -He paused, allowing this to be digested, then: "I have a little plan to -propose, you can take it or not--or perhaps you are not competent.--My -chauffeur is laid up with a broken wrist, a matter of a month or more; -how would you like to run my car until he returns? Then, if you are -satisfactory, you can go into the Challenger factory, with something -ahead of you, a future. Or you can go on to California... say -seventy-five dollars richer." Anthony shook his head regretfully. "Don't -answer now," Hartmann advised; "Spring City is three hours off. Think it -over; seventy-five dollars; a chance, if you are handy, in the factory." - -Anthony was suddenly obsessed by the thought that, at Spring City, he -would be only a day removed from Eliza. He wondered what his father -would say to this new possibility? At worst he would only be delayed in -his arrival in California, and with seventy-five dollars in consequence. -At best--the Challenger factory: he expanded optimistically the -opportunities offered by the latter. If he could show his father -immediate fruits from a change of plan, the elder, he was certain, -would add his approval. In a passing, sceptical mood he speculated upon -Hartmann's motive in this offer to an entire stranger; but his doubts -speedily vanished--any irregularity must be immediately visible. - -"You can make a stop over on your ticket for a couple of days and try -it," the other interjected; "it will cost you nothing." - -Only a day removed from Eliza! he would write to his father, his -brother-in-law, and explain! he had decided that it would do no harm to -try it. "Good!" the Jew exclaimed; "see the conductor about your ticket. -If you decide to remain you can send for your trunk." He offered his -cigar case to his companion, but, now, neglected to include Anthony. -Imperceptibly their relations had changed; Hartmann's geniality -decreased; his colorless gaze wandered indifferently. Anthony found the -conductor, and arranged a stop-over at Spring City. He collected his -belongings; and, not long after, he stood on a station platform beside -his bag, watching with sudden misgivings the rear of the train he had -left disappearing behind a bulk of factories and clustered shanties. - -Hartmann handed him a card, with a written direction and address. "The -garage," he explained; "have the car ready to-morrow at nine. I'll allow -you an expense of five dollars until a definite arrangement." - -Anthony quickly found the garage--a structure of iron and glass, with -a concrete floor where cars were drawn up in glistening rows. A line -of chairs fronted upon the pavement, occupied by mechanics in greasy -overalls, smarter chauffeurs, and garrulous, nondescript hangerson. The -foreman was within, busy with the compression tanks. He was short in -stature, with a pale, concerned countenance. "Fourth on the right from -the front," he directed, reading Hartmann's card; "there's a bad shoe -on the back.... So the old man's ready for another little trip," he -commented. - -"His chauffeur has a broken wrist," Anthony explained. "He's offered me -the job for a month." - -"Wrist hell! Hartmann fired him, he knew too much--about sprees with -Kuhn. He's a sharp duck; I'll bet he picked you up outside Spring City." - -"I met him on the Sunset Limited," Anthony continued; "I understood he -was a director in the Challenger Motorcar Company--" - -"He's that, right enough; the rottenest car and shop in America; they're -so dam' mean they won't provide their men with drinking water; they have -to bring labor from the East, scabs and other truck." The conviction -settled heavily upon Anthony that, after all, he had made a mistake in -listening to Hartmann, in falling in with his suggestion. If there had -been another train through Spring City that night for California he -would have taken it. But, as there was not, and he had committed himself -for the next twenty-four hours, he made his way to the Berliet car -indicated. There he took off his coat, and busied himself with replacing -the damaged shoe. When that was accomplished the dusk had thickened to -evening, the suspended gas globes in the garage had been lighted, -and shone like lemon-yellow moons multiplied in the lilac depths of a -mirrored twilight. - -He saw, across the street, a creamery, and, at a bare table, consumed a -quart of milk and a plate of sugared rusk. Then, on a chair in the line -before the garage, he sat half intent upon the conversation about him, -half considering the swift changes that had overtaken him in the past, -few days. His fingers closed upon Eliza's letter in his pocket, and -he gazed at the callous and ribald faces at his side, he heard the -truculent laughter, with wonderment that they existed in the same world -with her delicate beauty. She smiled at him, out of his memory, over -a mass of white bloom, and the present seemed like an ugly dream from -which he must awake in her presence. Or was the other a dream, a vision -of immaterial delight spread before his wondering mind, and this harsh -mirth, these mocking faces, Hartmann's smooth lies, the hateful reality? - -The night deepened, one by one the chairs before the garage were -deserted, the sharp pounding of a hammer on metal sounded from within, -the disjointed measures of a sentimental song. A sudden weariness swept -over Anthony, a distaste for the task of seeking a room through the -strange streets; and, arranging the cushions in Hartmann's car, he slept -there until morning. He awoke to the flooding of the concrete floor with -a sheet of water flashing in the crisp sunlight. It was eight o'clock, -and he made a hurried toilet at a convenient spigot, breakfasting at the -creamery. - -Hartmann appeared shortly after nine: his countenance glowed from a -scented massage, his yellow boots shone with restrained splendor, and -a sprig of geranium was drawn through an ironed buttonhole. He nodded -briefly to Anthony, and narrowly watched the latter manouvre the Berliet -from its place in the row onto the street. They sped smoothly across -town to what, evidently, was the principal shopping thoroughfare; and, -before a glittering plateglass window that bore the chaste design, -"Hartmann & Company" drew up, and Hartmann prepared to descend. - -"I think I'll go on West," Anthony informed him; "this afternoon." - -Annoyance was plainly visible upon the other's countenance. "I was just -congratulating myself on a find," he declared; "you must at least stay -with me until I get some one else." He paused; Anthony made no comment. -"Now, listen to what I will do," he pronounced finally; "if you will -stay with me for a month I'll give you a hundred dollars and your -expenses--it will be clear money. I... I had thought of taking a little -trip in the car, I'm feeling the store a little, and I need a discreet -man. Think it over--a hundred in your pocket, and you may be able to -get off in three weeks." He left hurriedly, without giving Anthony an -opportunity for further speech. It was an alluring offer, a hundred -dollars secured for the future, for Eliza. He speculated about the -prospective trip, Hartmann's wish to secure a "discreet" man, the -foreman's insinuations. However, the motive didn't concern him, the wage -was his sole consideration, and that, he decided, he could not afford -to lose. He whistled to a newsboy, and, studying the baseball scores, -waited comfortably for his employer. - -Later he drove Hartmann, now accompanied by Kuhn, out of town, through -a district of suburban villas, smooth, white roads and green lawns, into -the farmland and pasturage beyond. They finally stopped at an inn of -weathered grey stone set behind a row of ancient elms. A woman was -sitting on the portico, and she rose and came forward sinuously as -the men descended from the motor car. Anthony saw that she had a full, -voluptuous figure, lustreless, yellow hair, and sleepy eyes. Hartmann -patted her upon the shoulder, and the three moved to the portico, where -they sat conversing over a table of whiskies and soda. Occasional shrill -bursts of laughter, gross terms, reached Anthony. The woman lounged -nonchalantly in her chair; she wore a transparent white waist, through -winch was visible a confused tracery of purple ribband, frank rubicund -flesh. When the men rose, Hartmann kissed her. "Thursday," he reminded -her; "shortly after three." - -"And I'll depend on you," Kuhn added,--"a good figger and a loving -disposition. We don't want any dead ones on this trip." - -"Laura's all right," she assured him; "she's just ready for something of -this sort; she goes off about twice a year." - -When they had started, Hartmann leaned forward. "Going Thursday... that -little trip I spoke to you about.--No talking, understand. Look over the -tires, get what you think-necessary for five or six hundred miles." He -tended Anthony a crisp, currency note. "Here's the five. Your salary -starts to-morrow." - -That night Anthony wrote a letter of explanation to his father, a note -to California in reference to his trunk, and a short communication to -Eliza.--He was not certain that she would receive it. Her parents, -he was convinced, were opposed to him--they were ignorant of the -singleness, the depth, the determination, of his love. - - - - -XXV - -IT. was nearly four, when, on Thursday, Anthony stopped the car before -the inn by the elms. The woman with the yellow hair, accompanied by -a figure in a shapeless russet silk coat, were waiting for them. The -latter carried a small, patent-leather dressing case, and a large bag -reposed on the portico, which Anthony strapped to the luggage rack. -Kuhn, animated by a flow of superabundant animal spirits, bantered each -member of the party: he gave Anthony a cigar that had been slightly -broken, tipped off Hartmann's cap, and assisted the woman with profound -gallantry into the car. Hartmann discussed routes over an unfolded map -with Anthony; then, the course laid out, they moved forward. - -Their way led over an old postroad, now between walls, trees, dank and -grey with age and dust, now rising steadily into a region of bluish -hills. Scraps of conversation fell upon Anthony's hearing: the woman -in the russet coat, he learned, was named Laura Dallam. Kuhn talked -incessantly, and, occasionally, she replied to his sallies in a cool, -detached voice. She differed in manner from the others, she was a little -disdainful, Anthony discovered. Once she said sharply, "Do let me enjoy -the country." - -They slipped smoothly through the afternoon to the end of day. The -sun had vanished beyond the hills when they stopped at an inn on the -outskirts of an undiscovered town. It was directly on the road, and, -built in a flimsy imitation of an Elizabethan hostelry, had benches at -either side of the entrance. - -There Anthony sat later, while, from a balcony above him, fell the -tones of his employer and his companions. He could hear them clearly, -distinguish Hartmann's heavy jocularity, the yellow-haired woman's -syrupy voice, Laura Dallam's crisp utterances. Kuhn's labored wit had -drooped with the afternoon, an accent of complaint had grown upon him. -Occasionally there was a thin, clear tinkle of glasses and ice. As -the night deepened, the conversation above grew blurred, peals of -inconsequential laughter more frequent; a glass fell on the balcony, and -broke with a small, sudden explosion. Some one--it was the Dallam woman, -exclaimed, "don't!" She leaned over the railing above Anthony's head, -and said despairingly, "I can't get drunk!" Kuhn pressed to her side, -and she moved away impatiently. He became enraged, and they commenced a -low, bitter wrangling. Finally Hartmann insinuated himself between them; -the two women disappeared; and Kuhn complained aloud of the manner in -which he had been treated. - -"She's all right," Hartmann assured him; "you went at it too heavy; take -your time; she's not a flapper from the chorus." They tramped heavily -across the balcony, whispering tensely, into the hotel. - -The morning following they failed to start until past eleven: Hartmann's -countenance was pasty from the night's debauch, greenish shadows -hung beneath his colorless eyes, his mouth was a leaden line; the -yellow-haired woman was haggard, she looked older by ten years since the -day previous. Kuhn was savagely, morosely, silent. But Mrs. Dallam was -as fresh, as sparkling, as the morning itself. She nodded brightly at -Anthony as she took a seat forward, by his side. A heavy veil was draped -back from her face, and he saw that it was finely-cut; an intensely -black bang fell squarely across her low, white forehead, beneath which -eyes of a sombre, velvety blue were oddly compelling; and against the -blanched oval of her face her mouth was like a print of blood. It was a -potent, vaguely disturbing countenance; and, beneath the voluminous -silk coat, he saw narrow black slippers with carelessly tied bows that, -stinging his imagination, reminded him of wasps. - -As he drove the car he was frequently aware of her exotic gaze resting -speculatively upon him. On a high, sunny reach of road there was a -shrill rush of escaping air, and he found a rear tire flat. Hartmann and -his mate explored the road, Kuhn gloomed aloof, while Mrs. Dallam seated -herself on a nearby bank, as Anthony replaced the inner tube. It was -hot, and he removed his coat, and soon his shirt was clinging to -the rippling, young muscles of his vigorous torso. Once, when he -straightened up to wipe the perspiration from his brow, Mrs. Dallam -caught his glance, and held it with a slow smile. - -Their progress for the day ended at a small hotel maintained upon the -roof of a ridge of hills. As the dusk deepened the valley beyond swam -with warm, scattered lights, while above, in illimitable space, gleamed -stars near, only a few millions of miles away, and stars far, millions -upon millions of miles distant. - -The ground floor of the hotel was divided by a passage, on one side the -bar, and the other a dining and lounging room, lit with kerosene lamps -swung below tin reflectors. When Anthony was ready for supper the others -had disappeared above. He was served by the proprietor, a short, rotund -man with a glistening red face and hands like swollen pincushions. He -breathed stentoriously amid his exertions, muttering objurgations -in connection with the name of an absent servitor, hopelessly drunk, -Anthony gathered, in the stable. - -A bell sounded sharply from above, and he disappeared abruptly, shouting -up the stair. Then, shortly after, he reappeared in the dining room with -a tray bearing a pitcher of water, glasses, and a bottle labelled with -the name of a popular brand of whiskey. "Can you run this up to your -folks?" he demanded, in a storm of explosive breaths; "I got enough to -stall three men down here." Anthony balanced the tray, and moved toward -the stair. - -He stopped in the hallway to redispose his burden, when he heard the -changing gears of a second automobile without. He moved carefully -upward, conscious of lowered voices at his back, then the sound of -footsteps following him. He turned as he had been directed in the hall -above, and knocked upon a closed door. Kuhn's sullen voice bade him -enter. He had opened the door, when, almost upsetting the tray, a small -group at his back pushed him aside, and entered Hartmann's room. - - - - -XXVI - -THE flaring gas jet within shone on Hartmann, in his shirt sleeves, -reclining collarless on a bed, while the yellow-haired woman, in a -short, vividly green petticoat, but otherwise normally garbed, sat by -him twisting her fingers in his hair. Mrs. Dallam, her waist open at the -neck, was cold-creaming her throat, while Kuhn was decorating her bared -arms with pats of pink powder from a silver-mounted puff. He turned at -the small commotion in the doorway.... His jaw dropped, and his glabrous -eyes bulged in incredulous dismay. The powder puff fell to the floor; he -wet his dry lips with his tongue. "Minna!" he stammered; "Minna!" - -The woman in the door had grey hair streaked and soiled with sallow -white, and a deeply scored, harsh countenance. Her gnarled hands were -tightly clenched, and her tall, spare figure shook from suppressed -excitement and emotion. At her back were two men, one unobtrusive, -remarkable in his lack of salient feature; the other stolidly, heavily, -Semitic. - -Hartmann hastily scrambled into an upright position; the woman at his -side gave vent to a startled, slight scream, desperately arranging -her scant draperies; Mrs. Dallam, with a stony face, continued to rub -cold-cream into her throat. - -"Now, Mrs. Kuhn," Hartmann stuttered, "everything can he satisfactorily -explained." The woman he addressed paid not the slightest attention -to him, but, advancing into the room, gazed with mingled hatred and -curiosity at Mrs. Dallam. The two women stood motionless, tense, -oblivious to the others, in their silent, merciless battle. The latter -smiled slightly, with coldly-contemptuous lips, at the grotesque figure, -the ill-fitting dress upon the wasted body, the hat pinned askew on the -thin, time-stained hair, before her. And the other, painfully rigid, -worn, brittle, gazed with bitter appraisal at the softly-rounded, -graceful figure, the mature youth, that mocked her. - -"Minna," Kuhn reiterated, "come outside, won't you, I want to see you -outside. Tell her to go out, Abbie," he entreated the stolid figure -at the door; "it ain't fit for her to be here. I will see you all down -stairs." He laid a shaking hand upon his wife's shoulder. "Come away," -he implored. - -But still, unconscious apparently of his presence, she gazed at Mrs. -Dallam. - -"You gutter piece!" she said finally; "you thief!" - -Mrs. Dallam laughed easily. "Steal that!" she exclaimed, indicating -Kuhn, "that... beetle! If it's any consolation to you--he hasn't put -his hand on me. It makes me ill to be near him. I should be grateful if -you'd take him home." - -"That's so, Mrs. Kuhn," Hartmann interpolated eagerly, "nothing's went -on you couldn't witness, nothing." - -Tears stole slowly over the inequalities of Mrs. Kuhn's countenance. -She trembled so violently that the man called Abbie stepped forward -and supported her. Now tears streamed copiously over Kuhn's narrow -countenance. "Oh, Minna!" he cried, "_can_ I go home with you? can I go -_now?_ These people don't mean anything to me, not like you do.--I get -crazy at times, and gotta have excitement; I hate it," he declared; -"but I can't somehow stand out against it. But you must give me another -try.... Why, I'd be nothing in the world without you; I'd go down to -hell alive without you, Minna." - -Mrs. Kuhn became unmanageable; she uttered a series of short, gasping -cries, and wilted into the arm about her. "Take her out, Abbie," Kuhn -entreated, "take her out of this." Anthony, with the tray still balanced -in his grasp, stood aside. The man without characteristics was making -rapid notes in an unostentatious wallet. Then Mrs. Kuhn, supported and -followed by her husband and the third, disappeared into the hall. - -"Shut the door," Hartmann commanded sharply; "and give me a drink." -Anthony set the tray on a table. "God!" the yellow-haired woman -ejaculated, "me too." Mrs. Dallam returned to the mirror, and surveyed -the effects of the cold cream. With an expression of distaste she -brushed the marks of the powder from her arm. "The beetle!" she -repeated. - -"Minna Kuhn won't bring action," Hartmann declared, with growing -confidence; "she'll take him back; nothing will come out." The other -woman drank deeply, a purplish flush mantelled her full countenance. -A strand of metallic hair slipped over her eyes. "Let her talk," she -asseverated; "we're bohemians." She clasped Hartmann to her ample bosom. - -Mrs. Dallam moved to the half opened door to the room beyond. "Bring in -the pitcher of water, Anthony," she directed. He followed her with the -water, and she bolted the door behind them. The door to the hall was -closed too. She stopped and smiled at him with narrowed, enigmatic eyes. -The subtle force of her being swept tingling over him. She laid her -hand, warm, palpitatingly alive, upon his. - -"The swine," she said; "how did we get into this, you and I?" - - - - -XXVII - -THE patent-leather dressing case lay open on a bureau, spilling a small -cascade of ivory toilet implements, a severely-plain black dinner gown -lay limp, dully shimmering, over the back of a chair, and, on the bed, a -soft, white heap of undergarments gave out a seductive odor of lavender. -"Cigarettes in the leather box," she indicated; "take some outside." A -screened door opened upon a boxlike balcony, cut into the angle of the -roof; and Anthony, conscious of the warm weight of a guiding arm, found -himself upon it. He seated himself on the railing, and lit a cigarette. -He must go in a minute, he thought. - -The lights had vanished from the valley, at his back the risen moon -dimmed the stars, turned the leaves silver grey. A wan ray fell upon -a clump of bushes below--lilacs, but the blooms had wilted, gone. The -screen door opened, and Mrs. Dallam was at his side; she sank into a -chair, the rosy blur of a cigarette in her fingers; she wore a loose -wrap of deep green silk, open at her throat upon the white web beneath; -in the obscurity her eyes were as black, as lustreless, as ebony, her -mouth was a purple stain. - -She smoked silently, gazing into the night. He would go now, he decided, -and moved from his place on the rail. But with clinging fingers she -caught his wrist, reproachfully lifting a velvety gaze. "I will not be -left alone," she declared; "I simply must have some one with me... you, -or I will get despondent. You are--no, I won't say young, that would -make you cross; you are like that fabulous fountain the Spaniards hunted -in Florida, I want to drink deep, deep." - -Anthony's resolution wavered; it was early; it pleased him that so fine -a creature should desire his presence; an unhappy note in her voice -moved him to pity. She was lonely, and he was alone--here; why should -they not support each other? He leaned, close to her, upon the sloping -roof. She talked little; she laughed once, a low, silvery peal whose -echo ran up and down his spine. - -They heard a servant closing the shutters, the doors, below them, -and the sound linked Anthony to Mrs. Dallam in a feeling of pervading -intimacy. She rose, and stood pressed against his side, and his heart -beat instantly unsteady. The night grew strangely oppressive, there was -a roll of distant, muffled thunder; he turned to her with a commonplace -about the heat, when her arms went about his neck, and she kissed him -full, slowly, upon the lips. Unconsciously he held her supple body to -him. She leaned back against his arms, her eyes shut and lips parted. A -terrible and brute tyranny of desire welled up within him, sweeping away -every vestige of control, of memory. The sky whirled in his vision, the -substantial world vanished in a smother of flaming mists. - -Then he released her so suddenly that she fell against the rail, -recovering her poise with difficulty. Anthony stumbled back, drawing -his hand across his brow. "What... what damned perfume's on you?" he -demanded hoarsely. - -"None at all," she assured him, "I never... Why, Anthony, are you ill?" - -Wave after wave of sweetness enveloped him, choking, nauseating, -stinging his eyes, extinguishing the fire within him, turning the lust -to ashes. He too supported himself upon the rail, and his gaze fell -below, to the bushes. Was it the moonlight, or were they, where they had -been bare a few minutes before, now covered with great misty masses of -lilacs? - -The perfume of the flowers came up to him breath on breath: he could see -them clearly now.... White lilacs! An overwhelming panic swept over him, -a sudden dread of his surrounding, of the silken figure of the woman -before him. He must get away. He pushed her roughly aside, swung back -the screen door, and clattered through the room and down the stair. He -fumbled for a moment with a bolted door, and then was outside, free. -Without hesitancy he fled into the night, the secretive shadows. He -ran until he literally fell, with bursting lungs and shaking, powerless -knees, upon a bank. - - - - -XXVIII - -THE hotel was lost; the silence, the peace of nature, unbroken. A -drowsy flutter of wings stilled in a hedge. The moon sailed behind a -cloud that drooped low upon the earth, and great, slow drops of rain -fell to a continuous and far reverberation. They struck coolly upon -Anthony's face, pattered among the grass, dropped with minute explosions -of dust upon the road. The shower passed, the cloud dissolved, and the -crystal flood of light fell once more into the cup of the valley. - -It spread like a balm over Anthony: Hartmann, Mrs. Dallam, the weeping -face of Mrs. Kuhn, were like painted figures in a distasteful act upon -which he had turned his back, from which he had gone forth into the -supreme spectacle of the spheres, the presence of Eliza Dreen. Every -atom thrilled with the thought of her. "Oh, my very dear," he whispered -to the sleeping birds, the dead, white disk of the moon: "I will come -back to you... good." - -After the rain the night was like a damp, sweet veil upon his face; -the few stars above him were blurred as though seen through tears; the -horizon burned in a circle of flickering, ruddy light. He took up his -way once more over the soft folds of the road; now, accustomed to the -dark, he could distinguish the smooth pebbles by the way, separate, grey -blades of grass. He walked buoyantly, tirelessly, weaving on the loom -of the dim miles mingled visions of future and past, dominated by the -serene presence of Eliza. - -He felt in a pocket the wallet containing his ticket to California and -the generous sum added by his father. There must be no more delay in -arriving at his western destination! His excursion with Hartmann had -been a grave error; he saw it clearly now, one of those faults--so -fatally easy for him to commit--which, if his life was to spell success, -if he was to come finally into his heritage of joy, he must scrupulously -avoid. In the future he would drive directly, safely, toward his goal; -he would become part of that orderly pattern of life plotted in streets -and staid occupations: at the end of day he would return to his small, -carefully-tended garden to weed and water, and sit with Eliza on his -portico--a respectable, an authentic, member of society. On Sunday -morning they would go to the Episcopal Church, they would join the -sober, festivally-garbed procession moving toward the faint thunder of -the organ. And, at dinner, he would carve the roast. Thus, quietly, -they would grow old, grey, together. They would have a number of -children--all girls, he decided. - -Imperceptibly the morning was born about him, faint shadows grew under -the hedges, the sweet, querulous note of a robin sounded from the -sparkling sod. A wind stirred, as immaculate, as dewly fresh, as though -it were the first breath blown upon a new world of virginal and lyric -beauty. The molten gold of the sun welled out of the east and spilled -over the wooded hills and meadows; the violet mists drawn over the -swales and streams dissolved; Anthony met a boy driving cows to pasture. - - - - -XXIX - -HE rapidly overtook a bent and doggedly tramping figure; no common -wanderer, he recognized, as he drew nearer. The others decent suit was -eminently presentable, his felt hat brushed, his shoes comparatively -new. He turned upon Anthony a countenance as expressionless, as -darkly-stained, as a chipped and rusted effigy of iron; deep lines fell -back across the dingy cheeks; his lipless mouth was, apparently, another -such line; and his eyes, deeply sunk in the skull, were the eyes of a -dead man. Yet they were not blind; they saw. - -He halted, and surveyed Anthony with a lowered, searching curiosity, -clenching with a strained and surprising force the knob of a black -stick. Anthony met his scrutiny with the salutation of youth and the -road; but the other made no reply; his countenance was as blank as -though no word had been spoken. Then a sudden flicker of hot light -burned in the dull depths of his gaze, his worn face quivered with -a swift malignancy, an energy of suspicion, of hatred, that touched -Anthony's heart with a cold finger of fear. - -"What's your name?" he demanded, his entire being strained in an agony -of attention. - -Anthony informed him with scrupulous exactitude. - -He seemed, for a moment, to doubt Anthony's identity; then the fire -died, his eyes grew blank; his grasp relaxed on the stick, and, bent, -dogged, he continued on his way. - -The repellent contraction of Anthony's heart expanded in a light and -careless curiosity, youthful contempt mingled with the gayety of his -morning mood, and he hastened his steps until he had again overtaken his -inquisitor. - -"That's a good cane you've got," he observed of the stout shaft and -rounded head. - -Its owner grasped it by the lower end, and swung the head against his -hand. "Lead," he pronounced somberly. "It would crumble your skull like -an egg." - -Again fear stirred vaguely in Anthony: the entire absence of emotion -in the sanguinary, the dull, matter-of-fact voice were inhuman, tainted -with madness; the total detachment of those deliberate words had been -appalling. - -"I thought," he continued, "that you might have been Alfred Lukes, -but you're too young." As he pronounced that name his grasp tightened -whitely about the lead knob. The conviction seized Anthony that it was -fortunate he was not the individual in question. - -"You want Alfred?" he asked in an attempted jocularity. - -"He murdered my boy," the other answered simply. "Him and another. They -asked James into a boat to go fishing. Boys will always go fishing; he -was only eleven." He stopped in the middle of the road, and produced a -small package folded in oiled silk. It proved to be a derringer, of an -old-fashioned model, with two, short black barrels, one atop the other. -"Loaded," he said, "to put against his face." Then he rewrapped the -weapon and returned it to its place of concealment. "I've been looking -for Alfred Lukes for nineteen years," he recommenced his dogged -progress, "in trains and saloons and stores. Nineteen years ago James -was found in the river." He was silent for a moment, then, "One eye was -torn out," he added in his weary voice. He turned his blank and terrible -gaze upon Anthony, upon the sparkling morning. The derringer dragged -slightly upon his coat, the stick--that stick which could crush a skull -like an egg--made its trailing signature in the dust. A mingled loathing -and pity took possession of Anthony; he recoiled from the corroding and -secret horror of that nineteen year Odyssey of a torturing and impotent -spirit of revenge, from the infinite black tide that had swept over the -stooping figure at his side, the pitiless memory that had destroyed its -sanity. - -"It was on Sunday; James had on his nice blue suit and a new, red silk -necktie... they found it knotted about his throat... as tight as a big -man could make it." - -A sudden impulse overcame Anthony to run, to leave far behind him this -sinister, animated speck on the sunny road, under the dusty branches -burdened with ripening fruit, thrilling with the bubbling notes of -birds. But, as his gaze fell again upon his companion, he saw only -an old man, gaunt with suffering, hurrying toward the noon. A deep, -cleansing compassion vanquished the dread, and, spontaneously, he spoke -of his own lighter affairs, of California, his destination. - -"I have never been west of Chicago," the other interposed. "I hadn't the -money; the walking is dreadfully hard; the sun on those plains hurt my -head. Do you suppose James Lukes is in California?" he asked, pausing -momentarily in his rapid shamble. - -In his careless, youthful egotism, Anthony ignored the query. He -wondered aloud where he could board a through train to the West. - -"Have you got your ticket?" - -Anthony tapped complacently upon the pocket that held the wallet. They -were walking now through a wood that flowed to the rim of the road, and -a turn hid either vista. A stream ran through the rank greenery of the -bottom, crossed by a bridge of loosely bolted planks. Anthony paused, -intent upon the brown, sliding water beneath him, the minute minnows -balancing against the stream. In that closed place of broken light the -cool stillness was profound. The stream fled past its weeds without a -gurgle, the leaves hung motionless, as though they had been stamped from -metal... he might have been, with his companion, within a charmed circle -of everlasting tranquillity. Then: - -"I wonder if Alfred Lukes is in California?" the latter resumed; "I've -never got there, the fare... too expensive, the sun hurt my head." -Anthony lit a Dulcina, and expelled a cloud of blue smoke that rose -compactly in the motionless air. "California," he repeated, sunk in -thought; "I wonder--" - -"California's a big place," Anthony hazarded. - -"If he was there I'd find him." Then, in his mechanical and -dispassionate voice, he cursed Alfred Lukes with the utmost foulness. -One heated word, the slightest elevation of his even tones, would have -made the performance human, intelligent, but the deadly monotony, the -impersonal accents, were as harrowing as though a mummy had ground out -of its shrunken and embalmed interior a recital of prehistoric hatred -and wrong; it resembled a phonograph record of incalculable depravity. -He stood beyond the bridge, resting upon his stick, with his unmoved -face turned toward Anthony. His hat cast a deep shade over his eyes; -but, below, in a wanton patch of sunlight, his lipless mouth trembled -greyly. - -"California," he repeated still again, then, "I must get there." He -shifted his hand lower upon the stick, and moved nearer to Anthony by a -step; the patch of sunlight shifted up to his hat and fled. - -"You could try the freight cars," Anthony suggested. The stooping, -neatly-brushed figure, the stony countenance, had become, in an -intangible manner, menacing, obscurely dangerous. The fingers were drawn -like a claw about the club. Then the arm relaxed, he seemed to shrink -into hopeless resignation. Beyond the leafy arcade Anthony could now -see the countryside spread out in sunny fields, fleecy, white clouds -shifting in the sea of blue.... Suddenly a great flame shot up before -his eyes, a stunning shock fell upon his head, and the flame went out -in a whirling darkness that swept like a black sea over a continent of -intolerable pain. He heard, as if from an immense distance, a thin voice -pronounce the single word, "California." - - - - -XXX - -A GRIPPING wave of nausea recalled Anthony to consciousness; a deathly -sickness spreading from the pit of his stomach through his entire being; -his prostrate head, seeming stripped of its skull, was tortured by the -dragging fronds of the ferns among which he lay. He sat up dizzily. -Through the leafy opening the fleeting forms of the clouds shifted -over the sunny hills. The stream slipped silently through the grass. He -staggered down the slight incline, and, falling forward upon the ground, -let the water flow over his throbbing head. The cool shock revived him, -and he washed away a dark, clotted film from his forehead and cheek. - -His wallet, with his ticket to California and store of money were gone. -He started in instant, unsteady pursuit of the man who had struck him -down and robbed him. But, at the edge of the wood he paused--how long -had he lain among the ferns? the sun was now high over his head, the -morning lapsed, the other might have had three, four hours' start. -He might now be entrained, bound for California, searching for Alfred -Lukes. A sudden weakness forced him to sit at the roadside; he lost -consciousness again for a moment. Then, summoning his youth, his -vitality, he rose, and walked unsteadily in search of assistance. - -He had proceeded an intolerable mile, wiping away a thin trickle of -blood that persisted in crawling into his eye, when he saw a low roof -amid a tangle of greenery. He stopped with a sobbing breath of relief. -He was delirious, he thought, for peering at him through the leaves he -saw the countenance and beautiful, bare body of a child, as dark and -tense as bronze. A cloud of black hair overhung a face vivid as a -flower; her crimson lips trembled; then, with a startled cry, the figure -vanished. - -He made his way with difficulty over a short path, overgrown with vines -and twisted branches, and came abruptly upon a low, white house and -wide, opened door. An aged and shapeless woman sat on a chair without a -back, cutting green beans into a bright tin basin. When she saw him -she dropped the pan with a clatter, and an unfamiliar exclamation of -surprise. - -"I've been hurt," Anthony explained; "knocked silly and robbed." - -"Gina!" she called excitedly; "Dio mio! _Gina!_" A young woman, large -and loosely molded, with a lusty baby clasped to her bared breast, -appeared in the doorway. When she saw Anthony she dropped the baby into -the elder's arms. "Poverino!" she cried; "come in the house, little -mister." She caught him by the arm, almost lifting him over the doorstep -into a cool, dark interior. He had a brief glimpse of drying vegetables -strung from the ceiling, of a waxen image of the virgin in faded pink -silk finery against the wall; then, with closed eyes, he relaxed -into the charge of soothing and skilled fingers. His head rested on a -maternal arm while a soft bandage was fixed about his forehead. - -"Ecco!" she ejaculated, her ministration successful. She led him to a -rude couch upon the floor, and gently insisted upon his lying down. He -attempted to thank her, but she laid her large, capable hand over his -mouth, and he sank into an exhausted, semi-conscious rest. Once she bent -over him, dampening the bandage, once he saw, against the light of the -door, the shape, slim and beautiful as an angel, of the child. Outside -a low, liquid murmur of voices continued without a break, strange and -quieting. - -He slept, and woke up refreshed, strengthened. The dusk had thickened in -the room, the strings of vegetables were lost in the shadows, a dim -oil lamp cast a feeble glow on rude walls. He lay motionless for a few, -delightful seconds, folded in absolute peace, beneficent quietude. The -amazing idea struck him that, perhaps, he had died, and that this was -the eternal tranquillity of the hymn books, and he started vigorously -to his feet in an absurd panic. The homely figure of a man entering -dispelled the illusion--he was a commonplace Italian, one of the -multitude who labored in the ditches of the country, stood aside in -droves from the tracks as trains whirled past. - -"What hit your head?" he asked, his mobile face displaying sympathetic -interest, concern. - -"A leaded stick," Anthony explained. "I was knocked out, robbed." - -"Birbanti!" he laid a heavy hand upon Anthony's shoulder. "You feel -better now, gia?" The latter, confused by such open attention, shook -the hand from its friendly grip. "He was crazy," he awkwardly explained; -"and looking for a man who had killed his son; he wanted to get to -California and I told him I had a ticket west." - -The laborer led Anthony to a room where a rude table was spread with -homely fare--a great, rough loaf of bread, a deep bowl of steaming, -green soup, flakey white cheese, and a bottle of purple wine. An open -door faced the western sky, and the room was filled with the warm -afterglow; it hung like a shining veil over the man, the still, maternal -countenance of the woman, like an aureole about the baby now sleeping -against her breast, and graced the russet countenance of an aged -peasant. The child that Anthony had seen first, now in a scant white -slip, seemed dipped in the gold of dreams. - -As he consumed the savory soup, the creamy cheese and wine, the scene -impressed him as strangely significant, familiar. He dismissed an idle -effort of memory in order to consider the unfortunate aspect assumed by -his immediate affairs. Concerning one thing he was determined--he would -ask his father to assist him no further toward his western destination. -He must himself pay for the initial error, together with all its -consequences, of having followed Hartmann: California was his object, -he would not write to Ellerton until his westward progress was once more -assured. - -Two courses were open to him--he could "beat" his way, getting meals -when and how he was able, riding, when possible, on freight cars, doing -casual jobs on the way. That he dismissed in favor of a second, which -in the end, he judged, would prove more speedy. He would make his way -to the nearest city, find employment in a public or private garage as -chauffeur or mechanic, and, in a month at most, have the money necessary -for the continuation of his journey. - -The household conversed vigorously in their native idiom, giving his -thoughts full freedom. The glow in the west faded, sank from the room, -but, suddenly, he recognized the familiar quality of his surroundings. -It resembled a picture of the Holy Family on the wall of his mother's -room; the bare interior was the same, the rugged features of Joseph the -carpenter, the brooding beauty of Mary. He almost laughed aloud at the -absurd comparison of the exalted scene of Christ's infancy with this -commonplace but kindly group, the laborer with soiled and callous hands -and winestained mouth, the material young woman with the string of cheap -blue beads. - -The meal at an end the chairs were pushed back and the old woman noisily -assembled the dishes. Anthony's head throbbed and burned. In passing, -the mother's fingers rested upon his brow. "Not too hot," she nodded -contentedly. - -A consultation followed. Anthony might remain there for the night; or, -if he insisted, he might drive into the city with "Nono," who left in -a few hours with a wagonload of greens for the morning market. He chose -the latter, with a clumsy expression of gratitude, impatient to resume -active efforts in his rehabilitation in his own mind. - -"Niente!" they disclaimed in chorus. - - - - -XXXI - -HE fell into an instant slumber on the hospitable heap in the corner, -and was awakened while it was still dark. In the flicker of the oil lamp -the old man's face swam vaguely against the night. Without the wagon was -loaded, a drooping horse insecurely harnessed into patched shafts. The -world was a still space of blue gloom, of indefinite forms suspended -in the hush of color, sound; it seemed to be spun out of shadows like -cobwebs, out of vapors, scents. A pale, hectic glow on the horizon -marked the city. They ambled noiselessly, slowly, forward, under the -vague foliage of trees. There was a glint of light in a passing -window, the clatter of milk pails; a rooster crowed, thin and clear and -triumphant; on a grassy slope by the road they saw a smoldering fire, -recumbent forms. - -They entered the soiled and ragged outskirts of the city--isolated -ranks of hideous, boxlike dwellings amid raw stretches of clay, rank -undergrowth. The horse's hoofs rang on a bricked pave, and the city -surged about them. Overhead the elevated tracks made a confused, black -tracing rippling with the red and white and green fire of signals. A -gigantic truck, drawn by plunging horses whose armored hoofs were ringed -in pale flame, passed with a shattering uproar of its metallic load. A -train thundered above with a dolorous wail, showering a lurid trail -of sparks into the sky, out of which a thick soot sifted down upon -the streets. On either hand the blank walls of warehouses shut in the -pavements deserted save for a woman's occasional, chalky countenance in -the frosty area of the arc lights, or a drunkard lurching laboriously -over the gutters. The feverish alarm of firebells sounded from a distant -quarter. A heavy odor of stagnant oil, the fetid smoke of flaring -chimneys, settled over Anthony, and gratefully he recalled the pastoral -peace of the house he had left--the house hidden in its tangled verdure -amid the scented space of the countryside. - -They stopped finally before a shed open upon the street, where -bluish-orange flames, magnified by tin reflectors, illuminated busy -groups. Silvery fish with exposed carmine entrails were ranged -in rows; the crisp, green spoil of the countryside was spread in the -stalls--the silken stalks of early onions, the creamy pink of carrots, -wine-red beets; rosy potatoes were heaped by cool, crusty cantaloupe, -the vert pods of peas, silvery spinach and waxy, purple eggplant. Over -all hung the delicate aroma of crushed mint, the faint, sweet tang of -scarlet strawberries, the spicy fragrance of simple flowers--of cinnamon -pinks and heliotrope and clover. - -Anthony assisted the other to transfer his load to part of a stall -presided over by a woman with bare, powerful elbows, shouting in a -boisterous voice in perfect equality with her masculine neighbors. - -High above the dawn flushed the sky; the flares dimmed from a source of -light to mere colored fans, and were extinguished. Early buyers arrived -at the market with baskets and pushcarts. - -Anthony remained at the old man's side; it was too early to start -in search of work; and, at his companion's invitation, he shared the -latter's breakfast of cheese and bread, with a stoup of the bitter wine. -As the market became crowded, in the stress of competition, bargaining, -the vendor forgot Anthony's presence; and with a deep breath of -determination, he started in search of employment; he again faced the -West. - -He had no difficulty in discovering the section of the city given over -to the automobile industry, a broad, asphalt way with glittering show -windows, serried ranks of cars, by either curb. There was, however, -no work to be obtained here; a single offer would scarcely pay for his -maintenance; in its potentialities California was the merest blur upon -the future. Then for a second and more lucrative position he lacked the -necessary papers. Midday found him without a prospect of employment. He -had almost two dollars in change that had remained intact; and, lunching -sparingly, he continued his inquiries. - -It was late when he found himself before a sign that proclaimed the -ability within to secure positions for competent chauffeurs. And, -influenced largely by the chairs which he saw ranged against the wall, -he entered and registered. The fee for registration was a dollar, and -that left him with scant supplies as he took a place between three other -men awaiting skeptically the positions which they had been assured they -might confidently expect. With a casual nod to Anthony, a small man -with watery blue eyes, clad in a worn and greasy livery, continued -a dissertation on methods of making money additional to that of mere -salary, of agreements with tiremen, repairs necessary and otherwise, the -proper manner in which to bring a car's life quickly and gracefully to -a close, in order, he added slyly to the indifferent clerk, to encourage -the trade. - -The afternoon wasted slowly but surely to a close; no one entered and -the three rose with weary oaths and left in search of a convenient -saloon. They waved to Anthony to follow them, but he silently declined. - -A profound depression settled over him, a sense of impotence, of -failure. His wounded head fretted him with frequent hot pains. He was -enveloped by a sense of desolating loneliness which he endeavored to -dispel with the thought of Eliza; but she remained as far, as faintly -sweet, as the moon of a spring night. It seemed incredible that she -had once been in his arms; surely he had dreamed her voice--such voices -couldn't exist in reality--telling him that she loved him. Her letter -had gone with his wallet, his ticket to California. He had not written -her... she would be unable to penetrate the reason for his silence, -his shame for blundering into such a blind way, his lack of anything -reassuring to tell her. He could not write until his feet were once more -firmly planted upon the only path that led to success, to happiness, to -her. - - - - -XXXII - -THE clock on the wall above the clerk's head indicated half past five, -and Anthony, relinquishing hope for the day, rose. Now he regretted the -apparently fruitless expenditure of a dollar. "Leave an address?" the -clerk inquired mechanically. "Office open at nine." - -"I'll be back," Anthony told him. He turned, and collided with a man -entering suddenly from the street. He was past middle age, with a long, -pallid countenance, drooping snuff-colored mustache, a preoccupied gaze -behind bluish glasses, and was clad in correct brown linen, but wore an -incongruously battered and worn soft hat. - -"I want a man to drive my car," he announced abruptly. "I don't -particularly care for a highly expert individual, but his habits--" he -broke off, and muttered, "superficial adjustment to environment--popular -conception of acquired characteristics." Then, "must be moderate," he -ended unexpectedly. - -Anthony lingered, while the clerk assured the other that several highly -desirable individuals were available. "In fact," he told him, "one left -the office only a few minutes ago; I will have him call upon you in the -morning." - -"What's this?" he replied, indicating Anthony; "is he a chauffeur?" -The clerk nodded. "But," he added, "the man I refer to is older, more -experienced... sure to satisfy you." - -"What references have you?" the prospective employer demanded. - -"None," Anthony answered directly. The clerk dismissed his chances with -a gesture. - -"What experience?" the other persisted. "Driving on and off for four or -five years, and I am a fair mechanic." - -"Fair only?" - -"That's all, sir." - -The older man drew nearer to Anthony, scrutinizing him with a kindly -severity. "What's the matter with your head?" he demanded. - -"I was knocked down and robbed on a country road." - -"Lose much?" - -"Everything." - -"Drinking?" - -"No, sir." - -"Familiar with prehistoric geological strata?" Anthony admitted that he -was not. - -"I had hoped," the other murmured, "to get a driver who could assist me -with my indices." He renewed his close inspection, then, "Elemental," he -pronounced suddenly; "I'll take you." - -"Five dollars, please," interpolated the clerk. Outside his new employer -took Anthony by the shoulder, glancing over his suit. "You can get your -things, and then go out to my house." - -"I can go sooner than that," Anthony corrected him. "I have no things." - -"Nothing but those clothes! Why... they will hardly do, will they? You -must get something, take it out of your salary. But, hang it, a man must -have a change of clothes! You must allow me--you are only a boy. I'll -come along; no--impossible." He took a long wallet from his pocket and -placed it in Anthony's hands. "I don't know what such things cost," -he said. "I think there's enough; get what you need. I must be off... -Mousterian deposits. Customs House." Before Anthony could reply he -had started away in a long, quick stride, but he stopped short. "My -address," he cried, "clean forgot." He gave Anthony a street and number. - -"Rufus Hardinge," he called, hurrying away. - -Anthony stood gazing in incredulous surprise at the polished, brown -wallet in his hand. He turned to hurry after the other, to protest, but -already he was out of sight. Anthony slipped the wallet in his pocket, -and, his head in a whirl, walked slowly over the street until he found -himself opposite a large retail clothing establishment. After a brief -hesitation he entered, pausing to glance hastily at his resources. In -the leather pocket which contained the paper money he saw a comfortable -number of crisp yellow bills; the rest of the space was taken up by -bulky and wholly unintelligible notes. - -He purchased a serviceable suit, stout shoes, a cap, and, after a short -consideration, two flannel shirts. If this were not satisfactory, he -concluded, he could pay with a portion of his salary. The slip of the -total amount, which he carefully folded, registered thirty-one dollars -and seventy cents. - -At a small tobacco shop, where he drew upon his own rapidly diminishing -capital, he discovered from the proprietor that it would be necessary -to take a suburban car to the address furnished him. He rolled rapidly -between rows of small, identical, orderly brick dwellings; on each -shallow portico a door exhibited an obviously meretricious graining; -dingy or garish curtains draped the single lower windows; the tin eaves -were continuous, unvaried, monotonous. Occasionally a greengrocer's -display broke the monotony of the vitreous way, a rare saloon or -drugstore held the corners. Farther on the street suffered a decline, -the line of dwellings was broken by patches of bedraggled gardens, set -with the broken fragments of stone ornaments; small frame structures, -streaked by the weather and blistered remnants of paint, alternated with -stables, stores heaped with the sorry miscellanies of meager, disrupted -households. Imperceptibly green spaces opened, foliage fluttered in the -orange light of the declining sun; through an opening in the habited -wall he caught sight of a glimmering stream, cows wandering against a -hill. - -He left the car finally at a lane where the houses, set back solidly in -smooth, opulent lawns, were somberly comfortable, reserved. The place -he sought, a four-square ugly dwelling faced with a tower, the woodwork -painted mustard yellow, was surrounded by gigantic tulip poplars. At the -front a cement basin caught the spray from a cornucopia held aloft -by sportive cherubs balanced precariously on the tails of reversed -dolphins, circled by a tan-bark path to the entrance and a broad side -porch. He was about to ring the bell when a high, young voice summoned -him to the latter. There he discovered a girl with a mass of coppery -hair, loosely tied and streaming over her shoulder, in a coffee-colored -wicker chair. She was dressed in white, without ornaments, and wore pale -yellow silk stockings. A yellow paper book, with a title in French, -was spread upon her lap; and, gravely sitting at her side, was a large -terrier with a shaggy yellow coat. - -"I suppose," she said without preliminary, "that you are the person -who took father's money. It was really unexpected of you to appear with -_any_ of it. Give me the wallet," she demanded, without allowing him -opportunity for a reply. - -He gave it to her without comment, a humorous light rising in his clear -gaze. "I warn you," she continued, "I know every penny that was in it. I -always give him a fixed amount when he goes out." She emptied the money -into her lap, and counted it industriously: at the end she wrinkled her -brow. - -"Here is a note of what I spent," he informed her, tendering her the -slip from the store. She scanned it closely. "That's not unreasonable," -she admitted finally, palpably disappointed that no villainous -discrepancy had been revealed; "and it adds up all right." Then, with an -assumption of business despatch, "It must come out of your salary, of -course; father is frightfully impractical." - -"Of course," he assented solemnly. - -"Your references--" - -"I haven't any." - -She made an impatient gesture of dismay; the terrier rose and surveyed -him with a low growl. "He promised me that he would do the thing -properly, that I positively need not go. What experience have you had?" - -He told her briefly. - -"Dreadfully unsatisfactory," she commented, "and you are oceans too -young. But... we will try you for one week; I can't promise any more. -Would you be willing to help a little in the house--opening boxes, -unwrapping bones--?" - -"Certainly," he assured her cheerfully, "any little thing I can do...." - -"The car's at the bottom of the garden, it has to be brought around by -the side street. There's a room overhead, and a bell from the house. You -must come up very quickly if, in the night, it rings three times, for -that," she informed him, "will mean burglars. My father and I are quite -alone here with two women. I can't think of anything else now." The -terrier moved closer to Anthony, sniffing at his shoes, then raised his -golden eyes and subjected him to a lengthy, thoughtful scrutiny. "That -is Thomas Huxley," she informed him; "he is a perfectly wonderful -investigator, and detests all sentimentality. You will come up to the -kitchen for meals," she called, as Anthony turned to descend the lawn; -"the bell will ring for your dinner." - - - - -XXXIII - -HE found the automobile in the semi-gloom of a closed carriage house. -On the right, separated by a partition, were three loose stalls, -apparently long unoccupied; their ornamental fringe of straw had -moldered, and dank, grey heaps of feed lay in the troughs. A ladder -fixed vertically against a wall disappeared into cobwebby shadows above; -and mounting, Anthony found the room to which he had been directed. It, -too, was partitioned from the great, bare space of the hay-loft; the -musty smell of old hay and heated wood hung dusty, heavy, about the -corners, where sounded the faint squeaks of scattering mice. The space -which he was to occupy had been rigorously swept and aired; print -curtains hung at the small dormer window that overlooked the lawn, -while, above the washstand, was the bell which, he had been warned, -would appraise him of the possible presence of burglars above. A bright -metal clock ticked noisily on a deal bureau, and, on a table beside a -pitcher and glass, two books had been arranged with precise disarray; -they proved, upon investigation, to be a volume of the Edib. Rev. LXIX, -and a bound collection of the proceedings of the Linean Society. - -He saw by the noisy clock that it was nearly seven, and, hastily -washing, responded immediately to the summons of the bell. A small, -covered porch framed the kitchen door, where he entered to find a long -room dimly lit, and a dinner set at the end of a table. A bulky woman -with a flushed countenance and massive ankles in white cotton stockings -set before him half a broiled chicken, an artichoke with a bowl of -yellow sauce, and a silver jug of milk. - -"God knows it's a queer meal to put to a hearty young lad," she -observed; "but it's all was ordered. There's not a pitata in the house," -she added in palpable disgust. A younger woman in a frilled apron -appeared from within, carrying a tray of used dishes. She had a trim -figure, and a broad face glowing with rude vitality, which, with an -assumption of disdain, she turned upon Anthony. "I'd never trust myself -with him in the machine," she observed to the older woman, "and him not -more than a child." - -"Be holding your impudent clatter," the other commanded, "you're not -required to go out with him at all." - -"Mr. Hardinge says, will you see him in the library when you have -done," the former shot at Anthony over a shapely shoulder. "You can walk -through the dining room to where he is beyond." - -The library was a somber chamber: its long windows were draped with -stiff folds of green velvet, its walls occupied by high bookcases with -leaded glass doors and ornamental Gothic points under the ceiling. -A massive desk was piled with papers, pamphlets, printed reports, -comparative tables of figures, an hundred and one huddled details; the -table beneath a glittering crystal chandelier was hardly better; even -the floor was stacked with books about the chair where Anthony found his -employer. The latter looked up absently from a printed sheet as Anthony -entered. - -"Positively," he pronounced, "there are not enough dominants to secure -Mendel's position." His expression was profoundly disturbed. - -"Yes, sir," Anthony replied non-committally. "The consequences of that," -the other continued, "are beyond prediction." Silence descended -upon him; his fixed gaze seemed to be contemplating some unexpected -catastrophe, some grave peril, opened before him in the still chamber. -"I am at a temporary loss!" he ejaculated suddenly; "we are all at a -loss... unless my experiments in pure descent warrant--" Suddenly he -became aware of Anthony's presence. "Oh!" he said pleasantly; "glad you -got fixed up. Say nothing more to Annot--it's all nonsense, taking it -out of your salary. That's what I wanted to see you for," he added; -"what salary do you require? what did you get at your last place?" - -Anthony made a swift calculation of the distance to California, the -probable cost of carriage. "I should like seventy-five," he pronounced -finally. His conscience suddenly and uncomfortably awoke in the presence -of the other's unquestioning generosity. "Perhaps I'd better tell -you that I don't intend to stay here long.... I am anxious to get to -California." - -But Rufus Hardinge had already forgotten him. "Seventy-five," he had -murmured, with a satisfied nod, and once more concentrated his attention -upon the sheet in his hand. As Anthony returned through the dining room -he found Annot Hardinge arranging a spray of scarlet verbena in a glass -vase. - -"Has father spoken to you about the salary you are to get?" she asked. -He paused, cap in hand. "I told him that you were positively not to get -above eighty." - -"I told him seventy-five. He seemed contented." - -"He would have been contented if you had said seven hundred and fifty." -Then, to discountenance any criticism of her father's intelligence, she -added: "He is a very famous biologist, you know. The people about here -don't understand those things, but in London, in Paris, in Berlin, he -is easily one of the greatest men alive. He is carrying the Mendelian -theory to its absolute, logical conclusion." - -"He said something about that to me," Anthony commented; "it seemed to -upset him." - -A cloud appeared upon her countenance; then, coldly, "That will do," she -told him. - -Once more in the informal garage he lit the gas jet on either wall, and, -in the bubbling, watery light, found the automobile caked with mud and -grease, the tires flat, the wires charred and the cylinders coated with -carbon. A pair of old canvas trousers were hanging from a nail, and, -donning them and connecting a length of hose to a convenient faucet, he -began the task of putting the machine in order. It was past eleven -when he finished for the night, and mounting with cramped and stiffened -muscles to his room, he fell into immediate slumber. - - - - -XXXIV - -ON the following morning he wrote a brief, reassuring note to his -father; then, over another page, hesitated with poised pen. "Dear -Eliza," he finally began, then once more fell into indecision. "I wish -I were back on the Wingo-hocking with you," he' embarked. "That was -splendid, having you in the canoe, with no one else; the whole world -seemed empty except for you and me. It's no joke of an emptiness without -you. - -I have been delayed in reaching California, but I'll soon be out there -now, working like thunder for our wedding. - -"Mostly I can't realize it, it's too good to be true--you seem like -a thing I dreamed about, in a dream all full of moonlight and white -flowers. It's funny but I smell lilacs, you know like you picked, -everywhere. Last night, cleaning a car just soaked in dirt and greasy -smells, that perfume came out of nothing, and hung about so real that it -hurt me. And all the time I kept thinking that you were standing beside -me and smiling. I knew better, but I had to look more than once. - -"Love's different from what I thought it would be; I thought it would be -all happy, but it's not that, it's blamed serious. I am always flinching -from blows that might fall on you, do you see? Before I went away I -saw a man kiss a woman, and they both seemed scared; I understand that -now--they loved each other." - -He broke off and gazed out the narrow window over the feathery tops of -maples, the symmetrical, bronze tops of a clump of pines. The odor of -lilacs came to him illusively; he was certain that Eliza was standing at -his shoulder; he could hear a silken whisper, feel an intangible thrill -of warmth. He turned sharply, and faced the empty room, the bright, -stentorious clock, the table with the pitcher and glass and serious -volumes. "Hell!" he exclaimed in angry remonstrance at his credulity. -Still shaken by the reality of the impression he wondered if he were -growing crazy? The bell above the washstand rang sharply, and, putting -the incomplete letter in a drawer, he proceeded over the tanbark path -that led to the house. - -Annot Hardinge beckoned to him from the porch, and, turning, he passed a -conservatory built against the side of the dwelling, where he saw small, -identical plants ranged in mathematical rows. - -"What is your name?" she demanded abruptly, as he stopped before her. -"Anthony," he told her. - -She was dressed in apricot muslin, with a long necklace of alternate -carved gold and amber beads, dependent amber earrings, and a flapping -white hat with broad, yellow ribbands that streamed downward with her -hair. In one hand she held a pair of crumpled white gloves and a soft -gold mesh bag. - -"You may bring around the car... Anthony," she directed. "I want to go -into town." - -In the heart of the shopping district they moved slowly in an unbroken -procession of motor landaulets, open cars and private hansoms, a -glittering, colorful procession winding through the glittering, colorful -cavern of the shop windows. The sidewalks were thronged with women, -brilliant in lace and dyed feathers and jewels, the thin, sustained -babble of trivial voices mingled with the heavy, coiling odors of costly -perfumes. - -When a small heap of bundles had been accumulated a rebellious -expression clouded An-not Hardinge's countenance. "Stop at that -confectioner's," she directed, indicating a window filled with candies -scattered in a creamy tide, bister, pale mauve, and citrine, over -fluted, delicately green satin, against a golden mass of molasses bars. -She soon emerged, with a package tied in silver cord, and paused upon -the curb. "I want to go out... out, into the heart of the country," she -proclaimed; "this crowd, these tinsel women, make me ill. Drive until I -tell you to stop... away from everything." - -When they had left the tangle of paved streets, the innumerable stone -facades, she directed their course into a ravine whose steep sides were -covered with pines, at the bottom of which a stream foamed whitely over -rocky ledges. Beyond, they rose to an upland, where open, undulating -hills burned in the blue flame of noon; at their back a trail of dust -resettled upon the road, before them a glistening flock of peafowl -scattered with harsh, threatening cries. By a gnarled apple tree, whose -ripening June apples overhung the road, she called, "stop!" - -The motor halted in the spicy, dappled shadow of the tree; at one side a -cornfield spread its silken, green tapestry; on the other a pasture was -empty, close-cropped, rising to a coronal of towering chestnuts. The -road, in either direction, was deserted. - -Anthony heard a sigh of contentment at his back: relaxed from the -tension of driving he removed his cap, and, with crossed legs, -contemplated the sylvan quiet. He watched a flock of blackbirds wheeling -above the apple tree, and decided that they had been within easy shot. - -"Look over your head!" she cried suddenly; "what gorgeous apples." - -He rose, and, measuring the distance in a swift glance, jumped, and -caught hold of a limb, by means of which he drew himself up into the -tree. He mounted rapidly, filling his cap with crimson apples; when his -pockets were full he paused. Down through the screen of leaves he -could see her upturned countenance, framed in the broad, white hat; -her expression was severely impersonal; yet, viewed from that informal -angle, she did not appear displeased. And, when he had descended, she -picked critically among the store he offered. She rolled back the gloves -upon her wrists, and bit largely, with youthful gusto. On the road, -after a moment's hesitation, Anthony embarked upon the consumption of -the remainder. He strolled a short distance from the car, and found a -seat upon a low stone-wall. - - - - -XXXV - -SOON, he saw, she too left the car, and passed him, apparently ignorant -of his presence. But, upon her return, she stopped, and indicated -with her foot some feathery plants growing in a ditch by the road. -"Horsetails," she declared; "they are Paleozoic... millions of years -old." - -"They look fresh and green still," he observed. She glanced at him -coldly, but his expression was entirely serious. "I mean the species -of course. Father has fossils of the Devonian period... they were trees -then." She chose a place upon the wall, ten feet or more from him, and -sat with insolent self-possession, whistling an inconsequential tune. -There was absolutely no pose about her, he decided; she possessed a -masculine carelessness in regard to him. She leaned back, propped upon -her arms, and the frank, flowing line of her full young body was like -the June day in its uncorseted freedom and beauty. - -"If you will get that package from the confectioner's--" she suggested -finally. She unfolded the paper, and exposed a row of small cakes, which -she divided rigorously in two; rewrapping one division she held it out -toward him. - -"No, no," he protested seriously. "I'm not hungry." - -"It's past two," she informed him, "and we can't possibly be back in -time for luncheon. I'd rather not hold this out any longer." He relieved -her without further words. "Two brioche and two babas," she enumerated. -He resumed his place, and then consumed the cakes without further -speech. - -"The study of biology," she informed him later, with a gravity -appropriate to the subject, "makes a great many small distinctions seem -absurd. When you get accustomed to thinking in races, and in millions -of years, the things your friends fuss about seem absurd. And so, if you -like, why, smoke." - -It was his constant plight that, between the formal restrictions of his -position, and the vigorous novelty of her speech, Anthony was constantly -at a loss. "Perhaps," he replied inanely; "I know nothing about those -things." - -She flashed over him a candid, amber gaze that singularly resembled her -father's. "You are not at all acquisitive," she informed him; "and it's -perfectly evident that you are the poorest sort of chauffeur. You drive -very nicely," she continued with severe justice. "One could trust you -in a crisis; but it is little things that make a chauffeur, and in the -little things," she paused to indicate a globe of cigarette smoke that -instantly dissolved, "you are like--that." - -He moodily acknowledged to himself the truth of her observation, but -such acumen he considered entirely unnecessary in one so young; he did -not think it becoming. He contrasted her, greatly to her detriment, with -the elusive charm of Eliza Dreen; the girl before him was too vivid, too -secure; he felt instinctively that she was entirely free from the bonds, -the conventions, that held the majority of girls within recognized, -convenient limits. Her liberty of mind upset a balance to which both -heredity and experience had accustomed him. The entire absence of a -tacitly recognized masculine superiority subconsciously made him uneasy, -and he took refuge in imponderable silence. - -"Besides," she continued airily, "you are too physically normal to -think, all normal people are stupid.... You are like one of those wood -creatures in the classic pastorals." - -A faint grin overspread Anthony's countenance; among so many -unintelligible words he had regained his poise--this was the usual, the -familiar feminine chatter, endless, inconsequential, by means of which -all girls presented the hopeless tangle of their thoughts and emotions; -its tone had deceived him only at the beginning. - -In the stillness which followed other blackbirds, equally within shot, -winged over the apple tree; the shadow of the boughs crept farther -and farther down the road. She rose vigorously. "I must get back," she -announced. She remained silent during the return, but Anthony, with the -sense of direction cultivated during countless days in the fields and -swales, found the way without hesitation. - -When she left the car he slowly backed and circled to the carriage -house. As he splashed body and wheels with water, polished the metal, -dried and dusted the cushions, the crisp, cool voice of Annot Hardinge -rang in his ears. He divined something of her isolated existence, her -devotion to the absorbed, kindly man who was her father, and speculated -upon her matured youth. She recalled his sister Ellie, for whose -inflexible integrity he cherished a deep-seated admiration; but both -left him cold before the poignant tenderness of Eliza... Eliza, the -unforgettable, who loved him. - - - - -XXXVI - -AFTER an unsubstantial dinner of grilled sweetbreads and mushrooms, and -a frozen pudding, he continued his interrupted letter: "But there isn't -any use in my trying to write my love in words; it won't go into words, -even inside of me I can't explain it--it seems as if instead of its -being a part of me that I am a part of it, of something too big for me -to see the end of." Then he became practicable, and wrote optimistically -of the things that were soon to be. - -There was a letter box at the upper corner of the street, and, passing -the porch, he saw the biologist sunk in an attitude of profound -dejection. His daughter sat with bare arms and neck at his side; her -hair was bound in a gleaming mass about her ears, and one hand was laid -upon the man's shoulder, while she patted Thomas Huxley with the other. -The dog rose, growling belligerently at the unfamiliar figure, but sank -again beneath a sharp command. When he returned Rufus Hardinge greeted -him, and turned to his daughter with a murmured suggestion, but she -shook her head in decisive negation. A light shone palely in the long -windows at their back. The sun, at its skyey, evening toilette, seemed, -in the rosy glow of westering candles, to scatter a cloud of powdered -gold over the worn and huddled shoulders of the world. - -Suddenly, seemingly in reconsideration of her decision, she called, "Oh, -Anthony!" and he retraced his steps to the porch. "My father suggests -that you sit here," she told him distantly. "He says that you are very -young, and that solitude is not good for you." - -"Annot," the older man protested humorously, "you have mangled my intent -beyond any recognition." With an unstudied, friendly gesture he tended -Anthony his cigar case. A deep preoccupation enveloped him; he sat with -loose hands and unseeing eyes. In the deepening twilight his countenance -was grey. Anthony had taken a position upon the edge of the porch, his -feet in the fragrant grass, out of which fireflies rose glimmering, -mounting higher and higher, until, finally, they disappeared into the -night above, in the pale birth of the stars. - -A deep silence enfolded them until in an unexpected, low voice, Rufus -Hardinge repeated mechanically aloud lines called, evidently, out of a -memory of long ago: - - ''Within thy beams, Oh, Sun! or who could find, - - While fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, - - That too," he paused, groping in his memory for - - the words: - - "That too such countless orbs thou madst us - - blind." - -The girl rose, and drew his head into her warm, young arms. "Don't, -father," she cried, in a sudden, throbbing apprehension; "please... -please. You have the clearest, most beautiful eyes in the world. Think -of all they have seen and understood--" He patted her absently. Anthony -moved silently away. - - - - -XXXVII - -NOT long after, at breakfast, the young and disdainful maid conveyed to -Anthony a request to proceed, when he had finished, to the conservatory. -There he discovered Annot Har-dinge, with her sleeves rolled up above -her vigorous elbows, dusting with a fine, brown powder the rows of -monotonous, potted plants. She directed him to follow her with a -slender-nosed watering pot. He wondered silently at the featureless -display of what he found to be ordinary bean plants, some of the dwarf -variety, others drawn up against the wall. They bore in exact, minute -inscriptions, strange names and titles, cryptic numbers; some, he saw, -were labelled "Dominants," others, "Recessives." - -"The 'cupids' are doing wretchedly, poor dears!" she exclaimed before a -row of dwarf sweet peas. "This is my father's laboratory," she told him -briefly. - -"I thought he had something to do with Darwin and the missing link." - -She gazed at him pityingly from the heights of a vast superiority. -"Darwin did some valuable preliminary work," she instructed him; -"although Wallace really guessed it all first. Now Mendel, Bateson, are -the important names. They were busy with the beginnings; and, among the -beginnings, plants are the most suggestive." She indicated a small row -of budding sweet peas. "Perhaps, in those flowers, the whole secret of -the universe will be found; perhaps the mystery of our souls will be -explained; isn't it thrilling! The secret of inheritance may sleep in -those buds--if they are white it will prove... oh, a thousand things, -and among them that father is the most wonderful scientist alive; it -will explain heredity and control it, make a new kind of world possible, -a world without the most terrible diseases. What church, what saint, -what god, has really done that?" she demanded. "Stupid priggish figures -bending out of their gold-plated heavens!" - -Her enthusiasm communicated a thrill to him as he regarded the still, -withdrawn mystery of the plants. For the first time he thought of them -as alive, as he was alive; he imagined them returning his gaze, his -interest, exchanging--critically, in their imperceptible, chaste -tongue--their unimpassioned opinions of him. It was a disturbing -possibility that the secret of his future, of life and death, might lurk -in the flowers to unfold on those slender stems. He was oppressed by -a feeling of a world crowded with invisible, living forms, of fields -filled with billions of grassy inhabitants, of seas, mountains, made up -of interlocking and contending lives; every breath, he felt, absorbed -races of varied individuals. He thought, too, of people as plants, as -roses--Oh, Eliza!--as nettles, rank weeds, crimson lilies. And, vaguely, -this hurt him; something valuable, something sustaining, vanished from -his unformulated, instinctive conception of life; the world of men, -their aims, their courage, ideals, lost their peculiar beauty, their -importance; the past, rising from the mold through those green tubes -and vanishing into a future of dissolving gases, shrunk, stripped of its -glamor, to an affair of little moment. - -Outside, as he descended the lawn, the sun had the artificial glitter of -an incandescent light; the trees waved their arms at him threateningly. -Then, with a shrug of his normal young shoulders, he relinquished the -entire conception; he forgot it. He recklessly permeated a universe of -airy atoms with the smoke of a Dulcina. "That's a woolly delusion," he -pronounced. - -That evening he burnished the car, and mounted the ladder to his room -late. But the evening following, detained to perform a trivial task, -found him seated upon the porch, enveloped in the fragrant clouds of -Habana leaf. - - - - -XXXVIII - -ANNOT, as now he mentally termed her, dressed in the inevitable yellow, -was swinging a satin slipper on the point of her foot; her father was, -if possible, more greyly withdrawn than before. - -"To-night," the biologist finally addressed his daughter, "your mother -has been dead eighteen years.... She hated science; she said it had -destroyed my heart. Impossible--a purely functionary pump. The illusions -of emotions are cerebro-spinal reflexes, only that. She said that I -cared more for science than--than herself." He raised his head sharply, -"I was forced to tell her the truth, in common honor: science first.... -Tears are an automatic escapement to protect the vision. But women -have no logic, little understanding; hopelessly romantic, a false -quantity--romance, dangerous. I was away when she died ... Borneo, -Aurignacian strata had been discovered, a distinct parallel with the -Maurer jaw. Death is only a change of chemical activity," he shot at -Anthony in a voice not entirely steady, "the human entity a passing -agglomeration, kinetic.... Love is a mechanical principle, categorically -imperative," his voice sank, became diffuse. "Absolute science, -selfless. - -"People found her beautiful, I didn't know," he added wistfully; "beauty -is a vague term. The Chapelle skull is beautiful, as I understand it, as -I understand it. In a letter to me," after a long pause, "she employed -the term 'frozen to death'; she said that I had frozen her to death. -Only a figure, romantic, inexact." - -"Stuff!" Annot exclaimed lightly, but her anxious countenance -contradicted the spirit of her tones. "You mustn't stir about in old -troubles. Everything great demands sacrifice; mother didn't quite -understand; and I expect she got lonely, poor dear." - -Anthony rose, and made his way somberly toward the stable, but running -feet, his name called in low, urgent tones, arrested his progress. -An-not approached with the trouble deepening in her gaze. "Does he seem -entirely himself to you?" she asked, but, before he could answer,--"of -course, you don't know him well enough. You see, he is working too much -again, an average of sixteen hours for the ten days past. I haven't said -anything because the most difficult part of his work is at an end. -If his last conclusions are right he will have only to scribble the -reports, put a book together.... I can always tell when he is overworked -by the cobwebs--he tries to brush them off his face," she explained. -"They don't exist, of course. - -"But I really wanted to say this," she lifted her candid gaze to his -face. "Could you be a little more about the house? we might need you; -we'll use the car very little for a while." The apprehension was clearly -visible now. "Would you mind helping him with his clothes; he gets them -mixed? It isn't regular, I know," she told him; "but we have a great -deal of money; anything you required--" - -"Perhaps I'd be better at that," he suggested. "You know, you said I was -a rotten chauffeur." - -For a moment, appealing, she had seemed nearer to him, but now she -retreated spiritually, slipped behind her cold indifference. "There will -be nothing more to-night; if he grows worse you will have to move into -the house." She left him abruptly, gathering her filmy skirt from the -grass, an elusive shape with gleams on her hair, her arms and neck white -for an instant and then veiled in the scarf of night. - -In his room he could still hear, mingled with the faint, muffled -squeaking of the mice in the empty hayloft, Hardinge's voice, jerky, -laborious, "a categorical imperative... categorical imperative." He -wondered what that meant applied to love? An errant air brought him the -unmistakable odor of white lilacs, an ineffable impression of Eliza. - - - - -XXXIX - -THE day following found him installed in the house, in a small chamber -formed where the tower fronted upon the third story. At luncheon a -place was laid for him at the table with Annot and her father, where the -attentions of the disdainful and shapely maid positively quivered with -suppressed scorn. Anthony had found in his room fifty dollars in an -envelope, upon which Annot had scribbled that he might need a few -things; and, at liberty in the afternoon, he boarded an electric car -for the city, where he invested in fresh and shining pumps, and other -necessities. - -The house was dark when he inserted his newly acquired latchkey in the -front door and made his way softly aloft. But a thread of light was -shining under the door of Rufus Har-dinge's study. Later--he had just -turned out the light--a short knock fell upon his door. - -"Me," Annot answered his instant query. "I am going to ask you to dress -and come to my father. It may be unnecessary; he may go quietly to bed; -but go he must." - -He found her in a dressing gown that fell in heavy, straight folds of -saffron satin, her feet thrust in quaint Turkish slippers with curled -points; while over her shoulders slipped and slid the coppery rope -of her hair. She led the way to the study, which she entered without -knocking. Anthony saw the biologist bent over pages spread in the -concentrated light of a green shaded globe. In a glass case against -the wall some moldy bones were mounted and labelled; fragmentary and -sinister-appearing casts gleamed whitely from a stand; and, everywhere, -was the orderly confusion of books and papers that had distinguished the -library. - -"Come, Rufus," Annot laid her hand upon his shoulder; "it's bedtime for -all scientists. You promised me you would be in by eleven." - -He gazed at her with the hasty regard directed at an ill-timed, casual -stranger. "Yes, yes," he ejaculated impatiently, "get to bed. I'll -follow... some crania tracings, prognathic angles--" - -"To-morrow will do for those," she insisted gently, "you are making -yourself ill again--" - -"Nonsense," he interrupted, "never felt better in my life, never--" his -voice dwindled abruptly to silence, as though a door had been closed -on him; his lips twisted impotently; beads of sweat stood out upon his -white, strained forehead. His whole body was rigid in an endeavor to -regain his utterance. He rose, and would have fallen, if Annot's arm -had not slipped about his shoulders. Anthony hurried forward, and, -supporting him on either side, they assisted him into the sleeping -chamber beyond. There, at full length on a couch, a sudden, marble-like -immobility fell upon his features, his mouth slightly open, his hands -clenched. Annot busied herself swiftly, while Anthony descended into -the dark, still house in search of ice. When he returned, Hardinge was -pronouncing disconnected words, terms. "Eoliths," he said, "snow line... -one hundred and thirty millimeters." He was silent for a moment, then, -struggling into a sitting posture, "Annot!" he cried sharply, "I've -frightened you again. Only a touch of... aphasia; unfortunately not new, -my dear, but not serious." - -Later, when Anthony had assisted him in the removal of his clothes, and -lowered the light, he found Annot in the study assembling the papers -scattered on the table. "I am glad that you are here," she said simply. -"Soon he can have a complete rest." She sank into a chair; he had had no -idea that she could appear so lovely: her widely-opened eyes held flecks -of gold; beneath the statuesque fall of the dressing gown her bare -ankles were milky-white. - - - - -XL - -HE felt strangely at ease in a setting so easily strange. There was -a palpable flavor of unreality in the moment, of detachment from the -commonplace round of existence; it was without connection, without -responsibility to yesterday or to to-morrow; he was isolated with the -informal vision of Annot in an hour which seemed neither day nor night. -He felt--inarticulately--divorced from his customary daily personality; -and, with no particular need for speech, lit a cigarette, and blew -clouds of smoke at the ceiling. It was his companion who interrupted -this mood. - -"The life that people think so tremendously important," she observed, -"the things one does, are hardly more real than a suit of clothes, with -religion for a nice, prim white collar, gloves for morals, and a hidden -red silk handkerchief for a rare revolt. And all the time, politely -ignored, decently covered, our bodies are underneath. Now and then some -one slips out of his covering, and stands bare before his shocked -and protesting friends, but they soon hurry something about him, a -conventional shawl, a moral sheet. Do you happen to remember a wonderful -caricature of Louis XIV--simply a wig, a silk suit, buckled shoes and a -staff?" - -The mordant humor of that drawing penetrated Anthony's understanding: -he saw rooms, streets, a world full of gesticulating suits, dresses, -nodding hats, bonnets; he saw the unsubstantial concourse haughtily -erect, condescending, cunningly deceptive, veiling in a thousand -subterfuges their essential emptiness. The thought evaporated -in laughter at the obvious humor of such a spectacle; its social -significance missed him totally, happily. - -"What an unthinking person you are," she told him; "you just--live. It's -rather remarkable--one of Bacchus' company caught in the modern streets. -It is all so different now," she added plaintively; "men get drunk in -saloons or at dinner, and the purple stain of the grape centers in -their noses. I tried myself," she confessed, "in Geneva. I was with a -specialist who had father. The cafe balcony overhung the lake; it was at -night, and the villages looked like clusters of fireflies about a black -mirror; and you simply never saw so many stars. We were looking for -a lyric sensation, but it was the most awful fizzle; he insisted on -describing an operation with all the grey and gory details complete, and -I fell fast asleep." - -The outcome of her experiment tallied exactly with that of his own -more involuntary efforts in that field. It established in his mind -a singularly direct sympathy with her; the uneasy element which her -attitude had called up in him disappeared entirely, its place taken by a -comfortable sense of freedom, a total lack of _rot_. - -She rose, vanishing into her father's room, then, coming to the door, -nodded shortly, and left for the night. - -He found on the bureau in his tower room what remained of the fifty -dollars--it had been reduced to less than eight. Suddenly he remembered -his purpose there, his supreme need of money, the imperative westward -call.... He bitterly cursed his lax character as he recalled the cigars -he had purchased, the silk shirt too, and an unnecessary tie. A deep -gloom settled upon his spirit. He heard in retrospect his father's -clear, high voice--"shiftless, no sense of responsibility." He sat -miserably on the edge of the bed in the dark, while the petty, unbroken -procession of past failures wheeled through his brain. Then the shining -vision of Eliza, compassionate, tender, folded him in peace; one by one -he would subdue those rebellious elements in himself, of fate, that held -them apart. - - - - -XLI - -AT a solitary breakfast the incident of the preceding night seemed -fantastic, unreal; he retained the broken, vivid memory of the scene, -the thrill of vague words, that lingers disturbingly into the waking -world from a dream. And, when he saw Annot later, there was no trace of -a consequent informality in her manner; she was distant, hedged about by -an evident concern for her father. "I have sent for Professor Jamison." -She addressed Anthony with blank eyes. "Please be within call in case--" - -He saw the neurologist as the latter circled the plaster cupids to the -entrance of the house--a heavy man with a broad, smooth face, thinlipped -like a priest, with staring yellow gloves. Anthony remained in the lower -hall, but no demand for his assistance sounded from above. When the -specialist descended, he flashed a glance, as bitingly swift and cold as -glacial water, over Anthony, then nodded in the direction of the garden. - -"Miss Annot tells me that you are sleeping in the house," he said -when they were outside; "on the chance that she might need you for -her father... she will. He is at the point of mental dissolution." An -involuntary repulsion possessed Anthony at the detached manner in which -the other pronounced these hopeless words. "Nothing may be done; that -is--it is not desirable that anything should. I am telling you this so -that you can act intelligently. Rufus Hardinge knows it; there was a -consultation at Geneva, which he approved. - -"He is," he continued with a warmer, more personal note, "a very -distinguished biologist; his investigations, his conclusions, have been -invaluable." He glanced at an incongruous, minute, jewelled watch on his -wrist, and continued more quickly. "Ten years ago he should have stopped -all work, vegetated--he was burning up rapidly; merely a reduced amount -of labor would have accomplished little for his health or subject. And -we couldn't spare his labor, no mere prolongation of life would have -justified that loss of knowledge, progress. It was his position; he -insisted upon it and we concurred... he chose... insanity. - -"Miss Annot is not aware of this; he must have every moment possible; -every note is priceless. The end will come--now, at any time." He had -reached the small, canary yellow Dreux landaulet waiting for him, and -stepped into it with a sharp nod. "You may expect violence," he added, -as the car gathered momentum. - -But that evening in the dim quietude of the piazza the biologist seemed -to have recovered completely his mental poise. He spoke in a buoyant -vein of the great men he had known, celebrated names in the world of -the arts, in politics and science. He recalled Braisted, the astronomer, -searching relaxation in the Boulevard school of French fictionists. "I -told him," he chuckled at the mild, scholastic humor, "that he had been -peeping too long at Venus." - -Annot was steeped in an inscrutable silence. - -For the first time, Anthony was actually aware of her features: she had -a broad, low brow swept by the coppery hair loosely tied at the back; -her eyes resembled her father's, they were amber-colored, and singularly -candid in their interest in all that passed before them; while her nose -tilted up slightly above a mouth frankly large. It was the face of a -boy, he decided, but felt instantly that he had fallen far short of -the fact--the allurement, the perfection, of her youthful maturity hung -overwhelmingly about her the challenge of sex. - -Rather, she was all girl, he recognized, but of a new variety. A vision -of _the nice_ girls he had known dominated his vision, flooded his mind, -all smiling with veiled eyes, clothed in a thousand reserves, fluttering -graces, innocent wiles, with their gaze firmly set toward the shining, -desirable goal of matrimony. Eliza was not like that, it was true; but -she, from the withdrawn, impersonal height of her cool perfection, was -a law to herself. There was a new freedom in Annot's acceptance of life, -he realized vaguely, as different as possible from mere license; no one, -he was certain, would presume with Annot Hardinge: her very frankness -offered infinitely less incentive to unlawful thoughts than the -conscious modesty of the others. - -When the biologist left the piazza Annot turned with a glad gesture to -her companion. "He hasn't seemed so well--not for years; his little, -gay fun again... it's too good to be true. I should like to -celebrate--something entirely irresponsible. I have worried, oh, -dreadfully." The night was still, moonless; the stars burned like opals -in the intense purple deeps of the sky. The air, freighted with the rich -fruitage of full summer, hung close and heavy. "It's hot as a blotter," -Annot declared. "I think, yes--I'm sure, I should like to go out in the -car." She rose. "Will you bring it around, please?" - -He drove slowly over the deserted lane by the lawn, and found her, -enveloped in the lustrous folds of a black satin wrap, at the front -gate. Over her hair she had tied a veil drawn about her brow in a webby -filament of flowers "I think I'll sit in front," she decided; "perhaps -I'll drive." He waited, at the steering wheel, for directions. - -"Go west, young man," she told him, and would say nothing more. A -distant bell thinly struck eleven jarring notes as they moved into the -flickering gloom of empty streets with the orange blur of lamps floating -unsteadily on dim boughs above, and the more brilliant, crackling -radiance of the arc lights at the crossings. - -The headlights of the automobile cut like white knives through the -obscurity of hedged ways; at sudden turnings they plunged into gardens, -flinging sharply on the shadowy night vivid glimpses of incredible -greenery, unearthly flowers, wafers of white wall. They drove for a -long, silent period, with increasing momentum as the way became more -open and direct; now they seemed scarcely to touch the uncertain surface -below, but to be wheeling through sheer space, flashing their stabbing -incandescence into the empty envelopment beyond the worlds. - -They passed with a muffled din through the single street of a sleeping -village, leaving behind a confusion of echoes and the startled barking -of a dog. Anthony could see Annot's profile, pale and clear, against -the flying and formless countryside; the lace about her hair fluttered -ceaselessly; and her wrap bellowed and clung about her shoulders, about -her gloveless hands folded upon her slim knees. She was splendidly, -regally scornful upon the wings of their reckless flight; the throttle -was wide open; they swung from side to side, hung on a single wheel, -lunged bodily into the air. In the mad ecstasy of speed she rose; but -Anthony, clutching her arms, pulled her sharply into the seat. Then, -decisively, he shut off the power, the world ceased to race behind them, -the smooth clamor of the engine sank to a low vibratone. - -"You did that wonderfully," she told him with glowing cheeks, shining -eyes; "it was marvellous. A moment like that is worth a life-time -on foot... laughing at death, at everything that is safe, admirable, -moral... a moment of the freedom of soulless things, savage and -unaccountable to God or society." - -The illuminated face of the clock before him indicated a few minutes -past one, and, tentatively, he repeated the time. "How stupid of you," -she protested; "silly, little footrule of the hours, the conventional -measure of the commonplace. For punishment--on and on. Like Columbus' -men you are afraid of falling over the edge of--propriety." She turned -to him with solemn eyes. "I assure you there is no edge, no bump or -brimstone, no place where good stops and tumbles into bad; it's all -continuous--" - -He lost the thread of her mocking discourse, and glanced swiftly at her, -his brow wrinkled, the shadow of a smile upon his lips. "Heavens! but -you are good-looking," she acknowledged, her countenance studiously -critical, impersonal. After that silence once more fell upon them; -the machine sang through the dark, lifting over ridges, dropping down -declines. - -Anthony had long since lost all sense of their position. The cyanite -depths of the sky turned grey, cold; there was a feeling in the air of -settling dew; a dank mist filled the hollows; the color seemed suddenly -to have faded from the world. He felt unaccountably weary, inexpressibly -depressed; he could almost taste the vapidity of further existence. -Annoys hard, bright words echoed in his brain; the flame of his -unthinking idealism sank in the thin atmosphere of their logic. - - - - -XLII - -SHE had settled low in the seat, her mouth and chin hidden in the folds -of the satin wrap; her face seemed as chill as marble, her youth cruel, -disdainful. But her undeniable courage commanded his admiration, the -unwavering gaze of her eyes into the dark. He wondered if, back of her -crisp defenses, she were happy. He knew from observation that she led an -almost isolated existence... she had gathered about her no circle of her -own age, she indulged in none of the rapturous confidences, friendships, -so sustaining to other girls. The peculiar necessities of her father -had accomplished this. Yet he was aware that she cherished a general -contempt for youth at large, for a majority of the grown, for that -matter. Contempt colored her attitude to a large extent: that and -happiness did not seem an orderly pair. - -He felt, rather than saw, the influence of the dawn behind him; it was -as though the grey air grew more transparent. Annot twisted about. "Oh! -turn, turn!" she cried; "the day! we are driving away from it." A sudden -intoxicating freshness streamed like a sparkling birdsong over the -world, and Anthony's dejection vanished with the gloom now at their -backs. Delicate lavender shadows grew visible upon the grass, the color -shifted tremulously, like the shot hues of changeable silks, until the -sun poured its ore into the verdant crucible of the countryside. - -"I am most frightfully hungry," Annot admitted with that entire -frankness which he found so refreshing. "I wonder--" On either hand -fields, far farmhouses, reached unbroken to the horizon; before them the -road rose between banks of soft, brown loam, apparently into the sky. -But, beyond the rise, they came upon a roadside store, its silvery -boards plastered with the garish advertisements of tobaccos, and a -rickety porch, now undergoing a vigorous sweeping at the hands of an -old man with insecure legs, upon whose faded personage was stamped -unmistakably the initials "G. A. R." - -Anthony brought the car to a halt, and returned his brisk and curious -salutation. "Shall I bring out some crackers?" he asked from the road. -But she elected to follow him into the store. The interior presented the -usual confusion of gleaming tin and blue overalls, monumental cheeses -and cards of buttons, a miscellany of ludicrously varied merchandise. -Annot found a seat upon a splintered church pew, now utilized as a -secular resting place, while Anthony foraged through the shelves. He -returned with the crackers, and a gold lump of dates, upon which they -breakfasted hugely. "D'y like some milk?" the aged attendant inquired, -and forthwith dipped it out of a deep, cool and ringing can. - -Afterward they sat upon the step and smoked matutinal cigarettes. The -day gathered in a shimmering haze above the vivid com, the emerald of -the shorn fields; the birds had already subsided from the heat among -the leaves. Anthony saw that the lamps of the car were still alight, a -feeble yellow flicker, and turned them out. He tested the engine; and, -finding it still running, turned with an unspoken query to Annot. She -rose slowly. - -The wrap slipped from her bare shoulders and her dinner gown with its -high sulphur girdle, the scrap of black lace about her hair, presented -a strange, brilliantly artificial picture against the blistered, gaunt -boards of the store, with, at its back, the open sunny space of pasture, -wood and sky. - -"It's barely twenty miles back," she told him, once more settled at his -side. The old man regarded them from under one gnarled palm, the -other tightly clasped about the broom handle; his jaw was dropped; -incredulity, senile surprise, claimed him for their own. - -With Annot, Anthony reflected, he was everlastingly getting into new -situations; she seemed to lift him out of the ordinary course of events -into a perverse world of her own, a front-backward land where the -unexpected, without rule or obligation, continually happened; and, what -was strangest of all, without any of the dark consequences which he -had been taught must inevitably follow such departures. He recalled the -incredulous smiles, the knowing insinuations, that would have greeted -the exact recounting of the past night at Doctor Allhop's drugstore. -He would himself, in the past, have regarded such a tale as a flimsy -fabrication. And suddenly he perceived dimly, in a mind unused to such -abstractions, the veil of ugliness, of degradation, that hung so -blackly about the thoughts of men. He gazed with a new sympathy -and comprehension at the scornful line of Annot's vivid young lips; -something of her superiority, her contempt, was communicated to him. - -She became aware of his searching gaze, and smiled in an intimate, -friendly fashion at him. "You are the most comfortable person alive," -she told him. There was nothing critical in her tones now. "I said that -you were not a good chauffeur, and--" the surroundings grew familiar, -they had nearly reached their destination, and an impalpable reserve -fell upon her, but she continued to smile at him, "and... you are not." -That was the last word she addressed to him that day. - -As, later, he sluiced the automobile with water, he recalled the strange -intimacy of the night, her warm and sympathetic voice; once she had -steadied herself with a clinging hand upon his shoulder. These new -attributes of the person who, shortly, passed him silently and with cold -eyes, stirred his imagination; they were potent, rare, unsettling. - - - - -XLIII - -Notwithstanding, in the days which followed there was a perceptible -change in Annot's attitude toward him: she became, as it were, conscious -of his actuality. One afternoon she read aloud to him a richly-toned, -gloomy tale of Africa. They were sitting by a long window, open, but -screened from the summer heat by stiff, darkly-drooping green folds, -where they could hear the drip of the fountain in its basin, a cool -punctuation on the sultry page of the afternoon. Annot proceeded rapidly -in an even, low voice; she was dressed in filmy lavender, with little -buttons of golden velvet, an intricately carved gold buckle at her -waist. - -Anthony listened as closely as possible, the faint smile which seldom -left him hovering over his lips. The bald action of the narrative--a -running fight with ambushed savages from a little tin pot of a steamer, -a mysterious affair in the darkness with a grim skeleton of a fellow, -stakes which bore a gory fruitage of human heads, held him; but the -rest... words, words. His attention wavered, fell upon minute, material -objects; Annot's voice grew remote, returned, was lost among his -juggling thoughts. - -"Isn't it splendid!" she exclaimed, at last closing the volume; "the -most beautiful story of our time--" She stopped abruptly, and cast a -penetrating glance at him. "I don't believe you even listened," she -declared. "In your heart you prefer, 'Tortured by the Tartars.'" - -His smile broadened, including his eyes. - -"You are impossible! No," she veered suddenly, "you're not; if you cared -for this you wouldn't be... you. That's the most important thing in -the world. Besides, I wouldn't like you; everybody reads now, it's -frightfully common; while you are truly indifferent. Have you noticed, -my child, that books always increase where life runs thin? and you are -alive, not a papier-mache man painted in the latest shades." - -Anthony dwelt on this unexpected angle upon his mental delinquencies. -The approval of Annot Hardinge, so critical, so outspoken, was not -without an answering glow in his being; no one but she might discover -his ignorance to be laudable. - -She rose, and the book slipped neglected to the floor. "The mirror of my -dressing table is collapsing," she informed him; "I wonder if you -would look at it." He followed her above to her room; it was a large, -four-square chamber, its windows brushed by the glossy leaves of an -aged black-heart cherry tree. Her bed was small, with a counterpane of -grotesque lace animals, a table held a scattered collection of costly -trifles, and a closet door stood open upon a shimmering array from -deepest orange to white and pale primrose. An enigmatic lacy garment, -and a surprisingly long pair of black silk stockings, occupied a chair; -while the table was covered with columns of print on long sheets of -paper. "Galleys," she told him. "I read all father's proof." - -He moved the dressing table from the wall, and discovered the bolt -which had held the mirror in place upon the floor. As he screwed it into -position, Annot said: - -"Don't look around for a minute." There was a swift whisper of skirts, -a pause, then, "all right." He straightened up, and found that she had -changed to a white skirt and waist. Fumbling in the closet she produced -a pair of low, brown shoes, and kicking off her slippers, donned the -others, balancing each in turn on the bed. - -"Let's go--anywhere," she proposed; "but principally where books are not -and birds are." At a drugstore they purchased largely of licorice root, -which they consumed sitting upon a fence without the town. - - - - -XLIV - -I SAID that instinctively, back in my room," Annot remarked with a -puzzled frown. "It was beastly, really, to feel the necessity... -as though we had something corrupt to hide. And I feel that you are -especially nice--that way. You see, I am not trying to dispose of myself -like the clever maidens at the balls and bazaars, my legs and shoulders -are quite uncalculated. There is no price on... on my person; I'm not -fishing for any nice little Christian ceremony. No man will have to pay -the price of hats at Easter and furs in the fall, of eternal boredom, -for me. All this stuff in the novels about the sacredness of love and -constancy is just--stuff! Love isn't like that really; it's a natural -force, and Nature is always practical: potato bugs and jimson-weed and -men, it is the same law for all of them--more potato bugs, more men, -that's all." - -Anthony grasped only the larger implications of this speech, its -opposition to that love which he had felt as a misty sort of glory, as -intangible as the farthest star, as fragrant as a rose in the fingers. -There was an undeniable weight of solid sense in what Annot had said. -She knew a great deal more than himself, more--yes--than Eliza, more -than anybody he had before known; and, in the face of her overwhelmingly -calm and superior knowledge, his vision of love as eternal, changeless, -his ecstatic dreams of Eliza with the dim, magic white lilacs in her -arms, grew uncertain, pale. Love, viewed with Annot's clear eyes, was a -commonplace occurrence, and marriage the merest, material convenience: -there was nothing sacred about it, or in anything--death, birth, or -herself. - -And was not the biologist, with his rows of labelled plants and bones, -his courageous questioning of the universe, of God Himself, bigger than -the majority of men with their thin covering of cant, the hypocrisy in -which they cloaked their doubts, their crooked politics and business? -Rufus Hardinge's conception of things, Annot's reasoning and patent -honesty, seemed more probable, more convincing, than the accepted -romantic, often insincere, view of living, than the organ-roll and -stained glass attitude. - -In his new rationalism he eyed the world with gloomy prescience; he had -within him the somber sense of slain illusions; all this, he felt, -was proper to increasing years and experience; yet, between them, they -emptied the notable bag of licorice. - -Annot rested a firm palm upon his shoulder and sprang to the ground, -and they walked directly and silently back. "It's a mistake to discuss -things," Annot discovered to him from the door of her room, "they should -be lived; thus Zarathustrina." - - - - -XLV - -LATER they were driven from the porch by a heavy and sudden shower, -a dark flood torn in white streamers and pennants by wind gusts, and -entered through a long window a formal chamber seldom occupied. A -thick, white carpet bore a scattered design in pink and china blue; oil -paintings of the Dutch school, as smooth as ice, hung in massive gold -frames; a Louis XVI clock, intricately carved and gilded, rested upon -a stand enamelled in black and vermilion, inlaid with pagodas and -fantastic mandarins in ebony and mother-of-pearl and camphor wood. -At intervals petulant and sweet chimes rang from the clock: trailing, -silvery bubbles of sound that burst in plaintive ripples. - -Rufus Hardinge sat with bowed head, his lips moving noiselessly. Annot -occupied a chair with sweeping, yellow lines, that somehow suggested to -Anthony a swan. "Father has had a tiresome letter from Doctor Grundlowe -at Bonn," she informed the younger man. - -"He disagrees with me absolutely," Hardinge declared. "But Caprera at -Padova disagrees with him; and Markley, at Glasgow, contravenes us all." - -"It's about a tooth," Annot explained. - -"The line to the anterior-posterior diameter is simian," the biologist -asserted. "The cusps prove nothing, but that forward slope--" he half -rose from his chair, his eyes glittering wrathfully at Anthony, but fell -back trembling... "simian," he muttered. - -"A possible difference of millions of years in human history," Annot -added further. - -"But can't they agree at all!" Anthony exclaimed; "don't they know -anything? That's an awful long time." - -"A hundred million years," the elder interrupted with a contemptuous -gesture, "nothing, a moment. I place the final glacial two hundred -and seventy million after Jenner, and we have--, agreed to dismiss it; -trifling, adventitious. There are more fundamental discrepancies," he -admitted. "Unless something definite is discovered, a firm base -established, a single ray of light let into a damnable dark," he stopped -torn with febrile excitement, then, scarcely audible, continued, "our -lives, our work... will be of less account than the blood of Oadacer, -spilt on barbaric battle-fields." - -The rain ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Anthony followed Annot to -the porch. In the black spaces between the swiftly shifting clouds -stars shone brilliantly; there was a faint drip from the trees. "He gets -dreadfully depressed," she interpreted her parent to him. "They wrangle -all the time, exactly like a lot of schoolgirls. You have no idea of -the bitterness, the jealousy, the contemptuous personalities in the -Quarterlies. Really, they are as fanatical, as narrow, as the churches -they ignore; they are quite like Presbyterian biologists and Catholic." -She sighed lightly. "They leave little for a youngish person to dream -on. You are so superior--to ignore these centessimo affairs. Will you -lean from the edge of your cloud and smile on a daughter of the earth in -last year's dinner gown?" - -It was, he told himself, nonsense; yet he was moved to make no -easy reply, something in her voice, illusive and wistful, made that -impossible. "It's very good-looking," he said impotently. - -"I'm glad you like it," she told him simply. "M'sieur Paret fitted it -himself while an anteroom full of women hated me. Oh, Anthony!" she -exclaimed, "I'd love to wander with you down that brilliant street and -through the Place Vendome to the Seine. Better still--there's a -little shop on the Via Cavour in Florence where they sell nothing but -chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, the most heavenly cakes with black -hearts and the most heavenly smell. And you'd like Spain, so fierce -and hot against its dusty hills; and Cortina, green beneath its red -mountains. We could get a porter and rucksacks, and walk--" she broke -off, her hands pressed to her cheeks, a dawning dismay in her eyes. Then -she was gone with a flutter of the skirt so carefully draped by M'sieur -Paret. - - - - -XLVI - -THE pictures of far places had stirred him but slightly: but to travel -with Annot, to see anything with Annot, would offer continual amusement -and surprise; her vigorous candor, her freedom from sham and petty -considerations, enveloped the most commonplace perspectives in an -atmosphere of high novelty. The trace of the vagabond, the detachment -of the born dweller in tents, woven so picturesquely through his being, -responded to her careless indifference to the tyranny of an established -and timid scheme of existence. - -The following day her old, bright hardness had returned: she railed at -him in French, in German, in Italian; she called him the solemn shover, -Sir Anthony Absolute. And, holding Thomas Huxley's head directed toward -him, recommended that resigned quadruped to emulate Anthony's austere -and inflexible virtues. - - - - -XLVII - -BUT there was no trace of gayety in the excited and subdued tones in -which, later, she called him into the hothouse. He found her bending -tense with emotion over the row of plants upon whose flowering such -incalculable things depended. "Look!" she cried, taking his hand and -drawing him down over the green shoots, where his cheek brushed her -hair, where he felt the warm stir of her breathing. "Look! they are in -full bud, to-morrow they will burst open." She straightened up, his hand -still held in hers, and a shadow fell upon her vivid countenance. "If -his reasoning is wrong, this experiment... like all the others, it will -kill him. They _must_ be white, it would be too cruel, too senseless -not. I am afraid," she said simply; "nature is so terrible, a -Juggernaut, crushing everything to dust beneath its wheeling centuries. -I am glad that you are here, Anthony." She drew closer to him; her -breast swelled in a sharp, tempestuous breath. - -"I have been lonelier than I--I realized. I am dreadfully worried about -father. They have lied to me; things are worse, I can see that. You -have to dress him like a child; I know how considerate you are; you are -bright, new gold with the clearest ring in the world. - -"We must get a real chauffeur; you have never been that... in my -thoughts. You know," she laughed happily, "I said in the beginning that -you were a miserable affair in details of that kind." - -A feeling of guilt rose swiftly within him, which, unwilling to -acknowledge, he strove to beat down from his thoughts. But, above his -endeavor, grew the clear conviction that he should immediately tell -Annot his purpose in driving Rufus Hardinge's car. He must not victimize -her generosity, nor take profit from the friendship she offered him so -unreservedly. He was dimly conscious that the revelation of his design -would end the pleasant intimacy growing up between them; the mere -mention of Eliza must destroy their happy relations; girls, even Annot, -were like that. - -He wondered, suddenly cold, if this spelled disloyalty to Eliza! but he -angrily refuted that whispered insinuation. His love for Eliza was -as un-assailably above all other considerations as she herself shone -starlike over a petty, stumbling humanity. White and withdrawn and fine -she inhabited the skies of his aspirations. He endeavored now to capture -her in his imagination, his memory; and she smiled at him palely, as -from a very great distance. He realized that in the past few days he had -not had that subtle sense of her nearness, he had not been conscious of -that drifting odor of lilacs; and suddenly he felt impoverished, alone. - -Annot smiled, warm and near. - -"You are awfully kind," he temporized; "but hadn't we better let the -thing stand as it is? You see--I want money." - -"But you may have that now; whatever you want." - -"No. You are so good, it's hard to explain--I want money that I earn; -real money; I couldn't think of taking any other from you." - -"Anthony, my good bourgeois! I had thought you quite without that -sort of tin pride. Besides, I am not giving it to you; after all it's -father's to use as he likes." - -"But I must give him something for it--" - -"Do you suppose you are giving us nothing?" she interrupted him warmly; -"you have brought us your clear, beautiful spirits, absolutely without -price. Why, you can make father laugh; have you any idea how rarely he -did that? When you imitate Margaret absolutely I can see her fat, white -stockings. And your marvellous unworldliness--" she shook her head -mournfully. "I fear that this is mere calculation; surely you must know -the value of your innocent charms." Anthony stood with a lowered head, -floundering mentally among his warring inclinations; when, almost with -relief, he saw that she had noiselessly vanished. - - - - -XLVIII - -HE slept uneasily, and woke abruptly to a room flooded with sunlight, -and an unaccountable sense of something gone wrong. He dressed -hurriedly, and had opened his door, when he heard his name called from -below. It was Annot, he knew, but her voice was strange, terrified--a -helpless cry new to her accustomed poise. "Anthony! Anthony!" she called -from the conservatory. - -Rufus Hardinge, who, it was evident from his clothes had not been in -bed, was standing rigidly before the row of plants upon whose flowering -they had so intently waited. And, in a rapid glance, Anthony saw -that they had blossomed in delicate, parti-colored petals--some pale -lavender, others deep purple, still others reddish white. Annoys yellow -wrap was thrown carelessly about her nightgown, her feet were bare, and -her hair hung in a tangle about her blanched face. - -When Anthony entered she clung to his arm, and he saw that she was -trembling violently. For a tense moment they were silent: the sun -streamed over the mathematical plant ranks and lit the white or blue -tickets tied to their stems; a bubbling chorus of birds filled the world -of leaves without. "It's all wrong," she sobbed. - -"So!" the biologist finally said with a wry smile; "you see that I have -not solved the riddle of the universe; inheritance in pure line is not -explicated.... A life of labor as void as any prostitute's; not a single -fact, not a supposition warranted, not a foot advanced." - -With a sudden and violent movement for which they were entirely -unprepared he swept the row of plants crashing upon the floor; where, -in a scattered heap of brown loam, broken pottery, smeared bloom, their -tenuous, pallid roots quivered in air. "Games with plants and animals -and bones for elderly children; riddles without answer... blind ways." -His expression grew furtive, cunning. "I have been trifled with," he -declared, "I have been deliberately misled; but I desire to say that -I see through--through Him: I comprehend His little joke. It's in bad -taste... to leave a soul in the dark, blundering about in the cellar -with the table spread above. But in the end I was not completely -bamboozled. He was not quick enough... the hem of His garment. - -"Your mother saw Him clear. She was considered beautiful, but beauty's a -vague term. Perhaps if I saw her now it would be clearer to me. But I'll -tell you His little joke," he lowered his voice confidentially--"it's -all true--that apocalyptical heaven; there's a big book, trumpets, -angels all complete singing Gregorian chants. What a sell!" He laughed, -a gritty, mirthless performance. - -"Come up to your room, father," Annot urged; "his arm, Anthony." Anthony -placed his hand gently upon the biologist's shoulder, but the latter -wrenched himself free. Suddenly with a choked cry and arms swinging like -flails he launched himself upon the orderly plants. Before he could be -stopped row upon row splintered on the floor; he fought, struggled -with them as though they were animate opponents, cursed them in a high, -raving voice. Anthony quickly lifted him, pinning his arms to his sides. -Annot had turned away, her shoulders shaking with sobs. - -Rufus Hardinge's struggling unexpectedly ceased, his countenance -regained completely its habitual quietude. "I shall begin once more, -at the beginning," he whispered infinitely wistful. "The little ray of -light... germ of understanding. The scientific problem of the future," -his speech became labored, thick, "scientific... future. Other avenue of -progress: - -"Gentlemen, the Royal Society, a paper on, on--Tears, gentlemen... -not only automatic," his voice sank to a mere incomprehensible -babble. Anthony carried him to his bed, while Annot telephoned for the -neurologist. - -After the specialist had gone Annot came in to where Anthony waited -in the study. Her feet were thrust in the Turkish slippers, her hair -twisted into a hasty knot, but otherwise she had not changed. She came -swiftly, with pale lips and eyes brilliantly shining from dark hollows, -to his side. "His wonderful brain is dead," she told him. "Professor -Jamison thinks there will be only a few empty years to the end. But -actually it's all over." In a manner utterly incomprehensible to him she -was crying softly in his arms. - -He must lead her to a chair, he told himself, release her at once. Yet -she remained with her warm, young body pressed against him, the circle -of her arms about his neck, her tears wet upon his cheek. He stepped -back, but she would have fallen if he had not continued to support -her. His brain whirled under the assault, the surrender, of her dynamic -youth. Their mouths met; were bruised in kissing. - - - - -XLIX - -HE stood with bowed shoulders, twisting lips; and, after a momentary -pause, she fled from the room. Cold waves of self-hatred flowed over -him--he had taken a despicable advantage of her grief. The pleasant -fabric of the past, unthinking days, the new materialism with its -comfortable freedom from restraint, crumbled from an old, old skeleton -whose moldering lines spelled the death of all--his heart knew--that was -high, desirable, immaculate. He wondered if, like Rufus Hardinge, his -understanding had come too late. But, in the re-surge of his adoration -for Eliza, infinitely more beautiful and serene from the pit out of -which he sped his vision, he was possessed by the conviction that -nothing created nor void should extinguish the bright flame of his -passion, hold them separate. - -In the midst of his turmoil he recalled Eliza with relief, with delight, -with tumultuous longing. He soared on the wings of his ecstasy; but -descended abruptly to the practical necessities which confronted him. He -must leave the Hardinges immediately; with a swift touch of the humorous -spirit native to him, he realized that again he would be without money. -Then more seriously he considered his coming interview with Annot. - -The house was charged with the vague unrest, the strange aspect of -familiar things, wrought by serious illness. Luncheon was disorganized, -Annot was late. She was pale, but, under an obvious concern, she -radiated a suppressed content. She laid a letter before Anthony. -"Registered," she told him. "I signed." It was, he saw, from his father, -and he slipped it into his pocket, intent upon the explanation which -lay before him. It would be more difficult even than he had anticipated: -Annot spoke of the near prospect of a Mediterranean trip, if Rufus -Hardinge rallied sufficiently. "He is as contented and gentle as a nice -old lady," she reported; then, with a subtle expansion of manner, "it -will be such fun--I shall take you by the hand, 'This, my good infant, -is one of Virgil's final resting places....'" - -"That would be splendid," he acknowledged, "but I'm afraid that I -sha'n't be able to go. The fact is that--that I had better leave you. I -can't take your money for... for...." - -She glanced at him swiftly, under the shadow of a frown, then shook her -head at him. "That tiresome money again! It's a strange thing for you -to insist on; material considerations are ordinarily as far as possible -from your thoughts. I forbid you absolutely to mention it again; every -time you do I shall punish you--I shall present you with a humiliating -gold piece in person." - -"I should be all kinds of a trimmer to take advantage of your goodness. -No, I must go--" The gay warmth evaporated from her countenance as -abruptly as though it had been congealed in a sudden icy breath; she -sat motionless, upright, enveloping him in the bright resentment of her -gaze. - -"And I must ask you to forgive me for... for this morning," he stumbled -hastily on. - -The resentment burned into a clear flame of angry contempt. "'For this -morning!' because I kissed you?" - -He made a vehement gesture of denial. "Oh, no!" But she would not allow -him to finish. "But I did," she announced in a hard, determined voice. -"It isn't necessary for you to be polite; I don't care a damn for -that sickening sort of thing. I did, and you are properly and modestly -retreating. I believe that you think I am--'designing,' isn't that -the word? that you might have to marry me. A kiss, I am to realize, is -something sacred. Bah! you make me ill, like almost everything else in -life. - -"If you think for a minute that it was anything more than the expression -of a passing impulse you are beyond words. And, if it had been more, -you--you violet, I wouldn't marry you; I wouldn't marry any man, ever! -ever! ever! I might have gone to Italy with you, but probably come home -with some one else--will that get into your pretty prejudices?" - -"If you had gone to Italy with me," he declared sullenly, "you would -never have come home with anybody else." - -"That sort of thing has been dismissed to the smaller rural towns and -the cheap melodramas; it's no longer considered elevated to talk like -that, but only pitiful. You will start next on 'God's noblest creation,' -and purity, and the females of your family. Don't you know, haven't you -been told, that the primitive religious rubbish about marriage has been -laughed out of existence? Did you dream that I wanted to _keep_ you? -or that I would allow you to keep me after the thing had got stale? -It makes me cold all over to be so frightfully misunderstood. Oh, its -unthinkable! Fi, to kiss you! wasn't it loose of me?" - -Her contemptuous periods stung him in a thousand minute places. "I told -you," he retorted hotly, "that I wanted to make money; I don't want it -given to me; it's for my wedding." - -"Of course, how stupid of me not to have guessed--the lips sacred to -her," her own trembled ever so slightly, but her scornful attitude, her -direct, bright gaze, were maintained, "A knight errant adventuring for -a village queen with her handkerchief in his sleeve and tempted by the -inevitable Kundry." - -He settled himself to weathering this feminine storm; he owed her all -the relief to be found in words. "I wanted the money to go West," he -particularized further. "There's a position waiting for me--" - -"It's all very chaste," she told him, "but terribly commonplace. I think -that I don't care to hear the details." She addressed herself to what -remained of the luncheon. "Have some more sauce," she advised coolly, -then rang. "The pudding, Jane," she directed. - -"You have been wonderfully kind--" he began. But she halted him -abruptly. "We'll drop all that," she pronounced, and deliberately lit a -cigarette. - -A genuine admiration for her possessed Anthony; he recognized that she -was extraordinarily good to look at; he had had no idea that so vigorous -a spirit could have burned behind a becoming dress by Paret. He realized -with a faint regret, eminently masculine, that other men, men of moment, -would find her irresistibly attractive. Already it seemed incredible -that she had ever been familiar, intimate, tender, with him. - -"You will be wanting to leave," she said, rising; "--whenever you -like. I have written for a--a chauffeur. I think you should have, it's -twenty-five dollars, isn't it?" - -"Not twenty-five cents," he returned. - -"I shouldn't like to force your delicate sensibilities." She left the -room. He caught a last glimpse of her firm, young profile; her shining, -coppery hair; her supple, upright carriage. - - - - -L - -IN his room he assembled the battered clothing in which Rufus Hardinge -had discovered him, preparatory to changing from his present more -elaborate garb, but a sudden realization of the triviality of that -course, born of the memory of Annot's broad disposition, halted him -midway. Making a hasty bundle of his personal belongings he descended -from the tower room. Through an open door he could see the still, white -face of the biologist looming from a pillow, and the trim form of a -nurse. - -Thomas Huxley lay somnolently on the porch, beside Annot's -coffee-colored wicker chair and a yellow paper book which bore a title -in French. He paused on the street, gazing back, and recalled his first -view of the four-square, ugly house in its coat of mustard-colored -paint, the grey, dripping cupids of the fountain, the unknown girl with -yellow silk stockings. Already he seemed to have crossed the gulf which -divided it all from the present: its significance faded, its solidity -dissolved, dropped behind, like a scene viewed from a car window. He -turned, obsessed by the old, familiar impatience to hurry forward, the -feeling that all time, all energy, all plans and thoughts, were vain -that did not lead directly to---- - -A sudden and unaccountable sensation of cold swept over him, a profound -emotion stirring in response to an obscure, a hidden cause. Then, with -a rush, returned the feeling of Eliza's nearness: he _heard_ her, the -little, indefinable noises of her moving; he felt the unmistakable -thrill which she alone brought. There was a vivid sense of her hand -hovering above his shoulder; her fingers _must_ descend, rest warmly.... -God! how did she get here. He whirled about... nothing against the -low stone-wall that bounded a sleepy garden, nothing in the paved -perspective of the sunny street! He stood shaken, half terrified, -miserable. He had never felt her nearness so poignantly; her distant -potency had never before so mocked his hungering nerves. - -Then, with the cold chilling him like a breath from an icy vault, he -heard her, beyond all question, beyond all doubt: - -"Anthony!" she called. "Anthony!" From somewhere ahead of him her tones -sounded thin and clear; they seemed to reach him dropping from a window, -lingering, neither grave nor gay, but tenderly secure, upon his hearing. -He broke into a clattering run over the bricks of the unremarkable -street, but soon slowed awkwardly into a walk, jeering at his fancy, -his laboring heart, his mad credulity. And then, drifting across his -bewildered senses, came the illusive, the penetrating, the remembered -odor of lilacs, like a whisper, a promise, a magic caress. - - - - -LI - -IT was with a puzzled frown that Anthony halted in the heart of the -city and considered his present resources, his future, possible plans. -He had three dollars and some small silver left from the Hardinges, and -he regarded with skepticism the profession of chauffeur; he would rather -adventure the heavier work of the garages. As the afternoon was far -advanced he decided to defer his search until the following morning; and -he was absorbed within the gaudy maw of a moving picture theater. - -Later, he entered an elaborate maze of mirrors, where, apparently, a -sheaf of Susannas unconsciously exhibited their diminishing, anatomical -charms to a procession of elders advancing two by two through a -perspective of sycamores.--At the bar, his glass of beer supported -by two fried oysters, a sandwich and a saucer of salted almonds, he -reflected upon the slough of sterility that had fastened upon his feet: -something must be accomplished, decisive, immediate. - -He was proceeding toward the entrance when the familiar aspect of a back -brought him to a halt. The back moved, turned, and resolved into the -features of Thomas Addington Meredith. The mutual, surprised recognition -was followed by a greeting of friendly slaps, queries, the necessity for -instant, additional beers, and they found a place at a small, polished -table. - -He was surprised to discover Tom Meredith the same foxy-faced boy he -had left in Doctor Allhop's drugstore... it seemed to Anthony that -an incalculable time had passed since the breaking of the bottles of -perfume; he felt himself to be infinitely changed, older, and the other -his junior by decades of experience and a vast accumulation of worldly -knowledge, contact with men, women, and events. Tom's raiment did not -seem so princely as it had aforetime; the ruby reputed to be the gift of -a married woman, was obviously meretricious, the gold timepiece merely -commonplace. But Anthony was unaffectedly glad to see him, to discuss -homely, familiar topics, repeat affectionately the names of favorite -localities, persons. - -"I'm in a bonding house here," Tom explained upon Anthony's query. -"Nothing in Ellerton for _me_. What are you doing?" - -"Nothing, until to-morrow, when I think I'll get something in one of the -garages." He thrust his hands negligently into his pockets, and came -in contact with his father's forgotten letter. He opened it, gazing -curiously at the words: "My dear Son," when Tom, with an exclamation, -bent and recovered a piece of yellow paper that had fallen from the -envelope. "Is this all you think of these?" he demanded, placing a fifty -dollar bill upon the table. - -Anthony read the letter with growing incredulous wonder and joy. He -looked up with burning cheeks at his companion. "Remember old Mrs. -Bosbyshell?" he questioned in an eager voice. "I used to carry wood, -do odd jobs, for her: well, she's dead, and left me--what do you -think!--father says about forty-seven thousand dollars. It's there, -waiting for me, in Ellerton." - -Suddenly he forgot Thomas Meredith, the glittering saloon, the -diminishing perspective of Susannas--he saw Eliza smiling at him out of -the dusk, with her arms full of white lilacs. With an unsteady -pounding of his heart, a tightening of the throat, he realized that, -miraculously, the happiness which he had imagined so far removed in the -uncertain future had been brought to him now, to the immediate present. -He could take a train at once and go to her. The waiting was over. The -immeasurable joy that flooded him deepened to a great chord of happiness -that vibrated highly through him. He folded the letter gravely, -thoughtfully. It was but a few hours to Ellerton by train, he knew, but -he doubted the possibility of a night connection to that sequestered -town. He would go in the morning. - -"Thomas," he declared, "I am about to purchase you the best dinner that -champagne can shoot into your debased middle. Oh, no, not here, but in a -real place where you can catch your own fish and shoot a pheasant out of -a painted tree." - -Thus pleasantly apostrophized that individual led Anthony to the Della -Robbia room of an elaborate hostelry, where they studied the _carte de -jour_ amid pink tiling and porphyry. There was a rosy flush of shaded -lights over snowy linen in the long, high chamber, the subdued passage -of waiters like silhouettes, low laughter, and a throbbing strain -of violins falling from a balcony above their heads. They pondered -nonchalantly the strange names, elaborate sauces; but were finally -launched upon suave cocktails and clams. Anthony settled back into -a glow of well-being, of the tranquillity that precedes an expected, -secure joy. He saluted the champagne bucket by the table; when, -suddenly, the necessity to speak of Eliza overcame him, he wished to -hear her name pronounced by other lips... perhaps he would tell Tom all; -he was the best of fellows.... - -"Are the Dreens home?" he asked negligently. "Have you seen Eliza Dreen -about--you know with that soft, shiny hair?" - -Thomas Meredith directed at him a glance of careless surprise. "Why," he -answered, "I thought you knew; it seemed to me she died before you left. -Anyhow, it was about the same time, it must have been the next week. -Pneumonia. This soup's great, Anthony." - - - - -LII - -HE joy that had sung through Anthony shrunk into an intolerable pain -like an icicle thrust into his heart; he swallowed convulsively a -spoonful of soup, tasteless, scalding hot, and put the spoon down with -a clatter. He half rose from the chair, with his arms extended, as if by -that means he could ward off the terrible misfortune that had befallen -him. Thomas Meredith, unaware of Anthony's drawn face, his staring -gaze, continued to eat with gusto the unspeakable liquid, and the waiter -uncorked the champagne with a soft explosion. The wine flowed bubbling -into their glasses, and Tom held his aloft. "To your good luck," he -proclaimed, but set it down untouched at Anthony's pallor. - -"What's the matter--sick? It's the beer and cocktail, it always does -it." - -"It's not that," Anthony said very distinctly. - -His voice sounded to him like that of a third person. He was laboring to -adjust the tumult within him to the fact of Eliza's death; he repeated -half aloud the term "dead" and its whispered syllable seemed to fill the -entire world, the sky, to echo ceaselessly in space. From the -stringed instruments above came the refrain of a popular song; and, -subconsciously, mechanically, he repeated the words aloud; when he heard -his own voice he stopped as though a palm had been clapped upon his -mouth. - -"What is it?" Tom persisted; "don't discompose this historical banquet." -The waiter replaced the soup with fish, over which he spread a thick, -yellow sauce. "Go on," Anthony articulated, "go on--" he emptied his -champagne glass at a gulp, and then a second. "Certainly a fresh quart," -his companion directed the waiter. - -Eliza was dead! pneumonia. That, he told himself, was why she had -not answered his letter, why, on the steps at Hydrangea House, Mrs. -Dreen--hell! how could he think of such things? Eliza... dead, cold who -warm had kissed him; Eliza, for whom all had been dreamed, planned, -undertaken, dead; Eliza gone from him, gone out of the sun into the -damned and horrible dirt. Tom, explaining him satisfactorily, devoted -himself to the succession of dishes that flowed through the waiter's -skillful hands, dishes that Anthony dimly recognized having -ordered--surely years before. "You're drunk," Thomas declared. - -He drank inordinately: gradually a haze enveloped him, separating him -from the world, from his companion, a shadowy shape performing strange -antics at a distance. Sounds, voices, penetrated to his isolation, rent -thinly the veil that held at its center the sharp pain dulled, expanded, -into a leaden, sickening ache. He placed the yellow bank note on a -silver platter that swayed before him, and in return received a crisp -pile, which, with numb fingers, he crowded into a pocket. He would have -fallen as he rose from his chair if Tom had not caught him, leading him -stumbling but safely to the street. - -"Don't start an ugly drunk," Thomas Meredith begged. Without a word, -Anthony turned and, with stiff legs, strode into the night. Eliza was -dead; he had had something to give her, a surprise, but it was too -late. A great piece of good fortune had overtaken him, he wanted to tell -Eliza, but... he collided with a pedestrian, and continued at a tangent -like a mechanical toy turned from its course. His companion swung him -from under the wheels of a truck. "Wait," he panted, "I'm no Marathon -runner, it's hotter'n Egypt." - -The perspiration dripped from Anthony's countenance, wet the clenched -palms of his hands. He walked on and on, through streets brilliantly -lighted and streets dark; streets crowded with men in evening clothes, -loafing with cigarettes by illuminated playbills, streets empty, silent -save for the echo of his hurried, shambling footsteps. Eliza was lost, -out there somewhere in the night; he must find her, bring her back: but -he couldn't find her, nor bring her back--she was dead. He stopped to -reconsider dully that idea. A row of surprisingly white marble steps, of -closed doors, blank windows, confronted him. "This is where I retire," -Thomas Meredith declared. Anthony wondered what the fellow was buzzing -about? why should he wait for him, Anthony Ball, at "McCanns"? - -He considered with a troubled brow a world empty of Eliza; it wasn't -possible, no such foolish world could exist for a moment. Who had -dared to rob him? In a methodical voice he cursed all the holy, all -the august, all the reverent names he could call to mind. Then again -he hurried on, leaving standing a ridiculous figure who shouted an -incomprehensible sentence. - -He passed through an unsubstantial city of shadows, of sudden, -clangoring sounds, of the blur of lights swaying in strings above his -head, of unsteady luminous bubbles floating before him through ravines -of gloom; bells rang loud and threatening, throats of brass bellowed. -His head began to throb with a sudden pain, and the pain printed clearly -on the bright suffering of his mind a stooping, dusty figure; leaden -eyes, a grey face, peered into his own; slack lips mumbled the story -of a boy dead long ago--Eliza, Eliza was dead--and of a red necktie, a -Sunday suit; a fearful figure, a fearful story, from the low mutter of -which he precipitantly fled. Other faces crowded his brain--Ellie with -her cool, understanding look, his mother, his father frowning at him in -assumed severity; he saw Mrs. Dreen, palely sweet in a starlit gloom. -Then panic swept over him as he realized that he was unable, in a sudden -freak of memory, to summon into that intimate gallery the countenance of -Eliza. It was as though in disappearing from the corporeal world she had -also vanished from the realm of his thoughts, of his longing. He paused, -driving his nails into his palms, knotting his brow, in an agony of -effort to visualize her. In vain. "I can't remember her," he told an -indistinct human form before him. "I can't remember her." - -A voice answered him, thin and surprisingly bitter. "When you are sober -you will stop trying." - -And then he saw her once more, so vivid, so near, that he gave a sobbing -exclamation of relief. "Don't," he whispered, "not... lose again--" He -forgot for the moment that she was dead, and put out a hand to touch -her. Thin air. Then he recalled. He commenced his direct, aimless -course, but a staggering weariness overcame him, the toylike progress -grew slower, there were interruptions, convulsive starts. - - - - -LIII - -AT the same time the haze lightened about him: he saw clearly his -surroundings, the black, glittering windows of stores, the gleaming -rails which bound the stone street. His hat was gone and he had long -before lost the bundle that contained his linen. But the loss was of -small moment now--he had money, a pocketful of it, and forty-seven -thousand dollars waiting in Ellerton: his father was a scrupulous, -truthful and exact man. - -Eliza and he would have been immediately married, gone to a little green -village, under a red mountain; Eliza would have worn the most beautiful -dresses made by a parrot; but that, he recognized shrewdly, was an -idiotic fancy--birds didn't make dresses. And now she was dead. - -He entered a place of multitudinous mirrors reflecting a woman's -flickering limbs, sly and bearded masculine faces, that somehow were -vaguely familiar. - -"Champagne!" he cried, against the bar. - -"Your champagne'll come across in a schooner." - -But, impatiently, he shoved a handful of money into the zinc gutter. -"Champagne!" he reiterated thickly. The barkeeper deduced four dollars -and returned the balance. "Sink it," he advised, "or you'll get it -lifted on you." - -With the wine, the mist deepened once more about him; the ache--was it -in his head or his heart?--grew duller. He had poured out a third glass -when a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and whirling suspiciously, he -saw a uniform cap, a man's gaunt face and burning eyes. - -"Brother," the latter said, "brother, shall we leave this reeking sink, -and go out together into God's night?" - -Blinking, Anthony recognized the livery, the accents, of the Salvation -Army. A sullen anger burned within him--this man was a sort of official -connection of God's, who had killed Eliza. He smoothed out his face -cunningly, moved obediently toward the other, and struck him viciously -across the face. Pandemonium rose instantly about him, an incredible -number of men appeared shouting, gesticulating, and formed in a ring of -blurred, grinning faces. The jaw of the Salvation Army man was bright -with blood, dark drops fell on his threadbare coat. His hand closed -again on Anthony's shoulder. - -"Strive, brother," he cried. "The Mansion door is open." - -Anthony regarded him with insolent disdain. "Ought to be exposed," he -articulated, "whole thing... humbug. Isn't any such--such... Eliza's -dead, ain't she?" - -A ripple of merriment ran about the circle of loose, stained lips; the -curious, ribald eyes glittered with cold mirth; the circle flattened -with the pressure of those without, impatient for a better view. Anthony -surveyed them with impotent fury, loathing, and they met his passionate -anger with faces as stony, as inhuman, as cruel, carved masks. He -heard _her_ name, the name of the gracious and beautiful vision of his -adoration, repeated in hoarse, in maculate, in gibing tones. - -"She's dead," he repeated sharply, as though that fact should impose -silence on them; "you filthy curs!" But their approbation of the -spectacle became only the more marked. - -The Salvation Army man fastened his hectic gaze upon Anthony; he was, -it was evident, unaware of the blood drying upon his face, of the throng -about them. "There is no death," he proclaimed. "There is no death!" - -"But she _is_ dead," Anthony insisted; "pneumonia... with green eyes -and foggy hands." They began an insane argument: Eliza was gone, Anthony -reiterated, the other could not deny that she was lost to life, to the -sun. He recalled statements of Rufus Hardinge's, crisp iconoclasms of -Annot's, and fitted them into the patchwork of his labored speech. -Texts were flung aloft like flags by the other; ringing sentences in the -incomparable English of King James echoed about the walls, the bottles -of the saloon and beat upon the throng, the blank hearts, the beery -brains, of the spectators. "Blessed are the pure in heart," he orated, -"for they... for they..." - - - - -LIV - -THAT word--purity, rang like a gong in Anthony's thoughts: Eliza had -emphasized it, questioning him. The term became inexplicably merged -with Eliza into one shining whole--Eliza, purity; purity, Eliza. A swift -impression of massed, white flowers swept before him, leaving a delicate -and trailing fragrance. He had a vision of purity as something concrete, -something which, like a priceless and fragile vase, he guarded in -his hands. It had been a charge from her, a trust that he must keep -unspotted, inviolable, that she would require--but she was gone, she was -dead. - -"... through the valley of the shadow," the other cried. - -She had left him; he stood alone, guarding a meaningless thing, useless -as the money in his pocket. - -A man with bare, corded arms and an apron, broke roughly through the -circle; and with a hand on Anthony's back, a hand on the back of -his opponent, urged them toward the door. "You'll have to take this -outside," he pronounced, "you're blocking the bar." - -An arm linked within Anthony's, and swung him aside. "Unavoidably -detained by merest 'quaintance," Thomas Meredith explained with -ponderous exactitude. Unobserved, they found a place at the table they -had occupied earlier in the evening. The latter ordered a fresh bottle, -but was persuaded by Anthony to surrender the check which accompanied -it. - -A sudden hatred for the money that had come too late possessed him: if -he had had the whole forty-seven thousand dollars there he would have -torn it up, trampled upon it, flung it to the noisome corners of the -saloon. It seemed to have become his for the express purpose of mocking -at his sorrow, his loss. His hatred spread to include that purity, that -virtue, which he had conceived of as something material, an actual -possession.... That, at any rate, he might trample under foot, destroy, -when and as it pleased him. Eliza was gone and all that was left was -valueless. It had been, all unconsciously, dedicated to her; and now he -desired to cast it into the mold that held her. - -He fingered with a new care the sum in his pocket, an admirably -comprehensive plan had occurred to him--he would bury them both, the -money and purity, beneath the same indignity. Tom Meredith, he was -certain, could direct his purpose to its fulfillment. Nor was he -mistaken. The conversation almost immediately swung to the subject of -girls, girls gracious, prodigal of their charms. They would sally forth -presently and "see the town." Tom loudly asseverated his knowledge of -all the inmates of all the complacent quarters under the gas light. -Before a cab was summoned Anthony stumbled mysteriously to the bar, -returning with a square, paper-wrapped parcel. - -"Port wine," he ejaculated, "must have it... for a good time." - - - - -LV - -A SEEMINGLY interminable ride followed, they rattled over rough stones, -rolled with a clacking tire over asphalt. A smell unnamable, fulsome, -corrupt, hung in Anthony's nostrils; the driver objurgated his horse in -a desperate whisper; Tom's head fell from side to side on his breast. -The mists surged about Anthony, veiling, obscuring all but the sullen -purpose compressing his heart, throbbing in his brain. - -There was a halt, a rocking pavement and unctuous tones. Then a hall, a -room, and the tinny racket of a piano, feminine voices that, at the same -time, were hoarsely sexless, empty, like harsh echoes flung from a rocky -void. A form in red silk took possession of Anthony's hand, sat by his -side; a hot breath, a whisper, flattened against his ear. At times he -could distinguish Tom's accents; he seemed to be arguing masterfully, -but a shrill, voluble stream kept pace with him, silenced him in the -end. - -Anthony strove against great, inimical forces to maintain his sanity of -action, ensure his purpose: he sat with a grim, haggard face as rigid -as wood, as tense as metal. The cloudy darkness swept over him, -impenetrable, appalling; through it he seemed to drop for miles, for -years, for centuries; it lightened, and he found himself clutching the -sides of his chair, shuddering over the space which, he had felt, gaped -beneath him. - -In moments of respite he saw, gliding through the heated glare, -gaily-clad forms; they danced; yet for all the dancing, for all the -colors, they were more sinister than merry, they were incomparably more -grievous than gay. A tray of beer glasses was held before him, but he -waved it aside. "Champagne," he muttered. The husky voices commended -him; a bare arm crept around his neck, soft, stifling; the red silk form -was like a blot of blood on the gloom; it spread over his arm like a -tide of blood welling from his torn heart. - -He thought at intervals, when the piano was silent, that he could -distinguish the sound of low, continuous sobbing; and the futility of -grief afforded a contemptuous amusement. "It's fierce," a shrill voice -pronounced. "They ought to have took her somewhere else; this is a -decent place." A second hotly silenced this declaration. In the -jumble of talk which followed he heard the title "captain" pronounced -authoritatively, conclusively imposing an abrupt lull. Men entered. With -an effort which taxed his every resource of concentration he saw that -there were two; he distinguished two tones--one deliberate, coldly -arrogant, the other explosive, iterating noisy assertions. Peering -through the film before his eyes, Anthony saw that the first, -insignificant in stature, exactly and fashionably dressed, had a -countenance flat and dark, like a Chinaman's; the other was a fleshy -young man in an electric blue suit, his neck swelling in a crimson fold -above his collar, who gesticulated with a fat, white hand. - -Anthony felt the attention of the room centered upon himself, he heard -disconnected periods; "... to the eyes. Good fellow... threw friend -out--one of them lawyer jags, too dam' smart." A voice flowed, thick -and gummy like molasses, from the redness at his side, "He's my fellow; -ain't you, Raymond?" - -A wave of deathly sickness swept up from the shuddering void and -enveloped him. He summoned his dissipated faculties, formed his cold -lips in readiness to pronounce fateful words, when he was diverted -by the sharp impact of a shutting door, he heard with preternatural -clearness a bolt slip in its channel. The young man in the blue suit had -disappeared. Again the sobbing, low and distinct, rose and fell upon his -hearing. - -There was a general stir in the room; the form beside him rose; and he -was lunging to his feet when, in the act of moving, he became immovable; -he stood bent, with his hands extended, listening; he turned his head -slowly, he turned his dull, straining gaze from side to side. Then he -straightened up as though he had been opened by a spring. - -"Who--who called?" he demanded. "Who called me--Anthony?" - -In the short, startled silence which followed the room grew suddenly -clear before him, the mist dissolved before a garish flood of gaslight -that fell upon a grotesque circle of women in shapeless, bright apparel; -he saw haggard, youthful countenances on which streaks of paint burned -like flames; he saw eyes shining and dead like glass marbles; mouths -drawn and twisted as though by torture. He saw the fragile, fashionably -dressed youth with the flat face. No one of them could have called him -in the clear tone that had swept like a silver stream through the miasma -of his consciousness. - -Again he heard it. "Anthony!" Its echo ran from his brain in thrills of -wonder, of response, to the tips of his fingers. "Anthony!" Oh, God! -he knew now, beyond all question, all doubt, that it was the voice -of Eliza. But Eliza was dead. It was an inexplicable, a cunning and -merciless jest, at the expense of his love, his longing.... "Anthony!" -it came from above, from within. - -A double, sliding door filled the middle of the wall, and, starting -forward, he fumbled with its small, brass handles. A sudden, subdued -commotion of curses, commands, arose behind him; hands dragged at -his shoulders; an arm as thin and hard as steel wire closed about his -throat. He broke its strangling hold, brushed the others aside. The door -was bolted. Yes, it came from beyond; and from within came the sobbing -that had hovered continuously at the back of his perception. - -He shook the door viciously; then, disregarding the hands tearing at him -from the rear, burst it open with his shoulder. He staggered in, looking -wildly about.... It had, after all, been only a freak of his disordered -mind, an hallucination of his pain. The room was empty but for the young -man in electric blue, now with his coat over the back of a chair, and -a girl with a torn waist, where her thin, white shoulder showed dark, -regular prints, and a tangle of hair across her immature face. - -The man in shirt sleeves rose from the couch, on which he had been -sitting, with a stream of sudden, surprised oaths. The girl who stood -gazing with distended eyes at Anthony turned and flashed through the -broken door. "Stop her!" was urgently cried; "the hall door--" Anthony -heard a chair fall in the room beyond, shrill cries that sank, muffled -in a further space. - -The two men faced him in the silent room: the larger, with an empurpled -visage, bloodshot eyes, shook with enraged concern; the other was as -motionless as a piece of furniture, in his wooden countenance his -gaze glittered like a snake's, glittered as icily as the diamond that -sparkled in his crimson tie folded exactly beneath an immaculate collar. -Only, at intervals, his fingers twitched like jointed and animated -straws. - -An excited voice cried from the distance: "She's gone! Alice's face -is tore open... out the door like a devil, and up the street in her -petticoat." - -The man with the flushed face wilted. "This is as bad as hell," he -whimpered. "It will come out, sure. You--" he particularized Anthony -with a corroding epithet. "The captain is in it deep... this will do for -him, we'll all go up--" - -"Why?" the other demanded. He indicated Anthony with his left hand, -while the other stole into his pocket. "He brought her here... you heard -the girl and broke into the room; there was a fight--a fight." He drew -nearer to Anthony by a step. - - - - -LVI - -ANTHONY gazed above their heads. There, again, clear and sweet, his -name shaped like a bell-note. The familiar scent of a springtide of -lilacs swept about him; the placid murmur of water slipping between -sodded banks, tumbling over a fall; the querulous hunting cry of owls -hovered in his hearing, singing in the undertone of that pronouncement -of his name out of the magic region of his joy. - -"No good," a voice buzzed, indistinct, immaterial. "Who'll shut this--? -who'll get the girl?" - -"The girl can't reach us alone...." - -An intolerable scarlet hurt stabbed at Anthony out of a pungent, whitish -cloud. There was a fretful report. A flat, dark face without expression, -without the blink of an eyelid, a twitch of the mouth, loomed before him -and then shot up into darkness. The hurt multiplied a thousand fold, it -poured through him like molten metal, lay in a flashing pool upon his -heart, filled his brain. He opened his lips for a protest, put out his -hands appealingly. But he uttered no sound, his arms sank, grew stiff... -the light faded from his eyes.... imponderable silence. Frigid night.... - -Far off he heard _her_ calling him, imperative, confident, glad. Her -crystal tones descended into the abyss whose black and eternal walls -towered above him. He must rise and bear to her that gift like a -precious and fragile vase which he held unbroken in his hands. An -ineffable fragrance deepened about him from the massed blooms rosy in -the glow where she waited, drawing him up to her out of the chaotic wash -beyond the worlds where the vapors of corrupted matter sank and sank in -slow coils, falling endlessly, forever. - - -THE END - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lay Anthony, by Joseph Hergesheimer - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAY ANTHONY *** - -***** This file should be named 51921.txt or 51921.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/2/51921/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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