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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 48699
   :PG.Title: The Hungry Heart
   :PG.Released: 2015-04-13
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: David Graham Phillips
   :DC.Title: The Hungry Heart
              A Novel
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1909
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE HUNGRY HEART
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      David Graham Phillips

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      *The*
      HUNGRY HEART

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      *A NOVEL*

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      NEW YORK AND LONDON
      \D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
      1909 

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      Copyright, 1909, by
      \D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

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      *Published September, 1909*

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   THE HUNGRY HEART

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   \I

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Courtship and honeymoon of Richard Vaughan and
Courtney Benedict are told accurately enough by a
thousand chroniclers of love's fairy tales and dreams.  Where
such romances end in a rosily vague "And they lived
happily ever after," there this history begins.  Richard and
Courtney have returned from Arcady to reality, to central
Indiana and the Vaughan homestead, across the narrow
width of Wenona the lake from Wenona the town.

The homecoming was late in a June evening, with a
perfumed coolness descending upon the young lovers from the
grand old trees, round the Vaughan house like his
bodyguard round a king.  Next morning toward eight Courtney,
still half asleep, reached out hazily.  Her hand met only
the rumpled linen on Richard's side of the huge fourposter.
She started up, brushed back the heavy wave of auburn hair
fallen over her brow, gazed down at his pillow.  The dent
of his head, but not he.  Her eyes searched the dimness.
The big room contained only a few large pieces of old
mahogany; at a glance she saw into every corner.  Alone in the
room.  Her eyes, large and anxious now, regarded the
half-open door of the dressing room to the rear.

"Dick!" she called hopefully.

No answer.

"Dick!" she repeated, a note of doubt in her voice.

Silence.

"Dick!" she repeated reproachfully.  It was the first
morning she had awakened without the sense of his nearness
that had become so dear, so necessary.  It was the first
morning in this house strange to her—in this now life they
were to make beautiful and happy together.  She gave a
forlorn sigh like a disappointed child, drew up her knees,
rested her elbows upon them, and her small head upon her
hands.  Sitting there in the midst of that bed big enough
for half a dozen as small as she, she suggested a butterfly
poised motionless with folded wings.  A moment and she
lifted her drooped head.  How considerate of him not to
wake her when the three days and nights on train had been
so wearing!

Swift and light as a butterfly she sprang from the bed,
flung open the shutters of the lake-front windows.  In
poured summer like gay cavalcade through breach in
gloomy walls—summer in full panoply of perfume and soft
air and sparkling sunshine.  She almost laughed aloud for
joy at this timely rescue.  She gazed away across the lake
to the town where she was born and bred!  "Home!" she
cried.  "And so happy—so utterly happy!"  Her
expression, her whole manner, her quick movements gave
the impression of the impulsive self-unconsciousness of a
child.

It was a radiant figure, small and perfect like a sun
sprite, that issued from the room three quarters of an hour
later to flit along the polished oak hall, to descend a stairway
glistening like hall above and wider and loftier hall
below.  With hair piled high on her small head, with tail
of matinee over her arm and tall heels clicking merrily on
the steps, she whistled as she went.  Some people—women—criticised
that laughter-loving mouth of hers as too wide
for so small a face.  It certainly did not suggest a
button-hole.  But no one could have found fault with the shape
of the mouth or with the coloring, whether of the lips or
within, or with her teeth, pearl white and seeming the
whiter for the rose bronze of her skin—the shade that seems
to be of the essence of youth, health, and summer.  Her nose
was rather large, but slender and well shaped.  It was the
nose of mobility, of sensitiveness, of intelligence, not at all
of repose.  And there were her eyes, of a strange soft
emerald, with long dark lashes; the brows long also and
only slightly curved, and slender yet distinct.  These eyes
were her greatest beauty—greater even than her skin.  It
would have been difficult to say whether in them or in her
mouth lay her greatest charm, for charm is not always
beauty, and beauty often wholly lacks charm.

But woman feels that figure determines the woman—"the
woman" meaning, of course, efficiency as a man
catcher.  It was upon Courtney's flawless figure that the
sour glance of old Nanny, the head servant, rested—old
Nanny, whose puritanism aggravated for her by suppression
all the damned charms of "the flesh."  Nanny had reigned
supreme in that house ever since Dick Vaughan was left
alone; so from the first news of the engagement she had
been hating Courtney, whom she regarded as her
supplanter.  As Courtney entered the dining room, stiff and
dim and chilly, like all the rooms in that house, old Nanny
was superintending fat, subdued Mazie at work at the
breakfast table.  It occupied the exact center of the room,
formal as for a state banquet.

"Good morning," cried Courtney in her charming manner
of bright friendliness.  "Good morning, Mazie.  Am
I late?  Where's Richard?"  Her voice was deeper than
one would have expected, but low and musical.

Mazie smiled a welcome, then cast a frightened glance
of apology at Nanny, who did not smile.  "Mr. Richard's
down to the Smoke House," said she.

The Smoke House was the laboratory Dick's grandfather,
Achilles Vaughan, had built for him on the site
of the smoke house of the pioneer Vaughan, settler there
when Wenona was a trading post in New France.  "Of
course!" said Courtney.  "I might have known.  He
wanted to go last night, but I wouldn't let him."

Nanny scowled at this innocent, laughing "I wouldn't
let him."  She turned on Mazie, who was gazing
open-mouthed at Courtney's simple, fresh finery.  "What'r ye
gawkin' here fur, with your mouth hangin' like a chicken
with the gaps?" she demanded in a fierce aside.  Mazie
lumbered through the door into the kitchen.  "As I was
saying," continued Nanny to her new mistress, "he's put
in most nigh all his time down to that there smoke house
day and night—ever since his aunt, Miss Eudosia, died.
Yes, an' before that, while Colonel 'Kill, his grandfather,
was still alive.  He's got sleeping rooms and everything
in the upstairs.  He often don't come here even to meals
for weeks.  Mazie or Jimmie carry 'em to him."

Courtney nodded.  "A regular hermit.  It was the
merest chance that we happened to meet."

"You was the first young woman he'd laid an eye on
in a long time."

Nanny's tone was colorless.  Only a very stupid woman
puts both barb and poison on a shaft when either is enough.
Courtney, who understood and felt remorseful about the
old woman's jealous anger, answered with good-humored
gentleness: "I guess that *was* why I got him.  But he'll
not be a hermit any more."

"He's begun already," said Nanny.

"We mustn't allow it," replied Courtney, not quite so
good-humoredly.  The old woman's steady bearing down
was having its effect.

"There's no goin' agin nature.  The Vaughan men
ain't ever bothered much about women.  They don't let
foolishness detain 'em long.  And this one's his gran'paw
over agin.  When he gits at his work, he's like a dog after
a rabbit."

"It seems a little chilly and damp in here," said
Courtney.  "Do help me open the windows.  I love sun and
air."

"Miss Eudosia—" began Nanny, and checked herself
with a considerable shortening of the distance between chin
and end of nose.

Courtney understood what that beginning meant.  But
she ignored.  "And," she went on, busying herself with
curtains and fastenings, "we'll move the table in front of
this big window.  I like breakfast near the window in
summer, near the fire in winter."

Nanny lowered upon the small straight young figure, so
bright and graceful.  "Miss Eudosia—" she began fiercely.
Again she checked herself, but it was to say with bitterness,
"But then she's dead—and forgot."

"No, indeed!" protested Courtney.  "You'd have
thought she'd gone only a few months ago instead of four
years if you'd heard Richard talking about her yesterday.
And I'm sure she'd have done what I'm suggesting if she'd
happened to think of it."  Then with a look that might
have softened any but a woman resolved to hate another
woman: "Do try to humor me in little things, Nanny.  I'll
be very meek about things that do matter.  I've had no
experience in keeping house.  You'll teach me, won't you?"

Nanny stood inflexible, her wrinkled hands folded
tightly at the waist line of her black alpaca.  She could
not help Courtney displace that table from its ancient site.
It was as if this frivolous, whistling, useless chit of an
ornamental wife were violating the sacred Eudosia's coffin—the
graves of all the Vaughans—for traditions are graves,
and Nanny, like all who live by tradition, lived among
graves.  After a time Courtney, more nervous under those
angry eyes than she showed, got the table at the open
window.  The room was livable now, and after she had
rearranged the dishes the table looked invitingly human.  But her
buoyant young enthusiasm had oozed away.  With wistful
gaze out over prim lawns and flower beds, stiff and staid as
Sunday, she said: "I guess I'll bring Richard to breakfast."

"He et before he went."

"Oh!"  Courtney's tone showed that she was hurt.
But she instantly brightened.  "I'll get him to come and
sit with me while I have breakfast."

A covert sneering smile in the depths of Nanny's eyes
made her flush angrily.  "If I was you I wouldn't
interrupt him," said the old woman.  "He don't allow it."

"How absurd!" cried Courtney.  But straightway she
was amazed and shocked at herself—on this her first
morning in the new and beautiful life, to be drawn nearer a
vulgar squabble than in all her nineteen years—and with
an old woman toward whom it would be cowardice not to
be forbearing.  "I'm cross because I'm hungry," she said
contritely.  "While breakfast's coming I'll run down for
him."

"He's set in his ways," said Nanny.

"He'll not mind me—this once."  And she took up her
train and went by the long French window to the broad
veranda with its big fluted pillars.  At the end steps she
paused.  Yes, it was summer in the Vaughan grounds as
elsewhere.  But that prodigal wanton had there been
caught, had had her tresses sleeked and bound, her
luxuriant figure corseted and clad in the most repellant
classical severity.  Courtney, of the eyes keen for color
and form and fitness of things, felt rebuked and subdued
once more.  She glanced farther round, saw Nanny's
parchment face and sinister gaze watching and hating her.
There is a limit beyond which youth refuses to be
suppressed and compressed, and defiantly expands in more
than its natural gay audacity.  This climax of Nanny,
representative of Vaughans not so rigid in death as they had
been in life, was just the necessary little-too-much.  With
a laugh and a toss of the head, she swung her skirts very
high indeed above her pretty ankles and ran like a young
antelope across the lawn, and into and along the path
leading away toward the eastern part of the grounds.
Through a carefully artificial thicket of lilacs, elders, and
snowballs she sped, then through a small wood with not a
spray of underbrush anywhere.  She came out in a clearing
at the water's edge.  Before her, one of its walls rising
sheer from the retaining wall of the lake, stood the
laboratory.

She paused astonished.  She had expected a temporary
sort of structure.  Before her rose a fitting temple for the
mysteries of the "black art."  It was a long two-story
building of stone and brick, not visible from the lake proper
because it stood upon the bank of a deep, narrow inlet.
The weather had stained its walls into the semblance of
age wherever they showed through the heavy mantle of
bitter-sweet that overspread even the roof.  Around the
place hung an air of aloofness and seclusion, of mystery,
that appealed to her young instinct for the romantic.  The
brick path divided into two.  One went to what was
obviously the entrance to the second-story bachelor suite; the
other turned to the left, rounded the corner of the house,
ended at the massive iron door of the laboratory proper.

This door was wide open.  Courtney stood upon the
threshold like a bright bird peering from the sunshine into
the entrance to a cave.  The air that came out was heavy
with the odors of chemicals, but not sharp or especially
unpleasant.  Besides, in high school and college she had
done a good deal at chemistry, enough to be seized of its
fascination.  She stood gazing into a big high-ceilinged
room, filled with a bewildering variety of unusual
articles—gigantic bottles, cylinders, vials, jars of glass, of stone,
of metal; huge retorts with coils of pipe, lead and
rubber; lamps and balances and mortars; tiers on tiers of
crowded shelves of glass and porcelain and iron; drying
ovens, distilling apparatus, condensers and generators,
crushers and pulverizers, cupels and cupel trays, calorimeters
and crucibles and microscopes; floor all but filled with
batteries and engines and machines of gold and platinum,
of aluminum and copper, of brass and steel and glass and
nickel.  A thousand articles, in the orderly confusion that
indicates constant use.

She was more and more amazed as she stared and
reflected.  "He works with all these things!" thought she,
depressed for no clear reason.  "I had no idea—no idea!"

She ventured a step farther.  In a twinkling her
expression of wonder and vague pain vanished before a love
light that seemed to stream not from her face only, but
from her whole body, with those rare eyes of hers as
radiating centers.  She was seeing Richard—near a window, so
standing that his long high-bred face was in profile to
her.  He was tall, well above six feet; his careless
flannels revealed the strong, slender, narrow form of the
pioneers and their pure-blooded descendants.  His fairish
hair was thick and wavy—"Thank Heaven, not curly!"
thought Courtney.

She did not interrupt.  She preferred to watch him,
to let her glance caress him, all unconscious of her
presence.  In one hand he was balancing a huge bottle; the
other held a long test tube.  He was slowly dropping the
bottle's contents of quiet colorless liquid into the test tube,
which was half full of a liquid, also quiet and colorless.
Each drop as it touched the surface of the liquid dissolved
into black steam.  It was this steam that gave off the
pungent odor.  As she watched, there came a slow
tightening at her throat, at her heart.

"I never saw him look like this," thought she.  No,
it wasn't his serious intentness; one of the things she had
first noted about him, and best loved, was the seriousness
of his deep-set dark gray eyes—the look of the man who
"amounts to something," and would prove it before he
got through.  No, it was the *kind* of seriousness.  She felt
she was seeing a Richard Vaughan she did not know at all.
"But, then," she reflected, "there's a side of me he doesn't
know about either."  This, however, did not satisfy her.
The man she was now seeing disquietingly suggested that
the Richard Vaughan she had been knowing and loving and
had been loved by was not the real man at all, but only
one of his moods.  "I thought he just amused himself
with chemistry.  Instead—  Nanny is about right."  A
pang shot through her; she would have recognized it as
jealousy, had she stopped to think.  But at nineteen one
does not stop to think.  "I do believe he cares almost as
much for this as he does for me."

He lowered the bottle to the table.  As he straightened
up, he caught sight of her.  His expression changed; but
the change was not nearly enough either in degree or in
kind to satisfy her.  "Hello!" cried he carelessly.  "Good
morning."

She got ready to be kissed.  But, instead of coming
toward her, he half turned away, to hold the test tube up
between his eyes and the light.  "Um—mm," he grumbled,
shaking it again and again, and each time looking
disappointedly at the unchanged liquid.

Like all American girls of the classes that shelter their
women, she had been brought up to accept as genuine the
pretense of superhuman respect and deference the American
man—usually in all honesty—affects toward woman—until
he marries her, or for whatever reason becomes tired
and truthful.  She had been confirmed in these ideas of
man as woman's incessant courtier, almost servant, by
receiving for the last five lively years the admiration,
exaggerated and ardent, which physical charm, so long as it
is potent, exacts from the male.  No more than other
women of her age—or than older women—or than the men
had she penetrated the deceptive surface of things and
discovered beneath "chivalry's" smug meaningless
professions the reality, the forbearance of "strength" with
"weakness," the graciousness of superior for inferior.
Thus, such treatment as this of Dick's would have been
humiliating from a casual man, on a casual occasion.  From
her husband, her lover, the man she had just been
garlanding with all the fairest flowers of her ardent young
heart—from him, and on this "first" morning, this
unconcern, which Nanny's talk enabled her to understand, was
worse than stab into feminine vanity; it was stab straight
into her inmost self, the seat of her life.

She dared not admit the wound—not to her own secret
thought.  Bravely she struggled until her voice and manner
were under control.  "I've come to take you to breakfast,"
said she.  It seemed to her that her tone was gratifying
evidence of triumph of strength of character over "silly
supersensitiveness—as if Dick could mean to hurt *me*!"

"Breakfast," repeated he.  His gaze was discontentedly
upon the bottle whose contents had acted disappointingly.
"Breakfast—  Oh, yes—  Don't wait on me.  I
had coffee before I came down here.  I'll be along in a
few minutes."  He took up the bottle again, resumed the
cautious pouring.

The tears sprang to her eyes; her lip quivered.  But
sweet reasonableness conquered again, and she perched on
a high stool near the door.  She gazed round, tried to
interest herself in the certainly extraordinary exhibits on
floor and tables and shelves.  She recalled the uses of the
instruments she recognized, tried to guess the uses of those
that were new to her.  But her mind refused to wander
from the one object that really interested her in that room.
Perhaps ten minutes passed, she watching him, he
watching the unchanged liquid in the test tube.

She had been born in her father's and mother's prime.
She had been taught to use her brain.  Thus, underneath
the romantic and idealizing upper strata of her character
there was the bedrock of good common sense, to resist and
to survive any and all shocks.  As she sat watching her
engrossed husband her love, her fairness, and her good
sense pleaded for him, or, rather, protested against her
sensitiveness.  What a dear he was!  And how natural that
he should be absorbed in these experiments, after having
been away so long.  What right had she to demand that his
mood should be the same as hers?  What a silly child she
had shown herself, expecting him to continue to act as if
love making were the whole of life.  If he were to be, and
to do exactly as she wished, would she not soon grow sick
of him, as of the other men, who had thought to win her
by inviting her to walk on them?  Her eyes were sweet
and tender when Dick, happening to glance seeingly in
her direction, saw her ensconced, chin on hand, elbow on
knee.  "Hello," said he half absently.  "Good morning."

There was no room for doubt; he had completely forgotten
her.  As her skin was not white, but of delicate pale
yet rosy bronze, it did not readily betray change of emotion.
But such a shock had he given her sensitive young heart, in
just the mood of love and longing to be most easily bruised,
that even his abstraction was penetrated.  He set the bottle
down.  "Didn't I speak to you—" he began, and then
remembered.  "I beg your pardon," he said, contrite and
amused.

Pride always hides a real wound.  She smiled.  "I'm
waiting to take you to breakfast," she said.

He looked uncertainly at the bottle and the tube.

A wave of remorse for her thoughts swept over her.
"Also," she went on, and she was radiant again, "I'm
waiting to be kissed."

He laughed, gazed lovingly at her.  "What a beauty
she is, this morning," he cried.  "Like the flowers—the
roses—the finest rose that every grew—in a dream of
roses."

Her eyes at once showed that his negligence was
forgotten.  Their lips met in a lingering kiss.  He drew
away, threw back his head, gazed at her.  "Was there
ever woman so lovely and fresh and pure?" he said.  With
impulsive daring she overcame her virginal shyness, flung
her arms round his neck, and kissed him.  "I love you,"
she murmured, blushing.  "When I woke up and found
you gone—it was dreadfully lonely."  She had dropped
into the somewhat babyish manner natural to any
affectionate nature in certain moods and circumstances.  It
seemed especially natural to her, on account of her size
and her exuberant gayety; and she had been assuming it
with him in all its charming variations from the beginning
of their engagement because it was the manner that
pleased him best.  "Next time, you'll wake me and take
me along—won't you?"

He patted her.  "Bless the baby!  A lot of work I'd do."

"I'm going to help you.  I can soon learn."

He shook his head in smiling negative.  "You're going
to be the dearest, sweetest wife a man ever had," said he.
"And always your womanly self."

"But," she persisted with an effort, "I can help.  I'm
sure I can."  There was no trace of the "baby" in her
expression now; on the contrary, her face and her voice were
those of an extremely intelligent young woman, serious
without the dreary, posed solemnity that passes current
for seriousness, but is mere humorless asininity.  "I really
know something about chemistry," she went on.  "I liked
it, and took the courses both at high school and at college.
Last winter I won a prize for original work."  His smile
made her color.  "I don't say that," she hastened to
explain, "because I think I'm a wonderful chemist, but just
to prove to you that I do know a little something—enough
to be able to help in a humble sort of way."

His expression was still that of grown people when
laughing at the antics of children, and concealing
amusement behind a thin pretense of grave admiration.  "Yes,
I've no doubt you're clever at it," said he.  "But a refined
woman oughtn't to try to do the man sort of thing."

"But, dear, I'm not so superfine as you seem to
think—and not altogether foolish."  She glanced round the
laboratory.  "You don't know how at home I feel here.  What
a wonderful, beautiful equipment you have!  Everything
of the best—and so well taken care of!  Dick, I want to
be your—wife.  As I watched you I realized I've got to
fit myself for it.  That is—of course, I always knew I'd
have to do that—but now I know just what I must do."

"What a serious child it is!" he cried, pinching her
cheek.  It was delightful, this baby playing at "grown-up."

She laughed because she loved him and loved laughter;
but she persisted.  "Being wife to a man means a great
deal more than looking pretty and making love."

"That's very dear and sweet," said he, in the same
petting, patronizing way.  "I'm content with you as you are.
I don't want anything more."  And he set about putting
things away and locking up.

Quiet on her high stool, she struggled against a feeling
of resentment, of depression.  Her instinct was, as
always, to hide her hurt; but it seemed to her that if she
did, it would not get well, would get worse.  "Dick," she
began at last.

"Yes?" said he absently.  "Come along, dear."  And
he lifted her down with a kiss.

She went out, waited for him while he locked the door.
"Dick," she began again, as they walked along the path,
"I don't want to be shut out of any part of your life, least
of all out of the realest part.  I want to be truly your
wife."

No answer.  She glanced up at him; obviously his
thoughts were far away.

She slipped her arms through his.  "Tell me what
you're thinking about, dear."

"About that test I was making."

"What was it?"

"Oh, nothing.  Is the house satisfactory?  How do you
like old Nanny?"  As she did not answer, he looked down
at her.  "Why, what's the matter with my little
sweetheart?  Such a discontented expression!"

"Nothing—nothing at all," replied she, forcing a smile
and steadying her quivering lip.

"I'm afraid those two days on the train——"

"Yes," she interrupted eagerly.  "And I guess I'm
hungry, too.  *That's* very upsetting."

With a little forcing she kept up the semblance of good
spirits through breakfast and until he was off to the
laboratory again.  Then she gave way to her mood—for it could
be only a mood.  With old Nanny as guide, she went
through the house, through all its spacious solidly and
stiffly furnished rooms.  At every step Nanny had
something to say of Miss Eudosia—how good Miss Eudosia
had been, how Miss Eudosia kept everything as her mother
had it before her, how particular Miss Eudosia had been.
And when it wasn't Miss Eudosia it was Colonel 'Kill—that
splendid-looking, terrible-looking old Achilles Vaughan;
as a child she had decided that the awful god the
family worshiped must look like Achilles Vaughan.  Nanny
talked on and on; Courtney's spirits went down and down.
In one respect the house should have appealed to her—in
its perfect order.  For she had inherited from her mother
a passion for order—an instinct that would have a neatly
kept ribbon box almost as soon as she could talk, and had
prompted her, long before she could talk distinctly, to cry
if they tried to put on her a dress the least bit mussed
or a stocking with a hole in it.  But there is the order that
is of life, and there is the order that is of death.  This
Vaughan order seemed to her to be of death.  She felt
surrounded, hemmed in, menaced by a throng of the
Vaughan women of past generations—those women of the
old-fashioned kind, thoughtless, mindless, cool, and correct
and inane—the kind of women the Vaughan men liked—the
kind Richard liked—"No—no.  He does *not* like that kind!"

Assisted by Nanny and Mazie, she unpacked the trunks
into drawers and closets.  When the last box was empty,
Jimmie took them down to the cellar.  She was established—was
at home.  She and Dick were to have the same bedroom;
he would use the big spare bedroom directly across
the hall and its bath for dressing.  It was all most
convenient, most comfortable.  But she could not get
interested, could not banish the feeling that she would soon be
flitting, that she was stranger, intruder here.  And the last
sweet days of the honeymoon kept recurring in pictured
glimpses of their happiness of various kinds, all centering
about love.  How tender he had been, how absorbed in
their romance—that wonderful romance which began
ideally in a chance meeting and love at first sight.  And now,
just as she was getting over her deep-down shyness with
him, was feeling the beginnings of the courage to be
wholly her natural self, to show him her inmost thoughts,
o release the tenderness, the demonstrativeness that had
been pent up in her all her life—just as the climax of
happiness was at hand—here was this shadow, this relegating
her to the chill isolation and self-suppression and
self-concealment of a pedestaled Vaughan wife.  "He acts as
if a woman were not like a man—as if I had no sense
because I'm not tall, and don't go about in a frown and
spectacles."  And it depressed her still further to recall
that his attitude had been the same throughout courtship
and honeymoon—treating her as a baby, a pet,
something to protect and shield, something of which nothing
but lover's small talk was expected.  She had liked it then;
it seemed to fit in with the holiday spirit.  "I gave him
a false impression.  It's my fault."  To pretend to be
infantile for purposes of a holiday of love-making is one
thing; to have one's pretense taken as an actual and
permanent reality—that was vastly different, and wearisome,
and humiliating, and not to be permitted.  "But," she
reflected, "it's altogether my fault.  And the thing for me
to do is not to talk about it to him, but just quietly
to go to work and make myself his wife—fit myself for
it."  A wonderful man she thought him; and it thrilled
her, this high and loving ambition to be worthy of him,
and not mere pendant and parasite as so many wives were
content to be.

They were to go the scant half mile across the lake
in the motor boat at noon and lunch at her old home.  She
was ready a few minutes before time, and started toward
the Smoke House.  Halfway she stopped and turned back.
No, she could not interrupt him there again.  His manner,
unconscious, more impressive than any deliberate look
or word, made her feel that the Smoke House was set in
an enchanted wood which she could not penetrate until
She smiled tenderly.

At half past twelve he came on the run.  "Why didn't
you telephone?" exclaimed he.  "We'll be scandalously
late.  I'm so sorry.  When I get to work down there I
forget everything.  I even forgot I was married."

She busied herself with the buttons of her glove, and
the brim of her hat hid her face.  And such a few hours
ago he and she were all in all to each other!

"Do you forgive me?"

She thought she was forgiving him; the hurt would
soon pass.  So she gave him a look that passed muster
with his unobservant eyes.  "Don't worry.  We'll soon
be there."

They got under way, he at the motor, she watching
his back.  On impulse she moved nearer.  "Dick," she
said.  "Don't turn round.  I want to say something to
you that's very hard to say....  I feel I ought to warn
you.  At college the girls called it one of my worst traits.
When anyone I care for hurts me, I don't say anything—I
even hide it.  And they don't realize—and keep on
hurting—until—  Oh, I've lost several friends that way.
For—the time comes—  I don't let on, and it gets to be too
late—and I don't care any more."

"You mean about my keeping you waiting?"

"No—not that—not that alone.  Not any one thing.
Not anything at all yet—but a kind of a shadow.
Just—you've made me feel as if I weren't to be part of
you—of your life.  No, I don't say it right.  I've felt as if I
were to be part of you, but that you weren't to be part of me."

He began to laugh, believing that the proper way to
dispel a mood so unreal.  But glancing at her he saw
she was shrinking and literally quivering with pain.  His
face sobered.  He reminded himself that women could not
be dealt with on a basis of reason and sense, since they
had those qualities only in rudimentary form.  As his hands
were occupied, he was puzzled how to treat this his first
experience with feminine sweet unreasonableness in her.
All he could do toward pacifying was to say soothingly, as
to a sensitive child: "I understand, sweetheart.  I must be
very—very careful."

"Not at all!" she cried, ready to weep with vexation
at her complete failure to make him understand.  "I'm
not a silly, sensitive thing, always trailing my feelings for
some one to step on."

"No, dearest—of course not," said he in the same tone
as before.  "If there weren't so many sail boats about, I'd
show you how penitent I am."

"But I don't want you to be penitent."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want you to—I want us to be comrades."

"What a child it is!  You girls are brought up to play
all the time.  But you can't expect a man to be like that.
Of course we'll play together.  I'd not have wanted to
marry you if I hadn't needed you."

"But what am *I* to do when you can't play?" she
asked.  "And I'm afraid you won't play very often.
That is, I know you won't—and I'm glad you won't—for
I'd not care as I do if you were that kind.  I
didn't realize until this morning.  But I do realize
now, and—Dick, you don't think of me as just to
play with?"

Facing her earnestness, he would not have dared
confess the truth.  "No, indeed!" said he.  "Your head's
full of notions to-day.  You're not at all like your sweet
loving self."

She felt instantly altogether in the wrong.  "It's the
strangeness, I guess," she said penitently.

"That's it, exactly.  But in a few days you'll be all
right—and as happy as a bird on a bough."

As they were about to land she mustered all her courage,
and with heightened color said: "You'll let me come
down and try to help, won't you?  I'll promise not to be
in the way—not for a minute.  And if I am, I'll never come
again.  I can at least wash out test tubes and bring you
things you need."

"Oh, if you really want to come," began he, with
good-humored tolerance.

"Thank you—thank you," she interrupted, eager and
radiant.

"Not right away," he hastened to add.  "Just at
present I'm clearing things up."

"I understand.  You'll tell me when the time comes."

"Yes, I'll tell you."





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In late July, after he had not appeared either at
dinner or at supper for four days, she said to him, "You're
becoming a stranger."

The idea of reproaching him was not in her mind.
She had been most respectful of what she compelled
herself to regard as his rights, had been most careful not to
intrude or interrupt or in any way annoy.  The remark
was simply an embarrassed attempt to open conversation—not
an easy matter with a man so absorbed and silent as
he had become.  But he was feeling rather guilty; also,
he had not recovered from the failure of an elaborate
experiment from which he had expected great things in
advancing him toward his ultimate goal—the discovery of a
cheap, universal substitute for all known fuels.  "You
know, my dear," said he, "in the sort of work I'm trying
to do a man can't control his hours."

"I know," she hastened to apologize, feeling offense in
his tone, and instantly accusing herself of lack of tact.
"I'm too anxious for you to succeed to want you ever to
think I'm expecting you.  I've been busy myself—and a
lot of people have been calling."

This, though bravely said, somehow did not lessen his
sense of guilt.  "You're not lonely, are you?" he asked
gently.  And he gave her a searching, self-reproachful look.

"No, indeed!" laughed she.  "I'm not one of the kind
that get hysterical if they're left alone for a few minutes."  Her
tone and expression were calculated to reassure, and
they did reassure.

"Really, you ought to have married a fellow who was
fond of society and had time for it.  I know how you love
dancing and all that."  This, with arms about her and an
expression which suggested how dreary life would have
been if she had married that more suitable other fellow.

"I used to like those things," said she.  "But I found
they were all simply makeshifts, to pass the time until you
came."

"We *are* happy—aren't we?"

"And just think!" she cried.  "How happy we'll be
when our real life begins."

"Yes," said he vaguely.

He looked confused and puzzled, but she was too intent
upon her dream to note it.  "When do you think you'll
get time to teach me the ropes?" asked she.

After a little groping he understood.  He had forgotten
all about that fantastic plan of hers to potter at the
laboratory.  And she had been serious—had been waiting
for him to ask her down!  A glance at her face warned
him that she was far too much in earnest to be laughed at.
"Oh, I don't know exactly when," said he.  "Probably
not for some time.  Don't bother about it."

"Of course, I'll not bother you about it," replied she.
"But naturally I can't help thinking.  It won't be long?"

He detested liars and lies.  Yet, looking on her as a
sort of child—and it's no harm to humor a child—he said,
"I hope not."

He blushed as he said it, though his conscience was
assuring him there was absolutely nothing wrong in this
kind of playful deception with woman the whimsical, the
irrational.  "Certainly not," thought he.  "She'll soon
forget all about it.  I don't see how she happened to
remember so long as this."  Still, it was not pleasant to tell
even the whitest of white lies, facing eyes so earnest and
so trusting as were hers just then.  He changed the
subject—inquired who had been calling.  She did not return
to it.  She was content; his long hours and his complete
absorption were proof of his eagerness to hasten the day
when they should be together.  "Of course," thought she,
"he likes what he's doing—likes it for itself.  But *the*
reason is 'us.'"  And some day soon he would surprise
her—and they would begin to lead the life of true
lovers—the life she had dreamed and planned as a girl—the life
she had begun to realize during courtship and honeymoon—the
life of which, even in these days of aloneness
and waiting, she had occasional foretastes when overpowering
impulse for a "lighter hour" brought him back to her
for a little while.

She had been puzzled when in those hours he sometimes
called her "temptress."  The word was tenderly
spoken, but she felt an accent of what was somehow
suggestion of reproach—and of rebuke.  Now she thought she
understood.  He meant she stimulated in him the same deep
longings that incessantly possessed her; and when those
longings were stimulated, it was hard for him to keep his
mind on the work he was hastening with all his energy—the
work that must be done before their happiness could
begin.  "I must be careful not to tempt him," thought she.

From this she went on to feel she understood another
matter that had puzzled her, had at times disquieted her.
She had noticed that his moods of caressing tenderness, of
longing for the outward evidences of love seemed to be
satisfied, and to cease just when her own delight in them
was swelling to its fullness.  Why should what roused her
quiet him?  This had been the puzzle; now she felt she
had solved it: He had greater self-control than she; he
would not let his feelings master him, when they would
certainly interfere with the work that must be done to
clear their way of the last obstacles to perfect happiness;
so he withdrew into himself and fought down the longings
for more and ever more love that were no doubt as
strong in him as in her.

Thus she, in her faith and her inexperience, reasoned it
all out to her satisfaction and to his glory.  She had not
the faintest notion of the abysmal difference between her
idea of love and his.  With her the caresses had their
chief value as symbols—as the only means by which the
love within could convey news of its existence.  With
Dick, the caresses were not symbols at all, not means to
an end, but the end in themselves.  Of love such as she
dreamed and expected he knew nothing; for it he felt no
more need than the usual busy, ambitious man.  His work,
his struggle to wrest from nature close-guarded secrets,
filled his mind and his heart.

He soon assumed she had forgotten her fantastic whim,
and forgot it himself.  She often wished he would talk
to her about his work, would not be quite so discouraging
when she timidly tried to talk with him about it.  And in
spite of herself she could not but be uneasy at times over
his growing silence, his habitual absentmindedness.  But
she accepted it all, as loving inexperience will accept
anything and everything—until the shock of disillusion comes.
So stupefying is habit, there were times when her dream
became vague, when she drifted along, leading, as if it
were to be permanent, the ordinary life of the modern
married woman whose husband is a busy man.  She was
learning a great deal about that life from her young
married friends of the neighborhood and of Wenona.  Many of
them—in fact, most of them—were husbanded much like
herself.  But they were restless, unhappy, and for the best
of reasons—because they had no aim, no future.  She pitied
them profoundly, felt more and more grateful for her own
happier lot.  For she—Dick's wife—had a future, bright
and beautiful.  Surely it could not be much longer before
he would have the way clear for the life in common, the
life together!

She fell to talking, in a less light vein than she usually
permitted herself with him, about these friends of hers
to him one evening as they walked up and down the
veranda after supper.  She described with some humor,
but an underlying seriousness, their lives—their amusing,
but also pitiful, efforts to kill time—their steady decline
toward inanity.  "I don't see what they married for," said
she.  "They really care nothing about their husbands—or
their husbands about them.  The men seem to be contented.
But the women aren't, though they pretend to be—*pretend*
to their *husbands*!  Isn't it all sad and horrible?"

"Indeed it is," he replied.  He had been only half
listening, but had caught the drift of what she was saying.
"It's hard to believe decent women can be like that."

"And the men—they're worse," said she; "for they're
satisfied."

"Why shouldn't they be?" said Dick.  "They don't
know what kind of wives they've got."

"I—I don't think you quite understood me."

"Oh, yes; you said the wives were dissatisfied.  They've
got good homes and contented husbands.  What right have
they to be dissatisfied?  What more do they want?"

"What we've got," said she tenderly.  "Love."

"But they've got love.  Didn't you say their husbands
were contented?  When a man's contented it means that
he loves his wife.  And a good woman always loves her
husband."

She laughed.  He often amused her with his funny
old-style notions about women.  "You can't understand
people who live and feel as they do, dear," said she.  "Of
course, you and I seem to be living much like them just
now.  But you know we'd never be contented if we had to
go on and on this way."

With not a recollection of the "whim," he stopped
short in astonishment.  "What way?" he asked.  "Aren't
we happy?"

She smiled radiantly up at him in the clear, gentle
evening light.  "But not so happy as we shall be, when
you get things straightened out and take me into
partnership."

"Partnership?" he demanded blankly.  "What do you mean?"

"I call it partnership.  I suppose you'd call it working
for you.  I suppose I shall be pretty poor at first.
But I'll surprise you before I've been down there many
weeks.  I've been brushing up my chemistry, as well as I
could, with only books."

It came to him what she was talking about—and it
overwhelmed him with confusion.  "Yes—certainly.
I—I supposed you'd forgotten."

She gazed at him in dismay.  "Forgotten!"  Then
she brightened.  "Oh, you're teasing me."

He began to be irritated.  "You mustn't fret me about
that," he said.

"I didn't even mean to speak of it," she protested, her
supersensitive dread of intrusion alert.  "I know you're
doing the best you can.  But I couldn't help dreaming of
the time when I'll have you back again....  Now, don't
look so distressed!  Meanwhile, we'll have what we can.
And that's something—isn't it?"

What queer, irrational creatures women were!  To persist
in a foolish, fanciful notion such as this!  Why couldn't
she play at keeping house and enjoy herself as it was
intended women should?  A woman's trying to do anything
serious, a woman's thinking—it was like a parrot's
talking—an imitation, and not a good one.  But the "whim"
and his "harmless deception" became the same sort of
irritation in his conscience that a grain of dust is on the
eyeball.  He was forced to debate whether he should not
make a slight concession.  After all, where would be the
harm in letting her come to the laboratory?  She'd soon
get enough.  Yes, that would be the wise course.  Humor
a woman or a child in an innocent folly, and you effect a
cure.  Yes—if she brought the matter up again, and no
other way out suggested, he would let her come.  It amused
him to think of her, delicate as a flower, made for the
hothouse, for protection and guidance and the most careful
sheltering, trying to adapt herself to serious work
calling for thought and concentration.  "But she'd be a
nuisance after a day or so.  A man's sense of humor—even his
love—soon wears thin when his work's interfered with."  Still,
she'd be glad enough to quit, probably after a single
morning of the kind of thing he'd give her to discourage
her.  "Really, all a woman wants is the feeling she's
having her own way."

This decision laid the ghost.  As she said no more, the
whole thing passed to the dark recesses of his memory.
One evening in late September, when he was taking a
walk alone on the veranda, she came out and joined him.
After a few silent turns she said, "Let's sit on the
steps."  She made him sit a step lower than she, which brought
their eyes upon a level.  The moon was shining full upon
them.  The expression of her face, as she looked intently
at him, was such that he instinctively said, "What is it,
dear?" and reached for her hand.

He had given the subject of children—the possibilities,
probabilities—about as little thought as a young married
man well could.  There are some women who instantly and
always suggest to men the idea motherhood; there are
others, and Courtney was of them, in connection with whom
the idea baby seems remote, even incongruous.  But as she
continued to look steadily at him, without speaking, his
mind began to grope about, and somehow soon laid hold
of this idea.  His expression must have told her that he
understood, for she nodded slowly.

"Do you mean—" he began in an awe-stricken voice,
but did not finish.

"Yes.  I've suspected for some time.  To-day the
doctor told me it was so."

Her hand nestled more closely into his, and he held it
more tightly.  A great awe filled him.  It seemed very still
and vast, this moonlight night.  He gazed out over the
lake.  He could not speak.  She continued to look at him.
Presently she began in a low, quiet voice, full of the
melody of those soft, deep notes that were so strange and
thrilling, coming from such slim, delicate smallness of body
and of face: "I can't remember the time when I wasn't
longing for a baby.  When I was still a baby myself I used
to ask the most embarrassing questions—and they couldn't
stop me—  When could I have a baby?  How soon?  How
many?  And when I finally learned that I mustn't talk
about it, I only thought the more.  I never rested till I
found out all about it.  I came very near marrying the first
man that asked me because——"

He was looking at her with strong disapproval.

She smiled tenderly.  "I know you hate for me to be
frank and natural," she said with the gentlest raillery.
"But, please, let me—just this once.  I must tell you
exactly what's in my head—my foolish, feminine head, as
your grandfather would have said."

"Go on, dear.  But you couldn't convince me you
weren't always innocent and pure minded."

"You—a chemist—a scientist, talking about knowledge
being wicked!  But I'll not discuss those things with you.
I never have and I never shall."  She drew closer to him,
put one arm round his neck.  "Now do listen, dear," she
went on.  "Then—you came into my life.  It's very
queer—I don't understand why—at least not clearly—but
from the moment I loved you I never thought of baby
again—except to think I didn't want one."

"My dear!" he exclaimed.  He drew away to look at
her.  "Courtney!  That's very unnatural.  You're quite
mistaken."

As she did not know men, it seemed to her a unique
and profoundly mysterious case, this of him so
broad-minded, scandalously broadminded most Wenona people
thought, yet in the one direction a puritan of puritans.
With a wisdom deeper than she realized she said smilingly:
"Dear—*dear* Dick!  I guess the reason you men think
women irrational is because you're irrational on the
subject of women yourselves.  To a crazy person the whole
world seems crazy."

He did not respond to her pleasantry.  She sighed,
drew his arm round her, went on: "Well—anyhow, it's
true.  And, do you know, I think that whenever a woman
really loves a man, cares for just him, she doesn't want
a baby."

"You're quite mistaken," he assured her gravely.
"It's natural for a woman to want children.  *You* want
them."

"Do *you*?"

"I?  I've never given it much thought."

"I did hope you'd say no," said she, half in jest.
"Now honestly, doesn't it seem reasonable that when two
people love each other they shouldn't want any—any
intruder?"

He looked at her with more than a trace of severity in
his expression.  "Where did you get these unnatural
ideas?  I don't like you to say such things even in joke.
They're most unwomanly."

She felt rebuked and showed it, but persisted, "You
must admit it'll interfere."

"Interfere with what?"

"With the life we've been looking forward to—with
my helping you."

"Oh—yes—" he stammered.  Again that exasperating
ghost!  What possessed her to persist in such nonsense?

"You know it would interfere—would put off our
happiness for a year or two.  A year or two!  Oh, Dick!"

When she had the child, thought he, the ghost would
be laid forever.  "Well—we'll do the best we can," he
said.  His tone and manner of regret were as sincere as
ever mother used in assuring her child of the reality of
Santa Claus.  And Courtney believed and was reconciled.

"I do want the baby," she now admitted.  "But I want
you—love—more, oh, so much more.  I'm glad your life
work is something I naturally care about.  Still, I
suppose, when a woman loves a man, she cares about whatever
he is and does, and fits herself to be part of it."

He smiled with patronizing tenderness, as he often
did, always evidently quite sure she'd not understand.  If
we could but realize it, how our mismeasurements of others
would enable us to study as in a mirror our own limitations!
"Wait till you have the baby," said he.

"Do you think that with me love for a baby could
ever take the place of need for love—grown-up love?
You're always making me feel as if you didn't know me at
all, Dick."

He laughed and kissed her.  "You don't know yourself.
Wait till you have a baby, and you'll be content to be just a
woman."

"But I'm content to be that now."

"Well—let's not argue."





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Except courtship and honeymoon never had she been
so happy as in the last two months before the baby came.
"Every-one is spoiling me," she said, dazzled by the
revelations of thoughtfulness and affection.  Her friends, her
acquaintances, showered attentions upon her.  Even her
mother, austere and cold, unbent.  Her father, the shy, the
silent, betrayed where she had got her silent, shy, intense
longing for love.  The two sour old-maid sisters were all
tenderness and chaste excitement.  As for Dick, he actually
neglected his career.  Again and again he would stop in
the midst of an experiment to dash up to the house and
inquire what he could do for her—this when there was a
private telephone at his elbow.

She was intelligent about diet and exercise; so she
suffered hardly at all.  As for the baby, he came into the
world positively shrieking with health.  Finally, she had
none of the petty vanity that leads many a first-time mother
into fancying and acting as if maternity were a unique
achievement, original with herself.  Thus the agitation
quickly died away, and life resumed its former course,
except that she had a baby to take care of.  At first it was
great fun.  Dick helped her, forgot his chemistry, seemed
in the way to become a father of unprecedented devotion.
But this did not last long.  He loved playthings and
played with them; but the call of his career was the strong
force in his life, and he went back to the laboratory.  She
might have given the baby over to a nurse, as all the other
women were doing.  But it seemed to her that, as she was
responsible for the coming of this frisky helplessness, she
could not do less than guard him until he was able to look
out for himself.  "When he can talk and tell me exactly
how's he treated when I'm not around," said she, "why,
perhaps I'll trust him to a nurse—if he needs one.  But
until then I'll be nurse myself."

Many and many a time in the next eighteen months she
wished she had not committed herself openly and
positively.  She loved her baby as much as any mother
could—and a good-humored lovable baby he was, fat and
handsome, and showing signs of being well bred while still a
speechless animal.  But, except in romances and make-believe
life, the deepest love wearies of sacrifices, though it
gladly makes them.  This baby—Benedict they named him,
but he changed it to Winchie as soon as he could—this
baby made a slave of her.  She understood why so many
women retrograde after the birth of the first child.  The
temptation to go to seed is powerful enough in the most
favorable circumstances, once a woman has caught a
husband and secured a living for life.  A baby, she soon saw,
made that temptation tenfold stronger.  She wondered
what it was in her that compelled her to fight unyieldingly
against being demoralized.

Dick was deep in a series of experiments that forbade
him a thought for anything else.  He did occasionally
spend a few moments in mechanical dalliance with his two
playthings; but that interrupted his thoughts little if at all.
By the slow, unnoted day-to-day action that plays the only
really important part in human intimacies of all kinds, she
had grown too shy and strange with him to ask his help
or even to think of expecting it.  She did not judge
him—at least, not consciously.  She assumed he was doing the
best he could, the best anyone could, the best possible.
To have complained, even in thought, would have seemed
to her as futile as railing against any fundamental of
life—against being unable to fly instead of walk.  She made
occupation for herself, as will presently appear.  But, after
all, it was Winchie who saved her.  But for him she, with
no taste for "chasing about," would have withdrawn within
herself, would have become silent, cold, ever more and
more like her mother, with barren cynicism in place of
Mrs. Benedict's equally barren religiosity.  Winchie's
spirits of overflowing health, his newcomer's delight in
life were infectious and stimulating.  In keeping him in
perfect health—outdoors, winter and summer, and always
active, she made her own health so perfect that the
cheerful and hopeful side of things was rarely so much as
obscured.

One evening after supper Richard, moved by the
intermittent impulse to amuse himself, sought her in her
sitting room, where she was reading.  She always sat there
in the evenings because she could hear Winchie if he
became restless.  He never did, but that fact no more freed
her to go off duty than the absence of burglars the
policeman.  Dick gave her the kind of kiss that was always his
signal for a "lighter hour."  She merely glanced up, gave
him the smile that is a matrimonial convention like "my
dear," and went on with her book.  Theretofore, whenever
he had shown the least desire to take an hour off from that
career of his, she had instantly responded.  She assumed
this readiness meant love; in fact, love had no part in it.
She responded for two reasons, both unsuspected by her:
because she did not know him well enough to have moods
with him and to show them, and because refusal would have
been admission of the truth of indifference to him which
she had not yet discovered.  That evening, for the first
time, she did not respond.  It was unconscious on her part,
unnoted by him; yet it was the most significant event in
their married life since the wedding ceremony two years
and a half before.

He stood behind her and began gliding his fingers over
the soft down at the nape of her neck.  It has become
second nature to women to repress their active emotions, no
matter how strong, and to wait upon the man—an evidence
of inferior status that is crudely but sufficiently disguised
as "womanly delicacy and reserve."  In response to the
signal of those caressing fingers Courtney mechanically put
up her hand and patted his.  Her gesture was genuinely
affectionate—but there had been a time when it would not
have been mechanical.  She did not lift her eyes from the
page.

"Is that a good love story?" asked he.  "As good as ours?"

A tender little smile of half absent appreciation played
round her lips.  But—her glance remained upon her reading.
"It isn't a novel," replied she.  "It's a treatise."

"A treatise?" mocked he.  "Gracious me!  What a
wise fairy it is!  Put it away, and let's go on the balcony.
There'll not be many more sit-out nights."

He moved to pick her up in his arms.  But she smilingly
pushed him away.  "I want to finish this chapter,"
said she.

"All right.  I'll go out and smoke.  Don't be long."

And he sauntered through the window door.  After
perhaps a quarter of an hour she joined him in the
hammock.  Matrimony is a curious fabric of set phrases, set
thoughts, and set actions.  It was their habit, in such
circumstances, for her to snuggle up to him and for him to
put his arm round her.  The habit was on this occasion
observed.  It was her habit to assume that she was
happy—and she now so assumed.  He began the conversation.
"I've been watching you as I sat here," said he lazily.
"What are all those books on the table?  They look
serious—businesslike."

"Let's not talk about anything serious.  You always
laugh at me or get absent-minded."

"But you seemed so absorbed.  What was it?"

"Oh, I've been doing a little reading and thinking and
studying for the past year.  You see, when a woman takes
care of a baby, she's got to look out or she'll become one
herself."

"But you are a baby."  And there followed the usual
caresses.

"Not a real baby," said she.  "We both act like
children at times—very little children.  But we'd not
care for each other as we do if either of us were
really infantile.  It takes a grown person to play baby
attractively."

"Baby," he insisted fondly.  He was smiling with the
masculinely patronizing tolerance to which she had grown
so used that she never noted it.  He appreciated that she
was clever—with the woman sort of cleverness—bright,
witty, sometimes saying remarkably keen things.  But,
being a man, he knew that man mind and woman mind are
entirely different—never so different as when woman mind
seems to be like man mind—just as purely instinctive
actions of animals seem to display profound reasoning power.
"And what was the baby wrinkling its brow over, in there?
The care and feeding of infants?"

"Dear me, no," replied she with perfect good humor.
"I went into that before Winchie came.  You think it's
all a joke—my reading and studying.  But the real joke
is your thinking so.  You must remember I can't afford to
let myself go, as you do."

He had been chiefly absorbed in caresses and caressing
thoughts.  At this last remark he laughed.  "Now, what
does that mean?" he inquired.

"You've given up everything for chemistry.  Haven't
you noticed that we can hardly talk to each other—that
you can hardly talk to anybody?"

"I never did have much talent for small talk."

"But I didn't mean small talk.  You care only for
chemistry, know only chemistry.  You never did know or
care much about literature or art or music or any of the
worth-while things except just your own specialty.  And
you can afford to be that way.  It's your career, and also
you're not a woman and a mother."

He had stopped caressing her.  "I confess I don't
understand," said he stiffly.

"A man can afford to be narrow—not to know life or
the world.  But a mother—if she's the right sort—has to
try to know everything.  She's got to bring up children—and
how can she hope to teach and train successfully if she
doesn't know?"

"I don't agree with you," said he, a certain curtness in
his voice.  "A woman must be pure, innocent, womanly—as
you are.  Nature didn't make her to be learned or wise—to
think.  She has her instincts to keep her straight, and a
father or a husband——"

"Dick—Dick!" she cried, patting him on the cheek.
"What an old fogey it is!  You talk like—like an ordinary
man.  How bored you'd be if you had that kind of wife—one
who couldn't be comrade and companion, and didn't
want to be—one who was merely a mistress."

Vaughan was sitting bolt upright now.  "Those books
in there—  Courtney, you're not reading impure,
upsetting books?"

She laughed delightedly.

"What are those books?" he insisted.

"They're—now, Dickey dear, please don't be shocked—they're
on landscape gardening and interior decoration."  She
looked up at him mischievously in the starlight.  "Are
they womanly enough to suit you?"

"Yes, indeed," said he heartily.  "But I might have
known you'd not read anything a good woman oughtn't.  I
love you as you are—and I'd hate to see you changed, my
spotless little angel."

She submitted to his caresses.  And presently, in that
brain which he would have thought it absurd to look into
except for the very lightest kind of amusement, there formed
the first really disloyal thought she had ever permitted to be
born.  The thought was: "Dick certainly does take himself
terribly seriously.  If it weren't Dick, I'd say he was
getting to be a prig."  She was instantly shocked at herself, as
one always is at the first impulse to doubt the idol one has
set up for blind worship.  She felt there was but one way
to prevent the recurrence of such perilous blasphemy.
After a brief silence she said in a constrained voice: "Dick,
I was not a stupid, incurious fool as a girl, and I went to
college, and I'm a wife and a mother.  If by innocence
you mean ignorance, I'm anything but innocent."

She saw that he was highly amused.

"Women," she went on earnestly, "always tell each
other that before men it's wise to pretend to be ignorant
and too refined to know life, and to be shocked at everything.
They say it pleases men.  But I'm sure you're not
that sort of man.  Anyhow, I can't be a hypocrite."

"That's right, dear," said he, nodding approvingly, the
amused smile lingering.  "Go on with your interior
decoration and landscape gardening.  You can't learn too
much about them."  He was leaning back again, secure,
comfortable, happy, enjoying the sensation of caressing
her.

She gave it up, as she always did when she found herself
being ruffled by that strange antiquated prejudice of
his.  It would yield in time.  Besides, what did it really
matter?—since they loved each other, and would be happy
once their real life got under way.  "I'd have taken up
chemistry," she continued, "but one can't go far alone in
that, with only books.  And you wouldn't help me.  I'm
afraid you'll find me very rusty when I come down to the
laboratory next spring."

His lips were open to inquire what she meant, when he
was unpleasantly spared the necessity.  Out of a dark
recess of memory sprang the ghost—the "whim."  He was
astounded, irritated, alarmed.  He had supposed he had
heard the last of that silly notion about helping him; she
hadn't spoken of it in nearly two years.  Now—here it
was again!

"Dick," she was saying, her hand clasping his, "I've
appreciated your not speaking of it, or even talking about
what you were doing.  If you had, the delay'd have been
much harder to bear.  For, as long as Winchie needs me,
I simply can't come."

"I understand, dear," said he, much relieved.

"It's a dreadfully long delay, isn't it?" she went on,
dreamily gazing up into the great quiet sky.  "The more
I see of married people, and the more I think about married
life, the clearer I see that two must have a common interest,
a common career, or they drift apart, and usually the
woman sinks down and down into a gadabout or a fat
frump or a professional minder of other people's
business—a gossip or a charity worker."

If she had been looking, even in that faint light she
could have seen his expression of gathering displeasure.

"Or else," she went on, "she seeks love elsewhere.
Isn't it strange, Dick, how in unhappy marriages the
so-called good women are the bad ones, and the so-called
bad ones good?  I mean, when a weak woman finds herself
married wrong she accepts it and gently rots, and people
say she's a good soul, when she's really degrading
herself and rotting everybody round her.  While a strong
woman—one that's worth while—refuses to be crushed, and
people call her bad.  But then I've begun to think life's
like one of those exhibitions where some cut-up slips
round and changes the labels so that everything's named
wrong."

She was talking along lightly, talking what seemed to
her the plainest common sense, and was all unconscious that
she had brought him and herself where both were almost
peering into the abyss between them.  He was sitting up,
was getting ready to deliver himself.  Her next remark
checked him.  "Thank Heaven, Dick, you and I are going
to have the interest that makes two lives one—makes it
impossible to grow apart.  It seems to me I can't wait for
Winchie to release me so that I may come and work with
you.  Aren't you glad I really, naturally, like chemistry,
and already know something about it?"

He winced, and instead of speaking, put his cigar
between his opened lips.

She leaned her head affectionately against his arm.  "I
feel close to you to-night—feel that we're in perfect
sympathy.  Sometimes—I—I don't feel quite that way.  Of
course I know it's all right, but I get—afraid.  It's such
a long, long delay—and your work absorbs you—and we
almost never talk as we're talking to-night.  There have
been times when—-I've almost—been afraid *we* were
drifting apart."

"What nonsense!" he cried sharply.  "How could
that be?  Do you suppose I don't know you're a good
woman?  You talk foolishly at times—things you've picked
up from loose people.  But you are a lady and a good
woman."

She saw he was for some unknown reason irritated.
She swiftly changed the subject.  "Anyhow, dearest, we
shan't be in danger much longer.  We're nearly to the end
of the life we've been leading ever since we got back from
our wedding trip.  Just think—ever since then!  How time
has gone!"

He stirred uncomfortably, ventured: "We've been
happy, and, even if things were to go on just as they are,
we'd continue to be happy."

"Of course, you've had your work and I've had Winchie,
and once in a while we have each other.  But most
of the happiness has been in looking forward, hasn't it?"

She assumed that his silence was assent.

"But don't think, dear," she said, "that I've been
content just to wait.  As soon as I saw it was going to be a
long time before I could come to the laboratory——"

He rose abruptly, under the pretense of lighting a fresh
cigar.

"—I made another occupation for myself.  It'll be
next spring at the earliest before I can come to you.  And
even then I'll be able to spend only part of the day.
Winchie'll have to be looked after when he's not at the
kindergarten.  Now that he's talking and understanding,
it's more necessary than ever to watch over him.  I've had
to watch only his body.  Now it's both his body and his
mind; for, if any harm came to either, it'd be our fault,
wouldn't it?"

"There's no doubt of that," said Dick with strong emphasis,
as he seated himself in a chair opposite her.  He
thought this remark of hers opened the way out of his
perplexity.  "I don't see how you can come to the laboratory
at all."

"Oh, yes.  It's not so bad as that.  If it were, I don't
know what I'd do.  It'd be choice between losing you and
neglecting him."

"Trash!" exclaimed Dick impatiently.  There seemed
something essentially immoral in her whole attitude, an
odor of immorality exuding from everything she said.  It
exasperated him that he could not locate it and use it as
the text for the lecture he felt she greatly needed.  "Your
good sense must tell you there's not the slightest danger of
your losing me."

She laughed with raillery.  "Oh, I know you're far too
busy with your chemistry to wander.  But that isn't what
I meant.  You understand."  Her eyes shone upon him.
"Sometimes—when we're holding each other tight and
your lips are on mine—I can scarcely keep from crying.
It seems to me we're like two held apart and trying to be
one—and trying in vain.  It's as if we touched only at the
surface, and our bodies were keeping us from each other.
But all that will soon end now, and we'll be really one.
Closer and closer, day by day——"

She sat on his lap, and he clasped her in his arms.  He
felt ashamed somehow, and in awe of this emotion that was
beyond him.  "How wonderful a pure woman is!" he
thought.

After a pause she sat up, went back to the hammock,
seated herself, leaning toward him.  "But I started to
tell you my plans."

"What plans?" he asked, in high good humor with her
again and overflowing with "lighter-hour" tenderness.
"Tell me quick and we'll go in.  It's getting late."  He
moved to seat himself beside her.

"No," she said, laughingly.  "Sit where you are.  I
want you to listen.  It isn't often I can get you to listen.
As I said, I've got to have something worth while to fill
in as I look after Winchie when he's not at kindergarten.
I've been getting ready for a year, and it has given me
occupation when he was sleeping or playing, for I taught
him to amuse himself and not to look to me for everything.
That was good for him and saved me.  Well, I studied
gardening and interior decoration."

"What a fuss you do make," said he, amused.  "Why
not just settle down and be a plain woman?"

"Shame on you!  Tempting me to go to pieces."

"You'll not improve on the good old-fashioned woman,
my dear."

"You deserve to be married to one of them."

"I am," declared he.  "Your whims don't deceive me.
I know you.  Let's go in, dear."

She shook her head in smiling reproach.  "Then you
don't care to hear my plans?"

"Oh, yes.  What are they?"

"I've got everything ready to make those changes we
discussed on our honeymoon."

"Really!" exclaimed he, seeing that enthusiasm was
expected, though he hadn't the remotest idea what she was
talking about.

"Of course, I'm going slowly at first, as I want to be
sure, and mustn't be extravagant.  I've been very careful.
I've made drawings and even water colors, for I thought
I ought to see how things would look."

He was puzzled and alarmed.  "I don't believe I know
which scheme you mean," he said.  "We discussed so many
things on that trip."

"I mean, to change the house and grounds," explained
she with bright enthusiasm.  "They'll not be ugly and stiff
and cold looking much longer."

He started up.  "Courtney, what are you talking
about?" he demanded.

"Why, Dick!  Don't you remember?  I told you some
of my ideas on gardens and interiors, and you said——"

"I don't know what careless, unthinking remark I may
have dropped," interrupted he angrily.  "I certainly never
intended to let you tear things up and make a mess."  He
walked up and down.  "What possesses you anyhow?" he
cried.  "Why can't you behave yourself like a woman?  I
never heard of such nonsense!  I want you to stop
meddling in things that are beyond you.  I want you to do
your duty as a wife and a mother.  I want you to stop
annoying me.  I didn't marry a blue-stocking, an unsexed
thinking woman.  I married a sweet, loving wife."

She sat on the edge of the hammock, perfectly still.  It
was as if he had struck her unconscious so suddenly that
she had not yet fallen over.

"What devil keeps nagging at you?" he demanded,
pausing in his angry stride to face her.  "It must be some
woman's having a bad influence on you.  I'll not have it.
I'll not have my home upset and my wife spoiled.  Who is
it, Courtney?"

She was silent.

"Answer me!"

"It's myself," replied she in a quiet, dumb way.

"It's not yourself.  *You* are womanly."

"I've got to have something to do—something worth
while—or I can't live."

"Attend to your house and your baby, like all true
women."

"It isn't enough," replied she in the same monotonous,
stupefied way.  "It isn't enough for me, any more than it'd
be for you."

"Nonsense," said he, with the man's feeling that he
had thereby answered her.

She said dazedly: "You didn't mean it.  No, you didn't
mean it."

"Mean what?"

"All my plans—my year's work—and such a beautiful
house and place I'll make."  She started up, clasped her
hands round his arm.  "O Dick—don't be narrow—and
so distrustful of me.  I know I can do it.  Let me show
you my plans—my sketches——"

He took her hands, and said with gentle, firm earnestness,
for he was ashamed of having lost his temper with
a woman: "Courtney, I cannot have it.  I will not let you
disturb the place my grandfather gave his best thought to."

"But you don't like it, dear," she pleaded.

"I respect my grandfather's memory."

"But on our wedding trip you said——"

"Now, don't argue with me!"

"It's because you think I couldn't do it?"

"I know you couldn't—if you must have the truth."

"Let me show you my sketches and paintings," she
pleaded, in a queer kind of quiet hysteria.  "Let me
explain my plans.  I'm sure you'll——"

"Now, Courtney!  I've told you my decision.  I want
to hear no more about it."

She looked up into his face searchingly.  He was like
the portrait of his unbending grandfather that made the
library uncomfortable.  Her arms fell to her sides.  She
went to the balcony rail, gazed out into the black masses
of foliage.  Taken completely by surprise, she could not
at once realize any part, much less all, of what those words
of his involved; but she felt in her heart the chill of a
great fear—the fear of what she would think, of what she
would know, when she did realize.

His voice interrupted.  "While you're on the unpleasant
subject of these notions of yours," he said, with an
attempt at lightness in his embarrassed tone, "we might as
well finish it—get it out of the way forever.  I want you
to stop thinking about the laboratory."

She turned, swift as a swallow.

"I admit I've been at fault—encouraging you to
imagine I'd consent.  But I thought you'd forget about it.
Apparently you haven't."

A long silence.

"I repeat, I'm sorry I misled you.  It seemed to me
a trifling deception."

She did not speak, did not move.

"When you think it over, you'll see that I'm
right—that we're much happier as we are."

After a long silence, which somehow alarmed him,
though he told himself such a feeling was absurd, she
crossed the balcony to the window.  As she paused there,
not looking toward him, the profile of those sweet, irregular
features of hers stood out clearly.  That expression,
though it was quiet, increased his absurd alarm.  "It's
getting late," she said, and her tone was gentle, apologetic.
"I think I'll go in."

"Are you angry, Courtney?"

"No," she replied.  "I don't think so."

"Why are you silent?"

"I don't know," she said slowly.  "I seem to have
stopped inside."

He went and put his arms round her.  She was passive
as a doll.  "Why, you're quite cold, child!"

"I must go in.  Good night."

"I'll join you in a few minutes."

She shivered.  "No," she said.  "Good night."

He was somewhat disconcerted.  Then he reflected that
she could hardly be expected to give up her whims without
a little struggling.  "It shows how sweet and good she
is," thought he, "that she took it so quietly."  And he went
to bed in the room across the hall—the room he had been
occupying most of the time since three months before
Winchie came.  As he fell asleep he felt that he had laid
"the ghost" and had settled all his domestic affairs upon
the proper basis.  He slept, but she lay awake the whole
night, watching, tearless, beside her dead.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \IV

.. vspace:: 2

Next morning, after her usual breakfast alone, she took
Winchie and went across in the motor boat to her father's.
If she had been led blindfold into that house she would
have known, from the instant of the opening of the door,
that she was at home.  Every home has its individual odor.
Hers had a clean, comfortable perfume suggestive of
lavender.  She inhaled it deeply now as she paused a moment
in the front hall—inhaled it with a sudden sense of peace,
of sorrow shut out securely.  She left the baby in the
sitting room with her sister Lal, and sought out her mother
in the pleasant old-fashioned back parlor with its outlook
on the hollyhocks and sunflowers of the kitchen garden.
Mrs. Benedict, a model of judicial sternness, as her
husband was of judicial gentleness, sat reading a pious book
by the open window.  She glanced up as her daughter
entered, and prepared her cold-looking cheek for the
conventional salute.  But Courtney was in no mood for conventions.
She seated herself on the roll of the horsehair sofa.
"Mother," she said, "I want to talk to you about Richard."

The tone was a forewarning—an ominous forewarning
because it was calm.  Mrs. Benedict, for all her resolute
unworldliness, had been unable to live sixty-seven years
without there having been forced upon her an amount of
wisdom sufficient to store to bursting the mind of any
woman half her age.  She closed the heavy-looking book
in her lap, leaving her glasses to mark the place.  "I don't
think I need tell a daughter of mine that she cannot
discuss her husband with anyone."

Courtney flushed.  "That's just it," replied she.  "He
is no longer my husband."

She was astonished at her mother's composure.  An
announcement about the weather could not have been less
excitedly received.  She did not realize how plainly she
was showing, in her changed countenance, in stern eyes
and resolute chin, the evidences a mother could hardly
fail to read—evidences of a mood a sensible mother would
not aggravate by agitation.  "I cannot live with him," she
went on.  "I've brought Winchie and come home."

Her words startled herself.  In this imperturbable, severely
sensible presence they sounded hysterical, theatrical,
though she had thought out the idea they conveyed with
what she felt sure was the utmost deliberation.  Her
mother's gray-green eyes looked at her—simply looked.

"I know you don't believe in divorce, mother.  But he
and I have never been really married.  He's entirely
different from the man I loved.  And he—  What he feels
for me isn't love at all.  He doesn't know me—and doesn't
want to know me."

"Has he sent you away?"

"Oh, no.  *He's* satisfied."

Mrs. Benedict folded her ladylike hands upon the pious
book, said coldly and calmly: "Then you will go back to
him."

"Never.  I refuse to live with a man who classes me
with the lower animals.  I——"

Her mother's stern, calm voice interrupted.  "Don't say
things you will have to take back.  You will return because
there is no place else for you."

"Mother!  Do you refuse to take me and Winchie?
Oh, you don't understand.  You—who believe in
religion—you couldn't let me——"

"Your father," interrupted her mother in the same cold,
placid way, "is not to be made judge again.  We shall
have to give up this house and retire to the farm.  We have
nothing but the farm.  It will take every cent we can rake
and scrape to pay the insurance premiums.  The insurance
premiums must be paid.  The insurance is for your sisters.
They have no husbands."  And with these few bald statements
she stopped, for she knew that under her daughter's
youthful idealism there was the solid rock of common sense,
that behind her impetuosity there was her father's own
instinct for justice.

"The farm," said Courtney, stunned.  "The farm."  Twenty
miles back in the wilderness—a living death—burial
alive.  "Oh, mother!"  And the girl flung herself
down beside the old woman and clasped her round the
waist.  "You shan't go there!  I'll go back to Richard
and we'll see that you and father and Lal and Ann stay
on here."

Her mother was as rigid as the old-fashioned straight-back
chair in which she sat.  The blood burned brightly in
the center of each of her white cheeks, but her voice was
distinctly softer as she said: "You will go back.  But we
accept nothing from anybody."

Courtney hung her head.  "Of course not," she said,
hurried and confused.  "I spoke on impulse."

"You'd better sit in a chair," said Mrs. Benedict.  "You
are rumpling your dress."

But Courtney was not hurt.  She had an instinct why
her mother wished her to sit at a distance.  "Very well,
mother," said she meekly, and obeyed.

After a pause Mrs. Benedict spoke: "I was not
surprised when you told me.  I suppose there is not one
woman in ten thousand who doesn't at least once in the
first five years of her married life resolve to leave her
husband."

"But it's different with me.  I must have something—and
I have nothing."

"You have your home and Winchie."

"That house—those prim, dressed-up looking grounds—they've
always oppressed me.  And I hate them—now
that—"  She checked herself.  How futile to relate and
to rail.  "As for Winchie, he's not enough."

"There will be others presently."

Courtney gave her mother a horrified look.

"You will do your duty as a wife, and the children will
be your reward."

Courtney could not discuss this; discussion would be
both useless and painful.  "There may be some women who
could be content with looking after a house and the wants
of children," said she.  "But I'm not one of them, and I
never saw or heard of a worth-while woman who was.
How am I to spend the time?  I'm like you—I don't care
for running about doing inane things.  I can't just read
and read, with no purpose, no sympathy.  It seems to me
I could do almost anything with love—almost nothing
without it....  Brought up and educated like a man, and then
condemned to the old-fashioned life for women—a life no
man would endure!"

Her mother was looking out through the window, a
strange expression about her stern mouth—the expression
of one who, old and in a far, cold land, thinks of home and
youth when the sun warmed the blood and the heart.

"What shall I do if I go back?" repeated Courtney.
"But why ask that?  I've simply got to go back.  As you
say, there's no place else for me."  A flush of shame
overspread her cheeks.  "Oh, it's so degrading!"

"You forget Winchie," said her mother, and her tone
was gentle.

"No, I thought of that excuse.  But I was ashamed
to speak it.  It seemed like hypocrisy.  Of course, I've got
to go back for his sake.  But if I hadn't him I'd go back
just the same.  Mother, you ought to have had me educated
more or else less.  If I knew less I could be content with
the sort of life women used to think was the summit of
earthly bliss.  If I knew more I could make my own life.
I could be independent.  I begin to understand why women
are restless nowadays.  We're neither the one thing nor
the other."

Up to a certain point Mrs. Benedict could understand
her daughter, could sympathize.  She could even have
supplemented Courtney's forebodings as to the future with
drearier actualities of experience.  But beyond that point
the two women were hopelessly apart.  "You are warring
with God," she rebuked.  "He has ordained woman's
position."  And to her mind that settled everything.

"It isn't God," replied Courtney.  "It's just ignorance."

"It is God," declared her mother, in the fanatic tone
that told Courtney her mind was closed.

The mother and daughter belonged to two different
generations—the two that are perhaps further apart than any
two in all human history.  Courtney saw how far apart
she and her mother were, thought she understood why her
mother could sympathize with her restlessness in woman's
ancient bondage, but could only say "sacrilege" when the
younger and better educated woman went on from vague
restlessness to open revolt.

"God has seen fit to make the lot of woman hard,"
said the mother.

"If that is God," cried the daughter, "then the less
said about Him the better."

"Courtney, your sinful heart will bring you to grief."

"Is it a sin to think?"

"I sometimes believe it is—for a woman," replied the
mother, with the kind of bitter irony into which the most
reverent devotee is sometimes goaded by the whimsical
cruelties of his deity.

Courtney had long since learned to be unargumentative
before her mother's somber and savage religion, so logical
yet so inhuman.  She had dimly felt that if she ever
investigated religion, the misery of the world would compel her
to choose between believing in her mother's devil god and
believing nothing.  So she left religion aside in her scheme
of life, like so many of the men and women of her
generation.

"I ought to have had more education or less," she
repeated.  "I ought to have had more, for it wouldn't have
been fair to give me less than the rest of the girls have."

She fancied it was her formal education of the college
that had made her think and feel as she did.  In fact, that
had little, perhaps nothing, to do with it; for colleges,
except the as yet few scientific schools—stupefy or stunt
more minds than they stimulate.  She was simply a child
of her own generation, and the forces that were stirring
her to restlessness were part of its universal atmosphere—the
atmosphere all who live in it must breathe, the "spirit
of the time" that makes the very yokel with his eyes upon
the clod see things in it his yokel father never saw.

She knew her mother would gladly help her, but she
realized she might as hopefully appeal to Winchie.  All
her mother could say would be: "Yes, it is sad.  But the
only thing to do is to return and pretend to be the
old-fashioned wife, and perhaps custom will make the harness
cease to gall."  Well, perhaps her mother was right;
perhaps there was no solution, no self-respecting hopeful
solution.  Certainly she could not support herself, except in
some menial and meager way that would more surely kill
all that was aspiring in her than would submission to the
lot which universal custom made abject only in theory.  She
could not support herself—and there was Winchie, too.
Winchie had his rights—rights to the advantages his
father's position and fortune gave.  Dick had made it clear
that he did not and would not have the kind of love, the
kind of relationship, she believed in.  She must go on his
terms or not at all.

She ended the long silence, during which her mother
sat motionless in an attitude of patient waiting for the
inevitable.  "I will go," she said.  "And I will try to be
to him the kind of wife he wants."

Mrs. Benedict looked at her daughter; there were tears
of pride in her eyes.  "That is right," she said, and they
talked of it no more.

But on the way back in the motor boat, and for the rest
of that day, and for a good part of many a day and many
a night thereafter, Courtney Vaughan's mind was stormily
busy.  It teemed with the thoughts that in this age of
the break-up of the old-fashioned institution of the family
force themselves early or late upon every woman endowed
with the intelligence to have, or to dream of, self-respect.

.. vspace:: 2

Thenceforth Dick Vaughan, if he had thought about
it at all, would have congratulated himself on his wise and
thorough adjustment of his threatened domestic affairs.  But
he gave no more thought to it than does the next human
being.  We do not annoy ourselves with what is going on in
the heads of those around us.  We look only at results.  And
usually this plan works well; for, no matter what the
average human being may have in mind, the habit of a routine of
action ultimately determines his or her real self.  Once in
a while, however, circumstances interfere, encourage the
latent revolt against action's routine apparently so placidly
pursued.  But this is rare.

The weeks, the months went by; and Courtney seemed,
and thought herself, a typical "settled" wife and mother.
That is, as "settled" as an intelligent, energetic, and
young woman, restless in mind and body, could be.  She
did not attempt to come to a definite verbal understanding
with him.  What would be the use?  There was nothing to
change except herself.  There was nothing to explain.
She understood him.  He did not understand her, did not
wish to, could not on account of his prejudices, however
carefully she might explain.  "No," thought she, "the
only thing is for me to accept my position as woman and
adapt myself to it, since I haven't the right, or the
courage, or the whatever it is I lack, to do as I'd like."  The
only outward difference in their relations was that she
rarely talked with him, and when he was about, fell into
his habit of abstraction.

That winter he became extremely irregular about
coming to dinner, and as the days lengthened with the spring
he often worked on through supper time also.  In late
May or early June he began to note that when he did come
up to the house for supper, his wife was sometimes there
and sometimes not.  Gradually her absence made an
impression on him, and her always answering his inquiry
with, "I was over at the club."  As that meant the Outing
Club, established and supported and frequented by the
young people of Wenona and its suburbs, he was entirely
satisfied.  This, until about midsummer.  One evening,
when she returned in the dusk from supper at the club,
she found him seated on the bench at the landing stage,
smoking moodily.  He was scantily civil to Shirley
Drummond, who had brought her in the club launch.  When
Shirley was well on the way back to the north shore,
Courtney, who had seated herself beside her husband, spoke of
the heat and unwound the chiffon scarf about her bare neck
and shoulders.  Dick glanced round.  In some moods he
would not have seen at all.  In other moods those slender
shoulders, that graceful throat, and the small head with
its lightly borne masses of auburn hair would have appealed
to his pride and joy of possession.  But things had gone
wrong at "the shop," and he was in the mood that could
readily either turn him to her for the consolation of a
"lighter hour" or set him off in a rage.  He frowned upon
the exposed shoulders.

"Where did you get that dress?" he demanded.

She heard simply the question.  Her thoughts were on
the events of the evening at the club.  "Had it made here,"
said she, unconscious of his mood.  "It's something like
one I saw in a fashion picture from Paris.  Like it?"

To her amazement he replied angrily: "I do not.  I've
never seen a dress I disapproved of so thoroughly.  Don't
wear it again, and please be careful how you adopt a
fashion you get that way.  French fashions are set by a class
of women I couldn't speak to you about.  Respectable
women have to alter them greatly."

"Why, what's the matter with the dress?" exclaimed
she.  "Everyone admired it at the club."

"It isn't decent," replied he.  "I know you are so
innocent that you don't think of those things.  But it's my
duty to protect you.  I won't have men commenting on my
wife's person."

"But, Dick," protested she, "this isn't a low-cut dress.
It's higher than those I usually wear.  It has bands across
the shoulders and a real back——"

"Then change all your dresses.  You must not make
yourself conspicuous."

"Conspicuous!  The other women wear much lower-cut
dresses than I do."

"I know about such things," said he peremptorily.
"I don't believe in low-neck dresses anyhow.  What
business has a good woman flaunting her charms—rousing
in other men thoughts she ought to rouse in her husband
only?"

"Don't you think it's all a matter of custom?" she said
persuasively.  She was not convinced, or even shaken.  But
she admired the shrewdness of his argument.  The reason
she had never grown to dislike him was that even in his
prejudices he was always plausible, and not in his
narrowest narrowness was he ever petty.  "Now really, Dick,
if that were carried out logically, a woman'd have to cover
her face and not speak, for often it's a woman's voice that
charms a man"—with a little laugh—"and once in a long
while what she says."

"I would carry it out logically," replied he promptly,
"if I had my way.  That reminds me.  You're away from
home very often these days, I notice.  You're over at the
club a great deal."

"The weather's been so fine, everybody goes."

"I've no objection to your going occasionally.  But
after all the place for a good woman is at home."

She thought so too, as a general principle; home
undoubtedly was the place for a good woman, or any sort
of woman, or for a man; that was to her mind the meaning
of home—the most attractive, the most magnetic spot
on earth.  However, the Vaughan place was not "home."  She
could not discuss this with him, so she simply
answered, "But I get bored—here alone—and with nothing
to do.  And nobody'll come at this time of year, with
something on at the club every day and evening."

"You don't even stay home to meals."

"Neither do you."

"But I haven't Winchie to look after."

"He plays with the other children at the kindergarten.
And Miss Brockholst can keep a child amused as I couldn't.
When I stay out to supper I see that Nanny or Lizzie
brings him home and puts him to bed.  And I'm not out to
supper often."

"I don't like it," said Dick imperiously.

"You ought to come with me," rejoined she.  "But you
never will."

"I've no time for foolishness.  And I'm sure you haven't
either."

"What ought I to do with myself?"

"What other good women do.  Our mothers didn't hang
about clubs."

"No.  But these aren't pioneer times.  Things are
entirely different nowadays.  That was why—"  She did not
finish.  She did not wish to remind him how he had
refused to let her either share his life or make a life of her
own.  She refrained because the subject might be unpleasant
to him.  It was no longer unpleasant to her; she
now had not the least desire to share his life, was in a way
content to drift aimlessly along with the rest of the aimless
women.

"Yes, many of the women are different nowadays,"
said he.  "The more reason for my wife's conducting
herself as a woman should."

She flushed with sudden anger.  "Why can't you
accept a woman as a human being?" exclaimed she.  "Oh,
you men—tempting—compelling—us to be hypocrites—and
making our natural impulses rot into vices because
they have to be hid away in the dark."

"We will not quarrel," said he, in the calm superior
tone he always took when their talk touched on the two
sexes.  "I simply say I will not tolerate my wife's being
a club lounger."

To have answered would have been to say what must
precipitate a furious and futile quarrel.  She kept silent,
with less effort than many women would have to make in
the circumstances.  She had had the conventional feminine
training in self-suppression, that so often gives women the
seeming of duplicity and only too often imperceptibly leads
them into forming the habit of duplicity.  She had also had
special training in self-concealment through having been
brought up austerely.  She kept silent, and made up her
mind to obey.  She had heard much talk among the women
at the club about the "rights of a wife"; but it had not
convinced her.  She could not see that she, or any other
of the women married as was she, contributed to the family
anything that entitled her to oppose the husband's will as
to how it should be conducted.  And she would have
scorned to get by cajolery what she could not have got
honestly.  She was thus the good wife, not through fear of
him, for she was not a coward and he was not the sort of
small tyrant that makes the women and the children
tremble; nor was it because she was faithful to her marriage
vows, for she never thought of them.  Her submissiveness
was entirely due to the agreement she had tacitly signed
the day she went back to him, after the talk with her
mother.  In return for shelter and support she would be,
so far as she could, the kind of wife he wanted.

.. vspace:: 2

She kept away from the club, stayed at home; and soon
the telephone bell was ringing, and pleading voices were
giving the flattering proof that in her abrupt divorce from
the social life of the town the sense of loss was by no means
altogether on her side.  And presently over came Sarah
Carpenter escorted by her big handsome brother, Shirley
Drummond, "as a committee of two," so Sarah put it, "to
investigate and report on your cruel and inhuman
treatment of us."  It was dull, frightfully dull, at the club
house, she went on to explain.  They did nothing but sit
round and try to guess why Courtney Vaughan had dropped
them.  "And have you forgotten the flower show you were
planning? and the play you were going to organize? and
the Venetian fête?"

"Oh, that was just talk," replied Courtney.  "It's far
too hot.  I'm resting, and looking after my boy.  I'll be
over some afternoon soon."

Sarah pleaded and coaxed.  Shirley took no part, but
sat on the veranda rail, his long legs swinging, his eyes on
the interior of the straw hat he was turning round and
round between his hands.  When Sarah realized that there
was unalterable resolution under Courtney's light and gay
laughing off of her entreaties, she bade Shirley wait there
for her and went to call on Molly Donaldson.  Courtney
looked admiringly after Sarah's long willowy figure and
striking costume—sunshade and hat, dress and stockings
and ties, all of various cool, harmonious shades
of red.

"Your sister always was pretty," said Courtney.  "But
since she's married it seems to me she gets prettier all the
time."

"Marriage does bring out those women that don't go to
pieces," said he.  "I guess it's because they get the courage
to be more like themselves.  Girls are such hypocrites—always
posing.  You were the only one I ever liked.  You
weren't a hypocrite.  Where you didn't dare be yourself
you simply kept quiet."

"I like your impudence—attacking women for being
what you men compel."

"Maybe so," said he absently.  "But I didn't come over
here in the hot sun to talk generalities.  Look here,
Courtney, there's something I've got to say to you."  His
good-humored commonplace face was even redder than the heat
and his bulk—for he wasn't a thin man—warranted.  His
voice was low and confused, yet suggested a man talking
against a mob and determined to be heard.  "I've got to
tell you that I care for you—and have ever since we used
to walk from high school together—whenever some other
fellow didn't slip in ahead of me."

Courtney, puzzled, rapidly reviewed her conduct toward
Shirley the past two months—since he came home from
Harvard Law School.  She recalled nothing that could
have given him encouragement to this speech.  "I should
hope you did like me," she said carelessly.  "Of course,
we're good friends, as always."  She rose.  "Let's go over
to Donaldson's."  Her tone and manner contained the subtle
warning to desist that reaches through the thickest skin
into the dullest brain.

"You know what I mean," said Shirley doggedly.
"Now listen to me while I make a proposition.  You're
a sensible, up-to-date woman, and this is the twentieth
century, not the dark ages.  I'm not as clever as some,
but neither am I as much the muttonhead as maybe you
think.  Anyhow, I appreciate you."

"Drop it," said Courtney.

"I want you to get a divorce and marry me."

He spoke as tranquilly as if they were at a dance and
he were asking her for the next two-step.  She stared.
"Well, I never did!" she exclaimed.

"I see you're surprised," said he.  "I've thought about
it so much that I've got used to it."

"This is something new—a woman getting proposals
after she's married, just as if she wasn't."  She was
laughing.

"Why not?" retorted he, unruffled.  "Nobody looks
on marriage as the finish any more.  I don't think you love
me—not for a minute.  You've got better brains than I
have—a lot better, for I'll admit I'm pretty slow.  But
you've tried brains and you see they don't amount to much
when it comes down to solid living.  You don't love me
now.  But, Courtney, if you'll marry me, I'll guarantee to
treat you and the youngster so that you'll simply *have* to
love me."

She was slowly recovering from her utter amazement,
when he spoke those last words in his simple, honest way
with his love in his voice, in his eyes—love that makes
bright the dullest face, quickens into bloom the barrenest
fancy, puts sweet music in the most tedious voice.  Her
words of rebuke dropped back unsaid, her throat choked
up and tears welled into her eyes.  While she was still
trying to control this sudden treachery of her hungry heart,
he went on: "I was away to college when I heard you
were engaged.  I cut exams, and everything and rustled
out here.  But I saw you were dead in love.  It nearly
knocked me out.  Then it occurred to me that marrying's
only a trial go and that in a few years I might get you and
you'd be all the better for the experience."

What he said did not shock her.  But she was shocked
that she was not shocked.  Still, it isn't easy to meet a
wholly new form of attack; and less easy is it to be stiff
and stern with a person one has known always and liked
always—a person one knows to be through and through
sincere and profoundly respectful.  "Shirley," said she,
"you mean well and you are slow—so, you don't realize
that what you've said is perfectly outrageous."

"Why?" demanded he.  "Is it an insult to a woman
to tell her you love her?  Is it a crime to let her know that,
if she isn't suited, there's some one waiting to try to help
her get suited?  Where's the outrage?"

"I don't know just where," admitted she.  "But I
feel that it is an outrage—that you've taken advantage of
our friendship."

"On the contrary, I've shown I *am* your friend; ready
to stand by you.  I haven't laid a finger on you, and, so
help me God, Courtney, I couldn't try.  I'm that old fogey,
at least.  And I haven't tried to wheedle or win you—have
I?  I just made a plain statement that if you want me,
I'm waiting—and eager.  I've seen how things are with
you——"

"You've seen nothing of the kind!"  Her pride and
her loyalty were in arms now.

He looked at her with eyes that were as honest as an
open sky.  "You don't love your husband, nor he you,"
he said.  "If you did, you'd not see as little of each other
as you do."

"Shirley, it's cowardly to say those things," she began
angrily.

"Oh, I'd say 'em to him, if it wasn't that I'm afraid
you'd have to suffer for it.  You needn't get mad.  I've
been so damn miserable this past week, not seeing you,
that I don't care what happens to me.  I know why you
don't come over any more.  He's shut you up here.  I saw
it in his face that night."

"It was about time he stopped me, I see," said she
quickly.  "Evidently he understood better than I did.  But
you mustn't go away thinking I'm obeying a jailer.  Do
you suppose I'd stay here at the request of a man unless
I cared for him?"

"Certainly," replied he.  "A right sort woman'll put
up with most anything to avoid a row.  You needn't try
to fool me, Courtney.  I know—everyone knows—the
truth."

"The truth!" cried Courtney.  "How dare you sit
there insulting me!"

"Now, Courtney!" begged he.

"Go join your sister and take her back without
coming here."

She felt she ought to leave him; but her hungry heart
would not let her go.  She lingered, looking at him angrily,
watching the utter love in his countenance—and enjoying
it.  He slowly dropped from the veranda rail and faced
her.  His look was that same mingling of gentle and fierce
qualities that makes a bulldog's face fascinating.  "If
I've said anything I shouldn't, I beg your pardon," said
he.  "But I stick to my proposition.  You can take it or
leave it—now, or next year—or whenever you like.  It's you
or nobody for me."  He put out his hand.

She clasped her hands behind her.  But she had to lower
her head that he might not see—"and misunderstand"—her
swimming eyes, her trembling lip.

"Please shake hands," he begged.

She shook her head.

"That hurts," said he shakily, and she turned hastily
away.  "But," he added, "I'm used to hurts."

He lingered, embarrassed.  At length, with a huge sigh,
he descended from the veranda and plodded across the lawn
toward the hedge.  She darted upstairs and shut herself
in her room and cried, lying on the bed face down.  She
felt guilty; would not the right sort of woman have been
able to meet such talk from a man, even a Shirley Drummond,
with effective fiery resentment?  But she knew it
was not her guilt that she was weeping for.  No, her tears
were flowing from the wounds in her heart—the wounds
she had thought healed.  She had not the faintest feeling
in the least akin to love for Shirley Drummond.  She never
could love him.  She had always avoided him as far as her
instinct against hurting people's feelings permitted.  His
grotesque proposal, in itself, appealed only to her sense of
humor.  But at the mere sound of loving words, words of
considerate tenderness, how her whole being vibrated!  It
terrified her, this heart of hers suddenly and fiercely
insurgent.

.. vspace:: 2

The next evening after supper she interrupted Dick in
the library.  "Richard," she said gravely, "I want you to
come upstairs with me a few minutes."

"Certainly," said he.  "Directly."  And he worked
on—and would have continued to work until bedtime had
she not insisted.

"No.  Right away, please."

He glanced up.  Her eyes prevented him from returning
to his calculations.  "All right," said he.

Her sitting room was changed into a painting and drawing
exhibition.  On the walls, on tables, on sofas and chairs,
and leaning against the baseboard were pictures and plans
of interiors and of gardens, many in colors, more in black
and white, most of all in ground-plan drawings.

"What's this?" said he.

"You were right about my going to the club too much,"
replied she.  "I shall stay at home more.  But I *must* have
something to occupy me.  These are my plans for making
over the house and grounds.  Please don't try to stop me.
I am going to explain it all to you, and I ask you to be
considerate and polite enough to listen."

Her manner was compelling; the exhibit was interesting.
And he looked and listened as she talked, rapidly,
intensely, yet clearly and calmly, describing the whole
scheme in minutest detail, not forgetting expense which
she demonstrated would be small.  He asked several
questions—enough to show that he was giving his attention.
When she finished she was trembling all over.  He continued
to inspect the water colors that showed how things would
look when the changes had been made.  After a while he
smiled and nodded at her.  "Very clever," he said.
"Really, I had no idea you could do anything like this."

Her mouth and throat were dry; her eyes gleamed.
She was giving out the force that flows from a soul in
desperate earnest—the force that sweeps away any opposition
not already aggressive, before it has a chance to gather.
"I may try it?" she asked.

"That's another matter," reflected he aloud.  "I
ought to say no, for I'm sure you'll be disappointed and
your mistakes'll have to be covered up."  Now that he was
reminded of it he was ashamed of the curt ill-humored way
he had issued his orders about her going to the club.
"But you can only learn by trying.  So, I've no objections
to your making a start."  He laid his hands on her
shoulders.  "A little at a time—remember!" he cautioned.  "A
*very* little."

With that unconsciousness of her being intelligent
enough to see his thoughts in his expression—an
unconsciousness to which she had long since got used, but never
hardened—he was showing that he wished to refuse her,
but that, being taken by surprise, he in his kindness of
heart could not frame a pretext.  His manner took from her
all desire or ability to thank him.  "I'll be careful," said
she.

The smile in his eyes was like a parent's at a precocious
child.  He kissed her, patted her cheek, went back to his
work.  He had read the anthropologies, all written by
men.  Anthropology being out of his line, he accepted as
exact science the prejudice and baseless assertion and
misleading "statistics" there set down as "laws."  Nature
had made man active, woman passive; thus, action in woman
was contrary to nature, was inevitably abortive and
whimsical, was never, except by rare accident, valuable.  "She's
clever," thought he, by way of finis to the subject.  "But
she'll soon tire of this thing and drop it.  Well, I suppose
a few more years'll wash away the smatter she got at
college, and this restlessness of hers will yield to nature,
and she'll be content and happy in her womanhood.  A few
more children would have an excellent effect.  She's
suffering from the storing up of the energy that ought to have
outlet in childbearing.  As grandfather often said, it's a
dreadful mistake, educating women beyond their sphere.
But it hasn't done the dear child any permanent harm.
She's far too womanly."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`V`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \V

.. vspace:: 2

By the time Winchie was four years old—and in looks
and health, in truthfulness and self-reliance a credit to
her—she had about completed the transformation of house
and grounds.  The Vaughan place was no longer an example
of those distressing attempts to divorce beauty from
its supreme quality, use, that are the delight of the
unfortunates whose esthetic faculty has been paralyzed by
the mediæval monastic education still blighting the modern
world.  It was, throughout, beauty applied to use, use
achieved in beauty.  She had no theory in doing this; she
followed the leadings of a courageous and unspoiled taste
which was thoroughly practical, as practical as that of the
artists of the age of Pericles, a taste which abhorred the
bizarre and the blatant.  The results would not have
pleased Colonel Achilles; they would not have stirred the
enthusiasm of anyone who has been enslaved by false
education to admire only what has been approved by
tradition.  But charm no one could have denied.  Winter and
summer the house, livable and restful in every corner,
bloomed within—for over no other part of nature is man's
dominion so complete as over the plant kingdom.  From
early spring through the last warm days of autumn the
grounds were delightful to behold; it was as if summer
were living there freely and at ease, with no restraint
upon her except keeping her clear of the restraint of her
own profuse and careless litter.  In winter the lawns and
clumps and hedges were by no means dead or filled only
with evergreen's mortuary suggestions; there are many
plants that bloom with bright berries and leaves in the
midst of snow and ice, and Courtney knew about them.
Winter indoors seemed a millennium in which winter and
summer lived amicably together.  There were snows and
icy storms without, huge open fires within; the windows
were gay with blossoming plants, and from a conservatory
she built and stocked at surprisingly small cost there
came cut flowers for vases and bowls as well as plants that
replaced those which had done service and needed rest.
Courtney was one of those for whom things grow; her own
vivid life seemed to radiate throughout her surroundings
and infect all things with the passion to live vividly.  With
the flowers, as with Winchie, she was patient, intelligent,
understanding—never expecting too much, always encouraging
to the least disposition to develop.

All this wonder of transformation was not wrought in
a day, nor by dreaming.  It came as the result of tireless
and incessant labor of brain and hand.  She had dreamed
her dream; she was determined that it should be realized.
Failure did not daunt her; it taught her.  Nor was she
halted by her sense, rather than experience, of a latent
reluctance in Richard about giving her money he wanted
for the laboratory; for, as his work there expanded, its
expenses grew rapidly heavier.  She did not ask him for
the money; she did not let him know she needed it; she
got along without it.  In such work as she was doing it
takes a vast deal of thought, of planning and contriving,
to take the place of money.  She did that necessary
thinking.  When she could get a little money, she spent it to
amazing advantage; when she could not, she went on without
it.  Some of her most satisfying results came through
the work made necessary by lack of money.  Very powerful,
too, was the influence of this upon her character—in
developing self-reliance and self-respect which come only
through successful independent action.

Now, after nearly three years of days of toil that was
also play, since she loved it, she saw, but a short distance
ahead, a time when she would have little to do beyond
taking care that Jimmie and Bill kept the grounds up, and
that Nanny and Mazie and Lizzie did their work properly
in the house.  There would be minor changes, new
features; but the task as a task was almost done.  And,
in spite of Nanny's opposition, she had put the household
on a systematic basis, so that with a little daily attention
every part of the routine went smoothly, each servant
doing his or her share of the work in the same way always
and at the same time.  She was about to have many hours
each day liberated—and this, in a quiet place, where time
refuses to take wings, but insists upon being definitely
employed every moment of it.

What should she do next?  She had grown through her
work.  She had educated her originality and her instinctive
good taste, had educated them so intelligently that
originality had not lost its courage nor good taste its breadth.
It had not "settled" her to make a home, as it "settles"
a human or lower animal that acts largely from instinct
and example and that conceives a home to be chiefly a place
to eat and sleep.  On the contrary, it had unsettled her
the more.  Her character had not changed.  Character
never does change; it simply develops, responding to its
environment like any other growing thing.  Her character
had developed.

What next?  What should she do to occupy hand and
brain, now grown far more skillful?  What should she do
with heart?  It was now grown far bolder in its dreams
and longings; and from time to time it was giving ever
more imperious notice that not much longer would it be
content with solicitude about a child and makeshift
interest in interior decoration and landscape gardening, but
would demand its right to the fullness of experience.  She
temporized with these ominous threatenings.  She hoped
there would be more children—for children would
compel her.  From Richard, the absorbed, the well pleased
with his "settled, womanly wife," she expected nothing—and
wished nothing.  The routine of matrimony had become
as unconscious as breathing or winking.  Her sense
of moral obligation to him was also automatic; she felt
its restraint not definitely as the wife of a certain Richard
Vaughan, but generally as a woman of the married estate.
She knew little about him beyond what he thought of her,
of marriage—and that knowledge killed all further
interest in him.  He knew nothing whatever about her beyond
the surface—her physical charm, enhanced by good taste
in dress.  The comfort of his home and its order, the
surprising success of her "tinkerings" with house and
grounds made small impression upon him.  The changes
had come about gradually; and he was absorbed at the
Smoke House.  Before the next change was made he had
got used to the one preceding, and had come to regard it
as something that had always existed.  And she was not
one of those who see to it that they get full credit by
preceding, accompanying, and following every act with blast
of trumpets.  She did things because she liked to do them,
just as she learned because she liked to know.  She worked
without friction or bluster.  Also, having dismissed him
from her inner, her real life, as he had dismissed her from
his, it never occurred to her to talk to him about
herself—and her work was herself.

What next?  She often asked the question as she
paused to look about her and saw so short a distance ahead
the end of her task.  But she was not troubled because
she could not answer the question.  She waited with a
certain confident tranquillity until an answer should be
imperative.  Meanwhile—  One look at her was enough
to convince that her lot had been better than the lot of the
gay, discontented young married women of Wenona society
who pitied her because of her solitude.  They did not
realize that not only were they unhappy, but also were
without the capacity to enjoy happiness if it should offer,
had lost the capacity as utterly as a deaf man the capacity
to enjoy music.  One may abuse intellect or heart with
impunity no more than body.  Transgression and punishment
are simply cause and effect.  There were times when
Courtney wished she could be gayer; but at least she was
never bored, never did the things that do not amuse in
the doing, and have an aftermath of disgust.  She had
an intense, ever intenser desire to live life to its
uttermost limits of interest and joy; but that did not seem to
her to mean changing her clothes many times a day,
rushing from house to house, from party to party, gossiping,
eating indigestible sauces and desserts, and playing bridge.
She knew what she did not want.  She did not know what
she wanted—did not dare inquire.  She feared life was a
good deal of a cheat—not altogether a cheat, not by any
means—but still a raiser of longings it had no way to
satisfy, of expectations it had no way to fulfill.

She fancied herself little changed since her marriage.
And she was hardly changed at all physically.  But in
mind she was a woman full grown—a rarity indeed in our
civilization which tends to make odalisques and parasites
out of the women it does not crush under toil.  She was
ready for a strong part in life, should opportunity offer.
Meanwhile, she was living her placid routine with the
originality and interest with which intelligence can invest
the humblest, the most usual acts.

She wrote in her commonplace book this sentence:

"Love is a tune we whistle in the dark of our
aloneness to keep up our courage."

.. vspace:: 2

In Winchie's fourth year, in the spring, Judge Benedict
had an illness so severe that Courtney went to the
farm, taking Winchie with her to stay until the crisis
passed.  It was nearly three weeks before decision for life
was rendered and she could return home.

She had been gone during what ought to have been
her busiest season.  She rather expected to find the place
in some confusion.  Instead, so far advanced toward
completion were her plans, and so thoroughly had she trained
Jimmie and his son Bill and the house servants, everything
was well under way.  All her instructions, both those given
before she left and those written to Jimmie from her
father's—had been carried out exactly.  They had worked
as hard as if she had been there, had done it because they
loved her—for only love can arouse and inspire the
sluggish energies of those who serve.  The lawns were trim
and freshly green, the walks were covered with new
tan-bark; and its red brown harmonized with the colors of lawn
and trees as its odor harmonized with the odors from the
grass and the foliage, from the brilliant flowers in great
beds at either side of the house.  All the windows were gay
with boxes of blooming plants.  Railings of verandas and
balconies were draped with mats of budding creepers.
The gardens—the beds in the lawns and along the
verandas—the edges of walks and drives—the thickets and
trellises—all were blossoming and odorous.  Lovely
contrasts of light and shade, delicious perfumes, birds
flashing to and fro, singing in the trees and bushes—the
Vaughan place illustrated what Pope meant when he called
landscape gardening nature plus a soul.  The soul that
had given form to nature's color and perfume was Courtney's.

As the carriage drove down the deeply shaded main
drive from highway to drive-front porch, she gazed round
with a creator's pride and joy and love.  She had two
children—Winchie and this lovely place.  All the
servants gathered to welcome her—all except old Nanny, who
had never forgiven and who resented the changes as
sacrilege.  They watched eagerly for signs of approval.  Her
expression, as she looked at what they had done, then at
them, the unsteady voice in which she said "Beautiful—beautiful"
went straight to their hearts.  Within the house,
everywhere open wide to June's enchantment, there was
evidence of the same creative impulse—order without
stiffness, art without any trace of art's labor.

Winchie would go straightway to look at his rabbits;
she went upstairs alone to bathe and change after the
dusty journey, telling Lizzie to bring him as soon as he
had satisfied himself that his rabbits were all right.  The
door of the bedroom immediately across the hall from hers
stood open, and with the thorough housekeeper's instinct
she glanced in.  It was the room Dick usually occupied.
Instead of Dick's belongings she saw, spread about, toilet
articles and clothing strange to her.  She entered.  On the
bureau she instantly noted a pair of tasteful silver and
ebony brushes; the monogram was "B.G."  She opened
a drawer; neckties, more attractive than any she had ever
seen, filled two compartments to overflowing with their
patterned silks and linens.  In the third compartment
several dozen line handkerchiefs; the monogram on them was
again "B.G."

She opened the nearest closet.  On forms hung perhaps
a dozen coats; she recognized the cut and materials as
foreign.  Beneath was a long row of boots, shoes, pumps,
slippers, all of the kind a woman of taste at once knows
and appreciates.  As she was closing the door there swung
out from the hook high up a suit of beautiful striped linen
pajamas monogramed in gray and faintly perfumed with
lavendar.  She went on into the adjoining front room—the
room Dick had used as a study.  Obviously, he no longer
used it.  The books of fiction and poetry—the big silver
cigarette box—the gaudily trimmed silk dressing gown
flung carelessly on a chair—none of these belonged to him
or suggested his studious and rather Spartan temperament.

In the hall she saw Lizzie just come with Winchie.
"Who's in these rooms?" asked she.

"Mr. Gallatin," replied Lizzie.  "Mr. Vaughan put
him in here and moved down to the suite at the Smoke
House."

Lizzie's tone indicated that she was assuming Courtney
knew all about Mr. Gallatin.  That tone put her on guard.
"When did he come?" asked she, feeling her way.

"Two weeks ago yesterday.  He's very nice.  He's as
particular as you about his things, but it's a pleasure to
look after them."

Had Richard forgotten to tell her he expected this
Mr. Gallatin?  Or had she, fallen long since into his
absent-minded habit, failed to hear as he told her?  Was it a
chance visit from some college or scientific acquaintance?
The character of the stranger's installation—the quantity
of clothing—did not speak for a brief chance visit.  The
quality of the clothing, the taste, the care, the worldly
interest and knowledge it suggested, were all against the
idea of "B.G.'s" being a devotee of science.  At least,
if there were such scientists, this was the first she had
known of it.  After she had changed for the evening, and
had given Winchie his supper and sent him to bed, she
went into the stranger's quarters again.  These personal
belongings of his attracted her; they so clearly revealed
taste and refinement, a refinement unusual in a man; they
so strongly hinted a personality more in sympathy with
her own passionate joy in life than with Richard's intellectual
abstractions.  In the early days of their married life
Richard had been rather particular about himself; but he
had got more and more indifferent, no longer shaved every
day, was at times distinctly slovenly.  "B.G. is a
bachelor," thought she.  "Married men—except those that are
at heart bachelors—soon lose this sort of gloss."  Usually
she had not the faintest interest in anything concerning
Richard.  But this man interested her.

She was in the sitting room downstairs, playing and
singing in an undertone when Richard came.  "Hello,"
said he.  And he kissed the cheek she turned to a reachable
angle.  His manner was as casual as hers.  It was their
habitual manner, and long had been.  The difference
between his habit and hers was that his yielded from time to
time to the intermittent gusts of desire, while hers remained
always tranquilly cool.  "Your father's quite all right
again?" was his careless first question.

"I hope so.  I think so."

He was not merely looking at her now, he was seeing
her.  His eyes lighted up and into his voice came the
wooing note.  "Glad you've not dropped into my sloppy ways,"
said he.  He was admiring her pale-green chiffon dress
that left the slender column of her throat bare and her
forearms, but almost concealed her shoulders.  "Gallatin
won't think we're altogether barbarians here.  He dresses
for supper.  He's at it now."

His eyes showed that he was not thinking at all of
Gallatin, but of her—thoughts which did not leave her
entirely indifferent, but gave her an unwonted sense of vague
distaste, after her long absence and complete freedom.
As he moved toward her she said: "There's time for you
to dress.  And you need a shave badly.  Is he from the
East?"

"From Philadelphia by way of Pittsburg.  He's been
doing a little chemistry in his amateurish way in the mills
there.  I'd not have him about if I didn't need his money."

Dick was coming on toward her again.  "The bell will
ring in ten minutes," she reminded him.  Perhaps through
perverseness, the impulse to evade was a little stronger.

But he came, put his arms round her, kissed her again,
this time with undivided attention.  She lost the impulse
to evade, submitted, smiled amicably, and, to extricate
herself, rose.  The lines of her dress brought out the
perfection of her small, slim figure; its color harmonized with
her deep-sea eyes and with the delicate bronze of her skin.
"What a beauty you are!" he exclaimed.  "No wonder
I'm so proud of you."

Usually she was indifferent, without being conscious of
it; this evening of her return from freedom to married life
she felt her indifference.  She said coldly, "If you're going
to dress——"

"A shave'll be enough," protested Dick.  "Your
finery'll more than make up for my absence of it.  Bachelors
like Gallatin have to sleek themselves up.  They've
still got their brides to win."

"You'll be late."

"I want you to be extra civil to Gallatin.  He's likely
to get bored in this quiet place after a few months.  He's
rather gay, I imagine.  At least he used to be.  And I don't
want him to pull out."

"After a few months," repeated Courtney, interested.
"Why, how long is he to stay?"

"A year or so—perhaps longer."

"Here in the house!"

"I can't put him down at the laboratory, so near my
secrets.  I'm not going to let him in on everything.  That's
part of our bargain.  We're partners, you understand."

"Here in the house!" exclaimed Courtney again.  The
very idea of an outsider as spectator at what was going
on there made her acutely conscious of it, all in an
instant.

"Oh, you'll like him—at least, you must for my sake.
He doesn't amount to much, but he's agreeable—well
mannered—good family—entertaining in a light way."

"There goes the bell."

Dick rushed away to shave.  He had been gone but a
few moments when Courtney was roused from her agitated
reverie by the sense of some one in the room.  Near the
threshold stood the newcomer, who was to be a factor in
her intimate life, a spectator of it, whether she willed or
no, for "a year or so—perhaps longer."  He was a blond
young man, fair and smooth of skin, his hair almost golden.
He certainly was not handsome; only his coloring and a
pair of frank gray eyes saved him from downright homeliness.
As their eyes met, his heavy, conventional face was
suddenly transformed by as charming a smile as she had
ever seen.  He was of about the medium height, his figure
neither powerful nor weak.  He wore a dinner suit of dark
gray, fashionably draped upon him, pumps, gray socks
that matched his gray silk tie, a plaited French shirt, an
unusually tall, perfectly fitting collar.  If he had not been
so well and so tastefully dressed, he would have attracted
no attention anywhere—unless he had smiled.  That smile
meant a frank nature, a kind and generous heart—rarities
to make their possessor distinguished in whatever company.

Courtney, with woman's swift grasp of surface details,
noted all this and more while she was advancing with
extended hand and saying, "Mr. Gallatin, is it not?"

He was obviously confused and embarrassed.  Her natural,
self-unconscious manner encouraged him candidly to
explain.  "I feel very shy," said he, speaking with a strong
Eastern accent, "and very guilty.  Shy because, before I
came, I had somehow got the impression Vaughan was not
married—and that we were to keep bachelor hall.  I was
astonished to find he had a wife."  His eyes added
without impertinence that he was amazed and dazzled now that
he saw the wife.  "I feel guilty," he went on, "because I
seem to be thrusting myself in upon you.  But Vaughan
assured me I'd not be intruding."

"You needn't trouble yourself about that," said she.
She liked his accent; it was pleasant as a novelty, and
rather amusing.  She liked his manners.  They were of
the best type of conventional manners, the type affected
by fashionable people everywhere, the type that is excelled
only by the kind of manners of which it is an artful and
insincere imitation—the simple manners of those rare
self-unconscious people who have the courage—or, rather, the
lack of fear—to be natural and spontaneous.  "We'll not
wait for Richard," she said, as the supper bell rang.  "He's
got a great deal to do before he can come."

She had just finished the sentence when he entered,
exactly as he was when he went out.  "I forgot I'd taken all
my razors down to the laboratory," he explained.

During supper he and Gallatin talked chemistry; that
is, he talked and Gallatin listened—listened and ate.
Courtney noted—with increased liking for him—that he
had a vigorous appetite and that he liked the things they
had to eat.  But her thoughts soon wandered away to
her gardening, to retouching her plans for bringing the
grounds a little nearer her ideal than they had been the
summer before.  When the men lighted cigars, she went
to the veranda to stroll up and down in the moonlight.  She
forgot everything unpleasant in the delight of being home
again.  As she looked about her, her heart was singing
the nightingale's song.  She was startled—and her heart's
song was stopped—by the newcomer's voice.  "Vaughan's
gone to the library," said Gallatin.  "Do you mind if I
walk with you?"

She did mind very much indeed.  She had somehow
lost interest in him as soon as he ceased to be the mystery
B.G.  She liked him well enough, admired his manners,
his really delicate tact in what must have been for him an
extremely difficult position.  But she had got the
impression that Dick was right in estimating him as a
"don't-amount-to-much."  And just now he was distinctly a
kill-joy.  However, she acquiesced courteously, though with
no unnecessary cordiality.  She felt that now was the time
to get him in the habit of respecting her privacy; she could
establish a barrier now, where an attempt to establish it
later on would offend him.  At best, the barrier would be
a poor enough makeshift; he would be bound to see, to
make her feel uncomfortable about things she had been able
to keep unconscious of or indifferent to.  Still, she was far
too generous to blame him.

"Do you have much spare time?" she asked, her manner
more cordial than if she had not been wishing him out
of the house.

"A great deal.  Vaughan realizes I'm only an amateur."

"I'll take you over to the club and introduce you.
You'll find some very agreeable people."

"Thank you.  It has been rather dull these two
weeks—especially of evenings."

"I don't see how you had the courage to come."

"I had to," said he, in the curt way in which a young
man gives himself the pleasure of hinting a secret he
cannot with good taste give himself the pleasure of telling.

She glanced across the lake at the twinkling lamps of
the town.  "The women over there will fill every minute
you give them," said she.  "You see, most of our men are
busy all day and tired in the evening.  You'll be a lion."

"That sounds attractive.  I'm amazed at the West.  I
had no idea civilization was so advanced."

The implied condescension in this amused her.  But
she merely said: "Oh, I guess the same sort of people are
much alike the world over."

The conversation languished through a to her tiresome
discussion of differences of accent, dress, manners, and such
trifles until he happened to say: "This place of yours here
was a revelation to me.  I've been talking to Vaughan
about it—admiring it.  He tells me his grandfather's
responsible for it.  He must have been an extraordinary man."

"He was," said Courtney, in a queer voice.  She glanced
out over her creation and the blood burned in her cheeks.

"He'd certainly be proud of the way you keep it up."

Her sense of humor had come to the rescue; besides,
vanity was not a dominating emotion with her who had too
much else to think about to have much time for thought of
self.  "I'm fond of gardening," was her placid
noncommittal reply to his compliment.

"Yes, Vaughan's grandfather must have been a wonder,"
Gallatin went on reflectively.  He had paused, was
leaning on the rail, looking out over the lawns and
gardens.  "I don't mind confessing to you—if you'll not tell
your husband—that I'm a chemist only by profession, with
landscape gardening as my real passion."

Courtney glanced at him with interested eyes.

"I know a little something about it," he continued.
"I learned long ago in a general way that a personality
is always revealed in any work, and I at once looked for
the personality in this place.  That old man must have been
an artist....  I can't reconcile these grounds with the
portrait of him in the library."

Courtney was smiling to herself.  A thrill of pride and
pleasure was running through her.  She began to like Basil
Gallatin, to feel that he was by no means commonplace, but
a man of breadth and artistic instinct, something at least
of the man of the big world, not merely the man of the
little world of well-cut manners and clothes.

"That portrait is of a stern, narrow man—strong but
conventional," he went on, confirming her more sympathetic
judgment of him.  "This place—the house as well as the
grounds—shows a very different individuality.  It's
feminine and sensuous and poetical.  Yes, it's distinctly
feminine—and delightfully disdainful of the conventional—of
everything and anything 'cut and dried.'  I don't mean
the details—the things you're probably responsible
for—and they're very charming.  But I mean the whole
conception—so free, so daring, and so lovely.  Yet Vaughan tells
me that the old gentleman made the plans himself and
superintended their carrying out.  It's very curious.  Don't
you think so?"

"I hadn't thought about it."

"You're not interested?"

"Why do you say so?"

"Your tone.  I suppose a man is tedious when he gets
on his hobby.  I noticed you were bored when we were
talking chemistry at supper."

"I wasn't bored.  I simply wasn't listening."

"You don't like chemistry?"

"I did.  But my enthusiasm cooled as I got interested
in other things."

Again the conversation languished.  She suspected that
his opinion of her was rapidly declining.  But some
instinct withheld her from making any effort whatever
to rehabilitate herself.  Finally he said: "Well, I guess
I've disturbed you long enough.  I'll go to my room and
read."

"I'm going up myself after I've had a little talk with
Nanny about the house."

As soon as he disappeared, she dismissed him from mind
with a few pleasant and friendly thoughts—"he may not
have any great amount of brains or force, but he certainly
has good taste.  He will be a distinct addition."  When
she ascended to her sitting room, perhaps an hour later, she
halted on the threshold, coloring with anger.  Dick was
seated at her center table reading a newspaper; Gallatin
was inspecting the books in one of her cases.  Dick saw
her and said: "Come in.  Don't mind us."

Courtney, struggling against her anger at this climax
to the impudent intrusion upon her privacy, remained upon
the threshold.

Dick's eyes had dropped to his paper.  "Gallatin," he
went on, "was complaining that the books in the library
were too old and solemn.  So I brought him here.  I knew
you'd laid in a stock of the frivolous kinds that grandfather
wouldn't have tolerated.  Finding what you want, old man?"

When Dick's speaking warned him that Courtney had
come, Gallatin had startled guiltily and had hastily put
away the book he was examining.  But he didn't turn
round until Richard directly addressed him.  His face was
red and his eyes were down.  "I feel sleepy," said he
awkwardly.  "I'll look again some other time if
Mrs. Vaughan will let me."

"Certainly," said Courtney, cold as a flower blooming
in the heart of a block of ice.

The case into which Gallatin had been delving was
filled with works on landscape gardening and interior
decoration—modern works.  As he almost stumbled from the
room he cast a further glance round at the walls—walls
covered with the original plans, sketches, and paintings
Courtney had made for her revolution in house and grounds—very
modern-looking drawings all, and unmistakably feminine.
She knew that the newcomer had her secret—all
of it—not merely the secret of her authorship, but also,
through it, the secret of this loveless married life in which
the husband had not the remotest idea who his wife was
or what she had done.  In passing her on his way out,
Gallatin visibly shrank and grew as white as he had been
red.  She went to the window to compose herself, for her
blood was boiling in the greatest rage of her life.

Richard went to close the door after Gallatin, then
turned on her.  "My dear," said he in his "grandfather"
tone, which sometimes amused and sometimes angered her,
"you are so cold by nature that you don't realize it, but
you were almost insulting to Gallatin."

"I hope so!" cried she, facing him.  "How dared
you bring him in here without my permission?  There are
not many women who would have accepted quietly your
bringing him to this house to live without a word to me.
I wish you to understand you cannot thrust him upon my
privacy.  I don't allow anyone in this room without my
consent.  It must not occur again."

"Now—now—my dear," said Dick soothingly.  "All
that is very unreasonable.  Of course, I have the right to
do as I please in my own house, and you're too good and
too sensible a wife to dispute it."

"I do dispute it!" she cried, her bosom heaving.
"This room is—*me*!"

"What a tempest in a teapot!  Child, what has made
you take such a sudden dislike to him—and so violent?  He
isn't worth it—an amiable, well-meaning, commonplace
chap.  Really, you mustn't act this way.  I've told you I
need him, and you must be polite to him."

"The impertinent, prying——"

"I brought him here, Courtney," he interrupted,
magisterially.  "And I repeat, I had the right to do so."

Like most people of sweet and even temperament, she
lost all control of herself in this unprecedented rage, where
those in the habit of raging learn a sort of etiquette of bad
temper.  "You had not the right!" she declared, her eyes
blazing into his.  "And if you ever do such a thing again,
I'll make it impossible for him to remain here.  Do you
understand?"

"I do not quarrel," said Richard with gentle superiority,
"especially not with women—with my wife."

"And why not?  You call it chivalry.  I call it
contempt.  And I detest it.  If you could appreciate how
absurd you are, with your antiquated notions of superior and
inferior sex, of rights and duties, and all such nonsense!"

Richard was in full armor of masculine patience against
feminine folly.  "You are beside yourself, my dear.  I'll
leave you until you are calm and courteous."  And he added,
as if he were meting out severe but just punishment, "I
shall occupy the spare room."

Courtney gave a strange laugh.  He turned away, went
into her bedroom.  Presently he reappeared exclaiming:
"Why, where are my pajamas?  I told Lizzie to put them
in there."

Courtney's smile was of the same quality of strangeness
as her laugh of the moment before.  "They are in the
spare room," said she.  "I put them there before I came
in here."

He looked puzzled, vaguely discomfited.  "Oh—very
well."  He glanced inquiringly at her, decided against the
trivial question he had been about to ask.  "Good night."  He
was again puzzled when what he heard about the location
of the pajamas was recalled and made vivid by the
sight of them on the turned-down bed in the spare room.
But for an instant only.  He dismissed the trifle and went
to bed and to sleep.  Husbands do not bother their heads
about the petty feminine eccentricities of wives.  The
mystery of these transposed pajamas was too petty to detain a
masculine mind.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`VI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \VI

.. vspace:: 2

She did not go down to breakfast next morning until
Richard and his guest would surely be gone.  Her anger
against the guest had evaporated because it was clearly
unjust.  Her anger against Richard was subsiding because
it was clearly futile—and also because she hadn't it in her
to foster harsh feeling.  But there remained a dislike and
dread of Gallatin because he had her secret.  She could
not think with composure of facing him, intolerably her
partner in a secret she was ashamed of, was hiding from
her husband, was trying to hide from herself.  She would
be unable to look at him, to remember his existence even,
without at the same time having it thrust at her that her
married life was a sham, a hypocrisy.

Half an hour before dinner Richard came to her in the
big greenhouse she had built back of the library.  As the
day was warm, all its doors and sashes were open.  Richard
sent Jimmie's son Bill away and said with agitated
abruptness: "Courtney, Gallatin seems determined to take
rooms over at the hotel."

"I'm glad of that," replied she.  "It's much better."  She
had not paused in her delicate task of extricating plants
from their winter bed and arranging them in a basket for
taking into the garden.

"But it's the first step toward going away.  He'll
never put up with the hotel's discomforts."  Her indifference,
her inattention made him impatient.  "My dear,
you don't understand.  I need him.  I've branched out on
the strength of the capital he's supplying and has
promised to supply.  If he leaves, I'll be in a hole.  We'll have
to cut down in every direction, for I simply can't abandon
my new plans."

"I don't like him," said Courtney.  She had abruptly
stopped work, was leaning against the frame facing him.
"I want him out of the house."

Dick took the tone of gentle, forbearing remonstrance.
"It's too late to change him to the Smoke House.  He
feels your dislike—is eager to get away.  If there were
any ground for dislike, I'd say nothing.  As it is, I—  I
don't like to assert authority, but your frivolous whimsicality
makes it necessary.  I want you at once to convince
him that you wish him to stay."

"But I don't."  Her voice showed that those brief
words were all she could trust to it.

"You do, since I wish it."

"Why should I consider what you wish?  When have
you considered what I wish?"

"When have I been inconsiderate of what was for
your good?"

She was silent—silenced, he thought.  His handsome
face and his voice were gentle; but underneath there was
sternness in both as he said: "You'll not oppose me in this.
It'd be a very severe strain upon my love for you, if I
found you so contemptuous of my interests.  I'm sure
you'll not risk that strain."

She saw into what an impossible position her anger
had hurried her.  Usually women, through playing upon
the husband's passions and weaknesses generally, get
enough control over him to be able to maintain—with only
an occasional slight lapse—the pleasant fiction that they
are of full human rank.  They take care to avoid such
crises as was this.  Courtney, by long keeping away from
the bars of her cage, had been lured into believing her
pretense that they were not there.  She now found herself
bleeding and exhausted against them.  "Very well," said
she, after a moment's silence.  It had taken her quick mind
only a moment to see the alternatives—submission or a
clash in which she could not but be defeated.  "I'll try
to get him to stay."  Her voice was low and broken, but
not from anger.  Deeper than the sense of Richard's
tyranny burned the humiliating sense of her servitude.
In fact, her own plight so mortified her that she had no
emotional capacity for raging against him as the author of
it.  She felt, as always in these sex conflicts, that the fault
was not his, but fate's; he was simply playing his part as
man, she her part as woman.

"That's a good girl," cried her approving husband,
kissing her brow.  It did not occur to him, the deep-down
reason of sordidness that enabled him to compel; but she
could think of nothing else.  "Be sweet to him," Dick
went on, in an amiable, petting tone.  "And you may rest
assured, dear, I'll get rid of him as soon as I can.  I don't
like intruders into our happiness any more than you do."

Her cheeks flushed, and she turned again to the frame,
to resume her digging.  Her whole body to her finger tips
was in a tremor.

Through dinner she was silent and cold; Gallatin hardly
lifted his gaze from his plate.  Whenever Richard could
catch her eye, he frowned and glanced significantly at
Gallatin.  But her eyes met his hints with a vacant look
that made him twitch in his chair with nervousness and
exasperation.  As soon as Gallatin in politeness could, he
excused himself and left the family of three alone.

Richard, unmindful of Winchie, burst out, "What's the
meaning of this?

"You must let me humble myself in my own way," said
Courtney coldly.  "Come, Winchie."  And the two went
out on the lawn.

As Gallatin a few minutes later issued from the front
door with Richard, she called: "Oh, Mr. Gallatin, I want
to speak to you a moment."

He halted.  The color flared into his face.  Richard
said, "I'll go on.  You needn't hurry," and strode along
the path into the eastern shrubbery.  Gallatin hesitatingly
crossed the grass.  Winchie, who had on first sight taken
an instinctive dislike to him, held a fold of Courtney's
walking skirt and glowered like a small but very fierce
storm.

"Go to the veranda, Winchie," said his mother.

The boy released his hold and reluctantly obeyed.
Gallatin stood before her like a prisoner arraigned for
sentence.  "Richard tells me you're talking of moving to the
hotel over in town," said she.

"Yes, I'm going to-morrow."

"Because you feel I want you out of the house?"

"I think a man in my position couldn't help being an
intruder."

"I want you to stay."

His fair skin paled.  "I thank you," said he, "but I
must go."

"I want you to stay.  I ask you to stay."

"That's very kind.  I appreciate it.  But I really
must go."

"I did wish you to go.  But now I sincerely wish you
to stay."

Their eyes met.  She was as pale as her bronze complexion
permitted.  She went on, her deep, clear voice
steady, "If you go, you'll put me in a very painful position."

Gallatin looked at her, flushed, looked hastily away.
In a voice of intense embarrassment he said: "I've
another reason for wishing to go.  It's even stronger than the
knowledge that you're—very naturally—displeased at my
being forced upon you."

"Oh," said Courtney, baffled.  Then, "Please tell
Richard what it is."

"I cannot."  His gaze was on the ground now.

Somehow Courtney was liking him better.  As he
glanced up, her eyes met his.  "Be frank with me," she
urged winningly.  "Is it because you dislike it here?"

"No."  His gaze was wandering again.  "No, indeed."

"I'm glad of that," said she.  "Do you believe me
when I say I wish you to stay?"

He lowered his eyes, remained silent.

"If I were free to choose, I would wish you to go,"
she went on, speaking with the utmost deliberation.  "I am
not free.  So, I wish you to stay because it will be most
unpleasant for me if you persist in going.  I venture to
ask you, if it is not too great a sacrifice, to stay on—at
least, for the present.  But if you still say you must go,
I shall not misjudge."

"I'll stay," was his prompt response.  "Gladly."  And
his tone and eyes were sincere.

"Thank you," said she simply.

He looked at her with an appeal that was very engaging.
"I know you'll hate me for having created this situation."

"I thought I did a few minutes ago," replied she.
"Now, I feel I don't.  I feel I'd like to be friends with
you—"  Her small, sweet face lit up with a faint
smile—"since we can't be enemies."

"You mean that?" he asked with an eagerness that
sounded only the more eager for his effort to restrain it.

"Indeed, I do," replied she.  "Will you help me with
the gardening—when you have time?"

"There's nothing I'd like so well."

"Then—it's all settled?"

"Quite."

They smiled gravely; they shook hands; they laughed.
"And a little while ago I was thinking I never could
forgive you!" exclaimed she gayly.  "Now I'm wondering
what on earth there was to forgive."  And she felt and
looked very well acquainted with him.  It was part of her
upright-downright nature either to like thoroughly or to
be so indifferent that she was little short of oblivious.

Before her generous friendliness the laughter died out
of his face.  "I'll try to be worthy of your friendship and
your trust," said he gravely.

"That sounds mysterious—somehow."

"Does it? ... When may I help you?"

"Whenever you can get off.  Soon?"

"To-morrow, I think."

"That's good."

"I'll join Vaughan."  He hesitated, blushed.  "He
knows you were to ask me to stay?"

"Yes.  But not how," was her calm answer.

"I understand."  Their eyes met.  He colored; but
her expression, sweet and grave, did not change.  As he
went Winchie, seated morosely afar off on the veranda
steps, scowled at his back.

That evening Richard said: "Well, I think he's going
to stay.  How did you manage it?"

"I've asked him to help me with the gardening.  He's
fond of it."

"A good idea," approved Richard.  "I'll back you up."

She gazed silently out over the unruffled lake, so peaceful,
so suggestive of peace unchanging, endless—the lazy,
graceful sails—beyond, the town among its trees, lights
coming out as the dusk gathered.

.. vspace:: 2

But their friendship, thus auspiciously begun, did not
prosper.  Gallatin almost pointedly avoided her.  He
helped her only when Richard, disturbed from time to
time by his unrelaxed reserve, urged him to take a day or
an afternoon off "and amuse yourself with the flowers,
since you like that sort of thing."  If it had not been
that occasionally in talking or working at the gardening
he seemed to forget his solemn and formal pose and
showed unmistakable enthusiasm, she would have thought
his profession of interest a pretense.  She had a peculiar
horror of gloom—doubtless born of the austerity of her
bringing up.  There was in her circumstances only too
much to discourage her natural brightness, and she had
within herself a struggle as incessant as that against weeds
and destructive insects in her gardens.  She had no desire
to make this struggle harder; so she saw as little of him
as she in courtesy could—the only course open to her,
since she did not know him well enough to try to help him.

"What's the matter with Gallatin?" Richard asked
her one day.  "He says he likes it here and is going to
stay, yet he acts as if he were revolving something different.
He used to be full of fun and life.  Now he's enough to
give anyone the blues."

"He *is* rather heavy," admitted Courtney.

"I wonder if it's the booze," said Richard reflectively.

"The booze?"

"He always drank a lot more than was good for him.
And there in Pittsburg he got to lapping it up like the
get-rich-quick crowd he traveled in.  That was why he wanted
to come here—to break off and take a fresh start.  I
suppose he's gloomy because he's fighting his taste for rum."

"Probably," said Courtney.

Drink was a vice she could not comprehend—and we
always are unsympathetic toward the vices we do not
comprehend.  She associated drinking and stupidity; the
Wenona men who drank to excess were the dull ones, like
Shirley Drummond.  When Richard thus disclosed to her
what Gallatin had meant by his mysterious hint as to his
reason for coming to Wenona, she lost the interest in him
started by his fine frank way of meeting her advances and
his appreciation of her work.  She recalled his other
mysterious hint—about there being a hidden reason for his
wishing to go.  "No doubt," thought she, "he meant he's
finding it hard to keep straight here, where it's so quiet.
I wish now that he'd gone—though, when a man can give
way to such a dull, dirty habit as drunkenness, he'd find
excuse anywhere."

.. vspace:: 2

As the mail came in the middle of the morning and the
middle of the afternoon, she saw it first.  Thus, she noted
that about once a week there was for him a foreign letter
so heavy that it carried several stamps.  These letters were
from the same person, the same woman.  And as the writing
was large, rapid, and affectedly angular, she more than
suspected that the woman was young.  Somewhat tardily
these facts, obvious though their leading was, wove together
in her mind, incurious about other people's affairs; she
knew that there was traveling abroad a young woman who
taking the trouble to write their guest regularly and
at great length.  But when she happened to recall that
he had a young married sister, she assumed the letters were
from her.

One day he casually said that his sister had taken a
house at Bar Harbor for the summer.  The moment he
said this, she for some unknown reason, or for no reason
at all, jumped to the conclusion that his depressed state
was due to the lady of the letters—to her being so far
away—perhaps to some difficulty in their love—the objection of
her parents to his drinking habit.

All was now clear to her.  And thenceforth she looked
at him with deep sympathy.  He was not handsome; his
mouth, for example, was so heavy that it flatly gave the
lie to his idealist, poetic eyes.  His nose was not good, was
too small for a man's face.  Somewhere there lurked a
suggestion of weakness, and this was not lessened by his
attention to dress—though she liked his clothes and his
way of wearing them.  He was far from her ideal of a
man.  But the longer one knew him, the better one thought
of him, chiefly because the more confidence one had in his
essential generosity and kindness.  And she felt that he
had capacity for tenderness of a very manly sort, and for
appreciation of love and of all the beautiful things; just
the kind of nature fate seemed to delight in making the
sport of its maliciousness.

One night, in the pensive mood to which she sometimes
yielded for an hour, she was at the piano softly playing;
and singing that saddest of sad love's songs:

   |  "Alas for lovers!  Pair by pair
   |    The wind has swept them all away—
   |  The young, the yare; the fresh, the fair—
   |    Where are the snows of yesterday?"
   |

Through the window she saw him leaning against a
pillar of the veranda.  His profile was outlined clear against
the luminous dusk.  Its expression made her voice die
altogether in a sob.  She forgot her own sense of fleeting
wasting youth, of supreme joy forever denied, of love never to
be hers.  This sorrow before her in those profiled
features—they were strong features now—was no vague dream, but
a living reality.  She longed to go to him and try to
console him; and at the same time, no matter how well she
had known him, she could not have gone—for in that
unsuspected strength of his there was the hopelessness that
is beyond consolation.  From that time he was the
foremost figure in her thoughts; and her fancy put its own
color into everything he said and did.  If he had begun to
drink she would have been only the more sympathetic; for,
she could comprehend how unhappy love might drive its
victim to any excess—were not her own longings, for three
years now latent except for an occasional outburst, once
more throbbing and aching day and night?

.. vspace:: 2

It was part of her routine to make a careful tour every
day to see that everything was up to the mark.  One day,
in their guest's sitting room, she happened to see half
fallen from the stationery rack a letter from his foreign
correspondent.  It was apparently unopened.  The shock
of this made her take a second look before she realized how
she was intruding upon his sacred privacy.  But she had
seen; the letter was indeed unopened.  And she knew that
the last come of these letters had been at least three days in
his possession.

Her heart ached for him; she felt she understood.  His
love affair had been going more and more badly—his
increasing silence and sadness made that certain.  And this
letter must contain some news he dared not read—some
words that meant the burial of his dead hope.  She went
downstairs with a heavy heart, and out into the sunshine—out
to the rose garden in the western part of the grounds.
She had been dreaming all along that this romance of which
she was unsuspected, deeply moved spectator would surely
"come out all right."  Life did not always mock the story
books.  Love was not always sad, not always mere
deceptive echo of one's own heart call—echo that flitted
mockingly on as one pursued.  No; this love that meant so much
to him would prove real.  Such had been her dream.
Now—  The flowers, their perfume, the gay birds, the
sunbeams—all the sights and sounds she loved seemed tricks of
a black enchanter.  She remembered the day they buried
her little brother.  There had been just such radiant glory
as this.  She remembered the day she had seen that her
own dream of love was dead.  There had been just such
sunshine and music and perfume.  How could anyone with
a human heart even for a moment laugh, jest?  To be light
was to make oneself party to this cruel levity of bird and
flower and sunbeam.  Laugh, when loved ones were dying
somewhere—and the living were bending over dead faces
with cracking hearts?  Jest, when the winds of time and
change were blowing love and lovers all away?

.. vspace:: 2

She caught her breath in a kind of terror when, on her
return to the house, Lizzie told her that Mr. Gallatin had
dashed in, had packed a bag, and had rushed off to
Chicago.  "He has business there," Richard explained at
dinner.  "And I've asked him to buy some stuff for the
laboratory."  She was uneasy, at times unhappy, throughout
the following week, as she thought of him trying to
rid himself of his too heavy burden.  Probably he was
dissipating—she hoped he was, if it would give him relief.
She began to debate whether she ought not to tell Richard
what she had accidentally discovered, and suggest that
he go to Chicago to help his friend, who might have fallen
ill or worse.  At dinner and at supper, even at breakfast,
where she had seen him only occasionally, she positively
missed Gallatin.  Until he came, the time spent at table
had been the stupidest part of each day—Richard and she
in silence or abstraction, or exchanging disconnected
commonplaces about the weather, the food, their friends.  While
Gallatin was far from lively, still he and she had
talked—usually about gardening and plants, the difficulties and
mysteries of inducing things to grow, the comparative merits
of various species for flowering and for hardiness—not
exciting conversation, but interesting, a relief to a monotony
the dreariness of which she did not appreciate until he
came—and went.

.. vspace:: 2

On the eighth day, as they were at supper, he appeared
unexpectedly on the threshold.  There was no forcing in
the cordiality of her smile.  At first glance, she suspected
that he was in much better spirits.  And this impression
was soon confirmed.  Certainly good news—the best—must
have reached him in Chicago.  Otherwise he could not
sit there eating heartily, laughing, making amusing
remarks, telling funny incidents of the trip.  Courtney tried
to continue to feel delighted that he had found surcease
from sorrow.  But her spirits went steadily down.  She
felt horribly alone.  She had been company for him in his
unhappiness—though he did not know it.  Now, she quite
unreasonably felt as if he had deserted her.  She was
ashamed of this, so ungenerous, so selfish, but she could
not help it.

After supper Richard left them alone; they went out
on the veranda—out where the full beauty of that place,
now at summer's climax, could be seen in the soft sunset
light.  She stood watching a belated bird, a tall white
sail—listening to the faint sounds of the town that came
tinkling across the water.  But she was thinking of the man
beside her.  "You've been enjoying yourself in Chicago,"
said she.

"No," was his unexpected answer.  "I've been impatient
to get back."  He glanced round at trees and lawns,
gardens and shrubbery, with delighted eyes.  "I had to
go away, to appreciate how well off I was."  He went to
the edge of the veranda to get a broader sweep.  He seemed
to be noting, reveling in, every detail.  He drew a deep
breath, returned to the big lounge chair, and lit a cigarette.
"Yes," continued he.  "Yes—I didn't dream it, or imagine
it.  It's all true.  It's all here."  Without looking
at her: "And you happen to be wearing the same
dress you had on the evening I came.  Now, don't tell
me you made it—as you've made those gardens and these
rooms."

"I superintend," said Courtney, thinking him a pleasant
and agreeable, if deplorably shallow person.  "I'm
not one of those dreadful original women who get up their
own awful costumes, and think they're individual because
they're different."

"If you lived in Paris, you'd set the styles," declared
he.  "And you're equally good at gardening and decorating
houses."

"That's laid on with the trowel," laughed she.  "But
I like it."  She returned to the subject that fitted her
thoughts.  "You're much livelier than when you went
away; I'm sure you've had good news."

"No—nothing.  I simply took myself in hand."  He
reflected in silence, then lifted his head and looked at her
with a boyish simplicity and candor.  "You see," he
proceeded to explain, "I've had something on my mind ever
since I came—that is, almost ever since—something that
was my own affair entirely.  And I let it prey on
me—made myself a nuisance and a bore, I've no doubt."

There was a gleam of mischievous humor in her eyes as
she nodded assent and said: "You were solemner than I
thought a human being could be."

"Precisely.  Well, that's over.  As I said before, I
didn't realize how well off I was, how much I had to be
thankful for, as the pious people say.  I do realize it.
And I'm going to behave myself."

Courtney felt she ought to be scandalized by this
vanishing of the last solemn tatters of the tragic romance she
had woven about him; for it was clear as the lake that he
had gotten over his bereavement in that one brief week,
had gotten over it entirely.  But somehow she was not
scandalized; was, on the contrary, taking quite cheerfully
this confirmation of his fickleness, of his incapacity for
deep emotion.  After all, wasn't that the best way to be?
Wasn't he perhaps philosopher rather than shallow changeling?
Wasn't he simply exemplifying the truth that fire
burns out, that the dead are forgotten, that life leans
always at the bow of the ship, never at the stern?  She,
eager to escape from her own shadows and thorns, slipped
easily into his mood.  "I should say you did have a lot
to be thankful for!" answered she.  "And you'll soon
forget her."  She colored at her slip.  "I assume it was a
love affair," she hastened to add.  "We women always do."

"Yes, it was."

"You'll get over it."

"I do not wish to get over it."  He was not smiling
back at her.  She felt his thoughts traveling over land and
sea, into Europe, whence came those letters—there were
two of them waiting on his desk upstairs.  "I do not wish
to get over it," he repeated.  "I've learned—"  His voice,
full of earnest young seriousness, sounded as if he were
thinking aloud rather than talking to her—"I've learned
there's a love deeper than the love that demands—a love
that appreciates where it dares not aspire—a love that
asks nothing but just silently to love."

There was a long silence, broken by the snapping of
the match, as he lit a cigarette.  She startled, rose, and
leaned against a pillar.  With eyes half veiled by her long
lashes she watched the gardens wane dreamily in the evening
light.  She inhaled the odors of rose, of lilac, of
jasmine, of honeysuckle—perfumes so sweet that they were
sad.  How cruelly she had misjudged him!  She felt a
kind of reverence for him now, him with this nobility of
soul so unconscious, so lofty.  Here was a man worth a
woman's while.  "Why couldn't I have had such a love
as he is giving?" she thought.  "Oh, if she had learned
what I've learned!"

"Come into the sitting room, Gallatin," called Richard
from that direction.

Gallatin went, and for a few minutes Courtney heard,
in intervals between her thoughts, snatches of the talk
between the two men about the shopping Gallatin had done
for the laboratory—talk about a new crusher, about a
promising bomb calorimeter.  After a while came in Vaughan's
voice, "Courtney, what do you think of that?"

She stood in the window with an inquiring glance.

"I've been telling Gallatin you're going to introduce
him round among the Wenona girls.  And he says he has
no use for women."

"I!" exclaimed Basil.  "On the contrary, I think
women—a woman—the most important element in a man's
life."

Richard laughed.  "Why, the man's in love!" cried he.

Courtney saw Gallatin wince as his wound was struck
by this careless, jovial hand.

"Only a lover," proceeded Dick, "would exaggerate
woman in that frenzied fashion.  To live isn't to love.  It's
to do—to achieve."

"I don't agree with you," said Gallatin.  "Love's the
center—the mainspring—the purpose—the meaning."

"You ought to have been a woman."

"Why not?" retorted Gallatin.  Courtney saw that
Dick had irritated him.  "In one respect I envy women.
A woman *knows* whether or not a man loves her.  A man
can only hope and believe."  And he glanced swiftly at her.

He looked confused, frightened, as her expression
showed that she, the married woman, the lovelessly married
woman, understood.  She turned away abruptly, two bright
red spots burning in her cheeks.

"Well," said the unobserving Richard to Gallatin, "I
confess I don't grasp your meaning.  But it doesn't
matter.  A good woman loves her husband, and he knows it.
The rest's of no consequence.  We must get him a wife,
Courtney.  He'd make an ideal husband, don't you think?"

"A good wife does not think," said Courtney.

Richard was amused.  "But if she did?" he persisted.

"Then she'd probably think it fortunate for husbands
that wives aren't independent."

Vaughan again looked puzzled.  "That sounds as
irrelevant as what Gallatin said a minute ago.  Now will
you tell us, what has it to do with what we were talking
about?"

"I don't know," replied she.  And she did not.  She
was astonished before this apparition of a thought she had
not been conscious of having definitely in mind since that
conversation with her mother long ago; and here it was
popping up as if it were her constant companion.  "It
just came into my head," she went smilingly on.  "You
know we women are irresponsible, irrational beings, and
so we don't think straight or talk connectedly."

She said good night, went up to her apartment.  She
was wishing now that Gallatin had not told her about this
love of his for the woman across the seas.  It had made
her discontented—unhappy.  It had compelled her to think
what a patchwork of makeshifts her own life was.  "Yet
I ought to be contented.  Haven't I Winchie?  And I can't
even complain of poor health or discomfort of any kind.
I don't deserve my good fortune.  Other women would
envy me."  No, they would not.  She saw in remembered
faces of women friends the same discontent she was hiding
in her heart.  A woman—a woman grown—craved more
than material comfort could give, more than work or play,
however interesting, more than motherhood could
give—craved that grown-up, equal love without which life was
like a wonderful watch with a broken mainspring.  She
thought of Basil Gallatin again.  At least she was more
fortunate than he.  Suppose she, like him, loved and it
were not returned.  Then indeed would her heart ache.

When she saw him alone next day, she said shyly and
with color high: "It seems to me you can't have told
her—told her as you told me.  Won't you go to her—not write,
but go—and try again?  Believe me, Mr. Gallatin, women
appreciate love—at least, any woman who could inspire the
love you give her.  And if she knew, she'd love you—she
couldn't help it."

She feared she had intruded.  But when he at last
spoke, his tone was not the tone of one who is offended.
"Thank you, thank you," he stammered.  "But—  I assure
you it's hopeless.  She is not for me."

"Oh!"  Courtney shrank.  "She cares for some one
else.  I—I'm so sorry I spoke.  I——"

"No—no," he said; "it was friendly.  It was—like you."

This began their real friendship.  And she needed
friendship just then.  What he had told her put her in a
mood where all her occupations were in vain, and all the
wisdom she had gathered from books and from thinking
about things as they are, and all the patiently, slowly
acquired stoicism of the matrimonial routine.  Her heart was
clamoring as it had not since those first months of her
discovery that love was delusion and that she must learn to live
without it.  She wished Gallatin had not told her; she
wished he had never come.  And at the same time she felt
that through the sadness he had brought there had come
into her life a pleasure she would not wish to give
up—the sympathy between him and her, based on their knowledge
each of the other's secret.  She felt very proud of his
confidence, of his friendship.  Also, there was the fascination
that always issues from a great emotion, even though
it be seen but in mimic on the stage.  This great emotion
of his was a vivid actuality.  It made a smile upon his
features heroism; it made a look of sadness tragedy.

He helped her in the gardens often now.  Richard,
making some secret experiments, did not want him at the
laboratory.  Sometimes he and she worked together at
changing color schemes or improving mass effects or
vistas.  Again each worked alone, perhaps at some surprise
for the other.  It was after a morning of hard labor in
opposite ends of the grounds that she said when they met
at the house: "Richard's not coming up, so Nanny has
to take him his dinner.  And Lizzie's away and Mazie not
well.  I'll wait on you."

"Let's have a picnic," suggested he, "out under that
big elm."

And with Winchie helping they carried everything to
the rustic table and proceeded to have one of those
happy-go-lucky meals that make the blue devils put their tails
between their legs and fly away on their forks.  Winchie,
let eat what he pleased, forgot his dislike of Gallatin—at
least so far that he only frowned occasionally as Gallatin
and Courtney talked the most hopeless nonsense with the
keenest pleasure.  When Basil's face was animated it was
never homely; when he smiled it was always handsome.
For the first time since he came he lost all constraint, and
the sparkle of girlhood came back to her.  They stayed out
there nearly three hours, and it seemed no time at all.
Nanny, sour and scowling at the impropriety of such
conduct in a married woman—one married into the ancient and
rigid house of Vaughan—took away the dishes and linen.
But the hint so plain in her dour looks went unnoted.
It was a shower that broke up the party, sent them
scurrying to the house, he carrying furious and protesting
Winchie.  She punished Winchie for his rudeness by
sending him up to his bedroom to sit alone and think down
his temper.

"You oughtn't to have done that," said Basil, when the
boy, defiant even in obedience, disappeared.

"It's the only way to make him remember.  And I
can't whip him.  I'm too selfish, even if I didn't know it
was equally degrading to him."

"He can't help not liking me," persisted Basil.
"We're not to blame for our likes and dislikes."

"No.  But we are to blame for giving way to them."  She
was arranging freshly cut flowers in vases and jars in
the sitting room.

"Yes, for giving way to them," said Basil thoughtfully,
after a long time.

"To what?" asked Courtney, who had forgotten.

"Our feelings."

"Oh, I remember."

"You're right about that."  Basil was speaking with
an effort.  "For example, if a man were to—to fall in love
with a married woman, he'd be a—miserable cur if he told
her.  Those last few words came explosively.

"Gracious!"  Courtney beamed mischievously at him
from behind a gorgeous spread of half blown roses.  "You
are fierce!  Well, that's settled.  If he heard you, he'd never
dare tell her."

She saw his face, and it flashed over her that it was a
married woman he loved.  Yes, of course!  Why had she
not guessed it at once!  And he was saying these harsh
things to make it impossible for himself to yield to the
impulse.  The smile left her eyes.  He was at the window
with his back to her.  She looked tender sympathy.  "Poor
boy!" she thought.  "And I saw to-day how happy he
could be, and how happy he could make a woman....
Perhaps she does love him.  What a sorrow that would be!
And utterly hopeless!"

He turned abruptly.  "Will you be my friend?"

She came straight up to him, put out her hand.  "Indeed
I will," she said.

He took her hand, pressed it.  Then he drew back with
his hands behind him.  "You are a good woman," he said.
"Good through and through.  I want you to help me fight
a battle I'm having just now.  I thought I'd won it.  I
haven't.  But I will!"

"I understand, I think.  It is hard.  But you are
strong and honorable.  You—  The woman—  She is
already—" She paused, looked at him inquiringly.

"Yes—God help me!" he cried, turning away.

His cry could not have reached a more responsive heart.
After a pause she said: "If she doesn't love you, it'd be
useless to tell her."

"Worse!  It would mean I was a cur."

"And if she does love you, it'd be wicked to tell
her—to add to her unhappiness."

"If you were in my place—  Suppose I could be with
her—could go and live near her——"

"Oh, no; you oughtn't to do that!  You ought to spare
yourself and her that."

"But suppose," he urged eagerly, "suppose she didn't
care for me—never would—and I could keep my secret——"

"But you couldn't!  And she might grow to care."

He sat in a big chair by the window, stared moodily at
the floor.  "It seems to me I *can't* do that!" he said at
last.  "I don't love her as men usually love.  She means
infinitely more to me than that.  And, loving her as I do,
I'm in no danger of telling her.  And it would make me
almost happy so much of the time, and a better man—yes,
a better man—to be near her.  What you say I ought to
do—it's like turning a man out into the desert without food
or drink—to wander—on and on——"

"I know, I know," she interrupted, her small, sweet
face all tenderness and distress.  "Oh, I'm not competent
to advise.  You mustn't ask anyone.  You must do what
you think is right."

"Right!" he echoed forlornly.

She who had eaten of the husks that went by the name
of right hadn't the heart to urge them on him.  She returned
to the table, to the arranging of the flowers.  Without
looking up he went on: "I haven't told you quite all.
There's another thing.  I—I'm engaged."

"Engaged!"

"Don't look at me that way.  I can feel it, though I'm
not seeing.  You can't think less of me than I think of
myself.  But let me tell you.  The girl's a distant cousin
of mine.  And her grandfather, who was crazy about families,
left her a fortune on condition that she married me.
He left an equal sum to me on condition that I marry her.
But there's this difference: What he left her is all she'd
have—every cent.  I've got enough without his legacy
to me."

"And you—  Oh, it's dreadful, isn't it?"

"We're not in love—not in the least.  But I've given
her my promise, and she'd be penniless if I broke it.  She's
nineteen.  We've got till she's twenty-one.  She's abroad
now."

"The letters I've seen in the mail—they're from her?"

"From her," replied he.  "How can I marry when I
love another woman?"

"I see," said Courtney.  She was sitting now, her hands
full of roses and listless in her lap.  "Then you've no more
right to love this woman than she has to love you....  Oh,
I don't know what to say!"

"Don't think I'm trying to shift part of my burden
to you.  I'm not.  But I felt if I could talk it out loud
with some one who was sympathetic I'd see the way better.
And I do."  The expression of his eyes thrilled her; it was
so manly, so honest, so resolved.

"What have you decided—if you don't mind telling me?"

"To go to Starky—-that's my cousin—her real name's
Estelle, but she detests it—I'll go to her and we'll marry."

"No—no!" cried Courtney.  "Whatever's right, that
isn't.  Oh, you don't know.  She has a right to love.
You're cheating her—cheating her!"

"But I can never give her that."

"You may——"

"Never!"

Courtney shook her head slowly, lifted the roses, buried
her face in them, inhaled their perfume deeply.  "Then—you
mustn't marry her," she said.

"You don't know her.  She cares for money—the things
money buys—more than for anything else in the world.
It's the way we bring 'em up in the East.

"Believe me," cried Courtney, solemn in her earnestness,
"that's not true.  There isn't any woman anywhere
who doesn't put love first.  Go to your cousin—yes.  But
go and try to love her."

His eyes suddenly blazed upon her.  "Love her
after—" he began impetuously.  He reddened, his head
sank.  "After the woman I—"  He muttered confusedly,
"I can't talk about it," and hastily left the room by the
door-window nearest him.

She sighed sympathetically, rose, moved slowly toward
the vase she had only half finished.  Midway she halted.
That look of his had just penetrated to her.  "Oh!" she
gasped.  And she wheeled round and stared with blanching
cheeks, as if he were still standing there before her with
his secret betrayed in his eyes.  "Oh!" she repeated under
her breath.  How her mistaken romancings about his sadness
had misled her woman's instinct!  For now, like steel
filings round a magnet, a swarm of happenings since he
came ranged round that telltale look of his—where they
belonged.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`VII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \VII

.. vspace:: 2

Basil was last in to supper, came with his nervousness
plain in his features.  His uneasy glance at her met a
smile of ingenuous friendliness that could not but reassure.
Richard was there, absent-minded as usual, and unconscious
of them both.  They were unconscious of him also,
Basil no less so than she, for he had long since acquired the
habit of the household.  No one spoke until Richard, having
finished, lighted a cigarette and fell to explaining to Basil
an experiment he had made that day.  He was full of it,
illustrated his points with diagrams drawn on the yellow
pad which was never far from his hand.  Courtney, relieved
of the necessity of trying to look natural before Basil, was
able to turn her thoughts again to the subject that had
been occupying her steadily from the moment she discovered
his secret.

If Gallatin could have seen into her mind, he would
have been as nearly scandalized as it is possible for an
infatuated, unsatisfied lover to be.  For even where a man
feels he himself has the right to revolt against exasperating
musts and must nots of conventional morality, he is
unusual indeed if he honestly approves any such revolt,
however timid, in a woman.  Man is the author and guardian
of that morality; in the division of labor he has imposed
upon woman the duty of being its exemplar.  Thus,
though human, she must pretend not to be; she must stifle
if possible, conceal at any cost, her human fondness for the
free and the frank.  For Courtney there was double attraction
in this love of Basil's—because it was love for her and
because she was lonely—how lonely she had never realised
until now.  There is the loneliness of physical solitude, the
loneliness for company—and a great unhappiness it is,
especially to those who approach the lower animals in
lack of resources within themselves.  Courtney had never
suffered from this; she had never cared for "just people."  Then
there is the loneliness of soul solitude, the loneliness
for comradeship—and who suffers from this suffers torment.
It may lull, but it will surely rage again, and it will never
cease until it is satisfied or the heart itself ceases to beat.
This was the loneliness of Courtney Vaughan.  "If he,"
thought she, "were bad, and I, too—no, perhaps not
exactly bad, but—well, different—less—less conscientious—how
happy we might be!  That is, of course, if I cared for
him—or could make myself believe I did—which is
impossible."  She lingered over this impossible supposition as
over a sweet, fantastic dream.  She dropped it and turned
away, only to return to it.  And thinking of it filled her
with the same tender sadness she got from love stories
and love songs.  "I would not if I could, I could not if
I would, but—"  Love!  Into the silence of that void in
her life had come a sound.  It was the right word, but not
the right voice.  Still, there was joy in the right word.
And she would not have been human had she bent other
than kindly eyes and kindly thoughts upon the man who
pronounced that word of words.  Long since—from her
first notion that he was hiding a romantic secret—his real
self had begun to receive from her imagination the transfiguring
veil of illusion.  The discovery that she herself
was the secret certainly did not make the veil thinner.  A
strong imagination flings out this beautiful, trouble-making
drapery always; not quite so eagerly if there has been sad
warning experience, but none the less inevitably.  It would
be many a day, if ever, before Courtney could again see
Basil Gallatin as he was in reality.

As she sat there, silent, all but oblivious of her
immediate surroundings, she was awakened by hearing him say,
in reply to something from Richard: "But I'm afraid
I'll have to—to change my plans—and—go away."  It
was said hesitatingly, with much effort.

"Go away!" cried Richard.  Courtney could not have
spoken.

"I'm afraid so."

"Not for good?"

"Probably—in fact, almost certainly."

"Why, man, you can't do that!" protested Dick.  "You
can't leave me in the lurch."

"Oh, I want to keep my interest.  It's simply that I
can't stay on, myself."

"But I need you now as much as I need the capital.
Why, it'd upset everything for a year—perhaps longer.
I couldn't easily find a competent man I could trust."

Basil repeated in a final, dogged way, "It's impossible
for me to stay."

"Is there anything unsatisfactory in——"

"No—no indeed.  My own affairs entirely, I assure you."

As he had finished supper, Vaughan took him out on
the veranda, where Courtney heard them—or, rather, heard
Dick—arguing and protesting.  Presently she drifted into
the sitting room, sat at the piano, let her fingers wander
soundlessly over the keys.  What should she do?  What
was best for him—for her—"and there's Richard, too, who
needs him."  Why should he go?  How would it help
matters?  True, she had declared that to be the right
course; but then she was merely theorizing, merely talking
the conventional thing.  This was no theory, but actuality,
calling for good common sense.  It was not the first time
she had found the facts of life making mockery of the
most convincing theories about it.  Presently she felt that
Basil was in the window farthest from her, was watching
her—probably with the same loving, despairing expression
she had often seen without a suspicion that it was for
her.

"Where's Richard?" inquired she, not looking in his
direction.

"In the library."

"You've upset him dreadfully."

"I'm sorry.  But things will soon adjust themselves."  He
advanced a step, was visible now in the half darkness,
looked pallidly handsome in his becoming dinner suit.  "A
few weeks at most," he went on, somewhat huskily, "and
I'll be the vaguest sort of a memory here."

She was glad her back was toward him and that the
twilight had darkened into dusk.  Of course, he did not
really love her.  It was simply another case of a man's
being isolated with a woman and his head getting full of
sentimental fancies.  Still—  While his love was not real,
and therefore its pain largely imaginary, the pain no doubt
seemed real, and the love, too.  So she was sad for him—very
sad.  As soon as she felt sure of her voice, she said:
"Won't you please light the big lamp for me?  I
wore a négligée this evening because I wanted to sew.
I'm making a suit for Winchie—like one I saw in a French
magazine."

He lit the lamp beside the table where she worked in
the evenings when she did not go to her own room.  "Anything
else?" he asked.

"Only sit and talk to me."

"I couldn't talk this evening."

"Then sit and smoke."

She began her work, he smoking in the deep shadow
near the window.  She could hardly see him; he could see
every wave and ripple in her lovely hair, every shift of the
sweeping dark lashes, every change in that sweet, small
face, in the wide wistful mouth.  Even better than playing
on the piano, sewing brings out the charm of delicate,
skillful fingers.  She did not need to look at him to feel
his gaze, its longing, its hopelessness.  And never before
had she thought of him in such a partial, personal way—the
way a woman must feel toward the man she knows
loves her, even though she only likes him.

She had made up her mind what to do, how to deal
practically with this situation.  But she had to struggle
with her timidity before she could set about the audacious
experiment she had planned and resolved.  She had long
had the frankness of thought that is inseparable from
intelligence.  The courage to speak her thoughts was as yet in
the bud.  "Do you mind my speaking again of what you
were saying this afternoon?" said she as she sewed
industriously.

"No," said he.

"I've been thinking about it.  At first I was startled—very
much startled.  But I soon began to look at it sensibly.
I want you to stay.  Richard wants you to stay.  There's
no reason why you shouldn't stay and conquer your
delusion."

"It's no delusion."

"Real love is always mutual.  So yours must be
delusion."  She was pointing a thread for the eye of the
needle.  "You've led a very—very man sort of life, haven't
you?"

He shifted uncomfortably, then confessed: "You
know the standards for men are different from those for
women."

She smiled, threaded the needle.  "Yes, I know.  I
don't understand, but I know.  You needn't explain.
I don't want to understand.  It doesn't interest me.
As I was about to say—"  Her courage failed her, and
she sewed a while in silence.  At last she dared.  It was
with no sign of inward disturbance, but the contrary, that
she went on: "You've been shut in here too long.  Go
to your old haunts for a few days.  You'll come back
cured."

She had practiced saying it, this advice which she believed
wise and necessary in the circumstances.  She said it
in calm, matter-of-fact fashion; and it was the less difficult
for her to do so because, in thought at least, she had long
since emancipated herself from what she regarded as the
hypocrisies of modesty, and had taught herself to look at
all things rationally and humanly.  She knew her frankness
would not please him; so she was not surprised when
after a pause he said roughly, "I don't like to hear you
say that sort of thing."

She laughed pleasantly, put quite at ease by his
impertinence.  "And I don't in the least care whether you
approve of me or not.  You men seem to think you've got
a sort of general roving commission to superintend the
propriety of women."

"I beg your pardon."

"Certainly.  Give me that pair of scissors—on the
stand in the corner."

He rose, issued from the deep shadow.  She could now
see into what confusion her words had thrown him.  The
hand that held out the scissors was trembling.  He moved
to go upon the veranda.  "Please," said she.  "I'm not
nearly done.  Won't you sit down?"

He seated himself.

"You see," she went on lightly, busy with her hem
again, "I know your awful secret."

"You've no right to laugh at me," muttered he.

"I'm not laughing at you....  I'm only looking at it
in a friendly, practical way....  I want to help you....
Why are you going away?"

She sewed on, feeling his emotion gather behind his
self-control.  The stillness was unbroken.  A light breeze,
cool and scented, came fluttering in at the open windows
to play with the soft brilliant hair that grew so beautifully
round her temples.  In a low voice, so low that she scarcely
heard, his answer at last came: "Because I love you.  I
love you and I am not a cur."

Her needle missed its way into the cloth, pierced her
finger.  She put the wounded finger in her mouth.  When
she looked toward him she was smiling.  "Still you've not
answered my question.  Because you think you care for
me—that's no reason why you should go.'

"I can't control myself.  I—"  He made a gesture of
helplessness.  "I can't think of you as—as married.  You
seem like a girl to me—free.  I keep forgetting."

"It doesn't seem to occur to you that I might be trusted
to remember."

"I know," said he humbly.

She held the garment at arms' length, eyeing the hem
critically.  "No, you don't.  You're like all the men.  You
fancy weak woman can always be overborne by man, big
and strong and superior."

"You wrong me."

"Why else should you talk of going away?"

"Because it's torment to me to be near you—to——"

She stopped sewing, looked at him with anger in her
deep green eyes.  "Then your feeling is just what I
thought."

"It is not!  It is love!"

Again she sewed a long time in silence.  It was very
calm there, in that quiet room with its flowers and tasteful,
gracefully arranged furniture, and the single lamp like
a jewel shedding all its radiances upon her small
industrious figure.  "Then tell me," she said in her sweet,
gentle way, without looking up or pausing, "what do you
want that you cannot have?  You can see me as much
as you like.  You can talk as freely as you like.  You can
count on sympathy, on friendship.  And, if you want to,
you can keep right on loving me in that exalted way you
profess.  Nobody's going to hinder you."

She sewed on in silence, he motionless watching her,
perplexity in his honest, rather boyish face.  After a while
her voice broke the silence.  "Love!"  She laughed with
raillery that did not sting.  "My dear friend, don't you
see I was right?  Go away for a few days and——"

"For God's sake, don't suggest that again."

"Then don't say it's love that makes you want to leave
and upset everything."  She put the needles, thread, and
thimble into her workbox, rolled up the little suit, rose.
"It's always the same story," she said, sad rather than
bitter.  "A woman means only one thing to a man.  Yes,
I think you had best go."

"You're too severe," he cried.  "It's true there's such
a thing as passion without love.  And I'll admit that I, like
all men have felt it often—have lied to myself as well as
to the woman—and have called it love.  But it's also true
there's no love without some passion—at least, *you*
couldn't hope to inspire it.  And though in your innocence
you may think so, you'd not want to have less than all love
has to give—if you loved."

Her eyes, large and softly brilliant, were burning into
the darkness beyond the open window.  "I'm not innocent,"
she said.  "And I try not to be a hypocrite.  If I
loved, I'd want all."

There was a long silence, she at the window gazing out
into the gathering night.  Then he said: "You were right.
It was not love that made me feel like flight.  I can
conquer that feeling.  Will you let me stay?"

She turned slowly.  In the look she fixed on him there
was doubt, hesitation.  "You've made me a little
uneasy—a little afraid."

In his eagerness he sprang up.  "Don't!" he cried.
"Don't send me away.  I'll never speak of love again.
You've taught me my lesson."

"I do want you to stay," said she.  "It'd seem very
lonely here with you gone.  For I've come to depend on
you as a friend.  It hurts to find you seeking your own
selfish pleasure under the pretense of a feeling for me."

He winced—not because he felt scandalized by her
candor, but because he felt convicted by it.  "How well you
understand men!" he exclaimed.  "Better than they
understand themselves."

"In that one way I do," was her reply, an arresting
hardness in the deep voice that was usually altogether
sweet.  These last few days she was understanding a great
many things about the relations of men and women—or,
perhaps, was letting herself realize that she understood
them.

He lowered his eyes, that he might not read her
thoughts, that she might not read the same thoughts in
his own mind.  "You often make me think of the lake
out there," said he.  "There's the surface one sees at a
glance.  Then there's a little distance below the surface,
that one sees when he looks intently straight down.  And
then there's fathoms on fathoms where all sorts of strange
things—strange thoughts and feelings—lie hid.
Sometimes—for an instant—one of them shows or almost
shows at the surface."

"When one lives alone a great deal, one gets the habit
of living within oneself—don't you think?"

"I suppose that's it—partly.  A brook couldn't hide
very much—and most people are like brooks or ponds.
The ones that seem to have depth seem so simply because
the water's muddy."

She looked admiringly at him; and her admiration of
his originality and insight did not lessen when he added,
"At least, so a friend of mine used to say."  He returned
to *the* subject.  "Then—I may stay?"

Her face brightened.  In her eyes as they looked at
a smile slowly dawned.  Quickly all her features were
responding, especially that wide, expressive fascinating
mouth.  "I hope you will.  But—no more dreariness!"

"I hate gloom as much as you do."  He glanced round
the room—at the harmonies of woodwork and walls and
furnishing, with here and there bright flowers always in
the restraint of those of gentle hue.  "As much as you
do," repeated he.  "And that's saying a great deal.  How
*do* you manage it!—house and garden, always gay yet
never gaudy—and such variety!  Is there no end to your
variety?"

"Oh, one's a new person every day, isn't one?—and
different."

"*You* certainly are.  But no one else I ever saw."  He
colored furiously at his finding himself, without intending
it, upon the forbidden ground.  She had turned away, and
was leaving the room—the safest course, since it enabled
her to hide her pleasure in the compliment that peculiarly
appealed to her, and also seemed to give him a sufficient
yet not harsh rebuke.

Her aversion to restraint was perhaps stronger than is
the average woman's—certainly had more courage.  She
had been too thoroughly trained in the conventionalities
not to have the familiar timidity as to action, so strong
in all conventionally bred people, so dominant over women.
But the "unhand-me" spirit of her time was finding
outlet in thought and feeling.  Reflecting much in her
aloneness, she had reached many audacious conclusions about
life and the true meaning of its comedy drama—that
meaning so different from what we pretend, from what usually
passes as truth in history, philosophy, and literature, based
as they are upon man's cheap hankering for idealistic strut.
The audacities of thought that occasionally showed at her
surface in speech or commentary of smiling eyes and lips
were conventional in comparison with whole schools of
deep-swimming ideas and fancies that kept hours of
aloneness from being hours of loneliness.  Physically, her
passion for freedom showed itself in her dislike of tight or
stuffy garments.  She could pass her hand round her waist
inside her closest-fitting corset.  Her liking for few clothes
and for as little yoke and sleeves as custom allowed came
not from the thought for the other sex that often explains
this taste, but from aversion to restraint.

As usual, the first thing she did that night, when she
was alone in her rooms, was to rid herself of all her
clothing and put on the thinnest of thin white nightgowns,
almost sleeveless, and cut out at the neck.  She thrust her
feet into bedroom slippers, braided her long hair with its
strands of red almost brown, with its strands of brown
almost gold.  She turned out the light, threw open all the
long shutters screening her windows, to let her bedroom
fill with warm, perfumed freshness from lake and gardens.
She stepped out on the balcony to take the breathing
exercises that kept her body straight, her chest high, her
bosom firm as a girl's, and her form slim and supple.
The fireflies were floating and darting in the creepers and
the near-hanging boughs.  The slight agitations of the
air stole among the folds of her gown and over her neck
and arms like charmed fingers.  There was no moon; but
she did not miss it in the dim splendor of the thronging
stars.

"Aren't you about ready to come in?"

She startled, suppressed a scream.  She turned.
Richard was standing in the window.  Her blood which had
rushed to her heart surged out again and into her brain
in an angry wave.  She hated to be taken by surprise.
It was on the tip of her tongue to cry furiously, "I detest
being spied upon."  But she had resolved soon after
Winchie was born never to speak angrily to him, never to
let him hear her speak angrily.  The habit restrained her
now, as it had scores of times.  Instead, she said: "Why,
how did you get in?  I'm sure I locked my door."

"So you did," replied Dick in the cheerful unconscious
way that so irritated her in certain moods.  Not always
could she bear with composure his masculine assumption
that whatever pleased him must delight his wife.  "So you
did," said he.  "And it's still locked.  But there was the
window from the front balcony into your sitting room—and
the door from your sitting room to this room.  You
see, I was determined to find you."

His tone of laughing tenderness helped her half to
guess, half to make out his expression.  Usually she
accepted without a protesting thought the whole of the
routine of married life.  But to-night she grew hot with
a burning blush of imperiled modesty as he advanced
toward her.  "Don't," she said; "I'm doing my exercises."

"No—you were dreaming.  Of what?"  Then, without
waiting for an answer about a matter of so little importance,
"Gallatin tells me he has decided to stay on—if he
can arrange it—and he seems to think he can.  So I'm
feeling fine.  You don't know what a jolt he gave me at
supper.  Did you talk with him about it?"

"Yes."

"Urged him to stay?"

"I tried to show him he ought to stay."

"Ever so much obliged."

She stopped in her exercises to say quickly: "Oh, I
didn't do it for you.  I did it for myself."

"Why, you dislike him."

"He's some one to talk with—some one that listens and
answers.  And—I don't dislike him."

Richard laughed.  "That's right.  Try to make the
best of it.  Well, if you're not coming in——"

"Not for an hour or longer."

"Then—good night.  I must be up early.  I think I'll
sleep down at the Smoke House.  I'm so glad about
Gallatin—just as much obliged as if you'd done it for me.
And I believe you did."  He put his arms round her to
kiss her good night.  As soon as his lips touched her cheek
she drew away, disengaged herself.  "What's the matter,
Courtney?"  She had long since learned that for all his
absent-mindedness and ignoring of things that didn't
directly interest him, he became as sensitive—and as
accurate—as photographic plate to light, the instant his attention
happened to be caught.  "What's the matter?  Why do
you draw away?"

"I don't know," replied she—truthfully, yet with a
sense of being untruthful.  "I seem not to like to be
touched to-night."

"I don't remember you being that way before."

She went on with her exercises; he yawned and departed.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`VIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \VIII

.. vspace:: 2

The morning after Courtney and Basil came to this
clear and promising understanding, she got down to the
seven-o'clock breakfast perhaps ten minutes late.  She
expected to find the two men and Winchie there, and was
thinking of asking Gallatin to go to town with her and
Winchie.  When she entered the dining room, there was
the table in its usual morning place, in the wide-flung door
windows to the cast, and at it sat Winchie only, sunbeams
sifting through the trellised morning glories to dance upon
his shock of tawny hair.

"Where are the others?" she asked.

Winchie, forgetful of his teaching, had his mouth full,
far too full for immediate speech—unless he gulped it
empty, and that would have been breaking another rule.
So Lizzie, who was just entering from the kitchen hall,
answered: "Mr. Richard telephoned up at half past six,
and made me wake Mr. Gallatin.  They had breakfast down
at the Smoke House long ago."

Winchie had climbed from his high chair and had come
round to kiss his mother good morning.  He was dressed
for the trip to town—all white except dark blue edging
round his wide collar, and a dark blue belt.  His features
suggested his father's and his mother's, yet were those of
neither.  That morning their usual suggestions of will and
character were lost in a general expression of sweet good
humor.  He looked a sturdy bronzed cherub.  After searching
his mother's face with those inquiring, seeing eyes of
his, he said: "Mamma's happy this morning," and resumed
breakfast.

"Indeed she is!" exclaimed Courtney.

She drew the bowl of yellow daisies and pink-white
mountain holly from the center of the table, and fell to
rearranging them.  Each blossom seemed to glide into just
its right position, as if there were magic in her fingers.
She could not remember when she had felt quite so
content and hopeful.  And her spirits rose as the day
advanced.  On the way to town she stopped at the Vaughan
farm across the highroad to inquire into a slight falling
off in quality of butter and milk.  She had never seen the
farm so fascinating.  The very dock weed and dog fennel
carpeting the barnyard had an air and a charm.  And
the road to town, as she and Winchie sped along in
the runabout—what a shady lane through Paradise it
was!  In town everyone seemed so agreeable, so glad
to see her.  After lunch with Sarah Carpenter, she
shopped, made several calls.  They did not start home
until late, and supper was on the table when they
arrived.  At the table—always in the middle of the room
for the evening meal, and formally set—at the table was
Richard, alone, eating and figuring on his everlasting
yellow pad.

"Hello!" said he, with barely a glance away from
his pencil point.  "Glad to have company."

"Where's Mr. Gallatin?" asked Winchie.

"Gone," was Dick's curt answer in the tone of an
interrupted man.  "I sent him away."

Courtney, crossing the room, halted.  A moment of
horrible silence.  "Gone!" she echoed hoarsely, her eyes
wide, as if a monster had suddenly appeared open-jawed
in her very face.  "You—sent—him away!"

Vaughan, without looking up, said: "What did you say?"

With her hand on her heart, "I thought I understood
you to say Mr. Gallatin had gone."

"So he has.  For a few days."

"Oh!"  Courtney drew a vast breath of relief.  She
felt a tugging at her skirt, glanced down.  It was Winchie,
looking up at her with an expression of terror; and she
knew she must have revealed herself in her face.  Her
pale cheeks flooded with color.  She sank into her chair
opposite her husband.  She could lie to herself, cheat
herself, no longer.  "How much Basil means to me!" she
muttered.  Then, in terror, she glanced round, for she felt
as if she had shouted it.  But Vaughan was at his
unending calculations.  Only Winchie saw.  *Only* Winchie!
There was a look in his great gray-green eyes, a look of
the accusing angel, that made her hang her head while the
dark red burned upon her whole body.

"He'll be back Thursday or Friday," continued
Vaughan, tossing the pad into the window seat, a dozen
feet away.

"You sent him on business?" inquired she, to make
conversation.

"He wanted to go to Pittsburg, so he told me.  I guess
it's some girl.  I suspect our 'dressy' friend of being a
ladies' man.  He takes too much trouble about his
clothes—and silk underclothes!  Anyhow, I let him go."

She sat there, the food untouched, her blood pounding
at her temples, at her finger ends.  For she was
remembering her advice to Basil when she was trying both to
persuade him to stay and to deceive herself as to why she
intensely wished him to stay.  And now, on her advice—on
the advice of the woman who loved him—he was
journeying—even as she sat quietly there at supper in
respectable calm—he was journeying to his "old haunts"—to
some woman—he who belonged to her!  Such a wild
tempest raged in her that she wondered how she could
sit motionless, why she was not walking the floor and
crying out.  With another woman!  Oh, the vileness of
men!  "And I was beginning to care for him!" she
said to herself.  "He's like the rest—worse than most.
How many men are there who'd dare talk of love to
a woman like me, and then go jauntily away to a low
woman?"

She went upstairs immediately after supper, shut
herself in.  She moved calmly about; she took her exercises;
she read for several hours before turning out her light.
But beneath a surface that could have been no more
tranquil had she been observed and on guard, chaos reigned.
One tempest succeeded another—anger against Basil,
against herself—disgust, scorn, jealousy—and, before she
slept, she had seen that in reality all these moods were
jealousy under different forms.  The following morning,
when the coast was clear, she slipped into his room, knelt
by his untouched bed, cried upon its pillow.  This humility
soon wept itself out, however; she flung herself into her
work.  "Nonsense!  I don't care for him.  It's simply
pique and outraged friendship.  How coarse men are!"

"What's the matter, mamma?" said Winchie, who was
following her about the garden, looking after insects and
dead leaves.  Than his there never was a keener eye for
signs of the red spider.

"Why, dear?"

"You treat the flowers as if you wanted to hurt them."

"Your mamma is in a very naughty humor this morning."

"And you were so happy yesterday.  Is it because
Mr. Gallatin's gone away?"

Courtney, flushing deeply, looked hastily round.  "Sh!
You mustn't say those things!"

"Why not?"

Already she was teaching the boy to conceal!  "I didn't
mean that, Winchie," said she.  "You are to say whatever
you please—as always."

"I don't want you to like Mr. Gallatin.  *I* don't like
him."

"Why not?"

"Because he likes you."

"You wouldn't want anybody not to like your mamma,
would you?"

"No."  A long silence.  Then: "But he looks at you
exactly like papa does when he's really seeing you."

Courtney's skin burned.  The same story—always the
same!  "Well—dear—I'll not like him."

"I hope he won't come back."

The suggestion set her heart to aching with loneliness.
"I have no shame and no pride," she said to herself.
"What a contemptible creature a woman is!"  But these
sneers availed her nothing.  As she sat at table—dinner and
supper—his vacant place gave her a sense of bereavement
not unlike death itself.

Another night of wakefulness and of the subtle and
varied torments known only to those blessed and cursed
with vivid imagination.  What if he should not come
back!  That was the final and crudest twist of the rack.
Next day, it was all day long as if the silence and darkness
of the night were still suffocating her.  The house, the
grounds seemed a desolation of despair.  What if he
should not come back!  A drizzling rain fell, and she sat
miserably by the window, unable to sew, unable to read.
And at the first sound from the piano—the melancholy
notes her fingers instinctively struck—she sprang away as
if a hateful ghost had breathed on her.  It was only
Wednesday; he would not be home until the next
day—probably not until Friday—perhaps not then.

She put fresh flowers in vases in all the rooms every
day.  That day she filled the vases in his sitting room
with the best.  And she lingered among his belongings,
that promised his return.  In the drawers, his fine tasteful
shirts and ties; in the closets, those attractive suits, silk
lined, agreeable to the touch, varied and always tasteful
in pattern.  She went back to his books—to the poetry,
of which he was particularly fond.  The volumes fell open
naturally at poems that glorified the lofty, the spiritual
side of love.  Then, like a scorpion, scuttled across the
page of Browning's "Last Ride" what Winchie had said—"He
looks at you like papa does."  She shuddered, was
all dread and foreboding again.  Was there no such thing
in man as love for woman, but only its coarse and lying
counterfeit?

She heard an outside door open noisily.  She darted
along the hall and down to the angle of the stairway, to
the landing from which the drive-front entrance could be
seen.  She leaned over the balustrade, looked.  She drew
back, stopping the glad cry that rose to her lips; for it
was Basil.  With features composed she leaned forward
again.  His soft hat and his rain coat were dripping;
evidently, in his eagerness to arrive, he had crossed the
lake in an open boat, instead of coming round by the road
in a closed carriage.  He was gazing toward the sitting-room
door with an expression that thrilled her—and at
the same time gave her the courage to treat him as her
self-respect and her ideas of decency in a man
dictated.

"Back already?" said she in a pleasant, indifferent
tone.

He turned, looked up at her, his face alight.  "How
are you?" he cried.  "It seems an age."

"We didn't expect you for several days yet," she went
on, descending.  When she reached the hall, he was
waiting with extended hand.  "It *is* good to be here again!"
said he.  "It was worth going, for the pleasure of getting
back."

She shook hands, smiled friendlily, continued on her
way to the sitting room.  He hesitated, an uneasy look
in his eyes that did not escape her.  He put his hat and
coat on the rack, followed her.  "I *am* glad to be back!"
said he.

She laughed, friendlily enough, but her baffling manner
only increased his uneasiness.  "We're glad to have you,"
was her polite reply.  "If you want to go to your room
before supper, you'd better hurry."

"I've been doing a great deal of thinking while I was
away."

"Really?  That's good."

"I see you've changed your mind—as I felt you would,
when I thought it over.  Your first impulse was to be
lenient.  But when you fully realized what a dishonorable
thing it was for me to do—to——"

"Don't you think you'd better go up before supper?"

"Not till I've said one thing," replied he doggedly.

"Well?"

"I want you to know that you can trust me never to
repeat my offense.  I'd go to Vaughan and tell him and
apologize——"

"And, pray, what has Richard to do with it?" inquired
she coldly.

"I understand," he hastened to protest.  "I'm not
going to speak of it to him.  It might put unjust suspicion
of you in his head——"

There she laughed outright at him.  "You are making
yourself perfectly absurd," she said, and turned away to
go into the dining room.

When he came down, the others were at table.  Dick,
figuring on his yellow pad, glanced up, rose, greeted him
with unprecedented cordiality.  "Why, when did you blow
in?" he exclaimed.

"A few minutes ago."  Gallatin glanced at Courtney.
The quiet mockery of her absent gaze made him red and
awkward.  "I—I—got through—so—I—came," he explained
with stammering lameness.

"Naturally," said Dick.  He had taken up his pencil.
"Make yourself at home."

Gallatin's glance fell on Winchie frowning at him.
"Howdy, Winchie?" said he.

The boy made a curt bow, resumed his supper.  He
was permitted—or, rather, under Courtney's system of
training him to think and act for himself, he permitted
himself to eat only certain simple things, and very little
of them—and he was wonderfully sensible about it.  When
he finished he kissed his mother good night, made his salute
to his father and, almost imperceptibly, to Gallatin, and
went upstairs.  Gallatin nerved himself to several efforts
at beginning conversation with Courtney.  Each time, as he
glanced up, he was checked and flung back into embarrassed
silence by seeing in her absent eyes the same disconcerting
mockery.  After supper, Richard hurried away to
the library.  When she showed that she was going upstairs,
Gallatin detained her.  "One moment, please," he pleaded
humbly.  "What have I done to offend you?"

Courtney flushed.  But the raillery came back instantly.
"I'm not offended.  I'm amused."

"At what?"

"At you."  The smile broadened charmingly.  "So
you've had a successful trip?"

"Yes—in a way."

"And have come back completely cured."

"I want you to be my friend—if you will.  I repeat,
you can trust me now."

Her eyes sparkled dangerously.  "It's fortunate I
understand men—and have a sense of humor."

"I know I deserve any punishment you choose to give,"
said he.  "And I'll take it.  Only—I want to stay on
here—and to have your friendship."

She studied him critically.  Her expression would have
been trying enough in its penetrating judicial intelligence
for the least self-conscious of men.  It utterly disconcerted
Basil, bred in the fashionable world's incessant consciousness
of self.  But in his desperation he withstood her look,
returned it with eyes that were appealing yet not abject.
It pleased her that he was not abject.  "After all, you
went on my advice, didn't you?" said she in a friendlier
tone.  "And you've been most manlike—have shown yourself
to be just what I thought you.  So I'm really
unreasonable."  She gave him her hand.  "Yes, let us be
friends."

"And you forgive me?"

She smiled queerly.  "That's asking too much.  I may—in
time.  Just at present—you've made me feel horribly
cheap and—common."

He hung his head.  "If you knew how I've suffered
for it," he said.  "I was afraid you'd send me
away—would never see me again."

"Let's not talk about it," cried she, angry at her own
weakness in not meting out to him what he apparently
expected and certainly deserved.  But she was not so angry
that she held to her purpose of going upstairs.  Instead,
she sat at the piano and began to dash off the noisiest
pieces she knew.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \IX

.. vspace:: 2

The friendship now throve like Courtney's best-placed
flower bed.  She had always been healthy; so she had not a
touch of "temperament"—which is the misleading romantic
name for internal physical conditions anything but
romantic.  Most of those who have mentality have also
imperfect health through neglect of physical needs; and
the somberer shades, the grays and blue blacks, made the
more melancholy by imagination, usually canopy their lives.
But with her it was not so.  Always healthy in body and
in mind, she now irradiated perfume and color like the rose
that is getting just the right sun and rain.

Late in that summer there were several weeks when one
perfect day followed another like a child's dream of
fairy-land.  Vaughan wished to work alone, dropped completely
out of their life, was forgotten.  Every day, all day long,
she and Basil were together, he helping her at the
pastime that kept house and grounds beautiful.  She was one
of those human beings who abhor disorder; if anything
went wrong it was righted at once.  If a knob came off a
door or a plant withered, she could not rest until the
imperfection was remedied.  It kept her incessantly occupied,
but the results were worth the pains they cost.  Her
imagination, stimulated by Basil, planned many changes in
grounds and gardens, changes that would bring the place
still nearer the landscape artist's three ideals—contrast,
variety, bounds concealed.  And she and Basil together
carried out these alterations.

Then there were the leisure hours, as full as the hours
of toil.  They—with Winchie—strolled in the woods on
the farm, across the highway, and picnicked under the trees
beside the brook, or in the shadow of some gigantic
fern-covered rock left on a hillside by the retreating glaciers
of the ice age.  Or, they went out on the lake, Winchie
fishing, she and Gallatin talking in low tones or happy in
sympathetic silence, with the boat moving languidly where
the shadows of the great weeping willows were deepest,
its keel troubling the dark clear waters hardly more than
a floating leaf.

She was fond of talking, he of listening.  And she had
so many things to say—the things that had been accumulating
in those five years when she had said little, had read
and thought much.  When Basil did talk it was usually
of what he had experienced in his wanderings over Europe
and Asia.  And, as she had been everywhere in fancy
through her reading, she drew him out with questions that
made it hard for him to believe she had not actually viewed
with her own eyes.  He seemed a wonderful person to her,
he who had lived in the world's half dozen great capitals,
had wandered all over the earth and had seen everything.
Her comments astonished him, made him ashamed, and
privately reverent of her "woman's intuition.  No
wonder it's considered better than brains."

"I wish I'd had some one like you along when I was
chasing about," said he.  "It was usually horribly dull,
and I went on at it chiefly because I was always hoping
something interesting would turn up.  Now, I see it was
turning up all the time.  You have a light way of looking
at things.  A man sees only the serious side."

"Oh, it couldn't be dull—not anywhere on earth," insisted she.

"No—not with—that is, with somebody like you
along."  An awkward silence; then, "and I don't see how
you ever learned so much without having experience."

"I don't really know things," confessed she.  "I just
*seem* to know.  As a matter of fact, I'm frightfully
innocent."

"That's the beautiful part of it," said he with
enthusiasm.

"I hate it!" she cried.

"Oh, no," protested he.

"Yes, hate it," she insisted.  The chief pleasure in this
friendship with him was that it gave her freedom to be
herself, to be frank.  She would not let him spoil it for
her, as Richard had in their early married days spoiled
even the times of closest intimacy with formalism and
restraint.  "I want to know—I want to *live*," she went on,
with glowing, eager face.  "I've always felt proud it was
the woman who had the sense to eat the apple.  I detest
innocence.  I love *life*!"

"Oh, you don't mean exactly that."

"Just that."

"Even—sin?"  This, not an inquiry, but an argument
proving her beyond question in the wrong.

But she replied undauntedly: "It seems to me, the only
way to learn is by doing things.  And doesn't that mean
making mistakes—sins, as you call it?  Life's a good deal
like gardening.  You have to do it wrong first in order to
learn how to do it right."

"That's all very well for a man.  But——"

She was giving him one of those disconcerting eerie
glances from the mysterious eyes.  "I've got to *live*, and
in the same world you have.  Also, I've got to bring up a
boy to live in it."

"I must say," confessed he, "I don't see just how to
meet that."  And she accepted the answer as evidence
of his broad-minded sympathy.  She did not realize that
he was anything but convinced, but was simply admitting
the "light cleverness" of her reply and was too eager
about standing well with her to combat her "queer ideas."

.. vspace:: 2

The interruption to the delights of this friendship came
before she had nearly exhausted his novelty, and while she
was still as uncritical of him as a starving man of the
cooking.  However, in any circumstances it would have been
long before she could have made any accurate judgment
of him.  She had become his partisan; and a generous
nature takes the most favorable, the always too
favorable, view of a personality to which it is attracted.

Until that summer Richard had been, for a young man,
remarkably careful about regularity and exercise.  At the
very outset of his task, away back at Johns Hopkins, seven
years before, he had realized that he was in for an
investigation of all known elements in every possible
combination—that is, for a long and hard struggle for about the
most jealously guarded of nature's secrets—the origin of
heat.  And he knew that, if he was to win any victory
worth while, he must resist the temptation to overwork,
and must make health his first consideration.  And
although he had small liking for physical exercise and was
as little fond of the grind of regularity as the next man,
he had kept to his rules for himself with the same inflexible
firmness that characterized him in all his serious
purposes.  But Basil's coming with the additional money he
had needed, and the help, too, tempted him beyond his
resistance.  In exercise, as in everything else, there is
system or there is nothing.  Before Basil had been there a
month Richard was breaking his rules; and soon the whole
system went by the board.  All summer he had not
exercised, and he ate at any hours or not at all.  Such a
reversal of a long-established routine could not but create
an immediate internal commotion.  There were no physical
surface signs; he looked the same as always; but his
temper became uncertain.  Where he had been simply
absent-minded he was now irascible in it.  Without reason—except
the internal physical turmoil he himself did not feel
or suspect—-he would burst from abstraction to attack
Gallatin or Courtney or Winchie or one of the servants, or to
rave against everything and everybody.  And this new
Richard appeared at just the time when it would stand
out in sharpest, most odious relief—most dangerous
contrast to the even temper of Basil Gallatin.  Under the
stimulus of her friendship with Gallatin, Courtney had got
back much of her former gayety.  Again she was overflowing
with jest and laughter, with the joy she seemed to
have absorbed from the bright things that grew or flitted
and flew in her gardens.

The change in Richard came rapidly, yet was so gradual
that its cause escaped them all.  It is not in human
nature to be inexhaustibly patient even with the vagaries
of an obvious invalid.  Where the illness is unsuspected,
patience with its victim soon turns to gall.  This new
development in Richard's character—for Courtney and all
the others assumed it was character—changed her passive,
almost unsuspected resentment and indifference into dislike
that could easily deepen into aversion.

He was disagreeably reminding her of his existence; he
was saying in effect "Look at me!"  She looked.  She
had bowed to fate, had accepted a loveless life of duty.
She had done her part loyally.  She had made a home, had
kept it in order, had submitted whenever his physical
necessities began to distract him from his work.  Yes, she had
accepted all the degradation without a murmur.  And when
love had come to her unsought, had tempted her, she had
put the temptation aside.  In order that his plans might
not be upset, she had taken the hard instead of the easy
way to combat this temptation, had let Basil Gallatin stay
on.  And what was her reward?  Whenever Richard spoke,
it was to say something disagreeable, to be as nearly
insulting as a well-bred man could become.

"It's perhaps fortunate for Richard," reflected she,
"that Basil showed the true nature of his love in that
trip to Pittsburg.  For what do *I* owe Richard Vaughan?
Is there any woman anywhere who does not in her heart
feel she'd be justified in doing *anything*, when her
husband has treated her as mine has treated me?"  And the
obvious answer—that her husband was the normal husband,
that it was she who, expecting what the conventional and
customary marriage relation did not contemplate and did
not provide, was in the wrong—this answer seemed to her
no answer at all, but an insult to her intelligence and her
self-respect.

Because of Vaughan's rages Gallatin got into the habit
of rising from the table as soon as he finished and leaving
the Vaughans to themselves.  Courtney, with the sex charm
subtly seducing her to seek and exaggerate merits in Basil,
was deeply moved by this thoughtfulness; for it increased
her humiliation to have him there when Richard lost
control of himself.  One evening, as they finished supper,
Vaughan was suddenly infuriated by the stealthy fiend of
indigestion that is the chief cause of humanity's faults of
temperament, from morbidness to acute mania.  He burst
out at Gallatin—sprang from absent-mindedness with
flaming eyes like a madman from ambush.  "You messed
everything to-day!" cried this unsuspected and unconscious
invalid, sicker far than many a one in bed with doctors and
nurses.  "You simply raised the devil.  Another day or
so like it, and I'll not let you come into the shop."

Gallatin made no reply.

"I suppose you're cursing me," fumed Richard.
"That's the way it always is.  The whole world's mad on
the subject of self-excuse.  Somebody else is always to
blame, and criticism is always an outrage."

"Not at all," said Gallatin, and Courtney knew his
self-control was wholly for her sake.  "I was stupid
to-day, Vaughan.  It was wholly my fault.  I know I came
near blowing up the shop and sending us both to kingdom
come——"

An exclamation of terror from Courtney halted him.
She was pale, was looking with frightened, questioning eyes
from one man to the other.

Vaughan blazed again.  "There you go!" cried he to
Gallatin.  "Now, she'll think I'm at something as
dangerous as a powder factory—when, in fact——"

"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Vaughan," interrupted Gallatin.
"It was my stupidity that made all the danger.  Really,
we do nothing that ought to be dangerous."

"That's not true," said Courtney quietly.  "I know
the truth now.  And I never thought of it before!"  She
could not understand how she had been so unthinking; it
was another, an unexpected measure of the cleavage
between Richard's life and hers.

"You'd better confine your attention to things you
understand," said Vaughan.  "It was all Gallatin's folly, I
assure you."

"That's the truth, Mrs. Vaughan," said Gallatin earnestly.
"The whole truth."

She said no more, but her face showed she did not
believe him.  Gallatin, depressed and remorseful, went out
on the veranda, strolled down toward the lake.  Vaughan
sat on, pulling savagely at his cigar.  He was enraged
because his outburst had caused the disclosure of the secret
he had intended to keep from her, had given her a false
idea which, as she was a woman, a creature of notions and
whims, nothing could ever correct.  He forgot his fine
philosophy about self-excuse, and turned his rage from
himself to her.  "It's really all your fault," he exclaimed,
glowering at her.

Winchie, seated between his father and mother, took
up his knife and raised it threateningly against his father,
his gray-green eyes ablaze.

In another mood Vaughan would have been secretly
delighted, would have gravely accepted the rebuke and made
apology to the boy and to Courtney.  But the devil—the
realest devil that torments spirit through flesh—was in
him that night, was on the prowl.  He pointed his cigar
at the infuriated child.  "What's the meaning of this?"
he demanded.

"Winchie," said Courtney, in a low, firm voice.

The boy's eyes shifted from father to mother.

"Put down that knife, go upstairs and go to bed."

Son and mother looked at each other fully ten seconds;
the boy lowered the knife, laid it on the table,
descended from his chair, marched haughtily from the room.
When he was gone Vaughan said: "You should have made
him apologize to me."

Courtney did not reply.  She was pulling out the bows
the flowing tie she was wearing under the loose collar
of her shirt waist.

"I'll have Lizzie bring him back."

"No," said Courtney, and her eyes met his.  "You
will not interfere with Winchie.  I do not interfere with
your work."

"But you do!" Richard burst out.  "It's your interfering
that's making Gallatin so worthless."

She shrank back in her chair, hastily veiled her eyes.
Now it was the cuffs of the shirt waist that were
engaging her attention.

"You dislike him, I know," Vaughan went on.  "But
why do you treat him so badly?"

No answer.  She could hardly believe that it had been
so long since Richard had noted her and Basil.  Besides,
when had she ever treated him in a way that could be called
badly?

"I am sure you treat him badly.  Why?"

No answer.

"I asked you a question.  Politeness would suggest——"

"Not in this family," said Courtney, cold and calm,
her slim fingers touching her hair here and there.

"All I've got to say is, it's no wonder Gallatin's
becoming useless at the shop.  He must feel his
position acutely.  I can conceive of no reason why you
should subject a gentleman—and my guest—to such
indignity."

Courtney looked as if she were sitting quietly alone.

"Has he been making love to you?" demanded Vaughan.

Her eyelids fluttered, but it was the only sign she gave.

"Some time ago I observed he had a way of looking
at you that was most loverlike."

Still no answer, and no sign.

"Even so, you could deal with him tactfully.  He is a
gentleman."

"You said that before," observed she, elbows on the
table, her chin on the backs of her intertwined fingers, her
gaze upon the bowl of old-fashioned yellow roses in the
center of the table.

He glowered at her.  "So I did," said he.  "Now I
say it again, and perhaps you will be able to grasp it.
And I want you to treat him as a gentleman should be
treated.  So long as he is my guest, so long as he conducts
himself like a gentleman, you must be courteous to him."

No answer; no change.

"Do you hear, Courtney?"

"Yes."

"What do you intend to do?"

Up went the long lashes and the deep green eyes burned
coldly at him.  "As I choose," said she.  "And I may add,
I will not put up with your bad temper any longer.  At the
next outburst from you, Winchie and I leave this house.  I
will not be insulted, and will not have my boy ruined by
his father's bad example."

Richard's eyes softened; he lowered them, the red
mounted.  After a silence he said "Excuse me" without
looking at her, rose and went to the veranda.  When she
finished giving directions for the next day to Nanny and
was going upstairs, he was still walking up and down, head
bent, hands behind his back, sternness in that long
aristocratic profile.  An hour later, as she sat at her desk in
her own sitting room upstairs, she heard his voice at the
door into the hall.

"May I come in?" he asked.

"Certainly," replied she.  Her back was toward the door.

"I want to beg your pardon."

"Very well," said she, her voice cold and even.  She
did not realize how much this meant from a man who had
not the apologizing spirit or habit.  And if she had
realized, she would have been no more appreciative.

"You do not accept it?" said he, ruffled at once, and
feeling that she was now the one in the wrong.

"I do not care any thing about it, one way or the
other."

He was silent for a moment, then: "I hardly blame
you," said he, with a great air of generous concession.
"I've been out of temper, rude—disgracefully so—for
some time.  I'm sorry."  And he stood looking at her
expectantly, more complacent than penitent.

"I see you think a few words are enough to make up
for all you've done."

"What more can I do?  It's not a bit like you,
Courtney, to——"

"And what do you know about me?" inquired she,
turning half round and looking calmly at him over her
shoulder.  "It's quite true," she went on, "that I have no
means of support but what I earn here as your housekeeper
and—wife.  But, I——"

"Courtney!" he cried in a tone of imperative rebuke.

"A few plain words—of truth—seem to shock you more
than your own conduct."

"Such language from you!  But you did not realize
what you were saying."

"I did.  I meant just what I said."

"That is not language for a wife to use to a husband."

She rose from the desk and, without looking at him,
went into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

She was working in the garden beneath the west windows.
She moved among the flowers, as restless and graceful
as any other of the elves always hovering about blooming
things—bees, humming birds, butterflies.  It was a rare
chance to study the marvels of pose of which the human
body is capable.  Now she was stooping, now kneeling;
bending forward, backward, to one side; or, erect and
stretching upward, to relieve a tall rosebush of a dead
leaf or spray.  And the lines of her figure, ever changing,
were ever alluring.  Her arms, too—and her neck—how
smooth and slenderly round, and how intensely alive!  Her
whole skin seemed aureoled with invisible, tremulous,
magnetic waves.  She was wearing a big pale-green garden
hat; her hair was perfectly done, as always—as if it had
taken no time or trouble, yet so that it formed a delightful
frame for her small, delicate face, and splintered and
reflected every stray of sunlight that dodged in under the
brim.  Her short skirt revealed slim, tapering ankles and
small feet.  There are feet that are merely short; then
there are feet such as hers—exquisitely small—not useless
looking, but the reverse.  The same quality of the exquisite
was in her figure.  She was small, but she was not short.
Her smallness enabled a perfection nature never gets in
the long or the large.  She made largeness suggest
coarseness.  Women of her form send thrilling through their
lovers the feeling of being able completely to enfold and
to possess.

All alone and thinking only of the flowers, she entered
one of the narrow paths that led toward the veranda.  She
stretched upward to re-curl a refractory tendril.  Both arms
were extended, her head thrown back, the rosy bronze
face upturned—pathetic, yet laughter-loving mouth, eyes
of deep, deep green.  Like one awakening from a
profound sleep she slowly became conscious that she and Basil
Gallatin were gazing into each other's eyes with only the
trellised creeper between.  And his look made her heart
leap.  She straightened herself, colored, paled, stood
trembling.  The next thing she distinctly knew, he had come
round to the lawn at the edge of the garden in which she
was working.

"How you startled me!" she said, in a careless, casual
tone.

As he did not answer, she glanced at him.  He was
standing with eyes down.  And his look made her vaguely
afraid.

"Are you going to help me to-day?" she asked, resolved
to brave it through.

"I can't stand it!" he cried, his voice trembling with
passion.  "I love you.  I must go.  I shall go as soon as
Vaughan comes back.  Until then I'll keep to the other part
of the grounds."

"Why not just do it, and not talk so much?" she
demanded, suddenly angry.

"If you had ever loved," said he humbly, "you'd understand.
But I didn't intend to say these things.  I came
to tell you Vaughan's away.  They telegraphed for him to
hurry to Washington—something about the duties on a lot
of new instruments."

"How long will he be?"

"Several weeks, perhaps.  He's going afterwards to
Baltimore, and then to Philadelphia and New York.  He
left word with Jimmie about sending a trunk after him.
He had just time to catch the express.  He asked me to
explain to you."

Nanny appeared at the drive-front corner of the house.
He said to her: "Oh—Nanny.  I've been upstairs packing
a few of my belongings.  Will you have them taken to
Mr. Vaughan's apartment at the shop?"

"Jimmie says Mr. Vaughan locked everything up down
there, and took the keys, and said no one was to go near it
while he was away."

Basil hesitated, but only for an instant.  "How forgetful
he is!" he exclaimed with a smile.  "Of course I've
got to sleep there—as watchman.  Well, I'll force the
stairway door.  You can telephone over for a locksmith
this afternoon or to-morrow.  He'll make a new lock and
key."

Nanny departed, muttering.  She did not like disobedience
to the head of the house of Vaughan; but, on the other
hand, she would have liked it much less had Gallatin stayed
on at the house with Mr. Richard not there.  Gallatin
turned to Courtney.  "Would it be too much trouble to
send my meals to the shop?" he asked, in a constrained,
formal tone that deeply offended her.

"Nanny will attend to that," replied she, eyes cold as
winter seas.

"Thank you.  If you should need anyone—there's the
telephone to the shop.  I'll re-connect it."

"You needn't bother."

"There have been several robberies round here of late,
and——"

"As you please....  Thank you."

He looked at her as wistfully as a prisoner at the fields
of freedom beyond his cell window.  She seemed impatient
to resume work; he went reluctantly away.  She stood
gazing after him until he disappeared in the shrubbery at the
far eastern edge of the lawns.  Then she sighed and
glanced at the unblemished sky as if she thought it was
clouding.

Three uneasy, tedious days and two wakeful nights.
In the third night, toward one o'clock, she tossed away her
book, put out her light, and opened all her shutters as
usual, to air the rooms.  "If I opened his door and
window, I might get a breeze," she said to herself.  "It's
terribly close."  She crossed the hall, entered the room
Gallatin had occupied, raised a window, and leaned upon the
sill—it was the small window beyond the end of the
balcony, and so did not extend to the floor.  The sky was
clear; the moon was hidden by the house.
Stillness—peace—beauty—beauty of view and of odor—the lake with its
dark banks, trees tossing up into the blue-black sky and
shimmering with moonlight—perfumes of foliage and flowers
and of the fresh-cut grass in the meadows beyond the
highroad.

"It's as if everybody in the world were dead except
me," she murmured.  She listened again to get the weird
effect of utter absence of sound.  This time she heard the
faint plaint of a cricket, appealing for company in its
blindness and solitude.  Then—her nerves became tense.
From the balcony, which ended just a few feet to her left,
came a stealthy sound—like a step.  Softly she crossed the
room—the hall—her own room, to the high-boy.  She took
from its top drawer her pistol.  She returned to Gallatin's
bedroom—noiselessly unlocked the shutters over one pair
of the long windows opening on the balcony—unbolted one
of them and held it ajar.  Yes, there was some one on that
balcony.  Several of the neighbors had been robbed; now,
it was their turn.  The pistol was self-cocking.  Taking
it in her right hand, she drew back the window with her
left, stepped out.  She thrust the pistol into the very face
of the man.

He sprang back.  She saw what looked like a knife in
one hand—nothing, apparently, in the other.  At the same
instant she heard him cry "Courtney!"

The pistol dropped from her nerveless hand to the
balcony floor.

"It's I!" Gallatin exclaimed.  "I heard a second-story
window go up very softly—I was walking and smoking in
the path.  I came—climbed a pillar—and——"

"O God!  God!" she sobbed.  Down she sank to the
floor, her face buried in her hands.  "My love!  My love!
And I almost killed you!"

He knelt beside her.  "Dearest—"  He put his arm
round her.  Instantly he drew away and sprang to his
feet.  Up she started, gazing wildly round.  "What is
it?" she exclaimed.  "Where?"

"Nothing—nothing," was his confused answer.  But
already she had felt a thrill from where his arm, his hand
had been, and understood.

A stifling silence.  He said: "I must go now.  I'm
sorry to have disturbed you."  And with his conventionality
that was of instinct he lifted his hat and made a dignified
bow.  In her hysterical state, she did not miss the
grotesque humor of this; she burst out laughing.  She
leaned against the window frame and laughed until she
had to wipe away the flowing tears.  He stood staring
blankly at her, with rising offense, as he, always sensitive
about himself, suspected she was laughing at him.  For
his sense of humor was not nearly so keen as she had
been deceived into thinking by his store of jokes and
songs, of odds and ends of amusing cleverness, all
entirely new to her, and therefore seeming practically original
with him.

"What is it?" he said stiffly, when she was somewhat
calm.  "I should like to laugh, too."  It seemed to him
characteristic indeed, but most untimely, this display of
her utter incapacity for seriousness.

"Hysteria—reaction—and your everlasting good
manners," replied she.  "Is there anything on earth that
would make you forget you are a gentleman from Philadelphia?"

"Nothing but you," answered he bitterly.  "Good night."

"Wait a second—please," she pleaded.  And—why, she
could not have told—she went on, to her own surprise,
"The other day you said you had changed your mind and
were going."

"Yes."

"Isn't that—cruel?  I've learned to—to depend on
your friendship."

He did not answer immediately.  When he did, his
voice betrayed his agitation.  "I'm going because my
manhood demands it.  It may be weakness, but if I stayed I
should—should go all to pieces."

"I can't argue against that.  But there's one thing:
As you're going, I want to be able to feel that there's no
blot on our friendship.  I've been condemning you unheard.
Tell me——"

She paused.  He felt how embarrassed she was.
"What?" he asked gently.  "Anything you wish to know?"

"Did you go to—to Pittsburg because—because—I sent you?"

He did not answer; it was too dark to make out his
expression.

"I told you," she went on, speaking rapidly, as soldiers
advance at a double quick, where if they advanced at
ordinary pace they would have time to think, to be afraid, to
turn and fly, "I told you to go back to your old haunts
and cure yourself of—of your fancy for me....  You
went?"

"You could suspect that!"

"If you did, don't lie to me.  Say so, and I'll never
think of it again.  I'd understand.  I'd—I'd—forgive."

"There is no woman for me but you," he answered,
drawing a step farther from her and putting his hands
behind his back.  "I went because my aunt telegraphed for
me.  I came as soon as I could get away."

She clasped her hands and pressed them against her
bosom.  She leaned toward him, eyes like two of the few
large stars in that summer night sky.  "I am so glad," she
murmured.

"Why did you suspect?  How could you?  Why did
you care?"

"I was—jealous."  The confession was almost inaudible.

"Courtney!"  His arms impulsively extended.

She waved him back.  "Go—go!  I am upset—hysterical.
Forget what I said.  We are friends again.  There is
jealousy in friendship, too.  Good night."

He hesitated.  There she stood, all in that flimsy white—her
coils of soft fine hair about her small head—her arms,
her throat, her face tantalizingly half revealed in the
dimness.  "Courtney—do you love me?"

"No—no—not that," answered she, softly, hurriedly,
pleadingly.  "But I like you—and I'm a woman—and—and
that tells the whole story.  Good night, Mr. Basil."  She
held out her hand.

He did not take it.  "I dare not touch you—to-night,"
he said.  "I can't be trusted—nor can you."

"No," she assented, letting her hand drop.  She drew
a long, deep breath, and he also—a draught of that
intoxicating air, surcharged with perfume and moonbeams and
the freedom of the midnight outdoors.

"We are friends—through and through?"

"Yes."  His reply was in the same low, hushed voice
as her question.

"That is so much—so much."  Their nerves like their
voices were tense from the restraint of the passionate
emotions damming up higher and higher within.

"And I'll see you at breakfast—and thank you for
coming....  Good night, Mr. Basil."

He bared his head.  She did not feel like laughing now
at his "everlasting good manners," but was shivering, with
hot tears in her eyes.  He said "Good night, Mrs. Courtney."

Slowly she went in at the window of his room.  Just
as she was about to push the bolt, she opened it again.
"You must come in this way," she said.  "I'll let you out
at the front door."

"No, I'll go as I came."

"Nonsense!"

"If any of the servants——"

"You make me feel guilty—when I'm not.  Come!"

He entered the room.  Both began to close the
window.  Their hands touched, hesitated, clasped.  She was
in his arms, his lips were upon hers.  A long kiss.  Her
form relaxed; she drew her lips away to murmur, "Hold
me.  I'm—faint."  Again their lips met, and he clasped
her to him until he could feel the wild pulsing of her blood
against his face, against his chest, against his arms—could
feel it in every part of that small form, so utterly within
his embrace.  "Don't," she gasped.  "It is too much—too
much."

"I love you—I love you.  You are mine—yes, you are,
Courtney!  There is nothing but love."

She gently released herself, swayed, leaned against the
casement, looked up into the summer starlight.  Again he
seized her, and again his lips found hers.  Her head
dropped upon his shoulder.  A sound—one of those creakings
that haunt the stillness of a house in the night hours.
She startled, stiffened, shut her teeth upon a scream.

"It was nothing," he said.  He, too, was rigid, with
every sense alert for danger.

"What have we done!" she exclaimed.  They stood
silent, facing each other, overcome with shame, burning
with longing.  "Oh—Basil!"

He took her in his arms.  But she pushed him resolutely
away.  "No—not again," she said.  He looked at her; she
gazed up into the sky.  "Love!" she murmured.  "Love!
And I—must not."

"I forgot—forgot!" he cried.  "O God—Courtney—I
love you more than honor."  And he opened the other
the door windows, rushed past her, vanished round
the corner of the house.  She sighed, shivered, stepped out
upon the balcony, stood at the rail until she saw a dark
form rapidly cross the lawns toward the shrubbery densely
inclosing the Smoke House.  She looked all
round—sky—lake—woods.  "It is so lonely," she
sobbed.  "So lonely!"





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Ten minutes before breakfast time a knock at the hall
door into her bedroom.  She knew who it was that could
not reach above the lower panels.  "Come in!" she cried.
Winchie entered—stopped short on the threshold.

"Good morning, Mr. Benedict Vaughan," said she,
nodding at him by way of the mirror before which she was
arranging her blouse at the neck.  And he knew she was
in a particularly fine humor.

"Have we got company?  Who?" he asked.

"No.  Why?"

"Aren't you going to take me for a walk after breakfast?"

"Of course.  Don't we always go?"

"But it's raining."

"I know."

"Wouldn't it spoil that dress?"

"One'd think you had a sloven for a mother.  Don't I
always dress?"

"But that's a long skirt.  And you're not putting on a
shirt waist."

"I'll change after breakfast."

"Oh."  This, however, contented him for a moment
only.  He eyed her critically as she made one insignificant
little change after another, displaying a fussiness
quite unusual.  "I guess we're to have company—maybe."

"Not at all.  We never have people to breakfast.
What *are* you puzzling about?"

"Why didn't you put on the rain dress?"

Courtney's delicate skin was showing more than its
normal color.  She shook her head laughingly at him—this
child whose questions were forcing her to see a truth
she was striving might and main to hide from herself.
"You don't like this dress?"

"Yes, I like 'em all.  It isn't the dress, exactly."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know.  It's—something.  It made me think
company right away."  The bar of music from the gong
came floating up from below.  "There's breakfast!" he
exclaimed.  "Are you 'most ready?"

"Quite," replied she, with a last look at profile, back
hair and back of skirt with the aid of a hand glass.

"Maybe there'll be company," said Winchie as they
started.

"I'm sure there'll be corn muffins," said she.  "I smell
them."

"If there's hash, may I have a little?"

"A little."

The descent was slow as Winchie's legs were short.  She
listened at every step, but could hear no sound of the kind
she hoped.  At the sitting-room door she glanced round.
He was not there.  "He's in the dining room," she said
half to herself.

"Who, mamma?"

Courtney startled, flushed.  "What is it, dear?" she
stammered guiltily.

"Has papa come?"

"No, I was thinking of Mr. Gallatin."

Winchie drew his hand from hers.  But she did not
note it; for they were at the threshold of the dining room,
and no one was there but Lizzie.  She and Winchie sat,
but she did not begin.  A moment and she went to the
telephone in the hall, took down the receiver of the private
wire.  Soon she heard in Basil's voice, "Hello.  What
is it?"

"It's—I."

"Oh."  Then silence.

"Did you hurt yourself last night?"

"No, not at all—thank you."

In a constrained voice: "I thought you were coming
to breakfast."

"I felt it was better not to."

"Oh!—good-by."  And she hung up the receiver.

Back in the dining room, uneasy under Winchie's
serious steady gaze, she winced at his first remark:
"Mr. Gallatin's company.  There's you—and me—and the rest's
company."  After a pause, doubtfully: "Except papa.
He's not quite company, I guess."

"Do you want some of the hash?"

"You said there wasn't to be company."

"Please!  Please!" she cried.  "You'll give me the
headache."

"You said I was always to say what I had in my brains."

She bent over and kissed his hand.  "And so you must."

"Do you say everything that's in your brains?"

She reddened again.  "Everything Winchie'd understand,"
replied she.  "After a while, when you grow up,
you'll find a lot of things in your mind that it'd be of
no use to say because nobody would understand—a lot of
things you won't understand yourself."

"There is those in, already," said he solemnly.

She laughed.  "No doubt."

As she did not encourage him, he addressed himself
to the hash, which was the kind he liked—brown and not
too dry, and with the potatoes in little cubes.  She poured
her coffee, just touched one of Mazie's famous corn muffins
as she slowly drank it, and gave herself up to the clear
and calm daylight reflections that make comment so cynical
and so severe upon what we do and say and think under
the spell of night.  She put on a waterproof hat and suit,
leggings and boots, and issued forth for a two-hours'
tramp with Winchie, who was dressed in the same fashion.
When they got back at ten, she felt she was not the same
woman as the one who had the adventure with the burglar
on the balcony.  She saw Winchie into dry clothes and
settled at his rainy-day games—then out she went again.
She walked rapidly along the path to the Smoke House;
was soon rapping at the heavy iron door of the laboratory.
She rapped again and again, turned away angry, was
almost back at the edge of the shrubbery when she remembered
that Richard had locked the laboratory, that Basil
could not possibly be there.

She hesitated, returned to the Smoke House, knocked
at the door of the stairway leading up to the suite.  No
answer.  She opened it, went upstairs.  At the top she
paused, called, "Anybody here?"

Basil appeared in the doorway of the sitting room.  He
was in a dark-blue summer house suit, a cigarette in the
corner of his mouth.  His face was very red; his eyes did
not meet hers.  "Lizzie straightened up and left about
half an hour ago," said he.

"I came for a look round," explained she, admiring,
without seeming to do so, his elegant and fashionable suit,
the harmony of its color with his soft négligée shirt and
flowing artist's tie.  But then she always liked the way
he dressed, the way he wore his clothes.  "I come once
a week in the morning to keep Lizzie up to the mark,"
she went on.  "You're down in the laboratory at that time,
so you haven't known what a model housekeeper I am."

He did not stand aside for her to enter.

"I also had another reason," pursued she.  "Please
don't choke up the doorway.  I'm coming in."

He bowed, stood aside.  She entered, glanced round the
sober but not somber room with its walls, ceilings, floor,
and furniture of walnut.  It was a comfortable place and
beautifully clean.  "Jimmie attends to the floors?"

"Every week."

She glanced into the adjoining room—kalsomined
walls and ceiling, a white oak floor, a big chest of drawers,
a big mirror, a big table and chair, a roomy brass bedstead.
"Any complaints?"

"Everything perfectly satisfactory," he assured her.

"Now for my other business—my real business," said
she, disposing herself in one of the window seats.  "You
may continue to stand, if you prefer; but it would please
me better if you sat."

He seated himself stiffly at the table desk.  Her eyes
were dancing with amusement at his overelaborated formality.
It made him seem such a boy, made her feel vastly
wiser and stronger and older than he.

"Why didn't you come to breakfast?" she inquired in
a most businesslike tone.

"I made up my mind not to see you again until
Vaughan returned."

"And then, to go away?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I prefer not to answer that."

"Why not?"

"It's true Vaughan and I are not exactly friends.
Still, I've been disloyal.  I shall be so no more."

She clasped her hands round one knee, looked at him
with half closed eyes.  "I do not like to be regarded as
part of some one's else belongings," said she.  "I belong
to myself."

"I wish to God you did!"

"You attach too much importance to what a woman
says and does on impulse.  I was much upset last night.
I said and did things that seem absurd to me in daylight."

"I am just as absurd, as you call it, in daylight as I
was in moonlight."

She flinched, controlled herself, made an impatient
gesture.  "Don't say those things, or you'll spoil everything,"
she half pleaded, half commanded.

He strode to a window across the room from that in
which she was sitting.  "Everything is spoiled.  I've
simply got to go."

"No."  She shook her head slowly.  "You will stay,
and we'll be friends again, as before."

"If I could only wipe out last night!" he cried, and
he wheeled upon her.

She caught her breath.  "Do you mean that?" she
asked impulsively.

He stopped short, faced her, but his eyes were down.
"No, I don't," replied he.  "And that's the devil of it."

"Why?"

"If I honestly regretted last night, I could stay."

"Why do you lie to yourself?" she asked, crossing the
room toward him.  "You have no real intention of going."

His gaze sank.  "I shall try to go," he muttered.

She laughed—after she had returned to the safer distance
of the window seat.  "What a passion for hypocrisy
you men have.  'I shall try.'  You hope that last tiny rag
of a remnant will cover your real purpose."

"You think I am a dishonorable dog.  I don't wonder at it."

"No, I don't.  But I do think you are taking yourself
entirely too seriously.  You don't want to go, do you?  And
I don't wish you to go.  And Richard doesn't want you
to go."

"He'd compel it if he knew."

"But he doesn't know.  Maybe, if I knew some things
about you, I'd want you to go.  Maybe, if you knew me
thoroughly, you'd be eager to go.  As it is, we all want
things to stay as they are."

"Last night was a warning."

"Yes," she hastened to assent.  "Let's heed it.  Let's
go back to friendship and not wander.  My friend, you're
letting your mind hang over just one subject, just one side
of the relations of men and women.  Isn't there more to me
than—that?"

"Courtney!" he protested.

"Then let's be friends.  Let's put aside what we can't
have.  Let's take and enjoy what we can.  Let's not talk
or think about—about love—any more than one frets about
not being able to visit the moon.  We've been finding life
happy these last few weeks, with that subject never
mentioned.  Why not again?  Are you too weak?  Am I too
uninteresting?"

"I tried once before and failed."

"But now that we've looked the situation straight in the
face—now that we're both on guard—don't you think we
can do better?"

"I don't know," he confessed.  "I'm afraid to try—aren't
you?"

Her eyes held him, they were so mysterious.  "Not so
much as I'm afraid not to try," replied she slowly.

He dropped into his chair again, sat staring at the
blotting pad on the desk.

"Had you thought," she went on, "what would happen
if we owned ourselves beaten and fled from each other?"

He presently lifted his eyes, looked at her in wonder.
"And that never occurred to me!" he cried.  "Why, our
only chance now is to stay here and fight it out.  If we
shirked and tried to escape—"  He paused.

She nodded gravely.

"If I went away, it'd only be to come back—desperate.
And you——"

He did not finish his sentence.  They sat silent a long
time.  "It would be horribly lonely with you gone," said
she in an absent, impersonal way.  "And loneliness breeds
such wild longings."

A long silence.  Then she rose.  "Come up to the
house and help me with those plans for a kitchen garden
under glass," she suggested.

He nodded without looking at her, as if to show her that
he understood all and accepted what was beyond question
the less dangerous of their alternatives.  "As soon as I
dress, I'll be there," said he.

"I forgot.  I must change, too.  In an hour?"

"Less."

They shook hands in an emphatically comradely fashion,
and she went.  The former conditions were restored.  They
would not permit them to be interrupted again.  They
would demonstrate that, with a thousand, thousand other
things, interesting, amusing, to talk and to think about, they
could bar out love and keep it out.

An hour over the plans, then they had dinner, laughing
and joking together like two children.  They did not heed
or even note the gloom of Winchie and old Nanny—she was
waiting, as it was Lizzie's day out.  Winchie sat mum and
glum, eating in the deliberate way Courtney had taught him
and never lifting his jealous eyes from his plate.
Nanny—middle-aged, homely, prim with the added sourness of
those who have never had the least temptation to be
otherwise—Nanny glowered at Gallatin every time she came into
the room.  She had disapproved of him from the outset and
had made no secret of it.  This gayety of his, in the absence
of the head of the house of Vaughan, changed that
dinner for her into a Babylonish revel.  She was shocked
at Courtney's taking part, but was not surprised.  What
was to be expected of the weak and frivolous younger
generation of her own sex, mad about adorning the body,
scornful of the idea of "settling," and incredulous as to
hell fire?  Her anger concentrated on Gallatin.  He was
a man; he seemed a serious, moral man.  Yet here he
was, leading on the vain, weak woman—he a guest of
Mr. Vaughan's—trusted by him—put upon his honor.  "It's
enough to bring Colonel 'Kill back a-harntin'," muttered
she into the oven....  Early in the afternoon it cleared
gloriously.  Outdoors, the two trespassers upon ancient
propriety giddied into still higher spirits.  And after
supper!  They banged on the piano and sang "coon" songs
and became so hilarious "that you'd think the settin' room
was full," said Jimmie to his aunt.

Nanny scowled at the blue yarn sock she was knitting
with wrinkled, rheumatism-knotted fingers.  "Such
goings-on!" she growled.

"Why not?" demanded Jimmie.  "Where's the harm?
And I reckon Mrs. V. knows how to take care of herself."

"Who said she didn't?" snapped Nanny.

Toward nine Courtney and Basil went out on the
veranda.  It was a perfect August night.  The honeysuckle
in great masses upon the rail was giving forth an
odor that quieted them like pensive music.  Under the
trees and among the bushes the now pale, now bright lamps
of the "lightning bugs" shone by scores and hundreds.
There was a moon, sailing high and almost full.  She
thought she had never been so happy in her life.  At
former happy times there was in her no such capacity
to appreciate and enjoy as experience had now given her.
And what an ideal companion Basil was—so much the
man of the world, wise, experienced, yet simple and
amazingly modest.  And how marvelously they fitted into each
other's moods!  She had never thought to find a human
being with just the right combination of qualities—one
who could be serious—always in an interesting way—and
also as light as the lightest.

"Look at those elder blossoms," said Basil in a low
voice, as if louder tones might break the spell and
dissolve the beauty, delicate, fragile, unreal.

Elder bushes were the outer wall of the eastern shrubbery;
their flowers, soft, feathery mats, deliciously sweet to
smell, looked at that distance and in that light like a wall
of snow.  Courtney and Basil descended from the veranda,
strolled across the lawn.  She lifted her head, seemed to
drink in the beauty with her whole face, and to exhale it in
a newer, subtler loveliness and perfume.

"How sweet the boxwood hedge is after to-day's rain."

As they neared the water's edge, all other perfumes
yielded to the powerful, heavy, sensuous odor of the locust
blossoms, in white clusters above the bench on which they
presently sat.  They were silent, gazing across the lake
where, in contrast to the darkness and silence of their
shore, lay the town, a shimmer of light, a murmur of
confused sounds mingling pleasantly.  Down the lake, far
out beyond the edge of the heavy shadow flung by the trees,
a boat was coming, the man rowing, the girl playing the
mandolin and singing.  The tinkling of the mandolin and
the fresh young voice floated over the waters to Courtney
and Basil.  She drew in her breath sharply, with a sense
of alluring danger hovering.  The boat drew nearer; the
sounds were clearer—clearer, more tender, more moving.
The mandolin tinkled.  The free, sweet young voice sang:
"I want you—ma honey!—yes I do!  I want you—I
want you——"

She clasped, clinched her hands in her lap.  Basil
started up.  "I can't bear it!" he cried.  "I can't!"

"No—no!" she exclaimed, and her strange look
suggested a soul drowning.  "Go—go quickly!"  And drawing
her white shawl about her shoulders, she fled into the
house.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XI

.. vspace:: 2

"Where's Mr. Gallatin?" asked Winchie, as he and
his mother were finishing breakfast next morning.

"At the Smoke House, I guess," replied she.  There
was a far-away look in her eyes, and their lids were heavy.
Although Lizzie had been unusually unsuccessful in arranging
the flowers, she left the bowl untouched in the center
of the table—a solid mass of carnations which she could
have changed into a miracle of lightness and grace.

"Is he coming to breakfast?" asked Winchie.

"No—at least, I suppose not.  How'd you like to go
to grandpa's?"

"Will Mr. Gallatin go?"

Courtney's cheeks flushed.  "No," she said.

"Then I'd like it—for a while."

"We are going to-morrow," said Courtney.  "To-morrow morning."

"Is grandpa sick?"

"No.  Nobody is sick."

"Then why?"

Courtney's face wore a queer smile.  "We'll help
grandma and Aunt Lal and Aunt Ann put up fruit and
jam and preserves."

"Will we stay long?" inquired the boy anxiously.

"Until—until your father—gets back."

Winchie looked much downcast.  "Why?" he asked.

"Why not?" said Courtney.  "And now, you'll help
me pack and I'll help you."

It was a busy day, as there were many things to
arrange besides the packing.  Gallatin did not appear at the
house all day, and Courtney did not expect him.  Toward
ten that night the packing was finished and everything
ready for an early departure.  Courtney went downstairs
and out across the moonlit lawn.  Slowly, with gaze
straight ahead, she strolled toward the lake, toward the
summer house in the copse at the western edge of the
grounds.  She entered, curled herself up on the broad
seat, her elbow upon the rail, her hand supporting her
chin.  She watched the moonlight in the ripples along
the middle of the lake.  From time to time, she lifted her
head, strained her eyes into the encircling shadows, then
resumed her attitude, mental as well as physical, of
forlorn abstraction.  Something less than half an hour, and
when she lifted herself to glance round for the third or
fourth time, she did not sink back, but slowly straightened,
her breath coming quickly.

"Who's there?" she called softly, addressing the deep
shadows over the path by which she had come.

No answer but the chorus of tiny creatures murmuring
excitedly in every crevice and beneath every blade
and leaf.

"Who is it?" she demanded, but not loudly or
nervously.  She stood up.

"Only I," came in Basil's voice, and he advanced
and stood between the entrance pillars of the open rustic
pavilion.

"Oh!" said she.  And she resumed gazing over the
water, but did not resume her seat.

"I saw you cross the lawn," he explained.  "And I
was afraid some one might intrude."

"Thank you," said she gratefully.

"You knew it was I—didn't you?" he went on.

A brief silence, then—"Yes," she admitted, and gave
a little laugh.

"Why do you laugh?"

"Because I just realized that I was expecting you—that
I came here hoping to see you.  How one does lie
to oneself!"

"Do you wish me to leave you?"

"No....  What a beautiful night it is!"

"The loveliest I ever saw."

"These locust blossoms—  The perfume makes me feel
languid—but not sleepy."

"I guess it is the locusts," he said.  "I feel that way,
too."

"I'm taking Winchie to my father's for a visit—in the
morning."

"So Jimmie said."

"We'll stay until Richard comes back."

"I supposed so."

A silence.  Then she: "I must go in soon," and an
instant later, without realizing it, seated herself.

"I wrote to Starky—Estelle—to-day....  To ask her
to fix the date for the marriage."

She shivered.

"I decided it was best for me to commit myself."

She buried her face in her hands.

"And," he went on, "you know I shall always love
you—*always*! ... I say that because—in a few minutes
now we'll part, and never see each other again."

With her face between her hands, she gazed at the
dancing surface of the watery highway of moonlight, and
repeated monotonously—"never see each other again."  Then,
after a moment, "How heavy the perfume of the
locusts is."

"Yes," replied he, "but so sweet."

Then the thin film of surface over their emotions
suddenly burst.  "Never again—oh, my Courtney!" he cried
between set teeth.  Both had thought all day that they
were calm and resigned.  They knew now how they had
been deceiving themselves.  He flung away from her.
Both knew what was coming, knew it was too late to
save themselves, felt the wild reckless thrill of terror and
rapture that precedes the breaking down of all barriers,
the breaking up of all foundations, the free sweep of
unfettered passion.  So young—so young—with such a
long stretch of empty years—and they never to see each
other again!

"How can I live on, without you to help me?" she said.

"It'll be easier for you than for me.  You have—your
boy.  I have—nothing."  He sat down, away from her,
stared into the blackness of the copse.  "Nothing," he
repeated.  He was holding his breath and waiting for
the inevitable storm to break.

"Basil!" she cried, and in impulsive sympathy reached
out and touched him.  "Won't it be something—to know
that you have my heart—my—love?"

She felt him trembling, and there was a sob in his
voice as he answered: "But when your arms ache with
emptiness, you can put them round Winchie.  While
I—Courtney, how can I touch another woman, when it's
you—you—*you*—"  And his groping hand met hers, clasped
it.  He bent his head, kissed her hand—the back, the palm,
then the fingers one by one.  And they softly touched his
cheek.  "Basil!" she sighed.

The faint wind agitated the clusters of locust blooms;
their perfume descended in heavy voluptuous waves.  He
pressed his hands one against each of her cheeks.  "Courtney,"
he murmured.  "My love—my dear love!"  Their
lips met.

"We must not!" she pleaded, her arms about his neck.

"After to-night," he reminded her, "we, who love, will
never see each other again."

"Never again!" she moaned.

It was the signal both were unconsciously, yet deliberately,
awaiting.  He gave an inarticulate cry, caught her
up as a strong wind a flower.  "I've had enough of right
and wrong," cried he.  "You are mine!  I will not let
you go.  I love you—I love you—I love you!"  And he
showered kisses upon her until she, dizzy and fainting,
yet never so alive, was clinging to him, was calling him
endearing names, was laughing and sobbing.  And in that
darkness and mad frenzy of longing and despair they
could pretend to themselves that it was all as unreal as a
dream—was, in fact, a dream, or at worst,
impulse—irresistible, irresponsible.

.. vspace:: 2

He felt her heart flutter, halt in its steady, strong beat
within her breast close against his.  She raised her head
from his shoulder, listened.  "What is it?" he whispered.

"Listen."

A bird broke from the copse and with a great noise
of wings against leaves blundered away to another and
higher place.  "A bird—that was all," said he.

"Sh—h!  No.  They never stir so suddenly at night
without cause."  She was cold, was shivering.  They
looked at each other, tingling with guilty alarm.

"I'll go see."

"Yes—do."

He disengaged himself lingeringly, with a parting
caress of his lips along her cheek.  "It's cold," she
murmured.  "And I'm—I'm afraid."  Never before in all
her life had she been afraid.

He went softly along the path until the shadows hid
him.  After a moment he returned to the entrance.  "I
see nothing," said he.

"And I hear nothing—any more," replied she.  "You
don't know what a queer, creepy sensation I had.  It
was—was—as if some one were near us."

He did not seat himself by her again.  "Isn't
it—very—very late?" he said hesitatingly.

"Perhaps.  But come, dear.  Let's forget.  It was
nothing.  Oh, I was so happy—and now—Basil, I'm cold."

Instead of sitting and taking her in his arms he drew
her to her feet.  "I saw your front door open," he said.
"I think you'd better go."

She flung herself into his arms.  "No—no!" she
cried.  "Not yet."

He held her closely, but soon released her.  "You had
better go," urged he, and she felt nervousness and
constraint in his tone, in his touch.

She laughed quietly.  "What are you afraid of?"

"Nothing!" he retorted stoutly.  "Still, the door is
open, and some one might——"

"Why, *you're* quite cold! ... Basil, what is it?"

"Nothing—nothing at all," replied he, his arms round
her again, his lips upon hers.

Presently she said: "I *thought* you were neglecting
me rather long.  It's a habit men have after—after a
woman is entirely theirs."

"Don't say those things, even in joke," he begged, so
seriously that it jarred on her overwrought nerves.

"If you take that sort of remarks in earnest," said
she, a trace of resentment in her tone, "I'll be likely to
believe there's something in it."

"It was so—so frank," apologized he.

"Why not speak frankly?" said she.  "One of the
joys of loving you is that we'll be entirely frank with
each other.  I'll never be afraid to show you how much
I love you, or to say whatever thought comes into my mind.
And you must feel that you can be your natural self always,
can speak out any thought you may have, no matter what it
is.  All that doesn't mean much to you.  But to me—"  She
drew a long, deep breath.  "You—a man—couldn't
possibly know how delicious it is to a woman to be able to
be her—her naked self! ... You're not listening.  You
don't hold me tightly.  Are you shocked?"

"No," answered he with constraint.  "I keep thinking
of—of—that door."

She was silent, offended.

"I wasn't quite frank with you a moment ago."

"Already!" she sighed.  Then, repentantly: "I know
I'm silly.  But it means so much to me to feel that
we—you and I—can stand before each other, just as we are.
Oh, I've hidden myself so long, Basil.  Your love—the
great temptation of it was that it meant freedom.  If I
were your wife, you'd expect all sorts of conventional things
of me.  If you were my husband, I'd feel and you'd feel
we had to live up to standards and do customary things.
As it is, our love's free—free!"

He was silent.

"Basil, don't you feel that way?"

"Yes, dear," he answered absently.  "But—I must
tell you.  When I went out—a while ago to look, I saw
Nanny on the porch."

Even in that dimness he saw the terror in her face.
"On the porch!" she gasped.  She sprang up.  "Why
didn't you tell me before?" she cried angrily.

"I—I thought it might alarm you foolishly."

"I'm not a hysterical fool.  Please don't forget
that—again."

"Courtney!"

"Oh, forgive me—my love."  When they had
embraced: "Yes—I must go—at once....  Why can't you
come with me?  Start as soon as you see I'm at the door.
But you mustn't cross the lawn.  You must go round by
the shadows.  It would be quite safe.  You needn't go
back to the shop."

"Impossible!"

She was silent, waiting for him to feel how hurt she
was and to reassure her.  But he stood aloof, and
presently asked in a constrained voice, "How long will you
be at your father's?"

"At my father's!" she exclaimed.  "Why, I shall not go!"

"You must," he insisted.  "You've made all the
arrangements."

"You can send me away—*now*?"

"Please—dear.  Don't be unreasonable.  If you
changed your plan everybody'd think it strange."

"Everybody—who?"

"Nanny, for instance."

"Nanny?  Why should I care what Nanny thinks?  My
first scare was only—guilty conscience.  Basil, why are
you so queer—so absent and—distant?  Tell me—just
what it is in your mind?"

She rested her hands pleadingly on his shoulders and
looked up at him.  In her eyes, as in his, shone the fever
of their delirium.  He took her hands, kissed her.  "Don't
be foolish," he said, trying to laugh.  "I guess I am a
little bit unnerved."

But she was not satisfied.  "Basil—do you regret?"

"Courtney!  Courtney!" he pleaded.  "That's the
way to tear our happiness down, stone by stone, till
nothing's left but ruins.  You must not be suspicious."  He
patted her reassuringly on the shoulder with an air of
possession.  "Of course I love you, more than ever."

"You say it in a tone that—that sounds like superior
to inferior."  She sighed.  "Is nothing in the world up
to its promise?  Here, I thought we'd be perfectly
happy—two pariahs together—two lost souls—but accepting our
punishment of secret shame and hypocrisy—accepting it
gladly, as it was the price we had to pay for freedom
and each other.  And already, in the first hour, we're
almost quarreling.  It must not be, Basil."

"No, dearest," he cried.  "And it will not be.  We
will be happy.  Trust me.  I'm unstrung—and maybe
you, too.  But you know I love you—more than I ever
thought.  And really you ought to go in the morning—really,
dearest!  You need stay only two days.  You can
come home the second day.  Don't you see we
must—must—must be careful?  Now that there's something to
conceal, we can't act any longer as we did."

She laid her clasped hand on her breast, looked
wistfully up at him.  "We can't ever be free and unafraid
again, can we?" said she.  "It isn't just one act
of—of concealment—is it?—and freedom and openness
afterwards.  I see lies—and lies—and yet more lies—stretching
away—away—until—"  She shuddered, hid her face
in his shoulder.  "Oh, my love!"

"I'd tell all the lies in the world to have you."  He
embraced her almost roughly.  "All—all!  And care not
a rap.  You—you are my god and my morality.  To love
you, to have you, to keep you—that's all.  The rest is
trash."

"Yes—yes," echoed she feverishly.  "The rest is trash.
We've got the best.  Love!"

"And we'll hold on to it—always!"

"Must I go in the morning, when life has just
begun?  How can I?  No—no—don't answer.  I know
you're right.  I'll go—and ... Good by!"

She flung her arms about him.  He caught up her small,
warm body with its soft curves and its radiations of vivid,
perfumed life.  Their lips clung together.  They separated,
laughed dizzily.  She waved her arm and darted up
the path.  From the shadows he watched her cross the
lawn, like some creation of the summer and the
moonlight.  In the doorway she paused, waved to him once
more; the door closed.  Then he, like a thief, sneaked
along the retaining walls at the lake shore—now stooping
to keep in the deep shadow, out of sight of anyone who
might be watching from the house—now advancing erect
with stealthy swiftness—until he was able to strike into
the darkness of the path to the Smoke House.

.. vspace:: 2

Midway in undressing his eyes chanced upon her picture,
framed and hanging opposite the foot of the bed—a
large photograph, with Winchie, a tiny baby, against her
shoulder, his fat check pressing upon hers.  Basil stood
before the picture, his expression a very human and
moving mingling of awe and adoration and passion.
Suddenly he remembered to whom that picture belonged.  "But
not she!" he said aloud defiantly.  Nevertheless, he flushed,
hung his head, switched off the light, and sought his bed.
"How can I ever face him?" he muttered.  Then: "She
is mine!  She never was really his.  I take nothing that
belongs to him.  I take nothing she could give, or ever did
give, to him."

He fell immediately into a sound sleep—the exhaustion
of nerves so long on fierce tension.  But about two in the
morning he started up, listened.  Yes, some one was
moving beneath the window.  He went to it, looked down.
There was Courtney, swathed in a long, dark cloak.  He
thrust his feet into slippers, drew on a big dressing gown,
descended, and opened the door.  He stretched out his
arms.

She flung herself against his breast.  "I couldn't go
without seeing you again," she panted.  "After I left
you, and got into bed, I began to think all sorts of
dreadful things about you.  You acted so strangely.  And then
I felt ashamed of myself, felt I must come and beg your
pardon.  And—and—here I am.  Are you glad?"

His laugh was answer enough.  He took her in his
arms, carried her up to the sitting room, set her down on
the sofa.  "How light you are!" he cried.  "But how
strong—I've seen you swing Winchie to your shoulder as
if he were nothing at all.  Now—please—won't you let
your hair down?  There never was such hair as yours."

She sat up, let the cloak fall away.  The moon was
flooding the room.  As she sat there, with eyes sparkling
and small, sensitive face shy-bold, she looked as if she
had sprung to mortal life from an old folk song about
loreleis and nymphs and enchanted princesses.  "You
floated in on the moonbeams," he declared.  "I'm afraid,
if I don't shut the window, you'll flit away."

"That'd not stop me," laughed she.  And she began
to take her hair down.  Just as it was about to unroll, she
paused.  "Wouldn't you like to take it down yourself?"

He went round behind her, drew out the hairpins one
by one, fumbling softly, lingeringly for them, keeping
them carefully.  Her hair loosened, uncoiled, fell about her
in a shimmering veil.  "Oh, my love!" he cried.  "My
beautiful Courtney!"  And he took the soft, perfumed
veil in his hands, kissed it again and again, buried his face
in it, wrapped her head and his together in it.

She laughed delightedly, then drew away, looking at
him with mock severity.  "And where, sir, did you learn
how to make a woman so happy?"

"What things you *do* say!" he laughed, just a little
bit scandalized.  "I might ask the same question of you."

"And I can answer it—" with a mocking smile—"without
evasion.  Imagination.  I've so often thought—and
thought—and thought—what I would be to a man I
freely loved—one I wasn't afraid of scandalizing.  Oh, I
know I shock you—for there's a great deal you've yet to
learn about women—that they're human, just like men.
But you'll learn—and then I think you'll see I'm
good—for I am.  I couldn't be bad—hate anyone—play mean
tricks, say or do mean things.  Don't you wish I were
tall—wish there were more of me?"

"I couldn't live through it."

"And you really—really—love me?"

He held her tightly by the shoulders, gazed into her
eyes.  "So much that, if you were untrue to me, I'd kill
you."

"Now, what made you think of that?"

"I don't know."

Thoughtfully: "I guess it is because I'm giving myself
to you when I am—am—  Now, there you go, shocked
again."

He laughed recklessly.  "Give me time," said he, "and
I'll get used to it.  You say you'd rather I showed just
how I felt than locked it away and pretended."

"Yes—yes—a thousand times!  I don't mind your
being shocked—not really."  With a queer little laugh, "I'm
shocked myself.  Somehow I seem to delight in shocking
myself—and you.  Loving you is—all sorts of pleasures
and pains.  I want them all!"

"All!" he echoed.  "Yes—all!"

Midway in her embrace she stopped him, pushed him
laughingly away with, "But you weren't quite frank a
while ago."

"When?"

"There at the lake."

"Why do you think so?"

"Did you ever see one of those little toy spaniels—how
they quiver and shiver all the time?  I'm just as
sensitive as that.  You mustn't try to deceive me—ever!
You mustn't say or act any of those hypocrisies of what
some people call good taste, either.  They're not necessary
with me.  They'd make me feel deceived.  I might not
confess I knew—and then—'The little rift within the
lute.'"

"I guess I'll tell you," he said for the moment deeply
impressed.  "Yes, I will."

"Tell me everything—*every*\thing.  There mustn't be
any concealment—anything to lie hid away in the depths
of some dark closet to rot and rot and infect the whole
house."  She suddenly lowered her head; and, as the full
meaning of her words, the meaning she had not foreseen,
reached him, he, too, became ill at ease.

Presently he said: "I didn't want to frighten you
needlessly.  When I saw Nanny—she was—just going up the
steps of the porch."

Courtney's eyes widened and her face blanched.  "You
think—" she began when she could find voice.

"I couldn't tell which direction she had come from," he
replied.  "But it's no matter.  She couldn't know."

Courtney remembered the darkness—how grateful she
had been for its friendly aid.  "No," said she resolutely.
"She couldn't know."

"Certainly not," echoed he, as if the idea that she
could were absurd.  "But it made me realize how
careful we must be."

"Yes," replied she thoughtfully.  "Yes."  And she
was clinging to him, was sobbing.  "Oh, my love—my
love—I don't care what comes, if only it does not
separate us....  Look!  Look!" she cried, pointing out into
the sky.  "Dawn!  I must fly.  Where *are* my slippers!"

He found them for her, put them on, bundled her into
her cloak, picked her up, and hurried downstairs with her.
"I'm not so little," said she.  "It's because you're so big
and strong.  One kiss—quick!"

He kissed her—on the lips and, as she turned to go,
again on the nape of the neck.  "Day after to-morrow!"
he cried.

"Yes, I'll come here at nine, rain or shine."

And she ran along the path.  The moon had set; it
was intensely dark.  Arriving within sight of the house
she stopped short.  There were lights, upstairs and down,
shadows of moving figures on the curtains.  "God!" she
ejaculated.  "What *shall* I do!"  And for the first time
the great fear—the fear a woman has when she thinks she
has lost her reputation—buried its talons in her throat
and its beak in her heart.  Do?  Face it!  She lifted her
head high, gathered herself together, advanced boldly.  As
she entered the front door she ran into Nanny.

"What's the meaning of this?" she demanded.  In
the same instant her courage fled and she leaned faint
against the wall.  "Winchie!" she gasped.  "Has
something happened to him?"

Nanny was standing stiffly with eyes down—a sullen
figure, accusing, contemptuous.  But she answered
respectfully enough if surlily: "Winchie missed you and came
up and waked me and Mazie just now."

Down the stairs came the boy, sobbing, shouting,
"Mamma!  Mamma!  I lost you."

Courtney caught him up, hugged him, kissed him.
"You silly baby!" she cried, laughing.  "What a fuss
about nothing.  Put out the lights, Nannie."  Halfway
up the stairs she hesitated.  Would it be more natural
to make an explanation or to say nothing?  She decided
it was best, more like her usual self, to say nothing.  "Put
out the lights and go to bed," she repeated.





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   \XII

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She had said nine o'clock, but it was not quite half
past eight, the next evening but one, when she appeared
at the edge of the clearing.  He was seated in the
entrance to the upper story, his gaze fixed on the opening
in the trees where the path emerged.  At first glimpse
of her in the long dark cloak, he flung away his cigarette
and rushed toward her.  He embraced her, then held her
off as if to reassure himself that it was really she.  "Do
you still love me?" he asked.  "Are you *sure*?"

The emerald eyes flashed up at him.  Her face,
revealed in the starlight, was gravely earnest and sweet.
But beneath her calm, as beneath his, there was evidently
still raging the hysteria that had whirled both clean out
of the realm of sanity and sense—the fever that keeps
whirling the soul it seizes from pinnacle to abyss and
back again.  "Ever since we separated," said she, "I've
been imagining I was struggling to give up our love.  But
as the time for me to come got nearer and nearer, I
realized what a fraud I was."

"Do you love me?"

"I am here."

They sat side by side in the entrance.  "May I
smoke?" he asked.

"Do."  As he opened his cigarette case, "Let me have one."

"I didn't know you smoked."

"Oh—a little—at college.  We girls used to do it, for
the sensation of being devilish.  Wouldn't you like me to
smoke?"

"If you wish to."

"You don't approve?"

"Well—I don't exactly like for women to smoke or use
slang.  Those things seem sort of unsexing.  Of course,
it's only an idea."

She smiled indulgently, rolling the cigarette to loosen
the tobacco, as Basil did, with a great air of being an old
hand at it.  "I'm afraid you're narrow."

"I guess I am."

"Gracious!  What you must be thinking of me!"

As she said it, she gave that little audacious laugh of
delight in her freedom to be frank.  But he became grave,
and it was with deep earnestness that he answered, "I
love you."

She, too, was grave and thoughtful now.  "What a
difference that does make!  Then everything—anything
seems all right."

"And is!"

She put her arm through his.  "Here, take your
cigarette.  I'll not distress you."

"No—do smoke."

"I'll confess the real reason.  It makes such a nasty
taste in my mouth."

He tossed his cigarette into the grass.  His every
gesture—and hers—betrayed what a strain they were
undergoing, how deceptive was their appearance of sanity.

"Now, what did you do that for?" exclaimed she.

"I oughtn't to smoke when I'm going to kiss you."

She put her cigarette to his lips.  "Please," she urged,
"I like you to smoke.  Don't you know a woman likes
everything, even the unpleasant things, that make a man
different from her? ... Smoke, and tell me what you've
been doing.  It's forty hours since we were together."

"I've been conscious of pretty nearly every one of
them," said he.  "I've done nothing but think of you."

"Sad thoughts?"

"Very.  But I'll not do that again.  What's the use,
Courtney?  We've got to have each other.  What's the use
of struggling against it?"

"I can't realize it—I can't," said she absently.  "Last
night—out at father's—I got up in the middle of the night
and ran and looked at myself in the glass.  And—"  She
paused.

"Yes?"

"I could look myself straight in the eyes and tell
myself what I had been to you, and not feel like hiding.
Is it that I'm not doing anything bad or that I'm so bad
I don't know good from bad?"

"It's love," declared he gloomily.

"I can look back now and see that from the
beginning—from the day I saw you cared—I've been coming
straight to you.  I was lying to myself."

"I, too," he confessed.  "Courtney, we've been—and
are—in the clutch of a force that's stronger than we."

"I—don't—know," said she slowly.  Then, with her
arms round his neck, "and I don't care.  If conscience
tolls its ugly bell, I'll shout 'Love!  Love!' so loud that
it'll be drowned.  I must have love—I will have love.
And how can I help loving you, who are so altogether
wonderful in every way?  You've only kissed me once
since I came."

"Twice."

"And what's twice?"

For answer he gathered her into his arms, carried her
up to the sitting room.  With all of her within his arms,
he sat in the big armchair.  "Now!" he exclaimed.  "We'll
be happy!"

"Yes.  Oh, *what* a scare when I was here before!"

She sat up and told him about Winchie's raising the hue
and cry for her.  He listened with a somber countenance.
When she had, finished he said, "And where's Winchie now!"

"In bed—asleep."

"But—if he wakes!"

"Why, he'll lie perfectly quiet till he sleeps again.
I told him never to repeat that escapade."

"But he may get frightened——"

"You forget, sir," said she smilingly, "he's my child.
He could not be afraid....  What a mournful face!"

"I'm horribly jealous of him."

"If Winchie didn't keep us apart, he never could push
us apart now."

"I'm very selfish," he said despondently.  "I want all—all!"

"Here we are—sad again."

He sighed.  "And in a few minutes you'll have to go."

"Why?"

"You can't stay away from the house.  Something
might happen."

"Croak!  Croak!"

He passed his hand impatiently over his face.  "I'm
a fool!" he exclaimed.  "I must learn to be content with
what I have—when it's so much—so vastly more than I
ever dared hope—or—"  He stared out into the darkness.
The ducks among the reeds close inshore were quacking
discontented forebodings of rain.  "I trifle with my good
fortune."

"What's the matter, dear?" she asked, her cheek
against his.

"Nothing.  Nothing."

"What have you been thinking while I was away? ... Look
at me, Basil."

"It seems to me I can't ever look—anyone in the face
again."

She understood who "anyone" was.  She pressed closer
to him, said caressingly: "Except me.  You can always
look at me, and I at you.  And what more do we want?"

He did not echo her tender reckless laugh, with its
threat of a storm of hysterical tears.  "You have good
excuse for what you've done.  But there's no excuse
for me."

She seemed to be shrinking within herself.  He gently
put her on the arm of the chair, went to the window, stood
there with his back to her.  "The truth is, I've been in
hell since you left, Courtney—a hell of remorse!"

"Remorse!  Excuse!"  Her bosom heaved; her eyes
flashed.  "Oh, you men!  What hypocrites you
are! ... Tell me, do you wish to give me up?"

He faced her.  "I cannot give you up," was his
inflexible reply.

"Then dismiss all these gloomy ideas," urged she.
"Excuse?  You think I have the excuse of—of his
indifference, of his tyranny and bad temper—of his——"

"For God's sake, Courtney, *don't* say those things!"

"I think them—you think them.  Why not say them?"

"Yes—you are right.  I am a hypocrite."

"How easily we hurt each other," she sighed.  Then,
"But how easily it heals, too."  She went on: "We were
talking of excuses.  Anyone can find an excuse for
anything.  Only weak people look for excuses."  She
elevated her head proudly.  "I want no excuse for what I
did, for what I'm doing.  I need no excuse.  Do I not
own my heart, my self?  I have the right of my youth,
of my love.  Isn't that enough?"

"The right of our love!" he exclaimed, as gay and
confident as he had been depressed and doubtful.  "We're
wasting time.  Let's talk and think only of love."  And
he drew her down into the chair, into his arms.
"Courtney—when he does come—promise me you will not—will
not——"

There he halted, for the wave that passed over her as
she lay in his arms told him that she understood.  "You
know I will not," she said.  "I belong to *you*, now."

"But he may——"

She laid her fingers on his lips.  "Trust me," she
said.  "I've planned it all.  Only, that's the one thing
we mustn't ever talk about."  She laughed, with desperate
straining to be audacious.  "There is honor, even in
the dishonorable."

"You—dishonorable?  I, perhaps—yes, certainly.
But you—you belong to yourself.  It is I who will play
the part of dishonor.  You can be as cold and distant as
you like.  I must smile and pretend to be a friend."  He
shrugged his shoulders, laughed unpleasantly.

"That's manly!" exclaimed she, nerves instantly unstrung.

"What can you expect of—of *me*?" he replied, so
down that she straightway relented.

"Let's drop this subject, dear," she pleaded.  "Let's
never speak of it again—and think of it as little as possible.
It's one of the conditions of our life.  We will admit
it—and ignore it."

"How can we drop a subject that crops out, comes to
the tips of our tongues, every time we look at each other?
But be patient, dear.  I shall grow hardened——"

"Oh, but you must not, Basil!" she cried in dismay.
"*We* must not.  That's our danger, and we must fight it....
Isn't it pitiful!  If we were two coarse people, mere
animals, merely the ordinary man and woman, why, we'd
be happy and never give remorse a thought."

"If we suffer more, we enjoy more," said he, clasping
her as if some power had tried to snatch her away.  "When
I feel ashamed, Courtney, all I have to do is to remember
your hair, to feel again its soft splendor on my face,
between my fingers—and I am delirious."

"Love—always love!" she murmured.  "No price too
great to pay for it."

.. vspace:: 2

They heard steps—stealthy steps—upon the walk, just
under the bedroom window.  "Yes, yes, I hear," he
whispered, as in the darkness she clutched his arm.  He went
to the open window, she sitting up, rigid, wide-eyed, with
bated breath.  Keeping in the shadow, he glanced down.
He saw a man, half hidden in the shrubbery.  A moment
and his eyes focused so that he saw the outline of the man's
face, the angle of his head—saw that the man was peering
up toward that very window.  He went softly back to
her.  "Go into the sitting room," he said.  "I think it's
one of those prowlers."

"Sh-h!" she warned.  "Listen—  On the stairs."

Both stopped breathing and listened.  It was the faintest
of sounds, but unmistakable.  Yes, it was a robber.  He
was ascending the stairway—slowly, silently, steadily, up
and up, step by step.  Now they would miss the sound
altogether; then it would come again—nearer, softer.
Their hands were clasped—were like ice, but without a
tremor.

"How did he get in?" she breathed.

"Don't you remember?  I left the outside door
unlocked—wide open."

"Sh-h!"

"Go back into the sitting room," he whispered.

"No—I stay here with you."

The awful sound, so faint, so relentless, was in the
hall.  "Go!" he commanded.  "You'd be in my way,
dear.  If I need you, I'll call."

She saw that he was right—that at least he must not
feel hampered.  She pressed his hand, glided into the
sitting room.  Suddenly she almost cried out.  "Is the
bedroom door locked?" she called in a hoarse undertone.

He made a silent dash for it, to lock it.  Too late.
It opened.  He could see nothing in the black hall.  He
made a forward leap, right hand clinched, left hand open
and ready to inclose a throat.  His fist thrust past the
man's head, but his left fingers closed upon the throat,
and his weight bore the man to the floor.  But the prowler
was not taken wholly by surprise.  Basil instantly realized
how fortunate it was that he had got the initial advantage.
The two grappled; a short, sharp struggle and Gallatin
felt the form under him relax.  He took an even
stronger hold on the throat, planted his knee squarely in
the chest.  "I've got him!" he cried to Courtney.  "Go!  Go!"

But he triumphed too soon.  With a tremendous effort
the prowler tore Gallatin's fingers from his throat.  "Good
God, Gallatin—is it *you*?" he gasped.

"Vaughan!"

Gallatin dropped all to pieces.  But Courtney was
instantly herself—and more.  On went the lights, and she
burst out laughing.  Gallatin rose, staggered over to the
window seat.  Vaughan, not without difficulty, picked
himself up from the floor, gazed savagely from Gallatin to
his wife.  She kept on laughing, more and more wildly,
laughed until she fell into a chair, sat there laughing, with
the tears rolling down her cheeks.  "Was ever anything
so ridiculous!" she gasped.  And she looked from one to
the other, and went off again.

Vaughan, straightening his collar and coat and waistcoat,
appealed to Gallatin.  "What's the meaning of this?"
he demanded.

By way of reply Gallatin stared at him, as if debating
whether or not to renew the attack.

"What does this mean, Courtney?" Vaughan said to
her sharply.

"That's what *we'd* like to know," replied she.

"Why did Gallatin——"

"Serves you right," interrupted Courtney.  "Why did
you come prowling round here?  Why didn't you go
home?"

Vaughan looked sheepish.  "Well, I wanted to make
sure everything was all right here."

Courtney smiled with resentment in her raillery.  "You
were more anxious about your workshop than about your
wife and child."

Vaughan reddened.  "Oh, I knew everything was all
right at the house," he stammered.  His glance fell upon
the tumbled bed.  "Why!" he exclaimed.  "Some one's
living here!"

Gallatin, startled, was standing up with his hands
clinched.  But she had no fear.  She did not feel guilty
toward this man, who was nothing real to her; and she
knew enough about him to know that his absolute belief
that good women were good, and could not stray even in
thought, made it impossible to tax his credulity.  All that
was necessary was boldness.  "Mr. Gallatin is living here,"
said she composedly.

"Gallatin!" exclaimed Vaughan.  "Why, I locked the
whole place up."  He wheeled on Basil.  "How did you
get in here?" he asked.  "Didn't I make it plain to you
from the outset—didn't we have a distinct understanding——"

"Richard!" interrupted Courtney sharply.  "Mr. Gallatin
is here because I sent him here."

Richard concentrated his angry attention upon her.
"You!  What right had you——"

"You will not address me in that tone," said she
haughtily.  "You come back home, like a thief in the
night.  You give me a fright.  You half kill Mr. Gallatin,
and then you begin to quarrel.  I repeat, Mr. Gallatin is
here because I sent him."

"I thought it best to live here while you were away,"
said Gallatin stiffly.  He did not wish to throw upon
Courtney the whole burden, yet he hardly dared speak, as he
could not see how she hoped to extricate herself and him.
In his guilt, in his ignorance of such a character as
Richard's, he was amazed at her having hope.  He thought her
courage superhuman.

Vaughan glanced, half amused, half disdainful, from
one to the other.  "Are you two still disliking each other?
I had forgotten that."

"You are mistaken," said Gallatin.  "I do not dislike
Mrs. Vaughan."

But Vaughan did not hear.  "What on earth—" he
suddenly ejaculated, staring at Gallatin, then at
Courtney—"What on earth were you two doing here in the
dark?"

Gallatin grew white as chalk.  But Vaughan was looking
at Courtney.  "We weren't in the dark," said she,
with never a tremor of eye or voice.  "We were in the
sitting room."  As she spoke she threw open the door
between the two rooms.  Gallatin gazed into the sitting
room like a man seeing a miracle.  The lights there were
all bright.  The instant she had heard her husband's
outcry, she had turned on the lights in both rooms, the
buttons being on either side of the same wall just beyond
the door frame; and she had closed the sitting-room door
before the two rose from the floor.

"Come in here," she said, leading the way.  "I kept
getting more and more afraid at the house," she went
on in rapid, easy explanation.  "It was very lonesome—there
were several robberies in the neighborhood—and
Nanny and Lizzie and Mazie sleep so far away from my
rooms.  I took Winchie and went home for a couple of
days, but it wasn't convenient for me to stay there—and
so dull!  I came back to-night, and strolled down here
after dinner to make my peace with Basil—"  Here she
made a mocking bow to him—"and to ask him to please
come up and guard the house.  How well you're looking,
Richard!"

"I do feel bang up," said Vaughan, "except here—"  He
touched his throat where Gallatin's fingers had closed
in.  "The trip was just what I needed.  I went to a
specialist in New York, and I serve notice on both of you
that I've turned over a new leaf.  I'll take regular
exercise again—and stop grinding away all day and all
evening.  The great discovery of the fuel that will make it
as cheap to be warm as to be cold can wait.  Perhaps it'll
come the sooner if I keep in condition."

"That's sensible," said Courtney.  "And you must live
at home, and let Mr. Gallatin stay on here."

"It's good advice.  I'll take it," assented Vaughan
promptly.  "Being here tempts me to work when I ought
to be resting."  He threw a good-humored look at Gallatin.
"I guess you're not likely to succumb to that temptation,
old man."

"Not I," said Basil, with the first sickly hint of a
smile.

"Gad, it's good to be home!"  Vaughan was gazing
at Courtney now, in his eyes the proprietorial look, bold,
amorous.  "She's looking well—eh—Gallatin?"

Basil did not answer.  He was glowering at Vaughan,
and biting his lip, and his fingers were twitching.

Courtney rose.  "Let's all go up to the house,"
proposed she: "You'll come, won't you, Mr.—beg
pardon—Basil?"

Gallatin stared coldly at her.  Her "superhuman
courage" now seemed sheer brazenness to him.  "Thanks—no,"
said he in a suffocating voice.

"Hope I didn't damage you, Gallatin," said Vaughan
with the rather careless solicitude of man for man.

"Not in the least," replied Gallatin curtly.

"Oh, come now, old man," cried Richard.  "Look at
my throat."  He inspected it himself in the mirror
ruefully.  "If I can forgive you, you ought to forgive me.
Come along, Courtney."

He took her by the arm, smiling at her, she mustering
a return smile.  Basil was looking intently at her, with
an expression of cold fury.  When he caught her eye he
sneered.  She, already at the breaking pitch, could not
endure that contempt.  She looked piteously at him, gave
a low cry, sank upon the sofa, fell over in a dead faint.

Basil gazed stupidly at her.  Vaughan dashed into the
bath room, reappeared with a wet towel, rubbed her
temples and her wrists with it.  She opened her eyes, looked
round—saw Basil.  "Take me away!" she sobbed.  "Take
me away!"

Her husband gathered her into his arms as if she were
a tired child.  "Good night, Gallatin.  See you in the
morning," he said, and strode out with her.

Gallatin fell into one of those futile rages that are
the steam of the strife between a man's desire and his
courage.  "It's my love for her," he assured himself,
"that keeps me from following him and taking her from
him."  He found small comfort in this, however; for, he
suspected it was only part—a minor part—of a truth, the
rest of which was altogether to his discredit.  He sat,
he leaned, he stood at the bedroom window overlooking the
path.  Again and again he fancied he saw her, a new
and deeper shadow in the shadows beneath the trees.
Whenever the wind stirred a bush there, his fanciful hope
made it her cloak.  He knew it was impossible for her
to return; but he could not give up.  He did not leave
the window until dawn.  Then, he lay on the bed,
exhausted, wretched, burning with hate for Richard, with
rage against her, with contempt for himself.





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   \XIII

.. vspace:: 2

Toward eight o'clock came Vaughan, in high spirits.
Basil, stiff and sore, was still lying on the bed.

"Sure you don't want breakfast?" said Richard.
Then, getting a view of his partner's face: "You *are* a
sight!  I beg pardon, old man.  I've got a few marks,
myself.  But—  *You* must have the doctor."

"No, thanks," was Basil's surly answer.  "I'm all
right."

"But you ought to do something for that eye—and that
cheek.  I sure did give you some hard punches."  As this
sounded as if it were—and was—not without a certain
pride, he added: "The worst you gave me are hidden by
my clothes—except these finger marks.  What a stupid
thing for me to do!  And poor Courtney's quite done up
this morning.  Really, old man, you'd better let me send
for the doctor."

"I'll telephone for him," said Basil.  "I want to be
left alone."

"Beg pardon.  I've done nothing but apologize ever
since I got home.  Well, I'll go to work.  Don't bother
to come down to-day.  I shan't need you."

Gallatin muttered "Selfish beast," as soon as Dick was
clear of the room.  And it was undeniable that Dick's
pretense of sympathy had been rather more offhand than
such pretenses usually are.  He had never had to conciliate
and cultivate his fellow beings in getting a living,
and had been brought up indulgently by Colonel 'Kill and
Eudosia.  Thus he was candid in his selfishness, often
appeared worse than would a man who was in reality
more selfish, but was through fear or training, less
self-revealing.  However, Basil was not one with the right
in any circumstances to be censorious of such undiplomatic
conduct; for he, too, had been born and bred to
wealth and security, and had been "spoiled" by a
worshipful family.

Not for a week did he dare show his face.  Dick
called twice a day—did all the talking—always about
the chemistry into which he had plunged with freshened
energy and enthusiasm.  Usually he apologized for
Courtney's not coming—"She still feels weak and
upset," he would say, "and wants me to make her
excuses.  I tell her you'd refuse to see her even if she
could come."

When Basil's face and complexion were once more
about normal, he waited until Richard was at work
downstairs, then adventured the path to the house.  He found
Courtney in the sitting room, in a négligée, sewing;
Winchie was building a lofty house of blocks on the
veranda just outside for her to admire.  He scowled at
Winchie; Winchie scowled at him and, when his back was
turned, made a face at him.  "Good morning, Mrs. Vaughan,"
said he coldly.  "I've come to pack my traps."  In
a lower tone that was menacing, he added, "I want to
see you."

She laid aside her sewing, a strained expression in the
eyes that shone wistfully in her pallid face.  The boy
dropped the block he was putting into place and stood
up.  "Go on with the house, Winchie," said she.  Then
to Basil, "You may come right upstairs."

She preceded him into the study on the left of the
upper hall—the study that had been his, and was now
Richard's.  He, following, closed the door, advanced
toward her with lowering brow and angry eyes.

"It's very imprudent to close the door," said she,
calmly returning his gaze.  "Nanny is at work across the
hall."

"Did you break your promise to me that night?" he
demanded.

"I'll answer no question—not even from you,
Basil—when it's in that tone."

"First you want me to open the door, so that I can't
speak out," sneered he.  "Now you evade....  You admit
your degradation.  I knew why you were keeping away
from me."

"That was not my reason," she stammered, with
lowered head.

"You lie!  You are doubly false.  You have no shame.
Now I understand why you said those bold things—why
you acted so free—as no innocent woman could.
You—expert!"

Her eyes were milky like a tortured sea; her face
became ghastly; she trembled so that she had to steady
herself at the back of a chair.  "Basil!" she exclaimed.  "No,
it's not you.  What we've suffered since he came has driven
you mad.  It has almost crazed me."

"Answer me!" he commanded fiercely.  "Did you or
did you not break your promise to me?"

Suddenly she drew herself up, and with the sad dignity
of guilt that has been expiated she said: "I ask you
to pity me."  And she stood there, pale and haggard, a
statue of wretchedness.

His fury could not hold against that spectacle—and
she, the proud, asking for pity!  "It's I who should be
ashamed," he cried.  "How I have suffered!  What a
coward—what a cur I am!"

She rushed to him.  "Oh, my love!  What we've been
suffering has only made you dearer to me, dearer than ever!
There's no bond like suffering."

He was about to take her outstretched hands when
suspicion flamed into his eyes again.  "How easily you
twist me round your finger!" he said roughly.  "Now,
there's your making me move down to the shop.  Why
should you want to get me out of the house when, if I
were here, we could see each other all the time?"

She showed no resentment, felt none.  "It's natural
you should suspect me," said she.  "I'd suspect you in
the same circumstances.  I see now how absurd it was to
dream of happiness founded on lies.  No happiness for
us—not even joy now and then.  If we didn't love each
other, we might be happy.  But we do love, and misery
is all we can expect.  I'll tell you why I wanted you down
there."  She paused, went on with veiled eyes and bright
red in her cheeks.  "As I said to you, even dishonor has
its honor.  I didn't want us meeting here—with my
boy—and his—so near."

Basil looked as if he were about to sink down under
his shame and self-contempt.  "Forgive me.  What a hound
I am!" he muttered.

"As for my free actions and free speech——"

"Courtney!" he begged, seizing her hands.  "Don't
speak of that."

"I must explain," she insisted gently, freeing herself.
"I'll always explain everything to you.  As I told you,
I wanted to be free with you, perfectly free.  So I said
and did the things any woman who loved would think and
feel, but most women hold back for fear of spoiling a
lover's ideal.  I didn't want you to idealize me, but to love
me just as I was, just for what I am."

"And I do—I do!" he cried, trying to draw her into
his arms.

"Yes, you do, I believe," answered she, insistently
drawing back.  "I know you truly love, and you know I
truly love.  I know you are a man any woman would be
proud to have love her, and you know I'm not a low or
a bad woman.  Yet, see how it turns out....  Basil, we
must give it up!"

"Give it up!"  He was bristling with suspicion at once.

"You must go away."

He laughed scornfully.  "That is your kind, considerate
way of dismissing me.  What vanity!  I shall suffer
no more than you."

"Not so much," she answered sadly.

"I shall go away and marry."

"You can't make me jealous now, Basil.  Not after
what you've been to me.  I mean just what I say.  You
must go, and I'll try to be to my husband all a wife should
be.  If you'd been through what I've been through—that
night and since—you'd understand.  Basil, do you remember
how I lied, how I laughed and cheated—like an 'expert,'
as you say.  Oh, you must have despised me!  If
you had done what I did, had done it as fluently, I'd have
loathed you."

"And what about me?  Didn't I stand there, a
contemptible coward, and let him take you away?"

"What else could you have done?"

"Shown myself a man!"

"And ruined me—and my child?  Oh, no, dear.  You
love me too well for that."  She startled, listened.  "He's
coming," she warned, flying to the door.  She opened it
softly to its full width, advanced composedly into the hall,
saying in her usual voice, "Then Jimmie'll take your things
down about four o'clock."

Richard, on his way up, had reached the head of the
stairs.  "Oh!" he exclaimed.  "Here you are!  I asked
Winchie where you were, and he said he didn't know.  So
I've been hunting all over the place for you.  I want you
to take a walk with me."

"Certainly," said she tranquilly.  "I'm talking
business with Basil.  Go down and help Winchie finish his
house, and we'll take him along.  I'll come in a few
minutes."

"All right!" said Dick cheerfully.  He shouted out,
"Hey, Gallatin, how's your grouch?" and descended the
stairs, laughing as he went.

As she reëntered the sitting room, she said, with the
quietness of the emotions that are too deep and too
terrible for tumult, "Am I not 'expert'?  How long do you
think we could keep this sort of thing up without becoming—I
tell you, Basil, looking within myself as I've lain
in the dark, I've realized it takes decent people—people
with nerves and imaginations and sense of right and wrong—to
become frightful, if they once get on the down grade.
Did you hear what he said about Winchie?"

"Yes," muttered Basil.  He was at the desk, his elbows
on it, his hands supporting his head.

"Winchie knew where I was.  Why did he lie to his
father?  Already a liar!"

"I must go.  You are right—  But, Courtney—you
must get a divorce."

"I've thought of that.  On what ground?  And how
can I leave him alone—take Winchie away from him?"

"You must get a divorce."

"I think so, too," assented she.  "But I will not lie to
do it.  I'm done with lies.  I'll tell him."

"No—let's go to him together."  Basil's face lighted
up, his manner became enthusiastic.  He thought he saw a
way to redeem his manhood put in pawn for this sin so
dear yet so detestable.  "Together!" he exclaimed.  "He
is generous and broadminded."

She shook her head.  "Men are not generous and
broadminded where women are concerned—the women they
look on as theirs."

He colored and glanced guiltily at her.  But it was
plain that she had not in mind his own exhibition of the
male attitude toward the female.  His memory of it helped
him to appreciate the folly of his proposal.  But he would
not give in at once.  "I'd not suggest it, if he really loved
you.  But——"

"If he really loved me, he'd have felt the truth long
ago.  If he really loved me, he'd wish me to be happy—would
give me up.  But then—if he had really loved me,
none of this would ever have happened.  No, Basil, it's
because he doesn't love me, because it's only passion that takes
and gives nothing, that uses and doesn't think or care about
the feelings of its creature——"

Basil, horror-stricken by this bald candor, ashamed for
her, stopped her.  "Let's not talk about it," he pleaded.
"As for the divorce, I leave it to you.  You know best how
to deal with him."

His manner and its cause had not escaped her, with
nerves keyed up to the snapping point.  Once again he had
raised in her heart the dread lest their love would not mean
the perfect frankness, the perfect oneness of which she had
dreamed.  Did a man always demand and compel
concealment and pretense in the woman?  But she thrust out the
doubt.  "I'll do what seems best," she said to him, avoiding
his eyes and speaking with constraint.  "I don't know
Richard very well.  You see, we never got acquainted.
He's like most men.  They don't want the woman, but
only the outside....  He's so wrapped up in his work
that I think I can free myself."

He took her hands, gazed into her eyes.  "Yes," he
said, "you do love me.  You feel that we belong to each
other, just as I do.  So when I'm away I'll know you are
coming—as soon as you can."

"As soon as I can," she replied.  And the expression
of her eyes, meeting his steadfastly, and the deep notes
in her sweet voice thrilled him with a new sense of her
love and of her constancy.  This woman had not given in
whim; she would not change in whim.

"I will go—to-morrow," he said.  "The sooner I go,
the sooner I shall have you.  Will you come to-night to
say good-by?"

"Don't ask it, dear.  I mustn't ever again—until I'm
free."

"In the summer house, then.  For a few minutes.  We
can't part like this."

"Yes, I'll come."

Along the hall from the foot of the stairs sounded
Richard's imperious, impatient voice.  "I say, Courtney!
Do hurry!"

"I can't go for a walk with him now," she said, half to
herself.  "I'll make some excuse."  She looked at Basil, he
at her.  In their eyes was a sadness beyond words and tears.
And what would it be when he was really gone?  "I mustn't
linger here—I mustn't!" she cried.  "And don't come near
me when he's around.  I can't control myself."

They clung together for an instant, then she fled.

She made vague household matters her excuse for not
taking the walk.  She did not see Richard alone until late
that afternoon.  She was in her and Winchie's big bathroom,
which she also used as a dressing room.  As she sat
at the dressing table there, in petticoat and corset cover,
doing her finger nails, he walked in.  "May I come?"
said he, already in the middle of the room.

She glanced at him, or, rather, in his direction, by way
of the mirror and went on with her polishing.  But she was
not resentful of the scant courtesy of this intrusion.  In the
beginning of their married life she, through love, had
confirmed him in his life-long habit of considering only
himself and of expecting himself to be considered first.
Now, indifference was making her as compliant as love
had made her.  And it was just as well.  An attempt to
assert herself would have seemed to him a revolt which
pride and duty made it imperative for him to put down.
The man a woman has spoiled through love, or the woman
a man has spoiled, must be born again to be got back within
bounds.

"You don't ask how I happen to be home so early—nearly
an hour before supper," said he.

"It *is* early," replied she absently.

"I've made up my mind not to kill myself with work
and no exercise, and to give more time to my family.  I
had a chance to look at myself—at my way of life—from
the outside while I was in the East.  And I'm going to
try to live a more human life, though it'll not be easy to
work less, when Gallatin's leaving me."

Until he spoke Gallatin's name she had not heard a
word.  We are all surrounded at all times in our customary
haunts by a multitude of unchanging objects,
animate and inanimate.  We become practically unconscious
of them so long as they maintain the same relative position
toward us.  We notice only changes, only those changes
that are radical.  Richard had long been to Courtney a
mere familiar part of her environment—as she of his.  She
could look at him without seeing him, could answer him
without having really heard.  She could submit to his
caresses without any sense of them.  This unconsciousness
was not deliberate; it was far deeper, it was habitual.  At
Gallatin's name, however, she began to listen.

"Yes, he's going," said Richard.

She inspected the nail of her right little finger.  "Is
he?" she asked, head on one side critically and emery slip
poised.

"For good.  And I'm not sorry.  He's of less and less
use to me at the laboratory.  His mind isn't on it."  There
Richard laughed.

"I thought you felt you couldn't get on without him,"
said she, searching in a box for an orange-wood stick.

"That was some time ago.  I suppose you're glad he's
going."

"Why?"

"I know you don't like him.  You've been very good
about it, and I appreciate your being polite to him.  But
I can see that you dislike him."

She glanced in the mirror, arranged a stray of hair.
"You are mistaken."

"No, I'm not.  You've got the good woman's instinct
to please her husband, and you think you've conquered
your dislike.  But you haven't."

"How you understand women," said she placidly.
"But then there isn't much to understand about a
woman—a good woman."

"Oh, you underestimate yourself," said he generously.
"You're a very clever little lady—in your own charming
feminine way.  I often admire it."

A ghost of a smile flitted about her lips; but she seemed
more intent upon her nails than upon his half-absent
compliment.

"To confess the honest truth," he went on, "I've never
liked Gallatin myself.  I know he's a good sort—  But—  Well,
he has no depth.  He has a stock of education and
a stock of manners, just as he has a stock of clothes.  But
it's all of some one else's make; nothing of his own, except
a pleasant, amiable disposition.  And he lacks purpose.
However, all these things—especially lack of purpose—would
only recommend him to a woman.  Women are so
frivolously constituted that purpose is a bore to them."

"Any more of a bore than it is to most men?" inquired
Courtney.

Vaughan laughed acknowledgment.  "Anyhow, I
couldn't warm up to him.  He's going, but he keeps his
partnership—at least, for the present."

"Has he gone?"

"Of course not!  He'd hardly be so rude as not to
say good-by to you.  Do you know why I think he's going?"

"Didn't he tell you?"

"He says a business letter came at noon to-day.  And
no doubt it had something to do with it.  But mere
business would hardly take him off in such a rush.  At first I
thought it was a hurry call from some idle female for him
to come and amuse her.  All bachelors get them, and
Gallatin's just the sort of gander to respond.  But on second
thought I suspected he's flying because he's in love with
you."

Courtney, conscious that his eyes were on her face,
smiled.

"It's natural that you, being a good woman, shouldn't
notice it."

"Women sometimes think a man's in love with them
when he isn't," said she.  "But the woman never lived—good,
bad, or both—who didn't know when a man was in
love with her."

"Well, I may be mistaken.  But he had a queer way
of acting.  Why, only this morning he was lowering at me
like a demon."  Vaughan laughed.  "Poor Gallatin.  But
he'll pull through all right."

"No doubt," said Courtney.

"Sometimes—now and then—a man or woman in love,
and staying in some dull place, where there's nothing to do
but brood, does go under, with love one among the
contributing causes," pursued Richard.  "But not a city
person.  And Gallatin's going to New York."  Something in
her expression made him hasten to say: "Now, please don't
get angry.  I apologize.  I admit my joking was somewhat
coarse.  Naturally it grated on your modesty.  Really, I
was only joking.  I know he's going for business reasons.
Then, too, he has a grouch for me because of the fearful
punch I gave him.  No, he—any man who has led a free
life as long as he has—could no more appreciate a good
woman—a woman like you than—than—a drunkard could
appreciate a glass of pure, clear, sparkling spring water."

Courtney gathered her manicure set together, swept it
noisily into the drawer.  "Go out, and let me finish
dressing," said she in a low voice between her set teeth.

And he departed, saying: "What a relief it'll be to
have Gallatin off the place—to have it to ourselves again."

She sat motionless with her eyes down.  Presently she
lifted them, saw her reflection in the mirror.  She gazed
in horror.  She had relaxed the instant he left her alone,
and now all her anguish was in her features.  "A little
more of this," said she, "and I'd be an old woman."  She
passed her hands over her face, looked into her eyes.
"Spring water" flashed to her mind.  Her eyes wavered
and sank; her skin burned.  But her hungry heart
clamored defiantly.

When she reached the dining room her husband and
Basil and Winchie were already at the supper table.  As
they rose, Basil did not lift his eyes; her husband gave
her a glance of greeting.  But Richard, the married man
of five years, did not really see her face as it then was,
but the face that had long been fixed in his mind as hers.
To have seen her as she was, he would have had to be
startled out of matrimonial myopia by some shock.  There
was no arresting change flaunted in Courtney's features;
youth has no wrinkles and hollows in which the shadows
of emotion can gather thick and linger.  She simply looked
tired and not well.  Her eyes were veiled; but in her skin
there was a lack of the ruddy tinge beneath the bronze,
and in her hair, which was with her an unfailing index to
health or to spirits, there was a suggestion of the lifelessness
that is in the last wan autumn leaves the dreary winds
of November spurn.  In tones that seemed to them more
unnatural than they were, she and Basil exchanged the
commonplaces necessary on such an occasion.  Winchie
watched her sympathetically.  Presently he dropped down
from his chair, came round to her.  He put his arm about
her neck, drew her head toward him, kissed her tenderly,
and whispered, "Mamma is sick."

She kissed him, whispered: "Yes, dear, but you mustn't
say anything."

Winchie went back to his place.  The conversation was
wholly between the two men, the subject being, of course,
chemistry.  After supper Courtney pleaded a headache and,
having uttered the formulas prescribed for the parting and
having heard from him the formulas embodying his part
in such an exchange, withdrew.  Instead of being agitated,
she was in truth as calm as she seemed outwardly—and
numb.  She saw Winchie to bed, occupied herself mechanically
for an hour, then sat at one of the windows of her
front room looking out toward the lake.  When she thought
at all, it was of trifles; most of the time, during those two
hours of waiting, she did not think, but listened to the
beating of her blood as it made the ringing in the ears that
climaxes the oppression of an intense silence.

At length Richard came up.  He glanced in at her.
"How's the headache?" he inquired, laying a caressing
hand on her shoulder.

She moved; his hand fell away.  "No better," replied
she.  "Good night."

"You'll feel all right in the morning," he said.  He
kissed her crown of hair and departed toward his own
rooms—those that had been Basil's.

She heard him stirring about, first in his study just
across the hall, then in his bedroom.  Half an hour, and she
went on the balcony, to the corner of the house, to see if
his lights still showed.  All his windows were dark.  She
returned, listened at his door.  No sound.  She stole down
the stairs, unlatched the lake-front door, went out.  She
strolled across the lawn, in full view—for the moon was
rising.  At the edge of the shadows made by the bushes
round the summer house, she halted.

"Basil!" she called softly.

He came from the summer house and stood before her.
"It's safer to stay here," she said.  "We can watch the
house."

He made no protest.  He took her hands, drew her to
his breast.  Never before had he touched her without
feeling the glow and surge of passion; now he had no sense
of her physical beauty, of her physical charm, only sense
of the being he loved.

"Forgive me the horrible things I said, Courtney," he
murmured.  "It wasn't I that was speaking.  It was the
beginnings of what I was fast becoming."

"I know, I know," she answered.  "Kiss me, dear."

Their lips met in a caress of tenderness.  When she
spoke again she said: "Dear love, I never felt before how
much you care."

"I never realized before.  I'm beginning to realize.
You won't be long about arranging the divorce?"

"You must not get impatient—or misunderstand—if
I'm longer than you expect."

"I'll not misunderstand."

"There's Winchie, you know.  I must have Winchie."

"Yes, indeed.  You'll accomplish it," he said confidently.
"Be careful not to tell him too much.  Even if
he doesn't really love you, there's his vanity.  And that's
often stronger in a man than anything else."

"I'll not forget what's at stake....  He suspects that
you love me."

"I was afraid so, and this evening I told him I was
engaged.  He looked astounded."

"I can tell him that I love you, and he will
think—  No—no—what am I saying?  Lies, always lies! ... I'll
do the best I can, Basil."

"I know you will."

"You see now I was right in feeling you must go?"

"I felt it, Courtney, the moment we three stood
together there in my room—though I wouldn't admit it to
myself.  If I stayed, there'd be a crime, or a scandal
that'd spatter you with mud and brand you with shame.
It simply could not be otherwise."

"I haven't told you the real deep-down reason why
I felt you must go."

"No," he said.  "Your real reason was the same as mine."

"Because it was all so vulgar and—and cheap?"

"Cheap—that's it!" he exclaimed.  "Cheap!"

"I could stand it," she went on, "to commit and to
have you commit, big, bold sins, scarlet and black.  I might
even glory in it.  I wasn't a bit ashamed that first night.
I think I even got a sort of joy out of defying all I'd
been brought up to believe was moral and right and
lady-like.  But—  Not when we stood there, like two caught
sneak thieves."

"That was it, Courtney," eagerly assented he.  And
he went on, in a tone in which a less love-blinded woman
might have detected an accent of repentance for masculine
thoughts of disrespect: "No wonder I love you!  How
happy we shall be, when you're free.  How good and pure
you are—and innocent.  It needn't be long—in this
State—need it?"

"I think not," she laughed.  "Being a judge's daughter,
I ought to know.  But I don't."

"Look there!" he exclaimed, gazing toward the house.

She turned, saw a figure at the east corner of the house,
apparently looking toward where they were standing.  The
figure moved.  "Nanny," she said under her breath.  "I
must go."

He caught her to his breast; for an instant they clung
together, then with a last lingering handclasp, she left him,
to emerge from the deep shadow of the trees and stroll
back across the lawn.  Presently she pretended to catch
sight of Nanny, halted, changed her course, went toward
her.  "What is it, Nanny?" she asked.

Nanny turned without a word, started to go back toward
her kitchen.

"Nanny!" said she sharply.

The old woman stopped, turned.

"What do you mean by not answering me when I speak
to you?"

"I didn't know as you expected an answer," replied
Nanny, sullen and cowed, but insolent underneath.

"I asked you what you were doing here?"

The two women looked straight into each other's eyes.
"I just came out to get a breath of air—like you," said
Nanny.  "I don't see as there's any harm in that."

"Certainly not," said Courtney.  And she resumed her
stroll, back and forth across the lawn for three quarters
of an hour.

.. vspace:: 2

She did not come down to breakfast.  About nine o'clock
Richard, at the Smoke House, called her on the telephone.

"Gallatin cleared out on the midnight express," said he.
"Now, what do you think of that?"

"Why?"

"He left a note saying good-by and explaining that
he found he could make better time."

"Well?"

"Don't you think it a little queer?"

"No."

"Anyhow, he's gone.  I feel better already.  Don't you?"

"I can't say I do."

"Well—I'll see you at dinner."

"Yes—good-by."

She returned to her sitting room, all in a glow.  Basil
had gone because he, sensitive and honorable, wished to
spare himself the hypocrisy of a farewell handshake with
Richard—"and to end the suspense," she added.  "The
suspense!"  And she struck her hands against her
throbbing temples.

.. vspace:: 2

A few days and there came from New York a crate of
orchids, with only his card.  "That's what I call decent
and very handsome," declared Vaughan, roused to enthusiasm
by this attention.  "I must say I rather miss Basil,
now that he's really gone.  Don't you?"

"Yes," said Courtney.

"Which means no.  Don't even these orchids soften your
heart?  Think how he used to let you work him.  Oh,
women! women!  Orchids cost a lot of money, don't they?"

"Some kinds."

"When you write thanking him, do put cordiality and
friendliness into the note."

"Very well."

She sent eighteen closely written pages—a line about
the orchids, the rest an outpouring of love and longing—a
sad letter, yet hopeful—and ending with the injunction
that it be left unanswered.  "You must not write until you
hear from me," she said.  "And that will be soon—soon,
my love, my Basil!"

Next day Dick asked, "Have you thanked Basil for
those flowers?"

"Certainly."

"I wish you had let me see the letter.  I'll bet you
made it all frost.  You don't know how cold you are, Courtney.
Sometimes you chill even me, well as I know you....
I guess I'll write Basil a note, too—and let him see
that we did appreciate his thoughtfulness."

"As you please."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XIV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XIV

.. vspace:: 2

Five days since the letter to Basil, a fortnight since
he went, and the first move toward freedom not yet made.
Each day added its strength of loneliness and longing
to the resolve that became the guiding purpose of her life
when she sent him away.  But she must restrain her
eagerness, must compel herself to wait upon opportunity—upon
the favorable gust of event or emotion.  To be tactless and
abrupt would mean defeat; for, hard though it was to
realize, she must keep ever in mind that Richard had legal
right over Winchie.  Moral right she denied not only
because he was as much a stranger to Winchie as to herself,
but chiefly because a child belonged to its mother.  Indeed,
if she had not been brought up in a legal family it would
not have occurred to her that in any circumstances she
need disturb herself about having Winchie.  There was
nothing of pose or effusiveness about her love for him;
it was that deep and utter love which is not conscious of
itself, but simply is.  She and the boy were as much part
of each other as when his being was still hidden within
hers.  She knew that she and Winchie were one; but she
also knew the man-made law.  So in seeking her freedom
she must move carefully.  Sometimes she felt she must be
dreaming; it simply could not be possible that in arranging
her life she must take into account a person so utterly
alien and apart as this nominal husband of hers.

She had rarely seen him since Basil left.  He was
exercising—walking or rowing on the lake—very early in
the mornings.  But he spent the whole day at his work.
When he occasionally came to dinner or supper, he was
deep in his problems, was as unconscious of his wife and
child as his child was of him.  Courtney was no longer
unconscious of him.  As before, she did not see him when
she looked at him, did not listen when he talked, answered,
if answer was necessary, by a sort of reflex mental action
that never involved her real mind.  But she had the sense
of his presence—as keen when he was out of sight as
when he sat working or in a deep abstraction before her
eyes.  And she was constantly revolving how to begin the
revolt—for she saw more and more clearly that it would
be regarded by him as a revolt against womanliness, against
duty, against honor, against decency, would burst upon him
like thunder from clear sky, no matter how adroitly she
might begin.  Until then his ideas of woman had
impressed her only in a vague, general way.  She had
avoided thinking them out or hearing them from his own
lips because she knew definite knowledge would only make
the struggle to be a wife to him as far as she might the
more painful, the more humiliating.  But now, piece by
piece, his conception of womanhood and woman's place
fitted itself together in her mind from stray sentences
dropped by him from time to time in their five years.
Every day she recalled some forgotten or ignored remark
that added to the completeness of the record—and to its
discouragement.  As to the position of woman in the scheme
of things, he was untouched of any modern idea.  He was
just where his grandfather had been; and Colonel Achilles
Vaughan had been where the whole world had been since
the Oriental contempt for women reconquered Europe under
the banner of the Cross.

In one of the last warm days she half sat, half lay
in the hammock on the lake-front veranda, apparently idle,
really with a brain as industrious as a beehive.  Gradually,
however, the beauty of the scene—summer dying like a
lovely woman whose mortal disease only enhances
loveliness—stole in upon her and won her for the moment.  She
looked at the wonderful colors far and near, she drank
in the last potent draughts of summer's perfume.  And
suddenly she thought, "I would be divorcing all this,
too!"  These gardens that she had created; the house that she had
made over.  Why, these things were part of her very soul.
The same life throbbed in them that throbbed in her boy
and in herself—her own life blood!  The place was in
Richard Vaughan's name just as she herself was, just as
Winchie was.  But it was not his; it—all that made it
individual—was hers!

Most of us pass through the world, leaving little more
trace of our individuality than a traveler leaves in a hotel
room.  But Courtney had the creative instinct powerfully
developed.  She even never dressed in exactly the same way,
no matter how simple her costume or how often she wore
it; and her clothes were so individual that Richard the
absent spoke of hats and dresses she had worn several years
back.  And this place—it was like the picture the artist
keeps by him and touches and retouches.  Also, she now
realized for the first time how profoundly domestic she was
by nature.  Not by chance had she avoided the life of the
gadabout and meddler which is chosen by so many women
when they find themselves mismated, and so, without hope
of the normal life.  She had always classed herself with
the flyabout sort of women rather than with the domestic
sort; she had fallen into the common error of taking as
representative of the domestic type those dreary rotters
who sit at home inert and slovenly simply because it
requires less effort to stay at home than to dress and issue
forth.  Now she saw that she was domestic, was a
home-maker and a home-lover; and she understood a deeper
depth of her unhappiness—the unhappiness that comes
from being cheated out of one's dearest desires; for how
incomplete must be any home without love of husband and
wife.  And she understood why, as she made her surroundings
more and more like her dreams, her longing for love
had grown apace; she was like the bird that builds its nest,
and has nothing to put in it.

She had built this nest; now she must abandon it.
Heavier and heavier grew her heart, as she thought of
the years of thought and toil she had invested, as she looked
about at the results.  She rebuked herself almost fiercely—in
terror of the weakness to which these lamentings might
tempt her; in shame at the disloyalty to Basil.  "I'm
utterly selfish," she said to herself.  "I'm shrinking from
making any sacrifice at all."  There she stopped short in
a kind of terror.  "Sacrifice"—what a strange word to
use—what an ominous word—and how clearly it warned her
that delay was eating out courage, was strengthening her
natural woman's inertia.  Sacrifice!  She began to
picture what the new life would be—perfect sympathy,
companionship ever closer and closer, how she would grow
and expand, how Winchie would thrive in an atmosphere
of ideal love—and Basil and she would together create a
place, a home which would be incomparably lovelier than
this....  "Yes, I must establish my life on its
permanent basis."  Her life must be straightened out, must be
settled right.  Until it was based right, nothing could be
right; mind and heart would always be uneasy, and from
time to time in a turmoil.  "Nothing is settled," her father
often used to quote, "until it's settled right."  He was
thinking of large affairs, but the thing was just as true
of the affairs of private life.  Her and Richard's relations,
her and Basil's relations, and therefore her and Winchie's
relations, were awry, all awry.  There had been successive
adjustments; they had one after the other fallen to
pieces—because "nothing is settled until it's settled right."

That very evening, it so happened, for the first time
Richard made a remark that gave her an opening.  "Why
don't you stay down in the evenings?" said he.  "It
doesn't disturb me for you to play and sing in the sitting
room when I'm in the library."

"The last few times I did it," replied she, "you slipped
away to the shop."

He reddened, laughed guiltily.  "Did I?  Well—perhaps
in certain moods——"

"Oh, I'm not complaining," she assured him.  "I've
got used to our leading separate lives—long ago....  I
like it as much as you do."

"Separate lives," said he reflectively.  "It's true, we
don't see much of each other.  Husbands and wives rarely
do, when the man amounts to anything, or is trying to
amount to anything."

"Unless they work together."

"And that's impossible where people are of our station."

Our station!  Her lip curled and her heart protested.
How could a human being with a human heart talk of a
station too high for love—love that was the soul of life.

"Also," continued he, reflective and absent, "it's out
of the question where the husband is pursuing an intellectual
occupation."  Even had he not been merely thinking
aloud, it would not have occurred to him that there was any
slur in a statement of an elementary axiom as to the
different spheres of the two sexes.  "And," he went on,
"it's unnecessary to married happiness, as we've proved.
You had an idea once—do you remember?—"

"Yes—I remember."

"If I'd let you have your foolish, impulsive, romantic
way, and you'd been at my elbow down at the shop, where
I get irritable and cranky—we'd not have made our
present record—would we?"

She shivered.  "No," she said faintly.

"Five years with hardly a misunderstanding, and not
one quarrel."

His words, his manner—complacent, content—calmly
possessive—dried up her courage and her hope.  But she
held to her purpose.  She said, "We're not interested
enough in each other to quarrel."

He laughed, assuming she was jesting.  "That's it!
That's exactly it."

"I was speaking seriously.  It's the truth.  We care
nothing about each other."

"Courtney!" he admonished.  "Aren't you carrying
the joke too far?  I don't think you realize how that
sounds."

"I realize how it *is*."

He looked at her curiously.  "Why, I thought you were
joking."

"Not in the least."

"How pale your face is.  And what a strange expression
round the mouth—and your eyes are circled.  Are you
ill, dear?"

"Absolutely well.  It's the strain of getting ready to
say these things to you."  She saw he was observing her
like a physician studying a patient.  "No, I'm not insane,
either," said she good-humoredly.

"What's happened to upset you?"

She put one knee in a chair, leaned toward him over its
back, her elbows upon it.  Said she, "It isn't a matter of
to-day, but of five years—or, rather, of four years."

He straightened up in his chair.  She imagined that his
grandfather, old Colonel Achilles, must have looked like that
at the same age.  "What *are* you talking about?" he demanded.

"About our failure as a married couple," replied she,
meeting his gaze with calm courage.

"Failure!" exclaimed he.  "Why, our married life is
ideal.  I wouldn't have it changed in the least
particular."  He nodded his handsome, powerful head.  "Not in the
least particular."

She had expected him to say something like this.  But
the actual words, spoken with sincerity and conviction,
stopped her.  Her road had ended against the face of a
cliff with a precipice on either side.

"I want to be free," she said desperately.  "I must
be free!"

"Free?  You *are* free."

"I mean free from marriage," explained she gently,
"free to make my own life."

He reflected, looked at her, reflected again.  She saw,
as plainly as if his thoughts were print before her eyes, that
he had decided she was a spoiled child in a pet, that he was
trying to find some kindly, effective way of humoring her.
But to take her words seriously, to meet her on a plane of
equality—the idea had not occurred to the grandson of
Achilles Vaughan, and could not occur to him.  Anger
boiled up in her, evaporated.  She laughed.

He glanced at her quickly.  "Oh, you were joking!"
said he in a relieved tone.

"That wasn't why I laughed.  It was to save myself
from doing something ridiculous—shouting out, or upsetting
the table, or running amuck."

"No matter.  It's clear to me that you're not yourself
this evening—not at all."

"Richard," said she slowly, "I know it's hard for you
to believe a woman's not a fool.  I don't expect you to
credit me with intelligence.  Perhaps you might if I were
a big, fat woman with a loud voice.  But I'm not.  So,
assume I'm as silly a fool as—as most women pretend to
be, to catch husbands and to use them after they're caught.
But please assume also that, whatever I am or am not, I
want my freedom.  And try to realize that we women are
living in the twentieth century as well as you men—and not
in the tenth or fifteenth."

His expression was serious and respectful; he was not
one to fail in polite consideration for the feminine—the
wayward, capricious, irrational feminine with which stronger
and rational man should ever be patient and gentle.  But
she saw that he was in reality about as much impressed as
he would have been by a demand for the open cage door
from a canary born and bred to captivity and helplessness.
He came round the table, put his hands tenderly on her
shoulders, pressed his lips in a husbandly caress upon the
coil of auburn hair that crowned her small head.  "You're
tired and nervous to-night, dear," said he with grave
kindness.  "So we'll not talk about it any more.  Go to bed,
and get a good night's sleep.  Then——"

She rose, found herself at a disadvantage standing
before one so much taller, sat down in another chair.  "Yes,
I am tired and I am nervous.  But I'm also in earnest.
Why, if we weren't strangers, you'd realize.  You'd have
felt it long ago.  Can't you see I'm nothing to you or you
to me that is, nothing especial—nothing that ought to
satisfy either of us?"  She was trying to speak with serious
calmness; the very effort overstrained her.  And his face—its
expression was so hopeless!  She was speaking a
language he did not understand, was speaking of matters of
which he had not the faintest glimmer of knowledge.  Her
voice broke; she steadied it.  It broke again.  She began to
sob.  "This life of ours is a degradation.  It's like a
stagnant pool—it's death in life.  I can't stand it.  I want
love—want to give love and get it!  My whole being cries
out for love!  I'm dying here of the empty heart.  I must
go.  I ask you to be just—to give me my right—my freedom——"

It was his expression that stopped her.  He was not listening
to her words at all.  He was simply waiting for her
to talk out her hysteria, as he thought it, so that he could
begin to soothe the agitated child.  She threw out her arms
in despair.

"Go on, dear," he urged.  "Say all you want.  You'll
feel better for it."

The cliff, with choice between turning back and leaping
over one of the precipices on either side—the precipice of
flight to Basil in secrecy and dishonor, with Winchie, or
the precipice of a divorce with Winchie taken away from
her.  She buried her face in her arms and burst into wild
sobs.  With Winchie taken away from her!  If she fled, he
would follow, would take Winchie.  If she divorced him,
he would take Winchie.  It was hopeless—hopeless.  There
was no escape.  Sobbing, she ran round and round her
prison's outer court to which she had penetrated.  It had no
gates—none!  He waited until she was quiet, except that
her shoulders heaved occasionally.  "Poor dear!" he said
tenderly.  "Poor child!"  And he took her in his arms.
She felt physically and morally too weak for the least
struggle.  She lay passive against his breast, her
heartache throbbing dully.  He carried her upstairs, laid her
gently on the sofa at the foot of her bed.  "Now you feel
better, don't you?" said he, bending over her and smiling
sympathetically down.

She gazed at him with forlorn, hopeless eyes, then rested
her head weakly against the cushions in the corner of the
sofa.

"Of course, I understood that what you were saying a
while ago was only a nervous mood.  But it gave me a shock,
too.  I know now what was the matter."

She grew cold, rigid.  Did he suspect?  Would he take
Winchie?

"I admit I've been neglecting you lately.  Gallatin's
leaving put a lot of work on me.  And, too, I read an article
that gave me a silly scare—made me afraid I'd be anticipated
in one of my discoveries if I didn't push things.  But
even if I was negligent, I can't see how you could get the
notion in your head that you weren't loved any more."  He
sat down by her on the sofa, kissed the nape of her neck.
"I'll make up for it," he murmured.  "Why, it'd be as
impossible for me to stop loving you as for you, a good
woman, to stop loving your husband.  The idea of *you*
talking divorce!"  He laughed boyishly.  "You and I—divorced!
What a naughty child it was!  It seems dreadful
that those pure lips could be sullied by such a word.  But
it never was in your heart.  A woman like you, a woman I
trust my honor to, and trust my boy to, couldn't think such
things."

His words and manner, all tenderness, were for her
reminders of the Vaughan prejudice and the Vaughan will
and the Vaughan pride that lay behind; the clang of iron
doors, the grate of brass keys in steel locks.  She, back in
her cell and prostrate on its floor, felt she must indeed have
been driven out of her senses by heart hunger to imagine
she could get freedom and Winchie from Richard Vaughan.
How love and hope had tricked her!

"Asleep, dear?"

"No."

"You don't doubt my love any longer, do you?"

She moved restlessly.

"Still cross?"  He took her in his arms in spite of her
struggles, began to caress her.  And she who had never
resisted did not know how to resist now—did not dare to
resist, so cowed was she by fear of losing Winchie, so
utterly was she despising herself—"nothing but a woman."  She
endured till reaction stung her into crying out in
anguish: "For God's sake, Richard!  I am so miserable!"

"I'm sorry," he said contritely.  "I thought you wanted
it."  He rose at once.  "Would you like to be left alone?"

"Please."

"You forgive me for neglecting you?

"Anything!" she cried.  "Only go.  If you don't, I
shall—"  She pressed her lips together tightly and drew
all her nerves and muscles tense to keep back the avowal
that was fighting for exit.

"I'll give up my work until you feel better."

"No—no.  I don't want—  Go—please go!  For
Winchie's sake—for mine—for your own."

He did not attach enough importance to her words to
note them and inquire.  When the door closed behind him,
she drew a long breath—not so much relief that she was
alone, as relief that, before seeing how useless it was to try
to escape, she had not burst out with the whole truth.  A
turn of the wind of emotion before he spoke of Winchie,
and she would have told all!  Even after he had reminded
her—yes, even until the door closed between them, she
might still have been goaded by her despair or by his
manner into precipitating the cataclysm——

"For he'd never have let me see Winchie again!"  And—what
else would he have done?—what would he not have
done?  She put out her lights and, without drawing aside
the portière, softly opened Winchie's door and entered.
She dropped down by his bed, slipped her hand under the
cover, delicately warm from his healthy young body.  Her
fingers rested upon his breast over his heart.  That calm,
regular throb of young life beat upon her spirit like the
soft, insistent rain that soothes the storm-racked sea.

Winchie!  If she had lost him!  If she had brought
disgrace upon him!  She drew her hand away lest its
trembling should waken him.  The room was pitch dark, but
she could see him lying there, his tumbled fair hair against
the white pillow, his round cheeks flushed with healthy
sleep.  She sat on the floor beside the bed, listening to his
breathing.  She had gone down to the gates of the world
and had led him through them into life.  Claim upon him
she had none—for he owed her nothing, and if his lot were
not happy he would have the right to blame her.  No, he
owed her nothing; but his claim upon her was for the last
moment of her time, for the last thought of her brain, for
the last drop of her blood.

"If it were not for Winchie," she said to herself, "I'd
go to Basil.  I'd leave here to-night.  I owe nothing to
Dick.  While his way of looking at life is not his fault,
neither is it mine.  And as it's his way, not mine, he should
suffer for it, not I.  But for Winchie I must stay—and live
and make this house a home."

Never again would there be the least danger of her
being goaded into telling Richard and defying and
compelling him.  No delirium, not even a fever like a maniac loose
in the brain and hurling all its tenant thoughts helter-skelter
through the lips, could dislodge that secret.  It was sealed
with the great seal of a mother's love.

.. vspace:: 2

When she came down to breakfast, Dick was at one of
the long windows, back to the room, hands deep in trousers'
pockets.  At her "Good morning," he turned quickly.
Before he answered, he noted her expression, and his face
brightened.  He kissed the cheek she turned for him as
usual, and they seated themselves.  In came Mazie with the
coffee; it had the delicious fragrance that proclaims fine
coffee well made, the fragrance that will put the grouchiest
riser into an amiable frame of mind.  Then she brought the
spoon bread and an omelette—not the heavy, solid, yellow-brown
substantiality that passes for omelette with the general,
but a light and airy, delicately colored thing of beauty
such as a skilled cook can beat up from eggs the hens have
laid within the hour.

"Feeling all right this morning?" asked Dick when
Mazie had gone out.

"Perfectly," replied Courtney, her smiling eyes like the
dark green of moss round where the spring bubbles up.
She was rearranging the flowers in the bowl.

"Sleep well?"

She had not slept at all.  She evaded his question by
saying: "I was very much upset last night, wasn't I?"

Dick made a gesture of generous dismissal.  "Oh, I
knew it was only a passing mood," said he, helping himself
liberally to the omelette.  "Everybody has moods.  Do give
me some of that coffee."

Strange indeed was the expression of that small, quiet
face.  What a chaos a few blundering words from her a
few hours ago would have put in place of this domestic
content of his!  "I want to say one thing more," said she,
"and then we'll never speak of last night—or what led up
to it."

"Yes, dear?"

"We talked a lot about ourselves—and I was thinking
altogether of myself, I find.  But the truth is, Winchie's
the only important fact in our lives.  We don't belong to
ourselves.  We belong to him."

"That's not exactly the way I'd put it," said he hesitatingly.
"Do try this spoon bread.  Mazie's a wonder at
making it.  Do try it."

"Not just now," said she.  "No, I know you wouldn't
put it that way.  Put it any way you like.  But it must be
Winchie first, last, and all the time.  We must see to it that
he has the right sort of example—from you—from me—from
us both."

Dick nodded approvingly, and when his mouth was
said: "There's no disputing that.  Where is he, by
the way?"

"He'll be down in a minute," replied Courtney; then
went on unruffled: "If you and I had had love before our
eyes in our homes when we were children——"

"But I did.  And I'm sure your father and mother were
an equally fine example——"

"No matter," interrupted Courtney.  Then she said, in
a tone that revealed for the first time how profoundly moved
she was: "The point is I want you to help me make a
home—of love for Winchie."

"By all means!" exclaimed Dick heartily.

He stirred his coffee thoughtfully, looked at her with
puzzled eyes; and she saw that his keen, analytic mind,
usually reserved wholly for his work, was curiously
inspecting her words and her manner for the meaning that must
be beneath so much earnestness about a passing anger over
a few days of neglect.  She said no more—and was glad
when Winchie came rushing in to turn the current of his
thoughts.  As he was leaving for the shop, he hunted her
out in the library to kiss her good-by—a thing he had not
done in several years.

She colored, made an effort, kissed him.

"I'm sorry for my negligence since Basil left me in
the lurch," said he cheerfully.  "And you're sorry you
flew into such a fury about it.  And it's all settled—and
forgotten?"

"We—make a fresh start," replied she.

"I'll come and take a walk with you before dinner."

"No—no.  Please don't.  You mustn't change abruptly."  She
stopped, confused to find herself already shrinking
from the new course she had so highly resolved.  "Yes—do
come," said she.

"Oh—I forgot.  There's one thing I simply must
attend to to-day."

"Then—to-morrow."

"Yes—to-morrow we'll make the start—the fresh start."

"Very well," said she, relieved—for she felt she had
done her duty.

Instead of going out immediately for a walk with
Winchie, as was the habit, she lingered about the house,
keeping herself busily occupied.  She must write Basil.
What she said must be final, for she owed him the truth.
And she must not say much; a long letter would give him
hope, no matter what words she used, and would harrow
him in the reading and her in the writing.  At last she
put on hat and even gloves for the walk, sat hastily down
at her desk, wrote: "I cannot.  I belong to my boy, not
to myself."  She wished to add, "I shall try to forget.  So
must you, for my sake—" and also some word of love.  But
with the two sentence she halted her pen.  She read what
she had written—"I cannot.  I belong to my boy—not to
myself."  She folded the sheet, sealed it in an envelope,
addressed it.  As she reached for the stamp she called
Winchie.  They went out together, and she mailed the
letter in the box at the edge of town.  Well, it was settled—once
more.  Was this final?  "Nothing is settled until it's
settled right."  And she said to herself that this
settlement was undoubtedly right—that is, as nearly right as
anything ever is.  Yes, it was settled—but her father's
uncompromising axiom continued to reiterate its clear-cut,
unqualified assertion.

"Why did you sigh, mamma?" asked the boy.

"Did I sigh?" said she, trying to smile as she looked
down at him.

"Yes—and you haven't been listening as we came along.
You didn't hear what I said about the dead whip-poor-will
I found on the lawn—did you?"

"No," she confessed.  "But I'll listen now."

She found herself wondering at her calmness.  "Perhaps,"
reflected she, "my fright about Winchie conquered
my love.  And how deep the roots of my life are sunk into
the soil of this place!  Still—I don't understand it.  It
doesn't seem natural I should be calm."  There flashed
before her mind a picture—herself flying disheveled—coming
forward with laughter and jest—and lie—with the
sting of forbidden kisses still upon her face—the thrill of
forbidden caresses—  And she flushed crimson as the
autumnal maples above her head, and glanced guiltily down at
Winchie—and saw that he was trying to pretend not to see.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XV

.. vspace:: 2

Long before Dick got caught up with the particular
piece of work that postponed their "fresh start," Courtney's
"queer mood" and his own resolution were shelved
in one of those back closets of his memory where reposed
in darkness and dust matters relating to his family.  He
forgot nothing; his was not the forgetting kind of mind.
Everything was stored away somewhere, under its proper
heading, ready for him if he should happen to need it.  But
for that especial matter there came no demand.  His happy
married life had resumed its unrippled course.  He worked,
with allowance for exercise—usually a long walk or a row
on the lake in the very early morning, before breakfast.
Courtney occupied herself with house and garden.  She
was building a vegetable greenhouse with a small legacy
from an aunt; also, there was the household routine of a
multitude of time-filling, thought-filling, not to be
neglected details for keeping things smooth and orderly—and
there were reading and painting and music—and there
were callers and visits.  She even began to be philosophical
about the almost daily evidences that her husband
regarded her as an inferior.  All men felt that way toward
women.  The very men who never made a move without
consulting their wives thought themselves superior intelligences,
and their wives mere possessors of a crafty instinct,
in common with the lower animals, an instinct that was
worth availing themselves of, as long as it was right there
in the house.  No, she was a silly supersensitive, she told
herself, to be disturbed by such a ridiculous universal
masculine weakness of vanity.  As husbands went, Richard
was about as good as any—better than most.

The evenings they spent together.  A charming picture
of family life they made each evening during that rare,
exquisite September.  The big log fire in the sitting room;
he at the desk, she reading or sewing, or, less frequently,
playing and singing softly.  She had never been lovelier.
The slightly haggard look was becoming to her young face,
and the weariness of the eyelids also, and the pathos of
her mouth so eager to smile, and the milky emerald of the
eyes, like seas troubled so deep down that the surface was
only clouded, but not ruffled.  Sometimes she let Winchie
stay with them an hour or so.  Then the picture was
complete—the boy playing on the floor before the fire, making
what he called drawings at the table, always between his
father and his mother, always nearer his mother, near
enough to put out his hand and touch her and make quite
sure of the reality of her lovely presence.  Yes, she assured
herself many times each day, the struggle was over; the
pain would grow less and less, would pass—for the
question of her life relations was settled—"and settled
right."

This until mid-October, when the bleak rains inaugurated
what promised to be a worse than the previous winter.
On the fourth successive day indoors, as she sat at
a drawing table in the upstairs sitting room, she
suddenly lifted her head, thrust back the table, flung down
the pencil, and rushed to the window.  The lawns were
flooded.  Bushes and trees were drearily fluttering the last
wet faded tatters of autumnal finery.
Decay—desolation—death—  "Will he never come!  Will
he never write!"  And the secret of her calm, so
carefully guarded from herself, was a secret from her no longer.

It had been a farce—the six weeks of resignation.  One
of self-deception's familiar farces; those farces that finally
make old people cynical in spite of themselves about the
reality of disinterested goodness, of self-sacrifice, of
anything except selfishness.  A farce—nothing more.  That
was why she could write a brief farewell and send it off
with merely a pang and a sigh.  And ever since she had
been confidently waiting for something to happen.
Something?  What but his coming—coming to give her again
the love that was life and light to her, the love she could
no more refuse than a drowning man can withhold his
hand from clutching the rope though the devil himself toss
it.  And once more her father's maxim, "Nothing is
settled until it's settled right," began to thrust itself at
her—mockingly now, as if deriding her self-deceiving
attempts to found her life upon conditions to which mind
and conscience had agreed, but not heart.  And heart, the
most powerful of the trinity that must harmonize within
a human being or there is no peace—heart had suddenly
torn up the treaty of peace and declared war.  And war
there was.

About seven that evening Dick knocked at her bedroom
door.  "May I come?" he called.

"Yes—if you won't stay long," was her reply in a
listless tone.

He entered, looked surprised when he saw her propped
up in bed with her supper tray in her lap.  "Are you ill?"

"No."

"You didn't come down to supper."

"No."

"I don't think I ever knew you to do this before."

"No."

"Your voice sounds—strange—tired."

"I am."

"You don't exercise enough, I guess.  And there's little
for you to do about the house—with Lizzie looking after
the flowers and Nanny such a good housekeeper and Mazie
such a splendid cook.  We're getting the benefit of my
aunt's toil.  She built up such a splendid system that it
runs itself—and there's really not enough for you to do.
You ought to——"

"Won't you take this tray—take it down with you?"

"Don't you want me to sit a while?"

"Don't let me interfere with your work."

"Oh, there's no hurry."

"I'm sure you want to be at it."

He took the tray from her lap, put it on the floor beside
his chair.  She reached for the book on the stand at her
elbow, opened it, seemed to be waiting for him to go.  He
glanced round uncertainly.  "What a charming room this
is," said he.  "That pale brown paper with the panels
made by broad violet stripes—  Let me see—was this one
of the rooms you did over?"

She was reading.

"Yes of course.  In my aunt's time—  You'd have
admired her, and she'd have been invaluable as a teacher.
But then she taught Nanny; and Nanny's been very good
about teaching you, hasn't she?"

No answer.

He laughed.  "We've got a rather bad habit of not
listening—haven't we?"

"Oh—I don't mind."

He glanced at the tray.  "Why, you didn't eat anything!"

"No."

"Are you quite sure you're not ill?"

"Quite."

"Well, if there's anything I can——"

"Nothing, thanks."

He went to the bed, bent over and kissed her.  "Good
night."

"Good night."  She was reading again; and his
thoughts returned to his work as he closed her bedroom
door behind him.  If he had looked in on her an hour later,
he might have seen that she had not yet turned the page
she pretended to begin, to get rid of him—or, rather, to
help him go where he really wished to be.  And he would
have distrusted her assurance that she was not ill.  For
her eyes, wide and circled and wretched, were staring into
space.  She was indeed ill—ill of loneliness, of heart-emptiness,
of that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick.
And the rain streamed on and on.  The sight of it by day
filled her with the despair that lowers and rages.  The
sound of it monotonously pattering upon the balcony at
night changed her despair from active to passive, from vain
revolt to lying inert in the wash of inky waves under inky
sky.

The sympathy between her and Winchie was so close
that they were like one rather than like two.  He had early
discovered her sensitiveness to the weather, but never
before had he seen her frankly downhearted.  He did not
annoy her.  He watched her furtively, his little heart
aching.  He spent most of his time near the west windows
of the upstairs sitting room.  From them, now that the
trees were almost bare, he could see part of the Donaldson's
roof—the part topped by a weather vane.  He knew
that so long as the vane pointed east the rains would pour
down, and his mother's low spirits would continue—that
when it should veer to the west the rain would cease and
the sky clear.

Day after day he watched, his hopes rising as the vane
veered now toward the north, now toward the south, and
falling again as, with a jerk, it flirted back into the eye
of the east.  That vane was the last thing he saw as the
darkness closed down in the late afternoon; it was the first
thing he looked at in the morning, dashing to the window
the instant he awakened.  The change came in the night,
when it finally did come.  As he awakened, the difference
in the light, in the feel of the air told him that all was
well once more.  But he made sure; he hurried to one of
his windows, turned the slats of a blind, looked at the
vane.  Then, with a shout, he darted to her door, beat
upon it, crying: "Mamma!  Mamma Courtney!  The
wind's west—the wind's west!"

She understood, opened the door.  She had made her
face bright.  "Thank you—thank you," she said, with a
catch in her voice, as she knelt and took him in her arms.
He put one of his small hands on each of her cheeks, kissed
her, then looked into her eyes.  His face fell.  She could
not deceive him; it had not been the rain.

The wind was in the west; her mood veered—but to another
futility.  She watched for the postman.  She startled
and ran to the window at every crunch of wheels on the
drive.  She was agitated whenever the telephone bell rang.
At night every suggestion of sound from the direction of
the window made her lift her head from the pillow to
listen; and often she would fly to open a shutter and lean
out into the darkness.  She would not go to Wenona, lest
he should come while she was away.  She never left the
house for a walk without telling the servants just where
she was going—"and if anyone comes, send for me."

Never before had she surrendered to the somber mood;
she had always met it by taking up some one of the things
at hand that interested her, and working at it until health
and youth and hope reasserted themselves.  But this time
she could find nothing to build upon; it was all quicksand,
slipping away and leaving her to sink.  She no
longer cared about her surroundings.  She had always seen
to it that the servants she had so thoroughly trained in
a modern system she had carefully worked out did their
duties, and did them well.  Now she let the servants do as
they pleased—and they soon pleased to do very poorly—as
poorly as the average human being does, unless held
rigidly from his natural tendencies to slovenliness and
shirking.  She had always done the buying for the kitchen,
and had herself selected at the farm the things to be sent
over.  Now the good old days of Aunt Eudosia returned,
with the farmer sending whatever gave him or one of "the
hands" the least trouble, and with Nanny accepting from
the storekeepers what they chose at their own price.  The
bills went up; yet the meat was often tough, the chickens
and game inferior, the butter and eggs only fair, instead
of the very best.  Canned vegetables appeared on the table
when fresh vegetables were still to be had.  The coffee was
capricious.  The table itself was carelessly set; napkins
were used several times, instead of only once; tablecloths
did not always go into the wash with the first spot.  Lizzie
and Mazie lost no opportunity to cut down the amount of
work they would have to do on wash and ironing days.

In the living rooms, upstairs as well as down, there was
no longer the beautiful order that had made the interior a
pleasure to the eye and so comfortable.  A chair had only
three casters; a door was losing its knob.  A window
curtain had broken away from its rod at one corner and was
hanging down.  Several cushions had rips in them that
would soon be rents.  Winchie's ravages remained
unrepaired—and unrebuked.  The flowers in the vases were not
fresh every day, and were arranged by a servant's heavy
hands.  Window gardens and baskets and hothouse
suffered from alterations of drought and deluge, and showed
it.  The red spider was rarely interrupted in his ruinous
feasts.  Where order has been perfect, brief neglect
produces unsightly disorder.  The house was becoming like
most houses—indifferently looked after by women who
know little about housekeeping as an art and feel "above"
the endless petty details that must be attended to, no
matter what the enterprise, if there is to be success.  The work
of changing the library to a winter conservatory had, like
the vegetable greenhouse, been begun, and abandoned
midway.

From the house the blight spread to herself.  It is
well-nigh impossible for a person who has been bred from
birth in personal order and cleanliness to become really
slovenly and dirty, unless beaten down into the hopeless
wretchedness of extreme poverty.  But Courtney had lost
interest in herself, just as she had lost interest in the
house.  She got herself together "any old way" in the
mornings, took to breakfasting in bed.  Sometimes she
dressed for supper, and sometimes she came in working or
walking clothes or in the négligée she had been wearing
all day.  Sometimes her blouse was buttoned in the back,
oftener it was partly open.  Wrinkled stockings had been
her especial abhorrence, as she was proud of her slim
tapering legs; now she habitually went the whole day without
garters.  She read much, and always novels.  Formerly
their pandering to "spirituality," to "culture," to all
the silly and enfeebling sentimentalisms had bored her.
They had offended her sense of what was truly ideal—for,
even thus early in her development, she had a strong
suspicion that "idealism" was not a mode of life but a strut,
and that "idealists" were not above but beneath usefulness.
Now she took novels as a drug fiend his dope.  Anything
to escape reality—the ugly facts which her negligence
was making uglier day by day.

She was in the way trod by so many women who, married
and safe, cease to compete and deteriorate physically,
morally, and mentally.  And she knew it.  She had too
much intelligence to delude herself, as some women do.
Instead of being angered when evidence of her plight
thrust at her, she found bitter satisfaction in it.  "I'll
soon be down to the level of those 'good' women Dick
regards as models," thought she.  And she read on at her
novels.

And still she continued to hope, though she constantly
assured herself that hope was dead and buried.  It was
nearly Christmas; he had been gone more than four
months—a hundred and thirty days.  No word from him, no sign.
"It's over," declared she.  "It was just physical
attraction, nothing more.  And he got enough."  This lash upon
pride and vanity stung.  But the pain seemed to ease
another and fiercer pain, and she scourged on.  "He got
enough.  In New York he found fresh attraction—not
hard for a man with money and free."  Yes, he had
used her, despising her the while—how she writhed as she
rubbed the coarse salt of these taunts into her wounds!—had
used her, despising her the while, had cast her away,
like the butt of a smoked cigarette.  "And why shouldn't
he use and despise and drop me?  Could anyone have been
'easier' than I was—I, poor fool, with my dreams of love,
and my loneliness and credulity?  Well, anyhow he ought
to be grateful to fate for having given him a distraction in
this dull hole." ... What vanity had been hers, to
imagine she could win and hold such a man as he—man of the
world, experienced, clever.  What colossal vanity!  "Really,
I deserve all I've got.  I'm just like the rest of the
women—a vanity box, a mirror and a powder puff, silly and
empty—a fool for men to flatter and wheedle and laugh
at....  What a poor, dependent thing a woman is!  Dick's
right; we're worthless except as pastimes.  Don't we always
despise and trample on a man who takes us seriously?  We
feel he has dropped down to our level."

She dissected, one by one, the "good" women over in
the town and in the big houses along the south shore—their
inane lives, their inane pastimes, their inane conversation.
What animal grossness concealed by manners and
a thin veneer of education, just as their costly clothes
concealed the truth about their neglected bodies.  What lazy
ignorance beneath those pretentious fads for "culture" or
religion or charity.  And the men, too—through their
passions dominated by these women.  Not an idea—not an
aspiration—just hunting and money-making and eating and
drinking—catering to crude appetites.  Slavish conformity
to the soddening, mind-suffocating routine prescribed
by custom for the comfortable classes.  Fit associates,
these men and their women.  The nauseating hypocrisies
and self-cheating about virtue and piety and "pure
family life!"  A pigsty of a world, if one looked at it as
it was, instead of at its professions and pretenses.  "I'd
rather be the dupe of my own honest folly than the dupe
of the world's cheap frauds.  At least, I aspired.  And
now that I've fallen back into the muck, all bruised and
broken, I don't lie to myself about its being muck....
And what can I do for Winchie?  If I teach him what he
ought to be, I'll unfit him for life in the world.  If I fit
him for life in the world, I must teach him to pretend, to
cheat, to lie, to trample and cringe.  If I teach him the
truth about women, he'll become a rake.  If I don't, he'll
become their dupe.  If I teach him the truth about men,
he'll shun them.  If I don't, they will debauch him."

A wound always constructs a cover, to protect itself
while it is healing.  The wounded heart of an intelligent
man or woman usually protects itself with the scab of
cynicism.  For the last few years Courtney had shared with
Wenona's few progressive, restless young married women
that reputation for thinking and saying startling things
which anyone at all free in thought and speech soon gets
among conventional people.  Now she became a mild scandal.
Wenona appreciated that it was the fashion in these
degenerate days, the mark of the "upper class," to indulge
in audacities of every kind.  Also, whatever a Benedict
and a Vaughan did must be just about right.  But sometimes,
when she was in a particularly insurgent mood, her
callers went away dazed.

They wondered what her husband thought of such disbelief
in everything that men, themselves disbelieving, held
it imperative for women to believe—women and children
and preachers.  The fact was he knew nothing about it.
Conversation between him and his wife was confined to
the necessary routine matters, and never extended beyond
a few sentences.  They saw each other at table only; then
Winchie did most of the talking, or it grew out of and
centered round things he had inquired about.  Richard and
Courtney neither acted nor felt like strangers.  That would
have meant strain.  They ignored each other with the easy
unconsciousness that characterizes an intimate life in which
there is no sympathy, no common interest.  When Richard
talked about his work, as he did occasionally, merely the
better to arrange his thoughts, Courtney did not listen.
When Courtney and Winchie talked together, Richard did
not listen.

.. vspace:: 2

"You saw the news in to-day's paper?" said Richard
at supper a few days after Christmas.

As he continued to look expectantly at her, she roused
herself from her reverie, slowly grasped his question.  "I
didn't read to-day's papers," answered she.

"Well, Gallatin's engagement's announced—from Philadelphia."

She nerved herself for the reaction of inward turmoil
which would, she felt, certainly follow such a blow.  To
her amazement no reaction came.  She felt as calm as if
the news had been about some one of whom she had never
heard.

"Why, you seem not to be interested."

"Oh, yes," replied she indifferently.

"I remember, you didn't like him."

It almost seemed true to her.  Or, rather, that she had
never cared about him one way or the other.

"And he so mad about you," continued Richard with
raillery.  "I'll never forget the looks he used to give you—or
the ones he gave me, either.  Well, it's all over now.
He's evidently cured."

"Evidently," said Courtney.  She looked calmly at
him, shifted her gaze.  It happened to fall upon Winchie.
The boy was frowning jealously into his plate.  She colored.
She never had the slightest self-consciousness about
Basil with Richard, but only with the boy.  However, the
reminder soon passed in marvel at her amazing tranquillity.
How could she be thus calm in face of such a blow?  Had
she really conquered her love?  Had this sudden, unexpected
news of his perfidy killed it all in an instant?  Had
she never loved him?

Richard had been talking, and she had been so absorbed
she had not heard.  Now he was holding a letter across the
table toward her.  Mechanically she reached out, took it,
fixed her eyes upon it.  "And Mrs. Torrey says," Richard
was explaining, "that we ought to ask Cousin Helen
here—for a few months at least—until she gets over her
father's death."

"Wenona's no place for a girl in search of a husband."

"A husband!" exclaimed Richard.  "Who said anything
about a husband?"

"Now that her father's dead, with nothing but a small
life insurance, she's got to marry."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"That's what Mrs. Torrey's saying between these
lines."  And she handed the letter back.

"Mrs. Torrey's a fine, noble old lady.  Such sordid
ideas never'd enter her head."

"Mrs. Torrey's a woman."

"And a good one—and so is Helen," maintained Richard.
"Marrying's about the last idea in her head at present."

"I believe that is the theory—among men who know
nothing about women."

"She's doubtless almost prostrated with grief."

"With anxiety, perhaps.  Not with grief.  Not for a
worthless old drunkard."

"You forget, Courtney.  He was her *father*."

Courtney lifted her eyebrows.  "So much the more
certain she detested him.  She had to live right up against
him."

Richard leaned forward slightly, to add emphasis to
his rebuke.  "I repeat, Helen is a good woman—a woman
with a sense of duty.  She must have loved him."

"Why repeat such twaddle?" inquired Courtney, unimpressed.
"What has duty to do with hearts?"

Dick looked strong disapproval.  "What is the matter,
my dear?  You're not talking in the least like yourself."

"You always make that same remark," observed Courtney,
"whenever I say anything that does not suit you."

"Are you irritated by the prospect of Helen's coming?
If you don't want her——"

"I am not irritated about anything.  As for Helen, I
care not a rap one way or the other."

Winchie had finished.  He kissed his father, then his
mother good night, and went upstairs.  Richard came out
of a deep study to say, "It's a pity Gallatin isn't free and
here—if Helen comes."

"It would have made a good match," said Courtney
judiciously.  "A splendid living for Helen."

"I wasn't thinking of Gallatin's wealth," protested
Richard, reddening.  Then he laughed, "At least, not
altogether."

"The living's the main point in marriage."

"What an unpleasant mood you're in."

"I?  I never felt more amiable."

"Have I said anything to offend you?"

"Not a thing."  She rose languidly.  "You're still the
model—not a single redeeming fault."

She stretched herself with slow, lazy grace.  "But
you," said he, "are a bundle of redeeming faults and
vagaries—a bouquet of them."  And he was about to
kiss her.

She flung away from him with flashing eyes.  He
stared, amazed.  "How you startled me!" she exclaimed,
quickly changing her expression from fury to half-laughing
irritation.

"Miss Caprice!"  And his gaze was soft and brilliant.

There was a virgin coldness in her manner that
puzzled and abashed him.  "How I hate this body of mine,
sometimes!" said she.  "An admiring look makes me
angry, and a kiss seems an insult.  Come to me with your
love when I'm old and ugly.  Then, perhaps, I'll believe it."

And she strolled out of the room and upstairs.  The
instant she had her bedroom door locked, she knew why
she had come away—knew she had been obeying an instinct
warning her secret self that she could not many
minutes longer endure the strain.  "But really I am calm,"
she insisted.  In the same second her wound opened and
was aching and bleeding and throbbing, unhealed.  "I can
never forget—never!" she cried.  "Was it only this body
of mine he cared for?  What does it matter?  Even the
little he gave was more than I had to give.  I ought
to have been more humble about giving—I who had so
little.  And what happiness he gave me in exchange!
No—not happiness, but more than happiness."  Her eyes
strained into the night.  It was so dreary—so lonely.
"Basil!—Basil!  I'm dying for you—dying from the
core out!"

She flung her windows wide.  The snow came whirling
in.  The wind was moaning among the branches.  Somewhere,
far away, a bell tolled.  Silence, utter solitude, a
stretch of white snow under a black sky, and the chilling
cold.  "Come to me!" she cried.  "I am so cold—so
lonely—so hungry!  And I love you."

Even where a woman cannot doubt that her lover has
forgotten, there are times when memory—of his vows so
convincing, of his caresses that seemed the inspiration of
her charms alone—makes her defy certainty and believe.
And Courtney had no real reason to think him either false
or forgetful.  They had been torn apart when their love
was still hungry and thirsty, when even the long calm that
precedes satiety was still far in the future, when they were
so absorbed in loving that they had not yet had time to
begin to get acquainted with each other's real self.  It was
doubt of him that was forced, belief in him that was
natural.  "If he were not so strong, so honorable!" she cried.
"Ah, if he were only where I could tempt him!"

.. vspace:: 2

Even the thought of Winchie now lost all power to
check her; he was too much like part of herself.  She
seemed as placid in her slender youthfulness as those
handsome matronly women who suggest extinct volcanoes
covered with flowers and smiling fields.  Beneath her manner
of monotonous, emotionless calm she was battling with the
temptation to take her boy and fly from that cold desolation
of loveless loneliness, to fly to him.  If Richard had
not been absolutely apart from her life, absolutely out of
her thoughts she would have hated him.  As it was her
rage fretted at the impersonal barriers and bonds that held
her—not Richard, but conventionality and, above all, lack
of money.  "If only I had money!" she cried again and
again.

But she had nothing—her clothes, a few dollars that
must be paid out for expenses already incurred.  "If I
went to him, it would be to become his dependent, just
as I am Richard's.  Oh, the horror of being a woman!
Bred to dependence; bred for the market; bred to tease
some man into undertaking her support for life.  There is
the rotten spot in my whole life.  If Richard had ever
deigned to speculate as to what was going on in my head,
he'd never have dared touch me.  He'd have feared I was
his only for hire.  But would he care?  Doesn't he expect
me to be true because he supports me?  Isn't that what
marriage means, beneath the cant and pretense?  Yes, I'm
simply part of his property, and the pretenses that gloze
it over only make it the more revolting.  Oh, if men had
sensibilities, and if they knew what women thought!—why
we smile and flatter and stay on, in spite of neglect and
insult!"

She felt that, if she should go to Basil, the day would
come when their love would die of this poison exuding
from the basic fact of their relations—his sense of his
rights because of her dependence; or, her fear of losing
or impairing her living; or, her feeling that since she took
bread she must give body—all she had to pay with.  Richard
thought he could afford to be neglectful; and when it
suited him to give passing attention to his property again—to
walk in his garden and eat a little fruit from his tree—he
thought he had a perfect right to do so.  If Richard
was thus, if all men believed thus, why fancy Basil an
exception?  Basil, in time, when passion cooled, would hold
her in the same light disesteem.  If a man lost his virtue,
even hypocrisy did not go beyond a half smiling shake of
the head; if a woman lost her virtue, she was
"ruined."  Ruined—that is, a worthless wreck.  "No, I shall not go
to Basil.  No doubt, he still cares—in a man's way of
caring.  But he holds me, the unfaithful wife, cheap enough.
If I were to lose reputation also, were to be unable to give
him the pleasure of trespassing on another's property, were
to be merely a ruined woman, living off him, he'd soon treat
me like the slave that I am.  No, I'll not change owners....
If only I had money!"

What, then?  She had seen all along that she was like
one sinking in the ooze of a marsh—softly, inevitably
toward suffocation.  "If I stay on here, I'll become like
the rest of the settled, disillusioned married women.  I'll
become a chronic sloven and—as my disposition isn't
toward fat, squatted good nature—a shrew.  A slovenly
shrew!"  Why not?  What had she left to live for?  In a
few years Winchie would be away at school—then in some
city at profession or business—and married and out of her
life.  "I might as well give up.  Why not?"

There seemed to be no reason.  But our conduct in its
main lines is not governed by reason, but by instincts that
impel us even against will.  When Richard had failed her
at the outset of their married life, she had sunk; then her
temperament of hope and energy had forced her up again
in face of deepest discouragements.  So now, while there
was no reason why she should cease to sink, should begin
to struggle, while Basil's announced engagement assuring
a speedy marriage seemed just the thing to make her sink
on, she began to rouse herself and to look about her.  For
the second time her longings and energies had lost their
stimulus, their inspiration, their vitalizing center.  And that
center is to an unselfish nature as necessary as queen bee
to swarm which clusters about her, labors for her, and
renews through her.  With human beings such as Courtney
Vaughan longings and energies rarely die upon the corpse
of their inspiration.  After a while they fly upward, as did
hers, and begin to circle in search of a new clustering
center, a new reason for living and working on.  "I can't stay
here," she kept repeating.  "I must go somewhere.  I must
do something.  Where?  What?"  How settle her life
problem so that it would be "settled right," and she could
have peace and happiness?  She found no answer.  But
she kept on thrusting the question at herself.  It was as
significant of her character as of her trend of thought that
her cry "If only I had money!" changed to "If only I
could *make* money!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XVI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XVI

.. vspace:: 2

They were at supper, Dick reading the paper, Winchie
busy with bowl of rice and milk, Courtney listening to the
storm that shrieked in baffled rage after each vain assault
upon the house.  Her whole being was quivering with the
pain that never pierced her more acutely than when she
was in the presence of Basil's vacant place at the table.
Winchie, without looking up, broke the silence: "We shan't
go, mamma, shall we, unless it clears up?"

Dick, turning the paper, happened to hear.  "Go
where?" he asked.

"To grandfather's."

"When?"

Courtney said: "Winchie and I are going to-morrow."

"Impossible," said Dick.  "They'd think you were crazy."

"Perhaps I am," Courtney replied.  "Anyhow, we're going."

"Why?"

"I need a change."

"Put it off till spring."  And he resumed the newspaper
as if the matter were disposed of.

"No.  To-morrow," said she, not in the least aggressively;
but her tone was of unalterable determination.

"Or, if you must go somewhere, why not Saint X?  You
can visit Pauline Scarborough or the Hargraves—and bring
Helen March back with you."

"I prefer the farm."

He laid the paper down.  "You're not serious?"

"Quite."

"Now, my dear—" he began.  His tone was one he had
unconsciously adopted from his grandfather.  He used it
whenever he, as head of the family, confronted an
"irrational, feminine caprice."

"What's the use of reasoning with me?" interrupted
she.  "Didn't your grandfather teach you that women can't
reason?"

"I'm willing for you to go to Saint X.  But——"

She looked significantly toward Winchie.  Dick took the
hint, went back to his reading until they were alone.  Then
he resumed: "I'm sure you'll not persist now that I've
pointed out to you——"

"If you wish me to keep my temper," interrupted she,
"you'll not use that wheedling tone.  I'd feel I was
degrading Winchie by speaking to him in a way that belittled
his intelligence."

Dick looked astonished.  "I had no intention——"

"I know—I know," said she appealingly.  "It doesn't
matter.  I really don't care anything about it.

"But you'll not go when it's so clearly a folly to——"

"I am going," said she.  "You ought to be grateful
that I have such inexpensive whims.  Most of us silly
women—"  She paused, with a lift of the long, slender
eyebrows.  How absurd to gird at him whose opinions
interested her as little as hers interested him!

He revolved what she had been saying, presently reddened.
"I thought I had explained to you," said he, "that
the laboratory is very expensive.  I know I don't give you
much.  I've had to cut down the household allowance
because I feel sure Gallatin will be withdrawing his capital.
But just as soon as I——"

She was even of temper again.  "You remind me of
old Hendricks," interrupted she pleasantly.  "You know,
he made three people toil for him all their lives, with no
pay and mighty poor board and clothes—on the promise of
a legacy—and they died before he did."

But Dick was offended.  "It seems to me," said he,
"in view of what I'm doing at the shop——"

"Please don't," she cried.  "You're trying to make me
out an ingrate, who doesn't appreciate how you're toiling
just for wife and child.  Now, what's the fact?  Isn't your
work your amusement?"

"Of course, I like it, but——"

"Weren't you doing the same thing before you had a
family?  Wouldn't you be doing it if you should lose them?
Isn't it your pride that you work solely for love of science?"

He looked disconcerted assent.

"Then the fact is, you spend most of your income on
your own amusement, as much as if you drank it."

He reflected.  "That never occurred to me before," said
he.  "Possibly I have viewed it too one-sidedly.  I must
think it over and see."

She shrugged her shoulders.  "Pray don't, on my account."

He made no reply, put forward no further objections
to her going, though the next morning developed a driving
sleet.  As she and Winchie were about to get into the
carriage he asked; "How long will you be gone?"

"Until I feel better."

"If you are ill, you must not go in this weather."

She looked at him strangely.  "If I were dying I should
go," was her slow reply.

He hesitated, studied her small, resolute face, her
fever-bright eyes, with a puzzled expression.  "I suppose it's
best to give a woman her way in her whims, so long as
they're harmless," said he aloud, but to himself rather than
to her.  She finished wrapping up the boy, went out to the
carriage, and got in.  He lifted Winchie in, tucked them
both carefully, bade them a last good-by, his expression
grave and constrained.

.. vspace:: 2

In those fifteen miles through the searching cold, over
roads like fields deep plowed and frozen hard, she
debated how best to carry out her main purpose in going to
that dreary farm—how to take her father partly, perhaps
wholly, into her confidence so that she might get his
help—for help she must have.  Her mother was now impossible—quite
demented on the subject of religion latterly through
the long steeping of mind and heart in a theology whose
heaven was hardly less formidable as an eternal prospect
than its hell, and whose hell was a fiery sea canopied by
shriek and stench of burning multitude.  The old maid
sisters had neither experience nor judgment, only bitterness.
To them it would be inconceivable that a married woman,
with a husband who supported her in comfort, could be
other than blissfully happy.  But her father—  He had
been a man of affairs, judge.  He had lived and read and
thought.  She had heard her mother rebuke him for
expressing "loose" opinions; probably he was concealing
opinions even more liberal and enlightened and humane.
Perhaps he could give her practical advice—or at least
sympathy.

But, arrived at the farmhouse, she had only to look into
those four countenances to see that she was among people
who knew no more of the life of the present day—or indeed
of the real life of any day, even of what they themselves
actually believed and felt—than deep-sea oysters in their
bed know of Alpine flowers.  Even her father—  In this
remote desert he had lost what knowledge of life he
formerly possessed.  She was now developed enough to
realize that he in fact never did know much about life, that
his was a book education only.  She had journeyed for
help in vain; she was still alone, dependent wholly upon
her own courage and resource.

"Don't you wish we hadn't come, mamma?" said
Winchie when they were in the room assigned them.

"No," she replied truthfully.  She was watching the
hickory flames in a calmer mood than she had known for
weeks; at least she had got away where she could think,
could get an outside point of view upon the posture of her
affairs.  "No, indeed," she went on to Winchie leaning
against her knee and looking up at her.  "No, I feel
better already."

"Then I guess I can stand it," said the boy with a sigh.

"You don't know about the hill where we can coast."

As he had never coasted, this did not lighten the
impression made on him by the gloomy farmhouse sitting room,
its walls and ceilings covered with somber paper, by the
shriveled grandparents, with deep-sunk, lack-luster eyes, by
the sharp, sour faces of the two old maids.  But next day,
when the sun came out and the farmhands beat down a track
on the long hill, Winchie found the situation vastly
improved.  Flat on her breast on a sled, with the boy
breathless and happy upon her back, she initiated him into the
raptures of "belly-buster."

"Why, mamma, you look like a little girl, not a bit
grown up," cried he after they had been at it all morning
and were tugging up the hill for one last, magnificent rush
down before going home to dinner.  And she did indeed
seem to be a sister of Winchie's, one hardly in her teens.
Of course, the short skirt and her smallness of stature
helped.  But it was in her cheeks, in her eyes, in the curve
of her lips as she showed her white teeth in the happiest of
smiles.

"I *am* a little girl," declared she.  And before starting
out with him after dinner she did her hair in two long braids
that hung below her waistline.

They coasted every day; they took long sleigh rides,
long romping walks; they hunted rabbits, went fishing
through the ice, were uproarious outside the house and
in—the latter to the scandal of the three women of the family,
who regarded such goings-on as clearly forbidden in the
Scriptures.  Even Sunday wasn't so bad as might have been
expected; for it snowed too violently for Mrs. Benedict to
take them to the church where her favorite doctrines were
expounded, and they slipped away to the glorious outdoors.
In a sheltered hollow under a shelf of rock they built an
enormous snow man, with a top hat of bark.  They ate what
Winchie regarded as the most wonderful meal of his life at
the cottage of one of the farmhands.  Never before had he
seen such brown brownbread or such molassessy molasses
or eaten off such big, strong dishes that there wasn't the
least danger of breaking, no matter what you did to them.
And he was fascinated by the farmhand's wife and daughter,
both acting their company best and eating with the
little finger of each hand stuck straight out.  And in a box
in the corner of the room where they ate was a most exciting
brood of little chickens, chirping and squeaking.  And
in the midst of dinner a huge, hairy, black dog suddenly
snatched a piece of meat from the farmhand's plate and
retired to the kitchen with it.  "Ain't he a caution?" said
the farmhand, and Winchie thought he certainly was.

Courtney was like those who put out to sea, leaving their
troubles at the one shore, not to think of them until they
touch the other.  All around were the white hills, and there
seemed to be no beyond.  She abandoned her plan of studying
her situation.  She stopped thinking; she ate and slept,
and played with the boy, and pretended that she was the
little girl she looked, home from school for the holidays,
and half hoping somehow something would happen so that
there wouldn't be any school any more.  She did not think,
but she hoped.  How?  What?  Where?  She did not know;
simply hope, that can burst the strongest grave despair
ever buried it in.

Well along in the second week, toward the middle of
the afternoon, she and Winchie were on the long hill,
rounding out one more happy day.  She was as happy as he.
When all is lost save youth and health, what is really lost?
She on her breast on the sled and he sprawled along her
back, his arms round her neck, they shot down the steep
with shouts and screams.  They stopped, all covered with
flying snow, in a soft bank beneath which the zigzag fence
was deep buried.  They rolled in the snow, washed each
other's faces, stood up—were within a few feet of a man
in a fur-lined coat almost to his heels.  They stared,
astounded.  Then Winchie's face darkened and hers grew
more radiant still as the tears sprang to her eyes.

"Basil!" she murmured, Winchie forgotten.  "Oh—*Basil*!"  And
all in that instant the misery of those months
of despair was gloriously transformed into joy.

"Courtney!" he cried.  "How beautiful you are!"

He was extraordinarily handsome himself at that moment.
Love is a matchless beautifier; and if ever love shone
from a human countenance, it was shining, irradiating from
his just then.  With Winchie jealously watchful they shook
hands.  "Aren't you and Winchie going to speak to each
other?" she asked.  And Basil, with reluctance and some
confusion held out a hand which the boy very hesitatingly
touched.

"I'll pull your sled to the top for you," Basil offered.
"Get on, Winchie."

The boy planted his feet more firmly in the snow.  "We
were going home," said Courtney.

"Get on, Winchie," cried Basil friendlily.  "I'll haul you."

"I'm going to walk," replied the boy sullenly.

Courtney understood.  "Get on, Winchie," said she.
"I'll pull it."

The boy obeyed.  The rope was long, so Basil felt free
to speak in a lowered voice.  "Seeing you—hearing
you—touching you—  O my darling! my Courtney!"

She forgot where she was, who she was, everything but
love.  Love!  The road danced before her.  The cry of the
chickadees, the twitter of the snowbirds, the call of Bob
White from the fence sounded like supernal music in her
ears.  The blood tingled and dizzied her nerves.  Love
again!  "You care—still?" she murmured.

"Care?  There's only you for me in all the world."

She caught her breath, like the swinger at the long
swing's dizziest height when it halts to begin the delirious
descent.  "Love!" she murmured.  "Love!"

"And I know you love me," he went on.  "I've never
doubted—not once.  I've tried to doubt, but I couldn't.  Up
before me would come those dear eyes of yours,
and—Courtney, there isn't a kiss—or a caress—hardly a touch
of the hands you and I have ever lived that I haven't felt
again and again."

"Don't!" she pleaded, her eyes swimming.  "Don't, or
I'll break down.  My love—my love!"

"I don't know what would have become of me," he went
on, "if I hadn't known you'd send for me—yes—in spite
of your note.  I expected it, for I knew you wouldn't be
able to come.  The more I thought, the clearer I saw.  Not
to go any further, there was the boy."  He glanced round
at Winchie; the angry gray-green eyes were fixed upon him.
He glanced away, disconcerted.  But he forgot Winchie
when his eyes returned to her.  "Beautiful!  Beautiful—little
girl," he murmured, his look sweeping her small, perfect
figure to the edge of her short skirt.  "I like your new
way of wearing your hair."

She blushed.  "I did it to make me feel young.  I've
been feeling so old—old and tired and lonely."

"Thank God, you sent for me."

"Sent for you!  A hundred times a day in thought."  She
laughed aloud, sparkling like the ice-cased boughs in
the late afternoon sun.  "A thousand thousand times in
longing—every time my heart beat."

"Oh, it is so good to be with you!"  He drew in a
huge draught of the clean, cold, vital air.  "Does the sun
anywhere else shine on such happiness as this?  But I've
been mad with happiness ever since the word came."

"The word?  What word?"

"Vaughan's letter.  I knew you got him to write it."

Courtney stopped short.  "I!" she exclaimed.  "I don't
know what you mean."

"I got a letter from him three days ago.  He asked me
to take another quarter interest in his work—said he needed
the money, as he found he'd been using more of his own in
it than he could afford with justice to his family——"

"Oh!" cried Courtney sharply.

"What is it?" asked Basil.

She was looking straight ahead.  "Nothing—nothing.
Go on."  And she started to walk again.

"Your cry sounded like pain."

"Did it?  Go on."

"I assumed you had at last succeeded in making the
chance for me to come back.  So, I telegraphed I'd accept,
provided he'd let me work with him again—and that I'd be
on at once to talk things over.  I took the first train—and
here I am."

"Yes, here.  That's another mystery to explain."

"Nothing simpler.  The station man at Wenona told
me you were visiting your father.  I jumped at the chance.
I can say I thought you all were here.  Anything more?"

"I saw the announcement of your engagement."

"It's broken.  I couldn't marry her—couldn't have done
it in any circumstances.  So, I gave her what she was losing
by our not marrying.  And I'm free.  You want me to stay?"

He spoke indifferently about the money he had given
up, and he evidently felt indifferent.  She would have been
hurt had he acted otherwise.  At the same time it was a
measure of his generosity and of his love, a sordid but
certain measure.  She regarded that payment as a sort of
ransom—his ransom for the right to come to her.  "That was
his price for the right," thought she.  "He paid it without
a second thought—would have paid any price.  My price
for the right to be his may be harder.  But I must pay,
too—as generously as he."

He was watching her anxiously.  "Courtney, I can't
go away!"

"You mustn't," replied she.  Then a reason—the reason—the
solution of her life problem—came to her as if
by inspiration.  "It's my only chance to be a good woman.
That sounds strange, doesn't it?"

"Not to me.  I understand.  If you hadn't sent for me
soon—" he checked himself.

"What?"

"You didn't know that my coming here last spring—and
loving you—cured me of the drinking habit.  I know,
it's stupid and disgusting.  I used to loathe myself when I
gave way.  But it's the only resort in loneliness.  And if
I realized that you were lost to me, what would I care?"

She nodded sympathetically.  "I was going all to
pieces, in another way.  I was sliding down as fast as
Winchie and I were coasting the hill back there.  I was
going the way of all women who have no love—grown-up
love—in their lives.  I know now, the reason I used to keep
myself together and built myself up and looked after things
was because I was waiting and hoping for love, and was
expecting it.  Love is all of a woman's life, as things are
run in this world—at present."

"And quite enough it is, too," said he.

"No," disagreed she.  "But let that pass.  If I went
back to—to that life—alone, I'd be going to ruin.  And
I'd probably drag him and Winchie down with me.  A
woman of that unburied-dead sort drags down everybody
about her....  You've only to look round, in any station
of life, to see those women by the scores.  Some few are
saved by children—not many and they are of a different
nature from me—from most women, I think....  If I
don't go back, I either go to you disgraced, a shame to my
family, a lifelong stain on my boy here, a miserable, afraid
dependent of yours....  No, don't interrupt; I've thought
it all out....  Or, I'd plunge into a life of social dissipation.
If possible, that sort of woman is worse for herself
and for her husband and children than the domestic rotter.
A chattering, card-playing gadabout.  Possibly I might
remain true to my husband, but—  If the world weren't
the fool it is, it would have discovered long ago that there
are worse vices than—"  As always when she forced herself
to say frank, merciless things, she looked straight into
his eyes with defiant audacity—"worse vices than ours."

"But—" he began, shifting his gaze and coloring.

"Oh, yes, it is.  Don't make any mistake about it.  But
I know lots of 'good' women—liars, gossips, naggers, petty
swindlers of their husbands, envious, malicious, spiteful—lots
and lots of so-called good women beside whom I'd feel
white as this snow."

"Rather!" exclaimed Basil.

"So—if you'll go with me—I'm going home—to make
it a home—to be a good mother—to give Richard at least
his money's worth in care and comfort and—"  She looked
at him with eyes suddenly solemn—"and that is all, Basil—all.
It's all I can give him, all he has the right to....
I'm going home to be a good woman, if you'll come and be
there too."

"There's only one life for me—to be as near you as
you'll let me."

A long silence.  Then she again, sadly: "I don't know
how it will work out.  But—what else is there for us?
We're not heroes.  We're human.  We must do the best we
can.  Together we may survive.  Apart, I at least will
perish—and destroy those near me.  I suppose I'm all
wrong.  But"—with a sigh—"I'm doing the best I can."

Silence again.  Then he, deeply moved: "I'll try to be
worthy of you, dear."

"Worthy of *me*?  For God's sake, don't say those
things.  There isn't any pedestal I wouldn't fall off of and
break to bits....  Basil—" wistfully—"you don't care for
me in just a physical way—do you, dear?"

"I care for you in every way," he answered.  "Courtney,
I never believed I could respect a woman as I respect
you.  You know, men aren't brought up really to respect
women—or themselves, for that matter."

"Then—couldn't we try to—"  She lowered her head,
faltered—"couldn't we live as if we were engaged only?"

"Why should we?" he cried.

"I know it's only a fancy.  But fancies count more
than facts....  I'd feel less the—"  She faltered—paused.

"Yes—yes—I understand.  And—  Well, it doesn't do
a man any good to be pretending friendship and smiling in
another fellow's face, when all the time—  I'll try,
Courtney—  But—it won't be exactly easy."

Her gaze burned for an instant on his, then dropped.
"I should hope not!" murmured she.

They, absorbed in each other, moved so slowly along the
road that Winchie, silent, motionless, sullen, upon the sled
they were trailing as far as the rope permitted, was stiff
with cold.  But he did not murmur.  By the time they
reached the door of the farmhouse, Courtney and Basil had
it all planned.  He was to leave immediately after supper,
was to go at once to Vaughan, make the arrangements,
reinstall himself.  She was to come home in three or four
days—unless Vaughan sent, asking her to come sooner.  He
dined with the family at the farmhouse, made himself so
agreeable that they were all pleased with him—even sister
Ann whose bitterness over her failure at what she secretly
regarded as woman's only excuse for being alive, took the
unoriginal disguise of aggressive man-hating.  At six o'clock
he drove away in the starlight with a merry jingling of
sleigh bells that echoed in Courtney's happy heart.  The
cold was intense; but she felt only warmth—that delicious
warmth that comes from within.  She stood on the little
front porch, with the stars brilliant above and the snow
white and smooth over hill and valley.  She watched the
swift dark sleigh—listened to those laughing bells, their
music growing fainter and fainter—but not in her heart.
She was so happy that the tears were in her eyes and the
sobs in her throat.  It was for her one of those moments
in life when she asked nothing more, could imagine nothing
that would add to joy.  Love again!—and oh, what exalted
love, to warm the heart and fill it with light and joy, to
brighten every moment of life, to guide her up and ever up.

Winchie, standing beside her and looking up at her rapt
face, tugged angrily at her skirts.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XVII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XVII

.. vspace:: 2

When the mail cart on the third afternoon failed to
bring a letter from Richard, she decided that prudence had
been satisfied, that she need wait no longer.  Toward four
she and Winchie set out, snuggled deep in furs and straw
in the rear of a huge country sleigh.  The roads were
perfect; the snow was like a strand at low tide, rolled smooth
and firm by the broad tires of high tide's billows.  The
big horses, steaming as if they were engines, flew as if they
were a wind.  But her impatient heart was always far ahead,
fretting at their laggard pace.

They dashed into the outskirts of Wenona.  The journey
was ended except the mile and a half round the curve
of the lake.  She became all at once serenely calm.  Life
her real life—was now about to begin.  It was far from
the life she would have chosen, had she been prearranging
her own fate.  However—who could live an ideal life in
such a topsy-turvy world?  Nature and conventionality
ever at war; right and wrong, not two straight paths, one
up, the other down, but a tangle, a maze, a labyrinth.  One
must often travel the path of the wrong in order to reach
the path of the right; and keeping to the path of the right
often meant arriving in a hopeless network of blind alleys
of the wrong.  She was in the confused state about right
and wrong characteristic of this era of transition that has
seen the crumbling of the despotism of dogma, and has
not yet received, or created, a moral guidance to replace
it.  "Life is a compromise, unless one lives alone and
miserably and uselessly," thought she.  "My life's to be a
thistle with fig grafts.  I'll do the best I can with
it—Basil and I.  With him to help me—his strength and
character and self-denying love—with him to help, all may
go well.  Is my compromise—Basil's and mine—worse than
those almost everyone has to make?  If so, then they ought
to educate women differently, and change marriage."

And when the sleigh reached the drive-front porch,
making a dashing and musical arrival, she was in a mood
of moral exaltation that might have stirred the enthusiasm
of a saint—that is, a saint ignorant of the foundations of
that mood or the processes by which it had reared itself
skyward.  Saints who are wise in the ways of humanity
do not interrogate too closely the glitter and lift of moral
temples; they know humanity has only humble materials
with which to build.

The doors opened wide and, in a flood of bright warm
air, redolent of the perfume of flowers, out came Dick to
welcome them.  "I *am* glad!" cried he.  Because of the
peculiar relations long established between them—relations
such as must exist in some degree between a husband and
a wife before the triangular situation can ever even
threaten—because of these peculiar relations, she had not
anticipated and did not feel the least embarrassment.  She was
not defying or ignoring her husband; she had no husband.
After he swung Winchie to the porch he turned to do the
same service for her.  But she had quickly disengaged
herself from the robes and was standing beside him.  He
looked into her face, fully revealed by the pour of soft
light from the hall.  "Your trip certainly has done you
good," said he.

"Thank you," replied she absently, presenting her left
cheek for the necessary formality of the occasion.  Her
attention was wholly elsewhere.

In the hall before her there had appeared two people,
hanging back discreetly, so that they would not intrude
upon the family reunion.  Basil, she expected.  The woman
beside him so astonished her that she forgot to be glad to
see him.  *Who* was she?  This tall, slender girl with the
proud, regular features, the attractively done dark hair,
the big, honest brown eyes?  She glanced at Basil, standing
beside this lovely girl and making a laughing remark;
her feminine sight instantly noted how the remark was
received by the girl—the flattering glance and smile a
marriageable woman rarely wastes upon anything from one
of her own sex or from an ineligible man.  And through
Courtney shot a pang that dissolved her structure of
moral uplift as a needle thrust collapses a toy balloon.
Who was this woman?—this *young* woman—this *tall*
woman—this *handsome* woman—so pleased with Basil
Gallatin?

"Aren't you surprised to find Helen March here?"
Dick was now saying.

Helen March!  So, that scrawny, raw-boned girl, all
freckles and pimples, and unable to manage her mouth,
the Helen March she had seen three years before and
had not seen since—so, that prim and homely gawk had
developed into this stately creature!  Prim, still—unless
that expression was the familiar maidenly pose to attract
wife hunters.  But certainly neither homely nor awkward.
She even dressed her hair well, and wore her clothes with
quite an air.  All this Courtney saw and felt and thought
in a few twinklings of an eye—for in such circumstances
a woman's mind works with the rapidity of genius, and
with genius's grasp of essential detail.  Helen was
advancing.

"Don't you recognize me, Courtney?" she asked.  The
voice was one of those honest, pleasant voices that disarm
the most cynical pessimists about human nature—the voice
that makes the *blasé* city man fall to dreaming of taking a
country girl to wife.

"*Now* I do, of course," said Courtney sweetly.  And
the two embraced and kissed.

To do this, Helen had to bend, as she was more than
a head the taller.  She bent with not a suggestion of
condescension in manner or in thought.  Nevertheless Courtney,
for the first time in her life painfully sensitive about
her stature, flamed and was resentful—and in her scorn of
her own pettiness felt tinier within than without.  True,
Helen's figure was commonplace, the bust too high and
ominously large for her age, the hips already faintly
menacing, the waist and arms somewhat too short for the
great length of leg.  True, her own figure was—certainly
better.  Still, Helen had that advantage of height—could
look at Basil level-eyed, could make her seem—short!  And
this Helen here to stay indefinitely!

There was pathos in the slow, sweet smile Courtney
gave Basil as their trembling hands met in what seemed
to the others a formal greeting.  She turned away with
a sigh.  Just as she, the thirsty, the desert-bound, was all
ready to rush forward and drink—the mirage vanished.
Was it to be always so?  Was life to be ever a succession
of mirages, vanishing at approach, only to reappear and
revive hope—and cheat again?  Through her mind flashed
the memory of the first one—an indelible memory, always
for her symbolic of vain expectation: A fourth of July
when she was a very small child—how she awakened at
sunrise, rushed to the window to find sky clear and world
radiant and ready for the picnic that was to be her first
great positive joy; how she was dressed in her best, in
wonderful new white frock, in white stockings and shoes
and white bows covering the top buttons, shimmering sash
of pale green, and bows of pale green on her braids; how,
just as she descended in all her glory to issue forth, down
came the rain—in floods—and no picnic, nothing but stay
at home all day and weep and watch the downpour.  "It
was my horoscope," thought she, as she stood there in the
hall too sad for bitterness over her spoiled home-coming.
"Is it fate?  Or, is it somehow my fault?  My fault, I
suppose.  I must be asking of life something no one—at
least, no woman—has the right to expect."

She was near the library door, with Winchie on its
threshold staring round big-eyed and crying, "Oh, mamma
Courtney.  Look!"  His eyes were no more wondering
than her own.  She had been too disheartened to make the
library over into a conservatory that year; now, here it
was transformed into a conservatory—the carpet up from
the hardwood floor, plants beautiful for bloom or for
foliage or for both in boxes, in jars, in pots—everywhere.
A conservatory like that of former years, but more elaborate.

The others were laughing and watching her face.  So
she exclaimed "I am surprised!" in the indefinite tone
the listener can easily adapt to his expectations.  But she
was not pleased—far from it.  Another fierce pang of
jealousy.  She, modest about her own abilities, did not
realize that the room lacked just the finishing touch of her
exquisite taste.  To her it seemed better far than she
could have done.  Why, she hadn't been needed, or missed
even!  Things went on as well in her absence as when she
was here.  And near her, side by side, were Basil and
Helen—how she could feel them!—so well matched
physically—and he fair, she dark.  And Courtney had not that
self-complacent, satisfied vanity which shelters so many of
us from any and all misgivings and doubts.

"Helen did most of it," explained Vaughan.  "She's
a trump, you'll find.  Look out, Helen, or we'll make you
do all the work."

"Cousin Dick proposed it and really carried it out,"
protested Helen in her school-teacherish or collegiate
speech and manner.  "And Mr. Gallatin was invaluable
in showing us how you had it last winter.  We wanted to
get it exactly the same."

Courtney turned brilliant, grateful eyes on Basil.  "So,
you remembered, did you?" she ventured to say, sure her
meaning and her tone would pass the others safely.

Basil flushed.  "You can judge for yourself," said he.

"I'm so overcome I don't know what to say."  Their
smiling, friendly faces, all bent upon her, made her
natural generosity burst forth like April's unending green at
the first warmth of the sun.  Her eyes filled.  "Thank
you—thank you all!" she cried.  "I am so—*so*—happy!"  And
she kissed Helen again, ashamed of her mean impulses
toward one whose aloneness and poverty commanded
kindness and consideration and help from another woman,
especially from a woman who had known the bitterness
of dependence and aloneness.

Good sense and decent instincts, having driven off
jealousy, held the field—not without occasional alarms and
excursions, but still decisively.  It was the merriest party
that had gathered about the mahogany dining-room table
since Colonel 'Kill imported it from beyond the mountains,
along with sundry novelties in those parts, in that
early day—carpets and curtains and window glass, wall
paper and carved beds and crystal chandeliers.  In Colonel
'Kill's time the atmosphere had been genial but austere;
Aunt Eudosia, during her brief reign between his death and
her own, had maintained his traditions reverently; and
Courtney had struggled not altogether with success, though
bravely and resolutely, against the atmosphere that lingered
on after all her brightening changes.  But that night, the
spell was broken.  Dick put aside his chemistry; Basil and
Courtney forgot him and their burden of deceit.  Helen
belied her mourning which, as Courtney had shrewdly
guessed, was mere formality anyhow.  Everyone was gay,
even jealous little Winchie, devoting himself to Helen,
determined to make her love him.  And Courtney was gayest
of all; was not that vacant place at the table filled once
more?  Her heart overflowed with joy and her lips and
eyes with laughter each time she looked in that direction
and saw—*him*!  Everyone was gay except old Nanny,
listening sourly to the merriment that came through door
and hall into kitchen and sounded like a burst from a
ballroom whenever Lizzie was passing in or out.  "Poor
young man!" muttered Nanny to her dishes and pans.
"If he only knowed the whited sepulchre he's living amidst,
what a holocaust there'd be."  She did not know what
holocaust meant, having got merely its vague sense from a
sermon; thus, it gave her a conception of anarchy and chaos
far beyond the scope of words she understood.

Courtney's emerald eyes, dancing and laughing though
they were, scrutinized Basil.  Not that she really
suspected him; she simply wished to fortify herself against
the folly and the unhappiness of suspicion—as women look
under a bed before getting into it.  Having fortified
herself, she concentrated on Helen—Helen, the homeless, the
unmarried, the eager to be married.  There the results of her
scrutiny were not so satisfactory.  Basil would have called
Helen's manner mere civility; and perhaps, in strict
justice, it was nothing more.  But Courtney the woman,
judging Helen the woman, saw the hidden truth beneath the
surface truth—saw that Helen was not without an instinct
for a possible customer for the virtue so carefully nurtured
against the coming of an opportunity for it to expand in
the garden of matrimony with the flower and leaf and fruit
of wife and mother.  Courtney judged fairly, conceded that
Helen was the reverse of forward, was using no arts, no
subtleties.  But the candidate for matrimony showed in
her charmingly receptive and appreciative attitude toward
the young man.  The danger which Courtney foresaw and
feared lay in the fact that Basil and Helen were both
attractive.  To Courtney it seemed a question of a very
brief time when, without any effort whatever on her part,
Helen must fall in love with him.  What then?  A
well-bred, pretty woman in love is always more and ever more
attractive to the man she centers upon.  And Helen was
free—and could be honorable throughout!

As Courtney undressed for bed, these reflections, so
forbidding of aspect, faced her whichever way she turned.
"I like Helen," she thought, "and it's decent and right
to give her a home.  If I were what I ought to be—ought
to try to be—I'd give her every opportunity to win Basil.
She's got to have some one to support her.  I'm provided
for.  It's mean of me to stand in her way."  She found
some cheer in the reflection that, while most women would
straight off hate Helen and look on her as an impudent
interloper, she herself had generosity enough to be just
in thought at least.  "But I'm human," said she.  "Helen
has got to go.  She doesn't love him.  I do.  She doesn't
need him.  I do.  She's got to go!"

It was her habit to sit on the rug before the fire in her
sitting room, and do her hair for the night; then she would
sometimes stretch herself out flat upon her breast and read
by the fire light or watch it and dream or think.  She was
lying that way, head pillowed upon a book and face toward
the fire, when Dick opened the door, glanced in, entered.
So absorbed was she that she did not know he was in the
room until he spoke.

"It's like what Nanny would call a special providence,
isn't it?" said he, seating himself on the sofa parallel
to the fireplace but well back from it.  He had a long
dressing gown over his pajamas and was smoking a last
cigarette.

"Special providence?  What?" inquired she without
turning her head.  His entrance had not interrupted her
train of thought.  Her answer was, as usual, a reflex action
from her surface mind.

"Why, Basil's coming back."

No reply.  She was not thinking of Dick's statement
of Basil's return as coming from him but as if she had
herself begun to revolve it of her own accord.

"And Helen's being here."

A restless shiver.  She was unconscious of Dick's presence.
She was gazing absorbed at the proposition: Helen
is here.

"It's just as we wanted it," he went on.

The lithe, delicately formed body grew tense.  "Speak
for yourself," she said curtly.

Richard received this rebuff in silence.  "I know you
don't like Basil," said he at length.  "And, it's true he
was a tank and a tear-about at college——"

There he stopped, shamefaced.  He forgot he had told
her about Basil; he felt it was undignified and unworthy
gossip now that he had matrimonial designs upon him.
"That slipped out," he said to her apologetically.  "I
never intended to tell you.  Anyhow, he has dropped all
that sort of thing, and I don't believe he'll ever turn loose
again....  I wonder why that girl broke the engagement.
He tells me he's free, and I suspect he wanted to come
back because he's pretty badly cut up....  You will be
nice to him, Courtney?—and help him and Helen along?
They were intended for each other—height—contrast of
coloring——"

Courtney sat up impatiently, turned her back to the fire
to warm it, clasped her knees in her arms.  She was
conscious of him now, vaguely, unpleasantly conscious, though
the ideas he had suggested still held most of her
attention.  Gradually she became uncomfortable; no, it was
not the cold.  Her wandering glance happened upon
Richard's face.  His expression—  That was it!  Not cold,
but the sense of being looked at by eyes that had not the
right.  She blushed furiously from head to feet, had an
impulse to snatch the rug about her and dart from the
room.

"You are—*beautiful*!" he exclaimed, rising.  "I was
just contrasting you with Helen March this evening.  She's
undoubtedly handsome.  Has height, and go, and, for a
girl, really a surprising amount of——"

Courtney was not listening.  She was thinking of her
oversight in not locking her doors into the hall.

"Of charm—aside from the freshness that's about all
there is to most girls, I imagine."

She must be careful not to irritate him, not to rouse
him to the vigilance that nothing can escape.  What a
luckless beginning of a new life!

"And you're so well now—so alive——"

"I'm all but dead," she declared, pretending a yawn.
"I must go to bed."  She sprang lightly up.  "Good
night," she said.  And to take away the sting—for, his
slight wince showed her there was sting—she stood on
tiptoe, hands behind her and face upturned.

His lips touched her cheek hesitatingly; fired by the
contact, he took her in his arms and kissed her.  She did
not draw away; an instinct of prudence, not a deliberate
thought, restrained her.  She flushed from head to foot,
her modesty wounded, her pride abased.  "Good night,"
said he, lingeringly.

"Good night," she echoed, turning away to screen the fire.

Half an hour later all the lights in the house were out.
She had gone to bed, but not to sleep.  She suddenly sat
up, gazed eagerly toward the window giving on the small
veranda.  It was open for the night; the shutters were
latched, however, and through them came intensely cold
air and some faint light.  She thought she heard a
tapping at the shutter—that shutter she had so often thrown
wide in the hope that Basil had secretly returned.  She
listened.  After a long wait, again the tapping—so soft
that only the attention of an expectant listener would have
been attracted.

"Basil!" she murmured.  "I must have been expecting him."

She was about to dart to the window when there came
a thought like a blow in the face flinging her back and
making her cover her head.  First the one man; now the
other.  "God!" she muttered.  "How they will degrade
me, between them."

No, it should not be!  She grew angry with Basil.  At
the first opportunity, breaking his promise, trying to tempt
her to become what he could not but despise.  *That* was
what he called *love*!  And how poorly he must think of
her! ... She uncovered her head, listened.  No repetition
of the sound.  She ran to the window, opened the
shutter.  No one!  Yes—the snow on the rail had been
disturbed.  She leaned out.  Snow—the black boughs—the
biting midnight air—stars—the crescent moon with a
pendant planet—the distant muffled sound of a horse
stamping in its stall.  She closed the shutter, went shivering
back to bed—heartsick with disappointment.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XVIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XVIII

.. vspace:: 2

When she at last went to sleep it was like a ship going
down in a storm.  But she slept nine hours without a
dream; and she awakened in that buoyant mood with which
perfect health of body will triumph over whatever heaviness
of soul.  Her troubles seemed largely fanciful, were
certainly anticipatory; she would push steadily forward,
and all would be well.

When she descended, the two men had breakfasted and
gone, and Winchie was out on the lawn playing at snow
man with the Donaldson children and their governess.
Helen, still at table with coffee and newspaper, greeted
her so honest of eye and of voice that she was altogether
ashamed of her thoughts of evening and night before.
Also, Helen did not look especially well in the mornings.
Sleep swelled her face, her eyelids; her skin inclined to
be cloudy; her hair hung rather stringily about her brow.
And in négligée the defect of too much bust and too short
waist seemed worse than it was.  "I must see that she
gets a proper corset," thought Courtney.  "Like so many
women, she doesn't realize that corset is three fourths of
the battle for figure."  She studied Helen with an artist's
eye and an artist's enthusiasm for bringing out the best,
the beautiful.  "Yes," she said to herself, "Helen can
be made a perfect wonder for looks.  I *must* try it."  And
then she knew she had never really intended to send Helen
away.  She who had suffered so much from the tyranny
of dependence—it would be impossible for her to exercise
that tyranny over another.  "I don't want to send her
away.  But if I did want to, I couldn't, no matter what
happened.  I might think I would, and try to compel myself
to do it.  But when it came to the pinch, I'd remember—and
I couldn't.  No other human being shall ever know
through me the sort of humiliation I bear."

She was ashamed of her fears about Basil, too.  "As
if he hadn't known lots of women.  As if our love were
just the ordinary thing that passes for love.  And Helen'll
help brighten things up—this house must not and shall
not be gloomy."  Then too—and this idea she did not
definitely express to herself—Helen would give her and
Basil more freedom by pairing off with Richard when
they were all together.

Still more cheering were the thoughts that came from
her mail.  From the bank's monthly statement she learned
that Richard had for the first time fixed an allowance
sufficient for the position she was expected to maintain.
There is a minimum amount on which a family can live in
a certain style; every dollar below that means pinch, every
dollar above it luxury.  Courtney had at times been hard
put to keep from going into debt.  Many a woman, bred
as she had been, as most American women are—with small
practical knowledge, with only the silly useless "education"
the usual school and college give, with no notion of
values or mistaken notions, with contempt for realities and
reverence for inanities—has in the same circumstances
become hopelessly involved.  But whatever the shortcomings
in Mrs. Benedict's system of bringing up her children, she
had certainly inculcated a horror of debt.  And as human
life and character are grounded upon material things if
they have any substantial foundation at all, this dread of
debt had been and continued to be one of the main factors
in Courtney's development.  It is amazing how far a
single cardinal *real* principle, such as a fixed aversion to debt,
will go toward keeping any human being straight, toward
bringing them back to sense of the just and the right,
when they have been swerved by emotion or irresistible
gale of circumstance.  But in human affairs all the truly
great powers are forces so quiet and move so close to the
ground that their existence is unsuspected; or if pointed
out, it is denied and scouted, and some windy fake of
philosophy or politics or superstition is hailed as the god
in the machine.  Instead of going into debt and playing
the "refined, cultured lady," Courtney had set about
learning to economize without privation or meanness or tawdry
pretense, acquiring the supreme art of living—the getting
of its full value for every dollar.  It had been a hard
schooling; she began to realize how valuable, how
invaluable.  With this additional allowance Richard was now
making, she saw what wonders of improvement she could
work—she who had been getting out of the smaller income
what many women in Wenona, spending four and five times
as much, had not got.  Certainly, the sky was brightening.

"If you haven't taken a dislike to me," Helen was
saying, "and are going to let me stay a while, I'll make
myself useful.  In fact, I'll not stay if I don't.  I must
pay my way, and I can't pay in money."

"Whatever you like," said Courtney, "if you'll only
stay.  We want you.  We need you."

Helen never forgot the warmth that cordial genuine
tone sent through her.  She didn't try to put her thanks
into words, for there are no words for such real and deep
feeling.  She simply looked at Courtney—a look that more
than rewarded her.  After a moment she went on in an
unsteady voice, "I could help—with Winchie.  I took a
course in kindergarten work at Tecumseh—and in
housekeeping, too.  They really teach things—real things—there.
Then, I sew beautifully—the finest kind of sewing."

"So I see," said Courtney, looking at the sacque Helen
was wearing.  She did not like the sacque, because she did
not like flummery and elaboration—and Helen had the
poor girl's weakness for both.  But she did admire the
quality of the work that had been put into it.

"You must let me do some sewing for you.  Do you
like fine underclothes?"

"Crazy about them."

"I knew you were," said Helen who, judging by Courtney's
dress and light way of talking, had already clearly
and finally made up her mind that the verdict of "serious
people" as to her cousin was just—a sweet, light, pretty
creature, fond of dress and all the frivolities.  "Just you
wait!  Mrs. Hargrave up at our town brought back some
things from Paris—perfectly wonderful!  All the women
were excited about them.  Well, I know how to make them—and
where the goods can be got.  Not expensive, either."

"I'll get the material," said Courtney, "and you can
make some for both of us."

"Then I took a course in fitting.  Don't judge by the
things I wear.  I somehow can't fit myself."

"It's the corset," said Courtney.

"I suppose so.  I could never afford to have them
made—or to buy the best ready-made kind.  But I can
do well for others.  I can teach your dressmaker how to
behave herself.  That'll save you a lot of time and worry,
won't it?"

"And work.  Now, I have to remake most of my things."

Courtney began to respect Helen.  The evening before,
the girl, bent upon making a favorable impression, had
been a wholly different person.  She had seemed to Courtney
stuffed to bursting with the familiar, everywhere
admired and nowhere admirable "idealism" that chokes
thought with cant and cumbers action with pretense.  She
had displayed a disquieting fondness for the "cultured"
drivel about art and literature, about morals and manners,
that destroys sincerity and simplicity's strength, and
creates the doleful dreary lack of individuality characteristic
of the so-called educated classes throughout the world.
Courtney had always had the courage to confess that these
honored frauds seemed to her ridiculous and wearisome.
She assumed that Richard's and Basil's admiring attention,
as Helen "showed off" after the manner of young
girls, was politeness—or tribute to Helen's good looks.
Now that she had discovered real virtues in Helen, she was
not alarmed; for, she had learned that men are not
interested in such virtues in young women but only in surface
charms that stimulate their sex illusions.  "It'd take a
man who had been married at least once to appreciate
Helen," thought she.

By the time Courtney finished breakfast, she had
explained her plans and Helen had made many intelligent
suggestions.  They lost no time in getting to work.  The
morning flew, dinner was ready before they had given it
a thought.  Yes, Helen was a genuine addition, was just
what she needed.  "Yet I've no doubt Basil'll think her
stupid once he gets used to her beauty and her sweetly
pretty romantic pose for the matrimonal game."

Dick and Basil came, and the merry party of the night
before was repeated.  Courtney noted with pleasure that
Dick and Helen had taken a fancy to each other.  Without
her realizing it, this was a thorough test of her absolute
apartness from him; for, many a woman who is not in
love with her husband, who actively dislikes him, will yet
be furiously jealous of him—and by no means entirely
from the sordid motive of fear lest his being attracted
elsewhere will end in lessening her own portion of the
income.  Dick showed that he thought Helen, tall of stature
and serious looking, an appreciative listener to his
discourses on chemistry; and Helen's manner was indeed well
calculated to deceive—a man.  After dinner Dick led her
up to his study further to explain some things they had
been discussing.  Winchie hurried away to resume play
with the Donaldsons, their governess having come for
him—and Courtney and Basil were free.

"It seems too good to be true," said Basil.  "How
much better this is—in every way—than what we've been
condemning each other to....  Courtney, I did a very
indiscreet thing last night.  I came to your
window—climbed up by a ladder Jimmie had forgotten to lock up
in the woodshed."

Courtney, rosy red, lowered her head.

"I don't wonder you're angry.  I'll never do it again.
When we have such happiness as this, we must do
nothing—*nothing*—to endanger it.  And I want to say, you
were right about—about what's best for us.  The very
resolve to try has made everything seem entirely different.
I'm not ashamed when I look at Richard.  I can meet his
eyes.  And with your help I think I can wait patiently—and
hope! ... Don't you think it possible those two
might fall in love?"

She was startled, then fascinated by the idea.  "Why
not?  If they only would!"

"It's just possible—barely possible."  They sat silent,
reflecting on this new hope.  Presently Basil went on,
"They're both very serious minded.  And Miss March
would be a real companion for him.  She's thoroughly
intellectual, has quite a remarkable mind—more like a
man's."

At "intellectual" Courtney thought he was joking.
She began to smile, rather reluctantly—for, she did not
like to laugh at so sweet and honest a girl as Helen, even
with one so near to her, so like another self.  Then his
expression warned her that he was in earnest, that he
really regarded Helen's "cultured" conversation as an
indication of intelligence, did not see that it was merely
education of an elementary and commonplace sort—the sort
the colleges, those wholesale dealers in ready-made mental
clothes, dressed out all minds in, so that usually one could
tell a college man just as one could tell a ready-made suit.
It was at her face to laugh at him.  What an instance of
woman's good looks blinding susceptible man to the truth
about her internal furnishing, as different from the real
thing as a hotel parlor from the drawing-room of a
person of taste and individuality.  But she did not laugh;
that would have seemed meanness toward Helen—and
Courtney, no lenient critic of her own character, rather
suspected herself of a sly ungenerous envy of Helen's
stature.

"Yes," pursued Basil, "Miss March has a remarkable
mind.  But I'm afraid there's no hope—about her and him.
You see, she's not at all that sort of girl.  She'd rather die
than commit any impropriety—that is, I mean of course,"
he stammered, "she's horribly prim."

Courtney would have thought nothing of it, had he
not stumbled and hastened on to explain.  But that
agitated, apologetic embarrassment changed "she'd rather die
than commit any impropriety" from a commonplace into a
tribute to Helen which was a slur upon herself.  For her
love's sake she resisted the temptation to pretend not to
have heard or felt.  "You like that sort of thing in a
woman, don't you?" said she, with a lift of the eyebrows,
those deep notes in her voice ominous.

"In Miss March—yes," blundered he.  "That is, in a
young girl."  He halted, burst out desperately, "You're
always suspecting me of not respecting you."

There began to gather in Courtney an emotion that
terrified her.  It was not anger; it was not shame.  It
seemed, rather, a sort of dread—though of what she did
not know—did not wish to know.  "Please, no protests,"
she said hurriedly.  "Let's drop the subject."

"I do respect you," he said, doggedly.  "But if I
didn't"—there, he looked at her—"I feel for you
something that's so much more than respect—I love you."

She drew in her breath sharply, and her eyes gleamed
and glistened as they opened wide.  She had a way of
opening her eyes upon him that made him feel as if he were
standing on a high place and about to plunge dizzily into
the sea at the call of a mermaid.  The silence that
followed was interrupted—rudely it seemed to them—by the
return of Helen and Dick.

"I need somebody in addition to you, Gallatin, to help
out down at the shop," said Dick, "and Helen is going
to try."

"If Cousin Courtney is willing," said Helen.  "She
may need me here, as I told you."

Courtney had been standing with her fingers on the
edge of the chimney-piece, gazing between her arms into
the fire.  She slowly turned and regarded Richard.  Basil
and Helen working together!

"Oh, no, she doesn't need you here," asserted Vaughan.
And catching Courtney's eye, he glanced from Basil to
Helen and winked.

Courtney seemed not to see.  "Helen doesn't want to
go down there," said she.  "Richard imagines, if people
listen politely to his talk about chemistry, that they're as
interested as he."

"Really I'd like it," said Helen, a good deal of
nervousness in her enthusiasm.

"She could try it anyhow," urged Vaughan.  "We
need some one—don't we, Basil?"

"Yes," said Basil.  "You remember, I suggested you
ought to ask Mrs. Courtney to take a hand."

"Courtney!"  Vaughan laughed gayly.  "She has no
fancy for anything serious.  Now, Helen is masculine
minded."

"Not a bit," declared Helen, much agitated by such
an accusation, in presence of an eligible young man.  "I'm
so much a woman that I'm what's called a woman's woman."

"Helen prefers to stay here," said Courtney.  "So, I
think *I'll* try."

Richard stared and frowned.

She smiled at Basil.  "Richard is getting broad
minded," she went on slowly, selecting her words.  "A short
time ago the idea of a woman in that laboratory of his
would have upset him quite.  I remember, when we were
first married, I made the most desperate efforts to get him
to let me help.  He was finally quite rude about it."  She
spoke with no suggestion of resentment; and, indeed, that
time seemed so remote, so like a part of another life or
another person's life that she felt no resentment.

"I'm sure—we'll—both—be glad to have you," stammered
Basil.  He was confused before the instinct-born
thought that those few apparently simple words of hers, so
quietly and so good-humoredly spoken, were in fact the
story of the matrimonial ruin he had found when he
came—and was profiting by.

"I'll come down to-morrow," Courtney went on.
"Helen can look after things here."

Helen could not conceal her relief; when the men were
gone she said: "I'm so glad you got me out of that.  Dick
would have discovered what a stupid I am in about one
hour, and he'd have despised me.  I'd hate that, as I think
he's wonderful.  How proud you must be of him.  Of
course, Basil is very sweet—and *such* a gentleman—and
how well he does dress!  But Dick—  They're not in the
same class."

"No," said Courtney.

Just then Vaughan came hurrying in.  "I forgot something
I wanted to say to you, my dear," he began.  "Come
in here——"

Helen took the hint and hastened away.  Vaughan went
on, "Why on earth didn't you help me?"

Courtney looked interrogative.  She felt a curious
impersonal anger against him for having blunderingly
interfered in her affairs.

"Didn't you see," explained Richard somewhat irritably,
"I had it all fixed to bring those two together?"

"How dull of me!"

"It's not too late.  All you have to do is back out and
send her."

"And have her exhibit herself before him at her worst.
And get him sick of the very sight of her."  Richard began
to look foolish.  Courtney went on in the same tone of light
mockery: "If you want a girl to marry a man, or a man
a girl, you mustn't let them see too much of each other.
If possible, make it hard for them to get at each
other."  The emerald eyes were mockingly mirthful now.  "No
such love-inducer in the world as holding two people apart.
And when two can see each other freely—to their heart's
content—and satiation—why—"  She finished with a
shrug, her eyes looking straight into his.

"All right.  You women know each other best," said
he, uncomfortable, without being able to locate the cause.

"Helen will stay at home, like the homebody she is,"
pursued Courtney.  "And I'll come to help you.  I've had
it in mind for several days."

"You're not in earnest about that!" cried Vaughan in
alarm.  "Why, what'd you do there?  You'd be in the way."

"More than Helen?"

"Frankly—yes," said Richard bluntly.  "As I said
before, serious things interest her.  You know, I dislike
that sort of thing in a woman—am glad to see that you've
gotten entirely over it, as I knew you would.  But I could
have put up with it—for a while—to help Helen to a good
husband and Basil to a fine wife.  It wouldn't have taken
long—at least, I thought not.  I admit I was probably
wrong, and you right."

"Well—now that I've said I'd come, I'll come," said
Courtney.  "Helen'll take most of the detail here off my
hands."

"If you really want to come—" said Dick, reluctant.
"I suppose—after what I've said—  Well, you can come
for a few days."

Courtney was looking into the fire.  Not for a "few
days" but for as long as Basil worked with those
dangerous chemicals.  If anything happened—they would be
together.  Richard was looking at her; but he thought it
was the fire light that was giving her the strange, somehow
terrible expression which yet enhanced her beauty and
her charm.

"How serious you look," said he.  "Really, quite
tragic—in that light."

"Yes, it must be the way the light falls," replied she.
"Or is it because I've mislaid my pet powder rag?"

Next morning as soon as Courtney dispatched her
household routine she went down to the Smoke House and
appeared before Richard in his laboratory for the first time
since that morning after the homecoming, long, long ago
in that other life.  With a platinum rod he was slowly
stirring some fiery mixture of a dark purple color in a
big iron crucible.  She saw that the fumes were poisonous,
as his nose and mouth were protected by a respirator.  As
on the previous visit she stood silent in the doorway
watching him.  She had long since passed the stage of
comparisons and contrasts; and her mind was altogether upon
the present and the future, as an intelligent young mind
is extremely apt to be.  So, she was not thinking of that
previous visit, but was simply interested in what he was
doing—in his work, which she had now resolved, with an
experienced woman's determination, to make her own work
also, no matter what opposition she might encounter.  Her
achievements in house and gardens, in bringing up Winchie,
in breaking through the barriers of moral convention so
powerful round a woman born and bred as she had been—these
feats had wonderfully developed her will, had replaced
shyness and timidity with quiet self-confidence.

When the contents of the crucible cooled and he took
off the respirator, she spoke.  "I see you've run up a
partition."

He glanced at her with a frown—not severe but
irritated, as at the persistent naughtiness of a sweet and
charming child.  "Oh, you've come—have you? ... Yes—the
partition gives Basil and me each his own shop.  I
like to work alone, whenever it's possible."

She advanced calmly, indifferent to his unfriendliness.
"Then you don't want me to help *you*?"  She put all her
diplomacy of tone and manner into that little speech.  She
knew how much depended upon this "entering wedge"—this
getting tolerated within those walls.

"What a whimsical creature you are!"  Dick was still
vexed, but half laughing, too.  She was so delicate and
graceful, so fascinating to the eye; and she seemed to him
absurdly, quaintly out of place there.  "Basil!" he called.
"Gallatin!"

Gallatin, in a blouse, rubber apron and gloves appeared
from the other part of the shop.

"Well—here's the—the 'prentice," said Dick.  "You're
not busy nowadays.  Take charge of her."

"It'll be a great pleasure, I'm sure," he stammered.
He looked about as uncomfortable at sight of her as had
Richard.  Demurely she followed him into his compartment.
As the partition did not extend to the ceiling, they
had to content themselves with an exchange of eloquent
glances.  Then, taking the tone of gentleman chemist to
not overbright and densely ignorant lady visitor at a
laboratory, he began to explain to her the names and uses of
things, and to demonstrate how to use them.

For the entire morning he talked and illustrated,
thoroughly enjoying himself at making a fine impression with
his display of superior knowledge.  He told her little she
did not already know.  But she was not so tactless as to
spoil his pleasure or hurt his vanity.  She listened and
tried; and when he complimented her on her quickness in
learning, she showed delight at being praised.  In the
afternoon he allowed her to practice his teachings
unassisted—set her at weighing a little nitrate of potassium
precipitate in the gold and ivory and aluminum balances.
She had done this sort of things a hundred times, but was
meek under his elaborations of cautioning and explaining.

"I worked a lot in laboratories at school," said she
ingenuously, when his guidance became a little tiresome.
"It's beginning to come back to me."

He smiled in a way that reminded her of Richard.
"All right.  Do the best you can," said he.  "We'll not
expect much of you for the present.  I'm afraid you'll soon
give up."

She looked at him.  "I'm here to stay," said she,
"You'll not get rid of me."

"But the work's very hard—not at all feminine."

"That suits me.  For, I'm not at all feminine,
myself—what men mean by feminine."

He laughed, went about his own business.  As she sat
at the balances, her whole mind on the needle she was
watching through the reading glass, she felt herself caught
from behind.  She turned her laughing face upward and
backward, and they kissed.  "Isn't it splendid!" he
exclaimed under his breath.  "Yes—you must stay."  It had
been part of her plan of life that they should never caress.
Suddenly she realized how impossible this rule was—and
how foolish.  On occasions—such occasions as this joy in
the unexpected kindness of fate—the rule must be suspended.

"How long it's been!" he said in a low voice.  "Not
since early September have I kissed you—and this is almost
February."

She glanced warningly toward the top of the partition.

"Away at the other end," Basil assured her, "and
doing something that can't be left an instant for an hour
or more."

"Well then—"  She blushed, hesitated, gave him a
passionate, longing look.  "One more kiss—and we go to
work."

He seated himself and drew her to his lap.  With their
heads close together, they talked—of anything, of
everything, of nothing—and hardly knew what they were
saying—and cared not at all.  "Oh, the happiness of it," she
murmured.  "And we are to work side by side, too.  It
seems a dream.  I can't believe it."

"And soon it will be spring again, and we shall be a
little freer."

"Be patient until I get everything settled," she answered,
"and we shall be free almost all the time.  I have
thought it out."

"You think of everything."

"I think of nothing but you—always you," she
answered.  "What have I but our love?  I want to make
the house comfortable, your apartment comfortable, myself
attractive—all, so that love will never begin to think of
taking flight."

"Flight!"  He laughed softly.  "How absurd!  Can't
you feel that I'm just wrapped up in you?"

She touched his tight encircling arms.  "I can feel
that I'm just wrapped up in you," she retorted.  "Now,
let me go.  I am not to keep you from the work—or
you me."

"Not just yet."

"Yes"—firmly.  "You don't take me any more seriously
than Richard does.  But I don't in the least care.
If I am serious, what does it matter whether anyone thinks
so or not?"  She laughed a little.  "And I'm feminine
enough, I'll admit, to want to be what the man who wants
me wants me to be."

He was not listening.  He held her more tightly, and
she knew what was coming before he began to speak.
"Let me come to-night, Courtney.  Just this once.  I
simply want to be alone with you——"

"Not yet," she replied.  "Don't let's tempt each other
to risk years of happiness for a frightened moment."  And,
afraid she would yield if he kept on urging, she abruptly
freed herself and sent him back to his seat.

An hour, and he came to her again.  "I've been doing
nothing but watch you, and you haven't looked round
once."

"This work is interesting," replied she—and it was
the simple truth.

"No—not once!"

"What a good example I'm setting you.  I always
used to like chemistry.  And I was a harum-scarum girl
then.  Now, I see I'm going to be tremendously fond
of it."

"Courtney—I can't stand—our—our compact.  I simply
can't.  I feel as if you had thrust me out of your life.
And—  Have you no memory, sweetheart?  Courtney,
we're only human beings, after all.  And we've the right.
Aren't you my wife?"

"Don't tempt me, Basil," she answered with a sigh.
"Do you suppose I don't feel it?  Sometimes I get to
thinking what might be—  But I will not!  You do not
wish it."  And she glanced meaningly at the partition.

"You are mine!" he whispered, moved by the reminder
but not abashed.  "If I had never known love in its
fullness, I might be able to endure this cold, repellent
pretense of virtue—for, it's nothing but a flimsy pretense.
Courtney, if you love me——"

"Is your love only—*that*!"

"If you loved me," he repeated, "you'd not calculate
so puritanically.  If I weren't seeing you, dear, I could
bear it.  But seeing you all the time—touching you—kissing
you—Courtney, Courtney, how can you make me, and
yourself too, suffer so needlessly?  If you really love, how
can you keep me out of your inmost life—as if I were not
everything to you?"

"I explained to you——"

"Explained!  Explained!" he said, impatiently.  "We
explain and explain, but it's all sophistry.  The truth
is—what?  That we are lovers.  And, if our love is a sin, why
not take all its reward since we'll have to take all its
punishment?"

"Don't harass me now," she begged, agitated and trembling.

"Harass you!"  He drew away offendedly.  "I
thought I was pleading for you, as well as for myself.
If I am not, please forget what I said."

"I didn't mean that!"

"Then I may come to-night—or you to me?"

She gave him a sad, pleading look.  "Not to-night,
dear.  Not just yet.  We *must* wait till things are going
quietly in a routine."

"How easily you put us off!"

"Basil!—*Please*!"

He stared sulkily out of the window.  "It does sting
my pride that you care so much less than I.  It does make
me—almost doubt."

"Not so loud!"

"You don't realize how far away he is, and how
absorbed....  I take back all I said."  And he straightened
himself coldly and went to his own part of the room.

A moment, and she followed him.  "You are offended, Basil."

"No—hurt."

She sighed.  "I will come to-night."

"You do not wish to come!"

"To be honest, no.  I should feel—"  She hesitated.
She wished to be frank; but how could she be, when he
was in that mood of doubt?  How could she explain again
that, in some respects, she loathed the memory of the times
they had been stealthily together—the alarms, the narrow
escapes from discovery—the commonness of it all—like
those low intrigues that get into the newspapers, to make
coarse mouths water and vulgar eyes sparkle?  If she tried
to tell him, he would misunderstand.  "Not just yet," she
went on.  "I'm in a queer mood—not myself.  You——"

She was so tender, so loving, so deeply distressed that,
in shame and contrition, he embraced her.  "I'm sorry I
said anything.  But you'll understand.  How can I help
longing for you?  It's your own fault—you beautiful,
wonderful *woman*!"

And their first clash ended in kisses, in serenity
restored, with him saying—and thinking—"How much
braver and better you are than I!  Yours is the love that
makes a man stronger and decenter."

Her look was eloquent of gratitude and happiness.  But
the happiness in it was forced, at least in part, was rather
what she felt she ought to feel than what she actually did
feel—as is so often the case.  And she went back to work
with a certain heaviness of heart—and a foreboding.  The
slightest alarm, however fanciful, was enough to call up
the specter of those months of loneliness and despair after
he left.  That specter haunted her, was in her mind the
fixed idea that becomes an obsession.  She knew that to
quiet it, she would if necessary stop at nothing.  "I can
never give him up again.  I'd do anything—anything—rather
than even risk it."  Pride and self-respect were all
very well, but those who could put such things before love
had not loved.  She hoped and prayed Basil would not
force her to the test.  But—if he did—  She sighed, and
bade herself wait until that situation arose before worrying
over it.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XIX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XIX

.. vspace:: 2

Now that the throes of birth were over, their love bade
fair to be like those robust infants that almost kill mothers
in the bearing but thereafter give not a moment's anxiety.
Outdoors it was rivalling the previous winter; indoors—at
the house and at the laboratory—there reigned mid-summer
serenity.  Nanny—always a shadow, though very
faint indeed latterly—had yielded before her arch enemy,
rheumatism, had been pensioned off, had gone to her
brother's, seventeen miles into the wilderness.  She would
shadow them no more.  Richard had come to another crisis
in his researches; and a mind in the act of gestation is like
a hen on eggs—solitary, brooding, best left utterly alone.
He was as unconscious of Courtney and Basil as of
himself; all three were, for him, simply instruments to the
strange and terrible marvels of chemical action that were
unfolding.  Soon Basil felt about him as did Courtney—that
is, lost all sense of his being related to her or to the
life of the household.  As they held to their compact, they
experienced none of passion's inevitable alternations of
rapture and revulsion.  Habit is equally the friend of
virtue and of vice.  It was not a matter of months but
of weeks when they were looking on their love as not only
moral but even exalted, since they were self-restrained.

The chief factor in the tranquillity was the work.
Courtney began at the laboratory solely that she and Basil
might be together.  Soon she had another reason—love of
the work itself.  Everything worth while, whether for
achievement or for amusement, involves drudgery at the
outset—tennis or bridge no less than a trade or an art.
Although Courtney had done at school the worst part of
the drudgery in acquiring chemistry, it was nearly a month
before she began to enjoy.  Then came the first haunting
alluring glimpses of the elusive mystery which makes
chemistry the most fascinating of the sciences; and from
that hour forth she forgot the difficulties in the delights.
She often stole in to gaze longingly at Richard's work—for,
he kept the main part of the great task of finding a
new and universal fuel altogether in his own hands and
used the other two as mere helpers.  She would have liked
to work with him; and, as she understood better and better
what he was about, the temptation to try to bring her skill
and her knowledge to his attention became strong at times.
But she was afraid that if he began to think attentively
about her being there, he would send her away.  No, it
was best to remain hidden behind Basil, to do nothing to
remind Richard of her existence.

At first Basil assumed she was toiling like another
Richard because she wished quickly to get knowledge
enough to make plausible her necessary pretense of interest.
But after a few weeks he saw she was in earnest, or
thought she was—for, he could not believe one so pretty,
so charming, so light of spirit and of mind, could be deeply
in earnest about such a heavy, unwomanly matter as
chemistry—or about anything else, except of course love.  He
was fond of chemistry; but it was in the fashion of most
men's fondness for serious effort—to get excuse and
appetite for idling.  However, partly through pride, partly
because her enthusiasm was contagious, he buckled to and
worked as Richard had never been able to make him.

"Really, you needn't crowd yourself quite so hard,"
said he to Courtney, when his own energy began to flag.

"I've got to choose between being a drag and a help.
Besides—" She glanced down with the shy, subtle smile
he had learned to recognize as a cover for something she
meant very much indeed—"don't you find that being
occupied is a great aid?"

"I'd not have thought it possible to live as we're
living—and be happy."

"You are happy?"  As she asked this, she scrutinized
his face in woman's familiar veiled fashion.  She was
always watching, watching, for the first faint dreaded sign
of discontent.

"So much so," answered he, earnestly, "that I'd be
afraid to change anything."

She saw that he meant it, that he felt it with all the
intensity of the fine side of his nature.  And she breathed
a secret sigh of relief.  She said: "Every day—time and
again—I say to myself, 'If only this will last!'"

"It will!" declared he.

And, pessimist though she had been made by disappointment
on disappointment in small things and large her
whole life through, she began to hope that this would
last, that the worst of her life was perhaps over, that her
life problem was settling and settling right.  The
watchdogs of presentiment are like their much overrated
animal prototypes.  They bark at everything, that they
may get credit for usefulness if by chance they once do
happen to vent their nerve-racking warnings in advance
of a real peril.  Even presentiment called its dogs off
duty.

She had been brought up among people who imagine
they see the operations of natural law in the artificial
conventions of morality that differ for every age and race
and creed, really for every individual.  She had long
discarded as superstition the creed of her parents; but she
had not been able wholly to uproot all the ramifications of
beliefs dependent upon that creed for vitality.  Thus, she
vaguely felt a relationship of effect and cause between her
sufferings in the autumn and early winter and those
fear-shadowed, shame-alloyed but ecstatic moments of joy in
the summer.  And in the same vague way, there seemed
to her some sort of connection between their present
happiness and their self-restraint.  She would have, quite
honestly, denied, had she been accused of harboring such a
"remnant of superstition."  Nevertheless, it was the fact.
However, she did not analyze or reason about her happiness.
She simply accepted and enjoyed it—and forgot the
foundations on which it rested.

And the days—the long, long days that only people
who live in quiet places have—moved tranquilly and
happily by, swift yet slow.  The weeks seemed to be flying,
and the days went very fast; but each hour presented its
full quota of sixty minutes for enjoyment.  In those dreadful
days of the previous fall she had wished every hour that
she was living in a city, because in the city a thousand
resolute intrusions compel distraction, make the moments
seem to fly, whether the heart is heavy or light.  Now, she
was glad with all her heart that she was living and loving
where there were no distractions, where each moment could
be lived as a connoisseur drinks his glass of rare old wine
drop by drop.

.. vspace:: 2

One day late in April she and Richard, it so happened,
were alone for a few minutes before supper.  He
abruptly emerged from his abstraction to say, "Basil and
Helen are getting on famously."

She startled, then lapsed into her usual isolation when
alone with him.

"I expect there'll be a marriage before the summer
is out."

"Yes?" said Courtney, absently.

"Well, it's a good match.  They're both comfortably
shallow.  They're fond of the same kind of harmless
pretenses.  They look well together....  I hope they'll stay
on with us—at least until the first baby comes."

She shivered, rose abruptly.  "Supper must certainly
be ready," said she.

"Then," pursued Dick, intent upon his train of thought,
"they might get the Donaldson place.  The Donaldsons
want to sell."

She smiled ironically.  "I suppose you've spoken to
Donaldson about it."

"Not yet.  But next time I see him, I'll give him a
hint.  He might sell to some one else."

Basil now came in.  "Sell what?" he asked, to join in
the conversation.

"Oh, nothing," answered Dick.  "Courtney and I were
discussing the Donaldson place.  Donaldson wants to
sell, and we thought we might get neighbors we didn't
like."

"Richard suggested," said Courtney, in her most
innocent manner, "that you might buy it."

Dick looked alarmed.  Basil, with his eyes on Courtney,
promptly said: "Maybe I will.  It's second only to this
place.  And I shall always live here."

"Richard thought it would be a good idea for you to
settle there when you and Helen marry," said Courtney,
with a smile only Basil could understand.

If anything, Basil looked more confused and nervous
than did Richard; he laughed hysterically.  "Really—really—that's
very attractive—if—" he stammered.

Just then Helen, out of hearing on the lake-front
veranda, happened to call, "Oh, Mr. Gallatin!"

"Yes," he answered, and hastened out to join her.
Richard stared helplessly at his wife.  "Now, why did
you do that?" he demanded.

"What?"

"You certainly are the most thoughtless, frivolous
person!  I never knew you to be serious about anything—except
something that was of not the least importance.  I
must remember to be always on guard when I speak before
you."

"Yes, you ought to be careful.  I'm not intellectual,
like Helen.  But I was forgetting; now you say she's
shallow, too."

"All intellectual women are shallow," said Dick.  He
was ashamed of his heat of the moment before.  "And I
never said you were shallow.  You ought to be glad you
have no intellectual tendencies, but are a bundle of
instincts and impulses, as a woman should be.  I guess you
didn't spill the milk, after all.  If Gallatin loves Helen,
a little break such as you made won't scare him off."

"No indeed.  When a man's in love, the sight of the
net doesn't frighten him.  He helps to hold it open so that
he can jump in deep."

Courtney intended to tease Basil, the next time they
were alone.  But it slipped her mind until nearly a week
later.  Basil had got into the habit of going out for a
stroll and a smoke every morning about ten.  She never
went with him, because she did not wish to interrupt her
work to which she could give only the mornings, as the
time for gardens and growing things was at hand.  One
morning it so chanced that her task of the moment was
just finished when Basil moved toward the door.  "I'll go
with you," said she.

He hesitated, looked disconcerted.

"Oh, if you don't want me," laughed she.

"Indeed I do," he hastened to say.  "Only—usually
you don't."

They went out together, walked up and down the wide
retaining wall of the lake, beyond the Smoke House.
Presently Helen appeared, on her way to the apartment over
the laboratory.  Now that she had charge of the housekeeping,
it was part of her duties to look at the apartment
and see that Lizzie was keeping things clean and was
making Gallatin comfortable.  At sight of Basil and
Courtney, she stopped short, colored painfully.  She answered
their greetings with embarrassment, went with awkward
haste in at the apartment entrance.

"Helen's extremely shy," said Courtney.

"She *is* difficult to get acquainted with," replied Basil.
His manner might have been either absent or constrained.

"I'm afraid I haven't given you much chance," said
Courtney, merely by way of saying something.

"Oh, I know her pretty well," Basil hastened to protest.
"There's a lot more to her than one sees at first."

"Indeed there is," said Courtney, warmly.  "I've
grown very fond of her—fonder than I ever thought I
could be of another woman.  I don't care much for women.
They're so small toward each other—because they're all
brought up to be cutthroat rivals in the same low
business—husband-catching.  But Helen isn't a bit small.
She has a real heart."

"And real intellect, too."

Courtney's smile was absolutely free from malice.
"That's just what she has not," she replied, for she talked
with perfect frankness to him, her other self.  "I suppose
the man never lived who could judge a good-looking
woman.  Women don't always misjudge men.  But men
always fancy beauty means brains, if the woman's heavy
and serious—and not downright imbecile."

"I shouldn't call Miss March imbecile," said he.  "Or
even heavy."

"Now don't be cross because I hinted that women could
fool you," teased Courtney.  "And I didn't mean to
suggest that Helen is imbecile or heavy."

"She knows an awful lot," said Basil.  "She often
corrects me—in little slips about authors and poetry, and
so on."

Courtney could hardly keep from showing her amusement
that Basil should be impressed by what was really
one of Helen's weaknesses.  For Helen, like so many who
have small or very imperfect knowledge, attached as great
importance to trifles of worthless learning as a college
professor; she became agitated if anyone showed lack of
knowledge of some infinitesimal in etiquette or grammar or
what not, just as fashionable people sweat with mortification
or distend with vast inward derision if some one,
however intelligent, however capable, appears among
them in an out-of-style garment or uses an expression
not in their tiny vocabulary.  Courtney was striving
tactfully to open out a less ignorant point of view to Helen.
And here was Basil showing that Helen's weakness
was in reality a strength, highly useful in dealing with
men.

Courtney said: "Helen is a fine, sensible, capable
girl—about the finest I ever knew.  And she has genuine
sweetness and good taste."

"She does dress well," said Basil warmly.  "If she
had the means, she'd be stunning."

"Could be, but wouldn't be," replied Courtney, perfectly
just and good humored, but perhaps a little weary
of hearing another young woman's praises in her lover's
voice.  "She'd 'settle down' if she married.  She's
resolutely old fashioned—hates to think or to exert herself.
She'll make a fine, old-fashioned wife for some man who
likes to be mildly bored at home and wants his fun
elsewhere.  This reminds me.  Richard has you and her
married—wedding in the fall—baby next spring."

Basil flushed at this teasing.

"You don't seem enthusiastic."

"I don't care to hear a good young girl spoken of so
lightly," said he, with some stiffness.

And now Courtney colored.  After a moment she said,
apologetic without knowing why: "Perhaps I shouldn't
have done it.  But I always feel free to speak out to you
any stray thought that drifts into my head—without
choosing my words."

Helen now reappeared, cast a peculiar glance in their
direction, blushed rosily, hastened away toward the house.
"She'd better be careful how she blushes at sight of you,"
said Courtney smiling, "or you'll be thinking she's in love
with you."

"Nonsense!" protested Basil, again unaccountably irritated.

"How solemn you are to-day, dear.  And, why shouldn't
she fall in love with you?  I can see how a woman might."

He did not respond to her glance.  He stared straight
ahead, answered awkwardly, "Helen and I are simply
good friends."

The phrase jarred upon her a little.  "Simply good
friends."  As she repeated it, she remembered suddenly,
vividly, the beginning of their own love.  They too had been
"simply good friends."  The phrase kept recurring to
her, dinning disagreeably in her ears.  She frowned on
herself; she laughed at herself.  But it continued to ring
and to jar.  "I certainly have a nasty jealous streak
hidden away in my disposition," she said to herself.  "I
mustn't encourage it."

During the next few days every time Helen and Basil
were together, she caught herself watching them for
signs—"Signs of what?" she demanded of herself.  But in
spite of herself she kept on watching.  That specter of
the dreadful days without him—that specter so easily
called up—began to glide about in the background of
her thoughts, rousing those fears before which she was
abject coward.

Helen had the young girl's usual assortment of harmless
little tricks.  Her favorite was to note when a man
made a remark which she thought he regarded as clever,
to go back to it after a moment or so, and repeat it and
laugh or admire according as it had been intended to be
amusing or profound.  She was constantly doing this—with
Richard, with Basil, with every man she met.  The
time came when the overworked trick began to get upon
Courtney's nerves, especially as Helen, being entirely
without humor and a close-to-shore wader in the waters of
thought, was not always happy in her selection of the
remark.  Still, her intentions being of the best, Courtney
endured; and at times she got not a little secret
amusement from seeing how Basil and even Richard were
flattered by the trick, never suspecting, even after Helen had
again and again laughed or admired effusively in quite the
wrong place.  As she watched Helen and Basil now, the
only "sign" she saw was this clever-stupid subtlety of
Helen's for flattering male vanity—Helen practicing it on
Basil, Basil purring each time like a cat under the
stroking of an agreeable hand.  This certainly was not serious.
She laughed at herself with a reproachful "You don't
deserve happiness—trying to poison it with contemptible
suspicion."  And the specter faded, and she no longer heard
the sound of rain beating, of rain drizzling, of rain
dripping through days and nights of aloneness and despair.

.. vspace:: 2

Spring was smiling from every twig.  The birds, impatient
at winter's reluctant leave-taking, had arrived before
the young leaves were far enough advanced to cover
them.  So, every tree was alive with them, plainly in view,
boldly about their courting and nesting, like lovers who,
despairing of finding a quiet place, march along the
highway embracing in defiance of curious eyes.  One morning,
half an hour after Basil went out for his habitual stroll
and cigarette, Courtney changed her mind and decided to
join him.  She looked along the retaining wall.  No Basil.
She walked up and down, noting, and feeling in her own
blood, the agitations of the mightiest force in the
universe—those agitations that in the springtime set all nature
to quivering.  Ten minutes passed—fifteen—half an
hour—nearly three quarters of an hour.  Still no Basil.  She
decided he must have gone up to his rooms and fallen
asleep.  She resisted the temptation to go and waken him,
and went slowly toward the laboratory doors.  Just as she
was about to jump from the wall, out of the apartment
entrance came Helen, her face aglow, her eyes sparkling,
all the austerity gone from her regular features.  "How
pretty she looks," thought Courtney.  "I wonder what's
delighting her so.  One'd think she was in love and was
loved.  There never lived a sweeter, more unselfish girl.
Nothing petty in her.  She even has a nice way of being
prudent about money."

Helen did not see her, went quickly up the path and
into the wood between the Smoke House and the lawns
round the house.  Courtney resisted the impulse to call
because she had already been out of the laboratory too
long.  As Helen disappeared among the trees, Courtney
was astounded to see appear at the apartment door—Basil!
On his face a contented pleased expression, as if he were
reflecting upon something highly agreeable—Helen's
face—his face—Courtney stood for an instant like a flaming
torch planted upon that wall—a torch with a white-hot
flame of hate.

As Basil was taking a last puff at his cigarette, she
darted into the laboratory and sat at her case.  When he
entered, she was just where she had been at his going out.
"Still at work!" he cried.

"Still at work!" said she.  She forced her lips to
smile, but she did not dare lift her fluttering eyelids.  She
looked calm and, as always, sweet; but in those few
minutes all the sweetness of her nature had transformed, as
the thunderstorm changes milk from food to poison.  And
the remembered horror of those days of desolation goaded
her toward a very insanity of fear and jealousy.  That
smile on Helen's face—then on his.

He stood behind her.  If she had had a knife she
would have whirled round and plunged it into his breast
and then into her own.  But she had not; also, this
was twentieth-century and conventional life.  She sat
rigid, intent upon the flame of the blast tube she was
using.

He bent and kissed her neck.  "Sweetheart!" he murmured.

The fixed smile became a distortion, as she lowered her
head.

"The spring—outdoors," he went on in the same low
caressing voice.  "It's hard to bear.  It seems so long—so
long—since—"  His pause finished the sentence better
than any words.

Long indeed, thought she; a singularly patient and
restrained lover; strangely respectful.

"There are more kinds of happiness in love than I
imagined," he went on.  "But do you never—never——"

"Please," she interrupted.  She found her voice could
be trusted; she ventured to test her eyes.  She looked up
at him, taking pleasure in veiling her hate behind a smile.
She strove to make the smile sweet and tender.  She felt
that she was succeeding.  "How homely he is," she
thought.  "And I love him—ugly and a traitor.  I love
him, and I'll keep on loving him—for, he's all there is
between me and misery."

Richard called them into the front compartment, and
the three worked together at the big retort the rest of the
morning.  It was a strange hour and a half.  She seemed
to be two distinct persons—no, three.  One was hating Basil
and Helen—a being that seemed to concentrate all that is
venomous and malignant.  One was watching with interest
and excitement the awful processes by which calm liquids
poured together suddenly became violent, colorless liquids
a marvelous radiance of exquisite color, heat became
infinite cold and cold became heat that consumed hard metals
as if they were bits of fluff.  The third personality within
her was aloof and calm, and watched her other two and
wondered at them.

At dinner time she and Richard walked to the house
together, Basil stopping at the apartment to tidy himself,
as usual.  "Well, how do you think they are getting on?"
she asked carelessly.

"I can't tell," replied Richard, "till I've got several
other reactions."

"Helen and Basil, I mean."

"How should I know?  All right, I suppose."

"Didn't you tell me, a week or so ago, you thought
it was a match?"

"Of course it's a match," said he, as if there weren't
a doubt about it.

She quivered at this pressure upon the thorn that was
pricking and festering.  "Why are you so positive?" she
asked.

"You know as much as I do.  He goes out to meet her
every morning, doesn't he?"

Every morning!  To smoke!  In a series of internal
explosions whose flames scorched her soul she traced the
progress of that smoking habit of his.  With an outer
calmness that amazed her she pursued her inquiries.  "Are
they—affectionate when they're alone?" she asked.

"How?"  Richard's mind was back at his experiments.

She repeated her question in a voice that was under
still better control.

"I've never seen them but once—one day when he was
helping her balance herself at the edge of the wall—she
was pretending to look down into the water at
something—the old trick."

Courtney laughed.  "The old trick—yes."  She laughed
again.

"It's all settled, no doubt," declared Richard.  "And
good business!"

Courtney hurled a glance of fury at him.  "Unless he's
making a fool of her."

"Oh—absurd.  He's a gentleman."

"Gentleman.  That sounds as if it meant a lot, but
does it?"

Richard wished to think of his work uninterrupted by
this trifle of a love affair.  "Why not ask her about it?
She's no doubt dying to tell—if you give her the excuse of
opening the subject."

Courtney went up to her balcony, seated herself in a
rocking-chair.  She rocked and thought, thought, thought—getting
nowhere, motion without progress, like that of her
chair.  She did all the talking at dinner that day.  She
took the relations of men and women for her subject and
shot arrows of wit at it.  As Winchie was having dinner
next door with the Donaldson children, she did not need
to restrain herself.  She was mocking, cynical, audacious.
Basil stopped laughing and stared at his plate.  Helen, all
blushes, looked as if she would sink under the table.
Richard remained calm—he was not hearing a word.  Basil's
gloom and Helen's shocked modesty delighted Courtney,
edged her on to further audacities.  She looked from one
to the other, smiling, jeering at them—and she rattled on
and on, because she felt that if she stopped scoffing and
laughing, she would spring at him or at her.  She had the
longing to do physical violence, like one in the torment of
a toothache.

Richard and Basil had not been gone many minutes before
she began on the unconscious Helen.  A sigh gave her
the opening.  "Unhappy?" she said.

"No, indeed," answered Helen.  "If anything, too
happy.  You know what this life here means to me."

"But you must find it lonely."

"Lonely!  Not for an instant."

"We've had almost no company this winter and spring.
I must hunt up some young men for you."

"I don't want them, as I've often told you."  Courtney
remembered that she had, and muttered, "What a blind fool
I've been."  Helen went sweetly on: "Beside such men as
Richard and Mr. Gallatin, the ordinary young man is
anything but interesting."

"Still, you must marry.  And you've got the looks to
make a first-rate bargain."

Helen looked gently disapproving of this frank mode
of stating the case.  "I could never marry for anything
but love."

"Of course.  But, being a well-brought-up woman,
you'll not have difficulty in loving any proper candidate."

"I'm well content."

Courtney bent low over the scarlet and pink and white
tulips in one of the window boxes.  Content!  This woman
who was stealing her lover—this woman who was thrusting
her back into the despair of those loveless, hopeless days
when Basil was gone and the icy rains poured on and on
upon her desolate life!  She controlled herself, repeated
vaguely: "Content?  Impossible unless you've got your eye
on a likely man.  No single woman ever was since the world
began."

Helen blushed consciously.

"Who is he?" teased Courtney.  She had seen the blush,
and her nerves were twitching.  "Who is it?" she repeated
softly.  "Basil?"

The blush deepened.

"I thought so!" exclaimed Courtney with laughing
triumph.  "You've yielded to his fascinations, have you?"

Helen paled and her lip trembled.  "Please don't," she
faltered.  "Don't joke me about—about him."

Courtney turned hastily away to hide the devil that
gleamed from her eyes; for she felt that her worst
suspicions were confirmed.  "Tell me," she said, as soon as
she could find voice, and could make that voice gay with
good-humored raillery, "how long has this—this idyll been
going on?"

"Really—you're quite mistaken, dear," pleaded Helen.

"How long have you and he been keeping those trysts?"

"You're quite wrong.  We've met by accident,"
protested Helen.  "We just happen to meet."  She hung her
head.  "I'll admit I—I arrange to go to look at the
apartment about the time I know he comes out to smoke."

Courtney was all smiles.  "And he arranges to come
out to smoke about the time he knows you're going to the
apartment.  How—delicious!"

"Do you think he does it deliberately?" inquired Helen
eagerly.

Courtney was amazed at the girl's skill in duplicity.
She began to wonder how far they had gone.  But her face
was bright and innocent as a poison locust bloom when she
said: "You sly child!  What were you and he doing in his
apartment to-day?"

"Oh!" cried Helen, covering her face with her hands.

Courtney's features were distorted with fear and fury;
the specter was stalking and leering.  But her voice sounded
soft and seductive as she urged: "Go on, dear.  You needn't
be afraid to tell me—everything."

Helen lifted her flaming face.  "There's nothing to
tell," cried she.  "When you asked me that question,
something in your tone made me feel as if I had done a—a
wickedly indiscreet thing.  But it was all so harmless and
accidental.  I came earlier than usual, and he was getting the
cigarette case he'd forgotten."

"Highly probable!" exclaimed Courtney, apparently
much amused.  "And so, you could make love to each other
at your ease."

"Courtney!"  Helen started up, horror-stricken.  "Can
you think I'd let him lay the weight of his finger on
me?"  And she burst into tears.  "Oh, *what* have I done!" she
sobbed.  "And it seemed perfectly innocent."

Insane with jealousy though she was, Courtney could
not but be convinced.  "Don't take it so to heart, my dear,"
said she.  "Tell me all about it."

"And you could suspect me!  But I deserve it.  If I'd
been really a good woman, I'd not have thought of him
until he had spoken to me."

"Dry your eyes," said Courtney, calm and practical.
"How far has this gone?"

"Not at all," declared Helen.  "We've never said a
word of love to each other."

"Is that the truth?"

"As God is my judge."

"Not a kiss—no hand-holding?"

"Nothing."

"Only looks?"

"Sometimes—I've hoped—from the way he looked—"  She
sighed.  "But I'm afraid he meant nothing."

Courtney studied her ingenuous face as a bank teller a
note that is under suspicion of being counterfeit.
Yes—Helen was telling the truth.

"Do you think he cares?" asked Helen wistfully.  "He
seems to like to talk with me.  And he's very eloquent about
sentimental things.  He talks and he acts like a man in
love.  But—at times I feel as if it were with another
woman."

Courtney buried her face in the urn of violets.  And
next to her feeling of enormous relief at the clearing of
Basil from the worst charge against him was gratitude that
she would not have to try to play the tyrant—try to send
Helen away.

"It may be some bad woman's gotten hold of him,"
continued the girl reflectively.  "He may be chained by a
love he's ashamed of."

"That sounds like a weekly story paper."

"I know there's *some* weight on his conscience,"
maintained Helen.

Courtney looked strangely at her and laughed.  "When
people look and talk remorse, they're only boasting.  He's
trying to make himself interesting, my dear.  He wants to
thrill you with the story of his life—some commonplace
adventure he exaggerates into an epic drama."  She
laughed again, most unpleasantly.  "Heaven deliver me
from these 'My God!  How she loves me' men!"

"He's not like that—not at all," protested Helen.
"But—oh, I wish I knew whether he cared for me.  I
don't know *what* to do!  I've given him every
opportunity—"  She stopped short with such an expression of
horror at her slip that Courtney laughed outright.  "I don't
mean I've done anything forward or unladylike—"
stammered Helen.

"He's a man of the world."  She pinched Helen's cheek.
"He reads that innocent little mind of yours like an electric
sign."

Helen was hysterical with dismay.  "You think he's
laughing at me?"

"And getting ready to—to amuse himself."

"Courtney!"

Courtney nodded and smiled.

"He never could think so lightly of me.  Never!"

"Lightly?  He sees you are in love with him.  Why
should he suspect you of being calculating?"

"Calculating?  I don't understand."

"Unwilling to give except for an annuity—for life
support."

Helen's honest brown eyes were big and round.  "What
do you mean?"

"What I say," was Courtney's reply.  And in a, to
Helen, appallingly matter-of-fact way, she went on to
explain.  "And what I say is simply the sense under all the
nonsense about marrying.  You want to marry, don't you?
You're looking about for somebody to support you and your
children, aren't you?  You say you love our homely,
fascinating, well-to-do friend Gallatin.  But not enough to go
very far unless he'd sign a life contract.  Didn't I hear
you say one day that you didn't think it proper for people
even to kiss until the preacher had dropped the flag?"

Helen gazed at her with an expression of sheer horrified
amazement that delighted her.  "How can as sweet
and pure a woman as you talk that way?"

Courtney laughed gayly.  "Because she's neither sweet
nor pure.  Because she's got intelligence and experience.
I just wanted to show you that while you were pretending
to think about love—ideal, romantic, unselfish love, you
were really planning for food, clothing and shelter."

"But I don't want to hear such talk!" cried Helen.
"If I'm deluded, why, let me stay so.  You are so
frivolous, Courtney!  Don't you believe in love at all?"

Courtney reflected.  "I don't know whether I do or
not," she finally said.

Helen looked at her with sad sympathy.  "And I
thought you were happy!" she sighed.

"I am," rejoined Courtney.  "And I purpose to remain so."

"But you are worried about me?  You think
Bas—Mr. Gallatin is not a fit man for me to marry?"  The tone
betrayed her anxiety, the importance she attached to
Courtney's judgment; for, while Helen's conventional mind told
her that Courtney was a "light-weight," like all lively,
laughing persons, her instinct made her always consult her
before acting in any matter from a man to what hat to wear
with what dress.  "You think he's—not nice?"

Courtney felt Helen's nearly breathless expectation;
she did not answer immediately.  When she did it was from
the farther side of the room, with her attention apparently
on a window garden of hyacinths.  "Be careful, my dear.
Remember, your primness is your chief asset.  If he
thought—or hoped—you were—loose——"

"Loose!"  Helen trembled, looked as if she were about
to faint.

"It's ridiculous the way we women exaggerate the value
of our favors," philosophized Courtney.

"I wish you wouldn't make that kind of—of jests,
dear," pleaded Helen.  "I know you don't mean a word of
it.  You feel just as I do—that a man couldn't do enough
to repay any good woman for giving herself to him."

"Or a woman do enough to repay a man for giving
himself to her," retorted Courtney.  "The account's even,
or the whole thing's too low to talk about.  Still—you don't
understand—you can't.  And so long as men think a
woman the grander the more conceited and selfish she is,
you're as well off, believing as you do....  As to
Gallatin——"

"I don't care anything about him!" cried Helen.
"What you've been saying has given me such a shock."  She
paused, then went on in a low, awful tone, "Courtney,
I must tell you that I was alone with him in his sitting
room for over an hour!"

"When?" asked Courtney, sharply.

"To-day—what we were talking about."

"*Only* to-day?"

"Never before!" exclaimed Helen.  "And never again."

"Then—perhaps—only perhaps, mind you," mocked
Courtney, "I'll put off speaking to Richard about it—and
writing Mrs. Torrey."

Helen could not see any humor in the situation.  "Do
you honestly believe, Courtney," she asked in deep distress,
"that he could have thought of me as if I were—were
a—a—*bad* woman?"

Courtney's eyes were most unpleasant.

"I see you're disgusted and angry with me, dear," said
Helen, in tears again.  "I know it was unwomanly of me
to think of him when he'd said nothing.  But I—I couldn't
help it.  I *will* help it, though!"

"You think you can?"

Helen showed she was astonished and hurt.  "Do you
imagine *I* could care for a man whose way of caring for me
was an insult?"

Courtney counseled with a vase of jonquils.  "No, I
suppose *you* couldn't," she replied.  "You don't know about
wild, free—*fierce*—love—  Do you?"

Helen's expression was of one appalled.  "How can
you talk that way?" she asked.  "You're very strange
to-day.  You're not at all yourself."

"Self!" exclaimed Courtney, scornfully.  "What is my
self?  What is your self?  What is anybody's self?"

She no longer had the delusion of free will that makes
us talk about bettering the race by "changing human nature
from within"—the delusion that the individual is responsible,
though obviously the social system and the other
compelling external conditions move the individual as the
showman his puppet.  She, helpless in the whirl of strong
emotions, was beginning to understand why, at the outset
of her married life, instinct had bade her arrange all the
circumstances round her and Richard so that they would
be compelled to live the life in common, the life of the single
common interest that holds love captive as the cage the bird.
She was beginning to realize how like water self is in the
grip of circumstances—how self is mill pond or torrent,
pure or foul, or mixture of the two, according as circumstance
commands.  These demon impulses—they were not her self.
Self was amazed onlooker at its own strange doings—was
like helpless occupant of the carriage behind the runaway
team.

When Helen spoke again, she showed that her thoughts
were still lingering longingly where they must not, if
Courtney was to be rid of the demons.  "But if a man loves
a woman," said Helen, "why shouldn't he be glad to give
her honorable marriage?"

Courtney hesitated, dared.  "She might be already
married."

"Courtney!"  And her horrified eyes told Courtney
she had caught the intended hint that Basil was in love
with some married woman.  "It isn't possible!"

"Haven't such things happened?"

"Yes—but—  No married woman a nice man would
notice would ever think of another man than her husband."

"I don't know about a 'nice' woman," said Courtney,
slowly.  "But I can imagine that a *human* woman—if
her husband neglected her, and chilled and killed her
love——"

Helen was not listening, was not aware that she had
interrupted as she said, "Do you think Mr. Gallatin could
be in love with some married woman—of—of our class?"

"I suspect so," replied Courtney, gazing calmly into
her eyes.

"I'll not believe it!" cried Helen.  "I'll not believe it!"

"You're like all girls.  Because your own head's full
of marriage, you think every man who's polite to you, or
flirts a little to make the time pass more agreeably, is about
to send for the preacher.  Now, frankly, has Basil ever
made love to you?"

"No," admitted Helen.  "But—"  She halted.

"But what?" came from Courtney sharp and arresting
as a shot.

"I *feel* he is fond of me," confessed Helen.

Courtney laughed harshly.  "All men are fond of all
good-looking women—especially in the spring.  Don't be a
fool, Helen."

"But a married woman has no right to him!"

Courtney flushed, and her eyes flashed.  "And how do
you know?  And what right have you to judge?  Are you
God?"

"No, but——"

"No!" cried Courtney.  "How do you know what he—his
love may mean to her?  How do you know but what
it may be the one thing between her and despair and ruin?
You, with your timid, proper calculating little love!  Why,
if the woman cared enough for him—needed him so—that
she sacrificed self-respect—honor—truth—all—all—for
love—what could you give him to replace it?  And what
are your needs beside hers?"

Helen's face grew hard as these words that outraged
every principle of her training poured recklessly from
Courtney's lips.  "I'm astounded at your defending a bad
woman," she said.  "You're *too* generous, Courtney.  You'd
feel differently if she were taking Richard away from you.
But, I'm not in love with Basil.  I see you know things
about him.  I—I—despise him.  I pity him, of course, for
he might have been a nice man.  But I couldn't love him.
I'm glad you told me.  I might have engaged myself to him."

Courtney's far from sane eyes twinkled at that last
ingenuous bit of maidenly vanity.  Helen went about her
work, and she departed to the greenhouse.  "She'll stop
loving him as easily as she began," said she to herself.
"What does her sort of women know about love?  They're
faithful to whatever man they marry, as a dog's faithful to
whoever feeds and kennels it....  Basil Gallatin is mine!
And no man—nor no woman—shall come between us."

She had not forgotten Basil's expression as he stood in
the apartment entrance, after his *tête-à-tête* with Helen.
"Now—for what's in *his* heart," she said.  "I must know
just where I stand."  She recalled how she had used to
say, and to think, that if a man was not freely a
woman's—freely—inevitably—without any need of being held by
feminine artifice—no self-respecting woman could for an
instant wish to detain him.  And here she was, ready to make
any sacrifice to hold this man.  Truly, fate seemed
determined to compel her to give the lie to everything she
had ever believed, to abase every instinct of pride that
had plumed or still plumed the haughty front of her soul.

Richard asked Helen up to his study after supper, to
take dictation of an article he was doing for a scientific
magazine; thus, Courtney had a chance to explore Basil.
She was seated beneath the tall lamp, a big hat frame on
her lap, ribbon and feathers on the small table.  She knew
he was watching her over the top of a newspaper; and she
was not insensible to his extremely flattering expression—nor,
perhaps, to the advantages her occupation gave her in
the way of graceful gestures, effective posings of the head
and arms as she studied the effect of different arrangements
of ribbon and feathers.  She glanced directly at him; he
glanced away, confused—the frightened zigzag of a flushed
partridge.

"Well?" said she.  She felt more lenient toward him,
now that she had discovered his innocence of overt treachery,
at least; and the way he was looking at her when he
fancied her quite unaware was certainly reassuring.  Also,
she realized now that she herself was largely responsible
for these errant springtime thoughts of his—she with her
struggling to keep both love and self-respect.  "Well?"
she repeated, when he did not speak.  "What guilty thought
did I almost surprise?"

"No guilty thought," replied he.  "I was loving
you—terribly—just then.  I was thinking—how impossible it
would be for a man who loved you ever to wander."

"That's very nice," said she, with a mocking smile.
"So you have been—looking over the fence?"  And she
went on with bending the brim of the hat frame to a more
graceful curve.  She was placid to all appearances; but
once more the great dread was obsessing her.

"Not at all," protested he.  "What fence?  At whom?"

"The fence of our compact—perhaps."

He sighed impatiently.

"Ah—well—"  She laughed, eying the result of her
shaping, the hat frame at one angle, her head at the
opposite angle—"there's Helen."

He looked grave reproach at her, altogether absorbed
in trying a long plume against the frame in different
positions.  "Do you think, dear, it's quite respectful to
Helen——"

"Your thoughts couldn't harm her," interrupted she—that
is, she interrupted him, but not her work.  "If men's
thoughts smirched women, what an unsightly lot the
attractive ones would be!"

"Where did you get such ideas?" he exclaimed, trying
to conceal how her frankness had scandalized him.

She worked on calmly.  "By observing and reading
and thinking—and feeling."

He drummed uneasily upon the arm of his chair with
the tips of his fingers.  At length he said with some
embarrassment, "It's hardly necessary for me to say that I have
the highest respect for Helen."

"Yes—and I also know she's very—very pretty."

"Yes, she is pretty."

"You respect her.  You like to talk with her.  You
think she is physically attractive."

Stiffly, "I have never thought about her in that last
way."

"Then, that's probably her chief charm for you,"
observed Courtney, placid and reflective and industrious.
"When we think we don't think about things that are
worth thinking about, the chances are we really haven't
been thinking about anything else."  With a smile and a
shake of the head that might have been for the plumes
which refused to please her, "I'm afraid you're falling
in love with Helen."

"No," replied he judicially—and how he would have
been startled if he had seen her veiled eyes!—shiny green
and cruel as those of a puma stretched in graceful ferocity
along the leafy limb that overhangs the path.  "No, I'm
not the least in love with her.  But I do like her.  Her
seriousness is very pleasant, now and then.  If I did not
love you, I perhaps might have grown to care for her, in
a way.  But—beside you, Helen is—tame."

"I shouldn't call her tame—" encouragingly.

"Well—perhaps not.  She sometimes suggests a
person who could be waked up."

"That's a temptation, isn't it?" she asked.  And she
looked straight at him over the top of the plumes.  She
wished to see all.

"No," said he, positively.  "To be quite frank I'd never
give her as a woman a thought—if I weren't—"  He stirred
uneasily, burst out in confession.  "You were right a while
ago.  Men often don't understand themselves.  But we'll
not talk about that."

There was such love and tenderness in the gaze meeting
hers that all the squalid thoughts her mind had been fouled
with the whole day washed away like the dust and dirt on
the leaves and petals of her flowers in a sudden rain.

He said with a gentle, manly earnestness that thrilled
her: "There's only the one woman for me.  And—I want
our love to be what you wish.  And it shall be!"

She lowered her head, the tears welling.  The others
interrupted, and Helen sat beside her advising about the
hat.  When it was finished, she made Helen try it on.  They
all admired, and it certainly was becoming.  "Now, you
try it on, dear," said Helen.

"No, don't take it off," Courtney answered.  "It's for
you, of course."  And she kissed her and, laughing away
her thanks, went upstairs.  She sat down at her dressing
table and, with elbows resting on it and face supported by
her hands, gazed into her own eyes.  "If you do not wish
to lose him," she said slowly aloud to her grave face imaged
in the glass, "you must take away from him temptation to
wander.  A door is either open or shut.  A man—a man
worth while—won't stand at the threshold long.  He comes
in or he goes away.  Basil does not realize it, but that other
side of his nature will compel him to go away—unless—"  Compel
him to go away?  She was hearing again the monotonous
fall of those icy rains, was feeling again the monotonous
misery of those days without love and without hope.
She must choose.  Choose?  "The woman doesn't live—doesn't
deserve to live—who'd hesitate.  There's no choice.
There's simply the one way."

Well—since it must be so—what would be the event?
Would she lose him anyhow?  Would she merely be putting
off his going?  Would her complete yielding end in disaster
of some kind, as she had feared?  Or, wasn't it possible
that, while most people were tangled and finally
strangled by the web of their own deceit, a skillful few could
use it dextrously to snare the bright birds of joy? ... She
stood up, stretched her arms, swayed her slim supple figure
gently.  "He shall have no reason for letting one single
thought wander.  He shall be mine—all mine!  I'll take
no more risks."  She continued to sway gently, her eyes
closed.  A look of scorn, of disgust came into her face.
She shuddered.  "How hideous it is to be a woman!
Always slave to some man!  Gold fetters cut as deep as iron,
and they're heavier."  She stopped swaying.  "I can see
how I might come to hate my master in trying to hold his
love....  Love!  To keep our love warm, we have to bury
it in the mire."





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Because of the light the tables in the inner laboratory
were so placed that Courtney and Basil worked at opposite
sides of the room with their backs toward each other.  As
ten o'clock approached her agitation increased; but the only
outward sign was frequent stolen glances at the clock on
the wall between the windows.  When the hands pointed
to ten, her heart fluttered; for, she heard him push back
his chair and knew he was rising from his case.  He stood
at the window toward her side of the room.  As he was
gazing out over the high sill, she was free to look at him—at
his back, at the back of his head.  She felt the struggle
raging in his mind.  Her hand, blundering among the
burettes and bottles on the glass shelves before her, tilted a
test tube from its support.  It fell, broke with a crash on
the porcelain surface of the table.  She gave a low scream
it would have been loud had she not, swifter than thought,
clenched her teeth and compressed her lips.  He startled
violently.

"Good God!" he cried and his tone showed that his
nerves were in the same state as hers.

"Beg your pardon," she murmured, mechanically apologetic.

If he heard, he gave no indication of it.  He continued
to stand motionless at the window, staring out over the lake.
She tried furtively to get a glimpse of his profile, but could
not.  At ten minutes past ten he moved.  When she saw
him about to turn, she bent over her work—pouring calcium
lactophosphate into a small agate mortar as if any relaxing
of attention would be calamitous.  He was standing at the
end of her table, was looking down at her.  It took all her
self-control to refrain from looking up to see what was in
his eyes.  He was bending over her; his lips touched her
hair—the crownlike coil of auburn on top of her head.  She
tingled to her finger tips; she knew she had won, knew he
had thought it all out and had seen that his meetings with
Helen were in the direction of disloyalty to the woman he
loved.  She looked up at him now.  At first his expression
was guilty and embarrassed, but the radiance of love and
trust in her eyes soon changed that.  He became very pale
as his glance burned into hers; he turned away, and she
felt that it was because he feared lest in the rush of
penitent passion he would confess things it was unnecessary and
unwise to put into words.

"Why, it's ten o'clock," said she carelessly.  "Aren't
you going out to smoke?"

A pause, then he answered "Not to-day" in a boyishly
ill-at-ease way that brought a secret tender smile to her
lips.  She liked these evidences that it was impossible for
him to conceal himself from her because any attempt to do
so made him feel dishonorable.

"It's beautiful outdoors.  I'll go with you."

"No, not just now, Courtney.  I—I—that is, I think
I'd best finish.  Vaughan may need all four of the sulphates
any moment."  And he sat down before his case and began
to fuss with evaporating dishes and crucibles.

"This is the first day you've missed in I don't know
when," said she.  It was just as well he should know she
had begun to take note of his habit; that knowledge would
strengthen his resolve to avoid in the future appearance of
of evil and temptation thereto.  "You've been very regular
for weeks."

"It's a waste of time," he replied, after a pause.
"You're right, uninterrupted effort's the only kind that
counts."  And both went to work.

But Courtney did not overestimate her triumph.  Often
day completely reverses the night view of things.  But
now, in the fancy-dispelling day more clearly than in the
fancy-breeding night, she saw she must remove the temptation.
If she had been a small or a stupid woman—or both,
for the two qualities usually go together—she would have
laid all the blame upon Helen and would have sent her
away—and in vanity as to her power over him would have
imagined herself once more perfectly secure.  But the
impulse to blame Helen and to get rid of her did not survive
the second thought.  It was not Helen's fault, or Basil's;
it was nature's.

Looking back on those months under the compact she
saw how she had let foolish vanity and still more foolish
hope befog and mislead her intelligence.  To remove Helen
would avail her nothing.  The law of his nature would
continue to press him on; and sooner or later, in spite of love
for her, in spite of loyalty, in spite of constancy, he would
be swept away from her.  The compact was a beautiful
ideal, but it was not life—and, so, it must yield.  "I must
be all to him, or I shall soon be nothing to him."  And
that afternoon she fixed her resolution—after thinking the
situation out sanely—as sanely as she could think in those
days.  For she, completely possessed by her need of Basil,
was like all the infatuated.  That is, she was in a state not
unlike those demented persons who seem to be, and are,
quite sane and logical and self-possessed, once you get
beyond the fixed delusion which determines the posture and
outlook of their entire being.

On the way to dress for supper she glanced in at Helen's
open door.  The girl was sitting near a window giving upon
the small west balcony, her attitude so disconsolate that
Courtney was at once striving with a rising wave of pity
and self-reproach.  "Helen will soon get over it," she
reassured herself; and good sense reminded her that a young
girl has not the experience of love which teaches the
experienced woman to value it and makes her unable to do
without it.  "The love-sickness of a young girl, especially prim,
unimaginative girls like Helen, isn't really personal; it's
little more than a longing to be flattered and to get married
and settled."  But such small progress as head was making
against heart was lost when Helen looked at her with a
pathetic attempt to smile.

"Where have you been all day?" asked Courtney, eyes
sinking before Helen's.  She felt a most uncomfortable
contempt for herself.

"In Wenona—lunching and shopping with Bertha Watrous."

Courtney entered, seated herself on the bed.  Despite
her lovelorn condition, Helen winced.  "You old maid,
you," laughed Courtney, rising.  "I never saw any woman
anywhere, not even old Nanny, not even my sister Ann, so
opposed to sitting on the bed."

"I've been brought up to think it was—wasn't right,"
apologized Helen.

"Wasn't ladylike, you mean," said Courtney.  She
disposed herself in the window seat.  "What are you blue
about, dear?"  She knew she was not intruding; Helen
liked to confide her troubles—and people of that fortunate
temperament were cured by confiding.

"I'm not blue," declared Helen.  "I've simply been
thinking of what you said, and if anything I'm angry."

"Oh—Basil?  Did you see him to-day?"

"I did not."  Helen tossed her head.  "I went
about my work as usual—went to the apartment.  If
he'd been lying in wait I was ready for him.  But he
wasn't."

Courtney understood what this really meant, though
Helen didn't.  Probably Helen would not have believed
she had in fact lain in wait for Basil, even had Courtney
pointed out to her the obvious meaning of her action.  She
was of the large majority—who do not know their own
minds, who cannot explore them with a guide however
competent, who when shown their own motives hotly and
honestly deny.  "Basil was busy to-day," Courtney
explained.  "Some sulphates Richard was in a hurry for."

Helen looked relieved.  But, still not in the least aware
of her own state of mind, she went on, with a toss of the
head: "Well—whenever I do see him alone, I'll make him
realize I'm not the sort he thinks.  The more I look at it,
Courtney, the more convinced I am that he was simply
leading me on."

"Now, Helen!" laughed Courtney.

Helen colored.  "I admit," she said, shamefacedly, "I
got what I deserved for being so—so forward."

"That's the truth—you were forward."  Courtney's
tone made this necessary thrusting home of the painful
truth gentle but not the less insistent.  "We must never
fool ourselves, dear.  We women can't afford to."

Studying Helen, so clearly fascinated still by the idea
of winning the young eligible from the East and redeeming
him, Courtney realized that if the girl was to stay on there
in peace she must be made to see the absolute uselessness of
angling.  So long as she thought of Basil as a possibility,
however remote, so long would she be in danger of falling
utterly and miserably in love with him.  Yes, Helen must
be cured—but how?  There was no way.  Not until Basil
was married would Helen cease to hope.  "For her own
sake, I ought to send her away," Courtney was thinking as
the two sat there in silence.  But Helen had no other place
to go.  True, she could go out and make her own living as
a teacher—Courtney envied her the training and the
certificate that were practically a guaranty of independence.
But Helen abhorred independence, looked on a woman's
working, away from the shelter of domesticity, as the Hindu
looks on loss of caste.  No, Helen must stay on, might as
well stay on....  An impossible situation.  And from this
unanticipated quarter came one more imperative reason
for making Basil wholly her own.  He must be in such
a state of mind that he would do nothing to encourage
Helen's hope to put forth even the feeblest of its ready
sprouts.

Courtney rose and moved toward the door.  "I must
dress."  She leaned against the jamb, her cheek upon her
crossed hands.  "Well, my dear, remember the rhyme about
the lady who went for a ride on a tiger, and how, when
they came back, he had the lady inside."

"You're laughing at me," reproached Helen.

Courtney's eyes were fixed dreamily upon vacancy, a
strange sad smile about her lips.  "I am not laughing,"
she said slowly.  "Or, if I am, it is not at you....  Not
at you, but at—"  She could not tell Helen that she was
drearily mocking her own entrapped and helpless self.
"Take my advice, child.  Don't *ever* lead a tiger out for
an airing."

Yes, Helen should stay on, as long as she wished to
stay.  "And hasn't she as much right here as I—just the
same right?"

At two o'clock that night, as Basil was leaving, he
said—"You've hardly spoken since I came.  Is it the darkness?"

"Yes—the darkness," she replied in the same undertone—the
doors were very thick, but instinct made them
careful about speech.

"I never knew you to be so silent—or so strange, now
that I think of it."  He held her by the shoulders.
"Courtney, did you want me to come to-night?"

She clung to him.  "Do you love me, my Basil?"

"How queer your voice sounds.  Are you frightened?"

"No—no, indeed."

"Dear, you're not telling me——"

"It's nothing.  Just a—a notion.  There won't be so
much of it next time.  And still less the next time.  And
soon I'll be quite accustomed."

"Yes, I'm sure there's not the least danger," said he,
wholly misunderstanding.





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.. _`XXI`:

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   \XXI

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One afternoon she was reading in the hammock on the
balcony before the upper sitting-room windows—the sitting
room she shared with Helen and Winchie.  She heard some
one in the room, glanced up—Richard was before her.
"Glad to find you alone," said he.  "Do you realize it's
several weeks since we've exchanged so much as a single
word in private?"

"Something wrong at the shop?"

"No.  I came especially to talk with you.  How'd you
like to go away for a week or so—to the sea or the
mountains?  We might take that trip through the Great Lakes."

"I'll see."

"You've been working very hard down at the shop.
And by the way, you've caused an amazing improvement
in Basil's work.  He doesn't make those stupid mistakes
any more.  He used to make them every day.  Yes—you've
worked hard—and well."

She had no pleasure in these incredible compliments
from Richard the difficult to please in chemistry.  It was
too disquieting to have him thus watchful and interested.

"Let's start at once," he proposed.

"Oh, I couldn't do that.  I hesitate to leave here—when
everything's at its best.  In the fall—or next winter——"

"I see you don't want to go—with me."

His tone compelled her to look at him.  His eyes—grave,
searching—were fixed upon her.  Instinct suddenly
warned her of danger—what danger or where she could
not see, but the warning was imperative.  "Indeed I do,"
protested she, with a deceptive show of interest, though
her skin burned as her fundamental and incurable honesty
cried shame upon her—as it always did when she, compelled
by her circumstances, could not avoid the lie direct.
"But," she went on, "you can't expect a woman, with a
household like this on her mind, to drop everything and
fly at a few hours' notice."

He reflected, nodded.  "That's true.  Though, really,
the servants are so experienced they'd go on just as well.
My dear old aunt was thorough."

There was a little bitterness of hurt vanity in her
smile of recognition at this ancient notion of Richard's
about her part in that household.  She felt that the
*tête-à-tête* had already lasted too long.  "Was Winchie in
there?" she asked.

"I didn't see him," replied Dick.

She moved toward the nearest sitting-room window.

"What's the matter?" he cried, irritated.  "Where
are you going?"

"After Winchie.  I haven't thought of him for an hour.
Helen's away—at the Foster picnic——"

"The boy's all right.  Sit down here and——"

But she was gone.  She did not slacken her speed until
she was safely clear of him.  This new development of
his threatened to become an annoyance, thought she;
however, it couldn't last much longer; she would continue to
keep out of his way; the laboratory would take hold of
him and she would be once more forgotten and free.
Meanwhile, she would avoid him.

And soon he did become once more absorbed, and resumed
his accustomed shadowy place in her life—seen yet
not seen, heard yet not heard, present yet absent; neither
liked nor disliked, but unknown and unheeded—the place
of many and many a husband in a marriage that seems
happy and successful to the very servants in the household,
to the husband and wife themselves.  One evening he
abruptly left the table.  She saw, but did not note, his
departure.  When supper was over and she and Helen and
Basil strolled into the sitting room, Basil took advantage
of Helen's being apart to say to Courtney, "What's wrong
with him?"

"I'm sure I don't know," replied she.  "Nothing, I
guess."

"Didn't you notice?  He was staring furiously at you,
and left in a rage."

She shrugged her shoulders.  That night she was in
one of her reckless moods, was nervous, excited, with eyes
the more brilliant for the circles round them.  Richard
appeared in the farthest of the long open windows.  He
frowned at Basil, said sharply to his wife, "Courtney, I'd
like to speak to you out here a moment."

"It's chilly there," objected she.  "Come in."  And
she went toward the piano.

Dick entered.  His long aristocratic face was stern
and his eyes glowed somberly.  "Then let's go into the
library," said he, in a tone so positive that from him it
sounded like a command.

She hesitated, reflectively caressing one slim tapering
arm.  "Very well," said she, and passed into the hall, he
standing formally aside at the doorway.  In the library,
she faced him with eyes half closed and chin thrust up
and a little out.  "Well?" she inquired.

As he looked at his sweet frivolous little child of a wife,
his manner softened toward that of one rebuking a child's
trespass.  "I want you to go upstairs and wrap up your
shoulders—or change your dress."

She glanced down.  The bodice did not cover the upper
curve of her bosom, had no straps across the shoulders or
on the arms.  In the back, it dipped almost to the waist
line.  She looked at him with a quizzical expression.  "I'm
quite warm enough, thanks."

"You understand me," said he, more severely.

She gazed straight into his eyes before answering.
"Yes, I do.  But I prefer to pretend not to."

"I've spoken to you about my wishes in this matter
before.  Do you know what made me notice your—your
nakedness?  Pardon me for putting it that way, but I see
I must speak plainly."

Her face expressed faint, contemptuous indifference.
"I cannot talk with you.  Your ideas of women ought to
be buried in the grave with your grandfather.  I do not
dictate the cut of your clothes.  You will not dictate
mine."  And she moved toward the door.

He put himself between.  "I saw Gallatin looking at
you with an expression—"  He made a gesture of rage—a
quiet gesture but significant.  "I don't blame him.  It's
your fault.  You've no right to tease a man who can be
nothing to you.  I speak frankly because——"

"Gallatin has seen thousands of women in just such
dress as this," interrupted she.  It enraged her to hear
her lover's feelings for her, in which flesh was mere medium
between spirit and spirit, thus leveled to the carnality of
his own passion.  "You," she continued icily, "read your
own poisonous, provincial primness and—and vulgarity
into his look, no doubt."

"You are an innocent, pure-minded woman, Courtney,"
said Richard, with more gentleness.  "You follow a
fashion, thinking of it only as a fashion.  I assure you, that
sort of fashion is devised in Paris by cocottes for the one
purpose.  If you knew men better, you'd appreciate it."

She appreciated the penetration of this remark,
puncturing the pretentious haughtiness of her protest.  She
was surprised at his reasoning so shrewdly about a matter
she would not have suspected him of having given a thought.
But she must not let him interfere in her personal affairs.
"Whatever its origin," said she, "it's the conventional
fashion for women.  I shall continue to wear it."  And she
looked into his eyes pleasantly.  Now, it struck her as
amusing, the anger of this alien, about the exhibition to
others of what he regarded as his own private and
personal treasure.  Just one stage removed from the harem,
such an idea as his.  "And," she went on, aloud, "if your
satrapship commands me to wear a veil over my face and
muffle my figure in a loose black bag, I shall make the
same reply.  You can't realize it, but the old-fashioned
ideal of good, pure woman was really something to be
handled with tongs and disinfected."

"You're talking of things you, being a good woman,
know nothing about."

"At any rate I know a mind that ought to be
quarantined—when I smell it."  And she made a wry face
and started to leave the room.  When she had got as far
as the threshold, he cried, "Courtney!" and his tone told
her that he had caught sight of the reverse view of her
costume—the unimpeded display of slender dimpled
shoulders and straight smooth back almost to the waist line.
She pretended not to hear, went on to the sitting room.
Yielding altogether now to the imp of the perverse, she
displaced Helen at the piano and sang the maddest, most
melting love songs she knew.  Basil tried to keep to the
far part of the room; but gradually the enchantment
compelled.  Forgetting Richard—though he had seen him
glowering and fuming from the darkness of the veranda—he
leaned upon the end of the grand piano.  His eyes
were down, but his burning face and his trembling fingers
as he raised or lowered his cigarette proclaimed how the
deep passionate notes of her voice were vibrating through
him.

It was somewhat later than usual when she went upstairs.
As she pressed the button just inside her bedroom
door and the light came on—a soft pale violet light that
seemed to permeate rather than to shine—she saw
Richard in the window.  His back was toward her and he was
smoking so that the odor and the smoke would not come
into the room.  He threw the cigarette over the balcony
rail and turned.  The instant she looked at him, little as
she knew of his character or noted his moods she saw she
had gone too far.  But she held a calm, undaunted front.
"How you frightened me," said she, in a tone that had no
fright in it.  "I'm horribly tired.  I must stop eating
desserts.  They wear one out."  She stifled a yawn, took the
small diamond sunburst from the front of her waist and
laid it on the bureau.  She seemed all but unconscious of
his presence; in reality, by way of the bureau mirror, she
was watching him as a duelist an adversary.  "I shall
fall asleep before I can get into bed."

"I shall detain you only a moment."  His grave,
exaggerated politeness did not decrease her inward agitation.
"I simply wish to tell you," he went on, "that, as you
seem determined to persist in your own mistaken way, I
shall be compelled to ask Gallatin to stay away from the
house in the evenings."

Her impulse was to smile disdain at the infantile
futility of this.  And the smile did come to her lips, and
lingered there to mask the feelings that came surging with
the second thought.  For she instantly realized how
helpless she was.  This man had no part in her life nor she
in his; yet he could impose his will upon her absolutely
because he could take Basil away from her—not merely for
the unimportant evenings, but altogether.  He could make
it impossible for Basil to remain—could do it by a mere
word to him.  And she who fancied she had provided
against every possible contingency had never even thought
of this, the most obvious peril, and the greatest!  Faint,
she leaned upon the bureau, spreading her arms so that
she seemed to be merely at ease.  "But why tell *me* about
it?" said she to him.  "Why didn't you simply say it to
him?"  She smiled contemptuously.  "And what will he
think?"

Dick's calm vanished.  "I don't care a damn what he
thinks," he cried.  "At least, he'll not be sitting round
watching you half dressed."

She drew herself up haughtily.  "Good night," said she.

"I was out on the veranda," Dick rushed on.  "I saw
him.  He forgot Helen—forgot decency—honor—everything—and
leaned there, giving himself up to a debauch.
Yes, to a debauch!  And *you* are responsible.  Not
he—not at all.  You, alone.  At least, anger doesn't make me
unjust.  And I will say too, you were innocent in the
matter—like a willful child.  Good pure women don't
appreciate——"

"But *I* do," interrupted she.  "I'm not the imbecile
Aunt Eudosia sort you admire so much."

"I tell you, the man's in love with you," cried Richard.

She all but staggered before the shock.

"Yes, in love with you.  That's why he came back here."

As steadily and indifferently as she could contrive she
went to the sofa, seated herself.  "Why, you yourself told
me he was in love with Helen."

"I was mistaken.  How could he be in love with her,
when you're about?  A man always takes to the
best-looking woman."

She laughed with friendly conciliating coquetry.  "I'm
afraid you're prejudiced."

"I saw it this evening.  The way he was listening to
those love songs!"

"Are you sure he was thinking of me?"

Richard did not answer.

"Perhaps Helen's equally sure he was thinking of her."

Under cover of the talk she—hardly knowing what she,
or he, was saying—darted this way and that, seeking an
escape from the horror closing in upon her.  She felt like
a hiding slave, hearing the distant bay of the bloodhounds.
How escape?  How throw him off the scent?  Was there
only the one way?

"No, he cares nothing about Helen," Richard was saying.
And clear and soft in his voice now was the note she
dreaded.  "At least, he didn't this evening.  How could
he when you were there?  Courtney, you simply can't
understand.  You're modest and pure minded and innocent——"

"Then it was only this evening?" she interrupted.
"I was hoping you had real reason for flattering me."

"Flattering you!"

"Certainly.  Wouldn't it flatter you if I were to tell
you Helen was in love with you?  She's in love with
somebody, by the way.  It must be you—how could she think
of any other man when you were about?"

Dick half smiled.

"And I must begin to tear my hair and foam at the
mouth, I suppose," continued she.  She rose, stamped her
foot, in melodramatic imitation of jealous fury.  "Helen
shall keep to her room in the evenings!  Do you hear, sir?
When I think of the times I've let you take her up to your
study—alone!—under pretense of working!  You—with
your shirt sleeves rolled up and your collar open!"

"You silly child!"  Dick was amused now.

"But I don't blame Helen.  How could she help it—with
you leading her on——"

Dick laughed.  "That's very shrewd," said he.  "I
own up.  I guess I was having a jealous fit.  But you'd
understand if you could see yourself as I see you."  And
he clasped her.

"No—no!" she gasped.

Completely possessed by his mood he was too much
the man to have the power to see that her mood was
different.  Holding her tightly, he said: "I do believe you
acted that way this evening just to make me jealous.  I
admit I seem neglectful.  But I love you, just as I always
did."

She was struggling to escape as strongly as she dared—more
strongly than her instinct of prudence approved—more
strongly than her physical self desired, for she realized
with horror that his mood was hypnotizing her will.

"Listen, dear," he said.  "I've got a confession to
make.  While I was raging up and down on the veranda,
all sorts of devilish thoughts came to me—suspicious——"

She ceased struggling.

"I got to thinking how long we've been living
apart—and how, every time I made advances, you seemed to
evade——"

She felt herself growing cold.  He must have felt it,
too, for he hastened on: "Please, little girl, don't get cross.
I didn't *really* suspect.  I'm not so ridiculous.  I know a
good woman could no more be false even in thought to her
husband—than a nightingale could change into a snake."

It was pounding, pounding at the walls of her brain
that he was on the very verge of the discovery; that
unconsciously he was fighting against a suspicion which too
long-pent passion was thrusting at him ever more pointedly.
Another repulse, another jealous fit, and—five lives
overwhelmed in ruin.

She lay quiet in his arms.

.. vspace:: 2

In those next few days she was whimsical, capricious,
fantastic.  Richard, once more wholly the man of science,
was as unconscious as mountain peak of storms in the
valleys far below.  Basil and the others, but particularly
Basil, watched her with a kind of dread.  "I need a
change—in fact, I must have it," she announced at the supper
table.  "Helen, let's go to Chicago and shop.  The things
in Wenona are hideous this spring."

"I need a change too," Richard startled them all by
saying, "I'll go with you—and Helen can take care of
the house and Basil—and Winchie, if you'll leave him."

"I don't want to be left!" cried Winchie.  "You
wouldn't leave *me*, mamma?"

Courtney did not hear.  She was looking at Richard
as if his words jarred upon her savagely, goaded her to
the verge of outburst.  She had been feeling toward her
husband as she would have felt toward an inanimate object
which had bruised her when she by accident stumbled
heavily against it.  She did not seek the source of this feeling,
or let it disclose itself to her.  She simply felt so; and
when he spoke of going, it seemed as unthinkable that she
should let him go as that she should leave Winchie behind.
When she had herself in hand, she said: "This is a
shopping trip.  No men wanted or allowed."

"Not even *me*, mamma?" pleaded Winchie.

"Except you," said she.

And the two women and Winchie went the following
day, to spend a busy fortnight in the Chicago shops buying
for all three and for the house.  As Courtney had limited
means and exacting taste, the labor of shopping was hard
and tedious, especially in those vast modern stores.  For
there the satisfaction of having everything under one roof
is balanced by the vexation of the search for the needle of
just what one wants and can afford through the mountainous
haystack of what one does not want or cannot afford.
The toil almost prostrated the two women—and poor
Winchie who had to drag along since there was no one at
the hotel to whom Courtney would trust him.  But she felt
more than repaid, not so much by her purchases, though
she was on the whole content with them, as by the complete
change in her point of view.

The atmosphere of the city is wholly different from that
of such a place as Wenona.  In Wenonas, the individual is
important; the sky seems near, and its awful problems of
the eternal verities—life and death, right and wrong—thrust
at every one every moment of day and night.  In
a city, the sky yields to brick and stone; men see each
other, not the universe; the eternal verities seem eternal
bores, and life, of the day, of the hour, tempts with
its—"Since you are mere maggot in rotten cheese—tiny
maggot, one of billions—tremendous cheese—since you are to
die to-morrow and decay and be forgotten—since you can
fret and fritter all your years away over life and death,
over right and wrong, without getting a hair's width nearer
solving them—why not perk up—amuse yourself—do as
little harm as is consistent with getting what you need,
and have all the fun there is going?  Don't take yourself
solemnly!"  The city's egotism is showy, but shallow; the
country's, hidden but profound.

Viewed from Chicago, all the beauty, all the possibilities
of happiness in her life in that lovely place on the shore
of Wenona Lake stood out as in the landscape of a master
painter; and all that fretted and shamed her and shot her
joys with black thread of foreboding seemed the work of
her own tainted imagination.  "I'm harming no one," she
now argued.  "I'm free—Richard freed me when he made
me realize I was to him not a wife but simply a carnal
incident.  And I am helping to make life there peaceful and
even happy.  The trouble with me is I'm still under the
blight of my early training—a training in how to die, not
in how to live.  True, I do lead a double life.  But how
few human beings do not lead double lives of one kind or
another?  And where am I worse than thousands who long
but have not courage or chance?  Isn't it better to live in
deceit with a man one loves than to live in deceit with a
man one loathes?"  If she and Basil were found out, they
would be classed with the rest of the vulgar intriguers.
But that did not make them thus low; it was not their
fault that the world saw only coarseness for the same sort
of reason that a man in green spectacles saw everything
green.

She came back as much improved in mental health as
in dress—and certainly the new clothes were a triumph.
Also, her sense of self-respect seemed to be restored—"and
whether I'm right in my way of looking at things or am
deceiving myself, I'm certainly much the better for feeling
I'm right."

They brought part of the spoils of the city with them,
but most of it came by freight a week after their return.
Courtney and Helen were almost as excited as Winchie—and
Winchie was quite beside himself—when the great
packing cases and crates were opened, and the treasures of
dresses and underclothes and "stunning" hats and fascinating
shoes and slippers and parasols and blouses, and the
furniture and pictures came into view from endless wrappings
of paper and bagging and excelsior, of boxes round
and square, boxes small and large, boxes fancy and plain.
Everything, with not an exception, looked better than it
had in the shop when it was bought.  "You are a wonderful
shopper, Courtney.  These things seem as if they were
made especially for us," Helen asserted.  And Winchie,
literally pale with emotion, screamed, "Mamma Courtney,
let's go back and buy some more!"

For several days the agitation continued.  Indeed, it
was a month or longer before the last ripples died away,
and the normal calm was restored.  Helen had new clothes
as well as Courtney—and never had she looked so lovely.
Winchie was the most stylish person of his age in all that
region.  The Donaldson children had theretofore been
disposed to feel somewhat superior because they had a real
imported French governess; they now paid court to him
and accepted his decisions about games as reverently as a
company of New York men accept the judgments of any
man with millions.  And the new furniture and dishes, the
new wall paper, the new cooking utensils, the new
contrivances for plants and for cut flowers, some of which
Courtney had had made from her own designs, were as
successful as the clothes.  Also, Courtney—and Helen
too—had, through the stimulus of the city, a multitude of new
ideas for house and grounds and gardens.  These they
proceeded to carry out, Basil assisting whenever he could
get an afternoon away from the laboratory where Richard
had now buried himself, oblivious of her, of them all.
Altogether, May and June of that year made a new
high-water mark of happiness.  And when Helen, going to
Saint X to visit and display her finery, returned in a
self-complacent state of mind that indicated a complete cure,
a complete restoration of her old-time content, Courtney
felt as if the last cloud had disappeared from her horizon.
Again and again during those tranquil, sparkling days she
told herself—and almost believed—that at last her life was
"settled right"—as nearly "right" as a human life
could be.

One night when she had an appointment with Basil she
found Helen still up as she was about to descend and admit
him.  Helen did not put out her light until nearly three
quarters of an hour after the time.  When she opened the
lake-front door no one entered; not a sound.  She looked
out.  The veranda empty; the lawns dreaming undisturbed
in the moonlight; wave on wave of the heavy perfume of
summer's flowers.  But not anywhere Basil.  Her trembling
ceased; she darted to the edge of the veranda, everything
forgotten but the supreme fact—he was gone.  Gone!  Why,
she could not doubt; for, from time to time she had seen
in his eyes the suspicion which, unjust though it was, she
dared not discuss with him.  Where had he gone?  She
must know, must know at once.

She gave not a thought to leaving the house—the dangers
that made it impossible for them to meet at his apartment.
She sped across the lawn, along the path through
the pale splendor of the east flower garden and blossoming
shrubbery, into the dark wood.  And with her sped her
old enemy—the specter dread of losing him—the ghost so
easily started from its unquiet grave.  She flitted on until
she stood at the edge of the clearing, with wildly beating
heart, looking up at the solitary building, gloomy in its
creeper draperies.  There was light from his bedroom
window.  She gave a quick gasp of relief.  At least he
was still within reach.  The phantom beat of icy rains
falling, falling ceased to freeze her heart.

Panting from the tumult of her thoughts rather than
from the run, she knocked on the entrance door—knocked
again, loudly—a third time—a fourth.  She was shaking
from head to foot.  No answer—none.  She tried the door;
it yielded.  She darted up the stairway, her body now fire
and now ice.  He was in his bedroom door, was watching
her.  As the light came from behind him she could not
immediately see his expression; but she felt it was dark
and angry.  She flung herself on his breast—"My love—my
love!" she sobbed.

His arms hung at his sides.  He stood rigid.

"Basil!  Put your arms round me.  I'm cold—and so
frightened."

He pushed her away.

She leaned against the door frame sobbing into her
hands.  Her long plaits hung one over either shoulder.  She
looked like a child, a broken-hearted child.  "And you've
been pretending to love me!"

"I do love you.  That's the worst of it."

"Love!"  She turned upon him passionately.  "You
call *that*—love?  No matter what I did, wouldn't you know
I'd done it for our love's sake?  Yes, you know all that's I
is yours—every thought—every heart throb."  She was
sobbing again, her arm on the door frame, her face against
it.  She was thinking how unsympathetic he was, how
selfish and cruel—was asking herself why she did not
hate him, cast him out of her life.  But the very
suggestion made her heartsick.  Cast out him who was her
life!

"I didn't mean it," he pleaded.  "I was crazed with
jealousy."

"Jealousy!  Basil—Basil!"

"I can't help it.  I'm human."

"But don't you know me?  Oh, sweetheart—don't take
from me all the self-respect I've got."

He seated himself, stared doggedly at the floor.  There
was a long, a heavy silence which he finally broke.
"Courtney," he said, "we're both going straight to hell."  He
looked sternly at her.  "We've got to get away from here."

She saw the resolve in his eyes, trembled, grew still.
Then she remonstrated gently, "You'd forbid me to treat
Winchie so, if I wanted to."

He continued to look straight and stern at her.  "Either
you go with me or I go alone."

Her knees grew weak.  The room swam before her
eyes.  The big wave in the picture on the opposite wall
swelled, lowered, seemed swooping down on her.  "Oh,
no—you wouldn't do that," she murmured.  "No—you
couldn't do that."

"I'll leave in the morning, unless you say you'll leave
with me the day after."

She watched him, relentless and utterly inconsiderate,
and her anger rose.  "You've no right to go!" she cried.

"I must," he replied.  "Do you mean to say you'll let
me leave without you?"

"Yes—if you'd do it," replied she.  "But you wouldn't.
You'd not leave me to bear the whole burden alone.  You'd
not be a coward."

His florid face became crimson.  He fought for self-control,
gave up the hopeless struggle, flung himself down
beside her.  "I can't go—I can't," he cried.  "But—how
can I stay?  It's dragging us down—down."  He was
almost weeping.  "Courtney, you must see it's dragging
us down."

For the first time she had the sense of strength in herself
greater than his, of weakness in him.  She caressed his
fair hair tenderly.  "It's only a mood, dearest—only a
mood.  It'll pass—and we'll help each other, and be strong.
We'll look forward to the end of this.  For, in a few years
Winchie'll be off to school.  Then—I shall be free to make
my own life.  I'll go away to visit—stay on and on—and
gradually——"

"You must promise you will not live with him."

"I will do my best.  But—I must protect Winchie—and us."

He grew red, then pale, was silent for a time.  Then
he said irritatedly, weakly, "But don't you see what a
position it puts *me* in!"

"And me?"  She said it very quietly, with a certain
restrained pathos.  But he sat glum and moody, thinking
of his own plight.

He roused himself.  "All right," he cried, in a tone
of contempt—for himself and for her.  He embraced her
with a kind of insolent familiarity.  "Then I'll stay.  If
I went, I'd only come sneaking back.  I'm no longer a
man.  I'm a slave to you."  And he held her at arms length
and eyed her with an expression that told her he was
making inventory of her charms.

"Please don't talk that way," she begged, offended and
wounded by that expression in his eyes more than she dared
admit to herself.  "I know you don't mean it.  I know
you—love.  I know——"

"Love—let's only talk of love," he interrupted.

She fell to wondering whether, when they were together
in the dark, his unseen eyes had this look—and why it
made his words and his caresses seem so different from
the words and caresses of the darkness.  She had never
thought of it before; she hated to learn it then—just then;
but she could not push away the monstrous truth that love
and lust have the same vocabulary, the same gestures, the
same tones, differ only in their eyes.

"What are you thinking about so solemnly?" he asked.

"I wasn't thinking solemnly," she protested with a
hastily forced smile.  "I was simply remembering how
rarely we've been together alone—really alone—except in
the dark, for a long long time."

"It's good to be able to see you," said he, and she felt
like hiding in shame from his eyes.  "You streamer of
flame that's burning up my soul."

Her lips echoed his laugh.  "What nonsense," she said.

"It's the truth," declared he.  "But—burn on!  I
can't live without it."

The smile left her lips—it had not been in her eyes.
"If I thought you——"

He stopped her mouth with a kiss.  "Only love!" he
commanded.  "No thought."

"That's right," she cried eagerly.  "No thought!  Just
feeling—just love.  We must not think.  It's the cause of
our unhappiness."

And she tried to be as good as her word.  "I do love
him, and he loves me," she rebuked herself.  "I'm
unstrung—hysterical—full of crazy fancies.  I
mustn't—*mustn't*—fret at his way of loving.
I must always think, 'What
would become of me if I lost him?'"  And she pretended
to be in his mood; for the sake of a passion that had been,
she simulated a passion that was not.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XXII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXII

.. vspace:: 2

Masculine moral struggle is usually noisier than
feminine—unless the woman is seeking to impress some man,
before yielding of her own free will what she wishes him
to fancy his superior charm and force and subtlety are
conquering.  Thus, woman being by nature freer from the
footless kinds of hypocrisy than man, it was only in the
regular order that while Courtney quietly accepted the
situation and conformed to it, Basil should accept it with much
moral bluster.  He accused now his own wickedness, now
the wickedness of destiny, and again woman's sinful charms.
Still, the masculine conscience no less than the feminine is
bred to be an ultimately accommodating chaperon; and
Basil's conscience would soon have gone to sleep had it not
been kept awake and feverish by a contrasting presence.
That contrast was Helen's virginal beauty and virginal
purity—both of which fascinated his overstimulated and
degenerating imagination.

Helen was, as Courtney had said, a girl of the
old-fashioned type.  This does not mean that she was a rare
survival of an extinct type, but simply that she was the girl
of yesterday as distinguished from the girl of to-morrow,
and from the girl that is partly of yesterday, partly of
to-morrow—all three of whom we have with us in this
transitional to-day.  Helen had by inheritance and training all
woman's ancient instincts to be a possessed and protected
property.  These instincts originated in the necessities and
the ignorance of former societies; but they are cultivated
and clung to because masculine vanity dotes on the superior
attitude, and because the female very humanly finds it more
comfortable to be looked after than to look after herself,
to have her thinking done for her than to think for herself,
to be supported than to support herself, to be strong through
weakness than to be strong through strength.  The male
wants to pose as master.  The female yields, since the usual
cost to her is merely putting up with airs of superiority at
which she can secretly laugh; at worst, the cost is only that
intangible thing, self-respect.  So, why not?  Self-respect
is purely subjective, unseen.  It provides no comforts or
luxuries.  Lack of it attracts no attention in a world that
sees only surfaces.  So, why not sacrifice it, when it
becomes inconvenient?  Men do.  Why shouldn't women?

Helen had no desire to be of full human stature—to be
free.  She wished to be a "true woman," meek servant of
a lord and master, and never under the painful necessity
of taking responsible thought for herself.  Having no
capacity or desire for comradeship with men, she denounced it
as unwomanly.  Her physical virtue—"purity," she called
it—she regarded as her chief glory.  She was glad it was
still woman's chief asset in the struggle for existence; for,
she could not help knowing she had beauty, and it is beauty
that makes virtue valuable, though of course beauty adds
nothing to its glory.

Helen certainly had beauty, nearly as great beauty as
she imagined in that heart of hearts where our vanity feels
free to spread its tail to the last gaudy feather and to strut
as no peacock or gobbler ever dared.  Her skin was white
as milk, her features were classically regular, and she was
now a shade taller than Basil, could almost look level-eyed
at Richard.  Her dark hair was commonplace in color and
texture, was rather short, did not grow especially well about
her brow or behind the ears; but it was thick and abundant,
and the brow and the ears were charming in themselves.
Thanks to Courtney's skill in devising a corset, the defect
of waist too close to bust was no longer conspicuous.  She
had sound teeth, good arms and legs, narrow hands and
feet.  Her large brown eyes were of the kind that has been
regarded as ideal for woman from the days of Homer
singing the ox-eyed Juno, down to our own day when intelligence
is trying to get a place among feminine virtues and
the look of intelligence among feminine beauties.  She had
learned from Courtney—who knew—a great deal about
dress—dress that all women talk, but only the rare
exceptional woman knows.

Also, she had from her a practical training for what
she regarded as woman's only sphere, the home.  Courtney
had taught her how to keep house with comfort, order and
system.  As Courtney had none of the teacher's vanity but
used the method of suggestion, she fancied she had learned
and was learning from herself; the more so, since she in
defiance of daily experience could not credit a woman of
Courtney's lively and, because light, undoubtedly thoughtless
and careless temperament, with enough seriousness to
be a good housekeeper.  Helen there showed herself about
on a level with the human average; for all but incredible
is the stupidity of our misjudgments and mismeasurements
of our fellow beings.  There was not in her the capacity
to reflect who thought out the new ideas that were constantly
being put into effect, who told her what to do and who
quietly and tactfully saw that she did it.

The most obvious improvement in Helen was through
her unconsciously acting on Courtney's advice of delicately
veiled suggestion and dropping the culture pose.  She was
now patterning upon Courtney's naturalness so far as she
could.  She had the handicap of an ingrained and incurable
passion for those innocuous little tricks of manner with the
men; also, she was greatly hindered by a conventional assortment
of the so-called "lofty ideals."  Still, she was letting
much of her own natural personality appear.  She was only
slightly exaggerating her bent toward sweetness and
sympathy.  She was not quite so strenuous in advocacy of fine
old-fashioned womanliness—heart without mind, purity that
is mere strait jacketed carnality; virtue that, when it yields,
makes lofty pretense of yielding only in reluctant
tolerance of man's coarseness and of nature's shameful way of
reproducing.  At Tecumseh, when Dr. Madelene Ranger
delivered a course of lectures on the profession all young
women are candidates for—that is, on matrimony—to the
girls of the senior class of the college of liberal arts, Helen
was one of those who refused to attend and signed
the—unheeded—protest to the faculty.  She was no longer so
proud of this as she had been, although she still thought
she had done what ought to be right though it rather seemed
foolish.

But the greatest improvement of all in Helen was the
subtlest.  She had come there, expecting to be a dependent,
feeling and, in a sweet refined way, acting like the poor
relation, harbored on sufferance.  Women, trained from the
outset to be dependents, easily degenerate into sycophants,
like men who have always looked to others for employment
and have lost self-confidence if they ever had it.  But lack
of self-reliance, a vice in a man, is regarded as a virtue in
a woman; so, women have absolutely no restraint upon their
abandoning even the forms of self-respect, once they get in
the way of degenerating.  Thus, Helen's relations with
Courtney might easily have become what is usually seen
where there is intimacy between a poor woman and a woman
of means.  But Courtney—not deliberately but with the
unconsciousness of large natures—made this degradation
impossible.  It was not merely that Helen had not been made
to feel a dependent; it was more—far more.  It was that
she had been made to feel independent, more independent
than Courtney herself felt.  And this fine feeling, this
erectness of spirit, permeated to every part of her character,
would have made a full-statured human being of her, had
she had the mentality to shake off her early training as mere
conventional female.

Richard frankly declared her an ideal woman; Basil
secretly agreed with him.  Helen became the constant
reminder of his lost honor, of the heaven he had given up
for the forbidden delights.  He reveled in Courtney the
tempest; but during the lulls his eyes turned yearningly to
Helen, the serene and pure calm.  Courtney represented
sinful excess, Helen righteous restraint.  Courtney's was
love the devastator; a love for Helen would be love the
uplifter.  He wanted Courtney; he felt that Helen was what
he ought to want.  And in the lulls, with passion exhausted
and needing the stimulus of contrast—he sometimes
fancied that, if he could somehow contrive to assert his
manhood and escape from slavery to Courtney, he would be
happy with Helen, and once more noble and good.  Like
many another, he flattered himself that he had an aspiration
to a better life when in reality he was making pretense
of virtuous longing merely to whet his appetite for vice.
He shut his eyes to the obvious but rarely seen—or, rather,
rarely admitted—truth that a man is as he does, not as he
pretends or dreams.

Before finally and fully condemning Basil—or Courtney
or anyone—for anything he or she may have done
contrary to our views of propriety and morality, it would
be well to reflect upon the true nature of conscience—to
which Basil and Courtney and all of us habitually refer all
moral questions for settlement.  As we grow older we are
awed or amused rather than shocked—and, unless we have
lived as the moles and the earthworms, are not astonished
at all—by the wondrous ways in which our conscience
adjusts itself to necessity—or to what overwhelming
inclination makes us believe to be necessity.  But in unanalytic
youth such adjustments take place unconsciously to
ourselves; the mind, in the parts of itself hidden from us,
concocts the proof positive that what we desire is necessary
and right; all we are conscious of is that we suddenly have
the mandate of necessity and the godspeed of conscience.
Thus, conscience in youth can be as flexible as occasion
may require, yet can, without hypocrisy, be for the conduct
of others a very Draco of a lawgiver, a very Brutus of a
judge.  This, in youth only.  But—  How many of us
ever do grow up?

The free-and-easy mode of life at the house made it
impossible for any two to be alone, except by stealth,
without everyone's knowing it.  As a man who since early youth
had led the "man sort of life" he was thoroughly used to
associating the idea stealth with the relations of men and
women.  However, flexible though conventional "honor" is,
he had misgivings about bending it to the requirements of
desire in this particular case.  But as his longing for such
a moral invigorator as Helen's innocent purity grew in
intensity, he began deliberately to revolve contriving to see
her alone again, and by stealth.  His first success was
accidental—callers occupying Courtney when he came seeking
her.  As he turned away from the house he spied Helen,
seated under a maple tree sewing near where Winchie and
the older Donaldson boy were playing ball.  She colored
faintly when he dropped to the grass near her and lit a
cigarette.  He so placed himself that he commanded all
approaches from the house and could not be taken by
surprise.  "Why is it," he began, "that I don't see you at all
any more—except at the table?"

The fact that he did not pursue when she began to avoid
had disappointed her keenly.  But it had given her a better
opinion of him.  It showed—so she told herself, perhaps
by way of consolation to vanity—that however bad he might
be he yet had redeeming reverence for purity.  But she had
long been weary of the dutiful struggle against his charm
of the worldly and the rich for her the unworldly and the
poor.  So, her manner was not wholly discouraging as she
said, in reply to his respectfully regretful question, "I've
been very much occupied."

He watched her swift white fingers a while, then stared
gloomily out toward the lake.  She stole a pitying glance
at him.  "Poor fellow!" thought she.  "He's suffering
terribly to-day.  That dreadful woman!  How could
Courtney, generous though she is, defend a creature who is
simply wrecking his life?"  As she had kept close watch on
him all these months, these signs of his sufferings were not
new to her.  But never had she seen them so movingly plain.
"Poor fellow!" thought she.

Presently he said: "Won't you talk to me?  I feel like
a—a damned soul to-day."

Helen thrilled.  He looked so distinguished, was so
elegantly dressed in his simple manly way, had that gloss,
that sheen, which marks all the kinds and conditions of
anglers for the opposite sex.  "What shall I talk about?"
she asked.

Her sympathetic smile, showing her excellent teeth and
lighting up her dark eyes, changed for him her common-place
query into a stimulating exhibit of depth of soul.
"Anything—anything," he said.  "You've got such an
honest, sweet voice that whatever you say makes one feel
better."

"What is troubling you?"

"Oh, I don't want to talk about myself."

But her instinct told her he had brought his stained soul
to confessional.  "It might help you," she suggested,
blushing at her own boldness.

He looked gratefully at her and away.  "It seems to
me," said he, "you've been avoiding me.  Is it so?"

Helen bent her head low over her work.

"I suppose it was instinctive," he went on.  "To you,
I'd seem—  Sometimes I feel that, if you and I had kept
on with those talks we were having last spring, things would
have been different with me.  However, it's too late now."

Helen's eyes filled.  "Oh, no.  It's never too late,"
said she.

He sighed and rose—Courtney was coming toward them.
Helen took no part in the conversation that followed.  She
was pondering the few meaningless and youthful phrases
he had uttered as if they were freighted with wisdom and
destiny.  And she continued to ponder them after he and
Courtney and Winchie went away for a drive to Wenona.
The more meaningless a thing is, the more food for thought
to those incapable of thinking.  When it is clear, it is
grasped at once and the incident closes; but let it have no
meaning at all, and lives will be devoted to cogitating upon
it, and library shelves will groan with tomes of exegesis.
Helen found in Basil's words what she wished to find—found
a plain mandate of duty to help him.  He couldn't
be so very bad—probably not so bad as Richard was in his
bachelor days, before chemistry and Courtney calmed him.
And look at Richard now!

She did not know the very particular dangers for Basil
in drink.  But she saw that he was taking a great deal more
whisky and water than formerly, and she felt that it had
to do with his obviously desperate depression.  Her one
chance to see him, she knew, was when Courtney was
occupied; for, had she not led Courtney to think that she did
not wish to be left alone with him ever?  She decided it
was best not to tell Courtney she had changed her
mind—somewhat—about him; Courtney would misjudge, would
think her careless about principle, weak, love-sick—worst of
all, would probably advise against her talking with him.
Thus it came to pass that when Courtney was safely
occupied—with callers, with Winchie, at sewing or painting or
dressing—Helen put herself oftener and oftener in such a
position that Basil could find her if he chose.  She did not
dream that he also wished to be stealthy; she thought the
stealth was all on her own side—and he, seeing this, soon
pretended to himself that he thought so, too, and had not
the slightest sense of guilt toward Courtney.  It did not
take him long to find a satisfying explanation for Helen's
aversion to having it known that they met alone; here,
decided he, was another evidence of her modesty, her delicate
sensitiveness of the good woman who can't bear being talked
about lightly—and, if they talked alone where others could
see, there would surely be joking and teasing and gossiping.

Once more habit gave illustration of its subtle grasping
of ever more and more power.  Before either was aware of
it, they were meeting clandestinely with clocklike regularity.
And Helen's life filled with sunshine of the most delicious
warmth and sparkle.  And Basil, keeping steadily
on at his drinking, and never relaxing in his devotion to the
sweet sin of which Courtney was the scarlet altar, reveled
in those agonies of a sense of utter depravity that are about
the only charm of wickedness.  "I am not fit to live,"
reflected he with comfortable gloom, as he sat in his
apartment alone drinking after an afternoon with Helen and a
late evening with Courtney.  Here was excellent excuse for
drinking and gloriously damning himself.  He did not go
to bed until he had finished the bottle and the last cigarette
in the big silver box on his table.  Also, between spasms of
self-damning he had contrived to finish a novel of intrigue
that had as its villain-hero just such a devil of a fellow as
he felt he himself was—or was in delightful danger of
becoming.

.. vspace:: 2

How it ever befell he never could remember.  But the
day came when he, sitting with Helen in the summerhouse—the
summerhouse!—found himself holding her hand.  He
stared at the pretty white hand, large and capable yet
feminine in every curve.  He noted that it was lying
contentedly, confidingly upon the brown of his palm.  He lifted
his dazed eyes.  Her lashes were down, her cheeks overspread
with delicate color; her bosom, like a young Juno's,
rose and fell with agitated irregularity.  It was not
poisonous mock morality, it was the decent human man
underneath, that sent an honestly horrified "Good God!" to his
lips.  He laid her hand gently in her lap, stood up, thrust
his hands deep into his trousers pockets.  His face was red
with real shame.

"I've often told you," said he, "that I'm no fit
companion for a pure woman—that my life's ruined past
redeeming——"

"Don't say those things," she implored.  "They hurt
me—and they're not so.  I know *you*."

"Past redeeming," he repeated.  "It's the God's truth.
I must keep away from you.  I've no right to see you—to
care for you—to tempt you to care for me.  I can't tell
you—but if you knew, you'd loathe me as I loathe myself."

"Do you—do you—"  Her voice faltered.  But she had
wrought herself up to such a romantic pitch about him, and
his earnestness was so terrifying and so real to her, that
she dared to go on—"Do you care for some one else?"  And
she looked at him in all the beauty of her romance.

"I don't know—I don't know," he answered, in great
agitation—physical, though he of course fancied it moral.
"Not with the love I might have given a pure woman, if
fate and my own vile weakness hadn't conspired to ruin me....
What am I saying?  I can't talk to you about it.
Think me as bad as your imagination can picture—and I'm
worse still."

She gave a low wail that came straight from her honest
romantic young heart and went straight to his heart.  He
sat beside her, took her hand.  "Be merciful to me," he
begged.  "At least I'm not so bad that I don't know
goodness when I see it.  And you'll always be the ideal of
goodness in my eyes—all I once sought in love—all I once
deluded myself into believing I had won."

She thrilled.  Those words made her feel that he
belonged to *her*.  She laid her other hand on his.  "Basil,"
she appealed, "you are young, and brave, and noble.  You
can free yourself—save yourself——"

He drew away, went to the rail of the pavilion, seated
himself there.  "No," he said.  "I'm past saving.
And—we must not meet any more."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because—I am not free—and never shall be."

"Is that true?"  Her eyes looked loving incredulity.

"I am more tightly bound—by honor and by—by
habit—than if I were married."

She gave a long sigh—of despair, she thought, but in
reality of hope, for, at least he was free.  Marriage was
the only real bond.  As for honor—what honor could there
be in any tie not sanctioned by religion and society?

"What a cur I am!" he exclaimed, put to shame by her
sigh and her forlorn expression.

"Please don't!" she begged.  "I understand—as far
as a girl could understand such a thing.  And I know it's
not your fault.  And—even if we can't be anything more
to each other, still I'm not sorry we've had what we've had.
I'm—I'm—glad!"

He felt the glory of her purity beaming upon him like
heaven's light on the bleak, black-hot peaks of hell.  He
longed to linger, and talk on and on; but his sense of honor
had reached the limit of its endurance for that day.  Without
touching her hand he said good-by as if they were never
to see each other again and went as if his heart were broken.

Thenceforth Helen let her longing for romance centre in
him without concealing the fact from herself—or from him.
And her castle-building had an energy it would never have
had, if she had not imagined she felt it was hopeless.
Nothing so dynamic as the hopelessness that hopes.  Believing
that he loved her, that she was his one chance of redemption,
she continued to give painstaking attention to her
toilet, to refresh her memory of those of his favorite poets
with whom she was acquainted, to learn lines from those
she knew less well, and to put herself in his way—always
without forwardness.  And he continued to drift—held fast
to Courtney with senses so enchained that he would have
fought against release like an opium fiend for his drug;
fascinated also by the woman he could dream he ought to
have loved, and might have loved.  Two restraints he laid
sternly upon himself.  Not to talk of love in a *tête-à-tête*
with a woman—that would be impossible.  But he would
see that the talk was kept to the general, that it never
adventured the particular.  Also, he would never again so
much as touch Helen's hand when they were alone.  Were
he bred to be as expert at moral truth as at moral sham,
he might have found a key to his true state of soul in the
tantalization this self-restraint caused him to suffer.  There
were times when her physical contrast to Courtney was as
alluring to his keyed-up, supersensitized nerves as was her
moral contrast to his morbid moral sense.  If he had had
the intelligence and concentration necessary to candid
self-analysis, he would have been startled—perhaps benefited—by
the discovery that he was in the way to become one of
those libertines who in all sincerity teach prayers to the
innocence they are plotting to debauch.

And all the time he was drinking more and more deeply—not
for the moral reasons he fancied, but for the practical
physical reason that a disordered nervous system craves the
stimulants that will further aggravate its disorder.  Helen's
father had carried his liquor badly; a little was enough to
upset him a great deal.  Basil was one of those men who
are able to drink heavily without showing it, even to the
most watchful eyes.  Often, when she had not the faintest
suspicion he was in liquor, he was in fact so far gone that
he had to keep his surface preternaturally solemn in order
to conceal the disorder of his mind.

The day did not long delay when, under the influence
of drink, he suddenly seized her and kissed her.  She did
not resist; but the shock of the contact, instead of
inflaming him, instantly restored him to his senses.  He was
conscience-stricken; also he saw the impossible complications
he was precipitating.  In shame and fright—in fright more
than shame—he fled from her presence.

So far as outward effect is concerned, the action is
everything, the motive nothing.  But so far as inward effect is
concerned, the action is nothing, the motive everything.  In
action Basil and Courtney were essentially the same—equal
partners in intrigue.  But her motive of seeking strength
through love availed to hold her steady, even to lift her up;
while his motive of sensuality ever less and less refined and
redeemed by love was thrusting him down and down.





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   \XXIII

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Richard and Courtney were walking up from the
laboratory together.  In his abrupt fashion Richard broke
the silence with: "I wonder if it isn't Helen that's hanging
back and not Gallatin.  She's innocent as a baby, but her
experience with her father must have taught her about that
one thing."

"What one thing?" asked Courtney, startled out of her
abstraction.

"Drinking.  Helen must have noticed how Gallatin's
mopping it up these days."

"Nonsense," said Courtney sharply.  She was much
irritated—as human beings are extremely apt to be, when
some matter they are making determined efforts to ignore is
forced on their attention.

"He was so drunk this morning that he had to go out
and take the air.  That's what made me think of it."

Drunk!  She winced at that bald revolting word.  She
flamed at what she tried to think was an injustice.  "This
morning?" cried she.  "Why, that's absurd.  I'd have
noticed it."

"You're another innocent.  He carries a package well—always
did."  There Richard laughed at memories of his
and Gallatin's "wild-oats" days of which he fancied
Courtney knew nothing—and he would have been panic-stricken
had he thought there was danger of her finding out about
them.  "Yes," he went on, "Gallatin's been going some
for several weeks now.  But this daytime drinking is a
new development."

"I'm sure you're mistaken," said Courtney, her irritation
showing in her color now.  "You both drink at supper."

"He about six to my two.  I never take more than two.
And every once in a while I see Jimmie or Bill carrying a
case of bottles to or from his apartments.  I can understand
a boy's doing that sort of thing.  A boy wants to try
everything.  But how a grown man can keep on at it is beyond
me.  Still, he hasn't much mind.  He never says or thinks
anything he hasn't got from somebody else.  But—women'd
never notice that."  This last sentence half to himself, not
at all for her hearing.

Courtney was all a-quiver with anger.  For, his shrewd
observation on Basil's mentality compelled her to admit to
herself another truth, indeed a whole swarm of truths, she
had been hiding from herself—how Basil's conversation,
when they were all together and the subject was necessarily
other than love, no longer seemed brilliant or especially
interesting even; how at the shop he made an extremely
poor showing, was now pupil, and rather backward pupil,
to her who almost daily had to cover up his blunders; how
in helping her with the gardening he never went beyond
either approving her ideas or offering suggestions already
stated in the books; how she was constantly coming across
things she had thought original with him only because she
happened not to have read the books that contained them
or to have known the phase of life in which they were
familiar commonplaces.  Angry though an untruth about
anyone or anything we love makes us, that anger is as
equanimity itself beside the anger roused by a disagreeable
truth.

As they neared the house she quickened her pace,
hurrying not so much from Richard as from her own
thoughts—the thoughts his words had startled from unexpected
lurking places as a sudden light sets bats to whirling.
Courtney was loyal through and through; also, she clung
to Basil like a shipwrecked sailor to a life raft.  The
stronger the waves of adverse destiny or of doubt, the
fiercer she clung to her life raft.  In face of the clearest
proof from without against Basil, she would have shut her
eyes and held fast to him.  Yet with devilish malice and
merciless persistence circumstances were now constantly
taking her blind resolute loyalty by surprise and forcing upon
her exhibitions of him as a shallow and sensual person.  A
proud, intelligent woman's love could reconcile itself to
either of these—to a shallow man whose passion was simply
symbol of deep and sincere love; or, to a sensual man whose
grossness was the coarse rich soil that sent up and
nourished high intelligence, fascinating and compelling.  But no
woman worth while as a human being could continue to love
a shallow man treating her as mere "symbol of the sensual
side of life" because he was incapable of appreciating
any but physical qualities, and then simply as physical
qualities.

It was with a heart defiantly loving, defiantly loyal,
that she met Basil at eleven that night to admit him.  He
had not appeared either at the house or at the laboratory
during the afternoon or for supper or afterwards.  So, she
had not seen him since Richard's "attack on him behind his
back"—for, she had succeeded in convincing herself that
Richard's accusations were an outcropping of prejudice
against him.  She felt humble toward him because she had
listened without bursting out in his defense—this, though
to defend would have been the height of stupid imprudence.
As he entered the door she softly opened, he lurched against
her, stumbled over the rug, saved himself by catching hold
of her and almost bringing her down.  A wave of suspicion,
of sickening fear and repulsion shuddered through her.
But she frowned herself down, took him firmly by the arm.

"Be careful," she whispered.  "The floor was polished
only yesterday."

He mumbled something affectionate and without waiting
for her to close the door, embraced her.  From him
exhaled the powerful odor of mixed tobacco and whisky
that proclaims the drunken man to the most inexperienced,
to those blindest of the blind—the blind who dare not see.
She gently released herself.  Several times of late he had
come to her in almost this condition; she had forced herself
to deny, to excuse, to minimize.  Now, however, it was
impossible for her to risk admitting him; and also, she
suddenly realized she had reached the breaking point of her
courage to keep up her self-deception.  "You must go at
once," she said.

"Why?" he demanded in a hoarse whisper.  His befuddled
mind reverted to Helen as if Courtney knew about
her.  "What right have you got to be jealous, if I'm not?"

She did not puzzle over this remark.  "Basil, you must
go at once because you've been drinking too much."  The
danger was too imminent to be trifled with in diplomatic
phrases.

He stood, swaying unsteadily, his head hanging.  "If
you think so—" he muttered.

She urged him gently toward the door.

"I—I beg your pardon," he mumbled.  "I—I guess
you're right."

He backed two steps.  As soon as he was clear of the
door she closed and locked it.  Slowly she went upstairs,
dropped wearily into bed.  She lay quiet a few minutes,
staring at the arc of the night lamp.  Then on an impulse
from an instinct that could not be disobeyed, she rose, took
a dark dressing gown, wrapped it round her.  She glided
along the hall, descended the stairs, opened the lake-front
door.  Closing it behind her, she stood at the edge of the
veranda.  The sky was black; a few drops of rain were
falling.  She made an effort, ran down the steps, hurried
across the lawn and along the path to the Smoke House.
The entrance door to the apartment stairway was open.
She hesitated, slowly ascended.  He did not appear at the
sound of her steps.  His bedroom door was open.  She
glanced in.  His bed was turned down, his pajamas lay
ready upon the folded-over covers.  But he was not there.
She went on to the door of his sitting room.  It too was
open.  At the table desk and facing the door he sat,
half-collapsed on the chair, one hand round a tall glass of
whisky and water, the bottle and a carafe at his elbow.
Though her mind was on him, her eyes took in and forced
upon her every tiny detail of the room; she had made it
over that his surroundings might always remind him of her.
He lifted his heavy head, blinked stupidly at her.  She
noted his face with the same morbid acuteness to detail—his
swollen eyes, his puffy lips, the veins in his forehead,
his brows knitted in a foolishly solemn expression.  Never
had he seemed so homely, since her first glance at him when
he came there a stranger.

After a moment of dazed sodden staring at her, he
remembered his manners, rose not without difficulty and stood,
stiff and unsteadily swaying.  "Give me some of the
whisky," said she, advancing.  "I feel sort of queer."  She
dropped to the chair he had just left and took up his glass.
"May I have your drink?" she asked, and without waiting
for a reply drank eagerly.  Color returned to her cheeks,
and her eyes became less heavy and dull.  "I'm better—very
much better," she declared, as she set the glass down
empty.

He had seated himself lumpishly on the sofa.  They
remained silent, gazing out through the open window into
the darkness and hearing the soothing musical plash of
rain on lake.  In upon them poured a freshness rather
than a breeze and the pleasant odor of drenching foliage.
"As I lay there thinking," she said presently, "it
came to me that I mustn't let this night pass without
seeing you and making it smooth and straight between us."

The shock of her appearing had for the moment beaten
down his intoxication.  It was now boiling up again,
heating his nerves and his imagination, though he seemed sober
and self-possessed.  "All right," said he.  "I know you
didn't mean to insult me, and I'll forget it."

She gazed quickly at him in amazement, started to
speak, checked herself.

"But I want to tell you," he went on, his tone and
gestures forcible-feeble, "I want to tell you this business
of my being shut out has got to stop.  You must arrange
for Vaughan to come down here to live, and for me to
take his rooms up at the house."

This demand seemed to her as utterly unlike him as
the dictatorial tone in which it was made.  To condemn
him—no, more—not to love him the more tenderly—because
he was in this mood of distracted desperation would
be unworthy of the love she professed.  She crushed
down her sense of repulsion, went to him, laid her cheek
against his hair.  "My love," she murmured.  "We
mustn't ever forget that we have only each other.  We'll
never let any misunderstanding come between us, no
matter how blue we get."  And she turned his head and kissed
him.

With an intoxicated man's fickleness, he switched
abruptly from anger to sentiment.  His eyes became moist
and shiny.  A sensual drunken smile played round his
heavy mouth.  She saw though she was trying hard not
to see.  He reached round and drew her toward his lap.
She gently resisted, while she was nerving herself to
submit—would it not be a very poor sort of love that
would let itself be chilled by a mood—a mood in which
all love's warmth, all love's gentleness were needed as
they are not needed when everything is pleasant and
easy?

The tears of self-pity welled into his eyes.  "God, how
low I've sunk!"  He got himself on his uncertain legs,
arranged his features into a caricature of an expression of
dignified command.  "I want you to send Helen—Miss
March—away," he said, waving his finger at her.  "She's
a pure woman.  She mustn't be contaminated."

She gazed at him in horror.  "Basil!" she gasped.

"Yes—I mean it.  Oh, you understand.  I'm not fit to
'sociate with her—and neither are you."

With a wild cry, she turned to fly.  He lurched
forward, caught her by the arm.  "But we're just about fit
for each other," he said.  "And that's the truth—if I am
drunk."  He nodded at her.  "I should say, 'That's the
truth *because* I am drunk.'  It's giving me the courage
to speak out a few things that've been gnawing at my
insides for weeks."  And his fingers clasped her arm like
steel nippers.

"Basil!  You're hurting me."

"That's what I feel like doing."  And in his eyes as in
his fingers there was revealed the sheer sensual ferocity
that drink had freed of the shame which at other times
held it in restraint.

She hung her head.  In a low voice she stammered,
"You're making me feel there isn't any love for me
anywhere in your heart."

"Love?" he said, swaying to and fro and opening and
closing his eyes stupidly.  "Love.  Oh, yes there is.  Yes,
indeed.  Sometimes I think not, but it isn't so.  It's because
I love you that I go crazy at the thought that I'm sharing
you."

"*Sharing me!*"  She wrenched herself free, put her
arm over her eyes as if she could thus hide from herself
the sight of his soul which in drunken abandon he had
completely unmasked.

"Don't be frightened," he maundered on.  "I'm a man
of honor—'honor rooted in dishonor' as Tennyson says.
I'll not go.  I'll submit to it—all right.  Love gives a man
a stomach for anything."

She wished to fly, but her legs would not carry her.
She had to stay—and listen.

"How I've been dragged down!  How a woman can
drag a man down!  Not Helen—no—she's an angel.  But
those good women never are as fascinating as you others....
Love?"  He beamed upon her like a drunken satyr.
"Let's love and be happy.  To hell with everything but
love."

As she listened and looked she, for the first time since
they had been lovers, felt that she had sinned—had sinned
without justification.  The judgment of guilt dazzled and
stunned her as the sun's full light eyes from which the
scales have just fallen.  She stood paralyzed, yet
wondering how she could remain erect under the weight of her
vileness—for, her sin seemed as heavy and as vile as ever
celibate fanatic asserted.  When her lover moved to
embrace her, she, with the motion of shrinking from him,
found she had strength and power to fly.  She rushed from
the room, he stumbling after her, and crying "Courtney!
Don't get jealous and go off mad——"





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.. _`XXIV`:

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   \XXIV

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She knew the truth at last—the whole truth—what he
was in mind and in heart, what his love was, what he in his
inmost soul thought about her, about himself.  The man
who could believe he was sharing her could not but be
shallow indeed, stupid, and also incapable of understanding
the meaning of the word love; the man who could
keep on with a woman he believed he was "sharing,"
must be sunk in a wallow of sensuality—and as weak as
low.  She knew the truth.  Hearing she might have
disputed and in time denied.  But there was, and would be,
no evading the records stamped clear and indelible upon
her memory by that sensual, maudlin face.  To falsify those
records was beyond even a proud, lonely, loving woman's
all but limitless powers of self-deception in matters of the
heart.  The coarseness of that self-revelation of his was
the liquor; but the revelation itself was the man.  He did
not love; he lusted.  He did not love; he despised—her
and himself.  He did not love—and he never had loved.

There is in every one of us a chamber where vanity
and hope live and ever conspire to deceive, and if possible,
destroy us.  From that secret chamber she now wrenched
an amazing secret.  She discovered that from the
beginning—yes, from the beginning—she, determined to satisfy
the craving of elemental flesh and blood, had been lying to
herself about Basil Gallatin.  Passion had taken sly
advantage of her loneliness and her longing for sympathy and
companionship; it had beguiled her imagination into
creating out of the very ordinary materials of his true
personality the lover she had been adoring.  One by one she
took out and reëxamined all her memory plates of him.
Now, a memory plate is like any other photographic plate;
it has a surface picture and it also yields to a close scrutiny
a thousand details which do not appear upon the surface.
Long before she finished, she was realizing that she had
all along, with the deliberate craft of self-deception, been
hiding from herself the trick her feelings were practicing
upon her intelligence.  Basil—pleasing manners and dress,
amiable disposition, animalism agreeably disguised by
education—Basil had been plausible enough to pass muster
with her, ready and eager to be deluded because of her
craving for love.  True, he had posed to a certain extent.
But he was not really responsible for the fraud.  The
blame was hers—all hers.

But disillusion no more destroys a love longing than
lack of food and drink destroys hunger and thirst.  High
above moans of shame over the pitiful collapse of her
romance rose the defiant clamors of hunger and thirst.
They had been lovers, he and she; and that fact in itself
was a bond which a woman, at least a woman of her
temperament of fidelity, could not easily break.  She feared
when he, sober and a gentleman once more, sweet and
winning, came to her and pleaded for forgiveness she would
forgive—would in her loneliness and heart hunger take
what she could get rather than have nothing and the ache
of nothingness.  It is—at least, it has been, up to and into
the present time—second nature to woman to depend upon
a man, to select some one man, the best available, and stake
everything upon him.  Basil Gallatin was that man for
her.  And—not in novels, but in life—before any woman,
however high minded, goes away to utter aloneness from
a man who cares for her, he must have disclosed some
traits more abhorrent than any such human traits as those
of Basil.  Yes—human.  Was it his fault that he had not
given her the kind of love she wanted?  Was it not
probably her fault that he had not been inspired to that kind
of love?  Perhaps, too, the love of any man, could it be
seen in the nakedness of drunkenness, would be much like
Basil's.  "I'm only a woman," she said.  "I mustn't
forget that.  I've no right to expect much."  And then she
shuddered; for in her very ears was the sound of those
cold rains falling day and night upon her loneliness and
despair.

She saw herself accepting; for, a great deal less than
half a loaf is better than no bread.  And if she accepted,
she must adapt herself—must force herself to acquire a
liking for what she must eat or go altogether hungry.  She
saw herself wending down and down—to the level at which
he had from the beginning thought her arrived.  She
looked all around.  Nothing—no one—to save her.  For,
what could she hope from Richard?—from any man?  Was
not Basil giving about the best man had to offer woman
in the way of association?  There was the Richard sort of
man—an abstraction—an impossibility.  There was the
Shirley Drummond sort of man—a human incarnation of
Old Dog Tray—equally impossible.  There was the third
sort of man—the Basil sort, somewhere between the two
impossibilities.  Life must be lived, and with human
beings.  Of the three available kinds of associates, was not
the Basil sort the most livable?  Rather Basil than
being frozen to death by a Richard or bored to death by
a Shirley.  The conclusion seemed cynical; but there
was no cynicism in the sad woman who faced that conclusion.

She did not go down to breakfast; and Basil, she
learned, kept away also.  When he did not appear at
dinner she knew he had determined to wait until he should
surely see her alone.  The emotion that stirred in her
because his place at the table was vacant gave her more
and sadder light upon how little the heart heeds the things
that impress the mind and the self-respect.  About the
middle of the afternoon she was at the small antique desk
in the corner of her sitting room, trying to write a letter.
But the charm of the day, the beauty of full-foliaged trees,
of lake and cloudless sky seen through the creeper-framed
window, would not let her write.  As she gazed, her
unhappiness calmed and all her senses flooded with the joy that
laughs in sunbeams, in light and shadow floating on the
grass, in flight and song of birds, in grace and color and
perfume of flowers, the joy that mocks at moral struggle
and flutters alluringly the gay banner of the gospel of
eat, drink and be merry.

As she took her pen to go on with the letter, Lizzie
appeared in the hall doorway.  "Mr. Vaughan asked me
to tell you," she said, "that he'd gone out and might not
be back for supper."

"Very well," said Courtney, not turning round.  It
flitted across her mind that this was an extraordinary
message for Richard to send—Richard who came and went
as he pleased and sent no word when he was not coming
to dinner or supper.  "Where's he gone?" she asked—an
extraordinary question from her to match the extraordinary
message from him.

"He was in a hurry and didn't say," replied Lizzie.
"I'll find out."

"Oh, no.  It doesn't matter."

Lizzie went, and in her dreaming and thinking
Courtney soon forgot the incident.  Again Lizzie's voice
interrupted—"Mr. Vaughan's gone to see old Nanny."

"Nanny!" said Courtney.  She never thought of
the old woman except as the memorandum of her pension
check appeared every three months in the household
accounts.

"Yes.  She's dying.  She sent for him.  Such dreadful
roads too."

Courtney's pen halted on its way to the ink well.  The
room seemed to her to have become terribly still.

"She sent him word," Lizzie went carelessly on, and
her voice seemed to come from a distance, through a
profound hush, "that she had something on her conscience
and couldn't go without clearing it.  I reckon she's gone
clean crazy."

It was not fear that made nerve and muscle tense.
It was not self-control that held her motionless.  The peril
was upon her; there was no time to waste in emotion.  All
along, she had pretended to herself that Nanny knew
nothing, had at worst a dim suspicion.  Now, she realized
that she had always feared the old woman had seen and
had heard.  And those words of Lizzie's made it
impossible for her to doubt what was about to occur.  No time
for terror, for hysteria or fainting or futile moaning.  Her
whole being concentrated on the one idea, What shall I do?
Calmly she said to Lizzie, "Has he gone?"

"Ten minutes ago—maybe fifteen."

"Did he take the motor?"

"Yes, ma'am.  She's near dead.  He went in a great hurry."

Idle then to think of overtaking him, of bringing him
back with a story that Winchie was missing, was perhaps
drowned in the lake.  Her mind—it had never been clearer
or steadier—gave Richard up for the moment, turned to
another phase.  "Where is Mr. Gallatin?" she asked.

"Out on the lake.  Winchie's with him—fishing."

"When they come in, please tell him I wish to see him
at once."  The events of last night were as if they had
not been.  Wounds closed up like magic; once more it was
she and Basil her lover united against the whole world.

"I can call him from the wall," suggested Lizzie.

"Yes—please do."  She dipped the pen as if about
to go on with the interrupted letter.  Lizzie went.  She
laid the pen down, leaned back in the chair, clasped her
hands behind her head, gazed unseeingly into the huge
tree almost directly before the window.  The irony of it!
Through Nanny whom they had forgotten!  The blow was
about to fall—utter ruin—the end of love—of life
probably.  A few hours and there would be a convulsion of the
most awful passions.  She looked round.  Everything calm,
bright, beautiful.  Reason told her what was about to occur;
but there are calamities which the imagination cannot
picture, and this was one of them....  Should she tell Basil?
"Nanny may be dead before Richard gets to her.  If I
tell Basil—and Richard comes, only suspicious—Basil's
manner may confirm him."  It was still more significant
that it did not enter her head as even a possibility that
Basil might be able to help her devise some plan to avert
or to mitigate the blow....  In the midst of her debate
whether to tell him, she suddenly gave a terrible cry, sprang
to the window, her expression wildly disheveled.  The
thought had flashed, "If Richard hears and believes, he
will *kill* Basil!"

Before she reached the balcony rail, reason took her
by the shoulder, drew her back to her chair.  "I must
keep my head!" she exclaimed aloud.  And she fought
down and triumphed over the terror that had all but
mastered her.  At Gallatin's step on the threshold she did not
turn.  "Shut the door," she said in her usual voice.  Then,
after the sound of its closing, "Nanny, on her deathbed,
has sent for him—to confess something.  He's gone to her."

She heard him slowly cross the room, knew he was
standing at the window.  After a while she stole a glance
at him.  His skin was gray, his profile set; there were deep
lines round his mouth.  She liked his face, it was so manly;
a wave of love surged out from her heart.  "How long
shall we have to wait?" he asked.  The voice, though
wholly unlike his own, had no note of cowardice in it.

"He's been gone about half an hour."

"Only half an hour!"

She saw the sweat burst out upon his forehead.  She
saw the muscles of his face trembling.  There was agony
in his eyes—not fear, but that horror of suspense
which makes the trapped soldier rush upon the bayonet,
makes the man on the scaffold assist the leisurely hangman.

Silence, except the chirping of the birds.  A bumblebee
buzzed almost into his face; he did not wince.  A black-and-gold
butterfly fluttered in at the window on the other side
of the desk, hovered, settled upon the lid of the stationery
box, rested with wings together as one.  She turned her
eyes from him to watch it, said absently:

"You will have to go at once."

She heard him turn full toward her.  She was expecting
that quick movement, but she could not help shrinking
a little.  However she went on evenly: "You can cross in
the motor boat, take a trap at Wenona, catch the
four-o'clock express at Fenton."

"I deserve that," he said, and she knew he was referring
to last night.

She hesitated, went straight at it.  "I'd forgotten last
night since Lizzie told me about Nanny.  It's wiped out.
So, you need think only of going."

"What are you talking about?" he exclaimed.  "I—go?"

She was ready.  She turned upon him a look of
well-simulated surprise.  Then—  "Oh!" she cried.  "I've
been thinking it out, and you haven't.  At first glance it
does look as if we ought to face it together.  But as you
consider it you'll see you've simply got to go."

He seated himself, took out his cigarette case, lighted
a cigarette.  "If I go anywhere it will be in his direction,
to shorten the wait."

"Listen," said she, leaning toward him, her forearms
on the desk, her hands clasped.  "He'll have but one idea—to
kill you.  If you're here, the very sight of you will
set him wild.  He'll kill you—how can you defend
yourself?"

"I can't.  Vaughan has the right to my life."

She winced at this unconscious ugly reminder of what
he really thought of their romance.  She waved her hand
as if brushing something away.  "No matter about that,"
said she.  "I'm thinking how to save Winchie from
disgrace—and my own life.  If you're here, there's no hope.
If you're gone, he'll have the chance to reflect.  And I
shall know what to say and how to say it."

"I don't believe she knew anything."

"Basil!" His eyes shifted.  "Don't you *remember*?"

Both were hearing the mad flapping of that frightened
bird in the copse round the summerhouse.  She shivered;
he moved uneasily.  "Even if she knew," he objected,
"she may be dead or in the stupor of death before he gets
to her."

"Then he'll hear nothing, and there's no reason why
you shouldn't go.  I'll say you got a telegram from your
mother——"

"If he comes merely suspecting and uneasy, and I'm
gone——"

"Still he'd not be sure," she interrupted.  "And if he
were, he'd not have the sight of you to inflame him."  She
rose.  "There's no time to waste."

He settled himself.  "I shall not go.  We face him
together."

The clock on the chimney-piece struck.  She gave a
cry, rushed to him.  "Basil—my love!" she implored.
"If you love me, go—go!"

He pressed his hands to her cheeks tenderly, smiled
at her with the gentle tolerance of superior male for female.
"I understand, dear.  This is like you.  But my honor
will not let me go."

She released his hand, stood gazing at him.  In the
beginning she had urged only because she had wished
to save him.  But she had been convinced by her own
arguments; and it amazed her that he was refusing to see
what was so clear.  "You—will—not—go?" she said.

"No, Courtney.  I cannot."

She brushed the strays of hair from her brow.  She
laughed scornfully, with a contemptuous shrug.  "Whether
you two men kill each other or are only wounded, still
Winchie and I will be disgraced.  You may be only
wounded—may get over it in a week or so—or you two may only
have a vulgar fight—with the servants looking on.  In any
case *I* am done for."

He was like a horse when the spur is bidding it advance
and the curb is bidding it halt.  "If I stay," he cried,
"you'll despise me.  If I go, you'll despise me."

"If you stay you destroy me.  If you go, I can save
myself.  Will you go or not?  Oh, after last night—this on
top of that—  And, after last night, you can debate whether
or not I'll despise you!  Go, I tell you!  You couldn't
sink any lower than you have—and you may redeem
yourself."  They were facing each other, he white before her
scorn and fury.  "But not," she went on, "if to what you
said and did then you add debating a point of cheap pose
when I and my child are at stake.  What a shallow, vain
creature you are!"

"Do you mean these things?  Or are you only pretending,
to make me fly and save myself?"

"I mean every word.  In spite of last night, of all it
taught me, I was still hoping—or, trying to hope.  But
now—  Thank God I had Winchie when I met you, and wasn't
free to make an utter fool of myself.  A man who could
betray his friend for lust, and then betray his mistress for
vanity!"

His eyes blazed mingled hate and passion at her.  "But
you'll go with me now!" he cried, in triumphant fury.
"Yes, we'll take that train together.  The jig's up, and,
damn you, you witch, you've got to go with me."

She was shaking with fright.  For the moment she
could think of no answer.  She was under the spell of the
terrible expression of his eyes.

"If he comes looking for some one to kill, he'll kill
you if he can't get us both.  So—we go together, or die
together, as you please."

"Very well," said she, seating herself.  "Oh, how like
you this is!  You know that if we fly, my boy is smirched
for life—and I too.  You know that if I stay, I may save
everything—even your life.  If we went, Richard would
never rest till he'd hunted us down and killed us."

"I've lost you," said he sullenly.  "I don't care what
happens.  I feel like killing you myself."  He straightened
up.  "Why not?" he cried.  "Kill you, then myself—get
it all over with."

The silence was broken by a shout from Winchie playing
with the neighbor's children on the lawn.  That sound
compelled her to another effort.  She went to Basil, laid
her hands gently on his shoulders.  "Basil," she pleaded,
tears in her eyes, in her voice, "for my boy's sake—for
my sake—go!  Now that you think about it you can't but
see it's the decent, the honorable thing to do.  Let's not
quarrel—we who have been so much to each other.  Go and
let us save everything."

He looked into her eyes, and she knew that if he had
drunk as much that day as he did the day before, he would
have killed her and himself.  But she saw that he, sober,
was hesitating, was moved by her appeal to his generous,
kind nature, overflowing with sentimentality.  "Dear," she
said, "you can row out on the lake.  And if everything's
all right I'll hang something white on this shutter here.
Then you can come back.  Even if he comes home suspicious
he'll not think it strange that you're on the lake late."

"But he may come to kill, and before I could get back——"

"But he will not kill me, I tell you.  I'm 'only a
woman.'  I know him.  You know, too.  And if he would,
how could you save me?  Would I want to live disgraced?"  The
clock struck again.  She gave a scream, flung her
arms round his neck.  "Save me, Basil!  Go—quick!—quick!"

After the frightful things she had said to him and he
to her, there was left him only the choice between going
and killing her and himself.  On the threshold he, with
tears in his eyes, embraced her and kissed her.  "God help
me, I don't know what to do," he said.  "I'll go.  If it
turns out wrong, remember how you perplexed me—and
try to forgive me, dear."

He was so genuine, so manly and loving and she felt
so grateful to him that her own eyes filled and she gave
him her lips with her heart in them.

She stood at the window; she walked up and down the
balcony.  But she watched the lake in vain.  Five minutes
ten—fifteen, and no Basil—Winchie came with his usual
rush, flung himself into the hammock.  "What is it,
mamma?" he asked presently.

She startled, turned on him with eyes wild.  "Oh!"
she gasped, her hand on her heart.  "I didn't know you
were there."

"Are you watching for Mr. Gallatin?"

"Why, dear?"

"Because, if you are, he came in with me a long time
ago and isn't out there any more."

A silence, she trying to keep her gaze off the lake.

"I like him," the boy went on.  "At least, some better
than I did.  He knows a lot about fishing.  When papa
blows himself up and never comes down any more, as
Jimmie says he will some day, I think I'll let Mr. Gallatin
stay on with us."

Courtney scarcely heard.  She was grinding her palms
together and muttering incoherently when at last she saw
his boat pushing leisurely in the direction of Wenona.  She
drew a long breath.  But as the boat glided farther and
farther away, her sick heart failed her.  She felt
abandoned—and afraid.  For, she had not told the truth when
she said she knew Richard would not kill her.

Winchie stayed on, talking incessantly and no more
disturbed by her inattention than babbling brook or trilling
bird by lack of audience.  His chatter fretted her like the
rapping of a branch on the window of an invalid.  But
she would not send him away.  If Richard should come,
Winchie's being there would halt him—perhaps, just long
enough.  After an hour Winchie grew tired of talking and
ran off to play.  She did not detain him—why, she did not
know—probably, because to detain him would have been to
encourage a fear that must be defied if the coming battle
for Winchie and reputation and life was not to be lost
before it began.  She must not seem to be afraid.  That
would be fatal.  And the sure way to seem unafraid was to
be unafraid.

She paced the floor.  She watched the distant boat with
its single occupant.  She sat and tried to finish her letter.
She roamed through the house.  "I'll meet him in the
grounds," decided she—and, compelling herself to walk
slowly, she paced the road between gates and house—up
and down, up and down.  Back to the house again, to her
room.  "Yes, we'll not wait supper," she said, in answer
to Lizzie's inquiry.  At supper, the sound of Helen's and
Winchie's voices rasped on her nerves.  "Will he never
come?" she muttered.  And without explanation, she left
the table, went again to her sitting room.

"Are you ill, dear?" asked Helen, putting her head
in at the door.

"No," replied she, curtly.

Helen went, but Winchie came.  "You must hear my
prayer, mamma."

"Helen taught it to you.  Let her hear it."

"No.  She's busy downstairs, and I'm in a hurry to go
to sleep."

"Then—just say it by yourself."

"It seems foolish to say it, with nobody to listen."

"Very well."

She sat on the floor beside his bed.  He knelt before
her, eyes closed, hands folded as Helen had taught him.
She was listening—listening—listening.  "If he came
now—" thought she—one of those sardonic fancies that leer
even from a coffin.  She stayed on with the boy, getting
him to tell her stories, she the while listening, listening for
sounds on the drive, on the stairs—and hearing only the
sound of the seconds splashing one by one into eternity.
Winchie fell asleep.  She kissed him, fled from his
room with a choke in her throat.  She composed herself,
descended to the kitchen.  Lizzie and Mazie were
there, and as she opened one door Jimmie entered by the
other.

She became suddenly weak, but contrived to say to him,
"Didn't you bring Mr. Vaughan back?"

"Yes, ma'am—an hour ago—most.  He got down at
the gate and went to the Smoke House.  He wanted to see
Mr. Gallatin—said for me to send him if he was up here.
But Mr. Gallatin's went out in a boat and ain't in yet.
Guess he's spending the evening over to Wenona."

She closed the door, leaned weak and sick against the
wall of the passageway.  Richard knew!  Back to her
room.  She walked, she sat, she lay down.  She watched
the clock.  The moments were aging her like years.  Each
second was dropping into eternity with a boom that echoed
in her shuddering heart.  She looked at herself in the
mirror.  Skin ashen; lines round her mouth—the gauntness
of age peering ghastlily through her youth like a
skeleton with a fresh young mask over its face bones.  A
black band all round each eye, the eyes blazing out
feverishly.  "He must not see me like this," she cried.  She
went down to the dining room, trembling and listening at
every step, like a thief.  She drank a glass of brandy at
the sideboard, fled to her rooms again.  She took the pitcher
of ice water into the bath room, emptied it into the bowl
of the stationary stand, bathed her face.  She pressed a
lump of ice against her blue-black burning lids.  "Why
don't I wake?" she said, for throughout she had the sense
of unreality that attends but does not lessen an impending
horror.

Twelve o'clock—"I'll go to bed.  I'll take Winchie
into bed with me.  Not because I'm afraid but because I'm
lonely."  She felt a great longing to live.  She felt young
and strong, and the look and the odor of life were delicious.
If only this crisis could be passed!  No matter how—no
matter how!  "I've the right to live!"  She lifted Winchie
gently from his bed, carried him to hers.  The warmth of
his vivid young body stole sweet and sad through her thin
nightgown, through her flesh into her heart.  He half
awakened, half put out his arms to embrace her, murmured
"Mamma"—was asleep again.  She sobbed a little in
self-pity, dried her tears for shame, lay down beside her boy,
nestled one hand under his body.

For a moment she felt better.  Then up she rose, bore
him back to his own bed, returned.  But as she was closing
the door, she hesitated—"It's not hiding behind him.
If I have him with me, it may save him from disgrace."  She
was about to open the door, when she turned away
abruptly.  "No!  If I did that, I'd deserve to die.  Why
should I hide behind Winchie?  Why should I hide, at all?
I may have done wrong, but I wronged myself, not
Richard.  I may have done wrong.  But I had the right to do
wrong."  She put out the light, lay down again, somewhat
calmer.  Suddenly she sat bolt upright in the darkness.
She had forgotten all about Basil!  Had he rowed back,
had he and Richard met——

The hall door of her bedroom opened softly—she had
intentionally left it unlocked.  She sank back against the
pillows.  Her heart stooped beating as she listened.  No
further sound.  When she could endure no longer, she said,
"Who is it?"

Dick's voice, saying, "Oh, you aren't asleep."

"What time is it?"

"About half past one."  It was Richard's voice, yet
not his.

A long silence.  She could hear her heart beating—the
ticking of the little clock on the night stand—the murmur
of the breeze among the boughs—and another sound—she
thought it must be the beating of his heart.

Then he: "May I turn up the light—just for a minute?"

"I'll turn it up."  She did so, and as she lay down
again saw with a swift furtive glance that his face
was haggard, that his eyes seemed deep sunk in black
pits, and that he was gazing at the floor.  And still
she had the sense of unreality, of the dream that will
pass.

He advanced a step or two.  She felt him intently looking
at her.  Again that breathless silence.  Then he gave
a great sigh, bent over her, gently kissed her hair.  "What
glorious hair you have," he said.  "And what a pure,
innocent face.  It's only necessary to see your face, to know
you are good."

She wondered why her skin was not burning, why her
lips did not open and her voice cry out.  "But when
*this* is past," she said to herself, "no more lies—never
again!"

"Good night," he was saying.

"Good night," she murmured, the sense of unreality, of
the passing dream, stronger than ever.

She heard him cross the room, heard the door close
behind him.  She leaped from her bed to lock it.  As she
was halfway across the room, the door opened.  Mechanically
she snatched from the sofa a dark kimona, drew it
round her.  "I forgot to turn out your light," he said.
"Oh—it was the night-stand light, wasn't it?"  Then she
had the sense of impending disaster and—  His whole
expression, body as well as face, changed.  His eyes seemed
starting from his head.  "You—you"—he stammered—"That
night when I came home unexpectedly—"  He flung
out his arms, dropped heavily to the chair behind him.
"It's true!" he gasped.  "It's *true*!"

The kimona that had helped to remind him and to
betray her had dropped from her listless shoulders to the
floor.  She seated herself on the edge of the bed, her hands
clasped loosely in her lap.  She looked calmly at him.
She now felt as much her normal self as she had up to the
moment when Lizzie brought her the news that he had
gone to Nanny.  She was glad the crisis had come.
More—she was glad he knew the truth.  "Now," she said to
herself, with dizzy elation, "I'll either die or begin to live.
'Nothing is settled, till it's settled right.'  My life will
be settled right, at last."

He made several attempts to look at her, could not lift
his eyes.  As they sat there she seemed innocence and he
guilt.  "Nanny told me," he said, as if feeling round for
a beginning.  Then, after a long wait, "She said she
couldn't die with it on her conscience.  I thought her mind
was wandering—but—somehow—I couldn't—"  He broke
off.  Another long wait.  He ended it with the question she
had been expecting: "Where's—he?"

"Gone."

Another pause, longer.  "I'm stunned—stunned."  He
stared at the floor, his head between his hands, his elbows
on his knees.  "So—he ran away."

"I sent him."

"I am glad.  I might have—"  He did not finish.
"I'm stunned," he muttered.

She clasped her hands round one knee—a favorite
attitude of hers—and waited.  It was a time for her to be
silent, to watch, to wait.  A word, any word, from her
might cause the explosion.

"Why did you send him away?" he asked.  It was
as if he were talking with a stranger about an indifferent
matter.

"Because he has nothing to do with this.  It's between
you and me."

Their eyes met.  "Nothing to do with this?" he
repeated, as if trying to understand.

"It's between you and me," she repeated.

His eyes turned away, as if he were reflecting upon
this.  Silence again.  Then he: "I don't know what to
do.  I know it's so, but I can't believe it.  It's not like
you—not at all."  He looked at her.  She met his gaze steadily.
His eyes shifted.  "Not at all," he repeated.  He
was still talking as if to a stranger.  She understood why;
it would have been impossible for any force, even such a
discovery as this, to galvanize into a living personality,
with a mind to think and to will, the woman who had for
six years been mere incident in his busy life, "Not at all
like you," he again repeated.  "Yet—why did I feel it was
true as soon as Nanny told me?"

She remained silent and motionless.

"Why don't you speak?" he demanded, trying to rouse
himself to reality.  "Why don't you defend yourself?"

So long as she did not defend, he could not attack.  She
did not answer.

"You do not deny.  You admit?"

She was silent.

"He is safe, so long as he keeps away.  You need not
be afraid to confess that he took advantage of a moment
of weakness."  It was an offer of a defense he would
accept.

She refused it instantly.  "That is not true," she said.

"Yes, it is," he insisted.  "He took advantage of my
absence——"

"What I did," she interrupted, "was of my own free
will—was what I felt I had the right to do."

His eyes lifted to hers in amazement.  Again they
found her gaze steady and direct.  "Don't you realize
what you've done?" he exclaimed.  Such an expression as
hers must mean either innocence or a shamelessness beyond
belief.

"Yes, I realize," she answered in the same calm
colorless tone in which she had spoken all her few words.

"How like a child you are," said he gently—and child-like
she certainty looked, sitting there all in white, so small
and lovely and sweet, with her heavy braids twisted round
her little head, giving her appearance a touch of
quaintness, of precocious gravity.  "A mere child.  You don't
even understand what you're accused of.  It simply can't
be true—it—"  He started up.  "My God—if only I
hadn't seen that room that night!"  And she knew he was
seeing what she was seeing—Basil's disheveled room—and
she in it, like it.  "Courtney!  Courtney!  How could
you—how could you!"  And down he sank with face buried
in his hands and shoulders heaving.

She hung her head in shame.  In vain she reminded
herself how he had refused to treat her as a human being,
how he had spurned all her appeals, how he had refused
to let her live either with him or without him—would give
her neither marriage nor divorce.  All in vain.  Before his
grief she could feel only her own deceit.  It might be true
that he had not allowed her to be honest; it was also true
that she had not been honest.

When she looked at him again, she was fascinated by
the expression of his long aristocratic profile—stern,
inscrutable.  "I realize," he presently said, "that I don't
know or understand you at all.  But of one thing I'm
certain—that you are not a bad woman.  I've been recalling
you from the beginning—from our childhood even.  You
never were bad.  I can remember only sweet and
beautiful things about you."

She covered her face with her arm.  "Don't!" she
murmured.

"I wasn't saying that to make you ashamed," he
hastened to explain.  "I can't help feeling that somehow
or other I am more to blame than you.  But that's aside.
The main thing is, we must both do the best we can to
straighten things out.  Isn't it so?"

To straighten things out!  Not to rave and curse and
kill—not scandal on scandal, disgrace on disgrace—but—"to
straighten things out."  She pressed both hands to her
face, flung herself upon the pillow and sobbed into it—an
outburst like a long-pent volcano relieving itself of the
fiery monsters that have been tormenting its vitals.

"We'll not talk of it," he went on, as the storm was
subsiding, "until we're both of us calmer."

A long pause, the silence broken by the sound of her
sobs which she strove in vain to suppress.  Then she heard
his voice gently saying "Good night."  And she was alone,
dazed and shamed before this incredible anticlimax to her
forebodings.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XXV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXV

.. vspace:: 2

At nine the next morning she appeared at the laboratory
as usual.  As she was passing through Dick's room,
he glanced up.  Their eyes did not meet.  "Good morning,"
she said without pausing.  She was in the rear room
and out of view when his cold answering "Good morning"
came.  She went about her work, and several times she
carried in to him the things she finished.  He was absorbed,
seemed as unconscious of his surroundings as had been his
wont.  It was the rule there never to interrupt; she did
not break the rule.  Toward noon the quiet was disturbed
by the telephone buzzer.  She answered.  In Lizzie's voice
came, "The grocery over to Wenona wants to speak to
you."  She knew at once that it was Basil.  "Ask them
to call up again about four," replied she and went back to
her table.  At noon she stopped work and left for the
house.  At the usual time Richard appeared, had dinner
with them all, sat calm and silent and aloof, acting much
as he always did.

In the warm part of the year, with the gardens to look
after, it was her habit to spend only the mornings at the
laboratory.  She sent Helen to the Donaldsons with Winchie
about three.  When the telephone bell rang she herself
answered.  First came the voice of some clerk, then
Basil's—"Is that you?"

"Yes," replied she.

"I'm at Fenton."

"Go to New York."

"Are you—well?"

"Never better.  Some one may be listening along the wire."

"I understand.  You are *sure* all's well?"

"Sure.  Wait in New York."

"I understand.  Good-by."

"Good-by."

As she hung up the receiver and turned round, she
startled guiltily.  There was Richard, just stepping from
lawn to veranda, his eyes upon her.  She felt as if she
had been caught violating in stealth an implied compact
not to communicate with Basil.  Dick's expression told her
that he was reading in her eyes with whom she had been
talking.  When they were face to face, he on the veranda,
she one step up in the doorway, she said: "He wanted to
reassure himself before starting East."

Dick's lips curled slightly.

"It isn't fair for me to let you think him a coward.
I made him see so clearly that——"

"You were right," he interrupted.  "I wish to hear
no more about it."

Her eyes flashed at his peremptory tone, reminiscent
of his habit of brushing her aside as merely woman.  But
the thought of Winchie was a talisman against any attack
of temper.

"You said last night," he went on, "that this is between
you and me only.  You were right.  So—I've wiped
him off the slate."

As they crossed the lawn toward the water's edge, she
felt a fear of him deeper than any that physical force
could inspire.  If he had threatened—had reviled—had
done her physical violence, she would have met him with
contempt, with a sense of her own superiority.  But how
deal with this intelligence?  She had always known it was
an intelligence; she was realizing that it was an intelligence
she did not understand, was therefore superior to
her own.  When they reached the benches near the
landing and sat, she was so weak that she could not have
walked many steps farther.

"I think," he began, a quiet sarcasm in his tone that
did not lessen her uneasiness, "you rather misunderstood
me last night.  In such circumstances, I believe, a man is
expected to tear his hair and paw the ground and do
violent things.  I confess—"  He hesitated an instant before
going on—"I've had that inclination several times since
I recovered from my stupor.  Tradition and instinct
and—vanity—are strong.  I'll have to ask you to be a little
careful what you say to me—not for your own sake but for
mine.  I have some emotional dynamite in my nature.  I
don't wish it to be set off.  To mention only one thing,
there's Winchie to be thought of.  I have no desire to
punish you.  I feel too human myself, to play the part of
judge or executioner.  But, most of all, I'm determined that
Winchie shall never know—which means that the world
must never know."

Her clenched hands relaxed as she drew the first free
breath since Lizzie told her where he had gone.  Now, she
felt she could face him for the struggle for Winchie on less
unequal terms—not on equal terms, for he had the power
to take Winchie away from her—had the power
and—  *How* could she prevent his using it?

"But when you came into the laboratory this morning
as if nothing had happened," he proceeded, "you showed
that you misunderstood me."  He looked away reflectively.
"I don't know just how I restrained myself."

"You were mistaken," said she.  "I went because it's
been my habit to go.  I went just as you did."

He fixed his gaze upon her, danger in it.  "You count
too much on your success in deceiving me thus far," he
said.  "I must ask you not to do so—not to try to deceive
me.  Do you suppose I don't know now why you've been
coming to the laboratory?"

His menacing gaze did not daunt her.  She met it
fearlessly.  "That was the reason for a while—at first.
But for a long time I've been going because I liked the
work."

He studied her with those eyes that saw into everything,
once they were focused properly.  "I beg your pardon,"
he said with formal courtesy.  "It's true you couldn't
have worked so well if you hadn't liked the work."

"I've loved it."  And her tone put her sincerity beyond
question.

He glanced away.  After a pause he said, "To go to
the point—the future.  I thought at first that I'd decide
alone what should be done.  Then it seemed to me I hadn't
the right to act—about Winchie—without at least finding
out what your ideas were."

He waited long; she did not speak.

"You feel, I suppose," he said gently, "that you've
forfeited the right to speak."

She did not venture to contradict him.  Anything she
would say, however guarded, might anger him—and
Winchie was at stake.

"As I told you last night, I know you are somehow
not a bad woman.  Until yesterday, I'd have said there
were just two classes of women—the good and the bad.
But I'd also have said that I'd have killed both you and
him.  I find I've got to revise many ideas I had.  Just
how, I don't know.  I'm realizing in regard to my
grandfather what I've long realized about everything
else—that nothing from the past is trustworthy.  The
wisdom of yesterday is the folly of to-day."  He roused
himself from his half abstraction, said, "So—you
need not be afraid to speak out whatever is in your
mind."

On impulse of response to this breadth—an impulse that
was yet, perhaps, not without quick feminine wit to see
and seize advantage—she said, "You make me feel that I
can trust to your sense of justice."

He smiled satirically.  "I see you still don't
understand.  You fancy I'm more than human because I don't
act as if I were less than human.  I know you are a woman,
but women have been given mind enough to distinguish
between right and wrong, between honor and dishonor.
And—  Is it necessary that I give its plain name to what
you've done—to what you are?"

"No," she said in a suffocating voice.  Only her boy
was saving her from bursting out.

"Then—don't try to cajole me with talk about my
sense of justice.  What do you ask?"

All in an instant—whether because her natural bent was
for the frank and courageous or because instinct told her
it was the only hopeful course with him—she resolved to
act as she felt, to speak her thoughts.  "What do I ask?"
she repeated.  "First, that you stop posing."

He flushed.

"If you really mean," she hastened on, "that you're
acting as you have thus far because it's the right way to
act, because the way men usually act is wrong and
degrades them, why, you'll stop trying to convince me that
you're giving a wonderful exhibition of gracious generosity."

"I had no such intention."

"Then why do you treat me as if I were an object of
charity?"

"You can hardly expect me to treat you as if you had
done something noble."

"You say I'm not a bad woman."

They looked at each other in silence.  "No, you are
not," he said.  "You have acted like a bad woman, but you
are not a bad woman."

"Then," she went on slowly, never taking her grave,
earnest eyes from his, "I want you to ask yourself how
it happens that the girl who, you said last night, was good,
the girl who loved you when she married you, has become
the woman you are condemning?"

A long silence.  He looked away, looked again—and his
gaze remained fixed upon her face.  Then, in a low,
hesitating voice: "Well—how did it happen?"

"Because you did not love me."

"You know better than that," he cried.  "I've never
given any woman but you a thought.  I've never—"  He
broke off abruptly, grew angry.  "But you're simply
trying to improve your position by putting me on
the defensive.  And I ask you again not to goad
me——"

"Because you did not love me," she repeated.  "Your
anger shows that you are trying to deny the truth to
yourself.  You married me on an impulse of passion.  Oh,
you had the usual romantic deceptive names for it—the
words that make the man feel spiritual and tickle the girl's
vanity.  But you've shown what it really was by giving
me only an incidental—carnal thought now and then.
That's been our married life."

"Why did you not tell me you had these false, unjust
ideas?"

"But they're not false, not unjust," she rejoined.
"What do you know of me except my outside?  What's
my mind like?  What's my heart like?  What do I, a
human being like yourself, think and feel?  You don't
know.  You've lived on your grandfather's pompous old-fashioned
ideal—that lust is love, if the preacher has christened
it—that a woman's whole life is the good pleasure of
her husband's various appetites."

She paused for breath.  She was not so carried away
by the tempest of her emotions that she did not note that
he was listening and thinking.  He presently said: "Even
so, how does that excuse *you*?—you, the mother of
Winchie."

She paled, and her hands clasped convulsively in her
lap.  But she went boldly on.  "I had a heart and a mind,
like you.  How could a human being live the life you
assigned me?  When I pleaded for a share in your life
you refused.  When I begged for freedom you refused.
What I did was my compromise between the woman and
the mother.  A mother isn't less a woman, Richard, but
more."

He rose in his excitement; for, his keen mind
penetrated to her purpose.  "You want your freedom and you
want my son!" he cried.

Her gaze was steady but her deep voice trembled as
she answered, "I want my freedom and I want my child—the
child I brought into the world—the child I've watched
over from birth.  Be fair—be just, Richard.  What have
you done for him except provide the home the law would
have compelled?  You've amused yourself playing with him
a few minutes now and then.  You've asked me to buy him
a present now and then.  And never even inquired whether
I'd done it.  Do you know his birthday?  Do you know how
old he is?  Do you know anything about him?  Why then
do you call him your son?"

He had been in such struggle with his fury that he was
unable to check her torrent of half-defiant half-piteous
appeal.  He now mastered himself sufficiently to say,
"How dare you talk to me like this?"

"Because," replied she, quick as a flash, "I respect
your intelligence, even if you don't respect mine.  You
asked me to speak freely.  I've done it.  Would you have
preferred me to lie to you?"

He walked away from her to the edge of the lake,
immediately returned and sat again at the other end of the
bench.  He eyed her passive figure—hands quiet in her lap,
gaze upon the town across the lake.  Her face was quiet,
but all the intelligence and character which her gayety and
small stature and young loveliness veiled from unobservant
eyes were clearly revealed now.  "It's a succession of blows,
these discoveries that you are so different from what I
imagined," said he.  With bitter reproach, "When I think
how I exalted, how I idealized you!"

"Did I ask you to do it?  Did I tempt you by
hypocrisy? ... Whenever I'd try to show you what I was,
didn't you stop me or refuse to listen?  And—is it true that
you idealized me?  Is woman as mere female—mere flesh
an ideal?"

"I have told you——"

"But," she interrupted appealingly, suddenly all
animation, "you spoke without thinking.  Think of me as
you'd think of one of your problems of chemistry.  Don't
let your grandfather do your thinking—or the hypocritical
world—or the shallow people round us."

He was silent.  Presently he rose to pace the retaining
wall.  As she watched him there was no outward sign of
the dread that was licking at her heart like a flame at living
flesh.  "And what of me?" he said, wheeling abruptly
upon her.  "You say it was my fault that you did what
you've done.  Do you mean to tell me you think you're not
to blame at all?"

"No, I don't think that," she answered.  "If I'd been
brought up brave and independent, instead of to be a
cowardly dependent—  Oh, the crime of it!  To take a being
with a mind and a heart and, simply because it's female
instead of male, to bring it up so that it's unfit really to
live—to forbid it to live—to make it afraid to live!  If I'd
been brave I'd have spoken out frankly.  I'd have demanded
my freedom—I'd have taken it.  As it was—I broke my
marriage promises—as you broke yours.  It was chiefly
your fault."  And she went on, with flushed cheeks and
accusing eyes: "I don't say it because I wish to shirk, but
because I must tell the whole truth so that you won't do a
cruel injustice.  You promised me love and care and you
gave me lust and neglect.  We were joined in equal
marriage.  You treated me much as if I were a slave you'd
bought.  And I had to submit.  For, I really was a kind
of slave, and I hadn't the courage and the skill to go out
and make my own living—and anyhow, you could and would
have taken Winchie away from me, if I'd tried to do it.
Isn't that so?"

She saw that he was impressed.  Again he reflected a
long time pacing up and down the wall.  When he turned
toward her once more he said: "But listen while I state
plainly what you ask.  You ask me to reward your treachery
by letting you marry the man who betrayed me—and
you cap it by asking me to let you make my son his!"

"No, Richard," she protested.  "I simply ask you to
let me keep my child on any condition you make.  I'll
promise not to see—him.  I'll take Winchie and live on the
farm with my people until he's old enough to go away to
school.  I know the law puts me at your mercy.  But I
don't believe you'll use your power to crush me."  She was
choking, was fighting back the tears.

He turned to the retaining wall, gazed into the water
until she should fight down the evidences of weakness which
he could not but see she was ashamed of.  When he joined
her again, it was to say in a voice that reassured her: "I
want to do what's best for us all—especially for Winchie.
It's very difficult....  When I think of the misery I might
have caused, if I had believed Nanny and hadn't had time
to reflect—I must not act until I've seen every
side—Winchie's—yours—mine——"

The sound of the supper gong came floating across the
lawn.  Courtney rose mechanically and in silence they
returned to the house.  Helen and Winchie had enjoyed
themselves at the Donaldsons, and told all about it.  The
strain between Dick and Courtney passed unnoticed.  When
Winchie went up, Courtney accompanied him.  Toward ten
she left the book she had been pretending to read and sat
in the hammock on the balcony.  The moon, huge and ruddy
through an opening among the boughs, poured its flood of
elfin light over lake and lawns and gardens.  The soft
shadows, the vague vistas, the overpowering perfume of
honeysuckle and jasmine and rose combined to beguile her
out of all sense of reality.  "I've been dreaming—dreaming,"
she murmured.  And what an incredible dream!  No
man—least of all Richard, the prejudiced, the domineering—would
have acted so in real life.  "A dream—a dream."  It
was impossible, this experience of hers that belied all
she had read, all she had been taught, about the relations
of men and women.  She, a married woman, had taken a
lover—and, instead of its degrading her, it had made her
better than she had been when she thrust love out of her
life and tried to live by rule of duty to husband.  And
now—instead of her husband's killing her or of her killing
herself or of any of the various kinds of violence prescribed
for such situations, her husband had acted like a civilized
human being, gently, considerately, at the dictates of
humanity and not at the dictates of vanity.  And instead of
abysm below abysm of disaster and death in punishment for
religion's scarlet sin of sins for woman, there was prospect
of a life in which she could profit by the experience she
had gained.  "A dream—a dream."  Or, was a new world
dawning?—a new way of living that made the old way seem
a grotesque carnival of the beast in man?

.. vspace:: 2

As she was dressing next morning, in came Winchie.
"Has papa gone away?" he asked at the threshold.

She paused with the eye of her belt at the prong of its
buckle.  "Why?" said she.

"I don't know whether I dreamed it.  I thought it was
so.  I thought I waked up and there was papa kissing me.
And I thought it made me sad.  And he said, 'Good-by,
Winchie.  Take care of your mother and do what she says,
and don't forget me.'  And I kissed him and said, 'Can't
Mamma Courtney and I go too?'  And he said, 'No, dear.'  And
I said, 'All right.  Bring me a gun, like Charlie
Donaldson's.'  And then I fell asleep again."

In the mirror she saw him run to the door into the hall,
pick up a letter which had evidently been thrust through
the crack.  She turned and held out her hand.  He brought
it to her, spelling out the "Courtney" written on it as he
came.  "Go take Aunt Helen down to breakfast," she said.
When he was gone, she opened the envelope and read:

.. vspace:: 2

"The important point is Winchie.  I am going away to try
to think it out.  However, one thing is certain.  There must be
a divorce.  In a few days I shall send you a formal notice of
abandonment, and you will begin an action at once.  Until we
are free—perhaps so long as you are alone—it is best that
Winchie stay with you.  I leave him on one condition—that
you keep him here, carrying on everything exactly as usual.
He must see no sign of change.

"Please let me know whether you accept.  A line, in care of
my lawyers, James & Vandegrift, will reach me.

.. vspace:: 1

"\R.\V."

.. vspace:: 2

"So long as you are alone."  Courtney felt as if the
air had suddenly changed from the leaden oppressiveness
of before the storm to the buoyant freshness afterwards.
With the paralyzing dread about Winchie removed, she
could think of the rest of the situation.  She read the letter
again and again.  The regularity of line and word, the
precision of phrasing indicated a carefully copied final draft.
There was not the faintest clue to the feelings of the
writer.  She recalled those last two talks with him.  At
both she was in no condition to observe him, so absorbed
was she in the things immediately at issue.  But now, as
she went over his words, looks, manner, she saw a personality
wholly different from the Richard Vaughan she had
known—or had fancied she knew.  That Richard Vaughan
really had no personality beyond a chemical intelligence,
was an abstraction like an algebraic formula.  This Richard
Vaughan was a flesh-and-blood man; but—what sort of a
man?  And his conduct toward her, did it not mean that he
had eliminated her as one empties out a test tube when the
experiment ends—in failure?  Did it not mean supreme
indifference?  Yes—it must be so.  Still, no ordinary man,
however indifferent to wife and child, could act in such
circumstances so absolutely without personal vanity, with
such obvious determination to do nothing small or revengeful.
On any theory, there must be behind those curiously
unemotional lines a character big, generous, incapable of
meanness.

She looked at this newly revealed large personality, with
a depressing sense of her own contrasting smallness.  In
the last few years of widening intelligence her sex vanity,
so diligently fostered throughout her childhood and
girlhood, had received many a rude shock from within as well
as from without.  But none so rude, so demolishing as this.
"He's a man really worth while," thought she.  "And
women are too insignificant either to be loved by such a
man or to love him."

She had been bred in and to the American feminine
ideal—the woman graciously deigning to permit some man
to support her in idleness; the man more than repaid by
the honor of being allowed to support her; whatever
further he might get, a voluntary largess from his royal guest,
to be given or withdrawn at her good pleasure.  This
delusion was a distorted tradition from a bygone era—an era
of conditions around the relations of the sexes that are
forever past.  In that "woman's paradise" women were scarce
and men plenty; and there was the constancy that is natural
in a narrow life of severe toil, with the intelligence too
little developed to be restless or critical, with the passions
undisputedly in the ascendant.  This feminine tradition had
been dying hard, as delusions flattering to vanity,
encouraging to laziness, ever do.  She had tried to keep on
believing the lies she heard and read everywhere—especially
novelists and preachers dependent on unthinking women for
a living—the romantic exaltation of woman's love as of
value star spaces beyond the value of man's love.  She had
tried to suppress her sense of humor and to be impressed
when she heard women speak of kissing a man in reward
for some service as if one of their kisses made an
archangel's diadem, in comparison, a cheap bauble.  She had
tried not to see how intelligent men scarcely restrained the
grin of insincerity as they poured out extravagances to some
woman whom their whimsical passions chanced to covet.
She had struggled against the disillusionizing thoughts
about her own sex's private opinion of itself that would
arise as she noted how often women treated lightly
the man who took them seriously and all but offered
themselves to him who winked as he bought or passed
on untempted or cynically inquired for the inside price.

Step by step she had been thrust out into the truth that
the whole feminist cult was a colossal fiction, that in the
actualities of the life of this new era woman's value was
precisely like man's—the usefulness of the particular
combination of mind and heart, intellect and character, that
made up the personality.  She began to suspect that woman's
ability to sway man through his passion was more often
a handicap to her, and to him, than a help to either.  She
began to realize that learning how to use that ability wisely
was the supreme hard problem the life of to-day set for
woman to solve or perish.  While passion sometimes had
made one man for a moment slave to some one woman, or
a few men slaves to any woman, it had through all time
made womankind slave to mankind.  And in the new era,
while the slave was still willing, the master was becoming
weary, was demanding something less burdensome, more
companionable.

As she stood at the bureau, buckle still unfastened, eyes
and mind upon those few calm, precisely pruned lines of
Dick's, there came a thought that dealt a deathblow to her
long dying feminine *folie de grandeur*.  While it was true
she had not sought nor wished Dick's interest of any kind,
the fact remained that he, after living in daily contact with
her for six years, had been so little affected by her
personality that he was letting her go without any sign of
emotion.  "But I am as indifferent to him as he to me."  she
urged upon herself in hope of some slight consolation.  She
instantly remembered that it was he, not she, who had
begun the indifference.  And then came the stinging,
blood-heating recollection that he had used at his pleasure the
only part of her that had been able to impress him as
valuable to a man of purpose and achievement.  Nor could she
dismiss him with a contemptuous "low minded and
unworthy," for she knew he was neither.  Squirm how she
would, she could not get away from the humiliating
fact—"six years of me, and not even enough physical value
to make his jealousy for a single moment triumph over
his sense of self-respect!"

Winchie had finished breakfast and was playing with
his wagon on the veranda.  Helen was still at table.  "Has
Mr. Gallatin gone East with Dick?" she inquired, turning
rosy red.

"No," replied Courtney, not noting Helen's color.  If
she had, she would have suspected nothing.  When Helen
came home in good spirits from that visit to Saint X, after
the Chicago shopping trip, and was no longer ill at ease
with Basil, Courtney—eager, as we all are, to seize the first
pretext to be relieved of a weight upon conscience—assumed
that she had got completely over her fancy.  As for Basil,
Courtney trusted him absolutely.

"But he's away, isn't he?" persisted Helen, after a
pause.  "Lizzie tells me his rooms haven't been disturbed
for two nights."

"He went day before yesterday, I believe," said
Courtney.  "Did you see Richard this morning?"

"Just a minute.  He was hurrying for the train when
I came down."

"I thought he didn't look very well, last night,"
pursued Courtney.

Helen, absorbed in her own agitating thoughts, failed
to respond to this lead; so she put the question direct.
"How did he look this morning?"

"About as usual," replied Helen.  "I didn't notice any
change.  He had on that new gray suit.  It's very
becoming.  When's he coming back?"

Courtney seemed not to have heard.  "He forgot to
give me his address.  Did he leave it with you?"

"The Willard in Washington, then the Astor in New
York."

"It may be I'll want to write him or something."

"I should think so!" cried Helen.  "You and he write
every day, don't you?"

"Not to each other," said Courtney dryly.  "We never
did establish the daily letter.  That's one of the dreariest
farces in married life.  It belongs to the kind of people
who think they're happy because they're too stupid or too
bored to quarrel."

When she had eaten the tip end of a roll and drunk a
little coffee, she went out on the veranda, sent Winchie to
the lawn and asked Helen to sit with her at the western
end where no one could hear or overhear.  "You asked me
when Richard was coming back," she began.

"It was simply a chance question," apologized Helen.

"He's not coming back."

"Not coming back!" echoed Helen.  "You're going to
move East?"

The emerald eyes met Helen's excited glance placidly.
"We are going to get a divorce," she said.

Helen's big brown eyes opened wide.  With lips ajar
she stared at Courtney.  Then she gave a little laugh that
sounded as if the shock had unbalanced her mind and
reduced her to imbecility.  "A divorce," she murmured
feebly.

"We both wish to be free," continued Courtney, talking
in the matter-of-fact way that was the surest preventive
of hysteria in herself or in Helen.  "So, he's gone
away.  I'll stay here a while, then—  But I haven't made
any plans.  There's plenty of time."

A long silence, Helen gazing at Courtney, at Winchie
racing along the paths with his red-striped wagon, at Courtney
again, at trees and lake, as if she doubted the reality
of all things.  "I don't know what to say!" she exclaimed
at last.

"Naturally," replied Courtney, "since there's nothing
to say."

"I can't believe it!"

"Why not?"

"There aren't two people better suited to each other.
Why, you never quarreled."

"That's it.  I love contention.  He wouldn't give it to
me.  So—pop goes the weasel."

"How can you!  When your heart must be breaking."  Helen
put aside her stupefaction and brought the tears to
her soft brown eyes in tardy conformity to the etiquette for
nearest female friend on such occasions.

"Now, dear, please don't cry.  You know that I know
how easy it is for women to cry, and how little it means."

Helen hastily dried her eyes.  "Oh, dear!  It must be
fixed up!" she said in a more natural tone, genuinely
sympathetic and friendly.  "He doesn't mean it.  I'm sure he
doesn't."

Courtney laughed—rather disagreeably.  Helen was
confirming her own newly formed, anything but exalted
opinion of herself as a human value.  "I suppose it'll never
for an instant occur to anyone that I might be the
discontented one."

"Well, you know, yourself, Courtney," stammered Helen,
"it doesn't seem likely a woman'd give up a good husband
and a good home——"

Courtney's arresting smile was bitterly ironic.  "Indeed
it doesn't," assented she.  "Give up what she married for?
Not unless she was sure of a better living.  Men think they
marry for love—but it's really to—I'm not equal to
saying why men marry.  You can find the reason in Ben
Franklin's autobiography, if you care to look it up.  As for us
women—it's the living."

"It's not true of me!" cried Helen, who had in all its
amusing, or exasperating, efflorescence the universal
feminine passion for drawing everything down to the personal,
for seeking a compliment to herself or a reflection upon
herself in any and every remark addressed to her by man or
woman.  "Poor as I am, I'm——"

"Never mind, dear," said Courtney with good-humored
raillery.  "At your age I was talking the same way.
You'll find out some day that the hardest person in the
world to get acquainted with is your real self.  Why, there
isn't one human being in ten million who'd know his real
self if they met in the street."  She rose to inspect the
thick mat of morning-glories trellised up the end of the
veranda.  "And most of us, if we were introduced to our
real selves, would refuse to speak to such low
creatures—especially the romantic people."

"I *know* I'd not marry for *anything* but love!"

Courtney, her back to Helen, was busy with the
morning-glories.  "Of course," said she.  "One may eat because
one is fond of the dinner—of the dishes, of the way it's
served, of the company, and so on, and so on.  But what's
the *real* reason?"  She turned on Helen with a mocking
smile.  "Why, because to live one must eat.  That makes
the rest incidental.  A sensible person tries to take the most
favorable view of the food he has to eat or go without.  A
sensible woman does her best to love the man that asks her."

"I wish you wouldn't say that sort of things, Courtney,"
Helen cried.  "I know illusions are illusions, but I want to
keep them."

Courtney's expression changed abruptly.  The deep-green
eyes looked dreamily away.  "If only one *could* keep
them!" she said.  "But one can't."  She shook her head
sadly.  "One can't."  Then her face brightened.  "My
dear, it's better to throw them away oneself and get—perhaps
something better—certainly something truer—in place
of them.  Sooner or later life will snatch them away,
anyhow—and leave one quite naked."  She turned sad,
mysterious eyes on the girl.  "You don't know," she went on,
"what it has cost me, this being bred in illusions.
Illusions—everywhere!  Illusions for and about everything and
everybody!  Oh, Helen—Helen—that's what's the matter
with us women.  That's why we're such poor creatures—why
we make such bad marriages, why we're such imperfect
wives and mothers.  We don't think.  We purr or
scratch."

A long pause, then Helen sighed.  "And I believed you
and Richard were happy!"

"No," replied Courtney, her smile mocking, but pain
in her eyes.  "But we're going to be—if we can get over
what our illusions have cost us and can set our feet on the
solid earth.  No more lies!  And the biggest lie of all is
that lying can ever bring real happiness."  She was
standing in the long, open window.  She thought a moment, then
said with an energy that frightened the girl: "And I'm
sick—sick—sick of perfumes that end in a stench!"

.. vspace:: 2

That afternoon she sent an acceptance of Richard's
proposition—a "line" as he had suggested: "Winchie and
I will stay on here until the divorce—and, if you so wish,
so long as I am alone.  I will keep Helen here, too."  On
the fourth morning after the dispatch of this, there came
a letter from James & Vandegrift, inclosing one, unsealed,
from Richard.  She read the inclosure first:

.. vspace:: 2

"MADAM: From this date I cease to be your husband.
You may take such legal action as this may suggest.

.. vspace:: 1

"RICHARD VAUGHAN."

.. vspace:: 2

She understood that Dick was simply meeting the legal
requirements.  But, these curt words made her tremble,
made her skin burn, made her eyes sink with shame, though
she was alone.  A few moments and she glanced at the
accompanying note from the lawyers.  This sentence in it
caught her eye: "As two years is the legal period in this
State in actions on the ground of abandonment, you will
observe that the date of Mr. Vaughan's letter enables you
shortly to begin suit."  She took up Dick's letter, looked
at the date—August 17th, two years before.  Then in a
few weeks she could sue; in a few weeks more, she would be
free.  Free!  That charmed word had no spell of
exultation for her.  She sank down by the window with heart
suddenly faint and terror-stricken.  She had been looking
forward to a long time in which to plan—about Winchie,
about her future, about Basil.  And she would have only a
few weeks.  A few weeks—and her whole future to be
decided—and she without experience, without anyone she could
rely upon or even consult, without resources.

August 17th—why had he chosen that date?  With so
many serious things to think of, her mind kept swinging
back to that triviality—why August 17th?  All at once it
flashed upon her.  August 17th—that was the date when
Nanny had spied on her and Basil at the summerhouse.
She covered her face, and the blood surged in hot billows
against her scorching skin.

Helen came, crying: "Oh, there you are.  Winchie wants
ice cream for supper.  Don't you think—  Why, Courtney,
how solemn you look!"

"And you would, too," said Courtney, "if your hair
had been falling out the way mine has lately."

"Don't be so foolish," reassured Helen.  "You could
lose half of what you've got, and still have more than most
women....  Perhaps it's worry that's making it fall?"

"I—worry?  How absurd."

"No, I don't believe you ever do."

"Let's have the ice cream.  Chocolate.  And I feel
just like jelly roll."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XXVI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXVI

.. vspace:: 2

The pause before the first decisive step toward
freedom—and perhaps away from Winchie—had shrunk to a day
less than two weeks.

It is mercifully not in human nature vividly to anticipate
catastrophe.  Death is the absolute certainty; yet no
living being can imagine himself dead.  And it was anything
but certain that Dick would ever assert his legal right
and take away her child.  In her anxiety about Winchie,
she had been giving much thought to Dick's character,
which would be the deciding factor.  And she was surprised
at the knowledge of it she had unconsciously absorbed.
Except among fools—who, whether they look within or
without, see nothing—it is a commonplace of experience to
discover that what we fancied we thought about a certain
person or thing is precisely the opposite of what we really
think when compelled to interrogate ourselves honestly.
That is why the whole world can live and die by formulas
in which it has not the least actual belief.  These discoveries
of our self-ignorance always astonish us, no matter how
often they occur.  Courtney had got many surprises of this
kind in the past two years; yet this find—her intimate
knowledge of her "abstract" husband's character—seemed
incredible.

It wasn't strange that she should know how he took his
coffee, his favorite brand of cigarettes and of whisky, that
he detested cold baths and would not wear underclothes with
silk in them, or, if it could possibly be avoided, starched
shirts—that he hated low shoes and high collars.  As a
"dutiful wife" she had made it her chief business, after
Winchie, to see to her legal husband's material comfort,
so far as he would permit it.  But how had she come by a
deep conviction of his honesty, of his truthfulness, of his
incapacity for meanness of any kind?  Where had she got
her confidence in his sense of justice—he who had alienated
her by his stubborn and tyrannical injustices to her?  Why
did she summarily dismiss as absurd the suggestion that
his recent conduct was dictated merely by indifference to
her or selfish consideration for his own comfort?  These
high ideas of him certainly did not date from their
courtship and honeymoon; for, then she had no more interest
or discrimination as to character than the next young
person.  There was no accounting for it.  She simply found
that these beliefs were immovably lodged under the
opinion of him she had supposed was hers—the opinion that
had made her love for Basil seem as right as if she had been
a girl.  So, while she feared he would take Winchie away
from her, with a fear dark enough to shadow her days and
make many a night uneasy, she was always saying to
herself believingly, "He could not do anything unjust."

One evening she fell into a somber mood.  It wasn't so
clear as usual that Dick would see the to her obvious
injustice of separating mother and child.  She left Helen, went
up and stole in to sit by Winchie's bed—a habit she had
formed lately.  She got so low spirited that, when she heard
Helen go along the hall toward the upstairs sitting room,
she slipped downstairs and out into the air to wander among
the flowers and beneath the scented trees.  There was a
thin moon and one of those faint, soft, intermittent breezes
that give the disquieting yet fascinating sense of spirit
companionship.  She strolled to the edge of the lake; the
fireflies seemed the eyes of the breeze spirits that were
whispering and friendlily touching her.  She saw a boat with
a single occupant a few yards down the lake, close in shore.
Even as she glanced, a low voice—Basil's—came from the
boat: "Courtney—may I come?"

She was not startled.  Before the voice she had thought,
"Basil will probably be trying to see me before long."  She
answered in the same undertone, "Helen may be looking
this way."

"If you sit on the bench down here, I can come to you.
The shadow's deep enough."

She hesitated, went to the bench he indicated.  The
press of the immediate had been all but keeping him out of
her mind.  But whenever she did think of him it was as her
lover.  With a nature as tenacious as hers habit is not
dethroned in a day or demolished all at once by any convulsion
however violent.  Also, the more she suffered and the
lonelier she felt—not a soul about to whom she could speak
or hint any part of what was harassing her—the more
tender grew her thoughts of the man in whom she had invested
so much.  Throwing good love after bad is not a rare
human weakness—and Courtney was by no means certain in
those depressed days that her investment had been bad,
as such investments go in a world of human beings.

He soon had his boat opposite the bench, made it fast.
He sprang to her, seized her hands and was kissing them.
"No—no.  You mustn't," she protested, drawing away.

"Tell me all about it!" he cried.  "How I suffered till
I heard your voice on the telephone!  I was watching the
house with a glass all afternoon until dark.  I was in the
boat, lying a few rods up there all night.  And from dawn
I was across the lake watching with the glass again.  So,
I knew everything was quiet.  But until your voice came,
I was mad with dread—though I had seen you, just like
your usual self, in the grounds and on the veranda hours
before.  But—tell me all about it."

"There's nothing to tell," said she.  His recital had
seemed to her as if it were of something in which she had
neither part nor interest.

"He knows, doesn't he?

"Yes—he knows."  And there she stopped because she
never had discussed and never would discuss with anyone
what happened between her and her husband.

"What is he going to do?"

"I don't know."

"But—  Don't keep me in suspense, dear.  Is he
going to get a divorce?"

"No.  I'm to get it."

"Your voice is very queer.  Aren't you—glad?"

"I'm afraid about Winchie."

"Oh—of course.  Does he threaten to—"  Basil halted.

"No.  But—  Basil, you must go."

"Go?  It's perfectly safe here."

"Yes.  But I've no right to see you, after the way
he has acted—until I'm free."  All true enough; yet she
could not make her voice sound right to herself.  "It isn't
wise and it isn't honorable," she ended haltingly.

She saw, or rather felt, him eying her somberly.  "When
will you be free?" he asked in a constrained tone.

"In a few months—I think."

"And then we shall marry at once."  He said it in the
tone a man uses when he wishes to convince himself and
another that what he is saying is the matter of course.

She did not answer.

He laughed unpleasantly.  "You don't seem overjoyed
at the prospect."

"I'm thinking of Winchie."

"Oh!"  A pause; then he asked, "As soon as you've
got Winchie safely, we'll marry?"

This was a question she had not faced alone, yet.  She
was far from ready to face it with him.  She found one
of those phrases that come easily and naturally to women,
ever compelled to be diplomatic.  "If we both wish it
then."  Lightly, "You see, as I'm escaping with
reputation intact, you're not bound to marry me."

"Bound?" he exclaimed.  "Courtney, please don't joke
about this."

"I'm quite serious—though I don't act as funereally
as you do when you think you're serious."

"We love each other, and——"

"Do we?"  An impulse of honesty, of impatience at
her own yielding to the temptation to temporize forced her
to say it, "Do we, Basil?"

"Courtney, have you—changed?  Can't you forgive me
for——"

"It isn't that," she interrupted, and she thought she
was telling the truth.  "Let's never speak of that.
No—it's—  Could anyone go through what we have without
being—sobered?"

"That's true.  It has made me love you more intensely,
more earnestly than ever.  What we've suffered has made
us like—like the two pieces of metal the fire fuses into
one."

"That *sounds* nice.  But—is it so?"

"You know it is!" he cried angrily.

"No, I don't," she replied, as if she were weighing
every word.  "I've made up my mind not to tell any more
lies, especially to myself.  I don't feel as I used to feel.
There's—some one between us."

"Vaughan?"

"Yes.  I've a sense of obligation to him.  If you had
seen what I saw—how far above the little men who go in
for cheap theatricals or act like mad dogs——"

To his sensitiveness it seemed for an instant that she
was hitting at him, was slyly reminding him of his own
conduct.  But he soon felt that he was mistaken—that
there was another reason why her words stung him.  "It
sounds as if you were falling in love with him," he said
in a grotesque attempt at a voice of raillery.

"No," replied she, and her voice satisfied him.  "That
part of my life is over.  It could no more be brought back
than last year's summer."

"Winter," he corrected.

"It wasn't all winter, to be fair," said she, and changed
the subject with, "But—remember, you are free—free as
I am.  We shan't see each other or hear from each other
for a long time.  It may be that you'll fall in love with
somebody else——"

"Courtney, do you love me? ... Look at me.  Answer."

She continued to gaze out over the lake.  "Honestly,
I do not know.  Sometimes I think I do.  Again I wonder,
did I love you or was I only in love with love?  It's
so easy to fool oneself when one wants any thing as much as
I wanted love."

"If you knew how you were—hurting me you'd not
say these things."

"Would you rather I lied to you?" she asked gently.

"Yes!  For, I love you and I can't live without you.
You've made yourself necessary to me.  We must marry
as soon as you are free and have Winchie."

"Yes—we will marry, I suppose.  There isn't anybody
so near to me."

"Except Winchie."

"Winchie *is* me."

"I understand," he said.  "It's—beautiful.  Ah,
Courtney, we must marry as soon as we can."

"No.  I must—"  She paused.

"Go on, dear.  What is it that's to keep us apart?"

"I must be independent as well as free."  The truth
was out at last—the truth her nature as a woman of
sheltered breeding was always dodging, but which her
intelligence and pride were forcing her to face.  "I must be
independent."

"There couldn't be any question of that kind between us."

"There shan't be," replied she with energy that startled
him.

"I'll settle any amount you say on you.  I'll make
myself your dependent if you wish."

She laughed in a sweet, tender way.  Whatever his
faults and failings, he certainly was generous.  "Basil!"
she murmured.  Then: "As if that would help matters.
Why, anything I got from you would only increase my
dependence.  No, I must be really free—so neither of us
could think for an instant I was your wife because I had
to be supported—or you were my husband because you felt
I was helpless.  We women have got to stop being canary
birds if we're to get real self-respect—or real consideration."

"What queer notions you do get," said he with man's
tolerant amusement at the fantasies of the women and the
children.  "Think of wasting such a night—and our few
minutes together—discussing theories—and sordid ones!"

"Sordid!  Basil, we're made out of earth and we've got
to live on the ground.  I'm done forever with the kind of
romance and idealism we were brought up on.  I'm going
to build as high as I can, but I'm going to build on the
ground.  No more cloud castles that vanish when the wind
changes.  I'm going to use romance for decoration not
for building stone, and cakes for dessert, not in place of
bread."

He laughed appreciatively.  "How clever you are!
We'll get on beautifully," he said.  "You're the sort of
woman that never bores a man or makes him feel like
looking about."

"Are you the sort of man that never bores a woman
or makes her feel like looking about?"

"That's not for me to say," answered he with a careless laugh.

"It doesn't strike you as important—what a woman
might think about such matters, does it?" said she,
good-humored in her mockery.

"Oh, yes—if the woman's you.  But let's not bother
about such things.  It seems such a waste of time.  One
kiss?"

She shook her head.  "Not with Richard looking on."

"Do you *want* me to kiss you—dear?" he said passionately.

With a nervous glance toward the house she rose.
"Please!" she said, in vague entreaty.  "You must go."

"You haven't told me—anything—yet."  He cast hurriedly
about for some way to detain her.  "There are your
plans for being independent."

"I haven't any."

"Do sit down.  I'll not touch you again."

"It isn't that, Basil.  It's for the same reason that I
didn't write and can't.  Hasn't what he's done pledged us
both to——"

"Don't say any more, Courtney," he interrupted; for
he saw how profoundly in earnest she was, and respected
her for it.  "You're right.  I'm going."  He took her
hand, pressed it.  "Dear," he said, "do you know what it
was that nearly drove me insane after you sent me away?
As soon as I thought about it, I knew no harm would come
to you.  He's neither a coward nor a beast.  But I was
afraid you'd—kill yourself."

"I never thought of it," laughed she.  "I'm too healthy.
You ought to build your romance round some lady with
the morbid ideas that go with addled insides—the kind
they write novels about—only they call it soul."

He was amused in spite of himself.  "It's lucky for
you," said he, "that you look like a romance.  If you
didn't, your way of talking would discourage terribly."

"Is lying the only romance?" said she.  "Can't you
enjoy the perfume of a flower unless you make a silly
pretense that perfume and flower are a fairy queen and her
breath?"

She went with him to the retaining wall, gave him her
hand, tried to respond to his loving pressure.  He got into
the boat.  His expression in that odorous, enchantment-like
dimness thrilled her.  The feeling that he was going—leaving
her to face the lowering future alone—saddened
her, moved her to an emotion very like the love that had
so often agitated her in these very shadows.  And when
he murmured, "Soon—my love!" she echoed "Soon!" in
a voice melodious with the meaningless, impulsive
sentiment of the moment.  It sent him away believing.  He
pushed off.  She watched the boat glide deeper and deeper
into the shadow.  A few seconds and the darkness had
effaced it.  She went slowly up the lawn.  Before she
reached the house, Winchie was again uppermost in her
thoughts; to think of Basil involved puzzling over too many
problems she was not yet ready to face.

.. vspace:: 2

That was one of the years when the warm weather stays
on and on; goes for a night, only to return with the
morning sun and change the hoar frost on the grass into dew;
then in late October or later drifts languorously
southward through the dreamy haze of Indian summer.  On an
afternoon midway of this second and sweeter, if sadder,
summer Courtney came out of her sitting room to the
balcony to rest a moment and to watch the sun set—a dull
red globe like a vast conflagration of which the autumnal
mists were the smoke and steam.  Winchie and Helen were
playing ball on the lawn, with Helen making great
pretense of being unable to catch or to hold Winchie's curves
and hard straights.  Winchie, about to throw, dropped the
ball, jumped up and down clapping his hands, made a
dash for the veranda, crying "Papa!  Papa!"  Next she
saw Helen, in confusion, turn and go in the same direction,
her delicate skin paling and flushing by turns.

In the upstairs sitting room was the seamstress who
made a local journal of society gossip unnecessary; as the
divorce suit had been begun and was the chief local topic,
the less she saw and heard, the more what she'd circulate
would sound like pure invention.  Courtney went along the
balcony to the hall window and entered there.  Winchie
had just reached the top of the stairs.  "Oh, mamma—" he
began, all out of breath.

"Yes, I know," said she, laying her finger on her lips.
"Let's go down."

And holding him by the hand she descended.  Richard
and Helen were in the lake-front doorway, Richard talking,
Helen obviously nervous.  Courtney advanced, her hand
extended.  "How do you do?" said she with easy friendliness.

"No need to ask you that," replied Dick.  "Or the
boy, either.  How he has shot up!"

"We've had a great summer and fall for growing
things," said Courtney.  Then to Helen: "Don't let us
interrupt your game."

"Yes—of course—  Come, Winchie," stammered Helen.

"Just watch me pitch, father," cried Winchie.  "Jimmie's
taught me to curve."

"You don't say!" exclaimed Dick with an interest
whose exaggeration roused no suspicion in the boy's breast.

While Richard was watching the exhibition with such
exclamations as "fine"—"that's a soaker"—"look out or
you'll do up your catcher," Courtney was watching him.
She found no trace of the weary, tragedy-torn misanthrope
of song and story.  Evidently Dick had been too busy with
other things to bother about himself.  Instead of travel
stains, there was neatness and care and not a little fashion
in his apparel.  Never had she seen him so well dressed—-and
in admirable taste from collar and tie to well-cut
tan boots.  His hair was short—the way it was becoming
to his long, strong face and finely shaped head.  The face
was not so gaunt as in those years of close application,
especially the last two years when indigestion was giving
him its look of hunger and sallow ill temper.  The cheeks
had filled out, had bronzed, and the blood was pouring
healthily along underneath.  It was distinctly a happier
face, too.  The eyes following Winchie's elaborate
contortions in imitation of the famous pitcher of the Wenona
Grays had an expression of aliveness and alertness that
meant interest in the world about him.  He had been one
of those men of no age, like monks and convicts and
professional students.  He was now a young man—and a
handsome young man.

When he turned away from the ball game, they went
to the eastern end of the veranda.  She sat in the
hammock, he leaned on the broad arm of a veranda chair.
"Well," said he, by way of a beginning, "you see I'm
back."

"You've been abroad—haven't you?"

"Paris and Switzerland.  I had a grand time.  Fell
in with some English people and we did three passes
together, and then rested and amused ourselves at St. Moritz.
Then—to Paris.  I never thought I'd care about eating,
but the Ritz seduced me.  I think of nothing else.
Then—London, to get myself outfitted.  I needed it badly."

What he said sounded strange enough from him, from
Richard the abstraction, the embodied chemistry.  The way
he said it was stupefying.  There was lightness; there was
the sparkle that bubbles to the surface of every look and
phrase of a person with a keen sense of humor.  Richard
had plainly come to life while he was away.  Said Courtney:
"I suspect you've not worked very hard this summer
and fall."

"Work?" replied he, with a laugh.  "Not I!  It was
a hard pull at first, the habit had become so strong.  But
I determined I'd freshen myself up.  Once I got away
where I could take an impartial look at things, I saw I
was not only not getting the right results by such stolid,
stupid grinding but was actually destroying my mind—was
getting old and stale.  So, I locked up the laboratory
I carry round inside me, and set out to learn to live—to
learn to have a good time."

"And you did?"

"Once I found congenial people.  At first I was afraid
I'd been stupid so long that I'd lost the power to enjoy.
But it came back."

As he talked Courtney's spirits went down and down.
Just why, she could not have told.  She certainly wished
Richard well, had no desire that he should be miserable—at
least, no active desire—though, of course, she was
human and would have found some satisfaction of vanity
in a Richard hard hit by the discovery that his domestic
life was in ruins.  Still, this vanity of desire to be taken
tragically was not with her the passion it is in most men
and women.  She was far more puzzled than piqued.  She
could not understand how so serious, so proud a man as he
could dismiss a cataclysm thus lightly, no matter how
little he cared for her.  She had pictured him suffering,
suffering intensely; these pictures had given her many a
self-reproachful pang, and of real pain too.  Now—  Looking
at this robust, handsome, cheerful person, well fed
and well dressed, she felt she had been making a fool of
herself.

"Now that I come to examine you," he was saying,
"you don't look at all well."

It was a truth of which she had been uncomfortably
conscious from her first glance at him.  "You ought to
have gone away somewhere," he went on.  "It's a bad
idea to stay in the same place, revolving the same set of
ideas too long.  Mrs. Leamington taught me that.  You'd
like her.  Your height—much your figure—fairer skin,
though—that clear healthy dead white—a lot of really
beautiful black hair—the kind with the gloss that's not
greasy.  She certainly was interesting.  I didn't even mind
her love of money.  She simply had to have it—needed it
in her business of being always wonderfully dressed and
groomed to the last hair and the last button."

Richard paused to enjoy contemplating the portrait he
had painted.  Courtney wished to hear more.  "She was
in your party?"

"She made most of the interest.  She cured me of my
insanity for work—gave me a wider view—made me stop
being a vain ass, thinking always about my own little
ambitions and worries.  There's a lot that doesn't attract
me in women of the world.  They're extremely petty at
bottom, I find.  But at least they do come nearer the truth
with their cynicism than we quiet people with our
preposterous egotism of solemnity."

Once more her vanity winced—that he should fancy he
had to go to Europe and learn of a cynical mercenary of
an English woman what she herself had made the law and
gospel of her life for years.  How feeble her impression
upon him had been!  True, the only chance one has to
make an impression is in the beginning of acquaintanceship;
and in their beginning she had been too inexperienced,
too captivated with romance—too youthful to have
developed much personality.  Still, all that did not change
the central fact—she had been futile.

"How's the divorce coming on?" he asked abruptly.

Courtney laughed—perhaps not so genuinely as it
sounded, but still with real humorous appreciation.  "The
beautiful English woman—a long silence—then the question
about the divorce—that's significant," she explained.

"She's not the marrying kind," replied he, easily
enough.  "She'll stay free as long as her looks and her
money hold out.  Then she'll marry some rich chap and
go in for society....  She was an interesting woman—a
specimen, so to speak.  And I owe her a great deal.  She
taught me a few very important things—about myself—and
about women....  What a fraud this so-called education
is.  One half of fitting a man for life is to teach him to
know men, the other half is to teach him to know women.
And we actually are taught only about things—and mostly
trifles or falsehoods as to them."

His manner demolished her suspicion.  There might
have been some sort of an affair between him and this
English woman—perhaps had been.  If so, it was a closed
incident.  "You asked about the divorce," said she: "The
suit was begun, but it has gone over till the next term of
court."

"Was it my fault?" he asked, apologetically.  "I've
missed my mail for nearly two months."

Her hands, clasped in her lap, were white at the
knuckles.  Her eyes, meeting his, had deep down an
expression that also belied her calm manner and even voice.
"I didn't want to take the last steps until we had decided
about Winchie."

"Winchie," he said thoughtfully, his glance wandering
to the lawn.  The boy and Helen were resting now, seated
at the edge of the lake.  "There's where marriage differs
from other business.  When it goes bankrupt, children are
assets that can't be liquidated....  What do you think
ought to be done?"

"I admit you've got a share in him," replied she.  "But
you can't help seeing that he belongs with his mother."

"I do see it," he declared.  "If I took him, what could
I do with him?  Helen'll marry before long.  Then—  Could
there be anything worse for him than trusting him
to the care of strangers? ... As for his traveling back
and forth between his mother's house and his father's—that's
a farce that could only end in some sort of calamity
to his character....  I don't know what to say.  I know
I could trust you absolutely to protect him from any
possible—unfortunate influences—but—"  And there he
halted.

She saw he was expecting her to realize that he meant
the disadvantages of Basil as a stepfather.  It was
stupefying—simply stupefying—this calm attitude of his toward
such terrible things—at least, they were things he had
always regarded as terrible.

"Don't be so gloomy about it," said he, as if reading
her thoughts.  "I find I can think a great deal more
effectively when I'm not trying to act like the best
examples from fiction but am simply human and natural.
Courtney, the world—at least, the intelligent people in it—have
outgrown the old, ignorant, swashbuckling sort of thing.
Of course, it still survives, and ignorant people and vain
people still try to act on the prescriptions of yesterday—and
all the literature still pretends that they are valid.
But the truth is, men and women are getting enlightened.
And we—you and I—are doing, not what looks best, but
what is best.  Winchie isn't a problem in a novel or a poem.
He's an actuality.  And I see plainly his chances are
better with you—in any circumstances—than with me."  To
make sure that she should understand, he repeated, "In
any circumstances."

Her eyes were full of tears.  "Thank you," she said
humbly.  "Thank you."

He shrugged his shoulders.  "For what?  For not
being a fool?"  He swung round into the chair and leaned
toward her.  "There are some things we've got to say to
each other.  I went away to put off the saying until I was
sure just where I stood.  I am sure now.  Do you—  Shall
we—begin?"

"I wish to hear whatever you wish to say," replied she.
"But—is it necessary to say anything?"

He leaned back, lighted a cigarette, smoked in silence.
She again studied him.  That changed expression—the
tense, concentrated strain gone—a sense of life, of attractive
possibilities in it other than chemistry, gave him a humanness,
a reality he had not had for her even in their first
months of married life.  "Perhaps you're right," said he,
rousing himself.  "Why mull over the past?  And our
futures lie in different directions."  He noted the queer,
intent look in her eyes.  "What's the matter?  You seem
puzzled."

"Nothing.  I—  Nothing."

"It's the change in me—in my point of view—isn't it?"

"Your—your mind certainly seems to have changed."

"Dropped its prejudices, rather," was his reply.
"There's a difference.  A man's mind's himself.  His
prejudices are more or less external—can be sloughed off,
like clothes."

That was it, she now saw.  He had got rid of those
prejudices.  The dead hand of his grandfather was no
longer heavy upon him.  This man, seated there before
her in the vividness of youth, was the real Richard
Vaughan.

"You used to tell me the truth about myself," he
went on reflectively.  "I had never seriously thought
about women—about the relations of men and women.
I simply accepted my grandfather as gospel on those
subjects.  My crisis forced me to do some thinking—and
I believe you'll do me the justice of admitting I never
would be stupid enough to act in a crisis without
trying to use the best mind I had.  Well—when I got
away—and thought—I saw that the whole business was my
fault."

"No," protested she.  "There was where I wronged
you.  I blamed you—myself a little—but you most.  That
was unjust.  But let's not talk about it.  The past is—the
past.  I wish to drop all of it except its lessons.  They'll
be useful in the future."

"One thing more," he said.  "I want to say I'm glad
of what has happened."

She simply stared at him.

"That would sound strange, I suppose, to the mob in
the treadmill of conventionality," he went on, apparently
not noting her expression.  "But I'm grateful to—to
whatever it was—fate or chance or what you please—for
my awakening.  But for it, what'd have become of me?
Like so many men who try to be masters of their profession
or business, I had let it become master of me.  A
little longer, and I'd have been a dust-dry, routine plodder,
getting more and more useless every day.  No wonder the
world advances so slowly.  Just look at the musty, narrow
rotters who do the work.  They specialize.  They soon lose
touch with the whole.  And their minds dwindle as their
natures and interests narrow."

"You're not thinking of giving up your work!" she
exclaimed in dismay.

"I'm here to begin again," replied he, with his fine
look of energy and persistence.  "But not in the old way.
Not month in and month out, like a hermit—but with some
sanity—and, I'm sure, with better results.  That brings
me to my real reason for calling.  I wished to ask if you
had any objection to my living and working at the shop."  As
the color flamed into her face, he hurried on, "I'll keep
an independent establishment in every way and bind myself
not to disturb you.  If you like, Helen can bring Winchie
down to see me from time to time—but not unless you like."

"I'll take Winchie and go to father's," said she,
painfully embarrassed.  "I'd not have stopped on here, but
you'll remember you made it a condition——"

"If you leave, I leave also," he rejoined.  His manner
was emphatic, final.  "I've no intention of intruding.
Please forget I said anything."  He rose to leave.  "I'm
going to move my laboratory to Chicago or New York.
A few months sooner will make no difference."

She insisted that she would go—that she preferred to
go—that going was entirely agreeable to her.  But in
the end he convinced her he really wished her to keep on
at the house, to make Winchie feel it was his home—and
would leave if she even talked of leaving.  "I'll arrange
with Gerster's wife over at the farm to feed me and keep
the apartment in order.  So, everything will go on just as
if I were a thousand miles away."

When he went—like a caller after a pleasant hour—she
was glad because she wished to be alone, free to shut
herself in her room with the many strange things he had given
her to think about—the many startling things.  But just
as she got the seamstress off for home, in came Helen,
hoping that Courtney would talk of the amazing call,
determined to talk of it herself, anyhow.  "Forgive me for
asking, Courtney," said she.  "But I simply must.  You've
decided to give up the divorce, haven't you?"

The emerald eyes looked amused astonishment.
"Why?" she asked.

"You and he are just—just as you always were."

"Indeed we're not!" exclaimed she.  "Absolutely different."

"But I never saw two people friendlier——"

"That's it.  That's precisely it.  Now that we've freed
each other, I can like him and he can like me."

Helen was not hearing.  Suddenly she burst out: "Oh,
Courtney!  Courtney!  What will become of you!  You'll
have no money—for you're not asking alimony.  You'll
only have to marry again."  Courtney frowned at this frank
statement of the problem she was putting off.  "You know
you'll have to marry again," pursued Helen, "and it isn't
likely you'll do as well.  Men don't care for widows of any
kind—least of all, grass widows.  They want a fresh,
unspoiled woman."

Courtney's eyes danced.  "The truth from Helen—at last!"

But Helen was unabashed.  Because she was taller and
graver than Courtney, she felt older and wiser.  And
because she loved Courtney, she felt she must do all in her
power to avert the impending catastrophe through this
divorce madness.  "I do believe you've got no common
sense at all!" she cried.  "You talk wise enough—sometimes.
But when it comes to acting—  Courtney, women
brought up as we've been simply have to be supported.
And it's our right!"

"Is it?" said Courtney.

"Aren't we ladies?  But you've never been poor.  You
don't realize what you've got to face.  You don't realize
it's your position as Richard's wife that makes everybody
act so sweetly and respectfully toward you—and that makes
you feel secure."

"Oh, yes, I do," said Courtney gravely.  "I realize
it so keenly that I'm afraid of myself—afraid I'll be
tempted to do something contemptible.  When I married,
I had the excuse that I believed I loved and was loved
and it's the custom for a man to throw in support
with his love.  But if I married again—feeling as I
do—I'd—"  She flung out her arms.  "I don't want to
think about it!" she cried.  "I'll not do it!  I'll not
do it!"

Helen could not understand.  And she was glad she
couldn't, for she felt that such ideas, whatever they were,
did not make for feminine comfort.  She had listened
impatiently to Courtney.  She now brought the conversation
back to the only point worth considering.  "But you've *got*
to marry," said she.

"No!"  Courtney had the expression of fire and purpose
that makes a small person seem tall.  "There's an
alternative.  I can do for myself."

"Do what?" demanded Helen.  She waited for a
reply—in vain—then went on: "What could you do that
anybody would pay for?  Besides—you, a lady, couldn't
ask for work.  You don't know how I suffered when I
thought I was going to have to do it.  And you'd suffer
even more—having occupied the position you have.  What
a come down!"

"Don't!" commanded Courtney.  "Helen, you are
tempting me."

"I'm talking the sense to you that you've so often talked
to me," Helen insisted.  "Unless we women have got
money of our own or a man with an income back of us,
we're—  I'd hate to confess the truth even to another
woman."

Courtney nodded slowly several times, then asked,
"Don't you think it ought to be changed?"

"No!" cried Helen vehemently.  "It's what God intended.
The penalty of being a man is to have to work.
The penalty of being a lady, and refined and dainty and
untouched by low, vulgar things, is to have to be a
dependent.  And it's not such a heavy penalty, either.  Even
if one doesn't care much about the man, one isn't inflicted
with him all the time."

At these plain truths wrenched by loving anxiety from
the deepest and securest of hiding places, Courtney's eyes
danced.  She'd have laughed outright, had not Helen been
so terribly in earnest—Helen without a sense of humor.
However she did venture to say: "The chief equipments
of a lady are a stone instead of a heart and a hide instead
of a skin—is that it?"

But Helen did not see the ironic comment on her
philosophy.  "Well," she went on in her serious, stolid
way, "I don't want responsibility.  And I like to take my
ease—and to have to do only things it doesn't much matter
if they go undone.  We women are different from men.
Our self-respect's in a different direction....  Dear, can't
I do something to help you?"

Courtney kissed her penitently.  She always felt
ashamed after poking fun at Helen whose heart was so
genuinely good and kind.  "Nothing, thanks.  The divorce
must go on.  You don't understand, Helen.  Believe me,
if I knew that sheer misery was waiting for me, as soon
as I was free, I'd still go on."

"Let me talk to Richard.  I can do it tactfully."

In her alarm at this Courtney caught hold of Helen.
"If you did such a thing, you'd be doing me the greatest
possible injury."

"Don't be afraid, dear.  I'd not meddle.  But—"  She
looked appealingly at Courtney—"please, dear—do
let me!"

"Richard and I would both resent it equally."

"But what *will* become of you!"

Her tone was so forlorn that Courtney had to laugh.
"Why, I'm barely twenty-five—and I know a lot about
several things—and could learn more."

"Don't talk that way!" cried Helen, tearful.  "It
makes me shiver.  It sounds so coarse and common."  She
looked at Courtney as if doubtful of her sanity.  "I can't
make you out.  It isn't natural for a lady bred and born,
as you are, to say such things."

"You can't believe a real lady could have ideas of
self-respect?  Well, I'll admit they do seem out of place in
my head—and give me awful sinkings at the heart.
And—"  There was a mocking smile round Courtney's lips, a
far-away look in her eyes—"Sometimes I'm haunted by a
horrible dread that I'm merely—bluffing."

Helen saw only the smile.  "I'm sure you are, you dear,
sweet, fascinating child!" cried she, greatly consoled and
cheered.

"Don't be too sure!" warned Courtney, the smile fading.

But Helen was delighted to see that she said it half
heartedly—that some effect had been produced by the
grewsome reminders of the difference between independence as
a dream or a vague longing and independence in the grisly
reality of the working out.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XXVII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXVII

.. vspace:: 2

After a few days Courtney asked Helen to take Winchie
to the laboratory.  "You can arrange with Richard as
to future visits," she said.  "And in talking with him—and
with me—please remember he and I don't exist for each
other.  I can trust you?"

"Yes," presently came from Helen in so reluctant a
tone that Courtney congratulated herself on having thought
to exact the promise.

Winchie said little about his father at the supper table,
but a great deal about a streak of light his father had made
for him with an electrical apparatus—"clear across the
room, mamma—real lightning—only there wasn't any thunder—just
noise—like when Jimmie snaps the whip fast."  Several
times in the next three or four weeks she discovered
evidence of visits to the laboratory in remarks Winchie let
drop; for he said nothing direct, having somehow divined
that the visits were not to be talked about.  But he had not
the faintest suspicion there was anything wrong between
his father and his mother.  He had always been used to
their leading separate lives; the mere surface cleavage was
too unimportant to affect him, all-observant though he was,
with his natural mind which Courtney had not spoiled by
false education.  And the parents of the only children he
played with—those along the shore—were exceeding
discreet in discussing the divorce in the family circle.

In the first winter storm one of the maples near the
edge of the lake, about the oldest and finest tree on the
place, blew down and in its fall destroyed the
summer-house.  Courtney was awakened by the resounding crash.
Before breakfast she, in short skirt and close-fitting jacket,
went to see and to decide what should be done.  As she
reached the scene Dick in shaggy ulster and cap came from
behind the towering mass of wreckage.  She could not be
certain whether his ease, so superior to hers, was due to his
having seen her coming and having got ready, or to
absolute indifference.  "Jimmie told me what happened,"
explained he.  "I came early, thinking I'd not be caught
trespassing."  He looked sadly at the great tree, with its
enormous boughs sprawled upon the frozen surface of the
lake.  "Jimmie and I," said he, "used to have a swing in
it that went out over the water.  We used to dive from the
seatboard."

Courtney could see the swing go up and up, high as the
tree itself, then a daring boy release his hold and shoot
through the air, slim and straight, to plunge into the lake.
"You'd almost touch bottom away out where it's
deepest—wouldn't you?" she said, her eyes sparkling.

"I've brought up mud in my hands from where it's
twenty feet deep."

They stood in silence, in the presence of the fallen giant
whose life had begun when the Indians trapping and
fishing there were getting from the far coast beyond the
mountains the first rumors of the great winged boats and the
white man.  "It was a grand tree," she sighed.  "I'll miss
it as I'd not miss many people I'm more or less fond of....
I remember that swing."

"You do?"

"One day my mother brought me along when she was
calling here.  I must have been about the age Winchie is
now.  I had on red shoes—I remember because they hurt
terribly and I didn't dare show a sign for fear they'd be
taken away.  You lured me out to play—and put me in
the swing—and made it go—the limit."

"I remember perfectly now.  That was *you*—was it?"

"It was.  It was," replied she.  "You despised little
girls and thought you'd scare me to death."

"But I remember you were game.  You didn't scream."

"I guess I was too badly frightened.  Do you remember
how mother shrieked when she saw from the window
what you were up to?"

"Do I?  The whipping father gave me bent the whole
business into me forever.  *I* wasn't game.  How I did
howl!"

"I wish I'd heard!"  She shivered laughingly.  "I
feel now how I was suffering when the swing was out over
the water and high up among the boughs."

Richard was looking at her curiously.  "So, that was
you?" he said in an abstracted way.  "You certainly didn't
look scared....  Helen tells me you're planning to go
East in the spring and study landscape gardening....
I see you don't like her having told me.  I assure you it
was my fault.  I asked her point blank.  She told me
simply the one fact."

"It's not a secret," said Courtney, and she went on to
explain, as to an acquaintance who knew nothing of her
life, "I used to go to college—up at Battle Field—with a
girl named Narcisse Siersdorf.  She's made quite a
reputation as an architect.  We were good friends, and it
occurred to me I might get advice from her.  She's
been wonderfully kind—took an interest right away.
We're negotiating.  I don't know what'll come of it.
I've sent her an account of things I've done, and some
pictures."

He looked at the slight, strong figure, at the small and
delicate face, at the eyes so feminine yet for all that full
of character.  "Are you in earnest?" he asked.

"I've got to be," replied she.

His expression showed how he was touched by her
air of sad thoughtfulness as she gazed across the glistening
level of ice.  "Not at all," said he.  "While nothing's
been said about it, you must know that as Winchie's
mother——"

She interrupted him with a laugh that made the color
flare into his face.  "So, you thought I was hinting, did
you?  I don't suppose you ever will be able to understand
a woman.  No—I don't hint."

"I didn't suspect——"

"Be honest!"

He hung his head like a foolish boy.

"As I was saying," she went on, "I've got to do something
because, when I'm free, I want to feel free.  Maybe
I'm flying in the face of nature, but I've a hankering
for the same sort of independence a man has—not the
same, but the same sort....  It isn't a bit nice, being
a woman—if one wakens to the fact that she's in the
same market—if in a higher grade stall—with 'those
others.'"

He looked up with a frown.  "That's not the way to
look at it," he protested with more than a touch of his
old-time dictatorial manner.

"It's the way *I* look at it," replied she, quietly.  That
reminder of his tyranny, added to his unconsciously
contemptuous suspicion that she was hinting for alimony, had
stirred all her latterly latent antagonism to him—made her
doubt the sincerity—or, rather, the thoroughness of the
change in him.  She began to move away.  "I must go tell
Jimmie what to do about this tree."

"Please—not just yet," he said, red and embarrassed.
"I beg your pardon for taking that tone.  And I'll admit
you're right, though I'd like to be able to deny it.  Still,
it's not your fault that you were brought up in the
customary way——"

"I don't want to be reminded of that," she interrupted,
rather bitterly.  "In spite of all I've been through—and
of the certainty that unless I free myself, I'll have to go
through it again—I'm having a constant fight against my
cowardice."  Her face changed in an instant from grave to
gay.  "I'm saying and doing all sorts of things to make
it impossible for me to back down.  I guess telling you was
one of them."

"You're not going to make any move until spring—toward
this architect friend, I mean?"

"I've no reason to think—at least not much reason—that
she'll take me."

"Meanwhile—why not perfect yourself in the trade you
already almost know?"

"What's that?"

"I'm going to pay a man a hundred and fifty dollars
a month to help me at the laboratory—exactly the work you
did—and he'll do it no better, if as well."

Courtney flushed with pleasure at this praise.  "Really?"
she said.  "You mean that?"

His expression forewarned her he was about to touch
on the impossible subject.  "I can't comprehend, now that
it's over," said he, "how I was such an ass as to stick to
the notion that women haven't brains when I had, right
before me, proof to the contrary."

"Meaning me?" said she with amused eyes.

"Meaning you," replied he with a laugh.  Then seriously,
"And if you'll let me say so, the reason I blame
myself for everything is, I've seen that my stupid ignorance
of you was at the bottom of it all."

She shrugged her shoulders indifferently.  "We were
both brought up very stupidly for marriage.  But then—who
isn't?  No wonder marriage is successful only by
accident."

"What a confession the proverb is," said he, "—that
people have to be married once, before they're fit to be
married."

"Well," said she, "at least we've had our experience,
and can be glad we got it young enough for it to be useful.
But I must get to work."  And she nodded and went briskly
up the snow-drifted lawns.  Not until afternoon, while she
was overseeing the sawing up of the tree, did his
unfinished offer come back to her.  Had he left it unfinished
because she had not encouraged him to go on or because he
had repented of the impulse?  Probably the latter, she
decided; at any rate, even if he had urged, she could not have
accepted.  "He'd be sure to misunderstand.  Men and
women always do misunderstand each other—"  She smiled
at herself—"that is, they don't.  They learn by experience
that there's always the motive behind, in everything that
crosses the sex line.  He'd not realize this was an
exception."  There she mocked herself again.  "At least, I think
it'd be an exception.  I'm not quite sure I'd not be doing
it out of cowardice—to get him where I could recover him
if I lost my nerve and had to.  Our dependence makes us so
poor spirited that, though we know we don't want a certain
man, we like to have him where we could use him, 'in
case.'"

.. vspace:: 2

Several stormy days, with no communication between
house and laboratory.  On the first bright afternoon,
she and Winchie were entering the grounds after a walk to
Wenona and back, through the still, dry air, charged with
sunbeams, air like a still, dry champagne, strong and subtle.
They came upon Dick clearing the snow from the direct
path between laboratory and gates.  His trousers were
tucked into high boots and he was in flannel shirt sleeves.
As they—or, rather, as Winchie—paused, he leaned on his
shovel and laughed—at the fun that is merrier than any
joke—the fun of being healthily alive from center to
farthest tip.  The sunshine was brilliant on the unsullied
surface of the snow, on the ice-encased branches, and
on those three health-flushed faces.  "Just been to
the doctor's, I suppose?" said he to the boy who was
as ruddy as a rooster's comb, as smooth and hard as
marble.

"No," declared Winchie, taking him seriously, "I never
had a doctor in my life."

This was a good enough excuse.  Dick and Courtney
became hilarious over Winchie's earnestness.  As Winchie
had begun to play with the snow his father's labor had
piled high on either side of the reappearing path, Courtney
did not resist Dick's overtures toward conversation—about
the skating, the air, the healthfulness of a hard winter, the
ravages of the storm throughout the neighborhood.  "I
see," said he, "the old maple's gone.  You did clear it up
in a hurry.  There's not a sign of its ever having been in
existence—or the summerhouse either."

At that the color poured into her cheeks—the deeper,
fierier red of acute embarrassment.  When he realized what
he had said—which he instantly did—he did not color but
became pale.  "I'm glad it was destroyed," he said, "glad
not a trace of it remains—*anywhere*.  If I believed in
omens I'd look on the whole incident as a good omen—the
landmark of the Vaughan home that seemed so strong and
wasn't—the summerhouse that was a constant reminder—both
gone—and the place where they were is clear—is ready
for the new and better things."

She was listening with her head low.  "Thank you,"
she said, in a choked voice.  "Sometimes I think there isn't
another man in the world who'd have helped me as you
have."

"Don't you believe it," cried he, cheerfully.  "Human
nature's a lot better than it pretends.  Thank God, very
few of us are despicable enough to live up to our creeds and
our conventions....  Winchie, you didn't know you came
very near losing your father yesterday.  He almost blew
himself up."

Winchie's eyes grew big.  "I'd like to have seen," said
he, excitedly.  "Jimmie says, when you do go, it'll be
straight up through the roof and high as the moon."

"It all came of my working without an assistant," Dick
explained to Courtney.  "I've got one coming from Baltimore,
as I think I told you the other day.  But he can't
get away just yet.  I wish you'd consider my offer."

She felt no embarrassment.  His tone prevented; it was
businesslike, and polite rather than friendly.

"I need some one badly—some one I shan't have to
teach.  You like the work.  You need the experience.  A
few weeks of the sort of thing I'd put you at now would
fit you for a place in a first-class laboratory."  A little
constrainedly—"I know why you hesitate.  But I assure
you, that's foolish.  What I'm proposing will not interfere
with—with our plans for freeing each other.  It's purely
business—and good business for you as well as for me."

She looked directly at him for the first time.  "You're
quite sure you'd not misunderstand?"

"Quite," he assured her.

She still hesitated.  "I want to accept," she confessed,
"for business reasons.  But I've an instinct against it."

He smiled with good-humored mockery.  "A vanity,
you mean."

She colored guiltily, though she also was smiling.  Her
nervous fingers were pulling the ice from a branch of a bush.

He noted that Winchie, rolling up a huge snowball, had
got safely out of hearing.  "Just a vanity," he went on.
"Well—pitch it overboard.  I make you a business
proposition.  I need you.  You need the experience.  I hope
you'll accept.  I can well afford to pay you what I'll pay
Carter.  He's tied up until January—perhaps a little later.
If you'll accept, I can accomplish a lot this winter.  If not,
I'll be nearly helpless."

.. vspace:: 2

Thus it naturally and easily and sensibly came about
that, a few months later, at the very moment when Judge
Vanosdol was signing the decree of divorce, Dick and
Courtney were in the laboratory, their heads touching as they
bent over a big retort, heedless of the strong fumes rising
from its boiling and hissing contents.  The heat subsided.
The compound slowly cleared—a beautiful shade of green
instead of the black they hoped for—and confidently
expected.  They looked dejectedly at each other; she felt
like weeping for his chagrin.

"What the devil is the matter?" demanded he, glowering
at her.  "Sure you didn't make a mistake?"

Her nerves were on edge, as were his.  "That's right!"
she said, tears in her eyes.  "Suspect me."

"I'm not suspecting you," he retorted angrily.  "Don't
drag your sex into work.  You're not a woman here.  We've
no time for poodle-dog politeness."

"I don't want politeness," cried she.  "What did I say
that could possibly make you think I did?"

"It was what you didn't say," replied he.  "Why
didn't you answer back?  Or throw the ladle at me?"

"I will next time."

And there they both laughed.

.. vspace:: 2

Now, she was free—absolutely free—and with money
enough of her own earning to get her and Winchie to New
York and to keep them for quite a while.  And Narcisse
Siersdorf had written most encouraging comments on the
account of her efforts at landscape gardening and on the
accompanying photographs, and had offered her a clerkship
at twenty-five dollars a week "as a starter."  Also,
Richard, as an earnest of his belief and his interest, had got
her an offer of a trial position at twenty dollars a week in
the laboratories of the American Coal Products Company
at Chicago.  She was not only free; she was independent.

The morning after Narcisse's letter came she saw Richard
eying her curiously several times, as if he were puzzling
over something but hesitated to question her.  The fourth
or fifth time she caught him at it, she said: "What do you
want to ask me?  Have I made a mistake?"

"No—no, indeed," protested he.  "You don't make mistakes."

He had been extremely polite, no matter how severely
his temper was tried, ever since the day of the little flare-up
over the failed experiment.  And every day it pleased her
through and through, pleased and thrilled her, that his
reason was fear lest she, perfectly free to go, should resign
and quit, if he did not behave.

"Then," she went on to him, "why do you look at me
inquiringly?"

"It's your manner," replied he.  "You're acting very
differently to-day from what you ever did before."

While he was saying it she divined the reason—the
letter from Narcisse.  The offer from the Coal Products
Company had come several weeks before; but that had been got
for her.  This position in New York was of her own getting.
And for the first time in her life she felt like a full-grown
personality capable of taking care of herself.  Unconsciously
her whole outlook upon life changed; the change
disclosed itself in her expression, in her voice, in her
manner.  She handed Richard her patent of nobility, the letter
from Narcisse; she watched his face as he read.  But she
got no clue to his thoughts.  As he gave back the letter
without comment she said: "I'm in the way to get rid of
the reason for a woman's so often wishing she'd been born
a man."

"I understand," said he, and turned away to gaze
reflectively out of the window.

She went into the rear room to work there.  Half an
hour later she returned, to find him still staring out over
the lake.  "I've given him something more to think about,"
said she to herself, with a sly smile at his back.  "And it'll
do him good, if ever he starts out to marry again."  Yet
somehow she was not fully satisfied that her guess covered
the whole of what he was thinking.  He was extremely
puzzling, this polite, appreciative, carefully businesslike
Richard.

She was impatient to be gone.  She wished to try in
longer flight the new wings of freedom and independence
she had grown.  She felt confident they would sustain her;
but she could not be sure until she tried.  She had decided
for the Siersdorf offer.  She liked the chemistry chiefly
because, working with Richard at the explorations of
hydrogen and nitrogen, she was moving toward a definite high
accomplishment—the discovery of a source of happiness to
millions—a cheap substitute for coal and wood that would
banish that horror of horrors, cold, from the lives of the
poor.  But it would be quite another thing to work at
fabricating new shades of color in dyes, new commercial
uses for the by-products of coal; she would be descending
from scientist's helper to plodder for a living, from
lieutenant of a Columbus to mate on a tramp steamer.  Not
so, if she went into the Siersdorf office.

There she would remain artist, worker with the fine tools
of the imagination.  Also Basil's tastes lay in that direction.
Fancy is not the air plant that idealists pretend.  Its
flowers may be spiritual but its roots strike deep into the
physical.  It may need the sun and the air of heaven, but
it needs the soil even more.  In the soil it is born; by the
soil it chiefly lives.  Courtney's fancy was the fancy of a
normal human being in whom all the emotions are healthy,
ardent, fully developed.  It had no long or difficult task in
blurring into vagueness whatever marred her memory of her
and Basil's romance—or at least in making the blemishes
for the time seem unimportant in presence of the rosy,
horizon-filling peak moments of their happiness.  Once more,
from the quiet of her long lonely evenings—hardly the less
solitary for Helen's rather monotonous company—arose the
longings, the visions, the thrills.  She felt that, in her young
inexperience, she had been too arrogant in her demands
upon life; she had asked more than she could possibly
expect from a human love, more than she had any right to
expect.  But now she was chastened; her point of view was
less wildly romantic.  What would they not be to each
other!—once they were together—and free from all
constraint of moral doubts and conventional dreads.  It was
only natural that in their life of stress passion should have
been uppermost, should have become dominant.  It was
human for Basil to feel that he was contending for even
physical possession of her—and until there is physical
possession, love has no substantial ground to build upon.

She was eager to be off for New York, to establish her
independence, and then to begin her real life on the
enduring foundation of equality and comradeship brightened by
passion as a tree is brightened by its blossoms and their
perfume.  But, eager though she was, she could not deny
her obligation to remain until Dick's assistant came.  She
knew now that he had spoken the literal truth when he said
he needed her badly.  It would be a return for his
broad-minded humanity quite beneath her, to leave him in the
lurch—especially when carrying on his particular line of
experiments meant danger if he had to do all the work
alone.  She must stay until Carter came.  And she was glad
of this opportunity to show him that she did appreciate
what he had done for her, even though he had done it not
for her sake but for his own—in obedience to his sense of
the decent and the self-respecting.

So, she worked steadily and interestedly on, just as if
the divorce had not yet been entered upon the records of
the court as valid and final.  She found an unexpected
additional source of interest in studying her former husband as
an individuality.  It is always a novel sensation for a woman
with any claim to physical charm to find herself regarded
impersonally—sexlessly.  That is usually anything but an
agreeable sensation; every woman feels the chagrin of
failure when she sees that her charms do not charm—this,
though she might be disdainful of and resentful of overt
tribute to her physical self.  Courtney, however, did not in
those peculiar circumstances feel sufficiently piqued to try
to assert woman's ancient right of dominion over the senses
of man.  She could enjoy the novelty of being treated like
a man, and could study calmly the man who was thus
unmindful of what is habitually uppermost in any strongly
masculine nature.

At work with Richard alone, she was at last getting
acquainted with him.  From the beginning of each day at
the laboratory to the end, she was receiving a series of
vivid impressions of a really superior man—competent,
intelligent, resourceful.  He thought about himself never; he
could not be daunted or baffled.  His broad-mindedness was
no longer marred by the sex narrowness that had made
appreciation of it impossible to her, to any woman of her
sort.  He knew so much; he carried knowledge so lightly.
It seemed to her, after much experience of "learned" men,
that knowledge was chiefly power to bore.  His knowledge
was like a rapier of finest steel skilfully used in his duel
with his mysterious masked combatant, the alchemist on
guard at nature's secretest laboratory.  She felt that he was
a man out of a million; yet she had no sense of embarrassed
inferiority.  This general in the army of exact science, which
is the true army of progress, was a democrat, marched
with the soldiers afoot, was their equal.  "If any woman
ever does fall in love with him," thought she, "she will
worship him.  But—he's too impersonal.  We women
want something smaller—not a sun star, but a fire on a
hearth."

Now that he was nothing but fellow worker to her, she
could look at him with the friendly impartiality of human
being for fellow being.  Piecing together what she knew
of his masculine side and what she could how see latent in
those strong features, those intense nervous energies, she
felt that somewhere there might be a woman equal to
concentrating upon herself what went altogether into the duel
for nature's secrets.  "And unless she were a great woman,
he would burn her up like a match tossed into a furnace."

This latent capacity of his for love fascinated her.
There were even moments when it tempted her—was like
a challenge taunting her womanhood as confessedly
ineffectual.  But at the laboratory she was too busy to linger
over such thoughts; and in her other hours, there was
household routine to compel her attention—and the plans for the
great attempt.

At last Carter wrote that he would positively come in
two weeks.  "You've been splendidly patient with me,"
Dick said as he showed her the latter.  "I've seen that you
were eager to be gone."  As she murmured a polite denial,
he repeated, "Yes, eager—but not in the way to make me
uncomfortable over my selfishness."

"I've rarely thought of it while I was down here,"
said she.  "It was only in the evenings—and when I
happened not to sleep very well."

"It was natural you should be upset," sympathized
Dick.  "Who wouldn't be, standing on the edge of the icy
plunge so long?  But you'll like it—and everything'll come
out all right.  I've discovered that you have a lot of
common sense—and that's more than I can say for most
men—including myself."

Another month, at the farthest, and she would be in
New York, would have made the great beginning! ... Should
she send Basil word as soon as she arrived?  Should
she wait until she got her bearings?  She saw it would be
wiser to wait.  Everything depended on beginnings—right
beginnings—and it would be the right beginning for Basil
to find her as obviously master of her own destiny, as free
to withhold or to give, as was he himself.  Also—  Coming
from a small town in the West, she could not but feel
strange in New York, and look provincial.  "Yes, I'll
wait," she decided, the instant this last reason dropped
into the balance.  For, she had not the vanity that
underestimates the matter of looks and neglects the fact that
everyone is at a distinct disadvantage in a strange
environment.

One morning, about a week later, there came a ring at
the telephone which was in Dick's part of the laboratory.
As these calls were always for her, she rose from her case
in the back room and went to answer.  It was Mazie—"The
hotel over to Fenton wants to speak to you, ma'am."

"Connect them, please," said Courtney, hoping her
voice had betrayed and would betray nothing to the man
behind her.

Soon came an operator's voice, and then Basil's.  "I
must see you!"

"Yes," she said.  "I'll come."

"In your auto runabout—on the Fenton road to
Tippecanoe—at two this afternoon.  Will that do?"

"Yes.  I'll be there.  Good-by."  And she rang off.

She turned from the telephone with a glance at Richard.
He was busy with the blowpipe—no doubt had not even
heard.  As she was leaving to go up to the house for
dinner, she said to him: "I'll not be back this afternoon."

"All right," replied he.  "I sha'n't need you till
to-morrow morning."

"I'll be here, then, of course."

He turned on the high stool.  "You know," said he, with
only the faintest suggestion of the unusual in face and
voice, "there's no reason why you shouldn't see anyone you
wish, at your own house."

She flushed guiltily.  But her composure instantly
returned, and she went on toward the door, casting about for
a reply.

"I've no desire to interfere," continued he.  "But—Jimmie
went to Fenton on an errand yesterday, and he
happened to tell me he saw at a distance a man who looked
enough like Gallatin to be his twin.  If you should be
seen—you know how they gossip here.  You could send the boy
and Helen over to Wenona for the afternoon.  Pardon my
suggesting these things.  It occurred to me you might not
realize how closely you're watched by everybody, since the
divorce."

She stood in the outer doorway, trying to conceal her
agitation and trying to reflect.

"I appreciate you'd rather see him elsewhere—and I'd
prefer you did, too.  But your son has his rights—don't
you think?"

"Yes," said Courtney.  "I'll see him at the house."

"Thank you," said Richard.  And he resumed his
careful mixing of two powders in a small brass mortar.

She went, returned, stood where she could see his profile.
"You give me your word of honor you'll not interfere with
him in any way?"

Dick smiled without suspending work with the pestle.
"Certainly," said he.  "On my honor I'll not leave this
room until you telephone me that I may."  His smile
broadened into a laugh that made her extremely uncomfortable,
though it was pleasant enough.

"I didn't think you cared about me or him—or anything
but your chemistry," she said in self-defense.  "I
asked simply as a precaution.  I felt I owed it to him and
to the boy."

"I laughed—you'll pardon me—because he's such a
shallow pup.  I never think of you two that I don't think
of Titania and Nick."

As he tossed this lightly over his shoulder, she was
hopelessly at a disadvantage.  She was scarlet and shaking
with anger.  No return thrust occurring to her, she flung a
furious glance into his back and departed, with about all
the joy out of her anticipations of the meeting.  Instead
of telephoning from the house, she ascended to the
apartment over the laboratory and by the direct wire there got
the Phibbs Hotel in Fenton.  A few minutes, and Basil was
at the other end.  "Come to the house here, instead," said
she.  "At the same time—two o'clock."

A silence, then his voice, "No.  You come over."

"I can't do it.  And I'd not ask you if I weren't sure.
I'll explain when I see you."

"There's an especial reason why I want you here,"
urged he.

"And there's a more especial reason why I want you here."

"And there's an even more especial reason why I *must*
see you here," insisted he.  "It's very unsatisfactory,
talking over the telephone, with people probably listening all
along the wire.  I'll come to-morrow—or late this
afternoon.  But you come here first."

"No—really, I mustn't," she declared.  "Don't you
trust me?  Don't you know I'd not ask it, if it weren't
perfectly—all right?"

"It isn't that, but—  I can't talk about it....  I'll
come."  And from his tone she knew he had been decided
by the fear that she'd think him afraid.  And then she
realized that she had made her remark because she counted
on its appeal to his vanity—and the thought acted upon her
enthusiasm not unlike a douche.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XXVIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXVIII

.. vspace:: 2

She was on the drive-front porch with Lizzie, making
plausible pretense of rearranging the boxed evergreens.
She heard the carriage turn in at the gates, though they
were nearly a quarter of a mile from the house.  As the
horses rounded the bend she looked.  But she waited on
Lizzie, who was not slow to cry out with delighted
surprise, "Why, there's Mr. Gallatin!"

Courtney said, "Do run in and see that the sitting
room's straight."  Thus, she was alone when he descended.
She saw him through a mist and the hand she gave him
was cold, was trembling.  In the doorway, she said hastily
in an undertone: "Helen and Winchie are at Wenona—Richard
at the laboratory.  You've stopped unexpectedly
on your way south—for an hour or two."

"I understand," said he.  "I can't trust myself to look
at you.  My love!  My love!"

She flashed up at him a glance radiant with her florid
fancies of anticipation.  "Come into the house," she
contrived to say in an ordinary tone.

As they went along the hall, side by side and talking
for effect on possible listeners, she saw that he had dressed
as carefully as a bridegroom.  No more carefully than she
had dressed, so far as she dared; still, it struck her as
amusing—as suggestive of hollowness.  And the voice
which, as she heard it in fancy during those weeks of
waiting, had been so moving, so magical—what a commonplace
voice it was, and how very like affectation its Eastern
intonations sounded.  "That nasty remark of Richard's!"
she thought.  "How weak of me to let such a thing affect
me."  They entered the sitting room; he quickly closed
the door, caught her hands, looked at her from head to
foot.  "Courtney!" he murmured.  "I love you!  I love you!"

She thrilled, lifted her eyes—dropped them.  A chill
stole over her.  She had to resist an impulse to draw her
hands away.  He looked really handsome, was outwardly
all her imagination had been picturing—and more.
Yet—  What was the matter?  What was lacking?  Why could
she see only the weakness and coarseness—the qualities that
had stood out the night he was drunk and the next
afternoon when she was battling against his vanity and
jealousy?  "It's my nerves," she decided.  "I'm under a
greater strain than I realize."  When he kissed her, she
turned her head so that his lips touched her cheek.  And
immediately she released her hands.  "We must be careful,"
she apologized.

"Why?  You're free."

"Yes—but—"  She paused.

"Why do you act so strange—so distant?"

"I don't know," she confessed.  She felt ashamed of
herself that she was visiting on him the consequences of
her own folly in having let her imagination overleap all
the bounds of probability in forecast.  "I don't know,"
she repeated.  "Nerves, I suppose.  Or, perhaps it's a
bad cold.  I've felt one coming on all day.  This morning
I forgot to close the——"

"Aren't you glad to see me?"

"Yes—yes, indeed," she protested.  "Let's sit down."

She took a chair near the table.  He was thus compelled
to the sofa, several feet away.  "We ought to have
met where we first arranged," said he, constrained,
embarrassed.

"I have to be careful.  You forget Winchie."

An uncomfortable silence, then he: "You've been free
thirty-nine days.  Yet you have not written me."

"I explained to you——"

"Didn't you feel like writing?"

"Of course.  But——"

"But—what?"

"I wanted to be independent as well as free."

He looked at her gloomily.  "Is *that* what you call love?"

She forced a smile and nodded.

"Do you know what I've come for?  For you."

She felt herself drawing together, shrinking away from
him.  "For me?" she echoed vaguely.

"To marry you."

She was not looking at him; but she was seeing his face
as it was when swollen and distorted by drink.  She
answered hastily, "Oh, I couldn't do that."

"Why not?"

"I can't marry till—till I'm independent.  I've been
making a lot of plans.  I'm going to work early next
month."

"What nonsense!" he cried.  "Courtney, do you realize
you've not yet said a single word of love?  What is
the matter?  Is it our meeting in this house?"

"Perhaps.  I don't know.  I don't understand it
myself."  Why was her mind so perverse?  Why did it thrust
at her the things it was unjust to remember, generous and
necessary to forget?  Why was she critical, aloof, instead
of responsive and generously glad?  She went on: "It may
be the cold.  My nose feels queer, and——"

"We must marry, right away," he insisted, frowning
upon her lack of seriousness.  "We've been separated too
long already."

That seemed to her to explain.  But it did not remove.
She said, "Not until I'm independent."

"But that means years—years!"

"Oh, no," protested she.  "Not the kind of independence
*I* mean.  I simply want to be sure I could earn
my living if it were necessary."

"But it isn't necessary.  And life is so short, dearest.
And at most we'll have few enough years of happiness."

"I know," said she, surprised that these truths did
not move her in the least, nor his looks, his tones, so
charged with entreaty she such a short time ago would
have found irresistible.  "But I've thought it out, and I
realize everything depends on my getting that feeling
of independence.  I'll not risk again what I've been
through."

"You know very well, that couldn't happen.  As for
your working, why, dear, unless a woman's been bred to
making a living, it's almost impossible for her."

"Nevertheless I must try."

"If you loved me, you'd not talk like this," cried he,
bitterly.

Instead of protesting, she became thoughtful.  "Do
you really think so?" she asked.  "I wonder if that's
true."

"Certainly not," retreated he, alarmed.  "We love each
other.  But your way of acting and talking has upset me.
I ought not have come here.  We should have met over
at Tippecanoe."

"You don't seem to see my point of view, Basil."

"I do, but it's a mere notion.  A very fine notion," he
hastened to add, though he could not make his tone other
than grudging, "but foolish."

"It was my dependence that put me in such a frightful
position with Richard.  And——"

"Courtney," he interrupted, between anger and appeal,
"please don't repeat that comparison of what you were to
him and what you and I are to each other.  It—hurts me,
and it's not fair."

"Would you promise to love me always just as you do now?"

"I certainly would.  I shall."

She lowered her eyes.  Her heart sank.

"Wouldn't you?" he asked.

"No," replied she.  "How can I—or anyone—honestly
say how he or she'll feel about a person they don't know
through and through—a month ahead—let alone a year—ten
years—twenty?  You know that's true, Basil.  You're
not honest with yourself—or with me."

He was silent, was watching her with sullen, suspicious
eyes.

"It seems to me," she went on, "that love—real love—ought
to make you careful.  If we were a boy and a girl,
without experience or intelligence or anything but hazy,
rosy emotions——"

"You and I never will agree about love," he interrupted,
impatiently.  "But that's a small matter.  The
only point is that we love each other.  Love's like a rose,
Courtney.  Tear it apart to see what it's made of and you
lose the rose and have only withered petals."

"Yes—one kind of love.  But is it the kind to build
one's life upon?"

"I'm not going to argue with you.  Have your way, if
you will.  You'll soon get enough of work—of this fantastic
idea of independence, as you call it.  As if I'd not be too
afraid of losing your love not to respect your rights and
consider you always and in every way."

"But suppose *I* ceased to love *you*—and were
dependent on you——"

"I know.  I know.  Don't let's argue it.  Go on with
your plans.  The sooner you begin, the sooner you'll see
how foolish you are.  You don't appreciate what work
means—especially for a woman—the toil, the humiliations,
the downright miseries—that cost youth and looks and
health."

It still further depressed her to see how swiftly his
words depressed her—how appalling was the lift and
spread of the mountain she had been dreaming of
removing with one shovel and one pair of feeble hands.
"Instead of discouraging me," cried she with some anger in
her reproach, "you ought to be encouraging me.  I should
think you'd be afraid to have a woman about who might be
your wife for the sake of a living—might be making a
hypocrite of herself and a fool of you."

He winced; she saw he was thinking of Richard.  "That
could never happen with *us*!" cried he.

"Never is a long time."

He was squirming in irritation and impatience—and
was obviously afraid she would suspect the thoughts he yet
could not conceal.  "Please don't insist on discussing this,
Courtney.  Go ahead.  Try your scheme.  Work!  I never
heard of a woman at work who wouldn't do almost anything
to escape."

She forced a laugh.  "Then if I fail and send for you,
you'll know what it means—and fly in the other direction."

"Not I," replied he with an overenergy that failed in
its purpose of hiding the discomfort her suggestion had
caused him.  "I tell you, we love each other.  That makes
everything different."  He laughed.  "Work!  Thank
God, you and I don't have to work.  We can love."

She sat with eyes down and fingers idly matching the
corners of her little handkerchief.  What a difference
between work as a dream and work in the doing!—between
imagining the glories of self-respecting independence and
making the coarse, cruel struggle step by step up to those
glories—between work as a pastime and work as a
necessity.  How unpractical she had been!  She sighed.  "I
wish," said she, "I'd never realized that to be secure a
woman must be independent.  But—now that I've realized
it, I've got to go on."

He put on an expression of pretended deep and respectful
interest that made it hard for her to hide her
amusement.  "What are your plans?" he asked.

"I'll tell you sometime.  I don't feel in the humor now."

"Something vague—eh?"  And she saw that he assumed
she was only pretending, after all.  A superior
man-to-woman smile had replaced his look of nervousness.

She waited until he had got himself comfortably settled
down into this agreeable assumption, then said
tranquilly, "No.  I have the place promised me."

He rose impatiently.  If she had needed proof as to his
real opinion of women—his conviction of their inferiority,
his expression would have given it.  Yes, his opinion was
the same as Richard's—always had been, as she could now
see, recalling remarks he had made from time to time.  The
same prejudices as Richard; only, Basil had been less
courageous—less honest.  Those prejudices irritated her in
Richard; in Basil they seemed laughable.  But he was getting
his impatience and scorn, his exasperation against her
poor womanish folly somewhat under control.  "Now,
Courtney, can't you realize—" he began in a teacher-to-infant
tone.  Then, a new thought struck him.  He broke
off abruptly.  "No—go ahead.  It's just as well you
should have the lesson," said he.

"Should learn how dependent I am on—some man?"

"How unfitted you are to be anything but a lady."

"I know that already," replied she forlornly.  "Or,
rather, I'm not fitted to be either dependent or independent."

"Then why not be sensible, and marry me at once?"

She did not answer.  She could not tell him the truth;
she would not tell him a lie.  Anyhow, she wasn't sure what
she did think.

"You will—won't you, dear?  You'll not waste time
that we might give to love and happiness?"  And he
anxiously watched her face—with its sweet feminineness that
gave him hope, its mystery and its resoluteness that made
him uneasy.

"It's a temptation," she said, absently.  She saw herself
trying for independence and failing—losing heart,
self-respect—growing cynical through hardship—marrying
Basil to escape—  Just there, she suddenly surprised her
elusive real self, saw deep into the inmost workings of
her own mind—saw that she did not care for Basil
Gallatin—that she had really been pretending to herself that
she loved him because he was the alternative, the refuge,
should her try for independence fail!

"I'll tell you what let's do," she heard him saying.
"Let's get married.  Then you can take that place,
whatever it is.  With your future secure no matter what
happened, you'd work better and would be much more likely
to succeed."

The appeal of this subtle proposal awakened her to her
peril.  It must be now or never; she must speak the truth
now, or lose the courage and the strength to speak it.
"Basil," she said abruptly, "I don't love you."

He stared.

"I've been lying to myself and to you.  I don't love you."

"That's not true!"

"I never did love you," she replied—for, with the one
truth out, the other forged to the front and made its
amazing self visible.  "No—I never did love you."  How plain
it all was, now!  How strange that she should for even an
infatuated moment have believed this was the man she
needed, the man who needed her—not words alone, and
kisses and thrills, but real need—for mind and heart and
body—all that the three have to give and long to give and
to receive.

He stood before her, looking down in graciously smiling
remonstrance.  "That's a little too much," he said tenderly.
"You can't have forgotten all we've been to each other—those
hours of happiness—those moments of ecstasy—my
love—my Courtney——"

There was color in her cheeks, an answering tenderness
in the eyes that lifted to his.  "No, I've not forgotten.
And as I had to learn and as there's no other way for
woman or man to learn but experience, I don't regret.  But
we were both in love with love—not with each other.  And
what's more, we never could be."  Now that she had flung
away pretense, its veil of illusion over her sight dropped;
she was seeing him as she looked at him—not his qualities
that repelled, not his qualities that attracted, but the whole
man—was seeing him as we see only those toward whom
are amiably indifferent.  She was thinking, "What a
nice, well-bred man he is, but how small."  Not bad, not
grossly sensual, not mean—not at all mean, but the reverse.
Just small.

He began to recover from the stupefaction of the
convincing tones of her denial of love.  He was hastily
donning the costume of pose that is correct for such occasions.
She beamed genially upon him and said, "Now, don't work
yourself up, my dear Basil.  Sit down over there, and let's
talk quite quietly—and naturally."

It is impossible for anyone with any sense of humor
whatever to indulge alone in paroxysms of emotion before
a tranquil spectator.  Basil stopped rolling his eyes and
dilating his nostrils, and seated himself, in no very good
humor.  Her tone was not pleasant.  It would have been
perfectly proper for a man to use to a woman.  It was
impertinent, in weaker sex to stronger.  "Oh, I'm all
right," said he, crossly, as he seated himself.  "But you'd
better look out about those ideas of yours.  They have a
terribly unfeminizing effect on women."

"Yes—I guess they do," replied she.  A puzzling,
alluring combination of seriousness and humor she looked
as she sat there opposite him, her elbows on the arms of
the chair, her chin resting upon the backs of her linked
fingers, her eyes fixed gravely yet somehow quizzically
upon him.  "Have you ever thought of our life together?"
asked she.  "Of what we'd do—between times?"

"Between times?"

"No one—not even the most ardent lovers—can make
love all the time.  There haven't been any 'between times'
in our life heretofore, because of the circumstances.  But
when we were together without interruption—with no
excitement or interest of danger—with no stimulus—with just
ourselves—what would we do 'between times'?—and
there'd be more and more 'between times' as we got used
to each other."

This uninviting but obviously truthful picture sobered
and exasperated him.  "Haven't thought about it," he
confessed.  "I haven't gone into details.  But I know we'll
be happy.  You'll step into the position you are entitled to
and I can see that you get."

"The social position, you mean?"

"Certainly.  And we'll enjoy ourselves."

He could not possibly have said anything that would
have shown more clearly the width and depth of the gap
between them—how little he understood her, how little they
had in common.

"You'll be tremendously popular," he said with enthusiasm.

She shook her head slowly.  "I don't think *I* could be
happy, wasting my life, scattering myself among a lot of
inane pastimes."  She laughed a little.  "You'd be
horribly disappointed in me, Basil."

"I'll risk it.  They'll be crazy about you in the East."  He
nodded proud, confident, self-complacent encouragement.
"I'll risk it!"

She met his look with a quiet final "But I'll not."  In
another mood his proposal, his manner, his very poor sort
of pride in her would have amused her.  But as she
listened, she remembered all she had believed about this man,
all her idealizing of his mind and character.  And she
grew sad and sick.  This small man!

He planted himself firmly before her.  "Now, look
here, Courtney.  It's useless for you to talk that sort of
thing.  You don't mean it.  And I'm not going to give you
up.  You're my wife, Courtney.  The only possible excuse
for what you did was that you loved me."

"On the contrary," replied she, "my only excuse is
that I was swept away by my craving for love—for what
Richard in our brief honeymoon had taught me to
need——"

"For God's sake!" he cried.  "How *can* you say such
things?"

"Because they are the truth," she answered with quiet
dignity; and he felt ashamed of himself without knowing
why.  "Basil, you don't love me as I really am.  You find
me shocking.  And I don't love you as you really are.  I
find you—"  She hesitated.

"Go on.  Say it."

But what would be the use?  The truth, all of it, any
literal part of it would only hurt him, would not awaken
him.  By birth and by breeding and by the impassable
limitations of his mind he was incapable of learning or
appreciating the truth, was wedded forever to the morality
that makes truth a vice and lies a virtue.  So, she evaded.
"I find you are like your dress," answered she, her eyes
and her light tone taking the sharp sting off her words.
"A charming style of your own but strictly conventional
withal."

He did not fully appreciate this faint hint of the truth,
but he understood enough to be irritated.  "You've been
doing too much of what you women call thinking.  And
you've become like all women who try to think."

"All women think," said she.  "But very few of them
tell the man what they think—until they've got him safely
married.  You ought to thank me for being candid in
advance."

He scowled at her smile.  "I'm not going to give you
up," he said sullenly.  "I know you better than you know
yourself.  You'll come out of this mood.
And—dearest—remember
that, in spite of your disdain, the old-fashioned
woman—tender, simple, loving—is far sweeter than these
thinkers—gets more pleasure—gives more."

"A baby's sweeter than a grown person," replied she,
refusing to be serious.  "But, Basil, the time has about
passed when even a woman can stay on a baby—though
most of the men and women pretend it isn't so, and a good
many of them—like you and Helen—get angry if the
truth's forced on you.  At any rate, *I* can't be a baby
anymore....  Do you know what would happen if I married
you?"

The look that accompanied her abrupt question was so
penetrating, so significant that he paled.  "I don't want to
hear any more of your truths that aren't true at all," he
cried.

"I see you know what would happen.  The same thing
again."

"Courtney!—Good God!"

"The same thing again.  As long as my craving for
real companionship was unsatisfied, I couldn't be content.
The same delusion that made me fancy I loved you would
trap me again—or, perhaps it wouldn't be delusion but
really the man I needed—the man who needed me.  A
mirage isn't a delusion, you know.  It's an actuality that
we mislocate.  I'd hunt on—and on—through the desert for
my oasis—until I found it."

He had not taken his fascinated gaze from her
dreamy face, her eyes of unfathomable emerald.  "Do
you mean that?" he said huskily.  "No—you can't.
But you must not say those things, Courtney—you
really mustn't.  You'll make me afraid of you.
As it is, I fear I'll have a hard time making myself
forget."

"I don't want you to forget.  And I've told you the
exact truth because I want you to realize how unsuited
we are to each other."

He walked up and down in violent agitation.  "I don't
understand it," he muttered.  "Has some one—Courtney,
do you love some other man?"

"I do not.  I've seen no one practically but Richard."

He halted with a jerk.  "Richard!" His eyes narrowed
with jealous suspicion.  "Has he been trying to win
you back?"

She smiled at the idea, so at variance with the facts.
"He treats me like another man."

"Then you see him?"

"Every day.  I work at the laboratory with him."

"*What!*"  Basil stared, dropped to the nearest chair
dumfounded.

"Why not? ... Don't be so pitifully conventional,
Basil.  This is the twentieth century, not the Dark Ages.
He knows you're here now—asked me to see you here rather
than where it might cause gossip."

As he recovered, his mind, seen clearly in his features,
slowly took fire.  "And you pretended you were telling
me the truth!" he cried, starting up.  Everything else—doubt
of her—doubt of himself—all was forgotten in the
torrent rush of jealousy.  "And I, poor fool, believed you!
But I'll tell you what the truth is.  You've lost your nerve.
You love me as you did.  But you haven't the courage to
break off here.  And you're sinking back to what you were
when I found you.  I might have known!  A woman always
belongs to the nearest man."  He was raging up and down
the room.  "I've come for you.  I'll not go without you.
You're mine—not his.  I'll show you!  I'll show you!"  And
he snatched his hat from the sofa and rushed out.

For the moment motion was beyond her power.  She
saw him dart along the veranda, past the windows, take the
path to the Smoke House.  Terror galvanized her.  She
flew to the private telephone, rang long and vigorously, put
the receiver to her ear.  A pause; she was about to ring
again when Richard's voice came: "Yes—what is it?"

"He's coming to you, Richard," she gasped.  "I angered
him.  He's wild with rage.  Promise you won't let
him in."

"I can't do that."  Richard's voice was calm and natural.

"Your promise to me!"

"Don't be alarmed.  He doesn't amount to much, if
you'll pardon my saying so."

"I'm coming as quickly as I can.  Don't see him,
Richard.  Remember Winchie!"

"Come if you like.  But I suspect you'll only aggravate
him.  Believe me, I can take care of him.  Here he
is now——"

She dropped the receiver, ran out of the house and
along the path.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XXIX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXIX

.. vspace:: 2

As Vaughan hung up the receiver and turned, Gallatin
flung open the door on which he had just rapped a loud
challenge.  He scowled at Vaughan; Vaughan eyed him
with the expression that simply looks and waits.  It was
evident Basil expected immediate combat, was ready for
it—therefore altogether unready for the form of encounter
less easy.  Dick's tranquillity completely disconcerted him.
He advanced a step, with an aggressive, "Well, here I am."

"So I see," replied Dick.

"You've been thinking it was cowardice that made me
go away.  But it wasn't.  And I've come to face it out
with you.  You had your chance for her.  You lost her.
I purpose to keep her."

"Very well," said Dick.  "She's free.  Her affairs are
none of my business."  And he sat down at the long table
under the windows, glanced at the electric furnace as if
about to resume work.

"But she isn't free!" cried Gallatin.  "You've not
freed her, though she has the right to it.  You're holding
on to her through the boy."

Dick bent over the white crystals in the platinum tray
on the shelf of the furnace.

Gallatin, exasperated, waved his fists.  "I demand that
you free her!  If she were free, she'd come with me, for
she loves me."

Dick took a metal rod from the case and began pushing
the crystals this way and that carefully.

"She loves me, I tell you!"

Without pausing or looking round Dick said: "If you
say that again—I'll begin to believe it isn't so.  There's
no accounting for tastes—especially for tastes feminine.
But—"  He did not finish; over his face drifted a slight
smile more eloquent against Basil's deficiencies than the
fiercest stream of epithet.

"I've won her," taunted Gallatin, in wild fury, yet as
if restrained by an invisible leash.  "I've got her heart.
You might as well release the rest."  As Dick seemed now
quite absorbed and unconscious of his presence, he advanced
still nearer.  "By God, you shall!" he cried.  "She
belongs to me, and I'm here to maintain my rights at any
cost."

Vaughan laid down the long rod with a gesture of deliberate
precision and care, turned slowly toward him.  His
long handsome face was of a curious transparent pallor.
His rather deep-set gray-blue eyes looked coldly and
cruelly at his one-time guest and partner.  "You evidently
don't understand," said he.  "There are times when
one must either ignore—or kill."

Basil sneered, "Well?" said he, with intent to draw on.

"I have been choosing to ignore.  At first it would
have given me the greatest pleasure to kill you.  Now—you
are to me much like the cur that barks and snaps at
passers by."  He rose.  "You've come here to try to make
a vulgar scandal.  You'll not succeed.  You have nothing
to lose.  I can't give you your deserts without hurting my
son.  So—"  Dick paused, seemed to be reflecting.

"You hide behind him—do you?" sneered Basil.  In
his frenzy he felt that one or the other must die then and
there or he himself would be forever dishonored.

Dick apparently had not heard.  In an abstracted way
he said, to himself, not to Gallatin, "Yes, I think that will
do."  Again there was a pause, he thinking, Gallatin held
silent and expectant by his expression.  Suddenly Dick said
sharply, "Yes—that will do."  He moved the ladder to
the south wall, mounted; he took from the high top shelf
a jar of heavy glass, about one third full of dark red
powder; he descended with it.  "Close that door and lock it,"
he ordered.

Basil, from habit of association with him as assistant,
moved to obey.  Hand on knob and about to swing the
door, he hesitated, turned.  "What are you going to do?"
he demanded.

"When you lock that door," replied Dick, "I shall
empty what's in this jar into the bowl of water there, and
in a few seconds we shall both be dead."

Basil shrank; a shudder ran visibly over his frame.

"I could kill you without killing myself," continued
Dick, "and cover the scandal with the pretense of accident.
It would serve you right, but—somehow it strikes me as
cowardly.  So—lock the door."

Basil was no coward; but he had grown yellow with
fear.  His hand now dropped nervously from the knob.

"Lock the door," said Dick sharply.  "There's no
time to lose.  I think she's on the way here."

"She'll understand—and kill herself."

"Why not?  Helen will take care of Winchie."

Basil's gaze wandered round, in search of another
excuse.  He braced himself, cried defiantly, "I refuse!"

"Very well."  Dick set the jar on the table.  "Then go."

"You think I'm a coward.  But it's not that."

Dick shrugged his shoulders.  "I know you're a coward.
Everyone is.  I'm as well pleased that you don't
accept.  I've no wish to die, particularly for such an
absurd, stagy notion of honor.  But I will not have a
scandal——"

Just there Courtney dashed in, her expression so disheveled
that it gave her the air of being disheveled in
dress.  Her glance darted from Richard leaning calmly
against the table and, in blouse and cap, looking like a
handsome workingman, to Basil in his fashionable English
tweeds, standing shamefaced and irresolute near the
door—so near that she had brushed him as she entered.  On
Basil her gaze rested like a withering blight.  Her eyes
flashed green fire; her every feature hurled at him the
scorn that despises.  "You shabby coward!" she said, her
voice low and threatening to break under the weight of its
burden of fury.  "You who come here and try to ruin
my child and me for your vanity!"

"Courtney!" he pleaded, not daring to lift his eyes.
"I love you.  I cannot give you up."

"Love!  You don't know what it means!  You weak
vain thing!  You found you couldn't have me on equal
terms.  So you thought you'd degrade me—compel me."  She
turned on Richard.  "And you, too!" she blazed.
"If you were a man you'd kill him—you'd kill us both—with
some of your chemicals there—and protect Winchie
by saying it was an accident."

"Absurd," said Vaughan with an indifferent shrug.  His
arms were folded upon his broad chest.

Trembling and blazing, she went up to him.  "Look at
me!" she cried, her hands on her surging bosom, her eyes
glittering insanely up at him.  Every instinct of prudence,
the instinct of self-preservation itself had succumbed under
the surge of elemental passion, of frenzied shame that she
should have lowered herself to such a man as this Basil
Gallatin.  "This body of mine," she said in a voice of
terrible calm, "it's been his—that thing's—do you hear?  He
has had me in his arms—me—your wife—the mother of
your boy—he—that creature quaking there.  And I have
kissed him and caressed him and trembled with passion
for him as I never did for you....  Now, will you kill us?"

He did not move.  But slowly the veins and muscles of
his face tightened, pushed up against, strained against the
ghastly whiteness of his skin.  And slowly his eyes lighted
with the fires of a demoniac fury that made hers seem like
a child's weak hysteria.  She gazed at him, fascinated.
Then, with a gasp, she braced herself and waited for the
frightful death that look of his signaled.  But she did not
flinch, nor shift her gaze from his.  To Gallatin, paralyzed,
watching them with eyes starting and lips ajar, it seemed
an eternity while they stood thus facing each other in
silence.  Then, as slowly as that expression on Richard's
face had come it departed, like a fiend fighting inch by
inch against being flung back into the hell from which it
had issued at the call of her dreadful taunts.  The face
remained deathly white; but those were Richard Vaughan's
own eyes that gazed down at the small, delicate face of the
woman, in them a look that filled her with awe, made her
ashamed, gave her the impulse to sink down at his feet
and burst into tears.

"No, Courtney," Richard said, infinite gentleness in his
tone.  "I'm neither god nor devil.  I—all three of us—will
do to-day what to-morrow we'll be glad we did.  One
can always die.  But living again, once one's dead—that's
not so simple."

There fell silence.  She stood before him, bosom still
heaving but eyes down.  Vaughan turned to Gallatin with
a courtly politeness like his grandfather's.  "Don't you
think you'd better go—for the present at least?"

Gallatin, who had been awed also, hesitated.  He looked
at Courtney; his jaws clenched and he fixed sullen,
devouring eyes on her.  "I want to talk to her alone," said
he aggressively.

"That's for her to decide," said Richard.

Courtney lifted her head to refuse.  Then it occurred
to her that, by talking with Basil, she might settle the
whole business for good and all.  With a curious deference
she looked inquiringly at Richard.  He shrugged his shoulders,
began pushing the tray into the furnace.  She let her
eyes rest on Basil, said "Yes—that's best.  Come on."  She
went out of the laboratory, Basil following her.  Richard
closed the door behind them.  At the edge of the clearing
she halted, wheeled upon him.  "Well!" she began,
her voice as merciless as her eyes.

He was a pitiful spectacle.  His feature were working
in a ferment of many unattractive emotions—jealousy,
pique, fear that he was ridiculous, wounded vanity, desire
to regain with her the ground he felt he must have lost.
"You see now, Courtney," he said, aggressive yet
pleading, too, "he doesn't care a rap about you."

"Well?" she repeated.  Her tone was much softer;
her nerves were calming, and her temper was yielding to
her sense of proportions.  Also, the man looked weak and
shallow and ridiculous—not worth the while of a great
emotion.  Just small.  "What of it?" she asked.

He scowled in angry embarrassment at her expression
which neither suggested nor encouraged tragedy.
"I never heard of people acting as we've acted to-day!"
he cried.

"But no doubt they often do," replied she.  "Everybody
doesn't act—all the time—as if he were in a novel
or a play, or thought he was."

"You can respect him after this?"

Her eyes had the expression a man least likes to see
in a woman's when she is looking at him.  "Don't you?"
said she.

He reddened, and his eyes shifted.  Presently he said
humbly, "I—I am sorry for what I did.  I was crazy with
jealousy.  I'm not myself—not at all."

She felt the truth of this at once.  "And I'm sorry for
the things I said to you and to him.  I was crazy with
rage."

He lifted his head eagerly.  "I knew you didn't mean
them, dear."

Her brow darkened.  It was annoying that the man
couldn't realize; for such as she now knew him to be to
aspire to her seemed impertinence.  "Basil," she said, "it's all
over between us.  Don't let your vanity deceive you.  And
don't force me to tell you what I think of you.  Be content
with knowing what I don't think."

"Be careful!" he cried angrily.  "I'm not the man
to stand and beg—even for you."

"That's good," said she pleasantly.  "Then—we can
part here and now."  She glanced up at the windows of
the apartment.  "You've got your traps up there still.
Hadn't you better let me send Jimmie to help you pack
them?"

"Thank you," replied he, haughtily.  "I'll be obliged
if you will."

She put out her hand.  "Good-by, Basil."

He clinched his fists in vanity's boyish anger.  "You
can think of that apartment, and have no feeling?" he
exclaimed.

"None," declared she.

"I'll not believe it.  You couldn't be so unwomanly."

Her look forecast a sarcasm.  But before she spoke it
changed to one that was soft and considerate.  She felt
that she was responsible.  True he had posed as something
far superior to his reality; but it was an honest
fraud, deceiving himself first and most of all.  She felt to
blame for having been taken in—felt repentant and
apologetic toward him.  "Let's not quarrel," she urged.  "Don't
be harsh with me.  I know you'll find love and make some
woman very, very happy—one that is sympathetic and
comes up to your ideals of womanhood."  She put out her
hand again, and friendly and winning was the smile round
her wide mouth, in the eyes under the long, slender brows.
"Please, Basil."  He hesitated.  "Don't be harsh.  You
know you don't love me any more than I love you.  What's
the use of pretenses?  Why not part sincerely? ... Please,
Basil."

His hand just touched hers and his angry eyes avoided
her pleading glance.  "If you'll send Jimmie," he said.
And with a stiff bow he moved in great dignity along the
path to the apartment entrance.  He went even more slowly
than dignity required, for he confidently expected she
would come to her senses when she saw he had indeed
reached the limit of endurance of her trifling.  Richard had
shown he wouldn't take her back—cared nothing for her.
Where then could she turn but to him?  And all that
vaporing about independence was—just vaporing.  A
woman was a woman, and he knew women.  So, he walked
slowly to give her a good chance.  But no call came—not
though he lingered over opening the door and made a long
pause elaborately to wipe his clean boots on the mat.  He
did not look until he could do so from the security of the
sitting-room windows.  She was not in sight.  Had she
followed him softly?  He went into the hall, glanced down
the stairs.  Not there!  She had gone! ... She meant
what she said; she had cast him off.  There was no room
for doubt—she had cast him off....  He heard a step,
rushed to the door.  It was Jimmie, come bringing his
overcoat and gloves, and prepared to do the packing.  She
had really cast him off.

"God!" he muttered.  "What a contemptible position
that puts me in!"  And, for the moment at least, he hated
her.  If he could only revenge himself—in some perfectly
gentlemanly way, of course.  Once that day vanity had
lured him clean over the line into most ungentlemanly
conduct; his face burned from the sting of her remembered
denunciations—the sting of truth in them.  If he could
devise a gentlemanly way—something that would convince
her he had made all that agitation simply because he
felt that, as a gentleman, he in the circumstances must
go to any lengths to keep faith with her.  Yes, that
would be a handsome revenge—and would save his face, too.

He gave Jimmie the necessary directions and resumed
his brooding.  He searched his brain in vain.  He could
contrive no way of escape; he would have to leave that
place like a whipped dog—yes, a whipped dog.  Spurned
by Vaughan—spurned by Courtney——

A step, and the rustle of a skirt.  His eyes gleamed.
"I thought not!" he muttered exultantly.  "Well, I'll
teach her a lesson she'll never forget."

He turned his back to the door, stood at the window,
looking out and puffing nonchalantly at his cigarette.  The
step, the rustle were on the threshold.  "I beg your
pardon, Mr. Gallatin——"

He wheeled to face Helen.  His confusion was equal to
hers.  "Ah—Miss Helen—I—I—" he stammered.

"Am I intruding?" she asked.  There was a charming
blush in her sweet, beautiful face, and her honest
dark eyes showed how perturbed she was.

"No indeed—no indeed," he protested.

"Courtney sent me——"

"Courtney sent you!" he exclaimed in amazement.

"She told me all about it," Helen hastened on.  "She
asked me to let you know that she had told me—how you
and Richard have had a bitter falling out over the
work—and that you're going away, not to come back."

One look into those eyes was convincing; Helen believed
what she was saying.

"She thought perhaps I might be able to help you about
the packing.  Can I?"

"No, but I'd be glad if you'd stop while Jimmie is
doing it.  I don't want to leave without saying good-by
to you."

All the roses fled from Helen's cheeks.  "Yes—certainly,"
she murmured.

"You'll excuse my being somewhat confused?  The
truth is I'm very much upset."

"I can't tell you how dreadfully I feel," said Helen.
"Are you sure you and Richard—"  She paused.  Her
glance stirred him like an angel face in a drunkard's
dream—her face earnest, grieved, sympathetic, unable
to credit anything so dreadful, so wicked as a parting in
hate.

"Quite sure.  It's—final.  Please, let's not talk about
it.  It's all so—so revolting."

In presence of those clear, noble eyes of hers, the
sordidness of his "romance" now once more began to stand
out.  What a mess!  No wonder he had taken to drink.  If
it had been Helen and the kind of love she inspired—  "But
you and I will always be friends—won't we?" he
said to her.

Her eyelids dropped and he saw her bosom fluttering.
"I hope so," she said so low he scarcely heard.  She was
pale now, and drooping.  "Though I'm afraid—when you
get away off there, you'll forget me very soon."

His heart smote him as he looked at that tall, voluptuous
figure, at that lovely face, so regular, so pure.  Here was a
woman, a real woman, and she would have loved him—perhaps
did love him.  "I know I'm unworthy of a thought
from you who are so good and pure," he said.  "But your
kindness to me has helped me.  And God knows, I shall
need help."  Oh, that it had been his lot to anchor to this
strong, white soul!  How much nobler than the finest
passion was a love centering about the sweet, old-fashioned
ideals.  What a haven those arms, that bosom would be!
He felt dissolute and sin-scarred as only a vain young man
can feel those dread but delightful depravities.

"You must not despair, Basil," came in Helen's soft
voice, like oil upon his wounds.  And it touched him to see
how, maidenly shy though she was, she yet could not resist
the appeal of this opportunity to try to do good.  She
went on, "It's always darkest before dawn, and the more
rain falls the less there is to fall."

These words seemed like heavenly wisdom delivered by
a messenger of light.  He sighed.

"You'll come out all right—and will escape from
that—that—whatever it is—"  Helen's cheeks modestly
colored—"and be happy with some *good* woman who is worthy
of you."

She looked so sad, so beautiful that before he knew it
he, ever sympathetic with women, had said, "Some woman
like you, Helen."

She turned away.  He saw that her emotions were
making her tremble.  How she loved him!  What a prize such
a love would be—and how chagrined Courtney would
feel—Courtney the vampire woman who had tried to destroy
him, and thought she had succeeded—and was gloating over
his misery.  "If we'd had the chance, Helen, how happy we
could have made each other!  But I mustn't talk of that."

"Why not?" said she, with bold shyness.  "I know
that for some reason we can never be anything more to
each other.  But it's been a happiness—" earnestly, with
tears in her eyes of the Homeric Juno and in her voice
young and honest and sympathetic—"a real happiness to
feel that the best of you—the part that's really you—found
something to like in me."

He thrilled.  Here was a woman!  And a woman who
appreciated him.  He wondered how he could have lingered
under a malign spell when such beauty of soul—and body,
too—was his for the asking.  "Helen!" he cried.  And
all his wounded heart's longing and all his wounded vanity's
suffering gave energy to his cry.  He took her hand; he
put his arm round her.  Her cheek touched his.  How cool
yet warm she was!  How lovely and sweet!  And the
unsullied, untouched down!  How fresh!  Except her male
relatives, no doubt no man but himself had ever kissed
her—  "Helen—Helen!  God forgive me, but I can't refuse this
moment of pure happiness."

She gently drew away.  "Oh, Basil," she sobbed.
"And I had said no man should ever kiss me until—  But
you—it seems different.  You are so noble—so pure
minded."  Her eyes gazed into his with a trustful
adoration that thrilled him.

"Helen—do you love me?" he cried.

Her honest eyes opened wider.  "Would I have let you
touch me if I didn't?"

"Yes—I know that!" he exclaimed.  "How pure you
are!  It's like heaven after hell."

She gazed on into his eyes.  A faint flush overspread
her pale cheeks.  She kissed him.  "I love you, Basil,"
she said, gravely.  Then all at once the color surged wave
on wave over her brow, her cheeks, her neck.  She hung
her head, slowly drew away from his detaining vibrating
arms.  There is a time for lighting a fire; there is a time
for leaving it to burn of itself.  Helen had by the guidance
of feminine instinct hit upon exactly the right instant for
drawing back.  She released herself, avoided his touch just
when passion having captured his imagination swept on
to the conquest of the flesh.  At the edges of her lowered
eyes appeared two tears to hang glistening in the lashes.
From her bosom rose a sigh, soft, suppressed but
heart-breaking.

The bright flame was leaping in his eyes.  "You noble,
splendid woman!" he cried, as his glance leaped from
charm to charm—from delicate, regular features to
sumptuous yet girlish figure.  "What a jewel—in what a
casket!  You appeal to the best there is in me—only to the
best.  If I become a man again, it will be through you."  And
sincerity rang in his voice; for, the fire of high
resolve to be a good man, to be worthy of this exalted
womanhood, was burning in his blood.  "Helen—will you help
me?  I've sinned—you never will know how dreadfully.
But I love you."

Her answer was a beautiful shaft of the love light from
her now wonderful eyes.

"Helen—will you marry me?"

From head to foot she trembled.  All her color fled,
leaving her face whiter than the milk-white skin of her
voluptuous neck and shoulders.  "I—love—you," she said
simply.

"Then you will?  Say you will, Helen.  I cannot trust
myself to go away without your strength to help me."

"I will, Basil."

There were tears in his eyes as in hers as he reverently
kissed her hands.  He had a sense of peace, of sin
forgiven, of joyous return to the fold of honor and
respectability.  And her heart was overflowing with love, with
gratitude to him and to God.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`XXX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XXX

.. vspace:: 2

Returning to the house after full two hours, she burst
excitedly in upon Courtney, who was at her easel in the
upstairs sitting room.  Courtney had by much experimenting
found that of her several possible indoor occupations
painting was far the best sedative for mind and nerves.  The
girl's face, exultant with pride, exalted with love, gave her
a shock; for, only complete triumph could have so roused
those regular, chastely cool features from their wonted
repose.  She had on impulse sent Helen to Basil in vague
hope that they, admirably suited because each needed just
what the other had to give, possibly might somehow get a
start in the direction of making a match of it.  She had the
most convincing of reasons for believing that the heart in
need of balm is the most susceptible to it.  But she did not
believe that Basil's heart was, at least latterly, involved;
and, as she had not a glimmer of a suspicion of his stolen
draughts of "moral tonic," she could not credit the story
so clearly written upon those radiant features.

"You don't mean you got him!" she exclaimed, laying
her brush on the rest and leaning back.  And in her
amazement and excitement over this sudden freakish prank of
fate, out of her mind flew all the wretched thoughts over
which she had been brooding—thoughts centering about her
own ugly part in that scene at the laboratory.

Helen, undisturbed by this frankness of woman to
woman friend, when there are no listeners, flung ecstatic
arms about her and kissed her on either cheek.  "I'm so
happy!" she cried.  "And I owe it all to you."

"Engaged?" inquired Courtney, the utter impossibility
of the thing down-facing the clear evidence of its actuality.

Helen held up her left hand, displaying the old-fashioned
diamond ring Basil had always worn on his little
finger.  "It was his mother's," she said, regarding it with
an expression in the big brown eyes that would have thrilled
him, had he seen.  It thrilled Courtney; and no further
proof of the absolute passing of Basil was needed than the
unalloyed pleasure Helen's happiness gave her.  "Engaged,"
said Helen, softly, dreamily.  "And the day set—the
second of June."

"Splendid!"  Helen, she felt, was secure; for, Basil
had the highest respect for his given word.

"And if you hadn't sent me down there, I do believe
it'd never have happened.  Just think!—though we've loved
each other practically from the first meeting.  He says it
was his feeling about me that started him to struggling
against that bad woman.  Do you remember——"

"Yes, I remember," said Courtney.  How dead it all
was!—dead with the death that leaves no scar upon the
heart, only a lesson in the memory.  How could it ever
have seemed living?—and immortal!

"Oh—of course you remember.  You knew about her."

"Not much about her," replied Courtney.  Pensively,
"Really, nothing at all."

"I'm sure I don't want to know anything.  The less a
good woman knows about evil, the better....  I think
recently he must have almost succeeded in breaking away;
for, to-day I'm sure he was hesitating at the parting of the
ways—whether to go back to her or not.  And my coming
there decided him.  Isn't it beautiful?"

"Like a fairy tale," said Courtney, taking up her brush
and eying critically the little landscape to which she was
giving the finishing touches.  "But, my dear, I don't think
you ought to tell me these things."

She felt selfish in saying this; Helen had inexperienced
youth's irresistible craving to confide, and was simply
bursting with simple and innocent vanity over having achieved
the double triumph of both spiritual and worldly
advantage.  But Helen was not to be suppressed or even
discouraged.  "Oh, yes," replied she.  "He asked me to tell you
we are engaged.  I think he knows you've heard about that
woman who was dragging him down, and thought you could
advise me whether he was a fit man for me to marry.  You
see he feels he's been very bad."

"Men always like to think that," said Courtney.  "But
as long as they think so, they're not.  No, he isn't bad, as
men go.  He wants to settle down.  And he will settle
down—with you."  She was looking at the landscape but
her quizzical eyes were seeing the pair of them a few years
hence, contentedly yawning at each other, leading the
conventional life of the well-to-do that swathes them body and
mind in soft, indolent fat.

Helen had only half listened to Courtney, as she cared
as little as the next woman about her lover's past, and knew
for herself that he was high-minded and of the noblest
instincts.  She halted her own and Courtney's musings with
an absent, "I feel that way about it, too."  She moved
nervously about the room, from time to time casting an
appealing glance at her absorbed friend.  Finally she burst
out desperately: "There's something I want your advice
about.  I don't know whether I've done right or not."

"Yes?" said Courtney, encouragingly.

"I hadn't told you but—the fact is—while I was on
that visit to Saint X, I—I became engaged to Will Arbuthnot."

Courtney looked laughingly at her over the suspended
brush.  "Oh, Helen—Helen!"

"But let me explain, dear," begged Helen, cheeks
scarlet and eyes down.  "When I went up there—and until
just a few minutes ago—I thought—"  Her faltering voice
died away altogether.

"Thought there was no hope of getting Basil," said
Courtney, with no censure, with only sympathy.  She
resumed touching up the picture to ease Helen's
embarrassment.  "Go on."

"I thought he was hopelessly in the power of that
bad woman.  So, I put my feeling for him out of my
heart....  I know you're laughing at me.  You're so
cynical, Courtney.  But a girl has got to do the best she
can.  And it's getting harder and harder for a poor girl
to marry—that is, to marry a man with anything.  And
brought up as I've been I have to have nice surroundings.
I want a good home—and—and—children—and they
must be educated properly—and able to keep their place
in our station of life."

"Certainly," reassured Courtney.  "You did the practical,
sensible thing."

"I know, what I did *seems* to bear out your ideas.
You're always teasing me about my ideals being mostly
pretense.  Well, perhaps they are.  It does look like
it—doesn't it?"

"Everybody's are," said Courtney, squinting at the
picture.  "Ideals are paste pearls.  One can wear much
bigger and finer ones than of the real—and nobody knows
they're paste—or need ever know if one's careful to avoid
their being tested.  I'm glad, dear, you weren't so foolish
as you always insisted you'd be."

Helen looked as if her soul were freed of a huge
weight.  "I will say, Courtney, that I'd never think of
confiding in any person who believes like me, while I
always feel safe in confiding in you."

"Thank you," said Courtney with genuine gratitude.
"You don't know what a flattering compliment that is....
So, you're engaged to Will Arbuthnot?"

"Yes—that is, up at Saint X Will asked me to marry
him.  He's a nice, clean, thoroughly good fellow.  And
when Basil went away I supposed he'd gone to that
bad——"

"I understand," interrupted Courtney.  "Never mind
about her."

"I felt I could grow to like Will, and I put Basil out
of my heart."  There she fluttered a guiltily uneasy glance
at Courtney.

"And now," teased Courtney, "you give the naughty
man the preference over the nice one."

"That's just it!" exclaimed Helen in triumph.  "Basil
needs me.  I did hesitate—at least, I tried to—until he
begged me to strengthen him by saying yes.  Then I felt
it was clearly my duty."  Helen took Courtney's amused
nod at her landscape as approval.  "And while I hated
to do a thing that in a way might seem deceitful—still,
Basil has such an exalted opinion of me—and
it helps him, to feel that way—and if he had found
out that I hadn't loved him all along—or if I'd asked
him to wait—I might have lost all chance to help him
to be the noble, good man—  *Don't* smile that way.
Courtney."

And Courtney instantly changed her smile to one of
tenderness.  "I know you're good and sweet, dear—and
beautifully sincere," said she, with perfect honesty; for,
experience had left in her little of the familiar
self-complacence that condemns human beings for human traits.
"Much too good for Basil."

"Of course," said Helen, beaming, "a woman who has
kept herself pure is superior to a man who has not been
clean and nice."

"Always make Basil feel that," advised Courtney.
"He's the kind of man that can behave only when he's on
his knees—and you're the kind of woman that prefers
worship to love....  I suppose you'll live in the East."

"In New York, I think," replied Helen, reflectively.
"He talks of the country.  But I've had enough of that.
I'm sure he'd be better contented in a city."

Courtney laughed gayly.  "What a dear you are!" she
exclaimed, looking at her friend tenderly.  "And so
absolutely unconscious of it."

Helen returned her gaze in unaffected surprise.  "I
don't know what you mean.  Why do you laugh?"

"Nothing."  Courtney was painting again.  "What
are you going to do about Will Arbuthnot?"

"Why, be perfectly honest with him," cried Helen, injured
and reproachful.  "I simply couldn't be deceitful."

"Tell him you've found you can make a better match?
Oh, you mustn't do that."

"I should think not!" exclaimed Helen, horrified.
"That wouldn't be the truth.  No, I'll tell him I find
I don't love him as a woman should love the man she's to
give herself to.  You know I've got the old-fashioned
ideals—that is, ideas—of the sacredness of womanhood.  He'll
understand."

"Yes," said Courtney gravely, though her eyes were
dancing, "he'll have a deeper reverence for true
womanhood....  Well, the men deserve it.  They're responsible
for our not daring to be our natural human selves."

"But I *am* natural, dear," remonstrated Helen warmly.

Courtney was busily trying for a shade of brown on her
palette.  "You're sure Basil won't hear of your other
engagement?  Remember, he knows several Saint X people."

"I made an agreement with Will that we'd keep it a
secret until we got ready to marry."  Courtney laughed
again; it was so obvious what lingering longing and hope
had prompted this precaution.  "What *are* you laughing at
*now*?" asked Helen.

"I wouldn't spoil your innocence by telling you,"
replied Courtney.  And she rose and, palette in one hand,
brush in the other, kissed her affectionately.  "I'm glad
you're happy—and I'm sure you'll always be happy."

"Indeed I shall.  And he'll be happy too.  As he
said, he's lived in an atmosphere of deceit and falsehood,
and he needs to be lifted up into purity and love
and—and—all that makes a good home and life on a high
plane."

Courtney was smiling strangely into her color box.
"You'll be married in Saint X at Mrs. Torrey's, I suppose?"

Helen began her answer in a place so remote that
Courtney, used as she was to the complexities of feminine
thought, was completely baffled.  Said Helen: "Will
Cousin Richard think me disloyal, marrying a man he's at
outs with?"

Courtney reflected.  "I don't know what he'll think."
she said.  "But you've got to consider yourself first—and
Basil."

"Yes, certainly—"  Again Helen was only half listening.
"About the wedding," she presently said.  "I was
thinking it out, while Basil and I were talking——"

"Helen—Helen!"  And the small head with its
auburn crown shook in mock disapproval.  "Not while he
was making his first love to you?"

Helen reddened.  "I had to think about things.  You
know, a woman can't afford to let herself loose like a man.
And I decided it'd be best for us not to announce the
engagement, but just to marry.  And not at Saint X.  I'll
go up to Aunt Lida's in Laporte.  What is it, dear?  Why
do you look so queer?"

"Nothing—nothing."  Courtney had no desire—indeed,
what would have been the use?—to tell her thoughts as
she viewed the swamp of deceit and double dealing into
which Helen and Basil were dragging each other in pursuit
of those will-o'-the-wisp ideals.  Ideals!  But Courtney's
lip did not curl in scorn as it would have curled a few
months before.  She had learned that supreme lesson of
tolerance—even when you are sure you are right, not to
fancy that what is right for you is right for anyone else.

"No," Helen was saying, "I'll not tell Richard.  It
would annoy him and do no good.  Oh, I ought to be
ashamed of myself, to be so happy when you are unhappy."

"I—unhappy?"

"I know you conceal it, dear.  You're brave and self-reliant.
But—  Isn't there *anything* I could do to bring
you and Dick together again?  You're a woman, dear.
You simply have to be taken care of, and——"

"Don't shadow your romance with worry about me,"
said Courtney nervously.  She was all confusion and
restlessness.

"But I can't help it," pleaded Helen.  "I know Richard
was neglectful.  And he's not an attractive man to a
woman, as Basil is—isn't livable and lovable like Basil——"

Helen went on and on contrasting the two men, to
Richard's disadvantage at every point.  In former days
she had been too much "afraid Richard'll find out how
foolish I am and how little I know" to get in the least
acquainted with him; since the divorce they had talked only
constrained commonplaces, when she took Winchie to him.
Thus, the comparison was grotesque distortion of Richard.
But Courtney was not tempted to try to set her right.
Helen, of small mentality and in love with Basil, would
not appreciate, would not be convinced, would simply be
irritated—would probably misunderstand and be encouraged
to pursue her absurd scheme for bringing them together.
But parallel with Helen's talk there was in Courtney's
mind a juster contrasting of the two men—the one
strong, the other weak; the one real, the other idealist;
the one simple, the other a *poseur*; the one intelligent,
the other merely conceited; the one master of his emotions,
the other their slave; the one an original, the other a
pattern, an identical sample of thousands turned out by the
"best families" and the "best colleges" and the "best
society."  And then it came to her why she had estimated
Basil quickly and accurately, once she began it—that it
was because in Richard she for the first time had a measure
to do her measuring with.  The mists of his abstraction
had completely hid his personality from her, as from
everybody.  Those mists had blown away in the cyclone of
the disruption of their marriage, and he had stood revealed—and
Basil also—Basil, the dwarf beside the giant.  She
could see how the lesser man had made what was, in the
circumstances, irresistible appeal to the imperious craving
that must be satisfied before the need of heart for
sympathy and of mind for comradeship could gain a hearing,
the craving that in gaining its ends will compel the
imagination to play any necessary sorry trick upon the
intelligence.  She could see this; and she could also see how sorry
the trick upon intelligence had been—how absurd was her
dream of founding a life-long content and happiness upon
what Basil could give her and she Basil.

"I'm sure," Helen was saying, "with a little management
you could get Richard back."

These words fell upon Courtney's ears just as into her
mind again came that scene between her and Richard at
the laboratory—the childish, the coarse taunts she had
hurled at him, and how he had met them.  She was hot
with the shame of it when Helen spoke.  The suggestion
that Richard could be got back overwhelmed her with a
crushing, stinging sense of how in contempt he must hold
her now.  The red of her skin flamed up into scarlet.
"Don't speak of those things," she commanded harshly.
Then, instantly ashamed of this misdirected outburst of
temper, she put on her most careless, frivolous air—put it
on well enough to deceive Helen.  "Let's talk trousseau,"
said she.  "You haven't much time, you know.  June's
very near."

But Helen was too curious about the trouble that had
so abruptly changed a friendship into hatred.  "It must
have been exciting—that quarrel between them," she hinted
encouragingly.  "You were there, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"Tell me, Courtney."

"It cured my cold," said Courtney.  "I'd been feeling
queer in the nose and eyes——"

"How *can* you be so light!" exclaimed Helen.  "Well—let's
talk trousseau."  She felt that she had done her
duty, that it was a waste of time to try to induce Courtney
to be serious—  "She *never* will have any sense of
responsibility—or of the graver side of life."  And with a clear
conscience she took up trousseau and thought and talked
dress steadily the rest of the afternoon, straight through
until the supper gong sounded.  And she asked so many
questions, so much minute advice about every little detail
that Courtney's attention could not wander.

.. vspace:: 2

At supper Courtney got a real pleasure from Helen's
rapt, tenderly smiling countenance—they could not talk
before Lizzie as the engagement was to be kept secret.
Also, she got pleasure mingled with amusement out of
Helen's delightful swift assumption of the ways of a
married woman, and out of her immense satisfaction—as shown
in a certain sweet and loving condescension to Courtney—over
Basil's superiority as a catch.  Helen was in fancy
already married and installed in grandeur.  But after
supper, when Helen went up to write her first love
letter—(those to Will Arbuthnot didn't count)—Courtney made
no attempt to save herself from the attack of the blues that
had been threatening ever since she calmed sufficiently to
recall what she had said to Dick at the laboratory.  She
sat at the piano playing softly.  Helen's face was haunting
her—that expression telling of dreams she understood so
well—so well!  Would Helen's dream fade too?
Probably—yes, certainly—for, the Helen sort of woman soon
discouraged love in a man, and the Basil sort of man
looked askance at love as tainted of that devil whom no
one believed in any more yet everyone feared.
Fade—wither—die.  And she herself—would she seek on and on,
deceived always by hopes and longings—as she had been
twice already—the second time worse deceived than the
first——

Into her thoughts came an image of Richard.  The
image grew stronger.  Very gradually she realized that
he was actually before her, was the tall figure in the
doorway of the sitting room——

"I didn't dare interrupt," he said.  "It would have
been like disturbing a funeral."

"Not quite so bad as that," replied she with an attempt
to smile.  Though her rose-bronze coloring enabled
her to blush deeply without detection, had the corner where
she was sitting been less dim he must have seen into what
shamefaced confusion his coming threw her.

She went on playing; he seated himself at some distance
from her to gaze into the fire and smoke.  She was on the
grill of humiliating thoughts about herself—what she had
said and done that afternoon.  She did not lift her eyes
until she had made sure by several furtive glances that
she could look at him in safety.  She watched him—the
cigarette gracefully between the long first and second
fingers of his hand of the aristocrat and the artist—the
poise of his curiously long head so well proportioned—the
long, sensitive, mobile features—that indescribable look
which proclaims at a glance the man of high intelligence—the
man of the finely organized nervous system.  Then
she observed that he was in evening half dress—one more
reason for his looking unusually handsome and
distinguished.  But all the time she was seeing those two
expressions which had transformed him that afternoon—had
transformed him and had made her feel mean and poor
beside him.  A man who could be such a wild hot blast
of primeval passion; the man who could be stronger
than passion, even such passion—there was indeed a man!
And what must he think of her!  "But no worse than I
deserve."

To break the current of her own thoughts, she interrupted
his with a trivial "You are dressed this evening."

"Because I've come to call," he replied, rousing himself
from his reverie.

"I'll tell Helen."

"I want to talk to you—if you'll listen."  She stopped
the soft wandering of her fingers over the keys.  "No, go
on playing, please."

She resumed.  Now her eyes were on the keyboard,
and she was having no easy task of it finding the right
keys and striking the right chords, all the time conscious
of his steady penetrating gaze.  "It's nearing the time
you fixed for going East," he began.

She nodded slowly in time to the music.  He was so
seated that the piano prevented his seeing any of her but
her bare shoulders and graceful head with its masses of
auburn hair, against a background of palms and ferns.
"I'm glad the spring is so backward this year," she said;
for, she had learned not to fear his misunderstanding, if
she spoke out her thoughts.  "If it were really spring with
the grounds all in bloom and the windows wide—  It makes
me sad to think of that."

She had thought she might perhaps soften his contempt
by reminding him that there was another and a less repellant
side to her character.  But as soon as the words were
out, she wished she had not spoken; it was useless to try
to make him think well of her.  He was probably regretting
that he had let her have Winchie.  She looked
appealingly toward him, hoping he would speak—say
anything—no matter what, so long as it broke that silence
of painful suspense.  When she could endure it no
longer, she suddenly burst out: "You've come to ask me
to leave at once.  You are right, I'll go as soon as I
can pack."

"On the contrary," said he, eyes still intent upon the
tall shafts of flame leaping toward the cavernous blackness
of the chimney.  "I've come to ask you not to go at all."

His tone was calm and self-controlled.  It contained no
suggestion of ominous meaning; nor did his face.

"I—I don't understand," she ventured, nervously.

"I want to propose," explained he, in the same
deliberate way, "that we give each other another trial."

There was no mistaking his meaning.  In the sudden
reversal from all she had been expecting and fearing, her
thoughts became mere chaos.  Hands resting upon the keys,
she sat silent, rigid—waiting.

He turned his chair, leaned toward her, his elbows on
his knees.  "Is the idea—is it—distasteful to you?" he
asked.

Carefully, with her tapering fingers she measured
chords without striking them.  "Not *distasteful*," said she.

"You do not dislike me—now?"

"I never have, except for a few minutes now and then—when
you said or did tyrannical things."  Painfully embarrassed,
she was trying to regain control of herself under
cover of arranging the chiffon round the edge of the bosom
of her dress.

"Courtney, I'm a different man from what I was."

"Yes," she assented, without reserve.  "Very
different.  But——"

"Don't, please," he said, before she could begin to
explain.  "When you've heard my reasons for asking you
to stay, you may think well of them.  If not, why you
at least can refuse more intelligently.  This afternoon,
when Gallatin was down at the laboratory making an ass
of himself, you whirled upon me with some very vivid
reminders of what you had been to him."

"I was insane with rage—not that it wasn't all
true—only—I—it was—"  She hung her head—"Oh, I'm so
ashamed!—so ashamed!" she cried.

"I'm glad you did," interrupted he, heartily.  "You
thought to infuriate me.  And you did, for a moment.
Then—I was astonished to find myself quite calm.  Do
you know why?"

"Yes.  Because you care nothing about me."

"Because I care nothing about him.  Because I know
you've ceased to think you care about him—care, you never
did.  Since I've come to my senses, I've been getting
acquainted with you.  And I know you do not and never did
and never could love Basil Gallatin.  That is, the woman
you are now—the only one that interests either of us—never
did and never could."

The deep green eyes glanced gratefully toward him.
"That's true."

"It was simply what you and I went through with
when we first met—and became engaged—and got married."

"Yes," said she.  "Much the same.  But—"  Her eyes
met his fully.  "It wouldn't be honest if I didn't say too
that I do not regret—about him.  I suppose there's
something wrong with me, but somehow I don't seem able to
regret anything I do—even the things I'm ashamed of—like
what I said this afternoon.  It all seems part of
experience.  It seems necessary.  That experience with
him—it helped me toward learning to live."

She expected that he would be offended by her frankness.
But he was not.  "It helped you toward learning
to live," he assented, like one stating an indisputable truth.
"And it helped me.  No, more than that.  It *taught* me....
I wish the lesson could have been got in some—some
other way.  Perhaps you do, too."  She nodded, gazing
thoughtfully across the piano into the fire.  "But," he
went on, "fate doesn't let us choose our way—or, perhaps,
there's no nice, refined way of getting one's full
growth, any more than there is for a tree.  It's simply got
to stand outdoors in all weathers, and learn to survive and
grow strong, no matter what comes."

"And the things that seem to hinder, often help
most—and those that look like helps are enemies."

She saw his understanding, appreciative look, though
her eyes were gazing past him; and she liked it.  "We've
both learned," said he.  "And we've both been put in the
way of learning more.  Now why shouldn't you and I use
our experience to the best advantage?"

"I intend to try," said she.

"Then it's simply a question of what is the best
advantage.  Isn't it for us both to stay on here?"

"I don't think so," was her slow reply.  "Not for
either of us."

"But you'll listen to my reasons?  Really listen, I
mean.  You know, you caught my bad habit of not listening."

"Yes," she said with a forced, uneasy smile.  "I'll
listen."

"Well—first, there's this place.  You like it, don't you?
You must, since you made it.  I've found that out, too."

"I love it," she answered.  "But—"  She shook her head.

"Now, do try to be patient with me.  You must consider
all three of my reasons together.  That was only number
one.  Number two is Winchie."

She searched his face with swift terrified eyes.
He smiled a frank and winning reassurance that instantly
convinced her.  "Please put that kind of thoughts
about me out of your mind forever," he urged.  "I've
learned my lesson—that the beginning of fear is the end
of trust.  The boy's yours.  You've got the right to him;
he's got the right to you.  Even if I could do for him, it'd
be my duty—  But I didn't come here this evening to talk
about duty.  That's a rotten hypocrisy."

"Is this Richard Vaughan?" she cried laughingly.

"The same—minus his grandfather," replied he, eyes
and voice echoing her laugh.  "No more duty for me.
When anybody talks about doing his duty, he'd better be
watched.  If he boasts of having done his duty he'd better
be locked up while they find out what mischief he's been
at.  No, I'm out for honest, selfish inclination only.  That
brings me to my third reason.  I want you to stay.  But—for
very selfish sensible reasons I want you to want to stay.
I've gotten acquainted with you.  I need you.  There's
nobody who could take your place."

She smiled at what seemed to her the extravagant
kindness of this.

"I mean just that," he went on.  It wasn't the words
he was saying; it never is a matter of words.  It was the
way he said it—the force behind the words, like the force
behind the projectile.  "I need you.  Don't you think
you could learn to need me?  A man needs a woman.  A
woman needs a man.  We've never given each other a fair
trial.  Why shouldn't we?  Now that you've taught me,
I don't want you to abandon me.  And why should you
begin all over again with another man?"

She sat motionless, hardly breathing, it seemed, from
the stillness of her bosom.  He waited long but no answer
came.  He went to the big old-fashioned chimneypiece,
stood with his back to the logs; a look of somberness came
into his face.  "Well," he said, "I've said my say."  There
was silence in the room.  He drew a long breath.  "What
do you think?"

She lifted her head.  With flushed face and reproachful,
almost resentful eyes she cried: "You've no right to come
at me that way.  You make it hard for me to do as I wish."

"You wish to go?  Then it's settled."  He turned his
face to the fire, and she could not see it.  "We'll not
speak of this again."  His voice seemed natural; but there
must have been some subtle quality in it that set her nerves
to vibrating.

"And you," she cried, "are thinking 'How mean and
ungrateful she is—after my generosity to refuse to——'"

"Not so!" he protested sharply, wheeling round.
"I've not been generous.  When I told you the fault was
chiefly mine, I meant it."

"When a man treats a woman as if she were a human
being, it's generosity, as the world goes," insisted she.  And
then the words began to pour from her as if they had
suddenly found an outlet.  "You make me feel small and
mean in refusing.  Oh, I'm grateful for the way you've
treated me—but I hate myself for being grateful—and I'm
ashamed that it is hateful.  But I can't be different.
Your generosity—your forgiveness hurt my pride.  They
make me feel I'm your inferior—and I am.  But I mustn't
stay where I'd feel humble.  You make me ashamed to go,
but I know I've the right to go—and that I ought to go.
I must!"

"Then—you are going," was his unhesitating reply.
"I don't want you to stay.  I see you don't believe
me—don't understand me—and no wonder.  It'd be useless to
try again, unless we were both determined with all our
hearts to make a success if success was at all possible."

"And it couldn't be a success," said she, a touching
melancholy in her voice, in her deep, mysterious eyes.
"For, a man doesn't want an equal woman but a dependent—wants
his woman to be like his dog.  Oh, what a world
it is!—where everybody cants about self-respect, and
everybody prefers cringers to friends, fear to love!"

"Not I," said Vaughan, in the quiet forceful manner
that fitted so well his air of reserve power, of strength
without strenuosity.  "And that's why I want you.  Courtney,
don't you see that you're free and independent here, now?
Don't you see it'd be a waste of time, a waste of energy,
for you to go away?  You may not need me, but I need
you—in every way.  You can get along without me.  But
how can I get along without you?  Where would I find a
woman who could take your place?"

Her bosom was rising and falling stormily.  Her eyes
wandered, as if she were desperately seeking a way of
escape and had scant hope of finding it.

"Can't you give 'us' another trial?" he asked, with
proud humility.

"I cannot," she cried, starting up in her agitation.  "I
cannot!  I must go.  There's everything here but the one
thing I must have—what you never could give me, after all
that's happened—and then, there's what I said to you this
afternoon.  We never could look at each other without my
feeling that you—  Oh, let's not talk about it.  I must
go—I must!  I cannot live without love—equal love.  I must
seek until I find it—find some one who needs me—all of
me—all I have to give—and must give."

He left the hearth and faced her with the length of
the piano between them.  "Could you love me?" he asked.

His voice set to vibrating nerves she had thought would
never again respond to him.  She trembled, and her eyes
sank.  "Even if I could—you couldn't love me.  You could
forgive—could be generous and kind.  But you couldn't
love."

"But I do love you," he said.  And she, looking at him
in wonder, thought there had never shone eyes so near to
being the very soul itself.  "I began to love you when you
sent Gallatin away and faced me alone and did not lie.  I
came back because—  You were like the air to me, Courtney.
One isn't conscious of the air unless he hasn't it, and
can't breathe.  I've loved you more and more, day by day,
ever since.  And I shall love you more and more—need
you more and more—every day until I die.  Courtney—can't
you forgive me?  I am sorry for what I did—and—I
love you."

She sank upon the piano seat, flung her slim white arms
along the keyboard, buried her face in them.  "I've found
it!" she sobbed.  "I've found it!"


Several discoveries in chemistry give Richard Vaughan
fame, and Courtney shares it.  But they value it all at
nothing beside the discovery which gives them happiness:
That the wise make of their mistakes a ladder, the foolish
a grave.

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   THE END

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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   OTHER BOOKS BY

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   DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS

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Mr. Phillips does not follow the usual fashion in
novels.  He has a fashion of his own.  His readers
are now numbered by the scores of thousands.  In at
least one of our cities, at the public library where they
take ten copies of each of Mr. Phillips's new books, there
is usually a waiting-list *five to seven months* long for a
chance at it, which shows one of two things, or perhaps
both: to how much trouble some people will go to save
the trifling expenditure of the price of a book, or how
extremely popular Mr. Phillips is—so popular that he
has a multitude of eager readers among those who
cannot afford to buy books.

It is no small triumph to win all kinds of readers, as
Mr. Phillips has.  The reason he has achieved it is
because he writes about life as we live it ourselves, in our
hearts and in our homes and in our dealings with each
other—the familiar yet startling and always fascinating
truth about life.

Mr. Phillips is an Indiana man in the early forties.
He graduated from De Pauw University and then from
Princeton.  He has had a career giving him unusual
opportunities to observe the life of all kinds of people,
high and low, rich and poor, town and country, here and
abroad.  As he watched the struggle of humanity to
live—the concealment and subterfuge, the extraordinary
mixture of good and bad in everyone—all the conflict in
the jungle which we call life impressed itself on him, and
he gradually found that fiction—the novel—was
presenting to him the best medium for him to express to
everyone what he had found in his work so far.  The
result has been that in the last few years Mr. Phillips
has gathered together an audience of thousands, who
watch each book as it appears.  It is interesting to see
what he has produced.

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   Mr. Phillips's novel just preceding the present work is

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   The Fashionable Adventures of

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   JOSHUA CRAIG

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Concerning this story, the London *Times* said:
"Until the modern Balzac actually arrives, perhaps
Mr. David Graham Phillips may be permitted to fill the
gap"; and of the hero it said: "Joshua Craig, a
Lincoln adapted for the use of latter-day Americans."

It is the story of a strong, virile personality set
among the frothy superficialities of society life in
Washington.  Joshua Craig, a young Western lawyer, is
striving to make a name for himself in national politics,
and carries everything before him by his cyclonic
forcefulness.  In spite of his bourgeois birth, he tears down
the barriers of society, and his utter disregard of
conventionalities makes him the sensation of the season.  And
yet, for all his frank contempt of the methods of
Aristocracy, their plots and littleness, he finds among them
one "woman," Margaret Severance.  He lays siege to
her with all his impulsiveness and the assurance of
success, and makes her own honest self do battle with the
scheming smallnesses of her aristocratic bringing up.
He carries her away with a masterfulness that is
characteristic of him, and marries her before she can get her
breath.  Big and rough and crude, repelling and yet
compelling, he fights for the supremacy of his
fundamental ideas, and step by step the "lady" in her gives
way to the "woman," always struggling, always battling.
She finally yields to his will—to become the
quiescent wife of a candidate for governor.

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   Just preceding this book, Mr. Phillips published

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   OLD WIVES FOR NEW

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Many, many critics have called this novel immoral and
gross.  It is not so.  It tells the naked truth—not
brutally, but frankly.  It is not romance.  It is real life.  It
deals with a wife who cannot keep pace with her
husband, and who becomes slothful and unclean and
low-minded because she does not realize that to live and move
forward she must keep herself physically and mentally
clean and fresh.  It is the truth.  It hits many a woman
to-day hard.  Women do not like this truth.  It bites too
deep and so they called it disgusting and immoral.
And yet more than 200,000 people have read it.  Of this
novel it is said: "If the husband reads it he gives it to
his wife.  If the wife reads it first, she is very likely to
hide it from her husband."  A woman said of it:
"While I was reading it, I stopped one night just after
the train wreck.  It was so vivid that as I took up my
morning paper, the next day, I glanced at the head-lines
for news of Murdock's condition, and to find whether the
scandal had come out."  "Old Wives for New" is a
picture of married life—when the blinds are drawn and the
servants out of the way, and the husband and wife
become their real selves.  The *St. Paul Pioneer Press* says:
"It contains things about women that have never seen
the light of day before."  It might have added: and
things about men also.  The book teems with good
characters, each with a haunting resemblance to ourselves.
There are women of respectability and women of the
other world, wise men and fools, people that are more
good than bad, people that are more bad than good, but
nobody that is unhuman enough to be either all good or
all bad.  The keynote is that of a good story which
searches for the truth.

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   Another of the remarkable novels is

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   THE SECOND GENERATION

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It has been called a problem novel.  But it is so only
in the sense that every story that lives and breathes and
is clothed in flesh and blood presents a problem.  You
will read this book without laying it down, if you can.
And afterward you will think about it for many a day.
You will laugh; you will come very near to crying, if
you don't quite cry.  You will love old Hiram Ranger
and Ellen, his wife.  You will envy Dory Hargrave his
fascinating Adelaide.  You will laugh over the soulful
Janet, and will sympathize with Arthur Ranger.  And
as for Madelene—well, you will certainly find her
thrilling!  And the adventures of all these people will keep
you intensely interested.  Doctor Schulze must not go
without a mention.  He is as amusing here as when he
appears again in "Old Wives for New," and his advice
on medicine and other things may save you some bad
health and a deal of money.  As its title suggests, the
story is a picture of our American life that may be found
in any city or any town the country over—the story of
the strong, hard-working father, who carved his way
through life; and then the story of the next generation—the
son and daughter who had apparently no fight to make.

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   The fourth novel is

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   LIGHT-FINGERED GENTRY

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Here is another novel of present-day life, and at
present as true, as interesting, from the romantic point of
view, as either of the other two.  When it was appearing
serially, one of the foremost men in America became
so excitedly interested that he asked, and as a special
favor got, an advance set of the proofs of the whole
story.  He couldn't wait to find out what was going to
happen about Neva Carlin and her divorced husband,
Horace Armstrong; about the handsome, rakish great
artist, Boris; about sensible Narcisse, the architect, and
her nice weak brother; and the pert, pretty heiress, Amy
Fosdick.  As in Mr. Phillips's other novels, here we have
again those startling, intimate views of men and women.
Much more interesting, much more amusing is this sort
of thing than the slush you so often take into your
system with a box of chocolates, to the detriment of your
brain as well as of your stomach.  It may be said right
here that if you are weak or without ambition, or if you
have no desire to be a clean, clean-cut, up-to-date,
attractive human being, "in the know," you had better not
read Mr. Phillips's novels.  His pictures of people are
too true to make people of the running-to-seed sort
comfortable.  The story gives again a true, unvarnished
picture of the situation as it has and does exist among
the great and unprincipled financiers of this country.  It
tells in straightforward, direct language of the sacrifice
of friendships and family ties for the advancement of
moneyed interest and the pursuit of power, while all
through the story runs the influence of a woman toward
human and sane living and thinking.

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   A year ago Mr. Phillips published a play called

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   THE WORTH OF A WOMAN

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This little volume illustrates the possibility of making
an actual acting play that is also interesting to read.
It is a remarkable love story—very "daring," as the
critics say when they are afraid to say "literally
true."  If you read this play, you will go about posing its
central idea—the dilemma of Diana and her lover—to all
your friends, and arguing over whether Diana or Julian
was right—or both, or neither.

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   THE WORKS OF DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS

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The Hungry Heart
The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig
Old Wives for New
Light-fingered Gentry
The Second Generation
The Worth of a Woman
The Deluge
The Social Secretary
The Plum Tree
The Cost
The Master Rogue
Golden Fleece
A Woman Ventures
The Great God Success

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