CHAPTER I

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THE "GENIUS"

BY THEODORE DREISER

SISTER CARRIE

JENNIE GERHARDT

A TRAVELER AT FORTY

******

A TRILOGY OF DESIRE

1. THE FINANCIER

2. THE TITAN

3. * * * * * * * *

THE

"GENIUS"

BY

THEODORE DREISER

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD

TORONTO: S. B. GUNDY MCMXV

1915.

By JOHN LANE COMPANY

Press of

J. J. Little & Ives Company

New York, U. S. A.

"Eugene Witla, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live

together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt

thou love her, comfort her, honour her, and keep her in sickness and in

health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye

both shall live?"

"I will."

BOOK I

------

YOUTH

THE "GENIUS"

CHAPTER I

This story has its beginnings in the town of Alexandria, Illinois,

between 1884 and 1889, at the time when the place had a population of

somewhere near ten thousand. There was about it just enough of the air

of a city to relieve it of the sense of rural life. It had one

street-car line, a theatre,--or rather, an opera house, so-called (why

no one might say, for no opera was ever performed there)--two railroads,

with their stations, and a business district, composed of four brisk

sides to a public square. In the square were the county court-house and

four newspapers. These two morning and two evening papers made the

population fairly aware of the fact that life was full of issues, local

and national, and that there were many interesting and varied things to

do. On the edge of town, several lakes and a pretty stream--perhaps

Alexandria's most pleasant feature--gave it an atmosphere not unakin to

that of a moderate-priced summer resort. Architecturally the town was

not new. It was mostly built of wood, as all American towns were at this

time, but laid out prettily in some sections, with houses that sat back

in great yards, far from the streets, with flower beds, brick walks, and

green trees as concomitants of a comfortable home life. Alexandria was a

city of young Americans. Its spirit was young. Life was all before

almost everybody. It was really good to be alive.

In one part of this city there lived a family which in its character and

composition might well have been considered typically American and

middle western. It was not by any means poor--or, at least, did not

consider itself so; it was in no sense rich. Thomas Jefferson Witla, the

father, was a sewing machine agent with the general agency in that

county of one of the best known and best selling machines made. From

each twenty, thirty-five or sixty-dollar machine which he sold, he took

a profit of thirty-five per cent. The sale of machines was not great,

but it was enough to yield him nearly two thousand dollars a year; and

on that he had managed to buy a house and lot, to furnish it

comfortably, to send his children to school, and to maintain a local

store on the public square where the latest styles of machines were

displayed. He also took old machines of other makes in exchange,

allowing ten to fifteen dollars on the purchase price of a new machine.

He also repaired machines,--and with that peculiar energy of the

American mind, he tried to do a little insurance business in addition.

His first idea was that his son, Eugene Tennyson Witla, might take

charge of this latter work, once he became old enough and the insurance

trade had developed sufficiently. He did not know what his son might

turn out to be, but it was always well to have an anchor to windward.

He was a quick, wiry, active man of no great stature, sandy-haired, with

blue eyes with noticeable eye-brows, an eagle nose, and a rather radiant

and ingratiating smile. Service as a canvassing salesman, endeavoring to

persuade recalcitrant wives and indifferent or conservative husbands to

realize that they really needed a new machine in their home, had taught

him caution, tact, savoir faire. He knew how to approach people

pleasantly. His wife thought too much so.

Certainly he was honest, hard working, and thrifty. They had been

waiting a long time for the day when they could say they owned their own

home and had a little something laid away for emergencies. That day had

come, and life was not half bad. Their house was neat,--white with green

shutters, surrounded by a yard with well kept flower beds, a smooth

lawn, and some few shapely and broad spreading trees. There was a front

porch with rockers, a swing under one tree, a hammock under another, a

buggy and several canvassing wagons in a nearby stable. Witla liked

dogs, so there were two collies. Mrs. Witla liked live things, so there

were a canary bird, a cat, some chickens, and a bird house set aloft on

a pole where a few blue-birds made their home. It was a nice little

place, and Mr. and Mrs. Witla were rather proud of it.

Miriam Witla was a good wife to her husband. A daughter of a hay and

grain dealer in Wooster, a small town near Alexandria in McLean County,

she had never been farther out into the world than Springfield and

Chicago. She had gone to Springfield as a very young girl, to see

Lincoln buried, and once with her husband she had gone to the state fair

or exposition which was held annually in those days on the lake front in

Chicago. She was well preserved, good looking, poetic under a marked

outward reserve. It was she who had insisted upon naming her only son

Eugene Tennyson, a tribute at once to a brother Eugene, and to the

celebrated romanticist of verse, because she had been so impressed with

his "Idylls of the King."

Eugene Tennyson seemed rather strong to Witla pere, as the name of a

middle-western American boy, but he loved his wife and gave her her way

in most things. He rather liked the names of Sylvia and Myrtle with

which she had christened the two girls. All three of the children were

good looking,--Sylvia, a girl of twenty-one, with black hair, dark eyes,

full blown like a rose, healthy, active, smiling. Myrtle was of a less

vigorous constitution, small, pale, shy, but intensely sweet--like the

flower she was named after, her mother said. She was inclined to be

studious and reflective, to read verse and dream. The young bloods of

the high school were all crazy to talk to Myrtle and to walk with her,

but they could find no words. And she herself did not know what to say

to them.

Eugene Witla was the apple of his family's eye, younger than either of

his two sisters by two years. He had straight smooth black hair, dark

almond-shaped eyes, a straight nose, a shapely but not aggressive chin;

his teeth were even and white, showing with a curious delicacy when he

smiled, as if he were proud of them. He was not very strong to begin

with, moody, and to a notable extent artistic. Because of a weak stomach

and a semi-anaemic condition, he did not really appear as strong as he

was. He had emotion, fire, longings, that were concealed behind a wall

of reserve. He was shy, proud, sensitive, and very uncertain of himself.

When at home he lounged about the house, reading Dickens, Thackeray,

Scott and Poe. He browsed idly through one book after another, wondering

about life. The great cities appealed to him. He thought of travel as a

wonderful thing. In school he read Taine and Gibbon between recitation

hours, wondering at the luxury and beauty of the great courts of the

world. He cared nothing for grammar, nothing for mathematics, nothing

for botany or physics, except odd bits here and there. Curious facts

would strike him--the composition of clouds, the composition of water,

the chemical elements of the earth. He liked to lie in the hammock at

home, spring, summer or fall, and look at the blue sky showing through

the trees. A soaring buzzard poised in speculative flight held his

attention fixedly. The wonder of a snowy cloud, high piled like wool,

and drifting as an island, was like a song to him. He had wit, a keen

sense of humor, a sense of pathos. Sometimes he thought he would draw;

sometimes write. He had a little talent for both, he thought, but did

practically nothing with either. He would sketch now and then, but only

fragments--a small roof-top, with smoke curling from a chimney and birds

flying; a bit of water with a willow bending over it and perhaps a boat

anchored; a mill pond with ducks afloat, and a boy or woman on the bank.

He really had no great talent for interpretation at this time, only an

intense sense of beauty. The beauty of a bird in flight, a rose in

bloom, a tree swaying in the wind--these held him. He would walk the

streets of his native town at night, admiring the brightness of the

store windows, the sense of youth and enthusiasm that went with a crowd;

the sense of love and comfort and home that spoke through the glowing

windows of houses set back among trees.

He admired girls,--was mad about them,--but only about those who were

truly beautiful. There were two or three in his school who reminded him

of poetic phrases he had come across--"beauty like a tightened bow,"

"thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face," "a dancing shape, an image

gay"--but he could not talk to them with ease. They were beautiful but

so distant. He invested them with more beauty than they had; the beauty

was in his own soul. But he did not know that. One girl whose yellow

hair lay upon her neck in great yellow braids like ripe corn, was

constantly in his thoughts. He worshiped her from afar but she never

knew. She never knew what solemn black eyes burned at her when she was

not looking. She left Alexandria, her family moving to another town, and

in time he recovered, for there is much of beauty. But the color of her

hair and the wonder of her neck stayed with him always.

There was some plan on the part of Witla to send these children to

college, but none of them showed any great desire for education. They

were perhaps wiser than books, for they were living in the realm of

imagination and feeling. Sylvia longed to be a mother, and was married

at twenty-one to Henry Burgess, the son of Benjamin C. Burgess, editor

of the _Morning Appeal_. There was a baby the first year. Myrtle was

dreaming through algebra and trigonometry, wondering whether she would

teach or get married, for the moderate prosperity of the family demanded

that she do something. Eugene mooned through his studies, learning

nothing practical. He wrote a little, but his efforts at sixteen were

puerile. He drew, but there was no one to tell him whether there was any

merit in the things he did or not. Practical matters were generally

without significance to him. But he was overawed by the fact that the

world demanded practical service--buying and selling like his father,

clerking in stores, running big business. It was a confusing maze, and

he wondered, even at this age, what was to become of him. He did not

object to the kind of work his father was doing, but it did not interest

him. For himself he knew it would be a pointless, dreary way of making a

living, and as for insurance, that was equally bad. He could hardly

bring himself to read through the long rigamarole of specifications

which each insurance paper itemized. There were times--evenings and

Saturdays--when he clerked in his father's store, but it was painful

work. His mind was not in it.

As early as his twelfth year his father had begun to see that Eugene was

not cut out for business, and by the time he was sixteen he was

convinced of it. From the trend of his reading and his percentage marks

at school, he was equally convinced that the boy was not interested in

his studies. Myrtle, who was two classes ahead of him but sometimes in

the same room, reported that he dreamed too much. He was always looking

out of the window.

Eugene's experience with girls had not been very wide. There were those

very minor things that occur in early youth--girls whom we furtively

kiss, or who furtively kiss us--the latter had been the case with

Eugene. He had no particular interest in any one girl. At fourteen he

had been picked by a little girl at a party as an affinity, for the

evening at least, and in a game of "post-office" had enjoyed the wonder

of a girl's arms around him in a dark room and a girl's lips against

his; but since then there had been no re-encounter of any kind. He had

dreamed of love, with this one experience as a basis, but always in a

shy, distant way. He was afraid of girls, and they, to tell the truth,

were afraid of him. They could not make him out.

But in the fall of his seventeenth year Eugene came into contact with

one girl who made a profound impression on him. Stella Appleton was a

notably beautiful creature. She was very fair, Eugene's own age, with

very blue eyes and a slender sylph-like body. She was gay and debonair

in an enticing way, without really realizing how dangerous she was to

the average, susceptible male heart. She liked to flirt with the boys

because it amused her, and not because she cared for anyone in

particular. There was no petty meanness about it, however, for she

thought they were all rather nice, the less clever appealing to her

almost more than the sophisticated. She may have liked Eugene originally

because of his shyness.

He saw her first at the beginning of his last school year when she came

to the city and entered the second high school class. Her father had

come from Moline, Illinois, to take a position as manager of a new

pulley manufactory which was just starting. She had quickly become

friends with his sister Myrtle, being perhaps attracted by her quiet

ways, as Myrtle was by Stella's gaiety.

One afternoon, as Myrtle and Stella were on Main Street, walking home

from the post office, they met Eugene, who was on his way to visit a boy

friend. He was really bashful; and when he saw them approaching he

wanted to escape, but there was no way. They saw him, and Stella

approached confidently enough. Myrtle was anxious to intercept him,

because she had her pretty companion with her.

"You haven't been home, have you?" she asked, stopping. This was her

chance to introduce Stella; Eugene couldn't escape. "Miss Appleton, this

is my brother Eugene."

Stella gave him a sunny encouraging smile, and her hand, which he took

gingerly. He was plainly nervous.

"I'm not very clean," he said apologetically. "I've been helping father

fix a buggy."

"Oh, we don't mind," said Myrtle. "Where are you going?"

"Over to Harry Morris's," he explained.

"What for?"

"We're going for hickory nuts."

"Oh, I wish I had some," said Stella.

"I'll bring you some," he volunteered gallantly.

She smiled again. "I wish you would."

She almost proposed that they should be taken along, but inexperience

hindered her.

Eugene was struck with all her charm at once. She seemed like one of

those unattainable creatures who had swum into his ken a little earlier

and disappeared. There was something of the girl with the corn-colored

hair about her, only she had been more human, less like a dream. This

girl was fine, delicate, pink, like porcelain. She was fragile and yet

virile. He caught his breath, but he was more or less afraid of her. He

did not know what she might be thinking of him.

"Well, we're going on to the house," said Myrtle.

"I'd go along if I hadn't promised Harry I'd come over."

"Oh, that's all right," replied Myrtle. "We don't mind."

He withdrew, feeling that he had made a very poor impression. Stella's

eyes had been on him in a very inquiring way. She looked after him when

he had gone.

"Isn't he nice?" she said to Myrtle frankly.

"I think so," replied Myrtle; "kind o'. He's too moody, though."

"What makes him?"

"He isn't very strong."

"I think he has a nice smile."

"I'll tell him!"

"No, please don't! You won't, will you?"

"No."

"But he _has_ a nice smile."

"I'll ask you round to the house some evening and you can meet him

again."

"I'd like to," said Stella. "It would be a lot of fun."

"Come out Saturday evening and stay all night. He's home then."

"I will," said Stella. "Won't that be fine!"

"I believe you like him!" laughed Myrtle.

"I think he's awfully nice," said Stella, simply.

The second meeting happened on Saturday evening as arranged, when he

came home from his odd day at his father's insurance office. Stella had

come to supper. Eugene saw her through the open sitting room door, as he

bounded upstairs to change his clothes, for he had a fire of youth which

no sickness of stomach or weakness of lungs could overcome at this age.

A thrill of anticipation ran over his body. He took especial pains with

his toilet, adjusting a red tie to a nicety, and parting his hair

carefully in the middle. He came down after a while, conscious that he

had to say something smart, worthy of himself, or she would not see how

attractive he was; and yet he was fearful as to the result. When he

entered the sitting room she was sitting with his sister before an open

fire-place, the glow of a lamp with a red-flowered shade warmly

illuminating the room. It was a commonplace room, with its blue

cloth-covered center table, its chairs of stereotyped factory design,

and its bookcase of novels and histories, but it was homey, and the

sense of hominess was strong.

Mrs. Witla was in and out occasionally, looking for things which

appertained to her functions as house-mother. The father was not home

yet; he would get there by supper-time, having been to some outlying

town of the county trying to sell a machine. Eugene was indifferent to

his presence or absence. Mr. Witla had a fund of humor which extended to

joking with his son and daughters, when he was feeling good, to noting

their budding interest in the opposite sex; to predicting some

commonplace climax to their one grand passion when it should come. He

was fond of telling Myrtle that she would one day marry a horse-doctor.

As for Eugene, he predicted a certain Elsa Brown, who, his wife said,

had greasy curls. This did not irritate either Myrtle or Eugene. It even

brought a wry smile to Eugene's face for he was fond of a jest; but he

saw his father pretty clearly even at this age. He saw the smallness of

his business, the ridiculousness of any such profession having any claim

on him. He never wanted to say anything, but there was in him a burning

opposition to the commonplace, a molten pit in a crater of reserve,

which smoked ominously now and then for anyone who could have read.

Neither his father nor his mother understood him. To them he was a

peculiar boy, dreamy, sickly, unwitting, as yet, of what he really

wanted.

"Oh, here you are!" said Myrtle, when he came in. "Come and sit down."

Stella gave him an enticing smile.

He walked to the mantel-piece and stood there, posing. He wanted to

impress this girl, and he did not quite know how. He was almost lost for

anything to say.

"You can't guess what we've been doing!" his sister chirped helpfully.

"Well--what?" he replied blankly.

"You ought to guess. Can't you be nice and guess?"

"One guess, anyhow," put in Stella.

"Toasting pop-corn," he ventured with a half smile.

"You're warm." It was Myrtle speaking.

Stella looked at him with round blue eyes. "One more guess," she

suggested.

"Chestnuts!" he guessed.

She nodded her head gaily. "What hair!" he thought. Then--"Where are

they?"

"Here's one," laughed his new acquaintance, holding out a tiny hand.

Under her laughing encouragement he was finding his voice. "Stingy!" he

said.

"Now isn't that mean," she exclaimed. "I gave him the only one I had.

Don't you give him any of yours, Myrtle."

"I take it back," he pleaded. "I didn't know."

"I won't!" exclaimed Myrtle. "Here, Stella," and she held out the few

nuts she had left, "take these, and don't you give him any!" She put

them in Stella's eager hands.

He saw her meaning. It was an invitation to a contest. She wanted him to

try to make her give him some. He fell in with her plan.

"Here!" He stretched out his palm. "That's not right!"

She shook her head.

"One, anyhow," he insisted.

Her head moved negatively from side to side slowly.

"One," he pleaded, drawing near.

Again the golden negative. But her hand was at the side nearest him,

where he could seize it. She started to pass its contents behind her to

the other hand but he jumped and caught it.

"Myrtle! Quick!" she called.

Myrtle came. It was a three-handed struggle. In the midst of the contest

Stella twisted and rose to her feet. Her hair brushed his face. He held

her tiny hand firmly. For a moment he looked into her eyes. What was it?

He could not say. Only he half let go and gave her the victory.

"There," she smiled. "Now I'll give you one."

He took it, laughing. What he wanted was to take her in his arms.

A little while before supper his father came in and sat down, but

presently took a Chicago paper and went into the dining room to read.

Then his mother called them to the table, and he sat by Stella. He was

intensely interested in what she did and said. If her lips moved he

noted just how. When her teeth showed he thought they were lovely. A

little ringlet on her forehead beckoned him like a golden finger. He

felt the wonder of the poetic phrase, "the shining strands of her hair."

After dinner he and Myrtle and Stella went back to the sitting room. His

father stayed behind to read, his mother to wash dishes. Myrtle left the

room after a bit to help her mother, and then these two were left alone.

He hadn't much to say, now that they were together--he couldn't talk.

Something about her beauty kept him silent.

"Do you like school?" she asked after a time. She felt as if they must

talk.

"Only fairly well," he replied. "I'm not much interested. I think I'll

quit one of these days and go to work."

"What do you expect to do?"

"I don't know yet--I'd like to be an artist." He confessed his ambition

for the first time in his life--why, he could not have said.

Stella took no note of it.

"I was afraid they wouldn't let me enter second year high school, but

they did," she remarked. "The superintendent at Moline had to write the

superintendent here."

"They're mean about those things," he cogitated.

She got up and went to the bookcase to look at the books. He followed

after a little.

"Do you like Dickens?" she asked.

He nodded his head solemnly in approval. "Pretty much," he said.

"I can't like him. He's too long drawn out. I like Scott better."

"I like Scott," he said.

"I'll tell you a lovely book that I like." She paused, her lips parted

trying to remember the name. She lifted her hand as though to pick the

title out of the air. "The Fair God," she exclaimed at last.

"Yes--it's fine," he approved. "I thought the scene in the old Aztec

temple where they were going to sacrifice Ahwahee was so wonderful!"

"Oh, yes, I liked that," she added. She pulled out "Ben Hur" and turned

its leaves idly. "And this was so good."

"Wonderful!"

They paused and she went to the window, standing under the cheap lace

curtains. It was a moonlight night. The rows of trees that lined the

street on either side were leafless; the grass brown and dead. Through

the thin, interlaced twigs that were like silver filigree they could see

the lamps of other houses shining through half-drawn blinds. A man went

by, a black shadow in the half-light.

"Isn't it lovely?" she said.

Eugene came near. "It's fine," he answered.

"I wish it were cold enough to skate. Do you skate?" She turned to him.

"Yes, indeed," he replied.

"My, it's so nice on a moonlit night. I used to skate a lot at Moline."

"We skate a lot here. There're two lakes, you know."

He thought of the clear crystal nights when the ice of Green Lake had

split every so often with a great resounding rumble. He thought of the

crowds of boys and girls shouting, the distant shadows, the stars. Up to

now he had never found any girl to skate with successfully. He had never

felt just easy with anyone. He had tried it, but once he had fallen with

a girl, and it had almost cured him of skating forever. He felt as

though he could skate with Stella. He felt that she might like to skate

with him.

"When it gets colder we might go," he ventured. "Myrtle skates."

"Oh, that'll be fine!" she applauded.

Still she looked out into the street.

After a bit she came back to the fire and stood before him, pensively

looking down.

"Do you think your father will stay here?" he asked.

"He says so. He likes it very much."

"Do you?"

"Yes--now."

"Why _now_?"

"Oh, I didn't like it at first."

"Why?"

"Oh, I guess it was because I didn't know anybody. I like it though,

now." She lifted her eyes.

He drew a little nearer.

"It's a nice place," he said, "but there isn't much for me here. I think

I'll leave next year."

"Where do you think you'll go?"

"To Chicago. I don't want to stay here."

She turned her body toward the fire and he moved to a chair behind her,

leaning on its back. She felt him there rather close, but did not move.

He was surprising himself.

"Aren't you ever coming back?" she asked.

"Maybe. It all depends. I suppose so."

"I shouldn't think you'd want to leave yet."

"Why?"

"You say it's so nice."

He made no answer and she looked over her shoulder. He was leaning very

much toward her.

"Will you skate with me this winter?" he asked meaningly.

She nodded her head.

Myrtle came in.

"What are you two talking about?" she asked.

"The fine skating we have here," he said.

"I love to skate," she exclaimed.

"So do I," added Stella. "It's heavenly."

CHAPTER II

Some of the incidents of this courtship that followed, ephemeral as it

was, left a profound impression on Eugene's mind. They met to skate not

long after, for the snow came and the ice and there was wonderful

skating on Green Lake. The frost was so prolonged that men with horses

and ice-saws were cutting blocks a foot thick over at Miller's Point,

where the ice houses were. Almost every day after Thanksgiving there

were crowds of boys and girls from the schools scooting about like water

skippers. Eugene could not always go on week evenings and Saturdays

because he had to assist his father at the store. But at regular

intervals he could ask Myrtle to get Stella and let them all go together

at night. And at other times he would ask her to go alone. Not

infrequently she did.

On one particular occasion they were below a group of houses which crept

near the lake on high ground. The moon was up, its wooing rays reflected

in the polished surfaces of the ice. Through the black masses of trees

that lined the shore could be seen the glow of windows, yellow and

homey. Eugene and Stella had slowed up to turn about, having left the

crowd of skaters some distance back. Stella's golden curls were covered,

except for a few ringlets, with a French cap; her body, to below the

hips, encased in a white wool Jersey, close-fitting and shapely. The

skirt below was a grey mixture of thick wool and the stockings were

covered by white woolen leggings. She looked tempting and knew it.

Suddenly, as they turned, one of her skates came loose and she hobbled

and exclaimed about it. "Wait," said Eugene, "I'll fix it."

She stood before him and he fell to his knees, undoing the twisted

strap. When he had the skate off and ready for her foot he looked up,

and she looked down on him, smiling. He dropped the skate and flung his

arms around her hips, laying his head against her waist.

"You're a bad boy," she said.

For a few minutes she kept silent, for as the center of this lovely

scene she was divine. While he held her she pulled off his wool cap and

laid her hand on his hair. It almost brought tears to his eyes, he was

so happy. At the same time it awakened a tremendous passion. He clutched

her significantly.

"Fix my skate, now," she said wisely.

He got up to hug her but she would not let him.

"No, no," she protested. "You mustn't do like that. I won't come with

you if you do."

"Oh, Stella!" he pleaded.

"I mean it," she insisted. "You mustn't do like that."

He subsided, hurt, half angry. But he feared her will. She was really

not as ready for caresses as he had thought.

Another time a sleighing party was given by some school girls, and

Stella, Eugene and Myrtle were invited. It was a night of snow and

stars, not too cold but bracing. A great box-wagon had been dismantled

of its body and the latter put on runners and filled with straw and warm

robes. Eugene and Myrtle, like the others, had been picked up at their

door after the sleigh had gone the rounds of some ten peaceful little

homes. Stella was not in yet, but in a little while her house was

reached.

"Get in here," called Myrtle, though she was half the length of the box

away from Eugene. Her request made him angry. "Sit by me," he called,

fearful that she would not. She climbed in by Myrtle but finding the

space not to her liking moved farther down. Eugene made a special effort

to have room by him, and she came there as though by accident. He drew a

buffalo robe around her and thrilled to think that she was really there.

The sleigh went jingling around the town for others, and finally struck

out into the country. It passed great patches of dark woods silent in

the snow, little white frame farmhouses snuggled close to the ground,

and with windows that gleamed in a vague romantic way. The stars were

countless and keen. The whole scene made a tremendous impression on him,

for he was in love, and here beside him, in the shadow, her face palely

outlined, was this girl. He could make out the sweetness of her cheek,

her eyes, the softness of her hair.

There was a good deal of chatter and singing, and in the midst of these

distractions he managed to slip an arm about her waist, to get her hand

in his, to look close into her eyes, trying to divine their expression.

She was always coy with him, not wholly yielding. Three or four times he

kissed her cheek furtively and once her mouth. In a dark place he pulled

her vigorously to him, putting a long, sensuous kiss on her lips that

frightened her.

"No," she protested, nervously. "You mustn't."

He ceased for a time, feeling that he had pressed his advantage too

closely. But the night in all its beauty, and she in hers made a lasting

impression.

******

"I think we ought to get Eugene into newspaper work or something like

that," Witla senior suggested to his wife.

"It looks as though that's all he would be good for, at least now,"

replied Mrs. Witla, who was satisfied that her boy had not yet found

himself. "I think he'll do something better later on. His health isn't

very good, you know."

Witla half suspected that his boy was naturally lazy, but he wasn't

sure. He suggested that Benjamin C. Burgess, the prospective

father-in-law of Sylvia and the editor and proprietor of the _Morning

Appeal_, might give him a place as a reporter or type-setter in order

that he might learn the business from the ground up. The _Appeal_

carried few employees, but Mr. Burgess might have no objections to

starting Eugene as a reporter if he could write, or as a student of

type-setting, or both. He appealed to Burgess one day on the street.

"Say, Burgess," he said, "you wouldn't have a place over in your shop

for that boy of mine, would you? He likes to scribble a little, I

notice. I think he pretends to draw a little, too, though I guess it

doesn't amount to much. He ought to get into something. He isn't doing

anything at school. Maybe he could learn type-setting. It wouldn't hurt

him to begin at the bottom if he's going to follow that line. It

wouldn't matter what you paid him to begin with."

Burgess thought. He had seen Eugene around town, knew no harm of him

except that he was lackadaisical and rather moody.

"Send him in to see me some day," he replied noncommittally. "I might do

something for him."

"I'd certainly be much obliged to you if you would," said Witla. "He is

not doing much good as it is now," and the two men parted.

He went home and told Eugene. "Burgess says he might give you a position

as a type-setter or a reporter on the _Appeal_ if you'd come in and see

him some day," he explained, looking over to where his son was reading

by the lamp.

"Does he?" replied Eugene calmly. "Well, I can't write. I might set

type. Did you ask him?"

"Yes," said Witla. "You'd better go to him some day."

Eugene bit his lip. He realized this was a commentary on his loafing

propensities. He wasn't doing very well, that was certain. Still

type-setting was no bright field for a person of his temperament. "I

will," he concluded, "when school's over."

"Better speak before school ends. Some of the other fellows might ask

for it around that time. It wouldn't hurt you to try your hand at it."

"I will," said Eugene obediently.

He stopped in one sunny April afternoon at Mr. Burgess' office. It was

on the ground floor of the three-story _Appeal_ building in the public

square. Mr. Burgess, a fat man, slightly bald, looked at him quizzically

over his steel rimmed spectacles. What little hair he had was gray.

"So you think you would like to go into the newspaper business, do you?"

queried Burgess.

"I'd like to try my hand at it," replied the boy. "I'd like to see

whether I like it."

"I can tell you right now there's very little in it. Your father says

you like to write."

"I'd like to well enough, but I don't think I can. I wouldn't mind

learning type-setting. If I ever could write I'd be perfectly willing

to."

"When do you think you'd like to start?"

"At the end of school, if it's all the same to you."

"It doesn't make much difference. I'm not really in need of anybody, but

I could use you. Would you be satisfied with five a week?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, come in when you are ready. I'll see what I can do."

He waved the prospective type-setter away with a movement of his fat

hand, and turned to his black walnut desk, dingy, covered with

newspapers, and lit by a green shaded electric light. Eugene went out,

the smell of fresh printing ink in his nose, and the equally aggressive

smell of damp newspapers. It was going to be an interesting experience,

he thought, but perhaps a waste of time. He did not think so much of

Alexandria. Some time he was going to get out of it.

The office of the _Appeal_ was not different from that of any other

country newspaper office within the confines of our two hemispheres. On

the ground floor in front was the business office, and in the rear the

one large flat bed press and the job presses. On the second floor was

the composing room with its rows of type cases on their high racks--for

this newspaper was, like most other country newspapers, still set by

hand; and in front was the one dingy office of the so-called editor, or

managing editor, or city editor--for all three were the same person, a

Mr. Caleb Williams whom Burgess had picked up in times past from heaven

knows where. Williams was a small, lean, wiry man, with a black pointed

beard and a glass eye which fixed you oddly with its black pupil. He was

talkative, skipped about from duty to duty, wore most of the time a

green shade pulled low over his forehead, and smoked a brown briar pipe.

He had a fund of knowledge, piled up in metropolitan journalistic

experience, but he was anchored here with a wife and three children,

after sailing, no doubt, a chartless sea of troubles, and was glad to

talk life and experiences after office hours with almost anybody. It

took him from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon to gather

what local news there was, and either write it or edit it. He seemed to

have a number of correspondents who sent him weekly batches of news from

surrounding points. The Associated Press furnished him with a few minor

items by telegraph, and there was a "patent insides," two pages of

fiction, household hints, medicine ads. and what not, which saved him

considerable time and stress. Most of the news which came to him

received short shrift in the matter of editing. "In Chicago we used to

give a lot of attention to this sort of thing," Williams was wont to

declare to anyone who was near, "but you can't do it down here. The

readers really don't expect it. They're looking for local items. I

always look after the local items pretty sharp."

Mr. Burgess took care of the advertising sections. In fact he solicited

advertising personally, saw that it was properly set up as the

advertiser wanted it, and properly placed according to the convenience

of the day and the rights and demands of others. He was the politician

of the concern, the handshaker, the guider of its policy. He wrote

editorials now and then, or, with Williams, decided just what their

sense must be, met the visitors who came to the office to see the

editor, and arbitrated all known forms of difficulties. He was at the

beck and call of certain Republican party-leaders in the county; but

that seemed natural, for he was a Republican himself by temperament and

disposition. He was appointed postmaster once to pay him for some useful

services, but he declined because he was really making more out of his

paper than his postmastership would have brought. He received whatever

city or county advertising it was in the power of the Republican leaders

to give him, and so he did very well. The complications of his political

relationships Williams knew in part, but they never troubled that

industrious soul. He dispensed with moralizing. "I have to make a living

for myself, my wife and three children. That's enough to keep me going

without bothering my head about other people." So this office was really

run very quietly, efficiently, and in most ways pleasantly. It was a

sunny place to work.

Witla, who came here at the end of his eleventh school year and when he

had just turned seventeen, was impressed with the personality of

Mr. Williams. He liked him. He came to like a Jonas Lyle who worked at

what might be called the head desk of the composing room, and a certain

John Summers who worked at odd times--whenever there was an extra rush

of job printing. He learned very quickly that John Summers, who was

fifty-five, grey, and comparatively silent, was troubled with weak lungs

and drank. Summers would slip out of the office at various times in the

day and be gone from five to fifteen minutes. No one ever said anything,

for there was no pressure here. What work was to be done was done. Jonas

Lyle was of a more interesting nature. He was younger by ten years,

stronger, better built, but still a character. He was semi-phlegmatic,

philosophic, feebly literary. He had worked, as Eugene found out in the

course of time, in nearly every part of the United States--Denver,

Portland, St. Paul, St. Louis, where not, and had a fund of

recollections of this proprietor and that. Whenever he saw a name of

particular distinction in the newspapers he was apt to bring the paper

to Williams--and later, when they became familiar, to Eugene--and say,

"I knew that fellow out in ----. He was postmaster (or what not) at

X----. He's come up considerably since I knew him." In most cases he did

not know these celebrities personally at all, but he knew of them, and

the echo of their fame sounding in this out-of-the-way corner of the

world impressed him. He was a careful reader of proof for Williams in a

rush, a quick type-setter, a man who stayed by his tasks faithfully. But

he hadn't got anywhere in the world, for, after all, he was little more

than a machine. Eugene could see that at a glance.

It was Lyle who taught him the art of type-setting. He demonstrated the

first day the theory of the squares or pockets in a case, how some

letters were placed more conveniently to the hand than others, why some

letters were well represented as to quantity, why capitals were used in

certain offices for certain purposes, in others not. "Now on the Chicago

_Tribune_ we used to italicize the names of churches, boats, books,

hotels, and things of that sort. That's the only paper I ever knew to do

that," he remarked. What slugs, sticks, galleys, turnovers, meant, came

rapidly to the surface. That the fingers would come to recognize weights

of leads by the touch, that a letter would almost instinctively find its

way back to its proper pocket, even though you were not thinking, once

you became expert, were facts which he cheerfully communicated. He

wanted his knowledge taken seriously, and this serious attention,

Eugene, because of his innate respect for learning of any kind, was only

too glad to give him. He did not know what he wanted to do, but he knew

quite well that he wanted to see everything. This shop was interesting

to him for some little time for this reason, for though he soon found

that he did not want to be a type-setter or a reporter, or indeed

anything much in connection with a country newspaper, he was learning

about life. He worked at his desk cheerfully, smiling out upon the

world, which indicated its presence to him through an open window, read

the curious bits of news or opinion or local advertisements as he set

them up, and dreamed of what the world might have in store for him. He

was not vastly ambitious as yet, but hopeful and, withal, a little

melancholy. He could see boys and girls whom he knew, idling in the

streets or on the corner squares; he could see where Ted Martinwood was

driving by in his father's buggy, or George Anderson was going up the

street with the air of someone who would never need to work. George's

father owned the one and only hotel. There were thoughts in his mind of

fishing, boating, lolling somewhere with some pretty girl, but alas,

girls did not apparently take to him so very readily. He was too shy. He

thought it must be nice to be rich. So he dreamed.

Eugene was at that age when he wished to express himself in ardent

phrases. He was also at the age when bashfulness held him in reserve,

even though he were in love and intensely emotional. He could only say

to Stella what seemed trivial things, and look his intensity, whereas it

was the trivial things that were most pleasing to her, not the

intensity. She was even then beginning to think he was a little strange,

a little too tense for her disposition. Yet she liked him. It became

generally understood around town that Stella was _his_ girl. School day

mating usually goes that way in a small city or village. He was seen to

go out with her. His father teased him. Her mother and father deemed

this a manifestation of calf love, not so much on her part, for they

were aware of her tendency to hold lightly any manifestation of

affection on the part of boys, but on his. They thought his

sentimentalism would soon be wearisome to Stella. And they were not far

wrong about her. On one occasion at a party given by several high school

girls, a "country post office" was organized. That was one of those

games which mean kissing only. A system of guessing results in a series

of forfeits. If you miss you must be postmaster, and call someone for

"mail." _Mail_ means to be kissed in a dark room (where the postmaster

stands) by someone whom you like or who likes you. You, as postmaster,

have authority or compulsion--however you feel about it--to call whom

you please.

In this particular instance Stella, who was caught before Eugene, was

under compulsion to call someone to kiss. Her first thought was of him,

but on account of the frankness of the deed, and because there was a

lurking fear in her of his eagerness, the name she felt impelled to

speak was Harvey Rutter. Harvey was a handsome boy whom Stella had met

after her first encounter with Eugene. He was not as yet fascinating to

her, but pleasing. She had a coquettish desire to see what he was like.

This was her first direct chance.

He stepped gaily in, and Eugene was at once insane with jealousy. He

could not understand why she should treat him in that way. When it came

to his turn he called for Bertha Shoemaker, whom he admired, and who was

sweet in a way, but who was as nothing to Stella in his estimation. The

pain of kissing her when he really wanted the other girl was great. When

he came out Stella saw moodiness in his eyes, but chose to ignore it. He

was obviously half-hearted and downcast in his simulation of joy.

A second chance came to her and this time she called him. He went, but

was in a semi-defiant mood. He wanted to punish her. When they met in

the dark she expected him to put his arms around her. Her own hands were

up to about where his shoulders should be. Instead he only took hold of

one of her arms with his hand and planted a chilly kiss on her lips. If

he had only asked, "Why did you?" or held her close and pleaded with her

not to treat him so badly, the relationship might have lasted longer.

Instead he said nothing, and she grew defiant and she went out gaily.

There was a strain of reserve running between them until the party broke

up and he took her home.

"You must be melancholy tonight," she remarked, after they had walked

two blocks in complete silence. The streets were dark, and their feet

sounded hollowly on the brick pavement.

"Oh, I'm feeling all right," he replied moodily.

"I think it's awfully nice at the Weimers', we always have so much fun

there."

"Yes, lots of fun," he echoed contemptuously.

"Oh, don't be so cross!" she flared. "You haven't any reason for

fussing."

"Haven't I?"

"No, you haven't."

"Well if that's the way you feel about it I suppose I haven't. I don't

see it that way."

"Well, it doesn't make any difference to me how you see it."

"Oh, doesn't it?"

"No, it doesn't." Her head was up and she was angry.

"Well I'm sure then it doesn't to me."

There was another silence which endured until they were almost home.

"Are you coming to the sociable next Thursday?" he inquired. He was

referring to a Methodist evening entertainment which, although he cared

very little about it, was a convenience as it enabled him to see her and

take her home. He was prompted to ask by the fear that an open rupture

was impending.

"No," she said. "I don't think I will."

"Why not?"

"I don't care to."

"I think you're mean," he said reprovingly.

"I don't care," she replied. "I think you're too bossy. I don't think I

like you very much anyhow."

His heart contracted ominously.

"You can do as you please," he persisted.

They reached her gate. It was his wont to kiss her in the shadow--to

hold her tight for a few minutes in spite of her protests. Tonight, as

they approached, he thought of doing it, but she gave him no chance.

When they reached the gate she opened it quickly and slipped in.

"Good-night," she called.

"Good-night," he said, and then as she reached her door, "Stella!"

It was open, and she slipped in. He stood in the dark, hurt, sore,

oppressed. What should he do? He strolled home cudgelling his brain

whether never to speak to or look at her again until she came to him, or

to hunt her up and fight it all out with her. She was in the wrong, he

knew that. When he went to bed he was grieving over it, and when he

awoke it was with him all day.

He had been gaining rather rapidly as a student of type-setting, and to

a certain extent of the theory of reporting, and he worked diligently

and earnestly at his proposed trade. He loved to look out of the window

and draw, though of late, after knowing Stella so well and coming to

quarrel with her because of her indifference, there was little heart in

it. This getting to the office, putting on an apron, and starting in on

some local correspondence left over from the day before, or some

telegraph copy which had been freshly filed on his hook, had its

constructive value. Williams endeavored to use him on some local items

of news as a reporter, but he was a slow worker and almost a failure at

getting all the facts. He did not appear to know how to interview

anybody, and would come back with a story which needed to be filled in

from other sources. He really did not understand the theory of news, and

Williams could only make it partially clear to him. Mostly he worked at

his case, but he did learn some things.

For one thing, the theory of advertising began to dawn on him. These

local merchants put in the same ads. day after day, and many of them did

not change them noticeably. He saw Lyle and Summers taking the same ads.

which had appeared unchangingly from month to month in so far as their

main features were concerned, and alter only a few words before

returning them to the forms. He wondered at the sameness of them, and

when, at last, they were given to him to revise he often wished he could

change them a little. The language seemed so dull.

"Why don't they ever put little drawings in these ads?" he asked Lyle

one day. "Don't you think they'd look a little better?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Jonas. "They look pretty good. These people

around here wouldn't want anything like that. They'd think it was too

fancy." Eugene had seen and in a way studied the ads. in the magazines.

They seemed so much more fascinating to him. Why couldn't newspaper ads.

be different?

Still it was never given to him to trouble over this problem.

Mr. Burgess dealt with the advertisers. He settled how the ads were to

be. He never talked to Eugene or Summers about them, not always to Lyle.

He would sometimes have Williams explain just what their character and

layout was to be. Eugene was so young that Williams at first did not pay

very much attention to him, but after a while he began to realize that

there was a personality here, and then he would explain things,--why

space had to be short for some items and long for others, why county

news, news of small towns around Alexandria, and about people, was much

more important financially to the paper than the correct reporting of

the death of the sultan of Turkey. The most important thing was to get

the local names right. "Don't ever misspell them," he once cautioned

him. "Don't ever leave out a part of a name if you can help it. People

are awfully sensitive about that. They'll stop their subscription if you

don't watch out, and you won't know what's the matter."

Eugene took all these things to heart. He wanted to see how the thing

was done, though basically it seemed to be a little small. In fact

people seemed a little small, mostly.

One of the things that did interest him was to see the paper put on the

press and run off. He liked to help lock up the forms, and to see how

they were imposed and registered. He liked to hear the press run, and to

help carry the wet papers to the mailing tables and the distributing

counter out in front. The paper hadn't a very large circulation but

there was a slight hum of life about that time and he liked it. He liked

the sense of getting his hands and face streaked and not caring, and of

seeing his hair tousled, in the mirror. He tried to be useful and the

various people on the paper came to like him, though he was often a

little awkward and slow. He was not strong at this period and his

stomach troubled him. He thought, too, that the smell of the ink might

affect his lungs, though he did not seriously fear it. In the main it

was interesting but small; there was a much larger world outside, he

knew that. He hoped to go to it some day; he hoped to go to Chicago.

CHAPTER III

Eugene grew more and more moody and rather restless under Stella's

increasing independence. She grew steadily more indifferent because of

his moods. The fact that other boys were crazy for her consideration was

a great factor; the fact that one particular boy, Harvey Rutter, was

persistently genial, not insistent, really better looking than Eugene

and much better tempered, helped a great deal. Eugene saw her with him

now and then, saw her go skating with him, or at least with a crowd of

which he was a member. Eugene hated him heartily; he hated her at times

for not yielding to him wholly; but he was none the less wild over her

beauty. It stamped his brain with a type or ideal. Thereafter he knew in

a really definite way what womanhood ought to be, to be really

beautiful.

Another thing it did was to bring home to him a sense of his position in

the world. So far he had always been dependent on his parents for food,

clothes and spending money, and his parents were not very liberal. He

knew other boys who had money to run up to Chicago or down to

Springfield--the latter was nearer--to have a Saturday and Sunday lark.

No such gaieties were for him. His father would not allow it, or rather

would not pay for it. There were other boys who, in consequence of amply

provided spending money, were the town dandies. He saw them kicking

their heels outside the corner book store, the principal loafing place

of the elite, on Wednesdays and Saturdays and sometimes on Sunday

evenings preparatory to going somewhere, dressed in a luxury of clothing

which was beyond his wildest dreams. Ted Martinwood, the son of the

principal drygoods man, had a frock coat in which he sometimes appeared

when he came down to the barber shop for a shave before he went to call

on his girl. George Anderson was possessed of a dress suit, and wore

dancing pumps at all dances. There was Ed Waterbury, who was known to

have a horse and runabout of his own. These youths were slightly older,

and were interested in girls of a slightly older set, but the point was

the same. These things hurt him.

He himself had no avenue of progress which, so far as he could see, was

going to bring him to any financial prosperity. His father was never

going to be rich, anybody could see that. He himself had made no

practical progress in schoolwork--he knew that. He hated

insurance--soliciting or writing, despised the sewing machine business,

and did not know where he would get with anything which he might like to

do in literature or art. His drawing seemed a joke, his writing, or wish

for writing, pointless. He was broodingly unhappy.

One day Williams, who had been watching him for a long time, stopped at

his desk.

"I say, Witla, why don't you go to Chicago?" he said. "There's a lot

more up there for a boy like you than down here. You'll never get

anywhere working on a country newspaper."

"I know it," said Eugene.

"Now with me it's different," went on Williams. "I've had my rounds.

I've got a wife and three children and when a man's got a family he

can't afford to take chances. But you're young yet. Why don't you go to

Chicago and get on a paper? You could get something."

"What could I get?" asked Eugene.

"Well, you might get a job as type-setter if you'd join the union. I

don't know how good you'd be as a reporter--I hardly think that's your

line. But you might study art and learn to draw. Newspaper artists make

good money."

Eugene thought of his art. It wasn't much. He didn't do much with it.

Still he thought of Chicago; the world appealed to him. If he could only

get out of here--if he could only make more than seven or eight dollars

a week. He brooded about this.

One Sunday afternoon he and Stella went with Myrtle to Sylvia's home,

and after a brief stay Stella announced that she would have to be going;

her mother would be expecting her back. Myrtle was for going with her,

but altered her mind when Sylvia asked her to stay to tea. "Let Eugene

take her home," Sylvia said. Eugene was delighted in his persistent,

hopeless way. He was not yet convinced that she could not be won to

love. When they walked out in the fresh sweet air--it was nearing

spring--he felt that now he should have a chance of saying something

which would be winning--which would lure her to him.

They went out on a street next to the one she lived on quite to the

confines of the town. She wanted to turn off at her street, but he had

urged her not to. "Do you have to go home just yet?" he asked,

pleadingly.

"No, I can walk a little way," she replied.

They reached a vacant place--the last house a little distance

back--talking idly. It was getting hard to make talk. In his efforts to

be entertaining he picked up three twigs to show her how a certain trick

in balancing was performed. It consisted in laying two at right angles

with each other and with a third, using the latter as an upright. She

could not do it, of course. She was not really very much interested. He

wanted her to try and when she did, took hold of her right hand to

steady her efforts.

"No, don't," she said, drawing her hand away. "I can do it."

She trifled with the twigs unsuccessfully and was about to let them

fall, when he took hold of both her hands. It was so sudden that she

could not free herself, and so she looked him straight in the eye.

"Let go, Eugene, please let go."

He shook his head, gazing at her.

"Please let go," she went on. "You mustn't do this. I don't want you

to."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Well, because I don't."

"Don't you like me any more, Stella, really?" he asked.

"I don't think I do, not that way."

"But you did."

"I thought I did."

"Have you changed your mind?"

"Yes, I think I have."

He dropped her hands and looked at her fixedly and dramatically. The

attitude did not appeal to her. They strolled back to the street, and

when they neared her door he said, "Well, I suppose there's no use in my

coming to see you any more."

"I think you'd better not," she said simply.

She walked in, never looking back, and instead of going back to his

sister's he went home. He was in a very gloomy mood, and after sitting

around for a while went to his room. The night fell, and he sat there

looking out at the trees and grieving about what he had lost. Perhaps he

was not good enough for her--he could not make her love him. Was it that

he was not handsome enough--he did not really consider himself good

looking--or what was it, a lack of courage or strength?

After a time he noticed that the moon was hanging over the trees like a

bright shield in the sky. Two layers of thin clouds were moving in

different directions on different levels. He stopped in his cogitations

to think where these clouds came from. On sunny days when there were

great argosies of them he had seen them disappear before his eyes, and

then, marvel of marvels, reappear out of nothingness. The first time he

ever saw this it astonished him greatly, for he had never known up to

then what clouds were. Afterward he read about them in his physical

geography. Tonight he thought of that, and of the great plains over

which these winds swept, and of the grass and trees--great forests of

them--miles and miles. What a wonderful world! Poets wrote about these

things, Longfellow, and Bryant, and Tennyson. He thought of

"Thanatopsis," and of the "Elegy," both of which he admired greatly.

What was this thing, life?

Then he came back to Stella with an ache. She was actually gone, and she

was so beautiful. She would never really talk to him any more. He would

never get to hold her hand or kiss her. He clenched his hands with the

hurt. Oh, that night on the ice; that night in the sleigh! How wonderful

they were! Finally he undressed and went to bed. He wanted to be

alone--to be lonely. On his clean white pillow he lay and dreamed of the

things that might have been, kisses, caresses, a thousand joys.

One Sunday afternoon he was lying in his hammock thinking, thinking of

what a dreary place Alexandria was, anyhow, when he opened a Chicago

Saturday afternoon paper, which was something like a Sunday one because

it had no Sunday edition,--and went gloomily through it. It was as he

had always found, full of a subtle wonder, the wonder of the city, which

drew him like a magnet. Here was the drawing of a big hotel someone was

going to build; there was a sketch of a great pianist who was coming to

play. An account of a new comedy drama; of a little romantic section of

Goose Island in the Chicago river, with its old decayed boats turned

into houses and geese waddling about; an item of a man falling through a

coal hole on South Halstead street fascinated him. This last was at

sixty-two hundred and something and the idea of such a long street

seized on his imagination. What a tremendous city Chicago must be. The

thought of car lines, crowds, trains, came to him with almost a yearning

appeal.

All at once the magnet got him. It gripped his very soul, this wonder,

this beauty, this life.

"I'm going to Chicago," he thought, and got up.

There was his nice, quiet little home laid out before him. Inside were

his mother, his father, Myrtle. Still he was going. He could come back.

"Sure I can come back," he thought. Propelled by this magnetic power he

went in and upstairs to his room, and got a little grip or portmanteau

he had. He put in it the things he thought he would immediately need. In

his pocket were nine dollars, money he had been saving for some time.

Finally he came downstairs and stood in the door of the sitting room.

"What's the matter?" asked his mother, looking at his solemn

introspective face.

"I'm going to Chicago," he said.

"When?" she asked, astonished, a little uncertain of just what he meant.

"Today," he said.

"No, you're joking." She smiled unbelievingly. This was a boyish prank.

"I'm going today," he said. "I'm going to catch that four o'clock

train."

Her face saddened. "You're not?" she said.

"I can come back," he replied, "if I want to. I want to get something

else to do."

His father came in at this time. He had a little work room out in the

barn where he sometimes cleaned machines and repaired vehicles. He was

fresh from such a task now.

"What's up?" he asked, seeing his wife close to her boy.

"Eugene's going to Chicago."

"Since when?" he inquired amusedly.

"Today. He says he's going right now."

"You don't mean it," said Witla, astonished. He really did not believe

it. "Why don't you take a little time and think it over? What are you

going to live on?"

"I'll live," said Eugene. "I'm going. I've had enough of this place. I'm

going to get out."

"All right," said his father, who, after all, believed in initiative.

Evidently after all he hadn't quite understood this boy. "Got your trunk

packed?"

"No, but mother can send me that."

"Don't go today," pleaded his mother. "Wait until you get something

ready, Eugene. Wait and do a little thinking about it. Wait until

tomorrow."

"I want to go today, ma." He slipped his arm around her. "Little ma." He

was bigger than she by now, and still growing.

"All right, Eugene," she said softly, "but I wish you wouldn't." Her boy

was leaving her--her heart was hurt.

"I can come back, ma. It's only a hundred miles."

"Well, all right," she said finally, trying to brighten. "I'll pack your

bag."

"I have already."

She went to look.

"Well, it'll soon be time," said Witla, who was thinking that Eugene

might back down. "I'm sorry. Still it may be a good thing for you.

You're always welcome here, you know."

"I know," said Eugene.

They went finally to the train together, he and his father and Myrtle.

His mother couldn't. She stayed to cry.

On the way to the depot they stopped at Sylvia's.

"Why, Eugene," she exclaimed, "how ridiculous! Don't go."

"He's set," said Witla.

Eugene finally got loose. He seemed to be fighting love, home ties,

everything, every step of the way. Finally he reached the depot. The

train came. Witla grabbed his hand affectionately. "Be a good boy," he

said, swallowing a gulp.

Myrtle kissed him. "You're so funny, Eugene. Write me."

"I will."

He stepped on the train. The bell rang. Out the cars rolled--out and on.

He looked out on the familiar scenes and then a real ache came to

him--Stella, his mother, his father, Myrtle, the little home. They were

all going out of his life.

"Hm," he half groaned, clearing his throat. "Gee!"

And then he sank back and tried, as usual, not to think. He must

succeed. That's what the world was made for. That was what he was made

for. That was what he would have to do....

CHAPTER IV

The city of Chicago--who shall portray it! This vast ruck of life that

had sprung suddenly into existence upon the dank marshes of a lake

shore. Miles and miles of dreary little houses; miles and miles of

wooden block-paved streets, with gas lamps placed and water mains laid,

and empty wooden walks set for pedestrians; the beat of a hundred

thousand hammers; the ring of a hundred thousand trowels! Long,

converging lines of telegraph poles; thousands upon thousands of

sentinel cottages, factory plants, towering smoke stacks, and here and

there a lone, shabby church steeple, sitting out pathetically upon

vacant land. The raw prairie stretch was covered with yellow grass; the

great broad highways of the tracks of railroads, ten, fifteen, twenty,

thirty, laid side by side and strung with thousands upon thousands of

shabby cars, like beads upon a string. Engines clanging, trains moving,

people waiting at street crossings--pedestrians, wagon drivers, street

car drivers, drays of beer, trucks of coal, brick, stone, sand--a

spectacle of new, raw, necessary life!

As Eugene began to draw near it he caught for the first time the sense

and significance of a great city. What were these newspaper shadows he

had been dealing with in his reading compared to this vivid, articulate,

eager thing? Here was the substance of a new world, substantial,

fascinating, different. The handsome suburban station at South Chicago,

the first of its kind he had ever seen, took his eye, as the train

rolled cityward. He had never before seen a crowd of foreigners--working

men--and here were Lithuanians, Poles, Czechs, waiting for a local

train. He had never seen a really large factory plant, and here was one,

and another, and another--steel works, potteries, soap-factories,

foundries, all gaunt and hard in the Sunday evening air. There seemed to

be, for all it was Sunday, something youthful, energetic and alive about

the streets. He noted the streetcars waiting; at one place a small river

was crossed on a draw,--dirty, gloomy, but crowded with boats and lined

with great warehouses, grain elevators, coal pockets--that architecture

of necessity and utility. His imagination was fired by this for here was

something that could be done brilliantly in black--a spot of red or

green for ship and bridge lights. There were some men on the magazines

who did things like this, only not so vivid.

The train threaded its way through long lines of cars coming finally

into an immense train shed where arc lights were spluttering--a score

under a great curved steel and glass roof, where people were hurrying to

and fro. Engines were hissing; bells clanging raucously. He had no

relatives, no soul to turn to, but somehow he did not feel lonely. This

picture of life, this newness, fascinated him. He stepped down and

started leisurely to the gate, wondering which way he should go. He came

to a corner where a lamp post already lit blazoned the name Madison. He

looked out on this street and saw, as far as the eye could reach, two

lines of stores, jingling horse cars, people walking. What a sight, he

thought, and turned west. For three miles he walked, musing, and then as

it was dark, and he had arranged for no bed, he wondered where he should

eat and sleep. A fat man sitting outside a livery stable door in a

tilted, cane-seated chair offered a possibility of information.

"Do you know where I can get a room around here?" asked Eugene.

The lounger looked him over. He was the proprietor of the place.

"There's an old lady living over there at seven-thirty-two," he said,

"who has a room, I think. She might take you in." He liked Eugene's

looks.

Eugene crossed over and rang a downstairs bell. The door was opened

shortly by a tall, kindly woman, of a rather matriarchal turn. Her hair

was gray.

"Yes?" she inquired.

"The gentleman at the livery stable over there said I might get a room

here. I'm looking for one."

She smiled pleasantly. This boy looked his strangeness, his wide-eyed

interest, his freshness from the country. "Come in," she said. "I have a

room. You can look at it."

It was a front room--a little bed-room off the one main living room,

clean, simple, convenient. "This looks all right," he said.

She smiled.

"You can have it for two dollars a week," she proffered.

"That's all right," he said, putting down his grip. "I'll take it."

"Have you had supper?" she asked.

"No, but I'm going out soon. I want to see the streets. I'll find some

place."

"I'll give you something," she said.

Eugene thanked her, and she smiled. This was what Chicago did to the

country. It took the boys.

He opened the closed shutters of his window and knelt before it, leaning

on the sill. He looked out idly, for it was all so wonderful. Bright

lights were burning in store windows. These people hurrying--how their

feet sounded--clap, clap, clap. And away east and away west it was all

like this. It was all like this everywhere, a great big, wonderful city.

It was nice to be here. He felt that now. It was all worth while. How

could he have stayed in Alexandria so long! He would get along here.

Certainly he would. He was perfectly sure of that. He knew.

Chicago at this time certainly offered a world of hope and opportunity

to the beginner. It was so new, so raw; everything was in the making.

The long lines of houses and stores were mostly temporary

make-shifts--one and two story frame affairs--with here and there a

three and four story brick building which spoke of better days to come.

Down in the business heart which lay between the lake and the river, the

North Side and the South Side, was a region which spoke of a tremendous

future, for here were stores which served the buying public, not only of

Chicago, but of the Middle West. There were great banks, great office

buildings, great retail stores, great hotels. The section was running

with a tide of people which represented the youth, the illusions, the

untrained aspirations, of millions of souls. When you walked into this

area you could feel what Chicago meant--eagerness, hope, desire. It was

a city that put vitality into almost every wavering heart: it made the

beginner dream dreams; the aged to feel that misfortune was never so

grim that it might not change.

Underneath, of course, was struggle. Youth and hope and energy were

setting a terrific pace. You had to work here, to move, to step lively.

You had to have ideas. This city demanded of you your very best, or it

would have little to do with you. Youth in its search for something--and

age--were quickly to feel this. It was no fool's paradise.

Eugene, once he was settled, realized this. He had the notion, somehow,

that the printer's trade was all over for him. He wanted no more of

that. He wanted to be an artist or something like that, although he

hardly knew how to begin. The papers offered one way, but he was not

sure that they took on beginners. He had had no training whatever. His

sister Myrtle had once said that some of his little thumb-nail sketches

were pretty, but what did she know? If he could study somewhere, find

someone who would teach him.... Meanwhile he would have to work.

He tried the newspapers first of course, for those great institutions

seemed the ideal resort for anyone who wanted to get up in the world,

but the teeming offices with frowning art directors and critical

newspaper workers frightened him. One art director did see something in

the three or four little sketches he showed, but he happened to be in a

crusty mood, and did not want anybody anyway. He simply said no, there

was nothing. Eugene thought that perhaps as an artist also, he was

destined to be a failure.

The trouble with this boy was really that he was not half awake yet. The

beauty of life, its wonder, had cast a spell over him, but he could not

yet interpret it in line and color. He walked about these wonderful

streets, gazing in the windows, looking at the boats on the river,

looking at the ships on the lake. One day, while he was standing on the

lake shore, there came a ship in full sail in the offing--the first he

had ever seen. It gripped his sense of beauty. He clasped his hands

nervously and thrilled to it. Then he sat down on the lake wall and

looked and looked and looked until it gradually sank below the horizon.

So this was how the great lakes were; and how the great seas must

be--the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Ah, the sea! Some

day, perhaps he would go to New York. That was where the sea was. But

here it was also, in miniature, and it was wonderful.

One cannot moon by lake shores and before store windows and at bridge

draws and live, unless one is provided with the means of living, and

this Eugene was not. He had determined when he left home that he would

be independent. He wanted to get a salary in some way that he could at

least live on. He wanted to write back and be able to say that he was

getting along nicely. His trunk came, and a loving letter from his

mother, and some money, but he sent that back. It was only ten dollars,

but he objected to beginning that way. He thought he ought to earn his

own way, and he wanted to try, anyhow.

After ten days his funds were very low, a dollar and seventy-five cents,

and he decided that any job would have to do. Never mind about art or

type-setting now. He could not get the last without a union card, he

must take anything, and so he applied from store to store. The cheap

little shops in which he asked were so ugly they hurt, but he tried to

put his artistic sensibilities aside. He asked for anything, to be made

a clerk in a bakery, in a dry goods store, in a candy store. After a

time a hardware store loomed up, and he asked there. The man looked at

him curiously. "I might give you a place at storing stoves."

Eugene did not understand, but he accepted gladly. It only paid six

dollars a week, but he could live on that. He was shown to a loft in

charge of two rough men, stove fitters, polishers, and repairers, who

gruffly explained to him that his work was to brush the rust off the

decayed stoves, to help piece and screw them together, to polish and

lift things, for this was a second hand stove business which bought and

repaired stoves from junk dealers all over the city. Eugene had a low

bench near a window where he was supposed to do his polishing, but he

very frequently wasted his time here looking out into the green yards of

some houses in a side street. The city was full of wonder to him--its

every detail fascinating. When a rag-picker would go by calling "rags,

old iron," or a vegetable vender crying "tomatoes, potatoes, green corn,

peas," he would stop and listen, the musical pathos of the cries

appealing to him. Alexandria had never had anything like this. It was

all so strange. He saw himself making pen and ink sketches of things, of

the clothes lines in the back yards and of the maids with baskets.

On one of the days when he thought he was working fairly well (he had

been there two weeks), one of the two repairers said, "Hey, get a move

on you. You're not paid to look out the window." Eugene stopped. He had

not realized that he was loafing.

"What have you got to do with it?" he asked, hurt and half defiant. He

was under the impression that he was working with these men, not under

them.

"I'll show you, you fresh kid," said the older of the two, who was an

individual built on the order of "Bill Sykes." "You're under me. You get

a move on you, and don't give me any more of your lip."

Eugene was startled. It was a flash of brutality out of a clear sky. The

animal, whom he had been scanning as an artist would, as a type, out of

the corner of his eye, was revealing himself.

"You go to the devil," said Eugene, only half awake to the grim reality

of the situation.

"What's that!" exclaimed the man, making for him. He gave him a shove

toward the wall, and attempted to kick him with his big, hob-nailed

boot. Eugene picked up a stove leg. His face was wax white.

"Don't you try that again," he said darkly. He fixed the leg in his hand

firmly.

"Call it off, Jim," said the other man, who saw the uselessness of so

much temper. "Don't hit him. Send him down stairs if you don't like

him."

"You get to hell out of here, then," said Eugene's noble superior.

Eugene walked to a nail where his hat and coat were, carrying the stove

leg. He edged past his assailant cautiously, fearing a second attack.

The man was inclined to kick at him again because of his stubbornness,

but forebore.

"You're too fresh, Willie. You want to wake up, you dough face," he said

as Eugene went.

Eugene slipped out quietly. His spirit was hurt and torn. What a scene!

He, Eugene Witla, kicked at, and almost kicked out, and that in a job

that paid six dollars a week. A great lump came up in his throat, but it

went down again. He wanted to cry but he could not. He went downstairs,

stovepolish on his hands and face and slipped up to the desk.

"I want to quit," he said to the man who had hired him.

"All right, what's the matter?"

"That big brute up there tried to kick me," he explained.

"They're pretty rough men," answered the employer. "I was afraid you

wouldn't get along. I guess you're not strong enough. Here you are." He

laid out three dollars and a half. Eugene wondered at this queer

interpretation of his complaint. He must get along with these men? They

musn't get along with him? So the city had that sort of brutality in it.

He went home and washed up, and then struck out again, for it was no

time now to be without a job. After a week he found one,--as a house

runner for a real estate concern, a young man to bring in the numbers of

empty houses and post up the "For Rent" signs in the windows. It paid

eight dollars and seemed to offer opportunities of advancement. Eugene

might have stayed there indefinitely had it not failed after three

months. He had reached the season of fall clothes then, and the need of

a winter overcoat, but he made no complaint to his family. He wanted to

appear to be getting along well, whether he was or not.

One of the things which tended to harden and sharpen his impressions of

life at this time was the show of luxury seen in some directions. On

Michigan Avenue and Prairie Avenue, on Ashland Avenue and Washington

Boulevard, were sections which were crowded with splendid houses such as

Eugene had never seen before. He was astonished at the magnificence of

their appointments, the beauty of the lawns, the show of the windows,

the distinction of the equipages which accompanied them and served them.

For the first time in his life he saw liveried footmen at doors: he saw

at a distance girls and women grown who seemed marvels of beauty to

him--they were so distinguished in their dress; he saw young men

carrying themselves with an air of distinction which he had never seen

before. These must be the society people the newspapers were always

talking about. His mind made no distinctions as yet. If there were fine

clothes, fine trappings, of course social prestige went with them. It

made him see for the first time what far reaches lay between the

conditions of a beginner from the country and what the world really had

to offer--or rather what it showered on some at the top. It subdued and

saddened him a little. Life was unfair.

These fall days, too, with their brown leaves, sharp winds, scudding

smoke and whirls of dust showed him that the city could be cruel. He met

shabby men, sunken eyed, gloomy, haggard, who looked at him, apparently

out of a deep despair. These creatures all seemed to be brought where

they were by difficult circumstances. If they begged at all,--and they

rarely did of him, for he did not look prosperous enough, it was with

the statement that unfortunate circumstances had brought them where they

were. You could fail so easily. You could really starve if you didn't

look sharp,--the city quickly taught him that.

During these days he got immensely lonely. He was not very sociable, and

too introspective. He had no means of making friends, or thought he had

none. So he wandered about the streets at night, marveling at the sights

he saw, or staying at home in his little room. Mrs. Woodruff, the

landlady, was nice and motherly enough, but she was not young and did

not fit into his fancies. He was thinking about girls and how sad it was

not to have one to say a word to him. Stella was gone--that dream was

over. When would he find another like her?

After wandering around for nearly a month, during which time he was

compelled to use some money his mother sent him to buy a suit of clothes

on an instalment plan, he got a place as driver of a laundry, which,

because it paid ten dollars a week, seemed very good. He sketched now

and then when he was not tired, but what he did seemed pointless. So he

worked here, driving a wagon, when he should have been applying for an

art opening, or taking art lessons.

During this winter Myrtle wrote him that Stella Appleton had moved to

Kansas, whither her father had gone; and that his mother's health was

bad, and that she did so want him to come home and stay awhile. It was

about this time that he became acquainted with a little Scotch girl

named Margaret Duff, who worked in the laundry, and became quickly

involved in a relationship which established a precedent in his

experiences with women. Before this he had never physically known a

girl. Now, and of a sudden, he was plunged into something which awakened

a new, and if not evil, at least disrupting and disorganizing propensity

of his character. He loved women, the beauty of the curves of their

bodies. He loved beauty of feature and after a while was to love beauty

of mind,--he did now, in a vague, unformed way,--but his ideal was as

yet not clear to him. Margaret Duff represented some simplicity of

attitude, some generosity of spirit, some shapeliness of form, some

comeliness of feature,--it was not more. But, growing by what it fed on,

his sex appetite became powerful. In a few weeks it had almost mastered

him. He burned to be with this girl daily--and she was perfectly willing

that he should, so long as the relationship did not become too

conspicuous. She was a little afraid of her parents, although those two,

being working people, retired early and slept soundly. They did not seem

to mind her early philanderings with boys. This latest one was no

novelty. It burned fiercely for three months--Eugene was eager,

insatiable: the girl not so much so, but complaisant. She liked this

evidence of fire in him,--the hard, burning flame she had aroused, and

yet after a time she got a little tired. Then little personal

differences arose,--differences of taste, differences of judgment,

differences of interest. He really could not talk to her of anything

serious, could not get a response to his more delicate emotions. For her

part she could not find in him any ready appreciation of the little

things she liked--theater jests, and the bright remarks of other boys

and girls. She had some conception of what was tasteful in dress, but as

for anything else, art, literature, public affairs, she knew nothing at

all, while Eugene, for all his youth, was intensely alive to what was

going on in the great world. The sound of great names and great fames

was in his ears,--Carlyle, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman. He read of great

philosophers, painters, musicians, meteors that sped across the

intellectual sky of the western world, and he wondered. He felt as

though some day he would be called to do something--in his youthful

enthusiasm he half-thought it might be soon. He knew that this girl he

was trifling with could not hold him. She had lured him, but once lured

he was master, judge, critic. He was beginning to feel that he could get

along without her,--that he could find someone better.

Naturally such an attitude would make for the death of passion, as the

satiation of passion would make for the development of such an attitude.

Margaret became indifferent. She resented his superior airs, his

top-lofty tone at times. They quarreled over little things. One night he

suggested something that she ought to do in the haughty manner customary

with him.

"Oh, don't be so smart!" she said. "You always talk as though you owned

me."

"I do," he said jestingly.

"Do you?" she flared. "There are others."

"Well, whenever you're ready you can have them. I'm willing."

The tone cut her, though actually it was only an ill-timed bit of

teasing, more kindly meant than it sounded.

"Well, I'm ready now. You needn't come to see me unless you want to. I

can get along."

She tossed her head.

"Don't be foolish, Margy," he said, seeing the ill wind he had aroused.

"You don't mean that."

"Don't I? Well, we'll see." She walked away from him to another corner

of the room. He followed her, but her anger re-aroused his opposition.

"Oh, all right," he said after a time. "I guess I'd better be going."

She made no response, neither pleas nor suggestions. He went and secured

his hat and coat and came back. "Want to kiss me good-bye?" he inquired.

"No," she said simply.

"Good-night," he called.

"Good-night," she replied indifferently.

The relationship was never amicably readjusted after this, although it

did endure for some time.

CHAPTER V

For the time being this encounter stirred to an almost unbridled degree

Eugene's interest in women. Most men are secretly proud of their triumph

with woman--their ability to triumph--and any evidence of their ability

to attract, entertain, hold, is one of those things which tends to give

them an air of superiority and self-sufficiency which is sometimes

lacking in those who are not so victorious. This was, in its way, his

first victory of the sort, and it pleased him mightily. He felt much

more sure of himself instead of in any way ashamed. What, he thought,

did the silly boys back in Alexandria know of life compared to this?

Nothing. He was in Chicago now. The world was different. He was finding

himself to be a man, free, individual, of interest to other

personalities. Margaret Duff had told him many pretty things about

himself. She had complimented his looks, his total appearance, his taste

in the selection of particular things. He had felt what it is to own a

woman. He strutted about for a time, the fact that he had been dismissed

rather arbitrarily having little weight with him because he was so very

ready to be dismissed, sudden dissatisfaction with his job now stirred

up in him, for ten dollars a week was no sum wherewith any

self-respecting youth could maintain himself,--particularly with a view

to sustaining any such relationship as that which had just ended. He

felt that he ought to get a better place.

Then one day a woman to whom he was delivering a parcel at her home in

Warren Avenue, stopped him long enough to ask: "What do you drivers get

a week for your work?"

"I get ten dollars," said Eugene. "I think some get more."

"You ought to make a good collector," she went on. She was a large,

homely, incisive, straight-talking woman. "Would you like to change to

that kind of work?"

Eugene was sick of the laundry business. The hours were killing. He had

worked as late as one o'clock Sunday morning.

"I think I would," he exclaimed. "I don't know anything about it, but

this work is no fun."

"My husband is the manager of The People's Furniture Company," she went

on. "He needs a good collector now and then. I think he's going to make

a change very soon. I'll speak to him."

Eugene smiled joyously and thanked her. This was surely a windfall. He

was anxious to know what collectors were paid but he thought it scarcely

tactful to ask.

"If he gives you a job you will probably get fourteen dollars to begin

with," she volunteered.

Eugene thrilled. That would be really a rise in the world. Four dollars

more! He could get some nice clothes out of that and have spending money

besides. He might get a chance to study art. His visions began to

multiply. One could get up in the world by trying. The energetic

delivery he had done for this laundry had brought him this. Further

effort in the other field might bring him more. And he was young yet.

He had been working for the laundry company for six months. Six weeks

later, Mr. Henry Mitchly, manager of the People's Furniture, wrote him

care of the laundry company to call at his home any evening after eight

and he would see him. "My wife has spoken to me of you," he added.

Eugene complied the same day that he received the note, and was looked

over by a lean, brisk, unctuous looking man of forty, who asked him

various questions as to his work, his home, how much money he took in as

a driver, and what not. Finally he said, "I need a bright young man down

at my place. It's a good job for one who is steady and honest and

hardworking. My wife seems to think you work pretty well, so I'm willing

to give you a trial. I can put you to work at fourteen dollars. I want

you to come to see me a week from Monday."

Eugene thanked him. He decided, on Mr. Mitchly's advice, to give his

laundry manager a full week's notice. He told Margaret that he was

leaving and she was apparently glad for his sake. The management was

slightly sorry, for Eugene was a good driver. During his last week he

helped break in a new man in his place, and on Monday appeared before

Mr. Mitchly.

Mr. Mitchly was glad to have him, for he had seen him as a young man of

energy and force. He explained the simple nature of the work, which was

to take bills for clocks, silverware, rugs, anything which the company

sold, and go over the various routes collecting the money due,--which

would average from seventy five to a hundred and twenty-five dollars a

day. "Most companies in our line require a bond," he explained, "but we

haven't come to that yet. I think I know honest young men when I see

them. Anyhow we have a system of inspection. If a man's inclined to be

dishonest he can't get very far with us."

Eugene had never thought of this question of honesty very much. He had

been raised where he did not need to worry about the matter of a little

pocket change, and he had made enough at the _Appeal_ to supply his

immediate wants. Besides, among the people he had always associated with

it was considered a very right and necessary thing to be honest. Men

were arrested for not being. He remembered one very sad case of a boy he

knew being arrested at Alexandria for breaking into a store at night.

That seemed a terrible thing to him at the time. Since then he had been

speculating a great deal, in a vague way as to what honesty was, but he

had not yet decided. He knew that it was expected of him to account for

the last penny of anything that was placed in his keeping and he was

perfectly willing to do so. The money he earned seemed enough if he had

to live on it. There was no need for him to aid in supporting anyone

else. So he slipped along rather easily and practically untested.

Eugene took the first day's package of bills as laid out for him, and

carefully went from door to door. In some places money was paid him for

which he gave a receipt, in others he was put off or refused because of

previous difficulties with the company. In a number of places people had

moved, leaving no trace of themselves, and packing the unpaid for goods

with them. It was his business, as Mr. Mitchly explained, to try to get

track of them from the neighbors.

Eugene saw at once that he was going to like the work. The fresh air,

the out-door life, the walking, the quickness with which his task was

accomplished, all pleased him. His routes took him into strange and new

parts of the city, where he had never been before, and introduced him to

types he had never met. His laundry work, taking him from door to door,

had been a freshening influence, and this was another. He saw scenes

that he felt sure he could, when he had learned to draw a little better,

make great things of,--dark, towering factory-sites, great stretches of

railroad yards laid out like a puzzle in rain, snow, or bright sunlight;

great smoke-stacks throwing their black heights athwart morning or

evening skies. He liked them best in the late afternoon when they stood

out in a glow of red or fading purple. "Wonderful," he used to exclaim

to himself, and think how the world would marvel if he could ever come

to do great pictures like those of Dore. He admired the man's tremendous

imagination. He never thought of himself as doing anything in oils or

water colors or chalk--only pen and ink, and that in great, rude

splotches of black and white. That was the way. That was the way force

was had.

But he could not do them. He could only think them.

One of his chief joys was the Chicago river, its black, mucky water

churned by puffing tugs and its banks lined by great red grain elevators

and black coal chutes and yellow lumber yards. Here was real color and

life--the thing to draw; and then there were the low, drab, rain-soaked

cottages standing in lonely, shabby little rows out on flat prairie

land, perhaps a scrubby tree somewhere near. He loved these. He would

take an envelope and try to get the sense of them--the feel, as he

called it--but it wouldn't come. All he did seemed cheap and

commonplace, mere pointless lines and stiff wooden masses. How did the

great artists get their smoothness and ease? He wondered.

CHAPTER VI

Eugene collected and reported faithfully every day, and had managed to

save a little money. Margaret was now a part of his past. His landlady,

Mrs. Woodruff, had gone to live with a daughter in Sedalia, Missouri,

and he had moved to a comparatively nice house in East Twenty-first

Street on the South Side. It had taken his eye because of a tree in a

fifty foot space of ground before it. Like his other room it cost him

little, and he was in a private family. He arranged a twenty cent rate

per meal for such meals as he took there, and thus he managed to keep

his bare living expenses down to five dollars a week. The remaining nine

he spent sparingly for clothes, car-fare, and amusements--almost nothing

of the latter. When he saw he had a little money in reserve he began to

think of looking up the Art Institute, which had been looming up in his

mind as an avenue of advancement, and find out on what condition he

could join a night class in drawing. They were very reasonable, he

heard, only fifteen dollars a quarter, and he decided to begin if the

conditions were not too severe. He was beginning to be convinced that he

was born to be an artist--how soon he could not tell.

The old Art Institute, which preceded the present impressive structure,

was located at Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street, and presented an

atmosphere of distinction which was not present in most of the

structures representing the public taste of the period. It was a large

six storey building of brown stone, and contained a number of studios

for painters, sculptors, and music teachers, besides the exhibition

rooms and the rooms for the classes. There were both day and evening

classes, and even at that time a large number of students. The western

soul, to a certain extent, was fired by the wonder of art. There was so

little of it in the life of the people--the fame of those who could

accomplish things in this field and live in a more refined atmosphere

was great. To go to Paris! To be a student in any one of the great

ateliers of that city! Or of Munich or Rome, to know the character of

the artistic treasures of Europe--the life of the Art quarter--that was

something. There was what might have been termed a wild desire in the

breast of many an untutored boy and girl to get out of the ranks of the

commonplace; to assume the character and the habiliments of the artistic

temperament as they were then supposed to be; to have a refined,

semi-languorous, semi-indifferent manner; to live in a studio, to have a

certain freedom in morals and temperament not accorded to the ordinary

person--these were the great things to do and be. Of course, art

composition was a part of this. You were supposed ultimately to paint

great pictures or do noble sculptures, but in the meanwhile you could

and should live the life of the artist. And that was beautiful and

wonderful and free.

Eugene had long had some sense of this. He was aware that there were

studios in Chicago; that certain men were supposed to be doing good

work--he saw it in the papers. There were mentions now and then of

exhibitions, mostly free, which the public attended but sparingly. Once

there was an exhibition of some of the war pictures of Verestchagin, a

great Russian painter who had come West for some purpose. Eugene saw

them one Sunday afternoon, and was enthralled by the magnificence of

their grasp of the elements of battle; the wonder of color; the truth of

character; the dramatic quality; the sense of force and danger and

horror and suffering which was somehow around and in and through

everything that was shown. This man had virility and insight; stupendous

imagination and temperament. Eugene stood and stared, wondering how such

things could be done. Ever afterward the name of Verestchagin was like a

great call to his imagination; that was the kind of an artist to be if

you were going to be one.

Another picture came there once, which appealed to another side of his

nature, although primarily the basis of its appeal was artistic. It was

a great, warm tinted nude by Bouguereau, a French artist who was

startling his day with his daring portrayal of the nude. The types he

depicted were not namby-pamby little slim-bodied women with spindling

qualities of strength and passion, but great, full-blown women whose

voluptuous contour of neck and arms and torso and hip and thigh was

enough to set the blood of youth at fever heat. The man obviously

understood and had passion, love of form, love of desire, love of

beauty. He painted with a sense of the bridal bed in the background; of

motherhood and of fat, growing babies, joyously nursed. These women

stood up big in their sense of beauty and magnetism, the soft lure of

desire in their eyes, their full lips parted, their cheeks flushed with

the blood of health. As such they were anathema to the conservative and

puritanical in mind, the religious in temperament, the cautious in

training or taste. The very bringing of this picture to Chicago as a

product for sale was enough to create a furore of objection. Such

pictures should not be painted, was the cry of the press; or if painted,

not exhibited. Bouguereau was conceived of by many as one of those

dastards of art who were endeavoring to corrupt by their talent the

morals of the world; there was a cry raised that the thing should be

suppressed; and as is always the case in all such outbursts of special

class opposition, the interest of the general public was aroused.

Eugene was one of those who noted the discussion. He had never seen a

picture by Bouguereau or, indeed, an original nude by any other artist.

Being usually at liberty after three o'clock, he was free to visit some

of these things, and having found it possible to do his work in good

clothes he had come to wear his best suit every day. He was a fairly

presentable youth with a solemn mien, and his request to be shown

anything in any art store would have aroused no surprise. He looked as

though he belonged to the intellectual and artistic classes.

Not being sure of what reception would be accorded one so young--he was

now nearing twenty--he nevertheless ventured to stop at the gallery

where the Bouguereau was being exhibited and ask to see it. The

attendant in charge eyed him curiously, but led him back to a room hung

in dark red, and turning on a burst of incandescent bulbs set in the

ceiling of a red plush hung cabinet, pulled back the curtain revealing

the picture. Eugene had never seen such a figure and face. It was a

dream of beauty--his ideal come to life. He studied the face and neck,

the soft mass of brown, sensuous hair massed at the back of the head,

the flowerlike lips and soft cheeks. He marveled at the suggestion of

the breasts and the abdomen, that potentiality of motherhood that is so

firing to the male. He could have stood there hours dreaming,

luxuriating, but the attendant who had left him alone with it for a few

minutes returned.

"What is the price of this?" Eugene asked.

"Ten thousand dollars," was the reply.

He smiled solemnly. "It's a wonderful thing," he said, and turned to go.

The attendant put out the light.

This picture, like those of Verestchagin, made a sharp impression on

him. Curiously he had no longing to paint anything of this kind. He only

rejoiced to look at it. It spoke to him of his present ideal of

womanhood--physical beauty, and he longed with all his heart to find a

creature like that who would look on him with favor.

There were other exhibitions--one containing a genuine Rembrandt--which

impressed him, but none like these that had definitely stirred him. His

interest in art was becoming eager. He wanted to find out all about

it--to do something himself. One day he ventured to call at the Art

Institute building and consult the secretary, who explained to him what

the charges were. He learned from her, for she was a woman of a

practical, clerical turn, that the classes ran from October to May, that

he could enter a life or antique class or both, though the antique alone

was advisable for the time, and a class in illustration, where costumes

of different periods were presented on different models. He found that

each class had an instructor of supposed note, whom it was not necessary

for him to see. Each class had a monitor and each student was supposed

to work faithfully for his own benefit. Eugene did not get to see the

class rooms, but he gained a sense of the art of it all, nevertheless,

for the halls and offices were decorated in an artistic way, and there

were many plaster casts of arms, legs, busts, and thighs and heads. It

was as though one stood in an open doorway and looked out upon a new

world. The one thing that gratified him was that he could study pen and

ink or brush in the illustration class, and that he could also join a

sketch class from five to six every afternoon without extra charges if

he preferred to devote his evening hours to studying drawing in the life

class. He was a little astonished to learn from a printed prospectus

given him that the life class meant nude models to work from--both men

and women. He was surely approaching a different world now. It seemed

necessary and natural enough, and yet there was an aloof atmosphere

about it, something that suggested the inner precincts of a shrine, to

which only talent was admitted. Was he talented? Wait! He would show the

world, even if he was a raw country boy.

The classes which he decided to enter were first a life class which

convened Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings at seven in one of the

study rooms and remained in session until ten o'clock, and second a

sketch class which met from five to six every afternoon. Eugene felt

that he knew little or nothing about figure and anatomy and had better

work at that. Costume and illustration would have to wait, and as for

the landscapes, or rather city-scapes, of which he was so fond, he could

afford to defer those until he learned something of the fundamentals of

art.

Heretofore he had rarely attempted the drawing of a face or figure

except in miniature and as details of a larger scene. Now he was

confronted with the necessity of sketching in charcoal the head or body

of a living person, and it frightened him a little. He knew that he

would be in a class with fifteen or twenty other male students. They

would be able to see and comment on what he was doing. Twice a week an

instructor would come around and pass upon his work. There were honors

for those who did the best work during any one month, he learned from

the prospectus, namely: first choice of seats around the model at the

beginning of each new pose. The class instructors must be of

considerable significance in the American art world, he thought, for

they were N. A.'s, and that meant National Academicians. He little knew

with what contempt this honor was received in some quarters, or he would

not have attached so much significance to it.

One Monday evening in October, armed with the several sheets of paper

which he had been told to purchase by his all-informing prospectus, he

began his work. He was a little nervous at sight of the brightly lighted

halls and class rooms, and the moving crowd of young men and women did

not tend to allay his fears. He was struck at once with the quality of

gaiety, determination and easy grace which marked the different members

of this company. The boys struck him as interesting, virile, in many

cases good looking; the girls as graceful, rather dashing and confident.

One or two whom he noted were beautiful in a dark way. This was a

wonderful world.

The rooms too, were exceptional. They were old enough in use to be

almost completely covered, as to the walls, with the accumulation of

paint scraped from the palettes. There were no easels or other

paraphernalia, but simply chairs and little stools--the former, as

Eugene learned, to be turned upside down for easels, the latter for the

students to sit on. In the center of the room was a platform, the height

of an ordinary table, for the model to pose on, and in one corner a

screen which constituted a dressing room. There were no pictures or

statuary--just the bare walls--but curiously, in one corner, a piano.

Out in the halls and in the general lounging center were pictures of

nude figures or parts of figures posed in all sorts of ways which

Eugene, in his raw, youthful way, thought suggestive. He secretly

rejoiced to look at them but he felt that he must not say anything about

what he thought. An art student, he felt sure, must appear to be

indifferent to such suggestion--to be above such desire. They were here

to work, not to dream of women.

When the time came for the classes to assemble there was a scurrying to

and fro, conferring between different students, and then the men found

themselves in one set of rooms and the women in another. Eugene saw a

young girl in his room, sitting up near the screen, idly gazing about.

She was pretty, of a slightly Irish cast of countenance, with black hair

and black eyes. She wore a cap that was an imitation of the Polish

national head-dress, and a red cape. Eugene assumed her to be the class

model and secretly wondered if he was really to see her in the nude. In

a few minutes all the students were gathered, and then there was a stir

as there strolled in a rather vigorous and picturesque man of thirty-six

or thereabouts, who sauntered to the front of the room and called the

class to order. He was clad in a shabby suit of grey tweed and crowned

with a little brown hat, shoved rakishly over one ear, which he did not

trouble to take off. He wore a soft blue hickory shirt without collar or

tie, and looked immensely self-sufficient. He was tall and lean and

raw-boned, with a face which was long and narrow; his eyes were large

and wide set, his mouth big and firm in its lines; he had big hands and

feet, and an almost rolling gait. Eugene assumed instinctively that this

was Mr. Temple Boyle, N. A., the class instructor, and he imagined there

would be an opening address of some kind. But the instructor merely

announced that Mr. William Ray had been appointed monitor and that he

hoped that there would be no disorder or wasting of time. There would be

regular criticism days by him--Wednesdays and Fridays. He hoped that

each pupil would be able to show marked improvement. The class would now

begin work. Then he strolled out.

Eugene soon learned from one of the students that this really was

Mr. Boyle. The young Irish girl had gone behind the screen. Eugene could

see partially, from where he was sitting, that she was disrobing. It

shocked him a little, but he kept his courage and his countenance

because of the presence of so many others. He turned a chair upside down

as he saw the others do, and sat down on a stool. His charcoal was lying

in a little box beside him. He straightened his paper on its board and

fidgeted, keeping as still as he could. Some of the students were

talking. Suddenly he saw the girl divest herself of a thin, gauze shirt,

and the next moment she came out, naked and composed, to step upon the

platform and stand perfectly erect, her arms by her side, her head

thrown back. Eugene tingled and blushed and was almost afraid to look

directly at her. Then he took a stick of charcoal and began sketching

feebly, attempting to convey something of this personality and this pose

to paper. It seemed a wonderful thing for him to be doing--to be in this

room, to see this girl posing so; in short, to be an art student. So

this was what it was, a world absolutely different from anything he had

ever known. And he was self-called to be a member of it.

CHAPTER VII

It was after he had decided to enter the art class that Eugene paid his

first visit to his family. Though they were only a hundred miles away,

he had never felt like going back, even at Christmas. Now it seemed to

him he had something definite to proclaim. He was going to be an artist;

and as to his work, he was getting along well in that. Mr. Mitchly

appeared to like him. It was to Mr. Mitchly that he reported daily with

his collections and his unsatisfied bills. The collections were checked

up by Mr. Mitchly with the cash, and the unpaid bills certified.

Sometimes Eugene made a mistake, having too much or too little, but the

"too much" was always credited against the "too little," so that in the

main he came out even. In money matters there was no tendency on

Eugene's part to be dishonest. He thought of lots of things he wanted,

but he was fairly well content to wait and come by them legitimately. It

was this note in him that appealed to Mitchly. He thought that possibly

something could be made of Eugene in a trade way.

He left the Friday night preceding Labor Day, the first Monday in

September, which was a holiday throughout the city. He had told

Mr. Mitchly that he thought of leaving Saturday after work for over

Sunday and Monday, but Mr. Mitchly suggested that he might double up his

Saturday's work with Thursday's and Friday's if he wished, and go Friday

evening.

"Saturday's a short day, anyhow," he said. "That would give three days

at home and still you wouldn't be behind in your work."

Eugene thanked his employer and did as suggested. He packed his bag with

the best he had in the way of clothes, and journeyed homeward, wondering

how he would find things. How different it all was! Stella was gone. His

youthful unsophistication had passed. He could go home as a city man

with some prospects. He had no idea of how boyish he looked--how much

the idealist he was--how far removed from hard, practical judgment which

the world values so highly.

When the train reached Alexandria, his father and Myrtle and Sylvia were

at the depot to greet him--the latter with her two year old son. They

had all come down in the family carryall, which left one seat for

Eugene. He greeted them warmly and received their encomiums on his looks

with a befitting sense of humility.

"You're bigger," his father exclaimed. "You're going to be a tall man

after all, Eugene. I was afraid you had stopped growing."

"I hadn't noticed that I had grown any," said Eugene.

"Ah, yes," put in Myrtle. "You're much bigger, Gene. It makes you look a

little thinner. Are you good and strong?"

"I ought to be," laughed Eugene. "I walk about fifteen or twenty miles a

day, and I'm out in the air all the time. If I don't get strong now I

never will."

Sylvia asked him about his "stomach trouble." About the same, he told

her. Sometimes he thought it was better, sometimes worse. A doctor had

told him to drink hot water in the morning but he didn't like to do it.

It was so hard to swallow the stuff.

While they were talking, asking questions, they reached the front gate

of the house, and Mrs. Witla came out on the front porch. Eugene, at

sight of her in the late dusk, jumped over the front wheel and ran to

meet her.

"Little ma," he exclaimed. "Didn't expect me back so soon, did you?"

"So soon," she said, her arms around his neck. Then she held him so,

quite still for a few moments. "You're getting to be a big man," she

said when she released him.

He went into the old sitting room and looked around. It was all quite

the same--no change. There were the same books, the same table, the same

chairs, the same pulley lamp hanging from the center of the ceiling. In

the parlor there was nothing new, nor in the bed rooms or the kitchen.

His mother looked a little older--his father not. Sylvia had changed

greatly--being slightly "peaked" in the face compared to her former

plumpness; it was due to motherhood, he thought. Myrtle seemed a little

more calm and happy. She had a real "steady" now, Frank Bangs, the

superintendent of the local furniture factory. He was quite young,

good-looking, going to be well-off some day, so they thought. "Old

Bill," one of the big horses, had been sold. Rover, one of the two

collies, was dead. Jake the cat had been killed in a night brawl

somewhere.

Somehow, as Eugene stood in the kitchen watching his mother fry a big

steak and make biscuits and gravy in honor of his coming, he felt that

he did not belong to this world any more. It was smaller, narrower than

he had ever thought. The town had seemed smaller as he had come through

its streets, the houses too; and yet it was nice. The yards were sweet

and simple, but countrified. His father, running a sewing machine

business, seemed tremendously limited. He had a country or small town

mind. It struck Eugene as curious now, that they had never had a piano.

And Myrtle liked music, too. As for himself, he had learned that he was

passionately fond of it. There were organ recitals in the Central Music

Hall, of Chicago, on Tuesday and Friday afternoons, and he had managed

to attend some after his work. There were great preachers like Prof.

Swing and the Rev. H. W. Thomas and the Rev. F. W. Gunsaulus and Prof.

Saltus, liberal thinkers all, whose public services in the city were

always accompanied by lovely music. Eugene had found all these men and

their services in his search for life and to avoid being lonely. Now

they had taught him that his old world was no world at all. It was a

small town. He would never come to this any more.

After a sound night's rest in his old room he went down the next day to

see Mr. Caleb Williams at the _Appeal_ office, and Mr. Burgess, and

Jonas Lyle, and John Summers. As he went, on the court house square he

met Ed Mitchell and George Taps and Will Groniger, and four or five

others whom he had known in school. From them he learned how things

were. It appeared that George Anderson had married a local girl and was

in Chicago, working out in the stock yards. Ed Waterbury had gone to San

Francisco. The pretty Sampson girl, Bessie Sampson, who had once gone

with Ted Martinwood so much, had run away with a man from Anderson,

Indiana. There had been a lot of talk about it at the time. Eugene

listened.

It all seemed less, though, than the new world that he had entered. Of

these fellows none knew the visions that were now surging in his brain.

Paris--no less--and New York--by what far route he could scarcely tell.

And Will Groniger had got to be a baggage clerk at one of the two depots

and was proud of it. Good Heavens!

At the office of the _Appeal_ things were unchanged. Somehow Eugene had

had the feeling that two years would make a lot of difference, whereas

the difference was in him only. He was the one who had undergone

cataclysmic changes. He had a been a stove polisher, a real estate

assistant, a driver and a collector. He had known Margaret Duff, and

Mr. Redwood, of the laundry, and Mr. Mitchly. The great city had dawned

on him; Verestchagin, and Bouguereau, and the Art Institute. He was

going on at one pace, the town was moving at another one--a slower, but

quite as fast as it had ever gone.

Caleb Williams was there, skipping about as of yore, cheerful,

communicative, interested. "I'm glad to see you back, Eugene," he

declared, fixing him with the one good eye which watered. "I'm glad

you're getting along--that's fine. Going to be an artist, eh? Well, I

think that's what you were cut out for. I wouldn't advise every young

fellow to go to Chicago, but that's where you belong. If it wasn't for

my wife and three children I never would have left it. When you get a

wife and family though--" he paused and shook his head. "I gad! You got

to do the best you can." Then he went to look up some missing copy.

Jonas Lyle was as portly, phlegmatic and philosophic as ever. He greeted

Eugene with a solemn eye in which there was inquiry. "Well, how is it?"

he asked.

Eugene smiled. "Oh, pretty good."

"Not going to be a printer, then?"

"No, I think not."

"Well, it's just as well, there're an awful lot of them."

While they were talking John Summers sidled up.

"How are you, Mr. Witla?" he inquired.

Eugene looked at him. John was certainly marked for the grave in the

near future. He was thinner, of a bluish-grey color, bent at the

shoulders.

"Why, I'm fine, Mr. Summers," Eugene said.

"I'm not so good," said the old printer. He tapped his chest

significantly. "This thing's getting the best of me."

"Don't you believe it," put in Lyle. "John's always gloomy. He's just as

good as ever. I tell him he'll live twenty years yet."

"No, no," said Summers, shaking his head, "I know."

He left after a bit to "go across the street," his customary drinking

excuse.

"He can't last another year," Lyle observed the moment the door was

closed. "Burgess only keeps him because it would be a shame to turn him

out. But he's done for."

"Anyone can see that," said Eugene. "He looks terrible."

So they talked.

At noon he went home. Myrtle announced that he was to come with her and

Mr. Bangs to a party that evening. There were going to be games and

refreshments. It never occurred to him that in this town there had never

been dancing among the boys and girls he moved with, and scarcely any

music. People did not have pianos--or at least only a few of them.

After supper Mr. Bangs called, and the three of them went to a typical

small town party. It was not much different from the ones Eugene had

attended with Stella, except that the participants were, in the main,

just that much older. Two years make a great deal of difference in

youth. There were some twenty-two young men and women all crowded into

three fair sized rooms and on a porch, the windows and doors leading to

which were open. Outside were brown grass and some autumn flowers. Early

crickets were chirping, and there were late fire-flies. It was warm and

pleasant.

The opening efforts to be sociable were a little stiff. There were

introductions all around, much smart badinage among town dandies, for

most of them were here. There were a number of new faces--girls who had

moved in from other towns or blossomed into maturity since Eugene had

left.

"If you'll marry me, Madge, I'll buy you a nice new pair of seal skin

earrings," he heard one of the young bloods remark.

Eugene smiled, and the girl laughed back. "He always thinks he's so

cute."

It was almost impossible for Eugene to break through the opening sense

of reserve which clogged his actions at everything in the way of social

diversion. He was a little nervous because he was afraid of criticism.

That was his vanity and deep egotism. He stood about, trying to get into

the swing of the thing with a bright remark or two. Just as he was

beginning to bubble, a girl came in from one of the other rooms. Eugene

had not met her. She was with his prospective brother-in-law, Bangs, and

was laughing in a sweet, joyous way which arrested his attention. She

was dressed in white, he noticed, with a band of golden brown ribbon

pulled through the loops above the flounces at the bottom of her dress.

Her hair was a wonderful ashen yellow, a great mass of it--and laid in

big, thick braids above her forehead and ears. Her nose was straight,

her lips were thin and red, her cheek-bones faintly but curiously

noticeable. Somehow there was a sense of distinction about her--a faint

aroma of personality which Eugene did not understand. It appealed to

him.

Bangs brought her over. He was a tight, smiling youth, as sound as oak,

as clear as good water.

"Here's Miss Blue, Eugene. She's from up in Wisconsin, and comes down to

Chicago occasionally. I told her you ought to know her. You might meet

up there sometime."

"Say, but that's good luck, isn't it?" smiled Eugene. "I'm sure I'm glad

to know you. What part of Wisconsin do you come from?"

"Blackwood," she laughed, her greenish-blue eyes dancing.

"Her hair is yellow, her eyes are blue, and she comes from Blackwood,"

commented Bangs. "How's that?" His big mouth, with its even teeth, was

wide with a smile.

"You left out the blue name and the white dress. She ought to wear white

all the time."

"Oh, it does harmonize with my name, doesn't it?" she cried. "At home I

do wear white mostly. You see I'm just a country girl, and I make most

of my things."

"Did you make that?" asked Eugene.

"Of course I did."

Bangs moved away a little, looking at her as if critically. "Well,

that's really pretty," he pronounced.

"Mr. Bangs is such a flatterer," she smiled at Eugene. "He doesn't mean

any thing he says. He just tells me one thing after another."

"He's right," said Eugene. "I agree as to the dress, and it fits the

hair wonderfully."

"You see, he's lost, too," laughed Bangs. "That's the way they all do.

Well, I'm going to leave you two. I've got to get back. I left your

sister in the hands of a rival of mine."

Eugene turned to this girl and laughed his reserved laugh. "I was just

thinking what was going to become of me. I've been away for two years,

and I've lost track of some of these people."

"I'm worse yet. I've only been here two weeks and I scarcely know

anybody. Mrs. King takes me around everywhere, but it's all so new I

can't get hold of it. I think Alexandria is lovely."

"It is nice. I suppose you've been out on the lakes?"

"Oh, yes. We've fished and rowed and camped. I have had a lovely time

but I have to go back tomorrow."

"Do you?" said Eugene. "Why I do too. I'm going to take the

four-fifteen."

"So am I!" she laughed. "Perhaps we can go together."

"Why, certainly. That's fine. I thought I'd have to go back alone. I

only came down for over Sunday. I've been working up in Chicago."

They fell to telling each other their histories. She was from Blackwood,

only eighty-five miles from Chicago, and had lived there all her life.

There were several brothers and sisters. Her father was evidently a

farmer and politician and what not, and Eugene gleaned from stray

remarks that they must be well thought of, though poor. One

brother-in-law was spoken of as a banker; another as the owner of a

grain elevator; she herself was a school teacher at Blackwood--had been

for several years.

Eugene did not realize it, but she was fully five years older than

himself, with the tact and the superior advantage which so much

difference in years brings. She was tired of school-teaching, tired of

caring for the babies of married sisters, tired of being left to work

and stay at home when the ideal marrying age was rapidly passing. She

was interested in able people, and silly village boys did not appeal to

her. There was one who was begging her to marry him at this moment, but

he was a slow soul up in Blackwood, not actually worthy of her nor able

to support her well. She was hopefully, sadly, vaguely, madly longing

for something better, and as yet nothing had ever turned up. This

meeting with Eugene was not anything which promised a way out to her.

She was not seeking so urgently--nor did she give introductions that

sort of a twist in her consciousness. But this young man had an appeal

for her beyond anyone she had met recently. They were in sympathetic

accord, apparently. She liked his clear, big eyes, his dark hair, his

rather waxen complexion. He seemed something better than she had known,

and she hoped that he would be nice to her.

CHAPTER VIII

The rest of that evening Eugene spent not exactly with, but near Miss

Blue--Miss Angela Blue, as he found her name to be. He was interested in

her not so much from the point of view of looks, though she was charming

enough, but because of some peculiarity of temperament which lingered

with him as a grateful taste might dwell on the palate. He thought her

young; and was charmed by what he considered her innocence and

unsophistication. As a matter of fact she was not so much young and

unsophisticated as an unconscious simulator of simplicity. In the

conventional sense she was a thoroughly good girl, loyal, financially

honest, truthful in all commonplace things, and thoroughly virtuous,

moreover, in that she considered marriage and children the fate and duty

of all women. Having had so much trouble with other peoples' children

she was not anxious to have any, or at least many, of her own. Of

course, she did not believe that she would escape with what seemed to be

any such good fortune. She fancied that she would be like her sisters,

the wife of a good business or professional man; the mother of three or

four or five healthy children; the keeper of an ideal middle class home;

the handmaiden of her husband's needs. There was a deep current of

passion in her which she had come to feel would never be satisfied. No

man would ever understand, no man at least whom she was likely to meet;

but she knew she had a great capacity to love. If someone would only

come along and arouse that--be worthy of it--what a whirlwind of

affection she would return to him! How she would love, how sacrifice!

But it seemed now that her dreams were destined never to be fulfilled,

because so much time had slipped by and she had not been courted by the

right one. So here she was now at twenty-five, dreaming and longing--the

object of her ideals thus accidentally brought before her, and no

immediate consciousness that that was the case.

It does not take sexual affinity long to manifest itself, once its

subjects are brought near to each other. Eugene was older in certain

forms of knowledge, broader in a sense, potentially greater than she

would ever comprehend; but nevertheless, swayed helplessly by emotion

and desire. Her own emotions, though perhaps stronger than his, were

differently aroused. The stars, the night, a lovely scene, any exquisite

attribute of nature could fascinate him to the point of melancholy. With

her, nature in its largest aspects passed practically unnoticed. She

responded to music feelingly, as did Eugene. In literature, only realism

appealed to him; for her, sentiment, strained though not necessarily

unreal, had the greatest charm. Art in its purely aesthetic forms meant

nothing at all to her. To Eugene it was the last word in the matter of

emotional perception. History, philosophy, logic, psychology, were

sealed books to her. To Eugene they were already open doors, or, better

yet, flowery paths of joy, down which he was wandering. Yet in spite of

these things they were being attracted toward each other.

And there were other differences. With Eugene convention meant nothing

at all, and his sense of evil and good was something which the ordinary

person would not have comprehended. He was prone to like all sorts and

conditions of human beings--the intellectual, the ignorant, the clean,

the dirty, the gay, the sorrowful, white, yellow, black. As for Angela,

she had a distinct preference for those who conducted themselves

according to given standards of propriety. She was brought up to think

of those people as best who worked the hardest, denied themselves the

most, and conformed to the ordinary notions of right and wrong. There

was no questioning of current standards in her mind. As it was written

socially and ethically upon the tables of the law, so was it. There

might be charming characters outside the pale, but they were not

admitted to association or sympathy. To Eugene a human being was a human

being. The ruck of misfits or ne'er-do-wells he could laugh joyously

with or at. It was all wonderful, beautiful, amusing. Even its grimness

and tragedy were worth while, although they hurt him terribly at times.

Why, under these circumstances, he should have been so thoroughly

attracted to Angela remains a mystery. Perhaps they complemented each

other at this time as a satellite complements a larger luminary--for

Eugene's egoism required praise, sympathy, feminine coddling; and Angela

caught fire from the warmth and geniality of his temperament.

On the train next day Eugene had nearly three hours of what he deemed

most delightful talk with her. They had not journeyed far before he had

told her how he had traveled this way, on this train, at this hour, two

years before; how he had walked about the streets of the big city,

looking for a place to sleep, how he had got work and stayed away until

he felt that he had found himself. Now he was going to study art and

then to New York or Paris, and do magazine illustrating and possibly

paint pictures. He was truly your flamboyant youth of talent when he got

to talking--when he had a truly sympathetic ear. He loved to boast to

someone who really admired him, and he felt that he had admiration here.

Angela looked at him with swimming eyes. He was really different from

anything she had ever known, young, artistic, imaginative, ambitious. He

was going out into a world which she had longed for but never hoped to

see--that of art. Here he was telling her of his prospective art

studies, and talking of Paris. What a wonderful thing!

As the train neared Chicago she explained that she would have to make an

almost immediate connection with one which left over the Chicago

Milwaukee and St. Paul, for Blackwood. She was a little lonely, to tell

the truth, a little sick at heart, for the summer vacation was over and

she was going back to teach school. Alexandria, for the two weeks she

had been there visiting Mrs. King (formerly a Blackwood girl and

school-day chum of hers), was lovely. Her girlhood friend had tried to

make things most pleasant and now it was all over. Even Eugene was over,

for he said nothing much of seeing her again, or had not so far. She was

wishing she might see more of this world he painted in such glowing

colors, when he said:

"Mr. Bangs said that you come down to Chicago every now and then?"

"I do," she replied. "I sometimes come down to go to the theatres and

shop." She did not say that there was an element of practical household

commercialism in it, for she was considered one of the best buyers in

the family and that she was sent to buy by various members of the family

in quantities. From a practical household point of view she was a

thoroughbred and was valued by her sisters and friends as someone who

loved to do things. She might have come to be merely a family pack

horse, solely because she loved to work. It was instinct to do

everything she did thoroughly, but she worked almost exclusively in

minor household matters.

"How soon do you expect to come down again?" he asked.

"Oh, I can't tell. I sometimes come down when Opera is on in the winter.

I may be here around Thanksgiving."

"Not before that?"

"I don't think so," she replied archly.

"That's too bad. I thought maybe I'd see you a few times this fall. When

you do come I wish you could let me know. I'd like to take you to the

theatre."

Eugene spent precious little money on any entertainment, but he thought

he could venture this. She would not be down often. Then, too, he had

the notion that he might get a rise one of these days--that would make a

difference. When she came again he would be in art school, opening up

another field for himself. Life looked hopeful.

"That's so nice of you," she replied. "And when I come I'll let you

know. I'm just a country girl," she added, with a toss of her head, "and

I don't get to the city often."

Eugene liked what he considered the guileless naivete of her

confessions--the frankness with which she owned up to simplicity and

poverty. Most girls didn't. She almost made a virtue out of these

thing--at least they were charming as a confession in her.

"I'll hold you to that," he assured her.

"Oh, you needn't. I'll be glad to let you know."

They were nearing the station. He forgot, for the moment that she was

not as remote and delicate in her beauty as Stella, that she was

apparently not as passionate temperamentally as Margaret. He saw her

wonderfully dull hair and her thin lips and peculiar blue eyes, and

admired her honesty and simplicity. He picked up her grip and helped her

to find her train. When they came to part he pressed her hand warmly,

for she had been very nice to him, so attentive and sympathetic and

interested.

"Now remember!" he said gaily, after he had put her in her seat in the

local.

"I won't forget."

"You wouldn't mind if I wrote you now and then?"

"Not at all. I'd like it."

"Then I will," he said, and went out.

He stood outside and looked at her through the train window as it pulled

out. He was glad to have met her. This was the right sort of girl,

clean, honest, simple, attractive. That was the way the best women

were--good and pure--not wild pieces of fire like Margaret; nor

unconscious, indifferent beauties like Stella, he was going to add, but

couldn't. There was a voice within him that said that artistically

Stella was perfect and even now it hurt him a little to remember. But

Stella was gone forever, there was no doubt about that.

During the days that followed he thought of the girl often. He wondered

what sort of a town Blackwood was; what sort of people she moved with,

what sort of a house she lived in. They must be nice, simple people like

his own in Alexandria. These types of city bred people whom he

saw--girls particularly--and those born to wealth, had no appeal for him

as yet. They were too distant, too far removed from anything he could

aspire to. A good woman such as Miss Blue obviously was, must be a

treasure anywhere in the world. He kept thinking he would write to

her--he had no other girl acquaintance now; and just before he entered

art school he did this, penning a little note saying that he remembered

so pleasantly their ride; and when was she coming? Her answer, after a

week, was that she expected to be in the city about the middle or the

end of October and that she would be glad to have him call. She gave him

the number of an aunt who lived out on the North Side in Ohio Street,

and said she would notify him further. She was hard at work teaching

school now, and didn't even have time to think of the lovely summer she

had had.

"Poor little girl," he thought. She deserved a better fate. "When she

comes I'll surely look her up," he thought, and there was a lot that

went with the idea. Such wonderful hair!

CHAPTER IX

The succeeding days in the art school after his first admission revealed

many new things to Eugene. He understood now, or thought he did, why

artists were different from the rank and file of mankind. This Art

Institute atmosphere was something so refreshing after his days rambling

among poor neighborhoods collecting, that he could hardly believe that

he, Eugene Witla, belonged there. These were exceptional young people;

some of them, anyhow. If they weren't cut out to be good artists they

still had imagination--the dream of the artist. They came, as Eugene

gradually learned, from all parts of the West and South, from Chicago

and St. Louis--from Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa--from Texas and California

and Minnesota. One boy was in from Saskatchewan of the Canadian north

west, another from the then territory of New Mexico. Because his name

was Gill they called him the Gila monster--the difference in the

pronunciation of the "G's" not troubling them at all. A boy who came

down from Minnesota was a farmer's son, and talked about going back to

plow and sow and reap during the next spring and summer. Another boy was

the son of a Kansas City millionaire.

The mechanics of drawing interested Eugene from the first. He learned

the first night that there was some defect in his understanding of light

and shade as it related to the human form. He could not get any

roundness or texture in his drawings.

"The darkest shadow is always closest to the high light," observed his

instructor laconically on Wednesday evening, looking over his shoulder.

"You're making everything a dull, even tone." So that was it.

"You're drawing this figure as a bricklayer who isn't an architect might

start to build a house. You're laying bricks without having a plan.

Where's your plan?" The voice was that of Mr. Boyle looking over his

shoulder.

Eugene looked up. He had begun to draw the head only.

"A plan! A plan!" said his instructor, making a peculiar motion with his

hands which described the outline of the pose in a single motion. "Get

your general lines first. Then you can put in the details afterward."

Eugene saw at once.

Another time his instructor was watching him draw the female breast. He

was doing it woodenly--without much beauty of contour.

"They're round! They're round! I tell you!" exclaimed Boyle. "If you

ever see any square ones let me know."

This caught Eugene's sense of humor. It made him laugh, even though he

flushed painfully, for he knew he had a lot to learn.

The cruelest thing he heard this man say was to a boy who was rather

thick and fat but conscientious. "You can't draw," he said roughly.

"Take my advice and go home. You'll make more money driving a wagon."

The class winced, but this man was ugly in his intolerance of futility.

The idea of anybody wasting his time was obnoxious to him. He took art

as a business man takes business, and he had no time for the misfit, the

fool, or the failure. He wanted his class to know that art meant effort.

Aside from this brutal insistence on the significance of art, there was

another side to the life which was not so hard and in a way more

alluring. Between the twenty-five minute poses which the model took,

there were some four or five minute rests during the course of the

evening in which the students talked, relighted their pipes and did much

as they pleased. Sometimes students from other classes came in for a few

moments.

The thing that astonished Eugene though, was the freedom of the model

with the students and the freedom of the students with her. After the

first few weeks he observed some of those who had been there the year

before going up to the platform where the girl sat, and talking with

her. She had a little pink gauze veil which she drew around her

shoulders or waist that instead of reducing the suggestiveness of her

attitudes heightened them.

"Say, ain't that enough to make everything go black in front of your

eyes," said one boy sitting next to Eugene.

"Well, I guess," he laughed. "There's some edge to that."

The boys would sit and laugh and jest with this girl, and she would

laugh and coquette in return. He saw her strolling about looking at some

of the students' drawings of her over their shoulders, standing face to

face with others--and so calmly. The strong desire which it invariably

aroused in Eugene he quelled and concealed, for these things were not to

be shown on the surface. Once, while he was looking at some photographs

that a student had brought, she came and looked over his shoulder, this

little flower of the streets, her body graced by the thin scarf, her

lips and cheeks red with color. She came so close that she leaned

against his shoulder and arm with her soft flesh. It pulled him tense,

like a great current; but he made no sign, pretending that it was the

veriest commonplace. Several times, because the piano was there, and

because students would sing and play in the interludes, she came and sat

on the piano stool herself, strumming out an accompaniment to which some

one or three or four would sing. Somehow this, of all things, seemed

most sensuous to him--most oriental. It set him wild. He felt his teeth

click without volition on his part. When she resumed her pose, his

passion subsided, for then the cold, aesthetic value of her beauty became

uppermost. It was only the incidental things that upset him.

In spite of these disturbances, Eugene was gradually showing improvement

as a draughtsman and an artist. He liked to draw the figure. He was not

as quick at that as he was at the more varied outlines of landscapes and

buildings, but he could give lovely sensuous touches to the human

form--particularly to the female form--which were beginning to be

impressive. He'd got past the place where Boyle had ever to say "They're

round." He gave a sweep to his lines that attracted the instructor's

attention.

"You're getting the thing as a whole, I see," he said quietly, one day.

Eugene thrilled with satisfaction. Another Wednesday he said:--"A little

colder, my boy, a little colder. There's sex in that. It isn't in the

figure. You ought to make a good mural decorator some day, if you have

the inclination," Boyle went on; "you've got the sense of beauty." The

roots of Eugene's hair tingled. So art was coming to him. This man saw

his capacity. He really had art in him.

One evening a paper sign pasted up on the bulletin board bore the

significant legend: "Artists! Attention! We eat! We eat! Nov. 16th. at

Sofroni's. All those who want to get in give their names to the

monitor."

Eugene had heard nothing of this, but he judged that it originated in

one of the other classes. He spoke to the monitor and learned that only

seventy-five cents was required of him. Students could bring girls if

they wished. Most of them would. He decided that he would go. But where

to get a girl? Sofroni's was an Italian restaurant in lower Clark

Street, which had originally started out as an eating place for Italian

laborers, because it was near an Italian boarding house section. It was

located in an old house that was not exactly homely. A yard in the back

had been set with plain wooden tables, and benches had been placed for

use in the summer time and, later, this had been covered with a mouldy

tent-cloth to protect the diners from rain. Still later this became

glass and was used in winter. The place was clean and the food good.

Some struggling craftsman in journalism and art had found it and by

degrees Signor Sofroni had come to realize that he was dealing with a

better element. He began to exchange greetings with these people to set

aside a little corner for them. Finally he entertained a small group of

them at dinner--charging them hardly more than cost price--and so he was

launched. One student told another. Sofroni now had his yard covered in

so that he could entertain a hundred at dinner, even in winter. He could

serve several kinds of wines and liquors with a dinner for seventy-five

cents a piece. So he was popular.

The dinner was the culmination of several other class treats. It was the

custom of a class, whenever a stranger, or even a new member appeared,

to yell "Treat! Treat!" at which the victim or new member was supposed

to produce two dollars as a contribution to a beer fund. If the money

was not produced--the stranger was apt to be thrown out or some

ridiculous trick played upon him--if it was forthcoming, work for the

evening ceased. A collection was immediately taken up. Kegs of beer were

sent for, with sandwiches and cheese. Drinking, singing, piano playing,

jesting followed. Once, to Eugene's utter astonishment, one of the

students--a big, good natured, carousing boy from Omaha--lifted the nude

model to his shoulders, set her astride his neck and proceeded around

the room, jigging as he went--the girl meantime pulling his black hair,

the other students following and shouting uproariously. Some of the

girls in an adjoining room, studying in an evening life class, stopped

their work to peep through a half dozen small holes which had been

punched in the intervening partition. The sight of Showalter carrying

the girl so astonished the eavesdroppers that the news of it was soon

all over the building. Knowledge of the escapade reached the Secretary

and the next day the student was dropped. But the Bacchic dance had been

enacted--its impression was left.

There were other treats like this in which Eugene was urged to drink,

and he did--a very little. He had no taste for beer. He also tried to

smoke, but he did not care for it. He could become nervously intoxicated

at times, by the mere sight of such revelry, and then he grew witty,

easy in his motions, quick to say bright things. On one of these

occasions one of the models said to him: "Why, you're nicer than I

thought. I imagined you were very solemn."

"Oh, no," he said, "only at times. You don't know me."

He seized her about the waist, but she pushed him away. He wished now

that he danced, for he saw that he might have whirled her about the room

then and there. He decided to learn at once.

The question of a girl for the dinner, troubled him. He knew of no one

except Margaret, and he did not know that she danced. There was Miss

Blue, of Blackwood--whom he had seen when she made her promised visit to

the city--but the thought of her in connection with anything like this

was to him incongruous. He wondered what she would think if she saw such

scenes as he had witnessed.

It chanced that one day when he was in the members' room, he met Miss

Kenny, the girl whom he had seen posing the night he had entered the

school. Eugene remembered her fascination, for she was the first nude

model he had ever seen and she was pretty. She was also the one who had

come and stood by him when she was posing. He had not seen her since

then. She had liked Eugene, but he had seemed a little distant and, at

first, a little commonplace. Lately he had taken to a loose, flowing tie

and a soft round hat which became him. He turned his hair back loosely

and emulated the independent swing of Mr. Temple Boyle. That man was a

sort of god to him--strong and successful. To be like that!

The girl noted a change for what she deemed the better. He was so nice

now, she thought, so white-skinned and clear-eyed and keen.

She pretended to be looking at the drawing of a nude when she saw him.

"How are you?" he asked, smiling, venturing to speak to her because he

was lonely and because he knew no other girl.

She turned gaily, and returned the question, facing him with smiling

lips and genial eyes.

"I haven't seen you for some time," he said. "Are you back here now?"

"For this week," she said. "I'm doing studio work. I don't care for

classes when I can get the other."

"I thought you liked them!" he replied, recalling her gaiety of mood.

"Oh, I don't dislike it. Only, studio work is better."

"We've missed you," he said. "The others haven't been nearly as nice."

"Aren't you complimentary," she laughed, her black eyes looking into his

with a twinkle.

"No, it's so," he returned, and then asked hopefully, "Are you going to

the dinner on the 16th?"

"Maybe," she said. "I haven't made up my mind. It all depends."

"On what?"

"On how I feel and who asks me."

"I shouldn't think there'd be any trouble about that," he observed. "If

I had a girl I'd go," he went on, making a terrific effort to reach the

point where he could ask her. She saw his intention.

"Well?" she laughed.

"Would you go with me?" he ventured, thus so shamelessly assisted.

"Sure!" she said, for she liked him.

"That's fine!" he exclaimed. "Where do you live? I'll want to know

that." He searched for a pencil.

She gave him her number on West Fifty-seventh Street.

Because of his collecting he knew the neighborhood. It was a street of

shabby frame houses far out on the South Side. He remembered great mazes

of trade near it, and unpaved streets and open stretches of wet prairie

land. Somehow it seemed fitting to him that this little flower of the

muck and coal yard area should be a model.

"I'll be sure and get you," he laughed. "You won't forget, will you,

Miss--"

"Just Ruby," she interrupted. "Ruby Kenny."

"It's a pretty name, isn't it?" he said. "It's euphonious. You wouldn't

let me come out some Sunday and see just where it is?"

"Yes, you may," she replied, pleased by his comment on her name. "I'm

home most every Sunday. Come out next Sunday afternoon, if you want to."

"I will," said Eugene.

He walked out to the street with her in a very buoyant mood.

CHAPTER X

Ruby Kenny was the adopted child of an old Irish laborer and his wife

who had taken her from a quarrelling couple when they had practically

deserted her at the age of four years. She was bright, good natured, not

at all informed as to the social organization of the world, just a

simple little girl with a passion for adventure and no saving insight

which would indicate beforehand whither adventure might lead. She began

life as a cash girl in a department store and was spoiled of her virtue

at fifteen. She was rather fortunate in that her smartness attracted the

rather superior, capable, self-protecting type of man; and these were

fortunate too, in that she was not utterly promiscuous, appetite with

her waiting on strong liking, and in one or two cases real affection,

and culminating only after a period of dalliance which made her as much

a victim of her moods as were her lovers. Her foster parents provided no

guidance of any intelligent character. They liked her, and since she was

brighter than they were, submitted to her rule, her explanations of

conduct, her taste. She waved aside with a laughing rejoinder any slight

objections they might make, and always protested that she did not care

what the neighbors thought.

The visits which Eugene paid, and the companionship which ensued, were

of a piece with every other relationship of this character which he ever

entered into. He worshiped beauty as beauty, and he never wholly missed

finding a certain quality of mind and heart for which he longed. He

sought in women, besides beauty, good nature and sympathy; he shunned

criticism and coldness, and was never apt to select for a sweetheart

anyone who could outshine him either in emotion or rapidity or

distinction of ideas.

He liked, at this time, simple things, simple homes, simple

surroundings, the commonplace atmosphere of simple life, for the more

elegant and imposing overawed him. The great mansions which he saw, the

great trade structures, the great, significant personalities, seemed

artificial and cold. He liked little people--people who were not known,

but who were sweet and kindly in their moods. If he could find female

beauty with anything like that as a background he was happy and settled

down near it, if he could, in comfort. His drawing near to Ruby was

governed by this mood.

The Sunday Eugene called, it rained and the neighborhood in which she

lived was exceedingly dreary. Looking around here and there one could

see in the open spaces between the houses pools of water standing in the

brown, dead grass. He had crossed a great maze of black cindered car

tracks, where engines and cars were in great masses, and speculated on

the drawings such scenes would make--big black engines throwing up

clouds of smoke and steam in a grey, wet air; great mazes of

parti-colored cars dank in the rain but lovely. At night the switch

lights in these great masses of yards bloomed like flowers. He loved the

sheer yellows, reds, greens, blues, that burned like eyes. Here was the

stuff that touched him magnificently, and somehow he was glad that this

raw flowering girl lived near something like this.

When he reached the door and rang the bell he was greeted by an old

shaky Irish-American who seemed to him rather low in the scale of

intelligence--the kind of a man who would make a good crossing guard,

perhaps. He had on common, characterful clothes, the kind that from long

wear have taken the natural outlines of the body. In his fingers was a

short pipe which he had been smoking.

"Is Miss Kenny in?" Eugene inquired.

"Yus," said the man. "Come in. I'll git her." He poked back through a

typical workingman's parlor to a rear room. Someone had seen to it that

almost everything in the room was red--the big silk-shaded lamp, the

family album, the carpet and the red flowered wall paper.

While he was waiting he opened the album and looked at what he supposed

were her relatives--commonplace people, all--clerks, salesmen,

store-keepers. Presently Ruby came, and then his eye lighted, for there

was about her a smartness of youth--she was not more than

nineteen--which captivated his fancy. She had on a black cashmere dress

with touches of red velvet at the neck and elsewhere, and she wore a

loose red tie, much as a boy might. She looked gay and cheerful and held

out her hand.

"Did you have much trouble in getting here?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I know this country pretty well. I collect all

through here week days. I work for the Peoples' Furniture Company, you

know."

"Oh, then it's all right," she said, enjoying his frankness. "I thought

you'd have a hard time finding it. It's a pretty bad day, isn't it?"

Eugene admitted that it was, but commented on the car tracks he had

seen. "If I could paint at all I'd like to paint those things. They're

so big and wonderful."

He went to the window and gazed out at the neighborhood.

Ruby watched him with interest. His movements were pleasing to her. She

felt at home in his company--as though she were going to like him very

much. It was so easy to talk to him. There were the classes, her studio

work, his own career, this neighborhood, to give her a feeling of

congeniality with him.

"Are there many big studios in Chicago?" he asked when they finally got

around to that phase of her work. He was curious to know what the art

life of the city was.

"No, not so very many--not, at least, of the good ones. There are a lot

of fellows who think they can paint."

"Who are the big ones?" he asked.

"Well, I only know by what I hear artists say. Mr. Rose is pretty good.

Byam Jones is pretty fine on _genre_ subjects, so they say. Walter Low

is a good portrait painter, and so is Manson Steele. And let's

see--there's Arthur Biggs--he does landscapes only; I've never been in

his studio; and Finley Wood, he's another portrait man; and Wilson

Brooks, he does figures--Oh! I don't know, there are quite a number."

Eugene listened entranced. This patter of art matters was more in the

way of definite information about personalities than he had heard during

all the time he had been in the city. The girl knew these things. She

was in the movement. He wondered what her relationship to these various

people was?

He got up after a time and looked out of the window again. She came

also. "It's not very nice around here," she explained, "but papa and

mamma like to live here. It's near papa's work."

"Was that your father I met at the door?"

"They're not my real parents," she explained. "I'm an adopted child.

They're just like real parents to me, though, I certainly owe them a

lot."

"You can't have been posing in art very long," said Eugene thoughtfully,

thinking of her age.

"No; I only began about a year ago."

She told how she had been a clerk in The Fair and how she and another

girl had got the idea from seeing articles in the Sunday papers. There

was once a picture in the Tribune of a model posing in the nude before

the local life class. This had taken her eye and she had consulted with

the other girl as to whether they had not better try posing, too. Her

friend, like herself, was still posing. She was coming to the dinner.

Eugene listened entranced. It reminded him of how he was caught by the

picture of Goose Island in the Chicago River, of the little tumble-down

huts and upturned hulls of boats used for homes. He told her of that and

of how he came, and it touched her fancy. She thought he was sentimental

but nice--and then he was big, too, and she was so much smaller.

"You play?" he asked, "don't you?"

"Oh, just a little. But we haven't got a piano. I learned what I know by

practising at the different studios."

"Do you dance?" asked Eugene.

"Yes, indeed," she replied.

"I wish I did," he commented ruefully.

"Why don't you? It's easy. You could learn in no time. I could teach you

in a lesson."

"I wish you would," he said persuasively.

"It isn't hard," she went on, moving away from him. "I can show you the

steps. They always begin with the waltz."

She lifted her skirts and exposed her little feet. She explained what to

do and how to do it. He tried it alone, but failed; so she got him to

put his arm around her and placed her hand in his. "Now, follow me," she

said.

It was so delightful to find her in his arms! And she was apparently in

no hurry to conclude the lesson, for she worked with him quite

patiently, explaining the steps, stopping and correcting him, laughing

at her mistakes and his. "You're getting it, though," she said, after

they had turned around a few times.

They had looked into each other's eyes a number of times and she gave

him frank smiles in return for his. He thought of the time when she

stood by him in the studio, looking over his shoulder. Surely, surely

this gap of formalities might be bridged over at once if he tried if he

had the courage. He pulled her a little closer and when they stopped he

did not let go.

"You're mighty sweet to me," he said with an effort.

"No, I'm just good natured," she laughed, not endeavoring to break away.

He became emotionally tense, as always.

She rather liked what seemed the superiority of his mood. It was

different, stronger than was customary in the men she knew.

"Do you like me?" he asked, looking at her.

She studied his face and hair and eyes.

"I don't know," she returned calmly.

"Are you sure you don't?"

There was another pause in which she looked almost mockingly at him and

then, sobering, away at the hall door.

"Yes, I think I do," she said.

He picked her up in his arms. "You're as cute as a doll," he said and

carried her to the red settee. She spent the rest of the rainy afternoon

resting in his arms and enjoying his kisses. He was a new and peculiar

kind of boy.

CHAPTER XI

A little while before, Angela Blue at Eugene's earnest solicitation had

paid her first Fall visit to Chicago. She had made a special effort to

come, lured by a certain poignancy of expression which he could give to

any thought, particularly when it concerned his desires. In addition to

the art of drawing he had the gift of writing--very slow in its

development from a structural and interpretative point of view, but

powerful already on its descriptive side. He could describe anything,

people, houses, horses, dogs, landscapes, much as he could draw them and

give a sense of tenderness and pathos in the bargain which was moving.

He could describe city scenes and the personal atmosphere which

surrounded him in the most alluring fashion. He had little time to

write, but he took it in this instance to tell this girl what he was

doing and how he was doing it. She was captivated by the quality of the

world in which he was moving, and the distinction of his own

personality, which he indicated rather indirectly than otherwise. By

contrast her own little world began to look very shabby indeed.

She came shortly after his art school opened, and at her invitation he

went out to the residence of her aunt on the North Side, a nice,

pleasant brick house in a quiet side street, which had all the airs of

middle class peace and comfort. He was impressed with what seemed to him

a sweet, conservative atmosphere--a fitting domicile for a girl so

dainty and refined as Angela. He paid his respects early Saturday

morning because her neighborhood happened to be in the direction of his

work.

She played for him--better than anyone he had ever known. It seemed to

him a great accomplishment. Her temperament attracted her to music of a

high emotional order and to songs and instrumental compositions of

indefinable sweetness. In the half hour he stayed she played several

things, and he noted with a new pleasure her small shapely body in a

dress of a very simple, close fitting design; her hair hung in two great

braids far below her waist. She reminded him the least bit of Marguerite

in "Faust."

He went again in the evening, shining and eager, and arrayed in his

best. He was full of the sense of his art prospects, and happy to see

her again, for he was satisfied that he was going to fall in love with

her. She had a strong, sympathetic attitude which allured him. She

wanted to be nice to this youth--wanted him to like her--and so the

atmosphere was right.

That evening he took her to the Chicago Opera House, where there was

playing an extravaganza. This fantasy, so beautiful in its stage-craft,

so gorgeous in its show of costumes and pretty girls, so idle in its

humor and sweet in its love songs, captivated both Eugene and Angela.

Neither had been to a theatre for a long time; both were en rapport with

some such fantastic interpretation of existence. After the short

acquaintance at Alexandria it was a nice coming together. It gave point

to their reunion.

After the performance he guided her through the surging crowds to a

North Division Street car--they had laid cables since his arrival--and

together they went over the beauties and humor of the thing they had

seen. He asked permission to call again next day, and at the end of an

afternoon in her company, proposed that they go to hear a famous

preacher who was speaking in Central Music Hall evenings.

Angela was pleased at Eugene's resourcefulness. She wanted to be with

him; this was a good excuse. They went early and enjoyed it. Eugene

liked the sermon as an expression of youth and beauty and power to

command. He would have liked to be an orator like that, and he told

Angela so. And he confided more and more of himself to her. She was

impressed by his vivid interest in life, his selective power, and felt

that he was destined to be a notable personality.

There were other meetings. She came again in early November and before

Christmas and Eugene was fast becoming lost in the meshes of her hair.

Although he met Ruby in November and took up a tentative relation on a

less spiritual basis--as he would have said at the time--he nevertheless

held this acquaintanceship with Angela in the background as a superior

and more significant thing. She was purer than Ruby; there was in her

certainly a deeper vein of feeling, as expressed in her thoughts and

music. Moreover she represented a country home, something like his own,

a nice simple country town, nice people. Why should he part with her, or

ever let her know anything of this other world that he touched? He did

not think he ought to. He was afraid that he would lose her, and he knew

that she would make any man an ideal wife. She came again in December

and he almost proposed to her--he must not be free with her or draw too

near too rapidly. She made him feel the sacredness of love and marriage.

And he did propose in January.

The artist is a blend of subtleties in emotion which can not be

classified. No one woman could have satisfied all sides of Eugene's

character at that time. Beauty was the point with him. Any girl who was

young, emotional or sympathetic to the right degree and beautiful would

have attracted and held him for a while. He loved beauty--not a plan of

life. He was interested in an artistic career, not in the founding of a

family. Girlhood--the beauty of youth--was artistic, hence he craved it.

Angela's mental and emotional composition was stable. She had learned to

believe from childhood that marriage was a fixed thing. She believed in

one life and one love. When you found that, every other relationship

which did not minister to it was ended. If children came, very good; if

not, very good; marriage was permanent anyhow. And if you did not marry

happily it was nevertheless your duty to endure and suffer for whatever

good might remain. You might suffer badly in such a union, but it was

dangerous and disgraceful to break it. If you could not stand it any

more, your life was a failure.

Of course, Eugene did not know what he was trifling with. He had no

conception of the nature of the relationship he was building up. He went

on blindly dreaming of this girl as an ideal, and anticipating eventual

marriage with her. When that would be, he had no idea, for though his

salary had been raised at Christmas he was getting only eighteen dollars

a week; but he deemed it would come within a reasonable time.

Meanwhile, his visits to Ruby had brought the inevitable result. The

very nature of the situation seemed to compel it. She was young,

brimming over with a love of adventure, admiring youth and strength in

men. Eugene, with his pale face, which had just a touch of melancholy

about it, his sex magnetism, his love of beauty, appealed to her.

Uncurbed passion was perhaps uppermost to begin with; very shortly it

was confounded with affection, for this girl could love. She was sweet,

good natured, ignorant of life from many points of view. Eugene

represented the most dramatic imagination she had yet seen. She

described to him the character of her foster parents, told how simple

they were and how she could do about as she pleased. They did not know

that she posed in the nude. She confided to him her particular

friendship for certain artists, denying any present intimacies. She

admitted them in the past, but asserted that they were bygones. Eugene

really did not believe this. He suspected her of meeting other

approaches in the spirit in which she had met his own. It aroused his

jealousy, and he wished at once that she were not a model. He said as

much and she laughed. She knew he would act like that, it was the first

proof of real, definite interest in her on his part.

From that time on there were lovely days and evenings spent in her

company. Before the dinner she invited him over to breakfast one Sunday.

Her foster parents were to be away and she was to have the house to

herself. She wanted to cook Eugene a breakfast--principally to show him

she could cook--and then it was novel. She waited till he arrived at

nine to begin operations and then, arrayed in a neat little lavender,

close fitting house dress, and a ruffled white apron, went about her

work, setting the table, making biscuit, preparing a kidney ragout with

strong wine, and making coffee.

Eugene was delighted. He followed her about, delaying her work by taking

her in his arms and kissing her. She got flour on her nose and he

brushed it off with his lips.

It was on this occasion that she showed him a very pleasing little dance

she could do--a clog dance, which had a running, side-ways motion, with

frequent and rapid clicking of the heels. She gathered her skirts a

little way above her ankles and twinkled her feet through a maze of

motions. Eugene was beside himself with admiration. He told himself he

had never met such a girl--to be so clever at posing, playing and

dancing, and so young. He thought she would make a delightful creature

to live with, and he wished now he had money enough to make it possible.

At this high-flown moment and at some others he thought he might almost

marry her.

On the night of the dinner he took her to Sofroni's, and was surprised

to find her arrayed in a red dress with a row of large black leather

buttons cutting diagonally across the front. She had on red stockings

and shoes and wore a red carnation in her hair. The bodice was cut low

in the neck and the sleeves were short. Eugene thought she looked

stunning and told her so. She laughed. They went in a cab, for she had

warned him beforehand that they would have to. It cost him two dollars

each way but he excused his extravagance on the ground of necessity. It

was little things like this that were beginning to make him think

strongly of the problem of getting on.

The students who had got up this dinner were from all the art classes,

day and night. There were over two hundred of them, all of them young,

and there was a mixed collection of girl art students, artist's models

and girl friends of various grades of thought and condition, who were

brought as companions. The big dining-room was tempestuous with the

rattling of dishes, the shouting of jests, the singing of songs and the

exchange of greetings. Eugene knew a few of these people outside his own

classes, enough to give him the chance to be sociable and not appear

lonely or out of it.

From the outset it was apparent that she, Ruby, was generally known and

liked. Her costume--a little bold--made her conspicuous. From various

directions there were cries of "Hey! Rube!" which was a familiar

interpretation of her first name, Ruby.

Eugene was surprised at this--it shocked him a little. All sorts of boys

he did not know came and talked to her, exchanging familiar gossip. She

was called away from him a dozen times in as many minutes. He saw her

laughing and chatting at the other end of the hall, surrounded by half a

dozen students. It made him jealous.

As the evening progressed the attitude of each toward the other and all

toward anyone became more and more familiar. When the courses were over,

a space was cleared at one end and a screen of green cloth rigged up in

one corner as a dressing room for _stunts_. Eugene saw one of the

students called with much applause to do an Irish monologue, wearing

green whiskers, which he adjusted in the presence of the crowd. There

was another youth who pretended to have with him an immense roll of

verse--an epic, no less--wound in so tight a manner that it looked as

though it might take all night to read it. The crowd groaned. With

amazing savoir faire he put up one hand for silence, dropped the roll,

holding, of course, to the outer end and began reading. It was not bad

verse, but the amusing part was that it was really short, not more than

twenty lines. The rest of the paper had been covered with scribbling to

deceive the crowd. It secured a round of applause. There was one

second-year man who sang a song--"Down in the Lehigh Valley"--and

another who gave imitations of Temple Boyle and other instructors at

their work of criticising and painting for the benefit of the class.

These were greatly enjoyed. Finally one of the models, after much

calling by the crowd of "Desmond! Desmond!"--her last name--went behind

the green cloth screen and in a few moments reappeared in the short

skirt of a Spanish dancer, with black and silver spangles, and

castanets. Some friendly student had brought a mandolin and "La Paloma"

was danced.

Eugene had little of Ruby's company during all these doings. She was too

much sought after. As the other girl was concluding her dance he heard

the cry of "Hey, Rube! Why don't you do your turn?" Someone else, eager

to see her dance, called "Come on, Ruby!" The rest of the room, almost

unthinkingly took it up. Some boys surrounding her had started to push

her toward the dancing space. Before Eugene knew it she was up in

someone's arms being passed from group to group for a joke. The crowd

cheered. Eugene, however, having come so close to her, was irritated by

this familiarity. She did not appear to belong to him, but to the whole

art-student body. And she was laughing. When she was put down in the

clear space she lifted her skirts as she had done for him and danced. A

crowd of students got very close. He had to draw near to see her at all.

And there she was, unconscious of him, doing her gay clog dance. When

she stopped, three or four of the more daring youths urged her, seizing

her by the hands and arms, to do something else. Someone cleared a table

and someone else picked her up and put her on it. She did still other

dances. Someone cried, "Hey, Kenny, do you need the red dress?" So this

was his temporary sweetheart.

When she was finally ready to go home at four o'clock in the morning, or

when the others were agreed to let her go, she hardly remembered that

she had Eugene with her. She saw him waiting as two students were asking

for the privilege of taking her home.

"No," she exclaimed, seeing him, "I have my escort. I'm going now.

Good-bye," and came toward him. He felt rather frozen and out of it.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

He nodded gloomily, reproachfully.

CHAPTER XII

From drawing from the nude, which Eugene came to do very successfully

that winter, his interest switched to his work in the illustration class

where costume figures were used. Here, for the first time, he tried his

hand at wash drawings, the current medium for magazine work, and was

praised after a time for his execution. Not always, however; for the

instructors, feeling that harsh criticism would make for steadier

effort, pooh-poohed some of his best work. But he had faith in what he

was destined to do, and after sinking to depths of despair he would rise

to great heights of self-confidence.

His labor for the Peoples' Furniture Company was becoming a rather

dreary grind when Vincent Beers, the instructor in the illustration

class, looking over his shoulder one Wednesday afternoon said:--"You

ought to be able to make a little money by your work pretty soon,

Witla."

"Do you think so?" questioned Eugene.

"It's pretty good. There ought to be a place on one of the newspapers

here for a man like you--an afternoon newspaper possibly. Did you ever

try to get on?"

"I did when I first came to the city, but they didn't want anyone. I'm

rather glad they didn't now. I guess they wouldn't have kept me very

long."

"You draw in pen and ink pretty well, don't you?"

"I thought I liked that best of all at first."

"Well, then, they ought to be able to use you. I wouldn't stay very long

at it though. You ought to go to New York to get in the magazine

illustration field--there's nothing out here. But a little newspaper

work now wouldn't hurt you."

Eugene decided to try the afternoon papers, for he knew that if he got

work on one of these he could still continue his night classes. He could

give the long evening session to the illustration class and take an

occasional night off to work on the life studies. That would make an

admirable arrangement. For several days he took an hour after his work

to make inquiry, taking with him some examples of his pen and inks.

Several of the men he saw liked what he had to show, but he found no

immediate opening. There was only one paper, one of the poorest, that

offered him any encouragement. The editor-in-chief said he might be in

need of a man shortly. If Eugene would come in again in three or four

weeks he could tell him. They did not pay very much--twenty-five dollars

to beginners.

Eugene thought of this as a great opportunity, and when he went back in

three weeks and actually secured the place, he felt that he was now

fairly on the road to prosperity. He was given a desk in a small back

room on a fourth floor where there was accidentally west and north

light. He was in a department which held two other men, both several

years older than himself, one of whom posed as "dean" of the staff.

The work here was peculiar in that it included not only pen and ink but

the chalk plate process which was a method of drawing with a steel point

upon a zinc plate covered with a deposit of chalk, which left a design

which was easily reproduced. Eugene had never done this, he had to be

shown by the "dean," but he soon picked it up. He found it hard on his

lungs, for he had constantly to keep blowing the chalk away as he

scratched the surface of the plate, and sometimes the dust went up into

his nostrils. He hoped sincerely there would not be much of this work,

but there was rather an undue proportion at first owing to the fact that

it was shouldered on to him by the other two--he being the beginner. He

suspected as much after a little time, but by that time he was beginning

to make friends with his companions and things were not so bad.

These two, although they did not figure vastly in his life, introduced

him to conditions and personalities in the Chicago newspaper world which

broadened him and presented points of view which were helpful. The elder

of the two, the "dean," was dressy and art-y; his name was Horace Howe.

The other, Jeremiah Mathews, Jerry for short, was short and fat, with a

round, cheerful, smiling countenance and a wealth of coarse black hair.

He loved chewing tobacco, was a little mussy about his clothes, but

studious, generous and good natured. Eugene found that he had several

passions, one for good food, another for oriental curios and a third for

archaeology. He was alive to all that was going on in the world, and was

utterly without any prejudices, social, moral or religious. He liked his

work, and whistled or talked as he did it. Eugene took a secret like for

him from the beginning.

It was while working on this paper that Eugene first learned that he

really could write. It came about accidentally for he had abandoned the

idea that he could ever do anything in newspaper work, which was the

field he had originally contemplated. Here there was great need for

cheap Sunday specials of a local character, and in reading some of

these, which were given to him for illustration, he came to the

conclusion that he could do much better himself.

"Say," he asked Mathews, "who writes the articles in here?" He was

looking over the Sunday issue.

"Oh, the reporters on the staff--anyone that wants to. I think they buy

some from outsiders. They only pay four dollars a column."

Eugene wondered if they would pay him, but pay or no pay he wanted to do

them. Maybe they would let him sign his name. He saw that some were

signed. He suggested he believed he could do that sort of thing but

Howe, as a writer himself, frowned on this. He wrote and drew. Howe's

opposition piqued Eugene who decided to try when the opportunity

offered. He wanted to write about the Chicago River, which he thought he

could illustrate effectively. Goose Island, because of the description

he had read of it several years before, the simple beauties of the city

parks where he liked to stroll and watch the lovers on Sundays. There

were many things, but these stood as susceptible of delicious, feeling

illustration and he wanted to try his hand. He suggested to the Sunday

Editor, Mitchell Goldfarb, with whom he had become friendly, that he

thought something nice in an illustrative way could be done on the

Chicago River.

"Go ahead, try your hand," exclaimed that worthy, who was a vigorous,

robust, young American of about thirty-one, with a gaspy laugh that

sounded as if someone had thrown cold water down his back. "We need all

that stuff. Can you write?"

"I sometimes think I might if I practiced a little."

"Why not," went on the other, who saw visions of a little free copy.

"Try your hand. You might make a good thing of it. If your writing is

anything like your drawing it will be all right. We don't pay people on

the staff, but you can sign your name to it."

This was enough for Eugene. He tried his hand at once. His art work had

already begun to impress his companions. It was rough, daring, incisive,

with a touch of soul to it. Howe was already secretly envious, Mathews

full of admiration. Encouraged thus by Goldfarb Eugene took a Sunday

afternoon and followed up the branches of the Chicago River, noting its

wonders and peculiarities, and finally made his drawings. Afterward he

went to the Chicago library and looked up its history--accidentally

coming across the reports of some government engineers who dwelt on the

oddities of its traffic. He did not write an article so much as a

panegyric on its beauty and littleness, finding the former where few

would have believed it to exist. Goldfarb was oddly surprised when he

read it. He had not thought Eugene could do it.

The charm of Eugene's writing was that while his mind was full of color

and poetry he had logic and a desire for facts which gave what he wrote

stability. He liked to know the history of things and to comment on the

current phases of life. He wrote of the parks, Goose Island, the

Bridewell, whatever took his fancy.

His real passion was for art, however. It was a slightly easier medium

for him--quicker. He thrilled to think, sometimes, that he could tell a

thing in words and then actually draw it. It seemed a beautiful

privilege and he loved the thought of making the commonplace dramatic.

It was all dramatic to him--the wagons in the streets, the tall

buildings, the street lamps--anything, everything.

His drawing was not neglected meantime, but seemed to get stronger.

"I don't know what there is about your stuff, Witla, that gets me,"

Mathews said to him one day, "but you do something to it. Now why did

you put those birds flying above that smokestack?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Eugene. "It's just the way I feel about it.

I've seen pigeons flying like that."

"It's all to the good," replied Mathews. "And then you handle your

masses right. I don't see anybody doing this sort of thing over here."

He meant in America, for these two art workers considered themselves

connoisseurs of pen and ink and illustration generally. They were

subscribers to _Jugend_, _Simplicissimus_, _Pick-Me-Up_ and the radical

European art journals. They were aware of Steinlen and Cheret and Mucha

and the whole rising young school of French poster workers. Eugene was

surprised to hear of these men and these papers. He began to gain

confidence in himself--to think of himself as somebody.

It was while he was gaining this knowledge--finding out who was who and

what and why that he followed up his relationship with Angela Blue to

its logical conclusion--he became engaged to her. In spite of his

connection with Ruby Kenny, which continued unbroken after the dinner,

he nevertheless felt that he must have Angela; partly because she

offered more resistance than any girl since Stella, and partly because

she appeared to be so innocent, simple and good hearted. And she was

altogether lovely. She had a beautiful figure, which no crudity of

country dressmaking could conceal. She had her wonderful wealth of hair

and her large, luring, water-clear blue eyes. She had colorful lips and

cheeks, a natural grace in walking, could dance and play the piano.

Eugene looked at her and came to the conclusion after a time that she

was as beautiful as any girl he had ever seen--that she had more soul,

more emotion, more sweetness. He tried to hold her hand, to kiss her, to

take her in his arms, but she eluded him in a careful, wary and yet half

yielding way. She wanted him to propose to her, not because she was

anxious to trap him, but because her conventional conscience told her

these things were not right outside a definite engagement and she wanted

to be engaged first. She was already in love with him. When he pleaded,

she was anxious to throw herself in his arms in a mad embrace, but she

restrained herself, waiting. At last he flung his arms about her as she

was sitting at the piano one evening and holding her tight pressed his

lips to her cheek.

She struggled to her feet. "You musn't," she said. "It isn't right. I

can't let you do that."

"But I love you," he exclaimed, pursuing her. "I want to marry you. Will

you have me, Angela? Will you be mine?"

She looked at him yearningly, for she realized that she had made him do

things her way--this wild, unpractical, artistic soul. She wanted to

yield then and there but something told her to wait.

"I won't tell you now," she said, "I want to talk to papa and mamma. I

haven't told them anything as yet. I want to ask them about you, and

then I'll tell you when I come again."

"Oh, Angela," he pleaded.

"Now, please wait, Mr. Witla," she pleaded. She had never yet called him

Eugene. "I'll come again in two or three weeks. I want to think it over.

It's better."

He curbed his desire and waited, but it made all the more vigorous and

binding the illusion that she was the one woman in the world for him.

She aroused more than any woman yet a sense of the necessity of

concealing the eagerness of his senses--of pretending something higher.

He even tried to deceive himself into the belief that this was a

spiritual relationship, but underneath all was a burning sense of her

beauty, her physical charm, her passion. She was sleeping as yet, bound

in convention and a semi-religious interpretation of life. If she were

aroused! He closed his eyes and dreamed.

CHAPTER XIII

In two weeks Angela came back, ready to plight her faith; and Eugene was

waiting, eager to receive it. He had planned to meet her under the smoky

train shed of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul depot, to escort her

to Kinsley's for dinner, to bring her some flowers, to give her a ring

he had secured in anticipation, a ring which had cost him seventy-five

dollars and consumed quite all his savings; but she was too regardful of

the drama of the situation to meet him anywhere but in the parlor of her

aunt's house, where she could look as she wished. She wrote that she

must come down early and when he arrived at eight of a Saturday evening

she was dressed in the dress that seemed most romantic to her, the one

she had worn when she first met him at Alexandria. She half suspected

that he would bring flowers and so wore none, and when he came with pink

roses, she added those to her corsage. She was a picture of rosy youth

and trimness and not unlike the character by whose name he had

christened her--the fair Elaine of Arthur's court. Her yellow hair was

done in a great mass that hung sensuously about her neck; her cheeks

were rosy with the elation of the hour; her lips moist; her eyes bright.

She fairly sparkled her welcome as he entered.

At the sight of her Eugene was beside himself. He was always at the

breaking point over any romantic situation. The beauty of the idea--the

beauty of love as love; the delight of youth filled his mind as a song

might, made him tense, feverish, enthusiastic.

"You're here at last, Angela!" he said, trying to keep hold of her

hands. "What word?"

"Oh, you musn't ask so soon," she replied. "I want to talk to you first.

I'll play you something."

"No," he said, following her as she backed toward the piano. "I want to

know. I must. I can't wait."

"I haven't made up my mind," she pleaded evasively. "I want to think.

You had better let me play."

"Oh, no," he urged.

"Yes, let me play."

She ignored him and swept into the composition, but all the while she

was conscious of him hovering over her--a force. At the close, when she

had been made even more emotionally responsive by the suggestion of the

music, he slipped his arms about her as he had once before, but she

struggled away again, slipping to a corner and standing at bay. He liked

her flushed face, her shaken hair, the roses awry at her waist.

"You must tell me now," he said, standing before her. "Will you have

me?"

She dropped her head down as though doubting, and fearing familiarities;

he slipped to one knee to see her eyes. Then, looking up, he caught her

about the waist. "Will you?" he asked.

She looked at his soft hair, dark and thick, his smooth pale brow, his

black eyes and even chin. She wanted to yield dramatically and this was

dramatic enough. She put her hands to his head, bent over and looked

into his eyes; her hair fell forward about her face. "Will you be good

to me?" she asked, yearning into his eyes.

"Yes, yes," he declared. "You know that. Oh, I love you so."

She put his head far back and laid her lips to his. There was fire,

agony in it. She held him so and then he stood up heaping kisses upon

her cheeks, her lips, her eyes, her neck.

"Good God!" he exclaimed, "how wonderful you are!"

The expression shocked her.

"You mustn't," she said.

"I can't help it. You are so beautiful!"

She forgave him for the compliment.

There were burning moments after this, moments in which they clung to

each other desperately, moments in which he took her in his arms,

moments in which he whispered his dreams of the future. He took the ring

he had bought and put it on her finger. He was going to be a great

artist, she was going to be an artist's bride; he was going to paint her

lovely face, her hair, her form. If he wanted love scenes he would paint

these which they were now living together. They talked until one in the

morning and then she begged him to go, but he would not. At two he left,

only to come early the next morning to take her to church.

There ensued for Eugene a rather astonishing imaginative and emotional

period in which he grew in perception of things literary and artistic

and in dreams of what marriage with Angela would mean to him. There was

a peculiar awareness about Eugene at this time, which was leading him

into an understanding of things. The extraordinary demands of some

phases of dogma in the matter of religion; the depths of human

perversity in the matter of morality; the fact that there were worlds

within worlds of our social organism; that really basically and actually

there was no fixed and definite understanding of anything by

anybody. From Mathews he learned of philosophies--Kant, Hegel,

Schopenhauer--faint inklings of what they believed. From association

with Howe he heard of current authors who expressed new moods, Pierre

Loti, Thomas Hardy, Maeterlinck, Tolstoi. Eugene was no person to

read--he was too eager to live,--but he gained much by conversation and

he liked to talk. He began to think he could do almost anything if he

tried--write poems, write plays, write stories, paint, illustrate, etc.

He used to conceive of himself as a general, an orator, a

politician--thinking how wonderful he would be if he could set himself

definitely to any one thing. Sometimes he would recite passages from

great speeches he had composed in his imagination as he walked. The

saving grace in his whole make-up was that he really loved to work and

he would work at the things he could do. He would not shirk his

assignments or dodge his duties.

After his evening class Eugene would sometimes go out to Ruby's house,

getting there by eleven and being admitted by an arrangement with her

that the front door be left open so that he could enter quietly. More

than once he found her sleeping in her little room off the front room,

arrayed in a red silk dressing gown and curled up like a little

black-haired child. She knew he liked her art instincts and she strove

to gratify them, affecting the peculiar and the exceptional. She would

place a candle under a red shade on a small table by her bed and pretend

to have been reading, the book being usually tossed to one side on the

coverlet where he would see it lying when he came. He would enter

silently, gathering her up in his arms as she dozed, kissing her lips to

waken her, carrying her in his arms into the front room to caress her

and whisper his passion. There was no cessation of this devotion to Ruby

the while he was declaring his love for Angela, and he really did not

see that the two interfered greatly. He loved Angela, he thought. He

liked Ruby, thought she was sweet. He felt sorry for her at times

because she was such a little thing, so unthinking. Who was going to

marry her eventually? What was going to become of her?

Because of this very attitude he fascinated the girl who was soon ready

to do anything for him. She dreamed dreams of how nice it would be if

they could live in just a little flat together--all alone. She would

give up her art posing and just keep house for him. He talked to her of

this--imagining it might possibly come to pass--realizing quite fully

that it probably wouldn't. He wanted Angela for his wife, but if he had

money he thought Ruby and he might keep a separate place--somehow. What

Angela would think of this did not trouble him--only that she should not

know. He never breathed anything to either of the other, but there were

times when he wondered what they would think each of the other if they

knew. Money, money, that was the great deterrent. For lack of money he

could not marry anybody at present--neither Angela nor Ruby nor anyone

else. His first duty, he thought, was so to place himself financially

that he could talk seriously to any girl. That was what Angela expected

of him, he knew. That was what he would have to have if he wanted Ruby.

There came a time when the situation began to grow irksome. He had

reached the point where he began to understand how limited his life was.

Mathews and Howe, who drew more money, were able to live better than he.

They went out to midnight suppers, theatre parties, and expeditions to

the tenderloin section (not yet known by that name). They had time to

browse about the sections of the city which had peculiar charms for them

as Bohemians after dark--the levee, as a certain section of the Chicago

River was called; Gambler's Row in South Clark Street; the Whitechapel

Club, as a certain organization of newspaper men was called, and other

places frequented by the literati and the more talented of the newspaper

makers. Eugene, first because of a temperament which was introspective

and reflective, and second because of his aesthetic taste, which was

offended by much that he thought was tawdry and cheap about these

places, and third by what he considered his lack of means, took

practically no part in these diversions. While he worked in his class he

heard of these things--usually the next day--and they were amplified and

made more showy and interesting by the narrative powers of the

participants. Eugene hated coarse, vulgar women and ribald conduct, but

he felt that he was not even permitted to see them at close range had he

wanted to. It took money to carouse and he did not have it.

Perhaps, because of his youth and a certain air of unsophistication and

impracticability which went with him, his employers were not inclined to

consider money matters in connection with him. They seemed to think he

would work for little and would not mind. He was allowed to drift here

six months without a sign of increase, though he really deserved more

than any one of those who worked with him during the same period. He was

not the one to push his claims personally but he grew restless and

slightly embittered under the strain and ached to be free, though his

work was as effective as ever.

It was this indifference on their part which fixed his determination to

leave Chicago, although Angela, his art career, his natural restlessness

and growing judgment of what he might possibly become were deeper

incentives. Angela haunted him as a dream of future peace. If he could

marry her and settle down he would be happy. He felt now, having fairly

satiated himself in the direction of Ruby, that he might leave her. She

really would not care so very much. Her sentiments were not deep enough.

Still, he knew she would care, and when he began going less regularly to

her home, really becoming indifferent to what she did in the artists'

world, he began also to feel ashamed of himself, for he knew that it was

a cruel thing to do. He saw by her manner when he absented himself that

she was hurt and that she knew he was growing cold.

"Are you coming out Sunday night?" she asked him once, wistfully.

"I can't," he apologized; "I have to work."

"Yes, I know how you have to work. But go on. I don't mind, I know."

"Oh, Ruby, how you talk. I can't always be here."

"I know what it is, Eugene," she replied. "You don't care any more. Oh,

well, don't mind me."

"Now, sweet, don't talk like that," he would say, but after he was gone

she would stand by her window and look out upon the shabby neighborhood

and sigh sadly. He was more to her than anyone she had met yet, but she

was not the kind that cried.

"He is going to leave me," was her one thought. "He is going to leave

me."

Goldfarb had watched Eugene a long time, was interested in him, realized

that he had talent. He was leaving shortly to take a better

Sunday-Editorship himself on a larger paper, and he thought Eugene was

wasting his time and ought to be told so.

"I think you ought to try to get on one of the bigger papers here,

Witla," he said to him one Saturday afternoon when things were closing

up. "You'll never amount to anything on this paper. It isn't big enough.

You ought to get on one of the big ones. Why don't you try the

_Tribune_--or else go to New York? I think you ought to do magazine

work."

Eugene drank it all in. "I've been thinking of that," he said. "I think

I'll go to New York. I'll be better off there."

"I would either do one or the other. If you stay too long in a place

like this it's apt to do you harm."

Eugene went back to his desk with the thought of change ringing in his

ears. He would go. He would save up his money until he had one hundred

and fifty or two hundred dollars and then try his luck in the East. He

would leave Ruby and Angela, the latter only temporarily, the former for

good very likely, though he only vaguely confessed this to himself. He

would make some money and then he would come back and marry his dream

from Blackwood. Already his imaginative mind ran forward to a poetic

wedding in a little country church, with Angela standing beside him in

white. Then he would bring her back with him to New York--he, Eugene

Witla, already famous in the East. Already the lure of the big eastern

city was in his mind, its palaces, its wealth, its fame. It was the

great world he knew, this side of Paris and London. He would go to it

now, shortly. What would he be there? How great? How soon?

So he dreamed.

CHAPTER XIV

Once this idea of New York was fixed in his mind as a necessary step in

his career, it was no trouble for him to carry it out. He had already

put aside sixty dollars in a savings bank since he had given Angela the

ring and he decided to treble it as quickly as possible and then start.

He fancied that all he needed was just enough to live on for a little

while until he could get a start. If he could not sell drawings to the

magazines he might get a place on a newspaper and anyhow he felt

confident that he could live. He communicated to Howe and Mathews his

intention of going East pretty soon and aroused in their respective

bosoms the emotions which were characteristic of each. Howe, envious

from the start, was glad to have him off the paper, but regretful of the

stellar career which his determination foreboded. He half suspected now

that Eugene would do something exceptional--he was so loose in his

moods--so eccentric. Mathews was glad for Eugene and a little sorry for

himself. He wished he had Eugene's courage, his fire, his talent.

"You'll make good when you get down there," Mathews said to him one

afternoon when Howe was out of the room, for he realized that the latter

was jealous. "You've got the stuff. Some of the work you have done here

will give you a fine introduction. I wish I were going."

"Why don't you?" suggested Eugene.

"Who? me? What good would it do me? I'm not ready yet. I can't do that

sort of stuff. I might go down some time."

"I think you do good work," said Eugene generously. He really did not

believe it was good art, but it was fair newspaper sketching.

"Oh, no, you don't mean that, Witla," replied Mathews. "I know what I

can do."

Eugene was silent.

"I wish when you get down there," went on Mathews, "you would write us

occasionally. I would like to know how you are getting along."

"Sure, I'll write," replied Eugene, flattered by the interest his

determination had aroused. "Sure I will." But he never did.

In Ruby and Angela he had two problems to adjust which were not so easy.

In the one case it was sympathy, regret, sorrow for her helplessness,

her hopelessness. She was so sweet and lovely in her way, but not quite

big enough mentally or emotionally for him. Could he really live with

her if he wanted to? Could he substitute her for a girl like Angela?

Could he? And now he had involved Angela, for since her return to tell

him that she accepted him as her affianced lover, there had been some

scenes between them in which a new standard of emotion had been set for

him. This girl who looked so simple and innocent was burning at times

with a wild fire. It snapped in her eyes when Eugene undid her wonderful

hair and ran his hands through its heavy strands. "The Rhine Maiden," he

would say. "Little Lorelei! You are like the mermaid waiting to catch

the young lover in the strands of her hair. You are Marguerite and I

Faust. You are a Dutch Gretchen. I love this wonderful hair when it is

braided. Oh, sweet, you perfect creature! I will put you in a painting

yet. I will make you famous."

Angela thrilled to this. She burned in a flame which was of his fanning.

She put her lips to his in long hot kisses, sat on his knee and twined

her hair about his neck; rubbed his face with it as one might bathe a

face in strands of silk. Finding such a response he went wild, kissed

her madly, would have been still more masterful had she not, at the

slightest indication of his audacity, leaped from his embrace, not

opposition but self protection in her eyes. She pretended to think

better of his love, and Eugene, checked by her ideal of him, tried to

restrain himself. He did manage to desist because he was sure that he

could not do what he wanted to. Daring such as that would end her love.

So they wrestled in affection.

It was the fall following his betrothal to Angela that he actually took

his departure. He had drifted through the summer, pondering. He had

stayed away from Ruby more and more, and finally left without saying

good-bye to her, though he thought up to the last that he intended to go

out and see her.

As for Angela, when it came to parting from her, he was in a depressed

and downcast mood. He thought now that he did not really want to go to

New York, but was being drawn by fate. There was no money for him in the

West; they could not live on what he could earn there. Hence he must go

and in doing so must lose her. It looked very tragic.

Out at her aunt's house, where she came for the Saturday and Sunday

preceding his departure, he walked the floor with her gloomily, counted

the lapse of the hours after which he would be with her no more,

pictured the day when he would return successful to fetch her. Angela

had a faint foreboding fear of the events which might intervene. She had

read stories of artists who had gone to the city and had never come

back. Eugene seemed such a wonderful person, she might not hold him; and

yet he had given her his word and he was madly in love with her--no

doubt of that. That fixed, passionate, yearning look in his eyes--what

did it mean if not enduring, eternal love? Life had brought her a great

treasure--a great love and an artist for a lover.

"Go, Eugene!" she cried at last tragically, almost melodramatically. His

face was in her hands. "I will wait for you. You need never have one

uneasy thought. When you are ready I will be here, only, come soon--you

will, won't you?"

"Will I!" he declared, kissing her, "will I? Look at me. Don't you

know?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" she exclaimed, "of course I know. Oh, yes! yes!"

The rest was a passionate embrace. And then they parted. He went out

brooding over the subtlety and the tragedy of life. The sharp October

stars saddened him more. It was a wonderful world but bitter to endure

at times. Still it could be endured and there was happiness and peace in

store for him probably. He and Angela would find it together living in

each other's company, living in each other's embrace and by each other's

kisses. It must be so. The whole world believed it--even he, after

Stella and Margaret and Ruby and Angela. Even he.

The train which bore him to New York bore a very meditative young man.

As it pulled out through the great railroad yards of the city, past the

shabby back yards of the houses, the street crossings at grade, the

great factories and elevators, he thought of that other time when he had

first ventured in the city. How different! Then he was so green, so raw.

Since then he had become a newspaper artist, he could write, he could

find his tongue with women, he knew a little something about the

organization of the world. He had not saved any money, true, but he had

gone through the art school, had given Angela a diamond ring, had this

two hundred dollars with which he was venturing to reconnoitre the great

social metropolis of the country. He was passing Fifty-seventh Street;

he recognized the neighborhood he traversed so often in visiting Ruby.

He had not said good-bye to her and there in the distance were the rows

of commonplace, two family frame dwellings, one of which she occupied

with her foster parents. Poor little Ruby! and she liked him. It was a

shame, but what was he to do about it? He didn't care for her. It really

hurt him to think and then he tried not to remember. These tragedies of

the world could not be healed by thinking.

The train passed out into the flat fields of northern Indiana and as

little country towns flashed past he thought of Alexandria and how he

had pulled up his stakes and left it. What was Jonas Lyle doing and John

Summers? Myrtle wrote that she was going to be married in the spring.

She had delayed solely because she wanted to delay. He thought sometimes

that Myrtle was a little like himself, fickle in her moods. He was sure

he would never want to go back to Alexandria except for a short visit,

and yet the thought of his father and his mother and his old home were

sweet to him. His father! How little he knew of the real world!

As they passed out of Pittsburgh he saw for the first time the great

mountains, raising their heads in solemn majesty in the dark, and great

lines of coke ovens, flaming red tongues of fire. He saw men working,

and sleeping towns succeeding one another. What a great country America

was! What a great thing to be an artist here! Millions of people and no

vast artistic voice to portray these things--these simple dramatic

things like the coke ovens in the night. If he could only do it! If he

could only stir the whole country, so that his name would be like that

of Dore in France or Verestchagin in Russia. If he could but get fire

into his work, the fire he felt!

He got into his berth after a time and looked out on the dark night and

the stars, longing, and then he dozed. When he awoke again the train had

already passed Philadelphia. It was morning and the cars were speeding

across the flat meadows toward Trenton. He arose and dressed, watching

the array of towns the while, Trenton, New Brunswick, Metuchen,

Elizabeth. Somehow this country was like Illinois, flat. After Newark

they rushed out upon a great meadow and he caught the sense of the sea.

It was beyond this. These were tide-water streams, the Passaic and the

Hackensack, with small ships and coal and brick barges tied at the water

side. The thrill of something big overtook him as the brakeman began to

call "Jersey City," and as he stepped out into the vast train shed his

heart misgave him a little. He was all alone in New York. It was

wealthy, cold and critical. How should he prosper here? He walked out

through the gates to where low arches concealed ferry boats, and in

another moment it was before him, sky line, bay, the Hudson, the Statue

of Liberty, ferry boats, steamers, liners, all in a grey mist of fierce

rain and the tugs and liners blowing mournfully upon great whistles. It

was something he could never have imagined without seeing it, and this

swish of real salt water, rolling in heavy waves, spoke to him as music

might, exalting his soul. What a wonderful thing this was, this

sea--where ships were and whales and great mysteries. What a wonderful

thing New York was, set down by it, surrounded by it, this metropolis of

the country. Here was the sea; yonder were the great docks that held the

vessels that sailed to the ports of all the world. He saw them--great

grey and black hulls, tied to long piers jutting out into the water. He

listened to the whistles, the swish of the water, saw the circling

gulls, realized emotionally the mass of people. Here were Jay Gould and

Russell Sage and the Vanderbilts and Morgan--all alive and all here.

Wall Street, Fifth Avenue, Madison Square, Broadway--he knew of these by

reputation. How would he do here--how fare? Would the city ever acclaim

him as it did some? He looked wide eyed, with an open heart, with

intense and immense appreciation. Well, he was going to enter, going to

try. He could do that--perhaps, perhaps. But he felt lonely. He wished

he were back with Angela where her soft arms could shut him safe. He

wished he might feel her hands on his cheeks, his hair. He would not

need to fight alone then. But now he was alone, and the city was roaring

about him, a great noise like the sea. He must enter and do battle.

CHAPTER XV

Not knowing routes or directions in New York, Eugene took a Desbrosses

Street ferry, and coming into West Street wandered along that curious

thoroughfare staring at the dock entrances. Manhattan Island seemed a

little shabby to him from this angle but he thought that although

physically, perhaps, it might not be distinguished, there must be other

things which made it wonderful. Later when he saw the solidity of it,

the massed houses, the persistent streams of people, the crush of

traffic, it dawned on him that mere humanity in packed numbers makes a

kind of greatness, and this was the island's first characteristic. There

were others, like the prevailing lowness of the buildings in its old

neighborhoods, the narrowness of the streets in certain areas, the

shabbiness of brick and stone when they have seen an hundred years of

weather, which struck him as curious or depressing. He was easily

touched by exterior conditions.

As he wandered he kept looking for some place where he might like to

live, some house that had a yard or a tree. At length he found a row of

houses in lower Seventh Avenue with an array of iron balconies in front

which appealed to him. He applied here and in one house found a room for

four dollars which he thought he had better take for the present. It was

cheaper than any hotel. His hostess was a shabby woman in black who made

scarcely any impression on him as a personality, merely giving him a

thought as to what a dreary thing it was to keep roomers and the room

itself was nothing, a commonplace, but he had a new world before him and

all his interests were outside. He wanted to see this city. He deposited

his grip and sent for his trunk and then took to the streets, having

come to see and hear things which would be of advantage to him.

He went about this early relationship to the city in the right spirit.

For a little while he did not try to think what he would do, but struck

out and walked, here, there and everywhere, this very first day down

Broadway to the City Hall and up Broadway from 14th to 42nd street the

same night. Soon he knew all Third Avenue and the Bowery, the wonders of

Fifth Avenue and Riverside Drive, the beauties of the East River, the

Battery, Central Park and the lower East Side. He sought out quickly the

wonders of metropolitan life--its crowds at dinner and theatre time in

Broadway, its tremendous throngs morning and afternoon in the shopping

district, its amazing world of carriages in Fifth Avenue and Central

Park. He had marveled at wealth and luxury in Chicago, but here it took

his breath away. It was obviously so much more fixed, so definite and

comprehensible. Here one felt intuitively the far reaches which separate

the ordinary man from the scion of wealth. It curled him up like a

frozen leaf, dulled his very soul, and gave him a clear sense of his

position in the social scale. He had come here with a pretty high

estimate of himself, but daily, as he looked, he felt himself crumbling.

What was he? What was art? What did the city care? It was much more

interested in other things, in dressing, eating, visiting, riding

abroad. The lower part of the island was filled with cold commercialism

which frightened him. In the upper half, which concerned only women and

show--a voluptuous sybaritism--caused him envy. He had but two hundred

dollars with which to fight his way, and this was the world he must

conquer.

Men of Eugene's temperament are easily depressed. He first gorged the

spectacle of life and then suffered from mental indigestion. He saw too

much of it too quickly. He wandered about for weeks, looking in the shop

windows, the libraries, the museums, the great streets, growing all the

while more despondent. At night he would return to his bare room and

indite long epistles to Angela, describing what he had seen and telling

her of his undying love for her--largely because he had no other means

of ridding himself of his superabundant vitality and moods. They were

beautiful letters, full of color and feeling, but to Angela they gave a

false impression of emotion and sincerity because they appeared to be

provoked by absence from her. In part of course they were, but far more

largely they were the result of loneliness and the desire for expression

which this vast spectacle of life itself incited. He also sent her some

tentative sketches of things he had seen--a large crowd in the dark at

34th Street; a boat off 86th Street in the East River in the driving

rain; a barge with cars being towed by a tug. He could not think exactly

what to do with these things at that time, but he wanted to try his hand

at illustrating for the magazines. He was a little afraid of these great

publications, however, for now that he was on the ground with them his

art did not appear so significant.

It was during the first few weeks that he received his only letter from

Ruby. His parting letter to her, written when he reached New York, had

been one of those makeshift affairs which faded passion indites. He was

so sorry he had to leave without seeing her. He had intended to come out

but the rush of preparation at the last moment, and so forth; he hoped

to come back to Chicago one of these days and he would look her up. He

still loved her, but it was necessary for him to leave--to come where

the greatest possibilities were. "I remember how sweet you were when I

first saw you," he added. "I shall never forget my first impressions,

little Ruby."

It was cruel to add this touch of remembrance, but the artist in him

could not refrain. It cut Ruby as a double edged sword, for she

understood that he cared well enough that way--aesthetically. It was not

her but beauty that he loved, and her particular beauty had lost its

appeal.

She wrote after a time, intending to be defiant, indifferent, but she

really could not be. She tried to think of something sharp to say, but

finally put down the simple truth.

"Dear Eugene:" she wrote, "I got your note several weeks ago, but I

could not bring myself to answer it before this. I know everything is

over between us and that is all right, for I suppose it has to be. You

couldn't love any woman long, I think. I know what you say about your

having to go to New York to broaden your field is true. You ought to,

but I'm sorry you didn't come out. You might have. Still I don't blame

you, Eugene. It isn't much different from what has been going on for

some time. I have cared but I'll get over that, I know, and I won't ever

think hard of you. Won't you return me the notes I have sent you from

time to time and my pictures? You won't want them now.

"Ruby."

There was a little blank space on the paper and then:--

"I stood by the window last night and looked out on the street. The

moon was shining and those dead trees were waving in the wind. I saw the

moon on that pool of water over in the field. It looked like silver. Oh,

Eugene, I wish I were dead."

He jumped up as he read these words and clenched the letter in his

hands. The pathos of it all cut him to the quick, raised his estimate of

her, made him feel as if he had made a mistake in leaving her. He really

cared for her after all. She was sweet. If she were here now he could

live with her. She might as well be a model in New York as in Chicago.

He was on the verge of writing this, when one of the long, almost daily

epistles Angela was sending arrived and changed his mood. He did not see

how, in the face of so great and clean a love as hers, he could go on

with Ruby. His affection had obviously been dying. Should he try to

revive it now?

This conflict of emotions was so characteristic of Eugene's nature, that

had he been soundly introspective, he would have seen that he was an

idealist by temperament, in love with the aesthetic, in love with love,

and that there was no permanent faith in him for anybody--except the

impossible she.

As it was, he wrote Ruby a letter breathing regret and sorrow but not

inviting her to come. He could not have supported her long if she had,

he thought. Besides he was anxious to secure Angela. So that affair

lapsed.

In the meantime he visited the magazine offices. On leaving Chicago he

had put in the bottom of his trunk a number of drawings which he had

done for the _Globe_--his sketches of the Chicago River, of Blue Island

Avenue, of which he had once made a study as a street, of Goose Island

and of the Lake front. There were some street scenes, too, all forceful

in the peculiar massing of their blacks, the unexpected, almost

flashing, use of a streak of white at times. There was emotion in them,

a sense of life. He should have been appreciated at once, but, oddly,

there was just enough of the radically strange about what he did to make

his work seem crude, almost coarse. He drew a man's coat with a single

dash of his pen. He indicated a face by a spot. If you looked close

there was seldom any detail, frequently none at all. From the praise he

had received at the art school and from Mathews and Goldfarb he was

slowly coming to the conclusion that he had a way of his own. Being so

individual he was inclined to stick to it. He walked with an air of

conviction which had nothing but his own belief in himself to back it

up, and it was not an air which drew anybody to him. When he showed his

pictures at the _Century_, _Harper's_, _Scribner's_, they were received

with an air of weary consideration. Dozens of magnificent drawings were

displayed on their walls signed by men whom Eugene now knew to be

leaders in the illustration world. He returned to his room convinced

that he had made no impression at all. They must be familiar with

artists a hundred times better than himself.

As a matter of fact Eugene was simply overawed by the material face of

things. These men whose pictures he saw displayed on the walls of the

art and editorial rooms of the magazines were really not, in many

instances, any better than himself, if as good. They had the advantage

of solid wood frames and artistic acceptance. He was a long way as yet

from magazine distinction but the work he did later had no more of the

fire than had this early stuff. It was a little broader in treatment, a

little less intolerant of detail, but no more vigorous if as much so.

The various art directors were weary of smart young artists showing

drawings. A little suffering was good for them in the beginning. So

Eugene was incontinently turned away with a little faint praise which

was worse than opposition. He sank very low in spirits.

There were still the smaller magazines and the newspapers, however, and

he hunted about faithfully, trying to get something to do. From one or

two of the smaller magazines, he secured commissions, after a time,

three or four drawings for thirty-five dollars; and from that had to be

extracted models' fees. He had to have a room where he could work as an

artist, receiving models to pose, and he finally found one in West 14th

Street, a back bedroom, looking out over an open court and with a public

stair which let all come who might without question. This cost him

twenty-five dollars a month, but he thought he had better risk it. If he

could get a few commissions he could live.

CHAPTER XVI

The art world of New York is peculiar. It was then and for some time

after, broken up into cliques with scarcely any unity. There was a world

of sculptors, for instance, in which some thirty or forty sculptors had

part--but they knew each other slightly, criticised each other severely

and retired for the most part into a background of relatives and

friends. There was a painting world, as distinguished from an

illustrating world, in which perhaps a thousand alleged artists, perhaps

more, took part. Most of these were men and women who had some

ability--enough to have their pictures hung at the National Academy of

Design exhibition--to sell some pictures, get some decorative work to

do, paint some portraits. There were studio buildings scattered about

various portions of the city; in Washington Square; in Ninth and Tenth

Streets; in odd places, such as Macdougal Alley and occasional cross

streets from Washington Square to Fifty-ninth Street, which were filled

with painters, illustrators, sculptors and craftsmen in art generally.

This painting world had more unity than the world of sculptors and, in a

way, included the latter. There were several art clubs--the Salmagundi,

the Kit-Kat and the Lotus--and there were a number of exhibitions, ink,

water color, oil, with their reception nights where artists could meet

and exchange the courtesies and friendship of their world. In addition

to this there were little communal groups such as those who resided in

the Tenth Street studios; the Twenty-third Street Y. M. C. A.; the Van

Dyck studios, and so on. It was possible to find little crowds, now and

then, that harmonized well enough for a time and to get into a group,

if, to use a colloquialism, one _belonged_. If you did not, art life in

New York might be a very dreary thing and one might go a long time

without finding just the particular crowd with which to associate.

Beside the painting world there was the illustrating world, made up of

beginners and those who had established themselves firmly in editorial

favor. These were not necessarily a part of the painting or sculpture

worlds and yet, in spirit, were allied to them, had their clubs also,

and their studios were in the various neighborhoods where the painters

and sculptors were. The only difference was that in the case of the

embryo illustrators they were to be found living three or four in one

studio, partly because of the saving in expense, but also because of the

love of companionship and because they could hearten and correct one

another in their work. A number of such interesting groups were in

existence when Eugene arrived, but of course he did not know of them.

It takes time for the beginner to get a hearing anywhere. We all have to

serve an apprenticeship, whatever field we enter. Eugene had talent and

determination, but no experience, no savoir faire, no circle of friends

and acquaintances. The whole city was strange and cold, and if he had

not immediately fallen desperately in love with it as a spectacle he

would have been unconscionably lonely and unhappy. As it was the great

fresh squares, such as Washington, Union and Madison; the great streets,

such as Broadway, Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue; the great spectacles,

such as the Bowery at night, the East River, the water front, the

Battery, all fascinated him with an unchanging glamor.

He was hypnotized by the wonder of this thing--the beauty of it. Such

seething masses of people! such whirlpools of life! The great hotels,

the opera, the theatres, the restaurants, all gripped him with a sense

of beauty. These lovely women in magnificent gowns; these swarms of

cabs, with golden eyes, like monstrous insects; this ebb and surge of

life at morning and evening, made him forget his loneliness. He had no

money to spend, no immediate hope of a successful career, he could walk

these streets, look in these windows, admire these beautiful women;

thrill at the daily newspaper announcements of almost hourly successes

in one field or another. Here and there in the news an author had made a

great success with a book; a scientist with a discovery; a philosopher

with a new theory; a financier with an investment. There was news of

great plays being put on; great actors and actresses coming from abroad;

great successes being made by debutantes in society; great movements

forwarded generally. Youth and ambition had the call--he saw that. It

was only a question of time, if you had talent, when you would get your

hearing. He longed ardently for his but he had no feeling that it was

coming to him quickly, so he got the blues. It was a long road to

travel.

One of his pet diversions these days and nights was to walk the streets

in rain or fog or snow. The city appealed to him, wet or white,

particularly the public squares. He saw Fifth Avenue once in a driving

snowstorm and under sputtering arc lights, and he hurried to his easel

next morning to see if he could not put it down in black and white. It

was unsuccessful, or at least he felt so, for after an hour of trying he

threw it aside in disgust. But these spectacles were drawing him. He was

wanting to do them--wanting to see them shown somewhere in color.

Possible success was a solace at a time when all he could pay for a meal

was fifteen cents and he had no place to go and not a soul with whom to

talk.

It was an interesting phase of Eugene's character that he had a passion

for financial independence. He might have written home from Chicago at

times when he was hard pressed; he might have borrowed some money from

his father now, but preferred to earn it--to appear to be further along

than he was. If anyone had asked him he would have said he was doing

fine. Practically he so wrote to Angela, giving as an excuse for further

delay that he wanted to wait until he had ample means. He was trying all

this time to make his two hundred dollars go as far as possible and to

add to it by any little commissions he could get, however small. He

figured his expenses down to ten dollars a week and managed to stay

within that sum.

The particular building in which he had settled was really not a studio

building but an old, run-down boarding and apartment house turned

partially to uses of trade. The top floor contained three fair sized

rooms and two hall bedrooms, all occupied by lonely individuals plying

some craft or other. Eugene's next door neighbor chanced to be a hack

illustrator, who had had his training in Boston and had set up his easel

here in the hope of making a living. There were not many exchanges of

courtesies between them at first, although, the door being open the

second day he arrived, he saw that an artist worked there, for the easel

was visible.

No models applying at first he decided to appeal to the Art Students'

League. He called on the Secretary and was given the names of four, who

replied to postal cards from him. One he selected, a young Swedish

American girl who looked somewhat like the character in the story he had

in mind. She was neat and attractive, with dark hair, a straight nose

and pointed chin, and Eugene immediately conceived a liking for her. He

was ashamed of his surroundings, however, and consequently diffident.

This particular model was properly distant, and he finished his pictures

with as much expedition and as little expense as he possibly could.

Eugene was not given to scraping odd acquaintances, though he made

friends fast enough when the balance of intellect was right. In Chicago

he had become friendly with several young artists as a result of working

with them at the Institute, but here he knew no one, having come without

introductions. He did become acquainted with his neighbor, Philip

Shotmeyer. He wanted to find out about local art life from him, but

Shotmeyer was not brilliant, and could not supply him with more than

minor details of what Eugene desired to know. Through him he learnt a

little of studio regions, art personalities; the fact that young

beginners worked in groups. Shotmeyer had been in such a group the year

before, though why he was alone now he did not say. He sold drawings to

some of the minor magazines, better magazines than Eugene had yet had

dealings with. One thing he did at once for Eugene which was very

helpful: he admired his work. He saw, as had others before him,

something of his peculiar distinction as an artist, attended every show

and one day he gave him a suggestion which was the beginning of Eugene's

successful magazine career. Eugene was working on one of his street

scenes--a task which he invariably essayed when he had nothing else to

do. Shotmeyer had drifted in and was following the strokes of his brush

as he attempted to portray a mass of East Side working girls flooding

the streets after six o'clock. There were dark walls of buildings, a

flaring gas lamp or two, some yellow lighted shop windows, and many

shaded, half seen faces--bare suggestions of souls and pulsing life.

"Say," said Shotmeyer at one point, "that kind o' looks like the real

thing to me. I've seen a crowd like that."

"Have you?" replied Eugene.

"You ought to be able to get some magazine to use that as a

frontispiece. Why don't you try _Truth_ with that?"

"Truth" was a weekly which Eugene, along with many others in the West,

had admired greatly because it ran a double page color insert every week

and occasionally used scenes of this character. Somehow he always needed

a shove of this kind to make him act when he was drifting. He put more

enthusiasm into his work because of Shotmeyer's remark, and when it was

done decided to carry it to the office of _Truth_. The Art Director

approved it on sight, though he said nothing, but carried it in to the

Editor.

"Here's a thing that I consider a find in its way."

He set it proudly upon the editorial desk.

"Say," said the Editor, laying down a manuscript, "that's the real

thing, isn't it? Who did that?"

"A young fellow by the name of Witla, who has just blown in here. He

looks like the real thing to me."

"Say," went on the Editor, "look at the suggestion of faces back there!

What? Reminds me just a little of the masses in Dore stuff--It's good,

isn't it?"

"It's fine," echoed the Art Director. "I think he's a comer, if nothing

happens to him. We ought to get a few centre pages out of him."

"How much does he want for this?"

"Oh, he doesn't know. He'll take almost anything. I'll give him

seventy-five dollars."

"That's all right," said the Editor as the Art Director took the drawing

down. "There's something new there. You ought to hang on to him."

"I will," replied his associate. "He's young yet. He doesn't want to be

encouraged too much."

He went out, pulling a solemn countenance.

"I like this fairly well," he said. "We may be able to find room for it.

I'll send you a check shortly if you'll let me have your address."

Eugene gave it. His heart was beating a gay tattoo in his chest. He did

not think anything of price, in fact it did not occur to him. All that

was in his mind was the picture as a double page spread. So he had

really sold one after all and to _Truth_! Now he could honestly say he

had made some progress. Now he could write Angela and tell her. He could

send her copies when it came out. He could really have something to

point to after this and best of all, now he knew he could do street

scenes.

He went out into the street treading not the grey stone pavement but

air. He threw back his head and breathed deep. He thought of other

scenes like this which he could do. His dreams were beginning to be

realized--he, Eugene Witla, the painter of a double page spread in

_Truth_! Already he was doing a whole series in his imagination, all he

had ever dreamed of. He wanted to run and tell Shotmeyer--to buy him a

good meal. He almost loved him, commonplace hack that he was--because he

had suggested to him the right thing to do.

"Say, Shotmeyer," he said, sticking his head in that worthy's door, "you

and I eat tonight. _Truth_ took that drawing."

"Isn't that fine," said his floor-mate, without a trace of envy. "Well,

I'm glad. I thought they'd like it."

Eugene could have cried. Poor Shotmeyer! He wasn't a good artist, but he

had a good heart. He would never forget him.

CHAPTER XVII

This one significant sale with its subsequent check of seventy-five

dollars and later the appearance of the picture in color, gave Eugene

such a lift in spirit that he felt, for the time being, as though his

art career had reached a substantial basis, and he began to think of

going to Blackwood to visit Angela. But first he must do some more work.

He concentrated his attention on several additional scenes, doing a view

of Greeley Square in a sopping drizzle, and a picture of an L train

speeding up the Bowery on its high, thin trestle of steel. He had an eye

for contrasts, picking out lights and shadows sharply, making wonderful

blurs that were like colors in precious stones, confused and suggestive.

He took one of these after a month to _Truth_, and again the Art

Director was his victim. He tried to be indifferent, but it was hard.

The young man had something that he wanted.

"You might show me anything else you do in this line," he said. "I can

use a few if they come up to these two."

Eugene went away with his head in the air. He was beginning to get the

courage of his ability.

It takes quite a number of drawings at seventy-five and one hundred

dollars each to make a living income, and artists were too numerous to

make anyone's opportunity for immediate distinction easy. Eugene waited

months to see his first drawing come out. He stayed away from the

smaller magazines in the hope that he would soon be able to contribute

to the larger ones, but they were not eagerly seeking new artists. He

met, through Shotmeyer, two artists who were living in one studio in

Waverly Place and took a great liking to them. One of them, McHugh, was

an importation from Wyoming with delicious stories of mountain farming

and mining; the other, Smite, was a fisher lad from Nova Scotia. McHugh,

tall and lean, with a face that looked like that of a raw yokel, but

with some gleam of humor and insight in the eyes which redeemed it

instantly, was Eugene's first choice of a pleasing, genial personality.

Joseph Smite had a sense of the sea about him. He was short and stout,

and rather solidly put together, like a blacksmith. He had big hands and

feet, a big mouth, big, bony eye sockets and coarse brown hair. When he

talked, ordinarily, it was with a slow, halting air and when he smiled

or laughed it was with his whole face. When he became excited or gay

something seemed to happen distinctly to every part of his body. His

face became a curious cross-hatch of genial lines. His tongue loosened

and he talked fast. He had a habit of emphasizing his language with

oaths on these occasions--numerous and picturesque, for he had worked

with sea-faring men and had accumulated a vast vocabulary of picturesque

expressions. They were vacant of evil intent so far as he was concerned,

for there was no subtlety or guile in him. He was kindly and genial all

through. Eugene wanted to be friendly and struck a gay relationship with

these two. He found that he got along excellently well with them and

could swap humorous incidents and character touches by the hour. It was

some months before he could actually say that he was intimate with them,

but he began to visit them regularly and after a time they called on

him.

It was during this year that he came to know several models passingly

well, to visit the various art exhibitions, to be taken up by Hudson

Dula, the Art Director of _Truth_ and invited to two or three small

dinners given to artists and girls. He did not find anyone he liked

exceptionally well barring one Editor of a rather hopeless magazine

called _Craft_, devoted to art subjects, a young blond, of poetic

temperament, who saw in him a spirit of beauty and tried to make friends

with him. Eugene responded cheerfully and thereafter Richard Wheeler was

a visitor at his studio from time to time. He was not making enough to

house himself much better these days, but he did manage to buy a few

plaster casts and to pick up a few nice things in copper and brass for

his studio. His own drawings, his street scenes, were hung here and

there. The way in which the exceptionally clever looked at them

convinced him by degrees that he had something big to say.

It was while he was settling himself in this atmosphere--the spring of

the second year--that he decided to go back and visit Angela and

incidentally Alexandria and Chicago. He had been away now sixteen

months, had not seen anyone who had won his affections or alienated him

from his love of Angela. He wrote in March that he thought he would be

coming in May or June. He did get away in July--a season when the city

was suffering from a wave of intense heat. He had not done so

much--illustrated eight or ten stories and drawn four double page

pictures for _Truth_, one of which had appeared; but he was getting

along. Just as he was starting for Chicago and Blackwood a second one

was put on the news-stand and he proudly carried a copy of it with him

on the train. It was the Bowery by night, with the L train rushing

overhead and, as reproduced, it had color and life. He felt intensely

proud and knew that Angela would also. She had written him such a

glowing appreciation of the East Side picture called "Six O'clock."

As he rode he dreamed.

He reached it at last, the long stretch between New York and Chicago

traversed; he arrived in the Lake city in the afternoon, and without

pausing to revisit the scenes of his earlier efforts took a five o'clock

train for Blackwood. It was sultry, and on the way heavy thunder clouds

gathered and broke in a short, splendid summer rain. The trees and grass

were thoroughly wet and the dust of the roads was laid. There was a

refreshing coolness about the air which caressed the weary flesh. Little

towns nestling among green trees came into view and passed again, and at

last Blackwood appeared. It was smaller than Alexandria, but not so

different. Like the other it was marked by a church steeple, a saw mill,

a pretty brick business street and many broad branching green trees.

Eugene felt drawn to it at sight. It was such a place as Angela should

live in.

It was seven o'clock and nearing dusk when he arrived. He had not given

Angela the definite hour of his arrival and so decided to stay over

night at the little inn or so-called hotel which he saw up the street.

He had brought only a large suit case and a traveling bag. He inquired

of the proprietor the direction and distance of the Blue house from the

town, found that he could get a vehicle any time in the morning which

would take him over, as the phrase ran, for a dollar. He ate his supper

of fried steak and poor coffee and fried potatoes and then sat out on

the front porch facing the street in a rocking chair, to see how the

village of Blackwood wagged and to enjoy the cool of the evening. As he

sat he thought of Angela's home and how nice it must be. This town was

such a little place--so quiet. There would not be another train coming

up from the city until after eleven.

After a time he rose and took a short walk, breathing the night air.

Later he came back and throwing wide the windows of the stuffy room sat

looking out. The summer night with its early rain, its wet trees, its

smell of lush, wet, growing things, was impressing itself on Eugene as

one might impress wet clay with a notable design. Eugene's mood was soft

toward the little houses with their glowing windows, the occasional

pedestrians with their "howdy Jakes" and "evenin' Henrys." He was

touched by the noise of the crickets, the chirp of the tree toads, the

hang of the lucent suns and planets above the tree tops. The whole night

was quick with the richness of fertility, stirring subtly about some

work which concerned man very little or not at all, yet of which he was

at least a part, till his eyelids drooped after a time and he went to

bed to sleep deeply and dreamlessly.

Next morning he was up early, eager for the hour to arrive when he might

start. He did not think it advisable to leave before nine o'clock, and

attracted considerable attention by strolling about, his tall, spare,

graceful figure and forceful profile being an unusual sight to the

natives. At nine o'clock a respectable carryall was placed at his

disposal and he was driven out over a long yellow road, damp with the

rain of the night before and shaded in places by overhanging trees.

There were so many lovely wild flowers growing in the angles of the rail

fences--wild yellow and pink roses, elder flower, Queen Anne's lace,

dozens of beautiful blooms, that Eugene was lost in admiration. His

heart sang over the beauty of yellowing wheatfields, the young corn,

already three feet high, the vistas of hay and clover, with patches of

woods enclosing them, and over all, house martens and swallows scudding

after insects and high up in the air his boyhood dream of beauty, a

soaring buzzard.

As he rode the moods of his boyhood days came back to him--his love of

winging butterflies and birds; his passion for the voice of the

wood-dove (there was one crying in the still distance now)--his

adoration for the virile strength of the men of the countryside. He

thought as he rode that he would like to paint a series of country

scenes that would be as simple as those cottage dooryards that they now

and then passed; this little stream that cut the road at right angles

and made a drinking place for the horses; this skeleton of an old

abandoned home, doorless and windowless, where the roof sagged and

hollyhocks and morning glories grew high under the eaves. "We city

dwellers do not know," he sighed, as though he had not taken the country

in his heart and carried it to town as had every other boy and girl who

had gone the way of the metropolis.

The Blue homestead was located in the centre of a rather wide rolling

stretch of country which lay between two gently rising ridges of hill

covered with trees. One corner of the farm, and that not so very far

from the house, was cut by a stream, a little shallow thing, singing

over pebbles and making willows and hazel bushes to grow in profusion

along its banks, and there was a little lake within a mile of the house.

In front of it was a ten acre field of wheat, to the right of it a

grazing patch of several acres, to the left a field of clover; and near

the house by a barn, a well, a pig pen, a corn crib and some smaller

sheds. In front of the house was a long open lawn, down the centre of

which ran a gravel path, lined on either side by tall old elm trees. The

immediate dooryard was shut from this noble lawn by a low picket fence

along the length of which grew lilac bushes and inside which, nearer the

house, were simple beds of roses, calycanthus and golden glow. Over an

arbor leading from the backdoor to a rather distant summer kitchen

flourished a grapevine, and there was a tall remnant of a tree trunk

covered completely with a yellow blooming trumpet vine. The dooryard's

lawn was smooth enough, and the great lawn was a dream of green grass,

graced with the shadows of a few great trees. The house was long and of

no great depth, the front a series of six rooms ranged in a row, without

an upper storey. The two middle rooms which had originally, perhaps

seventy years before, been all there was of the house. Since then all

the other rooms had been added, and there was in addition to these a

lean-to containing a winter kitchen and dining room, and to the west of

the arbor leading to the summer kitchen, an old unpainted frame

storehouse. In all its parts the place was shabby and run down but

picturesque and quaint.

Eugene was surprised to find the place so charming. It appealed to him,

the long, low front, with doors opening from the centre and end rooms

direct upon the grass, with windows set in climbing vines and the lilac

bushes forming a green wall between the house and the main lawn. The

great rows of elm trees throwing a grateful shade seemed like sentinel

files. As the carryall turned in at the wagon gate in front he thought

"What a place for love! and to think Angela should live here."

The carryall rattled down the pebble road to the left of the lawn and

stopped at the garden gate. Marietta came out. Marietta was twenty-two

years old, and as gay and joyous as her elder sister Angela was sober

and in a way morbid. Light souled as a kitten, looking always on the

bright side of things, she made hosts of friends everywhere she went,

having a perfect swarm of lovers who wrote her eager notes, but whom she

rebuffed with good natured, sympathetic simplicity. Here on this farm

there was not supposed to be so much opportunity for social life as in

town, but beaux made their way here on one pretext and another. Marietta

was the magnet, and in the world of gaiety which she created Angela

shared.

Angela was now in the dining room--easy to be called--but Marietta

wanted to see for herself what sort of lover her sister had captured.

She was surprised at his height, his presence, the keenness of his eyes.

She hardly understood so fine a lover for her own sister, but held out

her hand smilingly.

"This is Mr. Witla, isn't it?" she asked.

"The same," he replied, a little pompously. "Isn't it a lovely drive

over here?"

"We think it nice in nice weather," she laughed. "You wouldn't like it

so much in winter. Won't you come in and put your grip here in the hall?

David will take it to your room."

Eugene obeyed, but he was thinking of Angela and when she would appear

and how she would look. He stepped into the large, low ceiled, dark,

cool parlor and was delighted to see a piano and some music piled on a

rack. Through an open window he saw several hammocks out on the main

lawn, under the trees. It seemed a wonderful place to him, the substance

of poetry--and then Angela appeared. She was dressed in plain white

linen. Her hair, braided as he liked it in a great rope, lay as a band

across her forehead. She had picked a big pink rose and put it in her

waist. At sight of her Eugene held out his arms and she flew to them. He

kissed her vigorously, for Marietta had discreetly retired and they were

left alone.

"So I have you at last," he whispered, and kissed her again.

"Oh, yes, yes, and it has been so long," she sighed.

"You couldn't have suffered any more than I have," he consoled. "Every

minute has been torture, waiting, waiting, waiting!"

"Let's not think of that now," she urged. "We have each other. You are

here."

"Yes, here I am," he laughed, "all the virtues done up in one brown

suit. Isn't it lovely--these great trees, that beautiful lawn?"

He paused from kissing to look out of the window.

"I'm glad you like it," she replied joyously. "We think it's nice, but

this place is so old."

"I love it for that," he cried appreciatively. "Those bushes are so

nice--those roses. Oh, dear, you don't know how sweet it all seems--and

you--you are so nice."

He held her off at arm's length and surveyed her while she blushed

becomingly. His eager, direct, vigorous onslaught confused her at

times--caused her pulse to beat at a high rate.

They went out into the dooryard after a time and then Marietta appeared

again, and with her Mrs. Blue, a comfortable, round bodied mother of

sixty, who greeted Eugene cordially. He could feel in her what he felt

in his own mother--in every good mother--love of order and peace, love

of the well being of her children, love of public respect and private

honor and morality. All these things Eugene heartily respected in

others. He was glad to see them, believed they had a place in society,

but was uncertain whether they bore any fixed or important relationship

to him. He was always thinking in his private conscience that life was

somehow bigger and subtler and darker than any given theory or order of

living. It might well be worth while for a man or woman to be honest and

moral within a given condition or quality of society, but it did not

matter at all in the ultimate substance and composition of the universe.

Any form or order of society which hoped to endure must have individuals

like Mrs. Blue, who would conform to the highest standards and theories

of that society, and when found they were admirable, but they meant

nothing in the shifting, subtle forces of nature. They were just

accidental harmonies blossoming out of something which meant everything

here to this order, nothing to the universe at large. At twenty-two

years of age he was thinking these things, wondering whether it would be

possible ever to express them; wondering what people would think of him

if they actually knew what he did think; wondering if there was

anything, anything, which was really stable--a rock to cling to--and not

mere shifting shadow and unreality.

Mrs. Blue looked at her daughter's young lover with a kindly eye. She

had heard a great deal about him. Having raised her children to be

honest, moral and truthful she trusted them to associate only with those

who were equally so. She assumed that Eugene was such a man, and his

frank open countenance and smiling eyes and mouth convinced her that he

was basically good. Also, what to her were his wonderful drawings, sent

to Angela in the form of proofs from time to time, particularly the one

of the East Side crowd, had been enough to prejudice her in his favor.

No other daughter of the family, and there were three married, had

approximated to this type of man in her choice. Eugene was looked upon

as a prospective son-in-law who would fulfill all the conventional

obligations joyfully and as a matter of course.

"It's very good of you to put me up, Mrs. Blue," Eugene said pleasantly.

"I've always wanted to come out here for a visit--I've heard so much of

the family from Angela."

"It's just a country home we have, not much to look at, but we like it,"

replied his hostess. She smiled blandly, asked if he wouldn't make

himself comfortable in one of the hammocks, wanted to know how he was

getting along with his work in New York and then returned to her

cooking, for she was already preparing his first meal. Eugene strolled

with Angela to the big lawn under the trees and sat down. He was

experiencing the loftiest of human emotions on earth--love in youth,

accepted and requited, hope in youth, justified in action by his success

in New York; peace in youth, for he had a well earned holiday in his

grasp, was resting with the means to do so and with love and beauty and

admiration and joyous summer weather to comfort him.

As he rocked to and fro in the hammock gazing at the charming lawn and

realizing all these things, his glance rested at last upon Angela, and

he thought, "Life can really hold no finer thing than this."

CHAPTER XVIII

Toward noon old Jotham Blue came in from a cornfield where he had been

turning the earth between the rows. Although sixty-five and with snowy

hair and beard he looked to be vigorous, and good to live until ninety

or a hundred. His eyes were blue and keen, his color rosy. He had great

broad shoulders set upon a spare waist, for he had been a handsome

figure of a man in his youth.

"How do you do, Mr. Witla," he inquired with easy grace as he strolled

up, the yellow mud of the fields on his boots. He had pulled a big

jackknife out of his pocket and begun whittling a fine twig he had

picked up. "I'm glad to see you. My daughter, Angela, has been telling

me one thing and another about you."

He smiled as he looked at Eugene. Angela, who was sitting beside him,

rose and strolled toward the house.

"I'm glad to see you," said Eugene. "I like your country around here. It

looks prosperous."

"It is prosperous," said the old patriarch, drawing up a chair which

stood at the foot of a tree and seating himself. Eugene sank back into

the hammock.

"It's a soil that's rich in lime and carbon and sodium--the things which

make plant life grow. We need very little fertilizer here--very little.

The principal thing is to keep the ground thoroughly cultivated and to

keep out the bugs and weeds."

He cut at his stick meditatively. Eugene noted the chemical and physical

knowledge relative to farming. It pleased him to find brain coupled with

crop cultivation.

"I noticed some splendid fields of wheat as I came over," he observed.

"Yes, wheat does well here," Blue went on, "when the weather is

moderately favorable. Corn does well. We have a splendid apple crop and

grapes are generally successful in this state. I have always thought

that Wisconsin had a little the best of the other valley states, for we

are blessed with a moderate climate, plenty of streams and rivers and a

fine, broken landscape. There are good mines up north and lots of

lumber. We are a prosperous people, we Wisconsiners, decidedly

prosperous. This state has a great future."

Eugene noted the wide space between his clear blue eyes as he talked. He

liked the bigness of his conception of his state and of his country. No

petty little ground-harnessed ploughman this, but a farmer in the big

sense of the word--a cultivator of the soil, with an understanding of

it--an American who loved his state and his country.

"I have always thought of the Mississippi valley as the country of the

future," said Eugene. "We have had the Valley of the Nile and the Valley

of the Euphrates with big populations, but this is something larger. I

rather feel as though a great wave of population were coming here in the

future."

"It is the new paradise of the world," said Jotham Blue, pausing in his

whittling and holding up his right hand for emphasis. "We haven't come

to realize its possibilities. The fruit, the corn, the wheat, to feed

the nations of the world can be raised here. I sometimes marvel at the

productivity of the soil. It is so generous. It is like a great mother.

It only asks to be treated kindly to give all that it has."

Eugene smiled. The bigness of his prospective father-in-law's feelings

lured him. He felt as though he could love this man.

They talked on about other things, the character of the surrounding

population, the growth of Chicago, the recent threat of a war with

Venezuela, the rise of a new leader in the Democratic party, a man whom

Jotham admired very much. As he was telling of the latter's exploits--it

appeared he had recently met him at Blackwood--Mrs. Blue appeared in the

front door.

"Jotham!" she called.

He rose. "My wife must want a bucket of water," he said, and strolled

away.

Eugene smiled. This was lovely. This was the way life should

be--compounded of health, strength, good nature, understanding,

simplicity. He wished he were a man like Jotham, as sound, as hearty, as

clean and strong. To think he had raised eight children. No wonder

Angela was lovely. They all were, no doubt.

While he was rocking, Marietta came back smiling, her blond hair blowing

about her face. Like her father she had blue eyes, like him a sanguine

temperament, warm and ruddy. Eugene felt drawn to her. She reminded him

a little of Ruby--a little of Margaret. She was bursting with young

health.

"You're stronger than Angela," he said, looking at her.

"Oh, yes, I can always outrun Angel-face," she exclaimed. "We fight

sometimes but I can get things away from her. She has to give in.

Sometimes I feel older--I always take the lead."

Eugene rejoiced in the sobriquet of Angel-face. It suited Angela, he

thought. She looked like pictures of Angels in the old prints and in the

stained glass windows he had seen. He wondered in a vague way, however,

whether Marietta did not have the sweeter temperament--were not really

more lovable and cosy. But he put the thought forcefully out of his

mind. He felt he must be loyal to Angela here.

While they were talking the youngest boy, David, came up and sat down on

the grass. He was short and stocky for his years--sixteen--with an

intelligent face and an inquiring eye. Eugene noted stability and quiet

force in his character at once. He began to see that these children had

inherited character as well as strength from their parents. This was a

home in which successful children were being reared. Benjamin came up

after awhile, a tall, overgrown, puritanical youth, with western

modifications and then Samuel, the oldest of the living boys and the

most impressive. He was big and serene like his father, of brown

complexion and hickory strength. Eugene learned in the conversation that

he was a railroad man in St. Paul--home for a brief vacation, after

three years of absence. He was with a road called the Great Northern,

already a Second Assistant Passenger Agent and with great prospects, so

the family thought. Eugene could see that all the boys and girls, like

Angela, were ruggedly and honestly truthful. They were written all over

with Christian precept--not church dogma--but Christian precept, lightly

and good naturedly applied. They obeyed the ten commandments in so far

as possible and lived within the limits of what people considered sane

and decent. Eugene wondered at this. His own moral laxity was a puzzle

to him. He wondered whether he were not really all wrong and they all

right. Yet the subtlety of the universe was always with him--the mystery

of its chemistry. For a given order of society no doubt he was out of

place--for life in general, well, he could not say.

At 12.30 dinner was announced from the door by Mrs. Blue and they all

rose. It was one of those simple home feasts common to any intelligent

farming family. There was a generous supply of fresh vegetables, green

peas, new potatoes, new string beans. A steak had been secured from the

itinerant butcher who served these parts and Mrs. Blue had made hot

light biscuit. Eugene expressed a predilection for fresh buttermilk and

they brought him a pitcherful, saying that as a rule it was given to the

pigs; the children did not care for it. They talked and jested and he

heard odd bits of information concerning people here and there--some

farmer who had lost a horse by colic; some other farmer who was

preparing to cut his wheat. There were frequent references to the three

oldest sisters, who lived in other Wisconsin towns. Their children

appeared to be numerous and fairly troublesome. They all came home

frequently, it appeared, and were bound up closely with the interests of

the family as a whole.

"The more you know about the Blue family," observed Samuel to Eugene,

who expressed surprise at the solidarity of interest, "the more you

realize that they're a clan not a family. They stick together like

glue."

"That's a rather nice trait, I should say," laughed Eugene, who felt no

such keen interest in his relatives.

"Well, if you want to find out how the Blue family stick together just

do something to one of them," observed Jake Doll, a neighbor who had

entered.

"That's sure true, isn't it, Sis," observed Samuel, who was sitting next

to Angela, putting his hand affectionately on his sister's arm. Eugene

noted the movement. She nodded her head affectionately.

"Yes, we Blues all hang together."

Eugene almost begrudged him his sister's apparent affection. Could such

a girl be cut out of such an atmosphere--separated from it completely,

brought into a radically different world, he wondered. Would she

understand him; would he stick by her. He smiled at Jotham and Mrs. Blue

and thought he ought to, but life was strange. You never could tell what

might happen.

During the afternoon there were more lovely impressions. He and Angela

sat alone in the cool parlor for two hours after dinner while he

restated his impressions of her over and over. He told her how charming

he thought her home was, how nice her father and mother, what

interesting brothers she had. He made a genial sketch of Jotham as he

had strolled up to him at noon, which pleased Angela and she kept it to

show to her father. He made her pose in the window and sketched her head

and her halo of hair. He thought of his double page illustration of the

Bowery by night and went to fetch it, looking for the first time at the

sweet cool room at the end of the house which he was to occupy. One

window, a west one, had hollyhocks looking in, and the door to the north

gave out on the cool, shady grass. He moved in beauty, he thought; was

treading on showered happiness. It hurt him to think that such joy might

not always be, as though beauty were not everywhere and forever present.

When Angela saw the picture which _Truth_ had reproduced, she was beside

herself with joy and pride and happiness. It was such a testimony to her

lover's ability. He had written almost daily of the New York art world,

so she was familiar with that in exaggerated ideas, but these actual

things, like reproduced pictures, were different. The whole world would

see this picture. He must be famous already, she imagined.

That evening and the next and the next as they sat in the parlor alone

he drew nearer and nearer to that definite understanding which comes

between a man and woman when they love. Eugene could never stop with

mere kissing and caressing in a reserved way, if not persistently

restrained. It seemed natural to him that love should go on. He had not

been married. He did not know what its responsibilities were. He had

never given a thought to what his parents had endured to make him worth

while. There was no instinct in him to tell him. He had no yearnings for

parenthood, that normal desire which gives visions of a home and the

proper social conditions for rearing a family. All he thought of was the

love making period--the billing and cooing and the transports of delight

which come with it. With Angela he felt that these would be super-normal

precisely because she was so slow in yielding--so on the defensive

against herself. He could look in her eyes at times and see a swooning

veil which foreshadowed a storm of emotion. He would sit by her stroking

her hands, touching her cheek, smoothing her hair, or at other times

holding her in his arms. It was hard for her to resist those significant

pressures he gave, to hold him at arm's length, for she herself was

eager for the delights of love.

It was on the third night of his stay and in the face of his growing

respect for every member of this family, that he swept Angela to the

danger line--would have carried her across it had it not been for a

fortuitous wave of emotion, which was not of his creation, but of hers.

They had been to the little lake, Okoonee, a little way from the house

during the afternoon for a swim.

Afterward he and Angela and David and Marietta had taken a drive. It was

one of those lovely afternoons that come sometimes in summer and speak

direct to the heart of love and beauty. It was so fair and warm, the

shadows of the trees so comforting that they fairly made Eugene's heart

ache. He was young now, life was beautiful, but how would it be when he

was old? A morbid anticipation of disaster seemed to harrow his soul.

The sunset had already died away when they drew near home. Insects

hummed, a cow-bell tinkled now and then; breaths of cool air, those

harbingers of the approaching eve, swept their cheeks as they passed

occasional hollows. Approaching the house they saw the blue smoke curls

rising from the kitchen chimney, foretelling the preparation of the

evening meal. Eugene clasped Angela's hand in an ecstasy of emotion.

He wanted to dream--sitting in the hammock with Angela as the dusk fell,

watching the pretty scene. Life was all around. Jotham and Benjamin came

in from the fields and the sound of their voices and of the splashing

water came from the kitchen door where they were washing. There was an

anticipatory stamping of horses' feet in the barn, the lowing of a

distant cow, the hungry grunt of pigs. Eugene shook his head--it was so

pastoral, so sweet.

At supper he scarcely touched what was put before him, the group at the

dining table holding his attention as a spectacle. Afterwards he sat

with the family on the lawn outside the door, breathing the odor of

flowers, watching the stars over the trees, listening to Jotham and

Mrs. Blue, to Samuel, Benjamin, David, Marietta and occasionally Angela.

Because of his mood, sad in the face of exquisite beauty, she also was

subdued. She said little, listening to Eugene and her father, but when

she did talk her voice was sweet.

Jotham arose, after a time, and went to bed, and one by one the others

followed. David and Marietta went into the sitting room and then Samuel

and Benjamin left. They gave as an excuse hard work for the morning.

Samuel was going to try his hand again at thrashing. Eugene took Angela

by the hand and led her out where some hydrangeas were blooming, white

as snow by day, but pale and silvery in the dark. He took her face in

his hands, telling her again of love.

"It's been such a wonderful day I'm all wrought up," he said. "Life is

so beautiful here. This place is so sweet and peaceful. And you! oh,

you!" kisses ended his words.

They stood there a little while, then went back into the parlor where

she lighted a lamp. It cast a soft yellow glow over the room, just

enough to make it warm, he thought. They sat first side by side on two

rocking chairs and then later on a settee, he holding her in his arms.

Before supper she had changed to a loose cream colored house gown. Now

Eugene persuaded her to let her hair hang in the two braids.

Real passion is silent. It was so intense with him that he sat

contemplating her as if in a spell. She leaned back against his shoulder

stroking his hair, but finally ceased even that, for her own feeling was

too intense to make movement possible. She thought of him as a young

god, strong, virile, beautiful--a brilliant future before him. All these

years she had waited for someone to truly love her and now this splendid

youth had apparently cast himself at her feet. He stroked her hands, her

neck, cheeks, then slowly gathered her close and buried his head against

her bosom.

Angela was strong in convention, in the precepts of her parents, in the

sense of her family and its attitude, but this situation was more than

she could resist. She accepted first the pressure of his arm, then the

slow subtlety with which he caressed her. Resistance seemed almost

impossible now for he held her close--tight within the range of his

magnetism. When finally she felt the pressure of his hand upon her

quivering limbs, she threw herself back in a transport of agony and

delight.

"No, no, Eugene," she begged. "No, no! Save me from myself. Save me from

myself. Oh, Eugene!"

He paused a moment to look at her face. It was wrought in lines of

intense suffering--pale as though she were ill. Her body was quite limp.

Only the hot, moist lips told the significant story. He could not stop

at once. Slowly he drew his hand away, then let his sensitive artists'

fingers rest gently on her neck--her bosom.

She struggled lamely at this point and slipped to her knees, her dress

loosened at the neck.

"Don't, Eugene," she begged, "don't. Think of my father, my mother. I,

who have boasted so. I of whom they feel so sure. Oh, Eugene, I beg of

you!"

He stroked her hair, her cheeks, looking into her face as Abelard might

have looked at Heloise.

"Oh, I know why it is," she exclaimed, convulsively. "I am no better

than any other, but I have waited so long, so long! But I mustn't! Oh,

Eugene, I mustn't! Help me!"

Vaguely Eugene understood. She had been without lovers. Why? he thought.

She was beautiful. He got up, half intending to carry her to his room,

but he paused, thinking. She was such a pathetic figure. Was he really

as bad as this? Could he not be fair in this one instance? Her father

had been so nice to him--her mother--He saw Jotham Blue before him,

Mrs. Blue, her admiring brothers and sisters, as they had been a little

while before. He looked at her and still the prize lured him--almost

swept him on in spite of himself, but he stayed.

"Stand up, Angela," he said at last, pulling himself together, looking

at her intensely. She did so. "Leave me now," he went on, "right away! I

won't answer for myself if you don't. I am really trying. Please go."

She paused, looking at him fearfully, regretfully.

"Oh, forgive me, Eugene," she pleaded.

"Forgive me," he said. "I'm the one. But you go now, sweet. You don't

know how hard this is. Help me by going."

She moved away and he followed her with his eyes, yearningly, burningly,

until she reached the door. When she closed it softly he went into his

own room and sat down. His body was limp and weary. He ached from head

to foot from the intensity of the mood he had passed through. He went

over the recent incidents, almost stunned by his experience and then

went outside and stood under the stairs, listening. Tree toads were

chirping, there were suspicious cracklings in the grass as of bugs

stirring. A duck quacked somewhere feebly. The bell of the family cow

tinkled somewhere over near the water of the little stream. He saw the

great dipper in the sky, Sirius, Canopus, the vast galaxy of the Milky

Way.

"What is life anyway?" he asked himself. "What is the human body? What

produces passion? Here we are for a few years surging with a fever of

longing and then we burn out and die." He thought of some lines he might

write, of pictures he might paint. All the while, reproduced before his

mind's eye like a cinematograph, were views of Angela as she had been

tonight in his arms, on her knees. He had seen her true form. He had

held her in his arms. He had voluntarily resigned her charms for

tonight; anyhow, no harm had come. It never should.

CHAPTER XIX

It would be hard to say in what respect, if any, the experiences of this

particular night altered Eugene's opinion of Angela. He was inclined to

like her better for what he would have called her humanness. Thus

frankly to confess her weakness and inability to save herself was

splendid. That he was given the chance to do a noble deed was fortunate

and uplifting. He knew now that he could take her if he wished, but once

calm again he resolved to be fair and not to insist. He could wait.

The state of Angela's mind, on the contrary, once she had come out of

her paroxysm and gained the privacy of her own room, or rather the room

she shared with Marietta at the other extreme of the house, was

pitiable. She had for so long considered herself an estimable and

virtuous girl. There was in her just a faint trace of prudery which

might readily have led to an unhappy old maid existence for her if

Eugene, with his superiority, or non-understanding, or indifference to

conventional theories and to old-maidish feelings, had not come along

and with his customary blindness to material prosperity and age

limitations, seized upon and made love to her. He had filled her brain

with a whirlwind of notions hitherto unfamiliar to her world and set

himself up in her brain as a law unto himself. He was not like other

men--she could see that. He was superior to them. He might not make much

money, being an artist, but he could make other things which to her

seemed more desirable. Fame, beautiful pictures, notable friends, were

not these things far superior to money? She had had little enough money

in all conscience, and if Eugene made anything at all it would be enough

for her. He seemed to be under the notion that he needed a lot to get

married, whereas she would have been glad to risk it on almost anything

at all.

This latest revelation of herself, besides tearing her mind from a

carefully nurtured belief in her own virtuous impregnability, raised at

the same time a spectre of disaster in so far as Eugene's love for her

was concerned. Would he, now that she had allowed him those precious

endearments which should have been reserved for the marriage bed only,

care for her as much as he had before? Would he not think of her as a

light minded, easily spoiled creature who was waiting only for a

propitious moment to yield herself? She had been lost to all sense of

right and wrong in that hour, that she knew. Her father's character and

what he stood for, her mother's decency and love of virtue, her

cleanly-minded, right-living brothers and sisters,--all had been

forgotten and here she was, a tainted maiden, virtuous in technical

sense it is true, but tainted. Her convention-trained conscience smote

her vigorously and she groaned in her heart. She went outside the door

of her own room and sat down on the damp grass in the early morning to

think. It was so cool and calm everywhere but in her own soul. She held

her face in her hands, feeling her hot cheeks, wondering what Eugene was

thinking now. What would her father think, her mother? She wrung her

hands more than once and finally went inside to see if she could not

rest. She was not unconscious of the beauty and joy of the episode, but

she was troubled by what she felt she ought to think, what the

consequences to her future might be. To hold Eugene now--that was a

subtle question. To hold up her head in front of him as she had, could

she? To keep him from going further. It was a difficult situation and

she tossed restlessly all night, getting little sleep. In the morning

she arose weary and disturbed, but more desperately in love than ever.

This wonderful youth had revealed an entirely new and intensely dramatic

world to her.

When they met on the lawn again before breakfast, Angela was garbed in

white linen. She looked waxen and delicate and her eyes showed dark

rings as well as the dark thoughts that were troubling her. Eugene took

her hand sympathetically.

"Don't worry," he said, "I know. It isn't as bad as you think." And he

smiled tenderly.

"Oh, Eugene, I don't understand myself now," she said sorrowfully. "I

thought I was better than that."

"We're none of us better than that," he replied simply. "We just think

we are sometimes. You are not any different to me. You just think you

are."

"Oh, are you sure?" she asked eagerly.

"Quite sure," he replied. "Love isn't a terrible thing between any two.

It's just lovely. Why should I think worse of you?"

"Oh, because good girls don't do what I have done. I have been raised to

know better--to do better."

"All a belief, my dear, which you get from what has been taught you. You

think it wrong. Why? Because your father and mother told you so. Isn't

that it?"

"Oh, not that alone. Everybody thinks it's wrong. The Bible teaches that

it is. Everybody turns his back on you when he finds out."

"Wait a minute," pleaded Eugene argumentatively. He was trying to solve

this puzzle for himself. "Let's leave the Bible out of it, for I don't

believe in the Bible--not as a law of action anyhow. The fact that

everybody thinks it's wrong wouldn't necessarily make it so, would it?"

He was ignoring completely the significance of _everybody_ as a

reflection of those principles which govern the universe.

"No-o-o," ventured Angela doubtfully.

"Listen," went on Eugene. "Everybody in Constantinople believes that

Mahomet is the Prophet of God. That doesn't make him so, does it?"

"No."

"Well, then, everyone here might believe that what we did last night was

wrong without making it so. Isn't that true?"

"Yes," replied Angela confusedly. She really did not know. She could not

argue with him. He was too subtle, but her innate principles and

instincts were speaking plainly enough, nevertheless.

"Now what you're really thinking about is what people will do. They'll

turn their backs on you, you say. That is a practical matter. Your

father might turn you out of doors--"

"I think he would," replied Angela, little understanding the bigness of

the heart of her father.

"I think he wouldn't," said Eugene, "but that's neither here nor there.

Men might refuse to marry you. Those are material considerations. You

wouldn't say they had anything to do with real right or wrong, would

you?"

Eugene had no convincing end to his argument. He did not know any more

than anyone else what was right or wrong in this matter. He was merely

talking to convince himself, but he had enough logic to confuse Angela.

"I don't know," she said vaguely.

"Right," he went on loftily, "is something which is supposed to be in

accordance with a standard of truth. Now no one in all the world knows

what truth is, no one. There is no way of telling. You can only act

wisely or unwisely as regards your personal welfare. If that's what

you're worrying about, and it is, I can tell you that you're no worse

off. There's nothing the matter with your welfare. I think you're better

off, for I like you better."

Angela wondered at the subtlety of his brain. She was not sure but that

what he said might be true. Could her fears be baseless? She felt sure

she had lost some of the bloom of her youth anyhow.

"How can you?" she asked, referring to his saying that he liked her

better.

"Easily enough," he replied. "I know more about you. I admire your

frankness. You're lovely--altogether so. You are sweet beyond compare."

He started to particularize.

"Don't, Eugene," she pleaded, putting her finger over her lips. The

color was leaving her cheeks. "Please don't, I can't stand it."

"All right," he said, "I won't. But you're altogether lovely. Let's go

and sit in the hammock."

"No. I'm going to get you your breakfast. It's time you had something."

He took comfort in his privileges, for the others had all gone. Jotham,

Samuel, Benjamin and David were in the fields. Mrs. Blue was sewing and

Marietta had gone to see a girl friend up the road. Angela, as Ruby

before her, bestirred herself about the youth's meal, mixing biscuit,

broiling him some bacon, cleaning a basket of fresh dewberries for him.

"I like your man," said her mother, coming out where she was working.

"He looks to be good-natured. But don't spoil him. If you begin wrong

you'll be sorry."

"You spoiled papa, didn't you?" asked Angela sagely, recalling all the

little humorings her father had received.

"Your father has a keen sense of duty," retorted her mother. "It didn't

hurt him to be spoiled a little."

"Maybe Eugene has," replied her daughter, turning her slices of bacon.

Her mother smiled. All her daughters had married well. Perhaps Angela

was doing the best of all. Certainly her lover was the most

distinguished. Yet, "well to be careful," she suggested.

Angela thought. If her mother only knew, or her father. Dear Heaven! And

yet Eugene was altogether lovely. She wanted to wait on him, to spoil

him. She wished she could be with him every day from now on--that they

need not part any more.

"Oh, if he would only marry me," she sighed. It was the one divine event

which would complete her life.

Eugene would have liked to linger in this atmosphere indefinitely. Old

Jotham, he found, liked to talk to him. He took an interest in national

and international affairs, was aware of distinguished and peculiar

personalities, seemed to follow world currents everywhere. Eugene began

to think of him as a distinguished personality in himself, but old

Jotham waved the suggestion blandly aside.

"I'm a farmer," he said. "I've seen my greatest success in raising good

children. My boys will do well, I know."

For the first time Eugene caught the sense of fatherhood, of what it

means to live again in your children, but only vaguely. He was too

young, too eager for a varied life, too lustful. So its true import was

lost for the time.

Sunday came and with it the necessity to leave. He had been here nine

days, really two days more than he had intended to stay. It was farewell

to Angela, who had come so close, so much in his grasp that she was like

a child in his hands. It was farewell, moreover, to an ideal scene, a

bit of bucolic poetry. When would he see again an old patriarch like

Jotham, clean, kindly, intelligent, standing upright amid his rows of

corn, proud to be a good father, not ashamed to be poor, not afraid to

be old or to die. Eugene had drawn so much from him. It was like sitting

at the feet of Isaiah. It was farewell to the lovely fields and the blue

hills, the long rows of trees down the lawn walk, the white and red and

blue flowers about the dooryard. He had slept so sweetly in his clean

room, he had listened so joyously to the voices of birds, the wood dove

and the poet thrush; he had heard the water in the Blue's branch

rippling over its clean pebbles. The pigs in the barnyard pen, the

horses, the cows, all had appealed to him. He thought of Gray's

"Elegy"--of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" and "The Traveller." This was

something like the things those men had loved.

He walked down the lawn with Angela, when the time came, repeating how

sorry he was to go. David had hitched up a little brown mare and was

waiting at the extreme end of the lawn.

"Oh, Sweet," he sighed. "I shall never be happy until I have you."

"I will wait," sighed Angela, although she was wishing to exclaim: "Oh,

take me, take me!" When he was gone she went about her duties

mechanically, for it was as if all the fire and joy had gone out of her

life. Without this brilliant imagination of his to illuminate things,

life seemed dull.

And he rode, parting in his mind with each lovely thing as he went--the

fields of wheat, the little stream, Lake Okoonee, the pretty Blue

farmhouse, all.

He said to himself: "Nothing more lovely will ever come again. Angela in

my arms in her simple little parlor. Dear God! and there are only

seventy years of life--not more than ten or fifteen of true youth, all

told."

CHAPTER XX

Eugene carried home with him not only a curiously deepened feeling for

Angela, due to their altered and more intimate relationship, but

moreover a growing respect for her family. Old Jotham was so impressive

a figure of a man; his wife so kindly and earnest. Their attitude toward

their children and to each other was so sound, and their whole

relationship to society so respectable. Another observer might have been

repelled by the narrowness and frugality of their lives. But Eugene had

not known enough of luxury to be scornful of the material simplicity of

such existence. Here he had found character, poetry of location, poetry

of ambition, youth and happy prospects. These boys, so sturdy and

independent, were sure to make for themselves such places in the world

as they desired. Marietta, so charming a girl, could not but make a good

marriage. Samuel was doing well in his position with the railroad

company; Benjamin was studying to be a lawyer and David was to be sent

to West Point. He liked them for their familiar, sterling worth. And

they all treated him as the destined husband of Angela. By the end of

his stay he had become as much en rapport with the family as if he had

known it all his life.

Before going back to New York he had stopped in Chicago, where he had

seen Howe and Mathews grinding away at their old tasks, and then for a

few days in Alexandria, where he found his father busy about his old

affairs. Sewing machines were still being delivered by him in person,

and the long roads of the country were as briskly traversed by his light

machine-carrying buggy as in his earliest days. Eugene saw him now as

just a little futile, and yet he admired him, his patience, his

industry. The brisk sewing machine agent was considerably impressed by

his son's success, and was actually trying to take an interest in art.

One evening coming home from the post office he pointed out a street

scene in Alexandria as a subject for a painting. Eugene knew that art

had only been called to his father's attention by his own efforts. He

had noticed these things all his life, no doubt, but attached no

significance to them until he had seen his son's work in the magazines.

"If you ever paint country things, you ought to paint Cook's Mill, over

here by the falls. That's one of the prettiest things I know anywhere,"

he said to him one evening, trying to make his son feel the interest he

took. Eugene knew the place. It was attractive, a little branch of

bright water running at the base of a forty foot wall of red sandstone

and finally tumbling down a fifteen foot declivity of grey mossy stones.

It was close to a yellow road which carried a good deal of traffic and

was surrounded by a company of trees which ornamented it and sheltered

it on all sides. Eugene had admired it in his youth as beautiful and

peaceful.

"It is nice," he replied to his father. "I'll take a look at it some

day."

Witla senior felt set up. His son was doing him honor. Mrs. Witla, like

her husband, was showing the first notable traces of the flight of time.

The crow's-feet at the sides of her eyes were deeper, the wrinkles in

her forehead longer. At the sight of Eugene the first night she fairly

thrilled, for he was so well developed now, so self-reliant. He had come

through his experiences to a kind of poise which she realized was

manhood. Her boy, requiring her careful guidance, was gone. This was

someone who could guide her, tease her as a man would a child.

"You've got so big I hardly know you," she said, as he folded her in his

arms.

"No, you're just getting little, ma. I used to think I'd never get to

the point where you couldn't shake me, but that's all over, isn't it?"

"You never did need much shaking," she said fondly.

Myrtle, who had married Frank Bangs the preceding year, had gone with

her husband to live in Ottumwa, Iowa, where he had taken charge of a

mill, so Eugene did not see her, but he spent some little time with

Sylvia, now the mother of two children. Her husband was the same quiet,

conservative plodder Eugene had first noted him to be. Revisiting the

office of the _Appeal_ he found that John Summers had recently died.

Otherwise things were as they had been. Jonas Lyle and Caleb Williams

were still in charge--quite the same as before. Eugene was glad when his

time was up, and took the train back to Chicago with a light heart.

Again as on his entrance to Chicago from the East, and on his return to

it from Blackwood, he was touched keenly by the remembrance of Ruby. She

had been so sweet to him. His opening art experiences had in a way been

centred about her. But in spite of all, he did not want to go out and

see her. Or did he? He asked himself this question with a pang of

sorrow, for in a way he cared. He cared for her as one might care for a

girl in a play or book. She had the quality of a tragedy about her.

She--her life, her surroundings, her misfortune in loving him,

constituted an artistic composition. He thought he might be able to

write a poem about it some time. He was able to write rather charming

verse which he kept to himself. He had the knack of saying things in a

simple way and with feeling--making you see a picture. The trouble with

his verse was that it lacked as yet any real nobility of thought--was

not as final in understanding as it might have been.

He did not go to see Ruby. The reason he assigned to himself was that it

would not be nice. She might not want him to now. She might be trying to

forget. And he had Angela. It really wasn't fair to her. But he looked

over toward the region in which she lived, as he travelled out of the

city eastward and wished that some of those lovely moments he had spent

with her might be lived again.

Back in New York, life seemed to promise a repetition of the preceding

year, with some minor modifications. In the fall Eugene went to live

with McHugh and Smite, the studio they had consisting of one big working

room and three bed-rooms. They agreed that they could get along

together, and for a while it was good for them all. The criticism they

furnished each other was of real value. And they found it pleasant to

dine together, to walk, to see the exhibitions. They stimulated each

other with argument, each having a special point of view. It was much as

it had been with Howe and Mathews in Chicago.

During this winter Eugene made his first appearance in one of the

leading publications of the time--_Harper's Magazine_. He had gone to

the Art Director with some proofs of his previous work, and had been

told that it was admirable; if some suitable story turned up he would be

considered. Later a letter came asking him to call, and a commission

involving three pictures for $125 was given him. He worked them out

successfully with models and was complimented on the result. His

associates cheered him on also, for they really admired what he was

doing. He set out definitely to _make Scribner's_ and the _Century_, as

getting into those publications was called, and after a time he

succeeded in making an impression on their respective Art Directors,

though no notable commissions were given him. From one he secured a

poem, rather out of his mood to decorate, and from the other a short

story; but somehow he could not feel that either was a real opportunity.

He wanted an appropriate subject or to sell them some of his scenes.

Building up a paying reputation was slow work. Although he was being

mentioned here and there among artists, his name was anything but a

significant factor with the public or with the Art Directors. He was

still a promising beginner--growing, but not yet arrived by a long

distance.

There was one editor who was inclined to see him at his real worth, but

had no money to offer. This was Richard Wheeler, editor of _Craft_, a

rather hopeless magazine in a commercial sense, but devoted sincerely

enough to art. Wheeler was a blond young man of poetic temperament,

whose enthusiasm for Eugene's work made it easy for them to become

friends.

It was through Wheeler that he met that winter Miriam Finch and

Christina Channing, two women of radically different temperaments and

professions, who opened for Eugene two entirely new worlds.

Miriam Finch was a sculptor by profession--a critic by temperament, with

no great capacity for emotion in herself but an intense appreciation of

its significance in others. To see her was to be immediately impressed

with a vital force in womanhood. She was a woman who had never had a

real youth or a real love affair, but clung to her ideal of both with a

passionate, almost fatuous, faith that they could still be brought to

pass. Wheeler had invited him to go round to her studio with him one

evening. He was interested to know what Eugene would think of her.

Miriam, already thirty-two when Eugene met her--a tiny, brown haired,

brown eyed girl, with a slender, rather cat-like figure and a suavity of

address and manner which was artistic to the finger tips. She had none

of that budding beauty that is the glory of eighteen, but she was

altogether artistic and delightful. Her hair encircled her head in a

fluffy cloudy mass; her eyes moved quickly, with intense intelligence,

feeling, humor, sympathy. Her lips were sweetly modelled after the

pattern of a Cupid's bow and her smile was subtly ingratiating. Her

sallow complexion matched her brown hair and the drab velvet or corduroy

of her dress. There was a striking simplicity about the things she wore

which gave her a distinctive air. Her clothes were seldom fashionable

but always exceedingly becoming, for she saw herself as a whole and

arrayed herself as a decorative composition from head to foot, with a

sense of fitness in regard to self and life.

To such a nature as Eugene's, an intelligent, artistic, self-regulating

and self-poised human being was always intensely magnetic and

gratifying. He turned to the capable person as naturally as a flower

turns toward the light, finding a joy in contemplating the completeness

and sufficiency of such a being. To have ideas of your own seemed to him

a marvellous thing. To be able definitely to formulate your thoughts and

reach positive and satisfying conclusions was a great and beautiful

thing. From such personalities Eugene drank admiringly until his thirst

was satiated--then he would turn away. If his thirst for what they had

to give returned, he might come back--not otherwise.

Hitherto all his relationships with personages of this quality had been

confined to the male sex, for he had not known any women of distinction.

Beginning with Temple Boyle, instructor in the life class in Chicago,

and Vincent Beers, instructor in the illustration class, he had

encountered successively Jerry Mathews, Mitchell Goldfarb, Peter McHugh,

David Smite and Jotham Blue, all men of intense personal feeling and

convictions and men who had impressed him greatly. Now he was to

encounter for the first time some forceful, really exceptional women of

the same calibre. Stella Appleton, Margaret Duff, Ruby Kenny and Angela

Blue were charming girls in their way, but they did not think for

themselves. They were not organized, self-directed, self-controlled

personalities in the way that Miriam Finch was. She would have

recognized herself at once as being infinitely superior intellectually

and artistically to any or all of them, while entertaining at the same

time a sympathetic, appreciative understanding of their beauty, fitness,

equality of value in the social scheme. She was a student of life, a

critic of emotions and understanding, with keen appreciative

intelligence, and yet longing intensely for just what Stella and

Margaret and Ruby and even Angela had--youth, beauty, interest for men,

the power or magnetism or charm of face and form to compel the impetuous

passion of a lover. She wanted to be loved by someone who could love

madly and beautifully, and this had never come to her.

Miss Finch's home, or rather studio, was with her family in East

Twenty-sixth Street, where she occupied a north room on the third floor,

but her presence in the bosom of that family did not prevent her from

attaining an individuality and an exclusiveness which was most

illuminating to Eugene. Her room was done in silver, brown and grey,

with a great wax-festooned candlestick fully five feet high standing in

one corner and a magnificent carved chest of early Flemish workmanship

standing in another. There was a brown combination writing desk and

book-shelf which was arrayed with some of the most curious

volumes--Pater's "Marius the Epicurean," Daudet's "Wives of Men of

Genius," Richard Jefferies' "Story of My Heart," Stevenson's "Aes

Triplex," "The Kasidah" of Richard Burton, "The House of Life" by Dante

Gabriel Rossetti, "Also sprach Zarathustra" by Friedrich Nietzsche. The

fact that they were here, after he had taken one look at the woman and

the room, was to Eugene sufficient proof that they were important. He

handled them curiously, reading odd paragraphs, nosing about, looking at

pictures, and making rapid notes in his mental notebook. This was

someone worth knowing, he felt that. He wanted to make a sufficiently

favorable impression to be permitted to know her better.

Miriam Finch was at once taken with Eugene. There was such an air of

vigor, inquiry, appreciation and understanding about him that she could

not help being impressed. He seemed somewhat like a lighted lamp casting

a soft, shaded, velvety glow. He went about her room, after his

introduction, looking at her pictures, her bronzes and clays, asking

after the creator of this, the painter of that, where a third thing came

from.

"I never heard of one of these books," he said frankly, when he looked

over the small, specially selected collection.

"There are some very interesting things here," she volunteered, coming

to his side. His simple confession appealed to her. He was like a breath

of fresh air. Richard Wheeler, who had brought him in, made no objection

to being neglected. He wanted her to enjoy his find.

"You know," said Eugene, looking up from Burton's "Kasidah" and into her

brown eyes, "New York gets me dizzy. It's so wonderful!"

"Just how?" she asked.

"It's so compact of wonderful things. I saw a shop the other day full of

old jewelry and ornaments and quaint stones and clothes, and O Heaven! I

don't know what all--more things than I had ever seen in my whole life

before; and here in this quiet side street and this unpretentious house

I find this room. Nothing seems to show on the outside; everything seems

crowded to suffocation with luxury or art value on the inside."

"Are you talking about this room?" she ventured.

"Why, yes," he replied.

"Take note, Mr. Wheeler," she called, over her shoulder to her young

editor friend. "This is the first time in my life that I have been

accused of possessing luxury. When you write me up again I want you to

give me credit for luxury. I like it."

"I'll certainly do it," said Wheeler.

"Yes. 'Art values' too."

"Yes. 'Art values.' I have it," said Wheeler.

Eugene smiled. He liked her vivacity. "I know what you mean," she added.

"I've felt the same thing about Paris. You go into little unpretentious

places there and come across such wonderful things--heaps and heaps of

fine clothes, antiques, jewels. Where was it I read such an interesting

article about that?"

"Not in _Craft_ I hope?" ventured Wheeler.

"No, I don't think so. _Harper's Bazaar_, I believe."

"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Wheeler. "_Harper's Bazaar!_ What rot!"

"But that's just what you ought to have. Why don't you do it--right?"

"I will," he said.

Eugene went to the piano and turned over a pile of music. Again he came

across the unfamiliar, the strange, the obviously distinguished--Grieg's

"Arabian Dance"; "Es war ein Traum" by Lassen; "Elegie" by Massenet;

"Otidi" by Davydoff; "Nymphs and Shepherds" by Purcell--things whose

very titles smacked of color and beauty. Gluck, Sgambati, Rossini,

Tschaikowsky--the Italian Scarlatti--Eugene marvelled at what he did not

know about music.

"Play something," he pleaded, and with a smile Miriam stepped to the

piano.

"Do you know 'Es war ein Traum'?" she inquired.

"No," said he.

"That's lovely," put in Wheeler. "Sing it!"

Eugene had thought that possibly she sang, but he was not prepared for

the burst of color that came with her voice. It was not a great voice,

but sweet and sympathetic, equal to the tasks she set herself. She

selected her music as she selected her clothes--to suit her capacity.

The poetic, sympathetic reminiscence of the song struck home. Eugene was

delighted.

"Oh," he exclaimed, bringing his chair close to the piano and looking

into her face, "you sing beautifully."

She gave him a glittering smile.

"Now I'll sing anything you want for you if you go on like that."

"I'm crazy about music," he said; "I don't know anything about it, but I

like this sort of thing."

"You like the really good things. I know. So do I."

He felt flattered and grateful. They went through "Otidi," "The

Nightingale," "Elegie," "The Last Spring"--music Eugene had never heard

before. But he knew at once that he was listening to playing which

represented a better intelligence, a keener selective judgment, a finer

artistic impulse than anyone he had ever known had possessed. Ruby

played and Angela, the latter rather well, but neither had ever heard of

these things he was sure. Ruby had only liked popular things; Angela the

standard melodies--beautiful but familiar. Here was someone who ignored

popular taste--was in advance of it. In all her music he had found

nothing he knew. It grew on him as a significant fact. He wanted to be

nice to her, to have her like him. So he drew close and smiled and she

always smiled back. Like the others she liked his face, his mouth, his

eyes, his hair.

"He's charming," she thought, when he eventually left; and his

impression of her was of a woman who was notably and significantly

distinguished.

CHAPTER XXI

But Miriam Finch's family, of which she seemed so independent, had not

been without its influence on her. This family was of Middle West

origin, and did not understand or sympathize very much with the artistic

temperament. Since her sixteenth year, when Miriam had first begun to

exhibit a definite striving toward the artistic, her parents had guarded

her jealously against what they considered the corrupting atmosphere of

the art world. Her mother had accompanied her from Ohio to New York, and

lived with her while she studied art in the art school, chaperoning her

everywhere. When it became advisable, as she thought, for Miriam to go

abroad, she went with her. Miriam's artistic career was to be properly

supervised. When she lived in the Latin Quarter in Paris her mother was

with her; when she loitered in the atmosphere of the galleries and

palaces in Rome it was with her mother at her side. At Pompeii and

Herculaneum--in London and in Berlin--her mother, an iron-willed little

woman at forty-five at that time, was with her. She was convinced that

she knew exactly what was good for her daughter and had more or less

made the girl accept her theories. Later, Miriam's personal judgment

began to diverge slightly from that of her mother and then trouble

began.

It was vague at first, hardly a definite, tangible thing in the

daughter's mind, but later it grew to be a definite feeling that her

life was being cramped. She had been warned off from association with

this person and that; had been shown the pitfalls that surround the

free, untrammelled life of the art studio. Marriage with the average

artist was not to be considered. Modelling from the nude, particularly

the nude of a man, was to her mother at first most distressing. She

insisted on being present and for a long time her daughter thought that

was all right. Finally the presence, the viewpoint, the intellectual

insistence of her mother, became too irksome, and an open break

followed. It was one of those family tragedies which almost kill

conservative parents. Mrs. Finch's heart was practically broken.

The trouble with this break was that it came a little too late for

Miriam's happiness. In the stress of this insistent chaperonage she had

lost her youth--the period during which she felt she should have had her

natural freedom. She had lost the interest of several men who in her

nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first years had approached her

longingly, but who could not stand the criticism of her mother. At

twenty-eight when the break came the most delightful love period was

over and she felt grieved and resentful.

At that time she had insisted on a complete and radical change for

herself. She had managed to get, through one art dealer and another,

orders for some of her spirited clay figurines. There was a dancing

girl, a visualization of one of the moods of Carmencita, a celebrated

dancer of the period, which had caught the public fancy--at least the

particular art dealer who was handling her work for her had managed to

sell some eighteen replicas of it at $175 each. Miss Finch's share of

this was $100, each. There was another little thing, a six-inch bronze

called "Sleep," which had sold some twenty replicas at $150 each, and

was still selling. "The Wind," a figure crouching and huddling as if

from cold, was also selling. It looked as though she might be able to

make from three to four thousand dollars a year steadily.

She demanded of her mother at this time the right to a private studio,

to go and come when she pleased, to go about alone wherever she wished,

to have men and women come to her private apartment, and be entertained

by her in her own manner. She objected to supervision in any form, cast

aside criticism and declared roundly that she would lead her own life.

She realized sadly while she was doing it, however, that the best was

gone--that she had not had the wit or the stamina to do as she pleased

at the time she most wanted to do so. Now she would be almost

automatically conservative. She could not help it.

Eugene when he first met her felt something of this. He felt the

subtlety of her temperament, her philosophic conclusions, what might be

called her emotional disappointment. She was eager for life, which

seemed to him odd, for she appeared to have so much. By degrees he got

it out of her, for they came to be quite friendly and then he understood

clearly just how things were.

By the end of three months and before Christina Channing appeared,

Eugene had come to the sanest, cleanest understanding with Miss Finch

that he had yet reached with any woman. He had dropped into the habit of

calling there once and sometimes twice a week. He had learned to

understand her point of view, which was detachedly aesthetic and rather

removed from the world of the sensuous. Her ideal of a lover had been

fixed to a certain extent by statues and poems of Greek youth--Hylas,

Adonis, Perseus, and by those men of the Middle Ages painted by Millais,

Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown. She had hoped

for a youth with a classic outline of face, distinction of form,

graciousness of demeanor and an appreciative intellect. He must be manly

but artistic. It was a rather high ideal, not readily capable of

attainment by a woman already turned thirty, but nevertheless worth

dreaming about.

Although she had surrounded herself with talented youth as much as

possible--both young men and young women--she had not come across _the

one_. There had been a number of times when, for a very little while,

she had imagined she had found him, but had been compelled to see her

fancies fail. All the youths she knew had been inclined to fall in love

with girls younger than themselves--some to the interesting maidens she

had introduced them to. It is hard to witness an ideal turning from

yourself, its spiritual counterpart, and fixing itself upon some mere

fleshly vision of beauty which a few years will cause to fade. Such had

been her fate, however, and she was at times inclined to despair. When

Eugene appeared she had almost concluded that love was not for her, and

she did not flatter herself that he would fall in love with her.

Nevertheless she could not help but be interested in him and look at

times with a longing eye at his interesting face and figure. It was so

obvious that if he loved at all it would be dramatically, in all

probability, beautifully.

As time went on she took pains to be agreeable to him. He had, as it

were, the freedom of her room. She knew of exhibitions, personalities,

movements--in religion, art, science, government, literature. She was

inclined to take an interest in socialism, and believed in righting the

wrongs of the people. Eugene thought he did, but he was so keenly

interested in life as a spectacle that he hadn't as much time to

sympathize as he thought he ought to have. She took him to see

exhibitions, and to meet people, being rather proud of a boy with so

much talent; and she was pleased to find that he was so generally

acceptable. People, particularly writers, poets, musicians--beginners in

every field, were inclined to remember him. He was an easy talker,

witty, quick to make himself at home and perfectly natural. He tried to

be accurate in his judgments of things, and fair, but he was young and

subject to strong prejudices. He appreciated her friendship, and did not

seek to make their relationship more intimate. He knew that only a

sincere proposal of marriage could have won her, and he did not care

enough for her for that. He felt himself bound to Angela and, curiously,

he felt Miriam's age as a bar between them. He admired her tremendously

and was learning in part through her what his ideal ought to be, but he

was not drawn sufficiently to want to make love to her.

But in Christina Channing, whom he met shortly afterward, he found a

woman of a more sensuous and lovable type, though hardly less artistic.

Christina Channing was a singer by profession, living also in New York

with her mother, but not, as Miss Finch had been, dominated by her so

thoroughly, although she was still at the age when her mother could and

did have considerable influence with her. She was twenty-seven years of

age and so far, had not yet attained the eminence which subsequently was

hers, though she was full of that buoyant self-confidence which makes

for eventual triumph. So far she had studied ardently under various

teachers, had had several love affairs, none serious enough to win her

away from her chosen profession, and had gone through the various

experiences of those who begin ignorantly to do something in art and

eventually reach experience and understanding of how the world is

organized and what they will have to do to succeed.

Although Miss Channing's artistic sense did not rise to that definite

artistic expression in her material surroundings which characterized

Miss Finch's studio atmosphere, it went much farther in its expression

of her joy in life. Her voice, a rich contralto, deep, full, colorful,

had a note of pathos and poignancy which gave a touch of emotion to her

gayest songs. She could play well enough to accompany herself with

delicacy and emphasis. She was at present one of the soloists with the

New York Symphony Orchestra, with the privilege of accepting occasional

outside engagements. The following Fall she was preparing to make a

final dash to Germany to see if she could not get an engagement with a

notable court opera company and so pave the way for a New York success.

She was already quite well known in musical circles as a promising

operatic candidate and her eventual arrival would be not so much a

question of talent as of luck.

While these two women fascinated Eugene for the time being, his feeling

for Angela continued unchanged; for though she suffered in an

intellectual or artistic comparison, he felt that she was richer

emotionally. There was a poignancy in her love letters, an intensity

about her personal feelings when in his presence which moved him in

spite of himself--an ache went with her which brought a memory of the

tales of Sappho and Marguerite Gautier. It occurred to him now that if

he flung her aside it might go seriously with her. He did not actually

think of doing anything of the sort, but he was realizing that there was

a difference between her and intellectual women like Miriam Finch.

Besides that, there was a whole constellation of society women swimming

into his ken--women whom he only knew, as yet, through the newspapers

and the smart weeklies like Town Topics and Vogue, who were presenting

still a third order of perfection. Vaguely he was beginning to see that

the world was immense and subtle, and that there were many things to

learn about women that he had never dreamed of.

Christina Channing was a rival of Angela's in one sense, that of bodily

beauty. She had a tall perfectly rounded form, a lovely oval face, a nut

brown complexion with the rosy glow of health showing in cheeks and

lips, and a mass of blue black hair. Her great brown eyes were lustrous

and sympathetic.

Eugene met her through the good offices of Shotmeyer, who had been given

by some common friend in Boston a letter of introduction to her. He had

spoken of Eugene as being a very brilliant young artist and his friend,

and remarked that he would like to bring him up some evening to hear her

sing. Miss Channing acquiesced, for she had seen some of his drawings

and was struck by the poetic note in them. Shotmeyer, vain of his

notable acquaintances--who in fact tolerated him for his amusing

gossip--described Miss Channing's voice to Eugene and asked him if he

did not want to call on her some evening. "Delighted," said Eugene.

The appointment was made and together they went to Miss Channing's suite

in a superior Nineteenth Street boarding house. Miss Channing received

them, arrayed in a smooth, close fitting dress of black velvet, touched

with red. Eugene was reminded of the first costume in which he had seen

Ruby. He was dazzled. As for her, as she told him afterward, she was

conscious of a peculiar illogical perturbation.

"When I put on my ribbon that night," she told him, "I was going to put

on a dark blue silk one I had just bought and then I thought 'No, he'll

like me better in a red one.' Isn't that curious? I just felt as though

you were going to like me--as though we might know each other better.

That young man--what's his name--described you so accurately." It was

months afterward when she confessed that.

When Eugene entered it was with the grand air he had acquired since his

life had begun to broaden in the East. He took his relationship with

talent, particularly female talent, seriously. He stood up very

straight, walked with a noticeable stride, drove an examining glance

into the very soul of the person he was looking at. He was quick to get

impressions, especially of talent. He could feel ability in another.

When he looked at Miss Channing he felt it like a strong wave--the

vibrating wave of an intense consciousness.

She greeted him, extending a soft white hand. They spoke of how they had

heard of each other. Eugene somehow made her feel his enthusiasm for her

art. "Music is the finer thing," he said, when she spoke of his own

gift.

Christina's dark brown eyes swept him from head to foot. He was like his

pictures, she thought--and as good to look at.

He was introduced to her mother. They sat down, talking, and presently

Miss Channing sang--"Che faro senza Euridice." Eugene felt as if she

were singing to him. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips red.

Her mother remarked after she had finished, "You're in splendid voice

this evening, Christina."

"I feel particularly fit," she replied.

"A wonderful voice--it's like a big red poppy or a great yellow orchid!"

cried Eugene.

Christina thrilled. The description caught her fancy. It seemed true.

She felt something of that in the sounds to which she gave utterance.

"Please sing 'Who is Sylvia,'" he begged a little later. She complied

gladly.

"That was written for you," he said softly as she ceased, for he had

come close to the piano. "You image Sylvia for me." Her cheeks colored

warmly.

"Thanks," she nodded, and her eyes spoke too. She welcomed his daring

and she was glad to let him know it.

CHAPTER XXII

The chief trouble with his present situation, and with the entrance of

these two women into his life, and it had begun to be a serious one to

him, was that he was not making money. He had been able to earn about

$1200 the first year; the second he made a little over two thousand, and

this third year he was possibly doing a little better. But in view of

what he saw around him and what he now knew of life, it was nothing. New

York presented a spectacle of material display such as he had never

known existed. The carriages on Fifth Avenue, the dinners at the great

hotels, the constant talk of society functions in the newspapers, made

his brain dizzy. He was inclined to idle about the streets, to watch the

handsomely dressed crowds, to consider the evidences of show and

refinement everywhere, and he came to the conclusion that he was not

living at all, but existing. Art as he had first dreamed of it, art had

seemed not only a road to distinction but also to affluence. Now, as he

studied those about him, he found that it was not so. Artists were never

tremendously rich, he learned. He remembered reading in Balzac's story

"Cousin Betty," of a certain artist of great distinction who had been

allowed condescendingly by one of the rich families of Paris to marry a

daughter, but it was considered a great come down for her. He had hardly

been able to credit the idea at the time, so exalted was his notion of

the artist. But now he was beginning to see that it represented the

world's treatment of artists. There were in America a few who were very

popular--meretriciously so he thought in certain cases--who were said to

be earning from ten to fifteen thousand a year. How high would that

place them, he asked himself, in that world of real luxury which was

made up of the so-called _four hundred_--the people of immense wealth

and social position. He had read in the papers that it took from fifteen

to twenty-five thousand dollars a year to clothe a debutante. It was

nothing uncommon, he heard, for a man to spend from fifteen to twenty

dollars on his dinner at the restaurant. The prices he heard that

tailors demanded--that dressmakers commanded, the display of jewels and

expensive garments at the opera, made the poor little income of an

artist look like nothing at all. Miss Finch was constantly telling him

of the show and swagger she met with in her circle of acquaintances, for

her tact and adaptability had gained her the friendship of a number of

society people. Miss Channing, when he came to know her better, made

constant references to things she came in contact with--great singers or

violinists paid $1000 a night, or the tremendous salaries commanded by

the successful opera stars. He began, as he looked at his own meagre

little income, to feel shabby again, and run down, much as he had during

those first days in Chicago. Why, art, outside the fame, was nothing. It

did not make for real living. It made for a kind of mental blooming,

which everybody recognized, but you could be a poor, sick, hungry,

shabby genius--you actually could. Look at Verlaine, who had recently

died in Paris.

A part of this feeling was due to the opening of a golden age of luxury

in New York, and the effect the reiterated sight of it was having on

Eugene. Huge fortunes had been amassed in the preceding fifty years and

now there were thousands of residents in the great new city who were

worth anything from one to fifty and in some instances a hundred million

dollars. The metropolitan area, particularly Manhattan Island above

Fifty-ninth Street, was growing like a weed. Great hotels were being

erected in various parts of the so-called "white light" district. There

was beginning, just then, the first organized attempt of capital to

supply a new need--the modern sumptuous, eight, ten and twelve story

apartment house, which was to house the world of newly rich middle class

folk who were pouring into New York from every direction. Money was

being made in the West, the South and the North, and as soon as those

who were making it had sufficient to permit them to live in luxury for

the rest of their days they were moving East, occupying these expensive

apartments, crowding the great hotels, patronizing the sumptuous

restaurants, giving the city its air of spendthrift luxury. All the

things which catered to showy material living were beginning to flourish

tremendously, art and curio shops, rug shops, decorative companies

dealing with the old and the new in hangings, furniture, objects of art;

dealers in paintings, jewelry stores, china and glassware

houses--anything and everything which goes to make life comfortable and

brilliant. Eugene, as he strolled about the city, saw this, felt the

change, realized that the drift was toward greater population, greater

luxury, greater beauty. His mind was full of the necessity of living

_now_. He was young _now_; he was vigorous _now_; he was keen _now_; in

a few years he might not be--seventy years was the allotted span and

twenty-five of his had already gone. How would it be if he never came

into this luxury, was never allowed to enter society, was never

permitted to live as wealth was now living! The thought hurt him. He

felt an eager desire to tear wealth and fame from the bosom of the

world. Life must give him his share. If it did not he would curse it to

his dying day. So he felt when he was approaching twenty-six.

The effect of Christina Channing's friendship for him was particularly

to emphasize this. She was not so much older than he, was possessed of

very much the same temperament, the same hopes and aspirations, and she

discerned almost as clearly as he did the current of events. New York

was to witness a golden age of luxury. It was already passing into it.

Those who rose to distinction in any field, particularly music or the

stage, were likely to share in a most notable spectacle of luxury.

Christina hoped to. She was sure she would. After a few conversations

with Eugene she was inclined to feel that he would. He was so brilliant,

so incisive.

"You have such a way with you," she said the second time he came. "You

are so commanding. You make me think you can do almost anything you want

to."

"Oh, no," he deprecated. "Not as bad as that. I have just as much

trouble as anyone getting what I want."

"Oh, but you will though. You have ideas."

It did not take these two long to reach an understanding. They confided

to each other their individual histories, with reservations, of course,

at first. Christina told him of her musical history, beginning at

Hagerstown, Maryland, and he went back to his earliest days in

Alexandria. They discussed the differences in parental control to which

they had been subject. He learned of her father's business, which was

that of oyster farming, and confessed on his part to being the son of a

sewing machine agent. They talked of small town influences, early

illusions, the different things they had tried to do. She had sung in

the local Methodist church, had once thought she would like to be a

milliner, had fallen in the hands of a teacher who tried to get her to

marry him and she had been on the verge of consenting. Something

happened--she went away for the summer, or something of that sort, and

changed her mind.

After an evening at the theatre with her, a late supper one night and a

third call, to spend a quiet evening in her room, he took her by the

hand. She was standing by the piano and he was looking at her cheeks,

her large inquiring eyes, her smooth rounded neck and chin.

"You like me," he said suddenly a propos of nothing save the mutual

attraction that was always running strong between them.

Without hesitation she nodded her head, though the bright blood mounted

to her neck and cheeks.

"You are so lovely to me," he went on, "that words are of no value. I

can paint you. Or you can sing me what you are, but mere words won't

show it. I have been in love before, but never with anyone like you."

"Are you in love?" she asked naively.

"What is this?" he asked and slipped his arms about her, drawing her

close.

She turned her head away, leaving her rosy cheek near his lips. He

kissed that, then her mouth and her neck. He held her chin and looked

into her eyes.

"Be careful," she said, "mamma may come in."

"Hang mamma!" he laughed.

"She'll hang you if she sees you. Mamma would never suspect me of

anything like this."

"That shows how little mamma knows of her Christina," he answered.

"She knows enough at that," she confessed gaily. "Oh, if we were only up

in the mountains now," she added.

"What mountains," he inquired curiously.

"The Blue Ridge. We have a bungalow up at Florizel. You must come up

when we go there next summer."

"Will mamma be there?" he asked.

"And papa," she laughed.

"And I suppose Cousin Annie."

"No, brother George will be."

"Nix for the bungalow," he replied, using a slang word that had become

immensely popular.

"Oh, but I know all the country round there. There are some lovely walks

and drives." She said this archly, naively, suggestively, her bright

face lit with an intelligence that seemed perfection.

"Well--such being the case!" he smiled, "and meanwhile--"

"Oh, meanwhile you just have to wait. You see how things are." She

nodded her head towards an inside room where Mrs. Channing was lying

down with a slight headache. "Mamma doesn't leave me very often."

Eugene did not know exactly how to take Christina. He had never

encountered this attitude before. Her directness, in connection with so

much talent, such real ability, rather took him by surprise. He did not

expect it--did not think she would confess affection for him; did not

know just what she meant by speaking in the way she did of the bungalow

and Florizel. He was flattered, raised in his own self-esteem. If such a

beautiful, talented creature as this could confess her love for him,

what a personage he must be. And she was thinking of freer

conditions--just what?

He did not want to press the matter too closely then and she was not

anxious to have him do so--she preferred to be enigmatic. But there was

a light of affection and admiration in her eye which made him very proud

and happy with things just as they were.

As she said, there was little chance for love-making under conditions

then existing. Her mother was with her most of the time. Christina

invited Eugene to come and hear her sing at the Philharmonic Concerts;

so once in a great ball-room at the Waldorf-Astoria and again in the

imposing auditorium of Carnegie Hall and a third time in the splendid

auditorium of the Arion Society, he had the pleasure of seeing her walk

briskly to the footlights, the great orchestra waiting, the audience

expectant, herself arch, assured--almost defiant, he thought, and so

beautiful. When the great house thundered its applause he was basking in

one delicious memory of her.

"Last night she had her arms about my neck. Tonight when I call and we

are alone she will kiss me. That beautiful, distinguished creature

standing there bowing and smiling loves me and no one else. If I were to

ask her she would marry me--if I were in a position and had the means."

"If I were in a position--" that thought cut him, for he knew that he

was not. He could not marry her. In reality she would not have him

knowing how little he made--or would she? He wondered.

CHAPTER XXIII

Towards the end of spring Eugene concluded he would rather go up in the

mountains near Christina's bungalow this summer, than back to see

Angela. The memory of that precious creature was, under the stress and

excitement of metropolitan life, becoming a little tarnished. His

recollections of her were as delightful as ever, as redolent of beauty,

but he was beginning to wonder. The smart crowd in New York was composed

of a different type. Angela was sweet and lovely, but would she fit in?

Meanwhile Miriam Finch with her subtle eclecticism continued her

education of Eugene. She was as good as a school. He would sit and

listen to her descriptions of plays, her appreciation of books, her

summing up of current philosophies, and he would almost feel himself

growing. She knew so many people, could tell him where to go to see just

such and such an important thing. All the startling personalities, the

worth while preachers, the new actors, somehow she knew all about them.

"Now, Eugene," she would exclaim on seeing him, "you positively must go

and see Haydon Boyd in 'The Signet,'" or--"see Elmina Deming in her new

dances," or--"look at the pictures of Winslow Homer that are being shown

at Knoedler's."

She would explain with exactness why she wanted him to see them, what

she thought they would do for him. She frankly confessed to him that she

considered him a genius and always insisted on knowing what new thing he

was doing. When any work of his appeared and she liked it she was swift

to tell him. He almost felt as if he owned her room and herself, as if

all that she was--her ideas, her friends, her experiences--belonged to

him. He could go and draw on them by sitting at her feet or going with

her somewhere. When spring came she liked to walk with him, to listen to

his comments on nature and life.

"That's splendid!" she would exclaim. "Now, why don't you write that?"

or "why don't you paint that?"

He showed her some of his poems once and she had made copies of them and

pasted them in a book of what she called exceptional things. So he was

coddled by her.

In another way Christina was equally nice. She was fond of telling

Eugene how much she thought of him, how nice she thought he was. "You're

so big and smarty," she said to him once, affectionately, pinioning his

arms and looking into his eyes. "I like the way you part your hair, too!

You're kind o' like an artist ought to be!"

"That's the way to spoil me," he replied. "Let me tell you how nice you

are. Want to know how nice you are?"

"Uh-uh," she smiled, shaking her head to mean "no."

"Wait till we get to the mountains. I'll tell you." He sealed her lips

with his, holding her until her breath was almost gone.

"Oh," she exclaimed; "you're terrible. You're like steel."

"And you're like a big red rose. Kiss me!"

From Christina he learned all about the musical world and musical

personalities. He gained an insight into the different forms of music,

operatic, symphonic, instrumental. He learned of the different forms of

composition, the terminology, the mystery of the vocal cords, the

methods of training. He learned of the jealousies within the profession,

and what the best musical authorities thought of such and such

composers, or singers. He learned how difficult it was to gain a place

in the operatic world, how bitterly singers fought each other, how quick

the public was to desert a fading star. Christina took it all so

unconcernedly that he almost loved her for her courage. She was so wise

and so good natured.

"You have to give up a lot of things to be a good artist," she said to

Eugene one day. "You can't have the ordinary life, and art too."

"Just what do you mean, Chrissy?" he asked, petting her hand, for they

were alone together.

"Why, you can't get married very well and have children, and you can't

do much in a social way. Oh, I know they do get married, but sometimes I

think it is a mistake. Most of the singers I know don't do so very well

tied down by marriage."

"Don't you intend to get married?" asked Eugene curiously.

"I don't know," she replied, realizing what he was driving at. "I'd want

to think about that. A woman artist is in a d---- of a position anyway,"

using the letter d only to indicate the word "devil." "She has so many

things to think about."

"For instance?"

"Oh, what people think and her family think, and I don't know what all.

They ought to get a new sex for artists--like they have for worker

bees."

Eugene smiled. He knew what she was driving at. But he did not know how

long she had been debating the problem of her virginity as conflicting

with her love of distinction in art. She was nearly sure she did not

want to complicate her art life with marriage. She was almost positive

that success on the operatic stage--particularly the great opportunity

for the beginner abroad--was complicated with some liaison. Some

escaped, but it was not many. She was wondering in her own mind whether

she owed it to current morality to remain absolutely pure. It was

assumed generally that girls should remain virtuous and marry, but this

did not necessarily apply to her--should it apply to the artistic

temperament? Her mother and her family troubled her. She was virtuous,

but youth and desire had given her some bitter moments. And here was

Eugene to emphasize it.

"It is a difficult problem," he said sympathetically, wondering what she

would eventually do. He felt keenly that her attitude in regard to

marriage affected his relationship to her. Was she wedded to her art at

the expense of love?

"It's a big problem," she said and went to the piano to sing.

He half suspected for a little while after this that she might be

contemplating some radical step--what, he did not care to say to

himself, but he was intensely interested in her problem. This peculiar

freedom of thought astonished him--broadened his horizon. He wondered

what his sister Myrtle would think of a girl discussing marriage in this

way--the to be or not to be of it--what Sylvia? He wondered if many

girls did that. Most of the women he had known seemed to think more

logically along these lines than he did. He remembered asking Ruby once

whether she didn't think illicit love was wrong and hearing her reply,

"No. Some people thought it was wrong, but that didn't make it so to

her." Here was another girl with another theory.

They talked more of love, and he wondered why she wanted him to come up

to Florizel in the summer. She could not be thinking--no, she was too

conservative. He began to suspect, though, that she would not marry

him--would not marry anyone at present. She merely wanted to be loved

for awhile, no doubt.

May came and with it the end of Christina's concert work and voice study

so far as New York was concerned. She had been in and out of the city

all the winter--to Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Chicago, St. Paul and now after

a winter's hard work retired to Hagerstown with her mother for a few

weeks prior to leaving for Florizel.

"You ought to come down here," she wrote to Eugene early in June. "There

is a sickle moon that shines in my garden and the roses are in bloom.

Oh, the odors are so sweet, and the dew! Some of our windows open out

level with the grass and I sing! I sing!! I sing!!!"

He had a notion to run down but restrained himself, for she told him

that they were leaving in two weeks for the mountains. He had a set of

drawings to complete for a magazine for which they were in a hurry. So

he decided to wait till that was done.

In late June he went up to the Blue Ridge, in Southern Pennsylvania,

where Florizel was situated. He thought at first he would be invited to

stay at the Channing bungalow, but Christina warned him that it would be

safer and better for him to stay at one of the adjoining hotels. There

were several on the slope of adjacent hills at prices ranging from five

to ten dollars a day. Though this was high for Eugene he decided to go.

He wanted to be with this marvellous creature--to see just what she did

mean by wishing they were in the mountains together.

He had saved some eight hundred dollars, which was in a savings bank and

he withdrew three hundred for his little outing. He took Christina a

very handsomely bound copy of Villon, of whom she was fond, and several

volumes of new verse. Most of these, chosen according to his most recent

mood, were sad in their poetic texture; they all preached the

nothingness of life, its sadness, albeit the perfection of its beauty.

At this time Eugene had quite reached the conclusion that there was no

hereafter--there was nothing save blind, dark force moving

aimlessly--where formerly he had believed vaguely in a heaven and had

speculated as to a possible hell. His reading had led him through some

main roads and some odd by-paths of logic and philosophy. He was an

omnivorous reader now and a fairly logical thinker. He had already

tackled Spencer's "First Principles," which had literally torn him up by

the roots and set him adrift and from that had gone back to Marcus

Aurelius, Epictetus, Spinoza and Schopenhauer--men who ripped out all

his private theories and made him wonder what life really was. He had

walked the streets for a long time after reading some of these things,

speculating on the play of forces, the decay of matter, the fact that

thought-forms had no more stability than cloud-forms. Philosophies came

and went, governments came and went, races arose and disappeared. He

walked into the great natural history museum of New York once to

discover enormous skeletons of prehistoric animals--things said to have

lived two, three, five millions of years before his day and he marvelled

at the forces which produced them, the indifference, apparently, with

which they had been allowed to die. Nature seemed lavish of its types

and utterly indifferent to the persistence of anything. He came to the

conclusion that he was nothing, a mere shell, a sound, a leaf which had

no general significance, and for the time being it almost broke his

heart. It tended to smash his egotism, to tear away his intellectual

pride. He wandered about dazed, hurt, moody, like a lost child. But he

was thinking persistently.

Then came Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Lubbock--a whole string of British

thinkers who fortified the original conclusions of the others, but

showed him a beauty, a formality, a lavishness of form and idea in

nature's methods which fairly transfixed him. He was still

reading--poets, naturalists, essayists, but he was still gloomy. Life

was nothing save dark forces moving aimlessly.

The manner in which he applied this thinking to his life was

characteristic and individual. To think that beauty should blossom for a

little while and disappear for ever seemed sad. To think that his life

should endure but for seventy years and then be no more was terrible. He

and Angela were chance acquaintances--chemical affinities--never to meet

again in all time. He and Christina, he and Ruby--he and anyone--a few

bright hours were all they could have together, and then would come the

great silence, dissolution, and he would never be anymore. It hurt him

to think of this, but it made him all the more eager to live, to be

loved while he was here. If he could only have a lovely girl's arms to

shut him in safely always!

It was while he was in this mood that he reached Florizel after a long

night's ride, and Christina who was a good deal of a philosopher and

thinker herself at times was quick to notice it. She was waiting at the

depot with a dainty little trap of her own to take him for a drive.

The trap rolled out along the soft, yellow, dusty roads. The mountain

dew was still in the earth though and the dust was heavy with damp and

not flying. Green branches of trees hung low over them, charming vistas

came into view at every turn. Eugene kissed her, for there was no one to

see, twisting her head to kiss her lips at leisure.

"It's a blessed thing this horse is tame or we'd be in for some

accident. What makes you so moody?" she said.

"I'm not moody--or am I? I've been thinking a lot of things of late--of

you principally."

"Do I make you sad?"

"From one point of view, yes."

"And what is that, sir?" she asked with an assumption of severity.

"You are so beautiful, so wonderful, and life is so short."

"You have only fifty years to love me in," she laughed, calculating his

age. "Oh, Eugene, what a boy you are!--Wait a minute," she added after a

pause, drawing the horse to a stop under some trees. "Hold these," she

said, offering him the reins. He took them and she put her arms about

his neck. "Now, you silly," she exclaimed, "I love you, love you, love

you! There was never anyone quite like you. Will that help you?" she

smiled into his eyes.

"Yes," he answered, "but it isn't enough. Seventy years isn't enough.

Eternity isn't enough of life as it is now."

"As it is now," she echoed and then took the reins, for she felt what he

felt, the need of persistent youth and persistent beauty to keep it as

it should be, and these things would not stay.

CHAPTER XXIV

The days spent in the mountains were seventeen exactly, and during that

time with Christina, Eugene reached a curious exaltation of spirit

different from anything he had experienced before. In the first place he

had never known a girl like Christina, so beautiful, so perfect

physically, so incisive mentally, so full of a fine artistic perception.

She was so quick to perceive exactly what he meant. She was so

suggestive to him in her own thoughts and feelings. The mysteries of

life employed her mind quite as fully as they did his. She thought much

of the subtlety of the human body, of its mysterious emotions, of its

conscious and subconscious activities and relationships. The passions,

the desires, the necessities of life, were as a fine tapestry for her

mind to contemplate. She had no time to sit down and formulate her

thoughts; she did not want to write--but she worked out through her

emotions and through her singing the beautiful and pathetic things she

felt. And she could talk in a fine, poetic melancholy vein on occasion,

though there was so much courage and strength in her young blood that

she was not afraid of any phase of life or what nature might do with the

little substance which she called herself, when it should dissolve.

"Time and change happeneth to us all," she would quote to Eugene and he

would gravely nod his head.

The hotel where he stopped was more pretentious than any he had been

previously acquainted with. He had never had so much money in his life

before, nor had he ever felt called upon to spend it lavishly. The room

he took was--because of what Christina might think--one of the best. He

took Christina's suggestion and invited her, her mother and her brother

to dinner on several occasions; the remainder of the family had not

arrived yet. In return he was invited to breakfast, to lunch and dinner

at the bungalow.

Christina showed on his arrival that she had planned to be with him

alone as much as possible, for she suggested that they make expeditions

to High Hill, to Bold Face, and The Chimney--three surrounding

mountains. She knew of good hotels at seven, ten, fifteen miles distance

to which they could go by train, or else they drive and return by

moonlight. She had selected two or three secluded spots in thickets and

groves where the trees gave way to little open spaces of grass, and in

these they would string a hammock, scatter their books of verse about

and sit down to enjoy the delights of talk and love-making.

Under the influence of this companionship, under cloudless skies and in

the heart of the June weather, Christina finally yielded to an

arrangement which brought Eugene into a relationship which he had never

dreamed possible with her. They had progressed by degrees through all

the subtleties of courtship. They had come to discuss the nature of

passion and emotion, and had swept aside as negligible the conviction

that there was any inherent evil in the most intimate relationship. At

last Christina said frankly:

"I don't want to be married. It isn't for me--not until I've thoroughly

succeeded, anyhow. I'd rather wait--If I could just have you and

singleness too."

"Why do you want to yield yourself to me?" Eugene asked curiously.

"I don't know that I exactly want to. I could do with just your love--if

you were satisfied. It's you that I want to make happy. I want to give

you anything you want."

"Curious girl," observed her lover, smoothing her high forehead with his

hand. "I don't understand you, Christina. I don't know how your mind

works. Why should you? You have everything to lose if worst came to

worst."

"Oh, no," she smiled. "I'd marry you then."

"But to do this out of hand, because you love me, because you want me to

be happy!" he paused.

"I don't understand it either, honey boy," she offered, "I just do."

"But why, if you are willing to do this, you wouldn't prefer to live

with me, is what I don't understand."

She took his face between her hands. "I think I understand you better

than you do yourself. I don't think you'd be happy married. You might

not always love me. I might not always love you. You might come to

regret. If we could be happy now you might reach the point where you

wouldn't care any more. Then you see I wouldn't be remorseful thinking

that we had never known happiness."

"What logic!" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say you wouldn't care any

more?"

"Oh, I'd care, but not in the same way. Don't you see, Eugene, I would

have the satisfaction of knowing that even if we did separate you had

had the best of me."

It seemed astounding to Eugene that she should talk in this way--reason

this way. What a curious, sacrificial, fatalistic turn of mind. Could a

young, beautiful, talented girl really be like this? Would anybody on

earth really believe it if they knew? He looked at her and shook his

head sorrowfully.

"To think that the quintessence of life should not stay with us always."

He sighed.

"No, honey boy," she replied, "you want too much. You think you want it

to stay, but you don't. You want it to go. You wouldn't be satisfied to

live with me always, I know it. Take what the gods provide and have no

regrets. Refuse to think; you can, you know."

Eugene gathered her up in his arms. He kissed her over and over,

forgetting in her embrace all the loves he had ever known. She yielded

herself to him gladly, joyously, telling him over and over that it made

her happy.

"If you could only see how nice you are to me you wouldn't wonder," she

explained.

He concluded she was the most wonderful being he had ever known. No

woman had ever revealed herself to him so unselfishly in love. No woman

he had ever known appeared to have the courage and the insight to go

thus simply and directly to what she desired. To hear an artist of her

power, a girl of her beauty, discussing calmly whether she should

sacrifice her virtue to love; whether marriage in the customary form was

good for her art; whether she should take him now when they were young

or bow to the conventions and let youth pass, was enough to shock his

still trammelled soul. For after all, and despite his desire for

personal freedom, his intellectual doubts and mental exceptions, he

still had a profound reverence for a home such as that maintained by

Jotham Blue and his wife, and for its results in the form of normal,

healthy, dutiful children. Nature had no doubt attained to this standard

through a long series of difficulties and experiments, and she would not

readily relinquish it. Was it really necessary to abandon it entirely?

Did he want to see a world in which a woman would take him for a little

while as Christina was doing now, and then leave him? His experience

here was making him think, throwing his theories and ideas up in the

air, making a mess of all the notions he had ever formed about things.

He racked his brain over the intricacies of sex and life, sitting on the

great verandas of the hotel and wondering over and over just what the

answer was, and why he could not like other men be faithful to one woman

and be happy. He wondered whether this was really so, and whether he

could not. It seemed to him then that he might. He knew that he did not

understand himself very clearly; that he had no grasp on himself at all

as yet--his tendencies, his possibilities.

These days, under such halcyon conditions, made a profound impression on

him. He was struck with the perfection life could reach at odd moments.

These great quiet hills, so uniform in their roundness, so green, so

peaceful, rested his soul. He and Christina climbed, one day, two

thousand feet to a ledge which jutted out over a valley and commanded

what seemed to him the kingdoms and the powers of the earth--vast

stretches of green land and subdivided fields, little cottage

settlements and towns, great hills that stood up like friendly brothers

to this one in the distance.

"See that man down in that yard," said Christina, pointing to a speck of

a being chopping wood in a front space serving as a garden to a country

cottage fully a mile distant.

"Where?" asked Eugene.

"See where that red barn is, just this side of that clump of

trees?--don't you see? there, where the cows are in that field."

"I don't see any cows."

"Oh, Eugene, what's the matter with your eyes?"

"Oh, now I see," he replied, squeezing her fingers. "He looks like a

cockroach, doesn't he?"

"Yes," she laughed.

"How wide the earth is and how small we are. Now think of that speck

with all his hopes and ambitions--all the machinery of his brain and

nerves and tell me whether any God can care. How can He, Christina?"

"He can't care for any one particular speck much, sweet. He might care

for the idea of man or a race of men as a whole. Still, I'm not sure,

honey. All I know is that I'm happy now."

"And I," he echoed.

Still they dug at this problem, the question of the origin of life--its

why. The tremendous and wearisome age of the earth; the veritable storms

of birth and death that seemed to have raged at different periods, held

them in discussion.

"We can't solve it, Eugenio mio," she laughed. "We might as well go

home. Poor, dear mamma will be wondering where her Christina is. You

know I think she suspects that I'm falling in love with you. She doesn't

care how many men fall in love with me, but if I show the least sign of

a strong preference she begins to worry."

"Have there been many preferences?" he inquired.

"No, but don't ask. What difference does it make? Oh, Eugene, what

difference does it make? I love you now."

"I don't know what difference it makes," he replied, "only there is an

ache that goes with the thought of previous experience. I can't tell you

why it is. It just is."

She looked thoughtfully away.

"Anyhow, no man ever was to me before what you have been. Isn't that

enough? Doesn't that speak?"

"Yes, yes, sweet, it does. Oh, yes it does. Forgive me. I won't grieve

any more."

"Don't, please," she said, "you hurt me as much as you hurt yourself."

There were evenings when he sat on some one of the great verandas and

watched them trim and string the interspaces between the columns with

soft, glowing, Chinese lanterns, preparatory to the evening's dancing.

He loved to see the girls and men of the summer colony arrive, the

former treading the soft grass in filmy white gowns and white slippers,

the latter in white ducks and flannels, gaily chatting as they came.

Christina would come to these affairs with her mother and brother,

beautifully clad in white linen or lawns and laces, and he would be

beside himself with chagrin that he had not practised dancing to the

perfection of the art. He could dance now, but not like her brother or

scores of men he saw upon the waxen floor. It hurt him. At times he

would sit all alone after his splendid evenings with his love, dreaming

of the beauty of it all. The stars would be as a great wealth of diamond

seed flung from the lavish hand of an aimless sower. The hills would

loom dark and tall. There was peace and quiet everywhere.

"Why may not life be always like this?" he would ask, and then he would

answer himself out of his philosophy that it would become deadly after

awhile, as does all unchanging beauty. The call of the soul is for

motion, not peace. Peace after activity for a little while, then

activity again. So must it be. He understood that.

Just before he left for New York, Christina said to him:

"Now, when you see me again I will be Miss Channing of New York. You

will be Mr. Witla. We will almost forget that we were ever here

together. We will scarcely believe that we have seen what we have seen

and done what we have done."

"But, Christina, you talk as though everything were over. It isn't, is

it?"

"We can't do anything like this in New York," she sighed. "I haven't

time and you must work."

There was a shade of finality in her tone.

"Oh, Christina, don't talk so. I can't think that way. Please don't."

"I won't," she said. "We'll see. Wait till I get back."

He kissed her a dozen farewells and at the door held her close once

more.

"Will you forsake me?" he asked.

"No, you will forsake me. But remember, dear! Don't you see? You've had

all. Let me be your wood nymph. The rest is commonplace."

He went back to his hotel with an ache in his heart, for he knew they

had gone through all they ever would. She had had her summer with him.

She had given him of herself fully. She wanted to be free to work now.

He could not understand it, but he knew it to be so.

CHAPTER XXV

It is a rather dreary thing to come back into the hot city in the summer

after a period of beauty in the mountains. The quiet of the hills was in

Eugene's mind, the glisten and babble of mountain streams, the soar and

poise of hawks and buzzards and eagles sailing the crystal blue. He felt

lonely and sick for awhile, out of touch with work and with practical

life generally. There were little souvenirs of his recent happiness in

the shape of letters and notes from Christina, but he was full of the

premonition of the end which had troubled him on leaving.

He must write to Angela. He had not thought of her all the time he had

been gone. He had been in the habit of writing to her every third or

fourth day at least; while of late his letters had been less passionate

they had remained fairly regular. But now this sudden break coming--it

was fully three weeks--made her think he must be ill, although she had

begun to feel also that he might be changing. His letters had grown

steadily less reminiscent of the joys they had experienced together and

of the happiness they were anticipating, and more inclined to deal with

the color and character of city life and of what he hoped to achieve.

Angela was inclined to excuse much of this on the grounds of the special

effort he was making to achieve distinction and a living income for

themselves. But it was hard to explain three weeks of silence without

something quite serious having happened.

Eugene understood this. He tried to explain it on the grounds of

illness, stating that he was now up and feeling much better. But when

his explanation came, it had the hollow ring of insincerity. Angela

wondered what the truth could be. Was he yielding to the temptation of

that looser life that all artists were supposed to lead? She wondered

and worried, for time was slipping away and he was setting no definite

date for their much discussed nuptials.

The trouble with Angela's position was that the delay involved

practically everything which was important in her life. She was five

years older than Eugene. She had long since lost that atmosphere of

youth and buoyancy which is so characteristic of a girl between eighteen

and twenty-two. Those few short years following, when the body of

maidenhood blooms like a rose and there is about it the freshness and

color of all rich, new, lush life, were behind her. Ahead was that

persistent decline towards something harder, shrewder and less

beautiful. In the case of some persons the decline is slow and the

fragrance of youth lingers for years, the artifices of the dressmaker,

the chemist, and the jeweller being but little needed. In others it is

fast and no contrivance will stay the ravages of a restless, eager,

dissatisfied soul. Sometimes art combines with slowness of decay to make

a woman of almost perennial charm, loveliness of mind matching

loveliness of body, and taste and tact supplementing both. Angela was

fortunate in being slow to fade and she had a loveliness of imagination

and emotion to sustain her; but she had also a restless, anxious

disposition of mind which, if it had not been stayed by the kindly color

of her home life and by the fortunate or unfortunate intervention of

Eugene at a time when she considered her ideal of love to have fairly

passed out of the range of possibility, would already have set on her

face the signs of old maidenhood. She was not of the newer order of

femininity, eager to get out in the world and follow some individual

line of self-development and interest. Rather was she a home woman

wanting some one man to look after and love. The wonder and beauty of

her dream of happiness with Eugene now made the danger of its loss and

the possible compulsory continuance of a humdrum, underpaid, backwoods

existence, heart-sickening.

Meanwhile, as the summer passed, Eugene was casually enlarging his

acquaintance with women. MacHugh and Smite had gone back home for the

summer, and it was a relief from his loneliness to encounter one day in

an editorial office, Norma Whitmore, a dark, keen, temperamental and

moody but brilliant writer and editor who, like others before her, took

a fancy to Eugene. She was introduced to him by Jans Jansen, Art

Director of the paper, and after some light banter she offered to show

him her office.

She led the way to a little room no larger than six by eight where she

had her desk. Eugene noticed that she was lean and sallow, about his own

age or older, and brilliant and vivacious. Her hands took his attention

for they were thin, shapely and artistic. Her eyes burned with a

peculiar lustre and her loose-fitting clothes were draped artistically

about her. A conversation sprang up as to his work, which she knew and

admired, and he was invited to her apartment. He looked at Norma with an

unconsciously speculative eye.

Christina was out of the city, but the memory of her made it impossible

for him to write to Angela in his old vein of devotion. Nevertheless he

still thought of her as charming. He thought that he ought to write more

regularly. He thought that he ought pretty soon to go back and marry

her. He was approaching the point where he could support her in a studio

if they lived economically. But he did not want to exactly.

He had known her now for three years. It was fully a year and a half

since he had seen her last. In the last year his letters had been less

and less about themselves and more and more about everything else. He

was finding the conventional love letters difficult. But he did not

permit himself to realize just what that meant--to take careful stock of

his emotions. That would have compelled him to the painful course of

deciding that he could not marry her, and asking her to be released from

his promise. He did not want to do that. Instead he parleyed, held by

pity for her passing youth and her undeniable affection for him, by his

sense of the unfairness of having taken up so much of her time to the

exclusion of every other person who might have proposed to her, by

sorrow for the cruelty of her position in being left to explain to her

family that she had been jilted. He hated to hurt any person's feelings.

He did not want to be conscious of the grief of any person who had come

to suffering through him and he could not make them suffer very well and

not be conscious. He was too tender hearted. He had pledged himself to

Angela, giving her a ring, begging her to wait, writing her fulsome

letters of protest and desire. Now, after three years, to shame her

before her charming family--old Jotham, her mother, her sisters and

brothers--it seemed a cruel thing to do, and he did not care to

contemplate it.

Angela, with her morbid, passionate, apprehensive nature, did not fail

to see disaster looming in the distance. She loved Eugene passionately

and the pent-up fires of her nature had been waiting all these years the

warrant to express their ardor which marriage alone could confer.

Eugene, by the charm of his manner and person, no less than by the

sensuous character of some of his moods and the subtleties and

refinements of his references to the ties of sex, had stirred her to

anticipate a perfect fruition of her dreams, and she was now eager for

that fruition almost to the point of being willing to sacrifice

virginity itself. The remembrance of the one significant scene between

her and Eugene tormented her. She felt that if his love was to terminate

in indifference now it would have been better to have yielded then. She

wished that she had not tried to save herself. Perhaps there would have

been a child, and he would have been true to her out of a sense of

sympathy and duty. At least she would have had that crowning glory of

womanhood, ardent union with her lover, and if worst had come to worst

she could have died.

She thought of the quiet little lake near her home, its glassy bosom a

mirror to the sky, and how, in case of failure, she would have looked

lying on its sandy bottom, her pale hair diffused by some aimless motion

of the water, her eyes sealed by the end of consciousness, her hands

folded. Her fancy outran her daring. She would not have done this, but

she could dream about it, and it made her distress all the more intense.

As time went by and Eugene's ardor did not revive, this problem of her

love became more harrassing and she began to wonder seriously what she

could do to win him back to her. He had expressed such a violent desire

for her on his last visit, had painted his love in such glowing terms

that she felt convinced he must love her still, though absence and the

excitements of city life had dimmed the memory of her temporarily. She

remembered a line in a comic opera which she and Eugene had seen

together: "Absence is the dark room in which lovers develop negatives"

and this seemed a case in point. If she could get him back, if he could

be near her again, his old fever would develop and she would then find

some way of making him take her, perhaps. It did not occur to her quite

clearly just how this could be done at this time but some vague notion

of self-immolation was already stirring vaguely and disturbingly in her

brain.

The trying and in a way disheartening conditions of her home went some

way to sustain this notion. Her sister Marietta was surrounded by a

score of suitors who were as eager for her love as a bee is for the

honey of a flower, and Angela could see that they were already looking

upon herself as an elderly chaperon. Her mother and father watched her

going about her work and grieved because so good a girl should be made

to suffer for want of a proper understanding. She could not conceal her

feelings entirely and they could see at times that she was unhappy. She

could see that they saw it. It was hard to have to explain to her

sisters and brothers, who occasionally asked after Eugene, that he was

doing all right, and never be able to say that he was coming for her

some day soon.

At first Marietta had been envious of her. She thought she would like to

win Eugene for herself, and only consideration for Angela's age and the

fact that she had not been so much sought after had deterred her. Now

that Eugene was obviously neglecting her, or at least delaying beyond

any reasonable period, she was deeply sorry. Once, before she had grown

into the age of courtship, she had said to Angela: "I'm going to be nice

to the men. You're too cold. You'll never get married." And Angela had

realized that it was not a matter of "too cold," but an innate prejudice

against most of the types she met. And then the average man did not take

to her. She could not spur herself to pleasure in their company. It took

a fire like Eugene's to stir her mightily, and once having known that

she could brook no other. Marietta realized this too. Now because of

these three years she had cut herself off from other men, particularly

the one who had been most attentive to her--faithful Victor Dean. The

one thing that might save Angela from being completely ignored was a

spirit of romance which kept her young in looks as in feelings.

With the fear of desertion in her mind Angela began to hint in her

letters to Eugene that he should come back to see her, to express the

hope in her letters that their marriage need not--because of any

difficulty of establishing himself--be postponed much longer. She said

to him over and over that she could be happy with him in a cottage and

that she so longed to see him again. Eugene began to ask himself what he

wanted to do.

The fact that on the passional side Angela appealed to him more than any

woman he had ever known was a saving point in her favor at this

juncture. There was a note in her make-up which was stronger, deeper,

more suggestive of joy to come than anything he had found elsewhere. He

remembered keenly the wonderful days he had spent with her--the one

significant night when she begged him to save her against herself. All

the beauty of the season with which she was surrounded at that time; the

charm of her family, the odor of flowers and the shade of trees served

to make a setting for her delightfulness which still endured with him as

fresh as yesterday. Now, without having completed that romance--a very

perfect flower--could he cast it aside?

At this time he was not entangled with any woman. Miriam Finch was too

conservative and intellectual; Norma Whitmore not attractive enough. As

for some other charming examples of femininity whom he had met here and

there, he had not been drawn to them or they to him. Emotionally he was

lonely and this for him was always a very susceptible mood. He could not

make up his mind that the end had come with Angela.

It so happened that Marietta, after watching her sister's love affair

some time, reached the conclusion that she ought to try to help her.

Angela was obviously concealing a weariness of heart which was telling

on her peace of mind and her sweetness of disposition. She was unhappy

and it grieved her sister greatly. The latter loved her in a

whole-hearted way, in spite of the fact that their affections might

possibly have clashed over Eugene, and she thought once of writing in a

sweet way and telling him how things were. She thought he was good and

kind, that he loved Angela, that perhaps he was delaying as her sister

said until he should have sufficient means to marry well, and that if

the right word were said now he would cease chasing a phantom fortune

long enough to realize that it were better to take Angela while they

were still young, than to wait until they were so old that the romance

of marriage would for them be over. She revolved this in her mind a long

time, picturing to herself how sweet Angela really was, and finally

nerved herself to pen the following letter, which she sent.

Dear Eugene:

You will be surprised to get a letter from me and I want you to promise

me that you will never say anything about it to anyone--above all never

to Angela. Eugene, I have been watching her for a long time now and I

know she is not happy. She is so desperately in love with you. I notice

when a letter does not come promptly she is downcast and I can't help

seeing that she is longing to have you here with her. Eugene, why don't

you marry Angela? She is lovely and attractive now and she is as good as

she is beautiful. She doesn't want to wait for a fine house and

luxuries--no girl wants to do that, Eugene, when she loves as I know

Angela does you. She would rather have you now when you are both young

and can enjoy life than any fine house or nice things you might give her

later. Now, I haven't talked to her at all, Eugene--never one word--and

I know it would hurt her terribly if she thought I had written to you.

She would never forgive me. But I can't help it. I can't bear to see her

grieving and longing, and I know that when you know you will come and

get her. Don't ever indicate in any way, please, that I wrote to you.

Don't write to me unless you want to very much. I would rather you

didn't. And tear up this letter. But do come for her soon, Eugene,

please do. She wants you. And she will make you a perfectly wonderful

wife for she is a wonderful girl. We all love her so--papa and mamma and

all. I hope you will forgive me. I can't help it.

"With love I am yours,

"Marietta."

When Eugene received this letter he was surprised and astonished, but

also distressed for himself and Angela and Marietta and the whole

situation. The tragedy of this situation appealed to him perhaps as much

from the dramatic as from the personal point of view. Little Angela,

with her yellow hair and classic face. What a shame that they could not

be together as she wished; as really, in a way, he wished. She was

beautiful--no doubt of that. And there was a charm about her which was

as alluring as that of any girl barring the intellectually exceptional.

Her emotions in a way were deeper than those of Miriam Finch and

Christina Channing. She could not reason about them--that was all. She

just felt them. He saw all the phases of her anguish--the probable

attitude of her parents, her own feelings at being looked at by them,

the way her friends wondered. It was a shame, no doubt of that--a cruel

situation. Perhaps he had better go back. He could be happy with her.

They could live in a studio and no doubt things would work out all

right. Had he better be cruel and not go? He hated to think of it.

Anyhow he did not answer Marietta's letter, and he did tear it up into a

thousand bits, as she requested. "If Angela knew no doubt she would feel

wretched," he thought.

In the meanwhile Angela was thinking, and her brooding led her to the

conclusion that it might be advisable, if ever her lover came back, to

yield herself in order that he might feel compelled to take her. She was

no reasoner about life in any big sense. Her judgment of affairs was

more confused at this time than at a later period. She had no clear

conception of how foolish any trickery of this sort would be. She loved

Eugene, felt that she must have him, felt that she would be willing to

die rather than lose him and the thought of trickery came only as a last

resource. If he refused her she was determined on one thing--the lake.

She would quit this dreary world where love was crossed with despair in

its finest moments; she would forget it all. If only there were rest and

silence on the other side that would be enough.

The year moved on toward spring and because of some note of this,

reiterated in pathetic phrases, he came to feel that he must go back.

Marietta's letter preyed on his mind. The intensity of Angela's attitude

made him feel that something desperate would happen. He could not, in

cold blood, sit down and write her that he would not see her any more.

The impressions of Blackwood were too fresh in his mind--the summer

incense and green beauty of the world in which she lived. He wrote in

April that he would come again in June, and Angela was beside herself

with joy.

One of the things which helped Eugene to this conclusion was the fact

that Christina Channing was not coming back from Europe that year. She

had written a few times during the winter, but very guardedly. A casual

reader could not have drawn from what she said that there had ever been

anything between them. He had written much more ardently, of course, but

she had chosen to ignore his eager references, making him feel by

degrees that he was not to know much of her in the future. They were

going to be good friends, but not necessarily lovers nor eventually

husband and wife. It irritated him to think she could be so calm about a

thing which to him seemed so important. It hurt his pride to think she

could so deliberately throw him over. Finally he began to be incensed,

and then Angela's fidelity appeared in a much finer light. There was a

girl who would not treat him so. She really loved him. She was faithful

and true. So his promised trip began to look much more attractive, and

by June he was in a fever to see her.

CHAPTER XXVI

The beautiful June weather arrived and with it Eugene took his departure

once more for Blackwood. He was in a peculiar mood, for while he was

anxious to see Angela again it was with the thought that perhaps he was

making a mistake. A notion of fatality was beginning to run through his

mind. Perhaps he was destined to take her! and yet, could anything be

more ridiculous? He could decide. He had deliberately decided to go back

there--or had he? He admitted to himself that his passion was drawing

him--in fact he could not see that there was anything much in love

outside of passion. Desire! Wasn't that all that pulled two people

together? There was some little charm of personality above that, but

desire was the keynote. And if the physical attraction were strong

enough, wasn't that sufficient to hold two people together? Did you

really need so much more? It was logic based on youth, enthusiasm and

inexperience, but it was enough to hold him for the time being--to

soothe him. To Angela he was not drawn by any of the things which drew

him to Miriam Finch and Norma Whitmore, nor was there the wonderful art

of Christina Channing. Still he was going.

His interest in Norma Whitmore had increased greatly as the winter

passed. In this woman he had found an intellect as broadening and

refining as any he had encountered. Her taste for the exceptional in

literature and art was as great as that of anyone he had ever known and

it was just as individual. She ran to impressive realistic fiction in

literature and to the kind of fresh-from-the-soil art which Eugene

represented. Her sense of just how big and fresh was the thing he was

trying to do was very encouraging, and she was carrying the word about

town to all her friends that he was doing it. She had even gone so far

as to speak to two different art dealers asking them why they had not

looked into what seemed to her his perfectly wonderful drawings.

"Why, they're astonishing in their newness," she told Eberhard Zang, one

of the important picture dealers on Fifth Avenue. She knew him from

having gone there to borrow pictures for reproduction.

"Witla! Witla!" he commented in his conservative German way, rubbing his

chin, "I doand remember seeing anything by him."

"Of course you don't," replied Norma persistently. "He's new, I tell

you. He hasn't been here so very long. You get _Truth_ for some week in

last month--I forget which one--and see that picture of Greeley Square.

It will show you what I mean."

"Witla! Witla!" repeated Zang, much as a parrot might fix a sound in its

memory. "Tell him to come in here and see me some day. I should like to

see some of his things."

"I will," said Norma, genially. She was anxious to have Eugene go, but

he was more anxious to get a lot of things done before he had an

exhibition. He did not want to risk an impression with anything short of

a rather extensive series. And his collection of views was not complete

at that time. Besides he had a much more significant art dealer in mind.

He and Norma had reached the point by this time where they were like

brother and sister, or better yet, two good men friends. He would slip

his arm about her waist when entering her rooms and was free to hold her

hands or pat her on the arm or shoulder. There was nothing more than

strong good feeling on his part, while on hers a burning affection might

have been inspired, but his genial, brotherly attitude convinced her

that it was useless. He had never told her of any of his other women

friends and he was wondering as he rode west how she and Miriam Finch

would take his marriage with Angela, supposing that he ever did marry

her. As for Christina Channing, he did not want to think--really did not

dare to think of her very much. Some sense of lost beauty came to him

out of that experience--a touch of memory that had a pang in it.

Chicago in June was just a little dreary to him with its hurry of life,

its breath of past experience, the Art Institute, the _Daily Globe_

building, the street and house in which Ruby had lived. He wondered

about her (as he had before) the moment he neared the city, and had a

strong desire to go and look her up. Then he visited the _Globe_

offices, but Mathews had gone. Genial, cheerful Jerry had moved to

Philadelphia recently, taking a position on the Philadelphia _North

American_, leaving Howe alone, more finicky and picayune than ever.

Goldfarb, of course, was gone and Eugene felt out of it. He was glad to

take the train for Blackwood, for he felt lonesome. He left the city

with quite an ache for old times in his heart and the feeling that life

was a jumble of meaningless, strange and pathetic things.

"To think that we should grow old," he pondered, "that things that were

as real as these things were to me, should become mere memories."

The time just before he reached Blackwood was one of great emotional

stress for Angela. Now she was to learn whether he really loved her as

much as he had. She was to feel the joy of his presence, the subtle

influence of his attitude. She was to find whether she could hold him or

not. Marietta, who on hearing that he was coming, had rather plumed

herself that her letter had had something to do with it, was afraid that

her sister would not make good use of this opportune occasion. She was

anxious that Angela should look her best, and made suggestions as to

things she might wear, games she might play (they had installed tennis

and croquet as part of the home pleasures since he had been there last)

and places they might go to. Marietta was convinced that Angela was not

artful enough--not sufficiently subtle in her presentation of her

charms. He could be made to feel very keen about her if she dressed

right and showed herself to the best advantage. Marietta herself

intended to keep out of the way as much as possible when Eugene arrived,

and to appear at great disadvantage in the matter of dress and

appearance when seen; for she had become a perfect beauty and was a

breaker of hearts without conscious effort.

"You know that string of coral beads I have, Angel Face," she asked

Angela one morning some ten days before Eugene arrived. "Wear them with

that tan linen dress of mine and your tan shoes some day for Eugene.

You'll look stunning in those things and he'll like you. Why don't you

take the new buggy and drive over to Blackwood to meet him? That's it.

You must meet him."

"Oh, I don't think I want to, Babyette," she replied. She was afraid of

this first impression. She did not want to appear to run after him.

Babyette was a nickname which had been applied to Marietta in childhood

and had never been dropped.

"Oh, pshaw, Angel Face, don't be so backward! You're the shyest thing I

know. Why that's nothing. He'll like you all the better for treating him

just a little smartly. You do that now, will you?"

"I can't," replied Angela. "I can't do it that way. Let him come over

here first; then I'll drive him over some afternoon."

"Oh, Angel Face! Well, anyhow, when he comes you must wear that little

rose flowered house dress and put a wreath of green leaves in your

hair."

"Oh, I won't do anything of the sort, Babyette," exclaimed Angela.

"Yes, you will," replied her sister. "Now you just have to do what I

tell you for once. That dress looks beautiful on you and the wreath will

make it perfect."

"It isn't the dress. I know that's nice. It's the wreath."

Marietta was incensed by this bit of pointless reserve.

"Oh, Angela," she exclaimed, "don't be so silly. You're older than I am,

but I know more about men in a minute than you'll ever know. Don't you

want him to like you? You'll have to be more daring--goodness! Lots of

girls would go a lot farther than that."

She caught her sister about the waist and looked into her eyes. "Now

you've got to wear it," she added finally, and Angela understood that

Marietta wanted her to entice Eugene by any means in her power to make

him declare himself finally and set a definite date or take her back to

New York with him.

There were other conversations in which a trip to the lake was

suggested, games of tennis, with Angela wearing her white tennis suit

and shoes, a country dance which might be got up--there were rumors of

one to be given in the new barn of a farmer some seven miles away.

Marietta was determined that Angela should appear youthful, gay, active,

just the things which she knew instinctively would fascinate Eugene.

Finally Eugene came. He arrived at Blackwood at noon. Despite her

objections Angela met him, dressed smartly and, as urged by Marietta,

carrying herself with an air. She hoped to impress Eugene with a sense

of independence, but when she saw him stepping down from the train in

belted corduroy travelling suit with a grey English travelling cap,

carrying a green leather bag of the latest design, her heart misgave

her. He was so worldly now, so experienced. You could see by his manner

that this country place meant little or nothing to him. He had tasted of

the world at large.

Angela had stayed in her buggy at the end of the depot platform and she

soon caught Eugene's eye and waved to him. He came briskly forward.

"Why, sweet," he exclaimed, "here you are. How nice you look!" He jumped

up beside her, surveying her critically and she could feel his examining

glance. After the first pleasant impression he sensed the difference

between his new world and hers and was a little depressed by it. She was

a little older, no doubt of that. You cannot hope and yearn and worry

for three years and not show it. And yet she was fine and tender and

sympathetic and emotional. He felt all this. It hurt him a little for

her sake and his too.

"Well, how have you been?" he asked. They were in the confines of the

village and no demonstration could be made. Until the quiet of a country

road could be reached all had to be formal.

"Oh, just the same, Eugene, longing to see you."

She looked into his eyes and he felt the impact of that emotional force

which governed her when she was near him. There was something in the

chemistry of her being which roused to blazing the ordinarily dormant

forces of his sympathies. She tried to conceal her real feeling--to

pretend gaiety and enthusiasm, but her eyes betrayed her. Something

roused in him now at her look--a combined sense of emotion and desire.

"It's so fine to be out in the country again," he said, pressing her

hand, for he was letting her drive. "After the city, to see you and the

green fields!" He looked about at the little one-storey cottages, each

with a small plot of grass, a few trees, a neat confining fence. After

New York and Chicago, a village like this was quaint.

"Do you love me just as much as ever?"

She nodded her head. They reached a strip of yellow road, he asking

after her father, her mother, her brothers and sisters, and when he saw

that they were unobserved he slipped his arm about her and drew her head

to him.

"Now we can," he said.

She felt the force of his desire but she missed that note of adoration

which had seemed to characterize his first lovemaking. How true it was

he had changed! He must have. The city had made her seem less

significant. It hurt her to think that life should treat her so. But

perhaps she could win him back--could hold him anyhow.

They drove over toward Okoonee, a little crossroads settlement, near a

small lake of the same name, a place which was close to the Blue house,

and which the Blue's were wont to speak of as "home." On the way Eugene

learned that her youngest brother David was a cadet at West Point now

and doing splendidly. Samuel had become western freight agent of the

Great Northern and was on the way to desirable promotion. Benjamin had

completed his law studies and was practising in Racine. He was

interested in politics and was going to run for the state legislature.

Marietta was still the gay carefree girl she had always been, not at all

inclined to choose yet among her many anxious suitors. Eugene thought of

her letter to him--wondered if she would look her thoughts into his eyes

when he saw her.

"Oh, Marietta," Angela replied when Eugene asked after her, "she's just

as dangerous as ever. She makes all the men make love to her."

Eugene smiled. Marietta was always a pleasing thought to him. He wished

for the moment that it was Marietta instead of Angela that he was coming

to see.

She was as shrewd as she was kind in this instance. Her appearance on

meeting Eugene was purposely indifferent and her attitude anything but

coaxing and gay. At the same time she suffered a genuine pang of

feeling, for Eugene appealed to her. If it were anybody but Angela, she

thought, how she would dress and how quickly she would be coquetting

with him. Then his love would be won by her and she felt that she could

hold it. She had great confidence in her ability to keep any man, and

Eugene was a man she would have delighted to hold. As it was she kept

out of his way, took sly glances at him here and there, wondered if

Angela would truly win him. She was so anxious for Angela's sake. Never,

never, she told herself, would she cross her sister's path.

At the Blue homestead he was received as cordially as before. After an

hour it quite brought back the feeling of three years before. These open

fields, this old house and its lovely lawn, all served to awaken the

most poignant sensations. One of Marietta's beaux, over from Waukesha,

appeared after Eugene had greeted Mrs. Blue and Marietta, and the latter

persuaded him to play a game of tennis with Angela. She invited Eugene

to make it a four with her, but not knowing how he refused.

Angela changed to her tennis suit and Eugene opened his eyes to her

charms. She was very attractive on the court, quick, flushed, laughing.

And when she laughed she had a charming way of showing her even, small,

white teeth. She quite awakened a feeling of interest--she looked so

dainty and frail. When he saw her afterward in the dark, quiet parlor,

he gathered her to his heart with much of the old ardour. She felt the

quick change of feeling. Marietta was right. Eugene loved gaiety and

color. Although on the way home she had despaired this was much more

promising.

Eugene rarely entered on anything half heartedly. If interested at all

he was greatly interested. He could so yield himself to the glamour of a

situation as to come finally to believe that he was something which he

was not. Thus, now he was beginning to accept this situation as Angela

and Marietta wished he should, and to see her in somewhat the old light.

He overlooked things which in his New York studio, surrounded by the

influences which there modified his judgment, he would have seen. Angela

was not young enough for him. She was not liberal in her views. She was

charming, no doubt of that, but he could not bring her to an

understanding of his casual acceptance of life. She knew nothing of his

real disposition and he did not tell her. He played the part of a

seemingly single-minded Romeo, and as such he was from a woman's point

of view beautiful to contemplate. In his own mind he was coming to see

that he was fickle but he still did not want to admit it to himself.

There was a night of stars after an evening of June perfection. At five

old Jotham came in from the fields, as dignified and patriarchal as

ever. He greeted Eugene with a hearty handshake, for he admired him. "I

see some of your work now and then," he said, "in these monthly

magazines. It's fine. There's a young minister down here near the lake

that's very anxious to meet you. He likes to get hold of anything you

do, and I always send the books down as soon as Angela gets through with

them."

He used the words books and magazines interchangeably, and spoke as

though they were not much more important to him than the leaves of the

trees, as indeed, they were not. To a mind used to contemplating the

succession of crops and seasons, all life with its multitudinous

interplay of shapes and forms seemed passing shadows. Even men were like

leaves that fall.

Eugene was drawn to old Jotham as a filing to a magnet. His was just the

type of mind that appealed to him, and Angela gained by the radiated

glory of her father. If he was so wonderful she must be something above

the average of womanhood. Such a man could not help but produce

exceptional children.

Left alone together it was hardly possible for Angela and Eugene not to

renew the old relationship on the old basis. Having gone as far as he

had the first time it was natural that he should wish to go as far again

and further. After dinner, when she turned to him from her room, arrayed

in a soft evening dress of clinging texture--somewhat low in the neck by

request of Marietta, who had helped her to dress--Eugene was conscious

of her emotional perturbation. He himself was distraught, for he did not

know what he would do--how far he would dare to trust himself. He was

always troubled when dealing with his physical passion, for it was a

raging lion at times. It seemed to overcome him quite as a drug might or

a soporific fume. He would mentally resolve to control himself, but

unless he instantly fled there was no hope, and he did not seem able to

run away. He would linger and parley, and in a few moments it was master

and he was following its behest blindly, desperately, to the point

almost of exposure and destruction.

Tonight when Angela came back he was cogitating, wondering what it might

mean. Should he? Would he marry her? Could he escape? They sat down to

talk, but presently he drew her to him. It was the old story--moment

after moment of increasing feeling. Presently she, from the excess of

longing and waiting was lost to all sense of consideration. And he--

"I shall have to go away, Eugene," she pleaded, when he carried her

recklessly into his room, "if anything happens. I cannot stay here."

"Don't talk," he said. "You can come to me."

"You mean it, Eugene, surely?" she begged.

"As sure as I'm holding you here," he replied.

At midnight Angela lifted frightened, wondering, doubting eyes, feeling

herself the most depraved creature. Two pictures were in her mind

alternately and with pendulum-like reiteration. One was a composite of a

marriage altar and a charming New York studio with friends coming in to

see them much as he had often described to her. The other was of the

still blue waters of Okoonee with herself lying there pale and still.

Yes, she would die if he did not marry her now. Life would not be worth

while. She would not force him. She would slip out some night when it

was too late and all hope had been abandoned--when exposure was

near--and the next day they would find her.

Little Marietta how she would cry. And old Jotham--she could see him,

but he would never be really sure of the truth. And her mother. "Oh God

in heaven," she thought, "how hard life is! How terrible it can be."

CHAPTER XXVII

The atmosphere of the house after this night seemed charged with

reproach to Eugene, although it took on no semblance of reality in

either look or word. When he awoke in the morning and looked through the

half closed shutters to the green world outside he felt a sense of

freshness and of shame. It was cruel to come into such a home as this

and do a thing as mean as he had done. After all, philosophy or no

philosophy, didn't a fine old citizen like Jotham, honest, upright,

genuine in his moral point of view and his observance of the golden

rule, didn't he deserve better from a man whom he so sincerely admired?

Jotham had been so nice to him. Their conversations together were so

kindly and sympathetic. Eugene felt that Jotham believed him to be an

honest man. He knew he had that appearance. He was frank, genial,

considerate, not willing to condemn anyone--but this sex question--that

was where he was weak. And was not the whole world keyed to that? Did

not the decencies and the sanities of life depend on right moral

conduct? Was not the world dependent on how the homes were run? How

could anyone be good if his mother and father had not been good before

him? How could the children of the world expect to be anything if people

rushed here and there holding illicit relations? Take his sister Myrtle,

now--would he have wanted her rifled in this manner? In the face of this

question he was not ready to say exactly what he wanted or was willing

to countenance. Myrtle was a free agent, as was every other girl. She

could do as she pleased. It might not please him exactly but--he went

round and round from one problem to another, trying to untie this

Gordian knot. One thing, this home had appeared sweet and clean when he

came into it; now it was just a little tarnished, and by him! Or was it?

His mind was always asking this question. There was nothing that he was

actually accepting as true any more. He was going round in a ring asking

questions of this proposition and that. Are you true? And are you true?

And are you true? And all the while he was apparently not getting

anywhere. It puzzled him, this life. Sometimes it shamed him. This deed

shamed him. And he asked himself whether he was wrong to be ashamed or

not. Perhaps he was just foolish. Was not life made for living, not

worrying? He had not created his passions and desires.

He threw open the shutters and there was the bright day. Everything was

so green outside, the flowers in bloom, the trees casting a cool, lovely

shade, the birds twittering. Bees were humming. He could smell the

lilacs. "Dear God," he exclaimed, throwing his arms above his head, "How

lovely life is! How beautiful! Oh!" He drew in a deep breath of the

flower and privet laden air. If only he could live always like this--for

ever and ever.

When he had sponged himself with cold water and dressed, putting on a

soft negligee shirt with turn-down collar and dark flowing tie, he

issued forth clean and fresh. Angela was there to greet him. Her face

was pale but she looked intensely sweet because of her sadness.

"There, there," he said, touching her chin, "less of that now!"

"I told them that I had a headache," she said. "So I have. Do you

understand?"

"I understand your headache," he laughed. "But everything is all

right--very much all right. Isn't this a lovely day!"

"Beautiful," replied Angela sadly.

"Cheer up," he insisted. "Don't worry. Everything is coming out fine."

He walked to the window and stared out.

"I'll have your breakfast ready in a minute," she said, and, pressing

his hand, left him.

Eugene went out to the hammock. He was so deliciously contented and

joyous now that he saw the green world about him, that he felt that

everything was all right again. The vigorous blooming forces of nature

everywhere present belied the sense of evil and decay to which mortality

is so readily subject. He felt that everything was justified in youth

and love, particularly where mutual affection reigned. Why should he not

take Angela? Why should they not be together? He went in to breakfast at

her call, eating comfortably of the things she provided. He felt the

easy familiarity and graciousness of the conqueror. Angela on her part

felt the fear and uncertainty of one who has embarked upon a dangerous

voyage. She had set sail--whither? At what port would she land? Was it

the lake or his studio? Would she live and be happy or would she die to

face a black uncertainty? Was there a hell as some preachers insisted?

Was there a gloomy place of lost souls such as the poets described? She

looked into the face of this same world which Eugene found so beautiful

and its very beauty trembled with forebodings of danger.

And there were days and days yet to be lived of this. For all her fear,

once having tasted of the forbidden fruit, it was sweet and inviting.

She could not go near Eugene, nor he near her but this flush of emotion

would return.

In the daylight she was too fearful, but when the night came with its

stars, its fresh winds, its urge to desire, her fears could not stand in

their way. Eugene was insatiable and she was yearning. The slightest

touch was as fire to tow. She yielded saying she would not yield.

The Blue family were of course blissfully ignorant of what was

happening. It seemed so astonishing to Angela at first that the very air

did not register her actions in some visible way. That they should be

able thus to be alone was not so remarkable, seeing that Eugene's

courtship was being aided and abetted, for her sake, but that her lapse

should not be exposed by some sinister influence seemed

strange--accidental and subtly ominous. Something would happen--that was

her fear. She had not the courage of her desire or need.

By the end of the week, though Eugene was less ardent and more or less

oppressed by the seeming completeness with which he had conquered, he

was not ready to leave. He was sorry to go, for it ended a honeymoon of

sweetness and beauty--all the more wonderful and enchanting because so

clandestine--yet he was beginning to be aware that he had bound himself

in chains of duty and responsibility. Angela had thrown herself on his

mercy and his sense of honor to begin with. She had exacted a promise of

marriage--not urgently, and as one who sought to entrap him, but with

the explanation that otherwise life must end in disaster for her. Eugene

could look in her face and see that it would. And now that he had had

his way and plumbed the depths of her emotions and desires he had a

higher estimate of her personality. Despite the fact that she was older

than he, there was a breath of youth and beauty here that held him. Her

body was exquisite. Her feeling about life and love was tender and

beautiful. He wished he could make true her dreams of bliss without

injury to himself.

It so turned out that as his visit was drawing to a close Angela decided

that she ought to go to Chicago, for there were purchases which must be

made. Her mother wanted her to go and she decided that she would go with

Eugene. This made the separation easier, gave them more time to talk.

Her usual plan was to stay with her aunt and she was going there now.

On the way she asked over and over what he would think of her in the

future; whether what had passed would not lower her in his eyes. He did

not feel that it would. Once she said to him sadly--"only death or

marriage can help me now."

"What do you mean?" he asked, her yellow head pillowed on his shoulder,

her dark blue eyes looking sadly into his.

"That if you don't marry me I'll have to kill myself. I can't stay at

home."

He thought of her with her beautiful body, her mass of soft hair all

tarnished in death.

"You wouldn't do that?" he asked unbelievingly.

"Yes, I would," she said sadly. "I must, I will."

"Hush, Angel Face," he pleaded. "You won't do anything like that. You

won't have to. I'll marry you--How would you do it?"

"Oh, I've thought it all out," she continued gloomily. "You know that

little lake. I'd drown myself."

"Don't, sweetheart," he pleaded. "Don't talk that way. It's terrible.

You won't have to do anything like that."

To think of her under the waters of little Okoonee, with its green

banks, and yellow sandy shores. All her love come to this! All her

passion! Her death would be upon his head and he could not stand the

thought of that. It frightened him. Such tragedies occasionally appeared

in the papers with all the pathetic details convincingly set forth, but

this should not enter his life. He would marry her. She was lovely after

all. He would have to. He might as well make up his mind to that now. He

began to speculate how soon it might be. For the sake of her family she

wanted no secret marriage but one which, if they could not be present at

it, they could at least know was taking place. She was willing to come

East--that could be arranged. But they must be married. Eugene realized

the depth of her conventional feeling so keenly that it never occurred

to him to suggest an alternative. She would not consent, would scorn him

for it. The only alternative, she appeared to believe, was death.

One evening--the last--when it was necessary for her to return to

Blackwood, and he had seen her off on the train, her face a study in

sadness, he rode out gloomily to Jackson Park where he had once seen a

beautiful lake in the moonlight. When he reached there the waters of the

lake were still suffused and tinged with lovely suggestions of lavender,

pink and silver, for this was near the twenty-first of June. The trees

to the east and west were dark. The sky showed a last blush of orange.

Odours were about--warm June fragrance. He thought now, as he walked

about the quiet paths where the sand and pebbles crunched lightly

beneath his feet, of all the glory of this wonderful week. How dramatic

was life; how full of romance. This love of Angela's, how beautiful.

Youth was with him--love. Would he go on to greater days of beauty or

would he stumble, idling his time, wasting his substance in riotous

living? Was this riotous living? Would there be evil fruition of his

deeds? Would he really love Angela after he married her? Would they be

happy?

Thus he stood by the bank of this still lake, studying the water,

marvelling at the subtleties of reflected radiance, feeling the artist's

joy in perfect natural beauty, twining and intertwining it all with

love, death, failure, fame. It was romantic to think that in such a

lake, if he were unkind, would Angela be found. By such a dark as was

now descending would all her bright dreams be submerged. It would be

beautiful as romance. He could imagine a great artist like Daudet or

Balzac making a great story out of it. It was even a subject for some

form of romantic expression in art. Poor Angela! If he were a great

portrait painter he would paint her. He thought of some treatment of her

in the nude with that mass of hair of hers falling about her neck and

breasts. It would be beautiful. Should he marry her? Yes, though he was

not sure of the outcome, he must. It might be a mistake but--

He stared at the fading surface of the lake, silver, lavender, leaden

gray. Overhead a vivid star was already shining. How would it be with

her if she were really below those still waters? How would it be with

him? It would be too desperate, too regretful. No, he must marry her. It

was in this mood that he returned to the city, the ache of life in his

heart. It was in this mood that he secured his grip from the hotel and

sought the midnight train for New York. For once Ruby, Miriam,

Christina, were forgotten. He was involved in a love drama which meant

life or death to Angela, peace or reproach of conscience to himself in

the future. He could not guess what the outcome would be, but he felt

that he must marry her--how soon he could not say. Circumstances would

dictate that. From present appearances it must be immediately. He must

see about a studio, announce the news of his departure to Smite and

MacHugh; make a special effort to further his art ambitions so that he

and Angela would have enough to live on. He had talked so glowingly of

his art life that now, when the necessity for demonstrating it was at

hand, he was troubled as to what the showing might be. The studio had to

be attractive. He would need to introduce his friends. All the way back

to New York he turned this over in his mind--Smite, MacHugh, Miriam,

Norma, Wheeler, Christina--what would Christina think if she ever

returned to New York and found him married? There was no question but

that there was a difference between Angela and these. It was

something--a matter of courage--more soul, more daring, more awareness,

perhaps--something. When they saw her would they think he had made a

mistake, would they put him down as a fool? MacHugh was going with a

girl, but she was a different type--intellectual, smart. He thought and

thought, but he came back to the same conclusion always. He would have

to marry her. There was no way out. He would have to.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The studio of Messrs. Smite, MacHugh and Witla in Waverley Place was

concerned the following October with a rather picturesque event. Even in

the city the time when the leaves begin to yellow and fall brings a

sense of melancholy, augmented by those preliminaries of winter, gray,

lowery days, with scraps of paper, straws, bits of wood blown about by

gusty currents of air through the streets, making it almost disagreeable

to be abroad. The fear of cold and storm and suffering among those who

have little was already apparent. Apparent too was the air of renewed

vitality common to those who have spent an idle summer and are anxious

to work again. Shopping and marketing and barter and sale were at high

key. The art world, the social world, the manufacturing world, the

professional worlds of law, medicine, finance, literature, were bubbling

with a feeling of the necessity to do and achieve. The whole city, stung

by the apprehension of winter, had an atmosphere of emprise and energy.

In this atmosphere, with a fairly clear comprehension of the elements

which were at work making the colour of the life about him, was Eugene,

digging away at the task he had set himself. Since leaving Angela he had

come to the conclusion that he must complete the jointings for the

exhibition which had been running in his mind during the last two years.

There was no other way for him to make a notable impression--he saw

that. Since he had returned he had gone through various experiences: the

experience of having Angela tell him that she was sure there was

something wrong with her; an impression sincere enough, but based on an

excited and overwrought imagination of evil to follow, and having no

foundation in fact. Eugene was as yet, despite his several experiences,

not sufficiently informed in such affairs to know. His lack of courage

would have delayed him from asking if he had known. In the next place,

facing this crisis, he had declared that he would marry her, and because

of her distressed condition he thought he might as well do it now. He

had wanted time to do some of the pictures he was working on, to take in

a little money for drawing, to find a suitable place to live in. He had

looked at various studios in various sections of the city and had found

nothing, as yet, which answered to his taste or his purse. Anything with

a proper light, a bath, a suitable sleeping room, and an inconspicuous

chamber which might be turned into a kitchen, was difficult to find.

Prices were high, ranging from fifty to one hundred and twenty-five and

one hundred and fifty a month. There were some new studios being erected

for the rich loungers and idlers which commanded, so he understood,

three or four thousand dollars a year. He wondered if he should ever

attain to any such magnificence through his art.

Again, in taking a studio for Angela and himself there was the matter of

furniture. The studio he had with Smite and MacHugh was more or less of

a camp. The work room was bare of carpets or rugs. The two folding beds

and the cot which graced their individual chambers were heirlooms from

ancient predecessors--substantial but shabby. Beyond various drawings,

three easels, and a chest of drawers for each, there was no suitable

household equipment. A woman came twice a week to clean, send out the

linen, and make up the beds.

To live with Angela required, in his judgment, many and much more

significant things. His idea of a studio was some such one as that now

occupied by Miriam Finch or Norma Whitmore. There ought to be furniture

of a period--old Flemish or Colonial, Heppelwhite or Chippendale or

Sheraton, such as he saw occasionally knocking about in curio shops and

second hand stores. It could be picked up if he had time. He was

satisfied that Angela knew nothing of these things. There ought to be

rugs, hangings of tapestry, bits of brass, pewter, copper, old silver,

if he could afford it. He had an idea of some day obtaining a figure of

the Christ in brass or plaster, hung upon a rough cross of walnut or

teak, which he could hang or stand in some corner as one might a shrine

and place before it two great candlesticks with immense candles smoked

and dripping with wax. These lighted in a dark studio, with the outlines

of the Christ flickering in the shadows behind would give the desired

atmosphere to his studio. Such an equipment as he dreamed of would have

cost in the neighborhood of two thousand dollars.

Of course this was not to be thought of at this period. He had no more

than that in ready cash. He was writing to Angela about his difficulties

in finding a suitable place, when he heard of a studio in Washington

Square South, which its literary possessor was going to quit for the

winter. It was, so he understood, handsomely furnished, and was to be

let for the rent of the studio. The owner wanted someone who would take

care of it by occupying it for him until he should return the following

fall. Eugene hurried round to look at it and, taken with the location,

the appearance of the square from the windows, the beauty of the

furnishings, felt that he would like to live here. This would be the way

to introduce Angela to New York. This would be the first and proper

impression to give her. Here, as in every well arranged studio he had

yet seen were books, pictures, bits of statuary, implements of copper

and some few of silver. There was a great fish net dyed green and

spangled with small bits of mirror to look like scales which hung as a

veil between the studio proper and an alcove. There was a piano done in

black walnut, and odd pieces of furniture, Mission, Flemish, Venetian of

the sixteenth century and English of the seventeenth, which, despite

that diversity offered a unity of appearance and a harmony of

usefulness. There was one bed room, a bath, and a small partitioned

section which could be used as a kitchen. With a few of his pictures

judiciously substituted he could see a perfect abode here for himself

and his wife. The rent was fifty dollars. He decided that he would risk

it.

Having gone so far as to indicate that he would take it--he was made to

feel partially resigned to marriage by the very appearance of this

place--he decided that he would marry in October. Angela could come to

New York or Buffalo--she had never seen Niagara Falls--and they could be

married there. She had spoken recently of visiting her brother at West

Point. Then they could come here and settle down. He decided that this

must be so, wrote to her to that effect, and vaguely hinted to Smite and

MacHugh that he might get married shortly.

This was a great blow to his partners in art, for Eugene was very

popular with them. He had the habit, with those he liked, of jesting

constantly. "Look at the look of noble determination on Smite's brow

this morning," he would comment cheerfully on getting up; or "MacHugh,

you lazy lout, crawl out and earn your living."

MacHugh's nose, eyes and ears would be comfortably buried in the folds

of a blanket.

"These hack artists," Eugene would sigh disconsolately. "There's not

much to be made out of them. A pile of straw and a couple of boiled

potatoes a day is all they need."

"Aw, cut it out," MacHugh would grunt.

"To hell, to hell, I yell, I yell," would come from somewhere in the

voice of Smite.

"If it weren't for me," Eugene would go on, "God knows what would become

of this place. A lot of farmers and fishermen trying to be artists."

"And laundry wagon drivers, don't forget that," MacHugh would add,

sitting up and rubbing his tousled head, for Eugene had related some of

his experiences. "Don't forget the contribution made by the American

Steam Laundry Company to the world of true art."

"Collars and cuffs I would have you know is artistic," Eugene at once

declared with mock dignity, "whereas plows and fish is trash."

Sometimes this "kidding" would continue for a quarter of an hour at a

stretch, when some one remark really brighter than any other would

dissolve the whole in laughter. Work began after breakfast, to which

they usually sallied forth together, and would continue unbroken save

for necessary engagements or periods of entertainment, lunch and so on,

until five in the afternoon.

They had worked together now for a couple of years. They had, by

experience, learned of each other's reliability, courtesy, kindness and

liberality. Criticism was free, generous, and sincerely intended to be

helpful. Pleasure trips, such as walks on grey, lowery days, or in rain

or brilliant sunshine, or trips to Coney Island, Far Rockaway, the

theatres, the art exhibitions, the odd and peculiar restaurants of

different nationalities, were always undertaken in a spirit of joyous

camaraderie. Jesting as to morality, their respective abilities, their

tendencies and characteristics were all taken and given in good part. At

one time it would be Joseph Smite who would come in for a united

drubbing and excoriation on the part of Eugene and MacHugh. At another

time Eugene or MacHugh would be the victim, the other two joining forces

vigorously. Art, literature, personalities, phases of life, philosophy,

were discussed by turn. As with Jerry Mathews, Eugene had learned of new

things from these men--the life of fisher-folk, and the characteristics

of the ocean from Joseph Smite; the nature and spirit of the great West

from MacHugh. Each appeared to have an inexhaustible fund of experiences

and reminiscences which refreshed and entertained the trio day by day

year in and year out. They were at their best strolling through some

exhibit or preliminary view of an art collection offered for sale, when

all their inmost convictions of what was valuable and enduring in art

would come to the surface. All three were intolerant of reputations as

such, but were strong for individual merit whether it carried a great

name or not. They were constantly becoming acquainted with the work of

some genius little known here, and celebrating his talents, each to the

others. Thus Monet, Degas, Manet, Ribera, Monticelli, by turns came up

for examination and praise.

When Eugene then, toward the end of September, announced that he might

be leaving them shortly, there was a united wail of opposition. Joseph

Smite was working on a sea scene at the time, doing his best to get the

proper colour harmony between the worm-eaten deck of a Gold Coast

trading ship, a half naked West Coast negro handling a broken wheel, and

a mass of blue black undulations in the distance which represented the

boundless sea.

"G'wan!" said Smite, incredulously, for he assumed that Eugene was

jesting. There had been a steady stream of letters issuing from

somewhere in the West and delivered here week after week, as there had

been for MacHugh, but this by now was a commonplace, and apparently

meant nothing. "You marry? What the hell do you want to get married for?

A fine specimen you will make! I'll come around and tell your wife."

"Sure," returned Eugene. "It's true, I may get married." He was amused

at Smite's natural assumption that it was a jest.

"Stow that," called MacHugh, from his easel. He was working on a country

corner picture, a group of farmers before a country post office. "You

don't want to break up this shack, do you?" Both of these men were fond

of Eugene. They found him inspiring, helpful, always intensely vigorous

and apparently optimistic.

"I don't want to break up any shack. But haven't I a right to get

married?"

"I vote no, by God!" said Smite emphatically. "You'll never go out of

here with my consent. Peter, are we going to stand for anything like

that?"

"We are not," replied MacHugh. "We'll call out the reserves if he tries

any game like that on us. I'll prefer charges against him. Who's the

lady, Eugene?"

"I bet I know," suggested Smite. "He's been running up to Twenty-sixth

Street pretty regularly." Joseph was thinking of Miriam Finch, to whom

Eugene had introduced both him and MacHugh.

"Nothing like that, surely," inquired MacHugh, looking over at Eugene to

see if it possibly could be so.

"It's all true, fellers," replied Eugene, "--as God is my judge. I'm

going to leave you soon."

"You're not really talking seriously, are you, Witla?" inquired Joseph

soberly.

"I am, Joe," said Eugene quietly. He was studying the perspective of his

sixteenth New York view,--three engines coming abreast into a great yard

of cars. The smoke, the haze, the dingy reds and blues and yellows and

greens of kicked about box cars were showing with beauty--the vigor and

beauty of raw reality.

"Soon?" asked MacHugh, equally quietly. He was feeling that touch of

pensiveness which comes with a sense of vanishing pleasures.

"I think some time in October, very likely," replied Eugene.

"Jesus Christ, I'm sorry to hear that," put in Smite.

He laid down his brush and strolled over to the window. MacHugh, less

expressive in extremes, worked on medatively.

"When'd you reach that conclusion, Witla?" he asked after a time.

"Oh, I've been thinking it over for a long time, Peter," he returned. "I

should really have married before if I could have afforded it. I know

how things are here or I wouldn't have sprung this so suddenly. I'll

hold up my end on the rent here until you get someone else."

"To hell with the rent," said Smite. "We don't want anyone else, do we,

Peter? We didn't have anyone else before."

Smite was rubbing his square chin and contemplating his partner as if

they were facing a catastrophe.

"There's no use talking about that," said Peter. "You know we don't care

about the rent. Do you mind telling us who you're going to marry? Do we

know her?"

"You don't," returned Eugene. "She's out in Wisconsin. It's the one who

writes the letters. Angela Blue is her name."

"Well, here's to Angela Blue, by God, say I," said Smite, recovering his

spirits and picking up his paint brush from his board to hold aloft.

"Here's to Mrs. Eugene Witla, and may she never reef a sail to a storm

or foul an anchor, as they say up Nova Scotia way."

"Right oh," added MacHugh, catching the spirit of Smite's generous

attitude. "Them's my sentiments. When d'you expect to get married

really, Eugene?"

"Oh I haven't fixed the time exactly. About November first, I should

say. I hope you won't say anything about it though, either of you. I

don't want to go through any explanations."

"We won't, but it's tough, you old walrus. Why the hell didn't you give

us time to think it over? You're a fine jellyfish, you are."

He poked him reprimandingly in the ribs.

"There isn't anyone any more sorry than I am," said Eugene. "I hate to

leave here, I do. But we won't lose track of each other. I'll still be

around here."

"Where do you expect to live? Here in the city?" asked MacHugh, still a

little gloomy.

"Sure. Right here in Washington Square. Remember that Dexter studio

Weaver was telling about? The one in the third floor at sixty-one?

That's it."

"You don't say!" exclaimed Smite. "You're in right. How'd you get that?"

Eugene explained.

"Well, you sure are a lucky man," observed MacHugh. "Your wife ought to

like that. I suppose there'll be a cozy corner for an occasional

strolling artist?"

"No farmers, no sea-faring men, no artistic hacks--nothing!" declared

Eugene dramatically.

"You to Hell," said Smite. "When Mrs. Witla sees us--"

"She'll wish she'd never come to New York," put in Eugene.

"She'll wish she'd seen us first," said MacHugh.

BOOK II

THE STRUGGLE

CHAPTER I

The marriage ceremony between Eugene and Angela was solemnized at

Buffalo on November second. As planned, Marietta was with them. They

would go, the three of them, to the Falls, and to West Point, where the

girls would see their brother David, and then Marietta would return to

tell the family about it. Naturally, under the circumstances, it was a

very simple affair, for there were no congratulations to go through with

and no gifts--at least immediately--to consider and acknowledge. Angela

had explained to her parents and friends that it was quite impossible

for Eugene to come West at this time. She knew that he objected to a

public ceremony where he would have to run the gauntlet of all her

relatives, and so she was quite willing to meet him in the East and be

married there. Eugene had not troubled to take his family into his

confidence as yet. He had indicated on his last visit home that he might

get married, and that Angela was the girl in question, but since Myrtle

was the only one of his family who had seen her and she was now in

Ottumwa, Iowa, they could not recall anything about her. Eugene's father

was a little disappointed, for he expected to hear some day that Eugene

had made a brilliant match. His boy, whose pictures were in the

magazines so frequently and whose appearance was so generally

distinguished, ought in New York, where opportunities abounded, to marry

an heiress at least. It was all right of course if Eugene wanted to

marry a girl from the country, but it robbed the family of a possible

glory.

The spirit of this marriage celebration, so far as Eugene was concerned,

was hardly right. There was the consciousness, always with him, of his

possibly making a mistake; the feeling that he was being compelled by

circumstances and his own weakness to fulfil an agreement which might

better remain unfulfilled. His only urge was his desire, in the

gratification of which he might find compensation, for saving Angela

from an unhappy spinsterhood. It was a thin reed to lean on; there could

be no honest satisfaction in it. Angela was sweet, devoted, painstaking

in her attitude toward life, toward him, toward everything with which

she came in contact, but she was not what he had always fancied his true

mate would be--the be all and the end all of his existence. Where was

the divine fire which on this occasion should have animated him; the

lofty thoughts of future companionship; that intense feeling he had

first felt about her when he had called on her at her aunt's house in

Chicago? Something had happened. Was it that he had cheapened his ideal

by too close contact with it? Had he taken a beautiful flower and

trailed it in the dust? Was passion all there was to marriage? Or was it

that true marriage was something higher--a union of fine thoughts and

feelings? Did Angela share his with him? Angela did have exalted

feelings and moods at times. They were not sensibly intellectual--but

she seemed to respond to the better things in music and to some extent

in literature. She knew nothing about art, but she was emotionally

responsive to many fine things. Why was not this enough to make life

durable and comfortable between them? Was it not really enough? After he

had gone over all these points, there was still the thought that there

was something wrong in this union. Despite his supposedly laudable

conduct in fulfilling an obligation which, in a way, he had helped

create or created, he was not happy. He went to his marriage as a man

goes to fulfil an uncomfortable social obligation. It might turn out

that he would have an enjoyable and happy life and it might turn out

very much otherwise. He could not face the weight and significance of

the social theory that this was for life--that if he married her today

he would have to live with her all the rest of his days. He knew that

was the generally accepted interpretation of marriage, but it did not

appeal to him. Union ought in his estimation to be based on a keen

desire to live together and on nothing else. He did not feel the

obligation which attaches to children, for he had never had any and did

not feel the desire for any. A child was a kind of a nuisance. Marriage

was a trick of Nature's by which you were compelled to carry out her

scheme of race continuance. Love was a lure; desire a scheme of

propagation devised by the way. Nature, the race spirit, used you as you

would use a work-horse to pull a load. The load in this case was race

progress and man was the victim. He did not think he owed anything to

nature, or to this race spirit. He had not asked to come here. He had

not been treated as generously as he might have been since he arrived.

Why should he do what nature bid?

When he met Angela he kissed her fondly, for of course the sight of her

aroused the feeling of desire which had been running in his mind so

keenly for some time. Since last seeing Angela he had touched no woman,

principally because the right one had not presented herself and because

the memories and the anticipations in connection with Angela were so

close. Now that he was with her again the old fire came over him and he

was eager for the completion of the ceremony. He had seen to the

marriage license in the morning,--and from the train on which Angela and

Marietta arrived they proceeded in a carriage direct to the Methodist

preacher. The ceremony which meant so much to Angela meant practically

nothing to him. It seemed a silly formula--this piece of paper from the

marriage clerk's office and this instructed phraseology concerning

"love, honor and cherish." Certainly he would love, honor and cherish if

it were possible--if not, then not. Angela, with the marriage ring on

her finger and the words "with this ring I thee wed" echoing in her

ears, felt that all her dreams had come true. Now she was, really,

truly, Mrs. Eugene Witla. She did not need to worry about drowning

herself, or being disgraced, or enduring a lonely, commiserated old age.

She was the wife of an artist--a rising one, and she was going to live

in New York. What a future stretched before her! Eugene loved her after

all. She imagined she could see that. His slowness in marrying her was

due to the difficulty of establishing himself properly. Otherwise he

would have done it before. They drove to the Iroquois hotel and

registered as man and wife, securing a separate room for Marietta. The

latter pretending an urgent desire to bathe after her railroad journey,

left them, promising to be ready in time for dinner. Eugene and Angela

were finally alone.

He now saw how, in spite of his fine theories, his previous experiences

with Angela had deadened to an extent his joy in this occasion. He had

her again it was true. His desire that he had thought of so keenly was

to be gratified, but there was no mystery connected with it. His real

nuptials had been celebrated at Blackwood months before. This was the

commonplace of any marriage relation. It was intense and gratifying, but

the original, wonderful mystery of unexplored character was absent. He

eagerly took her in his arms, but there was more of crude desire than of

awed delight in the whole proceeding.

Nevertheless Angela was sweet to him. Hers was a loving disposition and

Eugene was the be all and end all of her love. His figure was of heroic

proportions to her. His talent was divine fire. No one could know as

much as Eugene, of course! No one could be as artistic. True, he was not

as practical as some men--her brothers and brothers-in-law, for

instance--but he was a man of genius. Why should he be practical? She

was beginning to think already of how thoroughly she would help him

shape his life toward success--what a good wife she would be to him. Her

training as a teacher, her experience as a buyer, her practical

judgment, would help him so much. They spent the two hours before dinner

in renewed transports and then dressed and made their public appearance.

Angela had had designed a number of dresses for this occasion,

representing the saving of years, and tonight at dinner she looked

exceptionally pretty in a dress of black silk with neck piece and half

sleeves of mother-of-pearl silk, set off with a decoration of seed

pearls and black beads in set designs. Marietta, in a pale pink silk of

peachblow softness of hue with short sleeves and a low cut bodice was,

with all her youth and natural plumpness and gaiety of soul, ravishing.

Now that she had Angela safely married, she was under no obligations to

keep out of Eugene's way nor to modify her charms in order that her

sister's might shine. She was particularly ebullient in her mood and

Eugene could not help contrasting, even in this hour, the qualities of

the two sisters. Marietta's smile, her humor, her unconscious courage,

contrasted so markedly with Angela's quietness.

The luxuries of the modern hotel have become the commonplaces of

ordinary existence, but to the girls they were still strange enough to

be impressive. To Angela they were a foretaste of what was to be an

enduring higher life. These carpets, hangings, elevators, waiters,

seemed in their shabby materialism to speak of superior things.

One day in Buffalo, with a view of the magnificent falls at Niagara, and

then came West Point with a dress parade accidentally provided for a

visiting general and a ball for the cadets. Marietta, because of her

charm and her brother's popularity, found herself so much in demand at

West Point that she extended her stay to a week, leaving Eugene and

Angela free to come to New York together and have a little time to

themselves. They only stayed long enough to see Marietta safely housed

and then came to the city and the apartment in Washington Square.

It was dark when they arrived and Angela was impressed with the

glittering galaxy of lights the city presented across the North River

from Forty-second Street. She had no idea of the nature of the city, but

as the cab at Eugene's request turned into Broadway at Forty-second

Street and clattered with interrupted progress south to Fifth Avenue she

had her first glimpse of that tawdry world which subsequently became

known as the "Great White Way." Already its make-believe and inherent

cheapness had come to seem to Eugene largely characteristic of the city

and of life, but it still retained enough of the lure of the flesh and

of clothes and of rush-light reputations to hold his attention. Here

were dramatic critics and noted actors and actresses and chorus girls,

the gods and toys of avid, inexperienced, unsatisfied wealth. He showed

Angela the different theatres, called her attention to distinguished

names; made much of restaurants and hotels and shops and stores that

sell trifles and trash, and finally turned into lower Fifth Avenue,

where the dignity of great houses and great conservative wealth still

lingered. At Fourteenth Street Angela could already see Washington Arch

glowing cream white in the glare of electric lights.

"What is that?" she asked interestedly.

"It's Washington Arch," he replied. "We live in sight of that on the

south side of the Square."

"Oh! but it is beautiful!" she exclaimed.

It seemed very wonderful to her, and as they passed under it, and the

whole Square spread out before her, it seemed a perfect world in which

to live.

"Is this where it is?" she asked, as they stopped in front of the studio

building.

"Yes, this is it. How do you like it?"

"I think it's beautiful," she said.

They went up the white stone steps of the old Bride house in which was

Eugene's leased studio, up two flights of red-carpeted stairs and

finally into the dark studio where he struck a match and lit, for the

art of it, candles. A soft waxen glow irradiated the place as he

proceeded and then Angela saw old Chippendale chairs, a Heppelwhite

writing-table, a Flemish strong box containing used and unused drawings,

the green stained fish-net studded with bits of looking glass in

imitation of scales, a square, gold-framed mirror over the mantel, and

one of Eugene's drawings--the three engines in the gray, lowering

weather, standing large and impressive upon an easel. It seemed to

Angela the perfection of beauty. She saw the difference now between the

tawdry gorgeousness of a commonplace hotel and this selection and

arrangement of individual taste. The glowing candelabrum of seven

candles on either side of the square mirror surprised her deeply. The

black walnut piano in the alcove behind the half draped net drew forth

an exclamation of delight. "Oh, how lovely it all is!" she exclaimed and

ran to Eugene to be kissed. He fondled her for a few minutes and then

she left again to examine in detail pictures, pieces of furniture,

ornaments of brass and copper.

"When did you get all this?" she asked, for Eugene had not told her of

his luck in finding the departing Dexter and leasing it for the rent of

the studio and its care. He was lighting the fire in the grate which had

been prepared by the house attendant.

"Oh, it isn't mine," he replied easily. "I leased this from Russell

Dexter. He's going to be in Europe until next winter. I thought that

would be easier than waiting around to fix up a place after you came. We

can get our things together next fall."

He was thinking he would be able to have his exhibition in the spring,

and perhaps that would bring some notable sales. Anyhow it might bring a

few, increase his repute and give him a greater earning power.

Angela's heart sank just a little but she recovered in a moment, for

after all it was very exceptional even to be able to lease a place of

this character. She went to the window and looked out. There was the

great square with its four walls of houses, the spread of trees, still

decorated with a few dusty leaves, and the dozens of arc lights

sputtering their white radiance in between, the graceful arch, cream

white over at the entrance of Fifth Avenue.

"It's so beautiful," she exclaimed again, coming back to Eugene and

putting her arms about him. "I didn't think it would be anything as fine

as this. You're so good to me." She put up her lips and he kissed her,

pinching her cheeks. Together they walked to the kitchen, the bedroom,

the bathroom. Then after a time they blew out the candles and retired

for the night.