II

Mr. Thorne had changed his seat, and the sound of a fresh chair creaking

under his comfortable weight was a touch of commonplace welcomed by his

wife with her usual laugh, half amused and half apologetic.

"Why do you go off there, Henry? Do you expect us to follow you?"

"There's a breeze around the corner of the house!" he ejaculated fervently.

"Go and find it, then; we do not need you. Do we?"

"_I_ need him," said the girl in her sweetest tones. "He helped me once,

without a word. It helps me now to have him sitting there"--

"Without a word!" Mrs. Thorne irrepressibly supplied.

"Why can't we let her finish?" Thorne demanded, hitching his chair into an

attitude of attention.

It was impossible for Miss Benedet to take up her story in the key in which

she had left off. She began again rather flatly, allowing for the chill of

interruptions:--

"To go back to that summer; I was in my sixteenth year, and the policy

of expansion was to have begun. But father's health broke, and mama was

traveling with him and a cortège of nurses, trying one change after

another. It was duller than ever at the ranch. We sat down three at table

in a dining-room forty feet long, Aunt Isabel Dwight, Fräulein Henschel,

and myself. Fräulein was the resident governess. She was a great,

soft-hearted, injudicious creature, a mass of German interjections, but

she had the grand style on the piano. There had been weeks of such weather

as we are having now. Exercise was impossible till after sundown. I had

dreamed of a breath of freedom, but instead of the open door I was in

straiter bonds than ever.

"I revolted first against keeping hours. I would not get up to breakfast,

I refused to study, it was too hot to practice. I took my own head about

books, and had my first great orgy of the Russians. I used to lie beside

a chink of light in the darkened library and read while Fräulein in the

music-room held orgies of her own. She had just missed being a great

singer; but she was a master of her instrument, and her accompaniments were

divine. What voice she had was managed with feeling and a pure method, and

where voice failed her the piano thrilled and sobbed, and broke in chords

like the sea.

"I can give you no idea of the effect that Tolstoi, combined with

Fräulein's music, had upon me. My heart hung upon the pauses in her

song; it beat, as I read, as if I had been running. I would forget to

breathe between the pages. One day Fräulein came in and found me in the

back chapters of 'Anna Karénina.' She had been playing one of Lizst's

rhapsodies--the twelfth. Waves of storm and passion had been thundering

through the house, with keen little rifts of melody between, too sweet

almost to be endured. She was very negligée, as the weather obliged us to

be. Her great white arms were bare above the elbow, and as wet as if she

had been over the wash-tub.

"'That is not a book for a _jeune fille_,' she said.

"I was in a rapture of excitement; the interruption made me wild. 'All the

books are for me,' I told her. 'I will read what I please.'

"'You will go mad!'

"I went on reading.

"'You have no way to work it off. You will not study, you cannot sing, you

write no letters, the mother does not believe'--

"'Do go away!' I cried.

"'--in the duty to the neighbor. Ach! what will you do with the whole of

Tolstoi and Turgenieff shut up within you?'

"'I can ride,' I said. 'If you don't want me to go mad, leave me in the

evenings to myself. Take my place in the carriage with Aunt Isabel, and let

me ride alone.'

"Fräulein had lived in bonds herself, and she had the soul of an artist.

She knew what it is, for days together, to have barely an hour to one's own

thoughts; never to step out alone of a summer night, after a long, hot,

feverish day. She let me go with old Manuel, the head groom, as my escort.

He was no more hindrance to solitude than a pine-tree or a post.

"The reading and the music and the heat went on. I was in a fever of

emotion such as I had never known. Fräulein perceived it. She recommended

'My Religion' as an antidote to the romances. I did not want his religion.

I wanted his men and women, his reading of the human soul, the largeness of

incident, the sense of time and space, the intricacy of family life, the

problems of race, the march of nations across the great world-canvas.

"I rode--not alone, but with the high-strung beings that lived between the

pages of my books: men and women who knew no curb, who stopped at nothing,

and who paid the price of their passionate mistakes. Old Manuel, standing

by the horses, looked strange to me. I spoke to him dramatically, as the

women I read of would have spoken. Nothing could have added to or detracted

from his own manner. He was of the old Spanish stock, but for the first

time I saw his picturesqueness. I liked him to call me 'the Niña,' and

address me in the third person with his eyes upon the ground.

"All this was preparatory. It is part of my defense; but do not forget the

heat, the imprisonment, the sense of relief when the sun went down, the

wild, bounding rapture of those night rides.

"One evening it was not Manuel who stood by the horses in the white track

between the laurels. It was a figure as statuesque as his, but younger, and

the pose was not that of a servant. It was the stand-at-ease of a soldier,

or of an Indian wrapped in his blanket in the city square. This man was

conscious of being looked at, but his training, of whatever sort, would not

permit him to show it. Plainly the training had not been that of a groom.

I was obliged to send him to the stables for his coat, and remind him that

his place was behind. He took the hint good-humoredly, with the nonchalance

of a big boy condescending to be taught the rules of some childish game. As

we were riding through the woods later, I caught the scent of tobacco. It

was my groom smoking. I told him he could not smoke and ride with me. He

threw away his cigarette and straightened himself in the saddle with such

a smile as he might have bestowed on the whims of a child. He obeyed me

exactly in everything, with an exaggerated ironical precision, and seemed

to find amusement in it. I questioned him about Manuel. He had gone to one

of the lower ranches, would not be back for weeks. By whose orders was he

attending me? By Manuel's, he said. He must then have had qualifications.

"'What is one to call you?' I asked him.

"He hesitated an instant. 'Jim is what I answer to around here,' said he.

"'What is your _name_?' I repeated.

"'The lady can call me anything she likes,'--he spoke in a low, lazy

voice,--'but Dick Malaby is my name.'

"We have better heroes now than the Cheyenne cowboys, but I felt as a girl

to-day would feel if she discovered she had been telling one of the men of

the Merrimac to ride behind!"

"They would not need to be told," Mrs. Thorne interjected.

"No, that is the difference; but discipline did not appeal to me then;

recklessness did. Every man on the place had taken sides on the Wyoming

question; feeling ran high. Some of them had friends and relatives among

the victims. Yet this man in hiding had tossed me his name to play with,

not even asking for my silence, though it was the price of his life, and

all in a light-hearted contempt for the curious ways of the 'tony set,' as

he would have called us.

"I signed to him one evening to ride up. 'I want you to talk to me,' I

said. 'Tell me about the cattle war.'

"'Miss Benedet forgets--my place is behind.' He touched his hat and fell

back again. Lesson for lesson--we were quits. I made no further attempt to

corrupt my own pupil.

"We rode in silence after that, but I was never without the sense of his

ironical presence. I was conscious of showing off before him. I wished him

to see that I could ride. Fences and ditches, rough or smooth, he never

interfered with my wildest pace. I could not extract from him a look of

surprise, far less the admiration that I wanted. What was a girl's riding

to him? He knew a pace--all the paces--that I could never follow. I felt

the absurdity of our mutual position, its utter artificiality, and how it

must strike him.

"In the absence of words between us, externals spoke with greater force.

He had the Greek line of head and throat, and he sat his horse with a

dare-devil repose. The eloquence of his mute attitudes, his physical

mastery of the conditions, his strength repressed, tied to my silly

freaks and subject to my commands, while his thoughts roamed free! That

was the beginning. It lasted through a week of starlight and a week of

moonlight--lyric nights with the hot, close days between; and each night

an increasing interest attached to the moment when he was to put me on my

horse. I make no apology for myself after that.

"One evening we approached a gate at the farther end of our longest course,

and the gate stood open. He rode on to close it. I stopped him. 'I am going

out,' I said. It was a resolution taken that moment. He held up his watch

to the light, which made me angry.

"'Go back to the stables,' I said, 'if you are due there. _I_ don't want to

know the time.'

"He brought his horse alongside. 'Where is Miss Benedet going, please?'

"'Anywhere,' I said, 'where it will be cool in the morning.'

"'Miss Benedet will have a long ride. Does she wish for company?'

"I did not answer. Something drove me forward, though I was afraid.

"'Outside that gate,' he went on quietly, '_I_ shall set the pace, and I do

not ride behind.' Still I did not answer. 'Is that the understanding?'

"'Ride where you please,' I said.

"After that he took command, not roughly or familiarly, but he no longer

used the third person, as I had instructed him, in speaking to me. The

first time he said 'you' it sent the blood to my face. We were far up the

mountain then, and morning was upon us.

"I wish to be definite here. From the moment I saw him plainly face to face

the illusion was gone. Before, I had seen him by every light but daylight,

and generally in profile. The profile is not the man. It is the plan in

outline, but the eyes, the mouth, tell what he has made of himself. So

attitude is not speech. As a shape in the moonlight he had been eloquent,

but once at my side, talking with me naturally--I need not go on! From that

moment our journey was to me a dream of horror, a series of frantic plans

for escape.

"All fugitives on the coast must put to sea. The Oakland ferry would

have answered my purpose. I would never have been seen with him in the

city--alive.

"But at Colfax we met your husband. He knows--you know--the rest."

* * * * *

In thinking of the one who had first pitied her, pity for herself overcame

her, and the proud penitent broke down.

Mr. and Mrs. Thorne sat in the shy silence of older persons who are past

the age of demonstrative sympathy. The girl rose, and as she passed her

hostess she put out her hand. Mrs. Thorne took it quickly and followed her.

They found a seat by themselves in a dark corner of the porch.

"Your poor, good husband--how tired he is! How patiently you have listened,

and what does it all come to?"

"Think of yourself, not of us," said Mrs. Thorne.

"Oh, it's all over for me. I have had my fight. But you have _him_ to

grieve for."

"Shall you not grieve for him yourself a little?"

The girl sat up quickly.

"If you mean do I give him up without a struggle--I do not. But you need

not say that to him. I told him that it was all a mistake; I did not--do

not love him."

"How could you say that"--

"It was necessary. Without that I should have been leaving it to his

generosity. Now it remains only to show him how little he has lost."

"But could you not have done that without belying yourself? You do--surely

you still care for him a little?"

"Insatiate mother! Is there any other proof I can give?"

"Your hand is icy cold."

"And my face is burning hot. Good-night. May I say, 'Now let thy servant

depart in peace'?"

"I shall not know how to let you go to-morrow, and I do not see, myself,

why you should go."

"You will--after I am gone."

"My dear, are you crying? I cannot see you. How cruel we have been, to sit

and let you turn your life out for our inspection!"

"It was a free exhibition! No one asked me, and I did not even come

prepared, more than seven years' study of my own case has prepared me.

"I was a child; but the fault was mine. I should have been allowed to

suffer for it in the natural way. No good ever comes of skulking. But they

hurried me off to Europe, and began a cowardly system of concealment. They

made me almost forget my own misconduct in shame for the things they did by

way of covering it up. My mother never took me in her arms and cried over

my disgrace. She would not speak of it, or allow me to speak. Not a word

nor an admission; the thing must be as though it had never been!

"They ruined Dick Malaby with their hush-money. They might better have

shot him, but that would have made talk. My father died with only servants

around him. Mama could not go to him. She was too busy covering my retreat.

Oh, she kept a gallant front! I admired her, I pitied her, but I loathed

her policy. Does not every girl know when she has been dedicated to the

great god Success, and what the end of success must be?

"I told mama at last that if she would bring men to propose to me I should

tell them the truth. Does Lord So-and-so wish to marry a girl who ran away

with her father's groom? That was the breach between us. She has thrown

herself into it. She is going to marry a title herself, not to let it go

out of the family. Have you not heard of the engagement? She is to be a

countess, and the property is controlled by her, so now I have an excuse

for doing something."

"My dear!" Mrs. Thorne took the girl's cold hands in hers. "Do you mean

that you are not your father's heiress?"

"Only by mama's last will and testament. We know what that would be if she

made it now!"

"It was _then_ you came home?"

"It was then, when I learned that one of my rejected suitors was to become

my father. He might be my grandfather. But let us not be vulgar!"

"Aren't you girls going to bed to-night?" Mr. Thorne inquired, with his

usual leaning toward peace and quietness. "You can't settle everything at

one sitting."

"Everything is settled, Mr. Thorne, and I am going to bed," said Miss

Benedet.

Mrs. Thorne did not release her hands. "I want to ask you one more

question."

"I know exactly what it is, and I will tell you to-morrow."

"Tell me now; it is perfectly useless going to your room; the temperature

over your bed is ninety-nine."

"The question, then! Why did I allow your son to commit himself in

ignorance?"

"No, _no_!" Mrs. Thorne protested.

"Yes, yes! You have asked that question, you must have. You are an angel,

but you are a mother, too."

"I have asked no questions since you began to tell your story; but I have

wondered how Willy could have found courage, in one week, to offer himself

to such gifts and possessions as yours."

"A mother, and a worldly mother!" Miss Benedet apostrophized. "I did not

look for such considerations from you. And you are troubled for the modesty

of your son?"

"My dear, he has nothing, and he is--of course we think him everything he

should be--but he is not a handsome boy."

"Thank Heaven he is not."

"And he does not talk"--

"About himself. No."

"Ah, you do care for him! You understand him. You would"--

Miss Benedet rose to her feet with decision.

"You have not answered my question," the unconscionable mother pursued.

"Does he know--is it known that you are not the great heiress your name

would imply?"

"Everything is known," said the girl. "You do not read your society column,

I see. Six weeks ago you might have learned the fate of my father's

millions."

She stood by the balustrade and leaned out under the stars, taking a deep

breath of the night's growing coolness. A rose-spray touched her face. She

put it back, and a shower of dry, scented petals fell upon her breast and

sleeve.

"There is always one point in every true story," she said in a tired voice,

"where explanations cease to explain. The mysteries claim their share in

us, deny them as we will. I don't know why it was, but from the time I

threw off all that bondage to society and struck out for myself, I felt

made over. Life began again with life's realities. I came home to earn my

bread, and on that footing I felt sane and clean and honest. The question

became not what I am or was, but what could I do? I discussed the question

with your son."

"You discussed!"

"We did, indeed. We went over the whole field. East and west we tested

my accomplishments by the standards of those who want teachers for their

children. I have gone rather further in music than anything else. Even

Fräulein would hardly say now I lacked an outlet. I was working things off

one evening on the piano--many things beyond the power of speech--the help

of prayer, I might say. There were whispers about me already in the house."

"What _do_ you mean?"

"People talking--my mother's old friends. It was rather serious, as I had

been thinking of their daughters for pupils. I thought I was alone, but

your son--the 'boy' as you call him--was listening. He came and stood

beside me. For a person who does not talk, he can make himself quite well

understood. I tried to go on playing. My blinded eyes, the wrong notes,

told him all. I lay and thought all night, and asked myself, why might I

not be happy and give happiness, like other women of my age. I denied to

my conscience that I was bound to tell him, since I was not, never had

been, what that story in words would report me. Why should I affect a lie

in order literally, vainly to be honest? So a day passed, and another

sleepless night. And now I had his image of me to battle with. Then it

became impossible, and yet more necessary, and each day's silence buried

me deeper beyond the hope of speech. So I gave it up. Why should he have

in his wife less than I would ask for in my husband? I want none of your

experienced men. Such a record as his, such a look in the eyes, the

expression unawares of a life of sustained effort--always in one

direction"--

A white arm in a black sleeve pointed upward in silence.

"And you would rob him of his reward?" said the mother, in a choked voice.

"Mrs. Thorne! Do you not understand me? I am not talking for effect. But

this is what happens if one begins to explain. I did not come here to talk

to you for the rest of my life! It was your sweetness that undid me. I will

never again say what I think of parents in general."

* * * * *

"Maggie, do you know what time it is?" a suppressed voice issued an hour

later from that part of the house supposed to be dedicated to sleep. "Are

you going to sit up till morning?"

"I am looking for my letter," came the answer, in a tragic whisper.

"What letter?"

"My letter to Willy, that you wouldn't let me read to you last night."

"You don't want to read it to me now, do you?"

There was no reply. A careful step kept moving about the inner rooms,

newspapers rustled, and small objects were lifted and set down.

"Maggie, do come to bed! You can't mail your letter to-night."

"I don't want to mail it. I want to burn it. I will not have it on my

conscience a moment longer"--

"I wish you'd have me on your conscience! It's after one o'clock." The

voices were close together now, only an open door between the speakers.

"Won't you put something on and come out here, Henry? There is a light in

Ito's house. I suppose you wouldn't let me go out and ask him?"

"I suppose not!"

"Then won't you go and ask if he saw a letter on my desk, sealed and

addressed?"

Mr. Thorne sat up in bed disgustedly. "What is Ito doing with a light this

time of night?"

"Hush, dear; don't speak so loud. He's studying. He's preparing himself to

go into the Japanese navy."

"He is, is he! And that's why he can't get us our breakfast before

half-past eight. I'll see about that light!"

"The letter, the letter!" Mrs. Thorne prompted in a ghostly--whisper. "Ask

him if he saw it on my desk--a square blue envelope, thin paper."

The studious little cook was seated by a hot kerosene-lamp, at a table

covered with picture-papers, soft Japanese books, and writing-materials. He

was in his stocking-feet and shirt-sleeves, and his mental efforts appeared

to have had a confusing effect on his usually sleek black hair, which stood

all ways distractedly, while his sleepy eyes blinked under Mr. Thorne's

brusque examination.

"I care fo' everything," he repeated, eliminating the consonants as he slid

along. "Missa Tho'ne letta--all a-ready fo' mail--I putta pos'age-stamp,

gifa to shif'-boss. I think Sa' F'a'cisco in a mo'ning. I care fo'

everything!"

"Ito cares for everything," Mr. Thorne quoted, in answer to his wife's

haggard inquiries. "He stamped your letter and sent it to town yesterday by

one of the day-shift men."

"Now what shall be done!" Mrs. Thorne exclaimed tragically.

"I know what _I_ shall do!" Mr. Thorne wrapped his toga around him with

an air of duty done. But a husband cannot escape so easily as that. His

ministering angel sat beside his bed for half an hour longer, brooding

aloud over the day's disaster, with a rigid eye upon the question of

personal accountability.

"If you had not stopped me, Henry, when I tried to confess about my letter!

There's no time for the truth like the present."

"My dear, when a person is telling a story you don't want to interrupt with

quibbles of conscience; if it made it any easier for her to think us a

little better than we are, why rob her of the delusion?"

"I shall have to rob her of it to-morrow. To think of my sitting there, a

whited sepulchre, and being called generous and forbearing and merciful,

with that letter lying on my desk all the time!"

"It would be lying there still except for an accident. She will see how you

feel about it. Give her something to forgive in you. Depend upon it, she'll

rise to the occasion."

* * * * *

As the mother passed her guest's room next morning she paused and looked

remorsefully at the closed door.

"I ought to have told her that we never shut our doors. She must be

smothered. I wonder if she can be asleep."

Mr. Thorne went on into the dining-room. Mrs. Thorne knocked, in a whisper

as it were. There was no answer. She softly unlatched the door, and a draft

of air crept through, widening it with a prolonged and wistful creak. The

sleeper did not stir. She had changed her pillows to the foot of the bed,

and was lying in the full light, with her window-curtains drawn. In all the

room there was an air of abandonment, an exhausted memory of the night's

despairing heat. Mrs. Thorne stepped across the matting, and noiselessly

bowed the shutters. A dash of spray from the lawn-sprinkler was spattering

the sill, threatening to dampen a pile of dainty clothing laid upon a

chair. She moved the chair, looked once more at the lovely dark-lashed

sleeper, and left her again in peace.

Beside her plate at the breakfast-table there was a great heap of roses,

gathered that morning, her husband's usual greeting. She praised them as

she always did, and then began to finger them over, choosing the finest to

save for her guest. Rare as they were in kind, and opened that morning,

there was not a perfect rose among them. Each one showed the touch of

blight in bloom. Every petal, just unclosed and dewy at the core, was

curled along the edges, scorched in the bud. It was not mildew or canker or

disease, only "a touch of sun."

"I won't give them to her," said the mother; "they are too like herself."

She saw her husband go forth into the heat again, and blamed herself,

according to her wont of a morning after the night's mistakes, for robbing

him of his rest and heaping her self-imposed burdens upon him. He laughed

at the remorse tenderly, and brushed away the burdens, and faced the day's

actualities with the not too fine remark, "I must go and see what's loose

outside."

Everything was "loose" apparently. Something about a "hoist" had broken

in the night, and the men were still at work without breakfast, an

eighteen-hour shift. The order came for Ito to send out coffee and bread

and fruit to the famished gang. Ito was in the lowest of spirits; had just

given his mistress warning that he could not stay. The affair of the letter

had wounded his susceptibilities; he must go where he would be better

understood. All this in a soft, respectful undertone, his mistress trying

to comfort him, and incidentally hasten his response to the requisition

from outside. At eleven o'clock Mr. Thorne sent in a pencil message on a

card: "I shall not be home to lunch. Does she want to get the 12:30 train?"

Mrs. Thorne replied in the same manner, by bearer: "She did, but she is

asleep. I don't like to wake her."

The darkened house preserved its silence, a restless endurance of the

growing heat. Mrs. Thorne, in the thinnest of morning gowns, her damp hair

brushed back from her powdered temples, sat alone at luncheon. Ito had put

a melancholy perfection into his last salad. It was his valedictory.

She was about to rise when Miss Benedet came silently into the room with

her long, even step. Her dark eyes were full of sleep. Mrs. Thorne rang,

and began to fuss a little over her guest to cover the shyness each felt

at the beginning of a new day. They had parted at too high a pitch of

expression to meet again in the same emotional key.

Miss Benedet looked at the clock, lifting her eyebrows wearily. "I have

lost my train," she remarked, but added no reproaches. "Is there an evening

train to the city?"

"Not from here," Mrs. Thorne replied; "but we could send you over to Colfax

to catch the night train from there. I hoped we could have you another

day."

"That would be impossible," said Miss Benedet; "but I shall be giving you a

great deal of trouble."

"Oh, no; it is only ten miles. Mr. Thorne will take you; we will both take

you. It is a beautiful drive by moonlight through the woods. Was I wrong

not to call you?"

"If you were, you will be punished by having me on your hands this long,

hot afternoon. I ought to have gone last night. When one has parted with

the very last bit of one's self, one should make haste to remove the

shell."

"Then you would have left me with something remaining on my mind, something

I must get rid of at once. Come, let us go where we cannot see each other's

faces. I am deeply in the wrong concerning you."

Mrs. Thorne went on incriminating herself so darkly in her preface that

when she came to the actual offense her confessor smiled. "I am so

relieved!" she exclaimed. "This is much more like real life. I felt you

must be keeping something back, or, if not, I could never live up to such a

pitch of generosity. I am glad you did not reach it all at once."

"But what becomes of the truth--the story as it should have been told to

Willy? Oh, I have sinned, for want of patience, of faith--not against you,

dear, but my son!"

After a silence Miss Benedet said, "Now for the heart of my own weakness.

Suppose that I did have a hope. Suppose that I had laid the responsibility

upon you, the parents, hoping that you would decide for happiness, mere

happiness, without question of desert or blame. And suppose you had

defended me to him. Would that have been best? Where then would be his

cure? Now let us put away all cowardice, for him as well as for ourselves.

Happiness for him could have but one foundation. You have told him the

facts; if he cannot bear them as all the world knows them, that is his

cure. I thank you. You knew where to put the knife."

"Oh, but this is cruel!" said the mother. "I don't want to be your judge.

You have had your punishment, and you took it like a queen. Now let us

think of Willy!"

"Please!" said the girl. "I cannot talk of this any more. We must stop

sometime."

The time of twilight came; the gasping house flung open doors and windows

to the night. Mr. Thorne pursued his evening walk alone among the fruits

and vegetables, counting his egg-plants, and marking the track of gophers

in his rows of artichokes. The women were strolling toward the hill. Miss

Benedet had put on a cloth skirt and stiff shirt-waist for her journey,

and suffered from the change, but did not show it. Her beauty was not of

the florid or melting order. Mrs. Thorne regarded her inconsolably, noting

with distinct and separate pangs each item of her loveliness, as she

moved serene and pale against the dark, resonant green of the pines. They

followed a foot-path back among the trees to a small gate or door in the

high boundary fence. Mrs. Thorne tried it to see if it were locked.

"Willy used to live, almost, on this hill when he came out for his

vacations." She spoke dreamily, as if thinking aloud. "He slept in that

tent. It looks like a little ghost to me these nights in the moonlight, the

curtains flap in such a lonely way. That gate was his back door through the

woods to town. His wheel used to lean against this tree. I miss his fair

head in the sun, and his white trousers springing up the hill. But one

cannot keep one's boy forever. You have made him a man, my dear."

The mother put out her hand timidly. She had ventured on forbidden ground

once more. But she was not rebuffed. The girl's hand clasped hers and

drew it around a slender waist, and they walked like two school friends

together.

"I cannot support the idea that you will never come again," mourned the

elder. "It is years since I have known a girl like you--a girl who can say

things. I can make no headway with girls in general. They are so big and

silent and athletic. They wear pins and badges, and belong to more _things_

than I have ever heard of!"

Miss Benedet laughed. "I am silent, too, sometimes," she said.

"But you are not dense!"

"I'm afraid you go very much to extremes in your likes and dislikes, dear

lady, and you are much younger than I, you know."

"I am quite aware of that," said Mrs. Thorne. "You have had seven years of

Europe to my twenty of Cathay."

"Dear Cathay!" the girl murmured, with moist eyes; "I could live in this

place forever."

"Where have you lived? Tell me in how many cities of the world."

"Oh, we never lived. We stayed in places for one reason or another. We were

two years in Vienna. I worked there. I was a pupil of Leschetizky."

"What!"

"Did I not tell you? I can play a little."

"A little! What does that exactly mean?"

"It means too much for drawing-room music, and not enough for the stage."

"You are not thinking of that, are you?"

"Why that voice of scorn? Have I hit upon one of your prejudices?"

"I am dreadfully old-fashioned about some things--publicity, for instance."

"It depends upon the kind, doesn't it? But you will never hear of me on

the concert stage. Leschetizky says I have not the poise I might have had.

He is very clever. There was a shock, he says, to the nerve centres. They

will never again be quite under control. It is true. At this moment I am

shivering within me because I must say good-by to one I might have had all

my life for a friend. Is it so?"

"My dear, if you mean me, I love you!"

"Call me Helen, then. You said 'my dear' before you knew me."

"Before I meant it."

* * * * *

"I wonder who can be arriving. That is the carriage I came out in last

night."

A light surrey with two seats passed below the hill, and was visible an

instant against a belt of sky.

"It is going to stop," said Mrs. Thorne. "Suppose we step back a little. I

shall not see visitors to-night. Very likely it is only some one for Mr.

Thorne."

A tall young man in traveling clothes stepped out upon the horse-block,

left his luggage there, and made ten strides up the walk. They heard his

step exploring the empty piazzas.

"It is Willy!" said Mrs. Thorne in a staccato whisper.

"Then good-by!" said Miss Benedet. "I will find Mr. Thorne in the garden.

Dearest Mrs. Thorne, you must let me go!"

"You will not see him? Not see Willy!"

"Not for worlds. He must not know that I am here. I trust you." She tore

herself away.

Mrs. Thorne stood paralyzed between the two--her advancing son, and her

fleeing guest.

"Willy!" she cried.

Her tall boy was bending over her--once more the high, fair head, the

smooth arch of the neck, which she could barely reach to put her arms about

it.

"Mother!" The word in his grave man's voice thrilled her as once had the

touch of his baby hands.

"I am afraid to look at you, my son. How is it with you?"

"I am all right, mother. How are things here?"

"Oh, don't speak of us! Did you get my letter?"

"This morning."

"And you read it, Willy?"

"Of course."

There was a silence. Mrs. Thorne clasped her son's arm and leaned her head

against it.

"I am sorry you worried so, mother."

"What does it matter about me?"

"I am sorry you took it so hard--because--I knew it all the time."

"You knew it! What do you mean?"

"A nice old lady told me. She was staying in the house. She cornered me and

told me a long story--the day after I met Miss Benedet."

"What an infamous old woman!"

"She called herself a friend of yours--warned me for your sake, she said,

and because she has sons of her own."

"Oh! Has she daughters?"

"Two--staying in the house."

"I see. She told it brutally, I suppose?"

"Quite so."

"Worse than I did, Willy?"

William the Silent held his peace.

"You did not believe it? How much of it did you believe?"

"Mother," he said, "do you think a man can't see what a girl is?"

"But what do you know about girls?"

"Where is she?"

"What!"

"Where is Helen? The man from Lord's said he brought her out here last

night."

"Did you not get her letter?" Mrs. Thorne evaded.

"Where shall I find her?"

"Willy, I am a perjured woman! I have been making mischief steadily for two

days."

"You might as well go on, mater." Willy beamed gravely upon his mother's

career of dissimulation.

"Don't, for pity's sake, be hopeful! She said she would not see you for

worlds."

"Then she hasn't gone."

Willy took a quick survey of the premises. He had long gray eyes and a set

mouth. He saw most things that he looked at, and when he aimed for a thing

he usually got somewhere near the mark.

"She is not in the house," he decided; "she is not on the hill--remains the

garden."

* * * * *

Mrs. Thorne stood alone, meditating on Miss Benedet's trust in her. She saw

her husband, her stool of repentance and her mercy-seat in one, plodding

toward her contentedly across the soft garden ground, stepping between the

lettuces and avoiding the parsley bed. He knocked off a huge fat kitchen

weed with his cane.

"Where is that girl?" he said. "It's time you got your things on. We ought

to be starting in ten minutes."

"If you can find Willy you'll probably find 'that girl'!" Mrs. Thorne

explained, and then proceeded to explain further, as she walked with her

husband back to the house.

"Well," he summed up, "what is your opinion of the universe up to date? Got

any faith in anything left?"