CHAPTER X.

It was the last Tuesday in November, and Mrs. Hardenburgh was giving

the first of her usual series of at-homes. An inveterate lion hunter

was this clever woman of sixty-odd summers, whose hair was as thick

and golden as a débutante’s, and whose complexion as pink and white.

This afternoon she was in a particularly complacent mood, for she had

arranged a piquant double attraction for her guests. When, however, by

six o’clock, both attractions had failed to materialize, the faintest

suggestion of a frown appeared on her remarkably smooth brow. Five

minutes later the appearance of a newcomer had dispelled it, and the

hostess was her humorous, smiling self.

The newcomer was Jane--Jane in a gown every line of which spoke Paris,

in a dream of a hat that sat on her proud little head like a coronet;

Jane, in short, in a perfect get-up and in radiant health and spirits.

Personally, we’d prefer to set it down that she looked pale, distrait;

that “concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,” etc.; but it would not

be true. Whatever the suffering within--and there was a rather deep,

intent look about the eyes--Mrs. De Mille presented an unconquered,

nay, a self-satisfied, front to this little New York world, and was

looking her very best.

As she made her way slowly down the long room to where her hostess

stood, it occurred to her that she was causing something of a

sensation. At first she modestly ascribed it to the fact that she had

been away for six months, and that this was her first public appearance

since her return. It dawned upon her presently, however, that the

rooms were filled with strangers, principally, and as the interest

deepened rather than lessened with her slow advance, she was forced to

acknowledge to herself that something beside her lengthened absence

was responsible for the attention she was receiving. The more puzzled

she grew, the more confidently she carried herself, and when a very

young bud in a very high treble agitatedly remarked to a _blasé_ youth:

“She’s not a bit disappointing, is she?” it expressed in words the

verdict of the rooms.

After greeting Mrs. Hardenburgh, the first familiar face Jane

encountered was Mr. Scott’s.

“So you’ve gone and gotten yourself engaged, faithless one?” she

observed, reproachfully, after they had shaken hands.

“Oh, I say, Jane----” he began, in exactly the same tone with which he

was wont, in the past, to preface one of his numerous proposals.

Jane regarded him with mock horror. “Billie, Billie, don’t tell me

you are going to propose!” she exclaimed, disapprovingly. “One rather

expects proposals from the married men nowadays, but from newly engaged

ones, fie! fie!”

Mr. Scott colored high. “You can’t think how the sight of you makes my

heart beat,” he said, agitatedly.

“Nonsense!” retorted Jane, snubbingly. “Point out your girl instantly.”

Pulling himself together with a palpable effort, Mr. Scott indicated a

sparkling brunette, one of a group of débutantes who were watching Jane

with intense interest.

“Why, she’s adorable!” exclaimed Mrs. De Mille. “Present me.” And Mr.

Scott, looking suddenly very proud, offered his arm.

“I’ve read the book,” murmured the little brunette, ecstatically, after

Jane had offered her felicitations. “It must be beautiful to be written

about like that.”

Mrs. De Mille stared and then grew pale. “The book!” she echoed. “I--I

don’t know what you mean!”

“Why, I thought----” began Mr. Scott’s pretty fiancée, looking as

though she regretted her own impulsiveness. But before she had a chance

to explain, a tall and extremely well-dressed young matron bore down

upon Jane and triumphantly carried her off.

“How well you’re looking, Betty,” observed Jane, surveying her friend

rather wistfully, when they were seated in a quiet corner.

“That’s because I’m so happy,” answered that lady, promptly. “Maurice

is such a dear! And now, Jane, tell me, when is the engagement to be

announced?”

Mrs. De Mille opened her eyes very wide. “Engagement!” she cried. “I

don’t know what you’re talking about. Whose engagement?”

“Why, yours and Mr. Ormsby’s,” retorted her friend. “Every line of the

book shows he’s desperately in love with you. Did you refuse him?”

Jane clutched Mrs. McClurg’s hand. “Is that awful book out, and does

everybody think it’s me?” she demanded, in a voice that trembled in

spite of her effort to control it.

Mrs. McClurg looked at her in astonishment. “Awful book!” she

exclaimed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mr. Ormsby’s

novel is the success of the year, and the heroine is an _extremely

flattering_ picture of you. All your friends have recognized it, and

they all agree with me.”

Jane rose. “If my friends think I’m the heartless and idiotic creature

that book pictures, then I have no friends,” she said, coldly.

“Good-by, Betty.” She turned to go, but Mrs. McClurg caught her hand.

“I don’t believe you’ve read the book, Jane de Mille,” she said. “The

heroine is not heartless. She’s a perfectly adorable creature, and

everybody--all the women envy you.”

“I haven’t seen the book,” admitted Jane, “but I read the manuscript,

and my recollection is that the author placed me a good deal lower than

the angels, to state it mildly. I never want to see it.”

“I can’t understand; there must be some mistake!” exclaimed Mrs.

McClurg. “Just wait here a minute.” She glided out from behind the

screen of palms, and, after a brief absence, came back to the nook

with a small, quietly bound little book in her hand. “Read that!” she

commanded, triumphantly, opening it and pointing to the title-page.

Reluctantly Jane raised her eyes and took in the brief contents. “The

Woman, by John Ormsby,” she read, and then, underneath, a single line,

“To her who inspired it,” and underneath that again this fragment of

verse:

Lean penury within that pen doth dwell

That to his subject lends not some small glory;

But he that writes of you, if he can tell

That you are you, so dignifies his story;

Let him but copy what in you is writ,

Not making worse what nature made so clear,

And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,

Making his style admired everywhere.

“Betty.” Jane lifted her head and looked at her friend with sudden

inspiration.

“Well,” retorted Mrs. McClurg, not too enthusiastically, for it had

just occurred to her that Mrs. De Mille had concealed a great deal.

“I want to sneak, and I want to take this book with me,” explained the

latter, shamelessly. “I don’t believe I have read it. Can you--will you

cover my retreat?”

Mrs. McClurg looked only half appeased and dubious. “Mr. Ormsby is

coming here this afternoon,” she said, severely. “I happen to know that

Mrs. Hardenburgh has been rejoicing at the thought that you were to

meet here in her drawing room.”

“Neat little arrangement,” observed Jane, ironically. Then she became

suddenly frightened. “I must go at once,” she said. “Oh, Betty, don’t

you see that I can’t see him here? Help me, there’s a good girl, and

come to me to-morrow--I have the same apartment, you know--and I’ll

tell you _everything_.”

And Mrs. McClurg, who was by no means hard-hearted, relented. When the

big doors finally closed upon Jane, she gave a sigh of relief, but it

ended with a gasp, for she found herself face to face with John Ormsby,

who, immaculately attired, was ascending the brownstone steps.

“How d’ye do?” said Mrs. De Mille, airily, extending her hand and

hoping fervently at the same time that the book which she had tucked

away underneath her arm was invisible.

He took her hand, but did not respond to her salutation, only gazed

hungrily into her face.

“Where in the world have you been hiding yourself?” he demanded,

finally, when Jane, with an effort, had removed her hand.

“Sounds as though I were a criminal,” commented Jane. “Did you miss any

spoons at the bungalow?”

He did not answer, only continued to stare at her, and so she went on,

nervously: “I’ve been in Paris chiefly. Some people don’t like Paris in

the summer time, but I adore it. But you’re Mrs. Hardenburgh’s lion. I

mustn’t detain you. _Au revoir!_” She started down the steps, but he

followed her determinedly. “If you think I’m going to lose sight of you

after my long search, you’re mistaken,” he said, quietly.

“Mrs. Hardenburgh will be furious, and you will be very impolite, if

you don’t go in at once,” said Jane, tucking the little book further

out of sight.

“I loathe those things,” he answered, disrespectfully. “I only

consented to come because I was told you might be there. But if

Paradise was just inside, and----”

“Hades,” interrupted Jane, demurely.

“And you were outside, nothing would induce me to go in.”

“The inference is so odious I refuse to be flattered,” she said, “but

you never were good at making pretty speeches. If you’re coming with

me”--briskly--“you’ll have to walk. I’m economizing. Uncle Jacob is

giving me an allowance, and I’m living on it.”

“But you’re rich, or almost rich, in your own right,” said Mr.

Ormsby, as they walked along. “The book promises to be preposterously

successful, and half the royalties are yours, you know.”

Jane grew suddenly frigid. “I beg that you will not refer to that

wretched affair,” she said, haughtily. “I have not read your book, and

I am not interested in it.”

Mr. Ormsby’s face became very downcast. “I was in hopes that you had

read it, and that it would explain----”

“There is really nothing to explain,” interrupted Jane. “I acted on a

reckless impulse, and was bored for my pains. I have no wish to read

your book, though”--civilly--“I’m glad for your sake it promises to be

a success.”

Mrs. De Mille’s fall followed fast on the heels of her little

exhibition of pride. A boy hurrying by with a bundle jostled her arm,

and the book she had been endeavoring to conceal fell to the pavement.

In stooping to recover it, Mr. Ormsby recognized it, but he returned it

to her without comment, and Jane perversely chose to feel affronted at

his silence.

“I met a friend at Mrs. Hardenburgh’s who was quite enthusiastic about

the book, and to please her I consented to take it home to read,” she

exclaimed, coldly.

“I would not bother myself about it, if I were you; it’s a poor thing,”

he returned, just as coldly. They walked for a square in silence, a

silence that, strange to relate, was not broken first by Jane but by

her companion.

“I have an explanation to make, and, in spite of the risk I run of

further offending you, I must make it,” he said, distantly. “When I

wrote that first absurd sketch I did not understand you. I thought that

you were as frivolous and as heartless as you appeared on the surface.”

“Indeed!” commented Jane, tilting her chin scornfully.

“And then something happened----” he paused.

“What was it?” she asked, eagerly, and bit her lip in vexation at

herself for displaying curiosity.

“I’m not going to tell you that,” he responded, coolly, “but it helped

me to an understanding of you. And then I was called to New York, and I

found when I got back that you had been at the bungalow--you left your

handkerchief there, you know--and that you had read the sketch, for

the papers were scattered about the floor, and I realized that----” he

hesitated.

“You realized what?” said Jane, defiantly.

“That I loved you,” he concluded, quietly.

The acknowledgment was so unexpected that it disconcerted Mrs. De

Mille, and she had nothing to say.

“I suppose _that_ bores you, too?” he said, half ironically.

“This is where I live,” was her only response. They had reached the

entrance to a smart uptown apartment house, and Jane paused. Her tone

was not exactly a dismissal one, and, as she faced him, Ormsby stared

at her anxiously.

“Is there--can there be any hope for me----” he began.

“While there’s life there’s hope, you know,” retorted Jane,

frivolously. “But I was just about to suggest that if you’re quite

certain you don’t want to go back to Mrs. Hardenburgh’s, I’ll give you

a cup of tea.”

Her tone was noncommittal, but as she led the way to the elevator, she

looked back at him over her shoulder and laughed softly, and a great

joy transfigured John Ormsby’s face.

[Illustration]

TO A ROADSIDE CEDAR

’Tis not for thee in ancient walks to throw

Thy pointed shadows o’er the sculptured stone,

Where marble fixes some immortal moan

Of art; nor, gathering gloom where waters flow

Past groves Lethean, crypts of human woe,

To lift thy cheering spires. Thy lot is strown

In newer, happier climes and lands unknown

To classic realms of storied pomps and show.

For thou, dear gnomon of the passing hour,

Green sentinel of sunny lanes and fields,

Whose sturdy watch defies harsh winter’s knell,

Art guardian of the humblest homes, where dwell

The simple folk, the yeomanry that wields

In peopled might all that men crave of power!

HARVEY MAITLAND WATTS.

_The_ DELUGE

A STORY _OF_ MODERN FINANCE

_By_

DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS

[Illustration]

XXIII.

Next day Langdon’s stocks wavered, going up a little, going down a

little, closing at practically the same figures at which they had

opened. Then I sprang my sensation--that Langdon and his particular

clique, though they controlled the Textile Trust, did not own so much

as one-fiftieth of its voting stock. True “captains of industry”

that they were, they made their profits not out of dividends, but

out of side schemes which absorbed about two-thirds of the earnings

of the Trust, and out of gambling in its bonds and stocks. I said in

conclusion:

The largest owner of the stock is Walter G. Edmunds, of Chicago--an

honest man. Send your voting proxies to him, and he can take the

Textile Company away from those now plundering it.

As the annual election of the Trust was only six weeks away, Langdon

and his clique were in a panic. They rushed into the market and bought

frantically, the public bidding against them. Langdon himself went to

Chicago to reason with Edmunds--that is, to try to find out at what

figure he could be bought. And so on, day after day, I faithfully

reporting to the public the main occurrences behind the scenes. The

Langdon attempt to regain control by purchases of stock failed. He and

his allies made what must have been to them appalling sacrifices. But

even at the high prices they offered, comparatively little of the stock

appeared.

“I’ve caught them,” said I to Joe--the first time, and the last,

during that campaign that I indulged in a boast.

“If Edmunds sticks to you,” replied Joe.

But Edmunds did not. I do not know at what price he sold himself.

Probably it was pitifully small; cupidity usually snatches the instant

the bait tickles its nose. But I do know that my faith in human nature

got its severest shock. “You are down this morning,” said Thornley,

when I looked in on him at his bank. “I don’t think I ever before saw

you show that you were in low spirits.”

“I’ve found out a man with whom I’d have trusted my life,” said I.

“Sometimes I think all men are dishonest. I’ve tried to be an optimist

like you, and have told myself that most men must be honest or

ninety-five per cent. of the business couldn’t be done on credit as it

is.”

Thornley smiled, like an old man at the enthusiasm of a youngster.

“That proves nothing as to honesty,” said he. “It simply shows that men

can be counted on to do what it is to their plain interest to do. The

truth is--and a fine truth, too--most men wish and try to be honest.

Give ’em a chance to resist their own weaknesses. Don’t trust them.

Trust--that’s the making of false friends and the filling of jails.”

“And palaces,” I added.

“And palaces,” assented he. “Every vast fortune is a monument to the

credulity of men. Instead of getting after these heavy-laden rascals,

Matthew, you’d better have turned your attention to the public that has

made rascals of them by leaving its property unguarded.”

Fortunately, Edmunds had held out, or, rather, Langdon had delayed

approaching him, long enough for me to gain my main point. The uproar

over the Textile Trust had become so great that the national Department

of Commerce dared not refuse an investigation; and I straightway began

to spread out in my daily letters the facts of the Trust’s enormous

earnings and of the shameful sources of those earnings. Thanks to

Langdon’s political pull, the President appointed as investigator one

of those rascals who carefully build themselves good reputations to

enable them to charge higher prices for dirty work. But with my facts

before the people, whitewash was impossible.

I was expecting emissaries from Langdon, for I knew he must now be

actually in straits. Even the Universal Life didn’t dare lend him

money, and was trying to call in the millions it had loaned him. But

I was astounded when my private door opened and Mrs. Langdon ushered

herself in.

“Don’t blame your boy, Mr. Blacklock,” cried she, gayly, exasperatingly

confident that I was as delighted with her as she was with herself. “I

told him you were expecting me and didn’t give him a chance to stop me.”

I assumed she had come to give me wholly undeserved thanks for

revenging her upon her recreant husband. I tried to look civil and

courteous, but I felt that my face was darkening--her very presence

forced forward things I had been keeping in the far background of my

mind. “How can I be of service to you, madam?” said I.

“I bring you good news,” she replied--and I noted that she no longer

looked haggard and wretched, that her beauty was once more smiling

with a certain girlishness, like a young widow’s when she finds her

consolation. “Mowbray and I have made it up,” she explained.

I simply listened, probably looking as grim as I felt.

“I knew you would be interested,” she went on. “Indeed, it means almost

as much to you as to me. It brings peace to _two_ families.”

Still I did not relax.

“And so,” she continued, a little uneasy, “I came to you immediately.”

I continued to listen as if I were waiting for her to finish and depart.

“If you want, I’ll go to Anita.” Natural feminine tact would have saved

her from this rawness; but, convinced that she was a “great lady” by

the flattery of servants and shopkeepers and sensational newspapers and

social climbers, she had long since discarded tact as worthy only of

the lowly and of the aspiring before they “arrive.”

“You are too kind,” said I. “Mrs. Blacklock and I feel competent to

take care of our own affairs.”

“Please, Mr. Blacklock,” she said, realizing that she had blundered,

“don’t take my directness the wrong way. Life is too short for pose and

pretense about the few things that really matter. Why shouldn’t we be

frank with each other?”

“I trust you will excuse me,” said I, moving toward the door--I had not

seated myself when she did. “I think I have made it clear that we have

nothing to discuss.”

“You have the reputation of being generous and too big for hatred.

That is why I have come to you,” said she, her expression confirming

my suspicion of the real and only reason for her visit. “Mowbray and

I are completely reconciled--_completely_, you understand. And I want

you to be generous, and not keep on with this attack. I am involved

even more than he. He has used up his fortune in defending mine. Now

you are simply trying to ruin me--not him, but _me_. The President is a

friend of Mowbray’s, and he’ll call off this horrid investigation, and

everything’ll be all right, if you’ll only stop.”

“Who sent you here?” I asked.

“I came of my own accord,” she protested. Then, realizing from the

sound of her voice that she could not have convinced me with a tone so

unconvincing, she hedged with: “It was my own suggestion, really it

was.”

“And your husband permitted _you_ to come to _me_?”

She flushed.

“And you have accepted his overtures when you knew he made them only

because he needed your money?”

She hung her head. “I love him,” she said, simply. Then she looked

straight at me, and I somehow liked her expression. “A woman has no

false pride when love is at stake,” she said. “We leave that to you

men.”

“Love!” I retorted, rather satirically, I imagine. “How much had your

own imperiled fortune to do with your being so forgiving?”

“Something,” she admitted. “You must remember I have children. I must

think of their future. I don’t want them to be poor. I want them to

have the station they were born to.” She went to one of the windows

overlooking the street. “Look here!” she said.

I stood beside her. The window was not far above the street level. Just

below us was a handsome victoria, coachman, harness, horses, all most

proper, a footman rigid at the step. A crowd had gathered round--in

those stirring days when I was the chief subject of conversation

wherever men were interested in money--and where are they not?--there

was almost always a crowd before my offices. In the carriage sat

two children, a boy and a girl, hardly more than babies. They were

gorgeously overdressed, after the vulgar fashion of aristocrats and

apers of aristocracy. They sat stiffly, like little scions of royalty,

with that expression of complacent superiority which one so often sees

on the faces of the little children of the very rich--and some not so

little, too. The thronging loungers were gaping in true New York “lower

class” awe; the children were literally swelling with delighted vanity.

If they had been pampered pet dogs, one would have laughed. As they

were human beings, it filled me with sadness and pity.

“For their sake, Mr. Blacklock,” she pleaded, her mother love wholly

hiding from her the features of the spectacle that most impressed me.

“Your husband has deceived you about your fortune, Mrs. Langdon,” I

said, gently. “You can tell him what I am about to say, or not, as

you please. But my advice is that you keep it to yourself. Even if

the present situation develops, as seems probable, develops as Mr.

Langdon fears, you will not be left without a fortune--a very large

fortune, most people would think. But Mr. Langdon will have little or

nothing--indeed, I think he is practically dependent on you now.”

“What I have is his,” she said.

“That is generous,” replied I, “but is it prudent? You wish to keep

him--securely. Don’t tempt him by a generosity he would only abuse.”

She thought it over. “The idea of holding a man in that way is

repellent to me,” said she, obviously posing for my benefit.

“If the man happens to be one that can be held in no other way,” said

I, moving significantly toward the door, “one must overcome one’s

repugnance--or be despoiled and abandoned.”

“Thank you,” she said, giving me her hand. “Thank you--more than I

can say.” She had forgotten entirely that she came to plead for her

husband. “And I hope that you will soon be as happy as I am.”

I bowed, and when there was the closed door between us, I laughed, not

at all pleasantly. “This New York!” I said aloud. “This New York that

dabbles its slime of sordidness and snobbishness on every flower in the

garden of human nature.” I took from my inside pocket the picture of

Anita I always carried. “Are _you_ like that?” I demanded of it. And it

seemed to answer: “Yes, I am.” Did I tear the picture up? No. I kissed

it as if it were the magnetic reality. “I don’t care what you are,” I

cried. “I want you! I want you!”

“Fool!” you are saying. Precisely what I called myself. And you? Is it

the one you _ought_ to love that you give your heart to? Is it the one

that understands you and sympathizes with you? Or is it the one whose

presence gives you visions of paradise and whose absence blots out the

light?

I loved her. Yet I would have torn out my life before I would have

taken her on any terms that did not make her wholly mine.

XXIV.

Now that Updegraff is dead, I am free to tell of our relations.

My acquaintance with him was more casual than with any other of “The

Seven.” From the outset of my career I made it a rule never to deal

with understrappers, always to get in touch with the man who had the

final say. Thus, as the years went by, I grew into intimacy with

the great men of finance where many with better natural facilities

for knowing them remained in an outer circle. But with Updegraff,

interested only in enterprises west of the Mississippi and keeping

Denver as his legal residence and exploiting himself as a Western man

who hated Wall Street, I had a mere bowing acquaintance. This was not

important, however, as each knew the other well by reputation. Our

common intimacies made us intimates for all practical purposes.

Our connection was established soon after the development of my

campaign against the Textile Trust had shown that I was after a big

bag of the biggest game. We happened to have the same secret broker;

and I suppose it was in his crafty brain that the idea of bringing us

together was born. Be that as it may, he by gradual stages intimated to

me that Updegraff would convey me secrets of “The Seven” in exchange

for a guarantee that I would not attack his interests. I do not know

what his motive in this treachery was--probably a desire to curb the

power of his associates in industrial despotism. Each of “The Seven”

hated and feared and suspected the other six with far more than the

ordinary and proverbial rich man’s jealous dislike of other rich men.

There was not one of them that did not bear the ever-smarting scars of

vicious wounds, front and back, received from his fellows; there was

not one that did not cherish the hope of overthrowing the rule of Seven

and establishing the rule of One. At any rate, I accepted Updegraff’s

proposition; thenceforth, though he stopped speaking to me when we

happened to meet, as did all the other big bandits and most of their

parasites and procurers, he kept me informed of every act “The Seven”

resolved upon.

Thus I knew all about their “gentlemen’s agreement” to support the

stock market, and that they had made Tavistock their agent for

resisting any and all attempts to lower prices, and had given him

practically unlimited funds to draw upon as he needed. I had Tavistock

sounded on every side, but found no weak spot. There was no rascality

he would not perpetrate for whoever employed him; but to his employer

he was as loyal as a woman to a bad man. And for a time it looked as

if “The Seven” had checkmated me. Those outsiders who had invested

heavily in the great enterprises through which “The Seven” ruled were

disposing of their holdings--cautiously, through fear of breaking the

market. Money would pile up in the banks--money paid out by “The Seven”

for their bonds and stocks, of which the people had become deeply

suspicious. Then these deposits would be withdrawn--and I knew they

were going into real estate investments, because news of a boom in real

estate and in building was coming in from everywhere. But prices on the

Stock Exchange continued to advance.

“They are too strong for you,” said Joe. “They will hold the market up

until the public loses faith in you. Then they will sell out at boom

prices, as the people rush in to buy.”

I might have wavered had I not been seeing Tavistock every day. He

continued to wear his devil-may-care air; but I observed that he was

aging swiftly--and I knew what that meant. Fighting all day to prevent

breaks in the crucial stocks; planning most of the night how to prevent

breaks the next day; watching the reserve resources of “The Seven” melt

away. Those reserves were vast; also, “The Seven” controlled the United

States Treasury, and were using its resources as their own; they were

buying securities that would be almost worthless if they lost, but if

they won, would be rebought by the public at the old swindling prices,

when “confidence” was restored. But there was I, cannonading away from

an impregnable position; as fast as they repaired breaches in their

walls, my big guns of publicity tore new breaches. No wonder Tavistock

had thinner hair and wrinkles and the drawn look about the eyes, nose

and mouth.

With the battle thus raging doubtfully all along the line, on the

one side “The Seven” and their armies of money and mercenaries and

impressed slaves, on the other side the public, I in command, you

will say that my yearning for distraction must have been gratified.

If the road from his cell were long enough, the condemned man would

be fretting less about the gallows than about the tight shoe that was

making him limp and wince at every step. Besides, in human affairs it

is the personal, always the personal. I soon got used to the crowds, to

the big headlines in the newspapers, to the routine of cannonade and

reply. But the old thorn, pressing persistently--I could not get used

to that. In the midst of the adulation, of the blares upon the trumpets

of fame that saluted my waking and were wafted to me as I fell asleep

at night--in the midst of all the turmoil, I was often in a great and

brooding silence, longing for her, now with the imperious energy of

passion, and now with the sad ache of love. What was she doing? What

was she thinking? Now that Langdon had again played her false for the

old price, with what eyes was she looking into the future?

Alva, settled in a West Side apartment not far from the ancestral white

elephant, telephoned, asking me to come. I went, because she could and

would give me news of Anita. But as I entered her little drawing room,

I said: “It was curiosity that brought me. I wished to see how you were

installed.”

“Isn’t it nice and small?” cried she. “Billy and I haven’t the

slightest difficulty in finding each other--as people so often have

in the big houses.” And it was Billy this and Billy that, and what

Billy said and thought and felt--and before they were married, she had

called him William, and had declared “Billy” to be the most offensive

combination of letters that ever fell from human lips.

“I needn’t ask if _you_ are happy,” said I, presently, with a dismal

failure at looking cheerful. “I can’t stay but a moment,” I added, and

if I had obeyed my feelings, I’d have risen up and taken myself and my

pain away from surroundings as hateful to me as a summer sunrise in a

death chamber.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, in some confusion. “Then excuse me.” And she

hastened from the room.

I thought she had gone to order, or perhaps to bring, the tea. The long

minutes dragged away until ten had passed. Hearing a rustling in the

hall, I rose, intending to take leave the instant she appeared. The

rustling stopped just outside. I waited a few seconds, cried, “Well,

I’m off. Next time I want to be alone, I’ll know where to come,” and

advanced to the door. It was not Alva hesitating there; it was Anita.

“I beg your pardon,” said I, coldly.

If there had been room to pass I should have gone. What devil

possessed me? Certainly in all our relations I had found her direct

and frank; if anything, too frank. Doubtless it was the influence of

my associations downtown, where for so many months I had been dealing

with the “short-card” crowd of high finance, who would not play the

game straight even where that was the easy way to win. My long, steady

stretch in that stealthy and sinuous company had put me in the state of

mind in which it is impossible to credit any human being with a motive

that is decent or an action that is not a dead-fall. Thus the obvious

change in her made no impression on me. Her haughtiness, her coldness,

were gone, and with them had gone all that had been least like her

natural self, most like the repellent conventional pattern to which her

mother and her associates had molded her. But I was saying to myself:

“A trap! Langdon has gone back to his wife. She turns to me.” And I

loved her and hated her. “Never,” thought I, “has she shown so poor an

opinion of me as now.”

“My uncle told me day before yesterday that it was not he, but you,”

she said, lifting her eyes to mine. It is inconceivable to me now that

I could have misread their honest story; yet I did.

“I had no idea your uncle’s notion of honor was also eccentric,” said

I, with a satirical smile that made the blood rush to her face.

“That is unjust to him,” she replied, earnestly. “He says he made you

no promise of secrecy. And he confessed to me only because he wished to

convince me that he had good reason for his high opinion of you.”

“Really!” said I, ironically. “And no doubt he found you open wide to

conviction--_now_.” This a subtlety to let her know that I understood

why she was seeking me.

“No,” she answered, lowering her eyes. “I knew--better than he.”

For an instant this, spoken in a voice I had long given up hope of

ever hearing from her, staggered my cynical conviction. Then I said,

mockingly: “Doubtless your opinion of me has been improving steadily

ever since you heard that Mrs. Langdon has recovered her husband.”

She winced as if I had struck her. “Oh!” she murmured. If she had been

the ordinary woman, who in every crisis with man instinctively resorts

to weakness’ strongest weakness, tears, I might have a very different

story to tell. But she fought back the tears in which her eyes were

swimming and gathered herself together. “That is brutal,” she said,

with not a touch of haughtiness, but not humbly, either. “But I deserve

it.”

“There was a time,” I went on, swept in a swift current of cold

rage--“there was a time when I would have taken you on almost any

terms. A man never makes a complete fool of himself about a woman but

once in his life, they say. I have done my time--and it is over.”

She sighed wearily. “Langdon came to see me soon after I left your

house and went to my uncle,” she said. “I will tell you what happened.”

“I do not wish to hear,” replied I. “I have been waiting impatiently

ever since you left for news of your plans.”

She grew white, and my heart smote me. She came into the room and

seated herself. “Won’t you stop, please, for a moment longer?” she

said. “I hope that, at least, we can part without bitterness. I

understand now that everything is over between us. A woman’s vanity

makes her belief that a man cares for her die hard. I am convinced

now--I assure you I am. I shall trouble you no more about the past. But

I have the right to ask you to hear me when I say that Langdon came,

and that I myself sent him away; sent him back to his wife.”

“Touching self-sacrifice,” said I, ironically.

“No,” she replied. “I cannot claim any credit. I sent him away only

because you and Alva had taught me how to judge him better. I do not

despise him as do you; I know too well what has made him what he is.

But I had to send him away.”

My comment was an incredulous look and shrug. “I must be going,” I said.

“You do not believe me?” she asked.

“In my place, would you believe?” replied I. “You say I have taught

you. Well, you have taught me, too--for instance, that your years and

years on your knees in the musty temple of conventionality before false

gods have made you--fit only for the Langdon sort of thing. You have

forgotten how to stand erect, and your eyes cannot bear the light.”

“I am sorry,” she said, slowly, hesitatingly, “that your faith in me

has died just when I might, perhaps, have justified it. Ours has been a

pitiful series of misunderstandings.”

“A trap! A trap!” I was warning myself. “You’ve been a fool long

enough, Blacklock.” And aloud I said: “Well, Anita, the series is ended

now. There’s no longer any occasion for our lying or posing to each

other. Any arrangements your uncle’s lawyers suggest will be made.”

I was bowing, to leave without shaking hands with her. But she would

not have it so. “Let us be friends, at least,” she said, stretching

out her long, slender arm and offering me her hand.

What a devil possessed me that day! With every atom of me longing for

her, I yet was able to take her hand and say, with a smile that was, I

doubt not, as mocking as my tone: “By all means, let us be friends. And

I trust you will not think me discourteous if I say that I shall feel

safer in our friendship when we are both on neutral ground.”

As I was turning away, her look, my own heart, made me turn again. I

caught her by the shoulders. I gazed into her eyes. “If I could only

trust you, could only believe you!” I cried.

“You cared for me when I wasn’t worth it,” she said. “Now that I am

more like what you once imagined me, you do not care.”

Up between us rose Langdon’s face--cynical, mocking, contemptuous.

“Your heart is _his_! You told me so! Don’t _lie_ to me!” I exclaimed.

And before she could reply I was gone.

Out from under the spell of her presence, back among the tricksters

and assassins, the traps and ambushes of Wall Street, I believed

again; believed firmly the promptings of the devil that possessed me.

“She would have given you a brief fool’s paradise,” said that devil.

“Then what a hideous awakening!” And I cursed the day when New York’s

insidious snobbishness had tempted my vanity into starting me on that

degrading chase after “respectability.”

“If she does not move to free herself soon,” said I, to myself, “I will

put my own lawyer to work. My right eye offends me. I will pluck it

out.”

XXV.

“The Seven” made their fatal move on treacherous Updegraff’s

treacherous advice, I suspect. But they would not have adopted his

suggestion had it not been so exactly congenial to their own temper

of arrogance and tyranny and contempt for the people who meekly, year

after year, presented themselves for the shearing with fatuous bleats

of enthusiasm.

“The Seven,” of course, controlled, directly or indirectly, all but a

few of the newspapers with which I had advertising contracts. They also

controlled the main sources through which the press was supplied with

news--and often and well they had used this control, and surprisingly

cautious had they been not so to abuse it that the editors and the

public would become suspicious. When my war was at its height, when

I was beginning to congratulate myself that the huge magazines of

“The Seven” were empty almost to the point at which they must sue for

peace on my own terms, all in four days forty-three of my sixty-seven

newspapers--and they the most important--notified me that they would no

longer carry out their contracts to publish my daily letter. They gave

as their reason, not the real one, fear of “The Seven,” but fear that I

would involve them in ruinous libel suits. I who had _legal_ proof for

every statement I made; I who was always careful to understate! Next,

one press association after another ceased to send out my letter as

news, though they had been doing so regularly for months. The public

had grown tired of the “sensation,” they said.

I countered with a telegram to one or more newspapers in every city and

large town in the United States:

“The Seven” are trying to cut the wires between the truth and the

public. If you wish my daily letter, telegraph me direct and I will

send it at my expense.

The response should have warned “The Seven.” But it did not. Under

their orders the telegraph companies refused to transmit the

letter. I got an injunction. It was obeyed in typical, corrupt

corporation fashion--they sent my matter, but so garbled that it was

unintelligible. I appealed to the courts. In vain.

To me it was clear as sun in cloudless noonday sky that there could be

but one result of this insolent and despotic denial of my rights and

the rights of the people, this public confession of the truth of my

charges. I waited for the cataclysm.

Thursday--Friday--Saturday. Apparently all was tranquil; apparently

the people accepted the Wall Street theory that I was an “exploded

sensation.” “The Seven” began to preen themselves; the strain upon

them to maintain prices, if no less than for three months past, was

not notably greater; the crisis would pass, I and my exposures would

be forgotten, the routine of reaping the harvests and leaving only the

gleanings for the sowers would soon be placidly resumed.

Sunday. Roebuck, taken ill as he was passing the basket in the church

of which he was the shining light, died at midnight--a beautiful,

peaceful death, they say, with his daughter reading the Bible aloud,

and his lips moving in prayer. Some hold that, had he lived, the

tranquillity would have continued; but this is the view of those who

can not realize that the tide of affairs is no more controlled by

the “great men” than is the river led down to the sea by its surface

flotsam, by which we measure the speed and direction of its current.

Under that terrific tension, which to the shallow seemed a calm,

something had to give way. If the dam had not yielded where Roebuck

stood guard, it must have yielded somewhere else, or might have gone

all in one grand crash.

Monday. You know the story of the artist and his statue of Grief--how

he molded the features a hundred times, always failing, always getting

an anti-climax, until at last, in despair, he gave up the impossible

and finished the statue with a veil over the face. I have tried again

and again to assemble words that would give some not too inadequate

impression of that tremendous week in which, with a succession of

explosions, each like the crack of doom, the financial structure that

housed eighty millions of people burst, collapsed, was engulfed. I

cannot. I must leave it to your memory or your imagination.

For years the financial leaders, crazed by the excess of power

which the people had in ignorance and over-confidence and slovenly

good-nature permitted them to acquire, had been tearing out the honest

foundations on which alone so vast a structure can hope to rest solid

and secure. They had been substituting rotten beams painted to look

like stone and iron. The crash had to come; the sooner the better--when

a thing is wrong, each day’s delay compounds the cost of righting it.

So, with all the horrors of Wild Week in mind, all its physical and

mental suffering, all the ruin and rioting and bloodshed, I still can

insist that I am justly proud of my share in bringing it about. The

blame and the shame are wholly upon those who made Wild Week necessary

and inevitable.

In catastrophes the cry is, “Each for himself!” But in a cataclysm

the obvious wise selfishness is generosity, and the cry is, “Stand

together, for, singly, we perish.” This was a cataclysm. No one could

save himself, except the few who, taking my often urged advice and

following my example, had entered the ark of ready money. Farmer and

artisan and professional man and laborer owed merchant; merchant owed

banker; banker owed depositor. No one could pay because no one could

get what was due him or could realize upon his property. The endless

chain of credit that binds together the whole of modern society had

snapped in a thousand places. It must be repaired, instantly and

securely. But how--and by whom?

I issued a clear statement of the situation; I showed in minute detail

how the people, standing together under the leadership of the honest

men of property, could easily force the big bandits to consent to an

honest, just, rock-founded, iron-built reconstruction. My statement

appeared in all the morning papers throughout the land. Turn back to

it; read it. You will say that I was right. Well----

Toward two o’clock Inspector Crawford came into my private office,

escorted by Joe. I saw in Joe’s seamed, green-gray face that some new

danger had arisen. “You’ve got to get out of this,” said he. “The mob

in front of our place fills the three streets. It’s made up of crowds

turned away from the suspended banks.”

I remembered the sullen faces and the hisses as I entered the office

that morning earlier than usual. My windows were closed to keep out the

street noises; but now that my mind was up from the work in which I had

been absorbed, I could hear the sounds of many voices, even through the

thick plate glass.

“We’ve got two hundred policemen here,” said the inspector. “Five

hundred more are on the way. But--really, Mr. Blacklock, unless we can

get you away, there’ll be serious trouble. Those damn’ newspapers.

Every one of them denounced you this morning, and the people are in a

fury against you.”

I went toward the door.

“Hold on, Matt,” cried Joe, springing at me and seizing me. “Where are

you going?”

“To tell them what I think of them,” replied I, sweeping him aside. For

my blood was up, and I was enraged against the poor cowardly fools.

“For God’s sake, don’t show yourself,” he begged. “If you don’t care

for your own life, think of the rest of us. We’ve fixed a route through

buildings and under streets up to Broadway. Your electric is waiting

for you there.”

“It won’t do,” I said. “I’ll face ’em--it’s the only way.”

I went to the window, and was about to throw up one of the sunblinds

for a look at them; Crawford stopped me. “They’ll stone the building

and then storm it,” said he. “You must go at once, by the route we’ve

arranged.”

“Even if you tell them I’m gone, they won’t believe it,” replied I.

“We can look out for that,” said Joe, eager to save me and caring

nothing about consequences to himself. But I had unsettled the

inspector.

“Send for my electric to come down here,” said I. “I’ll go out alone

and get in it and drive away.”

“That’ll never do!” cried Joe.

But the inspector said: “You’re right, Mr. Blacklock. It’s a bare

chance. You may take ’em by surprise. Again, some fellow may yell and

throw a stone, and----” He did not need to finish.

Joe looked wildly at me. “You mustn’t do it, Matt!” he exclaimed.

“You’ll precipitate a riot, Crawford, if you permit this.”

But the inspector was telephoning for my electric. Then he went into

the adjoining room, where he commanded a view of the entrance. Silence

between Joe and me until he returned. “The electric is coming down the

street,” said he.

I rose. “Good,” said I. “I’m ready.”

“Wait until the other police get here,” advised Crawford.

“If the mob is in the temper you describe,” said I, “the less that’s

done to irritate it, the better. I must go out as if I hadn’t a

suspicion of danger.”

The inspector eyed me with an expression that was highly flattering to

my vanity.

“I’ll go with you,” said Joe, starting up from his stupor.

“No,” I replied. “You and the other fellows can take the underground

route, if it’s necessary.”

“It won’t be necessary,” put in the inspector. “As soon as I’m rid of

you and have my additional force, I’ll clear the streets.” He went to

the door. “Wait, Mr. Blacklock, until I’ve had time to get out to my

men.”

Perhaps ten seconds after he disappeared, I, without further words, put

on my hat, lit a cigar, shook Joe’s wet, trembling hand, left in it my

private keys and the memorandum of the combination of my private vault.

Then I sallied forth.

I had always had a ravenous appetite for excitement, and I had been in

many a tight place; but for the first time in my life I had a sense of

equilibrium between my internal energy and the outside situation. As I

stepped from my street door and glanced about me, I had no feeling of

danger. The whole situation seemed so simple. There stood the electric,

just across the narrow stretch of sidewalk; there were the two hundred

police, under Crawford’s orders, scattered everywhere through the

crowd, and good-naturedly jostling and pushing to create distraction.

Without haste, I got into my machine. I calmly met the gaze of those

thousands, quiet as so many barrels of gunpowder before the explosion.

The chauffeur turned the machine.

“Go slow,” I called to him. “You might hurt somebody.”

But he had his orders from the inspector. He suddenly darted ahead

at full speed. The mob scattered in every direction, and we were in

Broadway, bound up town full-tilt, before I or the mob realized what he

was about.

I called to him to slow down. He paid not the slightest attention. I

leaned from the window and looked up at him. It was not my chauffeur;

it was a man who had the unmistakable but indescribable marks of the

plainclothes policeman. “Where are you going?” I shouted.

“You’ll find out when we arrive,” he shouted back, grinning.

I settled myself and waited--what else was there to do? Soon I guessed

we were headed for the pier off which my yacht was anchored. As we

dashed on to it, I saw that it was filled with police, both in uniform

and in plain clothes. I descended. A detective sergeant stepped up

to me. “We are here to help you to your yacht,” he explained. “You

wouldn’t be safe anywhere in New York--no more would the place that

harbored you.”

He had both common sense and force on his side. I got into the launch.

Four detective sergeants accompanied me, and went aboard with me. “Go

ahead,” said one of them to my captain. He looked at me for orders. “We

are in the hands of our guests,” said I. “Let them have their way.”

We steamed down the bay and out to sea.

* * * * *

From Maine to Texas the cry rose and swelled: “Blacklock is

responsible! What does it matter whether he lied or told the truth? See

the results of his crusade! He ought to be pilloried! He ought to be

killed! He is the enemy of the human race. He has almost plunged the

whole civilized world into bankruptcy and civil war.” And they turned

eagerly to the very autocrats who had been oppressing and robbing

them. “You have the genius for finance and industry. Save us!”

If you did not know, you could guess how those patriots with the

“genius for finance and industry” responded. When they had done, when

their program was in effect, Langdon, Melville and Updegraff were the

three richest men in the country, and as powerful as Octavius, Anthony

and Lepidus after Philippi. They had saddled upon the reorganized

finance and industry of the nation heavier taxes than ever, and a

vaster and more expensive and more luxurious army of their parasites.

The people had risen for financial and industrial freedom; they had

paid its fearful price; then, in senseless panic and terror, they flung

it away. I have read that one of the inscriptions on Apollo’s temple

at Delphi was, “Man, the fool of the farce.” Truly, the gods must have

created us for their amusement; and when Olympus palls, they ring up

the curtain on some such screaming comedy as was that. It

“Makes the fancy chuckle, while the heart doth ache.”

XXVI.

My enemies caused it to be widely believed that Wild Week was my

deliberate contrivance for the sole purpose of enriching myself. Thus

they got me a reputation for almost superhuman daring, for Satanic

astuteness at cold-blooded calculation. I do not deserve the admiration

and respect which my success-worshiping fellow-countrymen lay at my

feet. True, I did greatly enrich myself; but _not until the Monday

after Wild Week_.

Not until I had pondered on men and events with the assistance of

the newspapers my detective protectors and jailers permitted to be

brought aboard--not until the last hope of turning Wild Week to the

immediate public advantage had sputtered out like a lost man’s last

match, did I think of benefiting myself, of seizing the opportunity to

strengthen myself for the future. On Monday morning I said to Sergeant

Mulholland: “I want to go ashore and send some telegrams.”

The sergeant is one of the detective bureau’s “dress-suit men.” He is

by nature phlegmatic and cynical. His experience has put over that a

veneer of weary politeness. We had become great friends during our

enforced inseparable companionship. For Joe, who looked on me somewhat

as a mother looks on a brilliant but erratic son, had, as I soon

discovered, elaborated a wonderful program for me. It included a watch

on me day and night, lest, through rage or despondency, I should try

to do violence to myself. A fine character, that Joe! But, to return,

Mulholland answered my request for shore leave with a soothing smile.

“Can’t do it, Mr. Blacklock,” he said. “Our orders are positive. But

when we put in at New London and send ashore for further instructions,

and for the papers, you can send your telegrams.”

“As you please,” said I. And I gave him a cipher telegram to Joe--an

order to invest my store of cash, which meant practically my whole

fortune, in the gilt-edged securities that were to be had for cash at a

small fraction of their actual value.

This on the Monday after Wild Week, please note. I would have helped

the people to deliver themselves from the bondage of the bandits.

They would not have it. I would even have sacrificed my all in

trying to save them in spite of themselves. But what is one sane man

against a stampeded multitude of maniacs? For confirmation of my

disinterestedness, I point to all those weeks and months during which

I waged costly warfare on “The Seven,” who would gladly have given me

more than I now have, could I have been bribed to desist. But when I

was compelled to admit that I had overestimated my fellow-men, that the

people wear the yoke because they have not yet become intelligent and

competent enough to be free, then and not till then did I abandon the

hopeless struggle.

And I did not go over to the bandits; I simply resumed my own

neglected personal affairs and made Wild Week at least a personal

triumph.

There is nothing of the spectacular in my make-up. I have no belief

in the value of martyrs and martyrdom. Causes are not won--and in my

humble opinion never have been won--in the graveyards. Alive and afoot

and armed, and true to my cause, I am the dreaded menace to systematic

and respectable robbery. What possible good could have come of mobs

killing me and the bandits dividing my estate?

But why should I seek to justify myself? I care not a rap for the

opinion of my fellow-men. They sought my life when they should have

been hailing me as a deliverer; now they look up to me because they

falsely believe me guilty of what I regard as an infamy.

My guards expected to be recalled on Tuesday. But Melville heard what

Crawford had done about me, and straightway used his influence to have

me detained until the new grip of the old gang was secure. Saturday

afternoon we put in at Newport for the daily communication with the

shore. When the launch returned, Mulholland brought the papers to me,

lounging aft in a mass of cushions under the awning. “We are going

ashore,” said he. “The order has come.”

I had a sudden sense of loneliness. “I’ll take you down to New York,”

said I. “I must put my guests off where I took them up.”

As we steamed slowly westward I read the papers. The country was

rapidly readjusting itself, was returning to the conditions before the

upheaval. The “financiers”--the same old gang, except for a few of the

weaker brethren ruined and a few strong outsiders who had slipped in

during the confusion--were employing all the old, familiar devices for

deceiving and robbing the people. The upset milking-stool was righted,

and the milker was seated again and busy, the good old cow standing

without so much as shake of horn or switch of tail. “Mulholland,” said

I, “what do you think of this business of living?”

“I’ll tell you, Mr. Blacklock,” said he. “I used to fuss and fret a

good deal about it. But I don’t any more. I’ve got a house up in the

Bronx, and a bit of land round it. And there’s Mrs. Mulholland and

four little Mulhollands and me--that’s my country and my party and my

religion. The rest is off my beat, and I don’t give a damn for it. I

don’t care which fakir gets to be President, or which swindler gets to

be rich. Everything works out somehow, and the best any man can do is

to mind his own business.”

“Mulholland--Mrs. Mulholland--four little Mulhollands,” said I

reflectively. “That’s about as much as one man could attend to

properly. And--you are ‘on the level,’ aren’t you?”

“Some say honesty’s the best policy,” replied he. “Some say it isn’t.

I don’t know, and I don’t care, whether it is or it isn’t. It’s _my_

policy. And we six seem to have got along on it so far.”

I sent my “guests” ashore the next morning. “No, I’ll stay aboard,”

said I to Mulholland, as he stood aside for me to precede him down the

gangway to the launch. I went into the watch pocket of my trousers and

drew out the folded two one-thousand-dollar bills I always carried--it

was a habit formed in my youthful, gambling days. I handed him one of

the bills. He hesitated.

“For the four little Mulhollands,” I urged.

He put it in his pocket. I watched him and his men depart with a heavy

heart. I felt alone, horribly alone, without a tie or an interest. Some

of the morning papers spoke respectfully of me as one of the strong

men who had ridden the flood and had been landed by it on the heights

of wealth and power. Admiration and envy lurked even in sneers at my

“unscrupulous plotting.” Since I had wealth, plenty of wealth, I did

not need character. Of what use was character in such a world except as

a commodity to exchange for wealth?

“Any orders, sir?” interrupted my captain.

I looked round that vast and vivid scene of sea and land activities. I

looked along the city’s titanic sky-line--the mighty fortresses of

trade and commerce piercing the heavens and flinging to the wind their

black banners of defiance. I felt that I was under the walls of hell

itself.

“To get away from this,” replied I to the waiting captain. “Go back

down the Sound--to Dawn Hill.”

Yes, I would go to the peaceful, soothing country, to my dogs and

houses and those faithful servants bound to me by our common love for

the same animals. “Men to cross swords with, to amuse oneself with,”

I mused. “But dogs and horses to live with.” I pictured myself at the

kennels--the joyful uproar the instant instinct warned the dogs of my

coming; how they would leap and bark and tremble in a very ecstasy of

delight as I stood among them; how jealous all the others would be as I

selected one to caress.

“Send her ahead as fast as she’ll go,” I called to the captain.

As the _Albatross_ steamed into the little harbor, I saw Mowbray

Langdon’s _Indolence_ at anchor. I glanced toward Steuben Point--where

his cousins, the Vivians, live--and thought I recognized his launch

at their pier. We saluted the _Indolence_; the _Indolence_ saluted

us. My launch was piped away and took me ashore. I strolled along the

path that wound round the base of the hill toward the kennels. At the

crossing of the path down from the house, I paused and lingered on the

glimpse of one of the corner towers of the great showy palace. I was

muttering something--I listened to myself. It was: “Mulholland, Mrs.

Mulholland and the four little Mulhollands.” And I felt like laughing

aloud, such a joke was it that I should be envying a policeman his

potato patch and his fat wife and his four brats, and that he should be

in a position to pity me.

You may be imagining that, through all, Anita had been dominating my

mind. That is the way it is in the romances; but not in life. No doubt

there are men who brood upon the impossible, and moon and maunder away

their lives over the grave of a dead love; no doubt there are people

who will say that, because I did not shoot Langdon or her or myself,

or fly to a desert, or pose in the crowded places of the world as the

last scene of a tragedy, I therefore cared little about her. I offer

them this suggestion: A man strong enough to give a love worth a

woman’s while is strong enough to live on without her when he finds he

may not live with her.

As I stood there that summer day, looking toward the crest of the

hill, at the mocking mausoleum of my dead dream, I realized what the

incessant battle of the Street had meant to me. “There is peace for

me only in the storm,” said I. “But, thank God, there is peace for me

somewhere.”

Through the foliage I had glimpses of some one coming slowly down the

zigzag path. Presently, at one of the turnings half-way up the hill,

appeared Mowbray Langdon. “What is he doing here?” thought I, scarcely

able to believe my eyes. “Here of all places!” And then I forgot

the strangeness of his being at Dawn Hill in the strangeness of his

expression. For it was apparent, even at the distance which separated

us, that he was suffering from some great and recent blow. He looked

old and haggard; he walked like a man who neither knows nor cares where

he is going.

He had not seen me, and my impulse was to avoid him by continuing on

toward the kennels. I had no especial feeling against him; I had not

lost Anita because she cared for him or he for her, but because she did

not care for me. Simply that to meet would be awkward, disagreeable

for us both. At the slight noise of my movement to go on, he halted,

glanced round eagerly, as if he hoped the sound had been made by some

one he wished to see. His glance fell on me. He stopped short, was for

an instant disconcerted; then his face lighted up with devilish joy.

“You!” he cried. “Just the man!” And he descended more rapidly.

At first I could make nothing of this remark. But as he drew nearer and

nearer, and his ugly mood became more and more apparent, I felt that

he was looking forward to provoking me into giving him a distraction

from whatever was tormenting him. I waited. A few minutes and we were

face to face, I outwardly calm, but my anger slowly lighting up as

he deliberately applied to it the torch of his insolent eyes. He was

wearing his old familiar air of cynical assurance. Evidently, with

his recovered fortune, he had recovered his conviction of his great

superiority to the rest of the human race--the child had climbed back

on the chair that made it tall and had forgotten its tumble. And I was

wondering again that I, so short a time before, had been crude enough

to be fascinated and fooled by those tawdry posings and pretenses. For

the man, as I now saw him, was obviously shallow and vain, a slave to

those poor “man-of-the-world” passions--ostentation, and cynicism,

and skill at vices old as mankind and tedious as a treadmill, the

commonplace routine of the idle and foolish and purposeless. A clever,

handsome fellow, but the more pitiful that he was by nature above the

uses to which he prostituted himself.

He fought hard to keep his eyes steadily on mine; but they would waver

and shift. Not, however, before I had found deep down in them the

beginnings of fear. “You see, you were mistaken,” said I. “You have

nothing to say to me--or I to you.”

He knew I had looked straight to the bottom of his real self, had seen

the coward that is in every man who has been bred to appearances only.

Up rose his vanity, the coward’s substitute for courage. “You think I

am afraid of you?” he sneered, bluffing and blustering like the school

bully.

“I don’t in the least care whether you are or not,” replied I. “What

are you doing here, anyhow?”

It was as if I had thrown off the cover of a furnace. “I came to get

the woman I love,” he cried. “You stole her from me. You tricked me.

But, by God, Blacklock, I’ll never pause until I get her back and

punish you.” He was brave enough now, drunk with the fumes from his

brave words. “All my life,” he raged arrogantly on, “I’ve had whatever

I wanted. I’ve let nothing interfere--nothing and nobody. I’ve been too

forbearing with you--first because I knew she could never care for you,

and then because I rather admired your pluck and impudence. I like to

see fellows kick their way up among us from the common people.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. No doubt the fiend that rose within me,

as from the dead, looked at him from my eyes. He has great physical

strength, but he winced under that weight and grip, and across his face

flitted the terror which must come to any man at first sense of being

in the angry clutch of one stronger than he. I slowly released him--I

had tested and realized my physical superiority; to use it would be

cheap and cowardly. “You can’t provoke me to descend to your level,”

said I, with the easy philosophy of him who clearly has the better of

the argument.

He was shaking from head to foot, not with terror, but with impotent

rage. How much we owe to accident! The mere accident of my physical

superiority had put him at hopeless disadvantage; had made him feel

inferior to me as no victory of mental or moral superiority could

possibly have done. And I myself felt a greater contempt for him

than the discovery of his treachery and his shallowness had together

inspired.

“I shan’t indulge in flapdoodle,” I went on. “I’ll be frank. A year

ago, if any man had faced me with a claim upon a woman who was married

to me, I’d probably have dealt with him as your vanity and what you

call ‘honor’ would force you to try to deal with a similar situation.

But I live to learn, and I’m, fortunately, not afraid to follow a new

light. There is the vanity of so-called honor; there is also the demand

of justice--of fair play. As I have told her, so I now tell you--she

is free to go. But I shall say one thing to you that I did not say to

her. If you do not deal fairly with her, I shall see to it that there

are ten thorns to every rose in that bed of roses on which you lie. You

are contemptible in many ways--perhaps that’s why women like you. But

there must be some good in you, or possibilities of good, or you could

not have won and kept _her_ love.”

He was staring at me with a dazed expression. I rather expected him

to show some of that amused contempt with which men of his sort

always receive a new idea that is beyond the range of their narrow,

conventional minds. For I did not expect him to understand why I was

not only willing, but even eager, to relinquish a woman whom I could

hold only by asserting a property right in her. And I do not think he

did understand me, though his manner changed to a sort of grudging

respect. He was, I believe, about to make some impulsive, generous

speech, when we heard the quick strokes of iron-shod hoofs on the path

from the kennels and the stables--is there any sound more arresting?

Past us at a gallop swept a horse, on his back--Anita. She was not in

riding-habit; the wind fluttered the sleeves of her blouse, blew her

uncovered hair this way and that about her beautiful face. She sped on

toward the landing, though I fancied she had seen us.

Anita at Dawn Hill; Langdon, in a furious temper, descending from the

house toward the landing; Anita presently riding like mad--“to overtake

him,” thought I. And I read confirmation in his triumphant eyes. In

another mood, I suppose my fury would have been beyond my power to

restrain it. Just then--the day grew dark for me, and I wanted to hide

away somewhere. Heartsick, I was ashamed for her, hated myself for

having blundered into surprising her.

She reappeared at the turn round which she had vanished. I now noted

that she was riding without saddle or bridle, with only a halter round

the horse’s neck--then she did see us, had stopped and come back as

soon as she could. She dropped from the horse, looked swiftly at me, at

him, at me again, with intense anxiety. “I saw your yacht in the harbor

only a moment ago,” she said to me. She was almost panting. “I feared

you might meet him. So I came.”

“As you see, he is quite--intact,” said I. “I must ask that you and he

leave the place at once.” And I went rapidly along the path toward the

kennels.

An exclamation from Langdon forced me to turn in spite of myself. He

was half kneeling, was holding her in his arms. At that sight, the

savage in me shook himself free. I dashed toward them with I knew not

what curses bursting from me. Langdon, intent upon her, did not realize

until I sent him reeling backward to the earth and snatched her up.

Her white face, her closed eyes, her limp form made my fury instantly

collapse. In my confusion I thought she was dead. I laid her gently

on the grass and supported her head, so small, so gloriously crowned,

the face so still and sweet and white, like the stainless entrance to

a stainless shrine. How that horrible fear changed my whole way of

looking at her, at him, at her and him, at everything!

Her eyelids were quivering--her eyes were opening--her bosom was rising

and falling slowly as she drew long, uncertain breaths. She shuddered,

sat up, started up. “Go! go!” she cried. “Bring him back! Bring him

back! Bring him----”

There she recognized me. “Oh!” she said, and gave a great sigh of

relief. She leaned against a tree and looked at Langdon. “You are still

here? Then tell him.”

Langdon gazed sullenly at the ground. “I can’t,” he answered. “I don’t

believe it. Besides--he has given you to me. Let us go. Let me take you

to the Vivians’.” He threw out his arms in a wild, passionate gesture;

he was utterly unlike himself. His emotion burst through and shattered

pose and cynicism and hard crust of selfishness like the exploding

powder bursting the shell. “I can’t give you up, Anita!” he exclaimed

desperately. “I can’t! I can’t!”

But her gaze was all this time steadily on me, as if she feared I

would go, should she look away. “I will tell you myself,” she said

rapidly, to me. “We--uncle Howard and I--read in the papers how they

had all turned against you, and he brought me over here. He has been

telegraphing for you. This morning he went to town to search for you.

About an hour ago Langdon came. I refused to see him, as I have ever

since the time I told you about at Alva’s. He persisted, until at last

I had the servant request him to leave the house.”

“But _now_ there’s no longer any reason for your staying, Anita,” he

pleaded. “He has said you are free. Why stay when _you_ would really no

more be here than if you were to go, leaving one of your empty dresses?”

She had not for an instant taken her gaze from me; and so strange were

her eyes, so compelling, that I seemed unable to move or speak. But

now she released me to blaze upon him--and never shall I forget any

detail of her face or voice as she said to him: “That is false, Mowbray

Langdon. I told you the truth when I told you I loved him!”

So violent was her emotion that she had to pause for self-control.

And I? I was overwhelmed, dazed, stunned. When she went on, she was

looking at neither of us. “Yes, I loved him almost from the first--from

the day he came to the box at the races. I was ashamed, poor creature

that my parents had made me! I was ashamed of it. And I tried to hate

him, and thought I did. And when he showed me that he no longer cared,

my pride goaded me into the folly of trying to listen to you. But I

loved him more than ever. And as you and he stand here, I am ashamed

again--ashamed that I was ever so blind and ignorant and prejudiced as

to compare him with”--she looked at Langdon--“with you. Do you believe

me now--now that I humble myself before him in your presence?”

I should have had no heart at all if I had not felt pity for him. His

face was gray, and on it were those signs of age that strong emotion

brings to the surface after forty. “You could have convinced me in no

other way,” he replied, after a silence, and in a voice I should not

have recognized.

Silence again. Presently he raised his head, and with something of his

old cynicism bowed to her. “You have avenged much and many,” said he.

“I have often had a presentiment that my day of wrath would come.” He

lifted his hat, bowed to me without looking at me, and, drawing the

tatters of his pose still further over his wounds, moved away toward

the landing.

I, still in a stupor, watched him until he had disappeared. When I

turned to her, she dropped her eyes. “Uncle Howard will be back this

afternoon,” said she. “If I may, I’ll stay at the house until he comes

to take me.”

A weary, half-suppressed sigh escaped from her. I knew how she must

be reading my silence, but I was still unable to speak. She went to

the horse, browsing near by; she stroked his muzzle. Lingeringly she

twined her fingers in his mane, as if about to spring to his back!

That reminded me of a thousand and one changes in her--little changes,

each a trifle in itself, yet, taken all together, making a complete

transformation.

“Let me help you,” I managed to say. And I bent, and made a step of my

hand.

She touched her fingers to my shoulder, set her narrow, graceful foot

upon my palm. But she did not rise. I glanced up; she was gazing

wistfully down at me. “Women have to learn by experience just as do

men,” said she forlornly. “Yet men will not tolerate it.”

I suppose I must suddenly have looked what I was unable to put into

words--for her eyes grew very wide, and with a cry that was a sigh and

a sob and a laugh and a caress all in one, she slid into my arms and

her face was burning against mine.

“Do you remember the night at the theater,” she murmured, “when your

lips almost touched my neck?--I loved you then--Black Matt!--_Black

Matt!_”

And I found voice; and the horse wandered away.

* * * * *

What more?

How Langdon eased his pain and soothed his vanity? Whenever an old

Babylonian nobleman had a misfortune, he used to order all his slaves

to be lashed, that their shrieks and moans might join his in appeasing

the god who was punishing him. Langdon went back to Wall Street, and

for months he made all within his power suffer; in his fury he smashed

fortunes, lowered wages, raised prices, reveled in the blasts of a

storm of impotent curses. But you do not care to hear about that.

As for myself, what could I tell that you do not know or guess? Now

that all men, even the rich, even the parasites of the bandits, groan

under their tyranny and their taxes, is it strange that the resentment

against me has disappeared, that my warnings are remembered, that I am

popular? I might forecast what I purpose to do when the time is ripe.

But I am not given to prophecy. I will only say that I think I shall,

in due season, go into action again--profiting by my experience in the

futility of trying to hasten evolution by revolution. Meanwhile----

As I write, I can look up from the paper, and out upon the lawn, at

a woman--what a woman!--teaching a baby to walk. And, assisting her,

there is a boy, himself not yet an expert at walking. I doubt if you’d

have to glance twice at that boy to know he is my son. Well--I have

borrowed a leaf from Mulholland’s philosophy. I commend it to you.

THE END.

[Illustration]

CONVERSATIONS WITH EGERIA

_Woman’s Trump Card?_

By MRS. WILSON WOODROW

[Illustration]

The senator and Egeria sat in the rich man’s tent--a marble palace by

the sea--and the little nook in the supper room upon which they had

fastened their desire was at last untenanted. Now they slipped into the

recently vacated chairs with a smile of content into each other’s eyes

across the board.

“A moment ago,” said the senator, unfolding his napkin, “we gazed

at those who slowly sipped their coffee and wished that our belief

still held its lost Paradise--Hell--that we might mentally consign

them thither. A moment since we were the people, hungry, clamorous,

watching them ‘spill the bread and spoil the wine.’ In the twinkling

of an eye our attitude changed. We now look with indifferent scorn

upon the waiting mob, and advise them if they have no bread to eat

cake. What a range of experience it gives us! We are one with the labor

agitator elevated to the presidency of a trust. We are the men in the

saddle--after us, the deluge!”

“We are the conquerors, at any rate,” observed Egeria. “Ours is this

delicate _pâté_, this soft, smooth wine. _Vive le_ rich man! May he

entertain oftener! It is unsurpassed.”

“Save by Nature,” returned the senator. “You have failed to notice that

she too entertains to-night. What a fête! The sea dashing the froth of

its ‘night and its might’ against the wall, that arch of honeysuckle,

sweeter than a bank of violets, and yonder pale siren, the moon! Fair

to-night, I drink to you!”

“After all,” mused Egeria, “the high gods bestowed on Nature a woman’s

privilege--the last word. Art may declaim, Science explain, Religion

dogmatize; but Nature has the last word.”

“And the last word, the one word, the eternal word, is ‘beauty,’” he

amended.

Egeria shrugged her shoulders. “A matter of surfaces. The mask nature

wears to hide her hideous processes of decay. As the lovely heroine of

a recent novel says, ‘the beauty that rules the world is lodged in the

epidermis.’”

“A superficial and essentially feminine point of view,” commented the

senator. “Beauty”--with a wave of the hand--“is a matter of the soul.

The skin-deep variety is not worth considering.”

“But most women would pay the price of a pound of radium for that

infinitesimal depth,” she returned, flippantly.

“Your sex is hardly a judge of what constitutes feminine beauty.” There

was condescension in the senator’s tone. “Here, I can prove the point

for you. Grant me your indulgence and I will tell you a little story.”

The senator rather fancied himself as a _raconteur_.

“There was once a woman who was regarded by all the men of her

acquaintance as ugly, stupid and tiresome, and by all the women

who knew her as beautiful, brilliant, fascinating and altogether

delightful. Their different points of view led to so much discussion

and bickering that they finally decided to submit the matter to a

referee, a wise old fellow, who, after a very thorough acquaintance

with the world and its works, had elected to spend the remainder of his

days in seclusion.

“The philosopher kindly consented to decide the matter, and

consequently gave the lady in question due study. Ultimately he

announced his decision.

“‘Both sides are right,’ he said. ‘She is the ugliest, stupidest, most

aggressive creature on earth; but masculine indifference and dislike

have thrown such a halo about her that all women see her as beautiful

and charming.’”

During the recital of this tale, a flush had risen on Egeria’s cheek,

and she tapped her foot with growing impatience upon the floor. Barely

had he finished when she cried, explosively:

“I hate men! Your fable proves nothing but the ineffable conceit of

your sex!”

The senator pursued his advantage. “I saw a similar remark in a book I

was reading the other day”--pleasantly. “‘I hate men,’ said one woman

to another; ‘I wish they were all at the bottom of the sea.’

“‘Then,’ replied the woman to whom she spoke, ‘we would all be

purchasing diving bells.’

“But”--hastily, as Egeria half rose--“you really don’t consider women

judges of what constitutes feminine beauty?”

“The only judges. We are not dazzled, hypnotized, by a mere matter of

exquisite coloring, the fugitive glance of too expressive eyes. We

are able to bring a calm, unbiased scrutiny to bear upon it, to fully

analyze it. _We_ do not confuse beauty with charm.”

“Are the two, then, distinct?” he pondered.

“Are they distinct?” repeated Egeria, scornfully. “Are they distinct?

Some one--a man, of course--has said that if Cleopatra had been without

a front tooth the whole history of the world would have been changed;

and Heine, you remember, when asked about Madame de Staël, remarked

that, had Helen looked so, Troy would not have known a siege. Absurd!

The sirens of this world who have swayed men’s hearts and imaginations

have never been dependent on their front teeth or their back hair. If

Cleopatra had lost a whole row, Antony and every other man who knew her

would have insisted that women in the full possession of their molars

were repulsive.”

“Ah!” cried the senator, triumphantly, “your words justify me. Beauty

is some subtle essence of the soul, as I said.”

A faint, malicious sparkle brightened Egeria’s eyes. “Really, now,

would you call the sirens of this world soulful creatures? They were

and are psychologists, intuitive diviners of a man’s moods, capable of

meeting him on every side of his nature; but----”

“Do you mean,” interrupted the senator, his eyes reflecting the sparkle

of hers, “that their dominion over us is through an intellectual

comprehension of our moods?”

“Good heavens, no!” disclaimed Egeria, in shocked tones. “Who said

anything about the intellectual faculties of woman? I hear enough of

them at my club. What I am trying to get at is that beauty without

charm has always received a very frigid appreciation. Men prate of it,

adore it, yawn, and--leave it. Of the two, they infinitely prefer charm

without beauty. Now, senator, what is it you really admire in women?”

“I will tell you if you tell me first what women really admire in men?”

“Ah!” cried Egeria, with complacency, “there we have the advantage of

you. We show twice the solid, substantial reasons for the faith that

is in us that you do. Woman admires in man masculinity, virility; then

brains, ability, distinction. She may loudly profess her devotion to

‘the carpet knight so trim.’ ‘Such a dear, thoughtful fellow, so sweet

and sympathetic!’ But her secret preference is profoundly for the one

who is ‘in stern fight a warrior grim, in camp a leader sage.’ She has

not altered since the Stone Age, not in the least degree. When she was

dragged by the hair from her accustomed cave to make a happy home in

a new one, do you fancy she gave a thought to the recent companion of

her joys and sorrows who was lying somewhere with his head stove in?

Not she. Her pity was swallowed up in admiration for the victor, who,

lightly ignoring the marks of her teeth and nails, haled her along to

his den. It is to the strong men of this earth that the heart of woman

goes out.

“Printed articles on the home,” she went on, with light derision,

“are always urging husbands to show the same tender attention and

loving courtesies to their wives after marriage as before. In reality,

nothing would so bore a woman. Man is an idealist; woman is intensely

practical. She would infinitely prefer to have him out winning the

bread and butter and jam than sitting at her feet, penning sonnets

to her eyebrow. After an experience of the before-wedded, tender

courtesies, she would exclaim: ‘John, please don’t be such a fool. I am

so sick of this lovey-dovey business, that I would really enjoy a good

beating.’

“You see, she knows instinctively that ‘man’s love is of his life, a

thing apart,’ and that, if he prefers showing her lover-like attentions

to ranging the court, camp, church, the vessel and the mart, she has a

freak on her hands. But how I run on; and you haven’t told me yet what

it is that men admire in women?”

“Beauty,” still insisted the senator, enthusiastically. “Goodness,

truth, constancy, amiability!”

Egeria looked at him with reproach. “Do you really mean it?”--earnestly.

“Of course I do”--surprised at her tone.

“I dare say any man to whom I put the question would answer in the

same way.” Her eyebrows expressed resignation. “Stay, I will phrase it

differently; why do you think you love a particular woman?”

The senator could not resist the opportunity. “Because she is

you!”--gallantly.

“Stop trifling.” Egeria was becoming petulant. “This is a serious

matter. Now, answer properly; why do you think you love a particular

woman?”

“Because”--emphatically--“I imagine her, rightly or wrongly, to be the

possessor of those qualities I have enumerated.”

Egeria sighed. “And you still stick to it?”

“Of course I do,” he responded, with assurance.

She shook her head. “Nonsense! Men are less exacting than you

think--and more. They ask neither beauty nor grace nor unselfishness of

woman; they demand but one thing--you must charm me. For me you must

possess that indefinable quality we call magnetism. Emerson puts it all

in a nutshell, voices the essentially masculine point of view:”

I hold it of little matter

Whether your jewel be of pure water--

A rose diamond, or a white--

But whether it dazzle me with light.

“But,” combated the senator, “you must admit that Solomon had ample

opportunity to make a study of your sex, and he reserved all his praise

for the good woman, averring that her price was above rubies.”

Egeria’s smile was faintly cynical. “That was in his capacity as

philosopher. As mere man, he gave the rubies and an immortal song to a

Shulamite girl who looked at him with youth in her smile and laughter

in her eyes.”

“A tribute to beauty,” contested the senator.

“Not at all. Because she fascinated him.”

“And the secret of fascination is beauty,” he triumphed.

She refused to admit it. “The secret of fascination lies with the woman

who can convince a man that under no circumstances could she possibly

bore him.”

The senator was still argumentative. “I continue to maintain that

beauty is some subtle essence of the soul.”

“But the last word, the one word, the eternal word,” quoted Egeria,

rising, “is that beauty is----”

“What?” he questioned, eagerly.

“In the eye of the beholder.”

MIS-MATED AMERICANS

_By_ Julien Gordon

(Mrs. Van Rensselaer Cruger)

[Illustration]

Mr. Henry James is inclined to pity American women, because their

men--husbands and lovers--are not up to their level of fastidious

refinement.

We are inclined to ask Mr. James to what American women he alludes.

Living in a center which makes history, among men of monumental

achievement, of vast intellectual resource, and of comprehensive

judgment, I confess that when I first encountered some of these men

they seemed to me so lacking in the charms of the drawing room that I

asked myself: “How can their women stand them?” When, however, I had

made the acquaintance of some of these women, or ladies, the query in

my soul became: “How can they stand their women?”

Mating and reproduction are largely animal processes, requiring

little play of the imagination. If they did, race suicide would never

have been heard of. The heroine of “The Garden of Allah” pins a pale

Christ over her bed on her wedding night. It has been a late fashion

for English and French writers--Verlaine, Mallock, Oscar Wilde, and

even that rare genius Robert Hichens--to intermingle religion and

spirituality with the sexual instinct. The fact remains that nothing

can be more sane or simple, and it only touches fanatical frenzy in

minds which border hysteria and decadence.

We believe that the average American, being absolutely sane, finds his

mate. He is even persuaded, when she has invested in a diamond brooch

and a brocaded front, that she has become a woman of rare elegance,

belonging to that type which energetic newspaper reporters depict as a

“leader.” The illusion is no doubt calming. Social ambition is salient

among politicians and ambassadors, and a good American who expects

Paradise desires his wife and daughters to be “all right.” He is

quickly and conveniently persuaded that they are. The enormous egotism

of the man of success is large enough to cover, with its gilded wing,

family ramifications in its spasms of self-laudation.

It has become a habit to speak of American women as superior to all

others, and in Europe the legend is beginning to hold. But in what

does this superiority consist? Push, aplomb, finery, what? We cannot

concede that it lies in exceptional accomplishments, or in any rare

degree of scholarship. American women are not often accomplished, are

not frequently even linguists; being usually satisfied with one foreign

tongue, and that a very wretched French. We have few amateur musicians;

and women artists of the force of Janet Scudder or Mrs. Leslie Cotton

can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Our literary women are

not ornamental, and are skillfully excluded from drawing rooms. Our

feminine poets are usually dishevelled. If we throw out a dozen women

in each of our large Eastern cities who have had the advantage of

birth, breeding, position and wealth, the rank and file are like the

rank and file of any other nation--a little brighter, perhaps; keener,

more alert, better groomed, but harder--and often less fascinating. Our

women lack the high vitality and repose of the English--weak nerves

make for fidgetiness--the subtle seduction of the Austrian, the soft

sweetness of the Italian. French women are deteriorating, their present

social upheavals being responsible for this change.

Nevertheless, American girls have married well in Europe; principally

for their ducats, sometimes for their beauty, only very occasionally

for love.

The Latins love readily, particularly when they scent income. The

English, more sincere, play their game openly. They demand “dots” at

the altar, and--get them. However, as I have said, social ambition is

a trait of our new life. It is a wholesome trait and has its use. Only

by contact with a high civilization can a new people become civilized.

Intermarriage is the easiest method.

We are told that American women who have married foreigners adore their

exotic existence and could not be persuaded to return. Is it their

husbands whom they adore? Are all their _ménages_ exceptionally happy?

What they do like is the graceful ease of an existence which appeals to

fancy and a career which women over here do not attain. For, in fact,

American women are overshadowed by their men. _La femme politique_ is

almost, if not quite, unknown in America, as is _la femme artiste_ or

_la femme littéraire_. There are no literary women in the United States

who wield any social power whatsoever. In America talent is rather a

social handicap to a girl or woman, and an escape into a wider field is

tolerated only by our extremely conservative society when balanced by

some peculiar prestige of early environment or personal allurement. We

have no drawing rooms here like that of Madeleine Lemaire, in Paris,

or like that of a certain cosmopolitan, Corinne of Venice, now, alas!

closed forever. In the salons of the artist French woman one encounters

English women of rank, the “little duchesses,” the big ambassadresses,

men of note in every calling, diplomats, statesmen, scientists and

writers.

Our great men have usually married, in their youth, their first love,

and, be it said to their credit, have remained, if not always true to

this village ideal, at least outwardly loyal. They are not ashamed of

past virtue. Their wives, thrown suddenly into a world of which they

know nothing, should surely be excused some solecisms. Occupied in the

cares of rearing children, of providing for large families on small

rations, they have hardly had the leisure to cultivate their minds and

manners. We will not allude to grammar and intonation. It would be too

much to ask!

These women do not demand that a man appeal to the imagination. They

have none. The lover is at once sunk into the father. In fact, they

address their husbands as “father” or “papa”--sometimes, indeed, as

“pa” pronounced paw in moments of caressing emphasis. What would these

women do with a handsome, dashing troubadour, who warbled ditties in

feathered cap and doublet? They do not want a tenor about the house,

they want their bills paid. “Pa” sees to that. She is eminently

practical. Her husband talks little to her of his ambitions, schemes

or success, but he signs the check. That check is the epitome of his

brain’s travail. If in his arid life he sometimes longs for a higher

companionship, and is drawn into the net of some cleverer siren,

his wife remains ignorant of the fact. She is entirely trusting--a

convenient quality and one which men superlatively admire.

No, Mr. James, Americans on the whole are well matched. Look beyond

the few dainty women of fashion who have personally petted you--women

accustomed to the homage of men of the world, and who have danced

at the courts of kings. To these we are willing to add a handful of

brilliant young students who obtain degrees from Vassar, Wellesley,

Smith and Bryn Mawr, are an ornament to the Normal and Barnard College,

and distance male competitors at Cornell University.

May one of these be President some day! We quote the wish of a gallant

member of the Cabinet. We hope that they have low voices, speak

admirable English, and feel sure they never smoke cigarettes and never

say “Damn!”

The camp, however, is very wide. The tents are spread, innumerable,

over the hills and valleys of our fair country. Lift their flapping

curtains, Mr. James. Peep in and you will find content--enough.

[Illustration]

AFTERMATH

If I should go to you in that old place.

(God knows, dear heart, we trod it smooth and straight!)

And lifting up to yours a tear-worn face,

Should whisper, “Darling, it is not too late,

For life and love can soon unbar the gate,”

You would say “No,” e’en though your lips were dumb--

Fear not: I shall not come.

If you should gather up the poor, pale shreds

Of what is left and bring them here to me,

Saying, “Fate tangled. Let us mend the threads

And weave a web more beautiful to see,”

All weeping, I would cry, “It may not be.”

And I would cast it by with hands all numb--

Nay, Sweet; you will not come.

We each have learned the lesson rapt apart,

The better task Fate set us ere the noon.

The storms of Life have beat across my heart

And scourged its madden’d throbbing into tune.

Who would have looked for moth and rust so soon?

Nay, Patience, Sweet! God will bend down some day

And lift your hand to wipe my tears away.

MARGARET HOUSTON.

THE GOLDEN APPLE

BY AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE

[Illustration]

The orchard was on a hill, the farmhouse lay at the foot. There was a

long field, in spring a palace of cowslips, between the orchard and the

house.

This September dawn Pomona came through it and left a dark track of

green along the dew-bepearled grass. Little swaths of mist hung over

the cowslip field, but up in the orchard the air was already clear. It

was sweet with the scent of the ripe fruit, and the tart, clean autumn

pungency left by the light frost.

Pomona shifted the empty basket that she had borne on her head to the

ground, and began to fill it with rosy-cheeked apples. Some she shook

from the laden boughs, some she picked up from the sward where they had

fallen from the tree; but she chose only the best and ripest.

A shaft of sunlight broke over the purple hills. It shone on her

ruddy hair and on her smooth cheek. She straightened herself to look

out across the valley at the eastern sky; all sights of nature were

beautiful to her and gave her a joy that, yet, she had never learned to

put into words, hardly into thoughts. Now, as she stood gazing, some

one came along the road that skirted the orchard, and, catching sight

of her, halted and became lost in contemplation of her, even as she of

the sunrise pageant.

As evidently as Pomona, in her homespun skirt and bodice, belonged to

the farmhouse, so did he to the great castle near by. The gentleman

had made as careful a toilet for his early walk as if he had been

bound for St. James. His riding coat was of delicate hue, and laces

fluttered at his wrists and throat. His black lovelocks hung carefully

combed on either shoulder from under his beplumed hat. A rapier swung

at his side, and, as he stood, he flicked at it with the glove in

his bare hand. He had a long, pale face and long eyes with drooping

lids and haughty eyebrows; a small upturned mustache gave a tilt of

mockery to the grave lips. He looked very young, and yet so sedate and

self-possessed and scornful that he might have known the emptiness of

the world a hundred years.

Pomona turned with a start, feeling herself watched. She gazed for a

moment in surprise, and a deep blush rose in her cheeks; then, still

staring, she made a slow country courtesy. Off went the befeathered

hat; the gentleman returned her salutation by a profound bow. Then he

leaped the little ditch into the orchard and threaded his way through

the trees toward her. She watched him come; her great eyes were like

the eyes of a deer, as shy, as innocent.

“Good-morrow, sir,” said she with another courtesy, and then corrected

herself quickly--“good-morrow, my lord.” For, if he came from the

castle, he was surely a lord.

“Good-morrow, madam,” returned he, pleasantly. His glance appraised her

with open admiration.

What a glorious creature! What proportions; what amber and red on those

smooth cheeks, what ruddy radiance in that sun-illumined hair! What a

column of a throat, and how white the skin where the coarse kerchief

parted above the laced bodice! What lines of bust and hip, of arm and

wrist; generous but perfect! A goddess! He glanced at the strong,

sunburned hands; they were ringless. Unowned, then, as yet, this superb

nymph.

His long eyes moved at their pleasure; and she stood waiting in repose,

though the color came and went richly on her cheek. Then he bowed

again, the hat clasped to his bosom.

“Thank you,” said he, and replaced his beaver with a turn of the wrist

that set all the gray and white plumes rippling round the crown.

“Sir?” she queried, startled, and on her second thought--“my lord?”

At this he broke into a smile. When he smiled, his haughty face gained

a rare sweetness.

“Thank you for rising thus early, and coming into the orchard, and

standing in the sun rays, and being, my maid, so beautiful. I little

thought to find so fair a vision. ’Twill be a sweet one to carry forth

with me--if it be the last on earth.”

Her wits were never quick to work. She went her country way, as a rule,

as straight and sweetly and unthinkingly as the lilies grow.

To question why a noble visitor at the castle--and a visitor it must

be, since his countenance was unfamiliar--should walk forth at the dawn

and speak as if this morning saunter were to death, never entered her

head.

She stammered: “Oh, sir!” to his compliment, and paused, her lip

quivering over the inarticulate sense of her own awkwardness.

“Have you been gathering apples?” quoth he, still smiling on her.

“Ay, sir,” she said; “to make preserve withal;” and faltered yet again,

“my lord.”

“Ay,” approved he. “It has a fair sound in your mouth. Would I were

your lord! What is your name?”

She told him “Pomona.” Whereat he laughed, and repeated it as if he

liked the sound. Then he looked at the east, and behold, the sun had

risen, a full ball of crimson in a swimming sea of rose. The light

glimmered upon his pale cheek, and on the fine laces of his shirt,

redly, as if with stains of new blood.

“I must hence,” he said, and his voice had a stern, far-away sound.

“Farewell, Pomona; wilt thou not wish me well?”

“My lord?”

“Wilt thou not?”

“Oh, indeed, my lord, I do.” And she was moved, on a sudden, she knew

not why, and the tears gathered like a mist in her eyes. “With all my

heart,” she said.

He made her a final bow, bending till his curls fell over his face.

“I thank you.”

She watched him walk away from her in and out the apple trees with his

careless stride, and leap the little ditch again; and so on down the

road.

And when he was lost to her sight, she still stood looking at the point

where the way dipped and vanished and she had seen the last flutter of

the gray feathers.

After a while she drew a long sigh and passed her hands over her eyes,

as if she were awakening from a dream. Then she began mechanically to

fill her basket once more. All the ruddiness faded from the sky. The

sun swam up into the blue, and a white brilliance laid hold of the dewy

valley. Delicate gossamer threads floated high above the apple trees,

against the vault of ever-deeper blue. Somewhere from the hidden folds

of the land a church bell began to chime. Then all at once Pomona

dropped her basket, and while the apples rolled, yellow, green and red,

in all directions, she set off running in the direction the gentleman

had taken.

Why she ran, she knew not, but something drove her with a mighty

urgency. Her heart beat thickly, and her breath came short, though, as

a rule, there was no maid in the countryside that could run as she did.

When she came to the foot of the hill she paused, and there, by the

bramble brake, where the firwood began, she saw, lying on the lip of

the baby stream, a gauntleted gray glove. She turned into the wood.

The pine needles were soft under her feet. The pine stems grew like the

pillars of a church aisle, and the air was sweeter with their fragrance

than any incense that was ever burned.

And after, but a little way, where the forest aisle widened into a

glade, she came on the grand riding coat tossed in a heap; across it

was flung an empty scabbard. And beyond, outstretched at the foot of a

tree---- Pomona stopped short. Now she knew why she had had to run so

fast!

He lay as if asleep, his head pillowed upon a branching root; but

it was no slumber that held him. His features, whiter than ivory,

were strangely sharpened and aged, blue shadows were about nostrils

and mouth, the parted lips under the mocking mustache were set in a

terrible gravity; they were purple, like dead red roses. Between the

long, half-open lids the eyeballs shone silver. It was not now God’s

lovely sunrise that stained the white cambric of his shirt. From where

it had escaped from his relaxed hand a long, keen-bladed sword gleamed

among the pine needles.

Pomona knelt down. She parted the ruffled shirt with a steady hand; his

heart still beat, but below it was a wound that might well cause death.

She sat back on her heels and thought. She could not leave him to call

for help, for he might die alone; neither could she sit useless beside

him and watch him go. She took her resolution quickly. She rose, then

bending, she braced herself and gathered him into her arms as if he had

been a child. He was no taller than she, and slight and lean of build.

She was used to burdens. But she had not thought to find him so heavy.

She staggered and shifted him for an easier grip; and then, as his

pallid head lay loose and languid against her shoulder, the half-open

eyelids fluttered, the upturned eyes rolled and fixed themselves. He

looked at her; dark, dark as eternity was his gaze. She bent her head,

his lips were moving.

“Pomona!”

It was the merest breath, but she knew it was her name. Nearer she bent

to him; a flicker as of a smile came upon those purple-tinted lips.

“Kiss me, Pomona!”

She kissed him, and thought she drew from his cold mouth the last sigh.

But now she was strong. She could have gone to the end of the earth

with this burden in her arms.

His black hair, dank and all uncurled, fell over her bare arm. With the

movement his wound opened afresh, and as she pressed him against her

she felt his blood soak through her bodice to the skin. Then her soul

yearned over him with an indescribable, inarticulate passion of desire;

to help him, to heal him! If she could have given her blood to him she

would have given it with the joy with which a mother gives life to the

babe at her breast.

Pomona was mistress of herself and of her farm, and lived alone with

her servants. Though she was a firm ruler, these latter considered her

soft on certain points. They had known her, before this, carry home a

calf that had staked itself, a mongrel cur half-drowned. But a murdered

gentleman, that was beyond everything!

“Heavens ha’ mercy, mistress,” cried Sue, rising to the occasion, while

the others gaped, and clapped their hands, and whispered together.

“Shall I fetch old Mall to help you lay him out?”

“Fool,” panted Pomona, “bring me the Nantes brandy!”

* * * * *

Earl Blantyre woke from a succession of dreams, in which he had had

most varied and curious experiences; known strange horrors and strange

sweetnesses, flown to more aërial heights than any bird, and sunk to

deeper depths than the sea could hold; fought unending combats and lain

in peace in tender arms.

He woke. His eyelids were heavy. His hand had grown so weighty that

it was as much as he could do to lift it. And yet, as he held it up,

he hardly knew it for his own; ’twas a skeleton thing. There was a

sound in his ears which, dimly he recognized, had woven into most of

his dreams these days, a whirring, soothing sound, like the ceaseless

beating of moth’s wings. As he breathed deeply and with delicious ease,

there was fragrance of herbs in his nostrils. A tag of poetry floated

into his mind--

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows.

He turned his head and went to sleep again and dreamed not at all.

Pomona lighted the lamp, and, shading it with her hand, came, with soft

tread, into the guest chamber. He was still asleep. She set down the

light, mended the fire with another log, peeped into the pan of broth

simmering on the hob, and then sat to her spinning wheel once more.

Suddenly the wool snapped; she started, to find that he was holding

back the curtain with a finger and thumb, and had turned his head on

the pillow to watch her; his eyes gleamed in the firelight. She rose

and came to him quickly.