A band was playing back near the grand stand. Men and women jostled

him, laughing, chatting, paying no attention. He heard a young man

near him say: “Get your program--one dime,” and gave ten cents for the

narrow-leaved “racing card.” He stood holding it mechanically in his

hand. Though his eyes rested on the verdant green of the infield, they

did not see it. They were looking back into the past of little more

than four years before. The racegoers shouldered him heedlessly. He

hardly realized the discomfort, he had forgotten the place to which he

had come, the sights and scenes of the race course on this great Derby

day were forgotten.

How well he remembered the other, the day when the crushing blow had

fallen on his heart! That had been the real reason for his sadness.

Until that morning, four years before, as fresh in memory as yesterday,

the bishop had thought his only son, at college, would follow in the

footsteps of the father. He recollected tearing open the missive in the

beloved handwriting, and reading the letter which had burned deeply

into his memory and his soul.

As he stood looking back into the past, isolated, though surrounded by

thousands, he went over it again:

DEAR FATHER: Your last letter, in which you suggested that it

was high time I had made the choice of a profession, set me to

thinking. As a result I have made my decision.

Father, you know how fond I have been of horseflesh. Do you

remember--but of course you do--when I rode in the tournament

three years ago, the youngest knight there, I captured the prize

and crowned the queen of beauty? You seemed very proud of me then,

and when I crowned mother the queen you complimented me on my good

taste.

Near the college grounds is a race course, with training stables

attached. Owing to my fondness for thoroughbreds, during the

winter I have become acquainted with one of the trainers. I told

him I could ride, and he let me exercise one of his best racers.

He says that I have an excellent seat and hands, and has asked me

to go with him as an apprentice boy, after which I will become a

first-class jockey--a big thing nowadays. I think I am exceedingly

fortunate in having such an opportunity.

You know, father, I never have been very studious. I would rather

sit in the saddle all day than be perched on a stool in an office

for a few hours. I have heard you yourself say that a man cannot

succeed in his vocation unless he is in sympathy with it.

Please don’t oppose me in my choice, for I know I shall make a

great name for myself in the turf world, as you are known in that

of the church. Hoping to hear from you soon and favorably, I am,

Affectionately, your son,

LIONEL.

At first the little bishop had been highly indignant at his son. The

idea of his presuming to couple his own name, as one in the direct line

of apostolic succession, with that of a jockey! Surely his son was

bereft of his senses.

From wrath the father had changed to heartsickness. Rather in anything

else would he have his son engaged than in such a pursuit. He had in

mind his own brother, the pride of his mother’s heart, the idol of the

family, who, through that same love of horseflesh, had fallen so low

that he was either an outcast or the occupant of an unmarked grave in

the Western country.

His answer to the letter had been this:

MY DEAR SON: I am sure that you have not reflected deeply on the

course which you write me you are bent on pursuing. I cannot

consider it as a serious resolve, but regard it rather as the

result of sudden impulse on your part induced by the promptings of

a man who would lead you away from all that is good and proper to

something which is most sinful, degraded and pernicious.

If, after seeing your father in his priestly vestments, you can

array yourself in the trappings of Satan--the jockey’s colors--you

are not the son I have fondly imagined.

I will not pretend to coerce you in the matter. Yet I counsel you

well to consider fully before you take the final step.

Of course if you persist in your wild determination, in future all

communication between us must cease. I can advise you no further.

I am glad your dear mother is not alive to share in the pain which

your communication has caused me.

YOUR DISAPPOINTED FATHER.

The bishop had hoped, rather than expected, that his son would turn

from his resolve. He knew the breed! From the time when their ancestor,

Hugh de Chalmers, had started forth to the Crusades, not one had ever

retreated. And this same De Chalmers, knighted for some deed of valor

on the field of battle, had chosen his coat of arms, which had remained

to the house through the vicissitudes of generations. And this coat

of arms consisted of field _gules_, horse _argent_, with the motto:

“_Ubique honor et equus_” (“Wherever honor and his horse should lead

him”). Always the horse had been associated with the Chalmers race, for

good or bad, it seemed.

After the two letters there had been no others. The lives of father and

son were as those of persons unknown to one another.

The little bishop, sadder than ever--more sanctified, the women of

his flock said--went about his work with renewed vigor, if it were

possible. They did not know of the derelict.

And the son? Never until this day had the father heard of him.

Try as hard as he had done, the bishop could not put from him the

desire, the consuming, yearning wish, once more to look on the face

of his only child, even if engaged in his ungodly pursuit. The bishop

considered this would be his only chance; he was certain his heart was

affected.

Suddenly he came to himself. He was here, but as yet he had seen no

horses or jockeys. His son was apparently as far away from him as he

had been when he first had become a professional rider. The bishop had

supposed men and women, horses and jockeys, were all wallowing together

in one slough.

Neither did Bishop Chalmers distinguish the face of an acquaintance.

Vaguely he had supposed he would be seen by some who had heard him

preach the night before, and who would express astonishment at meeting

him there. Where was Miss Danvers?

If he had only known, he would have been aware that the people who

would recognize him were in their boxes or grand-stand seats, or in the

paddock, where society condescends to jostle elbows with stable boys,

proving the truth of the adage enunciated by a true sage: “On the turf,

and beneath it, all men are equal.” At least, the bishop was saved from

explanation.

It was just after the third race he had arrived. Even now that he had

come, he saw no prospect of accomplishing his design. He knew nothing

of a paddock.

Looking about him helplessly, his black garments contrasting strangely

with the bright costumes of the women, and the “horsy” garb of the

male portion, his eyes rested on the figure of a man near him. He

was a big, burly fellow, with a good-natured Irish face, the most

noticeable feature of which was a huge red mustache. Certainly here

was one who could help him, for the man’s attire was as typical of his

calling as the bishop’s own. A glittering diamond pin in the shape of a

horse’s head was in the cravat, a horseshoe watch charm rested on the

double-breasted waistcoat of “loud” pattern.

Chalmers’ eyes caught those of the turf gambler as the latter lifted

them, after making an apparently satisfactory calculation on the back

of his program.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the bishop. “I--er--as you possibly may

guess, I am not well versed in racing matters. Would you please enable

me to understand a few things? I believe a jockey named Nowell----” he

paused, interrogatively.

“Nowell is it, Blaisdell’s crack jock, ye are askin’ about, now,

father?” inquired the man, with an expression of mild surprise.

Evidently he mistook the bishop for a priest.

“Yes. Somebody said--I understood he was to ride in the Derby to-day,”

continued the bishop, anxiously.

“I see ye ain’t used to racin’ at all, at all, now, father,” laughed

the man, good-humoredly. “If ye were, sir, ye would have seen his name

on the official jockey board over beyant. Do ye see it now, father? The

numbers have been up so long they’ll be takin’ them down shortly. Over

beyant, father.”

The bishop’s eyes followed the outstretched finger across the track to

where he saw opposite “No. 1” on the board the name “Nowell” in large

letters, with other numbers and names below it.

“Let me show ye, father,” said the man, taking the program and turning

over the leaves rapidly.

“There ye are--foorth race, the Derby--No. 1, Ixion. That’s the horse

Nowell rides. It’s No. 1 on the board, an’ I’m hopin’ he’ll be No. 1 at

the finish.”

“Do you attend the races regularly?” asked the bishop, hesitatingly.

“That’s about the size av it, father,” acknowledged the other. “I’m

what ye call a ‘regular.’ I don’t suppose annywan is known better about

the tracks in this section than Miles Halloran. I play the ponies

for a livin’. Mebbe ye’d be scoldin’ me, now, father?” he inquired,

indulgently.

The question was ignored.

“Perhaps you can tell me about this jockey Nowell?” the bishop asked

again. “Do you know him?”

“Little Nowell?” repeated the man. “I reckon not. Nobody knows him but

Blaisdell and the horses. They say his own father don’t know him. But

that don’t keep me from playin’ his mounts, father. I’ve been backin’

him ever since he started to ride. That’s why I’m all to the good. I

don’t know him, but sure I can tell ye av him, an’ nothin’ but good.

He’s as straight as a string.”

“Do you mean that he rides sitting straight up in the saddle?” inquired

the bishop, misunderstanding.

“No, no, sir; not that. Sure, if all the boys were like him the bookies

would go out of business, I’m thinkin’.”

“Bookies?” repeated the bishop. “Will you kindly elucidate what you

mean by bookies?”

“Sure, the bookmakers.”

“Bookmakers--publishers, do I understand you to mean?” inquired the

bishop, failing to see the connection between publishers and the race

course.

“No, no, father; the layers what takes your long green, your dough,

your yellow backs--the ones ye make your bet with, ye know.”

“Oh!” said the bishop.

“This little jock, Nowell, as I was sayin’,” continued Halloran, “is

pounds better than any rider in the country.”

Once more the bishop failed to comprehend.

“Pounds? Do you mean in the nature of dollars and cents? Do I

understand that his services are so much more valuable than those of

any other rider?”

The ill-concealed pride of a father was manifest.

Unable to hide his merriment longer at the dense ignorance displayed

by his interrogator, the race-track _habitué_ gave vent to a series of

chuckles, ending with spasmodic gasps which threatened to choke him.

Finally he said:

“When we say that a horse is so many pounds better than another, we

mean that he can pick up so much more weight than another one carries

and win out. It’s made by lead carried in the saddle pad. Now, this

Darby to-day----”

“Go on, I think I understand,” said the bishop, faintly. “About the

Derby----”

“Now, in this here Darby--it’s a mile and a half race--all the horses

are three-year-olds, and they carry the same weights.”

“Ah, yes, I see, I see. Then Nowell should win?”--tentatively.

Halloran meditated, frowning deeply.

“Ye seem to take uncommon interest in this jock, sir----” he began.

“You are quite right, Mr. Halloran,” said the bishop. “I--I knew him

well some years ago. It was before he became a jockey. His--his mother

and father I was well acquainted with.”

“Well, annywan that has been a friend av that lad is all right. I’m

goin’ to put ye wise to somethin’. It’s only track gossip, but I

believe there’s truth in it. It’s this”--he paused a moment before

continuing, impressively: “Nowell will win if he gets through alive.

It’s a mighty rough passage he’ll have this day. If he finishes with

his neck safe, he’ll have the saints to thank at the end.”

The bishop’s face blanched. He could not understand.

“Is there a plot against his life? Can such a thing be allowed?” he

demanded.

“Ye see, it’s this way--all the other jocks is jealous of Nowell, one

of them in particular. That’s the Dago, Satanelli. ‘Little Satan,’ they

call him, and he’s one of the devil’s own imps. He’s next to Nowell in

winning mounts. He rides the second favorite, Hotspur, and it’s said

Hotspur’s owner, Cantrell, has promised Satanelli two thousand dollars

if he beats Ixion. He don’t have to win--come in ahead of Ixion, that’s

all. More’n that, I hear each one of the other jocks has been slipped

a hundred-dollar bill if he does all he can to beat Ixion. It’s easy

money, you see. They’ll try to beat Nowell now if they have to put him

over the fence to do it.”

“I am truly grateful to you for your information,” was the bishop’s

reply. “What you say is a terrible state of affairs. Could you not find

time to warn him--Nowell, I mean?”

“Why, he knows it, all right, father. Bless your soul, he’s wise as to

what’s goin’ on.”

“And still he will go into this death trap set for him! Where can I

find the officials?” implored the bishop. “Certainly they cannot be

aware of the existing state of things. Mr. Halloran, won’t you help me?”

At the instant the clear notes of a bugle rang out. The bishop and his

companion were separated. In some unaccountable manner the air appeared

surcharged with electricity. For a second the noise and clamor of the

grand stand, the babble of thousands of tongues, were succeeded by a

strange stillness.

Again the noise began, but now it was more subdued--the vast crowd

seemed to be under a spell. Wondering and bewildered, feeling that he

had lost his mainstay, conscious that the crisis was near at hand,

Bishop Chalmers looked about him.

He was brought to himself by a friendly hand on the shoulder, a rough

but kindly voice in his ear:

“I slipped into the bettin’ ring to put down an extra wad, father.

It looks now like everywan thinks Nowell will get through all right.

All the big plungers is bettin’ on him, and they know what’s afoot. I

thought maybe the little church might be needin’ some money now, and I

put down a bet for ye,” he said, with a sly smile.

“Thank God!” was the bishop’s fervent ejaculation. But he was not

referring to the wager.

“That was the call to the post, father,” said Halloran. “Come down here

by the rail, so ye can get a good look at the boy. It’s the only chance

ye’ll have. Right here, up against the rail, with me.”

Leaning over the rail, forgetful of all else, the bishop watched in the

direction indicated by his companion for the horses and riders. Soon he

saw them trooping out of the paddock gate on the track, in single file,

a brave show. He thought he recognized the figure on the leading horse.

A mist came before his eyes.

“That’s him--the wan on the big chestnut in front, No. 1, that’s

Nowell. Ye’ll be havin’ a good look presently,” whispered the Irishman.

“That’s him--the jock with the blue jacket, brown sash, brown cap.”

The bishop’s highly imaginative brain had preconceived this first

glimpse of his son. He imagined the boy he had known would be

transformed into a rough, profane creature, with heartless laughter and

obscene jest to catch the applause of the crowd--young in years, old in

crime, a tool of gamblers and blacklegs.

What the father saw, as with trembling fingers he clutched the rail

near the judges’ stand, was a bright-faced young man, or, rather, a

youth, with the father’s calm, deep blue eyes looking out from under

the peak of his jockey cap straight ahead, fearless and confident.

The face had lost its boyish laughter--it wore an earnest,

business-like expression. The father felt a thrill of--was it pride?

His son was still a Chalmers, going to what might prove his death with

unmoved countenance, just as his cavalier ancestor had gone generations

before.

The horses--twelve of them--“a big Derby field,” some one said--passed

by in parade, one after the other, on their way to the starting post,

a half-mile distant around the circular track on which the Derby was

to be run. There had been yells for Ixion and Nowell, handclapping and

cheering, but the jockey had ridden on without noticing the favor with

which he was received; past the grand stand, the field stand and around

the turn.

At last the bishop was roused from his contemplation by the voice of

Halloran. The plunger explained to him the manner of starting, the

positions at the post. Most of it was meaningless to the bishop. He

endeavored to understand. It had been his intention first to remain

only until he had seen his son, and then go. The startling information

given him had changed that.

Nervously expectant, imbued with the general feeling of suspense,

Chalmers stood by the side of Halloran, the big Irishman peering

through field glasses, shifting uneasily, and muttering to himself

incoherently. The bishop watched silently, trying to pick out the blue

and brown colors from the jumble of others, a prayer in his heart for

one in peril of sudden death.

Would it never end? For minutes and minutes, each one of which added

its load of misery to the watcher’s heart, the bishop saw the twisting

and turning, the perverse actions of the racers as the starter

tried to line them up behind the frail barrier. The wait was nerve

racking--would it continue to torture the heart and brain for hours?

A something like a white ribbon flashed upward. For the infinitesimal

part of a second--silence.

A roar as of relief from the vast multitude, a cry so concerted that

the thousands might have rehearsed it for weeks, sharp, short, distinct

and crescendo: “They’re off!”

The tension was broken.

A simultaneous darting forward of the released level line of racers.

A flirt downward of a glaringly yellow flag.

Already the rumble of hoofbeats was heard, approaching closer each

fraction of a second. Now the flying racers had reached a position

opposite the grand stand. The leaders were sweeping by the bishop and

his companion with their marvelous, frictionless, space-devouring

strides. A sharp exclamation came from Halloran, a jubilant expression:

“I told ye Nowell would get off well. He’s second now, an’ takin’ it

easy.”

Even the inexperienced eye of the bishop had picked out

instantaneously, well to the fore, the blue and brown of his jockey son.

They had swept past the paddock; they were making the first turn to the

back stretch. The grand-stand spectators had risen in their excitement,

the occupants of the packed lawn were tip-toe with expectation, eyes

strained to lose no move of the Derby contenders well advanced in the

struggle for the great prize.

Halloran gave an inarticulate cry--a burst of dismay and sympathy came

from the backers of the favorite.

“Bumped into, by----!” was the Irishman’s sharp exclamation, coupled

with a fierce oath. One of the flying racers, urged on to terrific pace

by its rider, with no thought of saving for the heartbreaking finish,

had struck Ixion on the quarter with his shoulder. For a moment the

favorite was seen to falter and fall back; the next, under the superb

handling of his rider, he had regained his stride and recovered the

ground lost to the leaders.

The bishop had merely guessed something had happened. He was brought to

full realization by Halloran saying, impersonally:

“They’re up to their devil’s tricks early in the game. They don’t care

for foulin’ in this Derby.”

Some man alongside answered, with a sneer:

“I guess they’ll fix Blaisdell’s kid-glove jock to-day. I see his

finish. The other boys will see to him, all right--his uppishness.”

Halloran, letting fall the glasses from his face, grabbed the strap,

turned on the speaker like a tiger, and said in a tone of deepest

menace:

“Ye know me, Cantrell. Another word the like av that, an’ I’ll brain ye

right in the presence of his riverence, here. Don’t forget that little

jock is a friend av him an’ av me.”

The man was silent.

“Watch yerself, Nowell,” the big fellow cautioned, as if the jockey was

in earshot. “It’s all right in the straight. Watch yourself on the last

turn for home; it’s there they’ll try to do the dirty work.”

Down the back stretch they raced in a compact bunch, the blue and brown

on the rail, the black horse of Satanelli, like an avenging demon,

hanging on to Ixion’s quarter, the rest close behind, ready to aid in

the devilish work cut out for them by the chief conspirator.

In reality it took but a few seconds, though it seemed minutes, until

the far turn was reached. Here the blue and brown, the all yellow of

Satanelli, the violets and greens and pinks and blacks and reds and

all the other colors of the jockeys, became merged in a maze to the

bishop. Whether the positions had changed, how his son was faring, he

could only guess by the disjointed utterances of the man beside him.

Halloran, on tiptoe, breathing heavily, and with head turning slowly,

followed the movements of the racers. The bishop had a sensation

of faintness steal over him. For a space he feared he would lose

consciousness.

“Oh! Mother of mercies!”--from Halloran. “They pinched him off at the

far turn! Bumped into again! He’ll never win now. If the stewards don’t

take action now----”

A heavy foot was raised and stamped the ground savagely.

His breath coming in gasps, the bishop watched the expression of the

other to try and read the fate of his son. To him the race itself was

as a closed book.

Around the far turn they had swept, and the bishop, looking at the

other’s face, listening intently, caught the words:

“They’ve got Ixion pocketed. He’ll never get through. If he tries,

they’ll put him over the fence, sure. Ye young devils, ye’ve done your

work well.”

Now they had reached the turn for home. They had rounded it. A black

horse, with the all yellow, was in the lead, a jockey, white and black

checks, was alongside, half a length away, both at the whip. Two

lengths back, in the middle of the ruck, seemingly hopelessly beaten,

apparently shut off with no chance to get through, was the blue and

brown.

Between Ixion and the rail two horses nearly on even terms with him; in

front Satanelli on Hotspur, and Blashford, the second choice, carrying

the black and white “magpie” colors; on Ixion’s whip side a beautiful

brown filly, with gray and magenta, the filly so tired she was ready to

lean against Ixion’s heaving flank.

So with those in the “first flight,” the racers came down the stretch

in a whirlwind finish, the vast crowd, in a frenzy of excitement,

shouting frantically, hysterically, the names of the two leaders,

Hotspur and Blashford, for it seemed certain one or the other was sure

to win. Halloran was silent.

Suddenly the brown filly halted perceptibly in her stride. Now she

had fallen back! The racer in front of Ixion, slightly to his right,

running gamely and true under the now added incentive of pricking steel

in side, had drawn slightly away from under the nose of Ixion, and was

pressing hard the two leaders, with evident intention of capturing a

portion of the purse. An open gap of daylight showed between the colt

in front of Ixion and the completely fagged filly. It was but a chance,

but it meant freedom. It was the one thing remaining for Nowell and

Ixion.

Rising in his saddle, crouching forward, whip lifted and falling with

one lash only, Nowell reined Ixion sharply to the right.

A horse less royally bred than Ixion, an animal with more temper

and less courage than this thoroughbred, after the buffeting he had

received during the race, would have sulked, or responded at best

with feeble effort. Not so with the Blaisdell thoroughbred, under the

skillful guidance of a premier jockey.

Ixion checked his stride, almost landing on his haunches, and, with a

plunge which threatened to throw his rider over his head, had found

an opening, on the extreme outside, it is true, but an unobstructed

path to the finish. With tremendous leaps and bounds the horse was

recovering his lost ground.

Another second and Ixion’s clean-cut head, outstretched until the

upper lip was lifted, baring the grinning teeth, was seen with that

of Blashford, fallen back three-quarters of a length behind Hotspur,

as yet showing no diminution of his wonderful speed under the cruel

rawhide and steel of Satanelli.

Scarcely before that jockey realized it--probably the first intimation

he had of his rival’s nearness was the crowd yelling Ixion’s name--the

racer had drawn up to Hotspur, changing places with Blashford, now

dropping further behind.

Head and head Ixion and Hotspur hung together for a couple of strides.

As a man transformed from a paralyzing grief to sudden great unexpected

joy, Halloran was dancing up and down like a madman, pounding the rail

with a huge fist.

Ixion and Hotspur were nose and nose. Once more, only, nearing the

finish line, did Nowell strike his horse with the whip, and the racer,

as if understanding the need, lengthened his stride, passing Hotspur by

the small space of a man’s hand at the finish, and winning by so much.

At the instant, with a shrill yell of rage, all the ferocity of his

Latin nature roused by defeat when victory seemed assured, Satanelli

jerked his right rein, so that his horse “bored” against Ixion, at the

same time hitting viciously at that racer’s head with his whip.

His mighty stride as yet unchecked, Ixion swerved, stumbled, fell to

his knees and rolled to one side, on the jockey.

Snorting wildly, the colt regained his feet and rushed on as the rest

of the field, contesting for third place, rushed up to the finish.

Two of the leading horses jumped clean over the prostrate figure of

the jockey in blue and brown; the flying hoofs of another struck it

and rolled the body of the little rider to one side. The others,

sufficiently far behind, avoided it altogether.

Yells of exultation at the winning of the favorite were checked. They

were changed to groans of sympathizing men, screams of terror-stricken,

white-faced, fainting women.

When the bishop came to himself he was in the center of the track,

kneeling down by his unconscious son, holding the head of the

unfortunate in his hands. Uniformed men were by him.

Through a little gate opening from the judges’ stand hurried a large,

distinguished-looking man, with gray mustache.

He had the unmistakable air of authority as he stood over the jockey’s

form, his uncased field glasses, with the case itself, dangling by his

side. The others moved away, all but the bishop. The elderly man, to

whom the others gave way, would have lifted the boy in his arms, but

the bishop would not release his hold.

“Pardon me, sir; let me have him,” said the gentleman, with something

of austerity, as if hinting that the presence of a clergyman was more

superfluous than necessary. “What he needs now most of all is prompt

medical attention. He is my jockey.”

“And he is my son, sir; my only child,” was the response of the

kneeling, dark-garbed figure. He permitted the large man to lift the

boy in his arms.

As the ambulance drove sharply on the course, the large man, still

clasping the jockey in his arms, looked hard at the anguished face.

It was a brief but all-comprehensive glance. The next instant he had

lifted a foot on the step, and with the assistance of the surgeon had

deposited the insensible boy on the stretcher inside.

“Drive direct to Fordham,” he commanded. “I will follow immediately.”

Only then did he turn to the bishop.

“I am William T. Blaisdell. You say the boy is your son? You are----?”

His eyes roved over the other’s ministerial dress.

“I am Bishop Chalmers, sir. This young man is my son, my only child,”

he repeated, quietly.

“How is it that his name is Nowell? He told me that was his right one?”

said the owner, doubtingly.

“It is his own middle name, and his mother’s maiden one,” was the low

reply.

“Come with me, bishop,” said Blaisdell, his face softening. “He is a

son of whom any father might be proud. Let us hope his injuries are not

serious. My automobile is outside here, and we will go direct to the

hospital.”

During the swift ride to the hospital, in the wake of the ambulance,

Bishop Chalmers, as to a father confessor, unbosomed himself to the

quiet, self-contained man beside him. When he had finished the

recital, concluding with the remark that he had misjudged his son, and

the two men had looked into one another’s eyes, the father saw that

Blaisdell’s were filled with tears.

“You have misjudged him sadly,” was Blaisdell’s reply. “No one in any

capacity was ever truer to his trust than your son, bishop.

“None ever lived a cleaner life, I know. He had offers innumerable to

ride for men who would have paid him extra thousands for retainers. The

methods of some on the turf are questionable. As in any other business,

it depends altogether on the man. Your son preferred to ride only for

me, because he knew that always my horses were ridden to win.”

He was silent a little.

“Although your son received from me a retaining fee of fifteen thousand

dollars a year, he seemed to spend but little money,” he continued.

“Each year, at his request, I deposited my personal check, payable

to him, for the whole amount with my bankers, Relyea & Farnum. As he

seemed to spend little, and, like myself, never ventured a wager, it

must have accumulated to a good round sum. I always supposed hitherto

that the boy had others dependent on him.”

Cringing in his seat, positively cringing, at this latest revelation,

Bishop Chalmers heard.

To think how he had mistaken his son! Relyea & Farnum, bankers? Their

names were familiar. Now the bishop knew who furnished the seed for his

harvest. On this point alone could he not reveal the truth to Blaisdell.

“It was remarkable how he could handle horseflesh,” continued the

latter, in a matter-of-fact tone. “No one else could ride Ixion. I

verily believe he would have pined away in any other profession. He

was not perfectly happy unless he was about horses. Honest? Why,

bishop, the whole racing public be----” He checked the word, smiling to

himself. He had started to say “bets on him.” “The whole racing public

believes in him,” he declared, gravely.

“‘In whatsoever calling,’” murmured the bishop.

The patient had been taken into the operating room, was the report that

awaited Blaisdell and the bishop on their arrival at the hospital.

Nothing was known regarding his condition. Blaisdell whispered to the

obsequious interne who met them:

“I am ex-Secretary Blaisdell. Your patient is the son of Bishop

Chalmers here, and in my employ. You will greatly oblige me by sending

for my surgeon, Dr. Abercrombie. Leave no stone unturned to save the

boy. And, by the way, doctor----”

The departing physician returned to Blaisdell’s side.

“If--er--when he regains consciousness--you might tell him that his

father, Bishop Chalmers, is waiting to see him. The news might prove of

benefit.”

In the hallway, too excited and interested to remain quiet in the

reception room, the bishop and ex-Secretary Blaisdell paced up and

down. A few minutes they had passed thus, conversing together gravely,

when the click of small, dainty heels, the rustle of a woman’s skirts,

were heard on the bare floor.

A tall girl, with light hair; a lovely, highbred creature, gowned in

the most approved of summer “creations,” the perfume of whose presence

nullified the odor of anæsthetics and antiseptics--a young lady whose

features were strikingly like those of Blaisdell--the light of whose

blue eyes was dimmed by weeping, threw herself, sobbing, into his arms.

“How did you get here, Bettina?” Blaisdell asked her, with something of

reproof in his tone.

“I saw it--the--oh, it was too terrible!” she cried. “I asked where

they had taken him, and followed directly. They said you were here.”

Her eyes rested on the bishop, standing near.

“Is it--is it so bad as that, father?” she cried, sobbing anew. “Oh,

don’t tell me he is----”

She could not bring herself to say the word.

“This is Bishop Chalmers, daughter,” was Blaisdell’s reply.

“Bishop Chalmers!” gasped the girl, with wide-open eyes. “Why, bishop,

I heard you preach on ‘Charity’ last night.”

“On ‘Charity,’ which I so badly lacked--that which I thought I

possessed, but which I had so little of for my own son,” said the

bishop. “The boy whom you knew simply as Nowell was my son, Miss

Blaisdell--Lionel Nowell Chalmers. His father”--he cleared his

throat--“was so uncharitable as to deny him the privilege of calling

him father.”

“To think that he was the son of a bishop, and now it’s too late! Oh,

why would not he tell us!” she cried, reproachfully.

She had burst into a fresh fit of sobbing. Blaisdell, one arm thrown

affectionately around the waist of the weeping girl, placed the other

on the bishop’s shoulder.

“Your son and my daughter were in love with one another,” he said,

simply. “I have no son, and the boy was much at my house. I trusted

him fully in everything. I saw the growing attachment between the two.

I was certain that he came of good people, but, as a father, and on

account of my social position, I had to be sure. I asked him, as he

loved Bettina and she him, to tell me who his father was.

“He would not,” continued Blaisdell, after a pause. “I felt sure he

had some excellent motive for keeping his secret. I did not press him

further, and there the matter rested.”

A pent-up sob came from the soul of the bishop. “So much it would have

meant to him,” he said, and added, softly, as if to himself: “As the

father, in his priestly vestments, would not recognize the son in his

Satan’s trappings, so the son could not acknowledge the father. Oh,

Lord, spare him to us yet a while.”

The door opened and a nurse appeared on the threshold. She looked

curiously at the group.

“Jockey Nowell is conscious and asking for his father, the bishop,” she

stated, with unintentional emphasis on the last word, and then added,

in a coldly professional tone:

“He will recover, the physicians say, but his injuries will probably

prevent him from riding again--at least not for a very long while.”

Blaisdell drew a sharp breath. His face was troubled.

“That means my retirement from the turf,” he said, with a sigh. “I have

lost the one jockey I could trust.”

“And I have gained--a son,” breathed the bishop, starting forward.

Pausing, he took the sobbing girl by the hand.

“You will see him later, daughter,” he whispered.

His face radiant with a smile it had not known for years, the little

bishop followed the nurse down the passage.

A door opened and closed noiselessly behind them.

[Illustration]

The PRINCESS’ KINGDOM

By William J. Locke

[Illustration]

That there once was a real Prince Rabomirski is beyond question. That

he was Ottilie’s father may be taken for granted. But that the Princess

Rabomirski had a right to bear the title many folk were scandalously

prepared to deny. It is true that when the news of the prince’s death

reached Monte Carlo, the princess, who was there at the time, showed

various persons, on whose indiscretion she could rely, a holograph

letter of condolence from the czar, and later unfolded to the amiable

muddle-headed the intricacies of a lawsuit which she was instituting

for the recovery of the estates in Poland; but her detractors roundly

declared the holograph letter to be a forgery, and the lawsuit a

fiction of her crafty brain. Princess, however, she continued to style

herself in Cosmopolis, and princess she was styled by all and sundry,

and little Ottilie Rabomirski was called the Princess Ottilie.

Among the people who joined heart and soul with the detractors was

young Vince Somerset. If there was one person whom he despised and

hated more than Count Bernheim--of the holy Roman empire--it was the

Princess Rabomirski. In his eyes she was everything that a princess, a

lady, a woman and a mother should not be. She dressed ten years younger

than was seemly; she spoke English like a barmaid, and French like a

cocotte; she gambled her way through Europe from year’s end to year’s

end, and, after neglecting Ottilie for twenty years, she was about to

marry her to Bernheim. The last was the unforgivable offense.

The young man walked up and down the Casino terrace of

Illerville-sur-Mer, and poured into a friend’s ear his flaming

indignation. He was nine-and-twenty, and, though he pursued the

unpoetical avocation of sub-editing the foreign telegrams on a London

daily newspaper, retained some of the vehemence of undergraduate

days when he had chosen the career--now abandoned--of poet, artist,

dramatist and irreconcilable politician.

“Look at them!” he cried, indicating a couple seated at a distant

table beneath the awning of the café. “Did you ever see anything so

horrible in your life? The maiden and the Minotaur. When I heard of the

engagement today I wouldn’t believe it until she herself told me. She

doesn’t know the man’s abomination. He’s a byword of reproach through

Europe. The live air reeks with the scent he pours upon himself. There

can be no turpitude under the sun in which the wretch doesn’t wallow.

Do you know that he killed his first wife? Oh, I don’t mean that he cut

her throat. That’s far too primitive for such a complex hound. There

are other ways of murdering a woman, my dear Ross. You kick her body

and break her heart and defile her soul. That’s what he did. And he has

done it to other women.”

“But, my dear man,” remarked Ross, elderly and cynical, “he is

colossally rich.”

“Rich! Do you know where he made his money? In the cesspool of European

finance. He’s a Jew by race, a German by parentage, an Italian by

upbringing, and a Greek by profession. He has bucket shops and low-down

money lenders’ cribs and rotten companies all over the Continent. Do

you remember Sequasto & Co.? That was Bernheim. England’s too hot to

hold him. Look at him now he has taken off his hat. Do you know why he

wears his greasy hair plastered over half his damned forehead? It’s to

hide the mark of the beast. He’s anti-Christ! And when I think of that

Jezebel from the Mile-End Road putting Ottilie into his arms, it makes

me see red. By heavens, it’s touch and go that I don’t slay the pair of

them!”

“Very likely they’re not as bad as they’re painted,” said his friend.

“She couldn’t be,” Somerset retorted, grimly.

Ross laughed, looked at his watch and announced that it was time

for _apéritifs_. The young man assented, moodily, and they crossed

the terrace to the café tables beneath the awning. It was the dying

afternoon of a sultry August day, and most of Illerville had deserted

tennis courts, _tir aux pigeons_ and other distractions to listen

lazily to the band in the Casino shade. The place was crowded;

not a table vacant. When the waiter at last brought one from the

interior of the café, he dumped it down beside the table occupied by

the unspeakable Bernheim and the little Princess Ottilie. Somerset

raised his hat as he took his seat. Bernheim responded with elaborate

politeness, and Princess Ottilie greeted him with a faint smile. The

engaged pair spoke very little to each other. Bernheim lounged back

in his chair, smoking a cigar, and looked out to sea with a bored

expression. When the girl made a casual remark he nodded rudely

without turning his head. Somerset felt an irresistible desire to

kick him. His external appearance was of the type that irritated

the young Englishman. He was too handsome in a hard, swaggering,

black-mustachioed way; he exaggerated to offense the English style

of easy dress; he wore a too devil-may-care Panama, a too obtrusive

colored shirt and club tie; he wore no waistcoat, and the hems of

his new flannel trousers, turned up six inches, disclosed a stretch

of tan-colored silk socks, clocked with gold, matching overelegant

tan shoes. He went about with a broken-spirited poodle. He was

inordinately scented. Somerset glowered at him, and let his drink

remain untasted.

Presently Bernheim summoned the waiter, paid him for the tea the girl

had been drinking, and pushed back his chair.

“This hole is getting on my nerves,” he said, in French, to his

companion. “I am going into the _cercle_ to play _écarté_. Will you go

to your mother, whom I see over there, or will you stay here?”

“I’ll stay here,” said the little Princess Ottilie.

Bernheim nodded and swaggered off. Somerset bent forward.

“I must see you alone to-night--quite alone. I must have you all to

myself. How can you manage it?”

Ottilie looked at him anxiously. She was fair and innocent, of a

prettiness more English than foreign, and the scare in her blue eyes

made them all the more appealing to the young man.

“What is the good? You can’t help me. Don’t you see that it is all

arranged?”

“I’ll undertake to disarrange it at a moment’s notice,” said Somerset.

“Hush!” she whispered, glancing round. “Somebody will hear. Everything

is gossiped about in this place.”

“Well, will you meet me?” the young man persisted.

“If I can,” she sighed. “If they are both playing baccarat, I may slip

out for a little.”

“As at Spa.”

She smiled, and a slight flush came into her cheeks.

“Yes, as at Spa. Wait for me on the _plage_ at the bottom of the Casino

steps. Now I must go to my mother. She would not like to see me talking

to you.”

“The princess hates me like poison. Do you know why?”

“No, and you are not going to tell me,” she said, demurely. “_Au

revoir._”

When she had passed out of earshot, Ross touched the young man’s arm.

“I’m afraid, my dear Somerset, you are playing a particularly silly

fool’s game.”

“Have you never played it?”

“Heaven forbid!”

“It would be a precious sight better for you if you had,” growled

Somerset.

“I’ll take another _quinquina_,” said Ross.

“Did you see the way in which the brute treated her?” Somerset

exclaimed, angrily. “If it’s like that before marriage, what will it be

after?”

“Plenty of money, separate establishments, perfect independence and

happiness for each.”

Somerset rose from the table.

“There are times, my good Ross,” said he, “when I absolutely hate you.”

* * * * *

Somerset had first met the Princess Rabomirski and her daughter three

years before, at Spa. They were staying at the same hotel, a very

modest one, which, to Somerset’s mind, ill accorded with the princess’

pretensions. Bernheim was also in attendance, but he disposed his

valet, his motor car and himself in the luxurious Hôtel d’Orange,

as befitted a man of his quality; also he was in attendance not on

Ottilie, but on the princess, who at that time was three years younger

and a trifle less painted. Now at Illerville-sur-Mer the trio were

stopping at the Hôtel Splendide, a sumptuous hostelry, whose season

prices were far above Somerset’s moderate means. He contented himself

with the little hotel next door, and hated the Hôtel Splendide and all

that it contained, save Ottilie, with all his heart. But at Spa, the

princess was evidently in low water from which she did not seem to be

rescued by her varying luck at the tables. Ottilie was then a child

of seventeen, and Somerset was less attracted by her delicate beauty

than by her extraordinary loneliness. Day after day, night after night,

he would come upon her sitting solitary on one of the settees in the

gaming room, like a forgotten fan or flower, or wandering wistfully

from table to table, idly watching the revolving wheels. Sometimes she

would pause behind her mother’s or Bernheim’s chair to watch their

game; but the princess called her a little _porte-malheur_ and would

drive her away. In the mornings or on other rare occasions, when the

elder inseparables were not playing roulette, Ottilie hovered round

them at a distance, as disregarded as a shadow that followed them in

space of less dimensions, as it were, wherever they went. In the Casino

rooms, if men spoke to her, she replied in shy monosyllables and shrank

away. Somerset, who had made regular acquaintance with the princess

at the hotel and who took a chivalrous pity on her loneliness, she

admitted first to a timid friendship and then to a childlike intimacy.

Her face would brighten and her heart beat a little faster when she

saw his young, well-knit figure appear in the distance; for she knew

he would come straight to her and take her from the hot rooms heavy

with perfumes and tobacco on to the cool balcony and talk of all manner

of pleasant things. And Somerset found in this neglected little sham

princess what his youth was pleased to designate a flower-like soul.

Those were idyllic hours. The princess, glad to get the embarrassing

child out of the way, took no notice of the intimacy. Somerset fell in

love.

It lasted out a three years’ separation during which he did not hear

from her. He had written to several addresses, but a cold post office

returned his letters undelivered, and his only consolation was to piece

together from various sources the unedifying histories of the Princess

Rabomirski and Count Bernheim, of the holy Roman Empire. He came to

Illerville-sur-Mer for an August holiday. The first thing he did when

shown into his hotel bedroom was to gaze out of the window at the beach

and the sea. The first person his eyes rested upon was the little

Princess Ottilie issuing, alone as usual, from the doors of the next

hotel.

He had been at Illerville a fortnight--a fortnight of painful joy.

Things had changed. Their interviews had been mostly stolen, for the

Princess Rabomirski had rudely declined to renew the acquaintance and

had forbidden Ottilie to speak to him. The girl, though apparently

as much neglected as ever, was guarded against him with peculiar

ingenuity. Somerset, aware that Ottilie, now grown from a child into

an exquisitely beautiful and marriageable young woman, was destined

by a hardened sinner like the princess for a wealthier husband than a

poor newspaper man with no particular prospects, could not, however,

quite understand the reason for the virulent hatred of which he was

the object. He overheard the princess one day cursing her daughter in

execrable German for having acknowledged his bow a short time before.

Their only undisturbed time together was in the sea during the bathing

hour. The princess, hating the pebbly beach, which cut to pieces

her high-heeled shoes, never watched the bathers, and Bernheim, who

did not bathe--Somerset, prejudiced, declared that he did not even

wash--remained in his bedroom till the hour of _déjeuner_. Ottilie,

attended only by her maid, came down to the water’s edge, threw off her

peignoir, and, plunging into the water, found Somerset waiting.

Now, Somerset was a strong swimmer. Moderately proficient at all games

as a boy and an undergraduate, he had found that swimming was the

only sport in which he excelled, and he had cultivated and maintained

the art. Oddly enough, the little Princess Ottilie, in spite of her

apparent fragility, was also an excellent and fearless swimmer. She

had another queer delight for a creature so daintily feminine--the

_salle d’armes_--so that the muscles of her young limbs were firm

and well-ordered. But the sea was her passion. If an additional bond

between Somerset and herself were needed, it would have been this. Yet,

though it is a pleasant thing to swim far away into the loneliness of

the sea with the object of one’s affections, the conditions do not

encourage sustained conversation on subjects of vital interest. On

the day when Somerset learned that his little princess was engaged to

Bernheim he burned to tell her more than could be spluttered out in ten

fathoms of water. So he urged her to an assignation.

At half-past ten she joined him at the bottom of the Casino steps. The

shingly _plage_ was deserted, but on the terrace above the throng was

great, owing to the breathless heat of the night.

“Thank Heaven you have come,” said he. “Do you know how I have longed

for you?”

She glanced up wistfully into his face. In her simple cream dress and

burnt straw hat adorned with white roses round the brim, she looked

very fair and childlike.

“You mustn’t say such things,” she whispered. “They are wrong now. I am

engaged to be married.”

“I won’t hear of it,” said Somerset. “It is a horrible nightmare--your

engagement. Don’t you know that I love you? I loved you the first

minute I set my eyes on you at Spa.”

Princess Ottilie sighed, and they walked along the boards behind the

bathing machines, and down the rattling beach to the shelter of a

fishing boat, where they sat down, screened from the world, with the

murmuring sea in front of them. Somerset talked of his love and the

hatefulness of Bernheim. The little princess sighed again.

“I have worse news still,” she said. “It will pain you. We are going to

Paris to-morrow, and then on to Aix-les-Bains. They have just decided.

They say the baccarat here is silly, and they might as well play for

bonbons. So we must say good-by to-night--and it will be good-by for

always.”

“I, too, will come to Aix-les-Bains,” said Somerset.

“No, no,” she answered, quickly. “It would only bring trouble on me,

and do no good. We must part to-night. Don’t you think it hurts me?”

“But you must love me,” said Somerset.

“I do,” she said, simply, “and that is why it hurts. Now I must be

going back.”

“Ottilie,” said Somerset, grasping her hands, “need you ever go back?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Come away from this hateful place with me--now, this minute. You need

never see Bernheim again as long as you live. Listen. My friend Ross

has a motor car. I can manage it--so there will be only us two. Run

into your hotel for a thick cloak, and meet me as quickly as you can

behind the tennis courts. If we go full speed we’ll catch the night

boat at Dieppe. It will be a wild race for our life happiness. Come!”

In his excitement he rose and pulled her to her feet. They faced each

other for a few glorious moments, panting for breath, and then Princess

Ottilie broke down and cried bitterly.

“I can’t, dear, I can’t. I must marry Bernheim. It is to save my mother

from something dreadful. I don’t know what it is--but she went on her

knees to me, and I promised.”

“If there’s a woman in Europe capable of getting out of her

difficulties unaided it is the Princess Rabomirski,” said Somerset. “I

am not going to let you be sold. You are mine, Ottilie, and, by Heaven!

I’m going to have you. Come.”

He urged, he pleaded, he put his strong arms around her as if he would

carry her away bodily. He did everything that a frantic young man

could do. But the more the little princess wept, the more inflexible

she became. Somerset had not realized before this steel in her nature.

Raging and vehemently urging, he accompanied her back to the Casino

steps.

“Would you like to say good-by to me to-morrow morning, instead of

to-night?” she asked, holding out her hand.

“I am never going to say good-by,” cried Somerset.

“I shall slip out to-morrow morning for a last swim--at six o’clock,”

she said, unheeding his exclamation. “Our train goes at ten.” Then she

came very close to him.

“Vince, dear, if you love me, don’t make me more unhappy than I am.”

It was an appeal to his chivalry. He kissed her hand and said:

“At six o’clock.”

But Somerset had no intention of bidding her a final farewell in the

morning. If he followed her the world over he would snatch her out

of the arms of the accursed Bernheim and marry her by main force. As

for the foreign telegrams of the _Daily Post_, he cared not how they

would be subedited. He went to bed with lofty disregard of Fleet Street

and bread and butter. As for the shame from which Ottilie’s marriage

would save her sainted mother, he did not believe a word of it. She

was selling Ottilie to Bernheim for cash down. He stayed awake most of

the night plotting schemes for the rescue of his princess. It would be

an excellent plan to insult Bernheim and slay him outright in a duel.

Its disadvantages lay in his own imperfections as a duelist, and for

the first time he cursed the benign laws of his country. At length he

fell asleep; woke up to find it daylight and leaped to his feet in a

horrible scare. But a sight of his watch reassured him. It was only

five o’clock. At half-past he put on a set of bathing things and sat

down by the window to watch the hall door of the Hôtel Splendide. At

six out came the familiar figure of the little princess draped in her

white peignoir. She glanced up at Somerset’s window. He waved his

hand, and in a minute or two they were standing side by side at the

water’s edge. It was far away from the regular bathing place marked

by the bathing cabins, and further still from the fishing end of the

beach, where alone at that early hour were signs of life visible. The

town behind them slept in warmth and light. The sea stretched out blue

and unrippled in the still air. A little bank of purple cloud on the

horizon presaged a burning day.

The little princess dropped her peignoir and kicked off her straw-soled

shoes and gave her hand to her companion. He glanced at the little

white feet, which he was tempted to fall down and kiss, and then at

the wistful face below the blue-silk foulard knotted in front over the

bathing cap. His heart leaped at her bewildering sweetness. She was the

morning incarnate.

She read his eyes, and flushed pink.

“Let us go in,” she said.

They waded in together, hand in hand, until they were waist deep. Then

they struck out, making for the open sea. The sting of the night had

already passed from the water. To their young blood it felt warm. They

swam near together, Ottilie using a steady breast stroke and Somerset a

side stroke, so that he could look at her flushed and glistening face.

From the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky and the light blue of

the silk foulard, the blue of her eyes grew magically deep.

“There seems to be nothing but you and I in God’s universe, Ottilie,”

said he. She smiled at him. He drew quite close to her.

“If we could only go on straight until we found an enchanted island

which we could have as our kingdom!”

“The sea must be our kingdom,” said Ottilie.

“Or its depths. Shall we dive down and look for the ‘ceiling of amber,

the pavement of pearl,’ and the ‘red gold throne in the heart of the

sea’ for the two of us?”

“We should be happier than in the world,” replied the little princess.

They swam on slowly, dreamily, in silence. The mild waves lapped

against their ears and their mouths. The morning sun lay at their backs

and its radiance fell athwart the bay. Through the stillness came the

faint echo of a fisherman on the far beach hammering at his boat.

Beyond that and the gentle swirl of the water there was no sound. After

a while they altered their course so as to reach a small boat that lay

at anchor for the convenience of the stronger swimmers. They clambered

up and sat on the gunwale, their feet dangling in the sea.

“Is my princess tired?” he asked.

She laughed in merry scorn.

“Tired? Why, I could swim twenty times as far. Do you think I have no

muscle? Feel. Don’t you know I fence all the winter?”

She braced her bare arm. He felt the muscle; then relaxing it by

drawing down her wrist, he kissed it very gently.

“Soft and strong--like yourself,” said he. Ottilie said nothing, but

looked at her white feet through the transparent water. She thought

that in letting him kiss her arm, and feeling as though he had kissed

right through to her heart, she was exhibiting a pitiful lack of

strength. Somerset looked at her askance, uncertain. For nothing in the

world would he have offended.

“Did you mind?” he whispered.

She shook her head and continued to look at her feet. Somerset felt a

great happiness pulse through him.

“If I gave you up,” said he, “I should be the poorest-spirited dog that

ever whined.”

“Hush!” she said, putting her hand in his. “Let us think only of the

present happiness.”

They sat silent for a moment, contemplating the little red-roofed town

of Illerville-sur-Mer, which nestled in greenery beyond the white sweep

of the beach, and the rococo hotels and the Casino, whose cupolas

flashed gaudily in the morning sun. From the northeastern end of the

bay stretched a long line of sheer white cliff as far as the eye could

reach. Toward the west it was bounded by a narrow headland running far

out to sea.

“It looks like a frivolous little Garden of Eden,” said Somerset, “but

I wish we could never set foot in it again.”

“Let us dive in and forget it,” said Ottilie.

She slipped into the water. Somerset stood on the gunwale and dived.

When he came up and had shaken the salt water from his nostrils, he

joined her in two or three strokes.

“Let us go round the point to the little beach the other side.”

She hesitated. It would take a long time to swim there, rest and swim

back. Her absence might be noticed. But she felt reckless. Let her

drink this hour of happiness to the full. What mattered anything that

could follow? She smiled assent, and they struck out steadily for

the point. It was good to have the salt smell, and the taste of the

brine, and the pleasant smart of the eyes; and to feel their mastery of

the sea. As they threw out their flashing white arms and topped each

tiny wave, they smiled in exultation. To them it seemed impossible

that anyone could drown. For the buoyant hour they were creatures of

the element. Now and then a gull circled before them, looked at them

unconcernedly, as if they were in some way of his kindred, and swept

away into the distance. A tired white butterfly settled for a moment

on Ottilie’s head; then light-heartedly fluttered away seaward to its

doom. They swam on and on and they neared the point. They slackened for

a moment, and he brought his face close to hers.

“If I said: ‘Let us swim on for ever and ever,’ would you do it?”

“Yes,” she said, looking deep into his eyes.

After a while they floated restfully. The last question and answer

seemed to have brought them a great peace. They were conscious of

little save the mystery of the cloudless ether above their faces and

the infinite sea that murmured in their ears strange harmonies of love

and death--harmonies woven from the human yearnings of every shore and

the hushed secrets of eternal time. So close were they bodily together

that now and then hand touched hand and limb brushed limb. A happy

stillness of the soul spread its wings over them and they felt it to be

a consecration of their love. Presently his arm sought her, encircled

her, brought her head on his shoulder.

“Rest a little,” he whispered.

She closed her eyes, surrendered her innocent self to the flooding

rapture of the moment. The horrors that awaited her passed from her

brain. He had come to the lonely child like a god out of heaven. He had

come to the frightened girl like a new terror. He was by her side now,

the man whom of all men God had made to accomplish her womanhood and to

take all of soul and body, sense and brain, that she had to give. Their

salt lips met in a first kiss of passion. Words would have broken the

spell of the enchantment cast over them by the infinite spaces of sea

and sky. They drifted on and on, the subtle, subconscious movement of

foot and hand keeping them afloat. The little princess moved closer

to him so as to feel more secure around her the circling pressure of

his arm. He laughed a man’s short, exultant laugh, and gripped her more

tightly. Never had he felt his strength more sure. His right arm and

his legs beat rhythmically, and he felt the pulsation of the measured

strokes of his companion’s feet, and the water swirled past his head

so that he knew they were making way most swiftly. Of exertion there

was no sense whatever. He met her eyes fixed through half-shut lids

upon his face. He lost count of time and space. Now and then a little

wave broke over their faces and they laughed and cleared the brine from

their mouths and drew more close together.

“If it wasn’t for that,” she whispered once, “I could go to sleep.”

Soon they felt the gentle rocking of the sea increase and waves broke

more often over them. Somerset was the first to note the change.

Loosening his hold of Ottilie, he trod water and looked around. To his

amazement, they were still abreast of the point, but far out to sea.

He gazed at it uncomprehendingly for an instant, and then a sudden

recollection smote him like a message of death. They had caught the

edge of the current against which swimmers were warned, and the current

held them in its grip and was sweeping them on while they floated

foolishly. A swift glance at Ottilie showed him that she, too, realized

the peril. With the outgoing tide it was almost impossible to reach the

shore.

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not with you.”

He scanned the land and the sea. On the arc of their horizon lay the

black hull of a tramp steamer going eastward. Far away to the west was

a speck of white, and against the pale sky a film of smoke. Landward,

beyond the shimmering water, stretched the sunny bay, and the Casino

was just visible. Its gilt cupolas shot tiny flames. The green-topped

point, its hither side deep in shadow, reached out helplessly for them.

Somerset and Ottilie still paused, doing nothing more than keeping

themselves afloat, and they felt the current drifting them ever seaward.

“It looks like death,” he said, gravely. “Are you afraid to die?”

Again Ottilie said: “Not with you.”

He looked at the land, and he looked at the white speck and the puff of

smoke. Then suddenly his heart leaped with the thrilling inspiration of

a wild impossibility.

“Let us leave Illerville and France behind us. Death is as certain

either way.”

The little princess looked at him wonderingly.

“Where are we going?”

“To England.”

“Anywhere but Illerville,” she said.

He struck out seaward, she followed. Each saw the other’s face white

and set. They had current and tide with them, they swam steadily,

undistressed. After a silence she called to him.

“Vince, if we go to our kingdom under the sea, you will take me down in

your arms?”

“In a last kiss,” he said.

He had heard--as who has not?--of love being stronger than death. Now

he knew its truth. But he swore to himself a great oath that they

should not die.

“I shall take my princess to a better kingdom,” he said, later.

* * * * *

Presently he heard her breathing painfully. She could not hold out much

longer.

“I will carry you,” he said.

An expert swimmer, she knew the way to hold his shoulders and leave his

arms unimpeded. The contact of her light young form against his body

thrilled him and redoubled his strength. He held his head for a second

high out of the water and turned half round.

“Do you think I am going to let you die--now?”

The white speck had grown into a white hull, and Somerset was making

across its track. To do so he must deflect slightly from the line of

the current. His great battle began.

He swam doggedly, steadily, husbanding his strength. If the vessel

justified his first flash of inspiration, and if he could reach her,

he knew how he should act. As best he could, for it was no time for

speech, he told Ottilie his hopes. He felt the spray from her lips upon

his cheek, as she said:

“It seems sinful to wish for greater happiness than this.”

After that there was utter silence between them. At first he thought

exultingly of Bernheim and the Princess Rabomirski, and the rage of

their wicked hearts; of the future glorified by his little princess of

the unconquerable soul; of the present’s mystic consummation of their

marriage. But gradually mental concepts lost sharpness of definition.

Sensation began to merge itself into a half-consciousness of stroke

on stroke through the illimitable waste. Despite the laughing morning

sunshine, the sky became dark and lowering. The weight on his neck grew

heavier. At first Ottilie had only rested her arms. Now her feet were

as lead, and sank behind him; her clasp tightened about his shoulders.

He struggled on through a welter of sea and mist. Strange sounds sang

in his ears, as if over them had been clamped great sea shells. At each

short breath his throat gulped down bitter water. A horrible pain crept

across his chest. His limbs seemed paralyzed, and yet he remained above

the surface. The benumbed brain wondered at the miracle.

The universe broke upon his vision as a blurred mass of green and

white. He recognized it vaguely as his kingdom beneath the sea, and, as

in a dream, he remembered his promise. He slipped round. His lips met

Ottilie’s. His arms wound about her, and he sank holding her tightly

clasped.

* * * * *

Strange things happened. He was pulled hither and thither by sea

monsters welcoming him to his kingdom. In a confused way he wondered

that he could breathe so freely in the depths of the ocean. Unutterable

happiness stole over him. The kingdom was _real_. His sham princess

would be queen in very truth. But where was she?

He opened his eyes and found himself lying on the deck of a ship. A

couple of men were doing funny things to his arms. A rosy-faced man in

white ducks and a yachting cap stood over him with a glass of brandy.

When he had drunk the spirit, the rosy man laughed.

“That was a narrow shave. We got you just in time. We were nearly right

on you. The young woman is doing well. My wife is looking after her.”

As soon as he could collect his faculties, Somerset asked:

“Are you the _Mavis_?”

“Yes.”

“I felt sure of it. Are you Sir Henry Ransome?”

“That’s my name.”

“I heard you were expected at Illerville to-day,” said Somerset. “That

is why I made for you.”

The two men who had been doing queer things with his arms wrapped him

in a blanket and propped him up against the deck cabin.

“But what on earth were you two young people doing in the middle of the

English Channel?” asked the owner of the _Mavis_.

“We were eloping,” said Somerset.

The other looked at him for a bewildered moment and burst into a roar

of laughter. He turned to the cabin door and disappeared, to emerge a

moment afterward followed by a lady in a morning wrapper.

“What do you think, Marian? It’s an elopement.”

Somerset smiled at them.

“Have you ever heard of the Princess Rabomirski? You have? Well, this

is her daughter. Perhaps you know of the Count Bernheim, who is always

about with the princess?”

“I trod on him last winter at Monte Carlo,” said Sir Henry Ransome.

“He survives,” said Somerset, “and has bought the Princess Ottilie from

her mother. He’s not going to get her. She belongs to me. My name is

Somerset, and I am foreign subeditor of the _Daily Post_.”

“I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Somerset,” said Sir

Henry, with a smile. “And now, what can I do for you?”

“If you lend us some clothes, and take us to any port on earth save

Illerville-sur-Mer, you will earn our eternal gratitude.”

Sir Henry looked doubtful. “We have made our arrangements for

Illerville,” said he.

His wife broke in:

“If you don’t take these romantic beings straight to Southampton, I’ll

never set my foot upon this yacht again.”

“It was you, my dear, who were crazy to come to Illerville.”

“Don’t you think,” said Lady Ransome, “you might provide Mr. Somerset

with some dry things?”

* * * * *

Four hours afterward Somerset sat on deck by the side of Ottilie, who,

warmly wrapped, lay on a long chair. He pointed to the far-away coast

line of the Isle of Wight.

“Behold our kingdom!” said he.

The little princess laughed.

“That is not our kingdom.”

“Well, what is?”

“Just the little bit of space that contains both you and me,” she said.

[Illustration]

THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CITY IN AMERICA

By

Anne Rittenhouse

[Illustration]

The mighty colony of rich tourists who go South with the birds have

begun to love two quaint, historic Southern cities. One hears gossip

and anecdote of them in the Fifth Avenue clubs and the Philadelphia and

Chicago drawing rooms. Many a man has become instantly _persona grata_

in Northern centers because he registered from one of these towns.

Each city has recognized this advent of an army of Northerners in a

different way--a way which indicates the heart and soul of the people.

Charleston sits and smiles behind its jalousie blinds--a conservative

relic of Huguenot days. Augusta leaps eagerly forward to meet them,

commercially, if not always socially.

The difference between these two cities lying so close together,

separated by the great yellow Savannah River, which leisurely picks

its way among the rice savannas, is understood but not defined by

the tourists. They are more desirous to enter into the social life,

of these two places than they are of any other winter resort, for,

while the South is honeycombed with Northern hotels, they are usually

laid along the lines that will make capital for promoters. Beyond the

climate and the visitors, there is nothing.

Palm Beach is an imitation of Monaco. It is not a city. It is without

history. New Orleans is the quaintest city alive in America, but its

horizon is broader, its basis more substantial, than any other Southern

city, and it is not such a Mecca for the casual traveler. Neither is

Richmond, with all its history and picturesque tradition.

Atlanta is the Chicago of the South, and is too busy with its future

to remember it has not a cobwebbed past. Aiken, the best-known cottage

resort of the South, is a suburb of Augusta. It is but a village in the

pines.

This is the reason Charleston and Augusta stand with the Northerners

for character study, history and individual charm. Yet thousands of

travelers, eager as they are about it, know almost nothing of the core

of these two cities. They dwell lovingly on the quaint houses of the

one and the great street of the other, but the blinds are jealously

down. The wooden shutters of the domestic life are kept closed.

So they miss that which is most exquisite, most appealing, in any

city--personality.

Charleston is, without doubt, the most exclusive city in America.

It gives nothing out to the stranger beyond its physical beauty and

tempered climate. One keen observer said of it: “It has only one

equal--a German principality, where almost everyone is royal and

noble and all intermarried. Other places and social codes exist, of

course--New York, Chicago, Denver--but not for Charleston.”

A small child of that city was asked where Charleston was placed.

Proudly she said, “It is between the Cooper and the Ashley Rivers,

which join and _form_ the ocean.”

When the Bostonian speaks grandly of the _Mayflower_, the Huguenot of

Charleston smiles. He is remembering that Jean Ribaut landed a Huguenot

emigration in Port Royal fifty-eight years before the Puritans landed

in Massachusetts Bay. The Knickerbocker has no boast to make before

the South Carolinian, because the Dutch settled New York over half a

century later than Port Royal was begun.

Charleston was settled by aristocrats from France, and later from

England--men who came from the court and wore the garments and spoke

the language of the world’s highest circle. Like New Orleans, it sprang

into life as a cultured community. It had not the struggle upward for

social position. The great names it held then are its first names

to-day. And the world recognizes the bearers of these names as those

who have the hallmark of admission into the reserved social corners of

America.

The St. Cecilia Society exists in all its former charm and

exclusiveness. It is the oldest dancing club in America, as far as the

Charlestonian has any record, although the Philadelphian claims this

honor for the Quaker City’s famous Assemblies. It has not changed in

one iota since the early days of the eighteenth century, and, as far as

possible, the names of its managers have continued the same.

Josiah Quincy, who went to Charleston in 1773, says of the city, in

his diary: “It far surpasses all I ever saw or ever expect to see in

America.”

As early as January, 1734, Charleston had its drama, which was probably

the first theatrical performance in America. Its citizens went to

college in England; and Mr. Snowden, who knows his Charleston as

Thackeray knew his London, says South Carolina headed all the colonies

in the list of the London Inns of Court, and up to the time of the

Revolution had forty-five law students there.

When the Philadelphian speaks serenely of the Liberty Bell, the

Charlestonian smiles and remembers that in 1765 South Carolina took

the first step for a Continental Union, and that in Charleston was

formulated the first independent constitution in any of the colonies;

also that she furnished three of the signers of the Declaration of

Independence--Arthur Middleton, Thomas Heyward and Thomas Lynch, Jr.

To the world of art it gave Charles Fraser, the great miniaturist;

and Malbone also did his work there. The private houses held

Gainsboroughs, Stuarts, Romneys and Wests in the eighteenth century.

These are a few of the reasons that give the Charlestonian that serene

pride in self, country and relatives. This serenity broods over the

city; and the shock of wars, earthquakes, tidal wave and stupendous

fires has not shaken it.

Its laws of behavior and its rules of society are without change.

Whatever happens in the rest of the world need not be followed there.

There is a story told of the sexton of the famous old St. Michael’s,

the notable church, and of Crum, the negro whom President Roosevelt

made collector of the port. Crum brought several Northerners in a

carriage to the door. It was at an hour when no one was allowed in the

church. Crum insisted upon going in and taking his guests to the belfry

to see the famous bells. The sexton declined to allow it.

The negro collector drew himself up and said to the sexton:

“You surely don’t know who I am. My name is Crum.”

“Well, you could be the whole loaf and you wouldn’t be allowed in St.

Michael’s,” was the laconic answer.

It is easily inferred that the sexton was none too sorry to give a

verbal blow to the negro collector who persuaded white men from the

North to be his guests.

The Charleston negro who belongs to “the quality” shares and echoes his

master’s pride of birth and social tradition. The man who for decades

has delivered invitations for all the exclusive parties prides himself

on knowing every person worth speaking to in the city. A certain

Northern woman, who was kindly received in Charleston, gave a large

ball. She asked this colored man to carry the invitations for her. In

looking over the list, he made several suggestions concerning people

who should be crossed out, and those who should be put on.

The Northern woman asked if he was quite sure he knew where all these

people lived. His answer was delightful.

“Madam,” he said, “if there is any person in Charleston who lives

where I don’t know, that person shouldn’t be invited to your ball.”

Another colored retainer of a famous family has a stiff-necked belief

that nothing can happen to such aristocracy. A fire broke out in an

adjoining house on a back street, burned through the dividing fence

and destroyed the carriages in the stable. The master upbraided the

old negro for allowing it to happen when he could easily have removed

the traps. He said: “Massa, who’d ever t’ink dey fire would come in we

yard!”

Another negro butler, who dominated the household of a certain judge,

was serving at table one day when a second judge from up the State was

present. Both men were equally well-born of an ancient and honorable

ancestry, but the up-country man had not the graces of table etiquette.

When the fish course was served, he said to his host:

“Judge, I’d like to have some rice with this fish.”

“Did you hear the judge?” was asked the negro butler by the host.

The man gave a certain look at his master, then one of extreme

annoyance at the guest. Leaning over, he whispered distinctly in the

ear of the up-country judge:

“We don’t serve rice with fish in Charleston.”

The inner life of this Huguenot city is little known to the public,

because Charleston won’t have it known. The same exclusiveness and

privacy pervade her social and domestic system in the beginning of the

twentieth as in the eighteenth century.

No detailed description of this feeling could so firmly fix it in the

mind of the stranger as a remark made by a member of one of the oldest

families in the city. When a certain history of the Revolution was

published, it had a chapter on the part played in it by men of South

Carolina. Included in this was an intimate description of the bravery

of a Charleston general. An ancestor of this man wrote at once to the

publisher:

“You will be so kind as to leave out in your next edition all allusions

to my ancestor, General ----. What he did in the Revolution is a purely

private and family matter, and we do not wish it boldly displayed for

the public to read.”

In the next edition of the book the career of the Charlestonian was

left out!

This pride, however, works in another way. The well-born Charlestonian

expects the world to know who he is and whence he sprang.

This story is told--possibly as a joke, by Charlestonians--of an

elderly man at the head of a family a member of which signed the

Declaration of Independence. He presented a check to be cashed at a

bank in another Southern city. The cashier told him he would have to be

identified. To which he replied: “My God, has it come to this, that a

M----n must be identified in America!”

Socially, Charleston exercises a spell over the visitor. A famous

Northern lawyer, who went South last winter for the first time, could

not make up his mind to step off the train into the Charleston station

because of his rebellious feeling against that first shot at Sumter;

so he went on to Florida. Coming back, he determined to conquer his

prejudice and take a look at the Battery and St. Michael’s. He remained

for days. His observant criticism for once failed him.

“What people! What culture! What society!” This was all he could say,

but his exclamation points grew larger and longer after each phrase.

The first evidence of social quaintness in the town is the way the

first families live. Here comes the strain of French blood. The

venerable houses are placed among dense foliage, the side, never the

front, of the house facing the street. In this side are the parlor and

upper bedroom windows, which are never open to the public streets, but

covered with wooden shutters. Instead of a front doorbell to ring,

there is a small gate with a bell. This you tinkle, and a servant lets

you in. There is a long piazza running the full side length of the

house, which is often used as a sitting room. The piazza is usually

protected by jalousie blinds. If the formal caller finds it deserted,

he is shown in the reception room, with closed shutters, but in the

warm days all informal entertaining is done on the piazza.

A Western visitor said he knew it would not be as hard for a stranger

to pass St. Peter as to get by one of the heirloom butlers at a

Charleston gate.

Some of these houses are nearly two centuries old, and in many of

them the family name has been unchanged in that time. To sit on those

“galleries” of the Charleston aristocracy in the fragrant days of early

spring is one of the social memories that cling for life. There are the

wonderful voices of the people who are talking. The accent is without

imitation. It stands aloof as a study in folklore from any other accent

in the South. It is a perceptible mixture of French and English,

impossible to imitate or classify.

The air is salty with the breezes that drift past Sumter from the sea,

and keen with roses, jasmine and magnolias. The Spanish moss, trailing

to the ground from sturdy oaks, is silver in the moonlight, mysterious

in the shadow.

The pathways called residence streets are lines between lawns and

flowers. There is something here of the atmosphere of New Orleans,

something of the pungent odor and nerve-soothing softness, but the

Charlestonian is reposeful and the Creole is nervous and _staccato_.

You feel that here is a corner where things need not change, where

evolution is not worship, where the strenuous life is not considered

and may be thought a trifle vulgar.

It is not the simplicity of the simple-minded, not the stolid repose

of the uneducated. It is the calmness of those who have helped to

make history, who have achieved much, and who, believing they have no

superiors, are not made restless with social ambition.

The stranger who can lead those on the “galleries” to talk of days that

have gone, of characters who exist, of quaint traditions that are kept,

is fortunate. He has lifted a veil that hides much that is delightful

and unique.

It is told of the Charlestonian by his neighbors, that he often

criticises some improvement in another part of the South with the

remark, “If that change is progress, I want to progress backward.”

Charleston protects her age and her traditions against all newcomers.

She is not poor, she has few vagrants, she is not without a solid bank

account, she is the greatest phosphate shipping port in the world, but,

as a New York editorial writer said of her, “no tragedy that has passed

over her, or no change that has been made in America, has ever been

able to interrupt her prosperity or discourage her fixed purpose to be

comfortable.” She would no more change her architecture, or willingly

introduce new blood into her best families, than she would uproot the

gravestones of her first inhabitants, who rest in St. Michael’s, or

remove the shells of the bombardment from her walls.

Her manners, her society, her behavior in drawing room, ballroom and

street, are those of an older and more elegant world. Why should she

change? The girls in all other parts of the South may go unchaperoned

to balls, but she does not allow her girls to do it. Neither does the

exclusive Philadelphian nor the Knickerbocker of New York.

Other clubs use their windows as lounging places for the curious,

where idle men may sit and stare at the parade of women who pass on

the street. Charleston considers this vulgar. The front windows of its

club have drawn blinds. It is also regarded as beneath a gentleman to

mention a woman’s name in the club.

Promoters can talk all they wish, but, charm they never so wisely, they

can’t persuade the Charlestonian to welcome with delight a horde of

unidentified tourists. Cottages are rented here and there for writers

and artists and quiet people, but Charleston shakes her head when

approached on the subject of huge hotels which will accommodate the man

with millions from the swarming centers of America. She does not want

her streets, her shops or her atmosphere invaded by aliens.

It is almost impossible to think of her graciously accepting new blood

and new customs. The most notable person who came there would, if

accepted, owe his reception to the fact that one of her own had said

something of him. In this she has her counterpart in the creole of New

Orleans.

General John B. Gordon described this feeling in the French city with

a story of the Civil War. A Virginia soldier was boasting of General

Robert E. Lee during the first year of the war.

“Lee? Lee? I think I have heard General Beauregard speak well of Lee,”

answered the Creole zouave, as he rolled his cigarette.

Even the best lovers of innovation should eagerly desire Charleston to

retain its serenity. New ways would mean tearing down old places, not

at once, but in the end. And this would mean historical desecration.

St. Michael’s, its famous Episcopal church, should never be swamped by

incongruous buildings, as New York’s famous old churches have been.

It is to be preserved not only because of its socially exclusive

congregation, but because of the manifold troubles it has outlived.

Among its own people it is jestingly referred to as the Chapel of

Ease of the St. Cecilia Society, but every South Carolinian ardently

loves the old building. It was first opened for service in 1761, and

is still the finest piece of church architecture in the South. In

1782 the English took possession of the bells, and sent them to Great

Britain. The next year they were bought and sent back to Charleston.

When General Sherman was an unwelcome guest in 1865, two bells were

stolen and the rest made useless. These were sent to England, and a new

set recast by the firm which had made them in 1764. The same patterns

were exactly followed, and the bells replaced in 1867. During the great

earthquake of 1886, the bells and belfry were fearfully shaken, but no

harm came.

Augusta is not without her fine old past, too, but she is sharply

different in her modern standpoint from her sister city across the

Savannah. She gives Charleston the same adjective that New York kindly

bestows on Philadelphia--the word “slow.”

Augusta is a modern. She eagerly discusses and adopts that which is

new. She says of the Huguenot city that she “is joined to her idols,

let her alone.” And while she may now and then run after new gods, she

valiantly protects herself from any such reputation, and refers to

Atlanta, the capital city, as “new, so new.”

If Charleston says, “Oglethorpe--adventurers,” too often, Augusta

daringly answers back that the morals of the court of Louis were not

quite swamped in the French _émigrés_ by Calvinism.

But it is a merry war, a family tiff, in which let the outsider beware

of interfering.

Back of the rows of oaks are some splendid specimens of the finest

early architecture for residence purposes; spacious homes, with

rounded, vaulting white columns to support the arched façades which

project over the windows of the second story.

In one of the great houses a ball was given last winter, where six

spacious rooms on the lower floor were thrown open to the dancers, two

square halls were given over to foliage, loungers and orchestra, and

about three hundred guests were easily seated for an elaborate course

supper.

These Augustans know how to entertain. They are a prosperous

people, and they spend willingly and widely in New York on all the

paraphernalia that goes to enhance the modern table. The women buy

their clothes in New York whenever possible, and important dressmaking

and tailor firms think it worth while to open up for part of the season

at the two hotels that lure the Northern traveler. It is not the

Northerner they cater to, but the Augustans.

Their social life is lavish and strenuous. The St. Valentine Ball,

held once a year, is their oldest and most exclusive social function.

While it has on its list the first families, still it is not such an

institution as Charleston’s St. Cecilia, and there is constant talk of

its being dissolved. It has an exclusive series during the season of

dinner dances at its Country Club, which is one of the handsomest in

the South.

Far from discouraging tourists’ hotels, Augusta is anxious for

them. When the winter emigrants from the ice-swept North come well

recommended, they are received into the fashionable life of the place.

These people are always dazed at the magnitude and charm of the social

life. Less the millionaire splendor, a season in Augusta is quite as

time-absorbing as one in New York or Boston.

A New York bride who went there for two weeks on her honeymoon last

year attended five balls and dances, twelve luncheons, ten afternoon

teas and as many suppers, with a dozen invitations for morning card

parties. The bridegroom naïvely remarked, “I’ve never been on a

honeymoon before, but this one doesn’t seem like the real thing.”

It is almost certain that no town with equal population in the East

compares socially with the brilliancy of private life in this town on

the Savannah.

The tea and sandwich afternoon “at homes” of the East are

poverty-stricken affairs in the mind of an Augusta hostess.

“I wouldn’t treat a casual caller worse than that,” one of them

remarked, after looking at the fare provided at a smart Northern

afternoon affair, where the daughter of the house was being introduced

to society.

At an Augusta “tea” one receives the daintiest dishes the markets

offer, with wines and punch, prepared so as to follow out some

artistic color scheme. Massive silver, candelabra, mahogany, lace and

embroidered damasks, and profusion of Southern flowers, make these

dining rooms a pungent memory with those who have had the good fortune

to be asked behind the closed shutters.

Augusta is so modern in its desires and endeavors that it makes two

tourists’ hotels, which crown its hills, a part of its social life. One

is in Georgia, one in South Carolina, for the city is built on both

sides of the Savannah River; and in these are given smart dinners and

dances by the residents.

It is true they often refer to the guests of the hotels and to the

Aiken cottagers as “the Yankee millionaires,” as though they belonged

to another flag, and knew not the star-spangled banner. But if these

people have anything to teach, Augusta wants to learn it.

Commercially, she is rapidly going ahead in an extensive cotton and

manufacturing business, but her business streets do not give any idea

of how progressive is her financial and personal element. There is

still the _dolce far niente_ to be expected in every Southern town

except Atlanta and Richmond. The victorias still stop in front of drug

stores and wait for the clerks to bring soda water out to the occupants

on thirsty days; even occasionally one sees an ox team on the central

street; but the personal element, the people, have a zestful, sprightly

contact with modern life, and leap forward to meet its requirements

and demands. The Augustan is modernizing himself and his home. Rapid

transit in the business atmosphere may come later. It is bound to come,

for the soul of the people has reached out toward it. It now remains

merely a question of money; and Augusta is frankly striving after

money, and making it.

The Easterner and Westerner do not see beneath the surface of the

seeming commercial indolence. They are used to their own spick and span

little towns, filled to the brim with bustle, noise, activity and the

whoop-la of American get-ahead-of-your-neighbor atmosphere.

It may be that this will never be quite duplicated in a sub-tropical

climate. But the business is there, even if the men do walk slowly.

The tourist, looking at commercial externals only, naturally marvels at

the gowns of the women, the artistic and lavish homes, the unbridled

entertaining and the constant touch its richer members keep with New

York, nearly nine hundred miles away. Its people discuss the last play,

the best opera and the newest dishes at Sherry’s as easily as they

do home gossip. Naturally, this is not true of all the people, but it

fairly represents the attitude of the leading set.

The New York trip has been made easy by the “Yankee millionaires,” who

have made Augusta part of an elaborate railway and hotel system.

Of course there remains--and praise be that it is so--those of the old

_régime_. They are not altogether carried away by this elated modern

spirit. They do not entertain tourists or the passing cottager. They

are not quite sure but the new spirit may bring the Newport morals.

They recoil from the constant phrase, “They do it in New York.”

They remind the imitative younger generation that a well-born

Southerner has nothing to learn in manners and morals, and that

progress is not always improvement.

They point to Charleston as the dignified ideal of all that is old and

best.

They sigh, and say, “Things are not as they used to be.”

To which _Punch_ would again reply, “They never were.”

[Illustration]

THE GATE

I who had wandered a weary mile, harkened a voice and knocked.

Lo, Love answered, with song and smile,

Though the wind of autumn mocked;

All in the dawn I beheld Love’s face, set in a rose of flame--

Oh, song is sweet in a lonely place

And Love called me by name!

“Stay while the rose and the song are one, linger with Love for a day!”

“And what of the heart at set of sun

When it fares on its lonely way?”

“Nay, bide with Love in the flower of dawn, only the dawn with me!”

“And what of the heart when it wanders on?

And what of the night to be?”

“Think not of night, but of Love’s fair face, thine for a golden morn!”

Oh, song is sweet in a lonely place,

But I turned to the rock and thorn.

For had I lingered a fleeting while, what of the Road of Years?

I, who had wandered a weary mile,

Fared on to the Well of Tears.

VIRGINIA WOODWARD CLOUD.

THE WAY OF A MAN

_By_ Robert Adger Bowen

[Illustration]

The beach was comparatively deserted. After the week-end, which had

been unusually gay, the few scattered groups gathered under the hired

umbrellas, with here and there the flash of an individual crimson or

green parasol, scarcely served to populate the stretch of hot sand.

Near his stand, the Harvard student who was serving as life-guard

during the summer months stood, bronzed and athletic, talking to a

young fellow whose scant bathing costume revealed the lines and muscles

of an Antinous.

“It is the day like this that strains my nerves,” the guard was saying.

“When the surf is filled with people, even if some one goes under,

there are a score of hands to give rescue, but that girl out there now,

beyond the breakers, makes me uneasy.”

“Swims like a fish,” responded the Antinous. “I’ve watched her for

days.”

“But she isn’t a fish, and if the realization came to her out there in

the water, she’d be altogether like a woman.”

“Since you are ill at ease about her, suppose I swim out, just to

relieve your mind?”

The guard nodded. There was the suspicion of a smile about his lips,

but he continued to watch the woman in question.

The distance to which the venturesome swimmer had gone was greater than

had been apparent from the beach, and before Merrington had made half

of it, the eyes of all those upon the sand and of those in the surf

were upon the woman and himself. Only the swimmers themselves remained

oblivious of the general interest.

Merrington swam on with the free, easy strokes of one to whom deep

water conveys no terrors. The very touch of the sea was tonic that

July morning, and he stretched his sinuous limbs with the overbounding

energy and delight of a perfect manhood. The thought of danger, even to

another, seemed an absurd thing to him, so sang the lusty blood in his

veins. Yet he swam with unerring, cleaving strokes after the woman, who

still went outward.

It was not until he had almost overtaken her that it occurred to him

that it might be necessary to formulate an excuse for his following.

The action had been so direct as to admit of no misunderstanding.

Consequently, as she turned, and found him near her, Merrington spoke.

“Miss Selwyn, if you will pardon me, it is not without danger that you

come so far out from shore. My name is Merrington--Geoffrey Merrington.”

She flushed slightly under the clear tan of her skin; then she bowed

her crimson ’kerchiefed head gravely.

“Thank you for your trouble, but I have never been drowned yet.”

“Nor have I,” he affirmed, laughing, keeping stroke with her. “Nor do I

want to be to-day.”

For answer, she turned her back upon him, and deliberately swam

seaward. Merrington followed.

“Miss Selwyn,” he said, presently, when her audacity sent queer

sensations about his heart, “may I remind you that this coast has many

counter-currents? Believe me, you should not venture out further--not

half so far.”

If she heard, she made no sign of doing so. Merrington, with an

added determination, cast a glance to shore, where he could see small

forms standing together in a way that, even at that distance, spelled

anxiety. He caught a glimpse of the guard, erect upon his observation

stand. Then he threw out his splendid limbs in strokes that sent him

beyond the girl, and, turning, faced her.

“Miss Selwyn, the entire beach is watching us. They will send a boat

for us in a moment, and compel our return.”

At that she looked him squarely in the eyes, the fire in her own

blazing into full wrath.

“This is an unwarrantable liberty.”

Merrington smiled. It had frequently been said that his smile made him

irresistible for any purpose he might have in mind. In all her anger,

Jacqueline was conscious of the full-throated tones of his voice.

“It has the highest warrant--that put upon it by Miss Selwyn herself.”

Perhaps it was his words, or, more probably, the masterful man himself,

that made her color vividly. Merrington held his clear, bold eyes upon

her as she hesitated.

“If I promise you to return now, will you leave me?” she asked, slowly.

“No, Miss Selwyn.”

“Look!” she commanded, imperiously, pointing to the shore.

When Merrington turned his face a second later there was no sign of the

girl. It seemed to him minutes before he caught sight of the familiar

crimson head, freshly risen from the sea, some distance off. His own

existence was apparently forgotten.

At this point of the game something altogether unexpected came over

the youth, favored of gods and man, and accustomed to getting what he

would. The remembrance of the scorn in the dark eyes that had flashed

into his stung him. The recollection of the defiance in the face and a

something bewitching in the taunting curves of the full lips, sent a

fire that was far from unpleasant through his blood. He stretched out

the supple muscles of his arms, and gave chase.

“That was very neatly done, Miss Selwyn,” he said, when his vigorous

action had brought them together again. “I think I may safely promise,

however, that you will not outwit me again.”

She raised her eyebrows ever so slightly. He was sure there was a

twinkle in the downcast eyes, but it was equally evident that the

girl did not intend to encourage his presumption by any speech. As he

watched her with a swiftly increasing interest, she turned over upon

her back with a complacence that was a rebuke, floating unconcernedly

past him.

Merrington followed. That he was being remorselessly snubbed for his

pains was giving him a novel sensation of self-pity that did not seem

to affect his genial humor very acutely. It served to keep him silent,

however. When Jacqueline sat up suddenly, the first thing that she saw

was Merrington’s gleaming eyes looking into her own. He had been so

near to her, when she unexpectedly faced him, that she could not ignore

his presence. Had he spoken, she might have used silence to positive

purpose. As it was, she said, coldly:

“You are strangely persistent.”

“I am never conquered,” he boasted.

For a brief moment she let her glance sweep over him as he lay in the

transparent shadow of the waves. A sense of vexation at his superb

virility, at his assured mastery of the situation, left her trembling.

Merrington misconstrued the reason.

“You are becoming chilled. We are a long way from the shore. If you

were to have a cramp now!”

“You’d have the cheap distinction of being a hero of the beach,” she

ejaculated, uncompromisingly rude.

“The poor opinion of the beach would not affect me in the least,” he

laughed, softly, “if you did not share it.”