X.

Not long afterward Claire found herself alone. Thurston had gone. She

felt her cheeks burn as she sat and stared at the floor. His declaration

had strangely shocked her, at first, for the entire man, as it were, had

undergone a transformation so abrupt and radical as to wear a hue of

actual miracle; and it is only across a comfortable lapse of centuries

that the human mind can regard such manifestations with anything like

complacency. Balaam could not have been more bewildered and disturbed

when the Ass spoke. Claire had never thought of Thurston as capable of a

live sentiment toward any woman. She had taken it for granted that all

this part of his nature was in dignified decay, like his hair and

complexion. She had drifted unconsciously, somehow, into the conviction

that his passions, if he had ever felt them, were now like the

lavendered relics that we shut away in chests. She had warmed to him

with a truly filial ardor, and this sudden ruin of their mutual

relations now gave her acute stings of regret.

But Thurston, who had managed to depart from her with a good deal of

nice repose of visage and demeanor, also contrived, with that skill born

of wide social experience, to make their next meeting by far less

awkward than Claire herself had nervously anticipated. Sophia and Mrs.

Bergemann were both present on this occasion. He looked at Claire in so

ordinary a way, and spoke with so much apparent ease and serenity, that

her self-possession was fed by his, and her dread swiftly became

thankful relief.

Through the days that followed, Claire and Thurston gradually yet firmly

resumed their past agreeable converse. Of course matters could never be

the same between them. He stood toward her, inevitably, in a new light;

a cloak had fallen from him; she was not quite sure whether she liked

him less or more, now that she knew him as the man who had asked her to

be his wife; but in reality she did like him much more, and this was

because, being a woman, she constantly divined his admiration beneath

the intimate yet always guarded courtesy of his manner.

Their former chats were resumed, steadily interrogative on her side,

complaisantly responsive on his. As Winter softened into Spring, the

dissipations of Sophia decreased. She had more evenings at home, and not

a few of her devotees would pay her visits during the hours of nine and

eleven. It frequently happened that Thurston would enter the

drawing-room at such times. He always talked with Claire, who would

often emerge from back recesses on his arrival. Both Sophia and her

mother would occasionally deliver themselves of comments upon the

evident preference of their legal adviser. But Mrs. Bergemann was much

more outspoken than her daughter. Sophia could not bring herself to

believe that there was "anything in it," as her own phrase repeatedly

went. She thought Beverly Thurston "just as nice as he could be"; but

the slender and blooming beauty of Claire made to her young eyes

anomalous contrast with Thurston's _fade_ though attractive appearance.

"Good gracious, Ma!" she once asseverated, in private debate, "Claire

wouldn't ever think of marrying a man old enough to be her father!"

"She might do worse, now, Sophia," protested Mrs. Bergemann, with the

coolly formulated style of talk and thought which marks so many matrons

when they discuss matrimonial subjects. "You just leave Claire alone.

Wait and see what she'll do. He's taken a shine to her. Recollect, she

ain't got a cent, poor dear girl. He'd make a splendid husband. I guess

he'll propose soon. I hope he will, too. He's a real ellergant

gentleman. Just think how we trust him with rents and mortgages and

things. I declare I don't scarcely know half what he does with my own

property."

"Pshaw, Ma," responded Sophia, with vast contempt. "Claire wouldn't look

at him that way. She's young, like me. She may be as poor as a

church-mouse, but she isn't going to sell herself like that. Now do be

quiet."

Mrs. Bergemann became obediently quiet. But she continued to have her

private opinions. Meanwhile Claire and Thurston held their brief or long

interviews, as chance favored.

Matters had rearranged themselves between them on the old basis. There

was a change, and yet not a change. Claire spoke with all her former

freedom. Thurston listened and replied with all his former concession.

A certain admirer of Sophia's had of late deserted her, and sought the

attention of Claire whenever occasion permitted. His name was Brady. His

father was the owner of a large and popular emporium on Sixth Avenue. He

was an only child, and supplied with a liberal allowance. The

mercantile success of his father had been comparatively recent. He was

now three-and-twenty; his early education had been one long, persistent

neglect. After the money had begun to flow into the paternal coffers,

Brady had gone abroad, and seen vice and little else in the various

European capitals, and finally, coming home again, had slipped, by a

most natural and facile process, into just that ill-bred, wealthy,

low-toned set of which poor, rich Sophia Bergemann was one of the

leading spirits.

Claire could hardly endure the attentions of Brady. She was civil to him

because of her two hostesses, whose perception in all matters of social

degree seemed hopelessly obtuse. But Brady had fallen in love with her,

severely and effusively, and she soon had good cause to know it. He was

very tall and slim of figure, with a face whose utter smoothness would

have been the despair of a mercenary barber. His large ears, jutting

from a bullet-shaped head, gave to this head, at a little distance away,

the look of some odd, unclassic amphora. He spoke very indifferent

English, and always kept the last caprice of slang in glib readiness, as

a tradesman will keep his newest goods where he can soonest reach them.

He was excessively purse-proud, and liked to tell you the price of the

big sunken diamond worn on his little finger; of the suite of rooms at

his expensive hotel; of the special deep-olive cigars, dotted with a

lighter yellow speck, which lined his ivory cigar-case. He possessed, in

truth, all the cardinal vulgarities. He was lavishly conceited; he paid

no deference to age; he had not a vestige of gallantry in his deportment

toward women; his self-possession was so frangible that a blow could

shatter it, but his coarse wrath would at once rise from the ruin, like

the foul aroma from a broken phial. At such times he would scowl and be

insolent, quite regardless of sex, years, or general superiority on the

part of the offender. Indeed, he admitted no superiority. The shadow of

the Sixth Avenue emporium hedged him, in his own shallow esteem, with

impregnable divinity.

"I think," said Thurston, speaking of him one day to Claire, "that he is

truly an abominable creature. The ancients used to believe that monsters

were created by the union of two commingling elements, such as earth and

heaven. But to-day in America we have a horrid progeny growing up about

us, resultant from two forces, each dangerous enough by itself, but both

deadly when they meet. I mean Wealth and Ignorance. This Brady is their

child. If he were merely a poor man, his illiteracy would be endurable.

If he were merely illiterate, we could stand his opulence. But he is

both very uneducated and very rich. The combination is a horror. He is

our modern way of being devoured by dragons, minotaurs, and giants."

Claire laughed, and presently shook her head in gentle argumentative

protest. "I think there is a flaw in your theory," she said, "and I'll

tell you why. There are the Bergemanns. Sophia, I admit, is not

precisely uncultivated--that is, she has had good chances of instruction

and not profited by them. This may mean little, yet it is surely better

than having had no chances at all. But Mrs. Bergemann--she is both rich

and ignorant, poor dear woman. And yet she is very far from a monster.

She is a sweet, comfortable, motherly person. She would not harm a

fly." Claire put her head a little sideways, and looked with winsome

challenge at her companion; she assumed pretty airs and graces with him,

nowadays, which she had never dealt in before the occurrence of a

certain momentous episode. "What have you to say," she went on, "in

answer to my rather shrewd objection? Doesn't it send you quite into a

corner."

"Well, I confess that it rather floors me to have Mrs. Bergemann cited

against me," he said, smiling. "I am afraid that I must yield. I am

afraid that my theory is torn in tatters. I must congratulate you on

your destructive instincts."

He spoke these words with his usual robust sort of languor, in which

there was never a single trace of affectation or frivolity. At the same

time a secret feeling of wonder possessed him; he was thinking how

swiftly active had been the change in Claire since their first

acquaintance. She had told him every particular of her past life, so far

as concerned its opportunities of instruction. He marveled now, as he

had repeatedly done on recent occasions, at her remarkable power to

grasp new phrases, new forms of thought, new methods of inquiry. She had

never, from the first, shown a gleam of coarseness. But she had often

been timid of speech and falteringly insecure of expression. Yet

latterly all this was altered. Thurston had a sense of how phenomenal

was the improvement. It was plain that the books in the library, and

Claire's power of fleet reading, had wrought this benefit upon a mind

which past study and training had already rendered flexibly receptive.

And yet all of the explanation did not lie here; at least half of it

lurked in the fact that she had quitted drudgery, need, and depression.

Her mental shutters had been flung open, and the sunshine let to stream

in through the casements. A few days later she had suspected the

existence of Brady's passion. He made no attempt, on his own side, to

conceal his preference for her society. Claire saw love in his

prominent, slate-colored eyes; she saw it in the increased awkwardness

of his motions when he either walked or sat near her; she saw it in his

bluff yet repressed bravado of manner, as though he were at surly odds

with himself for having been suddenly cut off in the flower of his

vainglorious bachelorhood. She had grown sharper-sighted for the

detection of these tender signs. And even in Brady their tenderness was

unmistakable. His clownish crudity had softened, in all its raw lines.

The effect might be compared to those graceful disguises in which we

have seen moonlight clothe things that repel us under the glare of day.

One morning when Claire came down to breakfast she found a huge basket

of Jacqueminot roses awaiting her, with Brady's card attached to it. She

flushed, for a moment, almost as red as the florid, velvety petals

themselves. Then she said, equally addressing Mrs. Bergemann and Sophia:

"How strange that he sent them to _me_! There may have been some

mistake."

"Oh, not a bit of it!" Sophia exclaimed. "He's dead gone about you,

Claire. I've seen it lately. So has Ma." Here the young lady turned

toward her mother, and lifted an admonishing finger. "Now, Ma, don't you

say a thing!"

But Mrs. Bergemann would say a number of things. Her amiability was so

expansive, and made such a radius of glow and warmth all about her,

that she rarely found it possible to dislike anybody. She had failed to

realize that Brady was an offensive clod. In her matrimonial concern for

Claire, the fact that he would one day, as the only child of his father,

inherit a vast fortune, reared itself before her with irresistible

temptation.

"Upon my word," she declared, "I don't know as any girl _had_ ought to

refuse a fellow as awful well-off as he is. Sophia's always talking of

his great big ears, and his boastful ways, and his style of getting into

tantrums about nothin' whatever. But still, I guess he might make a good

husband. He might be just the kind that'll tame down and behave

'emselves after marriage. And they say he ain't a bit mean; he ain't got

_that_ fault, anyhow. And I guess he'd buy a manshun on the Avenu for

any girl he took, and just make her shine like a light-house with

di'monds, and roll round in her carriage, and be high an' mighty as you

can find. _I'd_ think twice, Claire, if _I_ was you, before I let him

slip. That is, I mean if you don't decide you'd rather have Mr.

Thurston, who _does_ seem fond o' you, though I ain't said so before in

your hearing, dear, and who's an ellergant gentleman, of course, even if

he is a bit too old for a fresh young thing like yourself."

Claire laughed, in a high key, trying to conceal her nervousness. "Oh,

Mr. Thurston is quite too old, Mrs. Bergemann," she said. "Please be

sure of that."

The rich hue of the roses haunted her all day, even when she was not

near them. Their splendid crimson seemed like a symbol of the luxury

that she might be called upon to refuse. She had heard about the

emporium on Sixth Avenue. It made her bosom flutter when she thought of

being the mistress of a great mansion, and wearing diamonds and rolling

about in her carriage. Then she remembered Thurston's words concerning

this man who had sent her the roses. Was he so much of a monster, after

all? Might she not be able to humanize him? For a long time she was in a

very perturbed state. During this interval it almost seemed to her that

if he should ask her to marry him she would nerve herself and answer

'yes.'

That afternoon she did not go to drive with Sophia. Mrs. Bergemann went

in her place. Claire sat beside one of the big plate-glass windows of

her delightful chamber, and watched the clattering streams of carriages

pass below. Some of these she had now grown to remember and recognize; a

few of them possessed a dignity of contour and equipment that pleased

her greatly. She would have liked to lean back upon the cushions of some

such vehicle, and have its footman jauntily touch his hat while he

received her order from within, after he had shut the shining door with

a hollow little clang. The door should have arms and crest upon it; she

would strongly prefer a door with arms and crest.

Suddenly, while watching from the window, she saw a flashy brougham,

with yellow wheels, a light-liveried coachman and a large, high-stepping

horse in gilded harness, pause before the Bergemanns' stoop. The next

instant Brady sprang out, and soon a mellow bell-peal sounded below.

Claire sat and wondered whether he who had sent her the roses would now

solicit her company. It even occurred to her that he might have passed

Sophia and Mrs. Bergemann on the avenue, and hence have drawn the

conclusion that she would be at home alone.

She was quite right in this assumption. The grand Michael presently

brought up Mr. Brady's card. Claire hesitated for an instant, and then

said that she would see the gentleman.

She found Brady in the reception-room. He was dressed with an almost

gaudy smartness, which brought all his misfortunes of face and figure

into bolder relief. He wore a suit of clothes that might have been quiet

as a piece of tapestry, but was surely assertive in its pattern when

used for coat and trousers; his cravat was of scarlet and blue satin,

and a pin was thrust into it which flashed and glittered so that you

could not at first perceive it to be a cock's head wrought of diamonds,

with a little carcanet of rubies for the red comb. He had a number of

brilliant rings on his big-knuckled hands, and the sleeve-buttons that

secured his low, full wristbands were a blaze of close-bedded gems at

every chance recession of his sleeve. As he greeted Claire it struck her

that his expression was unwontedly sulky, even for him. He appeared like

a person who had been put darkly out of humor by some aggravating event.

"How are you, Miss Twining?" he said, holding Claire's hand till she

herself withdrew it. "I hope you're well. I hope you're as well as they

make 'em."

Claire sat down while she answered: "I am very well, Mr. Brady." Her

visitor at once seated himself beside her, leaning his face toward her

own. "I am sorry that both Mrs. Bergemann and Sophia are out," she went

on, with the desire to bridge an awkward interspace of silence.

"Oh, _I_ ain't, not a bit," said Brady, ardently contradictory. "I'm

glad of it, Miss Twining. I wanted to have a little chin with you." He

laughed at his own slang, crossed his long legs, and leaned back on the

lounge which Claire was also occupying. At the same time he turned his

face toward his companion.

Claire felt that decency now compelled her to offer a certain

acknowledgment. "I want to thank you for those lovely flowers," she

said. "They were beautiful, and it was very kind of you to send them."

He began to sway his head slightly from side to side. It was his way of

showing nearly every emotion, whether embarrassment, perplexity,

chagrin, or even mollification.

"Come, now," he began, "you didn't really think a lot about 'em, did

you?"

"I liked them very much," returned Claire. She was watching him, in all

his unpleasant details, though very covertly. She was asking herself, in

the dispassionate reflectiveness born of her calculating yet feverish

ambition, whether she could possibly consent to be his wife if he should

ever ask her. The remembrance of his great prospective wealth dealt her

more than one thrilling stroke, and yet feelings of self-distrustful

dread visited her also. She feared lest she might commit some

irreparable mistake. She was still very ignorant of the world in which

she desired to achieve note and place. But she had, at the same time, a

tolerably definite understanding of some things that she aimed to do.

Her talks with Thurston had let in a good deal of light upon her mind.

She had not lost a single point in all his explanatory discourse.

"I'm glad you _did_ like 'em," said Brady, examining his radiant rings

for an instant. "They cost a heap of stamps," he added, suddenly lifting

his head and giving her an intent look. "But I don't mind that. I ain't

a close-fisted chap, especially when I'm fond of anybody. I guess you've

seen that I think a deal about _you_. I can't talk flowery, like some

chaps, but that don't matter." ... At this point he suddenly took

Claire's hand; his face had acquired a still more sulky gloom; it was

clouded by an actual scowl. "Look here, now, Miss Twining," he said, "I

never expected to get married. I've had some pretty nice girls make

regular dead sets at me--yes, I have--but none of 'em ever took my

fancy. You did, though. I stuck it out for two or three weeks, and I

daresay I kept giving myself clean away all the time. But I saw 't

wasn't any use; I'm caught, sure; there ain't any mistake about it.

We'll be married whenever you say. I'll do the handsome thing--that is,

Father will. Father's crazy to have me settle down. He's worth a lot o'

money--I s'pose you know that. He'll like you when he sees you--I ain't

afraid he won't. We can have a slam-bang stylish wedding, or a plain,

quiet one, just as you choose. And don't you be alarmed about too big a

difference between you and I. Father may kick a little at first, but

he'll come round when you've met once or twice. He'll see you're a good,

sound girl, even if you ain't as high up, quite, as he'd want me to go

for. There, now, I've broken the ice, and I s'pose it's all fixed, ain't

it?"

Claire had been trying to withdraw her hand, for several moments, from

the very firm grasp of this remarkable suitor. But as Brady ended, she

literally snatched the hand away, and rose, facing him, contemptuous,

and yet calm because her contempt was so deep.

"It is impertinent for you to address me like this," she said, in

haughty undertone. "You have no right to take for granted that I will

marry you. In the first place, I do not like you; in the second place, I

think myself by no means your inferior, but greatly above you as regards

breeding, education, and intelligence; and in the third place, I would

never consent to be the wife of one whom I do not consider a gentleman."

She at once left the room, after thus speaking, and saw, as she did so,

that Brady's face was pale with rage and consternation. His insolent

patronage had wounded her more than she knew. On reaching her own room,

she had a fit of indignant weeping. But by the time that Sophia and Mrs.

Bergemann returned from their drive, she was sufficiently tranquil to

betray no sign of past perturbation.

That evening Sophia went to one of her "sociables." A male friend called

for her, and they were driven together to the entertainment in question,

with superb yet innocent defiance of those stricter proprieties

advocated in higher social realms. Mrs. Bergemann retired somewhat

early, and Claire was left alone, as it happened, with Thurston, who

chanced to drop in a little after nine o'clock. Just before Mrs.

Bergemann left the drawing-room, she contrived to whisper, in garrulous

aside, with her plump face quite close to Claire's, and all her genial,

harmless vulgarity at a sort of momentary boiling-point: "I shouldn't be

surprised, dear, if he should pop to-night. And if he does, I ain't sure

that you hadn't better have him than Brady, for he's ever so rich,

though the other'll get that Sixth Avenu store and two or three millions

o' money behind it. Still, please yourself, Claire, and don't forget to

leave the hall gas burnin' for Sophia when you go upstairs."

Claire was in a very interrogative mood to-night. "I should like to have

Mr. Brady explained a little more fully," she said, when Thurston and

herself were again seated side by side.

Her companion gave a soft laugh. "I thought that we had exhausted that

subject," he said. "It's not a very rich one, you know."

"I don't want you to tell me anything about his character as a man,"

Claire quickly replied. "But I want to find out his standing in

society."

"He has no standing in society," said Thurston, with instant

decisiveness.

"Do the people of whom you have spoken repeatedly--those whom you term

the best class, I mean--entirely refuse to know him?"

"Not at all. They have never been called upon to know or not to know

him. The best class is in a different world altogether. Perhaps Brady is

aware of their existence; he may have read of their entertainments in

the newspapers, or he may have seen them occasionally at

watering-places. But that is all. His self-importance prevents him from

realizing that they are above him. He is essentially and utterly common.

He is surrounded by a little horde of sycophants who worship him for his

money, and who are, in nearly all respects, as common as himself."

"You mean the set of people with whom Sophia associates?"

"Yes. I mean the rich, vulgar set of which you have so frequently seen

specimens in this very room."

Claire seemed to muse for a short while. "But the others?" she soon

asked. "Those people who hold themselves above the Bergemanns--are they

all refined and cultured? That is, are there any Bradys among them? Are

there any Mrs. Bergemanns or Sophias?"

"I should emphatically say not. One may meet people among them who are

by no means models of propriety or of high-breeding, but only as

exceptional cases. They are generally found to be ladies and gentlemen;

I don't know two more comprehensive words than those for just what I

desire to express. Of course I have no large moral meaning, now. I would

merely imply that in outward actions, at least, they preserve the

niceties. Their occasional deeds of darkness may be as solidly bad as

anything of the kind elsewhere. I should be very loth to describe them

as saintly. But they are usually polished. Quite often they are rank

snobs. Still oftener they are stupid. Their virtues might best be

explained negatively, perhaps. They don't shock you; they are not crude;

they haven't forgotten that a verb agrees with its nominative in number

and person; they don't overdress themselves; they very rarely shout

instead of talking, and ... well, for a final negative, they never tell

the truth when its utterance might wound or annoy."

Claire had seemed to be listening very earnestly. She did not respond

with her usual promptness. Her tones were slow and thoughtful when she

at length said: "And they are what you would call an aristocracy?"

"I don't know why they are not. They are incessantly being compared, to

their own disadvantage, with the aristocracies of foreign lands. But I

have traveled considerably, in my time, and on the whole I prefer them

to all similar bodies. There is less sham about them, and quite as much

reason for existence. They point a very sad moral, perhaps; they

illustrate what certain austere critics like to call the failure of

republican ideas. But I've had so many good friends among them that I

can't consider any institution a failure which is responsible for their

development."

"And it is very hard to become one of their number," Claire said, after

another little pause. She did not put the words as a question.

"You seem to think it hard," Thurston answered. Rare as was any

impulsive order of speech with him, this slight yet meaning sentence had

nevertheless found utterance, almost against his will.

It was his first reference to the episode which both vividly remembered,

though in far different ways, and which had cast round their subsequent

intercourse, even when directed upon the most mundane topics, a delicate

glamour of sentiment plainly perceptible to each. Claire dropped her

eyes, for a moment, then suddenly lifted them, while the pink was yet

deepening in her cheeks.

"Let us suppose that I am not speaking of myself," she said. "Indeed,"

she went on, with a soft, peculiar smile that had hardly lighted her

lips before it fled, "you have told me that _my_ gate into the kingdom

of the elect is through--well, through matrimony." She now looked at her

companion with so subtle a blending of the arch and the grave that

Thurston, in all the solidity of his veteran experience, was baffled how

to explain it. "Suppose," she suddenly announced to him, "that I should

marry Mr. Brady. He is your abhorrence, I know. But if he put his

millions at my disposal, could I become the great lady you and I have

talked about?"

Thurston was stroking his mustache, and he now seemed to speak under it,

a trifle gruffly, as he answered her.

"Yes," he said, "I think you could--provided Brady quitted the world

after marrying you."

Claire gave a little rippling laugh. "They would never allow him to be

one of them?" she asked, in tones whose precise import her hearer still

failed to define, and which impressed him as midway between raillery and

seriousness.

"No, never. If he has proposed to you, my poor child, don't for an

instant flatter yourself that you could use him as a ladder by which to

climb up into your coveted distinction."

These words were spoken with a commiserating ridicule. Tried a man of

the world as he was, Thurston had of late been so deeply wounded that he

now felt his wound bleed afresh, at an instant's notice, and deal him a

severe pang as well. But Claire, quite forgetting to make allowances,

flushed hotly, and at once said:--

"I never told you that Mr. Brady had proposed to me. And I do not think

it proper or civil for you to throw in my face what I have put to you in

the shape of a confidence."

"Marry Brady. By all means marry him," said Thurston. He had not been so

bitterly affronted in years.

Claire felt conscience-stricken by the recollection of her own thoughts

just previous to Brady's offer. She had permitted herself to weigh the

question of whether or not marriage with such a man might be possible.

Then had come the sharp sense that it would be degrading. For this

reason she was now humiliated beyond measure, and hence keenly angry.

"I shall not marry him," she said, her lip faintly quivering. "Why do

you speak to me like this?" Tears of shame now gathered to her eyes, and

her voice notably faltered. She found no more words to utter. She felt

that she was in a false, miserable position. She felt that she deserved

Thurston's contempt, too, since she had given him, stupidly and rashly,

a hint of what had passed between herself and the man whom they both

despised.

Thurston rose and placidly faced her. He was so angry that he had just

enough control left to preserve tranquillity.

"I don't know that I have said anything very hard to you," he began.

"Yes, you have," retorted Claire, her voice in wretched case. She

knotted both hands together while she spoke. She was still seated.

Thurston went on as if there had been no interruption. "But if I tell

you the plain truth, I don't doubt you will think me hard. I will tell

it because you need it. You are still a mere girl, and very foolish. I

am profoundly sorry for you. You have no possible regard for that

frightful young millionaire, and yet you have permitted yourself to

think of marrying him. Such a marriage would be madness. You would not

accept me because you thought me old, but it would be better if you

married a decent man of ninety than a gross cad and ruffian of

twenty-three. But whether you do sell yourself in this horrid way or no,

it is a plain fact that you are in danger of committing some terrible

folly. I see by your face that you do not mean to heed my words. But

perhaps if you listen to them now, you will recall them and heed them

hereafter."

"No," cried Claire, tingling with mortification, and seizing on satire

as a last defensive resort against this deserved rebuke, whose very

justice revealed her own culpability in a clearer light; "no, if you

please, I won't listen! I shall ask, instead, that you will kindly grant

me the liberty of purchasing my own sackcloth and of collecting my own

ashes."

She half turned away from him, with glowing face, as she spoke; it was

her intent to beat a prompt retreat; but Thurston's firm, even tones

detained her.

"I warn you against yourself," he went on. His anger had cooled now, and

melancholy had replaced it. "You have some fine traits, but there is an

actual curse hanging over you, and as a curse it will surely fall,

unless by the act of your own will you change it into a blessing. It is

more than half the consequence of your land and your time, but it is due

in part, also, to your special nature. In other countries the women whom

fate has placed as it has placed you, are never stung by ambition like

yours. They are born _bourgeoises_, and such they are contented to

remain. If they possess any ambition, it is to adorn the sphere in which

their destinies have set them, and this alone. They long for no new

worlds to conquer; their small world is enough, but it is not too small

to hold a large store of honest pride. All over Europe one finds it

thus. But in America the affair is quite different. Here, both women and

men have what is called 'push.' Not seldom it is a really noble

discontent; I am not finding fault with it in all cases. But in yours,

Claire Twining, I maintain that it will turn out a dowry of bitter risk

if not woful disaster. I exhort you to be careful, to be very careful,

lest it prove the latter. Don't let your American 'push' impel you into

swamps and quicksands. Don't let it thrust you away from what is true

and sterling in yourself. Be loyal to it as a good impulse, and it will

not betray and confound you like a bad one. You can do something so much

better than to wreck your life; you can make it a force, a guidance, a

standard, a leadership. You can keep conscience and self-respect clean,

and yet shine with a far surer and more lasting brilliancy on this

account.... Think of my counsel; I shall not besiege you with any more;

no doubt I have given you too much, and with too slight a warrant,

already.... Good-by. If I should never see you again, I shall always

hope for you until I hear ill news of you. And if bright news reaches

me, I shall be vain enough to tell myself that we have not met, talked,

argued--even quarreled, perhaps--without the gain on your own side of

happy and valued results." ...

Thurston passed from the room, swiftly, and yet not seeming to use the

least haste, before Claire, strongly impressed and with her wrath at a

vanishing point, could collect herself for the effort of any coherent

sort of reply.

She had caught one very clear glimpse of his face just as he

disappeared. His hazel eyes, troubled, yet quiet, had momentarily dwelt

with great fixity on her own. As she afterward recalled this parting

vision of a face grown so familiar through recent weeks, it appeared to

her solely in imaginative terms. It ceased to be a face; it became a

reproach, a remonstrance, an advice, an entreaty.

Immediately after his exit she sank into a chair, feeling his late words

ring through mind and heart. She had never liked him so much as at that

moment.

She had a sense that he meant to avoid seeing her again. But she did not

realize through how much vivid novelty of experience she must pass

before they once more met. If any such prescience had reached her, she

would have gone out into the hall and plucked him by the sleeve, begging

him to return, filled with conciliatory designs, eager that he should

abandon all thought of permanent farewell.

But as it was, she let the hall-door close behind him, and sat staring

at the floor and saying within her own thoughts: "He is right. I am in

danger. I can save myself if I choose. And I _will_ save myself in

time!"

She clenched both hands as they drooped at either side, and her eyes

flashed softly below their shading lids.