At the park's further end there was a bench, inside a sort of roofless

summerhouse, where on warm days the fountain played in a rainbow. She

knew the place well--she had sat there many times--with him and with

another---she would go there now and think her own thoughts. It was

hidden from the driveways, and the place was sweet with memories which

need not goad and pain her. She remembered the last time she had sat

there. It came back to her now with a sudden vividness. It was the day

she had refused--the other one. She remembered the dress she wore--a

thin little mull, cut low about the throat and strewn with pink

rosebuds. And it was on that same bench. She had done it very gently.

She had simply shown him her ring, and begged him with a little catch

of the breath to be her friend--always. His was the sort of heart a

woman might warm herself by all her life. He was tender and impulsive

like herself, and he had always understood--always. How could she have

forgotten for so long? Friends were rare--and he had promised to be

her friend through everything. Her friend! Had he realized how much

that meant?

Her step had grown very slow; she quickened it, lifting her head, and

reached the little plaza near the fountain, her face flushed with the

walk, the dark tendrils of her hair fallen from beneath her floating

veil.

It was very sad here now, and very lonely. She had not thought that

any place long familiar could look so strange. She paused, almost

dreading to enter the old retreat, clothed as it was in the withered

vine robes of dead springs. It was so like the rainbow fountain of her

own years, checked and desolate and still. A whirlwind of red and

yellow leaves swept about her feet. She started nervously, and,

opening the little gate, went in.

But the place was not deserted. A man sat on the bench. He rose as she

closed the gate, and when she would have withdrawn, he came toward her

and held out a hand.

"Oh," she said, feeling as if she were speaking in a dream, "is

it--where did you come from?"

"It seems very natural to see you here," he said.

His face was bronzed and he had more beard than formerly, but his eyes

were the same when he smiled.

"I did not dream you were anywhere near us," she went on, the wonder

deepening in her eyes. "I was--you seem part of my thoughts--I was

thinking of you only a moment ago."

"You were always kind," said the man. "Let me spread my overcoat on

the bench--the stone is cold. You have been walking, haven't you?"

"Yes. I don't walk much--it tires me easily." She sat down, loosening

the furs at her throat, Breathing quickly; her eyes searched his face,

half dazed, half questioning. "But where have you been?" she asked.

"Were you not in Africa?"

"Yes. I have been home only a few days--I don't wonder you are

surprised finding me here; people don't often sit in the park at this

time--but I find it cozier than the station across the way. I came out

on the hill early this noon to look up old friends, and I found I'd an

hour to wait."

"Am I not an old friend?" she asked. "Why have you not been to

see--us?"

"I hope I may count you such," said the man. "I knew your husband,

too, many years ago; but he said that you were ill; I saw him this

morning."

"I have been ill," she answered, quickly, and looked away, pushing

back her hair with the little movement he knew so well.

"I am sorry for that," he said. "I heard of your loss--I did not lose

sight entirely of my friends. Your little boy," he added, his voice

softening--"your little boy----"

"My baby died," she said.

"I know--I heard of it--I knew how keenly you could suffer. But I

knew, too, how brave you were----"

"Oh!" she said, catching the lace at her throat. "If he--if my baby

had lived--I might--I could----"

She checked herself with a sudden biting of the lip, but the tears

broke from her eyelids and she bowed her face.

"Ah," said the man, "I know--this is very hard; but it is something,

after all, to have felt--to have known. No loss can be so bitter as a

lack--a need."

There was a moment's silence between them.

"Tell me of yourself," she said, quietly, at length.

"There is little to tell. My life is very much the same. I have

neither wife nor child. Until a man finds those, he's a most

indifferent topic."

"You have never married?" she asked.

"No. Your life is, fuller, sweeter, better. Tell me of that. I used to

know your husband--did you know?"

"No," she said, "I did not know."

"Yes, we were chaps together, he and I, the same age, though he seemed

older--he was a plucky little fellow--you did not know him long, I

believe, before you married."

She was looking straight before her at the still fountain. "No," she

said, "I did not know him long."

"Ah," mused the man, "I know him well. He is a prince--one of God's

own. Somewhat quiet now, I find, but he was always rather reserved,

his life made him so; he was such a kid when he began to support them

all--the mother and the girls, you know. But he worked along, going to

night school--always ready, always courageous. My father used to say

he'd give all his four boys for that one. We never worked much, you

know. I suppose those who don't know him call him stern, but he has

carried a pretty heavy load all his life, and that sobers a man and

takes the spring out of him--of course you know, though."

But the woman said nothing. The man paused, regarding her a moment,

then he let his gaze follow hers.

"I was thinking of the fountain," she said; "how it once flashed and

sang and played--and now----"

"And now," said the man, "it is silent and cold--but the bright water

is there still, and when the spring comes back it will leap forth

again. It reminds me of my friend of whom we were just speaking--your

husband. All the glow and life are still in his heart, and you will

waken them. I said when you were married, that he needed just that--a

union with a rich, sunny nature like your own, to teach him all that

he had missed, and give back to him all that he had lost."

Her, lashes fell slowly, and she stroked her muff with one white hand.

The man spoke on, musingly. "I suppose even you do not realize the

good he does--the help he gives to others. He doesn't talk of

himself--he never did--even to you, I suppose? No? It is like him, he

was always so. It was--it was in the cemetery I saw him this morning.

I--when I come home--I always go there--my mother is there, you

remember--I found him by--by your little boy. He was talking, with the

sexton when I came up. It seems the grass didn't grow about the little

fellow's--bed. The man admitted that his own little folks were

accustomed to play there--the lot is shady and close to the

house--they bring their toys and frolic there till the grass is quite

worn away. You should have seen his face when the man told him that.

'Let them come,' he said; 'don't stop them; the grass doesn't matter.'

'The boy won't be so lonely,' said he to me. 'It seems so far away out

here--and he all by himself--he was such a little chap--I sort of feel

one of us ought to stay with him--at night.'"

The woman raised her eyes to his face. "Ah," she said, softly, "did

he--did he say that?"

"Yes--and it goes to show, what you doubtless know better than I, how

deep and true and tender he is beneath it all. Shan't I lay this coat

more about you? I think the air has grown chillier."

"No, thank you," she said, rising. "Yes, it is chillier."

The man rose also. She stood a moment--her hand on the little gate,

her eyes grown dark and deep. He waited at her side.

Her fingers sought the latch absently.

"Let me open it for you," he said. "Were you going into town, or did

you come for the walk?"

"I?" she said. "Oh, I told Jules not to come back for me--it's a short

walk home." She smiled up at him for the first time with her old-time

brightness. "And you," she said, "you haven't completed the round of

your 'old friends' yet--you will come with me."

BAS BLEU

By ANNA A. ROGERS

_Author of "PEACE AND THE VICES"_

That his wife was keeping something from him had been unpleasantly

apparent to Robert Penn for over two months; but what really wore upon

his easily disturbed nerves was the equally obvious fact that her

secret was the source of an unusual, unnatural, unseemly happiness,

which she took no pains to disguise.

Robert was the very much overworked junior partner in the prosperous

law firm of Messrs. Flagg, Bentnor & Penn; and the question of his

taking a much-needed rest had been gravely discussed by the other two

partners more than once during the year; but the mere suggestion of it

put him into such a tantrum that they let it drop, trusting to a

redistribution of the work of the office to lighten somewhat Penn's

burden. So all the fashionable divorcees--hitherto Bentnor's

specialty--were turned over to the junior partner, as a slight means

of professional diversion.

But he threw himself into the cases of his clients, male and female,

with the same old unsparing fervor, and Flagg and Bentnor--the latter

was Penn's brother-in-law--raised their eyebrows and shook their heads

behind his back.

What first drew Robert's attention to his wife's secret was the sudden

inexplicable condoning of his own small negligences and ignorances,

which had once been brought to book. So accustomed does the happily

married husband of the day become to certain domestic requisitions

that the withdrawal of them is apt to arouse his suspicions at once.

These jealous doubts, later on, ran the whole gamut from the postman

to the rector of Mrs. Penn's church, but at first all Robert feared

was that she had become indifferent to him. That, after five happy

years, she should be sweetly serene when he suddenly remembered that

he had bought tickets for the theater, just as they had settled down

after dinner for a quiet evening, Mrs. Penn looking prettily domestic

in a lilac tea gown! Nothing but the established repugnance of a

self-made man to wasting four dollars, even to save his pride, made

him uncover his delinquency--and he held his breath till the storm

should pass. But no storm followed his confession. Instead of which,

she sprang to her feet, laughing:

"Oh, I'm wild to see that play! It has a deep, ethical purpose. Can

you give me six minutes to scratch off this gown and bundle myself

into another?"

It was so unusual, and she made such a delightful picture standing in

the doorway, that he felt that the occasion deserved recognition.

"You may have twelve minutes to dress in, Helen. I'll call a cab."

"Oh, Rob, how lovely!" and off she flew.

After a moment spent in the happy digestion of this delightful

antenuptial way of exculpating a really outrageous masculine default,

it slowly dawned upon him, as he arose and emptied the ash tray into

the library fire, that it was most unusual, extraordinary, startling!

There was a time when she would have made a scene, and either they

would have spent the evening apart at home in silence, or together at

the theater in a still more painful silence.

At that instant was born in Robert Penn's already overwrought brain

the thought that his wife no longer loved him!

Robert loathed all theatergoing. The mere physical restraint was

torture to so active, high-strung a man, but when it came to a problem

play---- He not unnaturally considered that it represented the full

measure of his devotion to his wife, to spend an evening beside her

listening to the same old jumble of human motives, human passions,

that had occupied him all day long. Hate, jealousy, revenge, greed,

infidelity were the staples of his trade, as it were; the untangling

of law, if not always equity, from the seething mass was his _raison

d'etre_, and moreover paid his coal bills. That Helen was almost

morbidly fond of the theater had long been his heaviest cross.

His thin, dark face looked very worn as he hunched himself into his

overcoat in the hall, and, looking up, saw Helen running down the

stairs, just as she used to do in the dear old sweetheart days,

chattering merrily the while:

"Talk of Protean artists! Vaudeville clamor for me some day--you'll

see! I'll be five characters in twenty-five minutes, and no one of

them Helen Penn!"

And then she looked so altogether exactly the way he liked his wife to

look, that he whispered something quite absurdly lover-like to her as

he put her into the cab. She laughed in an excited, detached way and

made no response in kind, and again his mood changed and a chilly fog

of vague suspicion closed in upon him.

At the theater he leaned back in his seat and watched Helen with eyes

that began to reinventory her personality, seeking to comprehend this

strange exhilaration that had recently uplifted her out of all her

environment.

Once, between the second and third acts, Helen asked Robert for a

pencil and made a note on the margin of her program, which she

laughingly refused to let him read. It was all that was needed to

crystallize his resentment, and muttering something about "a whiff of

tobacco," he got up and went to the lobby.

It so happened that Mr. Flagg, the dignified senior member of their

successful firm, was strolling about alone with a cigarette, and after

greetings between the two Flagg said, in a low tone, to Robert:

"It's all up with your side of the Perry case! The evidence in

rebuttal will knock you higher than Haman. I've just got hold of

it--I'll explain in the morning. It seems that your pretty client has

been hoodwinking _caro sposo_ for two years--all the time looking like

a Botticello angel, all pure soul and sublimated thought, dressed

always in shades of gray--pearl gray, Penn!" laughed Flagg; "a dove

with the heart of a---- There's the bell! Come down early to-morrow,

there's work ahead for us all."

The first thing that Robert did as he sank into his seat was to note

the shade of Helen's gown--it was a dull lead color!

If jealousy is once allowed so much as a finger tip within the portals

of a heart, the chances are that within an inconceivably short time he

will be in entire possession, sprawled all over the place, yelling for

corroboration and drinking it thirstily until madness comes.

Every little unrelated incident in Robert's home life fell suddenly

into place under suspicion's nimble fingers. Up to that time he had

been reasonably sure of the integrity of his hearthstone. Only within

those eight weeks had these new symptoms been developing in the

conduct of the wife of his bosom, the mother of his little daughter,

Betty. Her curiously happy exaltation, her absentmindedness, her long,

smiling reveries; the look of flushed excitement on her pretty face,

the odd impression of breathlessness; the muttering of strange words

in her sleep, followed by bursts of almost ribald laughter. Could it

be possible that she was leading a double life, like that other

woman?---a life to which he had no latchkey?

What was that devilish thing in "The Cross of Berny"--from Gautier's pen,

if he remembered rightly, among those four royal collaborateurs--"To

call a woman--my wife! What revolting indiscretion! To call

children----" But the thought of little Betty hushed even his mad

imaginings.

However, it was his business to fathom all this mystery at once. An

idealist was a blind ass--look at Perry!

Penn did not rest well that first night after the problem play, nor

for many nights to come.

One morning a question of law came up at the office that made it

expedient that one of the firm should go at once to Washington to

consult a supreme authority, and Robert was sent, that he might have

the benefit of even that small change of scene. He rushed home to

throw a few things into a bag and kiss his wife and Betty good-by. He

opened the front door with his latchkey as usual, and as usual called

out:

"Helen, where are you?"

There was a low cry, the shuffle of feet across a hardwood floor, the

bang of a door closed quickly, and then in a voice toned to sudden

_insouciance_ and overdoing it:

"Here I am, Rob, in the library."

He stood frozen stiff for an instant, as his legal experience

whispered to him all the possibilities hidden in those few sounds. The

main thing was to keep his head! He went to the library and found

Helen sitting alone in his own especial chair, peacefully reading

Boswell's "Life of Johnson," as he was quick to notice as he passed

behind her.

Although her attitude was one of rather sleepy repose, there were

signs of a hasty rearrangement of the _mise en scene_, which

corroborated the aural evidence which reached him in the hall. Near

the door to the reception room was a piece of paper; he slipped on a

round "Carteret" pencil as he went to his desk in a silence that he

felt that he could not break, without also breaking a few other

things.

Helen sat watching him in surprise--not an altogether genuine

surprise, he thought, after one glance--thank Heaven, he was an expert

in moral turpitudes and sinuosities--the woman did not live who could

deceive him!

"Did you forget something, Rob? Why didn't you telephone? I could have

sent it to you," she asked, simply. Ah, that accursed simplicity!

Well, she would find that he was not simple, that was one sure thing.

"No, Helen, I forgot nothing--I never do forget anything," he said,

with sullen meaning. "Where's Betty?"

"It's a fair day and it's eleven; of course she is out in the park,"

replied Helen, smiling.

He smiled too, but in such a way that she sat forward in her chair

with dilated eyes, into which Robert read a rising fear.

"Dear, what is it? What is wrong?"

"Wrong? Who said wrong? _I_ didn't," he found himself saying, greatly

to his disappointment, for suspicions are useless until graduated

into--evidence; so he hastened to explain his errand; sorting over

some papers at his desk meanwhile. All the time his mind was intent

upon one thing only--the possession of that piece of paper lying near

the reception-room door.

He walked toward the cabinet in the corner to fill his pockets with

cigars; the paper was lying just behind him, and as he turned he would

stoop and pick it up.

He heard a slight noise behind him, and, wheeling-swiftly, discovered

Helen creeping toward the paper, her hand already outstretched. With

one quick movement he snatched it from the floor, and forced himself

to hold it aloft and laugh a little. He might have spared himself all

that finesse, for she ran to him, clinging to his arm, laughing,

coaxing, pouting, begging him to give it to her--unread!

"Rob, you'll break my heart if you read that. Please not now--later

perhaps--some day I will explain; please, dear!"

"If the contents of this paper are sufficiently serious to break your

heart if I do read it, perhaps mine will be broken if I don't. So, as

a measure of self-preservation----" He put the piece of note paper

into his pocket. His face was white, his pulse was galloping like mad,

and yet he managed a rather ghastly smile into her face, upraised and

pleading.

"Face of a Botticello angel!" he thought, and steeled his heart

against her.

She sank into a chair half laughing and yet with an introverted

expression--"_recueillement d'esprit_," he thought to himself,

bitterly. Brushing her hair in passing lightly with his lips, he left

the room and presently the house. When she discovered that he had gone

without again seeing her, she flew to the telephone and held a long

incoherent talk with some one she not infrequently called "Ben, dear,"

to whom she confided certain undefined fears about her husband and her

future. A suggestion of a trip to Europe from the other end of the

telephone met with her unbounded gratitude and enthusiasm. After

urging haste, she left the colloquy almost her old smiling self, and

went to the library, where she did not continue the reading of

Boswell's "Life of Johnson," but went thence directly to the reception

room--into which Robert had peered before leaving the house--and,

stooping, she drew from under the lounge many sheets of paper, and was

soon lost in their perusal.

Robert had been forced to wait until he was settled on the train for

Washington before he found time to read the note whose possession had

caused Helen such perturbation. It was evidently the middle page of a

letter, a single sheet, note size, torn from a pad. The handwriting

was unquestionably masculine, entirely unfamiliar to Penn, hurried and

full of what Helen would have called--temperament.

After one glance, the blood rushed to his head, and his hot eyes

devoured again and again these words:

Since our interview yesterday, and in regard to that

irresistible scene of the blue stockings, I am not willing to

let it drop.

However, I should like to suggest abbreviation, and I fear I

shall have to ask you to change the shade to a dull bluish gray.

If you will come to my office in the morning, I feel sure we can

soon arrange a climax which shall embody your own wishes and

mine. As to the effect--the after-effect--of her husband's death

on H. P.'s character, attention will be diverted from that by

the previous gossip about----

And there it ended.

The initials, H. P.--Helen Penn--were the tacks that fastened

conviction to Robert's consciousness; conviction of an intrigue of

long standing and unspeakable familiarities--all these verbal

obscurities were only too sickeningly familiar to him, fresh from the

Perry letters--but here was more!

Apparently a coolly plotted murder--one ray of light only his eyes

clung to--the "climax" was yet _in limine_!

In a well-built city house the insertion of a latchkey and opening of

a front door between ten and eleven o'clock at night are noises easily

covered by the urban roar of even one of the lateral streets of a

great city. Robert entered and closed the door with--he assured

himself--no greater minimum of noise than is instinctive toward

midnight with even a sober married man. Among all the emotions which

had seethed through his mind during the past few hours, a reaction was

at that moment in possession of him, in favor of his wife, who had

been to him a well of sweet water through all those years. If evil was

drawing near to her, why push her toward it? Surely a finer thing

would be to warn and protect her, to beat down underfoot his own

wounded _ego_ and win her back!

The electric light in the hall was burning, and he went directly to

the library. Touching an electric button near the door, the room was

flooded with light, and there before his weary eyes, hanging over the

back of his Morris chair, was--Heaven help him!--a pair of long

delft-blue silk stockings! Robert's agony was black upon him, his mind

once more full of crawling, writhing suspicions; his mouth and throat

were parched, his pulse beats filled the world.

Then into the silence fell Helen's laugh from the floor above, a long

peal of mirth that spoke clearly of companionship. He had not made a

life study of psychic differentiation for nothing--Helen was not

alone! From that instant, all pretenses were abandoned, Robert was a

sleuthhound on a keen scent.

With his head well forward, he crept up the carpeted stairway. The

upper hall light was burning low; from his wife's "sewing room," as it

was called, came the sound of voices. The door was ajar, and from the

crevice a strong light flooded out into the twilight of the hall. Now

entirely mad with jealousy, he softly glided toward the crack, but

before his eyes could further feed his torture, his ears served up a

plenitude, in Helen's voice--that dear, clear, sweet voice that had

sung his child to sleep and----

"Mr. Stillingfleet--my dear Mr. Stillingfleet, if I may be allowed the

liberty----"

"My dearest creature," interrupted a deep voice, muffled, almost as if

by intent disguised, "if it be a liberty to call me dear, I find

myself craving the instant fall of kingdoms."

"La, sir, you confuse me quite!" There was a rustle of silken skirts

and Helen laughed again.

Peering cautiously in, this sight met Robert's bloodshot eyes:

Helen--or at least the fantastic figure which had her voice--stood by

the mantelpiece. The hair was high-rolled and powdered, in it two

nodding white plumes; she wore a yellow brocade gown strangely cut,

long black mitts on her hands, which waved a huge fan coquettishly at

a man--a creature in the costume of Goldsmith's day--who stood near

her, bowing low. On his head was a wig, powdered and in queue, his

face a mask of paint and powder and patches. He was clad in a huge

waistcoat, long coat, knee breeches and hose--_blue_ hose--upon his

comely legs! Putting out his hand toward Helen's, he said with

sickening affectation, seizing her hand and raising it to his lips:

"It's high time we were off to Montague's, my fair H. P. 'Time flies,

death urges, knells call, heaven invites!'"

For an instant a very ancient and honorable desire to enter that room

and violently change the face of several things dominated the

listening husband; that he did not marked the high tide of his nervous

breakdown. A sudden reaction, common to the neurasthenic, swept over

him, and his soul withdrew in anguish from the sickening horror of the

discovery. He crept softly down the stairs, seized hat and coat and

staggered out into the night.

It was five days before Benjamin Bentnor's best detective work

succeeded in finding his brother-in-law in a hall bedroom at an

obscure hotel in Washington, for a strong impulse of duty to be

performed had landed Robert there, although he had completely lost

sight of his mission. When Ben found him, he was seated on the edge of

the bed, his head bowed in his hands.

Bentnor's gentleness toward him would have shown a saner man that his

condition was serious; but it took a physician to do that in the end,

and a year of rest and travel to cure him.

At first, however, all Bentnor could do was to sit about rather

helplessly and chatter in an effort to break through Robert's gloom.

The second day after he found his brother-in-law, he was at his wits'

end to find further subjects for cheerful conversation, until toward

evening he had a sudden inspiration!

To be sure it was Helen's secret, but surely she would not object to

anything which might serve to arouse her poor husband's interest,

however slightly, and bring him to the point of consenting to return

to his home.

Bentnor was short, stout, slightly bald, and somehow radiated comfort,

even while sitting astride of a cane-bottomed chair, and smoking

another man's brand of cigarettes, in a one-windowed room nine feet by

ten and a half.

"Helen Bentnor Penn's a great girl, isn't she, Rob?" No response came

from the huddled figure on the bed.

"Of course, all the Bentnors have brains--you must have observed that

for yourself; but she's the first literary genius among us, although

I've always felt that all I needed was leisure--however, that's

neither here nor there. Helen has arrived, and shall have the honor.

Why, the editor who accepted that clever little _lever de rideau_ of

hers and brings it out in this month's issue of his magazine, was

downright enthusiastic--can you imagine an editor having any

enthusiasm left in him, Penn? I can't, for one. Must have a

magnificent flow of gastric juice! However that may be, this chap has

taken Helen up _con amore_, and written advice as to some changes, and

given her interviews and all that. Most amateurs have to have several

'fittings,' I suppose. And then the check he sent her--by Jove, even I

was surprised!"

Robert looked up for the first time, and turned a haggard face, blank

with wonder, toward his wife's brother. Ben laughed.

"Well, I suppose it is a bit of a shock to a man to find that his

wife's brains have a market value." He was greatly encouraged by

Penn's aroused interest and hurried on with his tale:

"It strikes me I oughtn't to be telling you this, Rob, for it was

Helen's birthday surprise for you. She's been in an ecstasy over it

for about eight weeks. Don't you tell her I've told you! Promise!"

"Trust me," murmured Penn, and a smile twitched at his face.

"Such plottings and plans and secrecy! I've been in it up to the neck

from the first. On your birthday--somehow she's in love with you yet,

Penn--Lord, how does a man do that?--for breakfast she was to show you

the magazine within whose fold is to be found her first literary

lambkin; for luncheon--for you were to spend the day at home--she was

going to give you the check! Generous little beggar, Nell! She said

she had never been able to really give you anything before--she had

only bought with your money and forced upon you things you didn't

want. Then that night after dinner she and I were to act her two-part

play--we've been at it for weeks, tooth and nail, powder and

patches----"

"_You_ and Helen!" gasped Robert.

"Great Scott! who on earth else?--the editor?" laughed Bentnor, little

dreaming what the few words meant to the distraught man before him.

"Perhaps you think I can't do that sort of thing! It's in our blood,

the love of the buskin. The fact is, I've always had my suspicions

that in the time of Charles the Second--well, never mind. We had our

last final farewell dress rehearsal the night you came on here. I tell

you I'm great in it. Helen, to be sure, does fairly well as _Hester

Piozzi_, but wait till you see me as _Mr. Stillingfleet_! You know he

was the fellow whose grayish-blue stockings gave the name for all time

to 'blue-stocking' clubs. He and Dr. Johnson were always buzzing

around the literary women of that day, the pretty D'Arblay, the

dignified Mistress Montague of Portman Square, and the great Piozzi

herself--of course, you remember?"

"Yes, I remember," whispered Robert, his face once more hidden, but a

great peace possessing him. "Ben," he cried, almost joyfully, "what's

the title of Helen's play?"

"_Bas Bleu_," said Bentnor, concealing his triumph at his own tactics

in the lighting of his twenty-third cigarette.

Robert groaned, and his head again drooped in unspeakable humiliation.

And in that moment he made up his mind that no one should ever share

his guilty secret. To make a pathetic appeal to Helen, dwelling upon

his love, his doubts, his torturing jealousy, was one thing; quite

another to tell that hopelessly humorous, refusing-to-be-pathetic

story of those ridiculous _bas bleus_--they dangled everywhere from

every point of his story; flying, pirouetting, circling and

pin-wheeling in a psychic _pas seul_! It was impossible for even a

member of the firm of Flagg, Bentnor & Penn to be impressive. Let them

call it a nervous breakdown, his lips were forever sealed.

Then the thought of his home came to him like distant music. He saw

himself opening his door; he saw a small ball of white coming down the

stairs backward in a terrifying fury of speed, the little, fat,

half-bare legs and a swirl of tiny skirts all that was visible of his

wee daughter coming to greet him. He saw himself catch her off the

last step and lift her in his arms, burying his face against the

baby's hot, panting little body, then he heard Helen's voice and the

sound of her scurrying feet!

Robert sprang up, and with a burst of wild laughter, shouted:

"Ben, let's go home! I believe you're dead right--I've got nervous

prostration, and I've got it bad!"

THE VAGABOND

Your arms have held me till they seemed my home.

Your heart denies me; and the spells I weave

Are powerless to hold you. You must roam,

And I must, grieving, hide the thing I grieve.

Oh, love that does not love me, will there come

No time when I am all too dear to leave?

Is life so rich without me? Will there be

No ache of loneliness? No sudden sting

Of loss--of longing? Will your memory

Dwell on no passionate, sweet, familiar thing,

Soft touch or whispered word? Are you so free

From any ties but those new days may bring?

So much I miss you that I do not dare

To let my heart turn backward, nor my eyes

Search the wide future that is swept so bare

Of all I coveted. Yet deeplier lies

Than any misery of dull despair

The fear that you may some day come to prize

The things I stand for, when I am not there

To fill your needs with all my sympathies.

M. M.

THE DOING OF THE LAMBS

By SUSAN SAYRE TITSWORTH

"Well, so long, fellows," said the Goat, and rose to go.

"Good-night, old man," responded the cheerful chorus of his hosts. As

the Goat went out into the hall there was silence in the room he had

left, which lasted until after he had opened the hall door and had had

time to close it. But instead of closing it, he merely bumped noisily

against it, and rattled the knob, and stood listening. As if his

departure were a signal, a roar of laughter from within followed his

stratagem. One voice rose above the noise.

"By George!" it said. "Isn't he the limit?"

The Goat closed the door silently and mounted the stairs to his own

room in the apartment above. His suspicions were confirmed.

They had dragged him in with them as they all came over together from

dinner at the Commons, to tell them some more of his wild Western

tales. It was not the first time they had done it. They were a select

little group of Eastern men, two or three years out of Harvard or

Yale, in rather good repute with the faculty of the Law School for the

quality of their work, and known among their fellow students as the

Lambs, from their somewhat ostentatious habit of flocking together.

The Goat was from the West, a graduate of a prairie college of

Moravian foundation, an athletic, good-looking young fellow in

badly-fitting clothes, who appeared in no way ashamed to admit that he

had never before been east of the Mississippi, and was frankly

impressed by New York. His _gaucherie_ was not ungraceful; there was

an attractive impertinence in his cheerful assertions that his

Moravian grandparents had desired him not to smoke or drink until he

had completed his education and was earning his own living, and that,

consequently, he knew tobacco only by sight and smell, and had

contented himself with looking on the wine when it was red. There was

one vacant seat at the table, which the Lambs occupied at the Commons;

with an eye to future entertainment they had invited the Goat to join

them, and in the two months since the term began, the arrangement had

given general satisfaction.

They had undertaken the education of the Goat; they set him up to the

theater, with supper at the Black Cat or Pabst's afterward, and lay

awake nights howling at the recollection of his naive and shrewd

comments; they took him walking to show him the historical landmarks

of New York, extemporizing the landmarks and the history as they went

along, to the delighted gratitude of the Goat, who lamented that

Arizona had no associations. They egged him on to tell stories of his

prowess with lasso and lariat, of which he was boyishly proud, and

listened with flattering attention to his relations of grizzly hunts

and Greaser raids. He usually told these experiences as happening to a

friend of his, and blushed and looked sheepish when they accused him

of modesty. In return for the pleasure he afforded them, they coached

him in first-year law, and gave him pointers about the professors'

idiosyncrasies, feeling well repaid by his enthusiastic reports of his

good progress, and of the encouraging impression he was making on his

instructors.

And, finally, they were teaching him to smoke. After much urging, he

had consented to try it, and had accomplished part of a cigar. Then he

had suddenly become silent, looked at it intently for a few moments,

and then, murmuring an indistinct excuse, had retired with

precipitation. He appeared at breakfast the next morning,

good-naturedly accepted all the chaffing he got, and bravely essayed

another that evening.

That had been a week or more before. On this particular night he had

successfully smoked a whole Chancellor without growing pale or letting

it go out, treating them meanwhile to a vivacious narrative of a

drunken gambler who had been run out of a little mining camp one

stormy winter night, and had taken refuge with a friend of the Goat,

also caught out in the blizzard, in a cave which proved to be the

domicile of a big hibernating grizzly not thoroughly hibernated; at

the close, he had, as usual, protested but not denied when they

politely insisted on identifying his friend with himself. Then he had

torn himself away to study common-law pleading in the suspicious

manner previously described.

There was, however, no sign of resentment or of injured feelings in

his face as he lit the gas in his own room. On the contrary, he

grinned cheerfully at his reflection in the glass, and, pulling open

his top drawer, took from the remote corner an unmistakably

sophisticated brier and a package of Yale Mixture, and proceeded to

light up. He grinned again as his teeth clamped on the stem, and

jerked it into the corner of his mouth with a practiced twist of his

tongue. Then he picked up a small and well-thumbed book lying half

hidden among his law books and papers, and glanced over a few pages.

"I did that pretty well," he said, approvingly. "Pity those babes

don't know their Bret Harte any better. Guess I'll ring in some of

Teddy's '97 trip on 'em to-morrow night." And then he sat down to

study.

The next day the Lamb from Boston announced that his cousin and her

mother, who were passing through town on their way home from three

years of wandering abroad, were coming to call on him at four.

Therefore, at two, he and his brother Lambs began to prepare his room,

and the only other one that was visible from the front door of their

apartment, for the fitting reception of his relatives. This

preparation consisted largely in moving all presentable articles in

all the rooms into these two, and banishing all unpresentable into the

most remote of the other rooms, and shutting that door. The Lamb from

Brookline inspected the pictures and photographs, straightening the

first, retiring some of the second, and adding a few of both borrowed

from the other members of the flock, and arranged to suit his own

artistic fancy; the Lamb from Philadelphia polished off the cups and

saucers with a clean towel; then the Lamb from Boston took the towel

and dusted the mantel. After their labors, they attired themselves in

their "glad rags," and sat in readiness behind their half-closed

doors, while the Boston Lamb laid out two or three law tomes on his

couch, and assumed a studious attitude in his Morris chair. Promptly

at four appeared the Cousin and the Aunt.

They were courteously impressed by the Lamb's bachelor quarters and

the appurtenances thereof, nor was the significance of the "Cases on

Quasi-Contracts," which the Lamb ostentatiously hustled away, lost

upon them. The Cousin insisted on looking at it, and her comments were

of so sprightly a character and so difficult to return in kind, that

the Lamb, conscious of the open doors, and not desiring to subject the

_esprit de corps_ of his friends to a very severe strain, called in

his brother Lambs to meet his relatives.

They attended promptly, three personable young men in irreproachable

afternoon dress, overjoyed to find the Cousin as pretty as her voice

was musical, and as entertaining as her skillful jolly of the Boston

Lamb had led them to expect. In ten minutes the flock was hers to

command. The Philadelphia Lamb took down from its new position on the

Boston Lamb's wall the cherished Whistler of the Brookline Lamb, and

presented it to her; the Boston Lamb begged her acceptance of the

quaint little Cloisonne cup which she admired as she drank from it,

and which was the property of the Philadelphia member; the Albany

Lamb, on the plea that everything of value had already been abstracted

from him to make the Boston Lamb's room pretty for her, offered her

himself, and was in no way cast down when she declined him on the

ground that he was too decorative to be truly useful. But in the

middle of the recrimination that followed this turning state's

evidence on the part of the Albany Lamb, the Cousin inquired:

"You are all law students--do any of you know a man named Freeman who

is studying up here?" The flock looked at each other and smiled.

Freeman was the Goat's name.

"She doesn't mean the Goat," explained the Boston Lamb, hastily. "We

know a first-year man named Freeman," he added, turning to her, "but

he's a wild and woolly Westerner, who'd never been off the plains of

Arizona till he came here. There may be others, but we're educating

only one."

"Oh, no," said the Cousin. "The Mr. Freeman I mean is the son of the

consul-general to Japan--he's a San Francisco man, and he's been

everywhere. We met him first in Cairo, and then we played together in

Yokohama, and came as far as Honolulu together, last spring. He

decided to study law in New York, and I know he lives up here

somewhere."

"Such a nice young fellow!" contributed the Aunt.

"Don't know him," said the flock.

"We'll ask the Goat about him," suggested the Philadelphia Lamb.

"We've been so engrossed with our own pet Freeman that we haven't had

time for any other," volunteered the Brookline Lamb.

"It's rather strange," began the Cousin, and then interrupted herself.

"Anyway, I hope you'll all look him up; I am sure he will be very

grateful." The flock acknowledged the bouquet by appropriate

demonstrations.

"Our acquaintance with his namesake verges on the altruistic, also,"

ventured the Albany Lamb.

"I should not like, myself, to be the victim of your altruism," said

the Cousin, with a slow glance that took them all in. In the midst of

the delighted expostulations that greeted this shot, the apartment

bell rang sharply. The Brookline Lamb, being nearest, went to open the

door, and, having opened it, remarked in a subdued but unmistakably

sincere manner:

"Well, I'll be----" A saving recollection of the Cousin and the Aunt

brought him to a full stop there, but everybody looked up, and for a

moment the flock was speechless. Not so the Goat, for it was the Goat

who stood there, arrayed in the afternoon panoply of advanced

civilization, with a cigarette between his fingers and the neatest of

sticks under his arm.

"Beg pardon!" he said. "Didn't realize--regret exceedingly--should

never have intruded--why, Miss Brewster!" And with an instant

combination of high hat, stick and cigarette that showed much

practice, he came in to shake hands with the Cousin, who, suddenly

displaying a brilliant color, had risen and taken a step toward him.

"What luck! what bully good luck!" he went on. "Mrs. Brewster, how do

you do? This is like old Cairo days. Boston, you brute, why didn't you

mention this at luncheon?"

The flock choked; this was from the Goat, who had unobtrusively

consumed most of the plate of toast at noon while the Lambs were

discussing the visit of the Cousin and the Aunt. The Albany Lamb rose

to the occasion feebly.

"There seems to have been some mistake," he said. The Goat put his hat

on the bust of the young Augustus, and sat down on the divan beside

the Cousin.

"Well, now I've happened in, mightn't I have some tea?" he inquired,

genially. "No lemon, if you please," and he pointed a suggestive

finger at the rum. In dazed silence the Brookline Lamb hastened to

serve him, while the Cousin said, with a peculiar little smile

tightening the corners of her mouth:

"I thought it was strange that you didn't know Mr. Freeman."

"We really don't," said the Boston Lamb, making a late recover. "I'm

not at all sure that he is a fit person for you to associate with--all

we know of him is what he has told us himself."

"That's all right," said the Goat, impudently. "And, anyway, I didn't

come to see you this time, old man."

"What has he told you?" demanded the Cousin, as the Boston Lamb gasped

with impotent rage.

"A series of Munchausen adventures," returned the Philadelphia Lamb,

vindictively. "Six Apaches and three and a half Sioux with one throw

of the lasso."

"Won out in a hugging match with a ten-foot grizzly," added the Albany

Lamb.

"Nonsense!" said the Cousin, interrupting the Brookline Lamb's sarcasm

in regard to nerve cures. "Hasn't he told you about the mob at

Valladolid? Or about San Juan?" The flock gazed with unutterable

reproach at the Goat, who sipped his tea with a critical frown, and

observed, pleasantly:

"That happened to a friend of mine."

The Lambs surrendered at discretion, and roared. The Cousin glanced at

the Aunt, and they rose.

"We have had the most attractive time," said the Cousin, prettily, as,

suddenly sobered by this calamity, the Lambs protested in a body

against her going. "It has been charming--and I am so interested in

your experiment in altruism." The Lambs collapsed under the _ex

cathedra_ nature of the smile she bestowed upon them, as she turned

and held out a frank hand to the Goat. "I am glad you happened in,"

she said. "I mailed a note to you this morning--you will doubtless get

it to-night. Come and see us."

"The Holland, isn't it?" said the Goat, holding her hand, and then he

made a short speech to her that sounded to the paralyzed Lambs like a

Chinese laundry bill, but which evidently carried meaning to the

Cousin, for she flushed and nodded. Then she turned back to the flock,

who by this time, with touching unanimity, were showering devoted

attentions on the Aunt. At the elevator they were all graciously

dismissed except the Boston Lamb, who alone went down to put his

relatives into their cab.

"Come and see us, all of you," called the Cousin, cordially, as the

car began to descend.

"How soon?" begged the Albany Lamb, anxiously.

"Any time, after to-night," returned the Cousin, and was lowered from

their sight.

Then with one accord they fell upon the Goat, and bore him into the

apartment for condign punishment, regardless of his indignant

assertions of his right as a citizen to a trial by a jury of his

peers. When the Boston Lamb came leaping up the stairs to add his

weight to the balancing of accounts, he found a riotous crowd.

"Just because my luggage was derailed and burned up out in the Kansas

deserts," the Goat was saying, "and I struck New York in a suit of

hobo clothes from Topeka--oh, you fellows are easy marks!"

"Where are your Moravian grandparents?" demanded the Albany Lamb.

"Don't know," said the Goat, unfilially. "They died before I was born.

They weren't Moravians, anyway."

"See here!" The Boston Lamb jerked him to his feet with one hand and

assaulted him with the other. "What was that stuff you were reeling

off to my cousin? As her nearest male relative, geographically

speaking, I insist on an explanation."

"That was Japanese," said the Goat, with a grin, and immediately

favored the crowd with several more doubtfully emphatic remarks in the

same tongue.

"I pass!" said the Boston Lamb, meekly. "But one thing more. Are you

engaged to my cousin?"

"How very impertinent!" returned the Goat. "Why didn't you ask her?"

The Boston Lamb inserted four determined fingers between the Goat's

collar and the back of his neck, and in view of the attitude of mind

and body of the other Lambs, the Goat saw fit to yield.

"Not exactly, as yet," he admitted. "But to-night--I hope----"

"After which we are invited to call--oh, you brute!" groaned the

Albany Lamb, and started for him. But the Goat had pulled himself

loose, and gained the door. He stopped, however, to pull an oblong

package from his coat pocket.

"Here," he said, tossing it toward the crowd. "The smokes are on me

tonight. Sorry I can't be here to assist, for they're a distinct

advance on your husky old Chancellors. Also, there's a case of fairly

good booze downstairs that the janitor is taking care of until you

call for it. So long, fellows!" And with a wave of his hat the Goat

departed.

THE UNATTAINED

A gem apart

In the unreached heart

Of a shy and secret place;

Swift-winged in flight

As a meteor's light

In the far-off field of space.

More sweet and clear

To the spirit's ear

Than a wave-song on the beach;

Like the baffling blue

Of a mountain view,

Or a dream just out of reach.

Like light withdrawn

By a rain-swept dawn,

When the clouds are wild and gray;

Like a wind that blows

Through the orchard close

Ever and ever away.

WILLIAM HAMILTON HAYNE.

THE FLATTERER

By GEORGE HIBBARD

Miss Miriam Whiting languidly descended the broad terrace steps. If

her slow progress suggested bodily weariness, her whole bearing was

not less indicative of spiritual lassitude. She allowed her hand to

stray indolently along the balustrade, as with the other she held the

lace-covered sunshade at a careless angle over her shoulder.

On the lawn the guests from outside were gathered. Collected in groups

or wandering in pairs, they dotted the grounds. As one of those

staying in the house, she appeared as a semi-official hostess with a

modified duty of seeing that all went as well as possible. Her head

ached slightly, as she began to discover. Even the light of the late

afternoon was trying. The dress which she expected to wear had proved

too dilapidated, and she had been obliged to put on one she wished to

save for more important occasions. The invitation which she needed for

the satisfactory conduct of her modish itineracy from country house to

country house had not come in the early mail as she expected.

The band, hidden in a small, thick boscage of the wide gardens, broke

into a mockingly cheerful air. At intervals some distant laugh taunted

her. She was late, she knew. The shadows had begun to lengthen across

the open spaces by the fountain, and she could almost see Mrs.

Gunnison's tart and ominous frown of displeasure. Why was she there,

except to be seen; so that the world should know that one who had just

come from the Kingsmills' place on the Hudson had paused beneath the

broad roofs of "Highlands" before, presumably, going to the Van

Velsors, in Newport?

As with pinched lips she reflected, she quickened her pace carefully.

"Ah, senator!" she cried, as she held out her hand with regulated

effusion. "I am so charmed. I did not know that you were to be here.

You great ones of the earth are so busy and so much in demand----"

Senator Grayson bowed and beamed. He shifted in uneasy gratification

from one foot to the other, and a rosier red showed in his round face.

"I did not think that you young ladies noticed us old politicians----"

"Every one should be given the benefit of a doubt. Of course, in our

silly lives there is not very much chance to know about anything

really worth while, but when a thing is really great even we cannot

help hearing about it. Your last speech--the broad, far-reaching

views----"

The senator stood in agreeable embarrassment.

"I read it," Miriam continued. "I could not go to sleep, because I

wanted to finish it. Of course, I could not understand all, but I was

entranced. Even I could feel the force and eloquence. I have heard of

nothing else."

"Really?" cried the enchanted statesman. "Do you know I thought it had

fallen flat? You are good to tell me. These side-lights are of the

utmost value, and, indeed, I esteem your opinion. Would you let me get

out a cup of tea? And--and--Mrs. Grayson was only saying the other day

that she wanted to ask you to come to Washington for a visit this

winter."

As the senator stumbled away, Miss Whiting felt a light touch at her

elbow.

"In your most popular and successful manner, Miriam," said a slight,

slim woman, whom she found standing beside her.

"He's a dear, if he is an old goose," said Miriam, defiantly. "And, of

course, any shading would be lost on him."

"I know," continued the other, the sharp brown eyes in her lean brown

face regarding the girl critically. "There are degrees of flattery

even in your flattering. You have reduced it--or elevated it--to the

proud position of an exact science."

Before Miriam could reply, a young man who had discovered her from

afar advanced with what was evidently an unusual degree of

precipitancy.

"Miss Whiting, I am delighted," he puffed. "I have been looking for

you everywhere. I was in town, and I went to that bric-a-brac shop.

The fan is undoubtedly a real Jacques Callot."

"I was sure," she murmured, "with your knowledge and taste, that you

could decide at once. Of course, I did not know."

"And--and----" hesitated the youth, "I hope that you will not be

offended. I told them to send it to you here. If you will accept it?"

"How terrible--and how kind of you!" Miriam cried, holding out both

hands, as if led by an irresistible impulse. "But you are so generous.

All your friends have discovered that. I always think of St. Francis

sharing his cloak with the blind beggar."

"So good of you," he stuttered. "It's nothing. You must be tired.

Can't I bring a chair for you? I am going to get one."

As the young man turned hurriedly away, Miriam grasped her companion's

arm.

"I never thought that he would give it to me. Never, Janet--honestly,"

she exclaimed, with earnestness.

"The way of the transgressor is likely to be strewn--with surprises."

"I only thought of saying something pleasant at a dinner."

"I'd taken Bengy Wade's opinion without a moment's hesitation on the

length of a fox terrier's tail, but a fan----"

"He wants to be considered artistic," pleaded Miriam.

"And the last touch about St. Francis, wasn't that a trifle overdone?

Somewhat too thickly laid on? What used to be called by painters in a

pre-impressionistic age--too great _impasto_. I am afraid that you are

a little deteriorating."

"Miriam!"

Both turned, and found a tall lady calling with as great animation as

a due regard for the requirements of a statuesque pose permitted.

"I want to speak to you," she exclaimed, as soon as words were

possible. "I want you to come to my house to-morrow morning. I am

going to have a little music. Emmeline is going to sing."

"Oh!" cried Miriam.

"Don't you like her singing?" the other inquired, earnestly.

"Oh, _very_ much," assured Miriam. "Only--the truth is, I once heard

her sing Brunnhilde's 'Awakening,' and she murdered it so horribly."

"Emmeline is often too ambitious," the other commented, with visible

content.

"Lighter things she can do charmingly, and she should hold to them,"

Miriam announced, with decision.

"I arranged the program," said the lady, "and, for her own sake, I

shall not let her attempt anything to which she is unequal. Of course,

I shall not sing myself."

"Oh, Mrs. Ogden!"

"You know I never sing anything but Wagner, and then only when there

are a few--when my hearers are in full sympathy. You will be sure to

come," she added, as she turned to give another invitation. "By the

way, you will be at Westbrook this autumn. I want you to ride

Persiflage in the hunt as often as you like."

"Much better," commented Miriam's companion, as they strayed on. "Of

course, nothing would please her--as a bitter rival--more than to hear

her sister-in-law's singing abused. That touch about lighter things

was masterly when she herself only sings Wagner for a few. But how do

you manage with Emmeline?"

"I tell her that no one can conduct, an automobile as she does."

"My dear!"

"It's an amusing game," the girl answered.

"But is it a safe one?"

"Why not?" she exclaimed, challengingly.

The two advanced toward the spreading marquee which appeared to be the

center of the mild social maelstrom. A greater ebullition perceptibly

marked the spot. The conflict of voices arose more audibly. Many were

constantly drawn inward, while by some counter-current others were,

frequently cast outward to continue in drifting circles until again

brought back to the gently agitated center. On the very edge of this

vortex--the heart of which was the long table beneath the tent--sat a

goodly sized lady. Her appearance might have been offered by a

necromancer as the proof of a successfully accomplished trick, for the

small camp stool on which she rested was so thoroughly concealed from

sight that she might have been considered to rest upon air. Catching

sight of Miriam, she beckoned to her with a vigor that threatened

disruption of her gloves.

"Where have you been?" she cried, as Miriam and her friend approached.

"I have been waiting for you. So many have been asking for you. I

expected you to be here."

"My dear Mrs. Gunnison," cooed the girl, "you must forgive me.

Absolutely, I could not help myself. I was all ready on time--but I

have been admiring again your wonderful house. And I have been

wondering at the perfect way in which it is kept up--the faultless

manner in which everything is managed. I can only think of Lord

Wantham's place. Though, of course, there is not the brilliancy

there----"

"I like to have things nice about me," said Mrs. Gunnison,

complacently. "Sit down here, my dear. I want to have you near me. And

you, too, Mrs. Brough."

"I may be a little to blame for keeping Miriam," said the elder woman.

"I have been so much interested in what she was saying."

"Every one is," responded Mrs. Gunnison, warmly. "Miriam is so

popular--quite celebrated, for it. Indeed, there are numbers of people

here who want to meet her. One young man in particular--Mr. Leeds----"

"Did he say he wished to know me?" the girl asked, quickly.

"Well, no," admitted Mrs. Gunnison, "But then I want you to know each

other. I'm quite bent on it. Nothing could be better. I'd like to see

it come out the way I'd have it. You know how rich he is. And they say

he is going to be somebody. Mr. Leeds! Mr. Leeds!"

A tall young man looked and advanced. While his gait did not indicate

reluctance, there was nothing that seemed to reveal eagerness. He came

forward deliberately and stopped before the party.

"_I_ don't think, Mr. Leeds, that you know Miss Whiting," Mrs.

Gunnison announced. "A dear friend of mine--and a dear. Mrs. Brough

and you are old friends. You see her so often that I feel that I can

take her away. Come, I want to show you something."

With her customary smile of unconcerned intelligence, Mrs. Brough

allowed herself to be drawn off. The young man slowly settled himself

in the chair which Mrs. Gunnison had left.

"Oh, you shall not escape," declared Miriam. "Mr. Leeds, I am so glad

to be able to speak to you at last. I have so much to say to you. They

told me that you would be here this afternoon. I wondered if I should

see you."

Leeds had not spoken, but looked at the girl with a steadiness which

for a moment caused her to cast down her animated eyes.

"I missed you everywhere last winter," she went on, more slowly. "And,

of course, heard of you always."

Leeds continued to inspect the girl with amusement in his glance.

"Oh, how splendid accomplishing something must be--standing for

something!"

"Don't you think that you are rather overvaluing my modest

achievements?"

"Of course, you speak that way, but others do not," she hurried on.

"You are known from one end of the country to the other."

"Really----" he began.

"To be such an inspiring influence in local politics----"

"Because," he laughed, "having a minor public position--because, by a

fluke, having found myself in the place of a common councilman, I have

got some things done and kept others from being done."

"Public life has always been so absorbing for me. I can think of

nothing nobler for a man."

"Than being a common councilman," he interrupted.

"You laugh," she said. "But I grew so interested, I followed in the

newspapers, from day to day, what you were doing."

"You were very good," he answered, gravely. "Or you are very good to

say so."

"Don't you believe me?" she asked, suddenly arrested by his tone.

"I have heard a good deal of you, Miss Whiting."

Miriam flushed slightly, but she looked at him steadily.

"What have you heard?"

"I have heard that you have ways of making the worse appear the better

reason--that you flatter."

The glow deepened in her face and her eyes flashed.

"And," he went on, lightly, "why should not one try to make the world

pleasanter by making it more satisfied with itself? Isn't that the

part of a public benefactor?"

"You are laughing at me," she cried. "You--are--despising me."

"No, indeed," he answered, with real earnestness. "You misunderstand

me. Isn't it only fair to give back in pleasant speeches the

admiration and adulation that the world gives you? There would be a

certain dishonesty in taking all and giving nothing."

"You--you--are mocking me," she gasped, rising, as if to fly, and then

sinking back.

"No," he answered, "only I object to being mocked myself. I'd rather

not be included with all the others to be given pleasant words, as you

can so easily give them out of a large supply. I'd prefer to have you

think better of me than to believe that I am to be treated in that

way."

"Mr. Leeds, you are abominable and rude--and I cannot listen to you."

"I am sorry. Honestly, when you began to make such--civil speeches to

me I was disappointed. It was so exactly what I had been told to

expect."

Miriam bit her lips--and her hand trembled a little on the handle of

the sunshade.

"I may have lost my temper a little," he said, "which one should never

do--but I can't take anything back."

That afternoon Miss Whiting was strangely silent. Held at the opening

of the tent by her hostess, people passed before her unseen. What she

said she hardly knew. What her words meant she could not have told.

She was only aware that her voice sounded unnatural, and that her

laugh--when laugh she must--struck discordantly and strangely on her

ears. She felt that the time would never come when she could be

alone--to think.

II.

Mrs. Gunnison's dinners, like all else of the establishment, were

always large. The classic limits authoritatively imposed she would

have scorned--if she had ever heard of them. If she could have timed

it, the greater the number of minutes required by the procession to

the dining room in passing a given point, the better she would have

been satisfied. She only felt that she "entertained" when she beheld

serried ranks of guests stretching away from her on either hand.

Therefore, when Miriam turned and discovered Leeds at her right, they

found themselves in such semi-isolation as only exists at a very large

dinner table.

"I am sorry," he said, pleadingly.

"So am I," she answered. "Very--oh, you think I mean that to be

pleasant in that way, too----"

She hastily averted her face, and engaged vigorously in conversation

with the man on the other side. Leeds stared moodily before him.

During the passing of the many courses which Mrs. Gunnison's idea of

fitting ceremony demanded, the lady whom he had taken in found him

neither communicative nor responsive. The dinner dragged on. Miss

Whiting's soft right shoulder remained constantly turned on him. Her

discourses, which he could not help hearing, continued actively and

unceasingly. At last Mrs. Gunnison darted restless glances about. She

had already begun to stir uneasily in her chair.

Miriam suddenly veered round upon him.

"I want to tell you something," she almost whispered. "What I

said--what I tried to say this afternoon was true."

He looked at her with fixed earnestness.

"Oh!" she cried, passionately. "I can't bear to have you study me as

if I were a specimen of something--of mendacity, you think. But no

matter about that. You must believe me. Don't you?"

"How can I," he answered, slowly, "with----"

"With my reputation," she caught up, quickly, as he paused. "Do not

try to spare me--now. Can't you hear--can't you see, now, that I am

speaking the truth?"

He gazed at her without answering.

"Oh, I can read in your eyes that you do not. I want you to believe

me. Can't you believe--even that?"

He shook his head half smilingly.

"You do not know all that I have heard," he answered.

"Who can have been so unfair--so cruel? I--I never wanted to be

believed so before. Oh, you think that is only a part of it; that the

habit is so strong with me--that I am only flattering."

"If I have been--warned," Leeds continued.

"As if I were a peril--an evil----"

"Perhaps you might be," he muttered.

"I will not bear it. You _shall_ believe me. I am not flattering."

"At least, that you should have been willing to take the trouble to

try was in itself a distinction."

"You are hard on me."

"I must protect myself."

Mrs. Gunnison had arisen, and a rustling stir was spreading down the

table.

"I am not a harpy," she cried.

"A siren was a bird more beautiful, but not less dangerous," he said.

She rose straightly and swiftly.

"You feel that you can speak to me like that because you believe I am

what you think. Very well. There may be satisfaction for you to know

it. I am, then, everything that you have implied. More--more than you

have said. I am false. I do flatter people--cajole them--deceive. I do

it for my own interest. Now are you satisfied? Could anything be

worse? I confess, even, that I have deserved the way you have treated

me."

"Believe me----" he began, hastily.

But she had swept from him, and, amid the group of retreating women,

he found no chance to finish the sentence.

III.

Miriam Whiting said "good-night" very early. A greater accuracy might

demand the statement that the time at which she had "gone upstairs"

was relatively not late--for the hours of the house were expansive,

and not only had morning a way of extending into afternoon, but

midnight into morning. As a general thing, she had only disappeared

with her hostess, but on this particular evening she pleaded

weariness--sleepiness--had even hinted at a headache, which no one had

ever known her to have. Thereupon she departed, followed by the

reproaches of the rest. Once in her room, she hurried her maid, and,

finally, abruptly dismissed her. When she was alone, she went to the

window and threw wide both the shutters. She leaned with her elbows on

the sill, gazing out at the moonlit country.

Perfectly round, with a burnished sky about it, such as may sometimes

be seen when the circle is absolutely full, the white disk hung in the

heavens. Below, about the quiet edges of the fountain, the light lay

with silken sheen. Only, where the drops fell tremulously, the water

was broken into glittering sparks. All was very still. Far off a dog

barked fitfully. That was the one sound which broke the silence, with

the exception of the occasional distant laughter of some men on the

terrace at the end of the spreading wing. With her fingers buried in

her thick hair, carefully gathered for the night, she looked straight

before her, although she was wholly unconscious of the scene.

A light knock at the door was repeated twice before she heard it and

spoke.

"It's I," the voice said, insistently. "May I come in?"

"Of course," Miriam answered, without moving.

The door opened quickly, and a small figure darted into the room.

"There was some one coming," said Mrs. Brough, as she glanced down at

the voluminous silken folds in which her little body was lost. "I am

not in a condition to be seen--generally."

She came forward slowly.

"My room is near yours. I saw your light. I thought that you had not

gone to sleep. I wanted to come to speak to you." She put her hands on

Miriam's shoulder. "You have been crying."

"Yes," said Miriam, quietly.

"I saw at dinner that you were not yourself--and I am troubled, too. I

have a confession to make."

Miriam looked at her curiously.

"You know that I am your friend--now," the other went on. "Since we

have been here together, we have come to know each other as I never

thought that we should. There was a time before, though, when I did

not understand so well. I had watched you, and I did not like you. I

distrusted you--or, rather, did not trust you----"

"I understand. You were clever enough to see through me----"

"I thought that with your--insincerities that you were all false. I

should have been wise enough to know differently. But what will

you?--to assume evil is easy, and always gives one a proud sense of

superior perspicacity. I condemned you, Miriam, without a hearing, and

I told Arthur Leeds."

"You did it?" the girl murmured, dully.

"Yes, I warned him."

"Why?"

"Because I like him and admire him, and I thought you--dangerous."

"That is why he has said the things he has."

"He has said something?"

"He has told me that I am not worthy of regard or consideration or

respect."

"Impossible!"

"Perhaps not directly--but he has implied that and more--by word and

action. And--and--I love him."

Mrs. Brough sat down quickly in the chair which she had drawn up, and

took Miriam's hands.

"I know you so well now," she said, "that at dinner I saw something

was wrong. I did not realize that it was as bad as that."

"I think I loved him even last winter, when I only saw him--heard who

he was--and did not know him. I admired and respected and reverenced

him. But he seemed different to me. And to-day when I met him I wanted

to tell him a little--as much as I could--of what I thought. I wanted

him to know something of the feeling that I had. I wanted to please

him. I wanted him to be nice to me--because I pleased him. What I said

to him was true--true."

She sprang to her feet, and spoke in deep, tragic tones.

"True!" she repeated. "And I have lost the power of being thought

true. My words can only be considered so many counterfeits. I have so

often debased the true metal of sincerity that anything I say must

ring false--that anything I may give cannot be taken. What I said

sounded fraudulently in my own ears. I could not forget the many, many

times when I had spoken so nearly in the same way without meaning or

belief, and each speech seemed to me a mockery. Though I longed with

all of me to speak simply and sincerely--knowing that I spoke the

truth--I hardly seemed to myself to be doing it. All appeared a part,

but a repetition of the many times before when I had played a

part--when what I did was a comedy--a farce--a tragedy!"

She broke off with a sob.

"You have cried wolf pretty often," avowed Mrs. Brough.

"I am a Cassandra," said the girl, instantly. "When I wish to be

believed I cannot. When all that is most precious and dearest to me

depends on it I cannot be trusted. I may speak, but I shall not be

heard--when all my life is in being heard--I know it."

"You see," said Mrs. Brough, "when I told him I thought of you as you

seemed----"

"As I was. I don't blame you," Miriam cried, bitterly. "What I had

become! Let me tell you." She sat down again, and, with her elbows on

her knees and her chin on her hands, gazed fixedly at the other. "I

think I began innocently enough. I wanted to be liked--and I fell into

the way of saying pleasant little things. I tried to make everybody

contented and pleased with me. That was when I came out. Indeed, I may

say for myself that I had a sympathetic nature. I could not bear to

see anyone uncomfortable or doubtful about themselves or anything,

without trying to help them. Surely that was not bad?"

"No," said Mrs. Brough, slowly.

"I really wished to help every one," she continued. "And the best way

that I found to do it was to say pleasant things. It was easy--too

fatally easy. When I discovered how popular this made me I kept on. I

continued for myself what I had really begun for others. Insensibly I

acquired skill. I was not stupid. I had rather a gift for

character--and could say exactly the thing to each one to flatter them

the most. I found that I took pleasure in the exercise of such

cleverness. There was a feeling of power in it--playing with the

foibles and weaknesses of men and women. I did not see that I was

often trafficking in unworthiness and baseness."

"I've no doubt you did harm," concluded Mrs. Brough. "People are only

too willing to be encouraged in their vanities. I don't think, Miriam,

that you were really very good for a person's character."

"I was not very good for my own," Miriam went on, grimly. "I

retrograded. I can see it now. In playing on the follies and faults of

others, I grew less careful--less critical myself. Then the family

lost its money. Oh, I haven't the poor excuse that I was in want--that

what I did was done from any lack of anything essential for myself or

others. Ours was just a commonplace, undramatic loss--with only need

for saving and retrenchment. Without the deprivation of a single

necessity, or comfort, even. Merely the absence of the luxuries. The

luxuries, though, in a way, had become necessities to me--and--I

found, by exercising my power, I could get much that I wished. I

flattered and cajoled to please people, so that they would do things

for me, give me things. That is ended----"

She pointed dramatically to a table.

"There is the fan from Bengy Wade in a package. To-morrow it goes back

to him. There is a note to Mrs. Grayson, declining her invitation. If

I go to Westbrook I shall not ride Persiflage. I have turned over a

new leaf. But the degradation of thinking of the record on the old

ones! If I could only tear them out instead of trying to fold them

down. I see it all now. He has made me see it all. He has made me

despise myself until I see the way I look in his eyes; until I seem

the same in my own. Janet, what can I do?"

The girl's head bent on the arm of the chair, as her body was shaken

with sobs. The other put out her hand and gently stroked her heavy

hair.

"Don't you exaggerate?"

"Did you," Miriam panted, "when you said what you did to Mr. Leeds?

Did you make my blackness less black than it should be--did you

concede to me any saving light?"

"I did not know. If I can do anything now----"

"You must not speak to him," Miriam cried, sitting up abruptly. "There

would be no use. When the seeds of distrust have been sown they will

grow, even if the weeds crowd out everything else."

"But weeds can be dug up."

"That must be my part," Miriam answered, more calmly. "Only one course

is left. It's funny," she smiled, swiftly, through her tears. "There

is poetic justice in it. I can do only one thing. It is my

retribution."

IV.

The announcement which Mrs. Gunnison made on the following morning

came as a surprise to Miriam. She had some difficulty in not

displaying an undue excitement. The habit of containment, which had

come with worldly experience, however, did not fail her. She heard her

hostess state that Arthur Leeds was coming to stay in the house

without any exhibition of visible emotion. Mrs. Gunnison said that, as

the Barlows had other people coming, he was going to transfer himself

to "Highlands," and that he would arrive in time for luncheon. Any

fears which Miriam experienced were wholly offset by a devout

thankfulness. The event offered such an occasion for the carrying out

of her plan as she had not hoped to have given her. In the promise of

such an admirable opportunity for the execution of her purpose, she

found a melancholy satisfaction. If, as she thought to herself, the

iron was to enter her soul, the sooner the affair was accomplished the

better. The process of self-sacrifice was not pleasant in the

execution, however glorious it might appear in the conception.

Self-immolation might be a duty, but, as every martyrdom, it was more

satisfactory as an ideal than as a fact.

The first opportunity which came to execute what she had laboriously

planned was during the aimless inoccupation of after luncheon

idleness. The arrangements for the afternoon had not yet been

concluded, but were in the careless making. Who should ride; who

should drive; who should walk; who should go and who should stay; the

what and whither had not been settled: Leeds strolled to her side.

"I have been trying to speak to you, but you have avoided me."

"Yes," she said.

"Why?" he asked; "I am going to tell you the truth, now----" she

paused, and looked at him.

"Why?" he repeated.

"Because I think that you are the most detestable man I ever saw," she

answered, gazing squarely at him.

He started slightly--glanced at her in surprise, and abruptly sat down

on the divan beside her.

"You have really come to that conclusion?" he asked.

"I have always believed it," she answered, firmly.

"But you said----"

"You told me that I was a flatterer. I shall not be with _you_ any

longer. You wish the truth. You shall have it."

"That is what you thought from the first?" he said, slowly.

"Yes," she answered, less clearly. "I have always understood that you

were most absurdly self-satisfied. That you are deluded by a pose as

to which you are so weak as to deceive yourself. That you take

yourself with a seriousness which leads you to believe that you are

preaching a crusade when you are only blowing a penny whistle. That

you assume that you have made for yourself a position and a reputation

which were made for you."

"What do you mean?" he asked, quietly.

"You have an old name and a large fortune which rendered you

conspicuous and made everything easy. The newspapers have talked of

you only as they would anyway. Indeed, they would have given more

space to you if you had a liking for conducting an automobile painted

like a barber's pole than they have because you went into politics.

They would have preferred the striped automobile, but they had to be

content with the 'reform politics' as the freak of one in your place."

"Then you think I am--nothing?"

"You are a rich young man of assured position--spoiled by the world."

"I thought I had, at least, ordinary common sense."

"Probably--but still you have unduly lost your head. You would not

know if people were laughing at you----"

Leeds flushed slightly. Miriam caught her breath sharply, and reached

forward to take up a fan which lay within her reach.

"I am altogether a monster?"

"No," she replied, calmly. "A very ordinary young man, I should say."

"I'd be kind to dumb animals and not kick a baby----"

"I am quite serious," she answered. "You objected to any little

pleasantness on my part because what I said might not be altogether

sincere. Now we are going to have facts. Indeed, you are the type of

man I dislike."

"At least, we know where we are now," he responded.

"Yes. And as we are staying in the same house it may be as well."

Miriam rose slowly. She walked decidedly across the room, and

ostentatiously placed herself beside Mrs. Gunnison. Leeds, deserted,

did not move. He sat staring at the floor, as he softly drummed with

his fingers on the couch's leather arm.

As well as in certain other particulars, the life of a country house

is microcosmical in this--escape from the requirements of human

relationship is impossible. Indeed, the demands are made greater, the

bonds more firmly fixed. In fact, the condition of all may be more

fitly described as the condition of two united in matrimony--they take

each other for better or worse. Constantly through the day they must

meet. The terms on which they are thrown together impose intimacy. If

latent antipathy exists with the revealing conditions of constant

companionship it must be discovered. If inherent sympathy is to be

found the two gravitate toward each other with inevitable certainty.

As the birthplace of aversion quickly reaching a maturity of

detestation and hate; as the hothouse of interest growing speedily

into full bloom of liking and love, there is no place like a country

house. All existence there, in its condensed form, is a forcing

process. Without any awkwardly abrupt transition or disconnecting

jolts, those who begin to talk about mutual friends in the morning may

easily reach a discussion of their own souls in the afternoon, and be

far on the broad and easy path of sentiment by evening. Like or

dislike, more or less strong, must surely and quickly follow. There is

in the social chemistry a certainty of repulsion or attraction, out of

which the most unexpected combinations result--of a surprisingly

lasting nature.

In the daily routine Miriam saw Leeds constantly. Though she might

come down late for breakfast, she always found him. Even if she

breakfasted in her room, when she descended he was always smoking in

the hall.

"I did not expect to stay so long," he explained to her on one

occasion, rising as she paused at the foot of the stairs.

"Then why do you?" she asked, coldly.

"Don't you know?" he demanded. "Should you feel it pleasanter if I

went away?"

"Really--as I have undertaken to be perfectly frank with you--how can

your going or staying make the least difference in the world to me?"

"Still," he said, looking at her curiously, "there must be something

tiresome in having to be scorning somebody all the time."

"I think," she said, briefly, "I hear voices in the billiard room. I

am going in there."

If at dinner Leeds found himself next to her he discovered that she

spoke to him no more than the strict letter of the law governing the

conduct of guests in the same house demanded. What she said was of the

most indifferent nature. If he sought to reach a more personal basis

he found himself checked.

"Miss Whiting," he said, suddenly, on the third evening, "I am going

away to-morrow morning."

Miriam swung about swiftly.

"To-morrow!" she exclaimed, with a catch in her voice.

"Yes, I think I had better go, though there is something I want to

tell you before I do. I have thought of all that you have said. I have

profited by the new light that you have thrown upon myself--my

actions--my life."

"What do you mean?" she murmured.

"I have realized that very likely I am a prig. I understand the

futility of what I am trying to do. I see that I have been mistaken in

my power. I'm going to give up."

"Give up?" she replied.

"You have shown that I was attempting more than I was able to do. The

Donaldsons have asked me to go in their yacht round the world. The

_Vierna_ starts on Thursday. I am going away to be lazy and careless,

and live the life for which you think I'm fitted."

"You are going to give up everything?" she exclaimed.

"Yes," he answered. "It is your doing. You must take the

responsibility of it."

"But what I say--what I think, can make no difference," she almost

entreated. "I am not of enough importance to you--you cannot consider

me enough----"

"All that is something of which you know nothing," he answered,

gravely. "Something of which I have told you nothing. I am going

away--with the Donaldsons."

"People like that!" she interrupted.

"People like that. I am going with them to lead their life--to be gone

for a year, unless one thing happens. As I said, you are responsible."

"But I can't be," she implored. "It isn't possible. I can't count for

anything."

"Let me assure you that you do."

"Then I can't take the responsibility. I won't."

"Unless one thing happens I am going," he went on, inflexibly. "There

are some, I think, who believe in me--who will think I am making a

mistake."

"But your future--your career," she began, and paused abashed, as she

saw the way he watched her.

"I thought we were to have no--insincerities--no flatteries. Since I

know what you really think, such civil implications can mean nothing."

She bit her lips, pale as her cheeks were white.

"Oh!" she cried, "how horrible!"

Through all of dinner she hardly spoke. If she said nothing to Leeds,

neither would she address the man on her other side, only giving such

monosyllable answers as were necessary. The evening dragged slowly.

Leeds did not approach her. Once or twice she looked toward him, but

he did not appear to notice her. Indeed, he only came late from the

smoking room and returned after a brief appearance in the big hall.

"When," she asked once, in a timid voice, of Mrs. Gunnison, "does Mr.

Leeds go?"

"The early train," the lady answered. "I believe he leaves the house

before seven, or at some equally unearthly hour."

* * * * *

The fresh sunlight of the early morning was flooding through the open

hall door as Leeds came down the wide, main stairs. He saw, under the

_porte-cochere_, the trap ready to take him to the station, and into

which the second man, with the help of the groom, was lifting his

trunk. Here and there a housemaid was busy with duster and cloth. The

machinery of the establishment was being set in running condition, and

there was the accompanying disorder. The place seemed strange and

unfamiliar.

"Your keys, sir," the butler said, holding out the bunch.

"Yes," he answered, "I'm ready."

As he spoke he started. Clearly in the stillness of the morning he

heard a few soft notes struck on the piano. At that hour the sound was

most unusual. He listened. The Flower Music of "Parsifal." With a

swiftness that left the astonished butler staring after him, he darted

toward a door. In a moment he had torn the portiere aside and had

crossed the polished floor of the music room. Miriam was seated at the

piano, her fingers resting on the keys.

"You are down!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," she answered, neither turning round nor looking up.

"You are very early."

"Yes," she assented. Then she whirled about on the music stool. "I

came down to see you."

"Why?"

Both spoke with a simple directness--with the manner of those dealing

in ultimate moments with the unmistakable facts.

"You told me last night that you were doing as you do because of what

I have said. I cannot take the responsibility. I'd rather that you

thought even worse of me than you do. Oh!" she cried, bending her head

down on her hands, which clasped the rack of the piano. "I am,

false--false! I cannot be true even in my falsity. All that I have

been telling you is not the truth."

"Yes?" he interrupted, eagerly.

"When you judged me--when you told me--or showed me what you thought

of me--I recognized what I was doing--what I was. I saw I was false.

My pride drove me to do something else. It was a punishment for

myself--a price I must pay. As falsely as you thought I tried to

please you--as falsely, _really_, I made myself hateful to you. I told

you every untrue, miserable thing of which I could think. It seems as

if any little remnant of dignity which I had demanded it. But to have

you say that you were influenced by my lies--were going to give up so

much that was splendid and great--because of them! Oh, you must

believe me now. I could not bear it."

"Then you don't think I am altogether contemptible?"

"I think you are the finest and best and strongest man I know," she

said, bravely.

On one knee, beside her, he had his arm about her.

"Bless you, darling," he cried. "Then I can tell the truth, too. I

think that you are the dearest and sweetest woman, and I love

you--love you!"

"I--I don't deserve it," she sobbed.

"I would not," he said, "let myself believe what you told me at first,

but then I would not let myself believe what you said afterward. I

hoped----"

"Oh, it was so hard for me. Can't you understand? There was expiation

in it. Don't you think it enough?"

"I think we have both been mistaken and unhappy."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Since the first I have changed. It taught me a

lesson. I am different--really."

"We'll have everything all right now, and that is all."

"But you are going away," she exclaimed.

"I said I was going away unless one thing happened."

"Yes," she said, eagerly.

"Very well--it has happened."

The sound of the brush striking sharply and with metallic distinctness

on a dustpan came from the room beyond.

"Perhaps we had better go on the terrace," he laughed. "Really, you

know, we ought to have moonlight and mystery, but----"

Together they went out through the open door into the fresh, soft

morning air. The warm scent of the garden blew up to them. A large,

yellow butterfly fluttered peacefully by. The dew still lay on leaf

and flower, glittering in a thousand sparkles.

"The night is the time for romance," he said. "Any well managed

proposal should be made under the stars."

"But the morning, such a morning," she exclaimed, softly, and clasping

her hands in ecstasy. "And as this is going to be a beginning for me,

I like the morning better."

THE MIRACLE OF DAWN

By MADISON CAWEIN

What it would mean for you and me

If dawn should come no more!

Think of its gold along the sea,

Its rose above the shore!

That rose of awful mystery,

Our souls bow down before.

What wonder that the Inca kneeled,

The Aztec prayed and pled

And sacrificed to it, and sealed,

With rites that long are dead,

The marvels that it once revealed

To them it comforted!

What wonder, yea! what awe, behold!

What rapture and what tears

Were ours, if wild its rivered gold--

That now each day appears--

Burst on the world, in darkness rolled,

Once every thousand years!

Think what it means to me and you

To see it even as God

Evolved it when the world was new!

When Light rose, earthquake shod,

And slow its gradual splendor grew

O'er deeps the whirlwind trod.

What shoutings then and cymbalings

Arose from depth and height!

What worship-solemn trumpetings,

And thunders, burning white,

Of winds and waves, and anthemings

Of Earth received the Light!

Think what it means to see the dawn!

The dawn, that comes each day!

What if the East should ne'er grow wan,

Should never more grow gray!

That line of rose no more be drawn

Above the ocean's spray!

THE SONG OF BROADWAY

By ROBERT STEWART

A certain club of good fellows of both sexes, journalists, authors,

illustrators, actors, men of pleasure, and Bohemians generally, used

to gather on Sunday evenings, a merry decade ago, round the hospitable

table of an Italian lady who had acquired her culinary accomplishments

under the distinguished eye of M. Martin--late chef to M. de Lesseps,

and present proprietor of Martin's Restaurant--before she attempted to

practice on her own account, so to speak, in the basement of a dingy

brick house in West Twelfth Street.

Signora Maria was a trusting soul in those days, and many a hungry

poor devil has hung up his hat, coat and dinner there, and blessed his

kind hostess as he quaffed her red ink. We didn't say claret; we

called out: "Where's my red ink bottle, Maria?" And Maria would put

down the soup tureen she was going from table to table with, and fetch

us a pint of her _ordinaire_. It was sour stuff certainly, which even

Maria's radiant smile couldn't sweeten, but budding genius is careless

of the morrow, and on Sunday evenings, especially, when Maria held her

salon in the boarded back room, built out over the yard, vast

quantities of it were gayly consumed, along with cigarettes, and

coffee, and flaming _pousse-cafes_.

In one sense, at least, our function was appropriate to the night.

Everybody "came prepared"--women and men both--like a country

Experience Meeting. Jokes cracked like lightning through the tobacco

clouds; songs of love and war trembled and roared above our heads;

humor and pathos, those twin slaves of the lamp, sported and wept at

our bidding; in a word, no end of youthful bombast, and kind laughter,

and harmless, gratified vanity, was exhibited there. It was really

more like a Montmartre _cabaret_ than any place I ever saw in New

York. Only, with humblest apologies for disparaging their worldliness,

the ladies were so evidently good, sincere, faithful friends, wives,

mothers, sweethearts, that some of us watched their happy gayety with

grateful, pleased eyes.

A Judas came to that kindly board, and betrayed to a newspaper these

merry, honest folk at their simple feast. Stupid, prosperous

commercial persons pushed their way in and stared at them. They fled

away, scared at last, to more inaccessible haunts.

But on one particularly jolly evening, to return to a text memories of

tried friends and happy hours have beguiled me from, among a number of

notable guests one who "favored," Mr. Wilton Lackaye, then appearing

as that white-eyed, hairy, awful _Svengali_ everybody so loathed and

applauded, dramatically recited a remarkable and original poem called

the "Song of Broadway." Many a time since have I remembered the scene,

the song, the company; the long, wine-stained tables, the eddying

cigarette smoke, the acute, lively faces. In one way or another,

everyone there was a trained observer, and knew his Broadway.

It is rather a bold thing to say you know your Broadway. As I, too,

sing my song about it, if I sound a note once or twice you have never

heard, oh, thank Heaven, and turn away! With us, I trust, it will be

but a minor chord. So every stroller there recognized the world he

lives in, and the child, the mother, the cabby, gambler, pickpocket,

doctor, parson, each carries off his or her own bundle of impressions.

Leaving it, then, to graver historians to trace the financial,

commercial and social evolution of this tremendous street, which was a

forest trail once, within whose sylvan solitudes red men roamed and

wild beasts prowled, let us from our humble station, as men of the

world and social philosophers, describe merely that stretch of it

which begins at Madison Square and ends at Forty-fifth Street; where

it is high noon at eight o'clock at night, and bedtime when the gray

dawn comes shivering cold and ghastly into hotel corridors where the

washerwomen are scrubbing the marble floors. "Little old Broadway," as

it is affectionately toasted in the vernacular of its _habitues_,

wherever rye whisky is drunk, and faithful homesick hearts recall its

lights, its pleasures and its crowds.

Broadway, I say, at eight o'clock at night, is the most fascinating

street on earth. It is _en fete_ every evening; and you have only to

walk that mile often enough, and the whole town will display itself at

leisure and at its ease, perfectly unconscious and natural and

selfish. It is not the lights; it is not the brilliant hotels, and

theaters, and restaurants, and shops, and tramcars, and hurrying cabs;

it is not the music that floats out to you on the rippling surface of

the town's deep voice; it is not that voice itself, vibrating as it is

with every emotion of the human heart, of pleasure, excitement,

careless gayety, shame that has ceased to care, lust whispering its

appeal, modesty's shocked sigh, innocence's happy prattle, kind

laughter, friendly chat, unexpected hearty greetings; it is the vast,

shifting, jostling, loitering, idle crowd, the multitude of a huge

cosmopolitan city that is the spectacle, and that to a man who knows

his town is more dramatic, and humorous, and pathetic, and fascinating

than all the plays to which young ladies, and their papas, too, are

hurrying, to thrill, and laugh, and cry over.

Think of a mile of street, brilliant like a drawing room almost, and

swarming with all kinds of men and women from all over the world, each

seeking his or her particular amusement and finding it. Pleasure is

the commodity on sale here, and one can obtain it at any of those

glittering signs blazing out over the crush, or traffic in it with the

venders of the pavement.

Isn't it marvelous? Isn't it wonderful? as the conjurer says when he

cuts your watch out of an onion. Mr. Conjurer returns your watch in

safety, but it retains that delicate perfume which only the time it

chronicles can wear away. Many an ingenious traveler has stepped out

of his hotel to watch this magic spectacle for a little, and brought

back with him bitter remembrances that all the tears shed secretly

won't ever wash out.

_Tant pis!_ You are not a preacher, monsieur. There is only one church

on your Broadway, and that is dark and shut and sold to a syndicate.

The only religion one gets here is the Bibles in the hotel bedrooms,

and at Jerry McAuley's Cremorne Mission, round the corner in

Thirty-second Street. What, then? Nobody claims Broadway to be a

domestic scene, and children and nursemaids don't constitute its

charm.

Look north, from where we have turned into it, after lighting our

cigars at Van Valkenburg's, under the Albemarle Hotel, and those

dazzling signs will tell you what most people come here for: Martin's,

Weber's Music Hall, the Imperial Hotel, the Knickerbocker Theater,

with Mr. Sothern in "Hamlet," Hoster's, Kid McCoy's Cafe, Brown's Chop

House, Grand Opera, Rector's Restaurant--to dine, to drink, to smoke,

to stroll, to see the play, to watch each other. Did you ever see so

much light, so much life? Halt where sedate business halts, too, at

the St. James Building, frowning darkly down on gay, hoydenish

Martin's, whose roguish, Parisian eyes twinkle mischievously up at it,

as if they know the tall, somber old hypocrite has a score of wicked

theatrical agencies hidden away in its locked heart, and just _see_!

Straight ahead of you, within ten minutes' brisk walk, are twenty

theaters, sixteen hotels, six expensive restaurants, two huge

department stores, the _Herald_ newspaper palace, with the elevated

road cutting across its face, several tall apartment houses thrusting

up their lighted windows into the night, telegraph offices, bars,

apothecaries, florists, confectioners, tobacconists, jewelry shops

galore, all signed with electricity, and producing that wonderful

glitter and glare that is both so bizarre and so enchanting. A street,

do we call this? It is a scene, most theatrical and gorgeous, and set

for the great human comedy which is even now being displayed upon it.

In this theater you perceive audience and actor alike occupy the

stage, as they used to do in the old London playhouses; and poor

little flower girls are pushing their way through our throng, also

offering the roses that fade so fast after they are plucked. Anything

makes an interest, an excitement; a fire engine tearing across

Thirty-sixth Street, a policeman marching a thief to the precinct

house, an ambulance clanging down Sixth Avenue, a newsboy asleep on

the Dime Savings Bank steps, the bronze hammers striking nine on the

_Herald_ clock, a Corean embassy driving up to Wallack's Theater in

their soft felt hats and gorgeous robes.