happy people and coaxed them back to childhood and a child's
protected sleep. It seemed a song that could not stop, that must
return on its simple refrain so long as there were arms to encircle
and breasts to lean upon.
Two men came softly up a smaller stair than the grand entrance
flight, and paused in amazement at sight of Caroline stretched, full
length, across the threshold. The older and smaller of the men had
in fact stepped on her, and confused and half awake she listened to
his apologies.
"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! not a vordt! Mein
Gott! but it is marvellous! A voice of velvet! Hey? A voice of the
heart. My friend, what is this?"
He peeped behind the drawn curtains, and withdrew a face of wonder.
"It is nothing but children--and they sleep!" he whispered. "Oh, but
listen, listen! And I offered her fifteen hundred dollars for two
hours only of that!"
The other man peeped behind the curtain in his turn, and seizing
Caroline by the arm tip-toed with her to a further room.
"What--who--what is the meaning of this?" he whispered hoarsely.
"That child--where--"
Caroline rubbed her eyes. The golden voice rose and fell around her.
"General--Delia," she muttered, and stumbled against him. He lifted
her limp little body and laid it gently on a leather sofa.
"Another time," he said softly to the other man, "I--we cannot talk
with you now. Will you excuse us?"
The man looked longingly at the curtains.
"She will never do more well than that. Never!" he hissed. "Oh, my
friend, hear it grow soft! Yes, yes, I am going."
[Illustration: "Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! Not a
vordt! Mein Gott! but it is marvellous."]
It seemed to Caroline that in a dream some one with a red face and
glasses askew, shook her by the shoulder and said to her sternly,
"Sh! sh! Listen to me. To-day you hear a great artist--hey? Will you
forget it? I must go because they do not vant me, but you will stay
and listen. There is here no such voice. Velvet! Honey! Sh! sh!" and
he went the way of dreams.
The man who stayed looked long through the curtains.
As a swing droops slow and slower, as the ripples fade from a stone
thrown in the stream, the song of the Princess softened and crooned
and hushed. Now it was a rich breath, a resonant thread,
"Flow gently, sweet Afton--"
The man stepped across the room and sank below the General at her
feet. With her finger on her lips she turned her eyes to his and
looked deep into them. He caught his breath with a sob, and wrapping
his arm about her as he knelt, hid his face on her lap, against the
General. She laid her hand on his head, across the warm little body,
and patted it tenderly. Around them lay the sleepers; the General's
soft breath was in their ears. The man lifted his head and looked
adoringly at the Princess: her hand caressed his cheek, but her eyes
looked beyond him into the future.
III
THE PRIZE
Caroline sniffed her way luxuriously through the dusky panelled
library.
"I think it smells awfully good here, don't you?" she inquired of
her hostess.
The lady's wonderful velvet train dragged listlessly behind her. Her
neck and arms were dressed in heavy yellowish lace, but all around
her slim body waves of deep colored, soft velvet held the light in
lustrous pools or darkened into almost black shadows. It was like
stained glass in a church, thought Caroline, stroking it
surreptitiously, and like stained glass, too, were the lovely books,
bloody red, grassy green and brown, like Autumn woods, with edges of
gold when the sunlight struck them. They made the walls like a great
jewelled cabinet, lined from floor to ceiling: here and there a
niche of polished wood held a white, clear-cut head. From the
ceiling great opal tinted globes swung on dull brass chains; they
swayed ever so slightly when one watched them closely.
"This is my favorite room, Duchess," said Caroline, "isn't it
yours?"
"Do you really think I look like one?" returned the lady, "the only
duchess I ever saw was fat--horribly fat. It is a very handsome
library, of course."
"Then _she_ didn't look like a duchess, that's all," Caroline
explained. "What I like about this library is, it's so clean. And
you can pull the chairs out and show those big, shiny yellow ones on
the bottom shelf."
"Of course; why not?" said the Duchess, dropping into a great carved
chair with griffins' heads on the top.
"Why, you can't do that at Uncle Joe's," Caroline confided, sitting
on a small griffin stool at the lady's feet, "because General gets
at the bottom row and smears 'em. You see he's only two, and you
can't blame him, but he licks himself dreadfully and then rubs it on
the backs. He marks them, too, inside, with a pencil or a hatpin,
or even an orange-wood stick that you clean your nails with. Yours
is made of pearl, you know, but most--a great many, I mean--people
have them wood. And so the chairs have to be all leaned around
against the walls to keep him from the books."
The Duchess drew a long breath. "And your uncle objects?" she said,
between her teeth.
"Uncle Joe says," Caroline returned, patting the griffin heads on
her little stool, "that if the President had General in his library
for half an hour he'd feel different about race suicide."
The Duchess laughed shortly.
"That is possible, too," she agreed. "You said Cousin Joe was
well--and Edith?"
"Oh, yes, they're well--I mean, they're very well indeed, thank
you," said Caroline. "Uncle Joe says they have to be, with the
General's shoes two dollars and a half a pair! You see he has quite
thick soles, now--he runs about everywhere. Aunt Edith says he needs
a mounted policeman 'stead of a nurse."
"Did Edith get rested after the moving?"
"Oh, yes," Caroline answered absently. She was watching the opal
globes sway. "Aunt Edith says before she was married she'd have gone
South with a trained nurse after such an experience, but now she has
to save the nurse for measles, she s'poses, so she just lies down
after lunch."
The Duchess moved restlessly half out of the griffin chair, but sank
back again.
"And you have a trained nurse all the time," Caroline mused,
stroking the glistering velvet, "isn't that funny? Just so in case
you _might_ be sick...." The sunlight peeped and winked on the gold
book-edges.
"It amounts to that," the Duchess said, adding very low, "but she is
not likely to be needed for measles."
"No," Caroline assented, "you and cousin Richard are pretty old for
measles. It's children that have 'em, mostly. I never did, yet. But
you don't seem to ever have any children. And such a big house, too!
And you're very fond of children, aren't you? It seems so queer that
when you like them you can't manage to have any. And people that
don't care about them have them all the time. It was only Christmas
time that Norah Mahoney--she does the extra washing in the
summer--had another. That makes seven. It's a boy. Joseph Michael,
he's named, partly after Uncle Joe. Norah says there don't seem to
be any end to your troubles, once you're married to a man."
The Duchess turned aside her head, but Caroline knew from the corner
of her mouth that her eyes were full of tears. She stroked the hands
that clenched the griffin's crest.
"Never mind," she urged, "maybe you'll have some. Most everybody has
just one, anyway."
The Duchess shook her head mutely; a large round tear dropped on
the griffin.
"Well, then," said Caroline briskly, "why don't you adopt one? The
Weavers did, and she was quite a nice girl; I used to play with her.
She sucked her thumb, though. But prob'ly they don't, all of them."
"I wouldn't mind, if she did," the Duchess declared. Already she
spoke more brightly. "I wanted to adopt one--one could take it when
it was very little. But Richard won't hear of it."
"Not a bit?" Caroline looked worried; she knew Richard.
"Not a bit," the Duchess repeated, "that is, he says he is willing
under certain conditions, but they are simply impossible. Nobody
could find such a child."
"There are lots of 'em in the Catholic Foundling," said Caroline
thoughtfully, "all kinds. Aunt Edith went there to sing for them and
she took Miss Honey and me. They're all dressed differently and they
look so sweet. You can take your choice of them; Aunt Edith cried.
But you must let them be Catholics."
"Richard wouldn't let me take one from an institution," the Duchess
said, "and somehow I wouldn't care to, myself. But there is a woman
I know of who is interested in children that--that aren't likely to
grow up happily, and she will get one for anybody, only one can't
ask any questions about them. You may have all the rights in them,
but you will never know where they came from. And Richard won't have
that. I suppose he's right."
"But there are plenty of people who would let you have one, if you
would give her a good home and be kind to her," Caroline began,
lapsing for the moment into her confusing, adult manner.
"Yes, but Richard says that no people nice enough to have a child we
could want would ever give us the child, don't you see," the Duchess
interrupted eagerly. "He says the father must be a gentleman--and
educated--and the mother a good woman. He says there must be good
blood behind it. And they must never see it, never ask about it,
never want it. He says he doesn't see how I could bear to have a
child that any other mother had ever loved."
Caroline sighed.
"Cousin Richard does make up his mind, so!" she muttered.
"He is unreasonable," said the Duchess suddenly, "unreasonable! He
must know all about the child, but the parents must not know about
us! Not know our name, even! Just give up the child and
withdraw--why, the poorest, commonest people would not do that, and
does he expect that people of the kind he requires would be so
heartless? We shall never be able to get one--never. And yet he
wants one so--almost as much as I!"
The Duchess had forgotten Caroline. Staring at the opal globes she
sat, and again the tears rose, brimmed and overflowed.
Caroline slipped off the little stool and walked softly out of the
beautiful room. The books glowed jewel-like, the four milky moons
swayed ever so little on their brass chains, the white busts looked
coldly at the Duchess as she sat crying in her big carved chair, and
there was nobody that could help at all.
Through the dark, shiny halls she walked--cautiously, for she had
had embarrassing lessons in its waxy polish--and paused from force
of habit to pat the great white polar bear that made the little
reception room such a delightful place. More than the busts in
the library even, he set loose the fancy, and whiled one away to
the enchanted North where the Snow Queen drove her white sledge
through the sparkling glades, and the Water Baby dived beneath
the dipping berg.
Miss Grundman, the trained nurse, appeared in the doorway.
"Did you care to go out with the brougham, to-day, dear?" she asked.
"Hunt tells me he has to go 'way down town."
"Yes, I'd like to--can you take care of babies, too?" Caroline
returned abruptly.
Miss Grundman started.
"What an odd child you are--of course I can!" she said. "All nurses
can; it's part of the training. Have you any you're worried about?"
she added pointedly. Caroline flushed.
"You're making fun o' me," she muttered, "you know very well only
grown people have them! I don't mean if they're sick, but can you
wash them, and cook the milk in that tin thing, and everything like
that?"
"Bless the child, of course I can!" Miss Grundman cried, "you bring
me one and I'll show you!"
"Oh, I b'lieve you, Miss Grundman, if you say so," Caroline assured
her, and slid carefully along the hall for the stairs that led to
her hat and coat.
They spun smoothly down the avenue with an almost imperceptible
electric whir, Caroline bolt upright on the plum-colored cushion,
Hunt and Gleggson bolt upright on the seat outside. It was a matter
for congratulation to Caroline that of all the vehicles that glided
by them, none boasted a more upright pair than Hunt and Gleggson.
The tall brown houses were gradually changing into bright shops; the
carriages grew thicker and thicker; the long procession stopped and
waited now almost every moment, so crowded was the brilliant street.
Once a massive policeman actually smiled at her as Hunt stopped the
brougham close to him, and Caroline's admiring soul crowded to her
eyes at the mighty wave of his white, arresting hand. They drew up
before a great window filled with broughams and victorias displayed
as lavishly as if they had been hats or bonbon boxes--it was like a
gigantic toy-shop. Hunt dropped acrobatically to the pavement and
was seen describing his mysterious desires to an affable gentleman
behind the plate-glass; he measured with his knuckles and
illustrated in pantomime the snapping of something over his knee;
the clerk shook his head in commiseration and signalled to an
attendant, who darted off. Soon Hunt appeared with a small package
and they started on again, turning a corner abruptly and winding
through less exciting streets. The shops grew smaller and dingier;
drays passed lumbering by and street cars jarred along beside them,
but vehicles like their own were noticeably lacking. It was plain
that they attracted more attention, now, and more than one group of
children dancing in the street to the music of the hurdy-gurdy
lingered daringly to provoke the thrilling, mellow warning of their
horn. At last they stopped at a corner and Hunt dropped again to the
pavement, lingering for a short consultation with Gleggson who
pointed once or twice behind them to the small occupant of the
brougham. On this occasion he took with him a mysterious and
powerful handle, and Caroline knew that this was precisely
equivalent to running away with the horses. He hurried around an
unattractive corner, and Gleggson sat alone in front. Five, ten
minutes passed. They seemed very dull to Caroline, and she reached
for the plum-colored tube and spoke boldly through it.
"What are we waiting for, please, Gleggson? Where is Hunt?"
"'E just stepped off, Miss, for a minute, like. 'E'll be 'ere
directly. Would you wish for me to go and look 'im up, Miss?"
Gleggson spoke very cordially.
"We-ell, I don't know," Caroline said doubtfully. "If you think
he'll be right back ... I can wait...."
"Pre'aps I'd better, as you say, Miss," Gleggson continued, "for 'e
_'as_ been gone some time, and I think I could lay me 'and on 'im.
You'll not get out, of course, Miss, and I'll be back before you
know it."
He clambered down and took the same general course as Hunt had
taken, deflecting, however, to enter a little door made like a
window-blind, that failed to reach its own door-sill.
"Hunt didn't go there at all," Caroline muttered resentfully, and
deliberately opening the door of the brougham, she stepped out.
She had followed Hunt's track quite accurately till a sudden turn
confused her, and she realized that after that corner she had no
idea in which direction he had gone. She paused uncertainly; the
street was dirty, the few children in sight were playing a game
unknown to her and not playing very pleasantly, at that; the women
who looked at her seemed more curious than kindly. The atmosphere
was not sordid enough to be alarming or even interesting; it was
merely slovenly and distasteful, and Caroline had almost decided to
go back when a young girl stopped by her and eyed her inquisitively.
"Were you lookin' for any particular party?" she asked.
"I was looking for Hunt," said Caroline, "he went this way,
I think."
"There's some Hunts across the street there," the girl suggested,
"right hand flat, second floor. I seen the name once. I guess
you're lost all right, ain't you?"
"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, "I'm not lost. I can go right back.
I'll see if Hunt's there."
The threshold was greasy and worn, the stairs covered with faded oil
cloth, the side walls defaced and over-scrawled. At the head of the
stairs three dingy doors opened in three different directions, and a
soiled card on the middle one bore the name of Hunt. A man's voice
somewhere behind it talked in a strange loud sing-song; he seemed to
be telling a long, confusing story. At the moment of Caroline's
timid knock he was saying over and over again,
"Isn't that so? Isn't that so? Who wouldn't have done the same? Put
your finger on the place where I made the mistake! Will you? Will
anybody? I ask it as a favor--"
"Hush, won't you?" a woman's voice interrupted, "wasn't that a
knock?"
Caroline knocked again.
There was a hasty shuffling and a key turned in the door.
"Who is it?" the woman's voice asked. "What do you want? The
auction's all over--there's nothing left. We're moving out
to-morrow."
Surprise held Caroline dumb. How could one have an auction in such a
place? At auctions there were red flags, and horses and carriages
gathered around the house, and people brought luncheon; they had
often driven to auctions out in the country.
The door opened.
"Why it's only a child!" said the woman, thin and fatigued, with
dark rings under her not ungentle eyes. "What do you want here?"
"I'm looking for Hunt," Caroline answered, "doesn't he live here?"
"Heavens, no!" the woman said, "that old card's been there long
before we moved in, I guess. They were old renters, most likely.
What's the party to you, anyway? Is he your--"
She paused, studying Caroline's simple but unmistakeable clothes
and manner.
"He drives the automobile," Caroline explained, "I thought he came
this way."
"Come in, won't you?" said the woman, "there's no good getting any
more lost than you are, I guess. There's not much to sit on,
'specially if you're used to automobiles, but we can find you
something, I hope. I try to keep it better looking than this
gen'ally, but this is my last day here. I'm going out West
to-morrow."
An old table, two worn chairs and an over-turned box furnished the
small room; through an open door Caroline spied a tumbled bed. A
kitchen, dismantled and dreary, faced her.
"The agent gave me five dollars for all I left," the woman said, "I
don't know which of us got the best o' the bargain. Now, about you.
Where do you live? I s'pose they're looking for you right now while
we're talking. Do you know where you left the automobile?"
"Oh, yes." Caroline stared frankly about her. "Wasn't there a man in
here? Where did he go?"
The woman grunted out a sort of laugh. "If you're not the limit!"
she murmured. She stepped to the door of the kitchen, looked in, and
beckoned to Caroline.
"I suppose you heard him carrying on," she said, "he's in there.
Poor fellow, he's all worn out."
Caroline peered into the kitchen. With his rough, unshaven face
resting on his arms, his hair all tossed about, his face drawn in
misery, even in his heavy sleep, a young man sat before a table,
half lying on it, one hand on a soiled plate still grasping a piece
of bread.
"Is he sick?" whispered Caroline.
"N--no, I wouldn't say sick, exactly, but I guess he'd be almost as
well off if he was," said the woman. "It would take his mind off.
He's had a lot of trouble."
The man scowled in his sleep and clenched his hand, so that the
bread crumbled in it.
"And so I won the prize," he muttered, "just as I told her I would.
Did I have any pull? Was there any favoritism? No--you know it as
well as I do--it was good work won that prize!"
"Was it a bridge prize?" Caroline inquired maturely. The woman
stared.
"A bridge prize?" she repeated vaguely. "Why, no, I guess not. It
was for writing a story for one of those magazines. He won a
thousand dollars."
The man opened his eyes suddenly.
"And if you don't believe it," he said, still in that strange
sing-song voice, "just read that letter."
He pulled a worn, creased sheet from an inner pocket and thrust it
at Caroline.
"It's typewritten," he added, "it's easy enough to see if I'm lying.
Just read it out."
Caroline glanced at the engraved letter-heading and began to read in
her careful, childish voice:
MY DEAR MR. WILLISTON:
_It is with great pleasure that I have to announce the fact that
your story, "The Renewal," has been selected by the judges as
most worthy of the thousand-dollar prize offered by us._
The woman snatched the paper from her hand.
"The idea!" she cried, "let the child alone, Mr. Williston! Don't
you see she's lost?"
The man dropped like a stone on the table.
"Lost!" he whispered, "lost! Oh, that dreadful word! Yes, she's
lost. Poor little Lou. It's all over."
The woman drew Caroline back into the sitting room.
"I'm sorry you should see him," she said. "You must excuse him--he
don't really know what he's doing. He lost his wife a week ago and
he's hardly slept since. It's real sad. I was as sorry as I could be
for 'em, and I'd have kept 'em even longer if she'd lived, though
they couldn't pay. I'd keep the baby, too, if I could, it's such a
cute little thing, but I can't, and I'm to take it to the Foundling
to-day. I'll go right out with you, and see that the police--"
"Oh, is there a baby? Let me see it!" Caroline pleaded. "How old
is it?"
"Just a week," said the woman. "Yes, you can see him. He's good as
gold, and big--! He weighs nine pounds."
In the third room, lying in a roll of blankets on a tumbled cot, a
pink, fat baby slept, one fist in his dewy mouth. The red-gold down
was thick on his round head; he looked like a wax Christ-child for
a Christmas tree.
Caroline sighed ecstatically.
"Isn't he lovely!" she breathed.
"He's a fine child," the woman agreed. "And his mother never saw
him, poor little thing. Nor his father either, for that matter."
Caroline looked in amazement toward the kitchen.
"Never laid his eyes on him," the woman went on sadly, "as if it was
any good, to blame the poor baby! He's taken a terrible grudge on
the little thing. He was awfully fond of his wife, though. He told
me he was going to leave him right here, and then, of course,
somebody in the house would notify the police, if I didn't take him
to the Foundling. And of course he'd get better care, for that
matter--there's no doubt about that. It's too bad. There's people
that would give their eyes for a fine baby like that, you know."
"I know it," said Caroline simply, "my cousin Richard would be glad
to have him--he wants one very much. But he's very particular."
The woman looked at her sharply. "What do you mean?" she asked. "How
particular?"
Suddenly she laughed nervously. "I ought to be ashamed of myself,"
she said, "you ought to be at the police station now. But I'm all
worn out, and it does me good to talk to anybody. I don't let the
neighbors in much--it's a cheap set of people around here, and Mr.
Williston's different from them and I hate to hear him talking to
them the way he will. He don't know what he's doing. He tells 'em
all about that prize--and it's true, you know, he did get it; that's
what they married on, and he thought he could get plenty more that
way, and then he never sold another story. It was too bad. He's a
real gentleman, though you might not think it to look at him now,
not shaved, and all. He thought he could earn a thousand every week,
I s'pose, poor fellow. He got work in a department store, fin'ly,
and it took all he made to bury her. She was a sweet little thing,
but soft. I was real sorry for 'em."
She wiped her eyes hastily.
"Do you know whether he went to Harvard?" Caroline inquired, in a
business-like tone.
The woman was heating some milk in a bottle, over a lamp, and did
not answer her, but a voice from the door brought her sharply
around. The young man stood there. Though still unshaven, he was
otherwise quite changed. His hair was parted neatly, his coat
brushed, his face no longer flushed, but pale and composed.
"If your extraordinary question refers to me, yes, I went to
Harvard," he said in a grating, disagreeable voice. "I have in fact
been called a 'typical Harvard man.' But that was some time ago. May
I ask who you are?"
The woman lifted the bottle from the tin cup that held it and picked
up the baby; the young man shifted his eyes from her immediately and
looked persistently over Caroline's head.