CHAPTER I

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THE WORKS OF KATHLEEN NORRIS

MARTIE THE UNCONQUERED

VOLUME VIII

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO

JOSEPH SEXTON THOMPSON

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

At about four o'clock on a windy, warm September afternoon, four girls

came out of the post-office of Monroe, California. They had loitered on

their way in, consciously wasting time; they had spent fifteen minutes

in the dark and dirty room upon an absolutely unnecessary errand, and

now they sauntered forth into the village street keenly aware that the

afternoon was not yet waning, and disheartened by the slow passage of

time. At five they would go to Bonestell's drug store, and sit in a row

at the soda counter, and drink effervescent waters pleasingly mingled

with fruit syrups and an inferior quality of ice cream. Five o'clock

was the hour for "sodas," neither half-past four nor half-past five was

at all the same thing in the eyes of Monroe's young people. After that

they would wander idly toward the bridge, and separate; Grace Hawkes

turning toward the sunset for another quarter of a mile, Rose Ransome

opening the garden gate of the pretty, vine-covered cottage near the

bridge, and the Monroe girls, Sarah and Martha, in a desperate hurry

now, flying up the twilight quiet of North Main Street to the long

picket fence, the dark, tree-shaded garden, and the shabby side-doorway

of the old Monroe house.

Three of these girls met almost every afternoon, going first to each

other's houses, and later wandering down for the mail, for some trivial

errand at drug store or dry-goods store, and for the inevitable ices.

Rose Ransome was not often with them, for Rose was just a little

superior in several ways to her present companions, and frequently

spent the afternoon practising on her violin, or driving, or walking

with the Parker girls and Florence Frost, who hardly recognized the

existence of Grace Hawkes and the Monroes. The one bank in Monroe was

the Frost and Parker Bank; there were Frost Street and Parker Street,

the Frost Building and the Parker Building. May and Ida Parker and

Florence Frost had gone to Miss Bell's Private School when they were

little, and then to Miss Spencer's School in New York.

But even all this might not have accounted for the exclusive social

instincts of the young ladies if both families had not been very rich.

As it was, with prosperous fathers and ambitious mothers, with

well-kept, old-fashioned homes, pews in church, allowances of so many

hundred dollars a year, horses to ride and drive, and servants to wait

upon them, the three daughters of these two prominent families

considered themselves as obviously better than their neighbours, and

bore themselves accordingly. Cyrus Frost and Graham Parker had come to

California as young men, in the seventies; had cast in their lot with

little Monroe, and had grown rich with the town. It was a credit to the

state now; they had found it a mere handful of settlers' cabins, with

one stately, absurd mansion standing out among them, in a plantation of

young pepper and willow and locust and eucalyptus trees.

This was the home of Malcolm Monroe, turreted, mansarded, generously

filled with the glass windows that had come in a sailing vessel around

the Horn. Incongruous, pretentious, awkward, it might to a discerning

eye have suggested its owner, who was then not more than thirty years

old; a tall, silent, domineering man. He was reputed rich, and Miss

Elizabeth--or "Lily"--Price, a pretty Eastern girl who visited the

Frosts in the winter of 1878, was supposed to be doing very well for

herself when she married him, and took her bustles and chignons, her

blonde hair with its "French twist," and her scalloped, high-buttoned

kid shoes to the mansion on North Main Street.

Now the town had grown to several hundred times its old size; schools,

churches, post-office, shops, a box factory, a lumber yard, and a

winery had come to Monroe. There was the Town Hall, a plain wooden

building, and, at the shabby outskirts of South Main Street, a jail.

The Interurban Trolley "looped" the town once every hour.

All these had helped to make Cyrus Frost and Graham Parker rich. They,

like Malcolm Monroe, had married, and had built themselves homes. They

had invested and re-invested their money; they had given their children

advantages, according to their lights. Now, in their early fifties,

they were a power in the town, and they felt for it a genuine affection

and pride, a loyalty that was unquestioning and sincere. In the kindly

Western fashion these two were now accorded titles; Cyrus, who had

served in the Civil War, was "Colonel Frost," and to Graham, who had

been a lawyer, was given the titular dignity of being "Judge Parker."

Malcolm Monroe kept pace with neither his old associates nor with the

times. His investments were timid and conservative, his faith in the

town that had been named for his father frequently wavered. He was in

everything a reactionary, refusing to see that neither the sheep of the

old Spanish settlers nor the gold of the early pioneers meant so much

to this fragrant, sun-washed table land as did wheat and grapes and

apple trees. Monroe came to laugh at "old Monroe's" pigheadedness. He

fought the town on every question for improvements, as it came up. The

bill for pavements, the bill for sewerage, the bill for street lights,

the high school bill, found in him an enemy as the years went by. He

denounced these innovations bitterly. When the level of Main Street was

raised four feet, "old Monroe" almost went out of his senses, and the

home site, gloomily shut in now by immense trees, and a whole block

square, was left four feet below the street level, so that there must

be built three or four wooden steps at all the gates. The Monroe girls

resented this peculiarity of their home, but never said so to their

father.

Rose Ransome, the pretty, neat little daughter of a pretty, neat little

widow, was cultivated eagerly by the Monroes, and patronized kindly by

the Frost and Parker girls. She had lived all of her twenty years in

Monroe, and was too conscientious and amiable to snub the girls

supposedly beneath her, and too merry, ladylike, and entertaining to be

quite ignored by the richer group. So she brightly, obligingly, and

gratefully lunched and drove, read and walked, and practised music with

May and Ida and Florence, when they wanted her, and when they did not,

or when Eastern friends visited them, or there was for some reason no

empty seat in the surrey, she turned back to the company of Grace

Hawkes and of Sally and Martie Monroe. Rose admitted frankly to her

mother that with the latter group she had "more fun," but that with her

more elevated friends she enjoyed, of course, "nicer times."

Politically she steered a diplomatic middle course between the two,

implying, with equal readiness, that she only associated with the poor

Monroes because Uncle Ben made her, or that she accepted invitations

from the Frost and Parker faction simply to be amiable.

Sally Monroe, innocent, simple, unexacting at twenty-one, really

believed Rose to be the sweetly frank and artless person she seemed,

but Martie, two years younger, had her times of absolutely detesting

Rose. Sally was never jealous, but Martie burned with a fierce young

jealousy of all life: of Rose, with her dainty frocks and her rich

friends, her curly hair and her violin; of Florence Frost's riding

horse; of Ida Parker's glib French; of her own brother, Leonard Monroe,

with his male independence; of the bare-armed women who leaped on the

big, flat-backed horses in the circus; of the very Portuguese children

who rode home asleep of a summer afternoon, in fragrant loads of

alfalfa.

To-day she was vaguely smarting at Grace's news: Grace was going to

work. She, like the Monroe girls, had often discussed the possibilities

of this step, but opportunities were not many, and the idle, pleasant

years drifted by with no change. But Ellie Hawkes, Grace's big sister,

who had kept books in the box factory for three years, was to be

married now; a step down for Ellie--for her "friend" was only Terry

Castle, a brawny, ignorant giant employed by the Express Company--but a

step up for Grace. She would be a wage-earner; her pretty, weak face

grew animated at the thought, and her shrill voice more shrill.

Martie Monroe had no real desire to work in the box factory, to walk

daily the ugly half mile that lay between it and her home, to join the

ranks of toilers that filed through the poorer region of town every

morning. But like all growing young things she felt a desperate,

undefined need. She could not know that self-expression is as necessary

to natures like hers as breath is to young bodies. She could only grope

and yearn and struggle in the darkness of her soul.

She was nineteen, a tall, strong girl, already fully developed, and

handsome in a rather dull and heavy way. Her hands and feet were

beautifully made, her hair, although neglected, of a wonderful silky

bronze, and her skin naturally of the clear creamy type that sometimes

accompanies such hair. But Martie ruined her skin by injudicious

eating; she could not resist sweets; natural indolence, combined with

the idle life she led, helped to make her too fat. Now and then, in the

express office, in the afternoon, the girls got on the big freight

scales, and this was always a mortification to Martie. Terry Castle and

Joe Hawkes would laugh as they adjusted the weights, and Martie always

tried to laugh, too, but she did not think it funny. Martie might have

seemed to her world merely a sweet, big, good-natured tomboy, growing

into an eager, amusing, ignorant young woman, too fond of sleeping and

eating.

But there was another Martie--a sensitive, ambitious Martie--who

despised idleness, dependence, and inaction; who longed to live a

thousand lives--to conquer all the world; a Martie who was one day a

great singer, one day a wartime nurse, one day a millionaire's

beautiful bride, the mother of five lovely children, all carefully

named. She would waken from her dreams almost bewildered, blinking at

Sally or at her mother in the surprised fashion that sometimes made

folk call Martie stupid, humbly enough she thought of herself as

stupid, too. She never suspected that she was really "dreaming true,"

that the power and the glory lay waiting for the touch of her heart and

hand and brain. She never suspected that she was to Rose and Grace and

Sally what a clumsy young swan would be in a flock of bustling and

competent ducks. Martie did not know, yet, where her kingdom lay, how

should she ever dream that she was to find it?

Rose was going back to stay with her cousin in Berkeley to-morrow, it

was understood, and so had to get home early this afternoon. Rose, as

innocent as a butterfly of ambition or of the student's zeal, had

finished her first year in the State University and was to begin her

second to-morrow.

Monroe's shabby Main Street seemed less interesting than ever when Rose

had tripped away. A gusty breeze was blowing fitfully, whisking bits of

straw and odds and ends of paper about. The watering cart went by,

leaving a cool wake of shining mud. Here and there a surrey, loaded

with stout women in figured percales, and dusty, freckled children,

started on its trip from Main Street back to some outlying ranch.

As the three girls, arms linked, loitered across the square, Dr. Ben

Scott--who was Rose Ransome's mother's cousin and was regarded as an

uncle--came out of the Court House and walked toward his buggy. The

dreaming white mare roused as she heard his voice, and the old

brown-and-white setter sprang into the seat beside him.

"Howdy, girls!" said the old man, his big loose figure bulging

grotesquely over the boundaries of the seat. "Father pretty well?"

"Well enough, Doc' Ben, but not pretty!" Martie said, laughing. The

doctor's eyes twinkled.

"They put a tongue in your head, Martie, sure enough!" he said,

gathering up the reins.

"It was all they did put, then!" Martie giggled.

The girls all liked Doc' Ben. A widower, rich enough now to take only

what practice he pleased, simple in his tastes, he lived with his old

servant, his horse and cow, his dog and cat, chickens and bees, pigeons

and rabbits, in a comfortable, shabby establishment in an unfashionable

part of town. Monroe described him as a "regular character." His

jouncing, fat figure--with tobacco ash spilled on his spotted vest, and

stable mud on his high-laced boots--was familiar in all her highways

and byways. His mellow voice, shot with humorous undertones even when

he was serious, touched with equal readiness upon Plato, the habits of

bees, the growth of fungus, fashions, Wordsworth, the Civil War, or the

construction of chimneys. He was something of a philosopher, something

of a poet, something of a reformer.

Martie, watching him out of sight, said to herself that she really must

go down soon and see old Dr. Ben, poke among his old books, feed his

pigeons, and scold him for his untidy ways. The girl's generous

imagination threw a veil of romance over his life; she told Sally that

he was like some one in an English story.

After he had gone, the girls idled into the Town Library, a large room

with worn linoleum on the floor, and with level sunlight streaming in

the dusty windows. At the long table devoted to magazines a few readers

were sitting; others hovered over the table where books just returned

were aligned; and here and there, before the dim bookcases that lined

the walls, still others loitered, now and then picking a book from the

shelves, glancing at it, and restoring it to its place. The room was

warm and close with the smell of old books. The whisking of pages, and

occasionally a sibilant whisper, were its only sounds. From the ceiling

depended signs, bearing the simple command: "Silence"; but this did not

prevent the girls from whispering to the energetic, gray-haired woman

who presided at the desk.

"Hello, girls!" said Miss Fanny Breck cheerfully, in the low tone she

always used in the library. "Want anything to read? You don't? What are

you reading, Martie?"

"I'm reading 'Idylls of the King,'" Sally said.

"I've got 'Only the Governess,'" added Grace.

"I didn't ask either of you," Miss Breck said with the brisk amused air

of correction that made the girls a little afraid of her. "It's Martie

here I'm interested in. I'm going to scold her, too. Are you reading

that book I gave you, Martie?"

Martie, as Grace and Sally turned away, raised smiling eyes. But at

Miss Fanny's keen, kindly look she was smitten with a sudden curious

inclination toward tears. She was keenly sensitive, and she felt an

undeserved rebuke.

"Don't like it?" asked the librarian, disposing of an interruption with

that casual ease that always fascinated Martie. To see Miss Fanny seize

four books from the hands that brought them into her range of vision,

flip open the four covers with terrific speed, manipulate various paper

slips and rubber stamps with energy and certainty, vigorously copy

certain mysterious letters and numbers, toss the discarded books into a

large basket at her elbow and then, for the first time, as she handed

the selected books to the applicant, glance up with her smile and

whispered "Good afternoon," was a real study in efficiency.

"I don't understand it," Martie smiled.

"Did you read it?" persisted the older woman.

"Well--not much." Martie had, in fact, hardly opened the book, an

excellent collection of some twenty essays for girls under the general

title "Choosing a Life Work."

"Listen. Why don't you study the Cutter system, and familiarize

yourself a little with this work, and come in here with me?" asked Miss

Fanny, in her firm, pushing voice.

"When?" Martie asked, considering.

"Well--I can't say when. I'm no oracle, my dear. But some day the grave

and reverend seigneurs on my Board may give me an assistant, I suppose."

"Oh--I know--" Martie was vague again. "What would I get?"

Miss Fanny's harsh cheeks and jaw stiffened, her eyes half closed, as

she bit her lip in thought.

"Fifteen, perhaps," she submitted.

Martie dallied with the pleasing thought of having fifteen dollars of

her own each month.

"But can't Miss Fanny make you feel as if you were back in school?" she

asked, when the girls were again in Main Street. "I'd just as lieves be

in the lib'ary as anywheres," she added.

"I'd rather be in the box factory," Grace said. "More money."

"More work, too!" Martie suggested. "Come on, let's go to Bonestell's!"

Other persons of all ages were in the drug store, seated on stools at

the high marble counter, or at the little square cherry tables in the

dim room at the rear. Drugs were a lesser consideration than brushes,

stationery, cameras, candy, cigars, post cards, gum, mirrors, celluloid

bureau sets, flower seeds, and rubber toys and rattles, but large glass

flagons of coloured waters duly held the corners of the show windows on

the street, and dusty and fly-specked cards advertising patent

medicines overlapped each other.

The three girls nodded to various acquaintances, and, as they slid on

to seats at the counter, greeted the soda clerk familiarly. This was

Reddy Johnson, a lean, red-headed youth in a rather dirty white jacket

buttoned up to the chin. Reddy was assisted by a blear-eyed little

Swedish girl of about sixteen, who rushed about blindly with her little

blonde head hanging. He himself did not leave the counter, which he

constantly mopped with a damp, mud-coloured rag. He plunged the

streaked and sticky glasses into hot water, set them on a dripping

grating to dry, turned on this faucet of sizzling soda, that of rich

slow syrup, beat up the contents of glasses with his long-handled

spoon, slipped them into tarnished nickelled frames, and slid them

deftly before the waiting boys and girls. Hot sauce over this ice

cream, nuts on that, lady fingers and whipped cream with the tall

slender cups of chocolate for the Baxter girls, crackers with the

tomato bouillon old Lady Snow was noisily sipping; Reddy never made a

mistake.

Presently he, with a swift motion, set a little plate of sweet crackers

before the girls. These were not ordinarily served with five-cent

orders, and the three instantly divided them, concealing the little

cakes in their hands, and handing the tell-tale plate back to the

clerk. A wise precaution it proved, for a moment later "old Bones," as

the proprietor of the establishment was nicknamed, sauntered through

the store. In a gale of giggles the girls went out, stealthily eating

the crackers as they went. This adventure was enough to put them in

high spirits; Martie indeed was so easily fired to excitement that the

crossing of wits with Dr. Ben, the personal word with Miss Fanny, and

now Reddy's gallantry, had brightened her colour and carried her

elation to the point of effervescence. Sparkling, chattering, flushed

under her shabby summer hat, Martie sauntered between her friends

straight to her golden hour.

Face to face they came with a tall, loosely built, well-dressed young

man, with a straw hat on one side of his head. Such a phenomenon was

almost unknown in the streets of Monroe, and keenly conscious of his

presence, and instantly curious as to his identity, the girls could not

pass him without a provocative glance. "Stunning!" said each girl in

her heart. "Who on earth--?"

Suddenly he blocked their way.

"Hello, Sally! Hello, Martie! Too proud to speak to old friends?"

"Why--it's Rodney Parker!" Martie said in her rich young voice. "Hello,

Rodney!"

All four shook hands and laughed joyously. To Rodney the circumstance,

at the opening of his dull return home, was welcome; to the girls,

nothing short of delight. He was so handsome, so friendly, and in the

four years he had been at Stanford University and the summers he had

spent in hunting expeditions or in eastern visits to his aunt in New

York, he had changed only to improve!

Even in this first informal greeting it was Martie to whom he devoted

his special attention. Sally was usually considered the prettier of the

two, but Martie was lovely to-night. Rodney turned with them, and they

walked to the bridge together. Sally and Grace ahead.

The wind had fallen with the day, the air was mild and warm, and in the

twilight even Monroe had its charm. Flowers were blooming in many

dooryards, yellow light streamed hospitably across the gravelled paths,

and in the early darkness women were waiting in porches or by gates,

and whirling hoses over the lawns were drawing all the dark, hidden

perfumes into the damp night air.

"You've not changed much, Martie--except putting up your hair. I mean

it as a compliment!" said Rodney, eagerly, in his ready, boyish voice.

"You've changed a good deal; and I mean that as a compliment, too!"

Martie returned, with her deep laugh.

His own broke out in answer. He thought her delightful. The creamy

skin, the burnished hair that was fanned into an aureole under her

shabby hat, the generous figure with its young curves, had helped to

bring about in Rodney Parker a sweet, irrational surrender of reason.

He had never been a reasonable boy. He knew, of course, that Martie

Monroe was not in his sisters' set, although she was a perfectly NICE

girl, and to be respected. Martie was neither one thing nor the other.

With Grace, indeed, who was frankly beneath the Parkers' notice, he

might have had almost any sort of affair; even one of those affairs of

which May and Ida must properly seem unaware. He might have flirted

with Grace, have taken her about and given her presents, in absolute

safety. Grace would have guessed him to be only amusing himself, and

even confident Rodney, his mother's favourite and baby, would never

have attempted to bring Grace Hawkes home as his sisters' equal.

But with Martie there was a great difference. The Monroes had been

going down slowly but steadily in the social scale, yet they were

Monroes, after all. Lydia Monroe had been almost engaged to Clifford

Frost, years ago, and still, at all public affairs, the Monroes, the

Parkers, and the Frosts met as old friends and equals. Indeed, the

Parker girls and Florence Frost had been known to ask the girls' only

brother, Leonard Monroe, to their parties, young as he was, men being

very scarce in Monroe, and Leonard, although his sisters were not

asked, had gone.

So that when Rodney Parker stopped Martie Monroe on the way home, and

fell to flattering and teasing her, and walked beside her to the

bridge, he quite innocently plunged himself into social hot water, and

laid a disturbing touch upon the smooth surface of the girl's life.

They talked of trivialities, laughing much. Rodney asked her if she

remembered the dreadful day when they had been sent up to apologize to

the French teacher, and Martie said, "Mais oui!" and thrilled at the

little intimate memory of disgrace shared.

"And are you still such a little devil, Martie?" he asked, bringing his

head close to hers.

"That I'll leave you to find out, Rod!" she said laughingly.

"Well--that's one of the things I'm back here to find out!" he answered

gaily.

Yes, he was back to stay; he was to go into the Bank. He confidently

expected to die of the shock and Martie must help him bear it. Martie

promised to open an account. His Dad might let him have a car, if he

behaved himself; did Martie like automobiles? Martie knew very little

about them, but was sure she could honk the horn. Very well; Martie

should come along and honk the horn.

How did they come to be talking of dancing? Martie could not afterward

remember. Rodney had a visit promised from a college friend, and

wondered rather disconsolately what might be arranged to amuse him.

Fortnightly dances--that was the thing; they ought to have Friday

Fortnightlies.

The very word fired the girl. She heard the whine of violins, the click

of fans, the light shuffle of satin-clad feet. Her eyes saw dazzling

lights, shifting colours, in the dull September twilight.

"You could have one at your house," Rodney suggested.

"Of course we could! Our rooms are immense," Martie agreed eagerly.

"To begin--say the last Friday in October!" the boy said. "You look up

the date, and we'll get together on the lists!"

Get together on the lists! Martie's heart closed over the phrase with a

sort of spasm of pleasure. She and Rodney conferring--arranging! The

bliss--the dignity of it! She would have considered anything, promised

anything.

Grace was gone now, and generous little Sally still ahead of them in

the shadows. Martie said a quick, laughing good-night, and ran to join

her sister just before Sally opened the side gate. It was now quite

dark.

The two girls crossed the sunken garden where clumps of flowers bloomed

dimly under the dark old trees, gave one apprehensive glance at the big

house, which showed here and there a dully lighted window, and fled

noiselessly in at the side door. They ran through a wide, bare, unaired

hallway, and up a long flight of unlighted stairs that were protected

over their dark carpeting by a worn brown oilcloth.

Sally, and Martie breathless, entered an enormous bedroom, shabbily and

scantily furnished. The outline of a large walnut bedstead was visible

in the gloom, and the dark curtains that screened two bay windows.

Across the room by a wide, dark bureau, a single gas jet on a jointed

brass arm had been drawn out close to the mirror, and by its light a

slender woman of twenty-seven or eight was straightening her hair. Not

combing or brushing it, for the Monroe girls always combed their hair

and coiled it when they got up in the morning, and took it down when

they went to bed at night. Between times they only "straightened" it.

As the younger girls came in, and flung their hats on the bed, their

sister turned on them reproachfully.

"Martie, mama's furious!" she said. "And I do think it's perfectly

terrible, you and Sally running round town at all hours like this. It's

after six o'clock!"

"I can't help it if it is!" Martie said cheerfully. "Pa home?"

She asked the all-important question with more trepidation than she

showed. Both she and Sally hung anxiously on the reply.

"No; Pa was to come on the four-eleven, and either he missed it, or

else something's kept him down town," Lydia said in her flat, gentle

voice. "Len's not home either ..."

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow!" Martie ejaculated piously,

with her gay, wild laugh. "Tell Lyd who we met, Sally!" she called

back, as she ran downstairs.

She dashed through the dining room, noting with gratitude that dear old

Lyd had set the table in spite of her disapproval. Beyond the big,

gloomy room was an enormous pantry, with a heavy swinging door opening

into a large kitchen. In this kitchen, in the dim light from one gas

jet, and in the steam from sink and stove, Mrs. Monroe and her one

small servant were in the last hot and hurried stages of dinner-getting.

Martie kissed her mother's flushed and sunken cheek; a process to which

Mrs. Monroe submitted with reproachful eyes and compressed lips.

"I don't like this, Martie!" said her mother, shaking her head. "What

were you and Sally doing to be so late?"

"Oh, nothing," Martie said ashamedly. "I'm awf'ly sorry. I had no idea

what time it was!"

"Well, I certainly will have Pa speak to you, if you can't get into the

house before dark!" Mrs. Monroe said in mild protest. "Lyd stopped her

sewing to set the table."

"Len home?" Martie, now slicing bread, asked resentfully.

"No. But a boy is different," Mrs. Monroe answered as she had answered

hundreds of times before. "Not that I approve of Len's actions,

either," she added. "But a man can take care of himself, of course!

Len's always late for meals," she went on. "Seems like he can't get it

through his head that it makes a difference if you sit down when things

are ready or when they're all dried up. But Pa's late anyway to-night,

so it doesn't matter much!"

Martie carried the bread on its ugly, heavy china plate in to the

table, entering from the pantry just as her father came in from the

hall.

"Hello, Pa!" said the girl, placing the bread on the wrinkled cloth

with housewifely precision.

Malcolm Monroe gave his youngest daughter glance of lowering suspicion.

But there was no cause for definite question, and Martie, straightening

the salt-cellars lovingly, knew it.

"Where's your sister?" her father asked discontentedly.

"Upstairs, straightening her hair for dinner, I THINK." Martie was

sweetly responsive. "But I can find out, Pa."

"No matter. Here, take these things." Martie carried away the overcoat

and hat, and hung them on the hat rack in the hall.

"Joe Hawkes wants to know if you wish to pay him for driving you up,

Pa," Sally said, coming in from the steps. Dutifully, meekly, she stood

looking at her father. Lydia, coming in from the kitchen, gave him a

respectful yet daughterly kiss. Singly and collectively there was no

fault to be found with the Monroe girls to-night, even by the most

exacting parent.

"Your sister said you were upstairs, Sally," Malcolm said, narrowing

his eyes.

"So I was, Pa, but I came down to light the hall gas, and while I was

there Joe came to the door," Sally answered innocently.

"H'm! Well, you tell him to charge it." Malcolm sat down by the

fireplace. There was no fire, the evening was not cold enough for one.

He began to unlace his shoes. "Brother home?" he asked, glancing from

Lydia, who was filling the water glasses from a glazed china pitcher,

to Martie, who was dragging and pushing six chairs into place.

"Not yet--no, sir!" the two girls said together unhesitatingly. Leonard

could take care of himself under his father's displeasure. Martie added

solicitously, "Would you like your slippers, Pa? I know where they are;

by the chestard."

He did not immediately answer, being indeed in no mood for a civil

response, and yet finding no welcome cause for grievance. He sat, a

lean, red-faced man, with a drooping black moustache, a high-bridged

nose, and grizzled hair, looking moodily about him.

"Get them--get them; don't stand staring there, Martie!" he burst out

suddenly. Martie caught up his shoes and dashed upstairs.

She went into the large, vault-like apartment that had been her

mother's bedroom for nearly thirty years. To a young and ardent nature,

facing the great question of loving and mating, any place less

indicative of the warmth and companionship of marriage could hardly

have been imagined. The bedstead of heavy redwood was wide, flat, and

hard. It was flanked by a marble-topped table and a chair. There were

two large, curtained bay windows in this room, too, a faded carpet, a

wash-stand with two pallid towels on the rack, several other

stiff-backed chairs, and a large bureau with a square mirror and a

brown marble slab. Over this slab a thin strip of fringed scarf was

laid, and on the scarf stood a brown satin box, with the word "Gloves"

painted over the yellow roses that ornamented its cover.

This was all. Mrs. Monroe kept in the box an odd castor, an empty

cologne bottle, a new corset string, five coat buttons, a rusty pair of

scissors, an old jet bar-brooch whose pin was gone, and various other

small odds and ends. She had but one pair of gloves, of black shiny

kid, somewhat whitened at the finger-tips, and worn only to church or

to funerals. They were a sort of institution, "my gloves," and were

kept in the bureau drawer. They distinguished her state from that of

Belle, the maid, who had no gloves at all.

Opposite the bureau, but because of the enormous size of the room, some

twenty-five feet away, was the "chestard" the high "chest of drawers"

that had won its name from the children's contracted pronunciation.

This bleak article of furniture contained the smaller pieces of Malcolm

Monroe's wardrobe, which matched in plainness and ugliness that of his

wife. Stiff white collars caught and rasped when the shallow upper

drawer was opened; the middle drawers were filled with brownish gray

flannels, and shirts stiff-bosomed and limp of sleeves. But if a

curious Martie, making the bed, or putting away the "wash," ever

cautiously tugged out the lowest drawer, she found it so loaded with

papers, old account books, and bundles of letters as to awe her young

soul. These meant nothing to Martie, and the drawer was heavy to open

noiselessly and awkward to close in haste, yet at intervals now and

then she liked to peep at its mysterious contents.

To-night, however, Martie gave it neither glance nor thought. She

picked up her father's slippers and ran downstairs again, going to

kneel before him and put them on his feet. As she did so her young warm

hand felt the cool, slender length of his foot in the thin stocking,

and she was conscious of repugnance that even the slightest contact

with her father always caused her. There was a definite antagonism

between Malcolm and his youngest daughter, suspected by neither. But

Martie knew that she did not like the faint odour of his moustache, his

breath, and his skin, on those rather infrequent occasions when he

kissed her, and her father was well aware that in baffling him, evading

him, and anticipating him, Martie was more annoying than the three

other children combined.

"Where's your son?" asked the man of the house, as the dinner,

accompanied by his wife, came in from the kitchen.

"I don't know, Pa," Mrs. Monroe said earnestly yet soothingly. "Come,

girls. Come, Pa!"

Malcolm rose stiffly, and went to his place.

"He comes and goes as if his father's house was a hotel, does he?" he

asked, as one merely curious. "Is that the idea?"

"Why, no, Pa." Mrs. Monroe was serving an uninteresting meal on heavy

plates decorated in toneless brown. Soda crackers and sliced bread were

on the table, and a thin slice of butter on a blue china plate. The

teaspoons stood erect in a tumbler of red pressed glass. The younger

girls had old, thin silver napkin rings; their mother's was of

orange-wood with "Souvenir of Santa Cruz" painted on it; and Lydia and

her father used little strips of scalloped and embroidered linen. Lydia

had read of these in a magazine and had made them herself, and as her

daughterly love swept over all the surface ugliness of his character,

she alone among his children sometimes caught a glimpse of her father's

heart. She had an ideal of fatherhood, had gentle, silent, useless

Lydia--formed upon the genial, sunshiny type of parent popular in

books, and she cast a romantic veil over disappointed, selfish,

crossgrained Malcolm Monroe and delighted in little daughterly

attentions to him. She sat next to him at table, and put her own kindly

interpretation upon his moods.

"I confess I don't understand your tactics with that boy!" he said now

irritably.

"Well, he came in after school, and asked could he go out with the

other boys, and I didn't feel you would disapprove, Pa," Mrs. Monroe

said in a worried voice. "Do eat your dinner before it gets all cold!

Lenny'll be here. You'll get one of your bad headaches ... here he is!"

For, to the great relief of his mother and sisters, Leonard Monroe

really did break in from the hall at this point, flinging his cap

toward the hat rack with one hand as he opened the door with the other.

A big, well-developed boy of seventeen was Lenny, dearest of all her

children to his mother, her son and her latest-born, and the secret

hope of his father's heart.

"Say--I'm awful sorry to be so late. Gosh! I ran all the way home. I

thought you'd be on the late train, Pa, and I waited to walk up with

you!" said Lenny, falling upon cooling mutton, boiled potatoes glazed

and sticky, and canned corn.

"Where did you wait?" his father asked, laying one of his endless traps

for an untruth.

"Bonestell's," Lenny answered, perceiving and evading it.

"Young Hawkes drove me up," Malcolm said in a mollified tone.

"Oh?" Lenny's mouth opened innocently. "That's the way I missed you!"

The inevitable ill-temper on their father's part being partly

dissipated by this time, the girls were free to begin a conversation.

Martie's happiness was flooding her spirit like a golden tide; she was

conscious, under all the sordid actualities of a home dinner, that

something sweet--sweet--sweet--had happened to her. She bubbled news.

Grace Hawkes actually was going to work Monday--Rose was going back to

visit Alma--they had met Doc' Ben, hadn't they, Sally? Oh, and Rodney

Parker was home!

"Lucky stiff!" Lenny commented in reference to Rodney.

"He's awfully nice!" Martie said eagerly. "He walked up with us!"

"With us--with YOU!" Sally corrected archly.

"What time was that?" their father asked suddenly.

"About--oh, half-past four or five. Sally and I went down for the mail."

"Rodney Parker ..." Leonard began. "Say, mama, this is all cold," he

interrupted himself to say coaxingly.

"I'll warm it for you, Babe," Lydia said, rising as her mother began to

rise, and reaching for the boy's plate.

"Don't call me BABE!" he protested.

His older sister gave his rough head a good-natured pat as she passed

him.

"You're all the baby we have, Lenny--and he was an awfully sweet baby,

wasn't he, ma?" she said.

"Rodney Parker's going to be in the Bank; I bet he doesn't stay,"

Leonard resumed. "Could you get me into the Bank, Pa?"

"Dear me--I remember that boy as such a handsome baby, before you were

born, Martie," her mother said. "And to think he's been through

college!"

"I wish I could go to college, you bet!" observed Lenny. His father

shot him a glance.

"Your grandfather was a college graduate, my son, and as you know only

an accident cut short my own stay at my alma mater--hem!" he said

pompously. "I have no money to throw away; yet, when you have decided

upon a profession, you need only come to your father with a frank,

manly statement of your plans, and what can be done will be done; you

know that." He wiped his moustache carefully, and glanced about,

meeting the admiring gaze of wife and daughters.

"If you've got any sense, you'll go, Len," Martie said. "I wish you'd

let me go study to be a trained nurse, Pa! Miss Fanny wants me to go

into the lib'ary. I bet I could do it, and I'd like it, too ..."

"And speaking of your grandfather reminds me," Malcolm said heavily,

"that one of the things that delayed me to-day was a matter that came

up a week or two ago. When the town buys the old Archer ranch as a

Park, they propose to put twelve thousand dollars into improvements--"

"Oh, joy!" said Martie. "Excuse me, Pa!"

"The trolley will pass it," her father pursued, "the Park being almost

exactly half-way between Monroe and Pittsville. Now Pittsville ..."

"What do you bet they get all the glory?" Martie flashed. "Their

Woman's Club..." Her voice fell: "I DO beg your pardon, Pa!" she said

again contritely.

"I can discuss this with your mother," Malcolm said in majestic

patience.

"Oh, no! PLEASE, Pa!"

Her father studied her coldly, while the table waited with bated breath.

"Pittsville," he resumed in a measured voice, without moving his eyes

from his third daughter, "is, as usual, making a very strong and a most

undignified claim for the Park. They wish it to be known as the

Pittsville Casino. But Selwyn told me to-day that our people propose to

take a leading share of the liability and to call the Park the Monroe

Grove."

He paused. His listeners exchanged glances of surprise and

gratification.

"Not that there's a tree there now!" Martie said cheerfully.

It was an unfortunate speech, breaking irreverently as it did upon this

moment of exaltation. Lydia hastily came to Martie's relief.

"Pa! ISN'T that splendid--for Grandfather Monroe! I think that's very

nice. They know what this town would have amounted to without HIM! All

those fine reference books in the library--and files and files of bound

magazine's! And didn't he give the property for the church?"

Every one present was aware that he had; there was enthusiastic assent

about the table.

"They propose," Malcolm added as a climax, "to erect a statue of

Leonard Monroe in a prominent place in that Park; my gift."

"Pa!" said a delighted chorus. The girls' shining eyes were moist.

"It was Selwyn's idea that there should be a fund for the cost of the

statue," their father said. "But as the town will feel the added

taxation in any case, I propose to make that my gift. The cost is not

large, the time limit for paying it indefinite."

"Twenty thousand dollars?" Martie, who had a passion for guessing,

ventured eagerly.

"Not so much." But Malcolm was pleased to have the reality so much more

moderate than the guess. "Between two and three thousand."

"Some money!" Leonard exclaimed. He grinned at Martie contemptuously.

"TWENTY!" said he.

"Your sister naturally has not much idea of the value of money,"

Malcolm said, with what was for him rare tolerance. "Yes, it is a large

sum, but I can give it, and if my townspeople turn to me for this

tribute to their most distinguished pioneer ..."

During the rest of the meal no other subject was discussed.

The evening was bright with memories and dreams for Martie. When a

large dish of stewed apples in tapioca had been eaten, the whole family

rose and left the room, and Belle, the little maid, came in wearily,

alone, to attack the disordered table. For two hours the sound of

running water and the dragging of Belle's heavy feet would be heard in

the kitchen. Meanwhile, Belle's mother, in a small house down in the

village, would keep looking at the clock and wondering whatever had

become of Belle, and Belle's young man would loiter disconsolately at

the bridge, waiting.

The three Monroe girls and their mother went into the parlour, Malcolm

going across the hall to a dreary library, where he had an

old-fashioned cabinet desk, and Lenny gaining a reluctant consent to

his request to go down to "Dutch's" house, where he and Dutch would

play lotto.

"Why doesn't Dutch Harrison ever come here to play lotto?" Martie asked

maliciously. "You go to Dutch's because it's right down near

Bonestell's and Mallon's and the Pool Parlour!" Leonard shot her a

threatening glance, accepted a half-permission, snatched his cap and

was gone.

The parlour was large, cold, and uncomfortable, its woodwork brown, its

walls papered in dark green. Lydia lighted the fire, and as Leonard had

made his escape, Belle brought up a supplementary hodful of coal.

Martie lighted two of the four gas jets, and settled down to solitaire.

Sally read "Idylls of the King." Lydia and her mother began to sew, the

older woman busy with mending a hopelessly worn table-cloth, the

younger one embroidering heavy linen with hundreds of knots. Lydia had

been making a parasol top for more than a year. They gossiped in low,

absorbed tones of the affairs of friends and neighbours; the endless

trivial circumstances so interesting to the women of a small town.

There were two gas jets, also on hinged arms, beside the white marble

fireplace, and one of these Sally lighted, taking her father's

comfortable chair. A hood of thin plum-coloured flannel, embroidered in

coloured flowers, was on the mantel, with shells, two pink glass vases,

and a black marble clock. On the old square piano, where yellowing

sheets of music were heaped, there was a cover of the same flannel.

Albums and gift books, Schiller's "Bell" with Flaxman plates, and

Dante's "Inferno" with Dore's illustrations--lay on the centre table;

Martie pushed them back for her game.

She looked a mere overgrown, untidy girl, to whose hair, belt,

finger-nails, and shoes she might have attended with advantage. But

Martie was a bride to-night, walking the realm of Romance.

She had never had an admirer, nor had Sally. Neither girl admitted it,

but it was true. Poor Lydia had had a taste of the joy of life, and a

full measure of the sorrow, seven years ago, when Clifford Frost,

twelve years her senior, at thirty-one the perfect match, had singled

her out for his favour. Martie and Sally could remember how pleasantly

exciting it was to have Cliff Frost so much at the house, how Lydia

laughed and bloomed! Lydia had been just Sally then: her age, and her

double.

What had gone wrong, the younger girls sometimes wondered. Pa had been

pompous, of course; Cliff had not been made exactly comfortable, here

by this marble mantel. Lydia had quavered out her happy welcome, her

mother had fluttered and smiled. And Cliff had given her candy, and

taken her to the Methodist Bazaar and the Elks' Minstrels, and had

given her a fan. The candy was eaten long ago, and the dance music and

the concerts long forgotten in the village, but Lydia still had the fan.

For a year, for two, for three, the affair went on. There was a cloud

in the sky before Mary Canfield came to visit Mrs. Frost, but with her

coming, joy died in Lydia's heart. Mary was made for loving; Mary's

mother and father and aunts and cousins all made it easy for any man to

fall in love with her. Mary danced, played the piano, chattered French,

changed from one pretty frock to another, tirelessly. In short, Mary

was a marketable product, and Lydia was not.

Cliff came to tell Lydia that he and Mary were to be married, and that

she had always been his best pal, and that their friendship had been

one of the sweetest things in his life. He kissed her in brotherly

fashion when he went away. Mary, lovely in bridal silks, came to call

on Lydia a few months later, and to this day when she met faded, sweet

Miss Monroe, the happy little wife and mother would stop in street or

shop and display little Ruth's charms, and chat graciously for a few

minutes. She always defended Lydia when the Frost and Parker factions

lamented that the Monroe girls were inclined to be "common."

Martie thought of none of these things to-night. She thought of Rodney

Parker, and her heart floated upon clouds of rose-coloured delight.

Dreamily manipulating the cards, she remembered that twilight meeting.

"Are you still a little devil, Martie ... I'm going to find out." Again

they were walking slowly toward the bridge. "How many people have told

you you've grown awfully pretty, Martie? ... You and I'll get together

on the lists. ..."

The girl stopped, with arrested fingers and absent eyes. The rapture of

remembering thrilled her young body like a breath of flame blown

against her. She breathed with deep, slow respirations, holding her

breath with a risen breast, and letting it go with a long sigh. Now and

then she looked with an ashamed and furtive glance from her mother's

gray head and Lydia's busy fingers to Sally's absorbed face under the

opaque white globe of the gaslight, almost as if she feared that the

enchantment that held heart and brain would be visible to watching eyes.

"Mind you," Lydia was saying in a low tone, "Flora said that Lou acted

very queer, from the very moment she went in--Lou asked her if she

wanted to look at poor Mr. Lowney, and Flora went in, and he was all

laid out, with flowers and all, in that upstairs room where Al died.

Grandma Lowney was there, and--oh, quite a few others, coming and

going, Mrs. Mallon and the Baxter girls. Flora only stayed a minute,

and when she and Lou went out, she says, 'Lou, has Annie Poett been

here since he was taken sick?' and Lou began to cry and said that her

mother answered the telephone when Annie called up last week, and it

seems Annie asked was Joe Lowney sick and Mrs. King said 'No.'"

"For heaven's sake!" Mrs. Monroe said, incredulous and absorbed.

"Well, that's what Flora said. But mind you, Ma, on Tuesday night

little Hildegarde King went to the door, and she says that Annie Poett

came in and went upstairs--Lou was dishing supper, you know the Allens

and Mrs. Gorman were there for the funeral, and they were all at

table--and, by the way, Flora says that Lou says that Lizzie Alien was

there in that house for three days--that is, it was nearly three days,

for they stayed for supper Wednesday night--and that Lizzie never

raised her hand to ONE THING, just did nothing but sit around and cry,

and say what a good brother Joe was!"

"Did you ever!" commented Mrs. Monroe.

"Anyway, nobody got up from the table, and all they had for it was

Hildegarde's word, and she wasn't sure it was Annie. Grandma Lowney was

asleep--they'd gotten her to lie down; she took more care of Joe than

any one else, you know, and she sat up both nights. Clara Baxter says

she looks awful; she doesn't believe she'll get over it."

"I shouldn't wonder!" said Mrs. Monroe with a click of commiseration.

"Lou told Flora that the night Joe was dying, Grandma broke out and

said to Paul King that if Joe hadn't gone with him out to Deegan Point

two weeks ago, he never would have had that chill. But Flora says ..."

The low voices went on and on, even after Malcolm Monroe came in,

thoroughly tired and a little chilly, to take his own chair by the

fire. Sally, deposed, came to sit opposite Martie, and idly watched the

solitaire.

"Isn't Rodney Parker nice?" Sally whispered cautiously, after a while.

"I think he is!" Martie answered hardily; but the happy colour came to

her cheeks.

"I'll bet all the girls go crazy about him!" Sally submitted.

A faint pang of jealousy, a vague sense of helplessness, seized upon

Martie. He had been so cordially gay and delightful with her; would he

be that with all the girls? Would Florence Frost, three years older

than he, fall a victim to his charm as quickly as she, Martie, had

fallen? Martie had mentioned Florence Frost this afternoon, and by

subtle, instinctive, girlish reasoning had found consolation in his

reply. "She's my sister's friend; she's awfully smart, you know--books

and all that!" Rodney honestly felt an entire indifference to this

admirable young neighbour, and Martie understood his remark as meaning

exactly that.

She went on with her patience, the particular game known as the "Idle

Year." Sometimes Sally touched or mentioned a card. Sometimes, as a

final problem presented itself, the girls consulted as to the wisdom of

this play or that. Between games Martie shuffled vigorously, and they

talked more freely.

"I think he's crazy about you," said Sally.

"Oh, Sally, don't be such a fool!"

"I'm not fooling. Look at the way he turned back and walked with us,

and he never took his eyes off you!" Sally, somewhat dashed for an

instant by Martie's well-assumed scorn, gained confidence now, as the

new radiance brightened her sister's face. "Why, Mart," she said

boldly, "there is such a thing as love at first sight!"

Love at first sight! Martie felt a sort of ecstatic suffocation at the

words. An uncontrollable smile twitched at her mouth, she recommenced

her game briskly. Her heart was dancing.

"Lissun; do you suppose Ma would ever let us have a party here?" Martie

presently ventured.

Sally pursed her lips and shook a doubtful head.

"Oh, but, Sally, I don't mean a real party, of course. Just about

twenty--" Martie began.

"Lemonade and cake?" Sally supplied.

"Well--coffee and sandwiches, Rodney seemed to think. And punch."

"Punch! Martie! You know Pa never would."

"I don't see why not," Martie said discontentedly, slapping down her

cards noisily. Sally spoke only the truth, yet it was an irritating

truth, and Martie would have preferred a soothing lie.

"What about music for dancing?" Sally asked, after a thoughtful

interval.

"Angela Baxter," Martie said with reviving hope.

"But she charges two dollars; at least she did for the Baptist euchre."

"Well--that's not so much!"

"We could make those cute brown-bread sandwiches Rose had," Sally

mused, warming to the possibility. "And use the Canton set. Nobody in

town has china like ours, anyway!"

"Oh, Sally," Martie was again fired, "we could have creamed chicken and

sandwiches--that's all anybody ever wants! And it's so much sweller

than messy sherbets and layer cake. And we could decorate the rooms

with greens--"

"Our rooms are lovely, anyway!" Sally stated with satisfaction.

"Why, with the folding doors open, and fires in both grates, they would

be perfectly stunning!" Martie spoke rapidly, her colour rising, her

blue eyes glittering like stars. "Of course, the back room isn't

furnished, but we could scatter some chairs around in there; we'll need

all the room for dancing, anyway!"

"We couldn't dance on this carpet," Sally submitted, perplexed, as she

glanced at the parlour's worn floor-covering.

"No, but we could in the back room--that floor's bare--and in the

hall," Martie answered readily. "You see it's the first of a sort of

set of dances; the next would be at the Frosts' or the Barkers', and it

would mean that we were right in things--"

"Oh, it would be lovely if we could do it!" Sally agreed with a sigh.

"Play the Queen on here, Martie, and then you'll have a space."

"Do you propose to play that game much longer, girls?" their father

asked, looking patiently over his book.

"Are we disturbing you, Pa?" Martie countered politely.

"Well--but don't stop on my account. Of course the sound of cards and

voices isn't exactly soothing. However, go on with your game--go on

with your game! If I can't stand it, I'll go back to the library."

"Oh, no, Pa, it's too cold in there; this is the time of year you

always get that cold in your nose," Mrs. Monroe said pleadingly.

"I was going right up, anyway," Sally said with an apologetic air and a

glance toward the door.

"I'll go, too!" Martie jumbled the cards together, and rose. "It's

nearly ten, anyway."

A moment later she and Sally went out of the room together. But while

Sally went straight upstairs, to light the bedroom gas, fold up the

counterpane, and otherwise play the part of the good sister she was,

Martie noiselessly opened the side door and stepped out for a breath of

the sweet autumn night.

There was a spectacularly bright moon, somewhere; Martie could not see

it, but beyond the sunken garden she caught glimpses of silvery

brightness on the roofs of Monroe. Even here, under the dark trees,

pools of light had formed and the heavy foliage was shot with shafts of

radiance. A strong wind was clicking the eucalyptus leaves together,

and carrying bits of rubbish here and there about the yard. Martie

could hear voices, the barking of dogs, and the whine of the ten

o'clock trolley, down in the village.

The gate slammed. Leonard came in.

"Pa tell you to watch for me?" he asked fearfully.

"No." Martie, sitting on the top step and hugging her knees, answered

indifferently. "It's not ten yet. What you been doing?"

"Oh, nothing!" Len passed her and went in.

As a matter of fact, he had called for his chum, sauntered into the

candy store for caramels, joined the appreciative group that watched a

drunken man forcibly ejected from Casserley's saloon, visited the pool

room and witnessed a game or two, gone back into the street to tease

two hurrying and giggling girls with his young wit, and drifted into a

passing juggler's wretched and vulgar show. This, or something like

this, was what Len craved when he begged to "go out for a while" after

dinner. It was sometimes a little more entertaining, sometimes less so;

but it spelled life for the seventeen-year-old boy.

He could not have described this to Martie, even had he cared to do so.

She would not have understood it. But she felt a vague yearning, too,

for lights and companionship and freedom, a vague envy of Leonard.

The world was out there, beyond the gate, beyond the village. She was

in it, but not of it. She longed to begin to live, and knew not how.

Ten years before she had been only a busy, independent, happy little

girl; turning to her mother and sister for advice, obeying her father

without question. But Pa and Lydia, and Len with his egotism, and Ma

with her trials, were nothing to Martie now. In battle, in pestilence,

or after a great fire, she would have risen head and shoulders above

them all, would have worked gloriously to reestablish them. She

supposed that she loved them dearly. But so terrible was the hunger of

her heart for her share of life--for loving, serving, planning, and

triumphing--that she would have swept them all aside like cobwebs to

grasp the first reality flung her by fate.

Not to stagnate, not to smother, not to fade and shrink like

Lydia--like Miss Fanny at the library, and the Baxter girls at the

post-office! Every healthy young fibre of Martie's soul and body

rebelled against such a fate, but she could not fully sense the

barriers about her, nor plan any move that should loosen her bonds.

Martie believed, as her parents believed, that life was largely a

question of "luck." Money, fame, friends, power, to this man; poverty

and obscurity and helplessness to that one. Wifehood, motherhood,

honour and delight to one school girl; gnawing, restless uselessness to

the next. "I only hope you girls are going to marry," their mother

would sometimes say plaintively; "but I declare I don't know who--with

all the nice boys leaving town the way they do! Pa gives you a good

home, but he can't do much more, and after he and I go, why, it will be

quite natural for you girls to go on keeping house for Len--I suppose."

Martie's sensitive soul writhed under these mournful predictions.

Dependence was bitter to her, Len's kindly patronage stung her only a

little less than his occasional moods of cheerful masculine contempt.

He meant to take care of his sisters, he wasn't ever going to marry. Pa

needn't worry, Len said. The house was mortgaged, Martie knew; their

father's business growing less year by year; there would be no great

inheritance, and if life was not satisfying now, when she had youth and

plenty, what would it be when Pa was gone?

It was all dark, confusing, baffling, to ignorant, untrained nineteen.

The sense of time passing, of opportunities unseen and ungrasped, might

well make Martie irritable, restless, and reckless. Happiness and

achievement were to be bought, but she knew not with what coinage.

To-day the darkness had been shot by a gleam of living light. Through

Rodney Parker's casual gallantries Martie's eyes looked into a new

world. It was a world of loving, of radiant self-confidence and

self-expression. Martie saw herself buying gowns for the wedding,

whisking in and out of Monroe's shops, stopped by affectionate and

congratulatory friends. She was dining at Mrs. Barker's, dignified, and

yet gracious and responsive, too. Dear old Judge Parker was being

courteous to her; Mrs. Parker advising Rodney's young wife. There were

grandchildren running over the old place. Martie remembered the big

rooms from long-ago red-letter days of her childhood. How she would

love her home, and what a figure of dignity and goodness Mrs. Rodney

Parker would be in the life of the town.

Oh, dear God--it was not so much to ask! People were getting married

all the time; Rodney Parker must marry some one. Lydia was unwed, Sally

had no lover; but out of so rich and full a world could not so much be

spared to Martie? Oh, how good she would be, how generous to Pa and the

girls, how kind to Ida and May!

Martie bowed her head on her knees. If this one thing might come her

way, if it might be her fate to have Rodney Parker love her, to have

the engagement and the wedding follow in their happy order, she would

never ask more of God; gaining so much she would truly be good, she

would live for others then!

When she raised her face it was wet with tears.

CHAPTER II

The next morning, when the younger girls came down to breakfast, they

found only the three women in the kitchen. An odour of coffee hung in

the air. Belle was scraping burned toast at the sink, the flying, sooty

particles clinging to wet surfaces everywhere. Lydia sat packing cold

hominy in empty baking-powder tins; to be sliced and fried for the noon

meal. Mrs. Monroe, preferring an informal kitchen breakfast to her own

society in the dining room, was standing by the kitchen table,

alternating swallows from a saucerless cup of hot coffee with

indifferent mouthfuls of buttered cold bread. She rarely went to the

trouble of toasting her own bread, spending twice the energy required

to do so in protests against the trouble.

Lydia had breakfasted an hour ago. Sally and Martie sliced bread,

pushed forward the coffee pot, and entered a spirited claim for cream.

It was Saturday morning, when Leonard slept late. Pa was always late.

Lydia was anxious to save a generous amount of cream for the sleepers.

"Len often takes a second cup of coffee when he's got lots of time,"

Lydia said.

"Well, I don't care!" Martie said, suddenly serious. "I'm going to take

my coffee black, anyway. I'm getting too fat!"

"Oh, Martie, you are not!" Sally laughed.

"That's foolish--you'll just upset your health!" her mother added

disapprovingly.

Martie's only answer was a buoyant kiss. She and Sally carried their

breakfast into the dining room, where they established themselves

comfortably at one end of the long table. While they ate, dipping their

toast in the coffee, buttering and rebuttering it, they chattered as

tirelessly as if they had been deprived of each other's society and

confidence for weeks.

The morning was dark and foggy, and a coal fire slumbered in the grate,

giving out a bitter, acrid smell. Against the windows the soft mist

pressed, showing a yellow patch toward the southeast, where the sun

would pierce it after a while.

Malcolm Monroe came downstairs at about nine o'clock, and the girls

gathered up their dishes and disappeared in the direction of the

kitchen. Not that Ma would not, as usual, prepare their father's toast

and bacon with her own hands, and not that Lydia would not, as usual,

serve it. The girls were not needed. But Pa always made it impossible

for them to be idle and comfortable over their own meal. If he did not

actually ask them to fetch butter or water, or if he could find no

reasonable excuse for fault-finding, he would surely introduce some

dangerous topic; lure them into admissions, stand ready to pursue any

clue. He did not like to see young girls care-free and contented; time

enough for that later on! And as years robbed him of actual dignities,

and as Monroe's estimate of him fell lower and lower, he turned upon

his daughters the authority, the carping and controlling that might

otherwise have been spent upon respectful employees and underlings. He

found some relief for a chafed and baffled spirit in the knowledge that

Sally and Martie were helpless, were bound to obey, and could easily be

made angry and unhappy.

Lydia, her father's favourite, came in with a loaded tray, just as Len,

slipping down the back stairs, was being stealthily regaled by his

mother on a late meal in the kitchen. Len had no particular desire for

his father's undiluted company.

"Good morning, Pa!" Lydia said, with a kiss for his cool forehead.

"Your paper's right there by the fire; there's quite a fog, and it got

wet."

Hands locked, she settled herself opposite him, and revolved in her

mind the terms in which she might lay before him the younger girls'

hopes. It was part of Lydia's concientiousness not to fail them now,

even though she secretly disapproved of the whole thing.

"Pa," she began bravely, "you wouldn't mind the girls having some of

their friends in some evening, would you? I thought perhaps some night

when you were down in the city--"

"Your idea, my dear?" Malcolm said graciously.

"Well--Martie's really." Lydia was always scrupulously truthful.

His face darkened a little. He pursed his lips.

"Dinner, eh?"

"Oh, no, Pa! Just dancing, or--" Lydia was watching him closely, "or

games," she substituted hurriedly. "You see the other girls have these

little parties, and our girls--" her voice fell.

"Such an affair costs money, my dear!"

"Not much, Pa!"

His eyes were discontentedly fixed upon the headlines of his paper, but

he was thinking.

"Making a lot of work for your mother," he protested, "upsetting the

whole house like a pack of wolves! Upon my word, I can't see the

necessity. Why can't Sally and Martie--"

"But it's only once in a long while, Pa," Lydia urged.

"I know--I know! Well, you ask Martie to speak to me about it in a day

or two. Now go call your mother."

For the gracious permission Lydia gave him an appreciative kiss,

leaving him comfortable with his fire, his newspaper, and his armchair,

as she went on her errand.

"Pa was terribly sweet about the dance," she told Martie and Sally.

Belle was now deep in breakfast dishes, and the two girls had gone out

into the foggy dooryard with the chickens' breakfast. A flock of mixed

fowls were clucking and pecking over the bare ground under the willows.

Martie held the empty tin pan in one hand, in the other was a

half-eaten cruller. Sally had turned her serge skirt up over her

shoulders as a protection against the cool air, exposing a shabby

little "balmoral."

"Oh, Lyd, you're an angel!" Martie said, holding the cruller against

Lydia's mouth. But Lydia expressed a grateful negative with a shake of

her head; she never nibbled between meals.

She retailed the conversation with her father. Martie and Sally became

fired with enthusiasm as they listened. An animated discussion

followed. Grace was a problem. Dared they ignore Grace? There was a

lamentable preponderance of girls without her. All their lists began

and ended with, "Well, there's Rodney and his friends--that's two--"

The day was as other days, except to Martie. When the chickens were

fed, she and Sally idled for perhaps half an hour in the yard, and then

went into the kitchen. Belle, sooty and untidy, had paused at the

kitchen table, with her dustpan resting three feet away from the cold

mutton that lay there. Mrs. Monroe's hair was in some disorder, and a

streak of black from the stove lay across one of her lean, greasy

wrists. The big stove was cooling now, ashes drifted from the firebox

door, and an enormous saucepan of slowly cooking beans gave forth a

fresh, unpleasant odour. At all the windows the fog pressed softly.

"Are you going down town, Sally?" the mother asked.

"Well--I thought we would. We can if you want!" said Sally.

"If you do, I wish you'd step into Mason & White's, and ask one of the

men there if they aren't ever going to send me the rest of my box of

potatoes."

"All right!" Martie and Sally put their hats on in the downstair hall,

shouted upstairs to Lydia for the shoes, and sauntered out contentedly

into the soft, foggy morning. The Monroe girls never heard the garden

gate slam behind them without a pleasant yet undefined sense of

freedom. The sun was slowly but steadily gaining on the fog, a bright

yellow blur showed the exact spot where shining light must soon break

through. Trees along the way dripped softly, but on the other side of

the bridge, where houses were set more closely together, and gardens

less dense, sidewalks and porches were already drying.

The girls walked past the new, trim little houses and the clumsy, big,

old-fashioned ones, chattering incessantly. Their bright, interested

eyes did not miss the tiniest detail. The village, sleepier than ever

on the morning of the half-holiday, was full of interest to them.

Mrs. Hughie Wilson was sweeping her garden path, and called out to them

that the church concert had netted 327 dollars; wasn't that pretty good?

A few steps farther on they met Alice Clark, who kept them ten minutes

in eager, unimportant conversation. Her parting remark sent the Monroe

girls happily on their way.

"I hear Rodney Parker's home--don't pretend to be surprised, Martha

Monroe. A little bird was telling me that I'll have to go up North Main

Street for news of him after this!"

"Who do you s'pose told her we met Rod Parker?" Martie grinned as they

went on.

"People see everything! Oh, Martie," said Sally earnestly, "I do hope

you are going to marry; no, don't laugh! I don't mean Rod, of course,

I'm not such a fool. But I mean some one."

"You ought to marry first, Sally; you're the older," Martie said, with

averted eyes and a sort of delicious shame.

"Oh, I don't mind that, Martie, if only we begin!" Sally answered

fervently. "When I think of what the next ten years MEAN for us, it

just makes me sick! Either we'll marry and have our own homes and

children, or we'll be like Alice, and the Baxters, and Miss Fanny--"

"I'd just as soon have a good job like Miss Fanny," Martie said

hardily. "She gets sixty a month."

"Well, I wouldn't!" Sally protested in a sudden burst. "Being in an

office would KILL me, I think! I just couldn't do it! But I believe I

COULD manage a little house, and children, and I'd like that! I

wouldn't mind being poor--I never really think of being anything

else--but what I'm so afraid of is that Len'll marry and we'll just

be--just be AUNTS!"

Such vehemence was not usual to Sally, and as her earnestness brought

her to a full stop on the sidewalk, the two sisters found themselves

facing each other. They burst into a joyous laugh, as their eyes met,

and the full absurdity of the conversation became apparent.

Still giggling, they went on their way, past the old smithy, where a

pleasant breath of warmth and a splendid ringing of hammers came from

the forge, and past the new garage of raw wood with the

still-astonishing miracle of a "horseless carriage" in its big window,

pots of paint and oil standing inside its door, and workmen, behind a

barrier of barrels and planks, laying a cement sidewalk in front. They

passed the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store, its unwashed windows jammed with

pyramids of dry-looking chocolates, post cards, and jewellery, and

festoons of trashy embroidery, and the corner fruit stands heaped with

tomatoes and sprawling grapes. At the Palace Candy Store a Japanese boy

in his shirt-sleeves was washing the show window, which was empty

except for some rumpled sheets of sun-faded pink crepe paper. By the

door stood two large wooden buckets for packing ice cream. The ice and

salt were melted now, and the empty moulds, still oozing a little

curdled pink cream, were floating in the dirty water.

"Why aren't you girls at home sewing for the poor?" demanded a pleasant

voice over their shoulders. The girls wheeled about to smile into the

eyes of Father Martin. A tall spare old man, with enormous glasses on

his twinkling blue eyes, spots and dust on his priestly black, and a

few teeth missing from his kindly, big, homely mouth, he beamed upon

them.

"Well, how are ye? And your mother's well? Well, and what are ye

buying--trousseaux?"

"We're just looking, Father," Martie giggled. "Looking for husbands

first, and then clothes!"

Laughing, the girls walked with him across the street to Mallon's

Hardware Emporium, where baskets of jelly glasses were set out on the

damp sidewalk, with enamel saucepans marked "29c." and "19c." in black

paint, carpet sweepers, oil stoves, and pink-and-blue glass vases. They

went on to the shoe shop, to the grocery, to the post-office, past the

express office, where Joe Hawkes sat whittling in the sun. They paused

to study with eager interest the flaring posters on the fences that

announced the impending arrival of Poulson's Star Stock Company, for

one night only, in "The Sword of the King." They discovered with

surprise that it was nearly twelve o'clock, bought five cents' worth of

rusty, sweet, Muscat grapes, to be eaten on the way home, and turned

their faces toward the bridge.

But the morning, for Martie, had held its golden moment. When they

passed the Bank, Sally had been dreaming, as Sally almost always was,

but Martie's eyes had gone from shining gold-lettered window to window,

and with that new, sweet suffocation at her heart she had found the

object of her searching--the satiny crest of Rodney Parker's sleek

hair, the fresh-coloured profile that had been in her waking and

sleeping thoughts since yesterday. He was evidently hard at work;

indeed he was nervous and discouraged, had Martie but known it; he did

not look up.

But Martie did not want him to look up. She wanted only the stimulation

to her thoughts that the sight of him caused, the enchanting

realization that he was there. She had a thrilling vision of herself

entering that bank, a privileged person, "young Mrs. Rodney." Old Judge

Parker coming out of his private office with his hands full of papers

would nod to her with his fatherly smile, Rodney grin the proud yet

embarrassed grin of a man confronted in office hours by his women-folk.

Suddenly Martie decided that she would begin to save money. She and

Sally had jointly fallen heir to a young Durham cow when Cousin Sally

Buckingham died, and the cow being sold for thirty-five dollars,

exactly seventeen dollars and fifty cents had been deposited in the

bank in each girl's name. This was four years ago; neither one ever

dreamed of touching the precious nest-egg; to them it represented

wealth. Len had no bank account, nor had Mama nor Lydia. All Martie's

dreams of the future began, included, or ended on the expenditure of

this sum. It bought text books, wedding veils, railway tickets in turn.

Now she thought that if she saved another dollar, and went into the

Bank duly to deposit it, Rodney must see her, might even wait upon her;

it would be a perfectly legitimate way of crossing his line of vision.

The Monroes had plenty of spending money; for although their father was

strongly opposed to the idea of making any child of his a definite

allowance, he allowed them to keep the change whenever they executed

small commissions for him, and to wheedle from him stray quarter and

half dollars. Lydia had only to watch for the favourable moment to get

whatever she asked, and with Leonard he was especially generous. Martie

knew that she could save, if she determined to do so. She imagined

Rodney's voice: "Bringing more money in? You'll soon be rich at this

rate, Martie!"

CHAPTER III

A few days later Rodney Parker walked home from the village with Martie

Monroe again. Meeting her in Bonestell's, he paid for her chocolate

sundae, and on their way up Main Street they stopped in the Library, so

that Miss Fanny saw them. Every one saw them: first of all generous

little Sally, who was to meet Martie in Bonestell's, but who,

perceiving that Rodney had joined her there, slipped away unseen, and,

blindly turning over the ribbons on Mason's remnant counter, prayed

with all her heart that Rodney would continue to fill her place.

They walked up Main Street, Martie glancing up from under her shabby

hat with happy blue eyes, Rodney sauntering contentedly at her side.

How much he knew, how much he had done, the girl thought, with an ache

of hopeless admiration. Almost every sentence opened a new vista of his

experience and her ignorance. She did not suspect that he meant it to

be so; she only felt dazzled by the easy, glancing references he made

to men and books and places.

They stopped at the railroad track to watch the eastward-bound train

thunder by. Five hours out of San Francisco, its passengers looked

quite at home in the big green upholstered seats. Bored women looked

idly out upon little Monroe, half-closed magazines in their hands.

Card-playing men did not glance up as the village flashed by. On the

platform of the observation car the usual well-wrapped girl and

pipe-smoking young man were carrying on the usual flirtation. Martie

saw the train nearly every day, but never without a thrill. She said to

herself, "New York!" as a pilgrim might murmur of Mecca or of Heaven.

"That's a good train," said Rodney. "Let's see, this is Wednesday.

They'll be in New York Sunday night. Awful place on Sunday--no

theatres, no ball games, no drinks--"

"I could manage without theatres or ball games," Martie laughed. "But I

must have my whisky!"

"It sounded as if I meant that, but you know me!" he laughed back.

"Lord, how I'd like to show you New York. Wouldn't you love it!

Broadway--well, it's a wonder! There's something doing every minute.

You'd love the theatres--"

"I know I would!" Martie assented, glowing.

"My aunt lives there; she has an apartment right on the Park, at West

Ninetieth," Rodney said. "Her husband has scads of money," the boy

pursued. "You'll have to go on, Martie, there's no two ways about it."

"And Delmonico's?" the girl suggested eagerly. "I've heard of

Delmonico's!"

"Delmonico's is where the wedding parties go. Of course, if you say so,

Martie--"

That was one of the sweet and thrilling things to remember. And there

were other things to make Martie's heart dance as she set the dinner

table. But she wondered if she should have asked him in.

Martie stopped short, salt-cellars in her hand. How could she--with

Pa's arrival possible at any moment. Besides she had asked him, as they

lingered laughing at the gate. That was all right--it was late, anyway.

He had gaily refused, and she had not pressed him. And, wonderful

thought, they were going walking on Sunday.

Monroe boys and girls usually walked on Sunday. They walked up the

track to the Junction, or up between bare fields past the Poor House to

the Cemetery. When a young man hired a phaeton at Beetman's, and took

his girl for a drive on Sunday, it was a definite avowal of serious

attachment. In that case they usually had their Sunday supper at the

home of the young man's mother, or married sister, or with some female

relative whose sanction upon their plans was considered essential.

Rodney Parker was not quite familiar with this well-established

precedent. His sisters were not enough of the village to be asked

either to walk or drive with the local swains, and he had been away for

several years. For two Sundays he walked with Martie, and then he asked

her to drive.

For the girl, these weeks were suffused with a tremulous and ecstatic

delight beyond definition, beyond words. What she would not have dared

to hope, she actually experienced. No need to boast before Sally and

Grace and Florence Frost. They saw: the whole village saw.

Martie bloomed like a rose. She forgot everything--Pa, Len, the gloomy

home, the uncertain future--for joy. That her old hat was shabby and

her clothes inappropriate meant nothing to Martie; ignorant, unhelped,

she stumbled on her way alone. Nobody told her to pin her bronze braids

more trimly, to keep her brilliant skin free from the muddying touch of

sweets and pastries, to sew a hook here and catch a looping hem there.

Nobody suggested that she manicure her fine big hands, or use some of

her endless leisure to remove the spots from her blue silk dress.

More; the family dared take only a stealthy interest in Martie's

affair, because of Malcolm's extraordinary perversity and Len's young

scorn. Malcolm, angered by Lydia's fluttered pleasure in the honour

Rodney Parker was doing their Martie, was pleased to assume a high and

mighty attitude. He laughed heartily at the mere idea that the

attentions of Graham Parker's son might be construed as a compliment to

a Monroe, and sarcastically rebuked Lydia when, on a Sunday afternoon,

she somewhat stealthily made preparations for tea. Martie and Rod were

walking, and Martie, before she went, had said something vague about

coming back at half-past four.

Lydia, abashed, gave up her plan for tea. But she did what she could

for Martie, by inveigling her father into a walk. Martie and Rod came

into an empty house, for Sally was out, no one knew where, and Mrs.

Monroe had gone to church where vespers were sung at four o'clock

through the winter.

Martie's colour was high from fast walking in the cold wind, her eyes

shone like sapphires, and her loosened hair, under an old velvet

tam-o'-shanter cap, made a gold aureole about her face. Rodney,

watching her mount the little hill to the graveyard with a winter

sunset before her, had called her "Brunhilde," and he had been talking

of grand opera as they walked home.

Enchanted at finding the house deserted, she very simply took him into

the kitchen. The kettle was fortunately singing over a sleeping fire;

Rodney sliced bread and toasted it, while Martie, trying to appear

quite at her ease, but conscious of awkward knees and elbows just the

same, whisked from pantry to kitchen busily, disappearing into the

dining room long enough to lay the tea cups and plates at one end of

the big table.

Only a few moments before the little feast was ready, Lydia came rather

anxiously into the kitchen. She greeted Rodney smilingly, seizing the

first opportunity for an aside to say to Martie:

"Pa's home, Mart. And he doesn't like your having Rod out here. I

walked him up to the Tates', but no one was home except Lizzie. Shame!

He saw Rodney's cap in the hall--he's in the dining room." Aloud she

said cheerfully: "I think this is dreadful--making you work so hard,

Rod. Come--tea's nearly ready. You and I'll wait for it in the dining

room, like the gentleman and lady we are!"

"Oh, I'm having a grand time!" Rodney laughed. But he allowed himself

to be led away. A few minutes later Martie, with despair in her heart,

carried the loaded tray into the dining room.

Her father, in one of his bad moods, was sitting by the empty

fireplace. The room, in the early autumn twilight, was cold. Len had

come in and expected his share of the unfamiliar luxury of tea, and

more than his share of the hot toast.

Rodney, unaffected by the atmosphere, gaily busied himself with the

tray. Lydia came gently in with an armful of light wood which she laid

in the fireplace.

"There is no necessity for a fire," Malcolm said. "I wouldn't light

that, my dear."

"I thought--just to take the chill off," Lydia stammered.

Her father shook his head. Lydia subsided.

"We shall be having supper shortly, I suppose?" he asked patiently,

looking at a large gold watch. "It's after half-past five now."

"But, Pa," Lydia laughed a little constrainedly, "we never have dinner

until half-past six!"

"Oh, on week days--certainly," he agreed stiffly. "On Sundays, unless I

am entirely wrong, we sit down before six."

"Len," Martie murmured, "why don't you go make yourself some toast?"

"Don't have to!" Len laughed with his mouth full.

"Here--I'll go out and make some more!" Rodney said buoyantly, catching

up a plate. Lydia instantly intervened; this would not do. Pa would be

furious. Obviously Martie could not go, because in her absence Pa,

Rodney, and Len would either be silent, or say what was better unsaid.

Lydia herself went out for a fresh supply of toast.

Martie was grateful, but in misery. Lydia was always slow. The endless

minutes wore away, she and Rodney playing with their empty plates, Len

also waiting hungrily, her father watching them sombrely. If Len hadn't

come in and been so greedy, Martie thought in confused anger, tea would

have been safely over by this time; if Pa were not there glowering she

might have chattered at her ease with Rodney, no tea hour would have

been too long. As it was, she was self-conscious and constrained. The

clock struck six. Really it WAS late.

The toast came in; Sally came in demurely at her mother's side. She had

rushed out of the shadows to join her mother at the gate, much to Mrs.

Monroe's surprise. Conversation, subdued but general, ensued. Martie

walked boldly with Rodney to the gate, at twenty minutes past six, and

they stood there, laughing and talking, for another ten minutes.

When she went in, it was to face unpleasantness. Her mother, with her

bonnet strings dangling, was helping Lydia hastily to remove signs of

the recent tea party. Sally was in the kitchen; Len reading opposite

his father.

"Come here a minute, Martie," her father called as I the girl hesitated

in the hallway. Martie came in and eyed him. "I would like to know what

circumstances led to young Parker's being here this afternoon?" he

asked.

"Why--we were walking, and I--I suppose I asked him, Pa."

"You SUPPOSE you asked him?"

"Well--I DID ask him."

"Oh, you DID ask him; that's different. You had spoken to your mother

about it?"

"No." Martie swallowed. "No," she said again nervously. There was a

silence while her father eyed her coldly.

"Then you ask whom you like to the house, do you? Is that the idea? You

upset your mother's and your sister's arrangement entirely at your own

pleasure?" he suggested presently.

"I didn't think it was so much to ask a person to have a cup of tea!"

Martie stammered, with a desperate attempt at self-defense. She felt

tears pressing against her eyes. Lydia would have been meek, Sally

would have been meek, but Martie's anger was her nearest weapon. It

angered her father in turn.

"Well, will you kindly remember in future that your ideas of what to

ask, and what not to ask, are not the ideas by which this house is

governed?" Malcolm asked magnificently.

"Yes, sir." Martie stirred as if to turn and go.

"One moment," Malcolm said discontentedly. "You thoroughly understand

me, do you?"

"Yes, sir." Martie's eyes met Len's discreetly raised over the edge of

his book and full of reproachful interest. She went into the kitchen.

The spell of a nervous silence which had held the dining room was

broken. Mrs. Monroe and Lydia talked in low tones as they went to and

fro; Len shifted his position; Sally coming in with a plate of sliced

bread hummed contentedly. Martie appeared in her usual place at supper,

not too subdued to win a laugh even from her father with some vivacious

imitation of Miss Tate rallying the children for Sunday School.

Happiness was bubbling like a spring in her heart.

After dinner, the dishes being piled in the sink to greet Belle on

Monday morning, she went to the piano and crashed into "Just a Song at

Twilight," and "Oh, Promise Me," and "The Two Grenadiers." These and

many more songs were contained in a large, heavy album entitled

"Favourite Songs for the Home." Martie had a good voice; not better

than Sally's or Lydia's, but Sally and Lydia rarely sang. Martie had

sung to her own noisy accompaniment since she was a child; she loved

the sound of her own voice. She had a hunger for accomplishment,

rattled off the few French phrases she knew with an unusually pure

accent, and caught an odd pleasing word or an accurate pronunciation

eagerly on the few occasions when lecturers or actors in Monroe gave

her an opportunity.

To-night her father, in his library, heard the sweet, true tones of her

voice in "Lesbia" and "Believe Me," and remembered his mother singing

those same old songs. But when a silence followed he remembered only

faulty Martie, awkwardly making Rodney Parker welcome at the most

inconvenient time her evil genius could have suggested, and he

presently went into the sitting room with the familiar scowl on his

face.

On the next Sunday Rodney hired a Roman-nosed, rusty white horse at

Beetman's, and for two hours he and Martie drove slowly about. They

drove up past the Poor House to the Cemetery, and into the Cemetery

itself, where black-clad forms were moving slowly among the graves. The

day was cold, with a bleak wind blowing; the headstones looked bare and

forlorn.

At half-past three, driving down the Pittsville road, back toward

Monroe, Rodney said:

"Why don't you come and have tea at our house, Martie?"

Martie's heart rose on a great spring.

"Why--would your mother--" She stopped short, not knowing quite how to

voice her hesitation. Had she expressed exactly what was in her mind

she might have said: "First, won't your mother and sisters snub me? And

secondly, is it quite correct, from a conventional standpoint, for me

to accept your casual invitation?"

"Sure. Mother'll be delighted--come on!" Rodney urged.

"I'd love to!" Martie agreed.

"You know, the beauty about you, Martie, is that you're such a good

pal," Rodney said enthusiastically as he drove on. "I've always wanted

a pal. You and I like the same things; we're both a little different

from the common run, perhaps--I don't want to throw any flowers at us,

but that's true--and it's wonderful to me that living here in this hole

all your life you're so up-to-date--so darned intelligent!"

This was nectar to Martie's soul. But she had never been indulged so

recklessly in personalities before, and she did not quite know how to

meet them. She wanted to say the right thing, to respond absolutely to

his mood; a smile, half-deprecating, half-charmed, fluttered on her

lips when Rodney talked in this fashion, but even to herself her words

seemed ill-chosen and clumsy. A more experienced woman, with all of

Martie's love and longing surging in her heart, would have vouchsafed

him just that casual touch of hand on hand, that slight, apparently

involuntary swerve of shoulder against shoulder that would have brought

the boy's arms about her, his lips to hers.

It was her business in life to make him love her; the only business for

which her mother and father had ever predestined her. But she knew

nothing of it, except that no "nice" girl allowed a boy to put his arm

about her or kiss her unless they were engaged. She knew that girls got

into "trouble" by being careless on these matters, but what that

trouble was, or what led to it, she did not know. She and Sally

innocently believed that some mysterious cloud enveloped even the most

staid and upright girl at the touch of a man's arm, so that of

subsequent events she lost all consciousness. A girl might attract a

man by words and smiles to the point of wishing to marry her, but she

must never permit the slightest liberties, she must indeed assume, to

the very day of her marriage, that the desire for marriage lived in the

heart of the man alone.

Martie never dreamed that the youth and sex within her had as definite

a claim on her senses as hunger had in the hour before dinner time, or

sleep had when she nodded over her solitaire at night. But she drank in

enchantment with Rodney's voice, his laughter, his nearness, and the

night was too short for her dreams or the days for her happiness.

They left the Roman-nosed horse and the surrey at Beetman's livery

stable, a damp and odorous enclosure smelling of wet straw, and with

the rear quarters of nervous bay horses stirring in the stalls. The

various men, smoking and spitting there in the Sunday afternoon

leisure, knew Martie and nodded to her; knew who her companion was.

Martie and Rodney walked down South California Street, into the town's

nicest quarter, and passed the old-fashioned wooden houses, set far

back in bare gardens: the Wests' with its wooden palings; the Clifford

Frosts', with a hooded baby carriage near the side door; and the senior

Frosts', a dark red house shut in by a dark red fence. The Barkers'

house was the last in the row, rambling, ugly, decorated with knobs and

triangles of wood, with many porches, with coloured glass frames on its

narrow windows, yet imposing withal, because of its great size and the

great trees about it. Martie had not been there since her childhood, in

the days before Malcolm Monroe's attitude on the sewer and

street-lighting questions had antagonized his neighbours, in the days

when Mrs. Frost and Mrs. Parker still exchanged occasional calls with

Martie's mother.

The girl found strangely thrilling Rodney's familiarity here. He

crossed the porch, opened the unlocked front door, and led Martie

through a large, over-furnished hall and a large, stately drawing room.

The rugs, lamps, chairs, and tables all belonged to entirely different

periods, some were Mission oak, some cherry upholstered in rich

brocade; there was a little mahogany, some maple, even a single

handsome square chair of teakwood from the Orient. On the walls there

were large crayon portraits made from photographs of the girls, and

there were cushions everywhere, some of fringed leather, some of satin

painted or embroidered, some of cigar ribbons of clear yellow silk,

some with college pennants flaunting across them.

Beyond this room was another large one, looking out on the lawn and the

shabby willows at the side of the house. Into this room the more

favoured one had been casting off its abandoned fineries for many

years. There were more rugs, pillows, lamps, and chairs in here, but it

was all more shabby, and the effect was pleasanter and softer. Ida's

tea table stood by the hearth, with innovations such as a silver

tea-ball, and a porcelain cracker jar decorated with a rich design in

the minutely cut and shellacked details of postage stamps. A fire

winked sleepily behind the polished steel bars of the grate, the

western window was full of potted begonias and ferns, the air was close

and pleasantly scented with the odour of a good cigar.

Judge Parker, a genial man looking more than his fifty-five years, sat

alone, smoking this cigar, and Martie, greeting him prettily, was

relieved to find that she must not at once face the ladies of the

house. Rather uncertainly she took off her hat, but did not remove the

becoming blue sweater. She sat erect in a low, comfortable armchair

whose inviting curves made her rigid attitude unnatural and difficult,

and talked to the Judge. The old man liked all fresh young girls, and

laughing with her, he vaguely wondered in his hospitable heart why

Monroe's girls were not more often at the house.

Ida and May, tall, colourless young women, presently came down. They

noticed Martie's shoe-lacings and the frill of muddy petticoat, the

ungloved hands and the absurdity of her having removed her hat, and

told Rodney about these things later. At the time they only made her

uncomfortable in quiet little feminine ways; not hearing her when she

spoke, asking her questions whose answers must surely embarrass her.

Tea came in. Martie smiled at Carrie David, who brought it. She liked

Carrie, who was the Hawkes' cousin, but did not quite think she should

speak to her here. Carrie, who was a big, gray-haired woman of fifty,

was in the room only a moment after all.

Judge Parker, amiably under the impression that young people were

happier alone, went away to walk down Main Street, glancing at the sky

and greeting his townspeople in his usual genial fashion. May poured

the tea, holding Rodney in conversation the while. Ida talked to Martie

in a vivacious, smiling, insincere way, difficult to follow.

Martie listened sympathetically, more than half believing in the bright

picture of social triumphs and San Francisco admirers that was

presented her, even though she knew that Ida was twenty-six, and had

never had a Monroe admirer. Dr. Ben had once had a passing fancy for

May's company; May was older than Ida, and, though like her physically,

was warmer and more human in type. But even this had never been a

recognized affair; it had died in infancy, and the Parker girls were

beginning to be called old maids.

Rodney walked with Martie to the gate when she left, but no farther,

and as she went on her way, uncomfortable thoughts were uppermost in

her mind. Martie had never driven with a young man before, and so had

no precedent to guide her, but she wondered if Rodney should not have

gone with her to her own gate. Perhaps she had stayed too long--another

miserable possibility. And how "snippy" Ida and May had been!

Still, Monroe had seen her driving with Rodney, and she had had tea at

the Parkers'! So much was gain. She had almost reached the shabby green

gate that led into the sunken garden when Sally, flying up behind her

in the dusk, slipped a hand through her arm. Martie, turning with a

start and a laugh, saw Joe Hawkes, ten feet away, smiling at her.

"Hello, Joe!" she said, a little puzzled. Not that it was not quite

natural for Sally to stop and speak to Joe, if she wanted to; Joe had

been a familiar figure in their lives since they were children. But--

But Sally was laughing and panting in a manner new and

incomprehensible. She caught Martie by both hands. All three, young and

not understanding themselves or life, stood laughing a little vaguely

in the sharp winter dusk. Joe was a mighty blond giant, only Martie's

age, and younger, except in inches and in sinews, than his years. He

had a sweet, simple face, rough, yellow hair, and hairy, red, clumsy

hands. A greater contrast to gentle little Sally, with her timid brown

eyes and the bloodless quiet of manner that was like her mother and

like Lydia, could hardly have been imagined.

"Where've you been?" Martie asked.

"We've been to church!" dimpled Sally with a glance at Joe.

The pronoun startled Martie.

"We were up in the organ loft," Joe contributed with his half-laughing,

half-nervous grin.

Still bewildered, Martie followed her sister into the dark garden,

after a good-night nod to Joe, and went into the house. Their father

reluctantly accepted the girls' separate accounts of the afternoon:

Sally had been in church, Martie had driven about with Rod and had gone

to tea at his house. Lydia fluttered with questions. Who was there?

What was said? Malcolm asked Martie where Rodney had left her.

"At the gate, Pa," the girl responded promptly.

All through the evening her eyes kept wandering in disapproval toward

Sally. Joe Hawkes!--it was monstrous. That stupid, common lout of a

boy--nearly two years her junior, too.

They were undressing, alone in their room, when she spoke of the matter.

"Sally," said she, "you didn't really go sit in the choir with Joe

Hawkes, did you?"

"Well--yes, in a way," Sally admitted, adding indulgently, "he's SUCH

an idiot!"

"How do you mean?" Martie asked sharply. For Sally to flush and dimple

and give herself the airs of a happy woman over the calf-like

attentions of this clumsy boy of nineteen was more than absurd, it was

painful. "Sally--you couldn't! Why, you oughtn't even to be FRIENDS

with Joe Hawkes!" she stammered. "He gets--I suppose he gets twenty

dollars a month."

"On, no; more than that!" Sally said, brushing her fine, silky,

lifeless hair. "He gets twenty-five from the express company, and when

he meets the trains for Beetman he gets half he makes."

Martie stood astounded at her manner. That one of the Monroe girls

should be talking thus of Joe Hawkes! What mattered it to Sarah Price

Monroe how much Joe Hawkes made, or how? Joe Hawkes--Grace's

insignificant younger brother! Sally saw her consternation.

"Now listen, Mart, and don't have a fit," she said, laughing. "I'm not

any crazier over Joe than you are. I know what Pa would say. I'm not

likely to marry any one on thirty dollars a month, anyway. But listen,

Joe has always liked me terribly--"

"I never knew it!" Martie exclaimed.

"No; well, neither did I. But last year when he broke his leg I used to

go in and see him with Grace, and one day she left the room for a

while, and he sort of--broke out--"

"The GALL!" ejaculated Martie.

"Oh, no, Mart--he didn't mean it that way. Really he didn't. He just

wanted--to hold my hand, you know--and that. And he never thinks of

money, or getting married. And, Mart, he's so GRATEFUL, you know, for

just a moment's meeting, or if I smile at him, going out of church--"

"I should think he might be!" Martie interpolated in fine scorn.

"Yes, I know how you feel, Martie," Sally went on eagerly, "and that's

true, of course. I feel that way myself. But you don't know how

miserable he makes himself about it. And does it seem wrong to you,

Mart, for me just to be kind to him? I tell him--I was telling him this

afternoon--that some day he'll meet some nice sweet girl younger than

he, and that he'll be making more money then--you know--"

Her voice faltered. She looked wistfully at her sister.

"But I can't see why you let a big dummy like that talk to you at all!"

Martie said impatiently after a short silence. "What do you care what

he thinks? He's got a lot of nerve to DARE to talk to you that way.

I--well, I think Pa would be wild!"

"Oh, of course he would," Sally agreed in a troubled voice. "And I know

how you feel, Martie, with Joe's aunt working for the Parkers, and

all," she added. "I'll--I'll stop it. Truly I will. I'm only doing it

to be considerate to Joe, anyway!"

"You needn't do anything on my account," Martie said gruffly. "But I

think you ought to stop it on your own. Joe is only a kid, he doesn't

know beans--much less enough to really fall in love!"

She lay awake for a long time that night, in troubled thought. Cold

autumn moonlight poured into the room; a restless wind whined about the

house. The cuckoo clock struck eleven--struck twelve.

At all events she HAD gone driving with Rodney; she HAD had tea at the

Parkers'--

CHAPTER IV

"I honestly think that some of us ought to go down to-night and see

Grandma Kelly," said Lydia at luncheon a week later. November had come

in bright and sunny, but with late dawns and early twilights. Rodney

Parker's college friend having delayed his promised visit, the

agitating question of the Friday Fortnightly had been temporarily laid

to rest, but Martie saw him nearly every day, and family and friends

alike began to change in their attitude to Martie.

"I'll go," she and Sally said together--Martie, because she was in a

particularly amiable mood; Sally, perhaps because old Mrs. Kelly was

Joe Hawkes's grandmother.

"Well, I wish you would, girls," their mother said in her gentle,

complaining voice. "She's a dear old lady--a perfect saint about

getting to church in all weathers! And while Pa doesn't care much about

having you so intimate with the Hawkeses, he was saying this morning

that Grandma Kelly is different. She was my nurse when all four of you

were born, and she certainly was interested and kind."

"We can go down about seven," Lydia said, "and not stay too long. But I

suppose 'most every one in Monroe will run in to wish her many happy

returns. Tom David's wife will come in from Westlake with Grandma's

great-grandchildren, I guess, and all the others will be there."

"That houseful alone would kill me, let alone having the whole tribe

stream in, if _I_ were seventy-eight!" Martie observed. "But I'd just

as soon go. We'll see how we feel after dinner!"

And after dinner, the night being fresh and sweet, and the meal early

concluded because Malcolm was delayed in Pittsville and did not return

for dinner, the three Monroes pinned on their hats, powdered their

noses, and buttoned on their winter coats. Any excitement added to her

present ecstatic mood was enough to give Martie the bloom of a wild

rose, and Sally had her own reasons for radiance. Lydia alone, walking

between them, was actuated by cool motives of duty and convention and

sighed as she thought of the heat and hubbub of the Hawkes's house, and

the hour that must elapse before they were back in the cool night again.

The Hawkeses had always lived in one house in Monroe. It was a large,

square, cheap house near the bridge, with a bare yard kept shabby by

picking chickens, and a fence of struggling pickets. Behind the house,

which had not been painted in the memory of man, was a yawning barn

which had never been painted at all. In the yard were various odds and

ends of broken machinery and old harness; a wagon-seat, on which

Grandma sometimes sat shelling beans or peeling potatoes in the summer

afternoons; old brooms, old saucepans, and lengths of rope, clotted

with mud. Fuchsia and rose-bushes languished in a tipsy wire enclosure

near the front door.

To-night, although the yard presented a rather dismal appearance in the

early winter dark, the house was bursting with hospitality and good

cheer. From every one of the bare high windows raw gushes of light

tunnelled the gloom outside, and although the cold outside had frosted

all the glass, dim forms could be seen moving about, and voices and

laughter could be heard.

Martie briskly twisted the little rotary bell-handle that was set in

the centre of the front door, and before its harsh noise had died away,

the door was flung open and the Monroe sisters were instantly made a

part of the celebration. Hilarious members of the family and their even

more hilarious friends welcomed them in; the bare hallway was swarming

with young persons of both sexes; girls were coming down the stairs,

girls going up, and the complementary boys lined the wall, or,

grinning, looked on from the doorways.

The front room on the left, usually a bedroom, was used for a smoking

room to-night; the dining-room door had been locked, but on the right

two doors gave entrance to the long parlours, and here were older men,

older women--Mrs. Hawkes, big, energetic, perspiring all over her

delighted face; Carrie David, wild with hospitable excitement; and Joe

Hawkes, Senior, a lean little eager Irishman, quite in his glory

to-night. Throned on a sort of dais, in the front bay window, was

Grandma Kelly, a little shrivelled beaming old woman, in a crumpled,

shining, black satin gown. Her hair was scanty, showing a wide bald

parting, and to hear in all the confusion she was obliged occasionally

to cup one hand behind her ear, but her snapping eyes were as bright as

a monkey's and her lips, over toothless gums, worked constantly with a

rotary motion as she talked and laughed. On each side of her were

grouped other old ladies--Mrs. Sark, Mrs. Mulkey, Mrs. Hansen, and Mrs.

Mussoo--her friends since the days, fifty years before, when they had

crossed the plains in hooded wagons, and fought out their simple and

heroic destinies on these strange western prairies.

They had borne children, comforting and caring for each other in the

wilderness; they had talked of wolves and of Indians while trusting

little hands caught their knees and ignorant little lips pulled at

their breasts; they had known fire and flood and famine, crude offense

and cruder punishment; they had seen the Indians and the buffalo go

with the Missions and the sheep; they had followed the gold through its

sensational rise to its sensational fall, and had held the wheat

dubiously in their fingers before ever California's dark soil knew

it--had wondered whether the first apple trees really might come to

blossom and bear where the pines were cleared away.

And now, with the second and third generation, had come schools and

post-offices, cable cars and gaslight; villages were cities; crossroads

were towns. At seventy-eight, Grandma Kelly was far from ready for her

nunc dimittis. Great days had been, no doubt, but great days were also

to be. Children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren kept the house

swarming with life, and she could never have enough of it.

The air, never too fresh in the Hawkes's house, was hot and charged

with odours of cheap cologne, of powder, of human bodies, and of

perspiration-soaked garments. The very gaslights screamed above the din

as if they found it contagious. Large crayon portraits decorated the

walls, that of the late Mr. Kelly having attached to its frame the

sheaf of wheat that had lain on his coffin. On the walls also were the

large calendars of insurance companies, and one or two china plaques in

plush frames. A bead portiere hung between the two parlours, constantly

clicking and catching as the guests swarmed to and fro. All the chairs

in the house had been set about the walls, and all were occupied. A

disk on the phonograph was duly revolving, in charge of a hysterical

girl in blue silk and a flushed, humorous young man, but the music was

almost unheard.

Whatever their attitude toward this merrymaking had previously been,

the Monroe girls were instantly drawn into the spirit of the occasion.

Martie and Sally were dragged upstairs, where they left hats and coats,

were taken downstairs again with affectionate, girlish arms about their

waists; and found themselves laughing and shouting with the rest. Towed

through the boiling crowd to Grandma, they kissed the cool, soft old

face. They greeted the other old women with pretty enthusiasm.

Lydia meanwhile had decorously delivered her message of good wishes and

had drifted to a chair against the wall, where matrons greeted her

eagerly and where, in her own way, she began to enjoy herself.

Sentiment, hospitality, gaiety filled the air.

"Isn't Grandma wonderful?" said all the voices, over and over. "I think

she's wonderful! Mrs. Hawkes had a dinner for just the five old ladies,

you know. Wasn't that sweet? The family had to have their dinner

earlier--just the five old ladies. Wasn't that a cute idea? Ellen said

they looked perfectly dear, all together! Mary Clute couldn't get here

from San Francisco, you know, but she sent Grandma a tea-pot cover--the

cutest thing! Did you see the Davids' baby? It's upstairs, I guess;

it's a darling little thing! Think of it, three great-grandchildren!

Oh, I do, too; I think it's a lovely party--I think the rooms look

lovely--I think it was an awfully cute idea!"

The oldest David grandchild, becoming sodden with sleepiness, climbed

into Lydia's lap. Sally, after exchanging a conscious undertone with

young Joe, slipped through the dining-room door with him, and happily

joined the working forces in the kitchen. In her mind Sally knew that

the Hawkeses were but homely folk; she knew that any Monroe should

shrink from this hot and noisy kitchen. But Sally's heart welcomed the

eager bustle, the tasks so imperative that her timid little entity was

entirely forgotten, the talk that was friendly and affectionate and

comprehensible.

Joe and she laughed over piecing tablecloths together for the long

table, and kept a jingling ripple of laughter accompanying the jingling

of plated spoons and the thick glasses. Ellen and Grace, as the family

debutantes, were inside with the company, but Carrie and Min, the

married daughters, were here, with old Mrs. Crowley, who never missed

an occasion of this kind, Mrs. Mulkey's daughter Annie Tate, Gertie

Hansen, and an excited fringe of children too young to dance and too

old to be sent off to bed.

As it was the custom for the more intimate friends to bring a cake, a

pan of cookies, or a great jug of strong lemonade to such an affair,

there was more food than twice this surging group of men, women, and

children could possibly consume, so that the boys and girls could keep

their mouths full of oily, nutty, walnut wafers and broken bits of

layer cake without any conscientious scruples. One of the large kitchen

tables was entirely covered with plates bearing layer cakes, with

chocolate, maple, shining white, and streaky orange icings, or topped

with a deadly coating of fluffy cocoa-nut. On the floor half a dozen

ice cream freezers leaked generously; at the sink, Mrs. Rose, who had

been Minnie Hawkes, was black and sticky to the elbows with lemon juice.

Meanwhile Martie, more in tune with the actual jollity than either of

her sisters, was warming to her most joyous mood. Her costume of thin

white waist and worn serge skirt might have been considered deficient

in a more formal assembly, but here it passed without comment; the

girls' dresses varied widely, and no one seemed any the less gay. Grace

had a long streamer of what appeared to be green window-net tied

loosely about a worn pink satin slip; Elsa Prout wore the shepherdess

costume she had made for the Elks' Hallowe'en Dance, and Mrs. Cazley,

sitting with her back against the wall, wore her widow's bonnet with

its limp little veil falling down to touch her fresh white shirtwaist.

Martie improved her own costume by pinning a large pink tissue-paper

rose against her high white stock, and fastening another in her bronze

hair; the girls laughed appreciatively at her audacity; a vase of the

paper roses had been in the parlour for years. Youth and excitement did

the rest.

Here, where her motives could not be misunderstood, where her presence

indeed was to be construed as adding distinction and dignity to the

festivities, Martie could be herself. She laughed, she flirted with the

common yet admiring boys, she paid charming attention to the old women.

A rambling musical programme was presently set in motion; Martie's

voice led all the voices. She was presently asked to sing alone, and

went through "Believe Me" charmingly, putting real power and pathos

into the immortal words. Returning, flushed and happy in a storm of

clapping, to her place between Al Lunt and Art Carter on the sofa, she

kept those appreciative youths in such convulsions of laughter that

their entire neighbourhood was sympathetically affected. Carl Polhemus,

who played the organ at church, had begun a wandering improvisation on

the piano, evidently so taken with certain various chords and runs that

he could not resist playing them passionately over and over. A

dangerous laugh, started among the younger set, began to strangle and

stifle his audience. Martie, looking straight ahead of her, gave only

an occasional spasmodic heave of shoulders and breast, but her lips

were compressed in an agony, and her eyes full of tears. From the

writhing boys on each side of her came frequent smothered snorts.

In upon this scene came old Dr. Ben, who had worked hand in hand with

Grandma Kelly in the darkened rooms where many of these hilarious

youngsters had drawn their first breath. Although the infatuated

musician did not stop at this interruption, many of his listeners rose

to greet the newcomer, and the tension snapped.

Dr. Ben sat down next to the old lady, and the room, from which the

older guests were quietly disappearing, was enthusiastically cleared

for dancing. The air, close already, became absolutely insufferable

now; the men's collars wilted, the girls' flushed faces streamed

perspiration. But the cool side-porch was accessible, and the laughter

and noise continued unabated.

Quietly crossing the dark backyard for his horse and buggy at ten

o'clock, Dr. Ben came upon Joe Hawkes sitting on the shadowy steps

with--he narrowed his eyes to make sure--yes, with little Sally Monroe.

The old man formed his lips into a slow, thoughtful whistle as he

busied himself with straps and buckles. Slowly, thoughtfully, he

climbed into his buggy.

"Sally!" he called, sitting irresolute with the reins in his hands.

The opaque spot that was Sally's gown did not stir in the shadows.

"Sally!" he called again. "I see ye, and Joe Hawkes, too. Come here a

minute!"

She went then, slowly into the clear November moonlight.

"What is it, Doc' Ben?" she asked, in a rather thick voice and with a

perceptible gulp. Even in this light he could see her wet lashes

glitter.

For a minute he did not speak, fat hands on fat knees. Sally, innocent,

loving, afraid, hung her head before him.

"Like Joe, do ye, Sally?" said the mild old voice.

"I--" Sally's voice was almost inaudible--"why, I don't know, Doc,

Ben," she faltered. "My mother--my father--" she stopped short.

"Your father and mother, eh?" Dr. Ben repeated musingly, as if to

himself.

"I couldn't like--any one--if it was to make all the people who love me

unhappy, I suppose," Sally said in her mild, prim voice, with an effort

at lightness. "No happiness could come of that, could it, Doctor?"

To this dutiful expression the doctor made no immediate answer,

observing in a dissatisfied tone, after a pause: "That sounds like your

mother, or Lydia."

Sally, leaning against the shabby cushions of the carriage, looked down

in silent distress.

"There never could be anything serious between Joe Hawkes and I," she

said presently, with a little unnatural laugh. She was not quite sure

of her pronoun. She looked anxiously at Dr. Ben's face. It was still

troubled and overcast. Sally wondered uncomfortably if he would tell

her mother that she was seeing Joe frequently. As it chanced, she and

Joe had more than once encountered the old man on their solitary walks

and talks. She thought, in her amiable heart, that if she only knew

what Dr. Ben wanted her to say she would say it; or what viewpoint he

expected her to take she would assume it.

"Joe and I were helping Mrs. David," she submitted timidly, "and we

came out to sit in the cool."

"Don't be a hypocrite, Sally," the doctor said absently. Sally laughed

with an effort to make the conversation seem all a joke, but she was

puzzled and unhappy. "Well," said the doctor suddenly, gathering up his

reins and rattling the whip in its socket as a gentle hint to the old

mare, "I must be getting on. I want you to come and see me, Sally. Come

to-morrow. I want to talk to you."

"Yes, sir," Sally answered obediently. She would have put out her

tongue for his inspection then and there if he had suggested it.

When the old phaeton had rattled out of the yard she went back to the

shadows and Joe. She was past all argument, all analysis, all reason,

now. She hungered only for this: Joe's big clean young arms about her;

Joe's fresh lips, with their ignorant passion, against hers. For years

she had known Joe only by sight; a few months ago she had been merely

amused and flattered by the boy's crudely expressed preference; even

now she knew that for a Monroe girl, at twenty-one, to waste a thought

on a Hawkes boy of nineteen was utter madness. But a week or two ago,

walking home from church with her mother and herself on Sunday night,

Joe had detained her for a moment under the dooryard trees--had kissed

her. Sally was like a young tiger, tamed, petted, innocuous, whose

puzzled lips have for the first time tasted blood. Every fibre in her

being cried for Joe, his bashful words were her wisdom, his nearness

her very breath and being.

She clung to him now, in the dark kitchen porch, in a fever of pure

desire. Their hearts beat together. Sally's arms were bent against the

boy's big chest, as his embrace crushed her; they breathed like runners

as they kissed each other.

A moment later they went back into the kitchen to scoop the hard-packed

ice cream into variegated saucers and enjoy unashamedly such odd bits

of it as clung to fingers or spoon. The cakes had all been cut now,

enormous wedges of every separate variety were arranged on the plates

that were scattered up and down the long stretch of the table in the

dining room. The dancers and all the other guests filed out to enjoy

the supper, the room rang with laughter and screamed witticisms. A

popular feature of the entertainment was the mottoes, flat scalloped

candies of pink and white sugar, whose printed messages caused endless

merriment among these uncritical young persons. "Do You Love Me?"; "I

Am A Flirt"; "Don't Kiss Me"; "Oh, You Smarty," said the mottoes

insinuatingly, and the revellers read them aloud, exchanged them,

secreted them, and even devoured them, in their excessive delight.

Presently they all toasted Grandma Kelly in lemonade. The old lady,

with Lydia and some of the older women, was enjoying her cake and cream

in the parlour, but tears of pride and joy came to her eyes when the

young voices all rose with lingering enjoyment on "Silver Threads Among

the Gold," and there was a general wiping of eyes at "She's a Jolly

Good Fellow" which followed it. Then some of the girls rushed in to

kiss her once more, and, as it was now nearly twelve o'clock, Lydia

called her sisters, and they said their good-nights.

Walking home under a jaded moon, yawning and cold in the revulsion from

hours of excitement and the change from the heated rooms to the cold

night air, Lydia was complacently superior; they were certainly

warm-hearted, hospitable people, the Hawkeses, and she was glad that

they, the Monroes, had paid Grandma the compliment of going. Sally,

hanging on Lydia's arm, was silent. Martie, on her other arm, was

smilingly reminiscent. "That Al Lunt was a caution," she observed.

"Wasn't Laura Carter's dance music good? Wasn't that maple walnut cake

delicious?" She had eaten goodness knows how much ice cream, because

she sat at table between Reddy Johnson and Bernard Thomas, and every

time Carrie David or any one asked them if they wanted any more ice

cream, Bernie had put their saucers in his lap, and told Carrie that

they hadn't had any yet.

Len suddenly came up behind his sisters, frightening them with a deep

"Boo!" before he emerged from the blackness to join them.

"Javva good time?" he asked, adding carelessly, "I was there."

"Yes, you were!" Martie said incredulously. "You wish you were!"

"Honest, I was," Len said. "Honest I was, Lyd."

"Well, you weren't there until pretty late, Len," Lydia said in mild

disapproval.

"Lissun," Len suggested pleadingly. "Tell Pa I brought you girls home

from Hawkes's--go on! Lissun, Lyd, I'll do as much for you some time--"

"Oh, Len, how can I?" Lydia objected.

"Well, I went in, honest, early in the evening," the boy asserted

eagerly. "But I can't stand those boobs and roughnecks, so I went down

town for a while. Then I came back and waited until you girls came out

of the gate. I'll cross my heart and hope to die if I didn't!"

"If Pa asks me--" Lydia said inexorably.

For a few moments they all walked together in the dark. Then Len said

suddenly:

"Say, Mart, I saw Rod Parker to-night. He was down town, and he asked

me how my pretty sister was!"

"Did he?" Martie spoke carelessly, but her heart leaped.

"He talked a lot about you," went on Len, "he's going to call you up in

the morning about something."

"Oh--?" Martie mused. "I shouldn't wonder if it was about a dance we

were talking about," she said thoughtfully. She was quite acute enough

to see perfectly that Len was trying to enlist her silence in his cause

should their father make a general inquiry, and philosophical enough to

turn his mood to her own advantage. "Lissun, Len," said she, "if I try

to have a party you'll get the boys you know to come, won't you? There

are always too many girls, and I want it to go off nicely. You will,

won't you?"

"Sure I will," Len promised heartily. He and his sister perfectly

understood each other.

They all went quietly upstairs; Len to dreamless sleep, Sally to

thrilled memories of Joe--Joe--Joe, and Martie to shifting happy

thoughts of the evening and its little triumphs, thoughts that always

came back to Len's talk with Rodney. Rodney had asked Len for his

pretty sister.

Lydia lay wide awake for a long time. There was no doubt of it now; she

and her mother had told each other several times during the last month

or two that there was still doubt. But she was not mistaken to-night in

thinking that Len's breath was strong from something alcoholic, that

Len's eager, loose-lipped speech, his unusual manner--She went over and

over the words she would use in telling her mother all about it in the

morning. The two women would carry heavy hearts on Len's account for

the whole cold, silent day. But they would not tell Pa--no, there was

nothing sufficiently serious as yet to tell Pa!

CHAPTER V

Martie and Sally loitered through the village, past the post-office and

the main shops and down through the poorer part of the town. They

entered a quiet region of shabby old houses, turned into a deserted

lane, and opened the picket gate before Dr. Ben's cottage. The little

house in winter stood in a network of bare vines; in summer it was

smothered in roses, and fuchsias, marguerites, hollyhocks, and

geraniums pressed against the fence. Marigolds, alyssum, pansies, and

border pinks flourished close to the ground, with sweet William, stock,

mignonette, and velvet-brown wallflowers. Dr. Ben had planted all these

himself, haphazard, and loved the resulting untidy jumble of bloom,

with the lilac blossoms rustling overhead, birds nesting in his willow

and pepper trees, and bees buzzing and blundering over his flowers.

The house was not quite definite enough in type to be quaint; it

presented three much-ornamented gables to the lane, its windows were

narrow, shuttered inside with dark brown wood. At the back-between the

house and the little river, and shut away from the garden by a

fence--were a little barn, decorated like the house in scalloped wood,

and various small sheds and out-houses and their occupants.

Here lived the red cow, the old white mare, the chickens and pigeons,

the rabbits and bees that had made the place fascinating to Monroe

children for many years. Martie said to herself to-day that she always

felt like a child when she came to Dr. Ben's, shut once more into

childhood's world of sunshine and flowers and happy companionship with

animals and the good earth.

To-day the old man, with his setter Sandy, was busy with his

bookshelves when the girls went in. Two of the narrow low bay windows

that looked directly out on the level of the kitchen path were in this

room; the third, the girls knew, was a bedroom. Upstairs were several

unused rooms full of old furniture and piles of magazines, and back of

the long, narrow sitting room were a little dining room with Crimson

Rambler roses plastered against its one window, and a large kitchen in

which old Mis' Penny reigned supreme.

Here in the living room were lamps, shabby chairs, an air-tight stove,

shells, empty birds' nests, specimens of ore, blown eggs, snakeskins,

moccasins, wampum, spongy dry bees' nests, Indian baskets and rugs,

ropes and pottery, an enormous Spanish hat of yellow straw with a gaudy

band, and everywhere, in disorderly cascades and tumbled heaps, were

books and pamphlets and magazines.

Dr. Ben welcomed them eagerly and sent Martie promptly to the kitchen

to interview Mis' Penny on the subject of tea. The girls were quite at

home here, for the old doctor was Rose Ransome's mother's cousin, and

through their childhood the little gabled house had been the favourite

object of their walks. Sally, alone with her host, began to help him in

his hopeless attempt to get his library in order.

"The point is this, Sally," said Dr. Ben suddenly, after a few

innocuous comments on the weather and the health of the Monroe family

had been exchanged. "Have you and Joe Hawkes come to care for each

other?"

Sally flushed scarlet. She had been thinking hard--for Sally, who was

not given to thought--in the hours since the party for Grandma Kelly.

Now she began readily, with a great air of frankness.

"I'll tell you, Dr. Ben. I know you feel as if I was trying to hide

something from Ma and Pa, and it's worried me a good deal, too. But the

truth is, I've known Joe all my life, and he's only a boy, of

course--ever so much younger than I am--and he has just gotten this

notion into his head. Of course, it's perfectly ridiculous--because

naturally I am not going to throw my life away in any such fashion as

that! But Joe thinks now that he will never smile again--"

Thus Sally, kneeling among the books, her earnest, pretty, young face

turned toward the doctor, her eyes widely opened, as the extraordinary

jumble of words poured forth. The unpleasant sensation of their last

meeting, the confusing feeling that she was not saying what Dr. Ben

wanted her to say, beset her. She felt a sudden, dreadful inclination

toward tears, although with no clear sense of a reason for crying.

"I suppose all boys go through their silly stages like measles," said

Sally rapidly. "And it's only my misfortune and Joe's that his first

love affair had to be me. One reason why I haven't mentioned it at home

is--"

"Then you don't care for Joe?" the old man asked with his serious smile.

"Oh, Dr. Ben! Of course, I like Joe enormously, he's a dear sweet boy,"

Sally answered smoothly. "But you know as well as I do how my father

feels toward the village people in Monroe, and while the Hawkeses are

just as nice as they can be in their way--" again Sally's flow of

eloquence was strangely shaken; she felt as a child might, caught up in

the arm of a much larger person and rushed along helplessly with only

an occasional heartening touch of her feet to the ground--"after all,

that isn't quite our way, is it?" she asked. If only, thought the

nervous little girl who was Sally, if only she knew what Dr. Ben wanted

her to say!

"Why can't ye be honest with me, Sally?" said the doctor. "Ye love Joe,

don't ye?"

Sally's head dropped, the colour rose in her cheeks, and the tears

came. She nodded, and through all her body ran a delicious thrill at

the acknowledged passion.

"Ye've found each other out, in spite of them all!" said the old man

musingly. "And what does his age or yours, or his place or yours,

matter beside that? They've tried to fill you with lies, and you've

found that the lies don't hold water. Well--"

He straightened up suddenly, and began to march about the room. Sally,

kneeling still over the books, tears drying on her cheeks, watched him.

"Sally," said the doctor, "God made you and Joe Hawkes and your love

for each other. I don't know who made the social laws by which women

govern these little towns, but I suspect it was the devil. You've been

brought up to feel that if you marry a man Mrs. Cy Frost doesn't ask to

her house, you'll be unhappy ever after. But I ask you, Sally--I ask

you as a man old enough to be your father--if you had your home, your

husband, your health, your garden, and your children, wouldn't you be a

far happier woman than--than Lydia say, or Florence Frost, or all the

other girls who sit about this town waiting for a man with position

enough--position, BAH!--to marry?"

Sally's face was glowing.

"Oh, Dr. Ben, _I_ don't care anything about position!" she said, all

her honest innocence in her face.

"Then why do you act as if you did?" he said, well pleased.

"And would you advise me to marry Joe?" she asked radiantly.

"Joe--Tom--Billy, whomever you please!" he answered impatiently. "But

don't be afraid because he doesn't wear silk socks, Sally, or smoke a

monogrammed cigarette. Why, my child, that little polish, that little

fineness, is the woman's gift to her man! These Frosts and Parkers: it

was the coarse strength of their grandfathers that got them across the

plains; it was the women who packed the books in the horsehair trunks,

that read the Bibles and cleaned and sewed and prayed in the old home

way. You don't suppose those old miners and grocers, who came later to

be the city fathers, ever had as much education as Joe Hawkes, or half

as much!"

"I wish my father felt as you do, Doc' Ben," Sally said presently, the

brightness dying from her face. "But Pa will never, never--And even if

there were no other reason, why Joe hasn't a steady job--"

"That brings me to what I really want to say to you to-day, Sally," the

old man interrupted her briskly. He opened a desk drawer and took from

it a small, old-fashioned photograph. Sally saw a young woman's form,

disguised under the scallops, ruffles, and pleats of the early

seventies, a bright face under a cascade of ringlets, and a little oval

bonnet set coquettishly awry. "D'ye know who that is?" asked Dr. Ben.

"I--well, yes; I suppose?" murmured Sally sympathetically.

"Yes, it's my wife," he answered. "Mary--Our boy would be thirty. They

went away together--poor girl, poor girl! We wanted a big family,

Sally; we hoped for a houseful of children. And I had her for only

fifteen months--only fifteen months to remember for thirty years!"

Sally was deeply impressed. She thought it strangely flattering in Dr.

Ben to take her into his confidence in this way, and that she would

tell Martie about it as they walked home.

"No," he said musingly. "I never had a child! And Sally, if I had it

all to do over again, I'd marry again. I'd have sons. That's the

citizen's duty. Some day we'll recognize it, and then you bearers of

children will come into your own. There'll be recognition for every one

of them, we'll be the first nation to make our poor women proud and

glad when a child is coming. It's got to be, Sally."

Sally was listening politely, but she was not interested. She had heard

all this before, many times. Dr. Ben's extraordinary views upon the

value of the family were familiar to every one in Monroe. But her

attention was suddenly aroused by the mention of her own name.

"Now, supposing that you and Joe take it into your heads to get married

some day," the doctor was saying, "how about children?"

Sally's ready colour flooded her face. She made no attempt to answer

him.

"Would ye have them?" the old man asked impatiently.

"Why--why, Dr. Ben, I don't know!" Sally said in great confusion. "I--I

suppose people DO."

"You suppose people do?" he asked scornfully. "Don't ye KNOW they do?"

"Well, I don't suppose any girl thinks very much of such things until

she's married," Sally said firmly. "Mama doesn't like us to discuss--"

"Doesn't your mother ever talk to you about such things?" the old man

demanded.

"Certainly not!" Sally answered with spirit.

"What DOES she talk to you about?" he asked amazedly. "It's your

business in life, after all. She's not taught ye any other. What does

she expect ye to do--learn it all after it's too late to change?"

"All what?" Sally said, a little frightened, even a little sick. He

stopped his march, and looked at her with something like pity.

"All the needs of your soul and body," he said kindly, "and your

children's souls and bodies. Well! that's neither here nor there. But

the fact is this, Sally: I've no children of my own to raise. And as ye

very well know, I've got my own theories about putting motherhood on a

different basis, a business basis. I want you to let me pay you--as the

State ought to pay you--three hundred a year for every child you bear.

I want to demonstrate to my own satisfaction, before I try to convince

any Government, that if the child-bearing woman were put on a plane of

economic value, her barren, parasite sister would speedily learn--"

Sally had turned pale. Now she rose in girlish dignity.

"I hope you'll forgive me, Dr. Ben, for saying that I won't listen to

ONE word more. I know you've been thinking about these things so long

that you forget how OUTRAGEOUS they sound! Motherhood is a sacred

privilege, and to reduce it to--"

"So is wifehood, Sally!" the old man interposed soothingly.

"Well," she flashed back, "nobody's PAID for wifehood!"

"Oh, yes, my dear. You can sue a man for not supporting you. It's done

every day!"

"Then--then a man ought to pay the three hundred a year!" countered

Sally.

"Well, I'm with you there. But the world has got to see that before you

can force him." The doctor sighed. "So you won't let me stand

grandfather to your children, Sally?"

"Oh, if you WERE their grandfather!" she answered. "Then you could do

as you liked!"

"There you are, the parasite!" he said, smiling whimsically. "You're

your mother's daughter, Sally. Give you the least blood-claim on a

man's money, and you'll push it as far as you can. But offer to pay you

for doing the work God meant you to do and you're cut to the soul.

Well--"

He was still holding forth eloquently on the subject of children and

nations when Martie came back, and Sally, with a scarlet face, was

evidently lost in thoughts of her own.

As the girls walked home, Sally did not repeat to Martie her

conversation with the old doctor, nor for many weeks afterward. But

Martie did not notice her sister's indignant silence, for they met

Rodney Parker coming out of the Bank, and he walked with them to the

bridge, and asked Martie to go with him to see the Poulson Star Stock

Company in a Return Engagement Extraordinary on the following night.

Martie was conscious of passing a milestone in her emotional life on

the evening of this day, when she said to herself that she loved Rodney

Parker. She admitted it with a sort of splendid shame, as she went

about her usual household occupations, passing from the hot

pleasantness of the kitchen to the cool, stale odours of the dining

room; running upstairs to light the bathroom-and hall-gas for her

father and brother, and sometimes stepping for a moment into the

darkness of the yard to be alone with her enchanted thoughts.

All the young Monroes regarded their father's temperamental

shortcomings with stoicism, so that it was in no sense resentfully that

she faced the inevitable preliminaries that night.

"Pa," said she cheerfully over the dessert, "you don't mind if I go to

the show with Rodney to-morrow, do you?"

"This is the first I've heard of any show," Malcolm said stiffly,

glancing at his wife. Mrs. Monroe patiently told him what she knew of

it. "Why, no, I suppose there is no reason you shouldn't go," he

presently said discontentedly.

"Oh, thank you, Pa!" Martie said, with a soaring heart. He looked at

her dispassionately.

"Your sisters and your brother are going, I suppose?" Malcolm asked,

glancing about the circle. Martie told herself she might have known he

was not done with the subject so easily.

"I'm not--because I haven't the price!" grinned Leonard. His mother and

Lydia laughed.

"I don't suppose Martie proposes going alone with young Parker?"

Malcolm asked in well-assumed amazement.

"Why, Pa--I don't see why NOT" Mrs. Monroe protested weakly.

Her husband was magnificent in his surprise. He looked about in a sort

of royal astonishment.

"Don't you, my dear?" he asked politely. "Then permit me to say that

_I_ DO."

Martie sat dumb with despair.

"Certainly Martha may go, if Leonard and one of her sisters go; not

otherwise," said Malcolm. He retired to his library, and Martie had to

ease her boiling heart by piling the dinner dishes viciously, and

question no more.

However, she consoled herself, there was something rather dignified in

this arrangement, after all; Len was presentable, and she was always

the happier for being with Sally. She washed her only gloves, pressed

her suit, and spent every alternate minute during the next day

anxiously inspecting her chin where an ugly pimple threatened to form.

The family was again at dinner when Len broached a change of plan.

"Can I go up to Wilson's to-night, Pa?" he asked. Martie flashed him a

glance.

"I suppose so, for a little while," Malcolm said tolerantly. The girls

looked at each other.

"But I thought you were going to the Opera House with us?" Martie

exclaimed.

"Well, now you know I ain't," Len answered airily.

"I am not, Len," corrected his mother. Martie gave him a look of hate.

"Len says he promised to go to Wilson's," Lydia said placatingly. "So I

thought perhaps Sally and I would go with you--I'm sorry, Martie!"

For Martie's breast was heaving dangerously.

"Pa, didn't you say Len was to go with us?" she asked with desperate

calm.

"I said SOME ONE was to go," Malcolm said, disapproving of her

vehemence. "I confess I cannot see why it must be Len!"

"Because--because when a man asks a girl to go out with him he doesn't

ask the whole FAMILY!" Martie muttered in a fury. Her lip trembled, and

she got to her feet. "It doesn't matter in the least," she said in a

low, shaking voice, "because I am not going myself!"

Flashing from the room, she ran upstairs. She flung herself across her

bed, and cried stormily for ten minutes. Then she grew calmer, and lay

there crying quietly, and shaken by only an occasional long sob. It was

during this stage that Lydia came into the room, and sitting down

beside Martie's knees, patted her hand soothingly. Lydia's weak

acceptance of the younger sister's distaste for her company gave Martie

a sort of shamed heart-sickness.

"Don't!" said she huskily, jerking her arm away.

But Lydia was not to be rebuffed, and Martie was but nineteen, after

all, and longing for the happiness she had denied. An hour later, all

the prettier for her tears, she met Rodney at the hall door, the boy

making no sign of disappointment when Lydia and Sally joined them.

"But say, Martie," he said at once, "I've got only the two seats!"

"Oh, that's all right!" Lydia said quickly and cautiously. "We don't

have to SIT together!"

Martie's mood brightened and she flushed like a rose when the boy said

eagerly:

"Say, listen, Martie. My sister Ida's going to-night, and one or two

others, and Mrs. Cliff Frost is going to chaperon us afterward; ask

your mother if that's all right."

The girl wasted no time on her mother, but crossed to the library door.

"Pa," said she without preamble, "Mrs. Cliff Frost is chaperoning some

of them after the theatre tonight. Can I go?"

"Go where? Shut that door," her father said, half turning.

"Oh--I don't know; to the hotel, I suppose."

"Yes," her father said in a dry voice. "Yes," he added unwillingly. "Go

ahead."

So the evening was a great success; one of the memorable times. Martie

and Rodney walked ahead of her sisters down town, the boy gallantly

securing the girls' tickets before he and Martie went up the aisle to

their own seats. All Monroe was in the Opera House. Martie bowed and

smiled radiantly. Rodney's sister and Mrs. Frost and a strange man

presently returned her smile.

"Rod--wouldn't you rather be with your own family?"

"Well--what do you think?"

The enchantment of it, the warmth and stimulus of his admiration, his

absorbed companionship, how they changed the world for Martie! There

was a witchery in the air, the blood ran quick in her veins. The dirty

big hall, with its high windows, was fairyland; the whispering crowd,

Rodney's nearness, and the consciousness of her own youth and beauty,

her flushed cheeks and loosened bronze hair, acted upon Martie like

strong wine. She grew lovely beneath his very eyes; she was nineteen,

and she loved!

They talked incessantly, elaborating the simple things they said with a

by-play of eyes and hands, making the insignificant words rich with

lowered tones, with smiles and the meeting of eyes. He told Martie of

his college days; borrowing episodes at random from the lives of other

men, men whom he admired. Martie believed it all, believed that he had

written the Junior Farce, that he had been president of his class, that

the various college societies had disputed for his membership. In

return, she spun her own romances, flinging a veil of attractive

eccentricity over her father's character, generously giving Lydia an

anonymous admirer, and painting the dreary old mansion of North Main

Street as a sort of enchanted prison with her pretty restless self as

captive therein. The two exchanged brief French phrases, each believing

the other to have a fair command of the language, and Martie even

quoted poetry, to which Rodney listened in intense silence, his eyes

fixed upon hers.

Suddenly the house was darkened and the curtain rose. The play was "The

Sword of the King," a drama that seemed to Martie well suited to her

own exalted mood. She thought the whole company wonderful, the leading

lady especially gifted. She learned with awe that Rodney had known

Wallace Bannister, the leading man, more or less intimately for years.

An aunt of his lived in Pittsville and the two had met as boys and

later had been classmates for the brief period Bannister had remained

at the Leland Stanford University. Martie wrapped her beauty-starved

young soul in the perfect past, when men wore ruffles and buckles and

capes, and were all gallantry and courage, and when women were

beautiful and desired. Between the acts the delicious exchange of

confidences between herself and Rodney went on; they nibbled

Bonestell's chocolates from a striped paper bag as they talked, and

when the final curtain fell on a ringing line there were real tears of

pleasure in Martie's eyes.

"Oh, Rodney--this is LIVING!" she whispered, as they filed slowly out.

Sally and Lydia had considerately disappeared. Mrs. Clifford Frost was

waiting for them at the door, and Martie, with quick tact, fell into

conversation with the kindly matron, walking at her side down the

crowded street, and leaving Rodney to follow with the others. Little

Ruth Frost had had some trouble fearfully resembling diphtheria, and

Martie's first interested question was enough to enlist the mother's

attention. The girl did not really notice the others in the party.

They crossed muddy Main Street, passed Wilkins's Furniture and Coffin

Parlours, and went into the shabby French restaurant known as Mussoo's.

The little eating house, with its cheap, white-painted shop window,

looking directly upon the sidewalk, its pyramid of oyster shells

cascading from a box set by the entrance, its jangling bell that the

opening door set to clanging, its dingy cash register, damp

tablecloths, and bottles of red catsup, was not a place to which Monroe

residents pointed with pride. Martie would ordinarily have passed it as

one unaware of its existence.

But it seemed a thoroughly daring and exciting thing to come here

to-night; quite another thing from going to the hotel for vanilla ice

cream and chocolate--even supposing the hotel had kept its dining room

open for a change, after the six o'clock supper--or to Bonestell's for

banana specials. This--this was living! Martie established herself

comfortably in the corner, slipped off her coat, smiled lazily at

Rodney's obvious manipulation of the party so that he should be next

her, played with her hot, damp, blackened knife and fork, and was in

paradise.

Ida Parker was in the party, and Florence Frost. The men were Clifford

Frost, a pleasant young man getting stout and bald at forty; Billy

Frost, a gentle little lad of fifteen who was lame; Rodney, and a

rosy-cheeked, black-moustached Dr. Ellis from San Francisco, whose

occasional rather simple and stupid remarks were received with great

enthusiasm by Ida and Florence.

In this group Martie shone. She had her own gift for ready nonsense,

and she was the radiant element that blended the varied types into a

happy whole. She skilfully ignored Rodney; Billy, Mary, Cliff, and even

Dr. Ellis were drawn into her fun. Rodney glowed. "Isn't she great?" he

said to Mary Frost in an aside.

A large bowl of small crackers was set before them, damp squares of

strong butter on small nicked plates, finally a bowl of pink, odorous

shrimps. These were all gone when, after a long wait, the fried oysters

came smoking hot, slipped straight from the pan to the plates. Martie

drank coffee, as Mary did; the others had thick goblets of red wine.

With the hot, warming food, their gaiety waxed higher; everybody felt

that the party was a great success.

The bell on the door reverberated, and a man came in alone, and looked

about undecidedly for a seat.

"Hello!" said Rodney. "There's Wallace Bannister!"

The young actor joined them. And this, to Martie, was one of the most

thrilling moments of her life. He quite openly wedged his way in to sit

on the other side of her; he said that he could see they didn't need

the gaslight when Miss Monroe was along. Rodney said she was Brunhilde,

and Bannister's comment was that she could save wig bills with that

hair! Florence said eagerly that she loved Brunhilde--let's see, what

opera did that come in? It was the Ring, anyway. The spirits of the

group rose every second.

Ah, this was living--thought Martie. Oysters and wine and a real actor,

a man who knew the world, who chattered of Portland, Los Angeles, and

San Francisco as if they had been Monroe and Pittsville. It was

intoxicating to hear him exchanging comments with Rodney; no, he hadn't

finished "coll." "I'm a rolling stone, Miss Monroe; we actor-fellows

always are!" He was "signed up" now; he gave them a glimpse of a long,

typewritten contract. Martie ventured a question as to the leading lady.

"She's a nice woman," said Wallace Bannister generously. "I like to

play against Mabel. Jesse Cluett, her husband, is in the play; and his

kid, too, her stepson--Lloyd--he's seventeen. Ever try the profession,

Miss Monroe?"

Martie flushed a pleased disclaimer. But the tiny seed was sown,

nevertheless. She liked the question; she was even vaguely glad that

Mrs. Cluett was forty and a married woman.

Wallace Bannister was older than Rodney, thirty or thirty-two, although

even off the stage he looked much younger. He had dipped into college

work in a dull season, amusing himself idly in the elementary classes

of French and English where his knowledge in these branches gave him

immediate prominence--and drifting away in a road company after only a

few months of fraternity and campus popularity. His mother and father

were both dead; the latter had been a theatrical manager in a small

way, sending little stock companies up and down the coast for one-night

stands.

Bannister was tall, well-built, and handsome. His cheeks had a fresh

fullness, and his black hair was as shining as wet coal. He was eager

and magnetic; musical, literary, or religious, according to the company

in which he found himself. Martie's thrilled interest firing him

to-night, he exerted himself: told stories in Chinese dialect, in

brogue, and with an excellent Scotch burr; he went to the rickety

piano, and from the loose keys, usually set in motion by a nickel in

the slot, he evoked brilliant songs, looking over his shoulder with his

sentimental bold eyes at the company as he sang. And Martie said to

herself, "Ah--this IS life!"

Rodney took her home, the clock in the square booming the half hour

after midnight as they went by. And at the side door he told her to

look up at the Dipper throbbing in the cool sky overhead. Martie knew

what was coming, but she looked innocently up, and went to sleep for

the first time in her life with a man's kiss still tingling on her

smiling lips.

The cold November weather might have been rosy June; the dull routine

of the Monroe home a life rich and full for Martie now. She sang like a

lark, feeding the chickens in the foggy mornings; she dimpled at her

own reflection in the mirror; she walked down town as if treading the

clouds. Anything interested her, everything interested her. Mrs. Harry

Locker, born Preble, said that Martie just seemed inspired, the way she

talked when old lady Preble died. Miss Fanny, in the Library, began to

entertain serious hopes that the girl would take the Cutter system to

heart, and make a clever understudy at the old desk. Sally, watching,

dreamed and yearned of Martie's distinction, Martie's happiness; Lydia

prayed. Malcolm Monroe, as became a man of dignity, ignored the whole

affair, but Len, realizing that various advantages accrued, befriended

his sister, and talked to Rodney familiarly, as man to man.

"I can't stand that fresh kid!" said Rodney of Len. Martie shrugged

without speaking. She owed Len no allegiance. Had it suited Rodney to

admire Len, Martie would have been a loyal sister. As it was, she would

not risk a difference with Rodney for any one like Len. She was

embarked now upon a vital matter of business. Had a few hundreds of

dollars been involved, Malcolm Monroe would have been at her elbow,

advising, commending. As it was, her happiness, her life, her children,

her whole future might be jeopardized or secured with no sign from him.

Interference from her mother or sisters would have been considered

indelicate. So Martie stood alone.

Immediately after the theatre party, the question of a series of dances

again arose, and Martie somewhat hesitatingly repeated her offer of the

Monroe house for the first. Rodney's friend, Alvah Brigham, was to come

to the Parker family for Thanksgiving; the dance was to be on Friday

night, and a large picnic to Brewster's Woods on Saturday. They would

take a lunch, build a fire for their coffee, and have the old

school-day programme of singing and games.

For the dance, the two big parlours and the back room must be cleared;

that was simple enough. Angela Baxter would be at the piano for the

music; sufficient, if not extraordinary, and costing only two dollars.

The supper would be sandwiches, cake, coffee, and lemonade: Monroe's

invariable supper. Rodney thought ices necessary, and suggested at

least a salad. Martie and Sally considered the salad.

"Lord, I wish we could have a punch," Rodney complained. The girls

laughed.

"Oh, Rod--Pa would explode!"

"Darn it," the boy mused, "I don't see WHY. He's not a teetotaler."

"Well, I know," Martie conceded. "But that's different, of course!

No--we can't have punch. I don't know how to make it, anyway--" She was

hardly following her own words. Under them lay the wonderful

consciousness that Rodney Parker was here at the house, sitting on the

porch steps on a warm November morning, as much at home as Leonard

himself. The sun was looking down into the dark garden, damp paths were

drying in sudden warmth after a rain.

In such an hour and such a mood, Martie felt absolutely confident that

the dance would be a great success. More; it seemed to her in the

heartening morning sunlight that it would be the first of many such

innocent festivities, and that before it was over--before it was over,

she and Rodney might have something wonderful to tell the girls and

boys of Monroe.

But in the long winter afternoons her confidence waned a little, and at

night, dreaming over her cards, she began to have serious misgivings.

Then the old house seemed cold and inhospitable and the burden of

carrying a social affair to success fell like a dreadful weight on the

girl's soul. Mama, Lydia, and Sally would cooperate to the best of

their power, of course; Pa and Len might be expected to make themselves

as annoying as possible.

Supper, decorations, even the question of gowns paled before the task

of making a list of guests. Sally and Martie early realized that they

must inevitably hurt the feelings and disappoint the trust of more than

one old friend. Mrs. Monroe and Lydia grew absolutely sick over the

necessity.

"Ma, this is just for the younger set," Martie argued. "And if people

like Miss Fanny and the Johnsons expect to come to it, why, it's

ridiculous, that's all!"

"I know, dear, but it's the first party we have given in YEARS" her

mother said plaintively, "and one hates to--"

"What I've DONE" said Martie in a worried tone, "is write down all the

POSSIBLE boys in Monroe, even counting Len and Billy Frost, and Rod,

and Alvah Brigham. Then I wrote down all the girls I'd like to ask if I

COULD, and there were about fourteen too many. So now I'm scratching

off all the girls I CAN--"

"I do think you ought to ask Grace Hawkes!" Lydia said firmly and

reproachfully.

"Well, I can't!" Martie answered quickly. "So it doesn't matter what

you think! I beg your pardon, Lyd," she added penitently, laying her

hand on Lydia's arm. "But you know Rodney's sisters would die if Grace

came!"

"Well, I think it's a mistake to slight Grace," Lydia persisted.

Martie studied her pencilled list gloomily for a few seconds.

"Sometimes I wish we weren't having it!" she said moodily.

"Oh, Martie, when we've always said we'd give ANYTHING to entertain as

other people do!" Sally exclaimed. "I DO think that's unreasonable!"

Martie made no answer. She was looking at a memorandum which read:

"Invitations--cream--Angela--stamps--illusion--slippers."

As the days went by the thought of the dance grew more and more

troublesome. The details of the affair were too strange to be entered

into with any confidence, any rush of enthusiasm and spontaneity. Every

hour brought her fresh cause for worry.

Nothing went well. The thought of her dress worried her. She had

conceived the idea of a black gown ornamented with cretonne roses,

carefully applied. She and Sally cut out the flowers, and applied them

with buttonhole stitch, sewing until their fingers were sore, their

faces flushed, and their hair in frowsy disorder. It was slow work.

Miss Pepper, the seamstress, engaged for one day only to do the

important work on both Sally's and Martie's gown, kept postponing, as

she always did postpone, the day, finally appointing the Wednesday

before Thanksgiving Day. Pa's cousin, a certain Mrs. Potts, wrote from

Portland that she was coming down for the holiday, and Sally and Martie

could have wept at the thought of the complication of having her

exacting presence in the house. Worse than this Pa, who was to have

gone to San Francisco on business on Friday morning--whose decision to

do so had indeed been one of Martie's reasons for selecting this date

for the affair--suddenly changed his plan. He need not go until

December, he said.

Leonard, who at first had been faintly interested in the proceedings,

later annoyed his sisters by intimating that he would not be present at

the dance. Martie and Sally did not want him for any social qualities

he possessed, but he was a male; he would at least help to offset the

alarming plurality of females.

Acceptances came promptly from the young women of Monroe, even from Ida

and May Parker. Florence Frost regretted; she was smitten even now with

the incurable illness that would end her empty life a few years later.

Such men as Martie and Sally had been able to list as eligible--the new

young doctor from the Rogers building, little Billy Frost, the

Patterson boys, home from college for Thanksgiving, Reddy Johnson, and

Carl Polhemus--answered not at all, as is the custom with young men.

Sally and Martie did not like the Patterson boys; George was fat and

stupid; Arthur at eighteen sophisticated and blase, with dissipated

eyes; both were supercilious, and the girls did not really believe that

they would come. Still, there was not much to lose in asking them.

There had been a debate over Reddy Johnson's name; but Reddy was a

wonderful dancer. So he was asked, and Martie went so far as to say

that had Joe Hawkes possessed an evening suit, he and Grace might have

been asked, too. As it was, Sally and Martie hoped they would not meet

Grace until the affair was over.

They fumed and fussed over the list until they knew it by heart. They

wondered who would come first, how soon they should begin dancing, how

soon serve supper. Mrs. Monroe thought supper should be served at

half-past ten. Martie groaned. Oh, they couldn't serve supper until

almost midnight, she protested.

Dinner was at noon on Thanksgiving Day, and the Monroes, sated and

overwarm, were sitting about the fire when Rodney Parker and his

friend, Alvah Brigham, came to take Martie and Sally walking. The girls

were sewing at the endless roses; but they jumped up in a flutter, and

ran for hats and sweaters. They did not exchange a word, nor lose a

second, while they were upstairs, running down again immediately to end

the uncomfortable silence that held the group about the fire.

It was a cold, bleak day, and the pure air was delicious to Martie's

hot cheeks after the close house. She had immediately taken possession

of Alvah; Sally and Rodney followed. They took the old bridge road,

which the girls loved for the memory of bygone days, when they had

played at dolls' housekeeping along the banks of the little Sonora,

climbed the low oaks, and waded in the bright shallow water. Even

through to-day's excitement Martie had time for a memory of those

long-ago summer afternoons, and she said to herself with a vague touch

of pain that it would of course be impossible to have with any man the

serene communion of those days with Sally.

Mr. Brigham was a pale, rather fat young man with hair already

thinning. He did not have much to say, but he was always ready to

laugh, and Martie saw that he had cause for laughter. She rattled on

recklessly, anxious only to avoid silence; hardly conscious of what she

said. The effect of the cool, fresh air was lost upon Martie to-day;

she was fired to fever-pitch by Rodney's nearness.

He had not ever said anything exactly loverlike, she said to herself,

with a sort of breathless discontent, when she was setting the table

for a cold supper that night. But he had brought his friend to them

after all! She must not be exacting. She had so much--

"I beg your pardon, Cousin Allie?" she stammered. Her obnoxious

relative, a stout, moustached woman of fifty, warming her skirts at the

fire, was smiling at her unkindly.

"You always was a great one to moon, Martha!" said Mrs. Potts, "I's

asking you what you see in that young feller to make such a to-do

about?"

"Then you don't like him?" Martie countered, laughing. Mrs. Potts

bridled. Her favourite attitude toward life was a bland but suspicious

superiority; she liked to be taken seriously.

"I didn't say I didn't like him," she answered, accurately, a little

nettled. "No, my dear, I didn't say that. No. I wouldn't say that of

any young man!" she added thoughtfully.

Smiling a dark smile, she looked into the fire. Martie, rather

uncomfortable, went on with her task.

"He's seemed to admire our Mart in a brotherly sort of way since the

very beginning," Lydia explained, anxious as usual to say the kind

thing, and succeeding as usual in saying the one thing that could hurt

and annoy. "He's quite a boy for the girls, but we think our Martie is

too sensible to take him seriously, yet awhile!" And Lydia gave her

sister a smile full of sweet significance.

"HOPE she is!" Mrs. Potts said heavily. "For if that young feller means

business I miss MY guess!"

"Oh, for pity's sake--can't a man ask a girl to go walking without all

this fuss!" Martie burst out angrily. "I NEVER heard so

much--crazy--silly--talk--about--nothing!"

The last words were only an ashamed mumble as she disappeared

kitchenward.

"H'm!" said Mrs. Potts, eying Lydia over her glasses. "Kinder touchy

about him just the same. Well! what's he to that young feller used to

come see you, Lydia? Ain't the Frosts and the Parkers kin?"

"I really think she's the most detestable old woman that ever was!"

Martie said, when the three girls were going to bed that night. Lydia,

loitering in her sister's room for a few minutes, made no denial.

"Well, by this time to-morrow night the party will be nearly over!"

yawned Sally.

Martie looked at the clock. A quarter past eleven. What would be

happening at quarter past eleven to-morrow night?

The girls awakened early, and were early astir. A rush of preparation

filled the morning, so soothing in its effect upon nerves and muscles

that Martie became wild with hope. The parlours looked prettier than

the girls had ever seen them; the pungent sweetness of chrysanthemums

and evergreen stealing into the clean, well-aired spaces, and bowls of

delicious violets sending out currents of pure perfume. Martie swept,

straightened, washed gas globes, shook rugs. She gathered the flowers

herself, straightening the shoulders that were beginning to ache as she

arranged them with wet, cool fingers. Sally was counting napkins,

washing china and glass. Belle dragged through the breakfast dishes.

Lydia was capably mixing the filling for sandwiches. Outside, the

morning was still; fog dripped from the trees. Sometimes the sudden

sputtering chuckle of disputing chickens broke the quiet; a fish cart

rattled by unseen, the blare of the horn sending Mrs. Monroe with a

large empty platter to the gate.

At two o'clock Lydia and Martie walked down town for the last shopping.

Martie was aware, under the drumming excitement in her blood, that she

was already tired. But to buy bottled cherries for the lemonade, olives

for the sandwiches, and flat pink and white mint candies was

exhilarating, and Reddy Johnson's cheery "See you to-night, Martie!"

made her blue eyes dance with pleasure. After all, a dance was no such

terrible matter!

They were in Mason and White's, seated at a counter, in consultation

over a purchase of hairpins, when two gloved hands were suddenly

pressed over Martie's eyes, and a joyous voice said "Hello!" The next

instant Rose's eyes were laughing into hers.

"Rose Ransome!" Martie and Lydia said together. The two younger girls

began to chatter eagerly.

Why, when had she gotten home? Only this morning. And oh, it did seem

so good to be home! And how was everybody? And how was college? Oh,

fine! And was she still at the same house? Oh, yes! And so poor old

Mrs. Preble was dead? Uncle Ben had felt so badly--

"Say, Rose, we're having a sort of party to-night," Martie said

awkwardly, and with a certain hesitation. Details followed. Rose, as

pretty as a bird in her little checked suit and feathered hat, listened

with bright interest. "Why can't you come?" Martie finished eagerly.

"The more the merrier!"

"Well--no." Rose hesitated prettily. "My first evening at home, you

know--I think I hadn't better. I'd love to, Martie. And about the

picnic to-morrow; that I CAN do! What'll I bring?"

"Rose is a sweet little thing," Lydia said, when the sisters were

walking home again. "I'm sorry she can't come to-night; she has a way

of making things GO."

Martie did not answer. She was mentally, for the hundredth time,

putting on the black gown with the pink roses stitched all about the

flounce, and piling up her bronze hair.

The short afternoon waned, fog closing in the village again with the

dark. Martie and Sally came down to supper with thin little crepe

wrappers over their crisp skirts and best stockings and slippers. Both

girls had spent the late afternoon in bathing, taking last stitches,

laughing and romping over the upper floor, but the blazing colour in

their faces now was as much from nervous fatigue as from excitement.

Neither was hungry, nor talkative, and Mrs. Potts and their father

monopolized the conversation.

Len was sulky because he had played his usual game badly this evening,

and chance failing him had favoured the girls. He had asked to be

excused from the party, to their deep but unexpressed indignation, and

had almost won his father's consent to a request to go down town a

while, when a casual inquiry from Malcolm as to what he intended to do

down town inspired Len to a reminiscent chuckle and an artless

observation that gee! he might get a chance to sit outside of the hotel

and watch Colonel Frost's new automobile for him, if the Colonel, as

was usual, came down to the monthly meeting of the Republican Club.

For a few seconds Malcolm did not sense the full indignity of his son's

position as groom for Cyrus Frost. When he did, Leonard had a bad

quarter of an hour, and was directed to get into his Sunday suit, make

himself as useful and agreeable to his sisters as was possible, and let

his father hear no more of this nonsense about old Frost and his

automobile.

Chuckling over this turn of events, the girls went upstairs to finish

dressing. Sally, in an old pink gown, freshly pressed, was pretty; but

Martie, turning flushed and self-conscious from the dim old mirror, was

quite lovely. The black gown made her too-generous figure seem almost

slender; the cretonne roses glowed richly against the black, and

Martie's creamy skin and burnished hair were all the more brilliant for

the contrast. Her heart rose buoyantly as she realized the success of

the gown, and she ran downstairs with sudden gay confidence in herself

and her party.

Her father and mother, with Mrs. Potts, had considerately disappeared.

Malcolm had gone down town; the ladies, wrapped in shawls, were

gossiping in Mrs. Potts's vaultlike chamber. Lydia was moving about in

the downstairs rooms.

"Oh, Martie, Rose telephoned," Lydia said as her sister came in, "and

she says that Mr. Rice and her mother say she must come up to-night, if

it's only for a little while. She's going to bring her violin."

"Oh, that's good," Martie answered absently, sitting down to play "The

Two Grenadiers" with great spirit. "There's some one now, Lyd!" she

added in a half panic, as the doorbell rang. Lydia, her colour rising

suddenly, went to the door, raising her hand above as she passed under

the gaslight to turn the lights to their full brilliancy. The first

arrival was Angela Baxter, with her music roll under her arm. She

kissed Lydia, and went upstairs with Sally.

Then there were other feet on the porch: in came the German girls and

Laura Carter, hooded in knitted fragile scarfs, and wrapped in pale

blue and pink circular capes edged narrowly with fluffy eiderdown.

Elmer King, hoarsely respectful, and young Potter Street followed.

Martie, taking the girls upstairs, called back to them that she would

send Len down. While they were all in Lydia's room, laying off wraps

and powdering noses, Maude Alien came up, and "Dutch" Harrison's older

sister Kate, and Amy Scott, and Martie was so funny and kept them all

in such roars of laughter that Sally was conscious of a shameless wish

that this was what Monroe called a "hen party," with no men asked. Then

they could have games, Proverbs and even Hide-the-Thimble, and every

one would feel happy and at home.

When they went down Robert Archer, a quiet mild young man who was in

the real estate business, had come; and he and Elmer and Potter were

sitting silently in the parlour. Martie and Sally and the other girls

went in, and every one tried to talk gaily and naturally as the young

men stood up, but there seemed to be no reason why they should not all

sit down, and, once seated, it seemed hard to talk. What Martie said

was met with a nervous glimmer of laughter and a few throaty

monosyllables.

Sally wanted to suggest games, but did not dare. Martie, and indeed

every one else, would have been glad to play Proverbs and Twenty

Questions, but she did not quite like to begin anything so childish at

a real dance. She looked at the clock: just nine. The evening was yet

young.

Suddenly Angela Baxter stopped murmuring to Lydia, and began to rattle

a quick two step from the piano. Robert Archer, sitting next to Martie,

asked her at once to dance, and Potter Street asked Sally, but both

girls, glancing self-consciously at their guests, declined, and the

young men subsided. So nobody danced the first dance, and after it

there was another lull. Then Martie cheerfully asked Angela for a

waltz, and said bravely:

"Come on, some of you, DO dance this! I can't because I'm hostess."

At this there was some subdued laughter, and immediately the four young

men found partners, and two of the girls danced together. Then little

Billy Frost came in, and after him, as fresh and sweet as her name,

came Rose with the Monroe's only dentist, Bruce Tate. Dr. Tate was a

rather heavy young man, flirtatious and conceited.

Rose put her violin on the piano, and explained that she had met Rodney

Parker that afternoon, "hadn't seen him for YEARS!" and that he had

talked her into coming. No--she wouldn't play until later laughed Rose;

now she wanted to dance.

The hours that followed seemed to Martie like years. She never forgot

them. She urged her guests into every dance with almost physical force;

she felt for the girls who did not dance a nervous pity. Ida and May

came in: neither danced, nor was urged to dance. They went home at ten

o'clock. It was immediately afterward that Rodney came with his friend.

Martie met them in the hall, ready for the intimate word, the smile

that should make all this tiresome business of lights and piano and

sandwiches worth while. Rodney was a little flushed and noisy, Alvah

red-faced, breathing and speaking a little thickly. They said they were

thirsty.

"Lemonade?" Martie suggested confidently.

Rodney glanced quickly at his friend. "Oh, Gawd!" said Mr. Brigham

simply.

Then they were in the hot parlour, and Martie was introducing them to a

circle that smiled and said "Pleased to meet choo," over and over.

Alvah would not dance, remarking that he hated dancing. And

Rodney--Rodney had eyes for no one but Rose. Martie saw it, every one

saw it.

Rose was at her best to-night. She knew college songs that Rodney and

Alvah knew, she dimpled and coquetted with the pretty confidence of a

kitten. She stood up, dainty and sweet in her pink gown, and played her

violin, with the gaslight shining down into her brown eyes, and her

lace sleeve slipping back and forth over her white arm as the bow

whipped to and fro.

Rodney did not leave her side, except for a dance with Martie and one

with Sally. After a while he and Rose went out to sit on the stairs.

Alvah grew noisy and familiar, and Martie did not know quite how to

meet his hilarity, although she tried. She was afraid the echoes of his

wild laugh would greet her father's ears, if he had come in and was

upstairs, and that Pa might do something awful.

The evening wore on. Lydia looked tired, and Sally was absolutely mute,

listening politely to Robert Archer's slow, uninteresting narration of

the purchase of the Hospital site. Martie felt as if she had been in

this dreadful gaslight forever; she watched the clock.

At eleven they all went out to the dining room, and here the first real

evidences of pleasure might be seen on the faces of the guests. Now

Lydia, too, was in her favourite element, superintending coffee cups,

while Sally, alert again, cut the layer cakes. The table looked

charming and the sandwiches and coffee, cream and olives, were swiftly

put in circulation. Under the heartening rattle of cutlery and china

every one talked, the air was scented with coffee, the room so warm

that two windows by general consent were opened to the cool night.

Martie took her share of the duties of hospitality as if in an

oppressive dream. Rodney sat beside her, and Rose on his other side. To

an outsider Martie might have seemed her chattering self, but she

knew--and Sally knew--that the knife was in her heart. She said

good-night to Rodney brightly, and kissed Rose. Rodney was to take Rose

home because, as she explained to Martie in an aside, it was almost on

his way, and it seemed a shame to take Dr. Tate so far.

"I've been scolding Rod terribly; those boys had highballs or something

before they came here," Rose said, puckering her lips and shaking her

head as she carefully pinned a scarf over her pretty hair. "So silly!

That's what we were talking about on the stairs."

She tripped away on Rodney's arm. Alvah, complaining of a splitting

head, went off alone. Somehow the others filtered away; Angela Baxter,

who was to spend the night with Lydia, piled the last of the dishes

with Lydia in the kitchen. Sally, silent and yawning, sank into an

armchair by the dying fire. Martie, watching the lanterns, and hearing

the voices die away after the last slamming of the gate, stood on the

dark porch staring into the night. The trees scarcely showed against a

heavy sky, a restless wind tossed their uppermost branches; a few drops

of rain fell on a little gust of air. The night was damp and heavy; it

pressed upon the village almost like a soft, smothering weight. Martie

felt as if she could hear the world breathe.

With miserable, dry eyes, she looked up at the enveloping blackness;

drops of rain on her burning face, a chill shaking her whole body in

the thin gown. Martie wanted to live no longer; she longed to press

somehow into that great silent space, to cool her burning head and

throbbing heart in those immeasurable distances on distances of dark.

She did not want to go back into the dreadful house, where the chairs

were pushed about, and the table a wreck of wilted flowers and crumbs,

where the air was still laden with the odour of coffee and cigarettes.

She did not want to reclaim her own shamed and helpless little entity

after this moment of escape.

Her own pain and mortification--ah, she could have borne those. But to

have Lydia and Sally and Len and all Monroe sorry for her ...

Martie did not sleep that night. She tossed in a restless agony of

remembering, and the pitiable party seemed a life-failure, as she lay

thinking of it in the dark, a colossal blunder never to be obliterated.

They were unlucky--the Monroes. They never could do things like other

people.

Early in the cold dawn she heard the quiet slop and spatter of rain.

Thank God there could be no picnic to-day! Exhausted, she slept.

CHAPTER VI

Whatever Lydia, her mother, and Sally agreed between themselves the

next day they never told, but there was a conspiracy immediately on

foot. Little was said of the party, and nothing of Rodney Parker, for

many days. And if Martie in her fever of hurt pride was not openly

grateful, at least they knew her benefited by the silence. Rose had no

such compunction.

On the afternoon of the long rainy Saturday that was to have been

filled with a picnic, Rose telephoned. She just wanted to see how every

one was--and say what a lovely time she'd had! Ida Parker had just

telephoned, and Rose was going up there at about four o'clock to stay

for dinner, just informally, of course. She would go back to Berkeley

to-morrow night, but she hoped to see the girls in the meantime.

Silently, heavily, Martie went on wiping the "company" dishes, carrying

them into the pantry shelves where they had been piled untouched for

years, and where they would stand again unused for a long, long time.

Sally was tired, and complained of a headache. Lydia was irritatingly

cheerful and philosophical. Len had disappeared, as was usual on

Saturday, and Mrs. Monroe and Mrs. Potts were talking in low tones over

the sitting-room fire. Outside, the rain fell and fell and fell.

Martie thought of Rose, laughing, pink-cheeked, discarding her neat

little raincoat with Rodney's help at four o'clock, at the Parkers'

house, and bringing her fresh laughter into their fire. She thought of

her at six--at seven--and during the silent two hours when she brooded

over her cards.

Coming out of church the next morning, Rose rejoiced over the clear

bath of sunlight that followed the rain. "Rod is going to take me

driving," she told Martie. "I like him ever so much; don't you, Martie?"

Alice Clark, coming in for a chat with Lydia late that afternoon, added

the information that when little Rose Ransome left the city at four

o'clock, Rod Parker and that fat friend of his went, too. Escorting

Rose--and he and Rose would have tea in the city before he took her to

Berkeley--Martie thought.

That was the beginning, and now scarcely a day passed without its new

sting. The girl was not conscious of any instinct for bravery; she did

not want to be brave, she wanted to draw back from the rack--to escape,

rather than to endure. A first glimpse of happiness had awakened

fineness in her nature; she had been generous, sweet, ambitious, only a

few weeks ago. She had given new thought to her appearance, had carried

her big frame more erectly. All her bigness, all her capacity for

loving and giving she would have poured at Rodney's feet; his home, his

people, his hopes, and plans--these would have been hers.

Repulsed, this gold of youth turned to brass; through long idle days

and wakeful nights Martie paid the cruel price for a few hours of

laughter and dreaming. She was not given another moment of hope.

Not that she did not meet Rodney, for in Monroe they must often meet.

And when they met he greeted her, and they laughed and chatted gaily.

But she was not Brunhilde now, and if Sally or Lydia or any one else

was with her she knew he was not sorry.

In the middle of December Rose's mother, the neat little widow who was

like an older Rose, told Sally that Rose was not going back to college

after Christmas. Quietly, without comment, Sally told this to Martie

when they were going to bed that night.

Martie walked to the window, and stood looking out for a long time.

When she came back to Sally her face was pale, her breast moving

stormily, and her eyes glittering.

"They're engaged, I suppose?" Martie said.

Sally did not speak. But her eyes answered.

"Sally," said her sister, in a voice thick with pain, as she sat down

on the bed, "am I to blame? Could I have done differently? Why does

this come to Rose, who has everything NOW, and pass me by? I--I don't

want to be like--like Lyd, Sally; I want to live! What can I do? Oh, my

GOD," said Martie, rising suddenly and beginning to walk to and fro,

with her magnificent mane of hair rolling and tumbling about her

shoulders as she moved, "what shall I do? There is a world, out there,

and people working and living and succeeding in it--and here I am, in

Monroe--dying, dying, DYING of longing! Sally ..." and with tears wet

on her cheeks, and her mouth trembling, she came close to her sister.

"Sally," whispered Martie unsteadily, "I care for--him. I wanted

nothing better. I thought--I thought that by this time next year we

might--we might be going to have a baby--Rodney and I."

She flung back her head, and went again to the window. Sally burst into

bitter crying.

"Oh, Martie--Martie--I know! I know! My darling, splendid, glorious

sister--so much more clever than any one else, and so much BETTER! I

think it'll break my heart!"

And in each other's arms, nineteen and twenty-one wept together at the

bitterness of life.

The days wore by, and Rose came smiling home for Christmas, and early

in the new year Martie and Sally were asked to a pink luncheon at the

Ransome cottage, finding at each chair two little tissue-paper

heart-shaped frames initialled "R. P." and "R. R." with kodak prints of

Rose and Rodney inside. The Monroe girls gave Rose a "linen shower" in

return, and the whole town shared the pleasure of the happy pair.

Martie had enough to think of now. Not even the thoughts of the

prospective bride could dwell more persistently on her own affairs than

did Martie's thoughts. Rose, welcome at the Parkers', envied and

admired even by Ida and May and Florence; Rose, prettily buying her

wedding finery and dashing off apt little notes of thanks for her

engagement cups and her various "showers"; Rose, fluttering with

confidences and laughter to the admiring Rodney, with the diamond

glittering on her hand; these and a thousand other Roses haunted

Martie. Lydia and her mother admired and marvelled with the rest. Lydia

it was who first brought home the news that the young Parkers were to

be married at Easter, Sally learned from Rose's own lips that they were

to spend a week in Del Monte as honeymoon.

The Monroe girls still wandered down town on weekday mornings,

loitering into the post-office, idling an hour away in the Library,

drifting home to mutton stew or Hamburg steak when the clock in the

town hall struck twelve. Sometimes Martie watched the big eastern

trains thunder by, looking with her wistful young blue eyes at the

card-playing men and the flushed, bored young women with their heads

resting on the backs of their upholstered seats. Sometimes she stopped

at the little magazine stand outside of Carlson's cigar store; her eye

caught by a photograph on the cover of a weekly: "Broadway at

Forty-Second," or "Night Lights from the Singer Building," or the

water-front silhouette that touches like the sight of a beloved face

even some hearts that know it not. She wanted to do something, now that

it was certain that she would not marry. Slowly, and late, Martie's

soul was awakening.

She asked her father if she might go to work. Certainly she might, her

father said lifelessly. Well, what should she do?--the girl persisted.

"Ah, that's quite another thing!" Malcolm said, with his favourite air

of detecting an inconsistency. "You want to work? Well and good, go

ahead and do it! But don't expect me to tell you what to do. Your

mother may have some idea. Your grandmother--and she was the loveliest

woman I ever knew!--was content to be merely a lady, something I wish

my daughters knew a little more about. Her beautiful home, her children

and servants, her friends and her church--that was her work! She didn't

want to push coarsely out into the world. However, if you do, go ahead!

I confess I am tired of seeing the dark, ugly expression you've worn

lately, Martie. Go your own way!"

Armed with this ungracious permission, Martie went down to see Miss

Fanny, talked with Grace, and even, meeting him on a lonely walk,

climbed into the old phaeton beside Dr. Ben, and asked his advice.

Nothing definite resulted, yet Martie was the happier for the new

interest. Old Father Martin talked to her of her plans one day, and

presently put her in communication with a certain widow, Mrs. O'Brien,

of San Francisco, who wanted an intelligent young woman to go with her

to New York to help with the care and education of two little O'Briens.

This possibility fired Martie and Sally to fever-heat, and they hoped

and prayed eagerly while it was under discussion. New York at last!

said Martie, who felt that she had been waiting endless years for New

York. But Mrs. O'Brien, it seemed, wanted some one who would be able to

begin French and German and music lessons for little Jane and Cora, and

the question of Martie's fitness was settled.

Still she was happier, and when Easter came, and the Monroe girls were

bidden to Rose's wedding, it was with a new and charming gravity in

face and manner that Martie went.

The ceremony took place in the comfortable parlours of the Ransome

house; the pretty home wedding possible because Rodney was not a

Catholic. Just like Rose's luck--instead of being married in the bare,

big church, thought Martie, at whose age the religious side of the

question did not appear important. Dr. Ben gave his young cousin away,

and Rose's mother, whose every thought since the fatherless child was

born had been for the girl's good, who had schemed and worked and

prayed for twenty years that Rose might be happy, that Rose might have

music and languages, travel and friends, had her reward when the lovely

little Mrs. Parker flung her fragrant arms about her, and gave her her

first kiss.

Rose looked her prettiest, just becomingly pale, becomingly merry,

becomingly tearful. Her presents, on view upstairs, were far finer than

any Monroe had seen since Cliff Frost was married. Rodney was the usual

excited, nervous, laughing groom. The wedding supper was perfection,

and the young people danced when Father Martin was gone, and when the

bride and groom had dashed away to the ten-o'clock train.

It was all over. Rose had everything, as usual, and Martie had nothing.

Easter was in early April that year, and the sweet, warm month was

dying away when one afternoon Miss Fanny, always hopeful for this

dreaming helpless young creature so full of big faults and big

possibilities, detained Martie in the Library for a little dissertation

upon card catalogues. Martie listened with her usual enthusiastic

interest. Yes--she understood; yes, she understood.

"There's your telephone, Miss Fanny!" said she, in the midst of a

demonstration. The older woman picked up the instrument.

"It's for you, Martie. It's Sally," she said, surprised. "Sally!"

Martie did not understand. She had left Sally at the bridge, and Sally

was to go on to the Town Hall for Pa, with a letter.

"Hello, Martie!" said a buoyant yet tremulous voice. "Martie--this is

Sally. I'm over at Mrs. Hawkes's. Martie--I'm married!"

"Married!" echoed Martie stupidly, eyeing the listening Miss Fanny

bewilderedly.

"Yes--to Joe. Lissun--can't you come right over? I'll tell you all

about it!"

Martie put back the receiver in a state of utter stupefaction.

Fortunately the Library was empty, and after telling Miss Fanny the

little she knew, she went out into the sweet, hot street. The town was

in a tent of rustling new leaves; lilacs were in heavy flower. Roses

and bridal-wreath and mock-orange trees were in bloom. Rank brown grass

stood everywhere; the fruit blossoms were gone, tall buttercups were

nodding over the grass.

At the Hawkes's house there were laughter and excitement. Sally, rosier

and more talkative than even Martie had ever seen her before, was the

heroine of the hour. When Martie came in, she flew toward her in an

ecstasy, and with laughter and tears the tale was told. She and Joe had

chanced to meet on the Court House steps, Sally coming out from the

task of delivering a letter from Pa to Judge Parker, Joe going in with

a telegram for Captain Tate. And almost without words from the

lilac-scented, green-shaded street they had gone into the License

Bureau; and almost without words they had walked out to find Father

Martin. And now they were married! And the thin old ring on Sally's

young hand had belonged to Father Martin's mother.

Martie was too generous not to respond to her sister's demand, even if

she had not been completely carried away by the excitement about her.

Mrs. Hawkes, tears of joy in her eyes, yet smiles shining through them,

was brewing tea for the happy pair. Minnie Hawkes's Rose was making

toast when she was not jumping up and down half mad with delight. Ellen

Hawkes, now Mrs. Castle, was setting the table. Grandma Kelly was

quavering out blessings, and Joe's older brother, Thomas, who worked at

night, and had been breakfasting at four o'clock, when the young pair

burst in, rushed out to the bakery to come back triumphantly with a

white frosted cake.

"It's a fair cake," said Mrs. Hawkes in the babel. "But you wait--I'll

make you a cake!"

"And you know, Joe and I between us just made up the dollar for the

license!" laughed Sally.

"Say, listen," said Ellen suddenly, "you folks have got to take our

house for a few days; how about that, Mother? You and Joe can start

housekeeping there like Terry and me. How about it, Mother? We'll come

here!"

"But, Sally--not to tell me!" Martie said reproachfully.

"Oh, darling--I did that deliberately!" her sister answered earnestly.

"I'm going to telephone Pa, and I know he'll be wild. And I DIDN'T want

you to be in it! You'll have enough--poor Martie!"

Already the shadow of the old house was passing from her. With what

gaiety she went about the old room, thought Martie, stopped by Mrs.

Hawkes's affectionate arms for a kiss, stopping to kiss Grandma Kelly

of her own free will. Sally had no sense of social values; she loved to

be here, admired, loved, busy.

"Think of the priest giving her his mother's own ring!" said the women

over and over. "It'll bring you big luck, Sally!"

They all sat down at the table, and Terry and John Healey came in to

rejoice, and the Healey baby awoke, and Grace came in from work. When

Martie left there was talk of supper; everybody was to stay for supper.

Walking home in the late spring twilight, Martie felt a certain

satisfaction. Sally was happy, and they would be good to her, and she

would be better off than Lydia, anyway. Joe as a husband was perfectly

absurd, of course, but Joe certainly did love Sally. Monroe would buzz,

but Martie had heard Monroe buzzing for a long time now, and after the

first shock, had found herself unhurt. Curiously, Sally's plunge into a

new life seemed to free her own hands.

"Now I am going to get out!" said Martie, opening her own gate.

When Malcolm Monroe came home that night it was to a well-sustained

hurricane of tears and protest. Mrs. Monroe and Lydia shed genuine

tears, and Martie and Len added diplomatically to the hubbub. Pa must

suspect no one of sympathy for the shameless Sally.

"To think, Pa, after all we've done for her!" sobbed Mrs. Monroe, and

Lydia, wiping her nose and shaking her head, kept saying with

reproachful firmness: "I can't believe it of Sally! Why shouldn't she

tell one of us. To stand up and be married all alone!"

Her father took the news exactly as might have been expected. While

there was hope of convicting Martie or Lydia of complicity, he

questioned them sharply and sternly. When this was gone, he swiftly

worked himself into such a passion as his children had rarely seen

before. Sally and Joe were solemnly denounced, disinherited, and

abandoned. And any child of his who spoke to either should share their

fate.

"Oh, Papa--don't!" quavered Lydia, as her father strode to the Bible,

and with horrible precision inked from the register the record of

Sally's birth. Mrs. Monroe looked terrified, and even Leonard was pale.

But Martie, to her own amazement, found a sudden calm scorn in her

heart. What a silly thing to do, just because poor little Sally married

the boy she loved. How dared Pa call himself a Christian while he

regarded Sally's downward step from a mere social level a disgrace! And

how cruel he was, playing upon poor Ma's and Lydia's feelings just for

his own satisfaction.

"You understand me, don't you, Martie?" he asked grimly.

"I suppose so." An ugly smile curved Martie's lips. Her lids were half

lowered.

"Well--remember it. And never any one of you mention your sister's name

to me again!"

"No, Pa," said four fervent voices. Then they had dinner.

The next day the three women packed up Sally's things; Lydia and her

mother in tears, but Martie strangely content. Something had happened

at all events. She put Sally's baby sash and collar and other treasured

rubbish in the package, with two scribbled lines pinned to them:

"Praying for you, darling. Pa is furious. The slipper is for luck. Your

M."

And then the eventless days began to wheel by again. Rose came home,

and came to see Martie, and Martie dined at the Parkers'. Rodney,

though obviously blind to all women but his wife, was cordial and

gallant to the guest and Rose took her up to her pretty, frilly

bedroom, so that Martie might take off her hat and coat, and told

Martie that Rod was the neatest man she had ever seen, such a fusser

about his bath and his clothes. On Rose's bureau was a big photograph

of Rodney in a silver frame, and on Rodney's high dresser a charming

photograph of Rose in her wedding gown. When she was putting on her hat

four hours later to be driven home by Rodney, Martie heard Rose's

wifely voice in the hall: "You are a darling to do this, Rod!" The tone

was that in which a man is praised by his women for a hard duty

cheerfully done. Martie was not surprised when Rose merrily confided to

her that Rod wanted his wife to go along--the silly!--and accompanied

them on the short drive.

She did not see much of the young Parkers after that, nor did she

expect to be counted among their intimate friends. She began to drift

into the public kindergarten in the mornings, to help Miss Malloy with

the unruly babies. And she missed Sally more every day.

Sally and Joe had gone to Pittsville immediately after their wedding;

Joe having received a dazzling offer of forty dollars a month for two

summer months from the express company there.

But when Sally had been married six weeks, Martie heard her voice one

day when the younger sister was passing the Hawkes's house. Instantly

she entered the gate, her heart beating high. Sally's dear,

unforgettable voice! And Sally's slender shoulders and soft, loose hair!

The girls were in each other's arms, laughing and crying as they clung

together. Martie thought she had never seen her sister look so well, or

seem so sweet and gay. There were a thousand questions on each side to

ask; Martie poured out the home news. Sally and Joe were housekeeping

in three rooms, and it was more FUN! And Sally really cooked him

wonderful dinners; his father and mother had come over to one, and

wasn't it good? Mrs. Hawkes enthusiastically agreed.

Of course, they had hardly ANYTHING, bubbled Sally, only two saucepans

and one frying pan and the coffee pot. But it was more FUN! And in the

evenings they walked around Pittsville, and went to the ten-cent

theatre, or bought candy and divided it. COULDN'T Martie come some time

to dinner?

"Pa," said Martie simply. Sally's bright face clouded. She sent a kiss

to Ma and darling Lyd. She and Joe would come back to Monroe in

September, and then she would come see Pa and make him forgive her.

Tell him she still loved him!

Martie delivered none of these airy messages. She secretly marvelled at

the happiness that could blind Sally to a memory of Pa, and Pa's

stubbornness.

"Listen, Martie," said Sally, when for a moment the sisters were alone,

"it wasn't so sudden as you think, my marrying Joe!" She stopped,

interrupted by some thought, and added impulsively, "Isn't it STRANGE,

Mart, that we might have missed each other; it makes us both just

SHIVER to think of it! Well"--and with a visible effort the little wife

brought herself down from a roseate cloud to realities again--"if--if

Lyd had married Cliff Frost," she said uncertainly, "I never should

have DARED marry Joe!"

"Or if I had married Rodney Parker, Sally?" Martie added steadily.

"Well--" The colour flew to Sally's face. "As it was," she went on a

little hurriedly, "I just--couldn't bear to go on and on, it made me

desperate! And I thought Pa and Ma's way is no good, our house never

seems to have much happiness in it--and I'm going to get OUT! There

never was a place like this for good times, and babies, and jokes, and

company to dinner!" smiled Sally, looking about the Hawkeses' parlour

triumphantly.

But then Sally was born devoid of a social sense, mused Martie, walking

home. What would life be without it--she wondered. No affectations, no

barriers, no pretenses--

"Flout me not, Sweet!" said some one at her side. She looked up into

the beaming eyes of Wallace Bannister. "Don't you remember me--I'm the

city feller that came here breakin' all hearts awhile back!"

"You idiot!" Martie laughed, too. "I thought you were miles away!"

"Well, judging by your expression, darling, you were miles away, too,"

said the irrepressible Wallace. "How are you, Brunhilde? Ich liebe

dich! Yes'm, we ought to be miles away, but to tell you the honest

truth, the season is simply ROTTEN here on the coast. We've bust up,

for the moment, but dry those tears. Here's my contract for seven weeks

in San Francisco--seven plays. Sixty bones per week; pretty neat, what?

We begin rehearsing in July, open August eighth, and if it's a go, go

on indefinitely. The Cluetts and I are in this--the rest of the

company's gone flooey. Meanwhile, I have three weeks to wait, and I'm

staying with my aunt in Pittsville studying like mad."

"And what are you doing in Monroe?" Martie said contentedly, as they

wandered along.

"I came here a week ago to change some shoes," said Wallace, "and I saw

you. So to-day I came and made you a formal call."

"You did NOT!" Martie ejaculated, laughing.

"Why didn't I? I fell down eleven steps into your garden, knocked on

the front door, knocked on the side door, talked to some one called

'Ma,' talked to some one called 'Lydia,' and learned that Miss Martha

Brunhilde Monroe was out for a sashay. There!"

"Well--for goodness sake!" Martie was conscious of flushing. From that

second she grew a little self-conscious. He was a funny creature. He

would have been unusually handsome, she thought, if it were not for a

certain largeness--it was not quite coarseness--of feature. He would

have been extraordinarily charming, decided Martie, but for that same

quality in his manner; recklessness, carelessness. She knew he was not

always telling the truth; these honours, these affairs, these

fascinating escapades were not all his own. His exaggerated expressions

of affection for herself were only a part of this ebullient sense of

romance. But he was amusing.

"Bon soir, papillon!" he said at her gate. "How about a meet to-morrow?

Tie a pink scarf to thy casement if thy jailer sleeps. Seriously, leave

us meet, kid. Leave us go inter Bonestell's with the crowd--watto? I'll

wait for youse outside the Library at three."

"With the accent on the WAIT," said Martie significantly. But she did

not think of Rodney that evening. She thought of Sally and of Wallace

Bannister.

Fortunately for her, it did not occur to her father to cross-examine

her on any other event of the day except the circumstance that she had

been seen walking with an unknown young man. This was food for much

advice.

"I don't like it, my daughter," said Malcolm, rubbing his shins

together and polishing his glasses as he sat by the fire. "I don't like

it at all. I don't like this tendency to permit familiarities with this

young man and that young man--all very well for a while, but not the

sort of thing a young man chooses in a WIFE."

Martie, looking at him respectfully, as she placed a red Queen on a

black King, felt in her heart that she would like to kill him.

The next afternoon she decided to clean the chicken house, one of the

tasks in which her strange nature delighted. To splash about with hose

and broom, tip over the littered drinking trough, wash cobwebs from the

windows with a well-directed stream of water; in these things Martie

found some inexplicable satisfaction. She went upstairs after luncheon

to get into old clothes, came down half an hour later with her best hat

on, walked straight out of the gate and down town.

Wallace was waiting, elated at her punctuality. Martie explaining her

fear that some one might report their meeting to her father, they

waited openly at Masset's corner, boarded the half-past three o'clock

trolley, and went to Pittsville.

Pittsville was two miles away, but this adventure had all the charm of

foreign travel to Martie. Every house interested her, the main street

of the little town might have been Broadway in New York. The people

looked different, she said. She and Wallace laughed their way through

the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store, enjoyed a Floradora Special composed of

bananas, ice cream, nuts, whipped cream, maple syrup, and cherries, and

finally bought six cream puffs and carried them to Sally.

Sally's delight was almost tearful. She led Martie rapturously over her

domain: the little bedroom spotless and sunshiny in the summer

afternoon; the microscopic kitchen scented with the baked apples that

HAD burned a little and the cookies that would NOT brown; the

living-and-dining room that was at once so bare and so rich. It was a

home, Martie realized dimly, and Sally was a person at last. The

younger sister peeped interestedly into spice-tins and meat safe; three

eggs were in a small yellow bowl, two thin slices of bacon on a plate.

In the bread box was half a loaf of bread and one cut slice.

"Sally, it must be fun!" said Martie. "All this doll's house for six

dollars a month!"

"Oh--fun!" Sally was rapturous beyond words. She gave them pale, hot

cookies; the cream puffs would delight Joe.

The three laughed and feasted happily; Martie with a new sense of

freedom and independence that exhilarated her like wine.

"Find us a nice little place like this, sister," said Wallace. "Martie

loves me, Sarah. Their lips met in one long, rapturous kiss. The end."

The girls laughed joyously. Martie went home at five, Wallace

accompanying her. She told her father that night that she had been in

the Library.

The next day she did clean the chicken house, and did go down to spend

the afternoon with Miss Fanny. But freedom danced in her veins; on the

third afternoon she and Wallace took a long walk, and stopped to see

Dr. Ben, and, sitting on two barrels behind the old railway station,

ate countless cherries and apricots. Again--and again--they went to

Pittsville. Sally was in their confidence and feasted them in the

little flat or went with them on their innocent expeditions.

From their third meeting, it was cheerfully taken for granted that

Wallace and Martie belonged to each other. Martie never knew what he

really felt, any more than he dreamed of the girlish amusement and

distrust in which she held him. They flirted only, but they swiftly

found life uninteresting when apart. They never talked of marriage, yet

every time they parted it was reluctantly, and never without definite

plans for another immediate meeting. Wallace began to advise Martie not

to eat the rich things that made her sick; Martie counselled him about

his new suit, and listened, uneasy and ashamed, to a brief, penitential

reference to "crazy" things he had done, as a "kid." He promised her

never to drink again and incidentally told her that his real name was

Edward Tenney. Suddenly they found the plural pronoun: we must do that;

that doesn't interest us; Pa must not suspect our affair.

"The Cluetts are going to be in Pittsville," said Wallace one day. "I

want you to meet them. You'll like Mabel; she's got two little kids.

She and Jesse have been married only six years. And they'll like you,

too; I've told 'em you're my girl!"

"Am I?" said Martie huskily. They were alone in Sally's little house,

and for answer he put his arms about her. "Do you love me, Wallace?"

she asked.

The question, the raised blue eyes, fired him to sudden passion. They

kissed each other blindly, with shut eyes. After that, whenever they

might, they kissed, and sometimes Martie, ignorant and innocent,

wondered why the memory of his hot lips worried her a little.

There was nothing wrong in kissing! Martie still said to herself that

of course they would not marry; yet when she was with Wallace she loved

the evidences of her power over him, and seemed unable, as he was

unable, to keep from the constant question: "Do you love me?"

In late June the Cluetts--pretty faded Mabel, her two enormous babies,

her stepson Lloyd, and Jesse, the husband and father--all came to

Pittsville for a few days' leisure before rehearsals began. Lloyd was a

"light juvenile," off as well as on the stage. Jesse played father,

judge, guardian, prime minister, and old family doctor in turn. Mabel,

rouged and befrilled, still made an attractive foil for Wallace as the

hero. Martie liked them all; their chatter of the fairyland of the

stage, their trunks plastered with labels, their fine voices, their

general air of being incompetent children adrift in a puzzling world.

Deep laughter stirred within her when they spoke of business or of

finance.

They talked frankly, in their three cheap rooms at the "Pittsville

White House," before Wallace's girl. Jesse was pompous; Lloyd boyishly

fretful; Mabel, patient, sympathetic, discouraged, and sanguine by

turns. Martie was enraptured by the babies: Bernadette, a crimped heavy

little brunette of five, and Leroy delicious at three months in limp

little flannel wrappers.

"I'll tell you what, Miss Monroe--I'm going to call you Martha--" said

Mabel, "I'm just about sick of California. I'm not a Californian;

little old New York for mine. I first seen the light of day at the

corner of Sixth Avenue and Sixteenth Street, and I wish to the good

Lord I was there now. You'll never get a fair deal in Frisker, if any

one should ride up on a bike and ask you, dear. We were doing very good

last fall when little Mister Man here decided to join the party--after

that I was simply no good! The box receipts have fell off steadily

since we put that awful girl in. Don't leave that heavy child paralyze

your limbs--she'll set there forever like an immidge, if you go on

telling her stories!"

"I am amused--genuinely amused at the circumstances under which you

find us, Miss Monroe," said Jesse Cluett with a dignified laugh. "And

my friends in the East would be equally surprised. Professional pride

brought me West, the pride of a man whose public demands one or two

favoured parts from him, year after year. My three or four successes

were a great gratification to me; not only the public, but my fellow

actors at the Lambs, assured me that my future was MADE. 'Made?--no,' I

said. 'No. I have no wish to become a one-part man.' To John Drew I

said--I met him going into the Club-'H'ar you, Jesse?' he said. ... Oh,

yes; we are warm friends, old friends. I played for two years with John

Drew. Very brilliant actor--in some ways. And that is only one instance

of the enthusiastic appreciation to which I am accustomed. ... Are we

going to eat, my dear?" For Mrs. Cluett, who in her hospitable

enthusiasm over Martie had taken a little spirit lamp from the

washstand and placed a full kettle over the flame, was now looking

about her in a vague, distressed sort of way.

"It's going out," said she blankly. Philosophically, Jesse put his

wide-brimmed hat over his loose curls and, straightening his shoulders,

walked mincingly out for alcohol with the younger men. Mrs. Cluett

spread a small, spotted fringed cloth on a trunk, setting on it a cut

and odorous lemon a trifle past its prime and a sticky jar of jam.

Martie continued to cuddle Leroy and tell Bernadette a fairy tale. She

found the crowded, tawdry bedroom delightfully cosy, especially when

the men came back with graham crackers and cheese and spongy, greasy

bakery doughnuts.

They all laughed when Wallace asked for the rat-trap's delight; and

when Lloyd dropped a cruller on the floor and thumped his heel to show

its weight; and when Wallace said: "Don't jam or jar Miss Monroe,

Jesse!" But when, in retort for this latest witticism, Martie said:

"Put your hand where it hurts, Wallace, and show Mama"; the laughter

changed to actual shrieks of mirth; Jesse indulging in a deep

"ha-ha-ha!" and Mabel hammering her heels madly together and sobbing

put faintly that she should die--she should simply DIE!

Martie almost missed the five o'clock trolley, but Wallace pushed her

upon the moving platform at the last possible moment, and she laughed

and gasped blindly half the way home, accepting his help with her

disordered hair and hat. When she finally raised her face, and somewhat

shamefacedly eyed the one or two other occupants of the car, she saw

Rose sitting opposite, a neat and interested Rose in her trousseau

tailor-made.

Uncomfortable, Martie bowed, and Rose responded sweetly, presently

patting the seat beside her with an inviting glove. Somewhat surprised

at this unexpected graciousness, Martie and her escort crossed the car.

"No, MRS.--not Miss!" Rose contradicted Wallace merrily, looking up at

him prettily. "I know I'm not very imposing, but I'm a really truly old

married lady!"

"This is Mrs. Rodney Parker, Wallace," Martie said. Instantly she was

pleasantly conscious that her easy use of this actor's name was a

surprise to Rose, and for the first time a definite pride in possession

seized her. He might not be perfection, but he was hers.

"Is that so!" Wallace exclaimed, with new interest in eyes and voice.

"Gosh--what fun we had that night! Do you remember the night we had

oysters, and sat in that little place gassing for two hours? You know,"

said he, in a confidential aside to Rose, "Martie's a wonder when she

gets started!"

"Isn't she?" Rose responded politely. "That was before I met my

husband, I think," she added, "or rather re-met him, for years ago Mr.

Parker and I----"

But Wallace, amused by the discussion that had arisen between the

conductor and a Chinese who was getting on the car, interrupted

abruptly to call Martie's attention to the affair, and Rose's

reminiscence was lost. She said, with her good-byes, that Mr. Bannister

must come and dine with them.

"Gosh, I see myself!" ejaculated Wallace ungratefully, as he walked

with Martie to the gate. "I never could stand that ass Parker!"

"Don't you think she's very pretty, Wallace?"

"Oh, I don't know! I don't care much for those dolly women. I like red

hair and big women, myself. Listen, Martie. To-morrow----"

No more was said of Rose. Martie wondered why she liked to hear Rodney

Parker called an ass.

Malcolm Monroe came home for luncheon every day except Wednesday, which

made Wednesday for the women of the family the easy day of the week.

Their midday meal, never elaborate or formal, was less formal and even

simpler on this day; conversation was more free, and time less

considered.

For several days after Sally's extraordinary marriage Mrs. Monroe had

wept continually, and even her always mild and infrequent attempts at

conversation had been silenced. Later, she and Lydia had long and

mournful discussions of the event, punctuating them with heavy sighs

and uncomprehending shaking of their heads. That a Monroe in her senses

could stoop to a Hawkes was a fact that would never cease to puzzle and

amaze, and what the town was saying and thinking in the matter was an

agonized speculation to Mrs. Monroe and Lydia. "Socially, of course,"

said Lydia, "we will never hold up our heads again!"

But as the days went by and the divorce of the young Mulkeys, and the

new baby at Mrs. Hughie Wilson's, and the Annual Strawberry Festival

and Bazaar for the Church Debt came along to make the gossip about

Sally and Joe of secondary interest, Sally's mother and sister revived.

They came to take a bitter-sweet satisfaction in the sympathy and

interest that were shown on all sides.

Martie was not often at home in these days. "She fairly lives at the

Library, and she takes long walks, I imagine, Ma," Lydia said once.

"You know Martie misses--she's lonely. And then--there was, of course,

the feeling about Rodney. It's just Martie's queer way of righting

herself."

But on the hot Wednesday morning that brought in July Martie, with a

clear conscience, was baking gingerbread. She had improved in manner

and habit, of late, displaying an unwonted interest in the care of

herself and her person, and an unwonted energy in discharging domestic

duties.

She was buttering pans vigorously, and singing "The Two Grenadiers,"

when Lydia came into the kitchen.

"Martie, Pa just came in the gate. Isn't that maddening! We'll have to

give him something canned; he hates eggs. Can't you make some drop

cakes of that batter so they'll be done?"

"Sure I can!" Martie snatched a piece of paper to butter. "But what

brings him home?"

"Why, I haven't the faintest----" Lydia was beginning, when her

father's voice came in a shout from the dining room:

"Martie--Martie--MARTIE!"

Terror seized Martie, her mouth watered saltly, her knees touched, and

a chill shook her. The hot day turned bleak. She and Lydia exchanged a

sick look before Martie, trembling, crossed the pantry, littered by

Lydia's silver polish and rags, and went in to face the furious old man

on the hearthrug. Malcolm was quivering so violently that his own fear

seemed to be that he would lose his voice before he had gained his

information. Martie was vaguely conscious that her mother, frightened

and pale, was in the room, and that Len had come to the hall doorway.

"Martie," said her father, breathing hard, "where were you yesterday

afternoon?"

"At Alice Clark's Five Hundred with Lyd----" the girl was beginning

innocently. He cut her short with an impatient shake of the head.

"I don't mean yesterday! Where were you on Monday?"

"Monday? Why, Mama and I walked down to Bonestell's."

"Yes, we did, Pa! Yes, we did!" quavered Mrs. Monroe. "Oh, Pa, WHAT IS

IT?"

"And then what did you do?" he pursued blackly, turning to his wife.

"Why--why, Martie said she was going to go over to Pittsville and back,

just for the ride--just to stay on the trolley, Pa!" explained his wife.

"Martie," thundered her father, "when you went to Pittsville you saw

your sister, didn't you?"

Martie's head was held erect. She was badly frightened, but conscious

through all her fear that there was a certain satisfaction in having

the blow fall at last.

"Yes, sir," she gulped; she wet her lips. "Yes, sir," she said again.

"You admit it?" said Malcolm, his eyes narrowing.

Lydia, pale and terrified, had come in from the kitchen. Now she

suddenly spoke.

"Oh, Pa, don't--don't blame Martie for that! You know what the girls

always were to each other--I don't mean to be impertinent, Pa--do

forgive me!--but Martie and Sally always----"

"One moment, Lydia," said her father, with a repressive gesture, the

veins blue on his forehead. "JUST--ONE--MOMENT." And, panting, he

turned again to Martie. "Yes, and who else did you see in Pittsville?"

he whispered, his voice failing.

Martie, breathing fast, her bright eyes fixed upon him with a sort of

fascination, did not answer.

"I'll tell you who you saw," said Malcolm at white heat. "I'll tell

you! You met this young whippersnapper Jackanapes--what's his

name--this young one-night actor----"

"Do you mean Mr. Wallace Bannister?" Martis asked with a sort of

frightened scorn.

Lydia and her mother gasped audibly in the silence. Malcolm moved his

eyes slowly from his youngest daughter's face to his wife's, to

Lydia's, and back to Martie again. For two dreadful moments he studied

her, an ugly smile touching his harsh mouth.

"You don't deny it," he said, after the interval, in a shaking voice.

"You don't deny that you've been disobeying me and lying to me for

weeks? Now I tell you, my girl--there's been enough of this sort of

thing going on in this family. You couldn't get the man you wanted, so,

like your sister, you pick up----"

Martie laughed briefly and bitterly. The sound seemed to madden him.

For a moment he watched her, his head dropped forward like a menacing

animal.

"Understand me, Martie," he said. "I'll break that spirit in you--if it

takes the rest of my life! You'll laugh in a different way! My God--am

I to be the laughing-stock of this entire town? Is a girl your age

to----"

"Pa!" sobbed Mrs. Monroe. "Do what you think best, but don't--DON'T

excite yourself so!"

Her clutching fingers on his arm seemed to soothe in through all his

fury. He fell silent, still panting, and eying Martie belligerently.

"You--go to your room!" he commanded, pointing a shaking finger at her.

"Go upstairs with your sister, Lydia, and bring me the key of her door.

When I decide upon the measure that will bring this young lady quickest

to her senses, I'll let her know. Meanwhile----"

"Oh, Pa, you needn't lock Martie in," quivered Lydia, "she'll

stay--won't you, Martie?"

Martie, like a young animal at bay, stood facing them all for a

breathless moment. In that time the child that had been in her, through

all these years of slow development, died. Anger went out of her eyes,

and an infinite sadness filled them. A quick tremble of her lips and a

flutter at her nostrils were the only signs she gave of the tears she

felt rising. She flung one arm about her mother and kissed the wet,

faded cheek.

"Good-bye, Ma," she said quickly. In another instant she had crossed to

the entrance hall, blindly snatched an old soft felt hat from the rack,

caught up Len's overcoat, and slipped into it, and was gone. Born in

that moment of unreasoning terror, her free soul went with her.

The streets were flooded with hot summer sunshine, the sky almost

white. Not a breeze stirred the thick foliage of the elm trees on Main

Street as Martie walked quickly down to the Bank.

It was Rodney Parker who gave her her money; the original seventeen

dollars and fifty cents had swelled to almost twenty-two dollars now.

Martie hardly saw the gallant youth who congratulated her upon her

becoming gipsy hat; mechanically she slipped her money into a pocket,

mechanically started for the road to Pittsville.

Five minutes later she boarded the half-past twelve o'clock trolley,

coming in excited and exultant upon Sally who was singing quietly over

a solitary luncheon. The girls laughed and cried together.

"The funny thing is, I am as free as air!" Martie exclaimed, her cheeks

glowing from the tea and the sympathy and the warm room. "But I never

knew it! If Pa had gotten on that trolley, I think I would have fainted

with shock. But what could he do? I am absolutely FREE, Sally--with

twenty-one dollars and eighty-one cents!"

"I wish you had a husband----" mused Sally.

"I'd rather have a job," Martie said with a quick, bright flush

nevertheless. "But I think I know how to get one. Mrs. Cluett is going

to be playing steadily now, and after this engagement they're going to

try very hard to get booked in New York. She's got to have SOME ONE to

look out for the children."

"But Martie----" Sally said timidly, "you'd only be a sort of

servant----"

"Well, that's the only thing I know anything about," Martie answered

simply. "It might lead to something----"

"Then you and Wallace aren't----?" Sally faltered. "There's nothing

serious----?"

Martie could not control the colour that swept up to the white parting

of her hair, but her mouth showed new firmness as she answered gravely:

"Sally--I don't know. Of course, I like him--how could I help it? We're

awfully good chums; he's the best chum I ever had. But he never--well,

he never asked me. Sally"--Martie rested her elbows on the table, and

her chin on her hands--"Sally, would you marry him?"

"If I loved him I would," said Sally.

"Yes, but did you KNOW you loved Joe?" Martie asked. Sally was silent.

"Well--not so much--before--as after we were married," she said

hesitatingly, after a pause.

Martie suddenly sprang up.

"Well, I'm going to see Mrs. Cluett!"

"I'll go, too," said Sally, "and we'll stop at the express office and

tell Joe!"

Mrs. Cluett was alone with her children when the callers went in, and

even Martie's sensitive heart could have asked no warmer reception of

her plan.

The little actress kissed Sally, and kissed Martie more than once,

brimming over with interest and sympathy.

"Dearie, it ain't much of a start for you, but it is a start!" said

Mabel warmly over the head of the nursing baby. "And you'll get your

living and your railroad fares out of it, anyway! It'll be an ackshal

godsend to Mr. Cluett and me, for the children have took to you

something very unusual. We'll have elegant times going around together,

and you'll never be sorry."

These cheering sentiments Jesse echoed when he came in with Lloyd a few

minutes later.

"Much depends upon our future contracts, Miss Monroe," said he, "but I

will go so far as to say this. Should you some time desire to try the

calling that Shakespeare honoured, the opportunity will not be lacking!"

This threw Sally, Martie, and Mabel into transports. It now being after

three o'clock tea was proposed.

And now Martie busied herself happily as one belonging to the little

establishment. Sally had taken rapturous possession of Leroy. Mabel

lighted the alcohol lamp. Martie, delayed by the affectionate

Bernadette, shook out the spotted cloth, and cut the stale cake.

They were all absorbed and chattering when Wallace Bannister opened the

door. At sight of him Martie straightened up, the long knife in one

hand, Bernadette's sticky little fingers clinging to the other. The

news was flung at him excitedly. Martie had left home--she was never

going back--she had only twenty dollars and an old coat and hat--she

was going to stay with Mabel for the present----

"What's this sweet dream about staying with Mabel?" Wallace said,

bewildered, reproachful, definite. He came over to Martie and put one

arm about her. "Look here, folks," he said, almost indignantly,

"Martie's my girl, aren't you, Martie? We're going to be married right

now, this afternoon; and hereafter what I do, she does--and where I go,

she goes!"

The love in his eyes, the love in all their watching faces, Martie

never forgot. Like a great river of warmth and sunshine it lifted her

free of her dry, thirsty girlhood; she felt the tears of joy pressing

against her eyes. There was nothing critical, nothing calculating,

nothing repressing here; her lover wanted her, just as she stood,

penniless, homeless, without a dress except the blue gingham she wore!

The glory of it lighted with magic that day and the days to come. They

laughed over the pretty gipsy hat, over Len's coat, over the need of

borrowing Mabel's brush and comb. With Joe and Sally, they all dined

together, and wandered about the village streets in the summer

moonlight; then Martie went to bed, too happy and excited to sleep, in

Bernadette's room, wearing a much-trimmed nightgown of Mabel's. It had

been decided that the marriage should take place in San Francisco,

Wallace sensibly suggesting that there would be less embarrassing

questioning there, and also that Martie's money might be spent to

better advantage in the city.

Martie's trunk came to Sally's house the next morning, unaccompanied by

message or note, and three days later Martie wrote her mother a long

letter from a theatrical boarding-house in Geary Street, sending a copy

of the marriage certificate of Martha Salisbury Monroe to Edward

Vincent Tenney in Saint Patrick's Church, San Francisco, and observing

with a touch of pride that "my husband" was now rehearsing for an

engagement of seven weeks at sixty dollars a week. There was no answer.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

For days it was her one triumphant thought. She was married! She was

splendidly and unexpectedly a wife. And her life partner was no mere

Monroe youth, and her home was not merely one of the old, familiar

Monroe cottages. She was the wife of a rising actor, and she lived in

the biggest city of the State!

Martie exulted innocently and in secret. She reviewed the simple fact

again and again. The two Monroe girls were married. A dimple would

deepen in her cheek, a slow smile tug at her lips, when she thought of

it. She told Wallace, in her simple childish way, that she had never

really expected to be married; she thought that she would like to go

back to Monroe for a visit, and let her old friends see the plain gold

ring on her big, white hand.

Everything in Martie's life, up to this point, had helped her to

believe that marriage was the final step in any woman's experience. A

girl was admired, was desired, and was married, if she was, humanly

speaking, a success. If she was not admired, if no one asked her in

marriage, she was a failure. This was the only test.

Martie's thoughts never went on to the years that followed marriage,

the experiences and lessons; these were all lost in the golden glow

that surrounded the step safely accomplished. That the years between

thirty and fifty are as long as the years between ten and thirty, never

occurred to her. With the long, dull drag of her mother's life before

her eyes, she never had thought that Rose's life, that Sally's life, as

married women, could ever be long and dull. They were married--doubt

and surmise and hope were over. Lydia and Miss Fanny were not married.

Therefore, Rose and Sally and Martie had an obvious advantage over

Lydia and Fanny.

It was a surprise to her to find life placidly proceeding here in this

strange apartment in Geary Street, as if all the world had not stopped

moving and commenced again. The persons she met called her "Mrs.

Bannister" with no visible thrill. Nobody seemed surprised when she and

the big actor quietly went into their room at night and shut the door.

She had fancied that the mere excitement of the new life filled all

brides with a sort of proud complacency; that they felt superior to

other human beings, and secretly scorned the unwed. It was astonishing

to find herself still concerned with the tiny questions of yesterday:

the ruffle torn on the bureau, the little infection that swelled and

inflamed her chin, the quarter of a dollar her Chinese laundryman swore

he had never received. It was always tremendously thrilling to have

Wallace give her money: delightful gold pieces such as even her mother

seldom handled. She felt a naive resentment that so many of them had to

be spent for what she called "uninteresting" things: lodging and food

and car fares. They seemed so more than sufficient, when she first

touched them; they melted so mysteriously away. She felt that there

should be great saving on so generous an allowance, but Wallace never

saved, nor did any of his friends and associates.

So that a sense of being baffled began to puzzle her. She was married

now; the great question of life had been answered in the affirmative.

But--but the future was vague and unsettled still. Even married persons

had their problems. Even the best of husbands sometimes left a tiny

something to be desired.

Husbands, in Martie's dreams, were ideal persons who laughed

indulgently at adored wives, produced money without question or stint,

and for twenty or fifty years, as the span of their lives might decree,

came home appreciatively to delicious dinners, escorted their wives

proudly to dinner or theatre, made presents, paid compliments, and

disposed of bills. That her mother had once perhaps had some such idea

of her father did not occur to her.

"Lissen, dear, did I wake you up?" said Mrs. Wallace Bannister, coming

quietly into the sitting room that connected her bedroom with that of

Mrs. Jesse Cluett, in the early hours of an August morning.

"No--o! This feller wakes me up," Mrs. Cluett said, yawning and pale,

but cheerful. She indicated the fat, serious baby in her arms. "Honest,

it's enough to kill a girl, playing every night and Sunday, and trying

to raise children!" she added, manipulating her flat breast with ringed

fingers to meet the little mouth.

"I wish I could either have the baby nights, or play your parts!"

laughed Martie, reaching lazily for manicure scissors and beginning to

clip her nails, as she sat in a loose, blue kimono opposite the older

woman.

"Dearie, you'll have your own soon enough!" Mabel answered gratefully.

"It won't be so hard long. They get so's they can take care of

themselves very quick. Look at Dette--goodness knows where she's been

ever since she got up. She must of drunk her milk and eaten her

san'wich, because here's the empty glass. She's playing somewhere;

she's all right."

"Oh, sure--she's all right!" Martie said, smiling lazily. And as Leroy

finished his meal she put out her arms. "Come to Aunt Martie, Baby. Oh,

you--cunnin'--little--scrap, you!"

"You'd ought to have one, Mart," said Mabel affectionately.

The wife of a month flushed brightly. With her loosened bronze braid

hanging over her shoulder, her blue eyes soft with happiness, and her

full figure only slightly disguised by the thin nightgown and wrapper

she wore, she looked the incarnation of potent youth and beauty.

"I'd love it," she said, burying her hot cheeks in the little space

between Leroy's fluffy crown and the collar of his soggy little double

gown.

"I love 'em, too," Mabel agreed. "But they cert'ny do tie you down.

Dette was the same way--only I sort of forgot it."

"If this salary was going to keep up, I'd like a dozen of 'em!" Martie

smiled.

"Well, Wallace ought to do well," Mabel conceded. "But of course, you

can't be sure. My idea is to plunge in and HAVE them, regardless.

Things'll fit if they've GOT to."

"That's the NICEST way," Martie said timidly. She had married, knowing

nothing of wifehood and motherhood, except the one fact that the matter

of children must be left entirely to chance. But she did not like to

tell Mabel so.

She sat on in the pleasant morning sunshine, utterly happy, utterly at

ease. The baby went to sleep as the two women murmured together.

Outside the lace-curtained windows busy Geary Street had long been

astir. Wagons rattled up and down; cable-cars clanged. Sunlight had

already conquered the summer fog. It was nine o'clock.

Mabel was enjoying tea and toast, but Martie refused to join her. If

every hour had not been so blissful the young wife would have said that

the happiest time of the day was when she and Wallace wandered out into

the sunshine together for breakfast.

Presently she slipped away to take the bath that was a part of her

morning routine now, and to wake Wallace. With his tumbled hair, his

flushed face and his pale blue pajama jacket open at the throat Martie

thought him no more than a delightful, drowsy boy. She sat on the edge

of the bed beside him, teasing him to open his eyes.

"Ah--you darling!" Wallace was not too sleepy to appreciate her cool,

fresh kisses. "Oh, Lord, I'm a wreck! What time is it?"

"Nearly ten. You've had ten hours' sleep, darling. I don't know what

you WANT!" Martie answered--at the bureau now, with the glory of her

hair falling about her.

While they dressed they talked; delicious irrelevant chatter punctuated

with laughter and kisses. The new stock company was a success, and

Wallace working hard and happily. At ten the young Bannisters went

forth in search of breakfast, the best meal of the day.

Martie loved the city: Market Street, Kearney Street, Union Square. She

loved the fresh breath of the morning in her face. She always had her

choice of flowers at the curb market about Lotta's fountain, pinning a

nodding bunch of roses, Shasta daisies, pansies, or carnations at the

belt of her white shirtwaists. They went to the Vienna Bakery or to

Swain's for their leisurely meal, unless Wallace was hungry enough to

beg for the Poodle Dog, or they felt rich enough for the Palace. Now

and then they walked out of the familiar neighbourhood and tried a

strange restaurant or hotel--but not often.

Usually Martie had Swain's famous toasted muffins for her breakfast,

daintily playing with coffee and fruit while Wallace disposed of

cereal, eggs and ham, and fried potatoes. She used to marvel that he

never grew fat on this hearty fare; sometimes he had sharp touches of

indigestion.

Over their meal they talked untiringly, marvelling anew at the miracle

of their finding each other. Martie learned her husband's nature as if

it had been a book. Sensitive here--evasive there; a little coarse,

perhaps, a little simple. However surprising his differences it was for

her to adapt herself. She was almost glad when his unconscious demands

required of her the smallest sacrifice; getting so much, how glad she

was to give!

After breakfast, when Wallace was not rehearsing and they were free to

amuse themselves, they prowled through the Chinese quarter, and through

the Italian colony. They rode on windy "dummies" out to the beach, and

went scattering peanut shells along the wet sands. They visited the

Park, the Mint, and the big baths, or crossed to Oakland or Sausalito,

where Martie learned to swim. Martie found Wallace tireless in his

appetite for excursions, and committed herself cheerfully to his

guidance. Catching a train, they rejoiced; missing it, they were none

the less happy.

Twice a week a matinee performance brought Wallace to the Granada

Theatre at one o'clock. On other days, rehearsals began at eleven and

ended at three or occasionally as late as four. The theatre life

charmed Martie like a fairy tale. She never grew tired of its thrill.

It was gratifying in the first place to enter the door marked "Stage"

with a supplementary legend, NO ADMITTANCE, and pass the old doorkeeper

who knew and liked her. The dark passages beyond, smelling of escaping

gas and damp straw, of unaired rooms and plumbing and fresh paint, were

perfumed with romance to her, as were the little dressing rooms with

old photographs stuck in the loosened wallpaper and dim initials

scratched on the bare walls, and odd wigs and scarfs and paint jars

littering the shelves. Wallace making up his face was an exalted being

in the eyes of his wife.

When the play began, she took her station in the wings--silent,

unobtrusive, eager to keep out of everybody's way, eager not to miss a

word of the play. The man over her head, busy with his lights; the one

or two shirt-sleeved, elderly men who invariably stood dispassionately

watching the performance; the stage-hands; the various members of the

cast: for all these she had a smile, and their answering smiles were

Martie's delight.

"Take off ten pounds, Martie, and Bellew will give you a show some

time!" said Maybelle La Rue, who was Mabel Cluett in private life.

Martie gasped at the mere thought. She determined to diet.

A few months before, she had supposed that social intercourse was a

large factor in the actor's life, that midnight suppers were shared by

the cast, and that intimacy of an unconventional if harmless nature

reigned among them. Now, with some surprise, she learned that this was

not the case. The actors, leaving the play at different moments,

quietly got into their street clothes and disappeared; so that Mabel

and Wallace, usually holding the stage for the last few moments by

reason of their respective parts of maid and lover, often left a

theatre empty of performers except for themselves. Jesse would

frequently reach home enough earlier to be sound asleep when his wife

rushed in to seize her hungry and fretting baby. Little Leroy spent the

early evening in Martie's bed; one of the maids in the house being paid

in Mabel's old finery for coming to look at the children now and then.

At intervals the Bannisters and the Cluetts did have little

after-theatre suppers, but Martie was heroically dieting, Mabel tired

and sleepy, and both gentlemen somewhat subject to indigestion. So

Martie and Wallace more often went alone, Martie drinking bouillon and

nibbling a cracker, and her husband devouring large orders of coffee

and scrambled eggs.

They had been married perhaps eight weeks when Wallace astonished her

by drinking too much. She had always fancied herself too broad-minded

to resent this in the usual wifely way, but the fact angered her, and

she suffered over the incident for days.

It was immediately after the termination of his successful engagement,

and he and the Cluetts were celebrating the inauguration of a rest.

With two or three other members of the cast, they went to dine at the

Cliff House, preceding the dinner with several cocktails apiece. There

was a long wait for the planked steak, during which time more cocktails

were ordered; Martie, who had merely tasted the first one, looking on

amiably as the others drank.

Presently Mabel began to laugh unrestrainedly, much to Martie's

half-comprehending embarrassment. The men, far from seeming to be

shocked by her hysteria, laughed violently themselves.

"Time f'r 'nother round cocktails!" Jesse said. Martie turned to her

husband.

"Wallace! Don't order any more. Not until we've had some solid food,

anyway. Can't you see that we don't need them?"

"What is it, dear?" Wallace moved his eyes heavily to look at her. His

face was flushed, and as he spoke he wet his lips with his tongue.

"Whatever you say, darling," he said earnestly. "You have only to ask,

and I will give you anything in my power. Let me know what you wish----"

"I want you not to drink any more," Martie said distressedly.

"Why not, Martie--why not, li'l girl?" Wallace asked her caressingly.

He put his arm about her shoulders, breathing hotly in her face. "Do

you know that I am crazy about you?" he murmured.

"If you are," Martie answered, with an uncomfortable glance about for

watching eyes, "please, please----!"

"Martie," he said lovingly, "do you think I am drinking too much?"

"Well--well, I think you have had enough, Wallace," she stammered.

"Dearie, I will stop if you say so," he answered, "but you amuse me. I

am just as col' sober----" And, a fresh reinforcement of cocktails

having arrived, he drank one off as he spoke, setting down the little

empty glass with a long gasp.

After that the long evening was an agony to Martie. Mabel laughed and

screamed; wine was spilled; the food was wasted and wrecked. Wallace's

face grew hotter and hotter. Jesse became sodden and sleepy; champagne

packed in a bucket of ice was brought, and Martie saw Wallace's gold

pieces pay for it.

It was not an unusual scene. She had looked on at just such scenes,

taking place at the tables all about her, more than once in the last

few weeks. Even now, this was not the only group that had dined less

wisely than well. But the shame of it, the fear of what might happen

before Wallace was safely at home in bed, sickened Martie to the soul.

She went to the dressing room with Mabel, who was sick. Presently they

were all out in a drizzling rain, stumbling their way up the hill and

blundering aboard a street car. Two nice, quiet women on the opposite

seat watched the group in shocked disgust; Martie felt that she would

never hold up her head again. Wallace fell when they got off, and his

hat rolled in the mud. Martie tried to help him, somehow got him

upstairs to his room, somehow got him into bed, where he at once fell

asleep, and snored.

It was just eleven o'clock. Martie washed her face, and brushed her

hair, and sat down, in a warm wrapper, staring gloomily at the

unconscious form on the bed. She could hear Mabel and Jesse laughing

and quarrelling in the room adjoining. Presently Mabel came in for the

baby, who usually slept in Martie's room during the earlier part of the

night, so that his possible crying would not disturb Bernadette.

"Poor Wallace--he is all in, down and out!" Mabel said, settling

herself to nurse the baby. She looked flushed and excited still, but

was otherwise herself. "He certainly was lit up like a battleship," she

added in an amused voice; "as for me, I'm ashamed of myself--I'm always

that way!"

Martie's indignant conviction was that Mabel might indeed be ashamed of

herself, and this airy expression of what should have been penitence

too deep for words, gave her a curious shock.

"They all do it," said Mabel, smiling after a long yawn, "and I suppose

it's better to have their wives with 'em, than to have 'em go off by

themselves!"

"They all SHOULDN'T do it!" Martie answered sombrely.

"Well, no; I suppose they shouldn't!" Mabel conceded amiably. She

carried the baby away, and Martie sat on, gazing sternly at the

unconscious Wallace.

Half an hour passed, another half hour. Martie had intended to do some

serious thinking, but she found herself sleepy.

After a while she crept in beside her husband, and went to sleep, her

heart still hot with anger.

But when the morning came she forgave him, as she was often to forgive

him. What else could she do? The sunlight was streaming into their

large, shabby bedroom, cable cars were rattling by, fog whistles from

the bay penetrated the soft winter air. Martie was healthily hungry for

breakfast, Wallace awakened good natured and penitent.

"You were a darling to me last night, Mart," he said appreciatively.

Martie had not known he was awake. She turned from her mirror,

regarding him steadily between the curtains of her shining hair.

"And you're a darling not to rub it in," Wallace pursued.

"I WOULD rub it in," Martie said in a hurt voice, "if I thought it

would do any good!"

Wallace sat up, and pressed his hands against his forehead.

"Well, believe me--that was the last!" he said fervently. "Never again!"

"Oh, dearest," Martie said, coming to sit beside him, "I hope you mean

that!" That he did mean it, they both believed.

Half an hour later, when they went out to breakfast, she was in her

happiest mood. The little cloud, in vanishing, had left the sky clearer

than before. But some little quality of blind admiration and faith was

gone from her wifeliness thereafter.

In December the stock company had a Re-engagement Extraordinary, and

Martie got her first part. It was not much of a part--three lines--but

she approached it with passionate seriousness, and when the first

rehearsal came, rattled off her three lines so glibly that the entire

jaded company and the director enjoyed a refreshing laugh. At the

costumier's, in a fascinating welter of tarnished and shabby garments,

she selected a suitable dress, and Wallace coached her, made up her

face, and prompted her with great pride. So the tiny part went well,

and one of the papers gave a praising line to "Junoesque Miss

Salisbury." These were happy days. Martie loved the odorous, dark,

crowded world behind the scenes, loved to be a part of it. This was

living indeed!

And Sally was expecting a baby! Martie laughed aloud from sheer

excitement and pleasure when the news came. It was almost like having

one herself; in one way even more satisfactory, because she was too

busy now to be interrupted. She spent the first money she had ever

earned in sending Sally a present for the baby; smiling again whenever

she pictured Sally was showing it to old friends in Monroe: "From

Martie; isn't it gorgeous?"

The weeks fled by. Wallace began to talk of moving to New York. It was

always their dream. Instinctively they wanted New York. Their talk of

it, their plans for it, were as enthusiastic as they were ignorant, if

Wallace could only get the chance to play on Broadway! That seemed to

both of them the goal of their ambition. Always hopeful of another

part, Martie began to read and study seriously. She had much spare

time, and she used it. From everybody and everything about her she

learned: a few German phrases from the rheumatic old man whose wife

kept the lodging house; Juliet's lines and the lines of Lady Macbeth

from Mabel's shabby books; and something of millinery from the little

Irishwoman who kept a shop on the corner, with "Elise" written across

its window. She learned all of Wallace's parts, and usually Mabel's as

well. Often she went to the piano in the musty parlour of the Geary

Street house and played "The Two Grenadiers" and "Absent." She brimmed

with energy; while Wallace or Mabel wrangled with the old costumier,

Martie was busily folding and smoothing the garments of jesters and

clowns and Dolly Vardens. She had a curious instinct for trade terms;

she could not buy a yard of veiling without an eager little talk with

the saleswoman; the chance phrase of a conductor or the woman in the

French laundry amused and interested her.

Away from all the repressing influences of her childhood, healthy and

happy, she met the claims of the new state with a splendid and

unthinking passion. To yield herself generously and supremely was the

only natural thing; she had no dread and no regret. From the old life

she brought to this hour only an instinctive reticence, so that Mabel

never had the long talks and the short talks she had anticipated with

the bride, and never dared say a word to Martie that might not have

been as safely said to Bernadette.

CHAPTER II

On A hot Sunday in early March Martie came back from church to find

Wallace gone. She had had no breakfast, but had stopped on the way home

to get six enormous oranges in a paper bag. The heat had given her a

stupid headache, and she felt limp and tired. It was delicious to

undress, to climb into the smoothed bed, and to sink back against the

pillows.

A bulky newspaper, smelling of printer's ink, was on the chair beside

her bed, but Martie did not open it for a while. Serious thoughts held

her. Opening her orange, she said to herself, with a little flutter at

her heart, that it must be so. She was going to have a baby!

Fear and pride shook her. It seemed a tremendous thing; not at all like

the other babies other women had been having since time began. She

could not believe it--of herself, Martie Monroe, who had been an

ignorant girl only a few months ago!

Yet she had been vaguely suspecting the state of affairs for more than

a week; when morning after morning found her languid and weary, when

Wallace's fork crushing an egg-yolk had given her a sudden sensation of

nausea. She felt so stupid, so tired all the time. She could not sleep

at night; she could hardly stay awake in the daytime.

Her eyes were heavy now. She glanced indifferently at the newspaper,

smiled a contented little smile, and, murmuring, "I wonder--I wonder--"

and fell into delicious sleep.

She slept for a long time. Wallace, coming in at two o'clock, awakened

her. Afternoon sunlight was streaming into the room, which was scented

with the decaying sweetness of orange peel. Dazed and stupid, yet

dreamily content, Martie smiled upon him. He hated Sunday rehearsals:

she could see that he was in a bad mood, and his obvious effort to

think of her and to disguise his own feeling touched her.

"Tired?" she asked affectionately. "Isn't it hot?"

"How are you?" Wallace questioned in turn. "You felt so rotten

yesterday."

He sat down beside her, and pushed the dark hair from his big forehead,

and she saw that his face was damp and pale.

"Fine!" she assured him, laying her hand over his.

They remained so for a full minute, Wallace staring gloomily at

nothing, Martie's eyes idly roving about the room. Then the man reached

for a section of the paper, glanced at it indifferently, and flung it

aside.

"There wasn't any rehearsal this morning," he observed after a pause.

He cleared his throat self-consciously before speaking and Martie,

glancing quickly at him, saw that he intended the statement to have a

significance.

"Where were you then?" she asked duly.

"I was--I was--" He hesitated, expelling a long breath suddenly.

"Something came up," he amended, "and I had to see about it."

"What came up?" Martie pursued, more anxious to set his mind at rest,

than curious.

"Well--it all goes back to some time ago, Mart; before I knew you,"

Wallace said, in a carefully matter-of-fact tone. But she could see

that he was troubled, and a faint stir of apprehension shook her own

heart.

"Money?" she guessed quickly.

"No," he said reassuringly, "nothing like that!"

He got up, and restlessly circled the room, drawing the shade that was

rattling gently at the window, flinging his coat across a chair.

Then he went back, and sat down by the bed again, locking his dropped

hands loosely between his knees, and looking steadily at the worn old

colourless carpet.

"You see this Golda--" he began.

"Golda who?" Martie echoed.

"This girl I've been talking to this morning," Wallace supplied

impatiently; "Golda White."

"Who is she?" Martie asked, bewildered, as his heavy voice stopped on

the name.

"Oh, she's a girl I used to know! I haven't seen her for eight or ten

years--since I left Portland, in fact."

"But who IS she, Wallie?" Martie had propped herself in pillows, she

was wide awake now, and her voice was firm and quick.

"Well, wait and I'll tell you, I'll tell you the whole thing. I don't

believe there's anything in it, but anyway, I'll tell you, and you and

I can sort of talk it over. You see I met this girl in Portland, when I

was a kid in my uncle's lumber office. I was about twenty-two or three,

and she was ten years older than that. But we ran with the same crowd a

lot, and I saw her all the time----"

"She was in the office?"

"Sure. She was Uncle Chester's steno. She was a queer sort of girl;

pretty, too. I was sore because my father made me work there, and I

wanted to join the navy or go to college, or go on the stage, and she'd

sit there making herself collars and things, and sort of console me.

She was engaged to a fellow in Los Angeles, or she said she was.

"We liked each other all right, she'd tell me her troubles and I'd tell

her mine; she had a stepfather she hated, and sometimes she'd cry and

all that. The crowd began to jolly us about liking each other, and I

could see she didn't mind it much----"

"Perhaps she loved you, Wallie?" Martie suggested on a quick, excited

breath.

"You bet your life she loved me!" he affirmed positively.

"Poor girl!" said the wife in pitying anticipation of a tragedy.

"Don't call her 'poor girl!'" Wallace said, his face darkening. "She'll

look out for herself. There's a lot of talk," he added with a sort of

dull resentment, "about 'leading young girls astray,' and 'betraying

innocence,' and all that, but I want to tell you right now that nine

times out of ten it's the girls that do the leading astray! You ask any

fellow----"

The expression on Martie's face did not alter by the flicker of an

eyelash. She had been looking steadily at him, and she still stared

steadily. But she felt her throat thicken, and the blood begin to pump

convulsively at her heart.

"But Wallace," she stammered eagerly, "she wasn't--she wasn't----"

"Sure she was!" he said coarsely; "she was as rotten as the rest of

them!"

"But--but----" Martie's lips felt dry, her voice failed her.

"I was only a kid, I tell you," said Wallace, uneasily watching her.

"Why, Mart," he added, dropping on his knees beside the bed, and

putting his arms about her, "all boys are like that! Every one knows

it. There isn't a man you know----And you're the only girl I ever

loved, Sweetheart, you know that. Men are different, that's all. A boy

growing up can't any more keep out of it----And I never lied to you,

Mart. I told you when we were engaged that I wished to God, for your

sake, that I'd never----"

"Yes, I know!" Martie whispered, shutting her eyes. He kissed her

suddenly colourless cheek, and she heard him move away.

"Well, to go on with the rest of this," Wallace resumed suddenly.

Martie opened tired eyes to watch him, but he did not meet her look.

"Golda and I went together for about a year," he said, "and finally she

got to talking as if we were going to be married. One day--it was a

rainy day in the office, and I had a cold, and she fixed me up

something hot to drink--she got to crying, and she said her stepfather

had ordered her out of the house. I didn't believe it then, and I don't

believe it now, but anyway, we talked it all over, and she said she was

going down to Los Angeles and hunt up this other fellow. Well, that

made me feel kind of sick, because we had been going together for so

long, and her talking about how things would be when we were married

and all that, and I said--you know the way you do--'What's the matter

with us getting married, right now?'"

Martie's face was fixed in a look of agonized attention: she made no

sound.

"She said we wouldn't have anything to live on," Wallace pursued, not

looking at his wife, "and that she wanted to take a rest when she got

married, and have a little fun. Well, I says, we can keep it quiet for

awhile. Well, we talked about it that day, and after that we would kind

of josh about it, and finally one day we walked over to the bureau and

got out a license, and the Justice of the Peace----"

"Wallie--my God!" Martie breathed.

"Well, listen!" he urged her impatiently. "I put a wrong age on the

license and so did she, and she had told me a lot of lies about

herself, as I found out later, Martie----"

"So that it wasn't legal!"

"Well, listen. After that we went on with the crowd for a few weeks,

and we didn't tell anybody. And then this Dr. Prendergast turned up----"

"WHAT Dr. Prendergast!"

"I don't know who he was--a dentist anyway. And he had known Golda

before, somewhere, and he was crazy about her. His wife was getting a

divorce, it seems; anyway, he butted right in, and she let him. I don't

think she had awfully good sense, she would act sort of crazy

sometimes, as if she didn't know what she was doing. Well, I told her I

wouldn't stand for that, and we had some fights. But just then my dad

wrote and told me that he would finance me for a year at Stanford, and

I began to think I'd like to cut the whole bunch. So I said to Golda:

'I'm done. I'm going to get out! You keep your mouth shut, and I'll

keep mine!' She says, 'Leon'--that was Prendergast--'is going to marry

me, and you'll talk before I do!' So----"

"But, Wallace----"

"But what, dearie?"

"But it wasn't left that way?"

"Now, listen, dearie. Of course it wasn't! She and Prendergast were

going to leave town, a few days later, but I was kind of worried about

it, and I finally told my uncle the whole story. Of course he blew up!

He sent for her, and she came right in, scared to death. He told her

that he'd give away the whole story to Prendergast, or else he'd give

her a check for five hundred dollars on her wedding day. She fell for

it, and we said good-bye. She swore it was only a sort of joke anyway,

and that the day we--we did it, she'd been filling me up with whisky

lemonades and all that, and that the whole thing was off. And let me

tell you that I was glad to beat it! I never saw her again until this

morning! I went on the stage, and changed my name because the leading

lady in that show happened to be Thelma Tenney. About a month later my

uncle wrote me that she had sent him a newspaper notice of her

marriage, and he had sent her the check. I'll never forget reading that

letter. I'd been worrying myself black in the face, but that day I went

on a bust, I can tell you!"

"That marriage would cancel the other?" Martie asked, with a dry throat.

"Sure it would!" he said easily.

"But now--now----" she pursued fearfully.

"Now she's turned up," he said, a shadow falling on his heavy face

again. "She was at the theatre last night. God knows what she's been

doing all these years; she looks awful. She saw my picture in some

paper, and she came straight to the city. She found out where I lived,

and this morning, while you were at church, Mabel came in and said a

lady wanted to see me. I took her to breakfast. I didn't know what to

do with her--and we talked."

"And what does she say, Wallie--what does she want?"

"Oh, she wants anything she can get! She doesn't know that I'm married.

If she did, I suppose she might make herself unpleasant along that

line!"

"But she has no claim on you! She married another man!"

"She says now that she never was married to Prendergast!"

"But she WAS!" Martie said hotly. Her voice dropped vaguely. Her eyes

were fixed and glassy with growing apprehension. "Perhaps she was lying

about that," she whispered, as if to herself.

"She'd lie about anything!" Wallace supplied.

"But if she wasn't, Wallace, if she wasn't--then would that second

marriage cancel the first?" she asked feverishly.

"I should THINK so!" he answered. "Shouldn't you?"

"Shouldn't _I_?" she echoed, with her first flash of anger. "Why, what

do _I_ know about it? What do _I_ know about it? I don't know anything!

You come to me with this now--NOW!"

"Don't talk like that!" he pleaded. "I feel--I feel awfully about it,

Martie! I can't tell you how I feel! But the whole thing was so long

ago it had sort of gone out of my mind. Every fellow does things that

he's ashamed of, Mart--things that he's sorry for; but you always think

that you'll marry some day, and have kids, and that the world will go

on like it always has----"

The fire suddenly died out of Martie. In a deadly calm she sat back

against her pillows, and began to gather up her masses of loosened hair.

"If she is right----" she began, and stopped.

"She's not right, I tell you!" Wallace said. "She hasn't got a leg to

stand on!"

"No," Martie conceded lifelessly, patiently. "But if she SHOULD be

right----"

"But I tell you she isn't, Mart!"

"Yes, I know you do." The deadly gentleness was again in her voice. "I

know you do!" she repeated mildly. "Only--only----" Her lip trembled

despite her desperate effort, she felt her throat thicken and the tears

come.

Instantly he was beside her again, and with her arms still raised she

felt him put his own arms about her, and felt his penitent kisses

through the veil of her hair. A sickness swept over her: they were here

in the sacred intimacy of their own room, the room to which he had

brought her as a bride only a few months before.

She freed herself with what dignity she could command. He asked her a

hundred times if she loved him, if she could forgive him. Her one

impulse was to silence him, to have him go away.

"I know--I know how you feel, Wallie! I'm sorry--for you and myself,

and the whole thing! I'm terribly sorry! I--I don't know what we can

do. I have to go away, of course; I can't stay here until we know; and

you'll have to investigate, and find out just what she claims. I'll go

to Sally, I suppose. People can think I've come up to help when the

baby comes--I don't care what they think!"

"I thought you might go to Oakland for awhile," he agreed, gratefully;

"but of course it'll be best to have you go to Sally--it'll only be for

a few days. Mart, I feel rotten about it!"

"I know you do, Wallace," she answered nervously.

"To spring this on you--it's just rotten!"

Martie was silent. Her mind was in a whirl.

"Will you go out?" she asked simply. "I want to dress."

"What do you want me to go out for?" he asked, amazed.

Again his wife was silent. Her cheeks were bright scarlet, her eyes

hard and dry. She looked at him steadily, and he got clumsily to his

feet.

"Sure I'll go out!" he said stupidly. "I'll do anything you want me to.

I feel like a skunk about this--it had sort of slipped my mind, Mart!

Every fellow lets himself in for something like this."

Trapped. It was the one thought she had when he was gone, and when she

had sprung feverishly from bed, and was quickly dressing. Trapped, in

this friendly, comfortable room, where she had been so happy and so

proud! She had been so innocently complacent over her state as this

man's wife, she had planned for their future so courageously. Now she

was--what? Now she was--what?

Just to escape somehow and instantly, that was the first wild impulse.

He was gone, but he was coming back: he must not find her here. She

must disappear, nobody must ever find her. Sally and her father, Rose

and Rodney must never know! Martie Monroe, married to a man who was

married before, disgraced, exiled, lost. Nobody knew that she was going

to have a baby, but Monroe would surmise that.

Oh, fool--fool--fool that she had been to marry him so! But it was too

late for that. She must face the situation now, and fret over the past

some other day.

She had felt the thought of a return to Monroe intolerable: but quickly

she changed her mind. Sally's home might be an immediate retreat, she

could rest there, and plan there. Her sister was eagerly awaiting an

answer to the letter in which she begged Martie to come to her for the

month of the baby's birth.

Martie, packing frantically, glanced at the clock. It was two o'clock

now, she could get the four o'clock boat. She would be in peaceful

Monroe at seven. And after that----?

After that she did not know. Should she ever return to Wallace, under

any circumstances? Should she tell Sally? Should she hide both

Wallace's revelations and the morning's earlier hopes of motherhood?

Child that she was, she could not decide. She had had no preparation

for these crises, she was sick with shock and terror. Married to a man

who was already married--and perhaps to have a baby!

But she never faltered in her instant determination to leave him. If

she was not his wife, at least she could face the unknown future far

more bravely than the dubious present. If she had been wrong, she would

not add more wrong.

With her bag packed, and her hat pinned on, she paused, and looked

about the room. The window curtain flapped uncertainly, a gritty wind

blew straight down Geary Street. The bed was unmade, the sweet orange

peels still scented the air.

Martie suddenly flung her gloves aside, and knelt down beside her bed.

She had an impulse to make her last act in this room a prayer.

Wallace, pale and quiet, opened the door, and as she rose from her

knees their eyes met. In a second they were in each other's arms, and

Martie was sobbing on his shoulder.

"Mart--my darling little girl! I'm so sorry!"

"I know you are--I know you are!"

"It's only for a few days, dearie--until I settle her once and for all!"

"That's all!"

"And then you'll come back, and we'll go have Spanish omelette at the

Poodle Dog, won't we?"

"Oh, Wallie, darling, I hope--I hope we will!"

She gasped on a long breath, and dried her eyes.

"How much money have you got, dearie?"

"About--I don't know. About four dollars, I think."

"Well, here--" He was all the husband again, stuffing gold pieces into

her purse. "You're going down to the four boat? I'll take you down. And

wire me when you get there, Martie, so I won't worry. And tell Sally I

wish her luck, I'll certainly be glad to hear the news." They were at

the doorway; he put his arm about her. "You DO love me, Mart?"

"Oh, Wallie----!" The tender moment, following upon her hour of lonely

agony, was almost too much. "We--we didn't think--this would be the end

of our happy time, did we?" she stammered. And as they kissed again,

both faces were wet with tears.

Sally met her; a Sally ample of figure and wonderful in complexion. All

the roses of spring were in Sally's smiling face; she laughed and

rejoiced at their meeting with a certain quality of ease and poise for

which Martie was puzzled to account, but which was new to quiet,

conventional Sally. Sally was in the serene mood that immediately

precedes motherhood; all the complex elements of her life were

temporarily lapped in a joyous peace. Of Martie's hidden agony she

suspected nothing.

She took Martie to the tiny house by the river; the plates and spoons

and pillow-slips looked strange to Martie, and for every one of them

Sally had an amused history. Martie felt, with a little twinge of pain,

that she would have liked a handsomer home for Sally, would have liked

a more imposing husband than the tired, dirty, boyish-looking Joe,

would have liked the first Monroe baby to come to a prettier layette

than these plain little slips and flannels; but Sally saw everything

rose-coloured. They had almost no money, she told Martie, with a happy

laugh. Already Sally, who had been brought up in entire ignorance of

the value of money, was watching the pennies. Never had there been

economy like this in Pa's house!

Sally kept house on a microscopic scale that amused and a little

impressed Martie. Every apple, every onion, was used to the last scrap.

Every cold muffin was reheated, or bit of cold toast was utilized. When

Carrie David brought the young householders a roasted chicken, it was

an event. The fowl was sliced and stewed and minced and made into soup

before it went into the family annals to shine forevermore as "the

delicious chicken Cousin Carrie brought us before the baby was born."

Sally's cakes were made with one egg, her custards reinforced with

cornstarch, her cream was only "top milk." Even her house was only half

a house: the four rooms were matched by four other rooms, with only a

central wall between. But Sally had a square yard, and a garden, and

Martie came to love every inch of the little place, so rich in

happiness and love.

The days went on and on, and there was no word of Wallace. Martie's

heart was like lead in her breast. She talked with Sally, set tables,

washed dishes, she laughed and planned, and all the while misgivings

pressed close about her. Sometimes, kneeling in church in the soft warm

afternoons of early spring, she told herself that if this one cup were

taken from her lips, if she were only proved to be indeed an honourable

wife, she would bear with resignation whatever life might bring. She

would welcome poverty, welcome humiliations, welcome the suffering and

the burden of the baby's coming--but dear Lord, dear Lord, she could

not face the shame that menaced her now!

Sally saw the change in her, the new silence and gravity, and wondered.

"Martie, dearest, something's worrying you?"

"Nothing much, dear. Wallace--Wallace doesn't write to me as often as I

should like!"

"You didn't quarrel with him, Mart?"

"Oh, no--he's the best husband in the world. We never quarrel."

"But it's not like you to fret so," Sally grieved. Presently she

ventured a daring question: "Has it ever occurred to you, Mart, that

perhaps----"

Martie laughed shakily.

"The way you and Grace wish babies on to people--it's the limit!"

Sally laughed, too, and if she was unconvinced, at least she said no

more. She encouraged Martie to take long walks, to help with the

housework, and finally, to attempt composition. Sitting at the clean

little kitchen table, in the warm evenings, Martie wrote an article

upon the subject of independence for women.

For a few days she laboured tirelessly with it: then she tired of it,

and flung it aside. Other things absorbed her attention.

First came the expected letter from Wallace. Martie's hand shook as she

took it from the postman. Now she would know--now she would know!

Whatever the news, the suspense was over.

Perhaps the hardest moment of the hard weeks was when she realized that

the tension was not snapped, after all. Wallace wrote affectionately,

but with maddening vagueness. He missed his girl, he had a rotten cold,

he was not working now. Golda was raising hell. He did not believe half

that she said, but he had written to his uncle, who advised him to go

to Portland, and investigate the matter there. So unless Martie heard

to the contrary he would probably go north this week. Anyway, Martie

had better stay where she was, and not worry.

Not worry! It became a marvel to Martie that life could go on for any

one while her own future was so frightfully uncertain. She was going to

have a baby, and she was not married--that was the summary of the

situation. It was like something in a book, only worse than any book

that she had ever read. Sometimes she felt as if her brain were being

affected by the sheer horror of it. Sometimes, Sally noticed, Martie

fell into such deep brooding that she neither heard nor saw what went

on about her. Her mind was in a continual fever; she was exhausted with

fruitless hoping and unavailing endurance.

At the end of a hot, endless April day, into the darkness of Sally's

disordered bedroom, came life. A little hemstitched blanket had been

made ready for the baby; it seemed to Martie's frightened heart nothing

short of a miracle when Sally's crying daughter was actually wrapped in

it. Martie had travelled a long road since the placid spring afternoon

when they had made that blanket.

But the strain and fright were over now; Sally lay at peace, her eyes

shut in a white face. The tears dried on Martie's cheeks; Mrs. Hawkes

and Dr. Ben were even laughing as they consulted and worked together.

Martie took the baby down to the kitchen for her bath, and it seemed

strange to her that the dried peaches Sally had set on the stove that

morning were still placidly simmering in their saucepan.

For a day or two everything was unreal, the smoke of battle and the

shadow of death still hung over the little household. Gradually, the

air cleared. Joe and Martie ate the deluge of layer cakes and apple

pies--debated over details. Joe's mother came in to bathe the baby and

Sally did nothing but laugh and eat and sleep. She called her

first-born Elizabeth, for her mother; and sometimes the sisters

wondered if Ma and Lydia ever talked about the first baby, and ever

longed to see her first tiny charms.

The event shook Martie from her brooding, and brought her the first

real happiness she had known since the terrible morning of Golda's

appearance. She and Sally found the care of the baby only a delight,

and disputed for the privilege of bathing and dressing her.

One episode in the tiny Elizabeth's life was unusual, and long years

afterward Martie found a place for it in her own slowly-forming

theories. At the time the three young persons debated it amusedly and

carelessly before it came to be just an accepted, if incomprehensible,

fact.

Dr. Ben, whose modest bill for attendance upon Sally was promptly paid,

had sent the baby a check for seventy-five dollars. The card with this

check was merely pencilled: "For Miss Elizabeth's first quarter, from

Uncle Ben." At first Sally and Martie and Joe were puzzled to

understand it.

Then suddenly Sally remembered her talk with the doctor a year ago.

This was the "mother's pay" he had spoken about then.

"It does seem funny that we were only girls then, and that to speak of

such things really made me almost die of embarrassment," smiled Sally,

"and now, here we are, and we know all about it! But now, the question

is, what to do?"

Sally and Joe were at first for a polite refusal of the money. It was

so "queer," they said. It seemed too "odd." It was not as if Pa had

decided to do it, or as if Dr. Ben really was the child's uncle. It was

better not to chance possible complications--

Presently Joe dropped out of this debate. He said simply that it was a

deuce of a lot of money, and that there were lots of things that the

baby needed, but he didn't care either way. Sally then said that it was

settled, for if he didn't care the check should go back.

But here Martie found herself with an opinion. She said suddenly that

she thought Sally would be foolish to refuse. It was Dr. Ben's money.

If he endowed a library, or put a conservatory into the Monroe Park,

Sally would enjoy them to the full. Why shouldn't he do this? His money

and the way he spent it were his own affair.

"He's working out an experiment, Sally. I don't see why you shouldn't

let him. You may never have another baby, but if you do, why six

hundred a year is just that much better than three!"

There were several days of debate. It was inevitable that the check

lying on Sally's cheap little three-drawer bureau should suggest things

it would purchase. Martie summarily took it to the Bank one day and

brought home crackling bills in exchange. One of the first things that

was purchased was the perambulator in which 'Lizabeth was proudly

wheeled to call upon her benefactor.

Then the dreadful days began to go by again, and still there was no

letter from Wallace. June came in with enervating, dry heat, and Martie

wilted under it. There was no longer any doubt about her condition. The

hour was coming closer when Sally must know, when all Monroe must know

just how mad a venture her marriage had been.

One day she had a letter from Mabel, who begged her to come back to the

city. Jesse was sure he could get her an occasional engagement; it was

better than fretting herself to death there in that "jay" town.

Martie sat thinking for a long time with this letter in her hand. For

the first time thoughts consciously hostile to Wallace swept through

her mind. She analyzed the motives that had urged her into marriage;

she had been taught to think of it as a woman's surest refuge. If she

had not been so taught, what might she have done for herself in this

year? Was it fair of him to take what she had to give then, in quick

and generous devotion, and to fail her so utterly now, when the old

physical supremacy was gone, and when she must meet, in the future, not

only her own needs but the needs of a child? He had known more of life

than she--her mother and father had known more--why had nobody helped

her?

That evening, when Sally and Joe had gone to the moving pictures,

leaving Martie to listen for 'Lizabeth's little snuffle of awakening,

should she unexpectedly awake, Martie cleared the dining-room table and

wrote to Wallace.

This was not one of her cheerful, courageous letters, filled with

affectionate solicitude for him, and brave hope for the future. She

wept over the pages, she reproached and blamed him. For the first time

she told him of the baby's coming. She was his wife, he must help her

get away, at least until she was well again. She was sick of waiting

and hoping; now he must answer her, he must advise her.

Her face was wet with tears; she went that night to mail it at the

corner. Afterward she lay long awake, wondering in her ignorant girl's

heart if such an unwifely tirade were sufficient cause for divorce,

wondering if he would ever love her again after reading it.

Wallace brought the answer himself, five days later. Coming in from a

lonely walk, Martie found him eating bread and jam and scrambled eggs

in Sally's kitchen. The sight of him there in the flesh, smiling and

handsome, was almost too much for her. She rushed into his arms, and

sobbed and laughed like a madwoman, as she assured herself of his

blessed reality.

Sally, in sympathetic tears herself, tried to join in Wallace's

heartening laugh, and Martie, quieted, sat on the arm of her husband's

chair, feeling again the delicious comfort of his arm about her, and

smiling with dark lashes still wet.

After a while they were alone, and then they talked freely.

"Wallie--only tell me this! Have you got enough money to get me away

somewhere? I can't stay here! You see that! Oh, dearest, if you

knew----"

"Get you away! Why, you're going with me! We're going to New York!"

Her bewildered eyes were fixed upon him with dawning hope.

"But Golda!" she said.

"Oh, Golda!" He dismissed the adventuress impatiently. "Now I'll tell

you all about that some time, dear----"

"But, Wallace, it's--it's ALL RIGHT?" Martie must turn the knife in the

wound now, there must be no more doubt.

"All RIGHT?" The old bombastic, triumphant voice! "Her husband's alive,

if you call THAT all right!"

"Her husband?" Martie's voice died in a sort of faintness.

"Sure! She was married six years before I ever saw her. Uncle Chess

says he heard it, and then forgot it, you know the way you do? I've

been to Portland and Uncle Chess was bully. His old lawyer, whom he

consulted at the time I left there, was dead, but we dug up the license

bureau and found what we were after. She had been married all right and

her husband's still living. We found him in the Home for Incurables up

there; been there fifteen years. I got a copy of her marriage license

from the Registrar and if Mrs. Golda White Ferguson ever turns up again

we'll see who does the talking about bigamy! The she-devil! And I told

you about meeting Dawson?"

"Oh, God, I thank Thee--I thank Thee!" Martie was breathing to herself,

her eyes closed. "Dawson?" she asked, when he repeated the name.

Wallace had straightened up; it was quite in his old manner that he

said:

"I--would--rather work for Emory Dawson than for any man I know of in

New York!"

"Oh, a manager?"

"The coming manager--you mark what I say!"

"And you met him?" Martie was asking the dutiful questions; but her

face rested against her husband's as she talked, and she was crying a

little, in joy and relief.

For answer Wallace gently dislodged her, so that he might take from his

pocket a letter, the friendly letter that the manager had dashed off.

"He swears he'll book me!" Wallace said, refolding the letter. "He said

he needs me, and I need him. I borrowed two hundred from Uncle Chess,

and now it's us to the bright lights, Baby!"

"And nothing but happiness--happiness--happiness!" Martie said,

returning his handkerchief, and finishing the talk with one of her

eager kisses and with a child's long sigh.

"I was afraid you might be a little sorry about--November, Wallie,"

said she, after a while. "You are glad, a little; aren't you?"

"Sure!" he answered good-naturedly. "You can't help it!"

Martie looked at him strangely, as if she were puzzled or surprised.

Was it her fault? Were women to be blamed for bearing? But she rested

her case there, and presently Sally came in, wheeling the baby, and

there was a disorderly dinner of sausages and fresh bread and

strawberries, with everybody jumping up and sitting down incessantly.

Wallace was a great addition to the little group; they were all young

enough to like the pose of lovers, to flush and dimple over the new

possessives, over the odd readjustment of relationships. The four went

to see the moving pictures in the evening, and came home strewing

peanut-shells on the sidewalk, laughing and talking.

Two little clouds spoiled the long-awaited glory of going to New York

for Martie, when early in July she and Wallace really arranged to go.

One was the supper he gave a night or two before they left to various

young members of the Hawkes family, Reddy Johnson, and one or two other

men. Martie thought it was "silly" to order wine and to attempt a smart

affair in the dismal white dining room of the hotel; she resented the

opportunity Wallace gave her old friends to see him when he was not at

his best. She scolded him for incurring the unnecessary expense.

The second cloud lay in the fact that, without consulting her, he had

borrowed money from Rodney Parker. This stung Martie's pride bitterly.

"Wallace, WHY did you?" she asked with difficult self-control.

"Oh, well; it was only a hundred; and he's coining money," Wallace

answered easily. "I breezed into the Bank one day, and he was boasting

about his job, and his automobile. He took out his bank book and showed

me his balance. And all of a sudden it occurred to me I might make a

touch. I told him about Dawson." He looked at his wife's dark,

resentful face. "Don't you worry, Mart," he said. "YOU didn't borrow

it!"

Martie silently resuming her packing reflected upon the irony of life.

She was married, she was going to New York. What a triumphant

achievement of her dream of a year ago! And yet her heart was so heavy

that she might almost have envied that old, idle Martie, wandering

under the trees of Main Street and planning so hopefully for the future.

On the day before she left, exhilarated with the confusion, the new hat

she had just bought, the packed trunks, she went to see her mother. It

was a strange hour that she spent in the old sitting room, in the cool,

stale, home odours, with the home pictures, the jointed gas brackets

under which she had played solitaire and the square piano where she had

sung "The Two Grenadiers." Outside, in the sunken garden, summer

burgeoned fragrantly; the drawn window shades bellied softly to and

fro, letting in wheeling spokes of light, shutting down the twilight

again. Lydia and her mother, like gentle ghosts, listened to her,

reproving and unsympathetic.

"Pa is angry with you, Martie, arid who can blame him?" said Lydia.

"I'm sure I never heard of such actions, coming from a girl who had

loving parents and a good home!"

This was the mother's note. Lydia was always an echo.

"It isn't as if you hadn't had everything, Mart. You girls had

everything you needed--that party at Thanksgiving and all! And you've

no idea of the TALK in town! Pa feels it terribly. To think that other

girls, even like Rose, who had no father, should have so much more

sense than OUR girls."

Martie talked of Sally's baby. "Named for you, Ma," she told her

mother. And with sudden earnestness she added: "WHY don't you go see it

some day? It's the dearest baby I ever saw!"

Mrs. Monroe, who had a folded handkerchief in her bony, discoloured

fingers, now pressed it to her eyes, shaking her head as she did so.

Lydia gave Martie a resentful look, and her mother a sympathetic one,

before she said primly:

"If Sally Monroe wanted Ma and me to go see her and her baby, why

didn't she marry some man Pa could have been proud of, and have a

church wedding and act in a way becoming to her family?"

To this Martie had nothing to say. She left messages of love for Len

and for her father. Her mother and sister came with her for good-byes

to the old porch with its peeling dark paint and woody rose-vines.

"Pa said at noon that you had 'phoned you wanted to come say good-bye,"

said her mother mildly. "I hope you'll always be happy, Martie, and

remember that we did our best for you. If you're a good girl, and write

some day and ask Pa's forgiveness, I think he may come 'round, because

he was always a most affectionate father to his children."

The toneless, lifeless voice ceased. Martie kissed Lydia's unresponsive

warm cheek, and her mother's flat soft one. She walked quickly down the

old garden, through the still rich green, and smelled, as she had

smelled a thousand times before, the velvety sweetness of wallflowers.

As she went, she heard her sister say, in a quick, low tone:

"Look, Ma--there's Angela Baxter with that man again. I wonder who on

earth he is?"

CHAPTER III

The big train moved smoothly. Martie, her arm laid against the window,

felt it thrill her to her heart. She smiled steadily as she watched the

group on the platform, and Sally, Joe, and all the others who had come

to say good-bye smiled steadily back. Sometimes they shouted messages;

but they all were secretly anxious for the train to move, and Martie,

for all her smiling and nodding, was in a fever to be gone.

They vanished; all the faces she knew. The big train slid through

Monroe. Martie had a last glimpse of Mason and White's--of the

bridge--of the winery with its pyramids of sweet-smelling purple

refuse. Outlying ranches, familiar from Sunday walks and drives,

slipped by. Down near the old Archer ranch, Henry Prout was driving his

mother into town. The surrey and the rusty white horse were smothered

in sulphurous dust. It seemed odd to Martie that Henny was driving Mrs.

Prout into town with an air of actual importance; Henny was clean, and

the old lady had on cotton gloves and a stiff gray percale. Yet they

were only going to hot little Monroe. Martie was going to New York!

All her life she remembered the novelty and delight of the trip.

Wallace was at his best; the new hat had its share in the happy

recollection. The dining car, the berths, the unchanging routine of the

day--all charmed her.

She watched her first thunder storm in Chicago with awed pleasure. The

hour came, when, a little jaded, feeling dirty and tumbled, feeling

excited and headachy and nervous, Martie saw her neighbours in the car

begin to straighten garments and gather small possessions. They were

arriving!

She was silent, as first impressions jumbled themselves together in her

tired brain. Wallace, at her elbow, was eager with information.

"Look, Mart--this is the Grand Central. They're going to tear all this

down! Look--that's the subway--those hoods, where the people are going

down! See over that way--this is Forty-Second Street, one of the

biggest cross-streets there is--and over that way is Broadway! We can't

take the subway, I wish we could--you wait until you see the expresses!

But I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll go over and take a 'bus, on the

Avenue--see, here's a Childs'--see, there's the new Library! Climb

right up on the 'bus, if you get a chance, because then we can see the

Park!"

Bewildered, dirty, tired, she stumbled along at his side, her eyes

moving rapidly over the strange crowds, the strange buildings, the

strange streets and crossings. That must be an elevated train banging

along; here was a park, with men packed on the benches, and newspapers

blowing lazily on the paths. And shops in all the basements--why had no

one ever told her that there were shops in all the basements? And a

placid church facade breaking this array of trimmed windows and crowded

little enterprises! It was hot: she felt her forehead wet, her clothes

seemed heavy and sticky, and her head ached dully.

"How'd you like it?" Wallace asked enthusiastically.

"I love it, sweetheart!"

Wallace, frankly embarrassed for money, took her at once to Mrs.

Curley's big boarding-house in East Seventieth Street, where the

Cluetts had stayed.

Mabel had told Martie that "Grandma Curley" was a "character." She was

a plain, shrewd, kindly old woman, who lived in an old brownstone house

that had been acquired after his death, Martie learned, for a bad debt

of her husband's making. She liked everybody and believed in nobody;

smiling a deep, mysterious smile when her table or her management was

praised. She eyed Martie's fresh beauty appraisingly, immediately

suspected her condition, was given the young wife's unreserved

confidence, and, with a few brief pieces of advice, left her new

boarders entirely to their own devices. Wallace's daring compliments

fell upon unhearing ears; she would not lower her prices for anybody,

she said. They could have the big room for eighteen, or the little one

for fourteen dollars a week.

"Sixteen for the big one! You know you like our looks," said Wallace.

"I'd be losing money on it, Mr. Bannister. You can take it or leave it,

just as you like."

He was a little daunted by her firmness, but in the end he told Martie

that eighteen was cheap enough, and as she scattered her belongings

about, his wife gave a happy assent. It was fun to be married and be

boarding in New York.

She was too confused, too excited, to eat her dinner. They were both in

wild spirits; and went out after dinner to take an experimental ride on

the elevated train. That evening the trunk came, and Martie, feeling

still in a whirl of new impressions, unpacked in the big bare bedroom;

as pleased as a child to arrange her belongings in the empty bureau or

hang them in the shallow closet. She had been looking forward, for five

hot days, to the pleasure of a bath and a quiet bed. The bath was not

to be had; neither faucet in the bathroom ran hot; but the bed was

deliciously comfortable, and Martie tumbled into it with only one

thought in her head:

"Anyway, whatever happens now--I'm here in New York!"

The first few days of exploration were somewhat affected by the fact

that Wallace had almost no money; yet they were glorious days, filled

with laughter and joy. The heat of summer had no terrors for Martie as

yet, she was all enthusiasm and eagerness. They ate butter cakes and

baked apples at Child's, they bought fruit and ice cream bricks and

walked along eating them. All New York was eating, and panting, and

gasping in the heat. They went to Liberty Island, and climbed the

statue, and descended into the smothering subway to be rushed to the

Bronx Zoo.

And swiftly the city claimed Martie's heart and mind and body, swiftly

she partook of its freedom, of its thousand little pleasures for the

poor, of its romance and pathos and ugliness and beauty. Even to the

seasoned New Yorkers she met, she seemed to hold some key to what was

strange and significant.

Italian women, musing bareheaded and overburdened in the cars, Rabbis

with their patriarchal beards, slim saleswomen who wore masses of

marcelled curls and real Irish lace, she watched them all. She drank in

the music of the Park concerts, she dreamed in the libraries, she

eagerly caught the first brassy mutter of the thunder storms.

"If five million other people can make a living here, can't we?" she

amused Wallace by asking with spirit.

"There's something in that!" he assured her.

A day came when Wallace shaved and dressed with unusual care, and went

to see Dawson. Hovering about him anxiously at his toilet, his wife had

reminded him bravely that if Dawson failed, there were other managers;

Dawson was not the only one! The great thing was that he was HERE,

ready for them.

Dawson, however, did not fail him. Wallace came back buoyantly with the

contract. He had been less than a week in New York, and look at it!

Seventy-five dollars a week in a new play. Rehearsals were to start at

once.

The joy that she had always felt awaited her in New York was Martie's

now! She told Wallace that she had KNOWN that New York meant success.

She went to his rehearsals, feeling herself a proud part of the whole

enterprise, keenly appreciative of the theatre atmosphere. When he went

away with his company in late August, Martie saw him off cheerfully,

moved to a smaller room, and began to plan for his return, and for the

baby. She was in love with life--she wrote Sally.

"You're lucky our climate don't affect you no more than it does,"

observed Mrs. Curley comfortably. "I suffer considerable from the heat,

myself; but then, to tell you the honest truth, I'm fleshy."

"I like it!" Martie answered buoyantly. "The thunder storms are

delicious! Why, at home the gardens are as dry as bones, now, and look

at Central Park--as green as ever. And I love the hurdy-gurdies and the

awnings and the elevated trains and the street markets!"

"I like the city," said the old woman, with a New Yorker's approval of

this view. "My daughter wants me to go down and open a house in Asbury;

she has a little summer place there, with a garage and all. But I tell

her there's almost nobody in the house now, and we get a good draf'

through the rooms. It's not so bad!"

"It's better for me," said the young wife, "because of the uncertainty

of Mr. Bannister's plans."

"They're all uncertain--men," submitted Mrs. Curley thoughtfully. "That

is, the nice ones are," she added. "You show me a man whose wife isn't

always worrying about him and I'll show you a fool!"

"Which was Mr. Curley?" Martie asked, twinkling. For she and his relict

were the only women in the big boarding-house during the hot months,

and they had become intimate.

"Curley," said his widow solemnly, "was one of God's own. A better

father seven children never had, nor a better neighbour any man! He'd

be at his place in church on a Sunday be the weather what it might, and

that strong in his opinions that the boys would ask him this and that

like the priest himself! I'm not saying, mind you, that he wouldn't

take a drop too much, now and then, and act very harshly when the drink

was on him, but he'd come out of it like a little child----"

She fell into a reverie, repeating dreamily to herself the words

"a--little--child----" and Martie, dreaming, too, was silent.

The two women were in one of the cool back bedrooms. For hot still

blocks all about the houses were just the same; some changed into

untidy flats, some empty, some with little shops or agencies in their

basements, and some, like this one, second-class boarding-houses. On

Second and Third avenues, under the elevated trains, were miles of

shops; all small shops, crowded upon each other. Every block had its

two or three saloons, its meat market, its delicacy store, its tiny

establishments where drygoods and milk and shoes and tobacco and fruit

and paints and drugs and candies and hats were sold, and the women who

drifted up and down all morning shopping usually patronized the nearest

store. In the basements were smaller stores where ice and coal and

firewood and window-glass and tinware might be had, and along the

street supplementary carts of fruit and vegetables were usually

aligned, so that, especially to inexperienced eyes like Martie's, the

whole presented a delightfully distracting scene.

She accepted the fact that Wallace must come and go as best suited his

engagements. Her delight in every novel phase of life in the big city

fired his own enthusiasm, and it was with great satisfaction that he

observed her growing friendship with Mrs. Curley.

There were four or five men in the boarding-house, but they usually

disappeared after an early breakfast and did not come back until

supper, so that the two women had a long, idle day to themselves.

Henny, the coloured maid, droned and laughed with friends of her own in

the kitchen. Mrs. Curley, mighty, deep-voiced, with oily, graying hair

and spotted clothes, spent most of the day in a large chair by the open

window, and Martie, thinly dressed, wandered about aimlessly. She never

tired of the old woman's pungent reminiscences, browsing at intervals

on the old magazines and books that were scattered over the house, even

going into the kitchen to convulse the appreciative Henny, and make a

cake or pudding for dinner.

Summer smouldered in the city. The sun seemed to have been shining hot

and merciless for hours when Martie rose at six, to stand yawning at

her window. At nine families began to stream by, to the Park;

perspiring mothers pushing the baby carriages, small children, already

eating, staggering before and behind. By ten the streets were deserted,

baked, silent, glaring. Martie and Mrs. Curley would establish

themselves in a cool back room, as to-day, with a pitcher of iced tea

near at hand.

Somehow the hot, empty hours dragged by. At four o'clock the two, with

perhaps a friend or two who had come in, would begin to gasp that this

was the worst yet. This was awful. The heat had a positive and brassy

quality, there was no air stirring. The children in the Park would drag

home in the hot sunset light, tired, dirty, whining, and a breathless

evening follow the burning day. Then Martie and Mrs. Curley and mild

little Mr. Bull and bellicose Mr. Snow would perhaps sit on the steps

until eleven o'clock, exchanging pleasantries with various neighbours,

wilted like themselves in the furnace of the day.

Martie liked the sense of extremes, as they all did. In a few months

they would be shaking their heads over a blizzard with the same solemn

enjoyment. She liked the suddenly darkening sky, the ominous rattle of

thunder; "like boxes being smashed," she wrote Sally. She fairly sang

when the rain began to stream down, washing, cooling, cleansing.

From the window of the back bedroom she looked down to-day upon a

stretch of bare, fenced backyards. Here and there a cat slept in the

shade, or moved silently from shadow to shadow. From some of the

opposite windows strings of washed garments depended, and upon one

fire-escape two girls were curled, talking and reading.

Her hostess was the source of much affectionate amusement to Martie,

and as the old lady liked nothing so much as an appreciative listener,

they got on splendidly. Martie laughed at the older woman's accounts of

quarrels, births, and law-suits, thrilled over the details of sudden

deaths, murders, and mysteries, and drank in with a genuine dramatic

appreciation the vision of a younger, simpler city. No subway, no

telephones, no motor cars, no elevated roads--what had New York been

like when Mrs. Curley was a bride? Booth and Parepa Rosa and Adelina

Patti walked the boards again; the terrible Civil War was fought; the

draft riots raged in the streets; the great President was murdered.

There was no old family in the city of whose antecedents Mrs. Curley

did not know something. "The airs of them!" she would say, musing over

a newspaper list of "among those present." "I could tell them

something!"

Martie did not understand how any woman could really be content with

this dark old house, this business, these empty days, but she realized

that Mrs. Curley was free to adopt some other mode of living had she

pleased. Gradually Martie pieced the old woman's history together;

there had been plenty of change, prosperity, and excitement in her

life. She had had seven children, only three of whom were living: Mary,

a prosperous, big matron whose husband, Joe Cunningham, had some

exalted position on the Brooklyn police force; Ralph, who was a priest

in California; and George, the youngest, a handsome ne'er-do-well of

about twenty-five, who was a "heart scald." George floated about his

own and neighbouring cities, only coming to see his mother when no

other refuge offered.

The four children who had died were quite as much in their mother's

thoughts and conversation, and probably more in her prayers, than the

living ones. Of "Curley," too, Martie heard much. She was able to

picture a cheerful, noisy home, full of shouting, dark, untidy-headed

children, with an untidy-headed servant, a scatter-brained mother, and

an unexacting father in charge. "Curley" usually went to sleep on the

sofa after dinner, and Mrs. Curley's sister, Mrs. Royce, with her

children, or her sister-in-law, "Mrs. Dan," with hers, came over to

pick up the Curleys on the way to a Mission sermon, a church concert,

or a meeting of the Women's Auxiliary of the Saint Vincent de Paul.

"... Or else maybe the priest would step in," said Mrs. Curley,

remembering these stirring days, "or often I'd take Mollie or

Katie--God rest her!--and go over to see the Sisters. But many a night

there'd be sickness in the house--Curley had two cousins and an aunt

that died on us--and then I'd be there sitting up with the medicines,

and talking with this one and that. I was never one to run away from

sickness, nor death either for that matter. I'm a great hand with death

in the house; there's no sole to my foot when I'm needed! I'll never

forget the day that I went over to poor Aggie Lemmon's house--she was a

lovely woman who lived round the corner from me. Well, I hadn't been

thinking she looked very well for several weeks, do you see?--and I

passed the remark to my brother Thomas's wife--God rest her----"

A reminiscence would follow. Martie never tired of them. Whether she

was held, just now, in the peaceful, unquestioning mood that precedes a

serious strain on mind and body, or whether her old hostess really had

had an unusually interesting experience, she did not then or ever

decide. She only knew that she liked to sit playing solitaire in the

hot evenings, under a restricted cone of light, with Mrs. Curley

sitting in the darkness by the window, watching the lively street,

fanning herself comfortably, and pouring forth the history of the time

Curley gave poor Ralph a "crule" beating, or of the day Alicia Curley

died in convulsions at the age of three.

Martie had hoped to be in her own little home when the baby came, but

this was swiftly proven impossible. Wallace's play failed after the

wonderful salary had been paid for only eight weeks. He idled about

with his wife for a few happy weeks, and then got another engagement

with a small comic opera troupe, and philosophically and confidently

went on the road. Presently he was home again and in funds, but this

time it was only a few days before the next parting.

The golden Indian Summer came, and the city blazed in glorious colour.

Homecoming began; the big houses on the Avenue were opened. Martie

never saw the burning leaves of September in later years without a

memory of the poignant uneasiness with which she first had walked

beneath them, worrying about money, about Wallace's prospects, about

herself and her child. Many of her walks were filled with imaginary

conversations with her husband, in which she argued, protested,

reproached. She was lonely, she was still strange to the city, and she

was approaching her ordeal.

Even when he was with her, she missed the old loverlike attitude. She

was wistful, gentle, dependent now, and she knew her wistfulness and

gentleness and dependence vaguely irritated. But she could not help it;

she wanted to touch him, to cling to him, to have him praise and

encourage her, and tell her how much he loved her.

Her hour came near, and she went bravely to meet it. Wallace was in

Baltimore, playing juvenile roles in a stock company. Martie went alone

to the big hospital, and put herself into the hands of a capable but

indifferent young nurse, who candidly explained that she had more

patients than she could care for without the newcomer. Martie,

frightened by the businesslike preparations and the clean,

ether-scented rooms, submitted and obeyed with a sick heart. Through

the dull quiet of a dark November day the first snow of the season, the

first Martie had ever seen, began to flutter. Moving restlessly about

her little room, she stopped at the window to look out upon it through

a haze of pain.

Heat and hot lights, strange halls, a strange doctor, and early evening

in a great operating-room; she had only a dazed impression of them all.

Life roared and crackled about her. She leaped into the offered

oblivion with no thought of what it might entail....

After a long while she awakened, in a peaceful dawning, to hear nurses

cheerfully chatting, and the boy warmly fussing and grunting in his

basket. The little room was flooded with sunlight, sunlight bright on a

snowy world, and the young women who had been so casually indifferent

to another woman's agony were proudly awake to the charms of the baby.

The cocoon was lifted; Martie in a tremor of love and tenderness looked

down at the scowling, wrinkled little face.

Instantly terror for his safety, for his health, for his immortal soul

possessed her. She looked uneasily at Miss Everett, when that nurse

bore him away. Did the woman realize what motherhood MEANT? Did she

dream the value of that flannel bundle she was so jauntily carrying?

CHAPTER IV

Rain was falling in such sweeping sheets that the windows actually

shook under the onslaught; all day long a high wind had raged about the

house. Above the noise of the November storm in the warm basement

bedroom rose the steady click and purr of the sewing-machine and the

chattering of a child's voice, and from outside, on the pavement, was a

furious rushing of coal. The big van had been backed up against the

curb, and the cascading black torrent interrupted the passers-by.

"Heavens! Was there ever such an uproar!" exclaimed Martie, ceasing her

operations at the machine and leaning back in her chair with a long

sigh. The lengths of flimsy white curtaining she had been hemming

slipped to the floor; she put her hands behind her head, and yawned

luxuriously. The room was close, and even at four o'clock there was

need of lights; its other occupants were only two, the child who played

with the small gray and red stone blocks upon the floor, and the old

woman who was peering through her glasses at the curtaining that lay

across her lap, and manipulating it with knotted hands. Mrs. Curley was

"Nana" to little Teddy Bannister now, and this shabby room overlooking

a cemented area, and with its windows safeguarded by curved ornamental

iron bars from attack from the street, would be his first memory of

life.

But it was a comfortable room; once the dining room, it had been

changed and papered and carpeted for its present tenants when Martie,

as housekeeper of the boarding-house, had decided to move the dining

room into the big, useless rear parlour upstairs. She and Teddy had

privacy here; they had plenty of room, and the feet that crisped by on

the sidewalk, the noises from the kitchen behind her, and the squeaking

of rats about the basement entrance at night annoyed her not at all.

She had her own telephone here, her own fireplace, and she was

comfortably accessible for the maids--there were two maids now--for the

butcher and ice-man. Between her and the kitchen was a small dark

space, named by herself the "Cold Lairs," where she had a wash-stand

and a small bath-tub. A bead of gas burned here night and day, but if

Teddy ever became REALLY naughty he was to be placed in here as

punishment and the gas turned out entirely. Teddy had never deserved

this terrible fate, but he did not like the Cold Lairs, where his

little crash wash-rag and his tiny toothbrush glimmered at him in the

half-light, and where he always smelled the raw smell of the lemon his

mother kept to whiten her hands.

He idolized his mother; they had a separate game for every hour and

every undertaking of his happy day. He climbed out of his crib, in his

little faded blue pajamas, for uproarious tumbling and pillow-fighting

every morning. Then it was seven o'clock, and she told him a story

while she dressed, and recited poems and answered his questions. There

was a game about getting all the tangles out of his hair, the father

and mother tangles, and the various children, and even the dog and cat.

Then for months it was a game to have her go on washing Teddy's face as

long as he cried, and stop short when he stopped, so that after a while

he did not cry at all. But by that time he could spell "Hot" and "Cold"

from the faucets, and could clean out the wash-stand with great soaping

and scrubbing all by himself.

Then he and Mother went into the big dark kitchen, where Henny and

Aurora were yawning over the boarders' breakfasts, Henny perhaps

cutting out flat little biscuit, and Aurora spooning out prunes from a

big stone jar with her slender brown thumb getting covered with juice.

His mother stirred the oatmeal, and, if it were summer, sometimes

quickly and suspiciously tasted the milk that was going into all the

little pitchers. Then they went upstairs.

The boarders had their meals at little separate tables now, and the

"family," which was Mother and Nana, and Aunt Adele and Uncle John,

were together at the largest table at the back where the serving and

carving were done, and where the big shiny percolator stood. Teddy knew

all the boarders--old Colonel and Mrs. Fox from the big upstairs

bedroom, and Miss Peet and her sister, the school-teachers, from the

hall-room on that floor, and the Winchells, mother and daughter and

son, in the two front rooms on the third floor, and the two clerks in

the back room. Uncle John and Aunt Adele had the pleasant big back room

on the middle floor, and Nana existed darkly in the small room that

finished that floor. The persons who filled his world, if they went

away to the country at all in summer, went only for a fortnight, and

this gave Mother only the time she needed to have their blankets washed

and their rooms papered and the woodwork cleaned before their return.

Of them all, of course he liked Uncle John and Aunt Adele best, as

Mother did. He had seen Aunt Adele kiss his mother, and often she and

Uncle John would get into such gales of laughter at dinner that even

Nana, even Teddy, in his high-chair, would laugh violently in sympathy.

All the boarders were kind to Teddy, but Uncle John was much more than

kind. He brought Teddy toys from Broadway, sombreros and moccasins and

pails. He was never too tired when he came home at night to take Teddy

into his lap, and murmur long tales of giants and fairies. And on long,

wet Sundays he had been known to propose trips to the Zoo and the

Aquarium.

Flanking his own picture on his mother's bureau was a photograph of a

magnificent person in velvet knickerbockers and a frilled shirt with a

cocked hat under his arm. This was Daddy, Teddy's mother told him; he

must remember Daddy! But Teddy could not remember him.

"Darling--don't you remember Muddy taking you down to a train, and

don't you remember the big man that carried you and bought you a

sand-machine?"

"Where is my sand-machine, Moth'?" the little boy would demand

interestedly.

"But Teddy, my heart, you were a big boy then, you were long past two.

CAN'T you remember?"

No use. When Wallace came back he must make the acquaintance of his son

all over again. Martie would sigh, half-vexed, half-amused.

"Aren't they the queer little things, Adele? He remembers his

sand-machine and doesn't remember his father!"

"Oh, I don't know, Martie. That was just after we came, you know. And I

remember thinking that Teddy was a mere baby then!"

"Well, Wallace may be back any day now." Martie always sighed deeply

over the courageous phrase. Wallace had followed a devious course in

these years of the child's babyhood. Short engagements, failures, weeks

on the road, some work in stock companies in the lesser cities--it was

a curious history. He had seen his wife at long intervals, sometimes

with a little money, once or twice really prosperous and hopeful,

once--a dreadful memory--discouraged and idle and drinking. This was

the last time but one, more than a year ago. Then had come the visit

when she had met him, and he had given Teddy the sand toy. Martie had

clung to her husband then; he had not looked well; he would never make

anything of this wretched profession, she had pleaded. She was doing

well at the boarding-house; he could stay there while he looked about

him for regular work.

But Wallace was "working up" a new part, and it was going to be a great

hit, he said. Every one was crazy about it. He would not go to the

boardinghouse; he said that his wife's work there was the "limit." For

his three days in town he lived with a fellow-actor at a downtown

hotel, and Martie had a curious sense that he did not belong to her at

all. There was about him the heavy aspect and manner of a man who has

been drinking, but he told her that he was "all to the wagon." His

associate, a heavy, square-jawed man with a dramatic manner, praised

Wallace's professional and personal character highly. Martie, deeply

distressed, saw him go away to try the new play and went back to her

own life.

This was in a bitter January. Now Teddy, building houses on the floor,

had passed his third enchanting birthday, and winter was upon the big

city again. Martie awaited it philosophically. Her coal was in, anyway,

or would be in, in another hour, and if the coal-drivers' strike came

to pass she might sleep in the comfortable consciousness that no one

under her roof would suffer. Her clean curtains would go up this week;

it had been an endless job; it was finished.

"And the next thing on the programme is Thanksgiving!" she said between

two yawns.

"Most of them goes out for that," said Mrs. Curley. "But the Colonel

and her will stay. Nice to be them that never had to ask the price of

turkey-meat this ten years!"

"Oh, well--we don't have it but twice a year!" Martie was folding the

new curtains; presently she gave the neat pile a brisk, condensing slap

with the flat of her hand. "There now, look what your smart Nana and

Mother did, Ted!" she boasted. "And come here and give hims mother

seventeen kisses and hugs, you darling, adorable, fat, soft, little old

monkey!" The last words were smothered in the fine, silky strands under

Teddy's dark, thick mop, on his soft little neck. He submitted to the

tumbling and hugging, trying meanwhile to keep one eye upon the ship he

had been building from an upturned chair.

Breathless, Martie looked up from the embrace to see a pretty smiling

woman standing in the doorway, a wet raincoat over one arm, and a wet

hat balanced on her hand.

"Hello, people!" said the newcomer. "I'm drenched. I don't believe this

can keep up, it's frightful."

"Hello, Adele!" Martie said, setting Teddy on his feet. "Come in, and

spread those things on the heater. Sit there where your skirts will get

the heat. How was the matinee?"

"It was killing," said Mrs. Dryden, establishing herself comfortably by

the radiator. She was a slender, bright-eyed woman of perhaps thirty,

whose colouring ran to cool browns: clear brown eyes, brown hair

prettily dressed, a pale brown skin under which a trace of red only

occasionally appeared. To-day her tailor-made suit was brown, and about

her throat was a narrow boa of some brown fur. "Here, Teddy, take these

to your mother," she added, extending a crushed box half full of

chocolates. "The place was PACKED," she went on, crunching. "And, my

dear!--coming out we were right CLOSE to Doris Beresford, in the most

divine coat I ever laid eyes on! I suppose they all like to have an

idea of what's going on at the other theatres. I don't believe she uses

one bit of make-up; wonderful skin! There was such a mob in the car it

was something terrible. A man crushed up against Ethel; she said she

thought he'd break her arm! I got a seat; I don't know how it is, but I

always do. We'd been running, and I suppose my colour was high, and a

man got up IMMEDIATELY. Nice--I always thank them. I think that's the

least you can do. Ethel said he sat and stared at me all the way up to

Fifty-ninth, where he got off. He was an awfully nice-looking fellow;

I'll tell you what he looked like: a young doctor. Don't you know those

awfully CLEAN-looking men----"

Martie, now changing Teddy's little suit for dinner, let the stream run

on unchecked. Mrs. Curley, who did not particularly fancy Mrs. Dryden,

had gone upstairs, but Martie really liked to listen to Adele.

Presently she turned on the lights, and led Teddy into the Cold Lairs,

to have his face washed. Adele reached for the evening paper, and began

to peruse it idly. When Martie came out of the bath-room, it was to

hear a knock at the door.

"It's John!" predicted Adele. A moment later her husband came into the

room. Like his wife, he was cold and wet and rosy from the street, but

he had evidently been upstairs, for he wore his old house-coat and dry

slippers, and had brushed his hair. He was younger than Adele by three

or four years, but he looked like a boy of twenty; squarely built, not

tall, but giving an impression of physical power nevertheless. Martie

had first thought his face odd, then interesting; now she found it

strangely attractive. His eyes, between sandy lashes and under thick

sandy brows, were of a sea-blue in colour, his head was covered with a

cap of thick, lustreless, sand-coloured hair. Something odd, elfin,

whimsical, in his crooked smile lent an actual charm to his face, for

Martie at least. She told him he looked like Pan.

Early in their acquaintance she had asked him if he were not a Dane,

not a Norwegian, if he had not viking blood? She said that he suggested

sagas and berserkers and fjords--"not that I am sure what any of those

words mean!" His answering laugh had been as wild as a delighted

child's. No; he was American-born, of an English father and an Irish

mother, he said. He had never been abroad, never been to college, never

had any family that he remembered, except Adele. He had meant to be a

"merchant sailor"--a term he seemed to like, although it conveyed only

a vague impression to Martie--but his lungs hadn't been strong. So he

went to Arizona and loafed. And there he met Adele; her mother kept the

boarding-house in which he lived, in fact, and there they were married.

Adele had a glorious voice and she wanted to come to New York to

cultivate it. And then Adele had been ill.

His voice fell reverently when he spoke of this illness. Adele had

nearly died. What the hope that had also really died at this time meant

to him, Martie could only suspect when she saw him with Teddy. Adele

herself told her that she was never strong enough for new hopes.

"We couldn't afford it, of course; so perhaps it was just as well,"

said Adele one day when she and Martie had come to be good friends, and

were confidential. "I felt terribly for a while, because I have a

wonderful way with children; I know that myself. They always come to

me--funniest thing! Dr. Poole was saying the other day that I had a

remarkable magnetism. I said, 'I don't know about THAT,'--and I don't,

Martie! I don't think I'm so magnetic, do you--'BUT,' I said, 'I really

do seem to have a hold on children!' Jack loves children, too, but he

spoils them. I don't believe in letting children run a house; it isn't

good for them, and it isn't good for you. Let them have their own toys

and treat them as kindly as possible, but----"

John Dryden was a salesman in a furniture house; perhaps the city's

finest furniture house. Martie suspected that his pleasant, half-shy,

yet definite manner, made him an excellent salesman. He talked to her

about his associates, whom he took upon their own valuations, and

deeply admired. This one was a "wizard" at figures, and that one had "a

deuce of a manner with women." John chuckled over their achievements,

but she knew that he himself must be the secret wonder of the place. He

might be more or less, but he was certainly not a typical furniture

salesman. Sometimes the manager took him to lunch; Martie wondered if

he quoted the queer books he read, and made the staid echoes of the

club to which they went awake to his pagan laughter.

His extraordinarily happy temperament knew sudden despairs, but they

were usually because he had made a "rotten mistake," or because he was

"such a fool" about something. He never complained of the stupid daily

round; perhaps it was not stupid to him, who always had a book under

his arm, and to whom the first snow and the first green leaves were

miracles of delight every year. He treated Adele exactly as if she had

been an engaging five-year-old, and she had charming childish

mannerisms for him alone. He pacified her when she fretted and

complained, and was eagerly grateful when her mood was serene. Her

prettiness and her little spoiled airs, Martie realized surprisedly,

were full of appeal for him.

"You don't mean that--you don't mean that!" he would say to her when

she sputtered and raged. He listened absently to her long dissertation

upon the persons--and for Adele the world was full of them--who tried

to cheat her, or who were insolent to her, and to whom she was

triumphantly insolent in return. She found Martie much more sympathetic

as a listener.

Toward Martie, too, John soon began to display a peculiar

sensitiveness. At first it was merely that she spurred his sense of

humour; he began to test the day's events by her laughter. After that

her more general opinions impressed him; he watched her at dinner and

accepted eagerly her verdict upon political affairs or the books and

plays of the hour. She noticed, and was a little touched to notice,

that he quoted her weeks after she had expressed herself. He brought

her books and they disagreed and argued about them. In summer, with

Adele languid under her parasol, and Teddy enchanting in white, they

went to the park concerts, or to the various museums, and wrangled

about the new Strauss and Debussy, and commented upon the Hals canvases

and the art of Meissonier and Detaille.

This evening he had a book for her from the Public Library; he had been

dipping into it on the elevated train.

"Which ticket is this on, John?"

"Yours."

"Well, then, you paid my dues on the other! How much?"

"Six cents."

She showed him the six coppers on her white palm.

"You were an angel to do it. Listen; do you want to read this when I'm

through?"

"Well, if you think so."

"Think so?--Carlyle's 'Revolution'? Of course you ought to! Adele,

isn't he ignorant?"

"I read that in High School," smiled Adele. "It's awfully good."

"Mis' Ban'ster," Aurora was at the door, "Hainy was cuttin' open the

chickens f' t'morrer, and she says one of 'em give an awful queer sort

of POP--!"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake!" Martie started kitchenward. John Dryden gave a

laugh of purest joy; Aurora was one of his delights. "We always say

we're going to read aloud in the evenings," she called back. "Now

here's a chance--a wet evening, and Adele and I with oceans of sewing!"

She went from the kitchen upstairs, finding the various boarders

quietly congregating in the hall and parlour, awaiting the opening of

the dining-room door. Adele had gone up to her room, but Teddy and John

were roaming about. Rain still slashed and swished out of doors. The

winter was upon them.

"Seems to be such a smell of PAINT," said the younger Miss Peet.

"Well, that's just trying out the radiators," Martie said hearteningly.

"It won't last. Did you get caught?"

"Sister did; I got home just before it started. It seems to me we're

having rain early this year--"

"We had had two inches at this time last year," said old Colonel Fox.

Martie knew that this unpromising avenue would lead him immediately to

Chickamauga; she slipped into the dining room and began to carve.

Aurora was rushing about with butter-plates, her cousin Lyola, engaged

merely for the dinner-hour, was filling glasses. A moment later the

entire household assembled for the meal. Mrs. Fox, a gentle, bony old

lady, with clean, cool hands, and with a dowdy little yoke of good lace

in the neck of her old silk, smiled about her sadly. Mrs. Winchell was

a plump little woman who always burst out laughing as a preliminary to

speech. Her daughter was eye-glassed, pretty, capable, a woman who

realized perfectly, at twenty-six, that she had no charm whatever for

men. She realized, too, that Mrs. Bannister, with her bronze hair and

quick speech, was full of it, and envied the younger woman in a

bloodless sort of way. Her brother, known as "Win," had already had a

definite repulse from Mrs. Bannister, and nothing was too bad for the

snubbed suitor to intimate about her in consequence. Win had never seen

"this husband of hers"; Win thought she looked "a little gay, all

right." He had a much more successful friendship with Adele, who

slapped his hand and told him he was the "limit."

To-night one of the clerks from the top floor, shaking out his napkin,

called gaily to Mrs. Bannister that this was his birthday. It was

characteristic of her kindly relationship that she came immediately to

his table. Now why hadn't he told her yesterday? He should have had a

cake, and chicken-pie, because he had once said chicken was his

favourite "insect." He was twenty-eight? He seemed such a boy!

She went back to her place, determining that she would set out a little

supper of cake and crackers and cheese for him to find when his

room-mate and he came in tired and wet from their theatre that night.

She looked at Teddy; would he keep a birthday in a boarding-house some

day with only the housekeeper to mother him?

"We're betting that you're younger than I am, Mrs. Bannister!"

"You win." She smiled at him frankly. "I'm not yet twenty-four!" Martie

was conscious of a little pang as she met his surprised almost pitying

look.

"I think that talk about ages was just a little undignified," said Edna

Winchell later that night.

"Yes, I do, too!" her mother answered quickly.

"There's something about that girl we don't understand, you bet,"

contributed the son. "When I went down for a match she was just getting

a special delivery letter, and she looked as if she was going to drop.

You mark my words--it had something to do with that mysterious husband

of hers!"

For the boarding-house had never seen Wallace, who held the whole place

in bitter scorn. He resented the fact of Martie's position there; the

fact of her having made herself useful to old Mrs. Curley represented a

difference in their point of view. When, in Teddy's first year, regular

letters and a regular remittance from Wallace ceased to appear, Martie

had gone through an absolute agony of worry. Her husband was then on

the road, and she was not even sure that her letters reached him.

Alone except for the baby, in the freezing, silent cold of the city,

she had pondered, planned, and fretted for day after weary day. The one

or two acquaintances she had made in Wallace's profession would have

advised her not to worry, nobody ever was turned out for board in these

days. But Martie was too proud to appeal to them for counsel, and for

other but even stronger reasons she could not confide in Mrs. Curley.

So passed the first Christmas alone, doubly sad because it reminded her

of the Christmas a year before, when they had been so happy and so

prosperous in San Francisco.

In snowy February, however, Mrs. Curley herself had unconsciously

offered a solution. She wanted to go to her daughter in Brooklyn for a

fortnight. "Run the house for me, that's the good girl," she said to

Martie. "You can do it as good as I can, any day of the world! Aurora

knows what the menus for the week are and all you've got to do is to do

the ordering and show the rooms to folks that come looking for them."

Martie had been feeling a little more comfortable about her overdue

board, because Wallace, playing in stock in Los Angeles, had sent her

one hundred dollars early in the year. It was not enough, but it

sufficed to pay a comfortable installment on her bill, and to keep her

in money for another week or two. But she was sick of waiting and

worrying, and she seized the opportunity to be helpful. Chance favoured

her, for during the old woman's visit the daughter in Brooklyn fell

ill, and it was mid-March before the mother came home again. By that

time the trembling Martie had weathered several storms, had rented the

long-vacant front room, and was more brisk and happy than she had been

for months, than she had ever been perhaps. So the arrangement drifted

along. There was no talk of a salary then, but in time Martie came to

ask for such money as she needed--for Teddy's rompers, for gingham

dresses for summer, for stationery and stamps--and it was always

generously accorded.

"Get good things while you're about it," Mrs. Curley would say. "You

buy for the ragman when you buy trash. This lad here," she would

indicate the splendid Teddy, with his loose dark curls and his creamy

skin, "he wants to look elegant, so that the girls will run after him!"

Martie felt more free to obey her because the business was in a

steadily improving condition. This fancy for keeping a few "paying

guests" had become a sort of expensive luxury for the solitary woman,

whose children no longer needed her, and who would not live with any of

them. Mrs. Curley was not entirely dependent upon her boarding-house,

but she had never been reconciled to the actual loss of money in the

business. She liked to have other persons about, she having no definite

interests of her own, and the new arrangement suited her perfectly: an

attractive young woman to help her, a baby to lend a familiar air to

the table, and money enough to pay all bills and have something left

over.

Amazingly, the money flowed in. Martie told them one night at dinner

that she had always fancied a boarding-house was a place where a

slap-heeled woman climbed bleak stairs to tell starving geniuses that

their rent was overdue. Mrs. Curley had laughed comfortably at the

picture.

"You can always make money feeding people," she had asserted. John had

given Martie a serious look after his laugh.

"Geniuses don't HAVE to starve," he had submitted thoughtfully.

"There's always plenty of work in the world, if people will do it!"

Adele had added. "Dear me, I often wonder if the people who talk

charity--charity--charity--realize that it's all two thirds laziness

and dirt. I don't care HOW poor I was, I know that I would keep my

little house nice; you don't have to have money to do that! But you'll

always hear this talk of the unemployed--when any employer will tell

you the hard thing is to get trustworthy men! The other day Ethel was

asking me to join some society or other--take tickets for an actors'

benefit, I think it was--and I begged to be excused. I told her we

didn't have any money to spare for that sort of thing! Genius, indeed!

Why don't they get jobs?"

"Jobs in a furniture store, eh, John?" Martie smiled. The man answered

her smile sturdily.

"It isn't so rotten!" he said.

Her letters to-night, for there were two in the special delivery

stamped envelope, were from Lydia and Sally. Sally had written often to

her sister during the years, and Martie was fairly in touch with Monroe

events: the young Hawkeses had three babies now, and Grace had twins.

Rose had been ill, and had lost her hopes a second time, but she was

well now, and she and Rodney had been to New York. People said that the

Parkers were coining money, and Rose had absolutely everything she

wanted. Colonel Frost was dead. Miss Frost looked like death--Martie

had smiled at the old phrase--and Grandma Kelly was dead; Father Martin

was quoted as saying that she was a saint if ever there was one. George

Patterson had been sued by a girl in Berkeley, and Monroe was of the

opinion that the Pattersons never would hold up their heads again. Pa

and Len were in some real estate venture together, Len had talked Pa

into it at last. And finally, Sally and the children were well, and Joe

wrote her every day.

This last sentence had puzzled Martie; where was Joe Hawkes then, that

he must write every day to his wife? She had intended to write Sally in

the old affectionate, confidential strain, and ask all the questions

that rose now and then in her thoughts of Monroe. But she had not

written for months, and now--now this.

She grasped the news in the tear-stained sheets at a first glance. Her

mother was dead. Martie repeated the words to herself with a stupid

realization that she could not grasp their meaning. The old dark house

in the sunken square would know that slender, gentle presence no more.

She had never felt the parting final; a chill wind from some forgotten

country smote her. Her mother was dead, her child was growing up, her

husband had failed her.

Sally's letter was brief, restrained, and tender. Martie could read

Sally's development in the motherly lines. But Lydia had written in a

sort of orgy of grief. Ma had "seemed like herself all Wednesday," and

had gone with Lydia to see old Mrs. Mussoo, and had eaten her dinner

that night, and the next day, Thursday, she had come down as usual to

breakfast, and so on and on for ten long days, every hour of which was

treasured now in Lydia's heart. "And poor Pa," wrote the older sister,

"I must be all in all to him now; I never can marry now. And oh,

Martie, I couldn't help wishing, for your sake, that you could feel

that you had never, even as a thoughtless girl, caused our dear angel

an hour of grief and pain! You must say to yourself that she forgave

you and loved you through it all ..."

Martie made a wry mouth over the letter. But into the small hours of

the morning she lay awake, thinking of her mother and of the old days.

Odd little memories came to her: the saucer pies that she and Sally

used to have for their tea-parties, out under the lilac trees, and a

day when she, Martie, had been passionately concerned for the fate of a

sick cat, and had appealed to her mother for help. Mrs. Monroe had been

filling lamps, and her thin dark hands were oily and streaked with

soot, but she had been sympathetic about the kitten, and on her advice

the invalid had been wrapped in a clean cloth, and laid tenderly on the

heaps of soft, sweet, dying grass that had been raked to one side of

the lawn. Here kindly death had found the kitten a little later, and

Martie, cat and all, had climbed into her mother's lap and cried. But

she was not a little girl any longer--she would never feel her mother's

arms about her again.

The next day she received a box of roses, not remarkable roses,

inasmuch as they were rather small, of a solid red, and wired heavily

from the end of their sterns to the very flower. But the enclosed note

in which John Dryden said that he knew how hard it was for her, and was

as sorry as he could be, touched Martie. A far more beautiful gift

would not have gone to her heart quite so deeply as did this cheap box

and the damp card with its message smudged and blurred.

Through the long icy winter she began to feel, with a sense of vague

pain, that life was passing, that if she and Wallace were ever to have

that big, shadowy studio, that long-awaited time of informal

hospitality and financial ease, it must come soon. Her marriage was

already measured by years; yet she was still a child in Wallace's

hands. He could leave her thus bound and thus free; she was helpless,

and she began to chafe against the injustice of it. One day she found,

and rewrote her old article, filled with her own resentful theories of

a girl's need of commercial fitness. She sent it to a magazine; it was

almost immediately returned.

But the episode bore fruit, none the less. For, discussing it with

John, as she discussed everything with John, she was led to accept his

advice as to the appearance of the closely written sheets. It would

have a much better chance if it were typewritten, he assured her. He

carried it off to his stenographer.

This was in April, and as, with characteristic forgetfulness, he failed

to bring it back, Martie, chancing to pass his office one day,

determined to go in and get it for herself. She had never been in

John's place of business before. She went from the spring warmth and

dazzle of the street into the pleasant dimness of the big store that

smelled pleasantly of reedy things, wickerwork and carpets.

Three or four salesmen "swam out like trout" from the shadows to meet

her, she told John presently, evoking one of his bursts of laughter.

One of them called him, and Martie had a sensation of real affection as

he came down, his eager, faunlike face one radiant smile. She spoke of

the manuscript, but he hardly heard her. Where could they talk?--he

said concernedly. He glanced about; his face brightened.

"I know! There's a set of five rooms just finished by our decorator on

the fourth floor; we'll go there!"

"But, John--truly I haven't but a minute!" Martie protested.

He did not hear her. He touched the elevator bell, and they went

upstairs.

The furnished suite was unbelievably lovely to Martie's unaccustomed

eyes. She wanted to exclaim over the rugs and chairs; John wanted to

talk. They wandered through the perfect rooms, laughing like happy

children.

"I came down to get some things for to-morrow--Teddy needs a straw hat,

if we're really going to Coney"--Martie found his steady look a little

confusing. "You like my pongee, and my four-dollar hat?" she said.

"I think you're PERFECTLY--GORGEOUS!" he answered intensely. "To have

you come in here like this!--I had no idea of it! Brewer simply came

and said 'a lady'--I thought it was that woman from the hotel. I'll

never forget the instant my eyes fell upon you, standing there by old

Pitcher. It--honestly, Martie, it seemed to me like a burst of

sunshine!"

"Why--you goose!" she said, a little shaken. The circumstance of their

being here, in this exquisite semblance of domestic comfort, the sweet

summer day, the new flowery hat and cool pongee gown, combined to stir

her blood. She forgot everything but that she was young, and that it

was strangely thrilling to have this man, so ardent and so forceful,

standing close beside her.

It was almost with a sense of relief, a second later, that she realized

that other groups were drifting through the little apartment, that she

and John were not alone. She remembered, with a strange, poignant

contraction of her heart, the expression in his eyes as they met, the

authoritative finger with which he had touched the elevator bell.

John spoke appreciatively of her visit that night at the table; Adele

said that Martie had told her of it.

"I was going down town with her," said Adele, playing idly with knife

and fork. "But I got started on that disgusting centrepiece again, and

Ethel came in, and we just sewed. I'm so sick of the thing now I told

Miriam I was going to give it to her and let her finish it

herself--I'll have to go down town Monday and match the silk anyway;

it's too maddening, for there's just that one leaf to do, but I might

as well keep AT it, and get RID of it! If we go to Coney to-morrow I

believe I'll take it along, and go on with it; I suppose it would look

funny, but I don't know why not. Ethel went to Coney last week with the

Youngers in their auto; she said it was a perfect scream all the way;

Tom WOULD pass everything on the road, and she said it was a scream!

She says Mrs. Younger talks about herself and her house and her

servants all the time, and she wouldn't get out of the car, so it

wasn't much fun. I asked her why she wouldn't get out of the car, and

she said her complexion. I didn't see anything so remarkable about it

myself; anyway, if you rub plenty of cream in--I'm going to do that

to-morrow, Martie, and you ought to!--and then wear a veil, I don't

mean too heavy a veil, but just to keep your hat tight, why, you don't

burn!"

"Both you girls come down town Monday, and I'll show you a rug worth

fifty thousand dollars," suggested John.

"Oh, thank you, dear!" Adele said in bright protest. "But if you knew

what I've got to do Monday! I'm going to have my linen fitted, and I'm

going in to see the doctor about that funny, giddy feeling I've had

twice. And Miriam wants me to look at hats with her. I'll be simply

dead. Miriam and I will get a bite somewhere; we're dying to try the

fifty-cent lunch at Shaftner's; they say it isn't so bad. It'll be an

awful day, to say nothing of being all tired out from Coney. But I

suppose I'll have to get through it."

She smiled resignedly at Martie. But Martie had fallen suddenly into

absent thought. She was thinking of the odd look on John's face as he

came forward in the pleasant dimness and coolness of the big store.

The next day they went duly to Coney Island; their last trip together,

as it chanced, and one of the most successful of their many days in the

parks or on the beaches. John, Martie, and Teddy were equally filled

with childish enthusiasm for the prospect, and perhaps Adele liked as

well her role of amused elder.

It was part of the pleasure for Martie to get up early, to slip off to

church in the soft, cool morning. The dreaming city, awaiting the heat

of the day, was already astir, churchgoers and holiday-makers were at

every crossing. Freshly washed sidewalks were drying, enormous Sunday

newspapers and bottles of cream waited in the doorways. Fasting women,

with contented faces, chatted in the bakery and the dairy, and in the

push-cart at the curb ice melted under a carpet cover. It was going to

be a scorcher--said the eager boys and girls, starting off in holiday

wear, coatless, gloveless, frantic to be away. Little families were

engineered to the surface cars, clean small boys in scalloped blue wash

suits, mother straining with the lunch-basket, father carrying the

white-coated baby and the newspaper and the children's cheap coats.

Martie, kissing Teddy as a preliminary to her delayed breakfast, came

home to discuss the order of events. The route and the time were

primarily important: Teddy's bucket, John's camera, her own watch, must

not be forgotten. There were last words for Henny and Aurora, good-byes

for Grandma; then they were out in the Sunday streets, and the day was

before them!

John took charge of the child; Adele and Martie talked and laughed

together all the long trip. The extraordinary costumes of the boys and

girls about them, the sights that filled the streets, these and a

thousand other things were of fresh interest. Adele's costume was

discussed.

"My gloves washed so beautifully; he said they would, but I didn't

believe him! My skirt doesn't look a bit too short, does it, Martie? I

put this old veil on, and then if we have dinner any place decent, I'll

change to the other. I wore these shoes, because I'll tell you why:

they only last one summer, anyway, and you might as well get your wear

out of them. Listen, does any powder show? I simply put it on thick,

because it does save you so. It's that dead white. I told her I didn't

have colour enough for it; she said I had a beautiful colour--absurd,

but I suppose they have to say those things!"

And Adele, her clear brown eyes looking anxiously from her slender

brown face, leaned toward Martie for inspection. Martie was always

reassuring. Adele looked lovely; she had her hat on just right.

At Coney Teddy played bare-legged in the warm sand. Adele had a beach

chair near by. She put on her glasses, and began her sewing; later they

would all read parts of the paper, changing and exchanging constantly.

Martie and John, beaming upon all the world, joined the long lines that

straggled into the bath-houses, got their bundled suits and their gray

towels, and followed the attendant along the aisles that were echoing

with the sound of human voices, and running with the water from wet

bathing-suits. Fifteen minutes later they met again, still beaming, to

cross under the damp, icy shadow of the boardwalk, and come out, fairly

dancing with high spirits, upon the long, hot curve of the beach. The

delicious touch of warm sand under her stockinged feet, the sunlight

beating upon her glittering hair, Martie would run down the shore to

the first wheeling shallows of the Atlantic.

"Nothing I have ever done in my life is so wonderful as this!" she

shouted as the waves caught them, and carried them off their feet. John

swam well; Martie a little; neither could get enough of the tumbling

blue water.

Breathless, they presently joined Adele; Martie spreading her

glittering web of hair to dry, as she sat in the sand by the other

woman's chair; John stretched in the hot sand for a nap; Teddy

staggering to and fro with a dripping pail. They liked to keep a little

away from the crowd; a hundred feet away the footmarked sand was

littered with newspapers, cigarette-butts, gum-wrappers, and empty

paper-bags, the drowsing men and women were packed so close that

laughing girls and boys, going by in their bathing-suits, had to weave

a curving path up and down the beach.

Presently they had a hearty meal: soft-shell crabs fried brown, with

lemon and parsley, coffee ready-mixed with milk and sugar, sliced

tomatoes with raw onions, all served in cheap little bare rooms, at

scarred little bare tables, a hundred feet from the sea. Later came the

amusements: railways and flying-swings enjoyed simultaneously with hot

sausages and ice-cream cones.

Adele liked none of this so much as she liked to go up toward the big

hotels at about five o'clock, to find a table near the boardwalk, and

sit twirling her parasol, and watching the people stream by. The

costumes and the types were tirelessly entertaining. At six they

ordered sandwiches and beer, and Teddy had milk and toast. The

uniformed band, coming out into its pagoda, burst into a brassy uproar,

the sun sank, the tired crowd in its brilliant colours surged slowly to

and fro. Beyond all, the sea softly came and went, waves broke and

spread and formed again unendingly.

Martie felt that she would like to sit so forever, with her son's soft,

relaxed little body in her arms. To-night she did not analyze the new

emotion that John's glances, John's voice, John's quiet solicitude for

her comfort, had lent the day. Of course he liked her; of course he

admired her; that was a fact long recognized with maternal amusement by

Adele and herself. Of course he laughed at her, but every one laughed

at Martie when she chose to be humorous. Let it go at that!

Sandy, sore, sleepy, and sunburned, they were presently in the

returning cars, all wilted New York returning with them. Teddy slept

soundly, sometimes in his mother's arms, sometimes in John's. It was

John who carried him up the steps of the Seventieth Street house at ten

o'clock.

A gentleman waiting to see Mrs. Bannister? Goodness, Aurora, why didn't

you ask Mrs. Curley to see him? Martie surrendered her loose coat and

hat to the maid, put a hand to her disordered hair. Apologetic,

smiling, she went into the parlour.

Wallace Bannister was waiting for her; she was in her husband's arms.

"But, Wallace--Wallace--Wallace, what does it matter, dear? You don't

have to tell me all about it, all the sickness and failure and bad

luck! You're home again, now, and you've gotten back into your own

line, and that's all that matters!"

Thus Martie, laughing with lashes still wet. She understood, she

forgave; what else was a wife for? All that mattered was that he was

here, and was deep in new plans, he had a new part to work up, he was

to begin rehearsing next week, and the past was all a troubled dream.

Ah, this was worth while; this made up for it all!

Not quite a dream, for he seemed much older; the boyish bravado was

gone. He was stout, settled, curiously deliberate in manner. But then

she was older, too.

He answered her generous concession only with compliments. She had

grown handsome, by George, she had a stunning figure, she had a

stunning air! Martie laughed; she knew it was true.

He felt his old hatred for her employment at the boarding-house, and

she was as eager as he to launch into real housekeeping at last. After

the lonely years, it was wonderful to have a husband again! He bought

whatever she wanted, took her proudly about. She went with him to his

first rehearsals, finding the old stage atmosphere strangely

exhilarating. Adele was frankly jealous of this new development, Martie

saw and heard her as little as she noticed John's silence and

seriousness, and Mrs. Curley's dubious cooperation.

A friend of Wallace proposed to sub-let them a furnished apartment in

East Twenty-sixth Street. Martie inspected it briefly, with eyes too

dazzled with dreams to see it truly.

She was not trained to business responsibility: she merely laughed

because her old employer was annoyed to have her housekeeper desert

her. After all, could there be a better reason for any move than that

one's husband wished it? Swiftly and gaily she snapped the ties that

bound her to the boarding-house.

There seemed to be plenty of money for teas and dinners: she stared

about the brightly lighted restaurants like an excited child. Wallace

was boisterously fond of his son, but he was too busy to be much with

Teddy, and he wanted his wife all day and every day. So Martie engaged

a housekeeper to take her place in the house, and a little coloured

girl to take care of Teddy, and devoted herself to Wallace.

CHAPTER V

The flat in East Twenty-sixth Street was not what Martie's lonely

dreams had fashioned, but she accepted it with characteristic courage

and made it a home. She had hoped for something irregular,

old-fashioned: big rooms, picturesque windows, picturesque

inconveniences, interesting neighbours.

She found five rooms in a narrow, eight-story, brick apartment-house; a

narrow parlour with a cherry mantel and green tiles, separated from a

narrow bedroom by closed folding doors, a narrow, long hall passing a

dark little bathroom and the tiny dark room that Teddy had, a small

dining room finished in black wood and red paper, and, wedged against

it, a strip of kitchen.

These were small quarters after the airy bareness of the Curley home,

and they were additionally reduced in effect by the peculiar taste

their first occupant had shown in furnishing. The walls were crowded

with heavily framed pictures, coloured photographs of children in livid

pink and yellow gowns dancing to the music played by draped ladies at

grand pianos; kittens in hats, cheap prints of nude figures, with ugly

legends underneath. The chairs were of every period ever sacrificed to

flimsy reproduction: gilt, Mission, Louis XIV, Pembroke, and old

English oak. There were curtains, tassels, fringes, and portieres

everywhere, of cotton brocade, velours, stencilled burlap, and "art"

materials generally. There was a Turkish corner, with a canopy,

daggers, crescents, and cushions. The bookcase in the parlour and the

china cabinet in the dining room were locked. The latter was so large,

and the room it adorned so small, that it stood at an angle, partly

shutting out the light of the one window. Every room except the parlour

opened upon an air-well, spoken of by the agent as "the court." The

rent was fifty dollars, and Wallace considered the place a bargain.

For the first day or two Martie laughed bravely at her surroundings,

finding in this vase or that picture cause for great amusement. She

promised herself that she would store some of these horrors, but

inasmuch as there was not a spare inch in the flat for storage, it was

decidedly simplest to leave them where they were. Wallace did not mind

them, and Wallace's happiness was her aim in life.

But, strangely, after the first excitement of his return was over, a

cool distaste descended upon her. Before the first weeks of the new

life were over, she found herself watching her husband with almost

hostile eyes. It must be wrong for a wife to feel so abysmal--so

overwhelming an indifference toward the man whose name she bore.

Wallace, weary with the moving, his collar off, his thick neck bare,

his big pale face streaked with drying perspiration, was her husband

after all. She was angry at herself for noticing that his sleek hair

was thinning, that the old look of something not fine was stamped more

deeply upon his face. She resolutely suppressed the deepening

resentment that grew under his kisses; kisses scented with alcohol.

Generations of unquestioning wives behind her, she sternly routed the

unbidden doubts, she deliberately put from her thoughts many another

disillusion as the days went by. She was a married woman now, protected

and busy; she must not dream like a romantic girl. There was

delightfully novel cooking to do; there was freedom from hateful

business responsibility. All beginnings were hard, she told her

shrinking soul; she was herself changed by the years; what wonder that

Wallace was changed?

Perhaps in his case it was less change than the logical development of

qualities that would have been distinctly discernible to clearer eyes

than hers in the very hour of their meeting. Wallace had always drifted

with the current, as he was drifting now. He would have been as glad as

she, had success come instead of failure; he did not even now

habitually neglect his work, nor habitually drink. It was merely that

his engagement was much less distinguished than he had told her it was,

his part was smaller, his pay smaller, and his chances of promotion

lessening with every year. He had never been a student of life, nor

interested in anything that did not touch his own comfort; but in the

first days of their love, days of youth and success and plenty, Martie

had been as frankly an egotist as he. His heaviness, his lack of

interest in what excited her, his general unresponsiveness, came to her

now more as a recollection than a surprise.

The farce in which he had a part really did prove fairly successful,

and his salary was steady and his hours comfortable until after the new

year. Then the run ended, and Wallace drifted for three or four weeks

that were full of deep anxiety for Martie.

When he was engaged again, in a vaudeville sketch that was booked for a

few weeks on one of the smaller circuits about New York, she had some

difficulty in making him attend rehearsals, and take his part

seriously. His friends were generally of the opinion that it was

beneath his art. His wife urged that "it might lead to something."

Wallace was amused at her concern. Actors never worked the whole year

round, he assured her. There was nothing doing in the summertime, ever.

Martie remarked, with a half-sorry laugh, that a salary of one hundred

dollars a week for ten weeks was less than eighty-five dollars a month,

and the same salary, if drawn for only five weeks, came to something

less than a living income.

"Don't worry!" Wallace said.

"Wallace, it's not for myself. It's for the--the children. My dear! If

it wasn't for that, it would be a perfect delight to me to take luck

just as it came, go to Texas or Canada with you, work up parts myself!"

she would answer eagerly. She wanted to be a good wife to him, to give

him just what all men wanted in their wives. But under all her bravery

lurked a sick sense of defeat. He never knew how often he failed her.

And he was older. He was not far from forty, and his youth was gone. He

did not care for the little dishes Martie so happily prepared, the

salads and muffins, the eggs "en cocotte" and "suzette." He wanted

thick broiled steak, and fried potatoes, and coffee, and nothing else.

He slept late in the mornings, coming out frowsy-headed in undershirt

and trousers to breakfast at ten or eleven, reading the paper while he

ate, and scenting the room with thick cigar smoke.

Martie waited on him, interrupting his reading with her chatter. She

would sit opposite him, watching the ham and eggs vanish, and the

coffee go in deep, appreciative gulps.

"How d'you feel, Wallie?"

"Oh, rotten. My head is the limit!"

"Too bad! More coffee?"

"Nope. Was that the kid banging this morning?"

"My dear, he was doing it just for the time it took me to snatch the

hammer away! I was so sorry!"

"Oh, that's all right." He would yawn. "Lord, I feel rotten!"

"Isn't it perhaps--drinking and smoking so much, Wallace?" Martie might

venture timidly.

"That has nothing to do with it!"

"But, Wallie, how do you know it hasn't?"

"Because I do know it!"

He would return to his paper, and Martie to her own thoughts. She would

yawn stupidly, when he yawned, in the warm, close air. Sometimes she

went into the tumbled bedrooms and put them in order, gathering up

towels and scattered garments. But usually Wallace did not bathe until

after his breakfast, and nothing could be done until that was over.

Equally, Martie's affairs kitchenward were delayed; sometimes Wallace's

rolls were still warming in the oven when she put in Teddy's luncheon

potato to bake. The groceries ordered by telephone would arrive, and be

piled over the unwashed dishes on the table, the frying pan burned dry

over and over again.

After Teddy and his mother had lunched, if Wallace was free, they all

went out together. He was devoted to the boy, and broke ruthlessly into

his little schedule of hours and meals for his own amusement. Or he and

Martie went alone to a matinee. But when he was playing in vaudeville,

even if he lived at home, he must be at the theatre at four and at

nine. Often on Sunday afternoons he went out to meet his friends, to

drift about the theatrical clubs and hotels, and dine away from home.

Then Martie would take Teddy out, happy times for both. They went to

the library, to the museums, to the aquarium and the Zoo. Martie came

to love the second-hand book-stores, where she could get George Eliot's

novels for ten cents each, a complete Shakespeare for twenty-five. She

drank in the passing panorama of the streets: the dripping "L"

stations, the light of the chestnut dealer, a blowing flame in the cold

and dark, the dirty powder of snow blowing along icy sidewalks, and the

newspapers weighted down at corner stands with pennies lying here and

there in informal exchange. Cold, rosy faces poured into the subway

hoods, warm, pale faces poured out, wet feet slipped on the frozen

rubbish of the sidewalks, little salesgirls gossiped cheerfully as they

dangled on straps in the packed cars.

Often Martie and Teddy had their supper at Childs', in the clean warm

brightness of marble and nickel-plate. Teddy knew their waitress and

chattered eagerly over his rice and milk. Martie had a sandwich and

coffee, watching the shabby fingers that fumbled for five-cent tips,

the anxious eyes studying the bill-of-fare, the pale little

working-women who favoured a supper of butter cakes and lemon meringue

pie after the hard day.

She would go home to find the breakfast dishes waiting, the beds

unmade, the bathroom still steamed from Wallace's ablutions. Teddy

tucked away for the night, she would dream over a half-sensed book. Why

make the bed she was so soon to get into? Why wash the dishes now

rather than wait until she was in her comfortable wrapper? She went

back to her old habit of nibbling candy as she read.

The jolly little Bohemian suppers she had foreseen never became a

reality. Wallace hated cheap food; he was done with little restaurants,

he said. More than that, among his friends there did not seem to be any

of those simple, busy, gifted artists to whose acquaintance Martie had

looked forward. The more distinguished members of his company he hardly

knew; the others were semi-successful men like himself, women too poor

and too busy to waste time or money, or other women of a more or less

recognized looseness of morals. Martie detested them, their cologne,

their boasting, their insinuations as to the personal lives of every

actor or actress who might be mentioned. They had no reserves, no

respect for love or marriage or parenthood; they told stories entirely

beyond her understanding, and went about eating, drinking, dressing,

and dancing as if these things were all the business of life.

Wallace's favourite hospitality was extended to six silent,

overdressed, genial male friends, known as "the crowd." These he

frequently asked to dinner on Sunday nights, a hard game of poker

always following. Martie did not play, but she liked to watch her

husband's hands, and during this winter he attributed his phenomenal

good luck to her. He never lost, and he always parted generously with

such sums as he won. He loved his luck; the envious comments of the

other players delighted him; the good dinner, and the presence of his

beautiful wife always put him in his best mood. They called him "Three

deuces Wallie," and Martie's remark that his weight was also

"Two--two--two" passed for wit.

She took his winnings without shame. It was to take them, indeed, that

she endured the long, silent evening, with its incessant muttering and

shuffling and slapping of cards. The gas whined and rasped above their

heads, the air grew close and heavy with smoke. Ash-trays were loaded

with the stumps and ashes of cigars; sticky beer glasses ringed the

bare table. But Martie stuck to her post. At one o'clock it would all

be over, and Wallace, carrying a glass of whisky-and-soda to his room,

would be undressing between violent yawns and amused recollections.

"Some of that comes to me, Wallie. I have the rent coming this week!"

"Sure. Take all you want, old girl. You're tired, aren't you?"

"Tired and cold." Martie's circulation was not good now, and she knew

why. Her meals had lost their interest, and sometimes even Teddy's

claims were neglected. She was sleepy, tired, heavy all the time. "When

I see a spoon lying on the dining-room floor, and realize that it will

lie there until I pick it up I could scream!" she told Wallace.

"It's a shame, poor old girl!"

"Oh, no--it's all right." She would blink back the tears. "I'm not

sorry!"

But she was sorry and afraid. She resented Wallace's easy sympathy,

resented the doctor's advice to rest, not to worry, his mild

observation that a good deal of discomfort was inevitable.

Early in the new year she began to agitate the question of a dinner to

the Drydens. Wallace, who had taken a fancy to Adele, agreed lazily to

endure John's company, which he did not enjoy, for one evening. But he

obstinately overruled Martie on the subject of a dinner at home.

"Nix," said Wallace flatly. "I won't have my wife cooking for anybody!"

"But Wallace--just grape-fruit and broilers and a salad! And they'll

come out and help cook it. You don't know how informally we did things

at Grandma's!"

"Well, you're not doing things informally now. It would be different if

you had a couple of servants!"

"But it may be years before we have a couple of servants. Aren't we

ever going to entertain, until then?"

"I don't know anything about that. But I tell you I won't have them

thinking that we're hard up. I'll take them to a restaurant somewhere,

and show that little boob a square meal!"

He finally selected an oppressively magnificent restaurant where a

dollar-and-a-half table-d'hote dinner was served.

"But I'd like to blow them to a real dinner!" he regretted.

"Oh, Wallace, I'm not trying to impress them! We'll have more than

enough to eat, and music, and a talk. Then we can break up at about

ten, and we'll have done the decent thing!"

The four were to meet at half-past six, but both Adele and Wallace were

late, and John and Martie had half an hour's talk while they waited.

Martie fairly bubbled in her joy at the chance to speak of books and

poems, ideals and reforms again. She told him frankly and happily that

she had missed him; she had wanted to see him so many times! And he

looked tired; he had had grippe?

"Always motherly!" he said, a smile on the strange mouth, but no

corresponding smile in the faunlike eyes.

Wallace arrived in a bad mood, as Martie instantly perceived. But

Adele, radiant in a new hat, was prettily concerned for his cold and

fatigue, and they were quickly escorted to a table near the fountain,

and supplied with cocktails. Cheered, Wallace demanded the

bill-of-fare, "the table-d'hote, Handsome!" said he to the appreciative

waiter.

The man lowered his head and murmured obsequiously. The table-d'hote

dinner was served only on the balcony, sir.

This caused a halt in the rising gaiety. The group looked a little

blank. They were established here, the ladies had surrendered their

wraps, envious late-comers were eying their table. Still Martie did not

hesitate. She straightened back in her chair, and pushed her hands at

full length upon the table, preliminary to rising.

"Then we'll go up!" she said sensibly. But Wallace demurred. What was

the difference! They would stay here.

The difference proved to be about twenty dollars.

"I hope it was worth it to you!" Wallace said bitterly to his wife at

breakfast the next day. "Twenty-six dollars the check was. It was worth

about twenty-six cents to me!"

"But, Wallie, you didn't have to order wine!"

"I didn't expect to order it, and if that boob had had the sense to

know it, it was up to him to pay for it!"

"Why, he's a perfect babe-in-the-woods about such things, Wallie! And

none of us wanted it!" Martie tried to speak quietly, but at the memory

of the night before her anger began to smoulder. Wallace had

deliberately urged the ordering of wine, John quite as innocently

disclaimed it. Adele had laughed that she could always manage a glass

of champagne; Martie had merely murmured, "But we don't need it,

Wallie; we've had so much now!"

"We couldn't sit there holding that table down all evening," Wallace

said now. Martie with a great effort kept silence. Opening his paper,

her husband finished the subject sharply. "I want to tell you right

now, Mart, that with me ordering the dinner, it was up to him to pay

for the wine! Any man would know that! Ask any one of the crowd. He's a

boob, that's all, and I'm done with him!"

Martie rose, and went quietly into the kitchen. There was nothing to

say. She did not speak of the Drydens again for a long while. Her own

condition engrossed her; and she was not eager to take the initiative

in hospitality or anything else.

In April Wallace went on the road again for eleven weeks, and Martie

and Ted enjoyed a delicious spring together. They spent hours on the

omnibuses, hours in the parks. Spring in the West was cold, erratic;

spring here came with what a heavenly wash of fragrance and heat! It

was like a re-birth to abandon all the heavy clothing of the winter, to

send Teddy dancing into the sunshine in socks and galatea and straw hat

again!

Martie's son was almost painfully dear to her. Every hour of his life,

from the helpless days in the big hospital, through creeping and

stammering and stumbling, she had clung to his little phases with

hungry adoration, and that there was a deep sympathy between their two

natures she came to feel more strongly every day. They talked

confidentially together, his little body jolting against hers on the

jolting omnibus, or leaning against her knees as she sat in the Park.

She lingered in the lonely evening over the ceremony of his bath, his

undressing, his prayers, and the romping that was always the last

thing. For his sake, her love went out to meet the newcomer; another

soft little Teddy to watch and bathe and rock to sleep; the reign of

double-gowns and safety-pins and bottles again! Writing Wallace one of

the gossipy, detailed letters that acknowledged his irregular checks,

she said that they must move in the fall. They really, truly needed a

better neighbourhood, a better nursery for "the children."

One hot, heavy July morning she fell into serious musing over the news

of Grandma Curley's death. Her son, a spoiled idler of forty, inherited

the business. He wanted to know if Mrs. Bannister could come back. The

house had never prospered so well as under her management. She could

make her own terms.

The sun was pouring into East Twenty-sixth Street, flashing an ugly

glaring reflection against the awnings. At nine, the day was burning

hot. Teddy, promised a trip to the Zoo, was loitering on the shady

steps of the houses opposite, conscious of clean clothes, and of a

holiday mood. The street was empty; a hurdy-gurdy unseen poured forth a

brassy flood of sound. Trains, on the elevated road at the corner,

crashed by. Martie had been packing a lunch; she went slowly back to

the cut loaf and the rapidly softening butter.

"Happy, Teddy?" she asked, when they had found seats in the train, and

were rushing over the baking stillness of the city.

"Are you, Moth'?" he asked quickly.

She nodded, smiling. But, for some reasons vaguely defined, she was

heavy-hearted. The city's endless drama of squalor and pain was all

about her; she could not understand, she could not help, she could not

even lift her own little problem out of the great total of failures!

All day long the sense of impotence assailed her.

Wallace was at home, when they came back, heavily asleep across his

bed. Martie, with firmly shut lips, helped him into bed, and made the

strong coffee for which he longed. After drinking it, he gave her a

resentful, painstaking account of his unexpected return. His face was

flushed, his voice thick. She gathered that he had lost his position.

"He came right up to me before Young, d'ye see? He put it up to me.

'Nelson,' I says, 'Nelson, this isn't a straight deal!' I says. 'My

stuff is my stuff,' I says, 'but this is something else again.'

'Wallie,' he says, 'that may be right, too. But listen,' he says. I

says, 'I'm going to do damn little listening to you or Young!' I says,

'Cut that talk about my missing rehearsals--'"

The menacing, appealing voice went on and on. Martie watched him in

something far beyond scorn or shame. He had not shaved recently, his

face was blotched.

"What else could I do, Mart?" he asked presently. She answered with a

long sigh:

"Nothing, I suppose, Wallace."

After a while he slept heavily. The afternoon was brassy hot. Women

manipulated creaking clotheslines across the long double row of

backyards; the day died on a long, gasping twilight. Martie let Teddy

go to the candy store for ten cents' worth of ice cream for his supper.

She made herself iced tea, and deliberately forced herself to read.

To-night she would not think. After a while she wrote her letter of

regret to George Curley.

The situation was far from desperate, after all. Wallace had a headache

the next day, but on the day after that he shaved and dressed

carefully, assured his wife that this experience should be the last of

its type, and began to look for an engagement. He had some money, and

he insisted upon buying her a thin, dark gown, loose and cool. He

carried Teddy off for whole afternoons, leaving Martie to doze, read,

and rest; and learning that she still had a bank account of something

more than three hundred dollars--left from poker games and from her old

bank account--she engaged a stupid, good-natured coloured girl to do

the heavy work. Isabeau Eato was willing and strong, and for three

dollars a week she did an unbelievable amount of drudgery. Martie felt

herself fortunate, and listened to the crash of dishes, the running of

water, and the swish of Isabeau's broom with absolute satisfaction.

One broiling afternoon she was trying to read in the darkened dining

room. Heat was beating against the prostrate city in metallic waves,

but since noon there had been occasional distant flashes toward the

west, and faint rumblings that predicted the coming storm. In an hour

or two the streets would be awash, and white hats and flimsy gowns

flying toward shelter; meanwhile, there was only endurance. She could

only breathe the motionless leaden air, smell the dry, stale odours of

the house, and listen to the thundering drays and cars in the streets.

Wallace had gone to Yonkers to see a moving picture manager; Isabeau

had taken Teddy with her on a trip to the Park. Sitting back in a deep

chair, with her back to the dazzling light of the window, Martie closed

her book, shut her eyes, and fell into a reverie. Expense, pain,

weakness, helplessness; she dreaded them all. She dreaded the doctor,

the hospital, the brisk, indifferent nurses; she hated above all the

puzzled realization that all this cost to her was so wasted; Wallace

was not sorry for the child's coming, nor was she; that was all. No one

was glad. No one praised her for the slow loss of days and nights, for

dependence, pain, and care. Her children might live to comfort her;

they might not. She had been no particular comfort to her own

father--her own mother--

Tears slipped through her closed lids, and for a moment her lips

quivered. She struggled half-angrily for self-control, and opened her

book.

"Martie?" said a voice from the doorway. She looked up to see John

Dryden standing there.

The sight of the familiar crooked smile, and the half-daring,

half-bashful eyes, stirred her heart with keen longing; she needed

friendship, sympathy, understanding so desperately! She clung eagerly

to his hands.

He sat down beside her, and rumpled his hair in furious embarrassment

and excitement, studying her with a wistful and puzzled smile. She did

not realize how her pale face, loosely massed hair, and black-rimmed

eyes impressed him.

"John! I am so glad! Tell me everything; how are you, and how's Adele?"

Adele was well. He was well. His wife's sister, Mrs. Baker of Browning,

Indiana, was visiting them. Things were much the same at the office. He

had not been reading anything particularly good.

She laughed at his sparse information.

"But, John--talk! Have you been to any lectures lately? What have you

been doing?" she demanded.

"I've been thinking for days of what we should talk about when we saw

each other," he said, laughing excitedly. "But now that I'm here I

can't remember them!"

The sense his presence always gave her, of being at ease, of being

happily understood, was enveloping Martie. She was as comfortable with

John as she might have been with Sally, as sure of his affection and

interest. She suddenly realized that she had missed John of late,

without quite knowing what it was she missed.

"You're going on with your writing, John?"

"Oh"--he rumpled his hair again--"what's the use?"

"Why, that's no way to talk. Aren't you doing ANYTHING?"

"Not much," he grinned boyishly.

"But, John, that's sheer laziness! How do you ever expect to get out of

the groove, if you don't make a start?"

"Oh, damn it all, Martie," he said mildly, with a whimsical smile,

"what's the use? I suppose there isn't a furniture clerk in the city

that doesn't feel he is fit for great things!"

"You didn't talk like this last year," Martie said, in disappointment

and reproach. John looked at her uneasily, and then said boldly:

"How's Ted?"

"Sweet." Martie laid one hand on her breast, and drew a short, stifled

breath. "Isn't it fearful?" she said, of the heat.

John nodded absently: she knew him singularly unaffected by anything so

trivial as mere heat or cold. He was fingering a magazine carelessly,

suddenly he flung it aside.

"I am writing something, of course!" he confessed. "But it seems sort

of rotten, to me."

"But I'm glad!" she said, with shining eyes.

"I work at it in the office," John added. "And what is it?"

"You know what it is: you suggested it!"

"_I_ did?"

"You said it would make a good play."

Martie's thin cheek dimpled, she widened her eyes.

"I don't remember!"

"It was when I was reading Strickland's 'Queens.' You said that this

one's life would make a good play."

"Oh, I do dimly remember!" She knotted her brows. "Mary--Mary

Isabelle--an Italian girl?--wasn't it?"

"Mary Beatrice," he corrected simply.

"Of course! And does it work up pretty well?"

"Fine!"

"How much have you done, John?"

"Oh, not much!"

"Oh, John, for heaven's sake--you will drive me insane!" she laughed

joyously, laying her hand over his. "Tell me about it." She laughed

again when he drew some crumpled pages from his pocket. But he was

presently garrulous, sketching his plan to her, reading a passage here

and there, firing her with his own interest and delight. He had as

little thought of boring her as she of being bored, they fled together

from the noise and heat of the city, and trod the Dover sands, and rode

triumphant into the old city of London at the King's side.

"I'm not a judge--I wish I was," she said finally. "But it seems to me

extraordinary!"

He silently folded the sheets, and put them away. Glancing at his face,

she saw that its thoughtful look was almost stern. Martie wondered if

she had said something to offend him.

When he sat down beside her again, she again laid her hand on his.

"What is it, John?" she asked anxiously.

"Nothing!" he said, with a brief glance and smile.

"I've made you cross?"

"You!" His dark gaze was on the floor, his hands locked. For a full

minute there was silence in the room. Then he looked up at her with a

disturbing smile. "I am human, Martie," he said simply.

The note was so new in their relationship that Martie's heart began to

hammer with astonishment and with a curious thrilling pleasure. There

was nothing for her to say. She could hardly believe that he knew what

he implied, or that she construed the words aright. He was so different

from all other men, so strangely old in many ways, so boyish in others.

A little frightened, she smiled at him in silence. But he did not raise

his eyes to meet her look.

"I did not think that when I was thirty I would be a clerk in a

furniture house, Martie!" he said sombrely, after awhile.

"You may not be!" she reminded him hearteningly. And presently she

added: "I did not think that I would be a poor man's wife on the upper

East Side!"

He looked up then with a quick smile.

"Isn't it the deuce?" he asked.

"Life is queer!" Martie said, shrugging.

"I was up in Connecticut last week," John said, "and I'll tell you what

I saw there. I went up to that neighbourhood to buy some old furniture

for an order we were filling--I was there only a few hours. I found a

little old white house, on a river bank, with big trees over it. It was

on a foundation of old stones, that had been painted white, and there

was an orchard, with a stone wall. The man wanted eighteen hundred

dollars for it."

"Is THAT all?" Martie asked, amazed.

"That's all. I sat there and talked to him for awhile."

"Well?" said Martie, as he stopped.

"Well, nothing," he answered, after a moment's pause. "Only I've been

thinking about it ever since--what it would be to live there, and

write, and walk about that little farm! Funny, isn't it? Eighteen

hundred dollars--not much, only I'll never have it. And you are another

poor man's wife--only not mine! Do you believe in God?"

"You know I do!" she answered, laughing, but a little shaken by his

seriousness.

"You think GOD manages things this way?"

"John, don't talk like a high school boy!"

"I suppose it sounds that way," he said mildly, and he rose suddenly

from his chair. "Well, I have to go!" He looked at her keenly. "But you

don't look very well, Martie," he said. "You've no colour at all. Is it

the weather?"

"John, what a baby you are!" But Martie was amazed, under her flush of

laughter, at his simplicity. Could it be possible that he did not know?

"I am expecting something very precious here one of these days," she

said. He looked at her with a polite smile, entirely uncomprehending.

"Surely you know that we--that I--am going to have another baby, John?"

she asked.

She saw the muscles of his face stiffen, and the blood rise. He looked

at her steadily. A curious silence hung between them.

"Didn't you know?" Martie pursued lightly.

"No," he said at last thickly, "I didn't know." He gave her a look

almost frightening in its wildness; shot to the heart, he might have

managed just such a smile. He made a frantic gesture with his hands.

"Of course--" he said at random. "Of course--a baby!" He walked across

the room to look at a picture on the wall. "That's rather--pretty!" he

said in a suffocating voice. Suddenly he came back, and sat close

beside her; his face was pale. "Martie," he said pitifully, "it's

dangerous for you--you're not strong, and if you--if you die, you

know----You look pale now, and you're so thin. I don't know anything

about it, but I wish it was over!"

Tears sprang to Martie's eyes, but they were tears of exquisite joy.

She laid a warm hand over his.

"Why, John, dear, there's no danger!"

"Isn't there?" he asked doubtfully.

"Not the least, you goose! I'm ever so glad and proud about it--don't

look so woe-begone!"

Their hands were tightly locked: her face was radiant as she smiled up

at him.

"It all works out, John--the furniture clerking, you know, and the

being poor, and all that!"

"Sure it does!"

"Other people have succeeded in spite of it, I mean, so why not you and

I?"

"Of course, they're not BORN rich and successful," he submitted

thoughtfully.

"Look at Lincoln--and Napoleon!" Martie said hardily.

John scowled down at the hand he held.

"Well, it's easier for some people than others," he stated firmly.

"Lincoln may have had to split rails for his supper--what DO you split

rails for, anyway?" he interrupted himself to ask, suddenly diverted.

"Fences, I guess!" Martie offered, on a gale of laughter.

"Well, whatever it was. But I don't see what they needed so many fences

for! But anyway, being poor or rich doesn't seem to matter half as much

as some other things! And now I'm going. Good-bye, Martie."

"And write me, John, and send me books!" she urged, as he turned away.

He was at the door: meditating with his hand on the knob, and his back

turned to her. Martie watched him, expecting some parting word. But he

did not even turn to smile a farewell. He let himself quietly out

without another glance, and was gone. A moment later she heard the

outer door close.

She sat on, in the darkening room, her book forgotten. The storm was

coming fast now. Women in the backyards were drawing in their

clothes-lines with a great creaking and rattling, and the first rush of

warm, sullen drops struck the dusty dining-room window. Curtains

streamed, and pictures on the wall stirred in the damp, warm wind.

Half an hour of furious musketry passed: blue dashes lighted the room

with an eerie splendour, thunder clapped and rolled; died away toward

the south as a fresh onslaught poured in from the north.

Martie heeded nothing. Her soul was wrapped in a deep peace, and as the

cooling air swept in, she dropped her tired head against the chair's

cushion, and drifted into a dream of river and orchard, and of a white

house set in green grass.

She knew that John would write her: she held the unopened envelope in

her fingers the next morning, a strange, sweet emotion at her heart.

The beautiful, odd handwriting, the cleanly chosen words, these made

the commonplace little note significant.

"Who's your letter from?" Wallace asked idly. She tossed it to him

unconcernedly: she had told him of John's call. "He must have a case on

you, Mart!" Wallace said indifferently.

"Well, in his curious way, perhaps he has," she answered honestly.

Ten days later she wrote him an answer. She thanked him for the books,

and announced that her daughter Margaret was just a week old, and sent

her love to Uncle John. Adele immediately sent baby roses and a card to

say that she was dying to see the baby, and would come soon. She never

came: but after that John wrote occasionally to Martie, and she

answered his notes. They did not try to meet.

CHAPTER VI

Wallace was playing a few weeks' engagement in the vaudeville houses of

New Jersey and Brooklyn when his second child was born. He had been at

home for a few hours that morning, coming in for clean linen, a good

breakfast, and a talk with his wife. He was getting fifty dollars a

week, as support for a woman star, and was happy and confident. The

hard work--twelve performances a week--left small time for idling or

drinking, and Martie's eager praise added the last touch to his content.

She was happy, too, as she walked back into the darkened, orderly

house. It was just noon. Isabeau, having finished her work, had

departed with Teddy to see a friend in West One Hundredth Street; John

had sent Martie Maeterlinck's "Life of the Bee," and a fat, inviting

brown book, "All the Days of My Life." She had planned to go to the

hospital next week, Wallace coming home on Sunday to act as escort, and

she determined to keep the larger book for the stupid days of

convalescence.

She stretched herself on the dining-room couch, reached for the smaller

book, and began to read. For a second, a look of surprise crossed her

face, and she paused. Then she found the opening paragraph, and plunged

into the story. But she had not read three sentences before she stopped

again.

Suddenly, in a panic, she was on her feet. Frightened, breathless,

laughing, she went into the kitchen.

"Isabeau out ... Heavenly day! What shall I do!" she whispered. "It

can't be! Fool that I was to let her go ... what SHALL I do!"

Life caught her and shook her like a helpless leaf in a whirlwind. She

went blindly into the bedroom and began feverishly to fling off her

outer garments. Presently she made her way back to the kitchen again,

and put her lips to the janitor's telephone.

Writhing seconds ensued. Finally she heard the shrill answering whistle.

"Mr. Kelly, is Mrs. Brice at home, do you know? Or Mrs. Napthaly? This

is Mrs. Bannister... I'm ill. Will you get somebody?"

She broke off abruptly; catching the back of a chair. Kelly was a

grandfather ... he would understand. But if somebody didn't come pretty

soon...

It seemed hours; it was only minutes before the blessed sound of

waddling feet came to the bedroom door. Old Grandma Simons, Mrs.

Napthaly's mother, came in. Martie liked and Teddy loved the shapeless,

moustached old woman, who lived out obscure dim days in the flat below,

washing and dressing and feeding little black-eyed grandchildren.

Martie never saw her in anything but a baggy, spotted black

house-dress, but there were great gatherings and feasts occasionally

downstairs, and then presumably the adored old head of the family was

more suitably clad.

"Vell ... vot you try and do?" said Grandma Simons, grasping the

situation at once, and full of sympathy and approval.

"I don't know!" half-laughed, half-gasped Martie from the pillows. "I'm

awfully afraid my baby..." A spasm of pain brought her on one elbow, to

a raised position. "Oh, DON'T DO THAT!" she screamed.

"I do nothing!" said the old woman soothingly. And as Martie sank back

on the pillows, gasping and exhausted, yet with excited relief

brightening her face, Grandma Simons added triumphantly: "Now you shall

rest; you are a goot girl!"

A second later the thin cry with which the newborn catch the first

weary breath of an alien world floated through the room. Protesting,

raw, it fell on Martie's ears like the resolving chord of an exquisite

melody. Still breathless, still panting from strain and fright, she

smiled.

"Ah, the darling! Is he all right?" she whispered.

"You haf a girl!" the old woman interrupted her clucking and grumbling

to say briefly. "Vill you lay still, and let the old Grandma fix you,

or not vill you?" she added sternly. "Grandma who has het elefen of

dem...."

"Don't cry, little Margaret!" Martie murmured, happy under the kindly

adjusting old hands. The old woman stumped about composedly, opening

bureau drawers and scratching matches in the kitchen, before she would

condescend to telephone for the superfluous doctor. She was pouring a

flood of Yiddish endearments and diminutives about the newcomer, when

the surprised practitioner arrived. Mrs. Simons scouted the idea of a

nurse; she would come upstairs, her daughters would come upstairs--what

was it, one baby! Martie was allowed a cupful of hot milk, and went to

sleep with one arm about the flannel bundle that was Margaret.

Well--she thought, drifting into happy dreams--of course, the hospital

was wonderful: the uniformed nurses, the system, the sanitation. But

this was wonderful, too. So many persons had to be consulted, had to be

involved, in the coming of a hospital baby; so much time, so many

different rooms and hallways.

The clock had not yet struck two; she had given Wallace his breakfast

at eleven, Isabeau would be home at five; Grandma had gone downstairs

to borrow some of the put-away clothes of the last little Napthaly.

Martie had nothing to do but smile and sleep. To-morrow, perhaps, they

would let her go on with "The Life of the Bee."

Peace lapped soul and body. The long-approaching trial was over. In a

few days she would arise, mistress of herself once more, and free to

remake her life.

First, they must move. Even if they could afford to pay six hundred

dollars a year in rent, this flat was neither convenient nor sanitary

for little children. Secondly, Wallace must understand that while he

worked and was sober, his wife would do her share; if he failed her,

she must find some other life. Thirdly, as soon as the baby's claims

made it possible, Martie must find some means of making money; her own

money, independent of what Wallace chose to give.

She pondered the various possibilities. She could open a

boarding-house; although that meant an outlay for furniture and rent.

She could take a course in library work or stenography; that meant

leaving the children all day.

She began to study advertisements in the newspapers for working

housekeepers, and one day wrote a businesslike application to the

company that controlled a line of fruit steamers between the city and

Panama. Mrs. Napthaly's sister-in-law was stewardess on one of these,

and had good pay. Short stories, film-plays, newspaper work--other

women did these things. But how had they begun?

"Begin at the beginning!" she said cheerfully to herself. The move was

the beginning. Through the cool autumn days she resolutely hunted for

flats. It was a wearisome task, especially when Wallace accompanied

her, for his tastes ran to expensive and vestibuled apartments and

fashionable streets. Martie sternly held to quiet side streets, cut off

from the city by the barriers of elevated trains and the cheap shopping

districts.

When she found what she wanted, she and Wallace had a bitter struggle.

He refused at first to consider four large bare shabby rooms in a poor

street, overlooking a coal-yard, and incidentally, on the very bank of

the East River. What cars went there, he demanded indignantly; what

sort of neighbours would they have? What would their friends think!

Martie patiently argued her point. The neighbourhood, the east fifties,

if cheap and crowded, was necessarily quiet because the wide street

ended at the river. The rooms were on a first floor, and so pleasantly

accessible for baby and baby-carriage. The coalyard, if not

particularly pleasant, was not unwholesome; there was sunshine in every

room, and finally, the rent was eighteen dollars. They must entertain

their friends elsewhere.

She did not know then that what really won him was her youth and

beauty; the new brilliant colour, the blue, blue eyes, the revived

strength and charm of the whole, lovely woman. She put her arms about

him, and he kissed her and gave her her way.

Happily they went shopping. Martie had gathered some furniture in her

various housekeeping adventures; the rest must be bought. They prowled

through second-hand stores for the big things: beds, tables, a

"chestard" for Wallace. The cottage china, chintzes, net curtains, and

grass rugs were new. Martie conceded a plaster pipe-rack, set with

little Indian faces, to Wallace; her own extravagance was a

meat-chopper. Wallace got a cocktail shaker, and when the first grocery

order went in, gin and vermouth and whisky-were included. Martie made

their first meal a celebration, in the room that was sitting-and

dining-room combined, and tired and happy, they sat long into the

evening over the table, talking of the future.

Theoretically, Wallace agreed with her. If they were to succeed, there

must be hard work, carefully controlled expenditure, and temperance.

They were still young, their children were well, and life was before

them. In a few years Wallace might make a big success; then they could

have a little country home, and belong to a country club, and really

live. Eager tears brimmed Martie's eyes as she planned and he approved.

Actually, Wallace was not quite so satisfactory. He would be

sweet-tempered and helpful for a few days, but he expected a reward. He

expected his wife's old attitude of utter trust and devotion. Rewarded

by a happy evening when they dined and talked in utter harmony, he

would fail her again. Then came dark days, when Martie's heart

smouldered resentfully hour after busy hour. How could he--how could he

risk his position, waste his money, antagonize his wife, break all his

promises! She could not forgive him this time, she could not go through

the humiliating explanations, apologies, asseverations, again be

reconciled and again deceived!

He knew how to handle her, and she knew he knew. When the day or two of

sickness and headache were over he would shave and dress carefully and

come quietly and penitently back into the life of the house. Would Ted

like to go off with Dad for a walk? Couldn't he go to market for her?

Couldn't he go along and wheel Margaret?

Silently, with compressed lips, Martie might pass and repass him. But

the moment always came when he caught her and locked her in his arms.

"Martie, dearest! I know how you feel--I won't blame you! I know what a

skunk and a beast I am. What can I do? How can I show you how sorry I

am? Don't--don't feel so badly! Tell me anything--any oath, any

promise, I'll make it! You're just breaking my heart, acting like this!"

For half an hour, for an hour, her hurt might keep her unresponsive. In

the end, she always kissed him, with wet eyes, and they began again.

Happy hours followed. Wallace would help her with the baby's bath, with

Teddy's dressing, and the united Bannisters go forth for a holiday.

Martie, her splendid square little son leaning on her shoulder, the

veiled bundle of blankets that was Margaret safely sleeping in the

crib, her handsome husband dressing for "a party," felt herself a

blessed and happy woman.

Frequently, when he was not playing, they went to matinees, afterward

drifting out into the five o'clock darkness to join the Broadway

current. Here Wallace always met friends: picturesque looking men, and

bright-eyed, hard-faced women. Invariably they went into some hotel,

and sat about a bare table, for drinks. Warmed and cheered, the

question of convivialities arose.

"Lissen; we are all going to Kingwell's for eats," Wallace would tell

his wife.

"But, Wallace, Isabeau is going to have dinner at home!" It was no use;

the bright eye, the thickened lips, the loosened speech evaded her. He

understood her, he had perfect self-control, but she could influence

him no longer. Mutinous, she would go with the chattering women into

the dressing room, where they powdered, rouged lips and cheeks, and

fluffed their hair.

"Lord, he is a scream, that boy!" Mrs. Dolly Fairbanks might remark

appreciatively, offering Martie a mud-coloured powder-pad before

restoring it to the top of her ravelled silk stocking. "I'll bet he's a

scream in his own home!"

Martie could only smile forcedly in response. She was not in sympathy

with her companions. She hated the extravagance, the noise, and the

drinking that were a part of the evening's fun. Wallace's big, white,

ringed hand touched the precious greenbacks so readily; here! they

wanted another round of drinks; what did everybody want?

Wherever they went, the scene was the same: heat, tobacco smoke, music;

men drinking, women drinking, greenbacks changing hands, waiters

pocketing tips. Who liked it? she asked herself bitterly. In the old

days she and Sally had thought it would be fun to be in New York, to

know real actors and actresses, to go about to restaurants in taxicabs.

But what if the money that paid for the taxicabs were needed for Ted's

winter shirts and Margar's new crib? What if the actors were only

rather stupid and excitable, rather selfish and ignorant men and women,

to whom homes and children, gardens and books were only words?

Presumably the real actors, the real writers and painters led a mad and

merry life somewhere, wore priceless gowns and opened champagne; but it

was not here. These were the imitators, the pretenders, and the rich

idlers who had nothing better to do than believe in the pretenders.

Still, when Wallace suggested it, Martie found it wise to yield. He

might stumble home beside her at eleven, the worse for the eating and

drinking, but at least he did come home, and she could tell herself

that the men in the car who had smiled at his condition were only

brutes; she would never see them again; what did their opinion matter!

In other ways she yielded to him; peace, peace and affection at any

cost. Yet it cost her dear, for the possibility of another child's

coming was the one thought that frightened and dismayed her.

Strongly contrasted to Wallace's open-handedness when he was with his

friends was the strict economy Martie was obliged to practise in her

housekeeping. She went to market herself, as the spring came on,

heaping her little purchases at Margar's feet in the coach. Teddy

danced and chattered beside her, neighbours stopped to smile at the

baby. At the fruit carts, the meat market, the grocery, Martie pondered

and planned. Oranges had gone up, lamb had gone up--dear, dear, dear!

Sitting at the grocery counter, she would rearrange her menus.

"Butter fifty--my, that is high! Hasn't the new butter come in? I had

better have half a pound, I think. And the beans, and the onions, yes.

Let me see--how do you sell the canned asparagus--that's too much. Send

me those things, Mr. O'Brien, and I'll see what I can get in the

market."

All about her, in the heart-warming spring sunshine, other women were

mildly lamenting, mildly bartering. Martie's brain was still busily

milling, as she wheeled the coach back through the checkered sun and

shade of the elevated train. She would bump the coach down into the

area, carefully loading her arms with small packages, catching Margar

to her shoulder.

Panting, the perspiration breaking out on her forehead, she would enter

the dining room.

"Take her, Isabeau! My arms are breaking! Whew!--it is HOT! Not now,

Teddy, you can't have anything until lunch time. Amuse her a minute,

Isabeau, I can't take her until--I get--my breath! I had to change

dinner; he had no liver. I got veal for veal loaf; Mr. Bannister likes

that; and stuffed onions, and the pie, and baked potatoes. Make tea.

Put that down, Teddy, you can't have that. Now, my blessedest girl,

come to your mother! She's half asleep now; I'll change her and put her

out for her nap!"

The baby fed and asleep, Ted out again, Martie would serve Wallace's

breakfast herself rather than interrupt the steady thumping of irons in

the kitchen. She tried to be patient with his long delays.

"How's the head?" she would ask, sitting opposite him with little socks

to match, or boxed strawberries to stem.

"Oh, rotten! I woke up when the baby did."

"But, Wallie--that was seven o'clock! You've been asleep since."

"Just dozing. I heard you come in!"

"Well, I think I'll move her clothes out of that room. Aren't your eggs

good?"

"Nope. They taste like storage. I should think we could get good eggs

now!"

"They OUGHT to be good!"

"You ought to get a telephone in here," he might return sourly. "Then

you could deal with some decent place! I hate the way women pinch and

squeeze to save five cents; there's nothing in it!"

Silence. Martie's face flushed, her fingers flew.

"What are you doing to-day?" she might ask, after a while.

"Oh, I'll go down town, I guess. Never can tell when something'll

break. Bates told me that Foster was anxious to see me. He says they're

having a deuce of a time getting people for their plays. Bates says to

stick 'em for a couple of hundred a week."

Martie placed small hope in such a hint, but she was glad he could.

When he had sauntered away, she would go on patiently, mixing the

baby's bottles, picking toys from the floor, tying and re-tying Ted's

shoe-laces. This was a woman's life. Martha Bannister was not a martyr;

nobody in the city could stop to help or pity her.

The hot summer shut down upon them, and the baby drooped, even though

Martie was careful to wheel her out into the shade by the river every

day. She herself drooped, staring at life helplessly, hopelessly. In

March there would be a third child.

After a restless night, the sun woke her, morning after morning,

glaring into her room at six. Wearily, languidly, she dressed the

twisting and leaping Teddy, fastened little Margar, with her string of

spools and her shabby double-gown, in the high-chair. The kitchen

smelled of coffee, of grease; the whole neighbourhood smelled in the

merciless heat of the summer day. Had that meat spoiled; was the cream

just a little turned?

Ted, always absorbed in wheels, pulleys, and nails, would be in an

interrogative mood.

"Mother, could a giant step across the East River?"

"What was it, dear?--the water was running; Mother didn't hear you."

"Could a giant step across a river?"

"Why, I suppose he could. Don't touch that, Ted."

"Could he step across the whole WORLD?"

"I don't know. Here's your porridge, dear. Listen----"

For Wallace was shouting. Martie would go to the bedroom door, to

interrogate the tousle-headed, heaving form under the bedclothes.

"Say, Martie, isn't there an awful lot of noise out there?"

Martie would stand silent for a moment.

"You can't blame the children for chattering, Wallace."

"Well, you tell Ted he'll catch it, if I hear any more of it!"

She would go lifelessly back to the kitchen, to sip a cup of scalding

black coffee. Margar went into her basket for her breakfast, banging

the empty bottle rapturously against the wicker sides as a finale.

"Wash both their faces, Isabeau," Martie would murmur, flinging back

her head with a long, weary sigh. "There are no buttons on this suit;

I'll have to go back into Mr. Bannister's room--too bad, for he's

asleep again! Yes, dear, you may go to market and push the

carriage--DON'T ask Mother that again, Ted! I always let you go, and

you ALWAYS push Sister." Her voice would sink to a whisper, and her

face fall into her hands. "Oh, Isabeau, I do feel so wretched.

Sometimes it seems as if----However!" and with a sudden desperate

courage, Martie would rally herself. "However, it's all in the day's

work! Run down to the sidewalk, Ted, and Mother'll be right down with

the baby!"

Coming in an hour later perhaps, Wallace, better-natured now, would

call her again.

"Come in, Mart! Hell-oo! Is that somebody that loves her Daddy?"

"She's just going to have her bottle, Wallie" Martie would fret.

"Well, here! Let me give it to her." Sitting up in bed, his nightgown

falling open at the throat, Margar's father would hold out big arms for

the child.

"No, you can't. She'll never go to sleep at that rate; and if she

misses her nap, that upsets her whole day!"

"Lord, but you are in a grouch, Mart. For Heaven's sake, cheer up!"

Wallace, rumpling and kissing his daughter, would give her a

reproachful look.

Martie's face always darkened resentfully at such a speech. Sometimes

she did not answer.

"Perhaps if YOU couldn't sleep," she might say in a low, shaken tone,

"and you felt as miserable as I do, you might not be so cheerful!"

"Oh, well, I know! But you know it's nothing serious, and it won't

last. Forget it! After all, your mother had four children, and mine had

seven, and they didn't make such a fuss!"

He did not mean to be unkind, she would remind herself. And what he

said was true, after all. There was nothing more to say.

"Wallie, have you any money for the laundry?"

"Oh, Lord! How much is it?"

"Two dollars and thirteen cents; four weeks now."

"Well, when does he come?"

"To-day."

"Well, you tell him that I'll step in to-morrow and pay the whole

thing. I'm going to see Richards to-day; I won't be home to dinner."

"But I thought you were going to see that man in the Bronx, about the

moving picture job to-morrow?"

"Yes, I am. What about it?"

"Nothing. Only, Wallie, if you have dinner with Mr. Richards and all

those men, you know--you know you may not feel like--like getting up

early to-morrow!" Martie, hesitating in the doorway with the baby,

wavered between tact and truth.

"Why don't you say I'll be drunk, while you're about it?"

The ugly tone would rouse everything that was ugly in response.

"Very well, I WILL say that, if you insist!" The slamming door ended

the conversation; Martie trembled as she put the child to bed.

Presently Isabeau would come to her to say noncommittally, but with

watchful, white-rimmed eyes, that Mist' Bans'ter he didn' want no

breakfuss, he jus' take hisse'f off. For the rest of the day, Martie

carried a heart of lead.

Mentally, morally, physically, the little family steadily descended.

With Martie too ill to do more than drag herself through the autumn

days, Wallace idle and ugly, Isabeau overworked and discontented, and

bills accumulating on every side, there was no saving element left.

Desperately the wife and mother plodded on; the children must have milk

and bread, the rent-collector must be pacified if not satisfied.

Everything else was unimportant. Her own appearance mattered nothing,

the appearance of the house mattered nothing. She pinned the children's

clothing when their buttons disappeared; she slipped a coat wearily

over her house-dress, and went to the delicatessen store five minutes

before dinner-time. She was thin enough now,--Martie, who had always

longed to be thin. Sometimes, sitting on the side of an unmade bed,

with a worn little shirt of Ted's held languidly in her hands, she

would call the maid.

"Isabeau! Hasn't Teddy a clean shirt?"

"No, MA'AM! You put two them shirts in yo' basket 'n' says how you's

going to fix 'em!"

"I must get at those shirts," Martie would muse helplessly. "Come, Ted,

look what you're doing! Pay attention, dear!"

"Man come with yo meat bill, Mis' Ban'ster," Isabeau might add,

lingering in the doorway. "Ah says you's OUT."

"Thank you, Isabeau." Perhaps Martie would laugh forlornly. "Never

mind--things must change! We can't go on THIS way!"

Suddenly, she was ill. Without warning, without the slip or stumble or

running upstairs that she was quite instinctively avoiding, the

accident befell. Martie, sobered, took to her bed, and sent Isabeau

flying for Dr. Converse, the old physician whose pleasant wife had

often spoken to Teddy in the market. Strange--strange, that she who so

loved children should be reduced now to mere thankfulness that the

little life was not to be, mere gratitude for an opportunity to lie

quiet in bed!

"For I suppose I should stay in bed for a few days?" Martie asked the

doctor. Until she was told she might get up. Very well, but he must

remember that she had a husband and two children to care for, and make

that soon.

Dr. Converse did not smile in answer. After a while she knew why. The

baffling weakness did not go, the pain and restlessness seemed to have

been hers forever. Day after day she lay helpless; while Isabeau

grumbled, Margar fretted, and Teddy grew noisy and unmanageable.

Wallace was rarely at home, the dirt and confusion of the house rode

Martie's sick brain like a nightmare. She told herself, as she lay

longing for an appetizing meal, an hour's freedom from worry, that

there was a point beyond which no woman might be expected to bear

things, that if life went on in this way she must simply turn her face

to the wall and die.

Ghost-white, she was presently on her feet. The unbearable had been

borne. She was getting well again; ridden with debts, and as shabby and

hopeless as it could well be, the Bannister family staggered on. Money

problems buzzed about Martie's eyes like a swarm of midges: Isabeau had

paid this charge of seventy cents, there was a drug bill for six

dollars and ten cents--eighty cents, a dollar and forty cents,

sixty-five cents--the little sums cropped up on all sides.

Martie took pencil and paper, and wrote them all down. The hideous

total was two hundred and seventeen dollars on the last day of October.

But there would be rent again on the eleventh--

Her bright head went suddenly down on her arms. Oh, no--no--no! It

couldn't be done. It was all too hard, too bewildering--

Suddenly, looking at the pencilled sums, the inspiration came. Was it a

memory of those days long ago in Monroe, when she had calculated so

carefully the cost of coming on to the mysterious fairyland of New

York? As carefully now she began to count the cost of going home.

It was five years since she had seen her own people; and in that time

she had carried always the old resentful feeling that she would rather

die than turn to Pa for help! But she knew better now; her children

should not suffer because of that old girlish pride.

Her mother was gone. Len and his wife, one of the lean, tall Gorman

girls, were temporarily living with Pa in the old place. Sally had four

children, Elizabeth, Billy, Jim, and Mary, and lived in the old Mussoo

place near Dr. Ben. Joe Hawkes was studying medicine, Lydia kept house

for Pa, of course, and Sally and her father were reconciled. "We just

started talking to each other when Ma was so ill," wrote Sally, "and

now he thinks the world and all of the children."

All these changes had filtered to Martie throughout the years. Only a

few weeks ago a new note had been sounded. Pa had asked Sally if she

ever heard of her sister; had said that Mary Hawkes was like her Aunt

Martie, "the cunningest baby of them all."

Wild with hope, Sally had written the beloved sister. It was as if all

these years of absence had been years of banishment to Sally. Martie

recognized the unchanging Monroe standard.

She got Sally's letter now, and re-read it. If Pa could send her a few

hundreds, if she could get the children into Lydia's hands, in the old

house in the sunken garden, if Teddy and Margar could grow up in the

beloved fogs and sunshine, the soft climate of home, then how bravely

she could work, how hopefully she could struggle to get a foothold in

the world for them! She wrote simply, lovingly, penitently, to her

father--She was convalescent after serious illness; there were two

small children; her husband was out of work; could he forgive her and

help her? In the cold, darkening days, she went about fed with a secret

hope, an abounding confidence.

But she held the letter a fortnight before sending it. If her father

refused her, she was desperate indeed. Planning, planning, planning,

she endured the days. Wallace was not well; wretched with grippe, he

spent almost the entire day in bed when he was at home, dressing at

four o'clock and going out of the house without a farewell. Sometimes,

for two or three nights a week, Martie did not know where he was; his

friends kept him in money, and made him feel himself a deeply wronged

and unappreciated man. She could picture him in bars, in cafes, in hot

hotel rooms seriously talking over a card-table, boasting, threatening.

She dismissed Isabeau Eato with a promise that the girl accepted

ungraciously.

"If I had the money Isabeau, you should have it; you know that!"

"Yas'm. Hit's what dey all says'm."

"You SHALL have it," Martie promised, with hot cheeks. She breathed

easier when the girl was gone. She told the grocer that she had written

her father, and that his bills should be paid; she reminded the big

rosy man that she had been ill. He listened without comment, cleaning a

split thumb-nail. The story was not a new one.

No answer came to her letter, and a sick suspicion that no answer would

come began to trouble her. December was passing. Teddy was careful to

tell her just what he wanted from Santa Claus. On Christmas Eve she

asked Wallace, as he was silently going out, for some money.

"I want to get Ted SOMETHING for Christmas, Wallie."

"What does he want?"

"Well, of course he wants a coaster and skates, but that's absurd. I

thought some sort of a gun--he's gun-mad, and perhaps a book of

fairy-tales."

With no further comment her husband gave her a five-dollar-bill, and

went on his way. She saw that he had other bills, and went impulsively

after him.

"Wallie! Could you let me have a little more? I do need it so!"

Still silent, he took the little roll from his pocket, and gave her

another five dollars. She saw still a third, and a one dollar bill.

But this was more than her wildest hopes. Joyfully, she went, shabby

and cold, through the happy streets. She walked four blocks to a new

market, and bought bread and butter and salt codfish and a candy cane.

She went into a department store, leaving Teddy to watch the coach on

the sidewalk, and got him the gun and the book. She gave her grocer

four, her butcher three dollars, with a "Merry Christmas!" Did both men

seem a little touched, a little pitying, or was it just the holiday

air? The streets were crowded, the leaden sky low and menacing; they

would have a white Christmas.

Teddy hung up his stocking at dark. The big things, he explained, would

have to go on the floor.

"What big things, my heart?" Martie was toasting bread, eying the

browned fish cakes with appetite.

"Well, the coaster or the skates!" he elucidated off-hand.

His mother's breast rose on a long sigh. She came to put one arm about

him, as she knelt beside him on the floor.

"Teddy, dear, didn't Mother tell you that old Santa Claus is poor this

year? He has so many, many little boys to go to! Wouldn't my boy rather

that they should all have something, than that some poor little fellows

should have nothing at all?" She stopped, sick at heart, for the

child's lip was trembling, and a hot tear fell on her hand.

"But--but I've been good, Mother!" he stammered with a desperate effort

at self-control.

Well, if he could not be brave, she must be. She began to tell him

about going to California, to Grandfather's house. Later she put the

orange, the apple, the gun, with a triangle puzzle given away at the

drug store, a paper cow from the dairy, and five cents' worth of

pressed figs, into the little dangling stocking, placed the book beside

it, and hung the candy cane over all. Mrs. Converse, the doctor's wife,

had sent a big flannel duck, obviously second-hand, but none the less

wonderful for that, for Margar; Teddy had not seen it, so it would be

one more Christmas touch!

And at eight o'clock, as she was putting her kitchen in order, a tired

driver appeared, clumsily engineering something through the narrow

hall; a great coaster, its brave red and gold showing through the

flimsy, snow-wet wrappings.

"Teddy from Dad," Martie, bewildered, read on the card. Not to the

excited child himself would it bring the joy it gave his mother. Poor

Wallace--always generous! He had gone straight from her plea for the

boy's Christmas to spend his money for this. She hoped he would come

home to-morrow; that they might spend the day together. Some of the

shops would be open for a few hours; if he brought home money, she

could manage a chicken, and one of the puddings from the French

confectioner's--

Another ring at the bell? Martie wiped her hands, and went again to the

door. A telegram--

She tore and crumpled the wet yellow paper. The wonderful words danced

before her eyes:

Pa says come at once told Lydia he would give you and children home as

long as he lives sends his love merry Christmas darling

SALLY.

Martie went back to the kitchen, and put her head down on the little

table and cried.

Wallace did not come home for Christmas Day, nor for many days. Teddy

rejoiced in his coaster while his mother went soberly and swiftly about

her plans. Perhaps Pa had realized that she did not actually have a

cent, and was sending a check by mail. The perfect telegram would have

been just a little more than perfect, if he had said so. But if he were

not sending money, she must go nevertheless. She must give up this

house on January tenth, landlord and grocer must trust her for the

overdue rent and bill. If they would not, well, then they must have her

arrested; that was all.

The fare to California would be less than two hundred dollars. She was

going to borrow that from John.

Martie herself was surprised at the calm with which she came to this

decision. It had all the force of finality to her. She cared for the

hurt to her pride as little as she cared for what Rose Parker would

think of her ignominious return, as little as she cared for what the

world thought of a wife who deliberately left the father of her

children to his fate.

Early in January she planned to take the children with her, and find

John in his office. That very day the tickets should be bought. If

Wallace cared enough for his family to come home in the meantime, she

would tell him what she was doing. But Martie hoped that he would not.

The one possible stumbling-block in her path would be Wallace's

objection; the one thing of which she would not allow herself to think

was that he MIGHT, by some hideous whim, decide to accompany them.

Thinking of these things, she went about the process of house-cleaning

and packing. The beds, the chairs, the china and linen and blankets

must bring what they could. On the third day of the year, in his room,

Martie, broom in hand, paused to study Wallace's "chestard." That must

go, too. It had always been a cheaply constructed article, with one

missing caster that had to be supplied by a folded wedge of paper.

Still, in a consignment with other things, it would add something to

the total. Martie put her hand upon it, and rocked it. As usual, the

steadying wedge of paper was misplaced.

She stooped to push the prop into position again; noticed that it was a

piece of notepaper, doubly folded; recognized John Dryden's

handwriting--

The room whirled about her as she straightened the crumpled and

discoloured sheet, and smoothed it, and grasped at one glance its

contents:

DEAR MR. BANNISTER:

I am distressed to hear of Mrs. Bannister's illness, and can readily

understand that she must not be burdened or troubled now. Please let me

know how she progresses, and let me be your banker again, if the need

arises. I am afraid she does not know how to save herself.

Faithfully yours,

JOHN DRYDEN.

The date was mid-December.

Martie read it once, read it again, crushed it in her hand in a spasm

of shame and pain. She brought the clenched hand that held it against

her heart, and shut her eyes. Oh, how could he--how could he! To John,

the last refuge of her wrecked life, he had closed the way in the very

hour of escape!

For a long time she stood, leaning against the tipped chest, blind and

deaf to everything but her whirling thoughts. After a while she looked

apathetically at the clock; time for Margar's toast and boiled egg. She

must finish in here; the baby would be waking.

Somehow she got through the cold, silent afternoon. She felt as if she

were bleeding internally; as if the crimson stain from her shaken heart

might ooze through her faded gingham. She must get the children into

the fresh air before the snow fell.

Out of doors a silence reigned. A steady, cold wind, tasting already of

snow, was blowing. The streets were almost deserted. Martie pushed the

carriage briskly, and the sharp air brought colour to her cheeks, and a

sort of desperate philosophy to her thoughts. Waiting for the

prescription for Margar's croup, with the baby in her lap, Martie saw

herself in a long mirror. The blooming young mother, the rosy, lovely

children, could not but make a heartening picture. Margar's little

gaitered legs, her bright face under the shabby, fur-rimmed cap;

Teddy's sturdy straight little shoulders and his dark blue, intelligent

eyes; these were Martie's riches. Were not comfort and surety well lost

for them at twenty-seven? At thirty-seven, at forty-seven, there would

be a different reckoning.

No woman's life was affected, surely, by a trifle like the tourist fare

to California, she told herself sensibly. If the money was not to come

from John, it must be forthcoming in some other way, if not this month,

then next month, or the next still. Perhaps she would still go to John,

and tell him the whole story.

Pondering, planning, she went back to the house, her spirits sinking as

the warm air smote her, the odour of close rooms, and of the soaking

little garments in the kitchen tub. Wallace had come in, had flung

himself across his bed, and was asleep.

Martie merely glanced at him before she set about the daily routine of

undressing the baby, setting the table, getting a simple supper for

Teddy and herself. No matter! It was only a question of a little time,

now. In ten days, in two weeks, she would be on the train; the new

fortune hazarded. The snoring sleeper little dreamed that some of her

things were packed, some of the children's things packed, that Margar's

best coat had been sent to the laundry, with the Western trip in view;

that a furniture man had been interviewed as to the disposal of the

chairs and tables.

At six o'clock Margar, with her bottle, was tucked away in the front

room, and Martie and Teddy sat down to their meal. Roused perhaps by

the clatter of dishes, Wallace came from the bedroom to the kitchen

door, and stood looking in.

"Wallace," Martie said without preamble, "why did you never tell me

that you borrowed money from Mr. Dryden?"

He stared at her stupidly, still sleepy, and taken unawares.

"He told you, huh?" he said heavily, after a pause.

"I found his note!" Martie said, beginning to breathe quickly.

Without glancing at Wallace, she put a buttered slice of bread before

Teddy.

"I didn't want to distress you with it, Mart," Wallace said weakly.

"Distress me!" his wife echoed with a bitter laugh.

"Of course, some of it is paid back," Wallace added unconvincingly.

Martie shot him a quick, distrustful glance. Ah, if she could believe

him! "I have his note acknowledging half of it, seventy-five," added

Wallace more confidently. "I'll show it to you!"

"I wish you would!" Martie said in cold incredulity. Teddy, deceived by

his mother's dispassionate tone, gave Wallace a warm little smile,

embellished by bread and milk.

"I guess you've been wondering where I was?" ventured Wallace, rubbing

one big bare foot with the other, and hunching his shoulders in his

disreputable wrapper. Unshaven, unbrushed, he gave a luxurious yawn.

"No matter!" Martie said, shrugging. She poured her tea, noticed that

her fingernails were neglected, and sighed.

"I don't see why you take that attitude, Mart," Wallace said mildly,

sitting down. "In the first place, I sent you a letter day before

yesterday, which Thompson didn't mail--"

"Really!" said Martie, the seething bitterness within her making hand

and voice tremble.

"I have the deuce of a cold!" Wallace suggested tentatively. His wife

did not comment, or show in any way that she had heard him. "I know

what you think I've been doing," he went on. "But for once, you're

wrong. A lot of us have just been down at Joe's in the country. His

wife's away, and we just cooked and walked and played cards--and I sat

in luck, too!" He opened the wallet he held in his hands, showing a

little roll of dirty bills, and Martie was ashamed of the instant

softening of her heart. She wanted money so badly! "I was coming home

Monday," pursued Wallace, conscious that he was gaining ground, "but

this damn cold hit me, and the boys made me stay in bed."

"Will you have some tea?" Martie asked reluctantly. He responded

instantly to her softened tone.

"I WOULD like some tea. I've been feeling rotten! And say, Mart," he

had drawn up to the table now, and had one wrappered arm about Teddy,

"say, Mart," he said eagerly, "listen! This'll interest you. Thompson's

brother-in-law, Bill Buffington, was there; he's an awfully nice

fellow; he's got coffee interests in Costa Rica. We talked a lot, we

hit it off awfully well, and he thinks there's a dandy chance for me

down there! He says he could get me twenty jobs, and he wants me to go

back when he goes--"

"But, Wallace--" Martie's quick enthusiasm was firing. "But what about

the children?"

"Why, they'd come along. Buff says piles of Americans down there have

children, you just have to dress 'em light--"

"And feed them light; that's the most important!" Martie added eagerly.

"Sure. And I get my transportation, and you only half fare, so you see

there's not much to that!"

"Wallace!" The world was changing. "And what would you do?"

"Checking cargoes, and managing things generally. We get a house, and

he says the place is alive with servants. And he asked if you were the

sort of woman who would take in a few boarders; he says the men there

are crazy for American cooking, and that you could have all you'd

take--"

"Oh, I would!" Martie said excitedly. "I'd have nothing else to do, you

know! Oh, Wallie, I am delighted about this! I am so sick of this

city!" she added, smiling tremulously. "I am so sick of cold and dirt

and worry!"

"Well," he smiled a little shamefacedly, "one thing you'll like. No

booze down there. Buff says there's nothing in it; it can't be done. He

says that's the quickest way for a man to FINISH himself!"

The kitchen had been brightening for Martie with the swift changes of a

stage sunrise. Now the colour came to her face, and the happy tears to

her eyes. For the first time in many months she went into her husband's

arms, and put her own arms about his neck, and her cheek against his,

in the happy fashion of years ago.

"Oh, Wallie, dear! We'll begin all over again. We'll get away, on the

steamer, and make a home and a life for ourselves!"

"Don't you WANT to go, Moth'?" Teddy asked anxiously. Martie laughed as

she wiped her eyes.

"Crying for joy, Ted," she told him. "Don't sit there sneezing,

Wallie," she added in her ordinary tone. Her husband asked her,

dutifully, if she would object to his mixing a hot whisky lemonade for

his cold. After a second's hesitation she said no, and it was mixed,

and shortly afterward Wallace went to bed and to sleep. At eight Martie

tucked Teddy into bed, straightening the clothes over Margar before she

went into the dining room for an hour of solitaire.

"Mrs. Bannister's Boarding House"; she liked the sound. The men would

tell each other that it was luck to get into Mrs. Bannister's. White

shoes--thin white gowns--she must be businesslike--bills and

receipts--and terms dignified, but not exorbitant--when Ted was old

enough for boarding-school--say twelve--but of course they could tell

better about that later on!

A little sound from the front bedroom brought her to her feet, fright

clutching her heart. Margar was croupy again!

It was a sufficiently familiar emergency, but Martie never grew used to

it. She ran to the child's side, catching up the new bottle of

medicine. A hideous paroxysm subsided as she took the baby in her arms,

but Margar sank back so heavily exhausted that no coaxing persuaded her

to open her eyes, or to do more than reject with fretful little lips

the medicine spoon. She is very ill--Martie said to herself fearfully.

She flew to her husband's side.

"Wallie--I hate to wake you! But Margar is croupy, and I'm going to run

for Dr. Converse. Light the croup kettle, will you, I won't be a

moment!"

His daughter was the core of Wallace's heart. He was instantly alert.

"Here, let me go, Mart! I'll get something on--"

"No, no, I'm dressed! But look at her, Wallie," Martie said, as they

came together to stand by the crib. "I don't like the way she's

breathing--"

She looked eagerly at his face, but saw only her own disquiet reflected

there.

"Get the doctor," he said, tucking the blankets about the shabby little

double-gown. "I'll keep her warm--"

A moment later Martie, buttoned into her old squirrel-lined coat, was

in the quiet, deserted street, which was being muffled deeper and

deeper in the softly falling snow. Steps, areas, fences, were alike

furred in soft white, old gratings wore an exquisite coating over their

dingy filigree. The snow was coming down evenly, untouched by wind, the

flakes twisting like long ropes against the street lights. A gang of

men were talking and clanking shovels on the car tracks; an ambulance

thudded by, the wheels grating and slipping on the snow.

Dr. and Mrs. Converse were in their dining room, a pleasant, shabby

room smelling of musk, and with an old oil painting of fruit, a cut

watermelon, peaches and grapes, a fringed napkin and a glass of red

wine, over the curved black marble mantel. The old man was enjoying a

late supper, but struggled into his great coat cheerfully enough. Mrs.

Converse tried to persuade Martie to have just a sip of sherry, but

Martie was frantic to be gone. In a moment she and the old man were on

their way, through the silent, falling snow again, and in her own

hallway, and she was crying to Wallace: "How is she?"

The room was steamy with the fumes of the croup kettle; Wallace, the

child in his arms, met them with a face of terror. Both men bent over

the baby.

"She seems all right again now," said Wallace in a sharp whisper, "but

right after you left--my God, I thought she would choke!"

Martie watched the doctor's face, amazement and fright paralyzing every

sense but sight. The old man's tender, clever hands rested for a moment

on the little double-gown.

"Well, poor little girl!" he said, softly, after a moment of pulsing

silence. He straightened up, and looked at Martie. "Gone," he said

simply. "She died in her father's arms."

"Gone!" Martie echoed. The quiet word fell into a void of silence.

Father and mother stood transfixed, looking upon each other. Martie was

panting like a runner, Wallace seemed dazed. They stood so a long time.

Relief came first to Wallace; for as they laid the tiny form on the

bed, and arranged the shabby little gown about it, he suddenly fell

upon his knees, and flung one arm about his child and burst into bitter

crying. But Martie moved about, mute, unhearing, her mouth fallen a

little open, her breath still coming hard. She answered the doctor's

suggestions only after a moment's frowning concentration--what did he

say?

After a while he was gone, and Wallace was persuaded to go to bed

again, Teddy tucked in beside him. Then Martie lowered the light in

what had been the children's room, and knelt beside her dead.

The snow was still falling with a gentle, ticking sound against the

window. Muffled whistles sounded on the river; the night was so stilled

that the clanking of shovels and the noise of voices came clearly from

the car-tracks at the corner.

Hour after hour went by. Martie knelt on; she was not conscious of

grief or pain; she was not conscious of the world that would wake in

the morning, and go about its business, and of the bright sun that

would blaze out upon the snow. There was no world, no sun, no protest,

and no hope. There was only the question: Why?

In the soft flicker of the gaslight Margar lay in unearthly beauty, the

shadow of her dark eyelashes touching her cheek, a smile lingering on

her baby mouth. She had been such a happy baby; Martie had loved to

rumple and kiss the aureole of bright hair that framed the sleeping

face.

The old double-gown--with the middle button that did not match--Martie

had ironed only yesterday. She would not iron it again. The rag doll,

and the strings of spools, and the shabby high-chair where Margar sat

curling her little bare toes on summer mornings; these must vanish. The

little feet were still. Gone!

Gone, in an hour, all the dreaming and hoping. No Margar in a cleaned

coat would run about the decks of the steamer--

Martie pressed her hand over her dry and burning eyes. She wondered

that she could think of these things and not go mad.

The days went by; time did not stop. Wallace remained ill; Teddy had a

cold, too. Mrs. Converse and John and Adele were there, all

sympathetic, all helpful. They were telling Martie that she must keep

up for the others. She must drink this; she must lie down.

Presently the front room, so terribly occupied, was more terribly

empty. Little Margaret Bannister was laid beside little Mary and Rose

and Paul Converse at Mount Kisco. Children, many of them, died thus

every year, and life went on. Martie had the perfect memory, and the

memory of Adele's tears, of Mrs. Converse's tears, of John's agony of

sympathy.

Then they all went out of her life as suddenly as they had entered it.

Only the old doctor came steadily, because of Teddy's cold and

Wallace's cold. Martie worked over their trays, read fairy-tales to

Teddy, read the newspaper to Wallace, said that she felt well, she HAD

eaten a good lunch, she WAS sleeping well.

When the first suspicion of Wallace's condition came to her she was

standing in the kitchen, waiting for a kettle to boil, and staring

dully out into a world of frozen bareness. Margaret had been with her a

week ago; a week ago it had been her privilege to catch the warm little

form to her heart, to kiss the aureole of gold, to listen to the shaken

gurgle of baby laughter--

The doctor came out from Wallace's room; Martie, still wrapped in her

thoughts, listened to him absently.... pneumonia. Suddenly she came to

herself with a shock, repeating the word. Pneumonia? What was he

saying? But, Doctor--but Doctor--is Mr. Bannister so ill?

He was very ill; gravely ill. The fact that taken in time, and fought

with every weapon, the disease had gained, augured badly. Martie

listened in stupefaction.

She suggested a nurse. The old doctor smiled at her affectionately.

Perhaps to-morrow, if he was no better, they might consider it.

Meanwhile, he was in excellent hands.

A strange, silent day followed. Martie looked at her husband now with

that augmented concern that such a warning brings. He slept, waked,

smiled at her, was not hungry. His big hand, when she touched it, was

hot. Teddy, coughing, and with oil-saturated flannel over his chest,

played with his blocks and listened to fairy-tales. Outside, a bitter

cold wind swept the empty streets. Her husband ill, perhaps dying,

Margar gone; it was all unreal and unconvincing.

At four o'clock the doctor came back, and at five the nurse pleasantly

took possession of the sick room. She was a sensible New England woman,

who cooked potatoes in an amazing way for Teddy's supper, and taught

Martie a new solitaire in the still watches of the night. Martie was

anxious to make her comfortable; she must lie down; and she must be

sure to get out into the fresh air to-morrow afternoon.

But Miss Swann did not leave her case the next day, a Sunday, and

Martie, awed and silent, spent the day beside the bed. Wallace died at

five o'clock.

He wandered in a light fever that morning, and at two o'clock fell into

the stupor that was not to end in this world. But Martie had, to

treasure, the memory of the early morning when she slipped quietly into

the room that was orderly, dimly lighted, and odorous of drugs now. He

was awake then, his eyes found her, and he smiled as she knelt beside

him.

"Better?" she said softly.

The big head nodded almost imperceptibly. He moistened his lips.

"I'm all right," he said voicelessly. "Bad--bad cold!"

He shut his eyes, and with them shut, added in a whisper: "Sweet, sweet

woman, Martie! Remember that day--in Pittsville--when you had on--your

brother's--coat? Mabel--and old Jesse--!"

Heavenly tears rushed to her eyes; she felt the yielding of her frozen

heart. She caught his hand to her lips, bowing her face over it.

"Ah, Wallace dear! We were happy then! We'll go back--back to that

time--and we'll start fresh!"

A long silence. Then he opened his eyes, found her, with a start, as if

he had not been quite sure what those opening eyes would see, and

smiled sleepily.

"I'll make it--up to you, Martie!" he said heavily She had her arms

about him as he sank into unnatural sleep. At eight, whispering in the

kitchen with John, who had come for Teddy, she said that Wallie was

better; and busy with coffee and toast for Miss Swann, she began to

plan for Costa Rica. Beaten, crushed, purified by fire, healed by

tears, she was ready for life again.

But that was not to be. Wallace was dead, and those who gathered about

Martie wondered that she wept for her husband more than for her child.

Wept for the wasted life, perhaps, and for the needless suffering and

sorrow. But even in the first hours of her widowhood Martie's heart

knew a deep and passionate relief. Vague and menacing as was the

future, stretching before her, she knew that she would never wish

Wallace back.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

There were times when Martie found it difficult to believe that she had

ever been away from Monroe at all; evenings, when she and Lydia sat

talking in the shabby sitting room of the old house; or mornings when

she fed the chickens in the soft fog under the willow trees of the

yard. Len and Sally were married and gone, dear Ma was gone, and Belle

had married, too; a tall gaunt woman called Pauline was in her place.

But these things might all have transpired without touching Martie's

own life directly. She might still, in many ways, have been the

dreaming, ambitious, helpless girl of seven years ago. Sometimes the

realization of all she had endured came to her with an odd sense of

shock. She would glance down at her thin hand, in its black cuff, and

fall into deep musing, her face grave and weary. Or she would call

Teddy from his play, and hold his warm little body close, staring at

him with a look that always made the child uneasy. Third Avenue, barred

with sun and shade, in the early summer mornings; Broadway on a snowy

winter afternoon with the theatre crowd streaming up and down, spring

and babies taking possession of the parks--were these all a dream?

No; she had gained something in the hard years; she saw that more and

more. Her very widowhood to Monroe had the stamp of absolute

respectability. Even Pa was changed toward her; or was it that she was

changed toward him? However caused, in their relationship there was a

fundamental change.

Pa had been a figure of power and tyranny seven years ago. Now he

seemed to Martie only an unreasonable, unattractive old man, thwarted

in his old age in everything his heart desired. Lydia was still

tremblingly filial in her attitude toward Pa, but Martie at once

assumed the maternal. She scolded him, listened to him, and dictated to

him, and he liked it. Martie had never loved him as Lydia did; she had

defied and disobeyed and deserted him, yet he transferred his

allegiance to her now, and clung to her helplessly.

He liked to have her walk down to his office beside him in the

mornings, in her plain black. While they walked he pointed out various

pieces of property, and told her how cheaply they had been sold forty

years ago. The whole post-office block had gone for seven hundred

dollars, the hotel site had been Mason's cow-yard! Old man Sark had

lived there, and had refused to put black on his house when Lincoln was

assassinated.

"And didn't he go to jail for that, Pa?"

"Yes, ma'am, he did!"

"But YOU--"

"I was in jail, too." Malcolm Monroe would chuckle under his now gray

moustache that was yellowed with tobacco stains. "Yes, sir, I rounded

up some of the boys, the Twentyonesters, we called ourselves, and we

led a riot 'round this town! The ringleaders were arrested, but that

was merely a form--merely a form!"

"You must have been a terror, Pa."

"Well--well, I had a good deal of your grandmother's spirit! And I

suppose they rather looked to me to set the pace--"

Smiling, they would go along in the sunlight, past the little homes

where babies had been turned out into grassy yards, past the straggling

stables and the smithy, and the fire-house, and the office of the

weekly Zeus. There was more than one garage in Monroe now and the

squared noses of Ford cars were at home everywhere. Mallon's Hardware

Emporium, the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store, still with its pillars of

twisted handkerchiefs, Mason and White's--how familiar they were! And

the old Bank, with its wide windows and double roller shades was

familiar, too. Martie learned that the Bank had duly worn black a year

or two ago for kindly old Colonel Frost; his name had been obliterated

from the big window, and Clifford Frost was vice-president now.

"One death is two deaths, they say," Lydia had sighed, telling Martie

of the Colonel's death. "You know Cliff's wife died only two months

before his father did. That was a terrible thing! Her little girl was

seven years old, and she was going to have another--"

When Martie, in the early afternoon of a warm sweet day on

mid-February, had stepped from the train, with Teddy's little fingers

held tight in hers, Sally's face, running over with tears and smiles,

had been the first she found. Curiously changed, yet wonderfully

familiar, the sisters had clung together, hardly knowing how to begin

their friendship again after six long years. There were big things to

say, but they said the little things. They talked about the trip and

the warm weather that had brought the buttercups so soon, and the case

that had kept Pa on jury duty in Pittsville.

Len--rather pompous, and with a moustache!--explained why his wife

could not be there: the two-year-old daughter was not very well. Martie

questioned him eagerly of his two children. Both girls, Len said

gloomily; he asked his sister if she realized that there was not a

Monroe yet.

Lydia wept a few tears; "Martie, dear, to see you in black!" and

Martie's eyes watered, and her lip shook.

"Grace and all the others would have come," Sally said quickly, "but we

knew you'd be tired, and then it's homecoming, Martie, and you'll have

lots of time to see us all!"

She introduced Elizabeth, a lovely, fly-away child with bright loose

hair, and Billy, a freckled, ordinary-looking boy, who gave his aunt a

beautiful smile from large, dark eyes. The others were left with

"Mother"--Joe's mother.

"But, Sally, you're so fat!"

"And, Mart, you're so thin!"

"Never mind; it's becoming to you, Sally. You look still like a little

girl. Really, you do! And how's Joe?"

"Oh, Joe's lovely. I went down and spent a week with him. I had the

choice of that or a spring suit, and I took that!"

"Went--but where is he? I suppose he hasn't been sent to San Quentin?"

"Oh, Martie, don't! You know Russell Harrison, 'Dutch's' cousin, that

used to play with Len, really WAS sent there!"

"For Heaven's sake, what for?"

"Well, Hugh Wilson had some trouble with Paul King, and--it was about

money--and Russell Harrison went to Hughie and told him--"

So the conversation was diverted over and over again; and the

inessential things were said, and the important ones forgotten. Len had

borrowed the firm's motor car, and they all got in. Martie, used to

Wallace's careless magnificence, was accustomed enough to this mode of

travel, but she saw that it was a cause of great excitement to the

children, and even to Sally.

"You say the 'firm,' Len--I'll never get used to my little brother with

a moustache! What do you mean by the 'firm?'" asked Martie. "My

goodness--goodness--goodness, there's the Library and Lacey's!" she

added, her eyes eagerly roving the streets.

"Miss Fanny is still there; she always speaks so affectionately of you,

Martie," said Lydia eagerly and tremulously. Martie perceived that in

some mysterious way Lydia was ill at ease. Lydia did not quite know how

to deal with a younger sister who was yet a widow, and had lived in New

York.

"There was an awful lot of talk about getting her out of the Library,"

contributed Sally; "they said the Streets were at the back of it; they

wanted to put a man in! There was the greatest excitement; we all went

down to the Town Hall and listened to the speeches--it was terrific! I

guess the Streets and their crowd felt pretty small, because they

got--what was it, Len?"

"Seventeen votes out of one hundred and eleven!" Len said, not moving

his eyes from the road before him.

"My house is right down there, next door to Uncle Ben's," said Sally,

craning her neck suddenly. "You can't see it, but no matter; there's

lots of time! Here's the Hawkes's place; remember that?"

"I remember everything," Martie said, smiling. "We're nearly home!"

The old Monroe house looked shabby, even in the spring green. Martie

had seen the deeper, fresher green of the East for six successive

springs. The eucalyptus trees wore their tassels, the willows' fresh

foliage had sprung over the old rusty leaves. A raw gateway had been

cut, out by the old barn, into Clipper Lane, and a driveway filled in.

Tired, confused, train-sick, Martie got down into the old yard, and the

old atmosphere enveloped her like a garment. The fuchsia bushes, the

marguerites so green on top, so brown and dry under their crown of

fresh life, the heliotrope sprawling against the peeling boards under

the dining-room windows, and tacked in place with strips of kid

glove--how well she knew them!

They went in the side door, and through the dark dining room, odorous

of vegetable soup and bread and butter. An unearthly quiet held the

house. Pa's door was closed; Martie imagined the room darker and more

grim than ever.

Lydia had given her her old room; the room in which she and Sally had

grown to womanhood. It was as clean and bare as a hotel room. Lydia and

Sally had discussed the advisability of a bowl of flowers, but had

decided flowers might remind poor Mart of funerals. Martie remembered

the counterpane on the bed and the limp madras curtains at the windows.

She put her gloves in a bureau drawer lined with folded newspaper, and

hung her wraps in the square closet that was, for some unimaginable

reason, a step higher than the room.

Lydia sat on the bed, and Sally on a chair, while Martie slowly moved

about her new domain. The children had gone into the yard, 'Lizabeth

and Billy charged not to let their little cousin get his clothes dirty;

when the trunks came, with his overalls, he could get as dirty as he

pleased.

The soiled, tumbled contents of the hand bag, after the five days'

trip, filled Martie with a sort of weary concern. She stood, puzzling

vaguely over the damp washcloth that was wrapped about a cake of soap,

the magazines of which she had grown so tired, the rumpled night-wear.

"I suppose I should hang these up; we may not get the trunks to-night."

"Oh, you will!" Lydia reassured her. A certain blankness fell on them

all. It was the glaring spring hour of four o'clock; not lunch time,

nor dinner time, nor bed time, nor time to go to market. Suddenly a

tear fell on Martie's hand; she sniffed.

"Ah, don't, Mart!" Lydia said, fumbling for her own handkerchief. "We

know--we know how hard it is! Your husband, and Ma not here to welcome

you--"

The sisters cried together.

But she slept well in the old walnut bed, and enjoyed a delicious,

unfamiliar leisure the next morning, when Teddy was turned out to the

safety of the yard, and Pa, after paternally reassuring her as to her

welcome and pompously reiterating that her old father's home was hers

for the rest of her life, was gone. She and Lydia talked deeply over

the breakfast table, while Pauline rattled dishes in the kitchen and a

soft fog pressed against the windows.

Martie had said that she was going over to Sally's immediately after

breakfast, but, in the old way, time drifted by. She went upstairs to

make her bed, and she and Lydia talked again, from doorway to doorway.

When they were finally dressed to walk down town, Lydia said that she

might as well go to market first; they could stop at Sally's afterward.

Teddy galloped and curveted about them; Monroe enchanted Teddy. The

sunshine was just pushing back the fog, and the low hills all about the

town were coming into view, when Martie took her son in to meet Miss

Fanny.

Grayer and thinner, the librarian was otherwise unchanged. The old

strong, coarse voice, the old plain dress, serviceable and comfortable,

the old delighted affection. Miss Fanny wore glasses now; she beamed

upon Teddy as she put them on, after frankly wiping her eyes.

She made a little fuss about Martie's joining the Library, so that

Teddy could take home "Davy and the Goblin."

They went out into the warming, drying Main Street again; everywhere

Martie was welcomed. In the shops and on the street humble old friends

eyed her black respectfully.

The nervousness that she had felt about coming back began to melt like

the mist itself. She had dreaded Monroe's old standards, dreaded Rose

and Len, and the effect her poverty must have on them. Now she began to

see that Rose mattered as little here as she had mattered when Martie

was struggling in East Twenty-sixth Street. Rose "went" with the Frosts

and the Streets and the Pattersons now. Her intimate friend was Dr.

Ellis's wife, a girl from San Francisco.

"Shall we go in for a minute, and make a little visit?" said Lydia, as

she had said years ago, whenever they passed the church. Martie nodded.

They creaked into the barnlike shabbiness of the edifice; the little

red light twinkled silently before the altar. Clara Baxter was

tiptoeing to and fro with vases. Teddy twisted and turned, had to be

bumped to his knees, was warned in a whisper that he must not talk.

Father Martin was not well; he had an assistant, Lydia said. The bishop

wanted to establish a convent here, and old Mrs. Hanson had left eleven

hundred dollars for it. Gertie Hanson lived in Fruitvale; she was

married to a widower. She had threatened to fight the will, but people

said that she got quite a lot of money; the Hansons were richer than

any one thought. Anyway, she had not put up a gravestone to her mother

yet, and Alice Clark said that Gertie had said that she couldn't afford

it.

"Why, that house must have been worth something!" Martie commented,

picking up the threads with interest.

"Well, wouldn't you think so!" Lydia said eagerly.

The morning had been so wasted that Sally was in a whirl of

dinner-getting when they reached her house. She had her hearty meal at

noon on the children's account; her little kitchen was filled with

smoke and noise. To-day she had masses of rather dark, mushy boiled

rice, stewed neck of lamb, apples, and hot biscuits. Martie, fresh from

New York's campaign of dietetic education, reflected that it was rather

unusual fare for small children, but Sally's quartette was

healthy-looking enough, and full of life and excitement. 'Lizabeth set

the table; there was great running about, and dragging of chairs.

Martie studied her sister with amused admiration. There was small room

for maternal vapours in Sally's busy life. Her matter-of-fact voice

ruled the confusion.

"Jim, you do as 'Lizabeth tells you, or you'll get another whipping,

sir! Pour that milk into the pitcher, Brother. Put on both sugar bowls,

darling; Brother likes the brown. Martie, dearest, I am ashamed of this

muss, but in two minutes I'll have them all started--there's

baby--'Lizabeth, there's baby; you'll have to go up--"

"I'll go up!" Lydia and Martie said together. Martie went through the

bare little hallways upstairs, and peeped into shabby bedrooms full of

small beds and dangling nightgowns and broken toys.

Mary was sitting up in her crib, tumbled, red-cheeked, tears hanging on

her lashes. The room was darkened for her nap; she wore a worn little

discoloured wrapper; she clung to her rag doll. Martie, with deathly

weakness sweeping over her, smiled, and spoke to her. The baby eyed her

curiously, but she was not afraid. Martie picked her up, and stood

there holding her, while the knife turned and twisted in her heart.

After a while she wrapped a blanket about Mary, and carried her

downstairs. Sally saw that Martie's face was ashen, and she knew why.

Lydia saw nothing. Lydia would have said that Martie had placed poor

Wallace's picture on her bureau that morning, and had talked about him,

calmly and dry-eyed; so why should she feel so much more for her baby?

Teddy had been a little strange, if eagerly friendly, with his other

cousins; but he knew how to treat Mary. He picked up the things she

threw down from her high-chair, and tickled her, and made her laugh.

"If this elaborate and formal meal is dinner, Sally dear, what is

supper?"

"Oh, Martie, it's so delicious to hear you again! Why, supper will be

apple sauce and bread and butter and milk, and gingerbread and cookies.

It's the same the year round! I like it, really; after we go up to Pa's

to supper the children don't sleep well, and neither do I."

"You haven't told me yet where Joe is."

"Oh, I know, and I WILL! We get talking, and somehow there's so much to

say. Why, Joe's finishing his course at Cooper's College in San

Francisco; he'll graduate this May. Dr. J. F. Hawkes; isn't that fun!"

"A regular doctor!" Martie exclaimed. "But--but is he going to BE one?"

"BE one! I should think he is!" Sally announced proudly. "Uncle Ben

says he's a born doctor--"

"And how long has it been UNCLE Ben?"

"Oh, 'Lizabeth adopted him. He adores the children."

"He loaned Joe the money," Lydia said with her old air of delicately

emphasizing an unsavoury truth.

Sally gave her younger sister a rather odd look at this, but she did

not deny the statement.

"And who keeps the quartette going?" asked Martie, glancing about.

"Joe's people; and Pa does send barrels of apples and things, doesn't

he, Sally?" Lydia supplied.

"Oh, yes; we only pay twelve dollars rent, and we live very cheaply!"

Sally said cheerfully, with another mysterious look.

A day or two later, when they were alone, she told Martie the whole

truth.

"It's Uncle Ben, of course, Mart; you remember his old offer, if ever I

had any children? He pays me twelve hundred a year for my four. Nobody

knows it, not even Lyd. People would only talk, you know, and it's none

of their affair. It's his fad, you know. We married young, and Joe had

no profession. Uncle Ben thinks the State ought to pay women for

bearing children. He says it's their business in life. Women are taking

jobs, foregoing marriage, and the nation is being robbed of citizens.

He believes that the hardest kind of work is the raising of children,

and the women who do it for the State ought to be paid by the State. He

does it for me, and I feel as if he was a relation. It's meant

everything to Joe and me, and the children, too. Sometimes, when I stop

to think of it, it is a little queer, but--when you think of the way

people DO spend money, for orchids or old books or rugs--it's natural

after all! He simply invests in citizens, that's what he says. I would

have had them anyway, but I suppose, indeed I know, Mart, that there

are lots of women who wouldn't!"

"And is he financing Joe, too?"

"Oh, no, indeed! Uncle Ben never speaks of money to me; I don't ever

get one cent except my regular allowance. Why, when Joe was ill, and

one of the babies--Billy, it was--was coming, he came in to see me now

and then, but he never said boo about helping! Joe is working his way;

he's chauffeur for Dr. Houston; that's something else nobody knows."

"I think that's magnificent of Joe!" Martie said, her face glowing.

"He graduates this year," Sally said proudly, "and then I think he will

start here. For a long time we thought we'd have to move away then,

because every one remembers little Joe Hawkes delivering papers, and

working in the express office. But now that the hospital, up toward the

Archer place, is really going to be built, Uncle Ben says that Joe can

get a position there. It's Dr. Knowles's hospital, and Uncle Ben is his

best friend. Of course that's big luck for Joe."

"Not so much luck," Martie said generously, "as that Joe has worked

awfully hard, and done well."

"Oh, you don't know how hard, Mart! And loving us all as he does, too,

and being away from us!" Sally agreed fervently. "But if he really gets

that position, with my hundred, we'll be rich! We'll have to keep a

Ford, Mart; won't that be fun?"

"Dr. Ben might die, Sally," Martie suggested.

"That wouldn't make any difference," the older sister said composedly.

"I have the actual deeds--the titles, whatever they are--to the

property MY money comes from. He gave me them a year ago, when he was

sixty. I certainly dread the talk there'll be when his will comes to

light, but Joe will be here then, and Joe isn't afraid of any one."

"He's done for you what Pa should have done," Martie mused.

"Oh, well, Pa did his best for us, Mart." Sally said dutifully; "he

gave us a good home--"

"WAS it a good home?" Martie questioned mildly.

"It was a much finer home than MY children have, Mart."

"As far as walls and tables and silver spoons, I suppose it was. But,

Sally, there's no child alive who has a sweeter atmosphere than

this--always with mother, always learning, and always considered! Why,

my boy is blooming already in it!"

Sally's face flushed with pleasure.

"Martie, you make me so proud!"

"If you can only keep it up, Sally. With me it doesn't matter so much,

because I've only the one, and no husband whose claims might interfere.

But when 'Lizabeth and Mary, as well as the boys, are older--"

"You mean--always let them have their friends at the house, and so on?"

Sally asked slowly.

"Yes, but more than that! Let them feel as much a part of the world as

the boys do. Put them into any work--only make them respect it!"

"Pa might have helped us, only neither you nor I, nor Lyd, ever showed

the least interest in work," Sally submitted thoughtfully.

"Neither did Len--but he MADE Len!"

"Yes, I see what you mean," Sally admitted with an awakening face. "But

we would have thought he was pretty stern, Mart," she added.

"Just as children do when they have to learn to read and write,"

countered Martie. "Don't you see?"

Sally did not see, but she was glad to see Martie's interest. She told

Lydia later that Martie really seemed better and more like her old

self, even in these few days.

With almost all the women of Monroe, Lydia now considered Martie's life

a thing accomplished, and boldly accomplished. To leave home, to marry,

to have children in a strange city, to be honorably widowed and to

return to her father's home, and rear her child in seclusion and

content; this was more than fell to the lot of many women. Lydia

listened with actual shudders to Martie's casually dropped revelations.

"This John Dryden that I told you about, Lyd--the man who wrote the

play that failed--was anxious for me to go on with the Curley

boarding-house," Martie said one day, "and sometimes now I think I

should have done so."

"Good heavens!" Lydia, smoothing the thin old blankets on Martie's

wide, flat bed, stopped aghast. "But why should you--Pa is more than

willing to have you here!"

"I know, darling. But what really deterred me was not so much Pa's

generosity, but the fact that I would have had to lease the property

for three years; George Curley wanted to be rid of the responsibility.

And to really make the thing a success, I should have had the adjoining

house, too; that would have been about four thousand rent."

"Four thousand--Martie, you would have been crazy!"

Martie, tinkling pins into a saucer on the bureau, opening the upper

drawer to sweep her brush and comb into it, and jerking the limp linen

scarf straight, only smiled and shrugged in answer. She had been

widowed three months, and already reviving energy and self-confidence

were running in her veins. Already she realized that it had been a

mistake to accept her father's hospitality in the first panic of being

dependent. However graceful and dignified her position was to the

outsider's eye, in this old house in the sunken block, she knew now

that Pa was really unable to offer her anything more than a temporary

relief from financial worry, and that her chances of finding employment

in Monroe as compared to New York were about one to ten.

Malcolm Monroe had been deeply involved for several years in "the firm"

by which term he and Len referred to their real estate business

together. A large tract of grassy brown meadow, south of the town, had

been in his possession for thirty years; it was only with the opening

of the new "Monroe's Grove" that he had realized its possibilities, or

rather that Len had realized them.

Len had held one or two office positions in Monroe unsatisfactorily

before his twentieth year, and then had persuaded his father to send

him to Berkeley, to the State University. Ma and Lydia had been proud

of their under-graduate for one brief year, then Len was back again,

disgusted with study. After a few months of drifting and experimenting,

the brilliant idea of developing the old south tract into building

sites had occurred to Len, and presently his father was also persuaded

that here was a splendid opportunity. A little office on Main Street

was rented, and its window embellished with the words "Own a Home in

the Monroe Estates." Len really worked violently for a time; he rode

his bicycle back and forth tirelessly. He married, and moved out into

the Estates, and he personally superintended the work that went on

there. Streets and plots were laid out, trees planted, the fresh muddy

roads were edged with pyramids of brown sewer pipes.

The financial outlay was enormous, unforeseen. Taxes went up, sidewalks

crumbled back into the grass again, the four or five unfenced little

wooden houses that were erected and occupied added to the general

effect of forlornness. The Estates were mortgaged, and to the old

mortgage on the homestead another was added.

Len took Martie out to see the place. Slim little trees were bending in

a sharp April wind; a small woman at the back of one of the small

houses was taking whipping clothes from a line. The streets were deep

in mud; Martie smiled as she read the crossposts: "High Street," "Maple

Avenue," and "Sunset Avenue." Here and there a sign "Sold" embellished

a barren half-acre.

"You've really done wonders, Len," she said encouragingly. "And of

course there's nothing like LAND for making money!"

"Oh, there's a barrel of money in it," he answered dubiously, kicking a

lump of dirt at his feet. They had left the little car at a

comparatively dry crossing, and were walking about. "We've put in a

hundred more trees this year, and I think we'll start another house

pretty soon." And when they got back in the car, his face flushed from

vigorous cranking, he added, "I talked Pa into getting the car; it

makes it look as if we were making money!"

"Of course it does," Martie said amiably. She thought her own thoughts.

Lydia had nothing but praise for Len; he had worked like a Trojan, she

said. And Pa had been wonderfully patient and good about the whole

thing.

"Pa was telling me the other day that he could have gotten ever so much

money for this place, if he had had it levelled the time the whole town

was," Lydia said, in her curious tone that was triumphantly

complaining, one day.

"I wonder what it's worth, as it stands," mused Martie.

"Oh, Martie, I don't know! I don't know anything about it; he just

happened to say that!"

It was later on this same day that Martie went in to see Miss Fanny,

and put her elbows on the desk, resting her troubled face in her hands.

"Miss Fanny, sometimes I despair! Heaven knows I have had hard knocks

enough, and yet I never learn," she burst out. "Seven years ago I used

to come in here to you, and rage because I was so helpless! Well, I've

had experience since, bitter experience, and yet here I am, helpless

and a burden still!"

Miss Fanny smiled her wide, admiring smile. Without a word she reached

to a shelf behind her, and handed Martie a familiar old volume:

"Choosing a Life Work." The colour rushed into Martie's face as she

took it.

"I'll read it NOW!" she said simply.

"If you really want to work, Martie," suggested the older woman, "why

don't you come in here with me? Now that we've got the Carnegie

endowment, we have actually appropriated a salary for an assistant."

Martie looked at her thoughtfully, looked backward perhaps over the

long years.

"I will," she said.