Because—

Because she who stood there in the door was quite the sweetest, the

loveliest, the most interesting looking girl whom he had ever laid eyes

on; and when she was seized in her brother’s arms, and kissed by her

brother’s lips, and dragged by her brother’s hands well into the room,

she proved to be a thousand times more irresistible than at first.

“I say, Betty, you’re absolutely prettier than ever,” her brother

exclaimed, holding her a little off from him and surveying her

critically; and then he seemed to remember his friend’s existence, and,

turning toward him, announced proudly:

“My sister Bertha.”

Jack was standing up now and thinking how lovely her eyes were just at

that instant when they were meeting his for the first time, thinking

much else too. Thinking that Monday was only two days away (hang it!);

thinking that such a smile was never known before; thinking that he had

_years_ ahead at college; thinking that the curl on her forehead was

simply distracting (whereas all other like curls were horrid); thinking

that he might cut college and—

“My chum, Jack Denham,” Burnett continued, proving in the same instant

how rapidly the mind may work since his friend had compassed his

encyclopedia of sentiment and probability between the two halves of a

formal introduction.

“Oh, I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Denham,” she said, putting out her

hand—and he took and held it just long enough to realize that he really

was holding it, before she took it away to keep for her own again.

“I’ve often heard of you, and often wished I might know you.”

“I’m awfully glad to hear you say that,” he said, “and if I should have

the royal luck to be next to you at dinner, it doesn’t seem to me that

I shall have the strength to keep from telling you why.”

She clapped her hands at this, just as a very little girl might have

done.

“If that is so, I hope that they will put you next to me at dinner,”

she said gayly; “but if they don’t, you’ll tell me some other time,

won’t you? I’m always _so_ interested in what people have to tell me

about myself.”

Burnett began to laugh.

“Jack,” he said, “I see that we’d better have a clear and above-board

understanding right in the beginning and so I’ll just tell you that

this sister of mine, who appears so guileless, is the very worst flirt

ever. She looks honest, but she can’t tell the truth to save her neck.

She means well, but she drives folks to suicide just for fun. She’d do

anything for anybody in general, but when it’s a case of you

individually she won’t do a thing to you, and you must heed my words

and be forewarned and forearmed from now on. Mustn’t he, Betty?”

At this the sister laughed, nodding quite as gayly as if it were a

laughing matter, instead of the opening move in a possibly

serious—tremendously serious—game of life.

“It’s awful to have to subscribe to,” she said, with dancing eyes; “but

I’m afraid it’s true. I’m really quite a reprobate, and I admit it

frankly. And everyone is so good to me that I never get a chance to

reform. And so—and so—”

“But then, I suppose I ought to warn her about you, too,” said Burnett,

turning suddenly toward his friend. “It isn’t fair to show her up and

not show you up, you know. And really, Betty, he’s almost as bad as you

are yourself. I may tell you in confidence—in strict confidence (for

it’s only been in a few newspapers)—that he hasn’t got his

breach-of-promise suit all compromised yet. Ask him to deny it, if he

can!”

The sister looked suddenly startled and curious and Jack felt himself

to be blushing desperately.

“I don’t look as if he was lying, do I?” he asked smiling; “be honest

now, for you can see that Burnett and I both are.”

“No, you don’t,” she said. “You look as if it was a very true bill.”

“It is,” he said; “and it’s going to be an awfully big one, too, I’m

afraid.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you were such a bad man,” said the sister ever

so sweetly; “but I like bad men. They interest me. They—”

“There!—I see your finish,” said Burnett. “That’s one of her favorite

opening plays. It’s all up with you, Jack, and your aunt will have to

to go down for another damage suit when you begin to perceive that you

have had enough of our family. But you’ll have to get out now, Betty,

and let him get dressed for dinner. You needn’t cry about it either for

he’s even more attractive in his glad rags than he is in his railway

dust—my word of honor on it.”

“I look nice myself when I’m dinner-dressed,” said the sister, “so I

sympathize with him and I’ll go with pleasure. Good-bye.”

She sort of backed toward the door and Jack sprang to open it for her.

“You can kiss her hand, if you like,” Burnett said kindly. “They do in

Germany, you know. I don’t mind and mamma needn’t know.”

“May I?” Jack asked her; and then he caught her eye over her brother’s

bent head and added, so quickly that there was hardly any break at all

between the words: “Some other time?”

“Some other time,” she said, with a world of meaning in the promise;

and then she flashed one wonderful look straight into his eyes and was

gone.

“Isn’t she great?” Burnett asked, unlocking his suit-case in the most

provokingly every-day style, as if this day was an every-day sort of

day and not the beginning and end of all things. “Oh, I tell you, I’m

almost dotty over that sister myself.”

“Do you suppose that I could manage to have her for dinner?” Jack

asked, feeling desperately how dull any other place at the table would

be now.

“I don’t know. When I go down to my mother I’ll try to manage it; shall

I?”

“I wish you would.”

“I reckon I can; but, great loads of fire, fellow! don’t think you can

play tag with her, and feel funny at the finish. She’ll do you up

completely, and never turn a hair herself. She’s always at it. She

don’t mean to be cruel, but she’s naturally a carnivorous animal. It’s

her little way.”

Jack did not look as dismal as he should have done; he smiled, and

looked out of the window instead.

“She’ll have to marry someone some day, you know,” he said

thoughtfully.

“Have to marry someone some day!” Burnett cried. “Why, she is married.

Didn’t you know that?” and he unbuckled the shirt portfolio as he spoke

just as if calamities and tragedies and shooting stars might not follow

on the heels of such a simple statement as that last.

It was an awful moment, but poor Jack did manage to continue looking

out of the window. If any greater demand had been made upon him he

might have sunk beneath the double weight.

“No,” he said at last, his voice painfully steady; “I didn’t know it.”

Burnett laughed heartlessly, hauling forth his apparel with a refined

cruelty which took careful heed of possible interfolded shoes or

cravats.

“She married an Englishman when she was nineteen years old,” he said.

“That was when they sent me to Eton that little while,—until I drove

the horse through the drug shop. The time I told you about, don’t you

know?”

“Yes, I remember,” said Jack. He observed with sickening distinctness

that the night had begun to fall, the river’s silver ribbon had become

a black snake, and that the mountain range beyond loomed chill and dark

and cheerless. “I guess I ought to be getting into my things,” he said,

moving toward his own door.

“There’s a bath in here,” his friend called after him. “We’re to divide

it.”

“Sure,” was the reply. It sounded a trifle thick.

“I don’t think that she ought to,” said the brother to himself, as he

began to draw out his stick-pin before the mirror, “I don’t care if she

is my favorite sister—I don’t think that she ought to.”

Then he went on to make ready for the securing of his half of the bath,

and forthwith forgot his sister and his friend.

Chapter Four

Married

It was almost like a scene at a ball, the great white-and-gold music

room before dinner that night. The Burnett family proper numbered

fifteen among themselves, and there were nearly thirty guests added. It

was entirely too large a house party to have handled successfully for

very long, but it would be most awfully jolly for three or four days;

and now, when the whole crowd were gathered waiting for dinner, the

picture was one of such bubbling joy that Jack’s very heavy heart

seemed to himself to be terribly out of place there and he wondered

whether he should be able to put up even a fairly presentable front

during the endless hours that must ensue before the time for breaking

up arrived.

Burnett took him all around and introduced him to people in general,

and people in general seemed to him to merely bring the fact of her

pre-eminence more vividly than ever before his mind. He found himself

looking everywhere but at them too, and listening with an acutely

sensitive ear for sounds quite other than those of their various lips.

But eternal disappointment rewarded his eyes and ears. She was nowhere.

So he talked blindly about nothing to all the nobodies and laughed

stupidly over all their stupidities until—suddenly and without any

warning—a fearful jump in his throat sent the mercury in his

constitution shooting up to 160, and he saw, heard, felt, gasped, and

knew, that that radiant angel in silver tissue who had just entered the

farther end of the room was indubitably Herself.

(Married!)

He quite forgot who, what and where he was. There was a somebody

talking to him—a very awful and bony young lady, but she faded so

completely out of the general scheme of his immediate present that all

the use he made of her was to stare over her head at the distant

apparition that was become, now and forever, his All in All. The

distant apparition had not lied when she had told him up in her

brother’s room that she too, looked “nice” when dressed for dinner.

Only the word “nice” was as watered milk to the champagne of her

appearance. She was gowned superbly and her throat and arms were half

bared by the folds of silvered lace; her hair fitted into the back of

her neck in the smoothest mass of puffs and coils, and the curl on her

forehead was more distracting than ever.

(Married!)

She seemed to be speaking to everyone, and everyone seemed to be

crowding around her. He couldn’t go up like everyone else, because the

awful and bony young lady was talking hard at him and heightened her

charms with a smile that took up two-fifths of her face, and wrinkled

all the rest.

Her name was Lome—Maude Lome. He knew that she must be a relative

without being told, because otherwise she wouldn’t have been invited at

all. Anyone could divine that.

“Oh, isn’t dear Betty just lovely?” this fearful freak said. “I think

she’s just too lovely for anything! She’s my cousin, you know; we’re

often mistaken for one another.”

“I can well believe it,” said Jack, heavily, not ceasing to stare

beyond as he said it.

(Married!)

“Oh, you’re flattering me! Because she’s ever so much prettier than I

am, and I know it.”

He didn’t reply. It had suddenly come over him to wonder whether there

ever had been an authentic case of heartbreak. Because he had the most

terrible ache right in his left side!

(Married! Married!)

“But, then,” Miss Lome continued, “I’m younger than she is. Her being

married makes her seem young, but she’s really twenty-four. I’m only

twenty.”

He shut his eyes, and then opened them. He wished he hadn’t come here,

and then grew shivery to think that he might have happened not to; and

all the while that awful twisting and wrenching at his heart was

getting worse and worse.

(Married! Married! Married!)

Burnett came up just then with a man wearing a monocle and presented

him to Denham, and forthwith handed the bony cousin to his

safe-keeping.

“She’s a great pill, isn’t she?” he began, as the couple moved away;

and then he stopped short. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Sick?”

“I hope not,” said Jack, trying to smile.

“You look hipped,” his friend said anxiously. “Better go get a bracer;

you’ll have time if you hurry. You can’t be sick before dinner, because

I’ve been moving all the cards around so as to get Betty next to you,

and I could never get them back as they were before if you gave out at

the last minute.”

“I don’t believe I’m ill,” said Jack, trying to realize whether the

news that she was to be his (for dinner) made him feel any better or

only just about the same. “I don’t know what ails me. Do I look seedy?”

“You look sort of knocked out, that’s all,” said Burnett. “Perhaps,

though, it was just the having to talk to my cousin Maude so long.

Isn’t she the limit, though? But I’ll tell you the one big thing about

that girl: She’s just the biggest kind of a catch. She was my uncle’s

eldest child; she’s worth twelve times what any of us ever will be.”

“I’m sure she’ll need it,” said Jack heartily.

“You’re right there,” laughed his friend; “but you’ve got to hurry and

get your brandy now if you want it, because they’ll be going out in a

minute.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” said the poor chap, straightening his shoulders

back a little. “I can make out well enough, I’m sure. I think I’d

better go over by your sister and let her know that I’m ready when the

hour of need shall strike.”

Burnet nodded and then he went on and his friend walked down the room,

no one but himself knowing that he was making his way into the lion’s

(or, rather, lioness’s) den.

And then he paused there beside her. Oh! she Was seven million times

lovelier close to than far away. All the rot about Venus and statues

and paintings and Helen of Troy was nowhere beside Her and he felt his

strength come surging mightily upward and then—oh Heavens!

She looked up—looked so sweetly up—right into his eyes and smiled.

“I expect you are to take me into dinner,” she said; and at her words

the man who had been talking to her murmured something meaningless and

got out of their way.

“I believe so,” he said.

She rose and he noticed that the top of her head was just level with

his coat lapel. He wondered, with a miserable pang, where she came to

on her husband’s coat and with the wonder his surging strength surged

suddenly out to sea again and left him feeling like Samson when he

awoke to the realization of his haircut.

“Dinner’s very late,” she said, quite as if life presented no problem

whatever; “you see, it’s the first big company in the house. We were

only seventeen last night, and to-night we’re forty-five. It makes a

difference.”

“I can imagine so,” he said. He was suddenly acutely aware of feeling

very awkward, and of finding her different—quite different from what

she had seemed up in her brother’s room.

“What is it?” she asked after a minute, looking up at him; and then she

showed that she was conscious of the change, for she added: “Something

has happened; Bob has been saying mean things about me to you?”

“Yes, he did tell me something,” he admitted; and just then the butler

announced dinner.

“What did he tell you?” she asked, as they moved away. “How could he

say anything worse than what he said before me?”

“He told me something that was worse—much worse.”

She looked troubled and as if she did not understand.

“But he said that I was a flirt, and that I couldn’t speak the truth,

and that I drove people—”

“Yes, I remember all that; but this was infinitely worse.”

“Infinitely worse!”

“Yes.”

She stopped in an angle where the big room dwindled into a narrow

gallery, and stared astonished.

“I can’t at all understand,” she said.

“No, you can’t,” he said, “and I can’t tell you—I mustn’t tell you—how

terrible it is to me to look at you and think of what he told me.”

After a second she went on again and presently they entered the

dining-room. The confusion of rustling skirts and sliding chairs quite

covered their speech for a moment and made them seem almost alone. Her

hand had been resting on his arm and now she drew it out, looking up at

him again as she did so. Her eyes had a premonitory mist over them.

“For Heaven’s sake,” she said very earnestly, “tell me what he said?”

He was silent.

“Tell me,” she pleaded.

He was still silent.

“Tell me,” she said imperiously.

He continued silent. They sat down.

“Mr. Denham,” she said, as she took up her napkin, and her voice grew

very low, and yet he heard, “I don’t think that we can pretend to be

joking any longer. You are my brother’s friend, and I am a married

woman. Please treat me as you should.”

“That’s just it,” said Jack; “that’s all there is to it. It wouldn’t

have amounted to anything except for that—or perhaps, if it hadn’t been

for that, it might have amounted to a great deal.”

“If it hadn’t been for what?”

“For your being married.”

She quite started in her seat.

“What do you mean?”

“You see I never knew it before.”

“You never knew what before?”

“That you were married.”

“Until when?”

“Until after you went out of the room to-night.”

The men were putting the clams around. She seemed to reflect. And then

she peppered and salted them before she spoke.

“Bob is very wrong to talk so,” she said at last, picking up her fork,

“when you’re his friend, too.”

He poked his clams—he hated clams.

“I suppose men think it’s amusing to do such things,” she continued,

“but I think it’s as ill-bred as practical joking.”

“But you are married,” he said, trying fiercely to pepper some taste

into the tasteless things before him.

“Yes, I’m married,” she admitted tranquilly, “but, then, my husband

went to Africa so soon afterwards that he hardly seemed to count at

all. And then he was killed there; so, after that, he seemed to count

less than ever.”

The air danced exclamation points and the man on the other side spoke

to her then so that her turning to answer him gave Jack time to rally

his wits.

(A widow!)

Then she turned back and said:

“I think Bob mystified you unnecessarily. Of course I don’t flatter

myself that you’ve suffered.”

“Oh, but I have,” he hastened to assure her.

(A widow! A widow!)

“But it always makes a difference whether a woman is married or not.”

“I should say it did,” he interrupted again. “It makes all the

difference in the world.”

At that she laughed outright, and someone suddenly abstracted the

distasteful clams and substituted for them a golden and glorious soup,

and music sounded forth from some invisible quartet, and—and—

(A widow! A widow! A widow!)

Chapter Five

The Day After Falling in Love

The next day was a very memorable day for Jack. The day after a falling

in love is always a red-letter day; but the day after _the_ falling in

love—ah!

One looks back—far back—to the day before, and those hours of the day

before, when her sun had not yet dawned, and struggles to recollect

what ends life could have represented then. And one looks forward to

the next day, the next week, the next year—but, particularly to the

next morning with sensations as indescribable as they are delightful.

Whichever way you tip it, the kaleidoscope of the future arranges

itself in equally attractive shapes of rainbow hue, and the prospect

over land or sea—even if it is raining—looks brilliant green, and

brighter red, and brightest yellow.

Upon that glorious “next day” of Jack’s the weather was quite a thing

apart for February—partaking of the warmth of May, and owing that fact

to a sun which early June need not have scorned to own. Under the

circumstances the house party overflowed the house and ravaged the

surrounding country, and Jack and Mrs. Rosscott began it all by having

the highest cart and the fastest cob in the stables and making for the

forest just as the clock was tolling ten.

“Do you want a groom?” asked Burnett, who was occasionally very cruel.

“Well, I’m not going to wait for him to get ready now,” replied his

sister, who had sharp wits and did not disdain to give even her own

family the benefit of them.

Then she gathered up the reins and whip in a most scientific manner,

and they were off. Jack folded his arms. He was simply flooded,

drenched, and saturated with joy. The evening before had been Elysium

when she had only been his now and again for a minute’s conversation,

but now she was to be his and his alone until—until they came back—and

his mind seemed able to grasp no dearer outlines of the form which

Bliss Incarnate may be supposed to take. He didn’t care where they went

or what they saw or what they talked of, just if only he and she might

be going, seeing, and talking for the benefit of one another and of one

another alone.

They bowled away upon a firm, hard road that skirted the park, and then

plunged deeply into the forest. Mrs. Rosscott handled the reins and the

whip with the hands of an expert.

“I like to drive,” said she.

“You appear to,” he answered.

“I like to do everything,” she said. “I’m very athletic and energetic.”

“I’m glad of that,” he told her warmly. “I like athletic girls.”

He really thought that he was speaking the truth, although upon that

first day if she had declared herself lazy and languid he would have

found her equally to his taste—because it was the first day.

“That’s kind of you, after my speech,” she said smiling, “but let’s

wait a bit before we begin to talk about me. Let us talk about you

first—you’re the company, you know.”

“But there’s nothing to tell about me,” said Jack, “except that I’m

always in difficulties—financial—or otherwise,—oftenest ‘otherwise,’ I

must confess.”

“But you have a rich aunt, haven’t you?” said Mrs. Rosscott. “I thought

that I had heard about your aunt.”

“Oh, yes, I have a rich aunt,” Jack said, laughing, “and I can assure

you that if I am not much credit to my aunt, my aunt is the greatest

possible credit to me.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that, too,” said Mrs. Rosscott, joining in the laugh,

“you see I’m well posted.”

“If you’re so well posted as to me,” Jack said, “do be kind and post me

a little as to yourself. You don’t need information and I do.”

She turned and looked at him.

“What shall I tell you first?” she inquired.

“Tell me what you like and what you don’t like—and that will give me

courage to do the same later,” he added boldly.

She laughed outright at that and then sobered quickly.

“I told you that I liked to drive and to do everything,” she said

lightly; “what else do you want to know about?”

“What you dislike.”

“But I don’t know of anything that I dislike;” she said

thoughtfully—“perhaps I don’t like England; I am not sure, though. I

had a pretty good time there after all—only you know, being in mourning

was so stupid. And then, too, I didn’t fit into their ideas. I really

didn’t seem to get the true inwardness of what was expected of me. Oh,

I never dared let them know at home what a failure I was as an

Englishwoman. I mortified my husband’s sisters all the time. Just

think—after a whole year I often forgot to say ‘Fancy now!’ and used to

say ‘Good gracious!’ instead.”

Jack laughed.

“My husband’s sisters were very unhappy about it. They did want to love

me, because I had so much money; but it was tough work for them. Did

you ever know any middle-aged English young ladies?” she asked him

suddenly.

“No, I never did,” he said.

“Really, they seem to be a thing apart that can’t grow anywhere but in

England. Every married man has not less than two, nor more than three,

and they always are a little gray and embroider very nicely. Someone

told me that as long as there’s any hope they wear stout boots and walk

about and hunt, but as soon as it’s hopeless they take to

embroidering.”

“It must be rather a blue day for them when they decide definitely to

make the change,” said Jack.

“I never thought of that,” said Mrs. Rosscott soberly. “Of course it

must! I was always very good to them. I gave them ever so many things

that I could have used longer myself, and they used to set pieces of

muslin in behind the open-work places and wear them.”

She sighed.

“It’s quite as bad as being a Girton girl,” she said. “Do you know what

a Girton girl is?”

“No, I don’t.”

“It’s a girl from Girton College. It’s the most awful freak you ever

saw. They’re really quite beyond everything. They’re so homely, and

their hands and feet are so enormous, and their pins never pin, and

their belts never belt. And no one has ever married one of them yet!”

She paused dramatically.

“I won’t either, then,” he declared.

She laughed at that, and touched up the cob a trifle.

“Did you live long in England?” he asked.

“Forever!” she answered with emphasis; “at least it seemed like

forever. Mamma left me there when I was nineteen (she married me off

before she left me, of course) and I stayed there until last

winter—until I was out of my mourning, you know—and then I was on the

Continent for a while, and then I returned to papa.”

“How do we strike you after your long absence?”

“Oh, you suit me admirably,” she said, turning and smiling squarely

into his face; “only the terrible ‘and’ of the majority does get on my

nerves somewhat.”

“What ‘and’?”

“Haven’t you noticed? Why when an American runs out of talking material

he just rests on one poor little ‘and’ until a fresh run of thought

overwhelms him; you listen to the next person you’re talking with, and

you’ll hear what I mean.”

Jack reflected.

“I will,” he said at last.

The road went sweeping in and out among a thicket of bare tree trunks

and brown copses, and the sunlight fell out of the blue sky above

straight down upon their heads.

“If it don’t annoy you, my referring to England so often,” said she

presently, “I will state that this reminds me of Kaysmere, the country

place of my father-in-law.”

“Is your father-in-law living yet?”

“Dear me, yes—and still has hold of the title that I supposed I was

getting when I was married to his eldest son. My father-in-law is a

particularly healthy old gentleman of eighty. He was forty years old

when he married. He didn’t expect to marry, you know—he couldn’t see

his way to ever affording it. But he jumped into the title suddenly and

then, of course, he married right away. He had to. You’d know what a

hurry he must have been in to look at my mamma-in-law’s portrait.”

“Was she so very beautiful?”

“No; she was so very homely. Maude’s very like her.”

Jack laughed.

She laughed, too.

“Aren’t we happy together?” she asked.

“My sky knows but one cloud,” he rejoined, “and that is that Monday

comes after Sunday.”

“But we shall meet again,” said Mrs. Rosscott. “Because,” she added

mischievously, “I don’t suppose that it’s on account of my cousin Maude

that you rebel at the approach of Monday.”

“No,” said Jack. “It may not be polite to say so to you, but I wasn’t

in the least thinking of your cousin.”

“Poor girl!” said Mrs. Rosscott thoughtfully; “and she was so sweet to

you, too. Mustn’t it be terrible to have a face like that?”

“It must indeed,” said Jack; “I can think of but one thing worse.”

“What?”

“To marry a face like that.”

She laughed again.

“You’re cruel,” she declared; “after all her face isn’t her fortune, so

what does it matter?”

“It doesn’t matter at all to me,” said Jack. “I know of very few things

that can matter less to me than Miss Lorne’s face.”

“Now, you’re cruel again; and she was so nice to you too. Absolutely, I

don’t believe that the edges of her smile came together once while she

was talking to you last night.”

“Did you spy on us to that extent?” said Jack. “I wouldn’t have

believed it of you.”

“Oh, I’m very awful,” she said airily. “You’ll be more surprised the

farther you penetrate into the wilderness of my ways.”

“And when will I have a chance to plunge into the jungle, do you

think?”

“Any Saturday or Sunday that you happen to be in town.”

“Are you going to live in town?”

“For a while. I’ve taken a house until the beginning of July. I expect

some friends over, and I want to entertain them.”

Jack felt the sky above become refulgent. He was in the habit of

spending every Saturday night in the city—he and Burnett together.

“May I come as often as I like?” he asked.

“Certainly,” said she; “because you know if you should come too often I

can tell the man at the door to say I’m ‘not at home’ to you.”

“But if he ever says: ‘She’s not at home to you,’ I shall walk right in

and fall upon the man that you are being at home to just then.”

“But he is a very large man,” said Mrs. Rosscott seriously; “he’s

larger than you are, I think.”

Jack felt the blue heavens breaking up into thunderbolts for his head

at _this_ speech.

“But I’m way over six feet,” he said, his heart going heavily faster,

even while he told himself that he might have known it, anyhow.

“He’s all of six feet two,” she said meditatively. “I do believe he’s

even taller. I remember liking him at the first glance, just because he

struck me as so royal looking.”

He was miserably conscious of acute distress.

“Do—do you mind my smoking?” he stammered.

(Might have known that, of course, there was bound to be someone like

that.)

“Not at all,” she rejoined amiably. “I like the odor of cigarettes.

Shall I stop a little, while you set yourself afire?”

“It isn’t necessary,” he said. “I can set myself afire under any

circumstances.”

He lit a cigarette.

“Is he English?” he couldn’t help asking then.

“Yes,” she said; “I like the English.”

“You appear to like everything to-day.” He did not intend to seem

bitter, but he did it unintentionally.

(Confounded luck some fellows have.)

“I do. I’m very well content to-day.”

He was silent, thinking.

“Well,” she queried, after a while.

He pulled himself together with an effort.

“I think perhaps it’s just as well,” he said.

“What is just as well?”

“That I know.”

“Know what?”

“About him. I shan’t ever take the chances of calling on you now.”

She laughed.

“He wouldn’t put you out unless I told him to,” she said. “You needn’t

be too afraid of him, you know.”

His face grew a trifle flushed.

“I’m not afraid,” he said, as coldly as it was in him to speak; “but

I’ll leave him the field.”

She turned and looked at him.

“The field?” she asked, with puzzled eyebrows.

“Yes.”

Then she frowned for an instant, and then a species of thought-ray

suddenly flew across her face and she burst out laughing.

“Why, I do believe,” she cried merrily, “I do believe you’re jealous of

the man at the door.”

“Weren’t you speaking of a man in the drawing-room?” he asked, all her

phrases recurring to his mind together.

“No,” she said laughing; “I was speaking of my footman. Oh, you are so

funny.”

The way the sun shone suddenly again! His horizon glowed so madly that

he quite lost his head and leaning quickly downward seized her hand in

its little tan driving glove of stitched dogskin, and kissed it—reins

and all.

“I’m not funny,” he said, “it was the most natural thing in the world.”

She was laughing, but she curbed it.

“You’d better not be foolish,” she said warningly. “It don’t mix well

with college.”

“I’m thinking of cutting college,” he declared boldly.

“Don’t let us decide on anything definite until we’ve known one another

twenty-four hours,” she said, looking at him with a gravity that was

almost maternal; and then she turned the horse’s head toward home.

Chapter Six

The Other Man

That evening Burnett felt it necessary to give his friend a word of

warning.

“Holloway’s going to take Betty in to-night,” he said, as they

descended the tower stairs together.

“Who’s Holloway?” Jack asked.

“You can’t expect to have her all the time, you know,” Burnett

continued: “She’s really one of the biggest guns here, even if she is

one of the family.”

“Who’s Holloway?”

“Last night the _mater_ had her all mapped out for General Jiggs, and I

had an awful time getting her off his hook and on to yours, and then

you drove her all this morning and walked her all the afternoon, and

the old lady says she’s got to play in Holloway’s yard to-night—jus’

lil’ bit, you know.”

“Who’s Holloway?” Jack demanded.

“You know Horace Holloway; we were up at his place once for the night.

Don’t you remember?”

“I remember his place well enough; but he hadn’t got in when we came,

and hadn’t got up when we left, so his features aren’t as distinctly

imprinted on my memory as they might be.”

“That’s so,” said Burnett, pushing aside the curtains that concealed

the foot of the wee stair; “I’d forgotten. Well, you’ll meet him

to-night, anyhow; he came on the five-five. Holly’s a nice fellow, only

he’s so darned over-full of good advice that he keeps you feeling

withersome.”

Jack laughed.

“Did he ever give you any advice?” he asked.

“Why?”

“I don’t recollect your taking it.”

“I never take anything,” said Burnett; “I consider it more blessed to

give than to receive—as regards good advice anyhow.”

“Who will I have for dinner?” Jack asked presently, glancing around to

see if there were any silver tissues or distracting curls in sight.

“Well,” his friend replied, rather hesitatingly, “you must expect to

balance up for last night, I reckon.”

“Your cousin, I suppose!”

Burnett nodded.

“She wanted you,” he said. “She’s taken a fancy to you; and she can

afford to marry for love,” he added.

“I’m thankful that I can, too,” the other answered fervently.

His friend laughed at the fervor.

“You make me think of her teacher,” he said. “She sings, and when she

was sixteen she meant to outrank Patti; she was lots homelier then.”

“Oh, I say!” Jack cried. “I can believe ’most anything, but—”

Burnett laughed and then sobered.

“She was,” he said solemnly; “she really and truly was. And her mother

said to her teacher,—there in Dresden: ‘She will be the greatest

soprano, won’t she?’ And he said: ‘Madame, she has only that one

chance—to be _the_ greatest.’”

Jack laughed.

“But why ‘Lorne’?” he asked suddenly. “Why not ‘Burnett,’ since she’s

your uncle’s child?”

“Oh, that’s straight enough; there’s a hyphen there. My uncle died and

my aunt married a title. My aunt’s Lady Chiheleywicks, but the family

name is Lorne. And you pronounce my aunt’s name Chix.”

“I’m glad I know,” said Jack.

“Oh, we’re great on titles,” said Burnett, modestly. “If the Boers

hadn’t killed Col. Rosscott, Betty would have been a Lady, too, some

day. But as it is—” he added thoughtfully, “she’s nothing but a widow.”

“‘Nothing but’!” Jack cried indignantly.

“Oh, well,” said Burnett, “of course it’s great, her being a widow—but

then she’d have been great the other way too.”

“But if he was English and a colonel,” Jack said suddenly, “he must

have been all of—”

“Fifty!” interposed Burnett; “oh, he was! Maybe more, but he dyed his

hair. It was a splendid match for her. It isn’t every girl who can get

a—”

Their conversation was suddenly cut short by voices, accompanied by a

sort of sweet and silky storm of little rustles and the sound of

feet—little feet—coming down the great hall. Aunt Mary’s nephew felt

himself suddenly wondering if any other fellow present had such a

tempest within his bosom as he himself was conscious of attempting to

regulate unperceived.

And then, after all, she wasn’t among the influx! Miss Maude, was,

though, and he had to go up to her and talk to her; and terribly dull

hard labor it was.

While he was rolling the Sisyphus stone of conversation uphill for the

sixth or seventh time, Jack noticed a gentleman pass by and throw a

more than ordinarily interesting glance their way. He was a very

well-built, fairly good-sized man of thirty-five or forty years, with a

handsome, uninteresting face and heavy, sleepy dark eyes.

“Who is that?” he asked of his companion, his curiosity supplementing

his wish that she would begin to bear her share of the burden of her

entertainment.

“Don’t you know?” she said in surprise. “That’s Mr. Holloway. He’s just

come. Oh, he’s so horrid! I think he’s just too awfully horrid for any

use.”

“Why?”

“Because he does such mean things. I just know Bob must have told you

how he treated me. Bob’s always telling it. Surely he’s told you. It’s

his favorite story.”

“No, never,” said Jack (his eyes riveted on the staircase); “he never

told me. But do tell me. I’ll enjoy hearing your side of it.”

“But I haven’t any side. It’s just Horace Holloway’s meanness. There’s

nothing funny.”

“But tell me anyway.”

“Do you really want to hear?”

“Indeed, I do.”

“Well, it’s just that we were up in the mountains, and I was rowing

myself, and the boat didn’t go well, and Mr. Holloway came down off the

hotel piazza and called to me that she needed ballast, and—and I said:

‘Is that the trouble?’ And he said: ‘Yes, row ashore, and I’ll ballast

you.’ And so, of course I rowed ashore to get him, and (of course, I

supposed he meant himself), and when I was up by the dock he picked up

a great stone and dropped it in, and shoved me off, and called after

me: ‘She’ll go better now,’ and—everyone laughed!”

Miss Lome stopped, breathless.

“I never would have believed it of him,” Jack exclaimed, turning to see

where Holloway kept his sense of humor; but just as his eye fell upon

the latter, the latter’s eyes altered and suddenly became so bright and

intent that his observer involuntarily turned his own gaze quickly in

the same direction.

It was Mrs. Rosscott who was approaching, all in cerise with lines of

Chantilly lace sweeping about her. It seemed a cruelty to every woman

present that she should be so beautiful. Jack wanted to fly and fall at

her feet, but he couldn’t, of course—he was tied to her hyphenated

cousin.

But Holloway went forward and greeted her with all possible

_empressement_, and the man who was so much his junior felt an awful

weight of youth upon him as he saw her led out of his sight.

“I think dear Betty will marry Mr. Holloway,” her cousin chirped

blandly, thus settling her fate forever. “He came over in her party,

you know, and—she’s always been fond of him.”

Jack suddenly recollected how Mrs. Rosscott had commented on the

terrible tendency to land upon “and,” and wondered why he had never

noticed before how disagreeable said tendency was.

(Going to marry Holloway!)

“But, then, dear Cousin Betty’s such a coquette that no one can ever

tell whom she does like. She’s very insincere.”

Jack twisted uneasily. If there was any comfort to be derived from Miss

Lorne’s last speech, it was certainly of a most chilly sort.

(Probably going to marry Holloway!)

“Now, I think it’s too bad, when there are so many simple, sweet girls

in the world, that men seem to adore those that flirt like dear Cousin

Betty. I don’t approve of flirting anyway. I wouldn’t flirt for

anything. I don’t want to break men’s hearts.”

“That’s awfully good of you,” Jack said, looking eagerly to where

Holloway and Mrs. Rosscott stood together.

“Oh, no it isn’t,” said Miss Lorne, “I don’t take any credit for it—I

was born so. Dear Betty was a regular flirt when she was ever so small,

but I never was. I’m sincere and I can’t take any credit for it. I was

born so.”

Holloway was talking and Mrs. Rosscott’s eyes were uplifted to his.

Jack was sure there was adoration in them. He knew Holloway was in love

with her. How could he be a man and help it. Oh, it was

damnable—unbearable.

He stood up suddenly. He couldn’t help it. He was crazed, maddened,

choked, stifled. The fates must intervene and rescue his reason or

else—

There was a blessed sound—the announcing of dinner.

Later there was music in the great white salon where the organ was.

Maude Lome sang, and the man with the monocle accompanied her on the

organ. Mrs. Rosscott sat on a divan between Holloway and General Jiggs.

Jack was left out in the cold.

(Surely in love with Holloway!)

It was only twenty-six hours since he had first met her, and he hated

to consider his life as unalterably blasted, or to even give up the

fight. Nevertheless, whenever he looked across the room he saw fresh

signs of the most awful kind. Even the way that she didn’t trouble to

trouble over the one man, but devoted herself to General Jiggs, was in

itself a very bad portent. Well, such was life and one must bear it

somehow and be a man. Probably he would suffer less after the first

five or ten years—he hoped so at any rate. But, great heavens, what a

fearful prospect until those first five or ten years were gone by!

Finally he went up to his own room and put on another collar and sat

down at the open window and thought about it for a good while all quiet

and alone by himself. After that he went back downstairs.

She was gone, and Holloway, too. He felt freshly unhappy. When you come

to consider, it was so damned unjust for one man to be thirty-five

while another—just as decent a fellow in every way—was in college. He—

A hand touched his arm.

He turned from where he was standing in the window recess, and looked

into her eyes.

“I’m very wicked, am I not?” she asked, looking up at him so straight

and honest.

“I can’t admit that,” he replied.

“But I am. I know it myself. What Bob told you was all true. I’m a

heartless wretch.”

She spoke so earnestly that his heart sank lower and lower.

“I wanted to speak to you about to-morrow morning,” she said, after a

little pause. “You know we were going to drive at ten together, and—and

I wondered if—you see, Mr. Holloway’s an old friend, and he’s had so

much to tell me to-night, and he isn’t half through—”

She was drawing him with a chain, a hair chain, which she had woven out

of her eyelashes in the twinkling of an eye (either eye).

He felt himself helpless—and choked.

“Of course I don’t mind. You go with him. It’s quite one to me.”

She gave a tiny little start.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that at all,” she cried. “I meant—I meant—you see

it’s all been a little tiring—and to-morrow’s Sunday anyway and I—I

Wanted to—to ask you if we couldn’t go out at eleven instead of ten?”

She looked so sweetly questioning, and his relief was so great, and his

joy—

(Probably don’t care a rap for Holloway!)

—so intense, that he could hardly refrain from seizing her in his arms.

But he only seized her little hand instead and pressed it fervently to

his lips. When he raised his eyes she was smiling, and her smile filled

him with happiness.

“You’re such a boy!” she said softly, and turned and left him there in

the window recess alone again,—but this time he didn’t care.

Chapter Seven

Developments

It was during that drive the next morning that Jack buoyed up by

memories of Saturday and hopes of coming Saturdays, poured out the

history of his life at Mrs. Rosscott’s knees. He told her the whole

story of Aunt Mary, and _his_ side of the cat, the cabman, and

Kalamazoo. It interested her, for she had arrived too recently to have

had the full details in the newspapers beforehand, but when he spoke of

Aunt Mary’s last letter she grew large-eyed and shook her head gravely.

“You will have to be very good now,” she said seriously.

“Why?” he asked. “Just to keep from being disinherited? That wouldn’t

be so awful.”

“Wouldn’t it be awful to you?” she asked, turning her bright eyes upon

him. “What could be worse?”

“Things,” he said very vaguely.

Then she touched up the cob a little; and, after a minute or two, as

she said nothing, he continued:

“I almost fancy quitting college and going to work. I was thinking

about it last night.”

She touched up the cob a little more, and remained silent.

Finally he said:

“What would you think of my doing that?”

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “You see, I’m a great philosopher. I

never fret or worry, because I regard it as useless; similarly, I never

rebel at the way fate shapes my life—I regard that as something past

helping. I believe in predestination; do you?”

She turned and looked at him so seriously—so unlike her _riante_

self—that he felt startled, and did not know what to say for a minute.

Then:

“I don’t know,” he said slowly; “I don’t know that I dare to. It rather

startles me to think that maybe all of our future is laid out now.”

“It doesn’t startle me,” she said. “It seems to me the natural plan of

the universe. I believe that everything that crosses our path—down to

the tiniest gnat—comes there in the fulfillment of a purpose.”

“I’m sure that all the mosquitoes that ever crossed my path came there

in the fulfillment of a purpose,” Jack interrupted. “I never doubted

_that_.”

She smiled a little.

“It’s the same with people,” she went on.

[Illustration: “Do not let us play any longer,’ she said. ‘Let us be

in earnest.’”]

“Only less painful,” he interrupted again.

“Sometimes not,” she said, with a look that silenced him. “Sometimes

much more so—my Cousin Maude, for example.”

“Hip, hip, hurrah for the mosquito!” he murmured. They laughed softly

together. Then she grew earnest, and looked so grave that he became

serious too.

“There is always a purpose,” she said, with a touch of some feeling

which he had never guessed at. “If you and I have met, it is because we

are to have some influence over one another. I can’t just see how; I

can’t form any idea—”

“I can,” he said eagerly.

She looked up so suddenly and steadily that he was silent.

“Do not let us play any longer,” she said. “Let us be in earnest.”

“But I am in earnest,” he asseverated.

“You don’t know what I mean,” she went on very gently. “You’re in

college. Let’s fight it out on those lines if it takes all summer.”

He looked up into her face and loved her better than ever for the frank

kindliness that shone in her eyes.

“All right, if you say so,” he vowed.

“I do say so,” she said. “I like to see men stick it through in college

if they begin. I like to see people finish up every one of life’s jobs

that they set out on.”

“But I’m coming to see you in town, you know,” he went on with great

apparent irrelevance.

She laughed merrily.

“Yes, surely. You must promise me that.—No,” she stopped and looked

thoughtful, “I’ll tell you what I want you to promise me. Promise me

that you’ll come once a week or else write me why you can’t come. Will

you?”

“You can’t suppose that you’ll ever see my handwriting under such

circumstances—can you?” Jack asked.

She laughed again.

“Is it a promise?”

“Yes, it’s a promise.”

Oh, joy unmeasured in the time of spring! No other February like that

had ever been for them—nor ever would be. The drive came to an end, the

day came to an end, but the good-nights, which were good-bys, too, were

not so fraught with hopelessness as he had dreaded, for the promise

asked and given paved a broad road illuminated by the most hopeful kind

of stars,—a broad road leading straight from college to town,—and his

fancy showed him a figure treading it often. A figure that was his own.

Chapter Eight

The Resolution He Took

That first meeting was in February, you know, and by the last of April

it had been followed by so many others that Burnett remarked one day to

his chum:

“Say, aren’t you going a little faster than auntie’ll stand for?”

Jack turned in surprise.

“I never went so straight in my life before,” he exclaimed, not in

indignation but in astonishment.

“I didn’t mean that,” said Burnett. “Perhaps instead of ‘auntie’ I

should have said ‘Betty.’”

Jack hoisted the colors of Harvard, and was silent.

“I warned you at first that that was Tangle town,” his friend went on.

“Don’t suppose I’m saying anything against her—or against you; but

she’s just as much to ten other men as she is to you, and they all are

old enough to carry lots of weight.”

“And I suppose I’m not,” Jack answered, going over by the fireplace. “I

know that as well as anyone, of course.”

“_Natürlich_,” said Burnett, with conclusiveness that was not meant to

be cruel, yet cut like a two edged knife.

There was silence in the room. Jack stood by the chimney-piece, his

hands upraised to rest upon its lofty shelf, his head dropped forward,

and his eyes fixed on the empty blackness below.

“I wonder,” he said at last, “I wonder what will become of me if—if—”

He stopped.

Burnett didn’t speak.

“I wonder if she thinks of me as a boy,” the young man continued. “I

wonder if she’s so good to me because I’m her youngest brother’s

friend.”

Burnett did not comment on this speech.

“I don’t know what to do,” the other said. “When I first met her I

wanted to cut college and get out in the world and go to work like a

man. I told her so. But she wanted me to stay in college, and as it was

the first thing she’d ever wanted of me, I did it. I’d do anything she

asked me. I’ve quit drinking. I’m going at everything as hard as it’s

in me to go; but—I don’t know—I feel—I feel as if it isn’t me—it’s just

because she wants me to, and, do you know, old man, it frightens me to

think how—if she—if she went out of my—my life—”

He stopped and his broken phrases were not continued to any ending.

Another long silence ensued.

It was finally terminated by the brother’s saying:

“You must confess, old man, that you aren’t fixed so as to be able to

say one really serious word to any woman—unless it is, ‘Wait.’”

“I know that,” Jack answered; “but I suppose—”

“She’d be taking so many chances,” the friend interrupted. “A man in

college is never the real thing. You’d better give it up.”

Then the other whirled about and faced him.

“Give it up, did you say?” he asked almost angrily.

“Yes, that’s what.”

For a minute they looked at one another. Then:

“I shall never give it up,” the lover said very slowly and

steadily—“never, until she gives me up.”

Burnett sucked in his breath with a sudden compression of his lips.

“All right,” he said, not unkindly; “but I don’t believe you’ll ever

get her, and that’s flat. There are too many being entered for that

race, and long before you and I get out of here she’ll be Mrs. Somebody

Else.”

Jack stared at him as if he hardly heard, and then suddenly he stepped

nearer and spoke.

“Did she ask you to have this talk with me?”

“No,” said the brother in surprise, “she never says anything about you

to me.”

A look of relief fled across his friend’s face, and then a look of

resolution succeeded it.

“I’m not going to be discouraged,” he said; “not for a while, at any

rate.”

“You’d better be.”

Jack laughed. The laugh sounded a trifle hollow, but still it was a

laugh, and that in itself was a triumph of which none but himself might

ever measure the extent.

Because in that moment he decided to lay the whole case before her the

next time that he went to town, and the coming to a resolution was a

relief from the uncertainty that clouded his days and nights—even if a

further black curtain of darkest doubt hung before the possibilities of

what her answer might be.

Chapter Nine

The Downfall of Hope

It was on a Saturday about the middle of May that Jack came to town,

his mind well braced with love and arguments, and his main thoughts

being that when he returned something would be settled.

It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, and at five in the afternoon

both of the drawing-room windows of Mrs. Rosscott’s house were wide

open, and the lace curtains were taking the breeze like little sails.

Just as Jack mounted the steps, the door opened, and a plainly dressed,

unattractive-looking man was let out. The servant who did the letting

out saw Jack and let him in without closing the door between the egress

of the one and the ingress of the other. So he entered without ringing,

and, as he was very well known and intensely popular with all of Mrs.

Rosscott’s servants, the man invited him to walk up unannounced, since

he himself was just “bringing in the tea.”

Jack went upstairs, and because the carpet was of thickly piled velvet

and his boots were the boots of a well-shod gentleman, he made no noise

whatever in the so doing.

There were double parlors above stairs in the domicile which Burnett’s

sister had taken until July, and they were furnished in the most

correct and trying mode of Louis XIV. The chairs were gilt and very

uncomfortable. The ornaments were all straight up and down and made in

such shapes that there was no place to flick off cigarette ashes

anywhere. Nothing could be pulled up to anything else and there was not

a single good place to rest one’s elbows anywhere. The only saving

grace in the situation was that after five minutes or so Mrs. Rosscott

invariably suggested removal to the library which lay beyond—a very

different species of apartment where no mode at all prevailed except

the terrible _démodé_ thing known as comfort. To prevent her visitors,

when seated (for the five minutes aforementioned) amid the correct

carving of French art, from looking longingly through at the

easy-chairs of American manufacture, Mrs. Rosscott had ordered that the

blue velvet portières which hung between should never be pushed aside,

and it was owing to this order that Jack, entering the drawing-room,

heard voices, but could not see into the library beyond. Also it was

owing to this order that those in the library could not see or hear

Jack.

The result was that the young man, finding the drawing-room unoccupied,

was just crossing toward the blue velvet curtains, intending to wait in

the library until the returning servant should advise him of the

whereabouts of his mistress, when he was stopped by suddenly hearing a

voice—her voice—crying (and laughing at the same time)—

“Kisses barred! Kisses barred!”

It may be understood that had Mrs. Rosscott known that anyone was

within hearing she certainly would never have made any such speech, and

it may be further understood that, had whoever was with her, also

mistrusted the close propinquity of another man, he would never have

replied (as he did reply):

“Certainly,” the same being spoken in a most calm and careless tone.

Jack, the eavesdropper, stood transfixed at the voices and speeches,

and forgot every other consideration in the overwhelming sickness of

soul which overcame him that instant. All his other soul-sicknesses

were trifles compared to this one, and the world—his world—their

world—seemed to revolve and whirl and turn upside down, as he steadied

himself against a spindle-legged cabinet and felt its spindle-legs

trembling in sympathy with his own.

“Darling,” said Holloway, a second or two later (and this time his

voice was not calm and careless, but deep and impassioned), “the letter

was very sweet, and if you knew how I longed to take the tired little

girl to my bosom and comfort her troubles, and replace them by joys!”

“Will that day ever come, do you think?” Mrs. Rosscott answered, in low

tones, which nevertheless were most painfully clear and distinct in the

next room.

“It must,” Holloway replied, “just as surely as that I hold this dear

little hand—”

But Jack never knew more. He had heard enough—more than enough. Four

thousand times too much. He turned and went out of the rooms, back down

the stairs and out of the door, closed it noiselessly behind him, and

found himself in a world which, although bright and sunny to all the

rest of mankind, had turned dark, lonely, and cheerless to him.

At first he hardly knew what to do with himself, he was so altogether

used up by the discovery just made. He drifted up and down some unknown

streets for an hour or two—or stood still on corners—he never was very

sure which. And then at last he went downtown and took a drink in a

half-dazed way; and because it was quite two months since his last

indulgence, its suggestion was potent.

The pity—or rather, the apparent pity—of what followed!

Burnett was Sundaying at the ancestral castle; and Burnett wasn’t the

warning sort, anyhow. He was always tow and pitch for any species of

flame. So his absence counted for nothing in the crisis.

And what ensued was a crisis—a crisis with a vengeance.

That tear upon which Aunt Mary’s nephew went was something lurid and

awful. It lasted until Monday, and then its owner returned to college,

as ill of body and as embittered of spirit as it was in him to be. The

lightsome devil who had ruled him up to his meeting with Mrs. Rosscott

resumed its sway with terrible force. The authorities showed a tendency

to patience because young Denham had appeared to reform lately and had

been working hard; but young Denham felt no thankful sentiments for

their leniency, and proved his position shortly.

There was a man named Tweedwell whom circumstances threw directly in

the path of destruction. Tweedwell was an inoffensive mortal who was

studying for the ministry. He was progressive in his ideas, and

believed that a clergyman, to hold a great influence, should know his

world. He thought that knowledge of the world was to be gained by

skirting the outside edge of every species of worldliness. The result

of this course of action was not what it should have been, for

Tweedwell was an easy mark for all who wanted fun, and the

consciousness of his innocence so little accelerated the pace at which

he got out of the way that he was always being called to account for

what he hadn’t done.

The Saturday night after his Saturday in town, Jack concocted a piece

of deviltry which was as dangerous as it was foolish. The result was

that an explosion took place, and the author of the gun-powder plot had

all the skin on both hands blistered. Burnett, in escaping, fell and

broke his collarbone and two ribs. The house in which the affair took

place caught fire, and was badly damaged. And Tweedwell was arrested on

the strongest kind of circumstantial evidence, and had to answer for

the whole. Naturally, in the investigation that followed, the two who

were guilty had to confess or see the candidate for the ministry

disgraced forever.

The result of their confession was that Burnett’s father, a jovial,

peppery old gentleman—we all know the kind—lost his patience and wrote

his son that he’d better not come home again that year. But Aunt Mary

lost her temper much more completely and the result, as affecting Jack,

was awful.

She might not have acted as she did had the disastrous news arrived

either a week later or a week earlier; but it came just in the middle

of a discouraging ten days’ downpour, which had caused a dam to break

and a chain of valuable cranberry bogs to be drowned out for that year.

The cranberry bogs were especially dear to their owner’s heart.

“Why can’t they drain ’em?” she had asked Lucinda, who was particularly

nutcracker-like in appearance since her quarantine episode.

“’Pears like they’re lower’n everywhere else,” Lucinda answered, her

words sounding as if she had sharpened them on a grindstone.

Aunt Mary bit her lip and frowned at the rain. She felt mad all the way

through, and longed to take it out on someone.

Ten minutes after Joshua arrived with the mail and the mail bore one

ominous letter. Joshua felt something was wrong before the fact was

assured.

“She wants the mail,” Lucinda said, coming to the door with her hand

out as usual.

“She’ll get the mail,” said Joshua, and as he spoke he gave the seeker

after tidings a blood-curdling wink.

“There isn’t a telegram in one o’ the letters, is there?” Lucinda

asked, much appalled by the wink.

“No, there isn’t no telegram in none o’ the letters,” said Joshua.

“Joshua Whittlesey, I do believe you was born to drive saints mad. What

_is_ the matter?”

“Nothin’ ain’t the matter as I know of.”

“Then what in Kingdom Come did you wink for?”

“I winked,” said Joshua meaningly, “cause I expect it’ll be a good

while before we’ll feel like winkin’ again.”

Lucinda gave him a look in which curiosity and aggravation fought

catch-as-catch-can. Then she turned and went in with the letters.

Aunt Mary was sitting stonily staring at the rain.

“I thought you’d gone to take a drive with Joshua,” she said coldly.

“Well, ’s long ’s you’re back I’ll be glad to have my mail. Most folks

like to get their mail as soon as it comes an’ I—Mercy on us!”

It was the letter from the authorities enclosed in one from Mr.

Stebbins.

Lucinda stood bolt upright before her mistress.

“What’s happened?” she yelled breathlessly, after a few seconds of the

direst kind of silence had loaded the atmosphere while the letter was

being carefully read.

Then:

“Happened!—” said Aunt Mary, transfixing the terrible typewritten

communication with a yet more terrible look of determination.

“Happened!—Well, jus’ what I expected ’s happened an’ jus’ what nobody

expects ’ll happen now. Lucinda, you run like you was paid for it and

tell Joshua not to unharness. Don’t stop to open your mouth. You’ll

need your breath before you get to the barn. Scurry!”

Lucinda scurried. She splashed and spattered down through the lane that

led to Joshua’s kingdom with a vigor that was commendable in one of her

age.

“She says ‘don’t unharness,’” she panted, bouncing in through the

doorway just as Joshua was slowly and carefully folding the lap-robe in

the crease to which it had become habituated.

Joshua continued to fold.

“Then I won’t unharness,” he said calmly. He hung the robe over the

line that was stretched to hang robes over and Lucinda gasped for wind

with which to inflate further conversation.

“She says what nobody expects is goin’ to happen,” she panted as soon

as she could.

“What nobody expects is always happenin’ where he’s concerned,” said

Joshua.

“I s’pose he’s in some new row,” said Lucinda.

“I’m sure he is,” said Joshua, “an’ if you don’t go back to her pretty

quick you won’t be no better off.”

Lucinda turned away and returned to the house. She found Aunt Mary

still staring at the letters with the same concentrated fury as before.

“Well, is Joshua a’comin’ to the door?” she asked when she saw her maid

before her.

“You didn’t say for him to come to the door,” Lucinda howled, “you said

for him to stay harnessed.”

Aunt Mary appeared on the verge of ignition.

“Lucinda,” she said, “every week I live under the same roof with you

your brains strike me ’s some shrunk from the week before. What in

Heaven’s name should I want Joshua to stay harnessed in the barn for? I

want him to go for Mr. Stebbins an’ I want him to understand ’t if Mr.

Stebbins can’t come he’s got to come just the same’s if he could

anyhow. I may seem quiet to you, Lucinda, but if I do, it only shows

all over again how little you know. This is a awful day an’ if you knew

how awful you’d be half way back to the barn right now. I ain’t

triflin’—I’m meanin’ every word. Every syllable. Every letter.”

Lucinda fled out into the open again. Her footprints of the time before

were little oblong ponds now and she laid out a new course parallel to

their splashes. She found Joshua sponging the dasher.

“She wants you to go straight out again.”

Joshua flung the sponge into the pail.

“Then I’ll go straight out again,” he said, moving toward the horse’s

head.

“You’re to bring Mr. Stebbins whether he can come or not.”

“He’ll come,” said Joshua; and then he backed the horse so suddenly

that the buggy wheel nearly went over Lucinda.

“She says this is an awful day—” began Lucinda.

Joshua got into the buggy and tucked the rubber blanket around himself.

“She says—”

Joshua drove out of the barn and away.

Lucinda went slowly back to the house. Aunt Mary had ceased to glare at

the letter and was now glaring at the rain instead.

“Lucinda,” she said “I’ll thank you not to ever mention my nephew to me

again. I’ve took a vow to never speak his name again myself. By no

means—not at all—never.”

“Which nephew?” shrieked Lucinda.

Aunt Mary’s eyes snapped.

“Jack!” she said, with an accent that seemed to split the short word in

two.

After a little she spoke again.

“Lucinda, it’s all been owin’ to the city an’ this last is all city. ’F

I cared a rap what happened to him after this I’d never let him go near

a place over two thousand again as long as he lived. It’s no use tryin’

to explain things to you, Lucinda, because it never has been any use

an’ never will be—an’ anyway, I’m done with it all. I sh’ll want you

for a witness when I’m through with Mr. Stebbins, and then you can get

some marmalade out for tea an’ we’ll all live in peace hereafter.”

Joshua returned with Mr. Stebbins and the latter gentleman went to work

with a will and willed Jack out of Aunt Mary’s. Later Joshua took him

home again. Lucinda got the marmalade out of the cellar and Aunt Mary

had it with her tea. It was a bitter tea—unsugared indeed—and the days

that followed matched.

Chapter Ten

The Woes of the Disinherited.

It was some days later on in the world’s history that Holloway was

calling on Bertha Rosscott.

They were sitting in that comfortable library previously referred to

and were sweetly unaware that any untoward series of incidents had ever

led to an invasion of their privacy.

Holloway lay well back in a sleepy-hollow chair and looked indolently,

lazily handsome; his hostess was up on—well up on the divan, and he had

the full benefit of her admirable bottines and their dainty heels and

buckles.

“Honestly,” he said, looking her over with a gaze that was at once

roving and well content, “honestly, I think that every time I see you,

you appear more attractive than the time before.”

“It’s very nice of you to say so,” she replied. “And, of course, I

believe you, for every time that I get a new gown I think that very

same thing myself. Still, I do regard it as strange if I look nicely

to-day, for I’ve been crying like a baby all the morning.”

“You crying! And why?”

She raised her eyes to his.

“Such bad news!” she said simply.

“From where? Of whom?”

“From mamma, about Bob.”

“Have _his_ wounds proved serious?” Holloway looked slightly distressed

as was proper.

“It isn’t that. It’s papa. Papa has forbidden him the house. He’s very,

very angry.”

Holloway looked relieved.

“Your father won’t stay angry long, and you know it,” he said. “Just

think how often he has lost his temper over the boys and how often he’s

found it again.”

“It isn’t just Bob,” said Mrs. Rosscott. “I’ve someone else on my mind,

too.”

“Who, pray?”

“His friend.”

“Young Denham?”

“Yes.”

With that she threw her head up and looked very straightly at her

caller whose visage shaded ever so slightly in spite of himself.

“Have his wounds proved serious?” he asked, smiling, but unable to

altogether do away with a species of parenthetical inflection in his

voice.

“It wasn’t over his wounds that I cried.”

“Did you really cry at all for him?”

“I cried more for him than I did for Bob,” she admitted boldly.

“He is a fortunate boy! But why the tears in his case?”

“I felt so badly to be disappointed in him.”

“Did you expect to work a miracle there, my dear? Did you think to

reform such an inveterate young reprobate with a glance?”

“I’m not sure that I ever asked myself either of those questions,” she

replied, slowly; “but he promised me something, and I expected him to

keep his word.”

“Men don’t keep such promises, Bertha,” the visitor said. “You

shouldn’t have expected it.”

“I don’t know why not.”

“Because a man who drinks will drink again.”

“I didn’t refer to drinking,” she said quietly. “It was quite another

thing.”

“Ah!”

She looked down at her rings and seemed to consider how much of her

confidence she should give him, and the consideration led her to look

up presently and say:

“He promised me that if he could not call any week he would write me a

line instead. He came to town last week, and he neither called nor

wrote. That wasn’t like the man I saw in him. That was a direct

breaking of his word. I can’t understand, and I’m disappointed.”

Holloway took out his cigarette case and turned it over and over

thoughtfully in his hands.

“He’s nothing but a boy,” he said at last, with an effort.

“He’s no boy,” she said. “He’s almost twenty-two years old. He’s a

man.”

“Some are men at twenty-two, and some are boys,” Holloway remarked. “I

was a man before I was eighteen—a man out in the world of men. But

Denham’s a boy.”

He rose as he spoke, and she held out her hand for him to raise her,

too.

“It’s early to go,” she remarked parenthetically.

“I know,” he replied; “but I hear someone being shown into the

drawing-room. I don’t feel formal to-day, and if I can’t lounge in here

alone with you I’d rather go.”

“How egotistical!” she commented.

“I am egotistical,” he admitted.

And went.

The footman passed him in the hall; he had a card upon his silver

salver, and was seeking his mistress in the library. But when he

entered there the room was empty. Mrs. Rosscott had slipped through the

blue velvet portières, expecting to see a friend, and had stopped short

on the other side, amazed at finding herself face to face with an utter

stranger.

“I gave the man my card,” said the stranger, in a tone as faded as his

mustache. He was a long, thin man, but what the Germans style “_sehr

korrect_.”

“I didn’t wait to get it,” the hostess said. “I supposed that, of

course, it was somebody that I knew.”

“That was natural,” he admitted.

There was a slight pause of awkwardness.

“Won’t you sit down?” she asked.

“Certainly,” said the caller, and sat down.

Then she sat down, too, and another awkward pause ensued.

“You didn’t expect to see me, did you?” said the stranger, smiling.

“No, I didn’t,” said Mrs. Rosscott frankly. “I expected to see someone

else—someone that I knew. Nearly all my visitors are people whom I

know.”

Her eyes rather demanded an observance of the conventionalities while

her words were putting the best face possible on the queer five

minutes. The stranger smiled.

“My name is Clover,” he said then. “Of course, as you never saw me

before, you want to know that first of all.”

“I’d choose to know,” she said. And then the uncompromising neutrality

of her expression deepened so plainly that he hastened to add:

“I’m H. Wyncoop Clover.”

“Oh!” she said. And then smiled, too; having heard the name before.

“Why don’t you ask me my business?” went on H. Wyncoop Clover. “I must

have come for some reason, you know.”

“I didn’t know it,” said Mrs. Rosscott—“I don’t know anything about you

yet.”

They both smiled—and then H. Wyncoop resumed his colorless sobriety at

once.

“It’s about Jack,” he said—“these terrible new developments—” he

stopped short, seeing his _vis-à-vis_ turn deathly white, “it’s nothing

to be frightened over,” he said reassuringly.

Mrs. Rosscott was furious with herself for having paled. She became

instantly haughty.

“I was alarmed for my brother,” she said. “I always think of them both

as together.”

“Oh, in that case, I can reassure you instantly,” said the caller.

“Burnett is doing finely.”

Mrs. Rosscott was conscious of being suddenly and skillfully

countercharged. She blushed with vexation, bit her lip in perturbation,

and cast upon the trying individual opposite a look of most appealing

interrogation.

“You see,” said Clover pleasantly, “I was coming to town, so I came in

handy for the purpose of telling you.”

She gave him a glance that prayed him to be decent and go on with his

errand.

“Burnett is about recovered,” he said.

She clasped her hands hard.

“I wouldn’t be a man for anything!” she exclaimed with sudden fervor,

“they are so awfully mean. Why _don’t_ you go on and tell me _what_

you’ve come about?”

He raised his eyebrows.

“May I?” he asked.

She choked down some of her exasperation.

“Yes, you may.”

“Oh, thank you so much. I’ll begin at once then. Only premising that as

I go to school with your little brother, and as he is rather under a

cloud just at present, we clubbed together to bring you a letter about

him and Jack. He was going to dictate it, but in the end Mitchell wrote

it all. Here it is.”

With that he put his hand into his pocket, drew out an envelope and

handed it to her.

“How awfully good of you,” she said gratefully. “Do excuse my reading

it at once, won’t you? You see, I’ve been so anxious about—about my

brother.”

He nodded understandingly, and she hastily tore open the envelope and

ran her eyes over the written sheets.

MY DEAR MRS. ROSSCOTT:—

Being the prize writer of the class, I am chosen to take down the

ante mortem confessions of our shattered friends. It is in a sad

hour for them that I do so, because I am naturally so truthful that

I shall not force you to look for my meaning between the lines. On

the contrary, I shall set the cold facts out as neatly as the

pickets on the fence. And in evidence thereof, I open the ball by

telling you frankly that they both look fierce. If they had looked

less awful, and Burnett had had more lime in his bones, we might

have escaped the Powers That Be by simply admitting a sprained

ankle and carefully concealing everything else. But if one man

cracks where you can’t finish the deal, even by the most unlimited

outlay of mucilage and persistence, and another blazes his whole

surface-area in a manner that seems to make the underbrush dubious

to count on forever henceforth; why, you then have a logarithm the

square of which is probably as far beyond your depth as I am beyond

my own just at this point of this sentence.

The long and short of my fresh start is, that your brother wants to

write you, but he is so handicapped (forgive me, but you’re the

only one who hasn’t had that joke sprung on them!) with bandages,

that it’s cruel to expect much of him. It is true that he has his

bosom friend to fall back upon, but if you could see that friend as

we see him these days you wouldn’t be sure whether it was true or

not. The old woman, who had the peddler-and-petticoat episode, was

not in it the same day with your brother’s friend! I do assure you.

And anyhow—even if he still has brains—his writing apparatus is all

done up in arnica, so there you are!

But do not allow me to alarm you unduly! When all’s said and done,

they’re not so badly off physically. Hair and ribs are mere

vanities, anyhow, and we’re here to-day and gone to-morrow!

Something much worse than disfigurements and broken bones has

sprung forth from chaos, and has almost stared them out of

countenance since. It is the wolf that is at the door, and the

howling and prowling of their particular wolf is not to be sneezed

at, let me tell you. To put a modern political face upon an ancient

Greek fable, the wolf in their case symbolizes the bitter question

of whose roof is going to roof them when they get out of the

plaster casts that are bed and board to them just at present. Where

are they to go? All those which used to be open to them are

suddenly shut tight. They’ve both been expelled, and both been

disinherited. If I was inclined to look on the blue side of the

blanket, I should certainly feel that they were playing in very

tough luck. Burnett, of course, can come to you, and his soul is

full of the wish to bring his fellow-fright along with him. Which

wish of his is the gist of my epistle. Can he bring him? He wants

to know before he broaches the proposition. I’m to be skinned alive

if Jack ever learns that such a plea was made, so I beg you

whatever other rash acts you see fit to commit during your meteoric

flight across my plane of existence, don’t ever give me away.

Firstly, because if I ever get a chance to do so, I’m positive that

I should want to cling to you as the mistletoe does to the oak, and

could not bear to be given away; and secondly, because I’m so

attached to my own skin that I should really suffer pain if it was

taken from me by force. Bob wants you to think it over, and let him

know as to the whats and whens by return mail.

You are so inspiring that I could write you all day, but those

relics of what once was, but alas! will never be again, need to be

rolled up afresh in absorbent cotton, and so I must nail my Red

Cross on to my left arm, and get down to business. If you saw how

useful I am to your brother, you’d thank his lucky stars that I

came through myself with nothing worse than getting my ear stepped

on. I was hugging the ladder (being canny and careful), and the man

above me toed in. Isn’t it curious to think that if he’d worn

braces in early youth my ear would be all right now.

Behold me at your feet.

Respectfully yours,

HERBERT KENDRICK MITCHELL.

When Mrs. Rosscott had finished the letter she looked across at her

caller, and said:

“You’ve read this, haven’t you?”

“No,” said he. “I tried to unstick it two or three times coming on the

train, but it was too much for me.”

“Don’t you really know what it says?” she asked more earnestly.

“Yes, I do,” Clover answered, “but Denham must never know that I do.”

“I won’t tell him,” she said smiling faintly. “But surely he can’t be

as badly off as this says. Has he really lost all his hair?”

“Not all—only in spots,” Clover reassured her; but then his

recollections overcame him, and he added, with a grin: “But he’s a

fearful looking specimen, all right, though.”

“About my brother,” she went on, turning the letter thoughtfully in her

fingers; “when can he get out, do they think?”

“Any time next week.”

“I’ll write him,” she said. “I’ll write him and tell him that

everything will be arranged for—for—for them both.”

Clover sprang to his feet.

“Oh, thank you,” he exclaimed. “That’s most awfully good in you!”

“Not at all,” she answered. “I’m very glad to be able to welcome them.

You must impress that upon them—particularly—particularly on my

brother.”

Clover smiled.

“I will,” he said, rising to go.

“I’d ask you to stay longer,” she said, holding out her hand, “but I’m

due at a charity entertainment to-night, and I have to go very early.”

“I know,” he said; “I’ve come up on purpose to go to it.”

“Then I shall see you there?” she asked him.

“It will be what I shall be looking forward to most of all,” he said.

“It’s been a great pleasure to meet you,” she said, holding out her

hand, “you’re—well, you’re ‘unlike,’ as they say in literary

criticisms.”

“Thank you,” he replied; “but may I ask if you intend that as a

compliment?”

“Dear me,” she laughed, “let me think how I did intend it.—Yes, it was

meant for a compliment.”

“Thank you,” he said, shaking her hand warmly, “it’s so nice to know,

you know. Good-by.”

“Good-by.”

Then he went away.

Chapter Eleven

The Dove of Peace

The first result of Mrs. Rosscott’s invitation was that Jack refused.

He said that he had a sister of his own—two, if it came to that—and so

he could easily manage for himself. He was very decided about it, and

somewhat lofty and bitter—a stand which no one understood his taking.

His flat refusal was communicated to his would be hostess and it goes

without saying that she was as unable to understand as all the rest. It

keyed well enough with his lately shown indifference, but the

indifference keyed not at all with all that had gone before and still

less with her very correct comprehension of Jack himself. She was quite

positive as to the sincerity of those protestations which he had made

so haltingly—so boyishly—and in such absolutely truthful accents. Why

he had turned over a new—and bad—leaf so suddenly she did not at all

know, but her woman’s wit—backed up by the many good instincts which

good women always get from Heaven knows just where—made her feel firmer

than ever as to her hospitable intentions. Jack had told her many times

that she was his good angel, and it did not seem to her that now, when

he was so deeply involved in so much trouble, was the hour for a man’s

good angel to quietly turn away. Suppose he was haughty!—she knew men

well enough to know that in his case haughtiness and shame would be two

Dromios that even he himself would be unable to tell apart. Suppose he

did rebel against her kindness!—she knew women well enough to know that

under some circumstances they can put down rebellion single-handed—if

they can only be left in the room alone with it for a few minutes. As

regarded Jack, she knew that there was something to explain; and as to

herself she was delightfully positive as to her own irresistibleness.

Given two such statements and the conclusion is easy. Mrs. Rosscott

wrote to Mitchell and here is what she wrote:

MY DEAR MR. MITCHELL:

I should have answered your letter before only that in the

excitement of corresponding with my brother I forgot all else. But

my manners have returned by slow degrees and in hunting through my

desk for a bill I found you and so take up my pen.

I am quite sure that—in spite of that beautiful opening play of

mine—you are wondering why I am really writing and so I will tell

you at once. When Bob comes here to stay with me I want Mr. Denham

to come too. I have various reasons for wanting him to come. One is

that he has nowhere else to go where he will have half as good a

time as he will here and another is that if he goes anywhere else I

won’t have half as good a time as if he comes here. Pray excuse my

brutal candor, but I am only a woman; brutal candor and womanly

weakness always have gone about encouraging one another, you know.

I cannot see any good reason for Mr. Denham’s not coming except

that he declines my invitation. It is very silly in him, and I

regard it as no reason at all. I am quite unused to being declined

and do not intend to acquire the habit until I am a good deal older

than I was my last birthday. Still, I can understand that he is too

big to force against his will, so I think the kindest way to break

the back of the opposition will be for me to do it personally. As

an over-ruler I nearly always succeed. All I require is an

opportunity.

Please lay the two halves of your brain evenly together and devise

a train and an interview for me. Of course you will meet me at the

train and leave me at the interview. These are the fundamental

rules of my game. I know that you are clever and before we have

left the station you will know that I am. As arch-conspirators we

shall surely win out together, won’t we?

Yours very truly,

BERTHA ROSSCOTT.

This missive posted, Jack’s good angel made herself patient until the

afternoon of the next day when she might and did expect an answer.

She was not disappointed. The letter came and it was pleasantly bulky

and appeared ample enough to have contained an indexed gun powder plot.

She was so sure that Mitchell had been fully equal to the occasion that

she tore the envelope open with a smile—and read: