Six o’clock had been fixed as the hour for stopping, as both had

confessed the common engagement for dinner, and Butley rose with the

sad, sweet air of one defeated, but still game. Knowing Furniss of

Fitchly, the onlookers applauded. But Furniss was busily counting his

chips.

“Twenty--twenty-two--twenty-four--twenty-four-fifty”--the last chip! A

sudden warm triumph came over him. Like a flash, he drew ten cents from

his pocket.

“Butley,” he exclaimed, “I’ll match you for a dime.”

Was it a challenge to game on all fields? Was it a contemptuous fling

at the triviality of the winnings? Or was it really the recognition of

the instincts of one sportsman by another? Butley did not know; but if

Furniss was flinging down the glove, he would still pick it up again.

Any one would die game for ten cents, and with the debonair air of the

devilish, Butley drew forth a coin and slapped it down on the table.

Two heads. Furniss had won, and Butley had paid for the luncheon.

Nevertheless, most astounding of all, the unities were suddenly

restored, for across the table, with a genial, companionable smile,

Furniss was extending the right hand of fellowship.

“Butley,” he said, and honestly, with the thought of twenty-four-sixty,

“if there is anything that I have to apologize for, you can take this

for my apology.”

Now at this point there settles down a despondency like a pall. Oh, how

one might wish that one could leave them there with that happy scene

as a curtain, and that devils were not, and that they were all merely

devilish. But this is the story of Furniss.

For after the prearranged dinner that evening, while Furniss and Butley

were making a four at bridge with the hosts, fair Helen, who played

bridge not at all, was strumming faint chords in the music-room. And

during his partner’s play, while Butley was racking his mathematical

memory to recall every card that had ever been played in the world,

this Furniss pushed in through the curtains, and Helen looked up.

“You apologized?” she asked him, softly, still playing the bass.

He nodded.

She looked down, then up again wistfully.

“For my sake?”

“For your sake,” lied Furniss, his eyes like a babe’s.

She took both hands from the keyboard and faced him, while Furniss

leaned over. She did not move back, and a slow, gentle smile reflected

his own while Furniss deliberately kissed her.

In the card-room Menelaus was recalling the bid.

“One lily,” he said with elation.

[Illustration]

PADEREWSKI AT HOME

BY ABBIE H. C. FINCK

WITH A PORTRAIT BY EMIL FUCHS

Riond-Bosson, Paderewski’s beautiful place at Morges, on the Swiss side

of Lake Geneva, has become one of the show-places of Europe not only on

account of its famous owner, but also for its orchards, greenhouses,

and the chicken farm, which is one of Mme. Paderewska’s chief cares.

Better still, it is a charming home, where the world’s greatest pianist

and his wife spend the happiest part of their lives, the time when he

is free to compose, to practise, and to surround himself with friends,

to whom in gracious hospitality both manage to devote much time.

Neither appears officially before luncheon; but Mme. Paderewska, shaded

by a sunbonnet, accompanied by several dogs, and followed by a retinue

of workmen, is one of the frequent morning sights about the premises.

She oversees everything, the house,--notably the kitchen, in which

both she and Paderewski are greatly interested,--the chickens, and the

growing of the fruit and vegetables. Besides this, she attends to her

husband’s enormous correspondence, and is always ready with help and

advice to smooth difficulties out of his way.

The Paderewskis are very fond of animals, especially dogs and parrots.

The wild birds, too, receive Mme. Paderewska’s care, and by her special

orders birdhouses have been placed on every tree on the place. She has

her reward, for the air is filled with the melody of their songs. With

all the other demands on her time, she finds leisure for collecting

material for a cook-book, which promises to be a valuable work, many of

its recipes being the result of her personal experience.

Paderewski spends most of the morning and afternoon hours in his own

study. He finds some time for exercise during the day, grass-cutting

on lawn and fields being his favorite outdoor work; and although his

priceless hands have to be protected by gloves, he gets a good deal of

fun as well as benefit from being a “farm-hand.” At luncheon-time he

appears, after a hard morning’s work, looking well, happy, and boyish,

dressed, like Mark Twain, in pure white, and ready to chat delightfully

on any subject, whether it be gastronomy, American politics, his own

interesting South-American experiences, or other topics.

Paderewski’s love of the picturesque made him long to own one of the

splendid old châteaux that abound in that part of Switzerland; but

the more practical counsels of his wife prevailed, and their home is

simply a comfortable modern house, standing at the top of a large,

sloping, green field. It is built somewhat in the chalet type, of

red brick, with many balconies, and a stately front terrace, and it

commands a magnificent prospect, first of the rose-garden, then of the

wide sweep of green, bordered by huge trees--lindens, chestnuts, and

evergreens. Farther on is the lake, with a splendid view of Mont Blanc

for a background. Flowers abound: orange-trees in tubs, geraniums,

heliotrope, mignonette, and chiefly roses, which not only fill the

formal rose-garden, but scramble over the fences of the chicken-yards,

a mass of pink-and-red bloom; while in the orchard, between the

espalier-grown fruit-trees, there is almost an equal number of tall

rose-bushes, all in bloom in July.

[Illustration: Half-tone plate engraved for ~The Century~ by H.

Davidson

IGNACE PADEREWSKI

FROM A CHARCOAL SKETCH BY EMIL FUCHS]

There are many portraits of Paderewski at Riond-Bosson, but none except

the pencil-sketch by Burne-Jones has represented both the strength

and the spirituality of his head. This portrait hangs in the salon,

surrounded by old prints, which are one of the master’s hobbies.

Fragonard’s pictures are evidently among his favorites, as they also

occupy a place of honor in the drawing-room. Autographed engravings

by Alma-Tadema, caricatures of Paderewski by well-known artists, and

photographs of famous friends--Modjeska, Saint-Saëns, and Sembrich,

among others--adorn the house from top to bottom; and Paderewski is the

possessor of a remarkable collection of old Swiss prints of towns and

scenery. A few very interesting family photographs hang in the library,

a whole group being of Mme. Paderewska in her childhood and girlhood, a

maiden with beautiful dreamy eyes and a delicate face, framed in dusky

hair.

There are seven pianos in the house, two being in the drawing-room;

but it is in his own study that Paderewski does all his practising

and composing. His practising would be both an encouragement and a

discouragement to students. Hour after hour he works, with the patience

that none but the greatest possess, polishing and repolishing phrases

that sound perfect even to a practised ear, but which do not satisfy

his critical judgment. Only occasionally does he allow himself the

relaxation of playing even a page of music; after this he returns

relentlessly to octave work, to staccato finger-passages, to separate

phrases from Liszt’s sonatas, to the more difficult portions of his own

magnificent “Variations et fugue,” to snatches of Chopin, or to bits of

Debussy, whose piano-music he likes.

Paderewski has much admiration for the greatest masters of the French

school: Gounod, Bizet, and especially Saint-Saëns, whom he considers

the greatest living musician. With enthusiasm he tells of Saint-Saëns’s

achievement in playing four Mozart concertos from memory at the age of

seventy-six. He also admires Massenet, particularly his “Jongleur,”

which he calls the French composer’s masterpiece. He feels that

Gounod’s “Faust,” even more than his “Roméo et Juliette,” is immortal,

and that “Carmen” is one of the works which can never grow old, and

of which one cannot tire. He finds Gounod’s influence in Bizet’s

compositions, and still more in those of Tschaikovsky, who in all his

work was dominated by the great Frenchman, the “Faust” waltz even

having colored Tschaikovsky’s symphonic ideas, coming into them either

in conventional waltz time or in the unusual rhythm of five beats,

as in the second movement of the “Symphonie Pathétique.” Still more

pronounced is Tschaikovsky’s debt to Gounod in “Eugen Onegin,” where,

in the love-scene, this same waltz phrase appears reversed, though

almost identical with that in “Faust.” “But I prefer the father,”

Paderewski adds. To him, as to many other lovers of “Faust,” the

“Soldiers’ Chorus” is uninteresting; but he singles out for special

admiration _Mefisto’s_ striking song of the “Veau d’or,” his serenade,

and the “immortally beautiful” love-music.

Acquaintance with Tschaikovsky’s music means knowing the whole Russian

school, Paderewski says, although the younger Russian musicians

repudiate him and Rubinstein, just as Russian writers turn against

their greatest representative, and call Turgenieff a foreigner,

expatriated, and untrue to Russian characteristics. The first and last

movements of Tschaikovsky’s best-loved symphony, the “Pathétique,”

Paderewski considers sublime; but he regards the other two as rather

commonplace.

His opinion of the modern French school has not changed since his

talk with Mr. Daniel Gregory Mason, which was published in ~The

Century~ for November, 1908. Some of the Debussy piano-music

appeals to him; but he still considers “Pelléas” little more than

color, and rather monotonous color.

“I think I must be very old-fashioned,” he once said, “for I know many

persons no younger than I who like it.” His own “Variations,” in which

some listeners found a surface resemblance to the modern French school,

have no more real relation to it than has the music of Chopin or of

Liszt.

Paderewski is as great in gastronomy as in music, and he believes

the subject of food is “the most important question” in our country.

Of Americans he says: “They are rich--rich enough to spoil French

cooking,” meaning their frequent indifference to quality, a fact which

he deeply deplores; for in this art, to him as to other connoisseurs,

the French are supreme. “You have good fruits, good meats, but nothing

else is good except the scallops, which are the best thing you have.

The fish is abominable.” In saying this he probably had in mind the

cold-storage fish served in our hotels. “You have destroyed your

lobsters, your salmon, your terrapin, your forests. You never think

that another generation is coming.”

America is not the only country he censures thus sharply. The English

are still more blameworthy, for their food-stuffs are perfection,

and yet nothing tastes good; though he admitted that one could get

excellent dinners in some London restaurants and private houses.

The sour cherry, which Europe owes to Lucullus, is Paderewski’s

favorite fruit. Following the Roman’s example, he has imported the

choicest varieties for his Swiss home. These trees came from Poland,

and those who ate of the fruit agreed with Paderewski’s statement that

they are “the aristocrats among cherries.”

Perhaps the most vital subject to the great Pole is his own beloved

country. He is considered an important factor in the Polish-European

politics of the day. Considerable apprehension was felt as to the

possible effect of his speech on his inflammable compatriots at the

Chopin centenary, in 1910, and at the presentation of the magnificent

monument which Paderewski had caused to be erected at Cracow in

commemoration of the Polish victory over the order of Teutonic Knights

at Grunewald, in 1410. One of his countrymen was the sculptor of the

splendid equestrian statue of Wladislaus II. The mere description

of the scenes that followed, of the acclamations of the Poles, the

cheers of thousands for their beloved Paderewski, moves the hearer

deeply; what it must have meant to the man in whose honor those

thousands gathered from all Poland--a man ready to give his heart’s

blood for his country--can be known only to himself and to his wife.

Among the interesting souvenirs of this occasion are autographs of

many distinguished Poles who gathered to do honor to Poland and to

Paderewski. It is hardly strange that the Powers that hold Poland

should have felt that very serious consequences might arise from this

one man’s magnetism, enthusiasm, and patriotism.

In the speech he made at the Chopin centenary, he advanced an

interesting theory to explain the genius of his country and the unrest

and moodiness of the Poles. He believes that, as a nation, they are

like their music, and live in a perpetual state of _tempo rubato_,

caused by a physical defect--arrhythmia, or unevenness of heartbeat.

He was not in the best of health; and being unable to play at this

festival, he offered that honor to his American pupil and friend Ernest

Schelling, who passed through the ordeal triumphantly, satisfying not

only his Polish audience, but his sponsor by his interpretation of the

works of Poland’s idol, Chopin.

Paderewski is not addicted to talking much about himself; but

occasionally he gives his friends a glimpse of the real man. One

autobiographic incident concerns his own playing. Berlin has always

been unjust to Paderewski, not for artistic reasons, but on political

grounds. One well-known critic, after hearing Paderewski play, went to

the artist’s room, his eyes filled with tears of joy, to congratulate

the master; but later, obeying the official _mot d’ordre_ which is

frequently used in the attempt to kill great artists, he wrote most

disagreeably about Paderewski, who, in relating the experience, added

half deprecatingly: “He spoiled me by his call. It is easy to be

spoiled; and he was so pleased the first time that I thought he would

come again.”

The remarkable songs to the poems of Catulle Mendès, which Paderewski

published a few years ago, were written, he told us, in three weeks;

and in that year, produced in an incredibly short space of time, the

piano sonata and the sketch of the symphony also saw the light. The

scoring of the latter he could not finish until three years later. The

composer is very particular about his manuscript, and if he makes an

error, he rewrites the whole page. At times he could score only one

page; at others, as many as five; and he smilingly says, “I was so

proud of my five pages, even if they were all rests.” He himself has to

study the piano accompaniments to his later songs, and he says that “it

is foolish to make them so difficult.”

His South-American experiences had been of great interest to him both

from the point of view of the artist and that of the observer. He

had played ten times in Buenos Aires to growing houses and increasing

enthusiasm, the last of the series being to a $12,000 audience; he

had tasted barbecued beef at a great plantation feast, and found it

very unpalatable; he had studied the agricultural conditions of the

South-American countries, and had been amazed at the natural wealth

of the Argentine Republic, at its forests of trees unknown to us, and

still more at its humus, forty meters deep, which makes a soil so

fertile that it will last for centuries with no enriching. Being a

practical farmer himself, and deeply interested in the good of his own

land and forests, every detail of this extraordinary wealth fascinated

the great pianist.

Like many other famous artists of to-day, Paderewski finds the making

of records for a phonograph far more trying and fatiguing than playing

in public. He says he would “rather play at twenty concerts than once

for a phonograph.” One of these records was so difficult to make, and

needed so many repetitions to insure perfection in every note, not only

artistically, but acoustically, that he almost dislikes to hear it. It

is safe to predict that his admirers will not share this feeling, and

that his own “Cracovienne,” Mendelssohn’s “Hunting-Song,” and Liszt’s

“Campanella,” to mention only three, will become popular additions

to their collections of records. He has a large number of Oriental

records, in which he is greatly interested. Years ago, when he first

went to San Francisco, he spent much of his spare time at the Chinese

theater listening to their music; so the study of Oriental tunes is no

new thing, although, thanks to the recording machines, it has taken a

new form.

Never shall we forget our last afternoon at Riond-Bosson, when

Paderewski played for us, giving almost a professional recital, at

which the greatest of all the music he played was his own “Variations

et fugue,” Opus 23. To hear them in the concert-hall, as New York

audiences have heard them, is a great experience; but to hear them in a

room, with three or four enthusiasts as the only listeners, is a much

greater one. Mme. Wilkonska, Paderewski’s sister; Miss Mickiewicz,

granddaughter of the famous Polish poet; Mr. Blake, a young Polish

sculptor, and we two, were the only persons there besides the pianist

and his wife. She stood at his side to turn the leaves for him,

although he hardly glanced at the printed page; but as he had not

played this composition in a long time, and had had only a few hours’

practice to recall it to memory and fingers, he preferred to have the

music before him. Lovers of music will recall the majestic theme in

octaves upon which Paderewski has built one of the most splendid sets

of variations in all music, one worthy to be compared with Schubert’s

sublime variations on his song of “Death and the Maiden.” He had

thundered out his theme, when two of Mme. Paderewska’s dogs began a

mad romp through the room. Paderewski’s hands dropped from the keys,

and the culprits were summarily put out, little realizing their sins.

They reappeared at doors and windows, scratching and barking; but, once

fairly launched, Paderewski was undisturbed by their small noises, and

played on to the end. After finishing the fugue, he replied, in answer

to questions, that one of the variations was difficult, then mentioned

another, and ended by repeating several of the best variations and also

the splendid fugue.

We had been privileged to enjoy an experience such as Liszt described

in his book on Chopin, when the other great Polish composer-pianist

let his friends hear his own works interpreted by himself; but at

Riond-Bosson there was no jarring note of Philistinism such as Liszt

found in the aristocratic salons in which Chopin played.

[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF THE SEINE]

PARIS

BY THEODORE DREISER

Author of “Sister Carrie,” “Jennie Gerhardt,” etc.

WITH PICTURES BY W. J. GLACKENS

When the train rolled into the Gare du Nord, it must have been about

eight o’clock in the evening. X. had explained to me that, in order to

make my entrance into Paris properly gay and interesting, we were to

dine at the Café de Paris, then visit the Folies-Bergère, and afterward

have supper at the Abbaye Thélème. Now, as usual, X. was alert and

prepared. He had industriously piled all the bags close to the door,

and was hanging out of a window, doing his best to signal a _facteur_.

I was to stay in the car and hand all the packages down rapidly while

he ran to secure a taxi and an inspector, and in other ways to clear

away the impediments to our progress. With great executive enthusiasm

he told me that we must be at the Hôtel Normandy by eight-fifteen or

twenty, and that by nine o’clock we must be ready to sit down in the

Café de Paris to an excellent dinner, which he had ordered by telegraph.

I recall my wonder in entering Paris--the lack of any extended suburbs,

the sudden flash of electric lights and electric cars. Mostly we seemed

to be entering through a tunnel or gully, and then we were there. The

noisy facteurs in their caps and blue aprons were all about the cars.

They ran and chattered and gesticulated, wholly unlike the porters

at Paddington and Waterloo, Victoria and Euston. The one we finally

secured, a husky little enthusiast, did his best to gather all our

packages in one grand mass and shoulder them, stringing them on a

single strap. The result of it was that the strap broke right over a

small pool of water, and among other things the canvas bag containing

my blanket and magnificent shoes fell into the water.

The excited facteur was fairly dancing in anguish, doing his best to

get the packages strung together. Between us we relieved him of about

half of them, and from about his waist he unwrapped another large strap

and strung the remainder on that. Then we hurried on, for nothing would

do but that we must hurry. A taxi was secured, and all our luggage

piled on it. It looked half suffocated under bundles as it swung

away, and we were off at a mad clip through crowded, electric-lighted

streets. I pressed my nose to the window and took in as much as I

could, while X., between calculations as to how much time this would

take and that would take and whether my trunk had arrived safely,

expatiated laconically on French characteristics.

“You smell this air? It is characteristic of Paris.”

“The taxis always go like this.” We were racing like mad.

“There is an excellent type; look at her.”

“Now you see the chairs out in front. They are this way all over Paris.”

I was looking at the interesting restaurant life, which never really

seems to be interrupted anywhere in Paris. One can always find a dozen

chairs, if not fifty or a hundred, somewhere out on the sidewalk, under

the open sky or a glass roof, with little stone-topped tables beside

them, the crowd surging to and fro in front. Here one can sit and have

one’s coffee, liqueur, sandwich. Everybody seems to do it; it is as

common as walking in the streets.

We whirled through street after street, partaking of this atmosphere,

and finally swung up in front of a rather plain hotel, which was close

to the Avenue de l’Opéra, on the corner of the Rue St. Honoré and

the Rue de l’Echelle. Our luggage was quickly distributed, and I was

shown into my room by a maid who could not speak English. I unlocked

my belongings and rapidly changed my clothes, while X., breathing

mightily, fully arrayed, soon appeared, saying that I should await him

at the door below, where he would arrive with our guests. I did so, and

in fifteen minutes he returned, the taxi spinning up out of a steady

stream that was flowing by. I think my head was dizzy with the whirl

of impressions which I was garnering, but I did my best to keep a sane

view of things, and to get my impressions as sharp and clear as I could.

I am satisfied of one thing in this world, and that is that the

commonest intelligence is very frequently confused or hypnotized or

overpersuaded by certain situations, and that the weaker ones are

ever full of the wildest forms of illusion. We talk about the sanity

of life. I question whether it exists. Mostly it is a succession of

confusing, disturbing impressions which are only rarely valid. This

night I know I was moving in a sort of maze, and when I stepped into

the taxi and was introduced to two ladies, I easily succumbed to what

was obviously their great beauty.

Greuze has painted over and over the type that I saw before me--soft,

buxom, ruddy womanhood. I think the two may have been respectively

twenty-four and twenty-six. The elder was smaller than the younger,

although both were of good size, and not so ruddy; but both were plump,

round-faced, dimpled, and with a wealth of brownish-black hair, white

teeth, smooth, plump arms, necks, and shoulders. Their chins were

adorably rounded, their lips red, and their eyes laughing and gay.

They began laughing and chattering the moment I entered, extending

their soft, white hands, and saying things in French which I could not

understand. X. was smiling, beaming through his monocle in an amused,

superior way. The older girl was arrayed in pearl-colored silk, with

a black mantilla spangled with silver, and the younger had a dress of

peachblow hue, with a white lace mantilla, that was also spangled, and

they breathed a faint perfume.

I shall never forget the grand air with which this noble band went into

the Café de Paris. We were in fine feather, and the ladies radiated

a charm and a flavor which immediately attracted attention. This

brilliant café was aglow with lights and alive with people. It is not

large in size, and is triangular in shape. The charm of it comes not so

much from the luxury of the fittings, which are luxurious enough, but

from their exceedingly good taste and the fame of the cuisine. One does

not see a bill of fare here that indicates prices. You order what you

like, and are charged what is suitable. Champagne is not an essential

wine, as it is in some restaurants; you may drink what you please.

There is a delicious sparkle and spirit to the place which can spring

only from a high sense of individuality. Paris is supposed to provide

nothing better than the Café de Paris in so far as food is concerned.

I turned my attention to the elder of the two ladies, who was quite as

vivacious, if not quite so forceful, as her younger sister. I never

before knew what it meant to sit in a company of this kind, welcomed

as a friend, looked to for gaiety as a companion and admirer, and yet

not able to say a word in the language of the occasion. There were

certain words which could be quickly acquired, such as “beautiful,”

“charming,” “very delightful,” and so on, for which X. gave me the

French equivalent, and then I could make complimentary remarks, which

he would translate for all, and the ladies would say things in reply

which would come to me by the same medium. It went gaily enough, for

the conversation would not have been of a high order if I had been

able to speak French. X. objected to being used constantly as an

interpreter, and when he became stubborn and chatted gaily without

stopping to explain, I was compelled to fall back on the resources of

looks, smiles, and gestures. It interested me to see how quick these

women were to adapt themselves to the difficulties of the situation.

They were constantly laughing and chaffing between themselves, looking

at me and saying obviously flattering things, and then laughing at my

discomfiture in not being able to understand. The elder explained what

certain objects were by lifting them up and insisting on the French

name. X. was constantly telling me of the remarks they made at my

expense, and how sad they thought it was that I could not speak French.

We departed finally for the Folies-Bergère, where the newest sensation

of Paris, Mistinguett, was playing. She proved to be a brilliant hoyden

to look upon; a gay, slim, yellow-haired tomboy who seemed to fascinate

the large audience by her boyish manners and her wayward air. There

was a brilliant chorus in spangled silks and satins. The vaudeville

acts were about as good as they are anywhere. I did not think that the

performance was any better than one might see in one or two places

in New York, though of course the humor was much broader. Now and

then one of their remarkable _bons mots_ was translated for me by X.

just to give me an inkling of the character of the place. Back of the

seats was a great lobby, or promenade, where some of the demi-monde of

Paris were congregated--beautiful creatures, in many instances, and

as unconventional as you please. I was particularly struck with the

smartness of their costumes and the cheerfulness of their faces. The

companion type in London and New York is somewhat colder-looking. Their

eyes snapped with Gallic intelligence, and they walked as though the

whole world held their point of view and no other.

From here at midnight we left for the Abbaye Thélème, and there I

encountered the best that Paris has to show in the way of that gaiety

and color and beauty and smartness for which it is famous. One really

ought to say a great deal about the Abbaye Thélème, because it is the

last word, the quintessence, of midnight excitement and international

savoir-faire. The Russian and the Brazilian, the Frenchman, the

American, the Englishman, the German, and the Italian--all these meet

here on common ground. I saw much of restaurant life in Paris while I

was there, but nothing better than this. Like the Café de Paris, it

was very small when compared with restaurants of similar repute in New

York and London. I fancy it was not more than sixty feet square; only

it was not square, but pentagonal, almost circular. To begin with, the

tables were around the walls, with seats which had the wall for the

back; and then, as the guests poured in, the interior space was filled

with tables brought in for the purpose. Later in the morning, when the

guests began to leave, these tables were taken out again, and the space

was devoted to dancing and entertainers.

As in the Café de Paris, I noticed that it was not so much the quality

of the furnishings as the spirit of the place which was important.

This latter was compounded of various elements, success being the

first one, perfection of service another, absolute individuality of

cooking another, and lastly the subtlety and magnetism of sex, which

is capitalized and used in Paris as it is nowhere else in the world.

Until I stepped into this restaurant I never actually realized what it

is that draws a certain moneyed element to Paris. The tomb of Napoleon,

the Panthéon, and the Louvre are not the significant attractions of

that important city. Those things have their value and constitute

an historical and artistic element that is imposing, romantic, and

forceful; but over and above that there is something else, and that

is sex. I did not learn until later what I am going to say now, but

it might as well be said here, for it illustrates the point exactly.

A little experience and inquiry in Paris quickly taught me that the

owners and managers of the more successful restaurants encourage and

help to sustain a certain type of woman whose presence is desirable.

She must be young, beautiful, or attractive, and, above all things,

possessed of temperament. A woman can rise in the café and restaurant

world of Paris quite as she can on the stage, and she can easily be

graduated from the Abbaye Thélème and Maxim’s to the stage; and, on the

other hand, the stage contributes freely to the atmosphere of Maxim’s,

the Abbaye Thélème, and other similar resorts. A large number of the

figures seen here and at the Folies-Bergère and at other places of

the same type are interchangeable. They are in the restaurants when

they are not on the stage, and they are on the stage when they are not

in the restaurants. They rise or fall by a world of strange devices,

and you can hear brilliant or ghastly stories illustrating either

conclusion. Paris--this aspect of it--is a perfect maelstrom of sex,

and it is sustained by the wealth and the curiosity of the stranger, as

well as of the Frenchman.

The Abbaye Thélème on this occasion presented a brilliant scene.

Outside a small railing near the door several negro singers, a

mandolin-and a guitar-player, and several stage dancers were

congregated. A throng of people was pouring through the doors, all with

their tables previously arranged for. Outside, where a January wind was

blowing, you could hear a perfect uproar of slamming taxi doors, and

the calls of doormen and chauffeurs getting their vehicles in and out

of the way. The company generally, as on all such occasions, was alert

to see who was present and what the general spirit of the occasion was

to be. Instantly I detected a number of Americans; three amazingly

beautiful Englishwomen, such as I had not seen in England, and their

escorts; a few Spaniards or South Americans; and, after that, a variety

of persons whom I took to be largely French, although it was impossible

to tell. The Englishwomen interested me because in all my stay in

Europe I never saw three other women quite so beautiful, and because

in all my stay in England I scarcely saw a good-looking Englishwoman.

X. suggested that they were of that high realm of fashion which rarely

remains in London during the winter, when I was there; that if I

came again in May or June, and went to the races, I would see plenty

of them. Their lovely hair was straw-colored, and their cheeks and

foreheads were a faint pink and cream. Their arms and shoulders were

delightfully bare, and they carried themselves with amazing hauteur.

By one o’clock, when the majority of the guests had arrived, this room

fairly shimmered with white silks and satins, white arms and shoulders,

roses in black hair, and blue and lavender ribbons fastened about hair

of a lighter color. There were jewels in plenty,--opals and amethysts,

turquoises and rubies,--and there was a perfect artillery of champagne

corks. Every table was attended by its silver bucket of ice, and the

mandolins and guitars in their crowded angle were strumming mightily.

As we seated ourselves, I speculated interestedly as to what drew

all these people from all parts of the world to see this, to be here

together. I do not know where you could go and for a hundred francs see

more of really amazing feminine beauty. I do not know where for the

same money you could buy the same atmosphere of lightness and gaiety

and enthusiasm. This place was fairly vibrating with a wild desire

to live. I fancy the majority of those who were here for the first

time, and particularly of the young, would tell you that they would

rather be here than in any other spot you could name. The place had a

peculiar glitter of beauty which was compounded by the managers with

great skill. The waiters were all deft, swift, suave, good-looking;

the dancers who stepped out on the floor after a few moments were of

an orchid-like Spanish type--ruddy, brown, full-bodied, black-haired,

black-eyed. They had on dresses that were as close-fitting as the

scales of a fish, and that glittered with the same radiance. They waved

and rattled and clashed castanets and tambourines and danced wildly and

sinuously to and fro among the tables. Some of them sang, or voices

accompanied them from the raised platform devoted to music.

After a while red, blue, pink, and green balloons were introduced,

anchored to the champagne bottles, and allowed to float gaily in the

air. Paper parcels of small paste balls of all colors, and as light as

feathers, were distributed for the guests to throw at one another. In

ten minutes a wild artillery battle was raging. Young girls were up

on their feet, their hands full of these colored weapons, pelting the

male strangers of their selection. You would see tall Englishmen and

Americans exchanging a perfect volley of colored spheres with girls of

various nationalities--laughing, chattering, calling, screaming. The

_cocotte_ in all her dazzling radiance was here, exquisitely dressed,

her white arms shimmering.

After a time, when the audience had worn itself through excitement to

satisfaction or weariness, or both, a few of the tables were cleared

away and the dancing began, occasional guests joining. There were

charming dances in costume from Russia, from Scotland, from Hungary,

and from Spain. I myself waltzed with a Spanish dancer, and had the

wonder of seeing an American girl rise from her table and dance

with more skill and grace than the employed talent. A wine-enthused

Englishman, a handsome youth of twenty-six or more, took the floor

and remained there gaily prancing about from table to table, dancing

alone or with whomsoever would welcome him. What looked like a

dangerous argument started at one time because a high-mettled Brazilian

considered that he had been insulted. A cordon of waiters and the

managers soon adjusted that. It was between three and four in the

morning when we finally left, and I was very tired. It was decided that

we should meet for dinner; and since it was almost daylight, I was

glad when we had seen our ladies to their apartment and returned to our

hotel.

I shall never forget my first morning in Paris--the morning that I woke

up after about two hours’ sleep or less, prepared to put in a hard

day at sight-seeing, because X. had a program which must be adhered

to. He could be with me only until Monday, when he had to return. It

was fortunately a bright day, a little hazy and chill, but agreeable.

I looked out of the window of my very comfortable room on the fifth

floor, which gave out on a balcony overhanging the Rue St. Honoré, and

watched the crowd of French people below coming to work. It would be

hard to say what makes the difference between a crowd of Englishmen

and a crowd of Frenchmen, but there is a difference. It struck me

that these men and women walked faster, and that their movements were

more spirited than those of the English or Americans. They looked

more like Americans, though, than like the English, and they were

much more cheerful than either, chatting and talking as they came. I

was interested to see whether I could make the maid understand that

I wanted coffee and rolls without talking French, but the wants of

American travelers are an old story to French maids; and no sooner did

I say “_Café_” and make the sign of drinking from a cup than she said,

“_Oh, oui, oui, oui; oh, oui, oui, oui_,” and disappeared. Presently

the coffee was brought me, with rolls and butter and hot milk; and I

ate my breakfast as I dressed.

About nine o’clock X. arrived with his program. I was to walk in

the garden of the Tuileries which was close at hand, where he would

join me later. We were to go for a walk in the Rue de Rivoli as

far as a certain bootmaker’s, who was to make me a pair of shoes

for the Riviera. Then we were to visit a haberdasher’s or two, and

after that go straight about the work of sight-seeing, visiting the

old book-stalls on the Seine, the churches of St.-Etienne-du-Mont,

Notre-Dame, Ste.-Chapelle, thereafter regulating our conduct by the

wishes of several guests who were to appear.

We started off briskly, and my first adventure in Paris led me straight

to the gardens of the Tuileries, lying west of the Louvre. If any

one wanted a proper introduction to Paris, I should recommend this

above all others. Such a noble piece of gardening as this is the best

testimony France has to offer as to its taste, discrimination, and

sense of the magnificent. I should say, on mature thought, that we

shall never have anything like it in America. We have not the same

lightness of fancy.

I recall walking in here and being struck at once with the magnificent

proportions of it all,--the breadth and stately lengths of its walks,

the utter wonder and charm of its statuary,--snow-white marble nudes

standing out on the green grass and marking the circles, squares, and

paths of its entire length. No such charm and beauty could be attained

in America because we would not permit the public use of the nude in

this fashion.

Everywhere I went in Paris I was struck by the charming unity in the

conduct of business between husband and wife and son and daughter.

We talk much about the economic independence of women in America. It

seems to me that the French have solved it in the only way that it can

be solved. Madame helps her husband in his business and they make a

success of it together. Monsieur Galoyer took the measurements for my

shoes, but madame entered them in a book, and to me the shop was fifty

times as charming for her presence. She was pleasingly dressed, and

the shop looked as though it had experienced the tasteful touches of a

woman’s hand. It was clean and bright and smart, and smacked of good

housekeeping; and this was equally true of book-stalls, haberdashers’

shops, art-stores, coffee-rooms, and places of public sale generally.

Wherever madame was, and she looked nice, there was a nice store; and

monsieur looked as fat and contented as could reasonably be expected in

the circumstances.

I shall never forget this first morning’s impression of Paris, although

all my impressions of it were delightful and inspiring, from the

poorest quarter of the Charenton district to the perfections of the

Bois and the region about the Arc de Triomphe. It chanced that this

morning was bright, and I saw the Seine glimmering over the stones

of its shallow banks and racing madly. How much the French have

made of little in the way of a river! It is not very wide--about

half as wide as the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge, and not so wide as

the Harlem River. Here the Seine was as bright as a new button, its

banks properly lined with gray, but not dull-looking, walls, the two

streets which parallel it on each side alive with traffic; at every

few blocks a handsome bridge; every block a row of very habitable, if

not imposing, apartment-houses; at various points views of Notre-Dame,

the Tuileries, the Cours-la-Reine, of the Trocadéro, and the Eiffel

Tower. I followed the Seine from city wall to city wall one day,

from Charenton to Issy, and found every inch of it delightful. I was

never tired of looking at the wine-barges near Charenton; the little

bathing-pavilions and passenger-boats in the vicinity of the Louvre;

the brick-barges, hay-barges, coal-barges, and Heaven knows what else

plying between the city’s heart and points down-stream past Issy. It

gave me the impression of being one of the brightest, cleanest rivers

in the world--a river on a holiday. I saw it once at Issy at what is

known in Paris as the “green hour,” which is five o’clock, when the

sun was going down, and a deep, palpable fragrance wafted from a vast

manufactory of perfume filled the air. Men were poling boats of hay,

and laborers in their great wide-bottomed corduroy trousers, blue

shirts, and inimitable French caps, were trudging homeward, and I felt

as though the world had nothing to offer Paris which it did not already

have. I could have settled in a small house in Issy and worked as a

laborer in a perfume factory, carrying my dinner-pail with me every

morning, with a right good-will, or such was the mood of the moment. As

I write this, the mood comes back.

This morning, on our way to St.-Etienne-du-Mont and the cathedral,

we examined the book-stalls along the Seine. To enjoy them, one has

to be in an idle mood and love out of doors; for they consist of a

dusty row of four-legged boxes, with lids coming quite to your chest

in height, and reminding one of those high-legged counting-tables

at which clerks sit on tall stools making entries in their ledgers.

These boxes are old and paintless and weather-beaten; and at night the

very dusty-looking keepers, who from early morning until dark have

had their shabby-backed wares spread out where dust and sunlight and

wind and rain can attack them, pack them in the body of the box on

which they are lying and close the lid. You can always see an idler or

two here, perhaps many idlers, between the Quai d’Orsay and the Quai

Voltaire.

Paris is as young in its mood as any city in the world. It is as wildly

enthusiastic as a child. This morning I noticed here the strange

occurrence of battered-looking old fellows singing to themselves, which

I never noticed anywhere else in this world. Age sits lightly on the

Parisian, I am sure, and youth is a wild fantasy, an exciting realm of

romantic dreams. The Parisian, from the keeper of a market-stall to

the prince of the money world or of art, wants to live gaily, briskly,

laughingly, and he will not let the necessity of earning his living

deny him. I felt it in the churches, the depots, the department stores,

the theaters, the restaurants, the streets--a wild, keen desire for

life, with the blood and the body to back it up. It must be in the soil

and the air, for Paris sings. It is like poison in the veins, and I

felt myself growing positively giddy with enthusiasm. I believe that

for the first six months Paris would be a disease from which one would

suffer greatly and recover slowly. After that you would settle down to

live the life you found there in contentment and with delight, but you

would not be in so much danger of wrecking your very mortal body and

your uncertainly immortal soul.

Now there was luncheon at Foyot’s, a little restaurant near the

Luxembourg and the Musée de Cluny, where the wise in the matter of food

love to dine, and where, as usual, X. was at his best. Foyot’s, as the

initiated will attest, is a delightful place to lunch or dine, for the

cooking is perfection itself. The French, while entirely discarding

show in many instances, and allowing their restaurants to look as

though they had been put together with an effort, nevertheless attain

an individuality of atmosphere which is delightful. For the life of me

I could not tell why this little restaurant seemed so smart and bright,

for there was nothing either smart or bright about it when I examined

it in detail; and so I was compelled to attribute the impression to

the all-pervading temperament of the owner. Always, in these cases,

there is a man, or a woman, quite remarkable for his point of view;

and although I did not see him, I fancied the owner, whatever his

name, must be such a man. Otherwise you could not take such simple

appointments and make them into anything so pleasing and so individual.

Later in the day we took a taxi through singing streets, lighted by a

springtime sun, and came finally to the Restaurant Prunier, where it

was necessary to secure a table and order dinner in advance; and thence

to the Théâtre des Capucines in the Rue des Capucines, where tickets

for a farce had to be secured; and thence to a café near the Avenue de

l’Opéra, where we were to meet Madame de J., who, out of the goodness

of her heart, was to help entertain me while I was in the city.

We came to her out of the whirl of the “green hour,” when the Paris

boulevards in this vicinity were fairly swarming with people--the

gayest world I have ever seen. We have enormous crowds in New York,

but they seem to be going somewhere very much more definitely than

in Paris. With us there is an eager, strident, almost objectionable

effort to get home or to the theater or to the restaurant which one can

easily resent, it is so inconsiderate and indifferent. In London you

do not feel that there are any crowds that are going to the theaters

or the restaurants; and if they are, they are not very cheerful about

it. They are enduring life; they have none of the lightness of the

Parisian world. I think it is all explained by the fact that Parisians

feel keenly that they are living now, and that they wish to enjoy

themselves as they go. The American and the Englishman--the Englishman

much more than the American--have decided that they are going to live

in the future. Only the American is a little angry about his decision,

and the Englishman a little meek or patient. Both feel that life is

intensely grim. But the Parisian, while he may feel or believe it,

decides wilfully to cast it off. He lives by the way, out of books,

restaurants, theaters, boulevards, and the spectacle of life generally.

The Parisians move briskly, and they come out where they can see

one another--out into the great wide-sidewalked boulevards and the

thousands upon thousands of cafés, and make themselves comfortable and

talkative and gay. It is obvious that everybody is having a good time,

not merely trying to have it; that they are enjoying the wine-like

air, the _brasseries_, the net-like movements of the cabs, the dancing

lights of the roadways, and the flare of the shops. It may be chill or

drizzling in Paris, but you scarcely feel it. Rain can scarcely drive

the people off the streets; literally it does not, for there are crowds

whether it rains or not, and they are not despondent. This particular

hour that brought us to the bar was essentially thrilling, and I was

interested to see what Madame de J. was like.

We were sitting at a table, sipping a brandy and soda, when she

entered, a brisk, genial, sympathetic French person whose voice on the

instant gave me a delightful impression of her. It was the loveliest

voice I ever heard, soft and musical, a colorful voice touched with

both gaiety and sadness. Her eyes were light blue, her hair was brown,

and her manner sinuous and insinuating. She seemed to have the spirit

of a delightfully friendly collie or a child, and all the vitality and

alertness that go with either. I had a chance to observe her keenly.

In a moment she turned to me and asked whether I knew either of two

American authors whom she knew, men of considerable repute. Knowing

them both very well, it surprised me to think that she knew them. From

the way she spoke, she seemed to have been on the friendliest terms

with both; and any one by looking at her could have understood why they

should have taken an interest in her.

If she had been of a somewhat more calculating type, I fancy that,

with her intense charm of face and manner and her intellect and

voice, she would have been very successful. I gained the impression

that she had been on the stage in some small capacity; but she had

been too diffident, not really brazen enough for the grim world in

which the French actress rises. I soon gained the impression that she

was a charming blend of emotion, desire, and refinement which one

sometimes meets with in the demi-monde. She would have done better in

literature or music or art, and she seemed fitted by her moods and her

understanding to be a light in any one of them or all.

I shall never forget how she looked at me, quite in the spirit of a

gay uncertain child, and how quickly she made me feel that we should

get along very well together. “Why, yes,” she said in her soft voice,

“I will go about with you, although I should not know what is best

to see. But I shall be here, and if you want to come for me, we can

see things together.” Suddenly she reached over and took my hand and

pressed it genially, as though to seal the bargain. Then Madame de J.,

promising to join us at the theater, went away.

I would not say more of this evening except that it gave me another

glimpse of this unquestionably remarkable woman, who was especially

charming in a pale bluish-gray dress and gray furs. She helped

entertain us through what to me was a somewhat dull performance of

a farce in a tongue I did not understand. I was entertained by the

effective character work of the actors, but nothing compensates, as I

found everywhere, for ignorance of French.

When we came out of this theater at half-past eleven, Madame de J.

was anxious to return to her apartment, and X. said he’d give me an

additional taste of the very vital café life of Paris.

The strange impression which all this world of restaurant life gave me,

still endures. Obviously, when we arrived at twelve o’clock, the fun

was just getting under way. Some of these places, like the first one

we entered, were no larger than a fair-sized room in an apartment, but

crowded with a gay and even giddy throng of Americans, South Americans,

English, and others. One of the tricks in Paris to make a restaurant

successful is to keep it small, so that it has an air of overflow and

activity. Here, after allowing room for the red-jacketed orchestra,

the piano, and the waiters, there was scarcely space for the forty or

fifty guests who were present. Champagne was twenty francs the bottle,

and champagne was all that was served. It was necessary here, as at all

the restaurants, to contribute to the support of the musicians; and if

a strange young woman should sit at your table for a moment and share

either the wine or the fruit which would be quickly offered, you would

have to pay for that. Peaches were three francs each, and grapes five

francs the bunch. It was plain that all these things are offered in

order that the house might thrive and prosper. It was so at all of them.

The personality of X. supplied a homy quality of comfortable

companionship. He was so full of a youthful zest to live, and so keen

after the shows and customs of the world, that to be near him was to

enjoy the privilege of great company. I never pondered why he was so

popular with women, or why his friends in different walks of life

constituted so great a company. He seemed to have known thousands

of all sorts, and to be at home in all conditions. That persistent,

unchanging atmosphere of “All is well with me,” to maintain which was

as much a duty as a tradition with him, made for exceedingly pleasant

companionship.

This very remarkable evening X. and I spent wandering from one

restaurant to another in an effort to locate a certain Rillette, a girl

of whom I had heard when we first came to Paris. She had been one of

the most distinguished figures of the stage. Four or five years before

she had held at the Folies-Bergère much the same position recently

attained by Mistinguett, who was just then enthralling Paris; in other

words, she was the sensation of that stormy world of art and romance

of which these restaurants are a part. She was more than that. She

had a wonderful mezzo-soprano voice of great color and richness and a

spirit for dancing that was Greek in its quality. I was anxious to get

at least a glimpse of this exceptional Parisian type, the real spirit

of this fast world, the true artistic poison-flower, the lovely hooded

cobra, before she should be too old or too wretched to be interesting.

At one café, quite by accident, we encountered Miss F., whom I had not

seen since we left Fishguard, and who was here in Paris doing her best

to outshine the women of the gay restaurants in the matter of dresses,

hats, and beauty. I must say she presented a ravishing spectacle, quite

as wonderful as any of the other women who were to be seen here; but

she lacked, as I was to note, the natural vivacity of the French. We

Americans, despite our high spirits and our healthy enthusiasm for

life, are nevertheless a blend of the English, the German, and some

of the sedate nations of the North, and we are inclined to a physical

and mental passivity which is not common to the Latins. This girl,

vivid creature that she was, did not have the spiritual vibration

which accompanies the Frenchwomen. As far as spirit was concerned,

she seemed superior to most of the foreign types present; but the

Frenchwomen are naturally gayer, their eyes brighter, their motions

lighter. She gave us at once an account of her adventures since I

had seen her. I could not help marveling at the disposition which

set above everything else in the world the privilege of moving in

this peculiar realm, which fascinated her much. As she told me on the

_Mauretania_, all she hoped for was to become a woman of Machiavellian

finesse, and to have some money. If she had money and attained to real

social wisdom, conventional society could go to the devil; for the

successful adventuress, according to her, was welcome anywhere--that

is, everywhere she would care to go. She did not expect to retain her

beauty entirely; but she did expect to have some money, and meanwhile

to live brilliantly, as she deemed that she was now doing. Her comments

on the various women of her class were as hard and accurate as they

were brilliant. I remember her saying of one woman, with an easy sweep

of her hand, “Like a willow, don’t you think?” Of another, “She glows

like a ruby.” It was true; it was fine character delineation.

At Maxim’s, an hour later, she decided to go home, so we took her

to her hotel, and then resumed our pursuit of Rillette. After much

wandering, we finally came upon her, about four in the morning, in one

of those showy pleasure-resorts that I have described.

“Ah, yes, there she is!” X. exclaimed, and I looked to a distant table

to see the figure he indicated, that of a young girl seemingly not

more than twenty-four or twenty-five, a white silk neckerchief tied

about her brown hair, her body clothed in a rather nondescript costume

for a world as showy as this. Most of the women wore evening clothes.

She had on a skirt of light-brown wool, a white shirtwaist open in

the front, with the collar turned down, showing her pretty neck. Her

skirt was short, and her sleeves were short, showing a solid fore

arm. Before she noticed X. we saw her take a slender girl in black

for a partner and dance, with others, in the open space between the

tables that circled the walls. Her face did not suggest the depravity

which her career would indicate, although it was by no means ruddy;

but she seemed to scorn rouge. Her eyes--eyes are always revealing

in a forceful personage--were large and vague and brown, set beneath

a wide, full forehead--very wonderful eyes. In her idle security and

profound nonchalance, she appeared like a figure out of the Revolution

or the Commune. She would have been magnificent in a riot, marching

up a Parisian street, her white band about her brown hair, carrying a

knife, a gun, or a flag. She would have had the courage, too; for it

was plain that life had lost much of its charm and she nearly all of

her caring. When her dance was done, she came over to us, and extended

an indifferent hand to X. He told me, after their light conversation

in French, that he had chided her to the effect that her career was

ruining her once lovely voice. “I shall find it again at the next

corner,” she said, and walked smartly away.

[Illustration: ONE OF THE THOUSAND AND ONE CAFÉS ON THE BOULEVARDS OF

PARIS]

“Some one should write a novel about a woman like that,” X. explained.

“She ought to be painted. It is amazing the sufficiency of soul that

goes with that type. There aren’t many like her. She could be the

sensation of Paris again if she wanted to, would try. But she won’t.

See what she said of her voice just now.” He shook his head. I smiled

approvingly, for obviously the appearance of the woman, her full,

compelling eyes, bore him out.

She was a figure of distinction in this restaurant world, for many knew

her and kept track of her. I watched her from time to time talking

with the guests of one table and another, and the chemical content

which made her exceptional was as obvious as though she were a bottle

and bore a label. To this day she stands out in my mind, in her simple

dress and indifferent manner, as perhaps the one forceful, significant

figure that I saw in all the cafés of Paris or elsewhere.

I should like to add here, before I part forever with this curious

and feverish Parisian restaurant world, that, after much and careful

observation, my conclusion has been that it was too utterly feverish,

artificial, and exotic not to be dangerous and grimly destructive, if

not merely touched upon at long intervals.

[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF PARISIAN CAFÉ LIFE]

This world of champagne-drinkers was apparently interested in only

two things--the flare and glow of the restaurants, which were always

brightly lighted and packed with people, and women. In the last

analysis, women were the glittering attraction; and truly one might say

they were glittering. Fine feathers make fine birds, and nowhere more

so than in Paris. But there were many birds who would have been fine

in much less showy feathers. In many instances they craved and secured

a demure simplicity which was even more destructive than the flaring

costumes of the demi-monde. It was strange to see American innocence,

the products of Petosky, Michigan, and Hannibal, Missouri, cheek by

jowl with the most daring and the most flagrant women that the great

metropolis could produce. I did not know until later how hard some of

these women were, how schooled in vice, how weary of everything save

this atmosphere of festivity and the privilege of wearing beautiful

clothes. It was a scorching lesson, and it displayed vice as an upper

and a nether millstone between which youth and beauty are ground or

pressed quickly to a worthless mass. I would defy anybody to live in

this atmosphere as long as five years and not exhibit strongly the

telltale marks of decay.

Most people come here for a night or two, or a month or two, or once

in a year or so, and then return to the comparatively dull world from

which they emanated, which is fortunate. If they were here a little

while, this deceptive world of delight would lose all its glamour;

for in a very few days you see through the dreary mechanism by which

it is produced: the browbeating of shabby waiters by greedy managers,

the extortionate charges and tricks by which money is lured from the

pockets of the unwary, the wretched rooms and garrets from which some

of these butterflies emanate, to wing here in seeming delight and then

disappear. When the natural glow of youth has gone, then come powder

and paint for the face, belladonna for the eyes, rouge for the lips,

palms, and nails, and perfumes and ornament and the glitter of good

clothing; but underneath it all one reads the weariness of the eye, the

sickening distaste for bargaining hour by hour and day by day, the cold

mechanism of what was once natural, instinctive coquetry.

[Illustration: “IN ONE OF THOSE SHOWY PLEASURE-RESORTS”]

You feel constantly that many of these women would sell their souls for

one last hour of delight, and that some of them would then gladly take

poison, as many of them doubtless do, to end it all.

Consumption, cocaine, and opium maintain their persistent toll. This is

a furnace of desire, this Montmartre district, and it burns furiously

with a hard, white-hot flame until there is nothing left save black

cinders and white ashes. Those who can endure its consuming heat are

quite welcome to its wonders until emotion and feeling and beauty are

no more.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

EMERGENCY

BY WILLIAM ROSE BENÉT

I’ve borne it out. There wasn’t much to bear,

By your own tenets; but there was for me,--

A flaming onslaught; cohorts furiously

Charging the ramparts; fearful thunders booming;

Lightning and holocaust, and Terror looming

With black war-towers on the sky-line there!

You saw not even a gnat to make one wince

While your own buoyant thoughts beat up the blue.

Let me be glad of that. The happier you!

I found myself alone to face disaster

Through age-long seconds. While your pulse beat faster

For mirth, my own--stopped dead, a moment since.

Then, at my elbow--and whole worlds away--

You turned; and I was snatching at my breath

After a sudden bout with worse than death,

With worse than beasts of Ephesus, uprisen

One moment from my heart that is their prison.

I bore it out. That’s all there is to say.

They flash unwarning on our dozing acts,

The angel or the fiend. It seems to me

There’s nothing too sublime for Man to be

(In such clear moments),--naught too foully crawling!

What “self” is most our own, when this appalling

Apocalypse lights up the inmost facts?

Something is changed; even though one drops back

In the next instant to the old routine,

Forgets the risk and is, as he has been,

The slowly-trailing, patient slug of Time,

Neither contemptible nor yet sublime,

Inching with pain along the beaten track;

Something is changed--the mind paints heavens and hells;

And I, their dizzy colors in my brain,

Wonder just what is “sane” and what “insane,”

And what one can be sure of--where we’re master

Of our own triumphs, or our own disaster...?

But that’s enough. Let’s talk of something else!

[Illustration]

[Illustration: ELIHU VEDDER

FROM THE BUST BY CHARLES KECK

Sculpture

_By_

Charles Keck

(_Examples of American Sculpture_)]

[Illustration: DRAMA

FROM THE SCULPTURE BY CHARLES KECK

OWNED BY MRS. E. D. BRANDEGEE

MUSIC

FROM THE SCULPTURE BY CHARLES KECK

OWNED BY MRS. E. D. BRANDEGEE]

[Illustration: YOUTHFUL AMERICA

THE ALLEGHANY COUNTY SOLDIERS MEMORIAL AT PITTSBURGH

FROM THE SCULPTURE BY CHARLES KECK]

[Illustration: Drawn by Alpheus Cole]

THE MOTHER

BY TIMOTHY COLE

Dear solacer and goddess of the hearth,

O mother! whose enfolding arms and breast

Cradle the infant world from dawn’s fair birth

To the sun’s ripening noon with loving girth;

How oft, in dreaming, of thy sheltering rest,

Whose ingle-glow now kindles to new worth

Our souls, we see thy phantom figure blest,

Still ministrant, in light and beauty dressed.

Where light is, thitherward the spirit tends:

Mankind were yet within the womb of night,

From joy imprison’d save for thy sweet might,

Save for the flame thy love forever lends.

While beacon-like thy fire throws its spark,

We shall not fear, though all the world grow dark.

[Illustration: Color-Tone, engraved for ~The Century~ by H. C.

Merrill and H. Davidson

“’YOU’RE ALIVE, THANK HEAVEN!... SHALL I SEND FOR A PARSON?’”

DRAWN BY HARRY RALEIGH]

[Illustration]

A GARAGE IN THE SUNSHINE

BY JOSEPH ERNEST

WITH A PICTURE BY HARRY RALEIGH

Falling in love is specially a critical business for simple-minded

persons who have room in their heads for only one idea at a time. It

has a tendency to shift the basis of their existence in a perilous

degree before they are in the least aware what has happened to them.

Like most persons who earn their living at the daily risk of their

lives, Teddy Rocco was not burdened with too active an imagination.

He did his regular ninety miles an hour round the motordromes on a

“Yellow Fiend” autocycle with a simple faith in his luck and no higher

aspirations than he could express in this way:

“No, sir, you won’t find me in this speed game one day longer than it

takes me to clean up the price of a share in a cement garage, with

machine-tools complete, and beat it back to sunny Jax, Florida.”

It was this ambition that led him, when he was not racing, to give

exhibitions at Santoni’s velodrome at Palmetto Beach, a track known to

the speed profession as the “Devil’s Soup-plate.” It was the same lack

of imagination that enabled him to hear of the introduction of Miss

Sadie Simmons to the soup-plate with feelings of unmingled disgust.

“A girl!” he ejaculated, and made for Santoni’s office with his

features richly adorned with chain lubricant. “A girl! Yes, and a speed

limit, too, I reckon, and pretty-pretty stunts, and bouquets--what do

you know? Better call it the ’Angel’s Roundabout,’ and be done!”

The graphite lubricant failed to conceal the scowl on his face as

he burst into the office. The proprietor, a keen purveyor of popular

excitement, was rubbing his hands in Mephistophelian satisfaction over

a new poster.

“Daredevil Ted Rocco,” it said, and “Wild Will Ryan”; and below, in

big red type that crowded the rest almost off the sheet, “Miss Sadie

Simmons, America’s Queen of the Track.” From which the sagacious reader

will infer that Miss Simmons was new and unproved; otherwise Santoni

would infallibly have billed her as “Crazy Sadie,” in suggestion of

death-defying recklessness.

“Hullo, Teddy!” cried Santoni in his mighty voice. “What you been doing

to your face?”

“Greasin’ up,” Teddy answered shortly, and cast a malevolent glance at

the bill. “Listen here, San. What’s all this talk about a skirt comin’

on? We don’t run any musical leg-show here, you know. If you let a dame

on to this track, it’s going to put the speeds on the blink, and then

you’ll need a complete Ziegfeld chorus to hold the crowd. I’ve got a

fine motion-picture of myself bein’ paced by something in bag-tights

and a picture-hat.”

Santoni frowned warningly, jerked his head toward the half-open door

of his sanctum, and passed a large, embarrassed hand over his heavy

showman’s jowl.

“I do’ know, Ted,” he growled. “Maybe she ain’t any funeral, either, if

you can believe her. But if you fancy your chance, you can argue the

point with her yourself, for she’s right here. Miss Simmons!”

From Santoni’s sanctum came the sound of a chair abruptly pushed back,

and the click of high heels on the floor. The proprietor turned away

under the pretense of affixing the poster to the wall; then the door

opened wide and revealed “America’s Queen of the Track.”

For a moment she inspected Teddy Rocco with the interest of a

professional rival. He did not look at all like a daredevil just then,

but merely a rather astonished little man with a square mechanic’s

jaw and a compact, wiry figure, his sleeves rolled up and his arms

and face besmeared. There was some reason for his astonishment, too,

for in America’s “Queen,” instead of the superannuated, hard-featured

circus-performer he had expected, he saw a rather shy, spruce little

girl, with bright, black eyes and an absurdly small nose. Her dark hair

hung in two thick, glossy ropes over her shoulders, and her skirt was

short enough to reveal several inches of well-modeled ankle.

“What is it, Mr. Santoni?” she asked in a small, husky voice.

“It’s only Ted Rocco,” explained the proprietor. “He don’t think you’ll

be fast enough for this track.”

The girl stared at Teddy as though he had questioned her respectability.

“How do you _know_ I won’t?” she demanded.

They were particularly bright eyes. The daredevil shifted

uncomfortably, and his own eyes wandered over the room as though in

search of succor.

“It isn’t that, exactly,” he stammered; “but, you see, miss, we let ’em

rip here. My makers pay for speed, and I got to show speed or I don’t

collect.”

“You aren’t so much,” retorted the “Queen.” “I bet you don’t average

ninety, and I touched ninety myself at Coney last week.”

The daredevil’s eyes ceased to wander, meeting hers in a stare of blank

incredulity.

“You did ninety? You!” he said. “For the love of Mike!”

“Why shouldn’t I? My makers pay for speed, too. And when they send me

along something with more power to it, I guess I’ll lap you every mile.

I think you’re mean to knock me just because I’m not a man.”

“You see?” said Santoni, shrugging his shoulders.

Whereupon the daredevil mumbled apologies, and retreated to the garage

in great discomfiture. He sat brooding on a pile of gasolene-cans and

watched Wild Will Ryan circling the track in a private try-out; but

instead of the racing auto-cycle, he saw only two black eyes that

stared reproachfully, and heard a small, curiously deep, and husky

voice that assured him over and over again that he was mean.

When Ryan dismounted, red-eyed and hoarse from cleaving the air like

a projectile, Ted was still fidgeting with a wrench and muttering

gloomily.

“Is it a goil?” asked Ryan.

“Search me. It looks like one--a little brown girl about as big as a

ten-cent cigar. But with a nerve! Tips me the crinkled nose because

I said she might get in the way on a small track. Reckons I don’t

average ninety--me, that’s held five records! And when her dear

manufacturers, understand me, send her the cute little peacherino of a

sixteen-cylinder, eighty-horse dynamite-gun that they’re building for

her to go to finishing-school on, she’s going to make me look like a

pram-pusher with paralysis. Can you beat it?”

“Never heard of her,” said Ryan. “She must be a new one in this game.”

“Oh, she’s all kinds of new, take it from me. But if she tries to do

ninety an hour round this saucer, we won’t pick up enough of her to be

worth dressing.”

Teddy swung off to remove the stains of toil from his face. When he

reappeared, normally dapper, as becomes a successful autocyclist, he

found little Miss Simmons preparing to try the track. Her costume wrung

from him an involuntary exclamation. Her cap, coat, and knickers were

all of gleaming scarlet leather.

“Isn’t she the dandy?” grinned Ryan, as they stood aside and watched

her. “I reckon she knows the business, at that. She just shooed her

mechanic away, and started in to fix all the juice connections herself.

And look at her now, testing every spoke with her fingers. Some great

kid!”

“What’s she riding?” asked Teddy.

“Flying Centaur; new make, I guess. Bet she pulls down a wad for it,

too. Chunky little thing, ain’t she? You wouldn’t think she carried

metal to see her in skirts. If she took a spill at ninety, she’d bounce

some.”

“Oh, shut your head!” exclaimed Teddy Rocco, with a sudden anger that

puzzled even himself.

It was not without a tinge of professional jealousy that the two young

men stood in the center of the course and watched Miss Simmons pull her

bright new machine to the starting-point and climb into the saddle. In

Teddy’s mind there was also a certain jealousy of Santoni, who held her

for the start. But with the first healthy rip of the exhaust, and the

first smooth and perfect circle she described round the soup-plate,

these feelings were submerged in professional appreciation.

Moment by moment she gathered speed, mounting the steep banking

accurately with every lap, until she was roaring and rattling round the

very uppermost edge like a bright-red marble in a basin. Santoni slowly

sauntered over to them, performing a sort of involuntary waltz as he

turned to follow her with his goggle eyes.

“Maybe she ain’t no funeral, either,” he said.

“You ought to be lynched for letting her do it, San,” said Teddy. “It

isn’t a girl’s game.”

“Well, wouldn’t that jar you?” Santoni turned on Ryan with palms

outspread. “First he was sore because he thought she couldn’t ride, and

now he’s sore because she can!”

Teddy made no reply. A new and strange feeling gripped him by the

throat until he choked. As he watched the track, a picture engraved

itself indelibly on his heart: a tiny scarlet figure astride a machine

that roared round and round with fiendish energy until it hung out

almost horizontally from the steep rim of the banking. Sadie’s black

eyes were narrowed to slits; her roped hair flew out behind her;

her lips were compressed in the lust of speed as she braced her

strong little knees and elbows hard against the leaping of her angry

motor. This was a sort of girl he had never imagined in his wildest

speculations. A girl who understood motors, he thought, could not fail

to be in every other way admirable. From such a girl, for example, a

man need never fear anything less than a square deal.

When she cut off her ignition and slipped gradually down the banking,

he was the first to assist her to alight.

“Say, kid, I want to tell you I’m sorry,” he whispered before the

others ran up. “I’m glad you’re going to ride with us.”

For a moment the “Queen’s” eyes danced with pleasure; then they became

softly diffident again as she turned away to stable her machine.

“I don’t fancy I’ll let the show down so badly,” she smiled over her

shoulder.

In truth, the popularity of Sadie Simmons among the crowds that

flocked to the velodrome was immediate and great. She was irresistibly

diminutive and dainty, and silent and retiring in manner when not

racing; but once on her machine, rattling and bouncing round the

circumscribed track with the noise of a whole express-train, she was

transformed into a little red imp of daring unexcelled by the men; and

though they consistently beat her when it came to a test, it was Sadie

whom the crowds cheered and the fans petted.

A faded woman, of an incurable pessimism, clucked everywhere after

her, like a hen after an adventurous duckling. Except for this

unexhilarating person, whom she addressed as “Aunty,” but who

frequently forgot the suggested relationship and called her “Miss,”

Sadie appeared to be quite alone in the world. She accepted with frank

pleasure the friendly advances of the fans, the comradeship of Wild

Will Ryan, and the wondering worship of Teddy Rocco.

One morning Ryan emerged from the garage, laughing immoderately, and

pressing a hand to his face.

“What’s bitin’ you, Irish?” inquired Teddy.

The big Irishman withdrew his hand, and exhibited a cheek decorated

with the imprint of small and oily fingers on a ground that flamed

scarlet.

“It’s little Sadie; she’s straight, that’s all,” he replied with a

grin, as though he had discovered a choice witticism.

Teddy tore off his coat and flung it from him recklessly, and his cheek

flamed suddenly redder than Ryan’s.

“Yes, and you’ll be stiff when I’m through with you, you big loafer!”

he said savagely. “How’d you find that out?”

Ryan stretched forth a long arm, and swept his colleague into a hug

like a bear’s.

“Be aisy, little man,” he said. “I just tried to kiss her while she was

fightin’ with a set o’ new piston-rings. I got mine all right--from the

lady.”

But Teddy tore loose and rushed into the garage, where he found Sadie

still struggling with a recalcitrant piston of her dismounted motor. He

seized a cold chisel from the work-bench.

“What did that fresh Mick say to you?” he demanded.

“Drop it at once, Teddy,” commanded Sadie. “When I can’t manage Ryan

with my own hands, I’ll get a gun. Besides, I want you to hold these

rings tight for me, so I can push this piston in.”

Teddy obeyed, marveling at the strength of the small brown fingers that

had essayed the task unaided. Once more that strange, choking sensation

assailed him, and he felt his eyes unaccountably filling with tears.

“Sadie, you’re an everlasting little marvel,” he said. “I expect you’ll

marry one of these rich fans; but I wish it was me.”

“I don’t want to marry anybody,” the girl replied. “Say, can’t you hold

those rings in without trembling so?”

“But you got to marry somebody,” Teddy insisted.

“I don’t have to,--there, that’s well in at last,--at least not for a

long time, till I get good and ready. And then he’ll have to be extra

good and handsome and rich. I’m awfully ambitious, you know.”

“That’s all right, kid,”--Teddy swallowed a lump in his throat,--“but

take care you don’t put it off too long.”

The girl looked up from her work with a puzzled air.

“Take a good slant at me,” explained Teddy. “Don’t you see anything in

my eyes?”

“They look queer, kind of anxious and strained. They’re like Will

Ryan’s.”

“Everybody that stays in this game as long as we have gets the same

look. It comes from being scared stiff once or twice, and not being

able to forget it.”

“I’m never scared,” said Miss Simmons, with a toss of her shapely

little head.

“You haven’t begun yet. Wait till some one drops in front of you in the

last lap, and you have just half a second to make up your mind whether

you’ll run over him or take a chance among the crowd. One stunt like

that, and you won’t be so pretty.”

“Then you can ask me again,” said Miss Simmons, with her usual quiet

self-possession. “I can almost see you doing it.”

“I tell you it’s no game for a girl,” Teddy persisted.

“Why not? I’d look nicer dead than you.”

“Touch wood when you say that,” advised Teddy, laying his own hand on

the bench.

“I won’t,” the girl retorted. “I reckoned all the chances before I came

into the game, and there’s no one to cry over me if I did get killed

except Aunty, and she’s made up her mind to it long ago and become

quite resigned. Besides, I’ve taken chances ever since I can remember.

Did you ever play the carnivals? I was raised in them, if you can call

it that. I did the high dive for years into a sort of canvas bucket

half-full of water, and I don’t think I’ve a scare in me.”

* * * * *

Teddy Rocco might have recalled this conversation, with superstitious

interest in its prophetic nature, the week before he left for the prize

meetings; but that, with most other things, was swept out of his mind

when he hunted for Santoni with blood on his face, swearing that he had

always intended to kill the proprietor and might as well get it over.

It all happened in consequence of Santoni’s attempt to achieve a gala

finish to his season before his stars departed. To that end, he had

employed many banners in decoration of the velodrome, and one of them,

insecurely affixed to its post, came loose while the riders were in

mid-career. It fluttered aimlessly down upon the track, was caught up

in the wind of Ryan’s rush, danced a little behind him, and finally

wrapped itself round Sadie’s front wheel. There was a gasp of horror

from the spectators as the flimsy, yellow cotton wound itself tightly

on the hub.

For a fraction of a second the heavy cycle, urged by its frantic motor,

slurred along the track with its front wheel jammed; then the tire

burst, the forks snapped like carrots, and Sadie’s tiny red figure

shot ahead over the handle-bars, struck the wire fence in front of the

spectators, and fell back limply on the track.

In that final emergency she had retained presence of mind enough to cut

off the ignition, and below her on the incline her machine lay crumpled

and inert, as silent and shattered as herself.

Teddy Rocco was fully fifty yards behind; that is, he had a good long

second in which to do his thinking. To his left was Sadie’s machine,

on his right the crowd yelled an inarticulate chorus of fear and

warning, which he heard above the roar of his motor. Dead ahead of him

lay a small, outstretched figure in torn and dusty scarlet leather;

and immediately above the white little face was a clear foot of almost

perpendicular banking.

With a prayer for speed, he tore his throttle wide open, and steered

straight for that pale, blood-stained face until he could see the dark

lashes on the flickering eyelids; then with a violent swerve he shot up

the incline, and cleared her by inches.

The spectators cried aloud in terror as his front wheel rose on the

wire mesh in front of them, raced along it for a yard or two, shaved

a fence-post, and slipped back upon the track. The machine lurched

sickeningly into the hollow of the banking in a last effort to recover

its balance.

Teddy Rocco’s engine had stopped as he cleared the girl, and his toe

was pressed hard into the fork of his front wheel. The braked tire

screeched along the track, and when at last he struck the ground, his

speed was not more than twenty miles an hour. To the crowd it seemed

that he lay just where he had fallen, and they roared aloud in relief,

and in admiration of what appeared to be purely consummate pluck and

skill.

When Teddy recovered his senses, drank out of a flask that Ryan held

to his lips, and stared about him, the first thing he saw was a tiny

patch of red disappearing over the edge of the track in the arms of the

attendants. Behind walked the faded woman he knew as “Aunty,” wringing

her hands in utterly justified pessimism. At one entrance a knot of

spectators filed sadly out, and among them a frightened woman wept

without restraint.

Teddy went mad. He wanted to follow the little red patch wherever it

might be bound. Restrained from this, he desired greatly the death of

Santoni.

“I told him them things was dangerous,” he repeated, with the futile

insistence of an intoxicated man.

When they laid hands on him again, he fainted, and it was then that

they had the first opportunity to ascertain that his shoulder was

dislocated. With the tenderness of a woman, Ryan picked him up and bore

him away.

* * * * *

During the week before he was due to depart Teddy besieged the hospital

in which lay Sadie’s tortured little form, and sent up flowers daily,

until at last the nurse assured him that she had been able to see

them, and even to hold some of them in her hand. At this he begged and

stormed and wept until he was allowed to see her, despite the fact

that, as they explained to him in vain, it was not visitors’ day.

But when he stood at her bedside, and she smiled wanly up at him out

of her bandages, and even put forth a very white little hand for him

to shake, a great peace came over him. There was still enough of her,

after all, to be worth dressing.

“Tough luck, Teddy-Eddy!” she whispered in that deep, small voice of

hers. “Just to think I might never hear the band play for the start

again, or the engine rip when I turn on the juice--it gives me a lot to

worry about. You ought to be glad I didn’t take you at your word that

day in the garage when you wanted to lay Ryan out and asked me to marry

you. Look at what a fix you’d be in now!”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” murmured Teddy. “I’d have

wanted you just the same.”

“Do you mean to say you’d marry a wreck like me, Teddy Rocco? I’m all

to pieces; you haven’t a notion how badly I got mashed.”

“And I don’t care, neither,” said Teddy, stoutly. “You’re alive, thank

Heaven! And you’re Sadie Simmons, and you can smile. Shall I send for a

parson?”

“What, now?”

“Only say the word.”

The girl picked at the sheet for a moment, and her eyes, now ringed

with suffering and no longer bright, searched his face wonderingly;

but they found no trace of an emotion other than eagerness to be as

good as his word.

“I don’t know,” she said at last; “it’ll need thinking over. You know,

it was hitting the wire fence that saved me, Teddy. It was like diving

into a net.”

“Pretty hard net,” grinned the boy, reminiscently.

“Lucky for you, or you’d have gone through it. Teddy boy, why didn’t

you run over me? I’m so small! You must have been mad to ride into the

fence like that.”

“Who told you?” demanded Teddy.

“Nurse. She says you hadn’t a chance in a thousand to get round me

without breaking your neck. I always liked you, Teddy. I’m glad you’re

brave.”

“Then why not marry me, Sadie?” The boy came closer, while the nurse

hovered about impatiently. “You can’t come back, you know. However good

they patch you up, you’re done with the game.”

“Marry you, after what I said about looking for a rich guy? I’m bad

and selfish, and I want so much. And I’m older than you think--nearly

nineteen. I only wore my hair that way for a stall. Would you really

marry me now, when I’m all cut up and no one else would look at me?”

“Call me and see,” suggested Teddy, quietly.

“I’ll let you know later, Teddy. It depends--”

“But I’m going to Dayton to-night to race, and then I go South again.

How am I to know?”

Sadie considered for a moment with eyes closed. When she opened them

again, her face was very grave.

“Come past here on your way to the depot,” she said, “and look at this

window above the bed. It’s the fourth from the end. If the blind’s up,

you can bring along your parson.”

“And if it’s down?”

“If it’s down, it will mean that you’d better forget all about me.”

“Then leave it up, Sadie,” he whispered as the nurse bustled up

suggestively. “I’m only two thousand short of buying a garage in

Florida, where I used to work. You’d love to be down there--all

sunshine, pelicans, palms, and sugar-cane, and butterflies as big as

your hand soaring about. You’d get well and strong down there, Sadie,

and I’d be so good to you! Don’t let them pull it down!”

The nurse came nearer and began to fidget with the pillows.

“I’ll have to get you to leave now, young man,” she said. “The doctor

will be here in a moment.”

“Take care of yourself, Teddy,” smiled the girl, waving her hand feebly

as he tore himself away. “Touch wood as you go out.”

She set her teeth for the doctor’s visit, and said not a word until he

had finished his examination; but her black eyes studied his face in an

agony of suspense. A momentary smile, accompanied by a raising of his

bushy, gray eyebrows, gave her the cue.

“Doctor, will I get well?” she asked almost under her breath.

“Why, of course,” replied the doctor. “As well as ever you were, I’m

hoping.”

“But--but will I be ugly?”

“Little Miss Vanity!” grinned the doctor. “You ought to be thankful you

have a breath left in your body. No, you won’t be ugly, if you mean

disfigured. Of course there’ll be scars--”

“Do you think I’ll be able to ride again?” persisted the girl.

“I don’t know why you shouldn’t be able to ride; but I guess when you

set eyes on the track you won’t want to. As for the rest, the cuts are

pretty clean and not deep. I should say, on the whole, that you’ll

have to look fairly close into the glass to see the one on your cheek,

and your hair will cover the scalp-wound. The others aren’t anywhere

to prevent you from wearing low-cut frocks. Now, are you satisfied,

daughter of Eve?”

“Yes, thank you, Doctor. If the bone in my arm mends all right, that

is. It’s hurting a whole lot to-day.”

“That means precisely that it is mending,” said the doctor as he picked

up his bag to depart. “And now that you’re sure of your precious

beauty, you’d better try to get some sleep.”

Sadie closed her eyes obediently, but her brows were knitted in

thought. When the doctor had moved on, she looked up again with a sigh.

“Nurse, the light bothers my eyes, and I can’t turn my head,” she said.

“Will you please pull down the blind?”

* * * * *

While it is still young and overflowing with vitality, the human frame

is able to summon life forces to its aid that can sometimes knit up

broken bones and torn tissues as though by magic power. Teddy Rocco

had seen various striking demonstrations of this quality in his racing

career, but it had never occurred to him that a mere girl might possess

it. He was greatly astonished, therefore, on meeting Ryan at a southern

track, to hear that Sadie was once more riding for the “Flying Centaur”

people.

“She don’t look a cent worse,” said Ryan. “Same little red suit, same

little smile, same throaty little voice. And she’s making good, too.

Been all over the West, and packed up a nice parcel of the long green.

Not that she’ll ever need it; that kid will marry a million some day.

One of the guys that was following her round was big rich.”

All that day Teddy rode entirely without judgment, and his old

daredevil dash was not in him. In fact, that was becoming his

consistent experience. Every time he would set his teeth and let his

engine out to the last notch to pass the man in front, a blind seemed

to shut down in front of him, or a little red figure would appear

stretched on the track ahead, and he would let the chance slip by.

Consequently, when he returned to give exhibitions at the Devil’s

Soup-plate, he was no nearer the white southern garage of his dreams

than he had been the previous season. And the life of a speed-man is

short,--much shorter, as a rule, than that of a boxing champion.

That garage, gleaming in the sun, with a palm or two in front and

lizards basking in its shadow, had been Teddy’s lodestar for years;

but on the first day of their meeting, Sadie’s brisk little figure

had slipped into the picture, and he could not imagine the place now

without seeing her standing at the door in a white dress, with no hat,

but with a bunch of crimson flowers at her waist.

“This is my finish,” he told Santoni; “I’m a has-been. I’ve started

seein’ things. I won’t ride after this season.”

Then he learned, with a shock, that Sadie was to be his

racing-companion once more. She had walked into Santoni’s office and

offered to give exhibitions on the old terms; and Santoni, being too

good a business man, and too stout withal to stand on his head for

joy, had shaken her by both hands, and spent an afternoon in devising a

poster more sensational than any he had previously compassed.

When he wrote “America’s Foremost Queen of the Track” it seemed to him

weak and colorless; and he threw adjectives into it until Sadie had a

title as long as her arm.

Teddy slipped away and hid himself when he saw her arrive, with a knot

of admirers, to survey the track. An expensively tailored costume

emphasized her recent prosperity, and her obvious gaiety of manner was

like a snub. When she laughingly pointed out to her companions the

precise spot on which she had struck the providential wire fence, Teddy

shuddered and turned away.

In the garage he came upon a mechanic overhauling her mount, an

excessively powerful machine with four cylinders, its frame enameled

bright scarlet, and nickeled in an unusual degree. It looked a

sufficiently dangerous mount for a strong and skilful man racing on a

spacious track. He shrank from seeing Sadie ride it in the restricted

circle of the soup-plate.

When they appeared on the track in the evening, however, he could no

longer ignore her presence. Indeed, she came behind him and slapped him

gaily on the shoulder, such a trim, joyously captivating midget, in her

scarlet leather motor-jacket, that his heart leaped at the sight of her.

“Who said I couldn’t come back, Teddy Rocco?” she asked, and the

familiar, curious huskiness of her voice thrilled him so that he could

not reply.

“I’m going to make you look like a never-was to-night, Teddy-Eddy,” she

went on, with a sort of malicious exhilaration in her manner. “I expect

you’re still single?”

“Oh, cut it out, Sadie!” he pleaded. “I never done you any harm.”

“Do you love me as much as ever?” asked little Miss Simmons, with an

unwonted feline delight in cruelty. “The villain thought he had the

poor little girl just where he wanted her, didn’t he? But the kind,

handsome doctor rescued her all right; and now she’s going to make the

villain look like thirty cents.”

“You’ll have to go some,” said Teddy, grinning miserably, as he stooped

to adjust his carbureter. When he mounted his machine he was in a

white-hot, searing temper. If all the women in the world had been laid

side by side on an endless track, he would have ridden over their necks

at that moment with an exquisite pleasure.

But though he rode with the courage of bitterness and desperation, he

soon found that Sadie had the heels of him. Once or twice when she

shot past him with an almost crazy recklessness, the thought flashed

through his mind that an imperceptible swerve of his handle-bar would

all but inevitably end both their lives, and he weakly throttled down

his engine, fearful lest the subconscious working of his tortured mind

might communicate a tremor to his arm; and every time that Sadie passed

him with a vicious spurt of her diabolical scarlet mount, he caught in

her eye a gleam of impish triumph.

It was when he found himself riding behind her, with his front wheel

a hand’s-breadth from her hind one, that he realized how utterly his

nerve had failed. Ever and again, under his front wheel appeared a

white, blood-flecked little face, with eyelashes that quivered in

agony. With a sob, he cut out his engine and slid slowly down the track.

“I’m through,” he said to a mechanic who seized his cycle. “I don’t

think I’ll need her again.”

For a long time he sat in the gloom of the garage in dumb agony, and

even there the rip of Sadie’s powerful engine followed him above

the cheers of the crowd. Now and then, in the midst of the uproar,

he could hear the voice of Santoni yelling the laps; then there was

a final outburst of cheering. When it died away, Sadie’s motor was

silent. A moment later, as it seemed to him, the door of the workshop

slammed, and he looked up, to see her standing before him, her black

eyes dancing in that strange exhilaration that he had noted before, her

chest heaving with excitement under the vivid scarlet of her jacket.

“I’ve shaded your track record, Teddy Rocco!” she cried. “I’ve beaten

you to bits! Now say I can’t come back! I’ve come, haven’t I?”

“I guess,” said Teddy, humbly.

“And what’s more, I’ve cleaned up three thousand dollars this season,

and I haven’t a scar left on me that you could see in this light. But

you’ll have to take my word for that. We can talk on level terms now,

Teddy. I’m as good as ever I was, don’t you think?”

“I expect so,” stammered Teddy. “It’s me that’s in bad. I’ve lost

heart, Sadie, and my nerve’s gone. I’ve been scared a time too many.”

“Then get your machine and rush me away,” cried Sadie, “and marry me

the first minute you can; and we’ll get out of this to Florida in the

morning, and see the garage and the sunshine and the butterflies. It’s

a square deal now, Teddy-Eddy. Stand up and kiss your honey-bird, you

brave, silly, big-hearted, mush-headed little man; for I love you so

much I couldn’t have offered you anything less, and I’ve waited so

long, my heart feels like it will burst!”

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

T. TEMBAROM

BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

Author of “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s,” “The Shuttle,” etc.

WITH DECORATIVE PICTURES BY CHARLES S. CHAPMAN