THE PROPHETS
August in town found an unusual number of New York men at the clubs, at
the restaurants, at the summer theatres. Men who very seldom shoved
their noses inside the metropolitan oven during the summer baking were
now to be met everywhere and anywhere within the financial district and
without. The sky-perched and magnificent down-town "clubs" were full of
men who under normal circumstances would have remained at Newport,
Lenox, Bar Harbor, or who at least would have spent the greater portion
of the summer on their yachts or their Long Island estates.
And in every man's hand or pocket was a newspaper.
They were scarcely worth reading for mere pleasure, these New York
newspapers; indeed, there was scarcely anything in them to read except a
daily record of the steady decline in securities of every description;
paragraphs noting the passing of dividends; columns setting forth
minutely the opinions of very wealthy men concerning the business
outlook; chronicles in detail of suits brought against railroads and
against great industrial corporations; accounts of inquiries by State
and by Federal authorities into combinations resulting in an alleged
violation of various laws.
Here and there a failure of some bucket-branded broker was noted--the
reports echoing like the first dropping shots along the firing line.
Even to the most casual and uninterested outsider it was evident that
already the metropolis was under a tension; that the tension was
increasing almost imperceptibly day by day; that there seemed to be no
very clear idea as to the reason of it, only a confused apprehension, an
apparently unreassuring fear of some grotesque danger ahead, which daily
reading of the newspapers was not at all calculated to allay.
Of course there were precise reasons for impending trouble given and
reiterated by those amateurs of finance and politics whose opinions are
at the disposal of the newspaper-reading public.
Prolixity characterised these solemn utterances, packed full of cant
phrases such as "undigested securities" and "the treacherous attack on
the nation's integrity."
Two principal reasons were given for the local financial uneasiness; and
the one made the other ridiculous--first, that the nation's Executive
was mad as Nero and had deliberately begun a senseless holocaust
involving the entire nation; the other that a "panic" was due, anyway.
It resembled the logic of the White Queen of immortal memory, who began
screaming before she pricked her finger in order to save herself any
emotion after the pin had drawn blood.
Men knew in their hearts that there was no real reason for impending
trouble; that this menace was an unreal thing, intangible, without
substance--only a shadow cast by their own assininity.
Yet shadows can be made real property when authority so ordains. Because
there was once a man with a donkey who met a stranger in the desert.
The stranger bargained for and bought the donkey; the late owner shoved
the shekels into his ample pockets and sat down in the mule's shadow to
escape the sun; and the new owner brought suit to recover the rent due
him for the occupation of the shadow cast by his donkey.
There was also a mule which waited seven years to kick.
There are asses and mules and all sorts of shadows. The ordinance of
authority can affect only the shadow; the substance is immutable.
Among other serious gentlemen of consideration and means who had been
unaccustomed to haunt the metropolis in the dog days was Colonel
Alexander Mallett, President of the Half Moon Trust Company, and
incidentally Duane's father.
His town-house was still open, although his wife and daughter were in
the country. To it, in the comparative cool of the August evenings, came
figures familiar in financial circles; such men as Magnelius Grandcourt,
father of Delancy; and Remsen Tappan, and James Cray.
Others came and went, men of whom Duane had read in the newspapers--very
great men who dressed very simply, very powerful men who dressed
elaborately; and some were young and red-faced with high living, and one
was damp of hair and long-nosed, with eyes set a trifle too close
together; and one fulfilled every external requisite for a "good
fellow"; and another was very old, very white, with a nut-cracker jaw
and faded eyes, blue as an unweaned pup's, and a cream-coloured wig
curled glossily over waxen ears and a bloodless and furrowed neck.
All these were very great men; but they and Colonel Mallett journeyed at
intervals into the presence of a greater man who inhabited, all alone,
except for a crew of a hundred men, an enormous yacht, usually at
anchor off the white masonry cliffs of the seething city.
All alone this very great man inhabited the huge white steamer; and they
piped him fore and they piped him aft and they piped him over the side.
Many a midnight star looked down at the glowing end of his black cigar;
many a dawn shrilled with his boatswain's whistle. He was a very, very
great man; none was greater in New York town.
It was said of him that he once killed a pompous statesman--by ridicule:
"I know who _you_ are!" panted a ragged urchin, gazing up in awe as the
famous statesman approached his waiting carriage.
"And who am I, my little man?"
"You are the great senator from New York."
"Yes--you are right. _But_"--and he solemnly pointed his gloved
forefinger toward heaven--"but, remember, there is One even greater than
I."
Duane had heard the absurd lampoon as a child, and one evening late in
August, smoking his after-dinner cigar beside his father in the empty
conservatory, he recalled the story, which had been one of his father's
favorites.
But Colonel Mallett scarcely smiled, scarcely heard; and his son watched
him furtively. The trim, elastic figure was less upright this summer;
the close gray hair and cavalry mustache had turned white very rapidly
since spring. For the first time, too, in all his life, Colonel Mallett
wore spectacles; and the thin gold rims irritated his ears and the
delicate bridge of his nose. Under his pleasant eyes the fine skin had
darkened noticeably; thin new lines had sprung downward from the
nostrils' clean-cut wings; but the most noticeable change was in his
hands, which were no longer firm and fairly smooth, but were now the
hands of an old man, restless if not tremulous, unsteady in handling the
cigar which, unnoticed, had gone out.
They--father and son--had never been very intimate. An excellent
understanding had always existed between them with nothing deeper in it
than a natural affection and an instinctive respect for each other's
privacy.
This respect now oppressed Duane because long habit, and the understood
pact, seemed to bar him from a sympathy and a practical affection which,
for the first time, it seemed to him his father might care for.
That his father was worried was plain enough; but how anxious and with
how much reason, he had hesitated to ask, waiting for some voluntary
admission, or at least some opening, which the older man never gave.
That night, however, he had tried an opening for himself, offering the
old stock story which had always, heretofore, amused his father. And
there had been no response.
In silence he thought the matter over; his sympathy was always quick; it
hurt him to remain aloof when there might be a chance that he could help
a little.
"It may amuse you," he said carelessly, "to know how much I've made
since I came back from Paris."
The elder man looked up preoccupied. His son went on:
"What you set aside for me brings me ten thousand a year, you know. So
far I haven't touched it. Isn't that pretty good for a start?"
Colonel Mallett sat up straighter with a glimmer of interest in his
eyes.
Duane went on, checking off on his fingers:
"I got fifteen hundred for Mrs. Varick's portrait, the same for Mrs.
James Cray's, a thousand each for portraits of Carl and Friedrich
Gumble; that makes five thousand. Then I had three thousand for the
music-room I did for Mrs. Ellis; and Dinklespiel Brothers, who handle my
pictures, have sold every one I sent; which gives me twelve thousand so
far."
"I am perfectly astonished," murmured his father.
Duane laughed. "Oh, I know very well that sheer merit had nothing much
to do with it. The people who gave me orders are all your friends. They
did it as they might have sent in wedding presents; I am your son; I
come back from Paris; it's up to them to do something. They've done
it--those who ever will, I expect--and from now on it will be
different."
"They've given you a start," said his father.
"They certainly have done that. Many a brilliant young fellow, with more
ability than I, eats out his heart unrecognised, sterilised for lack of
what came to me because of your influence."
"It is well to look at it in that way for the present," said his father.
He sat silent for a while, staring through the dusk at the lighted
windows of houses in the rear. Then:
"I have meant to say, Duane, that I--we"--he found a little difficulty
in choosing his words--"that the Trust Company's officers feel that, for
the present, it is best for them to reconsider their offer that you
should undertake the mural decoration of the new building."
"Oh," said Duane, "I'm sorry!--but it's all right, father."
"I told them you'd take it without offence. I told them that I'd tell
you the reason we do not feel quite ready to incur, at this moment, any
additional expenses."
"Everybody is economising," said Duane cheerfully, "so I understand. No
doubt--later----"
"No doubt," said his father gravely.
The son's attitude was careless, untroubled; he dropped one long leg
over the other knee, and idly examining his cigar, cast one swift level
look at the older man:
"Father?"
"Yes, my son."
"I--it just occurred to me that if you happen to have any temporary use
for what you very generously set aside for me, don't stand on ceremony."
There ensued a long silence. It was his bedtime when Colonel Mallett
stirred in his holland-covered armchair and stood up.
"Thank you, my son," he said simply; they shook hands and separated; the
father to sleep, if he could; the son to go out into the summer night,
walk to his nearest club, and write his daily letter to the woman he
loved:
"Dear, it is not at all bad in town--not that murderous, humid heat
that you think I'm up against; and you must stop reproaching
yourself for enjoying the delicious breezes in the Adirondacks.
Women don't know what a jolly time men have in town. Follows the
chronical of this August day:
"I had your letter; that is breeze enough for me; it was all full of
blue sky and big white clouds and the scent of Adirondack pines.
Isn't it jolly for you and Kathleen to be at the Varicks' camp! And
what a jolly crowd you've run into.
"I note what you say about your return to the Berkshires, and that
you expect to be at Berkshire Pass Inn with the motor on Monday.
Give my love to Naïda; I know you three and young Montross will have
a bully tour through the hill country.
"I also note your red-pencil cross at the top of the page--which
always gives me, as soon as I open a letter of yours, the assurance
that all is still well with you and that victory still remains with
you. Thank God! Stand steady, little girl, for the shadows are
flying and the dawn is ours.
"After your letter, breakfast with father--a rather silent one. Then
he went down-town in his car and I walked to the studio. It's one of
those stable-like studios which decorate the cross-streets in the
50's, but big enough to work in.
"A rather bothersome bit of news: the Trust Company reconsiders its
commission; and I have three lunettes and three big mural panels
practically completed. For a while I'll admit I had the blues, but,
after all, some day the Trust Company is likely to take up the thing
again and give me the commission. Anyway, I've had a corking time
doing the things, and lots of valuable practice in handling a big
job and covering large surfaces; and the problem has been most
exciting and interesting because, you see, I've had to solve it,
taking into consideration the architecture and certain fixed keys
and standards, such as the local colour and texture of the marble
and the limitations of the light area. Don't turn up your pretty
nose; it's all very interesting.
"I didn't bother about luncheon; and about five I went to the club,
rather tired in my spinal column and arm-weary.
"Nobody was there whom you know except Delancy Grandcourt and
Dysart. The latter certainly looks very haggard. I do not like him
personally, as you know, but the man looks ill and old and the
papers are becoming bolder in what they hint at concerning him and
the operations he was, and is still supposed to be, connected with;
and it is deplorable to see such a physical change in any human
being, guilty or innocent. I do not like to see pain; I never did.
For Dysart I have no use at all, but he is suffering, and it is
difficult to contemplate any suffering unmoved.
"There was a letter at the club for me from Scott. He says he's
plugging away at the Rose-beetle's life history as a hors-d'oeuvre
before tackling the appetising problem of his total extermination.
Dear old Scott! I never thought that the boy I fought in your garden
would turn into a spectacled savant. Or that his sister would prove
to be the only inspiration and faith and hope that life holds for
me!
"I talked to Delancy. He _is_ a good young man, as you've always
insisted. I know one thing; he's high-minded and gentle. Dysart has
a manner of treating him which is most offensive, but it only
reflects discredit on Dysart.
"Delancy told me that Rosalie is hostess in her own cottage this
month and has asked him up. I heard him speaking rather diffidently
to Dysart about it, and Dysart replied that he didn't 'give a damn
who went to the house,' as he wasn't going.
"So much for gossip; now a fact or two: my father is plainly worried
over the business outlook; and he's quite alone in the house; and
that is why I don't go back to Roya-Neh just now and join your
brother. I could do plenty of work there. Scott writes that the new
studio is in good shape for me. What a generous girl you are! Be
certain that at the very first opportunity I will go and occupy it
and paint, no doubt, several exceedingly remarkable pictures in it
which will sell for enormous prices and enable us to keep a
maid-of-all-work when we begin our ménage!
"Father has retired--poor old governor--it tears me all to pieces to
see him so silent and listless. I am here at the club writing this
before I go home to bed. Now I am going. Good-night, my beloved.
"DUANE."
"P.S.--An honour, or the chance of it, has suddenly confronted me,
surprising me so much that I don't really dare to believe that it
can possibly happen to me--at least not for years. It is this: I met
Guy Wilton the other day; you don't know him, but he is a most
charming and cultivated man, an engineer. I lunched with him at the
Pyramid--that bully old club into which nothing on earth can take a
man who has not distinguished himself in his profession. It is
composed of professional and business men, the law, the army, navy,
diplomatic and consular, the arts and sciences, and usually the
chief executive of the nation.
"During luncheon Wilton said: 'You ought to be in here. You are the
proper timber.'
"I was astounded and told him so.
"He said: 'By the way, the president of the Academy of Design is
very much impressed with some work of yours he has seen. I've heard
him, and other artists, also, discussing some pictures of yours
which were exhibited in a Fifth Avenue gallery.'
"Well, you know, Geraldine, the breath was getting scarcer in my
lungs every minute and I hadn't a word to say. And do you know what
that trump of a mining engineer did? He took me about after luncheon
and I met a lot of very corking old ducks and some very eminent and
delightful younger ducks, and everybody was terribly nice, and the
president of the Academy, who is startlingly young and amiable, said
that Guy Wilton had spoken about me, and that it was customary that
when anybody was proposed for membership, a man of his own
profession should do it.
"And I looked over the club list and saw Billy Van Siclen's name,
and now what do you think! Billy has proposed me, Austin, the marine
painter, has seconded me, and no end of men have written in my
behalf--professors, army men, navy men, business friends of
father's, architects, writers--and I'm terribly excited over it,
although my excitement has plenty of time to cool because it's a
fearfully conservative club and a man has to wait years, anyway.
"This is the very great honour, dear, for it is one even to be
proposed for the Pyramid. I know you will be happy over it.
"D."
The weather became hotter toward the beginning of September; his studio
was almost unendurable, nor was the house very much better.
To eat was an effort; to sleep a martyrdom. Night after night he rose
from his hot pillows to stand and listen outside his father's door; but
the old endure heat better than the young, and very often his father was
asleep in the stifling darkness which made sleep for him impossible.
The usual New York thunder-storms rolled up over Staten Island, covered
the southwest with inky gloom, veined the horizon with lightning, then
burst in spectacular fury over the panting city, drenched it to its
steel foundations, and passed on rumbling up the Hudson, leaving
scarcely any relief behind it.
In one of these sudden thunder-storms he took refuge in a rather modest
and retired restaurant just off Fifth Avenue; and it being the luncheon
hour he made a convenience of necessity and looked about for a table,
and discovered Rosalie Dysart and Delancy Grandcourt en tête-à-tête over
their peach and grapefruit salad.
There was no reason why they should not have been there; no reason why
he should have hesitated to speak to them. But he did hesitate--in fact,
was retiring by the way he came, when Rosalie glanced around with that
instinct which divines a familiar presence, gave him a startled look,
coloured promptly to her temples, and recovered her equanimity with a
smile and a sign for him to join them. So he shook hands, but remained
standing.
"We ran into town in the racer this morning," she explained. "Delancy
had something on down-town and I wanted to look over some cross-saddles
they made for me at Thompson's. Do be amiable and help us eat our salad.
What a ghastly place town is in September! It's bad enough in the
country this year; all the men wear long faces and mutter dreadful
prophecies. Can you tell me, Duane, what all this doleful talk is
about?"
"It's about something harder to digest than this salad. The public
stomach is ostrichlike, but it can't stand the water-cure. Which is all
Arabic to you, Rosalie, and I don't mean to be impertinent, only the
truth is I don't know why people are losing confidence in the financial
stability of the country, but they apparently are."
"There's a devilish row on down-town," observed Delancy, blinking, as an
unusually heavy clap of thunder rattled the dishes.
"What kind of a row?" asked Duane.
"Greensleeve & Co. have failed, with liabilities of a million and
microscopical assets."
Rosalie raised her eyebrows; Greensleeve & Co. were once brokers for her
husband if she remembered correctly. Duane had heard of them but was
only vaguely impressed.
"Is that rather a bad thing?" he inquired.
"Well--I don't know. It made a noise louder than that thunder. Three
banks fell down in Brooklyn, too."
"What banks?"
Delancy named them; it sounded serious, but neither Duane nor Rosalie
were any wiser.
"The Wolverine Mercantile Loan and Trust Company closed its doors,
also," observed Delancy, dropping the tips of his long, highly coloured
fingers into his finger-bowl as though to wash away all personal
responsibility for these financial flip-flaps.
Rosalie laughed: "This is pleasant information for a rainy day," she
said. "Duane, have you heard from Geraldine?"
"Yes, to-day," he said innocently; "she is leaving Lenox this morning
for Roya-Neh. I hear that there is to be some shooting there Christmas
week. Scott writes that the boar and deer are increasing very fast and
must be kept down. You and Delancy are on the list, I believe."
Rosalie nodded; Delancy said: "Miss Seagrave has been good enough to ask
the family. Yours is booked, too, I fancy."
"Yes, if my father only feels up to it. Christmas at Roya-Neh ought to
be a jolly affair."
"Christmas anywhere away from New York ought to be a relief," observed
young Grandcourt drily.
They laughed without much spirit. Coffee was served, cigarettes lighted.
Presently Grandcourt sent a page to find out if the car had returned
from the garage where Rosalie had sent it for a minor repair.
The car was ready, it appeared; Rosalie retired to readjust her hair and
veil; the two men standing glanced at one another:
"I suppose you know," said Delancy, reddening with embarrassment, "that
Mr. and Mrs. Dysart have separated."
"I heard so yesterday," said Duane coolly.
The other grew redder: "I heard it from Mrs. Dysart about half an hour
ago." He hesitated, then frankly awkward: "I say, Mallett, I'm a sort of
an ass about these things. Is there any impropriety in my going about
with Mrs. Dysart--under the circumstances?"
"Why--no!" said Duane. "Rosalie has to go about with people, I suppose.
Only--perhaps it's fairer to her if you don't do it too often--I mean
it's better for her that any one man should not appear to pay her
noticeable attention. You know what mischief can get into print. What's
taken below stairs is often swiped and stealthily perused above stairs."
"I suppose so. I don't read it myself, but it makes game of my mother
and she finds a furious consolation in taking it to my father and
planning a suit for damages once a week. You're right; most people are
afraid of it. Do you think it's all right for me to motor back with Mrs.
Dysart?"
"Are _you_ afraid?" asked Duane, smiling.
"Only on her account," said Grandcourt, so simply that a warm feeling
rose in Duane's heart for this big, ungainly, vividly coloured young
fellow whose direct and honest gaze always refreshed people even when
they laughed at him.
"Are you driving?" asked Duane.
"Yes. We came in at a hell of a clip. It made my hair stand, but Mrs.
Dysart likes it.... I say, Mallett, what sort of an outcome do you
suppose there'll be?"
"Between Rosalie and Jack Dysart?"
"Yes."
"I know no more than you, Grandcourt. Why?"
"Only that--it's too bad. I've known them so long; I'm friendly with
both. Jack is a curious fellow. There's much of good in him, Mallett,
although I believe you and he are not on terms. He is a--I don't mean
this for criticism--but sometimes his manner is unfortunate, leading
people to consider him overbearing.
"I understand why people think so; I get angry at him, sometimes,
myself--being perhaps rather sensitive and very conscious that I am not
anything remarkable.
"But, somehow"--he looked earnestly at Duane--"I set a very great value
on old friendships. He and I were at school. I always admired in him the
traits I myself have lacked.... There is something about an old
friendship that seems very important to me. I couldn't very easily break
one.... It is that way with me, Mallett.... Besides, when I think,
perhaps, that Jack Dysart is a trifle overbearing and too free with his
snubs, I go somewhere and cool off; and I think that in his heart he
must like me as well as I do him because, sooner or later, we always
manage to drift together again.... That is one reason why I am so
particular about his wife."
Another reason happened to be that he had been in love with her himself
when Dysart gracefully shouldered his way between them and married
Rosalie Dene. Duane had heard something about it; and he wondered a
little at the loyalty to such a friendship that this young man so
naïvely confessed.
"I'll tell you what I think," said Duane; "I think you're the best sort
of an anchor for Rosalie Dysart. Only a fool would mistake your
friendship. But the town's full of 'em, Grandcourt," he added with a
smile.
"I suppose so.... And I say, Mallett--may I ask you something more?... I
don't like to pester you with questions----"
"Go on, my friend. I take it as a clean compliment from a clean-cut
man."
Delancy coloured, checked, but presently found voice to continue:
"That's very good of you; I thought I might speak to you about this
Greensleeve & Co.'s failure before Mrs. Dysart returns."
"Certainly," said Duane, surprised; "what about them? They acted for
Dysart at one time, didn't they?"
"They do now."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am. I didn't want to say so before Mrs. Dysart. But the
afternoon papers have it. I don't know why they take such a malicious
pleasure in harrying Dysart--unless on account of his connections with
that Yo Espero crowd--what's their names?--Skelton! Oh, yes, James
Skelton--and Emanuel Klawber with his thirty millions and his string of
banks and trusts and mines; and that plunger, Max Moebus, and old Amos
Flack--Flack the hack stalking-horse of every bull-market, who laid down
on his own brokers and has done everybody's dirty work ever since. How
on earth, Mallett, do you suppose Jack Dysart ever got himself mixed up
with such a lot of skyrockets and disreputable fly-by-nights?"
Duane did not answer. He had nothing good to say or think of Dysart.
Rosalie reappeared at that moment in her distractingly pretty pongee
motor-coat and hat.
"Do come back with us, Duane," she said. "There's a rumble and we'll get
the mud off you with a hose."
"I'd like to run down sometimes if you'll let me," he said, shaking
hands.
So they parted, he to return to his studio, where models booked long
ahead awaited him for canvases which he was going on with, although the
great Trust Company that ordered them had practically thrown them back
on his hands.
That evening at home when he came downstairs dressed in white serge for
dinner, he found his father unusually silent, very pale, and so tired
that he barely tasted the dishes the butler offered, and sat for the
most part motionless, head and shoulders sagging against the back of his
chair.
And after dinner in the conservatory Duane lighted his father's cigar
and then his own.
"What's wrong?" he asked, pleasantly invading the privacy of years
because he felt it was the time to do it.
His father slowly turned his head and looked at him--seemed to study
the well-knit, loosely built, athletic figure of this strong young
man--his only son--as though searching for some support in the youthful
strength he gazed upon.
He said, very deliberately, but with a voice not perfectly steady:
"Matters are not going very well, my boy."
"What matters, father?"
"Down-town."
"Yes, I've heard. But, after all, you people in the Half Moon need only
crawl into your shell and lie still."
"Yes."
After a silence:
"Father, have you any outside matters that trouble you?"
"There are--some."
"You are not involved seriously?"
His father made an effort: "I think not, Duane."
"Oh, all right. If you were, I was going to suggest that I've deposited
what I have, subject to your order, with your own cashier."
"That is--very kind of you, my son. I may--find use for it--for a short
time. Would you take my note?"
Duane laughed. He went on presently: "I wrote Naïda the other day. She
has given me power of attorney. What she has is there, any time you need
it."
His father hung his head in silence; only his colourless and shrunken
hands worked on the arms of his chair.
"See here, father," said the young fellow; "don't let this thing bother
you. Anything that could possibly happen is better than to have you look
and feel as you do. Suppose the very worst happens--which it won't--but
suppose it did and we all went gaily to utter smash.
"That is a detail compared with your going to smash physically. Because
Naïda and I never did consider such things vital; and mother is a brick
when it comes to a show-down. And as for me, why, if the very worst hits
us, I can take care of our bunch. It's in me to do it. I suppose you
don't think so. But I can make money enough to keep us together, and,
after all, that's the main thing."
His father said nothing.
"Of course," laughed Duane, "I don't for a moment suppose that anything
like that is on the cards. I don't know what your fortune is, but
judging from your generosity to Naïda and me I fancy it's too solid to
worry over. The trouble with you gay old capitalists," he added, "is
that you think in such enormous sums! And you forget that little sums
are required to make us all very happy; and if some of the millions
which you cannot possibly ever use happen to escape you, the tragic
aspect as it strikes you is out of all proportion to the real state of
the case."
His father felt the effort his son was making; looked up wearily, strove
to smile, to relight his cigar; which Duane did for him, saying:
"As long as you are not mixed up in that Klawber, Skelton, Moebus crowd,
I'm not inclined to worry. It seems, as of course you know, that
Dysart's brokers failed to-day."
"So I heard," said his father steadily. He straightened himself in his
chair. "I am sorry. Mr. Greensleeve is a very old friend----"
The library telephone rang; the second man entered and asked if Colonel
Mallett could speak to Mr. Dysart over the wire on a matter concerning
the Yo Espero district.
Duane, astonished, sprang up asking if he might not take the message;
then shrank aside as his father got to his feet. He saw the ghastly
pallor on his face as his father passed him, moving toward the library;
stood motionless in troubled amazement, then walked to the open window
of the conservatory and, leaning there, waited.
His father did not return. Later a servant came:
"Colonel Mallett has retired, Mr. Duane, and begs that he be
undisturbed, as he is very tired."