The question slowly framed itself in his mind.... "Do I love Lily?"

But he did not answer it.

*CHAPTER XX*

The oncoming summer promised to be long and uneventful for Helen

Phillips. Late in May her mother took her and her two little sisters to

Stag Inlet, leaving a perspiring father to await the perverse pleasure

of a stubborn Congress before beginning his vacation, and Elise to set

out upon a round of visiting that would permit her to see very little of

home during the hot months. To Mrs. Phillips the restfulness of

"Hill-Top" was gratefully refreshing after her trying first winter in

Washington. She gave herself over fully to its soothing quiet and

arranged her daily programmes on the simplest lines.

Hayward, because of his versatile abilities an indispensable part of the

simple Hill-Top outfit, did not have an opportunity before leaving for

Stag Inlet to see Lily Porter again. Nor indeed was he regretful on

that account. He was in a state of indecision and wanted time to think.

He heartily wished that he had not been so free with his confidences:

yet could not justify this feeling when he sought a reason for it.

After awhile he wrote Lily a letter which was a model of

diplomacy--which said much and said nothing. It did not disappoint or

displease her. She read between the lines an admirable modesty and

restraint, complimentary to herself and true to the artistic instinct

which, she had read somewhere, always saves a full confession for a

personal interview. She took her own good time to answer it. She felt

sure of the man's devotion, despite the fact that his other and unknown

confidante was a woman other than his mother. The tenor of her reply

was reserved, though not discouraging. Hayward's impatience was not

excited by the delay, nor his interest quickened by the coy missive.

* * * * *

The first morning Helen was on the lake after coming to the Inlet her

launch passed a small catboat commanded by Jimmie Radwine and flying a

Yale pennant from her diminutive masthead. The crew, consisting of

Captain Jimmie and another youngster, both younger than Helen, were

yelling themselves dizzy.

"What's Jimmie Radwine saying, Helen?" asked Nell Stewart.

Jimmie had no intention of leaving them uninformed. He had put his boat

about, and come up alongside.

"Hello, Helen!" he shouted, "Harvard can't play ball! Quincy can't

pitch! Tom got a home run and two two-baggers off him in four times up!

Rah! rah! rah! YALE!"

Helen was a famous Harvard partisan, and many a verbal tilt had she had

with Jimmie, whose brother Tom was Yale's right-fielder, as to the

comparative merits of the blue and the crimson in all things from

scholarship to shot-putting.

"What was the score, Jimmie?" she asked him.

"Wasn't any score--for Harvard: all for Yale. Wow! Yale--Yale--Yale!"

he yelled.

Helen looked a dignified reproof of his unmannerly enthusiasm, but

Jimmie's youth was proof against any such mild rebuke, and her

irritation only kindled his joy. She nodded to Hayward for more speed,

but as Jimmie was favoured by a stiff breeze they could not shake him

off. He followed them for two miles or more up the lake, volunteering

much information sandwiched between cheers for Eli, which, when he had

delivered it fully and in detail, he began to repeat in order to impress

it upon them. Hayward cheerfully would have bumped him with the launch.

Having so thoroughly enjoyed the morning's sport, Captain Jimmie

regularly afterward flew the blue pennant from his mast, and was ever on

the alert to greet Helen with the Yale yell and further particulars.

* * * * *

Less than a month later the Harvard crew rowed rings around the Yale men

at New London. Helen's cup was full. The next day she and Nell Stewart

and Nancy Chester were sitting out on the lawn reading an account of the

race when they saw Jimmie's catboat beating about the lake.

"Come, girls," exclaimed Helen, "we must carry the news to Jimmie!"

"Hayward, come here," she called to the footman, who was tinkering at a

gasoline runabout a hundred yards from them. "Get the launch ready,"

she added when he came nearer, "we want to overtake Mr. Radwine's boat

out there."

"I guess Jimmie will haul down that blue flag now," said one of the

girls when they had come to the boat-house.

"Hayward," said Helen, "run up to the house and tell mamma to give you

the Harvard pennant that is in my room--and hurry!"

Hayward needed no urging. Out of the chatter he had caught the news of

Harvard's victory at the oars, and he was as full of excited pleasure as

Helen herself. He hurried up the hill and, not finding Mrs. Phillips,

rushed to his own quarters and turned out from his trunk the crimson

pennant.

Helen was too intent on the chase of Jimmie Radwine to notice that the

short staff of the flag Hayward brought her, and the faded and wrinkled

folds of the cloth, did not belong to the crimson emblem which was part

of the decoration of her dressing-table. Jimmie, already informed of

Yale's bitter defeat, surmised the purpose of the Phillips launch's

coming, and tried to sail away and away: but he was relentlessly pursued

and overtaken, and mercilessly repaid for all of his taunts of the last

fortnight. As they came up with him Helen cried out to her friends:

"Now, everybody give the Harvard yell!"

The feminine chorus was shrill, but lacked volume.

"Again! and louder!" she commanded. "You too, Hayward!"

That was the most grateful order Hayward had received since the 10th was

sent into the charge at Valencia. He stood up to drive the

deep-mouthed, long-drawn rah-rah-rah's from his lungs, and added a few

kinks and wrinkles at the end in orthodox phrasing and intonation by way

of trimming off the severely plain Harvard slogan. Helen looked at him

in some surprise, and saw that he was oblivious to his situation and

seemed bent on "rattling" the hostile blue skipper. He came to himself

at last, and pulled himself together in some confusion to give attention

solely to his duties in running the launch. Helen thought his behaviour

unusual, and watched him covertly while the badgering of Jimmie Radwine

was in progress.

Jimmie was far from an easy mark, however, for by his unblushing

impudence and boyish pretension to vast knowledge of facts and figures

he time and again crowded Helen to her defences. Hayward could hardly

keep his tongue when Jimmie presumed too much on the ignorance of the

young women as to the athletic history of the blue and the crimson, and

Helen could see that the negro was keeping quiet with difficulty. At

one of Jimmie's most reckless statements, which overwhelmed Helen,

Hayward, bending over the launch's little engine, shook his head in

violent dissent.

"What is it, Hayward?" his mistress called to him.

"Beg pardon, Miss Helen, but he's--he's--misstating it!" Hayward

answered with vigour.

"Then tell him of it!" Helen exclaimed impulsively.

"Pardon me, but you are altogether mistaken about that, Mr. Radwine,"

the negro sang out to Jimmie, shoving the launch up a little nearer the

boat's windward quarter.

"What do you know about it?" Jimmie demanded scornfully.

"I know all about it," retorted Hayward with rising spirit; and he went

into details in a way to take Jimmie's breath. Warming up, he did not

desist on finishing the matter in dispute, but challenged others of

Jimmie's audacious inaccuracies and proceeded to straighten them out.

Jimmie demurred and replied more recklessly, and was soon in a rough and

tumble discussion covering the whole field of college excellences. He

found he was no match for Hayward either in information and enthusiasm

or in assurance. Before the argument was half finished the footman was

talking to him in a patronizing and fatherly way that pricked him like

needles. He did not relish the idea of a controversy with, much less

being routed by, this serving-man, especially in the presence of the

young women. He wished the girls anywhere else so that he might smother

the lackey with a sulphurous blast. But he had to stand to the losing

game while Helen and her friends laughed at his defeat or waved the

crimson flag and cheered the Harvard hits in a shrill treble. Helen

indeed felt some compunctions for having brought about the situation but

was enjoying Jimmie's discomfiture too much to end it.

Hayward had forgotten he was a lackey, had forgotten he was a negro, had

forgotten he was anything save a Harvard man proud of his college,

proclaiming her fair record with love and joy, confident in himself as

one of her sons.... "As a man thinketh. so is he." ... The occasion was

trivial, but the transforming power of thought, its triumph over

circumstance, was strikingly evidenced in the footman's face. Helen

noted that his bearing had lost every trace of conventional or conscious

servility, that he looked easily and confidently _a man_, calling no man

master.

After harrying Captain Jimmie enough to pay off all old scores they gave

him good-bye with a final yell for the crimson, and turned the launch

for home. In the run back Helen had her first opportunity to notice the

pennant. It was not hers.

"Hayward, whose flag is this?"

"Mine, Miss Helen. I could not find your mother quickly, and I brought

that to save time."

She looked from the flag to the negro. A nebulous idea floated through

her mind, and she tried to fix it, but it was too elusive. She put Nell

and Nancy off at their landings, and tried to grasp the intangible

explanation that was hovering about her brain. It was characteristic of

her to prefer working out her own answers to looking at them in the back

of the book. Finally, however, she decided she did not have a full

statement of the problem.

"When did you go to Harvard, Hayward?" she ventured.

"Class of 191-, Miss Helen."

"191-. Then you did not finish. The battle of Valencia was--"

"No, Miss Helen, I did not finish: but I understand two others of my

class who volunteered were passed on the spring term's work and

graduated by a special resolution of the Overseers. I think I will

apply for my diploma sometime--if I need it."

Hayward spoke lightly, but his last words brought to Helen the same

question which had occurred to her so often in the last year since she

had discovered in him her father's rescuer. They only made the question

more insistent.

He was a Harvard man,--to Helen's mind a title of all excellence and

dignity. That explained much. His intelligence, even his physical grace

and soldierly courage, seemed to fit naturally into that character. But

why a flunkey?--shirking higher duties and the honours that pertained to

his degree, careless of the evidence of his scholarly merit, putting

aside the rewards of his soldierly heroism.

"Do you care nothing for everything, Hayward?--except this flag? You

seem to have valued it."

"It is the one possession dearest to my heart," he answered in simple

truth, and then showed the first faint trace of embarrassment she had

ever seen him exhibit.

"Yes, you have loved the Harvard pennant but concealed your Harvard

lineage. You champion Harvard's name enthusiastically against Jimmie

Radwine's gibes, but you affect to be careless of Harvard's diploma.

You carry the Harvard culture, and yet--you choose to be a footman."

Hayward winced. Helen tempered the thrust by adding:

"You do a soldier's work, but decline a soldier's honours. You are

_too_ modest. You overdo the part."

"I hope yet to do something worthy of Harvard, Miss Helen. I am not

without ambition, however much you may think it. Indeed I fear I have

too much ambition."

A Harvard man need set no limit to his ambition. Helen spoke with the

wisdom and confidence of youth and loyalty.

The launch was at the landing. The girl climbed out and up the steep

stairs. At the top she bethought herself and turned about.

"Oh, here's your 'heart's dearest possession,'" she said with a laugh,

and she pitched the little crimson flag down upon Hayward, who was

making the boat fast.

The man looked up to catch the flag as it fell, and memory in that

instant worked the magic which brought the scene on Soldiers Field

clearly before Helen's mind. She knew him in that moment. She gazed at

him without speaking. She looked at the flag and then at him--once, and

again. All the incidents of the driving finish of that ever memorable

football game came back to her, bringing to her pulses an echoing tremor

of its tense excitement and wild enthusiasm and her unstinted girlish

admiration for the player who had saved his college, her Harvard, from

black defeat.

At last she remembered his words about the pennant which she had quoted

to him a moment since. Her cheek flushed and she was in two minds

whether to be offended or amused. Graham saw her look of surprised

recognition, her glances at the pennant, and read the significance of

her rising colour. He felt the presumption of his very presence, and,

conscious and guilty, he looked abjectly out across the lake.

The man's humility went far to mollify Helen's anger or levity; but she

could not spare him entirely.

"So you prefer another name to your own," she said. "Why is that?"

"Oh, no, Miss Helen. I am not ashamed of my name. There's no reason

why I should be. I--"

"Then why use another?"

"My name is John Hayward Graham. I am using my own, but not all of my

own."

"But why the masquerade? It doesn't look well. What have you done to be

afraid of your full name?"

"Nothing, Miss Helen, I declare upon honour. I'll tell you the whole

story. You have been kind to respect my wishes not to make known my

services to your father, and I'll gladly tell you all about it. But I

must go now, if you will excuse me? Mrs. Phillips ordered the carriage

for five o'clock and it's nearly that time now."

"I'll excuse you, Hayward," Helen answered, intending a dismissal of the

subject as well as of the servant.

*CHAPTER XXI*

For a year now Helen had had an unconsciously growing regard for her

footman's mental abilities and for his gift of entertaining her with his

tales of battle and camp and other incidental themes of conversation

which at odd times had beguiled the moments of the past summer after his

identity had been revealed to her as "the trooper of the 10th" of her

father's most thrilling battle story. It was but natural that

conversation with a man of his cultivation of mind and wide information

should dull the sense of caste and superiority and enhance a feeling of

genuine respect. It was only occasionally now that she assumed an air

of command:--at best it is a difficult thing to patronize intellect.

Helen did not have an opportunity to hear Hayward's proffered

explanation for quite a long time, and she cared little to know anything

further of it; but her attitude of mind toward him had changed. Formerly

she sometimes had wondered that a footman should be so intelligent.

Finding that he was a Harvard man, however, had reversed the problem.

It raised him to a level of respectability above his calling, and left

the fact that he was a serving-man to be accounted for as anomalous.

That he was a negro counted with her, of course, for naught one way or

the other. He was nothing less than a footman.

However, with all her democratic ideas, she was a President's daughter;

and that he was a footman, until it was explained, and even after it was

explained,--as long, in fact, as he remained a footman,--would cause

that vacillation between anger and amusement which came to her yet with

the remembrance of his embarrassed declaration that her pennant was his

heart's dearest possession.... She was somewhat annoyed by her own mild

self-consciousness--an unusual mental state for her; more so than by any

forwardness on the man's part in speaking the speech,--for there had

been nothing of that.... She would not think of it.... Why should she

think of it? The idea was ridiculous. She would laugh it away.... Of

course the pennant was a dear possession: the man prized it as a memento

of his college life and his daringly won victory.... Certainly, it was

a very dear possession: she had similar school-day souvenirs which were

precious to her heart though recalling moments of less energy of loyalty

and wild delirium of joy.... Besides he may have meant, he could have

meant, nothing personal to herself,--for he could not have known

her--she was nothing more than a child seeing her first great football

match--and he had caught but a glimpse of her in all that yelling

throng--if he had seen her at all.... It would be a miracle if he

remembered her... And yet he seemed to remember.... Though why should

she think so? He had _said_ nothing to indicate it.... But he

knew--she was sure that he knew.... And what if he did know, and did

value the pennant on that account? The personal consideration was not

imperative. Was she not the President's daughter, and would not any man

deem it an honour to be decorated by her hand or high privilege to carry

her flag? The lowest menial might properly take pride in her

approbation and set great store by a token of her approval....

But--this man is neither low nor menial, for all his servile livery. He

is a gentleman by every token: educated, brave, strong, modest,

self-sacrificing, chivalrous. It is hard to consider him as an

underling--a footman.... And why is he a footman? ... She does not care

why he is a footman ... or that he is a footman.... He must keep his

place.

*CHAPTER XXII*

Helen was taking her early morning ride. She pulled her horse up

sharply and waited for her groom to overtake her.

"Why are you a footman, Hayward?"

Hayward was startled. The girl had been uncertain in her treatment of

him for a month, and he was expecting anything that might happen, from a

plain discharge to arrest as a suspicious character. He was confused by

the suddenness of the question, and by the peculiar mingling of sympathy

and impatience in Helen's voice.

"Who are you, and what are you trying to do?"

"I am John Hayward Graham, Miss Helen, as I told you before. I am a

footman now because it seems to be necessary. I did not intend to be a

footman so long as this when I obtained the position." Helen thought

she detected a shade of embarrassment again. "But after I was employed

at the White House my mother's health gave way suddenly and she could no

longer support herself and I was compelled to keep the place."

The man saw that he was making an awkward mess of it, and the quick

intelligence of Helen's eyes showed him her inferences were all adverse.

"Oh, well," he said, "I'll begin again. It took all the money my mother

had, Miss Helen, to pay for my education--all, and more. That she ever

met the expense of my tuition has been a miracle to me. But she did

it--insisted upon doing it. My father was a Harvard man. He died when

I was two years old, leaving as his only admonition the injunction that

I be thoroughly educated. My mother was faithful to that exhortation.

She spent her meagre fortune and the abundant strength of her life to

the last cent and almost to the last heart-beat in a religious obedience

to it."

"Your mother is still living?"

"Yes; and please do not think I was so ungrateful and so unfilial as

purposely to wait till she was helpless before lifting the burden of

breadwinning from her shoulders. I was in five months of graduation

when the call came for volunteers in the spring of 191-; yet I could not

resist that call, nor would my mother have me resist it."

"A Spartan mother," commented Helen.

"My grandfather died in the front of battle, Miss Helen,--to make men

free. My father was a soldier. The first bauble that I can remember

playing with as a child was a medal of honour with its red, white and

blue ribbon which was given to him for some daring service to the flag,

I know not what. That medal and his good name was all that he left to

me. I lost the medal before I knew what it stood for, and I have

temporarily laid aside the name of Graham; but none the less is the

memory of that bronze eagle-and-star an inspiration to me to a life work

creditable to the name.

"When I enlisted I was really taking a large financial burden from my

mother, and if, after my first term of enlistment was up, I was

unthinking of her, it was because out of the blood of my fathers and my

army experience had been born a life ambition which filled all my

thoughts: the ambition to be a soldier. I was off my guard, for I had

never thought of my mother as having a human frailty. When she came to

place herself in my care I noticed, as I had not a month before, how far

spent was her strength, and I was alarmed at the sudden change in her

appearance. This change had come to her as it comes to many--with the

moment of her surrender to the inevitable. Men and women may stand with

determined and unshaken front against the assaults of weakness until it

wins into the very citadel of their strength and possesses everything

save the flag which flies at the tower-top. So with my mother: she had

stood to her duty till there remained of her wonderful energies only her

unshaken resolution, and when that flag was hauled down there was

nothing left to surrender."

Everything in the man's tribute to his mother--sentiment and

metaphor--appealed to Helen, and the tears came to her lashes.

"But she still has the strength to be vastly ambitious for her son, Miss

Helen. Death itself will hardly weaken that. She talks to me of little

beside the day when I shall be an officer in the army."

"You aspire to a commission, then?"

"Yes; and it is for that reason that I desire the President shall not

know now that I am the man who carried him out of danger at Valencia. I

know that naturally he will be grateful, and I wish to make no draft

upon his gratitude till I ask for that commission. I expect much

difficulty, and I wish to marshal at one moment every circumstance in my

favour."

"As papa says, 'attack with horse, foot and guns,'" said Helen.

"Yes, that's the idea. I had hoped that by the end of a second term of

enlistment my preparedness together with your father's friendliness and

a growing liberality in public sentiment toward men of my race would win

for me my heart's desire--a lieutenancy of cavalry."

"Your race will not count against you, Hayward," said Helen. "Papa has

no such provincial notions as that. And I am sure he will not be

ungrateful."

"I thank you for the assurance, Miss Helen. Your father is my ideal of

a fearless and just man. I count more upon his fearlessness and

fairness than upon his gratitude. But my heart is too keenly set on

realizing this ambition for me to omit to enlist any favourable

influence."

"But why are you a footman?" Helen repeated the question with which she

had first addressed him.

"I was on my furlough, Miss Helen, when I took this place temporarily,

fully intending to re-enlist when my time was up; but my mother's

break-down just before that time compelled me to forego re-enlistment

and to hold this position which pays a wage sufficient to support the

two of us. A soldier's pay would not accomplish it, and my mother's

condition would not permit me to leave her. However, I have not thought

of foregoing my career as a soldier. I am studying every day to prepare

myself for the duties of an officer. My Harvard training fortunately

supplies me with all but the purely technical knowledge required, and

makes it possible for me to acquire that without assistance. I will win

yet, Miss Helen."

"A Harvard man _must_ win." Helen spoke with dogmatic faith.

"And _I_ must win,--not only a commission, but the 'well-done' which is

a soldier's real recompense for a life-time's service. Not only my

'Harvard lineage,' as you once called it, but my grandfather's death, my

father's life, my mother's toil and sacrifice, lay the compulsion of

endeavour and success upon me. My mother is a hopeless invalid, but I

pray she may live to read my lieutenant's commission. I have concealed

from her the juggling with my name. I--"

"And why did you juggle with it?"

"Some pride in my patronymic and in that very Harvard lineage would not

permit me to degrade either by becoming a footman as John Graham."

"And again, then: why are you a footman? You have not answered that

question yet. Your purposes in life are admirable, your motives

are--beautiful, your success will be brilliant I earnestly hope,--even

more, I dare to prophesy; and I shall be proud to know when your name is

famous, that I gave you your first flag;"--She laughed--"but why did you

become a _footman_, Hayward?"

She pulled her horse up to wait for his answer. Hayward looked steadily

in her eyes, which were regarding him with frank enquiry, until a

quickness came to his pulses and a rashness into his heart, and by his

gaze her eyes were beaten down and the colour brought to her cheek.

"Why?" Her voice had as much of appeal as of demand.

Hayward caught his breath quickly.

"You have read Ruy Blas, Miss Helen?"

"No," Helen answered. "What has that to do with it?"

Hayward had the same sensation as when in the Venezuelan campaign he had

first keyed his nerves for battle at sound of the picket's shots only to

have the danger pass. Then the releasing tension had been painful.

Here it was grateful. He drew a breath of relief. He was very glad the

girl had not read of _Ruy Blas_,--of the lackey who loved a queen.

"The place of footman was the only position open to me. I applied for

another but failed to get it." He ignored the question and through this

lie outright, told in words of perfect truth, he made a precipitate

retreat. "The service was to be short, and it gave me an opportunity to

see at close range something of the man upon whom my hopes so much

depend," he added as an afterthought.

"And a closer view has not dampened your hope?" asked Helen.

"No, Miss Helen. Increased it, rather. Your father puts heart into a

man. His broad sympathies and firm principles of justice inspire one to

the highest and best that is in him. The lofty example of his courage

and purity and effectiveness, personal and civic, is a living

inspiration to the nation."

"For which the nation is indebted to your heroism," added Helen. "For

myself and all the people I thank you."

If Hayward had been white he would have blushed. The personal turn Helen

gave the matter left him with nothing to say. He sat his horse abashed.

A stray thought of her dignity flitted across Helen's mind. She drew

herself up, touched her horse with the crop, and rode on. Hayward, at

the command of her manner, stiffened into _attention_ as she drew away,

and followed--at the proper distance.

*CHAPTER XXIII*

Helen inherited Bobby Scott when the real men came around.

Elise had brought Lola DeVale, Dorothy Scott and Caroline Whitney with

her for a two-weeks stay at Hill-Top and they had planned for a

breathing-spell in which they hoped to be rid of men and have a restful

girlish good time. Bobby Scott, Dorothy's brother, had been asked to

come because he was present when the thing was first proposed, and had

accepted--much to Caroline's disappointment. But really he did not

disturb their plans very much. Bobby was somewhat young, and entirely

manageable: and, as said before, Helen inherited him when the real men

came along.

And they came: Hazard, the moment Congress adjourned; Tom Radwine, every

minute he was not asleep after he knew Caroline Whitney was there;

Captain Howard, after three days' wait at Newport; and, for a day and a

half, no less a personage than Senator Richland. The Senator had a

heart to heart talk with President Phillips about a certain matter of

politics, but he deceived no one, not even himself.

Bobby Scott felt his importance, for the reason that he and the Senator

were entertained at Hill-Top. He felt that he was in a position of

vantage and really ought to profit by it. But the ease and sang-froid

with which Tom Radwine always relieved him of Caroline was not only

exasperating but rather confusing to him. Why couldn't Tom look out for

Dorothy? She was not his sister; and, beside, she was no end better

looking than Caroline. Here came Tom now, straight past the other young

women, to disturb his _tete-a-tete_ with Caroline.

"Come on, Mr. Scott," called Helen, "we'll go and have a ride."

Bobby pretended not to hear. Helen's assumption that he must vacate

when Radwine appeared nettled him. He liked Helen in everything save

that she would not take him seriously. He sat still, determined to hold

his position against all comers.

"I've won in a walk," said Radwine to the young woman. "It's ten

minutes yet to five o'clock--good afternoon, Mr. Scott--oh, I am all

sorts of a winner."

Caroline's answer to Radwine was just as meaningless to Bobby, and in

half a minute without the slightest discourtesy on the part of the

others, he felt that he was a rank outsider.

"Are you coming, Mr. Scott?" Helen called to him again--and Bobby went.

"If you will excuse me?"--he asked Caroline's permission.

"Certainly, if you must go. Take good care of Helen. She is so young

and venturesome."

This last speech in a measure placated Bobby's offended notions of

dignity, and he and Helen went off toward the stables, where Hayward

brought the horses out and put the saddles on while Bobby looked them

over.

"That is a very handsome mount," he said to Helen, indicating Prince

William. "He's a dead match for the horse of Lieutenant Lavine, of the

Squadron."

"Beg pardon, sir," Hayward interrupted to ask, "what squadron?"

"Squadron A, New York," Bobby replied, and began to relate to Helen some

incident of his experience as a trooper in that organization, and

afterward to dispense general information as to horses and horsemanship.

He would not have been so garrulous about these things perhaps but for

the fact that his membership in Squadron A was a new toy from which the

gilt had not been worn off. Hayward listened to him, first with

interest and then with wonder. He did not know the young gentleman was

a very new and very raw recruit in the Squadron's forces, and he came

near dropping a saddle at some of Bobby's ebullitions of ignorance.

"This knee," said Bobby with a look of concern as he ran his hand down

Prince William's fore-leg, "seems to be slightly swollen. You should be

careful to guard against spavin. It is a serious--"

The negro laughed in his face before he could check himself.

"Well, what is it?" demanded Bobby.

"Beg pardon, sir,"--Hayward pulled his face into respectful

shape--"spavin is a disease of the hock, not of the knee. The Prince

struck that knee against a hub on the carriage this morning. No damage

done, I think, sir.... They are ready, ma'am."

As Mr. Scott prepared to mount he noticed that Prince William's bridle

had only one rein.

"Where is the snaffle-rein?" he asked Hayward.

"The curb rein was broken this morning, sir, and I haven't another yet.

I changed that rein from the snaffle-rings to the curb."

"Change it back," Mr. Scott directed. "He will not trot with the curb."

"True, sir, he'll not; but the Prince has not been ridden in several

days, and he'll be hard to hold. I think you'd better use the curb,

sir."

No use to advise Mr. Scott. He had heard that your true cavalryman

delights in a trot.

"Just change it, will you," he commanded.

The footman glanced at Helen before complying.

"Certainly," she said; "put the rein on the snaffle-rings, Hayward."

Hayward obeyed and they were off. He watched them out of sight, and

remarked as he turned into the stable:

"What he doesn't know is something considerable."

* * * * *

"If all the flunkeys were as modest and respectful as they are

timorous," Bobby said to Helen as they rode off, "the service would be

greatly improved the world over. And if they were as full of courage as

they are of conceit, bravery would be a drug on the market. I believe

you said Hayward is your footman?"

"Yes," Helen answered.

"That explains it. These coachmen and footmen become so accustomed to

carriage cushions that the saddle is an uncertain and rather fearsome

seat for them. Their personal fears would not be out of the way if they

would not impute them to men who can ride."

The sparkle of interest in Helen's eyes encouraged Mr. Scott to proceed.

"My observation has been that the under-classes do not ride well--or

cannot ride at all. I think that riding is naturally and really the

diversion of gentlemen, the _hoi polloi_ do not take to it."

It occurred to Helen that the _hoi polloi_ of Bobby's town of New York

had not the money with which to "take to" saddle-horses, but she did not

raise the point. Bobby continued to talk.

"I would not consider my education complete if I were not accustomed to

the saddle. I think that many of our young fellows are not only

careless of a most healthful and gentlemanly sport, but are recreant to

duty as citizens, in not perfecting themselves in feats of arms and

horsemanship. What is it that Kipling says in lamenting the degeneracy

in sterner virtues of the gentry of Britain? Something like

"'And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your

iron pride

Ere--ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could

shoot and ride.'"

"Good for you, Mr. Scott. I did not imagine you were so seriously

interested in Kipling as to memorize his lines. He is fine, though,

isn't he?"

"Yes, that couplet impressed itself upon me without effort on my part.

It appeals to me. I think it is a disgrace for a young man not to know

how to shoot and ride. Alas, there are so many who do not. Little

wonder that I am asked to put myself within the precautionary

limitations of a timid flunkey."

Helen said nothing. She saw Mr. Scott was deeply offended because he

had known so little about spavin. His dissertation on horsemanship

caused her to note with some interest his manner of doing the thing. As

they rode along, her mare in a slow canter and Prince William in a trot,

the young man was giving a faithful exhibition of the method taught by

"Old Stirrups," the Squadron's riding-master; but Helen could see that

he was keenly conscious of every detail of the process, from the tilt of

his toes to the crook of his left elbow.

Yet Mr. Scott was enjoying the ride--no doubt of that. Never had he had

such an opportunity to parade his pet ideas and conceits, and never had

he had such a respectful hearing. At last the younger Miss Phillips was

taking him seriously. He plumed himself, and essayed a more elaborate

panegyric on manly preparedness. Helen permitted him to do all the

talking.

He was at some pains to instruct her in the art of riding. He advised

her how to hold the reins, how to make her horse change from a canter to

a trot then to a gallop, how to change the step-off in the gallop, and,

all together, passed on to her about all he could remember of the

information acquired from "Old Stirrups." It was imparted, however,

after the manner of first hand knowledge born of large experience. He

felt that he was living up to Caroline's admonition to look well after

Helen, and was gratified that the young lady received his coaching with

such beautiful humility and seriousness.

"This the best part of the Lake Drive," Helen suggested finally, "the

mile from here to 'The Leap.' May we not let the horses go a little?"

"Why, certainly, if you wish," Mr. Scott consented. "Don't be nervous.

Just keep the rein tight enough to feel her mouth firmly so she won't

stumble, and let her go 'long."

Helen clucked to her mare and swung into a moderately fast gallop....

The exhilaration of it occupied her for a time, and then she noticed Mr.

Scott was not altogether comfortable. The Prince was pulling against

the bit in a stiff trot that was making a monkey of the young man's

memorized method. Helen thought that the riding would be easier for him

if Prince William would break into a gallop, and she pushed her mount to

a faster pace in order to make the horse break over. Feeling perfectly

at ease in her saddle, she unwittingly urged the mare faster and faster

in kindly meant effort, till finally the increasing speed became so

furious that she was a bit alarmed, and pulled in on her bridle-rein.

Horror! the mare was beyond control!

The horses were about neck and neck, with Prince William a nose in the

lead and going hard against the snaffle in a trot of such driving speed

as the young Mr. Scott had never been taught to negotiate. He was

pulling his arms stiff against the smooth bit, but that only steadied

the Prince to his work. Helen gave a despairing pull with all her

strength, but it did not affect the mare's seeming determination to

overcome the Prince's lead. She called to her escort.

"Stop her! I can't hold her, Mr. Scott!"

Mr. Scott tried to reply, but his effort at speech resulted in a stutter

which that merciless trot jolted from between his teeth.... He could

not help her.... His own emergency was more than he could meet. His

right foot had been shaken from its stirrup, and could not regain it.

With his right hand he held in grim determination and desperation the

cantle of the combative saddle which was treating him so roughly. No,

no help from him.

Helen, riding in perfect comfort, though at a frightful pace, looked

toward Mr. Scott to see why he gave no aid. She saw his predicament was

worse than hers. He had no hand to offer her. He needed both of his,

and more.... She remembered her footman and his lifting her from her

falling horse,--and wished heartily for him in this crisis. She

realized that she must save herself, and with that to reinforce and

stiffen her resolution she again pitted her strength and will against

those of the headstrong mare. Her heart sank when she thought how near

they were coming to "The Leap," and she threw every ounce of will and

muscle against the bit, and held it there.

At last, as if with a knowledge of the danger just ahead, the mare

slowed down. But the madcap Prince William took a longer chance.

On a little promontory jutting out into the lake the roadway makes a

sharp turn at a point some seven or eight feet above the water and

almost overhanging it. Helen and her father had facetiously named it

"Lover's Leap." Prince William knew as much about that turn as Helen's

mare, but he disdained caution. He was a bold and close

calculator,--for he made the turn by a hair's-breadth, at top speed.

Not so Mr. Scott. As the horse swung mightily to the left the rider's

momentum pried him away from the saddle, and he took the water clear of

all obstacles.... Helen, close behind him, but already relieved of fear

for herself, felt her heart stop beating when the man went off his

horse, for he missed a tree by a dangerously narrow margin. But he

picked himself up unhurt out of two feet of water, and clambered up to

the driveway, covered with humiliation and the friendly lake mud.

Helen had been too thoroughly frightened to laugh then, but she

preserved in memory the picture of "Bobby's stunt," and many a time

afterward laughed at it till the tears came. For many moons she could

not think of Kipling or "flaunting an iron pride" without an insane

impulse to giggle.

Prince William, having caused all the distress, afterward acted very

nicely about it. He permitted himself to be caught, and carried Mr.

Scott back to Hill-Top in the most manageable and equable of tempers.

Mr. Scott himself, however, was in a temper entirely other. Inwardly he

was choking with stifled oaths, for in Helen's presence he must needs be

decent in speech. He began at once to berate Hayward, but realized

before he had finished a sentence that he could not make out a case

against him, and he saw disapproval in Helen's face. He gave it over as

a situation to which no words were adequate, and the ride home was a

strenuous essay at lofty silence.

Helen, despite her rising mirth and her contempt for Bobby's puerile

desire to shift the blame for his mishap, had enough pity for him in his

miserable plight to suggest that they make a detour and approach home

from the rear side and avoid the eyes of the people assembled there.

Bobby was grateful for the suggestion. It promised success. That

Hayward should see him, he of course expected, and he rode up to the

stable-door, dismounted and handed his bridle to the footman with an air

of unconcern and assurance befitting a man at ease with himself and in

good humour with the world. Hayward regarded him calmly from head to

heel, but did not betray his flunkey's role by so much as the tremble of

an eyelash. This made Mr. Scott angry. He had expected something

different, and had prepared a very dignified reproof.

"Damn that insufferable negro. Why didn't he laugh outright?" he

growled as he walked around the house. Helen had run away as soon as

she had dismounted in order to save her fast toppling dignity. Mr.

Scott's flanking movement was successful and he was almost safe when--he

ran plump into Caroline and Tom Radwine on the side porch. Caroline's

outburst brought the others to see what the fun was.

"Mis-ter Scott!" she exclaimed. "What kind of a stunt have you been

doing? You look comical to kill. Oo--ooh!"

Bobby took on a sickly grin when Caroline's gaze first fell upon him;

but when she called him comical it was a serious affair at once, and his

face showed it. Dorothy rushed up at that moment.

"Oh, Robert, Robert!" she cried, putting her hand upon his shoulder,

"what have you done? Tell me. Are you hurt? Have you been pulling

Helen out of the lake?" A glance at Helen answered that question.

"Well what, then, you precious boy?"

This was the first time that his older sister had ever complied with

Bobby's insistent request that she call him Robert, and he somehow

wished she hadn't.

"Oh, Dorothy, have some sense--let me go--I must have on some dry

clothes. I took a tumble into the lake--yes--that's all."

"Next time you decide to do that, Mr. Scott, I'll be glad to loan you a

bathing-suit." This from Tom Radwine made Bobby mad as a hornet.

"Took a tumble into the lake, you say, Mr. Scott?" asked President

Phillips, pushing through the crowd. "How did that happen?"

"I was riding your horse, Prince William, sir, and he was on edge. He

spilled me off the drive into the water at that sharp turn a couple of

miles up. I had only a snaffle-rein and could not hold him."

"Only a snaffle-rein! Why I would never think of riding that rascal

myself without a curb. Hayward," he called to the footman, who was

passing, "what kind of carelessness is this?--your sending the Prince to

Mr. Scott with only a snaffle-rein? You know very well that brute

cannot be controlled without a curb. I'm surprised at you. Such a lack

of sense as that is almost criminal. You ought to be ashamed of

yourself. Don't repeat that performance--see to it you don't!"

As Helen was standing in a yard of her father, Hayward heard this

stinging rebuke in unalloyed surprise, but as she made no demur, he

saluted when the President was done, and said only:

"Yes, sir; it shall not occur again, sir."

When her father had spoken so sharply to the footman Helen had turned to

Mr. Scott, expecting him to exonerate Hayward; but Caroline Whitney's

look of genuine sympathy when Mr. Phillips spoke of that brute's being

uncontrollable without the curb bribed the bedraggled young man to

silence. Helen saw Caroline's glance, and caught the reason for Bobby's

lack of candour, but she was disgusted with him.

She was uncomfortable because of the injustice her silence had done, for

she was of an eminently fair mind: and she told her father the whole

truth of the affair at the first opportunity....

She could not see how Hayward bore himself so composedly under the

undeserved rebuke. If he would abase himself thus, would barter his

self-respect, would lick the hand that smote him, in order that he might

obtain his commission--if he would sell his manhood for it--for

anything--he would be contemptible in her sight.... Again the question

came: Why was he a footman? She could not remember that he had ever

answered it. Oh, yes,--the idea had but just recurred to her--she would

read _Ruy Blas_.

So, on a long summer's afternoon she read _Ruy Blas_--read the tale of

the love of a flunkey for his Queen: and while, when the idea finally

dawned upon her, and she first clearly understood the significance of it

all, she was-- But let us not detail that.

* * * * *

Helen and Hayward Graham were married on a day in late October.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

The chronicler of these events is aware that to the readers of this

history the bare statement of the fact that Helen and her footman were

wed comes as a shock. Nevertheless, it was a plain and straightforward

path by which a careless and pitiless Fate had blindly brought Helen to

her husband. A girl, treading by chance such a way as has been followed

since the world was young by the feet of maidens of high degree who have

loved below their station,--among the accidents and incidents of her

romance she had come, unwitting, to an open door, an ill-placed door not

designed for her passage, a "door of hope for the negro race" which her

idolized father had thought to fashion and set wide: and she had passed

it through--in reverse.

A secret marriage was not characteristic of Helen's ideas. She was

betrayed into that by her warm impulsiveness. She had had a beautiful

programme arranged for the fates to follow in. With a heart full of

love and of dreams, and with faith in a future that would order itself

at her bidding, she had planned the whole course of events that should

lead up to a resplendent army wedding after Hayward had won his

commission. She never doubted for a moment that all her roseate

imaginings would come to pass, and railed upon him that he had not her

faith: for Hayward was a doubter. The sheer altitude of his good

fortune made him fearful and distrustful.

For the twentieth time she told off to him on her finger-tips the order

in which his fortune should ascend.

--"And then, when you are an officer--and famous--you will marry--me."

"But that may never be," the man had answered. "Suppose the Senate

should refuse to confirm my nomination? By your condition I should lose

the commission and--infinitely more--you. If your love and faith are

supreme you will marry me whether I win or lose."

"You shall not doubt my love or faith," Helen exclaimed impetuously. "I

will marry you now, and as the President's son-in-law you can the more

surely succeed. The Senators would not offer a personal affront to--"

"But I must bring this honour to you, not you to me," Hayward

interrupted; "and, besides that, while I willingly, gladly, here and

now, surrender all hope of this commission for ever and for ever if only

you will marry me now, it is only fair to you for me to remind you that

your father would never appoint his own son-in-law to a lieutenancy in

the army."

"Oh, bother!" Helen protested. "I have my heart set on being a

soldier's wife. Of course Papa couldn't give a commission to one of his

family--what was I thinking about.... Well, there's nothing to do but

wait, I suppose."

"And it may be an endless wait if the commission is to come first,"

Hayward reiterated. "It was an awful temptation to silence a moment ago

when you said you'd marry me now, but I could not trick you into it,

knowing how much you desire that commission."

Helen's mind worked rapidly for half a minute.

"But I _will_ marry you--and _now_!" she cried. The girl's romantic

spirit was aroused and her spontaneous, unsophisticated feminine ideal

of love was in the ascendant. "I will _prove_ my love and faith. I

will marry you now, and you may claim me when you have won your laurels.

Let the Senate refuse you a commission if they dare!"

"And would you be willing to trust me to keep that secret?" Hayward

asked. "I almost would be afraid to trust myself--I would want to yell

it from the housetops! Married to you and not tell it! Why, it would

just tell itself to any open-eyed man who looked at me."

"No, no," Helen answered. "I'm willing to trust you. It's a hardship

that cannot be avoided, and we must make the best of it."

* * * * *

"And now," Helen had given her husband a last laughing admonition,

"since we must be clandestine against our wills, let's be romantic to

the last most fiercely orthodox degree. No love-lit glances or

conscious looks. You be a perfect footman with that indifferent and

superior and high-and-mighty air while you can, for when your bondage

actually begins you will never swagger again; and I will be so haughty

as almost to spurn your very presence. We must make no foolish attempts

at conversation, and when we write must deliver our letters personally

into the hand, not trusting even the mails with our secret. And then,

when you become an officer we will give the dear people the surprise of

their lives. My! won't it be fun to see them! And it may be that when

the time comes we will not tell them that we are already married, but

will have another ceremony, a brilliant army affair such as I have set

my heart on. Wouldn't that be gorgeous!"

"I hardly would have acquaintances enough among the officers to provide

my share of the attendants," Hayward answered.

"Oh, yes, you would. You would make then fast enough," the girl

replied. "An American army officer has the entree everywhere--I've

heard papa say so a score of times--and, besides, Mr. Humility, I

suppose that my friends among the officers would be numerous enough to

fill all vacancies."

Hayward saw clearly wherein his wife's forecasts were faulty; but it

profited nothing to take issue with her enthusiasms and he gladly joined

in them. She was his wife--that could not be changed; and he felt that

with that a fact accomplished he reasonably might work for, and hope

for, and expect, anything. He returned to his work in the city,

therefore, overflowing with happiness and pride. It was not surprising

that as a White House footman he was more than ever the subject of

notice and comment, for never one carried a perfect physique with such

an air. If his confident swing and tread had been the expression of

personal vanity, it had been insufferable; but love is not insolent nor

its struttings offensive.

Hayward was on good terms with the world. For the first time he

accepted the overbearing manner of superiority of white men with

complacency and even with amusement. His time was coming--he could

wait. He went so far as almost to invite affronts from several negroes

of more or less prominence, who had aforetime rebuffed his advances, in

order, as it were, to keep their offences in pickle so that their

chagrin might be more keen when the day of his elevation should come.

He was at particular pains to keep Henry Porter's opposition going, and

smiled when he thought how thoroughly he would pay him off in his own

coin.

For a few weeks he put himself with buoyant determination to the regular

study of his text-books, which he had theretofore read with more or less

intermittent interest, and began to lay out plans for the political

campaign which would be necessary to bring about the issuing and

confirmation of his commission. He arranged with a personal friend, a

lawyer in New Hampshire, for the transmission of all correspondence and

papers relating to the matter in the name of John H. Graham through this

lawyer's hands,--thus to conceal from the President even after the

request for the appointment had been made the fact that his footman was

the applicant.

The thinking out and arranging of these details and the first rush of

his attack upon his military studies engrossed him for a month or more

in every moment he was off duty. So closely did he hold himself that

Lily Porter reproved him gently for his remissness several times before

he made his first call upon her. He was really working very hard--in his

leisure hours. He had completely reversed the order of work and

diversion. To the one-time monotony of his daily tasks he was now held

by the fascination of chance moments of speech--most often conventional,

occasionally personal, always delightful--with the radiant young woman

his wife, upon whom even to look in silence was enough to send his blood

a-leap. Every day from the very first he took time from his work of

preparation to write to her.... The habit grew. At first briefly,

though always with fervent protestations, and, as the days and weeks ran

on, more and more at length and with livening heat did he put his

heart-beats in his letters.... The habit grew too fast. By the time

that Congress met and the currents of the great capital were in full

swing, the forces of Hayward's love had eaten into his ambition's

boundaries and the time that he gave to thoughts of Helen, and in

seeking variant and worthy phrases in which to indite his passion, more

than equalled that in which he worked to earn those things which by her

decree should precede possession of her.... It was hard not to stop and

think of her. He wrote:

"You disturb me in my work. You ride ruthlessly through the plans of

battle and campaign my textbooks show, and make sixes and sevens of

them. At sight of you the heaviest lines of battle dissolve into thin

air and into mist the fastest fortress falls. At the coming thought of

you brigades and armies melt away, and your face stands out a radiant

evangel of peace, the very thought even of wars and turbulences

dispelling.... What am I to do? I cannot chain myself to study the

science of strife when this heavenly vision is calling me--and it is

ever calling--to love and love only.... I am fully persuaded there is

only one thing worth thinking on in all the earth--and that is you."

* * * * *

His wife's letters were all that mortal man could desire, but only the

more distracting for all that. They were always short, but grew in

warmth as the sense of freedom grew upon the writer. Hayward devoured

them with increasing hunger, and with the ever-recurring, never varying

signature, "Your wife," spark upon spark of impatience was enkindled

with his love. Finally he must of very necessity have some vent for his

restlessness. He sought diversion in the society of Lily Porter. In

fact he could with difficulty avoid her: she too had set her heart on an

army wedding.

Hayward had only the very kindliest of purposes toward Lily. He had

continued his correspondence with her during the summer. For the sake

of his plans unfolded to her in their last meeting before his going away

he could not break abruptly away from her--though the task of remaining

on friendly terms and yet not proceeding with the suit so nearly openly

avowed was a serious tax upon his resources and ingenuity. In his

apprehension "the fury of a woman scorned" loomed fearful and

threatening. The object of his apprehensions, on the other hand, while

she felt rather than saw the subtle change in him, was yet flattered by

his unaccustomed submissiveness to her caprices and experienced

delightful thrills of expectancy as she waited for a trembling

confession to crown his new-found humility.

"Lily," her father had said to her on a morning after one of Hayward's

scattered visits, "I tol' you once to drop that feller and I hoped you'd

done it. Understan' I don' want any footman comin' here. We ain't in

that class. You ought to have mo' respec' for yourse'f. What you want

with a servant hangin' roun' you when you can take your pick of the

professional men in town, I can't see."

"Don't worry about me, papa," the girl sang as she danced over to the

piano, "I'll wed a military-tary man."

"Well, thank Heaven you ain't got no idee of marryin' that Hayward.

I'll make it wuth while for you to marry a professional or a military

man either one, but none of my money for a footman, I tell you now."

"No footman for me either, papa. I'll not marry a footman, I promise

you. I tell you I'm thinking of a military man."

"Not that Ohio major who was here with the troops at the inauguration?

I'd forgot all about him," her father questioned.

"He's not the only soldier in sight, but don't you think he would do in

a pinch?" Lily had forgotten about him too, till her father mentioned

him.

"I'd better look into that and see what sort of a feller he is," said

the father jokingly, greatly relieved in mind.

"Maybe you had," the daughter replied insinuatingly.

Lily had as many aristocratic notions as her father. More, in fact. Her

promise was sincerely given. It was only when Hayward had told her of

his purpose and prospect of becoming an officer that he had broken

through her reserve. While she had always liked him she had never had

any idea of marrying a footman. But an officer in the army!--she would

have capitulated on that evening she heard his story but for her

father's timely appearance. The idea had grown upon her since, and she

loved to reflect upon it and plan for the outcome; though she had had

time to collect her thoughts and decide not to precipitate or render a

final decision till the commission was in the footman's name. She

really had to hold herself firmly in hand to manage it so, for she loved

the young fellow with a whole-hearted fervour, and of his love for her

she was blissfully assured.

The girl was developing quite an interest in military matters. In one

of their not unusual discussions of Hayward's career it was arranged

that at his first convenient opportunity he should accompany her out to

Fort Myer to see a parade. Hayward went for her on his first half

holiday--rather, he went with her, for she drove him out in her own

stanhope. As they were turning a corner they were halted for a moment

in a knot of vehicles. Lily was driving and Hayward was talking to her

with so much interest in her and in what he was saying to her that he

was oblivious to the things about them.... He was accustomed to sit

quiet and indifferent while another driver solved the problems of the

streets.... The first thing that diverted his attention from the girl

beside him was the small red-white-and-blue White House cockades on the

headstalls of a pair of horses just drawing ahead of Lily's cob. He

glanced quickly across to the carriage--and met the full gaze of his

wife's eyes. She was sitting on the front seat of the landau facing to

the rear, and her eyes were upon him for a half minute at very close

range. Helen looked away several times in her effort to be unconscious

of his presence. But she could not be perfectly oblivious or withhold

her glances altogether. She had heard the very speech--the very gallant

speech--Hayward was making.

Lily looked about to find the cause of collapse in her escort's talk,

and saw the man's peculiar look at Helen, whom she knew by sight. She

accounted for his confusion at once, but the blush that came to the

young Miss Phillips' cheek and her evident self-consciousness were so

unaccountable as to be puzzling. She searched Hayward's face keenly for

an explanation of his young mistress's behaviour--and he did not bear

the scrutiny with entire nonchalance. Lily felt insulted in a way.

"I hope she will know us next time she sees us," she said snappishly.

No answer from Hayward; though he felt like a traitor for letting the

implied criticism go unchallenged.

"You must hurry and get your commission. It seems to disturb the fine

lady to see her footman enjoy the privileges of a gentleman. No doubt

she thinks it impertinent for a servant to deal in gallant speeches at

all, especially such a beautiful sentiment as she must have heard you

speaking."

Lily had hit the mark in the centre--but of course she did not know it.

That finely turned sentiment which he had thrown out with such impromptu

grace and rhetorical finish was taken word for word from his last letter

to his wife, and he had puzzled his brain for an hour in the choosing

and setting of the dozen words in which it sparkled. There was nothing

particularly personal in that dozen words, but how was Helen to know but

that they had been strung upon the same thread in the man's conversation

with his unknown companion as they were in the letter lying at that

moment upon her own bosom.

Hayward did not enjoy the afternoon with Lily. He had hoped Helen had

not heard what he was saying, but Lily's statement of opinion that she

had heard seemed to put the matter beyond doubt. He came home quite

disturbed in mind. He debated to himself whether to write to Helen or

wait for her answer to his last letter. He decided not to plead till he

was accused.

With the next morning came--no letter. Night--no letter. Another

morning--no letter. He wrote:

"Why do you not write to me--and why is your face so cold?"

The answer came: "Who is that woman? She is not your sister--for your

sister would not look at you like that--no, nor would you look at your

sister like that--nor would you say such a speech to your sister. Who

is she? And what right has such a woman, what right has any woman to

hear what your letters have said to me? That sentiment is mine--you

gave it to me. It is mine, _mine_--do you understand?--and you take it

and fritter it away on that--who is she? Keep away from her."

"The woman is a very good friend of mine," Hayward wrote in reply, "_and

nothing more_. The words you overheard were spoken to her, I swear to

you, in no such connection as they were written in my letter to you. If

I had thought that you would so value them and consider them your very

own I never would have 'frittered them away' on any person, believe me.

Do be forgiving and remember that men are not so finely wrought as

women. Only a woman--only you, the most finely wrought of women--ever

would have conceived such a nicety of conduct for a lover. There are

good reasons why I cannot keep away from the young lady as you request.

I wish I could, since you desire it. She is Miss Lily Porter, and a

most estimable young woman. I am indebted to her for very much that

goes to make life bearable. She is a great musician and has filled with

pleasure for me many an hour that otherwise would have been monotonous

and dead. Please do not decree that I shall not hear her sing. To

listen to her is such a cooling, refreshing oasis in the dry-hot

barrenness of a workaday life; and I declare to you my love for you

grows warmer if possible in hearing the ballads that she sings, and to

the lullabies she hums so beautifully I dream alone of you. Believe me

when I swear that nothing can affect the perfect singleness of my

devotion,--and let your face shine upon me. It was so cold yesterday

that a most horrible dream came to me last night: they were hunting us

with bloodhounds to take you away from me! Just think, I have not so

much as touched your hand since the preacher so hurriedly made us

one--only your eyes have been mine, and now you withdraw them from me!

Oh my queen, smile upon me!"

*CHAPTER XXV*

Helen's reply to Hayward's pleading letter was for the most part

reassuring and he felt that the incident of the drive with Lily Porter

was closed: but the pains of love were only beginning to be upon him.

Helen's letters grew briefer and briefer. There was no lack of

affection shown in them, but the expression was not so elaborate as at

first. She was in the rush of preparation for her debut, and less and

less was she free to write. Occasionally, as if in specific answer to

his prayer and to atone for her shortcomings, she smiled upon him with

such warmth that his heart-hunger was appeased. Only for a space,

however, did that satisfy. The desire came back with redoubled fury the

instant the intoxication was off.

Like any other sufferer from intoxicants he had his periods of

depression. In such moments he felt that his marriage was a mockery,

that Helen was not his, would never be his, could never be his. Long

odds were against his getting his commission--even if the President

signed it the Senate would never confirm it. The fight would be too

long, and the issue hopeless--he could not win--his colour was too great

a handicap--curse it! A negro,--yes, a negro--and white men so

insufferably unjust to a negro--curse them all!--curse the whole

white-faced race!--save only her--she was his--yes, she _was_ his--his

by love and law--they could not take her from him, and he would have her

yet despite the whine of all the purblind, race-proud Senators who might

oppose his confirmation--curse them all! curse them all!!

Such moods were happily intermittent. Again he was himself--a man among

men--already a winner--the crowned king of Helen's heart--the

President's son-in-law. Away with doubt! To whom so much had come with

ease everything would come with effort. Confidence uplifted him.

* * * * *

Helen's debut was an event of note. No need for her to be the

President's daughter to make it so. Her sensational beauty needed not

the stamp of official rank to give it currency, nor the sparkle of her

manner and speech any studied purpose to give them vogue. Dominion came

to her by divine right of beauty and wit and ingenuous girlish honesty.

In the stately East Room, dressed but not over-dressed for that occasion

in palms and ferns and flowers, beside her mother for two hours she

stood, the fairest, loveliest flower that ever graced that historic

hall, and received the new world which came to take her to itself.

Gowned in simplicity and maiden white--with the flush of unaffected joy

in her cheeks and the sparkle of genuine youth in her gray eyes--with

the splash of October sunsets in her dark hair--with a skin white and

clear as purity, but shot through with the evanescent glows and tints of

health--with neck, shoulders and arms rising from her gown like a

half-opened lily from its calyx--lissome and graceful indeed as a

lily-stem--virginal freshness in mind, manner and person: she was a

May-day morning.

"My dear," said Senator Ruffin as he bowed low over her hand, "may an

old man who admired your grandmother in her youth presume to express the

extravagant wish that you may be as happy as you are beautiful!"

"And may a young man," said Senator Rutledge, close following Mr.

Ruffin, "who has the orthodox faith that _perfect_ happiness is found

only in heaven, express the hope that the full consummation of Senator

Ruffin's wishes for you may be long delayed?"

"And may you both live to repent of trying to turn a young girl's head,"

Helen replied, making them a curtsey.

"Once on a time I warned you against the day when such speeches would be

made to you," said Rutledge, "and you have grown even more astonishingly

into the danger than the eye of prophecy could perceive. I warn you

again. Senator Ruffin spoke only the words of soberness, as befits his

age and station, but wait you till ardent youth tells you what it

thinks--and you will have to hold your head on straight with your hands:

and--which dances may I have?"

"You unblushing bribe-giver!" said Helen. "But you are just in time.

I've only one left if I've counted them right,--the very last. Why did

you come so late? The very last man. Listen, the clocks are striking

eleven."

"Just couldn't get here sooner. But I'll wait for that last dance if

it's a month."

The receiving-party was broken up and proceeded to the refreshment room,

afterward to go to the ballroom, where were gathered those younger

people who were bidden to both reception and dance.

"Remember," said Evans to Helen as they left the East Room, "I shall

worry along with existence till the last number on the card. See if you

can't run in an extra for my long-suffering benefit. By the way, where

is your sister?"

"In bed and cried herself to sleep two hours ago. Poor thing, she wanted

to come in and see me shine, but mamma said 'no,' and packed her off to

bed on schedule time."

"Now look here," said Evans, "little Miss Katherine is a young lady of

vast consequence--and it's a shame she should be treated so: but I think

you knew very well I was inquiring for your older sister."

"Oh, Elise?" she laughed. "She had gone across the hall with Captain

Howard just before you came in."

Rutledge did not thank her for the information, and Helen regarded him

narrowly with amusement.

"Victoria Crosses are not to be resisted, Mr. Rutledge. Heroes always

have right of way."

"Do you speak from theory or experience?" asked Rutledge.

"Both," said Helen, as for the first time that night she thought of her

husband.

She thought of him quite a number of times before the evening was over.

In her thinking there was no disloyalty to her love nor to her vows: but

with all the glowing prospects for a round of gayety which the

brilliance of this evening of her debut promised for her first season,

she felt a vague regret that she was not approaching the pleasures of it

in the fullest freedom. Some quite well-defined notions of what was due

her estate as a wife threatened to put certain limitations and

restraints upon her. She half wished that that ceremony had been

deferred--only deferred--till the time when she would be ready to enter

upon the duties of her wedded life, assume its responsibilities and be

obedient to the restrictions which very properly pertain to it.

Her husband, also, was giving some thought to the questions which the

situation presented, with the difference that he had not thought of

anything else since the evening began. With nothing to do since eight

o'clock, and free to go home, he had stopped to see Helen in her

coming-out glory.

His livery was a passport; and he divided the time of the

reception--rather unequally, to be sure--between scraps of conversation

with coming and going coachmen he knew and long periods of gazing upon

Helen's loveliness through a broad low window of the East Room. He had

never seen her in the role or in the conventional evening dress of

womanhood, and the vision enchanted him. Crowning the piquancy of youth

and freshness and _elan_ in the girl, was the unstudied dignity and

stateliness and graciousness of the woman; and the metamorphosis held

him entranced.

He looked and looked and looked at her while every variant tremor of

love and pride and impatience swept over his heart-strings. He saw the

most notable men in America, men whose business was world-politics, bow

in evident admiration before her beauty, and linger to barter persiflage

for her smiles and airy speeches: and she was _his_ wife.

He saw her receive the magnificent Chief of Staff of the Army,

resplendent in the uniform of his exalted rank: her, the wife of

Sergeant Graham of "the 10th." And that towering figure with the stamp

of "Briton" in every massive line? Yes, Hayward recognized him: the

English member of the Canadian Fisheries Commission--a lawyer of

international repute, a belted earl--bending a grand head low in

obeisance to a footman's wife--to _his_ wife. The insolence of pride

filled his heart for a minute. Then a twinge of doubt went through him:

she would not be a _footman's_ wife: she had decreed _her_ husband must

be an officer--oh, the bother and the worry of it--and the uncertainty!

But she was his beyond escape, and if the worst came to--no, that would

be disloyalty.... Look, who is that shaking hands with her now? Hal

Lodge, by all that's Boston! Where did he come from, and what's he doing

here? No matter, he's here. Look out, Hal, old boy, don't hold my

wife's hand so long--nor gaze into her eyes so meaningly--I know your

failing! My what a joke it would be if you fell in love with her!--it

would be too funny. I owe it to old friendship to warn you, but I

mustn't."

For the greater part of two hours Hayward watched the reception. He saw

the last man presented.

"Yes, I know you, too," he thought. "You made that infernal speech in

the Senate last year--said some good things for us, too, but on the

whole it was damnable.... I'll excuse you from talking to my wife, you

race-proud bigot! You needn't try any of your 'ardent Southerner' on

her.... Keep off the grass. She belongs to me. She is mine--mine,

curse you! and all your raving speeches can't take her away from me! ...

Oh, well, talk on--yes, talk on to her. I wish to heaven _you would_

fall in love with her! That would be quite the most delicious

dispensation of fate that could ever come to me--it would be too good,

too good to hope for--to have you hopelessly in love with _my wife_! ...

Oh, you beauty, how can any man resist you!"

On the other side of the house Rutledge afterward swung past the

footman's window in several dances with Elise.

"Oh," growled Hayward at last, "it's my brother-in-law you aspire to be!

Well, I don't approve of that either. I'm surprised that your

High-Mightiness condescends to my humble father-in-law's family

anyway--and how they can suffer you to set foot in the house after your

deliverances I can't see--I'd jump at the chance to pitch you out."

* * * * *

An idea akin to the footman's had come that night to Elise. For other

reasons she, too, wondered why she permitted Evans Rutledge to continue

his friendly attentions to herself. She had half made several resolves

to put an end to them. But--it is a fact noted by close observers that

even the most womanly woman has some curiosity--that she is mildly

attracted by a riddle--that she detests--that is, she thinks about--what

she can't understand. In the case in point Miss Elise Phillips was the

woman and Mr. Evans Rutledge was the riddle.

From the moment that Lola DeVale had told her that Rutledge had kissed

_her_ believing her to be Elise the eldest Miss Phillips had had a

growing desire to know why he should have done it. She was properly

resentful that he had taken the liberty with her even by proxy--oh yes,

she felt sometimes she could box his ears for his impudence.... But

aside from all that, why had he kissed her? Lola had told her plainly

long time ago that Mr. Rutledge had told her no less plainly that his

self-respect would not permit him to confess his love again. Why then

should he kiss her? ... Oh, of course, men kissed women, she knew, or at

least had been led to believe, just for the downright fun of the thing:

but Mr. Rutledge surely was not so common--and would not deal with _her_

on _that_ basis. No, she would not believe it of him.... If she had

only been there, she thought, and had seen the way the thing was done,

the answer doubtless would appear. The answer to the why was evidently

locked up in the _how_. Only Lola knew the details of _how_. Elise had

finally decided that she might as well know them also.

Lola was no match for her friend in subtlety. On her own initiative, as

she supposed and at the peril of severing their friendship, she gave

Elise the whole story. When she saw that the listening Elise was only

mildly offended at the disclosure, she again rehearsed the episode for

the purpose of colouring it with the eloquence in Mr. Rutledge's

tendernesses.

"It's a pity I was just enough stunned to be unable to stop him. I

heard every wasted word he spoke and was conscious of all his misplaced

kisses."

"Oh, there was no harm done," Elise replied with a contemptuous sniff.

"I guess you are not the first young woman upon whom he was thrown away

kisses. The modern young man never neglects any opportunity."

"Hear experience speak!" said Lola.

"My experience is not so far advanced as yours, apparently," rejoined

Elise; "but I'm not so uninviting that no young man has ever shown a

willingness to kiss me. With all my inexperience I know what they would

do if I chose to bump my head against the terrace steps."

"Don't be envious and scratchy, dear. Remember I gave you your property

as soon as--" but she desisted as Elise angrily tossed up her head and

drew her fingers across her lips in belated protest against the

transplanted caress.

Elise was verily displeased with Mr. Rutledge, whom she saw at irregular

intervals, neither too long nor too short--for the times and seasons of

his meetings with her were entirely insignificant. She even went to the

trouble of making a special resolve that she would not think of him; but

it died and went to the place where all good resolutions go. Now,

Captain Howard was her devoted attendant, as far as she would permit him

to monopolize her time. Outsiders conceded him first place and probable

success in his wooing, and Elise herself had come to feel a sort of

possessory interest in him. He was at her beck and call, quietly but

evidently elated when at her side, and unmistakably bored when passing

time with some other young woman and awaiting Elise's summons. But

Rutledge: he was not less elated than Howard when it was his fortune to

have Elise's whole attention, and made no effort to conceal his love for

her;--and yet he did not attempt by word or look or gesture to add a jot

of confirmation to his one declaration of it, or even to remind Elise

that he had made it. A score of times she had seen his love in his

eyes--plainly, so plainly, when he talked to her: but he talked always

about impersonal matters--in an abominably interesting way--and when she

dismissed him seemed to become oblivious to her existence and very

careless as to what time should elapse before he came to her again.

Indeed he showed no apparent purpose to come--or to _stay away_, which

was worse. If it would not give the lie to her indifference she would

send him about his business for good and all.

Did he love her? Yes, she was convinced of it--without Lola's

assurances. Then, why had he kissed her? Would he kiss a woman for the

love of her and yet be unwilling to tell that love to her? Would his

self-respect permit him to kiss her whom his self-respect would not

permit him to marry because her father received negroes at his table?

"Self-respect" would be making some peculiar distinctions in that

case,--even if everything be conceded to a Southerner's ideas of "social

equality." A girl to be kissed, but not to be courted!--Elise's face

burned at the thought. No, she would not insult herself by believing

Mr. Rutledge's love had lost its chivalry--that he could deal with her

on any such Tim-and-Bridget basis--there must be some other

explanation.... Sometimes she desired the explanation very heartily.

In their last waltz on the evening of Helen's debut, both these

wrong-headed young folks had been alive to the sensations bordering on

the delicious with which her heavenly mood, his unspoken love and the

sensuous music had quickened their pulses. There was something,

however, in the suddenness, in the completeness, with which he turned

away from her which Elise resented, and which made her want to know who

it was that must have been in his thoughts even while he was making that

last gallant speech to her. As she turned to see, he was being welcomed

by little Miss Margaret Preston, a one-year's blossom, with such a

tell-tale flutter of shy admiration, that Elise chose to look that way

again after a few moments. Then he was bent down above the little lady

in that manner full of all gentleness and deference Elise knew so well,

and was saying something to her,--as if nothing else in all the world

was worth while,--which sent a rich, red blush to over-colour the

blossom's white and pink.

"So you keep in practice of your arts at all hazards," thought Miss

Phillips, "even at the expense of young things like that! ... I hope

that some _woman_ will teach you your lesson yet!"--and she turned to

Captain Howard with a bewildering smile, and did not look at Mr.

Rutledge again that evening.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

All this time the footman-husband was doing sentry. With the passing of

the receiving party into the supper-room he had changed position and

mounted guard where he could look in on the dancing. A White House

policeman who had had an eye on him all evening thought his conduct

unusual and walked close by to give him a searching inspection.

Afterward a secret-service man thought best to look him over carefully.

None of these things moved him from his purpose, however; nor did the

cold wind nor a thirty minutes' flurry of sleet unset his resolution. He

watched his wife's every glide and turn in the dance till the violins

sleepily sang of _Home, Sweet Home_.

The effect of his vigil on the dancing side was disturbing to Hayward.

As Helen passed from the arms of one man to another he began to grow

nervous. His positive resentment was aroused when she was whirled past

the window in the embrace of a sprig of nobility attached to the Italian

embassy. Her shivering husband's blood jumped. He had heard things

about that chap!--oh, the profanation of his even touching the hand of

Helen--thank Heaven the muse has stopped to catch its breath! Next it

was Rutledge treading a measure with the debutante, and his anger burned

again,--flaming no doubt it would have been had he known that the number

was an extra devised by his wife in Rutledge's special favour. Anything

was better than the Italian though!--some comfort in that.... And now

comes Hal Lodge piloting her through the swirl. Careful, old man, don't

hold her so close. She is quite able to carry a part of her own weight!

There can be no doubt it takes some culture--of a sort--for a man to be

able to look with entire complacency upon his wife in another's arms,

however fine a fellow or fast a friend that other is. There be those

who have attained unto such culture: but Hayward had had few

opportunities in that school--he was happily--in this case

unhappily--ignorant of its refinements of learning. He knew, of course,

as a matter of pure mentality, that it was a perfectly harmless pastime,

but his heart would not subscribe to the knowledge. No, he thought, it

was no use to try to deceive himself: he didn't like it and he didn't

care to try to like it. She was his wife, and to have other men putting

their arms about her even in the dance, when he himself did not have the

privilege and would not have it until--oh, damn that commission!

* * * * *

The weeks following Helen's coming-out gave nothing to allay the tumult

rising in her husband's heart. The duties of his service compelled him

to look on many scenes from which he gladly would have turned his

jealous eyes.

By the grim humour of fate was it, too, that his friend Hal Lodge should

cause him the keenest heart-burnings. Hayward wrote to Helen all about

their friendship and intimate association at Harvard, and in letter

after letter purposely related many incidents of Hal's college loves and

flirtations so that Helen might know him as he knew him. He was loyal

to his friendship however, and gave also a faithful account of Hal's

excellences. There was no stint in his praise, nor any attempt to

belittle Lodge in his wife's esteem. In such glowing terms did he sing

of his friend's many virtues that he did not have the courage to unsay a

word of it when friendship was turned to gall.

Thanks to Hayward's three years in the army he held it not a violation

of their friendship that Hal had never given him the slightest word or

nod of recognition, though the footman knew his livery had not concealed

his identity. However, they met one evening when Hayward was off duty

and in citizen's dress. They were on the street, unattended, with no

other person in a block of them.

"Hello, Hal!" Hayward cried with the old-time ring in his voice, meeting

Lodge squarely in front and holding out his hand.

Lodge stopped and looked at him.

"It's Graham. Cut the stare, old chap. I'd have sworn you knew me all

these weeks, but now I see you didn't. Have I changed so much?"

"Oh, I knew you," said Lodge impassively--and turned and left him.

Hayward stared after him in speechless amazement that fast passed into

speechless wrath. A hot wave of blood dashed a tingle of fire against

every inch of his cuticle.... In such moments men have done murder....

He stood perfectly still till the February breeze had cooled him off....

He was again at his normal temperature, but the brief conflagration had

brought calamity--tragedy: it had burned out a part of his life. In the

inventory of loss were comradeship and loyalty and faith and affection

and friendliness and inspirations and memories--burned to ashes, or

charred and blackened and wrecked. Tragedy? The elemental tragedy of

all the eternities is in the death of a friendship.... Despite the

praises he had sung, Hayward might have told Helen about it--if the iron

had not gone so deep into his soul. Men will parade their lighter hurts

and gabble of them for pastime or to entertain their neighbours, but

death-wounds bring the silence with them.

* * * * *

Helen's letters babbled on with occasional references to Mr. Lodge, in

whom from time to time she saw exemplified one and another of the graces

which Hayward had described and which she in turn recounted to him, as

she thought, for his delectation. After some months of this it is not to

be doubted or wondered at that Hayward took time to despise Lodge very

thoroughly and sincerely.

From the moment of his rebuff the footman felt that he was not in a

position to show his resentment. He wrote to Helen that his friend did

not know him and asked her to make no mention of him to Lodge even in

the most casual, inferential or roundabout fashion. No need to warn

Helen: she had been frightened out of her wits by an incident occurring

early after their coming from Hill-Top, and the footman's name was never

on her tongue save in connection with his duties as a servant.

* * * * *

As the winter wore on and melted into spring, less and less indeed was

the thought of her husband upon Helen's mind. Not, let it be

understood, that she loved him less than upon the day of their marriage;

but the rush of events gave her little time to think of him. Her

letters proved that she thought of him regularly and affectionately, but

proved no less that she thought of him briefly--and yet more briefly as

time passed.

To Hayward, by nothing diverted from his hungry thoughts of her, his

wife's slow but palpable withdrawing from him and from his life was an

increasing torment; and the daily sight of her, to which his duties held

him, as she attracted and received and appropriated and enjoyed the

homage and admiration of the men who crowded about her, among whom in

high favour was Lodge, was little less than a maddening torture. She

seemed to be escaping him, and his heart was wrung--with

love--fear--jealousy--hate. In a nervous hurry of desperation he sent to

his lawyer-politician friend in New Hampshire all the information and

recommendations he had in hand that were to accompany his application

for appointment to a lieutenancy, and wrote to him: "Stir around and get

whatever else is necessary and fire them at Washington. Make all haste,

as you value human life, for there is almost that dependent on this

appointment. It is no little matter of military rank or of dollars and

cents, but of life and--love."

*CHAPTER XXVII*

In the months leading up to another summer Hayward was more and more

racked with impatience and with a reckless vacillation between hope and

pessimism. The one thing that made Helen's gayeties in Washington at all

bearable to him was the promise of the coming summer days at Hill-Top

when he would get at least an occasional chance of speaking to her and

would be rid of the sight of the army of young fellows who were

besieging her. There were heartsease and undisturbed love in the

Hill-Top prospect, and his anticipations grew apace as the time for the

migration came near.... The day was set, and arrived. The ex-trooper's

kit was packed. He was ready, expectant.

He got Helen's letter about an hour before their train was to start. It

told him good-bye. He looked at the word with dismay. After a time he

read on. It had been decided she was not to go to Hill-Top with her

mother and the little girls that morning--she did not know just when she

would come--she was going to New York for a short visit to Alice

Rhinelander, then she was going to Newport, after that to Bar

Harbor--she had promised Daisy Sherrol a visit in the Catskills, and

Madge Parker to join her house-party at Lake Placid, time not yet

fixed--Alice was insisting that she come back to her for the Cup Races

in September--besides these there were a number of other things under

consideration--and taking it all together it was quite uncertain whether

she would get home at all--she was so sorry that she wouldn't, but he

must not begrudge her the pleasures of that season--when another came

she would probably be an old married woman, steady and settled down--he

would please look carefully after mamma and Katherine and May--and with

her love she told him again good-bye.

Hayward went to Hill-Top and performed his service admirably as usual:

but all the spring and snap were taken out of him. The days were

monotonous in their lack of diverting occupation and he had much time to

sit still and hold his hands--and think of his wife. But that would not

do at all. He tried not to do so much of it. He wrote to his New

Hampshire lawyer and had forwarded to him at Hill-Top all the papers

relating to his commission, and filled out his spare time for several

days in reviewing these momentous documents.

There was indeed a large and various collection of them. He and his

friend had pulled many wires--political, personal, military and other.

Beginning with a New Hampshire Senator and local politicians, up through

army officers and men personally notable to the President of Harvard,

from one or another he had drawn largely or moderately of the ammunition

with which to wage his battle. Half of these did not know the use he

intended to make of their commendations, but they were all sincerely

given.

And he had made out a strong case. Such a forcible one in truth that,

barring the handicap of his colour, he would win hands down. A man of

his intelligence could not but know that it was a strong case, stronger

indeed than he had dared to hope for. In the contemplation of it he was

elated. The colouring of his outlook was roseate with promise. In that

outlook he saw Helen _coming toward him_, not going away as she had been

all these months. With his commission was she coming, and his

commission was coming so fast, so fast.

He felt that his appeal was irresistible, and his spirit was on a high

wave of assurance. So high, indeed, that he decided to omit the

personal claim upon the President's gratitude. He had felt for some

time that perhaps that would not be altogether fair.... He bundled up

the papers along with his final suggestions and sent them back to his

lawyer with orders to lick them into shape and forward them to the

President without another minute's delay.

He wrote to Helen of the imminence of the crisis in their affairs, but

of doubt or apprehension he did not speak. He told her of his decision

not to appeal to her father's sense of personal obligation. He exulted

in his approaching triumph as if he had already apprehended and went

into rhapsodies about the double prize it would bring to him: the

shoulder-straps and her: a gentleman's work in serving the flag, and a

gentleman's supremest guerdon--her love openly confessed and without

reserve.

Helen's answer was brief but warmly sympathetic. She applauded his

purpose to win on merit alone. His decision only confirmed her estimate

of him. Her faith in his winning was fixed. A tender line closed the

missive, and a laughing postscript besought him not to believe the half

he saw in the papers about her.

Ah, the postscript! It suggested a thing which Hayward had not thought

of before. He began to read the society notes in the metropolitan

dailies, with special reference to Newport and Bar Harbor gossip, and

with more especial reference to Miss Helen Phillips' doings thereat. He

bought one or another of the papers at the village every day, and

studied them religiously. In the very first was the interesting item

that Mr. Harry Lodge was spending a time at Newport. So was Helen, as

Hayward knew, though that paper did not say so. But the next day's

issue did: and he began to exercise his brain with a continuous problem

of its own devising. The problem was to figure out in his imagination

the details of Helen's daily life.

Some days the papers said nothing of her, and then there would be so

much that her husband resented the intrusion upon the right of privacy

which the correspondents so ruthlessly invaded,--but he welcomed the

news of her. The President's daughter was a public personage, and the

great newspapers did not hesitate to treat her as such. Her comings and

goings, her graces and beauty, her dresses and dances, her thoughts and

her tastes, her wit and her charm were never-ending sources of supply

for the bright young men who were paid by the column for their "stuff."

Hayward read every word of it--though a Harvard man ought to have had

more sense: and Mr. Lodge began to figure more and more largely in "the

conditions of the problem."

Hayward made no allowance for reportorial zeal or mendacity, the first

always much, and the last, while unusual, always possible. The young

gentlemen furnished him enough to think about, and his imagination began

to add enough, and more than enough, to worry about. When imagination

sets out to go wrong it invariably goes badly wrong, for the reason that

it plays a game without a limit.

However, the footman's imaginings were not entirely without provocation.

As the days passed, Helen's letters became mere scraps, generally

tender, sometimes quite tender, but hurried, snatchy, with long silences

between. To supply the lack of authentic information of her, her

husband studied more assiduously the newspaper columns: and the poisoned

tooth of jealousy struck deeper into his heart. At last, between

Helen's indifference and the nagging news-notes, he could not endure it

longer. He wrote her a protest hot with the fever of heart-burning and

of outraged love. He re-read that letter a dozen times in

indecision--and trembled as he dropped it in the box.... Nervously he

waited for an answer,--and yet he waited.... The silence grew

ominous.... His fears grew also. But why, thought he, should he fear?

She was his wife, and he had the right to protest.... His anger rose at

her contemptuous disregard of him: his anger--and his fear. He knew she

was bound to him past undoing. Nevertheless, his fears did abide and

thicken, while the summer and the silence drew along slowly hand in

hand.

* * * * *

September had come, bringing yet no letter from his wife to fetch the

confusion of Hayward's fear, his resentment, his love and his jealousy

to something of peaceful order. His spirit was already beset with wild

imaginings and desire, when one day he opened a _Journal_ to read: