"Cecil doesn't know," said Trixton Brent. "The police have been looking

for him for a fortnight. Where the deuce have you been, Cecil?"

"To the Adirondacks," replied Mr Grainger, gravely.

This explanation, which seemed entirely plausible to Honora, appeared to

afford great amusement to Brent, and even to Mrs. Kame.

"When did you come to life?" demanded Brent.

"Yesterday," said Mr. Grainger, quite as solemnly as before.

Mrs. Kame glanced curiously at Honora, and laughed again.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Trixy," she said.

"Why?" he asked innocently. "There's nothing wrong in going to the

Adirondacks--is there, Cecil?"

"No," said Mr. Grainger, blinking rapidly.

"The Adirondacks," declared Mrs. Kame, "have now become classic."

"By the way," observed Mr. Grainger, "I believe Bessie's in town to-day

at a charity pow-wow, reading a paper. I've half a mind to go over and

listen to it. The white dove of peace--and all that kind of thing."

"You'd go to sleep and spoil it all," said Brent.

"But you can't, Cecil!" cried Mrs. Kame. "Don't you remember we're going

to Westchester to the Faunces' to spend the night and play bridge? And we

promised to arrive early."

"That's so, by George," said Mr. Grainger, and he drank the rest of his

whiskey-and-soda.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, if Mrs. Spence is willing," suggested Brent.

"If you start right after lunch, I'll take you out. We'll have plenty of

time," he added to Honora, "to get back to Quicksands for dinner."

"Are you sure?" she asked anxiously. "I have people for dinner tonight."

"Oh, lots of time," declared Mrs. Kame. "Trixy's car is some unheard-of

horse-power. It's only twenty-five miles to the Faunces', and you'll be

back at the ferry by half-past four."

"Easily," said Trixton Brent.

CHAPTER X

ON THE ART OF LION TAMING

After lunch, while Mrs. Kame was telephoning to her maid and Mr. Grainger

to Mrs. Faunce, Honora found herself alone with Trixton Brent in the

automobile at a moment when the Quicksands party were taking a cab. Mrs.

Chandos parsed long enough to wave her hand.

"Bon voyage!" she cried. "What an ideal party! and the chauffeur doesn't

understand English. If you don't turn up this evening, Honora, I'll

entertain your guests."

"We must get back," said Honora, involuntarily to Brent. "It would be too

dreadful if we didn't!"

"Are you afraid I'll run off with you?" he asked.

"I believe you're perfectly capable of it," she replied. "If I were wise,

I'd take the train."

"Why don't you?" he demanded.

She smiled.

"I don't know. It's because of your deteriorating influence, I suppose.

And yet I trust you, in spite of my instincts and--my eyes. I'm seriously

put out with you."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you later, if you're at a loss," she said, as Mrs. Kame and

Mr. Grainger appeared.

Eight years have elapsed since that day and this writing--an aeon in this

rapidly moving Republic of ours. The roads, although far from perfect

yet, were not then what they have since become. But the weather was dry

and the voyage to Westchester accomplished successfully. It was half-past

three when they drove up the avenue and deposited Mrs. Kame and Cecil

Grainger at the long front of the Faunce house: and Brent, who had been

driving, relinquished the wheel to the chauffeur and joined Honora in the

tonneau. The day was perfect, the woods still heavy with summer foliage,

and the only signs of autumn were the hay mounds and the yellowing

cornstalks stacked amidst the stubble of the fields.

Brent sat silently watching her, for she had raised her veil in saying

good-by to Mrs. Kame, and--as the chauffeur was proceeding slowly--had

not lowered it. Suddenly she turned and looked him full in the face.

"What kind of woman do you think I am?" she demanded.

"That's rather a big order, isn't it?" he said.

"I'm perfectly serious," continued Honora, slowly.

"I'd really like to know."

"Before I begin on the somewhat lengthy list of your qualities," he

replied, smiling, "may I ask why you'd like to know?"

"Yes," she said quickly. "I'd like to know because I think you've

misjudged me. I was really more angry than you have any idea of at the

manner in which you talked to Howard. And did you seriously suppose that

I was in earnest when we spoke about your assistance in persuading him to

take the house?"

He laughed.

"You are either the cleverest woman in the world," he declared, "or else

you oughtn't to be out without a guardian. And no judge in possession of

his five senses would appoint your husband."

Indignant as she was, she could not resist smiling. There was something

in the way Brent made such remarks that fascinated her.

"I shouldn't call you precisely eligible, either," she retorted.

He laughed again. But his eyes made her vaguely uneasy.

"Are these harsh words the reward for my charity? he asked.

"I'm by no means sure it's charity," she said. "That's what is troubling

me. And you have no right to say such things about my husband."

"How was I to know you were sensitive on the subject? he replied.

"I wonder what it would be like to be so utterly cynical as you," she

said.

"Do you mean to say you don't want the house?"

"I don't want it under those conditions," she answered with spirit. "I

didn't expect to be taken literally. And you've always insisted," she

added, "in ascribing to me motives that--that never occurred to me. You

make the mistake of thinking that because you have no ideals, other

people haven't. I hope Howard hasn't said he'd take the house. He's gone

off somewhere, and I haven't been able to see him."

Trixton Brent looked at her queerly.

"After that last manoeuvre of yours," he said, "it was all I could do to

prevent him from rushing over to Jerry Shorter's--and signing the lease."

She did not reply.

"What do these sudden, virtuous resolutions mean?" he asked. "Resignation?

Quicksands for life? Abandonment of the whole campaign?"

"There isn't any I campaign," she said--and her voice caught in something

like a sob. "I'm not that sordid kind of a person. And if I don't like

Quicksands, it's because the whole atmosphere seems to be charged with

--with just such a spirit."

Her hand was lying on the seat. He covered it with his own so quickly

that she left it there for a moment, as though paralyzed, while she

listened to the first serious words he had ever addressed to her.

"Honora, I admire you more than any woman I have ever known," he said.

Her breath came quickly, and she drew her hand away.

"I suppose I ought to feel complimented," she replied.

At this crucial instant what had been a gliding flight of the automobile

became, suddenly, a more or less uneven and jerky progress, accompanied

by violent explosions. At the first of these Honora, in alarm, leaped to

her feet. And the machine, after what seemed an heroic attempt to

continue, came to a dead stop. They were on the outskirts of a village;

children coming home from school surrounded them in a ring. Brent jumped

out, the chauffeur opened the hood, and they peered together into what

was, to Honora, an inexplicable tangle of machinery. There followed a

colloquy, in technical French, between the master and the man.

"What's the matter?" asked Honora, anxiously.

"Nothing much," said Brent, "spark-plugs. We'll fix it up in a few

minutes." He looked with some annoyance at the gathering crowd. "Stand

back a little, can't you?" he cried, "and give us room."

After some minutes spent in wiping greasy pieces of steel which the

chauffeur extracted, and subsequent ceaseless grinding on the crank, the

engine started again, not without a series of protesting cracks like

pistol shots. The chauffeur and Brent leaped in, the bystanders parted

with derisive cheers, and away they went through the village, only to

announce by another series of explosions a second disaster at the other

end of the street. A crowd collected there, too.

"Oh, dear!" said Honora, "don't you think we ought to take the train, Mr.

Brent? If I were to miss a dinner at my own house, it would be too

terrible!"

"There's nothing to worry about," he assured her. "Nothing broken. It's

only the igniting system that needs adjustment."

Although this was so much Greek to Honora, she was reassured. Trixton

Brent inspired confidence. There was another argument with the chauffeur,

a little more animated than the first; more greasy plugs taken out and

wiped, and a sharper exchange of compliments with the crowd; more

grinding, until the chauffeur's face was steeped in perspiration, and

more pistol shots. They were off again, but lamely, spurting a little at

times, and again slowing down to the pace of an ox-cart. Their progress

became a series of illustrations of the fable of the hare and the

tortoise. They passed horses, and the horses shied into the ditch: then

the same horses passed them, usually at the periods chosen by the demon

under the hood to fire its pistol shots, and into the ditch went the

horses once more, their owners expressing their thoughts in language at

once vivid and unrestrained.

It is one of the blessed compensations of life that in times of

prosperity we do not remember our miseries. In these enlightened days,

when everybody owns an automobile and calmly travels from Chicago to

Boston if he chooses, we have forgotten the dark ages when these machines

were possessed by devils: when it took sometimes as much as three hours

to go twenty miles, and often longer than that. How many of us have had

the same experience as Honora!

She was always going to take the train, and didn't. Whenever her mind was

irrevocably made up, the automobile whirled away on all four cylinders

for a half a mile or so, until they were out of reach of the railroad.

There were trolley cars, to be sure, but those took forever to get

anywhere. Four o'clock struck, five and six, when at last the fiend who

had conspired with fate, having accomplished his evident purpose of

compelling Honora to miss her dinner, finally abandoned them as suddenly

and mysteriously as he had come, and the automobile was a lamb once more.

It was half-past six, and the sun had set, before they saw the lights

twinkling all yellow on the heights of Fort George. At that hour the last

train they could have taken to reach the dinner-party in time was leaving

the New York side of the ferry.

"What will they think?" cried Honora. "They saw us leave Delmonico's at

two o'clock, and they didn't know we were going to Westchester."

It needed no very vivid imagination to summon up the probable remarks of

Mrs. Chandos on the affair. It was all very well to say the motor broke

down; but unfortunately Trixton Brent's reputation was not much better

than that of his car.

Trixton Brent, as might have been expected, was inclined to treat the

matter as a joke.

"There's nothing very formal about a Quicksands dinner-party," he said.

"We'll have a cosey little dinner in town, and call 'em up on the

telephone."

She herself was surprised at the spirit of recklessness stealing over

her, for there was, after all, a certain appealing glamour in the

adventure. She was thrilled by the swift, gliding motion of the

automobile, the weird and unfamiliar character of these upper reaches of

a great city in the twilight, where new houses stood alone or m rows on

wide levelled tracts; and old houses, once in the country, were seen high

above the roadway behind crumbling fences, surrounded by gloomy old trees

with rotting branches. She stole a glance at the man close beside her; a

delightful fear of him made her shiver, and she shrank closer into the

corner of the seat.

"Honora!"

All at once he had seized her hand again, and held it in spite of her

efforts to release it.

"Honora," he said, "I love you as I have never loved in my life. As I

never shall love again."

"Oh--you mustn't say that!" she cried.

"Why not?" he demanded. "Why not, if I feel it?"

"Because," faltered Honora, "because I can't listen to you."

Brent made a motion of disdain with his free hand.

"I don't pretend that it's right," he said. "I'm not a hypocrite, anyway,

thank God! It's undoubtedly wrong, according to all moral codes. I've

never paid any attention to them. You're married. I'm happy to say I'm

divorced. You've got a husband. I won't be guilty of the bad taste of

discussing him. He's a good fellow enough, but he never thinks about you

from the time the Exchange opens in the morning until he gets home at

night and wants his dinner. You don't love him--it would be a miracle if

a woman with any spirit did. He hasn't any more of an idea of what he

possesses by legal right than the man I discovered driving in a cart one

of the best hunters I ever had in my stables. To say that he doesn't

appreciate you is a ludicrous understatement. Any woman would have done

for him."

"Please don't!" she implored him. "Please don't!"

But for the moment she knew that she was powerless, carried along like a

chip on the crest of his passion.

"I don't pretend to say how it is, or why it is," he went on, paying no

heed to her protests. "I suppose there's one woman for every man in the

world--though I didn't use to think so. I always had another idea of

woman before I met you. I've thought I was in love with 'em, but now I

understand it was only--something else. I say, I don't know what it is in

you that makes me feel differently. I can't analyze it, and I don't want

to. You're not perfect, by a good deal, and God knows I'm not. You're

ambitious, but if you weren't, you'd be humdrum--yet there's no pitiful

artifice in you as in other women that any idiot can see through. And it

would have paralyzed forever any ordinary woman to have married Howard

Spence."

A new method of wooing, surely, and evidently peculiar to Trixton Brent.

Honora, in the prey of emotions which he had aroused in spite of her,

needless to say did not, at that moment, perceive the humour in it. His

words gave her food for thought for many months afterwards.

The lion was indeed aroused at last, and whip or goad or wile of no

avail. There came a time when she no longer knew what he was saying: when

speech, though eloquent and forceful, seemed a useless medium. Her

appeals were lost, and she found herself fighting in his arms, when

suddenly they turned into one of the crowded arteries of Harlem. She made

a supreme effort of will, and he released her.

"Oh!" she cried, trembling.

But he looked at her, unrepentant, with the light of triumph in his eyes.

"I'll never forgive you!" she exclaimed, breathless.

"I gloried in it," he replied. "I shall remember it as long as I live,

and I'll do it again."

She did not answer him. She dropped her veil, and for a long space was

silent while they rapidly threaded the traffic, and at length turned into

upper Fifth Avenue, skirting the Park. She did not so much as glance at

him. But he seemed content to watch her veiled profile in the dusk.

Her breath, in the first tumult of her thought, came and went deeply. But

gradually as the street lights burned brighter and familiar sights began

to appear, she grew more controlled and became capable of reflection. She

remembered that there was a train for Quicksands at seven-fifteen, which

Howard had taken once or twice. But she felt that the interval was too

short. In that brief period she could not calm herself sufficiently to

face her guests. Indeed, the notion of appearing alone, or with Brent, at

that dinner-party, appalled her. And suddenly an idea presented itself.

Brent leaned over, and began to direct the chauffeur to a well-known

hotel. She interrupted him.

"No," she said, "I'd rather go to the Holland House."

"Very well," he said amicably, not a little surprised at this

unlooked-for acquiescence, and then told his man to keep straight on down

the Avenue.

She began mechanically to rearrange her hat and veil; and after that,

sitting upright, to watch the cross streets with feverish anticipation,

her hands in her lap.

"Honora?" he said.

She did not answer.

"Raise the veil, just for a moment, and look at me."

She shook her head. But for some reason, best known to herself, she

smiled a little. Perhaps it was because her indignation, which would have

frightened many men into repentance, left this one undismayed. At any

rate, he caught the gleam of the smile through the film of her veil, and

laughed.

"We'll have a little table in the corner of the room," he declared, "and

you shall order the dinner. Here we are," he cried to the chauffeur.

"Pull up to the right."

They alighted, crossed the sidewalk, the doors were flung open to receive

them, and they entered the hotel.

Through the entrance to the restaurant Honora caught sight of the red

glow of candles upon the white tables, and heard the hum of voices. In

the hall, people were talking and laughing in groups, and it came as a

distinct surprise to her that their arrival seemed to occasion no remark.

At the moment of getting out of the automobile, her courage had almost

failed her.

Trixton Brent hailed one of the hotel servants.

"Show Mrs. Spence to the ladies' parlour," said he. And added to Honora,

"I'll get a table, and have the dinner card brought up in a few moments."

Honora stopped the boy at the elevator door.

"Go to the office," she said, "and find out if Mrs. Joshua Holt is in,

and the number of her room. And take me to the telephone booths. I'll

wait there."

She asked the telephone operator to call up Mr. Spence's house at

Quicksands--and waited.

"I'm sorry, madam," he said, after a little while, which seemed like half

an hour to Honora, "but they've had a fire in the Kingston exchange, and

the Quicksands line is out of order."

Honora's heart sank; but the bell-boy had reappeared. Yes, Mrs. Holt was

in.

"Take me to her room," she said, and followed him into the elevator.

In response to his knock the door was opened by Mrs. Holt herself. She

wore a dove-coloured gown, and in her hand was a copy of the report of

the Board of Missions. For a moment she peered at Honora over the glasses

lightly poised on the uncertain rim of her nose.

"Why--my dear!" she exclaimed, in astonishment. Honora!"

"Oh," cried Honora, "I'm so glad you're here. I was so afraid you'd be

out."

In the embrace that followed both the glasses and the mission report fell

to the floor. Honora picked them up.

"Sit down, my dear, and tell me how you happen to be here," said Mrs.

Holt. "I suppose Howard is downstairs."

"No, he isn't," said Honora, rather breathlessly; "that's the reason I

came here. That's one reason, I mean. I was coming to see you this

morning, but I simply didn't have time for a call after I got to town."

Mrs. Holt settled herself in the middle of the sofa, the only piece of

furniture in the room in harmony with her ample proportions. Her attitude

and posture were both judicial, and justice itself spoke in her

delft-blue eyes.

"Tell me all about it," she said, thus revealing her suspicions that

there was something to tell.

"I was just going to," said Honora, hastily, thinking of Trixton Brent

waiting in the ladies' parlour. "I took lunch at Delmomico's with Mr.

Grainger, and Mr. Brent, and Mrs. Kame--"

"Cecil Grainger?" demanded Mrs. Holt.

Honora trembled.

"Yes," she said.

"I knew his father and mother intimately," said Mrs. Holt, unexpectedly.

"And his wife is a friend of mine. She's one of the most executive women

we have in the 'Working Girls' Association,' and she read a paper today

that was masterful. You know her, of course."

"No," said Honora, "I haven't met her yet."

"Then how did you happen to be lunching with her husband?

"I wasn't lunching with him, Mrs. Holt," said Honora; "Mr. Brent was

giving the lunch."

"Who's Mr. Brent?" demanded Mrs. Holt. "One of those Quicksands people?"

"He's not exactly a Quicksands person. I scarcely know how to describe

him. He's very rich, and goes abroad a great deal, and plays polo. That's

the reason he has a little place at Quicksands. He's been awfully kind

both to Howard and me," she added with inspiration.

"And Mrs. Kame?" said Mrs. Holt.

"She's a widow, and has a place at Banbury.

"I never heard of her," said Mrs. Holt, and Honora thanked her stars.

"And Howard approves of these mixed lunches, my dear? When I was young,

husbands and wives usually went to parties together."

A panicky thought came to Honora, that Mrs. Holt might suddenly inquire

as to the whereabouts of Mr. Brent's wife.

"Oh, Howard doesn't mind," she said hastily. "I suppose times have

changed, Mrs. Holt. And after lunch we all went out in Mr. Brent's

automobile to the Faunces' in Westchester--"

"The Paul Jones Faunces?" Mrs. Holt interrupted.

"What a nice woman that young Mrs. Faunce is! She was Kitty Esterbrook,

you know. Both of them very old families."

"It was only," continued Honora, in desperation, "it was only to leave

Mr. Grainger and Mrs. Kame there to spend the night. They all said we had

plenty of time to go and get back to Quicksands by six o'clock. But

coming back the automobile broke down--"

"Of course," said Mrs. Holt, "it serves any one right for trusting to

them. I think they are an invention of the devil."

"And we've only just got back to New York this minute."

"Who?" inquired Mrs. Holt.

"Mr. Brent and I," said Honora, with downcast eyes.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed the elder lady.

"I couldn't think of anything else to do but come straight here to you,"

said Honora, gazing at her friend. "And oh, I'm so glad to find you.

There's not another train to Quicksands till after nine."

"You did quite right, my dear, under the circumstances. I don't say you

haven't been foolish, but it's Howard's fault quite as much as yours. He

has no business to let you do such things."

"And what makes it worse," said Honora, "is that the wires are down to

Quicksands, and I can't telephone Howard, and we have people to dinner,

and they don't know I went to Westchester, and there's no use

telegraphing: it wouldn't be delivered till midnight or morning."

"There, there, my dear, don't worry. I know how anxious you feel on your

husband's account--"

"Oh--Mrs. Holt, I was going to ask you a great, great favour. Wouldn't

you go down to Quicksands with me and spend the night--and pay us a

little visit? You know we would so love to have you!"

"Of course I'll go down with you, my dear," said Mrs. Holt. "I'm

surprised that you should think for an instant that I wouldn't. It's my

obvious duty. Martha!" she called, "Martha!"

The door of the bedroom opened, and Mrs. Holt's elderly maid appeared.

The same maid, by the way, who had closed the shutters that memorable

stormy night at Silverdale. She had, it seemed, a trick of appearing at

crises.

"Martha, telephone to Mrs. Edgerly--you know her number-and say that I am

very sorry, but an unexpected duty calls me out of town to-night, and ask

her to communicate with the Reverend Mr. Field. As for staying with you,

Honora," she continued, "I have to be back at Silverdale to-morrow night.

Perhaps you and Howard will come back with me. My frank opinion is, that

a rest from the gayety of Quicksands will do you good."

"I will come, with pleasure," said Honora. "But as for Howard--I'm afraid

he's too busy."

"And how about dinner?" asked Mrs. Holt.

"I forgot to say," said Honora, that Mr. Brent's downstairs. He brought

me here, of course. Have you any objection to his dining with us?"

"No," answered Mrs. Holt, "I think I should like to see him."

After Mrs. Holt had given instructions to her maid to pack, and Honora

had brushed some of the dust of the roads from her costume, they

descended to the ladies' parlour. At the far end of it a waiter holding a

card was standing respectfully, and Trixton Brent was pacing up and down

between the windows. When he caught sight of them he stopped in his

tracks, and stared, and stood as if rooted to the carpet. Honora came

forward.

"Oh, Mr. Brent!" she cried, "my old friend, Mrs. Holt, is here, and she's

going to take dinner with us and come down to Quicksands for the night.

May I introduce Mr. Brent."

"Wasn't it fortunate, Mr. Brent, that Mrs. Spence happened to find me?"

said Mrs. Holt, as she took his hand. "I know it is a relief to you."

It was not often, indeed, that Trixton Brent was taken off his guard; but

some allowance must be made for him, since he was facing a situation

unparalleled in his previous experience. Virtue had not often been so

triumphant, and never so dramatic as to produce at the critical instant

so emblematic a defender as this matronly lady in dove colour. For a

moment, he stared at her, speechless, and then he gathered himself

together.

"A relief?" he asked.

"It would seem so to me," said Mrs. Holt. "Not that I do not think you

are perfectly capable of taking care of her, as an intimate friend of her

husband. I was merely thinking of the proprieties. And as I am a guest in

this hotel, I expect you both to do me the honour to dine with me before

we start for Quicksands."

After all, Trixton Brent had a sense of humour, although it must not be

expected that he should grasp at once all the elements of a joke on

himself so colossal.

"I, for one," he said, with a slight bow which gave to his words a touch

somewhat elaborate, "will be delighted." And he shot at Honora a glance

compounded of many feelings, which she returned smilingly.

"Is that the waiter?" asked Mrs. Holt.

"That is a waiter," said Trixton Brent, glancing at the motionless

figure. "Shall I call him?"

"If you please," said Mrs. Holt. "Honora, you must tell me what you

like."

"Anything, Mrs. Holt," said Honora.

"If we are to leave a little after nine," said that lady, balancing her

glasses on her nose and glancing at the card, "we have not, I'm afraid,

time for many courses."

The head waiter greeted them at the door of the dining-room. He, too, was

a man of wisdom and experience. He knew Mrs. Holt, and he knew Trixton

Brent. If gravity had not been a life-long habit with him, one might have

suspected him of a desire to laugh. As it was, he seemed palpably

embarrassed,--for Mr. Brent had evidently been conversing with him.

"Two, sir?" he asked.

"Three," said Mrs. Holt, with dignity.

The head waiter planted them conspicuously in the centre of the room; one

of the strangest parties, from the point of view of a connoisseur of New

York, that ever sat down together. Mrs. Holt with her curls, and her

glasses laid flat on the bosom of her dove-coloured dress; Honora in a

costume dedicated to the very latest of the sports, and Trixton Brent in

English tweeds. The dining-room was full. But here and there amongst the

diners, Honora observed, were elderly people who smiled discreetly as

they glanced in their direction--friends, perhaps, of Mrs. Holt. And

suddenly, in one corner, she perceived a table of six where the mirth was

less restrained.

Fortunately for Mr. Brent, he had had a cocktail, or perhaps two, in

Honora's absence. Sufficient time had elapsed since their administration

for their proper soothing and exhilarating effects. At the sound of the

laughter in the corner he turned his head, a signal for renewed merriment

from that quarter. Whereupon he turned back again and faced his hostess

once more with a heroism that compelled Honora's admiration. As a

sportsman, he had no intention of shirking the bitterness of defeat.

"Mrs. Grainger and Mrs. Shorter," he remarked, "appear to be enjoying

themselves."

Honora felt her face grow hot as the merriment at the corner table rose

to a height it had not heretofore attained. And she did not dare to look

again.

Mrs. Holt was blissfully oblivious to her surroundings. She was, as

usual, extremely composed, and improved the interval, while drinking her

soup, with a more or less undisguised observation of Mr. Brent; evidently

regarding him somewhat in the manner that a suspicious householder would

look upon a strange gentleman whom he accidentally found in his front

hall. Explanations were necessary. That Mr. Brent's appearance, on the

whole, was in his favour did not serve to mitigate her suspicions.

Good-looking men were apt to be unscrupulous.

"Are you interested in working girls, Mr. Brent?" she inquired presently.

Honora, in spite of her discomfort, had an insane desire to giggle. She

did not dare to raise her eyes.

"I can't say that I've had much experience with them, Mrs. Holt," he

replied, with a gravity little short of sublime.

"Naturally you wouldn't have had," said Mrs. Holt. "What I meant was, are

you interested in the problems they have to face?"

"Extremely," said he, so unexpectedly that Honora choked. "I can't say

that I've given as many hours as I should have liked to a study of the

subject, but I don't know of any class that has a harder time. As a rule,

they're underpaid and overworked, and when night comes they are either

tired to death or bored to death, and the good-looking ones are subject

to temptations which some of them find impossible to resist, in a natural

desire for some excitement to vary the routine of their lives."

"It seems to me," said Mrs. Holt, "that you are fairly conversant with

the subject. I don't think I ever heard the problem stated so succinctly

and so well. Perhaps," she added, "it might interest you to attend one of

our meetings next month. Indeed, you might be willing to say a few

words."

"I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, Mrs. Holt. I'm a rather busy man,

and nothing of a public speaker, and it is rarely I get off in the

daytime."

"How about automobiling?" asked Mrs. Holt, with a smile.

"Well," said Trixton Brent, laughing in spite of himself, "I like the

working girls, I have to have a little excitement occasionally. And I

find it easier to get off in the summer than in the winter."

"Men cover a multitude of sins under the plea of business," said Mrs.

Holt, shaking her head. I can't say I think much of your method of

distraction. Why any one desires to get into an automobile, I don't see."

"Have you ever been in one?" he asked. "Mine is here, and I was about to

invite you to go down to the ferry in it. I'll promise to go slow."

"Well," said Mrs. Holt, "I don't object to going that distance, if you

keep your promise. I'll admit that I've always had a curiosity."

"And in return," said Brent, gallantly, "allow me to send you a cheque

for your working girls."

"You're very good," said Mrs. Holt.

"Oh," he protested, I'm not in the habit of giving much to charities, I'm

sorry to say. I'd like to know how it feels."

"Then I hope the sensation will induce you to try it again," said Mrs.

Holt.

"Nobody, Mrs. Holt," cried Honora, "could be kinder to his friends than

Mr. Brent!"

"We were speaking of disinterested kindness, my dear," was Mrs. Holt's

reply.

"You're quite right, Mrs. Holt," said Trixton Brent, beginning, as the

dinner progressed, to take in the lady opposite a delight that surprised

him. "I'm willing to confess that I've led an extremely selfish

existence."

"The confession isn't necessary," she replied. "It's written all over

you. You're the type of successful man who gets what he wants. I don't

mean to say that you are incapable of kindly instincts." And her eye

twinkled a little.

"I'm very grateful for that concession, at any rate," he declared.

"There might be some hope for you if you fell into the hands of a good

woman," said Mrs. Holt. "I take it you are a bachelor. Mark my words, the

longer you remain one, the more steeped in selfishness you are likely to

become in this modern and complex and sense-satisfying life which so many

people lead."

Honora trembled for what he might say to this, remembering his bitter

references of that afternoon to his own matrimonial experience. Visions

of a scene arose before her in the event that Mrs. Holt should discover

his status. But evidently Trixton Brent had no intention of discussing

his marriage.

"Judging by some of my married friends and acquaintances," he said, "I

have no desire to try matrimony as a remedy for unselfishness."

"Then," replied Mrs. Holt, "all I can say is, I should make new friends

amongst another kind of people, if I were you. You are quite right, and

if I were seeking examples of happy marriages, I should not begin my

search among the so-called fashionable set of the present day. They are

so supremely selfish that if the least difference in taste develops, or

if another man or woman chances along whom they momentarily fancy more

than their own husbands or wives, they get a divorce. Their idea of

marriage is not a mutual sacrifice which brings happiness through trials

borne together and through the making of character. No, they have a

notion that man and wife may continue to lead their individual lives.

That isn't marriage. I've lived with Joshua Holt thirty-five years last

April, and I haven't pleased myself in all that time."

"All men," said Trixton Brent, "are not so fortunate as Mr. Holt."

Honora began to have the sensations of a witness to a debate between

Mephistopheles and the powers of heaven. Her head swam. But Mrs. Holt,

who had unlooked-for flashes of humour, laughed, and shook her curls at

Brent.

"I should like to lecture you some time," she said; "I think it would do

you good."

He shook his head.

"I'm beyond redemption. Don't you think so, Honora?" he asked, with an

unexpected return of his audacity.

"I'm afraid I'm not worthy to judge you," she replied, and coloured.

"Stuff and nonsense," said Mrs. Holt; "women are superior to men, and

it's our duty to keep them in order. And if we're really going to risk

our lives in your automobile, Mr. Brent, you'd better make sure it's

there," she added, glancing at her watch.

Having dined together in an apparent and inexplicable amity, their exit

was of even more interest to the table in the corner than their entrance

had been. Mrs. Holt's elderly maid was waiting in the hall, Mrs. Holt's

little trunk was strapped on the rear of the car; and the lady herself,

with something of the feelings of a missionary embarking for the wilds of

Africa, was assisted up the little step and through the narrow entrance

of the tonneau by the combined efforts of Honora and Brent. An expression

of resolution, emblematic of a determination to die, if necessary, in the

performance of duty, was on her face as the machinery started; and her

breath was not quite normal when, in an incredibly brief period, they

descended at the ferry.

The journey to Quicksands was accomplished in a good fellowship which

Honora, an hour before, would not have dreamed of. Even Mrs. Holt was not

wholly proof against the charms of Trixton Brent when he chose to exert

himself; and for some reason he did so choose. As they stood in the

starlight on the platform of the deserted little station while he went

across to Whelen's livery stable to get a carriage, Mrs. Holt remarked to

Honora:

"Mr. Brent is a fascinating man, my dear."

"I am so glad that you appreciate him," exclaimed Honora.

"And a most dangerous one," continued Mrs. Holt. "He has probably, in his

day, disturbed the peace of mind of a great many young women. Not that I

haven't the highest confidence in you, Honora, but honesty forces me to

confess that you are young and pleasure-loving, and a little heedless.

And the atmosphere in which you live is not likely to correct those

tendencies. If you will take my advice, you will not see too much of Mr.

Trixton Brent when your husband is not present."

Indeed, as to the probable effect of this incident on the relations

between Mr. Brent and herself Honora was wholly in the dark. Although,

from her point of view, what she had done had been amply justified by the

plea of self-defence, it could not be expected that he would accept it in

the same spirit. The apparent pleasure he had taken in the present

situation, once his amazement had been overcome, profoundly puzzled her.

He returned in a few minutes with the carriage and driver, and they

started off. Brent sat in front, and Honora explained to Mrs. Holt the

appearance of the various places by daylight, and the names of their

owners. The elderly lady looked with considerable interest at the blazing

lights of the Club, with the same sensations she would no doubt have had

if she had been suddenly set down within the Moulin Rouge. Shortly

afterwards they turned in at the gate of "The Brackens." The light

streamed across the porch and driveway, and the sound of music floated

out of the open windows. Within, the figure of Mrs. Barclay could be

seen; she was singing vaudeville songs at the piano. Mrs. Holt's lips

were tightly shut as she descended and made her way up the steps.

"I hope you'll come in,", said Honora to Trixton Brent, in a low voice.

"Come in!" he replied, "I wouldn't miss it for ten thousand dollars."

Mrs. Holt was the first of the three to appear at the door of the

drawing-room, and Mrs. Barclay caught sight of her, and stopped in the

middle of a bar, with her mouth open. Some of the guests had left. A

table in the corner, where Lula Chandos had insisted on playing bridge,

was covered with scattered cards and some bills, a decanter of whiskey,

two soda bottles, and two glasses. The blue curling smoke from Mrs.

Chandos' cigarette mingled with the haze that hung between the ceiling

and the floor, and that lady was in the act of saying cheerfully to

Howard, who sat opposite,--"Trixy's run off with her."

Suddenly the chill of silence pervaded the room. Lula Chandos, whose back

was turned to the door, looked from Mrs. Barclay to Howard, who, with the

other men had risen to his feet.

"What's the matter?" she said in a frightened tone. And, following the

eyes of the others, turned her head slowly towards the doorway.

Mrs. Holt, who filled it, had been literally incapable of speech. Close

behind her stood Honora and Trixton whose face was inscrutable.

"Howard," said Honora, summoning all the courage that remained in her,

"here's Mrs. Holt. We dined with her, and she was good enough to come

down for the night. I'm so sorry not to have been here," she added to her

guests, "but we went to Westchester with Mrs. Kame and Mr. Grainger, and

the automobile broke down on the way back."

Mrs. Holt made no attempt to enter, but stared fixedly at the cigarette

that Mrs. Chandos still held in her trembling fingers. Howard crossed the

room in the midst of an intense silence.

"Glad to see you, Mrs. Holt," he said. "Er--won't you come in and--and

sit down?"

"Thank you, Howard" she replied, "I do not wish to interrupt your party.

It is my usual hour for retiring.

"And I think, my dear," she added, turning to Honora, "that I'll ask you

to excuse me, and show me to my room."

"Certainly, Mrs. Holt," said Honora, breathlessly.

"Howard, ring the bell."

She led the way up the stairs to the guest-chamber with the rose paper

and the little balcony. As she closed the door gusts of laughter reached

them from the floor below, and she could plainly distinguish the voices

of May Barclay and Trixton Brent.

"I hope you'll be comfortable, Mrs. Holt," she said. "Your maid will be

in the little room across the hall and I believe you like breakfast at

eight."

"You mustn't let me keep you from your guests, Honora."

"Oh, Mrs. Holt," she said, on the verge of tears, "I don't want to go to

them. Really, I don't."

"It must be confessed," said Mrs. Holt, opening her handbag and taking

out the copy of the mission report, which had been carefully folded,

"that they seem to be able to get along very well without you. I suppose

I am too old to understand this modern way of living. How well I remember

one night--it was in 1886--I missed the train to Silverdale, and my

telegram miscarried. Poor Mr. Holt was nearly out of his head."

She fumbled for her glasses and dropped them. Honora picked them up, and

it was then she perceived that the tears were raining down the good

lady's cheeks. At the same moment they sprang into Honora's eyes, and

blinded her. Mrs. Holt looked at her long and earnestly.

"Go down, my dear," she said gently, "you must not neglect your friends.

They will wonder where you are. And at what time do you breakfast?"

"At--at any time you like."

"I shall be down at eight," said Mrs. Holt, and she kissed her.

Honora, closing the door, stood motionless in the hall, and presently the

footsteps and the laughter and the sound of carriage wheels on the gravel

died away.

CHAPTER XI

CONTAINING SOME REVELATIONS

Honora, as she descended, caught a glimpse of the parlour maid picking up

the scattered cards on the drawing-room floor. There were voices on the

porch, where Howard was saying good-by to Mrs. Chandos and Trixton Brent.

She joined them.

"Oh, my dear!" cried Mrs. Chandos, interrupting Honora's apologies, "I'm

sure I shan't sleep a wink--she gave me such a fright. You might have

sent Trixy ahead to prepare us. When I first caught sight of her, I

thought it was my own dear mother who had come all the way from

Cleveland, and the cigarette burned my fingers. But I must say I think it

was awfully clever of you to get hold of her and save Trixy's reputation.

Good night, dear."

And she got into her carriage.

"Give my love to Mrs. Holt," said Brent, as he took Honora's hand, "and

tell her I feel hurt that she neglected to say good night to me. I

thought I had made an impression. Tell her I'll send her a cheque for her

rescue work. She inspires me with confidence."

Howard laughed.

"I'll see you to-morrow, Brent," he called out as they drove away. Though

always assertive, it seemed to Honora that her husband had an increased

air of importance as he turned to her now with his hands in his pockets.

He looked at her for a moment, and laughed again. He, too, had apparently

seen the incident only in a humorous light. "Well, Honora," he remarked,

"you have a sort of a P. T. Barnum way of doing things once in a

while--haven't you? Is the old lady really tucked away for the night, or

is she coming down to read us a sermon? And how the deuce did you happen

to pick her up?"

She had come downstairs with confession on her lips, and in the agitation

of her mind had scarcely heeded Brent's words or Mrs. Chandos'. She had

come down prepared for any attitude but the one in which she found him;

for anger, reproaches, arraignments. Nay, she was surprised to find now

that she had actually hoped for these. She deserved to be scolded: it was

her right. If he had been all of a man, he would have called her to

account. There must be--there was something lacking in his character. And

it came to her suddenly, with all the shock of a great contrast, with

what different eyes she had looked upon him five years before at

Silverdale.

He went into the house and started to enter the drawing-room, still in

disorder and reeking with smoke.

"No, not in there!" she cried sharply.

He turned to her puzzled. Her breath was coming and going quickly. She

crossed the hall and turned on the light in the little parlour there, and

he followed her.

"Don't you feel well?" he asked.

"Howard," she said, "weren't you worried?"

"Worried? No, why should I have been? Lula Chandos and May Barclay had

seen you in the automobile in town, and I knew you were high and dry

somewhere."

"High and dry," she repeated. What?"

"Nothing. They said I had run off with Mr. Brent, didn't they?"

He laughed.

"Yes, there was some joking to that effect."

"You didn't take it seriously?

"No--why should I?"

She was appalled by his lack of knowledge of her. All these years she had

lived with him, and he had not grasped even the elements of her nature.

And this was marriage! Trixton Brent--short as their acquaintance had

been--had some conception of her character and possibilities her husband

none. Where was she to begin? How was she to tell him the episode in the

automobile in order that he might perceive something of its sinister

significance?

Where was she to go to be saved from herself, if not to him?

"I might have run away with him, if I had loved him," she said after a

pause. "Would you have cared?"

"You bet your life," said Howard, and put his arm around her.

She looked up into his face. So intent had she been on what she had meant

to tell him that she did not until now perceive he was preoccupied, and

only half listening to what she was saying.

"You bet your life," he said, patting her shoulder. "What would I have

done, all alone, in the new house?"

"In the new house?" she cried. "Oh, Howard--you haven't taken it!"

"I haven't signed the lease," he replied importantly, smiling down at

her, and thrusting his hands in his pockets.

"I don't want it," said Honora; "I don't want it. I told you that I'd

decided I didn't want it when we were there. Oh, Howard, why did you take

it?"

He whistled. He had the maddening air of one who derives amusement from

the tantrums of a spoiled child.

"Well," he remarked, "women are too many for me. If there's any way of

pleasing 'em I haven't yet discovered it. The night before last you had

to have the house. Nothing else would do. It was the greatest find in New

York. For the first time in months you get up for breakfast--a pretty

sure sign you hadn't changed your mind. You drag me to see it, and when

you land me there, because I don't lose my head immediately, you say you

don't want it. Of course I didn't take you seriously--I thought you'd set

your heart on it, so I wired an offer to Shorter to-day, and he accepted

it. And when I hand you this pleasant little surprise, you go right up in

the air."

He had no air of vexation, however, as he delivered this somewhat

reproachful harangue in the picturesque language to which he commonly

resorted. Quite the contrary. He was still smiling, as Santa Claus must

smile when he knows he has another pack up the chimney.

"Why this sudden change of mind?" he demanded. "It can't be because you

want to spend the winter in Quicksands."

She was indeed at a loss what to say. She could not bring herself to ask

him whether he had been influenced by Trixton Brent. If he had, she told

herself, she did not wish to know. He was her husband, after all, and it

would be too humiliating. And then he had taken the house.

"Have you hit on a palace you like better?" he inquired, with a clumsy

attempt at banter. "They tell me the elder Maitlands are going abroad

--perhaps we could get their house on the Park."

"You said you couldn't afford Mrs. Rindge's house," she answered

uneasily, "and I--I believed you."

"I couldn't," he said mysteriously, and paused.

It seemed to her, as she recalled the scene afterwards, that in this

pause he gave the impression of physically swelling. She remembered

staring at him with wide, frightened eyes and parted lips.

"I couldn't," he repeated, with the same strange emphasis and a palpable

attempt at complacency. "But--er--circumstances have changed since then."

"What do you mean, Howard?" she whispered.

The corners of his mouth twitched in the attempt to repress a smile.

"I mean," he said, "that the president of a trust company can afford to

live in a better house than the junior partner of Dallam and Spence."

"The president of a trust company!" Honora scarcely recognized her own

voice--so distant it sounded. The room rocked, and she clutched the arm

of a chair and sat down. He came and stood over her.

"I thought that would surprise you some," he said, obviously pleased by

these symptoms. "The fact is, I hadn't meant to break it to you until

morning. But I think I'll go in on the seven thirty-five." (He glanced

significantly up at the ceiling, as though Mrs. Holt had something to do

with this decision.) "President of the Orange Trust Company at forty

isn't so bad, eh?"

"The Orange Trust Company? Did you say the Orange Trust Company?"

"Yes." He produced a cigarette. "Old James Wing and Brent practically

control it. You see, if I do say it myself, I handled some things pretty

well for Brent this summer, and he's seemed to appreciate it. He and Wing

were buying in traction stocks out West. But you could have knocked me

down with a paper-knife when he came to me--"

"When did he come to you?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yesterday. We went down town together, you remember, and he asked me to

step into his office. Well, we talked it over, and I left on the one

o'clock for Newport to see Mr. Wing. Wonderful old man! I sat up with him

till midnight--it wasn't any picnic" . . .

More than once during the night Honora awoke with a sense of oppression,

and each time went painfully through the whole episode from the evening

--some weeks past when Trixton Brent had first mentioned the subject of

the trust company, to the occurrence in the automobile and Howard's

triumphant announcement. She had but a vague notion of how that scene had

finished; or of how, limply, she had got to bed. Round and round the

circle she went in each waking period. To have implored him to relinquish

the place had been waste of breath; and then--her reasons? These were the

moments when the current was strongest, when she grew incandescent with

humiliation and pain; when stray phrases in red letters of Brent's were

illuminated. Merit! He had a contempt for her husband which he had not

taken the trouble to hide. But not a business contempt. "As good as the

next man," Brent had said--or words to that effect. "As good as the next

man!" Then she had tacitly agreed to the bargain, and refused to honour

the bill! No, she had not, she had not. Before God, she was innocent of

that! When she reached this point it was always to James Wing that she

clung--the financier, at least, had been impartial. And it was he who

saved her.

At length she opened her eyes to discover with bewilderment that the room

was flooded with light, and then she sprang out of bed and went to the

open window. To seaward hung an opal mist, struck here and there with

crimson. She listened; some one was whistling an air she had heard

before--Mrs. Barclay had been singing it last night! Wheels crunched the

gravel--Howard was going off. She stood motionless until the horse's

hoofs rang on the highroad, and then hurried into her dressing-gown and

slippers and went downstairs to the telephone and called a number.

"Is this Mr. Brent's? Will you say to Mr. Brent that Mrs. Spence would be

greatly, obliged if he stopped a moment at her house before going to

town? Thank you."

She returned to her room and dressed with feverish haste, trying to

gather her wits for an ordeal which she felt it would have killed her to

delay. At ten minutes to eight she emerged again and glanced anxiously at

Mrs. Holt's door; and scarcely had she reached the lower hall before he

drove into the circle. She was struck more forcibly than ever by the

physical freshness of the man, and he bestowed on her, as he took her

hand, the peculiar smile she knew so well, that always seemed to have an

enigma behind it. At sight and touch of him the memory of what she had

prepared to say vanished.

"Behold me, as ever, your obedient servant," he said, as he followed her

into the screened-off portion of the porch.

"You must think it strange that I sent for you, I know," she cried, as

she turned to him. "But I couldn't wait. I--I did not know until last

night. Howard only told me then. Oh, you didn't do it for me! Please say

you didn't do it for me!"

"My dear Honora," replied Trixton Brent, gravely, "we wanted your husband

for his abilities and the valuable services he can render us."

She stood looking into his eyes, striving to penetrate to the soul

behind, ignorant or heedless that others before her had tried and failed.

He met her gaze unflinchingly, and smiled.

"I want the truth," she craved.

"I never lie--to a woman," he said.

"My life--my future depends upon it," she went on. "I'd rather scrub

floors, I'd rather beg--than to have it so. You must believe me!"

"I do believe you," he affirmed. And he said it with a gentleness and a

sincerity that startled her.

"Thank you," she answered simply. And speech became very difficult.

"If--if I haven't been quite fair with you--Mr. Brent, I am sorry. I--I

liked you, and I like you to-day better than ever before. And I can quite

see now how I must have misled you into thinking--queer things about me.

I didn't mean to. I have learned a lesson."

She took a deep, involuntary breath. The touch of lightness in his reply

served to emphasize the hitherto unsuspected fact that sportsmanship in

Trixton Brent was not merely a code, but assumed something of the

grandeur of a principle.

"I, too, have learned a lesson," he replied. "I have learned the

difference between nature and art. I am something of a connoisseur in

art. I bow to nature, and pay my bets."

"Your bets?" she asked, with a look.

"My renunciations, forfeits, whatever you choose to call them. I have

been fairly and squarely beaten--but by nature, not by art. That is my

consolation."

Laughter struck into her eyes like a shaft of sunlight into a well; her

emotions were no longer to be distinguished. And in that moment she

wondered what would have happened if she had loved this man, and why she

had not. And when next he spoke, she started.

"How is my elderly dove-coloured friend this morning?" he asked. "That

dinner with her was one of the great events of my life. I didn't suppose

such people existed any more."

"Perhaps you'll stay to breakfast with her," suggested Honora, smiling.

"I know she'd like to see you again."

"No, thanks," he said, taking her hand, "I'm on my way to the train--I'd

quite forgotten it. Au revoir!" He reached the end of the porch, turned,

and called back, "As a 'dea ex machina', she has never been equalled."

Honora stood for a while looking after him, until she heard a footstep

behind her,--Mrs. Holt's.

"Who was that, my dear?" she asked, "Howard?"

"Howard has gone, Mrs. Holt," Honora replied, rousing herself. "I must

make his apologies. It was Mr. Brent."

"Mr. Brent!" the good lady repeated, with a slight upward lift of the

faint eyebrows. "Does he often call this early?"

Honora coloured a little, and laughed.

"I asked him to breakfast with you, but he had to catch a train. He

--wished to be remembered. He took such a fancy to you."

"I am afraid," said Mrs. Holt, "that his fancy is a thing to be avoided.

Are you coming to Silverdale with me, Honora?"

"Yes, Mrs. Holt," she replied, slipping her arm through that of her

friend, "for as long as you will let me stay."

And she left a note for Howard to that effect.

A MODERN CHRONICLE

By Winston Churchill

BOOK III

Volume 5.

CHAPTER I

ASCENDI

Honora did not go back to Quicksands. Neither, in this modern chronicle,

shall we.

The sphere we have left, which we know is sordid, sometimes shines in the

retrospect. And there came a time, after the excitement of furnishing the

new house was over, when our heroine, as it were, swung for a time in

space: not for a very long time; that month, perhaps, between autumn and

winter.

We need not be worried about her, though we may pause for a moment or two

to sympathize with her in her loneliness--or rather in the moods it

produced. She even felt, in those days, slightly akin to the Lady of the

Victoria (perfectly respectable), whom all of us fortunate enough

occasionally to go to New York have seen driving on Fifth Avenue with an

expression of wistful haughtiness, and who changes her costumes four

times a day.

Sympathy! We have seen Honora surrounded by friends--what has become of

them? Her husband is president of a trust company, and she has one of the

most desirable houses in New York. What more could be wished for? To jump

at conclusions in this way is by no means to understand a heroine with an

Ideal. She had these things, and--strange as it may seem--suffered.

Her sunny drawing-room, with its gathered silk curtains, was especially

beautiful; whatever the Leffingwells or Allisons may have lacked, it was

not taste. Honora sat in it and wondered: wondered, as she looked back

over the road she had threaded somewhat blindly towards the Ideal,

whether she might not somewhere have taken the wrong turn. The farther

she travelled, the more she seemed to penetrate into a land of

unrealities. The exquisite objects by which she was surrounded, and which

she had collected with such care, had no substance: she would not have

been greatly surprised, at any moment, to see them vanish like a scene in

a theatre, leaning an empty, windy stage behind them. They did not belong

to her, nor she to them.

Past generations of another blood, no doubt, had been justified in

looking upon the hazy landscapes in the great tapestries as their own:

and children's children had knelt, in times gone by, beside the carved

stone mantel. The big, gilded chairs with the silken seats might

appropriately have graced the table of the Hotel de Rambouillet. Would

not the warriors and the wits, the patient ladies of high degree and of

many children, and even the 'precieuses ridicules' themselves, turn over

in their graves if they could so much as imagine the contents of the

single street in modern New York where Honora lived?

One morning, as she sat in that room, possessed by these whimsical though

painful fancies, she picked up a newspaper and glanced through it,

absently, until her eye fell by chance upon a name on the editorial page.

Something like an electric shock ran through her, and the letters of the

name seemed to quiver and become red. Slowly they spelled--Peter Erwin.

"The argument of Mr. Peter Erwin, of St. Louis, before the Supreme Court

of the United States in the now celebrated Snowden case is universally

acknowledged by lawyers to have been masterly, and reminiscent of the

great names of the profession in the past. Mr. Erwin is not dramatic. He

appears to carry all before him by the sheer force of intellect, and by a

kind of Lincolnian ability to expose a fallacy: He is still a young man,

self-made, and studied law under Judge Brice of St. Louis, once President

of the National Bar Association, whose partner he is"....

Honora cut out the editorial and thrust it in her gown, and threw the

newspaper is the fire. She stood for a time after it had burned, watching

the twisted remnants fade from flame colour to rose, and finally blacken.

Then she went slowly up the stairs and put on her hat and coat and veil.

Although a cloudless day, it was windy in the park, and cold, the ruffled

waters an intense blue. She walked fast.

She lunched with Mrs. Holt, who had but just come to town; and the light,

like a speeding guest, was departing from the city when she reached her

own door.

"There is a gentleman in the drawing-room, madam," said the butler. "He

said he was an old friend, and a stranger in New York, and asked if he

might wait."

She stood still with presentiment.

"What is his name?" she asked.

"Mr. Erwin," said the man.

Still she hesitated. In the strange state in which she found herself that

day, the supernatural itself had seemed credible. And yet--she was not

prepared.

"I beg pardon, madam," the butler was saying, "perhaps I shouldn't--?"

"Yes, yes, you should," she interrupted him, and pushed past him up the

stairs. At the drawing-room door she paused--he was unaware of her

presence. And he had not changed! She wondered why she had expected him

to change. Even the glow of his newly acquired fame was not discernible

behind his well-remembered head. He seemed no older--and no younger. And

he was standing with his hands behind his back gazing in simple, silent

appreciation at the big tapestry nearest the windows.

"Peter," she said, in a low voice.

He turned quickly, and then she saw the glow. But it was the old glow,

not the new--the light in which her early years had been spent.

"What a coincidence!" she exclaimed, as he took her hand.

"Coincidence?"

"It was only this morning that I was reading in the newspaper all sorts

of nice things about you. It made me feel like going out and telling

everybody you were an old friend of mine." Still holding his fingers, she

pushed him away from her at arm's length, and looked at him. "What does

it feel like to be famous, and have editorials about one's self in the

New York newspapers?"

He laughed, and released his hands somewhat abruptly.

"It seems as strange to me, Honora, as it does to you."

"How unkind of you, Peter!" she exclaimed.

She felt his eyes upon her, and their searching, yet kindly and humorous

rays seemed to illuminate chambers within her which she would have kept

in darkness: which she herself did not wish to examine.

"I'm so glad to see you," she said a little breathlessly, flinging her

muff and boa on a chair. "Sit there, where I can look at you, and tell me

why you didn't let me know you were coming to New York."

He glanced a little comically at the gilt and silk arm-chair which she

designated, and then at her; and she smiled and coloured, divining the

humour in his unspoken phrase.

"For a great man," she declared, "you are absurd."

He sat down. In spite of his black clothes and the lounging attitude he

habitually assumed, with his knees crossed--he did not appear incongruous

in a seat that would have harmonized with the flowing robes of the

renowned French Cardinal himself. Honora wondered why. He impressed her

to-day as force--tremendous force in repose, and yet he was the same

Peter. Why was it? Had the clipping that even then lay in her bosom

effected this magic change? He had intimated as much, but she denied it

fiercely.

She rang for tea.

"You haven't told me why you came to New York," she said.

"I was telegraphed for, from Washington, by a Mr. Wing," he explained.

"A Mr. Wing," she repeated. "You don't mean by any chance James Wing?"

"The Mr. Wing," said Peter.

"The reason I asked," explained Honora, flushing, was because Howard is

--associated with him. Mr. Wing is largely interested in the Orange Trust

Company."

"Yes, I know," said Peter. His elbows were resting on the arms of his

chair, and he looked at the tips of his fingers, which met. Honora

thought it strange that he did not congratulate her, but he appeared to

be reflecting.

"What did Mr. Wing want?" she inquired in her momentary confusion, and

added hastily, "I beg your pardon, Peter. I suppose I ought not to ask

that."

"He was kind enough to wish me to live in New York he answered, still

staring at the tips of his fingers.

"Oh, how nice!" she cried--and wondered at the same time whether, on

second thoughts, she would think it so. "I suppose he wants you to be the

counsel for one of his trusts. When--when do you come?"

"I'm not coming."

"Not coming! Why? Isn't it a great compliment?"

He ignored the latter part of her remark; and it seemed to her, when she

recalled the conversation afterwards, that she had heard a certain note

of sadness under the lightness of his reply.

"To attempt to explain to a New Yorker why any one might prefer to live

in any other place would be a difficult task."

"You are incomprehensible, Peter," she declared. And yet she felt a

relief that surprised her, and a desire to get away from the subject.

"Dear old St. Louis! Somehow, in spite of your greatness, it seems to fit

you."

"It's growing," said Peter--and they laughed together.

"Why didn't you come to lunch?" she said.

"Lunch! I didn't know that any one ever went to lunch in New York--in

this part of it, at least--with less than three weeks' notice. And by the

way, if I am interfering with any engagement--"

"My book is not so full as all that. Of course you'll come and stay with

us, Peter."

He shook his head regretfully.

"My train leaves at six, from Forty-Second Street," he replied.

"Oh, you are niggardly," she cried. "To think how little I see of you,

Peter. And sometimes I long for you. It's strange, but I still miss you

terribly--after five years. It seems longer than that," she added, as she

poured the boiling water into the tea-pot. But she did not look at him.

He got up and walked as far as a water-colour on the wall.

"You have some beautiful things here, Honora," he said. "I am glad I have

had a glimpse of you surrounded by them to carry back to your aunt and

uncle."

She glanced about the room as he spoke, and then at him. He seemed the

only reality in it, but she did not say so.

"You'll see them soon," was what she said. And considered the miracle of

him staying there where Providence had placed him, and bringing the world

to him. Whereas she, who had gone forth to seek it--"The day after

to-morrow will be Sunday," he reminded her.

Nothing had changed there. She closed her eyes and saw the little dining

room in all the dignity of Sunday dinner, the big silver soup tureen

catching the sun, the flowered china with the gilt edges, and even a

glimpse of lace paper when the closet door opened; Aunt Mary and Uncle

Tom, with Peter between them. And these, strangely, were the only

tangible things and immutable.

"You'll give them--a good account of me?" she said. "I know that you do

not care for New York," she added with a smile. "But it is possible to be

happy here."

"I am glad you are happy, Honora, and that you have got what you wanted

in life. Although I may be unreasonable and provincial and--and Western,"

he confessed with a twinkle--for he had the characteristic national trait

of shading off his most serious remarks--"I have never gone so far as to

declare that happiness was a question of locality."

She laughed.

"Nor fame." Her mind returned to the loadstar.

"Oh, fame!" he exclaimed, with a touch of impatience, and he used the

word that had possessed her all day. "There is no reality in that. Men

are not loved for it."

She set down her cup quickly. He was looking at the water-colour.

"Have you been to the Metropolitan Museum lately?" he asked.

"The Metropolitan Museum?" she repeated in bewilderment.

"That would be one of the temptations of New York for me," he said. "I

was there for half an hour this afternoon before I presented myself at

your door as a suspicious character. There is a picture there, by Coffin,

called 'The Rain,' I believe. I am very fond of it. And looking at it on

such a winter's day as this brings back the summer. The squall coming,

and the sound of it in the trees, and the very smell of the wet

meadow-grass in the wind. Do you know it?"

"No," replied Honora, and she was suddenly filled with shame at the

thought that she had never been in the Museum. "I didn't know you were so

fond of pictures."

"I am beginning to be a rival of Mr. Dwyer," he declared. "I've bought

four--although I haven't built my gallery. When you come to St. Louis

I'll show them to you--and let us hope it will be soon."

For some time after she had heard the street door close behind him Honora

remained where she was, staring into the fire, and then she crossed the

room to a reading lamp, and turned it up.

Some one spoke in the doorway.

"Mr. Grainger, madam."

Before she could rouse herself and recover from her astonishment, the

gentleman himself appeared, blinking as though the vision of her were too

bright to be steadily gazed at. If the city had been searched, it is

doubtful whether a more striking contrast to the man who had just left

could have been found than Cecil Grainger in the braided, grey cutaway

that clung to the semblance of a waist he still possessed. In him Hyde

Park and Fifth Avenue, so to speak, shook hands across the sea: put him

in either, and he would have appeared indigenous.

"Hope you'll forgive my comin' 'round on such slight acquaintance, Mrs.

Spence," said he. "Couldn't resist the opportunity to pay my respects.

Shorter told me where you were."

"That was very good of Mr. Shorter," said Honora, whose surprise had

given place to a very natural resentment, since she had not the honour of

knowing Mrs. Grainger.

"Oh," said Mr. Grainger, "Shorter's a good sort. Said he'd been here

himself to see how you were fixed, and hadn't found you in. Uncommonly

well fixed, I should say," he added, glancing around the room with

undisguised approval. "Why the deuce did she furnish it, since she's gone

to Paris to live with Rindge?"

"I suppose you mean Mrs. Rindge," said Honora. "She didn't furnish it."

Mr. Grainger winked at her rapidly, like a man suddenly brought face to

face with a mystery.

"Oh!" he replied, as though he had solved it. The solution came a few

moments later. "It's ripping!" he said. "Farwell couldn't have done it

any better."

Honora laughed, and momentarily forgot her resentment.

"Will you have tea?" she asked. "Oh, don't sit down there!"

"Why not?" he asked, jumping. It was the chair that had held Peter, and

Mr. Grainger examined the seat as though he suspected a bent pin.

"Because," said Honora, "because it isn't comfortable. Pull up that other

one."

Again mystified, he did as he was told. She remembered his reputation for

going to sleep, and wondered whether she had been wise in her second

choice. But it soon became apparent that Mr. Grainger, as he gazed at her

from among the cushions, had no intention of dozing, His eyelids reminded

her of the shutters of a camera, and she had the feeling of sitting for

thousands of instantaneous photographs for his benefit. She was by turns

annoyed, amused, and distrait: Peter was leaving his hotel; now he was

taking the train. Was he thinking of her? He had said he was glad she was

happy! She caught herself up with a start after one of these silences to

realize that Mr. Grainger was making unwonted and indeed pathetic

exertions to entertain her, and it needed no feminine eye to perceive

that he was thoroughly uncomfortable. She had, unconsciously and in

thinking of Peter, rather overdone the note of rebuke of his visit. And

Honora was, above all else, an artist. His air was distinctly apologetic

as he rose, perhaps a little mortified, like that of a man who has got

into the wrong house.

"I very much fear I've intruded, Mrs. Spence," he stammered, and he was

winking now with bewildering rapidity. "We--we had such a pleasant drive

together that day to Westchester--I was tempted--"

"We did have a good time," she agreed. "And it has been a pleasure to see

you again."

Thus, in the kindness of her heart, she assisted him to cover his

retreat, for it was a strange and somewhat awful experience to see Mr.

Cecil Grainger discountenanced. He glanced again, as he went out, at the

chair in which he had been forbidden to sit.

She went to the piano, played over a few bars of Thais, and dropped her

hands listlessly. Cross currents of the strange events of the day flowed

through her mind: Peter's arrival and its odd heralding, and the

discomfort of Mr. Grainger.

Howard came in. He did not see her under the shaded lamp, and she sat

watching him with a curious feeling of detachment as he unfolded his

newspaper and sank, with a sigh of content, into the cushioned chair

which Mr. Grainger had vacated. Was it fancy that her husband's physical

attributes had changed since he had attained his new position of dignity?

She could have sworn that he had visibly swollen on the evening when he

had announced to her his promotion, and he seemed to have remained

swollen. Not bloated, of course: he was fatter, and--if possible pinker.

But there was a growing suggestion in him of humming-and-hawing

greatness. If there--were leisure in this too-leisurely chronicle for

what might be called aftermath, the dinner that Honora had given to some

of her Quicksands friends might be described. Suffice it to recall, with

Honora, that Lily Dallam, with a sure instinct, had put the finger of her

wit on this new attribute of Howard's.

"You'll kill me, Howard!" she had cried. "He even looks at the soup as

though he were examining a security!"

Needless to say, it did not cure him, although it sealed Lily Dallam's

fate--and incidentally that of Quicksands. Honora's thoughts as she sat

now at the piano watching him, flew back unexpectedly to the summer at

Silverdale when she had met him, and she tried to imagine, the genial and

boyish representative of finance that he was then. In the midst of this

effort he looked up and discovered her.

"What are you doing over there, Honora?" he asked.

"Thinking," she answered.

"That's a great way to treat a man when he comes home after a day's

work."

"I beg your pardon, Howard," she said with unusual meekness. "Who do you

think was here this afternoon?"

"Erwin? I've just come from Mr. Wing's house--he has gout to-day and

didn't go down town. He offered Erwin a hundred thousand a year to come

to New York as corporation counsel. And if you'll believe me--he refused

it."

"I'll believe you," she said.

"Did he say anything about it to you?"

"He simply mentioned that Mr. Wing asked him to come to New York. He

didn't say why."

"Well," Howard remarked, "he's one too many for me. He can't be making

over thirty thousand where he is."

CHAPTER II

THE PATH OF PHILANTHROPY

Mrs. Cecil Grainger may safely have been called a Personality, and one of

the proofs of this was that she haunted people who had never seen her.

Honora might have looked at her, it is true, on the memorable night of

the dinner with Mrs. Holt and Trixton Brent; but--for sufficiently

obvious reasons--refrained. It would be an exaggeration to say that Mrs.

Grainger became an obsession with our heroine; yet it cannot be denied

that, since Honora's arrival at Quicksands, this lady had, in increasing

degrees, been the subject of her speculations. The threads of Mrs.

Grainger's influence were so ramified, indeed, as to be found in Mrs.

Dallam, who declared she was the rudest woman in New York and yet had

copied her brougham; in Mr. Cuthbert and Trixton Brent; in Mrs. Kame; in

Mrs. Holt, who proclaimed her a tower of strength in charities; and

lastly in Mr. Grainger himself, who, although he did not spend much time

in his wife's company, had for her an admiration that amounted to awe.

Elizabeth Grainger, who was at once modern and tenaciously conservative,

might have been likened to some of the Roman matrons of the aristocracy

in the last years of the Republic. Her family, the Pendletons, had

traditions: so, for that matter, had the Graingers. But Senator

Pendleton, antique homo virtute et fide, had been a Roman of the old

school who would have preferred exile after the battle of Philippi; and

who, could he have foreseen modern New York and modern finance, would

have been more content to die when he did. He had lived in Washington

Square. His daughter inherited his executive ability, many of his

prejudices (as they would now be called), and his habit of regarding

favourable impressions with profound suspicion. She had never known the

necessity of making friends: hers she had inherited, and for some reason

specially decreed, they were better than those of less fortunate people.

Mrs. Grainger was very tall. And Sargent, in his portrait of her, had

caught with admirable art the indefinable, yet partly supercilious and

scornful smile with which she looked down upon the world about her. She

possessed the rare gift of combining conventionality with personal

distinction in her dress. Her hair was almost Titian red in colour, and

her face (on the authority of Mr. Reginald Farwell) was at once modern

and Italian Renaissance. Not the languid, amorous Renaissance, but the

lady of decision who chose, and did not wait to be chosen. Her eyes had

all the colours of the tapaz, and her regard was so baffling as to arouse

intense antagonism in those who were not her friends.

To Honora, groping about for a better and a higher life, the path of

philanthropy had more than once suggested itself. And on the day of

Peter's visit to New York, when she had lunched with Mrs. Holt, she had

signified her willingness (now that she had come to live in town) to join

the Working Girls' Relief Society. Mrs. Holt, needless to say, was

overjoyed: they were to have a meeting at her house in the near future

which Honora must not fail to attend. It was not, however, without a

feeling of trepidation natural to a stranger that she made her way to

that meeting when the afternoon arrived.

No sooner was she seated in Mrs. Holt's drawing-room--filled with

camp-chairs for the occasion--than she found herself listening

breathlessly to a recital of personal experiences by a young woman who

worked in a bindery on the East side. Honora's heart was soft: her

sympathies, as we know, easily aroused. And after the young woman had

told with great simplicity and earnestness of the struggle to support

herself and lead an honest and self-respecting existence, it seemed to

Honora that at last she had opened the book of life at the proper page.

Afterwards there were questions, and a report by Miss Harber, a

middle-aged lady with glasses who was the secretary. Honora looked around

her. The membership of the Society, judging by those present, was surely

of a sufficiently heterogeneous character to satisfy even the catholic

tastes of her hostess. There were elderly ladies, some benevolent and

some formidable, some bedecked and others unadorned; there were

earnest-looking younger women, to whom dress was evidently a secondary

consideration; and there was a sprinkling of others, perfectly gowned,

several of whom were gathered in an opposite corner. Honora's eyes, as

the reading of the report progressed, were drawn by a continual and

resistless attraction to this group; or rather to the face of one of the

women in it, which seemed to stare out at her like the eat in the tree of

an old-fashioned picture puzzle, or the lineaments of George Washington

among a mass of boulders on a cliff. Once one has discovered it, one can

see nothing else. In vain Honora dropped her eyes; some strange

fascination compelled her to raise them again until they met those of the

other woman: Did their glances meet? She could never quite be sure, so

disconcerting were the lights in that regard--lights, seemingly, of

laughter and mockery.

Some instinct informed Honora that the woman was Mrs. Grainger, and

immediately the scene in the Holland House dining-room came back to her.

Never until now had she felt the full horror of its comedy. And then, as

though to fill the cup of humiliation, came the thought of Cecil

Grainger's call. She longed, in an agony with which sensitive natures

will sympathize, for the reading to be over.

The last paragraph of the report contained tributes to Mrs. Joshua Holt

and Mrs. Cecil Grainger for the work each had done during the year, and

amidst enthusiastic hand-clapping the formal part of the meeting came to

an end. The servants were entering with tea as Honora made her way

towards the door, where she was stopped by Susan Holt.

"My dear Honora," cried Mrs. Holt, who had hurried after her daughter,

"you're not going?"

Honora suddenly found herself without an excuse.

"I really ought to, Mrs. Holt. I've had such a good time-and I've been so

interested. I never realized that such things occurred. And I've got one

of the reports, which I intend to read over again."

"But my dear," protested Mrs. Holt, "you must meet some of the members of

the Society. Bessie!"

Mrs. Grainger, indeed--for Honora had been right in her surmise--was

standing within ear-shot of this conversation. And Honora, who knew she

was there, could not help feeling that she took a rather redoubtable

interest in it. At Mrs. Holt's words she turned.

"Bessie, I've found a new recruit--one that I can answer for, Mrs.

Spence, whom I spoke to you about."

Mrs. Grainger bestowed upon Honora her enigmatic smile.

"Oh," she declared, "I've heard of Mrs. Spence from other sources, and

I've seen her, too."

Honora grew a fiery red. There was obviously no answer to such a remark,

which seemed the quintessence of rudeness. But Mrs. Grainger continued to

smile, and to stare at her with the air of trying to solve a riddle.

"I'm coming to see you, if I may," she said. "I've been intending to

since I've been in town, but I'm always so busy that I don't get time to

do the things I want to do."

An announcement that fairly took away Honora's breath. She managed to

express her appreciation of Mrs. Grainger's intention, and presently

found herself walking rapidly up-town through swirling snow, somewhat

dazed by the events of the afternoon. And these, by the way, were not yet

finished. As she reached her own door, a voice vaguely familiar called

her name.

"Honora!"

She turned. The slim, tall figure of a young woman descended from a

carriage and crossed the pavement, and in the soft light of the vestibule

she recognized Ethel Wing.

"I'm so glad I caught you," said that young lady when they entered the

drawing-room. And she gazed at her school friend. The colour glowed in

Honora's cheeks, but health alone could not account for the sparkle in

her eyes. "Why, you look radiant. You are more beautiful than you were at

Sutcliffe. Is it marriage?"

Honora laughed happily, and they sat down side by side on the lounge

behind the tea table.

"I heard you'd married," said Ethel, "but I didn't know what had become

of you until the other day. Jim never tells me anything. It appears that

he's seen something of you. But it wasn't from Jim that I heard about you

first. You'd never guess who told me you were here."

"Who?" asked Honora, curiously.

"Mr. Erwin."

"Peter Erwin!"

"I'm perfectly shameless," proclaimed Ethel Wing. "I've lost my heart to

him, and I don't care who knows it. Why in the world didn't you marry

him?"

"But--where did you see him?" Honora demanded as soon as she could

command herself sufficiently to speak. Her voice must have sounded odd.

Ethel did not appear to notice that.

"He lunched with us one day when father had gout. Didn't he tell you

about it? He said he was coming to see you that afternoon."

"Yes--he came. But he didn't mention being at lunch at your house."

"I'm sure that was like him," declared her friend. And for the first time

in her life Honora experienced a twinge of that world-old ailment

--jealousy. How did Ethel know what was like him? "I made father give him

up for a little while after lunch, and he talked about you the whole

time. But he was most interesting at the table," continued Ethel,

sublimely unconscious of the lack of compliment in the comparison; "as

Jim would say, he fairly wiped up the ground with father, and it isn't an

easy thing to do."

"Wiped up the ground with Mr. Wing!" Honora repeated.

"Oh, in a delightfully quiet, humorous way. That's what made it so

effective. I couldn't understand all of it; but I grasped enough to enjoy

it hugely. Father's so used to bullying people that it's become second

nature with him. I've seen him lay down the law to some of the biggest

lawyers in New York, and they took it like little lambs. He caught a

Tartar in Mr. Erwin. I didn't dare to laugh, but I wanted to."

"What was the discussion about?" asked Honora.

"I'm not sure that I can give you a very clear idea of it," said Ethel.

"Generally speaking, it was about modern trust methods, and what a

self-respecting lawyer would do and what he wouldn't. Father took the

ground that the laws weren't logical, and that they were different and

conflicting, anyway, in different States. He said they impeded the

natural development of business, and that it was justifiable for the

great legal brains of the country to devise means by which these laws

could be eluded. He didn't quite say that, but he meant it, and he

honestly believes it. The manner in which Mr. Erwin refuted it was a

revelation to me. I've been thinking about it since. You see, I'd never

heard that side of the argument. Mr. Erwin said, in the nicest way

possible, but very firmly, that a lawyer who hired himself out to enable

one man to take advantage of another prostituted his talents: that the

brains of the legal profession were out of politics in these days, and

that it was almost impossible for the men in the legislatures to frame

laws that couldn't be evaded by clever and unscrupulous devices. He cited

ever so many cases . . . "

Ethel's voice became indistinct, as though some one had shut a door in

front of it. Honora was trembling on the brink of a discovery: holding

herself back from it, as one who has climbed a fair mountain recoils from

the lip of an unsuspected crater at sight of the lazy, sulphurous fumes.

All the years of her marriage, ever since she had first heard his name,

the stature of James Wing had been insensibly growing, and the vastness

of his empire gradually disclosed. She had lived in that empire: in it

his word had stood for authority, his genius had been worshipped, his

decrees had been absolute.

She had met him once, in Howard's office, when he had greeted her

gruffly, and the memory of his rugged features and small red eyes, like

live coals, had remained. And she saw now the drama that had taken place

before Ethel's eyes. The capitalist, overbearing, tyrannical, hearing a

few, simple truths in his own house from Peter--her Peter. And she

recalled her husband's account of his talk with James Wing. Peter had

refused to sell himself. Had Howard? Many times during the days that

followed she summoned her courage to ask her husband that question, and

kept silence. She did not wish to know.

"I don't want to seem disloyal to papa," Ethel was saying. "He is under

great responsibilities to other people, to stockholders; and he must get

things done. But oh, Honora, I'm so tired of money, money, money and its

standards, and the things people are willing to do for it. I've seen too

much."

Honora looked at her friend, and believed her. One glance at the girl's

tired eyes--a weariness somehow enhanced--in effect by the gold sheen of

her hair--confirmed the truth of her words.

"You've changed, Ethel, since Sutcliffe," she said.

"Yes, I've changed," said Ethel Wing, and the weariness was in her voice,

too. "I've had too much, Honora. Life was all glitter, like a Christmas

tree, when I left Sutcliffe. I had no heart. I'm not at all sure that I

have one now. I've known all kinds of people--except the right kind. And

if I were to tell you some of the things that have happened to me in five

years you wouldn't believe them. Money has been at the bottom of it

all,--it ruined my brother, and it has ruined me. And then, the other

day, I beheld a man whose standards simply take no account of money, a

man who holds something else higher. I--I had been groping lately, and

then I seemed to see clear for the first time in my life. But I'm afraid

it comes too late."

Honora took her friend's hand in her own and pressed it.

"I don't know why I'm telling you all this," said Ethel: "It seems to-day

as though I had always known you, and yet we weren't particularly

intimate at school. I suppose I'm inclined to be oversuspicious. Heaven

knows I've had enough to make me so. But I always thought that you were a

little--ambitious. You'll forgive my frankness, Honora. I don't think

you're at all so, now." She glanced at Honora suddenly. "Perhaps you've

changed, too," she said.

Honora nodded.

"I think I'm changing all the time," she replied.

After a moment's silence, Ethel Wing pursued her own train of thought.

"Curiously enough when he--when Mr. Erwin spoke of you I seemed to get a

very different idea of you than the one I had always had. I had to go out

of town, but I made up my mind I'd come to see you as soon as I got back,

and ask you to tell me something about him."

"What shall I tell you?" asked Honora. "He is what you think he is, and

more."

"Tell me something of his early life," said Ethel Wing.

.....................

There is a famous river in the western part of our country that

disappears into a canon, the walls of which are some thousands of feet

high, and the bottom so narrow that the confined waters roar through it

at breakneck speed. Sometimes they disappear entirely under the rock, to

emerge again below more furiously than ever. From the river-bed can be

seen, far, far above, a blue ribbon of sky. Once upon a time, not long

ago, two heroes in the service of the government of the United States,

whose names should be graven in the immortal rock and whose story read

wherever the language is spoken, made the journey through this canon and

came out alive. That journey once started, there could be no turning

back. Down and down they were buffeted by the rushing waters, over the

falls and through the tunnels, with time to think only of that which

would save them from immediate death, until they emerged into the

sunlight of the plain below.

All of which by way of parallel. For our own chronicle, hitherto

leisurely enough, is coming to its canon--perhaps even now begins to feel

the pressure of the shelving sides. And if our heroine be somewhat rudely

tossed from one boulder to another, if we fail wholly to understand her

emotions and her acts, we must blame the canon. She had, indeed, little

time to think.

One evening, three weeks or so after the conversation with Ethel Wing

just related, Honora's husband entered her room as her maid was giving

the finishing touches to her toilet.

"You're not going to wear that dress!" he exclaimed.

"Why not?" she asked, without turning from the mirror.

He lighted a cigarette.

"I thought you'd put on something handsome--to go to the Graingers'. And

where are your jewels? You'll find the women there loaded with 'em."

"One string of pearls is all I care to wear," said Honora--a reply with

which he was fain to be content until they were in the carriage, when she

added: "Howard, I must ask you as a favour not to talk that way before

the servants."

"What way?" he demanded.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "if you don't know I suppose it is impossible to

explain. You wouldn't understand."

"I understand one thing, Honora, that you're too confoundedly clever for

me," he declared.

Honora did not reply. For at that moment they drew up at a carpet

stretched across the pavement.

Unlike the mansions of vast and imposing facades that were beginning

everywhere to catch the eye on Fifth Avenue, and that followed mostly the

continental styles of architecture, the house of the Cecil Graingers had

a substantial, "middle of-the-eighties" appearance. It stood on a corner,

with a high iron fence protecting the area around it. Within, it gave one

an idea of space that the exterior strangely belied; and it was

furnished, not in a French, but in what might be called a comfortably

English, manner. It was filled, Honora saw, with handsome and priceless

things which did not immediately and aggressively strike the eye, but

which somehow gave the impression of having always been there. What

struck her, as she sat in the little withdrawing room while the maid

removed her overshoes, was the note of permanence.

Some of those who were present at Mrs. Grainger's that evening remember

her entrance into the drawing-room. Her gown, the colour of a rose-tinted

cloud, set off the exceeding whiteness of her neck and arms and vied with

the crimson in her cheeks, and the single glistening string of pearls

about the slender column of her neck served as a contrast to the shadowy

masses of her hair. Mr. Reginald Farwell, who was there, afterwards

declared that she seemed to have stepped out of the gentle landscape of

an old painting. She stood, indeed, hesitating for a moment in the

doorway, her eyes softly alight, in the very pose of expectancy that such

a picture suggested.

Honora herself was almost frightened by a sense of augury, of triumph, as

she went forward to greet her hostess. Conversation, for the moment, had

stopped. Cecil Grainger, with the air of one who had pulled aside the

curtain and revealed this vision of beauty and innocence, crossed the

room to welcome her. And Mrs. Grainger herself was not a little

surprised; she was not a dramatic person, and it was not often that her

drawing-room was the scene of even a mild sensation. No entrance could

have been at once so startling and so unexceptionable as Honora's.

"I was sorry not to find you when I called," she said. "I was sorry,

too," replied Mrs. Grainger, regarding her with an interest that was

undisguised, and a little embarrassing. "I'm scarcely ever at home,

except when I'm with the children. Do you know these people?"

"I'm not sure," said Honora, "but--I must introduce my husband to you."

"How d'ye do!" said Mr. Grainger, blinking at her when this ceremony was

accomplished. "I'm awfully glad to see you, Mrs. Spence, upon my word."

Honora could not doubt it. But he had little time to express his joy,

because of the appearance of his wife at Honora's elbow with a tall man

she had summoned from a corner.

"Before we go to dinner I must introduce my cousin, Mr. Chiltern--he is

to have the pleasure of taking you out," she said.

His name was in the class of those vaguely familiar: vaguely familiar,

too, was his face. An extraordinary face, Honora thought, glancing at it

as she took his arm, although she was struck by something less tangible

than the unusual features. He might have belonged to any nationality

within the limits of the Caucasian race. His short, kinky, black hair

suggested great virility, an effect intensified by a strongly bridged

nose, sinewy hands, and bushy eyebrows. But the intangible distinction

was in the eyes that looked out from under these brows the glimpse she

had of them as he bowed to her gravely, might be likened to the hasty

reading of a chance page in a forbidden book. Her attention was arrested,

her curiosity aroused. She was on that evening, so to speak, exposed for

and sensitive to impressions. She was on the threshold of the Alhambra.

"Hugh has such a faculty," complained Mr. Grainger, "of turning up at the

wrong moment!"

Dinner was announced. She took Chiltern's arm, and they fell into file

behind a lady in yellow, with a long train, who looked at her rather

hard. It was Mrs. Freddy Maitland. Her glance shifted to Chiltern, and it

seemed to Honora that she started a little.

"Hello, Hugh," she said indifferently, looking back over her shoulder;

"have you turned up again?"

"Still sticking to the same side of your horse, I see." he replied,

ignoring the question. "I told you you'd get lop-sided."

The deformity, if there were any, did not seem to trouble her.

"I'm going to Florida Wednesday. We want another man. Think it over."

"Sorry, but I've got something else to do," he said.

"The devil and idle hands," retorted Mrs. Maitland.

Honora was sure as she could be that Chiltern was angry, although he gave

no visible sign of this. It was as though the current ran from his arm

into hers.

"Have you been away?" she asked.

"It seems to me as though I had never been anywhere else," he answered,

and he glanced curiously at the guests ranging about the great,

flower-laden table. They sat down.

She was a little repelled, a little piqued; and a little relieved when

the man on her other side spoke to her, and she recognized Mr. Reginald

Farwell, the architect. The table capriciously swung that way. She did

not feel prepared to talk to Mr. Chiltern. And before entering upon her

explorations she was in need of a guide. She could have found none more

charming, none more impersonal, none more subtly aware of her wants

(which had once been his) than Mr. Farwell. With his hair parted with

geometrical precision from the back of his collar to his forehead, with

his silky mustache and eyes of soft hazel lights, he was all things to

all men and women--within reason. He was an achievement that civilization

had not hitherto produced, a combination of the Beaux Arts and the Jockey

Club and American adaptability. He was of those upon whom labour leaves

no trace.

There were preliminaries, mutually satisfactory. To see Mrs. Spence was

never to forget her, but more delicately intimated. He remembered to have

caught a glimpse of her at the Quicksands Club, and Mrs. Dallam nor her

house were not mentioned by either. Honora could not have been in New

York Long. No, it was her first winter, and she felt like a stranger.

Would Mr. Farwell tell her who some of these people were? Nothing charmed

Mr. Farwell so much as simplicity--when it was combined with personal

attractions. He did not say so, but contrived to intimate the former.

"It's always difficult when one first comes to New York," he declared,

"but it soon straightens itself out, and one is surprised at how few

people there are, after all. We'll begin on Cecil's right. That's Mrs.

George Grenfell."

"Oh, yes," said Honora, looking at a tall, thin woman of middle age who

wore a tiara, and whose throat was covered with jewels. Honora did not

imply that Mrs. Grenfell's name, and most of those that followed, were

extremely familiar to her.

"In my opinion she's got the best garden in Newport, and she did most of

it herself. Next to her, with the bald head, is Freddy Maitland. Next to

him is Miss Godfrey. She's a little eccentric, but she can afford to

be--the Godfreys for generations have done so much for the city. The man

with the beard, next her, is John Laurens, the philanthropist. That

pretty woman, who's just as nice as she looks, is Mrs. Victor Strange.

She was Agatha Pendleton--Mrs. Grainger's cousin. And the gentleman with

the pink face, whom she is entertaining--"

"Is my husband," said Honora, smiling. "I know something about him."

Mr. Farwell laughed. He admired her aplomb, and he did not himself change

countenance. Indeed, the incident seemed rather to heighten the

confidence between them. Honora was looking rather critically at Howard.

It was a fact that his face did grow red at this stage of a dinner, and

she wondered what Mrs. Strange found to talk to him about.

"And the woman on the other side of him?" she asked. "By the way, she has

a red face, too."

"So she has," he replied amusedly. "That is Mrs. Littleton Pryor, the

greatest living rebuke to the modern woman. Most of those jewels are

inherited, but she has accustomed herself by long practice to carry them,

as well as other burdens. She has eight children, and she's on every

charity list. Her ancestors were the very roots of Manhattan. She looks

like a Holbein--doesn't she?"

"And the extraordinary looking man on my right?" Honora asked. "I've got

to talk to him presently."

"Chiltern!" he said. "Is it possible you haven't heard something about

Hugh Chiltern?"

"Is it such lamentable ignorance?" she asked.

"That depends upon one's point of view," he replied. "He's always been a

sort of a--well, Viking," said Farwell.

Honora was struck by the appropriateness of the word.

"Viking--yes, he looks it exactly. I couldn't think. Tell me something

about him."

"Well," he laughed, lowering his voice a little, here goes for a little

rough and ready editing. One thing about Chiltern that's to be admired is

that he's never cared a rap what people think. Of course, in a way, he

never had to. His family own a section of the state, where they've had

woollen mills for a hundred years, more or less. I believe Hugh Chiltern

has sold 'em, or they've gone into a trust, or something, but the estate

is still there, at Grenoble--one of the most beautiful places I've ever

seen. The General--this man's father--was a violent, dictatorial man.

There is a story about his taking a battery at Gettysburg which is almost

incredible. But he went back to Grenoble after the war, and became the

typical public-spirited citizen; built up the mills which his own pioneer

grandfather had founded, and all that. He married an aunt of Mrs.

Grainger's,--one of those delicate, gentle women who never dare to call

their soul their own."

"And then?" prompted Honora, with interest.

"It's only fair to Hugh," Farwell continued, "to take his early years

into account. The General never understood him, and his mother died

before he went off to school. Men who were at Harvard with him say he has

a brilliant mind, but he spent most of his time across the Charles River

breaking things. It was, probably, the energy the General got rid of at

Gettysburg. What Hugh really needed was a war, and he had too much money.

He has a curious literary streak, I'm told, and wrote a rather remarkable

article--I've forgotten just where it appeared. He raced a yacht for a

while in a dare-devil, fiendish way, as one might expect; and used to go

off on cruises and not be heard of for months. At last he got engaged to

Sally Harrington--Mrs. Freddy Maitland."

Honora glanced across the table.

"Exactly," said Mr. Farwell. "That was seven or eight years ago. Nobody

ever knew the reason why she broke it--though it may have been pretty

closely guessed. He went away, and nobody's laid eyes on him until he

turned up to-night."

Honora's innocence was not too great to enable her to read between the

lines of this biography which Reginald Farwell had related with such

praiseworthy delicacy. It was a biography, she well knew, that, like a

score of others, had been guarded as jealously as possible within the

circle on the borders of which she now found herself. Mrs. Grainger with

her charities, Mrs. Littleton Pryor with her good works, Miss Godfrey

with her virtue--all swallowed it as gracefully as possible. Noblesse

oblige. Honora had read French and English memoirs, and knew that history

repeats itself. And a biography that is printed in black letter and

illuminated in gold is attractive in spite of its contents. The contents,

indeed, our heroine had not found uninteresting, and she turned now to

the subject with a flutter of anticipation.

He looked at her intently, almost boldly, she thought, and before she

dropped her eyes she had made a discovery. The thing stamped upon his

face and burning in his eyes was not world-weariness, disappointment,

despair. She could not tell what it was, yet; that it was none of these,

she knew. It was not unrelated to experience, but transcended it. There

was an element of purpose in it, of determination, almost--she would have

believed--of hope. That Mrs. Maitland nor any other woman was a part of

it she became equally sure. Nothing could have been more commonplace than

the conversation which began, and yet it held for her, between the lines

as in the biography, the thrill of interest. She was a woman, and

embarked on a voyage of discovery.

"Do you live in New York?" he asked.

"Yes," said Honora, "since this autumn."

"I've been away a good many years," he said, in explanation of his

question. "I haven't quite got my bearings. I can't tell you how queerly

this sort of thing affects me."

"You mean civilization?" she hazarded.

"Yes. And yet I've come back to it."

Of course she did not ask him why. Their talk was like the starting of a

heavy train--a series of jerks; and yet both were aware of an

irresistible forward traction. She had not recovered from her surprise in

finding herself already so far in his confidence.

"And the time will come, I suppose, when you'll long to get away again."

"No," he said, "I've come back to stay. It's taken me a long while to

learn it, but there's only one place for a man, and that's his own

country."

Her eyes lighted.

"There's always so much for a man to do."

"What would you do?" he asked curiously.

She considered this.

"If you had asked me that question two years ago--even a year ago--I

should have given you a different answer. It's taken me some time to

learn it, too, you see, and I'm not a man. I once thought I should have

liked to have been a king amongst money changers, and own railroad and

steamship lines, and dominate men by sheer power."

He was clearly interested.

"And now?" he prompted her.

She laughed a little, to relieve the tension.

"Well--I've found out that there are some men that kind of power can't

control--the best kind. And I've found out that that isn't the best kind

of power. It seems to be a brutal, barbarous cunning power now that I've

seen it at close range. There's another kind that springs from a man

himself, that speaks through his works and acts, that influences first

those around him, and then his community, convincing people of their own

folly, and that finally spreads in ever widening circles to those whom he

cannot see, and never will see."

She paused, breathing deeply, a little frightened at her own eloquence.

Something told her that she was not only addressing her own soul--she was

speaking to his.

"I'm afraid you'll think I'm preaching," she apologized.

"No," he said impatiently, "no."

"To answer your question, then, if I were a man of independent means, I

think I should go into politics. And I should put on my first campaign

banner the words, 'No Compromise.'"

It was a little strange that, until now--to-night-she had not definitely

formulated these ambitions. The idea of the banner with its inscription

had come as an inspiration. He did not answer, but sat regarding her,

drumming on the cloth with his strong, brown fingers.

"I have learned this much in New York," she said, carried on by her

impetus, "that men and women are like plants. To be useful, and to grow

properly, they must be firmly rooted in their own soil. This city seems

to me like a luxurious, overgrown hothouse. Of course," she added

hastily, "there are many people who belong here, and whose best work is

done here. I was thinking about those whom it attracts. And I have seen

so many who are only watered and fed and warmed, and who become

--distorted."

"It's extraordinary," replied Chiltern, slowly, "that you should say this

to me. It is what I have come to believe, but I couldn't have said it

half so well."

Mrs. Grainger gave the signal to rise. Honora took Chiltern's arm, and he

led her back to the drawing-room. She was standing alone by the fire when

Mrs. Maitland approached her.

"Haven't I seen you before?" she asked.

CHAPTER III

VINELAND

It was a pleasant Newport to which Honora went early in June, a fair city

shining in the midst of summer seas, a place to light the fires of

imagination. It wore at once an air of age, and of a new and sparkling

unreality. Honora found in the very atmosphere a certain magic which she

did not try to define, but to the enjoyment of which she abandoned

herself; and in those first days after her arrival she took a sheer

delight in driving about the island. Narrow Thames Street, crowded with

gay carriages, with its aspect of the eighteenth and it shops of the

twentieth century; the whiffs of the sea; Bellevue Avenue, with its

glorious serried ranks of trees, its erring perfumes from bright gardens,

its massed flowering shrubs beckoning the eye, its lawns of a truly

enchanted green. Through tree and hedge, as she drove, came ever changing

glimpses of gleaming palace fronts; glimpses that made her turn and look

again; that stimulated but did not satisfy, and left a pleasant longing

for something on the seeming verge of fulfilment.

The very stillness and solitude that seemed to envelop these palaces

suggested the enchanter's wand. To-morrow, perhaps, the perfect lawns

where the robins hopped amidst the shrubbery would become again the

rock-bound, windswept New England pasture above the sea, and screaming

gulls circle where now the swallows hovered about the steep blue roof of

a French chateau. Hundreds of years hence, would these great pleasure

houses still be standing behind their screens and walls and hedges? or

would, indeed, the shattered, vine-covered marble of a balustrade alone

mark the crumbling terraces whence once the fabled owners scanned the

sparkling waters of the ocean? Who could say?

The onward rush of our story between its canon walls compels us

reluctantly to skip the narrative of the winter conquests of the lady who

is our heroine. Popularity had not spoiled her, and the best proof of

this lay in the comments of a world that is nothing if not critical. No

beauty could have received with more modesty the triumph which had

greeted her at Mrs. Grenfell's tableaux, in April, when she had appeared

as Circe, in an architectural frame especially designed by Mr. Farwell

himself. There had been a moment of hushed astonishment, followed by an

acclaim that sent the curtain up twice again.

We must try to imagine, too, the logical continuation of that triumph in

the Baiae of our modern republic and empire, Newport. Open, Sesame!

seems, as ever, to be the countersign of her life. Even the palace gates

swung wide to her: most of them with the more readiness because she had

already passed through other gates--Mrs. Grainger's, for instance. Baiae,

apparently, is a topsy-turvy world in which, if one alights upside down,

it is difficult to become righted. To alight upside down, is to alight in

a palace. The Graingers did not live in one, but in a garden that existed

before the palaces were, and one that the palace owners could not copy: a

garden that three generations of Graingers, somewhat assisted by a

remarkable climate, had made with loving care. The box was priceless, the

spreading trees in the miniature park no less so, and time, the

unbribeable, alone could now have produced the wide, carefully cherished

Victorian mansion. Likewise not purchasable by California gold was a

grandfather whose name had been written large in the pages of American

history. His library was now lined with English sporting prints; but

these, too, were old and mellow and rare.

To reach Honora's cottage, you turned away from the pomp and glitter and

noise of Bellevue Avenue into the inviting tunnel of a leafy lane that

presently stopped of itself. As though to provide against the contingency

of a stray excursionist, a purple-plumed guard of old lilac trees massed

themselves before the house, and seemed to look down with contempt on the

new brick wall across the lane. 'Odi profanum vulgus'. It was on account

of the new brick wall, in fact, that Honora, through the intervention of

Mrs. Grainger and Mrs. Shorter, had been able to obtain this most

desirable of retreats, which belonged to a great-aunt of Miss Godfrey,

Mrs. Forsythe.

Mr. Chamberlin, none other than he of whom we caught a glimpse some years

ago in a castle near Silverdale, owned the wall and the grounds and the

palace it enclosed. This gentleman was of those who arrive in Newport

upside down; and was even now, with the somewhat doubtful assistance of

his wife, making lavish and pathetic attempts to right himself. Newport

had never forgiven him for the razing of a mansion and the felling of

trees which had been landmarks, and for the driving out of Mrs. Forsythe.

The mere sight of the modern wall had been too much for this lady--the

lilacs and the leaves in the lane mercifully hid the palace--and after

five and thirty peaceful summers she had moved out, and let the cottage.

It was furnished with delightful old-fashioned things that seemed to

express, at every turn, the aristocratic and uncompromising personality

of the owner who had lived so long in their midst.

Mr. Chamberlin, who has nothing whatever to do with this chronicle except

to have been the indirect means of Honora's installation, used to come

through the wall once a week or so to sit for half an hour on her porch

as long as he ever sat anywhere. He had reddish side-whiskers, and he

reminded her of a buzzing toy locomotive wound up tight and suddenly

taken from the floor. She caught glimpses of him sometimes in the

mornings buzzing around his gardeners, his painters, his carpenters, and

his grooms. He would buzz the rest of his life, but nothing short of a

revolution could take his possessions away.

The Graingers and the Grenfells and the Stranges might move mountains,

but not Mr. Chamberlin's house. Whatever heart-burnings he may have had

because certain people refused to come to his balls, he was in Newport to

remain. He would sit under the battlements until the crack of doom; or

rather--and more appropriate in Mr. Chamberlin's case--walk around them

and around, blowing trumpets until they capitulated.

Honora magically found herself within them, and without a siege. Behold

her at last in the setting for which we always felt she was destined. Why

is it, in this world, that realization is so difficult a thing? Now that

she is there, how shall we proceed to give the joys of her Elysium their

full value? Not, certainly, by repeating the word pleasure over and over

again: not by describing the palaces at which she lunched and danced and

dined, or the bright waters in which she bathed, or the yachts in which

she sailed. During the week, indeed, she moved untrammelled in a world

with which she found herself in perfect harmony: it was new, it was

dazzling, it was unexplored. During the week it possessed still another

and more valuable attribute--it was real. And she, Honora Leffingwell

Spence, was part and parcel of its permanence. The life relationships of

the people by whom she was surrounded became her own. She had little time

for thought--during the week.

We are dealing, now, in emotions as delicate as cloud shadows, and these

drew on as Saturday approached. On Saturdays and Sundays the quality and

texture of life seemed to undergo a change. Who does not recall the

Monday mornings of the school days of youth, and the indefinite feeling

betwixt sleep and waking that to-day would not be as yesterday or the day

before? On Saturday mornings, when she went downstairs, she was wont to

find the porch littered with newspapers and her husband lounging in a

wicker chair behind the disapproving lilacs. Although they had long

ceased to bloom, their colour was purple--his was pink.

Honora did not at first analyze or define these emotions, and was

conscious only of a stirring within her, and a change. Reality became

unreality. The house in which she lived, and for which she felt a passion

of ownership, was for two days a rented house. Other women in Newport had

week-end guests in the guise of husbands, and some of them went so far as

to bewail the fact. Some had got rid of them. Honora kissed hers

dutifully, and picked up the newspapers, drove him to the beach, and took

him out to dinner, where he talked oracularly of finance. On Sunday night

he departed, without visible regrets, for New York.

One Monday morning a storm was raging over Newport. Seized by a sudden

whim, she rang her bell, breakfasted at an unusual hour, and nine o'clock

found her, with her skirts flying, on the road above the cliffs that

leads to the Fort. The wind had increased to a gale, and as she stood on

the rocks the harbour below her was full of tossing white yachts

straining at their anchors. Serene in the midst of all this hubbub lay a

great grey battleship.

Presently, however, her thoughts were distracted by the sight of

something moving rapidly across her line of vision. A sloop yacht, with a

ridiculously shortened sail, was coming in from the Narrows, scudding

before the wind like a frightened bird. She watched its approach in a

sort of fascination, for of late she had been upon the water enough to

realize that the feat of which she was witness was not without its

difficulties. As the sloop drew nearer she made out a bare-headed figure

bent tensely at the wheel, and four others clinging to the yellow deck.

In a flash the boat had rounded to, the mainsail fell, and a veil of

spray hid the actors of her drama. When it cleared the yacht was tugging

like a wild thing at its anchor.