PART THREE

I

Lounging in an elegant attitude of ease against the stone balustrade, a tall youth of seventeen was smoking a cigarette in an amber holder, and languidly regarding the scene before him. There was not much to excite his interest. Passing vehicles were hidden from view by a thick screen of maple trees and shrubs. On the broad lawn some younger boys were playing croquet—he glanced at them with lofty scorn. A gardener was clipping the evergreen hedge which divided the lawn from the flower-garden. He was attended by a black puppy, which sometimes made a dash at the rolling croquet-balls and was driven away by shouts and brandished mallets.

An iron fence with sharp pickets surrounded the lawn on three sides. Tall iron gates, with lamps at the sides, stood open expectant. The two iron deer on either side of the driveway also stood in an expectant attitude, their heads raised and nostrils dilated.

Early frosts had touched with yellow and red the leaves of the maples. With every gust of the fresh breeze the leaves fell, littering the neatly trimmed bright green grass. The sun was low in a deep cloudless blue sky, the air brisk and crisp. Prairie mists and thick heat had been broken by this first breath of autumn.

An open carriage, drawn by a handsome pair of grey horses and driven by a coachman in a bottle-green coat, turned in through the iron gates. The boys stopped their play to wave a greeting to the lady in mauve draperies, who lifted her white-gloved hand in reply. The youth on the steps hastily threw away his cigarette and concealed the holder, as he went down to assist his mother from the carriage. She laid her hand on his with a smile and stepped out with a rich rustle of silken skirts. He took her furred wrap and books and card case; and they mounted the long curving flight of stone steps together.

They were of the same height, and there was a strong resemblance between them, though the boy was much darker in colouring; with chestnut hair and dark grey eyes. His face was less delicately shaped, heavier, but had the same self-contained look; the eyes, under heavy lids, looked slumbering and secret.

Mary had grown more slender; her tall figure was girlish in line. Her auburn hair was less bright in colour, but as thick as ever, without a touch of grey. She wore it in the same fashion, parted and drawn down over her forehead, which now showed faint horizontal lines, the only mark of age in her calm face. Her handsome dress followed the fashion but a distance, with fewer frills and more amplitude. Her beauty had stood the test of time; the slight hollows under her high cheek-bones, her ivory pallor, only emphasized the fine modelling of her face.

"There's a telegram," said Jim.

He took it from a table in the hall. Mary opened and read it, standing at the foot of the stairs.

"From your father. He won't be back tonight—detained on business."

A look of relief crossed Jim's face.

"Well—it must be dinner-time," he said.

In fact the tall clock on the landing began to strike the hour of six.

"I'll be right down," said Mary. "Call the boys in."

When she entered the dining-room she found her three sons seated and the soup on the table, in its silver tureen. She ladled it out, and a middle-aged waitress in black dress and white apron distributed the plates. A discussion between the two elder boys had ceased on Mary's entrance; both now sat in silence, looking sulkily at their plates. The waitress left the room.

"Well, what's the trouble now?" Mary enquired with a touch of irony.

"I don't want Timothy to ride my horse, that's what!" declared Jim, in his slow heavy voice. "He doesn't know how to ride. Last time he nearly lamed—"

"No such thing—the old horse cast a shoe, that's all," interrupted Timothy angrily, glaring at his brother. "It isn't your horse any more than it's mine, anyway—"

"It is. Father gave it to me—"

"He said I was to learn to ride on it—"

"He didn't say you were to take it when I want it, and lame it—"

"I didn't lame it, confound you!"

"Timothy!"

Mary spoke sharply. The black-haired ruddy Timothy glanced at her resentfully.

"That will do, now. I won't have any such language here—or any quarrelling either."

Silence ensued. Timothy sent one flaming look across the table at Jim, who responded by a slight superior smile. Jim was self-controlled and knew how to seem reasonable in his desires; while Timothy generally put himself impetuously in the wrong. The maternal decision was almost certain to be given on the side of Jim, and both boys knew this. Timothy bent his black brows, smarting under a familiar sense of injustice. But Jim's certainty of triumph was tempered by a shade of caution; Timothy, if their disputes came to a fight, had more than a chance to beat him. Timothy never knew when he was beaten.

At the head of the table, opposite Mary, stood Laurence's vacant chair—a stately carved armchair, like hers. A cover was laid for him, as always; for his presence was never certain, always possible. At the right of his place sat the youngest of the family, a boy of fourteen, blond and pale. His large grave blue eyes rested now on Jim's face, now on Timothy's, now sought his mother's, with a troubled wistful look. His face had a quivering sensitiveness; yet with its broad open brow and square chin, it had strength too.

The setting sun struck into the room between the heavy looped curtains of plush and lace, cast a red light over its dark walls and carpet, its shining mahogany, glittered on silver and crystal. In the centre of the table covered with heavy white damask stood a massive silver arrangement holding bottles of oil and vinegar, salt, pepper and spices, and serving also for decoration. Crystal decanters of sherry and claret were placed on either side.

The soup being removed, Mary carved roast-beef and dispensed vegetables with a liberal hand. The continued silence did not disturb her; it was usual at meals, unless Laurence or a guest were present. She pursued her own thoughts, occasionally glancing with calm pride at her offspring. They were all handsome boys. Timothy was very like Laurence, Jim was like her. But the youngest, John, was unaccountable, he did not resemble either of his parents, or his brothers. He was like a stranger in the family; in mind and character too he was strange to them all. Yet with an unchildlike, almost uncanny sympathy, he seemed to know them better than they knew one another. Long illness—he had never grown strong—had perhaps given this delicacy to his mind as it had to his body. Yet he seemed built for strength too. His shoulders were broad, his large head nobly poised. His hands, with broad palms and long sensitive fingers, curiously united strength and delicacy.

He alone felt the silence. The others, absorbed in themselves, took it as a matter of course. But he, depressed by it, sighed, hardly touched the beef and heavy pudding, and more than once looked at his father's empty chair regretfully.

Mary's eye at length fell upon Jim in the act of filling his claret-glass for the third time. She frowned.

"I've told you that I don't want you to drink more than one glass of wine at meals," she said.

"Oh, this light wine—Father doesn't mind," said Jim easily.

"He doesn't want you to drink. And I won't have it. I won't have wine on the table at all if you can't do as I wish."

Jim shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, well, let's not quarrel about it," he murmured, and pushed away the wine-glass.

His tone was amiable, he even smiled at her. But Mary knew that Jim was not so easily managed as that. He would seem always to yield to her wishes, would never openly oppose her, but he managed almost always to do as he pleased. He had an unsounded depth of quiet obstinacy. And he was secretive too, never explained himself. Timothy was much more frank, and more violent, hence was constantly getting into hot water and usually was in a state of revolt. Mary's rules were strict and not elastic to the needs and impulses of growing youth. She had felt strongly the duty of implanting good principles in her boys, and of repressing the ebullitions of the old Adam. While they were very young she had succeeded in teaching them to tell the truth, to respect other people's property rights, and to conform a good deal to her standards of behaviour. But as they grew out of childhood, she lost touch with them, gradually, unconsciously. She looked after their health, their schools; they found their amusements for themselves. Withdrawn in growing isolation, in a dumb struggle with growing unhappiness, her spirit had no youth, no buoyancy, to keep pace with theirs. While in infancy they depended completely upon her and she could suffice to all their wants, they had given her contentment. Now it was no longer a simple relation; she tried to banish or ignore its growing complexities; but they made her uneasy. She had a feeling that her duty was not done, but she did not know how to do it; her rule of life was too simple, too rigid, to meet its problems.

John's childhood had lasted longer than the others; his ill health had made him longer dependent on her physical care. But here a rival affection had taken John's love and interest away from her.... When John was ten he had scarlet fever, and Laurence insisted on nursing him, devoted himself day and night to the boy; and through the long convalescence, spent with him all the time he could wrest from his business. From that time, John had depended on his father in a way that, Mary felt acutely, he never had on her; with a feeling that grew as he grew. With passionate rejecting jealousy she stood apart; felt herself superseded; would not, could not, make an effort to recover her hold. John had been all hers; she would not share his love, though he made many timid efforts to draw her in. She felt her loss the more bitterly that he was the most beautiful of her children; he was, she knew, the flower of them all. There was something in him that hurt her by its beauty; the same thing that she had felt in her youth, sometimes in music, sometimes in a human expression. Something that called to her spirit, an appeal that she could not meet, that made her restless. Something that she had missed in life, had never been able to grasp, to realize.

She did not always feel this. Sometimes she had a surface contentment, a pride merely in being the mother of three fine lads and in the outward show of authority; in her worldly dignity too. Her position, as the wife of a man of distinction and power, commanded public respect. And then, she had made a place for herself in the life of the town. She was an intellectual leader among the women; president of their literary society; a moving force in the work of the church and in charity. So long as proper deference was paid to her, she could be counted upon for faithful, even arduous work. But she would not suffer any rivals; would engage in no contest for power; and haughtily withdrew before opposition to her will. Whereupon, the value of her influence and activity being almost a tradition, any sister who might have dared approach the throne would be suppressed.

The meal being over, the family promptly dispersed. That is, the two elder boys vanished, to continue their disagreement about the horse. Mary walked absently into the library, having in mind the composition of a paper on the Greek dramatists for the literary club. She stood for a moment by one of the long windows, looking out on the lake.

The scene had changed, in these ten years. Instead of rough pastures and the loneliness of the prairie, she saw now green lawns sloping down to the dull-blue water; dotted on its banks were modern houses sheltered by clumps of trees; and a little fleet of pleasure-boats rode on its surface. The clear golden light of evening lay over all; the branches of the trees waved and the water rippled in the fresh breeze. Merry voices rose from the lake; some one in a boat was singing.

A faint stir beside her made Mary turn her head. John stood there, his footstep had made no noise on the thick carpet.

"It's such a beautiful evening. Don't you want to come out with me on the lake, Mother?" he asked in his rather nervous fluttering voice.

"I'd like to—but I have some work to do," she said quickly.

She seldom went out in the boat. She hated inactivity and mere contemplation of any scene, however lovely; indeed, the lovelier it was, the more painful. But now she saw John's wistful and disappointed look.

"Won't any of the boys go with you?" she asked gently.

"No, I don't think so, they've gone out to the stable.... Did Father say when he'd be home?" he asked, hesitatingly.

"No, he never does."

With this sharp answer, Mary walked away toward her desk. But then she stopped and with an effort said:

"I will go with you, John, if you want."

"No, never mind—I thought you might like it, it's such a nice evening—but you're busy—"

"No, I have time enough, I'll just get my cloak."

But now his sensitive face showed distress, and he protested:

"I'd rather not—really. I know you don't like the boat so very much, only I thought.... I'll go myself."

He moved toward the door.

"Perhaps Timothy would like to go—"

"No, he won't—but no matter, I rather like to drift around, alone, and look at the water."

"Shall I play to you a little, first?" asked Mary.

His face lighted up.

"Why, yes—if you have time—"

She led the way across the hall, where the lights had just been lit and gleamed on the dark-red walls and the bronze statues of Mercury and the Venus of Milo. The grand piano stood in one of the parlours: its glossy lid was seldom raised. John drew a chair up beside it and listened with a rapt face while Mary played his favorite, the "Grand Sonata" of Beethoven, the only one she knew by heart. She made many mistakes, her fingers were stiff from lack of practice; but still she played conscientiously, with a feeling, a respect for the music. John sat facing the window and the fading golden light. She glanced at him. His face had a look of unearthly radiance and joy that shot a sharp pain through her. With difficulty she continued. At the last notes her head sank, bent over the keyboard, and she sat in silence. He drew a long breath.

"Thank you—that's wonderful, I love it," he said.

"I wish I could play it better," said Mary huskily. "I must practise."

"You play it beautifully. Thank you, Mother," he repeated softly. Then, hesitating, looking at her, he got up.

"I'll go out now and row a while."

She nodded, and he went.

II

She sat at her desk, looking over her notes on Æschylus, now and then writing a few words on a large sheet of paper. Then she would stop and look fixedly before her, trying to concentrate her thoughts. It was ten o'clock, the two younger boys were in bed. But Jim was off somewhere. And he had taken the black horse, Laurence's own horse, that the boys were forbidden to touch—a big powerful brute, hard to control. Lately Jim had often been out at night. She did not know where he went, and he would not tell. He would say easily, "Oh, I just went for a ride, there's nothing to do in this dead place." But she suspected that he found something to do; he might be getting into bad ways. She thought he smoked, in spite of her prohibition; certainly he showed a taste for drink; there were other vices, too. Her lips were compressed bitterly as she thought, such tendencies were inherited. Perhaps Jim couldn't help himself....

The big house was silent as the tomb. On the desk burned a shaded lamp, the rest of the room was in darkness. It was rather cold, the fires had not been lighted yet. The house with its thick walls of brick was almost always chilly unless the furnaces were going. She drew her black wrap closer round her shoulders, and bent over her notes.

Then she heard the door-bell faintly sounding. After a moment there was a knock and Anna came in, the middle-aged woman who waited on the table and the door.

"Mrs. Carlin—there's somebody here that wants to see you. He asked for Judge Carlin, and says he'll wait to see him."

"Wait? But he may not be home for days! Who is it?" asked Mary impatiently.

"An old—an old gentleman. He didn't give his name. He says he'd like to see you," said Anna neutrally.

"Where is he? What does he want?"

"He didn't say. He's in the hall."

Mary rose and went out, stately in the black mantle that wrapped her from head to foot, its collar of black fur framing her face. The stranger stood, holding his hat in his hand, contemplating the bronze statue of Mercury. He was a small grey-haired man, in a shabby but neat dark suit. Some client of Laurence's, she thought. She spoke to him.

"Good evening. Did you want to see Judge Carlin?"

He turned and looked at her. His thin smooth-shaven face showed a rather shy, pleasant smile.

"Yes—I'm Laurence's father," he said, in a gentle laughing tone.

Mary stared at him.

"I don't wonder you're surprised.... I was passing through here, and thought I'd like to see you all," the old man said, without the slightest embarrassment. "But I hear Laurence isn't at home."

"No—but he may be—tomorrow, or almost any time," stammered Mary, at a loss.

"Well, then, I'll come again. I may be in town a day or so."

"But—why, you must stay here, of course," protested Mary blankly.

"Oh, I couldn't think of discommoding you—"

"Discommoding? Why, of course not. Come right in. I'll get a room ready for you at once."

"Please don't let me give any trouble," he pleaded, smiling. "I can stay at the hotel quite well."

"Hotel? Of course not," she said, bewildered.

What a queer old man, to drop from the skies like this—and so perfectly at his ease about it! Was he Laurence's father or an impostor? Was it right to take him in? He did not look as if he had money enough to stay at the hotel. Certainly she couldn't turn Laurence's father out!

"Come in," she repeated with an effort, turning toward the library doors, then stopping. "Wouldn't you like some supper?"

"No, thank you, I dined at the hotel."

"Is your baggage there? I'll send for it."

"No baggage. I haven't any," he said, with his whimsical smile. "I travel light."

In consternation Mary led the way into the library. No baggage! He must be a vagabond. To disappear for twenty-five years, and come back like this, as if it were yesterday! It was certainly not a respectable proceeding. He hadn't even an overcoat. Nothing but the worn felt hat, which he had still carried in his hand as he followed her—as if he were a casual visitor, come to stay half an hour....

She felt the chill of the big dimly-lit room, and went toward the chimney-place. "There's a fire all ready here—"

"Let me light it," he said.

Nimbly he laid down his hat, knelt on the rug, and in a moment had the fire going. The kindling blazed up, the dry wood caught. A more cheerful light brightened the dusky room. The fire-place was broad and deep, it held three-foot logs. Soon there was a glorious fire.

They sat down before it, in armchairs facing one another. The old man spread his hands to the blaze with enjoyment. His gaze rested on Mary with admiration, then wandered round the room.

"You have a fine place here," he said cheerfully. "How long have you lived here?"

"Ten years, Laurence built the house."

She was scrutinizing him with covert glances, trying to find some resemblance to Laurence.

"Yes, so I heard.... Laurence has certainly done well, remarkably well. I always thought he would—he was a smart boy," said this strange parent calmly.

No, he wasn't at all like Laurence, there was no resemblance in his spare light frame, his long clear-cut face to ... yet there was something familiar in his look. What was it? Something in the way his thick grey hair grew over his forehead, his eyebrows.... Why, yes, he looked like Jim—or was it Timothy? She had a sudden conviction, anyhow, that he was what he assumed to be.

With the assurance that this was a member of the family (however unworthy) the duty of hospitality became manifest. Again she urged him to have something to eat; he declined, but with a certain reservation of manner which led her to say, though unwillingly:

"Perhaps you will have a glass of wine?"

"Thank you—if it doesn't trouble you too much—wine, or a little whiskey—whatever is most convenient."

Comprehending what he wanted, she brought from the dining-room a silver tray, with decanters of whiskey and water, a glass and some biscuits. The old man poured himself a modest drink, a third of a glass of whiskey with a little water, and bowed to her.

"I drink your good health.... Yes, Laurence is a fortunate man."

"He has been very successful," she said gravely.

"All the heart could desire—position, wealth, a fine family," he continued musingly. "I'm glad to find him so well off.... Circumstances have prevented me from knowing anything of it until today, when I reached town."

Circumstances! Mary gazed at him in mute astonishment. With an absent air he filled his glass again and gazing at the fire went on, in a tone of meditative detachment:

"I have been a wanderer for the last quarter of a century—a rolling stone. Much of the time I've been out on the coast—California and so on—I went out there in fifty-five.... But I've seen the whole country—a fine big country it is. I never liked to stay long in one place, I'll soon be moving on. But passing through Chicago, I thought I'd like to see what remained of my family.... Great changes—I didn't know till I reached here and enquired, that they were all gone, except Laurence.... Things change quickly, in this country. Chicago has grown to an immense city, since I saw it last—and this town too, has become very flourishing. I shouldn't have known it.... And all over the west, cities springing up, there is hardly a frontier any more, the old days are gone, the rough pioneer life. The whole country, almost, is settled, civilized.... Yes, a great country, a great people."

He basked in the warmth and drank his whiskey with gentle enjoyment, gazing into the brilliant coals as though seeing there the whole vast panorama that had passed before his eyes. Mary listened to him and looked at him with a kind of fascinated surprise. He talked like a visitor from the moon—so aloof, contemplative, as if he had no concern in all this.... An old man who had deserted his family, run away, never had known whether they were alive or dead, nor cared, apparently. Disgraceful! A disreputable old man!... Yet there he sat, perfectly at his ease, with no shadow of guilt, remorse, or regret on his placid countenance. His grey eyes were clear and bright. His face was wise and experienced, but hardly at all wrinkled, it had a queer look of youth. His clothes were almost threadbare, but they were clean,—his boots cracked on the side, but well polished. His hands were those of a working-man, broad and stubby; but they showed no traces now of hard work, the fingernails were clean and carefully trimmed. He smiled at her.

"You are Laurence's wife—but I don't know your name," he said with a twinkle of amusement, but courteously. In spite of her disapproval, she could not but smile at him as she answered.

"Mary—a beautiful name, I always liked it. And you are Dr. Lowell's daughter—I remember you as a slip of a girl, with wonderful flowing hair.... And I remember your parents too. Are they living?"

"My mother died two years ago," said Mary.

"Ah, that was a loss, a great loss—I remember her, a strong woman, impressive.... And your father—he goes on with his work?"

"Oh, yes," Mary answered with astonishment.

Of course he went on with his work, why shouldn't he?... But it came to her with a shock that her father was really an old man, that people thought of him as old.

"I don't know what this town would do without Father," she said quickly. "People depend on him—"

She gazed pointedly and with a certain defiance at old Mr. Carlin, who waved any possible comparison aside with a smile and a word of hearty commendation of Dr. Lowell; and went on to enquire about other old residents of the town, showing an accurate memory. A third time he refilled his glass, and that emptied the decanter. The whiskey had not the least visible effect on him. His hand was as steady, his eye and speech as clear and unmoved, as Mary's own. She heard the clock strike eleven, then the half hour, but still he chatted on, and she was aware that she was entertained by him. Yes, he was an amusing, though a scandalous old man; and conducted himself with propriety, even grace, though all the time drinking whiskey as if it were water.

At length he spoke of his grandchildren. Among other information he had acquired this, that they were three in number and all boys. Now he politely asked their names. Mary repeated them.

"Timothy?" he questioned with surprise.

"Yes, we named him after you," said Mary gravely.

"After me!"

For the first time she saw a flicker of emotion in his face. He set down his glass, and looked at her with eyes troubled by that gleam of feeling, almost distress.

"Why did you do that?" he asked abruptly.

"Why, James was named after my father, you see," Mary explained. "So it was only right that the second boy should be named after you. It's a matter of family feeling, it always has been so in my family. Our youngest boy is named for my grandfather."

"Family feeling," he repeated, mechanically. "Named after me.... So there's another Timothy Carlin! I never expected it. Well, I hope—" he stopped short, and after a moment took up his glass and drained it. "I appreciate your remembering me, though I didn't expect it in the least. I—I am touched by it. I should like to see the boys, and especially my—namesake." His voice was a little uneven.

"You will see them tomorrow.... But now, it's late, you must be tired. Shall I show you to your room?"

He followed in silence. Putting out the lights as she went, she led the way through the lofty entrance-hall, up the thickly-carpeted stairs, into the best spare-room, ready as always for a guest, since Laurence often brought one unexpected. Mary lighted the room, and the old man stood gazing round with a deprecating smile. It was a big room, with high ceiling, furnished rather elaborately with carved black walnut, enormous, heavy pieces.

"It's much too grand for me," he said, humorously. "I shall rattle around here like a dried kernel in a shell.... However, I thank you for your hospitality."

"Isn't there something I can get for you, something you need?"

"No, thank you, my dear, I don't need anything," said the old man, with his former manner of gentle cool composure.

III

The following day Laurence returned on the mid-afternoon train, but stopped at his office, sending on a friend he had brought with him in a hack with the valises. This was Horace Lavery, a Chicago lawyer, rather a frequent visitor at the house. Mary was in the garden when the hack drove up, and came round to see if it were Laurence. She gave Lavery a stately, somewhat cool greeting. He was a man of middle age, florid and rather stout, gay and talkative. Always a little dashed at first by Mary's manner, he would speedily recover himself and amuse himself in his own way. Now, a little embarrassed, he said, after dismissing the hackman:

"Well, here I am again. Laurence stopped down town, he'll be home by seven.... Can I go upstairs and brush off, it was rather a dusty ride."

"Yes, but not the usual room, we have another visitor—the one next to it."

"And shall I find you here when I come down?"

"I'm working in the garden."

"Perhaps I can help?"

"If you do, you'll get yourself all dusty again."

"Oh, I don't mind," he said effusively. "So long as it's in your service."

Mary laughed and turned away. She always laughed at Lavery's ponderous gallantry. But under the sentimental surface that he presented to her there was another man, of whom she caught occasional glimpses that interested her. At present, however, she was vexed at his coming. She preferred to see Laurence alone, to break to him the news of his parent's reappearance. And what would Lavery, with his glossy freshness of apparel and man-of-the-world air, think of a shabby parent, suddenly produced? She didn't care, though, what Lavery thought, except that it might vex Laurence. She wished she had telegraphed him. She might send down to the office ... but no, he would be immersed in work, and only the more upset by it. She went slowly back into the garden, a favourite spot with her; it had been laid out years ago by her father, and he often came to help her with it.

Dr. Lowell had enjoyed having a good deal of money to spend on a garden. It was enclosed by a brick wall covered with creepers on two sides, the house on the third side, the other open, overlooking the lake. There were gravel-walks, white wooden benches and trellises, and in the centre, a sun-dial. The flower-beds had been touched by the frost; but still blooming were verbenas and many-coloured asters. The dead leaves had been raked up and smouldered here and there in blackened heaps, sending out a sweet pungent smoke. Mary, bare-headed, in a long black cloak, was down on her knees digging up bulbs when Lavery approached, freshly groomed and enveloped in a delicate scent of Florida-water.

"Let me do that," he urged, bending over her.

"What? In those immaculate clothes? You don't mean it."

"I do—I'll sacrifice the clothes. Please get up and let me dig the onions."

"Onions! These are very rare bulbs, of a Chinese lily—they have to be handled with great care and I always do it myself. So you may as well sit down there and smoke your cigar. Some people are made to be ornamental, you know, and others to be useful."

"And some are both," said Lavery, looking down on her heavy rippling hair. "And again, others are neither."

He seated himself rather sulkily on the bench near by.

"Of course I know I'm not handsome," he observed. "So that was rather a nasty dig of yours about being 'ornamental.' But you made one mistake. I am useful."

"Are you? For what?" enquired Mary, carefully separating bulbs. "I always thought you just a bright butterfly."

"You never thought about me at all," he declared with emphasis. "But I have thought a good deal about you."

He took out a cigar and a pearl-handled knife, cut the end of the cigar neatly, and lit it with a match from a gold box. Then clasping his broad white hands about his knee, he contemplated Mary's grave profile. She seemed absorbed in her work and did not look up at him, nor betray by the flicker of an eyelash any interest in what he thought. Still less did she enquire into it. The silence lasted until he broke it, petulantly.

"Mrs. Carlin, why do you dislike me?"

"I don't dislike you—at least I think not."

"You think not! Don't you know whether you do or not?... You strike me as a person who would know her own mind!"

"Yes—but I'm not very quick about making up my mind. I don't feel I know you at all well."

"You've known me for two years.... How long does it take you to make up your mind?"

"Well, that depends—longer now than it used to. I don't feel that I know very much about anybody. I used to be more sure about things."

She lifted the last of the bulbs into the basket, and rose to her feet.

"Won't you sit here and talk to me a little?... I almost never have a chance to talk to you alone—that's why we don't know one another better."

She looked at him and smiled faintly, but the shadow of sadness and weariness did not lift from her face.

"I have some things to see to in the house—and then I must dress—"

"But it's hardly five now."

"Yes."

She sat down on the bench, brushing the dust off her black cloak.

"I like," said Lavery discontentedly, "to be friendly with people. I don't like to be held off at arm's length and looked at as if I were a queer beetle or something—or not looked at, that's even worse!"

"Do you think I do that?" Mary enquired.

"Yes, you do! You treat me as if I were hardly a human being!"

"Oh, how absurd!... You're a different kind of human being, that's all, you belong to a different world."

"How a different world? I'm Laurence's friend, why can't I be yours?"

A sudden sternness, a definite recoil, in her expression, warned him off this ground.

"How could you be my friend? There is nothing in common between you and me," she said coldly.

"Now, how do you know there isn't? You say yourself you don't know me!... But I think you've made up your mind that you don't want to ... you think I'm frivolous and ridiculous, because I manage to enjoy life, don't you now? A middle-aged butterfly, a mere sensualist—isn't that it?"

"Well—something like that," Mary admitted. "But it oughtn't to matter to you what I think.... I told you I don't understand people very well, the older I get the less I understand them, and I can't make friends."

This quiet statement had an air of finality. He was silent, looking at her thoughtfully, with a keen shrewdness, a questioning puzzled gaze.

"Well, friends or not, I admire you very much," he said abruptly. "I hate to have you think me such a poor creature."

"I imagine it won't disturb you very much, if I do. You wouldn't care much for any woman's opinion, you like to amuse yourself with women but you don't take them seriously, you look down on them. You think they're all alike and that a few compliments and pretty speeches are all they want or can understand. You like to take them in, and then laugh at them, it amuses you.... And men too—you like to play with people, try experiments. You're more cool-headed and sharp than most people, you think almost every one is a fool, in some way or other, and you like to find out how—turn them inside out. That's how you enjoy life."

"Well, by Jove!" Lavery stared at her. "So you have given me some attention, after all—I wouldn't have guessed it! Now, do you know, you're right about some things, but that isn't the whole story—"

Mary stood up and took her basket.

"No, I suppose not, but I must go in now."

Reluctantly he rose, and walked with her to the door.

"You're a severe judge—you won't even let the criminal speak in his own defence," he said with some feeling. "'Give every man his deserts and who should 'scape hanging?' Don't you think you might show a little mercy?"

"I believe in justice," said Mary, with a sudden hardening of her face. "That's what we all get—not mercy."

The bitterness of her tone remained with him after she had gone.... He told himself that he would make her talk yet, he would find out what was the trouble in this household, the shadow that hung over it. He had tried to find out from Laurence, but in vain; even when he was drunk, Laurence wouldn't talk about his wife.

Mary was dressed and listening for Laurence long before he came. Her father-in-law had disappeared for the whole afternoon, and had not yet returned; he had told her that he was going for a long walk, and John had accompanied him. Mary perceived that the old man was very tactful. She had seen it in his meeting with his grandsons, the manner in which he at once took a certain place with them. He did not assert himself in the least nor stress the relationship; he treated them not like children, but with the courteous interest due to new acquaintance, without familiarity. The two elder boys rather hung back from him; but John had at once been friendly; they were all in some way impressed by him.

It was dark, the lamps had been lighted, when Laurence came. Lavery was strolling about the lawn and met him; and they came upstairs together and went into Laurence's room, laughing. Mary waited impatiently till finally Lavery went to dress; then she knocked at Laurence's door and entered. He was in his dressing-room, splashing vigorously, and answered with surprise when she spoke to him. In a moment he came out, wrapped in a loose robe, his thick black hair and beard wet and rough.

"Laurence, something strange has happened. Some one is here—you haven't heard?—your father has come."

A look of apprehension on his face quickly gave place to astonishment as she ended.

"My father!... What the deuce!"

He looked dismayed; then as she went on to describe the new arrival, incredulous.

"I don't believe it's my father. He wouldn't turn up like this after twenty-five years without a word!... I've thought for a long time he was dead."

"Well, he isn't—it's your father, sure enough."

Laurence, with a blank look, towelled his head and neck.

"Jesus Christ!" he ejaculated.

He went and stared into the mirror, rubbing his hair till it stood up wildly all over his head. There were threads of grey all through it, but the beard that covered his mouth and was cut square below his chin was intensely black, and so were his arched brows, beneath which the narrow eyes showed still their vivid blue. His broad shoulders, the joining of the massive neck, were strong, unbowed.

"What did you do with him?" he asked abruptly.

"Put him in the best bedroom and gave him your special whiskey," said Mary.

"The deuce you did!... Killed the fatted calf, eh?... Well, where is he now?"

"He went to walk with John—John took a great fancy to him."

"He did?" Laurence's face changed subtly, relaxed. "Well, that's something.... But, say—it's awkward about Lavery being here. I wish I'd known."

"I might have telegraphed, but I didn't know where you were," said Mary.

"You can always reach me at the hotel," he said sharply.

She moved toward the door.

"I wish to the deuce Lavery wasn't here," he muttered.

"I wouldn't care about that." There was an edge in Mary's tone, but with an effort she eliminated that touch of criticism. "Your father can take care of himself—he's quite as much a gentleman as Lavery."

"No, is he really?"

Laurence turned round, a hairbrush in either hand, and gazed at her.

"He's presentable, really?... I shouldn't have expected it."

"He isn't very well dressed," said Mary quietly. "But you needn't be at all ashamed of him. He's—there's something about him—well, I can't describe it, but he has much better manners than Mr. Lavery."

"Oh, you always have a knife up your sleeve for poor old Horace," said Laurence, turning back again to the mirror and brushing vigorously. "I'll be down in ten minutes—but I'd rather see him alone first, you know. Do you suppose he's come back?"

"I'll see."

In the mirror Laurence's eyes dwelt on her tall figure and white face shadowy in the background. He said slowly with an undertone of pain:

"You look very beautiful tonight."

IV

Where Laurence sat was the head of the table; he dominated all by his vivid colour, his intense physical vitality, and he kept the talk going easily. He and Lavery were in evening dress, rather dandified, with soft plaited shirt-bosoms and diamond studs. Old Mr. Carlin, sitting between Timothy and John, appeared perfectly at ease in his well-brushed suit. His bright grey eyes contemplated the scene and the company with an aloof and philosophic interest.

Mary, in her usual dress for the evening, of plain black velvet, cut square at the neck, and with long close-fitting sleeves, was beautiful, as Laurence had said and Lavery's long gaze recognized. She wore no ornaments except a pair of heavy earrings of dull gold filagree. The light from the big cut-glass chandelier over the table fell unshaded upon her, bringing out the pale copper colour of her rippling hair and the whiteness of her skin. It emphasized too the hollows in her cheeks and at her temples, the lines of the forehead and of the neck below the ear. Her face, as in her youth, was like a mask; but now it was a mask of sorrow. Calm and unmoved in expression, it was yet an abstract of sad experience.

The years had left a more complex mark on Laurence. There were deeper furrows in his brow and running down from the nostrils to bury themselves in his black beard. A passionate expressiveness, a restless irritability, spoke in his voice, his gestures, his constant flow of talk. "Carlin's temper" was a proverb by now. A racial inheritance came out strongly in him. He was "the black Irish"; dangerous at times. But there was another side to this temperament. Often when he smiled, and always when he looked at the boy who sat beside him, there was a deep sweetness in his eyes, a deep tenderness. John's place was always beside his father; he hung on Laurence's words and looks with hushed eagerness. And Laurence, keenly conscious of the sensitive boy, was careful what he said, instinctively suppressed anything that might shock or hurt a young idealistic spirit; and never drank more than a glass or two of wine, in his presence.

The wine was always on the dinner-table, however. It was Laurence's idea that the boys had better get used to seeing it, and to taking a little now and then. Mary never touched it, and hated the sight of it; but she had long since ceased to oppose Laurence in any detail of life. The house was managed as he wished, though he was away more than half the time. Now there were three kinds of wine on the table—sherry, claret and port. Laurence was proud of his wine-cellar, down in the deep foundations of the house.

Lavery drank delicately. He had guided Laurence's choice of the claret, and confined himself to that. He much preferred to remain perfectly sober; especially when other people were drunk; but in any case he disliked the least blurring of the fine edge of sensation and perception. He liked to watch the play of human feeling, and to guess what was going on below the surface; and for this one must be alert and cool. He was immensely curious, for example, about the human situation under his eyes. Old Mr. Carlin had suddenly come in for a share of this interest. Lavery studied him across the table, and addressed frequent remarks to him, with amenity. He discovered that the old man, in point of quick wit, suavity and coolness, was by no means his inferior, although the elder had, from the beginning of the dinner, applied very steadily to each decanter in turn.

After the coffee Mary rose, as was her custom, leaving the men at the table. The three boys followed her; Jim with evident reluctance. His manly dignity was hurt at being classed with women and children; but he was quite aware that his company would not be longer desired in the room, where heavy drinking and free talk were apt to be the order of the evening. Lavery sprang up to open the door for Mary, and she passed out with a slight bow, the boys waiting till the edge of her long velvet train had ebbed over the threshold.

Timothy and John went upstairs to the billiard-room on the top floor; and Mary, slipping her hand through Jim's arm, led him into the parlour where the piano stood. She wanted to ask him about his excursion of the night before—he had been out till three o'clock—but more than that she wanted him to stay with her a little while. But Jim was restive, wouldn't sit down. He feared an inquisition, and also he wanted to get away to the stable and smoke. Mary, both irritated and hurt by his unwillingness, spoke more sharply than she had intended.

"Where were you all last night?"

"I went out for a long ride," said Jim sulkily.

"And were you riding from eight o'clock till three?"

"No—I stopped a while to see a friend."

"What friend?"

"Oh, somebody you don't know—a fellow."

Controlling himself, he answered more gently; his dark eyes met hers imperturbably.

"Well, you oughtn't to stay out all night!"

"I didn't," said Jim reasonably. "And a fellow has to do something in this dead place."

"You shouldn't have taken your father's horse either, without permission."

"Why, Mother, he was simply spoiling for exercise—you know he doesn't get ridden half enough."

"I don't like you to ride him, he's dangerous—"

"Oh, I can manage him, all right, don't you worry!" Jim smiled cheerfully. "But I've got to run out now and see to the pony—he's a bit lame still—"

She let him go, turning away from him and walking to the end of the long room. Yes, he wanted to escape—he had his own life now, was beginning to be a man and to take his secret way, like the rest of them. Her mouth curved bitterly. She did not believe Jim, about the friend—she suspected something else, and she recoiled jealously, miserably.... Yes, her son too—he was like the rest....

She stood by the open window, looking out blindly on the garden. The night was mild, it was moonlight, greenish, like a glowworm's light. The long lace curtains waved inward in the soft breeze. There were sounds of life astir all about. She heard a burst of laughter from the dining-room; then the faint click of the billiard-balls and a shout from Timothy. Then, on the lake, some one began to sing Schubert's boat-song. A clear soprano trilled out joyously the song of love and youth....

A piercing sense of loneliness, of life passing by her, leaving her, stabbed to her very heart. She gave a long, shuddering sigh.... Youth, love—they had passed by. Like the song growing fainter, receding into distance. And the bitter thing was, one did not realize them till they were gone. The sweetness of life—all it was, might have been—one did not feel it till it had slipped away.... Gone, lost—then, in loneliness you felt it....

Some one came into the room. She turned, and at sight of her face, Lavery's gay apology dropped half-spoken. He came and stood beside her at the window.

"I hate music," she said abruptly. "Some one was singing out there. It makes one sad.... It makes one remember all the things—"

"I don't like it myself," said Lavery, when she stopped as abruptly. "Unless it's an opera—with gay dresses, lights, all that—then it distracts you."

"That's trying to shut it out, the sadness of life. Like making merry in a room, shut in, with a storm outside."

"Well, you know, that's the sensible thing to do. You have to shut it out."

"But supposing you can't?"

He met the misery of her eyes, her voice, with a gravity that he seldom showed to any one.

"We all have to go through that phase," he said curtly. "A kind of despair. It comes—and passes, generally."

"Does it? Does it pass?"

"I think it does.... You see, it's natural. It comes to us at the end of youth—it's the end of some things—then we have to take stock, see what we've spent, what we've got left to go on with—"

"And supposing we've spent everything?"

"Well, that isn't likely—though it may look so. Most of us go through a kind of bankruptcy. The hopes and ambitions of youth are gone—our dreams are gone, as a rule. We face what we've actually done, what we're really capable of—it doesn't correspond to what we believed we could do, what we thought we were. The reality is hard, and we despair.... But then, we get our second wind, so to speak, and go on, somehow."

"Do we? But why? Why go on—"

"Well, most of us by that time have certain ties, responsibilities, we're necessary, or think we are—"

"But if we don't think we are? If we're not needed?"

Her lips quivered, her tone was hard and desperate.

"Well, then—there may be some work we're interested in. Or if not that, there's a good deal of pleasure to be got out of life, you know, if one understands how to do it."

"Pleasure?"

"Yes, surely.... Youth doesn't appreciate the good things of life, it's too eager, too intent on its own purposes.... The real pleasures of the mind and the senses come later—they're the consolation for what we were speaking of."

"No, no! That's no consolation! It's impossible to live that way!"

"You want to keep your youth," he said. "I think you're suffering from youth unlived."

"Youth unlived!" she repeated, in a low voice. "I didn't have it ... it went by me somehow—"

"Yes, and now you want it."

"I don't want anything!"

"That's what we say when we can't get what we want," observed Lavery. "But then, we take what we can get."

"No, I hate that!" she burst out. "That resignation, creeping into old age! No, I can't live that way. That's being beaten!"

"Well, most of us are beaten," Lavery said philosophically, showing his brilliant teeth in a smile. "But then, as I said, there are consolations—"

"No, there's no consolation for that."

She moved, sat down on one of the long sofas, looking straight before her with a fixed absent gaze. Lavery dropped into a chair beside her, contemplative, admiring.

Emotion was becoming to her. It called a faint colour to her cheeks and lips, gave light to her still grey eyes. In some ways she looked strangely young. The lines of her figure were wonderfully girlish.... But also she looked as though she had lived ... not happily, though. He judged a sympathetic silence best at the moment, though there were a lot of things he wanted to say. He would have liked to preach his own gospel of enjoyment, he thought he could be rather eloquent on that theme. But still more he wanted her to talk, so he was quiet, glancing now and then about the big room, whose furniture had too much gilt to suit him. His own taste ran to very quiet though rich effects, and he thought the house "rococo" and out of date. Still, in a way, the gilding and light stuffs and long mirrors made a good setting for her tall figure in its sombre dress and her tragic face.... She sat there, looking into space, apparently forgetting that a pleasant confidant was at her elbow. She hadn't a touch of the ordinary agreeable coquetry, he reflected—didn't seem to realize that people of their age could still be agreeable to one another. Rather barbarous ... yes, both Carlin and his wife were a little uncivilized. They would fit better into a former, doubtless more heroic age, than into the present time. There was a slightly rough-hewn pioneer quality about them. But, perhaps from that very thing, they were both interesting, decidedly so. And he could wait indefinitely for the interest to develop. His calm pulses never hurried now for anything.

His thought reverted to Laurence and to the old gentleman whom he had left drinking whiskey. A queer fish, Laurence's father—he had never known Laurence had a father. A black sheep probably. Laurence was plainly nervous about him. It was the tactful thing to leave them together—even if there hadn't been Mrs. Carlin alone in here, needing somebody to talk to. Laurence neglected her, that was quite evident, and she felt it bitterly.... He wondered, with narrowed gaze, how much she knew about Laurence's life. He could tell her a good deal more than she knew, probably—but, naturally, he wouldn't.

V

The constraint that Laurence had felt from the moment of meeting his long lost parent—for their parting rose up before him, the memory of a blow—had vanished. The old man had brushed it away, as soon as they were alone, by a quiet net statement.

"You mustn't think, Laurence, that I've come back to fasten myself on you. I shall stay here only a day or so. I have my own life, and I don't need anything from you."

"That isn't what I was thinking of—"

"I know, but this is what I want to say, it would be ridiculous for me to act as if I had any claim on you, after everything. I don't feel any, don't expect anything. Naturally you couldn't have any affection for me, I wouldn't have any place here, even if I wanted it. And I don't need any money. I just wanted you to understand it."

"Of course you have a claim—"

"No, no, I gave all that up a long time ago, cut off that sort of thing, by my own will, you know. I wasn't made for family life. Couldn't stand it.... Of course I know you have a grudge against me, and quite right. I didn't do my duty by my family, that's a fact. Should never have had a family."

They were sitting before a fire in the library. The old man had refused the cigar Laurence offered, and was smoking a short black pipe.

"I suppose we all feel that way at times," said Laurence moodily.

"Yes, but most struggle along with it. I did, for a good many years, not very well, though. It was against the grain. I got caught in the wheel of things, it was grinding me to pieces."

"The wheel of things," Laurence repeated absently.

"Yes, and of course through a woman. They get us into it. Your mother was a good woman, I've nothing to say against her. I fell in love with her, that wasn't her fault, nor mine either.... But 'twas she led me to the priest, and then over to this country. She was of better family than me, you see, her father was a squire; and she had a great ambition to get on in the world and be genteel. When she saw I couldn't do it, she got bitter to me. Oh, it was all natural, she wanted her children to be well off, educated. You can remember how we lived, nobody could blame your mother, I didn't myself, but she made it hell to me. I wanted to be my own master and have time to think.... So I cut loose from it."

Laurence nodded brusquely, but frowned, gazing at the neat, gentle-voiced old man.

"'Twas wrong, of course," old Timothy went on reflectively. "From the usual point of view. But I can't say I'm sorry I did it. I've had time to look about me and to learn some things. I always had a thirst for learning—books and ideas—"

"Yes, no doubt! But perhaps you don't know how my mother lived!" said Laurence bitingly.

"I couldn't have bettered it," the old man replied tranquilly. "I couldn't really, Laurence. The drink had got hold of me, I'd have gone from bad to worse. I couldn't help it ... 'twas because my life was miserable, I was only a dumb brute, like an ox, just living to work, feed and sleep. 'Twas no life for a man."

"It wasn't a life for my mother, either, was it?"

"No, but women can stand it better than we can, they don't like it but it doesn't kill their souls.... I'd have drunk myself to death in a few years. 'Tis they get us into it anyway—they're bound to the wheel, and they draw us in. They think of food and clothing and being respectable. A man has got other things to think of—he can't spend his life feeding a lot of hungry mouths.... Nine we had, but they mostly died when babies, the better for them."

The old man leaned forward to shake the ashes out of his pipe, and smiling, he added:

"Of course I don't expect you to think anything but ill of me. You always took your mother's part, and 'twas right.... And now you've got a family of your own and done well by them, and you've got up in the world—you'll feel accordingly and look down on me, naturally."

"I don't look down—!"

"Oh, maybe not because of the money and the fine house, I don't mean that. But you're in the big machine, I'm not. You're a success, I've been a failure, from a social point of view—"

"Success?" said Laurence.

Sunk deep in the big armchair, his head bent forward, he stared at the fire from under his bent brows.

"Surely. You're a big man here, Laurence, I found out—you've made a fine name for yourself. You've got wealth too, a real lady and a beautiful one for a wife, three fine boys—and this house you live in, why, it's a palace."

There was a faint veiled irony in the old man's voice.

"Your mother would have been proud to see you, Laurence."

"But you're not, eh?" Laurence smiled aggressively. "You've got something else in your mind."

"Well—yes ... I don't care much for all this. I find a man needs very little to live, and all the rest is waste, so I think."

"You've become a philosopher," growled Laurence.

"Yes," the old man chuckled. "Long ago I took to the road. Since then I've never owned anything nor had any care for the morrow. I travel like the birds and pick up my living as I go."

Laurence made no comment but continued to gaze into the fire, sunk deep in reverie. He looked very tired; his whole big frame relaxed, his eyelids drooped.

But he was thinking—or rather, whole scenes from the past were flashing by him, things long forgotten, it seemed.... After a rather long silence he said dreamily:

"You know Pat was killed at Shiloh, I suppose?"

"I heard he was killed, yes—that is, I didn't know it till I got back here."

"And you didn't know my mother was dead, either—or what had become of me?"

"No, Larry, no—how could I?"

The old man filled his pipe again from a bag of tobacco that he carried in his pocket.

"Well, you are an old bird," said Laurence sardonically.

"Family isn't the only thing," was old Timothy's calm response. "'Tisn't even the main thing."

"Oh, what is, in your opinion?"

"Why, a man's work—his ideas."

"Work? I thought you didn't work."

"I don't work for a boss, or for a society that only wants to exploit me, and I haven't these many years. I've gone hungry rather, lived with the lowest and off them too, rather than that. Once I got out of that hell, I wouldn't go back into it, sooner starve.... But I work for what I'm interested in."

"And what's that?"

"The big change that's coming, Larry. The day when there'll be real freedom for every man."

The old man paused, then said abruptly:

"You're your mother's son. It's her blood in you that's made you go the way you have.... On my side we go another way. Far back my people were all rebels. Hardly a man of 'em died in their beds.... There's a bigger war coming in this country, Laurence, than the one you fought in. There you were on the right side of the fence, but now you're not—you've gone over."

"Gone over? Gone over to what?"

"To the rich, to the capitalists, to the whole rotten system. You're a pillar of it now."

Laurence opened his eyes, looked interested.

"Do you think so, Dad?" he enquired, using for the first time the familiar address of long ago.

"Sure I think so!"

A pugnacious spark lit the old man's eye, his philosophic calm wavered.

"I'd been better pleased, Larry, if you'd stuck by your own class. It's men like you we need—you could have been a leader! But it's the old story, so soon as a man of ours shows the ability, the other side gets him—he goes after the fleshpots, and he's lost to us!"

"There are no classes in this country, you're thinking of the old world, Dad," said Laurence tolerantly.

"There's always two classes—them that have and them that want!" declared the old man curtly.

"You're for a class-war, then?"

"I'm for it!... Not for myself, thank God the day's long past, if it ever was, when I wanted anything for myself. But I belong to the Knights of Labour and I've travelled the country over, helping to organize here and there. I see the big fight coming. This country's changed. The rich get richer and the poor poorer. The big fortunes are piling up. You'll see ... you'll see."

"You're a true Irishman, Dad, always spoiling for a fight—always against the powers that be."

"And you come of the same stock, but you've gone back on it! Maybe you've sold yourself to the powers that be!"

"No," said Laurence coolly. "No man can say that of me. Look over my record, if you like to take the trouble. Ask what my reputation is.... You'll find I've stood for the poor and oppressed as much as you, or maybe more—I've fought many a poor man's case against a rich corporation, and won it too."

"Then how did you get all this?"

The old man waved his hand, clasping the stubby black pipe, and fixed a shrewd sparkling glance on his son.

Laurence laughed abruptly.

"Partly by inheritance, by investments, speculation sometimes, not by bribery or corruption!... But it seems rather funny to me that you should drop down on me this way, all of a sudden, and accuse me! Yes, by George, it's funny! Life is certainly amusing, at times."

"You mean I haven't any right to call you to account," said the old man placidly. "But I don't do it because you're my son—but because you're a strong man that was born of us and ought to have stayed with us."

"Us? You mean I ought to have been a day-labourer?... You're a fanatic, Dad.... If you were so anxious to have me go the right way, why didn't you stay and train me up?"

"It was weakness, I know, but, as I told you, I couldn't stand your mother, God rest her soul.... But of course I didn't see as much then as I do now. I've picked up some education, I've studied Marx and the Internationalists...."

"And you're for revolution. I see. But it won't come, not in this country, not anyway in your lifetime or mine, and then only slowly, by degrees.... Oh, I've looked into those things as well as you. Social questions interest me. I see the battle of opposing forces, and I'm on your side too, on the side of the advance, as I see it. But—it won't come by a sudden blow—not here. Little by little, as a man's frame changes. This country's built on the English model, little as you may like it, slow to change but yet changing.... And that's where I come in. Don't you see the cause needs a friend at court? You can batter away on the outside as much as you like, but you need somebody inside!"

"Maybe.... That wasn't what made you want to get inside, though, was it, Larry?" said the old man cynically.

"Oh, I don't know.... I don't know why I wanted to."

Laurence stood up, stretching his arms with a look of nervous fatigue.

"I promised the boys a game of billiards—come on up, will you?"

"All right, all right."

Laurence stood a moment with his back to the fire, looking about the room. Its length on two sides was filled nearly to the ceiling with books. There was Judge Baxter's private library in its stately bindings, and many of his law-books, huge bound volumes of reports, "commonplace" books filled with his neat crabbed writing, ponderous commentaries in calf. Laurence had done a good deal of work in this room....

"I wanted to count for something," he said absently. "Who doesn't?"

"Yes, but for what—that's the point! What's all this good for, that you've got? Loot!"

"I wanted," said Laurence, deep in his own thoughts and oblivious of this condemnation, "I wanted—human happiness, more than anything. For myself, yes—and for other people.... I wanted life to be more interesting, richer than it was, with more pleasure in it.... Why not? Why can't it be?... I tried, here in this town—"

"Oh, I know!" broke in the old man impatiently. "Public improvements and all that. Suppose they have got cement sidewalks and lots of trees? Suppose ye did give 'em a library? I know they say you've done a lot for the town ... but you want to be a big man, the patron, the boss, and give it to 'em out of charity! That's the same old story, it doesn't interest me. Give the people justice, they won't want charity!"

"Justice!" murmured Laurence with an abstracted smile.

"Well, their rights, then, if you like it better. I don't mean the kind of justice that you deal them out, sitting up on your high seat!"

"I deal them out the best I can find," said Laurence gently. "The law gets re-made rather slowly, you know.... But I'll admit to you that I don't sleep well, the night after I've sentenced a man."

"I never thought to see that—you, Larry Carlin, sentencing people to prison!"

"No, I don't sleep well," said Laurence vaguely.

He rubbed his hand over his eyes and shrugged his shoulders with a look of weariness.

"Well, shall we go up?" he said shortly. "I'm mighty sorry, though, that you don't approve of me."

"Yes, yes, I understand!"

The old man laughed, and suddenly resumed his former manner, his placidity, with an ease that indicated long practice in adapting himself to shifting scenes and moods.

"You're not responsible to me, God knows.... To each his own life, and I'm not to be the judge of yours!... Anyhow, Larry," he added as they went toward the door, "you got what you wanted."

"Oh, yes—yes, I got it,—in many ways."

"And now you've got it—you wouldn't say now, as many do, that it's vanity and vexation of spirit?"

"Oh, of course!" Laurence laughed abruptly. "Still, when you go after a thing it's better to get it.... Then you can see what it's worth."

VI

The billiard-room, on a suggestion from the architect, taken up with amusement by Laurence, had been made to resemble a European café. It had a low ceiling, red-plush benches round the panelled walls, long mirrors, and small tables in the corners; there was even a miniature bar.

Laurence, with his coat off, moved quickly round the green table, leaning half-way across it sometimes to make a difficult shot, managing his cue deftly and surely. The two younger boys followed his motions eagerly. John, who was playing his first real game, had a flush of excitement in his cheeks; his big blue eyes shone, he bit his lips nervously and his hands trembled; he laughed gaily when he made an awkward play. Timothy hung at his elbow, jeering and waiting anxiously for his turn. In the doorway lounged Jim maintaining a slightly supercilious attitude. Mary and Lavery were sitting on one of the plush benches; and the senior Carlin, standing at a little distance, contemplated the group round the table with interest. The men were smoking, the air was a little hazy. With the bright lights reflected in the mirrors, the click of the balls, quick movements and laughing comments of the players, the others watching, all seemed drawn together for the moment in an atmosphere of pleasure.

Laurence's face had brightened, his eyes smiled. When John had made his last play, a terrible fumble, and thrown down his cue angrily, he put his arm round the boy's shoulders and shook him with tender roughness.

"Be a good sport! You've got to lose before you win, you young monkey!"

John frowned, stamped his feet, and wrenched away, yet his eyes too smiled, and he hurried to fetch the chalk demanded by Timothy. Then when Timothy blundered John murmured a consoling word, little attended to, and when Timothy made a good stroke he applauded vigorously. Now and then he glanced happily at his mother, watching for her smile, or spoke to Jim, who only dropped his eyelids in answer; or went and stood beside his grandfather for a moment. He showed a quick consciousness of every one in the room, as though with infinitely delicate feelers touching them all. His physical motions were awkward, with the rapid growth of adolescence his arms and legs were somewhat out of control. He jostled Timothy at a critical point and received an impatient rebuff. Dashed by this, he stood apart for a while; and his face had its wistful, listening look, as if he sought among them all the human echo of some harmony heard far off.

After Timothy, it was Jim's turn. Jim had some pretensions to skill, but bore a smashing defeat with good grace, and complimented his father in an off-hand manly fashion, on which they shook hands with a cordiality rare between them. Jim as a rule irritated Laurence, either by obvious faults, laziness or extravagance, or else by silence and lack of response, a standing difference of temperament. But tonight Laurence looked at him affectionately, noting with pleasure his dark good looks, his lithe youth. Jim was almost a man—next year he would be going to college, if he could manage to pass the examinations.... So time passes....

Laurence was aware of a dark whirl of thoughts, half-formed, somewhere at the back of his mind; and of a weight pressing on the nape of his neck. For some time he had slept little and had been conscious of an increasing fatigue, something that piled up day by day, and made increasing effort necessary to get through each day's activity. He would have to work tonight. Downstairs he had the papers of an important case in which he had reserved decision.... And then there were a lot of business matters to be gone over with Lavery....

But he was reluctant to leave this bright room, to break up the family gathering. It was rare that they were all together like this; Mary very seldom came up to the billiard-room. The occasion seemed to him significant, and searching for the reason, he wondered if his father's strange presence had anything to do with it, or with his own unusual mood. Perhaps so. Perhaps it was this that had, as it seemed, thrown him back into the past, had curiously removed him to a distance so that this present scene had a kind of unreality.... It was like a scene on the stage which he was watching as it were through a reversed glass, so that the figures of the actors, his own included, appeared very tiny and as if at an immense distance. He watched himself going through the motions of the game, talking, laughing, and the others moving about. It seemed that some drama was moving to an obscure but deeply significant climax, but what was it all about?

At times he came to the surface of consciousness with what seemed like a crash, the lights and sounds smote his senses as if magnified, the actors became life-size or even bigger, and he waited for them or for himself to say or do some unheard-of thing.... All through he was conscious of an effort in himself to appear as usual, not to do anything extraordinary, not to lose touch with these human beings round him, all of whom seemed invested with some strange charm, newly felt, as though a hidden beauty in them had suddenly come into view....

At one moment he wondered if he were ill, or going to be; and put his hand on the back of his neck, where the dull pain pressed heavily. From across the room he saw John's eyes fixed on him earnestly; and smiled at him. The shadow of trouble in another person would trouble John. Strange boy! He was like a harp so delicately strung that a breath of air would stir it. What would happen to him in this world of harsh and jarring contacts?... The other two, he thought, would shoulder their way through well enough. They were strong normal boys with a good supply of egotism. The stock was sound....

He realized that he was looking at them all as though on the eve of departure, a farewell before a long journey.... The room swam in a dazzle of light. With an immense effort he pulled himself together, vanquished the momentary faintness, gave no other sign than a pallor, a rapid blinking of his eyes....

He found himself standing beside his father, before one of the long mirrors, and replying to some remark half-heard. His vision cleared, he looked at the two figures in the glass, curiously. Would any one have taken those two for father and son?

No. In the first place, the elder looked absurdly young, with his smooth-shaven unwrinkled face and wiry figure. And then, he looked like a foreigner; the Irish was unmistakable. Old Timothy had never taken root in American soil, but floated like thistledown above it, for forty years.... And the other one there, the black-bearded one—with age the Irish came out in him too, unmistakably.... But he was an American, born here, with no dim shadow of allegiance elsewhere. A son of the soil, he had fought for its nationality—there was the sign, the old sabre-cut, a faint white line across his cheek. And those old American ideals, of liberty, equality—he had believed in them passionately, felt them a living current in his blood, would have given his life for them. He still believed in them—and surely nothing in his life had given the lie to that belief?

The old man there had questioned, doubted him, on the score of this material luxury, this big house he had built—which, for that matter, was as unsubstantial as a soap-bubble, he could almost feel it dissolving under him.... Why, that only proved the equality of opportunity here for every man, he had started empty-handed. Here in this country the stream of fortune ran swift, capricious.... Men were all like gold-washers on the banks of a river, today the current would wash the golden grains one way, tomorrow another.... Why, tomorrow this bubble of a house that he had amused himself blowing into shape, might vanish, and he be left empty-handed.... What matter? It was all unreal, anyway, all a dream, what he had tried to build....

It seemed to him that he had been saying some of these things to his father, but he was not sure, there was a humming sound in his ears.... Again there was a flash of clear sight. John was there beside him, now there were three figures reflected in the mirror.

"Three generations!" said Laurence.

He spoke in his natural tone, the haggard pallor of his face changed suddenly; he felt that John had noticed it, was watching him.

"Look, Father, can you see any likeness among us three?" he asked.

The boy stood between them, straight as a young sapling, the radiance of his blond head like a beam of sunlight, a bow of promise across a cloud.

"No—no," said the old man thoughtfully. "I see it now in you and me, Larry—there's the same blood. But I don't see it in the boy."

"John isn't like any of us, anyhow," said Laurence, with the tender tones that he always had for this child. "He makes us look like a couple of scarred old logs, doesn't he?"

"Ah, youth—that's the pure gold," said the old man softly.

The boy smiled, deprecating, shrinking a little from their gentle scrutiny.

"It isn't that alone, there's something else, that's unaccountable," Laurence pondered, as if speaking to himself.

"It's the mother, perhaps—he's more like her. That's a different strain," said the old man.

Laurence turned and looked across the room. Mary had risen, was still talking to Lavery, but she was looking straight at them, at the group before the mirror.

"Mary, come here a minute," called Laurence.

She came, with her slow stately step, and Laurence put out his hand and drew her to his side.

"What is it?" she asked, with a faint tremulousness in her voice.

The old man, standing a step apart, and looking at the other three, replied.

"We were thinking of the likeness.... Yes, it's more on your side—yet I don't know—"

"Mary and I are different enough, eh?" said Laurence with a slight laugh. "That might account for almost anything. She's pure English, you see—English Puritan.... It was two enemy races mating when we married, eh, Father?"

"That makes the American, maybe," said the old man, still curiously intent on the boy.

But John, embarrassed by this prolonged attention, now broke away and left them.

"He's not like either of us," said Laurence abruptly, watching the boy's retreating figure. "That is, only a little. He's like a flower, sprung from heaven knows where."

Glancing again at the mirror he saw the quick response in Mary's face. In the mirror their eyes met with a deep flash of sympathy. Yes, this was something they both felt deeply and in common—the strange beauty of this child who had, nevertheless, sprung from them, from their two lives, however marred and futile.... Their union had at least produced this thing of beauty....

They looked at one another with a deep sad gaze. Laurence, with a sharpened vision, saw something in Mary's face new to him. The physical change must have come slowly—Mary had not been ill for a long time, that sharpening of the contours that gave her beauty its new delicacy was perhaps only age. But what he saw was not physical. He saw suddenly that she was grieving, suffering, he did not know why; it gave him a quick throb of pain. He would have put his arm around her, but that she moved away sharply. At the same moment he felt again the clouding of his sight, the dizziness.... But, abruptly alleging that he must get to work, he was able to leave the room with only a slight unsteadiness of gait, which, he knew, might easily be attributed to another cause.

VII

Mary watched him go; and thought exactly what he had guessed she would. She said it was time for the boys to go to bed. They all went downstairs. In her own room she lit her reading-lamp, but instead of undressing she stood for a time looking out the window on the lake. Then, when the house was quiet, she turned slowly, reluctantly, to her door, and stopping more than once she descended to the ground floor. The hall was dimly lit. The library door was shut; she heard the rustle of papers and the thud of a book falling. She opened the door noiselessly. There was Laurence, with a wet towel round his head, working at his desk.... And there was Lavery, in a deep chair beside him, looking over some papers. She retreated without a word, but the closing of the door betrayed her.

It was Lavery who came out and found her, wrapped in her long coat, undoing the chain of the front door. He picked up a coat and joined her, not doubting that she wished him to do so.

"Laurence oughtn't to work tonight," she said sharply. "He isn't fit to work."

"Well, I guess he has to—some papers he has to go over.... And he always says he works best at night," drawled Lavery. "Fact is, though, he's not looking well—complains of headache the last few days. Perhaps he ought to ease off a little—rest, if possible."

"Rest!" Mary said with a short laugh. "I never knew him to rest."

"No, that's so—he seems geared up to a certain speed.... But after all we have to relax a bit as we get older. The machine won't stand the speed. And Laurence burns the candle at both ends."

They were walking down a path toward the lake. Mary did not ask what he meant. But he insisted.

"I don't mind a man drinking anything in reason. But I think Laurence is getting to depend too much on it—he has to key himself up to his work. That wonderful natural energy seems to be failing him."

Still she was silent, and Lavery turned to her.

"Why don't you do something about it?" he asked abruptly.

"Nothing that any one could say would make any difference to Laurence," said Mary coldly. "He has always done exactly as he chose, and he always will."

"Oh, has he?" murmured Lavery. "It strikes me he would be more apt to do what you wanted him to."

Mary laughed. "What I wanted!" She turned angrily on Lavery. "You know that isn't true!"

At the same time she was amazed at herself—speaking like this, of Laurence and herself, to a stranger. And the reckless other self over-ruled this protest—it could speak to this man and it would.

"You know I never interfere in Laurence's life. He lives as he chooses."

"He lives the way he has to, I guess," said Lavery meditatively, "I don't know that there's much choice about it."

"Has to!" ejaculated Mary with contempt. "I should think you would be ashamed to say that."

They had approached the border of the lake, the breeze blew sweet and chill. Mary sat down on a bench, and Lavery, buttoning his coat, sat beside her. He knew he should catch cold, perhaps have an attack of lumbago, but no matter!

"Now why should I be ashamed?" he asked, puzzled.

"Why, because—that's no way for a man to talk.... We don't have to do what we don't choose to."

"Oh, don't we?" he murmured again. And after a moment, "Suppose there's a clash between two wills, two people—one has to go down, doesn't he, one has to submit, can't get what he wants, has to take what he doesn't want? How about that?"

"I'm not talking about what we want, of course we don't always get what we want. I'm talking about the way we live, whether we do what we know we ought to do or not—and I say we don't have to live and do what we know is wrong. I say a man ought to die rather than do that!"

"Well, what is wrong?" enquired Lavery mildly. "Now I'll tell you what I think.... I think the most important thing for a man is his work, his output. If he's got work that he believes in and loves, he's got the best thing on earth. And anything's right for him that helps him to do that work. And anything's wrong, for him, that prevents him from doing it. For that's what he's for, that's his reason for living, what he creates, that's why he's different from every other human being, so he can do just that thing.... As for any other right and wrong, I don't believe in 'em. We don't get right and wrong handed to us, we have to make them as we go along."

"Well, I am surprised, to hear you feel that way about work," said Mary, showing her claws.

"You think I don't work?... Well, perhaps you wouldn't recognize it.... I admit the law isn't my work, as it's Laurence's, in the creative sense. He's been able to stick to that and do what he was meant to do—but he's had to pay for it. That's what the drink means, and—other things that you don't like, perhaps."

He paused a moment, he didn't want to seem malicious, but he went on: "Laurence is a strong man. He's taken what he could get, to help him do his work, and I say he was right. But it wasn't what he wanted. He didn't want drink and other women, not seriously. It was trouble with you that made him turn to them."

She sat marble-still, not an eyelash moving. Lavery added:

"I ought to say, he never said a word about that. It's my own observation, that's all."

Again he was silent, watching her still profile, barely visible; guessing at the tumult within her, the rage of offended pride. (If she was determined to dislike him, he would give her something to dislike him for.) He decided that it was time for her to speak now.

But Mary was struck dumb. Her outleap of rage against Lavery recoiled upon herself.... She deserved it, for talking to him in any sort of confidence, for breaking her reserve, compromising her personal dignity—of course he had taken advantage of this. She strove to re-establish her contempt of him. He should not see that she had felt his treacherous attack.

It was some moments before she could say, coolly:

"If you think Laurence has done right, why did you ask me to 'do something about it'?"

He lost the thread of the discourse for a moment, in irritation.

"Why, I meant—I meant—that he had done the best he could, in the circumstances.... But it seems to me he's under a heavy strain—in fact, perhaps in danger of breaking down under it. I wonder if you couldn't ease it, somehow."

It was only partly a game. There was a sincere feeling in Lavery too. He admired—even though unwillingly—the more gifted man. Yes, and he had reluctant admiration for Mary too.

"You don't know anything about it," she said.

"No, perhaps I don't," he admitted.

"I can't see that it's your business, at all."

"Well, I suppose it isn't—unless on account of friendship."

"I don't believe in friendship."

"What do you believe in?" he asked.

"I don't believe in anything."

The words came out with violence. She was resisting the impulse to speak out, and yet she was speaking.

"I used to have faith—but now I haven't anything."

"Oh, yes, you have," he said. "You have faith—everything shows it."

"How? What?"

"Well, what you just said, that a man ought to die rather than do what is wrong—there's faith, in the ideal of what a man is, what he ought to be.... And then you live without compromise, you don't forgive—that's faith."

"How do you know that—that I don't forgive?"

"Well, I can guess that you didn't."

"And you think that's good—not to forgive?"

"I didn't say it was good. It depends on how it works out. I said it showed faith. It means you have a standard and you can't condone an offence against it—at any cost."

"Yes, but it might be only—that I couldn't forgive an offence against me.... It might be only—pride. You see how I mean, that I've lost faith. I don't feel sure of anything."

"You've lost faith in yourself, you mean, but—"

"Oh, not only in myself—in everything else!"

"And you used to feel sure?"

"Oh, yes—I knew!"

"And how was it, that you ceased to be sure?"

"I think—people disappointed me—people I believed in—"

"But you believe in something that isn't people, don't you—some rule of right and wrong that is above human life—"

"I did—yes, I was very religious—I believed in a rule and measured people by it—"

"And when they didn't measure up to it, you—"

"Yes, I—didn't forgive. Even now I despise people, for all sorts of reasons—can't help it.... But now I think I was wrong. I don't think I was religious at all—because, you see, it didn't stand the test—I lost it—"

"And when was that—that you lost it?"

"I don't know. It seems as if it had been going on for a long time, dying.... I used to think that happiness didn't count, that we ought not to think of it. But now I think that was when I was really happy. It isn't so easy to live without it, really, for many years—it isn't so easy!"

She had lost all feeling of the personality of Lavery. It was like speaking out to the night-wind and the starlight. She had spoken the last sentences in a rush, passionately, and in her voice was the tremor of a sob. But she compressed her lips sharply, and sat silent. Lavery took her hand, and her fingers closed on his desperately.... All she cared for just then was not to cry.

"Well, it's true, we can't live without it," muttered Lavery. "You see, we lose faith in ourselves, without it—we feel we've been wrong, and we have been wrong—that's the sign.... Then if we can't get it back we take to dope—like me."

She heard what he said, but she did not answer. She was absorbed in the relief of her emotion, her confession, and the strange feeling of kinship with him, with this person she—didn't like. For she did not like him any better than before, only it didn't seem to matter now. What mattered was not to be entirely alone.

She was comforted, and keeping hold of his hand, she grew calmer, and breathed a deep sigh. Then she noticed that Lavery was shivering.

"Why, you'll catch your death of cold," she said, and got up.

They walked back silently to the house. In the hall he put out his hand to her again and said anxiously:

"Look here now, you won't hate me more for this, will you? That wouldn't be fair."

"No!" she said with energy, smiling. "Not now.... I would, not long ago—but now I wouldn't be so mean as that."

"Well, that's good," he said wanly.

VIII

The next day, toward sunset, Mary was walking in to see her father. She went often at the time when he would be home for his solitary supper.

The Carlin place was no longer out of town. Past it stretched the paved street, with wide sidewalks and gas-lamps at frequent intervals. The maple trees now overarched it, a thinning cloud of pale yellow or red, and the leaves lay in thick drifts in the gutters and along the walks. They rustled under Mary's feet as she went holding up her long violet-coloured dress. She wore a mantle to match the dress, and a small bonnet made of violets and lace, tied under her chin with black velvet ribbons.

She walked at a good pace; there was a spring in her step, and unusual colour in her cheeks. She breathed in deeply the cool crisp air, she saw with pleasure the vivid colours of the leaves, the bright western sky: it was long since she had felt this pleasure in the world. It had zest to her; and she could not imagine why. All that had happened to her consciousness was that she had transgressed her own code; had forgotten her dignity and actually discussed her own most private affairs and feelings, with a stranger. But now she had a strange sense of freedom, of companionship in some impersonal way. She did not think more of Lavery because of it. He had gone to the city with Laurence that morning, and she did not seem to care whether she ever saw him again or not. But if she saw him certainly she would talk to him again. She was less a prisoner now; some barrier had been pierced, and she looked out on the world.

As she drew near the house, she saw a once familiar figure, a slim black-coated figure, pushing a small baby-carriage. It was Hilary. He had married a buxom efficient widow, three years before; and in the carriage was his eighteen-months' old daughter, a small, very lively baby, with bright blue eyes. Mary stopped and held out her hand to Hilary, with a friendly warmth that she had not shown him for many years. She asked after his wife, bent to speak to the baby, who bounced up and down and fixed upon her eyes sparkling with energy. Hilary's eyes too were upon her, in surprise.

He had changed very little in ten years. His face was quieter, perhaps, less drawn. The wife took care of him, fed and clothed him properly. No one now thought that he would go into a decline. But his eyes showed the same ardour and intensity of life. He worked harder than ever, for his church had grown, and incidentally had become factious. Hilary had to meet opposition within the fold to his idea of the preaching of the gospel; the time would come when he would be forced to leave this church too, and go forth. Mary knew this, though she rarely went to church now. She smiled inwardly as she recalled how she had felt about his marriage; disenchantment, almost disgust, though she had long before that ceased her intimacy with him. Her idea of him, as celibate, she now felt to have been merely romantic. Hilary was a man like other men. No, after all, he was better than most, he was more of a man. She smiled at him quite radiantly and said she was coming soon to see his wife.

"How well you are looking," he said as she started on, still with that surprised gaze at her.

"It must be this wonderful weather—it makes one feel so alive!" she called back, laughing at the white lie. In this mood she could tell all kinds of lies, without conscience! It was like a renewal of youth, no, it was a youth she had never had, rather mischievous, irresponsible. In this mood she wouldn't care what she did. Now why? She shook her head and gave it up—couldn't say why.