Front matter (continued 7)

"Let's hike it in by the Embankment," was Guy's way of extending this invitation. "I don't mind if you come along, and Hildred likes it. Dad don't care one way or another. He isn't democratic like Hildred and me; but he's only a snob when it comes to his position as one of the grand panjandrums of Boston. Mother kicks, of course; but then she'd accept the devil himself if I was to tote him behind me."

Long usage had enabled Tom to translate these sentiments into terms of eagerness. Guy really wanted him. He was Guy's haven of refuge as truly as when they had been growing boys. Every few weeks Guy turned from his "bunch of sports," or his "bunch of sports" left him in the lurch, so that he came back like a homing pigeon to its roost. Tom was fond of him, was sorry for him, bore with him. Moreover, beyond these tactless invitations there was Hildred.

They fell to talking of Tad Whitelaw. Guy swung round to the piano, beating out a few bars of throbbing, deep-seated grief.

"One more little song and dance and Tad'll get this. Know what it is?"

Confessing that he didn't know, Tom learned that it was Händel's Dead March in "Saul."

"Played at all the British military funerals, to make people who feel bad enough already feel a damn sight worse. Be our morning and evening hymn when we get into the trenches."

Tom was anxious. "You mean that Tad's on probation?"

"I don't know what he's on. Hear the Dean's been giving him a dose of kill-or-cure. That's all." He pounded out the heartbreaking chords, with the deep bass note that sounded like a drum. "Ever see a fellow named Thorne Carstairs?"

"Seen him, yes. Don't know him. Yale chap, isn't he?"

"Was." The drumbeat struck sorrow to the soul. "Kicked out. Hanging round Tad till he gets him kicked out too. Lives at Tuxedo. Stacks of dough, just like Tad himself." There was some personal injury in Guy's tone, as he added, "Like to give him the toe of my boot."

It was perhaps this feat of energy that sent him into the martial phrases of the Chopin polonaise in A major, making the room ring with joyous bravery.

Having dropped into Mrs. Ansley's corner of the gilded canapé, Tom found Hildred silently slipping into a seat beside him.

"No, don't get up." She put her hand on his arm in a way she had never done before. "I can only stay a few minutes. There's something I want to say."

Guy was passing to the D major movement. His back was turned to them. They sat gazing at each other. They sat gazing at each other in a new kind of avowal. All the things he dared not say and she dared not listen to were poured from the one to the other through their eyes. She spoke hurriedly, breathlessly.

"I want you to know that if we enter the war, and you're sent over there, I'll find a way to go too."

He began some kind of protest, but she silenced him.

"I know how I could do it. There's a woman in Paris who'd take me on to work with her. You see, I'm used to Europe. You're not. I can't bear to think of you—with no family—so far away from everyone—and all alone. I'll go."

Before he could seize anything like the full import of what she was telling him she had slipped away again. Guy was still playing, martially and majestically.

Tom sat wrapt in a sudden amazed tranquillity. Now that she had told him, told him more, far more, than was in her words, he was not surprised; he was only reassured. He realized that it was what he had expected. He had not expected it in the mind, nor precisely with the heart. If the heart has reasons which the reason doesn't know, it was something beyond even these. The nearest he could come to it, now that he tried to express it by the processes of thought, was that between him and her there existed a community of life which they had only to take for granted. She was taking it for granted. To find out if she loved him he would never have to ask her; she would never have to ask him. They knew! He wondered if the knowledge brought to her the peace it brought to him. He felt that he knew that too.

Having ended his polonaise, Guy let his fingers run restlessly up and down the keys. He had not turned round; he had heard nothing; he hadn't guessed that Hildred had come and gone. That was their secret. They would keep it as a secret. One of them at least had no wish to make it known.

He had no wish that it should go farther, even between him and her, till the future had so shaped itself that he could be justified. That it should remain as it was, unspoken but understood, would for a long, long time to come be joy and peace for them both.

Suddenly Guy broke into a strain enraptured and exultant. It flung itself up on the air as easily as a bird's note. It was lyric gladness, welling from a heart that couldn't tire.

Caught by his own jubilance, Guy took up the melody in a tenor growing liquid and strong after the years of cracked girlishness.

"Guy, for heaven's sake, what's that?"

The singer cut into his song long enough to call back over his shoulder:

"Schumann! 'To the Beloved'!"

He began singing again, his head thrown back, his big body swaying. All the longing for love of a fellow on the edge of twenty, but for him made shamefaced by his fat, found voice in that joyousness.

Tom had not supposed that in the whole round of the universe there was such expression for his nameless ecstasies. It was not Guy whom he heard, nor the piano; it was the morning stars singing together; it was the sons of God shouting for joy; it was all the larks and all the thrushes and all the nightingales that in all the ages had ever trilled to the sun and moon.

"Don't stop," he shouted, when the song had mounted to its close. "Let's have it all over again."

So they had it all over again, the one in his wordless, mumbled tenor, and the other singing in his heart.

XL

During the next week or ten days Tom worried over Tad Whitelaw. He wondered whether or not he ought to go to see the boy. If he didn't, Tad's Harvard career might end suddenly. If he did, he would probably have humiliation for his pains. He wouldn't mind the humiliation if he could do any good; but would he?

One thing that he could do was to take himself to task for thinking about the fellow in one way or the other. It was the fight he put up from day to day. What was Tad Whitelaw to him? Nothing! And yet he was much. It was beyond reasoning about.

He was a responsibility, a care. Tom couldn't help caring; he couldn't help feeling responsible. If Tad went to the bad something in himself would have gone to the bad. He might argue against this instinct every minute of the day, yet he couldn't argue it down.

He remembered that Tad went often to see Hildred. He had been on his way to see her that afternoon before Christmas when they had met on the esplanade. She might be able to get at him more easily than anybody else. He rang her up.

Her life as a débutante was so crowded that she found it hard to give him a half hour. "I'm dead beat," she confessed on the wire. "If it weren't for mother I'd call it all off." She made him a suggestion. She was driving that morning to lunch with a girl who lived in one of the big places beyond Jamaica Pond. If he could be at a certain corner she could pick him up. He could drive out with her, and come back by the trolley car. Then they could talk. That this proposal didn't meet the wishes of some one near the telephone he could judge by the aside which also passed over the wire. "He wants to see me about Tad, mother. I can't possibly refuse."

Getting into the car beside her, he had another of those impressions, now beginning to be rare, of the difference between her way of living and all that he was used to. Much as he knew about cars, it was the first time he had actually driven in a rich woman's limousine. The ease of motion, the cushioned softness, the beaver rug, the blue-book, the little feminine appointments, the sprig of artificial flowers, subdued him so that he once more found it hard to believe that she took him on a footing of equality.

But she did. Her indifference to the details which overpowered him was part of the wonder of the privilege. Having everything to bestow, she seemed unaware of bestowing anything. She took for granted their community of life. She did it simply and without self-consciousness. Had they been brother and sister she could not have been easier or more matter-of-course in all that she assumed.

Except for the coming-out ball it was the first time, too, that he had seen her as what he called "dressed up." Her costume now was a warm brown velvet of a shade which toned in with the gold-brown of her eyes and the nut-brown of her complexion. She wore long slender jade earrings, with a string of jade beads visible beneath her loosened furs. The furs themselves might have been sables, though he was too inexperienced to give them a name. Except for the jade, she wore, as far as he could see, nothing else that was green but a twist of green velvet forming the edge of her brown velvet toque. Her neat proud head lent itself to toques as being simple and distinguished.

He himself was self-conscious and shy. He could hardly remember for what purpose she had been willing to pick him up. A queen to her subjects is always a queen, a little overwhelming by her presence, no matter how human her personality. Now that he was before her in his old Harvard clothes, and the marks of the common world all over him, he could hardly believe, he could not believe, that she had uttered the words she had used on Sunday night.

All the ease of manner was on her side. She went straight to the point, competent, businesslike.

"The thing, it seems to me, that will possibly save Tad is that he's got to keep himself fit in case war breaks out."

That was her main suggestion. Tad couldn't afford to throw himself away when his country might, within a few weeks, have urgent need of him. He couldn't, by over indulgence let himself run down physically, as he couldn't by neglecting his work put himself mentally at a disadvantage. He must be fit. She liked the word—fit for his business as a soldier.

"That's just what would appeal to him when nothing else might," Tom commended. "I wish you'd take it up with him."

"I will; but you must too."

"If I get a chance; but I daresay I shan't get one."

She had a way of asking a leading question without emphasis. Any emphasis it got it drew from the long oblique regard which gave her the air of a woman with more experience than was possible to her years.

"Why do you care?"

He had to hedge. "Oh, I don't know. He's just a fellow. I don't want to see him turn out a rotter."

"If he turned out a rotter would you care more than if it was anybody else?"

"M-m-m! Perhaps so! I wouldn't swear to it."

"I would. I know you'd care more. And I know why."

He tried to turn this with a laugh. "You can't know more about me than I do myself."

"Oh, can't I? If I didn't know more about you than you do yourself...."

He decided to come to close quarters. "You mean that you do think I'm the lost Whitelaw baby?"

"I know you are."

"How do you know?"

"Miss Nash told me so, for one thing."

"And for another?"

"For another, I just know it."

"On what grounds?"

"On no grounds; on all grounds. I don't care anything about the grounds. A woman doesn't have to have grounds—when she knows."

"Well, what about my grounds when I know to the contrary?"

"But you don't. You only know your history back to a certain point."

"I've only told you my history back to a certain point. I know it farther back than that."

"How far back?"

"As far back as anyone can go, from his own knowledge."

"Oh, from his own knowledge! But some of the most important things come before you can have any knowledge. You've got to take them on trust."

"Well, I take them on trust."

"From whom?"

"From my mother."

She was surprised. "You remember your mother?"

"Very clearly."

"I didn't know that. What do you remember about her?"

"I remember a good many things—how she looked—the way she talked—the things she did."

"What sort of things were they?"

"That's what I want to tell you about. It's what I think you ought to know."

She allowed her eyes to rest on his calmly. "If you think knowing would make any difference to me—"

"I think it might. It's what I want to find out."

"Then I can tell you now that it wouldn't."

"Oh, but you haven't heard."

"I don't want to hear, unless you'd rather—"

"That you did. That's just what I do. I don't think we can go any farther—I mean with our—" the word was difficult to find—"I mean with our—friendship—unless you do hear."

"Oh, very well! I want you to do what's easiest for you, and if it does make a difference I'll tell you honestly."

"Thank you." For a second, not more, he laid his hand on her muff, the nearest he had ever come to touching her. "We were talking about the things my mother did. Well, they weren't good things. The only excuse for her was that she did them for me, because she was fond of me."

"And you were fond of her?"

"Very; I'm fond of her still. It's one of the reasons—but I must tell you the whole story."

He told as much of the story as he thought she needed to know. Beginning with the stealing of the book from which he had learned to read, he touched only the points essential to bringing him to the Christmas Eve which saw the end; but he touched on enough.

"Oh, you poor darling little boy! My heart aches for you—all the way back from now."

"So you see why I became a State ward. There was nothing else to do with me. I hadn't anybody."

"Of course you hadn't anybody if...."

"If my mother stole me. But you see she didn't. I was her son. I don't want to be anybody else's."

"Only—" she smiled faintly—"you can't always choose whose son you want to be."

"I can choose whose son I don't want to be. That's as far as I go."

"Oh, but still—" She dismissed what she was going to say so as not to drive him to decisions. "At any rate we know what to do about Tad, don't we? And you must work as well as I."

"I will if he gives me a look-in, but very likely he won't."

And yet he got his look-in, or began to get it, no later than that very afternoon.

He had gone to Westmorley Court to give Guy a hand with some work he was doing for his mid-years. On coming out again, a little scene before the main door induced him to hang back amid the shadows of the hall.

Thorne Carstairs was there with his machine, a touring car that had seen service. In spite of his residence in Tuxedo Park, and what Guy had called his stacks of dough, he was a seedy, weedy youth, with the marks of the cheap sport. Tad was there also, insisting on being taken somewhere in the car. Spit Castle being on the spot as a witness to a refusal accompanied by epithets of primitive significance, Tad waxed into a rage. Even to Tom, who knew nothing of the cause of the breach, it was clear that a breach there was. Tad sprang to the step of the car. Thorne Carstairs pushed him off, and made spurts at driving away. Before he could swing the wheel, Tad was on him like a cat. Curses and maulings were exchanged without actual blows, when a shove from Carstairs sent Tad sprawling backward. Before he could recover himself to rush the car again its owner had got off.

There was a roar of laughter from Spit, as well as some hoots from spectators who had viewed the scuffle from their windows. Tad's self-esteem was hurt. Not only had his intimate friend refused to do what he wanted, but he was being laughed at by a good part of Westmorley Court.

He turned to Spit, his face purple. "By God, I'll make that piker pay for this before the afternoon's out."

Hatless as he was, without waiting for comment, he started off on the run. Where he was running nobody knew, and Tom least of all. By the time he had reached the street Tad was nowhere to be seen.

For the rest of the day the incident had no sequel. Tom had almost dismissed it from his mind, when on the next day, while crossing the Yard, he ran into Guy Ansley.

Guy was brimming over. "Heard the row, haven't you?"

Tom admitted that he had not. Guy gave him the version he had heard, which proved to be the correct one. He gave it between fits of laughter and that kind of sympathetic clapping on the back which can never be withheld from the harum-scarum dare-devil playing his maddest prank.

When Tad had run from the door of Westmorley Court he had run to the police station. There he had laid a charge against an unknown car-thief of running off with his machine. He could be caught by telephoning the traffic cops on the long street leading from Cambridge to Boston. He gave the number of the car which was registered in the State of New York. His own name, he said, was Thorne Carstairs; his residence, Tuxedo Park; his address in Boston, the Hotel Shawmut, where he was known and could be found. Having lodged this complaint, and put all the forces of the law into operation, he had dodged back to Westmorley Court, had his dinner sent in from a restaurant, locked his door against all comers, and turned into bed.

In the morning, according to Guy, there had been the devil to pay. As far as Tad was concerned, the statement was literally true. Thorne Carstairs had been locked in the station all night. Not only had he been caught red-handed with a stolen car, but his lack of the license he had neglected to carry on his person, as well as of registration papers of any kind, confirmed the belief in the theft. His look of a cheap sport, together with his tendency to use elementary epithets, had also told against him. Where another young fellow in his plight might have won some sympathy he roused resentment by his howlings and his oaths.

"We know you," he was assured. "Been on the look-out for you this spell back. You're the guy what pinched Dr. Pritchard's car last week, and him with a dyin' woman. Just fit the description—slab-sided, cock-eyed, twisted-nosed fella we was told to look for, and now we've got our claw on you. Sure your father's a gintleman! Sure you live at the Hotel Shawmut! But a few months in a hotel of another sort'll give you a pleasant change."

In the morning Thorne had been brought before the magistrate, where two officials of the Shawmut had identified him as their guest. Piece by piece, to everyone's dismay, the fact leaked out that the law of the land, the zeal of the police, and the dignity of the court had been hoaxed. Thorne himself gave the clue to the culprit who had so outraged authority, and Tad was paying the devil. Guy didn't know what precisely had happened, or if anything definite had happened as yet at all; he was only sure that poor Tad was getting it where the chicken got the ax. He deserved it, true; and yet, hang it all! only a genuine sport could have pulled off anything so audacious.

With this Tom agreed. There were spots in Guy's narrative over which he laughed heartily. He condemned Tad chiefly for going too far. It was his weakness that he didn't know when he had had enough of a good thing. Anyone in his senses might know that to hoax a policeman was a crime. A policeman's great asset was the respect inspired by his uniform. Under his uniform he was a man like any other, with the same frailties, the same sneaking sympathy with sinners; but dress him up in a blue suit with brass buttons on his breast, and you had a figure to awe you. If you weren't awed the fault was yours. Yours, too, must be the penalty. The saving element was that beneath the brass buttons the heart was kindly, as a rule, and humorous, patient, generous. Tom had never got over the belief, which dated from the night when his mother was arrested, of the goodness of policemen. He trusted to it now.

He was not long in making up his mind. Leaving Guy, he cut a lecture to go to see the Dean. He went to the Dean's own house, finding him at home. The Dean remembered him as one of two or three young fellows who in the previous year had adjusted a bit of friction between the freshmen and the faculty without calling on the higher authorities to impose their will. He was cordial, therefore, in his welcome.

He was a big, broad-shouldered Dean, human and comprehending, with a twinkle of humor behind his round glasses. There was no severity in the tone in which he discussed Tad's escapade; there was only reason and justice. Tad had given him a great deal of trouble in the eighteen months in which he had been at Harvard. He had written to his father more than once about the boy, had advised his being given less money to spend, and a stricter calling to account at home. The father was distressed, had done what he could, but the mischief had gone too far. Tad was the typical rich man's son, spoiled by too easy a time. He had been so much considered that he never considered anybody else. He was swaggering and conscienceless. The Dean was of the opinion now that nothing but harsh treatment would do him any good.

Tom put in his plea. The matter, as he saw it, was bigger than one fellow's destiny; it involved bigger issues. It was his belief that the country would soon be at war. If the country was at war, Tad Whitelaw's father would be one of the first of the bankers the President would consult. The Dean knew, of course, that the bankers would have to swing as much of the war as the army and navy. Henry T. Whitelaw was a man, as everyone knew, already terribly tried by domestic tragedy. You wouldn't want to add to that now, just at the time when he needed to have a mind as free as possible. This boy was the apple of his eye; and if disgrace overtook him....

But that was only one thing. Should the country go to war, it would call for just such young fellows as Tad Whitelaw; fellows of spirit, of daring, of physical health and strength. Didn't the Dean think that it might be well to nurse him along for a few weeks—it wasn't likely to be many—so that he could answer to the country's call with at least a nominal honorable record, instead of being under a cloud? If the Dean did think so, he, Tom, would undertake to keep the fellow straight till he was wanted. He wasn't vicious; he was only foolish and headstrong. Though he didn't make a good student, he had in him the very stuff to make a soldier. Tom would answer for him. He would be his surety.

In the long run the Dean allowed himself to be won by Tom's own earnestness. He would do what he could. At the same time Tom must remember that if the college authorities stayed their hand the civil authorities might not. The indignation at police headquarters was unusually bitter. Unless this righteous wrath were pacified....

Having thanked the Dean, Tom ran straight to the police station. The Chief of Police received him, though not with the Dean's cordiality. He too was a big, broad-shouldered man, but frigid and stern through long administration of law, discipline, and order. He impressed Tom as a mechanical contrivance which operates as it is built to operate, and with no power of showing mercy or making exceptions to a rule. Outwardly at least he was grave and obdurate.

The victory lay once more with Tom's earnestness. The Chief of Police made no secret of the fact that they were already considering the grounds on which "the crazy fool" could most effectively be prosecuted. The law was not, however, wholly without a heart, and if in the present instance the country could be served, even in the smallest detail, by giving the blamed idiot the benefit of clemency it could be done. Tom must understand that the nonsense had not been overlooked; it was only left in abeyance. If his protégé got into trouble again he would be the more severely dealt with because of the present lenity.

Tom ran now to Westmorley Court, where he knocked at Tad's door. To a growling invitation he went in. The room was a cloud of tobacco smoke, through which the shapes of half a dozen fellows loomed dimly in the deepening winter twilight. Tad tilted back in the revolving chair before the belittered desk which held the center of the room. His coat was off, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his feet on the edge of the desk. A cigar traveled back and forth from corner to corner of the handsome, disdainful mouth.

Tom marched straight to the desk, speaking hurriedly. "Can I have a word with you in private?"

The owner of the room neither moved nor took the cigar from his lips. "No, you can't." He nodded toward the door. "You can sprint it out again."

"I shall sprint it out when I'm ready. If I can't speak in private I shall speak in public. You've got to hear."

The insolent immobility was maintained. "Didn't I tell you the last time I saw you that if you ever interfered with me again—?"

"That you'd shoot me, yes. Well, get up and shoot. If you can't, or if you don't mean to, why make the threat? But I've come to talk reason. You've got to listen to reason. If you don't I'll appeal to these chaps to make you. They don't want to see you a comic valentine any more than I do. Now climb down from your high horse and let's get to business."

It was Guy Ansley who cleared the room. "Say, fellows—" With a stealthy movement, which their host was too preoccupied to observe, they slipped out. He knew, however, when he and his enemy were alone, and still without lifting his feet from the desk or taking the cigar from his mouth, made the concession of speaking.

"Well, if business has brought you here, cough it up."

"I will. I come first from the Dean, and then from the Chief of Police."

"Oh, you do, do you? So you're to be the hangman."

"No; there's not to be a hangman. They've given you a reprieve—because I've begged you off."

The feet came off the desk. The cigar was taken from the lips. Tad leaned forward in his chair, tense and incredulous.

"You've done—what?"

Tom maintained his sang-froid. "I've begged you off. I went and talked to them both. I said I'd answer for you, that you'd stop being a crazy loon, and try to be a man."

Incredulity passed into angry amazement. "And who in hell gave you authority to do that?"

"Nobody. I did it on my own. When a fellow gets his life as a gift he takes it. He doesn't kick up a row as to who's given it. For the Lord's sake, try to have a little sense."

"What's it to you whether I've got sense or not?"

"Nothing."

"Then why in thunder do you keep butting in—?"

"Because I choose to. I'll give you no other answer than that, and no other explanation. What you've got to do is to knuckle under and show that you're worth your keep. You're not a born fool; you're only a made fool. You're good for something better than to be a laughing-stock as you are to everyone in college. Buck up! Be a fellow! After being a jackass for a year and a half, I should think you'd begin to see that there was nothing to it by this time."

Never in his life had Tad Whitelaw been so hammered without gloves. It was why Tom chose to hammer him. Nothing but thrashing, verbal or otherwise, would startle him out of the conviction of his self-importance. Already it was shaking the foundations of his arrogance. In his tone as he retorted there was more than a hint of feebleness.

"What I see and what I don't see is my own affair."

"Oh, no, it isn't. It's a class affair. There's such a thing as esprit de corps. We can't afford to have rotters, now especially."

Tad grew still feebler. "I'm not the only rotter in the bunch. Why do you pick on me?"

"I've told you already. Because I choose to. You might as well give in to me first as last, because you'll not get rid of me any more than you will of your own conscience."

Tad sprang to his feet, his eyes flashing, in a new outburst. "I'll be damned if I'll give in to you."

"And I'll be damned if you don't. If I can't bring you round by persuasion I'll do it as I did it once before. I'll wale the guts out of you. I'm not going to have you a disgrace."

"Ah!" Tad started back. "Now I've got you. A disgrace! You talk as if you were a member of the family. That's what you're after. That's what you've been scheming for ever since—"

"Look here," Tom interrupted, forcefully. "Let's understand each other about this business once and for all." Looking from under his eyelids he measured Tad up and down. "I wouldn't be a member of the family that has produced you for anything the world could give me."

Tad bounded, changing his note foolishly. "Oh, you wouldn't wouldn't you! How do you know that you won't damn well have to be?"

Walking up to him, Tom laid a hand on his shoulder, paternally. "Don't let us talk rot. We both know the nickname the fellows have stuck on me in Harvard. But what's that to us? You don't want me. I don't want you. At least I don't want you that way. I'll tell you straight. I've got a use for you. That's why I keep after you. But it's got nothing to do with your family affairs."

They confronted each other, Tad gasping. "You've got a use for me? Greatly obliged. But get this. I've no use for you. Don't make any mistake—"

Withdrawing his hand, Tom gave him a little shove. "Oh, choke it back. Piffle won't get you anywhere. I'm going to make something of you of which your father and mother can be proud."

It was almost a scream of fury. "Make something of me—?"

"Yes, a soldier."

The word came like a douche of cold water on hysteria, calming the boy suddenly. He tapped his forehead. "Say, are you balmy up here?"

"Possibly; but whether I'm balmy or not, a soldier is what you'll have to be. Don't you read the papers? Don't you hear people talking? Why, man alive, two or three months from now every fellow of your age and mine will be marching behind a drum."

The boy's haggard face went blank from the sheer shock of it. The idea was not brand new, but it was incredible. Tad Whitelaw was not one of those who took much interest in public affairs or kept pace with them.

"Oh, rot!"

"It isn't rot. Can't you see it for yourself? If this country pitches in—"

"Oh, but it won't."

"Ask anyone. Ask your own father. That's my point. If we do pitch in your father will be one of the big men of the two continents. You're his only son. You'll have to play up to him."

Tom watched the hardened, dissipated young face contract with a queer kind of gravity. The teeth gritted, the lips grew set. It gave him the chance to go on.

"There aren't a half dozen men in the country who'd be able to swing what your father'll be swinging. Listen! I know something about banking. Been studying it for years. When it comes to war the banker has to chalk-line every foot of the lot. They can't do anything without him. They can't have an army or a navy or any international teamwork. You'll see. The minute war is declared, before war is declared, the President'll be sending for your father to talk over ways and means. Now then, are you to put a spoke in the country's wheel? You can. You're doing it. The more you worry him the less good he'll be. Get chucked out of college, as you would have been in a day or two, if I hadn't stepped in, and begged to have you put in my charge—"

Once more Tad revolted. "Put in your charge! The devil I'll be put in your charge!"

"All right! It's the one condition on which you stay at Harvard. Jump your bail, and you'll see your father pay for it. He'll have his big international job, and he won't be able to swing it because he'll be thinking of you. You'll see the whole country pay for it. I daresay we shan't know where we pay and how we pay; but we'll be paying. Say, is it worth your while? What do you gain by being the rotten spot in the beam that may bring the whole shack about our ears? Everybody knows that your father has lost one son. Can't you try to give him another of whom he won't have to be ashamed?"

Tad stood sulkily, his hands in his trousers' pockets, as he tipped on his toes and reflected. Since he made no answer, Tom went on with his appeal.

"And that's not the only thing. There's yourself. You're not a bad sort. You've got the makings of a decent chap, even if you aren't one. You could be one easily enough. All you've got to do is to drop some of your fool acquaintances, cut out drinking, cut out women, and make a show of doing what you've been sent to Harvard to do, even if it's only a show. You won't have to keep it up for more than a few weeks."

The furrow in the forehead when the eyebrows were lifted was also a mark of dissipation. "More than a few weeks? Why not?"

Tom pounded with emphasis. "Because, I tell you, we'll be in the war. You'll be in the war. We fellows of the class of 1919 are not going to walk up on Commencement Day and take our degrees. We'll get them before that. We'll get them in batteries and trenches and graves. I heard a girl say, in speaking of you a day or two ago, that she hoped, when the time came for that, you'd be fit. She said she liked the word—fit for the job that'd be given you. You couldn't be fit if you went on—"

His curiosity was touched. "Who was that?"

"I'm not going to tell you. I'll only say that she likes you, and that—"

"Was it Hildred Ansley?"

"Well, if you're bound to know, it was. If you want to talk to someone who wishes you well, go and—"

"Did she put you up to this?"

"No, she didn't. You put me up to it yourself. I tell you again, I'm going to see you go straight till I see you go straight into the army. You ought to go in with a commission. But if you're fired out of Harvard they'll be shy of enlisting you as a private. If you won't play the game of your own accord, I'll make you."

With hands thrust into his trousers' pockets, Tad began to pace the room, doing a kind of goose-step. His compressed lips made little grimaces like those of a man forcing himself to decisions hard to swallow. For a good four or five minutes Tom watched the struggle between his top-loftiness and his common-sense. While common-sense insisted on his climbing down, top-loftiness told him that he must save his face. When he spoke at last his voice was hoarse, his throat constricted.

"If it's going to be war I'll be in it with both feet. But I'll do it on my own. See? You mind your business, and I'll mind mine."

Tom was reasonable. "That'll be all right—if you mind it."

"And if you think I'm giving in to you—"

"I don't care a hang whether you're giving in to me or not so long as you—keep fit."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"And I'll help you."

"You can go to hell."

Tad used these words because he had no others. They were fine free manly words which begged all the questions and helped him to a little dignity. If he was surrendering he would do it, in his own phrase, with bells on. The mucker shouldn't have the satisfaction of thinking he had done anything. It saved the whole situation to tell him in this offhand way the place that he could go to.

But a little thing betrayed him, possibly before he saw its significance. His points being won for the minute, Tom had reached the door. Beside the door stood a low bookcase, on which was open a package of cigarettes. Tad's goose-step brought him within reach of it. He picked it up and held it toward Tom. He did it carelessly, ungraciously, unthinkingly, and yet with all sorts of buried implications in the little act.

"Have one?"

Tom was careful to preserve a casual, negligent air as he drew one out. Tad struck a match.

As the one held the thing to his lips and the other put the flame to it, the hands of the brothers, for the first time except in a fight, touched lightly.

XLI

I can't see," Hildred reasoned, "why you should find the idea so terrible."

"And I can't see," Tom returned, "what it matters how I find the idea, so long as nobody is serious about it."

"Oh, but they will be. It's what I told you before. They'd made up their minds they didn't want to find him; and now it's hard to unmake them again. But they're coming to it."

"I hope they're not taking the trouble on my account."

"They're taking it on their own. Tad as much as said so. He said they'd stuck it out as long as they could; but they couldn't stick it out forever."

"Stick it out against what?"

"Against what's staring them in the face, I suppose."

"Did he tell you what I said to him, that nothing would induce me to belong to the family that had produced him?"

She laughed. "Oh, yes. He told me the whole thing, how you'd come into his room, how Guy had got the other fellows out, and the pitched battle between you."

"And did he say how it had ended?"

"He said—if you want to know exactly I'll tell you exactly—he said that when it came to talking about the war and the part he would have to play in it, you weren't as big a damn fool as he had thought you."

"And did he say how big a damn fool he was himself?"

"He admitted he had been one; but with his father on his hands, and the war, and all that, he'd have to put the brakes on himself, and pretend to be a good boy."

Laughing to himself Tom stretched out his legs to the blaze of the fire. Hildred had sent for him because Mrs. Ansley was out of the way at her Mothers' Club. There was nothing underhand in this, since she would not conceal the fact accomplished. It avoided only a preliminary struggle. If she needed an excuse, the necessities of their good intentions toward Tad would offer it.

Tea being over, Hildred, who was fond of embroidery, had taken up a piece of work. Like many women, she found it easier to be daring in an incidental way while stitching. Stitching kept her from having to look at Tom as she reverted to the phase of the subject from which they had drifted away.

"The Whitelaws are a perfectly honorable family. They may even be called distinguished. I don't see what it is you've got against them."

"I've got nothing against them. They rather—" he sought for a word that would express the queer primordial attraction they possessed for him—"they rather cast a spell on me. But I don't want to belong to them."

"But why not, if it was proved that—?"

"For one reason, it couldn't be proved; and for another, it's too late."

The ring in his voice was strange; it made her look up at him. "Too late? Why do you say that?"

"Because it is. You told me some time ago that it was what they thought themselves. Even if it were proved, it would still be—too late."

"I don't understand you."

"I'm not sure that I understand myself. I only know that the life I've lived would make it impossible for me to go and live their life."

"Oh, nonsense! Their life is just the same as our life."

"Well, I'm not sure that I could live yours. I could conform to it on the outside. I could talk your way and eat your way; but I couldn't think your way."

"When you say my way—"

"I mean the way of all your class. Mind you, I'm not against it. I only feel that somehow—in things I can't explain and wouldn't know how to remedy—it's wrong."

"Oh, but, Tom—"

"It seems to be necessary that a great many people shall go without anything in order that a very few people may enjoy everything. That's as far as I go. I don't draw any conclusions; and I'm certainly not going in for any radical theories. Only I can't think it right. I want to be a banker; but even if I am a banker—"

"I see what you mean," she interrupted, pensively. "I often feel that way myself. But, oh, Tom, what can we do about it that—that wouldn't seem quite mad?"

He smiled ruefully. "I don't know. But if you live long enough—and work hard enough—and think straight enough—and don't do anything to put you off your nut—why, some day you may find a way out that will be sane."

"Yes, but couldn't you do that and be Harry Whitelaw—if you are Harry Whitelaw—at the same time?"

"Suppose we wait till the question arises? As far as I know, no one who belonged to Harry Whitelaw, or to whom Harry Whitelaw belonged, has ever brought it up."

But only a few weeks later this very thing seemed about to come to pass.

It was toward the end of March. On returning to his room one morning Tom was startled by a telegram. Telegrams were so rare in his life that merely to see one lying on his table gave him a thrill, partly of wonder, partly of fear. Opening it, he was still more surprised to find it from Philip Ansley. Would Tom be in Louisburg Square for reasons of importance at four that afternoon?

That something had betrayed himself and Hildred would have been his only surmise; only that there was nothing to betray. Except for the few hurried words Hildred had spoken on that Sunday night, anything they had said they had said in looks, and even their looks had been guarded and discreet. The things most essential to them both were in what they were taking for granted. They had exchanged no letters; their intercourse was always of the kind that anyone might overhear. Without recourse to explanation each recognized the fact that it would be years before either of them would be free to speak or to take a step. In the meantime their only crime was their confidence in each other; and you couldn't betray that.

Nevertheless, it was with uneasiness that he rang at the door, and asked Pilcher if Mr. Ansley were at home. Pilcher was mysterious. Mr. Ansley was not at home, but if Mr. Tom would come in he would find himself expected. Tea being served in the library, Mr. Tom was shown upstairs.

It was a gloomy afternoon outside; the room was dim. All Tom saw at first was a tall man standing on the hearth rug, where the fire behind him had almost gone out. He had taken a step forward and held out his hand before Tom recognized the distinguished stranger who had first hailed him in the New Hampshire lake nearly three years earlier.

"Do you remember me?"

"Yes, sir."

They stood with hands clasped, each gazing into the other's face. Tom would have withdrawn his hand, would have receded, but the other held him with a grasp both tense and tenacious. The eyes, deep-set like Tom's own, and overhung with bushy outstanding eyebrows, studied him with eager penetration. Not till that look was satisfied did the tall figure swing to someone who was sitting in the shadow.

"This is the boy, Onora. Look at him."

She was sitting out of direct range in a corner of the library darkened by buildings standing higher on the Hill. The man turned Tom slightly in her direction, where the daylight fell on him. The degree to which the woman shrank from seeing him was further marked by the fact that she partly hid her face behind a big black-feather fan for which there was no other use than concealment. She said nothing at all; but even in the obscurity Tom could perceive the light of two feverish eyes.

It was the man who took the lead.

"Won't you sit down?"

He placed a chair where the woman could observe its occupant, without being drawn of necessity into anything that might be said. The man himself drew up another chair, on which he sat sidewise in an easy posture close to Tom. Tom liked him. He liked his face, his voice, his manner, the something friendly and sympathetic he recalled from the earlier meetings. Whether this were his father or not, he would have no difficulty in meeting him at any time on intimate and confidential terms.

"My wife and I wanted to see you," he began, simply, "in order to thank you for what you've done for Tad."

Tom was embarrassed. "Oh, that wasn't anything. I just happened—"

"The Dean has told me all about it. He says that Tad has given him no trouble since. Before that he'd given a good deal. I wish I could tell you how grateful we are, especially as things are turning out, with a war hanging over us."

Tom saw an opportunity of speaking without sentiment. "That's what I thought. It seemed to me a pity that good fighting stuff should be lost just through—through too much skylarking."

"Yes, it would have been. Tad has good fighting stuff."

There was a catch of the woman's breath. Tom recalled the staccato nervousness of their first brief meeting in Gore Hall. He wished they hadn't brought him there. They were strangers to him; he was a stranger to them. Whatever link might have been between him and them in the past, there was no link now. It would be a mistake to try to forge one.

But in on this thought the man broke gently.

"I wonder if you'd mind telling us all about yourself that you know? I presume that you understand why I'm asking you."

"Yes, sir, I do; but I don't think I can help you much."

The woman's voice, vibrating and tragic, startled him. It was as if she were speaking to herself, as if something were being wrung from her in spite of her efforts to keep it back. "The likeness is extraordinary!"

Taking no notice of this, the man began to question him, "Where were you born?"

"In the Bronx."

He made a note of this answer in a little notebook. "And when?"

"In 1897."

"What date?"

It was the crucial question, but since he meant to tell everything he knew, Tom had no choice but to be exact.

"I'm not very sure of the date, because my mother changed it at three different times. At first my birthday used to be on the fifth of March; but afterward she said that that had been the birthday of a little half-sister of mine who died before I was born."

"What was her name?"

"Grace Coburn."

"And her parents' names?"

"Thomas and Lucy Coburn."

"And after your birthday was changed from the fifth of March—?"

"It was shifted to September, but not for very long. Later my mother told me I was born on the tenth of May, and we always kept to that."

From the woman there was something like a smothered cry, but the man only took his notes.

"The tenth of May, 1897. Did she ever tell you why she selected that date?"

"No, sir."

"Did she ever say anything about it, about what kind of day it was, or anything at all that you can remember?"

Tom hesitated. The reflection that the wisest course was to make a clean breast of everything impelled him to go on.

"She only said that it was a day when all the nursemaids had had their babies in the Park, and the lilacs were in bloom."

There followed the question of which he was most afraid, because he often put it to himself.

"Why should she have said that, when, if you were born in the Bronx, she and her baby were miles away?"

"I don't know, sir."

"What was your mother's maiden name?"

"I don't know, sir."

"She was married to Thomas Coburn before she was married to Theodore Whitelaw, your father?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where were she and your father married?"

"I don't know, sir."

"What do you know about your father?"

"Nothing at all. I never heard his name till she gave it at the police station, the night before she died."

"Oh, at the police station! Why there?"

Tom told the whole story, keeping nothing back.

The man's only comment was to say, "And you never heard the name of Whitelaw in connection with yourself till you heard it on that evening?"

"Yes, sir, I'd heard it before that."

"When and how?"

"Always when my mother was in a—in a state of nerves. You mustn't forget that she wasn't exactly in her right mind. That was the excuse for what she—she did in shops. So, once in so often, she'd say that I was never to think that my name was Whitelaw, or that she'd stolen me."

There was again from the woman a little moaning gasp, but the man was outwardly self-possessed.

"So she said that?"

"Yes, sir."

"And have you any explanation why?"

"I didn't have then; I've worked one out. You see, my name really being Whitelaw, and her mind a little unbalanced, she was afraid she might be suspected of—your little boy's case had got so much publicity—and she a friendless woman, with no husband or relations—"

"So that you don't think she did—steal you?"

He answered firmly. "No, sir. I don't"

"Why don't you?"

"For one thing, I don't want to."

"Oh!"

It was the woman again. The sound was rather queer. You could not have told whether it meant relief or indignation.

The man's sad penetrating eyes were bent on him sympathetically. "When you say that you don't want to, exactly what do you mean?"

"I'm not sure that I can say. She was my mother. She was good to me. I was fond of her. I never knew any other mother. I don't think I could—" he looked over at the woman in the shadow, letting his words fall with a certain significant spacing—"know—any other—mother—now—and so—"

Rising, she took a step toward him. He too rose so that as she stood looking up at him he stood looking down at her. There and then her face was imprinted on his memory, a face of suffering, but of suffering that had not made her strong. The quivering victim of self-pity, she begged to be allowed to forget. She had suffered to her limit. She couldn't suffer any more. Everything in her that was raked with the harrow protested against this bringing up again of an outlived agony.

Her beautiful eyes, brimming with unspilled tears, gazed at him reproachfully. As plainly as eyes could tell him anything, they told him that now, when life and time had dug between them such a gulf, she didn't want him as her son. She might have to accept him, since so many things pointed that way, but it would be hard for her. Taking back a little boy would have been one thing; taking back a grown man, none of whose habits or traditions were the same as theirs, would be another. She would do it if it were forced on her, but it couldn't recompense her now for past unhappiness. It would be only a new torture, a torture which, if he hadn't drifted in among them, she might have escaped.

When swiftly and silently she had left the room the man put his hand on Tom's arm.

"Sit down again. You mustn't think that my wife doesn't feel all this. She does. It's because she does that she's so overwrought."

Tom sat down. "Yes, sir, of course!"

"She's been through it so often. For a good ten years after our child was lost boys used to be brought to us to look at every few months. And every time it meant a draining of her vitality."

"I understand that, sir; and I hope Mrs. Whitelaw doesn't think I've come of my own accord."

"No, she knows you haven't. We've asked you to come because—but I must go back. When my wife had been through so much—so many times—and all to no purpose—she made me promise—the doctors made me promise—that she shouldn't be called on to face it again. Whenever she had to interview one of these claimants—"

"I'm not a claimant," Tom put in, hastily.

"I know you're not. That's just it. It's what makes the difference. But whenever she had to do it—and decide whether a particular lad was or was not her son—it nearly killed her."

Tom made an inarticulate murmur of sympathy.

"The worst times came after we'd turned down some boy of whom we hadn't been quite sure. That was as hard for me as it was for her—the fear that our little fellow had come back, and we'd sent him away. It got to be so impossible to judge. You imagined resemblances even when there were none, and any child who could speak could be drilled about the facts, as we were so well known. It was hell."

"It must have been."

"Then there were our two other children. It wasn't easy for them. They grew up in an atmosphere of expecting the older brother to come back. At first it gave them a bit of excitement. But as they grew older they resented it. You can understand that. A stranger wouldn't have been welcome. Whenever a new clue had to be abandoned they were glad. If the boy had been found they'd have given him an awful time. That was another worry to my wife."

"Yes, it would be."

"So at last we made up our minds that he was dead. It was the only thing to do. Self-protection required it. My wife took up her social life again, the life she's fond of and is fitted for. Things went better. She didn't forget, but she grew more normal. In spite of the past there were a few things she could still enjoy. She'd begun to feel safe; and then—in that lake in New Hampshire—I happened to see you."

"If I were you, sir, I shouldn't let that disturb me."

"It does disturb me. When I went back that year to our house at Old Westbury and spoke to my wife and children about it, they all implored me not to go into the thing again."

"If I could implore you, too—"

He shook his head. "It wouldn't do any good. I've come to the point where I've got to see it through. I have all the data you've given me—as well as some other things. If you're not—not my son—" He rose striding to the fireplace, where he stood pensively, his back to the smouldering fire—"if you're not my son, at least we can find out pretty certainly whose son you are."

Tom also rose, so that they stood face to face. "And if you can't find out pretty certainly whose son I am—?"

"I shall be driven to the conclusion that—"

He didn't finish this sentence. Tom didn't press for it. During the silence that followed it occurred to him that if there was a war the question might be shelved. It was what, he thought, he would work for.

The same idea might have come to the older man, for looking up out of his reverie, he said, with no context:

"What do you mean to be?"

"I've always hoped, sir, to go into a bank. It's what I seem best fitted for."

There came into the eyes that same sudden light, like the switching on of electricity, which Tom remembered from their meeting in the water.

"I could help you there."

"Oh, but it would only be in a small way, sir. I'd have to begin as something—"

"All the same I could help you. I want you to promise me this, that when you're free—either after Harvard, or after the war—you'll come to me before you do anything else. Is that a bargain?"

To Tom it was the easiest way out. "Yes sir, if you like."

"Then our hands on it!"

Their right hands clasped. Once more Tom found himself held. The man's left hand came up and rested on his shoulder. The eyes searched him, searched him hungrily, with longing. Whether they found what they sought or merely gave up seeking Tom could hardly tell. He was only pushed away with a little weary gesture, while the tall man turned once more toward the dying fire.

XLII

In the April of 1920, nearly eighteen months after the signing of the Armistice, Tom Whitelaw came back to Boston, demobilized. He had crossed a good part of Europe almost in a straight line—Brest, Paris, Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, Fère-en-Tardennois, Reims, Luxembourg, Coblenz—and more or less in the same way had come back again. Now, if he had been able to forget it all, he would gladly have forgotten it. Since it couldn't be forgotten it inspired him with an aim in life.

More exactly, perhaps, it made definite the aim he had been vaguely conscious of already. What he felt was not new; it was only more fixed and clear. He knew what he meant to do, even though he didn't see how he was to do it. He might never accomplish anything; very likely he never would; but at least he had a state of mind, and he was not going to be in a hurry. If for the ills he saw he was to work out a cure, or help to work out a cure, or even dream of working out a cure, he must first diagnose the disease; and diagnosis would take a good part of his lifetime. He was twenty-three, according to his count, but, again according to his count he had the seriousness of forty. With the advantage of a varied experience and an early maturity, he had also that of age.

His achievements in the war had given him the kind of importance interesting to newspapers. They had begun writing him up from the days of the action at Belleau Wood. His picture had appeared in their Sunday editions as on the staff of General Pershing during his visit to the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. To Tom himself the only satisfaction in this was the possible diminishing of the distance between him and Hildred Ansley. It would not have been the first time in history when war had helped a lover out of his obscurity to put him on the level of the loved one. To Hildred herself it would make no difference; but by her father and mother, especially by her mother, a son-in-law who had worn with some credit his country's uniform might be pardoned his presumption.

Public approval also brought him one other consideration that meant much to him. The man who thought he might be his father wrote to him. He wrote to him often. He wrote to him partly as a friend might write, partly as a father might write to his son. Between the lines it was not difficult to read a yearning and sense of comfort. The yearning was plainly for assurance; just as plainly the sense of comfort lay in the knowledge that somewhere in the world there was a heart that beat to the measure of his own. It was as if he had written the words: "My two acknowledged children are of no help to me; my wife is crushed by her sorrow; you and I, even if there is no drop of common blood between us, understand each other. Whether or not we are father and son, we could work together as if we were."

The letters were full of a fatherly affection strange in view of the slight degree of their acquaintanceship. The man's heart cleared that obstacle with a bound. Tom's heart cleared it with an equal ease. To be needed was the call to which, with his strong infusion of the feminine, he never failed to answer instantaneously. As readily as the banker divined him, he divined the banker. If there was no fatherhood or sonship in fact there was both sonship and fatherhood in essence.

Whitelaw wrote as if he had been writing to his boy for years, with a matter-of-course solicitude, with offers of money, with scraps of news. He talked freely of the family, as if Tom would care to hear of them. A few words in one of his letters showed that he knew more than Tom had hitherto supposed.

"If Tad and Lily have been uncivil to you it was not because of personal dislike. In their situation some hostility toward the outsider, as they would call him, whom they might be forced to acknowledge as their older brother must be forgiven as not unnatural."

During all the three years of Tom's soldiering this was the only reference to the question that had been left suspended by the war. Whether or not it would ever be taken up again Tom had no idea. He hoped it would not be. For him an undetermined situation was enough.

Though during this period Henry Whitelaw was frequently in London and Paris they never met. When the one proposed that he should use his influence to get the other leave, Tom thought it wiser to stay, as he expressed it, on the job. Only once did he ask permission to run up for forty-eight hours to Paris, and that was to see Hildred.

She was then helping to nurse Guy, who, while working with the Y.M.C.A., had come down with typhoid fever. Convalescent by this time, he would sail for America in a month or two, Hildred going with him. Tom himself being on the eve of marching into Germany, the moment was one to be seized.

They dined in a little restaurant near the Madeleine. With the table between them they scanned each other's faces for the traces left by nearly two years of separation. Except that she was tired Tom found little change in her. Always lacking in temporary, girlish prettiness, her distinction of line and poise was that which the years affect but slowly, and experience enhances. He could only say of her that she was less the young girl he had last seen in Boston, and more the woman of the world who, having seen the things that happen as they happen most brutally, has grown a little heartsick, and more than a little weary.

"It's all so futile, Tom. It's such waste. It should never have been asked of the people of the world."

His lips had the dim disillusioned smile which had taken the place of the radiance of even a year or two earlier.

"What about the war to end war? What about making the world safe for democracy?"

She put up a hand in protest. "Oh, don't! I hate that clap-trap. The salt which was good enough to put on birds' tails is sickening when you see the poor creatures lying with their necks wrung. Oh, Tom, what can we do about it if we ever get home?"

"Do about what?"

"About the whole thing, about this poor pitiful, pitiable human race that's got itself into such an awful mess?"

"The human race is a pretty big problem to handle."

"Yes, but you don't think the bigness ought to stop us, do you?"

"Stop us from—?"

"From trying to keep the world from going on with its frightful policy of destruction. Isn't there anyone to show us that you can't destroy one without by that much destroying all; that you can't make it easier for one without by that much making it easier for everyone? Are we never going to be anything but fools?"

His dim smile came and went again. "We'll talk about that when I get home. We can't do it now. Even if we could it's no us trying to reason with a world that's gone insane. We must let it have time to recover. I want to hear about you."

She threw herself back in her chair, nervously crumbling a bit of bread. "Oh, I'm all right. Never better, as far as that goes. I've only grown an awful coward. Now that the fighting's over I seem to be more afraid than when it was going on. As far as pep goes I'm a rag."

"It'll do you good to get home."

"Oh, I want to get farther away than home. I want to get somewhere—to a desert island perhaps—where there won't be any people—"

"None?"

"Oh, well, dad and mother and Guy and—"

"And nobody else?"

"Yes, and you. I see you want me to say it, so I might as well. I want you there—and then nobody else—not a soul—not the shadow of a soul—except servants, of course—"

He grew daring as he had never been before. "Perhaps before many years we may find that island—with the servants all the time—but with your father and mother and Guy as visitors—very frequent visitors—but—"

"Oh, don't talk about it. It's too heavenly for a world like this." She looked him in the eyes, despairingly. "Do you suppose it ever could come true?"

"Stranger things have."

"But better things haven't."

He put down his knife and fork to gaze at her. "Hildred, do you really feel like that?"

"Well, don't you?" Her tone was a little indignant. "If you don't for pity's sake tell me, so that I shan't go on giving myself away."

"Of course, I feel that way, only it seems to me queer that you should."

"Why queer?"

"Because you're you, and I'm only me."

"You can't reason in that way. You can't really reason about the thing at all. The most freakish thing in the world is whom people'll fall in love with."

"It must be," he said humbly.

"Oh, cheer up; it isn't as bad as all that. There's no disgrace in my being in love with you. If you'll just be in love with me I'll take care of myself."

They laughed like children. To neither was it strange to have taken their love for granted, since they had done it for so long. It was as if it had grown with them, as if it had been born with them. Its flowers had opened because it was their springtime; there was nothing else for it to do. It was a stormy springtime, with only the rarest bursts of sunshine; but for that very reason they must make the most of such sunshine as there was. They had not met for two years; it might be two years more before they met again. They could only throw their hearts wide open.

She talked of her work. In her mood of reaction it seemed to her now a stupid, foolish work, not because it hadn't done good, but because it had done good for such useless purposes. A New York woman whom she knew, whose son had been killed fighting with the British in the earlier part of the war, had opened a sort of club for the cheering up of young fellows passing through Paris, or there for a short leave.

"We bucked them up so that they'd be willing to go back again, and be blown to bits. It was like giving the good breakfast and the cigarette to the man going out to the electric chair. My God, what a nerve we had, we girls! We'd laugh and dance with those poor young chaps, who a few days later would be in their graves, if the shells left anything to bury. We didn't think much about it then. It's only now that it comes over me. I feel as if I'd been their executioner."

"You're tired. You need a rest."

"Rest won't reconcile me to belonging to a race of wild beasts. Oh, Tom, couldn't we make a little life for ourselves away from everyone, and from all this cheap vindictiveness? I shouldn't care how humble or obscure it was."

He laughed, quietly. "There are a good many hurdles to take before we come even to the humble and obscure."

"Hurdles? What kind of hurdles?"

"Your father and mother for one."

She admitted the importance of this. "But you won't find that hurdle hard to take if you're Harry Whitelaw."

"But if I'm not?"

"I'm sure from what mother writes that you can be."

"And I'm sure from what I feel that I can't."

"Oh, but you haven't tried." She hurried on from this to give him the gist of her mother's letters on the subject. "She and Mr. Whitelaw have the most tremendous confabs about you, every time he comes to Boston. The fact that he can't talk to Mrs. Whitelaw—she's all nerves the minute you're mentioned—throws him back on mother. That flatters the dear old lady like anything. She begins to think now she adopted you in infancy. You were her discovery. She gave you your first leg-up. And after all, you know, we've got to admit that during the whole of these seven years she might have been a great deal worse."

He agreed with her gratefully.

"As a matter of fact," she went on, in her judicial tone, "you must hand it to us Boston people that, while we can be the most awful snobs, we're not such snobs that we don't know a good thing when we see it. It's only the second-cut among us, those who don't really belong, who are supercilious. Once you concede that we're as superior as we think ourselves, we can be pretty generous. If you've got it in you to climb up we not only won't kick you down, but we'll put out our hands and pull you. That's Boston; that's dad and mother. When you've made all the fun of them you like, the poor dears still have that much left which you can't take away from them."

Something of this Tom was to test by the time he and Hildred met again. It was not another two years before they did that, but it was a year. Demobilized in Washington, he traveled straight to Boston. He had made his plans. Before seeing Hildred again he would see her father. "It's the only straight thing to do," he told himself. After all the years in which they had been good to him he couldn't begin again to go in and out of their house while they were ignorant of what he hoped for. Hildred might have told them something; he didn't know; but the details of most importance were those which only he himself could give them.

Having written for a very private appointment, Ansley had told him to come to his office immediately on his arrival in Boston. He reached that city by half-past three; he was at the office by a little after four.

It was a large office, covering most of a floor of an imposing office building. On a glass door were the names of the partners, that of Philip Ansley standing first on the list and in bigger letters than the rest. In the anteroom an impersonal young lady reading a magazine said, by telephone, "Mr. Whitelaw to see Mr. Ansley."

The business of the day was over. As Tom passed through a corridor from which most of the private offices opened he saw that they were empty. The only one still occupied was at the most distant end, and there he found Philip Ansley. He found also his wife. The purpose of Tom's visit having been made clear by letter, both of Hildred's parents were concerned in it.

They welcomed him cordially, making the comments permissible to old friends on his improved personal appearance. They asked for his news; they gave their own. Guy was back at Harvard at the Law School; Hildred was at home, somewhat at loose ends. Like most girls who had worked in France, she found a life of leisure tedious.

"Eating her head off," Ansley complained. "Can't settle down again."

Mrs. Ansley was more heroic. "We accept it. It's part of what we offered up to the Great Cause. We gave our all, and though all was not taken from us we should not have murmured if it had been."

Taking advantage of this turn of the talk, Tom launched into his appeal. For the last time in his life, as he hoped, he told the story of his mother. As he had told it to Hildred and to Henry Whitelaw so now he gave it to Philip and Sunshine Ansley. Hating the task, he was upheld in carrying it through by the knowledge that everyone who had a right to know it knew it now.

He finished with the minute at which Guy first spoke to him. From that point onward they had been able to follow the course of his life for themselves. They had in a measure entered into it, and helped him to his opportunities. He thanked them; but before he could accept their goodwill again he wanted them to know exactly what he had sprung from. Hildred did know. She had known it for several years. It had made no difference to her; he hoped so to make good in the future that it would make no difference to them.

They listened attentively, with no sign of being shocked. Now and then, at such points as the stealing of the first little book, or the final arrest, one or the other would murmur a "Dear me!" but sympathy and pity were plainly their sentiments. They didn't condemn him; they didn't even blame him. He had been an unfortunate child. There was nothing to be thought of him but that.

After he had finished there was a silence that seemed long. Ansley sat at his desk, leaning back in his revolving chair. Mrs. Ansley was near a window, where she could to some extent shield herself by looking out. She left to her husband the duty of speaking the first word.

"It all depends, my dear fellow, on your being accepted by Henry Whitelaw as his son."

There was another silence. "Is that final, sir?"

"I'm afraid it is."

"Is there no way by which I can be taken as myself?"

Mrs. Ansley turned from her contemplation of the Lion and the Unicorn on the Old State House. "No one is ever taken as himself. We all have to be taken with the circumstances that surround us."

Ansley enlarged on this, leaning forward and toying with a paperweight. "My wife is quite right. Nobody in the world is just a human being pure and simple. He's a human being plus the conditions which go to make him up. You can't separate the conditions from the man, nor the man from the conditions. If you're Henry Whitelaw's son, stolen and brought up in circumstances no matter how poor and criminal, you're one person; if you're the son of this—this woman, whom I shan't condemn any more than I can help, you're another. You see that, don't you?"

"Can't I be—what I've made myself?"

"You can't make yourself anything but what you've been from the beginning. You can correct and improve and modify; but you can't change."

"So that if I'm the son of—of this woman, you wouldn't want me. Is that it?"

"How could we?" came from Mrs. Ansley. "But I know from Mr. Whitelaw himself that—"

Ansley smiled, paternally. "Suppose we leave it there. After all, the last word rests with him."

"I don't think so, sir. It rests with me."

This could be dismissed as of no importance. "Oh, with you, of course, in a certain sense. They can't force you. But if they're satisfied that you're—"

"And if I'm not satisfied?"

"Oh, but, my dear fellow, you wouldn't make yourself difficult on that score."

"It's not a question of being difficult; it's one of what I can do."

They got no farther than that. Tom's reluctance to deny the woman he had always regarded as his mother was not only hard for them to seize, it was hard for him to explain. He couldn't make them see that the creature who for them was only a common shoplifter was for him the source of tender and sacred memories. To accuse her of a greater crime than theft would be to desecrate the shrine which he himself had built of love and pity; but he was unable to put it into words, as they were unable to understand it. He himself worded it as plainly as he could when, rising, he said:

"So that I must renounce my mother or renounce Hildred."

Ansley also rose. "That's not quite the way to express it. If she was your mother, there can be no question of your renouncing her. But then, too, there can be no question of—of Hildred. I'm sure you must see."

"And if I see, would Hildred also see?"

Leaving her window, Mrs. Ansley, bulbous and quivering, lilted forward. "We must leave that to your sense of honor. In a way we're in your hands. It's within your power to make us suffer."

"I should never do that," he assured her, hastily. "Hildred wouldn't want me to. After all you've done for me neither she nor I—"

"Quite so, my dear fellow, quite so." Ansley held out his hand. "We trust you both. But the situation is clear, I think. If you come back to us as Harry Whitelaw, you'll find us eager to welcome you. If you don't, or if you can't—"

A wave of the hand, a shrug of the shoulders, expressing the rest, Tom could only bow himself out.

XLIII

On the part of Philip and Sunshine Ansley the confidence was such that Hildred was permitted to take a walk with Tom before his departure for New York.

"We're not engaged," Hildred reported as part of her mother's conditions, "and we can't be engaged unless you're proved to be Harry Whitelaw. Mother thinks you're going to be. So apparently the question in the long run will be as to whether or not you want me."

"It won't be that. I'm crazy about you, Hildred, more than any fellow ever was before."

"And that's the way I feel about you, Tom. I don't care a bit about the things dad and mother think so important. You're you; you're not your father or your mother, whoever they may have been. I shouldn't love you any the better if you became the son of Mr. and Mrs. Whitelaw. It would only make it easier."

It was a windy afternoon in April, with the trees in new leaf. All along the Fenway the bridal-veil made cascades of whiteness whiter than the hawthorns. Pansies, tulips, and forget-me-nots brightened all the foot-paths. The two tall, supple figures bent and laughed in the teeth of the lusty wind.

Rather it was she who laughed, since she had the confidence in life, while he knew only life's problems. He had always known life's problems, and though there had never been a time when he was free from them, he never had had one to solve so difficult as this.

"But that's where the shoe pinches," he declared, "that I'm myself, so much more myself than many fellows are; and yet, unless I turn into some one else, I shall lose you."

She threw back her answer with a kind of radiant honesty. "You couldn't lose me, Tom. I couldn't lose you. We've grown together. Nothing can cut us asunder. One can't win out against two people who're as willing to wait as we are."

He was not comforted. "Oh, wait! I don't want to wait."

"Neither do I; but we'd both rather wait than give each other up."

"Wait—for how long?"

"How can I tell how long? As long as we have to."

"Till your father and mother die?"

"Oh, gracious, no! I'm not killing the poor lambs. Till they come round. They'll come round."

"How do you know?"

"Because fathers and mothers always do. Once they see how sad I'll be—"

"Oh, you're going to play that game."

She was indignant. "I shan't play a game. I shall be sad. I'm all right now while you're here; but once you're gone—well, if dad and mother want a martyr on their hands they'll have one. I shan't be putting it on either. I'll not be able to help myself."

"I'd rather they came around for some other reason than to save your life."

"I'm not particular about the reason so long as they come round. But you see I'm talking as if the worse were coming to the worst. As a matter of fact, I believe the better is coming to the best."

"Which means that you think the Whitelaws...."

"I know they will."

"And that I...."

"Oh, Tom, you'll be reasonable, won't you?"

He was silent. Even Hildred couldn't see what his past had meant to him. A wretched, miserable past from some points of view, at least it was his own. It had entered into him and made him. It was as hard to take it now as a hideous mistake as it would have been to take his breathing or the circulation of his blood.

The farther it drifted behind him the more content he was to have known it. Each phase had given him something he recognized as an asset. Honey, the Quidmores, the Tollivants, Mrs. Crewdson, the "mudda," had all left behind them experiences which time was beginning to consecrate. Hildred couldn't understand any more than anybody else what it cost him to disclaim them. He often wondered whether, had he been born the son of Henry and Eleonora Whitelaw, and never been stolen away from them, he would have grown to be another Tad. He thought it very likely.

Not that Tad hadn't justified himself. He had. His record in the war had gone far to redeem him. He had come through with sacrifice and honor. Having fought without a scratch for a year and a half, he had, on the very morning of the day when the Armistice was signed, received a wound which, because of the infection in his blood, had resulted in the loss of his right arm. This maiming, which the chance of a few hours would have saved him, he took, according to Hildred, with splendid pluck, though also with an inclination to be peevish. Lily, so Tom's letters from Henry Whitelaw had long ago informed him, had married a man named Greenshields, had had a baby, had been divorced, and again lived at home with her parents.

Tom pondered on the advantages they, Tad and Lily, were assumed to have enjoyed and which he himself had been denied. Everyone, Hildred included, took it for granted that ease and indulgence were blessings, and that he had suffered from the loss of them. Perhaps he had; but he hadn't suffered more than Tad and Lily on whom they had been lavished. Tad with his maimed body, Lily with her maimed life, were not of necessity the product of wealth and luxury; but neither did a blasted soul or character come of necessity from poverty and hardship, or even from an origin in crime.

He couldn't explain this to Hildred, partly because she didn't care, partly because he had not the words, and mostly because her assumptions were those of her society. She would love him just the same whether he were the son of a woman who had killed herself in jail, or that of a banker known throughout the world; but the advantages of being the latter were to her beyond argument. So they were to him, except that....

Thus with Hildred he came to no conclusions any more than with her parents. With her as with them it was an object to keep him from making any statement that might seem too decisive. If they left it to Henry Whitelaw and himself the scales could but dip in one direction.

And yet when actually face to face with the banker, Tom doubted if the subject was going to be raised. He had written, reminding Whitelaw of the promise he himself had exacted, that on looking for work, Tom should apply first of all to him. Like Ansley, the banker had made an appointment at his office.

The office was in the ponderous and somewhat forbidding structure which bore the name of Meek and Brokenshire in Wall Street. The room into which Tom was shown was shabby and unpretentious. Square, low-ceiled, lighted by two windows looking into yards or courts, its one bit of color lay in the green and red of a Turkey rug, threadbare in spots, and scuffed into wrinkles. Against the walls were heavily carved walnut bookcases, housing books of reference. A few worn leather armchairs made a rough circle about a wide flat-topped desk, which stood in the center of the room. On the desk were some valuable knickknacks, paper weights, paper cutters, pen trays, and other odds and ends, evidently gifts. A white-marble mantelpiece clumsily sculptured in the style of 1840 was adorned above by the lithographed head of the first J. Howard Brokenshire, also of 1840, and one of the founders of the firm.

For the first few minutes the room was empty. Tom stood timidly close to the door through which he had come in. The banker entered from a room adjoining.

"Ah, here you are!"

He crossed the floor rapidly. For a long minute Tom found himself held as he had been held before, the man's right hand grasping his, the left hand resting on his shoulder. There was also the same searching with the eyes, and the same little weary push when the eyes had searched enough.

"Sit down."

Tom took the armchair nearest him; the man drew up another. He drew it close, with hungry eagerness. Tom was apologetic.

"I must beg your pardon, sir, for asking you to see me—"

"Oh, no, my dear boy. I should have been hurt if you hadn't. I've been expecting you ever since I read that you'd landed. What made you go to Boston before coming here?"

There was confession in Tom's smile. "I had to see some one."

"Was it Hildred Ansley?"

Tom found himself coloring, and without an answer.

"Oh, you needn't tell me. I didn't mean to embarrass you. The Ansleys are very good friends of mine. Known them well for years. If it hadn't been for them you and I might never have got together. Now give me some account of yourself. It must be nearly two months since I last heard from you."

Tom gave such scraps of information as he hadn't told in letters, and thought might be of interest. With some use of inner force he nerved himself to ask after Mrs. Whitelaw, and "the other members of the family," a phrase which evaded the use of names.

The banker talked more freely than he had written. He talked as to one with whom he could open his heart, and not as to an outsider. Mrs. Whitelaw was stronger and calmer, less subject to the paralyzing terrors which had beset her for so long. Tad was doing with himself the best he could, but the best in the case of a fellow of his age and tastes who had lost his right arm was not very good. He could ride a little, guiding his horse with his left hand, but he couldn't drive a car, or hunt, or play polo, or use his hand for writing. He could hardly dress himself; he fed himself only when everything was cut up for him. In the course of time he would probably do better, but as yet he couldn't do much. Lily had made a mess of things. It was worse than what he had told Tom in his letters. She had eloped with a worthless fellow, whom he, her father, had forbidden her to know, and who wanted nothing but her money. It was a sad affair, and had stunned or bewildered her. He didn't like to talk of it, but Tom would see for himself.

He reverted to Tom's own concerns. "You wrote to me about a job."

"Yes, sir; but I'm afraid it's bothering you too much."

"Don't think that. I've got the job."

The young man tried to speak, but the other hurried on.

"I hope you'll take it, because I've been keeping it for you ever since I saw you last."

Tom's eyes opened wide. "Over three years?"

"Oh, there was no hurry. Easy enough to save it. I want you to be one of the assistants to my own confidential secretary. This will keep you close to myself, which is where I want to have you for the first year at least. You'll get the hang of a lot of things there, and anything you don't understand I can explain to you. Later, if you want to go into the study of banking more scientifically—well, I shall be able to direct you."

He sat dazzled, speechless. It was the future!—Hildred!—happiness!—honor!—the big life!—the conquest of the world! He could have them all by sitting still, by saying nothing, by letting it be implied that he renounced his loyalties, by being passive in the hand of this goodwill. He would be a fool, he told himself, not to yield to it. Everyone in his senses would consider him a fool. The father of the Whitelaw baby believed that he had found his child. Why not let him believe it? How did he, Tom Whitelaw, know that he wasn't his child? The woman who had told him he was never to think so was dead and in her grave. Judged by all reasonable standards, he owed her nothing but a training in wicked ways. He would give her up. He would admit, tacitly anyhow, even if not in words, that she had stolen him. He would be grateful to this man—and profit by his mistake.

He began to speak. "I hardly know how to thank you, sir, for so much kindness. I only hope—" He was trying to find the words in which to express his ambition to prove worthy of this trust, but he found himself saying something else—"I only hope that you're not doing all this for me because you think I'm—I'm your son."

Leaning toward him, the banker put his hand on his knee. "Suppose we don't bring that up just yet? Suppose we just—go on? As a matter of fact—I'm talking to you quite frankly—more frankly than I could speak to anyone else in the world—but as a matter of fact I—I want some one who'll—who'll be like a son to me—whether he's my son or not. I wonder if you're old enough to understand."

"I think I am, sir."

"I'm rather a lonely man. I've got great cares, great responsibilities. I can swing them all right. There are my partners, fine fellows all of them; there are as many friends as I can ask for. But I've nobody who comes—who comes very close to me—as a son could come. I've thought—I've thought it for some time past—that—whoever you are—you might do that."

As he leaned with his hand on Tom's knee his eyes were lower than Tom's own. Tom looked down into them. It was strange to him that this man who held so much of the world in his grasp should be speaking to him almost pleadingly. His memories filed by him with the speed and distinctness of lightning. He was the little boy moving from tenement to tenement; he was in the big shop on that Christmas Eve; he was walking with his mother in front of the policeman; he was watching her go away with the woman who was like a Fate; he was staring at the Christmas Tree; he was being pelted on his first day at school; he was picking strawberries for the Quidmores; he was sleeping in the same room with Honey; he was acting as chauffeur at the inn-club in Dublin, New Hampshire, and picking up this very man at Keene. And here they were together, the instinct of the father calling to the son, while the instinct of the son was scarcely, if at all, articulate.