THE HUNGRY HEART (continued 2)

"Don't you think it's all a matter of custom?" she said persuasively. She was not convinced, or even shaken. But she admired the shrewdness of his argument. The reason she had never grown to dislike him was that even in his prejudices he was always plausible, and not in his narrowest narrowness was he ever petty. "Now really, Dick, if that were carried out logically, a woman'd have to cover her face and not speak, for often it's a woman's voice that charms a man"—with a little laugh—"and once in a long while what she says."

"I would carry it out logically," replied he promptly, "if I had my way. That reminds me. You're away from home very often these days, I notice. You're over at the club a great deal."

"The weather's been so fine, everybody goes."

"I've no objection to your going occasionally. But after all the place for a good woman is at home."

She thought so too, as a general principle; home undoubtedly was the place for a good woman, or any sort of woman, or for a man; that was to her mind the meaning of home—the most attractive, the most magnetic spot on earth. However, the Vaughan place was not "home." She could not discuss this with him, so she simply answered, "But I get bored—here alone—and with nothing to do. And nobody'll come at this time of year, with something on at the club every day and evening."

"You don't even stay home to meals."

"Neither do you."

"But I haven't Winchie to look after."

"He plays with the other children at the kindergarten. And Miss Brockholst can keep a child amused as I couldn't. When I stay out to supper I see that Nanny or Lizzie brings him home and puts him to bed. And I'm not out to supper often."

"I don't like it," said Dick imperiously.

"You ought to come with me," rejoined she. "But you never will."

"I've no time for foolishness. And I'm sure you haven't either."

"What ought I to do with myself?"

"What other good women do. Our mothers didn't hang about clubs."

"No. But these aren't pioneer times. Things are entirely different nowadays. That was why—" She did not finish. She did not wish to remind him how he had refused to let her either share his life or make a life of her own. She refrained because the subject might be unpleasant to him. It was no longer unpleasant to her; she now had not the least desire to share his life, was in a way content to drift aimlessly along with the rest of the aimless women.

"Yes, many of the women are different nowadays," said he. "The more reason for my wife's conducting herself as a woman should."

She flushed with sudden anger. "Why can't you accept a woman as a human being?" exclaimed she. "Oh, you men—tempting—compelling—us to be hypocrites—and making our natural impulses rot into vices because they have to be hid away in the dark."

"We will not quarrel," said he, in the calm superior tone he always took when their talk touched on the two sexes. "I simply say I will not tolerate my wife's being a club lounger."

To have answered would have been to say what must precipitate a furious and futile quarrel. She kept silent, with less effort than many women would have to make in the circumstances. She had had the conventional feminine training in self-suppression, that so often gives women the seeming of duplicity and only too often imperceptibly leads them into forming the habit of duplicity. She had also had special training in self-concealment through having been brought up austerely. She kept silent, and made up her mind to obey. She had heard much talk among the women at the club about the "rights of a wife"; but it had not convinced her. She could not see that she, or any other of the women married as was she, contributed to the family anything that entitled her to oppose the husband's will as to how it should be conducted. And she would have scorned to get by cajolery what she could not have got honestly. She was thus the good wife, not through fear of him, for she was not a coward and he was not the sort of small tyrant that makes the women and the children tremble; nor was it because she was faithful to her marriage vows, for she never thought of them. Her submissiveness was entirely due to the agreement she had tacitly signed the day she went back to him, after the talk with her mother. In return for shelter and support she would be, so far as she could, the kind of wife he wanted.

She kept away from the club, stayed at home; and soon the telephone bell was ringing, and pleading voices were giving the flattering proof that in her abrupt divorce from the social life of the town the sense of loss was by no means altogether on her side. And presently over came Sarah Carpenter escorted by her big handsome brother, Shirley Drummond, "as a committee of two," so Sarah put it, "to investigate and report on your cruel and inhuman treatment of us." It was dull, frightfully dull, at the club house, she went on to explain. They did nothing but sit round and try to guess why Courtney Vaughan had dropped them. "And have you forgotten the flower show you were planning? and the play you were going to organize? and the Venetian fête?"

"Oh, that was just talk," replied Courtney. "It's far too hot. I'm resting, and looking after my boy. I'll be over some afternoon soon."

Sarah pleaded and coaxed. Shirley took no part, but sat on the veranda rail, his long legs swinging, his eyes on the interior of the straw hat he was turning round and round between his hands. When Sarah realized that there was unalterable resolution under Courtney's light and gay laughing off of her entreaties, she bade Shirley wait there for her and went to call on Molly Donaldson. Courtney looked admiringly after Sarah's long willowy figure and striking costume—sunshade and hat, dress and stockings and ties, all of various cool, harmonious shades of red.

"Your sister always was pretty," said Courtney. "But since she's married it seems to me she gets prettier all the time."

"Marriage does bring out those women that don't go to pieces," said he. "I guess it's because they get the courage to be more like themselves. Girls are such hypocrites—always posing. You were the only one I ever liked. You weren't a hypocrite. Where you didn't dare be yourself you simply kept quiet."

"I like your impudence—attacking women for being what you men compel."

"Maybe so," said he absently. "But I didn't come over here in the hot sun to talk generalities. Look here, Courtney, there's something I've got to say to you." His good-humored commonplace face was even redder than the heat and his bulk—for he wasn't a thin man—warranted. His voice was low and confused, yet suggested a man talking against a mob and determined to be heard. "I've got to tell you that I care for you—and have ever since we used to walk from high school together—whenever some other fellow didn't slip in ahead of me."

Courtney, puzzled, rapidly reviewed her conduct toward Shirley the past two months—since he came home from Harvard Law School. She recalled nothing that could have given him encouragement to this speech. "I should hope you did like me," she said carelessly. "Of course, we're good friends, as always." She rose. "Let's go over to Donaldson's." Her tone and manner contained the subtle warning to desist that reaches through the thickest skin into the dullest brain.

"You know what I mean," said Shirley doggedly. "Now listen to me while I make a proposition. You're a sensible, up-to-date woman, and this is the twentieth century, not the dark ages. I'm not as clever as some, but neither am I as much the muttonhead as maybe you think. Anyhow, I appreciate you."

"Drop it," said Courtney.

"I want you to get a divorce and marry me."

He spoke as tranquilly as if they were at a dance and he were asking her for the next two-step. She stared. "Well, I never did!" she exclaimed.

"I see you're surprised," said he. "I've thought about it so much that I've got used to it."

"This is something new—a woman getting proposals after she's married, just as if she wasn't." She was laughing.

"Why not?" retorted he, unruffled. "Nobody looks on marriage as the finish any more. I don't think you love me—not for a minute. You've got better brains than I have—a lot better, for I'll admit I'm pretty slow. But you've tried brains and you see they don't amount to much when it comes down to solid living. You don't love me now. But, Courtney, if you'll marry me, I'll guarantee to treat you and the youngster so that you'll simply have to love me."

She was slowly recovering from her utter amazement, when he spoke those last words in his simple, honest way with his love in his voice, in his eyes—love that makes bright the dullest face, quickens into bloom the barrenest fancy, puts sweet music in the most tedious voice. Her words of rebuke dropped back unsaid, her throat choked up and tears welled into her eyes. While she was still trying to control this sudden treachery of her hungry heart, he went on: "I was away to college when I heard you were engaged. I cut exams, and everything and rustled out here. But I saw you were dead in love. It nearly knocked me out. Then it occurred to me that marrying's only a trial go and that in a few years I might get you and you'd be all the better for the experience."

What he said did not shock her. But she was shocked that she was not shocked. Still, it isn't easy to meet a wholly new form of attack; and less easy is it to be stiff and stern with a person one has known always and liked always—a person one knows to be through and through sincere and profoundly respectful. "Shirley," said she, "you mean well and you are slow—so, you don't realize that what you've said is perfectly outrageous."

"Why?" demanded he. "Is it an insult to a woman to tell her you love her? Is it a crime to let her know that, if she isn't suited, there's some one waiting to try to help her get suited? Where's the outrage?"

"I don't know just where," admitted she. "But I feel that it is an outrage—that you've taken advantage of our friendship."

"On the contrary, I've shown I am your friend; ready to stand by you. I haven't laid a finger on you, and, so help me God, Courtney, I couldn't try. I'm that old fogey, at least. And I haven't tried to wheedle or win you—have I? I just made a plain statement that if you want me, I'm waiting—and eager. I've seen how things are with you——"

"You've seen nothing of the kind!" Her pride and her loyalty were in arms now.

He looked at her with eyes that were as honest as an open sky. "You don't love your husband, nor he you," he said. "If you did, you'd not see as little of each other as you do."

"Shirley, it's cowardly to say those things," she began angrily.

"Oh, I'd say 'em to him, if it wasn't that I'm afraid you'd have to suffer for it. You needn't get mad. I've been so damn miserable this past week, not seeing you, that I don't care what happens to me. I know why you don't come over any more. He's shut you up here. I saw it in his face that night."

"It was about time he stopped me, I see," said she quickly. "Evidently he understood better than I did. But you mustn't go away thinking I'm obeying a jailer. Do you suppose I'd stay here at the request of a man unless I cared for him?"

"Certainly," replied he. "A right sort woman'll put up with most anything to avoid a row. You needn't try to fool me, Courtney. I know—everyone knows—the truth."

"The truth!" cried Courtney. "How dare you sit there insulting me!"

"Now, Courtney!" begged he.

"Go join your sister and take her back without coming here."

She felt she ought to leave him; but her hungry heart would not let her go. She lingered, looking at him angrily, watching the utter love in his countenance—and enjoying it. He slowly dropped from the veranda rail and faced her. His look was that same mingling of gentle and fierce qualities that makes a bulldog's face fascinating. "If I've said anything I shouldn't, I beg your pardon," said he. "But I stick to my proposition. You can take it or leave it—now, or next year—or whenever you like. It's you or nobody for me." He put out his hand.

She clasped her hands behind her. But she had to lower her head that he might not see—"and misunderstand"—her swimming eyes, her trembling lip.

"Please shake hands," he begged.

She shook her head.

"That hurts," said he shakily, and she turned hastily away. "But," he added, "I'm used to hurts."

He lingered, embarrassed. At length, with a huge sigh, he descended from the veranda and plodded across the lawn toward the hedge. She darted upstairs and shut herself in her room and cried, lying on the bed face down. She felt guilty; would not the right sort of woman have been able to meet such talk from a man, even a Shirley Drummond, with effective fiery resentment? But she knew it was not her guilt that she was weeping for. No, her tears were flowing from the wounds in her heart—the wounds she had thought healed. She had not the faintest feeling in the least akin to love for Shirley Drummond. She never could love him. She had always avoided him as far as her instinct against hurting people's feelings permitted. His grotesque proposal, in itself, appealed only to her sense of humor. But at the mere sound of loving words, words of considerate tenderness, how her whole being vibrated! It terrified her, this heart of hers suddenly and fiercely insurgent.

The next evening after supper she interrupted Dick in the library. "Richard," she said gravely, "I want you to come upstairs with me a few minutes."

"Certainly," said he. "Directly." And he worked on—and would have continued to work until bedtime had she not insisted.

"No. Right away, please."

He glanced up. Her eyes prevented him from returning to his calculations. "All right," said he.

Her sitting room was changed into a painting and drawing exhibition. On the walls, on tables, on sofas and chairs, and leaning against the baseboard were pictures and plans of interiors and of gardens, many in colors, more in black and white, most of all in ground-plan drawings.

"What's this?" said he.

"You were right about my going to the club too much," replied she. "I shall stay at home more. But I must have something to occupy me. These are my plans for making over the house and grounds. Please don't try to stop me. I am going to explain it all to you, and I ask you to be considerate and polite enough to listen."

Her manner was compelling; the exhibit was interesting. And he looked and listened as she talked, rapidly, intensely, yet clearly and calmly, describing the whole scheme in minutest detail, not forgetting expense which she demonstrated would be small. He asked several questions—enough to show that he was giving his attention. When she finished she was trembling all over. He continued to inspect the water colors that showed how things would look when the changes had been made. After a while he smiled and nodded at her. "Very clever," he said. "Really, I had no idea you could do anything like this."

Her mouth and throat were dry; her eyes gleamed. She was giving out the force that flows from a soul in desperate earnest—the force that sweeps away any opposition not already aggressive, before it has a chance to gather. "I may try it?" she asked.

"That's another matter," reflected he aloud. "I ought to say no, for I'm sure you'll be disappointed and your mistakes'll have to be covered up." Now that he was reminded of it he was ashamed of the curt ill-humored way he had issued his orders about her going to the club. "But you can only learn by trying. So, I've no objections to your making a start." He laid his hands on her shoulders. "A little at a time—remember!" he cautioned. "A very little."

With that unconsciousness of her being intelligent enough to see his thoughts in his expression—an unconsciousness to which she had long since got used, but never hardened—he was showing that he wished to refuse her, but that, being taken by surprise, he in his kindness of heart could not frame a pretext. His manner took from her all desire or ability to thank him. "I'll be careful," said she.

The smile in his eyes was like a parent's at a precocious child. He kissed her, patted her cheek, went back to his work. He had read the anthropologies, all written by men. Anthropology being out of his line, he accepted as exact science the prejudice and baseless assertion and misleading "statistics" there set down as "laws." Nature had made man active, woman passive; thus, action in woman was contrary to nature, was inevitably abortive and whimsical, was never, except by rare accident, valuable. "She's clever," thought he, by way of finis to the subject. "But she'll soon tire of this thing and drop it. Well, I suppose a few more years'll wash away the smatter she got at college, and this restlessness of hers will yield to nature, and she'll be content and happy in her womanhood. A few more children would have an excellent effect. She's suffering from the storing up of the energy that ought to have outlet in childbearing. As grandfather often said, it's a dreadful mistake, educating women beyond their sphere. But it hasn't done the dear child any permanent harm. She's far too womanly."

V

By the time Winchie was four years old—and in looks and health, in truthfulness and self-reliance a credit to her—she had about completed the transformation of house and grounds. The Vaughan place was no longer an example of those distressing attempts to divorce beauty from its supreme quality, use, that are the delight of the unfortunates whose esthetic faculty has been paralyzed by the mediæval monastic education still blighting the modern world. It was, throughout, beauty applied to use, use achieved in beauty. She had no theory in doing this; she followed the leadings of a courageous and unspoiled taste which was thoroughly practical, as practical as that of the artists of the age of Pericles, a taste which abhorred the bizarre and the blatant. The results would not have pleased Colonel Achilles; they would not have stirred the enthusiasm of anyone who has been enslaved by false education to admire only what has been approved by tradition. But charm no one could have denied. Winter and summer the house, livable and restful in every corner, bloomed within—for over no other part of nature is man's dominion so complete as over the plant kingdom. From early spring through the last warm days of autumn the grounds were delightful to behold; it was as if summer were living there freely and at ease, with no restraint upon her except keeping her clear of the restraint of her own profuse and careless litter. In winter the lawns and clumps and hedges were by no means dead or filled only with evergreen's mortuary suggestions; there are many plants that bloom with bright berries and leaves in the midst of snow and ice, and Courtney knew about them. Winter indoors seemed a millennium in which winter and summer lived amicably together. There were snows and icy storms without, huge open fires within; the windows were gay with blossoming plants, and from a conservatory she built and stocked at surprisingly small cost there came cut flowers for vases and bowls as well as plants that replaced those which had done service and needed rest. Courtney was one of those for whom things grow; her own vivid life seemed to radiate throughout her surroundings and infect all things with the passion to live vividly. With the flowers, as with Winchie, she was patient, intelligent, understanding—never expecting too much, always encouraging to the least disposition to develop.

All this wonder of transformation was not wrought in a day, nor by dreaming. It came as the result of tireless and incessant labor of brain and hand. She had dreamed her dream; she was determined that it should be realized. Failure did not daunt her; it taught her. Nor was she halted by her sense, rather than experience, of a latent reluctance in Richard about giving her money he wanted for the laboratory; for, as his work there expanded, its expenses grew rapidly heavier. She did not ask him for the money; she did not let him know she needed it; she got along without it. In such work as she was doing it takes a vast deal of thought, of planning and contriving, to take the place of money. She did that necessary thinking. When she could get a little money, she spent it to amazing advantage; when she could not, she went on without it. Some of her most satisfying results came through the work made necessary by lack of money. Very powerful, too, was the influence of this upon her character—in developing self-reliance and self-respect which come only through successful independent action.

Now, after nearly three years of days of toil that was also play, since she loved it, she saw, but a short distance ahead, a time when she would have little to do beyond taking care that Jimmie and Bill kept the grounds up, and that Nanny and Mazie and Lizzie did their work properly in the house. There would be minor changes, new features; but the task as a task was almost done. And, in spite of Nanny's opposition, she had put the household on a systematic basis, so that with a little daily attention every part of the routine went smoothly, each servant doing his or her share of the work in the same way always and at the same time. She was about to have many hours each day liberated—and this, in a quiet place, where time refuses to take wings, but insists upon being definitely employed every moment of it.

What should she do next? She had grown through her work. She had educated her originality and her instinctive good taste, had educated them so intelligently that originality had not lost its courage nor good taste its breadth. It had not "settled" her to make a home, as it "settles" a human or lower animal that acts largely from instinct and example and that conceives a home to be chiefly a place to eat and sleep. On the contrary, it had unsettled her the more. Her character had not changed. Character never does change; it simply develops, responding to its environment like any other growing thing. Her character had developed.

What next? What should she do to occupy hand and brain, now grown far more skillful? What should she do with heart? It was now grown far bolder in its dreams and longings; and from time to time it was giving ever more imperious notice that not much longer would it be content with solicitude about a child and makeshift interest in interior decoration and landscape gardening, but would demand its right to the fullness of experience. She temporized with these ominous threatenings. She hoped there would be more children—for children would compel her. From Richard, the absorbed, the well pleased with his "settled, womanly wife," she expected nothing—and wished nothing. The routine of matrimony had become as unconscious as breathing or winking. Her sense of moral obligation to him was also automatic; she felt its restraint not definitely as the wife of a certain Richard Vaughan, but generally as a woman of the married estate. She knew little about him beyond what he thought of her, of marriage—and that knowledge killed all further interest in him. He knew nothing whatever about her beyond the surface—her physical charm, enhanced by good taste in dress. The comfort of his home and its order, the surprising success of her "tinkerings" with house and grounds made small impression upon him. The changes had come about gradually; and he was absorbed at the Smoke House. Before the next change was made he had got used to the one preceding, and had come to regard it as something that had always existed. And she was not one of those who see to it that they get full credit by preceding, accompanying, and following every act with blast of trumpets. She did things because she liked to do them, just as she learned because she liked to know. She worked without friction or bluster. Also, having dismissed him from her inner, her real life, as he had dismissed her from his, it never occurred to her to talk to him about herself—and her work was herself.

What next? She often asked the question as she paused to look about her and saw so short a distance ahead the end of her task. But she was not troubled because she could not answer the question. She waited with a certain confident tranquillity until an answer should be imperative. Meanwhile— One look at her was enough to convince that her lot had been better than the lot of the gay, discontented young married women of Wenona society who pitied her because of her solitude. They did not realize that not only were they unhappy, but also were without the capacity to enjoy happiness if it should offer, had lost the capacity as utterly as a deaf man the capacity to enjoy music. One may abuse intellect or heart with impunity no more than body. Transgression and punishment are simply cause and effect. There were times when Courtney wished she could be gayer; but at least she was never bored, never did the things that do not amuse in the doing, and have an aftermath of disgust. She had an intense, ever intenser desire to live life to its uttermost limits of interest and joy; but that did not seem to her to mean changing her clothes many times a day, rushing from house to house, from party to party, gossiping, eating indigestible sauces and desserts, and playing bridge. She knew what she did not want. She did not know what she wanted—did not dare inquire. She feared life was a good deal of a cheat—not altogether a cheat, not by any means—but still a raiser of longings it had no way to satisfy, of expectations it had no way to fulfill.

She fancied herself little changed since her marriage. And she was hardly changed at all physically. But in mind she was a woman full grown—a rarity indeed in our civilization which tends to make odalisques and parasites out of the women it does not crush under toil. She was ready for a strong part in life, should opportunity offer. Meanwhile, she was living her placid routine with the originality and interest with which intelligence can invest the humblest, the most usual acts.

She wrote in her commonplace book this sentence:

"Love is a tune we whistle in the dark of our aloneness to keep up our courage."

In Winchie's fourth year, in the spring, Judge Benedict had an illness so severe that Courtney went to the farm, taking Winchie with her to stay until the crisis passed. It was nearly three weeks before decision for life was rendered and she could return home.

She had been gone during what ought to have been her busiest season. She rather expected to find the place in some confusion. Instead, so far advanced toward completion were her plans, and so thoroughly had she trained Jimmie and his son Bill and the house servants, everything was well under way. All her instructions, both those given before she left and those written to Jimmie from her father's—had been carried out exactly. They had worked as hard as if she had been there, had done it because they loved her—for only love can arouse and inspire the sluggish energies of those who serve. The lawns were trim and freshly green, the walks were covered with new tan-bark; and its red brown harmonized with the colors of lawn and trees as its odor harmonized with the odors from the grass and the foliage, from the brilliant flowers in great beds at either side of the house. All the windows were gay with boxes of blooming plants. Railings of verandas and balconies were draped with mats of budding creepers. The gardens—the beds in the lawns and along the verandas—the edges of walks and drives—the thickets and trellises—all were blossoming and odorous. Lovely contrasts of light and shade, delicious perfumes, birds flashing to and fro, singing in the trees and bushes—the Vaughan place illustrated what Pope meant when he called landscape gardening nature plus a soul. The soul that had given form to nature's color and perfume was Courtney's.

As the carriage drove down the deeply shaded main drive from highway to drive-front porch, she gazed round with a creator's pride and joy and love. She had two children—Winchie and this lovely place. All the servants gathered to welcome her—all except old Nanny, who had never forgiven and who resented the changes as sacrilege. They watched eagerly for signs of approval. Her expression, as she looked at what they had done, then at them, the unsteady voice in which she said "Beautiful—beautiful" went straight to their hearts. Within the house, everywhere open wide to June's enchantment, there was evidence of the same creative impulse—order without stiffness, art without any trace of art's labor.

Winchie would go straightway to look at his rabbits; she went upstairs alone to bathe and change after the dusty journey, telling Lizzie to bring him as soon as he had satisfied himself that his rabbits were all right. The door of the bedroom immediately across the hall from hers stood open, and with the thorough housekeeper's instinct she glanced in. It was the room Dick usually occupied. Instead of Dick's belongings she saw, spread about, toilet articles and clothing strange to her. She entered. On the bureau she instantly noted a pair of tasteful silver and ebony brushes; the monogram was "B.G." She opened a drawer; neckties, more attractive than any she had ever seen, filled two compartments to overflowing with their patterned silks and linens. In the third compartment several dozen line handkerchiefs; the monogram on them was again "B.G."

She opened the nearest closet. On forms hung perhaps a dozen coats; she recognized the cut and materials as foreign. Beneath was a long row of boots, shoes, pumps, slippers, all of the kind a woman of taste at once knows and appreciates. As she was closing the door there swung out from the hook high up a suit of beautiful striped linen pajamas monogramed in gray and faintly perfumed with lavendar. She went on into the adjoining front room—the room Dick had used as a study. Obviously, he no longer used it. The books of fiction and poetry—the big silver cigarette box—the gaudily trimmed silk dressing gown flung carelessly on a chair—none of these belonged to him or suggested his studious and rather Spartan temperament.

In the hall she saw Lizzie just come with Winchie. "Who's in these rooms?" asked she.

"Mr. Gallatin," replied Lizzie. "Mr. Vaughan put him in here and moved down to the suite at the Smoke House."

Lizzie's tone indicated that she was assuming Courtney knew all about Mr. Gallatin. That tone put her on guard. "When did he come?" asked she, feeling her way.

"Two weeks ago yesterday. He's very nice. He's as particular as you about his things, but it's a pleasure to look after them."

Had Richard forgotten to tell her he expected this Mr. Gallatin? Or had she, fallen long since into his absent-minded habit, failed to hear as he told her? Was it a chance visit from some college or scientific acquaintance? The character of the stranger's installation—the quantity of clothing—did not speak for a brief chance visit. The quality of the clothing, the taste, the care, the worldly interest and knowledge it suggested, were all against the idea of "B.G.'s" being a devotee of science. At least, if there were such scientists, this was the first she had known of it. After she had changed for the evening, and had given Winchie his supper and sent him to bed, she went into the stranger's quarters again. These personal belongings of his attracted her; they so clearly revealed taste and refinement, a refinement unusual in a man; they so strongly hinted a personality more in sympathy with her own passionate joy in life than with Richard's intellectual abstractions. In the early days of their married life Richard had been rather particular about himself; but he had got more and more indifferent, no longer shaved every day, was at times distinctly slovenly. "B.G. is a bachelor," thought she. "Married men—except those that are at heart bachelors—soon lose this sort of gloss." Usually she had not the faintest interest in anything concerning Richard. But this man interested her.

She was in the sitting room downstairs, playing and singing in an undertone when Richard came. "Hello," said he. And he kissed the cheek she turned to a reachable angle. His manner was as casual as hers. It was their habitual manner, and long had been. The difference between his habit and hers was that his yielded from time to time to the intermittent gusts of desire, while hers remained always tranquilly cool. "Your father's quite all right again?" was his careless first question.

"I hope so. I think so."

He was not merely looking at her now, he was seeing her. His eyes lighted up and into his voice came the wooing note. "Glad you've not dropped into my sloppy ways," said he. He was admiring her pale-green chiffon dress that left the slender column of her throat bare and her forearms, but almost concealed her shoulders. "Gallatin won't think we're altogether barbarians here. He dresses for supper. He's at it now."

His eyes showed that he was not thinking at all of Gallatin, but of her—thoughts which did not leave her entirely indifferent, but gave her an unwonted sense of vague distaste, after her long absence and complete freedom. As he moved toward her she said: "There's time for you to dress. And you need a shave badly. Is he from the East?"

"From Philadelphia by way of Pittsburg. He's been doing a little chemistry in his amateurish way in the mills there. I'd not have him about if I didn't need his money."

Dick was coming on toward her again. "The bell will ring in ten minutes," she reminded him. Perhaps through perverseness, the impulse to evade was a little stronger.

But he came, put his arms round her, kissed her again, this time with undivided attention. She lost the impulse to evade, submitted, smiled amicably, and, to extricate herself, rose. The lines of her dress brought out the perfection of her small, slim figure; its color harmonized with her deep-sea eyes and with the delicate bronze of her skin. "What a beauty you are!" he exclaimed. "No wonder I'm so proud of you."

Usually she was indifferent, without being conscious of it; this evening of her return from freedom to married life she felt her indifference. She said coldly, "If you're going to dress——"

"A shave'll be enough," protested Dick. "Your finery'll more than make up for my absence of it. Bachelors like Gallatin have to sleek themselves up. They've still got their brides to win."

"You'll be late."

"I want you to be extra civil to Gallatin. He's likely to get bored in this quiet place after a few months. He's rather gay, I imagine. At least he used to be. And I don't want him to pull out."

"After a few months," repeated Courtney, interested. "Why, how long is he to stay?"

"A year or so—perhaps longer."

"Here in the house!"

"I can't put him down at the laboratory, so near my secrets. I'm not going to let him in on everything. That's part of our bargain. We're partners, you understand."

"Here in the house!" exclaimed Courtney again. The very idea of an outsider as spectator at what was going on there made her acutely conscious of it, all in an instant.

"Oh, you'll like him—at least, you must for my sake. He doesn't amount to much, but he's agreeable—well mannered—good family—entertaining in a light way."

"There goes the bell."

Dick rushed away to shave. He had been gone but a few moments when Courtney was roused from her agitated reverie by the sense of some one in the room. Near the threshold stood the newcomer, who was to be a factor in her intimate life, a spectator of it, whether she willed or no, for "a year or so—perhaps longer." He was a blond young man, fair and smooth of skin, his hair almost golden. He certainly was not handsome; only his coloring and a pair of frank gray eyes saved him from downright homeliness. As their eyes met, his heavy, conventional face was suddenly transformed by as charming a smile as she had ever seen. He was of about the medium height, his figure neither powerful nor weak. He wore a dinner suit of dark gray, fashionably draped upon him, pumps, gray socks that matched his gray silk tie, a plaited French shirt, an unusually tall, perfectly fitting collar. If he had not been so well and so tastefully dressed, he would have attracted no attention anywhere—unless he had smiled. That smile meant a frank nature, a kind and generous heart—rarities to make their possessor distinguished in whatever company.

Courtney, with woman's swift grasp of surface details, noted all this and more while she was advancing with extended hand and saying, "Mr. Gallatin, is it not?"

He was obviously confused and embarrassed. Her natural, self-unconscious manner encouraged him candidly to explain. "I feel very shy," said he, speaking with a strong Eastern accent, "and very guilty. Shy because, before I came, I had somehow got the impression Vaughan was not married—and that we were to keep bachelor hall. I was astonished to find he had a wife." His eyes added without impertinence that he was amazed and dazzled now that he saw the wife. "I feel guilty," he went on, "because I seem to be thrusting myself in upon you. But Vaughan assured me I'd not be intruding."

"You needn't trouble yourself about that," said she. She liked his accent; it was pleasant as a novelty, and rather amusing. She liked his manners. They were of the best type of conventional manners, the type affected by fashionable people everywhere, the type that is excelled only by the kind of manners of which it is an artful and insincere imitation—the simple manners of those rare self-unconscious people who have the courage—or, rather, the lack of fear—to be natural and spontaneous. "We'll not wait for Richard," she said, as the supper bell rang. "He's got a great deal to do before he can come."

She had just finished the sentence when he entered, exactly as he was when he went out. "I forgot I'd taken all my razors down to the laboratory," he explained.

During supper he and Gallatin talked chemistry; that is, he talked and Gallatin listened—listened and ate. Courtney noted—with increased liking for him—that he had a vigorous appetite and that he liked the things they had to eat. But her thoughts soon wandered away to her gardening, to retouching her plans for bringing the grounds a little nearer her ideal than they had been the summer before. When the men lighted cigars, she went to the veranda to stroll up and down in the moonlight. She forgot everything unpleasant in the delight of being home again. As she looked about her, her heart was singing the nightingale's song. She was startled—and her heart's song was stopped—by the newcomer's voice. "Vaughan's gone to the library," said Gallatin. "Do you mind if I walk with you?"

She did mind very much indeed. She had somehow lost interest in him as soon as he ceased to be the mystery B.G. She liked him well enough, admired his manners, his really delicate tact in what must have been for him an extremely difficult position. But she had got the impression that Dick was right in estimating him as a "don't-amount-to-much." And just now he was distinctly a kill-joy. However, she acquiesced courteously, though with no unnecessary cordiality. She felt that now was the time to get him in the habit of respecting her privacy; she could establish a barrier now, where an attempt to establish it later on would offend him. At best, the barrier would be a poor enough makeshift; he would be bound to see, to make her feel uncomfortable about things she had been able to keep unconscious of or indifferent to. Still, she was far too generous to blame him.

"Do you have much spare time?" she asked, her manner more cordial than if she had not been wishing him out of the house.

"A great deal. Vaughan realizes I'm only an amateur."

"I'll take you over to the club and introduce you. You'll find some very agreeable people."

"Thank you. It has been rather dull these two weeks—especially of evenings."

"I don't see how you had the courage to come."

"I had to," said he, in the curt way in which a young man gives himself the pleasure of hinting a secret he cannot with good taste give himself the pleasure of telling.

She glanced across the lake at the twinkling lamps of the town. "The women over there will fill every minute you give them," said she. "You see, most of our men are busy all day and tired in the evening. You'll be a lion."

"That sounds attractive. I'm amazed at the West. I had no idea civilization was so advanced."

The implied condescension in this amused her. But she merely said: "Oh, I guess the same sort of people are much alike the world over."

The conversation languished through a to her tiresome discussion of differences of accent, dress, manners, and such trifles until he happened to say: "This place of yours here was a revelation to me. I've been talking to Vaughan about it—admiring it. He tells me his grandfather's responsible for it. He must have been an extraordinary man."

"He was," said Courtney, in a queer voice. She glanced out over her creation and the blood burned in her cheeks.

"He'd certainly be proud of the way you keep it up."

Her sense of humor had come to the rescue; besides, vanity was not a dominating emotion with her who had too much else to think about to have much time for thought of self. "I'm fond of gardening," was her placid noncommittal reply to his compliment.

"Yes, Vaughan's grandfather must have been a wonder," Gallatin went on reflectively. He had paused, was leaning on the rail, looking out over the lawns and gardens. "I don't mind confessing to you—if you'll not tell your husband—that I'm a chemist only by profession, with landscape gardening as my real passion."

Courtney glanced at him with interested eyes.

"I know a little something about it," he continued. "I learned long ago in a general way that a personality is always revealed in any work, and I at once looked for the personality in this place. That old man must have been an artist.... I can't reconcile these grounds with the portrait of him in the library."

Courtney was smiling to herself. A thrill of pride and pleasure was running through her. She began to like Basil Gallatin, to feel that he was by no means commonplace, but a man of breadth and artistic instinct, something at least of the man of the big world, not merely the man of the little world of well-cut manners and clothes.

"That portrait is of a stern, narrow man—strong but conventional," he went on, confirming her more sympathetic judgment of him. "This place—the house as well as the grounds—shows a very different individuality. It's feminine and sensuous and poetical. Yes, it's distinctly feminine—and delightfully disdainful of the conventional—of everything and anything 'cut and dried.' I don't mean the details—the things you're probably responsible for—and they're very charming. But I mean the whole conception—so free, so daring, and so lovely. Yet Vaughan tells me that the old gentleman made the plans himself and superintended their carrying out. It's very curious. Don't you think so?"

"I hadn't thought about it."

"You're not interested?"

"Why do you say so?"

"Your tone. I suppose a man is tedious when he gets on his hobby. I noticed you were bored when we were talking chemistry at supper."

"I wasn't bored. I simply wasn't listening."

"You don't like chemistry?"

"I did. But my enthusiasm cooled as I got interested in other things."

Again the conversation languished. She suspected that his opinion of her was rapidly declining. But some instinct withheld her from making any effort whatever to rehabilitate herself. Finally he said: "Well, I guess I've disturbed you long enough. I'll go to my room and read."

"I'm going up myself after I've had a little talk with Nanny about the house."

As soon as he disappeared, she dismissed him from mind with a few pleasant and friendly thoughts—"he may not have any great amount of brains or force, but he certainly has good taste. He will be a distinct addition." When she ascended to her sitting room, perhaps an hour later, she halted on the threshold, coloring with anger. Dick was seated at her center table reading a newspaper; Gallatin was inspecting the books in one of her cases. Dick saw her and said: "Come in. Don't mind us."

Courtney, struggling against her anger at this climax to the impudent intrusion upon her privacy, remained upon the threshold.

Dick's eyes had dropped to his paper. "Gallatin," he went on, "was complaining that the books in the library were too old and solemn. So I brought him here. I knew you'd laid in a stock of the frivolous kinds that grandfather wouldn't have tolerated. Finding what you want, old man?"

When Dick's speaking warned him that Courtney had come, Gallatin had startled guiltily and had hastily put away the book he was examining. But he didn't turn round until Richard directly addressed him. His face was red and his eyes were down. "I feel sleepy," said he awkwardly. "I'll look again some other time if Mrs. Vaughan will let me."

"Certainly," said Courtney, cold as a flower blooming in the heart of a block of ice.

The case into which Gallatin had been delving was filled with works on landscape gardening and interior decoration—modern works. As he almost stumbled from the room he cast a further glance round at the walls—walls covered with the original plans, sketches, and paintings Courtney had made for her revolution in house and grounds—very modern-looking drawings all, and unmistakably feminine. She knew that the newcomer had her secret—all of it—not merely the secret of her authorship, but also, through it, the secret of this loveless married life in which the husband had not the remotest idea who his wife was or what she had done. In passing her on his way out, Gallatin visibly shrank and grew as white as he had been red. She went to the window to compose herself, for her blood was boiling in the greatest rage of her life.

Richard went to close the door after Gallatin, then turned on her. "My dear," said he in his "grandfather" tone, which sometimes amused and sometimes angered her, "you are so cold by nature that you don't realize it, but you were almost insulting to Gallatin."

"I hope so!" cried she, facing him. "How dared you bring him in here without my permission? There are not many women who would have accepted quietly your bringing him to this house to live without a word to me. I wish you to understand you cannot thrust him upon my privacy. I don't allow anyone in this room without my consent. It must not occur again."

"Now—now—my dear," said Dick soothingly. "All that is very unreasonable. Of course, I have the right to do as I please in my own house, and you're too good and too sensible a wife to dispute it."

"I do dispute it!" she cried, her bosom heaving. "This room is—me!"

"What a tempest in a teapot! Child, what has made you take such a sudden dislike to him—and so violent? He isn't worth it—an amiable, well-meaning, commonplace chap. Really, you mustn't act this way. I've told you I need him, and you must be polite to him."

"The impertinent, prying——"

"I brought him here, Courtney," he interrupted, magisterially. "And I repeat, I had the right to do so."

Like most people of sweet and even temperament, she lost all control of herself in this unprecedented rage, where those in the habit of raging learn a sort of etiquette of bad temper. "You had not the right!" she declared, her eyes blazing into his. "And if you ever do such a thing again, I'll make it impossible for him to remain here. Do you understand?"

"I do not quarrel," said Richard with gentle superiority, "especially not with women—with my wife."

"And why not? You call it chivalry. I call it contempt. And I detest it. If you could appreciate how absurd you are, with your antiquated notions of superior and inferior sex, of rights and duties, and all such nonsense!"

Richard was in full armor of masculine patience against feminine folly. "You are beside yourself, my dear. I'll leave you until you are calm and courteous." And he added, as if he were meting out severe but just punishment, "I shall occupy the spare room."

Courtney gave a strange laugh. He turned away, went into her bedroom. Presently he reappeared exclaiming: "Why, where are my pajamas? I told Lizzie to put them in there."

Courtney's smile was of the same quality of strangeness as her laugh of the moment before. "They are in the spare room," said she. "I put them there before I came in here."

He looked puzzled, vaguely discomfited. "Oh—very well." He glanced inquiringly at her, decided against the trivial question he had been about to ask. "Good night." He was again puzzled when what he heard about the location of the pajamas was recalled and made vivid by the sight of them on the turned-down bed in the spare room. But for an instant only. He dismissed the trifle and went to bed and to sleep. Husbands do not bother their heads about the petty feminine eccentricities of wives. The mystery of these transposed pajamas was too petty to detain a masculine mind.

VI

She did not go down to breakfast next morning until Richard and his guest would surely be gone. Her anger against the guest had evaporated because it was clearly unjust. Her anger against Richard was subsiding because it was clearly futile—and also because she hadn't it in her to foster harsh feeling. But there remained a dislike and dread of Gallatin because he had her secret. She could not think with composure of facing him, intolerably her partner in a secret she was ashamed of, was hiding from her husband, was trying to hide from herself. She would be unable to look at him, to remember his existence even, without at the same time having it thrust at her that her married life was a sham, a hypocrisy.

Half an hour before dinner Richard came to her in the big greenhouse she had built back of the library. As the day was warm, all its doors and sashes were open. Richard sent Jimmie's son Bill away and said with agitated abruptness: "Courtney, Gallatin seems determined to take rooms over at the hotel."

"I'm glad of that," replied she. "It's much better." She had not paused in her delicate task of extricating plants from their winter bed and arranging them in a basket for taking into the garden.

"But it's the first step toward going away. He'll never put up with the hotel's discomforts." Her indifference, her inattention made him impatient. "My dear, you don't understand. I need him. I've branched out on the strength of the capital he's supplying and has promised to supply. If he leaves, I'll be in a hole. We'll have to cut down in every direction, for I simply can't abandon my new plans."

"I don't like him," said Courtney. She had abruptly stopped work, was leaning against the frame facing him. "I want him out of the house."

Dick took the tone of gentle, forbearing remonstrance. "It's too late to change him to the Smoke House. He feels your dislike—is eager to get away. If there were any ground for dislike, I'd say nothing. As it is, I— I don't like to assert authority, but your frivolous whimsicality makes it necessary. I want you at once to convince him that you wish him to stay."

"But I don't." Her voice showed that those brief words were all she could trust to it.

"You do, since I wish it."

"Why should I consider what you wish? When have you considered what I wish?"

"When have I been inconsiderate of what was for your good?"

She was silent—silenced, he thought. His handsome face and his voice were gentle; but underneath there was sternness in both as he said: "You'll not oppose me in this. It'd be a very severe strain upon my love for you, if I found you so contemptuous of my interests. I'm sure you'll not risk that strain."

She saw into what an impossible position her anger had hurried her. Usually women, through playing upon the husband's passions and weaknesses generally, get enough control over him to be able to maintain—with only an occasional slight lapse—the pleasant fiction that they are of full human rank. They take care to avoid such crises as was this. Courtney, by long keeping away from the bars of her cage, had been lured into believing her pretense that they were not there. She now found herself bleeding and exhausted against them. "Very well," said she, after a moment's silence. It had taken her quick mind only a moment to see the alternatives—submission or a clash in which she could not but be defeated. "I'll try to get him to stay." Her voice was low and broken, but not from anger. Deeper than the sense of Richard's tyranny burned the humiliating sense of her servitude. In fact, her own plight so mortified her that she had no emotional capacity for raging against him as the author of it. She felt, as always in these sex conflicts, that the fault was not his, but fate's; he was simply playing his part as man, she her part as woman.

"That's a good girl," cried her approving husband, kissing her brow. It did not occur to him, the deep-down reason of sordidness that enabled him to compel; but she could think of nothing else. "Be sweet to him," Dick went on, in an amiable, petting tone. "And you may rest assured, dear, I'll get rid of him as soon as I can. I don't like intruders into our happiness any more than you do."

Her cheeks flushed, and she turned again to the frame, to resume her digging. Her whole body to her finger tips was in a tremor.

Through dinner she was silent and cold; Gallatin hardly lifted his gaze from his plate. Whenever Richard could catch her eye, he frowned and glanced significantly at Gallatin. But her eyes met his hints with a vacant look that made him twitch in his chair with nervousness and exasperation. As soon as Gallatin in politeness could, he excused himself and left the family of three alone.

Richard, unmindful of Winchie, burst out, "What's the meaning of this?

"You must let me humble myself in my own way," said Courtney coldly. "Come, Winchie." And the two went out on the lawn.

As Gallatin a few minutes later issued from the front door with Richard, she called: "Oh, Mr. Gallatin, I want to speak to you a moment."

He halted. The color flared into his face. Richard said, "I'll go on. You needn't hurry," and strode along the path into the eastern shrubbery. Gallatin hesitatingly crossed the grass. Winchie, who had on first sight taken an instinctive dislike to him, held a fold of Courtney's walking skirt and glowered like a small but very fierce storm.

"Go to the veranda, Winchie," said his mother.

The boy released his hold and reluctantly obeyed. Gallatin stood before her like a prisoner arraigned for sentence. "Richard tells me you're talking of moving to the hotel over in town," said she.

"Yes, I'm going to-morrow."

"Because you feel I want you out of the house?"

"I think a man in my position couldn't help being an intruder."

"I want you to stay."

His fair skin paled. "I thank you," said he, "but I must go."

"I want you to stay. I ask you to stay."

"That's very kind. I appreciate it. But I really must go."

"I did wish you to go. But now I sincerely wish you to stay."

Their eyes met. She was as pale as her bronze complexion permitted. She went on, her deep, clear voice steady, "If you go, you'll put me in a very painful position."

Gallatin looked at her, flushed, looked hastily away. In a voice of intense embarrassment he said: "I've another reason for wishing to go. It's even stronger than the knowledge that you're—very naturally—displeased at my being forced upon you."

"Oh," said Courtney, baffled. Then, "Please tell Richard what it is."

"I cannot." His gaze was on the ground now.

Somehow Courtney was liking him better. As he glanced up, her eyes met his. "Be frank with me," she urged winningly. "Is it because you dislike it here?"

"No." His gaze was wandering again. "No, indeed."

"I'm glad of that," said she. "Do you believe me when I say I wish you to stay?"

He lowered his eyes, remained silent.

"If I were free to choose, I would wish you to go," she went on, speaking with the utmost deliberation. "I am not free. So, I wish you to stay because it will be most unpleasant for me if you persist in going. I venture to ask you, if it is not too great a sacrifice, to stay on—at least, for the present. But if you still say you must go, I shall not misjudge."

"I'll stay," was his prompt response. "Gladly." And his tone and eyes were sincere.

"Thank you," said she simply.

He looked at her with an appeal that was very engaging. "I know you'll hate me for having created this situation."

"I thought I did a few minutes ago," replied she. "Now, I feel I don't. I feel I'd like to be friends with you—" Her small, sweet face lit up with a faint smile—"since we can't be enemies."

"You mean that?" he asked with an eagerness that sounded only the more eager for his effort to restrain it.

"Indeed, I do," replied she. "Will you help me with the gardening—when you have time?"

"There's nothing I'd like so well."

"Then—it's all settled?"

"Quite."

They smiled gravely; they shook hands; they laughed. "And a little while ago I was thinking I never could forgive you!" exclaimed she gayly. "Now I'm wondering what on earth there was to forgive." And she felt and looked very well acquainted with him. It was part of her upright-downright nature either to like thoroughly or to be so indifferent that she was little short of oblivious.

Before her generous friendliness the laughter died out of his face. "I'll try to be worthy of your friendship and your trust," said he gravely.

"That sounds mysterious—somehow."

"Does it? ... When may I help you?"

"Whenever you can get off. Soon?"

"To-morrow, I think."

"That's good."

"I'll join Vaughan." He hesitated, blushed. "He knows you were to ask me to stay?"

"Yes. But not how," was her calm answer.

"I understand." Their eyes met. He colored; but her expression, sweet and grave, did not change. As he went Winchie, seated morosely afar off on the veranda steps, scowled at his back.

That evening Richard said: "Well, I think he's going to stay. How did you manage it?"

"I've asked him to help me with the gardening. He's fond of it."

"A good idea," approved Richard. "I'll back you up."

She gazed silently out over the unruffled lake, so peaceful, so suggestive of peace unchanging, endless—the lazy, graceful sails—beyond, the town among its trees, lights coming out as the dusk gathered.

But their friendship, thus auspiciously begun, did not prosper. Gallatin almost pointedly avoided her. He helped her only when Richard, disturbed from time to time by his unrelaxed reserve, urged him to take a day or an afternoon off "and amuse yourself with the flowers, since you like that sort of thing." If it had not been that occasionally in talking or working at the gardening he seemed to forget his solemn and formal pose and showed unmistakable enthusiasm, she would have thought his profession of interest a pretense. She had a peculiar horror of gloom—doubtless born of the austerity of her bringing up. There was in her circumstances only too much to discourage her natural brightness, and she had within herself a struggle as incessant as that against weeds and destructive insects in her gardens. She had no desire to make this struggle harder; so she saw as little of him as she in courtesy could—the only course open to her, since she did not know him well enough to try to help him.

"What's the matter with Gallatin?" Richard asked her one day. "He says he likes it here and is going to stay, yet he acts as if he were revolving something different. He used to be full of fun and life. Now he's enough to give anyone the blues."

"He is rather heavy," admitted Courtney.

"I wonder if it's the booze," said Richard reflectively.

"The booze?"

"He always drank a lot more than was good for him. And there in Pittsburg he got to lapping it up like the get-rich-quick crowd he traveled in. That was why he wanted to come here—to break off and take a fresh start. I suppose he's gloomy because he's fighting his taste for rum."

"Probably," said Courtney.

Drink was a vice she could not comprehend—and we always are unsympathetic toward the vices we do not comprehend. She associated drinking and stupidity; the Wenona men who drank to excess were the dull ones, like Shirley Drummond. When Richard thus disclosed to her what Gallatin had meant by his mysterious hint as to his reason for coming to Wenona, she lost the interest in him started by his fine frank way of meeting her advances and his appreciation of her work. She recalled his other mysterious hint—about there being a hidden reason for his wishing to go. "No doubt," thought she, "he meant he's finding it hard to keep straight here, where it's so quiet. I wish now that he'd gone—though, when a man can give way to such a dull, dirty habit as drunkenness, he'd find excuse anywhere."

As the mail came in the middle of the morning and the middle of the afternoon, she saw it first. Thus, she noted that about once a week there was for him a foreign letter so heavy that it carried several stamps. These letters were from the same person, the same woman. And as the writing was large, rapid, and affectedly angular, she more than suspected that the woman was young. Somewhat tardily these facts, obvious though their leading was, wove together in her mind, incurious about other people's affairs; she knew that there was traveling abroad a young woman who taking the trouble to write their guest regularly and at great length. But when she happened to recall that he had a young married sister, she assumed the letters were from her.

One day he casually said that his sister had taken a house at Bar Harbor for the summer. The moment he said this, she for some unknown reason, or for no reason at all, jumped to the conclusion that his depressed state was due to the lady of the letters—to her being so far away—perhaps to some difficulty in their love—the objection of her parents to his drinking habit.

All was now clear to her. And thenceforth she looked at him with deep sympathy. He was not handsome; his mouth, for example, was so heavy that it flatly gave the lie to his idealist, poetic eyes. His nose was not good, was too small for a man's face. Somewhere there lurked a suggestion of weakness, and this was not lessened by his attention to dress—though she liked his clothes and his way of wearing them. He was far from her ideal of a man. But the longer one knew him, the better one thought of him, chiefly because the more confidence one had in his essential generosity and kindness. And she felt that he had capacity for tenderness of a very manly sort, and for appreciation of love and of all the beautiful things; just the kind of nature fate seemed to delight in making the sport of its maliciousness.

One night, in the pensive mood to which she sometimes yielded for an hour, she was at the piano softly playing; and singing that saddest of sad love's songs:

"Alas for lovers! Pair by pair

The wind has swept them all away—

The young, the yare; the fresh, the fair—

Where are the snows of yesterday?"

Through the window she saw him leaning against a pillar of the veranda. His profile was outlined clear against the luminous dusk. Its expression made her voice die altogether in a sob. She forgot her own sense of fleeting wasting youth, of supreme joy forever denied, of love never to be hers. This sorrow before her in those profiled features—they were strong features now—was no vague dream, but a living reality. She longed to go to him and try to console him; and at the same time, no matter how well she had known him, she could not have gone—for in that unsuspected strength of his there was the hopelessness that is beyond consolation. From that time he was the foremost figure in her thoughts; and her fancy put its own color into everything he said and did. If he had begun to drink she would have been only the more sympathetic; for, she could comprehend how unhappy love might drive its victim to any excess—were not her own longings, for three years now latent except for an occasional outburst, once more throbbing and aching day and night?

It was part of her routine to make a careful tour every day to see that everything was up to the mark. One day, in their guest's sitting room, she happened to see half fallen from the stationery rack a letter from his foreign correspondent. It was apparently unopened. The shock of this made her take a second look before she realized how she was intruding upon his sacred privacy. But she had seen; the letter was indeed unopened. And she knew that the last come of these letters had been at least three days in his possession.

Her heart ached for him; she felt she understood. His love affair had been going more and more badly—his increasing silence and sadness made that certain. And this letter must contain some news he dared not read—some words that meant the burial of his dead hope. She went downstairs with a heavy heart, and out into the sunshine—out to the rose garden in the western part of the grounds. She had been dreaming all along that this romance of which she was unsuspected, deeply moved spectator would surely "come out all right." Life did not always mock the story books. Love was not always sad, not always mere deceptive echo of one's own heart call—echo that flitted mockingly on as one pursued. No; this love that meant so much to him would prove real. Such had been her dream. Now— The flowers, their perfume, the gay birds, the sunbeams—all the sights and sounds she loved seemed tricks of a black enchanter. She remembered the day they buried her little brother. There had been just such radiant glory as this. She remembered the day she had seen that her own dream of love was dead. There had been just such sunshine and music and perfume. How could anyone with a human heart even for a moment laugh, jest? To be light was to make oneself party to this cruel levity of bird and flower and sunbeam. Laugh, when loved ones were dying somewhere—and the living were bending over dead faces with cracking hearts? Jest, when the winds of time and change were blowing love and lovers all away?

She caught her breath in a kind of terror when, on her return to the house, Lizzie told her that Mr. Gallatin had dashed in, had packed a bag, and had rushed off to Chicago. "He has business there," Richard explained at dinner. "And I've asked him to buy some stuff for the laboratory." She was uneasy, at times unhappy, throughout the following week, as she thought of him trying to rid himself of his too heavy burden. Probably he was dissipating—she hoped he was, if it would give him relief. She began to debate whether she ought not to tell Richard what she had accidentally discovered, and suggest that he go to Chicago to help his friend, who might have fallen ill or worse. At dinner and at supper, even at breakfast, where she had seen him only occasionally, she positively missed Gallatin. Until he came, the time spent at table had been the stupidest part of each day—Richard and she in silence or abstraction, or exchanging disconnected commonplaces about the weather, the food, their friends. While Gallatin was far from lively, still he and she had talked—usually about gardening and plants, the difficulties and mysteries of inducing things to grow, the comparative merits of various species for flowering and for hardiness—not exciting conversation, but interesting, a relief to a monotony the dreariness of which she did not appreciate until he came—and went.

On the eighth day, as they were at supper, he appeared unexpectedly on the threshold. There was no forcing in the cordiality of her smile. At first glance, she suspected that he was in much better spirits. And this impression was soon confirmed. Certainly good news—the best—must have reached him in Chicago. Otherwise he could not sit there eating heartily, laughing, making amusing remarks, telling funny incidents of the trip. Courtney tried to continue to feel delighted that he had found surcease from sorrow. But her spirits went steadily down. She felt horribly alone. She had been company for him in his unhappiness—though he did not know it. Now, she quite unreasonably felt as if he had deserted her. She was ashamed of this, so ungenerous, so selfish, but she could not help it.

After supper Richard left them alone; they went out on the veranda—out where the full beauty of that place, now at summer's climax, could be seen in the soft sunset light. She stood watching a belated bird, a tall white sail—listening to the faint sounds of the town that came tinkling across the water. But she was thinking of the man beside her. "You've been enjoying yourself in Chicago," said she.

"No," was his unexpected answer. "I've been impatient to get back." He glanced round at trees and lawns, gardens and shrubbery, with delighted eyes. "I had to go away, to appreciate how well off I was." He went to the edge of the veranda to get a broader sweep. He seemed to be noting, reveling in, every detail. He drew a deep breath, returned to the big lounge chair, and lit a cigarette. "Yes," continued he. "Yes—I didn't dream it, or imagine it. It's all true. It's all here." Without looking at her: "And you happen to be wearing the same dress you had on the evening I came. Now, don't tell me you made it—as you've made those gardens and these rooms."

"I superintend," said Courtney, thinking him a pleasant and agreeable, if deplorably shallow person. "I'm not one of those dreadful original women who get up their own awful costumes, and think they're individual because they're different."

"If you lived in Paris, you'd set the styles," declared he. "And you're equally good at gardening and decorating houses."

"That's laid on with the trowel," laughed she. "But I like it." She returned to the subject that fitted her thoughts. "You're much livelier than when you went away; I'm sure you've had good news."

"No—nothing. I simply took myself in hand." He reflected in silence, then lifted his head and looked at her with a boyish simplicity and candor. "You see," he proceeded to explain, "I've had something on my mind ever since I came—that is, almost ever since—something that was my own affair entirely. And I let it prey on me—made myself a nuisance and a bore, I've no doubt."

There was a gleam of mischievous humor in her eyes as she nodded assent and said: "You were solemner than I thought a human being could be."

"Precisely. Well, that's over. As I said before, I didn't realize how well off I was, how much I had to be thankful for, as the pious people say. I do realize it. And I'm going to behave myself."

Courtney felt she ought to be scandalized by this vanishing of the last solemn tatters of the tragic romance she had woven about him; for it was clear as the lake that he had gotten over his bereavement in that one brief week, had gotten over it entirely. But somehow she was not scandalized; was, on the contrary, taking quite cheerfully this confirmation of his fickleness, of his incapacity for deep emotion. After all, wasn't that the best way to be? Wasn't he perhaps philosopher rather than shallow changeling? Wasn't he simply exemplifying the truth that fire burns out, that the dead are forgotten, that life leans always at the bow of the ship, never at the stern? She, eager to escape from her own shadows and thorns, slipped easily into his mood. "I should say you did have a lot to be thankful for!" answered she. "And you'll soon forget her." She colored at her slip. "I assume it was a love affair," she hastened to add. "We women always do."

"Yes, it was."

"You'll get over it."

"I do not wish to get over it." He was not smiling back at her. She felt his thoughts traveling over land and sea, into Europe, whence came those letters—there were two of them waiting on his desk upstairs. "I do not wish to get over it," he repeated. "I've learned—" His voice, full of earnest young seriousness, sounded as if he were thinking aloud rather than talking to her—"I've learned there's a love deeper than the love that demands—a love that appreciates where it dares not aspire—a love that asks nothing but just silently to love."

There was a long silence, broken by the snapping of the match, as he lit a cigarette. She startled, rose, and leaned against a pillar. With eyes half veiled by her long lashes she watched the gardens wane dreamily in the evening light. She inhaled the odors of rose, of lilac, of jasmine, of honeysuckle—perfumes so sweet that they were sad. How cruelly she had misjudged him! She felt a kind of reverence for him now, him with this nobility of soul so unconscious, so lofty. Here was a man worth a woman's while. "Why couldn't I have had such a love as he is giving?" she thought. "Oh, if she had learned what I've learned!"

"Come into the sitting room, Gallatin," called Richard from that direction.

Gallatin went, and for a few minutes Courtney heard, in intervals between her thoughts, snatches of the talk between the two men about the shopping Gallatin had done for the laboratory—talk about a new crusher, about a promising bomb calorimeter. After a while came in Vaughan's voice, "Courtney, what do you think of that?"

She stood in the window with an inquiring glance.

"I've been telling Gallatin you're going to introduce him round among the Wenona girls. And he says he has no use for women."

"I!" exclaimed Basil. "On the contrary, I think women—a woman—the most important element in a man's life."

Richard laughed. "Why, the man's in love!" cried he.

Courtney saw Gallatin wince as his wound was struck by this careless, jovial hand.

"Only a lover," proceeded Dick, "would exaggerate woman in that frenzied fashion. To live isn't to love. It's to do—to achieve."

"I don't agree with you," said Gallatin. "Love's the center—the mainspring—the purpose—the meaning."

"You ought to have been a woman."

"Why not?" retorted Gallatin. Courtney saw that Dick had irritated him. "In one respect I envy women. A woman knows whether or not a man loves her. A man can only hope and believe." And he glanced swiftly at her.

He looked confused, frightened, as her expression showed that she, the married woman, the lovelessly married woman, understood. She turned away abruptly, two bright red spots burning in her cheeks.

"Well," said the unobserving Richard to Gallatin, "I confess I don't grasp your meaning. But it doesn't matter. A good woman loves her husband, and he knows it. The rest's of no consequence. We must get him a wife, Courtney. He'd make an ideal husband, don't you think?"

"A good wife does not think," said Courtney.

Richard was amused. "But if she did?" he persisted.

"Then she'd probably think it fortunate for husbands that wives aren't independent."

Vaughan again looked puzzled. "That sounds as irrelevant as what Gallatin said a minute ago. Now will you tell us, what has it to do with what we were talking about?"

"I don't know," replied she. And she did not. She was astonished before this apparition of a thought she had not been conscious of having definitely in mind since that conversation with her mother long ago; and here it was popping up as if it were her constant companion. "It just came into my head," she went smilingly on. "You know we women are irresponsible, irrational beings, and so we don't think straight or talk connectedly."

She said good night, went up to her apartment. She was wishing now that Gallatin had not told her about this love of his for the woman across the seas. It had made her discontented—unhappy. It had compelled her to think what a patchwork of makeshifts her own life was. "Yet I ought to be contented. Haven't I Winchie? And I can't even complain of poor health or discomfort of any kind. I don't deserve my good fortune. Other women would envy me." No, they would not. She saw in remembered faces of women friends the same discontent she was hiding in her heart. A woman—a woman grown—craved more than material comfort could give, more than work or play, however interesting, more than motherhood could give—craved that grown-up, equal love without which life was like a wonderful watch with a broken mainspring. She thought of Basil Gallatin again. At least she was more fortunate than he. Suppose she, like him, loved and it were not returned. Then indeed would her heart ache.

When she saw him alone next day, she said shyly and with color high: "It seems to me you can't have told her—told her as you told me. Won't you go to her—not write, but go—and try again? Believe me, Mr. Gallatin, women appreciate love—at least, any woman who could inspire the love you give her. And if she knew, she'd love you—she couldn't help it."

She feared she had intruded. But when he at last spoke, his tone was not the tone of one who is offended. "Thank you, thank you," he stammered. "But— I assure you it's hopeless. She is not for me."

"Oh!" Courtney shrank. "She cares for some one else. I—I'm so sorry I spoke. I——"

"No—no," he said; "it was friendly. It was—like you."

This began their real friendship. And she needed friendship just then. What he had told her put her in a mood where all her occupations were in vain, and all the wisdom she had gathered from books and from thinking about things as they are, and all the patiently, slowly acquired stoicism of the matrimonial routine. Her heart was clamoring as it had not since those first months of her discovery that love was delusion and that she must learn to live without it. She wished Gallatin had not told her; she wished he had never come. And at the same time she felt that through the sadness he had brought there had come into her life a pleasure she would not wish to give up—the sympathy between him and her, based on their knowledge each of the other's secret. She felt very proud of his confidence, of his friendship. Also, there was the fascination that always issues from a great emotion, even though it be seen but in mimic on the stage. This great emotion of his was a vivid actuality. It made a smile upon his features heroism; it made a look of sadness tragedy.

He helped her in the gardens often now. Richard, making some secret experiments, did not want him at the laboratory. Sometimes he and she worked together at changing color schemes or improving mass effects or vistas. Again each worked alone, perhaps at some surprise for the other. It was after a morning of hard labor in opposite ends of the grounds that she said when they met at the house: "Richard's not coming up, so Nanny has to take him his dinner. And Lizzie's away and Mazie not well. I'll wait on you."

"Let's have a picnic," suggested he, "out under that big elm."

And with Winchie helping they carried everything to the rustic table and proceeded to have one of those happy-go-lucky meals that make the blue devils put their tails between their legs and fly away on their forks. Winchie, let eat what he pleased, forgot his dislike of Gallatin—at least so far that he only frowned occasionally as Gallatin and Courtney talked the most hopeless nonsense with the keenest pleasure. When Basil's face was animated it was never homely; when he smiled it was always handsome. For the first time since he came he lost all constraint, and the sparkle of girlhood came back to her. They stayed out there nearly three hours, and it seemed no time at all. Nanny, sour and scowling at the impropriety of such conduct in a married woman—one married into the ancient and rigid house of Vaughan—took away the dishes and linen. But the hint so plain in her dour looks went unnoted. It was a shower that broke up the party, sent them scurrying to the house, he carrying furious and protesting Winchie. She punished Winchie for his rudeness by sending him up to his bedroom to sit alone and think down his temper.

"You oughtn't to have done that," said Basil, when the boy, defiant even in obedience, disappeared.

"It's the only way to make him remember. And I can't whip him. I'm too selfish, even if I didn't know it was equally degrading to him."

"He can't help not liking me," persisted Basil. "We're not to blame for our likes and dislikes."

"No. But we are to blame for giving way to them." She was arranging freshly cut flowers in vases and jars in the sitting room.

"Yes, for giving way to them," said Basil thoughtfully, after a long time.

"To what?" asked Courtney, who had forgotten.

"Our feelings."

"Oh, I remember."

"You're right about that." Basil was speaking with an effort. "For example, if a man were to—to fall in love with a married woman, he'd be a—miserable cur if he told her. Those last few words came explosively.

"Gracious!" Courtney beamed mischievously at him from behind a gorgeous spread of half blown roses. "You are fierce! Well, that's settled. If he heard you, he'd never dare tell her."

She saw his face, and it flashed over her that it was a married woman he loved. Yes, of course! Why had she not guessed it at once! And he was saying these harsh things to make it impossible for himself to yield to the impulse. The smile left her eyes. He was at the window with his back to her. She looked tender sympathy. "Poor boy!" she thought. "And I saw to-day how happy he could be, and how happy he could make a woman.... Perhaps she does love him. What a sorrow that would be! And utterly hopeless!"

He turned abruptly. "Will you be my friend?"

She came straight up to him, put out her hand. "Indeed I will," she said.

He took her hand, pressed it. Then he drew back with his hands behind him. "You are a good woman," he said. "Good through and through. I want you to help me fight a battle I'm having just now. I thought I'd won it. I haven't. But I will!"

"I understand, I think. It is hard. But you are strong and honorable. You— The woman— She is already—" She paused, looked at him inquiringly.

"Yes—God help me!" he cried, turning away.

His cry could not have reached a more responsive heart. After a pause she said: "If she doesn't love you, it'd be useless to tell her."

"Worse! It would mean I was a cur."

"And if she does love you, it'd be wicked to tell her—to add to her unhappiness."

"If you were in my place— Suppose I could be with her—could go and live near her——"

"Oh, no; you oughtn't to do that! You ought to spare yourself and her that."

"But suppose," he urged eagerly, "suppose she didn't care for me—never would—and I could keep my secret——"

"But you couldn't! And she might grow to care."

He sat in a big chair by the window, stared moodily at the floor. "It seems to me I can't do that!" he said at last. "I don't love her as men usually love. She means infinitely more to me than that. And, loving her as I do, I'm in no danger of telling her. And it would make me almost happy so much of the time, and a better man—yes, a better man—to be near her. What you say I ought to do—it's like turning a man out into the desert without food or drink—to wander—on and on——"

"I know, I know," she interrupted, her small, sweet face all tenderness and distress. "Oh, I'm not competent to advise. You mustn't ask anyone. You must do what you think is right."

"Right!" he echoed forlornly.

She who had eaten of the husks that went by the name of right hadn't the heart to urge them on him. She returned to the table, to the arranging of the flowers. Without looking up he went on: "I haven't told you quite all. There's another thing. I—I'm engaged."

"Engaged!"

"Don't look at me that way. I can feel it, though I'm not seeing. You can't think less of me than I think of myself. But let me tell you. The girl's a distant cousin of mine. And her grandfather, who was crazy about families, left her a fortune on condition that she married me. He left an equal sum to me on condition that I marry her. But there's this difference: What he left her is all she'd have—every cent. I've got enough without his legacy to me."

"And you— Oh, it's dreadful, isn't it?"

"We're not in love—not in the least. But I've given her my promise, and she'd be penniless if I broke it. She's nineteen. We've got till she's twenty-one. She's abroad now."

"The letters I've seen in the mail—they're from her?"

"From her," replied he. "How can I marry when I love another woman?"

"I see," said Courtney. She was sitting now, her hands full of roses and listless in her lap. "Then you've no more right to love this woman than she has to love you.... Oh, I don't know what to say!"

"Don't think I'm trying to shift part of my burden to you. I'm not. But I felt if I could talk it out loud with some one who was sympathetic I'd see the way better. And I do." The expression of his eyes thrilled her; it was so manly, so honest, so resolved.

"What have you decided—if you don't mind telling me?"

"To go to Starky—-that's my cousin—her real name's Estelle, but she detests it—I'll go to her and we'll marry."

"No—no!" cried Courtney. "Whatever's right, that isn't. Oh, you don't know. She has a right to love. You're cheating her—cheating her!"

"But I can never give her that."

"You may——"

"Never!"

Courtney shook her head slowly, lifted the roses, buried her face in them, inhaled their perfume deeply. "Then—you mustn't marry her," she said.

"You don't know her. She cares for money—the things money buys—more than for anything else in the world. It's the way we bring 'em up in the East.

"Believe me," cried Courtney, solemn in her earnestness, "that's not true. There isn't any woman anywhere who doesn't put love first. Go to your cousin—yes. But go and try to love her."

His eyes suddenly blazed upon her. "Love her after—" he began impetuously. He reddened, his head sank. "After the woman I—" He muttered confusedly, "I can't talk about it," and hastily left the room by the door-window nearest him.

She sighed sympathetically, rose, moved slowly toward the vase she had only half finished. Midway she halted. That look of his had just penetrated to her. "Oh!" she gasped. And she wheeled round and stared with blanching cheeks, as if he were still standing there before her with his secret betrayed in his eyes. "Oh!" she repeated under her breath. How her mistaken romancings about his sadness had misled her woman's instinct! For now, like steel filings round a magnet, a swarm of happenings since he came ranged round that telltale look of his—where they belonged.

VII

Basil was last in to supper, came with his nervousness plain in his features. His uneasy glance at her met a smile of ingenuous friendliness that could not but reassure. Richard was there, absent-minded as usual, and unconscious of them both. They were unconscious of him also, Basil no less so than she, for he had long since acquired the habit of the household. No one spoke until Richard, having finished, lighted a cigarette and fell to explaining to Basil an experiment he had made that day. He was full of it, illustrated his points with diagrams drawn on the yellow pad which was never far from his hand. Courtney, relieved of the necessity of trying to look natural before Basil, was able to turn her thoughts again to the subject that had been occupying her steadily from the moment she discovered his secret.

If Gallatin could have seen into her mind, he would have been as nearly scandalized as it is possible for an infatuated, unsatisfied lover to be. For even where a man feels he himself has the right to revolt against exasperating musts and must nots of conventional morality, he is unusual indeed if he honestly approves any such revolt, however timid, in a woman. Man is the author and guardian of that morality; in the division of labor he has imposed upon woman the duty of being its exemplar. Thus, though human, she must pretend not to be; she must stifle if possible, conceal at any cost, her human fondness for the free and the frank. For Courtney there was double attraction in this love of Basil's—because it was love for her and because she was lonely—how lonely she had never realised until now. There is the loneliness of physical solitude, the loneliness for company—and a great unhappiness it is, especially to those who approach the lower animals in lack of resources within themselves. Courtney had never suffered from this; she had never cared for "just people." Then there is the loneliness of soul solitude, the loneliness for comradeship—and who suffers from this suffers torment. It may lull, but it will surely rage again, and it will never cease until it is satisfied or the heart itself ceases to beat. This was the loneliness of Courtney Vaughan. "If he," thought she, "were bad, and I, too—no, perhaps not exactly bad, but—well, different—less—less conscientious—how happy we might be! That is, of course, if I cared for him—or could make myself believe I did—which is impossible." She lingered over this impossible supposition as over a sweet, fantastic dream. She dropped it and turned away, only to return to it. And thinking of it filled her with the same tender sadness she got from love stories and love songs. "I would not if I could, I could not if I would, but—" Love! Into the silence of that void in her life had come a sound. It was the right word, but not the right voice. Still, there was joy in the right word. And she would not have been human had she bent other than kindly eyes and kindly thoughts upon the man who pronounced that word of words. Long since—from her first notion that he was hiding a romantic secret—his real self had begun to receive from her imagination the transfiguring veil of illusion. The discovery that she herself was the secret certainly did not make the veil thinner. A strong imagination flings out this beautiful, trouble-making drapery always; not quite so eagerly if there has been sad warning experience, but none the less inevitably. It would be many a day, if ever, before Courtney could again see Basil Gallatin as he was in reality.

As she sat there, silent, all but oblivious of her immediate surroundings, she was awakened by hearing him say, in reply to something from Richard: "But I'm afraid I'll have to—to change my plans—and—go away." It was said hesitatingly, with much effort.