Front matter (continued 2)

She turned her head, and caught sight of the tray, and gave a shriek of delight. She called to Martha, who lay asleep on her bed-like device at the other end of the room, curled up like a child, not even a sheet over her. And Martha, sitting up in flesh-colored voile pajamas on the edge of the bed, stretching, yawning, pink and sweet, began:

"Oh, you rare lamb, mother! Isn't she a gem, Eve? No wonder dad says she spoils me! Where did you get them?" Eve had put a low table at Martha's side, and seated herself on the other side of it. But Emily maturely sought out the chair that was kept in the room as a concession to her dislike of floor cushions. She sat watching them gobble daintily, chattering away. Martha, who had made herself comfortable against a pile of cushions, her knees drawn up, and the saucer balancing on them, began wiggling her toes. She hadn't outgrown that infant habit yet, Emily enjoyed noticing. How she had watched this child's awakening with an impulse of delight every day, almost from her first week, till this morning, when she woke even yet delicately rosy and vividly red-lipped. Poor old Bob never got any fun out of it. Martha had disturbed him by waking too early, for years, and now she annoyed him by sleeping too late. But Emily wouldn't stop to sigh long over that, not these few summer mornings when she could enjoy it, now that the child was grown, and away months together. And just then Martha almost unconsciously bestirred herself and with the saucer in one hand and the spoon in the other, almost without ceasing to feed herself, went and pulled down a blind to shut the glare of the sunshine away from that rug of hers that tended to look too violently cerise. The girl, it seemed, couldn't sit up in bed eating berries for breakfast without thinking how the room might look if she should change it just a little.

It sobered Emily to see the ancestry driving her defenseless daughter hither and thither like a slave. Would it not be ironical, now, if this girl "turned out" like that aunt whom Emily's childhood had so futilely resented! It seemed to Emily that never in her young days had that house been free a week from the sound of hammers or the smell of paint. She had wondered, sometimes, in her maturity, whether she turned instinctively away from the thought of "improving" her house because she had so continually in her childhood revolted against her aunt, or whether it was simply laziness that made her tolerate any closet shelf, however inconvenient, rather than bestir herself to alter it. Since she had inherited the house, it had had peace. She had merely kept it in repair, and tolerated the electric devices with which Bob filled it. But now, looking at Martha, she saw again all her aunt's zeal for change overflowing again.

She had not suspected the child of any such constructive inclinations until one day of the last Christmas vacation. They had been talking carelessly together, when suddenly she had heard:

"Do you know what I'm going to do the first thing, mammie, as soon as I get my money?"

That was a question naturally never far from Emily's mind then, because in fifteen months Martha would be twenty, and, according to the terms of her great-aunt's will, she would then receive the first monthly installment of an income of nearly four thousand dollars. Emily had hated that will when she first heard its terms, because it had been drawn up, she understood, so as to keep the least control of the money away from Bob Kenworthy. Exactly what grounds her aunt had had for these suspicions, Emily never knew. She could have discovered only by asking her husband, and it was the very essence of her character that she would not ask him. The very vagueness of that suspicion had been a wound that years of Bob's respectability and kindness had healed. He had not complained about the will at first—Emily had wondered why he had not. Did he not dare? But now that the child had grown up, without much regard for him, he thought it outrageous that that old woman should have made her independent of him. Emily herself, who loved ease with all her heart, who was no manager, in the local sense of the term, had tried faithfully to prepare her daughter to use her money wisely—if not wisely, exactly, at least not too foolishly at first. So when Martha brought up the subject, her mother had asked her once, curiously:

"What will be the first thing you do with it?"

"I'll chuck all that junk out of my bedroom and do it all over."

Emily had been shocked, but she had to smile presently; for wasn't that the very thing she had done first herself, when she had returned to the house after her aunt's death? To be sure, she had later brought down from the attic the old pieces she had especially hated in her childhood. But she remembered with what joy she had stored them away, how she had taken off shutters, and thrown away faded carpets, and gloried in rugs. But Martha's was rather unreasonable, for her bedroom Emily had furnished only six years ago, and most daintily. She had given Martha some of the best things in the house; a dear little chest of drawers that had been before in the spare room, and two little old tables, and gone to great pains to get a bed to suit them. And Martha now had called it "junk"!

"What sort of furniture would you get?"

"Oh mother—it doesn't matter." Martha was apologetic. "You wouldn't let me, anyway."

"How do you know I wouldn't?" Emily had retorted. "I don't know that I'm so tyrannical!"

"I never said you were any such thing. But you know, mother, you'd just sort of persuade me to get what you liked."

"Why Martha! Maybe I would let you get what you wanted!"

Martha went on with the subject hesitatingly. She spoke wistfully, but without hope.

"I'd throw all that junk out and paint it all over. I'd do the floor a nice dull bluey purple—

"A purple floor?"

"Yes. And the woodwork I'd do all creamy yellow, like good fresh butter, or a sort of sea green."

"But, Martha, that floor's oak!"

"Oak takes paint."

"Mine doesn't."

"But I'm just saying what I would do if it was mine. I knew you wouldn't let me. I'd get a little pine chest made, to paint just like my little old one. Oh, wouldn't I love to do it, though! The girls have such lovely rooms, mother. You ought to see Grace Richmond's. It's all vermilion and blue. But she's an orphan, of course." Martha sighed.

"Oh, Martha!" Emily had exclaimed, "what a lot you have to look forward to! You'll be an orphan some day, and you can paint the whole house purple!"

"Now, mammie, that's just plain nasty of you. You egged me on to say what I would do, and now you make fun of me!" But Martha, mollified, had gone on to tell of the staggering sights she had seen in other girls' homes, reeling colors, threatening emerald ceilings, and cubistic ornamentations.

And Emily had pondered the matter, Martha's sigh rankling. "Her room is all vermilion and blue. But she's an orphan, of course." Did her child, in spite of her mother's long determination to the contrary, feel hampered, thwarted of joy by parental preferences? Was she getting eager to get out of the home, away some place to freedom, as her mother had run once? After all, that floor wasn't so very valuable, and the paper needed renewing. Martha wouldn't be at home months together now, to get tired of her gaudiness. It wouldn't cost such a lot, and no one would have to see it. The door into the outer hall could be kept shut.

A day or two later she had said:

"Do you know what I'm going to give you for your birthday?"

Martha guessed extravagantly:

"A car, mammie? A little runabout to take back to school?"

"Not much! I'm going to let you do your bedroom over to suit yourself."

And Martha had looked blank for a moment, and then murmured:

"Oh no! It wouldn't do, mother. We couldn't. We'd—mother—we'd quarrel, as sure as you live. I'd get started, and I'd want my own way, and you wouldn't approve."

"But I say I will approve. After all, it's your room. I don't have to live in it. You can have it blue and vermilion, if you want to!"

And Martha had sat there for a moment without saying a word, her eyes beginning to twinkle, her dimples all chuckling, just shining and beaming, all her pleasure intensified by her quietness. Then she had hugged Emily after that and had run up to her room straight away. And up and down she ran, hunting for scissors, for yardsticks, measuring, planning, 'phoning to carpenters, twinkling, utterly happy. It had been Emily's sense of her utter happiness that had enabled her to stifle her impulses to interfere.

Once things had got rather serious. The child wouldn't have a bed in the room. She wanted to turn it into a sitting room. And when Emily had pointed out that she didn't need a sitting room, Martha had hugged her and, warningly, "I told you we'd quarrel, mother!" Emily had given way, and Martha had gone on, working like a beaver. She had dyed, and she had shopped in Chicago; she had "jollied" painters whole mornings, and gone back to school in the end, leaving her mother sewing balls of silken high-brow carpet rags. Her very letters had been full of instructions about the room. And during her spring vacation the whole house seemed to be an orgy of renewal, so that Martha hadn't been far wrong when she said that her mother only endured her nowadays through gritted teeth. She had said it from her "studio" in the attic, where she was painting tables, for there alone could she be found that holiday. She had planned so well that in that fortnight she had almost completed her purposes, and she had hated leaving it to go back to college. And to that room she had flown home again, not eager, as she generally was, to go away for the summer. Not once had she mentioned the Rockies or Canada, or even Europe. And her heart was so absorbed in it that now, on awakening to raspberries and cream, she had to go and adjust that blind and study the way the light fell on the cerise—practically—rug.

And Emily looked around, and smiled cautiously. It had been the girl's idea to make the room "amusing." That was the adjective she had continually used of her plan. And certainly she had succeeded in inciting mirth at least in the elders who beheld it. To be sure, with the blind down, the darkly gleaming floor wasn't so bad after one had got used to it. The sand-colored walls were matched by woodwork with little green lines on it. And the rosy silken oval rugs and those black day beds—hateful objects, which kept the edges of the bedding always on the floor, piled by day with cushions like shrieking parrots—all this was almost laughable. She had told Martha firmly the beds ought to be side by side between the windows. But Martha ignored the suggestion. The bookshelves had absurd little cupboards at each end, which Martha opened to show her friends, and an electric stove on a little tray which you stood, so, on this little shelf which pulled out, so. She had gathered a primitive sort of crockery bowls from New York, which were called "just too quaint," and the coffee things from the Chicago Ghetto. Emily had almost protested against this miniature kitchen. Martha never would be making fudge up there, she was sure. But then she had got to thinking of Martha's outgrown playhouse under the willow. "I used to let her have dishes and everything out there," she remembered. And she had not only stifled her objections; she had come heartily to admire this adolescent playhouse.

For there, opening off this room, was the amazing dressing room Martha had made from that large closet where formerly clothes had hung drably. People in the town used to say that, for the sake of having daylight in that closet and preserving the symmetry of the outside of the house, Emily's aunt had torn out and built over that wall seven times. Now Emily had to take visitors up to see that closet, many and insistent visitors, for all Martha's chums were bringing their mothers enviously to show them "Martha's apartment." When she heard their exclamations, she would look at her daughter with that feeling which she experienced when the child, blowing her horn, adjusting her brakes, watching the traffic "cop," drove that panting great headstrong car so calmly, without hurrying one eyelash, through the tangle of vehicles of any city that might lie in her path. For Martha quietly had taken that long narrow closet and lined it on both mirrored sides with hanging wardrobes, and a great total and variety of cunningly planned shelves, shallow and deep drawers, great and small, pulling out on patent rollers; she had packed away a beautifully lighted dressing table, with a stool that pushed back into its own "ducky nook." She had painted all the drawers a dull gold on the inside, and a creamy yellow on the outside, and made them gold knobs and handles. The purple floor and the glow of the rug, less violent than those of the larger room, left her visitors quite mad with envy and surprise.

"It's just Martha all over!" one girl sighed, and Emily had pondered that. Was Martha then to be a lover of perfect places to stow away things? There had been plenty of drawers and closets in the house before, Emily had said to herself. And when she had seen the child's delight in that huge big topmost drawer, she had let her have a great pile of old soft pieced quilts to pack away in it, just as she had given her old hats years before for the games in the willow playhouse. Was that dressing closet "just Martha all over"? Was the child going to be an architect, as she had carelessly suggested once, or an "interior decorator," possibly? Perhaps she was yet going to be brilliant, and do many things as successfully as she had done this, so that Bob would yet be proud of her. Or perhaps she was going to be a furious housewife, delighting in a family of children. And Emily grew serious thinking of that. She had every reason to distrust too great interest in housekeeping. She would see that Martha never loved furniture more than children's ease of mind, never put order of a room before its usefulness. She did hope Martha wouldn't carry these things to excess, as her heredity might urge her to. Here the child hadn't got all the rugs for this room home from the woman who was making them, and she had already begun to talk about enlarging the garage. It disfigured the whole house, as it was, she had told her father. If she might be allowed to double the size of it, making room for two cars——

Then Bob had interrupted: "I'm not going to keep two cars!"

"But I'll have a car next year," she had suggested.

"You don't need a car!" Bob had asserted, hotly.

"Maybe I don't," Martha had answered, softly, infuriatingly, for her lazily lifted eyes had added, defiantly, "But I'm going to have one, anyway!"

"If I could add another part to the garage and change that hideous entrance so we could hide it with some—lilacs and—things, mother, then I could change the west window of my room into a door, and have the whole roof of the garage for a veranda of my own, with an adjustable awning kind of over it, and some roses up the supports of it. And how much nicer it would be in the summer to sit there without a roof over us. We'd get all the breeze there was there, don't you think, mammie?"

"Oh, Martha, give us a rest. Let's have some peace. There's no reason why you should have a car, I tell you, anyway at your age." Thus Bob received her suggestion.

"We'll have to think it all over," Emily had replied. It would have to stop some place. Martha couldn't just be allowed to "express herself" all over the house whenever it suited her fancy. If Bob would only stop threatening to forbid her to use his car, maybe she wouldn't insist so frequently on having one of her own next year.

The raspberries stimulated Martha to action, for she dressed as Eve and Emily sat discussing the evening. She had to go and get some flowers for her room, before her guests came, she said, departing. And Eve began spreading those day beds into order. Emily bestirred herself to help. She had a notion to move those beds into the middle of the room together. But she refrained. She had to reflect that, though Martha decorated with fury, she dusted with less zeal. In that, too, she resembled her mother. She returned presently with her hands full of lilacs for her red-copper bowls. She threw them down on the bed and when Emily suggested arranging them she said, "Wait, mother. I've 'phoned Johnnie to get me some blue ones from the high-school garden." Emily began a faint protest, knowing Mrs. Benton didn't allow anyone to gather the flowers of that young hedge of hybrid lilacs which she had given to the high school. Martha said: "Oh, I wanted one or two. Mother, we've just got to have a place in the garden for a very late lilac like that, because it makes the bouquets for this room." And Johnnie came in immediately. With half a dozen great blossoms right up the stairs he walked, and into that—no, it wasn't a bedroom, but it still seemed strange to have him making himself at home among the bedrooms. Martha scolded him for bringing so many branches, but she had to have at least two of those dark purply ones. "You can see that for yourself," she insisted to Johnnie. Emily could see it for herself. The flow of color melted and shifted about those darkest blues as Martha lowered one shade and pushed up another, grumbling because mignonette couldn't be got to bloom earlier. If she had ever thought those delphiniums would have been all crushed up that way the first dance last night, she would have saved some for her room.

Emily had told Johnnie to hand her the pile of books that lay on the floor beside Eve's bed. Eve, to judge from the literature with which she surrounded herself continually, couldn't enjoy one book unless there were ten others as good waiting at her elbow for their turn. She came out of the dressing room while Johnnie was looking over the books he had put on the shelf for Emily.

He said, "Hello! You still here?"

"You can't say anything. You're here again."

"I was invited. I was 'phoned for."

"But I'm leaving soon, and that's more than you're likely to do."

"I'm expecting to be kicked out any minute," he replied, looking at Emily. "Nobody appreciates me here. Is this any good?" he asked, carelessly fingering a book.

"What is it?"

He read the name out. Emily stood listening. It was the book that had shocked her so entirely years ago—the book about which she and Jim Kenworthy had quarreled so destructively.

"Haven't you read that?"

"No. I've heard of it."

"How intellectual of you! They make you read it, in most schools, that is, if you're interested in technique. You'd call it a thousand miles of sand. I haven't got any Robert Chambers," Eve went on, looking over possibilities. "You might try Michael Arlen, there. His style would be lost on you, but the subject would appeal to your heart. There's the Kreutzer Sonata. Have you read Crime and Punishment?"

"Can't stand Russian stuff."

"Does seem difficult, after the Saturday Evening Post," Eve remarked. Skirts may have clung to Johnnie, but Eve wasn't one of them. She had commented, on hearing of his masterpiece, that its music was hackneyed, the verse was rot and the theme disgusting. Martha had retorted that the theme, rather, was rot. Johnnie and Eve quarreled on till Eve departed.

"You're going to stay for lunch, Johnnie?" Emily asked.

"I won't if you don't want me to."

"How truly magnanimous!" Emily murmured. "No. You stay and talk to the girls, but don't stay for lunch. You know your mother wants you." Emily wondered then, and she wondered later, why Martha had wanted Johnnie to stay. Did she want him to hear what the Wright girls' mother was sure to say about the dressing room? Did Martha care really what Johnnie thought—Johnnie, who was always asking her to marry him?

And what did he think, as he stood lazily leaning against the door into the dressing room, watching the women examine the drawers? Mrs. Wright had brought with her a friend who was planning a new house, a prosperous-looking person, and who listened thoughtfully to Martha's answers to her questions. This person was impressed. She kept looking at Martha when they were seated at length in the painted room.

"How much of this did you do yourself?" she asked. "Hadn't you seen something like it somewhere?"

Martha was sitting on a cushion at Emily's feet.

"Oh yes. I'd seen one in New York. And I just told the old Dane, the carpenter, how many drawers I wanted, and how big, and he did it all himself. I couldn't measure them, or anything like that. He had them all ready to put in when I got home. I'd like to do over all the closets in the house." She looked at her mother, against whom she was leaning.

The guests looked at Emily. She had to say something.

"But if all the closets in this house had so many drawers, we wouldn't have enough to put into them."

"I know it. Isn't that funny?" Martha turned to the other. "People are so silly. The closets are so big there's nothing to fill them with. Same way with our basement. It's a horror!" Martha spoke with such conviction that her hearers laughed. "Well, it is," she insisted to Emily. "There's a wood room and a coal room, and drying room, and storeroom with nothing but the hose and two old barrels in it. I could put all those things into one room nicely, and have three great big rooms. They could be billiard rooms, or play rooms, or nice workshops. If I had a lot of children in this house I could give them all two rooms apiece."

Emily included Johnnie in her glance. He had his eyes fixed hard on Martha—who avoided them innocently but persistently.

And that thoughtful and prosperous-looking stranger said:

"Wouldn't you like to drive over and look at my plans? Our basement is going to cost an awful lot."

Martha twinkled at the invitation.

"Oh, I just love to look at plans!" she said. "I just love to think about people's houses. I was thinking, if ever I'm a reformer, do you know what I'm going to reform? Everybody's closets!"

Wasn't she lovely, sitting there innocently, Emily thought. No wonder they admired her, all of them.

"You come and reform all my closets," the stranger said. But Mrs. Wright said: "Don't look at mine till I've had a chance to go over them. You've made me a lot of trouble, Martha. The girls won't give me a minute's peace now till I let them start doing their rooms over."

When Emily, having dismissed the visitors, turned from the hall into her living room, the sight of these familiar things almost shocked her. They stirred her, at least, to question the very room she had for years taken for granted. The glamour of that room upstairs seemed to make the rest of the house faded, some way. The living room she had always sat down in with satisfaction. Now it looked—timid—meager—insipid—unexpectant. Its walls and its woodwork were almost the color of its neutral light pongee curtains. Those were good rugs on the oak floor. They were rich, and they were mellow. Emily had bought them recklessly with a large share of the first installment of her inheritance, when she had moved back to the house when Martha was a small girl, and she had never regretted her fling. The davenport and the two chairs that went with it, those most comfortable monstrosities, had been done once in blue corduroy. Well, it was still corduroy. That was about all that could be said for it. But its blue dullness some way had seemed to match the rugs. That was a good table. No one bought a table like that in any town in Illinois. Nor was there a desk like that, which plainly had been cherished for some generations. And how infinitely superior were the pictures on the wall to most of the pictures on the walls of that town. Emily's grandfather, once the Governor of the sprawling infant state of Illinois, had brought that engraving of Mt. Vernon sentimentality to the wilderness because he remembered his mother holding her successive babies up to see the dogs and horses that surrounded the father of his country, who stood in a declamatory attitude on the very brink of the Potomac, with his women folk and youthful intimates hovering pictorially about him.

Emily used to compare that picture, chuckling, to the picture of Boston which one of her neighbors had made for herself, upon her return from a memorable visit there. Mrs. Jennings was chairman of the art committee and a busy woman, and hadn't time to "do" many pictures, she said. So she just put everything she wanted to remember into one. And Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill and the Common, Longfellow's house and Faneuil Hall, jostled one another in a staggered and staggering row all across the foreground. And there was Mrs. Johnson's parlor. Every time Emily went into it she used to say: "Well, my aunt might have been worse. She didn't paint at least, thank God!" She had left no bilious works of her brush behind her, and she deserved credit for it, considering the fashion of her day. She had left a cherished large framed photograph of the door of St. Mark's. Emily could recall exactly the tone in which she used to say "The portal of St. Mark's," for she had always added "by the sea," which mystified the child. The geography said plainly that all Venice was by the sea. Besides Italy and Mt. Vernon, there were what Emily considered two perfectly lovely large "studies" of Martha's head. A cousin who played with photography had done them when the child was seven years old. She was the cousin who had gathered the child into her arms, on one occasion and cried, "Oh, twinkle, twinkle, little star!" Martha hated them, and pleaded for their banishment, but Emily would not listen to her, not for a minute. There sat a photo of Jim on the desk, and one of his mother, and an early one of his father. And there was, of course, that first seal of a D.A.R. invulnerability, a framed sampler. Altogether, Emily had always been secure that her living room was not just a common small-town room.

But after Martha's—well, what was wrong with it, she sat wondering that morning, a bit ruefully. Some way it was tamed and tolerating. Those high-handed colors upstairs dared the world, and demanded. These young things went raging, commanding, soaring into life. "Not like me," she thought, vaguely. "I just hesitated—and submitted—and got along, some way. How puny I was, and—sort of helpless. That book—I shrank from it as if it had been some great thing. But Eve snubs it. She ignores it. They fly, these children—they just fly. But I rode just a bicycle. And this room wabbles along on a bicycle. I must speed it up. I must—get these things done over—or else I ought to get some new pictures, or something. I better ask Martha, perhaps, to freshen it up a little."

Certainly that stranger had asked Martha's advice. The memory of her respectful tone was wine to Emily. She had to speak to Bob about it. She couldn't just let him go on thinking that Martha "amounted" to nothing.

"I could see that they thought it was wonderful for a girl of her age to have planned it all," she told him. "That woman asked Martha definitely to come and see the plans for her house!"

But he said: "The dickens she did! The kid's got her head swelled enough now, without anybody asking her advice. The dame must be hard up if she's got to come to Martha for advice!"

The girls played golf that afternoon. Emily's mind, when it had intervals of leisure, dwelt upon the question of new furniture—somewhat reluctantly. After all, maybe it would be better to suffer the old faded colors than to flee to others that you know not of. Such a lot of trouble, going to the city to select things, and then, maybe, when you get them home, they don't fit in, as you had intended them to. And she even realized her reluctance. "That's the point about being young. Martha would just jump into the shopping fray. She would dive right in, without hesitation." These meditations kept Emily from giving "that man" even a thought, until almost supper time. Then, as she passed into the hall, Marion Wright, giving her arms a sturdy swing, almost struck her, and drew back, apologizing.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't see you! I was just practicing that drive. I didn't want to forget it, such a classy one! Richard Quin was just teaching us, you know, Mrs. Kenworthy."

"Who's Richard Quin?" Emily asked.

"Oh, that's Eve's brother-in-law. Marion likes him. Don't you, Marion?" Martha asked.

"Well, I can't say I'm crazy about him. But still, he can play. I'm not particular who coaches me. I do prefer them not so fat."

"Fat!" murmured Martha. "He isn't fat. He's just a large man. He's well built."

"Of course they're more fun married," Marion went on, trying to shock Emily. And then she asked, suddenly curious, "Do you like him, Mrs. Kenworthy?"

"Do I like him? Goodness, no! He's greasy looking."

Martha said with dignity: "Mother doesn't know him. She never said a word to him in her life. He's not greasy at all, if you see him close. He shaves twice a day."

"How do you know he does?" Emily demanded.

"He's not reticent, anyway," Marion said laughing.

"He just happened to mention it."

"Did you see his wife?" Emily asked them both.

"Eve told you she wasn't well. She wasn't there."

Martha looked at her mother, perplexed. Emily looked at her daughter uneasily. It was annoying of Martha to defend that man! If Emily had known he was to be on the links, she wouldn't have let Martha go to play. But now, of course the wisest would be just to let the matter drop. Martha was always so trustworthy. Certainly her good taste could be trusted.

Yet for some reason, when Johnnie Benton came that evening to take the three adorned girls to the dance, Emily was more impressed by him than ever. She felt so safe when Martha was under his care. She watched them drive away, and then went out to potter about as usual in the garden, just at dark. A neighbor came bringing her, in a strawberry box, a few rare seedling pansies, and together they made a little place protected from the heat in which they might be nursed. And then they went and sat down inside the screened veranda to escape the mosquitoes.

They were still talking there when Bob came. But he took his magazine and sat down a few chairs away, and they talked on as if no one was within hearing of their voices. And indeed no one was, for Bob habitually absented himself in the print before his eyes. He was unconscious of everything around him. Energetic, insistent demands and clamors could get only a muttered "Uh-uh!" from him. He really didn't know when the neighbor left, although he had sort of muttered at her.

So Emily sat still and alone in the darkness, and glad of the quietness. She thought over one by one the dozen men—Martha called them men, though they scarcely deserved the name—who would be dancing with the girls at the club. Emily knew every one of them; some of them she had known for years. She knew the families of most of them. Every time she thought of Martha's partner of the evening before, they seemed more acceptable to her. They were—decent. They were—secure. They had no foreign accent, and they had not pretended to know Tchekhoff. People gossiped about them, but Emily believed their relationships with bootleggers were merest flirtations. Their scrapes were ridiculous—like Johnnie's opera—-but they were not vicious—often. Bob called them "nail-polishers," and "shiny Johnnies," and thought pessimistically about their chances of success in this competitive life. But Emily, musing away, liked them all that night.

Bob threw down his magazine, after a while, and returned to Emily's presence. He got up and lit a cigar, and went into the house. Emily heard him there talking to some one by 'phone about insurance. He came out and sat down on the railing in front of her.

"Let's go to bed," he said.

She looked at him. There he sat, a heavy, rather sluggish man with a growth of black beard which he conspicuously did not shave twice a day. His hair was not as thick as it had been ten years ago, but not less unruly, and his digestion was decidedly poorer. He was working hard, and making money, and usually tired. He was still more even-tempered than most men. From the time Martha went away to school till she came home for holiday he scarcely spoke an irritable word.

"I thought I'd wait till the girls come home."

"You're dead tired."

"I know it, but they'll be here soon. It's nearly twelve now."

"Let's go out and get them."

"All right. Let's."

They had done that more than once. Bob was always ready for a drive even over that road which they must take along the river. Two miles of that sinuous and uncertain byway had been the cause, like the rest of the country club, of a great wave of hard feeling in the community. Were the taxpayers going to keep it up for a few rich "sporty" families? asked the indignant, so successfully that now the handful of members had either to repair it themselves or endure its flooded ruts. The country club had not been well managed. Mrs. Benton had washed her hands of it in the beginning, prophesying its downfall. The founders had not counted the cost. The less wealthy couldn't stand the assessments and had dropped out. Those who remained had to pay more. And it was all a muddle and a burden and a quarrel—a perfect example of how Mrs. Benton did not manage things. Emily was one of those who still kept membership. She seldom used the place, but she wanted Martha to have a place to play golf. The more Martha danced there, the less she would disturb her father by dancing at home. And really, it was a very nice crowd of young people who gathered there. By night, as Bob and Emily drove in, it looked gay and lovely, lit all up, among the trees, with the dancers gliding about. By day, of course, its appearance justified the scorn which neighboring towns poured upon it. However, those towns, since last night's event, would be less boastful.

Bob stopped the car and they sat looking in. Now Martha had had on a little dress faintly pink at the neck and deeply carmine at the hem, so that, if she had been there, Emily would have seen her in a moment.

"Where is the kid?" Bob grumbled. Emily looked about under the trees, and saw Johnnie Benton leave the couple with whom he was smoking and come over to them. Bob repeated his question immediately. And Johnnie said, indifferently, looking in towards the lighted floor:

"Isn't she there? I guess she's out having a petting party somewhere with that dago necker."

Emily was thoroughly annoyed by the boy's impertinence. The idea of his daring to say a thing to her of Martha.

"Who d'you mean?" Bob demanded.

"You know, that bearded guy she's falling for."

"Eve's brother-in-law?"

"Yes."

"Is she with that——" Emily nudged Bob violently.

"She generally is!" So Johnnie wasn't so indifferent, after all, to the fact as he had wanted them to believe. And then the music stopped, and the girls came nocking out to the drive like butterflies. Marion Wright called upon Johnnie to witness that there was just one more dance, and then they would all go home, and Martha, she said, had already gone, walking home.

Emily asked in reply, unconcernedly, if they were having a good time, and told them not to hurry, and said, "No, they wouldn't wait for an ice—the night was so hot they had thought they would drive out to cool off." But here the ice was—and she ate it hurriedly, fearing what Bob might say about Martha before them, nudging him mentally, as it were, into silence.

No sooner was the car turned towards home than Bob broke out:

"Well, I'll be damned! I won't have this, Emily."

"Funny we didn't see them, if they're walking home."

"I thought she had some sense. What's he doing out here? Did you know he was coming?"

"No. I never thought of it. Of course the family belongs."

"The nerve of him! Does anyone else come uninvited?"

"Oh, Bob, we must be careful! Did you hear what Johnnie said?"

"I'll settle that girl to-night. She isn't going to be running around at midnight with any married man."

"Now, Bob, we mustn't be hasty. You must think this over. We don't want to—seem to take this—too seriously. He'll be leaving, likely, in a day or two."

"How do you know he will?"

"I suppose he will. Didn't Eve say so?"

"I didn't hear her. And it's the principle of the thing. She thinks it's smart to be flirting with a married man."

"Oh, I don't think she does, Bob. He's so different—from these boys here." And then suddenly she begged: "Look, Bob! Oh, let me do the talking to her!" For walking slowly along, side by side, were the two of them, little rosy Martha and the man that seemed always bending over her. So near they were that Bob stopped the car with a jerk.

"We'll give you a lift," he said, unceremoniously. "Get in!"

Martha introduced her companion. Bob gave the shortest possible sign of being aware of his existence. He was opening the car door.

"Get in!" he said to his daughter.

"It's a glorious night for walking," Mr. Quin remarked, standing still.

"It's too late. Get in!" Bob again spoke directly to Martha.

She turned to her escort. "It is rather muddy here. Let's ride a little." And she got serenely in, and bade him follow her. The car started.

Emily turned around in her seat.

"You staying long in town, Mr. Quin? I meant to call. But Eve said your wife isn't well."

"Oh—I'm not sure yet. It's all so interesting to me. A Western town like this. It's quite surprised me." Hadn't Eve said the man was brought up in Indiana? His tone annoyed Emily so that she turned abruptly about in her seat. Martha leaned forward to her.

"He thinks it's the most ripping dance hall he ever saw, of the kind, mother." Ripping, was it? Such a distinguished word, so unlike this West, Emily was saying to herself. Where was Bob going? Why didn't he take them directly home? He had turned, and in a minute, before they knew it almost, they had stopped in front of Eve's home.

"We'll drop you here," said Bob.

The stranger looked at Martha.

She said, surprised: "No—— Oh—well——"

"It's the way we have in these Western towns," Bob remarked, shortly. The man said good night reluctantly and as meaningly as possible, with Emily's eye upon him.

In the light of the living room, Emily said: "Look at your slippers, Martha! What made you walk home in them?"

"Oh, mother, it was such moonlight. You were absolutely rude to him, mother. I never saw you act so before," Martha spoke grievedly.

"I know a snubbing when I get one. He didn't ask me to call on his wife."

"But, mother, you know she isn't well. Eve said so."

"If she isn't well I think he'd better devote himself exclusively to her. Martha, I don't like this. He ought to know better, if you don't. You'll get yourself talked about, if this keeps on."

Martha opened her eyes in unfeigned surprise.

"That's a funny way for you to talk, mother. You always say people have no right to go gossiping around about girls!"

"Well, I certainly said girls oughtn't to do silly things to start people talking."

"I get sick of this town! It's only in a little crude hole of a place like this a girl can't look at a man after he's married. He knows more in a minute than all the boys in this place know in a year. And just because he's got a wife I'm not to listen to him, I suppose!"

"You are certainly not to—to let him spend all his time with you. You went with Johnnie. Why didn't you come home with him? Did you know that he—this Quin person—was to be there, Martha?"

Martha stood there looking straight at her mother, as if she had seen in her something new and perplexing.

"What's the matter, mother? What's all the fuss about, anyway?"

"About this man. He's married. He oughtn't to be following you about when his wife's at home sick. I'm disgusted with you, Martha."

"Because he happens to be married?"

"He doesn't happen to be married; he is married."

"I don't follow you, mother."

Martha spoke, with her head held high, in the lazy tone she used to infuriate her father.

Emily said, gently smiling: "There's no use your trying that on me, Martha. You follow me exactly. You know exactly what I mean, and you're to remember what I say."

"You never spoke like this to me before, mother." She would try being hurt.

"I never had occasion to, thank goodness! And I'm not going to speak to you this way again, either." They both heard Bob coming in. "Now go to bed," Emily said, kissing her, "and be a good girl." Martha kissed her in return, without any sign of annoyance, and ran quickly upstairs.

"Where is she?" Bob demanded.

"She's gone to bed."

"Just like her. She crawls out of everything. Did you settle her once for all?"

"I spoke to her about it. I told her we didn't like it."

"You're too easy with her, Emily. I'm going to settle her in the morning. I'm going to lay down the law to her!"

He was going to lay down the law to her, was he, when he had never in his life laid down his work for an hour for her sake! Emily, that placid woman, for the third time in one evening, was ruffled and resentful. Johnnie had disturbed her. "That man" had annoyed her. And now, all of a sudden, Bob, who had never done anything but stand aside and watch her manage Martha, was going to take her in hand. He had literally had no time for the girl since she was born; and now he seemed to think she ought to listen to him.

She said nothing, being wise, and he went up to bed. The Wright girls came in, presently, with Johnnie and Chris Phillips, all of them together making a little eddying whirlpool of youth in the quiet room. Emily, moved by some instinct of security for Martha, called up to her to come down. "Oh," they said, "is Martha home?" Emily replied carelessly that they had picked her up near the bridge, and instantly she happened to look at Helen Wright. She had not been thinking of the effect of her remark, but she saw Helen wink—yes, undoubtedly just wink—at Johnnie, and she saw he didn't want to be winked at on the subject. She felt a sharp mistrust of that girl—her expressive, cynical face. What did she mean? Did she know with whom Martha had chosen to walk home? She thanked goodness that Helen Wright wasn't staying long. She didn't like her.

Martha had only tarried a minute—long enough to have paid, perhaps, her tribute to the mirror, but by the time she came down the boys had left. Johnnie said it would be a change to go once before he got sent home. Martha didn't deign to notice his absence. She talked serenely to her guests.

But Emily, in her bed, remembered, sighing more than once, how that horrid Helen had sat looking at Martha, with cynical, initiated amusement. Perhaps that girl was encouraging her in her naughtiness. If Martha wasn't careful—and she probably wouldn't be—she would be getting into a horrible row with her father. That consummation Emily Kenworthy would do anything to avoid. If Bob "bawled her out" in the morning, the world underneath their feet would be splitting. Martha and that odious stranger would be on one side, and Bob would be on the other. And Emily—well, there was never a moment's doubt in her mind where she would be!

She remembered, indignant at the thought of it, that perfectly absurd situation of her friend, Mrs. Harding, whose daughter had married, to the utter rage and final alienation of her father. One day, months after that, Mrs. Harding had come creeping into the Kenworthys' house, almost a stranger then, and had begged for the loan of two hundred dollars, just begged for it, ashamed and whispering, because her daughter was ill, and without a penny, in a rooming house demanding its rent. A girl friend of hers had seen her there, and had come back to urge her mother to help her. In all her life Emily had never had to consider the state of a woman living comfortably without one cent of her own to put a finger on. "If I were you," she had exclaimed to Mrs. Harding, "I would go straight to her. I would bring her home, or take her some place and take care of her." But Mrs. Harding dared not defy her husband. He was an old man, and delicate, and it might kill him. And Emily had been on the point of saying: "I don't believe it! And if it does, he deserves it!" She had entered heartily into that conspiracy, and it had all turned out so well, and the two women had become friends. Yet Emily essentially disapproved of her "kowtowing" to her husband. There would be nothing like that in her house! If any great, deep chasm was to come splitting across the ground on which the Kenworthy family stood, Emily was going to be on the side of her daughter! Was it likely that she would give up that Jim Kenworthy—that she would have allowed her dear lover to go away to die alone—for that child's sake, and now give up the child merely for Bob Kenworthy?

"Bob," she said, emphatically.

"What's the matter?" He was sleepy.

"You aren't to 'settle' Martha in the morning! You are to leave her to me!"

"What?"

"I say you aren't to scold Martha in the morning about—that man. I've talked to her about it, and that's enough."

"She won't mind you, Emily."

"She'll mind me at least as much as she would you. And more, too. And I'm not going to have you two—quarreling and arguing about—this—person. Do you understand that, Bob? If you—speak to her about it, she'll get to thinking that she's on one side with that man, and you and I are on the other side."

"She's on his side now."

"No, Bob, she isn't. She is just—playing; she wants a little rope."

"She's got enough to hang herself now."

"You won't speak to her, will you, Bob, now?"

"Oh, well," Bob grumbled, "she's your kid, Emily. You've got to manage her. She won't listen to anything I say, anyway."

"But I mean, don't you just begin to—don't you forget and bring the subject up, at all, will you, Bob?"

"I won't say a word to her if you make her quit it. If you don't, I'll take her in hand. I won't stand for her getting talked about all over town!"

"She's not going to get talked about, Bob!"

"Oh, well. Manage her to suit yourself."

That was the most he could say. He could offer her no help. All she could ask of him was that he would refrain from interfering. But if Jim had been in Bob's place, Jim would have known what to do. Martha would have listened if Jim could have spoken to her. And Jim would have listened if Emily had gone to him in perplexity about the girl. Hadn't she and Jim sat together for hours discussing their children, enjoying them together, having them in common, almost, in spite of the barrier between them? Because Jim had always appreciated little Martha Kenworthy. That was the essential wrong Bob had done the child since birth. He had failed to appreciate her. He had never in his life understood a woman. He had never even given the proper value to his own mother. And Jim's adulterous wife he had simply cursed whenever he thought of her. It was only men that Bob could evaluate. There was no use expecting him to judge Martha fairly. But Jim had enjoyed every phase of her little girlhood, just as he had played tenderly, reverently with his mother's heroisms and weaknesses, just as he had so well understood every shade of the service Emily had unconsciously rendered him when she had loved his son. If Martha had a man like Jim about familiarly, she wouldn't be impressed as she seemed to be with the first pretentious masher that came her way. Jim would have set a standard for the child, given her a taste for masculine worth. And it all went back again to the old, old question: Why didn't I marry Jim in the first place? Why did I ever quarrel with him? Why was I brought up so that I could quarrel with him, about a book, merely a book that is this minute lying neglected on the shelf in the painted room because the girls were bored with old classics? I married Bob to get away from this house, said Emily. But Martha will never marry to get away from that, Emily vowed again.

Chapter Four

Afterwards, when Emily, thinking those summer weeks over, used to ask herself again and again why she hadn't prevented their climax, she could scarcely recall how her realization of the situation had come about. She had told Martha that she didn't want Eve's brother-in-law singling her out for his attention. She had supposed that was sufficient. She had gone with Martha to take the Wrights home the next day, and all very merrily the afternoon had gone, just as afternoons usually went before that man came rumbling on the horizon. There had been no mention of him till towards supper time. Martha's chum, Greta, had come in then, asking her to go for a swim. Emily liked Greta, with reservations and allowances, thinking her too pretty to be judged severely. She had dazzling eyes: light-blue eyes when she wore light blue; dark-blue eyes when she wore dark blue; gray eyes when she had on a gray suit; and when she pulled that wicked little mauve hat down over her forehead, her eyes were purple as dark pansies. One had to forgive that girl for somewhat too deliberately flashing those glances into male consciousness, Emily argued. But Greta didn't—quite tell the very truth—always. Just lately in a crisis she had told one tale, and Martha had told another of what happened, and it had all had to come out, Martha justified, a truthful child, and Greta—well, perhaps she had learned her lesson. Emily believed so.

Now that afternoon when she came in on her way to the beach, Martha was indiscreet, to say the least. She said demurely enough, when Greta urged her:

"Oh, I don't know whether I'm allowed to go swimming. Am I, mammie?"

Emily had asked innocently, "Why not?"

"Well, there's sure to be some married men about, some place." And Greta had smiled, as if she understood Martha's cause for complaint.

"Don't be silly!" Emily had replied. They had gone swimming. Afterwards Emily wondered if Martha had known that man would be there, if she had taken that way of warding off subsequent reproof. She wondered, but she could reach no conclusion. She could never make out clearly how it had gone on. She hadn't even known for certain that Martha was seeing the man. She had thought it better to trust her.

Eve had returned the next day, and Emily had been glad, feeling that Eve would be a protection. The girls had gone together to spend the week-end at Geneva with friends. That had been planned days ago. Bob had remarked uneasily, looking up from the daily at noon on Monday:

"That bird's in Geneva, Emily!"

"Who?"

"Quin, that brother-in-law of Eve's."

"Why shouldn't he be?" Emily had asked, carelessly. And she asked herself the same question, but not so carelessly. What was more natural than that he should have gone fishing? Didn't everybody go fishing? Wasn't there a long list in the paper every Monday of all the men from the town who had gone, even though they went regularly every Saturday of the season? The editor had to have something to fill up his columns, and that list, and the list of those who went to Chicago daily to shop, could always be depended upon. Still——

Afterwards she sometimes thought that she should have said to Martha: "Did you see Mr. Quin at Geneva? Did you know he was going to be there?" She might have asked that question the following Wednesday. Perhaps that was where she had made her great mistake. She should have asked Martha directly what had happened there.

For Eve came home that day from the links alone, and announced she was going to Chicago at once to her father; that she had thought when she came to live in this town that at least she wouldn't have her sister hanging around, and her brother-in-law. She wasn't going to come back till they cleared out, she said, angrily red. Afterwards Emily knew that she ought to have asked her exactly what the quarrel had been about. She had, however, practically asked Martha later. Martha had said indifferently she supposed Eve was tired of the little town. It wasn't good enough for her, perhaps. She had spoken sarcastically. She didn't regret Eve's departure. She had gone on her way undisturbed. Perhaps she had spent more time with her friends than she usually did. At home she was quiet; but she had always been that. She had always sat excited, as it were, by her thoughts, chuckling to herself about what was in her mind. Her Uncle Jim had said of her child that it was herself she seemed always to be enjoying. She had seemed to have a hidden source of delight to muse on. Johnnie was no longer about the house. When Emily commented on this fact, Martha had explained indifferently that he had an awful case on a De Kalb girl.

One afternoon Emily sat talking to an old, trustworthy friend. "When's Eve coming back? You know her sister?" Grace Phillips had asked.

Emily couldn't believe she had asked it in malice. She thought afterwards it might have been a well-meant warning. Emily had said she had not even seen the sister. She wasn't receiving callers.

"You see more of him, I suppose?"

Emily had repressed her surprise, and answered, vaguely, "No; that is, not a great deal. Eve—not when Eve isn't here."

What did Mrs. Phillips mean? Had she seen Martha with that man?

"I hear the old grandmother gets worse all the time," Mrs. Phillips had innocently continued. Emily had said she didn't know.

It was after four then; soon after that there had come a long-distance 'phone call: four friends in the next county were driving up to dance in Chicago. Would Martha go with them? They'd be along soon after seven. As Emily hung up the receiver she saw a sort of chance. She would go out to the golf course and bring Martha home to get ready for the evening, and take occasion to see exactly who was playing there, and then she would be rid of this uneasiness. She hated taking the car herself, but it was time she made sure of what was going on.

So she drove out, inch by inch around by the dusty detour, over the well-known ruts. She turned the car anxiously through the gates, which always looked so narrow when she was driving that to miss their post seemed almost miraculous. She chose her place of stopping very carefully, a large place easy to turn around in, in case Martha wasn't there and she had to go back by herself.

She shut off the engine, congratulating herself the more upon the neatness of her achievement because some other woman had stopped her car—but not her engine—wrong way about, at some distance, so that she sat almost facing Emily. A stranger she was. With a swanky little scarlet hat on, and rouged; waiting for some one, looking intently towards the path through the trees by which the players came up to the shack of a clubhouse.

And then it occurred to Emily that that woman must be Eve's sister, because that must be the car that Eve drove. She looked, naturally, with renewed interest. The face was in some ways like Eve's. But it was no wonder Eve didn't like her. She was a discontented woman, ill-natured, with hollows about her eyes, like Eve, but more accentuated; altogether hard faced. She was probably waiting for her husband.

"Shall I go and speak to her, or shall I not?" Emily wondered. The woman hadn't once looked in her direction. Either she was intent upon the path and had not heard anyone coming, or purposely avoided chances of being intruded upon.

Emily had not been sitting there undecided one minute when the woman leaned suddenly forward, shifting her position to get a better view of something. Emily's eyes turned, naturally, to see what she was so eagerly looking at. There were four people walking towards them at a little distance, two in front, young Mr. and Mrs. Williams, two behind, little Martha Kenworthy and that man. Martha had on a pleated white skirt and a belted overblouse of pale yellow crêpe de Chine, with a square neck, and she was walking along, slight and young, bareheaded, of course, with her face all flushed pink, looking up, all smiling and interested, to that man, who seemed, as always, to be leaning down over her. They came walking towards her. They were talking about something so amusing, so intimately interesting, that they paid no attention to the two cars. Emily sitting there, sickening, saw Mrs. Williams call Martha's attention to her mother. She saw the absorbed two turn from their topic and look towards her.

She had looked again quickly at the woman. She knew what she had been waiting for. She saw the discontented face flush angrily, as Eve's did sometimes; and then, just as that man drew near, when he had seen his wife sitting there, she started her car and drove hastily away.

Martha was coming up to her mother. Mrs. Williams was with her. The men had stopped to talk together about something, a few steps away. Had the Williamses seen that woman? Would they know who she was?

"Hello, mother!" Martha said, quite naturally. And Emily, she hoped undismayed, explained to her and Mrs. Williams why she had come. "I thought I'd better come and get you, so you'd have time enough to get ready," she said.

Martha jumped in, taking her place at the wheel. She had come out with Greta, whom Emily saw at some distance, coming towards her. She asked Mrs. Williams to tell her she had gone home. They whirled away.

"Martha!" Emily said, sternly, "I came out here to get you. And this is what I find. Do you know who was in that car?"

"What car?"

"That one ahead, that just drove out." Martha looked down the road.

"Eve?" she asked.

"Her sister. She came out here to see if her husband was with you," Emily's voice trembled with dismay.

"Why, mother!" Martha was indignant. "What makes you say such a thing?"

"I saw her expression. She was waiting to catch him with you. Do the Williamses know her? Oh, I wonder if they saw that—if they understood? Mr. Jenkinson was sitting on the porch there. Martha, this is the end of that. I didn't like you being with that man before; but, now I've seen her, I simply won't have it. She's jealous. Why, Martha, a girl might get into an awful mess, this way! That woman—driving away in that way. Quarreling in public—that way!"

"She quarrels with everybody, Eve says," Martha commented, indifferently.

"Well, she's not going to have any excuse for quarreling with us. You hear what I say, Martha? You're not to play golf, or swim or ride or walk or dance or even smile at that man in public, any place, where anybody can see you."

"It'll look sort of funny, mother, when he's everywhere I am."

"I don't care how it looks. It'll look a lot better than having his wife watching him flirting with you."

Martha raised her head proudly.

"I don't know why you should say a thing like that to me! I was NOT flirting, I was just talking to him, mammie! This seems so—unworthy of you."

"Very well, then. You aren't to talk to him any more. You've got to obey me! You've got to do exactly what I say in this, Martha!"

"I don't know why you get so worked up over this! You never talk so about anybody else!"

"You never look that way at any other man!"

"No. I never find anyone so interesting!"

"It's disgusting. You ought to be spanked!"

"I'm not a child!"

"You certainly are!"

"I'm twenty in April."

"Can she know how that threat—yes, sheer threat of independence—hurts me?" Emily wondered.

"Oh, Martha, you mustn't be—you mustn't! It isn't fair. That woman is unhappy! She's haggard! She's sick, and she sees him playing about with you!"

"Am I so dangerous? Can't she even let him talk to a child?"

"I'm not going to argue with you. I've simply laid down the law, for once. You're not to be seen even talking with that man again. Do you understand that?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you understand it before?"

"I never thought you'd act this way about it."

"I never thought for a minute you'd go on, after what I said to you."

"Do you want me to tell him I'm not allowed to speak to him?"

"I don't care what you tell him. You're able to make a man understand when he's not welcome, I hope, at your age."

"A mere child like me, mammie?" Martha asked. But Emily didn't deign to notice her sarcasm. They rode the rest of the way in silence. Martha went directly to her room. She came down for supper, and ate in silence. When it was over she began clearing away the dishes. Was she going to be a martyr? She passed through the living room, when she had finished them, on the way to her room.

"If they call for me, you can tell them I'm not going," she told Emily.

But the girls, when they came, wouldn't take any such answer. They ran into the house and up to the painted room. They must have persuaded her, for she came down with them, all dressed and ready, and, after they had told Emily they were going to keep her till the next afternoon, she said good-by coolly and departed with them.

And Emily was glad. Anything to get the child's mind away from the afternoon, from "that man." She wished Martha would stay with those nice young girls and go playing about with the lads they played with for a week. Perhaps that man would have left town by that time. Perhaps Eve would come back. And there was Mary Carr, who was to come for a visit some time during the holiday, and other girls. If Martha would only invite them for next week! Emily, sitting on the dark veranda, clung eagerly to these hopes. Remembering the expression of that woman's face, she planned almost frantically. She would take Martha and go—to Estey's Park—or—to Banff; she would go to Alaska or—Italy—Norway—any place. Home had become—not a refuge, not a playground of happy security, but a dangerous, threatening place. She wished devoutly that Eve and her family had never come to the town.

However, when Emily suggested Colorado, Martha said it was too hot to travel. Trains would be horrible such nights. And that was true. "This house," Martha remarked, truly, "is cooler than any place else is." When Emily asked about the visit Martha had been looking forward to, she replied: "Dorothy's father has broken his leg. I don't think they want me now." When Emily asked, after a discreet interval, when Mary Carr was to be expected, Martha said: "I don't know yet—exactly. It's such a lot of work for you now, company, in the heat. It's sort of nice to have a rest, for a change." This was something new. And there was something new about the atmosphere of the house. Martha had stopped baiting her father. She had stopped chattering with her mother. She sat through the meals a well-behaved and silent child. She offered to help about the house more thoughtfully than she sometimes had. And when she had finished her tasks, she withdrew to the painted room.

She had said she wanted a sitting room, and she had got one. But Emily had never foreseen that she meant to withdraw from the family altogether. When her friends came now, they went upstairs to her. Emily felt strangely alone, deprived of their chatter. When she went up to them, the girls received her as usual. Their tongues wagged on still. They seemed not to notice Martha's withdrawal, but Emily did. She told herself that she had been trying always to get Martha to rest. And now when Martha was going to bed early, when she was lying on her bed reading, or pretending to, sleeping, or pretending to, all the afternoons, Emily was uncomfortable. Even Bob said: "What's got into the kid? Where's the gang?"

Emily wouldn't ask Bob about "that man." She saw him one day on the street. The next day Martha announced she was going to Chicago. She had to get something for cushions, and a tray. Emily offered to go with her. Martha expressed no eagerness for her company, but showed a desire to go alone. She went, and came back with her purchases.

She went again the next week. Emily was glad to have her away, for a change. She had never gone to play golf since that afternoon. She went about with her girl friends when she couldn't avoid going. She went nearly every evening for a swim with some of them. When she came back, sometimes she went and sat alone in the boat tied under the willow until bedtime. Emily's heart smote her when she saw the girl sitting alone there, in the starlight, a dimmed firefly among the shining ones. That boat, that willow—were for two. She had to think soberly about the deserted veranda, where Bob sat now without blushing. And where were the boys that had been "hanging about" before? Martha had said more than once that they came just to "jolly" her mother. They weren't coming now for that purpose. Johnnie passed back and forth every day up and down the street, but he never came in, unless his mother had sent him on an errand.

The first week of August Emily met Eve downtown. That was a jolt. "Have you been back long?" she asked, carelessly. And Eve hurried to say that she had been back a few days, but she was trying to help at home. Her grandmother was very bad. The nurses were busy every minute. But Eve was going to find time to come down. "I meant to come and see YOU," she asserted, with eager sincerity, with just a little stress on the "you." "I'm going to be here all the time now. My sister's gone," she added cheerfully.

When she went on her way, Emily sighed with deep relief. Those people and their shadow over the Kenworthys had left, finally. Maybe things would be gay now, as they used to be. But Martha, who had given no sign and never mentioned either of them again to Emily, seemed to be unaware of their departure. She was tired, and it was hot, and she wanted to rest. She stated her case with dignity, gently. There was nothing Emily could object to in her bearing.

There was nothing they could object to in her manner the next week, when she refused to drive to Springfield with her father and mother. Bob would do the driving, and she had never liked riding alone in the back seat. So the Kenworthys went alone, and spent the day, and came driving back towards home through the country darkness about midnight.

The day had added to the burden on Emily's mind, instead of lightening it. She had been visiting a friend while Bob had been hurrying through his business. They had been silent for miles, when Emily began talking, wearily:

"Fanny was telling me about her niece, Bob. She wondered if we could get her a job in town here. Her husband has left her with those two children. She learned typing, but she hasn't had any experience. She wants to get some place where she can make a home for them. She'll have to divorce him. I wondered—if she could get some work here, maybe I could help her with the children, sometimes. I said we'd look round and see if we could do anything," Emily sighed.

"She married that Grey, didn't she? Who vamped him?" That was the way Bob WOULD put it, of course. Everything he thought of as some woman's fault.

"I don't know. He's no good. They tried every way to get her not to marry him." Emily sighed again. These daughters—these tragedies. The rumbling of incredible possibilities on the horizon—Emily fell silent, sighing sometimes.

The car drew up to the house, and Emily reproved herself for worrying. It was lighted up; the victrola was playing. It would be gay with dancing within. But the blinds were down, strange to say. Never mind that—Martha was happy again. She was having a party of friends. Bob and Emily went up the walk and into the front hall, both of them relieved and eager, and through it into the living room, to put down their parcels on the table.

And there Emily stopped by the table, without unloading her hands. Bob stopped behind her. They just stood looking for a critical second—looking at Martha and "that man," who were stopping their dance, drawing away from each other, returning their gaze.

"You're late," said Martha, quite naturally, unperturbed.

The man spoke to them. Emily murmured something. She didn't know what to say. Martha went to the victrola and stood there, turning it off. Bob said nothing. Richard Quin looked at Martha inquiringly.

"It's late," he said. "Really, I'd better be going."

Bob took a step towards the table and divested himself of three large bottles of choice olives and a long sprayer for roses. He strode towards the man.

"Yes, you'd better be going," he said. "If you're wise, you'll be staying away." He stood glaring at him, threateningly.

Emily came and stood close to Bob. And Martha came towards "that man," with her head held high. She spoke to him with the most gentle sweetness, looking straight at her father.

"You didn't have a hat, did you?" she asked him. "It was so nice of you to think of coming in." She was going with him towards the door. She went with him into the hall. "Good night," they heard her say. "Good night." She stood in the hall after the door had shut behind the man. She waited there. Emily called her. And when she came into the light from the darkness of the hall, it was plain that for once in his life Bob Kenworthy had "got a rise" out of Martha. She came straight at him. She was white with anger.

"How dare you do such a thing! How dare you speak to my friends that way!" Emily had never seen her so furious.

"Martha!" she cried, warningly.

"I won't stand this! I'll never ask another friend to this house as long as I live!"

"Don't talk that way to me!" Bob exclaimed. "Don't say dare to me!"

And Emily said, soothingly, "Martha, didn't I tell you not to let that man come here?"

"You did not! You told me not to appear in public with him. Is this public? We've been up in my room till just now. I pulled the blinds down as soon as we came down!"

"My God!" cried Bob. "You pulled the blinds down! You haven't any sense at all. Have those blinds been down before all summer? You're a perfect fool!"

"I'm not going to be cursed, mother." She started towards the stairs proudly.

"You took him up to your bedroom?" Bob exploded.

"It's not her bedroom, Bob," Emily was saying.

He cried, "Come here and listen to me!"

"I won't," replied Martha. "You can't talk to me in that condition. I'm going to bed."

Emily saw Bob start towards Martha. She thought he was intending seizing her by the arm, pulling her into the room, making her listen. So she sank down into a chair.

"Bob!" she cried, "come here!" and she began crying.

He let Martha go up the stairs. He came and stood raging near Emily.

"Don't you worry! I'll put an end to this. I'll settle her yet. Don't cry. I'll put some sense into that girl's head. She's not going to take married men up to her bedroom in this house!"

"Bob, stop it! That's not her bedroom! You just make things worse!"

"I make things worse, do I?"

"Yes, you do! It's bad enough to have this thing going on! But you go and quarrel with her. You never can stop it this way! The sillier she is, the wiser we have to be. Oh, we must be careful! I won't have you saying such things to each other!"

"What are you blaming me for? You said you'd tell her to quit this, and that's all the good it's done us. Everybody'll be wondering why the blinds were down when we're away."

"Oh, I wish you hadn't done that! I wish—you looked as if you were intending to knock him down, Bob!"

"I did intend to! He's lucky! If he comes hanging around here, I will beat him up. What business has he got in this house at midnight?"

Emily was rising. She wiped her eyes. "I'll go up and talk to her," she said.

When she came into the painted room, Martha, who was sitting on a day bed, looked at her in surprise, and said, shortly: "What are you crying about? Did he do anything to you?" She spoke as if her father might have struck her mother.

"I was crying because you're so—because you speak that way to your father. I can't stand it, Martha!"

"You ought to have got me a civilized father, then—a human being. I get so mad at him!"

"You've got to stop it! I'm not going to live in a house with you two quarreling all the time."

"Oh, I'll clear out! I'm not anxious to stay. You wait till I'm twenty!"

"Martha, you needn't act this way. You needn't try to make out you're the offended one. Did you know he was coming here to-night?"

Martha looked at her mother defiantly. She hesitated. She was a truthful child, at least. She said, shortly, after a second, "Yes, I did."

"Did you ask him? Did you arrange to have him come when we were away?"

"You never asked me questions like this about other people."

"I want to know, Martha."

"Yes, I did. I asked him."

"You know I didn't want you to do that."

"You told me not to appear in public with him, mother. I didn't appear in public. I minded you. I don't see anything to be ashamed of. I don't see why we should keep it secret. He wanted to see me, and I wanted to talk to him. I knew you wouldn't understand it. You just insist on misjudging him. You won't try to get acquainted with him. I knew dad would make a fool of himself if he saw him here."

"What did he need to see you about?"

"Well, I—I don't know why—I don't know what right—— If I'd been ashamed of myself, I could have sent him home before you came, and you'd never even have known he'd been here."

Emily went over and sat down by Martha. She put her arm around her. She tried to pull her close against her, but Martha was for sitting erect, stiffly. Her attitude made Emily's coaxing tone futile.

"Martha, he didn't have any business here. He knew he wasn't welcome here. Unless he's absolutely stupid, he understood that before daddy said a word to him. If he was a decent man he would never have come or he would have gone earlier."

Martha bristled. "He did have business here. He had to see me."

"Why?"

The girl rose. She walked about the room excitedly. She began once, and stopped. She came and stood in front of Emily.

"Now look here, mother. I don't think you ought to ask me questions like that. As though you don't believe me. But if you'll stop all this fuss, I'll tell you the whole thing next week."

"What whole thing?"

"I'll tell you why he came to-night."

"Why don't you tell me now, Martha?"

"No. I'm not going to tell you now. I'll tell you next week. I'll tell you on Monday or Tuesday. It isn't anything to be ashamed of, mother." Martha spoke with dignity, reprovingly.

"I don't suppose it is."

"Then what makes you look at me like a thief? Why do you let dad swear at me and curse me?"

"That's just silly of you! He wasn't cursing you, and you know it. That's just his way."

"I'm tired of his way. I won't have him using my friends like that."

"He never spoke like that to any other friend, Martha. He's patient with them all. He never——

"Well, I don't want him sitting round to be PATIENT with my friends. I can never tell when he'll fly off the handle and beat some of them up."

"You know why he doesn't like this man. No father would like to see his daughter——"

"What?" Martha challenged.

"Having her name connected with a married man."

"There you go, mother. You can't find any objection to him but that."

"That's enough for us."

"We don't seem to agree."

"We've got to, Martha." Emily felt herself trembling. She felt that she was calling to her very child across a great gulf. The living room with its hideous tableau stretched out distantly, and Martha and "that man" stood together by the victrola there, away, away beyond an alienating stretch, and she and Bob stood together by the door, trying to speak to her. She felt it so vividly that her voice touched the angry girl; for Martha came and sat down by her and said, earnestly:

"Oh, mammie, I—I wouldn't quarrel with you for anything. It doesn't matter about dad. But you—mother—you always understood me before. What is the matter now? Can't you trust me? What do you think I'm going to do—to commit some crime?"

"Martha, you are a child. You are a young girl, with no experience. And I tell you you must be careful. You mustn't run risks. You—— There are so many dangers, child!"

"That's just saying those nasty things about him—to talk like that—about danger. Do you think I'm a fool? Dad does!"

"I think you're—young, Martha."

"That's the same thing when you say it that way, mother. Honestly, it'll be all right when I tell you! If you'll call dad off till next week!"

With that much comfort Emily went back to Bob. And she lived till the next Monday a trembling flag of truce between two armies furious to spring into combat.

On Friday Martha stayed in bed till late in the morning, and then came down and said to her mother:

"I'm going to Elgin. Do you want to go with me?"

Emily couldn't well go.

"I won't be back till three or four. And I'm going to have supper with Greta. You needn't worry about me. Richard Quin went to Chicago last night. I don't want to stay in the house all day Sunday with father, so I'm going over to-morrow to Wrights'. They've asked me. You don't mind if I go? I won't be seeing anybody you object to. They'll bring me back Sunday evening."

The prospect of another scene between Bob and Martha was more frightful to Emily than whatever explanation was forthcoming next week. She couldn't help believing that in some way Martha would clear herself from blame. She wanted to believe that she was unreasonable, that her daughter was right. But she would insist on Martha apologizing to Bob as soon as they both cooled down. She could always manage Bob, some way—by tears, if by nothing else, because she had never exercised their authority over him; he wasn't used to them. She knew he surrendered when one tear showed in her eyes. And now since this burden of fear for the child weighed her down, no feigning was required. Tears were just there, waiting to come. Why couldn't Martha appreciate Bob? And why should Bob be irritable only with his poor little daughter? A man who was so successful in managing a lot of overalled workmen. If only Martha had been a boy! Emily, like Bob, had never before been sorry she was a girl. Never! That is—except just now, when she wouldn't get on with her father.

By Monday Emily had practically convinced herself that Martha, by some simple explanation, was about to set everything right. They were together in the living room, waiting for Bob, who was late coming up to dinner. When he came in he laid the mail on the table, paper and letters, and immediately Martha was there, taking hers.

"Who're those letters from?" Bob said.

"I'll be able to tell after I've opened them," she replied, because, even with Emily there, their tones said, "Do you get letters from that damned masher?" and, "What's it to you whom I get letters from!"

Emily interposed. "Dinner's ready, Bob." Her presence begged them not to quarrel. So Martha took her letters and went out to the veranda, and Bob went to wash. And they sat down at the table without more conflict. Martha's face was pink and she ate little. But she hadn't for some days had much appetite, as Emily had silently marked. When they rose and went into the living room again, Martha shut the dining room door behind her. Bob had taken up the daily, and sat down on the davenport, lighting a cigar.

"Mother," said Martha. At the stillness of her voice Bob had looked up at her. She was standing erect at the living-room table. She had taken a letter from the front of her little lavender gingham frock. Emily sank down beside Bob.

"I said I'd tell you something to-day." Both hands were clasped breast-high about that letter. Her shoulders were atilt. Her eyes were gleaming. "I'm afraid you won't like it."

She had spoken gently, with sincerity, with dignity. She paused. She swallowed, trying to go on quietly, but the words came rushing out.

"Richard Quin is getting a divorce!"

The joy of the girl sang out in that sentence. It sang out through the tenseness of the room as if all the lovers of the world were there to listen and chorus. Emily and Bob, for a second, sat dumfounded, just staring at her. Then Emily, from very pity, gave a sort of moan. And at that sound Bob got up ominously. He could hardly find his voice.

"What's that to you? Let me see that letter!" He reached out for it.

Martha stuffed it hastily down the square neck of her frock, for safety.

"It's my letter." She faced him, and not one of her scornful eyelashes fluttered at all, though he was glaring at her as if he would like to tear her into bits.

"So this is what you fixed up Friday night, with the blinds down. The God-damned scoundrel! You think you're going to marry him when he's got one wife?"

"I'm not discussing it with you. I won't have him called names."

Emily sobbed, "Bob!" entreatingly.

He turned sharply round and looked at her. And then he turned passionately towards Martha.

"Look at there!" he cried, with a gesture. "Look at your mother! You can't make her cry!" He was helpless. He had to entreat his child. "You can't do this, Martha!"

Martha had gone to her mother while Bob was speaking. She had thrown herself down against her, caressingly, trying to creep into her arms. But Emily's head was buried in her hands. She would not let her tear-stained face be uncovered.

"I don't want her to cry! I wouldn't make her cry for worlds. I was afraid you wouldn't like it—at first. Don't cry, mammie! It'll be all right when you know him." But Emily wept on. "He hasn't been happy, mother!" Martha entreated her.

Her words seemed to mock Bob. He spluttered out his fury.

"Happy! Who gives a damn whether he's happy or not?" he cried, as if he couldn't believe that his ears had heard such an inopportune suggestion. "Emily! Don't you cry, Emily! I'll stop this!"

"Oh, Martha!" Emily moaned.

Then Bob cried, suddenly, "Let me see that letter!"

Martha got up and spoke quietly.

"Mother doesn't want us quarreling," she said. "You know that. It makes her feel worse. That's my letter and I'm not going to let you see it. I won't talk to you now. You're too mad. I'm going upstairs. You can talk it over together."

Bob sat helplessly down near his wife. He wanted so greatly, so clumsily to comfort her, that she lifted her face to him. She wiped her eyes, but her thoughts were too painful.

"Oh, did you hear how she said that? She's in LOVE with him, Bob!" She wept again.

He answered, shortly: "Well, don't you worry. If she is, she'll have to get over it. What business has she got being in love with a married man?"

"It's too horrible! It makes me sick. I see it all now. She has been infatuated with him since that first night. The way she looked at him—even then!"

"He's a skunk, Emily. He's a damned skunk. The nerve of him, coming down here to tell her he was getting a divorce! She thinks she's going to marry him. Why, the girl's a perfect fool! I'm going to see Fairbanks about this! Who is he, anyway? I'll get the goods on him! I'll put an end to this, once for all. Don't you cry, old girl! We can't have this going on any longer!"

That was true. They could not have this going on. They considered what to do. But every time Emily thought of the child saying that—of those words "Richard Quin is getting a divorce"—as if the words came fresh out of glory, she had to hold her breath to keep from sobbing. The poor, silly, inexperienced girl, caught in this trap of pain. They sat there bewilderedly, trying to plan—to hope—

Then Johnnie Benton knocked on the screen and walked into the room, as he often did. He was embarrassed about something and dead in earnest. He saw at once that Emily had been crying.

"Oh!" he began apologetically. "I didn't—— I want to see Martha."

Bob, intending naturally to hide the family sorrow from sight, got up and went to the stairs and called up:

"Martha, here's Johnnie."

He got no answer, and repeated it shouting.

Martha opened her door and answered:

"I'm busy. I haven't got time to see him."

"Come in again later," Bob said to him. "She's dressing, or something."

But Johnnie wasn't satisfied.

"Well—I want to—— No. This is important. I can't wait. I'm in a hurry."

Bob shouted up again:

"Martha! Johnnie's in a hurry! It's something important. Come on down."

Johnnie heard her answer. Emily heard it. There was no misunderstanding it.

"I'm not coming down. I don't want to see him."

"I'm not going away till I see her."

"What's the matter?" asked Emily, annoyed by his persistence. He stood there as if he was planted deep in the rug.

"Look here, Mrs. Kenworthy, I want this announced. We're engaged. Maybe we ought to have told you before, but it's going to be announced right now."

"Who's engaged?" Bob exclaimed.

"Martha and I."

"Why, Johnnie!" Emily babbled. She had suddenly leaned forward, and was sitting up, looking at the boy.

He grew red, but his eyes never wavered under her scrutiny. He was dead in earnest, for once. "You ask her to come down," he begged.

Emily got up slowly. Was she, then, waking from a hideous nightmare? Oh, if it was only some nice boy like Johnnie that could make the girl's voice shake!

"Martha!" she called up, and her voice was so alive with excitement that Martha came to the top of the stairs.

"What is it, mother?" she asked, eager for conciliation.

"Come down here, Martha!"

So Martha came down. She came into the living room slowly, warily. She looked at Johnnie. She looked at her mother inquiringly.

"Martha," said Emily, quietly, "Johnnie says—— You tell her," she said to him.

"Martha, we're going to announce our engagement to-day. Right now!"

The girl stood looking at him steadily in composed disapproval. "Whom are you engaged to? Why the excitement?"

"I'm engaged to you, Martha." He wasn't going to be fooled with.

"What a——" It seemed plain that she was about to say "lie," but she thought better of dignifying his statement by emphasis.

"What makes you say a thing like that?" she asked.

"You know very well what makes me say it."

Bob could not tolerate her indifference.

"Are you engaged to him or not?" he demanded.

"I certainly am not," she said. "Is that all you wanted?" she asked her mother.

"Now look here, Martha," Johnnie burst out with determination, "it's time to stop this fooling. That other thing's announced. That's in the paper. This is going to be announced."

"What's in the paper?" Bob cried, suspiciously.

"Everything except her name. Everybody knows who it is." And Johnnie stopped short in confusion, looking at Emily. "You were crying——" he pleaded for his excuse, lamely. "I thought you knew."

Bob had jumped for the paper. "What is it?" he cried.

"I thought, of course, you had seen it." And as Bob urged him, he pointed to it almost without looking, as if he knew by heart the very place the words had in their column. And Bob read, spluttering, gurgling:

"Mrs. Richard Quin, who has been visiting her father, returned this morning to Chicago to start divorce proceedings against her husband. She names as corespondent the daughter of a prominent family of this town."

"I thought, of course, you knew," Johnnie murmured.

"He did," said Martha. "I told them."

Emily had been to look over Bob's shoulder. She was taking the paper into her own hands, as if, unless she looked at it closely, she could not believe the words.

"You didn't tell us THIS! You said HE was getting the divorce!" She had reduced Bob again to spluttering.

"What difference does it make?" she murmured. And Bob could only echo her words dazedly. But Johnnie was challenging her.

"As soon as I saw you were in trouble, I made up my mind. I'm not going to wait any longer." There was no mistaking either his words or his tone.

"Oh!" And then, "Am I in trouble?" She spoke with indifferent curiosity, as if the idea was unimportant to her. "What trouble am I in?"

"My God!" Bob shouted at her. "Are you in trouble! Cut that out, I tell you. You ought to be thankful to get a decent man to marry you, after this."

She paid no attention to him. She was still looking imperturbably at Johnnie.

"You think it is a disgrace, I suppose, to have my name connected with his. So you come over and offer to marry me. To give me your precious name! Are you going into the movies, Johnnie?"

It is altogether likely that Bob, at this point, would have seized her by the arm and given her that shaking she had been so long inviting, if into the room just then had not stalked the cause of Johnnie's haste. His mother seemed to be perfectly in tune with the occasion, for she demanded, excitedly, having looked about and fixed her eyes on Emily:

"What has he been saying? I told you I'd tell the Kenworthys! Emily, what has Johnnie been saying to you?"

Before Emily could answer, Bob, to save her the trouble, exclaimed: