The Smart Set Vol. LX, No. 4 (December 1919), ed. by H.L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan. New York: Smart Set Company, Inc., pp. 152.

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December 1919 35 Cents
A Magazine of Cleverness
[Compl]ete Short Novel; Ten [Stor]ies; Threes Essays; [ ... ]y; and a Budget [ ... ]ms, Burlesques
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Vol. LX. DECEMBER, 1919 No.4
Manuscripts must be addressed, "Editors of THE SMART SET"
No responsibility is assumed for manuscripts that are not accompanied by a fully stamped, self-addressed envelope.
CONTENTS
CHRISTIAN, PAGAN AND ICONOCLAST Gorham B. Munson 1
TELEGRAMS Agnes Miller 2
WITCH-FIRE George Sterling 2
WHAT IS ISN'T (complete novelette) Charles Stokes Wayne 3
EAST AND WEST Lord Dunsany 41
TWILIGHT OF LOVE L. M. Hussey 43
THE ALPINE WANDERERS Florence Wilkinson 51
TWO DREAMS DWELL IN HER EYES Mary Carolyn Davies 52
ON RECEIVING A LUNCHEON INVITATION Laura Kent Mason 53
THEY SHALL KNOW Harold Cook 56
THE DAWN John C. Cavendish 57
THE POWER OF LOVE Winthrop Parkhurst 64
MY LIFE IS GLAD Harry Kemp 64
REPÉTITION GENÉRALE George Jean Nathan and H.L. Mencken 65
BURNING LEAVES George O'Neil 72
THE NEGLIGIBLE ONES Mifflin Crane 73
LOST LOVE Morris Dallett 75
HEREDITY T. F. Mitchell 82
NOCTURNE Jean Allen 82
THE BEANSTALK (one-act play) John Chapin Mosher 83
DUSK Irmengarde Eberle 88
TWO GENTLEMEN OF CARACAS L. M. Hussey 89
THE YEARS AHEAD Muna Lee 99
LINES WRITTEN ON A DAY OF DOUBT Virginie Griffiths 101
ON WINTER NIGHTS John McClure 102
AUNT IDA Thyra Samter Winslow 103
RATTLESNAKE MOUNTAIN FABLE Maxwell Bodenheim 115
HEAVENLY SOPHISTS Maurice Lazar 116
THE OCTOGENARIAN C. Farley Anderson 119
A JEST IN THE HOUSEHOLD Mlines Levick 126
LE CAS DE M. PATERNE (in the French) Henri Allorge 129
CRITICISM AT A GALLOP George Jean Nathan 131
EXEUNT OMNES H.L. Mencken 138
AND HALF A HUNDRED BURLESQUES, EPIGRAMS, POEMS, SHORT SATIRES, ETC.
The entire contents of this magazine is protected by copyright and must not be reprinted
YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION $4.00 SINGLE COPIES 35 CENTS
Issued Monthly by Smart Set Company, Inc., 25 West 45th Street. New York Entered as second class matter, March 27, 1900 at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879 Eltinge F. Warner, Pres, and Treas. George Jean Nathan, Sec.
Western Adverting Office, Westminster Bldg., Chicago, Ill.
Copyright, 1919 by Smart Set Company. Inc.
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Statement of the Ownership, Management, Circulation. Etc., Required by the Act of Congress of August 24, 1912, of Smart Set. Published monthly at New York. N. Y., for October 1st. 1919. State of New York, County of New York, ss. Before me, a Notary Public, in and for the State and county afore-said, personally appeared E. F. Warner, who, having been duly sworn according to law, deposes and says that he is the Business Manager of The Smart Set, and that the following is, to the best of his knowledge and belief, a true statement of the ownership, management. etc., of the aforesaid publication for the date shown in the above caption, required by the Act of August 24th, 1912, embodied in section 443. Postal Laws and Regulations, printed on the reverse of this form, to wit: That the names and addresses of the publisher, editor, managing editor, and business managers are: Publisher, Smart Set Company Inc., 25 West 45th St., New York City: Editors, George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken, 26 West 45th St., New York City; Managing Editors, George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken. 25 West 45th St., New York City; Business Manager. E. F. Warner, 25 West 45th St., New York City. 2. That the owners are: Smart Set Company, Inc., 26 West 45th St., New York City: E. F. Warner, 25 West 45th St., New York City: George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken, 25 West 45th St., New York City: E. F. Crowe, 25 West 45th St. New York City. 3. That the known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities are: W.D. Mann, 8 West 45th St., New York City; Mrs. E. Mann-Vynne, 8 West 45th St., New York City; George Jean Nathan, H.L. Mencken, E F. Warner. 25 West 45th St., New York City: E.F. Crowe, 33 West 42d St., New York City. 4 That the two paragraphs next above, giving the names of the owners, stockholders, and security holders, if any, contain not only the list of stockholders and security holders as they appear upon the books of the company but also, in cases where the stockholder or security-holder appears appear on the books of the company as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of the person or corporation for whom such trustee is acting, is given; also that the said two paragraphs contain statements embracing affiant's full knowledge and belief as to the circumstances and conditions under which stockholders and security holders who do not appear upon the books of the company as trustees, hold stock and securities in a capacity other than that of a bona fide owner: and this affiant has no reason to believe that any other person, association, or corporation has any interest direct or indirect in the said stock, bonds, or other securities than as so stated by him. (Signed) E. F. Warner, Business Manager. Sworn to and subscribed before me, this 29th day of September, 1919. [Seal] A W. Sutton, Notary Public, Westchester County. (My commission expires March 30, 1920.)
In answering advertisements, please mention SMART SET
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This number of The Smart Set, owing to the printers' strike, has been published under great difficulties. We ask our readers' indulgence in the matter of the magazines appearance, particularly the paper.
 
Vol. LX DECEMBER, 1919 No. 4
Edited by George Jean Nathan and H.L Mencken
 
Christian, Pagan and Iconoclast
By Gorham B. Munson
I
A FLY was enmeshed in a huge spider-web. It closed its eyes, breathed as little as possible, and gave itself up to hopes of a miracu- lous escape, a blissful contemplation of an unmarred sugar-bowl carnival, and the picture of a great bonfire of black spiders. After a while the silent spider ran out and devoured the fly.
II
Another fly was enmeshed in the same huge web. It gazed with wonder at the random shafts of sunlight which fell in its dark corner, it admired the
delicate strength of the circling web, it inhaled with joy the scented air of the hay-loft, it listened intently to the occasional harmonies bandied about by the wind. After a while the silent spider ran out and devoured the fly.
III
Still another fly was enmeshed in the huge web. It thrashed its wings, it wrenched its body, it kicked its legs. The web yielded here and there and shook tremulously at the utmost exer- tions of the victim. After a while' the silent spider ran out and devoured the fly.
S.S.- Dec. 1
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Telegrams
By Agnes Miller
I HAVE a friend who is a telegraph operator.
Once I asked him what most tele- grams were about.
"All telegrams," he replied, "are about one of two subjects: money or kisses."
"The second," I suggested, "no doubt always acknowledge the first?"
"Never. They serve either as a re-
quest for the first or as a reply to the request."
"And the first?"
"That may be either an acknowledg- ment of or a request for the second."
"And do both," I inquired, 'ever ap- pear together in one telegram?"
My friend, the operator, smiled.
"Only," he answered, "in messages sent by the poor."
Witch-Fire
By George Sterling
SAID the faun to the will-o'-the-wisp: "You are fugitive, far!" Said the will-o'-the-wisp to the faun: "But more near than the star."
Said the faun to the will-o'-the-wisp: "You are white, you are cold!" Said the will-o'-the-wisp to the faun: "I am fire to the bold."
Said the faun to the will-o'-the-wisp: "You are fey, you are fair!" Said the will-o'-the-wisp to the faun: "If I be, have a care!"
It was far on the marsh that she fled; It was far from the dawn. Now the winds of the morning have found Not her light nor the faun.
2
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What Is Isn't
(A Complete Novelette)
By Charles Stokes Wayne
CHAPTER I
WHEN Lee Calvert, defying a discretion hitherto regarded as obligatory, rang boldly the door- bell of the Elliot Holland home in East Sixty-first Street, and, having asked for Mrs. Holland, handed the servant his carte de visite, he forged a link in the chain which was eventually to shackle him.
That he did it unwittingly, not being gifted with ability accurately to foresee the future, is scarcely worth consider- ing, since an infallible prescience would probably not have deterred him. Cir- cumstances had arisen which he felt made the call imperative. Conse- quences, likely or unlikely—such was the emotional turmoil of the moment— he had no thought for.
Save, however, for an unusual pal- lor, there was nothing in his appearance to indicate the nervous strain he was undergoing. A rather tall, well-pro- portioned young man, noticeably good- looking, carefully—almost meticulously —groomed and smartly dressed, the gaze of his blue-grey eyes as it met the enquiring look of the maid was unwa- veringly direct, and the movement of his gloved hand in presenting the card was markedly steady.
But, waiting in the small reception- room to the left of the entrance hall, and released from observation, his self- command was less perfect. Still hold- ing his hat and walking-stick, he moved about restlessly, with bent head and furrowed brow. In the five minutes' interval before the maid's return he twice glanced at his watch, and for the
first time a fear loomed that Bianca might decline to see him.
This, though, was eventually dissi- pated. It ended in his being led up a broad, curving staircase and along a softly carpeted corridor to an open door before which his guide halted and, with a gracefully indicative gesture, stepped aside.
The next instant he was facing Bi- anca Holland.
In every conceivable sense this wom- an was to Calvert the most desirable of God's creatures. Even the more in- different men conceded her beauty and her charm. Nearly as tall as himself, her figure had all the slender, sinuous symmetry of a hamadryad, its lines en- hanced now by the teagown she was wearing: a pale, filmy fabric which seemed to hold in its folds the faint silver grey of earliest dawn, just as the night seemed captive in her hair, and starshine in the depths of her large, dark, languorous eyes.
The room, though he failed to ob- serve it, was a fit setting for this jewel he so highly prized. It was cosily small, half boudoir and half library, with no striking, glaring color any- where, but a blending of tints that sug- gested nothing so much as a great hol- lowed-out opal.
Before either uttered a word he had read in her look—in her shadowy smile, in the faint parting of her sensuous, sensitive lips—not reproach, but ques- tion. In this wise he answered it:
"I had to come. There was no other way."
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4 WHAT IS ISN'T
For reply she gave him her hand, and its soft, warm pressure said very dis- tinctly:
"I know. I understand."
Stepping past him, she closed the door, and spoke actually.
"Here, Lee, we shall be quite safe from interruption."
Against the wall to the right was a dainty little sofa-like thing of white en- amel and lavender satin, whereon they sat down.
"I've tried, Bee," he said, dismally. "It's no use. I can't keep my promise. For twenty-four hours I've been in pur- gatory. Either you must find some way of getting out of going or release me from my promise not to follow you."
"But, my dear," she rejoined, not unkindly, "don't you see how impos- sible either is? What would happen?"
"You mean your husband's sus- picions would be confirmed?"
"Unquestionably."
"Well! Let them. Better still, tell him the truth. Confess you no longer love him. Ask him to free you."
"Oh, my dear!"
It was not the first time he had asked her this—no, nor the hundredth—but never before had so much hung be- tween consent and refusal. In the two years of their love—of their passion, mutually avowed, yet ungratified and wrapped in what they had believed to be an impenetrable secrecy—there had been only the briefest separations. A week had measured the longest. And for being mostly behind a veil their meetings were all the sweeter. In the clandestine there is zest.
But there had come a time now when, some whisper or some intuitive convic- tion of the truth having penetrated, at least vaguely, to the Elliot Holland con- sciousness, Bianca was, after but five days' warning, to be taken abroad.
To Calvert, therefore, her exclama- tory protest in response to this ultimate and paramount voicing of his old ap- peal was like a sudden knife-thrust at his last hope. He winced visibly, and a swift color dyed his cheeks to the temples. The next instant, though, the
flush receded; and he bent forward, burying his face in his palms.
Into Bianca's expressive eyes there came then a cloud of pity masking the starshine. It was with a gesture of pleading that she laid, yearningly, a hand upon his slanted shoulder.
"Lee!" she murmured. "Don't! Please don't!"
She could feel the slow, deep rhythm of his breathing. And it seemed to her the full-pulsed throbbing of his heart in pain. He gave her no reply, and she went on:
"I'd do it—oh, so willingly, so glad- ly!—if there were the tiniest use. But I know him so well. It would only make matters worse—a thousand times worse."
"Worse?" he echoed into his cupped palms. "As if anything could be!"
"But, think, dear. It's not for long. Two months perhaps. Three at the most. He must be back by the middle of January. There's a—"
He straightened quickly and turned to her, his eyes blazing.
"Look at me!" he cried, sternly. "Look at me, and say that again!" She looked at him, and, looking, quailed. Her gaze fell and she sat mute.
"Three months not long!" he repeat- ed. "Not long? One month to me would be eternity. If you loved me half as much as I love you you couldn't think of it."
Her eyes narrowed. The line of her lips straightened. She held her breath as if in pain.
"Do you want to drive me quite mad?" he went on. "I'm not-far from it now."
Abruptly she recovered herself.
"It's because I love you so dearly that I can face it bravely. If I had no thought but my own selfish desires, I'd have been yours long ago. Wholly yours. We'd have been at the world's end by now."
"Would to God we were!" he re- turned fervently.
"Oh, don't say that!" she begged. "You know that no lasting happiness
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WHAT IS ISN'T 5
could come of it. A delirium of joy and—"
"Yes. And—what?"
"The awakening. Exiles. Satiety. Reproaches. Probably hate."
"Nonsense! That's only a morbid fancy."
"I'm sorry you think so, Lee. But it's the only way I can see it. Intui- tion tells me we must wait."
For the briefest moment he sat gaz- ing at her in wistful silence. Never had she appeared to him so beautiful, so adorably desirable. His whole being ached to possess her. The subtle per- fume she exhaled, like the scent of flowers, warm and sweet, intoxicated him. Then, abruptly, his arms were about her, he had drawn her close, his lips were avidly upon hers. And swift as winged darts the ardent seconds sped.
It was she, at length, who all at once drew away, startled.
"I heard something," she whispered.
Calvert's smile was indulgent.
"You're full of fancies today, dar- ling," he told her softly.
But she lifted a cautioning finger. "No," she breathed, still nervous with alarm. "Someone jarred the door."
"A draft probably."
Already she was on her feet and crossing the room. Precipitately she turned the knob, drawing the door in- ward. The corridor was empty.
"You see," he said.
"Still, I'm unconvinced," was her re- joinder.
Again he smiled. "You are morbid today."
"But if Elliot should come in unex- pectedly! Think of it."
"Very well. Suppose he should. All the better. He'd learn for himself then what you refuse to tell him."
"That wbuld be far worse," she de- clared. "There is but one way, as I've told you. We must wait."
"For what? Until when?"
"I've already told you for what. We've spoken of it many times. How can I say when? But it won't be long, dear. I feel that."
"Your feeling isn't much to tie to. We may have to wait for years for the apoplexy he's been cautioned against."
"I won't talk of it," she said, drop- ping limply into a chair.
"Because you really have no more faith in it than I. Vanderslice is an alarmist. And Holland's right in giv- ing his warning little heed. He's too young a man to have brittle arteries. Forty-five isn't old any more."
"Oh, why will you make me go over that again?" She had turned to him imploringly. "Dr. Vanderslice is not an alarmist. He named a dozen men at least we've known, no older than Elliot, who went in that way. But he refuses to be careful. He eats and drinks what he likes, takes practically no exercise, and makes no effort what- ever to control his temper. There can, I tell you, be but one end. I've urged him to be careful until I—"
Calvert, frowning, caught her up.
"You've urged him?" he cried.
"Naturally. Would you have me do otherwise?"
"I couldn't have done it."
"That's the one reason why I've asked you not to come here. If you should meet what might not happen? This way my conscience is clear."
"My conscience is less sensitive." And once more a smile—this time but a faint one—lifted slightly the corners of his sensitive clean-shaven mouth.
"Lee!"
"Oh, I admit it. Why lie? Natu- rally I want him out of the way. He's standing in the middle of the road to my happiness and yours. We might push him aside, but you won't have that. You are determined that we shan't go on until he's dead. It is you, my dear, who make that condition. Not I."
Again Adam was blaming Eve for his temptation. But, if Eve had any defense ready, she was prevented from voicing it by the falling at that moment of a light tap on the door. Calvert im- pulsively sprang up. But it was only a maid with tea.
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6 WHAT IS ISN'T
When she was gone and he held a cap in his hand he said:
"Why did you say we'd be safe from interruption here, if there was a possi- bility of him returning at any moment or of tea being brought in?"
"Because the possibilities were most remote. Ordinarily he's rarely home before seven. Even then he doesn't come here. Tonight we are dining at his brother's. He'll be in earlier, but I shall not expect him before six. When I heard that movement of the door, though, it occurred to me that he might possibly have come and asked for me, and that one of the maids had, unthinkingly, mentioned your name. A guilty conscience, you know. As for the tea, I had ordered that for five- thirty."
Calvert glanced at the bijou of a timepiece on Bianca's escritoire across the room. It indicated five-forty.
"Unless I wish to precipitate an apo- plectic seizure and so hasten our happi- ness I'd better be off pretty quickly then," he said.
"I think you'll be safe until six," she returned lightly.
"Suppose I refuse to go until you promise to release me from my agree- ment not to follow you to the other side."
"You mustn't ask that, dear."
"But I do ask it. That's why I'm here. My mind is made up. I won't wait three months. No, nor one month either. I can't endure the thought of it. I'm going to follow you by the next boat."
"You mean you'll break your word?"
"No. I mean you must release me."
"But I can't. Surely you won't make it so hard for me. I'd never have a moment's peace."
"But if I agree to be most careful? There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to see each other in London and Paris, or wherever you go, quite as se- cretly as here in New York."
For ten minutes they argued without reaching agreement. In the end, his eyes on the little clock, Calvert said: "Very well. You shall have until to-
morrow to think it over further."
"We go aboard tomorrow night, you know," Bianca told him. "And sail early Thursday morning."
"I understand that. But you'll lunch with me tomorrow."
"If nothing happens, yes."
"What can happen?"
"Anything. Aren't we on the knees of the gods?"
"Do you want to drive me quite dotty? If you're not at Giro's at one, I'll come here. If you're not here I'll be at the pier when you arrive, and I'll kiss you good-bye right under his nose. Yes, if it kills him."
"I know of nothing to keep me from being at Giro's at one."
"That's better," he said, smiling as he put down his cup. "And at Giro's you'll free me from my agreement. You must, darling."
"I can't do that, ever. Oh, Lee, you must see it my way! You must bear it bravely as I am bearing it."
"You won't change?"
"I won't change."
"Nor will I."
He seized her almost roughly in one long final embrace, kissed her again and again, and the next moment was running lightly down the broad, curv- ing staircase. Snatching up his hat and walking-stick from the hall-table, where, in thoughtless indiscretion, he had left them, he passed out through the door held open by the maid and turned towards Fifth Avenue.
Still deeply absorbed in his problem, his eyes on vacancy, he quite failed to observe the limousine which, at the mo- ment his feet touched the sidewalk. was already drawing in before the Holland residence.
Elliot Holland's faculties, however— he being less singly engrossed—were more generally alert. He not only ob- served the emerging caller, he identified him.
CHAPTER II
Giro's, as any sophisticated New Yorker will tell you, is an Italian res-
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WHAT IS ISN'T 7
taurant with a high-class Italian clien- tle. Outwardly unpretentious, snug- gled cozily between taller brownstone fronts on a cross-street off Broadway in the vicinity of Lincoln Square, it is of another world from that of Park Avenue and its nabobs, which is but little less than a mile to the eastward. Yet rarely does the Italian ambassador forego at least one dinner at Giro's on the occasions of his metropolitan visits, and the prince of operatic tenors is a regular patron.
As a rendezvous for young Calvert and Bianca Holland it very nearly ap- proached the ideal. While near enough to their homes to be convenient of ac- cess, detection was the most remote of possibilities, yet it provided invariably a variedly delicious menu and the serv- ice was as enticingly perfect as that of the smartest restaurant in the city.
On the day following his indiscreet visit to the Holland home Calvert ar- rived at Giro's some minutes in advance of the appointed hour of one. As was his habit, he avoided the larger front room, preferring to reach the smaller one in the rear by means of the con- necting side-passage, rather than risk the thousandth chance of recognition.
Their table—the one to which they had been directed on their initial visit, more than a year ago and which on sub- sequent occasions he had invariably re- served by telephone—was located in a partially curtained alcove, and not un- til he was under the alcove arch did he see that it was unoccupied.
In his impatience, overestimating the time involved in the journey from his Wall Street office, he imagined himself late, and the absence of Bianca, in its first effect, was a sickening let-down.
"If nothing happens," she had said.
And there recurred to him too that phrase of hers: "We are on the knees of the gods."
But, consulting his watch, he was re- assured. She had still six minutes.
He sat down and of the hovering waiter ordered a cocktail. When it was brought and he had drunk it and lighted a cigarette, he heard a clock
in the front room strike one. From that moment he began counting the minutes. The fact that she was rarely punctual somehow gave him little con- solation. Today was not like other days.
"If you are not there at one," he had told her, "I'll come here."
He had meant that. He still meant it. But he must, he supposed, give her some grace. It would only mess things up to go,and miss her. The question was: how long should he wait?
He contented himself for five min- utes, his eyes fastened on the edge of the curtain in constant expectation. Then he gave her five minutes more. When it was half gone he resolved that he would not wait beyond the quarter- hour.
He began tapping on the table with the edge of the menu-card, estimating each tap as a second. In this way he counted two minutes more. He had begun on the third minute when she came.
Curiously enough, he was actually surprised to see her. His hope had be- come attenuated to that degree. He rose but he had no words.
"I'm awfully sorry," she was saying, "but I couldn't get here a second soon- er. At the last minute Cecile insisted on another fitting of one of my frocks, and I was late getting to her because— But you must know, yourself, Lee, how it is. There are always a hundred things to do the last day."
"So long as you're here it's all right," he smiled. "But I nearly had the wil- lies waiting."
He had forestalled the waiter by tak- ing her wrap and drawing out her chair for her. And now, when she was seat- ed, he availed himself of the opportu- nity, still standing behind her, to touch with appreciatively caressing hand the velvet of her throat and cheek.
By neither a jot nor tittle had he re- ceded from his determination of the previous day to follow her abroad, whether or no. But he had no inten- tion to mar their luncheon hour by in- troducing the subject before dessert.
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8 WHAT IS ISN'T
And in order to guard against any pos- sible broaching of it on her part, he had predetermined his initial topic even to the extent of holding in mind his open- ing sentence.
Curiously enough, though, when the order had been given and they were alone, they both spoke at once, and both in identically the same words:
"I've something to tell you."
Then, in chorus, they laughed at the coincidence. And never to Calvert, watching her, had Bianca been, he thought, just like this. Yesterday he had fancied her eclipsing all past ra- diances of desirability. But today her loveliness held for him an added charm. Her skin was fairer, clearer, more deli- cately tinted. Her eyes brighter, yet brimming more with the love he craved above all things. And he sobered ab- ruptly under the distress of the realiza- tion that, should he have permitted her to have her way, he would now be look- ing at her for the last time for what would seem at least a century.
It was in the hope that she might mean to tell him she had yielded that he granted her the precedence he had so jealously striven to keep.
"Very well, dear," he said. "My story can wait."
"Elliot saw you yesterday." That was her news.
"Saw me?"
"Yes. Leaving the house."
"There were no fatal results."
"How do you know? There might have been."
"I saw him an hour ago, myself. He was quite fit then. Well, what hap- pened?"
"He said that it was evident he was not taking me away any too soon."
"Was that all?"
"It was quite enough as he said it. But it wasn't all. He called you some horrid names."
"And you, too?"
"Oh, no! He blamed himself rather. He said he never questioned my fidel- ity. I'm too cold a woman to lose my head. But in the long run even I might prove not altogether immune to the
flattery of an unscrupulous libertine. He was glad he had taken steps in time to save me."
"What a cur!" Calvert muttered. "Still, I'm glad he saw me. I'm glad he regarded me as dangerous. It must have added to his sense of insecurity. What a fool to think that by taking you abroad he can alter the situation any!"
"He doesn't understand, you see. His vanity is something prodigious. He im- agines that by devotion, at this late day, he can make me forget you."
Calvert's mouth twitched under the stab of that "by devotion" and the lan- cinating pang it inflicted.
"Good God!" he murmured through teeth tight-closed. "The thought of you going to—to that!"
She leant nearer to him, pressing against the table-edge.
"Oh, Lee!" she breathed sympathet- ically. "You have nothing to fear. You know you haven't."
"It isn't that I doubt you," he pro- tested. "You, can't think that. It's only the thought of to what you'll be subjected. To his kisses and embraces. Every minute I'll be picturing you in his arms. I know what the torture will be."
"But you're exaggerating it. Elliot isn't like you. He's seldom demonstra- tive. And I! You wouldn't know me if you could see me with him. I'm glacial. I am, really!"
"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop! You're only making it worse." And almost savagely he ground out the red cinder of his cigarette in the basin of the little iron match-stand.
For a little space neither spoke. Bi- anca, her eyes all pity, gazed at his drawn profile as he sat with face avert- ed, his chin lowered, and his eyes fixed on the red velvet carpet.
Presently she said:
"But you had something to tell me. What is it? I'm curious."
It was all of half a minute before he responded. Then he faced her once more.
"Oh, that!" he said. "It was only
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WHAT IS ISN'T 9
that I called on your husband this morning."
She started at the words, caught her breath with a little gulp, and her eyes widened.
"You—you called—?" she began.
"Yes. But don't be alarmed. We had no words. You weren't mentioned. Because, all our messengers were out, I, like a fool, volunteered to deliver the letter of credit that he's to pay your expenses with on the other side. I was going that way, and I fancied that I'd only have to hand it to his managing clerk."
"But?"
"He'd left instructions that the mes- senger should be shown in. Under the circumstances I couldn't very well re- fuse. Could I?"
"But I don't understand why he—"
"Wanted to make sure that it was all right, I suppose. So as to avoid fur- ther delay if it wasn't."
"And was it?"
"Naturally. Our house rarely makes errors. We've been too long at the game. But if there had been a mistake in every line he'd never have detected one. It was most amusing. He pre- tended to look it over, but my presence rattled him. Didn't take in a word he was reading. And I just stood there watching his face grow redder and red- der by the minute, and wishing to God that a little vein might burst in his brain and hurry him to Kingdom Come. I must have laughed aloud at his vexa- tion—at his obvious discomfiture—if I hadn't been so intent on that wish."
"Oh, Lee!"
"It's the truth. Why shouldn't I confess it? Ordinarily I'm not a very good hater, Bee. But if hating could kill Elliot Holland he'd be dead at this minute."
"My dearest!" There was hurt as well as deprecation in her tone. "I wish you wouldn't say such things. Our love should be above hatred." And her lip quivered.
The waiter came then and Calvert was perforce silent. When, having placed the Blue Points before them,
the waiter once more effaced himself, the ardent young lover, on second thought, suppressed his intended de- fence.
"I hope you have nothing today to hurry away for," he said instead. And it was with a little temporary glow of satisfaction that he heard her answer:
"Nothing. The whole afternoon is yours, if you want it."
"Want it!" he echoed. "It can be measured by minutes, and I long for the immeasurable."
An half-hour passed. They were picking at breasts of quail, broiled to a turn under crisp bacon strips, and sip- ping a dry, still wine which imparted a certain temporary warmth of content- ment, when a sudden jangle of brass curtain-rings and a swift movement aside of the crimson plush hangings at Bianca's back caused them both to start.
Calvert, abruptly apprehensive, lifted his gaze and Bianca's lovely head exe- cuted a quick turn. So that, simul- taneously, they were conscious of their invaded privacy.
A tall, thin, gentlemanly appearing man, Vandyke-bearded and slightly bald, was regarding them from the mid- dle of the archway. Both recognized him. He was Elliot Holland's elder brother, Robert. Both, too, were in- stantly aware of a stem gravity of visage which communicated something more unusual than simple alarm. And both were mute under the weight of it.
Nor did he either bow or speak un- til, advancing, he stood between them at the table's end. And then he addressed Bianca.
"I have been trying to locate you since twelve-thirty," he said in a voice ominously hushed. "Something tragic has happened."
Calvert's eyes went to the face of the woman he loved. It was white as pa- per and she was staring frightenedly at her brother-in-law.
"Elliot?" she questioned, breathing the name.
He nodded.
Calvert got to his feet. There was
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but one inference. Holland was dead. His wish had come true. But he ex- perienced no delight. The shock of it numbed him. The scene in which he was taking part seemed like a dream, in which Bianca's white face and tear- less, piteous eyes dominated every- thing.
"I have a taxi waiting," he heard Robert Holland say.
He saw the white face rise. It ap- peared to him to float upward. He took a step. Her wrap! But already it was in Holland's hands. He was holding it for her.
"If there's anything I can—" he be- gan.
But no one paid him the slightest at- tention.
The two figures moved away, si- lently.
The curtains swayed, were swept aside, fell back into their places. He was alone beside the table in the alcove.
CHAPTER III
It occurred to Lee Calvert, later, as the taxicab in which he was being driven to his club whirled recklessly through Columbus Circle, that Robert Holland, after that first look from the archway, had not once turned his face to him. And he smiled to himself, with a partially recovered and momen- tarily quickening complacency, at his presumptuous egotism in imagining that he would.
It was not unlikely that his brother had taken him into his confidence. But, even if this were not so, the bare fact of his sister-in-law lunching tete-a- tete in an obscure restaurant with a man much his brother's junior would have been sufficient, and especially at such a time, to provoke his antagonism.
He was willing, in view of the cir- cumstances, to make for Bianca every possible allowance. It was but natural that, crushed to a stupor by the sudden- ness of the tidings, she should have been so obsessed by them as to lose perception of everything else. Even he, himself, had been nearly knocked
out by it. Nevertheless, as he now calmly reviewed the episode, he could not wholly assuage the hurt of her to- tal inobservance. There was no get- ting away from the fact that she had forgotten him entirely and left him without either a glance or a word.
But not until later, at the club, with the earlier editions of the evening pa- pers about him, did the possibility occur to him that it might, after all, have been other than mere forgetting. That it might, indeed, have been in recollec- tion and horror of those idly spoken words at the table about wishing a little cerebral vein would break, and then: "If hating would kill . . . he'd be dead this minute."
"Suppose," he thought, "she should believe that! That hating can kill! And that my hating killed him!"
No two of the newspaper stories were quite the same. Still, they all agreed pretty well as to the time, and it was very evident to Calvert that the apoplectic stroke—they were unani- mous on apoplexy as the cause—must have almost immediately followed his call.
He remembered looking at his watch as he came down in the elevator, and that it was ten minutes or so after twelve. He had been anxious then about his appointment at Giro's, for he had still another call to make, and there was no telling, with the crowded traffic conditions, how long it would take him to get uptown by taxi.
And the papers had it that Manning, the managing clerk, found Elliot Hol- land apparently lifeless upon entering his office at quarter-past twelve.
The more Calvert thought about this small margin the less he liked it. For- tunately none of the accounts men- tioned his name. But he had told Bi- anca, and women were, in a way, such undependable creatures. They were given, at times, to the weirdest sort of fancies which they denominated intui- tions.
Here the very thing had happened that he most wished for—or thought he did—and it might prove disastrous.
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Now that Holland was gone he actu- wished him back. If he had only insisted on taking to him that letter credit! Filson, the chief clerk of department, had been reluctant to let him. There'd be a boy available in half an hour, he said. But—yes, he'd insisted. He wanted to see Holland be- fore he sailed. He had told Bianca he didn't expect to. But he did. He would have been disappointed if he had not. Knowing that he possessed the love of this man's wife, his craving was to face him, and silently to gloat over him. And in his heart he had said, watching the husband's discom- fiture:
"You may take her away from me in body, but in spirit we'll still be together, because we belong to one another."
He had come away triumphant, ex- ulting in the conviction that he held the upper hand, and that nothing could displace him. And here, but two hours later, Death was mocking him. Elliot Bolland, dead, was usurping his su- premacy.
He touched the bell on the table, and when a waiter responded he ordered a highball. The club lounge was near- ly deserted. In one corner three men —probably new members—whom he did not know, were in interested con- verse. Unconsciously, after lighting a fresh cigarette—he had been smoking incessantly—his gaze lingered upon them, it rested there when the waiter reappeared with his tray and the clink of glass broke in upon his abstraction.
But, when his drink had been mixed and was at his lips, a voice, high- pitched and pentrating, drew his atten- tion once more to that comer. A fourth man had joined the others, was stand- ing beside them, and it was he who was speaking.
"Yes. Everybody's talking of it downtown," Calvert heard. "Most sen- sational thing that's happened in years. It came out on the ticker first, you know, as apoplexy. All the papers had it that. But there seems no doubt now that the poor chap was murdered."
Calvert's glass slipped from his sud-
denly nerveless fingers, struck the rounded leather arm of his chair, and dropped to the floor. It didn't break— the thickness of the rug saved it—but there was a tinkling reverberation, and the speaker looked around.
He saw Calvert bending to recover it. Then he went on:
"No doubt of it.. Stabbed, they say, with a hatpin or something like it. That's all that's definite. But there's no end of theories."
Having returned his empty glass to the silvered tray, Lee Calvert rose from his chair and stood a moment, attacked by a sensation of giddiness that was new to him. Objects were circling and there was an unwonted sense of ful- ness in his head. He rested a hand on the chair-back and so steadied him- self. The vertigo, or whatever it was, passed.
He told himself that he needed air. The lounge was hot and close. In the reception hall he turned to the coat- room window on his right and was waiting for his overcoat, hat and walk- ing-stick when he heard behind him the words:
"There's Mr. Calvert now, sir."
He wheeled sharply, facing a heavy- set, red-haired and moustached man in a dark grey coat and soft hat; and knew instantly his errand. It was prepos- terous, of course. Absurd and most aggravating. But it was equally un- avoidable. He was about to be ar- rested.
Superbly he pulled himself together. He even managed a smile of greet- ing.
"In just a moment," he said. "The boy's getting my things. Then I'll go with you."
To onlookers it must appear that the burly caller had come by appointment.
CHAPTER IV
Emerging in a measure from her daze in the taxicab, with Robert Hol- land, silent and sombre, beside her, there was one question which rose paramount in the mind of Bianca and
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clamored for answer. And, strangely enough, it was a question which, in his pondering, had not once addressed it- self to Calvert. She was perplexed be- yond measure to know how her brother- in-law had, even after that hour and more of delay, discovered that she was at Giro's.
And it was not till the day was spent —that awful afternoon of crowding privileged callers: close relatives of Elliot's and her own; and that evening of crowding memories—that her curi- osity was satisfied. Much as she wished to know, she would have sacrificed her tongue rather than ask Robert Holland. And he was the last man to have vol- unteered information on, to him, so delicate a matter.
Throughout the ordeal of that pre- mature and precipitate home-coming; succeeded by that seemingly endless lis- tening to a detailed narrative of just what had happened at the law offices, preceding and following the discovery of the sagging, lifeless body in the re- volving chair; and finally the exchange of expressions of sympathy and con- dolence with kinsfolk; Bianca, after the initial shock of surprise, bore herself with commendable bravery.
Tactfully, she managed by sheer force of will to steer a middle course between an exhibition of too much feel- ing and of too little. Gaining thus for herself undeserved commendation for her admirable self-control in the face of an overwhelming sorrow, and avoiding the criticism of the captious for lack of emotion, not to say heartlessness.
For the expenditure of nervous force involved in this successful endeavor, however, she had subsequently to pay. With the departure of the last visitor there descended upon her an avalanche of imaginings, born of swift reaction. The objective gave place to the sub- jective. She became the prey of her own introspection. She had been, if not unfaithful in the larger acceptation of that term, certainly undutiful. Self- reproach seized upon her and exacted its measure of requital. She was haunted by her dead.
In her opal-tinted boudoir, to which she had fled at the first moment of freedom, her husband awaited her. He moved constantly before her. He was: in every chair. He sat where yester- day Lee Calvert had sat beside her on the small white and lavender sofa. And always, though he spoke no word, there was accusation in the fixed stare of his small, misty grey eyes. Accusa- tion and reproach.
As in a panorama there unrolled be- fore her scene after scene of their life together, the four years of which were crowded into a space of minutes. There was, too, their first meeting at a Newport garden party, recalling her hasty appraisement of him and her utter indifference. It was followed by his proposal on the moonlit deck of his yacht; her reluctance to wound him with a definite refusal, and the subse- quent appeal of her mother not idly to reject so advantageous an opportunity. With a keen pang of reflected memory she saw again her wedding and her monstrously miscalled honeymoon, and all the horrid pictures of her direful awakening to the bondage of a mar- riage on which Eros frowned.
How often in those early months had she wished herself dead! How many times had she considered the ways and means of self-destruction and yet been too cowardly to put them to practice! And then, after the coming into her life of Lee Calvert, how wondrously had she changed! No longer was there anything desirable in death—her own death. She wanted life then; life at its full. And presently she had come to realize that nothing but divorce or Elliot Holland's death could give it to her.
The former, she very soon learned, must be regarded as even a more re- mote possibility than the latter. Her parents were of that conservative ele- ment which frowns upon the legal rup- ture of the marriage tie as both an im- morality and a sacrilege. And her hus- band, an egoist of egoists, as well as a strange admixture of ice and quick, fierce flame, would release her only up-
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the most direct evidence of dis- loyalty.
Yesterday was not the first time that she had heard Lee wish him dead. They rarely met that he didn't. And, though she never failed to rebuke him, she was conscious now that she, too, silently and treacherously, for more than two years, had entertained the same desire. So, looking, as she was forced to look, into that accusing, re- proachful, ghostly face ever before her, it was this which gave to it its greatest power of torture.
In an effort to exorcise the obsession, Bianca rang for her maid.
Marie Bourgois, long in her service, was a spare, active, grey-haired wo- man of forty-odd, efficient to a degree, kind-hearted and sympathetic, yet with an abundance of stern common sense.
"Ah, madame!" she crooned, as one glance at her mistress's tortured eyes touched a tender spot in her. "It is not right that you should be alone."
It was on Bianca's tongue-tip to say:
"But it's because I'm not alone that I'm miserable."
She said instead, however:
"I wanted to be. Nevertheless, you are right, Marie. When I am alone I think and think. Oh, such horrid things! And my brain won't stop. It's like a wound-up machine. If I could only sleep!"
"Madame shall sleep," Marie assured her. "It is that you have given your- self too much to those people, when you should have sent for le docteur and gone straight to bed. But a warm bath, perhaps, and if I brush Madame's hair. Yes?"
And Bianca agreeing the maid be- came instantly busy.
Emerging from the bath, the young widow of hours was encouraged to find that she could now look at the little sofa or any one of the chairs without seeing it occupied. Her visitant had left her. And, thus relieved, when com- fortably seated with cushions at her back and Marie occupied with her hair-
brush, the question of the taxicab re- curred and once more clamored for answer.
"Tell me, Marie," she said, "how poor Monsieur's brother ascertained where I was, so as to bring me the bad news."
"Ah, that! It was most simple, madame. No one here knew, of course. But when I told him Madame, always considerate, had preferred to employ a taxi rather than take out poor Griggs, the chauffeur, who was still weak from the grippe, he had but to ask the com- pany from which it was ordered. As it was I who called up for Madame, I knew and I gave him the number. But the taxi had not returned. So we had to wait, leaving instructions that when it came in it should be sent here again at once, with the same driver."
Bianca said nothing. And Marie, ex- pecting a word of praise for the way she had shared in the accomplishment, asked:
"Was it not well, madame?"
"Well? Oh, yes, Marie. Very well," she answered.
It was really her maid's first indis- cretion. But the circumstances were extraordinary and she could not blame her.
Still she was uncomfortable over the revelation it involved. She was op- pressed by a fear that Robert Holland might make use of it. She did not be- lieve him friendly to her.
A conviction was strong upon her that he was in his brother's confidence, and if he cared to he could make her position decidedly unpleasant by circu- lating the story that he had found her, following her husband's tragic death, lunching surreptitiously with Mr. Cal- vert in an Italian restaurant.
But with all her misgivings she had not the vaguest notion as to how this incident was eventually to develop. For, by good fortune more than good management, the news of Calvert's ar- rest and the charge of murder had not yet reached her. She was still under the impression that her husband had died, naturally, of apoplexy, just as
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Dr. Vanderslice had warned he might, and as she always imagined he would.
CHAPTER V
The more sensational newspapers of Thursday morning printed diagrams of the Holland, Delray & Dallas law offices on the sixteenth floor of one of the taller labyrinthine buildings of lower Broadway. In one respect, at least, they differed from the average offices of their size in possessing but one entrance. And stress was laid up- on this point in order to impress upon readers the fact that whoever was guilty of Mr. Holland's untimely taking off, must have come and gone by that door.
A dotted line had been drawn to in- dicate the course of a caller seeking the senior member of the law firm. It be- gan in the corridor, where he would step from one of the elevators, and con- tinued thence to this single means of access, twenty yards distant. Crossing the sill he would then, it showed, find himself within a small, oblong, railed- off space, and facing a little table at which sat, usually, the office boy whose duty it was to attend to callers.
"Assuming that he has an appoint- ment with Mr. Holland," the news- paper continued, "he passes through a swinging gate at his left and crosses this outer office, given over to clerks, accountants, stenographers, and the telephone operator at her switchboard, and enters through a green baize-cov- ered door, punctured by a glass oval, the office library. It is an oblong room, its right and far walls hidden by serried files of calf-bound law reports in cases reaching to the ceiling. A partition to the left divides its full length from the private offices of the three firm mem- bers, each with its own ground-glass paneled door. The first is that of Mr. Holland, the second of Mr. Delray, and the far one of Mr. Dallas. A green- velvet carpet covers the library floor, and a long directors' table and seven or eight chairs, all of mahogany, consti- tute, in addition to the bookcases, its
furnishing. Above the table a shaded electrolier, always lighted, supplements the scant illumination afforded by the ground glass."
The dotted line of the diagram turned into Mr. Holland's office, and the accompanying letterpress went on to call attention to the fact that, even with the office-door ajar, a person seat- ed at the library table could not see Mr. Holland's desk and chair, which were near the right dividing wall and close to the door connecting with the Delray office.
Lee Calvert, in a Tombs cell, ex- amined the diagrams with an amusedly satiric interest, but read the sensation- ally colored accounts of the tragedy with careful and serious attention. Editorially as well as reportorially the press, he gathered, was non-committal. Guardedly it theorized; more boldly it alluded to the obvious necessity of the arrest, recounting the fact that the vie- tim had been found dead five minutes after the departure of the prisoner and that no one apparently had entered the private office in the interim; but the general tendency of all the newspapers was to "play up" the mystery, since the standing of the accused—a junior member of the old and distinguished banking house of Gardener Brothers— was so unimpeachable that, in the ab- sence of motive—and as yet no motive had been ascertained—it was almost inconceivable that he should be guilty.
That, at all events, was the view em- bodied, nearly verbatim, in the most conservative morning journal of the metropolis, and it was the editorial key- note of all the others. Moreover, it bore out to a nicety the expressed opinion of Owen Wills, his counsel, with whom he had had a long and most encouraging conference following his apprehension at the club and his ar- raignment at police headquarters.
"There's nothing to it, old chap," Wills had assured him. "It's absurd. Why, in the name of all that's good and bad, should you want to put Elliot Hol- land, of all persons, out of the way?"
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And Calvert had replied, evasively:
"Yes, that's the point. Why?"
But no sooner were the words ut- tered than he questioned their wisdom. It was not good policy to deceive one's lawyer. Yet how could he tell Wills of his love for Bianca and the pitch to which he had been wrought by her imminent departure for Europe? He had no better, no closer, friend in all New York than Owen. But he had never so much as hinted to him his ro- mantic attachment. Never, probably, had there been a love affair so carefully abd successfully guarded,
He had been fearful, therefore, that, in their eager scenting, some one, at least, of the newspapers might have got wind of his secret. And what he had hardly thought of yesterday at the time began to loom larger and larger as a menacing peril.
Suppose Robert Holland should be interviewed and tell where and under what circumstances he had found Bianca! Suppose the maid by whom he was admitted to the Holland house on Tuesday, or the maid who served tea to them together in Bianca's bou- doir, should be questioned by some abiquitous reporter! But, as no one of these things had happened, he was re- assured.
After all, it was best that he had said nothing. At any moment, now, the real culprit might be detected, and his own release would follow. At the worst it could be only a question of a little while before Wills would get the matter be- fore the Grand Jury, which, because of this lack of motive, would refuse to indict him.
So, altogether, after reading the newspapers, Calvert's spirits rose, Bianca was free and after a year, at most just to satisfy Mrs. Grundy and the conventions, they would be married. It was, everything considered, not such a great price to pay for such a glorious consummation.
Meanwhile, Owen Mills, dark, dap- per, and energetic, with a manner that was both disarming and engaging, had called at the offices of Holland, Delray
& Dallas, and was closeted with the last-named.
He had, of course, announced him- self as representing Calvert, and had explained his mission by the statement that, after examining the diagrams in the newspapers, he had become inter- ested in that middle office, occupied, he understood, by Mr. Delray.
"Primarily that," he added, "though I should like to have, at first hand, an explicit account of precisely what hap- pened. You know yourself, my dear fellow, how inaccurate and inconsistent the papers are."
George Dallas, a youngish man, slightly bald and wearing shell-rimmed glasses which accentuated a high and beetling brow, yielded with charming grace. From a drawer of his desk he took a documental appearing sheaf of typed sheets of legal cap, backed in blue, and pinned together at the top with brass eyelets.
"I have here," he said, "what are practically affidavits, though not yet executed, of everyone who was in the office yesterday before, at, and after the occurrence. That of Manning, our managing clerk, covers most of the ground. The others are more or less confirmatory. Shall I read it or would you prefer to do so yourself?"
Wills said that if Mr. Dallas would be so good he'd be glad to hear him. Whereupon, leisurely and in a pleasant voice, with a clearness of articulation which Wills envied, he began:
"I'll omit the usual opening. The affiant is Frederick Manning, of — West 106th Street, who has been our managing clerk for five years. He ar- rived at the office yesterday morning at nine o'clock or thereabouts. He goes on:
" 'In the course of the next half hour I had occasion to enter the library. There was no one in it. The doors to Mr. Holland's and Mr. Dallas's offices were open and the offices were unoccu- pied. Mr. Delray's office door was closed and locked from the library side. Not finding in its place the book I wished and seeing no books in the other
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offices, I unlocked Mr. Delray's door, discovered the book on his desk and took it with me, relocking the door.'
"Permit me to explain," Mr. Dallas interrupted his reading to say, "that Mr. Delray has been absent since the first of August, and that his office is rarely used."
Wills nodded, and the reader con- tinued:
" 'From that time until my discov- ery of Mr. Holland's body I was con- tinuously present in the outer office, and saw everyone who entered or left the library and the private offices. Mr. Dallas arrived at 9:40, went in to his office and left again at 9:50 for Special Sessions. Edward Galton, a law stu- dent, came in shortly after ten and read in the library until nearly halfpast eleven. While he was there, Mr. Hol- land's brother-in-law, Stephen Arrow- smith, called and asked for Mr. Hol- land. I told him that I was not certain that Mr. Holland would be down that day, as he was sailing early the next morning for Europe and had about completed all his arrangements for sev- eral months' absence. He said he knew that—about his sailing—but that he had a partial engagement to meet him here that morning. He went into the library to wait.
" 'It was probably ten minutes later that Mr. Holland got me on the tele- phone and informed me that he would be down at noon. He asked me to call up Gardener Brothers in the meantime and instruct them to have his letter of credit here, without fail, by twelve. I did so. Then I looked in the library and told Mr. Arrowsmith what I had learned. As I held the door open Ed- ward Galton passed me going out. Mr. Arrowsmith and I chatted for a mo- ment, and he finally decided to attend to some other matter meanwhile and left the office, saying he would be back in time to catch Mr. Holland.
" 'He had hardly left when he re- turned for his umbrella which he had forgotten. He said it looked like snow. A minute later he went out again and I did not see him until after my dis-
covery. Meanwhile Edward Galton had come in again in company with two other students, Frank Hippe and John Tumulty. They were reading when, at ten minutes to twelve, Mr. Holland en- tered. The letter of credit had not come and he was very angry. I pointed out the fact that he had said noon, and that there were still ten minutes to spare. In spite of that he got Gardener, Brothers on the wire and spoke very sharply. I gathered that he was told it was "on the way."' "
The reader paused, and Wills asked with a smile if that was supposed to constitute a motive for murder.
"Sharp words over the telephone," he explained when Dallas looked per- plexed. "If so none of us would be safe."
The junior member, however, lack- ing a sense of humor, solemnly con- tinued his reading.
" 'Mr. Calvert, of Gardener Broth- ers, arrived with the letter of credit at 12:05. I was watching the clock. He came to my desk with it, and I asked him to hand it, himself, to Mr. Hol- land. He passed through the library door and five minutes later came out again and left the office. Shortly after that—not over five minutes at the most —I, myself, went to Mr. Holland's office. A question had occurred to me that required an answer from him be- fore he sailed, and I thought best to get it at once, as otherwise I might for- get it. The door to his office was closed. I knocked, fancied I heard him answer, and went in. To my astonishment his body was sagging to the right over the arm of his revolving chair, his head drooping forward at an angle, and the fingers of his right hand resting on the floor. His eyes were closed, or half closed, and I thought he had fainted.
" 'I spoke to him, but he did not re- spond. I said sharply: "Mr. Holland!" The words were without effect. I lifted him up and straightened him in his chair. It was evident to me then that he was totally unconscious, per- haps moribund. His flesh, I observed,
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was warm, and I could not believe him dead. I ran in haste to the front office, crying, as I did so: "Mr. Holland's un- conscious! He must have a doctor at once." In all my experience I had never before been called upon to get a physician in that part of the city, and I was at a loss what to do. Kate Gil- lender, our telephone operator, came to the rescue. She put in an emergency call for an ambulance.
" 'Returning to Mr. Holland's office, I found the three students there, and the whole outer-office force, I think, followed me. Frank Hippe said to me: "He's dead." He had unbuttoned his waistcoat and put his ear to his chest, and there was no observable heart- beat. Together, he and Andrew Force, the mail clerk, and I carried the body from the chair to the leather couch on the other side of the room. In spite of Hippe's assertion we did everything we could think of to restore consciousness, but, of course, without any effect. While we were working, Mr. Arrow- smith returned. He was greatly shocked and seemed very much moved. It was twenty minutes before the ambu- lance surgeon arrived. He made a cursory examination of the body, as it lay on the couch, and pronounced it a case of death from apoplexy. Mr. Arrowsmith told me he would call up Mr. Robert Holland and have him break the news to Mrs. Holland. And he did so. At the same time, on our second wire, the ambulance surgeon re- ported the case to the coroner.
" 'The coroner's physician, Dr. Win- ters, reached the office at about one- thrity. I was present when he ex- amined the body. It was a much more thorough examination than that of Dr. Michelson, the ambulance surgeon. He discovered a small puncture in the neck just at the base of the skull, made, evi- dently, by a sharp skewer-like piece of steel. There had been very little bleed- ing. The hair there was slightly matted and a small blood-stain was on the col- lar. Subsequently, he made a search of the private office and found, under Mr. Holland's desk, an old-fashioned wire
bill or note-file, consisting of a sharp, upright of sharpened steel, set in a square iron base. The upright was blood-stained. He questioned me close- ly and I gave him all the facts em- bodied in this affidavit. It was not un- til after three o'clock that I learned of the arrest of Mr. Lee Calvert.' "
Mr. Dallas lowered the sheaf of typed sheets and looked at Owen Wills, who was making a pencilled note on the back of an envelope.
"Shall I read the others?" he asked.
"Is that the end of Manning's?" Wills enquired in turn.
"It is," the junior member answered, nodding.
"In the others is there any identifica- tion of the old-fashioned file?"
"No. No one in this office had ever seen it before."
"I understand. Thank you. The others merely confirm Manning?"
"Just that. I'll read them if you like."
"Oh, no. I shan't trouble you. You're very good. But I should like to see Mr. Holland's office, if I may."
"You certainly may."
Mr. Dallas returned the affidavits to his drawer, and, rising, held open his door and motioned to Wills to precede him.
At the next door—it bore upon its ground-glass panel the lettering: "Mr. Delray"—the visitor paused.
"This room is still locked, I as- sume?"
"Still locked."
Wills saw the key protruding from its escutcheon.
The Hammond office was also locked and Mr. Dallas, stepping to the baize- covered door, pushed it ajar and called: "Mr. Manning! If you please."
The young man who appeared Wills scrutinized closely. He had noticed him in the outer office, on entering, but he now held an augmented interest. He was probably about twenty-six years of age, of medium height, with brown hair inclined to curl, and clean- shaven. His eyes, Wills noted, were hazel, and they struck him as shrewd,
S. S.—Dec. 2
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as did also his close-lipped mouth. But he would hardly consider him danger- ous. His forte, very evidently, was de- tail.
At Mr. Dallas's request Manning took from a pocket a key and opened the door to the scene of the tragedy. The office was half again as large as Mr. Dallas's. The flat-top desk of polished mahogany stood slant-wise on the right. The chair behind it faced the entrance diagonally. Its back was close to the door connecting with Mr. Delray's room.
Wills walked over and turned the knob of this door.
"It is locked," Mr. Dallas volun- teered. "Has been locked since mid- summer."
"And the key?"
"Manning has it."
As Wills was about to go, he said:
"What is your personal theory of the affair? Or haven't you any?"
The junior member hesitated.
"To me, of course," he answered presently, "it seems too terrible to be true. Yet the conclusion is obvious. Only one man could have done it. The man who was last in this room with him. Ah, there is, I recall now, in the statement of each of the three young men who sat in the library a vital point which you probably do not know. Un- til your client entered this room the door was open. He closed it when he entered and he closed it after him when he left."
"In the absence of motive," returned Wills, "that has little weight. He probably expected to be railed at, and, possibly, to have some 'sharp words' hurled after him."
"But there's a most impelling mo- tive," Mr. Dallas rejoined. "If he's been frank with you, you must know it. He was carrying on an affaire with his victim's wife. Mr. Holland had dis- covered it. It was to separate them that he was about to take Mrs. Holland abroad."
Owen Wills flushed angrily.
"That," he said sharply, "is an infer- nal fabrication. And we will prove it."
Mr. Dallas smiled.
"And we will prove that Calvert went red-handed from here to keep an as- signation with her."
CHAPTER VI
Despite the ministrations of the effi- cient Marie, Bianca Holland had slept but lightly; and so sleeping had been harassed by disturbing dreams from which, repeatedly, she started starkly awake. In all of them, Elliot, her hus- band, vigorously alive, was at grips with Lee Calvert. Usually he was cho- king him. In one—the most terrify: ing—he had slain him, and, wringing her hands in an insufferable frenzy of woe, she knelt beside his mangled and distorted cadaver, beseeching him to speak.
Daylight found her on the verge of nervous collapse. And Marie, taking matters in her own hands, because she feared a refusal should she ask permis- sion, telephoned indirectly for Dr. Van- derslice. That is to say she called up Bianca's most intimate friend, Mrs. "Stanny" Rhysdael, and besought her to halve the responsibility. Which she promptly did. But at the same time, her tone one of condolent anxiety, she added: "I'm coming straight down to see her."
A woman without a confidante is an anomaly. Women's sorrows are light- ened and their joys are heightened, it seems, by sharing. No matter how in- clined to discretion there is almost in- variably one of their own sex in whose sympathetic keeping they entrust their secrets. And, while Calvert would have lost a limb rather than hint his ro- mance to his closest friend, Bianca Hol- land had, from the very first, discussed every phase of it with Sarah Rhysdael.
It was not yet nine o'clock—an un- conscionable hour for any smart wom- an to be abroad—when Sarah, without so much as tapping, burst into Bianca's chamber and, with a little cry of greet- ing, flew to her bedside and precipi- tately flung herself upon her.
"Oh, you poor, poor dear!" she mur-
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mured, burying her face between the [oth]er's neck and shoulder, and inhaling the fragrance of Bianca's favorite French sachet.
Then, for a space, both wept. Sarah [unco]ntrollably, but Bianca in a series of [hysteri]cal spasms which her will was [power]less to command.
Marie, standing in the bathroom [door], regarded the scene with approval. [It] was the first time her mistress had [cri]ed, and she believed with Ovid that ["]grief is satisfied and carried off by [tea]rs."
"To think, dear," Sarah managed to [sa]y at length, sitting on the edge of the [bed] and dabbing at her moist lashes and [che]eks, "that this awful thing should to you!"
She was half a head shorter than Bi- [anca] and fair. But for the unceasing [] she waged against over-plumpness [she] would have been chubby. As it [wa]s, she was most daintily moulded. Bianca, still sobbing, but more re- [fr]ainedly, was without words. But the [mor]e volatile Sarah continued:
"Yerday was terrible enough, but this morning's papers! I wonder you [are] alive."
To the wretched woman propped against the pillows, however, this []ant nothing. She didn't care what the papers might say; what additional [t]rails they might give. Even if they could have got Robert Holland's story [o]f his discovery it was all one to her. [] knew now the solitary secret of [her mi]sery. She had found it in her [dre]ams. Elliot Holland dead was more [pow]erful than Elliot Holland alive to [kee]p Lee Calvert from her. There had [ev]er been a time in all their acquaint- [ance] when she needed him as she did now. And there had never been a time [wh]en he was so securely held from her. She knew nothing of the actual con- dictions, of how by the machinery of the [] he was pinioned. She still saw [him] a free man in every sense but one. [Sh]e saw him at liberty to go and come [as] he pleased, everywhere save to her, []m whom alone Convention barred [hi]m. For the sake of her good name,
lest the world should see in his coming the casting of shadows behind, he must deprive both her and himself of the consoling sweetness of communion.
But Sarah Rhysdael had no inkling of the truth. Naturally enough, she had gathered from Marie's concern that her friend had gone nervously to pieces, not over her husband's death, but over this gruesome charge against and im- prisonment of the man she loved. Nothing else, she felt, could account for it. Nothing else could warrant it.
Sarah came not to fortify, not to brace, not even to comfort. She came dolorously to sympathize. To mingle her tears with the tears of the sufferer and to follow her, sacrificially, as she traversed her Via Crucis.
"Poor Lee," she went on. "It's sim- ply awful for him, too. No one can be- lieve that he did it. And yet there's no one else that could. But that's the newspapers, you know. Stanny says that they'll never convict him. I do hope that—"
It was at this point that Bianca, springing up wide-eyed, gripped her wrist.
"What are you saying?" she cried in sudden agitation, aroused by the dis- turbing pregnancy of a phrase. "What are you saying?"
Sarah was startled. She was so taken by surprise, indeed, that just for a moment she could not recollect what she had been saying. Certainly nothing disloyal, though. She knew that.
"My dear!" she gasped, parrying, feinting.
"'Never convict him!'" Bianca re- peated. "What do you mean?"
"That is what Stanny says," her friend qualified. "You don't—you can't believe that they will."
"Convict whom? Convict of what?"
Sarah paled with fright. Even now she did not divine the truth. It did not yet occur to her that Bianca knew less than she. There was, she thought, but one explanation: the horror had af- fected her friend's reason. She was not herself, poor thing. She turned about, her gaze seeking Marie. But
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the Frenchwoman was gone. Her im- pulse was to run. She had never been alone with a demented person before. She did not know how to treat one. Bianca's grip on her wrist, however, was tightening. She tried to release her arm.
"Just a minute, dear," she pleaded. But the pressure of the circling fingers waxed stronger.
"Convict whom? Convict of what? Tell me!" Bianca repeated insistently.
"Try to think; try to remember, Bee!" Sarah rattled nervously. She re- called having heard that insane persons must me humored.
"But no one has done anything."
"Someone has. You know that. Poor Elliot didn't kill himself."
"He wasn't killed. Who says he was killed?"
"The newspapers; everyone. But they've arrested the wrong man. We all know that. Lee couldn't have done it."
It was in this wise that the news came to the wretched Bianca, and she dropped under it as if an axe had crushed through her skull. Her hold on Sarah's wrist relaxed suddenly and she fell back among her pillows, ghastly white and inert.
At the same moment a tap sounded on the door, which Sarah was too frightened to hear. She was still sit- ting, half-paralyzed with alarm, on the bed's edge when a hand was laid on her shoulder and she started with a violent tremor.
A big, broad-shouldered man, grey- haired and with a scant grey beard trimmed to a point, was standing be- hind her.
Dr. Vanderslice had arrived in the nick of time.
CHAPTER VII
Owen Wills had gone straight from the Holland, Delray & Dallas offices to the Tombs and his client. Indignantly as he had resented and repudiated the Dallas declaration of motive as an "in- fernal fabrication," he was nevertheless
greatly disturbed by it. And he was, moreover, infuriate that Lee Calvert should have concealed, if true, so vital an element. But was it true? It was inconceivable that Dallas could make such an assertion without pretty con- vincing evidence; and yet it was barely in reason that, considering the close- ness of their intimacy, Calvert had been able to suppress so completely an at- tachment of this kind.
Until client and counsel were face to face, therefore, and the question had been put and answered, there was room for doubt. With the truth established, Will's exasperation rose to a high pitch. He was a temperamental young man, abundantly talented, who took his pro- fession with great seriousness, and his own cleverness made him intolerant of the least evidence of stupidity in those he believed in.
"You're an ass," he stormed, his cheeks flushed to the temples and his eyes blazing. "Chivalry be damned. This was no time for chivalry of that sort. A man accused of crime should be as candid with his attorney as he is with his other self. And I refuse to act for a man who isn't. Holland's firm will throw all the weight of its combined forces—and that includes in- side knowledge—in with the office of the district attorney. It will practically prepare his case for him. It's got this, and God only knows what else it's got. Whereas you, you poor simpleton, have put me at a disadvantage from the start. And I won't accept the handi- cap. How do I know what else you may have up your sleeve? We're beaten before the flag falls; left at the post. So I stop right here, because I decline to come in a bad last. Retain somebody else. I wash my hands of you."
Calvert, a little ashamed, struggled to force a smile.
"Oh, come, old chap!" he urged. "You're making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Suppose I had told you yes-" terday. What difference could it have made?"
Owen Wills did not deign to answer.
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He was picking up his hat. Then he moved towards the door. But on the threshold he halted and turned.
"Send for Lilligore," he advised, "He's a better lawyer than I dare ever [h]ope to be. If any fellow can pull you [t]hrough he can."
And he was gone.
It was Marvin Lilligore who repre- [se]nted Calvert at the Coroner's inquest when he was held for the Grand Jury. And it was Marvin Lilligore who, as at- torney of record, applied for a tran- script of the Grand Jury minutes after Calvert was indicted. For, im- possible as such an eventuality had seemed to him, knowing his own inno- cence, the prosecution had experienced [li]ttle difficulty in establishing a prima [fac]ie case.
The newspapers, meanwhile, had made all the capital possible out of Owen Wills's withdrawal, aided and [a]betted in this by the Holland office. Wills, they pointed out, was the accused man's most intimate friend—for years [th]ey had been closer than brothers— [a]nd Calvert had retained him immedi- [at]ely following his arrest. For twenty- four hours Wills had worked assidu- [ou]sly and then, for some reason which [co]uld only be surmised, seeing that [ei]ther he nor the prisoner nor the [priso]ner's present counsel would throw [an]y light on the matter, he had precipi- [t]ely withdrawn.
The situation, anomalous as it ap- peared at first glance, was not so diffi- cult of solution as some seemed to im- agine. (So one of the "yellows" put it [edi]torially.) There were many prece- ants for Mr. Wills's course. Indeed, was not the first time that he himself [ha]d so acted. In the Majendie case, it [mi]ight be remembered, he had done pre- [cis]ely the same thing. And it was ex- [am]ined at that time to be due to a dis- [agr]eement with his client as to the pol- [icy] of defense. Mr. Wills was an able []ist and jealous of his reputation— [a]nd so on, and so on, with the effect of the distinct impression that so [pre]carious was Calvert's position that Wills, who knew him best, could see
hope of acquittal in but one direction.
In spite of this, however, and the whole combined campaign to try the case in the press, there was no word of denial or even of protest from either the Wills or the Lilligore office.
Early in November Bianca, masquer- ading under her maiden name and ac- companied by Marie, had gone to At- lantic City. Dr. Vanderslice had so advised. And there, with Marvin Lil- ligore as intermediary, a daily exchange of letters with Lee Calvert had been es- tablished.
Than this she could have had no bet- ter medicine. Under its stimulus her nerves strengthened and, by degrees, her lost poise was re-established. For weeks—ever since that morning when Sarah Rhysdael had so ill-advisedly hurled at her the crushing fact of mur- der and arrest—doubt and apprehen- sion had been her hourly companions. Her power to reason had been woefully crippled. Three sentences of Lee Cal- vert's had echoed and reechoed with condemning emphasis:
"My conscience isn't so sensitive."
"I nearly had the willies waiting."
"If hating would kill Elliot Holland he'd be dead this minute."
And with each repetition her torture had increased.
Calvert's first letter, however, did much to exorcise these dread phan- toms. Her vision slowly cleared. Dimly she began to see. And with each succeeding communication her sense of proportion grew, until she marveled over her recent blindness. Lee wrote her of Owen Wills's defection and of his retention of Marvin Lilligore. Of the latter he said: "I have every confi- dence in him. He's a bigger man than Owen, and when he promises me ac- quittal, as he does every time I see him, I know that he'll accomplish it."
Bianca furiously resented Owen's course. She knew him and had liked him. But with reservations. He was capricious, inconsistent, impulsive; and she could never quite reconcile Lee's unqualified admiration for him. Nev- ertheless, she felt that nothing could
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justify his desertion of his friend in such an extremity. It was indefensible —egregiously so.
One morning—it was just after the indictment—while in a wheel-chair on the boardwalk, with Marie beside her, Owen Wills, emerging from the throng like a pixy from leafage, stood at her elbow lifting his hat, a pleased, con- gratulatory smile on his lips.
If she could have escaped him she would. But, in taking her thus un- awares, he had made escape save at the expense of crass crudeness im- possible.
"I heard you'd been ill," he said. "I can see no signs of it."
"I hear you've been horrid," Bianca gave him back. "Yet you don't appear ashamed."
"There's a reason," was his rejoin- der.
"Naturally. Satisfactory to yourself, I suppose, though I can hardly conceive even that."
"I think it might even satisfy you, if I were at liberty to share it."
"You're much too credulous."
He shrugged slightly and tossed his sleek dark head. "Let the future an- swer. I can wait."
"You expect to be justified then."
"And exonerated," he added, nod- ding. "By the way, may I call? I've something to ask you. Where are you stopping?"
"I'm not sure that I care to receive you. I can't condone disloyalty."
"I don't ask you to. I shan't. I have something else to ask that is much more important. That is why I am down here."
"Why not ask it now, then? It will save you time."
"It might be overheard. More than that, you may have to put on your thinking cap to answer."
"Is it—?" she began. But he inter- rupted her:
"Of course it is."
"But you don't know what I was going to say."
"Pardon me. I know very well. Out of the fulness of the heart the
mouth speaketh. You think only of one thing these days. I know that."
She gave him then the name of her hotel. "Shall we say five, this after- noon?" she added.
"You are very good," he answered, and putting on his hat was submerged in the crowd once more.
Over the teatable in the parlor of Bianca's suite, that afternoon, with a dark steel-grey sea spreading away be- fore them to where at the misty horizon it seemed-to melt and rise in vapor, mixing with the pale November sky, Owen Wills produced a little red- leather memorandum book and read to her, one after another, five pencilled names.
"Do they mean anything to you?" he asked, as he finished. And Bianca an- swered:
"To the best of my recollection I've never heard but two of them before."
"And they are?"
"Frederick Manning and Stephen Arrowsmith."
"Try to recollect. Didn't your hus- band ever mention Edward Galton?"
"He might have. Who is he?"
"A young man who read law in his office."
"He wouldn't have been likely to. I've seen young men reading there. But they were never presented to me, any of them."
"Not Frank Hippe either? Nor John Tumulty?"
Bianca shook her head.
"Did he ever say anything of Man- ning?"
"He mentioned him at times. Yes."
"Did he seem to like him? Or did he complain of him?"
"I don't recall that he ever com- plained. He wouldn't to me, you know. Or praised, either."
"You know Arrowsmith, I sup- pose?"
"Very slightly. He married a sister of Elliot's. But she died before we were married. I think Elliot was trus- tee of some property she left, and of which Mr. Arrowsmith drew the in- come."
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WHAT IS ISN'T 23
"They were on friendly terms then?"
"I think so. I never heard other- wise."
Wills returned the red-leather book to his waistcoat pocket.
"But if you're no longer Lee's coun- sel, why this effort at investigation?" Bianca asked, perplexed.
"Because I'm interested," was his swer. "I'm still his friend, you know. He didn't commit the crime. We both know that. Yet someone did. If we can discover who, then Lee will go free. Sometimes that's the shortest cut. Wouldn't you like to help me find on?"
"I'd do anything possible," she con- sented, a quickened interest in her ex- pression. More, indeed, than in her words. "But it seems such a hopeless task. No one in the office would have done it. I'm sure they wouldn't. Not any more than Lee."
"I'm not so sure. Still, you may be right. But if it was anyone other than a person in the list of five I read to you, then we have a certainty to begin on. And that is that Manning has lied. And—" He paused suddenly. "But that's absurd. Manning is corroborated by the other four—by every one of men. Barely five minutes elapsed be- tween Lee's leaving and Manning's dis- covery. Someone in the office must have done it. Arrowsmith didn't come in until later, they say. That leaves felly four to choose from: Manning and the three law students. And if one of the students did it, then the other two, who were in the library, are accesso-
ries."
"And what can I do even in that case?"
Owen Wills bent nearer to her.
"Possibly nothing. But possibly, still, a great deal. You can go care- fully through your husband's corre- spondence. I mean his private letters, There's a mass of them, I suppose. It won't be a light task. But you may un- earth bad blood. You may discover an animus. You may be the means of saving Lee Calvert from the electric
chair. For, I may tell you, now, that his case, otherwise, is a weak one."
CHAPTER VIII
Society from the first had refused to take the charge against Calvert seri- ously. Had he been like any one of two score or more men whose names were on its tongue-tip it would have said "not at all unlikely." But Lee Calvert! Never! He was not that sort. He was too level-headed, too abstemious, and not in the least emo- tional. Why, this affair of his with Bianca Holland was a point in his favor.
Not for a very long time had society had such a surprising morsel as that. Even the most unconscionable gossip- mongers had never had an inkling. And, now that it was out, only a small minority dared say that it had gone be- yond the restrained stage. Men of such circumspection were not the men who, with malice prepense, would walk boldly into the office of an acquaint- ance and with gloved-hand hammer a crude needle-like thing of steel between his skull and vertebrae. And with a dozen or more office employes within a few yards of the scene! The whole edifice it seemed must fall of its own weight. The district attorney must be a fool, or else gone suddenly mad.
Society, however, is but a small sec- tor of the circle which is called the body politic. And the body politic as a whole, being less well informed, was inclined generally to take the opposite view. It was not the district attorney who was the fool or madman; it was the prisoner. How many cases had there been of almost exact similarity? Cases proven, too, beyond all question in which the defendant's counsel pleaded "brain-storm" because there was noth- ing else to plead? That was how the great public, which fed the newspapers as well as being fed by them, regarded the case. And it was from this great public and not that small sector that, when in February the case came to trial, the jury was drawn.
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A rumor had got into print and so gone abroad that the widow of the slain man—the sweetheart of the accused— was to be called as a State's witness; and, because of this more than any- thing else, the courtroom became a magnet for all classes from the elite to the proletariat. It drew them from the very beginning. That they might miss nothing connected with her and the case in which she was involved they attended on the opening day in throngs, though all but the most inexperienced knew that she would not be present. Interestedly they sat through the long monotony of choosing the "good men and true" who were to pass judgment on the admitted evidence.
To one auditor in particular this se- lection of the jury was especially inter- esting. He occupied a seat at the right end of the second row, directly under the jury box, a dark, dapper, nervously- energetic-appearing young gentleman with hair as smoothly black and shining as patent-leather and a small black moustache like a rectangle of court- plaster between his straight, sensitive nose and his too red lips. He wore an inconspicuous but well-cut suit of heavy blue serge, quite dark, and sat with crossed legs on which rested his over- coat and soft hat. It was Owen Wills.
That which particularly interested him was the battle of the opposing at- torneys for and against two types of jurors. The State was evidently anxious to pick from the panel at least a majority of men who were elderly, married, middle- or lower-class, and re- ligiously-inclined to the verge of nar- rowness. Whereas Marvin Lilligore, in the interest of his client, was both desirous and determined to pack the box if possible with bachelors of means, preferably young, and, if not socially eminent, at least worldly wise. On very few of those questioned was it possible for their minds to meet, with the inevitable consequence that their permitted quota of peremptory chal- lenges was approaching exhaustion be- fore the requisite twelve were half chosen.
For two days the conflict raged with small advantage to either. On the third day, however, that which might have been foreseen from the first, hap- pened. For from the first the type pre- ferred by the defense had been in the minority. The panel had dwindled, neither side had a peremptory challenge left, and the court, impatient of the prolonged bickering, became suddenly arbitrary, and ruled out one challenge "to the favor" after another as rapidly as they were voiced. So that in the end the jury sworn was, presumably the District Attorney's, other things being equal, in the proportion of seven to five.
In the meantime, owing to crush of the curious, it had become necessary to limit the attendance to those fortunate enough to secure cards of admission. And by the third day, many of the "regulars" who came early had their "regular" seats.
Owen Wills, having chosen his in the beginning, retained it, and so did the middle-aged man who had been seated toward that end of the second row when Wills pushed past him to take the place beyond directly under the jury box.
He was a lean, wiry, sinewy creature of perhaps forty-five or -six; clean- shaven and partially bald. His hair, including that of his heavy eyebrows, was a light tawny brown, and his eyes a dim, watery blue-grey, the whites of which, like his skin, tinged with the yellow of old parchment. His clothes —they included a coat and trousers of brown worsted, with a soiled pin-stripe in it, and a waistcoat of thick-ribbed corduroy of a darker brown—were an index of the man. They indicated a sport, so to speak, rather gone to seed. His shoes were much worn—they were tan oxfords, evidently, though masked by shabby, soiled, dun-colored spats. And the tan overcoat, which he had thrown over the back of the bench be- fore sitting down, was threadbare at the edges. His hat was a brown Derby of about the same color as his hair.
Wills, in spite of his interest in the
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WHAT IS ISN'T 25
jury-selection, now and then glanced observantly at him without seeming to do so. And he took in all and more than is here recorded. Indeed, on that first day, he had noticed in crowding past him, that he exhaled an unmistak- able smell of alcohol; and after that the only change was in variation of degree.
That which drew Wills's attention most fixedly upon his neighbor was an inarticulate something that escaped him on the first day when Calvert, under guard, took his place in the dock. It was more in the nature of a gasp—a suppressed gasp—Wills thought, than anything else. But whether it indi- cated surprise or pity or dismay it was difficult for him to determine. Out of the corner of his eye he tried to gather something more from the man's ex- pression, without any positive success. He ascertained only that his gaze con- tinued fixed upon the prisoner with an unfaltering intensity. A more casual observer than Wills would probably have divined that he was endeavoring to decide, in advance of the evidence, whether Calvert was innocent or guilty. But the young lawyer had a theory which militated against such a con- clusion. And, as in partial justification of this, it was but a minute or so later that the gazer turned to him with:
"Good-looking chap, isn't he? His portraits in the papers haven't done him justice. Don't wonder he made a hit with Holland's wife."
For answer Wills nodded pleasantly, wihout opening his lips. It was, never- theless, the beginning of an acquaint- ance which was to ripen as the trial progressed.
So thoroughly had the case been fea- tured in the newsprints that the Dis- trict Attorney's outline of it to the jury presented nothing that was not already common property. And those who hung on his words, hoping and expect- ing some sensational revelation had small reward. As ultimately developed, however, there were generalities in the arraignment which were of such lati- tude as to include certain effective sur-
prises, cleverly reserved for the wit- ness stand, undiscounted by so much as a suggestion in advance.
They came in the second stage of the State's presentation, when, having proved the corpus delicti, it became in- cumbent to establish a strongly impell- ing motive, seeing that there was no single actual witness to the commission of the crime.
That Bianca Holland would be called for this purpose had been, as already stated, rather widely rumored. And, in connection with the rumor, it was believed by the many who had followed the matter from the first that her testi- mony would be chiefly as to the luncheon at Giro's on the day of the murder, and, generally, concerning her relations with the accused. Certainly, even the most sensationally imaginative could hardly have foreseen what was prepared for them, including not mere- ly the bolt from the blue furnished by Bianca herself, with lowered eyes and in a voice so faint as to be nearly in- audible, but the corroboration from a member of her own household as well as from her deceased husband's brother.
There had been something more than a distinctly audible stir in the court- room when her name was called. There had been a susuration—starting faintly like a faint whisper of the wind in a forest—and rising to a murmur as of rushing waters. Old Judge McCready his abundant white hair seeming to bristle and his clear blue eyes snapping, rapped thunderously for order. And the voices were stilled.
The silence following was one of a strained expectancy.
Then, suddenly, there was a slight recurrence. Necks were craned. At the back of the room a man stood up. A dozen followed his example. In an instant more than half the assemblage was on its feet.
A door to the right, behind the jury box, had opened and a black, close- fitting toque, draped with a widow's veil, had become visible.
Again the Court's gavel echoed re-
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soundingly and a clerk was crying- "Take your seats or the courtroom will be cleared!"
As Bianca sank into the capacious armchair on the elevation of the wit- ness stand one could have heard a pin drop. With a black-gloved hand she lifted her veil from her face, sweeping it back over her shoulder. Her face was marble white in its sable setting and calm as a nun's. Owen Wills noted that she had dropped her gaze to her hands, which she folded in her lap.
The District Attorney, stepping close, waited while she was sworn. This formality ended, he put to her the no less formal questions as to her name, her residence, and her relation- ship to the victim of the crime it was his duty to probe.
"Give me the date, please, of your marriage."
Bianca gave it.
"You were married four years then, lacking about a month, when you were widowed?"
"Yes."
Her examiner paused, thoughtfully, for several seconds, his eyes turned to a window across the courtroom, through which a grey sky was visible. Then, turning, he said abruptly:
"You know the prisoner at the bar?"
"I do," Bianca answered, her poise undisturbed.
"How long have you known him?"
"Two years."
"How well have you known him?"
In spite of her a faint color crept into the whiteness of her face.
"Very well. He is the best friend I have."
"Your husband was fond of him, too?"
"My husband scarcely knew him."
The District Attorney smiled.
"You mean by that, I assume, that Mr. Holland was not fond of him. 'To know him is to love him.' But not knowing him your husband couldn't love him. Was he indifferent to him?"
Marvin Lilligore objected. The District Attorney was drawing con- clusions unwarranted by the witness's
answers. He asked that his assump- tion be stricken out. And the Court so ruled.
The District Attorney bowed. Then he asked again:
"Was your husband indifferent to him?"
"My husband disliked him," Bianca answered.
"Why?"
"He thought that Mr. Calvert was supplanting him in my affections. That was how he put it."
"In plain English, he was jealous. Isn't that so?"
"Yes."
"You were unhappy with your hus- band ?"
"Yes."
"How long had you been unhappy with him?"
Bianca's eyes dropped to her gloved
hands again. "From the day I mar- ried him," she answered, so low that the jury couldn't hear it and the court stenographer was asked to read it from his notes.
"But you were about to go abroad with him ?"
"Yes."
"The prisoner knew that?"
"Yes."
"What did he say about it?"
"I don't remember his words."
"Try."
"He wished me to get out of going if possible. Either that or consent to his following us."
"When did he ask that?"
"I don't remember."
"Was it more than once?"
"It was several times. Whenever we met."
"Wasn't the last time on the after- noon prior to the murder?"
For the first time since taking the witness stand Bianca's control of her vision eluded her. Her regard slipped like a bird between the wires of its cage and darted to a meeting that she had willed to deny it. It met that of the man she loved and hovered there, ca- ressing and caressed.
Calvert, as perfectly composed as in
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WHAT IS ISN'T 27
in his own office, and the pink of smart- ness, flashed to her approval and en- couragement. It was as though he said: "Be frank. The truth can harm neither of us."
And Bianca, her regard still hover- ing, said "Yes," in answer to the Dis- trict Attorney's question.
"But you saw each other after that?"
"Yes."
"When and where?"
"The following day between one and two, at Giro's restaurant."
"He didn't plead with you then to give up your trip?"
"No."
"He seemed more resigned. Was that it?"
"He didn't seem resigned."
"How did he seem? Nervous?"
"He appeared distressed—more dis- tressed than ever—at the prospect of my going."
"But he never once asked you not to?"
"No."
"Didn't that strike you as peculiar?"
"No. We settled that definitely the day before."
"You settled it definitely? He knew the day before that there was no hope of your retracting?"
"Yes."
"You'd never given him any hope on previous occasions, had you?"
"No."
"But that didn't stop him, did it?"
"No."
The District Attorney took a step nearer to the witness.
"Did he speak to you at luncheon about his call on your husband that morning?"
"Yes."
"What did he say about it?"
"He merely told me that he had gone there to deliver a letter of credit."
"Didn't he say how your husband received him? Was he cold? Was he polite? Was there a quarrel?"
"I remember him saying that Mr. Holland seemed vexed."
"What made him say that? Did he
tell you how he exhibited his vexa- tion?"
"He spoke of him flushing, I think. Of his face being red."
"That suggested apoplexy, of course."
"Naturally."
"Did he say anything about him be- ing likely to die of apoplexy?"
"He knew that Mr. Holland's physi- cian had cautioned him in that respect."
"You're sure of that?"
"Quite sure. I told him myself."
"And you remember, of course, that when your husband's body was first discovered it was supposed he had died of an apoplectic seizure?"
"Yes."
"Well, now, Mrs. Holland, I want you to tell me candidly if you do not now regard it as a peculiar coincidence that your friend, coming to you direct from your husband's office, where in fact your husband was lying dead, sup- posedly of apoplexy, at that moment, and had been so lying before this friend could have left the office building, should have spoken of his flushing, of his being vexed, of his face being red, and, for the first time since learning of your proposed going abroad, not have put in a final plea for you to forego that European visit?"
Marvin Lilligore was on his feet be- fore the question was concluded.
"Don't answer, Mrs. Holland," he cautioned, and addressing the Court: "I object, your honor. How the wit- ness may or may not regard the testi- mony is not admissible as evidence."
The objection was sustained, just as the District Attorney knew it would be. Yet he had, notwithstanding, managed by his question to get his desired inti- mation before the jury. Later, in cross- examination, Marvin Lilligore might strive to obliterate its effect; but the reasoning was too sound, he believed, not to weigh against the accused.
CHAPTER IX
It is the practice of many of the more successful legal practitioners, in direct examination as well as in cross-exami-
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28 WHAT IS ISN'T
nation, to spring without warning from one topic or feature of their case to another of distinctly contrasting inter- est. The District Attorney had passed very lightly over the matter of Bianca Holland's relations with Lee Calvert. He had apparently been satisfied with her responses to the effect that she had known him very well for two years, and she had experienced no little relief at being let off so easily. But almost on top of his failure to get upon the rec- ord an opinion from her as to the sig- nificance his point gathered from the incident at Giro's he took her at one bound back to that question of rela- tions.
With a pretense of kindly considera- tion he prefaced his query with a state- ment as to her privilege. If to answer would tend to degrade or incriminate her she was at liberty to refuse on that ground. And then he shot his bolt:
"Were, or were not, your relations with the prisoner at the bar meretri- cious?"
Bianca seemed to quiver and then wilt under the impact. Her lids drooped, her hands gripped the arms of her chair. She had been sitting up, rather tense. She slipped back until she rested against the woven cane net- work behind her. Shame dyed her cheeks.
Her counsel indignantly voiced his objection. The District Attorney com- bated it, and the Court sustained him.
The question was repeated.
"They were not," Bianca murmured.
"Merely platonic?" A sneer accom- panied the words.
The witness was silent. And this time Judge McCready came to her res- cue.
"I think," he said, "that the witness has already made it clear that she re- gards the word 'meretricious' at one pole and the term 'platonic' at the other. She will admit, I believe, a happy mean."
The District Attorney bowed.
"I am grateful to your Honor," he said. "I shall be glad to accept the witness's definition of just what the re-
lations were. But I may add that I purpose to prove there was more than a mere brotherly and sisterly affection existing."
He turned again to the witness.
"Do you admit that, Mrs. Holland?" he asked.
Bianca's "Yes" was just audible.
"The prisoner was in the habit of kissing you, embracing you?"
The audience strained to catch her answer.
"We were and are very much in love with each other."
Very clearly, with perfect enuncia- tion and telling emphasis, in a voice of infinite refinement and melody, yet with an unmistakable pride—glorying, in- deed, in the confession—she spoke; her eyes not on her interlocutor, but on Lee Calvert; on Lee Calvert's eyes, rather, which met them directly in mutual caress.
The spirit of romance, which has a place in the hearts of all men, rose to her. The courtroom palpitated with appreciation and threatened applause. A buzz, like the first ripple of wind stirring the leaves in a wood, was de- tected by the presiding genius on the bench, and once more his gavel beat a warning tattoo on the block at his right hand.
Owen Wills, watching the District Attorney—he was a large man of mid- dle age and sandy complexion-saw his jaw set and two lines deepen between his eyebrows. His witness had cun- ningly circumvented him; had turned his purpose to her own profit and the profit of the man she loved and be- lieved in. Still, her answer had not been wholly relevant; it implied assent, but it lacked explicit confession. Would the questioner demand a definite "yes" or "no"? Could he take that risk of antagonizing a jury now suddenly more than half disposed in her favor and so inclined to resent so much as a tinge of persecution? Wills was disposed to think he wouldn't. And Wills was right.
"That is all, Mrs. Holland," he said. "I thank you."
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Her cross-examination by Marvin Lilligore served merely to make of her a heroine—a beautiful woman sinned against by an unfeeling and unsympa- etic husband, yet rigidly holding her- lf indeed, if not in inclination, to the letter of her marital covenant.
Counsel for the defence, too, when his turn came, did much to riddle the testimony of the State's corroborating witnesses—the maid who admitted Cal- vert to the Holland home on the after- oon preceding the crime, and who had watched and listened through a keyhole to that scene in the library-boudoir; and Robert Holland, the dead lawyer's Van- dyk-bearded brother.
He showed that the maid was in her master's pay, that to make good she had sometimes invented visits from Calvert, that she depended on her memory, rather than written notes, for her re- port of conversations. And he showed also that, aside from the finding of Mrs. Holland and the accused lunching at Giro's on the day of the crime, Rob- ert Holland knew only what his brother had told him, and that that, almost en- tirely, was a repetition of information furnished by the fallible maid.
The District Attorney, however, had not released Bianca without a reserva- tion. He had foreseen pretty nearly just what had happened, and in letting her go then, when there was the danger which Wills had divined, it was with the idea in view of recalling her later to rebut Lilligore's deductions. For, however meagre the effect of his early efforts, he had at least assured himself of the witness's scrupulous veracity.
If the maid of the keyhole had told more or less of fact, Mrs. Holland must and should give it the proper balance by contributing the exact truth. More- over, in order to gain the most telling effect, he reserved this for his penulti- mate effort.
It was the general opinion up to this time that the State had signally failed in making out a case, and that should nothing more convincing be educed the defense would win hands down. No jury would send a reputable gentleman
to the electric chair simply because he had been alone in an office with a man who was found dead five minutes later, and with no more impelling motive than his being in love with the man's wife and about to be separated from her.
Calvert had heard with a confirming fillip to his confidence the District At- torney announce that he would close his case with the recalling of one wit- ness and the examination of one other. And it was with no lessening of his as- surance that he heard the clerk name Bianca Holland as the former.
She smiled at him as she again took her place on the stand, her composure, as compared with that of the first day, visibly marked.
"Mrs. Holland," the examiner began while she was still settling herself in the chair, "I'm sorry to trouble you again, but there are some points in the testimony of the maid we had here which, as they appear to be in dispute, I wish you to set right for us. I want you to think back to the afternoon prior to the—the decease of your husband, and tell us in your own way as nearly as possible what was said and done dur- ing Calvert's call on you."
After a moment Bianca, in a quiet tone, briefly outlined in general terms that which was asked. She began by saying that there had been an under- standing between them that he should not call at her home. But the occasion was unusual. He had apologized and she had overlooked it. As she had pre- viously testified, he asked her to find some way out of going.
At that point she was interrupted. "Did he tell you he had been in pur- gatory?"
"I think he did use that expression."
"Did he say that the thought of your going was driving him insane?"
"Not that I remember."
"Try to remember."
"He said—I'm not sure just how he used it—but that separation, or the thought of separation, was maddening."
"I merely wished to get those points clear. Will you please go on?"
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Bianca continued: "There is little more to tell. We had tea. I said that Elliot would be home soon, as we were dining out that evening. I promised to lunch with him the next day."
"You recall nothing else?"
"Nothing vital."
From the table by which he stood he took up some typewritten sheets, a transcript of the maid's testimony.
"Perhaps if I refresh your memory you will. Didn't you say—perhaps not in so many words, but at least give the impression—that you would never be entirely his until your husband was dead?"
"I said, until I was free."
"But you had your husband's death in mind. And your lover knew you had. Isn't that so?"
Bianca hesitated. She began to see now where he was leading her. "My husband had been warned of apoplexy. He was full-blooded, and—"
"Answer my question, please. Yes or no."
"I may have."
"Don't you know you had? Didn't you say that you were sure to be free before long?"
"I don't remember using those words."
"In other words, then. You both wanted the happiness that he stood in the way of. You had no grounds on which to divorce him and you would not give him grounds to divorce you. Death was the only way, wasn't it?"
"You are saying that, not I."
"I'm asking you. You must answer. And the answer is obvious. Was there any other possible way to free- dom?"
She knew that she was trapped, and despairing said:
"No. Of course not. Still I—"
"Then death was the only way."
"Yes."
"What was it your caller said about his conscience?"
"I don't recall."
"Well, then, what was it you said about yours?"
"I think I said to keep my conscience clear I'd rather he and my husband shouldn't meet."
"Exactly. And what did the man who is now here on trial say in re- ply?"
"I'm not certain what he said."
"Didn't he say that if he could in- duce a fatal stroke of apoplexy in your lord and master it wouldn't bother his conscience any?"
"I'm sure he didn't say that."
"But that was the meaning of what he said, wasn't it?"
"He may have said that his con-
science was less sensitive than mine."
"Words to that effect?"
"Yes."
"Can you interpret that in any way different from my interpretation?"
"I'm sure he didn't mean it as you put it."
"That is most charitable of you. The facts indicate that he meant even more than he said."
But on Marvin Lilligore's appeal this comment was stricken from the record. When the witness was turned over to him he declined to cross-examine; and the State asked that James Finnerty be called.
This final witness was, it promptly appeared, a detective connected with the District Attorney's office; a short, thick-set young Irishman with blue eyes and bristling chestnut hair.
When he had been sworn the Dis- trict Attorney produced from a pocket a small paper-wrapped parcel, and, tearing off the wrapping, passed to the witness the object thus revealed. Not until it was in the detective's hand did it become visible to the seeking eyes of the packed courtroom. When it did a flutter of quickened interest swept the room from end to end. It was a small iron and steel paper-file, the counter- part apparently of the one employed in the killing of Elliot Holland.
"Will you kindly examine that?" The witness turned it over a couple of times, regarding it from all sides. "Have you seen it before?"
"I have."
"How do you know?"
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WHAT IS ISN'T 31
"I identify a letter F that I scratched on it."
"When and where did you first see it?"
"In the banking house of Gardener Brothers, Wall and Nassau streets, on December 27th last."
"In what part of the banking house?"
"In the storeroom in the basement."
"Were there others like it?"
"Not exactly. There were several patterns. Some were of brass."
"Had you ever seen one precisely like it?"
"I had."
"Where?"
"In your office, sir."
"The one that is now here—this one?" And the District Attorney took up from the table the file found beneath the desk of the victim.
"Yes, sir."
"Your Honor," said the prosecutor, taking the file from the witness, "I offer this in evidence, and ask that it be marked Exhibit X."
The Court nodded.
"Cross-examine."
Mr. Lilligore compared the exhibits. They were as like as two pins. His face was serious. Here, at the last moment, was something really danger- ous. Something it would be difficult to combat. Abruptly he turned to the witness.
"December 27th was a Sunday, was it not?"
"It was. Yes, sir."
"How did you get into Gardener thers' storeroom on that day?"
"The janitor let me in."
"Why didn't you go on a weekday?"
"I wanted a chance to look 'round without interruption."
"Wasn't it that you wished to keep your visit a secret from the firm?"
"No."
"You asked the janitor not to men- tion your having been there, didn't you?"
"I may have."
"Didn't you?"
"Well, yes. We weren't for giving our case away."
"I thought so. Did you give him money or—just a cigar?"
"I slipped him a couple of smokes."
"That's all."
Three days later the case went to the jury, following a forceful, logical argument for conviction on the part of the District Attorney, in which he em- phasized particularly the sheer impossi- bility of the crime having been com- mitted by other hands than those of the prisoner. And he backed up his con- tention with a clever and convincing linking together of the evidence bear- ing on the impelling force of passion for the victim's wife, and the admitted "madness," "purgatory," and "a con- science palsied by amorous desire, de- nied, unsatisfied."
The closing appeal of the defense was eloquent to a degree. Yet it had no more proven fundamental fact for its basis than a hitherto stainless char- acter—and that qualified by an admit- ted fracture of the tenth command- ment and a playing fast and loose with the seventh. The perilous injustice of relying on evidence of a purely cir- cumstantial nature was dwelt upon at length. It was, indeed, Lilligore's sole reliance.
The charge of Judge McCready was a model of impartiality. He told the jury just what to consider and what to ignore, and he cautioned them against accepting as true circumstances unsup- ported by evidence sufficiently strong to appeal to their reason.
For twenty hours, with each tick of the clock portentous, the question hung balanced. Hope and Fear see-sawed in the hearts of Lee Calvert and Bianca Holland until it seemed to both of them that even the worst would be a relief. The suspense itself became unbearable torture. The rack and the thumbscrew appeared humane in comparison. And then, when torment could do no more, a whisper came. The judge had been summoned; the jury had arrived at a decision.
Bianca, in the judge's chambers, sur- rounded by friends, saw the slight fig- ure with the rubicund face and white
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32 WHAT IS ISN'T
hair and beard enter hurriedly and thrust his arms into the flowing sleeves of his black silk gown of office. Then her eyes closed, and she sat as in a coma, scarcely breathing.
Calvert, back in the dock once more, watched the twelve men with his fate in their keeping, file solemnly through the door from the jury room and take their places.
The usual formalities began and ended. He had risen at command and "looked upon the jury," he had been "looked upon" in turn; the usual ques- tions had been put; and now—after aeons, it seemed to him, the foreman's mouth had opened for that last answer.
"Guilty of murder in the first de- gree."
CHAPTER X
Within a week Judge McCready was in possession of sufficient facts, provided by Marvin Lilligore, to war- rant him, he believed, in granting Cal- vert a new trial on the ground of fresh- ly discovered evidence, not hitherto available. It developed then that the old Judge was himself by no means satisfied with the justice of the verdict rendered. He had really been most friendly to the accused from the be- ginning, and was personally of the opinion that there was no warrant for conviction. So, when Lilligore offered to prove, if given the chance, that even more mysterious crimes—though less serious—had been committed in the Holland, Delray & Dallas offices since the murder, he took the view that such evidence would in all likelihood be all that was necessary to throw the balance to the side of acquittal.
There was no mention then of the suspicion attaching to Arrowsmith. Owen Wills, working in secret with Lilligore, had been more than half con- vinced from the first that this ne'er-do- well brother-in-law was the perpetrator of the crime. He had divined it on that occasion of his interview with Mr. Dallas, when the latter had so obliging- ly read to him the managing clerk's
affidavit. And he had made notes of certain statements at the time: inclu- ding that concerning the visitor's re- turn for his umbrella and his absence until the office was in excitement over the discovery of the dead body.
But when the petition for a new trial was presented Wills still lacked a full assurance of the man's guilt. And for so much as a whisper of the pointing finger to get abroad might make hope- less the certainty toward which he was still energetically laboring.
He had, nevertheless, lost no time in conveying to Bianca Holland his high hopes. It was she, indeed, who had quickened his early suspicion and con- tributed a valuable addition to the evi- dence by her discovery, in that mass of her husband's private correspondence, of a threatening letter from Arrow- smith, written within a fortnight of the murder.
And for his friend Calvert's consol- ing he had sent him, through Lilligore, a promise to free him before Easter.
"Tell him," he had said, "that I'm the architect of his deliverance. I've built it up story by story. Now I'm going to put the roof on."
In spite of the efforts of the District Attorney's office toward delay, the new trial was squeezed into a rift in the calendar in mid-April. And much to the surprise of the Holland, Delray & Dallas office, about everyone em- ployed there, from firm-member to office-boy, was subpoenaed by the de- fence. The prosecution relied almost wholly on its original evidence, supple- mented by its deductions and the mov- ing oratory of its exponent, coupled with his acknowledged gift for effective cross-examination. Indeed, in order that expedition should characterize the proceedings, it was mutually agreed by counsel that much of the testimony taken in the former action should be simply read into this from the record.
About the only exception on the part of the District Attorney was in his re- calling of Bianca Holland. When she was previously on the stand—and she
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WHAT IS ISN'T 33
was there twice, it will be remembered —he had let her go, once because he feared to pursue his point lest he an- tagonize the jury, and again because to question her on the original point would be to lose an effect he had secured only after considerable effort.
In this proceeding, however, he called her directly following the reading of the maid's testimony, and his first ques- tion had to do with that part of it which dealt with the embrace and the kiss.
"Do you wish to swear that the eye- sight of the maid was at fault in this instance?" he asked.
"I do not," Bianca answered. "Those who are deeply in love are given to mu- tual caresses."
"You kissed passionately. That is the word in evidence. Also that it was a 'long kiss.' You do not wish to qual- ify those terms?"
"They are both comparative terms. How passionately or how long is hardly of consequence, is it?"
"I was asking you."
"I measured neither."
"The hour given is between five and five-thirty in the afternoon. Is that correct?"
"I believe so."
"And you parted at about six?"
"Yes."
"You kissed him good-bye?"
"I did."
"Even though you knew he had mur- der in his heart?"
"I knew nothing of the kind."
"Didn't you testify at the other trial that he had told you his conscience was not sensitive regarding the provocation of a fatal apoplectic seizure in your husband?"
"Did I?"
"You did. The record proves it."
"Then why ask me again?"
"Because I want to connect it. Be- use I want to show that, feeling as he did, your kisses were an added en- gagement to the commission of a crime you had already discussed. And less than nineteen hours after that, im- mediately following a call from this
lover of yours, your husband was found murdered, wasn't he?"
"I believe so."
Mr. Lilligore had no questions and the rather monotonous reading of the record continued.
It was not until this reading was fin- ished that anything approaching a sur- prise rewarded either the auditors or those more nearly interested. That the defence was about to introduce testi- mony so favorable to the prisoner as possibly to reverse the previous verdict was, of course, well understood, and there had been more or less conjecture as to what this was. But no one, from the District Attorney himself to the blue-coated Cerberus at the door, was prepared for such testimony. Appar- ently it had no bearing whatever. It was absolutely extraneous. And before five questions had been put to Manning —Holland, Delray & Dallas's managing clerk—who was the first witness called, the prosecutor was on his feet object- ing on the ground of irrelevancy and immateriality.
The Court, however, already advised as to the bearing, was lenient. And Manning, in answer to the Lilligore in- terrogations, rehearsed succinctly all that he knew concerning the mysterious disappearances from the law offices of a certain document and a certain vol- ume of law reports. The occurrences mentioned by Wills to Arrowsmith on the afternoon of Calvert's conviction.
It seemed that barely a quarter of an hour had elapsed from the time of Manning putting the document in the safe at his side until, being desirous of looking at it again, it was not to be found. And he was most positive that no one had been near the safe in the meantime. Nor was the taking of the law book from Mr. Delray's office— the one formerly occupied by the late Mr. Holland—less perplexing. Mr. Delray had stepped into the library, leaving the book on his desk. In less than five minutes, returning, it was gone. A week later both the document and the book were returned by messen- ger. An effort had been made to trace
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34 WHAT IS ISN'T
the sender, but it was unsuccessful. Mr. Delray himself furnished the lat- ter facts, and they were corroborated by a dozen other witnesses, each of whom swore to ignorance of how the disappearance had been effected.
With the purpose, evidently, of asso- ciating these seemingly disconnected matters with the event of the murder, each witness was questioned as to his or her presence in the office on the day of the greater crime, and particularly as to the coming and going of Mr. Stephen Arrowsmith.
Manning adhered closely to his testi- mony as given in the former trial. He was sure that Arrowsmith had returned for his umbrella, had secured it, and had immediately gone out again. From that moment he was absent, the wit- ness said, until after the discovery of the body. And the telephone operator and mail clerk supported him. Some of the others were not so sure. After this lapse of time it was hardly possible they should remember.
This introduction of the name of Ar- rowsmith had the effect of transmuting a negative interest into a positive one. The audience was quick to see in it the emergence of a hithero unmentioned suspect, and when, a little later, the clerk of the court called three times the name:
"Leda Arrowsmith! Leda Arrow- smith! Leda Arrowsmith!" the entire room was on tiptoe.
There came presently through a side door—for both she and the man whose name she bore by courtesy, though sum- moned, had been kept in an anteroom until now—a tall, blonde, rather show- ily, yet poorly, dressed woman of some beauty in spite of lines of dissipa- tion.
Having given her name and address, she was asked:
"Are you Stephen Arrowsmith's wife?"
"I'm called that," she answered, and smiled shamelessly.
"You mean you've never been mar- ried to him."
"That's the idea. You get me."
"You've lived together how many years?"
"Five or six."
"You know his financial condition pretty well, then?"
"Just as well as he does."
"Money's been pretty tight of late, eh?"
"You've said it."
"You both need clothes, don't you?"
"You only have to look at us to see that."
"How long is it since Steve had an umbrella?"
"So long I don't remember. I know he hasn't had one since we took the room on Twenty-second Street, and we're on our second year there now."
"That's all."
The District Attorney asked two questions.
"Have you an umbrella?"
"No."
"Doesn't Arrowsmith borrow one now and then?"
"I never knew him to."
When Leda had been led back to the anteroom, John Dumphrey was called.
A letter-carrier at the rear of the room rose and came forward.
"Does your route include the offices of Holland, Delray & Dallas?" was Marvin Lilligore's first question after the oath had been administered.
"It does. Yes, sir."
"Tell the jury, please, what happened there on the morning of February sev- enteenth last."
"I called to deliver the mail as usual.
But as the mail clerk was not at his desk and there was a postage-due letter I took it to Mr. Manning. When he turned his back to get the six cents due I was standing by the open safe. There was a blue-backed paper there and I slipped it out and put it under a stack of letters I had in my hand."
"Had you orders to do that?"
"I had."
"From whom?"
"The Assistant Postmaster."
"That's all."
On cross-examination the witness said that he was under the impression
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WHAT IS ISN'T 35
it was a bit of fun. He had been given explicit directions and had had to wait several days for just the right opportu- nity.
"If it would be any satisfaction for you to know it"—it was Lilligore who spoke, addressing his adversary—"I ar- ranged it. Or, rather, my office did." He turned to the clerk.
"Call Martin Cleary, please!"
Cleary was a young Irishman. "A window-cleaner," he said. He had en employed in February by the su- perintendent of the office building in which the Holland, Delray & Dallas offices were. On the morning of Val- etine's Day he was cleaning the win- dows of those offices. He was in the middle private office. It was unoccu- ped at the time. It was nearly noon when he finished there. He opened the connecting door to the first private of- fice. There had been a gentleman en- gaged there when he began, which was why he did the middle-room windows first. When he opened the door he saw that the gentleman was gone. There was a book on the desk by which he had been sitting. The witness picked it up and stuck it beneath his jumper. Then he heard the noon hour strike, so he went back to the middle office, closed the connecting door, took up his pail and brushes and other tools and went out through the library. He gave the book to the superintendent, who had ordered him to pick up anything handy that was likely to be missed. Like the letter-carrier, he had understood it was just for a practical joke.
The audience now was being greatly entertained. It was almost as amusing as a vaudeville performance, and Lilli- gore, with the soul of an impresario, introduced a fourth sensational feature. He called the leading-lady, so to speak, for the defence.
The State had depended on Bianca Holland to establish a motive on the part of the accused. The defense would prove by her that Stephen Arrowsmith had even a stronger motive.
Bianca, an impressive contrast in her mourning with the garish mistress of
her dead husband's profligate brother- in-law, took from the hand of the prisoner's counsel a proffered let- ter.
"Have you ever seen that before?" he asked.
"I have."
"Tell the jury where and when, if you please."
"I found it among my husband's correspondence, about a month ago."
"By whom is it written and signed?"
"By Stephen Arrowsmith, who mar- ried Mr. Holland's youngest sister."
Marvin Lilligore reached for it again.
"I ask to read it and offer it in evi- dence."
The Court bowed.
The letter, dated a week prior to the murder, ran:
‘"Dear E. H.: I have just learned that you are going abroad for an indefinite stay. Sev- eral times of late I have tried to get an in- terview with you, without success. I must see you before you go, and you must arrange to make me a substantial payment on account of my properties. If you refuse me I will not be responsible for the consequences. I'm a desperate man and my back is against the wall. I would be justified in taking extreme measures. You have been starving me for years. Now I must eat or— Well, it's your own risk. Don't try me too far."’
To Lilligore's surprise, the District Attorney offered no objection.
The final witness for the defense was Owen Wills. He took his place on the stand carrying a pig-skin traveling bag, which he placed beside the chair. Un- like Pandora's fabled box, the one gift that emerged from this bag when it was opened was the gift of Hope. Hope for Calvert. For its contents quite overthrew what had been in the first trial an apparently damning bit of evi- dence against him.
The bag was practically filled with paper-files, each of the identical pattern used by Holland's slayer. And each tagged with a different name and ad- dress.
From a hundred New York business houses and offices Wills had personally collected them.
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36 WHAT IS ISN'T
CHAPTER XI
Following the delivery of the ver- dict at the former trial, Owen Wills and the man who had sat at his left throughout the entire proceedings had left the Criminal Courts Building to- gether, crossed the street and entered a saloon on the corner. The afternoon was bitter cold. It had begun to snow. Wills wore a mink-lined coat with an otter collar. The lean, sinewy, middle- aged man shivered in his tan overcoat with the threadbare edges. In response to Wills's invitation he said: "Rye whiskey." And when the bottle was before him he poured out a full glass, and, with: "Here's to you," drank it, undiluted, at a single gulp.
Wills drank the highball of Scotch that was before him more leisurely. He was facing the wide bar-window, and noting the snow, which had suddenly thickened so that the court building op- posite was hidden by its white curtain, said:
"We should have brought our um- brellas this morning."
His companion paused in the act of lighting a cigarette and glanced oyer his shoulder.
"Oh, just a squall," he said. "I hate umbrellas. Haven't carried one in years."
"I'm rather like a cat," Wills re- joined. "Hate to get a drop on me. However, it may not last. This isn't a bad place to spend the time. Suppose we take that table over there. Have another rye?"
When they were seated the lean man, pouring his second drink, said: "Fore- gone conclusion, that verdict, eh?"
"Do you think so?"
"Sure. Nobody else to do it but he."
"Apparently not. But—have you heard of what's happened in those law offices since?"
"Not another murder?"
Wills smiled. "Well, hardly. Only thefts. Petty thefts. Two of them."
"What ice do they cut?"
"They're more mysterious than the murder. Calvert was there to kill Hol-
land. But no one was there to steal a document from the office safe or to take a volume from the desk in the room where the killing was done."
"How do you mean—no one there? There were clerks, stenographers, fel- lows reading law, weren't there?"
"Oh, yes. I suppose so. But no one with a motive. Persons like that don't steal just for fun, you know."
"Kleptomania."
"Nonsense. It would have to have been an acute case, and the odds against it are so great it's untenable."
The other finished his second drink.
"That's true enough," he said. "I know, in a way, or did, most of the people in those offices. Holland was a family connection of mine."
Wills appeared surprised.
"Really?" he queried. "Then your interest in the trial wasn't altogether impersonal."
"No. I was subpoenaed by the de- fense. Though I don't know what for. I didn't come in until after the deed was done. Never laid eyes on Calvert till I saw him in court. But I had to be there every day, and they didn't call me after all."
"A connection of Holland's, eh?" Wills said, his surprise still echoing. "Then, of course, you hadn't much sympathy with the accused."
"I had and I hadn't."
"How's that?"
"Elliot and I never got on. I hated him. But to kill a man because you want his wife—that's going a little too far."
"I should say it is. I always under- stood that Holland was a very fine character. Wasn't he?"
"He was a scoundrel." The speaker rapped on the table, and when the bar- tender looked at him he ordered a repe- tition of their refreshment.
Wills, passing him his cigarette case, said:
"A scoundrel! Why, you amaze me."
"Yes, a damned scoundrel. With all his money he persisted, for his own selfish personal interest, in keeping me
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WHAT IS ISN'T 37
in something pretty close to penury."
"I should never have thought that of him," Wills rejoined.
"Now that he's out of the way I'll come into my own. And it was the same sort of thing he worked on his wife. Yes, and on that fellow Calvert. They were starving for each other; but he was determined to keep her for him- self. I don't wonder Calvert drove that steel point into his brain. He was forced to it."
"You might have been tempted to do it yourself, eh?"
"Might have been? I was. More than once I was." His manner and tone were almost ferocious. "I don't see now how I kept from it."
"Your better nature, I suppose."
"Probably. Or lack of nerve. It takes nerve, you know, to sneak up on a man from behind and with a hard, swift blow, drive a steel point into his brain. Some nerve! Believe me!"
"I can readily understand that. You've got to be close to insanity to do it."
"I've been close to insanity for more than six months." He drank his third brimming glass of whiskey, neat.
"Would you like to hear about it?"
"I should, indeed," said Wills, "if you don't mind."
His companion, markedly reticent throughout the trial, had become con- trastingly loquacious under the stimu- lus of his libations. He didn't mind. He told his story fluently, with consid- erable elaboration, and not unpictur- esquely; Wills, meanwhile, taking care to keep the narrator's glass filled, and garettes at his hand.
"I married Elliot Holland's young- est sister," he began, "when I was twenty-eight years old. I was a clerk in a shipping office at the time, with nothing but my salary to depend on, and the family disapproved of me for that reason. You know how those rich and fashionable families are. But three years after we were made one, her father died, and she came in for some- thing like a quarter of a million."
It seemed that with that quarter of a
million the pair had a pretty lively time of it. They went around the world. They lived in Paris for a year, and in London for another. Then the wife was killed in a motor-car accident. There were no children. She had not made a will. The bulk of her estate was invested in real property.
Under the law the widower was en- titled to the income from this for life, but, of course, could not touch the prin- cipal. The personal property he soon squandered. He had developed a pas- sion for gambling. Especially for horse-racing. At thirty-eight there was nothing left but the income from the realty. He had attached to himself a beautiful young woman of the half- world, to whom he could deny nothing she asked for.
To provide the required funds he postponed and postponed the payment of mortgage interests, allowed taxes to accumulate, the properties to run down for lack of needed repairs. Tenants refused to renew leases and new ten- ants were not to be had. When fore- closure was threatened he went to El- liot Holland. And Elliot Holland had agreed to advance what was necessary to pay the arrears of taxes and interest, and to put the properties into proper repair. In consideration of this, though, he was to be made trustee. There was nothing for the poor brother-in-law to do but accept. But he wasn't in the least grateful. Holland was not doing it for him. He knew that. He was doing it for himself and the others to whom the realty would eventually re- vert.
"I can't altogether agree with you there," Wills interrupted. "He might have let the mortgages be foreclosed bought it all in at sheriff's sale, and cut you out altogether.
"That would have meant a bigger in- vestment. This way he paid less and accomplished practically the same re- sult. Every dollar that came in he turned back into the properties. En- larged them, remodeled them, kept them always in superfine condition. I got almost nothing. Sometimes less than
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38 WHAT IS ISN'T
nothing. And my hands were tied. Persuasion had no effect on him. Threats he laughed at. He was a piece of stone. Hard as iron and cold as ice. In the six months prior to his—his death, I had less than four hundred dollars. And I went through hell."
He paused to refresh himself and light another cigarette. Then:
"Were you ever in love?" he asked, putting down his glass.
"Not very seriously."
"Then you won't be able to under- stand."
"Try me," Wills suggested.
"I'm mad over Leda. She's beyond words to describe. She's been devotion itself. But she wasn't made for pov- erty. She wilts under it. She's put up with things, hoping for a turn. Last fall she met a man—an acquaintance of a friend of hers—who admired her at sight. She told me all about it. He'd do about everything in the world for her but marry her. He's a mil- lionaire twice over. He'd give her all she craved. Apartment, clothes, jew- els, automobile, chauffeur, everything. Can you imagine how I felt? I saw her fading every day and could do nothing. And I knew she had that of- fer in her mind, every minute. He let it stand open. I wanted her to be happy. Oh, God, how I wanted it! I'd have broken into a bank and looted it for her if I could. Don't you see how I was tempted? With that real estate out of Holland's hands and with a trust company that wouldn't put every penny of income back into it, I'd soon be getting fifty thousand a year. Do you wonder I was tempted?"
"No, I don't," Wills answered.
The lean, sinewy man leant nearer to him across the table.
"I am tempted beyond my strength," he whispered—"almost."
Ten minutes later Wills was driving him uptown in a taxicab. He was drunk. His story told, he had gone to pieces suddenly after the final drink. There are some dipsomaniacs like that.
"Shay," he stammered as the vehicle turned into West Twenty-second
Street, where he and his light-o'-love lived in one big second-floor front room, "you gotta come in an' shee Leda. She's worth killin' a man for."
"Thank you," Wills returned. "But you'll have to excuse me this evening. I'll come some other day. Which re- minds me. Who am I to ask for? You haven't given me your name."
"Arrowshmith. Stephen Arrow- shmith. Whash yoursh?"
"Mine?" Wills queried. "Oh, yes! 'Balderdash.' I'm sorry I haven't a card."
He saw him out and watched as he climbed the high stoop, leaving gaping footprints in the cushions of snow that covered the steps.
Of course he had known from the first that it was Stephen Arrowsmith. Lilligore had subpoenaed him at Wills's request. And Wills had selected that seat beside him with precisely this end in view.
"Hate umbrellas. Haven't carried one in years " he quoted with a smile, as the taxi sped eastward, seeking Fifth Avenue, beyond the curtain of feather- like flakes. "That's the key that will open poor Lee's prison door for him"
CHAPTER XII
On leaving the stand, after his testi- mony in the second trial, Wills slipped out of the courtroom through the side- door. His work was finished. He wished he might stay for Lilligore's summing-up. It would be quite differ- ent, he knew, from that barren oratori- cal effort which came at the end of the former trial. This time it was he who had everything and the District Attor- ney nothing. Never had there been a more complete turning of the tables. That double "plant" of the letter-car- rier and the window-cleaner was some- thing to be proud of, and the young lawyer smiled with pleasure, for it was he who had suggested it and arranged it. Lilligore had only to make vivid the application, which the jury must al- ready see for themselves.
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WHAT IS ISN'T 39
"It is far from safe to pin one's faith to the obvious."
That would be Lilligore's text. It was so obvious that a letter-carrier could have no use for a legal document which did not concern him that it never entered Manning's mind to consider him. Nor was it less obvious that a window-cleaner was not a man to take away a volume of law reports. And what could be more obvious than that a man who, having started to leave an office, returns for his umbrella, goes out directly he has secured it? You take it for granted. You'd wager your life on it. You'd be positive even that you saw him go.
In other words, from certain given facts we take other facts for granted. We say "this is," or "that is." But to learn later that what is, very often, isn't.
Lee Calvert, apparently, must have killed Elliot Holland. There was, seemingly, no other conclusion. No one else could possibly have got into that room. And he had a motive for de- siring his death. Even had Arrow- smith's motive been known, he must be absolved, because he was absent at the time. No wonder that first jury con- victed.
But now it was different. A doubt, at least, had been raised. And the finding of a file in the Gardener Broth- ers' storeroom identical with that found blood-stained beneath Elliot Holland's desk had lost all its significance, seeing that such files were apparently scattered all over Manhattan Island.
Yes, Owen Wills had no doubt what- ever now that Lee Calvert would be ac- quitted. The Judge himself would re- fuse to accept a verdict otherwise. It would not be in keeping with the evi- dence.
So, in so far as freeing his friend went, his work was finished. But there was now a supplementary labor before him. Lee Calvert must be absolved as well as acquitted. The real culprit must be brought to book. And the real culprit, he felt sure, was waiting here in the anteroom, trepidantly a-tremble
in all probability, because of what Leda —his Leda—had told him of her brief examination.
But when he opened the anteroom door it was to find the room empty. In the corridor he came upon the offi- cer who had had the witnesses in charge.
"What have you done with them?" he asked.
"Nothing, sir. The woman testified and I understood the man wasn't to be called. I heard Mr. Lilligore say that you were his last witness. They asked if they might go, and I let them."
Wills descended in the elevator to the ground floor and crossed the street to the saloon on the corner. It was an even chance that he'd find them in the back room. But they were not.
He took a taxicab across town to the Ninth Avenue Elevated and traveled northward, alighting at Twenty-third Street, whence he walked two blocks to their lodgings.
They were not there. For a long while he stood on the corner watching for their return. While he waited a newsboy came by, bawling an "extra." He bought the paper and saw in great headlines:
"CALVERT ACQUITTED!"
* * * *
It was between ten and eleven that same night when Owen Wills rang the doorbell of the Holland home in East Sixty-first Street and handing a carte de visite to the maid who responded asked for Mrs. Holland. He waited in the small reception room, to the left of the entrance hall, in which Lee Cal- vert had so restlessly paced on a cer- tain October afternoon six months be- fore. Waited to be eventually led up the same broad, curving staircase and along the same softly carpeted corridor to the same dOor.
In the little room that was like a hol- lowed opal Bianca and Lee were to- gether. Their countenances seemed transfigured. And Owen caught in his heart a reflection of the radiance. Their joy overflowed. Their gratitude was too profound, too poignant for words.
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40 WHAT IS ISN'T
They made him sit between them on the little white and lavender sofa, bare- ly large enough for three, each clasp- ing one of his hands.
"No, I haven't been lost," he made answer to their chorused question. "I've been completing my labor of love. I thought you might care to know that you may now write 'Finis' to your tale of woe. It required some waiting on my part, but I was repaid. Arrow- smith, his Leda, and I had quite a ses- sion this evening, in their one room. It was nearly eight when they returned, and I had been sentineling the house since before five."
"You don't mean that he confessed?" It was Bianca who asked.
"Everything. Fully. I convinced him that I knew. I outlined just what had happened, and he admitted or cor- rected. When he went back, supposed- ly for an umbrella which didn't exist, he slipped into Delray's office, unlock- ing the door and relocking it on the in- side. He found then—and he consid- ered it great luck—that the key also fitted the connecting door to Holland's room. His evil idea was to strangle. He has very strong hands. But ques- tioned his success. In looking about for something that might serve his pur- pose, he opened the drawers of Del- ray's desk—only two or three were
locked—and at the back of one of them found that file. He said there were two there. I suppose the other is in the drawer yet. Having done what he'd made up his mind to do, he waited in Delray's room until he heard the hue and cry raised, and then slipped out into the library again. Not a soul saw him. Indeed, he got as far as the out- er office. Everybody was in the Hol- land room and with backs turned. All he had to do was go in there, too, and ask what had happened."
"He's been arrested?" Calvert asked. "But of course he has."
Owen Wills shook his head.
"No," he answered. "He gave us the slip and he took Leda with him. I had a warrant in my pocket, you know. He went back of a screen in a corner of the room to get his hat or Leda's wrap or something. At least he said that. But whatever it was, he ap- peared unable to find it, and called for the woman. So she joined him. Neither of them came out again."
"What! There was a window there?" This, too, from Calvert.
"No, old chap. Not a window. A gun. He shot her and then himself, before I could turn round."
"Dead!"
"Both of them. Naturally he wouldn't leave Leda for that millionaire."
The End
THE trouble with women is that the older they grow the more romantic they become, and the more romantic they become the older they look.
VIRTUE is woman's ability to put out the small fires which she is con-tinually starting.
[Page 041]
East and West
By Lord Dunsany
IT was dead of night and mid-winter. A frightful wind was bringing sleet from the East. The long sere grasses were wailing. Two specks of light ap- eared on the desolate plain: a man in a hansom cab was driving alone in North China
Alone with the driver and the de- jected horse. The driver wore a good waterproof cape, and of course an oiled silk hat, but the man in the cab wore nothing but evening dress. He did not have the glass door down because the horse fell so frequently, the sleet had put his cigar out and it was too cold to sleep; the two lamps flared in the wind.
By the uncertain light of a candle lamp that flickered inside the cab a manchu shepherd that saw the vehicle pass, where he watched his sheep on the plain in fear of wolves, for the first time saw evening dress. And though he saw it dimly, and what he saw was wet, it was like a backward glance of a thousand years, for as his civilization is so much older than ours they have presumably passed through all that kind of thing.
He watched it stoically, not wonder- ing at a new thing, if indeed it be new to China, meditated on it awhile in a manner strange to us, and when he had added to his philosophy what little could be derived from the sight of this hansom cab, returned to his contem- plation of that night's chances of wolves and to such occasional thoughts as he drew at times for his comfort out of the legends of China, that have been reserved for such uses. And on such a night their comfort was greatly need- ed.
He thought of the legend of a
dragon-lady, more fair than the flowers are, without an equal amongst daugh- ters of men, humanly lovely to look on although her sire was a dragon, yet one who traced his descent from gods of the elder days, and so it was that she went in all her ways divine, like the earliest ones of her race, who were bolder than the emperor.
She had come down one day out of her little land, a grassy valley hidden amongst the mountains; by the way of the mountain passes she came down, and the rocks of the rugged pass rang like little bells about her, as her bare feet went by, like silver bells to please her: and the sound was like the sound of the dromedaries of a prince when they come home at evening—their sil- ver bells are ringing and the village- folk are glad.
She had come down to pick the en- chanted poppy that grew, and grows to this day—if only men might find it— in a field at the feet of the mountains, if one should pick it happiness would come to all yellow men, victory with- out fighting, good wages and ceaseless ease. She came down all fair from the mountains: and as the legend pleasant- ly passed through his mind in the bit- terest hour of the night, which comes before dawn, two lights appeared and another hansom went by.
The man in the second cab was dressed the same as the first, he was wetter than the first for the sleet had fallen all night, but evening dress is evening dress all the world over. The driver wore the same oiled hat, the same waterproof cape as the other. And when the cab had passed the darkness swirled back where the two small lamps
41
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42 EAST AND WEST
had been, and the slush poured into the wheeltracks and nothing remained but the speculations of the shepherd to tell that a hansom cab had been in that part of China: presently even these ceased, and he was back with the early legends again in contemplation of se- rener things.
And the storm and the cold and the darkness made one last effort, and shook the bones of that shepherd, and rattled the teeth in the head that mused on the flowery fables, and suddenly it was morning. You saw the outlines of the sheep all of a sudden, the shepherd counted them, no wolf had come, you could see them all quite clearly. And in the pale light of the earliest morning the third hansom appeared, with its lamps still burning, looking ridiculous in the daylight. They came out of the East with the sleet and were all going due westwards, and the occupant of the third cab also wore evening dress.
Calmly that Manchu shepherd, with- out curiosity, still less with wonder, but as one who would see whatever life has to show him, stood for four hours to see if another would come. The sleet and the East wind continued. And at the end of four hours another came. The driver was urging it on as fast as he could, as though he were trying to make the most of the daylight, his cab- by's cape was flapping wildly about him; inside the cab a man in evening dress was being jolted up and down by the unevenness of the plain.
This was of course that famous race from Pittsburg to Piccadilly, going round by the long way, that started one night after dinner from Mr. Flagdrop's house and was won by Mr. Kagg, driv- ing the Honourable Alfred Fortescue, whose father it will be remembered was
Hagar Dermstein and became (by Let- ters Patent) Sir Edgar Fortescue, and finally Lord St. George.
The Manchu shepherd stood there till evening, and when he saw that no more cabs would come turned home- ward in search of food.
And the rice prepared for him was hot and good, all the more after the bit- ter coldness of that sleet. And when he had consumed it he perused his ex- perience, turning over again in his mind each detail of the cabs he had seen; and from that his thoughts slipped calmly to the glorious history of China, going back to the indecorous times be- fore calmness came, and beyond those times to the happy days of the earth when the gods and dragons were here and China was young; and lighting his opium pipe and casting his thoughts easily forward he looked to the time when the dragons shall come again.
And for a long while then his mind reposed itself in such a dignified calm that no thought stirred there at all, from which when he was aroused he cast off his lethargy as a man emerges from the baths, refreshed, cleansed and contented, and put away from his mus- ings the things he had seen on the plain as being evil and of the nature of dreams, or futile illusions, the results of activity which troubleth calm. And then he turned his mind toward the shape of God, the One, the Ineffable, who sits by the lotus lily, whose shape is the shape of peace, and divineth ac- tivity, and sent out his thanks to him that he had cast all bad customs west- ward out of China as a woman throws household dirt out of her basket far out into neighbouring gardens.
From thankfulness he turned to calm again, and out of calm to sleep.
[Page 043]
Twilight of Love
By L. M. Hussey
I
HE entered the Library as a part of his routine, a way to put behind him certain of the hours. This afternoon it was very quiet and he chose one of the long tables that was deserted, save for a young woman, frowning over a book, as if the typog- raphy were extraordinarily poor. He seated himself and fingered, without opening, two or three abandoned vol- umes on the table, meanwhile glancing about the room.
He recognized some of the habitues. A short, swarthy man, with black eyes set a little slantwise—probably a Hindu —was taking notes from a volume printed in some oriental tongue. Pome- roy had seen him a score of times; once he had looked idly over the fellow's shoulder at the book he seemed to be translating; it was printed in scroll-like characters, Sanscrit, no doubt.
A very old man in a corner was read- ing a romance. Another old man, who came there every day, read nothing at all, but, staring down at the floor, seemed to have achieved almost a nir- vana of emptiness.
Pomeroy sighed. It was depressing. He formulated a half wish that he had gone back to his rooms. However, he could have done nothing there but sleep.
Now he glanced sideways at the girl. He observed that her brow was still furrowed; her lips moved slowly like those of a child that can scarcely read; dropping his eyes to her book he saw that it was printed in German. Evi- dently she knew very little of the lan- guage. Her presence gave him a mild curiosity.
Now he scrutinized her more thor- oughly. Her features were not bad, but they had an indefinable touch of insufficiency; something was wanting to make them attractive. More definitely, she was too pale and her brown hair, luxuriant enough, he thought, needed a skilful touch here and there to bring out the charm of pleasant curves. In all, she gave him a vague impression of pathos—the pathetic air that arises from self-depreciation, disagreeable in a woman. Presently she turned a page; he observed her perplexed frown deep- en; he wondered why she was endeav- ouring to read a language obviously un- familiar
Whilst he still regarded her, speculat- ing in his mind's idleness, she suddenly dropped the book, gave it a little push away from her. and uttered a low ex- clamation of discontent Then, aware that someone was near, she looked up, met his eyes, and flushed a little.
He smiled
"Struck a snag?" he asked.
For a moment she hesitated, as if conventionally weighing the propriety of answering him Her eyes passed over his face in a swift appraisal; evi- dently the fact that he was not young reassured her.
"Of course I have," she replied. "When I went to school I studied some French and some German, but not enough to know anything about either. Just enough to tantalize me. Every now and then I get the idea that I'll do some hard work on one or the other of these languages—I al- ways fail!"
She frowned naively; her rather un- usual purpose amused him. Why did she trouble herself with such concerns?
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—she was young enough to have other thoughts in her head.
"What were you trying to read to- day?" he asked.
She tapped the open book.
"Oh, some poems," she said, discon- solately. "Heine's. There's one here about a nightingale that someone told me was exceptionally good. I can't make it out."
Pomeroy reached for the book.
"Let me translate it for you," he said.
He took up the book and read the verses.
He paused, smiled at her, and deliv- ered the lines literally:
"Death is the cool night, Life is the sultry day. Now it grows dark; I am drowsy; the day has made me sad. Over my bed a tree looms up. Therein a young nightingale is singing: she sings only of love; I hear it even in dreams."
He lowered the book and she nodded at him with an expression of bitterness.
"Yes," she said, "you do it easily. I can never learn anything; sometimes it seems to me that I'm about the most useless person in the world!"
Her frank discontent interested him, stirred his curiosity. Moreover, it pleased him to talk with her, a young girl; this was more agreeable than the dullness of his club, or any of his books, of which he was mostly tired, or the stupid staring out of his window at home until he fell asleep. She was pal- pably a somewhat melancholy one, find- ing a lack in life and herself.
Regarding her more critically, he came to the opinion that she was not without charm; her face needed a cer- tain assurance and more the habit of smiles; a smile might easily give a glamour to her features. She was wait- ing for him to speak; he drew his chair a little nearer.
"You've been frank," he said. "Let us suppose we really know each other better—confidantes in a sense. It's pleasant to talk to you—somebody new, somebody that's young, that has all sorts of unknown possibilities ahead. I don't discover much to interest me any
more. You're young; you're at that excellent time when living is a sort of constant experience in unreality—so you understand? I mean, that your expectations are more intimate, in fact, more real than the things that actually happen."
She was resting her chin in her el- bow, looking intently into his face. At his concluding words she surprised him by exhaling a sharp, contemptuous sniff. He met her eyes a moment, ig- nored her exclamation, and continued.
"Imagine my position," he said. "I'm nearly fifty years old—a bad time of life when you've nothing that you're persuaded is important enough to do. In a few years I'll be an old man, I'm certainly long past being a young one— just now you find me hanging in the air, so to speak, neither young nor entirely old, an extremely uncomfortable age!"
He laughed a little but her face re- mained grave.
Dropping her elbow, she began to speak, uttering her words in her some- what monotonous voice, a voice lacking cadences.
"It's all right for you to talk to me if you want to," she said, "but you cer- tainly won't find me interesting. I used to believe I could interest some- body—I never could. I wish I were twice as old as I am—I'd be your age. You talk about expecting things! I wish I could stop expecting!"
Her lips came together firmly, pressed out into a harsh line. He met her eyes; for an instant they regarded each other with a steady gaze.
"What is the matter?" he asked. "What's happened to you?"
She tapped her fingers impatiently on the edge of the table.
"Don't tell me about not being able to discover any interest," she said. "It's not that I can't imagine interesting things—you can't have what would in- terest you."
He began to question her and for a time she answered him with the same colour of bitterness in her sentences. But little by little a part of this mood seemed to pass; their talk became more
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TWILIGHT OF LOVE 45
circumstantial; she told him more about herself.
She lived with her mother, one of those singular, aloof women, it seemed, out of touch with the customary actu- alities, a Christian Scientist or some- thing of the sort. The two women had very little interest in each other for they were at opposite poles. So the girl was left wholly to herself.
She spent her time as one will to whom the hours are periods that must be bridged in some way—without en- thusiasm, in discontent, not infrequent- ly, he thouught, in emotions of despair. Certainly he had been right in his ini- tial surmise—she lacked assurance. Yet she was interesting.
Glancing about him, his eyes strayed to the dial of the large clock on the wall and it surprised him to discover that nearly two hours had passed.
A measure of genial comfort entered his consciousness. It had been an agree- able afternoon.
The girl was speaking now, telling him something or other about her early home; he listened perfunctorily, more interested in the scrutiny of her face, watching her moving lips, her little half-listless gestures. More composed now, her face lost the greater part of its tenseness the lines were more gracile, the curves were more young.
His appreciation of her youth in- creased. It was refreshing to sit near a young girl, to receive some of her con- fidences, to find, in a degree, an easy intimacy with her. It surprised him when he reflected upon the rarity of this experience; he knew some women, but not young women, no girls. She made him feel less old himself. It was flattering to perceive that she acknowl- edged his capacity to understand her, to enter into sympathy with her, to com- prehend the subtleties of her thought. She did not wrap herself in the cloak of reticence with which the young make themselves inscrutable to the old. By her frankness she acknowledged his own inner youth.
She paused, glanced up at the clock,
and rising suddenly told him she must go-
"But we'll see each other again?" he suggested.
Her eyes met his a moment and then she smiled. It was the first full-curved smile she had given him and in that second he discovered a swift and touch- ing charm in her face. Opening her little hand-bag she took out a card. She extended her hand with the card be- tween her fingers, and, smiling his thanks, he took it.
"Yes," she said, "if you want to talk to me again, you can come some even- ing and see me. I'm nearly always home. There's... there's nothing better to do...."
Her concluding sentence was voiced with a return of the old bitter touch. For a moment she stood near the table with a somewhat awkward hesitancy; neither spoke again; rather abruptly she walked away.
His eyes followed her as she walked the length of the room. He was in good spirits when he stood up and with a glance about him, stepped toward the door himself. His mind dwelt upon the girl as he made his way out of the building and took a taxi home.
II
He let a day or two pass, but in the end he found himself impatient and he wrote to her.
It was with some hesitation that he did this, for now he felt the gap of their ages; it looked a little silly for him to call on her. He tried to persuade him- self that he went as an old friend might go, in a fatherly way perhaps, and to a degree this facile interpretation of his interest satisfied him. Inwardly, how- ever, he knew his emotions were more complex.
He sat down at his desk and wrote her a short note, addressed the envel- ope, scanned the name—Virginia My- lin—and found its sound agreeable. Then, sealing the letter, he walked to the window and looked out idly at the street.
He lived near the center of things
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46 TWILIGHT OF LOVE
and there was always a crowd going back and forth beneath his windows: the street was full of automobiles that struggled for precedence. It was often his custom to stand here in a sort of sensual and intellectual numbness, per- mitting the minutes, with which he had nothing better to do, to pass un- heeded. Today he felt more in touch with things, more of the urge and sen- sation of life. The girl, he thought, had something to do with that. It was good to know young friends.
She answered his note promptly; two days later he set out to call on her. When her reply came he had studied the handwriting with interest. It had some character. She set down her words in a nervous chirography a little difficult to read. There was no school- girlish roundness to her writing. Her script accentuated his sense of her com- plexity, her curious psychology. He went over in his mind the details of their single, surprising meeting, and found her personality very shadowy; for all her frankness she had by no means revealed herself.
At a suitable time in the evening he set out, unusually eager, interested and anxious for their renewed conversation. But as he approached her street he found himself shrinking a little. His customary aloofness asserted itself, his habit of routine, his cautious tendency to only the repetition of tried and in- significant events.
Once or twice he thought he would not go back; there was a palpable lack of proportion in this call—an almost old man, a young girl. But his admis- sion that he was nearly old stayed his retreat. He was old enough to aban- don some conventions; no one would misinterpret his actions.
She lived on an obscure street, a faintly shabby street, one of those thor- oughfares that, having passed their original importance, seem to withdraw from the uses of other streets in a sort of spinster-like and ineffectual disdain. The houses were old, their fronts stained, their brown steps worn into hollows; it was all very quiet.
He stopped in front of her house, ascended to the outer landing, and rang the bell.
Following upon his ring there was some sort of a subdued confusion in- side.
A moment later the girl herself came to the door.
For an instant his glance passed over her shoulder and he made out a pair of disappearing feet, going up the stairs. This was doubtless the mother, the mother of unrealities. Now his eyes re- turned to the girl; she was holding the door open for him to enter; her lips, unexpectedly, were smiling.
The smile disconcerted him a little. He had imagined this moment of meet- ing, seeing it in terms of their initial encounter. Then she had not displayed the habit of smiles.
He followed her into the house; they turned from the hall and entered the "parlour" he stood awkwardly near the door a moment until she pulled two chairs near each other and invited him to sit down.
Their eyes met, and she was still smiling. Her appearance surprised him; she seemed, not more young, but more ardent, less harsh, less self-deny- ing. Her cheeks, that he remembered as marked by an even pallor, had touches of colour. Her frock was girl- lish, attractive, the white throat emerged from it in a gracious column. She began to speak about something, some trivial comment, and as he lis- tened an astonishing understanding pre- sented itself. She had prepared elabo- rately for his visit! He saw her seated an hour or more before her mirror, tinting her cheeks and lips, arranging her hair, trying the effect of her dresses. For her he had come, not in the fatherly role, but as an opportunity, a chance miraculously found, as a young man might!
He began to smile; he was touched, and he moved his chair an inch or two nearer hers as a gesture of unspoken intimacy.
But more than anything else, Pome- roy was flattered. Anticipating some
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TWILIGHT OF LOVE 47
embarrassment in this meeting, he had planned a demeanour and a trend of conversation that would accentuate his age and thus make them both at ease. Now he dismissed this purpose without hesitation.
He felt closer to the girl, and grate- ful to her, in that she had perceived and accepted his fundamental youth frank- ly rather than in terms of the exterior given him by the years. His conscious- ness of a barrier between them passed like an unpleasant season; old, tantaliz- ing warmths caressed his spirit. He was suddenly proud, quietly elated, and he believed that in spite of all his dis- illusionments he might still be capable of ardour.
There came a moment of pause in their little conversation; he leaned to- ward the girl and spoke in a low voice.
"The chances of life are curious!" he said. "How unexpectedly I met you!"
"And how luckily!" she answered.
"Do you realty feel that?"
"Yes, really! I wanted to know somebody dreadfully! I was—abso- lutely lonely!"
"I'm sure that we're going to know each other well," he said. "I've felt very much alone myself in these times. One needs some good friend ... an intimate. ..."
"Don't put it in that way!" she inter- rupted him. "It isn't that we're going to know each other. Somehow I feel we've been so frank, so quick to under- stand each other, that already there's an air of old acquaintanceship about us. ..."
She paused; they looked across the space between them; their eyes met.
Both were silent.
A certain necessity, not fully appar- ent, stirred in these moments, like an- other atmosphere, another air to breathe, something in its effect more potent than speech, to which speech was inadequate. Pomeroy found that he was strangely nervous, even a little embarrassed.
He was uncertain and without confi- dence, His gaze wavered, and his eyes
dropped from hers, passing to the smile on her lips, apprehending the faint suggestive droop of her head, the little pulsing rhythm of her breathing visible in a slight filling and contraction of her slender throat. She seemed to wait, to want, to expect.
Almost in fear he put out his hand and his fingers touched hers. She did not push his hand away but urged him with a swift responding pressure. His uncertainty passed; his assurance was given life. He drew her toward him, his arms enclosed her, and he kissed her.
A second later he was whispering his only half-believed fears;
"Dear," he said, "you're so young; you need a young lover. I've come too late and you only imagine that you can care for me. In a few years I'll be an old man—you'll have to forget me!"
She did not answer, but touched his face with languorous fingers and each caress astonished him with its given de- light. Little by little he began to accept the miracle, this recrudesence of old joys, the new youth, the fabulous rena- scence of dreams. His mild spirit found even a certain justification in it; he had been too kind to women and they too clever for him. He recalled, in an in- stant of recollection, the undeserved pain that had come from his former wife. Close to this young girl in the charmed prison of her arms, a mystical understanding seemed to reveal itself, a law of life about to be fulfilled, that- assured him at last a compensation, a weighing in the other side of the scales, earned pleasure for pain.
Presently their conversation was re- newed and they began to confide the in- timacies of their lives. She was very discontented, sometimes she was almost hopeless. Her mother, the woman of strange faiths, lived in another world and was in no sense a companion. She suffered from being alone; she had known moments of profound despair.
"I'll take you away from all this," he said.
But her confessions made her a little melancholy and when he arose to go,
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48 TWILIGHT OF LOVE
when they kissed again, she looked into his eyes gravely.
"I've wanted a lover for a long time," she said. "First I wanted a young lover, and no one came. I used to go out-of-doors at night and walk and walk, and then I hoped that I'd find an adventure. But everything was common and I would come back home almost sick. I feel safe with you . . . you know some of the disappointments of life!"
He kissed her again and waved to her as she stood at the door watching him go down the street, but her final words had chilled him a little. A part of her charm was spoiled for the mo- ment; there was some return to his first impressions of her, when he had felt at once her insufficiency, her almost old- maidish pathos. Her confession had sullied a part of the glamour, deprived him of some portion of his pride. His role was not so much that of one who conquered miraculously, in spite of the oppressive years, but of one who was accepted with pathetic eagerness, be- cause there were no others.
Presently, however, this cloud to his pleasure was dissipated by warmer recollections, and the charm of the hours in prospect. When he reached his rooms he was smiling.
Before retiring he looked at himself earnestly, in the glass, measuring his face against his age. The study seemed to satisfy him, for he was still smiling as he turned out the light and stepped into bed.
III
The next morning he wrote his first love letter since the days of his youth; this was a profound pleasure. In the afternoon he went to his club and found the old fellows there strangely agree- able, since they seemed so inferior to himself. They were old, and their words and acts acknowledged the fact; he had a secret they could never understand. Someone told him he was looking ex- ceptionally well and asked for the ad- dress of his doctor; he laughed at the ass, but said nothing.
That evening they went out together to dinner and once more he found her wholly charming. The moment of doubt, the pathetic moment, with which the first evening had been clouded, was gone and made no return. When they entered the restaurant she slipped her hand through his arm and he was proud of their advance through the aisle of tables. It seemed to him that many men must envy him, especially those who were old, in the full sense, with their youth gone forever; he was not old!
This was the initiation of some months of entire delight. They did all that young lovers would do; they walked arm in arm through the streets; they motored out into the country and dined together in the obscure dining rooms of village inns; they went to the theaters and afterwards visited the cabarets. Sometimes they remained at home and read stories out of the maga- zines to each other.
He still strolled into his club from time to time, but no one knew of his love affair. It seemed impossible to confide this, although his secret knowl- edge of it never failed to establish his sense of superiority. But to make the others know of his luck—he shrank from that. On this point his feelings were complex. He felt them for the first time on one of those occasions when he and Virginia were having din- ner together.
They had gone to a roof garden and during the progress of the dinner he was surprised to see one of the old fel- lows of his club come in with another man, a stranger. Suddenly he devel- oped a desire to remain unobserved; the girl across the table was smiling at him with affectionate glances; he did not want this idiot to see her.
In a measure, he was ashamed, ashamed that the other might suspect his response to these languorous smiles. His wish was attained; the two men passed without observing him or the girl. Afterwards he accused himself of a certain baseness, because of his unexpected shame.
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TWILIGHT OF LOVE 49
The memory of this incident passed for the glowing days overshadowed it. They were very close to each other now and in his secret way he indulged all the minutse of love.
He wrote her nearly every day, fill- ing his letters with sentimental phrases that stirred him deeply as they flowed poetically from under his eager pen. He brought her flowers and gifts; he watched her moods; by her side he in- clined his head to catch her low-spoken words, oblivious to any that might watch him. She was always tender, al- ways sweet.
Yet presently he thought he observed a change. She seemed to pass from the languor of her customary moods to an almost inevitable and surprising ar- dour, as if some fresh flame burned in her heart.
This was manifested to him, not so much in embraces of greater fervour, in kisses that pressed more warmly on his lips, as in the surprising new glow of her eyes, the sudden, enigmatic smiles, the unexpected, rapturous in- takings of breath—in ways that, curi- ously, were almost divorced from his participation.
Sometimes, when he talked to her, she scarcely seemed to hear; watching her face, he would see her eyes open wider, looking past him, as if at some- thing precious beyond his forgotten nearness. Frequently he was surprised, on coming to her home, to find her al- most cold; she would take his hand, press his fingers perfunctorily, and without apparent response. And then, yield herself to his greeting embrace perhaps a moment later, she would seem all fire, that remote fire, confus- ing, that began to bring him doubts.
He found too that they were not to- gether so frequently. For a long time he had seen her nearly every evening; now she made excuses, but often, after an absence of several days, she repaid him with hysterical embraces.
Nevertheless, his assurance was dim- inished by disturbing uncertainties. He no longer felt, in a continuous, un- swerving stream, that consciousness of
superiority and pride. Something had interposed itself betwixt them, an im- palpable veil, fogging his certainties.
One evening, as he was preparing to call at her home his telephone rang. On answering he found it was she, ask- ing to be excused, pleading a headache.
Deeply disappointed, he consented, and the hours before bedtime loomed up before him like impassable obstacles.
It had been three days since they were together.
He seated himself in a chair, discon- solate, and stared down at the carpet.
Slowly he reviewed the difficulties of the past few weeks. No word of any change had passed between them—and suddenly he felt that an understanding was necessary.
In a measure they had lost the habit of confidence, accepting each other too easily. They no longer had those inti- mate talks that searched out inner, mu- tual secrets.
He felt that he must tell her of his fears, of his perturbations; she would see then; she would confide; and the days of old assurance, like a returning tide, would flow warmly back again. As he resolved upon this his doubts cleared, he felt easier, and the simple confession seemed all that was neces- sary.
But he was impatient to make it. Many times he got up and walked about the room, strode to the window and stared down at the crowded street, full of shadows and the hurry of dusk shapes. It seemed impossible to wait for another day. He determined to go now; she would be glad in the end for his coming.
A few minutes later he was in the street.
As he neared her house his mood ex panded, his heart beat faster and his pace was more hurried. Some of the old, confident delight was in his blood again, the romantic joy of playing the young lover. He turned a corner; he was on her street.
Passing an arc lamp he glanced at his watch and found it later than he had supposed—after ten o'clock. Per-
S. S.—Dec. 4
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50 TWILIGHT OF LOVE
haps she was in bed. He slowed his step a little and to a certain extent be- gan to regret his precipitancy. But now he was near her home and after all it would harm nothing to stop and see if there were still lights in the house.
He was already looking up at the door when he saw it open, he heard her voice, she came out—there was a young man at her side!
They stood talking a moment and then the young fellow ran down the steps and hurried up the street. From time to time he turned back and waved his hand. In the shadow, watching this, Pomeroy had the bitter remembrance of his own parody of this part, his many goings from this house, waving back at the figure on the doorstep.
He still stood on the pavement in a numbness of emotion. The young man disappeared around the other corner. The girl, before going in, looked idly across the street, and then, turning her head, glanced in the direction of the old man, a few yards distant.
For a few seconds she regarded him without recognition. This passed; she comprehended his identity; her body straightened, followed by a faint swaying that made her lean against the door-frame, as if in support. Still numbed, Pomeroy approached her, un- questioningly, with no search for a mo- tive.
She made him an abrupt gesture of beckoning and ascending the steps he followed her into the house. They en- tered the parlour and here she turned and faced him.
"I knew you'd discover some time!" she said. "I hadn't the heart ... the courage ... to tell you. ..."
He was without words. He stared at her stupidly. His mind was strange- ly empty, all agility of thought passed as if under the malignancy of a curse. He felt tired, he felt old.
"Don't blame me," she said. "I thought I wanted you! I wanted some- body and you came; I waited so long, I was so hopeless! You were gentle, you were kind—it seemed to me I could give up the things I had dreamed just
to be sure of your kindness, your af- fection. How could I tell I was about to find the young man!"
She paused; she waited for him to speak, but still there were no words to say. He began to feel oppressed as if, in that familiar room, there was an in- sufficiency of air to satisfy the dry crav- ing of his lungs. He turned suddenly, strode out into the hall, and like one who escapes, he ran down the steps and walked swiftly away.
He thought he heard her calling af- ter him, but ha did not turn; at the sound of her voice he hurried his re- treating steps.
A moment later the night air and the quiet brooding streets returned to him his lost mental processes. Immediately an immeasurable bitterness entered his mind.
He recalled the girl as he had first seen her—almost charmless, ineffectual, pathetic in her self depreciation. Then he had played this simple, ironic part: his task had been not to furnish love, but assurance. He had assured her, swept away her doubts, destroyed the memory of her old disappointments, brought into being the possibility of her charm—for someone else!
His bitterness passed into anger. His eyes re-enacted the witnessed scene of parting—the young man, the faithless girl. As he thought of the other man his anger increased and a malevolent desire to destroy burnt savagely in his mind. He was strong enough for this, not too old for this!
He had been walking without pur- pose, without goal. Now, glancing up, he was surprised to see the street of his club; already he could make out some idle shapes at the big windows. In this instant of orientation he was at the summit of his rage—and also the sum- mit of his romantic efflorescence. A second later the flame collapsed—and he found himself stumbling up the steps of the club.
The door-man obsequiously pulled back the doors. He walked in unstead- ily. A couple of old fellows nodded at him. He sank into one of the cushioned
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TWILIGHT OF LOVE 51
chairs and an immense enervation seemed to possess his body.
But little by little this weariness passed. He began to experience a curi- ous, unexpected sense of ease, that puz- zled him. Slowly be glanced about.
The old men were stretched out like him in their chairs, placid; they were at ease too. He began to understand.
After all, this was the desiderate es- tate. . .
They were all at ease together, they shared the same placidity, the calm of fulfillment, the calm of forgotten hopes. No one of them was under the necessity of dreaming any more; they were at a truce with dreams. They were all old men.
He sighed. He no longer found him- self in any superior. Instead, he felt the slow, suffusing warmth of fra- ternity. ...
The Alpine Wanderers
By Florence Wilkinson
PERHAPS at beaded evening When all the lake towns shine From Vevey to Saint Gingolph,— And in a twilight line By every Alpine valley Tinkle the homeward kine,— Comes a remembered footfall: (That footfall will be mine.)
You wake some crystal morning, See Monte Rosa glow, Suddenly you remember One sunrise long ago, And the sharp pain will blind you Unto that dream of snow: The flush, the hush, the farness,— (They are my tears that flow.)
You thread the slender pathways By the grey rushing Arve, —How well we knew those ledges That the long glaciers carve— White mists will wreathe and bind you By the swift rainbowed Arve: (They are my arms that bind you, Your empty arms that starve.)
A GREAT man is one who leaves footprints on the sands of time. But a wise man is one who covers up his tracks.
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First Hand Knowledge
By Dennison Varr
HE was a foreigner and did not understand our ways. Many thing's puzzled him. Our film plays, for instance. He could not understand the use of pies in farce comedies. I tried to explain as best I could. The circum- stance that there happened to be a custard pie on the table simplified matters.
Two Dreams Dwell in Her Eyes
By Mary Carolyn Davies
TWO dreams dwell in her eyes, I cannot see them there, But bow, in humble wise, My head in prayer.
Two song's sing in her eyes. I cannot hear them sing, But ah, I hold my breath With listening.
AFTER all, it scarcely pays to tell the truth. People would much rather have you lie than hear you tell the same story twice.
A DOCTOR is headed for success when his women patients begin to hate his wife.
52
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On Receiving a Luncheon Invitation
By Laura Kent Mason
Dear Alfredo: I am not going to have lunch- eon with you on Tuesday. The reason is that I am dead. Not really dead, of course. I haven't suddenly de- parted this life and left behind an astral body to scrawl this on my best paper. On Tuesday, instead of lunching with you, I shall probably be at Bernice Evans', calmly eating my way through a woman's luncheon and adding my bit to the usual talk of husbands, high prices and housekeeping. The part of me that you think you like is dead—though it died before you met me. So, of course, the part of me that would have wanted to be with you is dead, too.
I am writing this, Alfredo, because I am old, and being old and a woman and quite average, I am a fool and it pleases me to be frank, this one time— and to journey into sentimentality.
Of course you will say that I am not old—or I hope you will—and it is dear of you. You won't understand, just here at first, what I mean by being dead. When you have finished, per- haps—
Of course, I like you, Alfredo. You know that. So that is not the reason I am refusing, now and for always, to have luncheon or tea or dinner with you—or to see you at all, except in a crowd and then I shall be quite unin- teresting and impersonal.
I have always liked you—we've known each other such a little while— your type, I mean. I don't know whether we found each other at the Rayolds' party because you like the
type of woman I used to be—before I went out—or because your type makes love to all women. Every man I have ever been in love with or interested in —except my husband—has been your type. And, too, men of your type— boys I should say, since it is a type that remains forever youthful—are the only ones I have ever attracted.
So, at the Rayolds' party, when, after fifteen minutes, we were well be- yond the first stages of getting ac- quainted, and I could see the weeks stretch out, our weeks, it came to me that I was dead—had been for a long time.
The night I met you and the next day I thought of you. I knew you would write or 'phone me. I knew you'd be at the Parkinson dinner. And that I'd have tea with you the next day— and the next—and then a note. It was a dear little note, Alfredo . . . but there's no use going on.
There was a faint thrill, Alfredo, when you took my hand, a stirring of a thousand memories. But the dead do not waken easily. And, too, it is more peaceful, pleasant, being dead. I shall miss the live things, of course, colour, brilliancy, emotions. But we who are dead cannot choose. For contentment, for the absence of sensation, of ecstasy and pain we must pay. And, truth- fully, I prefer being the way I am.
If we saw the thing through, I know what would happen. You know, too, unless you are very young. First, there would be hours of pleasure in seeing one another, the bringing of
53
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54 ON RECEIVING A LUNCHEON INVITATION
little, remembered, loved things for the other to know—sensations, books, mu- sic, the turning inside out of the show places of our minds and hearts—and the glow of being together. But for me, being dead, these things would be but faint echoings of other affairs.
Material things take up more than their share. Do you know I've grey hairs, Alfredo? Whenever my hair was being dressed, preparatory to see- ing you, I'd have to remember them, so you wouldn't know. And massages —ugh, but lines around the mouth of the one whom you want to kiss—that would never do, for one as young as you. And freshness—do you know how important and how difficult that is. I wonder—always being crisp and dainty, always carrying around the halo of an unsullied fragility. It isn't easy, when one is my age. And with- out that . . .
You see, it is the work of being loved that I cannot face. It is much too diffi- cult, always being clever and happy, always ready to make your moods mine, to respond to your emotions— and yet to be alluring and shining. I can't go through it again.
We would go on, I know, pleasantly enough. I would be very fond of you —too fond, perhaps. That's another thing—even now I'm emotional and I can't afford to be. Sleepless nights— I must rest, you know—and days of thinking of you and letting you intrude upon my stupidly comfortable routine.
We'd grow fond of one another and you'd expect me to be always ready to go to the theater with you, to explore some odd part of town, some little quaint restaurant. I know. Each of them would mean the spending of time and energy. Pleasant? Oh, yes, but I've done them all. I haven't a thrill left. I've seen so many unique restau- rants—I've walked down so many pleasant lanes . . .
Then, one of us would get tired. Perhaps it would be you—and I might forget and worry you with notes and telephone calls and trying to keep you to myself—and you'd see the grey hairs
and the lines and notice where my shoulders were too fat—think of the humiliation of being thrown aside, even nicely, by you. Or, if I quit caring, even the amount I was able to care—and I could be quite fond of you for a little while, you'd be the one—and you might threaten something un- pleasant and worry me and I'd wonder if I had spoiled your future—and I'd remember a time when I did spoil a future, years ago, and that would worry me all over again. So you see . . .
It would be fun to know you better, Alfredo. I love your playing ... I think you've something really good in your "Wishing Cycle" and your weather suite is dear. But . . . play- ing. I can see you, your long, white fingers on the keyboard—of course you have nice hands, Alfredo. You'd play things to me, things others have played, and little improvisations, too. You'd even compose a piece for me, I know— if I proved very nice—with a little odd name to it—and you'd play it, in pub- lic, when I was there, and send me a glance that no one else would under- stand. But that's the trouble, Alfredo, the flame-coloured sunrise in my living room, that, too, was painted for me . . . and the bas relief over the mantel . . .I've known other slim, white fingers.
You'd feel sorry for me because I was unhappily married and I'd let you sympathize with me and lead you on to believe that my husband was a dull, stupid sort, a mere worm, linked for life to me, who am so fragile, sensitive. You'd say, "How I hate your husband" and you'd call me by the name you'd have made up for me by that time . . . "How I hate him, thinking about him, when I am not here with you. He seems so—so brutal, masculine!" And I'd drop my eyes and let you think that you were right about him.
It isn't the truth, of course. I am most comfortably, happily married. But that . . . ! Frederick is a won- derful man. He is a great reader, though I'd never have let you guess it.
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ON RECEIVING A LUNCHEON INVITATION 55
and reads a great number of things I can't understand. Sometimes, he tells me about some of them and I pretend I've read them, when I'm out. Fred- erick is sensitive, far more than I am— and he has other qualities of whose very meaning I'm only half aware— honesty, a great decency and kindness, a squareness and patience I could never possess. The joy of being able to live with Frederick, of being part of the glowing domesticity that he has created makes living—for the part of me that is still alive—quite worth while.
As for the romance that you feel Frederick has missed—isn't his busi- ness quite as romantic as the selfish pursuit of a single art, the development of a personal talent? Frederick is a mere business man, and yet, all alone, without any encouragement or symp- athy from me—I was quite too busy being alive to bother about him—Fred- erick has seen and developed until he is the head of a complete organization, a miniature city. He pulls the ropes of fifty lives, giving sympathy and help and encouragement. Oh, yes, I'm quite the middle-class wife, awed at her hus- band's business success, bowing to his accomplishments. Wouldn't it be stupid, going places with a woman who cared for her husband?
So—what have I to offer you, Al- fredo? I have said, dozens of times before, all the things I know. I have felt every emotion I can feel, I am quite sure. I have lived romance, or what passes for romance—and now, only the commonplaces of everyday things offer enjoyment.
Do you know I prefer the luncheon with Bernice Evans? I can wear a gown with a spot on it or a dusty hem, if I want to. I can eat, comfortably and unashamed, as much as I like, and talk, half decently, about Fred- erick.
Do you know, I prefer worrying about what to order for dinner with Frederick to planning the odd meal for you, if you happened in—it is the artist who isn't supposed to care about mere food who is most particular. I like to have breakfasts with Frederick, wear- ing a mended dressing gown or one with a torn bit of lace, if I feel like it. I enjoy the quiet of evenings at home— even women's parties.
You have misunderstood me, you see. You had thought of me as some- thing quite different, hadn't you? I used to be. I, too, have had dreams and a gypsy heart. Now, Alfredo, that part of me is dead. I cannot have luncheon with you on Tuesday.
My Dreams
By Paul Tanaquil
MY dreams are the flickering shadows that dead leaves cast over the face of tombs when the wind blows.
[Page 056]
They Shall Know
By Harold Cook
I SHALL tell them this morning, The policeman At Forty-second and the Avenue, Who lifts a heavy hand, Like God, Lest men kill each other— I shall tell him And all the porters In the Grand Central Station. And they will have a new interest In me, those men.
No longer will the policeman stay me, But the thousand others, From crossing the Avenue; Nor will the porters see only Three bags and a box And hopes of a quarter When I tell them that last night, By the black water, By the dark blue water, Under a tree that bent over us As trees bend over lovers In the meadows of heaven, Your hands learned my face And your mouth my mouth, And afire with a new knowledge Our eyes shone through the darkness Like four stars.
Ah, they will notice me, those men, And touch their caps, And say, "Good morning." And I will answer them As a man should Who has been touched with ecstasy.
But I shall not tell the little blonde waitress Who served me my breakfast, For I think she, Wise maiden, Has already suspected.
56
[Page 057]
The Dawn
By John C. Cavendish
I
IT was during the ceremony of her sister's wedding that little Ruth had, for the first time, those curious de- sires.
The wedding had interested her, of course; it was the culmination of an enlivening courtship. For two years Ruth had enjoyed herself hugely. She was not quite thirteen when Howard first began to call at their home; it was she who had first caught them making love. Thereafter she planned and exe- cuted unnumbered charming ambus- cades.
For them the garden was never safe; neither was the house. She was as slim as a spear of grass, she could walk as softly as a cat. The smallest tree was adequate to her concealment. Stand- ing straight, pressed against the warm bark, she used to wait with gleeful patience. Presently their voices would be heard in the garden, their footsteps, their laughter.
On the occasions of her best luck, they would sit down very near, in the grass, close and intimate. Peeping around the tree, waiting for the opti- mum instant, she'd leap from her am- bush just at that second when their lips closed in a kiss. A shrill laugh, a taunt or two, a cat-call—and little Ruth would run bounding across the lawn like a mischievous goat.
Or else, a favourite thing was to wrap herself in the folds of the draw- ing-room curtains. How many a time they had missed her there, passed right by her, brushed against her taut, small body, to enter the room in seeming iso- lation.
On these occasions she liked to make ghost noises: small rappings, little clickings with her teeth, a far-away, ambiguous whistle. Suddenly, realiz- ing that they were observed, Edith would spring up from the sofa, rush to the curtains and shake her out of them.
"You little fiend!" she would cry.
Ruth always mocked her with her boisterous laughter.
Yet for several months before their marriage she had somehow felt quieter. She no longer- enjoyed plaguing the pair, although her interest in them was in no degree diminished. A vague ap- prehension of seriousness came into her mind; something in this love affair troubled her; it was the sort of feel- ing one might have during the slow gathering of a storm.
She found herself immensely inter- ested in the accumulating trousseau; she liked to finger the silken under- garments, the lacy camisoles, tie and untie pink and blue ribbons, stand near the bed gazing down upon pretty frocks spread out for friends. She herself consented to hemstitch half a dozen sheer handkerchiefs, with embroideries in the corners; the work gave her solemn, uncomprehended emotions.
Then it was decided that her own dress, to wear at the wedding, could have a really long skirt; that would make her a woman. She urged an- other point and it was granted. She could wear her hair up, any way she wanted to dress it. "And it will never be down again," she thought. "No more tails!"
The wedding was very quiet; they held it in their own home; some rela-
57
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58 THE DAWN
tives were there, a few friends, and the "Lohengrin" march was played on the piano as Edith and Howard came into the drawing-room. They stood in front of the minister, both of them tremendously serious. Someone tit- tered nervously from a corner across the room and the sound seemed to add something to the moment's curious solemnity.
Ruth in her dress with the long skirt, with her abundant gold hair up and coiled in braids about her head, watched with widening eyes.
The minister began to speak; her mind did not record all the words, but she knew they were very portentous.
And then, at last, the pair turned to- ward each other. Edith was strangely pale, save for sudden little gusts of colour that came and went in her cheeks like the leaping of flame, and Howard took her hand and they kissed before all in the room.
A moment later everyone was on his or her feet; they crowded about the bride; they kissed her; they shook hands with the bridegroom. But Ruth remained seated and a strange, new thrill tingled in her senses.
In some way that final kiss had awakened her, from all the many she had seen these two exchange. It touched her senses to response, it put dreams chasing through her mind. Suddenly, vicariously, she knew some of the pleasure of that kiss herself— and understood the wanting of ca- resses.
Someone touched her on the shoul- der; it was one of her aunts.
."What's the matter, Ruth?" she asked. "Why are you so solemn?"
Ruth stood up hastily. She blushed; she was ashamed lest everyone could read her thoughts. She looked about nervously, shifted the weight of her slim body from foot to foot and awk- wardly clasped and unclasped her fingers in front of her.
In some way she had lost her assur- ance, and a tremulous something, of which she was half afraid, had entered into her world.
II
They had gone now, Edith and Howard, and she was alone in the house with her father and mother. The silent rooms seemed oppressively quiet and strange. Ruth avoided her mother inasmuch as now, for the first time in her life, she was experiencing emotions that could not be confided. She knew her mother would not under- stand. Her mother would laugh and that would hurt.
She liked best to go out into the gar- den where she could sit for hours, star- ing up into the bluish green shadows of the trees, watching the clouds pass like white and pink birds across the space of the sky, listening to the suggestive murmur of the unseen wind stirring the grass and leaves. There were no more scrambling ascents of trees, no more searches for woodchuck holes with the dog, no more wild rolling down the slope of the little hill behind the woods. She was very quiet, very subdued.
For the first time in her life it came to her that this was a beautiful place, the garden, the little woods, the old house. Its beauty made her melan- choly and touched her imagination. She tried to conjure up the faces and acts of people who had been here be- fore she was born, before she ever drew a breath. She wondered if some other girl like herself had lived here, and wanted the things she dreamed of.
Presently her father noticed her ab- straction and in the evening, when she came indoors at the sound of the dinner gong, her eyes cast down, her lips silent, he would make fun of her.
"Look at our Ruth!" he'd exclaim to her mother. "Since you let her put her hair up, she's grown too old for any of us!"
Sometimes Ruth blushed; she felt very silly, but inwardly she was angry. These people did not understand. They were miles away from her.
The Spring passed into the first days of Summer. One morning Ruth was wandering through the garden with the disconsolate dog when, looking over the
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THE DAWN 59
top of a separating hedge, she per- ceived that their neighbour's boy had come home on vacation from his first term at preparatory school. He was standing out on the lawn of the next house and she was astonished to ob- serve that he looked entirely like a man.
The change was so pronounced that she did not recognize him at first. Now he wore long trousers; his hair did not spring up wildly all over his head as it used to; it was combed back straight and clipped very short above his. col- lar. He gripped a little curved pipe between his teeth and now and then a gust of smoke swirled about his face and dissolved in sunshine.
This was an astonishing transforma- tion and Ruth stared earnestly across the hedge. A moment later he turned and saw her. They looked at each other for several seconds, without smil- ing, without any gesture of recogni- tion. He was the first to gain aplomb; he nodded his head and began to walk toward the hedge.
She did not move, but she felt her cheeks warm with swift blushes. She knew she would not be able to talk with him, for her tongue seemed incredibly dumb. She wanted to run away; how impossible that was!
When he was still some feet distant, he spoke.
"Hello, Ruth!" he exclaimed. "I'm awfully glad to see you!"
She answered him; her greeting was mechanical. She noticed now that his voice had changed also.
He came up to the green barrier, smiling.
"Just got back last night," he said. "Glad, too—although Lawrenceville is a very decent place. What've you been doing with yourself?"
"Nothing, Walter," she answered.
"Everything looks just the same around here," he went on. "Slow as ever. Nothing doing. No life. But I've had plenty of that this year, and I guess a little rest won't hurt me."
He laughed and the sound of his laughter implied fabulous experiences.
He returned his pipe to his mouth and puffed languidly for several seconds. He even appeared a little bored.
Gazing at his face, Ruth was in a torment. She wanted to say something, something that would interest him, something in keeping with his experi- ence. It came to her instantly that he must have met dozens of girls in the past year; how did they talk to him? But nothing save a stupidity passed her lips.
"Did you like it away from home?" she asked.
"Oh—pretty fair, pretty fair," he answered, speaking through half-closed teeth from which the stem of his pipe dangled with an almost personal non- chalance. "Better than sticking around here, of course."
He looked back across the lawn.
"There's the Old Man," he said. "Wants me to drive him into town this morning. Will you be home all day? This afternoon? We want to have a talk for old time's sake. If you're around when I get back, I'll come over ..."
He nodded easily and stepped briskly away. She watched him go, until, afraid "that he would turn back and see her, she dropped her eyes and walked slowly through the thick grass. For the first time she noticed how rapidly her heart was beating.
Then he was coming over to see her in the afternoon! She was afraid. She did not know how to talk to him. He had seen so much. How stupid he would find her!
III
She had nothing to say at lunch, be- cause of her inward excitement. She wanted to get up from the table; sup- pose he would come looking for her, while she was still indoors? Yet when she was free she remained indoors; she was frightened.
Running up to her room, she changed her frock. She had a full-size dress- ing-table of her own now—the one that Edith used to have. Sitting before
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60 THE DAWN
this, she arranged her gold hair; it came to her then how often she had watched her sister doing this, expectant of Howard's coming. Her slim fingers dropped from the coils of her hair, fell on the edge of the table, lay there flexed as she looked musingly into the glass. What a new world had unfold- ed itself to her!
In the old days she used to tease Edith at her toilet; that was ages ago. Then she was a child, wore little dresses that ended just below her knees, and let her hair fly wildly over her shoulders, or wound it into a long tail that flopped against her back as she walked. Her mood became a little melancholy. She almost regretted the old days, the days when she was still a child. It was hard to be grown up.
This feeling passed into one of pride. Her cheeks flushed a little, her blood ran a little faster. A sense of the allure of the days to come entered her mind like a fragrance, like a wine. She raised her hands again and began patting in the angles of her hair. In the glass she met her own eyes and smiled in pleasure at her reflected image.
At last she was ready but now her fear had returned. She stood up, went to the door, hesitated, came back. She wanted to go; she lacked the courage. What would they talk about? What would she say? It seemed impossible for her to talk to him. Her imagina- tion conceived him as an almost fabu- lous being, mysterious, inscrutable.
In vain she tried to reassure herself that she had known him for years, raced with him through the woods, climbed trees faster than she could climb them, caught field mice that he could never catch. Now he was a stranger, another being.
Finally she forced herself to go out- doors and was greatly relieved to dis- cover that the garden was empty. She sat down on an old bench, under a tree.
Half an hour passed. Her mind was almost without thoughts, in a nirvana of formless but delightful dreams.
Someone called her; she looked up; he was there.
He was dressed in a light suit, cut very tight, with slanting pockets, and a jaunty belt to the coat. He wore no hat and his hair was combed back met- iculously and shone with high lights in the sun. His appearance pleased and frightened her. He was so tremen- dously assured; she was so timid.
"Sorry I didn't get back sooner," he said. "The old boy is a slow old per- son. Won't let me let her out at all. Wait till I take you out, Ruth! I'll show you some real driving."
He sat down beside her, crossed his legs, and lighting a cigarette, began to tell her about his experiences at prep school.
His escapades astonished her. She said nothing at all, listened, nodded her head, tried to cover her nervousness with an easy smile. This attentiveness pleased him and he expanded, became still more at ease and talked without pause. He began to speak about the sports at school.
"I didn't get on the team this year— but I'll make it this coming term."
Her admiration escaped her lips in a naive assuring.
"Oh! I know you will!"
"I think so," he remarked com- placently.
"Of course! I know it!"
A second later she regretted her fer- vor. He met her eyes, saw her admir- ing glances, and with a smile he put out his hand to touch her. His fingers touched her arm, and a curious flush tingled along her skin. She wanted to jump up and run away, but she was powerless to move. He took her hand.
"Little Ruth!" he said, caressingly. The warmth of his tone terrified her.
She arose suddenly.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Oh—I . . . honestly I must go in! It's late. I must go in. You'll excuse me. You'll come again . . ."
She broke off abruptly and turning, walked away almost at a run, whilst he remained seated, staring after her in surprise.
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THE DAWN 61
As she reached the gravel path that led up to the house, she glanced back and saw him standing now, looking after her. This glimpse of him gave her a sudden, profound depression. What would he think of her? How absurd, how stupid she had acted!
She ran into the house and the tears trembled in her eyes, threatening the corners with big drops.
In the hall she met her mother with an envelope in her hand. Ruth was glad that it was a little dark; she did not want her mother to see her face.
"This is a letter from Edith," said her mother. "She wants us both to come in tomorrow to stay with her a few days."
Ruth was silent.
"I can't go now," her mother went on. "Maybe you'd like to go alone. I guess Edith is a little lonesome. How- ard is away for a week."
The proposal came to Ruth as an unexpected avenue of escape. It seemed to her now that it would be impossible to stay here, meet Walter again, with the shame of her flight so recent.
"Oh, yes!" she cried. "Yes, mother! Let me go myself!"
IV
She left early the next morning, riding into the city on the same train with her father. At the station he put her into a taxi in which she drove to Edith's apartment.
Edith met her, kissed her warmly, and then they made a tour of the little apartment together. Everything was very pretty and Ruth felt a sentimental glow in the understanding of her sis- ter's happiness.
She was immensely pleased with the reception Edith gave her. Edith treat- ed her as if she were a very important guest; there was no reference to the days when she had been so foolish; they were like two women together. Her aplomb returned quickly. She became grave, womanly, at ease.
In the afternoon they went shopping
and before their return stopped in at a tea room where they had small cakes and several cups of tea. This was an insinuating place, quiet, remote, full of murmured conversation.
Ruth watched young men and young women come in together, sit at the little tables, talk with their heads close. She felt a part of this life, accustomed to it; her nature seemed to expand and her experience was augmented.
When they arrived home, Edith de- veloped a headache and decided to go to bed soon after dinner.
"I'm sorry, dear," she said. "Why don't you take a bit of a walk?"
That seemed an excellent notion and presently, as it grew dusk, she went out alone.
Near the apartment house a young man passed her who reminded her sud- denly of Walter.
It surprised her then to realize that she had completely forgotten him. His memory now brought only a faint flush of her yesterday's discomfort. Perhaps she had been stupid and afraid, but it did not matter. The clamor of the city was in her ears, singing there like a promise. It announced the theme of limitless opportunity. By some means she had grown more assured.
Ruth paused at the corner and stood there, watching the crowds. Her eye examined all the girls who passed, scru- tinizing them with critical judgment. The aloofness of those moments gave her a sense of superiority.
Above all her emotions, she was ex- cited, expectant; the potentiality of some vague enchantment, to disclose itself presently, stirred in her blood. In a day, in an hour, she had changed. From the city she had acquired something of the city's audacity.
A man passed, glanced at her; she met his eyes. He turned back and smiled. In quick response, scarcely un- derstanding the significance of her act, she returned his smile. He approached her and took off his hat.
"Good evening," he said.
She answered something, without at- tending her words, for now her heart
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62 THE DAWN
was beating faster, her assurance had gone, her fears had returned. Her eyes dropped, yet not before they had recorded the details of his face. He was not a schoolboy like Walter; he was a man!
He spoke to her again; her lips de- nied her will to answer.
"What is the matter?" he asked. "You're not afraid of me, are you, lit- tle girl? I didn't want to frighten you. You smiled; I thought you wanted me to talk to you."
Something in the sudden tenderness of his voice shamed and angered her. How quickly he had penetrated her se- cret. He saw how young she was, how little she knew. At first, in the dusk, she had deceived him, but only until he had come closer and spoken to her. She resented his changed attitude and found his sudden consideration hate- ful.
Her cheeks flushed; she raised her eyes and met his own fearlessly.
"No, I don't want to know you," she said. "What right have you to speak to me? Please let me alone!"
He looked a little surprised; an in- stant later he smiled and gave her a slight bow.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "Be careful when you smile the next time!"
Replacing his hat, he turned and walked away.
She stared after him until his figure was obscured in the dark, lost in the crowd.
Her mind reviewed the encounter and little by little her anger passed into a sense of satisfaction. It seemed to her that a very significant experience had been added to her necessary knowledge. For a moment at least she had fooled him, for an instant she had been able to play the part of a woman. A few more words, a slight increase of her assurance—and she could have talked to him easily! She looked about her with confidence. The next time she knew she would succeed.
Ruth turned slowly and walked back the way she had come. Her thoughts were not definite, they were vague as
mists, but their nature was wholly pleasant.
When she reached the apartment house she was smiling. In the elevator she bent toward the mirrors at the side of the cage, patted her hair, read- justed a hairpin, took out her powder puff, and powdered her nose shameless- ly. Some of the mysteries of life, those mysteries that aroused her fears, were passing. But the allure was im- mensely more potent.
V
Two days later Ruth went back to her home. She met her father in the evening and returned with him. At the door her mother kissed her, as if hers had been an absence of years. This display of emotion made Ruth smile a little, with the indulgence of one who has acquired a philosophy of toleration. How little her mother understood; how blind she was! For her, Ruth was still a child, still the object of protection. It did not matter. Perhaps her mother would never understand the change.
There was a pleasant dinner during which Ruth talked more than ordina- rily, telling everything about Edith, her home, her habits, the excitements of the city. Once or twice she was surprised by a certain intent look with which her mother met her eyes. It puzzled her a little, but she went on, relating the in- cidents of her trip.
After dinner her father retired to some work in his study, but her mother remained.
For some moments they were silent. Ruth grew a little embarrassed. At last she stood up, looked about her with a counterfeited languor, and prepared to escape. Then her mother arose, came around the table and with a sur- prising impulse, circled the girl in her arms.
She said nothing at all. She only embraced her, hugged her close, and kissed her young, smooth cheek. Con- cealed in this act there was some emo- tion too subtle for expression, and in a measure Ruth sensed it. In the touch
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THE DAWN 63
of her mother's arms there were com- mingled a pathos of remembrance, of hope, of fear, of resignation. It was almost a silent caress of parting, when words are not said, lest they loose the hysteria of tears. It acknowledged a barrier, yet established a sympathy. Then Ruth knew that her mother un- derstood.
A moment later her mother left the room, and almost unconsciously she wandered out into the garden. Only a faint light remained, flushing in the western sky, the lingering ghost of the departed day. It was the hour of hush; the crickets were not yet singing. A few feet in the air, close to the lower branches of a tree, a school of gnats danced their last figure before the night.
She had been there only a few mo- ments when she heard quick footsteps in the grass. Without turning, she knew that Walter had seen her and was coming. An intuitive certainty told her that he had been watching, waiting for her appearance.
His nearness gave her none of her old fears, no former trepidation. An
immeasurable experience seemed to lie between that last encounter and the sec- ond of this hour. She was even indif- ferent. She comprehended Walter—he was no mystery. A schoolboy. It was almost childish to talk to him.
"Hello!" he said. "I'm awfully glad you've come back. Terribly slow around here!"
In the dusk she smiled wanly, in- scrutably. He looked at her face and something in her expression, this new, mysterious pose, puzzled him, shook his assurance. His easy words died on his lips. He stood in front of her awk- wardly, holding his hat in his hands.
"Let us take a little walk," she said.
She moved off across the lawn and, sheep-like, he followed at her side. In a moment her languor passed, yet a cer- tain melancholy persisted. There was no mystery in him—but there was ex- citement: the excitement of tormenting him, of fooling him, of stirring the emo- tions of his wanting.
This was her role and now she under- stood it; at last her heart had the knowl- edge of her power and her cunning. Now she was a woman.
The Lake
By Frances O. J. Gaither
THE west wind blew again last night And swept the water hyacinths in . . . Now yellow sands go blue bedight Like some embroidered mandarin.
A MELANCHOLY man is one who has remembered more than he has forgotten.
[Page 064]
The Power of Love
By Winthrop Parkhurst
HE often read in the newspapers of men who exacted obedience from their wives with stinging whips. From his boyhood up, indeed, he had heard sodden stories of wife- beatings without end; and from all such tales of vulgar violence his aris- tocratic temperament revolted as from an ill-mixed drink. So when he married he resolved to conduct his home entirely on the principles of love. In his own house at any rate, he decided, there should never be one
harsh word, one angry look to mar the placid perfection of his married life.
His plan worked remarkably well. The devotion of his wife was ex- traordinary. When a disagreement seemed imminent he steadfastly re- fused to raise his hand; and such is the power of love that his wife thereupon immediately agreed to do anything in the world that he wished.
Later on he gave her the cheque.
My Life Is Glad
By Harry Kemp
MY life is glad because of you: You give me things as sweet as dew; Soft as the falling of a flower That breaks into a silken shower Your raining kisses cover me And break in petals over me.
A MAN'S ambition is a happy marriage. A woman's, a romantic one.
64
[Page 065]
Répétition Générale
By George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken
1
On Pedagogy.—In nearly all of the modern literature of pedagogy there is a false assumption, and that is the as- sumption that the aim of education is to fill the mind with knowledge. The fact is that its aim is almost exactly the contrary. That is to say, a man who has been competently educated is not one who has been crammed with the orthodox knowledge of his time and country but one who has been emptied of the orthodox knowledge of his time and country, i.e., of the common stock of superstitions, prejudices, manias, phobias and delusions. The human mind, even in its lowest forms, is never actually hollow. On the contrary, it teems and seethes with ideas, and most of them are held as immovable certain- ties. It is the purpose of anything properly describable as a liberal edu- cation to break down these certainties, shoulder them out of the mind, and so make head-room for the small body of current ideas that are actually true. This body is never large. The process of enlightenment consists largely of ex- amining and rejecting them. A man of sound education is one who holds all his ideas a bit gingerly and is always ready to dismiss them.
Such an education is not easily pro- curable at the average university. That is because the great majority of the men who teach in such universities are themselves not educated; they are sim- ply school-mastered. The result is that, instead of purging the student's mind of its inherited and acquired bilge, they devote themselves to forcing more bilge into it. In the most favourable
cases this fills the cranial cavity with a dense mass of heterogeneous debris, almost colloidal in its gumminess and unworkableness; in not a few cases it causes actual explosions, and we have, say, a college Socialist.
2
The Cocktail and the Woman.—The effect of cocktails—or any other alco- holic beverage—upon women is curi- ously unlike the effect of such tonics upon men. Take, for example, the re- lation of the effect of alcoholic in- dulgence to amour. A man and a wo- man, mutually intrigued, are seated at table. The man drinks a cocktail, then another, then another, then another. With each successive tipple he becomes more and more excited over the charms of his fair companion, more and more eloquent, more and more eager to im- print a smack behind her little pink seashell of an ear. As one cocktail follows its predecessor down his ali- mentary canal, he waxes amorous crescendo, fortissimo. But consider now the woman.
After her first cocktail, she is in a mood precisely like the mood of the man after his first cocktail. After the second, she is in a mood precisely like the man after his second. But comes now the curious change. Though his third cocktail increases the man's ardour, her third cocktail almost in- stantaneously decreases the woman's. As if struck by a ghostly streak of lightning, as if touched by some occult hand, the woman's mood suddenly achieves a certain restraint, a peculiar rigidity, a trace of coolness. The man's
S. S.—Dec. 5 65
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third cocktail has sent his acumen packing; the woman's third has brought her acumen back with a rush. She is lit, true enough—as lit as the man—but she is yet, by some esoteric phenomenon, again master of him and of the situation.
All of which is respectfully sub- mitted to such teetotaler moralists as believe that when a woman has had three cocktails she is completely in the villain's power and ripe for the Italianos.
3
Pathological Note.—The exact na- ture of disease is a matter that still gives pause to MM. the pathologists. All that may be said with certainty is that a given condition is an apparent departure from the normal or that it tends to destroy the organism and pro- duce death. As for mere abnormality, it would be rather absurd to assume that it is to be regarded, ipso facto, as regrettable. The perfectly normal human being, the absolutely average man, is surely anything but an ideal creature. A great many admittedly abnormal men, even in the direction of what is called disease, are his obvious superiors, and this class includes many so-called men of genius. As for the fact that disease tends to produce death, this is a matter of small signifi- cance. Life itself tends to produce death; living is a sort of gradual dying. All that distinguishes what is known as a healthy man from what is known as a diseased man is that the latter prom- ises to die sooner—and even this prob- ability is not always borne out by the event. Men afflicted with diseases re- garded as fatal often live so long that their physicians begin to regard them as personal enemies and poison them to get them out of the way.
The fact is that certain diseased states are very favourable to the higher functioning of the organism—more fa- vourable, indeed, than states of health. One of the diseases that American sailors were saved from during the late
war by the virtuous watchfulness of the Hon. Josephus Daniels is of such curious effect upon the mental powers that, under certain conditions, it would be much more sensible to call it a bene- fit than to call it a handicap. Tr[ue] enough, ninety-nine out of a hundred victims who show signs of its mental effect move toward insanity, but the hundredth moves toward genius. Beet- hoven, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer were such victims, if the word may be used of giants. The mild toxemia ac- companying the disease kept them keyed up to stupendous effort. All three died of it in the end, but while they lived it acted upon them like some extraordinarily powerful stimulant, and there is not the slightest doubt that their great achievements were at least partly due to it.
In this case, of course, ideas of loath- someness reinforce mere fear, and so most sane men would rather do with- out the stimulation than face the dis- ease. But there are other maladies, not popularly regarded as loathsome, which also seem to prick up the intellect. One of them is tuberculosis. It is perfectly possible that the superior mental de- velopment of the white races may be due to the fact that they have suffered from tuberculosis for many centuries. History shows a vast number of ex- traordinary consumptives, and it is common observation that even the stupidest man, once he is attacked by the tubercle bacilli, begins to exhibit unusual mental alertness. Perhaps the time will come when promising young men, instead of being protected from such diseases at all hazards, will be deliberately infected with them, just as soils are now inoculated with nitrogen- liberating bacteria.
This plan, of course, will tend to diminish the length of their days, but that will be no objection to it, for its aim will not be to improve the candi- dates quantitatively, but to improve them qualitatively. The science of hygiene, which is largely in the hands of gushers and quacks, lays too much stress upon mere longevity, and when
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it gets beyond longevity it seeks only the good of common men. To produce better stockbrokers, Congressmen, Knights of Pythias, Sons of the Revo- lution, dollar-a-year patriots, corner grocerymen, labour leaders and other such cocci, it is necessary, of course, to keep them physically well; if they are valuable at all, it is chiefly as physi- cal machines; they serve to reverse and complete the great nitrogen-fixing process of vegetable life. But if it were possible to produce a Chopin with a few doses of tubercle bacilli, even at the cost of killing him at thirty-nine, it would surely be worth while. And if a technique is ever worked out for producing a Beethoven, or even making measurably more likely the produc- tion of a Beethoven, with any other pathogenic organisms, then certainly only idiots will complain if they kill him at fifty-seven.
4
On Young Women's Dress.—The secret of dressing in such wise that the picture shall subtly appeal to men, few young women understand. The true seret—as any man who stops momen- tarily to reflect and analyze will agree -is for the young woman to dress like a poor country girl expensively.
5
Prohibition and the Club.—With the advent of prohibition, the last leg is pulled from under the club. A club, without drinks, is as much an anomaly as a theater without a show. The drink is as much a part of a club, and as essential to it, and as vital to its social prosperity, as is a collar-button to a shirt. What other reason has a civil- ized man for entering a club if not to bump a mug with a crony? Take the mug away and the only men whom you will find in a club are a few imbecile bridge players, a few grafters of free letter paper, and a few men too stingy to buy the Illustrated London News and The Bystander who hang around the library for a look at them.
6
More Tosh.—Much of the gaudy literature now circulated behind the door by birth-controllers is grounded upon the doctrine that it is an intoler- able outrage for a woman to have to submit to motherhood when her private fancies may rather incline to automo- biling, shopping or going to the movies. For this curse the husband is blamed; the whole crime is laid to his swinish selfishness. With the highest respect, Pish! My private suspicion, support- ed by long observation, copious prayer and the most laborious cogitation, is that no woman delights in motherhood so vastly as this woman who theo- retically abhors it. She experiences, in fact, a double delight. On the one hand, there is the caressing of her vanity—a thing enjoyed by every wo- man when she achieves the banality of viable offspring. And on the other hand, there is the fine chance it gives her to play the martyr—a chance that every woman seeks as diligently as a man seeks ease. I am convinced, in- deed, that all these so-called unwilling mothers wallow in their martyrdom, that they revel in the opportunity to be pitied, made much over and envied by other women. And being so convinced, I have sworn myself to the strictest celibacy; there are too many martyrs in the world already.
Sir Arthur and the Ladies of the Round Table—Of all the conspicuous writing men of our time, probably none —for all that has been whispered in awe to the contrary—has understood women so feebly and drawn more ab- surd characters than the dramatist Pinero. The Pinero woman—Iris Bel- lamy, Paula Tanqueray, Mrs. Ebb- smith, Letty Shell, Zoe Blundell, the young Mrs. Renshaw, or any othei such painted seriously—is woman as she is viewed by Bertha M. Clay and the Yale sophomores: a lovely display of fireworks with the band playing
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68 REPETITION GENERALE
Bach's Grand Mass in B minor. From first to last, rarely does one of these seriously presented portraits reveal a flash of observation or penetration above the third melodramatic grade. Taken in bulk, they are merely so many suave Laura Jean Libbeys, so many stock company actresses dramatized, so many puppets of the family story paper manipulated by a man who adeptly con- ceals his ignorance of women in his knowledge of English composition. Pinero, at bottom, is a cynical senti- mentalist; and a cynical sentimentalist is one of God's drollest toys. A fine dramaturgist, Sir Arthur remains to the end of his days, save in a few frank farces, a distinctly second-rate drama- tist.
8
Human Progress.—All the old stand- ards are wobbled, flouted, conditioned. The world embraces a dizzy transvalu- ation of values. The next social phenomenon, perhaps, will be the ap- pearance of the hyphenated virgin.
9
The Fireside Hero.—No matter how great the sacrifices a man makes for his women-folk, they always regard him as a selfish fellow, and cherish the theory that it would be easily possible to im- prove him. This is because the essen- tial interests of man and woman are eternally antithetical. A man may yield over and over again, but in the long run he must occasionally look out for himself—and it is these occasions that his women-folk remember. The typical domestic situation shows a woman try- ing to induce a man to do something that he doesn't want to do, or to re- frain from something that he does want to do. This is true in his bachelor days, when his mother or his sister is his antagonist. It is pre-eminently true just before his marriage, when the girl who has marked him down is hard at the colossal job of overcoming his re- luctance. And after marriage it is so true that there is hardly need to state it.
One of the things every man dis- covers to his disquiet is that his wife, after the first play-acting is over, re- gards him essentially as his mother used to regard him—that is, as a self- worshipper who needs to be policed and an idiot who needs to be protected. The notion that women admire their men-folks is pure moonshine. The most they ever achieve in that direction is to pity them. When a woman genuinely loves a man it is a sign that she regards him much as a healthy man regards a one-armed and epileptic soldier.
10
The Dead Hand.—Whatever his body of acquired ideas, a man's race constantly and inevitably betrays him; he cannot escape the dead hand. The Pole, Joseph Conrad, has been an Eng- lishman politically since early man- hood; he served for years in the thor- oughly English and un-Polish post of ship captain; he is today the greatest glory of English literature. But he re- mains a Pole from head to foot, and, what is more, all of the characters in his books are Poles. Who could be more typically Polish in every way than Lord Jim? Ostensibly he is a young Englishman, but his every reac- tion is unmistakably Slavic; he is, at his great moments, almost a character out of a Russia novel. In the case of Captain MacWhirr, Conrad came very near creating an authentic Britisher, but at the last moment his hand trembled and the man began to show plain Slavic traces. The lesser Con- rad characters — for example, the Swede of "Victory," the German of "Falk" and the Englishman of "Chance"—are all full of Slavic, and especially Polish, qualities. Even the Nigger of the Narcissus, in his great patient silence, is essentially a Slav.
11
Confessional.—That life often imi- tates the drama was accepted as a platitude long before Mr. John Palmer, elaborating upon Oscar Wilde, set
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down his abstract conclusions some years ago in the London Saturday Review. But, platitude though it is, it still remains for some professor to offer up the concrete proofs. At least one such proof occurs to me; and this proof is to be found, unless I am great- ly mistaken, in the way life has imi- tated the drama in the matter of wo- man's confession of sin. Fifteen years ago, when a woman confessed the stain on her past to a man, she imitated the maneuvers of the leading woman char- acter in the then already long popular Henry Arthur James drama. There were sniffles a la Rachel Neve, tears a la Mrs. Dane, tremulous allusions to innocence taken off guard, to betrayed trust, to moonlight, Chopin and other such sentimental knock-out drops. . . . "I'd been brought up in a vil- lage. I was a child in knowledge. I knew nothing of life. Nothing of the world. He was very kind to me. He was rich and distinguished and flattered me by his notice. And I—oh, why didn't somebody warn me? Why did they keep me ignorant? I didn't even love him, not in that way—not as I love you. I tell you I knew nothing, nothing! Nothing! Till it was too late." etc., etc. . . .
But today when a woman confesses an indiscretion of her past to a man, does she follow the Henry Arthur Jones model? She does not. She fol- lows the Manchester school model—as typified, for example, by some such dramatist as the late Stanley Houghton. No longer the sniffles, tears and apologies . . . "It was my fault as much as it was his. I was in love with him; he was in love with me; and that's all there is to it!"
So far, so good. But God help us poor men if, some years hence, life in this particular department sees fit to change its latest imitation and proceeds drolly to mimic, instead, the panto- mime!
12
America as Infant.—In practically all discussions of American history,
ideals and character the notion that Americans constitute "the youngest of great peoples" is employed as a rubber- stamp. The phrase, in fact, turns up incessantly; the average editorial writer would be hamstrung if he were deprived of it. What lies behind it is the plain fact that the American re- public, compared to certain other exist- ing governments, is relatively young. But the American republic is surely not identical with the American people; they might overturn it tomorrow and set up a monarchy, and still remain the same American people. The truth is that, as a people, they go back fully three hundred years, and that even their government is older than those of most other nations, e. g., France, Ger- many, England, Italy.
Moreover, it is absurd to say that there is anything properly describable as youthfulness in the American stock. Americans, in the overwhelming main, are not young, but old. They are either worn-out individuals detached from other nations or the descendants of such worn-out individuals, and they show all the signs of senescence; what appears to be youth in them is rather second childhood. One of the main in- dications of that second childhood is their singular timorousness. They do not embrace ideas eagerly, like such young peoples as the Slavs; they dis- trust all ideas instinctively, and have to be brought to accept them by an elabor- ate process of suggestion. Most of what passes for thinking in America is done abroad, and chiefly in England. If the English once ceased telling Americans what to think, about every- thing from politics to literature and from social amenity to jurisprudence, the United States would fall into in- tellectual chaos.
13
More on the Old Subject.—Most alluring to men is that woman whose wickedness has to it a touch of the angelic and whose virtue a touch of the devil.
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14
Still More.—A woman declined by the man she loves and seeking sanctu- ary and solace in the embraces of her second choice is rarely the unhappy creature that common delusion insists she is. It is not the woman, but the second choice, for whom Tragi- comedy, enwrapt in deceptive satins, waits open-armed in the wings.
15
More Still.—It is not the fact that Arthur Schnitzler acutely understands women that makes his plays so un- usually interesting, but the fact that he acutely understands his fellow man's understanding of women. In this dif- ference lies at once the secret of the humour and the secret of the pathos of the very talented doctor's writings.
16
On Music.—Of all forms of the up- lift, perhaps the most futile is that which addresses itself to educating the proletariat in music. The theory be- hind it is that a taste for music is an elevating passion, and that if the great masses of the plain people could be in- noculated with it they would cease to herd into the moving-picture theaters, or to listen to Socialists, or to beat their wives and children. The defect in this theory lies in the fact that such a taste, granting it to be elevating, simply can- not be implanted. Either it is born in a man or it is not born in him. If it is, then he will get gratification for it at whatever cost—he will hear music if hell freezes over. But if it isn't, then no amount of education will ever change him—he will remain stone deaf until the last sad scene on the gallows.
No child who has this congenital taste ever has to be urged or tempted or taught to love music. It takes to tone inevitably and irresistibly; nothing can restrain it. What is more, it always tries to make music, for the delight in sounds is invariably accompanied by a
great desire to produce them. I have never encountered an exception to this rule. All genuine music-lovers try to make music. They may do it badly, and even absurdly, but nevertheless they do it. Any man who pretends to a delight in the tone-art and yet has never learned the scale of C major— any and every such man is a fraud. The opera-houses of the world are crowded with such liars. You will even find hundreds of them in the con- cert-halls, though here the suffering they have to undergo to keep up their pretense is almost too much for them to bear. Many of them, true enough, de- ceive themselves. They are honest in the sense that they credit their own buncombe. But it is buncombe none the less.
Music, of course, has room for philanthropy. The cost of giving an orchestral concert is so great that ordinary music-lovers could not often pay for it. Here the way is open for rich backers, most of whom have no more ear for music than so many Chinamen. Nearly all the opera of the world is so supported. A few rich and socially ambitious cads pay the bills, their wives posture obscenely in the boxes, and the genuine music-lovers up- stairs and down enjoy the more or less harmonious flow of sound. But this business doesn't make music-lovers. It merely gives pleasure to music-lovers who already exist. In twenty-five years, I am sure, the Metropolitan Opera Company hasn't converted a single music-hater. On the contrary, it has probably disgusted and alienated many thousands of faint-hearted quasi- music-lovers, i.e., persons with no more than the most nebulous taste for music—so nebulous that one or two evenings of tremendous gargling by fat tenors is enough to kill it altogether.
In the United States the number of genuine music-lovers is probably very low. There are whole states, e.g., Alabama, Arkansas and Idaho, in which it would be difficult to muster a hundred. In New York, I venture, not more than one person in every thou-
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sand of the population deserves to be counted. The rest are, to all intents and purposes, tone-deaf. They can not only sit through the infernal din made by the current jazz-bands; they actual- ly like it. This is precisely as if they preferred the works of The Duchess to those of Joseph Conrad, or the paint- ings of the men who make covers for popular novels to those of El Greco. Such persons inhabit the sewers of the bozart. No conceivable education could rid them of their native ignobility of soul. They are born unspeakable and incurable.
17
Recommendation to New York's Board of Aldermen.—Be it resolved at the name of Manhattan Island all henceforth be changed to Coheny Island.
18
On Duplex Love.—One of the strangest of the many common beliefs concerned with amour is that which maintains it an impossible thing for a man to be equally in love with two wo- men at one and the same time. Doubt- less originated by woman's own eter- nally assiduous Wilhelmstrasse and shrewdly disseminated for her own sly ends, the belief—for all its popularity with the ever sentimental, ballad-sing- ing male of the species—wears a sour motley. The majority of men are in love with one woman, and one woman only, simply because their acquaint- ceship with women is so meagre, so bounded and confined, that they have not had the opportunity nor the good fortune to meet coincidentally another wooman of equal charm and equal ap- peal. Since it is a matter of not in- frequent occurrence for a man to fall love with another woman after he has engaged himself to the one woman with whom he has believed himself singly in love, is it not perfectly reason- able to assume that had he initially met both women simultaneously he would have been taken with each of them equally?
The bachelor is a monument to wo- men's charm. Unlike the married man, he offers up constant proof of the charm of several women as opposed, in the bigoted instance of the former agnostic, to the charm of one. The heart of a bachelor is a mirror in which every love, peering, sees the image of a love equally beautiful and equally be- witching. The heart of a married man is a mirror upon which lack of adven- ture and laziness have breathed their obscuring fogs.
19
Le Contrat Social.—All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man. If it is aristocratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it is demo- cratic, it seeks to protect the man who is inferior against both superiors.
The aim of all government is to regiment men, to make them as much alike as possible, to combat originality among them. All it can see in origi- nality is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man, to any government, is the sort of man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under i imperfect, and so he tries to change it. Nine times out of ten, of course, he is wrong. That is to say, the kind of government he thus unlawfully inclines to is probably just as bad as the kind he proposes to supplant.
This explains why revolution seldom accomplishes anything of genuine value. After a revolution, to be sure, the revolutionists always try to con- vince doubters that they have achieved great things, and usually they hang any man who denies it. But that doesn't prove their case. In Russia, for many years, millions of people thought that getting rid of the czar would make them happy, but now that they are rid of the czar they are just as badly
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off as before. The American colo- nies, for at least twenty-five years after the Revolution, were act- ually in much worse case than they had been under the English. Their government was more expensive, more inefficient and more tyrannical. It was only the gradual material prog- ress of the new nation that saved the day, and that progress, it is very prob- able, would have been witnessed quite as well under the old system.
The ideal is a government which lets the individual alone. In other words, the ideal is a government which just barely escapes not being a government at all. This ideal, I believe, will be realized about eighty centuries after I have died and escaped to hell.
20
Great Scenes from Rotten Plays, III.—A great scene from the celebrated
"Lost in London," by Watts Phillips:
NELLY. Oh! fool! fool! that I have been to listen to the voice of the tempter, and oh! accursed vanity of woman that gave to that voice such power! (she draws letter from bosom, opens it, and appears to read a few lines—the letter falls from her hands, which she raises for a moment, then presses con- vulsively to her bosom) Leave him! leave him for ever! I cannot! No, I cannot do it! (footsteps are heard outside door, and the latch is moved as by some one about to enter) It is Job! He has returned! Job! Job! my husband! (she rushes up stage to- wards door, but recoils with a cry as it opens, and Gilbert Featherstone appears on the threshold) Gilbert Featherstone!
GILBERT. Nelly! (as he advances towards her, she hastily retreats, her hands extended to repel, her face full of alarm).
NELLY. No, no, not a step further! Not a step! I implore! I entreat! (she staggers as about to swoon; Gilbert springs forward and catches her in his arms.)
GILBERT. Nelly! dear Nelly! (he places her in chair, and kneeling at her feet, presses again and again her hand to his lips, as the scene closes.)
Burning Leaves
By George O'Neil
AUTUMN! the green of Summer gone... Smouldering heaps upon the lawn Where stars of oak and spears of pine Shiver to ash and cease to shine.
Autumn! air sharpened by the smell Of leaves that budded, sang and fell... Glow dwindling, dying in the rain... Filling my heart—the smoke of pain!
IT is rare to find a male scandal-monger. Perhaps the reason is that men always talk about themselves.
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The Negligible Ones
By Mifflin Crane
HER elation gave her a fluctuant charm, enlivened the somewhat sagging lines of her face, lent her eyes a sudden, moist depth, and filled her lips with colour. He was surprised to find her almost pretty and the murmur of her "yes" was sweetly voiced.
They kissed and her response to his lips had in it the fervour of a long wanting. His arms gave her visions, the understanding and the re-creation of a thousand romantic moments read in books. The triumphant hours of heroines returned to her mind—their words, their response; she was one of them now; she understood their joys.
Often she had reasoned upon her need and, almost convinced of its never- to-be-attained felicity, had endeavoured to persuade herself that her desire was futile and unworthy. The years, pass- ing with her hopes, had brought to her this ascetic renunciation again and again. Seeing men on the street, she tried to despise them; in the cars she met their eyes with malevolent stares; at business she shamed their superior pretenses with her efficiency.
But some book, a poem, a painting, a sentimental moving picture, or worse, the sight of oblivious lovers in the park or walking arm in arm outdoors, would tear down all her defences and destroy the acid of her self-protective asceti- cism with a sweet, heady poison— bringing her to the collapse of secret tears.
Now like the others, like the victo- rious ones, she had a man! He had come to her miraculously—a new clerk in the office, not a good one; at first she had despised him with an unusual venom.
But, as if her happy fortune were the purpose of a benign fate whose tool he was, he took her harshness with a smile; he greeted her each morning with a polite and even deferential nod; and at last he came to see her!
That had been a momentous night! She remembered her perturbations, her flutterings before the mirror, her al- most desperate endeavour to touch her features into grace, to fluff her scant hair to an appearance of abundance, to hide the angularity of her figure with a deceptive frock.
Now, assured, hearing his words of marvelous affection, the hours of first, tremulous fears seemed almost silly. A sense of strength, of power, of hidden charm had been given to her and the early hesitancies were obliterated by these triumphant moments. She looked at him almost coquettishly, became wholly unafraid.
His face was serious; he was talking of their future.
"I expect something better from the old man pretty soon," he said. "Maybe you've noticed that he gives me a good bit of attention lately. I think we'll be in shape to get married before many months."
She smiled tenderly.
"You're sure you want me?" she asked.
He answered with a kiss.
"Tell me again what you feel!" she demanded.
He repeated his declarations. She caused him to embroider the theme, say the words again and again, modulated, in coloratura, but ever of the same im- port. Her ears could never tire of this; her sense of wonder seemed boundless.
She even accepted his declaration
73
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that she was beautiful, hearing it with a serious mind. Why not? How of- ten, with a despairing effort at comfort, as one who yields to a last hope, how- ever fabulous, had she repeated to her- self the doctrine that beauty is only skin deep! The lover, at last, would see beneath her trivial imperfections, and find within all the allure, all the tenderness, even all the beauty to thrill and content him. He was before her now, the one for whom she had hoped, gazing at her with these clairvoyant eyes of her faith, and perceiving the truth that he uttered. She was beauti- ful! Yes, it was true!
As he talked, returning again to the discussion of his plans, she watched his face. She knew that he was not hand- some. There were many lacks in his features: his nose needed more defini- tion, less of that melted look; the col- our of his hair was indeterminate and its texture too coarse, his eyes were somewhat small, his lips too heavy, his chin needed strength. But these defi- ciencies gave no chill to her enthusiasm. She had a secret strength for their sur- mounting.
He had stopped talking now and they Were looking at each other with tender
glances. What did it matter that he was not wholly the man she could have wanted? He was not heroic, he was not conquering, he was not handsome; it was all of no moment. He supplied, through nature, the one fundamental necessity: he was above all a man!
And to him, a man, any man, she could give these other things. Her ro- mantic imagination, long suppressed, sufficed to invest him with all the vir- tues reality had withheld. In her mind, by her imagination, she would see him as he ought to have been; in her eyes she would vision his pulchritude, his nobility, his strength, his heroism. And, in a vague way, looking at her un- lovely face, he understood this; it was her compensating gift.
For, if she was not the woman of his best desire, she was at least the one who ministered best to his pride. Compre- hending dimly his own weakness, his own triviality, he saw that no other woman, save one like her, could look at him as she did, give him this warming glance of pride, offer him this expres- sion of unearned homage. And so he was not without content.
They both had gifts for each other, these negligible ones!
Harpsichord
By Winthrop Parkhurst
LIKE hands that stray across the yellowed keys Of an old spinet whereon only dance The phantom fingers of my memories, Or ivory ghostly feet of dead romance,
Your beauty brushed my spirit, and the keys Trembled to find that at a single glance From your grave eyes they sang as though a breeze Had blown from Heaven and struck a chord by chance.
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Lost Love
By Morris Dallett
I
I SAW Suzanne's wide eye before she caught sight of me, and by the time she had recognized in a black suit and yellow hat—which drew at- tention away from greying hair—the ambling playwright of three years he- fore, I had marked her drooping mouth and the rouge on her lips. I had noted, too, the slant to her hat and the pretty brown ringlets of hair beneath. In truth, I had remarked the fact that Suzanne was almost exactly the same girl who had left the musical comedy stage some time before to marry a young friend of mine. And I was sur- prised that she had not changed.
I never had understood the affair: she was a very fast girl—a bad girl as I had known her—and he was actu- ally prudish. To see them, one could have understood an affair, but surely not marriage.
So I was glad when Suzanne recog- nized me and waved a prettily gloved hand from across the sidewalk.
"Hello!" she called.
I sauntered over to her, and stam- mered a little breathlessly:
"How are you?"
"Hungry," she answered, and slipped her hand through my arm. "Take me to luncheon."
I willingly hurried her into the near- est cafe.
The head-waiter, who had known me in my earlier days, seeing whom I was with, led us to a nicely secluded table. He looked surprised.
"Am I as old as all that?" I mur- mured, changing my hat check from a trouser into a vest pocket.
"I come here several times a week and he recognized me," she smiled back, and began taking off her gloves. I looked at her again.
The gloves were long and bright red, matching in colour a belt around her waist and a cluster of cherries on the little hat. The dress itself was black, knitted like a sweater. The heels of her shoes were red, like the gloves and her lips: that I had noticed before.
I was trying to find out the condi- tion of her hands when she turned to me suddenly and said:
"You look so well I know you haven't been writing lately."
I smiled all over, admitting the fact while ordering luncheon.
"Sorry I can't buy you anything de- cent to drink," I said.
"Do you want something to drink?"
"World without end, amen."
She called a waiter to her side and talked to him. He seemed to under- stand, and hurried off.
"I have a little gin left," she went on, turning back to me, "and they are going to put it into a lemonade for us."
I stumbled through a prayer of thanks and asked the obvious question with my eyes.
"Oh, then you haven't been hear- ing about me?"
"No. I have been away."
"I've been divorced from Curtis for three months."
"Really?"
"Yes. Almost four months now."
"Ah!"
"You aren't very surprised."
"I expected something of the sort."
"Why?"
75
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76 LOST LOVE
"I knew you—and him; and I've lived several years of glorious life."
"But you don't know the reason?"
"No."
Her eyes almost closed, and she bit her lip.
"No."
I saw that the subject was not open for discussion just yet, so I bided my time and thanked God—who was cer- tainly the wrong person—for the extra gin.
I had expected that the meat course would result in a story; but it was not until the waiter was pouring Russian dressing over hearts of lettuce that Suzanne remarked:
"I have the baby."
"Oh," I answered, vaguely wonder- ing why I hadn't instinctively known that there had been a baby.
"I am going to tell you the story because—I don't know why, to tell you the truth. I suppose it is because you are the sort of person one usually does tell stories to."
I leaned over the table in anticipa- tion.
"Look at your cuff."
It was in the salad.
"You knew Curtis," she went on.
I answered that I did.
"Well, then it will be more inter- esting to you." She stopped for a moment and seemed to be thinking.
"I am going back to the time I met him. But before that I want to tell you that I am inherently good; bad- ness is a cultivated attraction with me."
I accepted Suzanne's statement with some reservation, and she knew it.
"You don't know."
I did know a good deal. Three years before we had played around together, and I had gleaned her history from her own lips. But her past was not the main part of her life: the present was the play, and the past was merely the incidental music, lending atmosphere.
She had been born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and had gone to school there for nine years. Up to the age of sixteen, when she became a waitress in a restaurant, she had been a good girl,
a backward, shy slip of a thing with no manners or anything else of evident importance to the world. But from in- cidental diners, who took her on auto- mobile rides and said things, she learned that she was of importance. Most of her friends already knew that.
One of the momentary travelers was a man connected with the theatrical profession, and he promised Suzanne that when he reached New York he would find her a position in a chorus. She had listened to other promises be- fore, so when a letter arrived from a prominent producer—of whom she later saw a great deal—she was sur- prised. Of course it was the chance of her life. She took it. Her friends, who would become local shop-girls, envied her, and—for such is the way of women—said very nasty things be- hind her back. But that didn't feaze Suzanne. Her career was started—and in New York. Holy of Holies!
A chorus girl who wanted to keep alive devoted most of her energies, in those days of a few years ago, to en- terprise off-stage. Living cost a lot, and to get a really substantial meal from an ordinary after-the-theatre party was something which required more than ordinary sagacity. But Suzanne was apt, and she learned to do it, to do it well. Her reputaion, how- ever, rose in indirect proporion to her success.
The memories of broad country meadows, and dew on wet grass, often troubled her, and at such times she felt that a breath of fresh air was impera- tive; it was absolutely necessary to get away from square city blocks, and high hats, and Waldorf lunches. To ask a young "friend" to motor her out wouldn't bring the desired freedom. It only meant dinner in a road-house sandwiched in between thick slices of unsavory bread in the guise of auto- mobiling.
So Suzanne had taken to dressing in simple, sincere little frocks each Sun- day, and, after escaping the city by train, wandering out and through the countryside. She loved dusty roads
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LOST LOVE 77
and houses of wood—not to live in— but to look at for two or three hours a week.
I had heard several versions of the story that she left New York over week-ends, but this I knew to be the true explanation.
Suzanne repeated the statement that she was inherently good.
"But, you know, I had to live, and I had to learn how. I did it pretty well; I suppose it was because I was partly French, and being bad with me was not, as is usual in America, merely being vulgar. But you understand all that—in fact, I think you told me. To go ahead, it was on one of my much- talked-about walks in the country that I met Curtis.
"I was walking along a country road: on one side of me was a field with a spring-house, and, a little beyond it, a stream; on the other side was a farm- yard filled with sheep. I was watching the stream and wondering whether or not I could still swim, when I nearly stumbled over a man who was sitting down taking sand out of his shoe. It was Curtis. I went right on, after ex- cusing myself, and didn't think any more about him.
"A little further down the road I went over to the stream, took off my shoes, and dabbled my feet in the water. The place was nearly a hundred yards off the road, and the pool was screened by a grove of young maple trees. I had been there only a few minutes when Curtis appeared. He was terri- bly fussed, but I knew what to do and what to say, so in ten minutes we were talking easily.
"He didn't know who I was, and I didn't tell him. I was out in the coun- ty and I wanted to fit in: to go away from myself.
"So we talked along for some time, and I left him about five o'clock to go back into town. He had told me that he lived in the country to be alone, and I realized that my dream would come true if I could get away. Well, I did get away, and I left him thinking that he had been talking to an angel. It
was a kindness on my part, you would understand that. He had appealed to me, almost more than anyone I had ever known, somehow. And then, too, he hadn't fallen in love with me. Most men did—or thought they did—and said so.
"But I went back to the city. I still remembered the boy on the road, and once I looked for him, but he wasn't there that day.
"It must have been three months later that I met him at the stage door and went off with him in a taxi.
" 'How did you find me?' I asked.
" 'I just happened in town, and went to the theater.'
" 'Isn't it nice? But you didn't know who you were talking to before, did you?'
"'I should say I didn't!'
"He was as shy as a kid, and I saw that he was impressed instead of dis- illusioned. It rather spoiled my dream, though.
" 'Where are you taking me now?' I asked him.
"'To eat and drink.'
" 'I thought that you didn't approve of that sort of thing.'
" 'I drink some.'
"He was no more sophisticated or at ease with me than a school-boy. I saw my game, and began playing it. You see, he had come into the spider's web, and it was his own fault.
" 'But what will people say when they see you with me?' I asked.
" 'I don't know.'
" 'Do you know what a reputation I have?'
" 'No.'
" 'I am supposedly the worst girl in that company.'
" 'Are you?'
" 'Oh, I know how to kiss,' I an- swered, and laughed.
"We dined and drank champagne. The wine went straight to his head as I had done, and in the taxi, going back, he kissed me."
Suzanne stopped talking while the waiter poured her another cup of cof-
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78 LOST LOVE
fee. I lighted a cigarette and remarked encouragingly: "Yes?"
"As you can imagine," she went on, "the result was that he fell in love with my wickedness, and I with his good- ness. He liked the things about me that another man in love would have hated. He revelled in stories I told him; he wanted me to dress indecently, and paint my lips red. Can you under- stand it?"
"Yes," I assented. "As you say, he was in love with your badness."
I leaned back and thought for a mo- ment. The story pleased me like a good wine. My writer's instincts were blooming under it.
"Please go on," I said.
II
"The day after that evening, for in- stance," she continued, "he came and apologized for having given me the kiss; but, seeing that I didn't mind, he wanted to talk about it. He wanted me to tell him what other men did. I never understood that, either.
"But, anyway, I grew to care for him. I didn't show it because we were seldom alone, and on big parties I had to act up to my reputation. But I did begin to care. He loved me in a way I had never been loved before; he was younger than most of the men I knew, and he was nice. He had money, and it seemed that his family was traveling in the West, so he was absolutely free."
"Lucky child!"
"But listen: one evening we were going to my apartment in a taxi. Cur- tis always came as far as the door with me. This time he proposed marriage.
"My first thought was that he was drunk. But I soon saw that, to the contrary, he was rather sober, and very serious. So I told him to come up to talk it over. As soon as we got to the living room, I took him by the lapels of his coat and looked him in the eyes.
" 'Now look here, Curtis,' I said, 'you're a young kid, and I like you be- cause you are what you are. But you've got to learn. Why, do you know that
a girl could sue you for breach of promise after a thing like that? You want to be careful what you say.'
" 'I meant it,' he said. 'I want to marry you.'
" 'You don't want to marry me.'
" 'I do! I know what I want. I want to marry you.'
"We argued for some time. At last I said:
" 'I can't break my contract.'
" 'I don't want to make you break it.'
" 'You want me to stay in that part?"
"'Yes. Why not?'
" 'Oh!'
" 'Why not?' he asked again.
"I don't love you, Curtis."
" 'All that I want is for you to keep on acting the way you have been.'"
Suzanne smiled to herself, and I laughed much too loudly—which I real- ized, and looked around to see if any- one had noticed.
"So you married him?"
"Yes. I married him."
"I often wondered how it happened."
"We were married in a little country church. I insisted on that, though Curtis much preferred a big affair in the city. Our honeymoon lasted over the week-end. On Monday he came down to the station to see me off. He was coming into town later.
" 'Good-bye, dearie, for a little time.'
"He was a little proud of this assimi- lated love-word.
" 'Don't forget tonight.'
"'No. I won't. Don't you forget to telephone.'
" 'No.'
" 'Good-bye.'
" 'Good-bye.'
"We kissed, and as the train took me away I had time to collect my thoughts. In the first place, I realized that our wild honeymoon—we had been half drunk most of the time—had bound him even closer to me. You know, it was such a fool marriage. It wasn't a real marriage, at all, in spite of the license and the minister.
"I had an idea that things might as well break up just where they were; but the prospect of the jewelry and all
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LOST LOVE 79
that Curtis was giving me kept me to him. Mercenary, I know, but I was living on my own, and when I played a big game like this one I had to toss for high stakes.
"Well, that night Curtis came into town and we went on the same old kind of a wild party that we had been used to: I flirted with most, and drank with the rest. The only difference was that it was more exciting for the other men because I was married, and more bor- ing for me because I knew where the evening would end.
"Curtis was a new man, though. He was a much different person from the one I had picked up on that memorable day in the country. He was sophisti- cated now, and talked wines, women, and war as though he had been at such parties ever since his fingers were large enough to handle a wine glass. But he was still as light-headed as ever: one cocktail to him was worth three in any- one else.
"I didn't know that I cared for him the way I did until I saw one of the other women in the party talking to him in an undertone. She was murmuring about something which was evidently serious to her, though he laughed.
"I leaned over to him and pulled at his sleeve. You know a thing like that will clear my head in a second."
"'Curt,' I said.
"Go 'way.'
" 'Won't you listen?'
" 'Im busy. Can't you see I'm busy.'
"'Well, I'm your wife, and I want you to talk to me.'
" 'Run along, dearie; later.'
"So that evening we had our first row on the way home. I was all in the wrong, but in the morning he came and apologized. It was so like him—I mean like the boy I had known in the beginning—that I began to care even more. I was not only his wife, but he treated me at times like a sister.
"The next night we were to go on another party, this one larger than any we had both been on together. As usual, we had cocktails before leaving the apartment. I forgot to tell you,
didn't I, that we kept my place in town as well as his country house? That was one of his ideas. Well, this night I suddenly got afraid, and I didn't want to go. Curtis was getting to be too much for me.
" 'Let's not go this evening,' I said.
" 'What?'
" 'Let's not go.'
"'Why not, dearie?'
" 'I'm tired.'
"'Tired?'
" 'Yes. It isn't any wonder, either.'
" 'Of course we won't go, then.'
" 'Do you mind?'
" 'No. I don't mind. But it would have been good fun.'
"He was keenly disappointed, and I knew it; I knew, too, that I couldn't keep him away from that sort of thing long. He had started fast living and was making up for all the years he had missed. You can see my position, and it was a curious one for a bride, wasn't it? I was beginning to feel that I was living a nightmare. You see, the trou- ble was that I loved him.
"Well, I finally made up my mind and planned accordingly.
"One night, about two weeks after that, we went into the country again for Saturday and Sunday. I had bro- ken my contract with the manager of the company, and he had been nice about it. But I didn't expect Curtis to see the best side. He was standing at a cabinet examining a bottle when I spoke to him. Remember that this was less than a month after the night he proposed to me.
" 'Jack,' I said, 'I have given up my part.'
"'What do you mean?' He didn't move his eyes from the bottle.
" 'I mean I resigned—broke my con- tract.'
" 'Why?'
" 'Because I am going to have a _ baby.'
"'Crash! went the precious stuff all over a new red carpet, and my husband was on his knees beside me."
Suzanne had, by accident, as she was talking, knocked a glass off the table,
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80 LOST LOVE
and while the waiter was clearing away the splinters, she rested and sipped some water.
"Yes. He kneeled over beside me, and while we remained there in that po- sition, I seemed to feel, well—a sort of revelation. I seemed to see the glory of everything: love, children, the world and its people—I knew that I loved, and I knew that I could never go back again to the existence I had left, the life he had found me in. Those few seconds were beautiful. For the mo- ment I was a sort of God. And in that moment, while I was glorified, my hus- band was realizing the inadvisability of our having a child. He mentioned it to me, even.
"Anyway, I changed. I had always rouged and painted; now I scarcely powdered. I had always dressed lightly and so thinly that part of my reputa- tion was based on the fact tha the tops of my black silk stockings were vis- ible through my gowns; but now I wore what I thought was modest, and be- coming to a mother. I stopped drink- ing, and I stopped telling stories and saying things I wouldn't have wanted my future baby to hear. I didn't go out. All I did was sit by myself, or motor out into the country, or talk to Curtis.
"And Curtis was bored and didn't want to be with me any longer. Where- as he had craved my company every minute in the old days, now he was glad to be away. He didn't recognize in me his former companion.
"I suppose it was different. Be- fore, we had always greeted each other with long kisses and things like that when we met after being apart for a few hours. But now, I was so quiet, and—oh—the kisses were different.
"He gradually grew away from me. Little by little he took to spending his evenings in town.
"By the time my baby was born, he was running around with the gayest set in town, a lot of my old 'friends.' He was never sober enough for the idea that he had a family to sink into his head.
"You can see what it must have been for me. One evening he came in about three o'clock . . . then he said he would give me my divorce.
"It was just two weeks later, before the papers had been served, that he asked to talk to me. I was living in his country house, and I thought that it was only right and fair that I let him say what he wanted.
"He came in and I hardly recognized him. He had been in a sanitarium for two weeks.
"We talked. He was sorry, almost broken-hearted.
" 'Suzanne,' he said, 'it's all my fault, and now I realize it. We have a baby. It's born of two people, both of whom have played fast and loose, and one of whom is changed. The other wants to change in the same way. Will you let me? If you don't, there's only this same life left for me.'
" 'You want to change, Curtis?'
" 'Yes.'
" 'You think I could go on with you?'
" 'If any woman can, you can.'
" 'Yes, perhaps.'
" 'You are big enough.'
"'Curtis, can you change? Can you be a father and a husband now? I realize that you married one kind of a woman and had another kind for a wife.'
"He said that he thought he could; but he couldn't, and so he gave me a divorce.
" 'You still love him?' I said.
"'Yes, I do.'
"'Such is the way of women.'"
Suzanne smiled absently.
It suddenly struck me that there was rouge on her cheeks and lips, and blue over her eyes. I also noticed—I couldn't help it—that her dress was cut low, far too low for the daytime. wondered whether she realized how low it was. She must have read my thoughts, for she remarked:
"I'm back again."
"What do you mean: on the stage?"
She nodded.
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LOST LOVE 81
"The same kind of part?" She nodded again.
"Why? Do you have to? You must have got a pretty decent alimony."
"I did."
I waited for an explanation, but none came until a week later when I again ran across her in the street. She was looking prettier and faster and smarter than ever, and this time she came up to me.
"Hello, there!"
"Hello, Suzanne. Haven't seen you for some time."
"No? Have you been in town?"
"No."
"Did you sell the story?"
"I didn't write it."
"Why not?"
"Because you never finished it for me"
"Oh!" she laughed.
I didn't care how many people saw me with her that day. She was stun- ning!—and, anyway, my friends were mostly out of town.
"How are you?" I ventured.
"Well. And you?"
"The same."
We walked on, silent.
"You look like the old Suzanne, all right."
"I am."
We must have gone another block without a word. Finally she said:
"Do you go on wild parties any more ?"
"No," I answered.
She gave me a kind glance and took my arm. Her question had reminded me of my own unhappiness, and she understood.
"Why do you ask?" I queried.
"Because I was going to ask you to come with us tonight."
"Who'll be there?"
"Four men," we walked ten steps, "and Curtis."
I saw the situation. We walked the rest of the quiet way arm in arm.
And, when we parted, we were both a bit sad.
The Right Thing
By Frank La Forrest
JONES was not a brilliant man; some would call him stupid. Yet he had one predominant quality. He was never caught napping. No matter what happened—good or bad—he had something to say. He had a comment for everything. He always said, "Damn."
NO woman is hopeless so long as she can laugh at her husband.
S. S.—Dec. 6
[Page 082]
Heredity
By T. F. Mitchell HIS great grandfather on one side had translated the Bible into the Polyne- sian. His grandfather had been a Baptist minister. His father had worked earnestly for Prohibition. His grandfather, on the other side, had converted thousands of happy heathens to Methodism. His aunt had found happiness in many moral crusades. With an ancestry such as this it was inevitable that heredity should show itself. He kept the police of two continents busy.
Nocturne
By Jean Allen
UP from the shore, Across the windy downs, Night followed us In trailing robes of thin soft blue. The croon of the sea was about our ears: The tang of the wet wind stung our faces: And the path led over the hill To the stars.
Between the clasp of your hand and mine, Lay trust, As deep as the sky: And in my heart, Love, A shining flame, As steadfast as the island light, Circling great arms Towards infinite space.
MARRIAGE is the surest device in the world for proving to a man that he is always wrong.
82
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The Beanstalk
(One act of a play)
By John Chapin Mosher
As you remember the story, Jack began to climb at once the beanstalk that had grown so suddenly from this world to another. But the story does not tell how Jack, becoming a little tired half-way tip the stalk, lay down to rest on a leaf rather broader than the others. The stage where this scene is played is on that leaf, and one may see from the audience still others leading upward and down- ward in a gigantic green circular stairway, the thick heavy stalk rising rigid through the center.
As the curtain lifts, Jack comes about the turn of the stalk. He wears a grey and scarlet gherkin, an impudent cap, and carries a staff of heavy oak. He pauses a moment and appraises this resting-place, then peers down around the stalk whence he has come.
JACK It is a long journey. (He peers up the green stalk, pats it af- fectionately, and speaks to it.)
How strong you are.—I have a long way yet to go.
(He throws his staff and cap on the floor-like leaf, squats, and rips a crust from the loaf of bread he has carried in his wallet.)
I need not hurry. I can eat now. (He munches a moment with keen rel- ish. But even here one may not be altogether undisturbed. Jack grows suddenly aware that someone des- cends the stairway of the beanstalk, and quickly he distinguishes a girl's voice.)
Girl (singing as she comes down) I sang a song. And they laughed at me, Three hills and a tree, Five birds and a bee— They laughed at me. —I sang the song.
JACK
A girl—here. (She comes about the corner, and stands still on seeing Jack. She wears a stiff starched pinafore and her hair is drawn back from her forehead in- to two neat braids. Under one arm she carries a huge book, really much too heavy for her. Altogether she is much the sort of person who is not unaccustomed to a civic order of things where fairy godmothers upset the schemes of committees, and dwarfs control, and individuals oc- casionally drift into naps that last a hundred years. Or, if she does not wholly understand it, as some of our intellectuals have been compelled at last to acknowledge, at least she has gown a little grave in an effort to seek the meaning and the cause and the effect of such conditions.
Because each understands the sig- nificance of their meeting here, neith- er stirs at once, but they stare silently and even fearlessly (for they are young) at each other. At last Jack speaks..
83
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84 THE BEANSTALK
JACK We are half way between the worlds.
THE GIRL I know.
JACK And when a boy and a girl meet half- way between the worlds, they love.
THE GIRL (nodding) For that is what love is.
JACK (rising gallantly) Won't you sit down?
THE GIRL (stepping down on the leaf) Thank you. I will. (She gladly puts down the book, and sits on it beside him.)
JACK I am not surprised somehow to meet you here.
THE GIRL If I had not thought that I might chance upon you here, I should not have dared to leave my world.
JACK To dare to leave your world, that is to come half-way to love.
THE GIRL (suddenly) Poor boy, it was harder for you. You had to come up the beanstalk.
JACK (manfully) Pooh—I am not tired.
THE GIRL Such a long way.
(They lean over the edge of the leaf and gaze down.)
JACK How far away it is. And how small the houses are. I never knew before— I never saw it until from this high dis- tant place—how small a place my own
town was, and how wide the world spreads out beyond it.
THE GIRL That is where you lived?
JACK There, where the poplar trees give way a little. And there the road winds past the mill. And there's the grave- yard; from here it is as level as the square we dances in. That white straight line across the hills is the great highway. Even from here we cannot see its ending.
THE GIRL But I am content now not to see any further.
JACK And is your world like that one also?
THE GIRL We too have squares to dance in, and graveyards and long white highways that lead away across the hills.
JACK (with a new alarm) Surely it cannot be the same as mine.
THE GIRL (sadly) It looks as though it were—but I am quite sure it is not. There is no one like you there.
JACK Ah no—there is no other world like that. There could not be.
THE GIRL (suddenly) Why did you come away?
JACK I can run. I can run swifter than any lad on our countryside. And I would run in the morning—outrun them all in the morning. Swift over hills—swift through the bracken—till, there in the breast of the hills where a pool is, I'd stand for an instant, strip bare and then—and then, then as the first rays of dawn hit the water, I'd
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THE BEANSTALK 85
dive—deep with the sun's first days I'd [s]ink, down through that water.
THE GIRL Yes—yes.
JACK They did not wish me to run. They wished me to go at dawn to the mill, and at noon, still they would hold me they would hold me at the mill. But at [n]oon I was far away, where the berries hang red and full on the briars, and the grass grows cool in the shade of for- ests and woodlands without an end. And at night, though sometimes I danced on the square, I sought rather, yonder, the strange black ways where only the stars will venture to guide, where the gnomes grope forth from their mines in doubt whether flowers that last but a day have a charm their gold has not also.
THE GIRL And they did not wish to allow you this?
JACK They told me I must be wise—that I must learn the precepts of the sages, that I must build myself a red-tiled house and toil at day to make the grain grow rich and ripe. They talked so much of what this world is. But do I not know as much as they of this world? Do I not know of the depths of the pool, of the flat purple lilies that grow in the marsh, and the drawings of shadows the evenings make? And their precepts-, why what do they tell of the rain in your face, or the touching of hands in the dance? I was young and they warned me of living. Is to be young a time only to learn to be old in.
THE GIRL (shaking her head fiercely) They did not understand you.
JACK But you—? Why have you left your country?
THE GIRL In my book, this book, I wrote my thoughts, the thoughts that stole to me
in the night, that creep over the grey hills to me, that the wings of the swal- lows told me. Oh, it is a great wisdom. But they would not listen to me.
JACK (in amazement) They would not listen to you?
THE GIRL I went to the councillors, and I stood before their great council tables where they pondered their affairs of state, and I told them the magic of play, and the truths of unbelievable things, of the prayers in children's gestures, and the wisdom in old women's eyes. I told them the love that a soldier has for an enemy's strength, and the nimble way a laughing word could make them friends forever. I begged them to seek that beauty that huddles beyond palace gates. I told them the gospel of streets and of common troubled peo- ple. And I told them the unsaid things in the stories they told them- selves.
JACK History?
THE GIRL Yes—history. What it was the Sleeping Beauty feared when the Prince wakened her, why it was Cin- derella danced best of all her last dance —and the music that each strand of hair played to Rapunzel's lover.
JACK You must have helped them greatly in their counsels.
THE GIRL They were too old. They would not listen. And at last I took my book and came away. I could not live in a land where the wise would not listen, and the young might not speak.
JACK Ah—it is that way in all worlds.
THE GIRL But I shall make them listen in your world.
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86 THE BEANSTALK
JACK (dubiously) How?
THE GIRL I shall, because of you.
JACK Me?
THE GIRL For I have learned why the wings of the swallows beat a tune on the winds for me, and why the night whispered to me. It was for you. It was that I might go to your world, and tell them of you, how wise the waters and the woods had made you—that I might show them what they had not seen— the clearness of your eyes and the pre- cious strength of your hands.
JACK (leaping up) And I see too what I must do. I shall force my way to those grey coun- cillors, and place your book, with the thoughts the night whispered to you, and the swallows' wings beat out on the winds for you, before their old eyes. And they will not dare not to read. They will not dare. For that is why I have been made strong, and why while I was young I came half-way to live.
THE GIRL (also standing) Then we must part now.
(They are silent before this terrible logic. At last Jack says:)
JACK I cannot. I shall go back to my land with you.
THE GIRL No. When you have met love in the place between two worlds, you may not return to your world.
(This is so very obvious to them that they do not question it, but after an- other moment's silence Jack stoops and picks up the book. As he does so, he noticcs the rim of the leaf.)
JACK There are clouds in the West, but
still the sun scorches the vine. See, the leaf has a yellow edge.
THE GIRL You must climb slowly, and not let the sun beat too hot upon you.
JACK I am glad that the leaves of the vine will shade you. See, they droop a lit- tle, and they will fan you gently as you go down.
THE GIRL Then we shall meet—?
JACK Yes—when the councillors have read your book, and brought a new happi- ness to your world,—
THE GIRL And when your world begs that you return and run again across their hills—
JACK We shall come here again,—
THE GIRL To this place between two worlds.
JACK For that we are strong, we live, and our journeys are not overlong.
THE GIRL And if I am late, will you wait me?
JACK Could I do otherwise here? And will your journey up be overwearying?
THE GIRL Ah, no, for I shall be on my way to you.
(Very solemnly Jack bends to her and kisses her once on the lips. Then he seizes her book, and hands her his staff. They stand a moment in part- ing, silent. Then the girl turns to the downward step of the stairway of leases. She waves him her last fare- well, and disappears about the stalk. As she descends she sings.)
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THE BEANSTALK 87
THE GIRL (singing) I sang a song— And they laughed at me, Three hills and a tree, Five birds and a bee, They laughed at me. I sang the song— Oh—I sang the song.
JACK (jubilantly) "I sang the song"—
(He catches the book firmly under his arm and turns to climb. As he does so, he pauses a moment to run his hand caressingly about the great stalk, suddenly stopping short.)
That was not there before, that rift- ing in the stalk.
(He looks out over the sky.)
Those clouds move swiftly toward the sun.
(From far below the girl's voice comes up to him.)
THE GIRL I sang the song—
JACK What have I to fear now?—"I sang the song"—
(He takes the first step of the leaves with a vault and runs up the stair- way gaily, balancing the book on his shoulder. But the clouds were mov- ing more swiftly than he thought, and a darkness spreads all at once about the vine, and the heavy stalk
trembles in the storm. Sounding still clearly through the darkness come the voices of the boy and the girl.)
JACK (from above) Sing, little girl, sing.
THE GIRL (from below) I am singing—singing all the way.
JACK Only a little while, and then it will be light again.
THE GIRL I can hear you, boy. Down here I can hear you.
JACK And your song comes even here to me.
THE GIRL (at last) I have reached your world, my boy. Where are you now?
JACK (a moment later) Your song gave me a new swiftness —it has brought me, too, to your world.
THE GIRL Only a little while—.
JACK Yes—only a little while, and then we shall come back again. (A great gust of wind drowns their voices, then passes, carrying with it the storm clouds. Again there is light. But the storm has worked its will, and through the very center a great rift cuts in half the beanstalk.)
ALL women have a secret hope that people regard them as just a bit dangerous.
A FRIEND is an acquaintance who is on the way to being an enemy.
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The Reward of Modesty
By James Dallas
HER name never appeared in letters more than half an inch high. She alluded to her own ability in the most disparaging fashion and regarded a press agent as the height of bad taste. Her picture never decorated cigar boxes; she preferred to bathe in water rather than in milk; she had a holy horror of divorce. Every night after the play she drove straight home. As a model young woman of excellent character it would have been hard to find her equal. As an actress, she was a dismal failure.
Dusk
By Irmengarde Eberle
THE wind is coming home Old and walking slow Quietly over the houses And quietly through the street, Passing the silent trees And over the broad fields.
The wind is coming home The old familiar way. Tenderly touching the earth And kissing the sleep-drug'd bay, And wondering how he ever went So heartlessly away.
The wind is coming home. Still he has far to go. He has been out to the ends of the earth And now he wonders why. The wind is getting old And he has the heart to die.
88
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Two Gentlemen of Caracas
By L. M. Hussey
I
IN the city of Caracas, at that time, the two most prominent and power- ful politicians, after the president of the Republic, were Ruiz Valdivieso and Jesus Maria Perez.
When the news spread through the city that for no apparent reason the son of Valdivieso had insulted both the daughter and wife of Perez in pub- lic, and that young Valdivieso had been taken off to jail, there was quite naturally an intense interest on the part of everybody, an eager expect- ancy. The curious part of the affair was that the two men were in no way political enemies, but held their posi- tions in the ministry through an amal- gamation of their separate influences, a confederacy.
Both had been in their day powerful caudillos and there were still plenty of Valdiviesistas and Perezistas who would have followed either of their leaders through any adventure. The news of the insult was carried about very rapidly; the fashionable cafes were at once the centers of voluble speculation.
Ruiz Valdivieso's son was in the hands of the police: what would Ruiz Valdivieso do?
As a matter of fact the father of the incarcerated boy was at that moment on his way to Perez's home, having previously talked with him over the telephone. The acquaintance with his son's escapade had come to him very quickly after its accomplishment. He was astonished—and immensely an- noyed. He dismissed his informant with more curtness than the fellow
really deserved and then stood alone in his study, pulling at his long moustache and occasionally biting his full lips.
No explanation occurred to him for the action of his boy. Moreover, what- ever provocation he might have had, the act, so far as his father's interests were concerned, was unjustifiable. Ruiz Valdivieso understood his posi- tion with complete clarity.
He was not the Secretario General through the love of the President, but because of that Excellency's fear. And alone the chief would not fear him— would doubtless be strong enough to destroy him. He was powerful be- cause he was the one half of an ap- parently indissoluble confederacy, Pe- rez the other. He had no wish, above all things damnable, to break with Pe- rez.
He cursed his son liberally, walking up and down the large room with a dark frown on his dusky countenance. Finally he went to the telephone and called his friend's home. The Gober- nador himself answered.
"Hello," said the Secretary. "This is Ruiz. How are you, my friend? Of course you've heard all about his ex- travagant business?"
"Yes—what the devil is the matter with your son?"
Valdivieso snorted into the receiver.
"The good God only knows what happened to the boy!" he exclaimed. "A boy is a terrible trial! You may be sure I had nothing to do with it. I want to come over at once. I want to apologize."
Perez laughed.
"Well, I'm relieved," he said. "Come over anytime. There will be a lot of
89
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asinine talk going around—we must make our position very plain."
A few compliments were exchanged over the wire and the two receivers were hung up.
Valdivieso went to the mirror and examined his face in the glass. He carefully straightened his white tie, smoothed down his shirt-front, whipped a fleck of tobacco stain from his upper lip. He looked less perturbed; he felt more assured. Perez had doubtless been as worried as himself.
He walked down the long flight of steps and got into the car that was waiting in front of his chalet. The car pulled away and swung into the street. Two or three men observed his depart- ure, recognized him, and looked after the disappearing automobile with keen interest.
"No doubt he is going to the police," they said.
But Valdivieso had so far no sym- pathy with his son and was content that the boy should suffer the humiliation of a night in jail. Naturally, he would be subjected to no severities. It would probably be a good thing for him.
So the father, smiling a little now, looked out on the avenue and leisurely contemplated the crowds on the side- walk. El Paraiso was still crowded at that hour. The bands in the public squares had just finished playing, the opera had let out a short time before, and thirsty men were hurrying for their nightly tables at the cafes. The lighted city lay like a gay jewel be- tween the impenetrable shadows of the mountains that flanked it on either side.
Perez lived on the same street, the street that housed most of the promi- nent people of the capital. It was not long before the car drew up at his door.
The Gobernador was waiting and the two friends shook hands with a com- plete and relieving cordiality. Brandy and soda was served to them at once, in tall glasses, and they sat down to talk.
"Have little Heraclia and the Se- nora returned?" asked Valdivieso.
Perez nodded. He sipped his brandy with a smile.
"Yes? Then they've told you all about it. I've heard nothing but the barest facts myself. What did that wretched boy do?"
The Gobernador touched the arm of his friend with a caressing gesture. He continued to smile amiably. Larger than Ruiz Valdivieso, older in appear- ance, his big body, composed in the chair, had the effect of profound solid- ity and impressive calm.
"Never mind the boy," he said. "Don't call him names. What about my own son? Doesn't he get me into hot water at every turn? It is the way with these youths when their spirits are high and they have the pride that comes with good blood and a good name. I more than suspect it was a little re- action of jealousy!"
"Jealousy? What do you mean?"
"Well, my friend, I think your young son has had part of an eye at least on Heraclia. ... I think so. . . ."
"Ah? You never metioned this. . ."
Perez laughed; his face was ruddy from the effect of the brandy and his good humor.
"No. I've been waiting. And the confounded girl—bless the good God you haven't a girl; they're more worry than any boy—has probably been a lit- tle cold to him. I don't know; I haven't questioned her. But this is what happened. The women had de- cided they didn't care for the opera tonight and had given the box to the Hidalgos, who have a houseful of friends from Argentina. Then they changed their minds. I secured them tickets in the parquet and Heraclia and my wife got themselves ready and left at the usual time. When they were taken to their seats they unexpect- edly found your boy sitting on the aisle.
"My girl was in front of her mother and she stood for a moment, expecting your son to rise and let them pass. But the infant spread out his legs and ig- nored them! It would have been neces- sary to climb over him!"
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TWO GENTLEMEN OF CARACAS 91
"The impudent whelp!" exclaimed Ruiz Valdivieso.
Perez laughed again. He took a swallow from the glass in front of him and looked about the room with an ap- praising and contented glance. He en- joyed his home, he enjoyed his posi- tion, and the momentary threat to his security was proving more of a mole- hill than any mountain. His geniality expanded.
"Well, and then," he went on, "He- eraclia's temper is no soft one, and she called an attendant and ordered your son removed. The boy showed signs of intending to fight the fellow then and there. So, of course, the police took him off. He's probably home by this time—you'll find him when you re- turn. While you were coming over I telephoned to Herrara and told him I had no complaint against the boy— told him to let him out."
A few further words on this topic, and the two friends began to speak of other things; they progressed at last to their favourite theme, political in- trigue. Their commingled voices made a sonorous hum in the lofty room.
Perez sat at ease in his large chair, his impressive bulk accentuated by the expansive gestures of his big, jewelled hand.
The Secretary, lean, nervous, rest- less as a jaguar from the mountain for- t of the Avila, moved about his slen- est hands in a lithe accompaniment to der speech, jumped now and then out his chair and paced the room rapidly, resumed his seat with a feline swift- ness.
The two were illumined by the sub- dued aurine glow of a lighted dome suspended on brass chains above their heads. They looked picturesque, con- inspiratorial, two intriguing figures out of an antique time.
At last Ruiz Valdivieso arose to go. his friend stood up and accompanied him to the high folding doors of the room. A servant brought his hat and coat. He walked out into the corridor alone.
As he approached the vestibule, he saw a slender figure standing there like a morose shadow. He recognized Pe- rez's son, Cesar, a boy somewhere near the age of his own child. The young man was facing him, but seemed not to see him. Ruiz Valdivieso smiled at the shadow.
"Buenas noches," he said.
There was no answer. He walked down the steps to the garden in front, frowning a little, considerably sur- prised.
A half hour later, undressing for bed, he attached no significance to the incident. Perhaps the boy, in some abstraction, had not seen him pass.
II
But Cesar Perez had seen him very plainly, and heard him say good night with open ears. By his own volition he had not chosen to acknowledge the greeting of the Secretary's nod, nor his parting words. It did not matter to him that his father had determined to ignore the insult at the opera; he thought less of his father for that. If his parent, for purposes of policy, was not conscious of the honour of their name, he himself was now old enough —and young enough—to be acutely aware of it.
And young Julio Valdivieso had an- noyed him more than once in the past. Now he had committed an act of direct aggression.
Cesar's ardent and romantic imagi- nation conceived a score of requitals, all of which seemed trivial and inade- quate. He was doubtless awake in the house longer than anyone else that night. He lay sleeplessly in his bed, turning from side to side, like a young forest animal, watchful in the night, waiting in a hidden lair. When he finally went to sleep he had not yet de- termined on a satisfactory course of action.
He did not see his father in the morning. He breakfasted with Herac- lia, who related again, with indigna- tion, the incident of the preceding
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night. Her brother said nothing; he ate in silence, staring at his plate with a savage animosity.
The girl, rather careless of his atten- tion, sensing nothing of his inner thought, expanded upon her theme an- grily, for the mere pleasure of vehe- ment speech. At last she began to talk of something else and presently Cesar arose and left the room without a word.
He had learned now that through some error young Julio Valdidieso had not been set at liberty the night before; he was to leave the jail that morning. So much the better for his own pur- poses; it would be easier to approach him.
He put on his hat and went out very quietly.
He had an idea it was not yet too late to intercept Julio. He hurried to the Plaza Bolivar, half running along the street, his soft hat pulled down over his eyes in the manner of a French Apache. He did not slacken his pace until he was in the square itself and then, crossing over to the cafe, he stood under the gaudy sign that read Cerve- ceria, lounging and waiting.
On one corner was the old cathedral; he had no eyes for that. He looked in another direction, toward the sinister pile of stones that marked the jail, keeping his gaze on the door.
Two soldiers walked languidly up and down in front of the building, passing and repassing each other. The sunlight laid a gold calm over the square. A faint smell of incense, sug- gesting the lure of pagan rites, drifted out of the open door of the cathedral and was lost in the immensity of the warm morning air.
And then Cesar saw young Valdivie- so in front of the jail. He must have come around from the side; he ap- peared there quite suddenly, like a hated apparition.
Cesar's romantic pride sent a quick rage like a hot current through all the intricacies of his veins, into the very tips of his slim fingers. He saw Julio walk past the two guards with an erect
and contemptuous carriage; he saw him turn the corner and disappear. Then he ran directly across the square swiftly, turned the corner himself, and directly in front was the slender back of his antagonist.
he made no cry of warning, but leaped upon him like a springing cat. Julio, unexpectant, collapsed immedi- ately, and the two went down to the ground with a thud. Cesar had buried his hands in the hair of his enemy, and endeavouring to deliver upward kicks with his bent legs, he meanwhile pulled ferociously at the thick, wiry strands.
The pain was very great, and tears rushed out of young Valdivieso's eyes, blinding him. He was lying flat on his face, unable to free his hands. A sav- age body squirmed on top of him, thrusting a pair of cruelly sharp knees in his back. He had no idea who had attacked him. He was astonished and more than that, the obscurity of the onslaught sincerely frightened him and he now began to fill the air with screams for help.
Windows were raised; women's faces appeared; men came running out of the buildings. The two soldiers left their stations in front of the jail and hurried around the corner.
Cesar felt himself seized from be- hind and in a moment he was pulled from the prostrate form beneath him.
But the tenacity of his hold upon Julio's hair was such that a liberal amount was forcefully detached and came away in his hands like a trophy of the engagement. One of the guards held him by the arm. The other helped Julio to his feet. An eager crowd gath- ered and recognizing the boys, began to laugh.
Julio, staggering upon the enclosing arm of the soldier, was blinded a mo- ment more by the tears that rolled out of his eyes from pain, from rage, from fright. And then, a second before the two were led off toward the jail, he saw Cesar Perez. He understood everything; his mind was illuminated as by the sud- den appearance of a searching light.
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TWO GENTLEMEN OF CARACAS 93
III
Herrara, the governor of the na- tional prison, was extremely annoyed when he learned that his charge of the night before had been returned to him, with an additional burden of equal weight, the son of Jesus Maria Perez also. An orderly told him of the ar- rest and he kicked the fellow liberally for bringing him such unpleasant news.
"Che Cebron!" he exclaimed.
The orderly retreated with an anx- ious precipitation.
"These caudillos!" cried Herrara, in the privacy of his office. "They keep a man's soul in perpetual tor- ment! Here I have both the precious devils of their sons in keeping. And God knows how they'll look at me for having done my duty!"
The only thing he could do was tele- phone the two parents immediately. He talked to them with many respectful phrases.
Perez was the more amiable, which was natural. He felt that his boy, af- ter all, had had some justification. He laughed when Herrara gave him the news and asked him to be good enough to release both the young men at once. Then he called Ruiz Valdivieso
The Secretary, a more excitable man than his friend, was considerably per- turbed. He had heard all the details of the attack and was angry at the vic- iousness with which Cesar Perez had mauled and pummeled his son. It seemed to him highly unnecessary, un- provoked, brutal—and he remembered the refusal of the young man to speak to him the night before.
He pulled nervously at his ponderous jet moustache and certain half-thought suspicions came into his mind and em- bittered his outlook, like an unexpected and sinister shadow falling across his footsteps. He had no faults, he had no confidence, he suspected all men; suppose Perez, the Gobernador, were not the open, sincere man he seemed! Even one of his position might be capa- ble of petty treachery!
However, he concealed his irritations
when Perez talked to him. The Gober- nador was actually jovial; his sentences came over the wire between the punc- tuations of his heavy laugh. Scowling, drawing down his jetty brows, Ruiz Valdivieso could imagine the man as he held the instrument in his hand— the fat, yellow face smiling obscenely, the paunchy belly shaking with his mirth. He had an extreme difficulty in keeping the phrases of his answers within a required suavity.
"Well, Ruiz," said Perez, "we thought we had settled the whole affair between us last night—but we reck- oned without our boys. I suppose it's better anyhow, eh? They've worked out their own justice and now we can feel more easy."
It was necessary to agree, but when the Secretary returned the receiver to its hook, his irritation was shown in the savage and abrupt click of the instru- ment.
When his son appeared, however, he showed no softness, no amelioration of his temper, no leniency. He glared at the young man with a ferocity that was easy to one of his ardent nature. He demanded to know if the boy, through a continued exercise of his imbecile folly, desired to ruin him, to break all his important connections, to drive him into a tangle of inextricable difficul- ties.
Julio was frightened and impressed, and his private plans for a swift re- venge were for the time overshadowed by the vigour of his father's words. He determined to wait, to bide a more pro- pitious occasion.
At this point the regrettable affair might have settled down into a state of indefinite suspension, had it not been for an ironic act of young Cesar Perez.
When the guards had pulled him from the prostrate and howling form of Julio, a little of his adversary's thick hair had come away in his hands. On the way to the jail he had thrust this trophy into his pocket. Finding it there a few days later, he was immensely de- lighted; he took an acute pleasure in turning the dozen or two threads be-
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94 TWO GENTLEMEN OF CARACAS
tween his thumb and finger and think- ing of the admirable requital he had taken for Julio's dishonorable aggres- sion.
And then there came to him a sar- donic inspiration. His dark eyes gleamed joyfully as the thought oc- curred to him; his face was illumined with a Rosicrucian grin; he jumped up from the chair in which he had been seated and hurried to his desk.
He searched for letter paper, and wrote these words without salutation, signature or comment;
‘"Here are your wires. I return them to you."’
He placed the note, with the threads of hair, in an envelope, and mailed them to Julio Valdivieso.
The letter was duly delivered to Ju- lio. His rage, on reading the scornful words, on finding the uprooted hair, transported him into a frenzy of un- reasoning anger. He was malignantly insulted, he was flaunted, he was de- fied. He remembered all his ills, all his injuries at the hands of the Perez fam- ily-
He recalled a scene with the girl He- raclia, confided to no one, and the shameful rejection of his ardour came back into his mind like a poison, like the toxin of a malign disease. The re- straining influence of his father was no barrier adequate to the damming of his abounding animosity. He spent the day in bitter and torturing thoughts, in extravagant planning, and when even- ing approached he dressed carefully, with a sinister deliberation, and went out to find Cesar Perez.
He took his way down El Paraiso. that admirable avenue, on which at this time of day his enemy would most like- ly be discovered. It was still twilight, but the arcs of the city were now light- ed, adding the glamour of artificiality to the glow of a departing tropical sun.
Looking down the avenue he could still discern the luxuriant green mounds of the hills that rose up out of the val- ley like billows of verdure, melting at last into the sides of the city's two mountains. People were coming out of
their houses; the bands in the squares were beginning to play; many pedes- trians, in passing, recognized him and spoke to him. He acknowledged no greetings; he walked as in a sublima- tion of abstraction, his countenance dark and intent, his purpose astonish- ing in its direct simplicity.
He came to the southern end of the boulevard, into the region of popular cafes, and now his eyes moved about actively. He searched all the faces in the passing crowds.
He approached one of the larger cafes, La Espania, and here fortune served him. He was near the door, looking about, when he observed an automobile draw up close to the side- walk. His eye caught the heraldic shield of Perez embossed upon the pol- ished door of the car. Within the ve- hicle he saw the Gobernador, another man—and Cesar.
His face flushed violently, his fingers tensed into two fists, he seized his low- er lips between his bared teeth. Ob- serving that the trio were about to alight from the car, he drew back into the shadow of the canopy that hung over the entrance to La Espania. The two men got out of the car first; Cesar, who had been driving, followed them. They crossed the pavement toward the cafe.
Then Julio disclosed himself.
He emerged from the shadows like a cat from concealment and with low- ered head rushed at the young Perez. His arms were outstretched, his fingers were curved like clutching talons, his body was bent forward.
Cesar did not see him and would have been taken inevitably by a com- plete surprise had it not been for the quick intervention, of his father. But old Perez, with the long custom of wariness, with the habit of ceaseless alertness, never suggested by his obese exterior, saw the enraged boy the mo- ment he emerged from the shadows of the canopy. His huge arm was sud- denly interposed like an impenetrable barrier; the unseeing Julio collided with it like a futile wave; he staggered
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TWO GENTLEMEN OF CARACAS 95
back, he raised his face and stared.
Then Perez, describing a circle with his arm that seemed scarcely more than an expansive gesture, swept him off his feet, tumbled him to the pavement with a ludicrous ease. A crowd was collect- ing; a policeman hurried up.
The oliceman recognized the Gob- ernador and saluted him. Perez ut- tered a few contemptuous words.
"Take this young ruffian where he will be safe," he said.
And young Julio was pulled to his feet and like the victim of the same recurrent disaster, was led off in im- potent confusion. The other party proceeded into La Espania.
IV
The Secretario General of the Re- public, Ruiz Valdivieso, had gone that afternoon to Guaira, the seaport nearest to the inland city of Caracas No one knew of his departure and it was conse- quently impossible to communicate the news of his son's third incarceration. At Guaira he concluded certain private business and then, going to the sea-side home of a friend, spent the balance of the afternoon in agreeable conversation with his friend and two or three ac- quaintances.
The day was unusually warm and the comfort of the company was ac- complished by the frequent service of tall glasses of iced brandy-and-soda. They sat outdoors, in a little latticed pa- vilion that opened to the sea; an over- tone of waves breaking themselves on the short cliffs mingled with the sound of their voices.
The conversation went into reminis- cent channels; Ruiz Valdivieso re- tailed his days as an active caudillo, days and nights in the saddle and anx- ious hours. He drank brandy-and-soda out of the tall glasses and his heart warmed with reminiscence. The old days of difficulties, of hardships, of uncertainties returned in vivid remem- bered pictures; his gestures grew lar- ger, his eye brighter, his carriage more erect. They toasted his old suc-
cesses; he gave them a hearty response.
As the hours passed it became in- creasingly manifest that such an agree- able company could not be immediately disbanded. The Secretario General made a suggestion: why shouldn't they all accompany him back to the capital- very little more than a two hours' ride —and conclude the evening pleasantly at La Cerveceria? No one could think of anything better than this; they hurried away together to catch the next return- ing train.
In the car fresh glasses of brandy- and-soda were brought them and the conversation continued with the ut- most communion of feeling. The Sec- retary's friend had seen service as a young man in Peru and he related his experiences. He told of an amusing adventure with the wife of his Colonel; the talk turned to women. Now they grouped themselves closer together, their dark faces flushed, their eyes brighter, their glances suggestive.
They told many isolated anecdotes; they went back to the memories of their earliest affairs; they constructed gen- eralizations. All agreed on one thing pertaining to the Latin females: the French women were the most lascivi- ous, the Spanish women the most lov- ing, the Italian women the most pas- sionate. If you were unfaithful to a French woman you probably found that she had got ahead of you anyway with another man; if you were faith- less to your Spanish mistress she would often try to kill herself; if you were untrue to an Italian she would more than likely try to kill you. . . . The train pulled into the terminal at Cara- cas and the friends alighted arm in arm.
They took a taxi to the Plaza and got out at the Cerveceria.
Ruiz Valdivieso led the way into the cafe. The tables were crowded; many voices vibrated in the air in an harmonious hum. A score of people recognized the secretary, and outting down their drinks, pausing in whatever words they were saying, suspending the gestures of the moment, they stared
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at him. They fastened their eager eyes upon him in surprise, in expectancy, in curiosity.
For a moment he was oblivious to the stir he was making and then, meet- ing gaping faces on every hand, he stopped short in the center of the room and frowned. He looked about him angrily, scanning the staring faces at the tables.
Then a man named Silva, an old valdiviesista, came hurrying to him through an oblique channel of silent tables. After a moment the Secretary observed his anxious approach and concentrated his stare upon Silva's pro- pitiatory countenance.
"What the devil is the matter?" he asked.
Silva came very close, he bent for- ward, he spoke softly into the ear of his chief.
"You haven't heard the news then, Senor?"
"Ah?"
"Listen, Senor; I learned of it less than an hour ago. I heard it from one who saw the whole affair. Julio is im- prisoned again! Your friend, Senor Perez, attacked him in front of La Es- pania. He knocked him to the pave- ment with one sweep of his arm and then caused him to be taken to jail. I had this from a very good fellow who saw the whole affair. Everyone knows; ask anyone, Senor!"
Ruiz Valdivieso stood erect and frowning, staring at his inform- ant.
There was no change in his contract- ed visage, unless it were the slight deepening of the ruddy colour in his cheeks. His friends closed around him; there was an eager chatter. In the midst of his companions, like one lost in the contemplation of remote con- cerns, Ruiz Valdivieso stod in utter silence.
At last he took a step toward an empty table a few yards distant. Stop- ping abruptly, turning suddenly, he made a gesture for Silva to follow him. The fellow and his friends trailed be- hind him to the table; they sat down
and Silva stood at the side of his chief, respectful and waiting.
For a few seconds the seated man, the center of all interest, was silent.
Then he turned to Silva and spoke.
"Antonio," he said, "you can serve me very well."
"Si, Senor."
"I want you to go to my home," he said.
He paused, he stared at his hands that lay spread out on the table under his eyes, "and get my revolver," he added.
The valdiviesista turned sharply and hurried out of the restaurant. The old caudillo was silent. A waiter ap- proached and with glances of eager curiosity took the order from one of the company. He returned after a mo- ment with fresh glasses of brandy-and- soda.
Ruiz Valdivieso raised his glass and drank the beverage in a long uninter- rupted swallow. He replaced the glass sharply, raised his eyes, and stared at the faces of his attentive friends.
"Caballeros," he said, "this man whom I imagined was my friend has taken this means to insult my name; I don't know what he imagines, what he proposes, what his schemes are. Cer- tainly he underestimates, unhappily for him, the decision of my character. When Antonio Silva returns with my weapon, I shall go to La Espana and shoot him at his table!"
He paused again, looked down for a further second, raised his eyes once more.
"However, he must know," he said.
"I wish one of you would go to the Es- pania and tell him what I intend."
There was a second of hesitation, but finally one of the company stood up and glancing at the others for a hesi- tant instant, turned and walked slowly toward the door.
The waiter brought fresh drinks.
An eager, exclamatory conversation broke out like an eruption of pent-up talk among the remaining companions at the table.
Ruiz Valdivieso said little. His face
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TWO GENTLEMEN OF CARACAS 97
assumed an implacable harshness and an unswerving determination. All his suspicions were confirmed. He did not seek to comprehend the motives of Pe- rez—they might be a hundredfold. His experience had taught him that intrigue and treachery were above everything the immutable characteristics of politi- cal life in the Republic.
This deeply understood truth was the explication, in general, of every- thing. In his childish trust, in his in- fantile absence of suspicion, he had al- lowed the initiative to grow in the hands of the other. The affair had progressed to the situation of open and flaunting insults.
His face grew harder, his lips fur- ther compressed. The waiter returned for a third time. He drank his brandy- and-soda as before, in a single swal- low.
And now he saw Antonio Silva re- entering the cafe. The man approached him swiftly and stood in silence at his elbow. All the company understood; they arose.
Ruiz Valdivieso, gripping the edge of his chair, stood up. His sight blurred a little and here was a singing in his ears; he remembered suddenly that he had been drinking since the af- ternoon. His legs felt a trifle unsteady. Two of his friends, divining his need, took his arms. Together, in a waver- ing progress, they moved toward the door
Silva, with admirable foresight, had brought his chief's automobile. They all got in with deep gravity and were swiftly driven away.
V
The night air, blowing against his face, made the senses of Ruiz Valdi- vieso swim. He closed his eyes; he was weary; he felt incapable of action. His hand, flexed and inert, pressed lightly against his coat pocket, touch- ing the bulging contour of the revolver that had been thrust there by Silva. He breathed heavily; his head fell a little to one side. About him were his
friends, conversing in sputtering inco- herencies.
They turned into the boulevard. The car proceeded down the broad avenue silently and swiftly. In front, the chauffeur turned and looked back ex- pectantly. The motion become slower; they stopped. The men in the back turned their heads and stared.
They had stopped before the lighted front of La Espania.
Ruiz Valdivieso grasped the cush- ions of the car and pulled himself to his feet; he alighted heavily; his friends supported him and in doing so support- ed themselves. They zig-zagged across the pavement and into the cafe.
Near the entrance they sighted Jesus Maria Perez, seated, drinking, sur- rounded by his friends.
He had been drinking steadily all evening and when the news of the Sec- retary's intent was brought to him, the service of drinks had been accelerated. Someone had brought him a weapon for his protection. Now it lay across his fat knees, shaded by the folds of the table-cloth, shadowy, sinister, sugges- tive. At a concerted exclamation from his companions, he looked up.
Ruiz Valdivieso was standing at the door.
Perez's friends jumped up and drew to one side. The two who supported the Secretary staggered away from him. Both men were left alone, a clear space around each.
The Secretary, bracing himself on his widely spread legs, looked at the blurred, flushed visage of his former friend.
The latter, gripping the edge of the table, arose with heavy lurches of his big shoulders.
Something slid from his knees and, unheeded, dropped to the floor with a metallic clatter.
For a moment the Secretary stood near the door, his body unsteady, his legs bending from time to time at the knees, his head twisting in a faint tremour. Then he passed his hand over his inadequate eyes and essayed a step further.
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98 TWO GENTLEMEN OF CARACAS
Perez's visage drew closer; he saw more clearly.
He saw the face of the man with whom he had fought against apparent- ly insuperable odds, with whom he had sat, in the early days, through long hours of the anxious nights, with whom he had been joined in an unbroken confederacy of many successful years.
His recollections flocked into his mind like vivid ghosts returning in a throng. His heart seemed to grow great within his breast, seemed to ex- pand and warm and soften until it pressed against his lungs and made his breath come short. The face of his old friend, of his ancient confederate, grew large before his swimming gaze.
He staggered forward. His arms were outstretched. The tears rushed into his eyes and overflowed upon his dark cheeks. He fell against the table, he fell into the supporting arms of his be- loved friend.
They clasped each other in an em- brace of fraternity and love. They cried upon each other's shoulders; they pressed their moist cheeks together. Their friends drew about them. An- other table was pulled up; the waiter brought fresh drinks. A toast was made to Perez and every man drank it. Another was made to Valdivieso and the glasses were emptied. Someone be- gan an old Italian song of battle. . . .
After midnight, heaped into two au- tomobiles, the party set out for the jail. Someone had remembered Julio, and it was proposed they all go and secure his release. The Gobernador and the Secretary sat in one car with their arms about each other and their heads rest- ing upon their two shoulders. They complained in ineffectual voices that the night was chill, that they did not want to go out. They demanded where they were going; they wanted to know what it was all about. . . .
The Source
By T. F. Mitchell
ON a raw, blustery day in December, he clambered aboard a Fifth Avenue 'bus and made his swaying way to the top. Engrossed in the moving panorama below, he neglected to hold onto his hat and suddenly a gust of wind blew it off. He gazed after it with indifference and made no attempt at salvage. Getting another was such a simple matter. He dined in a res- taurant every evening.
ALL men, of course, are fools. But they are reminded of it a good deal less often if they remain single.
INTELLIGENCE is a faculty bestowed upon man in order that he may hide his imbecility.
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The Years Ahead
By Muna Lee
ALONG time ago Emily Scott had ceased to expect happiness through herself; it was for that reason perhaps that she dreamed con- fidently of an abundance of joy through her children; especially through Mar- jorie. The girl, touched with the won- der of youth, was amazingly unlike her mother in appearance; only the mother herself realized how like they were in reality and only the mother remem- bered how, through the difficult un- lovely years of Marjorie's sickly baby- hood she had comforted herself with the thought,
"She will repay me for all this some- time—when she is my big girl—"
The years while Marjorie was grow- ing up had been scarcely less difficult. Life was hard at every point in that rough country to which they had pur- sued an elusive promise of fortune or an elusive longing for change, for more vivid life—Olin Scott himself hardly knew which—and Emily was too busy trying to soften the rigours of circum- stance for her children to question much or to philosophize at all.
Marjorie did not make the struggle easier, as a little girl. She was not one of the round, merry, kissable children who are playful and comforting as a puppy. She was not even a pleasant child; shy, intensely reserved, apt to give way to passions of anger, distrust- ful of other children and distrusted by them, hers was hardly a happy child- hood. She found her one delight in reading, in reading as savagely and as ill-consideredly as a starving man eats; devouring whatever book came to her hand, then snatching at another.
Sometimes Emily was glad that her
child could plunge herself into other worlds than this of sticky clay streets and cramped wooden houses and never quite enough food at any meal; some- times it troubled her; and it troubled her deeply one day to find Marjorie poring over a huge mail-order cata- logue, pencil in hand.
"These are the things I'll get when I grow up," she explained in answer to her mother's questioning look. "We'll have curtains for the windows then and plenty of cups— I love cata- logues!"
"Don't let them make you unhappy," Emily cautioned gravely; and after- wards, picking up the order blank scrawled over in the angular childish hand, she read with blurred eyes the list marked "For Mother": gloves, a bath-robe, a blue velvet suit, a garnet brooch.
The hard years did not seem to harm Marjorie so much as her mother had feared: growing older, she lost much of her painful shyness and most of her distrust, and she even developed a sur- prising slender, dark-eyed attractive- ness. The cramped, uncomfortable house remained cramped and uncom- fortable: there was still nowhere to re- ceive callers except in one of the two bed-rooms; but on the occasions when Marjorie's turn came to entertain the Sunday-school class, Emily took down the bed, moved in a table from the kitchen, and spent the entire morning in toiling over cookies and blanc-mange. Her eyes began to fail by the time she was thirty-two from sitting up late at night to work on a dress that must be finished for a party, for a school ever- cise, for Easter—not always Marjorie's
99
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100 THE YEARS AHEAD
dresses now, for the other children were growing too; and Emily wasted much of her sight even on little Ada's clothes. She did not mind. Her chil- dren had so little that she was fiercely proud to give them herself—but it re- mained Marjorie to whom she looked most for repayment.
"When she is my big girl—" she would repeat to herself, old age loom- ing ahead of her as a state of rest, of security, of blessed inaction.
She hoped frankly that Marjorie would not marry. She herself had found little actual happiness in mar- riage. Remembering Olin Scott as he had been at twenty-five, an eager im- petuous lover in white flannels whose wooing had dazzled her into a tremu- lous certainty that happiness lay just ahead; viewing him dispassionately as he was now, honest, well-intentioned, in- effectual, the victim of a world in which he had too much faith; Emily doubted that any marriage could bring happiness to her child; and she craved happiness for Marjorie. That would atone for her own life; for poverty, and for work that had overtaxed her strength, and for deprivation upon senseless depriva- tion. If it must be, let her marry; but Emily was glad when Marjorie seemed not to care for the high school boys about whom her friends chattered, nor to find other company so interesting as her books, that amazing heterogeneous assembly in which "The Wandering Jew," "The Story of an African Farm," "Middlemarch," and Jean Ingelow's poems were the favourites.
Emily was never quite sure whether or not Marjorie enjoyed her girlhood. Contrasting it with her own, she be- lieved Marjorie must be the happier in spite of the unchanging poverty into which dreams ran as into a blind alley. Emily's parents had died when was too small to remember them. There had been no relatives; barely money enough to place her in a colourless, barn-like boarding-school where she spent year after year in sensitive loneliness. It was in the boarding-school that she had met Olin Scott's cousin, and, through
her, Olin Scott himself. Marriage had followed—and deepening poverty—and the increasing faith that she would realize the happiness of life among her children when they were grown and she might rest.
The fear which had visited her some- times in Marjorie's childhood, the chill- ing disbelief of life which engendered an apprehension that there might prove to be disappointment in the child's own nature—a fear induced by that unchild- ish reserve and those unchildish rages— passed entirely as the girl grew older. Marjorie was fine-fibred and sweet and true, of a most unusual quality—a qual- ity that only her mother's heart appre- ciated, Emily told herself, half-sad and half-proud. She and her daughter be- came all things to one another—above all, they were friends; and in that friendship Emily felt that the fulfil- ment of her dream was at hand.
After all, it was like Marjorie to fall in love swiftly and irrevocably. Real- izing the fact, Emily realized its inevi- tableness, realized that she should have foreseen it: and by a supreme and stern self-mastery, she was even able to be glad in Marjorie's gladness, to believe in the happiness ahead of her child as Marjorie herself believed in it; as she too had believed when Olin Scott whispered in the moonlight of a forgotten autumn.
Circumstances seemed to unite in fa- vouring Marjorie's chances for happi- ness: Jim was strong and big and gen- tle, with an appreciation of Marjorie's fineness of spirit which won Emily's love, and he was able to give Marjorie all those things which her mother had longed she might have during that pov- erty-narrowed girlhood. Emily was even able to face bravely the prospect of living half across the continent from Marjorie.
"We'll send for you every summer," Jim told her tenderly as her own son might have done, "and some day we'll arrange matters so that we shall all be together."
With that joy in prospect, Emily thought of the hard years behind, of
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THE YEARS AHEAD 101
the promise of the years ahead, and wondered self-reproachfully, that she could have doubted life.
"It will be worth it all," she said to herself tenderly—"My big girl—"
It was before the summer which was to have been crowned with that first promised visit that Marjorie died; died leaving her baby a few days old. Grief did not crush Emily; she could not have the luxury of giving way to grief.
After all, there were her other chil- dren, whom she loved, with their cease- less demands upon her time and strength. In the stricken sleeplessness of the first nights after Jim's despair- ing telegram, one gleam of solace came to her:
"Perhaps Jim will let me take care of Marjorie's baby," she said to herself. "Perhaps she will grow up to seem like Marjorie—"
Lines Written on a Day of Doubt
By Virginie Griffiths
THERE was a woman in the hospital today— One of the kind with satin slippers and Ideal perfume; And she thought we were "wonderful" and "truly angels of mercy." She would "just love to be a nurse." And now I am wondering— I am wondering just how much she would love Those three years of training; The long weeks of night duty With the terrible feeling about three o'clock in the morning That you must sleep or die. The worry on tonsil night for fear some youngster may hemorrhage. The Hamburg steak and poor coffee at midnight supper; The getting up during the day for lectures. And the out-patient service where you go down into the slums To help some Italian or Polish woman have her baby. And the operating room where you stand for hours on a tiled floor And serve an exacting surgeon— And then polish the instruments and wash bloodsoaked linen. And, after graduating, the living in a suitcase, With the constant companionship of a sick person—day and night. And men taking the attitude of "but I can tell you"— "You understand things of that sort." I am wondering just how much she would love it.
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Seeing Things
By John Temple
I REALLY must be suffering from hallucinations. When I started dancing with Florence I noticed that she had on white kid slippers. Of this fact I am positive. Yet when the music stopped and I happened to glance to the floor I could hardly believe my eyes. The slippers were a sort of peculiar mottled black!
On Winter Nights
By John McClure
ON winter nights when snow-flakes fall So quietly without, And the dim embers on the hearth Call, and dreams crowd about,
Then I take refuge from the snow In books of balladry And dream the dreams that long ago Old poets dreamt for me,
Turning the musty leaves to scan— Long dead the makers quaint thereof— Those courtly sonnets Italian And madrigals of love.
On all snow-haunted winter nights I dawdle until dawn O'er tales of tourneys and of knights And ladies love-begone.
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Aunt Ida
By Thyra Samter Winslow
I
ANDREW HUNNYWELL en- tered into matrimony with a com- plexity of emotions—the usual doubts and misgivings that assail the about-to-be-benedick plus a certain fear and distrust of the bride herself. He knew that marriage was a most serious step, under any circumstance to be pon- dered and weighed.
Usually, too, Andrew considered with a nice thoughtfulness each move that he took. Yet he married Ethyl Apperson, No wonder he felt he didn't understand even himself. No wonder the event thrilled him while it fright- ened—held out delightful possibilities of unknown dangers.
Ethyl Apperson was a New Yorker. Not one of the usual, five-years-out-of- the-West sort, Andrew was that kind himself. Ethyl had been born in New York City. It seemed unbelievable.
Until made aware of that fact, Andrew had taken it for granted that New Yorkers were added to the city by birth only on the East Side. The New York that Andrew knew personally was populated by others like himself; the ambitious, unappreciated, misunder- stood youth of the little towns. There was something to be distrusted, sus- pected, about the native New Yorker.
Andrew had been brought up with a distrust for all city folks. He had read stories and heard stories about "city slickers" and he had believed nearly all of them. The city was a synonym for wickedness. The villain was always a city man. The scarlet woman was al- ways a product and inhabitant of the city. Although he knew that evil wom- en and crime did exist in Piedmont,
Missouri, the town he admitted having honored by his birth, he felt that the crimes of Piedmont were moderate, de- cent, rural ones. Besides, they were always committed by people outside of his immediate social circle.
Andrew had been brought up in a decent Christian home. His father might come to table in his shirt sleeves, ornamented with red-covered rubber sleeve bands, but his mother, clad in a neat and above-suspicion two year old hat always went to church on Sunday morning. He was raised to regard the Saturday night bath as far more of a reality than material for rude humor. He didn't like Sunday-school, but it never occurred to him that he might rebel against it or omit learning his Sunday-school lesson on Saturday night, while the bath water was getting hot in two kettles on the kitchen range.
Andrew's older sister, Nellie, mar- ried Douglas Splicer (whose father was partner in the lumber mill), the year ambition moved Andrew cityward. The year before, his older brother, Sefton, had married Minnie Pelly, who had lived next door to the Hunnywells for ten years. The Hunnywells were solid citizens.
In New York Andrew got a job with a wholesale silk company. He was af- fable and neat. After a few years of metropolitan polish and learning of silk business jargon he became a competent salesman, which carried with it what Andrew thought quite a decent salary.
Socially, too, Andrew was well sat- isfied. On coming to New York, feel- ing the need of a helping hand, he had attended—once or twice—the church that his family had gone to at home. Then, realizing that the city church
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was not a social mentor and that, with- out his mother, he could sleep late Sun- day mornings, he stopped going.
Next, he looked up some former Piedmont people but found that they had settled into an uninteresting, de- cently Piedmont routine of living. That was not what he had come to New York in search of. After a little while he found his own circle, gay young blades from Akron, Piqua, Jefferson City and points west, all bent now, as he was, on "making good."
He met girls, too, a musical student from Monticello, Indiana; a teacher from Cascade, Wisconsin, taking a post- graduate course in pedagogy at Colum- bia University; a trained nurse from Livingston, Tennessee. He even met a chorus girl who had gone to school with Fred Millway in Tenaboya, Alabama, and an illustrator from Ashtabula, Ohio. In groups they went to the theater, descending from the topmost row of the gallery as their salaries ad- vanced, substituting for the glass of soda at a Liggett drug store a "bite to eat" at a jazz cabaret. If Andrew at- tended the theater and cafes usually visited by out-of-towners, biennial vaca- tionists, buyers and the like, he didn't realize it. He wouldn't have cared if he had. He felt he was "seeing life." He was a real New Yorker, the best kind.
There were other New Yorkers, of course—wicked ones, the ones that made decent, God-fearing folks shud- der, the sort his mother and father and Sefton and Nellie had warned him against,—the born New Yorkers.
So, from the first, Andrew knew the kind of a girl Ethyl Apperson was. His up-bringing warned him. His Pied- mont principles of decency cried out. She fascinated him—that was it. He should have fought against her. Yet, from the first, the web she wove proved too strong.
II
Andrew never even really "met" Ethyl in approved Piedmont fashion.
No one ever brought her forward, blushing hopefully, and muttered the cabalistic Piedmont formula, "Mr. Hunnywell, meet my friend, Miss Ethyl Apperson," at which Andrew and Ethyl should have completed the ceremony with a pert and respective, "I'm pleased to meet you," and "How dee do."
No. Ethyl came as a stenographer to Bernheim, Orlindorfer and O'Brien, Silks. She came unheralded, one Mon- day in September. She looked wicked, seductive, even at first glance—a tall girl with bright brown eyes and light hair and a way of looking at you that suggested half a wink. The third day there, Ethyl offered Andrew some chocolates and teased him about his tie.
Andrew should have kept away from her from that moment. He knew that. Three days later, Ethyl confided to him that she'd been born in New York and had never been farther away than At- lantic City.
Although the fact seemed unbeliev- able, it immediately placed Ethyl in the "other" class of New Yorkers. He knew she was a girl of no principles and with only a desire to lure men on. She had been graduated from a New York high school, which was about as far, educationally, as most of the girls he knew had gone. She had "com- pleted" her education at a business col- lege. But even the most alluring of city types need not be wholly without learn- ing.
Ethyl wore clothes far beyond her means, Andrew knew, and fresh flow- ers, even. He was accustomed to girls who dressed nicely and had felt that the girls he went with had style—but, well, Ethyl was different. The way she spelled her name for one thing— so sophisticated. And the way she'd pull her powder puff out of her purse, any time, and apply powder to her al- ways-too-white nose, or, pursing her mouth into a peculiar formation, apply a lip stick conscientiously, asking of anyone who happened to be around. "Did I get it on straight?" and then smoothing her lip with a glitteringly
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AUNT IDA 105
manicured little finger. She had a smile and side glance for every man in the office. What would Minnie and Nellie think of her?
Andrew found himself strangely un- der the spell of Ethyl. He squirmed, agreeably, under her charms. He found himself watching for her com- ing in the morning—she was always late—trying to get a word with her whenever he could, during the day. He couldn't break away. Her thin white hands, her too-red lips, her pert man- ners bewitched him. The other girls he knew in New York—New Yorkers now, but small town girls first—ceased to interest him. He could think only of Ethyl. He was as madly in love as a neat, decent little fellow of his type could be—and with a New Yorker named Ethyl. He was amazed at his own boldness.
Finally, he asked if he might call. He felt that this would be a test—would disillusion him. He'd see the kind of a home Ethyl came from—the spell would be broken.
"Oh, don't come out to the house," Ethyl said, "not tonight, anyhow. Aunt Mary and the three kids are there. Their apartment is being redecorated and the small of paint makes Aunt Mary ill. I'll tell you, let's have din- ner some place down here and go to the movies."
So—she was ashamed of her home— or not prepared yet that he might see it. Well, he knew that much, any- how.
That evening was the pleasantest Andrew had ever spent. The little French restaurant Ethyl suggested— she knew dozens just like it all over town—seemed mysterious, different. The motion picture theater seemed made just for the two of them. He loved the music, that night. The pres- ence of Ethyl, the fragrance of her— he'd never had such an opportunity to smell the perfume she used as in that semi-dark, warm theater—her little laughs, made him half dizzy. He reached over for her thin white hand and found it soft and very yielding.
She didn't pull away, with a joke, as other girls lie knew would have done. It was quite wonderful. Afterward, they went for a "bite to eat." Ethyl chose rather a quiet restaurant and said she "had to hurry home or her mother'd worry." She was a deep one, was Ethyl.
The outside of Ethyl's apartment house told him nothing. It was in a respectable section of Harlem, a six story building of red brick, ornamented with the usual white stone, the usual skeleton of fire escapes, the regulation vulgarly ornate entrance hall. Ethyl held out a slim white hand at the door of the elevator.
"Had a fine time, see you tomorrow," she said, as the elevator boy, a huge negro in a uniform several sizes too small for him, opened the door.
"That elevator man, bet he knows a thing or two he could tell me about Ethyl," thought Andrew on his way home.
He had an engagement with a cou- ple of "the fellows" the next night. The night after, he took Ethyl to dinner at one of the better hotels and then to a musical comedy. She had to go home immediately afterward.
"Some friends of Mama's are there for the evening and I promised to get home in time for the eats," she told him.
But, when they reached her apart- ment house, the slouching negro, the yawning elevator, she dismissed him again with a wave of her hand and a "See you tomorrow." Could it be pos- sible that Ethyl was leading a double life?
She seemed all right, of course, worked hard, was a good stenographer. Andrew knew that. And yet—of course, she spoke of her family, little things—her mother had been to a card party, some relatives had been there for dinner, her father had been over in New Jersey for a week-end of shooting with some friends from the place where he was employed. It didn't seem quite right. Andrew's father didn't go shoot- ing, his mother didn't play cards. He'd
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106 AUNT IDA
never seen one of Ethyl's family, even.
As the days passed, Andrew grew more fascinated, if possible. He con- tinued asking Ethyl to go places with him and she nearly always accepted. Once in a while, "a boy I used to go to school with" or "an old friend" had made a previous engagement. The day after these engagements. Ethyl some- times came to the office wearing a cor- sage of violets. Once, there was even a solitary orchid in the center.
Andrew suggested that he call on Ethyl at her home. She always had an excuse—relatives would be there and would tease them, her father wasn't feeling well, he wouldn't have a good time—why not stay down-town?
One night, after they had dined to- gether, Ethyl suggested that they go to see "There You Go Again," one of the newest musical comedies. Andrew consented readily. At the theater Ethyl looked around, searching for someone.
"There she is," she said at last
"Who?" asked Andrew.
"Mama. She said she'd be here. See, look up there, the second row in the balcony. See, she's waving."
So Andrew got the first view of his future mother-in-law. His heart sank, though it was no worse than he had expected. She was a large woman, with light hair arranged in an elabo- rate coiffure. Her dress was dark but it was rounded at the neck and was tight over an ample bosom. She was with a woman in bright blue and two middle-class men.
"Which is your father?" asked An- drew.
"Oh, neither one of those," Ethyl answered. "Papa hates theaters. You can't drag him inside. That's Mama's cousin, Mrs. Brooks, and her husband and her husband's brother. Mama goes with them quite a lot. Mrs. Brooks has a son just my age—maybe you've heard me speak of cousin Bert?"
It was even worse than Andrew had pictured it—Ethyl a born New Yorker, whose mother undoubtedly peroxided her hair and who went to the theater
with a man other than her husband. Imagine a respectable matron of Pied- mont, the mother of grown children, going to the theater with another man! And yet Ethyl was sweet and soft and fragrant—and, yes, Andrew even ad- mitted it, her wickedness, her urbanity, reinforced her other charms.
Andrew didn't want to get married. He had a comfortable but small apart- ment in Madison Avenue, which he called his "rooms." Before he met Ethyl he had spent pleasant evenings with a few of the men he knew, a sim- ple dinner, a vaudeville or a music show, or just talking in some cafe or in the "rooms" of a member of the group, or he had gone to odd parties. He even knew an artist or two and several people who lived in Greenwich Village. He took a girl or two to din- ner or the theater. He went to queer basement restaurants, calling the dirt and unpleasantness "atmosphere," or to queer, half-furnished "studios," sit- ting around until long past his usual bed time, drinking weak tea or argu- ing over books he hadn't read or things he only half understood, and calling it "Bohemia."
Andrew was well satisfied with him- self. He didn't want to get married. Yet, one night, of his own free will, he proposed marriage to Ethyl Apperson and Ethyl accepted him.
He didn't know exactly what brought on the proposal. It might have been a frequency of engagements Ethyl had had with other men, "A boy I went to school with" or "Mr. Jackson, who was at Helmar Jones & Company with me, an awfully nice fellow" or "a boy who lived in our apartment building when I was a kid, he's a young lawer now and awfully smart."
It might have been because Ethyl was Ethyl, sweet and fragrant and al- luring, with a background of city wickedness and city knowledge. Why, you couldn't tell what kind of a life Ethyl had led or what she might do. Maybe, even now, she was just lead- ing him on—with Ethyl things would be mysterious, attractive, fascinating—
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AUNT IDA 107
Ethyl, born in New York, a wicked city girl. . . .
III
The day after Ethyl accepted his proposal—it had occurred, most fitting- ly, in one of New York's gayest res- taurants, with an accompaniment of jazz and a half-dressed girl in pink singing "What Are You Going To Do About That?" she met him in one of the corridors of Dernheim, Orlindorfer and O'Brien and said,
"Andrew, just think, we're engaged and you've never met any of my folks. I hinted to Mama how things were and she says you're to come in Sunday for dinner and meet the family."
Andrew nodded. He had insisted, the night before, that they marry im- mediately—in a day or two, in fact. He found he couldn't get his mind on his work when Ethyl was there in the office. He didn't even care whether Mr. J. Ames, of the Ames Store, Can- terbury, Conn., ordered silk or not, when any minute he might see Ethyl, fresh, fluffy, passing by an open door. Ethyl wouldn't work when they were married—he had money enough for that. And Ethyl—what if she changed her mind about marrying him? It didn't seem possible that such a se- ductive, bewitching city girl would be willing to marry an ordinary fellow like him.
Once married, though, he felt he could breathe easier. He could man- age her. He looked forward to it—to toning down her city ways—her wick- edness, though he didn't know the form her wickedness or his instruction might take.
That Sunday of meeting Ethyl's peo- ple always remained a sort of a hazy nightmare to Andrew. He never quite remembered what happened. Ethyl, in a new white dress, met him at the door. Immediately he seemed surrounded by a pack, all barking at once. These gradually resolved themselves into peo- ple, Ethyl's people, her mother, blonde and rather fat, with a ready laugh,
over-dresed, red-cheeked, rather loud; her father, a tall, sallow man, nearly bald, who spoke little; half a dozen cousins, three or four aunts, an assort- ment of odd relatives. There was much laughter and talk, good natured teasing of him. and Ethyl, a taking for granted, a natural acceptance of Ethyl's "affair," pleasantries, then a dining table set with quantities of deli- catessen.
He got away, finally. Ethyl went to the door with him and, looking around to be sure no one was there, he kissed her.
"Did the folks frighten you?" she asked. "I guess it seems pretty bad, meeting them this way, but you won't get them all at once, like this, very often. You see, Mama has four sis- ters and they all have children and Dad has two brothers here in New York. You'll like them when you get used to them. We have lots of fun."
Andrew felt vaguely disturbed about the relatives, though he was too much in love with Ethyl to take them seri- ously. They did not fit in with his idea of Ethyl, however. There was noth- ing alluring, wicked, about them. To be sure, a few of the girl cousins were as slim and almost as fair as Ethyl herself, with the distinguishing mark of the "city girl." One of them looked every inch a screen vampire though she talked with a lisp, Andrew noticed. Still—so many respectable looking rela- tives . . . Oh, well, he wasn't going to marry the family, that was certain. The next day at the office Ethyl seemed as bewitching, as alluring as ever.
A few days afterward they were married. Andrew lay awake the night before his marriage, thinking of it. He was going to marry Ethyl! Ethyl! A city girl—with a past, like as not—with charming litle ways of holding her head, of flirting, of looking out of the corners of her eyes—Ethyl!
They were married in church. Ethyl's people had a favorite denomination, it seemed, though of course, they never attended services. Although it was not the same church Andrew had attended
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in Piedmont and though marrying a girl like Ethyl in a church seemed doub- ly wicked, Andrew was glad to write his people about it—he would keep them from finding out the truth, shield them. He would pretend that Ethyl was the sort of a girl his mother or Minnie or Nellie might know.
Only Ethyl's parents were at the mar- riage ceremony—Andrew had requested that. Ethyl wore a new suit, a charm- ing suit, Andrew thought. Her mother wore black, elaborately braided and trimmed in red and black beads, her father a suit of peculiarly ugly purple blue. Well, he was married to Ethyl at last!
At first, they went to live in two rooms in a small hotel near where Ethyl's parents lived—less trouble than housekeeping—just the two of them— so near the folks, too. The hotel was the Clifton, middle class, not especially well arranged or managed or furnished, with a small basement cafe. Ethyl had suggested this.
The first weeks of matrimony were quite as pleasant as Andrew had antici- pated, though perhaps a bit more mod- erate. Ethyl was sweet and loving and fragrant. Andrew thought she succeed- ed in hiding her evil ways quite well, and, though he looked for symptoms of badness, he admitted to himself that Ethyl acted quite the part of the model bride.
Andrew liked the Clifton, too, until meeting an old acquaintance a few weeks later and telling him of his mar- riage and where he was living, the ac- quaintance had raised eyebrows.
"Rather a shady reputation, the Clifton," he said. "Did you know that?"
"Indeed I didn't. We'll leave there at once, of course," Andrew had an- swered, but he had been secretly thrilled at the thought of having lived in a hotel of doubtful reputation. Of course Ethyl had known about the Clifton. Born in New York, there were a lot of things she knew.....
Andrew questioned her about the hotel that evening.
"Nonsense," she said, "I've known about this place all my life. Why, Jack Wilson, the boy I used to go with be- fore I met you—I went to high school with him, remember I told you—has lived here for years. A lot of other people I know, too."
Jack Wilson—was that why Ethyl had picked out the Clifton?
"Ethyl," he said, sternly, "you haven't seen Jack lately, have you?"
Ethyl giggled. "You silly thing, of course not. Don't make such big eyes at me, wolf, or I'll think you're trying to eat me."
But Andrew continued to be serious. "Ethyl," he said, "I 'm not going to dwell on this. But, if I ever doubt you, it's all off. You know what I mean. We—we couldn't remain together—if I—I suspected you. Of course I—I trust you. I just wanted you to know."
Ethyl tweaked his hair.
"Don't take it so hard," she said, and giggled again. "You bet it would be 'all off,' if you doubted me. The one thing I couldn't stand would be a hus- band who snooped or was suspicious. One suspicion—and—out you go."
She made a pretty little gesture of throwing him out of the door.
Andrew didn't say anything else. He didn't tell Ethyl he doubted her, but he began watching her actions a little closer. After all, born in New York City, living there all your life without the influences of a small town—Ethyl seemed innocent enough, now, but the corrupting influences to which she had been subjected—the way she had been raised—
They must leave the Clifton, that was certain. That would be a good first step to take. Andrew was sorry his "rooms" were not available, but they were just for balchelors. And, too, in passing them he had seen that the small swinging "For Rent" sign had been taken down.
Ethyl and he went house-hunting then. They finally found a small apart- ment near Ethyl's mother and her other relatives—not far from the Clifton— it was the part of New York Ethyl
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liked, she'd be lonely in any other part, she said. The apartment seemed quite comfortable to Andrew. There were five rooms, a living room of fair size, a dining-room with a great cluster of lights above where the table would come, two small bedrooms, a kitchen wearing a new coat of white paint and a neat bath.
"Just think how lucky we are, dear," Ethyl said, "one of Papa's brothers is with a wholesale furniture company and we can get everything at wholesale prices."
So their shopping did not prove as pleasantly romantic as Andrew had hoped. Somehow, he had dreamed of hunting through funny little shops for things. No, with the money Ethyl's parents gave her, with some Ethyl had saved for this very purpose and with his contribution, they had just enough to buy the things Ethyl desired, a big three-piece over-stuffed "set" for the living room, covered with green and rose imitation tapestry, a dining room set of six chairs with shiny black leath- er seats, a glassed china closet, an enormous buffet and a set of ivory enameled furniture for one bedroom and a four poster bed and "colonial highboy" in mahogany for the other.
There were bright colored rugs, too, and Ethyl bought yards of flowered chintz for curtains. Although he felt that something was lacking, when the furniture was in and the curtains up, Andrew had to admit that things looked mighty bright and cozy. He was quite well satisfied and enjoyed his lit- tle home until he met Daisy Mallory, one of the Greenwich Village artists he had known before his marriage.
He met her at a small tea shop where he lunched, occasionally.
"Don't tell me you're married," she gurgled. And, when he did tell her, she asked innumerable questions and finally asked about his apartment.
"We've got a mighty pretty little place," he boasted. "My wife's got good taste about things, a New York girl, you know, and her uncle's a mem- ber of a large wholesale furniture
house, so we got things at cost. Mighty good looking, too."
"Not—commercial stuff!" Miss Mal- lory gave a litle shriek.
"Well, we paid for it, if that's com- mercial," Andrew laughed comfortably.
"Oh, dear," said Miss Mallory, "do tell me about it."
Andrew told her a little, mentioning the overstuffed "set," of which Ethyl was so proud, the dining room "set," the bedroom things.
"How funny,"' laughed Miss Mal- lory, not at all politely, "Oh, you funny boy. You don't mind my laughing, do you, Andrew? Of course, in a year or two, you'll outgrow it and furnish again—but—a rocking chair—an over- stuffed rocking chair—and two com- plete bedroom sets—and a table with a pedestal and six leather-covered chairs —what a charming place you might have had, picking up odd things at auc- tion — good reproductions, even, a carved chest of drawers, an odd table, some painted things, a vase or two in lustre, some good-looking polychrome candlesticks—oh, well, you're young, you'll learn."
But the conversation left Andrew de- pressed. He hadn't guessed that his apartment was so dreadfully ugly or middle class. Ethyl—with her siren smiles and alluring red mouth shouldn't have had commonplace desires for "sets" and imitation tapestry—why, she should have had chiffon draperies—like some he'd seen in a studio, once, in Chelsea Village—and, why, a tiger skin, of course.
On the whole, though, Andrew was quite happy, the first year of his mar- riage, though it was not just what he had expected. There were no wild moments, no dark suspicions, no tan- talizing fears. Life became smooth, uneventful. Ethyl would meet him at the office for dinner, always charming- ly dressed, smiling. He didn't like the way she flirted with a new salesman named Brown and he watched her ra- ther closely while she was there, but, outside of that—
They'd go to a favorite restaurant
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for dinner, then, or the theater, but as Andrew found that it cost a good deal more than twice as much to support one than two, there was not much money for luxuries.
Other nights, they were invited to dinners or parties given by relatives or friends of Ethyl, stupid parties, usually, with poorly prepared food, too many people who laughed at nothing and all spoke at once, dancing, a talking ma- chine that ground out endless songs. Some evenings they spent at home, reading or talking, though, when some- one didn't drop in. Ethyl fell asleep along about eight.
Ethyl was not a good cook. She had been busy down town before marriage, and her mother, who didn't like to cook either, had said "Ethyl will learn like we all do, when the time comes." So Ethyl was learning now, using An- drew's money for experiments and the results were not all he hoped for.
But Ethyl was still soft and cozy and fragrant, though Andrew was not as thrilled over the perfume she used as he had been. It was expensive, for one thing, and, for another, she used too much of it. Her nightgowns always smelled of it and so did her hair and even the rooms.
But the worst thing about being mar- ried was Ethyl's relatives. Andrew rather liked Ethyl's mother when he grew used to her, though she always talked too loud, used too much per- fume of a grade inferior to that used by her daughter, and insisted on calling him "son." She went with them, occa- sionally, to the theater and laughed so heartily at the jokes that people turned around to look at her. And, too, she had an annoying manner of putting her arm around him, with heavy affection.
Ethyl's father was the least objec- tional relative Ethyl had. He used cheap tobacco and would smoke only his own, leaving the apartment reek- ing with it hours after his departure. But aside from that he was inoffensive, talking little, though he breathed rather heavily and had an habitual cough.
The other relatives—Andrew shud-
dered when he thought of them. They would troop in at all hours when they were least expected or wanted—pretty cousins with languid or affectionate suitors, for tea on Sunday afternoons, aunts dropping in for dinner, uncles coming over on Sunday mornings to borrow things. Ethyl's Aunt Mary was a disagreeable woman with a pert way of making decisions—but Andrew's abomination was Aunt Ida.
Aunt Ida was a widow, who lived alone with one son, Joe, a fat, lazy fel- low, Andrew thought him. Aunt Ida's most unpleasant characteristic, to An- drew, was a habit of asking questions. She'd ask questions about anything, everything, sometimes going on with another question without waiting for an answer, sometimes repeating her question, two or three times, each time in a shriller, more impatient voice.
Aunt Ida, too, would handle things, nervously, picking up the books on the living room table, little packages be- longing to someone else, small orna- ments. She would finger things, put them back, take them up again. She wore, always, several bead chains that clinked together unpleasantly when she moved or shrugged her shoulders, which she did frequently, or when she fingered them, which she did nearly al- ways when she had nothing else in her hands. Altogether, Andrew found Aunt Ida impossible.
Andrew spoke to Ethyl about her relatives, especially about Aunt Ida. Ethyl sulked a little, but promised to "see about it." After all, she pointed out, she couldn't tell her own people not to come to see her, could she?
IV
As time passed, Andrew found life growing more and more unpleasant. Disillusion came fast. Instead of the wicked person he had surmised, even perhaps hoped Ethyl to be, she settled down into commonplace mediocrity. She was heavy, stupid, dull, unimagina- tive. Of course—sometimes Andrew thought that the real Ethyl was far dif-
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ferent, that she was really all he had hoped her, that this was just a pose— but there were few evidences of it as the days passed.
Ethyl bought her clothes wholesale, though one of her innumerable rela- tives, getting them at splendid bargains, but quite robbing shopping of its charms. She always looked well when she was out with Andrew, well groomed, "citified." But, in the house, to save her clothes, she took to wearing rather dissreputable kimonos and house gowns, cotton things of no particular charm. She did her cooking in these, which were always too long and the hems were always dirty where they swept the floors. Her perfume, too, became more annoying and the one odor, for- merly so fragrant, became cloyingly un- pleasant and Andrew finally had to ask her not to use any perfume at all.
With relatives coming in to dinner or afterwards, "parties" he could not avoid without a quarrel, calls he was forced to make, occasionally attending the theater or having dinner down town, Andrew found himself in the center of a web of thickest middle-class respectability, dull, uninspired. When he was first married, he feared that his mother or Minnie or Nellie would have disapproved of his city wife. He was quite sure that they would disapprove now, not because his wife was the siren he had at first feared her, but because she was untidy, lazy, a poor house- eeper, shiftless.
Sometimes, Andrew would meet some of his old friends. To them he soon learned to give a tinted version of his romance. He did not dare admit the mediocrity into which he had sunk, a "little couple" in the midst of decent, middle-class, stupid, stifling relatives. If, by chance, his friends met Ethyl, well-groomed, flirty, laughing, they were able to believe easily Andrew's tales of excitement, happiness. But An- drew knew that his friends were living far more of a wild "city" life than he was. They had more money for one thing—Ethyl was not economical.
Then, too, Ethyl no longer enjoyed
the things he did. The cafes that were the loudest and fullest of color, that Andrew regarded as "the life," Ethyl began to think rather stupid. She could see nothing in the second-class vaude- ville acts that formed the features of the cabaret. She had been a vaudeville attendant since she was ten and the acts seemed to her, now, to lack inter- est and novelty.
If he had remained single, Andrew thought that he still might have been a part of real city life as he saw it. Gay Bohemian parties might still have been open to him. They were now—if he could go to them. He tried taking Ethyl to a few, but she called the studios "dirty holes" and didn't get on well with the women, saying they were silly and affected and finally refusing to go altogether. With Andrew's Pied- mont principles of how a young hus- band ought to act he did not think of going without her. Andrew knew that the life he was leading—getting up as late as possible to the ringing of an alarm clock, a hurried bath and a shave, a bite of poorly prepared breakfast, a day in the silk district, home to a poorly prepared dinner, with maybe a relative dropping in in the evening— was exactly the same life he might have led in Piedmont—any place.
Finally Andrew rebelled against one thing. His nerves were beginning to get on edge and he didn't sleep well at night. He wanted quiet, he said, and peace, while he was at home. Ethyl must keep her relatives away!
Ethyl sulked and cried but finally promised to try. A few cousins disap- peared, an aunt or so. But at no time were Ethyl and Andrew free from un- expected visits. Aunt Ida was per- haps the worst one. With only one son to look after, she had a great deal of time to herself. It was only natural she'd drop in to see her favorite niece, bringing a jar of home-made jelly, a home-baked cake—Aunt Ida had more domestic talents than her sisters—and then stay to dinner so as to see Andrew. Then, unless fat, slow-witted Joe called for her, Andrew would be compelled
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to escort her home, "just a step, you know," five long city blocks—and Aunt Ida usually chose a rainy day for her visits.
"Listen here," said Andrew one eve- ning after he returned from Aunt Ida's, "this has got to stop. I've stood for a lot. I won't stand for this any more. You get me—I never want to see Aunt Ida again—or hear her name! Cry if you want to. That's my last word."
Ethyl did cry, but she didn't know what to do about it. She had never seen Andrew quite so angry. Raised in the midst of her people, she thought it rather pleasant to have so many aunts and cousins, to be one of such, a jolly circle. But, in a vague way, she saw Andrew's point of view. The next day she spoke to her mother about it.
"Men are funny creatures," offered her mother, with the wisdom of twenty- five years of married life. "You've got to humor them. I hate to hurt Ida's feelings—she's a good soul, though she is kind of fidgetty. You leave it to me. I'll tell Ida that Andrew ain't well, that she'd better not go to see you, while he's home, for a while. Then, if she don't come in while he's home he'll be all right. You can be careful not to mention her name to him. Men are queer about likes and dislikes. You can go to see Ida once in a while, in the daytime. That'll keep her from feel- ing bad and straighten things out."
So—Aunt Ida was blotted out of the life of Andrew. He never saw her again. Ethyl, in her little recountings of daily activities, saw that they were free from the mention of this despised relative.
V
Things should have gone smoothly, Aunt Ida out of the way, but they didn't. Andrew grew cranky over trifles. Life was not shaping itself as he had hoped. Once more, he started suspecting Ethyl of small deceits, asking questions which he thought skilful, to ferret out her actions of the day. When he found that Ethyl's life was quite above sus-
picion, he grew more and more annoyed.
He wasn't saving money, though he had had several raises. This worried him. Ethyl's cooking did not improve, her gravies had a layer of grease on the top of them, her biscuits were heavy and tasted of baking powder, she preferred small packages of delicates- sen meats and salads to the big roasts and joints that had been the pieces de resistance of his mother's meals in Piedmont.
Ethyl's conversation, too, grew more stupid, tiresome. It was wholly taken up with telling what had happened dur- ing the day, the old friend she had met on Fifth Avenue, what Cousin Helen had bought for the new baby. This— was this life?
Andrew grew a bit pale. He grew more and more suspicious, though he knew too well how groundless his sus- picions were. He got to leaving the silk company half an hour before his usual time in order to call for Ethyl at the place where she had said she was going to spend the afternoon, a friend's or a cousin's or the matinee. That he nearly always met her or that Ethyl always produced a plausible alibi only made Andrew a little more sullen.
Ethyl, too, was a bit disappointed in the joys of matrimony. Before mar- riage, Andrew had seemed so jolly and friendly. She had thought that mar- riage would mean a good time and add- ing a pleasant husband to the little gath- erings of the clan, like Cousin Ruth's husband, Billy. Why, Billy could play the violin—even rag on it—he was the life of the party when they all met on Sunday afternoons or Saturday nights. They were all awfully fond of him. Andrew—why Andrew was ridiculous. It was all right, a couple going only with each other before marriage, but now—why, more and more, Andrew was trying to take her away from her own people. His friends—stupid folks from small towns, who thought New York a kind of a circus!
But, Ethyl resented most of all An- drew's attitude toward her Aunt Ida. It seemed so narrow, childish, obstin-
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ate. Aunt Ida's son, Joe, went to Den- ver on business and Aunt Ida, all alone, gave up her apartment and moved to the Clifton, where, in two tiny rooms and bath, she was near her many rela- tives and quite comfortable.
Now—if Andrew was only sensible, Aunt Ida could have come in for a meal with them, occasionally, as she did with the rest of the folks. Not often—not more than once a week or so. Living in a hotel is lonely. Of course, Aunt Ida had the rest of the family—but Ethyl disliked being the one member who could not invite her. It made her seem apart, different. So she got into the habit of dropping into the Clifton, when she knew Aunt Ida would be at home, talking to her, spending perhaps an hour. She liked seeing Aunt Ida, partly out of family fondness, partly be- cause she felt that she was doing some- thing Andrew objected to.
Ethyl dropped in to the Clifton to see Aunt Ida one Thursday afternoon on her way home from a bridge party. Her dinner was to be picked up at the deli- catessen store on her way home, so she didn't have to hurry about that—she hated cooking. Aunt Ida was at home and they had a pleasant little talk about the Carlson babies, who were getting over the mumps, about Jennie's engage- ment to a naval lieutenant, about the dinner Mary had given for Birdie Rogers. She kissed Aunt Ida good-bye quite warmly as she left, making no reference to Andrew's taste in the mat- ter of disliking in-laws. Then she tripped out—a very successful little visit.
In the lobby of the hotel, Ethyl met Jack Wilson, who was just coming in. She had known Jack for years and thought him a fine fellow, always jolly and polite. They talked for a few min- utes, standing near the desk as Jack asked for his mail.
"Which way you going?" asked Jack. "I'm going right home. I'm late as anything, now."
"You won't mind if I walk home with you? Too nice to go up to my room, weather like this."
"A block or two, not more than that. I've got some marketing to do and my husband—you don't know that man. If I walked home with a man he didn't know and he saw me—well, it wouldn't be safe, that's all."
So Jack Wilson walked part of the way home with Ethyl and they chatted about people they knew, plays they had seen, a new neighborhood moving pic- ture house.
When she had dismissed Wilson, Ethyl hurried into the nearest delica- tessen shop, bought some cold sliced tongue, some potato salad, baked beans in a little tin—one of the "specialties" of that particular shop—a few pickles and olives, a slice of raisin cake.
Andrew was there, when she got in- to the apartment. She heard him mov- ing about in the living room.
"Hello, dear," she called carelessly.
Andrew didn't answer.
She dropped her packages on the dining room table and hurried in to him.
"What's the matter, dear, not feeling well?"
She looked at his face. It was dark with anger, but there was something else there, too, a sort of triumph.
Ethyl looked at him, amazed.
"Whatever's the matter, Andrew?" she asked.
"You—you," he sputtered, and point- ed a finger at her.
She giggled. He couldn't be as angry as he looked. He must be fooling.
"What has got into you? What are you making faces for? And pointing at me? Cat got your tongue?"
Andrew grew a trifle calmer.
"Where were you, today, Ethyl?" he asked, slowly.
"Me? Where was I? Why, I went to Lucy McGibney's to play bridge. I told you I was going."
"Tell me the truth. It's too late for lies."
"What do you mean? That is the truth."
"Then—you went no place else?"
Ethyl remembered Aunt Ida.
She'd forgotten that. Aunt Ida had
S.S.- Dec.8
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been kept out of sight so long. She knew how Andrew hated the mention of her name. Still, even at that, An- drew hadn't told her she couldn't go there, but only that he didn't want to see or hear of her.
"Well, what if I did?" she said, pout- ing.
"What if you did? My God!" he burst out, running his hands through his hair. "What if you did?—my wife —my wife—I should have known when I married you—gave you my name— a girl raised and born in the city— still, I trusted you, married you—"
"Andrew, have you gone crazy? I can go to see Aunt—Aunt Ida, if I want to, without you acting like this, can't I?"
"Aunt Ida," Andrew gave a strange, theatrical laugh. "Aunt Ida, that's good! To think of you trying to put a thing like that over on me. Aunt Ida —sounds like one of those stories you read about—wife tells her husband she's been visiting her aunt—later on, trusting husband finds out aunt's been dead two years. Yes, I know. You can't get away with that — not with me."
"Andrew, you're not in earnest. You don't think—why—I did go to see Aunt Ida, really."
"Aunt Ida lives at the Clifton, I pre- sume?" There was a sneer in the words.
"Why, of course. If you'd let me talk about her, you'd know that. Been there for six months, ever since Joe went to Denver—"
Andrew was in no mood for listening. He understood—now. The scales had been torn from his eyes. Hadn't he suspected, from the first? Only today, at noon, he had told himself that Ethyl had been born in New York, that she must be bad. It was when he had passed his former "rooms" in Madison avenue and had seen the little swing "For Rent" sign that the thought had come to him. "Another fool gone into matrimony," he had mused, but the memory of the little "For Rent" sign had remained. He had
given up peace, freedom—for mar- riage. Such a marriage! Yet—hadn't he married a city woman? Well—now he knew the worst—this was the way out—and now Andrew knew that it was the way out he had been looking for all along.
Suddenly, Andrew's marriage be- came no longer a sea of mediocrity, of commonplaces, of annoying, middle- class relatives. It became metamor- phosed into his worst suspicions. If marriage had been middle class, regu- lar, that would have been all right, de- cent, respectable. But this—no, he had been fooled, tricked, all along. He had been the victim of a gigantic plot. He had been deceived into believing Ethyl a sweet innocent. She was what he had thought her from the first, a siren, a city girl, a daceiver. He was justified.
He picked up his hat from the table, walked toward the door.
"You—you city girl," he said, "you've found your match at last. You could fool me for a while, but evil comes out. I've been watching you, waiting. Tonight I was near the Clif- ton and I remembered what I'd heard of its shady reputation, although you denied it at the time. I passed on the other side—and from the door came my wife—and her old friend, Jack Wil- son—oh, I knew him all right, I'd had him pointed out to me when we were living there. My wife—another man— a shady hotel. They were laughing in- to each other's faces. And you try to put over that old stall—visiting Aunt Ida! I warned you what would happen if I ever doubted you. Some men would get violent. I'm not that sort. I'd leave a woman, that's all. I've been pa- tient, hopeful, trusting, but there is one thing that is absolutely sure—you can't change human nature—environ- ment and training always come out in the end."
Glowing with pleasant righteousness —a man with a deceiving siren wife, whom he had left, in a dignified man- ner, after just cause—Andrew went out.
As he closed the door after him,
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mechanically, he reached for his watch, He remembered that the superintend- ant of the building in Madison Avenue was always around until eight. It was quite seven. If he hurried, he
could get down and talk with him be- fore he left. Andrew hoped the rooms were on the third floor and that no one had taken them during the after- noon.
Rattlesnake Mountain Fable
By Maxwell Bodenheim
AUGUST sauntered down the mountain-side Dropping mottled, turbid wraiths of decay. The air was like an old priest Disrobing without embarrassment Before the dark and candid gaze of night. But these things brought no pause To the saucily determined squirrel. His eyes were hungrily upturned To where the stars hung—icily clustered nuts Dotting trees of solitude. He saw the stars just over the horizon, And they seemed to grow On trees that he could reach. So he scampered on, from branch to branch, Wondering why the fairy nut-trees Ran away from him. But, looking down, he spied. A softly wild-cheeked mountain pool, And there a handful of fairy nuts Bit into the indigo cupping them. With a squeal of weary happiness The squirrel plunged into the mountain pool, And as he drowned within its soundless heart The fairy nuts were jigging over him Like the unheard stirring of a poem.
A GIRL'S first kiss is always innocent. If she is destined for a brilliant career the second will also seem so.
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Heavenly Sophists
By Maurice Lazar
MRS. PRIMROSE was tranquil during her husband's loosely woven and thunderously shouted tirade. She was familiar with most of his characteristics, having lived many years with him, and his phrases were wasted on her. But her familiarity could not check her sudden fright when he dragged a bulky revolver from his respectable frock-coat and shook it be- fore Rockett's gusty nostrils.
"You dirty dog!" cried Primrose, who was an instructor in sociology at the university where Rockett lectured on Greek literature, "I'll show you that educated people have some principles. To compromise my wife this way! What a scandal! Couldn't you have refrained from dragging me into it? Did you have to force me to see what was going on? So callous—so shame- less! No wonder people have been pat- ronizing me. They knew! Oh, what shall I do? What will become of me?" He shook the revolver again and kicked Rockett's shins.
"Shut up!" he said as his wife's eyes pleaded for sympathy. "I want no word from you. You have been very indiscreet. A wife owes her husband discretion above all else."
He aimed another kick at Rockett, who was moving toward the door, and delivered it with unexpected energy.
Rockett's footsteps were accelerated. The kick was repeated. Rockett began to run. He trotted awkwardly into the hallway and then upstairs to the floor above. He was pursued closely by Primrose. Floor followed floor and soon they reached the gravel roof of the apartment building.
Through the open door of the sky-
light Primrose galloped with lowered head toward Rockett and battered him down and sat upon his heaving abdo- men. They occupied this singular posi- tion several moments before they could again breathe.
Still panting Rockett said:
"This is terribly ridiculous!"
The awesome distance from the com- plicated inhabitants of the restless city to the clear specks of light in the sky reminded Primrose of the microscopic quality of himself and his surroundings. The quiet night made him intensely conscious of his unhappiness.
"No," he said, "it's all very serious. You have made an ass of yourself. You have placed me in an embarrassing position. You used to be socially inter- ested in my wife. But your egoism was too much for you. It caught fire from the sparks of her flattery. You could no longer restrain yourself. Your attentions to her became very obvious; your conduct was insolently reckless. Now the three of us are undone. How trivial seem the things that lead us to disaster! You are a shameless fellow."
"Be gracious, old man," Rockett pleaded. "This gravel pinches my back. We are innocent, your wife and I. Believe me! We shared nothing other than an intellectual companion- ship. Your wife is a good woman and an apt pupil. She enjoyed my dis- courses on literature."
"Ha! She did not need you for that. I was always ready to serve her intel- lectual requirements. But it is too late. I shall have to divorce her."
"Don't be absurd. Your wife is amazingly virtuous. She has been do- mesticated beyond measure and is a
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sheep for modesty. You should hold yourself in debt to me. Please put up that gun. It is a hideous thing for a man like you to be handling. Be grate- ful to me. Few women have been amused as I have amused Mrs. Prim- rose. Consider the result: she has re- fined her sense of humour."
"Refined!" Primrose shouted, "how high do you find yourself in the univer- sal scheme? I feel like killing you. I really don't know what I shall do. Some day you will be done away with as Professor Corbell was. You re- member him? He was an instructor in physiological chemistry but had more women in his classes than men. I im- agine the men couldn't stand him. Like you, he was promiscuous—"
"That is not true," said Rockett. "Professor Corbell was never promiscu- ous in his relations with women, but variable. He was a profound man and his knowledge of physiology may have endowed his activities with colour and grace. He was familiar with the work- ings of Nature. That's why women liked him.
"Your assumption is false and dis- gusting. You can't know what women think of men like Corbell. You could never get their views of such men."
"I don't want their views," said Rockett. "Mine are sufficiently con- fusing. And my back hurts. Please get up and talk this over sensibly. You shouldn't speak of such things as wom- en's views. That is a very foolish gen- eralization. Women are personal and independent in keeping with their na- tures, as are most men unlike you. The intelligent women I have known have been naturally and unconsciously expe- dient and have never offended my deli- cate tastes with disquisitions on human conduct. And here are you, sitting on my middle, poking me with a revolver which you dare not use and complain- ing of my generous regard for your wife. Your mind is rich with miscon- ceptions. Your complaints are vulgar. They betray your ignorance of the laws of attraction by which life is incessant- ly renewed. It's bad enough for us all
that most human creatures obfuscate those laws of attraction with their moral classifications, without having a fairly intelligent person like yourself to help mortify the good cause of knowl- edge."
"By 'laws of attraction' you refer to your misconduct with my wife?" Prim- rose inquired grimly.
"Admirable. You not only witness but confirm my opinion of you. But why use the term 'misconduct'?" And Rockett sighed happily.
"Weren't you kissing my wife when I came in?"
"You shouldn't have come then. You should have come home later or earlier. Such details as the timeliness of your appearances can cause serious social upheavals. You should be more con- siderate of your wife. But joking done with, I was bidding Mrs. Primrose good-bye."
"You have found some other wife?"
"Don't be hasty. I was bidding her good-bye because she enjoyed the tales I read from the mythologies so very much that when I tried to explain their sources she became indignant. She wanted her scandal without intellectual trimmings—the misdeeds, so to speak, minus the moralizing. Instead of ap- preciating my learned but interesting explanations of the development of the ancient religions and mythologies she insisted upon having more stories like the one of Dercetis, the Assyrian god- dess, who reproached herself for lead- ing astray a nice young man and threw herself into a lake after giving birth to Semiramis. When I think of it, it is I who should complain, not you. Here I go and devote my efforts toward the broadening of Mrs. Primrose's views of life and for my pains I get into trou- ble. Of course Mrs. Primrose was at- tentive and all that. But her sympa- thies were unintelligent; they didn't go very far. It seems to me that most women are characterized by their limi- tations rather than their—"
"Oh, dry up! You are a nincompoop when it comes to sociology," said Prim- rose, "and know nothing, as I told you
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before, of what women think. Your generalizations plainly show how blind you are to the forces that govern hu- man society, so go right on and strengthen my contempt for you."
"I was about to point out," Rockett continued calmly, "that most women can be classified in so far as they make the pleasures of life tolerable, as witty, wise, ugly, comely, intellectual, vulgar, discreet and sometimes, but rarely, in- telligent."
"Unquestionably you are a profound ass!" cried Primrose, "and I can waste no more time on you. First you tell me not to generalize about women and then you go ahead and do so. You are a disgrace to the reputable name of so- ciety and if these were the days when manslaughter was common, I should unhesitatingly kill you. Your explana- tions of your conduct with my wife, or I should say misconduct, are incredible. Now my married life is a farce. I shall have to simulate an affection for my wife-"
"She won't notice the difference," Rockett interjected.
—"and respect her, although it will be very hard for me to do."
"By all means keep things as they were before," said Rockett, arising painfully from the gravel the moment Primrose stood up. "Live up to your moral code, for it is far more important that you remain a man of principle than that you stray enjoyably from the road of exemplary social conduct."
"I'm not ashamed of my obligations to people," said Primrose. "Maybe that's why I'm so stupid."
"Undoubtedly," said Rockett.
"And being stupid, I can't fathom my wife's purpose in speaking disdain- fully of you. She did that frequently, now that I think of it."
"Then you should have become sus- picious of me long before this," said Rockett. "Your wife is comely. Lack-
ing practically all the other virtues, she was obliged to resort to the most ob- vious subterfuges. It is very common for some women to deride the men whose welfare they secretly worry over. I don't know whether you get my mean- ing, but one of the stories that Mrs. Primrose enjoyed told the experiences of Queen Hippolyte, wife of Acastus, king of Iolchos, who accused Peleus, their guest, of making violent demon- strations of affection for her simply be- cause he had disdained her own over- tures to him.
"Now don't get excited," continued Rockett hastily; "Hippolyte was an aw- ful sneak and had a private grievance against her husband. Possibly that's Why she is said to have been witty."
"Well, I'm sorry my wife wasn't sufficiently sympathetic," said Primrose. "After all, the entire matter is hardly worth a second thought."
"Not even a first," said Rockett.
Mrs. Primrose laughed just then. She startled both men, for they had been unaware of her presence.
"I felt sure you would shoot him," she said wistfully, to her husband, "but I suppose I'm not worth killing a man for."
"I should say not," said Primrose un- comfortably, as he handed Rockett a cigar.
Mrs. Primrose regarded the men with much amusement.
She smiled cynically.
"I heard every word of your conver- sation. I followed you both and stopped at the skylight-stairs."
"Did he tell the truth regarding you?" inquired Primrose.
"Well, he forgot to say that I found him not at all exciting," she said.
Primrose laughed.
"But you agree with me, don't you?" Rockett asked mournfully.
"Come down to tea," said Mrs. Primrose. "You are a pair of fools."
[Page 119]
The Octogenarian
By C. Farley Anderson
HE was seated in the public square, dappled with sunlight that shifted through a tree over his head and enlivened his aspect with splotches of [fl]uctuant brightness.
He was very quiet, very composed; notion was no longer easy to him. His [th]in hands, all knuckles and tightly [s]tretched skin, grasped a thick cane; his black felt hat was pulled down to shade his eyes; his chin fell forward on his chest, where the white beard was [s]pread out like a handful of loose un- woven silk.
He felt the warmth of the sun and he enjoyed the quiet of the little park; these were his only sensations. There was no necessity for thinking in these moments and he preferred, to mental activity, the calm blank of his mind; after too many years of thought one tires.
In a vague, different way, he was conscious of other people in the square: two shouting children ran by his bench like the passing of swift little winds, a woman slowly wheeled a baby coach along the gravelled path, a boy and a girl sauntered by arm in arm—no one gave him any notice, and he required none. Here he could sit, without dreams without troubles, almost in nirvana.
Presently the sun fell slantwise over his shoulder and no longer warmed him quite as pleasantly. Then he knew the afternoon was nearly gone. He grasped the thick cane firmly, and pressing up- on it, stood on his feet. For a moment he was motionless, as his sense of di- rection was no longer acute. His hesi- tancy passed; he walked slowly out of the park, following the proper path.
His home was not far away, but
there were three corners to cross and it took him longer to finish the journey than one might have suspected. The crossings were always difficult for him; he was afraid of the street cars, the au- tomobiles, even of the horse-drawn ve- hicles.
He always made three or four trials at each corner—a step off the curb, a withdrawal, another abortive attempt— until the final courage for a dash spurred him to its accomplishment. Sometimes a younger person paused long enough to understand his predica- ment, and then, to his inner relief, he was piloted over the street in safety.
This afternoon, whilst still a block away from his home, the agreeable calm of the park passed, as usual, from his spirits, and his perturbation began—a vague uneasiness, a vague shrinking- His ill-defined emotion was in a mea- sure similar to that of a young boy who returns to his mother in the un- etsy fear that one of his recent esca- pades may have reached her ears. He tried to recall all his acts that day, be- fore leaving for his afternoon in the square. Now he remembered smok- ing his pipe near the front window; had he by any chance left it there, with the objectionable ashes blowing over the floor
A few yards from the house his pace became slower and he mounted the steps at last with an increased droop to his bent shoulders. There was no one on the porch, and he was glad of that, because a moment before he had made an unlucky discovery.
Just as he walked up the steps, slowly, with some slight pain in his
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knees, his downward-cast eyes had made out an unfortunate oversight. Before leaving that afternoon one of the rules had been infringed: he still wore his old, spotted trousers. That would anger Mabel, if she saw him. For some reason she was touchy about the neighbours; she said he "shamed" her when he went out "looking like a tramp." What did the neighbours care about him?
He made his way indoors safely, without meeting her, and going up- stairs in relief, changed his trousers at once. Then, quite tired, he sat down in a rocking chair, near his little win- dow; the last rays of the sun illumined his old face, sparkled in his grey ebard like points of coloured fire, and added to his aspect an appearance of venera- ble vision. Moreover, it warmed him again, and he began to doze. His mouth dropped open a little and a gentle snor- ing sound escaped sibilantly between his lips.
He was awakened by the repeated, petulant calling of his name; the shout ascended the stairs in a woman's fal- setto. He answered suddenly, and arose with an unsteady haste.
He was not yet entirely awake, and the room was a trifle blurred, the rec- tangular opening of the dark door wa- vered a little, but he stumbled through the hall, anxious to atone now by his promptness for the annoyance he had caused.
He descended the stairs as fast as he could, clinging to the balustrade; Ma- bel had returned to the dining-room when he got there and was already seat- ed; his son Jim was also at his cus- tomary place.
"Can't you try to keep awake when you know it's almost dinner time?" she said.
Her voice was sharp, irritated.
"Nearly every evening I have to scream my lungs out at you—I thought you were dead this time; I thought I'd have to come upstairs and shake you!"
He smiled a little, the customary smile of dull apology.
"The sun made me sleepy," he said.
"Then I wish you'd find some other time to sit in the sun!"
He sat down; he began to eat the food they put on his plate.
Presently Jim and his wife com- menced a conversation and he felt more comfortable—for a moment they had forgotten him. These were the in- stants of his greatest content—when he knew that he was ignored. Then the sense of his uselessness was less op- pressive and his fear of a misdemeanor less intense.
After a time, something that Jim said reminded him of an old circum- stance.
"That's like old Bell," he broke in. "He lived out in Warren county. When he ran for the Sheriff he pasted up pos- ters all over the roads that said: "Vote for Bell. You all know Bell!' I went down to see how the election turned and then I met old Hoss McCormack—he always snuffled a little when he talked. Hoss said to me: 'Snff . . .comin' to see how old Bell . . . snff . . . made out? Well . . . snff ... he got beat! We all knew Bell all right! We . . . snff . . . knew'm too well!' "
He laughed at the reminiscence; the others at the table were silent. Mabel leaned over to her husband and raised her eyes with an imploring significance, as if supplicating some higher power for a gracious deliverance. These tales were so old; they had been repeated so many times; what a real torture to hear them day after day!
Before dinner was quite over the bell rang; it was a neighbour with whom Mabel was to attend a picture show. The father and son were left at the table.
Jim removed a cigar from his pocket and began to smoke. They sat in si- lence; the smoke drifted across the room in undulating layers, rising and falling with invisible currents of the lazy air.
The old man pushed his plate away and sat with his hands' folded on the cloth, in a measurable content. While in this position he experienced a pe- culiar sudden dizziness; for a moment
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[t]he vision of the room passed from his eyes, as if the light had been swiftly [t]urned out. His head dropped forward, the swayed a little in his chair; a second later he felt Jim's supporting arm about him.
"What's the matter with you?" his son asked.
The dizziness was gone and the room had resumed its normal aspect. He raised his hand and passed it across his eyes.
"I— I don't know—" he replied, [s]lowly, in hesitation.
Jim stood near him a second longer and then, returning to his chair, took up his cigar and puffed rapidly, as if [a]nnoyed.
But the old man seemed to feel still the pressure of his boy's supporting [a]rm across his shoulders, even though Jim was assuredly sitting down, smok- ing as before. In some way, his senses were more acute and, irrationally, old memories came back to him. He looked at Jim; the face of the younger man changed under his scrutiny; he seemed to see him again as in other years, a boy, eager for stories about the war.
It must have been nearly a quarter [o]f a century since he had told one of [t]hese tales, true incidents of his own youthful experiences. When Jim was young he used to enjoy his father's re- cital of the exciting chase after Mor- an, with Hobson's cavalry—they each [h]ad forty rounds of cartridges. And [t]he fight above Cincinnati, when the [r]aider was captured. That was a long [t]ime ago, now—the days when Jim [li]ked these stories. An irrational sense [o]f doubt possessed the old man then, for an instant he wondered if his lis- tner could have been someone else, []o: it was Jim. But his boy had grown [ol]der, and forgotten.
He stood up slowly and found that he was unsually tired. His legs were [n]ot quite steady and his knees pained [m]ore than ordinarily.
With an unsteady gait he left the room, whilst the younger man remained his chair, still smoking.
II
Going upstairs he groped his way through the dark hall and found his room. All the street-lamps were glow- ing, but there was still a streak of dull light across the sky in the west. He stared out of the window; his white beard was nebulous in the gloom; his face seemed ghostly.
As before, his thoughts were turning back in vague reminiscence, to past years. He was thinking of himself, yet with the detachment of one who re- calls the exploits of another personal- ity. The fact of his youth, the events of his younger years, were not quite real to him. Time had carried him into a different world, from which the cir- cumstances of that former period seemed half fabulous.
Then, ascending through the scale of his years, he came to that more recent time—not over a decade ago—when Jim and Mabel had been married. With a dull, scarcely comprehended regret, he remembered the months when Jim and he had lived alone together. He recalled Jim's words, when the boy had confessed his intention to marry.
"You'll stay with us, Dad," he had said. "We both want you; you'll like Mabel."
For a short time he had really found the new arrangement agreeable. It was pleasant to watch these young people, their enthusiasm, their affection. They returned to him some measure of his own forgotten romances, gave him the precious emotion of living again, made lost moments come back in vivid recol- lections the faces of young girls, the sweet faint smells of perfumes, the sounds of stiff new silk rustling with a dainty tread.
He did not blame them or the change that had come; it was natural and he ac- cepted it with the resignation his pro- longed lie had taught him. Many times he knew he was too old, many times he understood his helplessness, and his burden to these others: before that problem his helplessness was accentu-
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ated. There was no solution that he could devise.
Hours seemed to have passed; he stirred in the chair and his legs, his arms, his back felt intensely weary. He stood up—the former giddiness re- turned. He clutched the bed until it passed and then, undressing slowly, lay down at last to fall into an uncon- sciousness that went from waking to sleeping in imperceptible stages.
But the next morning, when he opened his eyes, he discovered that something had happened to him in the night. He tried to sit up in bed, but his body would not obey the command of his will. He repeated his effort sev- eral times, with no success.
Then, for a time, he lay very quiet, wondering, puzzled. At last he endea- voured to call out; his lips moved un- evenly and only a strange, incompre- hensible sound passed between them.
Now he understood, in a way, what had happened. He made no further efforts to rise or speak. He waited pa- tiently, for Mabel to come in and find him.
The time passed very slowly, but she entered his room at last. She stared at him a moment, an irritable question shaping itself for utterance—and then, pausing, her eyes widened a little and a flush of alarm coloured her cheeks.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
He tried to answer; the curious, re- pulsive noise was the only result.
She hurried across the room and stood by the side of his bed.
"Are you in pain?" she asked.
With a supreme effort he slowly shook his head from side to side.
"I must go and get the doctor," she said. "Can you be alone a little while longer?"
Again, concentrating his will, he made the attempt of physical action; this time his head nodded faintly, up and down.
She stared a second longer, and then ran out of the room.
Another period of waiting passed, during which, time seemed suspended; he had no measure of it.
He closed his eyes and when he opened them, the doctor was leaning over him counting his pulse beats.
Presently the doctor and Mabel left the room together and he could hear them whispering in the hall. The doc- tor's step then receded down the stairs; Mabel returned; he closed his eyes and a benignant calm came over his spirits.
His mind was growing clearer now and it seemed to him that an immediate relief from all the vague discomforts if his later years was being vouchsafed in these moments. He no longer felt useless and helpless, nor experienced the urge and necessity of a difficult cunning, in order to avoid Mabel's dis- pleasure. These terms and conditions had passed; he believed he was at the end; his spirit was very calm, like a long-troubled sea, at a truce, in the end, with the winds.
Time, as before, was suspended. Sometimes Mabel was in the room, sometimes Jim; he was indifferent. They gave him food and he did his best to swallow it; their anxieties, their ef- forts, seemed very silly, but he did not want to trouble them. He was conscious of a number of dawns, a number of nightfalls, but most of the time he slept.
Then, one morning, opening his eyes, he was surprised to find the old sensa- tions in his fingers, his arms, his legs. As an experimental effort, he raised his hand, he moved the fingers about: the old response to his will had returned! It was astonishing and for a time, al- though repeating the evidence, he could scarcely bring himself to credit his eyes.
Then at last, with a sigh, he accept- ed the new fact: he was going to get well. His surprise went from him; one who had lived so long had come to know the sardonic waggeries of life.
For several hours, as Mabel went in and out, he hesitated in revealing the evidence of his progressing recovery. He knew it would disappoint her; as usual he strank from displeasing her. But at last, trying some whispered words in private, he spoke as she brought in a tray set with his luncheon;
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THE OCTOGENARIAN 123
his voice startled her and she let a dish slide off to the floor where it splintered with a musical tinkle. Her face became a little pale and then he saw her try to smile. He was grateful to her for this demeanor. In no way did she accuse him of treacherous per- versity.
But his complete recovery was more tedious than its beginning had led him to expect. In a few days he was able to sit up, but to walk about was still entirely impossible. He resumed his place near the window, from which he could look out at the street, watching the young as they hurried along the pavements. He had almost lost any kinship with them; even with their common humanity; more than ever he felt himself to be one of another world. Mabel still brought his food up, and now her face wore a martyred look that troubled him. He always felt easier when Jim came home in the eve- nng.
Each night Jim sat with him for an hour or so, smoking his after-dinner cigar. They exchanged very few words, but he felt a certain comradery with Jim; the nearness of his boy gave him less a sense of utter isolation. He hastily comprehended that there were possibilities of sympathy with Jim. If the effort had been worth while, he be- lieved he could have understood some of the terms of Jim's life, and have en- tered, vicariously, into its accompany- ing emotions. He went no further than this; the vague assurance was enough.
But when he was able to walk about the house again, his days acquired more anxiety. He was not yet allowed to go out alone—and it was very difficult to keep all the necessary rules. His mem- ory was bad; he left his pipe lying about; he forgot to change to his clean clothes at dinner time; he ate with too much noise; he disarranged the pages of the newspaper, so that Mabel, after luncheon, had difficulty in reading it; sometimes he forgot to come down to eat after he was called to his meals. The martyred looks passed into words,
and Mabel's tongue became harsh again.
III
It was difficult for him to take up the old life once more, that is, with an en- tire and forgetful resignation. His age had given him the habit of unques- tioning acceptance—yet this time he had been so certain of an end!
Sitting near his window, looking out at the street, he thought of the calm hours of only a few weeks past, when the uncertainty of his future had seem- ingly departed, when, for the first time, life, his opponent, appeared to throw down its plainly read cards upon the table. Often he sighed in regret.
But when another week had gone by a pleasant little excitement served to temper his melancholy. In a few days he would be allowed the freedom to go out alone once more, sit in the park, be warmed by the sun. It surprised him how delightful was this prospect. He regarded it as a prisoner might the opening of barred, impassable doors. Mabel lost some of her importance and the effect of her attacks grew negligible.
The day came; in the afternoon he took his stick as before and opening the front door, went out. He trembled a little as he walked down the steps. The sun embraced him like a welcoming mistress. One of the neighbors spoke to him and smiled; he returned the greeting with a benignant nod.
Ahead of him were the streets and in a curious, indefinite manner they seemed the ways of romantic potential- ities. He almost felt young, freshly alive. At the same time, he was calm, troubled with none of the anxieties of youth.
He thought of his age and derived a new satisfaction from the knowledge of his many years.
"I am more than eighty now," he thought. "It is remarkable that I can still walk about and enjoy this life."
Once again he faced the problem of the street crossings, tremulously, as al- ways, but not exactly with fear. The hazard of the attempt excited him. He
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was glad of his danger, glad that the goal of his bench in the little park was not to be attained without these mo- ments of uncertainty.
All the ways of danger were nego- tiated without disaster and just a little ahead he saw the trees, fingered by un- seen breezes, and swaying a little at their tops, the gravelled walks, the empty benches. With a contented sigh he turned in at the first entrance and walking a little farther, sat down in a bench, with the sun at his back.
It was just as before, women with babies, boys and girls together, lone, disconsolate men out of work, idlers, children at play. Yet for him it was endowed with some measure of a new significance. He had come back, against his desire, to life, and now he was compensated by a deceitful and evanescent sense of charm. He looked all about him, saw a familiar face or two, and breathed at ease.
Presently he heard a stick tapping in the gravel; he looked around and saw another old man coming along the path. Their eyes met; they were strang- ers, but the comradery of their age made them suddenly smile at each other.
He moved a little toward the edge of the bench, by this action inviting the other old man to sit down. His cour- tesy was accepted and the new acquain- tance painfully adjusted his body to the seat.
"It's a fine day," said the old man.
"Yes, a fine, a very fine day," he agreed.
"Guess we old timers are glad for that, eh? We don't have any love for sloppy weather, do we?"
They smiled at each other again; the octogenarian laughed briefly.
"Seen enough of sloppy weather in my time," he said.
His new friend was immediately reminiscent.
"The sloppiest weather," he said, "was back in sixty-two, down in Ken- tucky-Cumberland Gap. Bragg al- ways managed to grab his share of our commissary; I remember how mad old
Buell was with our commissariat up in Cincinnati. He was looking over the lists of supplies and when he bawled out: 'Well, that is plenty for us, but are you sure you've got enough for Bragg?' "
They both laughed; they looked at each other in excitement; they clasped each other's hands. The octogenarian began to relate one of his own expe- riences, whilst the other listened, in si- lence, but impatiently, waiting to coun- ter with another story. They tapped the ground with their sticks in enjoy- ment, leaning close to each other, like venerable conspirators, contemptuous of eavesdroppers.
The old days returned, and forgetting Jim and Mabel, forgetting all the cir- cumstances of his later years, his mind went back to these hours of his youth, and all their lost allure. His memory recalled former hazards, and it seemed natural now that once he had accepted them, and achieved their necessities, and come through their dangers with courage and success. He was young again, he lived his former dreams, he saw the departed shapes of his old hopes.
The hours passed too swiftly and only the warning of the sun made them separate. They promised to meet again the next day. They shook hands affec- tionately, and each walked off slowly, separately, through the park.
The octogenarian scarcely saw any of the objects about him. He was still fascinated by the realities of other days, for realities in these moments had long since ceased to exist for him. He ignored the crossings, abandoning him- self to their trivial dangers with re- gard. Passing slowly through the fa- miliar streets, his spirit went upon dif- ferent and older ways, that had gone with the years.
A spectacle of faces passed before his eyes. He recalled the days before the war, his first visit to the city, his first romance. Something of the an- cient stir of this moved in his bloid once more, like the stimulation of a bustle drug. He smiled; he nodded to
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himself; his lips moved with low- poken words.
IV
Reaching his street, he walked its length and in the same preoccupied mood, mounted the steps of his house. When he went in Mabel encountered him in the hall and addressed him sharply.
"Why are you so foolish!" she ex- claimed.
He stopped, still smiling, and stared at her.
"Oh, you know what I mean," she said. "Here it is, the first day you are out alone, and you stay so long that almost begin to think something had happened to you. I don't see why you have to give me so much worry and trouble. You don't seem to realize that you're not a young man any more. You've got to be mighty careful. I'm tired of worry over you!"
Her words jangled a little in his ears, but he did not comprehend their mean- ing, nor made any effort to catch a sig- nificance from her sentences. He still smiled. Turning slowly, he began to go upstairs.
"Don't sit down and go to sleep," she called. "Jim'll be home any min- ute now."
He reached the landing and passing-
through the hall turned in at his room.
Walking to his chair, he seated him- self with a sigh. He found that the exertions of the day had made him very tired. Sighing again, with content, he leaned back in the chair, permitting the old remembrances their full sway once more.
But now they were not entirely di- vorced from the present moment. In- termingled with the old days, that loomed somehow fabulous and strong in his mind, were the indignities of his later years; to these he gave a smile of indulgence. After all, he had lived more than these others—and their con- cerns were trivial. They had no re- sounding memories; they could not un- derstand.
A curious numbness came over his senses. He was extraordinarily tired. He closed his eyes. He seemed to sleep.
When Mabel called him, he did not answer. She screamed up the stairs; he gave her no response. Running up in anger, she entered his room. His eyes were still closed and all the colour had gone from his cheeks. And now the end bequeathed, as its last expres- sion, a venerable benignancy to his old face.
"Jim!" called the woman. "Jim! Come up here quick!"
The Evil Doers
By John F. Lord
BOTH created untold agony for the human race; both sent many people to the asylums nervous wrecks; both increased many fold the unpleasant- ness of city life. Their works were dissimilar and yet alike. They could not rist without each other. One manufactured pianos. The other pianists.
[Page 126]
A Jest in the Household
By Milnes Levick
IT was a house with an upstairs and a downstairs. A stout and pompous house upon which benignant age had laid the comfortable settledness of long use. It was large, firm, established, the very symbol of unsuspecting solidity.
There was a front stair; with balus- ters of black walnut carved in showy meaninglessness and a massive newel whose capital at a touch fell rakishly askew. Upon the steps an unvanquished Axminster still showed the grimed re- mains of once intricate colors about its bare brown-corded places. A beetling wall rose beside the flight, curving for- biddingly at the head. There was red- dened gold in the faded brown scroll of its papering.
At the foot hung a steel engraving remarkable for its size; in the curve above was a niche, solemn as a shrine, severe as a mausoleum. In this, dimly lighted by the red globe of the gas jet in the upper hall, was a statue, a terra- cotta figure, turned a trifle awry that repairs with chewing gum might not be seen; a statue of a wind-blown way- farer bending over his pipe. About the base was lettered "The Last Match." The stairs led to this and to the red globe; beyond was mystery.
There was also a back stairway; straight and steep and without carpet, this the household used by preference.
The intactness of the house was pre- served in the manner of an elaborate virtue. The weight of imperative duty lay upon the tasks of its routine, an im- minent devastation threatened the most
trivial lapse of custom, lending sanctity by an implied analogy with the ven- geance of Providence. Yet the devo- tion and the vigilance of its ways were flattery. Flattery of William. Of his domination, of his respectability; his material stableness, his ordained right- eousness, the superiority of his un- troubled progress through an incom- prehensible world. And it was unflag- ging, for to this in its diverse manifes- tations William turned daily, finding in it the attestation of an absolutism unabridged amid the five females.
Each night the door opened at his sedate and satisfied approach and closed decisively upon those phases of life in which the misguided at times drew the boon of his sorrowful reproof. Upon his arrival the household moved sidereally. They emerged from doors decorously, like the figures of a me- chanical thermometer: Carrie, Aunt Myrtle, Aunt May, Grandma, even Corinne, walking thus early in the paths of guile.
William would smooth his fat gray mustache before according Carrie the kiss of an impeccable affection and she would smile easefully. Though he sel- dom informed her, less often confided, she knew his outer life to the last detail. She gathered news from a tone, a word, a gesture, with the skill of years of marriage, and could tell by the shadow of an irritation what in the day had crossed William. And she would give the knowledge warningly to the others, her sister, his, Grandma, Corinne, and
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docility would permeate the house anew.
So, too, could Carrie divine the hid- den sources of his laughter. His smiles were even more reticent than his cen- sure. Their causes he guarded appre- hensively, in part in patriarchial vigi- lance, but more because he feared that here, in the household, a breath of workaday Rabelaisianism would cloud the glass through which the women viewed him. He looked upon them at times as beings defenseless and infe- rior, again as exalted, but always out- side the human latitude permitted to himself.
Only his wife emerged from these limitations of chivalric pretence, brought nearer to him by the unspoken significances of long companionship.
She was younger in spirit than he, and perhaps under this belief in his dignity he felt through her an authen- tication of mirth, a proof more real than any met outside the house. On occasion he permitted her a glimpse into the origins of his merriment. There was a feeling of security in the plump comfort of his house coat which, as she offered it, embraced Carrie in the sense of safety. In the implicitness of his trust in her comprehension and her reticence he felt no need to caution.
After all, what harm? he would ask himself, contemplating the jovial lib- erality of his expansiveness; Carrie was a woman of sense.
His proffers of temptation had the invariability of a ritual. He quaked amply in his chair, hoping to tantalize her into petition, and his mustache would set provokingly, like a seal. Car- rie paid no heed, till in time the titilla- tion of memory and the need of pass- ing a good jest along wrung chuckles from him. And then Carrie would ask, "What is so funny?" William would tell her, a trifle unctuously, as if explaining a technicality to a child, and while he guided his laughter into
the limit of propriety, Carrie would pretend to be put out, would look at him with the corners of her mouth re- pressed and say, "I don't think that's at all nice." And as she took herself off William subsided swaggeringly, less certain now, chastened beneath his jus- tifying expostulation, while in his in- nermost heart dwelt the grateful cer- tainty of her discretion.
There was a vitality in Carrie that imposed the need to share. The qual- ity of youth allied her more closely to his sister than to her own; as William drew from her a sense of validity, so she in turn found in Aunt May a nexus with youth, with the free realms of hope.
Life was not yet stagnant for May. To her enjoyment of these stories she brought a candor that renewed their relish for Carrie. She laughed frank- ly, with zest for the humanness of the anecdotes. Carrie could not have re- peated them to her own sister: Myrtle was too refined, she said, too unsophis- ticated, but in truth she feared the prim cold intensity of Myrtle, shrank from the thought of her laughter as from an unsheathed claw.
May's laughter came low but unfet- tered, like a girl's. Carrie, censorious- ness still in her gait, would go straight to May, giving the tale with William's very pauses and inflections, and her eyes would shine at the appreciation that brought light to May's eyes. May was careful not to let William hear her, yet her whole-hearted mirth lingered with Carrie, giving flavor to the eve- ning, a warm youngness in whose re- flection William himself had a share.
On such occasions some occult scent drew Myrtle to them. She loitered, chattering of neighborhood doings, of the church social, and all the while her curiosity lay like a reproach upon Aunt May. "Poor Myrtle; but she shouldn't be so priggish." The younger woman set her will, and felt it wave under the silent querulous insistence which only spite would deny. For beneath the pet- tiness of perseverance there was hun- ger, the pathos of desire for the world,
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128 A JEST IN THE HOUSEHOLD
for experiences even so faint with the great laughing forces upon which Aunt Myrtle had set the frown of denial. And Aunt May would tell her, half angered at herself for being drawn so crassly into the manner of secretive- ness, like a youngster, feeling indeed something of shame, even of complic- ity, before the acrid asperity of Myrtle's disapproval of the story, of William, of Carrie and May.
Myrtle would draw away from May, would shun her brother and his wife, to hover about Grandma throughout the evening, manoeuvring for the fav- orable instant.
As Myrtle bent above her, Grandma would say, "Oh, get out!"
For an instant her provoked tone would be corroborated by the bashful- ness of her expression.
Then calmly she would put the mask aside and sit staring above folded hands, and in the far vision of her old opaque eyes was smiling envy but no regret. A wise, amused, and some- what sad gaze that came to her often as she sat beside the cot of Corinne.
On such nights as this little reminiscent chuckles, like hiccoughs, would shake the old woman. They piqued the cu- riosity of the little girl. She would lie as if bound till of a sudden the dutiful pretence of going to sleep would be rent by a giggle.
"Close your peepers, now," Grandma would say, and there was silence till her own chuckle was again answered from the small bed, a ripple of sniggers, evoked by no more than the shadow of mirth, by the suspicion that there was fun afoot, mysteriously, somewhere.
In all the bedrooms there was un- heard response; chuckles filled the house—the coy chuckles of Carrie, the amused chuckles of Aunt May, the mortified cachinnation of Myrtle. Chuckles that pervaded the house like waves of silence, were unheard yet filled it as the sleepy clack of hens fills the roost, spreading out and out, unit- ing the women each in her loneness as William, bluff and unsuspecting, went his challenging rounds of doors and windows.
Fragment
By Sara Haardt
LOVE is a wild thing— It frightens white flowers, It warms cold hearts, Red roses quiver near its fierceness.
Love is a gentle thing— It smooths velvet petals, It softens gray hearts, Pansies remember it in their breath.
[Page 129]
Le Cas de M. Paterae
By Henri Allorge
M. JUSTE PATERNE etait le modele des chefs de bureau et le modele des epoux.
Malgre une myopie tres accentuee et un caractere un peu distrait, il etait si consciencieux et si vraiment doue pour les choses administratives qu'on l'ap- preciait et l'estimait beaucoup au minis- tere des Affaires Incoherences, ou il di- rigeait l'important service des Pensions et secours aux Victimes de la littera- iure.
Mais il avait deux grands chagrins: le premier etait cause par son prenom, qu'il trouvait inharmonieux et ridicule; comme cet Athenien de jadis qui n'aimait pas Aristide, il etait ennuye d'entendre toujours cette epithete Juste inevitablement—helas!—accolee a son propre nom, Mais a cela nul remede! Il n'avait pas d'autre prenom.
Son second grand chagrin etait cause par la jalousie de sa femme, Eudoxie. Car Mme. Paterne etait palouse, d'une jalousie feroce, et persecutait cruelle- ment son pauvre et innocent epoux.
Comme un esprit prevenu decouvre tou jours des faits qui semblent donner raison a ses soupgons, la vie conjugale etait devenue peu agreable, et fertile en querelles.
M. Juste Paterne, quoi qu'il fut d'un naturel patient, en etait excede. Ce qui le vexait le plus, c'etait la con- science de n'avoir absolurrient rien a se reprocher.
Etre un mari volage et passer pour un homme vertueux, cela est agreable, sinon louable; mais etre un epoux fidele et avoir la reputation d'un coureur, c'est ridicule et genant.
Cela attirait a notre heros des aven- tures du genre de celle-ci.
Un soir, ayant constate que son canif etait endommage (ce n'etait pourtant pas qu'il en eut donne des coups dans le contrat), M. Paterne resolut d'en ache- ter un autre, qui fut, autant que possi- ble, de bonne qualite en meme temps que de prix modique. A cet 'effet, il parcourut en flanant la plus animee des rues qui conduisaient de son ministere a son domicile prive.
Il s'arreta devant un etalage ou s'of- fraient aux regards differentes four- nitures de papeterie, voisinant avec des peignes, des epingles, des savons, des echantillons de parfumerie et autres "objets de menue consommation cou- rante," comme on dit dans l'administra- tion, en ecarquillant, ses gros yeux, atteints, comme je l'ai dit, d'une myopie considerable. m
La demoiselle de magasin, voyant qu'il semblait regarder des vaporisa- teurs, se fit engageante:
— Voyez! monsieur, les jolis vapori- sateurs! pas chers, vraiment? n'est-ce pas? et solides, vous savez? Ils ne se detraquent jamais.
— Ce n'est pas cela, murmura M. Paterne timidement.
— Vous n'en trouverez pas de meilleurs: je vous le garantis . . .
— Non, repliqua-t-il, je voudrais . . .
— Je vois ce que c'est; vous voulez avant tout vous assurer du fonctionne- ment de l'appareil; rien n'est plus aise; vous jugerez en meme temps de la qua- lite de nos parfums.
Et la vendeuse experte, saisissant un vaporisateur garni d'une quelconque peau d'Espagne, submergea M. Juste Paterne sous un nuage epais d'odorants effluves.
Epouvante, il recula, criant presque:
S. S.—Dec. 9 129
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— Mais non! je cherche un canif!
— Ah! que ne le disiez-vous, mon- sieur!
Et, non sans peine, l'acheteur par- fume malgre lui put acheter ce qu'il voulait.
Il partit mecontent, en s'eventant avec son mouchoir, afin de faire dis- paraitre le parfum, s'il se pouvait.
Il n'avait pas remarque qu'une dame, qui choisissait tout pres de lui, du fil de diverses couleurs, lui en avait laisse tomber quelques echantillons sur le dos.
Puis il tira de sa poche le canif flam- bant neuf, pour l'examiner tout en mar- chant—dangereuse imprudence.
En effet, tout a coup il se heurta a une grande palissade qui entourait un echafaudage, tandis qu'une notable quantite de platre en poudre et de pous- siere blanche le recouvrait, ce qui neces- sita de nouveau l'usage du mouchoir.
— Va donc! eh! abruti, lui cria un voyou qui passait. Monsieur desire-t-il un caniche pour le conduire?
Enfin il se trouva devant sa porte et respira, — helas! pas pour longtemps. Car, a peiue eut-il franchi le seuil de
son appartement, que Mme. Paterae, reniflant l'air, l'apostropha rudement.
— D'ou viens-tu donc?
— Mais, bobonne, commenca-t-il . . .
— Ma parole, tu empestes la parfu- merie.
Et elle le regarda de plus pres . . .
— Mais tu es tout blanc . . . De la poudre de riz, parbleu. Et tu es cou- vert de bouts de fil . . . Inutile de de- mander d'ou tu viens.
L'epoux calomnie voulut protester, mais en vain.
Pan! une maitresse giffle foudroya la joue de l'innocent, mais infor'tune mari, et Mme. Paterne disparut, en pronon- cant des mots de "divorce," de "pauvre victime" et autres de meme nature.
Reste seul, M. Juste Paterne, un peu blase sur ces scenes violentes, s'assura qu'il avait bien en poche le canif qu'il avait achete, puis, se dit:
— Bah! je ne suis pas le premier qu'on accuse injustement, et ne serai pas le dernier. Ainsi va le monde!
Et, pour donner a son ennui un salu- taire derivatif, il se mit a confectionner tout un lot de petites cocottes en papier.
The Game
By Babette Deutsch
YOUR gaiety is the flash of a thousand candles, The height of a high old chamber, dimly bright: Among fine shifting screens of eyes and voices, A visible darkness that looms on the sense like light.
Is it your wit like a coloured ball between us— Tossed and rolling, lifted and swung and caught— Is it your wit or your wisdom that keeps us playing, Still as despair, and livelier than thought?
[Page 131]
Criticism at a Gallop
By George Jean Nathan
I
THE argument of the writers for the dailies that the production of a piddling play like Mark Reed's defunct "She Would and She Did"—simply because a star actress happened to find its leading role rich in opportunities for personal exploita- tion— constitutes a loud hoot at the star system is of a piece with an argu- ment which would maintain that be- cause one sometimes finds a fly in noodle soup the fly constitutes a blanket case against noodle soup. Quite con- trary to being an argument against the star system, the presentation of such an exceptionally poor play as that named is an argument for the star system since — by virtue of the barriers of amateurish writing and technic which it assiduously interposes against the star's talent — it contrives to develop that talent as talent is ever developed when confronted with handicap and challenge. An actor or an actress is not developed — nor is the quality of acting best to be improved — by good plays; it takes bad plays to school and ripen. If it is true that no actor has ever failed as Hamlet, it is equally true that no actress has ever failed as Cyprienne. But where a second-rate actor or actress can pass muster in a good play, helped as he or she is by the author's fertile imagination, finished writing and smooth technic, it takes a first-rate actor— or at least an actor of first-rate potentialities — to get away with an unyielding, hide-bound bad play. And any bad play that brings out the first-rate qualities of even a second-rate actor, by offering that actor at every turn the difficult
defiance of an author's shortcomings, surely provides a good argument in favour of a system that develops and broadens our actors, whether star or non-star.
To argue further, as have some of the gentlemen, that the star system was in this particular case responsible for the production of the aforemen- tioned opiate, that save for the com- placency of the star actress in question it assuredly would never have been produced, is even more widely to miss the mark. In support whereof I offer up the fact that another producing manager, to whom the manuscript was originally submitted under the title of "Golf," planned to present the play without a star and finally gave up the notion only because the play which he was then presenting in his con- tracted-for theater turned out to be an unexpected financial success and be- cause no other theater at an equally low rental — permitting him to make a profit on a box-office as low as $5,500 a week — was available.
Such a piece as "She Would and She Did" is infinitely less an argu- ment against the star system than an argument against certain stars who are currently part of that system. Not against these stars as actors, but against them as judges of manu- scripts. For one star like Faversham or Ditrichstein who generally knows a good play when he reads one, there are two like Miss Grace George who, once they no longer safely rely on the old reliables of repertoire, fall for a grand parade of " Richest Girls," "Sylvia of the Letters," "Earths," "Eve's Daughters," "Sauces for the
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Goose," "Just to Get Marrieds " and "She Would and She Dids," to say nothing of an equal number of pot- boilers such as " The Ruined Lady," "Carnival," " Miss Prudence," "Half a Bride," etc., annually tried out in Plainfield, N. J., and Stamford, Conn., and subsequently shelved. This Miss George, to whom the Reed labour owes its production, is — as I have observed throughout the fifteen year period of my receiving passes— per- haps the most proficient and brilliant comedienne on the American stage. But, as I have also observed during the same period, this same Miss George is not only the poorest judge of dramatic manuscripts on that stage but, more, a performer with evidently so little confidence in her own estab- lished brilliance and her own amaz- ingly durable blonde comeliness that she resorts to all of the cheap con- trast subterfuges of the hinterland Thespian in sedulously surrounding herself upon the platform with an en- tourage of brunette pie-faces and male incompetents so grotesque that it must be gathered together only after the most painstaking effort and diligent search. What Miss George needs is very stern managerial direction.
II
In "The Gold Diggers", which pur- ports to picture the chorus girl in her off-stage life, Avery Hopwood has written a first-rate, amusing show for Tom Sullivan's "Monte Carlo Girls" on the Burlesque Wheel. The show is being currently presented by Mr. Bel- asco. If Mr. Hopwood intended to write a burlesque show, he has written a very good one. If, on the other hand, he intended to write a legitimate comedy—which is the likelier assump- tion—he has written a play that bears perhaps the same relation to the chorus girl that the Katzenjammer Kid car- toons bear to the occupation of the eastern bank of the Rhine.
To argue against Hopwood's chorus girls that they are not especially life- like is, however, perhaps not wholly
fair, since the chorus girl is probably not much more especially life-like in actual life. The point is that Hop- wood, instead of photographing his characters, has merely silhouetted them and then, to make the silhouette pass for a life-like picture, has cut a hole in the nose, inserted the tip of his forefinger through the opening and mistaken its periodic wiggle for a vraisemblant satiric grimace. A skil- ful writer, he has of course not neg- lected to write into his play some comical lines, but the humour of these lines uniformly moves from the line towards the character's mouth instead of the other way 'round. His play is as funny as a false-face, and has the same affinity with nature. It is a seltzer siphon filled with yang-ylang; a slapstick coated with sugar. Its chorus girls make one laugh not as Helen Green's or W. E. Hill's chorus girls make one laugh, but as James Forbes' and Roy McCardell's. It is a travesty atop a travesty. Mr. Belasco's pro- duction of the piece will alone be re- sponsible for its success. Miss Ina Claire is absurdly starred above a com- pany the least of whose principals is her superior in talent.
III
Plumbing the astonishment and en- thusiasm engendered among the local hazlitts, theater managers and theater patrons by Booth Tarkington's wholly delightful comedy, "Clarence", we dis- cern the astonishment and enthusiasm always displayed by the parties in point when there is presented to them the unaccustomed spectacle of a play by a man who knows less about writ- ing plays than he knows about what our coloured friends call writing writ- ing. So rare in the theater is the ap- pearance of a man who knows how to write, and so regular the appearance of men who know merely how to write plays, that the advent of the former is almost always the occasion for a generally unanalyzed jubilee. When the Sammie Shipmans and Owen Davises who know all about writing
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CRITICISM AT A GALLOP 133
plays appear in the theater, a three- inch review is regarded as ample by the Times Square diderots; but let there once in a great while pop up a Shaw or a St. John Ervine or any other man who knows little or nothing of the accepted business of play-writ- ing but a great deal about writing and the excitement becomes intense.
The critic in "Fanny's First Play" who observed ironically, "If it's by a good author it's a good play and if it's by a bad author it's a bad play," spoke less ironically than he knew. In []n the worst play by a good writer there is a touch of something, however fleeting, that one rarely finds in even the best play by a bad writer. Tark- ington's "Up From Nowhere" is a very awful affair—a rube-cut straight from the rump—but even so there is in it a character and a line of dialogue or two the like of which the Shipmans and their "East is Wests" and the Davises and their "At Nine Forty-fives" never —even at their best—reveal. This lat- est Tarkington effort, "Clarence", is a triumph of writing over play-writ- ing. There is in it not a trace of the dictated stage dialogue of his jay jouncer mentioned above, of R. U. E's., L.I's and R. 2's and all the other stenciled platform baggage of the Broadway box-office Cagliostros, but instead the sort of writing done six hundred miles from Broadway, out in Indiana, on such things as "Penrod" and "Seventeen".
In essence, the play is of a Rev. Robert Spaulding out of "The Pri- vate Secretary" dressed in khaki and introduced to the household of a Clare Kummer. In execution, it is drolly phrased, shrewdly underwritten, fresh, mocking, witty. And it is admirably interpreted by a company in which the leading impressions are registered by the Messrs. Alfred Lunt and John Flood, Miss Elsie Mackay and young Helen Hayes.
In the piece named "Adam and Eva," by the Messrs. Bolton and Middleton, we have an essay at come- dy of the above Tarkington feather.
But though Middleton, at least, pretty well understands the mazurka of the King's tongue, the joint confection lacks quality. The obvious attempt here was to dovetail the suavity and politeness of Clare Kummer with the broader and more positively provo- cative situation-humour of Winchell Smith, but the result is largely a jerky vaudeville wherein the suavity and politeness of Miss Kummer are achieved in such spectacles as that of a gentleman, about to write a letter, shaking a foun- tain pen upon the drawing-room carpet and wherein the situation- humour of Smith is vainly sought in such venerable espiegleries of the two- a-day as that of the woman who, desiring to make a touch, by way of preface proceeds against the male with numerous elaborately disarming kisses. Add to these tactics such devices as a revamping of the old so- called nigger act wherein a perfectly healthy man is made suddenly to feel ill through another's frightening chron- icle of his various symptoms (with, incidentally, the ancient low-comedy hokum of big Latin words) and gar- nish further with such wheezes as "I think it's my nerves"- "you mean your nerve," and one gets the picture.
IV
Mr. Cosmo Hamilton's "Scandal," a dramatization of his serial story of the same title, is a mossback relish of the species favourite of the cheap sex magazines, the essay of which is the laborious titillation of the servant girl's sruditse by providing her piece- meal with, fables of constantly im- minent, but never quite realized, rape. Long since meat for the pant-slat, this sort of thing reached its apogee six or seven years ago with the publication of such masterpieces as Chambers' "Common Law," Elizabeth Robins' "My Little Sister" and Johnson's "Salamander," a trio of grand ones that gave the cuisine sororities many a jolly bounce. Belatedly, now, comes along Hamilton toting all the familiar
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baggage including the peter pancratic heroine and the hero who never-never- lands. His work, following closely the models named above, lacks however even the superficial glitter of Cham- bers, the superficial character draw- ing of Johnson or the superficial Robins' sense of "timeliness": it is the literal whangdoodle of the old-time Garvice-Libbey-Clay paper-back with the Ritz substituted for Darrel ford Manor and the Avenue for South Aud- ley Street. Yet for all its venerable formula, this breed of story — even when handled with the meagre skill of a Hamilton — rarely fails to round up the yokels. The so-called "sex wave" never actually passes: the height of the wave merely changes. To argue from the occasional failure of such a play that the public no longer cares for such plays is — as I have several times in the past pointed out — to argue from the occasional failure of a haberdasher that men no longer care to wear underdrawers.
"Scandal" is interpreted in its two central roles by Miss Francine Larri- more and Mr. Charles Cherry. The former produces the sounds of human speech by pressing the tongue against the roof of the mouth, screening off the vocal chords and diverting the resultant guggles through the nasal septa. The latter, though given to playing any role assigned him, whether it be in "John Gabriel Borkman" or "A Trip To Chinatown," precisely as if it were Edward Faulkner in Henry Arthur Jones' "The Liars," fortun- ately finds the role here entrusted to him so much more like Faulkner than like Borkman or Welland Strong that the mere re-projection of his estab- lished interpretation permits him to pass off his performance for a satis- factory one.
Mr. Hamilton's second bout with the box-office bears the title, "An Ex- change of Wives," and follows the same formula as the first. Here the author takes the mildewed theme of Elmer Harris' "Thy Neighbour's Wife" and plays of a kidney fore and
aft and fashions a jake-fetcher wherein the characters talk like so many Cynics Calendars and smirk their ways crescendo to the adultery that never takes place. The author's penetratingly original philosophy and wit are summed up in the play's key speech: "A man must make love to his wife all the time or some other man will." An Englishman, Mr. Ham- ilton entertains us with the spec- tacle of Americans addressing each other as "old son" and "old thing." His trite situations and phraseological banalities he laboriously seeks to gloss over and conceal with such hack sub- terfuges as likening this situation to a similar stereotyped stage situation and as observing of that cuckooed verbal banality that it is " as the newspapers say -". Even the minimum of skill exhibited in his other play is here lacking. For all the hokum of its recipe, its servant girl horse-power is therefore nil.
The presentation is absurdly miscast in each of its roles. Miss Margaret Dale plays one of the saucy young wives with all the abandon of a grandma, and Miss Chrystal Herne the other as if it were a role in "The Greenwich Village Follies." Mr. Winant is so drolly misplaced that it is not fair to hold his expository shortcomings against him. Mr. Lee Baker occupies and plays the light comedy role assigned him as if it were centre rush on a Yale football eleven.
V
Passing over such stunning opera as "Thunder," a tale of Maw and Paw McBirney, Jaif Coulter, Li'l Azalea and the other familiar marion- ettes of the Blue Ridge and Kentucky mountaineer comedy-drama, "A Regu- lar Feller," a not less vernal tale of the familiar dolls of the late Winchell Smith-George Cohan get-rich-at-eleven- o'clock play, "First Is Last," a Samuel Shipman gem that baffles description, and "Up From No- where," already alluded to as a cheap and brazen effort to pop the dough-
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heads on the part of Tarkington (as- sisted by that celebrated California In- dian, Harry Leon Wilson Who Ought To Be Ashamed Of Himself)—pass- ing over such art works, we come to Thompson Buchanan's "Civilian Clothes." An available satiric theme is here, after a good beginning, ren- dered negligible through superimpos- ing upon it the treatment of vaudeville farce. The notion of an aristocratic young woman who succumbs to a gaudy military uniform and, hostilities even- tually over, finds its occupant in his Kuppenheimers a vastly less engross- ing spectacle — a notion which I seem in reverse English to have encoun- tered some fifteen or twenty years ago in a magazine story concern- ing an aristocratic young woman who succumbs on the romantic West- ern plains to a gaily bandanna'd and fringe-panted cowboy and, back in New York, finds him in evening clothes a vastly less graceful figure — this notion is rich in possibilities of gentle irony. Of these possibilities Mr. Buchanan has unfortunately scratched only the surface, and has reduced the general maneuvering of the theme to the more or less patent gestures of Palace Theater Hibernicism. Two of his passages at satiric dialogue, con- cerned with snobbery, are as well written as certain passages in the best of his pieces, "The Cub," but in the main his derisory whack-stick fails to explode its torpedo. His second act, for example, is frank low farce which, while it furthers his plot, fails signally in furthering his theme.
VI
Mr. Scarborough's "Moonlight and Honeysuckle" is a gawky attempt at high comedy. In the attempt to achieve wit the author resorts to the college- paper expedient of paraphrasing old proverbs; in the attempt to achieve comedy to the triple repetition of epi- sode favourite of the dull German comedies of two decades ago; in the attempt to achieve philosophical view- point to the stock sentimentalities of
the Henry Arthur Jones ex-drama. The fable of a young girl who sum- mons up a fictitious digression from morality in order to get rid of certain of her less admired suitors, the play misses completely the mannerful light- ness essential to its proper pitch. The result is an amateurish quasi-comedy whose characters are so many weak distillations from Lothar Schmidt's "Only A Dream", whose sentiment is of the "far out there in Arizona— just the skies—and you and I" species, and whose humour is founded largely upon wheezes on marriage. Miss Ruth Chatterton, save for an enunciation so painstakingly precise that the impression is constantly of a little girl reciting in school, does well a role not worth the doing.
The reviews of this play by certain of my friends of the daily press were not without their element of whimsi- cality. Led to believe from the title "Moonlight and Honeysuckle" that the play was of the Pollyanna sugar sonata variety and attending it with a heavy air, these reviewers were sur- prised to find it other than they thought. So great was their relief thereat that they promptly mistook this pleasurable surprise for a virtue in the play itself, and praised the play lavishly not for what it was but for what it was not.
VII
"Nightie Night", by the Mesdames Stanley and Mathews, is Avery Hop- wood farce,not written by Avery Hop- wood. What measure of amusement the exhibition vouchsafes is loaned the manuscript by Mr. Francis Byrne in the performance of the cen- tral male role. This Byrne, until recently, has been an actor of the straight roles in serious Broadway plays: the husband who returns unex- pectedly from Pottstown and dis- covers his wife nose to nose with Cas- sius Pinto, his faithless club fellow . . . the man of promise whose bril- liant career is ruined by his mad in- fatuation for La Belle Fifi, a danseuse
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136 CRITICISM AT A GALLOP
the cruel captain of industry who learns to see the light through Little Hedwig, a street waif. . . . From his very first appearance on the stage in " Camille," his training for farce has therefore been well-planned and thorough. His work in the farce in point is smooth, agreeable, comical — with just a suspicion of self-bur- lesque. The farce itself is the custom- ary recutting of the long familiar French pattern, with the customary sur- reptitious luncheon taking the place of the transmarine adultery. The dia- logue is without lustre.
"The Dancer" is the unacknowl- edged adaptation by Edward Locke of an Hungarian comedy-drama of the same title produced several years ago in the original at the Irving Place Theater. Mr. Locke's adaptation has been further adapted by the Messrs. Marcin and Anspacher. The net re- sult of these various labours is a zeal- ously Americanized version of what was in the original a not particularly interesting revamping of the thrice- told tale of temperamental clash be- tween Bohemian and Puritan. The play's casting is on a par with that of the Democratic party.
"The Girl in the Limousine" is a reboiling of "Up In Mabel's Room" by Wilson Collison and Avery Hop- wood. The latter, it begins to look, is selling his artistic soul to the highest bidder. He is devoting his talents to the manufacture of lucrative slops. He is walking the dramatic streets. And yet he confesses that he already has saved, and has tucked away in the bank, more than $150,000! "Where's Your Wife," by M. and Mme. T. G. Springer and M. Joseph Noel, is at bottom the bewhiskered conte of the person who overhears a man and woman in an adjoining room discuss- ing the killing of a dog, a sparrow or what not and jumps to the conclusion that murder has been committed. What has here been derived is amateurish and humourless farce.
"Too Many Husbands" is slender and occasionally amusing ormolu by
the most curious of British Jekyll- Hydes, W. Somerset Maugham. It amounts in the main to a brace of roguish situations embellished with the perfectly amiable, if not witty, stage dialogue for which Maugham is familiar. The novelist Maugham and the dramatist Maugham rarely appear in public in each other's company. The novelist Maugham is an artist. The dramatist Maugham is a Piccadilly Clyde Fitch. The present comedy, concerned with a woman who inad- vertently commits bigamy, is excellent- ly played by the Messrs. Lawrence Grossmith and Kenneth Douglas in the roles of the husbands and let down with a loud thud by Miss Estelle Win- wood in the role of the wife.
"His Honour Abe Potash" is a Yid- dish version of George Broadhurst's "The Man of the Hour" by Montague Glass and Jules Goodman. It contains some good round laughs and gives Mr. Barney Bernard another opportunity for one of his supremely adroit char- acterizations. "The Luck of the Navy" is vociferous German spy melo- drama imported from England. "Five O'Clock" is a boobish dramatization by the actor Frank Bacon of Freeman Tilden's amusing story called "The Defective", published in this magazine seven years ago. I shall probably have something more to say of the play in a future chapter.
VIII
The circumstance that there ap- peared in the theater a person who knew more about writing English than about writing what are called plays once again contrived to dumfound and overawe the reviewers and the public in the in- stance of Miss Zoe Akins and her "Declassee." The story of Tarkington and his "Clarence" was here repeated. The consequent turgescence in the newspapers reached the old Tody Ham- ilton mark. It was wonderful to be- hold. The Times literally tore off its chemise, jumped on the sofa and bounced itself up and down in an or- giastic frenzy. The Tribune, ordin-
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arily self-contained, finding simple English insufficient for its enthusiasm, hooched up its account of the evening with enough exclamation points to stock all of Street and Smith's maga- zines for a year. The American, the Herald — all ran around shouting and yelling as if the jail were burning. And why? Simply because, as I have ob- served, this Akins girl knows that for all the persuasive Dan Frohman-Dave Belasco-Columbia University whiffle to the contrary, plays are neither built nor rewritten, but written in the first place. She knows that a word rightly chosen may be more dramatic than a smashed wine glass and that a grace- ful phrase may be more affecting than the whole caboodle of stage brats who ever trooped down the stairs on Christmas eve in their nightgowns.
Miss Akins' "Declassee," while in no sense approaching to the sterling quality of her " Papa," is, if not a play of brilliant accomplishment, at least a play of brilliant intention. If her play itself lacks the quality of the antece- dent play, it is more or less certain that her original notes for this second play did not lack that quality. I learn that she wrote " Declassee " in two weeks' time. The lack of editing, the occasion- ally harsh theatricalism and the un- polished corners of the manuscript as it is currently revealed upon the Em- pire stage make this not entirely in- credible. But behind these defects one discerns many marks of the peculiar talent that made "Papa" the best thing of its fantastic kind in the modern theater. The story of an English- woman of title who goes to the social dogs and presently finds herself listen- ing in America to the proposal of a one-time newsboy, now a great million- aire, to make her his mistress, the play lifts when its author concerns herself
with writing and falls when she con- cerns herself with drama. Her writ- ing is consistently more dramatic than her drama. The former, reaching its height in two passages (Acts II and III) between the Englishwoman and the former newsboy, makes for excel- lent "theater." The latter, with its card cheating melodrama and its indig- nant confrontations, is the conventional de Croisset stuff.
Miss Akins must not permit herself to fall into the Edward Sheldon tech- nic with its superficial flashiness, its sedulous employment of easy fetches and its "literary" hocus-pocus. She is intrinsically too able an artist of the theater to have recourse to the presti- digitation of box-office rubber stamps. Any hack playmaker of Broadway can impress his auditors profoundly by dropping into his play a reference to Conrad, a few quotations from Shake- speare and an allusion to Velasquez and Sargent, and any hack can im- press the American doodles with non- chalant references to the Queen. Zoe Akins may better leave such hokums to her Rialto rivals. She has some- thing they have not, something they never can have. She has style; she has culture; she has a sophistication that, though she happened to be born in St. Louis, Missouri, was itself born somewhere across the seas. She is as un-American as caviar. She is not for the general, and she owes it to herself not to try to make herself so. Her "Declassee" is an interesting work; it is beyond the talents of ninety-nine out of one hundred Amer- ican theatrical writers; but it is Zoe Akins at her deliberate second best. The Willa Sibert Cather who wrote the story "Scandal" should have brusquely touched it up before it left Miss Akins' hands.
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Exeunt Omnes
By H. L. Mencken
I
ONE of the hardest jobs that faces an American magazine editor in this one-hundred-and-forty- fourth year of the Republic is that of keeping the poets from filling his magazine with lugubrious dithyrambs to, on and against somatic death. Of spiritual death, of course, not many of them ever sing. Most of them, in fact, deny its existence in plain terms; they are all sure of the immortality of the soul, and in particular they are absolutely sure of the immortality of their own souls, and of those of their best girls. The most they ever allow to the prevailing materialism of the herds that lie bogged in prose is such a benefit of the half doubt as one finds in Christina Rossetti's "When I Am Dead." But when it comes to somatic death, the plain, brutal death of coroner's inquests and vital statistics, their optimism vanishes, and, try as they may, they can't get around the harsh fact that on such and such a day, often appallingly near, each and every one of us will heave a last sigh, roll his eyes sadly, turn his face to the wall and then suddenly change from a proud and highly complex mammal, made in the image of God, into a mere inert aggregate of disintegrating col- loids, made in the image of a stale cabbage.
The inevitability of it seems to fas- cinate them. They write about it more than they write about anything else save love. Every day my desk is burdened wih their manuscripts — poems in which the poet serves notice that, when his time comes, he will die bravely and even a bit insolently;
poems in which he warns his girl that he will wait for her in Heaven and keep his harp in tune; poems in which he asks her grandly to forget him, and, above all, to avoid torturing her- self by vain repining at his grave; poems in which he directs his heirs and assigns to bury him in some lonely, romantic spot, where the whip- poorwills sing; poems in which he hints that he will not rest easily if Philistines are permitted to begaud his last anchorage with couronnes des perles; poems in which he speaks jauntily of making a rendezvous with death, as if death were a wench; poems in which —
But there is no need to rehearse all of the varieties. If you read the strophes that are strung along the bottoms of magazine pages you are familiar with all of them; even in this great moral periodical, despite my own excessive watchfulness and Dr. Nathan's general theory that both death and poetry are nuisances, they have appeared multitudinously, no doubt to your disgust. As I say, it is almost impossible to keep the min- nesingers off the subject. When my negro flops the morning bale of poetry manuscripts upon my desk and I pull up my chair to have at them, I always make a bet with myself that, of the first dozen, at least seven will deal with death — and it is so long since I lost that I don't remember it. Periodically I send out a circular to all the recognized poets of the land, begging them in the name of God to be less mortuary, but it never does any good. More, I doubt that it ever will — or any other sort of appeal.
138
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Take away death and love and you would rob poets of both their liver and their lights; what would remain would be little more than a vacuum. For the business of poetry, remember, is to set up a sweet denial of the harsh facts that confront all of us — to soothe us in our agonies with emollient words — in brief, to lie comfortingly. Well, what is the worst curse of life? Answer: the kinetic overstimulation called love. And what is the next worst? Answer: the fear of death. No wonder the poets give so much attention to both! No other foe of human peace and hap- piness is one-half so potent, and hence none other offers such oppor- tunities to poetry, and, in fact, to all art. A sonnet designed to ease the dread of bankruptcy, even if done by a great master, would be banal, for that dread is itself banal, and so is bankruptcy. Consider, now, another great human phobia: the fear of hell. There was a day when it raged in the breast of nearly every man — and in that day the poets produced antidotes that were very fine poems. But today only the illiterate fear hell, and so there is no more production of sound poetry in that department.
As you may suspect, I tire of read- ing so much necrotic verse in manu- script, and wish heartily that the poets would cease to assault me with it. In prose, curiously enough, one observes a corresponding shortage. True enough, the short story of com- merce shows a good many murders and suicides, and not less than eight times a day I am made privy to the agonies of a widower or widow who, on searching the papers of his wife or her husband immediately after her or his death, discovers that she or he had a lover or a mistress. But I speak of serious prose: not of trade balderdash. Go to any public library and look under "Death: Human" in the card index, and you will be sur- prised to find how few books there are on the subject. Worse, nearly all the few are by psychical re-
searchers who regard death as a mere removal from one world to another or by New Thoughters who appear to believe that it is little more than a sort of illusion. Once, seeking to find out what death was physiologi- cally— that is, to find out just what happened when a man died — I put in a solid week without result. There seemed to be nothing whatever on the subject. Finally, after much weari- ness, I found what I was looking for in Dr. George W. Crile's " Man: An Adaptive Mechanism " (Macmillan) — incidentally, a very solid and original work, much less heard of than it ought to be. Crile said that death was acidosis — that it was caused by the failure of the organism to maintain the alkalinity necessary to its normal functioning — and in the absence of any proofs or even argu- ments to the contrary I accepted his notion forthwith and have held to it ever since. I thus think of death as a sort of deleterious fermentation, like that which goes on in a bottle of Chateau Margaux when it becomes corked. Life is a struggle, not against sin, not against the Money Power, not against malicious animal magne- tism, but against hydrogen ions. The healthy man is one in whom those ions, as they are dissociated by cellular activity, are immediately fixed by alkaline bases. The sick man is one in whom the process has begun to lag, with the hydrogen ions getting ahead. The dying man is one in whom it is all over save the charges of fraud.
But here I get into chemical phys- ics, and not only run afoul of the revelation of God, but also reveal, perhaps, a degree of ignorance verg- ing upon intellectual coma. What I started out to do was to call atten- tion to the only full-length and first- rate treatise on death that I have ever encountered or heard of, to wit, "Aspects of Death and Correlated Aspects of Life," by Dr. F. Parkes Weber (Hoeber), a fat, hefty and extremely interesting tome, the fruit of truly stupendous erudition. What
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Dr. Weber has sought to do is to bring together in one volume all that has been said or thought about death since the time of the first human records, not only by poets, priests and philosophers, but also by painters, en- gravers, soldiers, monarchs and the populace generally. The author, I take it, is primarily a numismatist, and he apparently began his work with a collection of inscriptions on coins and medals. But as it stands it covers a vastly wider area. One traces, in chapter after chapter, the ebb and flow of human ideas upon the subject, of the human attitude to the last and greatest mystery of them all — the notion of it as a mere transi- tion to a higher plane of life, the notion of it as a benign panacea for all human suffering, the notion of it as an incentive to this or that way of living, the notion of it as an impene- trable enigma, inevitable and inex- plicable. Few of us stop to think how much the contemplation of death has colored human thought through- out the ages. There have been times when it almost shut out all other con- cerns; there has never been a time when it has not bulked enormously in the racial consciousness. Well, what Dr. Weber does in his book is to detach and set forth the salient ideas that have emerged from all that consideration and discussion — to isolate the chief theories of death, ancient and modern, pagan and Chris- tian, scientific and mystical, sound and absurd.
The material thus digested is apall- ingly copious. If the learned author had confined himself to printed books alone, he would have faced a labor fit for a new Hercules. But in addi- tion to books he has given his atten- tion to prints, to medals, to paintings, to engraved gems and to monumental inscriptions. His authorities range from St. John on what is to happen at the Day of Judgment to Sir William Osler to what happens upon the normal human death-bed, and from Socrates
on the relation of death to philosophy to Havelock Ellis on the effects of Christian ideas of death upon the medieval temperament. The one field that Dr. Weber has overlooked is that of music, a somewhat serious omis- sion. It is hard to think of a great composer who never wrote a funeral march, or a requiem, or at least a sad song to some departed love. Even old Papa Haydn had moments when he ceased to be merry, and let his thought turn stealthily upon the doom ahead. To me, at all events, the slow move- ment of the Military Symphony is the saddest of music — an elegy, I take it, on some young fellow who went out in the incomprehensible wars of those times and got himself horribly killed in a far place. The trumpet blasts to- wards the end fling themselves over his hasty grave in some remote cab- bage field; one hears, before and after them, the honest weeping of his com- rades into their wine-pots. In truth, the shadow of death hangs over all the music of Haydn. Life was gay in those last days of the Holy Roman Empire, but it was also precarious. If the Turks were not at the gate, then there was a peasant rising some- where in the hinterland, or a pesti- lence swept the land. Beethoven, a generation later, growled at death surlily, but Haydn faced it like a gentleman. The romantic movement brought a sentimentalization of the tragedy; it became a sort of orgy. Whenever Wagner dealt with death he treated it as if it were some sort of gaudy tournament — a thing less dreadful than ecstatic. Consider, for example, the Char-Freitag music in "Parsifal" — death music for the most memorable death in the history of the world. I doubt that one hear- ing it for the first time, without pre- vious warning, would guess that it has to do with anything of the sort. On the contrary, I have a notion that the average auditor would guess that it is a musical setting for some lament- able hugging match between a Bay-
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reuth baritone seven feet in height and a German soprano weighing at least three hundred pounds.
But if Dr. Weber thus neglects music, he at least gives full measure in all other departments. His book runs to nearly eight hundred pages and is largely set in very fine type, but I have gone through it from end to end with the utmost interest. The material, in the main, is excellently arranged. Instead of presenting it chronologically, the author sorts it out by content, and so gives in each chap- ter a brief history of the idea with which it deals. Now and then he falls into an error, though not often. On page 180, for example, he says that Albert Bartholomews famous monu- ment, "Aux Morts," in Pere Lachaise cemetery represents "the apotheosis of earthly existence, the very gateway into knowledge and eternal life." A glance at the monument is sufficient to show that this is not true. Bar- tholomew candidates for immortality have anything but an air of facing apotheosis; on the contrary, they are plainly eager to remain in Paris; one could not imagine more reluctant dying. But this, perhaps, is pushing criticism too far. Dr. Weber is en- titled to his opinions; his facts are not to be disputed; his book is a model of diligent scholarship. I commend it to you as a curious and fascinating novelty. It will entertain you more than a wagon-load of novels.
II
One idea I do not find in it: the conception of death as the last and worst of all the practical jokes played upon poor mortals by the gods. That idea apparently never occurred to the Greeks, who thought of almost every- thing, but nevertheless it has a cer- tain soundness. The hardest thing about death is not that men die tragic- ally, but that most of them die ri- diculously. If it were possible for all of us to make our exits at great moments, swiftly, cleanly, decorously
and in fine attitudes, then the experi- ence would be something to face heroically and with high and beautiful words. But we commonly go off in no such gorgeous, poetical way. Instead, we die in raucous prose — of arterio-sclerosis, of diabetes, of tox- emia, of a noisome perforation in the ileo-caecal region, of carcinoma of the liver. The abominable acidosis of Dr. Crile sneaks upon us, gradually paralyzing the adrenals, flabbergasting the thyroid, crippling the poor dear old liver, and throwing its fog upon the brain. Thus the ontogenetic process is recapitulated in reverse order, and we pass into the mental obscurity of infancy, and then into the blank unconsciousness of the pre- natal state, and finally into the con- dition of undifferentiated protoplasm. A man does not die quickly and bril- liantly, like a lightning stroke; he passes out by inches, hesitatingly and, one may almost add, gingerly. It is hard to say just when he is fully dead. Long after his heart has ceased to beat and his lungs have ceased to swell him up with the vanity of his species, there are remote and obscure parts of him that still live on, quite uncon- cerned about the central catastrophe. Dr. Alexis Carrel has cut them out and kept them alive for months. The hair keeps on growing for a long while. Every time another one of the corpses of Barbarossa or King James I is exhumed it is found that the hair is longer than it was the last time. No doubt there are many parts of the body, and perhaps even whole organs, which wonder what it is all about when they find that they are on the way to the crematory. Burn a man's mortal remains, and you inevitably bum a good portion of him alive, and no doubt that portion sends alarmed messages to the unconscious brain, like dissected tissue under anesthesia and the resultant shock brings the deceased before the hierarchy of heaven in a state of collapse, with his face white, sweat bespangling his forehead and a great thirst upon him.
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It would not be spitting into the eye of reason to argue that many a cre- mated Sunday-school superintendent, thus confronting the ultimate tribunal in the aspect of a man taken with the goods, has been put down as suffering from an uneasy conscience when what actually ailed him was simply surgical shock. The cosmic process is not only incurably idiotic; it is also indecently unjust.
But here I become medico-legal, and perhaps gruesome. What I had in mind when I began was this: that the human tendency to make death dra- matic and heroic has little excuse in the facts. No doubt you remember the scene in the last act of "Hedda Gabler," in which Dr. Brack comes in with the news of Lovborg's sui- cide. Hedda, a true romantic, instantly pictures Lovborg putting the pistol to his temple and dying instantly and magnificently. When Brack tells her that the shot was actu- ally through the breast she is disap- pointed, but soon begins to romanti- cise that. "The breast," she says, "is also a good place. . . There is something beautiful in this!" A bit later she recurs to the charming theme. "In the breast — ah!" Then Brack tells her the plain truth — in the original, thus: "Nej,— det traf ham i underlivet!" . . . Edmund Gosse, in his first English translation of the play made the sentence: " No — it struck him in the abdomen," In the last edition William Archer makes it "No — in the bowels!" Abdomen is nearer to underlivet than bowels, but belly would probably render the meaning better than either. What Brack wants to convey to Hedda is the news that Lovborg's death was not romantic in the least — that he went to a brothel, shot himself, not through the cerebrum or the heart, but through the duodenum or perhaps the jejunum, and is at the moment of report awaiting autopsy at the Chris- tiania Allgemeinekrankenhaus. The shock floors her, but it is a shock that all of us must learn to bear. Men
upon whom we lavish our veneration reduce it to an absurdity at the end by dying of chronic cystitis, or by choking upon marshmallows or dill pickles, or as the result of getting cut by dirty barbers. Women whom we place upon pedestals worthy of the holy saints come down at last with mastoid abscesses or die obscenely of hiccoughs. And we ourselves? Let us not have too much hope. The chances are that, if we go to war, eager to leap superbly at the cannon's mouth, we'll be finished on the way by an ingrowing toenail or by being run over by an army truck driven by a former Greek bus-boy and loaded with imitation Schweizer cheeses made in Oneida, N. Y. And that if we die in our own beds, it will be of the measles or the jim-jams.
The aforesaid Dr. Crile, in one of his smaller books, "A Mechanistic View of War and Peace," has a good deal to say about death in war, and in particular, about the disparity be- tween the glorious and inspiring pass- ing imagined by the young soldier and the messy finish that is normally in store for him. He shows two pic- tures of war, the one ideal and the other real. The former is the familiar print, "The Spirit of '76" with the three patriots springing grandly to the attack, one of them with a neat and romantic bandage around his head — apparently, to judge by his liveliness, to cover a wound no worse than an average bee- sting. The latter picture is what the movie folks call a close-up of a French soldier who was struck just below the mouth by a German one- pounder shell — a soldier suddenly converted into the hideous simulacrum of a cruller. What one notices espe- cially is the curious expression upon what remains of his face — an ex- pression of the utmost surprise and indignation. No doubt he marched off to the front firmly convinced that, if he died at all, it would be at the climax of some heroic charge, up to his knees in blood and with his bayo-
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net run clear through a Bavarian at least four feet in diameter. He imagined the clean bullet through the heart, the stately last gesture, the final words: "Therese! Sophie! Olympe! Marie! Suzette! Julie! . . . France!" Go to the book and see what he got. . . . Dr. Crile, whose experience of war has soured him against it, argues that the best way to abolish it would be to pro- hibit such romantic prints as "The Spirit of '76" and substitute therefor a series of actual photographs of dead and wounded men. The plan is plainly of merit. But it would be expensive. Imagine a war getting on its legs before the conversion of the populace had become complete. Think of the huge herds of spy-chasers, letter- openers, pacifist-hounds, burlesons and other such operators that it would take to track down and confiscate all those pictures! . . .
Even so, the vulgar horror of death would remain, for, as Ellen La Motte well says in her little book, "The Backwash of War," the finish of a civilian in a luxurious hospital, with trained nurses fluttering over him and his pastor whooping and heaving for him at the foot of his bed, is often quite as terrible as any form of exitus witnessed in war. It is, in fact, always an unpleasant business. Let the poets disguise it all they may and the theologians obscure the issue with promises of post-mortem felicity beyond the desserts of any human being you or I ever met, the plain truth remains that it gives one pause to reflect that, on some day not far away, one must yield supinely to aci- dosis, sink into the mental darkness of an idiot, and so suffer a withdrawal from these engaging scenes. " No. 8," says the nurse in faded pink, tripping down the corridor with a hooch of rye for the diabetic in No. 2, "has just passed out." "Which is No. 8?" asks the new nurse. "The one whose wife wore that awful hat this afternoon?" ... But all the authorities, it is pleasant to know, report that the final
scene is placid enough. Dr. Weber quotes many of them. The dying man doesn't struggle much and he isn't much afraid. As his alkalies give out he succumbs to a blest stupidity. His mind fogs. He throws off, as if it were a tattered garment, his old hot lust for life. His will power vanishes. He submits decently. He scarcely gives a damn.
III
A great many novels pile up, and some of them, e.g., those by James Branch Cabell, Louis Wilkinson, Joseph Hergesheimer, Marjorie Pat- terson and Rita Wellman, promise agreeable reading. But I am at the moment, suffering from a great overdose of novels, and so they must wait. Whether "The Story of a Lover" (Boni-Liveright) is a novel or an attempt at a statement of fact I can't make out. It is printed anony- mously and purports to be a record of the author's passionate devotion to his wife. The thing is done eloquently, in quick, vehement tempo, and it would be idle to deny the force of it as a mere piece of writing. Whoever did it has a fluent and often highly crafty pen; it is excellent stuff. But I confess to a vast impatience with the tone of it, the doctrine, the point of view. For a man beyond forty to be daffy with love seems quite as ab- surd to me as for an archbishop to die of cholera morbus. I simply cannot imagine a healthy male of such years mooning away his days over one of those "rich, dark blondes who seem to have absorbed the light and warmth of the sun." Do such blondes actually exist? I presume to doubt it. A blonde is often brilliant, but she sel- dom radiates anything properly de- scribable as warmth. On the contrary she throws off a sort of a chill; she is the eternal feminine become static; she suggests, not thermal ideas, but purely visual ideas. . . But every man to his own theory! At the time the present author describes the blonde of his adoration they have
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been married for fifteen years and are the parents of four children. Think of a husband of such experi- ence raving over his wife as if she were a Follies girl glimpsed for the first time, as from some peak in Darien! Think of him eating out his heart with speculations as to just how much she loves him! It seems to me that such frenzies, after so many years, take on a smack of the ludicrous. They are against nature, and hence against sound art. But that is all I venture to say in contempt of the book. It is well planned; it is original; it is full of an unmistakable glow. De- spite everything, the author convinces one that he is in earnest—that he is actually the miraculous husband he pretends to be. I offer it to you as a document of uncommon quality. It is unlike anything else at present on sale in the department-stores.
Among the remaining books the most agreeable, to my taste are "New Rivers of the North," by Hulbert Footner (Doran), and "White Shad- ows in the South Seas," by Frederick O'Brien (Century). Footner is a bad novelist, but here, writing a simple account of a journey to the Alexandra Falls near the mouth of the Hay River in the far northwest of Canada, he manages to make a capital book. Why any sane man should face such multi- plied hardships for the banal satisfac- tion of seeing a second-rate waterfall is beyond my comprehension, but Footner and his companion plainly en- joyed the trip immensely, and he gets some of that joy into his story of it. Let him give over his bad novels and stick to exploring. The volume of O'Brien is even more charming. He went to the Marquesan Islands, the scene of Herman Melville's "Typee" and of Paul Gauguin's celebrated paintings, came to good terms with the natives at once, settled down in their manner of life, and remained a year. An immoral people, but lately given over to cannibalism and even now guilty of gross violations of the
seventh commandment, they neverthe- less turned out to be simple, polit[e] hospitable, intelligent, cleanly and amusing. Very few whites live among them. O'Brien found a few drunken Frenchmen in remote valleys, and on one small island there was a Swiss liv- ing in great state, but in the main the native life is but little corrupted. However, the diseases of Christendom have got in, if Christian Kultur still remains outside. Tuberculosis is rag- ing in all the islands and the popula- tion is rapidly diminishing. The valley of Typee, which swarmed with state- ly savages in Melville's day, is now a desert. O'Brien's account of his ad- ventures is romantic and often almost lyrical. He has made a book worth reading.
" The Science of Eating," by Alfred W. McCann (Doran), runs to more than four hundred pages of flatulent bombast. This McCann, it appears, holds himself out to be an expert in dietetics, and for all I know there may be some ground for his claim. But he burdens his book with the two faults of prolixity and pecksniffery; he always takes a hundred words to say what might be said in eight or ten, and he always announces gravely that the notions he advocates are ordained of God and that flouting them is a sin against the Holy Ghost. Another volume in the same blowsy, chautau- qual manner is "The Sober World," by Randolph W. Smith (Jones), a maudlin plea for Prohibition, in which nearly all the sorrows of the world are laid to the conspiracies of German brewers. Literature of this sort multi- plies in America. Our national think- ing, once merely superficial, now fast approaches the downright idiotic. The English reviewers fall upon every such book with great delight; the temptation to mock the gushing Yankee is too strong to be resisted. What a French, a German or a Scandinavian critic would think of that sort of pishposh it is painful to guess. Fortunately such books seldom get past the Channel.
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