Athalie started to say something, and stopped. Perhaps she remembered C. Bailey, Jr., and that she had promised to dine and sup with him, "anywhere."

She said in a low voice: "It's all right, I suppose, if you know the man."

"I don't care whether I know him or not as long as it's a good restaurant."

"Don't talk that way, Doris!"

"Why not? It's true."

There was a silence. Doris set aside the empty bowl, yawned, looked at the clock, yawned again.

"This is too late for Catharine," she said, drowsily.

"I know it is. Who are the people she's with?"

"Genevieve Hunting—I don't know the men:—some of Genevieve's friends."

"I hope it's nobody from Winton's."

There had been in the Greensleeve family, a tacit understanding that it was not the thing to accept social attentions from anybody connected with the firm which employed them. Winton, the male milliner and gown designer, usually let his models alone, being in perpetual dread of his wife; but one of the unhealthy looking sons had become a nuisance to the girls employed there. Recently he had annoyed Catharine, and the girl was afraid she might have to lunch with him or lose her position.

Doris yawned again, then shivered.

"Go to bed, ducky," said Athalie. "I'll wait up for Catharine."

So Doris took herself off to bed and Athalie sank into the shabby arm-chair by the radiator to wait for her other sister.

It was two o'clock when she came in, flushed, vague-eyed, a rather silly and fixed smile on her doll-like face. Athalie, on the verge of sleep, rose from her chair, rubbing her eyes:

"What on earth, Catharine—"

"We had supper,—that's why I'm late.... I've got to have a dinner gown I tell you. Genevieve's is the smartest thing—"

"Where did you go?"

"To the Regina. I didn't want to—dressed this way but Cecil Reeve said—"

"Who?"

"Cecil—Mr. Reeve—one of Genevieve's friends—the man who was so crazy to meet me—"

"Oh! Who else was there?" asked Athalie drily.

"A Mr. Ferris—Harry Ferris they call him. He's quite mad about Genevieve—"

"Why did you drink anything?"

"I?"

"You did, didn't you?"

"I had a glass of champagne."

"What else?"

"Nothing—except something pink in a glass—before we sat down to supper.... And something violet coloured, afterward."

"Your breath is dreadful; do you realise it?"

Catharine seemed surprised, then her eyes wandered vaguely, drowsily, and she laid her gloved hand on Athalie's arm as though to steady herself.

"What sort of man is your new friend, Cecil Reeve?" inquired Athalie.

"He's nice—a gentleman. And they were so amusing;—we laughed so much.... I told him he might call.... He's really all right, Athalie—"

"And Mr. Ferris?"

"Well—I don't know about him; he's Genevieve's friend;—I don't know him so well.... But of course he's all right—a gentleman—"

"That's the trouble," said Athalie in a low voice.

"What is the trouble?"

"These friends of yours—and of Doris, and of mine ... they're gentlemen.... And that is why we find them agreeable, socially.... But when they desire social amusement they know where to find it."

"Where?"

"Where girls who work for a living are unknown. Where they never are asked, never go, never are expected to go. But that is where such men are asked, where such men are expected; and it is where they go for social diversion—not to the Regina with two of Winton's models, nor to the Cafe Arabesque with an Egyptian Garden chorus girl, nor—" she hesitated, flushed, and was silent, staring mentally at the image of C. Bailey, Jr., which her logic and philosophy had inevitably evoked.

"Then, what is a business girl to do?" asked Catharine, vaguely.

Athalie shook her golden head, slowly: "Don't ask me."

Catharine said, still more vaguely: "She must do something—pleasant—before she's too old and sick to—to care what happens."

"I know it.... Men, of that kind, are pleasant.... I don't see why we shouldn't go out with them. It's all the chance we have. Or will ever have.... I've thought it over. I don't see that it helps for us to resent their sisters and mothers and friends. Such women would never permit us to know them. The nearest we can get to them is to know their sons."

"I don't want to know them—"

"Yes, you do. Be honest, Catharine. Every girl does. And really I believe if the choice were offered a business girl, she would rather know the mothers and sisters than the sons."

"There's no use thinking about it," said Catharine.

"No, there is no use.... And so I don't see any harm in being friends with their sons.... It will hurt at times—humiliate us—maybe embitter us.... But it's that or nothing."

"We needn't be silly about their sons."

Athalie opened her dark blue eyes, then laughed confidently: "Oh, as for anything like that! I should hope not. We three ought to know something by this time."

"I should think so," murmured Catharine; and her warm, wine-scented breath fell on Athalie's cheek.



CHAPTER VIII

Before February had ended C. Bailey, Jr., and Athalie Greensleeve had been to more than one play, had dined and supped together more than once at the Regina.

The magnificence of the most fashionable restaurant in town had thrilled and enchanted Athalie. At close range for the first time she had an opportunity to inspect the rich, the fashionable, and the great. As for celebrities, they seemed to be merely a by-product of the gay, animated, beautifully gowned throngs: people she had heard of, people more important still of whom she had never heard, people important only to themselves of whom nobody had ever heard thronged the great rococo rooms. The best hotel orchestra in America played there; the loveliest flowers, the most magnificent jewels, the most celebrated cuisine in the entire Republic—all were there for Athalie Greensleeve to wonder at and to enjoy. There were other things for her to wonder at, too,—the seemingly exhaustless list of C. Bailey, Jr.'s, acquaintances; for he was always nodding to somebody or returning salutes wherever they were, in the theatre, or the street, in his little limousine car, at restaurants. Men sometimes came up and spoke and were presented to Athalie: women, never.

But although she was very happy after her first evening out with C. Bailey, Jr., she realised that a serious inroad upon her savings was absolutely necessary if she were to continue her maiden's progress with this enchanting young man. Clothing of a very different species than any she had ever permitted herself was now becoming a necessity. She made the inroad. It was worth while if only to see his surprise and his naive pride in her.

And truly the girl was very lovely in the few luxuries she ventured to acquire—so lovely, indeed, that many heads turned and many eyes followed her calm and graceful progress in theatre aisle, amid thronged tables, on the Avenue, anywhere and everywhere she moved along the path of life now already in flowery bloom for her.

And beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. Bailey, Jr., very conscious that he was being envied; very proud of the beautiful young girl with whom he was so constantly identifying himself, and who, very obviously, was doing him honour.

Of his gratified and flattered self-esteem the girl was unconscious; that he was really happy with her, proud of her appearance, kind to her beyond reason and even beyond propriety perhaps,—invariably courteous and considerate, she was vividly aware. And it made her intensely happy to know that she gave him pleasure and to accept it from him.

It was pleasure to Clive; but not entirely unmitigated. His father asked him once or twice who the girl was of whom "people" were talking; and when his son said: "She's absolutely all right, father," Bailey, Sr., knew that she was—so far.



"But what's the use, Clive?" he asked with a sort of sad humour. "Is it necessary for you, too, to follow the path of the calf?"

"I like her."

"And other men are inclined to, and have no opportunity; is that it, my son? The fascination of monopoly? The chicken with the worm?"

"I like her," repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle annoyed.

"So you have remarked before. Who is she?"

"Do you remember that charming little child in the red hood and cloak down at Greensleeve's tavern when we were duck-shooting?"

"Is that the girl?"

"Yes."

"What is she?"

"Stenographer."

Bailey, Sr., shrugged his shoulders, patiently.

"What's the use, Clive?"

"Use? Well there's no particular use. I'm not in love with her. Did you think I was?"

"I don't think any more. Your mother does that for me.... Don't make anybody unhappy, my son."

* * * * *

His mother, also, had made very frank representations to him on several occasions, the burden of them being that common people beget common ideas, common associations corrupt good manners, and that "nice" girls would continue to view with disdain and might ultimately ostracise any misguided young man of their own caste who played about with a woman for whose existence nobody who was anybody could account.

"The daughter of a Long Island road-house keeper! Why, Clive! where is your sense of fitness! Men don't do that sort of thing any more!"

"What sort of thing, mother?"

"What you are doing."

"What am I doing?"

"Parading a very conspicuous young woman about town."

"If you saw her in somebody's drawing-room you'd merely think her beautiful and well-bred."

"Clive! Will you please awake from that silly dream?"

"That's the truth, mother. And if she spoke it would merely confirm the impression. You won't believe it but it's true."

"That's absurd, Clive! She may not be uneducated but she certainly cannot be either cultivated or well-bred."

"She is cultivating herself."

"Then for goodness' sake let her do it! It's praiseworthy and commendable for a working girl to try to better herself. But it doesn't concern you."

"Why not? If a business girl does better herself and fit herself for a better social environment, it seems to me her labour is in vain if people within the desired environment snub her."

"What kind of argument is that? Socialistic? I merely know it is unbaked. What theory is it, dear?"



"I don't know what it is. It seems reasonable to me, mother."

"Clive, are you trying to make yourself sentimentalise over that Greensleeve woman?"

"I told you that I am not in love with her; nor is she with me. It's an agreeable and happy comradeship; that's all."

"People think it something more," retorted his mother, curtly.

"That's their fault, not Athalie's and not mine."

"Then, why do you go about with her? Why? You know girls enough, don't you?"

"Plenty. They resemble one another to the verge of monotony."

"Is that the way you regard the charming, well-born, well-bred, clever, cultivated girls of your own circle, whose parents were the friends of your parents?"

"Oh, mother, I like them of course.... But there's something about a business girl—a girl in the making—that is more amusing, more companionable, more interesting. A business girl seems to wear better. She's better worth talking to, listening to,—it's better fun to go about with her, see things with her, discuss things—"

"What on earth are you talking about! It's perfect babble; it's nonsense! If you really believe you have a penchant for sturdy and rather grubby worthiness unadorned you are mistaken. The inclination you have is merely for a pretty face and figure. I know you. If I don't, who does! You're rather a fastidious young man, even finicky, and very, very much accustomed to the best and only the best. Don't talk to me about your disinterested admiration for a working girl. You haven't anything in common with her, and you never could have. And you'd better be very careful not to make a fool of yourself."

"How?"

"As all men are likely to do at your callow age."

"Fall in love with her?"

"You can call it that. The result is always deplorable. And if she's a smart, selfish, and unscrupulous girl, the result may be more deplorable still, as far as we all are concerned. What is the need of my saying this? You are grown; you know it already. Up to the present time you've kept fastidiously clear of such entanglements. You say you have, and your father and I believe you. So what is the use of beginning now,—creating an unfortunate impression in your own set, spending your time with such a girl as this Greensleeve girl—"

"Mother," he said, "you're going about this matter in the wrong way. I am not in love with Athalie Greensleeve. But there is no girl I like better, none perhaps I like quite as well. Let me alone. There's no sentiment between her and me so far. There won't be any—unless you and other people begin to drive us toward each other. I don't want you to do that. Don't interfere. Let us alone. We're having a good time,—a perfectly natural, wholesome, happy time together."



"What is it leading to?" demanded his mother impatiently.

"To nothing except more good times. That's absolutely all. That's all that good times lead to where any of the girls you approve of are concerned—not to sentiment, not to love, merely to more good times. Why on earth can't people understand that even if the girl happens to be earning her own living?"

"People don't understand. That is the truth, and you can't alter it, Clive. The girl's reputation will always suffer. And that's where you ought to show yourself generous."

"What?"

"If you really like and respect her."

"How am I to show myself generous, as you put it?"

"By keeping away from her."

"Because people gossip?"

"Because," said his mother sharply, "they'll think the girl is your mistress if you continue to decorate public resorts with her."

"Would—you think so, mother?"

"No. You happen to be my son. And you're truthful. Otherwise I'd think so."

"You would?"

"Certainly."

"That's rotten," he said, slowly.

"Oh, Clive, don't be a fool. You can't do what you're doing without arousing suspicion everywhere—from a village sewing-circle to the smartest gathering on Manhattan Island! You know it."

"I have never thought about it."

"Then think of it now. Whether it's rotten, as you say, or not, it's so. It's one of the folk-ways of the human species. And if it is, merely saying it's rotten can't alter it."

Mrs. Bailey's car was at the door; Clive took the great sable coat from the maid who brought it and slipped it over the handsome afternoon gown that his handsome mother wore.

For a moment he stood, looking at her almost curiously—at the brilliant black eyes, the clear smooth olive skin still youthful enough to be attractive, at the red lips, mostly nature's hue, at the cheeks where the delicate carmine flush was still mostly nature's.

He said: "You have so much, mother.... It seems strange you should not be more generous to a girl you have never seen."

His handsome, capable, and experienced mother gazed at him out of friendly and amused eyes from which delusion had long since fled. And that is where she fell short, for delusion is the offspring of imagination; and without imagination no intelligence is complete. She said: "I can be generous with any woman except where my son concerns himself with her. Where anybody else's son is involved I could be generous to any girl, even—" she smiled her brilliant smile—"even perhaps not too maliciously generous. But the situation in your case doesn't appeal to me as humorous. Keep away from her, Clive; it's easier than ultimately to run away from her."



CHAPTER IX

The course of irresponsible amusement which C. Bailey, Jr., continued to pursue at intervals with the fair scion of the house—road-house—of Greensleeve, did not run as smoothly as it might have, and was not unmixed with carping reflections and sordid care on his part, and with an increasing number of interruptions, admonitions, and warnings on the part of his mother.

That pretty lady, flint-hardened in the igneous social lava-pot, continued to hear disquieting tales of her son's doings. They came to her right and left, from dance and card-table, opera-box and supper party, tea and bazaar and fashionable reception.

One grim-visaged old harridan of whom Manhattan stood in fawning fear, bluntly informed her that she'd better look out for her boy if she didn't want to become a grandmother.

Which infuriated and terrified Mrs. Bailey and set her thinking with all the implacable concentration of which she was capable.

So far in life she had accomplished whatever she set out to do.... And of all things on earth she dreaded most to become a grandmother of any description whatever.

But between Athalie and Clive, if there had been any doubts concerning the propriety or expediency of their companionship neither he nor she had, so far, expressed them.

Their comradeship, in fact, had now become an intimacy—the sort that permits long silences without excuse or embarrassment on either side. She continued to charm and surprise him; and to discover, daily, in him new traits to admire in a character which perhaps he did not really possess.

In this girl he seemed to find an infinite variety. Moods, impulsive or deliberate, and capricious or logical, continued to stimulate his interest in her every time they met. On no two days was she exactly the same—or so he seemed to think. And yet her basic qualities were, it appeared to him, characteristic and unvarying,—directness, loyalty, generosity, freedom from ulterior motive and a gay confidence in a world which, for the first time in her life, she had begun to find unexpectedly exciting.

They had been one evening to a musical comedy which by some fortunate chance was well written, well sung, and well done. And they were in excellent spirits as they left the theatre and stood waiting for his small limousine car, she in her pretty furs held close to her throat, humming under her breath a refrain from the delightful finale, he smoking a cigarette and watching the numbers being flashed for the long line of carriages and motors which moved up continually through the lamp-lit darkness.

"Athalie," he said, "suppose we side-step the Regina and try Broadway. Are you in the humour for it?"

She laughed and her eyes sparkled in the electric glow: "Are you, Clive?"

"Yes, I am. I feel very devilish."

"So do I,—devilishly hungry."

"That's fine. Where shall we go?"

"The Cafe Arabesque?... The name sounds exciting."

"All right—" as his car drew up and the gold-capped porter opened the door;—so he directed his chauffeur to drive them to the Cafe Arabesque.

"If you don't like it," he added to Athalie, drawing the fur robe over her knees and his, "we can go somewhere else."

"That's very nice of you. I don't have to suffer for my mistakes."

"Nobody ever ought to suffer for mistakes because nobody would ever make mistakes on purpose," he said, laughing.

"Such a delightful philosophy! Please remind me of it when I'm in agony over something I'm sorry I did."

"I'm afraid you'll have to remind me too," he said, still laughing. "Is it a bargain?"

"Certainly."

The car stopped; he sprang out and aided her to the icy sidewalk.

"I don't think I ever saw you as pretty as you are to-night," he whispered, slipping his arm under hers.

"Are you really growing more beautiful or do I merely think so?"

"I don't know," she said, happily; "I'll tell you a secret, shall I?"

He inclined his ear toward her, and she said in a laughing whisper: "Clive, I feel beautiful to-night. Do you know how it feels to feel beautiful?"

"Not personally," he admitted; and they separated still laughing like two children, the focus of sympathetic, amused, or envious glances from the brilliantly dressed throng clustering at the two cloak rooms.

She came to him presently where he was waiting, and, instinctively the groups around the doors made a lane for the fair young girl who came forward with the ghost of a smile on her lips as though entirely unconscious of herself and of everybody except the man who moved out to meet her.

"It's true," he murmured; "you are the most beautiful thing in this beauty-ridden town."

"You'll spoil me, Clive."

"Is that possible?"

"I don't know. Don't try. There is a great deal in me that has never been disturbed, never been brought out. Maybe much of it is evil," she added lightly.

He turned; she met his eyes half seriously, half mockingly, and they laughed. But what she had said so lightly in jest remained for a few moments in his mind to occupy and slightly trouble it.

From their table beside the bronze-railed gallery, they could overlook the main floor where a wide lane for dancing had been cleared and marked out with crimson-tasselled ropes of silk.

A noisy orchestra played imbecile dance music, and a number of male and female imbeciles took advantage of it to exercise the only portions of their anatomy in which any trace of intellect had ever lodged.

Athalie, resting one dimpled elbow on the velvet cushioned rail, watched the dancers for a while, then her unamused and almost expressionless gaze swept the tables below with a leisurely absence of interest which might have been mistaken for insolence—and envied as such by a servile world which secretly adores it.

"Well, Lady Greensleeves?" he said, watching her.

"Some remarkable Poiret and Lucille gowns, Clive.... And a great deal of paint." She remained a moment in the same attitude—leisurely inspecting the throng below, then turned to him, her calm preoccupation changing to a shyly engaging smile.

"Are you still of the same mind concerning my personal attractiveness?"

"I have spoiled you!" he concluded, pretending chagrin.

"Is that spoiling me—to hear you say you approve of me?"

"Of course not, you dear girl! Nothing could ever spoil you."

She lifted her Clover Club, looking across the frosty glass at him; and the usual rite was silently completed. They were hungry; her appetite was always a natural and healthy one, and his sometimes matched it, as happened that night.

"Now, this is wonderful," he said, lighting a cigarette between courses and leaning forward, elbows on the cloth, and his hands clasped under his chin; "a good show, a good dinner, and good company. What surfeited monarch could ask more?"

"Why mention the company last, Clive?"

"I've certainly spoiled you," he said with a groan; "you've tasted adulation; you prefer it to your dinner."

"The question is do you prefer my company to the dinner and the show? Do you! If so why mention me last in the catalogue of your blessings?"

"I always mention you last in my prayers—so that whoever listens will more easily remember," he said gaily.

The laughter still made the dark blue eyes brilliant but they grew more serious when she said: "You don't really ever pray for me, Clive. Do you?"

"Yes. Why not?"

The smile faded in her eyes and in his.

"I didn't know you prayed at all," she remarked, looking down at her wine glass.

"It's one of those things I happen to do," he said with a slight shrug.

They mused for a while in silence, her mind pursuing its trend back to childhood, his idly considering the subject of prayer and wondering whether the habit had become too mechanical with him, or whether his less selfish petitions might possibly carry to the Source of All Things.

Then having drifted clear of this nebulous zone of thought, and coffee having been served, they came back to earth and to each other with slight smiles of recognition—delicate salutes acknowledging each other's presence and paramount importance in a world which was going very gaily.

They discussed the play; she hummed snatches of its melodies below her breath at intervals, her dark blue eyes always fixed on him and her ears listening to him alone. Particularly now; for his mood had changed and he was drifting back toward something she had said earlier in the evening—something about her own possible capacity for good and evil. It was a question, only partly serious; and she responded in the same vein:

"How should I know what capabilities I possess? Of course I have capabilities. No doubt, dormant within me lies every besetting sin, every human failing. Perhaps also the cardinal, corresponding, and antidotic virtues to all of these."

"I suppose," he said, "every sin has its antithesis. It's like a chess board—the human mind—with the black men ranged on one side and the white on the other, ready to move, to advance, skirmish, threaten, manoeuvre, attack, and check each other, and the intervening squares represent the checkered battlefield of contending desires."

The simile striking her as original and clever, she made him a pretty compliment. She was very young in her affections.

"If," she nodded, "a sin, represented by a black piece, dares to stir or intrude or threaten, then there is always the better thought, represented by a white piece, ready to block and check the black one. Is that it?"

"Exactly," he said, secretly well pleased with himself. And as for Athalie, she admired his elastic and eloquent imagination beyond words.

"Do you know," she said, "you have never yet told me anything about your business. Is it all right for me to ask, Clive?"

"Certainly. It's real estate—Bailey, Reeve, and Willis. Willis is dead, Reeve out of it, and my father and I are the whole show."

"Reeve?" she repeated, interested.

"Yes, he lives in Paris, permanently. He has a son here, in the banking business."

"Cecil Reeve?"

"Yes. Do you know him?"

"No. My sister Catharine does."

Clive seemed interested and curious: "Cecil Reeve and I were at Harvard together. I haven't seen much of him since."

"What sort is he, Clive?"

"Nice—Oh, very nice. A good sport;—a good deal of a sport.... Which sister did you say?"

"Catharine."

"That's the cunning little one with the baby stare and brown curls?"

"Yes."

There was a silence. Clive sat absently fidgeting with his glass, and Athalie watched him. Presently without looking up he said: "Yes, Cecil Reeve is a very decent sport.... Rather gay. Good-looking chap. Nice sort.... But rather a sport, you know."

The girl nodded.

"Catharine mustn't believe all he says," he added with a laugh. "Cecil has a way—I'm not knocking him, you understand—but a young—inexperienced girl—might take him a little bit too seriously.... Of course your sister wouldn't."

"No, I don't think so.... Are you that way, too?"

He raised his eyes: "Do you think I am, Athalie?"

"No.... But I can't help wondering—a little uneasily at times—how you can find me as—as companionable as you say you do.... I can't help wondering how long it will last."

"It will last as long as you do."

"But you are sure to find me out sooner or later, Clive."

"Find you out?"

"Yes—discover my limits, exhaust my capacity for entertaining you, extract the last atom of amusement out of me. And—what then?"

"Athalie! What nonsense!"

"Is it?"

"Certainly it's nonsense. How can I possibly tire of such a girl as you? I scarcely even know you yet. I don't begin to know you. Why you are a perfectly unexplored, undiscovered girl to me, yet!"

"Am I?" she asked, laughing. "I supposed you had discovered about all there is to me."

He shook his head, looking at her curiously perplexed: "Every time we meet you are different. You always have interesting views on any subject. You stimulate my imagination. How could I tire?

"Besides, somehow I am always aware of reserved and hidden forces in you—of a character which I only partly know and admire—capabilities, capacities of which I am ignorant except that, intuitively, I seem to know they are part of you."

"Am I as complex as that to you?"

"Sometimes," he admitted. "You are just now for example. But usually you are only a wonderfully interesting and charming girl who brings out the best side of me and keeps me amused and happy every moment that I am with you."

"There really is not much more to me than that," she said in a low voice. "You sum me up—a gay source of amusement: nothing more."

"Athalie, you know you are more vital than that to me."

"No, I don't know it."

"You do! You know it in your own heart. You know that it is a straight, clean, ardent friendship that inspires me and—" she looked up, serious, and very quiet.

—"You know," he continued impulsively, "that it is not only your beauty, your loveliness and grace and that inexplicable charm you seem to radiate, that brings me to seek you every time that I have a moment to do so.

"Why, if it were that alone, it would all have been merely a matter of sentiment. Have I ever been sentimental with you?"

"No."

"Have I ever made love to you?"

She did not reply. Her eyes were fixed on her glass.

"Have I, Athalie?" he repeated.

"No, Clive," she said gently.

"Well then; is there not on my part a very deep, solidly founded, and vital friendship for you? Is there not a—"

"Don't let's talk about it," she interrupted in a low voice. "You always make me very happy; you say I please you—interest and amuse you. That is enough—more than enough—more than I ever hoped or asked—"

"I said you make me happy;—happier than I have ever been," he explained with emphasis. "Do you suppose for a moment that your regard for me is warmer, deeper, more enduring, than is mine for you? Do you, Athalie?"

She lifted her eyes to his. But she had nothing more to say on the subject.

However, he began to insist,—a little impatiently,—on a direct answer. And finally she said:

"Clive, you came into a rather empty life when you came into mine. Judge how completely you have filled it.... And what it would be if you went out of it. Your own life has always been full. If I should disappear from it—" she ceased.

The quiet, accentless, almost listless dignity of the words surprised and impressed him for a moment; then the reaction came in a faint glow through every vein and a sudden impulse to respond to her with an assurance of devotion a little out of key with the somewhat stately and reserved measure of their duet called friendship.

"You also fill my life," he said. "You give me what I never had—an intimacy and an understanding that satisfies. Had I my way I would be with you all the time. No other woman interests me as you do. There is no other woman."

"Oh, Clive! And all the charming people you know—"

"I know many. None like you, Athalie."

"That is very sweet of you.... I'm trying to believe it.... I want to.... There are many days to fill in when I am not with you. To fill them with such a belief would be to shorten them.... I don't know. I often wonder where you are; what you are doing; with what stately and beautiful creature you are talking, laughing, walking, dancing."—She shrugged her shoulders and gazed down at the dancers below. "The days are very long, sometimes," she added, half to herself.

When again, calmly, she turned to him there was an odd expression on his face, and the next second he reddened and shifted his gaze. Neither spoke for a few moments.

Presently she began to draw on her gloves, but he continued staring into space, not noticing her, and finally she bent forward and rested her slim gloved fingers on his hand, lightly, interrogatively.

"Yes; all right," he muttered.

"I have to go to business in the morning," she pleaded. He turned almost impatiently:

"If I had my way you wouldn't go to business at all."

"If I had my way I wouldn't either," she rejoined, smilingly. But his youthful visage remained sober and flushed. And when they were seated in the limousine and the fur rug enveloped them both, he said abruptly:

"I'm getting tired of this business."

"What business, Clive?"

"Everything—the way you live—your inadequate quarters—your having to work all day long in that stuffy office, day after day, year after year!"

She said, surprised and perplexed: "But it can't be helped, Clive! I have to work."

"Why?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean—what good am I to you—what's the use of me, if I can't make things easier for you?"

"The use of you? Did you think I ever had any idea of using you?"

"But I want you to."

"How?" she asked, still uneasily perplexed, her eyes fixed on him.

But he had no definite idea, no plan fixed, nothing further to say on a subject that had so suddenly taken shape within his mind.

She asked him again for an explanation, but, receiving none, settled back thoughtfully in her furs. Only once did he break the silence.

"You know," he said indifferently, "that row of houses, of which yours is one, belongs to me. I mean to me, personally."

"No, I didn't know it."

"Well it does. It's my own investment.... I've reduced rents—pending improvements."

She looked up at him.

"The rent of your apartment has been reduced fifty per cent.," he said carelessly; "so your rent is now paid until the new term begins next October."

"Clive! That is perfectly ridiculous!" she began, hotly; but he swung around, silencing her:

"Are you criticising my business methods?" he demanded.

"But that is too silly—"

"Will you mind your business!" he exclaimed, turning and taking her by both shoulders. She looked into his eyes, searching them in silence. Then:

"You're such a dear," she sighed; "why do you want to do a thing like that when my sisters and I can afford to pay the present rent. You are always doing such things, Clive; you have simply covered my dressing-table with silver; my bureau is full of pretty things, all gifts from you; you've given me the loveliest furniture of my own, and books and desk-set and—and everything. And now you are asking me to live rent-free.... And what have I to offer you in return?"

"The happiness of being with you now and then."

"Oh, Clive! You know that isn't very much to offer you. You know that our being together is far more to me than it is to you! I dare not even consider what I'd do without you, now. You mould me, alter my thoughts, make me such a delightfully different girl, take entire charge and possession of me.... I don't want you to give me anything more—do anything more for me.... When you first began to give me beautiful things I didn't want to take them. Do you remember how awkward and shy I was—how I blushed. But I always end by doing everything you wish.... And it seems to give us both so much pleasure—all you do for me.... But please don't ask me to live without paying rent—"

The limousine drew up by the curb; Clive jumped out, aided Athalie to descend; and started for the grilled door where a light glimmered.

"This is not the house!" exclaimed Athalie, stopping short. "Where are you taking me, Clive?"

"Come on," he said, "I merely want to show you how I've had the new apartment house built—"

"But—it's too late! What an odd idea, taking me to inspect a new apartment house at two in the morning! Are you really serious?"

He nodded and rang. A sleepy night porter opened, recognised Clive, and touched his hat.

"Take us to the top, Mike," he said.

"Have you the keys, sorr?"

"Yes."

They entered the cage and it shot up to the top floor.

"Wait for us, Mike."... And to Athalie: "This is Michael Daly who will do anything you ask of him—won't you, Mike?"

"I will that, sorr," said the big Irishman, tipping his hat to Athalie.

"But, Clive," she persisted, bewildered, still clinging to his arm, "I don't understand why—"

"Little goose, hush!" he replied, subduing the excitement in his voice and fitting the key into the door.

"One moment, Athalie," he added, "until I light up. Now!"

She entered the lighted hallway, walking on a soft green carpet, and turned, obeying the guiding pressure of his arm, into a big square room which sprang into brilliant illumination as he found the switch.

Green and gold were the hangings and prevailing colours; there were rugs, wide, comfortable chairs and lounges, bookcases, a picture or two in deep glowing colours, a baby-grand piano, and an open fire loaded for business.

"Is it done in good taste, Athalie?" he asked.

"It is charming. Is it yours, Clive?"

He laughed, slipped his arm under hers and led her along the hallway, opening door after door; and first she was invited to observe a very modern and glistening bathroom, then a bedroom all done in grey and rose with dainty white furniture and a white-bear rug beside the bed.

"Why this is a woman's room!" she exclaimed, puzzled.

He only laughed and drew her along the hall, showing her another bedroom with twin beds, a maid's room, a big clothes press, and finally, a completely furnished kitchen, very modern with its porcelain baseboard and tiled walls.

"What do you think of all this, Athalie?" he insisted.

"Why it's exquisite, Clive. Whose is it?"

They walked back to the square living-room. He said, teasingly: "Do you remember, the first time I saw you after those four years,—that first evening when I came in to surprise you and found you sitting by the radiator—in your nightie, Athalie?"

"Yes," she said, laughing and blushing as she always did when he tormented her with that souvenir.

"And I said that you ought to have an open fire. And a cat. Didn't I?"

"Yes."

"There's your fire, Athalie;" he drew a match from his tiny flat gold case, struck it, and lighted the nest of pine shavings under the logs;—"and Michael has the cat when you want it."

He drew a big soft arm-chair to the mounting blaze. Athalie stood motionless, staring at the flames, then with a sudden, nervous gesture she sank down on the arm-chair and covered her face with her gloved hands.

He stood waiting, happy and excited, and finally he went over and touched her; and the girl caught his hand convulsively in both of hers and looked up at him with wet eyes.

"How can I do this, Clive? How can I?" she whispered.

"Any brother would do as much for his sister—"

"Oh, Clive! You are different! You are more than that. You know you are. How can I take all this? Will you tell me? How can I live here—this way—"

"Your sisters will be here. You saw their room just now—"

"But what can I tell them? How can I explain? They know we cannot afford such luxury as this?"

"Tell them the rent is the same."

"They won't believe it. They couldn't. They don't understand even now how it is with you and me—that you are so dear and generous and kind just because you are my friend—and no more than my friend.... Not that they really believe—anything—unpleasant—of me—but—but—"

"What do you care—as long as it isn't so?" he said, coolly.

"I don't care. Except that it weakens my authority over them.... Catharine is very impulsive, and she dearly loves a good time—and she is becoming sullen with me when I try to advise her or curb her.... And it's so with Doris, too.... I'd like to keep my influence.... But if they ever really began to believe that between you and me there was—more—than friendship, I—I don't know what they might feel free to think—or do—"

"They're older than you."

"Yes. But I seem to have the authority,—or I did have."

They looked into the leaping flames; he threw open his fur coat and seated himself on the padded arm of her chair.

"All I know is," he said, "that it gives me the deepest and most enduring happiness to do things for you. When the architect planned this house I had him design a place for you. Ultimately all the row of old houses are to be torn down and replaced by modern apartments with moderate rentals. So you will have to move anyway sooner or later. Why not come here now?"

Half unconsciously she had rested her cheek against the fur lining of his coat where it fell against his arm. He looked down at her, touched her hair—a thing he had never thought of doing before.

"Why not come here, Athalie?" he said caressingly.

"I don't know. It would be heavenly. Do you want me to, Clive?"

"Yes. And I want you to begin to put away part of your salary, too. You might as well begin, now. You will be free from the burden of rent, free from—various burdens—"

"I—can't—let you—"

"I want to!"

"Why?"

"Because it gives me pleasure—"

"No; because you desire to give me pleasure! That is the reason!" she exclaimed with partly restrained passion—"because you are you—and there is nobody like you in all the world—in all the world, Clive!—"

To her emotion his own flashed a quick, warm response. He looked down at her, deeply touched, his pride gratified, his boyish vanity satisfied. Always had the simplicity and candour of her quick and ardent gratitude corroborated and satisfied whatever was in him of youthful self-esteem. Everything about her seemed to minister to it—her attention in public places was undisguisedly for him alone; her beauty, her superb youth and health, the admiring envy of other people—all these flattered him.

Why should he not find pleasure in giving to such a girl as this?—giving without scruple—unscrupulous too, perhaps, concerning the effect his generosity might have on a cynical world which looked on out of wearied and incredulous eyes; unscrupulous, perhaps, concerning the effect his too lavish kindness might have on a young girl unaccustomed to men and the ways of men.

But there was no harm in him; he was very much self-assured of that. He had been too carefully brought up—far too carefully reared. And had people ventured to question him, and had they escaped alive his righteous violence, they would have learned that there really was not the remotest chance that his mother was in danger of becoming what she most dreaded in all the world.

* * * * *

The fire burned lower; they sat watching it together, her flushed cheek against the fur of his coat, his arm extended along the back of the chair behind her.

"Well," he said, "this has been another happy evening."

She stirred in assent, and he felt the lightest possible pressure against him.

"Are you contented, Athalie?"

"Yes."

After a moment he glanced at his watch. It was three o'clock. So he rose, placed the screen over the fireplace, and then came back to where she now stood, looking very intently at the opposite wall. And he turned to see what interested her. But there seemed to be nothing in particular just there.

"What are you staring at, little ghost-seer?" he asked, passing his hand under her arm; and stepped back, surprised, as she freed herself with a quick, nervous movement, looked at him, then averted her head.

"What is the matter, Athalie?" he inquired.

"Nothing.... Don't touch me, Clive."

"No, of course not.... But what in the world—"

"Nothing.... Don't ask me." Presently he saw her very slowly move her head and look back at the empty corner of the room; and remain so, motionless for a moment. Then she turned with a sigh, came quietly to him; and he drew her hand through his arm.

"Of what were you thinking, Athalie?"

"Of nothing."

"Did you think you saw something over there?"

She was silent.

"What were you looking at?" he insisted.

"Nothing.... I don't care to talk just now—"

"Tell me, Athalie!"

"No.... No, I don't want to, Clive—"

"I wish to know!"

"I can't—there is nothing to tell you—" she laid one hand on his coat, almost pleadingly, and looked up at him out of eyes so dark that only the starry light in them betrayed that they were blue and not velvet black.

"That same thing has happened before," he said, looking at her, deeply perplexed. "Several times since I have known you the same expression has come into your face—as though you were looking at something which—"

"Please don't, Clive!—"

"—Which," he insisted, "I did not see.... Could not see!"

"Clive!"

He stared at her rather blankly: "Why don't you tell me?"

"I—can't!"

"Is there anything—"

"Don't! Don't!" she begged; but he went on, still staring at her:

"Is there any reason for you to—not to be frank with me? Is there, Athalie?"

"No; no reason.... I'll tell you ... if you will understand. Must I tell you?"

"Yes."

Her head fell; she stood plucking nervously at his fur coat for a while in silence. Then:

"Clive, I—I see clearly."

"What?"

"I mean that I see a—a little more clearly than—some do. Do you understand?"

"No."

She sighed, stood twisting her white-gloved fingers, looking away from him.

"I am clairvoyant," she breathed.

"Athalie! You?"

She nodded.

For a second or two he stood silent in his astonishment; then, taking her hand, he drew her around facing the light, and she looked up at him in her lovely abashed way, yet so honestly, that anybody who could recognise truth and candour, could never have mistaken such eyes as hers.

"Who told you that you are clairvoyant?" he asked.

"My mother."

"Then—"

"It was not necessary for anybody to tell me that I saw—more clearly—than other people.... Mother knew it.... She merely explained and gave a name to this—this—whatever it is—this quality—this ability to see clearly.... That is all, Clive."

He was evidently trying to comprehend and digest what she had said. She watched him, saw surprise and incredulity in conflict with uneasiness and with the belief he could not avoid from lips that were not fashioned for lies, and from eyes never made to even look untruths.

"I had never supposed there was such a thing as real clairvoyance," he said at last.

She remained silent, her candid gaze on him.

"I believe that you believe it, of course."

She smiled, then sighed:

"There is no pleasure in it to me. I wish it were not so."

"But, if it is so, you ought to find it—interesting—"

"No."

"Why not? I should think you would!—if you can see—things—that other people cannot."

"I don't care to see them."

"Why?"

"They—I see them so often—and I seldom know who they are—"

"They?"

"The—people—I see."

"Don't they ever speak to you?"

"Seldom."

"Could you find out who they are?"

"I don't know.... Yes, I think so;—if I made an effort."

"Don't you ever use any effort to evoke—"

"Oh, Clive! No! When I tell you I had rather not see so—so clearly—"

"You dear girl!" he exclaimed, half smiling, half serious, "why should it distress you?"

"It doesn't—except to talk about it."

"Let me ask one more question. May I?"

She nodded.

"Then—did you recognise whoever it was you saw a few moments ago?"

"Yes."

"Who was it, Athalie?"

"My mother."



CHAPTER X

Early in April C. Bailey, Jr., overdrew his account, was politely notified of that oversight by the bank. He hunted about, casually, for stray funds, but to his intense surprise discovered nothing immediately available.

Which annoyed him, and he explained the situation to his father; who demanded further and sordidly searching explanations concerning the expenditure on his son's part of an income more than adequate for any unmarried young man.

They undertook this interesting line of research together, but there came a time in the proceedings when C. Bailey, Jr., betrayed violent inclinations toward reticence, non-communication, and finally secrecy; in fact he declined to proceed any further or to throw any more light upon his reasons for not proceeding, which symptoms were characteristic and perfectly familiar to his father.

"The trouble is," concluded Bailey, Sr., "you have been throwing away your income on that Greensleeve girl! What is she—your private property?"

"No."

The two men looked at each other, steadily enough. Bailey, Sr., said: "If that's the case—why in the name of common sense do you spend so much money on her?" Naive logic on the part of Bailey, Sr., Clive replied:

"I didn't suppose I was spending very much. I like her. I like her better than any other girl. She is really wonderful, father. You won't believe it if I say she is charming, well-bred, clever—"

"I believe that!"

—"And," continued Clive—"absolutely unselfish and non-mercenary."

"If she's all that, too, it certainly seems to pay her—materially speaking."

"You don't understand," said his son patiently. "From the very beginning of our friendship it has been very difficult for me to make her accept anything—even when she was in actual need. Our friendship is not on that basis. She doesn't care for me because of what I do for her. It may surprise you to hear me—"

"My son, nothing surprises me any more, not even virtue and honesty. This girl may be all you think her. Personally I never met any like her, but I've read about them in sentimental fiction. No doubt there's a basis for such popular heroines. There may have been such paragons. There may be yet. Perhaps you've collided with one of these feminine curiosities."

"I have."

"All right, Clive. Only, why linger longer in the side-show than the price of admission warrants? The main tent awaits you. In more modern metaphor; it's the same film every hour, every day, the same orchestrion, the same environment. You've seen enough. There's nothing more—if I clearly understand your immaculate intentions. Do I?"

"Yes," said Clive, reddening.

"All right; there's nothing more, then. It's time to retire. You've had your amusement, and you've paid for it like a gentleman—very much like a gentleman—rather exorbitantly. That's the way a gentleman always pays. So now suppose you return to your own sort and coyly reappear amid certain circles recently neglected, and which, at one period of your career, you permitted yourself to embellish and adorn with your own surpassing personality."

They both laughed; there had been, always, a very tolerant understanding between them.

Then Clive's face grew graver.

"Father," he said, "I've tried remaining away. It doesn't do any good. The longer I stay away from her, the more anxious I am to go back.... It's really friendship I tell you."

"You're not in love with her, are you, Clive?"

The son hesitated: "No!... No, I can't be. I'm very certain that I am not."

"What would you do if you were?"

"But—"

"What would you do about it?"

"I don't know."

"Marry her?"

"I couldn't do that!" muttered Clive, startled. Then he remained silent, his mind crowded with the component parts of that vague sum-total which had so startled him at the idea of marrying Athalie Greensleeve.

Partly his father's blunt question had jarred him, partly the idea of marrying anybody at all. Also the mere idea of the storm such a proceeding would raise in the world he inhabited, his mother being the storm-centre, dispensing anathema, thunder, and lightning, appalled him.

"What!"

"I couldn't do that," he repeated, gazing rather blankly at his father.

"You could if you had to," said his father, curtly. "But I take your word it couldn't come to that."

The boy flushed hotly, but said nothing. He shrank from comprehending such an impossible situation, ashamed for himself, ashamed for Athalie, resenting even the exaggerated and grotesque possibility of such a thing—such a monstrous and horrible thing playing any part in her life or in his.

The frankness and cynicism of Bailey, Sr., had possibly been pushed too far. Clive became restless; and the calm entente cordiale ended for a while.

Ended also his visits to Athalie for a while, the paternal conversation having, somehow, chilled his desire to see her and spoiled, for the time anyway, any pleasure in being with her.

Also his father offered to help him out financially; and, somehow, he felt as though Bailey, Sr., was paying for his own gifts to Athalie. Which idea mortified him, and he resolved to remain away from her until he recovered his self-respect—which would be duly recovered, he felt certain, when the next coupons fell due and he could detach them and extinguish the parental loan.

For a week or two he did not even wish to see her, so ashamed and sullied did he feel after the way his father had handled and bruised the delicate situation, and the name of the young girl who so innocently adorned it.

No, something had been spoiled for him, temporarily. He felt it. Something of the sweetness, the innocence, the candour of this blameless friendship had been marred. The bloom was rubbed off; the piquant freshness and fragrance gone for the present.

It is true that an unexpected boom in his business kept him and his father almost feverishly active and left them both fatigued at night. This lasted for a week or two—long enough to excite all real estate men with a hope for future prosperity not yet entirely dead. But at the end of two or three weeks that hope began to die its usual, lingering death.

Dulness set in; the talk was of Harlem, Westchester, and the Bronx: a private bank failed, then three commercial houses went to the wall; and a seat was sold for $25,000 on the Exchange. Business resumed its normal and unexaggerated course. The days of boom were surely ended; and vacant lots on Fifth Avenue threatened to remain vacant for a while longer.

Clive began to drop in at his clubs again. One was a Whipper-Snapper Club to which young Manhattan aspired when freshly released from college; the others were of the fashionable and semi-fashionable sort, tedious, monotonous, full of the aimless, the idle, or of that bustling and showy smartness which is perhaps even less admirable and less easy to endure.

Men destitute of mental resources and dependent upon others for their amusement, disillusioned men, lazy men, socially ambitious men, men gluttonously or alcoholically predisposed haunted these clubs. To one of them repaired those who were inclined to racquettes, squash, tennis, and the swimming tank. It was a sort of social clearing house for other clubs.

But The Geyser was the least harmless of the clubs affected by C. Bailey, Jr.,—it being an all-night resort and the haunt of the hopeless sport. Here dissipation, futile, aimless, meaningless, was on its native heath. Here, on his own stamping ground, prowled the youthful scion of many a dissipated race—nouveau riche and Knickerbocker alike. All that was required of anybody was money and a depthless capacity.

It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil Reeve one stormy midnight.

"You don't come here often, do you?" said the latter.

Clive said he didn't.

"Neither do I. But when I do there's a few doing. Will you have a high one, Clive? In deference to our late and revered university?"

Clive would so far consent to degrade himself for the honour of Alma Mater.

There was much honour done her that evening.

Toward the beginning of the end Clive said: "I can't sit up all night, Cecil. What do you do for a living, anyway?"

"Bank a bit."



"Oh, that's just amusement. What do you work at?"

"I didn't mean that kind of bank!" said Reeve, annoyed. All sense of humour fled him when hammerlocked with Bacchus. At such psychological moments, too, he became indiscreet. And now he proposed to Clive an excursion amid what he termed the "high lights of Olympus," which the latter discouraged.

"All right then. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give a Byzantine party! I know a little girl—"

"Oh, shut up!"

"She's a fine little girl, Clive—"

"This is no hour to send out invitations."

"Why not? Her name is Catharine—"

"Dry up!"

"Catharine Greensleeve—"

"What!"

"Certainly. She's a model at Winton's joint. She's a peach. Appropriately crowned with roses she might have presided for Lucullus."

Clive said: "By that you mean she's all right, don't you? You'd better mean it anyway!"

"Is that so?"

"Yes, that's so. I know her sister. She's a charming girl. All of them are all right. You understand, don't you?"

"I understand numerous things. One of 'em's Catharine Greensleeve. And she's some plum, believe me!"

"That's all right, too, so stop talking about it!" retorted Clive sharply.

"Sure it's all right. Don't worry, just because you know her sister, will you?"

Clive shrugged. Reeve was in a troublesome mood, and he left him and went home feeling vaguely irritated and even less inclined than ever to see Athalie; which state of mind perplexed and irritated him still further.

* * * * *

He went to one or two dances during the week—a thing he had not done lately. Then he went to several more; also to a number of debutante theatre parties and to several suppers. He rather liked being with his own sort again; the comfortable sense of home-coming, of conventionalism, of a pleasant social security, appealed to him after several months' irresponsible straying from familiar paths. And he began to go about the sheep-walks and enjoy it, slipping back rather easily into accustomed places and relations with men and women who belonged in a world never entered, never seen by Athalie Greensleeve, and of the existence of which she was aware only through the daily papers.

He wrote to her now and then. Always she answered his letter the following day.

About the end of April he wrote:

"DEAR ATHALIE,

"About everything seems to conspire to keep me from seeing you; business—in a measure,—social duties; and, to tell the truth, a mistaken but strenuous opposition on my mother's part.

"She doesn't know you, and refuses to. But she knows me, and ought to infer everything delightful in the girl who has become my friend. Because she knows that I don't, and never did affect the other sort.



"Every day, recently, she has asked me whether I have seen you. To avoid unpleasant discussions I haven't gone to see you. But I am going to as soon as this unreasonable alarm concerning us blows over.

"It seems very deplorable to me that two young people cannot enjoy an absolutely honest friendship unsuspected and undisturbed.

"I miss you a lot. Is the apartment comfortable? Does Michael do everything you wish? Did the cat prove a good one? I sent for the best Angora to be had from the Silver Cloud Cattery.

"Now tell me, Athalie, what can I do for you? Please! What is it you need; what is it you would like to have? Are you saving part of your salary?

"Tell me also what you do with yourself after business hours. Have you seen any shows? I suppose you go out with your sisters now and then.

"As for me I go about more or less. For a while I didn't: business seemed to revive and everybody in real estate became greatly excited. But it all simmered down again to the usual routine. So I've been going about to various affairs, dances and things. And, consequently, there's peace and quiet at home for me. "Always yours, "C BAILEY, JR."

"P.S. As I sit here writing you the desire seizes me to drop my pen, put on my hat and coat and go to see you. But I can't. There's a dinner on here, and I've got to stay for it. Good night, dear Athalie! "CLIVE."

His answer came by return mail as usual:

"DEAR CLIVE,

"Your letter has troubled me so much. If your mother feels that way about me, what are we to do? Is it right for us to see each other?

"It is true that I am not conscious of any wrong in seeing you and in being your friend. I know that I never had an unworthy thought concerning you. And I feel confident that your thoughts regarding our friendship and me are blameless. Where lies the wrong?

"Some aspects of the affair have troubled me lately. Please do not be sensitive and take offence, Clive, if I admit to you that I never have quite reconciled myself to accepting anything from you.

"What I have accepted has been for your own sake—for the pleasure you found in giving, not for my own sake.

"I wanted only your friendship. That was enough—more than enough to make me happy and contented.

"I was not in want; I had sufficient; I lived better than I had ever lived; I was self-reliant, self-supporting, and—forgive and understand me, Clive—a little more self-respecting than I now am.

"It is true I had saved very little; but I am young and life is before me.

"This seems very ungrateful of me, very ungenerous after all you have done for me—all I have taken from you.

"But, Clive, it is the truth, and I think it ought to be told. Because this is, and has always been, a source of self-reproach to me, whether rightly or wrongly, I don't know. I am a novice at confession, but I feel that, if I am to make a clean breast to you, partial confession is not worth while, not really honest, not worthy of the very sacred friendship that inspires it.

"So I shall shrive myself as well as I know how and continue to admit to you my further doubts and misgivings. They are these: my sisters do not understand your friendship for me even if they understand mine for you—which they say they do.

"I don't think they believe me dishonest; but they cannot see any reason for your generosity to me unless you ultimately expect me to be dishonest.

"This has weakened my influence with them. I know I am the youngest, yet until recently I had a certain authority in matters regarding the common welfare and the common policy. But this is nearly gone. They point out with perfect truth that I myself do, with you, the very things for which I criticise them and against which I warn them.

"Of course the radical difference is that I do these things with you; but they can't understand why you are any better, any finer, any more admirable, any further to be trusted than the men they go about with alone.

"It is quite in vain that I explain to them what sort of man you are. They retort that I merely think so.

"There is a man who takes Catharine out more frequently, and keeps her out much later than I like. I mean Cecil Reeve. But what I say only makes my sister sullen. She knows he is a friend of yours.... And, Clive, I am rather afraid she is beginning to care more for him than is quite safe for her to ever care for any man of that class.

"And Doris has met other men of the same kind—I don't know who they are, for she won't tell me. But after the theatre she goes out with them; and it is doing her no good.

"There is only one more item in my confession, then I'm done.

"It is this: I have heard recently from various sources that my being seen with you so frequently is causing much gossip concerning you among your friends.

"Is this true? And if it is, will it damage you? I don't care about myself. I know very few people and it doesn't matter. Besides I care enough about our companionship to continue it, whatever untruths are said or thought about me. But how about you, Clive? Because I also care enough for you to give you up if my being seen with you is going to disgrace you.

"This is my confession. I have told you all. Now, could you tell me what it is best for us to do?

"Think clearly; act wisely; don't even dream of sacrificing yourself with your usual generosity—if it is indeed to be a case for self-sacrifice. Let me do that by giving you up. I shall do it anyway if ever I am convinced that my companionship is hurting your reputation.

"Be just to us both by being frank with me. Your decision shall be my law.

"This is a long, long letter. I can't seem to let it go to you—as though when I mail it I am snapping one more bond that still seems to hold us together.

"My daily life is agreeable if a trifle monotonous. I have been out two or three times, once to see the Morgan Collection at the Metropolitan Museum—very dazzling and wonderful. What strange thoughts it evoked in me—thrilling, delightful, exhilarating—as though inspiring me to some blind effort or other. Isn't it ridiculous?—as though I had it in me to do anything or be anybody! I'm merely telling you how all that exquisite art affected me—me—a working girl. And Oh, Clive! I don't think anything ever gave me as much pleasure as did the paintings by the French masters, Lancret, Drouais, and Fragonard! (You see I had a catalogue!)

"Another evening I went out with Catharine. Mr. Reeve asked us, and another man. We went to see 'Once Upon a Time' at the Half-Moon Theatre, and afterward we went to supper at the Cafe Columbine.

"Another evening the other man, Mr. Reeve's friend, a Mr. Hargrave, asked me to see 'Under the Sun' at the Zig-Zag Theatre. It was a tiresome show. We went to supper afterward to meet Catharine and Mr. Reeve.

"That is all except that I've dined out once or twice with Mr. Hargrave. And, somehow or other I felt queer and even conspicuous going to the Regina with him and to other places where you and I have been so often together...Also I felt a little depressed. Everything always reminded me of you and of happy evenings with you. I can't seem to get used to going about with other men. But they seem to be very nice, very kind, and very amusing.

"And a girl ought to be thankful to almost anybody who will take her out of her monotony.

"I'm afraid you've given me a taste for luxury and amusement. You have spoiled me I fear. I am certainly an ungrateful little beast, am I not, to lay the blame on you! But it is dull, Clive, after working all day to sit every evening reading alone, or lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling, waiting for the others to come home.

"If it were not for that darling cat you gave me I'd perish of sheer solitude. But he is such a comfort, Hafiz; and his eyes are the bluest blue and his long, winter fur the snowiest white, and his ruff is wonderful and his tail magnificent. Also he is very affectionate to me. For which, with perfect reverence, I venture to thank God.

"Good night, Clive. If you've struggled through this letter so far you won't mind reading that I am faithfully and always your friend, "ATHALIE GREENSLEEVE."

Her letter thoroughly aroused Clive and he was all for going straight to her—only he couldn't go that evening because he dared not break a dinner engagement or fail to appear with his mother at the opera. In fact he was already involved in a mess of social obligations for two weeks ahead,—not an evening free—and Athalie worked during the day.

It gave him an odd, restless sensation to hear of her going about with Francis Hargrave—dining alone with him. He felt almost hurt as though she had done him a personal injustice, yet he knew that it was absurd for him to resent anything of that sort. His monopoly of her happened to be one merely because she, at that time, knew no other man of his sort, and would not go out with any other kind of man.

Why should he expect her to remain eternally isolated except when he chose to take her out? No young girl could endure that sort of thing too long. Certainly Athalie was inevitably destined to meet other men, be admired, admire in her turn, accept invitations. She was unusually beautiful,—a charming, intelligent, clean-cut, healthy young girl. She required companionship and amusement; she would be unhuman if she didn't.

Only—men were men. And safe and sane friendships between men of his own caste, and girls like Athalie Greensleeve, were rare.

Clive chafed and became restive and morose. In vain he repeated to himself that what Athalie was doing was perfectly natural. But it didn't make the idea of her going out with other men any more attractive to him.

His clever mother, possibly aware of what ferment was working in her son, watched him out of the tail of her ornamental eyes, but wisely let him alone to fidget his own way out of it. She had heard that the Greensleeve girl was raising hob with Cecil Reeve and Francis Hargrave. They were other people's sons, however. And it might have worked itself out of Clive—this restless ferment which soured his mind and gave him an acid satisfaction in being anything but cordial in his own family circle.

But there was a girl—a debutante, very desirable for Clive his mother thought—one Winifred Stuart—and very delightful to look upon.

And Clive had seen just enough of her to like her exceedingly; and, at dances, had even wandered about to look for her, and had evinced boredom and dissatisfaction when she had not been present.

Which inspired his mother to give a theatre party for little Miss Stuart and two dozen other youngsters, and a supper at the Regina afterward.

It was an excellent idea; and it went as wrong as such excellent ideas so often go. For as Clive in company with the others sauntered into the splendid reception room of the Regina, he saw Athalie come in with a man whom he had never before seen.

The shock of recognition—for it was a shock—was mutual. Athalie's dark eyes widened and a little colour left her cheeks: and Clive reddened painfully.

It was, perhaps, scarcely the thing to do, but as she advanced he stepped forward, and their hands met.

"I am so very glad to see you again," he said.

"I too, Clive. Are you well?"

"And you?"

"Quite," she hesitated; there was a moment's pause while the two men looked coolly at each other.

"May I present Mr. Bailey, Captain Dane?" Further she did not account for Captain Dane, who presently took her off somewhere leaving Clive to return to his smiling but enraged mother.

Never had he found any supper party so noisy, so mirthless, and so endless. Half the time he didn't know what he was saying to Winifred Stuart or to anybody else. Nor could he seem to see anybody very distinctly, for the mental phantoms of Athalie and Captain Dane floated persistently before him, confusing everything at moments except the smiling and deadly glance of his mother.

Afterward they went to their various homes in various automobiles, and Clive was finally left with his mother in his own drawing-room.

"What you did this evening," she said to her son, "was not exactly the thing to do under the circumstances, Clive."

"Why not?" he asked wearily as her maid relieved her of her sables and lace hood.

"Because it was not necessary.... That girl you spoke to was the Greensleeve girl I suppose?"

"Yes, Athalie Greensleeve."

"Who was the man?"

"I don't know—a Captain Dane I believe."

"Wasn't a civil bow enough?"

"Enough? Perhaps; I don't know, mother. I don't seem to know how much is due her from me. She's never had anything from me so far—anything worth having—"

"Don't be a fool, Clive."

He said, absently: "It's too late for such advice! I am a fool. And I don't quite understand how not to be one."

His mother, rather fearful of arousing in him any genuine emotion, discreetly kissed him good night.

"You're a slightly romantic boy," she said. "There is nothing else the matter with you."

They mounted the velvet-covered stairway together, her arm around his neck, his encircling a slender, pliant waist that a girl of sixteen might have envied. Her maid followed with furs and hood.

"Come into my bedroom and smoke, Clive," she smiled. "We can talk through the dressing-room door."

"No; I think I'll turn in."

The maid continued on through the rose and ivory bedroom and into the dressing-room. Mrs. Bailey lingered, intuition and experience preparing her for what a boy of that age was very sure to say.

And after some fidgeting about he said it:

"Mother, honestly what did you think of her?"

His mother's smile remained unaltered: "Do you mean the Greensleeve girl?"

"I mean Athalie Greensleeve."

"She is pretty in a rather common way."

"Common!"

"Did you think she is not?"

"Common," he repeated in boyish astonishment. "What is there common about her?"

"If you can't see it any woman of your own class can."



Which remark aroused all that was dramatic and poetic in the boy, and he spoke with a slightly exaggerated phraseology:

"What is there common about this very beautiful girl? Surely not her features. Her head, her figure, her hands, her feet are delicate and very exquisitely formed; in her bearing there is an unconscious and sweet dignity; her voice is soft, charming, well-bred. What is there about her that you find common?"

His mother, irritated and secretly dismayed, maintained, however, her placid mask and her attitude of toleration.

She said: "I distinguish between a woman to the manner born, and a woman who is not. The difference is as subtle as intuition and as wide as the ocean. And, dear, no young man, however clever, is clever enough to instruct his mother concerning such matters."

"I was asking you to instruct me," he said.

"Very well. If you wish to know the difference between the imitation and the real, compare that young woman with Winifred Stuart."

Clive's gaze shifted from his mother and became fixed on space.

After a moment his pretty mother moved toward the dressing-room: "If you will find a chair and light a cigarette, Clive, we can continue talking."

His absent eyes reverted to her: "I think I'll go, mother. Good night."

"Good night, dear."

He went to his own room. From the room adjoining came his father's heavy breathing where he lay asleep.

The young fellow listened for a moment, then walked into the library where only a dim night-light was burning. He still wore his overcoat over his evening clothes, and carried his hat and stick.

For a while he stood in the dim library, head bent, staring at the rug under foot.

Then he turned, went out and down the stairs, and opened the door of the butler's pantry. The service telephone was there. He unhooked the receiver and called. Almost immediately he got his "party."

"Yes?" came the distant voice distinctly.

"Is it you, Athalie?"

"Yes.... Oh, Clive!"

"Didn't you recognise my voice?"

"Not immediately."

"When did you come in?"

"Just this moment. I still have on my evening wrap."

"Did you have an agreeable evening?"

"Yes."

"Are you tired?"

"No."

"May I come around and see you for a few minutes?"

"Yes."

"All right," he said briefly.



CHAPTER XI

The door of the apartment stood ajar and he walked in. Athalie, still in her evening gown, rose from the sofa before the fire, dropping the white Angora, Hafiz, from her lap.

"It's so good of you, Clive," she said, offering her hand.

"It's good of you, Athalie, to let me come."

"Let you!" There was a smile on her sensitive lips, scarcely perceptible.

He dropped coat, hat, and walking stick across a chair; she seated herself on the sofa, and he came over and found a place for himself beside her.

"It's been a long time, Athalie. Has it seemed so to you?"

She nodded. Hafiz, marching to and fro, his plumy tail curling around her knees, looked up at his mistress out of sapphire eyes.

"Jump, darling," she said invitingly. Hafiz sprang onto her lap with a quick contented little mew, stretched his superb neck and began to rub against her shoulder, purring ecstatically.

"He'll cover me with long white hairs," she remarked to Clive, "but I don't care. Isn't he a beauty? Hasn't he seraphic eyes and angelic manners?"

Clive nodded, watching the cat with sombre and detached interest.

She said, stroking Hafiz and looking down at the magnificent animal: "Did you have a pleasant evening, Clive?"

"Not very."

"I'm sorry. Your party seemed to be such a very gay one."

"They made a lot of noise."

She laughed: "Is that a very gracious way to put it?"

"Probably not.... Where had you been before you appeared at the Regina?"

"To see some moving pictures taken in the South American jungle. It was really wonderful, Clive: there were parrots and monkeys and crocodiles and wild pigs—peccaries I think they are called—and then a big, spotted, chunky-headed jaguar stalked into view! I was so excited, so interested—"

"Where was it?"

"On the middle fork of the upper Amazon—"

"I mean where were the films exhibited?"

"Oh! At the Berkeley. It was a private view."

"Who invited you?"

"Captain Dane."

He looked up at her, soberly:

"Who is Captain Dane?"

"Why—I don't know exactly. He is a most interesting man. I think he has been almost everything—a naturalist, an explorer, a scout in the Boer War, a soldier of fortune, a newspaper man. He is fascinating to talk to, Clive."

"Where did you meet him?"

"In the office. Mr. Wahlbaum collects orchids, and Captain Dane looked up some for him when he was on the Amazon a short time ago. He came into the office about week before last and Mr. Wahlbaum introduced him to me. They sat there talking for an hour. It was so interesting to me; and I think Captain Dane noticed how attentively I listened, for very often he addressed himself to me.... And he asked Mr. Wahlbaum, very nicely, if he might show me the orchids which are in the Botanical Gardens, and that is how our friendship began."

"You go about with him?"

"Whenever he asks me. I went with him last Sunday to the Museum of Natural History. Just think, Clive, I had never been. And, do you know, he could scarcely drag me away."

"I suppose you dined with him afterward," he said coolly.

"Yes, at a funny little place—I couldn't tell you where it is—but everybody seemed to know everybody else and it was so jolly and informal—and such good food! I met a number of people there some of whom have called on me since—"

"What sort of people?"

"About every interesting sort—men like Captain Dane, writers, travellers, men engaged in unusual professions. And there were a few delightful women present, all in some business or profession. Mlle. Delauny of the Opera was there—so pretty and so unaffected. And there was also that handsome suffragette who looks like Jeanne d' Arc—"

"Nina Grey."

"Yes. And there was a rather strange and fascinating woman—a physician I believe—but I am not sure. Anyway she is associated with the psychical research people, and she asked if she might come to see me—"

He made an impatient movement—quite involuntary—and Hafiz who was timid, sprang from Athalie's lap and retreated, tail waving, and ears flattened for expected blandishments to recall him.

Athalie glanced up at the man beside her with a laugh on her lips, which died there instantly.

"What is the matter, Clive?"

"Nothing," he said.

His sullen face remained in profile, and after a moment she laid her hand lightly, questioningly on his sleeve.

Without turning he said: "I don't know what is the matter with me, so don't ask me. Something seems to be wrong. I am, probably.... And I think I'll go home, now."

But he did not stir.

After a few moments she said very gently: "Are you displeased with me for anything I have said or done? I can't imagine—"

"You can't expect me to feel very much flattered by the knowledge that you are constantly seen with other men where you and I were once so well known."

"Clive! Is there anything wrong in my going?"

"Wrong? No:—if your own sense of—of—" but the right word—if there were such—eluded him.

"I know how you feel," she said in a low voice. "I wrote you that it seemed strange, almost sad, to be with other men where you and I had been together so often and so—so happily.

"Somehow it seemed to be an invasion of our privacy, of our intimacy—for me to dine with other men at the same tables, be served by the same waiters, hear the same music. But I didn't know how to avoid it when I was taken there by other men. Could you tell me what I should have done?"

He made no reply; his boyish face grew almost sulky, now.

Presently he rose as though to get his coat: she rose also, unhappy, confused.

"Don't mind me. I'm a fool," he said shortly, looking away from her—"and a very—unhappy one—"

"Clive!"

He said savagely: "I tell you I don't know what's the matter with me—" He passed one hand brusquely across his eyes and stood so, scowling at the hearth where Hafiz sat, staring gravely back at him.

"Clive, are you ill?"

He shrugged away the suggestion, and his arm brushed against hers. The contact seemed to paralyse him; but when, slipping back unconsciously into the old informalities, she laid her hands on his shoulders and turned him toward the light, instantly and too late she was aware that the old and innocent intimacy was ended, done for,—a thing of the past.

Incredulous still in the very menace of new and perilous relations—of a new intimacy, imminent, threatening, she withdrew her hands from the shoulders of this man who had been a boy but an instant ago. And the next moment he caught her in his arms.

"Clive! You can't do this!" she whispered, deathly white.

"What am I to do?" he retorted fiercely.

"Not this, Clive!—For my sake—please—please—"

There was colour enough in her face, now. Breathless, still a little frightened, she looked away from him, plucking nervously, instinctively, at his hands clasping her waist.

"Can't you c-care for me, Athalie?" he stammered.

"Yes ... you know it. But don't touch me, Clive—"

"When I'm—in love—with you—"

She caught her breath sharply.

"—What am I to do?" he repeated between his teeth.

"Nothing! There is nothing to do about it! You know it!... What is there to do?"

He held her closer and she strained away from him, her head still averted.

"Let me go, Clive!" she pleaded.

"Can't you care for me!"

"Let me go!"

He said under his breath: "All right." And released her. For a moment she did not move but her hands covered her burning face and sealed her lids. She stood there, breathing fast and irregularly until she heard him move. Then, lowering her hands she cast a heart-broken glance at him. And his ashen, haggard visage terrified her.

"Clive!" she faltered: he swung on his heel and caught her to him again.

She offered no resistance.

She was crying, now,—weeping perhaps for all that had been said—or remained unsaid—or maybe for all that could never be said between herself and this man in whose arms she was trembling. No need now for any further understanding, for excuses, for regrets, for any tardy wish expressed that things might have been different.

He offered no explanation; she expected none, would have suffered none, crying there silently against his shoulder. But the reaction was already invading him; the tide of self-contempt rose.

He said bitterly: "Now that I've done all the damage I could, I shall have to go—or offer—"

"There is no damage done—yet—"

"I have made you love me."

"I—don't know. Wait."

Wet cheek against his shoulder, lips a-quiver, her tragic eyes looked out into space seeing nothing yet except the spectre of this man's unhappiness.

Not for herself had the tears come, the mouth quivered. The flash of passionate emotion in him had kindled in her only a response as blameless as it was deep.

Sorrow for him, for his passion recognised but only vaguely understood, grief for a comradeship forever ended now—regret for the days that now could come no more—but no thought of self as yet, nothing of resentment, of the lesser pity, the baser pride.

If she had trembled it was for their hopeless future; if she had wept it was because she saw his boyhood passing out of her life like a ghost, leaving her still at heart a girl, alone beside the ashes of their friendship.

As for marriage she knew it would never be—that neither he nor she dared subscribe to it, dared face its penalties and its punishments; that her fear of his unknown world was as spontaneous and abiding as his was logical and instinctive.

There was nothing to do about it. She knew that instantly; knew it from the first;—no balm for him, no outlook, no hope. For her—had she thought about herself,—she could have entertained none.

She turned her head on his shoulder and looked up at him out of pitiful, curious eyes.

"Clive, must this be?"

"I love you, Athalie."

Her gaze remained fixed on him as though she were trying to comprehend him,—sad, candid, searching in his eyes for an understanding denied her.

"Yes," she said vaguely, "my thoughts are full of you, too. They have always been since I first saw you. I suppose it has been love. I didn't know it."

"Is it love, Athalie?"

"I—think so, Clive. What else could it be—when a girl is always thinking about a man, always happy with her memories of him.... It is love, I suppose ... only I never thought of it that way."

"Can you think of it that way now?"

"I haven't changed, Clive. If it was love in the beginning, it is now."

"In the beginning it was only a boy and girl affair."

"It was all my heart had room for."

"And now?"

"You fill my heart and mind as always. But you know that."

"I thought—perhaps—not seeing you—"

"Clive!"

"—Other men—other interests—" he muttered obstinately, and so like a stubborn boy that, for a moment, a pale flash from the past seemed to light them both, and she found herself smiling:

"A girl must go on living until she is dead, Clive. Even if you went away I'd continue to exist until something ended me. Other men are merely other men. You are you."

"You darling!"

But she turned shy instantly, conscious now of his embrace, confused by it and the whispered endearment.

"Please let me go, Clive."

"But I love you, dear—"

"Yes—but please—"

Again he released her and she stepped back, retreating before him, until the lounge offered itself as refuge. But it was no refuge; she found herself, presently, drawn close to his shoulder; her flushed cheek rested there once more, and her lowered eyes were fixed on his strong, firm hand which had imprisoned both of hers.

"If you can stand it I can," he said in a low voice.

"What?"

"Marrying me."

"Oh, Clive! They'd tear us to pieces! You couldn't stand it. Neither could I."

"But if we—"

"Oh, no, no, no!" she protested, "it would utterly ruin you! There was one woman there to-night—very handsome—I knew she was your mother. And I saw the way she looked at me.... It's no use, Clive. Those people are different. They'd never forgive you, and it would ruin you or you'd have to go back to them."

"But if we were once married, there are friends of mine who—"

"How many? One in a thousand! Oh, Clive, Clive, I know you so well—your family and your pride in them, your position and your security in it, your wide circle of friends, without which circle you would wander like a lost soul—yes, Clive, lost, forlorn, unhappy, even with me!"

She lifted her head from his shoulder and sat up, gazing intently straight ahead of her. In her eyes was a lovely azure light; her lips were scarcely parted; and so intent and fixed was her gaze that for a moment he thought she had caught sight of some concrete thing which held her fascinated.

But it was only that she "saw clearly" at that moment—something that had come into her field of vision—a passing shape, perhaps, which looked at her with curious, friendly, inquiring eyes,—and went its way between the fire and the young girl who watched it pass with fearless and clairvoyant gaze.

"Athalie?"

"Yes," she answered as in a dream.

"Athalie! What is the matter?"

She turned, looked at him almost blindly as her remoter vision cleared.

"Clive," she said under her breath, "go home."

"What?"

"Go home. You are wanted."

"What!!!"

She rose and he stood up, his fascinated eyes never leaving hers.

"What were you staring at a moment ago?" he demanded. "What did you—think—you saw?"

Her eyes looked straight into his. She went to him and put both arms around his neck.

"Dearest," she said "—dearest." And kissed him on the mouth. But he dared not lay one finger on her.

The next moment she had his coat, was holding it for him. He took his hat and stick from her, turned and walked to the door, wheeled in his tracks, shivering.

And saw her crouched on the sofa, her head buried in her arms. And dared not speak.

* * * * *

There was an automobile standing in the street before his own house as he turned out of Fifth Avenue; lighted windows everywhere in the house, and the iron grille ajar.

He could scarcely fit the latch-key his hands were so unsteady.

There were people in the hall, partly clad. He heard his own name in frightened exclamation.

"What is it?" he managed to ask.

A servant stammered: "Mr. Clive—it's all over, sir. Mrs. Bailey is asking for you, sir."

"Is my father—" but he could not go on.

"Yes, sir. His man heard him call—once—like he was dreamin' bad. But when he got to him Mr. Bailey was gone.... The doctor has just arrived, sir."

For one instant hope gleamed athwart the stunning crash of his senses: he steadied himself on the newel post. Then, in his ear a faint voice echoed: "Dearest—dearest!" And, knowing that hope also lay dead, he lifted his young head, straightened up, and set his foot heavily on the first step upward into a new and terrible world of grief.