A moment longer the other remained motionless, then, before his companion realized what he was doing, Ben had opened the door of the sheet-iron heater and tossed the paper in his fingers fair among the glowing coals.

"Thank you, Grannis," he said, "I agree with you." He stood a second looking into the suddenly kindled blaze. "As you say, to the living, life. Let the dead past bury its dead."

The flame died down until upon the coals lay a thin, curling film of carbon. Grannis shifted in his seat.

"Nevertheless," he commented indifferently, "you've done a foolish act." A pause; then he went on deliberately as before. "You've destroyed the only evidence that proves you Rankin's son."

Involuntarily Blair stiffened, seeming about to speak. But he did not. Instead, he closed the stove and resumed his former seat.

"By the way," he digressed, "I just received a letter from Scotty Baker. I wrote him some time ago about—Mr. Rankin. He answered from England."

Grannis made no comment, and, the conversation being obviously at an end, after a bit he rose, and with a taciturn "Good-night," left the room.

* * * * *

Days and weeks passed. The dead rigor of Winter gave way to traces of Spring. On the high places the earth began to turn brown, the buffalo grass to peep into view. By day the water slushed under the feet of the cattle, and ran merrily in the draws of the rolling country. By night it froze into marvellous frost-work; daintier and more intricate of pattern than any made by man. Overhead, flocks of wild ducks in irregular geometric patterns sailed north at double the speed of express trains. With their mellow "Honk—honk," sweetest sound of all to a frontiersman's ears, harbingers of Spring indeed, far above the level of the ducks, amid the very clouds themselves, the geese, in regular triangles, winged their way toward the snow-lands. At first they seemed to pass only by day; then, as the season advanced, the nights were melodious with the sound of their voices. Themselves invisible, far below on the surface of earth the swish of their migratory wings sounded so distinctly that to a listening human ear it almost seemed it were a troop of angels passing overhead.

After them came the myriad small birds of the prairie,—the countless flocks of blackbirds, whose "fl-ee-ce," in continuous chorus filled all the daylight hours; the meadow-larks, singly or in pairs, announcing their arrival with a guttural "tuerk" and a saucy flit of the tail, or admonishing "fill your tea-kettle, fill your tea-kettle" with a persistence worthy a better cause.

Ere this the earth was bare and brown. The chatter of the snow streams had ceased. In the high places, on southern slopes, there was even a suggestion of green. At last, on the sunny side of a knoll, there peeped forth the blue face of an anemone. The following day it had several companions. Within a week a very army of blue had arrived, stood erect at attention so far as the eye could reach and beyond. No longer was there a doubt of the season. Not precursors of Spring, but Spring itself had come.

Meanwhile, on the Box R ranch everything moved on as of yore. Save on that first night, Ben Blair made no man his confidant, accepted without question his place as Rankin's successor. Most silent of these silent people, he did his work and did it well, burying deep beneath an impenetrable mask his thoughts and feelings. Not until an early Summer was almost come did he make a move. Then at last a note of three sentences went eastward:

"Miss Baker: I'll be in New York in a few days, and if convenient to you will call. The prairies send greetings in advance. I saw the first wild rose of the season to-day.

"Ben Blair."

A week later, after giving directions for the day's work to Grannis one morning, Ben added some suggestions for the days to follow. As to time, they were rather indefinite, and the overseer looked a question.

"I'm going away for a bit," explained Ben, simply, in answer. Then he turned to Graham. "Hitch up the buckboard right away, please. I want you to take me to town in time to catch the afternoon train East."



CHAPTER XVII

GLITTER AND TINSEL

Clarence Sidwell—Chad, his friends called him—leaned farther back in the big wicker chair, with an involuntary motion adjusted his well-creased trousers so there might be no tension at the knees, and looked across the tiny separating table at his vis-a-vis, while his eyelids whimsically tightened.

"Well," he queried, "what do you think of it?"

The little brunette, his companion, roused herself almost with a start, while a suggestion of conscious red tinged her face. "I beg your pardon?" she said, inquiringly.

The man smiled. "Forgotten already, wasn't I?" he bantered.

"No, certainly not. I—"

A hand, delicate and carefully manicured as a woman's, was raised in protest. "Don't prevaricate, please. The occasion isn't worth it." The hand returned to the chair-arm with a play of light upon the solitaire it bore. The smile broadened. "You were caught. Confess, and the sentence will be lighter."

As a wave recedes, the red flood began to ebb from the girl's face. "I confess, then. I was—thinking."

"And I was—forgotten. My statement was correct."

She looked up, and the two smiled companionably.

"Admitted. I await the penalty."

The man's expression changed into mock sternness. "Very well, Miss Baker; having heard your confession and remembering a promise to exercise clemency, this court is about to impose sentence. Are you prepared to listen?"

"I'm growing stronger every minute."

The court frowned, the heavy black eyebrows making the face really formidable.

"I fear the defendant doesn't realize the enormity of the offence. However, we'll pass that by. The sentence, Miss Baker, brings me back to the starting-point. You are directed to answer the question just propounded, the question which for some inexplicable reason you didn't hear. What do you think of it—this roof-garden, and things in general?" The stern voice paused; the brows relaxed, and he smiled again. "But first, you're sure you won't have something more—an ice, a wee bottle—anything?"

The girl shook her head.

"Then let's make room here at this table for a better man; to hint at vacating for a better woman would be heresy! It's pleasanter over there in the corner out of the light, where one can see the street."

They found a vacant bench behind a skilfully arranged screen of palms, and Sidwell produced a cigar.

"In listening to a tale or a confession," he explained, "one should always call in the aid of nicotine. I fancy Munchausen's listeners must have been smokers."

The girl steadily inspected the dark mobile face, half concealed in the shadow. "You're making sport of me," she announced presently.

Instantly her companion's smile vanished. "I beg your pardon, Miss Baker, but you misunderstood. I thought by this time you knew me better than that."

"You really are interested, then? Would you truly like to know—what you asked?"

"I truly would."

Florence hesitated. Her breath came a trifle more quickly. She had not yet learned the trick of repression of the city folk.

"I think it's wonderful," she said. "Everything is wonderful. I feel like a child in fairyland; only the fairies must be giants. This great building, for instance,—I can't make it seem a product of mere six-foot man! In spite of myself, I keep expecting a great genie to emerge somewhere. I suppose this seems silly to you, but it's the feeling I have, and it makes me realize my own insignificance."

Sidwell smoked in silence.

"That's the first impression—the most vivid one, I think. The next is about the people themselves. I've been here nearly a half-year now, but even yet I stare at them—as you caught me staring to-night—almost with open mouth. To see these men in the daylight hours down town one would think they cared more for a minute than for their eternal happiness. I'm almost afraid to speak to them, my little affairs seem so tiny in comparison with the big ones it must take to make men work as they do. And then, a little later,—apparently for no other reason than that the sun has ceased to shine,—I see them, as here, for instance, unconscious that not minutes but hours are going by. They all seem to have double lives. I get to thinking of them as Jekylls and Hydes. It makes me a bit afraid."

Still Sidwell smoked in silence, and Florence observed him doubtfully. "You really wish me to chatter on in this way?" she asked.

"I was never more interested in my life."

The girl felt her face grow warm. She was glad they were in the shadow, so the man could not see it too clearly. For a moment she looked about her, at the host of skilful waiters, at the crowd of brightly dressed pleasure-seekers, at the kaleidoscopic changes, at the lights and shadows. From somewhere invisible the string orchestra, which for a time had been silent, started up anew, while her answering pulses beat to swifter measure. The air was a familiar one, heard everywhere about town; and she was conscious of a childish desire to join in singing it. The novelty of the scene, the sparkle, the animation, the motion intoxicated her. She leaned back in her seat luxuriously.

"This is life," she murmured. "I never grasped the meaning of the word until within the last few months, but now I begin to understand. To work mightily when one works, to abandon one's self completely when one rests—that is the secret of life."

The man in the shadow shifted his position, and, looking up, Florence found his eyes upon her. "Do you really believe that?" he asked.

"I do, most certainly."

Sidwell lit a fresh cigar, and for a moment the light of the burning match showed his face clearly. He seemed about to say more; but he did not, and Florence too was silent. In the pause that followed, the great express elevator stopped softly at the roof floor. The gate opened with a musical click, and a woman and a man stepped out. Both were immaculately dressed, both had the unmistakable air of belonging to the leisure class. They spied the place Florence and Sidwell had left vacant, and leisurely made their way to it. A waiter appeared, a coin changed hands, an order was given. The man drew out a cigarette case that flashed in colors from the nearby arc-light. Smilingly the woman held a match, and a moment later wreath after wreath of curling blue smoke floated above them into the night.

Florence Baker watched the scene with a strange fascination. She was conscious of having at some time visited a play wherein a similar action had taken place. She had thought it merely a creation of the writer's imagination at the time, but in her present broadened experience she knew better. It was real,—real as the air she breathed. She simply had not known the meaning of life then; she was merely existing. Now she knew!

The waiter returned, bearing something in a cooler. There were a few swift motions, a pop distinctly heard above the drone of the orchestra. The man tossed aside his cigarette and leaned forward. Two glasses with slender stems, each containing a liquid that effervesced and sparkled, one in the man's hand, one in the woman's, met midway of the board. The empty glasses returned to the table.

Many other seekers of pleasure were about, but Florence had no eyes for them. This pair alone, so indifferent to their surroundings, so thoroughly a part of them, perfectly fulfilled her newly formed conception. They had solved this puzzle of existence, solved it so completely that she wondered it could ever have appealed to her as a puzzle at all. Again the formula, distinct as the handwriting upon the wall, stood revealed before her. One had but to live life, not reason it, and all would be well.

Again and again, the delicate glasses sparkled to waiting lips, and returned empty to the table. The man lit another cigarette, and its smoke mingled with the darkness above. In the hands of the waiter the cooler disappeared, and was returned; a second cork popped as had the first. The woman's eyes sparkled as brilliantly as the gems upon her fingers. The languor of the man had passed. With the old action repeated, the brimming glasses touched across the board, were exchanged after the foreign fashion, and again were dry. The figure of the man leaned far over the table. He spoke earnestly, rapidly. Unconscious motions of his hands added emphasis to his words. Neither he nor she who listened was smiling now. Instead, there was a look, identical upon either face, a look somehow strangely familiar to the watcher, one she had met with before, somewhere—somewhere. Memory flew back on lightning wings, searched all the paths of her experience, the dim all-but-forgotten crannies, stopped with pointing finger; and with a tug at her very being, she looked, and unbelieving looked again. Ah, could it be possible—could it? Yes, there it was, unmistakable; the same expression as this before her—there, blazing from the eyes of a group of strange street-loafers, as she herself, she, Florence Baker, passed by!

In the shadow the face of the spectator crimsoned, the hot flood burned at her ears, a tightness like a physical hand gripped at her throat; but it seemed that her eyes could not leave the figures before her. Not the alien interest of a watcher at the play, but a more intense, a more personal meaning, was in her gaze now. Something of vital moment to her own life was taking place out there so near, and she must see. A fleeting wonder as to whether her own companion was likewise watching came to her, but she did not turn to discover. The denouement, inevitable as death, was approaching, might come if she for an instant looked away.

The man out there under the electric globe was still talking; the woman, his companion, still listened. Florence caught herself straining her ears to hear what he was saying; but to no purpose. She heard only the repressed murmur of his well-modulated, resonant voice; yet that in itself was enough. The old song of the sirens was flowing from his lips, and passion flamed in his eyes. Farther and farther across the tiny intervening table, nearer the woman's face, his own approached. The last empty bottle, the thin-stemmed glasses, stood in his way, and he moved them aside with his elbow. So near now was he that their breaths mingled, and as the drone of his voice ceased, the music of the orchestra, a waltz, flowed into the rift with its steady one-two-three. He was motionless; but his eyes, intense blue eyes under long lashes, were fixed absorbingly on hers.

It was the woman's turn to move. Gradually, gracefully, unconsciously, her own face came forward toward his. Sparkling in the light, a jewelled hand rested on the surface of the table. A tinge of crimson mounted the long white neck, and colored it to the roots of her hair. The arteries at the throat throbbed under the thin skin. Simultaneously, the opening gate of the elevator clicked, and a man—another with that unmistakable air of leisure—approached; but still she did not notice, did not hear. Instead, with a sudden motion, heedless of surroundings, reckless of spectators, her face crossed the gap intervening between her and her companion; her lips touched his lips, caught fire with the contact, met them again and again.

Watching, scarcely breathing, Florence saw the figure of the man come closer. His eyes also were upon the pair. He caught their every motion; but he did not hurry. On he came, leisurely, impassively, as though out for a stroll. He stopped by their side, a darkening shadow with a mask-like face. Instinctively the two glanced up. There was a crash of glassware, as the tiny table lurched in the woman's hand—and they were on their feet. A moment the three looked into each others' eyes, looked deep and long; then together, without a word, they turned toward the elevator. Again, droning monotonously, the car appeared and disappeared. After them, vibrant, mocking, there beat the unvarying rhythm of the waltz, one-two-three, one-two-three.

In the shadow, Florence Baker's face dropped into her hands. When at last she glanced up another couple, likewise immaculate of attire, likewise debonair and smiling, were seated at the little table. She turned to her companion. His cigar was still glowing brightly. He had not moved.

"I think I'll go home now, if you please," she said, and every trace of animation had left her voice. "I'm rather tired."

The man roused himself. "It's early yet. There'll be vaudeville here in a little while, after the theatre."

The girl observed him curiously. "It's early, did you say?"

Sidwell smiled indulgently. "Beg your pardon. I had forgotten our standards were not yet in conformity. It is so considered—here."

Florence was very quiet until they reached the steps of her own home. A light was in the open vestibule, another in the library, where Scotty, his feet comfortably enclosed in carpet-slippers and elevated above his head, was reading. Then she turned to her escort.

"You won't be offended, Mr. Sidwell, if I ask you a question?"

The electric light on the nearby corner shone full upon her soft brown face, a very serious face now, and the man's glance lingered there. "Certainly not," he answered.

Florence hesitated. Somehow, now that the moment for speaking had arrived, the thing she had in mind to say did not seem so easy after all. At last she spoke, hesitatingly: "You seem to be interested in me, seem to take pleasure in being in my company. For the last few months we have been together almost daily, but up to that time we had lived lives as unlike as—as the city is from the prairie. I know you have many other friends, friends you've known all your life, whose ideals and points of view came from the same experience as your own." She straightened with dignity. "Why is it that you leave those friends to come here? Why do you find pleasure in taking me about as you do? Why is it?"

Not once while she was speaking had the man's eyes left her face; not once had he stirred. Even after she was silent he remained so; and despite the compelling influence which had prompted the question, Florence could not but realize what she had done, what she had all but suggested. The warm color flooded her face, though she held her eyes up bravely. "Tell me why," she repeated firmly.

Sidwell still hesitated. Complex product of the higher civilization, mixture of good and bad, who knows what thoughts were running riot in his brain? At last he aroused and came closer. "You ask me a very hard question," he said steadily; "the most difficult, I think, you could have chosen; one, also, which perhaps I have already asked myself." Again he took a step nearer. "It is a question, Florence, that admits of but one answer; one both adequate and inadequate. It is because you are you and woman, and I am I and man." Of a sudden his dark face grew swarthier still, his voice lapsed from its customary impersonal. "It means, Florence Baker—"

But the sentence was not completed. As suddenly as the change had come to the man's face, the girl had understood. With an impulse she could not have explained to herself, she had drawn away and swiftly mounted the steps of the house. Not until she reached the porch did she turn.

"Don't, don't, please!" she urged. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have asked what I did. Forget that I spoke at all." She was struggling for words, for breath. Her color came and went. "Good-night." And not trusting herself to look back, oblivious of courtesy, she almost ran into the house.

Standing as she had left him, his hat in his hand, Clarence Sidwell watched her pass through the lighted vestibule into the darkness beyond.



CHAPTER XVIII

PAINTER AND PICTURE

Scotty Baker dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee and stirred the mixture carefully, glancing the while smilingly at his wife and daughter.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed; "it seems good to be back here again."

Mrs. Baker was deep in a letter she had just opened, but Florence returned the smile companionably.

"And it seems mighty good to have you back, daddy," she replied. "Just think of our being alone, a pair of poor defenceless women, three whole months without a man about the house! If you ever dare do it again you're liable to find one in your place when you return. Isn't he, mamma?"

Her mother looked up reproachfully. "For shame, Florence!" she cried.

But Scotty only observed his daughter quizzically. "I did—almost, this time, didn't I?" he bantered. "By the way, who is this wonderful being, this Sidwell, I've heard so much about the last few hours?" He was as obtuse as a post to his wife's meaning look. "Tell me about him, won't you?"

Florence laughed a bit unnaturally. It seemed her words had a way of returning like a boomerang.

"He's a writer," she explained laconically.

"A writer?" Scotty paused, a teaspoonful of coffee between the cup and his mouth. "A real one?"

The smile left the girl's face. "His family is one of the oldest in the city," she explained coldly. "His work sells by the thousand. You can judge for yourself."

Scotty sipped his coffee impassively, but behind the big glasses the twinkle left his eyes.

"The inference you suggest would have been more obvious if you hadn't made the first remark," he said a little sharply. "I've noticed the matter of good family has quite an influence in this world."

The subject was dropped, but nevertheless it left its aftermath. Easy-going Scotty did not often say an unpleasant thing, and for that very reason Florence knew that when he did it had an especial significance.

"By the way," he observed after a moment, "we ought to celebrate to-day in some manner. I rather expected to find a band at the station to welcome me yesterday upon my return, but I didn't, and I fear there's been no public demonstration arranged. What do you say to our packing up our dinner, taking the elevated, and spending the day in the country? What say you, Mollie?"

His wife looked at her daughter helplessly. "Just as Florence says. I'm willing," she replied.

"What speaks the oracle?" smiled Scotty. "Shall we or shall we not? Personally, I feel a desire for cooling springs, to step on a good-sized plat of green without having a watchful bluecoat loom in the distance."

Florence fingered the linen of the tablecloth with genuine discomfort. "You two can go. I'll help you get ready," she ventured at last. "I'm sorry, but I promised Mr. Sidwell last night I'd visit the art gallery with him this afternoon. He says they've some new canvases hung lately, one of them by a particular friend of his. He's such a student of art, and I know so little about it that I hate to miss going."

Again the smile left Scotty's eyes. "Can't you write a note explaining, and postpone the visit until some other time?" It took quite an effort for this undemonstrative Englishman to make the request.

The girl glanced out the window with a look her father understood very well. "I hardly think so," she said. "He's going away for the Summer soon, and his time is limited."

Scotty said no more, and soon after he left the table and went into the library. Florence sat for a moment abstractedly; then with her old impulsive manner she followed him.

"Daddy," the girl's arms clasped around his neck, her cheek pressed against his, "I'm awful sorry I can't go with you to-day. I'd like to, really."

But for one of the very few times that Florence could remember her father did not respond. Instead, he removed her arms rather coldly.

"Oh, that's all right," he said; "I hope you'll have a good time." And picking up the morning paper he lit a cigar and moved toward the shady veranda.

Watching him, the girl had a desire to follow, to prevent his leaving her in that way. But she hesitated and the moment passed.

Yet, although a cloud shadowed Florence Baker's morning, by afternoon it had departed. Sidwell's carriage came promptly, creating something of a stir behind the drawn shades of the adjoining residences—for the Bakers were not located in a fashionable quarter. Sidwell himself, immaculate, smiling, greeted her with the deference which became him well, and in itself conveyed a delicate compliment. Neither made any reference to the incident of the night before. His manner gave no hint of the constraint which under the circumstances might have been expected. A few months before, the girl would have thought he had taken her request literally, and had forgotten; but now she knew better. In this fascinating new life one could pass pleasantries with one's dearest enemy and still smile. In the old life, under similar circumstances, there would have been gun-play, and probably later a funeral; but here—they knew better how to live. Already, in the few social events she had attended, she had seen them juggle with emotions as a conjurer with knives—to emerge unhurt, unruffled. To be sure, she could not herself do it—yet; but she understood, and admired.

Out of doors the sun was uncomfortably hot, but within the high walled gallery it was cool and pleasant. Florence had been there before, but earlier in the season, and many other visitors were present. To-day she and Sidwell were practically alone, and she faced him with a little receptive gesture.

"You're always getting me to talk," she said. "To-day I'm going to exchange places. Don't expect me to do anything but listen."

Sidwell smiled. "Won't you even condescend to suggest channels in which my discourse may flow?" he bantered.

The girl hesitated. "Perhaps," she ventured, "if I find it necessary."

For an hour they wandered about, moving slowly, and pausing often to rest. Sidwell talked well, but somewhat impersonally. At last, in an out-of-the-way corner, they came to the modest canvas of his friend, and they sat down before it. The picture was unnamed and unsigned. Without being extraordinary as a work of art, its subject lent its chief claim to distinction. Interested because her companion seemed interested, Florence looked at it steadily. At first there appeared to her nothing but a mountain, steep and rugged, and a weary man who, climbing it, had lain down to rest. Far down at the mountain's base she saw where the figure had begun its ascent. The way was easy there, and the trail, through the abundant grasses crushed underfoot, was of one who had moved rapidly. Gradually, with the upward incline, obstacles had increased, and the footprints drew nearer together. Still higher, from a straight line the trail had become tortuous and irregular. Here the climber had passed around a thicket of trees; there a great boulder had stood in the path; but, ever indomitable, the way had been steadily upward toward some point the climber had in view. Steeper and steeper the way had grown. The prints on the rocky mountain-side, from being those of feet only, merged into those made by hands. The man had begun to crawl, making his way inch by inch. Fragments of his torn clothing hung on the points of rocks. Dim brown lines showed the path his body had taken, as he sometimes slipped back. Breaks in the scant vegetation told where his fingers had clutched desperately to halt his descent. Yet each time the reverse had been but temporary; he had returned, and mounted higher and higher. But at last there had come the end. He had reached his present place in the picture. By gripping tightly he could hold his own, but to advance was impossible. Straight above him, a sheer wall, many times his own height, was the blank, unbroken face of the rock. That he had tried to scale even this was evident, for finger-marks from bleeding hands were thick thereon; but he had finally abandoned the effort. Physically, he was conquered. It seemed that one could almost hear the quick coming and going of his breath. Yet, prostrate as he lay, his eyes were turned toward the barrier his body could not scale, to a something which crowned its utmost height,—something indefinite and unattainable,—the supreme desire and purpose of his life.

The two spectators sat silent. Other visitors came near, glanced at the canvas and at the pair of observers, and passed on with muffled footsteps.

The girl turned, and, as on the night at the roof-garden, found the man's eyes upon her.

"What name does your friend give to his work?" she asked.

"He calls it 'The Unattainable.'"

"And what is its meaning?"

"Ambition, perfection, complete happiness—anything striven for with one's whole soul."

Florence was studying her companion now as steadily as he had been studying her a moment before. "To your—friend it meant—"

"Happiness."

The girl's hands were clasped in her lap in a way she had when her thoughts were concentrated. "And he never found it?" she asked.

Unconsciously one of Sidwell's hands made a downward motion of deprecation. "He did not. We made the circuit of the earth together in pursuit of it—but all was useless. It seemed as though the more he searched the more he was baffled in his quest."

For a moment the girl made no reply, but in her lap her hands clasped tighter and tighter. A thought that made her finger-tips tingle was taking form in her mind. A dim comprehension of the nature of this man had first suggested it; the fact that the canvas was unsigned had helped give it form. The speaker's last words, his even tone of voice, had not passed unnoticed. She turned to the canvas, searched the skilfully concealed outlines of the tattered figure with the upturned eyes. The clasped hands grew white with the tension.

"I didn't know before you were an artist as well as a writer," she said evenly.

Sidwell turned quickly. The girl could feel his look. "I fear," he said, "I fail to grasp your meaning. You think—"

Florence met the speaker's look steadily. "I don't think," she said, "I know. You painted the picture, Mr. Sidwell. That man there on the mountain-side is you!"

Her companion hesitated. His face darkened; his lips opened to speak and closed again.

The girl continued watching him with steady look. "I can hardly believe it," she said absently. "It seems impossible."

Sidwell forced a smile. "Impossible? What? That I should paint a daub like that?"

The girl's tense hands relaxed wearily.

"No, not that you paint, but that the man there—the one finding happiness unattainable—should be you."

The lids dropped just a shade over Sidwell's black eyes. "And why, if you please, should it be more remarkable that I am unhappy than another?"

This time Florence took him up quickly. "Because," she answered, "you seem to have everything one can think of that is needed to make a human being happy—wealth, position, health, ability—all the prizes other people work their lives out for or die for." Again the voice dropped. "I can't understand it." She was silent a moment. "I can't understand it," she repeated.

From the girl's face the man's eyes passed to the canvas, and rested there. "Yes," he said slowly, "I suppose it is difficult, almost impossible, for you to realize why I am—as I am. You have never had the personal experience—and we only understand what we have felt. The trouble with me is that I have experienced too much, felt too much. I've ceased to take things on trust. Like the youth and the key flower I've forgotten the best." The voice paused, but the eyes still kept to the canvas.

"That picture," he went on, "typifies it all. I painted it, not because I'm an artist, but because in a fashion it expresses something I couldn't put into words, or express in any other way. When I began to climb, the object above me was not happiness but ambition. Wealth and social place, as you say, I already had. They meant nothing to me. What I wanted was to make a name in another way—as a literary man." The dark eyes shifted back to the listener's face, the voice spoke more rapidly.

"I went after the thing that I wanted with all the power and tenacity that was in me. I worked with the one object in view; worked without resting, feverishly. I had successes and failures, failures and successes—a long line of both. At last, as the world puts it, I arrived. I got to a position where everything I wrote sold, and sold well; but in the meantime the thing above me, which had been ambition, gradually took on another shape. Perfection it was I longed for now, perfection in my art. It was not enough that the public had accepted me as I was; I was not satisfied with my work. Try as I might, nothing that I wrote ever reached my own standard in its execution. I worked harder than ever; but it was useless. I was confronting the blank wall—the wall of my natural limitations."

The voice paused, and for a moment lowered. "I won't say what I did then; I was—mad almost—the finger-marks of it are on the rock."

The girl could not look longer into the speaker's eyes. She felt as if she were gazing upon a naked human soul, and turned away.

"At last," he went on in his confession, "I came to myself, and was forced to see things as they were. I saw that as well as I thought I had understood life I had not even grasped its meaning. I had fancied the attainment of my object the supreme end, and by every human standard I had succeeded in my purpose; but the thing I had gained was trash. Wealth, power, notoriety—what were they? Bubbles, nothing more; bubbles that broke in the hand of him who clasped them. The real meaning and object of existence lay deeper, and had nothing whatever to do with the estimate of a person by his fellows. It was a frame of mind of the individual himself."

Florence's face turned farther away, but Sidwell did not notice. "Then, for the last time," he hurried on, "the unattainable changed form for me, and became what it seems now—happiness. For a little time I think I was happy—happy in merely having made the discovery. Then came the reaction. I was as I was, as I am now—a product of my past life, of a civilization essentially artificial. In striving for a false ideal I had unfitted myself for the real when at last I discovered it."

Unconsciously the man had come closer, and his eyes glowed. At last his apathy was shaken off, and his words came in a torrent. "What I was then I am to-day. Mentally, I am like an inebriate, who no longer finds satisfaction in plain food and drink, but craves stimulants. I demand activity, excitement, change. In every hour of my life I realize the narrowness and artificiality of it all; but without it I am unhappy. I sometimes think Mother Nature herself has disowned me; when I try to get near her she draws away—I fancy with a shudder. Solitude of desert, of forest, or of prairie is no longer solitude to me. It is filled with voices—accusing voices; and I rush back to the crowd and the unrest of the city. Even my former pleasures seem to have deserted me. You have spoke often of accomplishing big things, doing something better than anyone else can do it, as an example of pleasure supreme. If you realized what you were saying you would know its irony. You cannot do a thing better than anyone else. People, like water, strike a dead level. No matter how you strive, dozens of others can do the thing you are doing. Were you to die, your place would be filled to-morrow, and the world would wag on just the same. There is always someone just beneath you watchfully waiting, ready to seize your place if you relax your effort for a moment. The term 'big things' is relative. To speak it is merely to refer to something you do not personally understand. Nothing seems really big to the one who does it. Nothing is difficult when you understand it. The growing of potatoes in a backyard is just as wonderful a performance as the painting of one of these pictures; it would be more so were it not so common and so necessary. The construction of a steam-engine or an electric dynamo is incomparably more remarkable than the merging of separate thousands of capital into millions of combination, yet multitudes of men everywhere can do either of the former things and are unnoticed. We worship what we do not understand, and call it big; but the man in the secret realizes the mockery and smiles."

Closer came the dark face. The black eyes, intense and flashing, held the listener in their gaze.

"I said that even my pleasures seem to have deserted me. It is true. I used to like to wander about the city, to see it at its busiest, to loiter amid the hum and the roar and the ceaseless activity. I saw in it then only friendly rivalry, like a hurdle race or a football game—something pleasing and stimulating. Now it all affects me in just the reverse way. I look beneath the surface, and my heart sinks to find not friendly competition, but a battle, where men and women fight for daily bread, where the weak are crowded and trampled upon by the strong. In ordinary battle the maimed and the crippled are spared, but here they still fight on. Mercy or quarter is unknown. Oh, it is ghastly! I used to take pleasure in books, in the work of others; but even this satisfaction has been taken from me—except such grim satisfaction as a physician may feel at a post mortem. The very labor that made me a success in literature caused me to be a dissector of things around me. To learn how others attained their ends I must needs tear their work apart and study the fragments. This habit has become a part of me. I overlook the beauty of the product in the working of the machinery that produced it. I watch the mixing of literary confections, served to the reader so that upon laying down the book he may have a good taste in his mouth. People themselves, those I meet from day to day, inevitably go through the same metamorphosis. I see them as characters in a book. Their foibles and peculiarities are grist for my mill. Everything, everyone, when I appear, slips into the narrow confines of a printed page. I can't even spare myself. Fragments of me can be had for a price at any of the book-stalls. I've become public property—and with no one to blame but myself."

The flow of speech halted. The speaker's face was so near now that the girl could not avoid looking at it.

"Do you wonder," he concluded, "that I am not happy?"

The girl looked up. The two pairs of brown eyes met. Outwardly, she who answered was calm; but in her lap the small hands were clasping each other tightly, so that the blood had left the fingers.

"No, I do not wonder now," she answered simply.

"And you understand?"

"Yes, I—no, there's so much—Oh, take me home, please!" The sentence ended abruptly in a plea. The slender body was trembling as with cold. "Take me home, please. I want to—to think."

"Florence!" The word was a caress. "Florence!"

But the girl was already on her feet. "Don't say any more to-day! I can't stand it. Take me home!"

Sidwell looked at her closely for a moment; then the mask of conventionality, which for a time had lifted from his face, dropped once more, and he also arose. In silence, side by side, the two made their way down the long hall to the exit. Out of doors, the afternoon sun, serene and smiling, gave them a friendly greeting.



CHAPTER XIX

A VISITOR FROM THE PLAINS

"Papa," said Florence, next morning, as they two sat alone at breakfast, her mother having reported a headache and failed to appear, "let's go somewhere, away from folks, for a week or so."

"Why this sudden change of front?" her father queried. "Not being of the enemy I'm entitled to the plan of campaign, you know."

Florence observed him steadily, and the father could not but notice how much more mature she seemed than the prairie girl of a few months ago.

"There is no change of front or plan of campaign as far as I know," she replied. "I simply want to get away a bit, that's all." She returned to her neglected breakfast. "There's such a thing as mental dyspepsia, you know, and I feel a twinge of it now and then. I think this new life is being fed to me in doses too large for my digestion."

Mr. Baker eventually acquiesced, as anyone who knew him could have foretold he would do. His wife, also, when the plan was broached to her, hesitatingly agreed, but at the last moment balked and declined to go; so they left without her.

The small town to which they went had ample grass and trees, and a small lake convenient. A farmer's family reluctantly consented to board and lodge them; also to give them the use of a bony horse and a disreputable one-seated wagon. After their arrival they promptly proceeded to segregate themselves from their fellow-boarders. The first day they fished a little, talked, read, slept, meditated, and smoked—that is, Mr. Baker did, enough for two; and Florence assisted by rolling cigarettes when the bowl of the meerschaum grew uncomfortably hot. The next day they repeated the programme, and also the next, and the next.

"I think I could stay here always," said Mr. Baker.

"I rather like it myself," Florence admitted.

Nevertheless, they returned promptly on schedule-time. Mrs. Baker was awaiting them, her stiff manner indicating that she had not been doing much else while they were away. Without finesse, one member of the two delinquents was informed that a certain man of considerable social prominence, Clarence Sidwell by name, had called daily, and, Mrs. Baker fancied, with increasing dissatisfaction at their absence. Florence found in her mail a short note, which after some consideration she handed without comment to her father.

He read—and read again. "When was this mailed?" he asked.

"Over a week ago," answered Florence. "It has been here for several days."

It was therefore no surprise to the Englishman when that very evening, as he sat on the front veranda, his heels on the railing, watching the passage of equipages swift and slow, he saw a tall young man, at whom passers-by stared more than was polite, coming leisurely up the sidewalk, inspecting the numbers on the houses. As he came closer, Mr. Baker took in the details of the long free stride, of the broad chest, the square uplifted chin, with something akin to admiration. Vitality and power were in every motion of the supple body; health—a life free as the air and sunshine—was written in the brown of the hands, the tan of the face. Even his clothes, though not the conventional costume of city streets, seemed a part of their wearer, and had a freedom all their own. The broad-brimmed felt hat was obviously for comfort and protection, not for show. The light-brown flannel shirt was the color of the sinewy throat. The trousers, of darker wool, rolled up at the bottom, exposed the high-heeled riding-boots. About the whole man—for he was very near now—there was that immaculate cleanliness which the world prizes more than godliness.

Scotty dropped his feet from the railing and advanced to the steps. "Hello, Ben Blair!" he said.

The visitor paused and smiled. "How do you do, Mr. Baker?" he answered. "I thought I'd find you along here somewhere." He swung up the short walk, and, mounting the steps, grasped the Englishman's extended hand. For a moment the two said nothing. Then Scotty motioned to a chair. "Sit down, won't you?" he invited.

Ben stood as he was. The smile left his face. "Would you really—like me to?" he asked directly.

"I really would, or I wouldn't have asked you," Scotty returned, with equal directness.

Ben took the proffered chair, and crossed his legs comfortably. The two sat for a moment in silent companionship.

"Tell me about Rankin," suggested Scotty at last.

Ben did so. It did not take long, for he scarcely mentioned himself, and quite omitted that last incident of which Grannis had been witness.

"And—the man who shot him?" Scotty found it a bit difficult to put the query into words.

"They swung him a few days later. Things move rather fast out there when they move at all."

"Were 'they' the cowboys?"

"No, the sheriff and the rest. It was all regular—scarcely any spectators, even, I heard."

"And now about yourself. Shall you be in the city long?"

"I hardly know. I came partly on business—but that won't take me long." He looked at his host significantly. "I also had another purpose in coming."

Scotty moved uncomfortably in his seat. "Ben," he said at last, "I'd like to ask you to stay with us if I could, but—" he paused, looking cautiously in at the open door—"but Mollie, you know—It would mean the dickens' own time with her."

Ben showed neither surprise nor resentment. "Thank you," he replied. "I understand. I couldn't have accepted had you invited me. Let's not consider it."

Again the seat which usually fitted the Englishman so well grew uncomfortable. He was conscious that through the curtains of the library window some one was watching him and the new-comer. He had a mortal dread of a scene, and one seemed inevitable.

"How's the old ranch?" he asked evasively.

"It's just as you left it. I haven't got the heart somehow to change anything. We use up a good many horses one way and another during a year, and when I get squared around I'm going to start a herd there with one of the boys to look after it. It was Rankin's idea too."

"You expect to keep on ranching, then?"

"Why not?"

"I thought, perhaps, now that you had plenty to do with—You're young, you know."

Ben looked out across the narrow plat of turf deliberately.

"Am I—young? Really, I'd never thought of it in that way."

The Englishman's feet again mounted the railing in an attempt at nonchalance.

"Well, usually a man at your age—" He laughed. "If it were an old fellow like me—"

"Mr. Baker, I thought you said you really wished me to sit down and chat awhile?"

Scotty colored. "Why, certainly. What makes you think—"

"Let's be natural then."

Scotty stiffened. His feet returned to the floor.

"Blair, you forget—" But somehow the sentence, bravely begun, halted. Few people in real life acted a part with Benjamin Blair's blue eyes upon them. "Ben," he said instead, "I'm an ass, and I beg your pardon. I'll call Florence."

But the visitor's hand restrained him.

"Don't, please. She knows I am here. I saw her a bit ago. Let her do as she wishes." He drew himself up in the cane rocker. "You asked me a question. As far as I know I shall ranch it always. It suits me, and it's the thing I can do best. Besides, I like being with live things. The only trouble I have," he smiled frankly, "is in selling stock after I raise them. I want to keep them as long as they live, and put them in greener pastures when they get old. It's the off season, but I brought a couple of car-loads along with me to Chicago, to the stock-yards. I'll never do it again. It has to be done, I know; people have to be fed; but I've watched those steers grow from calves."

Scotty searched his brain for something relevant and impersonal, but nothing suggested itself. "Ben Blair," he ventured, "I like you."

"Thank you," said Ben.

They were silent for a long time. Pedestrians, singly and in pairs, sauntered past on the walk. Vehicle after vehicle scurried by in the street. At last a team of brown thoroughbreds, with one man driving, drew up in front of the house. The man alighted, tied the horses to the stone hitching-post, and came up the walk. Simultaneously Ben saw the curtains at the library window sway as though in a sudden breeze.

"Splendid horses, those," he commented.

"Yes," answered Scotty, wishing he were somewhere else just then. "Yes," he repeated, absently.

"Good-evening, Mr. Baker!" said the smiling driver of the thoroughbreds.

"Good-evening," echoed Scotty. Then, with a gesture, he indicated the passive Benjamin. "My friend Mr. Blair, Mr. Sidwell."

Sidwell mounted the steps. Ben arose. The library curtains trembled again. The two men looked each other fairly in the eyes and then shook hands.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Blair," said Sidwell.

"Thank you," responded Ben, evenly.

Down in the depths of his consciousness, Scotty was glad this frontier youth had seen fit to come to town. Taking off his big glasses he polished them industriously.

"Won't you sit down?" he invited the new-comer.

Sidwell moved toward the door. "No, thank you. With your permission I'll go inside. I presume Miss Baker—"

But the Englishman was ahead of him. "Yes," he said, "she's at home. I'll call her," and he disappeared.

Watching the retreating figure, Sidwell's black eyes tightened, but he returned and took the place Scotty had vacated. He gave his companion a glance which, swift as a flash of light upon a sensitized plate, took in every detail of the figure, the bizarre dress, the striking face.

"You are from the West, I judge, Mr. Blair?" he interrogated.

"Dakota," said Ben, laconically.

Sidwell's gaze centred on the sombrero. "Cattle raising, perhaps?" he ventured.

Ben nodded. "Yes, I have a few head east of the river." He returned the other's look, and Sidwell had the impression that a searchlight was suddenly shifted upon him. "Ever been out there?"

The city man indicated an affirmative. "Yes, twice: the last time about four years ago. I went out on purpose to see a steer-roping contest, on the ranch of a man by the name of Gilbert, I remember. A cowboy they called Pete carried off the honors; had his 'critter' down and tied in forty-two seconds. They told me that was slow time, but I thought it lightning itself."

"The trick can be done in thirty-five with the wildest," commented Ben.

Sidwell looked out on the narrow street meditatively. "I think that cowboy exhibition," he went on slowly, "was the most typically American scene I have ever witnessed. The recklessness, the dash, the splendid animal activity—there's never been anything like it in the world." His eyes returned to Ben's face. "Ever hear of Gilbert, did you?"

"I live within twenty-three miles of him."

Sidwell looked interested. "What ranch, if I may ask?"

"The Right Angle Triangle we call it."

"Oh, yes," Sidwell nodded in recollection. "Rankin is the proprietor—a big man with a grandfather's-shay buckboard. I saw him while I was there."

Involuntarily one of Ben's long legs swung over the other. "That's the place! You have a good memory."

Sidwell smiled. "I couldn't help having in this case. He reminded me of the satraps of ancient Persia. He was monarch of all he surveyed."

Ben said nothing.

"He's still the big man of the country, I presume?"

"He is dead."

"Dead?"

"I said so."

The light of understanding came to the city man. "I see," he observed. "He is gone, and you—"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Sidwell," interrupted the other, "but suppose we change the subject?"

Sidwell colored, then he laughed. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Blair. No offence was intended, I assure you. Mr. Rankin interested me, that was all."

Again Ben said nothing, and the conversation lapsed.

Meanwhile within doors another drama had been taking place. A very discomposed young lady had met Scotty just out of hearing.

"What made you stop Mr. Sidwell, papa?" she asked indignantly. "Why didn't you let him come in?"

"Because I didn't choose to," explained Scotty, bluntly.

"But I wanted him to," she said imperiously. "I don't care to see Ben to-night."

Her father looked at her steadily. "And I wish you to see him," he insisted. "You must be hypnotized to behave the way you're doing! You forget yourself completely!"

The brown eyes of the girl flashed. "And you forget yourself! I'm no longer a child! I won't see him to-night unless I wish to!"

Easy-going Scotty was aroused. His weak chin set stubbornly.

"Very well. You will see neither of them, then. I won't have a man insulted without cause in my own house. I'll tell them both you're sick."

"If you do," flamed Florence, "I'll never forgive you! You're—horrid, if you are my father. I—" She took refuge in tears. "Oh, you ought to be ashamed to treat your daughter so!"

The Englishman flicked a speck of ash off his lounging coat. "I am ashamed," he admitted; "but not of what you suggest." He turned toward the door.

"Daddy," said a pleading voice, "don't you—care for me any more?"

An expression the daughter had never seen before, but one that ever after haunted her, flashed over the father's face.

"Care for you?" he exclaimed. "Care for you? That is just the trouble! I care for you—have always cared for you—too much. I have sacrificed my self-respect to humor you, and it's all been a mistake. I see it now too late."

For a moment the two looked at each other; then the girl brushed past him. "Very well," she said calmly, "if I must see them both, at least permit me to see them by myself."

The men on the porch arose as Florence appeared. Their manner of doing so was characteristic of each. Sidwell got to his feet languidly, a bit stiffly. He had not forgotten the past week. Ben Blair arose respectfully, almost reverently, unconscious that he was following a mere social form. Six months had passed since he had seen this little woman, and his soul was in his eyes as he looked at her.

Just without the door the girl halted, her color like the sunset. It was the city man she greeted first.

"I'm very glad to see you again," she said, and a dainty hand went out to meet his own.

Sidwell was human. He smiled, and his hand detained hers longer than was really necessary.

"And I'm happy indeed to have you back," he responded. "I missed you."

The girl turned to the impassive but observing Benjamin.

"I am glad to see you, too, Mr. Blair," she said, but the voice was as formal as the handshake. "Papa introduced you to Mr. Sidwell, I suppose?"

Her reserve was quite unnecessary. Outwardly, Ben was as coldly polite as she. He placed a chair for her deferentially and took another himself, while Sidwell watched the scene with interest. Somewhere, some time, if he lived, that moment would be reproduced on a printed page.

"Yes," responded Ben, "Mr. Sidwell and I have met." He turned his chair so that he and the girl faced each other. "You like the city, your new life, as well as you expected, I trust?"

They chatted a few minutes as impersonally as two chance acquaintances meeting by accident; then again Ben arose. "I judge you were going driving," he said simply. "I'll not detain you longer."

Florence melted. Such delicate consideration was unexpected.

"You must call again while you are in town," she said.

"Thank you, I shall," Ben responded.

Sidwell felt that he too could afford to be generous.

"If there's anything in the way of amusement or otherwise that I can do for you, Mr. Blair, let me know," he said, proffering his address. "I am at your service at any time."

Ben had reached the walk, but he turned. For a moment wherein Florence held her breath he looked steadily at the city man.

"We Western men, Mr. Sidwell," he said at last slowly, "are more or less solitaries. We take our recreation as we do our work, alone. In all probability I shall not have occasion to accept your kindness. But I may call on you before I leave." He bowed to both, and replaced his hat. A "good-night" and he was gone.

Watching the tall figure as it disappeared down the street, Sidwell smiled peculiarly. "Rather a positive person, your friend," he remarked.

Like an echo, Florence took up the word. "Positive!" The small hands pressed tightly together in the speaker's lap. "Positive! You didn't get even a suggestion of him by that. I saw a big prairie fire once. It swept over the country for miles and miles, taking everything clean; and the men fighting it might have been so many children in arms. I always think of it when I think of Ben Blair. They are very much alike."

The smile left Sidwell's face. "One can start a back-fire on the prairie," he said reflectively. "I fancy the same process might work successfully with Blair also."

"Perhaps," admitted Florence. The time came when both she and Sidwell remembered that suggestion.

But the subject was too large to be dropped immediately.

"Something tells me," Sidwell added, after a moment, "that you are a bit fearful of this Blair. Did the gentleman ever attempt to kidnap you—or anything?"

Florence did not smile. "No," she answered.

"What was it, then? Were you in love, and he cold—or the reverse?"

Florence dropped her chin into her hands. "To be frank with you, it was—the reverse; but I would rather not speak of it." She was silent for a moment. "You are right, though," she continued, rather recklessly, "when you say I'm afraid of him. I don't dare think of him, even. I want to forget he was ever a part of my life. He overwhelms me like sleep when I'm tired. I am helpless."

Unconsciously Sidwell had stumbled upon the closet which held the skeleton. "And I—" he queried, "are you afraid of me?"

The girl's great brown eyes peered out above her hands steadily.

"No; with us it is not of you I'm afraid—it's of myself." She arose slowly. "I'm ready to go driving if you wish," she said.



CHAPTER XX

CLUB CONFIDENCES

Late the same evening, in the billiard-room of the "Loungers Club" Clarence Sidwell met one Winston Hough, seemingly by chance, though in fact very much the reverse. Big and blonde, addicted to laughter, Hough was one of the few men with whom Sidwell fraternized,—why, only the Providence which makes like and unlike attract each other could have explained. However, it was with deliberate intent that Sidwell entered the most brilliantly lighted room in the place and sought out the group of which Hough was the centre.

"Hello, Chad!" the latter greeted the new-comer. "I've just trimmed up Watson here, and I'm looking for new worlds to conquer. I'll roll you fifty points to see who pays for a lunch afterward."

Sidwell smiled tolerantly. "I think it would be better for my reputation to settle without playing. Put up your stick and I'm with you."

Hough shook his head. "No," he objected, "I'm not a Weary Willie. I prefer to earn my dole first. Come on."

But Sidwell only looked at him. "Don't be stubborn," he said. "I want to talk with you."

Hough returned his cue to the rack lingeringly. "Of course, if you put it that way there's nothing more to be said. As to the stubbornness, however—" He paused suggestively.

Sidwell made no comment, but led the way directly toward the street.

"What's the matter?" queried Hough, when he saw the direction they were taking. "Isn't the club grill-room good enough for you?"

Sidwell pursued his way unmoved. "I said I wished to talk with you."

"I guess I must be dense," Hough answered gayly. "I certainly never saw any house rules that forbid a man to speak."

Sidwell looked at his companion with a whimsical expression. "The trouble isn't with the house rules but with you. A fellow might as well try to monopolize the wheat-pit on the board of trade as to keep you alone here. You're too confoundedly popular, Hough! You draw people as the proverbial molasses-barrel attracts flies."

The big man laughed. "Your compliment, if that's what it was, is a bit involved, but I suppose it'll have to do. Lead on!"

Sidwell sought out a modest little cafe in a side street and selected a secluded booth.

"What'll you have?" he asked, as the waiter appeared.

Hough's blue eyes twinkled. "Are you with me, whatever I order?"

Sidwell nodded.

"Club sandwiches and a couple of bottles of beer," Hough concluded.

His companion made no comment.

"Been some time, hasn't it, since you surprised your stomach with anything like this?" bantered the big man, when the order had arrived and the waiter departed.

Sidwell smiled. "I shall have to confess it," he admitted.

"I thought so," remarked Hough dryly. "Next time you depict a plebeian scene you can remember this and thank me."

This time Sidwell did not smile. "You're hitting me rather hard, old man," he said.

"You deserve it," laconically answered Hough.

"But not from you!"

Hough meditatively watched the beads bursting on the surface of the liquor.

"Admitted," he said; "but the people who ought to touch you up are afraid to do so, and someone ought to." He smiled across the table. "Pardon the brutal frankness, but it's true."

Sidwell returned the glance. "You think it's the duty of some intimate to perform the kindness of this—touching up process occasionally, do you?"

Hough drank deep and sighed with satisfaction. "Jove! that tastes good! I limbered up my joints with a two-mile walk before I went to the club this evening, and I've been as dry as a harvest-hand ever since. All the wine in France or elsewhere won't touch the spot like a little good old brew when a man is really healthy." He recalled himself. "Your pardon, Sidwell. Seriously, I do think it's the duty of our best friends to bring us back to earth now and then when we've strayed too far away. No one who doesn't care for us will take the trouble."

"Our very best friends, I judge," suggested Sidwell.

"Certainly." The big man wondered what was coming next.

"A—wife, for instance."

Hough straightened in his chair. His jolly face grew serious.

"Are you in earnest, Chad," he queried, "or are you just drawing me out?"

"I never was more in earnest in my life."

Hough lost sight of the original question in the revelation it suggested.

"Do you mean you're really going to get married at last?"

Sidwell forced a smile. "If the matter were already settled, it would be too late to consider the advisability of the move, wouldn't it?" he returned. "It would be an established fact, and as such useless to discuss. I haven't asked the lady, if that answers your question."

Hough made a gesture of impatience. "Theoretically, yes, but practically, no. In your individual case, desire and gratification amount to the same. You're mighty fascinating with the ladies, Chad. Few women would refuse you, if you made an effort to have them do the reverse."

"Thank you," said Sidwell, equivocally.

His companion scowled. "Appreciation is unnecessary. I'm not even sure the remark was complimentary."

They sat a moment in silence, while the beer in their glasses grew stale.

"Suppose I were to consider marriage, as you suggest," said Sidwell at last. "What do you think would be the result? Judging from your expression, some opinion thereon is weighing heavily upon your mind."

The blonde man looked up keenly. One would hardly have recognized him as the easy-going person of a few moments before.

"It will, of course, depend entirely upon whom you choose. That's hackneyed. From the motions of straws, though, this Summer, I presume it's admissible that I jump at conclusions concerning the lady."

The other nodded.

"In that case, Chad, as surely as night follows day it'll be a failure." The blue eyes all but flashed. "Moreover, it's a hideous injustice to the girl."

Sidwell stiffened involuntarily.

"Your prediction sounds a bit strong from one who is himself a benedict," he returned coldly. "Upon what, if you please, do you base your opinion?"

Hough fidgeted in his chair.

"You want me to be frank, brutally frank, once more?"

"Anything you wish. I'd like to know why you spoke as you did."

"The reason, then, is this. You two would no more mix than oil and water."

Sidwell's face did not change. "You and Elise seem to jog along fairly well together," he observed.

Hough scowled as before. "Yes, but there's no possible similarity between the cases. You and I are no more alike than a dog and a rabbit. To come down to the direct issue, you're city bred, and Miss Baker has been reared in the country. She—"

Sidwell held up his hand deprecatingly. "To return to the illustration, Elise was originally from the country."

"And to repeat once more," exclaimed Hough, "there's again no similarity. Elise and I have been married eight years. We met at college, and grew together normally. We were both young and adaptable. Besides, at the risk of being tedious, I reiterate that you and I are totally unlike. I'm only partially urban; you are completely so—to your very finger-tips. I'm half savage, more than half. I like to be out in the country, among the mountains, upon the lakes. I like to hunt and fish, and dawdle away time; you care for none of these things. I can make money because I inherited capital, and it almost makes itself; but it's not with me a definite ambition. I have no positive object in life, unless it is to make the little woman happy. You have. Your work absorbs the best of you. You haven't much left for friendships, even mild ones like ours. I've been with you for a good many years, old man, and I know what I'm talking about. You are old, older than your years, and you're not young even in them. You're selfish—pardon me, but it's true—abominably selfish. Your character, your point of view, your habits—are all formed. You'll never change; you wouldn't if you could. Miss Baker is hardly more than a child. I know her—I've made it a point to know her since I saw you were interested in her. Everything in the world rings genuine to her as yet. She hasn't learned to detect the counterfeit, and when the knowledge does come it will hurt her cruelly. She'll want to get back to nature as surely as a child with a bruised finger wants its mother; and you can't go with her. Most of all, Chad, she's a woman. You don't know what that means—no unmarried man does know. Even we married ones never grasp the subtleties of woman-nature completely. I've been studying one for eight years, and at times she escapes me. But one thing I have learned; they demand that they shall be first in the life of the man they love. Florence Baker will demand this, and after the first novelty has worn off you won't satisfy her. I repeat once more, you're too selfish for that. As sure as anything can be, Chad Sidwell, if you marry that girl it will end in disaster—in divorce, or something worse."

The voice ceased, and the place was of a sudden very quiet. Sidwell tapped on his thin drinking-glass with his finger-nail. His companion had never seen him nervous before. At last he looked up unshiftingly. "You've given me a pretty vivid portrait of myself, of what I'm good for, and what not," he said. "Would you like me to return the compliment?"

Again Hough wondered what was coming. "Yes, I suppose so," he answered hesitatingly.

"You've often remarked," said Sidwell, slowly, "that you knew of no work for which you were especially adapted. I think I could fit you out exactly to your liking. Just get a position as guard to a lake of brimstone in the infernal regions."

Hough laughed, but Sidwell did not. "I fancy," he continued monotonously, "I see you now, a long needle-pointed spear in your hands, jabbing back the poor sinners who tried to crawl out."

"Chad!" interrupted the other reproachfully. "Chad!" But Sidwell did not stop.

"You'd stand well back, so that the sulphur fumes wouldn't irritate your own nostrils, and so that when the bubbles from the boiling broke they wouldn't spatter you, and with the finest kind of intuition and the most delicate aim you'd select the tenderest place in your intended victim's anatomy for your spear-point." He smiled ironically at the picture. "Gad! you'd be a howling success there, old man!"

An expression of genuine contrition formed on Hough's jolly face. "I'm dead sorry I hurt you, Chad," he said, "but you asked me to be frank."

"You certainly were frank," rejoined the other bluntly.

"What I said, though, was true," reiterated Hough.

Sidwell leaned a bit forward, his face, handsome in spite of its shadings of discontent, clear in the light.

"Perhaps," he went on. "The trouble with you is that you don't give me credit for a single redeeming virtue. No one in this world is wholly good or wholly bad. You forget that I'm a human being, with natural feelings and desires. You make me out a sort of machine, cunningly constructed for a certain work. You limit my life to that work alone. A human being, even one born of the artificial state called civilization, isn't a contrivance like a typewriter which you can make work and then shut up in a box until it is wanted again. There are certain emotions, certain wants, you can't suppress by logic. Even a dog, if you imprison him alone, will go mad in time. I'm a living man, with red blood instead of ink in my veins, not an abstract mathematical problem. I've had my full share of work and unhappiness. You'll have to give me a better reason for remaining without the gate of the promised land than you've yet done."

Hough looked at the speaker impotently. "You misunderstood me, Chad, if you thought I was trying to keep you from your due, or from anything which would really make for your happiness. I was simply trying to prevent something I feel morally certain you'll regret. Because one isn't entirely happy is no adequate reason why he should make himself more unhappy. I can't say any more than I've already said; there's nothing more to say. My best reason for disapproving your contemplated action I gave you first, and you've not considered it at all. It's the injustice you do to a girl who doesn't realize what she is doing. With your disposition, Chad, you'd take away from her something which neither God nor man can ever give her back—her trust in life."

Sidwell's long fingers restlessly twirled the glass before him. The remainder of the untouched beer was now as so much stagnant water.

"If I don't undeceive her someone else will," he said. "It's inevitable. She'll have to adjust herself to things as they are, as we all have to do."

Hough made a motion of deprecation.

"Miss Baker is no longer a child," continued Sidwell. "If you've studied her as you say you've done, you've discovered that she has very definite ideas of her own. It's true that I haven't known her long, but she has had an opportunity to know me well such as no one else has ever had, not even you. No one can say that she is leaping in the dark. Time and time again, at every opportunity, I have stripped my very soul bare for her observation. The thing has not been easy for me; indeed, I know of nothing I could have done that would have been more difficult. Though the present instance seems to give the statement the lie, I am not easily confidential, my friend. I have had a definite object in doing as I have done with Miss Baker. I am trying, as I never tried before in my life, to get in touch with her—as I'll never try again, no matter how the effort results, to get in touch with a person. She knows the good and bad of me from A to Z. She knows the life I lead, the kind of people who make up that life, their aims, their amusements, their standards, social and moral, as thoroughly as I can make her know them. I have taken her everywhere, shown her every phase of my surroundings. For once in my life at least, Hough, I have been absolutely what I am,—absolutely frank. Farther than that I cannot go. I am not my brothers keeper. She is an individual in a world of individuals; a free agent, mental, moral, and physical. The decision of her future actions, the choice she makes of her future life, must of necessity rest with her. For some reason I cannot point to a definite explanation and say this or that is why she is attractive to me. She seems to offer the solution of a want I feel. No system of logic can convince me that, after having been honest as I have been with her, if she of her own free will consents to be my wife, I have not a moral right to make her so."

Again Hough made a deprecatory motion. "It is useless to argue with you," he said helplessly, "and I won't attempt it. If I were to try, I couldn't make you realize that the very methods of frankness you have used to make Miss Baker know you intimately have defeated their own purpose, and have unconsciously made you an integral part of her life. I said before that when you wish you're irresistibly fascinating with women. All that you have said only exemplifies my statement. It does not, however, in the least change the homely fact that oil and water won't permanently mix. You can shake them together, and for a time it may seem that they are one; but eventually they'll separate, and stay separate. As I said before, though, I do not expect you to realize this, or to apply it. I can't make what I know by intuition sufficiently convincing. I wish I could. I feel that somehow this has been my opportunity and I have failed."

For the instant Sidwell was roused out of himself. He looked at his companion with appreciation. "At least you can have the consolation of knowing you have honestly tried," he said earnestly.

Hough returned the look with equal steadiness. "But nevertheless I have failed."

Sidwell put on his hat, its broad brim shading his eyes and concealing their expression.

"Providence willing," he said finally, "I shall ask Miss Baker to be my wife."



CHAPTER XXI

LOVE IN CONFLICT

The habits of a lifetime are not changed in a day. Ben Blair was accustomed to rising early, and he was astir next morning long before the city proper was thoroughly awake. In the hotel where he was stopping, the night clerk looked his surprise as he nodded a stereotyped "Good-morning." The lobby was in confusion, undergoing its early morning scrubbing, and the guest sought the street. The sun was just risen, but the air was already sultry, casting oppression and languor over every detail of the scene. The bare brick and stone fronts of the buildings, the brown cobblestones of the pavements, the dull gray of the sidewalks, all looked inhospitable and forbidding. Few vehicles were yet in motion—distributors of necessities, of ice, of milk, of vegetables—and they partook of the general indolence. The horses' ears swayed listlessly, or were set back in dogged endurance. The drivers lounged stolidly in their seats. Even the few passengers on the monotonously droning cars but added to the impression of tacit conformity to the inevitable. Poorly dressed as a rule, tired looking, they gazed at their feet or glanced out upon the street with absent indifference. It was all depressing.

Ben, normal, vigorous, country bred, shook himself and walked on. He was as susceptible as a child to surrounding influences, and to those now about him he was distinctly antagonistic. Life, as a whole, particularly work, the thing that does most to fill life, he had found good. That others should so obviously find it different grated upon him. He wanted to get away from their presence; and making inquiry of the first policeman he met, he sought the nearest park.

All his life he had heard of the beauty of the New York parks. The few people he knew who had visited them emphasized this beauty above all other features. Perhaps in consequence he was expecting the impossible. At least, he was disappointed. Here was nature, to be sure, but nature imprisoned under the thumb of man. The visitor had a healthy desire to roll on the grass, to turn himself loose, to stretch every joint and muscle; yet signs on each side gave warning to "keep off." The trees, it must be admitted, were beautiful and natural,—they could not live and be otherwise; but somehow they had the air of not being there of their own free-will.

Ben chose a bench and sat down. A listlessness was upon him that the ozone of the prairies had never let him feel. He felt cramped for room, as though, should he draw as full a breath as he wished, it would exhaust the supply. A big freshly-shaven policeman strolled by, eying him suspiciously. It gave the young man the impression of being a prisoner out on good behavior; and in an indefinite way it almost insulted his self-respect. For the lack of something better to do he watched the minion of the law as he pursued his beat. Not Ben Blair alone, but every person the officer passed, went through this challenging inspection. The countryman had been too much preoccupied to notice that he had companions; but now that his interest was aroused, he began inspecting the occupants of the other benches. The person nearest him was a little old man in a crumpled linen suit. Most of the time his nose was close to his morning paper; but now and then he raised his face and looked away with an absent expression in his faded near-sighted eyes. Was he enjoying his present life? Ben would have taken his oath to the contrary. Again there flashed over him the impression of a prison with this fellow-being in confinement. There was indescribable pathos in that dull retrospective gaze, and Ben looked away. In the land from which he came there could not be found such an example of hopeless and useless age. There the aged had occupation,—the care of their children's children, a garden, an interest in crops and growing things, a fame as prophets of weather,—but such apathy as this, never.

A bit farther away was another type, also a man, badly dressed and unshaven. His battered felt hat was drawn low over the upper half of his face, and he was stretched flat upon the narrow bench. He was far too long for his bed, and to accommodate his superfluous length his knees were bent up like a jack-knife. Carrying with them the baggy trousers,—he wore no underclothes,—they left a hairy expanse between their ends and the yellow, rusty shoes. His chest rose and fell in the motion of sleep.

Ben Blair had seen many a human derelict on the frontier; the country was full of them,—adventurers, searchers after lost health—popularly denominated "one-lungers"—soldiers of fortune; but he had never known such a class as this man represented,—useless cumberers of the earth, wanderers by day, sleepers on the benches of public parks by night. Had he been a student of sociology he might have found a certain morbid interest in the spectacle; but it was merely depressing to him; it destroyed what pleasure he might otherwise have taken in the place. This man was but a step beneath those dull toilers he had seen on the cars. They had not yet given up the struggle against the inevitable, or were too stolid to rebel; while he—

Ben sprang to his feet and began retracing his steps. People bred in the city might be callous to the miseries of their fellows; those provided with plenty might be content to live their lives side by side with such hopeless poverty, might even apply to their own profit the necessities of others; but his was the hospitality and consideration of the frontier, the democracy that shares its last loaf with its fellow no matter who he may be, and shares it without question. The heartless selfishness of the conditions he was observing almost made his blood boil. He felt that he was amid an alien people: their standards were not as his standards, their lives were not of his life, and he wanted to hurry through with his affairs and get away. He returned to the hotel.

Breakfast was ready by this time, and after some exploration he succeeded in finding the dining-room. The head-waiter showed him to a seat and held his chair obsequiously. Another, a negro of uncertain age, fairly exuding dignity and impassive as a sphinx, poured water over the ice in his glass with a practised hand, produced the menu, and waited for his order. Without intending it, the countryman had selected a rather fashionable place, and the bill of fare was unintelligible as Sanskrit to him. He looked at it helplessly. A man across the table, observing his predicament, smiled involuntarily. Ben caught the expression, looked at its bearer meaningly, looked until it vanished, and until a faint red, obviously a stranger to that face, took its place. By a sudden inspiration Blair's hand went to his pocket and returned with a silver coin.

"Bring me what a healthy man usually eats at this time of day, and plenty of it," he said. He glanced absently, blandly past his companion.

The gentleman of color looked at the speaker as though he were a strange animal in a "zoo."

"Yes, sah," he said.

While he was waiting, Ben looked around him with interest. The room was big, high, massive of pillars and of beams. Every detail had been carefully arranged. The heavy oak tables, the spotless linen, the sparkling silver and glassware appealed to the sense of luxury. The coolness of the place, due to unseen ventilating fans which he heard faintly droning somewhere in the ceiling, and increased by the tile floor and the skilfully adjusted shades, was delightful. The few other people present were as immaculate as bath, laundry, tailor, and modiste could make them. From one group at which Ben looked came the suppressed sound of a woman's laugh; from another, a man's voice, well modulated, illustrated a point with a story. At a small table in an alcove sat four young men, and notwithstanding the fact that for them it was yet very early in the day, the pop of a champagne cork was heard, and soon repeated. Blair, fresh from a glimpse of the outer and under world, observed it all, and drew comparisons. Again he saw the huddled figure of the tramp on the bench; and again he heard the careless music of the woman's laugh. He saw the dull animal stare of workers on their way to uncongenial toil; the hands still unsteady from yesterday's excesses lifting to dry lips the wine that would make them still more unsteady on the morrow. Could these contrasts be forever continued? he wondered. Would they be permitted to exist indefinitely side by side? Again, problem more difficult, could it be possible that the condition in which they existed was life? He could not believe it. His nature rebelled at the thought. No; life was not an artificial formula like this. It was broad and free and natural, as the prairies, his prairies, were natural and free. This other condition was a delirium, a momentary oblivion, of which the four young men in the alcove were a symbol. Transient pleasure, the life might mean; but the reverse, the inevitable reaction as from all intoxication, that—

Finishing his breakfast, Ben lit a cigar and sauntered out to the street. He had intended spending the morning seeing the town; but for the present he felt he had had enough—all he could mentally digest. Without at first any definite destination, in mere excess of healthy animal activity, he began to walk; but his principal object in coming to the city, the object he made no effort to conceal, acted upon him like a lodestone, and almost ere he was aware he was well out in the residence portion of the city and headed directly for the Baker home. He was unaware that morning was not the fashionable time to call upon a lady. To him the fact of inclination and of presence in the vicinity was sufficient justification; and mounting the well-remembered steps he rang the doorbell stoutly. A prim maid in cap and diminutive apron, a recent addition to the household, answered his ring.

"I'd like to see Miss Baker, if you please," said Ben.

The girl inspected the visitor critically. Beneath her surface decorum he had a suspicion that she was inclined to smile.

"I hardly think Miss Baker is up yet," she announced at last. "Will you leave your card?"

Ben looked at the sun, now well elevated in the sky, with an eye trained in the estimate of time. He drew mental conclusions silently.

"No," he said. "I will call later."

He did call later,—two hours later,—to receive from Scotty himself the intelligence that Florence was out but would soon return. Evidently the Englishman had been instructed; for, though he added an invitation to wait, it was only half-hearted, and being declined the matter was not pressed.

Ben returned to the hotel, ate his lunch, and considered the situation. A lesser man would have given up the fight and hidden his bruise; but Benjamin Blair was in no sense of the word a little man. He had come to town with definite intent of seeing a certain girl alone, and see her alone he would. At four o'clock in the afternoon he again pressed the button on the Baker door-post, and again waited.

Again it was the maid who answered, and at the expected query she smiled outright. It seemed to her a capital joke that she was assisting in playing upon this man of unusual attire.

"Miss Baker is engaged," she announced, with the glibness of previous preparation.

To her surprise the visitor did not depart. Instead, he gave her a look which sent her mirth glimmering.

"Very well," he said. The door leading into the vestibule and from thence into the library was open, and without form of invitation he entered. "Tell her, please, that I will wait until she is not engaged."

The girl hesitated. This particular exigency had not been anticipated.

"Shall I give her a name?" she suggested, with an attempt at formality.

Ben Blair did not turn. "Tell her what I said."

He chose a chair facing the entrance and sat down. Departing on her mission, he heard the maid open another door on the same floor. There was for a moment a murmur of feminine voices, one of which he recognized; then silence again, as the door closed.

A half-hour passed, lengthened into an hour, all but repeated itself, and still apparently Florence was engaged; and still the visitor sat on. No power short of fire or an earthquake could have moved him now. Every fragment of the indomitable perseverance of his nature was aroused, and instead of discouraging him each minute as it passed only made his determination the stronger. He shifted his chair so that it faced the window and the street, crossed his legs comfortably, half closed his eyes, resting yet watchful, and meditatively observed the growing procession of homeward bound wage-earners in car and on foot.

Suddenly there was the rustle of a woman's skirts, and he was conscious that he was no longer alone. He turned as he saw who it was, sprang to his feet, and despite the intentional slight of the long wait, a smile flashed to his face. He started to advance, but stopped.

"You wished to see me, I understand," a voice said coldly, as the speaker halted just within the doorway.

Ben Blair straightened. The hot blood mounted to his brain, throbbing at his throat and temples. It was not easy for him to receive insult; but outwardly he gave no sign.