X

THE WRONG HOUSE

When Adam strayed In Eden's bow'rs, One little maid Amused his hours. He fell! But, friend, I leave to you Where he'd have dropped Had there been two! —Paradise Rehypothecated.

"Now, Florian," said Judge Blodgett, as they sat in Amidon's rooms, "search yourself, and see if you don't feel a dreamy sense of familiarity here in these rooms—the feeling that the long-lost heir has when he crawls down the chimney as a sweep and finds himself in his ancestral halls, you know."

"Never saw a thing here before," said Amidon, "and have no feeling except surprise at the elegance about me, and a sneaking fear that Brassfield may come in at any time and eject us. The fellow had taste, anyhow!"

"Didn't you recognize anything," went on the judge, "in the streets or buildings or the general landscape?"

"Nothing."

"Nor in the young lady? Wasn't there a sort of—of music in her voice, like long-forgotten melodies, you understand—like what the said heir notices in after years when his mother blunders on to him?"

"Well," said Florian, "her voice is musical, if that's what you mean—musical and low, and reminds one of the sounds made by a great master playing his heart out in the lowest notes of the flute; but it is so far from being familiar to me that I'm quite sure I never heard a voice like it before."

The judge strode up and down the room perturbedly.

"Why," said he, "it's enough to make a man's hair stand!"

"It does," said Amidon. "What can I say to her?"

"You haven't a piece of property here," said the judge, going on with the matters uppermost in his mind, "that you could successfully maintain replevin for, if anybody converted it. They'd ask you on cross-examination if it was yours, and you'd have to say you didn't know! And there's a world of property, I find. They could take it all away from you without your knowing it, if they only knew. Have you any course mapped out—any plans?"

"To a certain extent, yes," said Florian. "I shall call on her this evening."

"For help, yes," said the judge. "She must bring Brassfield up, so that we can find out about some property matters."

"I don't mean that," said Amidon. "I must call on Miss Waldron—Elizabeth."

"And neglect——" began the judge.

"Everything," said Florian firmly. "This is something that concerns my honor as a gentleman. While it remains in its present state, I can't bother with these property matters. Have I an office?"

"Have you!" said the judge. "Well, just wait until you see them."

"And an office force?"

"Confidential manager named Stevens, as per the notes,"; said Judge Blodgett. "Bookkeeper, assistant bookkeeper and stenographer. Tried to pump 'em and got frozen out. Yes, you've got an office force."

"Well, then," said Amidon, "we'll go down there in the morning, and I'll tell this man Stevens—is that what you call him?—to show you all through the books and things—going to buy or take a partnership, or something. Then we can go through the business together. We can do it that way, without being suspected, can't we?"

"Maybe," meditatively, "maybe we can. Take a sort of invoice, hey? But don't you think we'd better have Brassfield on the witness-stand for a while this evening? A sort of cramming—coaching—review, on the eve of trial, you know?"

"No, no!" answered Florian. "No more of that, if it can be avoided."

The judge stroked his mustache in silence for a time.

"See here," asked he finally, "what did we bring madame and the professor down here for, anyway, I'd like to know?"

"I know," said Amidon, "but, somehow, I feel like getting along without it if I can. As little of her—of their—services as possible, Judge, from now on."

"Oh!" said the judge, in a tone of one who suddenly sees the situation; "all right, Florian, all right. Maybe it's best, maybe it's best. Abnormal condition, as the professor says, and all that; effect on the mind, and one thing and another. Yes—yes—yes!"

"If I have any duties to perform here, Judge, you must help me to keep straight. I've never had much tendency to go wrong, you know, but that was for lack of temptation, don't you think, Blodgett?"

"Well, well, Florian, I can't say as to that; can't say. Yes—and say! You'll want to go over to the Waldron residence this evening. I'll take you out and show you the house. By George! It must seem extraordinarily odd to walk about among things you are supposed to know like a book, and to be, in fact, a perfect stranger. Dante could have used that idea, if it had occurred to him."

"An idea for Dante, indeed!" thought Amidon, as he walked toward the house, which, from afar, the judge had pointed out to him. "For the Inferno: a soul thrown into a realm full of its friends and enemies, its loves and hates, shorn of memory, of all sense of familiarity, of all its habits, stripped of all the protection of habitude. For the Inferno, indeed!—Now this must be the house, with the white columns running up to the top of the second story; crossing the ravine and losing sight of it for a few minutes makes even the house look different. Outside, I can get accustomed to it, in this five-minute inspection. But, inside—oh, to be invisible while I get used to it! Well, here goes!"

"Ding-a-ling-ting-ting!" rang the bell somewhere back in the recesses of the house, and the footsteps of a man approached the door. Amidon was frightened. He had expected either Elizabeth herself, or a maid to take his card, and was prepared for such an encounter only. A little dark, bright-eyed man opened the door and seized his hand.

"Why, Brassfield, how are you?" he exclaimed. "Heard you'd got back. Sorry I couldn't meet you in New York. Got my telegram, I suppose?"

"I just called," said Amidon, "to see Miss Waldron."

"Oh, yes!" said the little man; "nothing but her, now. But she isn't here. Hasn't been for over a week. Nobody here but me. Can't you stay a while? Say, 'Gene, we put Slater through the lodge while you were gone, and he knows he's in, all right enough. Bulliwinkle took that part of yours in the catacombs scene, and you ought to have heard the bones of the early Christians rattle when he bellered out the lecture. 'Here, among the eternal shades of the deep caves of death, walked once the great exemplars of our Ancient Order!' Why, it would raise the hair on a bronze statue. And when, in the second, they condemned him to the Tarpeian Rock, and swung him off into space in the Chest of the Clanking Chains, he howled so that the Sovereign Pontiff made 'em saw off on it, and take him out—and he could hardly stand to receive the Grand and Awful Secret. Limp as a rag! But impressed? Well, he said it was the greatest piece of ritualistic work he ever saw, and he's seen most of 'em. Go to any lodges in New York?"

"No," said Amidon, who had never joined a secret order in his life, "and do you think we ought to talk these things out here?"

"No, maybe not," said the Joiner; "but nobody's about, you know. Come in, can't you?"

"No, I must really go, thank you. By the way," said Florian, "where does Miss—er—I must go, at once, I think!"

"Oh, I know how it is," went on his unknown intimate; "nothing but Bess, now. Might as well bid you good-by, and give you a dimit from all the clubs and lodges, until six months after the wedding. You'll be back by that time, thirstier than ever. By the way, that reminds me: the gang's going to give you a blow-out at the club. Kind of an Auld lang syne business, 'champagny-vather an' cracked ice,' chimes at midnight, won't go home till morning, all good fellows and the rest of it. Edgington spoke to you about it, I s'pose?"

"Only in a general way," replied Amidon, wondering who and what Edgington would turn out to be. "I don't know yet how my engagements will be——"

"Oh, nothing must stand in the way of that, you know," the little man went on. "Why, gad! the tenderest feelings of brotherly—— Oh, you don't mean it! But I mustn't keep you. Bessie told me that the plans for your house have come. She's got 'em over there, now. I say, old man, I envy you your evening. Like two birds arranging the nest. Sorry you can't come in; but, good night. And, say! Your little strawberry blonde is in town! Wouldn't that jar you?"

"Heavens!" ejaculated Amidon. "How am I ever to get through with this?"

The genuine agony in Florian's tones fixed the attention of the little man, and seemed to arouse some terrible suspicion.

"Why, 'Gene," said he, "you don't mean that there's anything in this blonde matter, do you, that will—— By George! And she's a sister of one of the most prominent A. O. C. M.'s of Pittsburg—and you remember our solemn obligation!"

"No," said Amidon, "I don't!"

"What! You don't!"

"No!" said Florian. "I've forgotten it!"

"Forgotten it!" said his questioner, recoiling as if in horror. "Forgotten it! And with the sister of the Past Sovereign Pontiff of Pittsburg Lodge No. 863! I tell you, Brassfield, I don't believe it. I prefer to think you're bughouse! Cracked! Out of your head! But, 'Gene," added his unknown brother, in a stage-whisper, "if there has been anything between you and anything comes up, you know, Jim Alvord, for one, knowing and understanding your temptations—for the strawberry blondes are the very devil—will stand by you until the frost gathers six inches deep on the very hinges of—— Say, Mary's coming in at the side door. Good night! Keep a stiff upper lip; stay by Bess, and I'll stay by you, obligation or no obligation. 'F. D. and B.', you know: death, perhaps, but no desertion! So long! See you to-morrow."

And Amidon walked from the house of his unfamiliar chum, knowing that his sweetheart but once seen was waiting in her unknown home for him to come to her, and had as a basis for conversation the plans for their house. He could imagine her with the blue-prints unrolled, examining them with all a woman's interest in such things, and himself discussing with her this house in which she expected him to place her as mistress. And the position she thought she held in his heart—vacant, or—— He leaned against a fence, in bewilderment approaching despair. His mind dwelt with horror on the woman whom he could think of only under the coarse appellation of the strawberry blonde. Was there a real crime here to take the place of the imagined putting away of Brassfield? Brassfield! The very name sickened him. "Strawberry blondes, indeed!" thought Florian; and "Brassfield, the perjured villain!" Certain names used by the little man in the wrong house came to him as having been mentioned in the notes of the professor and the judge. Alvord, the slangy little chap who took so familiar an attitude toward him—this was the judge's "ministerial" friend! Yet, had there not been mention of "ritualistic work" and "Early Christians" in his conversation? And this woman of whom he spoke,—it took no great keenness of perception to see that the "strawberry blonde" must be the "child of six or eight years" whom he had called "Daisy," and sometimes "Strawberry!" Here was confirmation of Alvord's suspicion, if his allusion to the violation of an "obligation" expressed suspicion. Here was a situation from which every fiber of Amidon's nature revolted, seen from any angle, whether the viewpoint of the careful banker and pillar of society, or that of the poetic dreamer waiting for his predestined mate.

In a paroxysm of dread, he started for the hotel. Then he walked down the street toward the railway station, with the thought of boarding the first train out of town. This resolve, however, he changed, and I am glad to say that it was not the thought of the fortune of which Judge Blodgett had spoken that altered his resolution, but that of the letter which greeted his return to consciousness as Florian Amidon, and the image of the dark-eyed girl with the low voice and the strong figure, who had written it, and who waited for him, somewhere, with the roll of plans. So he began searching again for the house with the white columns; and found it on the next corner beyond the one he had first tried.

Elizabeth sat in a fit of depression at the strangeness of Mr. Brassfield's conduct—a depression which deepened as the evening wore on with no visit from him. She sprang to her feet and pressed both hands to her bosom, at the ring of the door-bell, ran lightly to the door and listened as the servant greeted Mr. Brassfield, and then hurried back to her seat by the grate, and became so absorbed in her book that she was oblivious of his being shown into the room, until the maid had retired, leaving him standing at gaze, his brow beaded with sweat, his face pale and his hands unsteady. The early Christian had entered on his martyrdom.



XI

THE FIRST BATTLE, AND DEFEAT

From Camelot to Cameliard The way by bright pavilions starred, In arms and armor all unmarred, To Guinevere rode Lancelot to claim for Arthur his reward.

Down from her window look't the maid To see her bridegroom, half afraid— In him saw kingliness arrayed: And summoned by the herald Love to yield, her woman's heart obeyed.

From Cameliard to Camelot Rode Guinevere and Lancelot— Ye bright pavilions, babble not! The king she took, she keeps for king, in spite of shame, in spite of blot! —From Cameliard to Camelot.

It is a disagreeable duty (one, however, which you and I, madam, discharge with a conscientiousness which the unthinking are sometimes unable to distinguish from zeal) to criticize one's friends. The task is doubly hard when the animadversion is committed to paper, with a more or less definite idea of ultimate publication. I trust, beloved, that we may call Mr. Florian Amidon a friend. He is an honest fellow as the world goes, in spite of the testimony of Simeon Woolaver regarding the steers; and he wishes to do the right thing. In a matter of business, now, or on any question of films, plates or lenses, we should find him full of decision, just and prompt in action. But (and the disagreeable duty of censure comes in here) there he stands like a Stoughton-bottle in a most abject state of woe, because, forsooth, he possesses the love of that budding Juno over there by the grate, and knows not what to do with it! What if he doesn't feel as if he had the slightest personal acquaintance with her? What if the image of another, and the thought——? But look with me, for a moment, at the situation.

There she sits, so attentive to her book (is it the Rubaiyat? Yes!) that his entrance has not attracted her notice—not at all! One shapely patent-leather is stretched out to the fender, and the creamy silk of the gown happens to be drawn back so as to show the slender ankle, and a glimpse of black above the leather. The desire for exactness alone compels a reference to the fact that the boundary lines of this silhouetted black area diverge perceptibly as they recede from the shoe. It is only a detail, but even Florian notices it, and thinks about it afterward. Her face is turned toward the shadows up there by the window, her eyes looking at space, as if in quest of Iram and his Rose, or Jamshyd and his Sev'n-ring'd Cup, or the solution of the Master-knot of Human Fate. The unconscious pose showing the incurved spine, and the arms and shoulders glimpsing through falls of lace at sleeve and corsage, would make the fortune of the photographer-in-ordinary to a professional beauty. And yet that man Amidon stands there like a graven image, and fears to rush in where an angel has folded her wings for him and rests!



He knows that he is expected to claim some of the privileges of the long-absent lover. He has some information as to their nature. His eyes ought to apprise him (as they do us, my boy!) of their preciousness. He is not without knowledge concerning past conduct of that type which, beginning in hard-won privileges, ripens into priceless duties, not to discharge which is insult all the more bitter because it is not to be mentioned. It is not to be denied that the tableau appeals to him; and because another woman has lately touched him in a similar way, he stands there and condemns himself for that! There is small excuse for him, I admit, sir. Her first token of his presence should have been a kiss on the snowy shoulder. You suggest the hair? Well, the hair, then, though for my part, I have always felt—— But never mind! Had it been you or I in his place——

Yes, my dear, this digression is becoming tedious. Let us proceed with the story.

Elizabeth rose with a little start of surprise, a little flutter of the bosom, and came forward with extended hands. He took them with a trembling grasp which might well have passed as evidence of fervor.

"Ah, Eugene," said she, holding him away, "it has seemed an age!"

"Yes," said he truthfully, "an eternity, almost."

"Sit down by the fire," said she, in that low voice which means so much. "You are cold."

"I am a little cold," he replied. "I must have remained outside too long."

"Y-e-s?" she returned; and after a long pause: "It doesn't seem to take long—sometimes. And the wind is in the east."

Now, when a bride-elect begins to deal in double meanings of this sort with her fiance, the course of true love is likely to be entering on a piece of rough road-bed.

"How did you find Estelle when you called?"

Estelle? Estelle? Estelle! Nothing in Blodgett and Blatherwick's notes about Estelle. "A whole directory of names," as Judge Blodgett had said, but no Estelle. The world full of useless people—a billion and a half of them—and not an Estelle at poor Amidon's call in this time of need. Hence this long hiatus in the conversation.

"Really, Miss—er—a—my dear, I haven't had time to call on any one."

"It will be a little hard to explain," said she after a silence, "to my prospective bridesmaid and dearest friend, that you were so long in New York and could not call. It is not quite like you, Eugene."

He was sitting where he could see her well, and because she looked into the fire a good deal, he found himself gazing fixedly at her. Her manifold perfections filled him with the same feeling of astonishment experienced by that beggar who awoke in the prince's chamber, clothed in splendor, and with a royal domain in fee.

(Personally, I regard the domain which spread itself before Amidon, as imperial.)

As she pronounced her gentle reproof, her eyes turned to his, and he started guiltily.

"No," he confessed, "it was not the right thing. You must forgive me, won't you?"

"I hope," said she, smiling, "I may be able to do more than that: maybe I shall be so fortunate as to get you Estelle's forgiveness."

"Thank you," he said; and then seeking for safer ground: "Haven't you something for us to look over—some plans or something?"

"'Or something'!" she repeated with a ripple of laughter.

It was the first time he had heard this laugh; and Marot's lines ran through his mind:

"Good God! 'twould make the very streets and ways Through which she passes, burst into a pleasure! * * * * * * No spell were wanting from the dead to raise me, But only that sweet laugh wherewith she slays me!"

"'Or something!'" she repeated, I say; "it might just as well be the profiles of a new pipe-line survey, for all the interest you take in it. I oughtn't to look at them with you; but come, they're over here on the table."

Somehow, this lady's air required the deferential offer of his arm; and somehow, the deference seemed to please her. So he felt that the tension was lessened as she turned over the blue-prints. Moreover, in matters of architecture he felt at home—if he could only steer clear of any discussion of the grounds. He had no idea of the location of these.

Soon their heads were close together over the plans. A dozen times her hair brushed his lips, two or three times his fingers touched the satin skin of her arms and shoulders, and all the time he felt himself within the magic atmosphere which enwraps so divine a maiden, as odorous breezes clothe the shores of Ceylon. Her breath, the faint sweet perfume in her hair, the soft frou-frou of her skirts, the appealing lowness of her voice—all these wrought strongly on Florian; and when she leaned lightly upon him as she reached past him for one of the sheets, he felt (I record it to his credit) as if he must take her to his arms, and complete the embrace she had involuntarily half begun. But the feeling that she was, after all, a strange young girl, and was revealing herself to him altogether under a mistake as to his identity, restrained him.



She did not lean against him any more. There were some little improvements in the plans which had occurred to Elizabeth, especially in the arrangement of kitchen, pantry and laundry.

"I'll have the architect come and see you about these," said Amidon.

"What!" said she, in apparent astonishment—"from Boston?"

"Ah—well," he stammered, "I didn't know—that is—— Yes, from Boston! We want these matters as you want them, you know, if it were from Paris or Calcutta. And I think there should be some provision for prism-glass to light up the library. It could be cut in right there on that north exposure; don't you think so?"

"Oh, yes, and what an improvement it will be!" she replied. "And may I have all the editions of Browning I want, even if I couldn't explain what Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came means?"

"Oh, does that point puzzle you?" exclaimed Florian, greeting the allusion to Browning as the war-horse welcomes the battle. "Then you have never chanced to run across the first edition of Child's Scottish Ballads. You get the story there, of Childe Roland following up the quest for his sister, shut up by enchantment in the Dark Tower, in searching for which his brothers—Cuthbert and Giles, you remember, and the rest of 'The Band'—had been lost. He must blow a certain horn before it, in a certain way—you know how it goes, 'Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set!' It's quite obvious when you know the story, and not a bit of an enigma. The line in Lear shows that the verses must have been commonly sung in Shakespeare's time——"

The girl was looking at him with something like amazement; but her answer referred to the matter of his discourse.

"Yes," said she, "I can see now how the 'Dark Tower' lightens up. I must read it again in the light of this explanation of yours. Shall we read it together, soon?"

"Oh, by all means!" said he. "Only I warn you I never tire when I find any one who will study Browning with me. I tried to read The Ring and the Book with a dear friend once, and reading my favorite part, 'Giuseppe Caponsacchi,' as I raised my eyes after that heartbreaking finale, 'O, great, just, good God! Miserable me!' I saw she was dozing. Since then, I read Browning with his lovers only——"

"Yes, you are right in that. But, Eugene," she exclaimed, "you said to me many times that his verse was rot, that Nordau ought to have included him in his gallery of degenerates, that he is muddy, and that there isn't a line of poetry in his works so far as you have been able to dig into them. And you cited Childe Roland as proof of all of this! And you never would listen to any of Browning, even when we almost quarreled about it! Now, if that was because—— Why, it was——!"

She paused as if afraid she might say too much. Florian, who had rallied in his literary enthusiasm, collapsed into his chronic state of terror. Even in so impersonal a thing as Browning, the man who does not know what his habits are takes every step at his peril.

"Oh, that that I said!" he stammered. "Yes—yes. Well, there are obscurities, you know. Even Mr. Birrell admits that. But on the whole, don't you agree with me?"

"Quite," said she dryly; "if I understand you."

There was an implied doubt as to her understanding of his position, and the only thing made clear was that the drawbridge was up again. So Florian began talking of the plans. He grew eloquent on ventilators, bath-rooms, and plumbing. He drew fine and learned distinctions between styles.

"The colonial," said he, "is not good unless indulged in in great moderation. Now, what I like about this is the way in which ultra-colonialism is held in check, and modified in the direction of the Greek ideal. Those columns, supporting the broad portico, hark back to the Parthenon, don't they? I like that taste and flavor of the classic."

She listened in much the same wondering way in which she had regarded him at the beginning of his outburst on Browning. Was it possible that, after all, this lover of hers, whose antecedents were so little known, but whose five years of successful life in Bellevale had won for him that confidence of his townsmen in which she had partaken, was, after all, possessed of some of those tastes in art and literature, the absence of which had been the one thing lacking in his character, as it appeared to her? It would seem so. And yet, why had he concealed these things from her, who so passionately longed for intellectual companionship? Somehow, resentment crept into her heart as she looked at him, and there was something in his attitude which was not frank and bold, as she liked to see a man—but this would not do. He was so lovely in his provision for the future, and surely his conversation disclosed that he had those tastes and that knowledge!

"I think the moon must be letting me look at its other side to-night," said she. "Have you been saving up the artist and poet in you, to show them to me now?"

"Oh, no," said he, "not at all—why, any one knows these little things. Now let's go through the arrangement of the chambers; shall we?"

"Not to-night, if you please. Let us sit by the fire again. It will be a grand house, dear. Sometimes I think, too grand for Bellevale; and quite often I feel, too grand, too elegant—for me."

"Who then," answered Florian, who saw his conversational duty, a dead-sure thing, and went for it there and then, "who then could have such a house, or ought to have it, if not you?"

The girl looked questioningly, pathetically at him, as if she missed something of the convincing in his words.

"To deny that you feel so—felt so about it when you gave orders for the building, would be foolish," said she at last. "And it was very dear of you to do it. But once a man, having a little gem which he thought of perfect water, placed it in a setting so large and so cunningly wrought that nobody ever saw the little stone, unless it was pointed out to them."

"He saw it," said Florian, "whenever he wanted to—and no setting can be too beautiful for a moon-stone."

He felt that he was rallying nobly.

"Really," he thought, "I am getting quite ardent. And under different circumstances, I could be so in the utmost good faith; for I know she's as good and true as she is queenly and beautiful. But after all, it is duty, only, and——"

"In such a house," she went on, "people may live a little closer than acquaintances, or not quite so close, as the case may be, with their lives diluted by their many possessions."

"Yes?" said he expectantly.

"Before it comes to that," she burst forth, her eyes wide and her hands clasped in her lap, "I want to die! I could gather the fagots for the fire, and cuddle down by it on a heap of straw by the roadside, with the man I love; and if I knew he loved me, he might beat me, and I would bear it, and be happy in his strength—far happier than in those chambers you spoke of a moment ago, with an acquaintance who merely happened to be called a husband! I would rather walk the streets than that!"

Now, a lovers' quarrel requires lovers on both sides. Had Amidon really been one, this crisis would have passed naturally on to protestation, counter-protestation, tears, kisses, embraces, reconciliation. But all these things take place through the interplay of instincts, none of which was awakened in Florian. So he sat forlorn, and said nothing.

"I am going to let you go home, now," said she, rising. "I gave out the date of the wedding, as you requested, the day after you went away. If it were not for that, I should ask you to wait a while—until the house is finished—or even longer. As it is, you mustn't be surprised if I say something surprising to you soon."

"I—I assure you——" began Amidon. "Good night, my——"

He had schooled himself for this farewell, and remembering what Madame le Claire had told him, had decided on a course of action. The two had walked out into the hall and he had put on his top-coat. Now he went bravely up to her and stooped to kiss her.

She raised her face to his, and again the feeling that this man was only a mere acquaintance passed into her being, as she looked into his eyes. She turned her lips away. But Florian, as the feeling of strangeness impressed her, lost it himself in the contemplation, brief but irresistible, of the upturned lips with their momentary invitation so soon withdrawn. The primal man in him awoke. His arm tightened about the lissome waist; the divine form in the creamy silk, on which he had only now almost feared to look, he drew to him so tightly as almost to crush her; and with one palm he raised the averted face to his, and made deliberate conquest of the lips of vivid red. Once, twice, three times—and then she put her hands against his shoulders and pushed him away. Her face flamed.

"Eugene!" she exclaimed, "how——"

"Good night!" he answered, "my dearest, my darling, good night!"

And he ran down the street, in such a conflict of emotions that he hardly knew whither he went.



XII

ON THE FIRM GROUND OF BUSINESS

O merry it was in the good greenwood when the goblin and sprite ranged free, When the kelpie haunted the shadowed flood, and the dryad dwelt in the tree; But merrier far is the trolley-car as it routs the witch from the wold, And the din of the hammer and the cartridges' clamor as they banish the swart kobold! O, a sovran cure for psychic dizziness Is a breath of the air of the world of business! —Idyls of a Sky-Scraper.

It is recorded in the last chapter that Mr. Amidon ran from Miss Waldron's presence in such a state of agitation that he hardly knew whither he went. To the reader who wonders why he was agitated, I have only to hint that he was wretchedly inexperienced. And as it was, he soon got his bearings and walked briskly toward his hotel; still, however, in a state of mind entirely new to him.

Gradually he lessened his gait, absorbed in mental reconstructions of his parting with Elizabeth. The pet lion which, while affectionately licking the hand which caresses it, brings the blood, and at the taste reverts instantly to its normal savagery, is acted on by impulses much like those of Amidon. His thoughts were successions of moving pictures of the splendid girl whom he had held in his arms and kissed. He saw her sitting by the fire as he entered. His mind's eye dwelt on the image of the strong, full figure and the lovely head and wondrous eyes. He felt her lean against him as they stood by the table, and his arms fairly ached with the thrill of that parting embrace. His lips throbbed still with the half-ravished kisses, and he stopped with an insane impulse to return and repeat the tender robbery. Then, wondering at the turbulence of his thoughts, he walked on.

During this pause, he was dimly conscious that a person whom he had seen approaching had neared the point of meeting, and after a moment's halt, had passed on. As he resumed his walk, he heard rapid steps behind him, and was passed by a man who strongly resembled the passenger whom he had just met. This figure turned a corner a few rods in advance of Florian, and almost immediately reemerged; having turned, apparently, for the purpose of encountering Amidon once more. This time, he walked up, and halted, facing Amidon.

"You'll be at the office in the morning, I suppose, Mr. Brassfield?" said the man.

"At the office?" said Amidon. "My office? Yes."

"Well," this new acquaintance proceeded, in tones which indicated a profound sense of personal injury, "you'd better come prepared to fill my place in the establishment as soon as possible."

This statement was followed by a pause of the sort usually adopted for the purpose of noting the effect of some startling utterance. Amidon was feeling in his pocket for Elizabeth's first-found letter, and the affairs of the Brassfield Oil Company had little interest for him. Yet he dimly realized that some one was resigning something.

"Let me see," said he musingly; "what—what do you do?"

The man gave a sort of hop, of the kind we have been taught to expect of the stag when the bullet strikes him.

"Do?" he snorted. "What do I do? What do I do? Do you mean to—— I'll tell what I do! I get together options for you and send you cipher telegrams about 'em, and don't get any answers! I attend stock-holders' meetings and get whipsawed by minorities because you are dead to the world off there in New York, or the Lord knows where, and don't furnish me with proxies! I stay here and try to protect your interests when you desert 'em, and you send some white-headed old reprobate of a Pinkerton man to shadow me for a week and try to pry into my work! And when you get home you never show up at the counting-room, though you know what a pickle things are in; and when I meet you on the street, I get cut dead: that's what I do! And I stand it, do I? Ha, ha, ha! Not if J. B. Stevens knows himself, I don't! Good night, Mr. Brassfield. Come round in the morning, and I'll show you what I do!"

After the speaker had rushed away, which he incontinently did following this outburst, Amidon's mind reverted to Elizabeth; and not until he had reached his room did his thoughts return to his encounter in the street; and then it was only to wonder if this man Stevens was really of any importance, and if a breach with him was a matter of any consequence.

His mind soon drifted off from this, however, and he got out of bed to turn on the lights and read the above-mentioned letter. And as he read it, he grew ashamed. That embrace, those kisses, now seemed an outrage to him. Was this his return for the sweet confidences, the revelations of hidden things, with which she had honored him? "You must forget this," she had written, "only at such times of tenderness as you will sometimes have when you are gone," and: "When you see me again, . . . without a word or look from me, know me, even more than you now do, yours." And after this, he had permitted her allurement to fly to his brain, and had given her reason to think that because she had lowered her guard, he had struck her a dastard's blow. His eyes grew soft with pity, and they moistened, as he repeated to himself, "Poor little girl! poor little girl!"

Oh, yes! doubtless it was silly of him; but please to remember that he was quite as far from being blase as—as we used to be; and that he was just now becoming really in love with Elizabeth. And love is much nearer kin to pity than pity is to love. So he lay there and pitied Elizabeth, and wondered when the wedding was to be. He must have Clara find this out from Brassfield. And he thought regretfully of Madame le Claire. His reflections thus touched on the two most unhappy women in Bellevale.

To the hypnotist he had become so much more than a "case," merely, that a revulsion of feeling was setting in against bringing him here to be turned over to a woman for whom he cared nothing. It was a shame, she thought. It was something which no one had a right to expect of any girl.

And Elizabeth Waldron still sat by the dying fire, her heart full of a fighting which would not let her sleep. She felt humbled and insulted, and her face burned as did her heart. But all the time she felt angry with herself for her inconsistency. She had longed for Eugene's letters, and when they came, so few and cold, she was grieved. She had expected a dozen little caresses, even before he left her carriage; and she was saddened because she missed them. She had thought of his coming in on her in a manner quite different from that in which he had actually crept into her presence—and when he had only pressed her hands, she had felt defrauded and robbed. And when at parting he had done (somewhat forcibly, it is true) what she had many times allowed, and what she had all the time wanted of him, she felt outraged and offended!

These thoughts kept her long by the fire, and accompanied her to her chamber. "Elizabeth Waldron," said she to her mirror, "you are going insane! Aren't you ashamed that now, when he has shown his love and understanding of the things you love and try to understand, and surprised you by the possession of the very qualities you have felt secretly regretful on account of his not having—that you feel—that way? What ails you, that you begin to feel toward the dearest man in all the world as if he were a stranger?—Ah, but you do, you do! And you'll never be happy with him, nor even make him happy!—And, oh, that letter, that letter! That awful letter for him to read on the cars! If you had never written that!"

"What's my manager's name—Stevens?" asked Mr. Amidon of Judge Blodgett. "Yes? Well, I'm going to have trouble with him! I won't be bullied by my clerks. And who is the next man?"

"Alderson," said the judge. "It's all in the notes, you know."

"And very convenient, too," said Amidon. "And who is the stenographer?"

"Miss Strong," answered the judge.

"Strong, Strong," said Amidon musingly. "The author, I believe, by the notes?"

"I never said she was!" protested the judge. "Not positively, but only——"

"Well, let's go down—or perhaps I had better go alone," said Florian. "Please come down in an hour or so, won't you?"

The judge noted for the first time the decision of returning confidence in Amidon's manner. Two things contributed to this: the first was the sense of something tangible and intelligible in this going down to business in the morning like an ordinary American; and the other was rising anger at the attack made on him by this man Stevens in the street last night. What sort of discipline can there be in the business, thought he, when an employee dares use such language toward his employer? A good towering passion is a great steadier of the nerves, sometimes. He walked into the counting-room, saw his name and the word "Private" on the glass of a certain door, went boldly beyond it, and was followed by a young woman with a note-book and pencil. Presently, in came Mr. Stevens without knocking.

"Here's another pretty how-de-do!" he exclaimed, without any greeting except an angry snort. "You promised to sign that contract for the output of the Bunn's Ferry wells while you were in New York, and didn't! The papers are back with a notice that the deal is off except at a lower price. How'm I to make anything of this business, I'd like to know, if you——"

Amidon was surprised that Stevens was ignoring his threat to resign; but he was firm in his resolution to enforce discipline. The fact that he himself had been so long in a state of fear and under control, made the luxury of assuming the attitude of command an irresistible temptation.

"Mr. Stevens," said he sternly, "have the kindness to read what is painted on that door!"

Though he had no need, Mr. Stevens gazed in astonishment at the word "Private."

"Kindly ask Mr. Alderson to step here a moment," went on Mr. Amidon.

Stevens stood mute, but Alderson overheard and came.

"You may draw Mr. Stevens a salary check to date, and a month in advance, in lieu of notice," said Mr. Amidon. "Mr. Stevens, you are no longer in the employ of this concern. Mr. Alderson, you may take charge until a successor to Mr. Stevens is found. I should now regard it as a favor if I might have my private office to myself and my stenographer!"

Alderson took the paralyzed Stevens by the shoulders and walked him out into the main office. Amidon's spirits rose, as he waited for the check to come in for his signature. He stabbed his letters with the paper-knife, and felt in a blissful state of general insurrection. The subjection of the past fortnight seemed to fall from him. After he had signed the check, he turned to Miss Strong.

"If you please," said he, in a voice of tense stridency, "I will give you a few letters."

The stenographer, who seemed to regard the events of the past few minutes as nothing short of a cataclysm, flutteringly leafed over her book, and just as Amidon began wondering what he could think of to put into a letter, she burst into tears. Amidon closed his desk with a bang, and giving Alderson orders covering his absence, walked out into the streets, full of the joy of gratified destructiveness. He met Alvord, and temerariously agreed to go with him to the lodge that evening. He finally found Blodgett, and informed him of what had been the result of his first morning in the office.

"Well, it's your business, Florian," said he, "but you'll need somebody who knows something about your affairs. And if you go on attending lodge meetings where you don't know the passwords, and nosing into houses where you don't intend to go, and discharging all the trusted men in your employ, you'll soon have more things to attend to than a couple of mesmerists and an elderly lawyer can take care of! But it's your affair; I've known you too long to try to turn you when you get one of your tantrums on. The smash-up ought to be worth seeing, anyhow!"



XIII

THE MARTYRDOM OF MR. STEVENS

Pietro: Th' offense, it seemeth me, Is one that by mercy's extremest stretch Might be o'erpassed.

Cosimo: Never, Pietro, never! The Brotherhood's honour untouchable Is touch'd thereby. We build our labyrinth Of sacred words and potent spells, and all The deep-involved horrors of our craft— Its entrance hedg'd about with dreadful oaths, And every step in thridding it made dank By dripping terror and out-seeping awe. Shall it be said that e'en Ludovico May break our faith and live? Never, say I! —Vision of Cosimo.

The Bellevale lodge of the Ancient Order of Christian Martyrs held its meetings in the upper story of a tall building. Mr. Alvord called for Amidon at eight, and took him up, all his boldness in the world of business replaced by wariness in the atmosphere of mystery. As he and his companion went into an anteroom and were given broad collars from which were suspended metal badges called "jewels," he felt a good deal like a spy. They walked into the lodgeroom where twenty-five or thirty men with similar "jewels" sat smoking and chatting. All seemed to know him, but (much to his relief) before he could be included in the conversation, the gavel fell; certain ones with more elaborate "jewels" and more ornate collars than the rest took higher-backed and more highly upholstered chairs at the four sides of the room, another stood at the door; and still another, in complete uniform, with sword and belt, began hustling the members to seats.

"The Deacon Militant," said the wielder of the gavel, "will report if all present are known and tested members of our Dread and Mystic Conclave."

"All, Most Sovereign Pontiff," responded the Deacon Militant, who proved to be the man in the uniform, "save certain strangers who appear within the confines of our sacred basilica."

"Let them be tested," commanded the Sovereign Pontiff, "and, if brethren, welcomed; if spies, executed!"

Amidon started, and looked about for aid or avenue of escape. Seeing none, he warily watched the Deacon Militant. That officer, walking in the military fashion which, as patristic literature teaches, was adopted by the early Christians, and turning square corners as was the habit of St. Paul and the Apostles, received whispered passwords from the two or three strangers, and, with a military salute, announced that all present had been put to the test and welcomed. Then, for the first time remembering that he was not among the strangers, so far as known to the lodge, Amidon breathed freely, and rather regretted the absence of executions.

"Bring forth the Mystic Symbols of the Order!" was the next command. The Mystic Symbols were placed on a stand in the middle of the room, and turned out to be a gilt fish about the size of a four-pound bass, a jar of human bones, and a rolled-up scroll said to contain the Gospels. The fish, as explained by the Deacon Militant, typified a great many things connected with early Christianity, and served always as a reminder of the password of the order. The relics in the jar were the bones of martyrs. The scroll was the Book of the Law. Amidon was becoming impressed: the solemn and ornate ritual and the dreadful symbols sent shivers down his inexperienced and unfraternal spine. Breaking in with uninitiated eyes, as he had done, now seemed more and more a crime.

There was an "Opening Ode" which was so badly sung as to mitigate the awe; and an "order of business" solemnly gone through. Under the head "Good of the Order" the visiting brethren spoke as if it were a class-meeting and they giving "testimony," one of them very volubly reminding the assembly of the great principles of the order, and the mighty work it had already accomplished in ameliorating the condition of a lost and wandering world. Amidon felt that he must have been very blind in failing to note this work until it was thus forced on his notice; but he made a mental apology.

"By the way, Brassfield," said Mr. Slater during a recess preceding the initiation of candidates, "you want to give Stevens the best you've got in the Catacombs scene. Will you make it just straight ritual, or throw in some of those specialties of yours?"

"Stevens! Catacombs!" gasped Amidon, "specialties! I——"

"I wish you could have been here when I was put through," went on Mr. Slater. "I don't see how any one but a professional actor, or a person with your dramatic gifts, can do that part at all—it's so sort of ripping and—and intense, you know. I look forward to your rendition of it with a good deal of pleasurable anticipation."

"You don't expect me to do it, do you?" asked Amidon.

"Why, who else?" was the counter-question. "We can't be expected to play on the bench the best man in Pennsylvania in that part, can we?"

"Come, Brassfield," said the Sovereign Pontiff, "get on your regalia for the Catacombs. We are about to begin."

"Oh, say, now!" said Amidon, trying to be off-hand about it, "you must get somebody else."

"What's that! Some one else? Very likely we shall! Very likely!" thus the Sovereign Pontiff with fine scorn. "Come, the regalia, and no nonsense!"

"I—I may be called out at any moment," urged Amidon, amidst an outcry that seemed to indicate a breach with the Martyrs then and there. "There are reasons why——"

Edgington took him aside. "Is there any truth in this story," said he, "that you have had some trouble with Stevens, and discharged him?"

"Oh, that Stevens!" gasped Amidon, as if the whole discussion had hinged on picking out the right one among an army of Stevenses. "Yes, it's true, and I can't help confer this——"

Edgington whispered to the Sovereign Pontiff; and the announcement was made that in the Catacombs scene Brother Brassfield would be excused and Brother Bulliwinkle substituted.

"I know I never, in any plane of consciousness, saw any of this, or knew any of these things," thought Florian. "It is incredible!"

Conviction, however, was forced on him by the fact that he was now made to don a black domino and mask, and to march, carrying a tin-headed spear, with a file of similar figures to examine the candidate, who turned out to be the discharged Stevens, sitting in an anteroom, foolish and apprehensive, and looking withal much as he had done in the counting-room. He was now asked by the leader of the file, in a sepulchral tone, several formal questions, among others whether he believed in a Supreme Being. Stevens gulped, and said "Yes." He was then asked if he was prepared to endure any ordeal to which he might be subjected, and warned that unless he possessed nerves of steel, he had better turn back—for which measure there was yet time. Stevens, in a faint voice, indicated that he was ready for the worst, and desired to go on. Then all (except Amidon) in awesome accents intoned, "Be brave and obedient, and all may yet be well!" and they passed back into the lodge-room. Amidon was now thoroughly impressed, and wondered whether Stevens would be able to endure the terrible trials hinted at.

Clad in a white robe "typifying innocence," and marching to minor music played upon a piano, Stevens was escorted several times around the darkened room, stopping from time to time at the station of some officer, to receive highly improving lectures. Every time he was asked if he were willing to do anything, or believed anything, he said "Yes." Finally, with the Scroll of the Law in one hand, and with the other resting on the Bones of Martyrs, surrounded by the brethren whose drawn swords and leveled spears threatened death, he repeated an obligation which bound him not to do a great many things, and to keep the secrets of the order. To Amidon it seemed really awful—albeit somewhat florid in style; and when Alvord nudged him at one passage in the obligation, he resented it as an irreverence. Then he noted that it was a pledge to maintain the sanctity of the family circle of brother Martyrs, and Alvord's reference of the night before to the obligation as affecting his association with the "strawberry blonde" took on new and fearful meaning.

Stevens seemed to be vibrating between fright and a tendency to laugh, as the voice of some well-known fellow citizen rumbled out from behind a deadly weapon. He was marched out, to the same minor music, and the first act was ended.

The really esoteric part of it, Amidon felt, was to come, as he could see no reason for making a secret of these very solemn and edifying matters. Stevens felt very much the same way about it, and was full of expectancy when informed that the next degree would test his obedience. He highly resolved to obey to the letter.

The next act disclosed Stevens hoodwinked, and the room light. He was informed that he was in the Catacombs, familiar to the early Christians, and must make his way alone and in darkness, following the Clue of Faith which was placed in his hands. This Clue was a white cord similar to the sort used by masons (in the building-trades). He groped his way along by it to the station of the next officer, who warned him of the deadly consequences of disobedience. Thence he made his way onward, holding to the Clue of Faith—until he touched a trigger of some sort, which let down upon him an avalanche of tinware and such light and noisy articles, which frightened him so that he started to run, and was dexterously tripped by the Deacon Militant and a spearman, and caught in a net held by two others. A titter ran about the room.

"Obey," thundered the Vice-Pontiff, "and all will be well!"

Stevens resumed the Clue. At the station of the next officer to whom it brought him, the nature of faith was explained to him, and he was given the password, "Ichthus," whispered so that all in that part of the room could hear the interdicted syllables. But he was adjured never, never to utter it, unless to the Guardian of the Portal on entering the lodge, to the Deacon Militant on the opening thereof, or to a member, when he, Stevens, should become Sovereign Pontiff. Then he was faced toward the Vice-Pontiff, and told to answer loudly and distinctly the questions asked him.

"What is the lesson inculcated in this Degree?" asked the Vice-Pontiff from the other end of the room.

"Obedience!" shouted Stevens in reply.

"What is the password of this Degree?"

"Ichthus!" responded Stevens.

A roll of stage-thunder sounded deafeningly over his head. The piano was swept by a storm of bass passion; and deep cries of "Treason! Treason!" echoed from every side. Poor Stevens tottered, and fell into a chair placed by the Deacon Militant. He saw the enormity of the deed of shame he had committed. He had told the password!

"You have all heard this treason," said the Sovereign Pontiff, in the deepest of chest-tones—"a treason unknown in all the centuries of the past! What is the will of the conclave?"

"I would imprecate on the traitor's head," said a voice from one of the high-backed chairs, "the ancient doom of the Law!"

"Doom, doom!" said all in unison, holding the "oo" in a most blood-curdling way. "Pronounce doom!"

"One fate, and one alone," pronounced the Sovereign Pontiff, "can be yours. Brethren, let him forthwith be encased in the Chest of the Clanking Chains, and hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, to be dashed in fragments at its stony base!"

Amidon's horror was modified by the evidences of repressed glee with which this sentence was received. Yet he felt a good deal of concern as they brought out a great chest, threw the struggling Stevens into it, slammed down the ponderous lid and locked it. Stevens kicked at the lid, but said nothing. The members leaped with joy. A great chain was brought and wrapped clankingly about the chest.

"Let me out," now yelled the Christian Martyr. "Let me out, damn you!"

"Doom, do-o-o-oom!" roared the voices; and said the Sovereign Pontiff in impressive tones, "Proceed with the execution!"

Now the chest was slung up to a hook in the ceiling, and gradually drawn back by a pulley until it was far above the heads of the men, the chains meanwhile clanking continually against the receptacle, from which came forth a stream of smothered profanity.

"Hurl him down to the traitor's death!" shouted the Sovereign Pontiff. The chest was loosed, and swung like a pendulum lengthwise of the room, down almost to the floor and up nearly to the ceiling. The profanity now turned into a yell of terror. The Martyrs slapped one another's backs and grew blue in the face with laughter. At a signal, a light box was placed where the chest would crush it (which it did with a sound like a small railway collision); the chest was stopped and the lid raised.

"Let the body receive Christian burial," said the Sovereign Pontiff. "Our vengeance ceases with death."

This truly Christian sentiment was received with universal approval. Death seemed to all a good place at which to stop.

"Brethren," said the Deacon Militant, as he struggled with the resurgent Stevens, "there seems some life here! Methinks the heart beats, and——"

The remainder of the passage from the ritual was lost to Amidon by reason of the fact that Stevens had placed one foot against the Deacon's stomach and hurled that august officer violently to the floor.

"Let every test of life be applied," said the Sovereign Pontiff. "Perchance some higher will than ours decrees his preservation. Take the body hence for a time; if possible, restore him to life, and we will consider his fate."

The recess which followed was clearly necessary to afford an opportunity for the calming of the risibilities of the Martyrs. The stage, too, had to be reset. Amidon's ethnological studies had not equaled his reading in belles-lettres, and he was unable to see the deep significance of these rites from an historical standpoint, and that here was a survival of those orgies to which our painted and skin-clad ancestors devoted themselves in spasms of religious frenzy, gazed at by the cave-bear and the mammoth. The uninstructed Amidon regarded them as inconceivable horse-play. While thus he mused, Stevens, who was still hoodwinked and being greatly belectured on the virtue of Faith and the duty of Obedience, reentered on his ordeal.

He was now informed by the officer at the other end of the room, that every man must ascend into the Mountains of Temptation and be tested, before he could be pronounced fit for companionship with Martyrs. Therefore, a weary climb heavenward was before him, and a great trial of his fidelity. On his patience, daring and fortitude depended all his future in the Order. He was marched to a ladder and bidden to ascend.

"I," said the Deacon Militant, "upon this companion stair will accompany you."

But there was no other ladder and the Deacon Militant had to stand upon a chair.

Up the ladder labored Stevens, but, though he climbed manfully, he remained less than a foot above the floor. The ladder went down like a treadmill, as Stevens climbed—it was an endless ladder rolled down on Stevens' side and up on the other. The Deacon Militant, from his perch on the chair, encouraged Stevens to climb faster so as not to be out-stripped. With labored breath and straining muscles he climbed, the Martyrs rolling on the floor in merriment all the more violent because silent. Amidon himself laughed to see this strenuous climb, so strikingly like human endeavor, which puts the climber out of breath, and raises him not a whit—except in temperature. At the end of perhaps five minutes, when Stevens might well have believed himself a hundred feet above the roof, he had achieved a dizzy height of perhaps six feet, on the summit of a stage-property mountain, where he stood beside the Deacon Militant, his view of the surrounding plain cut off by papier-mache clouds, and facing a foul fiend to whom the Deacon Militant confided that here was a candidate to be tested and qualified. Whereupon the foul fiend remarked "Ha, ha!" and bade them bind him to the Plutonian Thunderbolt and hurl him down to the nether world. The thunderbolt was a sort of toboggan on rollers, for which there was a slide running down presumably to the nether world, above mentioned.

The hoodwink was removed, and Stevens looked about him, treading warily, like one on the top of a tower; the great height of the mountain made him giddy. Obediently he lay face downward on the thunderbolt, and yielded up his wrists and ankles to fastenings provided for them.

"They're not going to lower him with those cords, are they?"

It was a stage-whisper from the darkness which spake thus.

"Oh, I guess it's safe enough!" said another, in the same sort of agitated whisper.

"Safe!" was the reply. "I tell you, it's sure to break! Some one stop 'em——"

To the heart of the martyred Stevens these words struck panic. But as he opened his mouth to protest, the catastrophe occurred. There was a snap, and the toboggan shot downward. Bound as he was, the victim could see below him a brick wall right across the path of his descent. He was helpless to move; it was useless to cry out. For all that, as he felt in imagination the crushing shock of his head driven like a battering-ram against this wall, he uttered a roar such as from Achilles might have roused armed nations to battle. And even as he did so, his head touched the wall, there was a crash, and Stevens lay safe on a mattress after his ten-foot slide, surrounded by fragments of red-and-white paper which had lately been a wall. He was pale and agitated, and generally done for; but tremendously relieved when he had assured himself of the integrity of his cranium. This he did by repeatedly feeling of his head, and looking at his fingers for sanguinary results. As Amidon looked at him, he repented of what he had done to this thoroughly maltreated fellow man. After the Catacombs scene, which was supposed to be impressive, and some more of the "secret" work, everybody crowded about Stevens, now invested with the collar and "jewel" of Martyrhood, and laughed, and congratulated him as on some great achievement, while he looked half-pleased and half-bored. Amidon with the rest greeted him, and told him that after his vacation was over, he hoped to see him back at the office.

"That was a fine exemplification of the principles of the Order," said Alvord as they went home.

"What was?" asked Amidon.

"Hiring old Stevens back," answered Alvord. "You've got to live your principles, or they don't amount to much."

"Suppose some fellow should get into a lodge," asked Amidon, "who had never been initiated?"

"Well," said Alvord, "there isn't much chance of that. I shouldn't dare to say. You can't tell what the fellows would do when such sacred things were profaned, you know. You couldn't tell what they might do!"



XIV

THE TREASON OF ISEGRIM THE WOLF

Then up and spake Reynard, the Fox, King Leo's throne before: "My clients, haled before you, Sire, deserve not frown nor roar! These flocks and herds and sties, dread lord, should thanks give for our care— The care of Isegrim the Wolf, and Bruin strong, the Bear! Its usefulness, its innocence, our Syndicate protests. We crave the Court's support for our legitimate interests!" —An Appeal to King Leo.

The sifting of St. Peter Seems quite credible to me, When I see what's done to absentees At our Society! —Annals of Sorosis.

Any business man will be able to appreciate the difficulties which beset the president of the Brassfield Oil Company, on the discharge of Mr. Stevens. On the morning after the lodge meeting, behold Mr. Amidon at his desk, contemplating a rising pile of unanswered letters. His countenance expresses defeat, despair and aversion. His politeness toward Miss Strong is never-failing; but that he is not himself grows more and more apparent to that clear-headed young woman.

"Here's the third letter from the Bayonne refinery," she said. "An immediate reply is demanded."

"Oh, yes," said Amidon; "certainly; that has gone too long! We must get at that matter at once: let me see the contracts and correspondence."

"That is the business," said Miss Strong, "which they claim to have arranged with you in a conversation over the long-distance 'phone. That's what seems to be the matter with them—they want to make a record of it."

"I don't remember—— Well," said Amidon, "lay that by for a moment. And this piece of business with the A. B. & C. Railway. Who knows anything about this claim for demurrage?"

"Mr. Stevens," said Miss Strong, "had that in hand, and said he told you all about it before you went away, and that you were going to see about it in——"

"In New York, I suppose!" exclaimed Amidon. "Well, I didn't. Can't you and Mr. Alderson take up this pile of letters and bring 'em to me with the correspondence, and—and papers—and things? I've been too lax in the past, in not referring to the records. I must have the records, Miss Strong, in every case."

"Yes, sir," said Miss Strong; "but since we adopted that new system of filing, I don't see how the records can be made any fuller, or how you can be more fully acquainted with them than you now are——"

"Not at all," asseverated Mr. Amidon. "I find myself uncertain as to a great many things. Let's have the records constantly."

"Yes, sir, but these are cases where there isn't anything. Nobody but you and Mr. Stevens knows anything about them."

"Well, I can't answer them now," protested Mr. Amidon. "I've a headache! My—my mind isn't clear—is confused on some of these things; and they'll all have to wait a while. Who's that tapping? Oh, it's you, is it, Mr. Alderson—you startled me so that I—— Mr. Edgington here? Well, why don't you show him in? After luncheon, Miss Strong, you may come in again."

Mr. Edgington had a tightly-curled mustache, a pink flush on his cheeks, wore an obviously new sack suit, had a carnation in his buttonhole, came in with an air of marked hurry, and carried a roll of papers.

"I thought I must have a talk with you," said he, "on the evidence in that Bunn's Ferry land case. The time for taking evidence is rapidly passing, and the court warned us that it wouldn't be extended again. That proof you must furnish, or we shall be beaten."

"Yes—yes, I see," said Amidon, who knew absolutely nothing about the matter. "We should feel really annoyed by such a termination!"

"Annoyed!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Say, Brassfield, that reminds me of Artemus Ward's statement that he was 'ashamed' when some one died! You'd lose the best wells you've got. And it would involve those transfers to the Waldrons, and might carry them down."

"The Waldrons!" exclaimed Florian.

"Why, I mean Miss Bessie and her aunt," said Edgington. "I mean bankruptcy—— But we've gone all over that before."

Amidon nodded, with an air of knowing all about the matter.

"Lots of times," said he. "And this evidence is——? Please give me the exact requirements—er, again."

"The exact requirements," said Edgington, "as I have frequently shown you, and without its doing much good, are to prove that some time in March, 1896, you did not make a partnership agreement with this man Corkery by which you were to share with him the proceeds of your oil-prospecting, and under which he went into possession of this tract of land. He has a line of testimony which shows that you did. Proving a negative is rather unusual, but about the only thing which will save you is an alibi. Now you must pardon the expression, but you've always evaded my questions as to your whereabouts prior to June of that year. You've never flatly denied Corkery's story, but if it weren't for the inherent improbability of it, I'd have given up the fight long ago, for you have not helped as a client should. You haven't confided——"

"But I will!" said Amidon energetically. "The man's a perjurer, and I'll prove it! All that time I was in Wisconsin. I was—I'll prove where I was——"

"Good!" cried Edgington, noting a tendency to falter. "And now for the names and addresses of a few witnesses, and we'll go after them!"

"Witnesses—yes, yes—we shall need witnesses, won't we?" faltered Amidon. "Say, Mr. Edgington, I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll turn you over to Blodgett."

"The old gentleman at the hotel?"

"The same," replied Amidon. "He was my lawyer, years ago. I'll send him to you directly this afternoon."

Edgington made some notes in a book.

"Very well," said he. "I'm glad that puzzle is in process of solution. And now one thing further, and I am done. This is a question of local politics. You know the talks we've had with the fellows about this trolley franchise, and the advisability of making you mayor. We all agree that your interests and mine and those of all our crowd demand your election to the place——"

"Me mayor!" shouted Amidon. "Me run for office! Why, Mr. Edgington, you must be crazy!"

"Well, this—certainly—is refreshing!" expostulated Edgington, in apparent amazement. "When can anything be supposed to be settled, between gentlemen, if that isn't? Why, confound it, didn't we make up the complete slate, including control of the Common Council? And aren't we to have an exclusive franchise on all the streets, with your signature as mayor? Of course, you're joking now. Why, we're right on the eve of the caucuses, and with Conlon in line everything will go as it ought. I mean Barney Conlon, the labor leader. Since you've come back from this trip of yours, everything seems to be going in unexpected ways—and somehow you've given offense to Conlon. Do you know what it was?"

"No," answered Amidon, with some heat. "I don't know what it was! I don't know Conlon, and I don't know anything about this business except this: that if you think I'm going to sneak into office for the purpose of stealing the streets of this town, you don't know Florian Amidon, that's all!"

"Don't know what? Don't know whom?"

"Don't know Flo—ah—me! Me!"

"Then you won't see Barney Conlon?"

"I won't foul my hands with the dirty mess! I won't——"

"Dirty mess, indeed!" retorted Edgington, "when the best business men—— Oh, well, if that's the way you feel—— Why didn't you say so, instead of—— I think we'd best not discuss the thing any further, Mr. Brassfield; and returning to legal matters, where we are happily at one, let me remind you that you are to send Judge Blodgett up to see me regarding the Corkery case this afternoon. Good day, Mr. Brassfield!"

Mr. Edgington went forth from Amidon's presence in a state of mind which can be appreciated by no one but some "good" citizen who has perfected all the preliminaries for securing a particularly fat financial prize by the cheap and simple device of a popular vote, and finds the man on whom he relies going off into a fanciful ism induced by some maggot of so-called conscientiousness. Any one ought to be able to see that there is nothing wrong in accepting gifts from those able to give: and who is more able than the public? Everybody would be better off for the arrangement contemplated, and no one the worse. So reasoned Mr. Edgington as he saw with chagrin the Bellevale franchise slipping away, and with it the core of their ambitious project of interurban lines connecting half a dozen cities. Bellevale, with its water-power, was the hub of it; and to lose here by such a sudden exhibition of so-called "civic patriotism"—Edgington knew the patter of these reformers—was disgusting, and all the more so from the fact that the one to blame was Brassfield, whose ethical attitude had always been so "safe and sane" in business matters.

He must find some way of re-forming the lines, and adjusting the action of the machine—now engaged in grinding out Brassfield's nomination—so as to produce other grist just as good, if that were possible. It was ticklish business, but it must be done. The time was short, but before the caucuses met a new candidate must be found, and the word passed down the line that the dear people had changed their minds over night on the subject of the next mayor.

To decide, with Mr. Edgington (who fancied that he resembled the first Napoleon), was to act, and almost instantly, his forces, hastily mobilized, began an enveloping movement for the purpose of surrounding and bringing into camp a proper candidate for the local chief magistracy.

Mr. Amidon was flushed after this encounter. Mr. Edgington's cool manner of approaching him with this questionable and shady political job had generated some heat in Florian—a man always possessed of strong convictions concerning civic purity. He was offended; yet he knew that it was to the turpitude of Brassfield that he owed this, rather than to any fault of Edgington's.

"How could such a fellow as Brassfield reap such success!" was Amidon's mental ejaculation. "Ready to rob the community, he enjoys the confidence of all; full of the propensities of Don Juan, he wins the respect and love of Elizabeth Waldron! Shameful commentary upon society, and—— Yes, Miss Strong, who is there? Judge Blodgett: send him right in. . . . Judge, I'm glad you came in. I'm very glad! I need your advice and aid."

"All right," said the judge, biting a cigar. "What's up, Florian?"

"You've seen a Mr. Edgington?"

"Your lawyer," replied the judge. "The Notes tell all about him."

"Well," resumed Amidon, "he's been here, and I learn that there is some very important litigation pending, which we've got to win, because it involves others—Miss Waldron and her aunt—and this man Brassfield never could give Edgington the evidence he needed in order to win."

"Why couldn't he?"

"Because," said Amidon, with the air of a man uttering something of the deepest significance, "it involves matters happening before June, 1896, and Brassfield was not in existence until the twenty-seventh of June! I've promised Edgington that you will get him the evidence he wants."

"What's the nub of the case?" asked the judge.

"A man claims I gave him some rights—or that Brassfield did—you understand?—"

"I see."

"—in March, 1896."

"H'm!" exclaimed the judge contemptuously. "March, eh? Why, we can subpoena the whole town of Hazelhurst, and show that you were at that time acting as a pillar of society there, every day in that year, up to June twenty-seventh!"

"But don't you see," said Amidon, "that proving this makes my whole story public?"

Judge Blodgett thoughtfully gazed into space.

"Yes, it would appear that way," said he, at last; "but is it necessarily so? You can testify that you were in Hazelhurst at that time, and legally, that's the same thing as saying that Brassfield was—I guess; and I'll swear to it, too; and if they aren't too searching on cross-examination, we may slide through—but there'll be some ticklish spots. I'll see Mr. Edgington, and find out just how strong a fabric of perjury we've got to go against. We may have to get more witnesses—and that'll be thin ice, too. I'll look in again this afternoon."

"Please do so," replied Mr. Amidon. "Look at these letters! Do you suppose your Notes would shed any light on what they're driving at?"

The judge looked them over.

"I don't remember anything in the Notes," said he, "regarding these matters. But you could take 'em up to the hotel, and Madame le Claire could put you to sleep and talk it out of you in five minutes."

"I'll do it!" said Amidon. "I'll get Brassfield's views on them, confound him. I'll do this while you're with Edgington. Good-by until after luncheon."

Madame le Claire was examining Mr. Brassfield with reference to the unanswered letters. Professor Blatherwick was engaged in taking down his answers. In a disastrous moment, Mr. Alderson knocked at the door, and, following his knocking, delivered a breathless message to Brassfield that an important telegram demanded instant attention.

"All right," replied Mr. Brassfield cheerily, "I'll toddle right down to the office with you, my boy. Excuse me, Madame; you may rely on my seeking a resumption of this pleasant interview at the earliest possible moment. Au revoir!"

Madame le Claire was perplexed. Should she allow him to go out in this hypnotic state? Could she exercise her art in Alderson's presence? While she debated, Mr. Brassfield airily bowed himself out, and was gone!

Brassfield was gone, that was clear: but no system of Subliminal Engineering had any rule for calculating the results of his escape back into the world from which he had for a fortnight or so been absent. What would he be, and what would he do? Would he return the same hard-headed man of business who had won riches in five short years? Or would he be changed by the return to the normal—his equilibrium made unstable by the tendency to revert to his older self? How would he adjust himself to the things done by Amidon? How would the change affect his relations with Miss Waldron and this bright-haired inamorata so balefully nearing the foreground, like an approaching comet? How would the professor and Judge Blodgett stand with this new factor in the problem? Would he continue to care for her, his rescuer? Owing to some things which had taken place in the Brassfield intervals, her heart fluttered at the thought of a possibly permanent Eugene.

For be it remembered, that many things had taken place in these days of Bellevale life. The situation had, of course, been changing daily by subsurface mutations which the intelligent student of this history will not need to have explained to him. For instance (and herein the explanation of that fluttering of Madame le Claire's heart) such things as these:

Bellevale is not so large a place that neighbors' affairs are not observed of neighbor. Prior to the elaboration of the law of thought-transference, there was no way of accounting for the universality of knowledge of other people's affairs which certain Bellevale circles enjoyed. The good gossiping housewives along the highways leading into the town are often able to tell the exact contents of the packages brought home by their neighbors, under the seats of their buggies and farm-wagons and late at night; but this is a phenomenon not at all unusual. Neither is it in the least strange that, in town or country, John and Sarah could not sit out an evening together in the parlor or settin'-room without all that occurred being talked over, with perfect certainty as to facts, in the next day's meeting of the Missionary Society or the Monday Club. But what Phyllis thought, what were the plans of Thestylis, and how Jane felt when William jilted her, and why William did it—all of which difficult circumstances were canvassed with equal certitude—are things, the knowledge of which, as I said above, was not to be accounted for on any theory at all consistent with respect for the people possessing it, until thought-transference came into fashion. Now all is clear, and our debt to science is increased by another large item.

Mr. Brassfield and his affairs were as a city set upon a hill, and could not be hid. There was a maid in Elizabeth's home, and a maiden aunt who had confidential friends. A stenographer and bookkeepers were employed in the counting-room of the Brassfield Oil Company, and the stenographer had a friend in the milliner's shop, and an admirer who was a clerk in one of the banks. There were clubs and other organizations, social, religious and literary; and the people in all of them had tongues wherewith to talk, and ears for hearing.

Hence:

At the meeting of the Society for Ethical Research, Mrs. Meyer read an essay on "What Parsifal Has Taught Me," during the reading of which Mrs. Alvord described Miss Waldron's trousseau to Miss Finch and Doctor Julia Brown. Because of the conversation among these three, the president asked Doctor Brown, first of all, to discuss the paper. And Doctor Julia, who talked bass and had coquettish fluffy blond bangs and a greatly overtaxed corsage, said that she fully agreed with the many and deeply beautiful thoughts expressed in the paper.

"I'm sincerely glad Parsifal taught her something!" said the fair M.D. to her companions, as she resumed her seat. Mrs. Meyer was the only woman in the town who had ever been to Bayreuth, she added short-windedly in explanation of her remarks, and had lobbied herself into a place on the program on the strength of that fact.

"Does Bess know," asked Miss Finch, "about this mesmerist person?"

"Oh, there isn't anything there," said Doctor Brown, "I feel sure. Though his inti—ah, friendship with this Le Claire woman is, just at this time, in bad taste. But all men are natural polygamists, you know."

"They say," said the voice of a member from across the room, "that it will be quite a palace—throw everything else in Bellevale in the shade—entirely so."

"They are all talking of it," said Mrs. Alvord. "Jim says it seems odd to have this Mr. Blodgett looking into the Brassfield business. But everything is odd, now—the hypnotist and Mr. Blodgett, and Daisy Scarlett; she's still here."

"O——o!" said Doctor Brown, in a sinuous barytone circumflex.

"Really," said Miss Finch, who wore her dress high about the neck, and whose form was a symphony in angles, "such promiscuous associations may be shocking, but as to surprise—who knows anything of his life before he came here?"

"Judge Blodgett," said Doctor Brown, "told a friend of mine that he had known Brassfield from infancy."

"The first light Bellevale has ever received on a dark past," said Miss Finch, "if it is light. And how strangely he acts! Everybody notices it. Always so chatty and almost voluble before, and now—why, he's dreadfully boorish. You know how he treated you, Miss Brown!"

"Yes, and he knows how I treated him for it!" said Doctor Brown. "I propose to call people down when they act so with me!"

"Quite right," said Mrs. Alvord, "quite correct, Doctor. Oh, what a change! And who has changed for the worse lately more than Bessie Waldron? Pale, silent and clearly unhappy. I can't attach any importance to that affair of the strange woman with the striped hair; but that Miss Scarlett matter—that's quite different. Jim and I saw the beginning of that up in the mountains last summer. Daisy Scarlett is a queer girl, so wild and hoidenish—but the people who know her in Allentown just think the world of her, the same as do the people in Bellevale—and her appearance here right after the announcement of the engagement means something. Poor Bess! Hush! There she comes. Oh, Bessie, it's so sweet of you to come, even if you are late! Everybody has been saying such sweet things of you!"

"How kind of them!" said Elizabeth. "Has Parsifal received any attention?"

At the club, of course, no such gossip as that uttered at the meeting of the Society for Ethical Research was heard. Men are above such things. To be sure Alvord and Slater and Edgington and the rest of the "the gang" did exchange views on some matters involving the welfare of the club—and in the course of duty.

"I tell you," said Slater, "Brass has been practising that French doctrine about hunting for the woman—a little too industriously. They're getting to be something—something——"

"Fierce," suggested Alvord.

"Well, that isn't quite what I meant to say," said Slater, "but pretty near. 'Terrible as an army with banners,' you know, and condemned near as numerous."

"It's changed Brassfield like a coat of paint, this engagement," said Edgington. "I saw something last week that showed me more than you could print in a book as big as the Annual Digest. You see, he went sort of gravitating down by where the sewer gang was at work, like a man in a strange country full of hostiles, and although he must have been conscious of the fact that he's slated for mayor in the spring, he never showed that he knew of the presence of a human being, to say nothing of a voter, in the whole gang, and Barney Conlon's gang, too. Why, he'd better have done anything than ignore 'em! He'd better a darn sight have stood and sung Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill! as a political move. Now that shows a revolution in his nature. It's uncanny, and it'll play the very deuce with the slate if it goes on."

"Well, you all know what took place at his counting-room," asked Slater, "the day after he got back from New York? Old Stevens resigned, on the street the night before, and Brass didn't seem to know any more than to accept his resignation. Hired him back since, I've heard, but he ought not to have noticed it. He certainly has gone off badly."

"I knew a fellow once," said Edgington, "who went sort of crazy on the girl question—batty. D'ye s'pose this engagement——"

"They change to their lady friends," said Slater, "sometimes. But he—why, he passed me a dozen times with a cold stare!"

"Me, too," said Edgington, "and he didn't seem to know Flossie Smith when he met her, and Doctor Julia Brown gave him a calling-down on the street—a public lecture on etiquette. Colonel McCorkle claims to have been insulted by him, and won't serve any longer on the same committees with him in the Commercial Association. And he stays at the hotel all the time, and seems afraid to leave this old judge, and collogues with the German professor and the occultist—and, let me say, I've seen cripples in the hospital that were worse-looking than she is!—and what in thunder it means beats me."