He knew better than to propose to Eveley. He realized that if they were once formally and blissfully engaged, he, being only mortal man with human frailties, could never resist the charm of complete possession, and he foresaw that betrothal would end in speedy marriage to the death of his determination to bring his goddess glory.

Thus Nolan's lips were sealed—on the subject of marriage. "Though goodness knows, he has plenty to say about everything else," Eveley sometimes complained rather plaintively. And his attentions took the form of a more or less pleasant watch-dog constancy, and an always more and never less persistence in warding off other suitors not handicapped by his own scruples in regard to matrimony.



CHAPTER VII

PAINFUL DUTY

When Eveley arrived home late that night she smiled to observe that all the down-stairs windows were wide open to the breeze, and in the corner bedroom, apportioned to Father-in-law, the curtains were down. At the back of the house she found Father-in-law himself, with the proverbial whiskered friend, critically inspecting her rustic steps through the clouds of smoke from their pipes which they removed to facilitate their interested stares as she approached.

"How do you do?" she cried brightly. "You are Mr. Severs, Senior, aren't you? Welcome home! And this is your friend, I know." She shook hands with them both, with great cordiality. She must disarm them, before she could begin working them into a proper adjustment with life. "I am Eveley Ainsworth. Are you admiring my steps? I am very eccentric and temperamental and all that, and I have to live alone. I do not like being crowded in with other folks. I like to do as I please, and not bother with anybody else."

"Very sensible, I'm sure," said Father-in-law.

"Sure," echoed the whiskered one breezily.

"That was the first little seed," she chuckled to herself, as she ran blithely up the stairs. Later, when she heard Mrs. Severs in the room beneath, she went to the head of the inner stairway and called down to her.

"Come up a minute. I want to see you."

Mrs. Severs lost no time. "My husband says it is simply absurd," she began breathlessly. "He says people have to do their duty. He says a thing is right or wrong, and that settles it. We are all father has in the world, and Dody says it is plainly our duty to keep him with us. He says a fellow would be taking an awful chance to marry you, if that is a sample of your principles. Don't you believe in any duty, Miss Ainsworth?"

"Only one," said Eveley with great firmness.

"Oh, what is that?" came the eager query.

"That," was the dignified reply, "is something that doesn't enter into this case at all, and doesn't need to be discussed."

"Well, Dody says—"

"Dody may be a very sweet husband, but he is not progressive. His idea is old, outworn and antedeluvian. Simply musty. Now, this is my plan—the plan of progress according to new ideas which means happiness for all. Father-in-law and the whiskered friend are born for each other. They are affinities, and soul-mates, and everything. I saw it at the first glance. We'll get them a little cottage off somewhere beyond the odor of onions, and they can revel in liver and pipes to their hearts' content."

"Impossible! Whiskers has a wife of his own."

"What?" Eveley was much disconcerted. "Well, maybe she will get a divorce so her husband can marry your father—I mean—maybe it won't stick, you know."

"It's been sticking for forty years, and I suppose it will go on forever. You see she doesn't have him around much and so she probably forgets how he is. He is always out with father, and she is asleep when he gets home."

"Well, don't worry about it. He had no business being married, for it was a lovely plan—but it can't be helped now. Never mind."

"Listen," said Mrs. Severs suddenly. "Hear the sizzling. That's onions. Didn't I tell you? I was going to have chicken croquettes and creamed peas, with lettuce salad and fruit jello. But how can Dody and I sit down to a decent meal with the whole house reeking with tobacco and onions?"

"Never mind, dear. We'll find the adjustment in time. Just try to be patient."

For another night, and another day, Eveley puzzled and pondered—during intervals of studying motor folders and reading advertisements. And the next evening she found Mrs. Severs wringing her hands on the front porch.

"What is it?" she asked anxiously. "Did he kill himself?"

"No such luck," wailed Mrs. Severs. "He won't sleep in the bedroom because he says it is too shady under all those vines, and he has moved himself out into the living-room on the couch. He says there is no sense having a house all cluttered up with rooms anyhow, he doesn't believe in it. He says two rooms are enough for anybody. You can cook and eat in the kitchen, and sit and sleep in the other room, and anything more is just plain tony."

"I tell you what," suggested Eveley brightly. "Be mean to him. Be real snippy and bossy. Don't let him have his own way. You just fire him right back into the bedroom. Tell him you are head of this house, and he's got to mind. Then he'll be only too glad to move out and then you'll have some peace."

"I can't," moaned Mrs. Severs. "He's really kind of nice if he wasn't so awful. I couldn't be mean to Dody's father. And Dody would not let me if I wanted to."

"Well, don't worry," said Eveley automatically. "I am still working. We will try every different adjustment, and in time we shall hit the right one. Just keep happy and—"

"Keep happy," wailed Mrs. Severs. "Don't be sarcastic, Miss Ainsworth, please. I never expect to be happy again."

Then she went home, and Eveley called Nolan on the telephone.

"You must come immediately and have supper with me. And stop on the way and get a small steak, and ask the drug-store to deliver a pint of ice-cream at six-thirty sharp. And you might bring a nice tomato if you can remember, and I shall have everything else ready. We won't have much to-night, just steak and salad and ice-cream. I need professional advice."

Nolan never dreamed of refusing an invitation of any sort whatever from Eveley, and he started immediately, gathering up the dinner on his way. As he put his foot on the lowest step of the rustic stair, Eveley's head thrust itself suddenly from between the curtains.

"There is a proper adjustment," she said, in a stern voice. "Just keep your mind on that. Painful duty is no duty, and can not be. There is a right adjustment—and we must find it."

Nolan continued warily up the rickety stair, greeting her at the top cordially.

"Hello, Eveley. My, the coffee smells good. I am hungry as a bear, too. I saw you out last night with that sad-eyed Buddy soldier, and I do not approve of it. I shall deem it my duty to administer a proper adjustment of his facial characteristics if he doesn't mind his own business. The ice-cream will be here at six-thirty sharp. How is Kitty? You have flour on your ears. Shall I fix the tomatoes?"

"I did not bring you here in a social capacity to discuss personal matters," said Eveley coldly. "I told you yesterday that my home is saddened by the grotesque figure of maladjustment stalking in our midst under his usual guise of Duty. As I have explained so many times, there is bound to be a happy adjustment. But this time I can not figure it out. Now I call on you."

"Retainer's fee, one hundreds dollars. Payable, of course, in advance."

"Oh, well, it is not strictly legal. Let's just talk it over nicely as dear good friends, and if you have an idea I can absorb it. Nolan, Eileen said she saw you at lunch to-day with a woman."

"Eileen? How is Eileen? I haven't seen her for days. Let's have a party soon, and invite Kitty and Eileen and Miriam and me, and you give us a midnight supper here in the Cote, will you?"

"It was at the Grant."

"I did not see Eileen, but of course I was busy. Was she alone? We had a nice luncheon—grilled pork chops and country gravy. The gravy was good—no lumps. It made me think of yours."

"My gravy is not always lumpy," she said with a frown. "It just happened that way the last two times because I was called to the telephone while I was making it."

"Oh, sure, that's all right."

He carefully adjusted her chair at the table, and drew his own close beside it, pulling his plate and silverware half-way around the table from where Eveley had placed them.

"You look sweeter than ever, to-night, Eve. But I hope the gravy is not lumpy."

"She wore a black dress and white gloves, and a black hat."

"Eileen did? Was it a new dress?"

"No, the one with you."

"Sure enough, I believe she did. A georgette dress, beaded in front. Quite pretty. But there was a rip in her glove. She showed it to me herself. She said she did it on the car, but it looked like an old rip to me."

"And after luncheon you went away in her car, didn't you?"

"Her uncle's car. Just for a short run through the park, and then she dropped me at the office. Quite a pleasant woman. She was so polite to me, and treated me with such gentle deference. It was quite a change. It made me think of you."

Eveley put down her fork. "Who was it?"

"Bartlett's niece from San Francisco. Visiting here. He had promised to take her for luncheon, but at the last minute Graves came in and they were busy, so he turned her over to me."

"I do not see why you are always the one to take their nieces and daughters out for luncheon. This is the fourth time in two months. I believe you do it on purpose. Why should they always pick on you?"

"Partly because of my beauty, perhaps, and my charming manners as well as my generally winsome demeanor in the presence of ladies. I suppose Eileen also informed you that this niece is Mrs. Harmon Delavan, and has three children in addition to a husband."

"Oh, Nolan, how you do burble along. I didn't bring you here to discuss Bartlett's relatives. Now get down to business. How can we adjust the honeymooners and the father-in-law—though honestly I think he is great fun myself, and would a whole lot rather live with him than with Dody. Only he does not fit in with the honeymoon scheme of life."

"Well," said Nolan dreamily, "why don't you marry him, and bring him up here?"

"Oh, Nolan, you are clever. I never thought of that."

At the evident delight in her voice, Nolan stared.

"Not to me, goosey, he would never consent, for I have a dimple and he does not approve of them. So far I have kept it on the off side, and he has not noticed, but I couldn't always turn the left side to a husband, could I?"

"Well, then—"

"Marry him to somebody else, of course. I can't just decide who—but there will be some one. You are such a help, Nolan. Now let's not bother with the duties of our neighbors, but have a good time. To-morrow I shall find him a wife." Then she leaned toward Nolan, refilling his cup, and said gurglingly, "Was he working awfully hard at the stupid old office?"

"Eveley, just one thing, while we are on our duties," he said, catching her hand. "You have made one exception, always, but you have never told me what it is. And it is so unlike you to except anything when you get started. What is the one duty that is justified and necessary?"

Eveley promptly pulled her hand away. "That," she said, "is purely personal. It will not do any one any good to talk about it. So it is all sealed up on the inside."

"And I shall never know what your one duty in life is?" he asked, with mock pleading, but real curiosity.

"It may hit you sometime—harder than anybody else," she said, laughing. "But in the meantime let's talk of other things."

As soon as Mr. Severs had started to work the next morning, without the tender farewells, for the presence of Father-in-law placed an instinctive veto on such demonstrations—Eveley kicked briskly on the floor as a summons, and Mrs. Severs answered.

"Eveley?" she called up to the ceiling.

And Eveley shouted down to the floor of her room, "Come up—I've got it."

At that Mrs. Severs fairly flew up the stairs.

Eveley caught her on the landing, and whirled her around the room in a triumphant dance, stopping at last so abruptly that Mrs. Severs was almost precipitated to the floor.

"Now listen. I've got it. The proper adjustment, that will make you all happy and prove my theory."

"Yes, yes, yes," chanted Mrs. Severs ecstatically.

"He must get married."

"But—"

"Now don't interrupt. Let me finish. Of course he has no notion of such a thing, but leave it to me. We shall marry him off before he knows it. We must find the woman first. Out at Chula Vista there are a lot of beautiful elderly ladies in the Home who are all alone and would be only too glad to have a cozy home and a—a—pleasant husband and—all that. So we'll go out on Saturday afternoon and look them over and pick out a good one. Then I'll invite her to visit me for a week, and you and I will both be busy so Father-in-law will have to entertain her, and she'll cut out old Whiskers in no time at all."

Eveley flung out her hands jubilantly.

Mrs. Severs showed no enthusiasm. "That is what I wanted to tell you. He can't. He is already married."

Eveley dropped into a chair. "Married!" she stammered. "You told me Dody's mother was dead."

"She is, of course. But what I did not tell you is this. Three years ago while Dody was in France, father must have sort of lost his mind or something, for without a minute's warning, he up and married somebody—a woman, of course. When Dody got home from the war she was not there, and when he asked about her, father just sort of laughed and looked sheepish, and said, 'Oh, she's gone on a visit.' 'Where to?' Dody asked. 'Oh, somewhere around,' said father. 'Is she coming back?' asked Dody. 'Holy Mackinaw, I hope not,' said father, and that is the last we ever heard of her. But of course he is still married."

It was a hard blow, but Eveley rallied at last, though slowly. "Don't worry," she said monotonously. "There is another adjustment. Just keep happy—and give me time."



CHAPTER VIII

SHE MEETS A DEMONSTRATOR

"You've simply got to sneak off on some pretext or another, and meet me at the Doric agency at three o'clock for a demonstration. They say it is perfectly wonderful—why, it hardly takes a look of gas to go a thousand miles, and its tires are literally cast iron."

This was her summons by telephone. And Nolan, determined not to desert trusting little Eveley to the tender mercies of motor sharks, went to the Middle Member, whose position he confidently expected one day to possess, and announced that important business of a personal nature required his presence that afternoon. And because Nolan never abused privileges—or if he did was never detected in the act—and because his firm was composed of human beings and not the granite machines common to fiction, Nolan encountered no difficulty.

And Eveley went to her own employer, and smiling seductively upon him, said vaguely that some awfully important and unexpected things had come up, and could she please get off at three, if she would work particularly hard in the meantime to make up?

And because Eveley was very pretty, and withal very businesslike, and pleasant about trifles like working after hours and special grinds and such things, and because her employer was acutely conscious of her soft voice and bright eyes, he smiled in return and said:

"Yes, indeed, Miss Ainsworth, I heard you phoning about it. Go, by all means, but I do not think you will like the Doric. The tires are all right, but the cylinders are under size, and this causes a constant friction with the magneto which impairs the efficiency and makes the car a poor climber and weak on endurance runs."

That is probably not what he said at all, but it is what Eveley understood him to say, and from it she gathered that she might go at three, but that there was something perfectly terrible about the Doric that made it impossible for her to buy it, but of course she could not disappoint the salesman with the deep blue eyes, and so she would have the demonstration anyhow.

From three o'clock on, the afternoon was a perfect daze of magnetos and batteries and gas feeders and real leather upholstery. But Eveley interrupted once, to run into a drug-store to the public telephone, to call Kitty, and when she had her friend on the wire she said eagerly:

"Oh, Kit, we are trying out the Doric. It is awfully good some ways, and rotten some ways, and so of course I can't buy it, but the salesman has the most irresistible eyes you ever saw in your life, and so I am wearing my new blue veil, and I look a dream in it. Now you scoot up to the Cote, will you, and have supper ready for us at six—Nolan and me. If Nolan were not along I might bring the blue-eyed Doric man, but he is so overbearing about those things—Nolan, I mean. Get a nice juicy steak, he needs nourishment. I think if I could feed him constantly for a month and save him from the restaurants he might develop enough animal magnetism to—anyhow, he needs the steak, so get a good one at Hardy's and charge it to me. And will you go by the cleaners, and get my motor gloves—they said it would only be a quarter for the cleaning, so don't pay them a cent more. Will you? That's a nice girl."

At six o'clock, wearily, happily, still discoursing earnestly of magnetos and batteries, Eveley and Nolan climbed the rickety rustic steps, brightening visibly as the odor of broiling steak and frying potatoes was wafted out to them. Nolan went in first, carefully stepping out of the way before he reached a hand to assist Eveley, for he knew that she would fall headlong among the cushions she kept conveniently placed for that purpose. "It is easy enough getting in, if you take your time," she always said defensively to criticizing friends. "But I am usually in a hurry myself, so I keep the cushions handy."

On this evening, being tired, she remained on the floor where she had comfortably landed, and lazily removed her hat and veil, tossing them lightly into a distant corner.

"If it wasn't for the carburetor rubbing on the spark plugs," she said plaintively, "I'd get the Doric in spite of everything. Did you ever see such blue eyes in your life, Nolan?"

"The Mason is a better car in every way," he said flatly. "Strongly built, low hung, smart-looking, and the engine perfect."

Eveley frowned. "Isn't that like a man? The Mason! I wish you could have seen him, Kitty. Fifty years old if he was a day, and bald, and two double chins. And talked through his nose. And what do you suppose he talked about? His wife—and how she loves the Mason. What do I care what his wife thinks about the Mason? I wouldn't have the Mason if he offered me one. I'll bet it is so easy riding that it fairly sprouts double chins—on the drivers."

"You are buying a car, Eveley—not a driver," Nolan explained.

"But the Doric is rather light in weight, and very high in price. How I wish you could have heard him tell about it, Kitty. When he said carburetor it was just like running up a scale of music. And his fingernails were manicured as nicely as my own."

"Is dinner ready?" Nolan interrupted furiously. "Come and eat. Great Scott! That girl would buy a bum car and a costly one, because the demonstrator has shined his nails."

"And, Kitty, he said if we could go to-morrow evening at five-thirty he would take us to La Jolla to show us how she climbs the grades. She will go up on high."

"When did he say that?" interrupted Nolan. "I can not go with you to-morrow night. Don't you remember I told you we had a meeting—"

"I know, dear. I am so sorry. But Kitty will go with us, won't you?"

"Will I?" echoed Kitty ecstatically. "Won't I? Do you suppose they have another one, with brown eyes, to go along to—to change tires, or anything?"

"I don't know, but we can ask. He is going to phone me at the office to-morrow to find out where to call for us. He is very respectable. He goes to the Methodist Church, and his uncle is a banker in Philadelphia."

"Pass the potatoes, for heaven's sake," urged Nolan. "I feel sick." And after a while he went on, persuasively: "There is no use to try that car out again, Eveley. It is no good. Or if you insist on it put it off until the next night, and I will go with you. We'll all three go. Make a foursome if you like, with Kitty and the blue-eyed mutt."

"Kitty does not like blue eyes. And besides, I am the one to be demonstrated to. And besides," she winked at Kitty drolly, "I am sure he will be busy the rest of the week. For when I mentioned that you had an appointment to-morrow he said most particularly that to-morrow was the only free evening he had for weeks to come. And that reminds me, Nolan, that your advice about Father-in-law was no good. He is married already, and it is your fault, getting me buoyed up with hope, all to no purpose."

Nolan was properly regretful.

"Do you think the old man likes to live with them?" he asked.

"No, of course not. He hates it. He almost shudders when I tell him how lovely it is to have a son and daughter to live with. But I suppose he thinks it is his duty to stick, just as they think it is theirs to make him stick. People are so absurd, aren't they?"

"Yes, very," he said soberly, his eyes intent on Eveley's hair curling so tenderly about her ears. And he was really thinking how very absurd it was that a rising young lawyer should find it so tempting to touch that bit of curl, and to kiss it. Very absurd indeed!

"Are you thinking of something?" she asked hopefully, looking into his earnest eyes.

"Yes, indeed." And he forced his eyes away from the distracting curls. "Yes, indeed I am."

"What is it?" she begged, leaning toward him and slipping her fingers with childish eagerness into his hand.

"Why—just tempt him," he stammered.

"Tempt him, Nolan. 'Holy Mackinaw,' as Father-in-law says, what do you mean, tempt him?"

In this predicament, Nolan was forced to concentrate. Why in the world had he said, "Tempt him?" The temptation of Eveley had nothing whatever to do with father-in-laws and the adjustment of duty. But Eveley expected him to produce a tangible and reasonable explanation.

"Why, just tempt him, Eveley. You know what temptation is, don't you? Then do it." This was merely playing for time, seeking for illumination. "Just—keep it always before him, you know—how nice it would be to get off alone and be independent." Nolan was a lawyer, and having forced a foothold, he made it secure. "Tempt him with freedom, talk to him about the joys of privacy, unrestrained intercourse with his whiskered crony, the delights of unlimited liver and onions, a bed in the sitting-room, meals by the kitchen fire, and a jar of tobacco on every chair. See? Tempt him until he can't stand it."

Eveley looked at him appraisingly. "Nolan Inglish, you are a whole lot cleverer than I ever thought you were. That is real talent. You have found the adjustment this time. I feel it."

Nolan, intoxicated with the warmth of her voice, the subtle flattery of word and tone, rushed on.

"Let's find him a house, just a bit of a shack with a little garden and a mangy dog, and then razzle him with the vision of independence, and show him the house."

Then Eveley stood up. "Will you help me do this, Nolan? You get nicer every day of your life."

And Nolan, except for the presence of Kitty, would surely have said what he had no earthly business to say to Eveley yet—until circumstances and the Senior Member made it justifiable.

He sat glowering and grim at the Important Meeting the next evening, when he should have been gratified that his presence was desired—for Maley wasn't there, nor Garland, nor Alverson. But in spite of the Honor, and the Significance, Nolan's mind was wandering. He lost sight of the Truly Greats, and saw only a cloudy picture of Eveley, soft, sweet and dimply, sitting rapt by the side of the Darned Blue Eyes. And that night, at eleven o'clock, on his way to his modest room, he suddenly started. Coming demurely out of the Grant, he saw Eveley and the blue-eyed one, and laughing beside them, Kitty and some other equally reprehensible being. Nolan could hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes.

He fumed openly while he allowed them a decent interval for reaching home, and then called Eveley by telephone.

"Eveley, I thought I saw you and Kitty coming out of the Grant with some men a little while ago."

"Oh, did you?" Eveley's voice was vibrant with surprise.

"Yes."

"Isn't that funny?" she laughed a little, softly.

"Well, were you?"

"Were we what?"

"Were you there?"

"Why, yes, of course. We stopped for a sandwich. We missed our dinner. The engine broke down on the Biological Grade, and held us up for quite a while."

"Eveley—"

"Oh, it was perfectly all right. He found out to-day that he had a friend who is a life-long friend of Kitty's and he brought him along, and we were all nicely introduced and everything was as proper as you please."

"Did you buy the car?" he asked witheringly.

"Oh, no, he advised me, confidentially, not to. He is going to change to the Bemis agency to-morrow, and he thinks he will find it much more satisfactory. Wasn't it a lovely night? Did you have a nice time with the High and Mighties? Kitty is going to stay all night with me, and we are just making some hot chocolate. Won't you come for a cup?—Oh, just Kitty and I, and it is quite early. Come along, and we'll tell you all the bad points about the Doric. But they say the Bemis is a wonder."



CHAPTER IX

ADMITTING DEFEAT

The first Saturday after the organization of the Irish-American League brought a blessed spring rain, especially heaven-sent on her account, Eveley felt quite sure, for she was greatly worn from coping with motor salesmen and the father-in-law situation. And this was a rain that not even boys could stand, so she had a blissful afternoon alone, purring and puttering about contentedly in her Cloud Cote.

But on the second Saturday, according to agreement, the League met in the appointed field for a game. This was Eveley's first opportunity to witness the development of American principles in her chosen flotsam. The meeting had been called for one-thirty, and although Eveley arrived fifteen minutes early she found the field occupied by fully twenty youths of varying sizes, colors and brogues. She gazed upon the motley array in helpless horror.

"Ern Swanson is going to be the captain," said John Hop, with his ingratiating Oriental smile. "We just had an election and elected him."

"But we already have a captain," protested Eveley, looking not without sympathy to the corner where Ivan Kerensky nursed his humiliation.

"We didn't know Ern was coming in," said Alfredo Masseno, who had hurried up with half a dozen others to greet her. "Ern, he ought to be the captain. He's awful rough; and baseball, why, he eats baseball alive! And he won't come in unless he is the captain, and if he don't come with us he'll join the Red Dogs on National Avenue, and we want him with us because we have challenged them to a game and if they get Ern they'll lick us."

Then the newly elected captain sauntered up, his good-natured face reflecting the glory of his new command as well as his natural Swedish temperament.

"He doesn't look rough," said Eveley critically.

"No'm, not when things suits him, but you ought to see him when he is mad. Golly! Why, even the cops lets that kid alone."

"But it isn't parliamentary—I mean, it isn't proper to have one election after another like this. We chose one captain, and we ought to stand by him."

"That wasn't no quorum what elected him, ma'm," said Ern Swanson, smiling broadly. "They was only eight in the club then, and now we got twenty-three. That little bunch o' Greasers couldn't represent us. No, ma'm. We want regular Americans at the head of this club, and so we had a regular election."

Eveley knew this was dead against American principles, and she looked once more toward the sulking ex-captain. Then she remembered that he had won his own election in her absence by plain coercion, and decided to pass this one irregularity, but never again.

"Very well, then," she said weakly, "have it your own way this time. But there must be no more elections until the right time. Now, what are you going to do? Have a practise game? Then suppose we let Ivan be captain of the second team, anyhow, and you can pick your men and have a good game."

This seemed a simple proposition to Eveley in her innocence, but on a sudden, pandemonium reigned. The whole crowd of boys propelled itself violently into the air, and there was a shrieking of voices and a tossing of bats and gloves, and a seemingly endless number of arms flying about. From out the clamor Eveley could distinguish repeated hoarse roars of "Pi-i-i-i-tcher," "Pi-i-i-i-tcher," "Ca-a-a-a-a-atcher," "Ca-a-a-a-atcher," and she retired to a remote spot to await the proper moment for gathering up the remains. Being a lady, she could make no sense at all of the deadly uproar, and she was quite thrilled and charmed when of a sudden the tumult subsided, and she found that out of that apparently aimless clamor, two teams had been selected and the players assigned to their various positions on the field. It was black magic to her.

Eveley thought she knew baseball. She knew what a "foul" was, and she knew what happened when one passed four balls, and she knew when one was out. And she had often said fatuously that she loved baseball, because she understood it. But she did not understand it. She understood a mild respectable game that was played by scholarly young men in college. Baseball as played by the wild creatures on that Saturday afternoon was a sealed book to her. And she devoutly hoped and prayed it would remain sealed. She felt that death would be preferable to a full working knowledge of what went on in the Irish-American Club that afternoon.

For an interval of perhaps three minutes the thing progressed with some degree of reason. Then issued a sudden roar from a dozen throats, every one came tearing in from his proper location on the field, and there was a yelling, huddled group in the center. Then Eveley crept timidly from the corner where she was engaging in prayer for the safety of herself and her club, and advanced cautiously toward the swaying pile of shrieking boys.

She placed soft entreating hands on the outside layer, she even jumped up and down and yelled "Boys," at the top of her healthy voice. But she was only an atom in a world gone upside down. Presently, however, and from no reason she could determine, the mob disentangled itself into distinct entities, the roar subsided into a few threatening growls and murmurs, and Captain Swanson hitched up his trousers and yelled "Play ball" triumphantly. Then the game went on. This identical thing occurred at intervals of about eight minutes during the entire afternoon.

Eveley hoped devoutly that she was by her very presence helping to Americanize these particular bits of flotsam and jetsam—she trusted so. She was quite confident that so much personal agonizing on her part ought to be doing something to the wild beings. But there was no apparent development.

She stood her ground bravely until four o'clock, and then, thanks to the merciful Providence who protects the fools gone in where angels would not dare, it seemed the whole club had to set about delivering papers. But as there were important details to be attended to, such details as arranging for a permanent place to play, and providing protection for the balls and bats bought from Eveley's inheritance, and paying dues, it was decided to have a meeting in the Service Hall that evening at seven.

Eveley went home, and to bed.

At six-thirty she got up, made a percolator full of strong coffee and drank it all.

Then she went to the Service Hall to meet the Irish-American Bloodhounds, as she irreverently called them in her inner heart.

Eveley was out of her element, and she knew it.

She was bent on Americanization, but not this kind. She would be glad to assist in the development of quick and kind-eyed Angelo at the office, or the courteous Jap in the tea garden, but for a baseball club she had no talent. She explained her needs and her deficiencies to the manager of the Recreation Center, and he finally agreed that the Bloodhounds needed a young virile athlete as their director. "And for his own sake," said Eveley almost tearfully, "he ought to be a pugilist. I say this for his good. We need all our assimilators and should not expose them to sudden and violent death."

Then Eveley talked to the boys, and told them how she had enjoyed and liked them, but explained that being only a woman she was terribly handicapped, and so would leave them to the discretion of one yet to be selected. She hoped they would remember they were good Americans, that they stood for honor and loyalty and right. Then she thanked God she was free, took her coat and hat and went out.

"Why, Miss Ainsworth! Is it really you? What in the world are you doing here?"

Eveley, startled on the threshold of the Service Club, looked up into the face of the blue-eyed Bemis salesman.

"Oh, Mr. Hiltze," she said mysteriously. "It is a deadly secret. You must never breathe a word of it. But since you have caught me in the act, I may as well confess. I am an Americanizer."

"Great Scott!"

"You know what that is, don't you? Helping to sort out and assimilate the flotsam and jetsam of the foreign element, and imbue it with sturdy American principles, and all that."

Mr. Hiltze laughed.

"Perhaps you do not understand the new great movement of Americanization," she said with dignity. "It is the one immense fine movement of the day. It is to effect the amalgamation of all the riff-raff of humanity into a new America." Eveley did not mention the quotation marks which circled her words.

"That is wonderful," he said warmly. "It is a great surprise and a great pleasure, to find women of your type taking an interest in this progressive movement."

Eveley leaned excitedly toward him. "Oh, Mr. Hiltze, are you interested in it, too?"

"None more so, though like yourself I feel the best work is done silently and unobtrusively, and I prefer not to be exploited from the housetops."

"Oh, this gives me courage again—and I had nearly lost it. Have you been working to-night? Are you through for the evening?"

"Yes, and if your labors have been as exhaustive and soul-wracking as mine, perhaps you can spare an hour for nourishment with me at the Grant. Of all the jobs in the world! Selling motors is a game beside it."

"We agree again. I think it was rather foolish of me to tackle it in the beginning. I haven't brains enough. Those boys may be flotsam and jetsam and all that, but they know more about patriotism than I do. Why, one little Italian, the cutest thing, with dimples and curly hair, told me more about country-love than I could have thought up in a month. He says, isn't it patriotic for them to come here and pick up all the good they can, and take it back to enrich their own country? And when you come right down to it, isn't it? Anyhow, the little Italians and Mexicans and Jews and I have organized an Irish-American Baseball Team, and I suppose we are amalgamating something into something. I think they are amalgamating me. I feel terribly amalgamated right now."

"I am not in sympathy with the club idea," said Hiltze thoughtfully, as they turned down Broadway toward the Grant. "It is such a treat to find your kind of woman in this—I mean, the womanly kind—I abhor the high-brow women that are so full of forward movement they can't settle down to pal around comfortably and be human."

Eveley, too, was kindling with the charm of a common interest and enthusiasm. Nolan took a very masculine stand on the subject. He said bruskly that the growth of Americanization must come from Americans. He said you couldn't cram American ideals into the foreign-born until the home-born lived them. And he said the way to "teach Americanization was by being a darned good American yourself inside and outside and all the way through." Which may have been good sense, but was no help in the forward movement.

So Eveley looked upon Mr. Hiltze with great friendliness and sympathy, though she did glance up at the National Building as they went by, noticing the light in Nolan's window, wondering if he was working hard—and if the work necessitated the presence of the new, good-looking stenographer the firm had lately acquired.

"Now, my idea of Americanization," Mr. Hiltze was saying when she finally tore her thoughts away from the National Building, "is pure personal effort. You take a club, and mix a lot of nationalities, and types, and interests up together—they work upon one another, and work upon you, and you get nowhere. But take an individual. Get chummy with him. Be with him. Study him. Make him like you—interest him in your work, and your sport, and your life—and there you have an American pretty soon. Club work is not definite, not decisive. It is the personal touch that counts. You could fritter away hours with a baseball club, and end at last just where you began. But you put the same time into definite personal contact with one individual foreigner—a girl, of course it would be in your case—it is young men in mine. You take a girl—a foreigner—win her confidence, then her interest, then her love—and you've made an American. That is the only Americanization that will stick. Suppose in a whole year you have won only one—still see what you have done. That one will go out among her friends, her relatives, she will marry and have children—and your Americanization is sown and re-sown, and goes on multiplying itself—yes, forever."

"You are right," said Eveley. "And you find me a girl, and I will do it."

"It is a bargain," he said quickly, stopping in the street to grasp her hand. "You are a little thoroughbred, aren't you? It may take time, but as I go about among the young men I work with—well, I am pretty sure to find a girl among them."



CHAPTER X

THE ORIGINAL FIXER

"Oh, Nolan," came Eveley's voice over the telephone, in its most wheedling accent, "I am so sorry to spoil our little party for to-night, but it is absolutely necessary just this once. The most utterly absurd case of painful duty you ever heard of. And although you do not exactly approve of my campaign, you would simply have to agree with me this time. And—"

"Well, since I can't help it, I can stand it," he said patiently. "What is it this time? Some silly woman finding it her duty to house and home all straying and wounded cats, or a young girl determined to devote her life to the salvation of blue-eyed plumbers, or—"

"It is a man," she interrupted, rather acidly.

"Ah," came in guarded accents.

There was silence for a tune.

"A man," he repeated encouragingly, though not at all approvingly.

"Yes. A long time ago he very carelessly engaged himself to a giddy little butterfly in Salt Lake City, and he doesn't want to marry her at all, but he feels it is his duty because they have been engaged for so many years. Isn't it pitiful?"

"But it is none of your business," he began sternly.

"It is another engagement with the enemy in my campaign," she insisted. "Oh, just think of it—the insult to love, the profanation of the sacrament of marriage—the—the—the insult to womanhood—"

"You said insult before."

"Yes, but just think of it. I feel it is my duty to save him."

"Where did you come across him?"

"He is the new member of our firm. I told you about him long ago. The good-looking one. He has been with us six months, but I am just getting acquainted with him. We had luncheon together to-day, and he told me about it. He doesn't like social butterflies at all, he likes clever, practical girls, with high ideals, and—"

"Like you, of course."

"Yes, of course. I explained my theory to him, and he was perfectly enchanted with it. But he could not quite grasp it all in those few minutes—it is rather deep, you know—and so he is coming up to dinner to-night to make a thorough study of it. He feels it is his one last hope, and if it fails him, he is lost in the sea of a loveless marriage."

"I do not object to your fishing him out of the loveless sea," Nolan said plaintively. "But I do object to his eating the steak you promised me."

"Think of the cause," she begged. "Think of the glory of winning another duty-bound soul to the boundless principles of freedom. Think of—"

"I can't think of anything, Eveley," he said sadly, "except that good-looking fellow eating my steak, cooked by the hands of my er—girl."

As a matter of fact, he took it very seriously. For while he was still firmly wedded to his ideal of fame and fortune, he was unceasingly haunted by the fearful nightmare of some interloper "beating his time," as he crudely but patently expressed it.

He spent a long and dreary evening, followed by other evenings equally long and dreary, for the Good-Looking Young Member found great difficulty in mastering the intricacies of a Dutiless Life, and Eveley continued his education with the greatest patience, and some degree of pleasure.

Her interest in the pursuit of motors did not wane, however, and after trying every known make of car, and investigating the advance reports of all cars designed for manufacture in the early future, she blithely invested her fortune in a sturdy blue Rollsmobile, and was immediately enraptured with the sensation of absolute control of a throbbing engine.

She found it no trifling matter to attend to her regular duties as private secretary, to keep her Cloud Cote dainty and sweet as of yore, to be out in her little blue car on every possible occasion, and still not neglect the Good-Looking Member and the Father-in-law in her campaign against duty.

First of all, she invited the elder Mr. Severs to dinner, and forestalled his refusal by saying: "Please. I have a perfectly wonderful calf's liver, and I want you to cook it for me. The odor that comes up from the kitchen below is irresistible."

No father-in-law who loved calf's liver and a kitchen could withstand that invitation and he found he had accepted before he knew it. To his boundless delight, the dinner was as though designed in Heaven, for his delectation. Clam chowder, calves' liver and sliced onions, watermelon preserves, and home made apple pie—made by Kitty, who had received rigid orders to provide the richest and juiciest confection possible, overflowing with apples and spice.

As they sat chummily together over a red table-cloth, which Eveley had bought especially for this occasion, she said thoughtfully:

"I believe I am the only really happy person in the world. Do you know why? It is because I am free. I am not dependent on the whims or fancies of any one. I eat what I like, go where I like, sleep when I like. It is the only life. I often think how remarkable it is that you can be so happy living down there with those honeymooners, doing everything to please them, eating what they like, going to bed when they get sleepy. It is wonderfully unselfish of you—but I couldn't. I have to be free."

"You are a sensible girl," he said thoughtfully. "I never saw any one more sensible. Don't you ever get married. You stay like you are. Holy Mackinaw! Don't this liver melt in your mouth?"

"I do not really care for an apartment like this," Eveley went on. "I prefer a cottage, off by itself, with a little garden, and a few chickens in the back yard, just a tiny shack in a eucalyptus grove, a couple of rooms where I can eat in the kitchen and sleep in the living-room."

"Oh, mama, it sounds like Heaven," and he rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

"I am looking for a cottage now. If I find exactly what I want, I may move. I should think you would prefer something like that yourself—a little rusty cot and a garden and a dog, where you could smoke all over the house, and have your friend come in for pinochle every night. I do not see how you can live as you do cooped up with a bride and groom."

He sighed dolorously.

"But I suppose some people like it. It wouldn't do for me. That is why I am looking for a cottage. Do you drive a car?"

"A Ford. I wanted to buy a Ford, but daughter said no, they would not have a Ford. They would wait till they could afford an electric. She wouldn't let me buy a Ford for myself either. Said it looked too poor."

"Did you ever have one?"

"Me? Sure I did. But I accidentally drove off the road into the sand when I was fishing once, and the tide was coming in and it washed the car down. And when I got back with another car to tow mine out, it was gone. Some said the tide carried it out to sea, and some said a thief stole it, but it was gone, so it didn't matter how it went."

Then Eveley was content to talk of other things.

The next day she called up from the office, and asked to speak to Father-in-law.

"I am going up to see a little cottage to-night," she said excitedly. "And my car is in the garage for adjustment. I unfortunately hit a curb and banged my fender. So I have rented a Ford for an hour or so, and want you to come along and drive it for me. Will you? Good! I will be there at five o'clock."

"She is a sensible girl," he said to his son's wife as he hung up the receiver. "A nice sensible girl. She ought to help you a good lot."

Mrs. Severs only sniffed. She knew this was the working out of Eveley's plot, though Eveley had not confided in her, knowing instinctively that the bride would tell the groom, and that the groom would be sure to stop it. So Mrs. Severs saw her father-in-law clamber into the little car at five o'clock, with something like hope in her breast.

For a time, he was intensely absorbed in the manipulation of the gears, and the brakes, his lower lip clutched tightly between his teeth, breathing in full short gusts like a war horse champing for battle. But when at last they were fully started and running with reasonable smoothness, he said:

"Who says this isn't a car? You talk to daughter about it, will you? You explain to her that this is a regular car like anything else."

"Some people are so funny, aren't they? How well you drive it! It is lots of sport, isn't it? I should think it would be fine for you to have a car to run around in. Then you and your friend could go to Ocean Beach, and fish, and up to the mountains and shoot, and have a wonderful time."

"I hadn't thought of that. I—you talk to daughter, will you? Tell her she won't have to ride in it."

"Turn to the right here," said Eveley suddenly. "The cottage is the cunningest thing you ever saw, just two rooms, high on the hill overlooking the bay. I am so tired of being cooped up in a house with a whole crowd. I want to be absolutely free to do as I please."

He sighed heavily again. "It is the only life. The only way to live. But shucks, folks can't always have what they want."

"There it is, that little white house, third from the corner," she said, pointing eagerly, as he drew up the car to a spasmodic halt.

He looked critically at the small lawn and the tiny cottage. "Those rose-bushes need trimming," he said, frowning. "There's a loose corner on the porch, too. Bet that grass hasn't been watered for three weeks. Why folks don't keep up their property is more than I can see."

"Look at the view," said Eveley suddenly. "See the ships out in the bay, and the aeroplanes over North Island. Isn't it beautiful? If we had field-glasses we could see the people walking around in Tent City, and the lemon in the tea on the veranda at Coronado."

"I've got field-glasses at home," he said wistfully. "In my suit-case. But I didn't unpack. Daughter does not like a lot of trash around the house. I'll bet we could see the gobs on that battle-ship if we had the glasses." He turned again to the yard. "It'll take a lot of work keeping up this place. And you busy every day wouldn't have much time for it. I reckon you'd be afraid alone nights, too. An apartment is better for a woman by herself."

"But the freedom—"

"Women hadn't ought to have too much freedom. It spoils 'em. This is the born place for a man—and a dog—and field-glasses—and a Ford."

"Let's go inside and look it over," said Eveley. "Did you ever see such a place for chickens? Nice clean little coops all ready for them. Wouldn't it be a paradise for half a dozen hens?"

"It's a lot of work raising chickens," said the old man. "It's a job for a man, really. You wouldn't like it." Then, thoughtfully: "Half a day's work would make that place fit for the king's pullets."

"And look at the cunning little garden," urged Eveley.

"Needs hoeing. All run over with weeds. Whole place going to rack and ruin. Needs a man around here, anybody can see that."

"Come in, come in," cried Eveley, unlocking the kitchen door. "See the little gas stove, and the tiny table—and the cooler. Isn't it fun? Couldn't you have the time of your life here, reveling in liver and cabbage and pinochle? Wouldn't your friend be crazy about it?"

The old man squirmed restlessly, and passed into the next room. Eveley dropped down on the side of the bed, and set the springs bounding.

"It is a good bed. That table seems made for pinochle, doesn't it? I can just see this place, with you and your friend, the room thick with smoke—and no one to say, 'Oh, father, it's terribly late.'" Eveley put up a very fair imitation of Mrs. Severs' ripply, bridal voice.

"A phonograph—there ought to be a phonograph, to play Bonnie Sweet Bessie, and Nelly Gray."

"Just the thing. A phonograph. That is the one thing lacking. I knew there was something needed."

Father-in-law was quiet after that. He walked about slowly, peering into every nook and corner. But finally he went out to the car, and climbed in. Eveley followed silently. He started the car with a bang and a tug, and drove home swiftly, speaking not one word on the way. But Eveley was content.

Quite late that evening he came up the rustic stairs and knocked on her window.

"Say, Miss Ainsworth," he asked anxiously, "did you decide to take that cottage and live alone? Pretty risky business, I'm afraid. And it's a sight of work keeping up a garden like that—and chickens are a dickens of a lot of trouble."

"I am afraid so," said Eveley wistfully. "I believe your advice is good. It is a darling little place, but I suspect I'd better give up the idea entirely."

"That's right. You're a sensible girl. Very sensible."

And he turned abruptly and went creaking down the stairs once more.

The next evening as she swung her car up to the curb, Eveley found him waiting.

"I'm afraid I'll have to give it up," he said, and added apologetically, "I thought since you didn't want it, I might take it myself. But if I went away they'd think I was dissatisfied, and maybe they hadn't been good to me or something. I wouldn't like to hurt their feelings."

"Can't you pretend you hate to leave, but you feel it is your duty?" Eveley almost choked on the word, but she knew it would be only folly to explain her advanced ideas to this kindly conscientious soul. "You tell them that you think it is your solemn duty to go and leave them alone, and that you can't be happy unless you are doing your duty. Tell them that honeymooners need to be alone."

"That's a good idea. I'll try it on them right away."

When he timidly, then enthusiastically pressed his case, Mrs. Severs, seeing in his sudden determination to do his duty the happy fruition of Eveley's plan, voiced only a few polite words of mild protest, but her husband was flat-footed and vociferous in his objections.

"Just cut out the nonsense, dad, and behave yourself. It is your duty to stay here where you belong, and you can stick around and get used to it. You can't go off by yourself, and that settles it."

"I wouldn't be lonesome," said his father meekly. "I could get along. And I could come and visit you. I think—maybe—I'd like it pretty good."

"Oh, I'm on to you, dad. You just say that because you think it would be better for us. Why, you'd be lonely as the deuce." And he went off into the other room and considered the subject closed.

Late that night, Mrs. Severs ran up the stairs.

"Eveley, he really asked to go, but Dody wouldn't hear of it. And I do feel ashamed of myself. We can't turn the poor old fellow out. It would not be right. Just let it go, and I'll try to get used to it. He really is a dear old thing."

"Listen here, Mrs. Severs, do you mean that you are selfish enough to keep that poor old man here with you spooners when he really wants to be off alone where he can fish and cook and roam around to his heart's content? Can't you see it is your plain duty to make him go where he can live his own life? I—I am surprised at you."

"Oh! You think—you mean—maybe he would be happier?"

"Why, of course he would. And it is your duty to deny yourselves in order to make him happy."

"Oh, I see." Mrs. Severs was quite radiant. "Talk to Dody about it, will you? He wants to do his duty, but he sees it the other way round."

"Leave him to me."

Some time later, Father-in-law himself crept softly up the stairway and tapped on the window.

"Hist," he whispered. "It's no good. Andy won't hear of it. Can't you think of something?"

"Leave him to me," she said again. "I am the original little fixer, and I'll attend to Andrew Dody."

The next morning, quite willing to sacrifice her last nap in her desire to crush all duty, she started for work half an hour earlier than usual, and invited Mr. Severs to ride down-town with her. And as they started off, Father and Daughter-in-law from separate windows of the house watched their departure, and prayed that success might crown her efforts.

"I want to talk to you confidentially, Mr. Severs," she said softly. "I—I think you misunderstand some things. I have been with your father such a lot, and I have discovered that he really wants to live alone. He likes to be free to do things when he likes, and how."

"He can do that in our home, Miss Ainsworth," Andy said stiffly.

"Of course he can, but he thinks he can't. He wants to do as Mrs. Severs likes. He is only pretending it is his duty to go, because he thought it would hurt your feelings if you knew he wanted to leave you. He is just crazy about both of you, but he is so used to doing every little thing in his own sweet way. It almost seems your duty fairly to make him go, because he would be happier."

"I am not one to shirk my duty, Miss Ainsworth. I will sacrifice anything for my father."

"Of course it will be lonely for you when he goes, but think how happy he will be following his every desire. I should think you would fairly force him to be selfish enough to leave you."

"You may be right. He does not care for our way of living, I know, and he does like messing around. And then, too, it upsets our plans a lot having him there, but whatever is right for dad, is right for us."

"Then he must certainly have the little shack we saw the other day—he adored it. You just tell him how lonely you will be, and how you will miss him, Mr. Severs, and then make him take the little cottage."

Talking it over afterward with Nolan, Eveley admitted regretfully that she could hardly call this a victory—because Father-in-law only moved to do his duty, and the children only allowed him to go for the sake of doing theirs—but since everything worked out right, she was satisfied, though she alone knew that happiness came to the three because each one followed his own desire to the exclusion of other considerations.



CHAPTER XI

THE GERM OF DUTY

The case of the Good-Looking Member strained Nolan's patience almost to the breaking point, but after many days of fruitless chafing, his forbearance was rewarded.

Eveley invited him to dinner.

"Have you rescued the good-looking one from the loveless sea?" he asked sarcastically.

"I have sown the good seed," she said amiably.

"I never heard of sowing seeds in a loveless sea," he sneered.

"I have thought up a wonderful scheme. But you will have to help me out. I always fall back on you in an emergency, don't I?" Eveley's voice was sweetest honey. "So you must come to dinner."

"Is the Handsome Member to be among those present?"

"Oh, Nolan, this is our party—to talk things over all by ourselves. It seems such ages since I saw you, and I've been so lonesome."

Nolan was fully aware that this was fabrication, but being totally male, he found himself unable to resist.

"You do not know what lonesomeness is, Eveley. I nearly died. I almost wished I would die. I shall come early, and please wear the blue dress, and be good to me."

That evening, after a long and satisfying preamble, they sat before her tiny grate with their coffee, and she broached the wonderful plan.

"He is the most utterly married-to-duty thing you ever saw. He says he can not in common decency refuse to marry a girl who has been engaged to him for five years. He hasn't even seen her for three, and isn't a bit interested in her. Why, they only write once a month, or so. That's no love-affair, anybody can see that. But he won't ask her to let him off, and so we have thought up the most scientific scheme to work it. He is inviting her to come here for a visit, and she is to stay with me. She hates sensible businesslike men, and she adores scatter-brain, fussy ones. So when she comes, he is going to be as poky as duty itself, and wear old grimy clothes, and work day and night, and you are going to don your sunshine apparel and blossom out like a rose, and beau her around in great style. Result, she will fire him, hoping to ensnare you—but don't you make any mistake and get yourself ensnared for keeps, will you?"

"He is going to work evenings, is he?"

"Yes, day times and night times and all times."

"And I am to cavalier the lady?"

"Not the lady," she denied indignantly. "Both of us. You shan't go out with her alone. She is a terrible flirt, and very pretty. Where you and she goeth, I shall goeth also."

"Well, I can stand it. But what is to become of my own future? Why should I neglect my legal interests to beau another fellow's sweetheart about the town?"

"Because you always help me out of a tight place," she said wheedlingly. "And because you do not approve of my campaign. But if you are nice and help me this time, I think I can everlastingly prove that I am right."

"If I do the work, seems to me I do the proving."

"Yes, but it is my theory, so I get the credit. Of course you must be very gay and make quite a fuss over Miss Weldon, but don't you carry it too far, or you'll be in bad with me."

Anything that meant the eclipse of the Handsome Member could not be other than satisfactory to Nolan. He agreed with a great deal of enthusiasm, only stipulating that all evenings previous to the arrival of the pretty fiancee should be devoted to private rehearsal of his part under the personal direction of the Dutiless Theorist.

So it was Nolan and Eveley who met Miss Weldon at the station upon her arrival. They stood together beside the white columns, searching the faces of the passengers as they alighted. When a slender, fair-haired girl swung lightly down, they hurried to greet her.

"Miss Weldon?" asked Eveley, with her friendly smile. "I am Eveley Ainsworth, and this is my friend, Mr. Inglish. Mr. Baldwin could not get away to-night—'way up to his ears in work. But he is coming up to see you later this evening."

If Miss Weldon was disappointed she gave no sign. Instead she turned to Nolan with frankly approving eyes, remarking his tall slim build, his thin clever face, his bright keen eyes.

"Are you so devoted to business, Mr. Inglish?" she asked, as she opened her small bag and took out a solitaire, which she placed on the third finger of her left hand. At the smiles in the eyes of Eveley and Nolan, she only laughed. "Why flaunt your badge of servitude? But don't tell Timmy, will you?"

She was indeed very pretty, with warm shining eyes, and a quick pleasant voice. She was full of a bright wit, too, and the drive to Eveley's Cote in the Clouds was only marred for Eveley by the fact that she, being driver, had to sit in front alone.

"We shall not do much cavaliering in the car," she thought grimly. "Not when there are only three of us. We'll walk—three abreast."

Miss Weldon was enchanted with the rustic steps, but a little fearful of them as well, and appropriated Nolan as her personal bodyguard and support. She squealed prettily at every creak and rumble.

"I shall never try these steps alone, Mr. Inglish," she said, clinging to his not-unwilling hand. "I shall always wait for you."

"I'll roll her down, if she begins that," thought Eveley.

But in spite of her disapproval, even to her there was something very attractive in the pretty girlish merriment and interest of her young guest.

"I do not see why Nolan had to squeeze in on this," she said to herself most unfairly.

Miss Weldon was charmed with the dainty apartment, and loved the cunning electric fixtures in the tiny dining-room. She tucked an apron under her belt, and appointed Nolan her assistant in making toast, while Eveley finished the light details of serving dinner.

"It certainly is a silly business all the way around," Eveley decided.

After their coffee, and after Nolan had finished his second cigar, Miss Weldon said, "Now since Miss Ainsworth got dinner, we must do the dishes. I shall wash, and you must dry them, Mr. Inglish, and be sure you make them shine, for I am very fussy about my dishes."

And Eveley had to sit down in a big chair and rest, though she did not feel like sitting down and hated resting—and look quietly on while Miss Weldon fished each separate dish from the hot suds and held it out playfully for Nolan to wipe. It made a long and laborious task of the dish washing for Eveley, and she was quite worn out at its conclusion.

"Funny that some people can't do their plain duty without getting the whole neighborhood mixed up in it," she thought resentfully.

At nine o'clock, came Timothy Baldwin. Miss Weldon met him at the window, looked at him, half curiously, half fearfully, and after lifting her lips for a fleeting kiss, backed quickly away from him into a remote corner.

Then Nolan, according to prearranged plan, suggested that he and Eveley run down and put the car in the garage. "And if there is a moon, we may go for a joy-ride, so don't expect us back too soon."

And as they rode he spoke so unconcernedly of Sally's smiles and curls and pretty hands, that Eveley was restored to her original enthusiasm for the campaign.

"Won't she be wild?" she chuckled, snuggling close against Nolan's side, but never forgetting that she was mistress of the wheel. "Tim is going to talk business all the time, and at ten-thirty he is going to say he must hurry home to rest up for a hard day's work to-morrow. We are not to get in until eleven, so she will be utterly bored to distraction. Isn't it fun?"

They drove slowly, happily around the park, over the bridge and under the bridge, around the eucalyptus knoll above the lights on the bay, and then went down-town for ice-cream. At exactly eleven o'clock, Nolan took her hands as she stood on the bottom step of the rustic stair.

"I can't say it is your duty to—be good to me—but I hope it will make you happy. And by the rules of your own game, I have a right selfishly to insist on your being always sweet and wonderful to me, and to me alone."

"Just what do you mean by that, Nolan?"

"Nothing, of course, but can't you use your imagination?"

"No, I can't. That is for brides and fiancees, not for unattached working girls like me."

Then she ran on up the stairs, and Nolan went home.

True to arrangement, Tim had gone at ten-thirty, and Miss Weldon in a soft negligee was sitting alone pensively, before the fire.

"Tim has changed," she said briefly. "I think he has more sense, but a little less—er—warmth, I might say."

"Do you think so? He works very hard. He is fearfully ambitious and they think everything of him at the office."

"Yes? Then he must certainly have changed. He was not keen on business at Salt Lake. He lost three jobs in eight weeks. That is why he came west. And his father has financed half a dozen ventures for him. But perhaps he has settled down, and will do all right. I love your little apartment, and it is dear to call it a Cloud Cote, and Mr. Nolan is perfectly charming. Timmy asked us to meet him at Rudder's for luncheon, you and me and your Mr. Nolan, also."

"Oh, that is nice," said Eveley. "I'll come up for you in the car a few minutes earlier. You won't mind being alone most of the day, will you? I work, you know."

"No, I rather like being alone. I sew some, and I shall read, and there are letters to write. I do not mind being alone."

Eveley found her really very agreeable, quite pleasant to entertain. And after all Nolan had only done as she requested, and there was nothing personal in it. It was lots of fun, but it must stop before Miss Weldon had time to grow really fond of Nolan, for of course she could not have him under any circumstances. Eveley absolutely disbelieved in any form of duty, still she would not feel justified in carrying her animosity to the point of wilfully breaking innocent hearts.

At twelve-thirty the next day, Eveley and Miss Weldon entered the small waiting-room of Rudder's cafe. Nolan was already there. They waited fifteen minutes for Timothy, and then a messenger came down to them with a note. Mr. Baldwin was so sorry, but business was urgent, and they must go right ahead and have luncheon without him. He would telephone them later in the evening if he could come up.

Sally Weldon pursed her lips a little, but she smiled at Nolan. "Can you beau us both, Mr. Inglish? We think we are mighty lucky to have half a beau a piece on working days. Are you the only man in this whole town who does not work like a slave?"

So they found a pleasant table in the cafe, and dawdled long over their luncheon, laughing and chatting. Then they took Nolan back to his office, and Eveley and Sally went for a drive on the beach to La Jolla.

"But don't you have to work?" asked Sally, observing that it was long after two when they finally turned back toward the office.

Eveley shrugged her shoulders prettily.

"Oh, nobody works much but Mr. Baldwin," she said. "He does the grinding for the whole force."

Miss Weldon frowned a little, but said nothing.

That evening she had the dinner nicely started when Eveley reached home, and Eveley was loud in praise of her guest's skill and cleverness.

"It is just lovely, but you must not work. You are company."

"I rather like to cook. I took a long course in it four years ago when Timmy and I were first engaged, and I have done all the housekeeping at home since then. Daddy pays me double the salary we used to pay the cook, and I provide better meals and more cheaply than she did. Daddy says so himself."

"Why, Sally," cried Eveley warmly, "I think that is wonderful. I am surprised. I thought—I supposed—"

"Oh, I know what you thought," laughed Sally brightly. "Everybody thinks so, and it is true. I am very gay and frivolous. I love to dance and sing and play. And I abhor solemn ugly grimy things, and I think the only Christian duty in the world is being happy."

Eveley flushed at that, and turned quickly away.

Later Nolan joined them for dinner, and the little party was waxing very gay long before Tim called. Then it was only to say that he would be working late, but was sending them tickets for the theater and would join them afterward for supper at the Grant.

"Does he always work as hard as this?" asked Sally, looking steadily into Eveley's face.

"He always works pretty hard," said Eveley truthfully, "but he does seem busier than usual right now."

Miss Weldon only laughed, and they talked of other things. Nolan went down with them in the car, Eveley driving alone in front, but somehow she felt her pretty guest to be less of a menace since she was guilty of sensible things like cooking and sewing.



Eveley did not explain that Timothy had felt inclined to join them for dinner and the show that night after disappointing them at luncheon, but she had been firm with him.

"Not to-day," she insisted. "You can only have one hour with us to-night. To-morrow you can join us for luncheon and a short drive afterward, if you will fix it so I can get off."

He was at the Grant waiting when they arrived, and rather impatient.

"Did you have a pleasant time?" he asked, looking into Sally's bright face.

"Lovely. And did you hurry terribly to meet us? We don't want to interfere with your work, or bother you."

He searched her face for signs of guile, but her eyes were unclouded, and her manner indicated only a friendly concern for his interests.

It was a very happy party that night. Both girls were merry, and Nolan was really more solicitously attentive to Sally than was quite necessary even in the interests of a campaign directed against her. When at a late hour, they trooped out to the car, it was he who helped her carefully into the machine, though, with seeming reluctance, he permitted Timothy to sit with her while he joined Eveley in the front seat.

"Timmy is good-looking, don't you think?" Sally asked that night, as they were preparing for bed.

"Yes, if he did not work so hard. Young men should not kill themselves with labor."

"Your Nolan is handsomer, perhaps," said Sally pleasantly.

The next day Timothy did meet them for luncheon, after keeping them waiting for twenty minutes, and later they went for a fast ride out Point Loma. But that night he did not see them at all, though he told Eveley he thought she was rather rubbing it in, cheating him out of so many pleasant parties and good times.

"I may not want to marry her, but it is good sport chasing around," he protested.

But Eveley was very stern. He had put himself in her hands, and he must obey without argument, and that settled it. And when he suggested that it would look better if he and Sally had one party by themselves without Nolan tagging at their heels, she frowned it down.

"One private party can spoil a whole week of hard work," she decreed.

So the week passed. Once even Eveley pretended business, and Sally and Nolan had luncheon together, and a drive later in Eveley's car. But Timothy put a stop to that.

"She is my fiancee. And I may have to marry her after all. And if I do, hanged if I want everybody in town thinking she was Nolan's sweetheart to begin with."

So Eveley waived that part of her plan, and the parties were always of three, and sometimes, but infrequently, of four. That Sally accepted their arrangements so easily, and took so much pleasure in their entertainment, argued well. One night she said:

"Of course, men have to work, but I shouldn't like my husband to dig away like a servant, should you, Eveley?"

And Eveley felt the time was ripe. The next day she told Timothy he might take Sally out alone in the car for a drive, and ask her if they should not be married right away. Eveley was willing to wager that she would reject him. Timothy consented with alacrity, seeming to feel the burden of his semi-attached state.

That evening at six-thirty, when Nolan came up for dinner, Eveley met him on the roof garden over the sun parlor.

"Nolan, something has happened. They went at two o'clock, and they aren't home yet. What do you suppose is the matter? Maybe they had an accident. Maybe she got mad and wouldn't ride home with him. He wouldn't put her out, would he? Shall we notify the police?"

"I should say not. Don't worry. Let's have our dinner. They can eat the leavings when they come. He has probably learned, as other and wiser men have learned, that a pretty and pleasant girl is not half bad company. I'll bet he is having the time of his life. My, it is nice to have you alone again. She is very sweet, and it's been lots of fun, but after all I am used to you, and this is nicer."

Nolan's prediction proved far from wrong. At ten-thirty, a messenger boy shouted up from below, and Nolan ran down. When he came back he carried a small yellow slip addressed to Eveley, which he promptly opened. And as she peered over his shoulder, they read it aloud, together, in solemn chorus.

"Three cheers and a tiger. She has accepted me, and we were married at Oceanside this afternoon. On our way to Yosemite for honeymoon. I am the happiest man on earth. Tell Nolan to go to the dickens. Love from Sally and Timothy Baldwin."

Nolan lit a cigar and blew reflective rings into the air. "When a man is bitten with the germ of duty," he began somberly.

For a moment Eveley was crushed. Then she rallied. "Just as I told you, Nolan. As long as it was a painful duty, marriage between them was impossible, and would have wrecked both their lives. But our campaign brought about the proper adjustment and tuned them to love again. So it was not duty, but love, and marriage is a joy. Now I hope you are convinced that I am right, and won't argue with me any more. And if I ever had any doubts about that one exception I make in regard to duty, they are all gone now. I am dead sure of my one exception."

But when Nolan pressed her for an explanation, she begged him to smoke again, and let her think.



CHAPTER XII

THE REVOLT OF THE SEVENTH STEP

The sharp tap on Eveley's window was followed by an impatient brushing aside of the curtains, and Miriam Landis swung gracefully over the sill in a cloud of chiffon and silk.

"Lem is waiting in the car," she began quickly, "but I came up to show you my new gown. Are you nearly ready? Lem is so impatient, you know." Fumbling with the fasteners of her wide cape she drew it back and revealed a bewilderingly beautiful creation beneath.

Eveley went into instant and honest raptures.

"Do you like it, Eveley? Am I beautiful in it?" There was a curious wistfulness in her voice, and Eveley studied her closely.

"Of course you are beautiful in it. You are a dream. You are irresistibly heavenly."

"I wonder if Lem thinks so," said Miriam, half breathlessly.

"Why, you little goose," cried Eveley, forcing the laughter. "How could he think anything else? There, he is honking for us already. We must hurry—Why, Miriam, you silly, how could any one think you anything in the world but matchlessly wonderful in anything—especially in a dream like that?"

Miriam fastened her wrap again silently, and got carefully out through the window.

"Twelve steps," cautioned Eveley. "You'd better count them, it is so dark, or you may stumble at the bottom."

Miriam, clinging to the railing on one side, passed slowly down. "One, two, three, four, five, six." Then she stopped and turned.

"Seven." Looking somberly up to Eveley, standing above her, her face showing pale and sorry in the dim light, she said, "I have been married five years, Eve. You do not know what it is to spend five years struggling to maintain your charm for your husband. And never knowing whether you have failed or won. Always wondering why he finds more attraction in other women less beautiful and less clever. Always wondering, always afraid, trying to cling to what ought to be yours without effort. It isn't funny, Eveley." She turned slowly, to go on down, but Eveley laid a restraining hand on her arm.

"Five years? That is a long time," she said in a tender voice. "It must almost be his turn now. Five years seems very long to me."

Miriam passed on down the stairs, counting aloud, eight, nine, ten, and on to the last. At the last step she turned again.

"He is my husband, Eveley. One must do what is right."

"Yes? Yet five years of duty does not seem to have brought you much happiness. At least you should not be selfish. You ought not to deny him the pleasure of doing his by you for the next five." Then she added apologetically: "Forgive me, Miriam. You know I should never have mentioned this if you hadn't spoken."

Miriam clung to her hand as they felt their way carefully around the house, Lem in the machine still honking for them to hurry.

At the corner she paused again. "You are very clever, aren't you, Eveley?"

"Well, yes, I rather think I am," admitted Eveley.

"How would you go about it?"

"The way Lem does," came the quick retort, and Miriam laughed, suddenly and lightly.

She was very quiet as they drove down Fifth Street. Only once she spoke.

"It was the seventh step, wasn't it, Eveley?"

"Yes, the seventh."

"The Revolution of the Seventh Step," she said, laughing again.

This was nonsense to Lem Landis, but he did not ask questions. Women always talked such rot to each other. And he was wondering if Mrs. Cartle would surely be at the ball?

"The way Lem does."

The words were startlingly sufficient. From five years of painful experience, Mrs. Landis knew how Lem did it. And so on this evening, as she stood beside him in a corner of the ballroom after their first greetings, and looked as he did with eager speculative eyes about the wide room, seeking, seeking, she felt a curious sympathy and harmony between herself and her husband. She knew without turning her head when the sudden brightening in his eyes came; and then he slowly made his way to the dim corner where Mrs. Cartle sat waiting.

But Miriam was not so quickly satisfied. There was Dan O'Falley, but his was such fulsome effrontery. There was Clifford Eggleton, but he had been a sweetheart of Miriam's in the old days before Lem came, and that seemed hardly fair. There was Hal Jervis, but he was too utterly wax in woman's hands to give her any semblance of thrill. Then her eyes rested on a profile in another corner of the room—a dark sleek head, a dark thin face, and the clear outline of one merry eye. Miriam appraised the head speculatively. Who in the world could it be? That merry eye looked very enticing. Ah, now she could see better—he was talking to the Merediths. Then the merry-eyed one was a stranger—so much the better, the uncertainty of him pleased her. She was very weary of those she knew so well. She moved happily that way, suddenly surprised to know that she was not at all concerned because her husband sat in the distant corner with Mrs. Cartle. She felt for him to-night only a whimsical comradeship. Stopping many times on her way to exchange a word and a smile, she finally drew near the corner where the sleek dark head and the merry eye had drawn her. Mrs. Meredith, seeing her, came to meet her, and drew her forward impulsively.

"Oh, Miriam, you must meet our friend, Mr. Cameron. He has only just come here to be with my husband in business, and we are going to love him, I know." And so immediately Miriam found herself looking directly, and with great pleasure, full into the merry eyes. The gown was beautiful upon her, she knew it positively, whether Lem had been stirred by the vision or not.

"Oh, she is lovely enough," said Billy Meredith plaintively. "But don't be lured by her, Cameron. She is still in love with her husband."

Miriam smiled at her victim with disarming friendliness. "But I like to be amused," she said. "And I have been married long enough now to feel like playing again."

Cameron laughed at that, and the laughter fulfilled the promise of the merry eye. Miriam was quite intoxicated with the game her husband had taught her. That Eveley was a clever little thing, wasn't she?

"Suppose we dance then," Cameron suggested eagerly. "It is the approved method of beginning to play."

"We resign you to your fate," sighed Billy Meredith once more. "I warned you, you laughed me to scorn. Now plunge and die."

"He seems to think I am dangerous," said Miriam, as they stepped lightly away to the call of the music.

"Well, far be it from me to say he is wrong. But I am sure you will prove a charming playfellow. You seem fairly to match my own mood. I suppose we can not climb trees and go nutting and fishing and wade in the creek as we might have done together years ago, but if you will be patient and teach me your way of playing in your ladyhood, I think you will find me an apt, and certainly a willing playmate."

"Then let's begin to-morrow night. Come to my house, and let's play pool. It is the most reckless thing we can do. I have a sweet little friend and she has a deadly admirer, and they will come with us. She is very clever, too, and full of fun. See, that is she there, dancing—the one with the golden frock. Her name is Eveley Ainsworth and the solemn young man is Nolan Inglish, and they are unannounced but accepted sweethearts. You are not afraid of Friend Husband, then?"

"Not until Friend Husband gets afraid of me," he said.

Later in the evening, as they were having ices in a wonderful nook in the ballroom, he said seriously, and with no laughter in the merry eyes:

"Are you trying to make a truant husband jealous? Just be frank with me, and I will do my best. I know you wanted a pal to-night. Do you mind telling me why?"

For a moment she hesitated. Then she smiled. "If my frankness loses me a pleasant comrade I shall regret my candor. But I do want to play fairly with you. So hear then the bitter truth. I have been married five years, and I have worked like a common slave to make myself beautiful and winsome and irresistible to my husband. And you know that a wife can't do it, if the husband isn't in the mind for it. And so to-night I am starting a revolution. I do not want to struggle forever. I want to play and be happy. I have no notion of making my husband jealous. That has not even occurred to me. I just want to be joyful—to learn to be joyful—regardless of him."

"Then may I be a disagreeable old preacher, and say one thing? You know this may be fun, but sometimes it is dangerous. Human beings are not machines, and often they make mistakes and fall in love, when they had only meant to play. You would not find it at all pleasant to be married to one man, and in love with another. And maybe you would not enjoy having a husband and a lover in two persons, I am not trying to foretell the future, or make unpleasant predictions—I am only sounding the warning note."

Miriam considered this very solemnly. Then she said: "Well, I think I should not mind. It does not seem to bother Lem to be married to me, and at the same time be involved in stirring friendships with other people."

"Just one more sermon then, and I am through," he said, laughing. "It is this. Men and women are very different. A man can play his head off with a dozen women, and still stay in love with his wife, and want no one but her. But a really nice woman, and you are awfully nice, can not have love-affairs without love. When she loves a man, she wants him, and will not have any one else. Your husband can have a dozen affairs, and still want you. But if you have a pleasant affair—you may not want your husband."

"Well, of course, Mr. Preacher, one must take a chance. And it is to be only play, you know. That must be understood right in the start. I am really not a bit advanced nor modern, nor anything. I have no forward ideas in my head. I am just tired of trying to please my husband; I want some one to please me. It does not seem to offer you much for your pains, does it? But you may find me fairly amusing."

"I am sure of it," he agreed warmly. "And it is all settled, and we are going to play together. And if sometimes you get tired of me, and fire me off, I shall bob up serenely the next day and start over, just as we might have done when we were little children."

When Miriam reported her progress in revolution to Eveley the next day, Eveley was greatly perturbed.

"You went too fast," she said with a frown. "And besides—it is not fair. He isn't married. He will fall in love with you."