"That child's light and gay by disposition. Don't put anything somber on her," he once remarked.

Jennie had come to realize that he must be consulted in this, and would say, "Run to your papa and show him how you look."

Vesta would come and turn briskly around before him, saying, "See."

"Yes. You're all right. Go on"; and on she would go.

He grew so proud of her that on Sundays and some week-days when they drove he would always have her in between them. He insisted that Jennie send her to dancing-school, and Gerhardt was beside himself with rage and grief. "Such irreligion!" he complained to Jennie. "Such devil's fol-de-rol. Now she goes to dance. What for? To make a no-good out of her—a creature to be ashamed of?"

"Oh no, papa," replied Jennie. "It isn't as bad as that. This is an awful nice school. Lester says she has to go."

"Lester, Lester; that man! A fine lot he knows about what is good for a child. A card-player, a whisky-drinker!"

"Now, hush, papa; I won't have you talk like that," Jennie would reply warmly. "He's a good man, and you know it."

"Yes, yes, a good man. In some things, maybe. Not in this. No."

He went away groaning. When Lester was near he said nothing, and Vesta could wind him around her finger.

"Oh you," she would say, pulling at his arm or rubbing his grizzled cheek. There was no more fight in Gerhardt when Vesta did this. He lost control of himself—something welled up and choked his throat. "Yes, I know how you do," he would exclaim.

Vesta would tweak his ear.

"Stop now!" he would say. "That is enough."

It was noticeable, however, that she did not have to stop unless she herself willed it. Gerhardt adored the child, and she could do anything with him; he was always her devoted servitor.



CHAPTER XXXIX

During this period the dissatisfaction of the Kane family with Lester's irregular habit of life grew steadily stronger. That it could not help but become an open scandal, in the course of time, was sufficiently obvious to them. Rumors were already going about. People seemed to understand in a wise way, though nothing was ever said directly. Kane senior could scarcely imagine what possessed his son to fly in the face of conventions in this manner. If the woman had been some one of distinction—some sorceress of the stage, or of the world of art, or letters, his action would have been explicable if not commendable, but with this creature of very ordinary capabilities, as Louise had described her, this putty-faced nobody—he could not possibly understand it.

Lester was his son, his favorite son; it was too bad that he had not settled down in the ordinary way. Look at the women in Cincinnati who knew him and liked him. Take Letty Pace, for instance. Why in the name of common sense had he not married her? She was good looking, sympathetic, talented. The old man grieved bitterly, and then, by degrees, he began to harden. It seemed a shame that Lester should treat him so. It wasn't natural, or justifiable, or decent. Archibald Kane brooded over it until he felt that some change ought to be enforced, but just what it should be he could not say. Lester was his own boss, and he would resent any criticism of his actions. Apparently, nothing could be done.

Certain changes helped along an approaching denouement. Louise married not many months after her very disturbing visit to Chicago, and then the home property was fairly empty except for visiting grandchildren. Lester did not attend the wedding, though he was invited. For another thing, Mrs. Kane died, making a readjustment of the family will necessary. Lester came home on this occasion, grieved to think he had lately seen so little of his mother—that he had caused her so much pain—but he had no explanation to make. His father thought at the time of talking to him, but put it off because of his obvious gloom. He went back to Chicago, and there were more months of silence.

After Mrs. Kane's death and Louise's marriage, the father went to live with Robert, for his three grandchildren afforded him his greatest pleasure in his old age. The business, except for the final adjustment which would come after his death, was in Robert's hands. The latter was consistently agreeable to his sisters and their husbands and to his father, in view of the eventual control he hoped to obtain. He was not a sycophant in any sense of the word, but a shrewd, cold business man, far shrewder than his brother gave him credit for. He was already richer than any two of the other children put together, but he chose to keep his counsel and to pretend modesty of fortune. He realized the danger of envy, and preferred a Spartan form of existence, putting all the emphasis on inconspicuous but very ready and very hard cash. While Lester was drifting Robert was working—working all the time.

Robert's scheme for eliminating his brother from participation in the control of the business was really not very essential, for his father, after long brooding over the details of the Chicago situation, had come to the definite conclusion that any large share of his property ought not to go to Lester. Obviously, Lester was not so strong a man as he had thought him to be. Of the two brothers, Lester might be the bigger intellectually or sympathetically—artistically and socially there was no comparison—but Robert got commercial results in a silent, effective way. If Lester was not going to pull himself together at this stage of the game, when would he? Better leave his property to those who would take care of it. Archibald Kane thought seriously of having his lawyer revise his will in such a way that, unless Lester should reform, he would be cut off with only a nominal income. But he decided to give Lester one more chance—to make a plea, in fact, that he should abandon his false way of living, and put himself on a sound basis before the world. It wasn't too late. He really had a great future. Would he deliberately choose to throw it away? Old Archibald wrote Lester that he would like to have a talk with him at his convenience, and within the lapse of thirty-six hours Lester was in Cincinnati.

"I thought I'd have one more talk with you, Lester, on a subject that's rather difficult for me to bring up," began the elder Kane. "You know what I'm referring to?"

"Yes, I know," replied Lester, calmly.

"I used to think, when I was much younger that my son's matrimonial ventures would never concern me, but I changed my views on that score when I got a little farther along. I began to see through my business connections how much the right sort of a marriage helps a man, and then I got rather anxious that my boys should marry well. I used to worry about you, Lester, and I'm worrying yet. This recent connection you've made has caused me no end of trouble. It worried your mother up to the very last. It was her one great sorrow. Don't you think you have gone far enough with it? The scandal has reached down here. What it is in Chicago I don't know, but it can't be a secret. That can't help the house in business there. It certainly can't help you. The whole thing has gone on so long that you have injured your prospects all around, and yet you continue. Why do you?"

"I suppose because I love her," Lester replied.

"You can't be serious in that," said his father. "If you had loved her, you'd have married her in the first place. Surely you wouldn't take a woman and live with her as you have with this woman for years, disgracing her and yourself, and still claim that you love her. You may have a passion for her, but it isn't love."

"How do you know I haven't married her?" inquired Lester coolly. He wanted to see how his father would take to that idea.

"You're not serious!" The old gentleman propped himself up on his arms and looked at him.

"No, I'm not," replied Lester, "but I might be. I might marry her."

"Impossible!" exclaimed his father vigorously. "I can't believe it. I can't believe a man of your intelligence would do a thing like that, Lester. Where is your judgment? Why, you've lived in open adultery with her for years, and now you talk of marrying her. Why, in heaven's name, if you were going to do anything like that, didn't you do it in the first place? Disgrace your parents, break your mother's heart, injure the business, become a public scandal, and then marry the cause of it? I don't believe it."

Old Archibald got up.

"Don't get excited, father," said Lester quickly. "We won't get anywhere that way. I say I might marry her. She's not a bad woman, and I wish you wouldn't talk about her as you do. You've never seen her. You know nothing about her."

"I know enough," insisted old Archibald, determinedly. "I know that no good woman would act as she has done. Why, man, she's after your money. What else could she want? It's as plain as the nose on your face."

"Father," said Lester, his voice lowering ominously, "why do you talk like that? You never saw the woman. You wouldn't know her from Adam's off ox. Louise comes down here and gives an excited report, and you people swallow it whole. She isn't as bad as you think she is, and I wouldn't use the language you're using about her if I were you. You're doing a good woman an injustice, and you won't, for some reason, be fair."

"Fair! Fair!" interrupted Archibald. "Talk about being fair. Is it fair to me, to your family, to your dead mother to take a woman of the streets and live with her? Is it—"

"Stop now, father," exclaimed Lester, putting up his hand. "I warn you. I won't listen to talk like that. You're talking about the woman that I'm living with—that I may marry. I love you, but I won't have you saying things that aren't so. She isn't a woman of the streets. You know, as well as you know anything, that I wouldn't take up with a woman of that kind. We'll have to discuss this in a calmer mood, or I won't stay here. I'm sorry. I'm awfully sorry. But I won't listen to any such language as that."

Old Archibald quieted himself. In spite of his opposition, he respected his son's point of view. He sat back in his chair and stared at the floor. "How was he to handle this thing?" he asked himself.

"Are you living in the same place?" he finally inquired.

"No, we've moved out to Hyde Park. I've taken a house out there."

"I hear there's a child. Is that yours?"

"No."

"Have you any children of your own?"

"No."

"Well, that's a God's blessing."

Lester merely scratched his chin.

"And you insist you will marry her?" Archibald went on.

"I didn't say that," replied his son. "I said I might."

"Might! Might!" exclaimed his father, his anger bubbling again. "What a tragedy! You with your prospects! Your outlook! How do you suppose I can seriously contemplate entrusting any share of my fortune to a man who has so little regard for what the world considers as right and proper? Why, Lester, this carriage business, your family, your personal reputation appear to be as nothing at all to you. I can't understand what has happened to your pride. It seems like some wild, impossible fancy."

"It's pretty hard to explain, father, and I can't do it very well. I simply know that I'm in this affair, and that I'm bound to see it through. It may come out all right. I may not marry her—I may. I'm not prepared now to say what I'll do. You'll have to wait. I'll do the best I can."

Old Archibald merely shook his head disapprovingly.

"You've made a bad mess of this, Lester," he said finally. "Surely you have. But I suppose you are determined to go your way. Nothing that I have said appears to move you."

"Not now, father. I'm sorry."

"Well, I warn you, then, that, unless you show some consideration for the dignity of your family and the honor of your position it will make a difference in my will. I can't go on countenancing this thing, and not be a party to it morally and every other way. I won't do it. You can leave her, or you can marry her. You certainly ought to do one or the other. If you leave her, everything will be all right. You can make any provision for her you like. I have no objection to that. I'll gladly pay whatever you agree to. You will share with the rest of the children, just as I had planned. If you marry her it will make a difference. Now do as you please. But don't blame me. I love you. I'm your father. I'm doing what I think is my bounden duty. Now you think that over and let me know."

Lester sighed. He saw how hopeless this argument was. He felt that his father probably meant what he said, but how could he leave Jennie, and justify himself to himself? Would his father really cut him off? Surely not. The old gentleman loved him even now—he could see it. Lester felt troubled and distressed; this attempt at coercion irritated him. The idea—he, Lester Kane, being made to do such a thing to throw Jennie down. He stared at the floor.

Old Archibald saw that he had let fly a telling bullet.

"Well," said Lester finally, "there's no use of our discussing it any further now—that's certain, isn't it? I can't say what I'll do. I'll have to take time and think. I can't decide this offhand."

The two looked at each other. Lester was sorry for the world's attitude and for his father's keen feeling about the affair. Kane senior was sorry for his son, but he was determined to see the thing through. He wasn't sure whether he had converted Lester or not, but he was hopeful. Maybe he would come around yet.

"Good-by, father," said Lester, holding out his hand. "I think I'll try and make that two-ten train. There isn't anything else you wanted to see me about?"

"No."

The old man sat there after Lester had gone, thinking deeply. What a twisted career! What an end to great possibilities? What a foolhardy persistence in evil and error! He shook his head. Robert was wiser. He was the one to control a business. He was cool and conservative. If Lester were only like that. He thought and thought. It was a long time before he stirred. And still, in the bottom of his heart, his erring son continued to appeal to him.



CHAPTER XL

Lester returned to Chicago. He realized that he had offended his father seriously, how seriously he could not say. In all his personal relations with old Archibald he had never seen him so worked up. But even now Lester did not feel that the breach was irreparable; he hardly realized that it was necessary for him to act decisively if he hoped to retain his father's affection and confidence. As for the world at large, what did it matter how much people talked or what they said. He was big enough to stand alone. But was he? People turn so quickly from weakness or the shadow of it. To get away from failure—even the mere suspicion of it—that seems to be a subconscious feeling with the average man and woman; we all avoid non-success as though we fear that it may prove contagious. Lester was soon to feel the force of this prejudice.

One day Lester happened to run across Berry Dodge, the millionaire head of Dodge, Holbrook & Kingsbury, a firm that stood in the dry-goods world, where the Kane Company stood in the carriage world. Dodge had been one of Lester's best friends. He knew him as intimately as he knew Henry Bracebridge, of Cleveland, and George Knowles, of Cincinnati. He visited at his handsome home on the North Shore Drive, and they met constantly in a business and social way. But since Lester had moved out to Hyde Park, the old intimacy had lapsed. Now they came face to face on Michigan Avenue near the Kane building.

"Why, Lester, I'm glad to see you again," said Dodge.

He extended a formal hand, and seemed just a little cool. "I hear you've gone and married since I saw you."

"No, nothing like that," replied Lester, easily, with the air of one who prefers to be understood in the way of the world sense.

"Why so secret about it, if you have?" asked Dodge, attempting to smile, but with a wry twist to the corners of his mouth. He was trying to be nice, and to go through a difficult situation gracefully. "We fellows usually make a fuss about that sort of thing. You ought to let your friends know."

"Well," said Lester, feeling the edge of the social blade that was being driven into him, "I thought I'd do it in a new way. I'm not much for excitement in that direction, anyhow."

"It is a matter of taste, isn't it?" said Dodge a little absently. "You're living in the city, of course?"

"In Hyde Park."

"That's a pleasant territory. How are things otherwise?" And he deftly changed the subject before waving him a perfunctory farewell.

Lester missed at once the inquiries which a man like Dodge would have made if he had really believed that he was married. Under ordinary circumstances his friend would have wanted to know a great deal about the new Mrs. Kane. There would have been all those little familiar touches common to people living on the same social plane. Dodge would have asked Lester to bring his wife over to see them, would have definitely promised to call. Nothing of the sort happened, and Lester noticed the significant omission.

It was the same with the Burnham Moores, the Henry Aldriches, and a score of other people whom he knew equally well. Apparently they all thought that he had married and settled down. They were interested to know where he was living, and they were rather disposed to joke him about being so very secretive on the subject, but they were not willing to discuss the supposed Mrs. Kane. He was beginning to see that this move of his was going to tell against him notably.

One of the worst stabs—it was the cruelest because, in a way, it was the most unintentional—he received from an old acquaintance, Will Whitney, at the Union Club. Lester was dining there one evening, and Whitney met him in the main reading-room as he was crossing from the cloak-room to the cigar-stand. The latter was a typical society figure, tall, lean, smooth-faced, immaculately garbed, a little cynical, and to-night a little the worse for liquor. "Hi, Lester!" he called out, "what's this talk about a menage of yours out in Hyde Park? Say, you're going some. How are you going to explain all this to your wife when you get married?"

"I don't have to explain it," replied Lester irritably. "Why should you be so interested in my affairs? You're not living in a stone house, are you?"

"Say, ha! ha! that's pretty good now, isn't it? You didn't marry that little beauty you used to travel around with on the North Side, did you? Eh, now! Ha, ha! Well, I swear. You married! You didn't, now, did you?"

"Cut it out, Whitney," said Lester roughly. "You're talking wild."

"Pardon, Lester," said the other aimlessly, but sobering. "I beg your pardon. Remember, I'm just a little warm. Eight whisky-sours straight in the other room there. Pardon. I'll talk to you some time when I'm all right. See, Lester? Eh! Ha! ha! I'm a little loose, that's right. Well, so long! Ha! ha!"

Lester could not get over that cacophonous "ha! ha!" It cut him, even though it came from a drunken man's mouth. "That little beauty you used to travel with on the North Side. You didn't marry her, did you?" He quoted Whitney's impertinences resentfully. George! But this was getting a little rough! He had never endured anything like this before—he, Lester Kane. It set him thinking. Certainly he was paying dearly for trying to do the kind thing by Jennie.



CHAPTER XLI

But worse was to follow. The American public likes gossip about well-known people, and the Kanes were wealthy and socially prominent. The report was that Lester, one of its principal heirs, had married a servant girl. He, an heir to millions! Could it be possible? What a piquant morsel for the newspapers! Very soon the paragraphs began to appear. A small society paper, called the South Side Budget, referred to him anonymously as "the son of a famous and wealthy carriage manufacturer of Cincinnati," and outlined briefly what it knew of the story. "Of Mrs. ——" it went on, sagely, "not so much is known, except that she once worked in a well-known Cleveland society family as a maid and was, before that, a working-girl in Columbus, Ohio. After such a picturesque love-affair in high society, who shall say that romance is dead?"

Lester saw this item. He did not take the paper, but some kind soul took good care to see that a copy was marked and mailed to him. It irritated him greatly, for he suspected at once that it was a scheme to blackmail him. But he did not know exactly what to do about it. He preferred, of course, that such comments should cease, but he also thought that if he made any effort to have them stopped he might make matters worse. So he did nothing. Naturally, the paragraph in the Budget attracted the attention of other newspapers. It sounded like a good story, and one Sunday editor, more enterprising than the others, conceived the notion of having this romance written up. A full-page Sunday story with a scare-head such as "Sacrifices Millions for His Servant Girl Love," pictures of Lester, Jennie, the house at Hyde Park, the Kane manufactory at Cincinnati, the warehouse on Michigan Avenue—certainly, such a display would make a sensation. The Kane Company was not an advertiser in any daily or Sunday paper. The newspaper owed him nothing. If Lester had been forewarned he might have put a stop to the whole business by putting an advertisement in the paper or appealing to the publisher. He did not know, however, and so was without power to prevent the publication. The editor made a thorough job of the business. Local newspaper men in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus were instructed to report by wire whether anything of Jennie's history was known in their city. The Bracebridge family in Cleveland was asked whether Jennie had ever worked there. A garbled history of the Gerhardts was obtained from Columbus. Jennie's residence on the North Side, for several years prior to her supposed marriage, was discovered and so the whole story was nicely pieced together. It was not the idea of the newspaper editor to be cruel or critical, but rather complimentary. All the bitter things, such as the probable illegitimacy of Vesta, the suspected immorality of Lester and Jennie in residing together as man and wife, the real grounds of the well-known objections of his family to the match, were ignored. The idea was to frame up a Romeo and Juliet story in which Lester should appear as an ardent, self-sacrificing lover, and Jennie as a poor and lovely working-girl, lifted to great financial and social heights by the devotion of her millionaire lover. An exceptional newspaper artist was engaged to make scenes depicting the various steps of the romance and the whole thing was handled in the most approved yellow-journal style. There was a picture of Lester obtained from his Cincinnati photographer for a consideration; Jennie had been surreptitiously "snapped" by a staff artist while she was out walking.

And so, apparently out of a clear sky, the story appeared—highly complimentary, running over with sugary phrases, but with all the dark, sad facts looming up in the background. Jennie did not see it at first. Lester came across the page accidentally, and tore it out. He was stunned and chagrined beyond words. "To think the damned newspaper would do that to a private citizen who was quietly minding his own business!" he thought. He went out of the house, the better to conceal his deep inward mortification. He avoided the more populous parts of the town, particularly the down-town section, and rode far out on Cottage Grove Avenue to the open prairie. He wondered, as the trolley-car rumbled along, what his friends were thinking—Dodge, and Burnham Moore, and Henry Aldrich, and the others. This was a smash, indeed. The best he could do was to put a brave face on it and say nothing, or else wave it off with an indifferent motion of the hand. One thing was sure—he would prevent further comment. He returned to the house calmer, his self-poise restored, but he was eager for Monday to come in order that he might get in touch with his lawyer, Mr. Watson. But when he did see Mr. Watson it was soon agreed between the two men that it would be foolish to take any legal action. It was the part of wisdom to let the matter drop. "But I won't stand for anything more," concluded Lester.

"I'll attend to that," said the lawyer, consolingly.

Lester got up. "It's amazing—this damned country of ours!" he exclaimed. "A man with a little money hasn't any more privacy than a public monument."

"A man with a little money," said Mr. Watson, "is just like a cat with a bell around its neck. Every rat knows exactly where it is and what it is doing."

"That's an apt simile," assented Lester, bitterly.

Jennie knew nothing of this newspaper story for several days. Lester felt that he could not talk it over, and Gerhardt never read the wicked Sunday newspapers. Finally, one of Jennie's neighborhood friends, less tactful than the others, called her attention to the fact of its appearance by announcing that she had seen it. Jennie did not understand at first. "A story about me?" she exclaimed.

"You and Mr. Kane, yes," replied her guest. "Your love romance."

Jennie colored swiftly. "Why, I hadn't seen it," she said. "Are you sure it was about us?"

"Why, of course," laughed Mrs. Stendahl. "How could I be mistaken? I have the paper over at the house. I'll send Marie over with it when I get back. You look very sweet in your picture."

Jennie winced.

"I wish you would," she said, weakly.

She was wondering where they had secured her picture, what the article said. Above all, she was dismayed to think of its effect upon Lester. Had he seen the article? Why had he not spoken to her about it?

The neighbor's daughter brought over the paper, and Jennie's heart stood still as she glanced at the title-page. There it all was—uncompromising and direct. How dreadfully conspicuous the headline—"This Millionaire Fell in Love With This Lady's Maid," which ran between a picture of Lester on the left and Jennie on the right. There was an additional caption which explained how Lester, son of the famous carriage family of Cincinnati, had sacrificed great social opportunity and distinction to marry his heart's desire. Below were scattered a number of other pictures—Lester addressing Jennie in the mansion of Mrs. Bracebridge, Lester standing with her before an imposing and conventional-looking parson, Lester driving with her in a handsome victoria, Jennie standing beside the window of an imposing mansion (the fact that it was a mansion being indicated by most sumptuous-looking hangings) and gazing out on a very modest working-man's cottage pictured in the distance. Jennie felt as though she must die for very shame. She did not so much mind what it meant to her, but Lester, Lester, how must he feel? And his family? Now they would have another club with which to strike him and her. She tried to keep calm about it, to exert emotional control, but again the tears would rise, only this time they were tears of opposition to defeat. She did not want to be hounded this way. She wanted to be let alone. She was trying to do right now. Why couldn't the world help her, instead of seeking to push her down?



CHAPTER XLII

The fact that Lester had seen this page was made perfectly clear to Jennie that evening, for he brought it home himself, having concluded, after mature deliberation, that he ought to. He had told her once that there was to be no concealment between them, and this thing, coming so brutally to disturb their peace, was nevertheless a case in point. He had decided to tell her not to think anything of it—that it did not make much difference, though to him it made all the difference in the world. The effect of this chill history could never be undone. The wise—and they included all his social world and many who were not of it—could see just how he had been living. The article which accompanied the pictures told how he had followed Jennie from Cleveland to Chicago, how she had been coy and distant and that he had to court her a long time to win her consent. This was to explain their living together on the North Side. Lester realized that this was an asinine attempt to sugar-coat the true story and it made him angry. Still he preferred to have it that way rather than in some more brutal vein. He took the paper out of his pocket when he arrived at the house, spreading it on the library table. Jennie, who was close by, watched him, for she knew what was coming.

"Here's something that will interest you, Jennie," he said dryly, pointing to the array of text and pictures.

"I've already seen it, Lester," she said wearily. "Mrs. Stendahl showed it to me this afternoon. I was wondering whether you had."

"Rather high-flown description of my attitude, isn't it? I didn't know I was such an ardent Romeo."

"I'm awfully sorry, Lester," said Jennie, reading behind the dry face of humor the serious import of this affair to him. She had long since learned that Lester did not express his real feeling, his big ills in words. He was inclined to jest and make light of the inevitable, the inexorable. This light comment merely meant "this matter cannot be helped, so we will make the best of it."

"Oh, don't feel badly about it," he went on. "It isn't anything which can be adjusted now. They probably meant well enough. We just happen to be in the limelight."

"I understand," said Jennie, coming over to him. "I'm sorry, though, anyway." Dinner was announced a moment later and the incident was closed.

But Lester could not dismiss the thought that matters were getting in a bad way. His father had pointed it out to him rather plainly at the last interview, and now this newspaper notoriety had capped the climax. He might as well abandon his pretension to intimacy with his old world. It would have none of him, or at least the more conservative part of it would not. There were a few bachelors, a few gay married men, some sophisticated women, single and married, who saw through it all and liked him just the same, but they did not make society. He was virtually an outcast, and nothing could save him but to reform his ways; in other words, he must give up Jennie once and for all.

But he did not want to do this. The thought was painful to him—objectionable in every way. Jennie was growing in mental acumen. She was beginning to see things quite as clearly as he did. She was not a cheap, ambitious, climbing creature. She was a big woman and a good one. It would be a shame to throw her down, and besides she was good-looking. He was forty-six and she was twenty-nine; and she looked twenty-four or five. It is an exceptional thing to find beauty, youth, compatibility, intelligence, your own point of view—softened and charmingly emotionalized—in another. He had made his bed, as his father had said. He had better lie on it.

It was only a little while after this disagreeable newspaper incident that Lester had word that his father was quite ill and failing; it might be necessary for him to go to Cincinnati at any moment. Pressure of work was holding him pretty close when the news came that his father was dead. Lester, of course, was greatly shocked and grieved, and he returned to Cincinnati in a retrospective and sorrowful mood. His father had been a great character to him—a fine and interesting old gentleman entirely aside from his relationship to him as his son. He remembered him now dandling him upon his knee as a child, telling him stories of his early life in Ireland, and of his subsequent commercial struggle when he was a little older, impressing the maxims of his business career and his commercial wisdom on him as he grew to manhood. Old Archibald had been radically honest. It was to him that Lester owed his instincts for plain speech and direct statement of fact. "Never lie," was Archibald's constant, reiterated statement. "Never try to make a thing look different from what it is to you. It's the breath of life—truth—it's the basis of real worth, while commercial success—it will make a notable character of any one who will stick to it." Lester believed this. He admired his father intensely for his rigid insistence on truth, and now that he was really gone he felt sorry. He wished he might have been spared to be reconciled to him. He half fancied that old Archibald would have liked Jennie if he had known her. He did not imagine that he would ever have had the opportunity to straighten things out, although he still felt that Archibald would have liked her.

When he reached Cincinnati it was snowing, a windy, blustery snow. The flakes were coming down thick and fast. The traffic of the city had a muffled sound. When he stepped down from the train he was met by Amy, who was glad to see him in spite of all their past differences. Of all the girls she was the most tolerant. Lester put his arms about her, and kissed her.

"It seems like old times to see you, Amy," he said, "your coming to meet me this way. How's the family? I suppose they're all here. Well, poor father, his time had to come. Still, he lived to see everything that he wanted to see. I guess he was pretty well satisfied with the outcome of his efforts."

"Yes," replied Amy, "and since mother died he was very lonely."

They rode up to the house in kindly good feeling, chatting of old times and places. All the members of the immediate family, and the various relatives, were gathered in the old family mansion. Lester exchanged the customary condolences with the others, realizing all the while that his father had lived long enough. He had had a successful life, and had fallen like a ripe apple from the tree. Lester looked at him where he lay in the great parlor, in his black coffin, and a feeling of the old-time affection swept over him. He smiled at the clean-cut, determined, conscientious face.

"The old gentleman was a big man all the way through," he said to Robert, who was present. "We won't find a better figure of a man soon."

"We will not," said his brother, solemnly.

After the funeral it was decided to read the will at once. Louise's husband was anxious to return to Buffalo; Lester was compelled to be in Chicago. A conference of the various members of the family was called for the second day after the funeral, to be held at the offices of Messrs. Knight, Keatley & O'Brien, counselors of the late manufacturer.

As Lester rode to the meeting he had the feeling that his father had not acted in any way prejudicial to his interests. It had not been so very long since they had had their last conversation; he had been taking his time to think about things, and his father had given him time. He always felt that he had stood well with the old gentleman, except for his alliance with Jennie. His business judgment had been valuable to the company. Why should there be any discrimination against him? He really did not think it possible.

When they reached the offices of the law firm, Mr. O'Brien, a short, fussy, albeit comfortable-looking little person, greeted all the members of the family and the various heirs and assigns with a hearty handshake. He had been personal counsel to Archibald Kane for twenty years. He knew his whims and idiosyncrasies, and considered himself very much in the light of a father confessor. He liked all the children, Lester especially.

"Now I believe we are all here," he said, finally, extracting a pair of large horn reading-glasses from his coat pocket and looking sagely about. "Very well. We might as well proceed to business. I will just read the will without any preliminary remarks."

He turned to his desk, picked up a paper lying upon it, cleared his throat, and began.

It was a peculiar document, in some respects, for it began with all the minor bequests; first, small sums to old employees, servants, and friends. It then took up a few institutional bequests, and finally came to the immediate family, beginning with the girls. Imogene, as a faithful and loving daughter was left a sixth of the stock of the carriage company and a fourth of the remaining properties of the deceased, which roughly aggregated (the estate—not her share) about eight hundred thousand dollars. Amy and Louise were provided for in exactly the same proportion. The grandchildren were given certain little bonuses for good conduct, when they should come of age. Then it took up the cases of Robert and Lester.

"Owing to certain complications which have arisen in the affairs of my son Lester," it began, "I deem it my duty to make certain conditions which shall govern the distribution of the remainder of my property, to wit: One-fourth of the stock of the Kane Manufacturing Company and one-fourth of the remainder of my various properties, real, personal, moneys, stocks and bonds, to go to my beloved son Robert, in recognition of the faithful performance of his duty, and one-fourth of the stock of the Kane Manufacturing Company and the remaining fourth of my various properties, real, personal, moneys, stocks and bonds, to be held in trust by him for the benefit of his brother Lester, until such time as such conditions as may hereinafter be set forth shall have been complied with. And it is my wish and desire that my children shall concur in his direction of the Kane Manufacturing Company, and of such other interests as are entrusted to him, until such time as he shall voluntarily relinquish such control, or shall indicate another arrangement which shall be better."

Lester swore under his breath. His cheeks changed color, but he did not move. He was not inclined to make a show. It appeared that he was not even mentioned separately.

The conditions "hereinafter set forth" dealt very fully with his case, however, though they were not read aloud to the family at the time, Mr. O'Brien stating that this was in accordance with their father's wish. Lester learned immediately afterward that he was to have ten thousand a year for three years, during which time he had the choice of doing either one of two things: First, he was to leave Jennie, if he had not already married her, and so bring his life into moral conformity with the wishes of his father. In this event Lester's share of the estate was to be immediately turned over to him. Secondly, he might elect to marry Jennie, if he had not already done so, in which case the ten thousand a year, specifically set aside to him for three years, was to be continued for life—but for his life only. Jennie was not to have anything of it after his death. The ten thousand in question represented the annual interest on two hundred shares of L. S. and M. S. stock which were also to be held in trust until his decision had been reached and their final disposition effected. If Lester refused to marry Jennie, or to leave her, he was to have nothing at all after the three years were up. At Lester's death the stock on which his interest was drawn was to be divided pro rata among the surviving members of the family. If any heir or assign contested the will, his or her share was thereby forfeited entirely.

It was astonishing to Lester to see how thoroughly his father had taken his case into consideration. He half suspected, on reading these conditions, that his brother Robert had had something to do with the framing of them, but of course he could not be sure. Robert had not given any direct evidence of enmity.

"Who drew this will?" he demanded of O'Brien, a little later.

"Well, we all had a hand in it," replied O'Brien, a little shamefacedly. "It was a very difficult document to draw up. You know, Mr. Kane, there was no budging your father. He was adamant. He has come very near defeating his own wishes in some of these clauses. Of course, you know, we had nothing to do with its spirit. That was between you and him. I hated very much to have to do it."

"Oh, I understand all that!" said Lester. "Don't let that worry you."

Mr. O'Brien was very grateful.

During the reading of the will Lester had sat as stolid as an ox.

He got up after a time, as did the others, assuming an air of nonchalance. Robert, Amy, Louise and Imogene all felt shocked, but not exactly, not unqualifiedly regretful. Certainly Lester had acted very badly. He had given his father great provocation.

"I think the old gentleman has been a little rough in this," said Robert, who had been sitting next him. "I certainly did not expect him to go as far as that. So far as I am concerned some other arrangement would have been satisfactory."

Lester smiled grimly. "It doesn't matter," he said.

Imogene, Amy, and Louise were anxious to be consolatory, but they did not know what to say. Lester had brought it all on himself. "I don't think papa acted quite right, Lester," ventured Amy, but Lester waved her away almost gruffly.

"I can stand it," he said.

He figured out, as he stood there, what his income would be in case he refused to comply with his father's wishes. Two hundred shares of L. S. and M. S., in open market, were worth a little over one thousand each. They yielded from five to six per cent., sometimes more, sometimes less. At this rate he would have ten thousand a year, not more.

The family gathering broke up, each going his way, and Lester returned to his sister's house. He wanted to get out of the city quickly, gave business as an excuse to avoid lunching with any one, and caught the earliest train back to Chicago. As he rode he meditated.

So this was how much his father really cared for him! Could it really be so? He, Lester Kane, ten thousand a year, for only three years, and then longer only on condition that he married Jennie! "Ten thousand a year," he thought, "and that for three years! Good Lord! Any smart clerk can earn that. To think he should have done that to me!"



CHAPTER XLIII

This attempt at coercion was the one thing which would definitely set Lester in opposition to his family, at least for the time being. He had realized clearly enough of late that he had made a big mistake; first in not having married Jennie, thus avoiding scandal; and in the second place in not having accepted her proposition at the time when she wanted to leave him; There were no two ways about it, he had made a mess of this business. He could not afford to lose his fortune entirely. He did not have enough money of his own. Jennie was unhappy, he could see that. Why shouldn't she be? He was unhappy. Did he want to accept the shabby ten thousand a year, even if he were willing to marry her? Finally, did he want to lose Jennie, to have her go out of his life once and for all? He could not make up his mind; the problem was too complicated.

When Lester returned to his home, after the funeral, Jennie saw at once that something was amiss with him, something beyond a son's natural grief for his father's death was weighing upon his spirits. What was it, she wondered. She tried to draw near to him sympathetically, but his wounded spirit could not be healed so easily. When hurt in his pride he was savage and sullen—he could have struck any man who irritated him. She watched him interestedly, wishing to do something for him, but he would not give her his confidence. He grieved, and she could only grieve with him.

Days passed, and now the financial situation which had been created by his father's death came up for careful consideration. The factory management had to be reorganized. Robert would have to be made president, as his father wished. Lester's own relationship to the business would have to come up for adjudication. Unless he changed his mind about Jennie, he was not a stockholder. As a matter of fact, he was not anything. To continue to be secretary and treasurer, it was necessary that he should own at least one share of the company's stock. Would Robert give him any? Would Amy, Louise, or Imogene? Would they sell him any? Would the other members of the family care to do anything which would infringe on Robert's prerogatives under the will? They were all rather unfriendly to Lester at present, and he realized that he was facing a ticklish situation. The solution was—to get rid of Jennie. If he did that he would not need to be begging for stock. If he didn't, he was flying in the face of his father's last will and testament. He turned the matter over in his mind slowly and deliberately. He could quite see how things were coming out. He must abandon either Jennie or his prospects in life. What a dilemma!

Despite Robert's assertion, that so far as he was concerned another arrangement would have been satisfactory, he was really very well pleased with the situation; his dreams were slowly nearing completion. Robert had long had his plans perfected, not only for a thorough reorganization of the company proper, but for an extension of the business in the direction of a combination of carriage companies. If he could get two or three of the larger organizations in the East and West to join with him, selling costs could be reduced, over-production would be avoided, and the general expenses could be materially scaled down. Through a New York representative, he had been picking up stock in outside carriage companies for some time and he was almost ready to act. In the first place he would have himself elected president of the Kane Company, and since Lester was no longer a factor, he could select Amy's husband as vice-president, and possibly some one other than Lester as secretary and treasurer. Under the conditions of the will, the stock and other properties set aside temporarily for Lester, in the hope that he would come to his senses, were to be managed and voted by Robert. His father had meant, obviously, that he, Robert, should help him coerce his brother. He did not want to appear mean, but this was such an easy way. It gave him a righteous duty to perform. Lester must come to his senses or he must let Robert run the business to suit himself.

Lester, attending to his branch duties in Chicago, foresaw the drift of things. He realized now that he was permanently out of the company, a branch manager at his brother's sufferance, and the thought irritated him greatly. Nothing had been said by Robert to indicate that such a change had taken place—things went on very much as before—but Robert's suggestions were now obviously law. Lester was really his brother's employee at so much a year. It sickened his soul.

There came a time, after a few weeks, when he felt as if he could not stand this any longer. Hitherto he had been a free and independent agent. The approaching annual stockholder's meeting which hitherto had been a one-man affair and a formality, his father doing all the voting, would be now a combination of voters, his brother presiding, his sisters very likely represented by their husbands, and he not there at all. It was going to be a great come-down, but as Robert had not said anything about offering to give or sell him any stock which would entitle him to sit as a director or hold any official position in the company, he decided to write and resign. That would bring matters to a crisis. It would show his brother that he felt no desire to be under obligations to him in any way or to retain anything which was not his—and gladly so—by right of ability and the desire of those with whom he was associated. If he wanted to move back into the company by deserting Jennie he would come in a very different capacity from that of branch manager. He dictated a simple, straight-forward business letter, saying:

"DEAR ROBERT, I know the time is drawing near when the company must be reorganized under your direction. Not having any stock, I am not entitled to sit as a director, or to hold the joint position of secretary and treasurer. I want you to accept this letter as formal notice of my resignation from both positions, and I want to have your directors consider what disposition should be made of this position and my services. I am not anxious to retain the branch-managership as a branch-managership merely; at the same time I do not want to do anything which will embarrass you in your plans for the future. You see by this that I am not ready to accept the proposition laid down in father's will—at least, not at present. I would like a definite understanding of how you feel in this matter. Will you write and let me know?

"Yours,

"LESTER."

Robert, sitting in his office at Cincinnati, considered this letter gravely. It was like his brother to come down to "brass tacks." If Lester were only as cautious as he was straightforward and direct, what a man he would be! But there was no guile in the man—no subtlety. He would never do a snaky thing—and Robert knew, in his own soul, that to succeed greatly one must. "You have to be ruthless at times—you have to be subtle," Robert would say to himself. "Why not face the facts to yourself when you are playing for big stakes?" He would, for one, and he did.

Robert felt that although Lester was a tremendously decent fellow and his brother, he wasn't pliable enough to suit his needs. He was too outspoken, too inclined to take issue. If Lester yielded to his father's wishes, and took possession of his share of the estate, he would become, necessarily, an active partner in the affairs of the company. Lester would be a barrier in Robert's path. Did Robert want this? Decidedly he did not. He much preferred that Lester should hold fast to Jennie, for the present at least, and so be quietly shelved by his own act.

After long consideration, Robert dictated a politic letter. He hadn't made up his mind yet just what he wanted to do. He did not know what his sisters' husbands would like. A consultation would have to be held. For his part, he would be very glad to have Lester remain as secretary and treasurer, if it could be arranged. Perhaps it would be better to let the matter rest for the present.

Lester cursed. What did Robert mean by beating around the bush? He knew well enough how it could be arranged. One share of stock would be enough for Lester to qualify. Robert was afraid of him—that was the basic fact. Well, he would not retain any branch-managership, depend on that. He would resign at once. Lester accordingly wrote back, saying that he had considered all sides, and had decided to look after some interests of his own, for the time being. If Robert could arrange it, he would like to have some one come on to Chicago and take over the branch agency. Thirty days would be time enough. In a few days came a regretful reply, saying that Robert was awfully sorry, but that if Lester was determined he did not want to interfere with any plans he might have in view. Imogene's husband, Jefferson Midgely, had long thought he would like to reside in Chicago. He could undertake the work for the time being.

Lester smiled. Evidently Robert was making the best of a very subtle situation. Robert knew that he, Lester, could sue and tie things up, and also that he would be very loath to do so. The newspapers would get hold of the whole story. This matter of his relationship to Jennie was in the air, anyhow. He could best solve the problem by leaving her. So it all came back to that.



CHAPTER XLIV

For a man of Lester's years—he was now forty-six—to be tossed out in the world without a definite connection, even though he did have a present income (including this new ten thousand) of fifteen thousand a year, was a disturbing and discouraging thing. He realized now that, unless he made some very fortunate and profitable arrangements in the near future, his career was virtually at an end. Of course he could marry Jennie. That would give him the ten thousand for the rest of his life, but it would also end his chance of getting his legitimate share of the Kane estate. Again, he might sell out the seventy-five thousand dollars' worth of moderate interest-bearing stocks, which now yielded him about five thousand, and try a practical investment of some kind—say a rival carriage company. But did he want to jump in, at this stage of the game, and begin a running fight on his father's old organization? Moreover, it would be a hard row to hoe. There was the keenest rivalry for business as it was, with the Kane Company very much in the lead. Lester's only available capital was his seventy-five thousand dollars. Did he want to begin in a picayune, obscure way? It took money to get a foothold in the carriage business as things were now.

The trouble with Lester was that, while blessed with a fine imagination and considerable insight, he lacked the ruthless, narrow-minded insistence on his individual superiority which is a necessary element in almost every great business success. To be a forceful figure in the business world means, as a rule, that you must be an individual of one idea, and that idea the God-given one that life has destined you for a tremendous future in the particular field you have chosen. It means that one thing, a cake of soap, a new can-opener, a safety razor, or speed-accelerator, must seize on your imagination with tremendous force, burn as a raging flame, and make itself the be-all and end-all of your existence. As a rule, a man needs poverty to help him to this enthusiasm, and youth. The thing he has discovered, and with which he is going to busy himself, must be the door to a thousand opportunities and a thousand joys. Happiness must be beyond or the fire will not burn as brightly as it might—the urge will not be great enough to make a great success.

Lester did not possess this indispensable quality of enthusiasm. Life had already shown him the greater part of its so-called joys. He saw through the illusions that are so often and so noisily labeled pleasure. Money, of course, was essential, and he had already had money—enough to keep him comfortably. Did he want to risk it? He looked about him thoughtfully. Perhaps he did. Certainly he could not comfortably contemplate the thought of sitting by and watching other people work for the rest of his days.

In the end he decided that he would bestir himself and look into things. He was, as he said to himself, in no hurry; he was not going to make a mistake. He would first give the trade, the people who were identified with v he manufacture and sale of carriages, time to realize that he was out of the Kane Company, for the time being, anyhow, and open to other connections. So he announced that he was leaving the Kane Company and going to Europe, ostensibly for a rest. He had never been abroad, and Jennie, too, would enjoy it. Vesta could be left at home with Gerhardt and a maid, and he and Jennie would travel around a bit, seeing what Europe had to show. He wanted to visit Venice and Baden-Baden, and the great watering-places that had been recommended to him. Cairo and Luxor and the Parthenon had always appealed to his imagination. After he had had his outing he could come back and seriously gather up the threads of his intentions.

The spring after his father died, he put his plan into execution. He had wound up the work of the warerooms and with a pleasant deliberation had studied out a tour. He made Jennie his confidante, and now, having gathered together their traveling comforts they took a steamer from New York to Liverpool. After a few weeks in the British Isles they went to Egypt. From there they came back, through Greece and Italy, into Austria and Switzerland, and then later, through France and Paris, to Germany and Berlin. Lester was diverted by the novelty of the experience and yet he had an uncomfortable feeling that he was wasting his time. Great business enterprises were not built by travelers, and he was not looking for health.

Jennie, on the other hand, was transported by what she saw, and enjoyed the new life to the full. Before Luxor and Karnak—places which Jennie had never dreamed existed—she learned of an older civilization, powerful, complex, complete. Millions of people had lived and died here, believing in other gods, other forms of government, other conditions of existence. For the first time in her life Jennie gained a clear idea of how vast the world is. Now from this point of view—of decayed Greece, of fallen Rome, of forgotten Egypt, she saw how pointless are our minor difficulties, our minor beliefs. Her father's Lutheranism—it did not seem so significant any more; and the social economy of Columbus, Ohio—rather pointless, perhaps. Her mother had worried so of what people—her neighbors—thought, but here were dead worlds of people, some bad, some good. Lester explained that their differences in standards of morals were due sometimes to climate, sometimes to religious beliefs, and sometimes to the rise of peculiar personalities like Mohammed. Lester liked to point out how small conventions bulked in this, the larger world, and vaguely she began to see. Admitting that she had been bad—locally it was important, perhaps, but in the sum of civilization, in the sum of big forces, what did it all amount to? They would be dead after a little while, she and Lester and all these people. Did anything matter except goodness—goodness of heart? What else was there that was real?



CHAPTER XLV

It was while traveling abroad that Lester came across, first at the Carlton in London and later at Shepheards in Cairo, the one girl, before Jennie, whom it might have been said he truly admired—Letty Pace. He had not seen her for a long time, and she had been Mrs. Malcolm Gerald for nearly four years, and a charming widow for nearly two years more. Malcolm Gerald had been a wealthy man, having amassed a fortune in banking and stock-brokering in Cincinnati, and he had left Mrs. Malcolm Gerald very well off. She was the mother of one child, a little girl, who was safely in charge of a nurse and maid at all times, and she was invariably the picturesque center of a group of admirers recruited from every capital of the civilized world. Letty Gerald was a talented woman, beautiful, graceful, artistic, a writer of verse, an omnivorous reader, a student of art, and a sincere and ardent admirer of Lester Kane.

In her day she had truly loved him, for she had been a wise observer of men and affairs, and Lester had always appealed to her as a real man. He was so sane, she thought, so calm. He was always intolerant of sham, and she liked him for it. He was inclined to wave aside the petty little frivolities of common society conversation, and to talk of simple and homely things. Many and many a time, in years past, they had deserted a dance to sit out on a balcony somewhere, and talk while Lester smoked. He had argued philosophy with her, discussed books, described political and social conditions in other cities—in a word, he had treated her like a sensible human being, and she had hoped and hoped and hoped that he would propose to her. More than once she had looked at his big, solid head with its short growth of hardy brown hair, and wished that she could stroke it. It was a hard blow to her when he finally moved away to Chicago; at that time she knew nothing of Jennie, but she felt instinctively that her chance of winning him was gone.

Then Malcolm Gerald, always an ardent admirer, proposed for something like the sixty-fifth time, and she took him. She did not love him, but she was getting along, and she had to marry some one. He was forty-four when he married her, and he lived only four years—just long enough to realize that he had married a charming, tolerant, broad-minded woman. Then he died of pneumonia and Mrs. Gerald was a rich widow, sympathetic, attractive, delightful in her knowledge of the world, and with nothing to do except to live and to spend her money.

She was not inclined to do either indifferently. She had long since had her ideal of a man established by Lester. These whipper-snappers of counts, earls, lords, barons, whom she met in one social world and another (for her friendship and connections had broadened notably with the years), did not interest her a particle. She was terribly weary of the superficial veneer of the titled fortune-hunter whom she met abroad. A good judge of character, a student of men and manners, a natural reasoner along sociologic and psychologic lines, she saw through them and through the civilization which they represented. "I could have been happy in a cottage with a man I once knew out in Cincinnati," she told one of her titled women friends who had been an American before her marriage. "He was the biggest, cleanest, sanest fellow. If he had proposed to me I would have married him if I had had to work for a living myself."

"Was he so poor?" asked her friend.

"Indeed he wasn't. He was comfortably rich, but that did not make any difference to me. It was the man I wanted."

"It would have made a difference in the long run," said the other.

"You misjudge me," replied Mrs. Gerald. "I waited for him for a number of years, and I know."

Lester had always retained pleasant impressions and kindly memories of Letty Pace, or Mrs. Gerald, as she was now. He had been fond of her in a way, very fond. Why hadn't he married her? He had asked himself that question time and again. She would have made him an ideal wife, his father would have been pleased, everybody would have been delighted. Instead he had drifted and drifted, and then he had met Jennie; and somehow, after that, he did not want her any more. Now after six years of separation he met her again. He knew she was married. She was vaguely aware he had had some sort of an affair—she had heard that he had subsequently married the woman and was living on the South Side. She did not know of the loss of his fortune. She ran across him first in the Carlton one June evening. The windows were open, and the flowers were blooming everywhere, odorous with that sense of new life in the air which runs through the world when spring comes back. For the moment she was a little beside herself. Something choked in her throat; but she collected herself and extended a graceful arm and hand.

"Why, Lester Kane," she exclaimed. "How do you do! I am so glad. And this is Mrs. Kane? Charmed, I'm sure. It seems truly like a breath of spring to see you again. I hope you'll excuse me, Mrs. Kane, but I'm delighted to see your husband. I'm ashamed to say how many years it is, Lester, since I saw you last! I feel quite old when I think of it. Why, Lester, think; it's been all of six or seven years! And I've been married and had a child, and poor Mr. Gerald has died, and oh, dear, I don't know what all hasn't happened to me."

"You don't look it," commented Lester, smiling. He was pleased to see her again, for they had been good friends. She liked him still—that was evident, and he truly liked her.

Jennie smiled. She was glad to see this old friend of Lester's. This woman, trailing a magnificent yellow lace train over pale, mother-of-pearl satin, her round, smooth arms bare to the shoulder, her corsage cut low and a dark red rose blowing at her waist, seemed to her the ideal of what a woman should be. She liked looking at lovely women quite as much as Lester; she enjoyed calling his attention to them, and teasing him, in the mildest way, about their charms. "Wouldn't you like to run and talk to her, Lester, instead of to me?" she would ask when some particularly striking or beautiful woman chanced to attract her attention. Lester would examine her choice critically, for he had come to know that her judge of feminine charms was excellent. "Oh, I'm pretty well off where I am," he would retort, looking into her eyes; or, jestingly, "I'm not as young as I used to be, or I'd get in tow of that."

"Run on," was her comment. "I'll wait for you."

"What would you do if I really should?"

"Why, Lester, I wouldn't do anything. You'd come back to me, maybe."

"Wouldn't you care?"

"You know I'd care. But if you felt that you wanted to, I wouldn't try to stop you. I wouldn't expect to be all in all to one man, unless he wanted me to be."

"Where do you get those ideas, Jennie?" he asked her once, curious to test the breadth of her philosophy.

"Oh, I don't know, why?"

"They're so broad, so good-natured, so charitable. They're not common, that's sure."

"Why, I don't think we ought to be selfish, Lester. I don't know why. Some women think differently, I know, but a man and a woman ought to want to live together, or they ought not to—don't you think? It doesn't make so much difference if a man goes off for a little while—just so long as he doesn't stay—if he wants to come back at all."

Lester smiled, but he respected her for the sweetness of her point of view—he had to.

To-night, when she saw this woman so eager to talk to Lester, she realized at once that they must have a great deal in common to talk over; whereupon she did a characteristic thing. "Won't you excuse me for a little while?" she asked, smiling. "I left some things uncared for in our rooms. I'll be back."

She went away, remaining in her room as long as she reasonably could, and Lester and Letty fell to discussing old times in earnest. He recounted as much of his experiences as he deemed wise, and Letty brought the history of her life up to date. "Now that you're safely married, Lester," she said daringly, "I'll confess to you that you were the one man I always wanted to have propose to me—and you never did."

"Maybe I never dared," he said, gazing into her superb black eyes, and thinking that perhaps she might know that he was not married. He felt that she had grown more beautiful in every way. She seemed to him now to be an ideal society figure-perfection itself—gracious, natural, witty, the type of woman who mixes and mingles well, meeting each new-comer upon the plane best suited to him or her.

"Yes, you thought! I know what you thought. Your real thought just left the table."

"Tut, tut, my dear. Not so fast. You don't know what I thought."

"Anyhow, I allow you some credit. She's charming."

"Jennie has her good points," he replied simply.

"And are you happy?"

"Oh, fairly so. Yes, I suppose I'm happy—as happy as any one can be who sees life as it is. You know I'm not troubled with many illusions."

"Not any, I think, kind sir, if I know you."

"Very likely, not any, Letty; but sometimes I wish I had a few. I think I would be happier."

"And I, too, Lester. Really, I look on my life as a kind of failure, you know, in spite of the fact that I'm almost as rich as Croesus—not quite. I think he had some more than I have."

"What talk from you—you, with your beauty and talent, and money—good heavens!"

"And what can I do with it? Travel, talk, shoo away silly fortune-hunters. Oh, dear, sometimes I get so tired!"

Letty looked at Lester. In spite of Jennie, the old feeling came back. Why should she have been cheated of him? They were as comfortable together as old married people, or young lovers. Jennie had had no better claim. She looked at him, and her eyes fairly spoke. He smiled a little sadly.

"Here comes my wife," he said. "We'll have to brace up and talk of other things. You'll find her interesting—really."

"Yes, I know," she replied, and turned on Jennie a radiant smile.

Jennie felt a faint sense of misgiving. She thought vaguely that this might be one of Lester's old flames. This was the kind of woman he should have chosen—not her. She was suited to his station in life, and he would have been as happy—perhaps happier. Was he beginning to realize it? Then she put away the uncomfortable thought; pretty soon she would be getting jealous, and that would be contemptible.

Mrs. Gerald continued to be most agreeable in her attitude toward the Kanes. She invited them the next day to join her on a drive through Rotten Row. There was a dinner later at Claridge's, and then she was compelled to keep some engagement which was taking her to Paris. She bade them both an affectionate farewell, and hoped that they would soon meet again. She was envious, in a sad way, of Jennie's good fortune. Lester had lost none of his charm for her. If anything, he seemed nicer, more considerate, more wholesome. She wished sincerely that he were free. And Lester—subconsciously perhaps—was thinking the same thing.

No doubt because of the fact that she was thinking of it, he had been led over mentally all of the things which might have happened if he had married her. They were so congenial now, philosophically, artistically, practically. There was a natural flow of conversation between them all the time, like two old comrades among men. She knew everybody in his social sphere, which was equally hers, but Jennie did not. They could talk of certain subtle characteristics of life in a way which was not possible between him and Jennie, for the latter did not have the vocabulary. Her ideas did not flow as fast as those of Mrs. Gerald. Jennie had actually the deeper, more comprehensive, sympathetic, and emotional note in her nature, but she could not show it in light conversation. Actually she was living the thing she was, and that was perhaps the thing which drew Lester to her. Just now, and often in situations of this kind, she seemed at a disadvantage, and she was. It seemed to Lester for the time being as if Mrs. Gerald would perhaps have been a better choice after all—certainly as good, and he would not now have this distressing thought as to his future.

They did not see Mrs. Gerald again until they reached Cairo. In the gardens about the hotel they suddenly encountered her, or rather Lester did, for he was alone at the time, strolling and smoking.

"Well, this is good luck," he exclaimed. "Where do you come from?"

"Madrid, if you please. I didn't know I was coming until last Thursday. The Ellicotts are here. I came over with them. You know I wondered where you might be. Then I remembered that you said you were going to Egypt. Where is your wife?"

"In her bath, I fancy, at this moment. This warm weather makes Jennie take to water. I was thinking of a plunge myself."

They strolled about for a time. Letty was in light blue silk, with a blue and white parasol held daintily over her shoulder, and looked very pretty. "Oh, dear!" she suddenly ejaculated, "I wonder sometimes what I am to do with myself. I can't loaf always this way. I think I'll go back to the States to live."

"Why don't you?"

"What good would it do me? I don't want to get married. I haven't any one to marry now—that I want." She glanced at Lester significantly, then looked away.

"Oh, you'll find some one eventually," he said, somewhat awkwardly. "You can't escape for long—not with your looks and money."

"Oh, Lester, hush!"

"All right! Have it otherwise, if you want. I'm telling you."

"Do you still dance?" she inquired lightly, thinking of a ball which was to be given at the hotel that evening. He had danced so well a few years before.

"Do I look it?"

"Now, Lester, you don't mean to say that you have gone and abandoned that last charming art. I still love to dance. Doesn't Mrs. Kane?"

"No, she doesn't care to. At least she hasn't taken it up. Come to think of it, I suppose that is my fault. I haven't thought of dancing in some time."

It occurred to him that he hadn't been going to functions of any kind much for some time. The opposition his entanglement had generated had put a stop to that.

"Come and dance with me to-night. Your wife won't object. It's a splendid floor. I saw it this morning."

"I'll have to think about that," replied Lester. "I'm not much in practice. Dancing will probably go hard with me at my time of life."

"Oh, hush, Lester," replied Mrs. Gerald. "You make me feel old. Don't talk so sedately. Mercy alive, you'd think you were an old man!"

"I am in experience, my dear."

"Pshaw, that simply makes us more attractive," replied his old flame.



CHAPTER XLVI

That night after dinner the music was already sounding in the ball-room of the great hotel adjacent to the palm-gardens when Mrs. Gerald found Lester smoking on one of the verandas with Jennie by his side. The latter was in white satin and white slippers, her hair lying a heavy, enticing mass about her forehead and ears. Lester was brooding over the history of Egypt, its successive tides or waves of rather weak-bodied people; the thin, narrow strip of soil along either side of the Nile that had given these successive waves of population sustenance; the wonder of heat and tropic life, and this hotel with its modern conveniences and fashionable crowd set down among ancient, soul-weary, almost despairing conditions. He and Jennie had looked this morning on the pyramids. They had taken a trolley to the Sphinx! They had watched swarms of ragged, half-clad, curiously costumed men and boys moving through narrow, smelly, albeit brightly colored, lanes and alleys.

"It all seems such a mess to me," Jennie had said at one place. "They are so dirty and oily. I like it, but somehow they seem tangled up, like a lot of worms."

Lester chuckled, "You're almost right. But climate does it. Heat. The tropics. Life is always mushy and sensual under these conditions. They can't help it."

"Oh, I know that. I don't blame them. They're just queer."

To-night he was brooding over this, the moon shining down into the grounds with an exuberant, sensuous luster.

"Well, at last I've found you!" Mrs. Gerald exclaimed. "I couldn't get down to dinner, after all. Our party was so late getting back. I've made your husband agree to dance with me, Mrs. Kane," she went on smilingly. She, like Lester and Jennie, was under the sensuous influence of the warmth, the spring, the moonlight. There were rich odors abroad, floating subtly from groves and gardens; from the remote distance camel-bells were sounding and exotic cries, "Ayah!" and "oosh! oosh!" as though a drove of strange animals were being rounded up and driven through the crowded streets.

"You're welcome to him," replied Jennie pleasantly. "He ought to dance. I sometimes wish I did."

"You ought to take lessons right away then," replied Lester genially. "I'll do my best to keep you company. I'm not as light on my feet as I was once, but I guess I can get around."

"Oh, I don't want to dance that badly," smiled Jennie. "But you two go on, I'm going up-stairs in a little while, anyway."

"Why don't you come sit in the ball-room? I can't do more than a few rounds. Then we can watch the others," said Lester rising.

"No. I think I'll stay here. It's so pleasant. You go. Take him, Mrs. Gerald."

Lester and Letty strolled away. They made a striking pair—Mrs. Gerald in dark wine-colored silk, covered with glistening black beads, her shapely arms and neck bare, and a flashing diamond of great size set just above her forehead in her dark hair. Her lips were red, and she had an engaging smile, showing an even row of white teeth between wide, full, friendly lips. Lester's strong, vigorous figure was well set off by his evening clothes, he looked distinguished.

"That is the woman he should have married," said Jennie to herself as he disappeared. She fell into a reverie, going over the steps of her past life. Sometimes it seemed to her now as if she had been living in a dream. At other times she felt as though she were in that dream yet. Life sounded in her ears much as this night did. She heard its cries. She knew its large-mass features. But back of it were subtleties that shaded and changed one into the other like the shifting of dreams. Why had she been so attractive to men? Why had Lester been so eager to follow her? Could she have prevented him? She thought of her life in Columbus, when she carried coal; to-night she was in Egypt, at this great hotel, the chatelaine of a suite of rooms, surrounded by every luxury, Lester still devoted to her. He had endured so many things for her! Why? Was she so wonderful? Brander had said so. Lester had told her so. Still she felt humble, out of place, holding handfuls of jewels that did not belong to her. Again she experienced that peculiar feeling which had come over her the first time she went to New York with Lester—namely, that this fairy existence could not endure. Her life was fated. Something would happen. She would go back to simple things, to a side street, a poor cottage, to old clothes.

And then as she thought of her home in Chicago, and the attitude of his friends, she knew it must be so. She would never be received, even if he married her. And she could understand why. She could look into the charming, smiling face of this woman who was now with Lester, and see that she considered her very nice, perhaps, but not of Lester's class. She was saying to herself now no doubt as she danced with Lester that he needed some one like her. He needed some one who had been raised in the atmosphere of the things to which he had been accustomed. He couldn't very well expect to find in her, Jennie, the familiarity with, the appreciation of the niceties to, which he had always been accustomed. She understood what they were. Her mind had awakened rapidly to details of furniture, clothing, arrangement, decorations, manner, forms, customs, but—she was not to the manner born.

If she went away Lester would return to his old world, the world of the attractive, well-bred, clever woman who now hung upon his arm. The tears came into Jennie's eyes; she wished, for the moment, that she might die. It would be better so. Meanwhile Lester was dancing with Mrs. Gerald, or sitting out between the waltzes talking over old times, old places, and old friends. As he looked at Letty he marveled at her youth and beauty. She was more developed than formerly, but still as slender and shapely as Diana. She had strength, too, in this smooth body of hers, and her black eyes were liquid and lusterful.

"I swear, Letty," he said impulsively, "you're really more beautiful than ever. You're exquisite. You've grown younger instead of older."

"You think so?" she smiled, looking up into his face.

"You know I do, or I wouldn't say so. I'm not much on philandering."

"Oh, Lester, you bear, can't you allow a woman just a little coyness? Don't you know we all love to sip our praise, and not be compelled to swallow it in one great mouthful?"

"What's the point?" he asked. "What did I say?"

"Oh, nothing. You're such a bear. You're such a big, determined, straightforward boy. But never mind. I like you. That's enough, isn't it?"

"It surely is," he said.

They strolled into the garden as the music ceased, and he squeezed her arm softly. He couldn't help it; she made him feel as if he owned her. She wanted him to feel that way. She said to herself, as they sat looking at the lanterns in the gardens, that if ever he were free, and would come to her, she would take him. She was almost ready to take him anyhow—only he probably wouldn't. He was so straight-laced, so considerate. He wouldn't, like so many other men she knew, do a mean thing. He couldn't. Finally Lester rose and excused himself. He and Jennie were going farther up the Nile in the morning—toward Karnak and Thebes and the water-washed temples at Phylae. They would have to start at an unearthly early hour, and he must get to bed.

"When are you going home?" asked Mrs. Gerald, ruefully.

"In September."

"Have you engaged your passage?"

"Yes; we sail from Hamburg on the ninth—the Fulda."

"I may be going back in the fall," laughed Letty. "Don't be surprised if I crowd in on the same boat with you. I'm very unsettled in my mind."

"Come along, for goodness sake," replied Lester. "I hope you do.... I'll see you to-morrow before we leave." He paused, and she looked at him wistfully.

"Cheer up," he said, taking her hand. "You never can tell what life will do. We sometimes find ourselves right when we thought we were all wrong."

He was thinking that she was sorry to lose him, and he was sorry that she was not in a position to have what she wanted. As for himself, he was saying that here was one solution that probably he would never accept; yet it was a solution. Why had he not seen this years before?

"And yet she wasn't as beautiful then as she is now, nor as wise, nor as wealthy." Maybe! Maybe! But he couldn't be unfaithful to Jennie nor wish her any bad luck. She had had enough without his willing, and had borne it bravely.



CHAPTER XLVII

The trip home did bring another week with Mrs. Gerald, for after mature consideration she had decided to venture to America for a while. Chicago and Cincinnati were her destinations, and she hoped to see more of Lester. Her presence was a good deal of a surprise to Jennie, and it started her thinking again. She could see what the point was. If she were out of the way Mrs. Gerald would marry Lester; that was certain. As it was—well, the question was a complicated one. Letty was Lester's natural mate, so far as birth, breeding, and position went. And yet Jennie felt instinctively that, on the large human side, Lester preferred her. Perhaps time would solve the problem; in the mean time the little party of three continued to remain excellent friends. When they reached Chicago Mrs. Gerald went her way, and Jennie and Lester took up the customary thread of their existence.

On his return from Europe Lester set to work in earnest to find a business opening. None of the big companies made him any overtures, principally because he was considered a strong man who was looking for a control in anything he touched. The nature of his altered fortunes had not been made public. All the little companies that he investigated were having a hand-to-mouth existence, or manufacturing a product which was not satisfactory to him. He did find one company in a small town in northern Indiana which looked as though it might have a future. It was controlled by a practical builder of wagons and carriages—such as Lester's father had been in his day—who, however, was not a good business man. He was making some small money on an investment of fifteen thousand dollars and a plant worth, say, twenty-five thousand. Lester felt that something could be done here if proper methods were pursued and business acumen exercised. It would be slow work. There would never be a great fortune in it. Not in his lifetime. He was thinking of making an offer to the small manufacturer when the first rumors of a carriage trust reached him.

Robert had gone ahead rapidly with his scheme for reorganizing the carriage trade. He showed his competitors how much greater profits could be made through consolidation than through a mutually destructive rivalry. So convincing were his arguments that one by one the big carriage manufacturing companies fell into line. Within a few months the deal had been pushed through, and Robert found himself president of the United Carriage and Wagon Manufacturers' Association, with a capital stock of ten million dollars, and with assets aggregating nearly three-fourths of that sum at a forced sale. He was a happy man.

While all this was going forward Lester was completely in the dark. His trip to Europe prevented him from seeing three or four minor notices in the newspapers of some of the efforts that were being made to unite the various carriage and wagon manufactories. He returned to Chicago to learn that Jefferson Midgely, Imogene's husband, was still in full charge of the branch and living in Evanston, but because of his quarrel with his family he was in no position to get the news direct. Accident brought it fast enough, however, and that rather irritatingly.

The individual who conveyed this information was none other than Mr. Henry Bracebridge, of Cleveland, into whom he ran at the Union Club one evening after he had been in the city a month.

"I hear you're out of the old company," Bracebridge remarked, smiling blandly.

"Yes," said Lester, "I'm out."

"What are you up to now?"

"Oh, I have a deal of my own under consideration, I'm thinking something of handling an independent concern."

"Surely you won't run counter to your brother? He has a pretty good thing in that combination of his."

"Combination! I hadn't heard of it," said Lester. "I've just got back from Europe."

"Well, you want to wake up, Lester," replied Bracebridge. "He's got the biggest thing in your line. I thought you knew all about it. The Lyman-Winthrop Company, the Myer-Brooks Company, the Woods Company—in fact, five or six of the big companies are all in. Your brother was elected president of the new concern. I dare say he cleaned up a couple of millions out of the deal."