"Don't hog everything!" as Murdock sagely put it. "Let the other fellow have the small end of the trough, and as long as he ain't hungry, he won't squeal."

With equal sternness he repressed Billy's fancy for fast horses and Mrs. Billy's taste for green velvet and diamonds.

"It don't look well on a salary of eighteen hundred," he said. "Just you be contented with having things your own way without talking about it. Throw all the dust you like, but don't let it be gold dust."

"You cut a pretty wide swath yourself," Billy growled.

"I ain't a alderman, serving the city for pure love and a small salary," grinned the other. "A contractor's got a right to make money."

"You make money out o' me," said Billy sourly. "You keep me under your big fat ugly thumb. I guess I can run this business alone. I got all the strings pretty well in my own hand."

"All right, Barry. I'll be sorry to be on the other side, but if you say so, all right."

Barry swore a moment under his breath and changed the subject. So matters went on, with Barry still subservient, but growing daily more inclined to believe himself the autocrat he seemed, daily a little less cautious, a little more fixed in his assurance that the officeholders, the delegates and the saloon men constituted, in themselves, a sufficient prop for his dominion, and that Murdock was a nuisance.

"Of course, it's to his interest to keep me under," he said to himself, "and I dunno' whether I'm a fool to let him do it, or whether I'm a fool to try to break away."

He began to try flyers on his own hook; he gathered many rake-offs of which he said nothing to his mentor; he drank a little more and splurged a little more and looked a little more like a bulldog and less like a man. That the spirit of rebellion was growing up and that the pawn began to take credit to itself for the position of power in which it was placed, came gradually home to Mr. Murdock. It made him at first annoyed, then anxious. So it was that the confidence bred from years of business cooperation drove him this night to look up his old partner.

"Evening, Early," he said as the door closed behind him. "Beastly cold night out. Wish you'd order me a little something hot to induce me to stay by this comfortable fire of yours."

Mr. Early waved his hand toward a chair and settled himself without ceremony. There was this comfort in Murdock: they had known each other too long for pose, and, though the old hook-and-eye partnership was dissolved, and Mr. Early had soared into the realms of Art, they were still closely bound by common interests. So Sebastian met him with cheerful resignation.

"Sit down, Jim," he said. "I don't mind a nip myself. What's up?"

"What's down, you'd better ask. Lord save us! What's that?" exclaimed Mr. Murdock, as he caught sight of the lurid lady lying amid the litter on the table.

"That's the cover of my next magazine. Never mind it. It's not in your line."

"Well, I should say not," said the other with a slow grin. "I've been pretty much vituperated for some of my business deals, but I never sprung a thing like that on the public. 'Forget thyself!' That's good, Early." He winked a wink that came more from the soul than from the eye.

"Oh, drop it, Jim," said Mr. Early, relapsing into the old vernacular. "I'm sick of everything to-night. Here's your cocktail. Help yourself to a cigar."

"You ought to get married, instead of sitting here with the blues all by yourself. Tell you, a warm little wife is a nice thing to come home to."

"Thank you, Jim," said Mr. Early dryly.

They sank into silence, a comfortable silence, permeated with the fragrance of tobacco, with warmth in the cardiac region, and with that crackle of burning logs that satisfieth the soul. But occasionally Mr. Early shot a sharp glance at his companion, and his study did not reassure him. At last he spoke.

"Well, out with it, Jim. It's evident that you've something on your mind."

"You're right, I have," said Murdock with sudden emphasis. "I don't know whether you can help me, but it's second nature for me to try you. I'm getting anxious about Barry and affairs connected with him."

"What about Barry? I thought you had him in your pocket."

"Oh, I've still got him in the pocket over my heart, and buttoned down tight," said Mr. Murdock grimly. "It's because he belongs to me that I'm looking out for him."

"Well," said Mr. Early, and he leaned forward nervously to poke the fire that needed no poking.

"Well! In spite of me, Billy's getting restless. He's getting worse than restless, and I'm afraid to think how he may break out. You know how he loses his sense once in a while. Have you noticed how the Star has been running him of late?" Mr. Murdock slowly gathered force in stating his grievances.

"Yes, I've noticed it," said Mr. Early.

"The Star is the only paper I haven't got a strangle hold of—at least so I thought. But some of the other dailies are butting in. Say they're afraid not to. Of course, an occasional black eye is all in the day's work. It rather helps things along. Billy expects it, and he isn't thin-skinned. It doesn't make much difference as long as our own organs print what they're told. But, say, this thing is going beyond a joke. Billy has been really cut up over the way this coroner business is getting home to the public. He says if there is going to be squirming, he'll look out that there are other people squirming besides himself. I suppose that's meant as a threat for me. You know there are things—even affairs that you are interested in, Sebastian—that are all on the square, you know, and perfectly right, but they take too much explaining for the public ever to understand them."

"I know," said Mr. Early, still poking the fire.

"And do you know who is back of the whole rumpus?"

"Who?" demanded Mr. Early sharply, looking up.

"Primarily this infernal next-door neighbor of yours."

"Percival?"

"Percival. He's too much of a kid to put himself forward, but he's really the whole thing. He's been sneaking around town for months, picking up information. He has a confounded cheerful way of making friends that has cut him out for the job of politics, if he would just put himself on the right side. Of course he has no more idea of practical politics than—" Mr. Murdock looked around for an object of comparison and concluded lamely, "than that girl on your magazine cover. And what do you think is the latest?"

"What?"

"He's stirred up that mare's nest of a dude club till they've taken to sending a committee to attend every meeting of the council—which is irritating."

"But not necessarily serious."

"Not in itself, though it's getting on Barry's nerves, as you people of fashion say. To tell you the truth, I've had to make a concession to Barry, just to keep him in order. I preferred him right on the council where he is, but he's got a bee in his top-hat. He wants to run for mayor. I suppose he wants to show people what a great man he really is. I gave in to him on that point. Now here comes in the thing that made me look you up. Barry has some sort of an acquaintance with this Percival fellow, and when he proclaimed his intentions, Percival jumped on him with a flat defiance—told him that he had proof of a disreputable affair in Barry's career that would queer him with the whole community. How your neighbor got hold of this thing, I'm jiggered if I can guess. I thought I was the only man in the city that knew it, and it has been my chief club to keep Barry in order. But however he got them, Percival's facts were all square, and Barry collapsed. Now, these two patched up an agreement. Barry promised to give up his candidacy for mayor, and stay in his seat in the council, and Percival, on his part, agreed to keep quiet."

"Well, that suits you all right."

"It would if it ended there, but what I started out to tell you is this: the Municipal Club is beginning to take up city politics in earnest. They are organizing systematically in every ward to be ready for a fight for the council in next fall's election, and, to cap the climax, I was told to-day that they had succeeded in getting Preston to run for mayor. Now you know they could hardly have picked out a worse man, so far as we are concerned. Preston is popular and strong, and he's perfectly unapproachable. I'd as soon tackle the law of gravitation. It isn't even pleasant for respectable citizens, like you and me, to come out publicly against the whole movement. We can't afford to do it. Everything we do has got to be done on the quiet."

"You needn't get so hot, Jim. It'll blow over. This kind of thing always does. It's only spasmodic. You ought to know that."

"Well, it's taking a very inconvenient time for its spasms. It may result in spasmodically losing Billy his seat in the council in November. Nice thing if we didn't have a clear majority of aldermen next winter, wouldn't it?" Mr. Murdock was becoming finely sarcastic in his rage.

"I suppose it would be inconvenient," assented Mr. Early.

"Inconvenient!" growled Murdock. "Is that the strongest swear word you can raise? Do you happen to remember that the lighting franchise expires next fall? Now do we want it renewed, or do we not? Can we afford to lose the biggest thing we've got? Do we want Billy to see it through, or do we not?"

"We certainly do."

"Well, what do you propose to do about it?"

"I don't see that there is much to do except to sit pat, and let it blow over."

"Suppose when it blew over it should be a cyclone and you and me in the cellar? No siree, I'm no sitter-down. I'm a fighter, even when I fight in secret. Damn this feller, Percival, and his gift for making friends and stirring up enthusiasm for himself! I suspect he has ambitions. So much the worse for him, if James Murdock is in the ring against him. Do you know my inferences? I am sure he is not one of the invulnerables. The fact that he made a concession to Barry gives him away. He didn't need to. If Barry can work him by a little flattery and an appeal to their shoddy friendship, he's not one of your out-and-out, no-compromise, reform-or-die fellows. Say, Early, you know him well. Can't you get at him?"

Mr. Early gave one of those roundabout motions that suggest a desire to wriggle out of the whole matter, and answered slowly:

"I shouldn't wonder if the entire business petered out, anyway. It's almost a year to the next election, and Percival is going to be married in a few weeks to a pretty little girl, who would never stir a man's ambitions to anything more than a smart carriage and pair. He's turned idiotic about her, and let's hope he'll stay so. Just at present I don't believe all the boodle and graft in the world would turn a hair on him. Love and politics, my boy, are no more congenial than water and oil—especially if the politics is rancid."

"We'll have to go into partnership with the lady to keep him down," said Murdock with a grin. "I've formed more unlikely alliances than that in my time. Why, good Lord! what's that?" he exclaimed for the second time that night.

His eyes had fallen upon a tall white column at the back of the room, and at his words the column moved forward and displayed the flowing robes, the snowy white turban, the gleaming ruby of Ram Juna.

"Pardon my interruption," said the Hindu courteously. "I have been out. I am but just returned. And I come to assure myself that all is well with my admirable host."

"Ah, Murdock, this is my friend, the Swami. He's going to stay with me while he writes a book. I've given him the west ell, off in the quiet of the garden, you know," said Mr. Early.

"With kindness you give it. Obligation is mine," said the Swami, with a deferential movement of his hands. "And I go at once to devote myself to my greatest work. But now I have visited a lady, Mrs. Appleton, who has great interest in me, and who desires to form what she calls a class. I call it, rather, a circle of my friends."

"And what do you do with them?" asked Mr. Murdock, with the same bald curiosity that one displays at the zoo before the performing seals.

"We increase the sum of nobility in the world," said the Swami softly. "We sit together in long white robes, such as you see on me, and we pour out love upon the universe."

"Oh!" said Mr. Murdock. He was too astonished to pursue his investigations.

"It is a serene and blessed occupation," said the Swami.

"And do they—does the class pay for that?" Murdock recovered so far as to ask.

"Pay? Not so!" said the Swami indignantly. "I ask of life no more than a bare existence and that, a thousand times that, is mine, by the benevolence of Mr. Early."

"They're devilish pretty women, some of 'em, though. You have that reward," said Mr. Early jocularly.

The Swami cast on him a glance of cow-like anger, but Mr. Murdock went on persistently: "And they don't give you any money at all?"

"For myself, no. Some, if it harmonize with their desires, make contribution through me to the great temple in India, where the brothers may assemble, a sacred spot among the lonely hills. Some give to that, but not to me. But I must no longer interrupt. I have made my salute. I go to my remote room."

With a reverential movement of the head, the white column moved away.

"Gee!" said Mr. Murdock. "Can you stand that kind of thing around all the time?"

"Oh, I'm interested in all kinds of people," said Mr. Early. "And he's the most inoffensive creature. I shall hardly see him. He intends to lock himself up out there in his room most of the time. He meditates in silence ten hours a day and comes forth to give a lecture that nobody understands. He's going to be all the rage."

"And, of course, if he's the rage, you have him. I wish you'd make Billy Barry the rage," said Murdock.

"It's all I can do to popularize myself," said Early whimsically. "I'll think over the situation a bit, Jim, and see if I can see any way out from under. Of course, Percival hasn't any record by which you can discredit him and keep his mouth shut—at least not yet."

As Mr. Murdock took a last sip at the cocktail and made an unceremonious exit, again Mr. Early settled himself for a period of repose, and again he was interrupted.

"Pardon," said the deep voice of the Swami. "You sit alone. Is it permitted that I repose here and join your meditations? For a few moments? In silence, if you will?"

"I wish you'd pour out a little rest," said Early. "I'm tired."

"In spirit and in body," answered the Swami. "The rush of the wheel of life, it exhausts. But I comprehend. I also am a man. The great world of business has its necessities and its value. My outer nature shares in it. Ah, you know not. You think of me only on one side of being. But, like you, I have my sympathies with many things."

Mr. Early made no reply, but sank deeper into his chair. The two sat long in silence. Sebastian looked at the fire and began to build up a picture of Madeline's face. The Hindu was apparently lost to the surrounding world, and yet he occasionally darted a glance of swift, animal-like inquiry at his host.

"Neither do I like the young man Percival," he said placidly, and Mr. Early started.

"It is your next neighbor, Percival, is it not, who annoys?" the Swami inquired equably. "The youth who sneers when first I speak at your house? In India, now, one may do many things that are here impossible. Ah, but yes, you say, here you may do many things that are in India impossible. So goes it. Still more. The same forces exist everywhere; but we in India, we understand the forces that you, brilliant workers with the superficial, you do not understand. I shall be glad to help the benevolent Early, if at any time my services are of value. I know to do many things besides to meditate."

Mr. Early stared in amazement at the unmoved face before him, a face almost as round and mystifying as the syllable "Om", on which its thoughts were supposed to be centered.

"And, remember, I, too, dislike the young man Percival," pursued the Swami blandly.

Mr. Early's mind suddenly stiffened with horror.

"See here," he exclaimed, sitting up, "you understand Mr. Percival is no enemy of mine. He is, in fact, a friend. You mustn't think you'd be doing me a kindness by—ah—injuring him in any way."

"My understanding," said the Swami, still unmoved. "Fear no midnight assassination, noble friend. That is petty—and dangerous. I am not oblivious of the conventionalities. But the mind may be reached, as well as the body. Percival may do as I—you—we—wish. The higher animal at all times controls the lower. Perhaps, at some time, I may serve you. But you weary. The body makes demands. I bid you good night."

He put out a great paw, and Mr. Early grasped it weakly, feeling that he was in the position of one who has started an oil "gusher" and can not control its flow. He might have to light it to get rid of it.

To his own room went Ram Juna, occasionally nodding his head in his serene manner. He carefully locked behind him the door which connected his wing with the rest of the house. A few moments he paused listening, then he crossed his bedroom and the narrow passage that opened on the garden and entered the little unused room beyond. Here all was dark, inky dark, for the heavy shutters on the street side of the room were closed and barred and the shades on the garden front were drawn, shutting out what dim rays the departed sun had left the night. The Swami apparently had no need of greater light, for, neglecting the electric button near the door, he groped quietly about, struck a match and lighted a single candle, with which he returned to the hallway and opened the garden door, standing for a moment with the taper flickering in the rush of cold air that poured in from outside. When he stepped back and closed the door, there stood beside him another man, clean-shaven, lean, sharp-nosed and ferret-eyed, whose footstep was almost as light as that of the Swami himself. Neither of them spoke until they reached the smaller room and the door was locked.

"You shiver, my friend," said Ram Juna. "The night is cold."

"Freezin', an' so'm I," said the other shortly. "You keep me waiting a devil of a time."

"Business, oh my friend, business. Can I utter a word to the ears of your nationality more convincing? I was necessitated to converse with my host, the rich and amiable Early. Ah, the nature of humanity is eternally interesting."

His companion grinned.

"Which means, being interpreted, you've got some lay, I suppose. What is it!"

"Abruptness is to me foreign," said the Swami, waving his great hand with its combination of fat palm and taper fingers. "It disturbs me. Perhaps, some day, I shall need tell you. The amiable Early is as are all mankind. On the one side he gropes among infinities. Do we not all so? On the other side he is tied by this body of clay to the groveling earth. Are we not all so? Am not even I myself?" The Swami turned benevolently toward the other.

"You bet! And you can sling language about it!" said the man, and he opened his rat's mouth and laughed without noise. Even Ram Juna's face relaxed into its Buddha smile, calm, inscrutable, as the two gazed on each other. Suddenly the younger drew himself together.

"Well, I ain't got no time to spare," he said. "Are they ready?"

"I, as well as you Americans, can be the votary of business," answered Ram Juna. "The first principle of business is promptitude. My friend, they are ready."

"Well, hand 'em over," said the little man. "Now my job begins; and I guess it's as ticklish as yours. You may need the skill, but I need the gall."

"The daring of the leopard when it leaps from the bush where it crouches, the daring which is half cunning, eh, my friend?" said the Swami comfortably. "Here, take the package and go thy way. There will be more in the future. These I brought with me from India, and even the eagle customs found them not. Many night-hours have I spent in preparing them, and mine eyes have been robbed of sleep. It is no slight task to produce a masterpiece."

"Well, you certainly are a dandy," said the man, examining the contents of his package. "I never seen anything like it. And those big hands, too."

"My hands obey the skill of my mind. And here, under the shadow of the Early, I can work with purer courage. This is the perfection of a place. It was the idea of genius to come here. Hold, let me examine the way before thou goest."

"Aw, there won't be any body in the garden at this time o' night, and at this time o' year."

"Nay, but it is the wise man who leaves no loophole for mistake," said the Hindu, with practical caution.

He blew out the light and stepped in darkness to the entrance with the air of one who would refresh his soul by gazing at the stars and wiping out the trivialities of the day. After he had looked at the heavens, his eyes fell with piercing swiftness upon the shadows of the garden, its bushes, manlike or animal-like in the night.

It was as complete a piece of acting as though a large audience had been there to see, but all thrown away on silence and solitude.

"Coast clear?" said a voice behind him.

"All is well," said the Swami. "Go forth to fortune."

The door closed softly, and Ram Juna sought the repose he had earned.



CHAPTER XV

THE HONEYMOON

The first months of winter were full of excitement to Lena. She frequently assured herself that she was rapturously happy, but, while intellectually she accepted the fact, no genial warmth pervaded her consciousness. The entrance to her new life was too brier-sprinkled for bliss. Daily to face her mother's mingling of complaisance, self-pity and fault-finding; to meet Dick's friends, whom Lena, in her suspicions, regarded as thinly-disguised enemies; to scrimp together some little show of bridal finery for her quiet wedding; all this filled her with mingled irritation and gratification.

Most aggravating of all were the persistent attentions of Miss Madeline Elton. No one likes to be loved as a matter of duty, certainly not Lena Quincy, whose shrewd little soul easily divined that this equable warmth of manner, which she dubbed snippy condescension, sprang from affection for Dick and Mrs. Percival and not for herself. Madeline set Lena's teeth on edge, and it must be confessed that Lena often did as much for Madeline, but each politely kept her sensations to herself. Miss Elton always assured her optimistic soul that things would come out all right, that love was a great developer, that small vulgarities of mind were the result of association.

Lena, on the other hand, might have broken friendly relations once and for all except that she found Miss Elton both useful and interesting. A friendly and very sly conspiracy between Madeline and Mrs. Percival had for its object the helping out of Lena's meager trousseau by certain little gifts, and even of money delicately proffered so that it might not wound a sensitive pride; and since Mrs. Percival was a victim to invalidish habits, it fell to Madeline to act as executive committee. But they need not have troubled themselves about delicacy, for Miss Lena greedily gobbled everything that was offered to her, with pretty expressions of gratitude, to be sure, but internal irritation because the donors were not more lavish.

Madeline, who would have shrunk from accepting a gift except from one she really loved, of course expected Lena to feel the same way, and every one of these presents given and taken was to her an assurance strong of a new bond between them. So they shopped together, and Lena modestly picked out some appallingly cheap affair and said:

"You know I feel that is the best I can afford." And Madeline would whisper, "Take the other, dear, and let the difference be a small wedding present from me. Won't you be so generous?" and Lena was so generous; but she told herself that they were not doing it for her, but only because they were ashamed that Dick should have a shabby bride. And perhaps she was right. It is pretty hard to analyze human motives, so you may always take your choice, and fix your mind either on the good ones or on the bad ones, whichever suit you best. Doubtless they are both there.

Sometimes Lena wished that she had been given a lump sum and allowed to browse alone, for she felt her taste pruned and pinioned by the very presence of Miss Elton, who, though she never ventured to criticize, had yet a depressing influence on Lena's exuberant fancies.

Once, after such a silent sacrifice on her part, Madeline and she drove up to the Percivals' for five-o'clock tea. Her future mother-in-law was in the accustomed seat, and Lena found a footstool near at hand, with a pretty air of affectionate proprietorship that brought a glow to Dick's face.

"Yes," said Lena with a charming pout, "I'm utterly played out, getting myself ready for your approval, sir."

"Poor little girl," he whispered. "If you only knew what an easy task that ought to be!"

"I'm so glad Madeline can go with you," Mrs. Percival said, patting the girl's hand approvingly. "I always think she has such perfect taste. Some people get fine clothes and then make an heroic effort to live up to them, but Madeline has the supreme gift of managing clothes that seem a part of herself."

It is impossible to tell how a speech like this rankled in Lena. Sometimes she had a wild impulse to stand up and stamp and scream out, "I hate the whole lot of you!" but she never did. She kept on smiling and purring and longing for the freedom which would come when she was safely married, had passed her initiation ceremonies, and could command her own money.

But it was wonderful what a fascination she felt for everything that concerned Miss Elton. Every act, every garment, every inflection of the girl she hated most was interesting to her. She watched Madeline like a cat, and disliked her more and more.

At length came the new year, and the day when Lena sat in a carriage by Dick's side and was whirled away on that journey that was to take her out of the old and into the new. Her hour-old husband looked at her with an expression half-quizzical, half-adoring as she sat back and glanced up with a heartfelt sigh, secure at last of her position as the wife of Richard Percival. Until this moment she had never wholly believed it.

"I'm glad the wedding's over," she said.

"And I. More glad that our married life has begun. Lena, Lena, how beautiful you are! When you came down the aisle, I hardly dared to look at you; and yet it seems to me now that you are more lovely here alone with me. I should think God would have been afraid to make such eyes and lips and hair, sweetheart, knowing that He could never surpass them."

He softly touched the little curl that crept out from below her hat and kissed the upturned mouth in that ecstasy that borders on awe.

"Now," he said, "you are never so much as to think of anything unpleasant for the rest of your life. I wonder what you will most like to do?"

"Buy all the clothes I want," cried Lena with such a deliciously whimsical twist of her little lips that Dick laughed at her irresistible wit. That was coming to be one of Lena's most fetching little ways, to say what she meant as though it were the last thing in the world that could be expected of her. It was piquant.

It was no time of year to dally in true lovers' fashion under pine trees in some remote solitude, so Dick took her to cities and theaters and big shops and got his fun out of watching her revel with open purse. Their honeymoon was more full of occupation and less of rapture and sweet isolated intimacy than Dick could have wished, but it was much to watch the color come and go on her cheek in her moments of excitement, to fulfil every capricious whim of her who had been starved in her feminine hunger of caprice, to punctuate the rush of life by celestial moments when she rested a tired but bewildering head against his shoulder and listened silently with drooping lids to all he had to say, to feel that he could answer the admiring glances of other men with the triumphant knowledge, "All this loveliness is mine—only mine." Lena was so happy, so outrageously happy,—and so shyly affectionate, what could the young husband do but take with content the gifts the gods provided; and Dick was lavish and easily cajoled. The simple trousseau helped out by Miss Elton suddenly swelled to new and magnificent proportions. Lena blossomed and glowed; she tricked herself out in the finery that he provided and paraded before him and the glass until they both laughed with delight. Dick felt that he was playing with a new and sublimated doll, it was all so amusing, so inconsequential, and such fun. Although he wondered a little where it would be appropriate to wear the enormous pink hat with drooping plumes which perched on the showily fluffy head now facing him, he quite appreciated the effect.

"Oh, of course you think I'm stunning," Lena pouted. "But the question is, what will other people think?"

"Other people aren't the question at all," retorted Dick. "Who cares what they think so long as you and I know that you are the very loveliest woman on this whole wide earth—this good old earth."

When they came home, Lena exulted again in the luxurious rooms that Dick had fitted up for her in fashion more modern than the somber dignity of the rest of the house. Here was another new sensation—a household without bickerings. The elder Mrs. Percival, having accepted the situation, was no niggard in her spirit of courtesy, but very gracious as was her wont, and Lena was astonished to find that she and her new mother-in-law ran their respective lines without collisions. The half-invalid older woman breakfasted in her own room and occupied herself with quiet readings and sewings and drivings, but when she did appear on the family horizon, it was always as a beneficent presence.

Lena purred in the presence of comfort; but when you see a kitten serenely snoozing before the fire, it does not do to leap to the conclusion that this kitten would not know what was expected of her on the back fence at midnight.

If storm and stress should ever come, Dick had himself helped her to feel that beauty would fill the measure, wherever it fell short; that however she might sin, beauty was her sufficient apology.

Mrs. Quincy, established in a little flat with a middle-aged submissive slavey, was as nearly reconciled to fate as her nature would allow. Her rooms were pleasantly furnished, but Lena's mother was full of the genius of discord, and almost automatically she so rearranged her surroundings that each particular article made strife with its neighbor. Harmony and Mrs. Quincy could not live in the same house. When Lena paid her duty visits (and she was irritated at the frequency with which Dick's and Madame Percival's expectations seemed to exact them) she had not only to listen in nauseated impatience to Mrs. Quincy's minute questions and comments on people and things, but she had also to feel her rapidly-developing tastes offended by her mother's domestic order.

"Miss Elton's real kind. She's been here twice since you was here. And she brought flowers."

"Mother! And did you have a newspaper on top of that pretty little table?"

"Land sakes! And if I didn't I should have to watch Sarah every minute to see she didn't put something hot on it or scratch the mahogany top. I can't afford to have everything I've got spoiled. No knowin' when I'll git anything more—dependent as I am on other people."

"I'll bring you a pretty table-cover then."

"I'd like a red one. But I didn't suppose you'd think of gittin' one."

"Oh, mother, red wouldn't look well in this room."

"Now, I just think a bit of real bright red would hearten it up. If you don't git red, you needn't git any, Lena Quincy, for I won't use it. Are you goin' now? Seems to me you got precious little time for your old mother since you put on all your fine lady airs."

And Lena? Have you ever watched a cecropia moth when it crawls out of its dull gray prison of chrysalis? It is a moist, frail, tottering creature with tiny wings folded against its quivering body, but as the spring sunshine brings to play its magic and infuses its "subtle heats," there come shivers of growth. Great waves seem to pulsate from the body into the wings, and with each wave goes color and strength. In quick throbs they come at last until they look like a continuous current, and before your eyes is a glorious bird-like creature, with damask wings outspread, and flecked with peacock spots, hiding the slender body within. It feels its strength, spreads and preens itself, and is away to the forest to meet its fate.

Such was Lena in the first months of her marriage. The world's warmth welcomed her, partly in curiosity, and partly because she was in truth Richard Percival's wife, and the protegee of Mrs. Lenox, who took every pains to shield her and help her. The ways of that little sphere that calls itself society she found it not difficult to acquire, when to beauty she added the paraphernalia of luxury. A little trick of holding oneself, a turn of speech, a familiarity with a certain set of people and their doings, and the thing is accomplished. Was there ever yet an American girl, whose supreme characteristic is adaptability, who could not learn it in a few months, if she set her mind to it?

As she experienced the true pleasure of being inside, which is the knowledge that there are outsiders raging to make entrance, she spread her wings, did Madame Cecropia, and the only wonder was that she was ever packed away in the dull gray chrysalis. And now every one forgot that ugly thing, when Lena changed her sky but not her heart.

Dick and she lived in a whirl; and if he would have liked, after strenuous days spent in spreading political feelers, to have found at home quiet evenings and old slippers, he was rapidly learning that the position of husband to a young beauty is no sinecure. And he admired and loved her too much to fling even a rose leaf of opposition in her path. The very hardship of her past made him tender to every whim of the present. Dick's chivalry was deep-grained, as it is in men who have lived among pure and simple women. In everything that wore petticoats he saw something of his mother, fragile, noble, ambitious for those she loved and forgetful of self. When Lena began to show him things that he could not admire, he laid the blame of them, not to her, but to the world that had played the brute to her. And if he tried to change her it was with apology in his heart for daring to criticize. But as Lena came to take for granted the ease and comfort of her new life, she more and more laid aside the pose with which she had at first edified her lord, and spoke her real mind. She had fully acquired the manner and the garments of a lady. She could not see that more was needed.

One gray wintry day, as they walked homeward together from a midday musicale, they passed a grimy little girl who whimpered as she clutched her small person.

"What's the matter, girlie?" asked Dick, and as he stopped his wife, too, halted perforce.

"My pettitoat's comin' down," sobbed the child.

"Is that all?" said Dick. "I wouldn't cry about such a little thing. I'll soon fix it for you." And he stooped.

"Dick," said Lena imperatively, "there's a carriage coming!"

"Let it come!" said Dick. "Sorry I haven't a safety-pin, girlie, but I guess this one will do till you get home." That impulsive interest in all varieties of human nature was so natural to him that he took for granted that it was a part of our common nature.

He looked up with a smile to see Lena's face crimson with wrath and shame. Her expression sobered him.

"What's the matter?" he demanded.

"It was Mrs. Lenox who drove by," she urged. "And she looked so amused."

"I don't wonder. I'm amused myself," he replied gaily.

"A nice thing for a gentleman to be seen doing," Lena went on, with a voice growing shrill like her mother's. "To play nursemaid to a dirty little street brat!" She had said things like this to him before, but always with that little smile and naughty-child air. Now, for the first time she forgot the smile, and this small omission made an astonishing difference in the impression.

"I don't know what else a gentleman should do," answered Dick; "or a lady, either. Mrs. Lenox would have done as much for any baby, her own or another."

"Much she would!" said Lena sharply. "I've been at her house. She has rafts of nurses to do all the waiting on her children. I guess she doesn't let them trouble her any more than she can help. If she's unlucky enough to have the squally little things, she keeps away from them."

Even as she spoke, Lena realized that her acid voice was a mistake, but she said to herself that she was tired of acting, and it did not make any difference what Dick thought now. She was his wife.

"Perhaps you don't know the whole, Lena," Dick answered. "I happen to have seen Mrs. Lenox when she was devoting herself to a sick baby, and Madeline has told me of the kind of personal care she gives."

"The more fool she, when she can get some one else to do it for her," said Lena, with feminine change of front.

"Is that the way you feel about children?" asked Dick soberly.

"I suppose they are necessary evils," said Lena with a smart laugh. "But I'd rather they'd be necessary to other women than to me."

"Well, perhaps that's a natural feeling, when we're young and like to be irresponsible; but I fancy, dear, that things look pretty different as we get along and are willing to pay the price for our happinesses—to pay for love with service and self-sacrifice. As for me, I pray that you and I may not some day be childless old folks."

Lena glanced at him sidewise as they walked, and his somber face showed her that her mistake went deeper than she had suspected.

"I'm sorry I was cross," she said with pretty contrition, but her prettiness and contrition did not have their usual exhilarating effect on Dick. Lena even turned and laid her hand softly on his arm. Still he did not look at her.

"I wasn't hurt by your crossness, dear," he said gently.

* * * * *

Among those to open hospitable doors to the bride and groom was Mr. Early. His house adjoined theirs, and only a hedge separated the two gardens, old-fashioned, with comfortable seats under wide trees on the Percival place, elaborately Italian on Mr. Early's domain, but spacious both, for St. Etienne had the advantage of doing most of its growth after rapid transit was invented, and had therefore never cribbed and cabined its population into solid blocks of brick and mortar, but had given everybody elbow-room, so that its residence district looked much like the suburbs of older cities.

So Dick and Lena went to dine with Mr. Early, and the bride had the thrilling delight of sitting between her world-famous host and an equally illustrious scholar, who had his head with him, extra size, and was plainly bored to death by his own erudition. It was a large dinner, and Lena was alert to study every one, both what he did and how he did it; but chiefly, from her vantage point at the right hand of her host; did she watch Miss Madeline Elton, who sat near the middle of the table on the other side, where Lena could study her face over a sea of violets. Lena was puzzled. Madeline seemed less reposeful and more charming than she remembered. For an instant she wondered if her own beauty, now tricked out by jewels, was not cheap beside Miss Elton's undecorated loveliness. She noted that the men around the table looked often in Madeline's direction. Even Mr. Early occasionally let his attention wander from his suave courtesy toward herself, and Lena resented this. She deeply admired Mr. Early. His was the big and blatant success which she could easily comprehend, and she exulted at the idea of sitting at the post of honor beside a man distinguished over the length and breadth of the land. Once, even her own husband, Richard Percival, leaned forward and gazed at Madeline as she spoke across the table, and there was a look in his face that Lena treasured in her cabinet of unforgiven things. She flushed with anger. Her hatred of Miss Elton was as old as her acquaintance with her husband, and its growth had been parallel.

Then her eyes met the glowing glance of a dark face under a turban of soft white silk, and she turned hastily away.

"I see you are looking at my ceiling, Mrs. Percival," said Mr. Early. "It is a reproduction of the beautiful fan-tracery in the Henry VII chapel at Westminster. Doubtless you recognize it. But, alas, it is impossible to attain the spiritual beauty of the original until age has laid its sanctifying hand on the carving. This has had but a year of life for each century that the chapel tracery can boast. And, of course, I admit that the effect must be modified by the surroundings. A dining-room can never have the atmosphere of a church, can it, my dear Mrs. Percival? Though I assure you, I have tried to be consistent in all the decorations and the furniture of this room."

"It's very beautiful," said Lena. "And who is the large gentleman with the long white mustaches?"

"Surely you have met Mr. Preston. He is one of our best type of business men, and the candidate that the new reform element, in which your husband is playing an honorable part, is hoping to set up for mayor. It would be a notable thing for this community if we might have a man of his stamp represent our municipality."

"I have heard Dick speak of him," said Lena, "And is that the wonderful Hindu of whom I've heard? All the ladies are crazy about him, but I never happened to see him before."

"That is Ram Juna. He has been with me now for two months, and is to stay indefinitely. He is engaged on a work that will, I am convinced, add one more to the sacred books of the world. We need such men in this age of materialism, do we not? And I feel gratefully the beneficent effect of such a presence in my house."

So Mr. Early went on with ponderous sentences and a sharp look in his eye.

But Lena hardly heard him. She was absorbed in the soft lights and the flowers and the wonderful china, most of which, her host told her, had been made in his own works and was unique in the world. But strange as were all these things, her eyes kept coming back, as if fascinated, to the man-mountain in the silky white robe. The big ruby on his forehead seemed to wink and flash at her, and as often as she looked she met the sleepy eyes fixed on her face. Then she was irresistibly drawn to look again to see if he was still watching. For once, she forgot her big blue eyes and her bright little fluffs of hair and all the execution that they were meant to do on the masculine heart, because there was something different in the way this Oriental surveyed her. It was an unblinking and unemotional study.

Fortunately Mr. Early was content to talk and let her answer in brief. Talking was not Lena's strong point. Mr. Early went on with his monologue, in platitudes about art, and Lena looked interested, or tried to, while she caught scraps of conversation from farther down the table.

Miss Elton was telling a story of her cooking-class in a certain poor district. She had shown a flabby wife, noted even in that region for her lack of culinary skill, how to make a dish at once cheap, palatable and nutritious.

"And I said, 'Now Mrs. Koshek, if you'd give that to your husband some night when he comes home tired, don't you think it would be a pleasant surprise?' But all I could get out of her was, 'I'd ruther eat what I'd ruther; I'd ruther eat what I'd ruther.' And I'm afraid Mr. Koshek is still living on greasy sausages."

"That might teach you, Miss Elton," said Mr. Preston, "the futility of trying to improve women by reason. Now a man—"

"Oh, pooh, reason! reason!" exclaimed Mrs. Lenox, turning upon him, "I'm sorry for you poor men, you mistaken servants of boasted reason! Reason is the biggest fallacy on earth. It leads men by the straight path of logic to pure foolishness."

"And how is your woman's reason to account for that?" he asked tolerantly.

"Oh, I suppose your premises are never true. Or, if they are, another man's opposite premises are equally true. So there you are. Two contradictions are equally valid, but being a reasonable man you can't see more than one of them."

"And women can see both sides, of course."

"Truly. And flop from one to the other with lightning rapidity. We are too completely superior to reason to have any respect for or reliance on it. Do you think I try reason on my husband when he is in the wrong in his arguments with me! Not at all. I just say, 'I'm afraid you are not feeling well, dear.' And I put a mustard plaster on him. It's extraordinary how seldom he disagrees nowadays. Or when he's very obstinately set on an objectionable course, it's a good plan to say sweetly, 'I'll do just as you like, dear.' He invariably comes back with an emphatic, 'No—we'll do as you like.'"

"I relinquish all claims to be called a reasonable being," said Mr. Lenox with a wry face.

"When we, the unmarried, hear confessions of this kind," said Madeline, "it gives us an incongruous feeling to remember how happy you, the married, seem, after all."

"Getting along becomes a habit," retorted Dick. "Matrimony is like taking opium. It fixes itself on you. I suppose when the hero of Kipling's poem found out that she was only 'a rag and a bone and a hank of hair,' he kept on loving the rag, even while he felt like gnawing the bone and pulling the hair."

He knew he had said an ugly thing. It wasn't like him. He flushed as he saw Mrs. Lenox glance sharply at him.

"Dick, Dick, that is heresy," she exclaimed gaily. "We must pretend there aren't any vampires, and that we do not know what they are made of. If we tell the naked truth, how can we cry out with conviction that the old world is an harmonious and beautiful place?"

"That isn't your real philosophy," he said.

"No, it isn't," she said. "I sometimes wish it were. If one could have the temperament to shut one's eyes and say, 'I don't see it; therefore it isn't true,' what a very easy thing life would be."

"I don't know," answered Dick. "Going it blind with a dog and a string doesn't generally make it easier to walk."

"That's true," Madeline put in. "A little dog isn't a very good guide up the hilly road of righteousness. As for me, I prefer open-eyed obedience to blind obedience."

"I'll be bound you prefer obedience anyway," Dick said in an undertone, and he looked at her as though something in her hurt him. He turned abruptly to Mr. Preston.

"Preston," he said, "I wish we could hold a special election and put you into the executive chair before your time. Every kind of evil thing is taking advantage of our present lax administration. I believe the crooks of other cities are flying to us on the wings of the wind. One of the plain-clothes men told me to-day that the government detectives have traced a gang of counterfeiters to our beloved city, though they have not succeeded in spotting the rascals' whereabouts. It's rather humiliating to find St. Etienne picked out as a good hiding-place for any villany there is going."

"You needn't be so sure that a special election or any other kind would carry us in," laughed Mr. Preston. "I'm not so confident as you seem, Percival, that this community is overwhelmed with the consciousness of its rare opportunity."

And so the talk drifted on, as usual, to politics.

After dinner, in the drawing-room, Lena saw her husband in conversation with Ram Juna. The two crossed the room, and Dick introduced the new prophet.

"I fear my too constant inspection disturbed you. Myriad pardons for me," began the Swami in his mellifluous voice. "It is the tribute. When I feel deep interest I am prone to forget all but my study. See, I am the last of a family once powerful and wealthy; yet I hardly regret that heritage that I have lost. I look at you. You are the type of another fate. You are a bride, young, lovely, with the vigor and glory of this new race of America. I envy not, but I wonder. So I look too long."

Lena glanced discomfited at the retreating back of her husband and said, "I'm sure I didn't notice anything peculiar."

A curious gleam came into Ram Juna's sleepy eyes.

"Ah, then you, like me, love to examine the soul, your own or another's. You have fellow feeling. So you forgive. May I sit here beside you?"

Lena drew aside her petticoats and the Swami shared her little sofa.

"You see that while you make study of others, I make study of you. I should wish to be your friend. I should in fact fear to have you count me an enemy."

Lena blinked at him in an uncomprehending way with her big eyes, and he smiled innocently in return.

"A woman who is an enemy is a danger. But men are tough-skinned and hard to kill. Is it not so? And even a woman enemy is often powerless to hurt. But when a woman hates a woman, then the case is different. A woman is easy to hurt. A little blow, even a breath on her reputation or to her pride, and the woman is wounded beyond repair. Is it not so?"

Still Lena stared blankly at him, but as he did not return her gaze, her eyes followed his to the other side of the room where Miss Elton bent over a table, with Mr. Early on one side of her and Dick Percival on the other.

"Oh!" she said with a little gasp. "Oh!" And Ram Juna looked back at her and smiled again.

"Therefore I was right to desire your friendship and not your enmity, was I not?" said he. "I, too, am a good friend and a bad enemy. See, Mr. Early shows some wonderful Japanese paintings. Shall we join them in the inspection?"

And Lena went with wonder, and in her mind there began to form vague clumsy purposes which the Hindu would have despised if he had read them.

Nor did her conversation with her husband in the home-returning carriage tend to soften Lena's heart.

Dick was in an uncomfortable and irritable state of mind which was strange and disconcerting even to himself. Instead of giving her the big hug that was his habit when they found themselves safely alone, he said sharply,

"Lena, you use too much perfume about you. I wish you wouldn't."

"Do I?" asked Lena ominously. "Is there anything else?"

"Well, since you give me the chance to say it, dear," Dick's tone was now apologetic, "I'd a little rather you wore your dinner gowns higher. I know many women do wear things like yours to-night, and your dressmaker has dictated to you; but I think the extremes are not well-bred. Just look at the best women. Look at Mrs. Lenox and Madeline—"

But here Lena gave so sharp a little cry of anger that Dick stopped dismayed.

"How dare you?" she screamed. "How dare you hold up a girl you know I hate as an example to me! If she's so perfect, why didn't you marry her? I'm sure she wanted you badly enough."

Dick shrank back a little. To him love—the desire for marriage—was hardly a thing to be touched by outside hands. He wished Lena would not tear down the veils of reticence so ruthlessly.

"Lena, she did not want me at all. Be reasonable."

"Well, then, you took me just because you couldn't get her, did you? Everything she does and wears is perfection. And there's nothing about me that's right!" Lena had now come to the point of angry tears.

"There's one thing about you that's right; and that's my arms, sweetheart." Dick spoke sturdily in spite of trepidation, for this was a new experience to him. "You know I love you, Lena, I did not mean to hurt you. I thought only that you were a sweet little inexperienced woman, and that you would welcome any hints from your husband's worldly wisdom. Come, don't turn into an Undine, dear, and get the carriage all wet,"—for his wife was now sobbing on his shoulder.

"You've told me lots of times that I was perfect," she cried. "I don't see why you want to change me now. You're so inconsistent, Dick."

"I wish that I could make up for my brutality," said Dick. "How can I, Lena? I feel like the fellow that threw a catsup bottle at his wife's head at the breakfast-table and then felt so badly when he saw the nasty stuff trickling down her pretty curls that he brought her home a pair of diamond earrings for dinner."

"What a horrid vulgar story!" exclaimed Lena.

"Isn't it?" Dick rejoined. "But vulgar things are frequently true, as we learn with sorrow. Lena, can't we believe that our marriage certificate had an affection insurance policy given with it? Don't let us indulge in little quarrels. As you say, they are vulgar. I want love to be not only a rich solid pudding full of plums, but I want it to have a meringue on top."

As he hoped, this made Lena laugh, and she pulled out her over-scented handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Dick shut his lips tightly, grown too wise to speak.



CHAPTER XVI

LENA'S FRIENDS

Lena sat one morning behind the coffee-urn so self-absorbed and smiling that Dick wondered.

"Mrs. Percival," he remonstrated, "you have a husband at this end of the table. Have you forgotten it? What are you thinking about?"

"Dick, I believe I have found a friend—a real friend," Lena jerked out.

"A good many of them, I should say. Who is this fortunate person?"

"Mrs. Appleton."

"Mrs. Appleton!" Dick gulped at his coffee and stared at his wife in some perplexity. "Isn't she a—well, for one thing, a good deal older than you?"

"She'll be all the better guide," Lena retorted with one of her demure pouts. "You know she invited me to join the class she has gotten up for Swami Ram Juna. You needn't grin in that horrid way, Dick. I shall be so wise very soon that you'll be afraid of me."

"Heaven forbid, you dear little inspirer of awe."

"At any rate, she's taken the greatest fancy to me, and I to her. She came here yesterday in the pouring rain, and we spent a long afternoon talking together. We feel the same way about everything. She says that with my beauty, I ought to make a great hit, and she's going to give a big reception in my honor. Of course, with her experience, she can be a great help to me."

"I see." Dick forgot his breakfast entirely, and meditated.

"What is Mr. Appleton like?" Lena persisted.

"He has enough money to make me pale my ineffectual fires, and he adds to that the personality of the great American desert. But I suspect his wife is so wholly satisfied with the golden glow that the latter fact has never penetrated to her consciousness. I think Mrs. Appleton has not yet recovered from her astonishment at finding herself wedded to profusion. It appears to delight her afresh from day to day."

"You can be very nasty about people when you choose." Lena's tone was unmistakably vexed.

"Frankly, Lena, I do not like Mrs. Appleton or her attitude toward life. She is the kind of woman who refuses to take the simplest thing simply, the kind that thinks subscription dances and clubs and private cars and family tombs were invented chiefly to show our exclusiveness."

"Well, what are they for?"

Dick laughed. "Most of them to get all the fun there is in things, I should say; and the tombs, to show that love holds even after death."

"I like her, anyway," said Lena. "I like her better than the stuck-up kind of women." The words sound bald. Lena's lips made them seem humorous. It was so easy to avoid disapprobation just by that little smile and whimsical twist of the mouth.

"And whom do you mean by that!"

"You know whom I mean," Lena answered defiantly. "And I consider Mrs. Appleton a great deal more of a society woman than Mrs. Lenox. At any rate she goes a great deal more. And she does not neglect her church duties or her charities, either. She has told me things that she is doing."

"I should say she does not neglect them," ejaculated Dick. "She has the art so to regild them that even philanthropy and religion become mere appendages to society. Does Mrs. Lenox belong to Ram Juna's class, Lena?"

"No. Mrs. Appleton asked her, but she wrote that though she was interested in oriental thought, she, personally, found it more satisfactory to get it by reading. Now wasn't that snobby, Dick?"

"Is it snobbish to choose what really suits you, instead of following a craze like a sheep woman?"

But Lena shut her lips tightly. If she had not will, she had obstinacy. She could be resolute in behalf of her realities, luxury, beauty and self. From the moment when Mrs. Appleton first dawned on her horizon, she had recognized her ideal. Here was a woman who was at once showy, fashionable and virtuous. The things that Mrs. Lenox took for granted or ignored were to her matters of absorbing importance. She magnified the office of every detail of social conduct and every minutia of society's "functions". It was worth while to spend a week of soul-fatiguing labor in order that a tea should be just right; and her preparations were not made in silence, but with an amount of discussion and red-tape that filled every crevice of life. She had learned the art of so cramming the days with trifles that there was no room for the big things and she could conveniently forget them.

Mrs. Appleton seemed to recognize in Lena the same curious mingling of deep-down barbaric egotism and love of display, with the longing to be civilizedly correct. The two were drawn together.

"I like her," said Lena positively.

"I'm sorry," Dick said gently. "I can't say that I do, and I should be glad if you could find your friends among those I love and respect."

"You needn't try to dictate my friendships," said Lena sharply.

"I did not think of dictating, sweetheart. But when we love each other, we naturally long for sympathy in all things." Dick was making a brave effort.

But there was little use in making this appeal to Lena, to whom love was but a beneficent masculine idiosyncrasy. Dick glanced at her and at his watch.

"I must be off," he said. "I have an engagement to meet Preston and plan out our campaign."

"Ours!"

"I'm going to run for alderman of this ward," Dick laughed as Lena flushed. "Don't you approve?"

"How can you be interested in running for alderman?" she asked. "It is such a mean little ambition. I wish you would try for something big. It would be grand to have you a senator, so that we could go to Washington. I should love to be in all the gaieties and meet all the distinguished people."

"Why, sweetheart, you don't suppose I care for the great name of city father, do you?" Dick answered laughing. "That's only the end of a lever. I do care immensely to be one of those who will clean up this city and keep it clean. Perhaps, if we do these near-by things, the big ones will come, by and by."

"A sort of public housemaid," said Lena scornfully.

"Exactly!" Dick laughed and nodded.

But Lena shrugged her shoulders and pouted as the door shut and she idly watched her husband's final hand-wave.

He walked down town and the fresh northern air set his pulses quickening. He noted how few gray heads there were, how full everything seemed of the vitality of youth. On the piazzas were groups of happy well-kept children, bundled up for winter play and bubbling over with exuberance. To any passer-by they told that these were the homes of young married people. Everywhere life looked sweet and normal and vigorous. And he knew that for miles in every direction there were more such homes of more such people.

But when he reached the part of town whither his steps were bent, all this was reversed. Here was dirt, if not of body, then of spirit. Here were a thousand evil influences at work. Here was public plundering for private greed; here were wire-pullings and bargainings and selfishness reigning supreme. And these forces were the nominal rulers of a city, the greater part of whose life was good.

However, he was getting the ropes in his hands. These things were no longer vague generalities floating in his mind, as rosy clouds might be backed by thunder-heads on the horizon. They were growing definite. He began to know who were the evil-workers and how they did it. He had the art of making friends, and he made friends among publicans and sinners as well as—well, there weren't any saints in St. Etienne to make friends with. At any rate some of the powers that were began to say that Dick Percival knew entirely too much. And some of the powers that ought to be, but still slept, namely the good citizens of St. Etienne, found their slumbers disturbed by his straight and convincing words.

But to-day all his labors seemed not worth while. There was a sour taste in his mouth. To do the little thing with a big heart was after all nothing but a sham. His ideals, he thought, had simmered down to petty things. He was spending his time in nosing out small evil-smelling scandals and in running for a mean inferior office. He felt nauseated with himself. Worse, he felt a horrible new doubt of his wife. Mrs. Appleton had been to him the type of woman he disliked, worldly, shallow, busy with the sticks and straws; yet now there would creep in a suspicion that some of the things he had forgiven to Lena's beauty and lack of sophistication were close of kin to the older woman's more blatant materialism. Materialism was the thing Dick had not learned to associate with his own women.

This radiant morning, then, he felt himself under the dominion of the grand inquisitors who invented the torture of little things. Life consisted in having slow drops of water fall on his head, one at a time. Family life was slimed with small bickerings, children were a nuisance, society a bore, and the most beautiful woman in the world defiant and uninspiring at the breakfast-table.

It does not take Cleopatra long to wither the ideals.

Dick began to analyze his wife, which is a dangerous thing for a man to do. If a husband wishes to preserve the lover's state of mind, he must continue to think of his wife as a single indivisible creature, not a compound of faults, virtues and charms, lest in some unlucky moment he find that the faults are the biggest ingredient.

Dick, however, was thinking, and the substance of his thoughts was that this little girl, who bore his name, had her seamy side. Up to now, if he noticed a defect, he instantly and chivalrously put it out of his mind, but now certain doubts had knocked so long that by sheer persistence they forced an entrance. Lena, who began by being a sweet, innocent, much-enduring little thing, now that he knew her more and more intimately, was less and less the creature he imagined. To the world in general she was still the big-eyed ingenue, learning to take her place in society. To him alone, it seemed, to him whose love and reverence she ought to have desired, she was becoming indifferent as to the impression she made. Was the other side of her a pose? Dick found himself walking very fast, and he slackened his pace to a respectable gait. If Lena the lovable was a pose, then the inspiration and ideals and joy of his life were frauds. That thought was too appalling. He deliberately stopped thinking about it and turned his thoughts to frauds in city politics, which were easier to endure.

Lena, on the other hand, sitting idly by the window, indulged in a little reflection on her own part. She was revolving with some bitterness her disappointment and disillusionment. She remembered what a glorious gilded creature Dick had appeared to her at one time. Now he was sunk to be a very ordinary young man, with curious and stupid idiosyncrasies, and not nearly so rich and important as many of the people she came in contact with. Might she have done better if she had waited? She too stopped regretting and turned her attention to a novel. She was just beginning to discover the charms of "Gyp." She looked up to see Mr. Early come up the pathway, and a moment later he stood beside her.

"Mrs. Percival," he said, "I have brought you this little vase, the first of its kind that my artists have produced. I thought it so really beautiful that I could not resist laying one before you as a kind of tribute."

"Oh, it is lovely. And am I really the only person in the world who has one?"

"You and Miss Elton." A pang of small jealousy shot through Lena's heart. It was always and everywhere Miss Elton. "I sent her another, but of slightly different shape. I am, as you know, a worshiper of beauty, but all these creations of man's hands are but parodies, are they not, Mrs. Percival, on absolute beauty? They are like ourselves, the creatures of a day. Nature herself, in sea and air and woodland, produces exquisite loveliness, and yet even her achievements are dwarfed when one stands face to face with one of creation's masterpieces—a woman."

And Mr. Early made a ponderous bow as he presented his work of art. Lena was so impressed by this compliment that she wrote it out while it was fresh in her memory, and when Dick came home, she read it to him. He gave a great bellowing laugh that grated harshly on Lena's nerves; and then at sight of her reproachful eyes, he drew himself together and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder, affectionate, to be sure, but quite different from Mr. Early's chivalrous manner, and said:

"Thinks you better than his old straight-legged tables, does he? Well, I should say so! Serves him right for being an old bachelor, and having nothing but furniture and Ram Juna to illuminate existence. I should expect that combination to drive a man either to drink or to blank verse."

"I don't think it is nice of you to swear, Dick," Lena answered severely, but on the verge of tears.

"Swear, sweetheart? Why, what do you mean?"

"Well, it's almost the same thing to talk about 'blank' verse." Dick laughed again and went directly to the library without even noticing the extremely lovely new dress which his wife had put on for his edification.

Dick's limitations were becoming manifest to young Mrs. Percival. He might be a gentleman, but she feared that he would never be more. There was nothing imposing about him. He had lifted her out of sordid want, but he would not raise her to the pinnacle of greatness. The bland flat face of Mr. Early and his commanding slowness of movement impressed her imagination much as a great stone image might its votary. Here was indeed the truly illustrious. She devoured every floating newspaper paragraph that concerned Sebastian; for she was still under the dominion of the idea that greatness in the dailies constituted greatness indeed. She would have been proud to touch the hem of his frock-coat. How much greater her elation when, on public occasions, he singled her out and stalked across the room to utter in loud tones, intended for the ears of half a hundred, some well-rounded compliment. A conquest of Mr. Early would have been, for Lena, the consummation of achievement; but she could not help seeing that his eyes turned more frequently upon Miss Elton than upon Mrs. Percival—upon Miss Elton, of whom she felt constant jealousy and abnormal curiosity.

Jealousy rose to its height when, on a certain afternoon, from her favorite post beside a window, Lena watched a carriage drive up to Mr. Early's door, and Miss Elton dismount and run up the steps. Mrs. Percival leaned forward to make sure of her eyes, and then she sat and eyed the hole where the mouse had disappeared.

Of course she could not know what was going on inside. When Madeline received a note from Mr. Early, asking her to come and see some very wonderful tapestries that he had just hung, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Sebastian's house was always more like a museum than bachelor's quarters. He was continually turning it inside out for public inspection, so Madeline went in all innocence, expecting to find a dozen or so of her friends sharing the private view. She was embarrassed, but hardly seriously, as Mr. Early came forward to welcome her.

"Am I all alone?" she said with a little laugh.

"Apparently you are. But I dare say some others will drop in on us in a moment," Mr. Early made answer. "Meanwhile I am favored, for your opinion is what I particularly want. These queer old tapestries have been sent to me from France, but whether I keep them or not depends on whether they seem the right thing in the right place. Will you come this way?"

The big hall had a singularly impersonal aspect. Madeline had never before seen it except when thronged with people, and now that they two stood alone in its wide empty space, she was struck with a certain desolation in it.

"Well?" inquired Mr. Early.

"I can't tell at once," said Madeline slowly. "Beauty is a thing that takes time to unfold itself upon one, isn't it? But I think they are beautiful. They are certainly strange and solemn, and they intensify the dignity of this big room; but they make it seem less homelike than ever. They seem to me things to look at rather than to live with. I suppose their appropriateness depends a little on what you want to make of this place. And you do want it only for a public room, do you not, Mr. Early?"

"I am afraid that is all I am capable of," said Sebastian, looking pensively at her. "You see the home feeling is beyond my achievement. It needs the feminine touch to create that ideal atmosphere. That, Miss Madeline, is above art."

"It is so common, are you sure it is not below art?" Madeline smiled.

"I am sure," responded Mr. Early with conviction. "It is a subject on which I have thought much since you came home last year. Never until then did I wholly realize the lack in my home and in my life. If now, in all humbleness, I am consulting your taste, it is because I have sometimes dared to hope that you, my dear lady, would one day give that final grace to this which would make it indeed a home, instead of the mere abiding place that it is now."

Madeline turned upon him sharply.

"Mr. Early," she said, "it isn't wholly courteous in you to take advantage of my being alone with you in your own domain to speak to me in this way."

"I beg your pardon," Sebastian answered. "It was a wholly unpremeditated expression of what has long been an ardent desire. I did not mean to speak, but your own words seemed to break down the barriers of my passion. I could wish that you would permit me to put it in the form which my heart prompts; but perhaps you are right. Your fine sense of the proprieties must be my rule of conduct. I shall only trust that I may soon find a time to speak when I shall not offend your delicacy, and when, I pray, I may not offend your heart."

"Neither now nor at any other time should I advise you to go any further," said Madeline laughingly, for it was hard to take the bombast of Mr. Early very seriously. He made her think now of a sort of pouter pigeon. And Sebastian remained only partly satisfied as to the effect which he wished to produce. He wanted to give her something to think about, and so make way for the more impassioned wooing that he was resolved should follow. He was convinced that to stand alone with him in the midst of his splendors would make a strong impression on the mind of any sensible girl. The great hall was certainly a place to capture the imagination—not only from its stately proportions and the mellow coloring that melted into shadow in the far-off roof, but from the multitude of smaller details, the intricate carvings, gathered abroad or made under Mr. Early's own eye, the few priceless paintings, the great jars whose exquisite decorations blended their richer tones with the deeper shades around. In a wide alcove was gathered a collection of portraits of distinguished men and women, statesmen, artists and literati of this country and of Europe, and each picture was accompanied by an autograph letter to the well-beloved Sebastian Early. It could be no small thing to contemplate the possession of this house of notabilities and of the man who had built it up around himself. This, Mr. Early meant, should be the artistic opening of his campaign. And Miss Elton had laughed.

There was silence for a long minute, and Madeline, glancing nervously at her host, saw that his face was grave and that his eyes were fixed upon her in a melancholy way. She began to feel uncomfortable.

"I think I must be going now," she said.

"You have not told me whether I am to keep the tapestries," Mr. Early humbly objected.

"Oh, I couldn't possibly decide for you. But they seem to harmonize beautifully with this room."

"I am grateful for your decision. Permit me to see you to your carriage, Miss Madeline."

Lena, watching hungrily from her vantage post, noted Mr. Early's obsequious courtesies, Madeline's flushed face, and drew angry conclusions. Nevertheless, she leaned forward and bowed graciously as Madeline drove past.

"If she should marry Mr. Early, I shouldn't feel as if I had triumphed a bit in getting Dick away from her," she said to herself, with a bald comprehension of her true state of mind. For Lena made up for her pose toward others by a certain unimaginative frankness in her self-communings.

Then, catching a glimpse of another figure, she exclaimed, "Oh, there comes Miss Huntress!" and immediately settled herself with an air of elegant leisure to receive her former superior. Miss Huntress was a source of continual satisfaction to Lena, the opposite of a skeleton at the feast, a continual reminder of present prosperity as compared with past nonentity. To meet her gave Madame Cecropia the same thrill of satisfaction that it still did to draw her dainty skirts around her and step into her carriage, half hoping that some envious girl was viewing her perfections as she had once eyed those of others. On the other hand, Miss Huntress derived almost equal pleasure out of her acquaintance with Lena, whose littleness she measured, and whose small successes she looked upon with amusement, unflecked by envy. Emily Huntress was a plodding person, with much business on hand and an earnest necessity for earning money, and though her canons were not over fine, still she had her standards and lived up to them. She found Lena useful as a source of social information.

"You want to know what is going on?" inquired Mrs. Percival. "Well, of course you know it's Lent, and there isn't anything much. But if you will come up to my boudoir, I will look over my engagement book, and perhaps I can help you to a paragraph or two."

The word boudoir was a sweetmeat to Lena's palate, combined, as it was, with the knowledge that her visitor, with a sister, kept house in three rooms.

So they went up stairs, and Lena babbled and preened herself, while Miss Huntress frowned and pondered on the difficulties of making anything readable out of her small kernel of information. The arrival of a cup of tea, Miss Huntress, being a woman as well as a reporter, found mollifying to the hardness of life.

"I see," she said with an acid little laugh, "you have the Chatterer up here in your unholy of unholies." Her eyes fell on a small magazine which made a speciality of besmirching the good names of the entire country. "Everybody reads it, and everybody pretends to despise it."

"It's awfully interesting," said Lena, and she went on with a little giggle, "I think I'll just tuck it away before my husband comes in. He doesn't approve of it, you know. Men don't care for gossip. I think it is perfectly wonderful what an amount of scandal it gets hold of. I don't see how they do it. And they've such a naughty way of writing it up, too."

"Nothing very remarkable. In every town of importance they have some one always on the lookout for a promising piece of mud." Miss Huntress eyed Lena speculatively for a moment. "I'll tell you in confidence," she went on, "and I trust you to keep mum about it, for the sake of the times when I helped you—I write for it here. I don't exactly like it, but you know I can't afford to despise dollars and cents. It's just plain business, after all. There's a demand for that kind of thing and it falls to my lot to supply it."

"And did you write that awful thing about Mrs. Clarke?" cried Lena, sitting up with big blue eyes, and gazing earnestly at Miss Huntress with, awe as an arbiter of reputations.

"Yep," replied that lady with a gulp of tea.

"Gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Percival. "I hope you'll never send them anything about me."

"Then you'd better never do anything indiscreet," Miss Huntress laughed maliciously. "But I don't think you would," she went on speculatively. "You're too clever and too ambitious for that. Do you know, I've rather come to the conclusion that it's only rather simple-hearted people who do those things. Take that Mrs. Clarke, now. Of course her husband was a brute, and when the other man came along she fell so much in love with him that she didn't even think of any one else in the world except their two selves. A woman who was incapable of whole-souled passion would have kept an eye on the world and walked the narrow path of virtue."

"Why, you're defending her!" exclaimed Lena.

"Not in the least," said Miss Huntress grimly. "I helped to make her pay the price."

"Oh, well," Lena said with an air of greatness, "there are some of us who can combine the deepest love with decent behavior you know."

"Of course," answered Miss Huntress.

"Now Miss Elton is just that other kind. I believe she never thinks what people say about her," Lena observed. "Not that she'd do anything out of the way, you understand."

"Certainly not." Miss Huntress began to prick up her professional ears. "She's a particular friend of yours, isn't she?"

"Intimate," said Lena. "You know they used to say that Mr. Percival—but of course that was before he met me, and anyway there was nothing in it."

"I know," said Miss Huntress. "I sent a line to the Chatterer once about it."

"Did you really? Well, of course, for form's sake, she has to be as nice as ever to me and Mr. Percival. But she has reconciled herself. It's all Mr. Early now."

"You don't say!" ejaculated Miss Huntress with interest.

"She's regularly throwing herself at his head. Why only this afternoon I saw her do the most unconventional thing."

"What was it?"

"Oh, I dare say she was just getting him to subscribe to some charity or something equally innocent. Still, it was queer. But I know her too well to suspect her of any impropriety. She's really the dearest, sweetest girl, Miss Huntress, and I'm the last person in the world to criticize her."

"But aren't you going to tell me?"

"Well, she came, quite alone, you understand, to Mr. Early's this afternoon, and was closeted there the longest time. I couldn't help wondering what it was all about. What do you suppose?"

"That was funny," meditated Miss Huntress.

"I'm certain there's some perfectly natural explanation, if we only knew it," Lena went on. "But she looked awfully flushed when she came out."

"Thank you," said Miss Huntress. "I must be going now."

"Oh, won't you have another cup of tea? Of course, I'm on very good terms with Miss Elton," said Lena, fingering the tray cloth a little nervously. "I shouldn't like her to think I'd criticized her behavior, even to you."

"You needn't be afraid," rejoined Miss Huntress. "I never let on how I get my information. I'd lose my job if I did. Much obliged to you, Mrs. Percival. Things are so dull during Lent that we're thankful for even a few crumbs. I guess that's your husband's step. It must be getting late."

"Oh, good-by! Dick, you dear boy, how glad I am to see you," cried Lena, fluttering to the door to meet her returning lord. "Miss Huntress, this is my husband. Good-by, again. Don't you remember?" she went on, as Dick followed her back into her room. "She used to be my 'boss' when I was a poor little slavey in the Star office, before my best beloved prince came and rescued me from dragons and printers' devils."

"And are you so fond of her that you keep up the acquaintance?"

"Oh, I remember how hard it used to be to get 'matter'; and I don't mind helping her out a bit when she's hard pressed."

"You are a kind-hearted little soul, Lena,"—and her husband stooped and kissed her fondly, doing penance in his heart for his doubts of a day or two ago, thoughts cruel, unjust, unwarranted. Lena had never looked more delectable than now, with her head on one side, pouring his tea. She kissed each lump of sugar as she put it in and laughed at her own conceit; and she brought the cup over to his chair and rubbed her apple blossom of a cheek against his with a little purr.

"I'm afraid you think me very silly, Dick," she laughed. "I do not seem to get a bit wiser or better behaved, do I, for all Mrs. Appleton and Ram Juna, and even your lovely high-bred mother? Dick, do you despise me!"

"Despise! Why I love and love you and love you all over," said Dick.



CHAPTER XVII

GRAPE-SHOT

Mrs. Quincy, in her solitary confinement, unloved and complaining, might be considered a figure either repulsive or pathetic, according to the onlooker's point of view. Fortunately there are always a few big enough at heart to turn towards the world a face of affection rather than of criticism, to whom woe appeals more than vulgarity.

So, once in a while in her busy life, Mrs. Lenox found time to drop in as the bearer of a cheerful word and a friendly look to the ugly little apartment where Mrs. Quincy lived in the third story height of domestic felicity.

On an April afternoon she came, like a dark-eyed Flora, her hands loaded with daffodils that might bring a glow of the beauty of spring even to an inartistic spirit. The front door stood open, and a flat has an unrelenting way of laying bare all the skeletons that find no closet room. Mrs. Lenox surprised a scene of domestic economy in the tiny parlor. The curtains had been taken down for fear they would fade, and a large piece of newspaper lay where the sunlight struck the carpet. In the middle of the room sat Mrs. Quincy, and before her on a kitchen chair stood a little tub of foamy soap-suds. A maid was stationed at hand with a bar of soap and a bottle of ammonia, and the steam of homely cleanliness filled the air.

"Good gracious, I declare!" ejaculated Mrs. Quincy, "if it ain't Mrs. Lenox! Come right in. I'm just washin' out my under-flannels and my stockin's. I can't bear the slovenly ways of servants, and it's only myself as can do 'em to suit myself. There, Sarah, you take the things away, and I'll let you rinse 'em out this once. And mind you do it good. Be sure to use four rinsin's. And soft water, mind. And hand me a towel to wipe off my hands. It's real good of you to come and see a forlorn old woman, that I know can't be much pleasure to you, Mrs. Lenox. There ain't many that takes the trouble. And yet time was when I was considered as good-lookin' as that ungrateful daughter of mine, that I slaved for for years. Put them flowers in water, Sarah. I guess a butter jar's the only thing I got that's big enough to hold them."

Mrs. Lenox sat down, wondering if time and life could ever transform the smooth beauty of Lena's features to this semblance of failure which they so closely resembled. Mrs. Quincy's face was like a grain field over which the storms had swept, changing what was its glory to a horror.

The scarlet-faced Sarah hustled tub and chair and dripping garments kitchen-ward. The visitor took up her task of cheerfulness, and Mrs. Quincy cackled and grumbled to her heart's content.

"Lena'd be 'shamed to death if she knew you'd caught me doin' my wash," she whined. "I hope you won't tell her. She can come down on me pretty hard sometimes, I tell you."

"Oh, I won't tell," Mrs. Lenox laughed. "I only wish you had let me help. I was thinking what fun it must be—with a maid to hold the soap. It took me back to nursery days. I used to love to wash dolls' clothes."

"I don't do it for fun," Mrs. Quincy snapped. "But I ain't provided with a servant that's worth her salt. If anybody's dependent, like I am, on a whipper-snapper son-inlaw, that ain't got affection enough for me to spend an hour a week with me—why, I guess I have to pinch and scrape wherever I can. No knowin' when I'll git more. I've worked hard all my life for other folks, Mrs. Lenox. You can see by my hands how I've worked. And what do I get for it? A stranger like you is kinder to me than my own flesh and blood. And I know well enough that if Richard Percival throws me a crust, it's only because he would be ashamed to have folks say his mother-in-law was starving. Oh, I let him know that I see through him whenever he comes near me—which ain't very often. And Lena goes days and days and never comes to see me." Her voice and her garrulity were rising, but here a sob gave pause, and Mrs. Lenox rushed in, repressing an impulse to say a word on the elementary laws of give and take in love.

"Well, I think you are very sensible to do the washing. One must have some occupation to fill the days, mustn't one? And there aren't many things, when one is tied to the house. If to-morrow is warm, I wonder if you would feel up to a little drive in the afternoon?"

"I shouldn't be surprised if I would."

"And do you care for reading? I've brought you a rather clever little story. I see you have all the magazines."

"Yes, Lena sends 'em. She thinks they'll occupy me and save her the trouble of comin' herself. But, good land, I don't care for 'em beyond lookin' at the pictures and the advertisements—except the Ladies' Home Companion. That has good recipes in it; only Sarah can't make nothin' that's fit to eat. But I did read that thing in the Chatterer about Miss Elton. You've seen it, of course!"—and she laughed with cheerful malice and licked her lips like a cat.