Susan's bosom was swelling, her lip trembling. "I—I——" she began. She choked back the sobs, faltered out: "I don't think I could, Uncle," and rushed from the room.

There was an uncomfortable pause. Then Warham said, "I must say, Fan, I think—if you had to do it—you might have spared the girl's feelings."

Mrs. Warham felt miserable about it also. "Susie took me by surprise," she apologized. Then, defiantly, "And what else can I do? You know he doesn't come for any good."

Warham stared in amazement. "Now, what does that mean?" he demanded.

"You know very well what it means," retorted his wife.

Her tone made him understand. He reddened, and with too blustering anger brought his fist down on the table.

"Susan's our daughter. She's Ruth's sister."

Ruth pushed back her chair and stood up. Her expression made her look much older than she was. "I wish you could induce the rest of the town to think that, papa," said she. "It'd make my position less painful." And she, too, left the room.

"What's she talking about?" asked Warham.

"It's true, George," replied Fanny with trembling lip. "It's all my fault—insisting on keeping her. I might have known!"

"I think you and Ruth must be crazy. I've seen no sign."

"Have you seen any of the boys calling on Susan since she shot up from a child to a girl? Haven't you noticed she isn't invited any more except when it can't be avoided?"

Warham's face was fiery with rage. He looked helplessly, furiously about. But he said nothing. To fight public sentiment would be like trying to thrust back with one's fists an oncreeping fog. Finally he cried, "It's too outrageous to talk about."

"If I only knew what to do!" moaned Fanny.

A long silence, while Warham was grasping the fullness of the meaning, the frightful meaning, in these revelations so astounding to him. At last he said:

"Does she realize?"

"I guess so . . . I don't know . . . I don't believe she does. She's the most innocent child that ever grew up."

"If I had a chance, I'd sell out and move away."

"Where?" said his wife. "Where would people accept—her?"

Warham became suddenly angry again. "I don't believe it!" he cried, his look and tone contradicting his words. "You've been making a mountain out of a molehill."

And he strode from the room, flung on his hat and went for a walk. As Mrs. Warham came from the dining-room a few minutes later, Ruth appeared in the side veranda doorway. "I think I'll telephone Arthur to come tomorrow evening instead," said she. "He'd not like it, with Sam here too."

"That would be better," assented her mother. "Yes, I'd telephone him if I were you."

Thus it came about that Susan, descending the stairs to the library to get a book, heard Ruth say into the telephone in her sweetest voice, "Yes—tomorrow evening, Arthur. Some others are coming—the Wrights. You'd have to talk to Lottie . . . I don't blame you. . . . Tomorrow evening, then. So sorry. Good-by."

The girl on the stairway stopped short, shrank against the wall. A moment, and she hastily reascended, entered her room, closed the door. Love had awakened the woman; and the woman was not so unsuspecting, so easily deceived as the child had been. She understood what her cousin and her aunt were about; they were trying to take her lover from her! She understood her aunt's looks and tones, her cousin's temper and hysteria. She sat down upon the floor and cried with a breaking heart. The injustice of it! The meanness of it! The wickedness of a world where even her sweet cousin, even her loving aunt were wicked! She sat there on the floor a long time, abandoned to the misery of a first shattered illusion, a misery the more cruel because never before had either cousin or aunt said or done anything to cause her real pain. The sound of voices coming through the open window from below made her start up and go out on the balcony. She leaned over the rail. She could not see the veranda for the masses of creeper, but the voices were now quite plain in the stillness. Ruth's voice gay and incessant. Presently a man's voice his—and laughing! Then his voice speaking—then the two voices mingled—both talking at once, so eager were they! Her lover—and Ruth was stealing him from her! Oh, the baseness, the treachery! And her aunt was helping!. . . Sore of heart, utterly forlorn, she sat in the balcony hammock, aching with love and jealousy. Every now and then she ran in and looked at the clock. He was staying on and on, though he must have learned she was not coming down. She heard her uncle and aunt come up to bed. Now the piano in the parlor was going. First it was Ruth singing one of her pretty love songs in that clear small voice of hers. Then Sam played and sang—how his voice thrilled her! Again it was Ruthie singing—"Sweet Dream Faces"—Susan began to sob afresh. She could see Ruth at the piano, how beautiful she looked—and that song—it would be impossible for him not to be impressed. She felt the jealousy of despair. . . . Ten o'clock—half-past—eleven o'clock! She heard them at the edge of the veranda—so, at last he was going. She was able to hear their words now:

"You'll be up for the tennis in the morning?" he was saying.

"At ten," replied Ruth.

"Of course Susie's asked, too," he said—and his voice sounded careless, not at all earnest.

"Certainly," was her cousin's reply. "But I'm not sure she can come."

It was all the girl at the balcony rail could do to refrain from crying out a protest. But Sam was saying to Ruth:

"Well—good night. Haven't had so much fun in a long time. May I come again?"

"If you don't, I'll think you were bored."

"Bored!" He laughed. "That's too ridiculous. See you in the morning. Good night. . . . Give my love to Susie, and tell her I was sorry not to see her."

Susan was all in a glow as her cousin answered, "I'll tell her." doubtless Sam didn't note it, but Susan heard the constraint, the hypocrisy in that sweet voice.

She watched him stroll down to the gate under the arch of boughs dimly lit by the moon. She stretched her arms passionately toward him. Then she went in to go to bed. But at the sound of Ruth humming gayly in the next room, she realized that she could not sleep with her heart full of evil thoughts. She must have it out with her cousin. She knocked on the still bolted door.

"What is it?" asked Ruth coldly.

"Let me in," answered Susan. "I've got to see you."

"Go to bed, Susie. It's late."

"You must let me in."

The bolt shot back. "All right. And please unhook my dress—there's a dear."

Susan opened the door, stood on the threshold, all her dark passion in her face. "Ruth!" she cried.

Ruth had turned her back, in readiness for the service the need of which had alone caused her to unbolt the door. At that swift, fierce ejaculation she started, wheeled round. At sight of that wild anger she paled. "Why, Susie!" she gasped.

"I've found you out!" raged Susan. "You're trying to steal him from me—you and Aunt Fanny. It isn't fair! I'll not stand it!"

"What are you talking about?" cried Ruth. "You must have lost your senses."

"I'll not stand it," Susan repeated, advancing threateningly "He loves me and I love him."

Ruth laughed. "You foolish girl! Why, he cares nothing about you. The idea of your having your head turned by a little politeness!"

"He loves me he told me so. And I love him. I told him so. He's mine! You shan't take him from me!"

"He told you he loved you?"

Ruth's eyes were gleaming and her voice was shrill with hate. "He told you that?"

"Yes—he did!"

"I don't believe you."

"We love each other," cried the dark girl. "He came to see me. You've got Arthur Sinclair. You shan't take him away!"

The two girls, shaking with fury, were facing each other, were looking into each other's eyes. "If Sam Wright told you he loved you," said Ruth, with the icy deliberateness of a cold-hearted anger, "he was trying to—to make a fool of you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. We're trying to save you."

"He and I are engaged!" declared Susan. "You shan't take him—and you can't! He loves me!"

"Engaged!" jeered Ruth. "Engaged!" she laughed, pretending not to believe, yet believing. She was beside herself with jealous anger. "Yes—we'll save you from yourself. You're like your mother. You'd disgrace us—as she did."

"Don't you dare talk that way, Ruth Warham. It's false—false! My mother is dead—and you're a wicked girl."

"It's time you knew the truth," said Ruth softly. Her eyes were half shut now and sparkling devilishly. "You haven't got any name. You haven't got any father. And no man of any position would marry you. As for Sam——" She laughed contemptuously. "Do you suppose Sam Wright would marry a girl without a name?"

Susan had shrunk against the door jamb. She understood only dimly, but things understood dimly are worse than things that are clear. "Me?" she muttered. "Me? Oh, Ruth, you don't mean that."

"It's true," said Ruth, calmly. "And the sooner you realize it the less likely you are to go the way your mother did."

Susan stood as if petrified.

"If Sam Wright comes hanging round you any more, you'll know how to treat him," Ruth went on. "You'll appreciate that he hasn't any respect for you—that he thinks you're someone to be trifled with. And if he talked engagement, it was only a pretense. Do you understand?"

The girl leaning in the doorway gazed into vacancy. After a while she answered dully, "I guess so."

Ruth began to fuss with the things on her bureau. Susan went into her room, sat on the edge of the bed. A few minutes, and Ruth, somewhat cooled down and not a little frightened, entered. She looked uneasily at the motionless figure. Finally she said,

"Susie!"

No answer.

More sharply, "Susie!"

"Yes," said Susan, without moving.

"You understand that I told you for your own good? And you'll not say anything to mother or father? They feel terribly about it, and don't want it ever mentioned. You won't let on that you know?"

"I'll not tell," said Susan.

"You know we're fond of you—and want to do everything for you?"

No answer.

"It wasn't true—what you said about Sam's making love to you?"

"That's all over. I don't want to talk about it."

"You're not angry with me, Susie? I admit I was angry, but it was best for you to know—wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Susan.

"You're not angry with me?"

"No."

Ruth, still more uneasy, turned back into her own room because there was nothing else to do. She did not shut the door between. When she was in her nightgown she glanced in at her cousin. The girl was sitting on the edge of the bed in the same position. "It's after midnight," said Ruth. "You'd better get undressed."

Susan moved a little. "I will," she said.

Ruth went to bed and soon fell asleep. After an hour or so she awakened. Light was streaming through the open connecting door. She ran to it, looked in. Susan's clothes were in a heap beside the bed. Susan herself, with the pillows propping her, was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. It was impossible for Ruth to realize any part of the effect upon her cousin of a thing she herself had known for years and had taken always as a matter of course; she simply felt mildly sorry for unfortunate Susan.

"Susie, dear," she said gently, "do you want me to turn out the light?"

"Yes," said Susan.

Ruth switched off the light and went back to bed, better content. She felt that now Susan would stop her staring and would go to sleep. Sam's call had been very satisfactory. Ruth felt she had shown off to the best advantage, felt that he admired her, would come to see her next time. And now that she had so arranged it that Susan would avoid him, everything would turn out as she wished. "I'll use Arthur to make him jealous after a while—and then—I'll have things my own way." As she fell asleep she was selecting the rooms Sam and she would occupy in the big Wright mansion—"when we're not in the East or in Europe."



CHAPTER V

RUTH had forgotten to close her shutters, so toward seven o'clock the light which had been beating against her eyelids for three hours succeeded in lifting them. She stretched herself and yawned noisily. Susan appeared in the connecting doorway.

"Are you awake?" she said softly.

"What time is it?" asked Ruth, too lazy to turn over and look at her clock.

"Ten to seven."

"Do close my shutters for me. I'll sleep an hour or two." She hazily made out the figure in the doorway. "You're dressed, aren't you?" she inquired sleepily.

"Yes," replied Susan. "I've been waiting for you to wake."

Something in the tone made Ruth forget about sleep and rub her fingers over her eyes to clear them for a view of her cousin. Susan seemed about as usual—perhaps a little serious, but then she had the habit of strange moods of seriousness. "What did you want?" said Ruth.

Susan came into the room, sat at the foot of the bed—there was room, as the bed was long and Ruth short. "I want you to tell me what my mother did."

"Did?" echoed Ruth feebly.

"Did, to disgrace you and—me."

"Oh, I couldn't explain—not in a few words. I'm so sleepy. Don't bother about it, Susan." And she thrust her head deeper into the pillow. "Close the shutters."

"Then I'll have to ask Aunt Fanny—or Uncle George or everybody—till I find out."

"But you mustn't do that," protested Ruth, flinging herself from left to right impatiently. "What is it you want to know?"

"About my mother—and what she did. And why I have no father—why I'm not like you—and the other girls."

"Oh—it's nothing. I can't explain. Don't bother about it. It's no use. It can't be helped. And it doesn't really matter."

"I've been thinking," said Susan. "I understand a great many things I didn't know I'd noticed—ever since I was a baby. But what I don't understand——" She drew a long breath, a cautious breath, as if there were danger of awakening a pain. "What I don't understand is—why. And—you must tell me all about it. . . . Was my mother bad?"

"Not exactly bad," Ruth answered uncertainly. "But she did one thing that was wicked—at least that a woman never can be forgiven for, if it's found out."

"Did she—did she take something that didn't belong to her?"

"No—nothing like that. No, she was, they say, as nice and sweet as she could be—except—— She wasn't married to your father."

Susan sat in a brown study. "I can't understand," she said at last. "Why—she must have been married, or—or—there wouldn't have been me."

Ruth smiled uneasily. "Not at all. Don't you really understand?"

Susan shook her head.

"He—he betrayed her—and left her—and then everybody knew because you came."

Susan's violet-gray eyes rested a grave, inquiring glance upon her cousin's face. "But if he betrayed her—— What does 'betray' mean? Doesn't it mean he promised to marry her and didn't?"

"Something like that," said Ruth. "Yes—something like that."

"Then he was the disgrace," said the dark cousin, after reflecting. "No—you're not telling me, Ruth. What did my mother do?"

"She had you without being married."

Again Susan sat in silence, trying to puzzle it out. Ruth lifted herself, put the pillows behind her back. "You don't understand—anything—do you? Well, I'll try to explain—though I don't know much about it."

And hesitatingly, choosing words she thought fitted to those innocent ears, hunting about for expressions she thought comprehensible to that innocent mind, Ruth explained the relations of the sexes—an inaccurate, often absurd, explanation, for she herself knew only what she had picked up from other girls—the fantastic hodgepodge of pruriency, physiology and sheer nonsense which under our system of education distorts and either alarms or inflames the imaginations of girls and boys where the clean, simple truth would at least enlighten them. Susan listened with increasing amazement.

"Well, do you understand?" Ruth ended. "How we come into the world—and what marriage means?"

"I don't believe it," declared Susan. "It's—awful!" And she shivered with disgust.

"I tell you it's true," insisted Ruth. "I thought it was awful when I first heard—when Lottie Wright took me out in their orchard, where nobody could listen, and told me what their cook had told her. But I've got kind of used to it."

"But it—it's so, then; my mother did marry my father," said Susan.

"No. She let him betray her. And when a woman lets a man betray her without being married by the preacher or somebody, why, she's ruined forever."

"But doesn't marriage mean where two people promise to love each other and then betray each other?"

"If they're married, it isn't betraying," explained Ruth. "If they're not, it is betraying." Susan reflected, nodded slowly. "I guess I understand. But don't you see it was my father who was the disgrace? He was the one that promised to marry and didn't."

"How foolish you are!" cried Ruth. "I never knew you to be stupid."

"But isn't it so?" persisted Susan.

"Yes—in a way," her cousin admitted. "Only—the woman must keep herself pure until the ceremony has been performed."

"But if he said so to her, wasn't that saying so to God just as much as if the preacher had been there?"

"No, it wasn't," said Ruth with irritation. "And it's wicked to think such things. All I know is, God says a woman must be married before she—before she has any children. And your mother wasn't." Susan shook her head. "I guess you don't understand any better than I do—really."

"No, I don't," confessed Ruth. "But I'd like to see any man more than kiss me or put his arm round me without our having been married."

"But," urged Susan, "if he kissed you, wouldn't that be like marriage?"

"Some say so," admitted Ruth. "But I'm not so strict. A little kissing and that often leads a man to propose." Susan reflected again. "It all sounds low and sneaking to me," was her final verdict. "I don't want to have anything to do with it. But I'm sure my mother was a good woman. It wasn't her fault if she was lied to, when she loved and believed. And anybody who blames her is low and bad. I'm glad I haven't got any father, if fathers have to be made to promise before everybody or else they'll not keep their word."

"Well, I'll not argue about it," said Ruth. "I'm telling you the way things are. The woman has to take all the blame." Susan lifted her head haughtily. "I'd be glad to be blamed by anybody who was wicked enough to be that unjust. I'd not have anything to do with such people."

"Then you'd live alone."

"No, I shouldn't. There are lots of people who are good and——"

"That's wicked, Susan," interrupted Ruth. "All good people think as I tell you they do."

"Do Aunt Fanny and Uncle George blame my mother?"

"Of course. How could they help it, when she——" Ruth was checked by the gathering lightnings in those violet-gray eyes.

"But," pursued Susan, after a pause, "even if they were wicked enough to blame my mother, they couldn't blame me."

"Of course not," declared Ruth warmly. "Hasn't everybody always been sweet and kind to you?"

"But last night you said——"

Ruth hid her face. "I'm ashamed of what I said last night," she murmured. "I've got, Oh, such a nasty disposition, Susie."

"But what you said—wasn't it so?" Ruth turned away her head.

Susan drew a long sigh, so quietly that Ruth could not have heard.

"You understand," Ruth said gently, "everybody feels sorry for you and——"

Susan frowned stormily, "They'd better feel sorry for themselves."

"Oh, Susie, dear," cried Ruth, impulsively catching her hand, "we all love you, and mother and father and I—we'll stand up for you through everything——"

"Don't you dare feel sorry for me!" Susan cried, wrenching her hand away.

Ruth's eyes filled with tears.

"You can't blame us because everybody—— You know, God says, 'The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children——'"

"I'm done with everybody," cried Susan, rising and lifting her proud head, "I'm done with God."

Ruth gave a low scream and shuddered. Susan looked round defiantly, as if she expected a bolt from the blue to come hurtling through the open window. But the sky remained serene, and the quiet, scented breeze continued to play with the lace curtains, and the birds on the balcony did not suspend their chattering courtship. This lack of immediate effect from her declaration of war upon man and God was encouraging. The last of the crushed, cowed feeling Ruth had inspired the night before disappeared. With a soul haughtily plumed and looking defiance from the violet-gray eyes, Susan left her cousin and betook herself down to breakfast.

In common with most children, she had always dreamed of a mysterious fate for herself, different from the commonplace routine around her. Ruth's revelations, far from daunting her, far from making her feel like cringing before the world in gratitude for its tolerance of her bar sinister, seemed a fascinatingly tragic confirmation of her romantic longings and beliefs. No doubt it was the difference from the common lot that had attracted Sam to her; and this difference would make their love wholly unlike the commonplace Sutherland wooing and wedding. Yes, hers had been a mysterious fate, and would continue to be. Nora, an old woman now, had often related in her presence how Doctor Stevens had brought her to life when she lay apparently, indeed really, dead upon the upstairs sitting-room table—Doctor Stevens and Nora's own prayers. An extraordinary birth, in defiance of the laws of God and man; an extraordinary resurrection, in defiance of the laws of nature—yes, hers would be a life superbly different from the common. And when she and Sam married, how gracious and forgiving she would be to all those bad-hearted people; how she would shame them for their evil thoughts against her mother and herself!

The Susan Lenox who sat alone at the little table in the dining-room window, eating bread and butter and honey in the comb, was apparently the same Susan Lenox who had taken three meals a day in that room all those years—was, indeed, actually the same, for character is not an overnight creation. Yet it was an amazingly different Susan Lenox, too. The first crisis had come; she had been put to the test; and she had not collapsed in weakness but had stood erect in strength.

After breakfast she went down Main Street and at Crooked Creek Avenue took the turning for the cemetery. She sought the Warham plot, on the western slope near the quiet brook. There was a clump of cedars at each corner of the plot; near the largest of them were three little graves—the three dead children of George and Fanny. In the shadow of the clump and nearest the brook was a fourth grave apart and, to the girl, now thrillingly mysterious:

LORELLA LENOX BORN MAY 9, 1859 DIED JULY 17, 1879

Twenty years old! Susan's tears scalded her eyes. Only a little older than her cousin Ruth was now—Ruth who often seemed to her, and to everybody, younger than herself. "And she was good—I know she was good!" thought Susan. "He was bad, and the people who took his part against her were bad. But she was good!"

She started as Sam's voice, gay and light, sounded directly behind her. "What are you doing in a graveyard?" cried he.

"How did you find me?" she asked, paling and flushing and paling again.

"I've been following you ever since you left home."

He might have added that he did not try to overtake her until they were where people would be least likely to see.

"Whose graves are those?" he went on, cutting across a plot and stepping on several graves to join her.

She was gazing at her mothers simple headstone. His glance followed hers, he read.

"Oh—beg pardon," he said confusedly. "I didn't see."

She turned her serious gaze from the headstone to his face, which her young imagination transfigured. "You know—about her?" she asked.

"I—I—I've heard," he confessed. "But—Susie, it doesn't amount to anything. It happened a long time ago—and everybody's forgotten—and——" His stammering falsehoods died away before her steady look. "How did you find out?"

"Someone just told me," replied she. "And they said you'd never respect or marry a girl who had no father. No—don't deny—please! I didn't believe it—not after what we had said to each other."

Sam, red and shifting uneasily, could not even keep his downcast eyes upon the same spot of ground.

"You see," she went on, sweet and grave, "they don't understand what love means—do they?"

"I guess not," muttered he, completely unnerved.

Why, how seriously the girl had taken him and his words—such a few words and not at all definite! No, he decided, it was the kiss. He had heard of girls so innocent that they thought a kiss meant the same as being married. He got himself together as well as he could and looked at her.

"But, Susie," he said, "you're too young for anything definite—and I'm not halfway through college."

"I understand," said she. "But you need not be afraid I'll change."

She was so sweet, so magnetic, so compelling that in spite of the frowns of prudence he seized her hand. At her touch he flung prudence to the winds. "I love you," he cried; and putting his arm around her, he tried to kiss her. She gently but strongly repulsed him. "Why not, dear?" he pleaded. "You love me—don't you?"

"Yes," she replied, her honest eyes shining upon his. "But we must wait until we're married. I don't care so much for the others, but I'd not want Uncle George to feel I had disgraced him."

"Why, there's no harm in a kiss," pleaded he.

"Kissing you is—different," she replied. "It's—it's—marriage."

He understood her innocence that frankly assumed marriage where a sophisticated girl would, in the guilt of designing thoughts, have shrunk in shame from however vaguely suggesting such a thing. He realized to the full his peril. "I'm a damn fool," he said to himself, "to hang about her. But somehow I can't help it—I can't!" And the truth was, he loved her as much as a boy of his age is capable of loving, and he would have gone on and married her but for the snobbishness smeared on him by the provincialism of the small town and burned in by the toadyism of his fashionable college set. As he looked at her he saw beauty beyond any he had ever seen elsewhere and a sweetness and honesty that made him ashamed before her. "No, I couldn't harm her," he told himself. "I'm not such a dog as that. But there's no harm in loving her and kissing her and making her as happy as it's right to be."

"Don't be mean, Susan," he begged, tears in his eyes. "If you love me, you'll let me kiss you."

And she yielded, and the shock of the kiss set both to trembling. It appealed to his vanity, it heightened his own agitations to see how pale she had grown and how her rounded bosom rose and fell in the wild tumult of her emotions. "Oh, I can't do without seeing you," she cried. "And Aunt Fanny has forbidden me."

"I thought so!" exclaimed he. "I did what I could last night to throw them off the track. If Ruth had only known what I was thinking about all the time. Where were you?"

"Upstairs—on the balcony."

"I felt it," he declared. "And when she sang love songs I could hardly keep from rushing up to you. Susie, we must see each other."

"I can come here, almost any day."

"But people'd soon find out—and they'd say all sorts of things. And your uncle and aunt would hear."

There was no disputing anything so obvious.

"Couldn't you come down tonight, after the others are in bed and the house is quiet?" he suggested.

She hesitated before the deception, though she felt that her family had forfeited the right to control her. But love, being the supreme necessity, conquered. "For a few minutes," she conceded.

She had been absorbed; but his eyes, kept alert by his conventional soul, had seen several people at a distance observing without seeming to do so. "We must separate," he now said. "You see, Susie, we mustn't be gossiped about. You know how determined they are to keep us apart."

"Yes—yes," she eagerly agreed. "Will you go first, or shall I?"

"You go—the way you came. I'll jump the brook down where it's narrow and cut across and into our place by the back way. What time tonight?"

"Arthur's coming," reflected Susie aloud. "Ruth'll not let him stay late. She'll be sleepy and will go straight to bed. About half past ten. If I'm not on the front veranda—no, the side veranda—by eleven, you'll know something has prevented."

"But you'll surely come?"

"I'll come." And it both thrilled and alarmed him to see how much in earnest she was. But he looked love into her loving eyes and went away, too intoxicated to care whither this adventure was leading him.

At dinner she felt she was no longer a part of this family. Were they not all pitying and looking down on her in their hearts? She was like a deformed person who has always imagined the consideration he has had was natural and equal, and suddenly discovers that it is pity for his deformity. She now acutely felt her aunt's, her cousin's, dislike; and her uncle's gentleness was not less galling. In her softly rounded youthful face there was revealed definitely for the first time an underlying expression of strength, of what is often confused with its feeble counterfeit, obstinacy—that power to resist circumstances which makes the unusual and the firm character. The young mobility of her features suggested the easy swaying of the baby sapling in the gentlest breeze. Singularly at variance with it was this expression of tenacity. Such an expression in the face of the young infallibly forecasts an agitated and agitating life. It seemed amazingly out of place in Susan because theretofore she had never been put to the test in any but unnoted trifles and so had given the impression that she was as docile as she was fearful of giving annoyance or pain and indifferent to having her own way. Those who have this temperament of strength encased in gentleness are invariably misunderstood. When they assert themselves, though they are in the particular instance wholly right, they are regarded as wholly and outrageously wrong. Life deals hardly with them, punishes them for the mistaken notion of themselves they have through forbearance and gentleness of heart permitted an unobservant world to form.

Susan spent the afternoon on the balcony before her window, reading and sewing—or, rather, dreaming over first a book, then a dress. When she entered the dining-room at supper time the others were already seated. She saw instantly that something had occurred—something ominous for her. Mrs. Warham gave her a penetrating, severe look and lowered her eyes; Ruth was gazing sullenly at her plate. Warham's glance was stern and reproachful. She took her place opposite Ruth, and the meal was eaten in silence. Ruth left the table first. Next Mrs. Warham rose and saying, "Susan, when you've finished, I wish to see you in the sitting-room upstairs," swept in solemn dignity from the room. Susan rose at once to follow. As she was passing her uncle he put out his hand and detained her.

"I hope it was only a foolish girl's piece of nonsense," said he with an attempt at his wonted kindliness. "And I know it won't occur again. But when your aunt says things you won't like to hear, remember that you brought this on yourself and that she loves you as we all do and is thinking only of your good."

"What is it, Uncle George?" cried Susan, amazed. "What have I done?"

Warham looked sternly grieved. "Brownie," he reproached, "you mustn't deceive. Go to your aunt."

She found her aunt seated stiffly in the living-room, her hands folded upon her stomach. So gradual had been the crucial middle-life change in Fanny that no one had noted it. This evening Susan, become morbidly acute, suddenly realized the contrast between the severe, uncertain-tempered aunt of today and the amiable, altogether and always gentle aunt of two years before.

"What is it, aunt?" she said, feeling as if she were before a stranger and an enemy.

"The whole town is talking about your disgraceful doings this morning," Ruth's mother replied in a hard voice.

The color leaped in Susan's cheeks.

"Yesterday I forbade you to see Sam Wright again. And already you disobey."

"I did not say I would not see him again," replied Susan.

"I thought you were an honest, obedient girl," cried Fanny, the high shrill notes in her voice rasping upon the sensitive, the now morbidly sensitive, Susan. "Instead—you slip away from the house and meet a young man—and permit him to take liberties with you."

Susan braced herself. "I did not go to the cemetery to meet him," she replied; and that new or, rather, newly revived tenacity was strong in her eyes, in the set of her sweet mouth. "He saw me on the way and followed. I did let him kiss me—once. But I had the right to."

"You have disgraced yourself—and us all."

"We are going to be married."

"I don't want to hear such foolish talk!" cried Mrs. Warham violently. "If you had any sense, you'd know better."

"He and I do not feel as you do about my mother," said the girl with quiet dignity.

Mrs. Warham shivered before this fling. "Who told you?" she demanded.

"It doesn't matter; I know."

"Well, miss, since you know, then I can tell you that your uncle and I realize you're going the way your mother went. And the whole town thinks you've gone already. They're all saying, 'I told you so! I told you so! Like her mother!'" Mrs. Warham was weeping hysterical tears of fury. "The whole town! And it'll reflect on my Ruth. Oh, you miserable girl! Whatever possessed me to take pity on you!"

Susan's hands clutched until the nails sunk into the palms. She shut her teeth together, turned to fly.

"Wait!" commanded Mrs. Warham. "Wait, I tell you!"

Susan halted in the doorway, but did not turn.

"Your uncle and I have talked it over."

"Oh!" cried Susan.

Mrs. Warham's eyes glistened. "Yes, he has wakened up at last. There's one thing he isn't soft about——"

"You've turned him against me!" cried the girl despairingly.

"You mean you have turned him against you," retorted her aunt. "Anyhow, you can't wheedle him this time. He's as bent as I am. And you must promise us that you won't see Sam again."

A pause. Then Susan said, "I can't."

"Then we'll send you away to your Uncle Zeke's. It's quiet out there and you'll have a chance to think things over. And I reckon he'll watch you. He's never forgiven your mother. Now, will you promise?"

"No," said Susan calmly. "You have wicked thoughts about my mother, and you are being wicked to me—you and Ruth. Oh, I understand!"

"Don't you dare stand there and lie that way!" raved Mrs. Warham. "I'll give you tonight to think about it. If you don't promise, you leave this house. Your uncle has been weak where you were concerned, but this caper of yours has brought him to his senses. We'll not have you a loose character—and your cousin's life spoiled by it. First thing we know, no respectable man'll marry her, either."

From between the girl's shut teeth issued a cry. She darted across the hall, locked herself in her room.



CHAPTER VI

SAM did not wait until Arthur Sinclair left, but, all ardor and impatience, stole in at the Warhams' front gate at ten o'clock. He dropped to the grass behind a clump of lilacs, and to calm his nerves and to make the time pass more quickly, smoked a cigarette, keeping its lighted end carefully hidden in the hollow of his hand. He was not twenty feet away, was seeing and hearing, when Arthur kissed Ruth good night. He laughed to himself. "How disappointed she looked last night when she saw I wasn't going to do that!" What a charmer Susie must be when the thought of her made the idea of kissing as pretty a girl as Ruth uninteresting, almost distasteful!

Sinclair departed; the lights in parlor and hall went out; presently light appeared through the chinks in some of the second-story shutters. Then followed three-quarters of an hour of increasing tension. The tension would have been even greater had he seen the young lady going leisurely about her preparations for bed. For Ruth was of the orderly, precise women who are created to foster the virtue of patience in those about them. It took her nearly as long to dress for bed as for a party. She did her hair up in curl papers with the utmost care; she washed and rinsed and greased her face and neck and gave them a thorough massage. She shook out and carefully hung or folded or put to air each separate garment. She examined her silk stockings for holes, found one, darned it with a neatness rivaling that of a stoppeur. She removed from her dressing table and put away in drawers everything that was out of place. She closed each drawer tightly, closed and locked the closets, looked under the bed, turned off the lights over the dressing table. She completed her toilet with a slow washing of her teeth, a long spraying of her throat, and a deliberate, thoroughgoing dripping of boracic acid into each eye to keep and improve its clearness and brilliancy. She sat on the bed, reflected on what she had done, to assure herself that nothing had been omitted. After a slow look around she drew off her bedroom slippers, set them carefully side by side near the head of the bed. She folded her nightgown neatly about her legs, thrust them down into the bed. Again she looked slowly, searchingly, about the room to make absolutely sure she had forgotten nothing, had put everything in perfect order. Once in bed, she hated to get out; yet if she should recall any omission, however slight, she would be unable to sleep until she had corrected it. Finally, sure as fallible humanity can be, she turned out the last light, lay down—went instantly to sleep.

It was hardly a quarter of an hour after the vanishing of that last ray when Sam, standing now with heart beating fast and a lump of expectancy, perhaps of trepidation, too, in his throat, saw a figure issue from the front door and move round to the side veranda. He made a detour on the lawn, so as to keep out of view both from house and street, came up to the veranda, called to her softly.

"Can you get over the rail?" asked she in the same low tone.

"Let's go back to the summer house," urged he.

"No. Come up here," she insisted. "Be careful. The windows above are open."

He climbed the rail noiselessly and made an impetuous move for her hand. She drew back. "No, Sam dear," she said. "I know it's foolish. But I've an instinct against it—and we mustn't."

She spoke so gently that he persisted and pleaded. It was some time before he realized how much firmness there was under her gentleness. She was so afraid of making him cross; yet he also saw that she would withstand at any cost. He placed himself beside her on the wicker lounge, sitting close, his cheek almost against hers, that they might hear each other without speaking above a whisper. After one of those silences which are the peculiar delight of lovers, she drew a long breath and said: "I've got to go away, Sam. I shan't see you again for a long time."

"They heard about this morning? They're sending you away?"

"No—I'm going. They feel that I'm a disgrace and a drag. So I can't stay."

"But—you've got to stay!" protested Sam. In wild alarm he suspected she was preparing to make him elope with her—and he did not know to what length of folly his infatuation might whirl him. "You've no place to go," he urged.

"I'll find a place," said she.

"You mustn't—you mustn't, Susie! Why, you're only seventeen—and have no experience."

"I'll get experience," said she. "Nothing could be so bad as staying here. Can't you see that?"

He could not. Like so many of the children of the rich, he had no trace of over-nice sense of self-respect, having been lying and toadying all his life to a father who used the power of his wealth at home no less, rather more, than abroad. But he vaguely realized what delicacy of feeling lay behind her statement of her position; and he did not dare express his real opinion. He returned to the main point. "You've simply got to put up with it for the present, Susie," he insisted. "But, then, of course, you're not serious."

"Yes. I am going."

"You'll think it over, and see I'm right, dear."

"I'm going tonight."

"Tonight!" he cried.

"Sh-h!"

Sam looked apprehensively around. Both breathed softly and listened with straining ears. His exclamation had not been loud, but the silence was profound. "I guess nobody heard," he finally whispered. "You mustn't go, Susie." He caught her hand and held it. "I love you, and I forbid it."

"I must go, dear," answered she. "I've decided to take the midnight boat for Cincinnati."

In the half darkness he gazed in stupefaction at her—this girl of only seventeen calmly resolving upon and planning an adventure so daring, so impossible. As he had been born and bred in that western country where the very children have more independence than the carefully tamed grown people of the East, he ought to have been prepared for almost anything. But his father had undermined his courage and independence; also his year in the East had given him somewhat different ideas of women. Susan's announcement seemed incredible. He was gathering himself for pouring out a fresh protest when it flashed through his mind—Why not? She would go to Cincinnati. He could follow in a few days or a week—and then—

Well, at least they would be free and could have many happy days together.

"Why, how could you get to Cincinnati?" he said. "You haven't any money."

"I've a twenty-dollar gold piece Uncle gave me as a keepsake. And I've got seventeen dollars in other money, and several dollars in change," explained she. "I've got two hundred and forty-three dollars and fifty cents in the bank, but I can't get that—not now. They'll send it to me when I find a place and am settled and let them know."

"You can't do it, Susie! You can't and you mustn't."

"If you knew what they said to me! Oh, I couldn't stay, Sam. I've got some of my clothes—a little bundle behind the front door. As soon as I'm settled I'll let you know."

A silence, then he, hesitatingly, "Don't you—do you—hadn't I better go with you?"

She thrilled at this generosity, this new proof of love. But she said: "No, I wouldn't let you do that. They'd blame you. And I want them to know it's all my own doing."

"You're right, Susie," said the young man, relieved and emphatic. "If I went with you, it'd only get both of us into deeper trouble." Again silence, with Sam feeling a kind of awe as he studied the resolute, mysterious profile of the girl, which he could now see clearly. At last he said: "And after you get there, Susie—what will you do?"

"Find a boarding house, and then look for a place."

"What kind of a place?"

"In a store—or making dresses—or any kind of sewing. Or I could do housework."

The sex impulse is prolific of generous impulses. He, sitting so close to her and breathing in through his skin the emanations of her young magnetism, was moved to the depths by the picture her words conjured. This beautiful girl, a mere child, born and bred in the lady class, wandering away penniless and alone, to be a prey to the world's buffetings which, severe enough in reality, seem savage beyond endurance to the children of wealth.

As he pictured it his heart impulsively expanded. It was at his lips to offer to marry her. But his real self—and one's real self is vastly different from one's impulses—his real self forbade the words passage. Not even the sex impulse, intoxicating him as it then was, could dethrone snobbish calculation. He was young; so while he did not speak, he felt ashamed of himself for not speaking. He felt that she must be expecting him to speak, that she had the right to expect it. He drew a little away from her, and kept silent.

"The time will soon pass," said she absently.

"The time? Then you intend to come back?"

"I mean the time until you're through college and we can be together."

She spoke as one speaks of a dream as to which one has never a doubt but that it will come true. It was so preposterous, this idea that he would marry her, especially after she had been a servant or God knows what for several years—it was so absurd that he burst into a sweat of nervous terror. And he hastily drew further away.

She felt the change, for she was of those who are born sensitive. But she was far too young and inexperienced to have learned to interpret aright the subtle warning of the nerves. "You are displeased with me?" she asked timidly.

"No—Oh, no, Susie," he stammered. "I—I was thinking. Do put off going for a day or two. There's no need of hurrying."

But she felt that by disobeying her aunt and coming down to see him she had forfeited the right to shelter under that roof. "I can't go back," said she. "There's a reason." She would not tell him the reason; it would make him feel as if he were to blame. "When I get a place in Cincinnati," she went on, "I'll write to you."

"Not here," he objected. "That wouldn't do at all. No, send me a line to the Gibson House in Cincinnati, giving me your address."

"The Gibson House," she repeated. "I'll not forget that name. Gibson House."

"Send it as soon as you get a place. I may be in Cincinnati soon. But this is all nonsense. You're not going. You'd be afraid."

She laughed softly. "You don't know me. Now that I've got to go, I'm glad."

And he realized that she was not talking to give herself courage, that her words were literally true. This made him admire her, and fear her, too. There must be something wild and unwomanly in her nature. "I guess she inherits it from her mother—and perhaps her father, whoever he was." Probably she was simply doing a little early what she'd have been sure to do sooner or later, no matter what had happened. On the whole, it was just as well that she was going. "I can take her on East in the fall. As soon as she has a little knowledge of the world she'll not expect me to marry her. She can get something to do. I'll help her." And now he felt in conceit with himself again—felt that he was going to be a good, generous friend to her.

"Perhaps you'll be better off—once you get started," said he.

"I don't see how I could be worse off. What is there here for me?"

He wondered at the good sense of this from a mere child. It was most unlikely that any man of the class she had been brought up in would marry her; and how could she endure marriage with a man of the class in which she might possibly find a husband? As for reputation—

She, an illegitimate child, never could have a reputation, at least not so long as she had her looks. After supper, to kill time, he had dropped in at Willett's drug store, where the young fellows loafed and gossiped in the evenings; all the time he was there the conversation had been made up of sly digs and hints about graveyard trysts, each thrust causing the kind of laughter that is the wake of the prurient and the obscene. Yes, she was right. There could be "nothing in it" for her in Sutherland. He was filled with pity for her. "Poor child! What a shame!" There must be something wrong with a world that permitted such iniquities.

The clock struck twelve. "You must go," she said. "Sometimes the boat comes as early as half-past." And she stood up.

As he faced her the generous impulse surged again. He caught her in his arms, she not resisting. He kissed her again and again, murmuring disconnected words of endearment and fighting back the offer to marry her. "I mustn't! I mustn't!" he said to himself. "What'd become of us?" If his passions had been as virgin, as inexperienced, as hers, no power could have held him from going with her and marrying her. But experience had taught him the abysmal difference between before and after; and he found strength to be sensible, even in the height of his passionate longing for her.

She clasped her arms about his neck. "Oh, my dear love!" she murmured. "I'd do anything for you. I feel that you love me as I love you."

"Yes—yes." And he pressed his lips to hers. An instant and she drew away, shaking and panting. He tried to clasp her again, but she would not have it. "I can't stand it!" he murmured. "I must go with you—I must!"

"No!" she replied. "It wouldn't do unless we were really married." Wistfully, "And we can't be that yet—can we? There isn't any way?"

His passion cooled instantly.

"There isn't any way," he said regretfully. "I'd not dare tell my father."

"Yes, we must wait till you're of age, and have your education, and are free. Then——" She drew a long breath, looked at him with a brave smile. The large moon was shining upon them. "We'll think of that, and not let ourselves be unhappy—won't we?"

"Yes," he said. "But I must go."

"I forgot for the minute. Good-by, dearest." She put up her lips. He kissed her, but without passion now.

"You might go with me as far as the wharf," she suggested.

"No—someone might see—and that would ruin everything. I'd like to—I'd——"

"It wouldn't do," she interrupted. "I wouldn't let you come."

With sudden agitation she kissed him—he felt that her lips were cold. He pressed her hands—they, too, were cold. "Good-by, my darling," he murmured, vaulted lightly over the rail and disappeared in the deep shadows of the shrubbery. When he was clear of the grounds he paused to light a cigarette. His hand was shaking so that the match almost dropped from his fingers. "I've been making a damn fool of myself," he said half aloud. "A double damn fool! I've got to stop that talk about marrying, somehow—or keep away from her. But I can't keep away. I must have her! Why in the devil can't she realize that a man in my position couldn't marry her? If it wasn't for this marrying talk, I'd make her happy. I've simply got to stop this marrying talk. It gets worse and worse."

Her calmness deceived her into thinking herself perfectly sane and sober, perfectly aware of what she was about. She had left her hat and her bundle behind the door. She put on the hat in the darkness of the hall with steady fingers, took up the well-filled shawl strap and went forth, closing the door behind her. In the morning they would find the door unlocked but that would not cause much talk, as Sutherland people were all rather careless about locking up. They would not knock at the door of her room until noon, perhaps. Then they would find on the pincushion the letter she had written to her uncle, saying good-by and explaining that she had decided to remove forever the taint of her mother and herself from their house and their lives—a somewhat theatrical letter, modeled upon Ouida, whom she thought the greatest writer that had ever lived, Victor Hugo and two or three poets perhaps excepted.

Her bundle was not light, but she hardly felt it as she moved swiftly through the deserted, moonlit streets toward the river. The wharf boat for the Cincinnati and Louisville mail steamers was anchored at the foot of Pine Street. On the levee before it were piled the boxes, bags, cases, crates, barrels to be loaded upon the "up boat." She was descending the gentle slope toward this mass of freight when her blood tingled at a deep, hoarse, mournful whistle from far away; she knew it was the up boat, rounding the bend and sighting the town. The sound echoed musically back and forth between the Kentucky and the Indiana bluffs, died lingeringly away. Again the whistle boomed, again the dark forest-clad steeps sent the echoes to and fro across the broad silver river. And now she could see the steamer, at the bend—a dark mass picked out with brilliant dots of light; the big funnels, the two thick pennants of black smoke. And she could hear the faint pleasant stroke of the paddles of the big side wheels upon the water.

At the wharf boat there had not been a sign of life. But with the dying away of the second whistle lights—the lights of lanterns—appeared on the levee close to the water's edge and on the wharf boat itself. And, behind her, the doors of the Sutherland Hotel opened and its office lit up, in preparation for any chance arrivals. She turned abruptly out of the beaten path down the gravel levee, made for the lower and darker end of the wharf boat. There would be Sutherland people going up the river. But they would be more than prompt; everyone came early to boats and trains to begin the sweet draught of the excitement of journeying. So she would wait in the darkness and go aboard when the steamer was about to draw in its planks. At the upper end of the wharf boat there was the broad gangway to the levee for passengers and freight; at the lower and dark and deserted end a narrow beam extended from boat to shore, to hold the boat steady. Susan, balancing herself with her bundle, went up to the beam, sat down upon a low stanchion in the darkness where she could see the river.

Louder and louder grew the regular musical beat of engine and paddle. The searchlight on the forward deck of the General Lytle, after peering uncertainly, suspiciously, at the entire levee, and at the river, and at the Kentucky shore, abruptly focused upon the wharf boat. The General Lytle now seemed a blaze of lights—from lower deck, from saloon deck, from pilot house deck, and forward and astern. A hundred interesting sounds came from her—tinkling of bells, calls from deck to deck, whistling, creaking of pulleys, lowing of cattle, grunting of swine, plaint of agitated sheep, the resigned cluckings of many chickens. Along the rail of the middle or saloon deck were seated a few passengers who had not yet gone to bed. On the lower deck was a swarm of black roustabouts, their sooty animal faces, their uncannily contrasting white teeth and eyeballs, their strange and varied rags lit up by the torches blazing where a gangplank lay ready for running out. And high and clear in the lovely June night sailed the moon, spreading a faint benign light upon hills and shores and glistening river, upon the graceful, stately mail steamer, now advancing majestically upon the wharf boat. Susan watched all, saw all, with quick beating heart and quivering interest. It was the first time that her life had been visited by the fascinating sense of event, real event. The tall, proud, impetuous child-woman, standing in the semi-darkness beside her bundle, was about to cast her stake upon the table in a bold game with Destiny. Her eyes shone with the wonderful expression that is seen only when courage gazes into the bright face of danger.

The steamer touched the edge of the wharf-boat with gentle care; the wharf-boat swayed and groaned. Even as the gangplanks were pushing out, the ragged, fantastic roustabouts, with wild, savage, hilarious cries, ran and jumped and scrambled to the wharf-boat like a band of escaping lunatics and darted down its shore planks to pounce upon the piles of freight. The mate, at the steamer edge to superintend the loading, and the wharf master on the levee beside the freight released each a hoarse torrent of profanity to spur on the yelling, laughing roustabouts, more brute than man. Torches flared; cow and sheep, pig and chicken, uttered each its own cry of dissatisfaction or dismay; the mate and wharf master cursed because it was the custom to curse; the roustabouts rushed ashore empty-handed, came filing back, stooping under their burdens. It was a scene of animation, of excitement, savage, grotesque, fascinating.

Susan, trembling a little, so tense were her nerves, waited until the last struggling roustabouts were staggering on the boat, until the deep whistle sounded, warning of approaching departure. Then she took up her bundle and put herself in the line of roustabouts, between a half-naked negro, black as coal and bearing a small barrel of beer, and a half-naked mulatto bearing a bundle of loud-smelling untanned skins. "Get out of the way, lady!" yelled the mate, eagerly seizing upon a new text for his denunciations. "Get out of the way, you black hellions! Let the lady pass! Look out, lady! You damned sons of hell, what're you about! I'll rip out your bowels——"

Susan fled across the deck and darted up the stairs to the saloon. The steamer was all white without except the black metal work. Within—that is, in the long saloon out of which the cabins opened to right and left and in which the meals were served at extension tables—there was the palatial splendor of white and gilt. At the forward end near the main entrance was the office. Susan, peering in from the darkness of the deck, saw that the way was clear. The Sutherland passengers had been accommodated. She entered, put her bundle down, faced the clerk behind the desk.

"Why, howdy, Miss Lenox," said he genially, beginning to twist his narrow, carefully attended blond mustache. "Any of the folks with you?"

She remembered his face but not his name. She remembered him as one of the "river characters" regarded as outcast by the Christian respectability of Sutherland. But she who could not but be polite to everybody smiled pleasantly, though she did not like his expression as he looked at her. "No, I'm alone," said she.

"Oh—your friends are going to meet you at the wharf in the morning," said he, content with his own explanation. "Just sign here, please." And, as she wrote, he went on: "I've got one room left. Ain't that lucky? It's a nice one, too. You'll be very comfortable. Everybody at home well? I ain't been in Sutherland for nigh ten years. Every week or so I think I will, and then somehow I don't. Here's your key—number 34 right-hand side, well down toward the far end, yonder. Two dollars, please. Thank you—exactly right. Hope you sleep well."

"Thank you," said Susan.

She turned away with the key which was thrust through one end of a stick about a foot long, to make it too bulky for absent-minded passengers to pocket. She took up her bundle, walked down the long saloon with its gilt decorations, its crystal chandeliers, its double array of small doors, each numbered. The clerk looked after her, admiration of the fine curve of her shoulders, back, and hips written plain upon his insignificant features. And it was a free admiration he would not have dared show had she not been a daughter of illegitimacy—a girl whose mother's "looseness" raised pleasing if scandalous suggestions and even possibilities in the mind of every man with a carnal eye. And not unnaturally. To think of her was to think of the circumstances surrounding her coming into the world; and to think of those circumstances was to think of immorality.

Susan, all unconscious of that polluted and impudent gaze, was soon standing before the narrow door numbered 34, as she barely made out, for the lamps in the saloon chandeliers were turned low. She unlocked it, entered the small clean stateroom and deposited her bundle on the floor. With just a glance at her quarters she hurried to the opposite door—the one giving upon the promenade. She opened it, stepped out, crossed the deserted deck and stood at the rail.

The General Lytle was drawing slowly away from the wharf-boat. As that part of the promenade happened to be sheltered from the steamer's lights, she was seeing the panorama of Sutherland—its long stretch of shaded waterfront, its cupolas and steeples, the wide leafy streets leading straight from the river by a gentle slope to the base of the dark towering bluffs behind the town—all sleeping in peace and beauty in the soft light of the moon. That farthest cupola to the left—it was the Number Two engine house, and the third place from it was her uncle's house. Slowly the steamer, now in mid-stream, drew away from the town. One by one the familiar landmarks—the packing house, the soap factory, the Geiss brewery, the tall chimney of the pumping station, the shorn top of Reservoir Hill—slipped ghostlily away to the southwest. The sobs choked up into her throat and the tears rained from her eyes. They all pitied and looked down on her there; still, it had been home the only home she ever had known or ever would know. And until these last few frightful days, how happy she had been there! For the first time she felt desolate, weak, afraid. But not daunted. It is strange to see in strong human character the strength and the weakness, two flat contradictions, existing side by side and making weak what seems so strong and making strong what seems so weak. However, human character is a tangle of inconsistencies, as disorderly and inchoate as the tangible and visible parts of nature. Susan felt weak, but not the kind of weakness that skulks. And there lay the difference, the abysmal difference, between courage and cowardice. Courage has full as much fear as cowardice, often more; but it has a something else that cowardice has not. It trembles and shivers but goes forward.

Wiping her eyes she went back to her own cabin. She had neglected closing its other door, the one from the saloon. The clerk was standing smirking in the doorway.

"You must be going away for quite some time," said he. And he fixed upon her as greedy and impudent eyes as ever looked from a common face. It was his battle glance. Guileful women, bent on trimming him for anything from a piece of plated jewelry to a saucer of ice cream, had led him to believe that before it walls of virtue tottered and fell like Jericho's before the trumpets of Joshua.

"It makes me a little homesick to see the old town disappear," hastily explained Susan, recovering herself. The instant anyone was watching, her emotions always hid.

"Wouldn't you like to sit out on deck a while?" pursued the clerk, bringing up a winning smile to reinforce the fetching stare.

The idea was attractive, for she did not feel like sleep. It would be fine to sit out in the open, watch the moon and the stars, the mysterious banks gliding swiftly by, and new vistas always widening out ahead. But not with this puny, sandy little "river character," not with anybody that night. "No," replied she. "I think I'll go to bed."

She had hesitated—and that was enough to give him encouragement. "Now, do come," he urged. "You don't know how nice it is. And they say I'm mighty good company."

"No, thanks." Susan nodded a pleasant dismissal.

The clerk lingered. "Can't I help you in some way? Wouldn't you like me to get you something?"

"No—nothing."

"Going to visit in Cincinnati? I know the town from A to Izzard. It's a lot of fun over the Rhine. I've had mighty good times there—the kind a pretty, lively girl like you would take to."

"When do we get to Cincinnati?"

"About eight—maybe half-past seven. Depends on the landings we have to make, and the freight."

"Then I'll not have much time for sleep," said Susan. "Good night." And no more realizing the coldness of her manner than the reason for his hanging about, she faced him, hand on the door to close it.

"You ain't a bit friendly," wheedled he.

"I'm sorry you think so. Good night—and thank you." And he could not but withdraw his form from the door. She closed it and forgot him. And she did not dream she had passed through one of those perilous adventures incident to a female traveling alone—adventures that even in the telling frighten ladies whose nervousness for their safety seems to increase in direct proportion to the degree of tranquillity their charms create in the male bosom. She decided it would be unwise regularly to undress; the boat might catch fire or blow up or something. She took off skirt, hat and ties, loosened her waist, and lay upon the lower of the two plain, hard little berths. The throb of the engines, the beat of the huge paddles, made the whole boat tremble and shiver. Faintly up from below came the sound of quarrels over crap-shooting, of banjos and singing—from the roustabouts amusing themselves between landings. She thought she would not be able to sleep in these novel and exciting surroundings. She had hardly composed herself before she lost consciousness, to sleep on and on dreamlessly, without motion.



CHAPTER VII

SHE was awakened by a crash so uproarious that she sat bolt upright before she had her eyes open. Her head struck stunningly against the bottom of the upper berth. This further confused her thoughts. She leaped from the bed, caught up her slippers, reached for her opened-up bundle. The crash was still billowing through the boat; she now recognized it as a great gong sounding for breakfast. She sat down on the bed and rubbed her head and laughed merrily. "I am a greenhorn!" she said. "Another minute and I'd have had the whole boat laughing at me."

She felt rested and hungry—ravenously hungry. She tucked in her blouse, washed as well as she could in the tiny bowl on the little washstand. Then before the cloudy watermarked mirror she arranged her scarcely mussed hair. A charming vision of fresh young loveliness, strong, erect, healthy, bright of eye and of cheek, she made as, after a furtive look up and down the saloon, she stepped from her door a very few minutes after the crash of that gong. With much scuffling and bustling the passengers, most of them country people, were hurrying into places at the tables which now had their extension leaves and were covered with coarse white tablecloths and with dishes of nicked stoneware, white, indeed, but shabbily so. But Susan's young eyes were not critical. To her it all seemed fine, with the rich flavor of adventure. A more experienced traveler might have been filled with gloomy foreboding by the quality of the odor from the cooking. She found it delightful and sympathized with the unrestrained eagerness of the homely country faces about her, with the children beating their spoons on their empty plates. The colored waiters presently began to stream in, each wearing a soiled white jacket, each bearing aloft a huge tray on which were stacked filled dishes and steaming cups.

Colored people have a keen instinct for class. One of the waiters happened to note her, advanced bowing and smiling with that good-humored, unservile courtesy which is the peculiar possession of the Americanized colored race. He flourished her into a chair with a "Good morning, miss. It's going to be a fine day." And as soon as she was seated he began to form round her plate a large inclosing arc of side dishes—fried fish, fried steak, fried egg, fried potatoes, wheat cakes, canned peaches, a cup of coffee. He drew toward her a can of syrup, a pitcher of cream, and a bowl of granulated sugar.

"Anything else?" said he, with a show of teeth white and sound.

"No—nothing. Thank you so much."

Her smile stimulated him to further courtesies. "Some likes the yeggs biled. Shall I change 'em?"

"No. I like them this way." She was so hungry that the idea of taking away a certainty on the chance of getting something out of sight and not yet cooked did not attract her.

"Perhaps—a little better piece of steak?"

"No—this looks fine." Her enthusiasm was not mere politeness.

"I clean forgot your hot biscuits." And away he darted.

When he came back with a heaping plate of hot biscuits, Sally Lunn and cornbread, she was eating as heartily as any of her neighbors. It seemed to her that never had she tasted such grand food as this served in the white and gold saloon with strangeness and interest all about her and the delightful sense of motion—motion into the fascinating golden unknown. The men at the table were eating with their knives; each had one protecting forearm and hand cast round his arc of small dishes as if to ward off probable attempt at seizure. And they swallowed as if the boat were afire. The women ate more daintily, as became members of the finer sex on public exhibition. They were wearing fingerless net gloves, and their little fingers stood straight out in that gesture which every truly elegant woman deems necessary if the food is to be daintily and artistically conveyed to her lips. The children mussed and gormed themselves, their dishes, the tablecloth. Susan loved it all. Her eyes sparkled. She ate everything, and regretted that lack of capacity made it impossible for her to yield to the entreaties of her waiter that she "have a little more."

She rose, went into the nearest passageway between saloon and promenade, stealthily took a ten-cent piece from her pocketbook. She called her waiter and gave it to him. She was blushing deeply, frightened lest this the first tip she had ever given or seen given be misunderstood and refused. "I'm so much obliged," she said. "You were very nice."

The waiter bowed like a prince, always with his simple, friendly smile; the tip disappeared under his apron. "Nobody could help being nice to you, lady."

She thanked him again and went to the promenade. It seemed to her that they had almost arrived. Along shore stretched a continuous line of houses—pretty houses with gardens. There were electric cars. Nearer the river lay several parallel lines of railway track along which train after train was speeding, some of them short trains of ordinary day coaches, others long trains made up in part of coaches grander and more beautiful than any she had ever seen. She knew they must be the parlor and dining and sleeping cars she had read about. And now they were in the midst of a fleet of steamers and barges, and far ahead loomed the first of Cincinnati's big suspension bridges, pictures of which she had many a time gazed at in wonder. There was a mingling of strange loud noises—whistles, engines, on the water, on shore; there was a multitude of what seemed to her feverish activities—she who had not been out of quiet Sutherland since she was a baby too young to note things.

The river, the shores, grew more and more crowded. Susan's eyes darted from one new object to another; and eagerly though she looked she felt she was missing more than she saw.

"Why, Susan Lenox!" exclaimed a voice almost in her ear.

She closed her teeth upon a cry; suddenly she was back from wonderland to herself. She turned to face dumpy, dressy Mrs. Waterbury and her husband with the glossy kinky ringlets and the long wavy mustache. "How do you do?" she stammered.

"We didn't know you were aboard," said Mrs. Waterbury, a silly, duck-legged woman looking proudly uncomfortable in her bead-trimmed black silk.

"Yes—I'm—I'm here," confessed Susan.

"Going to the city to visit?"

"Yes," said Susan. She hesitated, then repeated, "Yes."

"What elegant breakfasts they do serve on these boats! I suppose your friends'll meet you. But Mort and I'll look after you till they come."

"Oh, it isn't necessary," protested Susan. The steamer was passing under the bridge. There were cities on both shores—huge masses of dingy brick, streets filled with motion of every kind—always motion, incessant motion, and change. "We're about there, aren't we?" she asked.

"The wharf's up beyond the second bridge—the Covington Bridge," explained Waterbury with the air of the old experienced globe-trotter. "There's a third one, further up, but you can't see it for the smoke." And he went on and on, volubly airing his intimate knowledge of the great city which he visited once a year for two or three days to buy goods. He ended with a scornful, "My, but Cincinnati's a dirty place!"

Dirty it might be, but Susan loved it, dirt and all. The smoke, the grime somehow seemed part of it, one of its charms, one of the things that made it different from, and superior to, monotonous country and country town. She edged away from the Waterburys, hid in her stateroom watching the panorama through the curtained glass of her promenade deck door. She was completely carried away. The city! So, this was the city! And her dreams of travel, of new sights, new faces, were beginning to come true. She forgot herself, forgot what she had left behind, forgot what she was to face. All her power of thought and feeling was used up in absorbing these unfolding wonders. And when the June sun suddenly pierced the heavy clouds of fog and smoke, she clasped her hands and gasped, "Lovely! Oh, how lovely!"

And now the steamer was at the huge wharf-boat, in shape like the one at Sutherland, but in comparative size like the real Noah's Ark beside a toy ark. And from the whole tremendous scene rose an enormous clamor, the stentorian voice of the city. That voice is discordant and terrifying to many. To Susan, on that day, it was the most splendid burst of music. "Awake—awake!" it cried. "Awake, and live!" She opened her door that she might hear it better—rattle and rumble and roar, shriek of whistle, clang of bell. And the people!—Thousands on thousands hurrying hither and yon, like bees in a hive. "Awake awake, and live!"

The noises from the saloon reminded her that the journey was ended, that she must leave the boat. And she did not know where to go—she and her bundle. She waited until she saw the Waterburys, along with the other passengers, moving up the levee. Then she issued forth—by the promenade deck door so that she would not pass the office. But at the head of the companionway, in the forward part of the deck, there the clerk stood, looking even pettier and more offensive by daylight. She thought to slip by him. But he stopped stroking his mustache and called out to her, "Haven't your friends come?"

She frowned, angry in her nervousness. "I shall get on very well," she said curtly. Then she repented, smiled politely, added, "Thank you."

"I'll put you in a carriage," he offered, hastening down the stairs to join her.

She did not know what to say or do. She walked silently beside him, he carrying her bundle. They crossed the wharf-boat. A line of dilapidated looking carriages was drawn up near the end of the gangplank. The sight of them, the remembrance of what she had heard of the expensiveness of city carriages, nerved her to desperation. "Give me my things, please," she said. "I think I'll walk."

"Where do you want to go?"

The question took her breath away. With a quickness that amazed her, her lips uttered, "The Gibson House."

"Oh! That's a right smart piece. But you can take a car. I'll walk with you to the car. There's a line a couple of squares up that goes almost by the door. You know it isn't far from Fourth Street."

She was now in a flutter of terror. She went stumbling along beside him, not hearing a word of his voluble and flirtatious talk. They were in the midst of the mad rush and confusion. The noises, no longer mingled but individual, smote savagely upon her ears, startling her, making her look dazedly round as if expecting death to swoop upon her. At the corner of Fourth Street the clerk halted. He was clear out of humor with her, so dumb, so unappreciative. "There'll be a car along soon," said he sourly.

"You needn't wait," said she timidly. "Thank you again."

"You can't miss it. Good-by." And he lifted his hat—"tipped" it, rather—for he would not have wasted a full lift upon such a female. She gave a gasp of relief when he departed; then a gasp of terror—for upon the opposite corner stood the Waterburys. The globe-trotter and his wife were so dazed by the city that they did not see her, though in their helpless glancing round they looked straight at her. She hastily ran into a drug store on the corner. A young man in shirt sleeves held up by pink garters, and with oily black hair carefully parted and plastered, put down a pestle and mortar and came forward. He had kind brown eyes, but there was something wrong with the lower part of his face. Susan did not dare look to see what it was, lest he should think her unfeeling. He was behind the counter. Susan saw the soda fountain. As if by inspiration, she said, "Some chocolate soda, please."

"Ice cream?" asked the young man in a peculiar voice, like that of one who has a harelip.

"Please," said Susan. And then she saw the sign, "Ice Cream, ten cents," and wished she hadn't.

The young man mixed the soda, put in a liberal helping of ice cream, set it before her with a spoon in it, rested the knuckles of his brown hairy hands on the counter and said:

"It is hot."

"Yes, indeed," assented Susan. "I wonder where I could leave my bundle for a while. I'm a stranger and I want to look for a boarding house."

"You might leave it here with me," said the young man. "That's about our biggest line of trade—that and postage stamps and telephone—and the directory. "He laughed heartily. Susan did not see why; she did not like the sound, either, for the young man's deformity of lower jaw deformed his laughter as well as his speech. However, she smiled politely and ate and drank her soda slowly.

"I'll be glad to take care of your bundle," the young man said presently. "Ever been here before?"

"No," said Susan. "That is, not since I was about four years old."

"I was four," said the young man, "when a horse stepped on my mouth in the street."

"My, how dreadful!" exclaimed Susan.

"You can see some of the scar yet," the young man assured her, and he pointed to his curiously sunken mouth. "The doctors said it was the most remarkable case of the kind on record," continued he proudly. "That was what led me into the medical line. You don't seem to have your boarding house picked."

"I was going to look in the papers."

"That's dangerous—especially for a young lady. Some of them boarding houses—well, they're no better'n they ought to be."

"I don't suppose you know of any?"

"My aunt keeps one. And she's got a vacancy, it being summer."

"I'm afraid it'd be too expensive for me," said Susan, to feel her way.

The young man was much flattered. But he said, "Oh, it ain't so toppy. I think you could make a deal with her for five per."

Susan looked inquiring.

"Five a week—room and board."

"I might stand that," said Susan reflectively. Then, deciding for complete confidence, "I'm looking for work, too."

"What line?"

"Oh, I never tried anything. I thought maybe dressmaking or millinery."

"Mighty poor season for jobs. The times are bad, anyhow." He was looking at her with kindly curiosity. "If I was you, I'd go back home—and wait."

Susan shrank within herself. "I can't do that," she said.

The young man thought awhile, then said: "If you should go to my aunt's, you can say Mr. Ellison sent you. No, that ain't me. It's the boss. You see, a respectable boarding house asks for references."

Susan colored deeply and her gaze slowly sank. "I didn't know that," she murmured.

"Don't be afraid. Aunt Kate ain't so particular—leastways, not in summer when things is slow. And I know you're quiet."

By the time the soda was finished, the young man—who said his name was Robert Wylie—had written on the back of Ellison's business card in a Spencerian hand: "Mrs. Kate Wylie, 347 West Sixth Street." He explained that Susan was to walk up two squares and take the car going west; the conductor would let her off at the right place. "You'd better leave your things here," said Mr. Wylie, holding up the card so that they could admire his penmanship together. "You may not hit it off with Aunt Kate. Don't think you've got to stay there just because of me."

"I'm sure I'll like it," Susan declared confidently. Her spirits were high; she felt that she was in a strong run of luck.

Wylie lifted her package over the counter and went to the door with her to point out the direction. "This is Fourth. The next up is Fifth. The next wide one is Sixth—and you can read it on the lamp-post, too."

"Isn't that convenient!" exclaimed Susan. "What a lovely city this is!"

"There's worse," said Mr. Wylie, not to seem vain of his native town.

They shook hands most friendly and she set out in the direction he had indicated. She was much upset by the many vehicles and the confusion, but she did her best to seem at ease and at home. She watched a girl walking ahead of her—a shopgirl who seemed well-dressed and stylish, especially about the hat and hair. Susan tried to walk like her. "I suppose I look and act greener than I really am," thought she. "But I'll keep my eyes open and catch on." And in this, as in all her thoughts and actions since leaving, she showed confidence not because she was conceited, but because she had not the remotest notion what she was actually attempting. How many of us get credit for courage as we walk unconcerned through perils, or essay and conquer great obstacles, when in truth we are not courageous but simply unaware! As a rule knowledge is power or, rather, a source of power, but there are times when ignorance is a power and knowledge a weakness. If Susan had known, she might perhaps have stayed at home and submitted and, with crushed spirit, might have sunk under the sense of shame and degradation. But she did not know; so Columbus before his sailors or Caesar at the Rubicon among his soldiers did not seem more tranquil than she really was. Wylie, who suspected in the direction of the truth, wondered at her. "She's game, she is," he muttered again and again that morning. "What a nerve for a kid—and a lady, too!"

She found the right corner and the right car without further adventure; and the conductor assured her that he would set her down before the very door of the address on the card. It was an open car with few passengers. She took the middle of the long seat nearest the rear platform and looked about her like one in a happy dream. On and on and yet on they went. With every square they passed more people, so it seemed to her, than there were in all Sutherland. And what huge stores! And what wonderful displays of things to wear! Where would the people be found to buy such quantities, and where would they get the money to pay? How many restaurants and saloons! Why, everybody must be eating and drinking all the time. And at each corner she looked up and down the cross streets, and there were more and ever more magnificent buildings, throngs upon throngs of people. Was there no end to it? This was Sixth Street, still Sixth Street, as she saw at the corner lamp-posts. Then there must be five more such streets between this and the river; and she could see, up the cross streets, that the city was even vaster in the direction of the hills. And there were all these cross streets! It was stupefying—overwhelming—incredible.

She began to be nervous, they were going so far. She glanced anxiously at the conductor. He was watching her interestedly, understood her glance, answered it with a reassuring nod. He called out:

"I'm looking out for you, miss. I've got you on my mind. Don't you fret."

She gave him a bright smile of relief. They were passing through a double row of what seemed to her stately residences, and there were few people on the sidewalks. The air, too, was clearer, though the walls were grimy and also the grass in the occasional tiny front yards. But the curtains at the windows looked clean and fresh, and so did the better class of people among those on the sidewalk. It delighted her to see so many well-dressed women, wearing their clothes with an air which she told herself she must acquire. She was startled by the conductor's calling out:

"Now, miss!"

She rose as he rang the bell and was ready to get off when the car stopped, for she was eager to cause him as little trouble as possible.