"It is of no use," said Maria Sturtevant. "I can't make up my mind to adopt a baby, that belonged to that kind of people. I simply can not, Edward."

Sturtevant gave up the matter for the time being. The baby remained at Von Rosen's under the care of Mrs. Bestwick, and Jane Riggs, but when it was a month old, the doctor persuaded his wife to go over and see it. Maria Sturtevant gazed at the tiny scrap of humanity curled up in Jane Riggs' darning basket, the old-young face creased as softly as a rosebud, with none of its beauty, but with a compelling charm. She watched the weak motion of the infinitesimal legs and arms beneath the soft smother of wrappings, and her heart pained her with longing, but she remained firm.

"It is no use, Edward," she said, when they had returned to Von Rosen's study. "I can't make up my mind to adopt a baby coming from such queer people." Then she was confronted by a stare of blank astonishment from Von Rosen, and also from Jane Riggs.

Jane Riggs spoke with open hostility. "I don't know that anybody has asked anybody to adopt our baby," said she.

Von Rosen laughed, but he also blushed. He spoke rather stammeringly. "Well, Sturtevant," said he, "the fact is, Jane and I have talked it over, and she thinks she can manage, and he seems a bright little chap, and—I have about made up my mind to keep him myself."

"He is going to be baptised as soon as he is big enough to be taken out of my darning basket," said Jane Riggs with defiance, but Mrs. Sturtevant regarded her with relief.

"I dare say he will be a real comfort to you," she said, "even if he does come from such queer stock." Her husband looked at Von Rosen and whistled under his breath.

"People will talk," he said aside.

"Let them," returned Von Rosen. He was experiencing a strange new joy of possession, which no possibility of ridicule could daunt. However, his joy was of short duration. The baby was a little over three months old, and had been promoted to a crib, and a perambulator, had been the unconscious recipient of many gifts from the women of Von Rosen's parish, and of many calls from admiring little girls. Jane had scented the danger. She came home from marketing one morning, quite pale, and could hardly speak when she entered Von Rosen's study.

"There's an outlandish young man around here," said she, "and you had better keep that baby close."

Von Rosen laughed. "Those people are always about," he said. "You have no reason to be nervous, Jane. There is hardly a chance he has anything to do with the baby, and in any case, he would not be likely to burden himself with the care of it."

"Don't you be too sure," said Jane stoutly, "a baby like that!"

Jane, much against her wishes, was obliged to go out that afternoon, and Von Rosen was left alone with the baby with the exception of a little nurse girl who had taken the place of Mrs. Bestwick. Then it was that the Syrian man, he was no more than a boy, came. Von Rosen did not at first suspect. The Syrian spoke very good English, and he was a Christian. So he told Von Rosen. Then he also told him that the dead girl had been his wife, and produced letters signed with the name which those in her possession had borne. Von Rosen was convinced. There was something about the boy with his haughty, almost sullen, oriental manner which bore the stamp of truth. However, when he demanded only the suit-case which his dead wife had brought when she came to the house, Von Rosen was relieved. He produced it at once, and his wonder and disgust mounted to fever heat, when that Eastern boy proceeded to take out carefully the gauds of feminine handiwork which it contained, and press them upon Von Rosen at exorbitant prices. Von Rosen was more incensed than he often permitted himself to be. He ordered the boy from the house, and he departed with strong oaths, and veiled and intricate threats after the manner of his subtle race, and when Jane Riggs came home, Von Rosen told her.

"I firmly believe the young rascal was that poor girl's husband, and the boy's father," he said.

"Didn't he ask to have the baby?"

"Never mentioned such a thing. All he wanted was the article of value which the poor girl left here."

Jane Riggs also looked relieved. "Outlandish people are queer," she said.

But the next morning she rushed into Von Rosen's room when he had barely finished dressing, sobbing aloud like a child, her face rigidly convulsed with grief, and her hands waving frantically with no effort to conceal it.



Chapter IV

The little Syrian baby had disappeared. Nobody had reckoned with the soft guile of a race as supple and silent as to their real intentions as cats. There was a verandah column wound with a massive wistaria vine near the window of the baby's room. The little nurse girl went home every night, and Jane Riggs was a heavy sleeper. When she had awakened, her first glance had been into the baby's crib. Then she sprang, and searched with hungry hands. The little softly indented nest was not warm, the child had been gone for some hours, probably had been taken during the first and soundest sleep of the household. Jane's purse, and her gold breast pin, had incidentally been taken also. When she gave the alarm to Von Rosen, a sullen, handsome Syrian boy was trudging upon an unfrequented road, which led circuitously to the City, and he carried a suit-case, but it was held apart, by some of the Eastern embroideries used as wedges, before strapping, and from that came the querulous wail of a baby squirming uncomfortably upon drawn work centre pieces, and crepe kimonas. Now and then the boy stopped and spoke to the baby in a lovely gentle voice. He promised it food, and shelter soon in his own soft tongue. He was carrying it to his wife's mother, and sullen as he looked and was, and thief as he was, love for his own swayed him, and made him determined to hold it fast. Von Rosen made all possible inquiries. He employed detectives but he never obtained the least clue to the whereabouts of the little child. He, however, although he grieved absurdly, almost as absurdly as Jane, had a curious sense of joy over the whole. Life in Fairbridge had, before birth and death entered his home, been so monotonous, that he was almost stupefied. Here was a thread of vital gold and flame, although it had brought pain with it. When Doctor Sturtevant condoled with him, he met with an unexpected response. "I feel for you, old man. It was a mighty unfortunate thing that it happened in your house, now that this has come of it," he said.

"I am very glad it happened, whatever came of it," said Von Rosen. "It is something to have had in my life. I wouldn't have missed it."

Fairbridge people, who were on the whole a good-natured set, were very sympathetic, especially the women. Bessy Dicky shed tears when talking to Mrs. Sturtevant about the disappearance of the baby. Mrs. Sturtevant was not very responsive.

"It may be all for the best," she said. "Nobody can tell how that child would have turned out. He might have ended by killing Mr. von Rosen." Then she added with a sigh that she hoped his poor mother had been married.

"Why, of course she was since there was a baby," said Bessy Dicky. Then she rose hastily with a blush because Doctor Sturtevant's motor could be heard, and took her leave.

Doctor Sturtevant had just returned from a call upon Margaret Edes, who had experienced a very severe disappointment, coming as it did after another very successful meeting of the Zenith Club at Daisy Shaw's, who had most unexpectedly provided a second cousin who recited monologues wonderfully. Wilbur had failed in his attempt to secure Lydia Greenway for Margaret's star-feature. The actress had promised, but had been suddenly attacked with a very severe cold which had obliged her to sail for Europe a week earlier than she had planned. Margaret had been quite ill, but Doctor Sturtevant gave her pain pellets with the result that late in the afternoon she sat on her verandah in a fluffy white tea gown, and then it was that little Annie Eustace came across the street, and sat with her. Annie was not little. Although slender, she was, in fact, quite tall and wide shouldered and there was something about her which seemed to justify the use of the diminutive adjective. Possibly it was her face, which was really small and very pretty, with perfect cameo-like features and an odd, deprecating, almost painfully humble expression. It was the face of a creature entirely capable of asking an enemy's pardon for an injury inflicted upon herself. In reality, Annie Eustace had very much that attitude of soul. She always considered the wrong as her natural place, and, in fact, would not have been comfortable elsewhere, although she suffered there. And yet, little Annie Eustace was a gifted creature. There was probably not a person in Fairbridge who had been so well endowed by nature, but her environment and up-bringing had been unfortunate. If Annie's mother had lived, the daughter might have had more spirit, but she had died when Annie was a baby, and the child had been given over to the tyranny of two aunts, and a grandmother. As for her father, he had never married again, but he had never paid much attention to her. He had been a reserved, silent man, himself under the sway of his mother and sisters. Charles Eustace had had an obsession to the effect that the skies of his own individual sphere would fall to his and his child's destruction, if his female relatives deserted him, and that they had threatened to do, upon the slightest sign of revolt. Sometimes Annie's father had regarded her wistfully and wondered within himself if it were quite right for a child to be so entirely governed, but his own spirit of yielding made it impossible for him to realise the situation. Obedience had been little Annie Eustace's first lesson taught by the trio, who to her represented all government, in her individual case.

Annie Eustace obeyed her aunts, and grandmother (her father had been dead for several years), but she loved only three,—two were women, Margaret Edes and Alice Mendon; the other was a man, and the love was not confessed to her own heart.

This afternoon Annie wore an ugly green gown, which was, moreover, badly cut. The sleeves were too long below the elbow, and too short above, and every time she moved an arm they hitched uncomfortably. The neck arrangement was exceedingly unbecoming, and the skirt not well hung. The green was of the particular shade which made her look yellow. As she sat beside Margaret and embroidered assiduously, and very unskilfully, some daisies on a linen centre-piece, the other woman eyed her critically.

"You should not wear that shade of green, if you will excuse my saying so, dear," she remarked presently.

Annie regarded her with a charming, loving smile. She would have excused her idol for saying anything. "I know it is not very becoming," she agreed sweetly.

"Becoming," said Margaret a trifle viciously. She was so out of sorts about her failure to secure Lydia Greenway that she felt a great relief in attacking little Annie Eustace.

"Becoming," said she. "It actually makes you hideous. That shade is impossible for you and why,—I trust you will not be offended, you know it is for your own good, dear,—why do you wear your hair in that fashion?"

"I am afraid it is not very becoming," said Annie with the meekness of those who inherit the earth. She did not state that her aunt Harriet had insisted that she dress her hair in that fashion. Annie was intensely loyal.

"Nobody," said Margaret, "unless she were as beautiful as Helen of Troy, should wear her hair that way, and not look a fright."

Annie Eustace blushed, but it was not a distressed blush. When one has been downtrodden one's whole life, one becomes accustomed to it, and besides she loved the down-treader.

"Yes," said she. "I looked at myself in my glass just before I came and I thought I did not look well."

"Hideous," said Margaret.

Annie smiled agreement and looked pretty, despite the fact that her hair was strained tightly back, showing too much of her intellectual forehead, and the colour of her gown killed all the pink bloom lights in her face. Annie Eustace had a beautiful soul and it showed forth triumphant over all bodily accessories, in her smile.

"You are not doing that embroidery at all well," said Margaret.

Annie laughed. "I know it," she said with a sort of meek amusement. "I don't think I ever can master long and short stitch."

"Why on earth do you attempt it then?"

"Everybody embroiders," replied Annie. She did not state that her grandmother had made taking the embroidery a condition of her call upon her friend.

Margaret continued to regard her. She was finding a species of salve for her own disappointment in this irritant applied to another. "What does make you wear that hair ring?" said she.

"It was a present," replied Annie humbly, but she for the first time looked a little disturbed. That mourning emblem with her father's and mother's, and a departed sister's hair in a neat little twist under a small crystal, grated upon her incessantly. It struck her as a species of ghastly sentiment, which at once distressed, and impelled her to hysterical mirth.

"A present," repeated Margaret. "If anybody gave me such a present as that, I would never wear it. It is simply in shocking bad taste."

"I sometimes fear so," said Annie. She did not state that her Aunt Jane never allowed her to be seen in public without that dismal adornment.

"You are a queer girl," said Margaret, and she summed up all her mood of petty cruelty and vicarious revenge in that one word "queer."

However, little Annie Eustace only smiled as if she had been given a peculiarly acceptable present. She was so used to being underrated, that she had become in a measure immune to criticism, and besides criticism from her adored Mrs. Edes was even a favour. She took another bungling stitch in the petal of a white floss daisy.

Margaret felt suddenly irritated. All this was too much like raining fierce blows upon a down pillow.

"Do, for goodness sake, Annie Eustace, stop doing that awful embroidery if you don't want to drive me crazy," said she.

Then Annie looked at Margaret, and she was obviously distressed and puzzled. Her grandmother had enjoined it upon her to finish just so many of these trying daisies before her return and yet, on the other hand, here was Margaret, her adorable Margaret, forbidding her to work, and, moreover, Margaret in such an irritable mood, with that smooth brow of hers frowning, and that sweet voice, which usually had a lazy trickle like honey, fairly rasping, was as awe-inspiring as her grandmother. Annie Eustace hesitated for a second. Her grandmother had commanded. Margaret Edes had commanded. The strongest impulse of her whole being was obedience, but she loved Margaret, and she did not love her grandmother. She had never confessed such a horror to herself, but one does not love another human being whose main aim toward one is to compress, to stiffen, to make move in a step with itself. Annie folded up the untidy embroidery. As she did so, she dropped her needle and also her thimble. The needle lay glittering beside her chair, the thimble rolled noiselessly over the trailing fold of her muslin gown into the folds of Margaret's white silk. Margaret felt an odd delight in that. Annie was careless, and she was dainty, and she was conscious of a little pleasurable preening of her own soul-plumage.

Margaret said nothing about the thimble and needle. Annie sat regarding her with a sort of expectation, and the somewhat mussy little parcel of linen lay in her lap. Annie folded over it her very slender hands, and the horrible hair ring was in full evidence.

Margaret fixed her eyes upon it. Annie quickly placed the hand which wore it under the other. Then she spoke, since Margaret did not, and she said exactly the wrong thing. The being forced continually into the wrong, often has the effect of making one quite innocently take the first step in that direction even if no force be used.

"I hear that the last meeting of the Zenith Club was unusually interesting," said little Annie Eustace, and she could have said nothing more hapless to Margaret Edes in her present mood. Quite inadvertently, she herself became the irritant party. Margaret actually flushed. "I failed to see anything interesting whatever about it, myself," said she tartly.

Annie offended again. "I heard that Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder's address was really very remarkable," said she.

"It was simply a very stupid effort to be funny," returned Margaret. "Sometimes women will laugh because they are expected to, and they did that afternoon. Everything was simply cut and dried. It always is at Mrs. George B. Slade's. I never knew a woman so absolutely destitute of originality."

Annie looked helplessly at Margaret. She could say no more unless she contradicted. Margaret continued. She felt that she could no longer conceal her own annoyance, and she was glad of this adoring audience of one.

"I had planned something myself for the next meeting, something which has never been done," said she, "something new, and stimulating."

"Oh, how lovely!" cried Annie.

"But of course, like all really clever plans for the real good and progress of a club like ours, something has to come up to prevent," said Margaret.

"Oh, what?"

"Well, I had planned to have Lydia Greenway, you know she is really a great artist, come to the next meeting and give dramatic recitations."

"Oh, would she?" gasped Annie Eustace.

"Of course, it would have meant a large pecuniary outlay," said Margaret, "but I was prepared, quite prepared, to make some sacrifices for the good of the club, but, why, you must have read it in the papers, Annie."

Annie looked guiltily ignorant.

"I really do not see how you contrive to exist without keeping more in touch with the current events," said Margaret.

Annie looked meekly culpable, although she was not. Her aunts did not approve of newspapers, as containing so much information, so much cheap information concerning the evil in the world, especially for a young person like Annie, and she was not allowed to read them, although she sometimes did so surreptitiously.

"It was in all the papers," continued Margaret, with her censorious air. "Lydia Greenway was obliged to leave unexpectedly and go to the Riveria. They fear tuberculosis. She sailed last Saturday."

"I am so sorry," said Annie. Then she proceeded to elaborate her statement in exactly the wrong way. She said how very dreadful it would be if such a talented young actress should fall a victim of such a terrible disease, and what a loss she would be to the public, whereas all that Margaret Edes thought should be at all considered by any true friend of her own was her own particular loss.

"For once the Zenith Club would have had a meeting calculated to take Fairbridge women out of their rut in which people like Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Sturtevant seem determined to keep them," returned Margaret testily. Annie stared at her. Margaret often said that it was the first rule of her life never to speak ill of any one, and she kept the letter of it as a rule.

"I am so sorry," said Annie. Then she added with more tact. "It would have been such a wonderful thing for us all to have had Lydia Greenway give dramatic recitals to us. Oh, Margaret, I can understand how much it would have meant."

"It would have meant progress," said Margaret. She looked imperiously lovely, as she sat there all frilled about with white lace and silk with the leaf-shadows playing over the slender whiteness. She lifted one little hand tragically. "Progress," she repeated. "Progress beyond Mrs. George B. Slade's and Mrs. Sturtevant's and Miss Bessy Dicky's, and that is precisely what we need."

Annie Eustace gazed wistfully upon her friend. "Yes," she agreed, "you are quite right, Margaret. Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Sturtevant and poor Bessy Dicky and all the other members are very good, and we think highly of them, but I too feel that we all travel in a rut sometimes. Perhaps we all walk too much the same way." Then suddenly Annie burst into a peal of laughter. She had a sense of humour which was startling. It was the one thing which environment had not been able to subdue, or even produce the effect of submission. Annie Eustace was easily amused. She had a scent for the humorous like a hound's for game, and her laugh was irrepressible.

"What on earth are you laughing at now?" inquired Margaret Edes irritably.

"I was thinking," Annie replied chokingly, "of some queer long-legged birds I saw once in a cage in a park. I really don't know whether they were ibises or cranes, or survivals of species, but anyway, the little long-legged ones all walked just the same way in a file behind a tall long-legged one, who walked precisely in the same way, and all of a sudden, I seemed to see us all like that. Only you are not in the least like that tall, long-legged bird, Margaret, and you are the president of the Zenith Club."

Margaret surveyed Annie with cool displeasure. "I," said she, "see nothing whatever to laugh at in the Zenith Club, if you do."

"Oh, Margaret, I don't!" cried Annie.

"To my mind, the Zenith Club is the one institution in this little place which tends to advancement and mental improvement."

"Oh, Margaret, I think so too, you know I do," said Annie in a shocked voice. "And my heart was almost broken because I had to miss that last meeting on account of grandmother's having such a severe cold."

"The last meeting was not very much to miss," said Margaret, for Annie had again said the wrong thing.

Annie, however, went on eagerly and unconsciously. She was only aware that she was being accused of disloyalty, or worse, of actually poking fun, when something toward which she felt the utmost respect and love and admiration was concerned.

"Margaret, you know," she cried, "you know how I feel toward the Zenith Club. You must know what it means to me. It really does take me out of my little narrow place in life as nothing else does. I cannot tell you what an inspiration it really is to me. Oh, Margaret, you know!"

Margaret nodded in stiff assent. As a matter of fact, she did know. The Zenith Club of Fairbridge did mean very much, very much indeed, to little Annie Eustace. Nowhere else did she meet en masse others of her kind. She did not even go to church for the reason that her grandmother did not believe in church going at all and wished her to remain with her. One aunt was Dutch Reformed and the other Baptist; and neither ever missed a service. Annie remained at home Sundays, and read aloud to her grandmother, and when both aunts were in the midst of their respective services, and the cook, who was intensely religious, engaged in preparing dinner, she and her old grandmother played pinocle. However, although Annie played cards very well, it was only with her relatives. She had never been allowed to join the Fairbridge Card Club. She never attended a play in the city, because Aunt Jane considered plays wicked. It was in reality doubtful if she would have been permitted to listen to Lydia Greenway, had that person been available. Annie's sole large recreation was the Zenith Club, and it meant, as she had said, much to her. It was to the stifled young heart as a great wind of stimulus which was for the strengthening of her soul. Whatever the Zenith Club of Fairbridge was to others, it was very much worth while for little Annie Eustace. She wrote papers for it, which were astonishing, although her hearers dimly appreciated the fact, not because of dulness, but because little Annie had written them, and it seemed incredible to Fairbridge women that little Annie Eustace whom they had always known, and whose grandmother and aunts they knew, could possibly write anything remarkable. It was only Alice Mendon who listened with a frown of wonder, and intent eyes upon the reader. When she came home upon one occasion, she remarked to her aunt, Eliza Mendon, and her cousin, Lucy Mendon, that she had been impressed by Annie Eustace's paper, but both women only stared and murmured assent. The cousin was very much older than Alice, and both she and her mother were of a placid, reflective type. They got on very well with Alice, but sometimes she had a queer weariness from always seeing herself and her own ideas in them instead of their own. And she was not in the least dictatorial. She would have preferred open, antagonistic originality, but she got a surfeit of clear, mirror-like peace.

She was quite sure that they would quote her opinion of Annie Eustace's paper, but that did not please her. Later on she spoke to Annie herself about it. "Haven't you something else written that you can show me?" She had even suggested the possibility, the desirability, of Annie's taking up a literary career, but she had found the girl very evasive, even secretive, and had never broached the subject again.

As for Margaret Edes, she had never fairly listened to anything which anybody except herself had written, unless it had afforded matter for discussion, and the display of her own brilliancy. Annie's productions were so modestly conclusive as to apparently afford no standing ground for argument. In her heart, Margaret regarded them as she regarded Annie's personality, with a contempt so indifferent that it was hardly contempt.

She proceeded exactly as if Annie had not made such a fervent disclaimer. "The Zenith Club is the one and only thing which lifts Fairbridge, and the women of Fairbridge, above the common herd," said she majestically.

"Don't I know it? Oh, Margaret, don't I know it," cried the other with such feverish energy that Margaret regarded her wonderingly. For all her exploiting of the Zenith Club of Fairbridge, she herself, unless she were the main figure at the helm, could realise nothing in it so exceedingly inspiring, but it was otherwise with Annie. It was quite conceivable that had it not been for the Zenith Club, she never would have grown to her full mental height. Annie Eustace had a mind of the sequential order. By subtle processes, unanalysable even by herself, even the record of Miss Bessy Dicky started this mind upon momentous trains of thought. Unquestionably the Zenith Club acted as a fulminate for little Annie Eustace. To others it might seem, during some of the sessions, as a pathetic attempt of village women to raise themselves upon tiptoes enough to peer over their centuries of weedy feminine growth; an attempt which was as futile, and even ridiculous, as an attempt of a cow to fly. But the Zenith Club justified its existence nobly in the result of little Annie Eustace, if in no other, and it, no doubt, justified itself in others. Who can say what that weekly gathering meant to women who otherwise would not move outside their little treadmill of household labour, what uplifting, if seemingly futile grasps at the great outside of life? Let no one underrate the Women's Club until the years have proven its uselessness.

"I am so sorry about Lydia Greenway," said Annie, and this time she did not irritate Margaret.

"It does seem as if one were simply doomed to failure every time one really made an effort to raise standards," said Margaret.

Then it was that Annie all unconsciously sowed a seed which led to strange, and rather terrifying results. "It would be nice," said little Annie, "if we could get Miss Martha Wallingford to read a selection from Hearts Astray at a meeting of the club. I read a few nights ago, in a paper I happened to pick up at Alice's, that she was staying in New York at the Hollingsgate. Her publishers were to give her a dinner last night, I believe."

Margaret Edes started. "I had not seen that," she said. Then she added in a queer brooding fashion, "That book of hers had an enormous sale. I suppose her publishers feel that they owe it to her to give her a good time in New York. Then, too, it will advertise Hearts Astray."

"Did you like the book?" asked Annie rather irrelevantly. Margaret did not reply. She was thinking intently. "It would be a great feature for the club if we could induce her to give a reading," she said at length.

"I don't suppose it would be possible," replied Annie. "You know they say she never does such things, and is very retiring. I read in the papers that she was, and that she refused even to speak a few words at the dinner given in her honour."

"We might ask her," said Margaret.

"I am sure that she would not come. The paper stated that she had had many invitations to Women's Clubs and had refused. I don't think she ought because she might be such a help to other women."

Margaret said nothing. She leaned back, and, for once, her face was actually contracted with thought to the possible detriment of its smooth beauty.

A clock in the house struck, and at the same time Maida and Adelaide raced up the steps, followed by gleeful calls from two little boys on the sidewalk.

"Where have you been?" asked Margaret. Then she said without waiting for a reply, "If Martha Wallingford would come, I should prefer that to Lydia Greenway."

Maida and Adelaide, flushed and panting, and both with mouths full of candy, glanced at their mother, then Maida chased Adelaide into the house, their blue skirts flitting out of sight like blue butterfly wings.

Annie Eustace rose. She had noticed that neither Maida nor Adelaide had greeted her, and thought them rude. She herself had been most carefully trained concerning manners of incoming and outgoing. She, however, did not care. She had no especial love for children unless they were small and appealing because of helplessness.

"I must go," she said. "It is six o'clock, supper will be ready." She glanced rather apprehensively as she spoke at the large white house, not two minutes' walk distant across the street.

"How very delightful it is to be as punctual as your people are," said Margaret. "Good-bye, Annie." She spoke abstractedly, and Annie felt a little hurt. She loved Margaret, and she missed her full attention when she left her. She passed down the walk between Margaret's beautifully kept Japanese trees, and gained the sidewalk. Then a sudden recollection filled her with dismay. She had promised her grandmother to go to the post-office before returning. An important business letter was expected. Annie swept the soft tail of her muslin into a little crushed ball, and ran, her slender legs showing like those of a young bird beneath its fluff of plumage. She realized the necessity of speed, of great speed, for the post-office was a quarter of a mile away, and the Eustace family supped at five minutes past six, with terrible and relentless regularity. Why it should have been five minutes past instead of upon the stroke of the hour, Annie had never known, but so it was. It was as great an offence to be a minute too early as a minute too late at the Eustace house, and many a maid had been discharged for that offence, her plea that the omelet was cooked and would fall if the meal be delayed, being disregarded. Poor Annie felt that she must hasten. She could not be dismissed like the maid, but something equally to be dreaded would happen, were she to present herself half a minute behind time in the dining-room. There they would be seated, her grandmother, her Aunt Harriet, and her Aunt Jane. Aunt Harriet behind the silver tea service; Aunt Jane behind the cut glass bowl of preserves; her grandmother behind the silver butter dish, and on the table would be the hot biscuits cooling, the omelet falling, the tea drawing too long and all because of her. There was tremendous etiquette in the Eustace family. Not a cup of tea would Aunt Harriet pour, not a spoon would Aunt Jane dip into the preserves, not a butter ball would her grandmother impale upon the little silver fork. And poor Hannah, the maid, white aproned and capped, would stand behind Aunt Harriet like a miserable conscious graven image. Therefore Annie ran, and ran, and it happened that she ran rather heedlessly and blindly and dropped her mussy little package of fancy work, and Karl von Rosen, coming out of the parsonage, saw it fall and picked it up rather gingerly, and called as loudly as was decorous after the flying figure, but Annie did not hear and Von Rosen did not want to shout, neither did he want, or rather think it advisable, to run, therefore he followed holding the linen package well away from him, as if it were a disagreeable insect. He had never seen much of Annie Eustace. Now and then he called upon one of her aunts, who avowed her preference for his religious denomination, but if he saw Annie at all, she was seated engaged upon some such doubtfully ornamental or useful task, as the specimen which he now carried. Truth to say, he had scarcely noticed Annie Eustace at all. She had produced the effect of shrinking from observation under some subtle shadow of self-effacement. She was in reality a very rose of a girl, loving and sweet, and withal wonderfully endowed; but this human rose, dwelt always for Karl von Rosen, in the densest of bowers through which her beauty and fragrance of character could not penetrate his senses. Undoubtedly also, although his masculine intelligence would have scouted the possibility of such a thing, Annie's dull, ill-made garb served to isolate her. She also never came to church. That perfect little face with its expression of strange insight, must have aroused his attention among his audience. But there was only the Aunt Harriet Eustace, an exceedingly thin lady, present and always attired in rich blacks. Karl von Rosen to-day walking as rapidly as became his dignity, in pursuit of the young woman, was aware that he hardly felt at liberty to accost her with anything more than the greeting of the day. He eyed disapprovingly the parcel which he carried. It was a very dingy white, and greyish threads dangled from it. Von Rosen thought it a most unpleasant thing, and reflected with mild scorn and bewilderment concerning the manner of mind which could find amusement over such employment, for he divined that it was a specimen of feminine skill, called fancy work.

Annie Eustace ran so swiftly with those long agile legs of hers that he soon perceived that interception upon her return, and not overtaking, must ensue. He did not gain upon her at all, and he began to understand that he was making himself ridiculous to possible observers in windows. He therefore slackened his pace, and met Annie upon her return. She had a letter in her hand and was advancing with a headlong rush, and suddenly she attracted him. He surrendered the parcel. "Thank you very much," said Annie, "but I almost wish you had not found it."



Von Rosen stared at her. Was she rude after all, this very pretty girl, who was capable of laughter. "You would not blame me if you had to embroider daisies on that dreadful piece of linen," said Annie with a rueful glance at the dingy package.

Von Rosen smiled kindly at her. "I don't blame you at all," he replied. "I can understand it must be a dismal task to embroider daisies."

"It is, Mr. von Rosen—" Annie hesitated.

"Yes," said Von Rosen encouragingly.

"You know I never go to church."

"Yes," said Von Rosen mendaciously. He really did not know. In future he, however, would.

"Well, I don't go because—" again Annie hesitated, while the young man waited interrogatively.

Then Annie spoke with force. "I would really like to go occasionally," she said, "I doubt if I would always care to."

"No, I don't think you would," assented Von Rosen with a queer delight.

"But I never can because—Grandmother is old and she has not much left in life, you know."

"Of course."

"It is all very well for people to talk about firesides, and knitting work, and peaceful eyes of age fixed upon Heavenly homes," said Annie, "but all old people are not like that. Grandma hates to knit although she does think I should embroider daisies, and she does like to have me play pinocle with her Sunday mornings, when Aunt Harriet and Aunt Jane are out of the way. It is the only chance she has during the whole week you know because neither Aunt Harriet nor Aunt Jane approves of cards, and poor Grandma is so fond of them, it seems cruel not to play with her the one chance she has."

"I think you are entirely right," said Von Rosen with grave conviction and he was charmed that the girl regarded him as if he had said nothing whatever unusual.

"I have always been sure that it was right," said Annie Eustace, "but I would like sometimes to go to church."

"I really wish you could," said Von Rosen, "and I would make an especial effort to write a good sermon."

"Oh," said Annie, "Aunt Harriet often hears you preach one which she thinks very good."

Von Rosen bowed. Suddenly Annie's shyness, reserve, whatever it was, seemed to overcloud her. The lovely red faded from her cheeks, the light from her eyes. She lost her beauty in a great measure. She bowed stiffly, saying: "I thank you very much, good evening," and passed on, leaving the young man rather dazed, pleased and yet distinctly annoyed, and annoyed in some inscrutable fashion at himself.

Then he heard shouts of childish laughter, and a scamper of childish feet, and Maida and Adelaide Edes rushed past, almost jostling him from the sidewalk. Maida carried a letter, which her mother had written, and dispatched to the last mail. And that letter was destined to be of more importance to Von Rosen than he knew.

As for Annie Eustace, whose meeting with Von Rosen had, after her first lapse into the unconsciousness of mirth, disturbed her, as the meeting of the hero of a dream always disturbs a true maiden who has not lost through many such meetings the thrill of them, she hurried home trembling, and found everything just exactly as she knew it would be.

There sat Aunt Harriet perfectly motionless behind the silver tea service, and although the cosy was drawn over the teapot, the tea seemed to be reproachfully drawing to that extent that Annie could hear it. There sat Aunt Jane behind the cut glass bowl of preserved fruit, with the untouched silver spoon at hand. There sat her grandmother behind the butter plate. There stood Hannah, white capped and white aproned, holding the silver serving tray like a petrified statue of severity, and not one of them spoke, but their silence, their dignified, reproachful silence was infinitely worse than a torrent of invective. How Annie wished they would speak. How she wished that she could speak herself, but she knew better than to even offer an excuse for her tardiness. Well she knew that the stony silence which would meet that would be worse, much worse than this. So she slid into her place opposite her Aunt Jane, and began her own task of dividing into sections the omelet which was quite flat because she was late, and seemed to reproach her in a miserable, low-down sort of fashion.

However, there was in the girl's heart a little glint of youthful joy, which was unusual. She had met Mr. Von Rosen and had forgotten herself, that is at first, and he had looked kindly at her. There was no foolish hope in little Annie Eustace's heart; there would be no spire of aspiration added to her dreams because of the meeting, but she tasted the sweet of approbation, and it was a tonic which she sorely needed, and which inspired her to self-assertion in a childishly naughty and mischievous way. It was after supper that evening, that Annie strolled a little way down the street, taking advantage of Miss Bessy Dicky's dropping in for a call, to slink unobserved out of her shadowy corner, for the Eustaces were fond of sitting in the twilight. The wind had come up, the violent strong wind which comes out of the south, and Annie walked very near the barberry hedge which surrounded Doctor Sturtevant's grounds, and the green muslin lashed against it to its undoing. When Annie returned, the skirt was devastated and Aunt Harriet decreed that it could not be mended and must be given to the poor Joy children. There were many of those children of a degenerate race, living on the outskirts of Fairbridge, and Annie had come to regard them as living effigies of herself, since everything which she had outgrown or injured past repair, fell to them. "There will be enough to make two nice dresses for Charlotte and Minnie Joy," said Aunt Harriet, "and it will not be wasted, even if you have been so careless, Annie."

Annie could see a vision of those two little Joy girls getting about in the remnants of her ghastly muslin, and she shuddered, although with relief.

"You had better wear your cross barred white muslin afternoons now," said Aunt Harriet, and Annie smiled for that was a pretty dress. She smiled still more when Aunt Jane said that now as the cross-barred white was to be worn every day, another dress must be bought, and she mentioned China silk—something which Annie had always longed to own—and blue, dull blue,—a colour which she loved.

Just before she went to bed, Annie stood in the front doorway looking out at the lovely moonlight and the wonderful shadows which transformed the village street, like the wings of angels, and she heard voices and laughter from the Edes' house opposite. Then Margaret began singing in her shrill piercing voice from which she had hoped much, but which had failed to please, even at the Zenith Club.

Annie adored Margaret, but she shrank before her singing voice. If she had only known what was passing through the mind of the singer after she went to bed that night, she would have shuddered more, for Margaret Edes was planning a possible coup before which Annie, in spite of a little latent daring of her own, would have been aghast.



Chapter V

The next morning Margaret announced herself as feeling so much better that she thought she would go to New York. She had several errands, she said, and the day was beautiful and the little change would do her good. She would take the train with her husband, but a different ferry, as she wished to go up town. Wilbur acquiesced readily. "It is a mighty fine morning, and you need to get out," he said. Poor Wilbur at this time felt guiltily culpable that he did not own a motor car in which his Margaret might take the air. He had tried to see his way clear toward buying one, but in spite of a certain improvidence, the whole nature of the man was intrinsically honest. He always ended his conference with himself concerning the motor by saying that he could not possibly keep it running, even if he were to manage the first cost, and pay regularly his other bills. He, however, felt it to be a shame to himself that it was so, and experienced a thrill of positive pain of covetousness, not for himself, but for his Margaret, when one of the luxurious things whirled past him in Fairbridge. He, it was true, kept a very smart little carriage and horse, but that was not as much as Margaret should have. Every time Margaret seemed a little dull, or complained of headache, as she had done lately, he thought miserably of that motor car, which was her right. Therefore when she planned any little trip like that of to-day, he was immeasurably pleased. At the same time he regarded her with a slightly bewildered expression, for in some subtle fashion, her face as she propounded the trifling plan, looked odd to him, and her voice also did not sound quite natural. However, he dismissed the idea at once as mere fancy, and watched proudly the admiring glances bestowed upon her in the Fairbridge station, while they were waiting for the train. Margaret had a peculiar knack in designing costumes which were at once plain and striking. This morning she wore a black China silk, through the thin bodice of which was visible an under silk strewn with gold disks. Her girdle was clasped with a gold buckle, and when she moved there were slight glimpses of a yellow silk petticoat. Her hat was black, but under the brim was tucked a yellow rose against her yellow hair. Then to finish all, Margaret wore in the lace at her throat, a great brooch of turquoise matrix, which matched her eyes. Her husband realised her as perfectly attired, although he did not in the least understand why. He knew that his Margaret looked a woman of another race from the others in the station, in their tailored skirts, and shirtwaists, with their coats over arm, and their shopping bags firmly clutched. It was a warm morning, and feminine Fairbridge's idea of a suitable costume for a New York shopping trip was a tailored suit, and a shirtwaist, and as a rule, the shirtwaist did not fit. Margaret never wore shirtwaists,—she understood that she was too short unless she combined a white skirt with a waist. Margaret would have broken a commandment with less hesitation than she would have broken the line of her graceful little figure with two violently contrasting colours. Mrs. Sturtevant in a grey skirt and an elaborate white waist, which emphasised her large bust, looked ridiculous beside this fair, elegant little Margaret, although her clothes had in reality cost more. Wilbur watched his wife as she talked sweetly with the other woman, and his heart swelled with the pride of possession. When they were on the train and he sat by himself in the smoker, having left Margaret with Mrs. Sturtevant, his heart continued to feel warm with elation. He waited to assist his wife off the train at Jersey City and realised it a trial that he could not cross the river on the same ferry. Margaret despised the tube and he wished for the short breath of sea air which he would get on the Courtland ferry. He glanced after her retreating black skirts with the glimpses of yellow, regretfully, before he turned his back and turned toward his own slip. And he glanced the more regretfully because this morning, with all his admiration of his wife, he had a dim sense of something puzzling which arose like a cloud of mystery between them.

Wilbur Edes sailing across the river had, however, no conception of the change which had begun in his little world. It was only a shake of the kaleidoscope of an unimportant life, resulting in a different combination of atoms, but to each individual it would be a tremendous event partaking of the nature of a cataclysm. That morning he had seen upon Margaret's charming face an expression which made it seem as the face of a stranger. He tried to dismiss the matter from his mind. He told himself that it must have been the effect of the light or that she had pinned on her hat at a different angle. Women are so perplexing, and their attire alters them so strangely. But Wilbur Edes had reason to be puzzled. Margaret had looked and really was different. In a little while she had become practically a different woman. Of course, she had only developed possibilities which had always been dormant within her, but they had been so dormant, that they had not been to any mortal perception endowed with life. Hitherto Margaret had walked along the straight and narrow way, sometimes, it is true, jostling circumstances and sometimes being jostled by them, yet keeping to the path. Now she had turned her feet into that broad way wherein there is room for the utmost self which is in us all. Henceforth husband and wife would walk apart in a spiritual sense, unless there should come a revolution in the character of the wife, who was the stepper aside.

Margaret seated comfortably on the ferry boat, her little feet crossed so discreetly that only a glimpse of the yellow fluff beneath was visible, was conscious of a not unpleasurable exhilaration. She might and she might not be about to do something which would place her distinctly outside the pale which had henceforth enclosed her little pleasance of life. Were she to cross that pale, she felt that it might be distinctly amusing. Margaret was not a wicked woman, but virtue, not virtue in the ordinary sense of the word, but straight walking ahead according to the ideas of Fairbridge, had come to drive her at times to the verge of madness. Then, too, there was always that secret terrible self-love and ambition of hers, never satisfied, always defeated by petty weapons. Margaret, sitting as gracefully as a beautiful cat, on the ferry boat that morning realised the vindictive working of her claws, and her impulse to strike at her odds of life, and she derived therefrom an unholy exhilaration.

She got her taxicab on the other side and leaned back, catching frequent glances of admiration, and rode pleasurably to the regal up-town hotel which was the home of Miss Martha Wallingford, while in the city. She, upon her arrival, entered the hotel with an air which caused a stir among bell boys. Then she entered a reception room and sat down, disposing herself with slow grace. Margaret gazed about her and waited. There were only three people in the room, one man and two ladies, one quite young—a mere girl—the other from the resemblance and superior age, evidently her mother. The man was young and almost vulgarly well-groomed. He had given a glance at Margaret as she entered, a glance of admiration tempered with the consideration that in spite of her grace and beauty, she was probably older than himself. Then he continued to gaze furtively at the young girl who sat demurely, with eyes downcast beneath a soft, wild tangle of dark hair, against which some pink roses and a blue feather on her hat showed fetchingly. She was very well dressed, evidently a well-guarded young thing from one of the summer colonies. The mother, high corseted, and elegant in dark blue lines, which made only a graceful concession to age, without fairly admitting it, never allowed one glance of the young man's to escape her. She also saw her slender young daughter with every sense in her body and mind.

Margaret looked away from them. The elder woman had given her costume an appreciative, and herself a supercilious glance, which had been met with one which did not seem to recognise her visibility. Margaret was not easily put down by another woman. She stared absently at the ornate and weary decorations of the room. It was handsome, but tiresome, as everybody who entered realised, and as, no doubt, the decorator had found out. It was a ready-made species of room, with no heart in it, in spite of the harmonious colour scheme and really artistic detail.

Presently the boy with the silver tray entered and approached Margaret. The young man stared openly at her. He began to wonder if she were not younger than he had thought. The girl never raised her downcast eyes; the older woman cast one swift sharp glance at her. The boy murmured so inaudibly that Margaret barely heard, and she rose and followed him as he led the way to the elevator. Miss Wallingford, who was a young Western woman and a rising, if not already arisen literary star, had signified her willingness to receive Mrs. Wilbur Edes in her own private sitting-room. Margaret was successful so far. She had pencilled on her card, "Can you see me on a matter of importance? I am not connected with the Press," and the young woman who esteemed nearly everything of importance, and was afraid of the Press, had agreed at once to see her. Miss Martha Wallingford was staying in the hotel with an elderly aunt, against whose rule she rebelled in spite of her youth and shyness, which apparently made it impossible for her to rebel against anybody, and the aunt had retired stiffly to her bedroom when her niece said positively that she would see her caller.

"You don't know who she is and I promised your Pa when we started that I wouldn't let you get acquainted with folks unless I knew all about them," the aunt had said and the niece, the risen star, had set her mouth hard. "We haven't seen a soul except those newspaper men, and I know everyone of them is married, and those two newspaper women who told about my sleeves being out of date," said Martha Wallingford, "and this Mrs. Edes may be real nice. I'm going to see her anyhow. We came so late in the season that I believe everybody in New York worth seeing has gone away and this lady has come in from the country and it may lead to my having a good time after all. I haven't had much of a time so far, and you know it, Aunt Susan."

"How you talk, Martha Wallingford! Haven't you been to the theatre every night and Coney Island, and the Metropolitan and—everything there is to see?"

"There isn't much to see in New York anyway except the people," returned the niece. "People are all I care for anyway, and I don't call the people I have seen worth counting. They only came to make a little money out of me and my sleeves. I am glad I got this dress at McCreery's. These sleeves are all right. If this Mrs. Edes should be a newspaper woman, she can't make fun of these sleeves anyway."

"You paid an awful price for that dress," said her aunt.

"I don't care. I got such a lot for my book that I might as well have a little out of it, and you know as well as I do, Aunt Susan, that South Mordan, Illinois, may be a very nice place, but it does not keep up with New York fashions. I really did not have a decent thing to wear when I started. Miss Slocumb did as well as she knew how, but her ideas are about three years behind New York. I didn't know myself, how should I? And you didn't, and as for Pa, he would think everything I had on was stylish if it dated back to the ark. You ought to have bought that mauve silk for yourself. You have money enough; you know you have, Aunt Susan."

"I have money enough, thanks to my dear husband's saving all his life, but it is not going to be squandered on dress by me, now he is dead and gone."

"I would have bought the dress for you myself, then," said the niece.

"No, thank you," returned the aunt with asperity. "I have never been in the habit of being beholden to you for my clothes and I am not going to begin now. I didn't want that dress anyway. I always hated purple."

"It wasn't purple, it was mauve."

"I call purple, purple, I don't call it anything else!" Then the aunt retreated precipitately before the sound of the opening door and entrenched herself in her bedroom, where she stood listening.

Margaret Edes treated the young author with the respect which she really deserved, for talent she possessed in such a marked degree as to make her phenomenal, and the phenomenal is always entitled to consideration of some sort.

"Miss Wallingford?" murmured Margaret, and she gave an impression of obeisance; this charming elegantly attired lady before the Western girl. Martha Wallingford coloured high with delight and admiration.

"Yes, I am Miss Wallingford," she replied and asked her caller to be seated. Margaret sat down facing her. The young author shuffled in her chair like a school girl. She was an odd combination of enormous egotism and the most painful shyness. She realised at a glance that she herself was provincial and pitifully at a disadvantage personally before this elegant vision, and her personality was in reality more precious to her than her talent.

"I can not tell you what a great pleasure and privilege this is for me," said Margaret, and her blue eyes had an expression of admiring rapture. The girl upon whom the eyes were fixed, blushed and giggled and tossed her head with a sudden show of pride. She quite agreed that it was a pleasure and privilege for Margaret to see her, the author of Hearts Astray, even if Margaret was herself so charming and so provokingly well dressed. Miss Martha Wallingford did not hide her light of talent under a bushel with all her shyness, which was not really shyness at all but a species of rather sullen pride and resentment because she was so well aware that she could not do well the things which were asked of her and had not mastered the art of dress and self poise.

Therefore, Martha, with the delight of her own achievements full upon her face, which was pretty, although untutored, regarded her visitor with an expression which almost made Margaret falter. It was probably the absurd dressing of the girl's hair which restored Margaret's confidence in her scheme. Martha Wallingford actually wore a frizzled bang, very finely frizzled too, and her hair was strained from the nape of her neck, and it seemed impossible that a young woman who knew no better than to arrange her hair in such fashion, should not be amenable to Margaret's plan. The plan, moreover, sounded very simple, except for the little complications which might easily arise. Margaret smiled into the pretty face under the fuzz of short hair.

"My dear Miss Wallingford," said she, "I have come this morning to beg a favour. I hope you will not refuse me, although I am such an entire stranger. If, unfortunately, my intimate friend, Mrs. Fay-Wyman, of whom I assume that you of course know, even if you have not met her, as you may easily have done, or her daughter, Miss Edith Fay-Wyman, had not left town last week for their country house, Rose-In-Flower, at Hyphen-by-the-Sea, a most delightful spot. Mr. Edes and I have spent several week ends there. I am prevented from spending longer than week ends because I am kept at home by my two darling twin daughters. Mrs. Fay-Wyman is a sweet woman and I do so wish I could have brought her here to-day. I am sure you would at once fall madly in love with her and also with her daughter, Miss Edith Fay-Wyman, such a sweet girl, and—" But here Margaret was unexpectedly, even rudely interrupted by Miss Wallingford, who looked at her indignantly.

"I never fall in love with women," stated that newly risen literary star abruptly, "why should I? What does it amount to?"

"Oh, my dear," cried Margaret, "when you are a little older you will find that it amounts to very much. There is a soul sympathy, and—"

"I don't think that I care much about soul sympathy," stated Miss Wallingford, who was beginning to be angrily bewildered by her guest's long sentences, which so far seemed to have no point as far as she herself was concerned.

Margaret started a little. Again the doubt seized her if she were not making a mistake, undertaking more than she could well carry through, for this shy authoress was fast developing unexpected traits. However, Margaret, once she had started, was not easily turned back. She was as persistently clinging as a sweet briar.

"Oh, my dear," she said, and her voice was like trickling honey, "only wait until you are a little older and you will find that you do care, care very, very much. The understanding and sympathy of other women will become very sweet to you. It is so pure and ennobling, so free from all material taint."

"I have seen a great many women who were perfect cats," stated Miss Martha Wallingford.

"Wait until you are older," said Margaret again and her voice seemed fairly dissolving into some spiritual liquid of divine sweetness. "Wait until you are older, my dear. You are very young, so young to have accomplished a wonderful work which will live."

"Oh, well," said Martha Wallingford, and as she spoke she fixed pitiless shrewd young eyes upon the face of the other woman, which did not show at its best, in spite of veil and the velvety darkness of hat-shadow. This hotel sitting-room was full of garish cross lights. "Oh, well," said Martha Wallingford, "of course, I don't know what may happen if I live to be old, as old as you."

Margaret Edes felt like a photograph proof before the slightest attempt at finish had been made. Those keen young eyes conveyed the impression of convex mirrors. She restrained an instinctive impulse to put a hand before her face, she had an odd helpless sensation before the almost brutal, clear-visioned young thing. Again she shrank a little from her task, again her spirit reasserted itself. She moved and brought her face somewhat more into the shadow. Then she spoke again. She wisely dropped the subject of feminine affinities. She plunged at once into the object of her visit, which directly concerned Miss Martha Wallingford, and Margaret, who was as astute in her way as the girl, knew that she was entirely right in assuming that Martha Wallingford was more interested in herself than anything else in the world.

"My dear," she said, "I may as well tell you at once why I intruded upon you this morning."

"Please do," said Martha Wallingford.

"As I said before, I deeply regret that I was unable to bring some well-known person, Mrs. Fay-Wyman, for instance, to make us acquainted in due form, but—"

"Oh, I don't care a bit about that," said Martha. "What is it?"

Margaret again started a little. She had not expected anything like this. The mental picture which she had formed of Martha Wallingford, the young literary star, seemed to undergo a transformation akin to an explosion, out of which only one feature remained intact—the book, "Hearts Astray." If Miss Wallingford had not possessed a firm foundation in that volume, it is entirely possible that Margaret might have abandoned her enterprise. As it was, after a little gasp she went on.

"I did so wish to assure you in person of my great admiration for your wonderful book," said she. Martha Wallingford made no reply. She had an expression of utter acquiescence in the admiration, also of having heard that same thing so many times, that she was somewhat bored by it. She waited with questioning eyes upon Margaret's face.

"And I wondered," said Margaret, "if you would consider it too informal, if I ventured to beg you to be my guest at my home in Fairbridge next Thursday and remain the weekend, over Sunday. It would give me so much pleasure, and Fairbridge is a charming little village and there are really many interesting people there whom I think you would enjoy, and as for them—!" Margaret gave a slight roll to her eyes—"they would be simply overwhelmed."

"I should like to come very much, thank you," said Martha Wallingford.

Margaret beamed. "Oh, my dear," she cried, "I can not tell you how much joy your prompt and warm response gives me. And—" Margaret looked about her rather vaguely, "you are not alone here, of course. You have a maid, or perhaps, your mother—"

"My Aunt Susan is with me," said Miss Wallingford, "but there is no use inviting her. She hates going away for a few days. She says it is just as much trouble packing as it would be to go for a month. There is no use even thinking of her, but I shall be delighted to come."

Margaret hesitated. "May I not have the pleasure of being presented to your aunt?" she inquired.

"Aunt Susan is out shopping," lied Miss Martha Wallingford. Aunt Susan was clad in a cotton crepe wrapper, and Martha knew that she would think it quite good enough for her to receive anybody in, and that she could not convince her to the contrary. It was only recently that Martha herself had become converted from morning wrappers, and the reaction was violent. "The idea of a woman like this Mrs. Edes seeing Aunt Susan in that awful pink crepe wrapper!" she said to herself. She hoped Aunt Susan was not listening, and would not make a forcible entry into the room. Aunt Susan in moments of impulse was quite capable of such coups. Martha glanced rather apprehensively toward the door leading into the bedroom but it did not open. Aunt Susan was indeed listening and she was rigid with indignation, but in truth, she did not want to accompany her niece upon this projected visit, and she was afraid of being drawn into such a step should she present herself. Aunt Susan did dislike making the effort of a visit for a few days only. Martha had told the truth. It was very hot, and the elder woman was not very strong. Moreover, she perceived that Martha did not want her and there would be the complication of kicking against the pricks of a very determined character, which had grown more determined since her literary success. In fact, Aunt Susan stood in a slight awe of her niece since that success, for all her revolts which were superficial. Therefore, she remained upon her side of the door which she did not open until the visitor had departed after making definite arrangements concerning trains and meetings. Then Aunt Susan entered the room with a cloud of pink crepe in her wake.

"Who was that?" she demanded of Martha.

"Mrs. Wilbur Edes," replied her niece, and she aped Margaret to perfection as she added, "and a most charming woman, most charming."

"What did she want you to do?" inquired the aunt.

"Now, Aunt Susan," replied the niece, "what is the use of going over it all? You heard every single thing she said."

"I did hear her ask after me," said the aunt unabashed, "and I heard you tell a lie about it. You told her I had gone out shopping and you knew I was right in the next room."

"I didn't mean to have you come in and see a woman dressed like that one, in your wrapper."

"What is the matter with my wrapper?"

Martha said nothing.

"Are you going?" asked her aunt.

"You know that too."

"I don't know what your Pa would say," remarked Aunt Susan, but rather feebly, for she had a vague idea that it was her duty to accompany her niece and she was determined to shirk it.

"I don't see how Pa can say much of anything since he is in South Mordan, Illinois, and won't know about it, unless you telegraph, until next week," said Martha calmly. "Now, come along, Aunt Susan, and get dressed. I have made up my mind to get that beautiful white silk dress we looked at yesterday. It did not need any alteration and I think I shall buy that pearl and amethyst necklace at Tiffany's. I know Mrs. Edes will have an evening party and there will be gentlemen, and what is the use of my making so much money out of Hearts Astray if I don't have a few things I want? Hurry and get dressed."

"I don't see why this wrapper isn't plenty good enough for a few errands at two or three stores," said the aunt sulkily, but she yielded to Martha's imperative demand that she change her wrapper for her black satin immediately.

Meantime Margaret on her way down town to the ferry was conscious of a slight consternation at what she had done. She understood that in this young woman was a feminine element which radically differed from any which had come within her ken. She, however, was determined to go on. The next day invitations were issued to the Zenith Club for the following Friday, from four to six, and also one to dinner that evening to four men and five women. She planned for Sunday an automobile ride; she was to hire the car from the Axminister garage, and a high tea afterward. Poor Margaret did all in her power to make her scheme a success, but always she had that chilling doubt of her power. Miss Martha Wallingford had impressed her as being a young woman capable of swift and unexpected movements. She was rather afraid of her but she did not confess her fear to Wilbur. When he inquired genially what kind of a girl the authoress was, she replied: "Oh, charming, of course, but the poor child does not know how to do up her hair." However, when Martha arrived Thursday afternoon and Margaret met her at the station, she, at a glance, discovered that the poor child had discovered how to do up her hair. Some persons' brains work in a great many directions and Martha Wallingford's was one of them. Somehow or other, she had contrived to dispose of her tightly frizzed fringe, and her very pretty hair swept upward from a forehead which was both intellectual and beautiful. She was well dressed too. She had drawn heavily upon her royalty revenue. She had worked hard and spent a good deal during the short time since Margaret's call, and her brain had served her body well. She stepped across the station platform with an air. She carried no provincial bag—merely a dainty little affair mounted in gold which matched her gown—and she had brought a small steamer trunk.

Margaret's heart sank more and more, but she conducted her visitor to her little carriage and ordered the man to drive home, and when arrived there, showed Martha her room. She had a faint hope that the room might intimidate this Western girl, but instead of intimidation there was exultation. She looked about her very coolly, but afterward, upon her return to East Mordan, Illinois, she bragged a good deal about it. The room was really very charming and rather costly. The furniture was genuine First Empire; the walls, which were hung with paper covered with garlands of roses, were decorated with old engravings; there was a quantity of Dresden ware and there was a little tiled bathroom. Over a couch in the bedroom lay a kimona of white silk embroidered with pink roses. Afterward Martha made cruel fun of her Aunt's pink crepe and made her buy a kimona.

"Shall I send up my maid to assist you in unpacking, Miss Wallingford?" inquired Margaret, inwardly wondering how the dinner would be managed if the offer were accepted. To her relief, Martha gave her an offended stare. "No, thank you, Mrs. Edes," said she, "I never like servants, especially other peoples', mussing up my things."

When Margaret had gone, Martha looked about her, and her mouth was frankly wide open. She had never seen such exquisite daintiness and it daunted her, although she would have died rather than admit it. She thought of her own bedroom at home in East Mordan, Illinois, with its old black walnut chamber set and framed photographs and chromos, but she maintained a sort of defiant pride in it even to herself. In Martha Wallingford's character there was an element partaking of the nature of whalebone, yielding, but practically unbreakable, and sometimes wholly unyielding. Martha proceeded to array herself for dinner. She had not a doubt that it would be a grand affair. She therefore did not hesitate about the white silk, which was a robe of such splendour that it might not have disgraced a court. It showed a great deal of her thin, yet pretty girlish neck, and it had a very long train. She had a gold fillet studded with diamonds for her hair—that hair which was now dressed according to the very latest mode—a mode which was startling, yet becoming, and she clasped around her throat the Tiffany necklace, and as a crowning touch, put on long white gloves. When she appeared upon the verandah where Margaret sat dressed in a pretty lingerie gown with Wilbur in a light grey business suit, the silence could be heard. Then there was one double gasp of admiration from Maida and Adelaide in their white frocks and blue ribbons. They looked at the visitor with positive adoration, but she flushed hotly. She was a very quick-witted girl. Margaret recovered herself, presented Wilbur, and shortly, they went in to dinner, but it was a ghastly meal. Martha Wallingford in her unsuitable splendour was frankly, as she put it afterward, "hopping mad," and Wilbur was unhappy and Margaret aghast, although apparently quite cool. There was not a guest besides Martha. The dinner was simple. Afterward it seemed too farcical to ask a guest attired like a young princess to go out on the verandah and lounge in a wicker chair, while Wilbur smoked. Then Annie Eustace appeared and Margaret was grateful. "Dear Annie," she said, after she had introduced the two girls, "I am so glad you came over. Come in."

"It is pleasanter on the verandah, isn't it?" began Annie, then she caught Margaret's expressive glance at the magnificent white silk. They all sat stiffly in Margaret's pretty drawing-room. Martha said she didn't play bridge and upon Annie's timid suggestion of pinocle, said she had never heard of it. Wilbur dared not smoke. All that wretched evening they sat there. The situation was too much for Margaret, that past mistress of situations, and her husband was conscious of a sensation approaching terror and also wrath whenever he glanced at the figure in sumptuous white, the figure expressing sulkiness in every feature and motion. Margaret was unmistakably sulky as the evening wore on and nobody came except this other girl of whom she took no notice at all. She saw that she was pretty, her hair badly arranged and she was ill-dressed, and that was enough for her. She felt it to be an insult that these people had invited her and asked nobody to meet her, Martha Wallingford, whose name was in all the papers, attired in this wonderful white gown. When Annie Eustace arose to go, she arose too with a peremptory motion.

"I rather guess I will go to bed," said Martha Wallingford.

"You must be weary," said Margaret.

"I am not tired," said Martha Wallingford, "but it seems to me as dull here as in South Mordan, Illinois. I might as well go to bed and to sleep as sit here any longer."

When Margaret had returned from the guest room, her husband looked at her almost in a bewildered fashion. Margaret sank wearily into a chair. "Isn't she impossible?" she whispered.

"Did she think there was a dinner party?" Wilbur inquired perplexedly.

"I don't know. It was ghastly. I did not for a moment suppose she would dress for a party, unless I told her, and it is Emma's night off and I could not ask people with only Clara to cook and wait."

Wilbur patted his wife's shoulder comfortingly. "Never mind, dear," he said, "when she gets her chance to do her to-morrow's stunt at your club, she will be all right."

Margaret shivered a little. She had dared say nothing to Martha about that "stunt." Was it possible that she was making a horrible mistake?

The next day, Martha was still sulky but she did not, as Margaret feared, announce her intention of returning at once to New York. Margaret said quite casually that she had invited a few of the brightest and most interesting people in Fairbridge to meet her that afternoon and Martha became curious, although still resentful, and made no motion to leave. She, however, resolved to make no further mistakes as to costume, and just as the first tide of the Zenith Club broke over Margaret's threshold, she appeared clad in one of her South Mordan, Illinois, gowns. It was one which she had tucked into her trunk in view of foul weather. It was a hideous thing made from two old gowns. It had a garish blue tunic reaching well below the hips and a black skirt bordered with blue. Martha had had it made herself from a pattern after long study of the fashion plates in a Sunday newspaper and the result, although startling, still half convinced her. It was only after she had seen all the members of the Zenith Club seated and had gazed at their costumes, that she realised that she had made a worse mistake than that of the night before. To begin with, the day was very warm and her gown heavy and clumsy. The other ladies were arrayed in lovely lingeries or light silks and laces. The Zenith Club was exceedingly well dressed on that day. Martha sat in her place beside her hostess and her face looked like a sulky child's. Her eye-lids were swollen, her pouting lips dropped at the corners. She stiffened her chin until it became double. Margaret was inwardly perturbed but she concealed it. The programme went on with the inevitable singing by Miss MacDonald and Mrs. Wells, the playing by Mrs. Jack Evarts, the recitation by Sally Anderson. Margaret had not ventured to omit those features. Then, Mrs. Sturtevant read in a trembling voice a paper on Emerson. Then Margaret sprang her mines. She rose and surveyed her audience with smiling impressiveness. "Ladies," she said, and there was an immediate hush, "Ladies, I have the pleasure, the exceeding pleasure of presenting you to my guest, Miss Martha Wallingford, the author of Hearts Astray. She will now speak briefly to you upon her motive in writing and her method of work." There was a soft clapping of hands. Margaret sat down. She was quite pale. Annie Eustace regarded her wonderingly. What had happened to her dear Margaret?

The people waited. Everybody stared at Miss Martha Wallingford who had written that great seller, Hearts Astray. Martha Wallingford sat perfectly still. Her eyes were so downcast that they gave the appearance of being closed. Her pretty face looked red and swollen. Everybody waited. She sat absolutely still and made no sign except that of her obstinate face of negation. Margaret bent over her and whispered. Martha did not even do her the grace of a shake of the head.

Everybody waited again. Martha Wallingford sat so still that she gave the impression of a doll made without speaking apparatus. It did not seem as if she could even wink. Then Alice Mendon, who disliked Margaret Edes and had a shrewd conjecture as to the state of affairs, but who was broad in her views, pitied Margaret. She arose with considerable motion and spoke to Daisy Shaw at her right, and broke the ghastly silence, and immediately everything was in motion and refreshments were being passed, but Martha Wallingford, who had written Hearts Astray, was not there to partake of them. She was in her room, huddled in a chair upholstered with cream silk strewn with roses; and she was in one of the paroxysms of silent rage which belonged to her really strong, although undisciplined nature, and which was certainly in this case justified to some degree.

"It was an outrage," she said to herself. She saw through it all now. She had refused to speak or to read before all those women's clubs and now this woman had trapped her, that was the word for it, trapped her.

As she sat there, her sullenly staring angry eyes saw in large letters at the head of a column in a morning paper on the table beside her, "'The Poor Lady,' the greatest anonymous novel of the year."

Then she fell again to thinking of her wrongs and planning how she should wreak vengeance upon Margaret Edes.



Chapter VI

Martha Wallingford was a young person of direct methods. She scorned subterfuges. Another of her age and sex might have gone to bed with a headache, not she. She sat absolutely still beside her window, quite in full view of the departing members of the Zenith Club, had they taken the trouble to glance in that direction, and some undoubtedly did, and she remained there; presently she heard her hostess's tiny rap on the door. Martha did not answer, but after a repeated rap and wait, Margaret chose to assume that she did, and entered. Margaret knelt in a soft flop of scented lingerie beside the indignant young thing. She explained, she apologised, she begged, she implored Martha to put on that simply ravishing gown which she had worn the evening before; she expatiated at length upon the charms of the people whom she had invited to dinner, but Martha spoke not at all until she was quite ready. Then she said explosively, "I won't."

She was silent after that. Margaret recognised the futility of further entreaties. She went down stairs and confided in Wilbur. "I never saw such an utterly impossible girl," she said; "there she sits and won't get dressed and come down to dinner."

"She is a freak, must be, most of these writer people are freaks," said Wilbur sympathetically. "Poor old girl, and I suppose you have got up a nice dinner too."

"A perfectly charming dinner and invited people to meet her."

"How did she do her stunt this afternoon?"

Margaret flushed. "None too well," she replied.

"Oh, well, dear, I don't see how you are to blame."

"I can say that Miss Wallingford is not well, I suppose," said Margaret, and that was what she did say, but with disastrous results.

Margaret, ravishing in white lace, sprinkled with little gold butterflies, had taken her place at the head of her table. Emma was serving the first course and she was making her little speech concerning the unfortunate indisposition of her guest of honour when she was suddenly interrupted by that guest herself, an image of sulky wrath, clad in the blue and black costume pertaining to South Mordan, Illinois.

"I am perfectly well. She is telling an awful whopper," proclaimed this amazing girl. "I won't dress up and come to dinner because I won't. She trapped me into a woman's club this afternoon and tried to get me to make a speech without even telling me what she meant to do and now I won't do anything."

With that Miss Wallingford disappeared and unmistakable stamps were heard upon the stairs. One woman giggled convulsively; another took a glass of water and choked. A man laughed honestly. Wilbur was quite pale. Margaret was imperturbable. Karl von Rosen, who was one of the guests and who sat behind Annie Eustace, looked at Margaret with wonder. "Was this the way of women?" he thought. He did not doubt for one minute that the Western girl had spoken the truth. It had been brutal and homely, but it had been the truth. Little Annie Eustace, who had been allowed to come to a dinner party for the first time in her life and who looked quite charming in an old, much mended, but very fine India muslin and her grandmother's corals, did not, on the contrary, believe one word of Miss Wallingford's.

Her sympathy was all with her Margaret. It was a horrible situation and her dear Margaret was the victim of her own hospitality. She looked across the table at Alice Mendon for another sympathiser, but Alice was talking busily to the man at her right about a new book. She had apparently not paid much attention. Annie wondered how it could have escaped her. That horrid girl had spoken so loudly. She looked up at Von Rosen. "I am so sorry for poor Margaret," she whispered. Von Rosen looked down at her very gently. This little girl's belief in her friend was like a sacred lily, not to be touched or soiled.

"Yes," he said and Annie smiled up at him comfortably. Von Rosen was glad she sat beside him. He thought her very lovely, and there was a subtle suggestion of something besides loveliness. He thought that daintily mended India muslin exquisite, and also the carved corals,—bracelets on the slender wrists, a necklace—resting like a spray of flowers on the girlish neck, a comb in the soft hair which Annie had arranged becomingly and covered from her aunt's sight with a lace scarf. She felt deceitful about her hair, but how could she help it?

The dinner was less ghastly than could have been expected after the revelation of the guest of honour and the blank consternation of the host, who made no attempt to conceal his state of mind. Poor Wilbur had no society tricks. Alice Mendon, who was quite cognizant of the whole matter, but was broad enough to leap to the aid of another woman, did much. She had quite a talent for witty stories and a goodly fund of them. The dinner went off very well, while Martha Wallingford ate hers from a dinner tray in her room and felt that every morsel was sweetened with righteous revenge.

The next morning she left for New York and Margaret did not attempt to detain her although she had a lunch party planned besides the Sunday festivities. Margaret had had a scene with Wilbur after the departure of the guests the previous evening. For the first time in her experience, the devoted husband had turned upon his goddess. He had asked, "Was it true, what that girl said?" and Margaret had laughed up at him bewitchingly to no effect. Wilbur's face was very stern.

"My dear," said Margaret, "I knew perfectly well that if I actually asked her to speak or read, she would have refused."

"You have done an unpardonable thing," said the man. "You have betrayed your own sense of honour, your hospitality toward the guest under your roof."

Margaret laughed as she took an ornament from her yellow head but the laugh was defiant and forced. In her heart she bitterly resented her husband's attitude and more bitterly resented the attitude of respect into which it forced her. "It is the very last time I ask a Western authoress to accept my hospitality," said she.

"I hope so," said Wilbur gravely.

That night Karl von Rosen walked home with Annie Eustace. She had come quite unattended, as was the wont of Fairbridge ladies. That long peaceful Main Street lined with the homes of good people always seemed a safe thoroughfare. Annie was even a little surprised when Von Rosen presented himself and said, "I will walk home with you, Miss Eustace, with your permission."

"But I live a quarter of a mile past your house," said Annie.

Von Rosen laughed. "A quarter of a mile will not injure me," he said.

"It will really be a half mile," said Annie. She wanted very much that the young man should walk home with her, but she was very much afraid of making trouble. She was relieved when he only laughed again and said something about the beauty of the night. It was really a wonderful night and even the eyes of youth, inhabiting it with fairy dreams, were not essential to perceive it.

"What flower scent is that?" asked Von Rosen.

"I think," replied Annie, "that it is wild honeysuckle," and her voice trembled slightly. The perfumed night and the strange presence beside her went to the child's head a bit. The two walked along under the trees, which cast etching-like shadows in the broad moonlight, and neither talked much. There was scarcely a lighted window in any of the houses and they had a delicious sense of isolation,—the girl and the man awake in a sleeping world. Annie made no further allusion to Miss Wallingford. She had for almost the first time in her life a little selfish feeling that she did not wish to jar a perfect moment even with the contemplation of a friend's troubles. She was very happy walking beside Von Rosen, holding up her flimsy embroidered skirts carefully lest they come in contact with dewy grass. She had been admonished by her grandmother and her aunts so to do and reminded that the frail fabric would not endure much washing however skilful. Between the shadows, her lovely face showed like a white flower as Von Rosen looked down upon it. He wondered more and more that he had never noticed this exquisite young creature before. He did not yet dream of love in connection with her, but he was conscious of a passion of surprised admiration and protectiveness.

"How is it that I have never seen you when I call on your Aunt Harriet?" he asked when he parted with her at her own gate, a stately wrought iron affair in a tall hedge of close trimmed lilac.

"I am generally there, I think," replied Annie, but she was also conscious of a little surprise that she had not paid more attention when this young man, who looked at her so kindly, called. Then came one of her sudden laughs.

"What is it?" asked Von Rosen.

"Oh, nothing, except that the cat is usually there too," replied Annie. Von Rosen looked back boyishly.

"Be sure I shall see you next time and hang the cat," he said.

When Annie was in her room unclasping her corals, she considered how very much mortified and troubled her friend, Margaret Edes, must feel. She recalled how hideous it had all been—that appearance of the Western girl in the dining-room door-way, her rude ways, her flushed angry face. Annie did not dream of blaming Margaret. She was almost a fanatic as far as loyalty to her friends was concerned. She loved Margaret and she had only a feeling of cold dislike and disapprobation toward Miss Wallingford who had hurt Margaret. As for that charge of "trapping," she paid no heed to it whatever. She made up her mind to go and see Margaret the very next day and tell her a secret, a very great secret, which she was sure would comfort her and make ample amends to her for all her distress of the night before. Little Annie Eustace was so very innocent and ignorant of the ways of the world that had her nearest and dearest been able to look into her heart of hearts, they might have been appalled, incredulous and reverent, according to their natures. For instance, this very good, simple young girl who had been born with the light of genius always assumed that her friends would be as delighted at any good fortune of hers as at their own. She fairly fed upon her admiration of Alice Mendon that evening when she had stepped so nobly and tactfully into the rather frightful social breach and saved, if not wholly, the situation.

"Alice was such a dear," she thought, and the thought made her face fairly angelic. Then she recalled how lovely Alice had looked, and her own mobile face took on unconsciously Alice's expression. Standing before her looking-glass brushing out her hair, she saw reflected, not her own beautiful face between the lustrous folds, but Alice's. Then she recalled with pride Margaret's imperturbability under such a trial. "Nobody but Margaret could have carried off such an insult under her own roof too," she thought.

After she was in bed and her lamp blown out and the white moon-beams were entering her open windows like angels, she, after saying her prayers, thought of the three, Margaret, Alice, and Karl von Rosen. Then suddenly a warm thrill passed over her long slender body but it seemed to have its starting point in her soul. She saw very distinctly the young man's dark handsome face, but she thought, "How absurd of me, to see him so distinctly, as distinctly as I see Margaret and Alice, when I love them so much, and I scarcely know Mr. von Rosen." Being brought up by one's imperious grandmother and two imperious aunts and being oneself naturally of an obedient disposition and of a slowly maturing temperament, tends to lengthen the long childhood of a girl. Annie was almost inconceivably a child, much more of a child than Maida or Adelaide Edes. They had been allowed to grow like weeds as far as their imagination was concerned, and she had been religiously pruned.

The next afternoon she put on her white barred muslin and obtained her Aunt Harriet's permission to spend an hour or two with Margaret if she would work assiduously on her daisy centre piece, and stepped like a white dove across the shady village street. Annie, unless she remembered to do otherwise, was prone to toe in slightly with her slender feet. She was also prone to allow the tail of her white gown to trail. She gathered it up only when her Aunt called after her. She found Margaret lying indolently in the hammock which was strung across the wide shaded verandah. She was quite alone. Annie had seen with relief Miss Martha Wallingford being driven to the station that morning and the express following with her little trunk. Margaret greeted Annie a bit stiffly but the girl did not notice it. She was so full of her ignorant little plan to solace her friend with her own joy. Poor Annie did not understand that it requires a nature seldom met upon this earth, to be solaced, under disappointment and failure, by another's joy. Annie had made up her mind to say very little to Margaret about what had happened the evening before. Only at first, she remarked upon the beauty of the dinner, then she said quite casually, "Dear Margaret, we were all so sorry for poor Miss Wallingford's strange conduct."