When the first bluebird arrived in Gayfield the cough was no longer intermittent; and her mother sent her to the village doctor. So Rue Carew was transferred to the box factory adjoining, in which the mill made its own paper boxes, where young women sat all day at intelligent machines and fed them with squares of pasteboard and strips of gilt paper; and the intelligent and grateful machines responded by turning out hundreds and hundreds of complete boxes, all neatly gilded, pasted, and labelled. And after a little while Ruhannah was able to nourish one of these obliging and responsive machines. And by July her cough had left her, and two delicate freckles adorned the bridge of her nose.

The half-mile walk from and to Brookhollow twice a day was keeping her from rapid physical degeneration. Yet, like all northern American summers, the weather became fearfully hot in July and August, and the half-mile even in early morning and at six in the evening left her listless, nervously dreading the great concrete-lined room, the reek of glue and oil, the sweaty propinquity of her neighbours, and the monotonous appetite of the sprawling machine which she fed all day long with pasteboard squares.

She went to her work in early morning, bareheaded, in a limp pink dress very much open at the throat, which happened to be the merciful mode of the moment—a slender, sweet-lipped thing, beginning to move with grace now—and her chestnut hair burned gold-pale by the sun.

* * * * *

There came that movable holiday in August, when the annual shutdown for repairs closed the mill and box factory during forty-eight hours—a matter of prescribing oil and new bearings for the overfed machines so that their digestions should remain unimpaired and their dispositions amiable.

It was a hot August morning, intensely blue and still, with that slow, subtle concentration of suspended power in the sky, ominous of thunder brooding somewhere beyond the western edges of the world.

Ruhannah aided her mother with the housework, picked peas and a squash and a saucer full of yellow pansies in the weedy little garden, and, at noon, dined on the trophies of her husbandry, physically and aesthetically.

After dinner, dishes washed and room tidied, she sat down on the narrow, woodbine-infested verandah with pencil and paper, and attempted to draw the stone bridge and the little river where it spread in deeps and shallows above the broken dam.

Perspective was unknown to her; of classic composition she was also serenely ignorant, so the absence of these in her picture did not annoy her. On the contrary, there was something hideously modern and recessional in her vigorous endeavour to include in her drawing everything her grey eyes chanced to rest on. She even arose and gently urged a cow into the already overcrowded composition, and, having accomplished its portrait with Cezanne-like fidelity, was beginning to look about for Adoniram to include him also, when her mother called to her, holding out a pair of old gloves.

"Dear, we are going to save a little money this year. Do you think you could catch a few fish for supper?"

The girl nodded, took the gloves, laid aside her pencil and paper, picked up the long bamboo pole from the verandah floor, and walked slowly out into the garden.

A trowel was sticking in the dry earth near the flower bed, where poppies, and pansies, and petunias, and phlox bordered the walk.

Under a lilac the ground seemed moister and more promising for vermicular investigation; she drew on her gloves, dug a few holes with the trowel, extracted an angleworm, frowned slightly, holding it between gloved fingers, regarding its contortions with pity and aversion.

To bait a hook was not agreeable to the girl; she managed to do it, however, then shouldering her pole she walked across the road and down to the left, through rank grasses and patches of milkweed, bergamot, and queen's lace, scattering a cloud of brown and silver-spotted butterflies.

Alder, elder, and Indian willow barred her way; rank thickets of jewelweed hung vivid blossoming drops across her path; woodbine and clematis trailed dainty snares to catch her in their fairy nets; a rabbit scurried out from behind the ruined paper mill as she came to the swift, shallow water below the dam.

Into this she presently plumped her line, and the next instant jerked it out again with a wriggling, silvery minnow flashing on the hook.

Carrying her pole with its tiny, glittering victim dangling aloft, Rue hastily retraced her steps to the road, crossed the bridge to the further end, seated herself on the limestone parapet, and, swinging her pole with both hands, cast line and hook and minnow far out into the pond. It was a business she did not care for—this extinguishing of the life-spark in anything. But, like her mill work, it appeared to be a necessary business, and, so regarding it, she went about it.

The pond above the half-ruined dam lay very still; her captive minnow swam about with apparently no discomfort, trailing on the surface of the pond above him the cork which buoyed the hook.

Rue, her pole clasped in both hands between her knees, gazed with preoccupied eyes out across the water. On the sandy shore, a pair of speckled tip-ups ran busily about, dipping and bobbing, or spread their white, striped wings to sheer the still surface of the pond, swing shoreward with bowed wings again, and resume their formal, quaint, and busy manners.

From the interstices of the limestone parapet grew a white bluebell—the only one Rue had ever seen. As long as she could remember it had come up there every year and bloomed, snow-white amid a world of its blue comrades in the grass below. She looked for it now, saw it in bud—three sturdy stalks sprouting at right angles from the wall and curving up parallel to it. Somehow or other she had come to associate this white freak of nature with herself—she scarcely knew why. It comforted her, oddly, to see it again, still surviving, still delicately vigorous, though where among those stone slabs it found its nourishment she never could imagine.

The intense blue of the sky had altered since noon; the west became gradually duller and the air stiller; and now, over the Gayfield hills, a tall cloud thrust up silvery-edged convolutions toward a zenith still royally and magnificently blue.

* * * * *

She had been sitting there watching her swimming cork for over an hour when the first light western breeze arrived, spreading a dainty ripple across the pond. Her cork danced, drifted; beneath it she caught the momentary glimmer of the minnow; then the cork was jerked under; she clasped the pole with all her strength, struck upward; and a heavy pickerel, all gold and green, sprang furiously from the water and fell back with a sharp splash.

Under the sudden strain of the fish she nearly lost her balance, scrambled hastily down from the parapet, propping the pole desperately against her body, and stood so, unbending, unyielding, her eyes fixed on the water where the taut line cut it at forty-five degrees.

At the same time two men in a red runabout speeding westward caught sight of the sharp turn by the bridge which the ruins of the paper mill had hidden. The man driving the car might have made it even then had he not seen Ruhannah in the centre of the bridge. It was instantly all off; so were both mud-guards and one wheel. So were driver and passenger, floundering on their backs among the rank grass and wild flowers. Ruhannah, petrified, still fast to her fish, gazed at the catastrophe over her right shoulder.

A broad, short, squarely built man of forty emerged from the weeds, went hastily to the car and did something to it. Noise ceased; clouds of steam continued to ascend from the crumpled hood.

The other man, even shorter, but slimmer, sauntered out of a bed of milkweed whither he had been catapulted. He dusted with his elbow a grey felt hat as he stood looking at the wrecked runabout; his comrade, still clutching a cigar between his teeth, continued to examine the car.

"Hell!" remarked the short, thickset man.

"It's going to rain like it, too," added the other. The thunder boomed again beyond Gayfield hills.

"What do you know about this!" growled the thickset man, in utter disgust. "Do we hunt for a garage, or what?"

"It's up to you, Eddie. And say! What was the matter with you? Don't you know a bridge when you see one?"

"That damn girl——" He turned and looked at Ruhannah, who was dragging the big flapping pickerel over the parapet by main strength.

The men scowled at her in silence, then the one addressed as Eddie rolled his cigar grimly into the left corner of his jaw.

"Damn little skirt," he observed briefly. "It seems to worry her a lot what she's done to us."

"I wonder does she know she wrecked us," suggested the other. He was a stunted, wiry little man of thirty-five. His head seemed slightly too large; he had a pasty face with the sloe-black eyes, button nose, and the widely chiselled mouth of a circus clown.

The eyes of the short, thickset man were narrow and greyish green in a round, smoothly shaven face. They narrowed still more as the thunder broke louder from the west.

Ruhannah, dragging her fish over the grass, was coming toward them; and the man called Eddie stepped forward to bar her progress.

"Say, girlie," he began, the cigar still tightly screwed into his cheek, "is there a juice mill anywhere near us, d'y'know?"

"What?" said Rue.

"A garage."

"Yes; there is one at Gayfield."

"How far, girlie?"

Rue flushed, but answered:

"It is half a mile to Gayfield."

The other man, noticing the colour in Ruhannah's face, took off his pearl-grey hat. His language was less grammatical than his friend's, but his instincts were better.

"Thank you," he said—his companion staring all the while at the girl without the slightest expression. "Is there a telephone in any of them houses, miss?"—glancing around behind him at the three edifices which composed the crossroads called Brookhollow.

"No," said Rue.

It thundered again; the world around had become very dusky and silent and the flash veined a rapidly blackening west.

"It's going to rain buckets," said the man called Eddie. "If you live around here, can you let us come into your house till it's over, gir—er—miss?"

"Yes."

"I'm Mr. Brandes—Ed Brandes of New York——" speaking through cigar-clutching teeth. "This is Mr. Ben Stull, of the same.... It's raining already. Is that your house?"

"I live there," said Rue, nodding across the bridge. "You may go in."

She walked ahead, dragging the fish; Stull went to the car, took two suitcases from the boot; Brandes threw both overcoats over his arm, and followed in the wake of Ruhannah and her fish.

"No Saratoga and no races today, Eddie," remarked Stull. But Brandes' narrow, grey-green eyes were following Ruhannah.

"It's a pity," continued Stull, "somebody didn't learn you to drive a car before you ask your friends joy-riding."

"Aw—shut up," returned Brandes slowly, between his teeth.

They climbed the flight of steps to the verandah, through a rapidly thickening gloom which was ripped wide open at intervals by lightning.

So Brandes and his shadow, Bennie Stull, came into the home of Ruhannah Carew.

Her mother, who had observed their approach from the window, opened the door.

"Mother," said Ruhannah, "here is the fish I caught—and two gentlemen."

With which dubious but innocent explanation she continued on toward the kitchen, carrying her fish.

Stull offered a brief explanation to account for their plight and presence; Brandes, listening and watching the mother out of greenish, sleepy eyes, made up his mind concerning her.

While the spare room was being prepared by mother and daughter, he and Stull, seated in the sitting-room, their hats upon their knees, exchanged solemn commonplaces with the Reverend Mr. Carew.

Brandes, always the gambler, always wary and reticent by nature, did all the listening before he came to conclusions that relaxed the stiffness of his attitude and the immobility of his large, round face.

Then, at ease under circumstances and conditions which he began to comprehend and have an amiable contempt for, he became urbane and conversational, and a little amused to find navigation so simple, even when out of his proper element.

From the book on the invalid's knees, Brandes took his cue; and the conversation developed into a monologue on the present condition of foreign missions—skilfully inspired by the respectful attention and the brief and ingenious questions of Brandes.

"Doubtless," concluded the Reverend Mr. Carew, "you are familiar with the life of the Reverend Adoniram Judson, Mr. Brandes."

It turned out to be Brandes' favourite book.

"You will recollect, then, the amazing conditions in India which confronted Dr. Judson and his wife."

Brandes recollected perfectly—with a slow glance at Stull.

"All that is changed," said the invalid. "—God be thanked. And conditions in Armenia are changing for the better, I hope."

"Let us hope so," returned Brandes solemnly.

"To doubt it is to doubt the goodness of the Almighty," said the Reverend Mr. Carew. His dreamy eyes became fixed on the rain-splashed window, burned a little with sombre inward light.

"In Trebizond," he began, "in my time——"

His wife came into the room, saying that the spare bedchamber was ready and that the gentlemen might wish to wash before supper, which would be ready in a little while.

* * * * *

On their way upstairs they encountered Ruhannah coming down. Stull passed with a polite grunt; Brandes ranged himself for the girl to pass him.

"Ever so much obliged to you, Miss Carew," he said. "We have put you to a great deal of trouble, I am sure."

Rue looked up surprised, shy, not quite understanding how to reconcile his polite words and pleasant voice with the voice and manner in which he had addressed her on the bridge.

"It is no trouble," she said, flushing slightly. "I hope you will be comfortable."

And she continued to descend the stairs a trifle more hastily, not quite sure she cared very much to talk to that kind of man.

* * * * *

In the spare bedroom, whither Stull and Brandes had been conducted, the latter was seated on the big and rather shaky maple bed, buttoning a fresh shirt and collar, while Stull took his turn at the basin. Rain beat heavily on the windows.

"Say, Ben," remarked Brandes, "you want to be careful when we go downstairs that the old guy don't spot us for sporting men. He's a minister, or something."

Stull lifted his dripping face of a circus clown from the basin.

"What's that?"

"I say we don't want to give the old people a shock. You know what they'd think of us."

"What do I care what they think?"

"Can't you be polite?"

"I can be better than that; I can be honest," said Stull, drying his sour visage with a flimsy towel.

After Brandes had tied his polka-dotted tie carefully before the blurred mirror:

"What do you mean by that?" he asked stolidly.

"Ah—I know what I mean, Eddie. So do you. You're a smooth talker, all right. You can listen and look wise, too, when there's anything in it for you. Just see the way you got Stein to put up good money for you! And all you done was to listen to him and keep your mouth shut."

Brandes rose with an air almost jocular and smote Stull upon the back.

"Stein thinks he's the greatest manager on earth. Let him tell you so if you want anything out of him," he said, walking to the window.

The volleys of rain splashing on the panes obscured the outlook; Brandes flattened his nose against the glass and stood as though lost in thought.

Behind him Stull dried his features, rummaged in the suitcase, produced a bathrobe and slippers, put them on, and stretched himself out on the bed.

"Aren't you coming down to buzz the preacher?" demanded Brandes, turning from the drenched window.

"So you can talk phony to the little kid? No."

"Ah, get it out of your head that I mean phony."

"Well, what do you mean?"

"Nothing."

Stull gave him a contemptuous glance and turned over on the pillow.

"Are you coming down?"

"No."

So Brandes took another survey of himself in the glass, used his comb and brushes again, added a studied twist to his tie, shot his cuffs, and walked out of the room with the solid deliberation which characterised his carriage at all times.



CHAPTER VI

THE END OF SOLITUDE

A rain-washed world, smelling sweet as a wet rose, a cloudless sky delicately blue, and a swollen stream tumbling and foaming under the bridge—of these Mr. Eddie Brandes was agreeably conscious as he stepped out on the verandah after breakfast, and, unclasping a large gold cigar case, inserted a cigar between his teeth.

He always had the appearance of having just come out of a Broadway barber shop with the visible traces of shave, shampoo, massage, and manicure patent upon his person.

His short, square figure was clothed in well-cut blue serge; a smart straw hat embellished his head, polished russet shoes his remarkably small feet. On his small fat fingers several heavy rings were conspicuous. And the odour of cologne exhaled from and subtly pervaded the ensemble.

Across the road, hub-deep in wet grass and weeds, he could see his wrecked runabout, glistening with raindrops.

He stood for a while on the verandah, both hands shoved deep into his pockets, his cigar screwed into his cheek. From time to time he jingled keys and loose coins in his pockets. Finally he sauntered down the steps and across the wet road to inspect the machine at closer view.

Contemplating it tranquilly, head on one side and his left eye closed to avoid the drifting cigar smoke, he presently became aware of a girl in a pink print dress leaning over the grey parapet of the bridge. And, picking his way among the puddles, he went toward her.

"Good morning, Miss Carew," he said, taking off his straw hat.

She turned her head over her shoulder; the early sun glistened on his shiny, carefully parted hair and lingered in glory on a diamond scarf pin.

"Good morning," she said, a little uncertainly, for the memory of their first meeting on the bridge had not entirely been forgotten.

"You had breakfast early," he said.

"Yes."

He kept his hat off; such little courtesies have their effect; also it was good for his hair which, he feared, had become a trifle thinner recently.

"It is beautiful weather," said Mr. Brandes, squinting at her through his cigar smoke.

"Yes." She looked down into the tumbling water.

"This is a beautiful country, isn't it, Miss Carew?"

"Yes."

With his head a little on one side he inspected her. There was only the fine curve of her cheek visible, and a white neck under the chestnut hair; and one slim, tanned hand resting on the stone parapet.

"Do you like motoring?" he asked.

She looked up:

"Yes.... I have only been out a few times."

"I'll have another car up here in a few days. I'd like to take you out."

She was silent.

"Ever go to Saratoga?" he inquired.

"No."

"I'll take you to the races—with your mother. Would you like to go?"

She remained silent so long that he became a trifle uneasy.

"With your mother," he repeated, moving so he could see a little more of her face.

"I don't think mother would go," she said.

"Would she let you go?"

"I don't think so."

"There's nothing wrong with racing," he said, "if you don't bet money on the horses."

But Rue knew nothing about sport, and her ignorance as well as the suggested combination of Saratoga, automobile, and horse racing left her silent again.

Brandes sat down on the parapet of the bridge and held his straw hat on his fat knees.

"Then we'll make it a family party," he said, "your father and mother and you, shall we? And we'll just go off for the day."

"Thank you."

"Would you like it?"

"Yes."

"Will you go?"

"I—work in the mill."

"Every day?"

"Yes."

"How about Sunday?"

"We go to church.... I don't know.... Perhaps we might go in the afternoon."

"I'll ask your father," he said, watching the delicately flushed face with odd, almost sluggish persistency.

His grey-green eyes seemed hypnotised; he appeared unable to turn them elsewhere; and she, gradually becoming conscious of his scrutiny, kept her own eyes averted.

"What were you looking at in the water?" he asked.

"I was looking for our boat. It isn't there. I'm afraid it has gone over the dam."

"I'll help you search for it," he said, "when I come back from the village. I'm going to walk over and find somebody who'll cart that runabout to the railroad station.... You're not going that way, are you?" he added, rising.

"No."

"Then——" he lifted his hat high and put it on with care—"until a little later, Miss Carew.... And I want to apologise for speaking so familiarly to you yesterday. I'm sorry. It's a way we get into in New York. Broadway isn't good for a man's manners.... Will you forgive me, Miss Carew?"

Embarrassment kept her silent; she nodded her head, and finally turned and looked at him. His smile was agreeable.

She smiled faintly, too, and rose.

"Until later, then," he said. "This is the Gayfield road, isn't it?"

"Yes."

She turned and walked toward the house; and as though he could not help himself he walked beside her, his hat in his hand once more.

"I like this place," he said. "I wonder if there is a hotel in Gayfield."

"The Gayfield House."

"Is it very bad?" he asked jocosely.

She seemed surprised. It was considered good, she thought.

With a slight, silent nod of dismissal she crossed the road and went into the house, leaving him standing beside his wrecked machine once more, looking after her out of sluggish eyes.

Presently, from the house, emerged Stull, his pasty face startling in its pallor under the cloudless sky, and walked slowly over to Brandes.

"Well, Ben," said the latter pleasantly, "I'm going to Gayfield to telegraph for another car."

"How soon can they get one up?" inquired Stull, inserting a large cigar into his slitted mouth and lighting it.

"Oh, in a couple of days, I guess. I don't know. I don't care much, either."

"We can go on to Saratoga by train," suggested Stull complacently.

"We can stay here, too."

"What for?"

Brandes said in his tight-lipped, even voice:

"The fishing's good. I guess I'll try it." He continued to contemplate the machine, but Stull's black eyes were turned on him intently.

"How about the races?" he asked. "Do we go or not?"

"Certainly."

"When?"

"When they send us a car to go in."

"Isn't the train good enough?"

"The fishing here is better."

Stull's pasty visage turned sourer:

"Do you mean we lose a couple of days in this God-forsaken dump because you'd rather go to Saratoga in a runabout than in a train?"

"I tell you I'm going to stick around for a while."

"For how long?"

"Oh, I don't know. When we get our car we can talk it over and——"

"Ah," ejaculated Stull in disgust, "what the hell's the matter with you? Is it that little skirt you was buzzing out here like you never seen one before?"

"How did you guess, Ben?" returned Brandes with the almost expressionless jocularity that characterised him at times.

"That little red-headed, spindling, freckled, milk-fed mill-hand——"

"Funny, ain't it? But there's no telling what will catch the tired business man, is there, Ben?"

"Well, what does catch him?" demanded Stull angrily. "What's the answer?"

"I guess she's the answer, Ben."

"Ah, leave the kid alone——"

"I'm going to have the car sent up here. I'm going to take her out. Go on to Saratoga if you want to. I'll meet you there——"

"When?"

"When I'm ready," replied Brandes evenly. But he smiled.

Stull looked at him, and his white face, soured by dyspepsia, became sullen with wrath. At such times, too, his grammar suffered from indigestion.

"Say, Eddie," he began, "can't no one learn you nothin' at all? How many times would you have been better off if you'd listened to me? Every time you throw me you hand yourself one. Now that you got a little money again and a little backing, don't do anything like that——"

"Like what?"

"Like chasin' dames! Don't act foolish like you done in Chicago last summer! You wouldn't listen to me then, would you? And that Denver business, too! Say, look at all the foolish things you done against all I could say to save you—like backing that cowboy plug against Battling Jensen!—Like taking that big hunk o' beef, Walstein, to San Antonio, where Kid O'Rourke put him out in the first! And everybody's laughing at you yet! Ah——" he exclaimed angrily, "somebody tell me why I don't quit you, you big dill pickle! I wish someone would tell me why I stand for you, because I don't know.... And look what you're doing now; you got some money of your own and plenty of syndicate money to put on the races and a big comish! You got a good theayter in town with Morris Stein to back you and everything—and look what you're doing!" he ended bitterly.

Brandes tightened his dental grip on his cigar and squinted at him good-humouredly.

"Say, Ben," he said, "would you believe it if I told you I'm stuck on her?"

"Ah, you'd fall for anything. I never seen a skirt you wouldn't chase."

"I don't mean that kind."

"What kind, then?"

"This is on the level, Ben."

"What! Ah, go on! You on the level?"

"All the same, I am."

"You can't be on the level! You don't know how."

"Why?"

"You got a wife, and you know damn well you have."

"Yes, and she's getting her divorce."

Stull regarded him with habitual and sullen distrust.

"She hasn't got it yet."

"She'll get it. Don't worry."

"I thought you was for fighting it."

"I was going to fight it; but——" His slow, narrow, greenish eyes stole toward the house across the road.

"Just like that," he said, after a slight pause; "that's the way the little girl hit me. I'm on the level, Ben. First skirt I ever saw that I wanted to find waiting dinner for me when I come home. Get me?"

"I don't know whether I do or not."

"Get this, then; she isn't all over paint; she's got freckles, thank God, and she smells sweet as a daisy field. Ah, what the hell——" he burst out between his parted teeth "—when every woman in New York smells like a chorus girl! Don't I get it all day? The whole city stinks like a star's dressing room. And I married one! And I'm through. I want to get my breath and I'm getting it."

Stull's white features betrayed merely the morbid suffering of indigestion; he said nothing and sucked his cigar.

"I'm through," repeated Brandes. "I want a home and a wife—the kind that even a fly cop won't pinch on sight—the kind of little thing that's over there in that old shack. Whatever I am, I don't want a wife like me—nor kids, either."

Stull remained sullenly unresponsive.

"Call her a hick if you like. All right, I want that kind."

No comment from Stull, who was looking at the wrecked car.

"Understand, Ben?"

"I tell you I don't know whether I do or not!"

"Well, what don't you understand?"

"Nothin'.... Well, then, your falling for a kid like that, first crack out o' the box. I'm honest; I don't understand it."

"She hit me that way—so help me God!"

"And you're on the level?"

"Absolutely, Ben."

"What about the old guy and the mother? Take 'em to live with you?"

"If she wants 'em."

Stull stared at him in uneasy astonishment:

"All right, Eddie. Only don't act foolish till Minna passes you up. And get out of here or you will. If you're on the level, as you say you are, you've got to mark time for a good long while yet——"

"Why?"

"You don't have to ask me that, do you?"

"Yes, I do. Why? I want to marry her, I tell you. I mean to. I'm taking no chances that some hick will do it while I'm away. I'm going to stay right here."

"And when the new car comes?"

"I'll keep her humming between here and Saratoga."

"And then what?"

Brandes' greenish eyes rested on the car and he smoked in silence for a while. Then:

"Listen, Ben. I'm a busy man. I got to be back in town and I got to have a wedding trip too. You know me, Ben. You know what I mean. That's me. When I do a thing I do it. Maybe I make plenty of mistakes. Hell! I'd rather make 'em than sit pat and do nothing!"

"You're crazy."

"Don't bet on it, Ben. I know what I want. I'm going to make money. Things are going big with me——"

"You tinhorn! You always say that!"

"Watch me. I bet you I make a killing at Saratoga! I bet you I make good with Morris Stein! I bet you the first show I put on goes big! I bet——"

"Ah, can it!"

"Wait! I bet you I marry that little girl in two weeks and she stands for it when I tell her later we'd better get married again!"

"Say! Talk sense!"

"I am."

"What'll they do to you if your wife makes a holler?"

"Who ever heard of her or me in the East?"

"You want to take a chance like that?"

"I'll fix it. I haven't got time to wait for Minna to shake me loose. Besides, she's in Seattle. I'll fix it so she doesn't hear until she gets her freedom. I'll get a license right here. I guess I'll use your name——"

"What!" yelled Stull.

"Shut your face!" retorted Brandes. "What do you think you're going to do, squeal?"

"You think I'm going to stand for that?"

"Well, then, I won't use your name. I'll use my own. Why not? I mean honest. It's dead level. I'll remarry her. I want her, I tell you. I want a wedding trip, too, before I go back——"

"With the first rehearsal called for September fifteenth! What's the matter with you? Do you think Stein is going to stand for——"

"You'll be on hand," said Brandes pleasantly. "I'm going to Paris for four weeks—two weeks there, two on the ocean——"

"You——"

"Save your voice, Ben. That's settled."

Stull turned upon him a dead white visage distorted with fury:

"I hope she throws you out!" he said breathlessly. "You talk about being on the level! Every level's crooked with you. You don't know what square means; a square has got more than four corners for you! Go on! Stick around. I don't give a damn what you do. Go on and do it. But I quit right here."

Both knew that the threat was empty. As a shadow clings to a man's heels, as a lost soul haunts its slayer, as damnation stalks the damned, so had Stull followed Brandes; and would follow to the end. Why? Neither knew. It seemed to be their destiny, surviving everything—their bitter quarrels, the injustice and tyranny of Brandes, his contempt and ridicule sometimes—enduring through adversity, even penury, through good and bad days, through abundance and through want, through shame and disgrace, through trickery, treachery, and triumph—nothing had ever broken the occult bond which linked these two. And neither understood why, but both seemed to be vaguely conscious that neither was entirely complete without the other.

"Ben," said Brandes affably, "I'm going to walk over to Gayfield. Want to come?"

They went off, together.



CHAPTER VII

OBSESSION

By the end of the week Brandes had done much to efface any unpleasant impression he had made on Ruhannah Carew.

The girl had never before had to do with any mature man. She was therefore at a disadvantage in every way, and her total lack of experience emphasised the odds.

Nobody had ever before pointedly preferred her, paid her undivided attention; no man had ever sought her, conversed with her, deferred to her, interested himself in her. It was entirely new to her, this attention which Brandes paid her. Nor could she make any comparisons between this man and other men, because she knew no other men. He was an entirely novel experience to her; he had made himself interesting, had proved amusing, considerate, kind, generous, and apparently interested in what interested her. And if his unfeigned preference for her society disturbed and perplexed her, his assiduous civilities toward her father and mother were gradually winning from her far more than anything he had done for her.

His white-faced, odd little friend had gone; he himself had taken quarters at the Gayfield House, where a car like the wrecked one was stabled for his use.

He had already taken her father and mother and herself everywhere within motoring distance; he had accompanied them to church; he escorted her to the movies; he walked with her in the August evenings after supper, rowed her about on the pond, fished from the bridge, told her strange stories in the moonlight on the verandah, her father and mother interested and attentive.

For the career of Mr. Eddie Brandes was capable of furnishing material for interesting stories if carefully edited, and related with discretion and circumspection. He had been many things to many men—and to several women—he had been a tinhorn gambler in the Southwest, a miner in Alaska, a saloon keeper in Wyoming, a fight promoter in Arizona. He had travelled profitably on popular ocean liners until requested to desist; Auteuil, Neuilly, Vincennes, and Longchamps knew him as tout, bookie, and, when fitfully prosperous, as a plunger. Epsom knew him once as a welcher; and knew him no more.

He had taken a comic opera company through the wheat-belt—one way; he had led a burlesque troupe into Arizona and had traded it there for a hotel.

"When Eddie wants to talk," Stull used to say, "that smoke, Othello, hasn't got nothing on him."

However, Brandes seldom chose to talk. This was one of his rare garrulous occasions; and, with careful self-censorship, he was making an endless series of wonder-tales out of the episodes and faits divers common to the experience of such as he.

So, of moving accidents by flood and field this man had a store, and he contrived to make them artistically innocuous and perfectly fit for family consumption.

Further, two of his friends motored over from Saratoga to see him, were brought to supper at the Carews'; and they gave him a clean bill of moral health. They were, respectively, "Doc" Curfoot—suave haunter of Peacock Alley and gentleman "capper"—whom Brandes introduced as the celebrated specialist, Doctor Elbert Curfoot—and Captain Harman Quint, partner in "Quint's" celebrated temple of chance—introduced as the distinguished navigating officer which he appeared to be. The steering for their common craft, however, was the duty of the eminent Doc.

They spent the evening on the verandah with the family; and it was quite wonderful what a fine fellow each turned out to be—information confidentially imparted to the Reverend Mr. Carew by each of the three distinguished gentlemen in turn.

Doc Curfoot, whose business included the ability to talk convincingly on any topic, took the Reverend Mr. Carew's measure and chose literature; and his suave critique presently became an interesting monologue listened to in silence by those around him.

Brandes had said, "Put me in right, Doc," and Doc was accomplishing it, partly to oblige Brandes, partly for practice. His agreeable voice so nicely pitched, so delightfully persuasive, recapitulating all the commonplaces and cant phrases concerning the literature of the day, penetrated gratefully the intellectual isolation of these humble gentlepeople, and won very easily their innocent esteem. With the Reverend Mr. Carew Doc discussed such topics as the influence on fiction of the ethical ideal. With Mrs. Carew Captain Quint exchanged reminiscences of travel on distant seas. Brandes attempted to maintain low-voiced conversation with Rue, who responded in diffident monosyllables to his advances.

* * * * *

Brandes walked down to their car with them after they had taken their leave.

"What's the idea, Eddie?" inquired Doc Curfoot, pausing before the smart little speeder.

"It's straight."

"Oh," said Doc, softly, betraying no surprise—about the only thing he never betrayed. "Anything in it for you, Eddie?"

"Yes. A good girl. The kind you read about. Isn't that enough?"

"Minna chucked you?" inquired Captain Quint.

"She'll get her decree in two or three months. Then I'll have a home. And everything that you and I are keeps out of that home, Cap. See?"

"Certainly," said Quint. "Quite right, Eddie."

Doc Curfoot climbed in and took the wheel; Quint followed him.

"Say," he said in his pleasant, guarded voice, "watch out that Minna don't double-cross you, Eddie."

"How?"

"—Or shoot you up. She's some schutzen-fest, you know, when she turns loose——"

"Ah, I tell you she wants the divorce. Abe Grittlefeld's crazy about her. He'll get Abe Gordon to star her on Broadway; and that's enough for her. Besides, she'll marry Maxy Venem when she can afford to keep him."

"You never understood Minna Minti."

"Well, who ever understood any German?" demanded Brandes. "She's one of those sour-blooded, silent Dutch women that make me ache."

Doc pushed the self-starter; there came a click, a low humming. Brandes' face cleared and he held out his square-shaped hand:

"You fellows," he said, "have put me right with the old folks here. I'll do the same for you some day. Don't talk about this little girl and me, that's all."

"All the same," repeated Doc, "don't take any chances with Minna. She's on to you, and she's got a rotten Dutch disposition."

"That's right, Doc. And say, Harman,"—to Quint—"tell Ben he's doing fine. Tell him to send me what's mine, because I'll want it very soon now. I'm going to take a month off and then I'm going to show Stein how a theatre can be run."

"Eddie," said Quint, "it's a good thing to think big, but it's a damn poor thing to talk big. Cut out the talk and you'll be a big man some day."

The graceful car moved forward into the moonlight; his two friends waved an airy adieu; and Brandes went slowly back to the dark verandah where sat a young girl, pitifully immature in mind and body—and two old people little less innocent for all their experience in the ranks of Christ, for all the wounds that scarred them both in the over-sea service which had broken them forever.

"A very handsome and distinguished gentleman, your friend Dr. Curfoot," said the Reverend Mr. Carew. "I imagine his practice in New York is not only fashionable but extensive."

"Both," said Brandes.

"I assume so. He seems to be intimately acquainted with people whose names for generations have figured prominently in the social columns of the New York press."

"Oh, yes, Curfoot and Quint know them all."

Which was true enough. They had to. One must know people from whom one accepts promissory notes to liquidate those little affairs peculiar to the temple of chance. And New York's best furnished the neophytes for these rites.

"I thought Captain Quint very interesting," ventured Ruhannah. "He seems to have sailed over the entire globe."

"Naval men are always delightful," said her mother. And, laying her hand on her husband's arm in the dark: "Do you remember, Wilbour, how kind the officers from the cruiser Oneida were when the rescue party took us aboard?"

"God sent the Oneida to us," said her husband dreamily. "I thought it was the end of the world for us—for you and me and baby Rue—that dreadful flight from the mission to the sea."

His bony fingers tightened over his wife's toilworn hand. In the long grass along the creek fireflies sparkled, and their elfin lanterns, waning, glowing, drifted high in the calm August night.

The Reverend Mr. Carew gathered his crutches; the night was a trifle damp for him; besides, he desired to read. Brandes, as always, rose to aid him. His wife followed.

"Don't stay out long, Rue," she said in the doorway.

"No, mother."

Brandes came back. Departing from his custom, he did not light a cigar, but sat in silence, his narrow eyes trying to see Ruhannah in the darkness. But she was only a delicate shadow shape to him, scarcely detached from the darkness that enveloped her.

He meant to speak to her then. And suddenly found he could not, realised, all at once, that he lacked the courage.

This was the more amazing and disturbing to him because he could not remember the time or occasion when the knack of fluent speech had ever failed him.

He had never foreseen such a situation; it had never occurred to him that he would find the slightest difficulty in saying easily and gracefully what he had determined to say to this young girl.

Now he sat there silent, disturbed, nervous, and tongue-tied. At first he did not quite comprehend what was making him afraid. After a long while he understood that it was some sort of fear of her—fear of her refusal, fear of losing her, fear that she might have—in some occult way—divined what he really was, that she might have heard things concerning him, his wife, his career. The idea turned him cold.

And all at once he realised how terribly in earnest he had become; how deeply involved; how vital this young girl had become to him.

Never before had he really wanted anything as compared to this desire of his for her. He was understanding, too, in a confused way, that such a girl and such a home for him as she could make was going not only to give him the happiness he expected, but that it also meant betterment for himself—straighter living, perhaps straighter thinking—the birth of something resembling self-respect, perhaps even aspiration—or at least the aspiration toward that respect from others which honest living dare demand.

He wanted her; he wanted her now; he wanted to marry her whether or not he had the legal right; he wanted to go away for a month with her, and then return and work for her, for them both—build up a fortune and a good reputation with Stein's backing and Stein's theatre—stand well with honest men, stand well with himself, stand always, with her, for everything a man should be.

If she loved him she would forgive him and quietly remarry him as soon as Minna kicked him loose. He was confident he could make her happy, make her love him if once he could find courage to speak—if once he could win her. And suddenly the only possible way to go about it occurred to him.

His voice was a trifle husky and unsteady from the nervous tension when he at last broke the silence:

"Miss Rue," he said, "I have a word to say to your father and mother. Would you wait here until I come back?"

"I think I had better go in, too——"

"Please don't."

"Why?" She stopped short, instinctively, but not surmising.

"You will wait, then?" he asked.

"I was going in.... But I'll sit here a little while."

He rose and went in, rather blindly.

* * * * *

Ruhannah, dreaming there deep in her splint armchair, slim feet crossed, watched the fireflies sailing over the alders. Sometimes she thought of Brandes, pleasantly, sometimes of other matters. Once the memory of her drive home through the wintry moonlight with young Neeland occurred to her, and the reminiscence was vaguely agreeable.

Listless, a trifle sleepy, dreamily watching the fireflies, the ceaseless noise of the creek in her ears, inconsequential thoughts flitted through her brain—the vague, aimless, guiltless thoughts of a young and unstained mind.

She was nearly asleep when Brandes came back, and she looked up at him where he stood beside her porch chair in the darkness.

"Miss Rue," he said, "I have told your father and mother that I am in love with you and want to make you my wife."

The girl lay there speechless, astounded.



CHAPTER VIII

A CHANGE IMPENDS

The racing season at Saratoga drew toward its close, and Brandes had appeared there only twice in person, both times with a very young girl.

"If you got to bring her here to the races, can't you get her some clothes?" whispered Stull in his ear. "That get-up of hers is something fierce."

Late hours, hot weather, indiscreet nourishment, and the feverish anxiety incident to betting other people's money had told on Stull. His eyes were like two smears of charcoal on his pasty face; sourly he went about the business which Brandes should have attended to, nursing resentment—although he was doing better than Brandes had hoped to do.

Their joint commission from his winnings began to assume considerable proportions; at track and club and hotel people were beginning to turn and stare when the little man with the face of a sick circus clown appeared, always alone, greeting with pallid indifference his acquaintances, ignoring overtures, noticing neither sport, nor fashion, nor political importance, nor yet the fair and frail whose curiosity and envy he was gradually arousing.

Obsequiousness from club, hotel, and racing officials made no impression on him; he went about his business alone, sullen, preoccupied, deathly pale, asking no information, requesting no favours, conferring with nobody, doing no whispering and enduring none.

After a little study of that white, sardonic, impossible face, people who would have been glad to make use of him became discouraged. And those who first had recognised him in Saratoga found, at the end of the racing month, nothing to add to their general identification of him as "Ben Stull, partner of Eddie Brandes—Western sports."

* * * * *

Stull, whispering in Brandes' ear again, where he sat beside him in the grand stand, added to his earlier comment on Ruhannah's appearance:

"Why don't you fix her up, Eddie? It looks like you been robbing a country school."

Brandes' slow, greenish eyes marked sleepily the distant dust, where Mr. Sanford's Nick Stoner was leading a brilliant field, steadily overhauling the favourite, Deborah Glenn.

"When the time comes for me to fix her up," he said between thin lips which scarcely moved, "she'll look like Washington Square in May—not like Fifth Avenue and Broadway."

Nick Stoner continued to lead. Stull's eyes resembled two holes burnt in a sheet; Brandes yawned. They were plunging the limit on the Sanford favourite.

As for Ruhannah, she sat with slender gloved hands tightly clasped, lips parted, intent, fascinated with the sunlit beauty of the scene.

Brandes looked at her, and his heavy, expressionless features altered subtly:

"Some running!" he said.

A breathless nod was her response. All around them repressed excitement was breaking out; men stood up and shouted; women rose, and the club house seemed suddenly to blossom like a magic garden of wind-tossed flowers.

Through the increasing cheering Stull looked on without a sign of emotion, although affluence or ruin, in the Sanford colours, sat astride the golden roan.

Suddenly Ruhannah stood up, one hand pressed to the ill-fitting blue serge over her wildly beating heart. Brandes rose beside her. Not a muscle in his features moved.

* * * * *

"Gawd!" whispered Stull in his ear, as they were leaving.

"Some killing, Ben!" nodded Brandes in his low, deliberate voice. His heavy, round face was deeply flushed; Fortune, the noisy wanton, had flung both arms around his neck. But his slow eyes were continually turned on the slim young girl whom he was teaching to walk beside him without taking his arm.

"Ain't she on to us?" Stull had enquired. And Brandes' reply was correct; Ruhannah never dreamed that it made a penny's difference to Brandes whether Nick Stoner won or whether it was Deborah Glenn which the wild-voiced throng saluted.

* * * * *

They did not remain in Saratoga for dinner. They took Stull back to his hotel on the rumble of the runabout, Brandes remarking that he thought he should need a chauffeur before long and suggesting that Stull look about Saratoga for a likely one.

Halted in the crush before the United States Hotel, Stull decided to descend there. Several men in the passing crowds bowed to Brandes; one, Norton Smawley, known to the fraternity as "Parson" Smawley, came out to the curb to shake hands. Brandes introduced him to Rue as "Parson" Smawley—whether with some sinister future purpose already beginning to take shape in his round, heavy head, or whether a perverted sense of humour prompted him to give Rue the idea that she had been in godly company, it is difficult to determine.

He added that Miss Carew was the daughter of a clergyman and a missionary. And the Parson took his cue. At any rate Rue, leaning from her seat, listened to the persuasive and finely modulated voice of Parson Smawley with pleasure, and found his sleek, graceful presence and courtly manners most agreeable. There were no such persons in Gayfield.

She hoped, shyly, that if he were in Gayfield he would call on her father. Once in a very long while clergymen called on her father, and their rare visits remained a pleasure to the lonely invalid for months.

The Parson promised to call, very gravely. It would not have embarrassed him to do so; it was his business in life to have a sufficient knowledge of every man's business to enable him to converse convincingly with anybody.

He took polished leave of her; took leave of Brandes with the faintest flutter of one eyelid, as though he understood Brandes' game. Which he did not; nor did Brandes himself, entirely.

* * * * *

They had thirty miles to go in the runabout. So they would not remain to dinner. Besides, Brandes did not care to make himself conspicuous in public just then. Too many people knew more or less about him—the sort of people who might possibly be in communication with his wife. There was no use slapping chance in the face. Two quiet visits to the races with Ruhannah was enough for the present. Even those two visits were scarcely discreet. It was time to go.

Stull and Brandes stood consulting together beside the runabout; Rue sat in the machine watching the press of carriages and automobiles on Broadway, and the thronged sidewalks along which brilliant, animated crowds were pouring.

"I'm not coming again, Ben," said Brandes, dropping his voice. "No use to hunt the limelight just now. You can't tell what some of these people might do. I'll take no chances that some fresh guy might try to start something."

"Stir up Minna?" Stull's lips merely formed the question, and his eyes watched Ruhannah.

"They couldn't. What would she care? All the same, I play safe, Ben. Well, be good. Better send me mine on pay day. I'll need it."

Stull's face grew sourer:

"Can't you wait till she gets her decree?"

"And lose a month off? No."

"It's all coming your way, Eddie. Stay wise and play safe. Don't start anything now——"

"It's safe. If I don't take September off I wait a year for my—honeymoon. And I won't. See?"

They both looked cautiously at Ruhannah, who sat motionless, absorbed in the turmoil of vehicles and people.

Brandes' face slowly reddened; he dropped one hand on Stull's shoulder and said, between thin lips that scarcely moved:

"She's all I'm interested in. You don't think much of her, Ben. She isn't painted. She isn't dolled up the way you like 'em. But there isn't anything else that matters very much to me. All I want in the world is sitting in that runabout, looking out of her kid eyes at a thousand or two people who ain't worth the pair of run-down shoes she's wearing."

But Stull's expression remained sardonic and unconvinced.

So Brandes got into his car and took the wheel; and Stull watched them threading a tortuous path through the traffic tangle of Broadway.

They sped past the great hotels, along crowded sidewalks, along the park, and out into an endless stretch of highway where hundreds of other cars were travelling in the same direction.

"Did you have a good time?" he inquired, shifting his cigar and keeping his narrow eyes on the road.

"Yes; it was beautiful—exciting."

"Some horse, Nick Stoner! Some race, eh?"

"I was so excited—with everybody standing up and shouting. And such beautiful horses—and such pretty women in their wonderful dresses! I—I never knew there were such things."

He swung the car, sent it rushing past a lumbering limousine, slowed a little, gripped his cigar between his teeth, and watched the road, both hands on the wheel.

Yes, things were coming his way—coming faster and faster all the while. He had waited many years for this—for material fortune—for that chance which every gambler waits to seize when the psychological second ticks out. But he never had expected that the chance was to include a very young girl in a country-made dress and hat.

As they sped westward the freshening wind from distant pine woods whipped their cheeks; north, blue hills and bluer mountains beyond took fairy shape against the sky; and over all spread the tremendous heavens where fleets of white clouds sailed the uncharted wastes, and other fleets glimmered beyond the edges of the world, hull down, on vast horizons.

"I want to make you happy," said Brandes in his low, even voice. It was, perhaps, the most honest statement he had ever uttered.

Ruhannah remained silent, her eyes riveted on the far horizon.

* * * * *

It was a week later, one hot evening, that he telegraphed to Stull in Saratoga:

"Find me a chauffeur who will be willing to go abroad. I'll give you twenty-four hours to get him here."

The next morning he called up Stull on the telephone from the drug store in Gayfield:

"Get my wire, Ben?"

"Yes. But I——"

"Wait. Here's a postscript. I also want Parson Smawley. I want him to get a car and come over to the Gayfield House. Tell him I count on him. And he's to wear black and a white tie."

"Yes. But about that chauffeur you want——"

"Don't argue. Have him here. Have the Parson, also. Tell him to bring a white tie. Understand?"

"Oh, yes, I understand you, Eddie! You don't want anything of me, do you! Go out and get that combination? Just like that! What'll I do? Step into the street and whistle?"

"It's up to you. Get busy."

"As usual," retorted Stull in an acrid voice. "All the same. I'm telling you there ain't a chauffeur you'd have in Saratoga. Who handed you that dope?"

"Try. I need the chauffeur part of the combine, anyway. If he won't go abroad, I'll leave him in town. Get a wiggle on, Ben. How's things?"

"All right. We had War-axe and Lady Johnson. Some killing, eh? That stable is winning all along. We've got Adriutha and Queen Esther today. The Ocean Belle skate is scratched. Doc and Cap and me is thick with the Legislature outfit. We'll trim 'em tonight. How are you feeling, Eddie?"

"Never better. I'll call you up in the morning. Ding-dong!"

"Wait! Are you really going abroad?" shouted Stull.

But Brandes had already hung up.

He walked leisurely back to Brookhollow through the sunshine. He had never been as happy in all his life.



CHAPTER IX

NONRESISTANCE

"Long distance calling you, Mr. Stull. One moment, please.... Here's your party," concluded the operator.

Stull, huddled sleepily on his bed, picked up the transmitter from the table beside him with a frightful yawn.

"Who is it?" he inquired sourly.

"It's me—Ben!"

"Say, Eddie, have a heart, will you! I need the sleep——"

Brandes' voice was almost jovial:

"Wake up, you poor tout! It's nearly noon——"

"Well, wasn't I singing hymns with Doc and Cap till breakfast time? And believe me, we trimmed the Senator's bunch! They've got their transportation back to Albany, and that's about all——"

"Careful what you say. I'm talking from the Gayfield House. The Parson got here all right. He's just left. He'll tell you about things. Listen, Ben, the chauffeur you sent me from Saratoga got here last evening, too. I went out with him and he drives all right. Did you look him up?"

"Now, how could I look him up when you gave me only a day to get him for you?"

"Did he have references?"

"Sure, a wad of them. But I couldn't verify them."

"Who is he?"

"I forget his name. You ought to know it by now."

"How did you get him?"

"Left word at the desk. An hour later he came to my room with a couple of bums. I told him about the job. I told him you wanted a chauffeur willing to go abroad. He said he was all that and then some. So I sent him on. Anything you don't fancy about him?"

"Nothing, I guess. He seems all right. Only I like to know about a man——"

"How can I find out if you don't give me time?"

"All right, Ben. I guess he'll do. By the way, I'm starting for town in ten minutes."

"What's the idea?"

"Ask the Parson. Have you any other news except that you killed that Albany bunch of grafters?"

"No.... Yes! But it ain't good news. I was going to call you soon as I waked up——"

"What's the trouble?"

"There ain't any trouble—yet. But a certain party has showed up here—a very smooth young man whose business is hunting trouble. Get me?"

After a silence Stull repeated:

"Get me, Eddie?"

"No."

"Listen. A certain slippery party——"

"Who, damn it? Talk out. I'm in a hurry."

"Very well, then. Maxy Venem is here!"

The name of his wife's disbarred attorney sent a chill over Brandes.

"What's he doing in Saratoga?" he demanded.

"I'm trying to find out. He was to the races yesterday. He seen Doc. Of course Doc hadn't laid eyes on you for a year. Oh, no, indeed! Heard you was somewhere South, down and out. I don't guess Maxy was fooled none. What we done here in Saratoga is growing too big to hush up——"

"What we've done? Whad'ye mean, we? I told you to work by yourself quietly, Ben, and keep me out of it."

"That's what I done. Didn't I circulate the news that you and me had quit partnership? And even then you wouldn't take my advice. Oh, no. You must show up here at the track with a young lady——"

"How long has Maxy Venem been in Saratoga?" snapped Brandes.

"He told Doc he just come, but Cap found out he'd been here a week. All I hope is he didn't see you with the Brookhollow party——"

"Do you think he did?"

"Listen, Eddie. Max is a smooth guy——"

"Find out what he knows! Do you hear?"

"Who? Me? Me try to make Maxy Venem talk? That snake? If he isn't on to you now, that would be enough to put him wise. Act like you had sense, Eddie. Call that other matter off and slide for town——"

"I can't, Ben."

"You got to!"

"I can't, I tell you."

"You're nutty in the head! Don't you suppose that Max is wise to what I've been doing here? And don't you suppose he knows damn well that you're back of whatever I do? If you ain't crazy you'll call that party off for a while."

Brandes' even voice over the telephone sounded a trifle unnatural, almost hoarse:

"I can't call it off. It's done."

"What's done?"

"What I told you I was going to do."

"That!"

"The Parson married us."

"Oh!"

"Wait! Parson Smawley married us, in church, assisted by the local dominie. I didn't count on the dominie. It was her father's idea. He butted in."

"Then is it—is it——?"

"That's what I'm not sure about. You see, the Parson did it, but the dominie stuck around. Whether he got a half nelson on me I don't know till I ask. Anyway, I expected to clinch things—later—so it doesn't really matter, unless Max Venem means bad. Does he, do you think?"

"He always does, Eddie."

"Yes, I know. Well, then, I'll wait for a cable from you. And if I've got to take three months off in Paris, why I've got to—that's all."

"Good God! What about Stein? What about the theaytre?"

"You'll handle it for the first three months.... Say, I've got to go, now. I think she's waiting——"

"Who?"

"My—wife."

"Oh!"

"Yes. The chauffeur took her back to the house in the car to put something in her suitcase that she forgot. I'm waiting for her here at the Gayfield House. We're on our way to town. Going to motor in. Our trunks have gone by rail."

After a silence, Stull's voice sounded again, tense, constrained:

"You better go aboard tonight."

"That's right, too."

"What's your ship?"

"Lusitania."

"What'll I tell Stein?"

"Tell him I'll be back in a month. You look out for my end. I'll be back in time."

"Will you cable me?"

"Sure. And if you get any later information about Max today, call me at the Knickerbocker. We'll dine there and then go aboard."

"I get you.... Say, Eddie, I'm that worried! If this break of yours don't kill our luck——"

"Don't you believe it! I'm going to fight for what I got till someone hands me the count. She's the first thing I ever wanted. I've got her and I guess I can keep her.... And listen: there's nothing like her in all God's world!"

"When did you do—it?" demanded Stull, coldly.

"This morning at eleven. I just stepped over here to the garage. I'm talking to you from the bar. She's back by this time and waiting, I guess. So take care of yourself till I see you."

"Same to you, Eddie. And be leery of Max. He's bad. When they disbar a man like that he's twice as dangerous as he was. His ex-partner, Abe Grittlefeld, is a certain party's attorney of record. Ask yourself what you'd be up against if that pair of wolves get started after you! You know what Max would do to you if he could. And Minna, too!"

"Don't worry."

"I am worrying! And you ought to. You know what you done to Max. Don't think he ever forgets. He'll do you if he can, same as Minna will."

Brandes' stolid face lost a little of its sanguine colour, where he stood in the telephone box behind the bar of the Gayfield House.

Yes, he knew well enough what he had once done to the disbarred lawyer out in Athabasca when he was handling the Unknown and Venem, the disbarred, was busy looking out for the Athabasca Blacksmith, furnishing the corrupt brains for the firm of Venem and Grittlefeld, and paying steady court to the prettiest girl in Athabasca, Ilse Dumont.

And Brandes' Unknown had almost killed Max Venem's blacksmith; Brandes had taken all Venem's money, and then his girl; more than that, he had "made" this girl, in the theatrical sense of the word; and he had gambled on her beauty and her voice and had won out with both.

Then, while still banking her salary to reimburse himself for his trouble with her, he had tired of her sufficiently to prove unfaithful to his marriage vows at every opportunity. And opportunities were many. Venem had never forgiven him; Ilse Dumont could not understand treachery; and Venem's detectives furnished her with food for thought that presently infuriated her.

And now she was employing Max Venem, once senior partner in the firm of Venem and Grittlefeld, to guide her with his legal advice. She wanted Brandes' ruin, if that could be accomplished; she wanted her freedom anyway.

Until he had met Rue Carew he had taken measures to fight the statutory charges, hoping to involve Venem and escape alimony. Then he met Ruhannah, and became willing to pay for his freedom. And he was still swamped in the vile bog of charges and countercharges, not yet free from it, not yet on solid ground, when the eternal gambler in him suggested to him that he take the chance of marrying this young girl before he was legally free to do so.

Why on earth did he want to take such a chance? He had only a few months to wait. He had never before really cared for any woman. He loved her—as he understood love—as much as he was capable of loving. If in all the world there was anything sacred to him, it was his sentiment regarding Rue Carew. Yet, he was tempted to take the chance. Even she could not escape his ruling passion; at the last analysis, even she represented to him a gambler's chance. But in Brandes there was another streak. He wanted to take the chance that he could marry her before he had a right to, and get away with it. But his nerve failed. And, at the last moment, he had hedged, engaging Parson Smawley to play the lead instead of an ordained clergyman.

All these things he now thought of as he stood undecided, worried, in the telephone booth behind the bar at the Gayfield House. Twice Stull had spoken, and had been bidden to wait and to hold the wire.

Finally, shaking off the premonition of coming trouble, Brandes called again:

"Ben?"

"Yes, I'm listening."

"I'll stay in Paris if there's trouble."

"And throw Stein down?"

"What else is there to do?"

"Well, you can wait, can't you? You don't seem to be able to do that any more, but you better learn."

"All right. What next?"

"Make a quick getaway. Now!"

"Yes, I'm going at once. Keep me posted, Ben. Be good!"

He hung up and went out to the wide, tree-shaded street where Ruhannah sat in the runabout awaiting him, and the new chauffeur stood by the car.

He took off his straw hat, pulled a cap and goggles from his pocket. His man placed the straw hat in the boot.

"Get what you wanted, Rue?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Been waiting long?"

"I—don't think so."

"All right," he said cheerily, climbing in beside her. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting. Had a business matter to settle. Hungry?"

Rue, very still and colourless, said no, with a mechanical smile. The chauffeur climbed to the rumble.

"I'll jam her through," nodded Brandes as the car moved swiftly westward. "We'll lunch in Albany on time."

Half a mile, and they passed Neeland's Mills, where old Dick Neeland stood in his boat out on the pond and cast a glittering lure for pickerel.

She caught a glimpse of him—his sturdy frame, white hair, and ruddy visage—and a swift, almost wistful memory of young Jim Neeland passed through her mind.

But it was a very confused mind—only the bewildered mind of a very young girl—and the memory of the boy flashed into its confusion and out again as rapidly as the landscape sped away behind the flying car.

Dully she was aware that she was leaving familiar and beloved things, but could not seem to realise it—childhood, girlhood, father and mother, Brookhollow, the mill, Gayfield, her friends, all were vanishing in the flying dust behind her, dwindling, dissolving into an infinitely growing distance.

They took the gradual slope of a mile-long hill as swallows take the air; houses, barns, woods, orchards, grain fields, flew by on either side; other cars approaching passed them like cannon balls; the sunlit, undulating world flowed glittering away behind; only the stainless blue ahead confronted them immovably—a vast, magnificent goal, vague with the mystery of promise.

"On this trip," said Brandes, "we may only have time to see the Loove and the palaces and all like that. Next year we'll fix it so we can stay in Paris and you can study art."

Ruhannah's lips formed the words, "Thank you."

"Can't you learn to call me Eddie?" he urged.

The girl was silent.

"You're everything in the world to me, Rue."

The same little mechanical smile fixed itself on her lips, and she looked straight ahead of her.

"Haven't you begun to love me just a little bit, Rue?"

"I like you. You are very kind to us."

"Don't your affection seem to grow a little stronger now?" he urged.

"You are so kind to us," she repeated gratefully; "I like you for it."

The utterly unawakened youth of her had always alternately fascinated and troubled him. Gambler that he was, he had once understood that patience is a gambler's only stock in trade. But now for the first time in his career he found himself without it.

"You said," he insisted, "that you'd love me when we were married."

She turned her child's eyes on him in faint surprise:

"A wife loves her husband always, doesn't she?"

"Do you?"

"I suppose I shall.... I haven't been married very long—long enough to feel as though I am really married. When I begin to realise it I shall understand, of course, that I love you."

It was the calm and immature reply of a little girl playing house. He knew it. He looked at her pure, perplexed profile of a child and knew that what he had said was futile—understood that it was meaningless to her, that it was only confusing a mind already dazed—a mind of which too much had been expected, too much demanded.

He leaned over and kissed the cold, almost colourless cheek; her little mechanical smile came back. Then they remembered the chauffeur behind them and Brandes reddened. He was unaccustomed to a man on the rumble.

"Could I talk to mother on the telephone when we get to New York?" she asked presently, still painfully flushed.

"Yes, darling, of course."

"I just want to hear her voice," murmured Rue.

"Certainly. We can send her a wireless, too, when we're at sea."

That interested her. She enquired curiously in regard to wireless telegraphy and other matters concerning ocean steamers.

* * * * *

In Albany her first wave of loneliness came over her in the stuffy dining-room of the big, pretentious hotel, when she found herself seated at a small table alone with this man whom she seemed, somehow or other, to have married.

As she did not appear inclined to eat, Brandes began to search the card for something to tempt her. And, glancing up presently, saw tears glimmering in her eyes.

For a moment he remained dumb as though stunned by some sudden and terrible accusation—for a moment only. Then, in an unsteady voice:

"Rue, darling. You must not feel lonely and frightened. I'll do anything in the world for you. Don't you know it?"

She nodded.

"I tell you," he said in that even, concentrated voice of his which scarcely moved his narrow lips, "I'm just crazy about you. You're my own little wife. You're all I care about. If I can't make you happy somebody ought to shoot me."

She tried to smile; her full lips trembled; a single tear, brimming, fell on the cloth.

"I—don't mean to be silly.... But—Brookhollow seems—ended—forever...."

"It's only forty miles," he said with heavy joviality. "Shall we turn around and go back?"

She glanced up at him with an odd expression, as though she hoped he meant it; then her little mechanical smile returned, and she dried her eyes naively.

"I don't know why I cannot seem to get used to being married," she said. "I never thought that getting married would make me so—so—lonely."

"Let's talk about art," he suggested. "You're crazy about art and you're going to Paris. Isn't that fine."

"Oh, yes——"

"Sure, it's fine. That's where art grows. Artville is Paris' other name. It's all there, Rue—the Loove, the palaces, the Latin Quarter, the statues, the churches, and all like that."

"What is the Louvre like?" she asked, tremulously, determined to be brave.

As he had seen the Louvre only from the outside, his imaginary description was cautious, general, and brief.

After a silence, Rue asked whether he thought that their suitcases were quite safe.

"Certainly," he smiled. "I checked them."

"And you're sure they are safe?"

"Of course, darling. What worries you?"

And, as she hesitated, he remembered that she had forgotten to put something into her suitcase and that the chauffeur had driven her back to the house to get it while he himself went into the Gayfield House to telephone Stull.

"What was it you went back for, Rue?" he asked.

"One thing I went back for was my money."

"Money? What money?"

"Money my grandmother left me. I was to have it when I married—six thousand dollars."

"You mean you have it in your suitcase?" he asked, astonished.

"Yes, half of it."

"A cheque?"

"No, in hundreds."

"Bills?"

"Yes. I gave father three thousand. I kept three thousand."

"In bills," he repeated, laughing. "Is your suitcase locked?"

"Yes. I insisted on having my money in cash. So Mr. Wexall, of the Mohawk Bank, sent a messenger with it last evening."

"But," he asked, still immensely amused, "why do you want to travel about with three thousand dollars in bills in your suitcase?"

She flushed a little, tried to smile:

"I don't know why. I never before had any money. It is—pleasant to know I have it."

"But I'll give you all you want, Rue."

"Thank you.... I have my own, you see."

"Of course. Put it away in some bank. When you want pin money, ask me."

She shook her head with a troubled smile.

"I couldn't ask anybody for money," she explained.

"Then you don't have to. We'll fix your allowance."

"Thank you, but I have my money, and I don't need it."

This seemed to amuse him tremendously; and even Rue laughed a little.

"You are going to take your money to Paris?" he asked.

"Yes."

"To buy things?"

"Oh, no. Just to have it with me."

His rather agreeable laughter sounded again.

"So that was what you forgot to put in your suitcase," he said. "No wonder you went back for it."

"There was something else very important, too."

"What, darling?"

"My drawings," she explained innocently.

"Your drawings! Do you mean you've got them, too?"

"Yes. I want to take them to Paris and compare them with the pictures I shall see there. It ought to teach me a great deal. Don't you think so?"

"Are you crazy to study?" he asked, touched to the quick by her utter ignorance.

"It's all I dream about. If I could work that way and support myself and my father and mother——"

"But, Rue! Wake up! We're married, little girl. You don't have to work to support anybody!"

"I—forgot," said the girl vaguely, her confused grey eyes resting on his laughing, greenish ones.

Still laughing, he summoned the waiter, paid the reckoning; Ruhannah rose as he did; they went slowly out together.

On the sidewalk beside their car stood the new chauffeur, smoking a cigarette which he threw away without haste when he caught sight of them. However, he touched the peak of his cap civilly, with his forefinger.

Brandes, lighting a cigar, let his slow eyes rest on the new man for a moment. Then he helped Rue into the tonneau, got in after her, and thoughtfully took the wheel, conscious that there was something or other about his new chauffeur that he did not find entirely to his liking.



CHAPTER X

DRIVING HEAD-ON

It was mid-afternoon when they began to pass through that series of suburbs which the city has flung like a single tentacle northward for a hundred miles along the eastern banks of the Hudson.

A smooth road of bluestone with a surface like velvet, rarely broken by badly paved or badly worn sections, ran straight south. Past mansions standing amid spacious lawns all ablaze with late summer and early autumn flowers they sped; past parks, long stretches of walls, high fences of wrought iron through which brief glimpses of woodlands and splendid gardens caught Rue's eye. And, every now and then, slowing down to traverse some village square and emerging from the further limits, the great river flashed into view, sometimes glassy still under high headlands or along towering parapets of mountains, sometimes ruffled and silvery where it widened into bay or inland sea, with a glimmer of distant villages on the further shore.

Over the western bank a blinding sun hung in a sky without a cloud—a sky of undiluted azure; but farther south, and as the sun declined, traces of vapours from the huge but still distant city stained the heavens. Gradually the increasing haze changed from palest lavender and lemon-gold to violet and rose with smouldering undertones of fire. Beneath it the river caught the stains in deeper tones, flowing in sombre washes of flame or spreading wide under pastel tints of turquoise set with purple.

Now, as the sun hung lower, the smoke of every river boat, every locomotive speeding along the shores below, lay almost motionless above the water, tinged with the delicate enchantment of declining day.

And into this magic veil Rue was passing already through the calm of a late August afternoon, through tree-embowered villages and towns, the names of which she did not know—swiftly, inexorably passing into the iris-grey obscurity where already the silvery points of arc-lights stretched away into intricate geometrical designs—faint traceries as yet sparkling with subdued lustre under the sunset heavens.

Vast shadowy shapes towered up ahead—outlying public buildings, private institutions, industrial plants, bridges of iron and steel, the ponderous bowed spans of which crossed wildernesses of railroad tracks or craft-crowded waters.

Two enormous arched viaducts of granite stretched away through sparkling semi-obscurity—High Bridge and Washington Bridge. Then it became an increasing confusion of phantom masses against a fading sky—bridges, towers, skyscrapers, viaducts, boulevards, a wilderness of streets outlined by the growing brilliancy of electric lamps.

Brandes, deftly steering through the swarming maze of twilight avenues, turned east across the island, then swung south along the curved parapets and spreading gardens of Riverside Drive.

Perhaps Brandes was tired; he had become uncommunicative, inclined to silence. He did point out to her the squat, truncated mass where the great General slept; called her attention to the river below, where three grey battleships lay. A bugle call from the decks came faintly to her ears.

If Rue was tired she did not know it as the car swept her steadily deeper amid the city's wonders.

On her left, beyond the trees, the great dwellings and apartments of the Drive were already glimmering with light in every window; to the right, under the foliage of this endless necklace of parks and circles, a summer-clad throng strolled and idled along the river wall; and past them moved an unbroken column of automobiles, taxicabs, and omnibuses.

At Seventy-second Street they turned to the east across the park, then into Fifth Avenue south once more. She saw the name of the celebrated avenue on the street corner, turned to glance excitedly at Brandes; but his preoccupied face was expressionless, almost forbidding, so she turned again in quest of other delightful discoveries. But there was nothing to identify for her the houses, churches, hotels, shops, on this endless and bewildering avenue of grey stone; as they swung west into Forty-second Street, she caught sight of the great marble mass of the Library, but had no idea what it was.

Into this dusky canon, aflame with light, they rolled, where street lamps, the lamps of vehicles, and electric signs dazzled her unaccustomed eyes so that she saw nothing except a fiery vista filled with the rush and roar of traffic.

When they stopped, the chauffeur dropped from the rumble and came around to where a tall head porter in blue and silver uniform was opening the tonneau door.

Brandes said to his chauffeur:

"Here are the checks. Our trunks are at the Grand Central. Get them aboard, then come back here for us at ten o'clock."

The chauffeur lifted his hand to his cap, and looked stealthily between his fingers at Brandes.

"Ten o'clock," he repeated; "very good, sir."

Rue instinctively sought Brandes' arm as they entered the crowded lobby, then remembered, blushed, and withdrew her hand.

Brandes had started toward the desk with the intention of registering and securing a room for the few hours before going aboard the steamer; but something halted him—some instinct of caution. No, he would not register. He sent their luggage to the parcels room, found a maid who took Rue away, then went on through into the bar, where he took a stiff whisky and soda, a thing he seldom did.

In the toilet he washed and had himself brushed. Then, emerging, he took another drink en passant, conscious of an odd, dull sense of apprehension for which he could not account.

At the desk they told him there was no telephone message for him. He sauntered over to the news stand, stared at the display of periodicals, but had not sufficient interest to buy even an evening paper.

So he idled about the marble-columned lobby, now crowded with a typical early-autumn throng in quest of dinner and the various nocturnal amusements which the city offers at all times to the frequenters of its thousand temples.

Rue came out of the ladies' dressing room, and he went to her and guided her into the dining-room on the left, where an orchestra was playing. In her blue, provincial travelling gown the slender girl looked oddly out of place amid lace and jewels and the delicate tints of frail evening gowns, but her cheeks were bright with colour and her grey eyes brilliant, and the lights touched her thick chestnut hair with a ruddy glory, so that more than one man turned to watch her pass, and the idly contemptuous indifference of more than one woman ended at her neck and chin.

What Rue ate she never afterward remembered. It was all merely a succession of delicious sensations for the palate, for the eye, for the ear when the excellent orchestra was playing some gay overture from one of the newer musical comedies or comic operas.

Brandes at times seemed to shake off a growing depression and rouse himself to talk to her, even jest with her. He smoked cigarettes occasionally during dinner, a thing he seldom did, and, when coffee was served, he lighted one of his large cigars.

Rue, excited under an almost childishly timid manner, leaned on the table with both elbows and linked fingers, listening, watching everything with an almost breathless intelligence which strove to comprehend.

People left; others arrived; the music continued. Several times people passing caught Brandes' eye, and bowed and smiled. He either acknowledged such salutes with a slight and almost surly nod, or ignored them altogether.

One of his short, heavy arms lay carelessly along the back of his chair, where he was sitting sideways looking at the people in the lobby—watching with that same odd sensation of foreboding of which he had been conscious from the first moment he had entered the city line.

What reason for apprehension he had he could not understand. Only an hour lay between him and the seclusion of the big liner; a few hours and he and this girl beside him would be at sea.

Once he excused himself, went out to the desk, and made an inquiry. But there was no telephone or telegraph message for him; and he came back chewing his cigar.

Finally his uneasiness drew him to his feet again:

"Rue," he said, "I'm going out to telephone to Mr. Stull. It may take some little time. You don't mind waiting, do you?"

"No," she said.

"Don't you want another ice or something?"

She confessed that she did.

So he ordered it and went away.

As she sat leisurely tasting her ice and watching with unflagging interest the people around her, she noticed that the dining-room was already three-quarters empty. People were leaving for cafe, theatre, or dance; few remained.

Of these few, two young men in evening dress now arose and walked toward the lobby, one ahead of the other. One went out; the other, in the act of going, glanced casually at her as he passed, hesitated, halted, then, half smiling, half inquiringly, came toward her.

"Jim Neeland!" she exclaimed impulsively. "—I mean Mr. Neeland——" a riot of colour flooding her face. But her eager hand remained outstretched. He took it, pressed it lightly, ceremoniously, and, still standing, continued to smile down at her.

Amid all this strange, infernal glitter; amid a city of six million strangers, suddenly to encounter a familiar face—to see somebody—anybody—from Gayfield—seemed a miracle too delightful to be true.

"You are Rue Carew," he said. "I was not certain for a moment. You know we met only once before."

Rue, conscious of the startled intimacy of her first greeting, blushed with the memory. But Neeland was a tactful young man; he said easily, with his very engaging smile:

"It was nice of you to remember me so frankly and warmly. You have no idea how pleasant it was to hear a Gayfield voice greet me as 'Jim.'"

"I—didn't intend to——"

"Please intend it in future, Rue. You don't mind, do you?"

"No."

"And will you ever forget that magnificent winter night when we drove to Brookhollow after the party?"

"I have—remembered it."

"So have I.... Are you waiting for somebody? Of course you are," he added, laughing. "But may I sit down for a moment?"

"Yes, I wish you would."

So he seated himself, lighted a cigarette, glanced up at her and smiled.

"When did you come to New York?" he asked.

"Tonight."

"Well, isn't that a bit of luck to run into you like this! Have you come here to study art?"

"No.... Yes, I think, later, I am to study art here."

"At the League?"

"I don't know."

"Better go to the League," he said. "Begin there anyway. Do you know where it is?"

"No," she said.

He called a waiter, borrowed pencil and pad, and wrote down the address of the Art Students' League. He had begun to fold the paper when a second thought seemed to strike him, and he added his own address.

"In case I can do anything for you in any way," he explained.

Rue thanked him, opened her reticule, and placed the folded paper there beside her purse.

"I do hope I shall see you soon again," he said, looking gaily, almost mischievously into her grey eyes. "This certainly resembles fate. Don't you think so, Rue—this reunion of ours?"

"Fate?" she repeated.

"Yes. I should even call it romantic. Don't you think our meeting this way resembles something very much like romance?"

She felt herself flushing, tried to smile:

"It couldn't resemble anything," she explained with quaint honesty, "because I am sailing for Europe tomorrow morning; I am going on board in less than an hour. And also—also, I——"

"Also?"—he prompted her, amused, yet oddly touched by her childishly literal reply.

"I am—married."

"Good Lord!" he said.

"This morning," she added, tasting her ice.

"And you're sailing for Europe on your honeymoon!" he exclaimed. "Well, upon my word! And what is your ship?"

"The Lusitania."

"Really! I have a friend who is sailing on her—a most charming woman. I sent flowers to her only an hour ago."

"Did you?" asked Rue, interested.

"Yes. She is a widow—the Princess Mistchenka—a delightful and pretty woman. I am going to send a note to the steamer tonight saying that—that my very particular friend, Ruhannah Carew, is on board, and won't she ask you to tea. You'd love her, Rue. She's a regular woman."

"But—oh, dear!—a Princess!"

"You won't even notice it," he said reassuringly. "She's a corker; she's an artist, too. I couldn't begin to tell you how nice she has been to me. By the way, Rue, whom did you marry?"

"Mr. Brandes."

"Brandes? I don't remember—was he from up-state?"

"No; New York—I think——"

As she bent forward to taste her ice again he noticed for the first time the childlike loveliness of her throat and profile; looked at her with increasing interest, realising that she had grown into a most engaging creature since he had seen her.

Looking up, and beyond him toward the door, she said:

"I think your friend is waiting for you. Had you forgotten him?"

"Oh, that's so!" he exclaimed. Then rising and offering his hand: "I wish you happiness, Rue. You have my address. When you return, won't you let me know where you are? Won't you let me know your husband?"

"Yes."

"Please do. You see you and I have a common bond in art, another in our birthplace. Gayfield folk are your own people and mine. Don't forget me, Rue."

"No, I won't."

So he took his leave gracefully and went away through the enthralling, glittering unreality of it all leaving a young girl thrilled, excited, and deeply impressed with his ease and bearing amid awe-inspiring scenes in which she, too, desired most ardently to find herself at ease.

Also she thought of his friend, the Princess Mistchenka. And again, as before, the name seemed to evoke within her mind a recollection of having heard it before, very long ago.

She wondered whether Neeland would remember to write, and if he did she wondered whether a real princess would actually condescend to invite her to take tea.