Miss Gannion sat up straight, bracing her elbows against the sides of her chair.

"Mr. Thayer, have you any idea that Mr. Lorimer will ever give up drinking, drinking more than is good for him?"

"I have not."

"Have you any idea that Beatrix, if she marries him, can escape years of anxiety and wretchedness?"

"I have not," he answered again.

"Oh, how cold you are!" she cried, in passionate revolt against his even tone. "Don't you care anything at all for Beatrix?"

If he flinched at her question, he rallied again too quickly for her to discover it. Then he looked her squarely in the eye.

"I would do anything in my power to protect Miss Dane; but this is a case where I have no right to speak to her. I have spoken to Lorimer again and again, urging him to control himself for her sake. Beyond that, I have no right to go."

"But you said once that you thought she ought to be told."

"That was months ago. She found out, without being told."

"Not all."

"Enough."

"But, if she knew all about it, all that you know, Beatrix Dane would never marry Sidney Lorimer."

"Very likely not."

"Then you ought to tell her. What right have you to suppress facts that would change her whole point of view? You have it in your power to save Beatrix Dane. Once you were willing to do it." She had risen and stood on the rug, facing him. Stung by his coldness and by her disappointment in him, she allowed a sudden note of hostility to creep into her voice, and it cut Thayer like the edge of a steel knife.

"I am sorry," he said, after a pause; "but it is too late for that now, Miss Gannion."

His words were more true than he realized. When, after a half-hour of uncomfortable, disjointed talk, he said good-night and went away, he found Lorimer waiting for him in his own rooms. Thayer's greeting was curt, for he was still smarting from the memory of his talk with Miss Gannion. He had been impenetrable to her questions, but not to her sharpness, and he was hurt by the disapproval she had shown. It was the first time he had heard the curious icy tone in her voice; it had struck a jarring note in their friendship. For the time being, Miss Gannion had distrusted him; but at least she had gained no idea of the cause of his changed attitude. For so much, he was thankful. He had saved his own respect at the risk of forfeiting that of Miss Gannion.

Lorimer met him excitedly; but Thayer's experienced eye saw that the excitement had no alcoholic basis.

"Congratulations, old fellow! Everything is settled at last, and we are to be married, early in January. I came straight to you, for I knew you would be delighted. Of course, I shall count on you as best man."

It would never have occurred to Thayer that there was need to brace himself against any possible shock. For a minute, the droplight on the table seemed to be dancing a Russian trepac. Then, just as it was ready to fall, he heard his own voice saying, with exactly the proper degree of cordiality,—

"I do congratulate you, Lorimer, and I am delighted that it is settled."

Later on, he knew that he had spoken the truth.

"And you will be best man?" Lorimer questioned eagerly.

"Yes. Who else has better claim?" The conventional note was still there; Thayer felt its aloofness far more than Lorimer, absorbed in his own joy, was able to do. The silence was short; then Thayer mastered himself again. "Lorimer," he said quietly; "I certainly do congratulate you, for you have been able to gain one of the noblest women in the world. Your happiness ought to be great; but you have taken a fearful responsibility along with it. At your best you can be worthy of her; but, if you fall one inch below your best level, you will deserve to be flayed alive. You have gone into this with your eyes open. You know that you can make Beatrix Dane's life a heaven or a hell. You and I both know the danger; we know that she is running a terrible risk in marrying you, and that you yourself are the only person who can save her from shame and sorrow. For God's sake, Lorimer, do all you can to make yourself live up to the best that is in you."



CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Late March found Thayer just completing a long circle. He had gone to Chicago by way of Washington; he was coming back by way of Canada and New England. Oratorio societies were rampant, that Lent, and he had been the popular baritone of the season, completely ousting from public favor the bass who had monopolized the applause for six or seven years previous. He had fainted under Elijah's juniper tree times without number, until he had learned to watch with cynical interest for the phrase which never failed to draw forth the tears. He had even taken part in one grand operatic rendition of the work, when the audience had been half strangled by the too realistic fumes from the altar, and the chorus, huddled at the back of the stage, had sung the Rain Chorus off the key, to the accompaniment of the torrent which poured down in a thin sheet just back of the curtain, raining neither on the just nor on the unjust, but falling accurately into the groove for the footlights between them. He had sung The Messiah and Arminius until they were a weariness to his flesh, and Hiawatha's call to Gitche Manito, the Mighty had become second nature to his tongue. He had moments of acute longing to astound his audience with a German student song, and, upon his off nights, he fell into the vaudeville habit. Not even his Puritanism could enjoy an unlimited diet of oratorio.

At first there had been some question of his giving a number of recitals at different points on his journey; but he had renounced the idea. Arlt was grinding away at counterpoint under the best master to be found in New York, and Arlt was the only accompanist with whom Thayer cared to sing. The boy had no notion that Thayer needed him; neither did he have any idea of the discrepancy between his own payments and the actual fees of the great musician with whom Thayer had advised him to study. Week by week, he brought his few dollars, without once suspecting that Thayer's monthly checks were really paying for the lessons.

Arlt had fallen to work with the eagerness born of long and enforced abstinence. Certain musical themes had been haunting him for the past two years; yet he had known that he lacked the training which should enable him to develop them properly, and, with rare self-denial, rather than spoil them he had turned his back upon them and tried to forget them. Now, however, his work was beginning to tell upon him, and his teacher was more and more encouraging, while the old themes came back to him, grown and enriched by their season of lying fallow. Spurred on by the consciousness of all this, Arlt was hard at work upon an overture with which he hoped to greet Thayer on his return to the city. Day by day, the overture was growing. It was boyish; yet it was dignified and original.

On the last morning of his trip, Thayer came down the steps of his hotel, halted to stare about him at the streets of the leisurely little city, and then sauntered away towards the hall where the rehearsal was to take place. It was still early; nevertheless, as he came within sight of the building, he found the street filled with the members of the orchestra who, thriftily refusing cabs, had marched up from the station in a solid phalanx, laden with all manner of strange-looking bags and cases. Thayer nodded to them with a certain eagerness. After two months of wandering, it was good to find himself once more within the New York radius. He had sung with these men often; they knew every trick of his voice, and he could count upon them not to break into a galloping rhythm in the midst of a minor andante. His face lighted, and his tongue fell into his beloved German idioms, as he went up the stairs with a bass viol and a bassoon on either hand.

The director of the chorus was also a New York man, and Thayer shook hands with him cordially, wondering, meanwhile, how it chanced that one short year had made him feel that New York was home to him. The director knew Arlt's teacher, too. He had heard of the young German's promise, and it was with some regret that Thayer heard him break off from these congenial themes, for the sake of introducing him to the officers of the society who were unduly agitated by the consciousness that they had captured both Thayer and the latest English tenor who had landed only the week before and was to make his American debut, that evening.

Meanwhile, the hall was filling fast. The chorus, chattering with the nervous vivacity which always heralds a concert, were crowding into the fraction of space allotted to them; and, in the open floor beyond, the musicians of the orchestra were gathered into little groups, unpacking their instruments, unfolding their racks and eying the chorus with metropolitan disdain. Here and there a violinist, his violin at his shoulder, sauntered up and down the floor, alternately drawing his bow across the strings and lowering it again, while he tightened them. Then, in answer to the call from the oboe, the whole place grew filled with their din, discordant at first, but slowly coming into more and more perfect harmony, uniting upon the single note, breaking again into countless changing tones, only to yield once more to the single A, caught, dropped during an instant's pause, then caught again and held in long-drawn, jubilant sonority.

On the heels of the other soloists, Thayer picked his way up the narrow aisle at the right of the tenors, and took his seat upon the little stage. As he did so, he discovered a diminutive gallery directly over the main entrance to the hall. Side by side in the gallery sat two men, the president of the chorus and Bobby Dane.

Bobby was beaming down at him placidly, and Thayer's face lighted at the unexpected sight of his friend. Bobby nodded occasionally, to mark his approval of the music; then, at the end of Thayer's first solo, he laid his score on the gallery rail and led off a volley of applause which, echoing back from the chorus, roused Bobby to such a pitch of enthusiasm that he knocked the score off the rail and sent it tumbling down among the rear ranks of the altos.

"Why the unmentionable mischief do you waste your energies, singing like that at a rehearsal?" he demanded abruptly of Thayer, as he joined him on the stairs.

"Where the unmentionable mischief did you come from?" Thayer responded, seizing Bobby's hand in his own firm clasp.

"New York. Just came up, this morning. I'm doing the concert, to-night."

"Oh! I was under the impression that I was going to do a part of it, myself."

"Musically. I represent the power of the Press."

"As critic?"

"Certainly."

"How long since?"

"To-day. The regular critic is busy with a domestic funeral, his grandmother, or step-mother, or something, and it lay between the devil and me to take his place. Strange to say, the Chief chose me; but he was morose enough to say the old lady shouldn't have died, just when all the other papers in town were sending up their best critics."

"But how do you expect to get up a criticism?"

Bobby smiled up at him in smug satisfaction over his own wiliness.

"By caressing the mammon of unrighteousness. I know you; likewise the president of this chorus was in my prep. school. I happened to hear of him, last week, and I am banking on the fact for all it is worth. Therefore I have two strings to my bow. That's more than one of your second violins did. To my certain knowledge, he wrecked two strings in the overture and one in the prelude of your first solo. After that, I got interested and lost count."

"Do you expect us to dictate our own praises?"

"Not much. I am too canny for that. Besides, don't be too sure they will be praises. No; I have asked the president, in strict confidence, just what he thinks of you, and his answer was properly garrulous. His originality was startling, too. He observed that you have temperament. Now I am proceeding to ask you, also in strict confidence, what you think of the chorus."

"That it has intemperament," Thayer responded promptly. "Dane, I abhor that word."

"Is that the reason you coined its negative?"

"No; but it gets on my nerves. When it started out into service, it meant something; but now it is used to express everything, from real artistic feeling down to the way a man rolls up his eyes when he sings love songs. I wish you newspaper men would bring out something new to take its place. You can do it; you generally set the fashion in words."

"I'll ask Lee, when he gets over his funeral," Bobby suggested. "It is out of my line. I am a greater artist than he is, a typographical song without words. I do scareheads, and buffet the devil. Thayer?"

"Yes?"

"Do you honestly enjoy this sort of thing?"

Thayer glanced down at the muddy crossing where they stood waiting for a car to pass.

"No. I prefer an occasional street-cleaning episode; but what can you expect in a March thaw?"

"I don't mean that," Bobby said impatiently. "I'm not joking now."

"Beg pardon," Thayer returned briefly. "What do you mean, Dane?"

"I mean all this tramping round the country, singing to strange people, getting applause at night and reading about yourself, next day. Doesn't it get a frightful bore, after the dozenth time you've been through it?"

"The applause and the audience and the criticisms, yes. The singing, no," Thayer said, after an interval.

"And you're willing to put up with one for the sake of the other?"

"Yes."

Bobby dodged a shower of mud from a passing cab.

"Well, tastes differ, then. In New York, we've been going on the same old routine, and yet no two days have been alike, except in the minor detail of missing you at places. You have been in twenty different cities, and I'd be willing to bet that your routine hasn't varied: sleeper, hotel, rehearsal, concert, applause, wreath, supper, hotel, bed, and so on around the circuit again and again. And you say the singing pays for it. It does pay us; but you can't hear yourself, Thayer, not to get any good of it. If it isn't the applause and such stuff, what do you do it for?"

Thayer glanced down at the man beside him. He liked Bobby Dane, and, for the moment, he felt moved to discard his customary reticence in regard to his art.

"For the sake of feeling myself picked up and carried along by something quite outside myself, something I am powerless to analyze, or to master; yet something that I can help to express," he answered.

Bobby accepted the lesson in silence. Then of a sudden his whimsical fun reasserted itself.

"Must feel a good deal like getting drunk," he commented gravely. "And a propos des bottes, Beatrix is at home again."

Thayer's shoulders straightened, his step grew rhythmic once more.

"When did she come?"

"She landed, ten days ago, and they went right to the new house. She is going to send out cards for Mondays in May; but, meanwhile, we are coming in for an earlier event. There's a note at your rooms now, asking you to dine with them, next Monday."

"How do you know?"

"Because, like a coy maiden, I named the day. It is a sort of post-nuptial event, the maid of honor, the best man, and the master of ceremonies, meaning myself. She wasn't going to ask me, because it would spoil the number; but I told her I would make a point of being there, and that Monday was my most convenient day. It will give us our first chance to talk over the wedding."

"How does she—Mrs. Lorimer look?"

"She Mrs. Lorimer looks very natural," Bobby replied gravely. "As a rule, we only say a person looks natural after his demise; but I assure you that Beatrix is very much alive."

"And happy?" Thayer asked involuntarily.

Bobby gave him a swift, sharp glance. Then he resumed his former nonchalant air.

"As happy as one always is at landing after five days of acute sea-sickness. They pursued a storm, all the way home. They didn't catch it, though, except in the figurative sense of our remote childhood. I never saw Beatrix look so happy in her life as when she planted her second foot safely on the pier."

"What about Lorimer?"

Bobby shook his broad shoulders, with the air of a man shaking off a disagreeable subject.

"Oh, he's all right," he said shortly.

Together the two men idled away the afternoon. Bobby would fain have introduced Thayer to his own brother craftsmen who infested the hotel in the hope of getting speech with the artists; but Thayer had little liking for being interviewed, and preferred to divide his time between his own room and the streets. He and Bobby had an apparently limitless fund of talk, and their conversation wandered at will over the events of the past two months. However, as all roads lead to Rome, so all subjects led to Beatrix. When they came around to her in their discussion, Thayer invariably changed the subject; yet even a few words on a constantly recurring theme can end by illuminating that theme perfectly, provided only that it recurs often enough. By the time Thayer was dressing for the concert, that night, he was in full possession of all Bobby Dane's facts concerning his cousin, and he was convinced that all was not well with Lorimer.

With a commendable spirit of originality, the officers of the chorus had broken away from the established rule which proclaimed it an Elijah season, and had chosen to give St. Paul, that night. Thayer liked the oratorio. It seemed to him more original, more inspired, infinitely more human than the other. Moreover, it would be restful to keep silent and let the tenor warble himself to a lingering death. Even fiery chariots become monotonous in time, and an indignant mob affords a welcome variety. He had not heard the tenor since they had sung together in Berlin, two years before, and he was looking forward to the evening with a good deal of pleasure.

To his surprise and annoyance, he found the music stopping short at his tympani, powerless to enter his brain. When he jolted himself out of his train of subconscious thought, he was aware that the orchestra was superb, that his old friend, the tenor, had added many cubits to his artistic stature, during the past two years, that he himself, Cotton Mather Thayer, would have to use his best efforts if he did not wish to occupy an entirely subordinate place upon the programme. Then he recurred to his thought of Beatrix and Lorimer. If Lorimer had not kept a straight course during his honeymoon, what hope was there for either himself or Beatrix in the many, many moons to come?

The strings and the wind took up the Allegro, and Thayer rose. Lorimer, if he had been present, would have known what to expect from the straightening of his shoulders and the sudden squaring of his jaw; but Bobby Dane, who had been watching the apathy in which his friend was buried, was distinctly nervous. Then, at the first note, his nervousness vanished, leaving in its place only wondering admiration. Bobby had supposed he knew what Thayer could do; but he was totally unprepared for the furious dignity with which the singer rendered his aria,—

"Consume them all, Pour out Thine indignation, and let them feel Thy power."

The applause did not wait for the orchestra to slide comfortably back to the tonic. It broke out promptly upon the final note, and it satisfied even Bobby. Thayer bowed his acknowledgments, and then returned to his reverie; but he roused himself again at the Adagio which announced his second aria.

Then it was, in Paul's outcry for mercy, for the blotting out of his transgressions, that Bobby Dane understood what Thayer had meant, that noon, when he had spoken of being carried along by something outside of himself. Bobby knew Thayer as a quiet, self-contained man of the world; the Thayer who was singing that great aria was on fire with a passionate madness, tingling with unfulfilled longing, striving against his whole temperament for peace and for pardon. Bobby knew all this; he dimly realized, moreover, that the singer was fired by love for the wife of his friend, burning with the surety that his friend was unworthy of her, and struggling with all the manhood there was in him to face that love and that surety with the stoic calm of one of his Puritan ancestors, to quench the fire and to cover the ashes.

Bobby joined him in the wings, at the close of the concert. Even in the dim light, he could see that Thayer looked whiter than his wont, and that the veins in his temples stood out like knotted cords.

"What business have you to be doing oratorio?" Bobby demanded, as soon as they could struggle a little apart from the gossiping, gushing ranks of the chorus which surrounded them, pulling surreptitious bits from Thayer's mammoth wreath of laurel.

"Why not?" Thayer asked calmly.

"Because you are throwing away the best of yourself. Putting you into oratorio is like icing tea. You belong in grand opera."

Thayer raised his brows dissentingly.

"I wish I could think so, Dane; but I am afraid I should only disappoint you," he answered, and his tone was not altogether jovial, as he said it.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"I don't expect to be consistent," Sally retorted. "I'm only an ill-assorted snarl of threads ravelled out from my different ancestors."

"That's dodging the responsibility, Miss Van Osdel."

Bobby lifted an oyster and held it up to view.

"I never did approve of shunting off our sins on the shoulders of our ancestors," he observed. "They sin; we get the come-uppance. You might as well say that the grandfather of this oyster is directly responsible for his being eaten alive."

"No man's sin is wholly his own doing," Lorimer said half bitterly.

There was a sudden pause, as they all came to a realizing sense that Sally's idle words had sent them sliding out upon thin ice. Bobby was the first to rally.

"True for you, Lorimer!" he assented cheerily. "That is one of the doctrines I have spent my life trying to impress on the governor. I wish he felt it more borne in upon him. But, as you were saying, Sally, you're not expecting to become consistent. I'm glad, for you won't be disappointed. The brightest jewel in your crown will have to be of another color."

"What color is consistency, Bobby?" his cousin asked.

"Green, of course, reflected from the jealous eyes of the ninety and nine sinners who haven't the virtue."

"I'm not at all certain that I wish to be consistent," Sally asserted.

"So glad for your sake!" Bobby returned quickly.

Thayer looked up inquiringly.

"Because consistent people are such bores, Miss Van Osdel?"

"So you are a heretic, too? And then they are so smug."

"But there's consistency and consistency," Bobby argued. "There's mashed potato and frappe, for instance, equally hard, equally homogeneous, yet totally different. To my mind, there is a distinct choice between them, and I prefer—"

"Cherries in your frappe." Sally capped his sentence for him. "In other words, we all like a consistent person with lumps of inconsistency. That's myself, and one of my lumps is a dislike of having Mrs. Lloyd Avalons on our tenement committee."

"But, if you are slumming—"

"That is ignoble of you, Beatrix. The committee doesn't slum within its own confines."

"Oh, I didn't mean that at all," Beatrix protested hastily. "Really, though. I can't see why you and Mrs. Lloyd Avalons can't unite in working for somebody quite outside either of your worlds."

Sally raised her brows in saucy imitation of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons's pet expression. Then she pushed Beatrix's words aside with daintily outstretched fingers.

"Can't you?" she said coolly, as she ended her little pantomime. "Well, I can. To adopt Bobby's choice illustration, it would be like mixing potato and frappe. The potato would melt the frappe, and then the frappe would—well, would render the potato unpalatable. In other words, if we work together, I shall pulverize Mrs. Lloyd Avalons, and then the dust of her individuality will get in among my nerves and clog them."

"If you can't be consistent, Miss Van Osdel, please do try to be concrete," Thayer urged. "I confess that I find it a little difficult to follow you."

"Not at all," Bobby interposed. "She isn't going anywhere. Sally's mental processes always remind me of the way we used to play cars in a row of easy chairs. We were extremely energetic, and we pretended that we were going somewhere; but in reality we didn't budge an inch. Sally, what is the reason you don't like Mrs. Lloyd Avalons?"

"Because she is utterly preposterous," Sally replied concisely.

"And yet, she is bound to arrive, some day," Lorimer said thoughtfully.

"Then I hope it may not be until after I have left," Sally retorted. "I don't care to have her making connections with me."

"Sally, you are uncharitable," Beatrix said rebukingly; but Bobby interrupted,—

"That's more than you can say of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons. She is on half the charity committees in town."

"How did she get there?" Thayer asked, with unfeigned curiosity.

"By toiling upward, day and night. That's where she scores ahead of the great men. According to the poet, they only belonged to the night shift. Mrs. Lloyd Avalons sleeps with the Blue Book under her pillow and dreams social combinations."

"She probably has a chess board always at her elbow," Sally suggested. "I can fancy the game, the white queen and her pawn against the whole black force, each man neatly tagged with his name and social status."

"She is marching straight into the king-row, though," Bobby added.

Beatrix called them to order.

"Does it strike you that this is perilously near to being gossip?" she inquired.

But Sally had the last word.

"It's not gossip to talk over the possibilities of the lower classes," she remarked imperturbably. "It is social science."

Lorimer went back to the original question which had started the discussion.

"As I said before, there is a certain inconsistency in the idea of a given number of women setting themselves to work to better the condition of the masses, and then coming to wreck and ruin because one of their number is of a slightly different set."

"Slightly inferior," Sally corrected him.

Lorimer accepted the amendment.

"Inferior, then, if you choose. But we are talking of the theory in the abstract, not of any particular case. One hardly expects to find snobbishness in slumming."

"Then that's where one gets left," Bobby commented, by way of parenthesis.

"But if you are all stooping?"

"Yes; but the alignment is better, if we all stoop at the same angle," Sally protested.

"What I wish to know," Thayer said thoughtfully; "is where the deadline of propriety exists. Take the case of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons, for instance. Why does she take Patsey Keefe to her heart and home, and snub Arlt upon all occasions?"

"Because she wishes to maintain a proper perspective," Sally replied. "Everyone knows that Patsey and she are chums from choice; with Mr. Arlt, there might be a question. Legitimate slumming presupposes two willing parties, the slummer and the slummed."

"In other words," Bobby added; "it is socially possible to foregather with the slum in the next ward; it is death to speak to the undesirable neighbor in the back alley. The fact is ordained; but it will take several generations of social scientists to ferret out the cause."

Sally addressed the table at large.

"For my part, I like Mr. Arlt," she said flatly. "What's more, I am going with him to the Kneisel concert, to-morrow night; and, if any of you are there and choose to eye me askance, you are welcome."

Later, that evening, Thayer found himself with Beatrix and a little apart from the others. The dinner had been utterly informal, and it had been tacitly understood that the guests should linger afterwards. It was only ten days since the Lorimers had landed from their European honeymoon, and as yet they felt themselves privileged to hold themselves a little aloof from the social treadmill. Though the breakfast table, each morning, was littered with cards and notes of invitation, yet the season was in their favor. Lent had entered upon its last week, and even the largest functions clothed themselves in penitential and becoming shades of violet. Accordingly, it had been a source of little self-denial for Bobby and Sally to give up their other engagements for the evening. As for Thayer, he invariably went his own way, invited everywhere and appearing only in the places which suited his mood of the hour. It was the one professional luxury that he allowed himself.

To his keen eye, Beatrix looked as if she were carrying a heavy burden of care. She was as alert as ever; her social training was bound to ensure that. But between her conversational sallies, her face settled into certain fixed lines that were new to Thayer. Even during the past two months, her lips had grown firmer; but her lids drooped more often, as if to hide some secret which otherwise might be betrayed by her eyes. Up to this time, Thayer had never called her especially pretty. She was handsome, perhaps; but her face was too cold, too austere. Now, however, it seemed to him full of possibilities for beauty, softer, infinitely more loving. In the old days, the curve of her lips had been haughty; to-night, their firmer lines appeared to him like a mask worn to conceal the gentler womanhood within. She was thinner, too; but browned by her sea voyage, and she carried herself with the nameless dignity which comes to a woman upon her bridal day.

Lorimer appeared to be in the pink of condition. He was more handsome than ever, more graciously winning. His voice had all the old caressing intonations which Thayer recalled so well, together with many new ones that crept into his tone whenever he addressed his wife. By look and word and gesture, he referred and deferred to her constantly; and his eyes never failed to light, when they rested upon her own. No man could have been more frankly and openly in love with his own wife.

"Then I take it for granted that the trip has been a success," Thayer said, as he joined her.

"Indeed it has. Mr. Lorimer took me to all his old haunts and, in Berlin, to all of yours that he could find. We went to your old lodgings, and we heard a concert in the hall where you made your debut and, the last day we were there, Sidney insisted upon hunting up your old master."

Thayer looked up suddenly.

"The dear old Maestro! Did he remember me?" he asked, with a boyish enthusiasm which sat well upon him.

"Certainly he did, if remember is the right word, for his knowledge of you was not all in the past tense. He has followed you closely, and he knows just what you have done. Mr. Thayer," she added abruptly; "why have you never sung in opera?"

"Why should I?"

"Because he said that there was your especial talent, only he called it by a stronger name. He jeers at the work you are doing."

Thayer smiled.

"I am sorry. I thought it was good work."

"So it is, as far as it goes. But the other goes farther."

"Perhaps," he assented. "But do you think it is as—as—"

"Good form?" she queried, laughing. "Yes, if you choose to have it so. It depends something upon the individual. With your training and traditions, you would scarcely elect to sing comic opera in English."

"Heaven forbid!" he said hastily. "But there are grades and grades, even of the other. Not many mortals reach the top round of the ladder."

"No; and, even if they did, they would be a good deal in your way, for the space up there is limited. It will be merely a question of your own will whether or not you occupy a part of it."

He was surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. No woman, not even Miss Gannion, had ever dared question to him the wisdom of his choice, or imply to him that there were laurels which he had not yet plucked. Strange to say, he rather enjoyed the frank fashion in which Beatrix was taking him to task. Nevertheless, he fenced a little.

"I have always preferred a moderate success to an immoderate failure," he answered her.

She shook her head.

"That sounds specious; but you know it is a quibble. I had never supposed that your ambition was so limited."

"But it is not the mark of limitation to know where my success lies."

"Perhaps not. For my part, though, I don't want to rest on any success. If I succeed in one thing, that is over and done with, and I want to try for something else."

"And if you fail?"

"Then, as soon as I am quite sure it is a failure and that no power of mine can beat it into a success, I try to turn my back upon it, and face another problem," she replied, with a quiet dignity which ignored the flush that rose in both their faces at the careless question.

Thayer, too, had seen the flush in her cheeks which had answered to his own rising color. For an instant, he questioned whether it were an unwitting acknowledgment that her power over Lorimer was more limited than she had supposed. Then he dismissed the suspicion. Her poise was too perfect to make such a supposition possible. It was only that he, knowing the truth, sought for confirmation upon all sides.

"You are a good fighter," he responded quietly. "What would be the concrete application of your theory to my practice?"

"That you should try to fulfil the ambition your old master has for you," she returned. "Why don't you try it? You can't gain any more glory in your present field; you stand at the head of concert and oratorio singers in America. You have nothing to lose; and, over there in Berlin, there is an old man who boasts that he made your voice, and says that he can never sing his Nunc Dimittis until you have entered upon your right path."

Thayer's face softened.

"Did he say that?"

"Yes, and he extorted a promise from me that I would tell you his very words. That is the reason I have made bold to speak about the matter."

"What do you think about it, yourself, Mrs. Lorimer?"

"That he knows your possibilities much better than I," she answered evasively.

"But you have an opinion," he urged.

"Yes, I have," she replied frankly. "From what he told me, and from what I have heard of your singing, I know that you can do broader work than any you have attempted. Your voice will do for either thing, opera or oratorio; but on a few times—" she hesitated; then she went on without flinching; "on the night of the Fresh Air Fund concert, for instance, you showed a dramatic power that is wasted in your present work." Suddenly she laughed at her own earnestness. "What am I, that I should advise the star of the season? Do excuse my frankness, Mr. Thayer."

"I asked you."

"That's no reason I should bore you with all my theories upon a subject of which I know practically nothing. And, meanwhile, I am forgetting to tell you that we went to see Frau Arlt."

His face showed his pleasure and his approval, his pleasure that he had found something in Lorimer to which he could give his unreserved approval.

"I am glad you saw her. It was like Lorimer to hunt her up. Does Otto know about it?"

"He came to dinner, a day or two after we landed. Mr. Lorimer had written him a note to tell him we were at home, and you should have seen the boy's delight over the box of funny little odds and ends his mother had sent him. Sidney is always so thoughtful, and he suggested to the old lady that we had room in our trunks for a package. I really think that the boy was happier with his home-made gifts than I was with the things Mr. Lorimer gave me in Paris."



"He has been a very brave, but a very homesick little German," Thayer answered, while his eyes rested thoughtfully on her face. It brightened now, as she spoke of Lorimer, and a half-tender, half-amused smile was playing around her lips. All in all, Thayer was broad enough to like it better so.

Suddenly she rose, as if to end their conversation; but she turned back again to add,—

"Of all my wedding gifts, Mr. Thayer, the sweetest was the blessing of good old Frau Arlt. She will never forget Mr. Lorimer, and her story of his kindness in their darkest days, her good wishes to me, and her happiness in seeing us will always stand out as an unforgettable picture. You knew all about it, of course; but I had no idea how good to them Sidney had been, nor how full of tact."

The smile still lingered about her lips, and her cheeks were flushed a little, as she turned away in answer to her husband's call. For long months to come, it was so that Thayer liked best to think of her.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Beatrix raised her eyes from her letters. "Mother wants us to come to dinner, to-night, Sidney."

"But you are scheduled for something else; aren't you?" he answered, without looking up from his paper.

"For nothing that I can't break. There are some teas and the theatre. I had thought I might have to hurry our dinner, to get through in time. What if we give up the theatre? The Andersons won't mind, if we telephone them so early."

"Just as well," he responded indifferently, as he turned his paper inside out and ran his eye down the columns.

"Then shall I telephone mother that we will be there?"

"You can go, Beatrix. I sha'n't be able to be there."

"Why not, Sidney?"

"Because Dudley is giving a dinner at the club, to-night, and I am booked for that."

"Oh, Sidney!" She checked herself abruptly.

Lowering his paper, he looked at her in surprise.

"What is it, dear?" he asked.

"Nothing, only—I wouldn't go."

"But I can't get out of it. Dudley made a point of my being there, and I told him to count on me."

"I am sorry," she said quietly. "I don't like Mr. Dudley."

"Neither do I especially. Still, I saw a good deal of him at one time, and, to-night, he wants to get together the old set. It's sort of a farewell spread, for he starts for Nome, next week."

"But you had promised the Andersons."

"Yes, I told Anderson that I would get around in time to mingle my tears with yours over the fifth act. Anderson is such a bore that I couldn't stand a whole evening of him."

"Then I shall certainly refuse to go," Beatrix said decidedly.

Lorimer raised his brows inquiringly.

"For any especial reason?"

She had risen from the table, and now she stood looking down at him, a world of disappointed love showing in her dark eyes. She forced herself to smile a little, as her eyes met his.

"I am old-fashioned, Sidney. I don't like going to the theatre with other men than my husband, four months after my wedding day."

He dropped his paper hastily, and, rising, linked his arm in hers.

"Why, Beatrix dear, I didn't suppose—"

"No," she said quietly; "but I wish you had supposed. Still, as long as I found it out in time, there is no great harm done."

"But with older people like the Andersons," he urged. "And I should have been there to come home with you."

She was silent, and he went on, after a pause,—

"I didn't think of your minding, dear girl. You know that I wouldn't be discourteous to you for anything."

"Never mind about it now, Sidney. I can telephone to Mrs. Anderson, and it will be all right," she answered more gently, for she felt the contrition in his tone and it softened her momentary resentment at his calm way of adjusting her convenience and happiness to his plans. "Mother said Bobby is coming, and possibly Sally Van Osdel. She wanted the four of us to go there for an impromptu dinner such as we used to have."

"I am sorry, dear." There was a real note of regret in Lorimer's voice. "She should have telephoned us earlier."

"She waited for Bobby's decision. He is the only one of us, you know, who makes even a pretence of being busy. Besides, as late in the season as this, it is generally safe to count on people."

"Apparently not," Lorimer returned lightly. "At least, I seem to be the unlucky exception that proves the rule. I am sorry, for I know your mother's dinners of old. I would break most engagements for them."

"Why not this?" she urged.

"Impossible. I promised, a week ago."

Her face flushed.

"How does it happen you haven't mentioned it?"

His answering laugh was frank and free from any taint of bitterness.

"Because I knew you didn't like Dudley, dear girl, and I didn't see any use in discussing a matter on which we were bound to differ." He evidently had had no intention of saying more; but, as he saw her downcast face, he went on, "Truly, Beatrix, I couldn't decently refuse the fellow, without any good reason."

She raised her eyes to his face a little haughtily.

"But it seems to me you had a good reason."

Lorimer laughed again. It was plain that he was determined not to be jarred out of his genial mood.

"A good reason; but not one that was very tellable. You really don't want me saying to a man that I can't eat his dinner because my wife dislikes him."

Lorimer had no notion that his words could sting his wife, and he was surprised at her heightened color and at the sudden aggressive poise of her head. Then swiftly she controlled herself.

"Next time, you can concoct some more specious reason," she answered, with forced lightness.

In his turn, Lorimer felt himself irritated by her calm feminine assumption that his acceptance or refusal of invitations in future was to be bounded by her dislikes.

"Next time, we will hope you will have annulled the reason," he retorted. "Dudley isn't a bad fellow. Moreover, he has the saving grace of knowing how to order a good dinner and get together a good crowd."

She felt the half-veiled hostility of his tone, and it cut her. She had received similar cuts before, during the past three or four months. Instead of rendering her callous, they had left a sore sensitiveness in their scars. She battled against the soreness bravely. The Danes were a race with level nerves, trained by generations of self-control to look upon moods and lack of breeding as synonymous terms; and Beatrix had had no conception of the swift alternations of feeling which marked and marred the temperament of Lorimer. Often as they had been together during their rather long engagement, he had been able to maintain a moderately even mood whenever Beatrix was within reach. On one or two occasions, he had betrayed the fact that he was gloomy and depressed; but it was not until they came into the every-day and all-day contact which follows upon the heels of the marriage ceremony that she had supposed he could be either irritable or petulant. By the time they had come home from Europe, she was quite aware of both characteristics; yet they were alternated with hours of passionate devotion, of a tender chivalry which took away much of their sting. Lorimer loved his wife loyally; nevertheless, the very traits which most won the admiration of his better hours, were the first ones to antagonize him when his moments of irritation were upon him.

If Beatrix had been of the same temper, the danger for the future would have been infinitely less. Flash would have answered to flash; and then the quiet current would have run on as if the perfect contact had never been broken. Instead of that, her quieter, better-controlled nature received his flashes and made no outward sign of the shock. In the end, she remained painfully sensitive to his petulance, while his real love for her left her unbelieving, cold and apathetic. She had proof of the one; the other was mainly negative, in so far as practical results were concerned.

"Who are to be there?" she asked, as soon as she could trust her voice to be properly inexpressive.

"Austin, and Tom Forbes, and Lloyd Avalons, and two or three men you don't know, and Thayer."

"Mr. Thayer?" Her accent was incredulous.

"Certainly. Why not?"

"I didn't know that he ever had anything to do with Mr. Dudley, and I really can't imagine his caring to make a table companion of Lloyd Avalons."

Lorimer's answering laugh was slightly bitter.

"What a social Philistine you are, Beatrix! Thayer is not so narrow."

"Does that mean I am narrow?" she asked resentfully.

"Yes, for a woman who frowned disapproval upon Sally Van Osdel's late utterances."

"Sally was talking of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons. Mrs. Lloyd Avalons is not bad, only foolish: Mr. Lloyd Avalons is both." She drew a long breath, as she paused with her teeth shut upon her lower lip. Suddenly her chin began to quiver, and two heavy tears slid down her cheeks. Then she rallied swiftly, for she knew that all men hate domestic tears. "Sidney," she said slowly and with an evident effort towards steadiness; "let's not discuss this any more. I will go to mother's, and you may come for me there, after your dinner is over. I wish you could go with me; but never mind. Only, Sidney,—next time, please tell me a little sooner when you make a dinner engagement, and then I shall know just how to fit my plans into yours. And—?" She raised her eyes to meet his squarely.

He understood.

"Yes, dear girl, I will be careful," he said, as he drew her to his side.

For a moment, she stood there, passive. Then she went away out of the room.

Thayer was the last guest to arrive, that night, and when he entered the room, he found that both host and chef were anxiously awaiting his coming. He had spent the past two hours with Arlt, listening to scraps of the completed overture, suggesting, praising, criticising it with an acumen which surprised even the young composer, though he was fast learning to attribute omniscience to his friend. After the shabby room with its half-light, after the intent earnestness of Arlt, Thayer felt a passing dislike of the gorgeousness and glare and frivolity of the dinner. He was the last man to assert that good art can only associate itself with homely origins, that prosperity is a deadly foe to its growth. Nevertheless, he was fully conscious that Arlt in his meagre surroundings was much nearer to his own ideals than were the immaculate guests of the evening. Thayer loved luxury; but it must not be accompanied by empty-headedness.

Thayer had had a definite purpose in accepting his invitation, that night, a purpose which was quite alien to his mental estimate of his host. Dudley, to his mind, was in some respects a shade or two better than Lloyd Avalons, yet many shades worse in that his caddishness came from deliberate choice, not from lack of training. In any case, Thayer prayed that he might be remote from either of them, at table.

He quickly discovered that his prayer had been unavailing. He found himself at the host's right hand, with Lorimer directly opposite. Lloyd Avalons was next to Lorimer, and, as the dinner progressed by easy stages, Thayer became aware that his purpose in coming was about to be put to the test. The dinner was good and abundant; the wines were better and yet more abundant, and Lloyd Avalons, who appeared to be constructed of some material which alcohol was powerless to attack, saw to it that Lorimer's glass was filled as often as his own. The result was inevitable. Before Lloyd Avalons felt the slightest exhilaration, Lorimer's brown cheeks were stained with red, and his voice was mounting by semitones, then by whole tones, while his accent took on a curiously insistent note which was quite foreign to the trivial subjects of discussion.

"How did it happen that you were at Eton, Lorimer?" Dudley asked, at the end of an unnecessarily long story.

"My father took me over. He was at St. James, you know, and he thought I would find more fellows of my own class at Eton than up here at Andover."

"That's modest of you, Lorimer," someone called, from the foot of the table. "But please remember that I'm an Andover man."

"And even then wouldn't they accept you for the ministry?" Lorimer asked promptly.

The man laughed with perfect good-temper. Already he was two glasses ahead of Lorimer; but no outward sign betrayed the fact.

"I am willing to bet that they kept you more strict at Eton than the Doctor kept us."

Lorimer set down his glass and gave a knowing wink which, at another time, he would have been swift to condemn in his left-hand neighbor.

"They tried; but they couldn' do much about it. Besides, there was college, you know."

"We all have experienced university discipline," Dudley suggested. "It is swift and powerful, and nobody ever knows where it will hit next."

Lorimer appeared to be pondering the matter. Then he turned to Lloyd Avalons.

"D' you ever 'sperience university discipline?" he demanded, with grave anxiety.

Lloyd Avalons flushed angrily, and Thayer judged that it was time to interpose.

"University discipline is more a matter of theory than of fact," he said lightly. "If you want real discipline, you'd better go through a course of voice training. How much was my allowance, the last of the time in Berlin, Lorimer? My salamanders were mere tadpoles."

Lorimer caught at the familiar word.

"Ein! Zwei! Drei! Salamander! Salamander! Salamander!" he cried gayly. "It makesh me homesick for the good ol' days in Berlin."

"You were over, in January; weren't you?" Lloyd Avalons asked.

"Yes, aft' a fashion; but 't wasn' the ol' fashion. A studen' an' a married man's two differen' things. I took Mrs. Lorimer everywhere an' to show her grat'tude she took me in han'." And Lorimer's own laugh rang out merrily at what seemed to him a superlatively good joke.

The next moment, Thayer's level voice, low, yet so perfectly trained that it reached the farthest corner of the room, broke in upon Lorimer's mirth and quenched it. There was no bitterness in his voice, no excitement; he spoke as quietly as if he had been wishing his friend good-morning.

"It's a pity she isn't here to take you in hand now, Lorimer," he said, with a smile. "As long as she isn't, I think perhaps I'll do it, myself."

The deliberate, even tone steadied Lorimer somewhat. He pulled himself together and stared haughtily at Thayer.

"What do you mean?" he demanded. "I don't understand you."

There was a short silence while it pleased Lorimer to imagine that he was measuring his puny strength against the power of the other. Then, before Thayer's gray eyes, his own eyes drooped.

"I think you do understand, Lorimer," Thayer said calmly. "If not, we can talk it over outside. You know we are due at Mrs. Dane's at ten, and it is almost that, now. Dudley, I am sorry that this is good-by for so long. Don't let us break up the party." And, rising, he nodded to the other guests and took his departure without a backward glance.

He had reckoned accurately, for experience had taught him to know his man. Lorimer sat still for a moment, then hesitated, and rose. He bade an over-cordial good-night to Dudley and Lloyd Avalons, exchanged with the others a jesting word or two of which the humor was obviously forced; then he sullenly followed Thayer out of the room and out of the club.

Once safely in the street, Thayer freed his mind, forcibly and tersely according to his wont.

"It's bad enough to fall into temptation, Lorimer; but the fellow who deliberately canters into it comes mighty near not being worth the saving. Some day, you'll wake up to find the truth of that fact; and then Heaven help you, for there may not be anyone else willing to take the trouble!"



CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Slowly and by almost imperceptible stages, spring had crept into summer and summer had crawled sluggishly into autumn. Rose color had turned to green, green to gold, and then all colors had faded to the uniform gray of November. To Beatrix it seemed that nature's change typified that of her life; to Thayer and Arlt the rose color and the gold were still glowing. For the time being, the problems of their professional lives were absorbing them both, to the exclusion of more human interests. Such epochs are bound to come to every man. However broad and generous-minded he may be, there are hours when it seems to him that the rising of the sun and the going down of the same are functions of nature ordained merely for the sake of giving chronological record of his own professional advancement. November brought them both to this mood and, while it lasted, each found the other his only satisfactory companion.

To Thayer the summer had been a matter of personal mathematics, the solving of simultaneous personal equations. He had refused the Lorimers' urgent invitation to join them at Monomoy. He had felt unequal to prolong the double strain he had endured, those last weeks in town before society broke up for the summer. It was almost unbearable to him to be within daily reach of Beatrix, to be forced to face her with the unvarying conventional smile of mere social acquaintance. It was infinitely worse to be forced to look on and watch the gradual wrecking of her hopes, to know that she was unhappy, discouraged and full of fear for the future, and to realize that another man was carelessly bringing upon her all this from which he would have given his own life to shield her. Yet bad and worse were subordinated to worst. The worst, the most unbearable phase of the whole situation lay in the knowledge, again and again brought to the proof, that he himself was the only living person who had the ability to hold Lorimer even approximately steady, that in a way the thread of his destiny was knotted together with that of Beatrix. He loved her absolutely, and the only proof of his love for her must lie in his strange power to make more tolerable for her the galling yoke of her marriage to another man.

Even in these few short months, it had become evident to the world that the yoke was a galling one. Beatrix wore it bravely, even haughtily. Nevertheless, it was chafing her until she was raw. Like a horse surprised by the discovery of its own power, from occasional friskiness, Lorimer was settling into a steadily increasing pace. During the months of probation, he had held himself fairly steady, rather than lose the chance of winning Beatrix for his wife. Now that she was won, he snapped the check he had put upon himself, and yielded to the acquired momentum gained during his self-imposed repression. By the time he came home from Europe, Bobby and Thayer both realized that something was amiss. By the first of June, it was an open secret that all was not well with Lorimer's soul.

Lorimer still loved Beatrix with all the fervor of his nature. To him, she was the one and only woman in the world, someone to be caressed and indulged and played with, the comrade of his domestic hours. But, when the other mood was upon him, he acknowledged no right upon her part to offer advice or warning. He treated her as one treats a spoiled child, fondling her until her presence bored him or interfered with his other plans, then quietly setting her aside and going his own way alone. As far as any woman could have held him, Beatrix could have done so; but in Lorimer's life feminine influence was finite. When he was moved to take the bits in his teeth, only a man, and but one man at that, was able to check him. That man was Cotton Mather Thayer.

On a few occasions, Beatrix had endeavored to hold her husband, not from temptation itself, but from the first steps towards it. She might as well have tried to bar the rising tide with a pint sieve. At such times, it seemed to her that Lorimer deliberately made up his mind to have a revel, that he set himself to work to carry out his desires to a satisfactory conclusion. These periods came at irregular intervals; but, all in all, the intervals were shortening and the revels were increasing. Beatrix learned their symptoms far too quickly; she learned to know the depression and irritability which greeted her every effort to rouse and to please him. It was at such times that Lorimer made bitter revolt against what he termed her narrowness and prejudice, or burst into occasional angry petulance, if she tried to urge him to cut loose from the club and from the constantly-growing influence of Lloyd Avalons who was discerning enough to discover that Lorimers appetite was a possible lever by which he himself might pry himself up into a more stable position in society. In this matter, however, Lloyd Avalons was not quite so unprincipled as he seemed. To his mind, there was nothing so very bad about a little matter of social intoxication. The evil of drink was an affair bounded by purely geographical lines, and he encouraged in Lorimer the very thing for which he would have been prompt to dismiss the man who cleaned the snow off his sidewalk.

Afterwards, when the depression had ended in the revel, when they both had ended in penitence, Lorimer temporarily came back again to the old ways. The caressing intonations returned to his voice, as he talked to Beatrix; his eyes followed her with loving pride, as she moved about the room; for days at a time he devoted himself to her wishes, serving her with a tireless chivalry which made her long to forget all that had gone before. However, Beatrix could not forget certain facts; certain episodes were so fixed in her memory that they seemed branded upon the very tissue of her life. In some respects, these intervening days were the hardest ones she had to bear. Lorimer seemed totally unable to grasp the fact that any permanent barrier was rising between them, that there was any real reason why they should not meet on precisely the old ground. To his mind, half an hour of impulsive penitence could wipe out half a night of deliberate sin, and Beatrix dared not explain to him that it was otherwise. Her hold over him, that hold which once she had deemed so strong, was growing slighter with every passing month. Any hasty or ill-considered word from her might have the effect of destroying it altogether. For the present, the most she could do, was to avoid antagonizing him; and even that was no easy task. She was quite unable to decide whether it took more self-control to accept in silence his petulance or his caresses. Meanwhile, she was thankful for the apparently growing friendship between Thayer and her husband. During late May and all of June, Thayer was with Lorimer almost daily, and Lorimer came nearest to his old, winning self on the days when he had been longest in company with Thayer.

With the general scattering of people which heralds the coming of summer, it seemed to Thayer that, for the time being, Lorimer's danger was over, and it was with a sigh of utter relief that he saw Lorimer and Beatrix starting for Monomoy. Strong as he was, Thayer had felt the strain of the past six weeks; and it was good to hide himself with Arlt in a Canadian fishing village, dismiss his responsibilities to his neighbor, and give himself up to absolute idleness and much good music.

He had planned to spend August and September in Germany; but fate willed otherwise. Less than a week before he was to sail, he received a laconic epistle from Bobby Dane, dated at the hotel where he himself had spent the previous summer.

"DEAR THAYER,—Wish you could come down here for August. Lorimer is raising the deuce, and I can't do much with him. Besides, I am ordered back, next week. I suppose the devil needs my ministrations. I'll see to one, if you'll tackle the other.

Yours, R. F. DANE."

Thayer hesitated for three minutes. Then he wrote two telegrams. One was to the office of the steamship company. The other was to the hotel near Monomoy.

The reaction which followed, was a natural one. Late in September, Thayer returned to New York, preparatory to a concert tour through New England. Exhausted by the long strain of mastering both himself and Lorimer, he threw himself into his work with a feverish intensity which astounded Arlt and roused his audiences to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Thayer took his new honors quietly, however. In his secret heart, he knew that this had been the simplest way to work off his stored-up emotions, and he reached New York, early in November, with a greater reputation and steadier nerves than he had even dared to hope.

The tour had been a prosperous one for Arlt, as well. Upon several occasions, he had met with marked favor, and the little touch of success had reacted upon his personality, rendering him more at ease, more masterful with his audience. To be popular, art must be modest; but woe betide it, if it be in the least deprecating! However, Arlt was learning to face his public with a fairly good grace, and his public showed itself willing to smile back at him in a thoroughly friendly fashion.

Arlt's overture was to have its first hearing, the week before Thanksgiving. The matter had been arranged through the influence of his teacher, and Arlt had been invited to conduct the orchestra for the event. However, in spite of his added ease, Arlt had judged such an ordeal too great for his courage. Accordingly, the teacher and Thayer had taken council together, with the result that Thayer was engaged as soloist for the evening, and that Thayer insisted upon singing one group of songs with a piano accompaniment. To this minor detail, Arlt had been forced to submit, although he was shrewd enough to see that it was merely a ruse on the part of his teacher to bring him in person before his audience.

The arrangement of these details, the orchestral rehearsals of the overture and his own rehearsals with Arlt were engrossing Thayer completely. Heart and soul, he was working for the boy's success, for he realized that into this simple overture Arlt had put the very best of himself, that the young composer's happiness was bound up in the success or failure of his maiden effort. The creative power had come upon him; he had worked to the utmost limit with the material ready to his brain. Now he was waiting to have the world pass judgment whether his work was worth the doing, whether he should keep on, or turn his back upon his chosen path. Thayer's own plans, too, were maturing. In the watching them develop, in the helping Arlt to pass the time of waiting, he almost succeeded in forgetting the Lorimers. Almost; but not quite. The forgetting was a little too intentional to be entirely complete. He met them rarely. Society had not yet organized its winter campaign, and it was still possible for a man to go his own individual way. Just now, Thayer's own individual way led him almost daily in the direction of Washington Square.

He was in Arlt's room, one evening, less than a week before the concert. He had been dining with Miss Gannion; but he had left her early, in order to impress upon Arlt that he must accept his bidding to the supper which the Lorimers were to give after the concert. The invitations had been noncommittal, and Arlt had announced his intention of declining his own, on the plea of being too tired with his overture to care to do anything more, that night. Miss Gannion had told Thayer what he already half suspected, that Beatrix was really giving this supper in Arlt's honor and that it was to be the first large affair of the season, in the hope of focussing public attention upon the boy at the very moment of his having proved his real genius as composer. Thayer appreciated to the full the gracious kindliness of the plan, and he had excused himself to Miss Gannion and hurried away in search of Arlt, devoutly praying, as he went, that the note of regret might not be already on its way.

He was but just in time. The sealed note lay on the table, and Arlt was shrugging himself into his overcoat, when Thayer entered the room. Ten minutes later, they were still arguing the matter, when they heard an unfamiliar step coming up the stairs.

"Mr. Arlt?" A strange voice followed the knock.

Arlt opened the door hospitably. The dim light in the hallway showed him a figure known to every opera singer in America and half of Europe.

"Will you come in?" he asked, in some surprise.

"Is Mr. Thayer here?"

"I am." Thayer stepped into the lighted doorway. "You wished me?"

"Yes. What is more, I need you. We know each other well by sight, so I suppose there is no call for us to waste time on introductions. Mr. Thayer, Principali, one of my best baritones, is ill and is forced to cancel his engagements. Will you take his place?"

Thayer meditated swiftly, during a moment of silence.

"What are the operas?"

"Wagner, Faust of course, and—oh, the usual run of extras."

"What reason have you to think that I am fitted for your vacancy?" Thayer asked directly.

The impresario smiled.

"Your old master in Berlin is one of my most intimate friends. He gave you a letter of introduction to me, I think?" The accent was interrogative, although it was plain that only one answer was expected.

"He did," Thayer assented quietly.

"Yes, and I have been waiting for more than a year in the hope that you would present it. Since you will not come to me, I am at last driven to go in search of you."

Thayer bowed gravely in recognition of the implied compliment. He realized that he was suddenly facing a question which might affect his whole after life, and he was too much in earnest to waste words on mere conventional phrases. He liked the old man, and he felt a swift, burning longing to accept his offer. It had come unsought, unexpected. Was not fate in it; and was not a man always justified in following out his fate? To accept it would be in a great measure to cut himself off from his present social life. An operatic engagement would engross him completely. All in all, it might be better so. And yet, there was something to be said upon the other side. Was he justified in working out his own professional salvation at the certain cost of the damnation of another soul? That was what it amounted to in the long run. If he went into opera, he must separate himself from all connection with Sidney Lorimer. He could not take the time to visit Lorimer's world; it would be sure and swift destruction to Lorimer, if he were to set foot within the new world which Thayer was preparing to enter. Thayer realized that the horns of his dilemma were long and curving. The offer tempted him sorely; yet, for some unaccountable reason, he shrank from turning his back upon Lorimer. And, besides, if Beatrix—

"How long would you need me?"

"The entire season."

"How soon?"

"In Faust, on the tenth of next month."

"In Faust?"

The impresario saw that Thayer was hesitating. The idea of Faust plainly attracted him, and the impresario hastily followed up the advantage.

"Yes, we want you for Valentine."

"My favorite part," Thayer said, half to himself.

The impresario smiled serenely. He felt no question now as to the outcome of his errand.

"Calve will sing Marguerite; it will be a good cast. After that, we shall need you, two or three times a week, and the salary—"

Impatiently Thayer brushed his words aside.

"How soon must you have my answer?"

"To-night."

"Very well. Then, no."

The impresario straightened up in his chair.

"Mr. Thayer!" he remonstrated.

"It is impossible for me to bind myself for an entire season, without more time to think the matter over," Thayer said quietly.

"But it is important that I should know, in order to make my other arrangements."

"Then you would better consider it settled in the negative," Thayer returned.

The impresario wavered.

"How much time do you need?" he asked a little impatiently.

"I must have a week."

"Impossible."

"Very well, then. But I thank you for the honor you have done me in asking me to fill the place."

Thayer rose with an air of decision, and the impresario could do nothing else than follow his example. At the door, he turned back.

"Mr. Thayer, there is no use in my trying to conceal the fact that I want you badly. If I will wait until a week from to-night, will you give me your answer then?"

"I will," Thayer replied imperturbably.

"And sign the contracts on the spot?"

"I will," Thayer repeated; "but remember this: in the meantime, I am binding myself to nothing. Good-night."

He went down the stairs with the impresario. When he returned to Arlt's room, a moment later, he took up the conversation at the precise point where they had dropped it; but, even in the dusky room, Arlt could see that Thayer's eyes were blazing as he had never seen them till then. Not long afterwards, Thayer glanced down at his own strong, slim hand that rested on the table beside him. The fingers were moving restlessly and, on the back, the cords twitched a little now and then. Thayer watched it curiously for a moment. Then he clasped his hands on his knee and held them there, motionless.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Above the murmur of talk of his guests, Lorimer's voice rose, high and clear, merry as the voice of a happy child.

"It's a great night for you, Arlt, the night of your life. Ladies and ge'men, le's drink to Mr. Arlt."

"You've done it once, Lorimer," Thayer interposed. "Arlt will be getting more than is good for him."

"And so will you," he might have added; but there seemed to him a certain impossibility in imposing a check upon a man in his own house and in the presence of his own guests.

Lorimer laughed out blithely.

"Ne' mind. Arlt can stand it; his head is level. B'sides, las' time, I drank to Arlt the composer. This time, it's to Arlt the accompanist. He hasn' any business to play a double role, if he can' stan' the double applause. To the success of Mr. Otto Arlt!"

Thayer raised his glass and set it down again, untasted. As he glanced across at Arlt with an explanatory smile, he caught the eyes of Beatrix fixed upon him imploringly. It was evident that she was putting her hope in him to end the scene; but for the once Thayer was ready to confess himself beaten. The house and the champagne both were Lorimer's. Under these conditions, he was powerless to act. Moreover, he felt a sudden impatience with Beatrix for allowing the champagne in her own home, when she had learned from months of bitter experience that a single glass could render Lorimer totally untrustworthy. If this were the measure of her influence for good, she might as well have married Lorimer in the first place, without insisting upon those long months of probation. As he had watched the progress of that merry supper in Arlt's honor, Thayer had been distressed about Lorimer and about the scene which must inevitably follow; but his distress had been as nothing in comparison with his disappointment in Beatrix.

In reality, Beatrix had had no responsibility in the matter.

"I don't see any need of our having champagne, Sidney," she had said, on the morning that they had first discussed the detail of the supper.

Lorimer had been in one of his old-time moods. Now he laughed a little.

"What a Puritan you are, Beatrix!" he said, as he bent caressingly over her shoulder to read the completed list of guests.

"Not a Puritan," she urged; "but I would rather not have the champagne, Sidney. It isn't at all necessary; we can get on perfectly well without it."

"And a good deal better with it," he retorted, laughing. "Well, never mind it now, dear girl. But what about a florist?"

And Beatrix, delighted at her easy victory, had allowed herself to be led off into a consideration of the decorations for the table. She could not be expected to foresee that, in giving the final orders for the supper, Lorimer would include a generous allowance of champagne. Neither could she have foreseen that one of the invitations would find its way into the hands of Lloyd Avalons. Confronted suddenly by both the champagne and Lloyd Avalons, Beatrix had faltered only for a moment. Then she had rallied to meet the inevitable crisis so swiftly that no one but Bobby Dane at her elbow had been aware of her momentary weakness. Thayer had been at the other end of the room, and had missed the instant of hesitation. By the time he had discovered the situation, Beatrix had forced herself to meet it as a matter of course. She faltered a second time, however, as she met the questioning glance which Thayer gave her. She had learned to care for his good opinion; she knew that now she was in danger of forfeiting it. Nevertheless, her loyalty to her husband was paramount. Never by a spoken word had she implied to Thayer that Lorimer was falling below her ideals. To-night, hurt as she was by his deception, anxious as she was in regard to the outcome of the episode, nevertheless she remained true to her usual careful reticence. To a woman of Beatrix Lorimer's temper it was easier to bear unjust blame than to demand just pity. And yet, as she recognized that the facts were apparently all against her, she could not help hoping that Thayer would suspend judgment until he had talked with Bobby Dane. Bobby had seen the memoranda for the supper, and had advised her in regard to some of the details. Not only was he the one person besides herself and Lorimer who knew the whole truth; but he could invariably be relied upon to tell the truth in its entirety.

As Lorimer had said, it was a great night for Arlt. His work had scored a complete success, and he had been called twice before the audience to receive in person his applause. Something in the simple overture had caught the fancy of the orchestra, and they had played it with an enthusiasm, had interpreted it with a dainty accuracy to Arlt's own mood which would have won prompt recognition for a work of far less merit. The critics were warm in their praises; but the audience, upon whom a popular success depends far more than upon the professional leaders of opinion, was in a mood to be expressed by no such temperate phrase. As he lingered in the Lorimers' box, watching the young German come forward to the footlights, Thayer was ready to predict a fair measure of lasting popularity to his friend. The audience was most hospitable to him. It now remained for the Lorimers' supper to set upon him the seal of social approval. For Arlt's sake, Thayer devoutly hoped that the supper would be a success. Under other conditions, he might have had his doubts. This was the first time he had seen Lorimer for weeks; but the stories which had drifted to his ears had not been reassuring. In Lorimer's own house, however, there could be no danger. He felt that he could count upon Beatrix to forestall that.

In the weeks since they had met, it seemed to him that Beatrix must have grown more beautiful with each passing day. Beneath the perfect poise of her manner, he could see an increasing gentleness, a sadness which was under absolute control. She was as strong as ever, but less self-reliant. Experience had taught her that she was powerless to fight alone. In her worst battles, she had learned that she must rely upon another; and Thayer, as he watched her, rejoiced that that other was himself. His weeks of separation from her, of enforced forgetfulness, had taught him a lesson which he had been loath to learn. Rather than be outside her world, rather than be upon the same footing as all the other inhabitants of that world, he would gladly endure a strain like that of the past summer, would accept the place where fate had put him, as the one man who could make more tolerable her own life with her husband. It was not a dignified position; yet, for her sake, he believed that he could fill it in a way which would add dignity to the lives of them both. At least, he would do the best that was in him. He took no account of the possibility that, within an hour, he would be balked in his efforts by certain uninfringible laws of hospitality.

"Moreover," Lorimer went on, still in that unwonted high, clear voice; "le's drink to Arlt's mother an' sister, Frau Arlt an' Fraulein Katarina Arlt."

The sudden angry color blazed up in Arlt's cheeks, and he straightened in his chair. Then he caught Thayer's eye, and with an effort he controlled himself. The instant's by-play had caused Thayer to lose the next words of his host; but Lorimer's laugh was ringing out with such infectious mirth that the guests were laughing with him, although with obvious reluctance to show their merriment.

Lorimer babbled on discursively.

"I knew 'em well. They were having har' times to get on, an' Arlt here could n' begin to carry the load. It was killing him, an' so Thayer an' I—"

"Let the rest go, Lorimer," Thayer broke in hastily, for now two appealing faces were looking to him for help. "We know all about it."

Lorimer turned to him with an air of grave rebuke.

"You know, Thayer, for you were there. But the res' do' know. How could they? They were n' there." He paused long enough to empty the glass before him. Then he braced one hand against the edge of the table and raised the other, as if to add emphasis to his words. "I was there, an' you were there, an' Arlt was there. Nobody else was there. If they had been, they'd know 'bout it, to-night. Plucky fellow, Arlt, an' he d'serves his success. If 't had n' been for you an' me, Thayer, Arlt would have gone under, though. No wond' Frau Arlt calls me Lieb Sohn. If it had n' been for me, she would n' have had any sohn 't all. With me, there's pair of us."

He delivered himself of this long speech with an air of portentous gravity. Then he turned away from Thayer and smiled benignly up the table. Side by side at the farther end, Arlt and Beatrix seemed powerless to take their eyes from his face. Lorimer caught the eye of Beatrix and instantly his face lighted, as he kissed his hand to her.

"Supper's a gran' success, dear girl," he called gayly. "Ought to be, cost 'nough, an' has been no end trouble; but it pays. People will know wha' we think of Arlt now. He's geniush, 'n no mishtake; are n' you, Arlt?"

"Bobby," Sally whispered; "I must go away, I can't bear this for another minute."

Bobby nodded comprehendingly.

"Slip out, the next time he begins on Thayer. I think you can do it, and you oughtn't to stay. I wish the others would go, too."

"They may follow me. I would break it up, if I dared; but—Bobby, I'm afraid."

"So am I," Bobby growled through his shut teeth. "Come back in the morning, Sally. Beatrix may need you. I'd go with you now; but I dare not leave things."

But Lorimer's eye was upon them.

"Wha' now, Sally?" he asked jovially. "Bobby been making a bad pun, that you look so savage?"

Sally hesitated. For one instant, she eyed her host as if he had been a scorpion that had crawled across her path. Then she controlled herself, and her voice took on its customary mocking drawl.

"No; I only feel savage because I know you must have set the clocks ahead. Just see! It is high time we all were going home, and you know I always hate to start."

Lorimer glanced at the clock on the mantel. Then he turned to the man behind his chair.

"Stop tha' clock!" he commanded. "We can' have anybody talk 'bout going home yet. Night's only jus' begun, an' there's quarts more champagne. Beatrix did n' wan' us to have any; but I don' believe in being stingy."

Sally had already risen, and one or two other women, casting furtive, apologetic glances towards Beatrix, were hurriedly following Sally's example. In the slight confusion, it seemed to Thayer that his chance had come, and he took it. Unfortunately, however, for the once he had reckoned without his man. He had kept careful count of the glasses which Lorimer had emptied since he had sat down at the table, and he knew that the danger limit was not far distant. In fact, the danger limit was already passed. Thayer had had no means of taking into account the glasses which Lorimer had slyly emptied, during his short absence from the room before they had gone to the table. The mischief was already done. The slightest shock which could disturb Lorimer's present mood would be sufficient to destroy his whole mental balance past any possibility of restoration. Thayer's error in judgment promptly furnished the shock.

Lorimer had turned again to the butler at the back of his chair.

"Fill thish up," he demanded, as he pointed to his glass.

With a swift gesture, Thayer caught the man's attention, and shook his head. The man hesitated, halting between two masters. The one paid him his wages; the other commanded his entire respect, and it was not easy for him to choose the one whom he should obey.

"Fill thish up, I shay!" Lorimer's voice was thicker, his accent imperious.

Swiftly the old butler glanced at Thayer as if for instructions, and Thayer again shook his head. This time, Lorimer saw the signal. The next instant, his empty glass was flying straight in the direction of Thayer's face.

There was a frightened outcry from the women; but Thayer swerved slightly to one side, and the glass crashed harmlessly against the mantel. There followed the tinkle of the falling pieces, then a stillness so profound that from one end to the other of the long room Lorimer's heavy breathing was distinctly audible. The impending crisis seemed to paralyze the guests. Those who had risen, stood motionless in their places; the others made no effort to rise. They remained there together, silent, passive, tense, with Lorimer facing them all, like a savage beast at bay.



The interval, seemingly so endless, lasted only for a moment. Then, with a beast-like snarl, Lorimer sprang up, overturning his chair, and hurled himself straight upon Thayer. Strong as he was, Thayer tottered before the blow, for the strength of Lorimer just then was far beyond the human. Drink-crazed and brutalized, he had the fierce power of a maddened brute. There was a swift, sharp struggle, broken by strange, inarticulate cries, making the women hide their faces and cram their fingers into their ears to shut out sight and sound. Then the struggle grew still again, and they heard Thayer's steady voice saying,—

"I think he is quiet now. Dane, will you help me to carry him to his room?"

One by one, the terrified guests slank away. There were no good-nights scarcely a whispered word in the dressing-rooms upstairs. At length, they were all gone, and the house was still. The lights from the open windows glared out across the night, and the rooms inside were heavy with the fragrance of roses and the smell of champagne. Upstairs in Lorimer's room, Thayer and Bobby Dane were watching the lethargic sleep which had fallen upon their host, and counting the moments until Arlt could bring the doctor back with him. Downstairs, alone in the abandoned dining-room, Beatrix still sat at the disordered table, with her head bowed forward upon her clasped hands.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"It's a devilish mess, do what you will," Bobby said grimly, the next morning.

"The punishment seems a good deal out of proportion to the cause," Thayer replied briefly.

"Hh!" Bobby grunted. "I think he did well to get off without a genuine case of D. T."

"I was speaking of your cousin, not of Lorimer."

Bobby stared at him in astonishment.

"Really, Thayer, I can't see any cause that was of Beatrix's making," he returned haughtily.

"It was mistaken judgment, to say the least, to have champagne in the house," Thayer answered.

"Beatrix had nothing to do with that," Bobby blazed forth angrily. "It was that brute of a Lorimer, and he deserves all he got, and more, too. I saw the order to the caterer, made out in Beatrix's handwriting, and there wasn't a pint of champagne on it. Lorimer sent in the order afterwards, just as he invited that serpent of a Lloyd Avalons. Beatrix couldn't help herself."

"She could have countermanded the order."

"She didn't know it till the guests were there. I was with her when she discovered it, and she took it like a heroine. She was perfectly helpless. She couldn't make a scene in her own house, and she couldn't reasonably be expected to send her guests home. She knew exactly what was bound to happen, what she couldn't help happening, and she kept her head steady and faced the thing as boldly as she could. I never thought you would be the one to go back on her, Thayer."

Thayer started to speak. Then he squared his jaw, and was silent. After a long interval, he said humbly,—

"I have wronged your cousin, Dane. I am very sorry."

"So am I," Bobby returned flatly. "Beatrix has come to where she needs every friend she owns in the world to stand by her. By to-night, the story of that supper will have spread from the Battery to Poughkeepsie bridge. It will be garbled and twisted into all manner of shapes, and it will come boomeranging back at her from every quarter of the town. When it comes to gossip, we find Manhattan Island is a mighty small place; but I suppose Australia is just as bad."

Thayer interrupted his meditations ruthlessly.

"How is Lorimer, this morning? You've been to the house, I suppose."

"Yes, I've just come from there. Lorimer is convalescent, which means he is a blamed sight better than he deserves to be. I didn't care to see him; but they assured me he was sitting up and regaling himself on raw oysters and chicken broth. He is probably an edifying spectacle by this time, a mush of maudlin penitence. I've seen him before this in his next-morning mood. Put not your trust in a moral jellyfish!" And Bobby, his fists in his pockets, stamped up and down the room to ease his resentment. "The next move is to be a radical one," he continued, after a pause. "They are going into the Adirondacks."

Thayer looked up sharply.

"They? Who?"

"Beatrix and Lorimer."

"What for?"

"Safety; taking to the woods, and all that."

"What do you mean, Dane?" Thayer asked sternly. "This is no time for joking. Do speak out."

"I beg your pardon, Thayer. The fact is, I am utterly reckless, this morning, and I don't know nor care what I am saying. If you loved Beatrix as I do—"

"Yes," Thayer returned quietly. "I understand."

"No; you don't. You can't. We've been such chums. What hurts her, hurts me; and, to my dying day, I shall never forget her as we found her in the dining-room, last night. She knew then it was all over." Bobby's voice broke upon the last words; then he pulled himself up sharply. "This morning, we had a council of war, Mrs. Dane and Beatrix and the doctor and I. The doctor says that Beatrix isn't well, and that another such scene would kill her, or worse. I was for shutting Lorimer up in an inebriate asylum; but Beatrix opposed the idea. She was so excited about it that the doctor finally took sides with her, and said that she and Lorimer would better not be separated, at least, not until something else comes up. Do you grasp the pleasant state of things? Lorimer is to be left with her till something does come up; when the something does come, it may kill her. That's what they call an alternative, I suppose."

"But the Adirondacks?" Thayer reminded him. It was unlike Bobby Dane to go off like this into conversational blind alleys. Thayer, as he listened and looked at his friend's haggard face, realized suddenly that Bobby was far less superficial than was generally supposed.

"The doctor ordered them both out of town. It is the only way to keep Lorimer out of mischief, get him into the wilderness to live on venison and bromides. We chose the Adirondacks because it was near and safe, and because we could tell people that Beatrix needed the air. Of course, they'll know we are lying; but we may as well lie valiantly and plausibly, while we are about it."

"When do they go?"

"Monday."

"Who goes?"

"They hire a cottage, and take enough servants to run it. Then there will be a man for Lorimer. The doctor insisted upon that."

"Who else?"

"Beatrix and Lorimer."

"And Mrs. Dane?"

"No; no one else."

"You don't mean that Mrs. Lorimer is going up into that wilderness alone?"

"Alone with her liege lord," Bobby said bitterly.

"But she mustn't. It's not safe."

"Who can go? Mrs. Dane is not strong; she would only be an extra care for Beatrix."

"Mr. Dane, then."

"He's no use. I would go, myself; but I can't well get off. Besides, Lorimer hates me, and my being there would only make it harder for Beatrix. Do you really think she ought to have someone?" Bobby's voice was anxious.

"For nine days, no; for the tenth, yes," Thayer said decidedly. "We both know that, some time or other, Lorimer is bound to go on another spree. No; there's no use in being too hard on him. The time has passed, if it ever existed, when he was as responsible as you would be, or I. It's in his blood, and he has lost all his nerve to fight it out. But, when that spree comes, if it comes while they are up there, Mrs. Lorimer must have someone to stand back of her. Who is there?"

Bobby shook his head.

"I don't know," he confessed. "I would go, if I could; but I can't."

There was a long silence between the two men. Thayer, sitting at his desk, was absently measuring his blotting pad with a letter, so many envelopes' length this way, so many that. The letter was from the impresario, reminding him that his decision was due, that night, and urging him to accept the offer. At length, Thayer turned around away from the desk, and faced Bobby.

"Is there a hotel near there?" he asked.

"Half a mile away."

"Open at this season?"

"Yes, there are always cranks and consumptives, you know."

Thayer faced back again and measured the blotter anew. Then he tossed the letter aside and, rising, walked across to the mantel.

"I think I'll go up there for a little while," he said briefly.

"Thayer! You can't."

"Why not?"

"Because you mustn't. It's impossible."

Thayer mistook his meaning.

"I can't see the impossibility, Dane. Lorimer was—is my friend. I knew him long before I ever heard of Mrs. Lorimer. I was their guest at Monomoy for a month, last summer, too. We both of us know that I can hold Lorimer, when nobody else can. I don't pretend to understand it, myself; but the fact remains. All in all, I think I am the best possible person to go."

His voice was quiet, yet its every accent was final and uncompromising. Before its dignity, Bobby felt like a rebuked child. He hastened to justify himself.

"I wasn't thinking of that at all, Thayer. The idea would have been an insult both to you and to Beatrix. I know that Beatrix feels she can rely on you to manage Lorimer; but nevertheless it is absolutely out of the question for you to go."

"Why?"

"Your engagements for the winter."

"I have made no engagements yet."

"Is that a fact?"

"As a general rule, I tell the truth," Thayer answered dryly.

"Well, you are sure to make some."

"Perhaps. When I do, it will be time enough for me to keep them."

"But your reputation!" Bobby urged.

"What of it?"

"How is it going to stand your burying yourself in the wilderness, just when you have the city at your feet?"

"It will have to stand it. It will, if it is worth anything at all."

"Thayer, you sha'n't!" Bobby protested. "It's Quixotic and idiotic. You sha'n't spoil your own good life for the sake of Lorimer's bad one. He isn't worth it."

Thayer straightened his shoulders and threw back his head.

"What about Mrs. Lorimer?" he asked steadily.

The clock marked the passing seconds until hundreds of them had gone away, never to return. Then Bobby crossed the room and laid his hand on Thayer's shoulder.

"Thayer," he said slowly; "you are a fool, an utterly asinine fool; but I can't help wishing that there were a few more fools in the world just like you."

And in that instant, it flashed into Bobby Dane's mind that, ever since he had first come to know Cotton Mather Thayer, he had been expecting and awaiting just such a scene.

Late that same afternoon, Miss Gannion's card was brought to Beatrix. All that day, she had denied herself to callers; not even Sally Van Osdel had been admitted. Ten minutes before Miss Gannion came, Beatrix would have said that she too must be sent away; but, as she read the name on the card, she felt a sudden impulsive longing to see her old-time friend.

Miss Gannion wasted no words on conventional greeting.

"You dear child!" she said quietly. "I know a little about what has happened; but it is all I need to know. Talk about it or not, just as you choose."

Urged or repressed, Beatrix would have held herself steady, reticent. All day long, she had kept herself quiet, going through her usual domestic routine, answering notes of invitation and then methodically sorting out the clothing she would need during her absence from town. She had refused her mother's help and she had sent away her maid; it was a relief to her to keep busy. Left to herself and idle, the future easily could have occupied her whole attention; but as yet she was not strong enough to face it. Strange to say, there had been no benumbing effect of her sorrow. From the first hour, she had been able to grasp with dreary clearness all its details, all its effect upon the present and upon the future which now to her was freighted with a double burden of anxiety and alarm.

All day long until late afternoon, she had forced this quiet upon herself; but it could not go on indefinitely. Already the tug and wrench upon her nerves was slackening, and Miss Gannion's words brought the swift revulsion. The older woman shrank before the storm of passionate sorrow. Then she braced herself to bear it, for she realized that it was the flood which must inevitably follow the breaking down of the dykes that for months had pent in the seas of a daily and hourly agony such as a weaker soul than that of Beatrix could never know.

It was long before Beatrix dared trust her voice to speak, and then Miss Gannion was startled at the utter dreariness of her tone.

"It has all been a horrible mistake," she said slowly. "I thought I was stronger. I did believe that I could hold him, Miss Gannion. I didn't rush into it carelessly, as most girls do. I knew all the danger. I thought about it, and measured it against my strength and against the strength of his love. I truly thought I could hold him."

"I know, dear," Miss Gannion said gently. "I thought so, too."

"But I couldn't. I did try, try my best. But it was no use. And yet, he did love me, just as I did love him."

"Did love?" Miss Gannion questioned, for Beatrix had paused, as if challenging her.

"Yes, did love. My love is dead, Miss Gannion."

"But it may come back."

"Never. It never can. He has killed it utterly. I am sorry. I don't know why I am telling you, for no one else must know it, not even Sidney himself. He doesn't suspect it at all now, and I mean that he never shall. If I made the mistake in the first place, I ought to be the one to suffer for it, not he."

"But he loves you now," Miss Gannion said unsteadily.

"To-day. Yesterday, he forgot me entirely; to-day, he cares for me just as he always has done, no more, no less. I wish I could care for him; but I can't. I feel perfectly cold, as if nothing more could ever warm me."

"But, in time—after you have forgotten last night—"

Beatrix shook her head.

"My love for Sidney did not die, last night. It was too strong, too much alive, to be killed by the facts of one single night. No; it had been ailing for months; but it finally died, six weeks ago, and nothing now can ever make it live again. Miss Gannion, I have been very selfish."

"I don't think so, Beatrix."

But Beatrix gently drew herself out of Miss Gannion's arms, rose and stood looking down at her friend. In that moment, confronted by Beatrix's sad, calm face and luminous eyes, the little gray-haired woman suddenly realized that, notwithstanding the difference in their years, Beatrix was looking into mysteries which were far beyond her ken.

"Yes, I was selfish," Beatrix went on steadily. "I loved Sidney; I was happy in his love, and I believed that, through both our loves, I could be strong enough to save him from himself. I knew it was a risk, a terrible risk, but I took it for granted that the risk would come only on myself, and, for both our sakes, I was willing to assume it. I was nothing but a child, for all I felt so wise, and I stopped there, without looking ahead. I was wrong, woefully, sinfully wrong. I was selfish, for I thought of nothing beyond myself. Now that it is too late, I am beginning to realize what it all may mean to the next generation."



CHAPTER NINETEEN

"O the long and dreary Winter! O the cold and cruel Winter!"

Thayer's voice was wonderfully rich and mellow, as he stood at the window softly singing over to himself that haunting, tragic Famine Theme from The Death of Minnehaha. Fresh from its weeks of resting, low, yet suggesting an immeasurable reserve power, it had all its old throbbing magnetism; but a new quality had been added to it. It had always had moments of passionate appeal; now it had gained a sadness, a depth of melancholy which in the past it had been powerless to express. A year before, Thayer could strike the tragic note, never the pathetic.

Nevertheless, the pathos was apparently merely a matter of the vocal cords. The tall, alert, well-groomed man who stood at the snow-veiled window in no way suggested being a candidate for sympathy. His eyes were clear, his brows unfurrowed. Moreover, one could never dream of condoling with the owner of such a voice. Taken quite by itself, its possession would outweigh an almost infinite number of human woes.

"Ever thicker, thicker, thicker Froze the ice on lake and river, Ever deeper, deeper, deeper Fell the snow—"

Hiawatha's wigwam might well have been just beyond the spruce thicket, Thayer reflected. The description was too accurate to be artistic; it amounted to mere photography. As far as his own eyes could see, the earth lay buried in a deep, soft blanket of snow, and the air above was misty with flakes which neither fell nor scurried before the wind, but hung apparently motionless in the still, cold air. All through the preceding night, however, the wind had blown fiercely. The snow lay heaped in heavy, irregular drifts across the open plain; but under the trees it was rolled up into soft waves whose tops curled over as daintily as the waves had curled over on the moonlit beach of Monomoy. The lake was frozen over and snow-covered; but the creek that came rushing down to meet it was too swift to be overtaken by the frost, and it showed, an inky-dark, sinuous line of open water, winding away and away among the trees, now losing itself in a thicket of alders, now drawing a straight black mark across an open stretch of meadow where the frost-flowers on its banks offered a delicate substitute for their summer kin.

Half a mile away to the south, the mountain rose abruptly, its face of sheer rock making a dark scar on the winter landscape, a scar crossed with long white bands and bars of ice which, glacier-wise, were creeping over the edge of the cliff as if seeking to veil its sinister face. Against the base of the mountain, close to the inky creek, another patch of darkness stood out in bold relief. This patch was the Lorimers' cottage.

In spite of the haunting melancholy of his song, Thayer looked out at the cottage and at the storm with a feeling of supreme content. Lorimer hated storms with a catlike fervor; it was an old-time peculiarity of his, dating from their student days in Goettingen. There was no likelihood of his leaving the cottage, that day; and, inside the cottage with his man to look out for him, Thayer felt that he was beyond the possibility of danger. It was seven weeks since they had buried themselves in that wilderness, seven weeks that Thayer had voluntarily kept himself under the daily and hourly strain of constant intimate association with the woman he loved, of knowing that she gained strength and courage from her reliance upon him, and of forcing himself to treat her with an offhand good-fellowship which defied analysis for the mere reason that it challenged none.