'Do you like Broadway, Peggy?'

'Do I like Broadway? Does a kid like candy? Why, don't you?'

'It's all right for the time. It's not my ideal.'

'Oh, and what particular sort of little old Paradise do you hanker after?'

He puffed at his pipe, and looked dreamily at her through the smoke.

'Way over in England, Peggy, there's a county called Worcestershire. And somewhere near the edge of that there's a grey house with gables, and there's a lawn and a meadow and a shrubbery, and an orchard and a rose-garden, and a big cedar on the terrace before you get to the rose-garden. And if you climb to the top of that cedar, you can see the river through the apple trees in the orchard. And in the distance there are hills. And—'

'Of all the rube joints!' exclaimed Peggy, in deep disgust. 'Why, a day of that would be about twenty-three hours and a bit too long for me. Broadway for mine! Put me where I can touch Forty-Second Street without over-balancing, and then you can leave me. I never thought you were such a hayseed, George.'

'Don't worry, Peggy. It'll be a long time, I expect, before I go there. I've got to make my fortune first.'

'Getting anywhere near the John D. class yet?'

'I've still some way to go. But things are moving, I think. Do you know, Peggy, you remind me of a little Billiken, sitting on that table?'

'Thank you, George. I always knew my mouth was rather wide, but I did think I had Billiken to the bad. Do you do that sort of Candid Friend stunt with her?' She pointed to the photograph on the mantelpiece. It was the first time since the night when they had met that she had made any allusion to it. By silent agreement the subject had been ruled out between them. 'By the way, you never told me her name.'

'Halliday,' said Rutherford, shortly.

'What else?'

'Alice.'

'Don't bite at me, George! I'm not hurting you. Tell me about her. I'm interested. Does she live in the grey house with the pigs and chickens and all them roses, and the rest of the rube outfit?'

'No.'

'Be chummy, George. What's the matter with you?'

'I'm sorry, Peggy,' he said. 'I'm a fool. It's only that it all seems so damned hopeless! Here am I, earning about half a dollar a year, and—Still, it's no use kicking, is it? Besides, I may make a home-run with my writing one of these days. That's what I meant when I said you were a Billiken, Peggy. Do you know, you've brought me luck. Ever since I met you, I've been doing twice as well. You're my mascot.'

'Bully for me! We've all got our uses in the world, haven't we? I wonder if it would help any if I was to kiss you, George?'

'Don't you do it. One mustn't work a mascot too hard.'

She jumped down, and came across the room to where he sat, looking down at him with the round, grey eyes that always reminded him of a kitten's.

'George!'

'Yes?'

'Oh, nothing!'

She turned away to the mantelpiece, and stood gazing at the photograph, her back towards him.

'George!'

'Hullo?'

'Say, what colour eyes has she got?'

'Grey.'

'Like mine?'

'Darker than yours.'

'Nicer than mine?'

'Don't you think we might talk about something else?'

She swung round, her fists clenched, her face blazing.

'I hate you!' she cried. 'I do! I wish I'd never seen you! I wish—'

She leaned on the mantelpiece, burying her face in her arms, and burst into a passion of sobs. Rutherford leaped up, shocked and helpless. He sprang to her, and placed a hand gently on her shoulder.

'Peggy, old girl—'

She broke from him.

'Don't you touch me! Don't you do it! Gee, I wish I'd never seen you!'

She ran to the door, darted through, and banged it behind her.

Rutherford remained where he stood, motionless. Then, almost mechanically, he felt in his pocket for matches, and relit his pipe.

Half an hour passed. Then the door opened slowly. Peggy came in. She was pale, and her eyes were red. She smiled—a pathetic little smile.

'Peggy!'

He took a step towards her.

She held out her hand.

'I'm sorry, George. I feel mean.'

'Dear old girl, what rot!'

'I do. You don't know how mean I feel. You've been real nice to me, George. Thought I'd look in and say I was sorry. Good night, George!'

On the following night he waited, but she did not come. The nights went by, and still she did not come. And one morning, reading his paper, he saw that The Island of Girls had gone west to Chicago.

4

Things were not running well for Rutherford. He had had his vacation, a golden fortnight of fresh air and sunshine in the Catskills, and was back in Alcala, trying with poor success, to pick up the threads of his work. But though the Indian Summer had begun, and there was energy in the air, night after night he sat idle in his room; night after night went wearily to bed, oppressed with a dull sense of failure. He could not work. He was restless. His thoughts would not concentrate themselves. Something was wrong; and he knew what it was, though he fought against admitting it to himself. It was the absence of Peggy that had brought about the change. Not till now had he realized to the full how greatly her visits had stimulated him. He had called her laughingly his mascot; but the thing was no joke. It was true. Her absence was robbing him of the power to write.

He was lonely. For the first time since he had come to New York he was really lonely. Solitude had not hurt him till now. In his black moments it had been enough for him to look up at the photograph on the mantelpiece, and instantly he was alone no longer. But now the photograph had lost its magic. It could not hold him. Always his mind would wander back to the little, black-haired ghost that sat on the table, smiling at him, and questioning him with its grey eyes.

And the days went by, unvarying in their monotony. And always the ghost sat on the table, smiling at him.

With the Fall came the reopening of the theatres. One by one the electric signs blazed out along Broadway, spreading the message that the dull days were over, and New York was itself again. At the Melody, where ages ago The Island of Girls had run its light-hearted course, a new musical piece was in rehearsal. Alcala was full once more. The nightly snatches of conversation outside his door had recommenced. He listened for her voice, but he never heard it.

He sat up, waiting, into the small hours, but she did not come. Once he had been trying to write, and had fallen, as usual, to brooding—there was a soft knock at the door. In an instant he had bounded from his chair, and turned the handle. It was one of the reporters from upstairs, who had run out of matches. Rutherford gave him a handful. The reporter went out, wondering what the man had laughed at.

There is balm in Broadway, especially by night. Depression vanishes before the cheerfulness of the great white way when the lights are lit and the human tide is in full flood. Rutherford had developed of late a habit of patrolling the neighbourhood of Forty-Second Street at theatre-time. He found it did him good. There is a gaiety, a bonhomie, in the atmosphere of the New York streets. Rutherford loved to stand on the sidewalk and watch the passers-by, weaving stories round them.

One night his wanderings had brought him to Herald Square. The theatres were just emptying themselves. This was the time he liked best. He drew to one side to watch, and as he moved he saw Peggy.

She was standing at the corner, buttoning a glove. He was by her side in an instant.

'Peggy!' he cried.

She was looking pale and tired, but the colour came back to her cheeks as she held out her hand. There was no trace of embarrassment in her manner; only a frank pleasure at seeing him again.

'Where have you been?' he said. 'I couldn't think what had become of you.'

She looked at him curiously.

'Did you miss me, George?'

'Miss you? Of course I did. My work's been going all to pieces since you went away.'

'I only came back last night. I'm in the new piece at the Madison. Gee, I'm tired, George! We've been rehearsing all day.'

He took her by the arm.

'Come along and have some supper. You look worn out. By Jove, Peggy, it's good seeing you again! Can you walk as far as Rector's, or shall I carry you?'

'Guess I can walk that far. But Rector's? Has your rich uncle died and left you a fortune, George?'

'Don't you worry, Peggy. This is an occasion. I thought I was never going to see you again. I'll buy you the whole hotel, if you like.'

'Just supper'll do, I guess. You're getting quite the rounder, George.'

'You bet I am. There are all sorts of sides to my character you've never so much as dreamed of.'

They seemed to know Peggy at Rector's. Paul, the head waiter, beamed upon her paternally. One or two men turned and looked after her as she passed. The waiters smiled slight but friendly smiles. Rutherford, intent on her, noticed none of these things.

Despite her protests, he ordered an elaborate and expensive supper. He was particular about the wine. The waiter, who had been doubtful about him, was won over, and went off to execute the order, reflecting that it was never safe to judge a man by his clothes, and that Rutherford was probably one of these eccentric young millionaires who didn't care how they dressed.

'Well?' said Peggy, when he had finished.

'Well?' said Rutherford.

'You're looking brown, George.'

'I've been away in the Catskills.'

'Still as strong on the rube proposition as ever?'

'Yes. But Broadway has its points, too.'

'Oh, you're beginning to see that? Gee, I'm glad to be back. I've had enough of the Wild West. If anybody ever tries to steer you west of Eleventh Avenue, George, don't you go. There's nothing doing. How have you been making out at your writing stunt?'

'Pretty well. But I wanted you. I was lost without my mascot. I've got a story in this month's Wilson's. A long story, and paid accordingly. That's why I'm able to go about giving suppers to great actresses.'

'I read it on the train,' said Peggy. 'It's dandy. Do you know what you ought to do, George? You ought to turn it into a play. There's a heap of money in plays.'

'I know. But who wants a play by an unknown man?'

'I know who would want Willie in the Wilderness, if you made it into a play, and that's Winfield Knight. Ever seen him?'

'I saw him in The Outsider. He's clever.'

'He's It, if he gets a part to suit him. If he doesn't, he don't amount to a row of beans. It's just a gamble. This thing he's in now is no good. The part doesn't begin to fit him. In a month he'll be squealing for another play, so's you can hear him in Connecticut.'

'He shall not squeal in vain,' said Rutherford. 'If he wants my work, who am I that I should stand in the way of his simple pleasures? I'll start on the thing tomorrow.'

'I can help you some too, I guess. I used to know Winfield Knight. I can put you wise on lots of things about him that'll help you work up Willie's character so's it'll fit him like a glove.'

Rutherford raised his glass.

'Peggy,' he said, 'you're more than a mascot. You ought to be drawing a big commission on everything I write. It beats me how any of these other fellows ever write anything without you there to help them. I wonder what's the most expensive cigar they keep here? I must have it, whatever it is. Noblesse oblige. We popular playwrights mustn't be seen in public smoking any cheap stuff.'

* * * * *

It was Rutherford's artistic temperament which, when they left the restaurant, made him hail a taxi-cab. Taxi-cabs are not for young men drawing infinitesimal salaries in banks, even if those salaries are supplemented at rare intervals by a short story in a magazine. Peggy was for returning to Alcala by car, but Rutherford refused to countenance such an anti-climax.

Peggy nestled into the corner of the cab, with a tired sigh, and there was silence as they moved smoothly up Broadway.

He peered at her in the dim light. She looked very small and wistful and fragile. Suddenly an intense desire surged over him to pick her up and crush her to him. He fought against it. He tried to fix his thoughts on the girl at home, to tell himself that he was a man of honour. His fingers, gripping the edge of the seat, tightened till every muscle of his arm was rigid.

The cab, crossing a rough piece of road, jolted Peggy from her corner. Her hand fell on his.

'Peggy!' he cried, hoarsely.

Her grey eyes were wet. He could see them glisten. And then his arms were round her, and he was covering her upturned face with kisses.

The cab drew up at the entrance to Alcala. They alighted in silence, and without a word made their way through into the hall. From force of habit, Rutherford glanced at the letter-rack on the wall at the foot of the stairs. There was one letter in his pigeon-hole.

Mechanically he drew it out; and, as his eyes fell on the handwriting, something seemed to snap inside him.

He looked at Peggy, standing on the bottom stair, and back again at the envelope in his hand. His mood was changing with a violence that left him physically weak. He felt dazed, as if he had wakened out of a trance.

With a strong effort he mastered himself. Peggy had mounted a few steps, and was looking back at him over her shoulder. He could read the meaning now in the grey eyes.

'Good night, Peggy,' he said in a low voice. She turned, facing him, and for a moment neither moved.

'Good night!' said Rutherford again.

Her lips parted, as if she were about to speak, but she said nothing.

Then she turned again, and began to walk slowly upstairs.

He stood watching her till she had reached the top of the long flight. She did not look back.

5

Peggy's nightly visits began afresh after this, and the ghost on the table troubled Rutherford no more. His restlessness left him. He began to write with a new vigour and success. In after years he wrote many plays, most of them good, clear-cut pieces of work, but none that came from him with the utter absence of labour which made the writing of Willie in the Wilderness a joy. He wrote easily, without effort. And always Peggy was there, helping, stimulating, encouraging.

Sometimes, when he came in after dinner to settle down to work, he would find a piece of paper on his table covered with her schoolgirl scrawl. It would run somewhat as follows:

'He is proud of his arms. They are skinny, but he thinks them the limit. Better put in a shirt-sleeve scene for Willie somewhere.'

'He thinks he has a beautiful profile. Couldn't you make one of the girls say something about Willie having the goods in that line?'

'He is crazy about golf.'

'He is proud of his French accent. Couldn't you make Willie speak a little piece in French?'

'He' being Winfield Knight.

* * * * *

And so, little by little, the character of Willie grew, till it ceased to be the Willie of the magazine story, and became Winfield Knight himself, with improvements. The task began to fascinate Rutherford. It was like planning a pleasant surprise for a child. 'He'll like that,' he would say to himself, as he wrote in some speech enabling Willie to display one of the accomplishments, real or imagined, of the absent actor. Peggy read it, and approved. It was she who suggested the big speech in the second act where Willie described the progress of his love affair in terms of the golf-links. From her, too, came information as to little traits in the man's character which the stranger would not have suspected.

As the play progressed Rutherford was amazed at the completeness of the character he had built. It lived. Willie in the magazine story might have been anyone. He fitted into the story, but you could not see him. He had no real individuality. But Willie in the play! He felt that he would recognize him in the street. There was all the difference between the two that there is between a nameless figure in some cheap picture and a portrait by Sargent. There were times when the story of the play seemed thin to him, and the other characters wooden, but in his blackest moods he was sure of Willie. All the contradictions in the character rang true: the humour, the pathos, the surface vanity covering a real diffidence, the strength and weakness fighting one another.

'You're alive, my son,' said Rutherford, admiringly, as he read the sheets. 'But you don't belong to me.'

At last there came the day when the play was finished, when the last line was written, and the last possible alteration made; and later, the day when Rutherford, bearing the brown-paper-covered package under his arm, called at the Players' Club to keep an appointment with Winfield Knight.

Almost from the first Rutherford had a feeling that he had met the man before, that he knew him. As their acquaintance progressed—the actor was in an expansive mood, and talked much before coming to business—the feeling grew. Then he understood. This was Willie, and no other. The likeness was extraordinary. Little turns of thought, little expressions—they were all in the play.

The actor paused in a description of how he had almost beaten a champion at golf, and looked at the parcel.

'Is that the play?' he said.

'Yes,' said Rutherford. 'Shall I read it?'

'Guess I'll just look through it myself. Where's Act I? Here we are! Have a cigar while you're waiting?'

Rutherford settled himself in his chair, and watched the other's face. For the first few pages, which contained some tame dialogue between minor characters, it was blank.

'"Enter Willie,"' he said. 'Am I Willie?'

'I hope so,' said Rutherford, with a smile. 'It's the star part.'

'H'm.'

He went on reading. Rutherford watched him with furtive keenness. There was a line coming at the bottom of the page which he was then reading which ought to hit him, an epigram on golf, a whimsical thought put almost exactly as he had put it himself five minutes back when telling his golf story.

The shot did not miss fire. The chuckle from the actor and the sigh of relief from Rutherford were almost simultaneous. Winfield Knight turned to him.

'That's a dandy line about golf,' said he.

Rutherford puffed complacently at his cigar.

'There's lots more of them in the piece,' he said.

'Bully for you,' said the actor. And went on reading.

Three-quarters of an hour passed before he spoke again. Then he looked up.

'It's me,' he said; 'it's me all the time. I wish I'd seen this before I put on the punk I'm doing now. This is me from the drive off the tee. It's great! Say, what'll you have?'

Rutherford leaned back in his chair, his mind in a whirl. He had arrived at last. His struggles were over. He would not admit of the possibility of the play being a failure. He was a made man. He could go where he pleased, and do as he pleased.

It gave him something of a shock to find how persistently his thoughts refused to remain in England. Try as he might to keep them there, they kept flitting back to Alcala.

6

Willie in the Wilderness was not a failure. It was a triumph. Principally, it is true, a personal triumph for Winfield Knight. Everyone was agreed that he had never had a part that suited him so well. Critics forgave the blunders of the piece for the sake of its principal character. The play was a curiously amateurish thing. It was only later that Rutherford learned craft and caution. When he wrote Willie he was a colt, rambling unchecked through the field of play-writing, ignorant of its pitfalls. But, with all its faults, Willie in the Wilderness was a success. It might, as one critic pointed out, be more of a monologue act for Winfield Knight than a play, but that did not affect Rutherford.

It was late on the opening night when he returned to Alcala. He had tried to get away earlier. He wanted to see Peggy. But Winfield Knight, flushed with success, was in his most expansive mood. He seized upon Rutherford and would not let him go. There was supper, a gay, uproarious supper, at which everybody seemed to be congratulating everybody else. Men he had never met before shook him warmly by the hand. Somebody made a speech, despite the efforts of the rest of the company to prevent him. Rutherford sat there, dazed, out of touch with the mood of the party. He wanted Peggy. He was tired of all this excitement and noise. He had had enough of it. All he asked was to be allowed to slip away quietly and go home. He wanted to think, to try and realize what all this meant to him.

At length the party broke up in one last explosion of handshaking and congratulations; and, eluding Winfield Knight, who proposed to take him off to his club, he started to walk up Broadway.

It was late when he reached Alcala. There was a light in his room. Peggy had waited up to hear the news.

She jumped off the table as he came in.

'Well?' she cried.

Rutherford sat down and stretched out his legs.

'It's a success,' he said. 'A tremendous success!'

Peggy clapped her hands.

'Bully for you, George! I knew it would be. Tell me all about it. Was Winfield good?'

'He was the whole piece. There was nothing in it but him.' He rose and placed his hands on her shoulders. 'Peggy, old girl, I don't know what to say. You know as well as I do that it's all owing to you that the piece has been a success. If I hadn't had your help—'

Peggy laughed.

'Oh, beat it, George!' she said. 'Don't you come jollying me. I look like a high-brow playwright, don't I! No; I'm real glad you've made a hit, George, but don't start handing out any story about it's not being your own. I didn't do a thing.'

'You did. You did everything.'

'I didn't. But, say, don't let's start quarrelling. Tell me more about it. How many calls did you take.'

He told her all that had happened. When he had finished, there was a silence.

'I guess you'll be quitting soon, George?' said Peggy, at last. 'Now that you've made a home-run. You'll be going back to that rube joint, with the cows and hens—isn't that it?'

Rutherford did not reply. He was staring thoughtfully at the floor. He did not seem to have heard.

'I guess that girl'll be glad to see you,' she went on. 'Shall you cable tomorrow, George? And then you'll get married and go and live in the rube house, and become a regular hayseed and—' She broke off suddenly, with a catch in her voice. 'Gee,' she whispered, halt to herself, 'I'll be sorry when you go, George.'

He sprang up.

'Peggy!'

He seized her by the arm. He heard the quick intake of her breath.

'Peggy, listen!' He gripped her till she winced with pain. 'I'm not going back. I'm never going back. I'm a cad, I'm a hound! I know I am. But I'm not going back. I'm going to stay here with you. I want you, Peggy. Do you hear? I want you!'

She tried to draw herself away, but he held her.

'I love you, Peggy! Peggy, will you be my wife?'

There was utter astonishment in her grey eyes. Her face was very white.

'Will you, Peggy?'

He dropped her arm.

'Will you, Peggy?'

'No!' she cried.

He drew back.

'No!' she cried sharply, as if it hurt her to speak. 'I wouldn't play you such a mean trick. I'm too fond of you, George. There's never been anybody just like you. You've been mighty good to me. I've never met a man who treated me like you. You're the only real white man that's ever happened to me, and I guess I'm not going to play you a low-down trick like spoiling your life. George, I thought you knew. Honest, I thought you knew. How did you think I lived in a swell place like this, if you didn't know? How did you suppose everyone knew me at Rector's? How did you think I'd managed to find out so much about Winfield Knight? Can't you guess?'

She drew a long breath.

'I—'

He interrupted her hoarsely.

'Is there anyone now, Peggy?'

'Yes,' she said, 'there is.'

'You don't love him, Peggy, do you?'

'Love him?' She laughed bitterly. 'No; I don't love him.'

'Then come to me, dear,' he said.

She shook her head in silence. Rutherford sat down, his chin resting in his hands. She came across to him, and smoothed his hair.

'It wouldn't do, George,' she said. 'Honest, it wouldn't do. Listen. When we first met, I—I rather liked you, George, and I was mad at you for being so fond of the other girl and taking no notice of me—not in the way I wanted, and I tried—Gee, I feel mean. It was all my fault. I didn't think it would matter. There didn't seem no chance then of your being able to go back and have the sort of good time you wanted; and I thought you'd just stay here and we'd be pals and—but now you can go back, it's all different. I couldn't keep you. It would be too mean. You see, you don't really want to stop. You think you do, but you don't!'

'I love you,' he muttered.

'You'll forget me. It's all just a Broadway dream, George. Think of it like that. Broadway's got you now, but you don't really belong. You're not like me. It's not in your blood, so's you can't get it out. It's the chickens and roses you want really. Just a Broadway dream. That's what it is. George, when I was a kid, I remember crying and crying for a lump of candy in the window of a store till one of my brothers up and bought it for me just to stop the racket. Gee! For about a minute I was the busiest thing that ever happened, eating away. And then it didn't seem to interest me no more. Broadway's like that for you, George. You go back to the girl and the cows and all of it. It'll hurt some, I guess, but I reckon you'll be glad you did.'

She stooped swiftly, and kissed him on the forehead.

'I'll miss you, dear,' she said, softly, and was gone.

* * * * *

Rutherford sat on, motionless. Outside, the blackness changed to grey, and the grey to white. He got up. He felt very stiff and cold.

'A Broadway dream!' he muttered.

He went to the mantelpiece and took up the photograph. He carried it to the window where he could see it better.

A shaft of sunlight pierced the curtains and fell upon it.

THE END