"And we're going," said the nobleman, pausing before the portrait of a gentleman who had fallen at Marston Moor. "Oh, yes, we are vanishing. After a while the great breed of English gentlemen will be as extinct as the dodo. And this house will be turned into a Dispensary for Dyspeptic Proletarians, or more probably an American named Cohen will buy it and explain to his guests at dinner just how much it cost him."

Peter remembered broken and vine-grown chimneys where stately homes had stood, the extinction of a romantic plantation life, the vanishing of the gentlemen of the old South, as the Champneys had vanished. They had taken with them something never to be replaced in American life, perhaps; but hadn't that vanished something made room for a something else intrinsically better and sounder, because based on a larger conception of freedom and justice? The American looked at the cavalier's haughty, handsome face; he looked at the Englishman thoughtfully.

"Yes. You will go," he agreed presently. "All things pass. That is the law. In the end it is a good law."

"I should think it would altogether depend on what replaces us," said the other, dryly.

"And that," said Peter, "altogether depends upon you, doesn't it? It's in your power to shape it, you know. However, if you'll notice, things somehow manage to right themselves in spite of us. Now, over home in Carolina we haven't come out so very badly, all things considered."

"Got jolly well licked, didn't you?" asked the Englishman, whose outstanding idea of American military history centered upon Stonewall Jackson.

"Just about wiped off the slate. Had to begin all over, in a world turned upside down. Yet, you see, here I am! And I assure you I shouldn't be willing to change places with my grandfather." With a shy friendliness he laid his fingers for a moment on his host's arm. "Your grandson won't be willing to change, either, because he'll be the right sort. That's what your kind hands down." He spoke diffidently, but with a certain authority. Each man is a sieve through which life sifts experiences, leaving the garnering of grain and the blowing away of chaff to the man himself. Peter had garnered courage to face with a quiet heart things as they are. He had never accepted the general view of things as final, therefore he escaped disillusionment.

"They thought the end of the world had come—my people. So it had—for them. But not for us. There's always a new heaven and a new earth for those who come after," he finished.

The Englishman smiled twistedly. After a while he said unexpectedly:

"I wish you'd have a try at my portrait, Mr. Champneys. I think I'd like that tentative grandson of mine to see the sort of grandfather he really possessed."

"Why, I haven't had any training! But if you'll sit for me I'll do some sketches of you, gladly."

"Why not now?" asked the other, coolly. "I have a fancy to see what you'll make of me." He added casually: "Whistler used the north room over the stables when he stayed here. You've seen his pastels, and the painting of my father."

"Yes," said Peter, reverently. And he stared at his host, round-eyed.

"We've never changed the room since his time. Should you like to look over it now? You'll find all the materials you are likely to need,—my sister has a pretty little talent of her own, and it pleases her to use the place."

"Why, yes, if you like," murmured Peter, dazedly. And like one in a dream he followed his stocky host to the room over the stables. One saw why the artist had selected it; it made an ideal studio. A small canvas, untouched, was already in place on an easel near a window. One or two ladylike landscapes leaned against the wall.

"She has the talent of a painstaking copyist," said her brother, nodding at his sister's work. "Shall you use oils, or do you prefer chalks, or water-colors?"

"Oils," decided Peter, examining the canvas. "It will be rough work, remember." He made his preparations, turned upon his sitter the painter's knife-like stare, and plunged into work. It was swift work, and perhaps roughly done, as he had said, but by the miracle of genius he managed to catch and fix upon his canvas the tenacious and indomitable soul of the Englishman. You saw it looking out at you from the steady, light blue eyes in the plain face with its craggy nose and obstinate chin; and you saw the kindness and delicacy of the firm mouth. There he stood, flat-footed, easy in his well-worn clothes, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the blackthorn walking-stick he always carried, and looked at you with the quiet sureness of integrity and of power. Peter added a few last touches; and then, instead of signing his name, he painted in a small Red Admiral, this with such exquisite fidelity that you might think that gay small rover had for a moment alighted upon the canvas and would in another moment fly away again.

His lordship studied his painted semblance critically.

"I rather thought you could do it," he said quietly. "I usually manage, as you Americans say, to pick a winner. You'll be a great painter if you really want to be one, Mr. Champneys. Should you say sixty guineas would be a fair price for this?"

"That's something like three hundred dollars, isn't it?" asked Peter, interestedly. "Suppose we call this a preliminary sketch for a portrait I'm to paint later—say when I've had a few years of training."

"You will charge me very much more than sixty guineas for a portrait, two or three years from now," said the other, smiling. He looked at the swiftly done, vivid bit of work. "This is what I want for my grandson; it is his grandfather as nature made him. It is as true and as homely as life itself." And he looked at Peter respectfully, so that that young man blushed to his ears. And that is how and when Peter Champneys painted his first ordered picture, signed with the Red Admiral; and how he won the faithful friendship of a crusty Englishman. It was a very real friendship. His lordship had what he himself called a country heart, and as Peter Champneys had the same sort, and neither man outraged the other by too much talk, they got along astonishingly well.

"He's deucedly intelligent," his lordship explained, with quiet enthusiasm. "We'll tramp for miles, and I give you my word that for an hour on end he won't say three words!"

Hemingway, to whom this confidence was given, chuckled. It amused him to watch his wife's wild goose putting on native swan feathers. Yet it pleased him, for he knew the boy appealed to her romantic as well as to her maternal instinct. She handled him skilfully, and it was she who passed upon his invitations. She wished him to meet clever and brilliant men and women; and at times she left him in the hands of young girls, pink-and-white visions who troubled as well as interested him. He felt that he was really meeting them under false pretenses. Their youth called to his, but he might not answer. Between him and youth stood that unloved and unlovely girl in America.

Mrs. Hemingway watched him with the eyes of the woman who has a young man upon her hands. His reactions to his contacts interested her immensely. His worldly education was progressing with entire satisfaction to her.

"I want him to marry an English wife," she confided to her husband. They were to leave for Paris that night, and she was summing up the results of his stay in London, the balance being altogether in his favor. "A well-bred, normal English girl with good connections, a girl entirely untroubled by temperament, who will love him tenderly, look out for his physical well-being, and fill his house with healthy children, is exactly what Peter Champneys needs. And the sooner it happens to him the better. Peter has a lonely soul. It shouldn't be allowed to become chronic."

Hemingway looked at her apprehensively. "Sounds to me as if you were trying to make Peter pick a peck of pickled peppers," he commented. And Peter coming in at this opportune moment, he grinned at the boy cheerfully.

"Peter," he smiled, "the sweet chime of merry wedding-bells in the distance falls softly on mine ear; my wife thinks you should be altar-broke. Charming domestic interior, happy fireside clime, flag of our union fluttering from the patent clothes-line! Futurist painting of Young Artist Pushing a Pram! Don't look at me with such an agonized expression of the ears, Peter!"

But Peter had no answering smile. His face had changed, and there was that in his eyes which gave Hemingway pause.

"Why, old chap, I was merely joking!" he began, with real concern.

"Peter!" said the woman, softly. "You have had—a disappointment? But, my dear boy, you are so very young. Don't take it too much to heart, Peter. At your age nothing is final, really." And she smiled at him.

A flush suffused the young man's forehead. He felt shamed and miserable. He couldn't flaunt his price-tag before these unbuyable souls whose beautiful and true marriage was based upon love, and sympathy, and mutual ideals! He couldn't rattle his chains, or explain Anne Champneys. He couldn't, indeed, force himself to speak of her at all. The thing was bad enough, but to talk about it—No! He lifted troubled eyes.

"I am afraid—in my case—it is final," he said, in a low voice. And after a pause, in a louder tone: "Yes—please understand—it is final."

"Oh, Peter dear, I'm sorry! But—"

"You're talking nonsense. Why, you're barely twenty-one!" protested Hemingway. "Much water must flow under the bridge, Peter, before you can say of anything: it is final. You've got a long life ahead of you to—"

"Work in," finished Peter. "Yes, I know that. I have my chance to work. That is enough." At that his head went up.

Mrs. Hemingway puckered her brows. She leaned toward him, her eyes lighting up.

"Peter!" said she, mischievously, her cheek dimpling. "Peter, aren't you rather leaving the Red Admiral out of your calculations?"



CHAPTER XII

"NOT BY BREAD ALONE"

Mrs. Peter Champneys drove away from the scene of her wedding, feeling as if boiling water had been poured over her. No man of all the men she had ever met had looked at her with just such an expression as she had encountered in Peter Champneys's eyes, and the memory of it filled her with a rankling sense of injustice. He had married her for the same reason she had married him, hadn't he? Then why should he think himself a whit better than she was? It seemed to her that all the unkindness, all the slights she had ever endured, had come to a head in Peter's distressed and astonished glance.

Nancy had no illusions as to her own personal appearance, but it occurred to her that her bridegroom left considerable to be desired in that respect, himself. With his hatchet face and his outstanding ears and his big nose—why, he was as homely as that dried old priest in the glass case in the museum!—and him looking down on people every mite as good as he was! That was really the crux of the thing: Nancy had her own pride, and Peter had managed to trample upon it roughshod. She felt she could never forgive him, and her sense of injury included Chadwick Champneys as well. She hadn't asked him to make his nephew marry her, had she? The suggestion had come from the Champneys, not from her. Yet it was plain to her that both these men considered her a very inferior person. She couldn't understand them.

She liked the furnished apartment she and Mr. Champneys were to occupy until their house was ready, better than she had liked the hotel, though the Japanese butler, Hoichi, overawed her. She wasn't used to Japanese butlers and she didn't know exactly how to treat this suave, deft, silent yellow man who was so efficient and so ubiquitous. It was different where the maids were concerned; she who had been so lately an unpaid drudge was afraid these trained, clever servants might suspect her former state of servitude and she covered her fear with a manner so insupportable that Mr. Chadwick Champneys, who looked upon arrogant rudeness to social inferiors as a sort of eighth deadly sin, was presently forced to remonstrate.

"Nancy," he ventured one morning, "I have been observing your manner to the servants with—er—disapproval. A habitual lack of consideration is a serious deficiency. It is really a lack of breeding—and of heart. A lady"—he fixed his large dark eyes upon her—"is never impolite."

He touched her on the quick. She knew these Champneys didn't think she was a lady, but for this old man to come right out and say so to her face—"Say, I guess I know how to be a lady without you havin' to tell me!"

"I am more than willing to be convinced," said the South Carolinian, pointedly.

At that, of a sudden, Nancy flared. She lifted a pair of sullen and mutinous eyes, and her lips quivered. He saw with surprise that she was trembling.

"Say, you look here—I done what you told me to do, didn't I? I ain't no more nor no less a lady than I was before I done it, am I? What you pickin' on me for, then? What more you want?"

He sighed. Milly's niece was distinctly difficult, to say the least. How, he asked himself desperately, was one to make a dent in her appalling ignorance? She irritated him. And as is usual with people who do not understand, he took exactly the wrong course with her.

"I want you at least to try to live up to your position," he said with cold directness, beetling his brows at her. "I want you to do what you're told—and to keep on doing it! Do you understand that?" He felt that he was allowing himself to be more wrought up than was good for him, and this added to his annoyance.

She considered this, sullenly. "I'm not exackly straight in my mind what I understand and what I don't understand, yet," she replied. "But I got this much straight: If I done what I done to please you, I done it to please me, too!"

This was logical enough; it had even a note of common sense and justice. But her crude method of expressing it filled him with cold fury. The Champneys temper strained at the leash.

"Ah!" said he, a dark flush staining his face, "ah! Then get this straight, too: you'll please me only if you carry out your part of our contract. What! do you dream I would ruin my nephew's life for a self-willed, undisciplined minx? Nothing could be farther from my thoughts! Nancy, I made you Mrs. Peter Champneys: you will qualify for the position—or lose it!" He tapped his foot on the floor, and glared at her.

Nancy gave him glare for glare. "Yeah, you said it! You made me Mrs. Peter Champneys, and all I got to do is to do what I don't want to do, to hold down the job! What you askin' him to do to please me? How's he qualifyin'? Is he so much I'm nothin'? Because that's what he thinks! Oh, you needn't talk! I guess I got eyes, at least!"

"I suggest that you use them to your own advantage, then," said he, disgustedly. "Let us have done with such squabbling! You agreed to obey. Very well, then, you will do so, or I shall take steps to put you outside of my calculations. In other words, I will wash my hands of you. Is that perfectly clear to you?" How else, he asked himself, was he to make her understand?

She saw that he was in a towering rage, and she reflected that if she had made Baxter that mad he'd have banged her with his fists. For a long minute the two stared at each other. She was about to make a defiant reply and let come what might, when a sort of spasm distorted his face. His mouth opened gaspingly, his eyes rolled back in his head like a dying man's. He seemed to crumple up, and she caught him as he fell. Her terrified shriek brought Hoichi, who took instant charge of the situation. He made the unconscious man comfortable on a divan, applied such restoratives as were at hand, and directed a frightened maid to telephone for physicians.

Nancy fled to her own room, and sat on the edge of her bed, frightened and subdued. That quarrel and its serious effect made a turning-point in her life, though she attached no blame to herself for the man's illness. She had no love for him, but her heart was not callous to suffering, and his distorted and agonized face had terrified and shocked her.

The suddenness of the seizure made his words more impressive. Suppose he died: what of her? She was not sure that any definite provision had as yet been made for her. What, then, should she do?

Suppose he recovered: what then? She had cause for serious thought. All this luxury and ease, this pleasant life of plenty, in which she reveled with the deep delight of one quite unused to it, hung upon a contingency—the contingency of absolute obedience. She was not naturally supine, and her spirit rose against an unconditional self-surrender to a hot-tempered, imperious old man, who would mold her to his will, make her over to his own notions, quite as high-handedly as if she'd been a lump of putty and not a human being. Nancy tasted the bitterness of having no voice in the making of her own destiny.

Well, but suppose she defied him? He was quite capable of washing his hands of her, just as he had threatened. And then? Before that possibility Nancy recoiled. No. She couldn't, she wouldn't go back to that old life of squalid slavery—eating bad food, wearing wretched clothes, suffering all the sodden and sordid misery of the ignorant, abjectly poor, a suffering twice as poignant now that she knew better things. She knew poverty too well to have any illusions about it. The Baxter kitchen rose before her. Why! while she was sitting here now, in this luxurious room, back there they'd be getting ready for the noonday dinner. The close kitchen would be reeking with the odor of boiling potatoes and cabbage, from which a greasy steam would be arising, so that one saw things as through a hot mist. One of the children would be screaming, somewhere about the house, and Mrs. Baxter, in an unsavory wrapper, her face streaming with perspiration, her hair in sticky strands on her hot forehead, would be shrilly threatening personal chastisement: "You shut up, out there! Just you wait till I get this batch o' biscuits off my hands an' I bet I fix you! didn't I say shut up?" The hateful voice seemed so close to Nancy's ear that the girl shrank back, shivering with distaste.

She fingered the soft, fine stuff of the frock she was wearing. She stared about the room,—her room, which she didn't have to share with one of the Baxter children, who squirmed and kicked all night in summer, and pulled the bed-coverings off her in winter. She went over to her dressing-table and fingered its pretty accessories, sniffing with childish pleasure the delicately scented powder and cologne. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, and scowled. Then she began to walk restlessly up and down the room. She had to think this thing out.

Why should she go, and leave the road clear for Peter Champneys? It occurred to her that, seen from his point of view, her elimination from the scene might be regarded somewhat in the light of providential interference in his behalf. She flushed. It wasn't fair! The thought of Peter Champneys was gall and wormwood to her.

Nancy wasn't a fool. Her honesty had a blunt directness, a sort of cave-woman frankness. In her, truthfulness was not so much a virtue as an energy. The hardness of her unloved life had bred a like hardness in her sense of values; she was distrustful and suspicious because she had never had occasion to be anything else. In that suspicion and distrustfulness had lain her safety. She had no sense of spiritual values as yet. Religion had meant going to church on Sundays when you had clean clothes in which to appear. Morals had meant being good, and to Nancy being good simply meant not being bad—and you couldn't be bad, go wrong, if you never trusted any man. A girl that trusted none of 'em could keep respectable. Nancy had seen girls who trusted men, in her time. Nothing like that for her! But she knew, also, the price the woman pays whether she trusts or distrusts, and the matrimony which at times rewarded the distrustful didn't appear much more alluring than the potter's field which waited for the credulous. Anyway you looked at it, what happened wasn't pleasant. And it was worse yet when you knew there was something better and different. You had to pay a price to get that something better and different, of course. The fact that one pays for everything one gets was coming home to Nancy with increasing force; the problem, then, was to get your money's worth.

She took her head in her hands, and tried to concentrate all her faculties. She wasn't a shirker, and she realized that she must decide upon her course of conduct now and stick to it. If she didn't look out for herself, who would? And presently she had reached the conclusion that when Mr. Peter Champneys reappeared upon the scene, he must find Mrs. Peter Champneys occupying the foreground, and occupying it creditably, too. She'd do it! When Mr. Chadwick Champneys recovered, she'd come to terms with him. She'd keep faith.

She spent three or four anxious days, while specialists came and went, and white-capped, starched, authoritative personages relieved each other in the sick-room, their answers to all queries being that the patient was doing quite as well as could be expected. At the end of the fifth day they admitted that the patient was recovering,—was, in fact, out of danger, though he wouldn't leave his room for another week or ten days; and he wasn't to be worried or disturbed about anything.

Satisfied, then, that he was on the highroad to recovery, and having made up her mind as to her own course of procedure, Nancy rather enjoyed these few days of comparative freedom. She supplied herself with a huge box of bonbons, "Junie's Love Test" and "The Widowed Bride,"—books begun long ago, but wrested from her untimely by the ruthless Mrs. Baxter, on the score of takin' her time off: her rightful work for them that'd took her in, and fillin' her red head with the foolishest sort o' notions. She had had so much to do that to have nothing to do but lie around in a red silk kimona and nibble chocolates and read love stories, seemed to her the supreme height of felicity.

She reveled in these novels. They represented that something different toward which her untutored and stinted heart groped blindly. Otherwise her mind, by no means a poor one, lay fallow and untilled. The beauty and wonder of the world, the pity and terror of fate, the divine agony of love which sacrifices and endures, did not as yet exist for her. She merely sensed that there was something different, somewhere—maybe on the road ahead. And so she wept over the woes of star-crost lovers, and sentimentalized over husky heroes utterly unlike any male beings known to nature, and believed she didn't believe that disinterested and unselfish love existed in the world. As she hadn't the faintest gleam of self-knowledge, in all this she was perfectly sincere.

She did not see Mr. Champneys for two weeks or so. In his nervous condition he evinced a singular reluctance to have her come near him, although others saw him daily. For instance, Mr. Jason Vandervelde appeared at half after ten o'clock every morning during his client's convalescence, was immediately admitted to Mr. Champney's room, and left it upon the stroke of eleven.

Nancy watched this man curiously. When he met her in the hall, he spoke to her in a nice, full-toned, modulated voice, exceedingly pleasing to the ear. His eyes were small but of a deep and bright blue, and although he was heavily built he wore his clothes so well that he gave the effect of strength rather than of clumsiness. He was clean-shaven and ruddy, and his large, well-shaped mouth was deeply curled at the corners. His hands were not fat and white, as one might expect, but tanned and muscular, and slightly hairy. His glasses gave him a certain precision, and his curled lips suggested irony. Nancy liked to look at him. He discomfited her understanding of men, for, she couldn't tell why, she both liked and trusted him. There was nothing romantic about him,—a well-fed, well-groomed lawyer-man in his late thirties, with a handsome wife in a handsome house,—yet he had the faculty of making her wonder about him, and wonder with kindness at that. She wished she knew just how much he knew about her, her early upbringing, her sad lack of education. What had Mr. Champneys told him? Or had he really told him anything?

When her uncle finally overcame his reluctance and sent for her, she entered his room quietly and stood looking at him with an honest concern that was in her favor. She was always honest, he reflected. There was nothing of the hypocrite or the coward in those wary gray-green eyes that always met one's glance without flinching.

The change in his appearance shocked her. His eyes were hollow, his tall form looked meager and shrunken. He was growing to be an old man. She said awkwardly:

"I'm real sorry you been so sick." And she made no attempt to apologize for her share in the quarrel that had led to his seizure. She ignored it altogether, and for this he was grateful.

"Thank you. I am getting along nicely," he said civilly. And with a slightly impatient gesture he dismissed all further mention of illness. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, the better to collect his thoughts. He wished to make his wishes perfectly clear to her. But she surprised him by saying quietly:

"I been thinking things over while you was sick, and I come to the conclusion you was right. I got to have more education. There's things I just got to know—how to talk nice, and what to wear, and what fork you'd ought to eat with. Forks and things drive me real wild."

"I had thought, at first, of sending you to some particularly fine boarding-school—" he began, but Nancy interrupted him.

"If I was six instead o' sixteen, you might do it. As 't is, I wouldn't learn nothin' except to hate the girls that'd be turnin' up their noses at me. No. I don't want to go to boardin'-school. I've saw music-teachers that come to folks' houses to give lessons, and I been thinkin', why can't you get me a school-teacher that'll teach me right at home!"

"As I was saying when interrupted,"—he looked at her reprovingly—"I had at first thought of sending you to some finishing school. I gave up that idea almost at once. I agree with you that it is best you should be taught at home. In fact, I have already engaged the lady who will be your companion as well as your teacher."

"I don't know as I'm crazy about a lady companion as a steady job," said Nancy, doubtfully. She feared to lose her new liberty, to forego the amazing delight of living by herself, so to speak. "But now you've done it, I sure hope you've picked out somebody young. If I got to have a lady companion, I want she should be young."

"Mr. Vandervelde attended to the matter for me," said Mr. Champneys, in a tone of finality. "He is sure that the lady in question is exactly the person I wish. Mrs. MacGregor is an Englishwoman, the widow of a naval officer. She is in reduced circumstances, but of irreproachable connections. She has the accomplishments of a lady of her class, and her companionship should be an inestimable blessing to you. You will be governed by her authority. She will be here to-morrow."

"A ole widder woman! Good Lord! I—" here she stopped, and gulped. An expression of resignation came over her countenance. "Oh, all right. You've done it an' I'll make the best of it," she finished, not too graciously.

"It is not proper to refer to a lady as 'a ole widder woman'."

"Well, but ain't she?" And she asked: "What else you know about her?"

"Mr. Vandervelde attended to the matter," he repeated. "He is thoroughly satisfied, and that is enough for me—and for you. I sent for you to inform you that she is to be here to-morrow. See that you receive her pleasantly. Your hours of study and recreation will be arranged by her. She will also overlook your wardrobe. And, I do not wish to hear any complaints."

"I can't even pick out my own clothes?"

"You lack even the rudiments of good taste."

"What's wrong with my clothes?" she demanded.

"Everything," said he, succinctly, and with visible irritation. He remembered the wedding-gown, and his face twitched. She watched him intently.

"Oh, all right. I said I'd obey, an' I will. I ain't forgettin'," said she, wearily.

"Very well. I am glad you understand." He closed his eyes, and understanding that the interview was at an end, Nancy withdrew.

Mrs. MacGregor arrived on the morrow. The attorney had been given explicit orders and instructions by his exacting client, who had his own notions of what a teacher for his niece should and shouldn't be. Vandervelde congratulated himself on having been able to meet them so completely in the person of the estimable Mrs. MacGregor.

Mr. Champneys demanded a lady middle-aged but not too middle-aged, not overly handsome, but not overly otherwise; an excellent disciplinarian, of a good family, and with impeccable references.

For the rest, Mrs. MacGregor was a tall, spare, high-nosed lady, with a thin-lipped mouth full of large, sound teeth of a yellowish tinge, and high cheek-bones with a permanent splash of red on them. Her eyes were frosty, and her light hair was frizzled in front, and worn high on her narrow head. She dressed in plain black silk of good quality, wore her watch at her waist, and on her wrist a large, old-fashioned bracelet in which was set a glass-covered, lozenge-shaped receptable holding what looked like a wisp of bristles, but which was a bit of the late Captain MacGregor's hair.

Mr. Champneys had wanted a lady who was a church member. He had a vague idea that if a lady happened to be a church member you were somehow or other protected against her. Mrs. MacGregor was orthodox enough to satisfy the most rigid religionist. Mr. Champneys gathered that she believed in God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Ghost, three in One, and that One a dependable gentleman beautifully British, who dutifully protected the king, fraternally respected the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister, and was heartily in favor of the British Constitution. Naturally, being a devout woman, she agreed with Deity.

An American family domiciled for a while in England had secured her services as companion to an elderly aunt of theirs, fetching her along with them, on their return to America. The aunt had been a family torment until the advent of Mrs. MacGregor, but in the hands of that disciplinarian she had become a mild-mannered old body. On her demise the grateful family settled a small annuity upon her whom they couldn't help recognizing as their benefactor. Finding Americans so grateful, Mrs. MacGregor decided to remain among them and with her recommendations secure another position of trust in some wealthy family. This, then, was the teacher selected by Mr. Jason Vandervelde, who thought her just what Mr. Champneys wanted and his ward probably needed.

Mrs. MacGregor never really liked anybody, but she could respect certain persons highly; she respected Mr. Chadwick Champneys at sight. His name, his appearance, the fact that Jason Vandervelde was acting for him, convinced her that he was "quite the right sort"—for an American. She was as gracious to him as nature permitted her to be to anybody. And the salary was very good indeed.

It was only when Nancy put in her appearance that Mrs. MacGregor's satisfaction withered around the edges. The red on her high cheeks deepened, and she fixed upon her new pupil a cold, appraising stare. She made no slightest attempt to ingratiate herself; that wasn't her way; what she demanded, she often said, was Respect. The impossible young person who was staring back at her with hostile curiosity wasn't overcome with Respect. The two did not love each other.

Strict disciplinarian though she might be where others were concerned, Mrs. MacGregor treated herself with lenient consideration. She was selfish with a fine, Christian zeal that moved Nancy to admiring wonder. Nancy's own selfishness had been superimposed upon her by untoward circumstances. This woman's selfishness was a part of her nature, carefully cultivated. She believed her body to be the temple of the Holy Ghost, and she made herself exceedingly comfortable in the building, quite as if the Holy Ghost were an obliging absentee landlord. Nancy observed, too, that although the servants did not like her, they obeyed her without question. She got without noise what she wanted.

But she really could teach. Almost from the first lesson, Nancy began to learn, the pure hatred she felt for her instructress adding rather than detracting from her progress. Had the woman been broader, of a finer nature, she might have failed here; but being what she was, immovable, hard as nails, narrow and prejudiced, sticking relentlessly to the obviously essential, she goaded and stung the girl into habits of study.

Her reaction to Mrs. MacGregor really pushed her forward. She knew that the woman could never overcome a secret sense of amaze that such a person as herself should be a member of Chadwick Champneys's family—the man was a gentleman, you see. And she called Nancy "Anne." Her lifted eyebrows at Nancy's English, her shocked, patient, parrot-like, "Not 'seen him when he done it,' please. You saw him when he did it!—No, 'I come in the house' isn't correct. Try to remember that well-bred persons use the past tense of the verb; thus: 'I came into the house.'—What do I hear, Anne? You 'taken' it? No! You TOOK it!" And she would look at Nancy like a scandalized martyr, ready to die for the noble cause of English grammar! Rather than endure that look, rather than face those uplifted eyebrows, Nancy, gritting her teeth, set herself seriously to the task of making over her method of speech.

It was Mrs. MacGregor who, discovering the girl's unstinted allowance of candy, cut off the supply. She didn't care much for candies herself, but she did like fruit, and fruit was substituted for the forbidden sweets. She had the healthy, wholesome English habit of walking, and unless the weather was impossible she forced her unwilling charge to take long tramps with her, generally immediately after breakfast. They would set out, Nancy dressed in a plain blue serge, her pretty, high-heeled pumps discarded for flat-heeled walking-shoes, Mrs. MacGregor flat-footed also, tall, bony, in a singular bonnet, but nevertheless retaining an inherent stateliness which won respect. Sometimes they tramped up Riverside Drive, their objective being Grant's tomb. Mrs. MacGregor respected Grant; and the stands of dusty flags brought certain old British shrines to her mind. On stated mornings they visited the Library, while Mrs. MacGregor selected the books Nancy was to read, books that Nancy looked at askance. They had their mornings for the museums, too. Mrs. MacGregor knew nothing of art, except that, as she said to Nancy, well-bred persons simply had to know something about it. After their walk came lessons, grueling, dry-as-dust, nose-to-the-grindstone lessons, during which Nancy's speech was vivisected. At two o'clock they lunched, and Nancy had further critical instructions. The dishes she had once been allowed to order were changed, greatly to her annoyance; Mrs. MacGregor liked such honest stuff as mutton chops and potatoes, just as she insisted upon oatmeal for breakfast. Porridge, she called it. In the afternoon they motored; Mrs. MacGregor, who detested speed, became the bane of the hard-faced chauffeur's life.

They dined at seven, and for an hour thereafter Mrs. MacGregor either read aloud from some book intended to edify the young person, or forced Nancy to do so. She was possibly the only person alive who delighted in Hannah More. She said, modestly, that at an early age she had been taught to revere this paragon, and whatever happy knowledge of the virtues proper to the female state she possessed, she owed in a large measure to that model writer. Nancy conceived for Hannah More a hatred equaled in intensity only by that cherished for Mrs. MacGregor herself.

Mrs. MacGregor's notions of dress and her own were asunder, even as the poles. But here again that rigid duenna did her invaluable service, for if she didn't look handsome in the clothes selected for her, she didn't, as that lady said frankly, look vulgar in them. No longer would you be liable to mistake her for somebody's second-rate housemaid on her day out. The simple diet and the inexorable regularity of her hours also told in her favor, although she herself wasn't as yet aware of the change taking place. Already you could tell that hers was a supple and shapely young body, with promise of a magnificent maturity; you glimpsed behind the fading freckles a skin like a water-lily for creamy whiteness; and that red hair of hers, worn without frizzings, began to take on a glossy, coppery luster.

That spring they moved into the new house. It was so different from the average newly-rich American home that it moved even Mrs. MacGregor to praise. Nancy thought it rather bare. It hadn't color enough, and there were but few pictures. Yet the old rosewood and mahogany furniture pleased her. She remembered that golden-oak, red-plush parlor at Baxter's with a sort of wonder. Why! she had thought that parlor handsome! And now she was beginning to understand how hideous it had been.

She saw little of Mr. Champneys, who seemed to be plunged to the eyes in business. Occasionally he appeared, looked at her searchingly, said a few words to her and Mrs. MacGregor, and vanished for another indefinite period. Mr. Jason Vandervelde was almost a daily visitor when Mr. Champneys happened to be in the city. At times Mr. Champneys went away, presumably to look after business interests, and Nancy thought that at such times the lawyer accompanied him. She had no friends of her own age, and Mrs. MacGregor wasn't, to say the least, companionable. And the books she was compelled to read bored her to distraction. She took it for granted they must be frightfully good, they were so frightfully dull! The deadliest, dullest of all seemed to be reserved for Sunday. She didn't mind going to church; in church you could watch other people, even though Mrs. MacGregor sat rigidly erect by your side, and expected you to be able to find your place in a Book of Common Prayer entirely unfamiliar to you. While she sat rapt during what you thought an unnecessarily long sermon, you could look about you slyly, and take note of the people within your immediate radius.

Nancy liked to observe the younger people. Sometimes a bitter envy would almost choke her when she regarded some girl who was both pretty and prettily dressed, and, apparently, care-free and happy. She watched the younger men stealthily. Some of them pleased her; she would have liked to be admired by at least one of them, and she felt jealous of the fortunate young women singled out for their attentions. Think of being pretty, and having beautiful clothes, and swell fellows like that in love with you! That any one of these fine young men should cast a glance in her own direction never entered her mind. No. Loveliness and the affection and gaiety of youth were for others; for her—Peter Champneys. At that she fetched a deep sigh. She always went home from church silent and subdued. Mrs. MacGregor thought this a proper attitude of mind for the Sabbath.

The girl was vaguely disturbed and uneasy without knowing why. The newness and glamour of the possession of creature comforts, the absence of want, was wearing thin in spots. She was conscious of a lack. She was beginning to think and to question, and as there was no one in whom she might confide, she turned inward. Naturally, she couldn't answer her own questions, and all her thoughts were as yet chaotic and confused. She wanted—well, what did she want, anyhow? She repeated to herself, "I want something different!" That something different should not include a dreary round of Mrs. MacGregor, a cold inspection by Mr. Chadwick Champneys; nor the thought of Peter Champneys. It would include laughter and—and people who were neither teachers nor guardians, but who were gay, and young, and kind. She began to be conscious of her own isolation. She had always been isolated. Once poverty had done it; and now money was doing it. Those girls she saw at church—she'd bet they went to parties, had loads of friends, had a good time, were loved; plenty of people wanted their love. For herself, as far back as she could look, she had never had a friend. Who cared for her love? Sometimes she watched the new maid, a distractingly pretty little Irish girl, black-haired, blue-eyed, rosy-faced. The girl tried to be demure, to restrain the laughter that was always near the surface; but her eyes danced, her cheek dimpled, she had what one might call a smiling voice. And the handsome young policeman on the corner was acutely aware of her. Nancy remembered one afternoon when she and Mrs. MacGregor happened to be coming in at the same time with Molly. It was Molly's afternoon off and she was dressed trimly, and with taste. Under her little close-fitting hat her hair was like black satin, her face like a rose. The young policeman managed to pass the house at that moment, and lifted his cap to her; Nancy saw the look in the young man's eyes. She followed Mrs. MacGregor into the house, rebelliously. Nobody had ever looked at her like that. Nobody was ever going to look at her like that. She remembered Peter Champneys's eyes when they had first met hers. A dull flush stained her face, and bitterness overwhelmed her.

Mr. Champneys was busy; Mrs. MacGregor was satisfied—she had a position of authority; her creature comforts were exquisitely attended to; her salary was ample. The man saw his plans being carried forward, if not brilliantly at least creditably; the woman saw that her tasks were fulfilled. It never occurred to either that the girl might or should ask for more than she received, or that she might find her days dull. But Nancy was discovering that the body is more than raiment, and that one does not live by bread alone.



CHAPTER XIII

THE BRIGHT SHADOW

The Champneys chauffeur, greatly to Mrs. MacGregor's terror and disapproval, seemed to live for speed alone; in consequence, one afternoon Mrs. MacGregor and Nancy very narrowly escaped dying for it. Whereupon Mr. Champneys summarily dismissed the chauffeur and engaged in his place young Glenn Mitchell, accidentally brought to his notice. Mr. Champneys congratulated himself upon the discovery of Glenn Mitchell. To begin with, he was a South Carolinian, one of those well-born, penniless, ambitious young Southerners who come to New York to make their fortune. One of his forebears had married a Champneys. That was in ante bellum days, but South Carolina has a long memory, and this far-off tie immediately established the young fellow upon a footing of family relationship and of cousinly friendliness. He was a personable youth of twenty, who had worked his way through high school and meant presently to go through the College of Physicians and Surgeons,—his grandfather had been a distinguished physician, Mr. Champneys remembered. The boy proposed to use his skill in handling a motor-car as a means toward that end.

Mr. Chadwick Champneys would gladly have paid Glenn's college expenses out of his own pocket, but the young man, delicately sounded, politely but sturdily declined. The next best thing the kindly old Carolinian could do, then, was to make the boy a member of his own household. Hoichi had orders to prepare a room for Mr. Mitchell, and Mrs. MacGregor was advised that he would take his meals with the family. She was at first inclined to be scandalized: to bring your chauffeur to your own table was Americanism with a vengeance! But when she met the young man, she was mollified. This chauffeur was a gentleman, and in Mrs. MacGregor's estimation a gentleman may do many things without losing caste. She remembered that the perfectly decent younger son of a certain poverty-stricken nobleman had driven a car. This young Mitchell was exceptionally good-looking in a nice, boyish, fresh-faced way, and she saw in his manner a youthful reflection of the courtliness which distinguished Mr. Chadwick Champneys. He had a great deal of that indefinable something we call charm, and before she knew it Mrs. MacGregor was won over to him, and looked upon his presence as a distinct addition to the Champneys menage.

When he had been introduced to Nancy, she was mentioned as "My niece, Mrs. Champneys." Mrs. MacGregor called her "Anne." Mr. Champneys spoke to her as "Nancy," and Glenn thought he must have been mistaken as to that "Mrs." There was no sign of a husband anywhere; neither was there any indication of widowhood. Nobody mentioned Peter—Mr. Champneys because he was more interested in talking about Glenn's business than his own, on the occasions when he had time to talk about anything; Mrs. MacGregor, because she had never seen Peter, knew nothing at all about him, except that there was a nephew somewhere in the background of things, and wasn't in the least interested in anything but her own immediate affairs; besides, it never would have occurred to her to talk about her employer's affairs, even if she had known anything about them. An employer who was a gentleman, and very wealthy, belonged to the Established Order, and Mrs. MacGregor had the thorough-going British respect for Established Order. Nancy, for her part, wished to forget that Peter existed. She never by any chance mentioned him, or even thought of him if she could help it. So when young Glenn Mitchell, after the pleasant South Carolina fashion, addressed her as "Miss Nancy" it seemed perfectly all right to everybody.

Nancy was a little over eighteen then. She had grown taller, but she retained the pleasant angularity of extreme youth. Because she didn't know how to arrange her hair, Mrs. MacGregor sternly forbidding frizzing and curling, and insisting upon a "modest simplicity becoming to a young girl" she wore her red mane in a huge plait. She had been so teased and badgered about her red hair, had hated it so heartily, been so ashamed of it, that she didn't realize how magnificent it was now, after two years of care and cleanliness. It wasn't auburn; it wasn't Titian; it was a bright, rich, glittering, unbuyable, undeniable red, and Nancy wore her plait as a boy wears a chip on his shoulder. Young Glenn Mitchell was seized with a wild desire to catch hold of that braid that was like a cable of gleaming copper, and wind it around his wrists. For the first time, he thought, he was seeing the true splendor and beauty of red hair; and the girl had the wonderfully white skin that accompanies it. He suspected that she must have been pretty badly freckled when she was a child, for the freckles were still fairly visible, though one saw that they would presently vanish altogether. The curve of her throat and chin, the "salt-cellars" at the base of the neck, left nothing to be desired. Altogether there was that about this girl that caught and held his boyish attention. It wasn't that she was pretty,—he had at first thought her plain. It was rather that here lay a tantalizing promise of unfoldment by and by, a sheathed hint of something rare and perilous.

He didn't quite know what to make of Mr. Champneys's niece. She was abnormally silent, unbelievably unobtrusive, singularly still. Watching her, he found himself wishing she would smile, at least occasionally: he longed to see what her mouth would look like if it should curve into laughter. She had exquisite teeth, and her eyes, when one was allowed to get a glimpse of them, were of a curious, agaty, gray green, with one or two little spots or flecks in the iris. Hers was an impassive, emotionless face; yet she gave a distinct impression of feeling, emotion, passion held in check; it was as if her feelings had been frozen. But suppose a spring thaw should set in—what then? Would there be just a calm brook flowing underneath placid willows, or a tempestuous torrent sweeping all before it? He wondered!

She sat opposite him at table three times a day, and never addressed a word to him, or to Mrs. MacGregor, who carried on whatever conversation there might be. Mrs. MacGregor liked to give details of entertainments "at home," at which she herself had been present, or of events in which A Member of My Family had participated. "I said to the dear Bishop,"—"His Lordship remarked to My Cousin." Sometimes during these recitals the thin, fine edge of a smile touched Nancy's lips. It was gone so quickly one wasn't quite sure it had been there at all; yet its brief passage gave her a strange expression of mockery and of weariness. She offered no opinions of her own about anything; she made no slightest attempt to keep the conversation alive; you could talk, or you could remain silent—it was all one to her. Yet dumb and indifferent though she appeared to be, you felt her presence as something very vital, listening, and immensely honest and natural.

He wished she would speak to him, say something more than a mere "Yes" or "No." Girls had always been more than willing to talk to Glenn Mitchell—very much prettier and more fascinating girls than this silent, stubborn, red-headed Anne Champneys. He began to feel piqued, as well as puzzled.

And then, one day, he happened to glance up suddenly and in that instant encountered a full, straight, intense look from her—a look that weighed, and wondered, and searched, and was piercingly, almost unbearably eager and wistful. He felt himself engulfed, as it were, in the bottomless depths of that long, clear gaze, that went over him like the surge of great waters, and drenched his consciousness to the core. Brand-new Eve might have looked thus at brand-new Adam, sinlessly, virginally, yet with an avid and fearful questioning and curiosity. For the second his heart shook and reeled in his breast. Then the dark lashes fell and veiled the shining glance. Her face was once more indifferent and mask-like.

As a matter of fact, Nancy was avidly interested in Glenn, in whom for the first time she encountered youth. He came like a fresh breeze into an existence in which she stifled. From his first appearance in the house she had watched him stealthily, looking at him openly only when she thought herself unobserved. Conscious of her own defects, she was timid where this good-looking young man was concerned. It never occurred to her that she might interest him, but she did not wish him to think ill of her. She kept herself in the background as much as possible.

She had none of the joyousness natural to a girl of her age. She had no young companions. Was there some reason? Wasn't she happy? He felt vaguely troubled for her. She aroused his sympathy, as well as his curiosity. He couldn't forget that look he had surprised. It stayed in his memory, perilously. At night in his room, when he should have been studying, that astonishing glance came before him on his book, and cast a luminous spell upon him.

He surprised no more such glances. She still relegated to Mrs. MacGregor the full task of talking to him; a task that lady performed nobly. Just as she walked every morning with Mrs. MacGregor, she took her place in the car every afternoon, apparently obeying orders. Sometimes, twisting his head around, he could glimpse her profile turned toward the moving panorama of the crowded streets through which he was skilfully manoeuvering his way. But if she were interested in what she gazed at so fixedly, she made no comment. One never knew what she thought about anything.

One memorable evening she appeared at dinner in a yellow frock, instead of the usual serge or plain blue silk. It wasn't an elaborate dress, but its prettily low neck allowed one to admire her full throat, with a string of amber beads around it. Her hair hung in two thick braids across her shoulders, and the straight lines of the yellow satin accentuated the youthfulness of her figure. Glenn's heart behaved unmannerly.

She appeared not to see his quick, pleased glance, but turned instead to Mrs. MacGregor, who was regarding her critically. Mrs. MacGregor hadn't been consulted about the yellow frock, and she viewed it with distinct disapproval. Glenn found himself solidly aligned against Mrs. MacGregor, and siding with the girl. He liked that yellow frock; somehow it suited her coloring, enabled one to see how unusual she really was. He wondered that he had thought her so plain, at first. She agitated him. He wished intensely that she would look at him; and just then she did, and for the first time saw admiration in a young man's eyes, not for another girl, but for herself! She held his glance, doubtfully, timidly; but she couldn't doubt the evidence of her senses. Glenn was pleased with her, he admired her! His ingenuous face beamed the fact, from frank eyes and smiling lips. There was somewhat more than admiration in his look, but Nancy was more than content with what appeared on the surface. Her eyes widened, a flush rose to her cheek, a naive and pleased smile transformed her dissatisfied young mouth. When he ventured to speak to her presently, she ventured to reply, shyly, but with new friendliness. Once, when Mrs. MacGregor said something sententious, and Glenn laughed, Nancy laughed with him.

That frank and boyish admiration restored to her, as it were, some rightful and precious heritage long withheld, an indispensable birthright the lack of which had beggared and stripped her. She had a sense of profound gratitude to this likable and handsome young man, a moved and touching interest in him. He made her feel glad to be alive; through him the world seemed of a sudden a kindlier place, full of charming surprises. And when she accompanied Mrs. MacGregor to church on the following Sunday, she looked with a secret sisterliness at the girls she had envied and disliked. It was as if she had been elected to their ranks, been made one of them; she wasn't on the outside of things any more; somebody—a very desirable and handsome somebody—admired her, too. She didn't analyze her feelings. Youth never thinks or analyzes, it feels and realizes; that is why it is divine, why it is lord of the earth. Her growing liking for him was so shy, so naive, so touchingly sincere, that Glenn was profoundly moved when he became aware of it. He had the old South Carolina chivalry; to him women were still invested with a halo, and one approached them with a manly reverence. He had liked girls, many girls; he would have told you, himself, that he never met a pretty girl without loving her some! But this was the first time Glenn had ever really fallen in love, and he fell headlong, with an impetuous ardor that all but swept him off his feet, and that was like strong wine to Nancy, whose drink heretofore had been lukewarm water.

He didn't know whether or not she was Mr. Champney's sole heir, and he didn't care: what difference could that make? He was as well born as any Champneys, wasn't he? And if he wasn't blessed with much of this world's goods just now, he took it for granted he was going to be, after a while. As for that, hadn't Chadwick Champneys himself once been as poor as Job's turkeys? And hadn't Mr. Champneys acknowledged the relationship existing between them, slight and distant though it was? Who'd have the effrontery to look down on one of the Mitchells of Mitchellsville, South Carolina? He'd like to know! Glenn began to dream the rosy dreams of twenty.

It took Nancy somewhat longer to discover the amazing truth. She was more suspicious and at the same time very much more humble-minded than Glenn. But suspicion faded and failed before his honest passion. His agitation, his eagerness, his face that altered so swiftly, so glowingly, whenever she appeared, would have told the truth to one duller than Nancy. If Mrs. MacGregor could have suspected that anybody could fall in love with Anne Champneys, she must have seen the truth, too. But she didn't. She was serenely blind to what was happening under her eyes.

Nancy never forgot the day she discovered that Glenn loved her. Mrs. MacGregor had one of her rare headaches. She was a woman who hated to upset the fixed routine of life, and as their afternoon outing was one of the established laws, she insisted that Nancy should go, though she herself must remain at home. Half fearful, half delighted, Nancy went. Glenn had looked at her, mutely entreating; in response to that entreaty she took the seat beside him. For some time neither spoke—Glenn because he was too wildly happy, Nancy because she hadn't anything to say. She was curious; she waited for him to speak.

"I wonder," gulped Glenn, presently, "if you know just how happy I am."

Nancy said demurely that she didn't know; but if he was happy she was glad: it must be very nice to be happy!

"Aren't you happy?" he ventured.

Nancy turned pink by way of answer. As a matter of fact, she was nearer being happy then than she had ever been. They fell into an intimate conversation—that is, Glenn talked, and the girl listened. He explained his hopes, ambitions, prospects. He talked eagerly and impetuously. He wished her to understand him, to know all about him,—what he was, what he hoped to be. A boy in love is like that.

In return for this confidence Nancy explained that she hated oatmeal, and Hannah More; some of these days she meant to buy every copy of Hannah More she could lay her hands on, and burn them. Of herself, her past, she said nothing.

"And so you're going to be a doctor!" she turned the conversation back to him, as being much more interesting.

"Yes. Or rather, I'm going to be a great surgeon." And then he asked, smilingly:

"And you—what do you want to be?"

"I want to be happy," said Nancy, half fiercely.

"There isn't any reason why you shouldn't be—a girl like you."

Nancy looked a bit doubtful. But no, he wasn't poking fun. And after a pause, he asked, as one putting himself to the test:

"Miss Anne—Nancy—do you think you could be happy—with me?"

"You?" breathed Nancy, all a-tremble. She thought she could be happier with Glenn than with anybody else. Why! there wasn't anybody else! That is, nobody that cared. She was afraid to say so. But her moved and changed face said it for her.

"Because, if you could be happy with me, why shouldn't you be?" asked Glenn, brilliantly. But Nancy understood, and her heart crowded into her throat with delight, and terror, and a sort of agony. She felt that she loved and adored this boy to distraction. She would have adored anybody who loved and desired her, who found her fair. But she didn't understand that; neither did Glenn.

"You care?" said the boy, leaning toward her. They were running slowly, along a road high above the river. "Nancy, you care?"

Care? Of course she cared! She considered him the most beautiful and desirable of mortals; she was so enraptured, so thrilled with the astounding fact that he cared for her, that she couldn't speak, but looked at him with swimming eyes. He brought the car to a stop, slipped an arm around her shoulder, and drew her close. She knew that something momentous was going to happen to her, and looked at him, full of a sweet terror. "I love you!" said Glenn, and kissed her on the mouth.

His beard was the ghost of down on his cheek; her hair hung in a braid to her waist; their kiss was the kiss of youth,—tender, passionately pure. Everything but that morning face, pale with young emotion, looking at her with enamored eyes, vanished from her mind; everything else counted for nothing, went like chaff upon the wind. The one fact alone remained: Glenn loved her! Her senses were in a delicious tumult from the power and the glory of it: Glenn loved her! It was as if a skylark sang in her breast, as if she walked in a rosy and new-born world. Had Nancy been called upon to die for him then, she would have gone to her death shining-eyed, fleet-footed, joyous.

"I love you, I love you!" Glenn repeated it like a litany. "Nancy! Does it make you as happy because I love you as it makes me because you love me?"

"Oh, ten thousand times ten thousand times more!" she said fervently.

"I think it was your hair I fell in love with, first off," he told her presently. "I have never seen a girl with such hair, and such a lot of it. I'm crazy about your hair, Nancy."

"I think you must be," she agreed whole-heartedly. She wasn't vain, his girl!

They had no more plans than birds or flowers have. Plenty of time for sober planning by and by, when one grew accustomed to the sweet miracle of being beloved as much as one loved! Glenn simply took it for granted he was going to marry her. He had known her all of three months—a lifetime, really!—and she had allowed him to kiss her, had admitted she cared. He supposed they would have to wait until he had been through his training and won that coveted degree. Until then, they would keep their beautiful secret to themselves; they didn't wish to share it with anybody, yet.

It was only when she was alone in her room that night that Nancy realized the true situation that confronted her. On the one side was Glenn, dear, wonderful Glenn, who loved her. On the other was Peter Champneys, who had married her as she had married him, for the Champneys money. Peter Champneys! who despised her, and whom she must consider a barrier between herself and whatever happiness life might offer her! She could understand how Glenn had made his mistake. Nobody had explained Peter to him. To tell him the truth now meant to lose him. She was like a person dying of thirst, yet forbidden to drink the cup of cold water extended to her.

Wasn't it wiser to take what life offered, drain the cup, and let come what might? Why not snatch her chance of happiness, even though it should be brief? Suppose one waited? Deep in her heart was the hope that something would happen that would save her; youth always hopes something is going to happen that will save it. Wasn't it possible Peter might fall in love with somebody, and divorce her? One saw how very possible indeed such a thing was! For the present, let Glenn love her. It was the most important and necessary thing in the world that Glenn should love her. What harm was she doing in letting Glenn love her? Particularly when Peter Champneys didn't, never would, any more than she ever could or would love Peter Champneys.

Even Mrs. MacGregor noticed the change taking place in Anne Champneys. The girl had more color and animation, and at times she even ventured to express her own opinions, which were strikingly shrewd and fresh and original. Her eyes had grown sweeter and clearer, now that she no longer slitted them, and her mouth was learning to curve smilingly. Decidedly, Anne was vastly improved! And her manner had subtly changed, too; she was beginning to show an individuality that wasn't without a nascent fascination.

Mrs. MacGregor plumed herself upon the improvement in her pupil, which she ascribed to her own civilizing and potent influence, for she was a God-fearing woman. She didn't understand that the greatest Power in heaven and earth was at work with Nancy.

But although Glenn became daily more enamored of the girl, he wasn't so satisfied with things as they were. He couldn't say that Nancy really avoided him, of course. He drove her and Mrs. MacGregor, whom at times he wished in Jericho, out in the car every afternoon. He sat opposite her at table thrice daily. Sometimes in the evening he spent an hour or two with her and Mrs. MacGregor, before going to his own room to study. But it so happened that he never was able to see her alone any more; and Nancy certainly made no effort to bring about that desirable situation. This made him restive and at the same time increased his passion for her.

For her part, she was perfectly content just to look at him, to know that he was near. But Glenn was more impatient. He wanted the fragrance of her hair against his shoulder; he wanted the straight, strong young body in his arms; he wished to kiss her. And she held aloof. Although she no longer veiled her eyes from him, although he was quite sure she loved him, she was always tantalizingly out of his reach. She didn't seem to understand the lover's desire to be alone with the beloved, he thought. He grew moody. The weeks seemed years to his ardent and impetuous spirit. One night, happening to need a book he had noticed in the library, he went after it. And there, oh blessed vision, sat Nancy! She had been sleepless and restless, and had stolen out of her room for something to read that hadn't been selected by Mrs. MacGregor. It was rather late, but finding the quiet library pleasanter to her mood than her own room, she curled up in a comfortable chair and began to read. The book was Hardy's "Tess," and its strong and somber passion and tragedy filled her with pity and terror. Something in her was roused by the story; she felt that she understood and suffered with that simple and passionate soul.

She looked up, startled, as Glenn entered the room. He came to her swiftly, his arms outstretched, his face alight.

"You!" he cried, radiant and elate. "You!"

Nancy rose, torn between the desire to retreat, and to fling herself into those waiting arms. Glenn left her no choice. He seized her, roughly and masterfully, and held her close, pressing her against his body. His lips fastened upon hers. Nancy closed her eyes and shivered. She felt small and helpless, a leaf before the wind, and she was afraid.

"Nancy!" he whispered. "Nancy! You've got to marry me. We'll just have to risk it, degree or no degree! What's the use of waiting all our lives, maybe, when we love each other? When will you marry me, Nancy?"

She knew then that she had to tell him the truth, and she trembled.

"Glenn, I—I—" she stammered. Her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth.

"Soon? Say yes, Nancy! I'm crazy about you, don't you know that? Why don't you say when, Nancy?"

She felt desperate, as if some force were closing in upon her, relentlessly. She had to speak, and yet she couldn't. She tried to escape from the arms that held her, but they clasped her all the closer. His eager lips closed on hers.

"Nancy! Ah, darling, why not let everything go and marry me at once?"

Ah, why not, indeed? As if Peter Champneys had reached across the sea to divide her and Glenn, a stern voice answered Glenn's question.

"Because she has a husband already," it said harshly. Chalky white, with blazing eyes, Chadwick Champneys confronted Peter's wife in another man's arms. "She is married to my nephew, Peter Champneys. Is it possible you do not know?"

Glenn's arms dropped. Intuitively he moved away from her. His visage blanched, and he stared at her strangely.

"Nancy, is this thing true?"

Nancy nodded. She said in a lifeless voice: "Oh yes, it's true. I was trying to tell you, but—" And then she broke into a cry: "Glenn, you don't understand! Glenn, listen, please listen! I did love you, I do love you, Glenn! You—you don't know—you don't understand—"

The boy staggered. He was an honorable, clean-souled boy, heir to old heritages of pride, and faith, and chivalry. A dull, shamed red crept from cheek to brow, replacing his pallor. His gesture, as he turned away from her, made her feel as if she had been struck across the face. She winced. She saw herself judged and condemned.

"Mr. Champneys," stammered Glenn, painfully, "surely you know I didn't understand—don't you? I—we—fell in love, sir. We'd meant to wait—that's why I didn't come to you at once—but I—that is, I was very much in love with her, and I was going to make a clean breast of it and ask you what we'd better do. And you're not to think I'm—dishonorable—" he choked over the word.

Knowing the boy's breed, Champneys laid a not unkindly hand on his shoulder.

"I see how it was," he said. "And—I guess you're punished enough, without any reproaches from me."

Glenn turned to Nancy. "Why did you do it?" he cried. "I loved you, I trusted you. Nancy, why did you do such a thing—to me?"

She twisted her fingers. Well, this was the end. She was to be thrust out of the new brightness, back into the drab dreariness, the emptiness that was her fate. She lifted tragic eyes.

"I never expected you to love me. But when you did—I just had to let you! Nobody else cared—ever. And I loved you for loving me—I couldn't help it, Glenn; I couldn't help it!" Her voice broke. She stood there, twisting her fingers.

An old, wise, kind woman, or an old priest who had seen and forgiven much, or men who knew and pitied youth, would have understood. Neither of the men to whom she spoke realized the significance of that childishly pitiful confession. Champneys felt that she had shamed his name, belittled the sacred Family which was his fetish; Glenn thought she had made a fool of him for her own amusement. Never again would he trust a woman, he told himself. And in his pain and shame, his smarting sense of having been duped, his hideous revulsion of feeling, he spoke out brutally. Nancy was left in no doubt as to the estimation in which he now held her. And she understood that it was his pride, even more than his love, that suffered.

She made no further attempt to explain or to exculpate herself; what was the use? She knew that had they changed places, had Glenn been in her shoes and she in his, her judgment had not been thus swift and merciless. Her larger love would have understood, and pitied, and forgiven. Pride! They talked of Pride, and they talked of Name. But she could only feel that the one love she had ever known, or perhaps ever was to know, was going from her, must go from her, unforgiving, as if she had done it some irreparable wrong. She looked from one wrathful, accusing face to the other, like a child that has been beaten. How could Glenn, who had seemed to love her so greatly, turn against her so instantly? Not even—Peter Champneys—had looked at her as Glenn was looking at her now! And of a sudden she felt cold, and old, and sad, and inexpressibly tired. So this was what men were like, then! They always blamed. And they never, never understood. She would not forget.

She checked the impulse to cry aloud to Glenn, to try once more to make him understand. Her eyes darkened, and two bright spots burnt in her cheeks. Without a further word or glance she walked out of the room and left the two standing close together. So stepped Anne Champneys into her womanhood.

She locked her door upon herself. Then she went over, after her fashion, and stared at herself in her mirror. The herself staring back at her startled her—the flushed cheeks, the mouth like coral, the eyes glowing like jewels under straight black brows. The ropes of red hair seemed alive, too; the whole figure radiated a personality that could be dynamic, once its powers should be fully aroused.

She viewed the woman in the glass impersonally, as if it had been a stranger's face looking at her. That vivid creature couldn't be Nancy Simms, not quite three years ago the Baxter slavey, the same Nancy that Peter Champneys had shrunk from with aversion, and that Glenn had repudiated to-night!

"Yes,—it's me," she murmured. "But I ain't—I mean I am not really ugly any more. I'm—I don't know just what I am—or whether I ought to like or hate me—" But even while she shook her head, the face in the glass changed; the mouth drooped, the color faded, the light in the eyes went out. "But whatever I am, I'm not enough to make anybody keep on loving me." Then, because she was just a girl, and a very bewildered, sad, and undisciplined girl, she put her red head down on her dressing-table and wept despairingly.

The next morning Mr. Champneys explained to the concerned and regretful Mrs. MacGregor that Mr. Mitchell had been called away suddenly, last night, and didn't think he would be able to return. The ladies were to accept Mr. Mitchell's regrets that he hadn't been able to bid them good-by in person. Mr. Champneys bowed for Mr. Mitchell, in a very stately manner. He went on with his breakfast, while Nancy made a pretense of eating hers, hating life and wishing with youthful intensity that she was dead, and Glenn with her. His empty place mocked and tortured her. He had gone, and he didn't, wouldn't, couldn't understand. She could never, never hope to make Glenn understand! She rather expected Mr. Champneys to sit in judgment upon her that morning, but a whole week passed before Hoichi brought the message that Mr. Champneys wished to see her in the library. Her uncle was standing by the window when she entered, and he turned and bowed to her politely. He was thinner, gaunter, more Don Quixotish than usual. If only he had been kind! But his face was set, and hers instinctively hardened to match it.

"Nancy," he began directly, "I have not sent for you to load you with reproaches for your inexplicable conduct. But I must say this: deliberately to deceive and befool an honest gentleman, to trifle with his affections out of mere greedy vanity, is so base that I have no words strong enough to condemn it."

"I didn't mean to fool him. He fooled himself, and I let him do it," said she, dully. He thought her listlessness indifference, and any bluntness in moral tone in a woman, scandalized him. He could understand a Mrs. MacGregor, who was without subtleties; or soft, loving, courageous women like Milly and his sister-in-law, Peter's mother. But this girl he couldn't fathom. He beat his hands together, helplessly.

"I—you—" he groaned. And then: "Oh, Peter, what have I done to you!"

"I can't see you've done anything to him, except pay him to go away and learn how to make something out of himself," returned Nancy, practically. It brought him up short. "Uncle Chadwick, please keep quiet for a few minutes: I want you to listen to me." She met his eyes fully. "I didn't do Glenn Mitchell any real harm: he'll fall in love with somebody else pretty soon. I suppose it's easy for Glenn to love people because it's easier for people to love Glenn. And he's done me this much good: I won't be so ready to believe it's easy for folks to love me, Uncle Chadwick. I guess I'm the sort they mostly—don't. I'll not forget." She spoke without bitterness, even with dignity. "One thing more, please. If ever Peter Champneys finds out he loves somebody, and he'll let me know, I'll give him his freedom. Fortune or no fortune, I won't hold him. I know now—a little—what loving somebody means," she finished.

Her voice was so steady, her eyes so clear and direct, her manner so contained, that he was uncomfortably impressed. He felt put upon the defensive. As a matter of fact, in his first anger and surprise at what he still considered her shameless behavior, he had seriously considered the advisability of having Peter's marriage annulled. As soon as he had become calmer, his pride and obstinacy rejected such a course. After all, no harm had been done. She was very young. And he hoped Glenn's outspoken condemnation had taught her a needed and salutary lesson. Looking at her this morning, he realized that she had been punished. But that she should so calmly speak of divorcing Peter, of making way for some other woman, horrified him.

"You are talking immoral nonsense!" he said, angrily. "Let him go, indeed! Divorce your husband! What are we coming to? In my day marriage was binding. No respectable husband or wife ever dreamed of divorce!"

"But they were real husbands and wives, weren't they?" asked Nancy.

"All husbands and wives are real husbands and wives!" he thundered.

She considered this—and him—carefully. "Then you don't want Mr. Peter Champneys and me ever to be divorced? I thought maybe you might."

"I forbid you even to think such wickedness," cried he, alarmed. "A girl of your age talking in such a manner! It's scandalous, that's what it is,—scandalous! Shows the dry-rot of our national moral sense, when the very children"—he glared at Nancy—"gabble about divorce!"

"Then I—I mean, things are just to go along, the same as they have been?" She looked at him pleadingly.

For a few minutes he drummed on the library table with his thin brown fingers. His bushy brows contracted. He asked unexpectedly:

"Would you like to go away for a while? To travel?"

"Where?"

"Where? Why, anywhere! There's a whole world to travel in, isn't there? Well, take Mrs. MacGregor and travel around in it, then."

She shook her head.

"What's the use? Anywhere I went I'd have to go with me, wouldn't I? And I can't seem to like the idea of traveling around with Mrs. MacGregor, either."

"What do you want, then?"

"I don't know," said she, in a low voice. And she added: "So I think I might just as well stay right on here at home, if it's all the same to you."

"Well, if it pleases you, of course—" he began doubtfully.

"If I do stay, you needn't be afraid I'll fall in love with anybody else you hire," said she, with a faint flush. "I'm only a fool the same way once." Her bomb-shell directness all but stunned him. He stammered, confusedly:

"Why—very well then, very well then! Quite so! I see exactly what you mean! I—ah—am very glad we understand each other." But as the door closed behind her, he mumbled to himself:

"Now, that was a devil of an interview, wasn't it! What's come over the girl? And what's the matter with me?" After a while he telephoned Mr. Jason Vandervelde.

Everything went on as usual in the orderly, luxurious house, for some ten quiet months or so. And then one memorable morning at the breakfast-table Mr. Champneys suddenly gasped and slid down in his chair. Nancy and Hoichi carried him into the library and placed him on a lounge. He opened his eyes once, and stared into hers with something of his old imperiousness. She took his hand, pitifully, and bent down to him.

"Yes, Uncle Chadwick?"

But he didn't speak—to her. His eyes wandered past her. His lips trembled, into a whisper of "Milly!" With that he went out to the wife of his youth.



CHAPTER XIV

SWAN FEATHERS

While Mr. Chadwick Champneys was alive, Nancy had been able to feel that there was some one to whom she, in a way, belonged. Now that he was gone, she felt as if she had been detached from all human ties, for she couldn't consider Peter as belonging. Peter wasn't coming home, of course. He was content to leave his business interests in the safe hands of Mr. Jason Vandervelde, and the trust company that had the Champneys estate in charge. A last addition to Mr. Champneys's will had made the lawyer the guardian of Mrs. Peter Champneys until she was twenty-five.

While he was putting certain of his late client's personal affairs in order, Mr. Vandervelde necessarily came in contact with young Mrs. Peter. The oftener he met her, the more interested the shrewd and kindly man became in Anne Champneys. When he first saw her in the black she had donned for her uncle, the unusual quality of her personal appearance struck him with some astonishment.

"Why, she's grown handsome!" he thought with surprise. "Or maybe she's going to be handsome. Or maybe she's not, either. Whatever she is, she certainly can catch the human eye!"

He remembered her as she had appeared on her wedding-day, and his respect for Chadwick Champneys's far-sighted perspicacity grew: the old man certainly had had an unerring sense of values. The girl had a mind of her own, too. At times her judgment surprised him with its elemental clarity, its penetrating soundness. The power of thinking for herself hadn't been educated out of her; she had not been stodged with other people's—mostly dead people's—thoughts, therefore she had room for her own. He reflected that a little wholesome neglect might be added to the modern curriculum with great advantage to the youthful mind.

Her isolation, the deadly monotony of her daily life, horrified him. He realized that she should have other companionship than Mrs. MacGregor's, shrewdly suspecting that as a teacher that lady had passed the limit of usefulness some time since. Somehow, the impermeable perfection of Mrs. MacGregor exasperated Mr. Vandervelde almost to the point of throwing things at her. She made him understand why there is more joy in heaven over one sinner saved, than over ninety and nine just persons. He could understand just how welcome to a bored heaven that sinner must be! And think of that poor girl living with this human work of supererogation!

"Why, she might just as well be in heaven at once!" he thought, and shuddered. "I've got to do something about it."

"Marcia," he said to his wife, "I want you to help me out with Mrs. Peter Champneys. Call on her. Talk to her. Then tell me what to do for her. She's changed—heaps—in three years. She's—well, I think she's an unusual person, Marcia."

A few days later Mrs. Jason Vandervelde called on Mrs. Peter Champneys, and at sight of Nancy in her black frock experienced something of the emotion that had moved her husband. She felt inclined to rub her eyes. And then she wished to smile, remembering how unnecessarily sorry she and Jason had been for young Peter Champneys.

Marcia Vandervelde was an immensely clever and capable woman; perhaps that partly explained her husband's great success. She looked at the girl before her, and realized her possibilities. Mrs. Peter was for the time being virtually a young widow, she had no relatives, and she was co-heir to the Champneys millions. Properly trained, she should have a brilliant social career ahead of her. And here she was shut up—in a really beautiful house, of course—with nobody but an insufferable frump of an unimportant Mrs. MacGregor! The situation stirred Mrs. Vandervelde's imagination and appealed to her executive ability.