To these senile maunderings Percival paid no attention. When they came into the crowd and lights of the Hightower, he sent the old man up alone.

"You go, please, and break it to them, Uncle Peter. I'd rather not be there just at first. I'll come along in a little bit."

So Uncle Peter went, protesting that he was a broken old man and a cumberer of God's green earth.

Mrs. Bines and Psyche had that moment sat down to dinner. Uncle Peter's manner at once alarmed them.

"It's all over," he said, sinking into a chair.

"Why, what's the matter, Uncle Peter?"

"Percival has—"

Mrs. Bines arose quickly, trembling.

"There—I just knew it—it's all over?—he's been struck by one of those terrible automobiles—Oh, take me to where he is!"

"He ain't been run over—he's gone broke-lost all our money; every last cent."

"He hasn't been run over and killed?"

"He's ruined us, I tell you, Marthy,—lost every cent of our money in Wall Street."

"Hasn't he been hurt at all?—not even his leg broke or a big gash in his head and knocked senseless?"

"That boy never had any sense. I tell you he's lost all our money."

"And he ain't a bit hurt—nothing the matter with him?"

"Ain't any more hurt than you or me this minute."

"You're not fooling his mother, Uncle Peter?"

"I tell you he's alive and well, only he's lost your money and Pish's and mine and his own."

Mrs. Bines breathed a long, trembling sigh of relief, and sat down to the table again.

"Well, no need to scare a body out of their wits—scaring his mother to death won't bring his money back, will it? If it's gone it's gone."

"But ma, it is awful!" cried Psyche. "Listen to what Uncle Peter says. We're poor! Don't you understand? Perce has lost all our money."

Mrs. Bines was eating her soup defiantly.

"Long's he's got his health," she began.

"And me windin' up in the poorhouse," whined Uncle Peter.

"Think of it, ma! Oh, what shall we do?"

Percival entered. Uncle Peter did not raise his head. Psyche stared at him. His mother ran to him, satisfied herself that he was sound in wind and limb, that he had not treacherously donned his summer underwear, and that his feet were not wet. Then she led him to the table.

"Now you sit right down here and take some food. If you're all right, everything is all right."

With a weak attempt at his old gaiety he began: "Really, Mrs. Crackenthorpe—" but he caught Psyche's look and had to stop.

"I'm sorry, sis, clear into my bones. I made an ass of myself—a regular fool right from the factory."

"Never mind, my son; eat your soup," said his mother. And then, with honest intent to comfort him, "Remember that saying of your pa's, 'it takes all kinds of fools to make a world.'"

"But there ain't any fool like a damn fool!" said Uncle Peter, shortly. "I been a-tellin' him."

"Well, you just let him alone; you'll spoil his appetite, first thing you know. My son, eat your soup, now before it gets cold."

"If I only hadn't gone in so heavy," groaned Percival. "Or, if I'd only got tied up in some way for a few weeks—something I could tide over."

"Yes," said Uncle Peter, with a cheerful effort at sarcasm, "it's always easy to think up a lot of holes you could get out of—some different kind of a hole besides the one you're in. That's all some folks can do when they get in one hole, they say, 'Oh, if I was only in that other one, now, how slick I could climb out!' I ain't ever met a person yet was satisfied with the hole they was in. Always some complaint to make about 'em."

"And I had a chance to get out a week ago."

"Yes, and you wouldn't take it, of course—you knew too much—swellin' around here about bein' a Napoleon of finance—and a Shepler and a Wizard of Wall Street, and all that kind of guff—and you wouldn't take your chance, and old Mr. Chance went right off and left you, that's what. I tell you, what some folks need is a breed of chances that'll stand without hitchin'."

Percival braced himself and began on his soup.



"Never you mind, Uncle Peter. You remember what I told you."

"That takes a different man from what you are. If your pa was alive now—"

"But what are we going to do?" cried Psyche.

"First thing you'll do," said Uncle Peter, promptly, "you go write a letter to that beau of your'n, tellin' him it's all off. You don't want to let him be the one to break it because you lost your money, do you? You go sign his release right this minute."

"Yes—you're right, Uncle Peter—I suppose it must be done—but the poor fellow really cares for me."

"Oh, of course," answered the old man, "it'll fairly break his heart. You do it just the same!"

She withdrew, and presently came back with a note which she despatched to Mauburn.

Percival and his mother had continued their dinner, the former shaking his head between the intervals of the old man's lashings, and appearing to hold silent converse with himself.

This was an encouraging sign. It is a curious fact that people never talk to themselves except triumphantly. In moments of real despair we are inwardly dumb. But observe the holders of imaginary conversations. They are conquerors to the last one. They administer stinging rebukes that leave the adversary writhing. They rise to Alpine heights of pure wisdom and power, leaving him to flounder ignobly in the mire of his own fatuity.

They achieve repartee the brilliance of which dazzles him to contemptible silence. If statistics were at hand we should doubtless learn that no man has ever talked to himself save by way of demonstrating his own godlike superiority, and the tawdry impotence of all obstacles and opponents. Percival talked to himself and mentally lived the next five years in a style that reduced Uncle Peter to grudging but imperative awe for his superb gifts of administration. He bathed in this imaginary future as in the waters of omnipotence. As time went on he foresaw the shafts of Uncle Peter being turned back upon him with such deadliness that, by the time the roast came, his breast was swelling with pity for that senile scoffer.

Uncle Peter had first declared that the thought of food sickened him. Prevailed upon at last by Mrs. Bines to taste the soup, he was soon eating as those present had of late rarely seen him eat.

"'Tain't a natural appetite, though," he warned them. "It's a kind of a mania before I go all to pieces, I s'pose."

"Nonsense! We'll have you all right in a week," said Percival. "Just remember that I'm going to take care of you."

"My son can do anything he makes up his mind to," declared Mrs. Bines—"just anything he lays out to do."

They talked until late into the night of what he should "lay out" to do.

Meantime the stronghold of Mauburn's optimism was being desperately stormed.

In an evening paper he had read of Percival's losses. The afternoon press of New York is not apt to understate the facts of a given case. The account Mauburn read stated that the young Western millionaire had beggared his family.

Mauburn had gone to his room to be alone with this bitter news. He had begun to face it when Psyche's note of release came. While he was adjusting this development, another knock came on his door. It was the same maid who had brought Psyche's note. This time she brought what he saw to be a cablegram.

"Excuse me, Mr. Mauburn,—now this came early to-day and you wasn't in your room, and when you came in Mrs. Ferguson forgot it till just now."

He tore open the envelope and read:

"Male twins born to Lady Casselthorpe. Mother and sons doing finely.

"HINKIE."

Mauburn felt the rock foundations of Manhattan Island to be crumbling to dust. For an hour he sat staring at the message. He did not talk to himself once.

Then he hurriedly dressed, took the note and the cablegram, and sought Mrs. Drelmer.

He found that capable lady gowned for the opera. She received his bits of news with the aplomb of a resourceful commander.

"Now, don't go seedy all at once—you've a chance."

"Hang it all, Mrs. Drelmer, I've not. Life isn't worth living—"

"Tut, tut! Death isn't, either!"

"But we'd have been so nicely set up, even without the title, and now Bines, the clumsy ass, has come this infernal cropper, and knocked everything on the head. I say, you know, it's beastly!"

"Hush, and let me think!"

He paced the floor while his matrimonial adviser tapped a white kidded foot on the floor, and appeared to read plans of new battle in a mother-of-pearl paper-knife which she held between the tips of her fingers.

"I have it—and we'll do it quickly!—Mrs. Wybert!"

Mauburn's eyes opened widely.

"That absurd old Peter Bines has spoken to me of her three times lately. She's made a lot more money than she had in this same copper deal, and she'd a lot to begin with. I wondered why he spoke so enthusiastically of her, and I don't see now, but—"

"Well?"

"She'll take you, and you'll be as well set up as you were before. Listen. I met her last week at the Critchleys. She spoke of having seen you. I could see she was dead set to make a good marriage. You know she wanted to marry Fred Milbrey, but Horace and his mother wouldn't hear of it after Avice became engaged to Rulon Shepler. I'm in the Critchleys' box to-night and I understand she's to be there. Leave it to me. Now it's after nine, so run along."

"But, Mrs. Drelmer, there's that poor girl—she cares for me, and I like her immensely, you know—truly I do—and she's a trump—see where she says here she couldn't possibly leave her people now they've come down—even if matters were not otherwise impossible."

"Well, you see they're not only otherwise impossible, but every wise impossible. What could you do? Go to Montana with them and learn to be an Indian? Don't for heaven's sake sentimentalise! Go home and sleep like a rational creature. Come in by eleven to-morrow. Even without the title you'll be a splendid match for Mrs. Wybert, and she must have a tidy lot of millions after this deal."

Sorely distressed, he walked back to his lodgings in Thirty-second Street. Wild, Quixotic notions of sacrifice flooded his mood of dejection. If the worst came, he could go West with the family and learn how to do something. And yet—Mrs. Wybert. Of course it must be that. The other idea was absurd—too wild for serious consideration. He was thirty years old, and there was only one way for an English gentleman to live—even if it must break the heart of a poor girl who had loved him devotedly, and for whom he had felt a steady and genuine affection. He passed a troubled night.

Down at the hotel of Peter Bines was an intimation from Mrs. Wybert herself, bearing upon this same fortuity. When Uncle Peter reached there at 2 A.M., he found in his box a small scented envelope which he opened with wonder.

Two enclosures fell out. One was a clipping from an evening paper, announcing the birth of twin sons to Lord Casselthorpe. The other was the card he had left with Mrs. Wybert on the day of his call; his name on one side, announcing him; on the other the words he had written:

"Sell Consolidated Copper all you can until it goes down to 65. Do this up to the limit of your capital and I will make good anything you lose.

"PETER BINES."

He read the note:

"ARLINGHAM HOTEL—7.30.

"MR. PETER BINES:

"Dear Sir:—You funny old man, you. I don't pretend to understand your game, but you may rely on my secrecy. I am more grateful to you than words can utter—and I will always be glad to do anything for you.

"Yours very truly,

"BLANCHE CATHERTON WYBERT.

"P. S. About that other matter—him you know—you will see from this notice I cut from the paper that the party won't get any title at all now, so a dead swell New York man is in every way more eligible. In fact the other party is not to be thought of for one moment, as I am positive you would agree with me."

* * * * *

He tore the note and the card to fine bits.

"It does beat all," he complained later to Billy Brue. "Put a beggar on horseback and they begin right away to fuss around because the bridle ain't set with diamonds—give 'em a little, and they want the whole ball of wax!"

"That's right," said Billy Brue, with the quick sympathy of the experienced. "That guy that doped me, he wa'n't satisfied with my good thirty-dollar wad. Not by no means! He had to go take my breast-pin nugget from the Early Bird."

At eleven o'clock the next morning Mauburn waited in Mrs. Drelmer's drawing-room for the news she might have.

When that competent person sailed in, he saw temporary defeat written on her brow. His heart sank to its low level of the night before.

"Well, I saw the creature," she began, "and it required no time at all to reach a very definite understanding with her. I had feared it might be rather a delicate matter, talking to her at once, you know—and we needed to hurry—but she's a woman one can talk to. She's made heaps of money, and the poor thing is society-mad—so afraid the modish world won't take her at her true value—but she talked very frankly about marriage—really she's cool-headed for all the fire she seems to have—and the short of it is that she's determined to marry some one of the smart men here in New York. The creature's fascinated by the very idea."

"Did you mention me?"

"You may be sure I did, but she'd read the papers, and, like so many of these people, she has no use at all for an Englishman without a title. Of course I couldn't be too definite with her, but she understood perfectly, and she let me see she wouldn't hear of it at all. So she's off the list. But don't give up. Now, there's—"

But Mauburn was determinedly downcast.

"It's uncommon handsome of you, Mrs. Drelmer, really, but we'll have to leave off that, you know. If a chap isn't heir to a peerage or a city fortune there's no getting on that way."

"Why, the man is actually discouraged. Now you need some American pluck, old chap. An American of your age wouldn't give up."

"But, hang it all! an American knows how to do things, you know, and like as not he'd nothing to begin with, by Jove! Now I'd a lot to begin with, and here it's all taken away."

"Look at young Bines. He's had a lot taken away, but I'll wager he makes it all back again and more too before he's forty."

"He might in this country; he'd never do it at home, you know."

"This country is for you as much as for him. Now, there's Augusta Hartong—those mixed-pickle millionaires, you know. I was chatting with Augusta's mother only the other day, and if I'd only suspected this—"

"Awfully kind of you, Mrs. Drelmer, but it's no use. I'm fairly played out. I shall go to see Miss Bines, and have a chat with her people, you know."

"Now, for heaven's sake, don't make a silly of yourself, whatever you do! Mind, the girl released you of her own accord!"

"Awfully obliged. I'll think about it jolly well, first. See you soon. Good-bye!" And Mauburn was off.

He was reproaching himself. "That poor girl has been eating her heart out for a word of love from me. I'm a brute!"



CHAPTER XXXVI.

The God in the Machine

Uncle Peter next morning was up to a late breakfast with the stricken family. Percival found him a trifle less bitter, but not less convinced in his despair. The young man himself had recovered his spirits wonderfully. The utter collapse of the old man, always so reliant before, had served to fire all his latent energy. He was now voluble with plans for the future; not only determined to reassure Uncle Peter that the family would be provided for, but not a little anxious to justify the old man's earlier praise, and refute his calumnies of the night before.

Mrs. Bines, so complacent overnight, was the most disconsolate one of the group. With her low tastes she was now regarding the loss of the fortune as a calamity to the worthy infants of her own chosen field.

"And there, I'd promised to give five thousand dollars to the new home for crippled children, and five thousand to St. John's Guild for the floating hospitals this summer—just yesterday—and I do declare, I just couldn't stay in New York without money, and see those poor babies suffer."

"You couldn't stay in New York without money. Mrs. Good-thing," said her son,—"not even if you couldn't see a thing; but don't you welsh on any of your plays—we'll make that ten thousand good if I have to get a sand-bag, and lay out a few of these lads around here some dark night."

"But anyway you can't do much to relieve them. I don't know but what it's honester to be poor while the authorities allow such goings on."

"You have the makings of a very dangerous anarchist in you, ma. I've seen that for some time. But we're an honest family all right now, with the exception of a few properties that I'll have to sit up with nights—sit right by their sick-beds and wake them up to take their meddy every half hour—"

"Now, my son, don't you get to going without your sleep," began his mother.

"And wasn't it lucky about my sending that note to George!" said Psyche. "Here in this morning's paper we find he isn't going to be Lord Casselthorpe, after all. What could I have done if we hadn't lost the money?" From which it might be inferred that certain people who had declared Miss Bines to be very hard-headed were not so far wrong as the notorious "casual observer" is very apt to be.

"Never you mind, sis," said her brother, cheerfully, "we'll be all right yet. You wait a little, and hear Uncle Peter take back what he's said about me. Uncle Peter, I'll have you taking off that hat of yours every time you get sight of me, in about a year."

He went again over the plans. The income from the One Girl was to be used in developing the other properties: the stock ranch up on the Bitter Root, the other mines that had been worked but little and with crude appliances; the irrigation and land-improvement enterprises, and the big timber tracts.

"I got something of an idea of it when Uncle Peter took me around summer before last, and I learned a lot more getting the stuff together with Coplen. Now, I'm ready to buckle down to it." He looked at Uncle Peter, hungry for a word of encouragement to soothe the hurts the old man had put upon him.

But all Uncle Peter would say was, "That sounds very well," compelling the inference that he regarded sound and substance as phenomena not necessarily related.

"But give me a chance, Uncle Peter. Just don't jump on me too hard for a year!"

"Well, I know that country. There's big chances for a young man with brains—understand?—that has got all the high-living nonsense blasted out of his upper levels—but it takes work. You may do something—there are white blackbirds—but you're on a nasty piece of road-bed—curves all down on the outside—wheels flatted under every truck, and you've had her down in the corner so long I doubt if you can even slow up, say nothin' of reversin'. And think of me gettin' fooled that way at my time of life," he continued, as if in confidence to himself. "But then, I always was a terrible poor judge of human nature."

"Well, have your own way; but I'll fool you again, while you're coppering me. You watch, that's all I ask. Just sit around and talk wise about me all you want to, but watch. Now, I must go down and get to work with Fouts. Thank the Lord, we didn't have to welsh either, any more than Mrs. Give-up there did."

"You won't touch any more stock; you won't get that money from Shepler?"

"I won't; I won't go near Shepler, I promise you. Now you'll believe me in one thing, I know you will, Uncle Peter." He went over to the old man.

"I want to thank you for pulling me up on that play as you did last night. You saved me, and I'm more grateful to you than I can say. But for you I'd have gone in and dug the hole deeper." He made the old man shake hands with him—though Uncle Peter's hand remained limp and cheerless. "You can shake on that, at least. You saved me, and I thank you for it."

"Well, I'm glad you got some sense," answered the old man, grudgingly. "It's always the way in that stock game. There's always goin' to be a big killing made in Wall Street to-morrow, only to-morrow never comes. Reminds me of Hollings's old turtle out at Spokane—Hollings that keeps the Little Gem restaurant. He's got an enormous big turtle in his cellar that he's kept to my knowledge fur fifteen years. Every time he gets a little turtle from the coast he takes a can of red paint down cellar, and touches up the sign on old Ben's back—they call the turtle Ben, after Hollings's father-in-law that won't do a thing but lay around the house all the time, and kick about the meals. Well, the sign on Ben's back is, 'Green Turtle Soup To-morrow,' and Ben is drug up to the sidewalk in front of the Little Gem. And Hollings does have turtle-soup next day, but it's always the little turtles that's killed, and old Ben is hiked back to his boudoir until another killing comes off. It's a good deal like that in Wall Street; there's killings made, but the big fellers with the signs on their back don't worry none."

"You're right, Uncle Peter. It certainly wasn't my game. Will you come down with me?"

"Me? Shucks, no! I'm jest a poor, broken old man, now. I'm goin' down to the square if I can walk that fur, and set on a bench in the sun."

Uncle Peter did succeed in walking as far as Madison Square. He walked, indeed, with a step of amazing springiness for a man of his years. But there, instead of reposing in the sun, he entered a cab and was driven to the Vandevere Building, where he sent in his name to Rulon Shepler.

He was ushered into Shepler's office after a little delay. The two men shook hands warmly. Uncle Peter was grinning now with rare enjoyment—he who had in the presence of the family shown naught but broken age and utter despondency.

"You rough-housed the boy considerable yesterday."

"I never believed the fellow would hold on," said Shepler. "I'm sure you're right in a way about the West. There isn't another man in this section who'd have plunged as he did. Really, Mr. Bines, the Street's never known anything like it. Here are those matters."

He handed the old man a dozen or so certified checks on as many different banks. Each check had many figures on it. Uncle Peter placed them in his old leather wallet.

"I knew he'd plunge," he said, taking the chair proffered him, near Shepler's desk. "I knew he was a natural born plunger, and I knew that once he gets an idea in his head you can't blast it out; makes no difference what he starts on he'll play the string out. His pa was jest that way. Then of course he wa'n't used to money, and he was ignorant of this game, and he didn't realise what he was doin'. He sort of distrusted himself along toward the last—but I kept him swelled up good and plenty."

"Well, I'm glad it's over, Mr. Bines. Of course I concede the relative insignificance of money to a young man of his qualities—"

"Not its relative insignificance, Mr. Shepler—it's plain damned insignificance, if you'll excuse the word. If that boy'd gone on he'd 'a' been one of what Billy Brue calls them high-collared Clarences—no good fur anything but to spend money, and get apoplexy or worse by forty. As it is now, he'll be a man. He's got his health turned on like a steam radiator, he's full of responsibility, and he's really long-headed."

"How did he take the loss?"

"He acted jest like a healthy baby does when you take one toy away from him. He cries a minute, then forgets all about it, and grabs up something else to play with. His other toy was bad. What he's playin' with now will do him a lot of good."

"He's not discouraged, then—he's really hopeful?"

"That ain't any name fur it. Why, he's actin' this mornin' jest like the world's his oyster—and every month had an 'r' in it at that."

"I'm delighted to hear it. I've always been taken with the chap; and I'm very glad you read him correctly. It seemed to me you were taking a risk. It would have broken the spirit of most men."

"Well, you see I knew the stock. It's pushin', fightin' stock. My grandfather fought his way west to Pennsylvania when that country was wilder'n Africa, and my father fought his way to Ohio when that was the frontier. I seen some hard times myself, and this boy's father was a fighter, too. So I knew the boy had it in him, all right. He's got his faults, but they don't hurt him none."

"Will he return West?"

"He will that—and the West is the only place fur him. He was gettin' bad notions about his own country here from them folks that's always crackin' up the 'other side' 'sif there wa'n't any 'this side,' worth speakin' of in company. This was no place fur him. Mr. Shepler, this whole country is God's country. I don't talk much about them things, but I believe in God—a man has to if he lives so much alone in them wild places as I have—and I believe this country is His favourite. I believe He set it apart fur great works. The history of the United States bears me out so fur. And I didn't want any of my stock growin' up without feelin' that he had the best native land on earth, and without bein' ready to fight fur it at the drop of the hat. And jest between you and me, I believe we can raise that kind in the West better'n you can here in New York. You got a fine handsome town here, it's a corkin' good place to see—and get out of—but it ain't any breedin' place—there ain't the room to grow. Now we produce everything in the West, includin' men. Here you don't do anything but consume—includin' men. If the West stopped producin' men fur you, you'd be as bad off as if it stopped producin' food. You can't grow a big man on this island any more than you can grow wheat out there on Broadway. You're all right. You folks have your uses. I ain't like one of these crazy Populists that thinks you're rascals and all like that; but my point is that you don't get the fun out of life. You don't get the big feelin's. Out in the West they're the flesh and blood and bone; and you people here, meanin' no disrespect—you're the dimples and wrinkles and—the warts. You spend and gamble back and forth with that money we raise and dig out of the ground, and you think you're gettin' the best end of it, but you ain't. I found that out thirty-two years ago this spring. I had a crazy fool notion then to go back there even when I hadn't gone broke—and I done well to go. And that's why I wanted that boy back there. And that's why I'm mighty proud of him, to see he's so hot to go and take hold, like I knew he would be."

"That's excellent. Now, Mr. Bines, I like him and I dare say you've done the best thing for him, unusual as it was. But don't grind him. Might it not be well to ease up a little after he's out there? You might let it be understood that I am willing to finance any of those propositions there liberally—"

"No, no—that ain't the way to handle him. Say, I don't expect to quit cussin' him fur another thirty days yet. I want him to think he ain't got a friend on earth but himself. Why, I'd have made this play just as I have done, Mr. Shepler, if there hadn't been a chance to get back a cent of it—if we'd had to go plumb broke—back to the West in an emigrant car, with bologna and crackers to eat, that's what I'd have done. No, sir, no help fur him!"

"Aren't you a little hard on him?"

"Not a bit; don't I know the stock, and know just what he needs? Most men you couldn't treat as I'm treatin' him; but with him, the harder you bear down on him the more you'll get out of him. That was the way with his pa—he was a different man after things got to comin' too easy fur him. This fellow, the way I'm treatin' him, will keep his head even after he gets things comin' easy again, or I miss my guess. He thinks I despise him now. If you told him I was proud of him, I almost believe you could get a bet out of him, sick as he is of gamblin'."

"Has he suspected anything?"

"Sure, not! Why, he just thanked me about an hour ago fur savin' him—made me shake hands with him—and I could see the tears back in his eyes."

The old man chuckled.

"It was like Len Carey's Nigger Jim. Len had Jim set apart on the plantation fur his own nigger. They fished and went huntin' and swimmin' together. One day they'd been swimmin', and was lyin' up on the bank. Len got thinkin' he'd never seen any one drown. He knew Jim couldn't swim a lick, so he thought he'd have Jim go drown. He says to him, 'Jim, go jump off that rock there!' That was where the deep hole was. Jim was scar't, but he had to go. After he'd gone down once, Len says to him, 'Drown, now, you damn nigger!' and Jim come up and went down twice more. Then Len begun to think Jim was worth a good bit of money, and mebbe he'd be almighty walloped if the truth come out, so he dives in after Jim and gets him shore, and after while he brought him to. Anyway, he said, Jim had already sure-enough drowned as fur as there was any fun in it. Well, Len Carey is an old man now, and Jim is an old white-headed nigger still hangin' around the old place, and when Len goes back there to visit his relatives, old Nigger Jim hunts him up with tears in his eyes, and thanks Mister Leonard fur savin' his life that time. Say, I felt this mornin' like Len Carey must feel them times when Jim's thankin' him."

Shepler laughed.

"You're a rare man, Mr. Bines. I'll hope to have your cheerful, easy views of life if I ever lose my hold here in the Street. I hope I'll have the old Bines philosophy and the young Bines spirit. That reminds me," he continued as Uncle Peter rose to go, "we've been pretty confidential, Mr. Bines, and I don't mind telling you I was a bit afraid of that young man until yesterday. Oh, not on the stock proposition. On another matter. You may have noticed that night at the Oldakers'—well, women, Mr. Bines, are uncertain. I know something about markets and the ways of a dollar, but all I know about women is that they're good to have. You can't know any more about them, because they don't know any more themselves. Just between us, now, I never felt any too sure of a certain young woman's state of mind until copper reached 51 and Union Cordage had been blown up from inside."

They parted with warm expressions of good-will, and Uncle Peter, in high spirits at the success of his machinations, had himself driven up-town.

The only point where his plans had failed was in Mrs. Wybert's refusal to consider Mauburn after the birth of the Casselthorpe twins. Yet he felt that matters, in spite of this happening, must go as he wished them to. The Englishman-Uncle Peter cherished the strong anti-British sentiment peculiar to his generation—would surely never marry a girl who was all but penniless, and the consideration of an alliance with Mrs. Wybert, when the fortune should be lost, had, after all, been an incident—a means of showing the girl, if she should prove to be too deeply infatuated with Mauburn for her own peace of mind—how unworthy and mercenary he was; for he had meant, in that event, to disillusion her by disclosing something of Mrs. Wybert's history—the woman Mauburn should prefer to her. He still counted confidently on the loss of the fortune sufficing to break the match.

When he reached the Hightower that night for dinner, he found Percival down-stairs in great glee over what he conceived to be a funny situation.

"Don't ask me, Uncle Peter. I couldn't get it straight; but as near as I could make out, Mauburn came up here afraid the blow of losing him was going to kill sis with a broken heart, and sis was afraid the blow was going to kill Mauburn, because she wouldn't have married him anyway, rich or poor, after he'd lost the title. They found each other out some way, and then Mauburn accused her of being heartless, of caring only for his title, and she accused him of caring only for her money, and he insisted she ought to marry him anyway, but she wouldn't have it because of the twins—"

Uncle Peter rubbed his big brown hands with the first signs of cheerfulness he had permitted Percival to detect in him.

"Good fur Pish—that's the way to take down them conceited Britishers—"

"But then they went at matters again from a new standpoint, and the result is they've made it up."

"What? Has them precious twin Casselthorpes perished?"

"Not at all, both doing finely—haven't even had colic—growing fast—probably learned to say 'fancy, now,' by this time. But Mauburn's going West with us if we'll take him."

"Get out!"

"Fact! Say, it must have been an awful blow to him when he found sis wouldn't think of him at all without his title, even if she was broke. They had a stormy time of it from all I can hear. He said he was strong enough to work and all that, and since he'd cared for her, and not for her money, it was low down of her to throw him over; then she said she wouldn't leave her mother and us, now that we might need her, not for him or any other man—and he said that only made him love her all the more, and then he got chesty, and said he was just as good as any American, even if he never would have a title; so pretty soon they got kind of interested in each other again, and by the time I came home it was all over. They ratified the preliminary agreement for a merger."

"Well, I snum!"

"That's right, go ahead and snum. I'd snum myself if I knew how—it knocked me. Better come up-stairs and congratulate the happy couple."

"Shoo, now! I certainly am mighty disappointed in that fellow. Still he is well spotted, and them freckles mean iron in the blood. Maybe we can develop him along with the other properties."

They found Psyche already radiant, though showing about her eyes traces of the storm's devastations. Mauburn was looking happy; also defiant and stubborn.

"Mr. Bines," he said to Uncle Peter, "I hope you'll side with me. I know something about horses, and I've nearly a thousand pounds that I'll be glad to put in with you out there if you can make a place for me."

The old man looked him over quizzically. Psyche put her arm through Mauburn's.

"I'd have to marry some one, you know, Uncle Peter!"

"Don't apologise, Pish. There's room for men that can work out there, Mr. Mauburn, but there ain't any vintages or trouserings to speak of, and the hours is long."

"Try me, Mr. Bines!"

"Well, come on! If you can't skin yourself you can hold a leg while somebody else skins. But you ain't met my expectations, I'll say that." And he shook hands cordially with the Englishman.

"I say, you know," said Mauburn later to Psyche, "why should I skin myself? Why should I be skinned at all, you know?"

"You shouldn't," she reassured him. "That's only Uncle Peter's way of saying you can help the others, even if you can't do much yourself at first. And won't Mrs. Drelmer be delighted to know it's all settled?"

"Well," said Uncle Peter to Percival, later in the evening, "Pish has done better than you have here. It's a pity you didn't pick out some good sensible girl, and marry her in the midst of your other doings."

"I couldn't find one that liked cats. I saw a lot that suited every other way but I always said to myself, 'Remember Uncle Peter's warning!' so I'd go to an animal store and get a basket of kittens and take them around, and not one of the dozen stood your test. Of course I'd never disregard your advice."

"Hum," remarked Uncle Peter, in a tone to be noticed for its extreme dryness. "Too bad, though—you certainly need a wife to take the conceit out of you."

"I lost that in the Street, along with the rest."

"Well, son, I ain't no ways alarmed but what you'll soon be on your feet again in that respect—say by next Tuesday or Wednesday. I wish the money was comin' back as easy."

"Well, there are girls in Montana City."

"You could do worse. That reminds me—I happened to meet Shepler to-day and he got kind of confidential,—talkin' over matters. He said he'd never really felt sure about the affections of a certain young woman, especially after that night at the Oldakers'—he'd never felt dead sure of her until you went broke. He said you never could know anything about a woman—not really."

"He knows something about that one, all right, if he knows she wouldn't have any use for me now. Shepler's coming on with the ladies. I feel quite hopeful about him."



CHAPTER XXXVII.

The Departure of Uncle Peter—And Some German Philosophy

The Bineses, with the exception of Psyche, were at breakfast a week later. Miss Bines had been missing since the day that Mr. and Mrs. Cecil G. H. Mauburn had left for Montana City to put the Bines home in order.

Uncle Peter and Mrs. Bines had now determined to go, leaving Percival to follow when he had closed his business affairs.

"It's like starting West again to make our fortune," said Uncle Peter. He had suffered himself to regain something of his old cheerfulness of manner.

"I wish you two would wait until they can get the car here, and go back with me," said Percival. "We can go back in style even if we didn't save much more than a get-away stake."

But his persuasions were unavailing.

"I can't stand it another day," said Mrs. Bines, "and those letters keep coming in from poor suffering people that haven't heard the news."

"I'm too restless to stay," declared Uncle Peter. "I declare, with spring all greenin' up this way I'd be found campin' up in Central Park some night and took off to the calaboose. I just got to get out again where you can feel the wind blow and see a hundred miles and don't have to dodge horseless horse-cars every minute. It's a wonder one of 'em ain't got me in this town. You come on in the car, and do the style fur the family. One of them common Pullmans is good enough fur Marthy and me. And besides, I got to get Billy Brue back. He's goin' plumb daft lookin' night and day fur that man that got his thirty dollars and his breastpin. He says there'll be an ambulance backed up at the spot where he meets him—makes no difference if it's right on Fifth Avenue. Billy's kind of nearsighted at that, so I'm mortal afraid he'll make a mistake one of these nights and take some honest man's money and trinkets away from him."

"Well, here's a Sun editorial to take back with us," said Percival; "you remember we came East on one." He read aloud:

"The great fall in the price of copper, Western Trolley, and cordage stocks has ruined thousands of people all over this country. These losses are doubtless irreparable so far as the stocks in question are concerned. The losers will have to look elsewhere for recovery. That they will do so with good courage is not to be doubted. It might be argued with reasonable plausibility that Americans are the greatest fatalists in the world; the readiest to take chances and the least given to whining when the cards go against them.

"A case in point is that of a certain Western family whose fortune has been swept away by the recent financial hurricane. If ever a man liked to match with Destiny, not 'for the beers,' but for big stakes, the young head of the family in question appears to have been that man. He persisted in believing that the power and desire of the rich men controlling these three stocks were great enough to hold their securities at a point far above their actual value. In this persistence he displayed courage worthy of a better reward. A courage, moreover —the gambler's courage—that is typically American. Now he has had a plenty of that pleasure of losing which, in Mr. Fox's estimation, comes next to the pleasure of winning.

"From the point of view of the political economist or the moralist, thrift, saving, and contentment with a modest competence are to be encouraged, and the propensity to gamble is to be condemned. We stand by the copy-book precepts. Yet it is only honest to confess that there is something of this young American's love for chances in most of us. American life is still so fluid, the range of opportunity so great, the national temperament so buoyant, daring, and hopeful, that it is easier for an American to try his luck again than to sit down snugly and enjoy what he has. The fun and the excitement of the game are more than the game. There are Americans and plenty of them who will lose all they have in some magnificent scheme, and make much less fuss about it than a Paris shopkeeper would over a bad twenty-franc piece.

"Our disabled young Croesus from the West is a luminous specimen of the type. The country would be less interesting without his kind, and, on the whole, less healthy—for they provide one of the needed ferments. May the young man make another fortune in his own far West—and come once more to rattle the dry bones of our Bourse!"

"He'll be too much stuck on Montana by the time he gets that fortune," observed Uncle Peter.

"I will that, Uncle Peter. Still it's pleasant to know we've won their good opinion."

"Excuse me fur swearin', Marthy," said Uncle Peter, turning to Mrs. Bines, "but he can win a better opinion than that in Montana fur a damn sight less money."

"That editor is right," said Mrs. Bines, "what he says about American life being 'fluid.' There's altogether too much drinking goes on here, and I'm glad my son quit it."

Percival saw them to the train.

"Take care of yourself," said Uncle Peter at parting. "You know I ain't any good any more, and you got a whole family, includin' an Englishman, dependin' on you—we'll throw him on the town, though, if he don't take out his first papers the minute I get there."

His last shot from the rear platform was:

"Change your name back to 'Pete,' son, when you get west of Chicago. 'Tain't anything fancy, but it's a crackin' good business name fur a hustler!"

"All right, Uncle Peter,—and I hope I'll have a grandson that thinks as much of it as I do of yours."

When they had gone, he went back to the work of final adjustment. He had the help of Coplen, whom they had sent for. With him he was busy for a week. By lucky sales of some of the securities that had been hypothecated they managed to save a little; but, on the whole, it was what Percival described it, "a lovely autopsy."

At last the vexatious work was finished, and he was free again. At the end of the final day's work he left the office of Fouts in Wall Street, and walked up Broadway. He went slowly, enjoying the freedom from care. It was the afternoon of a day when the first summer heat had been felt, and as he loitered before shop windows or walked slowly through that street where all move quickly and most very hurriedly, a welcome little breeze came up from the bay to fan him and encourage his spirit of leisure.

At Union Square, when he would have taken a car to go the remainder of the distance, he saw Shepler, accompanied by Mrs. Van Geist and Miss Milbrey, alight from a victoria and enter a jeweller's.

He would have passed on, but Miss Milbrey had seen him, and stood waiting in the doorway while Shepler and Mrs. Van Geist went on into the store.

"Mr. Bines—I'm so glad!"

She stood, flushed with pleasure, radiant in stuff of filmy pink, with little flecks at her throat and waist of the first tender green of new leaves. She was unaffectedly delighted to see him.

"You are Miss Spring?" he said when she had given him her hand—"and you've come into all your mother had that was worth inheriting, haven't you?"

"Mr. Bines, shall we not see you now? I wanted so much to talk with you when I heard everything. Would it be impertinent to say I sympathised with you?"

He looked over her shoulder, in where Shepler and Mrs. Van Geist were inspecting a tray of jewels.

"Of course not impertinent—very kind—only I'm really not in need of any sympathy at all. You won't understand it; but we don't care so much for money in the West—for the loss of it—not so much as you New Yorkers would. Besides we can always make a plenty more."

The situation was, emphatically, not as he had so often dreamed it when she should marvel, perhaps regretfully, over his superiority to her husband as a money-maker. His only relief was to belittle the importance of his loss.

"Of course we've lost everything, almost—but I've not been a bit downcast about it. There's more where it came from, and no end of fun going after it. I'm looking forward to the adventures, I can tell you. And every one will be glad to see me there; they won't think the less of me, I assure you, because I've made a fluke here!"

"Surely, Mr. Bines, no one here could think less of you. Indeed, I think more of you. I think it's fine and big to go back with such courage. Do you know, I wish I were a man—I'd show them!"

"Really, Miss Milbrey—"

He looked over her shoulder again, and saw that Shepler was waiting for her.

"I think your friends are impatient."

"They can wait. Mr. Bines, I wonder if you have quite a correct idea of all New York people."

"Probably not; I've met so few, you know."

"Well, of course,—but of those you've met?"

"You can't know what my ideas are."

"I wish we might have talked more—I'm sure—when are you leaving?"

"I shall leave to-morrow."

"And we're leaving for the country ourselves. Papa and mamma go to-morrow—and, Mr. Bines, I should have liked another talk with you—I wish we were dining at the Oldakers' again."

He observed Shepler strolling toward them.

"I shall be staying with Aunt Cornelia a few days after to-morrow."

Shepler came up.

"And I shall be leaving to-morrow, Miss Milbrey."

"Ah, Bines, glad to see you!"

The accepted lover looked Miss Milbrey over with rather a complacent air—with the unruffled confidence of assured possession. Percival fancied there was a look almost of regret in the girl's eyes.

"I'm afraid," said Shepler, "your aunt doesn't want to be kept waiting. And she's already in a fever for fear you won't prefer the necklace she insists you ought to prefer."

"Tell Aunt Cornelia, please, that I shall be along in just a moment." "She's quite impatient, you know," urged Shepler.

Percival extended his hand.

"Good-bye, Miss Milbrey. Don't let me detain you. Sorry I shall not see you again."

She gave him her hand uncertainly, as if she had still something to say, but could find no words for it.

"Good-bye, Mr. Bines."

"Good-bye, young man," Shepler shook hands with him cordially, "and the best of luck to you out there. I shall hope to hear good reports from you. And mind, you're to look us up when you're in town again. We shall always be glad to see you. Good-bye!"

He led the girl back to the case where the largest diamonds reposed chastely on their couches of royal velvet.

Percival smiled as he resumed his walk—smiled with all that bitter cynicism which only youth may feel to its full poignance. Yet, heartless as she was, he recalled that while she talked to him he had imprinted an imaginary kiss deliberately upon her full scarlet lips. And now, too, he was forced to confess that, in spite of his very certain knowledge about her, he would actually prefer to have communicated it through the recognised physical media. He laughed again, more cheerfully.

"The spring has gotten a strangle-hold on my judgment," he said to himself.

At dinner that night he had the company of that estimable German savant, the Herr Doctor von Herzlich. He did not seek to incur the experience, but the amiable doctor was so effusive and interested that he saw no way of avoiding it gracefully. Returned from his archaeological expedition to Central America, the doctor was now on his way back to Marburg.

"I pleasure much in your news," said the cheerful man over his first glass of Rhine wine with the olive in it. "You shall now, if I have misapprehended you not, develop a new strongness of the character."

Percival resigned himself to listen. He was not unfamiliar with the lot of one who dines with the learned Von Herzlich.

"Now he's off," he said to himself.

"Ach! It is but now that you shall begin to live. Is it not that while you planned the money-amassing you were deferring to live—ah, yes—until some day when you had so much more? Yes? A common thought-failure it is—a common failure of the to-take-thoughtedness of life—its capacities and the intentions of the scheme under which we survive. Ach! So few humans learn that this invitation to live specifies not the hours, like a five-o'clock. It says—so well as Father-Mother Nature has learned to write the words to our unseeing eyes—'at once,' but we ever put off the living we are invited to at once—until to-morrow-next day, next year—until this or that be done or won. So now you will find this out. Before, you would have waited for a time that never came—no matter the all-money you gathered.

"Nor yet, my young friend, shall you take this matter to be of a seriousness, to be sorrow-worthy. If you take of the courage, you shall find the world to smile to your face, and father-mother you. You recall what the English Huxley says—Ah! what fine, dear man, the good Huxley—he says, yes, in the 'Genealogy of the Beasts,' 'It is a probable hypothesis that what the world is to organisms in general, each organism is to the molecules of which it is composed.' So you laugh at the world, the world it laugh back 'ha! ha! ha!'—then—soly—all your little molecules obediently respond—you thrill with the happiness—with the power—the desire—the capacity—you out-go and achieve. Yes? So fret not. Ach! we fret so much of what it shall be unwise to fret of. It is funny to fret. Why? Why fret? Yet but the month last, they have excavated at Nippur, from the pre-Sargonic strata, a lady and a gentleman of the House of Ptah. What you say in New York—'a damned fine old family,' yes, is it not? I am read their description, and seen of the photographs.

"They have now the expressions of indifference—of disinterest—without the prejudice—as if they say, 'Ach! those troubles of ours, three thousand eight hundred years in the B.C.—nearly come to six thousand years before now—Ach! those troubles,' say this philosophic-now lady and gentleman, of the House of Ptah of Babylonia—'such a silliness—those troubles and frets; it was not the while-worth that we should ever have sorrowed, because the scheme of time and creation is suchly big; had we grasped but its bigness, and the littleness of our span, should we have felt griefs? Nay, nay—nit,' like the street-youths say—would say the lady and gentleman now so passionless as to have philosophers become. And you, it should mean to you much. Humans are funniest when they weep and tremble before, like you say, 'the facts in the case.' Ha! I laugh to myself at them often when I observe. Their funniness of the beards and eyebrows, the bald head, of the dress, the solemnities of manner, as it were they were persons of weight. Ah, they are of their insignificance so loftily unconscious. Was it not great skill—to compel the admiration of the love-worthiest scientist—to create a unit of a numberless mass of units and then to enable it to feel each one the importance of the whole, as if each part were big as the whole? So you shall not fret I say.

"If the fret invade you, you shall do well to lie out in the friendly space, and look at this small topspinning of a world through the glass that reduces.

"Yes? You had thought it of such bigness—its concerns of a sublime tragicness? Yet see now, these funny little animals on the surface of the spinning-ball. How frantic, as if all things were about to eventuate, remembering not that nothing ends. So? Observe the marks of their silliness, their unworthiness. You have reduced the ball to so big as a melon, yes? Watch the insects run about in the craziness, laughing, crying, loving their loves, hating their hates, fearing, fretting—killing one the other in such funny little clothes, made for such funny little purpose precisely—falling sick over the money-losings—and the ball so small, but one of such many—as many stars under the earth, remember, as above it.

"So! you are back to earth; you are a human like the rest, so foolish, so funny as any—so you say, 'Well, I shall not be more troubled again yet. I play the same game, but it is only a game, a little game to last an afternoon—I play my part—yes—the laughing part, crying part—loving, hating, killing part—what matter if I say it is good?' If the Maker there be to look down, what joys him most—the coward who fears and frets, and the whine makes for his soul or body? Ach! no, it is the one who say, it is good—I could not better have done myself—a great game, yes—'let her rip,' like you West-people remark—'let her rip—you cannot lose me,' like you say also. Ach, so! And then he say, the great Planner of it,' Ach! I am understood at last—good!—bright man that,' like you say, also—'bright man that—it is of a pleasure to see him do well!'

"So, my young friend, you shall pleasure yourself still much yet. It is of an excellence to pleasure one's self judiciously. The lotus is a leguminous plant—so excellent for the salad—not for the roast. You have of the salad overeaten—you shall learn of your successful capacity for it—you shall do well, then. You have been of the reckless deportment—you may still be of it. That is not the matter. You shall be reckless as you like—but without your stored energy surplus to harm you. Your environment from the now demands of you the faculties you will most pleasure yourself in developing. You shall produce what you consume. The gods love such. Ach, yes!"



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Some Phenomena Peculiar to Spring

He awoke early, refreshed and intensely alive. With the work done he became conscious of a feeling of disassociation from the surroundings in which he had so long been at home. Many words of the talkative German were running in his mind from the night before. He was glad the business was off his mind. He would now go the pleasant journey, and think on the way.

His trunks were ready for the car; and before he went down-stairs his hand-bag was packed, and the preparations for the start completed. When, after his breakfast, he read the telegram announcing that the car had been delayed twenty-four hours in Chicago, he was bored by the thought that he must pass another day in New York. He was eager now to be off, and the time would hang heavily.

He tried to recall some forgotten detail of the business that might serve to occupy him. But the finishing had been thorough.

He ran over in his mind the friends with whom he could spend the time agreeably. He could recall no one he cared to see. He had no longer an interest in the town or its people.

He went aimlessly out on to Broadway in the full flood of a spring morning, breathing the fresh air hungrily. It turned his thought to places out of the grime and clamour of the city; to woods and fields where he might rest and feel the stimulus of his new plans. He felt aloof and sufficient unto himself.

He swung on to an open car bound north, and watched without interest the early quick-moving workers thronging south on the street, and crowding the cars that passed him. At Forty-second Street, he changed to a Boulevard car that took him to the Fort Lee Ferry at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street.

Out on the shining blue river he expanded his lungs to the clean, sweet air. Excursion boats, fluttering gay streamers, worked sturdily up the stream. Little yachts, in fresh-laundered suits of canvas, darted across their bows or slanted in their wakes, looking like white butterflies. The vivid blue of the sky was flecked with bits of broken fleece, scurrying like the yachts below. Across the river was a high-towering bank of green inviting him over its summit to the languorous freshness beyond.

He walked off the boat on the farther side and climbed a series of steep wooden stairways, past a tiny cataract that foamed its way down to the river. When he reached the top he walked through a stretch of woods and turned off to the right, down a cool shaded road that wound away to the north through the fresh greens of oak and chestnut.

He was entranced at once by the royal abandon of spring, this wondrous time of secret beginnings made visible. The old earth was become as a young wife from the arms of an ardent spouse, blushing into new life and beauty for the very joy of love. He breathed the dewy freshness, and presently he whistled the "Spring Song" of Mendelssohn, that bubbling, half-joyous, half-plaintive little prayer in melody.

He was well into the spirit of the time and place. His soul sang. The rested muscles of his body and mind craved the resistance of obstacles. He rejoiced. He had been wise to leave the city for the fresh, unspoiled country—the city with all its mean little fears, its petty immoralities, and its very trifling great concerns. He did not analyse, more than to remember, once, that the not reticent German would approve his mood. He had sought the soothing quiet with the unfailing instinct of the wounded animal.

The mysterious green life in the woods at either side allured him with its furtive pulsing. But he kept to the road and passed on. He was not yet far enough from the town.

Some words from a little song ran in his mind as he walked:

"The naked boughs into green leaves slipped, The longing buds into flowers tripped, The little hills smiled as if they were glad, The little rills ran as if they were mad.

"There was green on the earth and blue in the sky, The chrysalis changed to a butterfly, And our lovers, the honey-bees, all a-hum, To hunt for our hearts began to come."

When he came to a village with an electric car clanging through it, he skirted its borders, and struck off through a woodland toward the river. Even the village was too human, too modern, for his early-pagan mood.

In the woods he felt that curious thrill of stealth, that impulse to cautious concealment, which survives in man from the remote days when enemies beset his forest ways. On a southern hillside he found a dogwood-tree with its blossomed firmament of white stars. In low, moist places the violets had sprung through the thatch of leaves and were singing their purple beauties all unheard. Birds were nesting, and squirrels chattered and scolded.

Under these more obvious signs and sounds went the steady undertone of life in root and branch and unfurling leaf—provoking, inciting, making lawless whomsoever it thrilled.

He came out of the wood on to another road that ran not far from the river, and set off again to the north along the beaten track.

In an old-fashioned garden in front of a small house a girl bent over a flower bed, working with a trowel.

He stopped and looked at her over the palings. She was freshly pretty, with yellow hair blown about her face under the pushed back sunbonnet of blue. The look in her blue eyes was the look of one who had heard echoes; who had awakened with the spring to new life and longings, mysterious and unwelcome, but compelling.

She stood up when he spoke; her sleeves were turned prettily back upon her fair round arms.

"Yes, the road turns to the left, a bit ahead."

She was blushing.

"You are planting flower seeds."

"Yes; so many flowers were killed by the cold last winter."

"I see; there must a lot of them have died here, but their souls didn't go far, did they now?"

She went to digging again in the black moist earth. He lingered. The girl worked on, and her blush deepened. He felt a lawless impulse to vault the palings, and carry her off to be a flower for ever in some wooded glade near by. He dismissed it as impracticable. His intentions would probably be misconstrued.

"I hope your garden will thrive. It has a pretty pattern to follow."

"Thank you!"

He raised his hat and passed on, thinking; thinking of all the old dead flowers, and their pretty souls that had gone to bloom in the heaven of the maid's face.

Before the road turned to the left he found a path leading over to the top of the palisade. There on a little rocky shelf, hundreds of feet above the river, he lay a long time in the spring sun, looking over to the farther shore, where the city crept to the south, and lost its sharp lines in the smoky distance. There he smoked and gave himself up to the moment. He was glad to be out of that rush. He could see matters more clearly now—appraise values more justly. He was glad of everything that had come. Above all, glad to go back and carry on that big work of his father's—his father who had done so much to redeem the wilderness—and incidentally he would redeem his own manhood.

It will be recalled that the young man frequently expressed himself with regrettable inelegance; that he habitually availed himself, indeed, of a most infelicitous species of metaphor. It must not be supposed that this spring day in the spring places had reformed his manner of delivery. When he chose to word his emotions it was still done in a manner to make the right-spoken grieve. Thus, going back toward the road, after reviewing his great plans for the future, he spoke aloud: "I believe it's going to be a good game."

When he became hungry he thought with relief that he would not be compelled to seek one of those "hurry-up" lunch places with its clamour and crowd. What was the use of all that noise and crowding and piggish hurry? A remark of the German's recurred to him:

"It is a happy man who has divined the leisure of eternity, so he feels it, like what you say, 'in his bones.'"

When he came out on the road again he thought regretfully of the pretty girl and her flower bed. He would have liked to go back and suggest that she sing to the seeds as she put them to sleep in their earth cradle, to make their awakening more beautiful.

But he turned down the road that led away from the girl, and when he came to a "wheelman's rest," he ate many sandwiches and drank much milk.

The face of the maid that served him had been no heaven for the souls of dead flowers. Still she was a girl; and no girl could be wholly without importance on such a day. So he thought the things he would have said to her if matters had been different.

When he had eaten, he loafed off again down the road. Through the long afternoon he walked and lazed, turning into strange lanes and by-roads, resting on grassy banks, and looking far up. He followed Doctor von Herzlich's directions, and, going off into space, reduced the earth, watching its little continents and oceans roll toward him, and viewing the antics of its queer inhabitants in fancy as he had often in fact viewed a populous little ant-hill, with its busy, serious citizens. Then he would venture still farther—away out into timeless space, beyond even the starry refuse of creation, and insolently regard the universe as a tiny cloud of dust.

When the shadows stretched in the dusky languor of the spring evening, he began to take his bearings for the return. He heard the hum and clang of an electric car off through a chestnut grove.

The sound disturbed him, bringing premonitions of the city's unrest. He determined to stay out for the night. It was restful—his car would not arrive until late the next afternoon—there was no reason why he should not. He found a little wayside hotel whose weather-beaten sign was ancient enough to promise "entertainment for man and beast."

"Just what I want," he declared. "I'm both of them—man and beast."

Together they ate tirelessly of young chickens broiled, and a green salad, and a wonderful pie, with a bottle of claret that had stood back of the dingy little bar so long that it had attained, at least as to its label, a very fair antiquity.

This time the girl was pretty again, and, he at once discovered, not indisposed to light conversation. Yet she was a shallow creature, with little mind for the subtler things of life and the springtime. He decided she was much better to look at than to talk to. With a just appreciation of her own charms she appeared to pose perpetually before an imaginary mirror, regaling him and herself with new postures, tossing her brown head, curving her supple waist, exploiting her thousand coquetries. He was pained to note, moreover, that she was more than conscious of the red-cheeked youth who came in from the carriage shed, whistling.

When the man and the beast had been appeased they sat out under a blossomed apple-tree and smoked together in a fine spirit of amity.

He was not amazed when, in the gloom, he saw the red-cheeked youth with both arms about the girl—nor was he shocked at detecting instantly that her struggles were meant to be futile against her assailant's might. The birds were mating, life was forward, and Nature loves to be democratically lavish with her choicest secrets. Why not, then, the blooming, full curved kitchen-maid and the red-cheeked boy-of-all-work?

He smoked and saw the night fall. The dulled bronze jangle of cow-bells came soothingly to him. An owl called a little way off. Swallows flashed by in long graceful flights. A bat circled near, indecisively, as if with a message it hesitated to give. Once he heard the flute-like warble of a skylark.

He was under the clean, sharp stars of a moonless night. His keen senses tasted the pungent smoke and the softer feminine fragrance of the apple-blossoms. His nerves were stilled to pleasant ease, except when the laugh of the girl floated to him from the grape-arbour back of the house. That disturbed him to fierce longings—the clear, high measure of a woman's laugh floating to him in the night. And once she sang—some song common to her class. It moved him as her laugh did, making him vibrate to her, as when a practised hand flutters the strings of a harp. He was glad without knowing why when she stopped.

At ten o'clock he went in from under the peering little stars and fell asleep in an ancient four-poster. He dreamed that he had the world, a foot-ball, clasped to his breast, and was running down the field for a gain of a hundred yards. Then, suddenly, in place of the world, it was Avice Milbrey in his grasp, struggling frantically to be free; and instead of behaving like a gentleman he flung both arms around her and kissed her despite her struggles; kissed her time after time, until she ceased to strive against him, and lay panting and helpless in his arms.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

An Unusual Plan of Action Is Matured

He was awakened by the unaccustomed silence. As he lay with his eyes open, his first thought was that all things had stopped—the world had come to its end. Then remembrance came, and he stretched in lazy enjoyment of the stillness and the soft feather bed upon which he had slept. Finding himself too wide awake for more sleep, he went over to the little gable window and looked out. The unfermented wine of another spring day came to his eager nostrils. The little ball had made another turn. Its cheek was coming once more into the light. Already the east was flushing with a wondrous vague pink. The little animals in the city over there, he thought, would soon be tumbling out of their beds to begin another of their funny, serious days of trial and failure; to make ready for another night of forgetfulness, when their absurd little ant-hill should turn again away from the big blazing star. He sat a long time at the window, looking out to the east, where the light was showing; meditating on many idle, little matters, but conscious all the time of great power within himself.

He felt ready now for any conflict. The need for some great immediate action pressed upon him. He did not identify it. Something he must do—he must have action—and that at once. He was glad to think how Uncle Peter would begin to rejoice in him—secretly at first, and then to praise him. He was equal to any work. He could not begin it quickly enough. That queer need to do something at once was still pressing, still unidentified.

By five he was down-stairs. The girl, fresh as a dew-sprayed rose in the garden outside, brought him breakfast of fruit, bacon and eggs, coffee and waffles. He ate with relish, delighting meantime in the girl's florid freshness, and even in the assertive, triumphant whistle of the youth busy at his tasks outside.

When he set out he meant to reach the car and go back to town at once. Yet when he came to the road over which he had loitered the day before, he turned off upon it with slower steps. There was a confusing whirl of ideas in his brain, a chaos that required all his energy to feed it, so that the spring went from his step.

Then all at once, a new-born world cohered out of the nebula, and the sight of its measured, orderly whirling dazed him. He had been seized with a wish—almost an intention, so stunning in its audacity that he all but reeled under the shock. It seemed to him that the thing must have been germinated in his mind without his knowledge; it had lain there, gathering force while he rested, now to burst forth and dazzle him with its shine. All that undimmed freshness of longing he had felt the day before-all the unnamed, unidentified, nameless desires—had flooded back upon him, but now no longer aimless. They were acutely definite. He wanted Avice Milbrey,—wanted her with an intensity as unreasoning as it was resistless. This was the new world he had watched swimming out of the chaos in his mind, taking its allotted orbit in a planetary system of possible, rational, matter-of-course proceedings.

And Avice Milbrey was to marry Shepler, the triumphant money-king.

He sat down by the roadside, well-nigh helpless, surrendering all his forces to the want.

Then there came upon him to reinforce this want a burning sense of defeat. He remembered Uncle Peter's first warnings in the mine about "cupboard love;" the gossip of Higbee: "If you were broke, she'd have about as much use for you—" all the talk he had listened to so long about marriage for money; and, at the last, Shepler's words to Uncle Peter: "I was uncertain until copper went to 51." Those were three wise old men who had talked, men who knew something of women and much of the world. And they were so irritating in their certainty. What a fine play to fool them all!

The sense of defeat burned into him more deeply. He had been vanquished, cheated, scorned, shamefully flouted. The money was gone—all of Uncle Peter's complaints and biting sarcasms came back to him with renewed bitterness; but his revenge on Uncle Peter would be in showing him a big man at work, with no nonsense about him. But Shepler, who was now certain, and Higbee, who had always been certain,—especially Shepler, with his easy sense of superiority with a woman over any poor man. That was a different matter. There was a thing to think about. And he wanted Avice Milbrey. He could not, he decided, go back without her.

Something of the old lawless spirit of adventure that had spurred on his reckless forbears urged him to carry the girl back with him. She didn't love him. He would take her in spite of that; overpower her; force her to go. It was a revenge of superb audacity. Shepler had not been sure of her until now. Well, Shepler might be hurled from that certainty by one hour of determined action.

The great wild wish narrowed itself into a definite plan. He recalled the story Uncle Peter had told at the Oldakers' about the woman and her hair. A woman could be coerced if a man knew her weakness. He could coerce her. He knew it instinctively; and the instinctive belief rallied to its support a thousand little looks from her, little intonations of her voice, little turnings of her head when they had been together. In spite of her calculations, in spite of her love of money, he could make her feel her weakness. He was a man with the power.

It was heady wine for the morning. He described himself briefly as a lunatic, and walked on again. But the crazy notion would not be gone. The day before he had been passive. Now he was active, acutely aware of himself and all his wants. He walked a mile trying to dismiss the idea. He sat down again, and it flooded back upon him with new force.

Her people were gone. She had even intimated a wish to talk with him again. It could be done quickly. He knew. He felt the primitive superiority of man's mere brute force over woman. He gloried in his knotted muscles and the crushing power of his desires.

Afterward, she would reproach him bitterly. They would both be unhappy. It was no matter. It was the present, the time when he should be living. He would have her, and Shepler—Shepler might have had the One Girl mine—but this girl, never!

Again he tried faithfully to walk off the obsession. Again were his essays at sober reason unavailing.

His mind was set as it had been when he bought the stocks day after day against the advice of the best judges in the Street. He could not turn himself back. There must be success. There could not be a giving up—and there must not be failure.

Hour after hour he alternately walked and rested, combating and favouring the mad project. It was a foolish little world, and people were always waiting for another time to begin the living of life. The German had quoted Martial: "To-morrow I will live, the fool says; to-day itself's too late. The wise lived yesterday."

If he did go away alone he knew he would always regret it. If he carried her triumphantly off, doubtless his regret for that would eventually be as great. The first regret was certain. The latter was equally plausible; but, if it came, would it not be preferable to the other? To have held her once—to have taken her away, to have triumphed over her own calculations, and, best of all, to have triumphed over the money-king resting fatuously confident behind his wealth, dignifying no man as rival who was not rich. The present, so, was more than any possible future, how dire soever it might be.

He was mad to prove to her—and to Shepler—that she was more a woman than either had supposed,—a woman in spite of herself, weak, unreasoning; to prove to them both that a determined man has a vital power to coerce which no money may ever equal.

Not until five o'clock had he by turns urged and fought himself to the ferry. By that time he had given up arguing. He was dwelling entirely upon his plan of action. Strive and grope as he would, the thing had driven him on relentlessly. His reason could not take him beyond the reach of its goad. Far as he went he loved her even farther. She belonged to him. He would have her. He seemed to have been storing, the day before, a vast quantity of energy that he was now drawing lavishly upon. For the time, he was pure, raw force, needing, to be resistless, only the guidance of a definite purpose.

He crossed the ferry and went to the hotel, where he shaved and freshened himself. He found Grant, the porter, waiting for him when he went downstairs, and gave him written directions to the railroad people to have the car attached to the Chicago Express leaving at eight the next morning; also instructions about his baggage.

"I expect there will be two of us, Grant; see that the car is well stocked; and here, take this; go to a florist's and get about four dozen pink roses—la France—can you remember?—pink—don't take any other colour, and be sure they're fresh. Have breakfast ready by the time the train starts."

"Yes, Mistah Puhs'val!" said Grant, and added to himself, "Yo' suttiny do ca'y yo'se'f mighty han'some, Mistah Man!"

Going out of the hotel, he met Launton Oldaker, with whom he chatted a few moments, and then bade good-bye.

Oldaker, with a sensitive regard for the decencies, refrained from expressing the hearty sympathy he felt for a man who would henceforth be compelled to live out of the world.

Percival walked out to Broadway, revolving his plan. He saw it was but six o'clock. He could do nothing for at least an hour. When he noted this he became conscious of his hunger. He had eaten nothing since morning. He turned into a restaurant on Madison Square and ordered dinner. When he had eaten, he sat with his coffee for a final smoke of deliberation. He went over once more the day's arguments for and against the novel emprise. He had become insensible, however, to all the dissenting ones. As a last rally, he tried to picture the difficulties he might encounter. He faced all he could imagine.

"By God, I'll do it!"

"Oui, monsieur!" said the waiter, who had been standing dreamily near, startled into attention by the spoken words.

"That's all—give me the check."

As he went out the door, a young woman passed him, looking him straight in the eyes. From her light swishing skirts came the faint perfume of the violet. It chilled the steel of his resolution.

He entered a carriage. It was a hot, humid night. Already the mist was making grey softness of the air, dulling the street lights to ruddy orange. Northward, over the breast of Murray Hill a few late carriages trickled down toward him. Their wheels, when they passed, made swift reflections in the damp glare of the asphalt.

He was pent force waiting to be translated into action.

He drove first to the Milbrey house, on the chance that she might be at home. Jarvis answered his ring.

"Miss Milbrey is with Mrs. Van Geist, sir."

Jarvis spoke regretfully. Pie had reasons of his own for believing that the severance of the Milbrey relationship with Mr. Bines had been nothing short of calamitous.

He rang Mrs. Van Geist's bell, five minutes later.

"The ladies haven't come back, sir. I don't know where they might be. Perhaps at the Valners', in Fifty-second Street, sir."

He rang the Valners' bell.

"Mrs. Van Geist and Miss Milbrey? They left at least half an hour ago, sir."

"Go down the avenue slowly, driver!"

At Fortieth Street he looked down to the middle of the block.

Mrs. Van Geist, alone, was just alighting from her coupe.

He signalled the driver.

"Go to the other address again, in Thirty-seventh Street."

Jarvis opened the door.

"Yes, sir—thank you, sir—Miss Milbrey is in, sir. I'll see, sir."

He crossed the Rubicon of a door-mat and stood in the unlighted hall. At the far end he saw light coming from a door that he knew opened into the library.

Jarvis came into the light. Behind him appeared Miss Milbrey in the doorway.

"Miss Milbrey says will you enter the library, Mr. Bines?"



CHAPTER XL.

Some Rude Behaviour, of Which Only a Western Man Could Be Guilty

He walked quickly back. At the doorway she gave him her hand, which he took in silence. "Why—Mr. Bines!—you wouldn't have surprised me last night. To-night I pictured you on your way West."

Her gown was of dull blue dimity. She still wore her hat, an arch of straw over her face, with ripe red cherries nodding upon it as she moved. He closed the door behind him.

"Do come in. I've been having a solitary rummage among old things. It is my last night here. We're leaving for the country to-morrow, you know."

She stood by the table, the light from a shaded lamp making her colour glow.

Now she noted that he had not spoken. She turned quickly to him as if to question.

He took a swift little step toward her, still without speaking. She stepped back with a sudden instinct of fright.

He took two quick steps forward and grasped one of her wrists. He spoke in cool, even tones, but the words came fast:

"I've come to marry you to-night; to take you away with me to that Western country. You may not like the life. You may grieve to death for all I know—but you're going. I won't plead, I won't beg, but I am going to take you."

She had begun to pull away in alarm when he seized her wrist. His grasp did not bruise, it did not seem to be tight; but the hand that held it was immovable.

"Mr. Bines, you forget yourself. Really, this is—"

"Don't waste time. You can say all that needs to be said—I'll give you time for that before we start—but don't waste the time saying all those useless things. Don't waste time telling me I'm crazy. Perhaps I am. We can settle that later."

"Mr. Bines—how absurd! Oh! let me go! You're hurting my wrist! Oh!—don't—don't—don't! Oh!"

When he felt the slender wrist trying to writhe from his grasp he had closed upon it more tightly, and thrusting his other arm quickly behind her, had drawn her closely to him. Her cries and pleadings were being smothered down on his breast. Her struggles met only the unbending, pitiless resistance of steel.

"Don't waste time, I tell you—can't you understand? Be sensible,—talk if you must—only talk sense."

"Let me go at once—I demand it—quick—oh!"

"Take this hat off!"

He forced the wrist he had been holding down between them, so that she could not free the hand, and, with his own hand thus freed, he drew out the two long hat-pins and flung the hat with its storm-tossed cherries across the room. Still holding her tightly, he put the free hand on her brow and thrust her head back, so that she was forced to look up at him.

"Let me see you—I want to see your eyes—they're my eyes now."

Her head strained against his hand to be down again, and all her strength was exerted to be away. She found she could not move in any direction.

"Oh, you're hurting my neck. What shall I do? I can't scream—think what it would mean!—you're hurting my neck!"

"You are hurting your own neck—stop it!"

He kissed her face, softly, her cheeks, her eyes, her chin.

"I've loved you so—don't—what's the use? Be sensible. My arms have starved for you so—do you think they're going to loosen now? Avice Milbrey—Avice Milbrey—Avice Milbrey!"

His arms tightened about her as he said the name over and over.

"That's poetry—it's all the poetry there is in the world. It's a verse I say over in the night. You can't understand it yet—it's too deep for you. It means I must have you—and the next verse means that you must have me—a poor man—be a poor man's wife—and all the other verses—millions of them—mean that I'll never give you up—and there's a lot more verses for you to write, when you understand—meaning that you'll never give me up—and there's one in the beginning means I'm going to carry you out and marry you to-night—now, do you understand?—right off—this very night!"

"Oh! Oh! this is so terrible! Oh, it's so awful!"

Her voice broke, and he felt her body quiver with sobs. Her face was pitifully convulsed, and tears welled in her eyes.

"Let me go—let—me—go!"

He released her head, but still held her closely to him. Her sobs had become uncontrollable.

"Here—" he reached for the little lace-edged handkerchief that lay beside her long gloves and her purse, on the table.

She took it mechanically.

"Please—oh, please let me go—I beg you." She managed it with difficulty between the convulsions that were rending her.

He put his lips down upon the soft hair.

"I won't—do you understand that? Stop talking nonsense."

He thought there would be no end to the sobs.

"Have it out, dear—there's plenty of time."

Once she seemed to have stopped the tears. He turned her face up to his own again, and softly kissed her wet eyes. Her full lips were parted before him, but he did not kiss them. The sobs came again.

"There—there!—it will soon be over."

At last she ceased to cry from sheer exhaustion, and when, with his hand under her chin, he forced up her head again, she looked at him a full minute and then closed her eyes.

He kissed their lids.

There came from time to time the involuntary quick little indrawings of breath,—the aftermath of her weeping.

He held her so for a time, while neither spoke. She had become too weak to struggle.

"My arms have starved for you so," he murmured. She gave no sign.

"Come over here." He led her, unresisting, around to the couch at the other side of the table.

"Sit here, and we'll talk it over sensibly, before you get ready."

When he released her, she started quickly up toward the door that led into the hall.

"Don't do that—please don't be foolish."

He locked the door, and put the key in his pocket. Then he went over to the big folding-doors, and satisfied himself they were locked from the other side. He went back and stood in front of her. She had watched him with dumb terror in her face.

"Now we can talk—but there isn't much to be said. How soon can you be ready?"

"You are crazy!"

"Possibly—believe what you like."

"How did you ever dare? Oh, how awful!"

"If you haven't passed that stage, I'll hold you again."

"No, no—please don't—please stand up again. Sit over there,—I can think better."

"Think quickly. This is Saturday, and to-morrow is their busy day. They may not sit up late to-night."

She arose with a little shrug of desperation that proclaimed her to be in the power of a mad man. She looked at her face in the oval mirror, wiping her eyes and making little passes and pats at her disordered hair. He went over to her.

"No, no—please go over there again. Sit down a moment—let me think. I'll talk to you presently."

There was silence for five minutes. He watched her, while she narrowed her eyes in deep thought.

Then he looked at his watch.

"I can give you an hour, if you've anything to say before it's done—not longer."

She drew a long breath.

"Mr. Bines, are you mad? Can't you be rational?"

"I haven't been irrational, I give you my word, not once since I came here."

He looked at her steadily. All at once he saw her face go crimson. She turned her eyes from his with an effort.

"I'm going back to Montana in the morning. I want you to marry me to-night—I won't even wait one more day—one more hour. I know it's a thing you never dreamt of—marrying a poor man. You'll look at it as the most disgraceful act of folly you could possibly commit, and so will every one else here—but you'll do it. To-morrow at this time you'll be half-way to Chicago with me."

"Mr. Bines,—I'm perfectly reasonable and serious—I mean it—are you quite sure you didn't lose your wits when you lost your money?"

"It may be considered a witless thing to marry a girl who would marry for money—but never mind that—I'm used to taking chances."

She glanced up at him, curiously.

"You know I'm to marry Mr. Shepler the tenth of next month."

"Your grammar is faulty—tense is wrong—You should say 'I was to have married Mr. Shepler.' I'm fastidious about those little things, I confess."

"How can you jest?"

"I can't. Don't think this is any joke. He'll find out."

"Who will find out,—what, pray?"

"He will. He's already said he was afraid there might have been some nonsense between you and me, because we talked that evening at the Oldakers'. He told my grandfather he wasn't at all sure of you until that day I lost my money."

"Oh, I see—and of course you'd like your revenge—carrying me off from him just to hurt him."

"If you say that I'll hold you in my arms again." He started toward her. "I've loved you so, I tell you—all the time—all the time."

"Or perhaps it's a brutal revenge on me,—after thinking I'd only marry for money."

"I've loved you always, I tell you."

He came up to her, more gently now, and took up her hand to kiss it. He saw the ring.

"Take his ring off!"

She looked up at him with an amused little smile, but did not move. He reached for the hand, and she put it behind her.

"Take it off," he said, harshly.

He forced her hand out, took off the ring with its gleaming stone, none too gently, and laid it on the table behind him. Then he covered the hand with kisses.

"Now it's my hand. Perhaps there was a little of both those feelings you accuse me of—perhaps I did want to triumph over both you and Shepler—and the other people who said you'd never marry for anything but money—but do you think I'd have had either one of those desires if I hadn't loved you? Do you think I'd have cared how many Sheplers you married if I hadn't loved you so, night and day?—always turning to you in spite of everything,—loving you always, under everything—always, I tell you."

"Under what—what 'everything'?"

"When I was sure you had no heart—that you couldn't care for any man except a rich man—that you would marry only for money."

"You thought that?"

"Of course I thought it."

"What has changed you?"

"Nothing. I'm going to change it now by proving differently. I shall take you against your will—but I shall make you love me—in the end. I know you—you're a woman, in spite of yourself!"

"You were entirely right about me. I would even have married you because of the money—"

"Tell me what it is you're holding back—don't wait."

"Let me think—don't talk, please!"

She sat a long time silent, motionless, her eyes fixed ahead. At length she stirred herself to speak.

"You were right about me, partly—and partly wrong. I don't think I can make you understand. I've always wanted so much from life—so much more than it seemed possible to have. The only thing for a girl in my position and circumstances was to make what is called a good marriage. I wanted what that would bring, too. I was torn between the desires—or rather the natural instincts and the trained desires. I had ideals about loving and being loved, and I had the material ideals of my experience in this world out here.

"I was untrue to each by turns. Here—I want to show you something."

She took up a book with closely written pages.

"I came here to-night—I won't conceal from you that I thought of you when I came. It was my last time here, and you had gone, I supposed. Among other things I had out this old diary to burn, and I had found this, written on my eighteenth birthday, when I came out—the fond, romantic, secret ideal of a foolish girl—listen:

"The Soul of Love wed the Soul of Truth and their daughter, Joy, was born: who was immortal and in whom they lived for ever!'

"You see—that was the sort of moonshine I started in to live. Two or three times I was a grievous disappointment to my people, and once or twice, perhaps, I was disappointed myself. I was never quite sure what I wanted. But if you think I was consistently mercenary you are mistaken. I shall tell you something more—something no one knows. There was a man I met while that ideal was still strong and beautiful to me—but after I'd come to see that here, in this life, it was not easily to be kept. He was older than I, experienced with women—a lover of women, I came to understand in time. I was a novelty to him, a fresh recreation—he enjoyed all those romantic ideals of mine. I thought then he loved me, and I worshipped him. He was married, but constantly said he was about to leave his wife, so she would divorce him. I promised to come to him when it was done. He had married for money and he would have been poor again. I didn't mind in the least. I tell you this to show you that I could have loved a poor man, not only well enough to marry him, but to break with the traditions, and brave the scandal of going to him in that common way. With all I felt for him I should have been more than satisfied. But I came in time to see that he was not as earnest as I had been. He wasn't capable of feeling what I felt. He was more cowardly than I—or rather, I was more reckless than he. I suspected it a long time; I became convinced of it a year ago and a little over. He became hateful to me. I had wasted my love. Then he became funny. But—you see—I am not altogether what you believed me. Wait a bit longer, please.

"Then I gave up, almost—and later, I gave up entirely. And when my brother was about to marry that woman, and Mr. Shepler asked me to marry him, I consented. It seemed an easy way to end it all. I'd quit fondling ideals. And you had told me I must do anything I could to keep Fred from marrying that woman—my people came to say the same thing—and so—"

"If he had married her—if they were married now—then you would feel free to marry me?"

"You would still be the absurdest man in New York—but we can't discuss that. He isn't going to marry her."

"But he has married her—"

"What do you mean?"

"I supposed you knew—Oldaker told me as I left the hotel. He and your father were witnesses. The marriage took place this afternoon at the Arlingham."

"You're not deceiving me?"

"Come, come!—girl!"

"Oh, pardon me! please! Of course I didn't mean it—but you stunned me. And papa said nothing to me about it before he left. The money must have been too great a temptation to him and to Fred. She has just made some enormous amount in copper stock or something."

"I know, she had better advice than I had. I'd like to reward the man who gave it to her."

"And I was sure you were going to marry that other woman."

"How could you think so?"

"Of course I'm not the least bit jealous—it isn't my disposition; but I did think Florence Akemit wasn't the woman to make you happy—of course I liked her immensely—and there were reports going about—everybody seemed so sure—and you were with her so much. Oh, how I did hate her!"

"I tell you she is a joke and always was."

"It's funny—that's exactly what I told Aunt Cornelia about that—that man."

"Let's stop joking, then."

"How absurd you are—with my plans all made and the day set—"

There was a knock at the door. He went over and unlocked it. Jarvis was there.

"Mr. Shepler, Miss Avice."

They looked at each other.

"Jarvis, shut that door and wait outside."

"Yes, Mr. Bines."

"You can't see him."

"But I must,—we're engaged, don't you understand?—of course I must!"

"I tell you I won't let you. Can't you understand that I'm not talking idly?"

She tried to evade him and reach the door, but she was caught again in his arms—held close to him.

"If you like he shall come in now. But he's not going to take you away from me, as he did in that jeweller's the other night—and you can't see him at all except as you are now."

She struggled to be free.

"Oh, you're so brutal!"

"I haven't begun yet—"

He drew her toward the door.