Mrs. Vertrees was shocked. "'Jim'!" she exclaimed. "Mary, PLEASE—"

"Of course," said Mary. "I'll make it as easy for you as I can, mamma. Mr. James Sheridan, Junior. We went over there, and Mrs. Roscoe explained that 'the men were all dying for a drink,' though I noticed that Mr. Lamhorn was the only one near death's door on that account. Edith and Mrs. Roscoe said they knew I'd been bored at the dinner. They were objectionably apologetic about it, and they seemed to think NOW we were going to have a 'good time' to make up for it. But I hadn't been bored at the dinner, I'd been amused; and the 'good time' at Mrs. Roscoe's was horribly, horribly stupid."

"But, Mary," her mother began, "is—is—" And she seemed unable to complete the question.

"Never mind, mamma. I'll say it. Is Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, stupid? I'm sure he's not at all stupid about business. Otherwise—Oh, what right have I to be calling people 'stupid' because they're not exactly my kind? On the big dinner-table they had enormous icing models of the Sheridan Building—"

"Oh, no!" Mrs. Vertrees cried. "Surely not!"

"Yes, and two other things of that kind—I don't know what. But, after all, I wondered if they were so bad. If I'd been at a dinner at a palace in Italy, and a relief or inscription on one of the old silver pieces had referred to some great deed or achievement of the family, I shouldn't have felt superior; I'd have thought it picturesque and stately—I'd have been impressed. And what's the real difference? The icing is temporary, and that's much more modest, isn't it? And why is it vulgar to feel important more on account of something you've done yourself than because of something one of your ancestors did? Besides, if we go back a few generations, we've all got such hundreds of ancestors it seems idiotic to go picking out one or two to be proud of ourselves about. Well, then, mamma, I managed not to feel superior to Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, because he didn't see anything out of place in the Sheridan Building in sugar."

Mrs. Vertrees's expression had lost none of its anxiety pending the conclusion of this lively bit of analysis, and she shook her head gravely. "My dear, dear child," she said, "it seems to me—It looks—I'm afraid—"

"Say as much of it as you can, mamma," said Mary, encouragingly. "I can get it, if you'll just give me one key-word."

"Everything you say," Mrs. Vertrees began, timidly, "seems to have the air of—it is as if you were seeking to—to make yourself—"

"Oh, I see! You mean I sound as if I were trying to force myself to like him."

"Not exactly, Mary. That wasn't quite what I meant," said Mrs. Vertrees, speaking direct untruth with perfect unconsciousness. "But you said that—that you found the latter part of the evening at young Mrs. Sheridan's unentertaining—"

"And as Mr. James Sheridan was there, and I saw more of him than at dinner, and had a horribly stupid time in spite of that, you think I—" And then it was Mary who left the deduction unfinished.

Mrs. Vertrees nodded; and though both the mother and the daughter understood, Mary felt it better to make the understanding definite.

"Well," she asked, gravely, "is there anything else I can do? You and papa don't want me to do anything that distresses me, and so, as this is the only thing to be done, it seems it's up to me not to let it distress me. That's all there is about it, isn't it?"

"But nothing MUST distress you!" the mother cried.

"That's what I say!" said Mary, cheerfully. "And so it doesn't. It's all right." She rose and took her cloak over her arm, as if to go to her own room. But on the way to the door she stopped, and stood leaning against the foot of the bed, contemplating a threadbare rug at her feet. "Mother, you've told me a thousand times that it doesn't really matter whom a girl marries."

"No, no!" Mrs. Vertrees protested. "I never said such a—"

"No, not in words; I mean what you MEANT. It's true, isn't it, that marriage really is 'not a bed of roses, but a field of battle'? To get right down to it, a girl could fight it out with anybody, couldn't she? One man as well as another?"

"Oh, my dear! I'm sure your father and I—"

"Yes, yes," said Mary, indulgently. "I don't mean you and papa. But isn't it propinquity that makes marriages? So many people say so, there must be something in it."

"Mary, I can't bear for you to talk like that." And Mrs. Vertrees lifted pleading eyes to her daughter—eyes that begged to be spared. "It sounds—almost reckless!"

Mary caught the appeal, came to her, and kissed her gaily. "Never fret, dear! I'm not likely to do anything I don't want to do—I've always been too thorough-going a little pig! And if it IS propinquity that does our choosing for us, well, at least no girl in the world could ask for more than THAT! How could there be any more propinquity than the very house next door?"

She gave her mother a final kiss and went gaily all the way to the door this time, pausing for her postscript with her hand on the knob. "Oh, the one that caught me looking in the window, mamma, the youngest one—"

"Did he speak of it?" Mrs. Vertrees asked, apprehensively.

"No. He didn't speak at all, that I saw, to any one. I didn't meet him. But he isn't insane, I'm sure; or if he is, he has long intervals when he's not. Mr. James Sheridan mentioned that he lived at home when he was 'well enough'; and it may be he's only an invalid. He looks dreadfully ill, but he has pleasant eyes, and it struck me that if—if one were in the Sheridan family"—she laughed a little ruefully—"he might be interesting to talk to sometimes, when there was too much stocks and bonds. I didn't see him after dinner."

"There must be something wrong with him," said Mrs. Vertrees. "They'd have introduced him if there wasn't."

"I don't know. He's been ill so much and away so much—sometimes people like that just don't seem to 'count' in a family. His father spoke of sending him back to a machine-shop or some sort; I suppose he meant when the poor thing gets better. I glanced at him just then, when Mr. Sheridan mentioned him, and he happened to be looking straight at me; and he was pathetic-looking enough before that, but the most tragic change came over him. He seemed just to die, right there at the table!"

"You mean when his father spoke of sending him to the shop place?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Sheridan must be very unfeeling."

"No," said Mary, thoughtfully, "I don't think he is; but he might be uncomprehending, and certainly he's the kind of man to do anything he once sets out to do. But I wish I hadn't been looking at that poor boy just then! I'm afraid I'll keep remembering—"

"I wouldn't." Mrs. Vertrees smiled faintly, and in her smile there was the remotest ghost of a genteel roguishness. "I'd keep my mind on pleasanter things, Mary."

Mary laughed and nodded. "Yes, indeed! Plenty pleasant enough, and probably, if all were known, too good—even for me!"

And when she had gone Mrs. Vertrees drew a long breath, as if a burden were off her mind, and, smiling, began to undress in a gentle reverie.



CHAPTER VIII

Edith, glancing casually into the "ready-made" library, stopped abruptly, seeing Bibbs there alone. He was standing before the pearl-framed and golden-lettered poem, musingly inspecting it. He read it:

FUGITIVE

I will forget the things that sting: The lashing look, the barbed word. I know the very hands that fling The stones at me had never stirred To anger but for their own scars. They've suffered so, that's why they strike. I'll keep my heart among the stars Where none shall hunt it out. Oh, like These wounded ones I must not be, For, wounded, I might strike in turn! So, none shall hurt me. Far and free Where my heart flies no one shall learn.

"Bibbs!" Edith's voice was angry, and her color deepened suddenly as she came into the room, preceded by a scent of violets much more powerful than that warranted by the actual bunch of them upon the lapel of her coat.

Bibbs did not turn his head, but wagged it solemnly, seeming depressed by the poem. "Pretty young, isn't it?" he said. "There must have been something about your looks that got the prize, Edith; I can't believe the poem did it."

She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder and spoke sharply, but in a low voice: "I don't think it's very nice of you to bring it up at all, Bibbs. I'd like a chance to forget the whole silly business. I didn't want them to frame it, and I wish to goodness papa'd quit talking about it; but here, that night, after the dinner, didn't he go and read it aloud to the whole crowd of 'em! And then they all wanted to know what other poems I'd written and why I didn't keep it up and write some more, and if I didn't, why didn't I, and why this and why that, till I thought I'd die of shame!"

"You could tell 'em you had writer's cramp," Bibbs suggested.

"I couldn't tell 'em anything! I just choke with mortification every time anybody speaks of the thing."

Bibbs looked grieved. "The poem isn't THAT bad, Edith. You see, you were only seventeen when you wrote it."

"Oh, hush up!" she snapped. "I wish it had burnt my fingers the first time I touched it. Then I might have had sense enough to leave it where it was. I had no business to take it, and I've been ashamed—"

"No, no," he said, comfortingly. "It was the very most flattering thing ever happen to me. It was almost my last flight before I went to the machine-shop, and it's pleasant to think somebody liked it enough to—"

"But I DON'T like it!" she exclaimed. "I don't even understand it—and papa made so much fuss over its getting the prize, I just hate it! The truth is I never dreamed it'd get the prize."

"Maybe they expected father to endow the school," Bibbs murmured.

"Well, I had to have something to turn in, and I couldn't write a LINE! I hate poetry, anyhow; and Bobby Lamhorn's always teasing me about how I 'keep my heart among the stars.' He makes it seem such a mushy kind of thing, the way he says it. I hate it!"

"You'll have to live it down, Edith. Perhaps abroad and under another name you might find—"

"Oh, hush up! I'll hire some one to steal it and burn it the first chance I get." She turned away petulantly, moving to the door. "I'd like to think I could hope to hear the last of it before I die!"

"Edith!" he called, as she went into the hall.

"What's the matter?"

"I want to ask you: Do I really look better, or have you just got used to me?"

"What on earth do you mean?" she said, coming back as far as the threshold.

"When I first came you couldn't look at me," Bibbs explained, in his impersonal way. "But I've noticed you look at me lately. I wondered if I'd—"

"It's because you look so much better," she told him, cheerfully. "This month you've been here's done you no end of good. It's the change."

"Yes, that's what they said at the sanitarium—the change."

"You look worse than 'most anybody I ever saw," said Edith, with supreme candor. "But I don't know much about it. I've never seen a corpse in my life, and I've never even seen anybody that was terribly sick, so you mustn't judge by me. I only know you do look better, I'm glad to say. But you're right about my not being able to look at you at first. You had a kind of whiteness that—Well, you're almost as thin, I suppose, but you've got more just ordinarily pale; not that ghastly look. Anybody could look at you now, Bibbs, and no—not get—"

"Sick?"

"Well—almost that!" she laughed. "And you're getting a better color every day, Bibbs; you really are. You're getting along splendidly."

"I—I'm afraid so," he said, ruefully.

"'Afraid so'! Well, if you aren't the queerest! I suppose you mean father might send you back to the machine-shop if you get well enough. I heard him say something about it the night of the—" The jingle of a distant bell interrupted her, and she glanced at her watch. "Bobby Lamhorn! I'm going to motor him out to look at a place in the country. Afternoon, Bibbs!"

When she had gone, Bibbs mooned pessimistically from shelf to shelf, his eye wandering among the titles of the books. The library consisted almost entirely of handsome "uniform editions": Irving, Poe, Cooper, Goldsmith, Scott, Byron, Burns, Longfellow, Tennyson, Hume, Gibbon, Prescott, Thackeray, Dickens, De Musset, Balzac, Gautier, Flaubert, Goethe, Schiller, Dante, and Tasso. There were shelves and shelves of encyclopedias, of anthologies, of "famous classics," of "Oriental masterpieces," of "masterpieces of oratory," and more shelves of "selected libraries" of "literature," of "the drama," and of "modern science." They made an effective decoration for the room, all these big, expensive books, with a glossy binding here and there twinkling a reflection of the flames that crackled in the splendid Gothic fireplace; but Bibbs had an impression that the bookseller who selected them considered them a relief, and that white-jacket considered them a burden of dust, and that nobody else considered them at all. Himself, he disturbed not one.

There came a chime of bells from a clock in another part of the house, and white-jacket appeared beamingly in the doorway, bearing furs. "Awready, Mist' Bibbs," he announced. "You' ma say wrap up wawm f' you' ride, an' she cain' go with you to-day, an' not f'git go see you' pa at fo' 'clock. Aw ready, suh."

He equipped Bibbs for the daily drive Dr. Gurney had commanded; and in the manner of a master of ceremonies unctuously led the way. In the hall they passed the Moor, and Bibbs paused before it while white-jacket opened the door with a flourish and waved condescendingly to the chauffeur in the car which stood waiting in the driveway.

"It seems to me I asked you what you thought about this 'statue' when I first came home, George," said Bibbs, thoughtfully. "What did you tell me?"

"Yessuh!" George chuckled, perfectly understanding that for some unknown reason Bibbs enjoyed hearing him repeat his opinion of the Moor. "You ast me when you firs' come home, an' you ast me nex' day, an' mighty near ev'y day all time you been here; an' las' Sunday you ast me twicet." He shook his head solemnly. "Look to me mus' be somep'm might lamiDAL 'bout 'at statue!"

"Mighty what?"

"Mighty lamiDAL!" George, burst out laughing. "What DO 'at word mean, Mist' Bibbs?"

"It's new to me, George. Where did you hear it?"

"I nev' DID hear it!" said George. "I uz dess sittin' thinkum to myse'f an' she pop in my head—'lamiDAL,' dess like 'at! An' she soun' so good, seem like she GOTTA mean somep'm!"

"Come to think of it, I believe she does mean something. Why, yes—"

"Do she?" cried George. "WHAT she mean?"

"It's exactly the word for the statue," said Bibbs, with conviction, as he climbed into the car. "It's a lamiDAL statue."

"Hiyi!" George exulted. "Man! Man! Listen! Well, suh, she mighty lamiDAL statue, but lamiDAL statue heap o' trouble to dus'!" "I expect she is!" said Bibbs, as the engine began to churn; and a moment later he was swept from sight.

George turned to Mist' Jackson, who had been listening benevolently in the hallway. "Same he aw-ways say, Mist' Jackson—'I expec' she is!' Ev'y day he try t' git me talk 'bout 'at lamiDAL statue, an' aw-ways, las' thing HE say, 'I expec' she is!' You know, Mist' Jackson, if he git well, 'at young man go' be pride o' the family, Mist' Jackson. Yes-suh, right now I pick 'im fo' firs' money!"

"Look out with all 'at money, George!" Jackson warned the enthusiast. "White folks 'n 'is house know 'im heap longer'n you. You the on'y man bettin' on 'im!"

"I risk it!" cried George, merrily. "I put her all on now—ev'y cent! 'At boy's go' be flower o' the flock!"

This singular prophecy, founded somewhat recklessly upon gratitude for the meaning of "lamiDAL," differed radically from another prediction concerning Bibbs, set forth for the benefit of a fair auditor some twenty minutes later.

Jim Sheridan, skirting the edges of the town with Mary Vertrees beside him, in his own swift machine, encountered the invalid upon the highroad. The two cars were going in opposite directions, and the occupants of Jim's had only a swaying glimpse of Bibbs sitting alone on the back seat—his white face startlingly white against cap and collar of black fur—but he flashed into recognition as Mary bowed to him.

Jim waved his left hand carelessly. "It's Bibbs, taking his constitutional," he explained.

"Yes, I know," said Mary. "I bowed to him, too, though I've never met him. In fact, I've only seen him once—no, twice. I hope he won't think I'm very bold, bowing to him."

"I doubt if he noticed it," said honest Jim.

"Oh, no!" she cried.

"What's the trouble?"

"I'm almost sure people notice it when I bow to them."

"Oh, I see!" said Jim. "Of course they would ordinarily, but Bibbs is funny."

"Is he? How?" she asked. "He strikes me as anything but funny."

"Well, I'm his brother," Jim said, deprecatingly, "but I don't know what he's like, and, to tell the truth, I've never felt exactly like I WAS his brother, the way I do Roscoe. Bibbs never did seem more than half alive to me. Of course Roscoe and I are older, and when we were boys we were too big to play with him, but he never played anyway, with boys his own age. He'd rather just sit in the house and mope around by himself. Nobody could ever get him to DO anything; you can't get him to do anything now. He never had any LIFE in him; and honestly, if he is my brother, I must say I believe Bibbs Sheridan is the laziest man God ever made! Father put him in the machine-shop over at the Pump Works—best thing in the world for him—and he was just plain no account. It made him sick! If he'd had the right kind of energy—the kind father's got, for instance, or Roscoe, either—why, it wouldn't have made him sick. And suppose it was either of them—yes, or me, either—do you think any of us would have stopped if we WERE sick? Not much! I hate to say it, but Bibbs Sheridan'll never amount to anything as long as he lives."

Mary looked thoughtful. "Is there any particular reason why he should?" she asked.

"Good gracious!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean that, do you? Don't you believe in a man's knowing how to earn his salt, no matter how much money his father's got? Hasn't the business of this world got to be carried on by everybody in it? Are we going to lay back on what we've got and see other fellows get ahead of us? If we've got big things already, isn't it every man's business to go ahead and make 'em bigger? Isn't it his duty? Don't we always want to get bigger and bigger?"

"Ye-es—I don't know. But I feel rather sorry for your brother. He looked so lonely—and sick."

"He's gettin' better every day," Jim said. "Dr. Gurney says so. There's nothing much the matter with him, really—it's nine-tenths imaginary. 'Nerves'! People that are willing to be busy don't have nervous diseases, because they don't have time to imagine 'em."

"You mean his trouble is really mental?"

"Oh, he's not a lunatic," said Jim. "He's just queer. Sometimes he'll say something right bright, but half the time what he says is 'way off the subject, or else there isn't any sense to it at all. For instance, the other day I heard him talkin' to one of the darkies in the hall. The darky asked him what time he wanted the car for his drive, and anybody else in the world would have just said what time they DID want it, and that would have been all there was to it; but here's what Bibbs says, and I heard him with my own ears. 'What time do I want the car?' he says. 'Well, now, that depends—that depends,' he says. He talks slow like that, you know. 'I'll tell you what time I want the car, George,' he says, 'if you'll tell ME what you think of this statue!' That's exactly his words! Asked the darky what he thought of that Arab Edith and mother bought for the hall!"

Mary pondered upon this. "He might have been in fun, perhaps," she suggested.

"Askin' a darky what he thought of a piece of statuary—of a work of art! Where on earth would be the fun of that? No, you're just kind-hearted—and that's the way you OUGHT to be, of course—"

"Thank you, Mr. Sheridan!" she laughed.

"See here!" he cried. "Isn't there any way for us to get over this Mister and Miss thing? A month's got thirty-one days in it; I've managed to be with you a part of pretty near all the thirty-one, and I think you know how I feel by this time—"

She looked panic-stricken immediately. "Oh, no," she protested, quickly. "No, I don't, and—"

"Yes, you do," he said, and his voice shook a little. "You couldn't help knowing."

"But I do!" she denied, hurriedly. "I do help knowing. I mean—Oh, wait!"

"What for? You do know how I feel, and you—well, you've certainly WANTED me to feel that way—or else pretended—"

"Now, now!" she lamented. "You're spoiling such a cheerful afternoon!"

"'Spoilin' it!'" He slowed down the car and turned his face to her squarely. "See here, Miss Vertrees, haven't you—"

"Stop! Stop the car a minute." And when he had complied she faced him as squarely as he evidently desired her to face him. "Listen. I don't want you to go on, to-day."

"Why not?" he asked, sharply.

"I don't know."

"You mean it's just a whim?"

"I don't know," she repeated. Her voice was low and troubled and honest, and she kept her clear eyes upon his.

"Will you tell me something?"

"Almost anything."

"Have you ever told any man you loved him?"

And at that, though she laughed, she looked a little contemptuous. "No," she said. "And I don't think I ever shall tell any man that—or ever know what it means. I'm in earnest, Mr. Sheridan."

"Then you—you've just been flirting with me!" Poor Jim looked both furious and crestfallen.

"Not one bit!" she cried. "Not one word! Not one syllable! I've meant every single thing!"

"I don't—"

"Of course you don't!" she said. "Now, Mr. Sheridan, I want you to start the car. Now! Thank you. Slowly, till I finish what I have to say. I have not flirted with you. I have deliberately courted you. One thing more, and then I want you to take me straight home, talking about the weather all the way. I said that I do not believe I shall ever 'care' for any man, and that is true. I doubt the existence of the kind of 'caring' we hear about in poems and plays and novels. I think it must be just a kind of emotional TALK—most of it. At all events, I don't feel it. Now, we can go faster, please."

"Just where does that let me out?" he demanded. "How does that excuse you for—"

"It isn't an excuse," she said, gently, and gave him one final look, wholly desolate. "I haven't said I should never marry."

"What?" Jim gasped.

She inclined her head in a broken sort of acquiescence, very humble, unfathomably sorrowful.

"I promise nothing," she said, faintly.

"You needn't!" shouted Jim, radiant and exultant. "You needn't! By George! I know you're square; that's enough for me! You wait and promise whenever you're ready!"

"Don't forget what I asked," she begged him.

"Talk about the weather? I will! God bless the old weather!" cried the happy Jim.



CHAPTER IX

Through the open country Bibbs was borne flying between brown fields and sun-flecked groves of gray trees, to breathe the rushing, clean air beneath a glorious sky—that sky so despised in the city, and so maltreated there, that from early October to mid-May it was impossible for men to remember that blue is the rightful color overhead.

Upon each of Bibbs's cheeks there was a hint of something almost resembling a pinkishness; not actual color, but undeniably its phantom. How largely this apparition may have been the work of the wind upon his face it is difficult to calculate, for beyond a doubt it was partly the result of a lady's bowing to him upon no more formal introduction than the circumstance of his having caught her looking into his window a month before. She had bowed definitely; she had bowed charmingly. And it seemed to Bibbs that she must have meant to convey her forgiveness.

There had been something in her recognition of him unfamiliar to his experience, and he rode the warmer for it. Nor did he lack the impression that he would long remember her as he had just seen her: her veil tumultuously blowing back, her face glowing in the wind—and that look of gay friendliness tossed to him like a fresh rose in carnival.

By and by, upon a rising ground, the driver halted the car, then backed and tacked, and sent it forward again with its nose to the south and the smoke. Far before him Bibbs saw the great smudge upon the horizon, that nest of cloud in which the city strove and panted like an engine shrouded in its own steam. But to Bibbs, who had now to go to the very heart of it, for a commanded interview with his father, the distant cloud was like an implacable genius issuing thunderously in smoke from his enchanted bottle, and irresistibly drawing Bibbs nearer and nearer.

They passed from the farm lands, and came, in the amber light of November late afternoon, to the farthermost outskirts of the city; and here the sky shimmered upon the verge of change from blue to gray; the smoke did not visibly permeate the air, but it was there, nevertheless—impalpable, thin, no more than the dust of smoke. And then, as the car drove on, the chimneys and stacks of factories came swimming up into view like miles of steamers advancing abreast, every funnel with its vast plume, savage and black, sweeping to the horizon, dripping wealth and dirt and suffocation over league on league already rich and vile with grime.

The sky had become only a dingy thickening of the soiled air; and a roar and clangor of metals beat deafeningly on Bibbs's ears. And now the car passed two great blocks of long brick buildings, hideous in all ways possible to make them hideous; doorways showing dark one moment and lurid the next with the leap of some virulent interior flame, revealing blackened giants, half naked, in passionate action, struggling with formless things in the hot illumination. And big as these shops were, they were growing bigger, spreading over a third block, where two new structures were mushrooming to completion in some hasty cement process of a stability not over-reassuring. Bibbs pulled the rug closer about him, and not even the phantom of color was left upon his cheeks as he passed this place, for he knew it too well. Across the face of one of the buildings there was an enormous sign: "Sheridan Automatic Pump Co., Inc."

Thence they went through streets of wooden houses, all grimed, and adding their own grime from many a sooty chimney; flimsey wooden houses of a thousand flimsy whimsies in the fashioning, built on narrow lots and nudging one another crossly, shutting out the stingy sunlight from one another; bad neighbors who would destroy one another root and branch some night when the right wind blew. They were only waiting for that wind and a cigarette, and then they would all be gone together—a pinch of incense burned upon the tripod of the god.

Along these streets there were skinny shade-trees, and here and there a forest elm or walnut had been left; but these were dying. Some people said it was the scale; some said it was the smoke; and some were sure that asphalt and "improving" the streets did it; but Bigness was in too Big a hurry to bother much about trees. He had telegraph-poles and telephone-poles and electric-light-poles and trolley-poles by the thousand to take their places. So he let the trees die and put up his poles. They were hideous, but nobody minded that; and sometimes the wires fell and killed people—but not often enough to matter at all.

Thence onward the car bore Bibbs through the older parts of the town where the few solid old houses not already demolished were in transition: some, with their fronts torn away, were being made into segments of apartment-buildings; others had gone uproariously into trade, brazenly putting forth "show-windows" on their first floors, seeming to mean it for a joke; one or two with unaltered facades peeped humorously over the tops of temporary office buildings of one story erected in the old front yards. Altogether, the town here was like a boarding-house hash the Sunday after Thanksgiving; the old ingredients were discernible.

This was the fringe of Bigness's own sanctuary, and now Bibbs reached the roaring holy of holies itself. The car must stop at every crossing while the dark-garbed crowds, enveloped in maelstroms of dust, hurried before it. Magnificent new buildings, already dingy, loomed hundreds of feet above him; newer ones, more magnificent, were rising beside them, rising higher; old buildings were coming down; middle-aged buildings were coming down; the streets were laid open to their entrails and men worked underground between palisades, and overhead in metal cobwebs like spiders in the sky. Trolley-cars and long interurban cars, built to split the wind like torpedo-boats, clanged and shrieked their way round swarming corners; motor-cars of every kind and shape known to man babbled frightful warnings and frantic demands; hospital ambulances clamored wildly for passage; steam-whistles signaled the swinging of titanic tentacle and claw; riveters rattled like machine-guns; the ground shook to the thunder of gigantic trucks; and the conglomerate sound of it all was the sound of earthquake playing accompaniments for battle and sudden death. On one of the new steel buildings no work was being done that afternoon. The building had killed a man in the morning—and the steel-workers always stop for the day when that "happens."

And in the hurrying crowds, swirling and sifting through the brobdingnagian camp of iron and steel, one saw the camp-followers and the pagan women—there would be work to-day and dancing to-night. For the Puritan's dry voice is but the crackling of a leaf underfoot in the rush and roar of the coming of the new Egypt.

Bibbs was on time. He knew it must be "to the minute" or his father would consider it an outrage; and the big chronometer in Sheridan's office marked four precisely when Bibbs walked in. Coincidentally with his entrance five people who had been at work in the office, under Sheridan's direction, walked out. They departed upon no visible or audible suggestion, and with a promptness that seemed ominous to the new-comer. As the massive door clicked softly behind the elderly stenographer, the last of the procession, Bibbs had a feeling that they all understood that he was a failure as a great man's son, a disappointment, the "queer one" of the family, and that he had been summoned to judgment—a well-founded impression, for that was exactly what they understood.

"Sit down," said Sheridan.

It is frequently an advantage for deans, school-masters, and worried fathers to place delinquents in the sitting-posture. Bibbs sat.

Sheridan, standing, gazed enigmatically upon his son for a period of silence, then walked slowly to a window and stood looking out of it, his big hands, loosely hooked together by the thumbs, behind his back. They were soiled, as were all other hands down-town, except such as might be still damp from a basin.

"Well, Bibbs," he said at last, not altering his attitude, "do you know what I'm goin' to do with you?"

Bibbs, leaning back in his chair, fixed his eyes contemplatively upon the ceiling. "I heard you tell Jim," he began, in his slow way. "You said you'd send him to the machine-shop with me if he didn't propose to Miss Vertrees. So I suppose that must be your plan for me. But—"

"But what?" said Sheridan, irritably, as the son paused.

"Isn't there somebody you'd let ME propose to?"

That brought his father sharply round to face him. "You beat the devil! Bibbs, what IS the matter with you? Why can't you be like anybody else?"

"Liver, maybe," said Bibbs, gently.

"Boh! Even ole Doc Gurney says there's nothin' wrong with you organically. No. You're a dreamer, Bibbs; that's what's the matter, and that's ALL the matter. Oh, not one o' these BIG dreamers that put through the big deals! No, sir! You're the kind o' dreamer that just sets out on the back fence and thinks about how much trouble there must be in the world! That ain't the kind that builds the bridges, Bibbs; it's the kind that borrows fifteen cents from his wife's uncle's brother-in-law to get ten cent's worth o' plug tobacco and a nickel's worth o' quinine!"

He put the finishing touch on this etching with a snort, and turned again to the window.

"Look out there!" he bade his son. "Look out o' that window! Look at the life and energy down there! I should think ANY young man's blood would tingle to get into it and be part of it. Look at the big things young men are doin' in this town!" He swung about, coming to the mahogany desk in the middle of the room. "Look at what I was doin' at your age! Look at what your own brothers are doin'! Look at Roscoe! Yes, and look at Jim! I made Jim president o' the Sheridan Realty Company last New-Year's, with charge of every inch o' ground and every brick and every shingle and stick o' wood we own; and it's an example to any young man—or ole man, either—the way he took ahold of it. Last July we found out we wanted two more big warehouses at the Pump Works—wanted 'em quick. Contractors said it couldn't be done; said nine or ten months at the soonest; couldn't see it any other way. What'd Jim do? Took the contract himself; found a fellow with a new cement and concrete process; kept men on the job night and day, and stayed on it night and day himself—and, by George! we begin to USE them warehouses next week! Four months and a half, and every inch fireproof! I tell you Jim's one o' these fellers that make miracles happen! Now, I don't say every young man can be like Jim, because there's mighty few got his ability, but every young man can go in and do his share. This town is God's own country, and there's opportunity for anybody with a pound of energy and an ounce o' gumption. I tell you these young business men I watch just do my heart good! THEY don't set around on the back fence—no, sir! They take enough exercise to keep their health; and they go to a baseball game once or twice a week in summer, maybe, and they're raisin' nice families, with sons to take their places sometime and carry on the work—because the work's got to go ON! They're puttin' their life-blood into it, I tell you, and that's why we're gettin' bigger every minute, and why THEY'RE gettin' bigger, and why it's all goin' to keep ON gettin' bigger!"

He slapped the desk resoundingly with his open palm, and then, observing that Bibbs remained in the same impassive attitude, with his eyes still fixed upon the ceiling in a contemplation somewhat plaintive, Sheridan was impelled to groan. "Oh, Lord!" he said. "This is the way you always were. I don't believe you understood a darn word I been sayin'! You don't LOOK as if you did. By George! it's discouraging!"

"I don't understand about getting—about getting bigger," said Bibbs, bringing his gaze down to look at his father placatively. "I don't see just why—"

"WHAT?" Sheridan leaned forward, resting his hands upon the desk and staring across it incredulously at his son.

"I don't understand—exactly—what you want it all bigger for?"

"Great God!" shouted Sheridan, and struck the desk a blow with his clenched fist. "A son of mine asks me that! You go out and ask the poorest day-laborer you can find! Ask him that question—"

"I did once," Bibbs interrupted; "when I was in the machine-shop. I—"

"Wha'd he say?"

"He said, 'Oh, hell!'" answered Bibbs, mildly.

"Yes, I reckon he would!" Sheridan swung away from the desk. "I reckon he certainly would! And I got plenty sympathy with him right now, myself!"

"It's the same answer, then?" Bibbs's voice was serious, almost tremulous.

"Damnation!" Sheridan roared. "Did you ever hear the word Prosperity, you ninny? Did you ever hear the word Ambition? Did you ever hear the word PROGRESS?"

He flung himself into a chair after the outburst, his big chest surging, his throat tumultuous with gutteral incoherences. "Now then," he said, huskily, when the anguish had somewhat abated, "what do you want to do?"

"Sir?"

"What do you WANT to do, I said."

Taken by surprise, Bibbs stammered. "What—what do—I—what—"

"If I'd let you do exactly what you had the whim for, what would you do?"

Bibbs looked startled; then timidity overwhelmed him—a profound shyness. He bent his head and fixed his lowered eyes upon the toe of his shoe, which he moved to and fro upon the rug, like a culprit called to the desk in school.

"What would you do? Loaf?"

"No, sir." Bibbs's voice was almost inaudible, and what little sound it made was unquestionably a guilty sound. "I suppose I'd—I'd—"

"Well?"

"I suppose I'd try to—to write."

"Write what?"

"Nothing important—just poems and essays, perhaps."

"That all?"

"Yes, sir."

"I see," said his father, breathing quickly with the restraint he was putting upon himself. "That is, you want to write, but you don't want to write anything of any account."

"You think—"

Sheridan got up again. "I take my hat off to the man that can write a good ad," he said, emphatically. "The best writin' talent in this country is right spang in the ad business to-day. You buy a magazine for good writin'—look on the back of it! Let me tell you I pay money for that kind o' writin'. Maybe you think it's easy. Just try it! I've tried it, and I can't do it. I tell you an ad's got to be written so it makes people do the hardest thing in this world to GET 'em to do: it's got to make 'em give up their MONEY! You talk about 'poems and essays.' I tell you when it comes to the actual skill o' puttin' words together so as to make things HAPPEN, R. T. Bloss, right here in this city, knows more in a minute than George Waldo Emerson ever knew in his whole life!"

"You—you may be—" Bibbs said, indistinctly, the last word smothered in a cough.

"Of COURSE I'm right! And if it ain't just like you to want to take up with the most out-o'-date kind o' writin' there is! 'Poems and essays'! My Lord, Bibbs, that's WOMEN'S work! You can't pick up a newspaper without havin' to see where Mrs. Rumskididle read a paper on 'Jane Eyre,' or 'East Lynne,' at the God-Knows-What Club. And 'poetry'! Why, look at Edith! I expect that poem o' hers would set a pretty high-water mark for you, young man, and it's the only one she's ever managed to write in her whole LIFE! When I wanted her to go on and write some more she said it took too much time. Said it took months and months. And Edith's a smart girl; she's got more energy in her little finger than you ever give me a chance to see in your whole body, Bibbs. Now look at the facts: say she could turn out four or five poems a year and you could turn out maybe two. That medal she got was worth about fifteen dollars, so there's your income—thirty dollars a year! That's a fine success to make of your life! I'm not sayin' a word against poetry. I wouldn't take ten thousand dollars right now for that poem of Edith's; and poetry's all right enough in its place—but you leave it to the girls. A man's got to do a man's work in this world!"

He seated himself in a chair at his son's side and, leaning over, tapped Bibbs confidentially on the knee. "This city's got the greatest future in America, and if my sons behave right by me and by themselves they're goin' to have a mighty fair share of it—a mighty fair share. I love this town. It's God's own footstool, and it's made money for me every day right along, I don't know how many years. I love it like I do my own business, and I'd fight for it as quick as I'd fight for my own family. It's a beautiful town. Look at our wholesale district; look at any district you want to; look at the park system we're puttin' through, and the boulevards and the public statuary. And she grows. God! how she grows!" He had become intensely grave; he spoke with solemnity. "Now, Bibbs, I can't take any of it—nor any gold or silver nor buildings nor bonds—away with me in my shroud when I have to go. But I want to leave my share in it to my boys. I've worked for it; I've been a builder and a maker; and two blades of grass have grown where one grew before, whenever I laid my hand on the ground and willed 'em to grow. I've built big, and I want the buildin' to go on. And when my last hour comes I want to know that my boys are ready to take charge; that they're fit to take charge and go ON with it. Bibbs, when that hour comes I want to know that my boys are big men, ready and fit to hold of big things. Bibbs, when I'm up above I want to know that the big share I've made mine, here below, is growin' bigger and bigger in the charge of my boys."

He leaned back, deeply moved. "There!" he said, huskily. "I've never spoken more what was in my heart in my life. I do it because I want you to understand—and not think me a mean father. I never had to talk that way to Jim and Roscoe. They understood without any talk, Bibbs."

"I see," said Bibbs. "At least I think I do. But—"

"Wait a minute!" Sheridan raised his hand. "If you see the least bit in the world, then you understand how it feels to me to have my son set here and talk about 'poems and essays' and such-like fooleries. And you must understand, too, what it meant to start one o' my boys and have him come back on me the way you did, and have to be sent to a sanitarium because he couldn't stand work. Now, let's get right down to it, Bibbs. I've had a whole lot o' talk with ole Doc Gurney about you, one time another, and I reckon I understand your case just about as well as he does, anyway! Now here, I'll be frank with you. I started you in harder than what I did the other boys, and that was for your own good, because I saw you needed to be shook up more'n they did. You were always kind of moody and mopish—and you needed work that'd keep you on the jump. Now, why did it make you sick instead of brace you up and make a man of you the way it ought of done? I pinned ole Gurney down to it. I says, 'Look here, ain't it really because he just plain hated it?' 'Yes,' he says, 'that's it. If he'd enjoyed it, it wouldn't 'a' hurt him. He loathes it, and that affects his nervous system. The more he tries it, the more he hates it; and the more he hates it, the more injury it does him.' That ain't quite his words, but it's what he meant. And that's about the way it is."

"Yes," said Bibbs, "that's about the way it is."

"Well, then, I reckon it's up to me not only to make you do it, but to make you like it!"

Bibbs shivered. And he turned upon his father a look that was almost ghostly. "I can't," he said, in a low voice. "I can't."

"Can't go back to the shop?"

"No. Can't like it. I can't."

Sheridan jumped up, his patience gone. To his own view, he had reasoned exhaustively, had explained fully and had pleaded more than a father should, only to be met in the end with the unreasoning and mysterious stubbornness which had been Bibbs's baffling characteristic from childhood. "By George, you will!" he cried. "You'll go back there and you'll like it! Gurney says it won't hurt you if you like it, and he says it'll kill you if you go back and hate it; so it looks as if it was about up to you not to hate it. Well, Gurney's a fool! Hatin' work doesn't kill anybody; and this isn't goin' to kill you, whether you hate it or not. I've never made a mistake in a serious matter in my life, and it wasn't a mistake my sendin' you there in the first place. And I'm goin' to prove it—I'm goin' to send you back there and vindicate my judgment. Gurney says it's all 'mental attitude.' Well, you're goin' to learn the right one! He says in a couple more months this fool thing that's been the matter with you'll be disappeared completely and you'll be back in as good or better condition than you were before you ever went into the shop. And right then is when you begin over—right in that same shop! Nobody can call me a hard man or a mean father. I do the best I can for my chuldern, and I take full responsibility for bringin' my sons up to be men. Now, so far, I've failed with you. But I'm not goin' to keep ON failin'. I never tackled a job YET I didn't put through, and I'm not goin' to begin with my own son. I'm goin' to make a MAN of you. By God! I am!"

Bibbs rose and went slowly to the door, where he turned. "You say you give me a couple of months?" he said.

Sheridan pushed a bell-button on his desk. "Gurney said two months more would put you back where you were. You go home and begin to get yourself in the right 'mental attitude' before those two months are up! Good-by!"

"Good-by, sir," said Bibbs, meekly.



CHAPTER X

Bibbs's room, that neat apartment for transients to which the "lamidal" George had shown him upon his return, still bore the appearance of temporary quarters, possibly because Bibbs had no clear conception of himself as a permanent incumbent. However, he had set upon the mantelpiece the two photographs that he owned: one, a "group" twenty years old—his father and mother, with Jim and Roscoe as boys—and the other a "cabinet" of Edith at sixteen. And upon a table were the books he had taken from his trunk: Sartor Resartus, Virginibus Puerisque, Huckleberry Finn, and Afterwhiles. There were some other books in the trunk—a large one, which remained unremoved at the foot of the bed, adding to the general impression of transiency. It contained nearly all the possessions as well as the secret life of Bibbs Sheridan, and Bibbs sat beside it, the day after his interview with his father, raking over a small collection of manuscripts in the top tray. Some of these he glanced through dubiously, finding little comfort in them; but one made him smile. Then he shook his head ruefully indeed, and ruefully began to read it. It was written on paper stamped "Hood Sanitarium," and bore the title, "Leisure."

A man may keep a quiet heart at seventy miles an hour, but not if he is running the train. Nor is the habit of contemplation a useful quality in the stoker of a foundry furnace; it will not be found to recommend him to the approbation of his superiors. For a profession adapted solely to the pursuit of happiness in thinking, I would choose that of an invalid: his money is time and he may spend it on Olympus. It will not suffice to be an amateur invalid. To my way of thinking, the perfect practitioner must be to all outward purposes already dead if he is to begin the perfect enjoyment of life. His serenity must not be disturbed by rumors of recovery; he must lie serene in his long chair in the sunshine. The world must be on the other side of the wall, and the wall must be so thick and so high that he cannot hear the roaring of the furnace fires and the screaming of the whistles. Peace—

Having read so far as the word "peace," Bibbs suffered an interruption interesting as a coincidence of contrast. High voices sounded in the hall just outside his door; and it became evident that a woman's quarrel was in progress, the parties to it having begun it in Edith's room, and continuing it vehemently as they came out into the hall.

"Yes, you BETTER go home!" Bibbs heard his sister vociferating, shrilly. "You better go home and keep your mind a little more on your HUSBAND!"

"Edie, Edie!" he heard his mother remonstrating, as peacemaker.

"You see here!" This was Sibyl, and her voice was both acrid and tremulous. "Don't you talk to me that way! I came here to tell Mother Sheridan what I'd heard, and to let her tell Father Sheridan if she thought she ought to, and I did it for your own good."

"Yes, you did!" And Edith's gibing laughter tooted loudly. "Yes, you did! YOU didn't have any other reason! OH no! YOU don't want to break it up between Bobby Lamhorn and me because—"

"Edie, Edie! Now, now!"

"Oh, hush up, mamma! I'd like to know, then, if she says her new friends tell her he's got such a reputation that he oughtn't to come here, what about his not going to HER house. How—"

"I've explained that to Mother Sheridan." Sibyl's voice indicated that she was descending the stairs. "Married people are not the same. Some things that should be shielded from a young girl—"

This seemed to have no very soothing effect upon Edith. "'Shielded from a young girl'!" she shrilled. "You seem pretty willing to be the shield! You look out Roscoe doesn't notice what kind of a shield you are!"

Sibyl's answer was inaudible, but Mrs. Sheridan's flurried attempts at pacification were renewed. "Now, Edie, Edie, she means it for your good, and you'd oughtn't to—"

"Oh, hush up, mamma, and let me alone! If you dare tell papa—"

"Now, now! I'm not going to tell him to-day, and maybe—"

"You've got to promise NEVER to tell him!" the girl cried, passionately.

"Well, we'll see. You just come back in your own room, and we'll—"

"No! I WON'T 'talk it over'! Stop pulling me! Let me ALONE!" And Edith, flinging herself violently upon Bibbs's door, jerked it open, swung round it into the room, slammed the door behind her, and threw herself, face down, upon the bed in such a riot of emotion that she had no perception of Bibbs's presence in the room. Gasping and sobbing in a passion of tears, she beat the coverlet and pillows with her clenched fists. "Sneak!" she babbled aloud. "Sneak! Snake-in-the-grass! Cat!"

Bibbs saw that she did not know he was there, and he went softly toward the door, hoping to get away before she became aware of him; but some sound of his movement reached her, and she sat up, startled, facing him.

"Bibbs! I thought I saw you go out awhile ago."

"Yes. I came back, though. I'm sorry—"

"Did you hear me quarreling with Sibyl?"

"Only what you said in the hall. You lie down again, Edith. I'm going out."

"No; don't go." She applied a handkerchief to her eyes, emitted a sob, and repeated her request. "Don't go. I don't mind you; you're quiet, anyhow. Mamma's so fussy, and never gets anywhere. I don't mind you at all, but I wish you'd sit down."

"All right." And he returned to his chair beside the trunk. "Go ahead and cry all you want, Edith," he said. "No harm in that!"

"Sibyl told mamma—OH!" she began, choking. "Mary Vertrees had mamma and Sibyl and I to tea, one afternoon two weeks or so ago, and she had some women there that Sibyl's been crazy to get in with, and she just laid herself out to make a hit with 'em, and she's been running after 'em ever since, and now she comes over here and says THEY say Bobby Lamhorn is so bad that, even though they like his family, none of the nice people in town would let him in their houses. In the first place, it's a falsehood, and I don't believe a word of it; and in the second place I know the reason she did it, and, what's more, she KNOWS I know it! I won't SAY what it is—not yet—because papa and all of you would think I'm as crazy as she is snaky; and Roscoe's such a fool he'd probably quit speaking to me. But it's true! Just you watch her; that's all I ask. Just you watch that woman. You'll see!"

As it happened, Bibbs was literally watching "that woman." Glancing from the window, he saw Sibyl pause upon the pavement in front of the old house next door. She stood a moment, in deep thought, then walked quickly up the path to the door, undoubtedly with the intention of calling. But he did not mention this to his sister, who, after delivering herself of a rather vague jeremiad upon the subject of her sister-in-law's treacheries, departed to her own chamber, leaving him to his speculations. The chief of these concerned the social elasticities of women. Sibyl had just been a participant in a violent scene; she had suffered hot insult of a kind that could not fail to set her quivering with resentment; and yet she elected to betake herself to the presence of people whom she knew no more than "formally." Bibbs marveled. Surely, he reflected, some traces of emotion must linger upon Sibyl's face or in her manner; she could not have ironed it all quite out in the three or four minutes it took her to reach the Vertreeses' door.

And in this he was not mistaken, for Mary Vertrees was at that moment wondering what internal excitement Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan was striving to master. But Sibyl had no idea that she was allowing herself to exhibit anything except the gaiety which she conceived proper to the manner of a casual caller. She was wholly intent upon fulfilling the sudden purpose that brought her, and she was no more self-conscious than she was finely intelligent. For Sibyl Sheridan belonged to a type Scriptural in its antiquity. She was merely the idle and half-educated intriguer who may and does delude men, of course, and the best and dullest of her own sex as well, finding invariably strong supporters among these latter. It is a type that has wrought some damage in the world and would have wrought greater, save for the check put upon its power by intelligent women and by its own "lack of perspective," for it is a type that never sees itself. Sibyl followed her impulses with no reflection or question—it was like a hound on the gallop after a master on horseback. She had not even the instinct to stop and consider her effect. If she wished to make a certain impression she believed that she made it. She believed that she was believed.

"My mother asked me to say that she was sorry she couldn't come down," Mary said, when they were seated.

Sibyl ran the scale of a cooing simulance of laughter, which she had been brought up to consider the polite thing to do after a remark addressed to her by any person with whom she was not on familiar terms. It was intended partly as a courtesy and partly as the foundation for an impression of sweetness.

"Just thought I'd fly in a minute," she said, continuing the cooing to relieve the last doubt of her gentiality. "I thought I'd just behave like REAL country neighbors. We are almost out in the country, so far from down-town, aren't we? And it seemed such a LOVELY day! I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed meeting those nice people at tea that afternoon. You see, coming here a bride and never having lived here before, I've had to depend on my husband's friends almost entirely, and I really've known scarcely anybody. Mr. Sheridan has been so engrossed in business ever since he was a mere boy, why, of course—"

She paused, with the air of having completed an explanation.

"Of course," said Mary, sympathetically accepting it.

"Yes. I've been seeing quite a lot of the Kittersbys since that afternoon," Sibyl went on. "They're really delightful people. Indeed they are! Yes—"

She stopped with unconscious abruptness, her mind plainly wandering to another matter; and Mary perceived that she had come upon a definite errand. Moreover, a tensing of Sibyl's eyelids, in that moment of abstraction as she looked aside from her hostess, indicated that the errand was a serious one for the caller and easily to be connected with the slight but perceptible agitation underlying her assumption of cheerful ease. There was a restlessness of breathing, a restlessness of hands.

"Mrs. Kittersby and her daughter were chatting about some to the people here in town the other day," said Sibyl, repeating the cooing and protracting it. "They said something that took ME by surprise! We were talking about our mutual friend, Mr. Robert Lamhorn—"

Mary interrupted her promptly. "Do you mean 'mutual' to include my mother and me?" she asked.

"Why, yes; the Kittersbys and you and all of us Sheridans, I mean."

"No," said Mary. "We shouldn't consider Mr. Robert Lamhorn a friend of ours."

To her surprise, Sibyl nodded eagerly, as if greatly pleased. "That's just the way Mrs. Kittersby talked!" she cried, with a vehemence that made Mary stare. "Yes, and I hear that's the way ALL you old families here speak of him!"

Mary looked aside, but otherwise she was able to maintain her composure. "I had the impression he was a friend of yours," she said; adding, hastily, "and your husband's."

"Oh yes," said the caller, absently. "He is, certainly. A man's reputation for a little gaiety oughtn't to make a great difference to married people, of course. It's where young girls are in question. THEN it may be very, very dangerous. There are a great many things safe and proper for married people that might be awf'ly imprudent for a young girl. Don't you agree, Miss Vertrees?"

"I don't know," returned the frank Mary. "Do you mean that you intend to remain a friend of Mr. Lamhorn's, but disapprove of Miss Sheridan's doing so?"

"That's it exactly!" was the naive and ardent response of Sibyl. "What I feel about it is that a man with his reputation isn't at all suitable for Edith, and the family ought to be made to understand it. I tell you," she cried, with a sudden access of vehemence, "her father ought to put his foot down!"

Her eyes flashed with a green spark; something seemed to leap out and then retreat, but not before Mary had caught a glimpse of it, as one might catch a glimpse of a thing darting forth and then scuttling back into hiding under a bush.

"Of course," said Sibyl, much more composedly, "I hardly need say that it's entirely on Edith's account that I'm worried about this. I'm as fond of Edith as if she was really my sister, and I can't help fretting about it. It would break my heart to have Edith's life spoiled."

This tune was off the key, to Mary's ear. Sibyl tried to sing with pathos, but she flatted.

And when a lady receives a call from another who suffers under the stress of some feeling which she wishes to conceal, there is not uncommonly developed a phenomenon of duality comparable to the effect obtained by placing two mirrors opposite each other, one clear and the other flawed. In this case, particularly, Sibyl had an imperfect consciousness of Mary. The Mary Vertrees that she saw was merely something to be cozened to her own frantic purpose—a Mary Vertrees who was incapable of penetrating that purpose. Sibyl sat there believing that she was projecting the image of herself that she desired to project, never dreaming that with every word, every look, and every gesture she was more and more fully disclosing the pitiable truth to the clear eyes of Mary. And the Sibyl that Mary saw was an overdressed woman, in manner half rustic, and in mind as shallow as a pan, but possessed by emotions that appeared to be strong—perhaps even violent. What those emotions were Mary had not guessed, but she began to suspect.

"And Edith's life WOULD be spoiled," Sibyl continued. "It would be a dreadful thing for the whole family. She's the very apple of Father Sheridan's eye, and he's as proud of her as he is of Jim and Roscoe. It would be a horrible thing for him to have her marry a man like Robert Lamhorn; but he doesn't KNOW anything about him, and if somebody doesn't tell him, what I'm most afraid of is that Edith might get his consent and hurry on the wedding before he finds out, and then it would be too late. You see, Miss Vertrees, it's very difficult for me to decide just what it's my duty to do."

"I see," said Mary, looking at her thoughtfully, "Does Miss Sheridan seem to—to care very much about him?"

"He's deliberately fascinated her," returned the visitor, beginning to breathe quickly and heavily. "Oh, she wasn't difficult! She knew she wasn't in right in this town, and she was crazy to meet the people that were, and she thought he was one of 'em. But that was only the start that made it easy for him—and he didn't need it. He could have done it, anyway!" Sibyl was launched now; her eyes were furious and her voice shook. "He went after her deliberately, the way he does everything; he's as cold-blooded as a fish. All he cares about is his own pleasure, and lately he's decided it would be pleasant to get hold of a piece of real money—and there was Edith! And he'll marry her! Nothing on earth can stop him unless he finds out she won't HAVE any money if she marries him, and the only person that could make him understand that is Father Sheridan. Somehow, that's got to be managed, because Lamhorn is going to hurry it on as fast as he can. He told me so last night. He said he was going to marry her the first minute he could persuade her to it—and little Edith's all ready to be persuaded!" Sibyl's eyes flashed green again. "And he swore he'd do it," she panted. "He swore he'd marry Edith Sheridan, and nothing on earth could stop him!"

And then Mary understood. Her lips parted and she stared at the babbling creature incredulously, a sudden vivid picture in her mind, a canvas of unconscious Sibyl's painting. Mary beheld it with pity and horror: she saw Sibyl clinging to Robert Lamhorn, raging, in a whisper, perhaps—for Roscoe might have been in the house, or servants might have heard. She saw Sibyl entreating, beseeching, threatening despairingly, and Lamhorn—tired of her—first evasive, then brutally letting her have the truth; and at last, infuriated, "swearing" to marry her rival. If Sibyl had not babbled out the word "swore" it might have been less plain.

The poor woman blundered on, wholly unaware of what she had confessed. "You see," she said, more quietly, "whatever's going to be done ought to be done right away. I went over and told Mother Sheridan what I'd heard about Lamhorn—oh, I was open and aboveboard! I told her right before Edith. I think it ought all to be done with perfect frankness, because nobody can say it isn't for the girl's own good and what her best friend would do. But Mother Sheridan's under Edith's thumb, and she's afraid to ever come right out with anything. Father Sheridan's different. Edith can get anything she wants out of him in the way of money or ordinary indulgence, but when it comes to a matter like this he'd be a steel rock. If it's a question of his will against anybody else's he'd make his will rule if it killed 'em both! Now, he'd never in the world let Lamhorn come near the house again if he knew his reputation. So, you see, somebody's got to tell him. It isn't a very easy position for me, is it, Miss Vertrees?"

"No," said Mary, gravely.

"Well, to be frank," said Sibyl, smiling, "that's why I've come to you."

"To ME!" Mary frowned.

Sibyl rippled and cooed again. "There isn't ANYBODY ever made such a hit with Father Sheridan in his life as you have. And of course we ALL hope you're not going to be exactly an outsider in the affairs of the family!" (This sally with another and louder effect of laughter). "And if it's MY duty, why, in a way, I think it might be thought yours, too."

"No, no!" exclaimed Mary, sharply.

"Listen," said Sibyl. "Now suppose I go to Father Sheridan with this story, and Edith says it's not true; suppose she says Lamhorn has a good reputation and that I'm repeating irresponsible gossip, or suppose (what's most likely) she loses her temper and says I invented it, then what am I going to do? Father Sheridan doesn't know Mrs. Kittersby and her daughter, and they're out of the question, anyway. But suppose I could say: 'All right, if you want proof, ask Miss Vertrees. She came with me, and she's waiting in the next room right now, to—"

"No, no," said Mary, quickly. "You mustn't—"

"Listen just a minute more," Sibyl urged, confidingly. She was on easy ground now, to her own mind, and had no doubt of her success. "You naturally don't want to begin by taking part in a family quarrel, but if YOU take part in it, it won't be one. You don't know yourself what weight you carry over there, and no one would have the right to say you did it except out of the purest kindness. Don't you see that Jim and his father would admire you all the more for it? Miss Vertrees, listen! Don't you see we OUGHT to do it, you and I? Do you suppose Robert Lamhorn cares a snap of his finger for her? Do you suppose a man like him would LOOK at Edith Sheridan if it wasn't for the money?" And again Sibyl's emotion rose to the surface. "I tell you he's after nothing on earth but to get his finger in that old man's money-pile, over there, next door! He'd marry ANYBODY to do it. Marry Edith?" she cried. "I tell you he'd marry their nigger cook for THAT!"

She stopped, afraid—at the wrong time—that she had been too vehement, but a glance at Mary reassured her, and Sibyl decided that she had produced the effect she wished. Mary was not looking at her; she was staring straight before her at the wall, her eyes wide and shining. She became visibly a little paler as Sibyl looked at her.

"After nothing on earth but to get his finger in that old man's money-pile, over there, next door!" The voice was vulgar, the words were vulgar—and the plain truth was vulgar! How it rang in Mary Vertrees's ears! The clear mirror had caught its own image clearly in the flawed one at last.

Sibyl put forth her best bid to clench the matter. She offered her bargain. "Now don't you worry," she said, sunnily, "about this setting Edith against you. She'll get over it after a while, anyway, but if she tried to be spiteful and make it uncomfortable for you when you drop in over there, or managed so as to sort of leave you out, why, I've got a house, and Jim likes to come there. I don't THINK Edith WOULD be that way; she's too crazy to have you take her around with the smart crowd, but if she DID, you needn't worry. And another thing—I guess you won't mind Jim's own sister-in-law speaking of it. Of course, I don't know just how matters stand between you and Jim, but Jim and Roscoe are about as much alike as two brothers can be, and Roscoe was very slow making up his mind; sometimes I used to think he actually never WOULD. Now, what I mean is, sisters-in-law can do lots of things to help matters on like that. There's lots of little things can be said, and lots—"

She stopped, puzzled. Mary Vertrees had gone from pale to scarlet, and now, still scarlet indeed, she rose, without a word of explanation, or any other kind of word, and walked slowly to the open door and out of the room.

Sibyl was a little taken aback. She supposed Mary had remembered something neglected and necessary for the instruction of a servant, and that she would return in a moment; but it was rather a rude excess of absent-mindedness not to have excused herself, especially as her guest was talking. And, Mary's return being delayed, Sibyl found time to think this unprefaced exit odder and ruder than she had first considered it. There might have been more excuse for it, she thought, had she been speaking of matters less important—offering to do the girl all the kindness in her power, too!

Sibyl yawned and swung her muff impatiently; she examined the sole of her shoe; she decided on a new shape of heel; she made an inventory of the furniture of the room, of the rugs, of the wall-paper and engravings. Then she looked at her watch and frowned; went to a window and stood looking out upon the brown lawn, then came back to the chair she had abandoned, and sat again. There was no sound in the house.

A strange expression began imperceptibly to alter the planes of her face, and slowly she grew as scarlet as Mary—scarlet to the ears. She looked at her watch again—and twenty-five minutes had elapsed since she had looked at it before.

She went into the hall, glanced over her shoulder oddly; then she let herself softly out of the front door, and went across the street to her own house.

Roscoe met her upon the threshold, gloomily. "Saw you from the window," he explained. "You must find a lot to say to that old lady."

"What old lady?"

"Mrs. Vertrees. I been waiting for you a long time, and I saw the daughter come out, fifteen minutes ago, and post a letter, and then walk on up the street. Don't stand out on the porch," he said, crossly. "Come in here. There's something it's come time I'll have to talk to you about. Come in!"

But as she was moving to obey he glanced across at his father's house and started. He lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun, staring fixedly. "Something's the matter over there," he muttered, and then, more loudly, as alarm came into his voice, he said, "What's the matter over there?"

Bibbs dashed out of the gate in an automobile set at its highest speed, and as he saw Roscoe he made a gesture singularly eloquent of calamity, and was lost at once in a cloud of dust down the street. Edith had followed part of the way down the drive, and it could be seen that she was crying bitterly. She lifted both arms to Roscoe, summoning him.

"By George!" gasped Roscoe. "I believe somebody's dead!"

And he started for the New House at a run.



CHAPTER XI

Sheridan had decided to conclude his day's work early that afternoon, and at about two o'clock he left his office with a man of affairs from foreign parts, who had traveled far for a business conference with Sheridan and his colleagues. Herr Favre, in spite of his French name, was a gentleman of Bavaria. It was his first visit to our country, and Sheridan took pleasure in showing him the sights of the country's finest city. They got into an open car at the main entrance of the Sheridan Building, and were driven first, slowly and momentously, through the wholesale district and the retail district; then more rapidly they inspected the packing-houses and the stock-yards; then skirmished over the "park system" and "boulevards"; and after that whizzed through the "residence section" on their way to the factories and foundries.

"All cray," observed Herr Favre, smilingly.

"'Cray'?" echoed Sheridan. "I don't know what you mean. 'Cray'?"

"No white," said Herr Favre, with a wave of his hand toward the long rows of houses on both sides of the street. "No white lace window-curtains; all cray lace window-curtains."

"Oh. I see!" Sheridan laughed indulgently. "You mean 'GRAY.' No, they ain't, they're white. I never saw any gray ones."

Herr Favre shook his head, much amused. "There are NO white ones," he said. "There is no white ANYTHING in your city; no white window-curtains, no white house, no white peeble!" He pointed upward. "Smoke!" Then he sniffed the air and clasped his nose between forefinger and thumb. "Smoke! Smoke ef'rywhere. Smoke in your insites." He tapped his chest. "Smoke in your lunks!"

"Oh! SMOKE!" Sheridan cried with gusto, drawing in a deep breath and patently finding it delicious. "You BET we got smoke!"

"Exbensif!" said Herr Favre. "Ruins foliage; ruins fabrics. Maybe in summer it iss not so bad, but I wonder your wifes will bear it."

Sheridan laughed uproariously. "They know it means new spring hats for 'em!"

"They must need many, too!" said the visitor. "New hats, new all things, but nothing white. In Munchen we could not do it; we are a safing peeble."

"Where's that?"

"In Munchen. You say 'Munich.'"

"Well, I never been to Munich, but I took in the Mediterranean trip, and I tell you, outside o' some right good scenery, all I saw was mighty dirty and mighty shiftless and mighty run-down at the heel. Now comin' right down TO it, Mr. Farver, wouldn't you rather live here in this town than in Munich? I know you got more enterprise up there than the part of the old country I saw, and I know YOU'RE a live business man and you're associated with others like you, but when it comes to LIVIN' in a place, wouldn't you heap rather be here than over there?"

"For me," said Herr Favre, "no. Here I should not think I was living. It would be like the miner who goes into the mine to work; nothing else."

"We got a good many good citizens here from your part o' the world. THEY like it."

"Oh yes." And Herr Favre laughed deprecatingly. "The first generation, they bring their Germany with them; then, after that, they are Americans, like you." He tapped his host's big knee genially. "You are patriot; so are they."

"Well, I reckon you must be a pretty hot little patriot yourself, Mr. Farver!" Sheridan exclaimed, gaily. "You certainly stand up for your own town, if you stick to sayin' you'd rather live there than you would here. Yes, SIR! You sure are some patriot to say THAT—after you've seen our city! It ain't reasonable in you, but I must say I kind of admire you for it; every man ought to stick up for his own, even when he sees the other fellow's got the goods on him. Yet I expect way down deep in your heart, Mr. Farver, you'd rather live right here than any place else in the world, if you had your choice. Man alive! this is God's country, Mr. Farver, and a blind man couldn't help seein' it! You couldn't stand where you do in a business way and NOT see it. Soho, boy! Here we are. This is the big works, and I'll show you something now that'll make your eyes stick out!"

They had arrived at the Pump Works; and for an hour Mr. Favre was personally conducted and personally instructed by the founder and president, the buzzing queen bee of those buzzing hives.

"Now I'll take you for a spin in the country," said Sheridan, when at last they came out to the car again. "We'll take a breezer." But, with his foot on the step, he paused to hail a neat young man who came out of the office smiling a greeting. "Hello, young fellow!" Sheridan said, heartily. "On the job, are you, Jimmie? Ha! They don't catch you OFF of it very often, I guess, though I do hear you go automobile-ridin' in the country sometimes with a mighty fine-lookin' girl settin' up beside you!" He roared with laughter, clapping his son upon the shoulder. "That's all right with me—if it is with HER! So, Jimmie? Well, when we goin' to move into your new warehouses? Monday?"

"Sunday, if you want to," said Jim.

"No!" cried his father, delighted. "Don't tell me you're goin' to keep your word about dates! That's no way to do contractin'! Never heard of a contractor yet didn't want more time."

"They'll be all ready for you on the minute," said Jim. "I'm going over both of 'em now, with Links and Sherman, from foundation to roof. I guess they'll pass inspection, too!"

"Well, then, when you get through with that," said his father, "you go and take your girl out ridin'. By George! you've earned it! You tell her you stand high with ME!" He stepped into the car, waving a waggish farewell, and when the wheels were in motion again, he turned upon his companion a broad face literally shining with pride. "That's my boy Jimmie!" he said.

"Fine young man, yes," said Herr Favre.

"I got two o' the finest boys," said Sheridan, "I got two o' the finest boys God ever made, and that's a fact, Mr. Farver! Jim's the oldest, and I tell you they got to get up the day before if they expect to catch HIM in bed! My other boy, Roscoe, he's always to the good, too, but Jim's a wizard. You saw them two new-process warehouses, just about finished? Well, JIM built 'em. I'll tell you about that, Mr. Farver." And he recited this history, describing the new process at length; in fact, he had such pride in Jim's achievement that he told Herr Favre all about it more than once.

"Fine young man, yes," repeated the good Munchner, three-quarters of an hour later. They were many miles out in the open country by this time.

"He is that!" said Sheridan, adding, as if confidentially: "I got a fine family, Mr. Farver—fine chuldern. I got a daughter now; you take her and put her anywhere you please, and she'll shine up with ANY of 'em. There's culture and refinement and society in this town by the car-load, and here lately she's been gettin' right in the thick of it—her and my daughter-in-law, both. I got a mighty fine daughter-in-law, Mr. Farver. I'm goin' to get you up for a meal with us before you leave town, and you'll see—and, well, sir, from all I hear the two of 'em been holdin' their own with the best. Myself, I and the wife never had time for much o' that kind o' doin's, but it's all right and good for the chuldern; and my daughter she's always kind of taken to it. I'll read you a poem she wrote when I get you up at the house. She wrote it in school and took the first prize for poetry with it. I tell you they don't make 'em any smarter'n that girl, Mr. Farver. Yes, sir; take us all round, we're a pretty happy family; yes, sir. Roscoe hasn't got any chuldern yet, and I haven't ever spoke to him and his wife about it—it's kind of a delicate matter—but it's about time the wife and I saw some gran'-chuldern growin' up around us. I certainly do hanker for about four or five little curly-headed rascals to take on my knee. Boys, I hope, o' course; that's only natural. Jim's got his eye on a mighty splendid-lookin' girl; lives right next door to us. I expect you heard me joshin' him about it back yonder. She's one of the ole blue-bloods here, and I guess it was a mighty good stock—to raise HER! She's one these girls that stand right up and look at you! And pretty? She's the prettiest thing you ever saw! Good size, too; good health and good sense. Jim'll be just right if he gets her. I must say it tickles ME to think o' the way that boy took ahold o' that job back yonder. Four months and a half! Yes, sir—"

He expanded this theme once more; and thus he continued to entertain the stranger throughout the long drive. Darkness had fallen before they reached the city on their return, and it was after five when Sheridan allowed Herr Favre to descend at the door of his hotel, where boys were shrieking extra editions of the evening paper.

"Now, good night, Mr. Farver," said Sheridan, leaning from the car to shake hands with his guest. "Don't forget I'm goin' to come around and take you up to—Go on away, boy!"

A newsboy had thrust himself almost between them, yelling, "Extry! Secon' Extry. Extry, all about the horrable acciDENT. Extry!"

"Get out!" laughed Sheridan. "Who wants to read about accidents? Get out!"

The boy moved away philosophically. "Extry! Extry!" he shrilled. "Three men killed! Extry! Millionaire killed! Two other men killed! Extry! Extry!"

"Don't forget, Mr. Farver," Sheridan completed his interrupted farewells. "I'll come by to take you up to our house for dinner. I'll be here for you about half-past five to-morrow afternoon. Hope you 'njoyed the drive much as I have. Good night—good night!" He leaned back, speaking to the chauffer. "Now you can take me around to the Central City barber-shop, boy. I want to get a shave 'fore I go up home."

"Extry! Extry!" screamed the newsboys, zig-zagging among the crowds like bats in the dusk. "Extry! All about the horrable acciDENT! Extry!" It struck Sheridan that the papers sent out too many "Extras"; they printed "Extras" for all sorts of petty crimes and casualties. It was a mistake, he decided, critically. Crying "Wolf!" too often wouldn't sell the goods; it was bad business. The papers would "make more in the long run," he was sure, if they published an "Extra" only when something of real importance happened.

"Extry! All about the hor'ble AX'nt! Extry!" a boy squawked under his nose, as he descended from the car.

"Go on away!" said Sheridan, gruffly, though he smiled. He liked to see the youngsters working so noisily to get on in the world.

But as he crossed the pavement to the brilliant glass doors of the barber-shop, a second newsboy grasped the arm of the one who had thus cried his wares.

"Say, Yallern," said this second, hoarse with awe, "'n't chew know who that IS?"

"Who?"

"It's SHERIDAN!"

"Jeest!" cried the first, staring insanely.

At about the same hour, four times a week—Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday—Sheridan stopped at this shop to be shaved by the head barber. The barbers were negroes, he was their great man, and it was their habit to give him a "reception," his entrance being always the signal for a flurry of jocular hospitality, followed by general excesses of briskness and gaiety. But it was not so this evening.

The shop was crowded. Copies of the "Extra" were being read by men waiting, and by men in the latter stages of treatment. "Extras" lay upon vacant seats and showed from the pockets of hanging coats.

There was a loud chatter between the practitioners and their recumbent patients, a vocal charivari which stopped abruptly as Sheridan opened the door. His name seemed to fizz in the air like the last sputtering of a firework; the barbers stopped shaving and clipping; lathered men turned their prostrate heads to stare, and there was a moment of amazing silence in the shop.

The head barber, nearest the door, stood like a barber in a tableau. His left hand held stretched between thumb and forefinger an elastic section of his helpless customer's cheek, while his right hand hung poised above it, the razor motionless. And then, roused from trance by the door's closing, he accepted the fact of Sheridan's presence. The barber remembered that there are no circumstances in life—or just after it—under which a man does not need to be shaved.

He stepped forward, profoundly grave. "I be through with this man in the chair one minute, Mist' Sheridan," he said, in a hushed tone. "Yessuh." And of a solemn negro youth who stood by, gazing stupidly, "You goin' RESIGN?" he demanded in a fierce undertone. "You goin' take Mist' Sheridan's coat?" He sent an angry look round the shop, and the barbers, taking his meaning, averted their eyes and fell to work, the murmur of subdued conversation buzzing from chair to chair.

"You sit down ONE minute, Mist' Sheridan," said the head barber, gently. "I fix nice chair fo' you to wait in."

"Never mind," said Sheridan. "Go on get through with your man."

"Yessuh." And he went quickly back to his chair on tiptoe, followed by Sheridan's puzzled gaze.

Something had gone wrong in the shop, evidently. Sheridan did not know what to make of it. Ordinarily he would have shouted a hilarious demand for the meaning of the mystery, but an inexplicable silence had been imposed upon him by the hush that fell upon his entrance and by the odd look every man in the shop had bent upon him.

Vaguely disquieted, he walked to one of the seats in the rear of the shop, and looked up and down the two lines of barbers, catching quickly shifted, furtive glances here and there. He made this brief survey after wondering if one of the barbers had died suddenly, that day, or the night before; but there was no vacancy in either line.

The seat next to his was unoccupied, but some one had left a copy of the "Extra" there, and, frowning, he picked it up and glanced at it. The first of the swollen display lines had little meaning to him:

Fatally Faulty. New Process Roof Collapses Hurling Capitalist to Death with Inventor. Seven Escape When Crash Comes. Death Claims—

Thus far had he read when a thin hand fell upon the paper, covering the print from his eyes; and, looking up, he saw Bibbs standing before him, pale and gentle, immeasurably compassionate.

"I've come for you, father," said Bibbs. "Here's the boy with your coat and hat. Put them on and come home."

And even then Sheridan did not understand. So secure was he in the strength and bigness of everything that was his, he did not know what calamity had befallen him. But he was frightened.

Without a word, he followed Bibbs heavily out throught the still shop, but as they reached the pavement he stopped short and, grasping his son's sleeve with shaking fingers, swung him round so that they stood face to face.

"What—what—" His mouth could not do him the service he asked of it, he was so frightened.

"Extry!" screamed a newsboy straight in his face. "Young North Side millionaire insuntly killed! Extry!"

"Not—JIM!" said Sheridan.

Bibbs caught his father's hand in his own.

"And YOU come to tell me that?"

Sheridan did not know what he said. But in those first words and in the first anguish of the big, stricken face Bibbs understood the unuttered cry of accusation:

"Why wasn't it you?"



CHAPTER XII

Standing in the black group under gaunt trees at the cemetery, three days later, Bibbs unwillingly let an old, old thought become definite in his mind: the sickly brother had buried the strong brother, and Bibbs wondered how many million times that had happened since men first made a word to name the sons of one mother. Almost literally he had buried his strong brother, for Sheridan had gone to pieces when he saw his dead son. He had nothing to help him meet the shock, neither definite religion nor "philosophy" definite or indefinite. He could only beat his forehead and beg, over and over, to be killed with an ax, while his wife was helpless except to entreat him not to "take on," herself adding a continuous lamentation. Edith, weeping, made truce with Sibyl and saw to it that the mourning garments were beyond criticism. Roscoe was dazed, and he shirked, justifying himself curiously by saying he "never had any experience in such matters." So it was Bibbs, the shy outsider, who became, during this dreadful little time, the master of the house; for as strange a thing as that, sometimes, may be the result of a death. He met the relatives from out of town at the station; he set the time for the funeral and the time for meals; he selected the flowers and he selected Jim's coffin; he did all the grim things and all the other things. Jim had belonged to an order of Knights, who lengthened the rites with a picturesque ceremony of their own, and at first Bibbs wished to avoid this, but upon reflection he offered no objection—he divined that the Knights and their service would be not precisely a consolation, but a satisfaction to his father. So the Knights led the procession, with their band playing a dirge part of the long way to the cemetery; and then turned back, after forming in two lines, plumed hats sympathetically in hand, to let the hearse and the carriages pass between.

"Mighty fine-lookin' men," said Sheridan, brokenly. "They all—all liked him. He was—" His breath caught in a sob and choked him. "He was—a Grand Supreme Herald."

Bibbs had divined aright.

"Dust to dust," said the minister, under the gaunt trees; and at that Sheridan shook convulsively from head to foot. All of the black group shivered, except Bibbs, when it came to "Dust to dust." Bibbs stood passive, for he was the only one of them who had known that thought as a familiar neighbor; he had been close upon dust himself for a long, long time, and even now he could prophesy no protracted separation between himself and dust. The machine-shop had brought him very close, and if he had to go back it would probably bring him closer still; so close—as Dr. Gurney predicted—that no one would be able to tell the difference between dust and himself. And Sheridan, if Bibbs read him truly, would be all the more determined to "make a man" of him, now that there was a man less in the family. To Bibbs's knowledge, no one and nothing had ever prevented his father from carrying through his plans, once he had determined upon them; and Sheridan was incapable of believing that any plan of his would not work out according to his calculations. His nature unfitted him to accept failure. He had the gift of terrible persistence, and with unflecked confidence that his way was the only way he would hold to that way of "making a man" of Bibbs, who understood very well, in his passive and impersonal fashion, that it was a way which might make, not a man, but dust of him. But he had no shudder for the thought.

He had no shudder for that thought or for any other thought. The truth about Bibbs was in the poem which Edith had adopted: he had so thoroughly formed the over-sensitive habit of hiding his feelings that no doubt he had forgotten—by this time—where he had put some of them, especially those which concerned himself. But he had not hidden his feelings about his father where they could not be found. He was strange to his father, but his father was not strange to him. He knew that Sheridan's plans were conceived in the stubborn belief that they would bring about a good thing for Bibbs himself; and whatever the result was to be, the son had no bitterness. Far otherwise, for as he looked at the big, woeful figure, shaking and tortured, an almost unbearable pity laid hands upon Bibbs's throat. Roscoe stood blinking, his lip quivering; Edith wept audibly; Mrs. Sheridan leaned in half collapse against her husband; but Bibbs knew that his father was the one who cared.

It was over. Men in overalls stepped forward with their shovels, and Bibbs nodded quickly to Roscoe, making a slight gesture toward the line of waiting carriages. Roscoe understood—Bibbs would stay and see the grave filled; the rest were to go. The groups began to move away over the turf; wheels creaked on the graveled drive; and one by one the carriages filled and departed, the horses setting off at a walk. Bibbs gazed steadfastly at the workmen; he knew that his father kept looking back as he went toward the carriage, and that was a thing he did not want to see. But after a little while there were no sounds of wheels or hoofs on the gravel, and Bibbs, glancing up, saw that every one had gone. A coupe had been left for him, the driver dozing patiently.

The workmen placed the flowers and wreaths upon the mound and about it, and Bibbs altered the position of one or two of these, then stood looking thoughtfully at the grotesque brilliancy of that festal-seeming hillock beneath the darkening November sky. "It's too bad!" he half whispered, his lips forming the words—and his meaning was that it was too bad that the strong brother had been the one to go. For this was his last thought before he walked to the coupe and saw Mary Vertrees standing, all alone, on the other side of the drive.

She had just emerged from a grove of leafless trees that grew on a slope where the tombs were many; and behind her rose a multitude of the barbaric and classic shapes we so strangely strew about our graveyards: urn-crowned columns and stone-draped obelisks, shop-carved angels and shop-carved children poising on pillars and shafts, all lifting—in unthought pathos—their blind stoniness toward the sky. Against such a background, Bibbs was not incongruous, with his figure, in black, so long and slender, and his face so long and thin and white; nor was the undertaker's coupe out of keeping, with the shabby driver dozing on the box and the shaggy horses standing patiently in attitudes without hope and without regret. But for Mary Vertrees, here was a grotesque setting—she was a vivid, living creature of a beautiful world. And a graveyard is not the place for people to look charming.

She also looked startled and confused, but not more startled and confused than Bibbs. In "Edith's" poem he had declared his intention of hiding his heart "among the stars"; and in his boyhood one day he had successfully hidden his body in the coal-pile. He had been no comrade of other boys or of girls, and his acquaintances of a recent period were only a few fellow-invalids and the nurses at the Hood Sanitarium. All his life Bibbs had kept himself to himself—he was but a shy onlooker in the world. Nevertheless, the startled gaze he bent upon the unexpected lady before him had causes other than his shyness and her unexpectedness. For Mary Vertrees had been a shining figure in the little world of late given to the view of this humble and elusive outsider, and spectators sometimes find their hearts beating faster than those of the actors in the spectacle. Thus with Bibbs now. He started and stared; he lifted his hat with incredible awkwardness, his fingers fumbling at his forehead before they found the brim.

"Mr. Sheridan," said Mary, "I'm afraid you'll have to take me home with you. I—" She stopped, not lacking a momentary awkwardness of her own.

"Why—why—yes," Bibbs stammered. "I'll—I'll be de—Won't you get in?"

In that manner and in that place they exchanged their first words. Then Mary without more ado got into the coupe, and Bibbs followed, closing the door.

"You're very kind," she said, somewhat breathlessly. "I should have had to walk, and it's beginning to get dark. It's three miles, I think."