"No. He don't look well. It ain't exactly the way he looked when he begun to get sick that time, but he kind o' seems to be losin', some way."

"Yes, he may 'a' lost something," said Sheridan. "I expect he's lost a whole lot o' foolishness besides his God-forsaken notions about writin' poetry and—"

"No," his wife persisted. "I mean he looks right peakid. And yesterday, when he was settin' with us, he kept lookin' out the window. He wasn't readin'."

"Well, why shouldn't he look out the window?"

"He was lookin' over there. He never read a word all afternoon, I don't believe."

"Look, here!" said Sheridan. "Bibbs might 'a' kept goin' on over there the rest of his life, moonin' on and on, but what he heard Sibyl say did one big thing, anyway. It woke him up out of his trance. Well, he had to go and bust clean out with a bang; and that stopped his goin' over there, and it stopped his poetry, but I reckon he's begun to get pretty fair pay for what he lost. I guess a good many young men have had to get over worries like his; they got to lose SOMETHING if they're goin' to keep ahead o' the procession nowadays—and it kind o' looks to me, mamma, like Bibbs might keep quite a considerable long way ahead. Why, a year from now I'll bet you he won't know there ever WAS such a thing as poetry! And ain't he funny? He wanted to stick to the shop so's he could 'think'! What he meant was, think about something useless. Well, I guess he's keepin' his mind pretty occupied the other way these days. Yes, sir, it took a pretty fair-sized shock to get him out of his trance, but it certainly did the business." He patted his wife's shoulder again, and then, without any prefatory symptoms, broke into a boisterous laugh.

"Honest, mamma, he works like a gorilla!"



CHAPTER XXI

And so Bibbs sat in the porch of the temple with the money-changers. But no one came to scourge him forth, for this was the temple of Bigness, and the changing of money was holy worship and true religion. The priests wore that "settish" look Bibbs's mother had seen beginning to develop about his mouth and eyes—a wary look which she could not define, but it comes with service at the temple; and it was the more marked upon Bibbs for his sharp awakening to the necessities of that service.

He did as little "useless" thinking as possible, giving himself no time for it. He worked continuously, keeping his thoughts still on his work when he came home at night; and he talked of nothing whatever except his work. But he did not sing at it. He was often in the streets, and people were not allowed to sing in the streets. They might make any manner of hideous uproar—they could shake buildings; they could out-thunder the thunder, deafen the deaf, and kill the sick with noise; or they could walk the streets or drive through them bawling, squawking, or screeching, as they chose, if the noise was traceably connected with business; though street musicians were not tolerated, being considered a nuisance and an interference. A man or woman who went singing for pleasure through the streets—like a crazy Neopolitan—would have been stopped, and belike locked up; for Freedom does not mean that a citizen is allowed to do every outrageous thing that comes into his head. The streets were dangerous enough, in all conscience, without any singing! and the Motor Federation issued public warnings declaring that the pedestrian's life was in his own hands, and giving directions how to proceed with the least peril. However, Bibbs Sheridan had no desire to sing in the streets, or anywhere. He had gone to his work with an energy that, for the start, at least, was bitter, and there was no song left in him.

He began to know his active fellow-citizens. Here and there among them he found a leisurely, kind soul, a relic of the old period of neighborliness, "pioneer stock," usually; and there were men—particularly among the merchants and manufacturers—"so honest they leaned backward"; reputations sometimes attested by stories of heroic sacrifices to honor; nor were there lacking some instances of generosity even nobler. Here and there, too, were book-men, in their little leisure; and, among the Germans, music-men. And these, with the others, worshiped Bigness and the growth, each man serving for his own sake and for what he could get out of it, but all united in their faith in the beneficence and glory of their god.

To almost all alike that service stood as the most important thing in life, except on occasion of some such vital, brief interregnum as the dangerous illness of a wife or child. In the way of "relaxation" some of the servers took golf; some took fishing; some took "shows"—a mixture of infantile and negroid humor, stockings, and tin music; some took an occasional debauch; some took trips; some took cards; and some took nothing. The high priests were vigilant to watch that no "relaxation" should affect the service. When a man attended to anything outside his business, eyes were upon him; his credit was in danger—that is, his life was in danger. And the old priests were as ardent as the young ones; the million was as eager to be bigger as the thousand; seventy was as busy as seventeen. They strove mightily against one another, and the old priests were the most wary, the most plausible, and the most dangerous. Bibbs learned he must walk charily among these—he must wear a thousand eyes and beware of spiders indeed!

And outside the temple itself were the pretenders, the swarming thieves and sharpers and fleecers, the sly rascals and the open rascals; but these were feeble folk, not dangerous once he knew them, and he had a good guide to point them out to him. They were useful sometimes, he learned, and many of them served as go-betweens in matters where business must touch politics. He learned also how breweries and "traction" companies and banks and other institutions fought one another for the political control of the city. The newspapers, he discovered, had lost their ancient political influence, especially with the knowing, who looked upon them with a skeptical humor, believing the journals either to be retained partisans, like lawyers, or else striving to forward the personal ambitions of their owners. The control of the city lay not with them, but was usually obtained by giving the hordes of negroes gin-money, and by other largesses. The revenues of the people were then distributed as fairly as possible among a great number of men who had assisted the winning side. Names and titles of offices went with many of the prizes, and most of these title-holders were expected to present a busy appearance at times; and, indeed, some among them did work honestly and faithfully.

Bibbs had been very ignorant. All these simple things, so well known and customary, astonished him at first, and once—in a brief moment of forgetting that he was done with writing—he thought that if he had known them and written of them, how like a satire the plainest relation of them must have seemed! Strangest of all to him was the vehement and sincere patriotism. On every side he heard it—it was a permeation; the newest school-child caught it, though just from Hungary and learning to stammer a few words of the local language. Everywhere the people shouted of the power, the size, the riches, and the growth of their city. Not only that, they said that the people of their city were the greatest, the "finest," the strongest, the Biggest people on earth. They cited no authorities, and felt the need of none, being themselves the people thus celebrated. And if the thing was questioned, or if it was hinted that there might be one small virtue in which they were not perfect and supreme, they wasted no time examining themselves to see if what the critic said was true, but fell upon him and hooted him and cursed him, for they were sensitive. So Bibbs, learning their ways and walking with them, harkened to the voice of the people and served Bigness with them. For the voice of the people is the voice of their god.

Sheridan had made the room next to his own into an office for Bibbs, and the door between the two rooms usually stood open—the father had established that intimacy. One morning in February, when Bibbs was alone, Sheridan came in, some sheets of typewritten memoranda in his hand.

"Bibbs," he said, "I don't like to butt in very often this way, and when I do I usually wish I hadn't—but for Heaven's sake what have you been buying that ole busted inter-traction stock for?"

Bibbs leaned back from his desk. "For eleven hundred and fifty-five dollars. That's all it cost."

"Well, it ain't worth eleven hundred and fifty-five cents. You ought to know that. I don't get your idea. That stuff's deader'n Adam's cat!"

"It might be worth something—some day."

"How?"

"It mightn't be so dead—not if we went into it," said Bibbs, coolly.

"Oh!" Sheridan considered this musingly; then he said, "Who'd you buy it from?"

"A broker—Fansmith."

"Well, he must 'a' got it from one o' the crowd o' poor ninnies that was soaked with it. Don't you know who owned it?"

"Yes, I do."

"Ain't sayin', though? That it? What's the matter?"

"It belonged to Mr. Vertrees," said Bibbs, shortly, applying himself to his desk.

"So!" Sheridan gazed down at his son's thin face. "Excuse me," he said. "Your business." And he went back to his own room. But presently he looked in again.

"I reckon you won't mind lunchin' alone to-day"—he was shuffling himself into his overcoat—"because I just thought I'd go up to the house and get THIS over with mamma." He glanced apologetically toward his right hand as it emerged from the sleeve of the overcoat. The bandages had been removed, finally, that morning, revealing but three fingers—the forefinger and the finger next to it had been amputated. "She's bound to make an awful fuss, and better to spoil her lunch than her dinner. I'll be back about two."

But he calculated the time of his arrival at the New House so accurately that Mrs. Sheridan's lunch was not disturbed, and she was rising from the lonely table when he came into the dining-room. He had left his overcoat in the hall, but he kept his hands in his trousers pockets.

"What's the matter, papa?" she asked, quickly. "Has anything gone wrong? You ain't sick?"

"Me!" He laughed loudly. "Me SICK?"

"You had lunch?"

"Didn't want any to-day. You can give me a cup o' coffee, though."

She rang, and told George to have coffee made, and when he had withdrawn she said querulously, "I just know there's something wrong."

"Nothin' in the world," he responded, heartily, taking a seat at the head of the table. "I thought I'd talk over a notion o' mine with you, that's all. It's more women-folks' business than what it is man's, anyhow."

"What about?"

"Why, ole Doc Gurney was up at the office this morning awhile—"

"To look at your hand? How's he say it's doin'?"

"Fine! Well, he went in and sat around with Bibbs awhile—"

Mrs. Sheridan nodded pessimistically. "I guess it's time you had him, too. I KNEW Bibbs—"

"Now, mamma, hold your horses! I wanted him to look Bibbs over BEFORE anything's the matter. You don't suppose I'm goin' to take any chances with BIBBS, do you? Well, afterwards, I shut the door, and I an' ole Gurney had a talk. He's a mighty disagreeable man; he rubbed it in on me what he said about Bibbs havin' brains if he ever woke up. Then I thought he must want to get something out o' me, he go so flattering—for a minute! 'Bibbs couldn't help havin' business brains,' he says, 'bein' YOUR son. Don't be surprised,' he says—'don't be surprised at his makin' a success,' he says. 'He couldn't get over his heredity; he couldn't HELP bein' a business success—once you got him into it. It's in his blood. Yes, sir' he says, 'it doesn't need MUCH brains,' he says, 'an only third-rate brains, at that,' he says, 'but it does need a special KIND o' brains,' he says, 'to be a millionaire. I mean,' he says, 'when a man's given a start. If nobody gives him a start, why, course he's got to have luck AND the right kind o' brains. The only miracle about Bibbs,' he says, 'is where he got the OTHER kind o' brains—the brains you made him quit usin' and throw away.'"

"But what'd he say about his health?" Mrs. Sheridan demanded, impatiently, as George placed a cup of coffee before her husband. Sheridan helped himself to cream and sugar, and began to sip the coffee.

"I'm comin' to that," he returned, placidly. "See how easy I manage this cup with my left hand, mamma?"

"You been doin' that all winter. What did—"

"It's wonderful," he interrupted, admiringly, "what a fellow can do with his left hand. I can sign my name with mine now, well's I ever could with my right. It came a little hard at first, but now, honest, I believe I RATHER sign with my left. That's all I ever have to write, anyway—just the signature. Rest's all dictatin'." He blew across the top of the cup unctuously. "Good coffee, mamma! Well, about Bibbs. Ole Gurney says he believes if Bibbs could somehow get back to the state o' mind he was in about the machine-shop—that is, if he could some way get to feelin' about business the way he felt about the shop—not the poetry and writin' part, but—" He paused, supplementing his remarks with a motion of his head toward the old house next door. "He says Bibbs is older and harder'n what he was when he broke down that time, and besides, he ain't the kind o' dreamy way he was then—and I should say he AIN'T! I'd like 'em to show ME anybody his age that's any wider awake! But he says Bibbs's health never need bother us again if—"

Mrs. Sheridan shook her head. "I don't see any help THAT way. You know yourself she wouldn't have Jim."

"Who's talkin' about her havin' anybody? But, my Lord! she might let him LOOK at her! She needn't 'a' got so mad, just because he asked her, that she won't let him come in the house any more. He's a mighty funny boy, and some ways I reckon he's pretty near as hard to understand as the Bible, but Gurney kind o' got me in the way o' thinkin' that if she'd let him come back and set around with her an evening or two sometimes—not reg'lar, I don't mean—why—Well, I just thought I'd see what YOU'D think of it. There ain't any way to talk about it to Bibbs himself—I don't suppose he'd let you, anyhow—but I thought maybe you could kind o' slip over there some day, and sort o' fix up to have a little talk with her, and kind o' hint around till you see how the land lays, and ask her—"

"ME!" Mrs. Sheridan looked both helpless and frightened. "No." She shook her head decidedly. "It wouldn't do any good."

"You won't try it?"

"I won't risk her turnin' me out o' the house. Some way, that's what I believe she did to Sibyl, from what Roscoe said once. No, I CAN'T—and, what's more, it'd only make things worse. If people find out you're runnin' after 'em they think you're cheap, and then they won't do as much for you as if you let 'em alone. I don't believe it's any use, and I couldn't do it if it was."

He sighed with resignation. "All right, mamma. That's all." Then, in a livelier tone, he said: "Ole Gurney took the bandages off my hand this morning. All healed up. Says I don't need 'em any more."

"Why, that's splendid, papa!" she cried, beaming. "I was afraid—Let's see."

She came toward him, but he rose, still keeping his hand in his pocket. "Wait a minute," he said, smiling. "Now it may give you just a teeny bit of a shock, but the fact is—well, you remember that Sunday when Sibyl came over here and made all that fuss about nothin'—it was the day after I got tired o' that statue when Edith's telegram came—"

"Let me see your hand!" she cried.

"Now wait!" he said, laughing and pushing her away with his left hand. "The truth is, mamma, that I kind o' slipped out on you that morning, when you wasn't lookin', and went down to ole Gurney's office—he'd told me to, you see—and, well, it doesn't AMOUNT to anything." And he held out, for her inspection, the mutilated hand. "You see, these days when it's all dictatin', anyhow, nobody'd mind just a couple o'—"

He had to jump for her—she went over backward. For the second time in her life Mrs. Sheridan fainted.



CHAPTER XXXII

It was a full hour later when he left her lying upon a couch in her own room, still lamenting intermittently, though he assured her with heat that the "fuss" she was making irked him far more than his physical loss. He permitted her to think that he meant to return directly to his office, but when he came out to the open air he told the chauffeur in attendance to await him in front of Mr. Vertrees's house, whither he himself proceeded on foot.

Mr. Vertrees had taken the sale of half of his worthless stock as manna in the wilderness; it came from heaven—by what agency he did not particularly question. The broker informed him that "parties were interested in getting hold of the stock," and that later there might be a possible increase in the value of the large amount retained by his client. It might go "quite a ways up" within a year or so, he said, and he advised "sitting tight" with it. Mr. Vertrees went home and prayed.

He rose from his knees feeling that he was surely coming into his own again. It was more than a mere gasp of temporary relief with him, and his wife shared his optimism; but Mary would not let him buy back her piano, and as for furs—spring was on the way, she said. But they paid the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker, and hired a cook once more. It was this servitress who opened the door for Sheridan and presently assured him that Miss Vertrees would "be down."

He was not the man to conceal admiration when he felt it, and he flushed and beamed as Mary made her appearance, almost upon the heels of the cook. She had a look of apprehension for the first fraction of a second, but it vanished at the sight of him, and its place was taken in her eyes by a soft brilliance, while color rushed in her cheeks.

"Don't be surprised," he said. "Truth is, in a way it's sort of on business I looked in here. It'll only take a minute, I expect."

"I'm sorry," said Mary. "I hoped you'd come because we're neighbors."

He chuckled. "Neighbors! Sometimes people don't see so much o' their neighbors as they used to. That is, I hear so—lately."

"You'll stay long enough to sit down, won't you?"

"I guess I could manage that much." And they sat down, facing each other and not far apart.

"Of course, it couldn't be called business, exactly," he said, more gravely. "Not at all, I expect. But there's something o' yours it seemed to me I ought to give you, and I just thought it was better to bring it myself and explain how I happened to have it. It's this—this letter you wrote my boy." He extended the letter to her solemnly, in his left hand, and she took it gently from him. "It was in his mail, after he was hurt. You knew he never got it, I expect."

"Yes," she said, in a low voice.

He sighed. "I'm glad he didn't. Not," he added, quickly—"not but what you did just right to send it. You did. You couldn't acted any other way when it came right down TO it. There ain't any blame comin' to you—you were above-board all through."

Mary said, "Thank you," almost in a whisper, and with her head bowed low.

"You'll have to excuse me for readin' it. I had to take charge of all his mail and everything; I didn't know the handwritin', and I read it all—once I got started."

"I'm glad you did."

"Well"—he leaned forward as if to rise—"I guess that's about all. I just thought you ought to have it."

"Thank you for bringing it."

He looked at her hopefully, as if he thought and wished that she might have something more to say. But she seemed not to be aware of this glance, and sat with her eyes fixed sorrowfully upon the floor.

"Well, I expect I better be gettin' back to the office," he said, rising desperately. "I told—I told my partner I'd be back at two o'clock, and I guess he'll think I'm a poor business man if he catches me behind time. I got to walk the chalk a mighty straight line these days—with THAT fellow keepin' tabs on me!"

Mary rose with him. "I've always heard YOU were the hard driver."

He guffawed derisively. "Me? I'm nothin' to that partner o' mine. You couldn't guess to save your life how he keeps after me to hold up my end o' the job. I shouldn't be surprised he'd give me the grand bounce some day, and run the whole circus by himself. You know how he is—once he goes AT a thing!"

"No," she smiled. "I didn't know you had a partner. I'd always heard—"

He laughed, looking away from her. "It's just my way o' speakin' o' that boy o' mine, Bibbs."

He stood then, expectant, staring out into the hall with an air of careless geniality. He felt that she certainly must at least say, "How IS Bibbs?" but she said nothing at all, though he waited until the silence became embarrassing.

"Well, I guess I better be gettin' down there," he said, at last. "He might worry."

"Good-by—and thank you," said Mary.

"For what?"

"For the letter."

"Oh," he said, blankly. "You're welcome. Good-by."

Mary put out her hand. "Good-by."

"You'll have to excuse my left hand," he said. "I had a little accident to the other one."

She gave a pitying cry as she saw. "Oh, poor Mr. Sheridan!"

"Nothin' at all! Dictate everything nowadays, anyhow." He laughed jovially. "Did anybody tell you how it happened?"

"I heard you hurt your hand, but no—not just how."

"It was this way," he began, and both, as if unconsciously, sat down again. "You may not know it, but I used to worry a good deal about the youngest o' my boys—the one that used to come to see you sometimes, after Jim—that is, I mean Bibbs. He's the one I spoke of as my partner; and the truth is that's what it's just about goin' to amount to, one o' these days—if his health holds out. Well, you remember, I expect, I had him on a machine over at a plant o' mine; and sometimes I'd kind o' sneak in there and see how he was gettin' along. Take a doctor with me sometimes, because Bibbs never WAS so robust, you might say. Ole Doc Gurney—I guess maybe you know him? Tall, thin man; acts sleepy—"

"Yes."

"Well, one day I an' ole Doc Gurney, we were in there, and I undertook to show Bibbs how to run his machine. He told me to look out, but I wouldn't listen, and I didn't look out—and that's how I got my hand hurt, tryin' to show Bibbs how to do something he knew how to do and I didn't. Made me so mad I just wouldn't even admit to myself it WAS hurt—and so, by and by, ole Doc Gurney had to take kind o' radical measures with me. He's a right good doctor, too. Don't you think so, Miss Vertrees?"

"Yes."

"Yes, he is so!" Sheridan now had the air of a rambling talker and gossip with all day on his hands. "Take him on Bibbs's case. I was talkin' about Bibbs's case with him this morning. Well, you'd laugh to hear the way ole Gurney talks about THAT! 'Course he IS just as much a friend as he is doctor—and he takes as much interest in Bibbs as if he was in the family. He says Bibbs isn't anyways bad off YET; and he thinks he could stand the pace and get fat on it if—well, this is what'd made YOU laugh if you'd been there, Miss Vertrees—honest it would!" He paused to chuckle, and stole a glance at her. She was gazing straight before her at the wall; her lips were parted, and—visibly—she was breathing heavily and quickly. He feared that she was growing furiously angry; but he had led to what he wanted to say, and he went on, determined now to say it all. He leaned forward and altered his voice to one of confidential friendliness, though in it he still maintained a tone which indicated that ole Doc Gurney's opinion was only a joke he shared with her. "Yes, sir, you certainly would 'a' laughed! Why, that ole man thinks YOU got something to do with it. You'll have to blame it on him, young lady, if it makes you feel like startin' out to whip somebody! He's actually got THIS theory: he says Bibbs got to gettin' better while he worked over there at the shop because you kept him cheered up and feelin' good. And he says if you could manage to just stand him hangin' around a little—maybe not much, but just SOMEtimes—again, he believed it'd do Bibbs a mighty lot o' good. 'Course, that's only what the doctor said. Me, I don't know anything about that; but I can say this much—I never saw any such a MENTAL improvement in anybody in my life as I have lately in Bibbs. I expect you'd find him a good deal more entertaining than what he used to be—and I know it's a kind of embarrassing thing to suggest after the way he piled in over here that day to ask you to stand up before the preacher with him, but accordin' to ole Doc GURNEY, he's got you on his brain so bad—"

Mary jumped. "Mr. Sheridan!" she exclaimed.

He sighed profoundly. "There! I noticed you were gettin' mad. I didn't—"

"No, no, no!" she cried. "But I don't understand—and I think you don't. What is it you want me to do?"

He sighed again, but this time with relief. "Well, well!" he said. "You're right. It'll be easier to talk plain. I ought to known I could with you, all the time. I just hoped you'd let that boy come and see you sometimes, once more. Could you?"

"You don't understand." She clasped her hands together in a sorrowful gesture. "Yes, we must talk plain. Bibbs heard that I'd tried to make your oldest son care for me because I was poor, and so Bibbs came and asked me to marry him—because he was sorry for me. And I CAN'T see him any more," she cried in distress. "I CAN'T!"

Sheridan cleared his throat uncomfortably. "You mean because he thought that about you?"

"No, no! What he thought was TRUE!"

"Well—you mean he was so much in—you mean he thought so much of you—" The words were inconceivably awkward upon Sheridan's tongue; he seemed to be in doubt even about pronouncing them, but after a ghastly pause he bravely repeated them. "You mean he thought so much of you that you just couldn't stand him around?"

"NO! He was sorry for me. He cared for me; he was fond of me; and he'd respected me—too much! In the finest way he loved me, if you like, and he'd have done anything on earth for me, as I would for him, and as he knew I would. It was beautiful, Mr. Sheridan," she said. "But the cheap, bad things one has done seem always to come back—they wait, and pull you down when you're happiest. Bibbs found me out, you see; and he wasn't 'in love' with me at all."

"He wasn't? Well, it seems to me he gave up everything he wanted to do—it was fool stuff, but he certainly wanted it mighty bad—he just threw it away and walked right up and took the job he swore he never would—just for you. And it looks to me as if a man that'd do that must think quite a heap o' the girl he does it for! You say it was only because he was sorry, but let me tell you there's only ONE girl he could feel THAT sorry for! Yes, sir!"

"No, no," she said. "Bibbs isn't like other men—he would do anything for anybody."

Sheridan grinned. "Perhaps not so much as you think, nowadays," he said. "For instance, I got kind of a suspicion he doesn't believe in 'sentiment in business.' But that's neither here nor there. What he wanted was, just plain and simple, for you to marry him. Well, I was afraid his thinkin' so much OF you had kind o' sickened you of him—the way it does sometimes. But from the way you talk, I understand that ain't the trouble." He coughed, and his voice trembled a little. "Now here, Miss Vertrees, I don't have to tell you—because you see things easy—I know I got no business comin' to you like this, but I had to make Bibbs go my way instead of his own—I had to do it for the sake o' my business and on his own account, too—and I expect you got some idea how it hurt him to give up. Well, he's made good. He didn't come in half-hearted or mean; he came in—all the way! But there isn't anything in it to him; you can see he's just shut his teeth on it and goin' ahead with dust in his mouth. You see, one way of lookin' at it, he's got nothin' to work FOR. And it seems to me like it cost him your friendship, and I believe—honest—that's what hurt him the worst. Now you said we'd talk plain. Why can't you let him come back?"

She covered her face desperately with her hands. "I can't!"

He rose, defeated, and looking it.

"Well, I mustn't press you," he said, gently.

At that she cried out, and dropped her hands and let him see her face. "Ah! He was only sorry for me!"

He gazed at her intently. Mary was proud, but she had a fatal honesty, and it confessed the truth of her now; she was helpless. It was so clear that even Sheridan, marveling and amazed, was able to see it. Then a change came over him; gloom fell from him, and he grew radiant.

"Don't! Don't" she cried. "You mustn't—"

"I won't tell him," said Sheridan, from the doorway. "I won't tell anybody anything!"



CHAPTER XXXIII

There was a heavy town-fog that afternoon, a smoke-mist, densest in the sanctuary of the temple. The people went about in it, busy and dirty, thickening their outside and inside linings of coal-tar, asphalt, sulphurous acid, oil of vitriol, and the other familiar things the men liked to breathe and to have upon their skins and garments and upon their wives and babies and sweethearts. The growth of the city was visible in the smoke and the noise and the rush. There was more smoke than there had been this day of February a year earlier; there was more noise; and the crowds were thicker—yet quicker in spite of that. The traffic policeman had a hard time, for the people were independent—they retained some habits of the old market-town period, and would cross the street anywhere and anyhow, which not only got them killed more frequently than if they clung to the legal crossings, but kept the motormen, the chauffeurs, and the truck-drivers in a stew of profane nervousness. So the traffic policemen led harried lives; they themselves were killed, of course, with a certain periodicity, but their main trouble was that they could not make the citizens realize that it was actually and mortally perilous to go about their city. It was strange, for there were probably no citizens of any length of residence who had not personally known either some one who had been killed or injured in an accident, or some one who had accidentally killed or injured others. And yet, perhaps it was not strange, seeing the sharp preoccupation of the faces—the people had something on their minds; they could not stop to bother about dirt and danger.

Mary Vertrees was not often down-town; she had never seen an accident until this afternoon. She had come upon errands for her mother connected with a timorous refurbishment; and as she did these, in and out of the department stores, she had an insistent consciousness of the Sheridan Building. From the street, anywhere, it was almost always in sight, like some monstrous geometrical shadow, murk-colored and rising limitlessly into the swimming heights of the smoke-mist. It was gaunt and grimy and repellent; it had nothing but strength and size—but in that consciousness of Mary's the great structure may have partaken of beauty. Sheridan had made some of the things he said emphatic enough to remain with her. She went over and over them—and they began to seem true: "Only ONE girl he could feel THAT sorry for!" "Gurney says he's got you on his brain so bad—" The man's clumsy talk began to sing in her heart. The song was begun there when she saw the accident.

She was directly opposite the Sheridan Building then, waiting for the traffic to thin before she crossed, though other people were risking the passage, darting and halting and dodging parlously. Two men came from the crowd behind her, talking earnestly, and started across. Both wore black; one was tall and broad and thick, and the other was taller, but noticeably slender. And Mary caught her breath, for they were Bibbs and his father. They did not see her, and she caught a phrase in Bibbs's mellow voice, which had taken a crisper ring: "Sixty-eight thousand dollars? Not sixty-eight thousand buttons!" It startled her queerly, and as there was a glimpse of his profile she saw for the first time a resemblance to his father.

She watched them. In the middle of the street Bibbs had to step ahead of his father, and the two were separated. But the reckless passing of a truck, beyond the second line of rails, frightened a group of country women who were in course of passage; they were just in front of Bibbs, and shoved backward upon him violently. To extricate himself from them he stepped back, directly in front of a moving trolley-car—no place for absent-mindedness, but Bibbs was still absorbed in thoughts concerned with what he had been saying to his father. There were shrieks and yells; Bibbs looked the wrong way—and then Mary saw the heavy figure of Sheridan plunge straight forward in front of the car. With absolute disregard of his own life, he hurled himself at Bibbs like a football-player shunting off an opponent, and to Mary it seemed that they both went down together. But that was all she could see—automobiles, trucks, and wagons closed in between. She made out that the trolley-car stopped jerkily, and she saw a policeman breaking his way through the instantly condensing crowd, while the traffic came to a standstill, and people stood up in automobiles or climbed upon the hubs and tires of wheels, not to miss a chance of seeing anything horrible.

Mary tried to get through; it was impossible. Other policemen came to help the first, and in a minute or two the traffic was in motion again. The crowd became pliant, dispersing—there was no figure upon the ground, and no ambulance came. But one of the policemen was detained by the clinging and beseeching of a gloved hand.

"What IS the matter, lady?"

"Where are they?" Mary cried.

"Who? Ole man Sheridan? I reckon HE wasn't much hurt!"

"His SON—"

"Was that who the other one was? I seen him knock him—oh, he's not bad off, I guess, lady. The ole man got him out of the way all right. The fender shoved the ole man around some, but I reckon he only got shook up. They both went on in the Sheridan Building without any help. Excuse me, lady."

Sheridan and Bibbs, in fact, were at that moment in the elevator, ascending. "Whisk-broom up in the office," Sheridan was saying. "You got to look out on those corners nowadays, I tell you. I don't know I got any call to blow, though—because I tried to cross after you did. That's how I happened to run into you. Well, you want to remember to look out after this. We were talkin' about Murtrie's askin' sixty-eight thousand flat for that ninety-nine-year lease. It's his lookout if he'd rather take it that way, and I don't know but—"

"No," said Bibbs, emphatically, as the elevator stopped; "he won't get it. Not from us, he won't, and I'll show you why. I can convince you in five minutes." He followed his father into the office anteroom—and convinced him. Then, having been diligently brushed by a youth of color, Bibbs went into his own room and closed the door.

He was more shaken than he had allowed his father to perceive, and his side was sore where Sheridan had struck him. He desired to be alone; he wanted to rub himself and, for once, to do some useless thinking again. He knew that his father had not "happened" to run into him; he knew that Sheridan had instantly—and instinctively—proved that he held his own life of no account whatever compared to that of his son and heir. Bibbs had been unable to speak of that, or to seem to know it; for Sheridan, just as instinctively, had swept the matter aside—as of no importance, since all was well—reverting immediately to business.

Bibbs began to think intently of his father. He perceived, as he had never perceived before, the shadowing of something enormous and indomitable—and lawless; not to be daunted by the will of nature's very self; laughing at the lightning and at wounds and mutilation; conquering, irresistible—and blindly noble. For the first time in his life Bibbs began to understand the meaning of being truly this man's son.

He would be the more truly his son henceforth, though, as Sheridan said, Bibbs had not come down-town with him meanly or half-heartedly. He had given his word because he had wanted the money, simply, for Mary Vertrees in her need. And he shivered with horror of himself, thinking how he had gone to her to offer it, asking her to marry him—with his head on his breast in shameful fear that she would accept him! He had not known her; the knowing had lost her to him, and this had been his real awakening; for he knew now how deep had been that slumber wherein he dreamily celebrated the superiority of "friendship"! The sleep-walker had wakened to bitter knowledge of love and life, finding himself a failure in both. He had made a burnt offering of his dreams, and the sacrifice had been an unforgivable hurt to Mary. All that was left for him was the work he had not chosen, but at least he would not fail in that, though it was indeed no more than "dust in his mouth." If there had been anything "to work for—"

He went to the window, raised it, and let in the uproar of the streets below. He looked down at the blurred, hurrying swarms and he looked across, over the roofs with their panting jets of vapor, into the vast, foggy heart of the smoke. Dizzy traceries of steel were rising dimly against it, chattering with steel on steel, and screeching in steam, while tiny figures of men walked on threads in the dull sky. Buildings would overtop the Sheridan. Bigness was being served.

But what for? The old question came to Bibbs with a new despair. Here, where his eyes fell, had once been green fields and running brooks, and how had the kind earth been despoiled and disfigured! The pioneers had begun the work, but in their old age their orators had said for them that they had toiled and risked and sacrificed that their posterity might live in peace and wisdom, enjoying the fruits of the earth. Well, their posterity was here—and there was only turmoil. Where was the promised land? It had been promised by the soldiers of all the wars; it had been promised to this generation by the pioneers; but here was the very posterity to whom it had been promised, toiling and risking and sacrificing in turn—for what?

The harsh roar of the city came in through the open window, continuously beating upon Bibbs's ear until he began to distinguish a pulsation in it—a broken and irregular cadence. It seemed to him that it was like a titanic voice, discordant, hoarse, rustily metallic—the voice of the god, Bigness. And the voice summoned Bibbs as it summoned all its servants.

"Come and work!" it seemed to yell. "Come and work for Me, all men! By your youth and your hope I summon you! By your age and your despair I summon you to work for Me yet a little, with what strength you have. By your love of home I summon you! By your love of woman I summon you! By your hope of children I summon you!

"You shall be blind slaves of Mine, blind to everything but Me, your Master and Driver! For your reward you shall gaze only upon my ugliness. You shall give your toil and your lives, you shall go mad for love and worship of my ugliness! You shall perish still worshipping Me, and your children shall perish knowing no other god!"

And then, as Bibbs closed the window down tight, he heard his father's voice booming in the next room; he could not distinguish the words but the tone was exultant—and there came the THUMP! THUMP! of the maimed hand. Bibbs guessed that Sheridan was bragging of the city and of Bigness to some visitor from out-of-town.

And he thought how truly Sheridan was the high priest of Bigness. But with the old, old thought again, "What for?" Bibbs caught a glimmer of far, faint light. He saw that Sheridan had all his life struggled and conquered, and must all his life go on struggling and inevitably conquering, as part of a vast impulse not his own. Sheridan served blindly—but was the impulse blind? Bibbs asked himself if it was not he who had been in the greater hurry, after all. The kiln must be fired before the vase is glazed, and the Acropolis was not crowned with marble in a day.

Then the voice came to him again, but there was a strain in it as of some high music struggling to be born of the turmoil. "Ugly I am," it seemed to say to him, "but never forget that I AM a god!" And the voice grew in sonorousness and in dignity. "The highest should serve, but so long as you worship me for my own sake I will not serve you. It is man who makes me ugly, by his worship of me. If man would let me serve him, I should be beautiful!"

Looking once more from the window, Bibbs sculptured for himself—in the vague contortions of the smoke and fog above the roofs—a gigantic figure with feet pedestaled upon the great buildings and shoulders disappearing in the clouds, a colossus of steel and wholly blackened with soot. But Bibbs carried his fancy further—for there was still a little poet lingering in the back of his head—and he thought that up over the clouds, unseen from below, the giant labored with his hands in the clean sunshine; and Bibbs had a glimpse of what he made there—perhaps for a fellowship of the children of the children that were children now—a noble and joyous city, unbelievably white—

It was the telephone that called him from his vision. It rang fiercely.

He lifted the thing from his desk and answered—and as the small voice inside it spoke he dropped the receiver with a crash. He trembled violently as he picked it up, but he told himself he was wrong—he had been mistaken—yet it was a startlingly beautiful voice; startlingly kind, too, and ineffably like the one he hungered most to hear.

"Who?" he said, his own voice shaking—like his hand.

"Mary."

He responded with two hushed and incredulous words: "IS IT?"

There was a little thrill of pathetic half-laughter in the instrument. "Bibbs—I wanted to—just to see if you—"

"Yes—Mary?"

"I was looking when you were so nearly run over. I saw it, Bibbs. They said you hadn't been hurt, they thought, but I wanted to know for myself."

"No, no, I wasn't hurt at all—Mary. It was father who came nearer it. He saved me."

"Yes, I saw; but you had fallen. I couldn't get through the crowd until you had gone. And I wanted to KNOW."

"Mary—would you—have minded?" he said.

There was a long interval before she answered.

"Yes."

"Then why—"

"Yes, Bibbs?"

"I don't know what to say," he cried. "It's so wonderful to hear your voice again—I'm shaking, Mary—I—I don't know—I don't know anything except that I AM talking to you! It IS you—Mary?"

"Yes, Bibbs!"

"Mary—I've seen you from my window at home—only five times since I—since then. You looked—oh, how can I tell you? It was like a man chained in a cave catching a glimpse of the blue sky, Mary. Mary, won't you—let me see you again—near? I think I could make you really forgive me—you'd have to—"

"I DID—then."

"No—not really—or you wouldn't have said you couldn't see me any more."

"That wasn't the reason." The voice was very low.

"Mary," he said, even more tremulously than before, "I can't—you COULDN'T mean it was because—you can't mean it was because you—care?"

There was no answer.

"Mary?" he called, huskily. "If you mean THAT—you'd let me see you—wouldn't you?"

And now the voice was so low he could not be sure it spoke at all, but if it did, the words were, "Yes, Bibbs—dear."

But the voice was not in the instrument—it was so gentle and so light, so almost nothing, it seemed to be made of air—and it came from the air.

Slowly and incredulously he turned—and glory fell upon his shining eyes. The door of his father's room had opened.

Mary stood upon the threshold.

THE END