.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 48385
   :PG.Title: Sylvia Arden Decides
   :PG.Released: 2015-02-28
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Margaret Rebecca Piper
   :MARCREL.ill: Haskell Coffin
   :DC.Title: Sylvia Arden Decides
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1917
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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SYLVIA ARDEN DECIDES
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   .. _`Sylvia Arden`:

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      Sylvia Arden

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      SYLVIA ARDEN
      DECIDES

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      BY

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      MARGARET REBECCA PIPER

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      AUTHOR OF
      SYLVIA'S EXPERIMENT: THE CHEERFUL BOOK, (Trade Mark)

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      SYLVIA OF THE HILL TOP: THE SECOND CHEERFUL
      BOOK, ETC. (Trade Mark)

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      FRONTISPIECE BY
      HASKELL COFFIN

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      GROSSET & DUNLAP
      PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

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      *Copyright, 1917*,
      BY THE PAGE COMPANY

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      *All rights reserved*

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      First Impression, September, 1917

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   CONTENTS

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   CHAPTER

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I  `Of Futures and Other Important Matters`_
II  `Reasons and Wraiths`_
III  `Twenty-Two`_
IV  `The Ways of a Maid`_
V  `September Afternoon`_
VI  `Of Missions, and Omissions`_
VII  `October Developments`_
VIII  `Fire and Frost`_
IX  `The Moth and the Star`_
X  `The City`_
XI  `Margins`_
XII  `"Such Stuff as Dreams"`_
XIII  `Into Haven`_
XIV  `"And Having Eyes"`_
XV  `The City and Sylvia`_
XVI  `As Might Have Been Expected`_
XVII  `Barb Diagnoses`_
XVIII  `The Cause and the Career`_
XIX  `Oh, Suzanne!`_
XX  `Sylvia and Life`_
XXI  `A Chapter of Revelations`_
XXII  `Unto the Forest`_
XXIII  `Aftermath`_
XXIV  `High Tide`_
XXV  `Warp and Woof`_
XXVI  `The End and the Beginning`_

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.. _`OF FUTURES AND OTHER IMPORTANT MATTERS`:

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   SYLVIA ARDEN
   DECIDES

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   CHAPTER I

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   OF FUTURES AND OTHER IMPORTANT MATTERS

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"I know what the trouble with Sylvia is,"
announced Suzanne, elevating herself on one elbow and
leaning forward out of the hammock just enough
to select and appropriate a plump bonbon from the
box on the wicker stand near by.

"Well," encouraged Sylvia, "what *is* the trouble
with me?"

At the moment as she stood leaning against the
massive white pillar with a smile on her lips and
in her dark eyes, the sunshine glinting warm,
red-gold lights in her bronze hair, it seemed as if it
would be hard indeed to find any trouble with her
so completely was she a picture of radiant, joyous,
care-free youth.

Suzanne demolished her bonbon, then proceeded
to expatiate on her original proposition.

"The trouble with you," she averred oracularly
from her cushions, "is that you are addicted to the
vice of contentment."

"Well, why shouldn't she be?" demanded Barbara
from the depths of the huge arm-chair which
nearly swallowed her diminutive figure.  "I'd like
to know who has a better right?  Hasn't Sylvia
this minute got everything anybody in the world
could want?  If I had been born to live on a hill
top, like Sylvia, I'd never leave it."

Suzanne sat up, brandishing a reproachful
forefinger at the speaker.

"Barbie Day!  I am shocked at you.  What
would your Aunt Josephine say?  Sylvia, she must
be packed off at once.  She mustn't be allowed to
stay even for the party.  The flesh pots have gone
to her head.  Another day at Arden Hall will ruin
her for the Cause."  And, with a prophetic shake
of her head, Suzanne helped herself to a "Turkish
Delight" and relaxed among her cushions, the leaf
green color of which, contrasting with the pale pink
of her gown, made her look rather like a rose, set
in its calyx.  Suzanne was extraordinarily pretty,
much prettier, in fact, than was at all necessary for
a young person of distinct literary bent and a
pronounced--audibly pronounced--distaste for
matrimony.  Thus Nature, willfully prodigal, lavishes
her gifts.

"Speak for yourself," retorted Barbara with
unusual spirit.  "If the flesh pots are ruining me
they shall continue on their course of destruction
without let or hindrance until Wednesday next.  I
was born poor, I have lived poor and I shall
probably die poor, but I am not above participating in
the unearned increment when I get a heavenly
chance like this blessed week and if anybody says
'Votes for Women' to me in the next five days he
or she is likely to be surprised.  I am going to turn
Lotus Eater for just this once.  Don't disturb
me."  And by way of demonstration Barb tucked
one small foot up under her, burrowed even deeper
in the heart of the big chair and closed her eyes
with a sigh of complete satisfaction.

In the meanwhile Sylvia had absentmindedly
plucked a scarlet spray from the vine which was
swaying in the September breeze just above her
head and her eyes were thoughtful.  Unwittingly,
the others had stirred mental currents which lay
always fairly near the surface with her, suggested
problems which had been asserting themselves of
late rather continuously.  The generous-hearted
little schoolgirl Sylvia who had wanted to gather
all the lonely people in the world into her Christmas
family, the puzzled Sylvia who even five years ago
had been tormented by the baffling question why
she had so much and others so little was still present
in the Sylvia of almost two and twenty who considered
herself quite grown up and sophisticated and
possessed a college diploma.

"I don't know that I am so viciously contented
as you seem to think, Suzanne," she said, "and I
haven't the slightest intention of staying on my hill
top, as you mean it, Barb.  But I can't just come
down off it and go tilting at windmills at random.
I've got to know what my job is, and I don't at all, at
present--can't even guess at it.  All the rest of
you girls had your futures neatly outlined and
sub-topiced.  Nearly every one in the class knew, when
she graduated last June, just what she wanted to
do or had to do next.  Every one was going to
teach or travel, or 'slum' or study, or come out
or get married.  But poor me!"  Sylvia shrugged
humorously, though her eyes were still thoughtful.
"I haven't any startling gifts or urgent duties.  I
haven't the necessity of earning bread and butter,
nor any special cause to follow.  It is really
hopeless to be so--"  She groped for a word then
settled on "unattached."

"There is more than one male who would be
willing to remedy that defect, I'm thinking,"
chuckled Suzanne wickedly.  "How about the
person who disburses these delectable bonbons?
Won't he do for a cause?"

"I am afraid not, the person being only Jack."

"Only Jack, whom the mammas all smile upon
and the daughters don their fetchingest gowns
and their artfullest graces for--quite the most
eligible young man in the market.  Sylvia, you are
spoiled if Jack Amidon isn't good enough for you!"

"I didn't say he wasn't good enough for me."  Sylvia
came over to the table to provide herself
with one of Jack's bonbons before seating herself
on the India stool beside the hammock facing out
over the lawn.  "Jack is a dear, but I've known
him nearly all my life, seems to me, and even to
oblige you it would be hard to get up any romantic
thrills over him."

"Too bad!" murmured Suzanne, regretfully.
"He is so good looking.  You two would look
lovely prancing down the aisle together à la Lohengrin."

"Suzanne!"  Barb opened her eyes to expostulate.
"You are so dreadfully flippant.  I don't
believe anything is sacred to you."

Suzanne laughed.  "Maybe not," she admitted.
Then she sat up abruptly to add, "I forgot my
Future.  I have that shrined and canonized and burn
incense to it every night.  It is the only thing in
the world or out of it I take seriously.
I-am-going-to-write-plays."  She thumped a plump green
cushion vigorously, allotting a single thump to each
staccato syllable.  "I may not succeed this year or
next year or in five years, but some day I shall
arrive with both feet.  You two shall come and
sit in my first-nighter box and it will be *some*
play!"  She vaunted slangily, imparting a last emphatic
punch upon the acquiescent cushion before she
relinquished it.

"We'll be there," promised Sylvia.  "I only
wish I had convictions like that about my Future.
Mine is just a nebular hypothesis at present.  How
about you, Barbie?  Are you as certain about your
Cause as Suzanne is about her Career?"

Barb uncurled herself to testify.  "Not a bit,"
she sighed.  "You see, my Cause is a sort of
inherited mantle, and I am never sure whether it fits
or not, though I never have the slightest doubt as
to the propriety of my attempting to wear it even
if I have to take tucks in it."  Barbara's eyes
crinkled around the corners in a way they had when
she was very much in earnest.  "You know it has
been understood all along that I was to be Aunt Jo's
secretary and general right-hand man as soon as
I graduated.  That was what she educated me for.
Of course I believe in suffrage and all that.  When
I hear Aunt Jo talk I just get thrills all up and
down my spinal column and feel as strong as Samson
making ready to topple over the pillars, as if I
could do anything and everything to give women
a chance.  But when I get away from Aunt Jo I
cool off disgracefully.  That is what makes me
think sometimes it isn't the real fire I have but a
sort of surface heat generated by Aunt Jo's
extraordinary personal magnetism and fearful and
wonderful vocabulary.  It worries me dreadfully
sometimes."

Barb's small, brown, child-like face puckered in
perplexity and her blue eyes blinked as if they
beheld too much light.

"It needn't," commented Suzanne sagely.  "I
know you.  By the time you have been flinging
out the banner six weeks you will be white hot for
the Cause, especially if you can somehow manage
to martyrize yourself into the bargain.  You would
have made a perfect early Christian.  I can see you
smiling with glad Pollyannaism into the faces of
the abashed lions."

"Oh, Suzanne!"

Barbara had spent many minutes all told during
the past four years of her college life saying, "Oh,
Suzanne!" in precisely that shocked, protesting,
helpless tone.  The two were the best of friends,
but in code of conduct and mode of thought they
were the meeting extremes.

"Aren't you going to prescribe for me now you
have diagnosed my case?" Sylvia came to the
rescue.

"I did prescribe, but you wouldn't swallow Mr. Jack
Amidon, sugar-coated pill though he is.  How
about your tawny-maned, giant, ex-football-hero
M.D.?  He isn't so good looking as Jack but--"

"I think he is much nicer looking," Barb
interposed surprisingly, then blushed and subsided.

"Oho!" laughed Suzanne.  "Better keep your
eye on our Barbie if you want to keep Doctor Philip
Lorrimer on your waiting list, Sylvia.  Such
unprecedented enthusiasm!  And she has beheld him
but once at that.  Oh, the witchery of that
Commencement moon!  I inadvertently nearly
promised to marry Roger Minot myself in its specious
glamour.  I'll wager our demure Barbie flirted with
your six-foot medicine man when you rashly left
him on her hands on the outskirts of Paradise.
'Fess up, Barb.  Didn't you flirt a teeny weeny little
flirt in the moonshine?"

"No, I didn't," denied Barbara, flushed and
indignant.  "But I did like Doctor Lorrimer.  He
talked sense, and I was awfully interested in his
work in the free clinic."

"Sense!  Shop!  By moonlight!  Ye gods!"
mocked Suzanne.  "Never mind, Barbie.  Your
tactics were admirable.  Listen to 'em.  Keep on
listening to 'em.  It's what the sex likes.  It gets
'em every time."

"But I don't want to get 'em," protested
Barbara earnestly.

Whereupon Suzanne giggled and tossed her
victim a silver sheathed bonbon by way of reconciliation.
Then she returned to her charge upon Sylvia,
who had sat silent during the last sally, meditatively
playing with the spray of scarlet creeper in
her lap.

"Sorry, Sylvia, belovedest.  But I can't seem to
think of a single suitable job for you except
matrimony.  You are eminently fitted for that."

Sylvia looked up with an expression half
mirthful, half dissenting.

"Thanks.  But at this juncture I don't happen
to want to get married one bit more than you do,
which to judge from your protestations and your
treatment of poor Roger isn't much."

"Right you are.  No such 'cribb'd, cabin'd and
confined' business as matrimony for this child.
What was the advice old Bacon cites as to when a
man should marry?  'A young man not yet, an
elder man, not at all.'  Read woman for man and
you have my sentiments in a nutshell."

"Oh, Suzanne!"  Thus the refrain from the
big chair.  But Sylvia only laughed, knowing what
Barbara seemed never to be able to learn, that
Suzanne rarely meant more than a half or at best a
quarter of what she said and thoroughly delighted
in being iconoclastic, especially if the idols made
considerable noise smashing, as she would have put
it herself.

"Look at your neighbor, Mrs. Doctor Tom."  Suzanne
warmed her to her subject.  "She used to
write for all the best magazines and travel and
live the broadest, freest, splendidest kind of life.
How does she put in her time now?  Eternally
making rompers for Marjory, trying to keep
Thomas Junior's face clean and his vocabulary
expurgated, seeing that the dinner is warm and the
cook's temper cool when Doctor Tom is late to
meals, and so on and so on to the end of the
chapter.  Only there isn't any end to the chapter.  It
goes on forever like Tennyson's stupid brook.
Bah!  Excuse me!"  And Suzanne's gesture betokened
insuperable scorn for the ways of the wifely.

"But Mrs. Daly looks as if she enjoyed doing all
those things, and I think it is lovely to have
babies."  There was a little wistful note in Barb's voice as
she made the statement.

"H-mp!  Maybe so.  But I say it is a shame
for anybody who could write the way she could to
give it up.  Don't you, Sylvia?"

"O dear!" groaned Sylvia.  "Yes and no.
Why do I always have to see both sides of things?
Lois *is* happy.  At least I think she is.  You can't
always tell about Lois, she is so cool and serene
and deep.  Anyway, the babies are lovely.  But I
can't help agreeing with you a little, Suzanne.  It
does seem a pity."

"Of course it is a pity.  And there is your
Felicia.  She is another case in point.  She gave up
her work and a fortune to marry a man who lived
just long enough to leave her with a big heartache
to carry round inside her and two children to
provide immediate bread and butter for.  You can say
what you like.  I say it was too much of a price."

"O, but, Suzanne, Marianna and Donald are such
dears!" pleaded Barb.

"Of course they are dears.  They are adorable.
But you can't deny they have kept her back.  She
is just beginning to be a real sculptor after all these
years.  And now she is beginning appears this
Kinnard person to spoil it all."

Sylvia looked up a trifle startled.

"What do you mean, Suzanne?  Mr. Kinnard
isn't spoiling anything.  He is helping.  Felicia
hasn't a bit of faith in herself.  She never would
have thought of entering into that mural relief
competition if he hadn't made her.  And I know her
designs are going to be splendid.  Mr. Kinnard
says they are, and he knows."

Suzanne shrugged.

"I fear the Greeks bearing gifts.  No man ever
gave a woman something for nothing since time
began.  You'll see."

"What shall I see?"

"You might have seen the way he looked at your
Felicia yesterday afternoon.  You needn't stare.
She is the loveliest thing imaginable; and, anyway,
widows always marry again.  They can't seem to
help it.  It is in the system."

"Oh, he looks at every woman.  How can he
help it with eyes like that?  He is much more likely
to be wooing Hope.  He has been sketching her all
summer and she makes lovely shy dryad eyes at
him while he works.  I don't see how he can resist
her myself, she is so deliciously pretty."

"'A violet by a mossy stone.'  Mr. Kinnard isn't
looking for violets.  You'll see, as I said before."

And in spite of her denial, Sylvia couldn't help
wondering if there were any truth in Suzanne's
implications.  She had accepted Stephen Kinnard
quite simply as Felicia had explained him, an old
friend and fellow artist of Paris days.  He had
been in Greendale nearly all summer doing some
sketches of Southern gardens for a magazine, and
it had seemed perfectly natural to Sylvia that he
should come often up the hill to see Mrs. Emory.
They were both artists and had much in common
beside their old friendship.  That any factors
deeper than those which appeared on the surface
might be keeping Stephen Kinnard in Felicia's
proximity had not until the moment occurred to
Sylvia.  For a moment it flashed across her mind
how sadly Arden Hall would fare without Felicia
who with the dear "wonder babies" had come to
help Sylvia keep Christmas nearly six years ago
and had remained in the old house ever since to
its young owner's infinite content and well being.

"I never thought of Felicia's marrying again,"
she said after a moment of silence.

"Well, Stephen Kinnard has thought of it, if you
haven't," pronounced Suzanne.  "By the way, he
said a rather nice thing about you yesterday.  He
said you had a genius for happiness."

Sylvia smiled a little as her gaze strayed past the
white pillars, past the giant magnolia-tree lifting its
shining leaves to the sun, past the pink and white
glory of cosmos and the dial beyond, dedicating
itself discreetly to none but sunny hours; beyond
still farther to the clear turquoise space of sky
visible behind it all.

"Being happy isn't much of an art when you
can't help being it," she said, her gaze and her
thoughts coming back from their momentary journey.

"Oh, but he didn't mean just your being happy,"
put in Barb in her quick, serious way.  "He meant
your way of making other people happy.  It's true.
I noticed it often in college.  But it is truer than
ever here.  Everybody in Arden Hall is happy.  It
is like Shakespeare's forest.  It makes you feel
different--not just only happy but better, being
here."

"That is the house.  It has been like that ever
since I had my Christmas family here.  Of course,
it is realty mostly Felicia.  She is the mainspring
of it all.  But we like to pretend there is something
magic about the house itself.  You don't know how
I love every stick and brick of it.  I have never
had half enough of it.  I have been in school so
much, I've only snatched a few vacations on the
wing, as it were, and even that only in the last
few years since I captured Felicia.  Ugh!
Nobody knows how I hated those dreadful holidays
in hotels after Aunt Nell died and I came to
America.  And nobody knows how I love this."  Her
expansive gesture made "this" include house and
lawn and magnolia and pink and white bloom and
sun dial and all the rest, perhaps even the turquoise
stretch of sky.  "I've never had my fill of
homeness," she concluded.

"Funny!" mused Suzanne.  "Now, I don't
want to be at home at all.  Norton is such a stuffy,
snippy, gossipy, little town, and I loathe being
officially the 'parson's daughter.'  Sometimes it
used to seem to me I'd rather throw myself in the
river than go to another prayer meeting and hear
Deacon Derby drone out minute instructions to the
Lord as to how he should manage his business.
And being home isn't so sweet and simple as it
seems either.  I adore my mother, but we don't see
two things alike in the wide world.  She likes the
chairs stiff and straight against the walls, just in
the same position year in, year out.  I like 'em at
casual experimental angles, different every day.
That is typical of our two viewpoints.  She likes
things eternally straight and the same.  I like 'em
eternally on the bias and different.  We can't
either of us help it.  We are made that way.  And
we're both more or less miserable, whether we give
in or whether we don't.  Mother and Dad are
regular darlings, both of them, but I don't mean to stay
at home with them a bit more than I can help.
They don't need me.  They are perfectly used to
doing without me and are really much happier sans
Suzanne.  I just stir things up and they like to
snuggle down in their nice comfortable ruts.  I've
got to live in New York.  I'd smother in Norton, Pa."

"Roger doesn't seem to be smothering in Norton,"
Sylvia reminded her.  "Jack stopped over to
see him last week and he said Roger was stirring
things up with a vengeance since he has been
sitting among the city fathers."

"Oh, Roger!"  Suzanne shrugged Roger away
as entirely negligible.  "Roger Minot would stir
things up in a graveyard.  He likes to live in a
small town.  I don't.  The biggest city in the world
isn't one bit too big for me.  New York for mine.
Better change your mind, Sylvia, and come on, too.
There will be plenty of room in my garret.  More
room than anything else probably.  Aunt Sarah's
legacy has its limits, more's the pity.  But come
on and share my crust."

"Maybe I will, temporarily.  I've promised
Jeanette Latham to visit her next winter and I'll
include you and Barb in my rounds if invited."

"Jeanette Latham?  Mrs. Francis VanDycke
Latham?  *The* Mrs. Latham who figures in 'Vanity
Fair' and the Sunday supplement?  The only
Jack's sister?  There will be some contrast between
visiting her and visiting me.  She inhabits a
Duplex on the Drive, doesn't she?  One of the utterly
utter."

"That depends.  Mr. Latham is awfully rich
and old family, if that is what you mean, and
Jeanette does like to be at the extreme of everything,
but underneath all her dazzle and glitter she is
really as simple and genuine as Jack is.  I like her,
and she is Jack's favorite sister."

"Which helps," murmured Suzanne.  "See
here, Sylvia, if you once get into that high society
labyrinth you'll never get out."

"Oh, yes I shall--unless the Minotaur gets me.
I just want a bit of Jeanette's kind of life to see
what it is really like.  In fact, I want to try all
kinds."

Sylvia smiled as she spoke, but she meant her
last assertion for all that.  Hers was an eager,
active, questing temperament.  She was avid for
life in its entirety, with a healthy zest for
experience whose sword blades rather than poppy seeds
appealed to her just now, as is natural with youth.
The college world from which she had been recently
emancipated, full and various and strenuous as it
had often been, had never fully satisfied her free,
quick, young spirit.  She had always the memory
of those early rich years in Paris with her aunt
from which to draw comparison.  She had once
complained to Felicia that college was too much like
the Lady of Shallott's tower whose occupants
perceived life in a polished mirror instead of in direct
contact.  She was already frankly a little tired of
"shadows," ready for the real thing, whatever that was.

"Maybe I am glad I don't have to do any one
thing," she continued.  "All through school you
are so pushed and guarded and guided and
instructed you don't have half a chance to be
yourself.  I'm thankful for a breathing space to find
out who I really am."

"Why, Sylvia!  How funny!" puzzled Barb.
"Don't you know all about yourself?"

"No, do you?"

Barbara shook her head with a faint sigh.

"Maybe not.  Or, if I do, I don't let myself look
at the real Barb for fear--"  She broke off and
Suzanne intervened.

"Well, I know all there is to know about
Suzanne Morrison.  I have taken considerable pains
to get acquainted, in fact.  It is great to know
precisely what you want and that you are going to get
it sooner or later."  Thus the sublime arrogance
of the young twenties.

"I wish I did!" said Sylvia quickly.

"Which?"

"Both," parried Sylvia.

But Barb, who was watching her, was aware of
something in her friend's face which she could not
quite fathom.  Was it possible there was anything
in the world Sylvia Arden wanted and could not
have?  It was a startling thought to Barb, who
was accustomed to considering Sylvia as the
Princess of all the Heart's Desires.

Just then the Japanese gong from within sent
out its silver-tongued invitation.  With the alacrity
of the healthily hungry and heart-free the three
friends rose, the conclave ended, consigning to
temporary oblivion Causes, Careers and all
Concomitant Problems.





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.. _`REASONS AND WRAITHS`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   REASONS AND WRAITHS

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Mrs. Emory laid down her sewing on the porch
table and rose to greet Stephen Kinnard, a tall,
lean man with a rather angular but interesting face,
with hair slightly graying on the temples, and
remarkably beautiful eyes, slate-gray shot with tiny
topaz colored flecks, eyes which as Sylvia said
"looked" at women.  They looked now, which was
scarcely strange considering how beautiful Felicia
Emory was at thirty-three.

"Will you have tea?" inquired Felicia.

"Thanks, no."  He shook his head with a
humorous gesture.  "I've taken tea at the Oriole
Inn--almost forcible feeding, in fact.  It seems
they are serving a new kind of sandwich to-day
and Sylvia waylaid me and insisted on trying it on
the dog so to speak.  She and Suzanne and Barbara
and Martha and Hope all stood by to watch the
effect.  I was never so nervous in my life.  May
I smoke to calm my spirit?"

Felicia nodded assent and sat down, resuming
her sewing.

"I am glad to see you still survive," she said, as
he lit his cigarette and dropped into a near-by chair.

"Oh, yes, I still survive.  It was really an
excellent sandwich in its way, though I should hate to
have to pass an examination on its contents.  It
was one of Sylvia's inventions it seems.  Tell me,
does she have the whole Hill on her hands?  First
it's a garden party at 'Hester house,' Sylvia at
the helm; then it is the Byrd sisters who have to
be petted or scolded or braced, or a patient of
Doctor Tom's who needs attention, or his babies
that have to be story-told to, or Marianna and
Donald who have to have her assistance in a dramatic
performance of Lord Ullin's Daughter.  I heard
her shouting 'I'll forgive your Highland Chief'
yesterday while the kids eloped in the hammock,
amidst high billows, I judge from the way the boat
was rocking.  To-day it is the Oriole Inn sandwich.
She is a most remarkable young person, this Sylvia
of yours, with a most insatiable energy."

"She is, indeed," agreed Felicia heartily.  "The
Hill can hardly get along without Sylvia.  We all
mope and get selfish and lazy, what she calls 'rutty'
when she is away from it.  I am so glad she is home
for keeps now.  The Hill is never quite the same
without her."

"But she won't stay on it forever," warned
Stephen Kinnard.  "She is a live wire--that
young lady.  She isn't going to be content to settle
down on even so lovely a hill as hers.  Also she is
more than likely to get married."

"I suppose so," sighed Felicia.

"What a lugubrious tone to vouchsafe to the
holy state!" he teased.

"It isn't the holy state in itself.  It is Sylvia.  I
hate to have her get grown up and married and
settled down.  I'd like to keep things just as they
are for awhile.  The dread of changes seems to
grow on me as I get old."

Felicia smiled as she made the statement but
there was genuine feeling behind it.

"Would you dread change for yourself?"

"For myself?  I don't know.  I wasn't thinking
especially about myself."

"Do you ever?"

"Not oftener than is agreeable.  I am getting
to be a very placid, settled sort of person.  That is
the comfort of being in the thirties.  You don't
expect so much of life.  Now, ten years ago if I had
been thinking of submitting designs for a
competition I should have been frightfully excited.  Now,
I think I would almost rather not win, which is
fortunate considering how little chance there is of
my doing so."

"There is all the chance in the world," objected
Stephen.  "You need a little of the virus of vanity
instilled into you.  Felicia, do you remember back
there in Paris when old Regnier used to insist you
had more talent than any man in his class?"

Felicia tranquilly snipped off her thread and
admitted that she remembered.

"And do you remember how he raved when you
told him you were going to marry Syd?"

Felicia nodded.  She remembered that, too;
remembered also, though she did not say so, how she
had smiled at the old master's ravings, sure that
love would prove no hindrance to her art, sure that
she and Sydney would work and achieve fame
together.  She had not dreaded changes in those days.
She had welcomed them, taken risks blithely,
unafraid.  And there had been risks.  Her aunt had
raved also, to more purpose than the Master, and
in a moment of rage had changed her will, cutting
off from inheritance the willful girl who chose to
reject the French count her judicious relative had
selected for her and insisted on marrying instead
a penniless artist.  The loss of her inheritance had
seemed to Felicia at the time a trifle light as air,
quite as irrelevant indeed as the Master's gloomy
prediction as to the eternal incompatibility of art
and matrimony.  All these things she had thrown
into the scales with love in the opposite balance
and love had weighed immeasurably heaviest.

There had followed a few years of idyllic
happiness.  Though with the coming of the babies the
art she loved had been temporarily suspended; both
she and her husband promised themselves eagerly
that it was only a suspension, that she would go
back to it again as soon as Marianna and Brother
were just a little older.  But before Marianna and
Brother were much older Felicia was left alone
with a "big heartache to carry round inside her and
two children to provide immediate bread and butter
for," as Suzanne had put it.  And so the old dreams
had been thrust out of sight, and the young woman
whom the Master pronounced to have possessed
more talent than twenty talented young men, fell
to earning a living for herself and her little folk
by painting place cards and Christmas greetings and
calendars and such like small ilk.  All this drifted
in retrospect through Felicia Emory's mind as she
bent over her sewing, and something in the droop
of her mouth touched Stephen as he perceived it.
Impulsively he threw away his cigarette and leaned
forward letting his hand touch hers.

"Felicia, forgive me!  I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You didn't.  It just came back to me for a
moment how fearfully young and happy and ignorant
I was in those days.  But with all the wisdom I've
garnered since, if I had it to do over again, I
suppose I should travel precisely the same road.  Isn't
it queer, Stephen?  Don't you feel that way about
the past, too?"

"No, my road was too devilish rough.  I'd like
it different."

Felicia looked up, surprised both at his words
and the unusual passion in his voice.

"Do you suppose I have ever forgotten I didn't
get what I wanted?  Felicia, I loved you before
Syd ever saw you."

"I know.  I'm sorry.  I was always sorry.
You know that, Stephen."

"You needn't be.  Loving you made a man of
me, though it did make the road rough.  Things had
come my way rather too easily up to that time.
Syd was the better man.  I always owned that."

"You were fine, Stephen.  I've never forgotten
how fine.  And Sydney cared more for you than
for any one else in the world--barring us."  She
smiled a little and her eyes strayed out to the
magnolia tree beneath whose generous shade Marianna
and Donald were laboriously engaged in the
construction of a kite with much chatter and argument.

"Felicia."

"Yes?"

"Are you so afraid of change you wouldn't risk
beginning over again--with me?"

Felicia's sewing dropped in her lap and her blue
eyes opened wide with surprise and consternation
as she looked up to meet his dark, eager eyes.

"Stephen!"

"Well?  Is it so impossible to conceive?
Haven't you guessed I was going to ask it sooner
or later?"

"No.  Oh, Stephen, I wish you hadn't."

"Why?  I don't expect the same kind of love
you gave Syd.  You couldn't give it, of course.
That is past.  But you are too young to have life
stop altogether for you--too young and too lovely.
Other men will ask it if I don't, and I--well, I want
to get in ahead."  He laughed boyishly, but his
eyes, which were grave enough, never left her face.
"Is there any reason you couldn't say yes?" he
asked.

"I am afraid there are many.  One of them--rather
two of them--are out under the tree at
present."

His gaze followed her gesture.

"Are they really a reason?  I love the kiddies
and they like me.  Surely it would be no injustice
nor detriment to them.  Why should it?"

"Not to them--rather to you--to any man I
married.  They are a very piece of me.  They are
me.  If there ever came to be a decision between
them and--well, call the man you--I should
decide for them.  Is that fair to you?  Would you
risk it?"

"Willingly.  Why should there be any decision
or division?  What do you think I am?  If I
marry you I marry them too.  I am crazy over
children.  I've always wanted them."

"Exactly," said Felicia quietly.  "That would
be part of the injustice to you.  I don't want
children.  Marianna and Donald are enough."

"So they would be for me.  Felicia, can't you
understand, I want nothing except what you
want--what will make you happy?  Is there any other
reason?"

"Yes, she is coming up the Hill now."

He turned quickly and saw Sylvia, with her
friends on either side, just going up the path which
led to the door of the Byrd sisters preparatory to
an afternoon call.

"What nonsense!"  He turned back to Felicia
to protest.  "Sylvia would be the last to stand in
the way of your happiness."

"Oh, I know that.  But listen, Stephen.  You
accused me of not understanding a moment ago.
Now it is you who do not understand.  Do you
know what Sylvia has been to me all these years?
No, you couldn't possibly know.  No man could.
Six years ago I was weary almost unto death, and
discouraged with a weight of hopelessness which
was beginning to make even the children seem a
burden.  That Christmas was the blackest time of
all the months since Sydney went.  I tell you honestly
it didn't seem as if I could go on with it all.  I
was too near the breaking point.  And then
straight out of the delightful good fairyland where
she lives came Sylvia begging me to be her
Christmas sister and bring the babies to round out her
magic Christmas circle.  I believe it was Sylvia's
smile and Sylvia's pleading eyes that began to heal
the hurt in me then and there.  I have had lonely
moments since, of course, and some black ones,
too, but they have never been so bad since that
Christmas.  Do you wonder that next to my own
children I care more for Sylvia and her happiness
than for anything else in the world?"

Stephen shook his head soberly, trying his best
to understand since she desired it.

"After the Christmas family scattered I came to
be what Sylvia calls her homekeeper and that I have
been for over five years now.  You can see a little
what it has meant to me to have a home like Arden
Hall for the children to grow up in instead of a
cramped city apartment with no outdoors except
public parks to play in.  It has made all the
difference in the world to them and to me, body, mind
and soul.  I couldn't have been half a mother to
them the way I was working and living.  And all
of this we owe to Sylvia."

"But you have rendered good measure.  You
have given her a home no less than she has given
you one.  It has been a fair exchange."

"I know.  It has meant almost as much to
Sylvia as it has to me.  It has given us both what
we wanted most.  I don't pretend it hasn't been
give and take.  It has.  But this one year is the
one of all the six since I've known Sylvia that she
needs me most.  I wouldn't fail her now for
anything."

"And they say women have no sex loyalty,"
muttered Stephen Kinnard.  "See here, Felicia, do
you realize you have as good as accepted me?"

"Accepted you!  I have been refusing you with
reasons for fifteen minutes."  Felicia's serene voice
was a bit ruffled and there was a flush in her cheeks.

"You've been giving reasons, I grant you, but
not refusal.  Look at me, Felicia.  If there weren't
any Marianna and Donald and Sylvia in the world
wouldn't you say this minute, 'Stephen, I'll marry
you just as soon as you can get the license'?  No
quibble now.  Honest."

Felicia laughed softly and her flush deepened.

"If there weren't any Marianna and Donald and
Sylvia in the world I should be so desperately
lonesome I should tell the first man that asked me I
would marry him as soon as he could get the license,
but seeing that there are Marianna and Donald and
Sylvia, not only in the world but on this very Hill,
I am not in the least lonesome and quite satisfied
with my mothering-sistering job, thank you."

"Then it is really no?"

The mirth died out of her eyes at the gravity of
his tone.

"Yes, Stephen.  I am sorry, but it is really no.
Aside from Sylvia and the children there would
always be Sydney.  You are too fine to be a second
best, Stephen, dear.  Do go and find somebody
who is fresher and younger and less--tired than I am."

At her words there rose to both their minds a
vision of Hope Williams' dainty, wild rose beauty
and wistful "dryad" eyes.  Stephen had been
sketching her only that morning in the Oriole Inn
garden and every line of her exquisite, fragile,
flower-like face and lithe, graceful young body was
in his head still.  And Felicia had more than once
surprised an unforgettable expression in Hope's
eyes when the artist had come suddenly into the
girl's presence.  Hope was young, younger than
Sylvia, and Stephen Kinnard was forty.  But he
was of the eternally young type of man, brimming
over with that inexplicable, irresistible thing we call
charm, and his years abroad had stamped him with
a picturesque, foreign quality which was sure to
appeal to the romantic fancy of youth.  One ardent
gaze from those strange, gold-flecked eyes of his
had no doubt been enough to set many a maid
dreaming ere this, and he had been kind to Hope,
perhaps more than kind for all Felicia knew.

But already the vision of Hope had vanished
from Stephen's mind.  He saw only the mature
grace and loveliness of the woman who had long
ago been the one fixed star of his errant youth and
to whom he now brought the homage of ripened
manhood.

"I don't want anybody in the smallest particular
different from yourself, sweet Lady Love.  Don't
worry though," as he saw her troubled eyes.  "I
am not going to pester you.  I shall take myself
off to-morrow but I shall come back and some day
I shall surprise you in a lonely hour and you will
say, 'Stephen, do hurry and get the license.'"

Seeing his whimsical, reassuring smile, Felicia
smiled back, half relieved, and indeed not quite
knowing how much of it all had been in earnest;
glad, at all events, to have him slip back so easily
into the familiar channels of friendliness.

And just then the girls, having finished their call,
came gayly chattering up the walk, demanding of
Stephen whether he had suffered any ill effects from
the experimental sandwich he had so manfully
encountered.  And amidst the general confusion of
talk and laughter Stephen rose to take his departure,
giving no hint of finality about his leave taking,
except a slightly lengthened clasp of Felicia's
hand and a steady gaze into her blue eyes.
Consequently the girls, at least, were considerably
surprised the next day to receive three boxes of sweet
peas each with Stephen Kinnard's card, rose pink
for Suzanne, shell pink for Barb, delicate lavendar
for Sylvia.  Sylvia's box also contained a charming
little note thanking the girl for her summer's
hospitality and regretting that the writer was called
out of town without opportunity for formal
farewells.  For Felicia had come violets, but no word
at all, not even a card.

"H-m-m," murmured the astute Suzanne, when
the girls were alone, "Called out of town, indeed!
Needn't tell me.  Your Felicia didn't have such a
becoming extra bloom yesterday for nothing.  You
are safe for the present, Sylvia.  She evidently
dismissed him."

Down the Hill, at the Oriole Inn, Hope and
Martha Williams reigned in the absence of the young
proprietor who since her grandmother's death had
been traveling in Europe with the Armstrongs,
her sister Constance and her husband, Sylvia's
erstwhile gardener.  And to the Oriole Inn also came
flowers, dainty, half-open, pink rosebuds nestled in
maidenhair fern.  Came also a brotherly affectionate
note of thanks and adieu from the artist.

"The sketches are bound to be a success," he
wrote, "for you are the very spirit of Southern
gardens, the veriest rose of them all."  So he had
put it, poet fashion, and Hope, with fluttering pink
and white in her cheeks, ran off to enjoy her
treasures in happy solitude, leaving her sister Martha
stolidly measuring lengths for the new dining-room
curtains.  No one had ever sent roses to Martha in
all her life.  Nor had any one ever written poet
lines about her or to her.  She was not that kind,
as she would herself have explained.  But it was
not that that brought a wry twist to her lips and a
worried look to her eyes as she bent over her work.

"Why couldn't he a been a little meaner to her?"
she demanded of the curtains.  "'Twould have
been a whole lot kinder than being kind."

In which theory she unconsciously paraphrased
the words of a person she had never heard of,
another perturbed guardian of another flower-like
maid, the Lily Maid of Astolat.  Of Launcelots
and Elaines there are a plenty in this somewhat uneconomical world.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TWENTY-TWO`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium bold

   TWENTY-TWO

.. vspace:: 2

"Please, Felicia.  Look at me.  Am I all right?"

Mrs. Emory turned from her mirror before
which she had been adjusting a last hairpin in her
blond hair and smiled at the radiant vision which
hovered on her threshold.  But before she had time
to render verdict the vision ceased to be stationary
and became before her eyes a vivid, ecstatic flash and
whirl of white chiffon and silver.

"Bless us, child!" laughed Felicia.  "You are
as bad as Marianna.  How can I tell anything
about you when you are spinning like a Dervish?
You look as if you might float out the window any
minute and join the moon sprites."

Sylvia laughed, too, and came to a halt, though
one silver slipper paused tip toe as if it scorned
prosaic levels and held itself ready for further airy
revolutions.

"And leave my birthday party!  Not much!
The moon sprites shan't get me to-night.  Honest,
Felicia, I just can't keep still.  I'm too alive."

The chiffons and silver began to shimmer and
quiver again in testimony and Felicia smiled
understandingly.  But even as she smiled she felt a
sharp little pang--the pang of chastened maturity
for exuberant youth.  A vagrant bit of verse
flashed through her mind.

   |  "Pity that ever the jubilant springs should fail at their flow
   |  And that youth so utterly knowing it not should one day know."
   |

Yes, that was the pity.  Here was Sylvia Arden,
glad, and young, and free, smiling into the future
with fearless eyes, challenging experience.  Must
she too, one day know?  At any rate, the hour of
too much knowing was as yet afar off.  At twenty-two
Sylvia was still very close to the jubilant
springs.  But even as she reached this comforting
conclusion Felicia saw the girl's eyes grow sober.

"Felicia, sometimes I think it's a dreadful thing
to grow up.  Life is so fearfully complex
somehow.  All sorts of questions jump out and 'Boo'
at you from behind every tree."

"What kind of questions?"

"Oh, all kinds!"  Sylvia dropped down on the
low window seat, like a bird suddenly alighting, and
clasped her hands around her knees in reckless
disregard of her billowing chiffons.  "I'm a little
afflicted with socialism and that is a sad disease for
a person who has as much money as I have.  But
that isn't all.  I am so at sea about so many things,
and there are so many strings pulling in all
directions.  Suzanne thinks New York is the only place
in the world to really live in and she wants me
to come and live with her and study or do
something.  She doesn't think it matters much what,
so long as I breathe New York, and Barb is nearly
as bad.  They are both full of up-to-date notions
and they think I'm just going to slip behind if I
stay here and maybe I shall.  I can see pretty easily
how I could.  Everybody here expects me to do
the regular coming out performance, teas and
dinners and balls and the rest, with maybe a little
discreet charity work thrown in, and possibly a paper
on art or ethics for the literary club.  You know
what Greendale is.  The Gordons want me to go to
Japan with them and Hilda wants me to join her
in Berlin, or did before the war.  Goodness knows
where she is now.  I haven't heard since July.
And--well, there are other things."

Felicia quite understood that Jack Amidon might
possibly be another string pulling the girl.  It was
no secret from the Hill, and certainly not from the
wise-eyed "Big Sister," that that devoted, persistent
and "magerful" young man had every intention
of storming Sylvia's hill top and carrying
off its princess if such a feat were humanly possible.

"And you don't want to do any of these things?"

Sylvia smiled dubiously.

"Oh, yes, a little of me wants to do all those
things.  But the most of me wants to stay right
here at Arden Hall and do nothing particular.  I'd
like a kind of year o' grace I think.  I don't seem to
have any especial ambitions nor desires except to
learn to live as broad and deep and quick as I can."  She
shifted her position slightly and looked out into
the night where her beloved rose garden lay in
magical moonlight and shadow and a faint sigh
escaped her, born of the very beauty, poignant almost
as pain, so quick was her response to it.  Suddenly
she turned back and her eyes smiled at Felicia.

"Life's funny, isn't it?" she said, springing up.
"Felicia, what ever in the world should I do
without you?"  She eyed a little sternly the bunch of
violets Felicia was wearing, a fresh bunch which
had arrived that day.  "Felicia, Mr. Kinnard
isn't--you aren't--?"

Felicia laughed.

"Your observations lack a certain finished
coherence but I assure you I am not, nor is he--at
least, not seriously."

"I'm so glad!" sighed Sylvia.  "I know I'm a
pig but I should simply hate Stephen Kinnard if I
thought he were going to carry you off, and I
should hate to hate him he is so exceedingly nice.  I
wish he could have stayed for the party to-night.
Oh me!  We ought to be downstairs this blessed
minute.  *Am* I all right, Felicia?  You never did
tell me."  And Sylvia whirled around to the
mirror for a last critical survey.  Felicia, whose eyes
also sought the reflected figure in the glass, thought
she had never seen the girl lovelier than she was
to-night in all her shimmering bravery of white and
silver.  But there was always something more than
mere prettiness about Sylvia, something which
seemed to shine from within out.  She was so
exquisitely alive like the fire in the heart of an opal
or a jet of pure flame.

"Aren't you coming, Syl?" Suzanne's voice
called from the hall as she knocked and entered
almost simultaneously, followed by Barbara.

   |  "'The feast is set,
   |  The guests are met.
   |      May'st hear the merry din.'"

she chanted gayly, looking more impishly charming
even than usual in her beruffled corn yellow taffeta,
which set off her sparkling brunette beauty to
perfection.  "Do come down quick and get the hand
shaking over so we can begin to dance.  It is a
shame to waste a moment of that heavenly music.
And here's Barb just dying to get to cracking the
hearts of the Greendale swains.  Look at her.
Behold my handiwork.  She even let me apply
the faintest soupçon of Nature's sweet reënforcer.
Madame Delphine's Parisian Bloom.  Isn't she
adorable?  Barbie, my child, revolve for the ladies."

"Oh, Suzanne!"  The roses in Barb's cheeks
needed no further reënforcement at the moment.
"Do please rub it off.  It's dreadful.  Does it
show, Sylvia?  She would do it."

"Nothing shows except that you're the cunningest
mite I ever laid eyes on," approved Sylvia.
"Felicia, do look at her.  Doesn't she look
precisely like one of Marianna's dolls?  In that
darling white baby dress and blue sash to match her
eyes, would you ever suspect her of being a Summa
cum Laude and a frightfully new woman?"

"You all look new enough when it comes to
that," laughed Felicia.  "You haven't a notion
how young you really are.  Now, shoo, every one
of you.  I'll follow as soon as I have rounded up
Donald and Marianna."

It was a rather heterogeneous assembly which
met at the Hall that night, as Sylvia's parties were
apt to be.  The guests ranged from "Grandpa
McIntosh," getting to be rather an old gentleman
these days but still hale and a little crusty as
became a good Scotchman, down to little Mary Lane,
the youngest, shyest member of the "Hester
house" family which continued to hold its
hospitable doors open to those who needed a home
"with some one to care" as Sylvia had stipulated
from the beginning.

Marianna, still fairy-like, in spite of her
eleven-year-old dignity, flitted happily among the guests
feeling delightfully grown up and important, but
Donald, younger and shyer, boyishly conscious of
his hands and feet, slipped into unobtrusive corners
save for the rare moments when he could squeeze
into an empty space beside his mother.

Of course the Hill was all there, Miss Priscilla,
and Miss Rosalie and Julietta feasted their eyes
delightedly on Sylvia, telling every one who would
listen what a very picture of her Aunt Eleanor
Arden the child was, rapturously reminiscent of other
days and other parties when they, too, like Arden
Hall were younger than at present, and Doctor Tom
and Lois were there also, rallying each other on
being such old fogies that a party was an event and
the new dances utterly beyond their ken.

"Hester house" was present too in full force,
including Mrs. Lorrimer and all the family of girls
who had the luck to be mothered by her skillful
hands and warm heart.  All kinds of girls they
were, big and little, pretty and plain, stupid and
clever, but all of the workaday world and all
otherwise homeless, united by one common bond, a warm
adoration for Sylvia through whom they felt themselves
linked to the world of their rosiest dreams.
Sylvia would no more have omitted them from her
list of guests on this birthday celebration than she
would have omitted the Byrds or Doctor Tom.  To
be of the Hill was open sesame to Sylvia's favor,
and moreover these girls were every one of them
her personal friends and she wanted them here for
their own sakes.

Hope and Martha, too, had come up from the
Oriole Inn, the former still a little inarticulate and
somber but happily having lost the old-young,
pinched look about the mouth and the bitterness
about the eyes which had been hers that night in
Sylvia's garden when she had charged the owner
so sternly with possessing "Hundreds of roses
when Hope hasn't even one;" a charge which Sylvia
had never since been able to forget for long.  It
was to her a symbol of the mesh of inequality and
injustice of the world in which she herself was
caught and struggled.  For Sylvia wanted to share
her roses.  She always had wanted to, as Martha
had long since learned.  Hope was even sweeter
and lovelier at twenty than she had been at fifteen,
still a little frail in appearance though perfectly
well.  This summer there was an added grace about
her, a sort of suppressed joyousness, a glow which
transformed her rather ethereal charm into an even
more appealing human guise.  During the sunny
summer days past when Stephen Kinnard had been
using her as the incarnation of gardens, Hope
herself had bloomed from a shy bud of a rose into a
half-blown flower, though perhaps only Martha's
keen, devoted eyes saw what had happened.

Professor Lane and his wife, Sylvia's original
"Christmas Mother," were unfortunately unable
to be present, though they sent warm greetings and
hearty congratulations from the Western university
to which the professor had recently been called.
With them, too, was Elizabeth, also of the original
famous family, who had come of late to be almost
like a daughter in their childless home.

Gus Nichols was here, however, a slim, dark
youth, extremely quiet, though not in the least
awkward; unobtrusive, grave, giving the impression
somehow of banked fires behind those solemn dark
eyes of his, which followed Sylvia Arden wherever
she passed.  Though Gus was thoroughly American
in dress and manner and articulation, the trail
of his Italian ancestry was upon him.  Even after
all these years he looked "different," an odd
contrast to the grim conservative old man, Angus
McIntosh, whose adopted son and idol he was.  Gus
had been studying abroad for several years, had
indeed just returned to America, ready to start his
career on the concert stage.  If this profession
elected by the boy were at all a bitter pill for the
old Scotchman to swallow he made no protest about
it and had even furthered the lad's ambition.
Mr. McIntosh was not one to indulge in half-way
measures and Sylvia had long since driven home
her point that if he was to transform Gus Nichols,
office boy, into Augustus Nichols, his adopted son,
he had no right to change the currents of the boy's
being in the process.  He quite understood that
if Gus "had to play the music that was in him,"
he *had* to.  That was the end of it.  Angus
McIntosh was enough of a predestinarian to perceive
that.  At any rate, Sylvia and her Christmas
family had inoculated the fast hardening old man with
a certain infusion of human tolerance and human
understanding and he had all the reward for his
kindness that he desired and more in the boy's
usually silent but none the less deep gratitude and
devotion.

Other friends there were of Greendale and the
near-by city, assembled to do honor to the young
mistress of Arden Hall who had at last come home
to take her place among them no longer a half-fledged
school girl, but a poised and very lovely
young woman.

"I suppose you will be marrying her off next,"
observed Mr. McIntosh curtly, with bent brows, to
Mrs. Emory who chanced to be standing near by
as Sylvia sped past in Jack Amidon's arms.

"Not I," smiled Felicia.  "I should be sorry
to have her marry for a year or so yet.  One is
young such a very short time in this world at best.
I should like to keep her just as she is for awhile
if I could."

"You'll have some trouble doing it unless you
muzzle that young man, I'm thinking."  The
speaker frowned thoughtfully at Jack Amidon's back.
"I suppose that is what most people would call a
suitable match, eh?" he wheeled on Felicia to ask.

"I suppose so," admitted Felicia.

"H-mp!" snorted her companion.  "Most people are fools."

Whether fools or not there were plenty of
people to note with interest, pleasure or alarm,
according to their several viewpoints, when as the
music ceased Sylvia stepped through the French
window into the balcony beyond, followed by Jack
Amidon.  Perhaps more than one guest would have
echoed Suzanne's verdict that Sylvia was spoiled
indeed if Jack Amidon were not good enough for
her; handsome, debonair, thoroughly charming as
he was.  Health, wealth, good looks and good old
family on both sides.  What more could be
desired?  Who but a canny old Scotchman would
have "H-mped" in the face of such a very
obviously appropriate combination?  Yet Sylvia herself
was still to be reckoned with; Sylvia who wore her
heart on her sleeve as little now as in the old
St. Anne days, Sylvia, who wanted to learn to live as
broad and deep and quick as she could.





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.. _`THE WAYS OF A MAID`:

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   CHAPTER IV


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   THE WAYS OF A MAID

.. vspace:: 2

"You look mighty sweet and cool and moonshiny!"

Jack stooped to draw Sylvia's scarf about her
bare shoulders with the protecting chivalrous touch
which was characteristic of him.  His ancestors
had been cavaliers and none of them all knew
better than he the art of little, tender, intimate,
endearing ways which women--even new women--love.
The ardently adoring expression in his eyes was
also characteristic.  Jack Amidon's eyes were
accustomed to looking adoring.  He could no more
help making love to a pretty girl than he could have
been rude to an ugly one.  It was constitutional.
To do him justice, however, this time the
adoration came from rather deep.  There had been girls
and girls in his life but never but one Sylvia.

"Ah, but it's good to have you home for good
and all."  And he let his hands rest for a moment
on her shoulders as he spoke and permitted the
ardentness of his eyes to deepen.

But Sylvia slipped away from his hands and his
too eloquent gaze.  She turned to rest her hands
on the railing and look down at the fountain which
flashed and gurgled pleasantly below in the
moonlight.  Perhaps she knew that all the summer day
playing had been leading up to this night, that a
serious question was likely to "Boo" at her at any
minute unless she could keep it at a safe distance,
which as Jack's eyes just now betrayed was not
going to be so easy.

"I am not sure I *am* home--for good and all,"
she said, still with her eyes on the fountain.  "I
have to find something to do.  Just being 'out'
isn't going to satisfy me.  I have to be in
something or rather.  I am looking for a Cause," she
turned back to him with a smile to add.

Jack dropped on the railing by her side and
bent his handsome head until it was very near the
girl's.

"Won't I do--for a Cause?" he asked, unconsciously
echoing Suzanne.

Sylvia smiled.

"Scarcely.  I am afraid you are more like an effect."

"An effect!"

"You are a fearful example of what I don't want
to be and what I am bound to be if I don't watch
out."

"What?"

Sylvia paused for a word, then, "A derelict,"
she pronounced.

Jack's head went up quickly, his self-complacency
shattered for the moment.  Sylvia's word had
stung.

"Do I honestly remind you of anything
so--dilapidated, not to say rotten?" he asked.

Sylvia caught the hurt sound in his voice and
looked up, taking in at a glance his wholesome,
young vigor, his essential cleanness and fineness.
Excellent things these in themselves as the girl
knew, though she asked for more.

"No," she admitted.  "It wasn't a good figure
after all.  You are more like a freshly rigged,
beautifully appointed yacht, without a rudder or a pilot,
going nowhere--anywhere."

Jack settled back on the railing with a shrug.

"Same old Sylvia!  You always did hit straight
from the shoulder.  What do you want me to do?
There is more money in the family now than is
good for us.  What's the infernal use of my
scrapping and scrambling for more?  I'm a nincompoop
at the business anyway."

"Then for goodness' sake find one you aren't a
nincompoop at," retorted Sylvia.

"Easier said than done, young woman."

"Oh, I know," relented his mentor.  "I haven't
any right to preach till I find my own job."

"You!  Girls don't need a job.  Their job is
to look pretty and get married."

Sylvia frowned at that.

"Heretic!  That's not twentieth-century lingo.
You are positively mediæval.  I shall set Barb on
you."

Jack smiled.

"Barb knows it's true just as well as I do for
all her theories.  She would marry the right man
in a minute if he turned up and forget the suffrage
stuff.  She's by all odds the most domestic of the
three of you."

Sylvia looked thoughtful.  She remembered
Barb's opinion about the "loveliness" of having
babies and wondered.  For all his inconsequence
Jack had a somewhat startling habit at times of
getting beneath the surface of things.  She
suspected he had hit upon a truth now but would not
give him the satisfaction of acknowledging the fact.
Therefore she said nothing, and her silence gave
her companion the opening he had been waiting
for.  He had not brought Sylvia out in the
moonlight to talk "twentieth-century lingo."

"You didn't wear my orchids," he observed
irrelevantly, at least irrelevantly to everything
except his ardent eyes.  From the beginning his eyes
had been talking a language older than that of
feminism.

"I didn't wear anybody's flowers.  I had too many."

"And I am not different from just anybody?"  There
was a caressing, proprietary note in his voice.
"Sylvia, sweetheart, you *know* I am."

Sylvia faced him and the issue then, aware that
she could fend no longer.

"Of course you are different, Jack.  I've known
you so much longer than the rest, but--I am afraid
you are not different in the way you want me to
say it.  Please, Jack, don't spoil what we have by
asking too much."  Impulsively she put out her
hand and let it rest on his.  "Can't we keep on
being--just friends?"  She pleaded after the
immemorial fashion of woman.

"I'm afraid not.  You see, I don't want to be
just friends.  I want a whole lot more as it
happens.  I know I'm not much good, but I could be
with you at the helm.  You could do anything with
me.  You always could.  Oh, Sylvia, wouldn't you
try it?  Couldn't you?"  He stooped and lifted
her hand to his lips.  "Sylvia, isn't there any
hope?" he implored, all his boy's heart in his
eyes.

Sylvia couldn't help being stirred deeply.  When
one is loved it is not so hard to believe one loves in
return and the call of youth and life is strong.
But for both their sakes she steadied herself
knowing the time was not ripe for yielding, if, indeed,
it ever would be.  This was one of the things among
others that she was at sea about.  She was not yet
sure she knew herself, as she had told her friends.

"I am afraid there isn't--much," she said
gently, apropos of his word *hope*.

His hand clinched.

"Sylvia, is there any one else?"

She shook her head hastily, but her eyes fell
beneath his penetrating gaze.

"It isn't--Sylvia, it isn't Phil?"

Sylvia's head went up and there was a flash in
her brown eyes, a deeper flush on her cheeks.

"It is nobody.  Jack, you haven't any right to
ask that," she rebuked him hotly.

"Sorry," he apologized.  "Consider it
unasked."  "So it is old Phil," he thought.

"I don't want to marry anybody--not for a
long, long time," Sylvia went on swiftly.  "Anyway,
I couldn't marry anybody who was just a boy.
I've got to marry a *man*."  In her confusion Sylvia
hit hard again; harder perhaps than she really
meant.

Jack rose and made one or two quick turns tip
and down the balcony.  Then he came to a halt
before Sylvia.

"Maybe I deserve that," he said soberly.  "No
doubt I do.  See here, Sylvia, if I can show you
I am a man, will it help any?"

Sylvia hesitated.  It would help a great deal and
she knew it.  And yet could she promise anything
while she was still so uncertain of herself?  Had
she any right to hold out any hope?

"Sweetheart, wouldn't there be any chance for
me?" he pleaded.

"I don't know," said Sylvia honestly.  "I'm
sorry, Jack.  I'm all in a muddle myself.  I do care
a lot.  How could I help it?  You are always so
dear and nice to me, and you are so twisted up with
so many of the happiest times I've ever had I
couldn't help caring.  But it isn't enough at
present, and I am not at all sure it ever could be enough
of the right kind.  We are awfully good playmates,
but there is more ahead for both of us than play.  At
least I hope there is.  Anyway, I don't want to
belong to anybody but myself for awhile."

"I'll wait.  I'll work like the devil.  I'll do
anything if you'll only say there is the slightest shadow
of a chance."

Sylvia couldn't help smiling at the boyishness of
his protestations, earnest as they were and touching
in their unwonted humility.  She shook her head.

"That is all there is--just a shadow of a chance.
I'm sorry it isn't more.  Truly I am.  And
don't--please, don't--hope too much," she begged.

"I'll hope all there is," he retorted grimly.

"Well, here you are!  My word!  Your partners
are tearing their hair and rushing round like
mad dogs.  Pretty way for a hostess to behave,
vanishing like the original Cheshire puss!  Amidon,
your life isn't worth a nickle if you go in
there."  Thus challenged a blond young medical student
from the near-by University suddenly appearing in
the window, blithely unconscious that he had
interrupted anything more than a moonlight interlude.

"Then I'll stay out," announced Jack coolly as
Sylvia rose with apologies and followed her captor.

Left alone, Jack lit a cigarette and strode to and
fro in the little balcony thinking as hard as
perhaps he had ever thought in his twenty-six rather
heedless happy-go-lucky years.  If ever a man
takes square account of himself it is at the moment
when he desires with all his heart and soul to win
a woman.  As young men go, Jack Amidon was as
clean and fine as most, considerably more so than
might have been expected, in fact, considering his
easy-going temperament and unlimited income.
But being merely negatively decent was not enough
to offer Sylvia Arden.  Not even shrewd old Angus
McIntosh knew that better than Jack himself.

"Man indeed!" he muttered in the course of his
march.  "I suppose if I had studied like sin and
turned into a saw bones like old Phil she would
have had some use for me."  The thought of Phil
Lorrimer sent his thoughts on a different tangent.
For with that uncanny perceptive power which
Sylvia herself granted him he knew far better than
Sylvia knew that if it had been Phil instead of
himself who had been besieging the Princess of the
hill top that evening for the boon of her hand and
heart a different answer might have been forthcoming.
Phil, at least, fulfilled the initial requirement.
He was a man, every inch of him.  Jack
vouchsafed him that just as he had admitted the
other lad deserved Sylvia's favor even at his own
expense back in the days of the Christmas family.

It was odd how history repeated itself.  Just as
in that old time, Sylvia had set himself a task to
"mend his fences" as she had whimsically
expressed it, so she was again bidding him gird on
his armor if he would win her respect without
which her love was an impossibility.  As if it were
yesterday Jack remembered that night among the
snow-laden pines, out under the stars, when Sylvia
had gravely and simply without any preaching,
Sylvia fashion, turned him aside from paths already
beginning to be dangerous to safer, cleaner ways.
Come to think of it, it had always been Sylvia who
had pointed him starward, Sylvia only who
believed in him enough to swear him into knighthood.
Now that they were no longer boy and girl it was
the prize of her love which would send him into
the fray.  Already he had experienced his accolade.

"Poor old Lorry!" he thought.  "Why didn't
he cut his blooming operations and come down
here and speak for himself to-night?  Thank the
Lord he didn't though or yours truly would be
ditched and done for.  I never had a show with
Lorry in the foreground.  Well, here's to the
breach.  Sylvia will never forgive me if I omit to
dance with one of her precious orphans."

So it happened that a few moments later shy
little Mary Lane watching the dancers with
longing eyes from a corner caught her breath with
astonishment and delight as Jack Amidon stood
before her, his eyes smiling encouragement and
friendliness, his lips begging the boon of a dance
quite as earnestly as if she had been one of the
belles of the ball.  So it happened also that Sylvia,
being whirled past the two, smiled happy gratitude
at Jack over her partner's shoulder, and he
knew that his careless kindness to her little guest
had scored him a high mark in her favor.

"Jack is such a dear," thought Sylvia.  "He
is a real knight.  I wonder if I am all wrong to
try to turn him into a plain workaday person.  He
is so thoroughly delightful as he is.  When men
get too much absorbed in their work you can't
count on them for the little things, and, after all,
the little things mean a whole lot."

Possibly this sage conclusion had some vague
connection with the fact that a certain very much
"absorbed in work" young doctor way off in a
distant city had permitted Sylvia's birthday to come
and almost go with no word or sign.  If so
certainly Sylvia would have been the last to admit the
connection even to herself.

"Please, Miss Sylvia, there's some one downstairs
in the hall asking for you," whispered a maid
in Sylvia's ears as her partner brought her to a
chair.  "He didn't give any name."

Sylvia excused herself and slipped away
wondering as to the identity of her late arriving guest.
At the foot of the stairs was an extraordinarily
tall, blond young man, with the bluest and friendliest
of eyes and the biggest, most crushing hand grip in
the world.

"Why, Phil!" gasped Sylvia.  "I had no idea
you could come."  This as soon as she was able to
regain her wits and the possession of her hands.

"Nor I.  As a matter of fact, I couldn't.  I
just did," grinned Phil Lorrimer, cheerfully.
"Here I am, B. and O. grime and all.  May I come
to the party just as I am without one plea?"

"You surely may.  I'm so glad."  And Sylvia's
face corroborated her words.

"Here's a nosegay for you," and Phil's fingers
fumbled with the string on the box he had
deposited in a convenient chair while he had used
both hands greeting Sylvia.  In a moment a
charming bouquet of cream yellow roses, shell pink at
the heart, was disclosed.

"How lovely!"  Sylvia buried her face in the
nosegay.  "I just have to wear them.  Oh, dear,
I haven't a pin."

"Here you are!"  And the young doctor
solemnly produced the needful article.

"Trust you!" laughed Sylvia.  "There, aren't
they perfect?  Come on, quick.  Let's not waste
the music."

"Ditto my sentiments.  Is this my dance?"

"It's Doctor Tom's, but he won't care.  Hurry."

And in a moment the onlookers had something
new to think of as Sylvia's white and silverness
flashed back into the ballroom with a tall figure in
plain traveling clothes by her side.

"Another country heard from," grunted Angus
McIntosh as he watched the two swing into step.

Perhaps in the whole room there was no one
who had more cause for a sudden reaction of
feeling than Jack Amidon, whose quick eye took in
even at the length of the hall that Sylvia was at
last wearing somebody's flowers.  But it was with
apparent nonchalance and entire good will that he
came to offer Phil Lorrimer a cordial greeting a
few moments later, though even as he chatted with
the other young man it did not escape him that
there was an added radiance to Sylvia's
"moonshininess," as if she had tasted some magic draught
of youth and joy during those few moments in
which she had been out of the room.  As has been
observed, Jack Amidon was a rather unexpectedly
perspicuous person at times.





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.. _`SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON`:

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   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON

.. vspace:: 2

"Oh, me!  Just think!  By to-morrow afternoon
at this time we'll all be scattered to the four
winds," sighed Barbara.  "Don't you hate to have
things get different?"

"Can't say I do.  The differenter the better so
far as I am concerned as I have hitherto remarked,"
put in Suzanne.  "I hate staying still, physically,
mentally, or morally.  I'm ready for new pricks
every minute.  I feel like saying to life every
morning 'Come on.  Do your worst.  I'm ready.  Give
me anything--everything--except stagnation.'"

"You don't look as if you were going to stagnate
just this minute," laughed Sylvia, surveying her
friend, who, indeed, from the tip of her
impatiently tapping shoe to the crown of her rebellious
blue-black, wavy hair, appeared sufficiently dynamic
for any purpose.

"I don't intend to.  That is why I am transferring
my spiritual and bodily allegiance from Norton,
Pa., to New York City.  I'd rather live on a
crust in that blessed city of enchantment than fare
on nectar and ambrosia elsewhere.  I wish you
would change your mind and come along, Sylvia.
I know you are going to be discontented here or
even contented, which is worse.  Arden Hall is a
perfect dream of a place, and I've loved every
minute of this week with you, but it would swamp
me with its placidity if I settled down in it, and
that's the truth."

"Oh, Suzanne!"  Thus Barb, always sensitive
to the possibility that some one's feelings might be
going to be hurt.

"Don't mind her, Barb.  I know what she
means precisely, and it is all more or less true.
Arden Hall is placid and remote.  I have to find a
way to link it somehow with big moving things
outside--below--or the very thing Suzanne
threatens me with will happen."

"You'll find a way," prophesied Barb earnestly.

"Of course she'll find it," seconded Suzanne.
"If there is anybody on this green earth capable
of squeezing the traditional camel through the
needle's eye it is the young person I see before me.
Isn't it time our cavaliers arrived?  I begin to pine
for action already."

"Jack said he would be here at four sharp.  We
are going to take you to the most heavenly spot,
right over the river with the whole Ridge for a
background.  Some day when you are being
compressed to a wafer in the Subway in your precious
old city you will remember it and be willing to
give your second-most-becoming hat for a magic
carpet to take you back."

"I shouldn't wonder," murmured Barb.  "I believe
Suzanne would rather hear the roar of the El
than the wind in the pines though.  She is the most
urban person I ever knew."

Suzanne laughed at this arraignment.

"It isn't the music of the El, *per se* that I
delight in.  That's nearer like the thing it rhymes
with.  But it's a symbol.  It means hurrying
human beings, the rush and stir of things.  I love
crowds."

"And I detest them," groaned Barb.  "I'm
afraid of New York in spite of all its wonderfulness.
It is so big and hard and impersonal.  If it
weren't for being with Aunt Jo I know it would
scare me to bits to live there."

"You poor babe!"  Sylvia smiled sympathetically
at the speaker.  "It is unthinkable that a little
shrinking infant like you should be dedicated to a
great screaming cause.  You ought to live in a
cozy cottage, in a friendly little village, where
everybody knows everybody and grow pansies."

"And babies," added Suzanne, an addition which
brought a quick flush to Barb's cheeks and made
her put out her hand with a deprecating gesture.
"You'll never be able to stand the pace.  Better
wire your Aunt Josephine you have decided to bury
the mantle."

"For mercy's sake, what do you two think I
am?  I guess I don't have to be packed away in
rose petals and pink cotton."  There was a strain
of indignation in Barb's voice.  "I don't belong
in the sheltered woman class, and I wouldn't stay
in it if I did.  How long do you suppose I'd have
any peace in my cozy cottage, in my friendly little
village, remembering all the other women who don't
live in cozy friendly places but have to work in
horrid, noisy, sweaty factories or worse?  What
pleasure would I get out of my pansies--and babies--so
long as I knew there was a child in the world
who wasn't free to chase butterflies in the
sunshine?  You two think I am just playing at this
woman game.  I'm not.  Sylvia can act Lady
Bountiful from the top of her Hill and you can
write about woman, Suzanne, but I'm going to
fight for her, so there!"

"Bravo!  I stand reproved and beg a thousand
pardons.  You're a trump, Barbie.  You are right,
too.  Sylvia and I are likely to play with this thing
called Feminism, but you'll fight for it to the last
trench like the wee bit heroine you are.  Oh, there's
Mr. Amidon's car.  There is Mr. Amidon and
Dr. Lorrimer and--Sylvia, *who* is the third man?"

"If my eyes do not deceive me the third man
is Roger Minot.  Did you know he was imminent?"

"I did not.  Moreover, I am extremely displeased
with him for appearing," frowned Suzanne.  "I
told him distinctly I didn't want to see him again
unless I sent for him."

"Well, you will have to look the other way
then," observed Sylvia.  "He is in plain sight."

So indeed it proved, for three minutes later,
Roger Minot, a tall young man with hazel eyes and
a firm chin, was shaking hands with the assembled
group and explaining with considerable explicitness
that he had happened to be in Baltimore on
business and had also happened to call up Jack Amidon
by telephone, who, in turn, had happened to be
taking Sylvia and her guests on an excursion and
had been kind enough to include himself in the
invitation.

At all of which elaborate eloquence Suzanne had
shrugged her displeasure and pointedly turned her
back on the young barrister and devoted herself to
the doctor.  So much "happening" in the face of
her expressed command deserved punishment and
Suzanne was a firm disciplinarian where her lovers
were concerned, especially the unfortunate Roger.

"Sylvia, you will have to sit with me to show me
the way," ordered Jack in his usual "magerful"
way, taking things into his own hands.  "All
aboard, everybody?  Sure Madame Felicia won't
go?"  He turned to Sylvia to inquire.

"No, she said not.  Felicia is not exceedingly
devoted to picnics, and I suspect she has had more
than enough of them this summer.  Ready?"  Sylvia
turned back to her guests to ask and in a
moment they were off down the hill.

The rich, vivid-hued Maryland fields and meadows
lay indeed, "fair as the garden of the Lord"
as the car sped out of Greendale beyond to the open
country, along the smooth, hard, white pike.  The
afternoon shadows fell cool and long, and already
there was a faint autumnal hint of crispness in the
air and a mellow, misty gold to the sunshine.  The
mountains were outlined, palely blue, against the
deeper azure of the cloudless September skies.
Here and there a buzzard sailed and dipped above
some wooded slope or a blue jay screamed and
flashed out of an oak thicket.

Amidst the chatter of the rest Barbara fell silent
and gave herself blissfully to the serene beauty of
the outdoor world so utterly remote from that other
world of din and traffic, of strenuous toil and keen
competition in which she was to merge her own
existence on the morrow.  She was profoundly
grateful for this last opportunity to feel the benign
presence of Nature in field and sky and mountain.  Her
quick eye took in every patch of purple aster
bloom, every scarlet glory of sumach and warm
bronze hue of oaks.  Even the corn shocks spreading
their brown skirts as if indulging in some quaint
minuet stamped themselves upon her inner vision
to be remembered long after.  She did not wish
to talk, scarcely even to think.  She desired only
to feel--to let the benediction of the jewel-tinted
day possess her spirit.

Suzanne, less susceptible to the mood of
tranquillity, was bubbling over with gayety, her
attention centering chiefly on Phil Lorrimer sitting in
the seat opposite her.  She chose to ignore Roger
Minot's steady hazel eyes.  He need not think his
coming made any difference to her.  Whether he
came or went was a matter of supreme indifference.
He might just as well have stayed in his grim
little, trim little, office in Norton, Pa., as to have
pursued a will-o'-the-wisp to Arden Hall so far as
Suzanne was concerned.  Some women were made
unhappy by men.  Suzanne had a cousin to whom
this had befallen and had long since determined
none should have power to hurt her.  She meant
to guard well the citadel which was Suzanne
Morrison.  If there were any casualties in the attempt
to scale the walls the responsibility would not be
on her head.  Let men look to themselves.
Suzanne had small compassion.  Though she
thoroughly enjoyed the stimulus of the society of the
other sex and dearly loved to clash swords with
them she wished nothing at their hands.  She meant
to show the world that a woman could stand alone,
strive and conquer alone, fail if need be, alone,
sufficient unto herself unto the end.  There should
be no doll's house for her, no more confining limits
than life itself, wide as ether and deep as the sea,
for her abiding place.

On the driver's seat were Jack and Sylvia, the
latter a little silent.  Though she had made no
protest against her companion's rather high-handed
disposition of herself it had not wholly pleased
Sylvia.  For one thing, she thought it assumed too
much on the basis of that half promise of last
night.  She did not desire that Phil or indeed any
of the party should infer that she and Jack must
necessarily pair off like a couple of Noah's ark
animals; moreover she considered it extremely
thoughtless, not to say selfish, of Jack to leave Phil
to the society of a group of almost strangers when
his time in Greendale was so limited; for Phil was
taking the midnight train back to New York having
allowed himself little more than twenty-four
hours for a holiday.

"Too bad everybody has to go away," Jack was
saying.  "May I come over often and help cheer
your lonely hours?"  His voice was lowered and
his head bent toward Sylvia in an intimate fashion.

"No."  The negative was sufficiently decisive to
make the driver send a sharp glance at his companion.

"Why not?"

"Several why nots.  One is because you said
last night you were going to work in earnest.  You
can't do that and keep flying out to Greendale every
other day the way you have been doing all summer.
Besides, I expect to be busy myself."

"You!  May I ask what you are going to do
that is so almighty important?"

"You may ask but I am not likely to inform
you if you take that tone."

Jack whistled softly.

"Gee!  Am I in as bad as all that?"

"As all what?  Did I sound cross?"  Sylvia
smiled relentingly.  "Well, maybe I was.  I hate
the lordly male attitude you assume at times.  Your
tone bristled with it just then."

"Did it?" he chuckled.  "Sorry.  Honest, I
didn't mean to patronize your ladyship.  So far
from feeling lordly in your presence you usually
make me feel infernally infinitesimal, not to say
atomic.  I have a fearful and wonderful respect
for your serene high mightiness.  I truly did want
to know what you were going to do."

"I am going to get to work on my music for
one thing.  I've promised to practice with Gus.
Then I am going to learn to cook."

"In the name of heaven why?"

"Because I want to, chiefly.  Also I think
everybody--male and female--ought to know how."

Jack groaned.

"Thence to dressmaking and millinery, I suppose?"

"Hardly.  I haven't the slightest interest in
sewing, though I could do it on a pinch I believe.  I
know I couldn't trim a hat--at least not one I
would wear.  But cooking is different.  I believe
I could get up quite a passion for it.  Hilda used
to.  She claimed it was just as much an art to
create a perfect salad as to write a sonnet."

"I'd vote for the salad personally.  By the way,
where is Hilda?  Heard lately?"

"No, and I'm worried.  One hears such horrid
stories of what is happening over there.  I don't
know whether she and the Armstrongs can't get
back or don't want to."

"Most likely the latter.  Johnny Armstrong is
darned likely to do what he wants.  He is just
the boy not to want to get back to safe and sane
America.  He is much more apt to be down in a
trench or up in a 'plane by this time."

"I know.  He's a wonder--one of the finest
men I know.  Just to think he was my gardener
once!  Wasn't it funny?"

"He got mighty good pay for that piece of
masquerading.  Constance is a shade too much on the
grand duchess order for my taste but she suits him
down to the ground.  Only wish Isabel had drawn
a man like John instead of the rotter she took a
fancy to marry."  For a moment Jack's serene
brow looked thundery.  "Queer world!" he
muttered.  "Sometimes I think we Amidons are
doomed to go amuck one way or another.
Jeanette's not much better off.  Guess we're all sort
of rudderless as you say, excepting Dad.  He knows
where he is going all right."

"You had better get on to his ship then," suggested
Sylvia a little dryly.

"I am going to.  You needn't think I didn't
mean what I said last night.  I did mean it, every
word.  If sticking to a job is going to mean
getting what I want, I'll stick tighter than a stamp."

There was a ring of determination in his voice
which startled Sylvia a little, it sounded so
alarmingly conclusive.

"Jack!  I didn't promise," she protested.

"Oh, I know.  I'm not such a cad as to throw
it up at you if even the sticking isn't enough.  But
if it's the one chance I'm too good a gambler not
to take it--or to kick if I fail in the end."  And
Jack's lips came together with a firmness which
avouched the sincerity of his statement.

Sylvia watching the landscape flit by looked
thoughtful.  It suddenly occurred to her that her
companion had spoken the literal truth.  Jack
Amidon was first and last a good gambler, ready
to play high stakes, to win or lose like a gentleman,
without vainglory or bitterness.  If she had said
yes to his impassioned plea last night Sylvia could
not help wondering if a little of the ardor of his
love might not have abated in spite of himself.
Wasn't it the chase itself he loved?  If so, he was
only his father's own son.  Jackson Amidon,
Senior, went on quietly bagging his millions, not
because he cared a snap of his fingers for the money
but because the exhilaration of achieving it in the
face of obstacles was the breath of life to him.
Like the biblical war horses he metaphorically
trumpeted "Ha Ha!" in the battle hour.  With
father and son the game itself was the thing.  The
nature of the stake did not matter so much.  With
one it was Power, with the other Love, as it
happened, but with both the zest lay, not in the end,
but in the pursuit.  Of course Sylvia did not
reason all this out clearly, but vaguely she sensed the
truth which the boy's words had revealed.  Many
months later the revelation recurred to her and she
wondered if Jack, too, had understood himself as
clearly as for a moment she had understood him.
She thought it possible with his keen power of
intuition, he had always understood.  Perhaps he had.

So through the deepening autumnal twilight sped
Youth with its visions and its questionings, Youth
unproved, pressing forward toward some unknown
mark in challenging mood, knowing little of the
eternal mystery of Life and less of that even more
baffling mystery, the mystery of Self.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`OF MISSIONS, AND OMISSIONS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   OF MISSIONS, AND OMISSIONS

.. vspace:: 2

"H-mm!"  Suzanne meditatively surveyed the
depleted feast.  "Thermos bottles!  Silver spoons!
Sophisticated salads!  Is this your notion of
roughing it, Mr. Jack Amidon?  Of all Sybaritical
picnics!"

"Same old bugs!  Same old sticks in the lemonade!"
retorted Jack, leaning forward to extract a
leaf from Sylvia's cup with the prong of a salad
fork.  "The good old times aren't utterly gone."

"Oh, but think of the bacon bats of yesteryear!"
mourned Suzanne.  "The fingers I've burned!
The clothes I've spoiled!  The smudges wherewith
I've smudged my nose!  I begin to feel fatally
reminiscent.  Give me some more lemonade, I pine
to drown my grief."

"And I pine to see the sunset from Lover's
Leap."  And Sylvia sprang up hastily, perceiving
that the sun was already glinting flame and gold
through the trees.  "Come on everybody or it will
be too late."  The others rose to follow her lead.
Phil fell into step beside Sylvia, leaving Jack to
Barbara's society, as Suzanne and Roger had at
last struck up a conversation, albeit a rather
non-amicable one and strayed off together.

"Are you sure your name isn't Pease Blossom
or Mustard Seed?  I could swear you were a fairy.
Are you really a Militant?  Would you resist forcible
feeding?  Here, let me test you with a pickle."

But Barb only laughed and accepted the pickle.

"I'm nothing militant to-night.  I'm at peace
with the whole world."

"Even the menacing male?" teased Jack.

"The menacing male is a spoiled baby, biting
off his own nose.  Mr. Amidon, it would serve
you right if I delivered a suffrage lecture here and
now.  I don't believe you know a thing about the
movement," severely.

"Heaven forbid!" he ejaculated piously.

"You will sing a different tune before many
years.  You'll have it forcibly fed to you unless you
take to it of your own accord as babies take to
their thumbs."

"I believe I could bear to have even Suffrage
rammed into me at your hands, Mademoiselle
Mustard Seed, especially if you would make pansy eyes
at me while you did it," he added audaciously.
"What are you going to do with those eyes of
yours anyway?  They are altogether too expressive
to be wasted on a Cause."

Barb frowned.

"You wouldn't wear a last year's hat.  Why do
you use last century methods with women?  They
hate compliments."

"Do they?  I wonder."  And his wonder was
genuine.  He honestly reflected a moment.  Sylvia
did hate compliments he knew.  But then he never
offered her any.  He never even flirted with Sylvia,
though she was about the only pretty girl of his
acquaintance of whom as much could be said.  He
had been perfectly willing to play the game à deux
with this demurely charming, pansy-eyed, little
suffragist however.  But he was evidently not going
to be permitted to have his will.  Were Barbara
Day and Sylvia and the sharp-tongued Suzanne
really a new breed of womankind?  Were his own
sisters and the dozens of other girls of their kind
with whom he had played and danced and flirted
for the past five or six years really an older type,
soon to be as extinct as the Dodo?  Only for a
moment, however, he wondered.  Jack was not
much given to serious thinking.  He took life and
the feminine sex on the whole rather as he found
them.  He was always genially ready to "play
up" to both.  He was now.  It was rather
agreeable he thought to watch Barb's eyes shine and the
color surge in her cheeks, so he laid the match to
the tow chiefly from an artistic impulse to see the
flame.

"Tell me," he urged.  "What is this thing you
girls are up to?  What is it you are going to New
York to do?"

Barb shot him a shrewd rather indignant glance.
Then she laughed.

"You don't really care, but, just to punish you,
I'm going to tell you.  You deserve it."

And then she did tell him, a little reservedly at
first, but soon losing both her resentment and her
shyness she forgot herself entirely and warmed to
her loved theme, betraying something of the dream
of her Aunt Josephine, of herself, of all women
who think and feel and are forever disenchanted
with any Pisgah heights they themselves might have
the luck to attain, so long as the great weary horde
of the "dispossessed" wait without the gates,
scarcely even knowing in the apathy of their misery
that there is a Promised Land.  And her listener
did not scoff even to himself at the revelation he
was vouchsafed.  He had the grace to recognize
with suitable humility that he unworthy had been
permitted a brief glimpse into a holy of holies.
And irreverence was not one of Jack's failings, for
all his habitual levity of mood.

In the meanwhile, not far ahead, Roger and
Suzanne were quarreling hotly.  At least Suzanne
was quarreling.  Roger never quarreled, which was
perhaps one of his most glaring defects in Suzanne's eyes.

"I told you not to come and you came," was the
burden of Suzanne's complaint.

"I didn't come to see you.  I didn't even know
you were in Greendale until Jack told me.  And
when I knew, how could I resist a chance to see you,
especially as it will be months before I can see
you again?  Be reasonable, Suzanne.  Why are
you so angry at me for coming?"

Suzanne shot him an exasperated and somewhat
malicious glance.  Unfortunately, Mr. Minot was
a lawyer and not a clairvoyant and therefore was
totally without means of knowing that the chief
reason for Suzanne's anger was the fact that she
had been so foolishly glad to see him.  For every
quickened beat of her pulse in his near presence poor
Roger had to pay with a lash of her tongue.
Angry, indeed, was Suzanne at Roger Minot for
disobeying her royal mandates, but angrier still was
she at Suzanne Morrison for being automatically
glad of his nearness.  Scant wonder the young
lawyer had a very bad quarter of an hour as he
mounted the pine-needled slope toward the sunset.

Phil and Sylvia had less to say than either of
the other couples, strange to say, though it had
seemed to both beforehand they would have volumes.
The hush of the forest and the hour seemed to have
cast a spell upon them, or was it an even more
potent enchantment that held them fast bound in
silence?  They had seen so little of each other
during this brief visit of Phil's.  Last night had been
too full and joyous and excited for much conversation,
even had Sylvia's responsibilities as hostess
left her much time for her latest arrived guest.
Those few moments on the stairs had been
practically--indeed, the only ones--they had enjoyed
alone, and this morning Phil had given to his mother
while Sylvia and her guests slept away the hours
up at the Hall.  Both had felt a little aggrieved and
cheated at the way circumstances had curtailed the
pleasure of their being together for the first time
since the June Commencement at college.  Yet now
that the awaited moment had come at last neither
seemed to have anything particular to do with it.  It
was strange, and both felt slightly embarrassed by
the strangeness, suddenly grown shy, after all their
years of friendship.

"Oh!"  Sylvia uttered the exclamation as she
stepped out upon the great ledge of rock from
which she could see the sun's gold rim just dipping
behind the crest of the topmost purple peak leaving
a sea of tulip colors in its wake.

For a moment neither spoke again.  A mood of
complete serenity was upon them that forbade
speech, a sense of nearness, each to the other, and
to some high other Presence which might have been
God or Nature or Love or a mystic commingling
of all three.  Were the three, indeed, a new Trinity,
perfect and indivisible?  There was a crackling
among the bushes behind, the sound of voices.  The
others were near.  The enchanted moment passed.
Sylvia sighed, and, turning, met Phil's eyes and her
own drooped before what she saw there.  No word
was spoken, nor needed, yet something unforgettable
had been communicated.  Sylvia's heart was
beating a little more quickly than usual and there
was dew and star shine in her eyes as she smiled at
Jack and Barbara, a shine which was lost on neither
of the two new arrivals, though later it suited both
to pretend they had never seen it.  For the moment
Barbara's only feeling was a quick compunction lest
they had interrupted something which they had no
right to share.  As for her companion, sharp fear
and half resentful jealousy went through him like
keen-bladed knives.  Had he lost just at the moment
when he seemed to have gained something almost
tangible?  And then Suzanne and Roger reached
the rock also, arriving rather dilatorily by another
path, having arrived also apparently at a state of
something faintly resembling truce, for Suzanne was
wearing a spray of vivid scarlet berries which Roger
had risked thorns and a possible broken neck to
acquire.  The risk had been worth it, it seemed, for
Roger was looking happier than at any moment
since Suzanne had first snubbed him several hours
ago on Sylvia's piazza.

Barb, standing apart, watching the whole pageant
from the outside, felt oddly cold and lonely all of a
sudden.  There seemed to be so much love in the
world somehow and yet so little left over, as it
were.  And Sylvia and Suzanne--did they know?
Did they even begin to know how precious love was?
How one needed it in this great lonely world?  She
walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down at
the river whose rapid current whirled fiercely, down
below her.  She remembered Sylvia's story of how
the rock was named.  There are so many Lover's
Leaps in the world and their stories are all
somewhat the same story.  An Indian girl and her lover
had been forbidden to marry because they belonged
to hostile tribes and here they had gladly taken the
consecrated leap together, hand in hand, into space
and eternity, one in death as they could never have
been in life.

What a strange thing love was!  So Barb meditated.
Was it something to be avoided as Suzanne
insisted because it demanded too high toll?  The
others had seated themselves on the rock to watch
the shifting panorama of color in the western skies,
but Barb wandered off by herself, still pondering
about that strange thing love.  And the others
scarcely noticed her going, which was in its way a
symbol.

Suddenly a single sharp cry broke the silence of
the dusk and then ceased.  They all sprang to their
feet in alarm, but it was Phil Lorrimer's quick eye
that first discovered what had happened.  Below
them, and somewhat at the right of the outcropping
ledge on which they stood, hung Barbara, clinging
to a slender sapling whose trunk bent, it seemed
almost to snapping beneath her slight weight.
Sylvia saw, too, almost at the same instant.

"There she is!"  Her finger pointed.  "Oh, Phil!"

But Phil had not waited for his embassy.  He
was already speeding down the steep bank on his
way to the scene of the accident.

"Hold on," he called cheerfully.  "I'm coming.
Can I reach you from above?"

"No."  Barb's voice sounded faraway but steady
as Phil's own.  "Don't try.  It's all crumbly."

"Hang tight then.  I'll be there in a minute."

In what appeared to be an endless stretch of time to
everybody, but which was in reality an astonishingly
brief interval, Phil's tall form appeared on the river
bank precisely beneath the tiny figure suspended as
it seemed in midair, but still clinging pluckily to the
stout ash sapling which held her weight gallantly.
The distance between Phil and the girl was perhaps
ten feet, though it looked much more in the gulfing
darkness to them both.

"All right.  Let go.  I'll catch you."

A shudder shook Barb's whole body.  That slim,
tough little ash-tree seemed all that kept her from
the greedy swirl of the black river.  Her hands were
grooved and cut with clinging and her arms ached
until it seemed as if she could not bear the pain, but
for all that she felt as if the one thing she could
not do was to release her hold and slip into the
darkness.  But there below loomed Phil Lorrimer's
comforting size and strength and Barb's courage grew
as she looked down into his uplifted face.

"Come on, Barbie, I'm right here."  He had
never called her anything but Miss Day before, not
even Barbara.  Barbie was Sylvia's name, as it had
once been her mother's in the dear long ago.
Somehow it seemed right and natural and sweet that Phil
should use it now.  Suddenly she became the trusting,
obedient little girl Barbie again and without a
quiver of dread and with a heart at peace and full
of faith she let go her hold on the ash and went
down, down, down into space--a surprisingly
long journey it seemed, though she felt perfectly
comfortable taking it.  She had even time to
notice that a star had come out and was smiling at
her friendlily out of the dusk over a sycamore-tree.
She knew somehow or rather that Phil would not
fail her.  Most people felt that about Phil
Lorrimer.  More than one of his patients had been
willing and unafraid to go down the dark valley if he
would stand by and help them on the way.

Certainly he did not fail Barbara.  Though the
shock of the impact of even her "fairy" figure
made him sway and stagger a little, he caught her
as deftly as he had been wont in his college days
to catch a dazzling outfielder.  In a second he had
deposited her gently on the soft moss on the river
bank.  Whereupon Barb gave a quick breath of a
sob then laughed a little rippling gurgle of a laugh,
though there were tears in her eyes.

"D-don't mi-nd me," she begged.  "I'm just
being g-glad I let go."

"All safe!"  Phil's big voice boomed out of the
darkness to the relief of the anxious waiters above
on the cliff.  "All right, little lady?  Seeing as
you wouldn't walk down, suppose we say you
shan't walk up."  And Barb was swept like a
sudden victim to a bird of prey into his arms.

"Oh, don't," she begged.  "Please put me
down.  I can walk perfectly well.  I'm dreadfully
heavy."

"So are thistledown and dewdrops," he laughed.
"Please forget you are a feminist for once and
succumb to the eternal masculine superiority of
brawn and muscle."

And in spite of herself, Barb felt oddly content
to let herself lie passive in his arms, so much
so that she closed her eyes and said never a word.
At the top of the ascent, which had been short
though somewhat steep, Phil put down his
burden, and the rest crowded around the two, full of
excitement, anxiety and questions.  But Phil
exercised his doctor's prerogatives and ordered them
to let Barb alone and make a speedy start for home.
These orders were meekly obeyed, though they
managed little by little to get the information of
how the accident had occurred.  It had been
simple enough.  The rock on which Barb had been
standing had been "crumbly" as she had said, and
before she had had time to realize what had
happened she had slipped with the shelving stone and
soil and had only by the greatest of good fortune
managed to snatch at the ash in her descent and
thus save herself from the disastrous fall into the
turbulent rock-filled bed of the river.  It had been
obviously a sufficiently narrow escape to make them
all rather silent and sober as they packed up the
remains of the feast and made their way to the
road just beyond the glade where the car waited.

"Want to have a try at the wheel, old man?"
asked Jack, laying an affectionate hand on Phil's
shoulder when they were ready to start.  "She's a bird."

"Why, yes."  Phil's frank face lit up with pleasure.
"Sure you don't mind, Jackie Horner?"

"Not a bit.  Glad to have a rest," acquiesced
Jack cheerfully.  "Pile in, Sylvia.  Phil's waiting."

Sylvia's eyes flashed quick inquiry at Jack as he
helped her into the seat beside the driver.  He met
her gaze imperturbably but she was not deceived
by his noncommittal expression.  Well she knew
that the owner of the "bird" suffered the tortures
of the damned when any hand beside his own was
on the wheel.  Well she knew also that he was
deliberately giving Phil a chance to do more than run
his car.  It was so precisely like Jack, impulsively
selfish one minute, impulsively generous the next.
Through the white star-lit wonder of the night
the car sped, while its occupants sat almost silent,
wrapped in an incommunicable garment of dreams.
Later, after they had taken leave of the girls,
Jack and Roger went with Phil to the station at
Baltimore.  But Roger stayed in the car while
Jack went to the train with Phil.  Just as the train
pulled in Jack stirred himself to say what was on
his mind.

"Phil!  Forgive the impertinence, old man, but
I've got to know.  If she has decided for you, I'll
clear out.  You're the better man--always were."

Phil Lorrimer drew a long breath and set his lips
rather as he used to set them before a tackle in the
field.

"You needn't clear out, so far as I am
concerned.  I haven't asked Sylvia to marry me.
How can I?  I've only just finished paying my
college debts and she is worth something like a
million.  Is thy servant a fool?" he added a little
bitterly.

"Yes," said Jack Amidon.  "The biggest kind
of fool.  Do you suppose the money matters a
hang to her?"

"Well, it matters to me," curtly.  "Train's
under way.  'By."  And with a hasty but warm
pressure of the hand which went out to meet his,
Phil boarded the moving train, leaving Jack
staring after.

"Confound the fellow!" he muttered.
"Hanged if I know whether to be mad or glad he's
such an idiot.  How did he dare not ask Sylvia
when her eyes looked like that?  Gee!  Perhaps
he didn't see."

But Phil Lorrimer had seen, and all that night
he stared sleeplessly out at the stars and the
twinkling lights of villages and cities, love and pride
battling within him.  Once or twice he made up
his mind feverishly to telegraph Sylvia the first
thing in the morning.  Then he would decide it
would be better to write her a letter, tell her
exactly how it all was and ask if she cared enough
to wait for him until he had something worth while
to offer her.  And all the time he knew he would
do nothing of the kind.  He would fight on grimly
by himself, and if in the meantime somebody
else--Jack or another--slipped in ahead, well, that
would mean she was not for him, if he knew
Sylvia.  And so on and so on and so on.  But never
in all his reasonings did it occur to him that the
money was as nothing between him and Sylvia
Arden, neither of advantage or disadvantage,
simply a zero.  Jack Amidon knew it and had
generously endeavored to tell his rival.  Sylvia knew
it and her eyes had also tried to tell him that night
in the sunset.  But poor Phil, blind as the clearest
sighted man sometimes becomes when a woman is
involved, saw Sylvia's money as a huge, hateful,
insurmountable, mountain peak behind which stood
Sylvia herself, only to be reached by accumulating
another pile of gold from which he could make the
leap to her.

And in all that long wakeful night he never once
thought of little Barbara Day.  He was too used
to saving people, one way or another, to think much
about this latest exploit in the salvation line; and,
besides, his mind was full of other things.

But Barbara dreamed of Phil and heard his deep
voice calling out of the darkness, "Come on,
Barbie.  I'm right here."  And all through her dreams
the star over the sycamore-tree kept smiling at her
friendlily but its smile was oddly mixed up with
Phil Lorrimer's.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`OCTOBER DEVELOPMENTS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium bold

   OCTOBER DEVELOPMENTS

.. vspace:: 2

A deeper bronze to the oaks and a more vivid
scarlet to the sumach.  A sharper tang to the air,
mornings.  Hilltops veiled in amethyst and golden
haze on the meadows, afternoons.  At sundown,
ghost-like wraiths of mists rising up from the river
valley.  Now and then a clanging wedge of wild
geese speeding southward through the night.  October!

It must be admitted that in spite of Sylvia's
"vicious contentedness" she did feel the Hall a little
too peaceful and quiet after her friends had gone, and
she settled back into the very life she had chosen
for herself.  The summer had been brimful of
guests and gayeties, with people coming and going
all the time and always some new delightful project
or enthralling interest afoot, a true Forest of
Arden atmosphere of sunshine and happiness and
blithe irresponsibility.

Even the sharp and sudden thunder crash, heard
from overseas in that fateful early August, the din
of great nations rushing to arms, came only vaguely
to Sylvia's happy Hill as to most of America.  Slow
to waken, the country had not at once sensed the
significance of what was happening.  Humane and
peaceful itself, it had not taken in the hideous reality
of a desolated and ravaged Belgium, the inspiriting
vision of a risen and consecrated France beating
the enemy back from Paris, of the fearful and
relentless grip of the great dog of war upon the
stricken nations.  To Sylvia, as to others, it all
seemed impossible, incredible, not to be apprehended
in terms of actuality.  These things just couldn't
be, that was all.  There must be some mistake
somewhere.  But there was no mistake.  People kept
coming in on every steamer with harrowing tales of
well-substantiated horror.  The things they had
seen made the heart sick and the blood run cold.  It
was war indeed.  However horrible, these things
were possible, had happened.

Perhaps the first vital realization came to Sylvia
as it came to nearly every one in this country
through individual testimony of friends.  Even in
September, rumor reached her that John Armstrong's
money had helped to establish and support
a field hospital "somewhere in France," that his
wife and her sister Hilda were regular Red Cross
nurses.  And in October had come a letter from
Hilda herself, describing simply but with the
fearful graphicness of the bare truth, the horrors, the
miracles, the splendid thrills, the supreme
satisfaction of the work she and Constance had undertaken.
John was driving a relief Ambulance near the
battle line.  Bertram was at the front somewhere.
Bertram, it appeared, was the young Englishman
to whom the writer had very recently become
engaged after a romantically brief acquaintance.  Of
course it was horrible, Hilda admitted, having him
there, but then she wouldn't want him not to want
to be there.

All this Sylvia read with absorbed interest and
straightway dispatched a generous check to John
Armstrong.  But giving money being altogether
insufficient to express her abounding sympathy she
also learned to knit, to Jack's huge delectation and
much raillery, and resolutely set herself to making
sponges and rather eccentric looking hose, though
this process, too, scarcely satisfied her when she
thought of what her friend was doing over in
France.  In fact, it satisfied her so little that she
very speedily abandoned it entirely wherein she was
rather like a good many other American women.
"A thousand shall fall at thy right hand but it
shall not come nigh thee" seemed to be America's
motto in those days.

Perhaps the thing which came nearest, that
autumn, to offering Sylvia an outlet for her
restless energy was her music.  She was an excellent
accompanist and she and Gus Nichols spent much
time together previous to his departure for the
concert tour which was to begin early in November.
And while Sylvia was intent on her own dreams
and quandaries, weaving much she scarcely understood
herself into the music, she had not the slightest
perception that these hours she gave the young
violinist meant anything more to him than to
herself, an agreeable mutual expression in a loved art.
"Music is Love in search of a word" and if the
boy's violin struggled more than once to tell
her what his lips would never have ventured on,
Sylvia, with her mind on other things, did not hear.

Long enthusiastic letters came frequently from
Suzanne, ensconced, according to schedule, in a
dingy studio in the Square where one is not
encumbered with needless luxuries like steam heat and
bath tubs and electricity, where one steeps in
"Atmosphere," and pays far more than he can afford
for the privilege of living very uncomfortably but
artistically.  Her letters reeked of Bohemia, of
"Polly's" and "Bruno's Garret," of the delicious
glamour and picturesqueness of the inimitable
Village, of the thrill and stimulus of the whole
marvelous city of which the Village was a unique part.

Barb, too, wrote often, though with less abandon
of rejoicement in her new way of life.  It was all
"interesting."  Aunt Jo was "wonderful."  The
Metropolitan was "magnificent."  People were
"kind."  But there was a faint panic-stricken note
beneath it all, at first, which made Sylvia wonder
if poor Barbara were a little submerged by the
very seething whirlpool which was such supreme
delight to Suzanne.  It was as if both were on a
"Merry-Go-Round," and Suzanne kept clapping
her hands and crying "Faster!  Faster!" while
Barb's timid "pansy" eyes begged in silence for a
safer, less mad rate of revolution.

Aside from her aunt, of whom Barb could never
say enough, the person most frequently mentioned
in her letters was Philip Lorrimer.  "Dr. Lorrimer
is so good to me."  "Dr. Lorrimer took me to a
roof garden last night."  "Phil and I rode over on
the ferry to Staten Island to cool off last evening."
"Phil just came in and sends greetings.  He is
going to take me to a Socialist meeting
soon."  "Aunt Jo likes Phil so much," and so forth.

And though Sylvia made no comment on this
new development it gave her cause for reflection.
Sylvia was more than ever "at sea" these days.
That sunset moment on Lover's Leap had been an
illuminating moment for her and she guessed it had
been one for Phil also.  Though she told herself
later she must have been mistaken, she knew in
her heart she had not been so.  The look in Phil's
eyes as they had met hers that moment was
unmistakable, more eloquent than volumes of speech.
She had felt the same thing vibrating in his voice
when later he had bidden her "Good night" and
"Good-by" and stepped into Jack's car, something
which met a quick leap of response in herself.
Sylvia was very woman and she knew what had
happened, though she did not know whether the thing
was going to be permanent or not.

All that next day and the next and for a week
beyond she watched the mails, pretending to
herself, feminine wise, that she was doing nothing of
the sort.  And, finally, when on the tenth day a
brotherly, brief, impersonal, not to say casual, note
came from New York in Phil's big sprawling hand,
she felt as if a shower of icy water had been hurled
at her.  Not that she wanted Phil to ask her to
marry him, not that she was at all sure she would
have said yes if he had asked her.  She was by no
means certain it would not be Jack to whom she
would surrender when the time came for surrender.
At least so she told herself to save her pride.
Certainly she was far from ready to marry any man that
Fall, sincerely desirous as she was to belong to
herself awhile as she had told Jack.  Nevertheless
Phil's very discretion angered and hurt her.  Every
now and then she was tortured by an agonizing fear
that in the strange exhilaration of that moment in
the forest she might have betrayed to him more
than she had been in any degree willing to admit to
herself.  Consequently, Philip Lorrimer, M.D., got
very few and very brief letters from Arden Hall
those golden autumn days.

Neither is it strange that out of favor with his
"Faraway Princess" Phil turned to sympathetic
little Barbara in his few idle hours.  Not that he
took Barb into his confidence.  Indeed there were
no confidences to make.  To no one in the world
would he have admitted that Sylvia's apparent
indifference hurt.  Sylvia had the right to ignore him
if she chose.  The Queen could do no wrong.  Nor
was there anything to say about the rumors which
reached him frequently that Sylvia and Jack were
often together, and that an engagement was
obviously to be expected if not already secretly in
existence.  That, too, he had counted on as a possibility
when he had told Jack there was no reason for him
to "clear out."  Phil Lorrimer was man enough to
want the lady of his heart to be free in her choice.
Had he been in Jack's position he would have entered
the race and run, neck and neck, beside his rival
and abided the end whatever it was.  But he was
handicapped, or so he believed, by his poverty, so he
set his teeth and stood out of the way leaving Jack
a clear road.  If Jack could win--well, it meant
Sylvia cared, that was all.  Phil's philosophy was a
very simple one.

In the meantime there was work.  And Phil was
the kind to be able to assuage nearly every mortal
ill in work.  In the strenuous demands of the
day-time hours at the hospital he had little chance to
brood over any personal woes and when night came
on he took what consolation he could, man fashion,
from another woman's obvious pleasure in his
society, never once suspecting he was playing with
edged tools any more than Barb herself did.  Of the
physiological action of the heart Phil Lorrimer knew
a great deal but of the more subtle manifestations of
that organ he knew astonishingly little.

Only Miss Josephine Murray kept her keen eyes
wide open.  "Babes in the wood!" she thought
sometimes.  "Heavens!  What a fearful thing it
is to be young!"  And then seeing the soft flush on
Barb's cheeks when she came in from an excursion
with the young doctor, and the starry shine in her
eyes, Miss Murray would add grimly to herself,
"Fearful but divine!  It's a million years since I had
the gift of looking like that."

And sometimes she would ask her niece questions
about young Dr. Lorrimer, and Barb would chatter
on innocently about him, how he was an old, old
friend of Sylvia's, so old, they were almost like
brother and sister, though she and Suzanne used
sometimes to think maybe Sylvia would marry him
some time, but now everybody said it would be Jack
Amidon.  And once Barb had told the story of how
she had slipped over the edge of the cliff and hung
to the little ash-tree until Phil had called to her to
let go and she had obeyed and gone down, down into
space, not one tiny bit afraid for she had felt just
as sure as sure that Phil Lorrimer would catch her
just as he promised.

"He's the kind of person you just have to have
faith in.  You know he wouldn't fail you, no
matter what happened," she had finished.  And Aunt
Jo had "H-med" meditatively and risen to switch
on the electric light and sit down to her letters.  But
Barb had lingered before the gas log, watching
its scintillating colors and lights and dreaming little
vague pleasant dreams.  Perhaps the Barb who
didn't dare let herself look at the real Barb took a
shy peep that night.

As for Jack Amidon, he was extraordinarily on
his good behavior that autumn.  His father was
grimly pleased to find him prompt and assiduous
at his office desk, a rather unexpected departure
from his career of the past two years when he had
fulfilled the obligations of his nominal post chiefly
by absent treatment.  Possibly the sudden change of
heart on the part of his rather erratic son reminded
the old man of a similar abrupt right-about-face
some six years ago when the same delinquent had
announced himself blandly as being "on the
water wagon" after a rather strenuous course of
wild oat sowing.  Perhaps, too, Jackson Amidon
shrewdly suspected that now as then the impetus to
the reform could be traced to a vigorous-willed,
clear-eyed young lady who tolerated no weaklings
among her retinue.

"The boy's taken a new turn," he thought.
"He'll come out all right in the end.  He's sound
as a nut inside for all his vagaries.  And if that
little girl on the Hill can make him come to, it
will be one of the best jobs she ever landed."  And
he added also to himself that if the day ever came
when he should welcome Sylvia Arden as his third
daughter there would be little left to wish for in the
time he had left.  And then his eyes had grown
sober, for his own daughters, those of his own flesh
and blood, had never been of much comfort to him,
dearly as he loved them.  Over in Europe, Isabel
was already threatening stormily to get a divorce
from the titled rascal she had insisted on marrying
in spite of her father's judgment and protestations.
And there was Jeanette, beautiful, willful Jeanette,
whose frocks were the last cry from Paris and whose
cars and horses and houses and entertainments were
all the most daring and expensive America could
produce!  He, himself, had given her all the money
her little hands could hold or spend and Francis
Latham had gone on with the prodigious task but
neither one of them had been able to give her
happiness.  That was all too evident.  Perhaps if there
had been children it would have been different.
And at this point in his reflections the old man
always broke off with a sigh, for he knew that the
moment when Jack should bring Sylvia home for a
bride could only yield precedence in satisfaction to
that other hoped-for moment when he should see his
grandson, Jackson Amidon, the third.  Then,
indeed, the curtain might go down when it pleased.

These dreams of Jackson Amidon's did not look
so all improbable that October.  Jack was distinctly
"on the job" as he would have expressed it, doing
his level best to make a man of himself, since that
was what Sylvia demanded, and sunning himself
happily in her favor during their mutual leisure
hours.  Very good comrades the two were.  Youth
turns to youth as a morning glory to the sun and
the Goddess of Propinquity is a lady of much
influence.  Certainly it was not strange that people
prophesied that an engagement would soon be
announced.  Possibly it was not strange either, that
Jack and Sylvia themselves believed such a
dénouement entirely probable in course of time.





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.. _`FIRE AND FROST`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   FIRE AND FROST

.. vspace:: 2

"Lois, aren't you ever going to write any more?"  Sylvia
on the rug before the fire with wee Marjory
in her arms looked up over that young person's
bobbing silver curls to ask the question.

Lois Daly sitting by the window to catch the last
bit of daylight, ran her hand into a small stocking
to investigate the number of casualties before she
answered.

"Maybe.  When the kiddies are grown up."

"But don't you mind not doing it now?  Don't
you want to do it dreadfully sometimes?"

"Not especially.  In fact I don't believe I could
write now if I tried.  I've lost the knack as well as
the impulse.  You have no idea how much such
things are a matter of mere habit."  Lois' voice had
an even flow suggesting cool, shady, translucent
waters.  Sometimes her friend's serenity irritated
Sylvia.  It did now.

"Well, I think that is all wrong," she announced
decidedly.  "You oughtn't to have let it go."

"Just how could I have helped it?  You may
recall I have been moderately busy these last few
years.  I haven't had much time to entertain
literary angels."

"Oh, I know," acknowledged Sylvia penitently,
curling one of Marjory's ringlets around her finger
as she spoke.  "You couldn't, of course, with the
house and the babies and the little mother's death
and everything.  But couldn't you begin again now?"

"Why should I?  Tom doesn't need an author
in his household.  He needs a housekeeper and a
nurse and a seamstress and a wife."  There was a
faintly satirical twist to Lois' lips as she made the
statement.  "Of the four he needs the wife least, of
course.  He is too busy to enjoy my society.  This
hospital project is the last straw."

Sylvia looked thoughtful.  Somehow there did
seem to be something wrong somewhere.  Doctor
Tom too occupied to see anything of his beautiful,
brilliant wife; she, in turn, too much immersed
in household and maternal cares either to cultivate
her own particular gift or pay much attention to the
things her husband was so vitally interested in!
These two had started out so well.  They were
both so fine, so thoroughly devoted at heart to each
other.  What was the trouble?  Was marriage
always a compromise like this?  Sylvia did not like
to think so.  Somewhere there must have been
something which could have been done differently.
Woman-like she was a bit inclined to blame the
other woman.  If only Lois had cared a little more
for the things Doctor Tom cared for, the things
which to Sylvia seemed so splendid, his profession,
his tireless service to the community, his dreams for
its progress and betterment!  Lois rolled up the
stockings she had just finished mending and rose.

"Do you mind staying a few minutes with Marjory,
Sylvia?  It is cook's night out and I have
to see about supper."

Sylvia assented willingly and Lois departed.
Even as the door closed behind her, Sylvia heard
Doctor Tom's step in the hall and his cheerful voice
as he greeted his wife.

"Got in earlier than I expected.  Come on back
and enjoy the twilight with me," she heard him
inviting.

Lois' answer was inaudible but in a moment
Doctor Tom entered the living-room alone.

"Hello, here's my best daughter and my star
neighbor!  Come on, Cherub, and let your old Dad
toss you up to the moon."

Marjory leaped with a happy little crow out of
Sylvia's arms and Sylvia rose to the higher level
of a chair while she smiled at the baby's gurgling
delight as her father tossed her "up to the
moon."  Presently the doctor seated himself before the fire
with his small daughter still in his arms.  As he
settled back with a tired sigh Sylvia saw with
sudden quick compunction that Doctor Tom looked
old--too old for his years.  Some of his characteristic
buoyancy had gone out of him.

"How is the Curry baby?" she asked.

He shook his head sadly.

"Died early this morning," he said.

"Oh!"  Sylvia's exclamation was pitiful.  "Can
I do anything?"

"Go down and see the mother.  She is like a
stone.  Can't even cry.  Maybe the baby's better
off.  The father is drunk half the time and there
isn't any too much to eat.  But if I could have had
Jimmy in a decent hospital I could have saved him.
Everything was against him down there, poor little
chap!"  And Tom Daly's big hand closed over
little Marjory's dimpled one as if somehow to keep
her safe from the grim enemy that had pursued
Jimmy Curry, an enemy who had altogether too
many allies down in the unsanitary tenement
district where the baby had wearily breathed his little
life in and out again in one short year.  Then the
doctor's fist came down with a resounding thump
on the arm of the chair.  "I tell you, Sylvia, we
have got to get that hospital and get it quick.  We're
wasting human life too fast at this rate."

"Will money help?  You know I'm ready to give
to the hospital any time--any amount you want."

Doctor Tom smiled his old wide-mouthed friendly grin.

"Naturally you are, Miss Christmas.  I can
always count on you every time.  You would give
your last red cent if anybody needed it.  Thank
Heaven you don't come into the bulk of your
property till you are twenty-five.  You would have made
ducks and drakes of it before this if you had it all.
I shall tell Gordon to keep his eye on the purse
strings until you get a husband to do it for you.
You have such dissipating tendencies.  Don't
wrinkle your nose like that.  You shall give when
the time is ripe.  What I want just now is to wring
some money out of the hides of some of these
tough old Greendale sinners who keep their religion
with their prayer books in the family pew and their
brotherly love reduced systematically to lowest terms.
The apology for a hospital we have is a disgrace
and they know it or they will before I get through
with 'em.  There isn't even a children's ward.
Little Allie Wendell died last week to the tune of
Jake Casey's blasphemous D. T. music.  Bah!  It's
rotten."

"Tom, I do wish you wouldn't shout so.  I
could hear you clear out in the kitchen."  Thus
Lois' silver cool voice from the doorway, contrasting
oddly with her husband's vehement ejaculatoriness
which still filled the little room.  "Supper is
ready.  You'll stay, won't you, Sylvia?  I will be
with you as soon as I can get Marjory into Tessy's
hands and see if Junior brushed his teeth.  He
is so bad these days.  I can't trust him at all."

Sylvia had been about to refuse but Doctor Tom
cut her short.

"Of course you will stay.  You haven't been
here for a dog's age.  Besides, I want to talk to you
about the hospital and ask what you think about--"

"Don't start to talk shop now," ordered Lois
from the doorway, with small Marjory's head
bobbing sleepily over her shoulder.  "The omelet will
go down."

"It sure will," promised the doctor.  "I feel as
if almost anything would go down in me this minute."

"That is the trouble with Tom," smiled Lois to
Sylvia.  "He doesn't know the difference between
a sublimated soufflé and plain hash.  It is all food
to him.  It is very discouraging."

Doctor Tom shook his head as the door closed
upon his wife and daughter.

"If only she wouldn't fuss," he groaned.  "Sylvia,
I feel like a beast when I think what a lot this
life we are leading takes out of her.  If only she
would take it a bit easier.  She's such a confounded
perfectionist every blessed thing she does has to be
just right.  That's why it uses up so much of her."

It was certainly a "just right" meal to which
they sat down a few moments later.  Everything
was cold which should have been cold, everything
hot which should have been hot.  The table linen
was fine and dazzling white, the silver and glass
resplendently bright and clean.  The bowl of yellow
chrysanthemums made a perfect centerpiece, under
the pleasantly shaded glow of the suspended lamp.
Lois herself was exquisite in a soft clinging gray
gown which she had taken the time to slip into
while she had been upstairs with the children.  Not
a fold was awry, not a hair out of place.  Serene
and low-voiced and deft-motioned, she served
perfect tea in quaint gold-banded cups from a
green-dragoned teapot.

But somehow Sylvia was critical in her judgment
to-night.  The very perfectness of it all jarred upon
her.  She couldn't help wondering if Lois were after
all the consummate artist her husband acclaimed her.
Life was made for happiness and was Lois Daly
happy or was she making her big-hearted,
splendid-souled husband happy?  Had she even noticed the
tired look in his eyes to-night, the droop to his
shoulders?  In her conscientious supervision of
Junior's teeth and Marjory's bedtime did she think
or care at all about the Tommy Currys and Allie
Wendells of the world who mattered so gravely to
her husband?  The two loved each other devotedly,
Sylvia knew, yet she could not help seeing how far
apart they were after five years of wedded life.  It
gave one food for thought.

After supper Lois excused herself to do some
household auditing.

"You and Tom are going to talk hospital anyway,"
she added to Sylvia, "and there is no use of
my listening while it is all just an air-castle.  If I
had that on my mind on top of the price of potatoes
and bacon I don't know what would happen."

"Stay and rest and we'll call hospital taboo,"
promised Doctor Tom.  "Never mind the old
accounts to-night."

But Lois shook her head, protesting if he ran
his business the way he wanted her to run hers they
would soon end in the poorhouse.

"Not that you run your business any too well,
Tommy dear," she had added.  "You are a scandalously
poor bill collector.  Aren't the Williamsons
ever going to pay?"

"Steve Williamson's down with pneumonia.  I
can't press them now."

"Pneumonia on top of twins!  They *are*
unfortunate."  And Lois left the room.

Sylvia dropped her eyes quickly.  Intuitively she
knew she didn't want to look at Doctor Tom just
then.  He made no comment upon his wife's parting
speech but settled down in the big armchair with
a tired grunt.

"Mind if I smoke?"

"Of course not."

"All right, here goes."  He took one or two long
comforting puffs at his pipe.  "Let's side-track the
hospital for the present.  Might as well since it's
only an air-castle, as Lois says.  I'm a bit frazzled
to-night.  Can't seem to get the Curry baby off my
chest.  Suppose you play something instead.  Nothing
too classic--just agreeable and anæsthetic."

Sylvia went to the piano and sat down.  Her
fingers drifted into a nocturne.  Save for the soft
music and the crackling of the logs on the hearth
there was no sound in the room.  Tom Daly sat
staring into the leaping flames and smoked stolidly.
It would have made an appropriate picture for a
woman's magazine cover.  The gracious, comfortable
room, the tired man, basking in home peace and
contentment after the labor and stress of the day;
the young girl at the piano, with healing and
sympathy, wordless but no less apparent in her finger
tips.  Only in a woman's magazine the musician
would no doubt have been the man's wife.  Life
is sometimes oddly different from magazine covers.

It was nearly an hour before Lois returned to
the living-room.  She paused a moment on the
threshold.

"Oh, so you aren't building hospitals after all?
Forgive me for being such a bad hostess, Sylvia.
Was that Brahms?"

Sylvia shook her head with a smile.

"I don't know what it was," she admitted.
"Something I heard in my dreams maybe.  Did I
put you to sleep Doctor Tom?"

"No, just soothed the savage in me.  I feel fairly
pacific at the moment.  Don't stop."

"Ah, but I must.  Felicia will think I am
lost."  She rose as she spoke and Doctor Tom rose too.
"Don't come," she protested.  "It is too absurd
when it's only such a step."

"It's a step I intend to take," he grinned.  "If
you must go, I'm at your service."

"I wish you wouldn't," objected Sylvia, but she
let him wrap her long moss green cloak about her
and in a moment they were out in the keen November
air under the stars.  Neither said anything
until they were at the steps of the Hall.  Then
suddenly Doctor Tom spoke.

"Sylvia, how did you know I had the blue devils
to-night?" he demanded.

"Did you?" parried Sylvia.  There was something
different about Doctor Tom to-night; a queer,
tense something in his voice she wasn't used to.

"You know I did.  You played to 'em--charmed
'em, as I said."

"I'm glad," said Sylvia.  "Glad I charmed them,
I mean.  You need a rest, Doctor Tom.  You are
going a pace that would kill any man who wasn't
as strong as an ox."

He laughed a little grimly.

"Well, Miss Nestor, any more sage advice to
offer your grandfather?  Just how am I going to
shunt the world I happen to have on my shoulders
at present?"

"Just drop it off.  You could if you had to.
Why don't you and Lois go on a vacation?  Felicia
and I will look after the babies."

"Thanks, Miss Christmas.  That is like you and
mighty kind, but do you see Lois letting anybody--the
angel Gabriel himself--look after the babies for
her?"

"She might," dubiously.

"And again she mightn't.  But, aside from Lois,
I have too many life and death jobs on hand at
present to quit.  A doctor's no business to get
nerves.  He ought to leave that to his patients.
Anyway, it isn't the work that is getting me just
now, it is the damnable futility of it all.  The Curry
baby is a symbol.  I'm pouring water in a sieve,
Sylvia, and that's the devil's truth."

"It isn't.  You aren't," denied Sylvia quickly.
"You are doing miracles every day of your life and
everybody knows it.  Doctor Tom, I never heard
you talk like that before.  Don't.  It makes me
feel as if everything were tottering on its foundations."

"Sometimes I think they are with that infernal
senseless war going on over there after all our peace
prating.  Sylvia, what's it all for?  Where are we
going?  What's the use?"

"Everything's the use.  Maybe we can't see
behind all the agony and blundering but there must be
something there even if we can't see it.  Why,
Doctor Tom, there must be."  Sylvia's eyes were
earnest, her face uplifted to the stars lit with the fine
fires of youth's faith.  Tom Daly shook himself
like one coming out of a trance.  He was suddenly
ashamed that he, the strong man, had been
outdistanced in courage by the slim girl before him.

"Right you are," he said heartily.  "There *must*
be.  It's the only way to look at it.  Thank you,
Sylvia.  I won't bleat again.  If only--"  But
what was to have followed that sharp wrung "if
only" Sylvia never knew for suddenly Tom Daly
crushed both her hands in a vicelike grip and then
turned and fled with a gruff "good night" down
the path.

In his own yard close by he met his wife placidly
draping a blanket over a rhododendron bush.

"I thought there might be a frost to-night," she
observed, and her tone had all the clear crispness of
frost in it as she spoke.  Tom Daly was only human.
It was scarcely strange that he could not help
contrasting his wife's voice with that other eager,
vibrant, younger, warmer voice he had just heard,
passionately asserting faith in that something
behind all the miseries and misunderstandings of
things without which life were indeed scarcely to
be endured.

There was a world war on.  Little Jimmy Curry
lay dead unnecessarily.  Tom Daly's nerves and
courage and endurance were strained all but to the
breaking point.  And his wife Lois thought there
might be a frost.  But long after Tom Daly had
fallen into the heavy sleep of complete physical
exhaustion Lois lay wide-eyed and sleepless, staring
into the darkness.





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.. _`THE MOTH AND THE STAR`:

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   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE MOTH AND THE STAR

.. vspace:: 2

The audience settled itself into place, rattling its
programs, prepared idly to be either amused or
bored as the opportunity presented itself, mildly
curious as to the personality and talent of the young
violinist "heard for the first time in this country."

"They say he used to be old man McIntosh's office
boy.  He certainly struck it soft.  Old man's worth
near a million they say and this darned Dago'll get
it all I suppose.  Some folks just naturally nab the
luck."  Thus a young reporter to his neighbor.

"I don't know about that.  I can't imagine old
McIntosh standing for this fiddling business.  He's
a husky old Puritan."

"Well, he did stand for it to the tune of quite a
pretty price, I understand.  The chap's had four
years of Berlin and Dresden and the rest of it.
Some mixture!  Italian birth, American start,
Scotch bringing up, German polish.  Whew!
Wonder what he's like with all that in him.  Talk
about your melting pots!"

"There's old McIntosh in the box now.  No, the
left.  Ugly old snoozer, ain't he?  But brains.
Gee!  He's shrewd as they make 'em.  Hello!
Who's the dame?  Pretty easy to look at it, ain't she?"

"That's Miss Arden--lives on a high mucky
muck hill out in Greendale.  She's something to old
McIntosh.  Niece maybe.  I forget."

"No, she isn't.  Old man used to be bookkeeper
for her father's firm.  I remember.  My dad knew
'em.  Arden and Daly--big cotton concern.
Arden died young.  Daly lost his money in some
railroad slump and croaked too.  Son's a
doctor--making the wires hum out in Greendale about a
hospital or something.  So that's Miss Arden.
Engaged to young Amidon, isn't she?"

"I reckon.  Shut up.  There he comes.  Gee!
He's nothing but a kid."

It must be admitted that Gus, appearing on the
program as Gustavus Niccolini, did look very much
indeed like a "kid" as he came across the stage
and made a shy, stiff little bow to the audience.
Angus McIntosh fidgeted in his chair and cleared
his throat irritably.  "Fool to let him try," he
thought.  "How do I know whether he can play
or not?  What if he can't?"  A cold perspiration
stood out on the old man's forehead.  What if the
boy made a failure of the thing?  What if the
audience smiled, hissed?  Audiences did behave like
that sometimes.  Why hadn't he told the boy,
short-off, long ago, he shouldn't try it?  Thus he
worked himself into a perfect passion of apprehension.
But in the midst of his perturbation Sylvia's
hand rested on his knee and Sylvia's eyes smiled
reassurance.

"It's all right, Daddy McIntosh," she whispered.
"Just you wait till they hear him."

In a moment they did hear him and the great hall
was hushed to respectful silence.  The audience had
the grace to recognize a master touch when they
heard it.  Angus McIntosh was justified.  The boy
whom he had plucked out of a den of squalor and
vice was an artist, and the grim old man who had
had a hand in the creation had been something of
an artist at the job himself.  As for Sylvia, who
was behind it all, she hardly breathed until the
music ceased.  She listened rapt while the voice of
the violin sang and soared, now rapturous, now
tender, now triumphant, now dying away like the
note of a wild bird in the night.  She had known
before that Gus could play, but this--why this
was a thing born of Heaven to which she listened
reverently.  Finally the last note came and quivered
into silence.  There was an instant's hush then the
applause thundered.  The boy lifted his head
quietly, but with a certain grave pride, and his eyes
sought the box where Angus McIntosh and Sylvia
sat.  Then suddenly his face was lit with a light
which was not a smile but an enveloping radiance
which seemed to say, "This is yours.  I give it to
you.  I am glad it is worth giving."  Then he
bowed to the audience and the applause redoubled.

Angus McIntosh never knew much about the rest
of that program.  He knew it went on and the
applause went on, that the boy went through the varied
and difficult performance with ease and serenity
and simplicity, but what he was playing the old
man never knew.  It might have been "Yankee
Doodle" or the "Cam'el's are Coming" for all he
heard.  He only knew the thing was beautiful.  All
the remnants of still lingering prejudices floated off
into some dim cavern where such limbo is stored
or annihilated.  There was a place in the world
it seemed for sheer beauty.  Maybe it had a spiritual
essence all its own.  Anyway, this music of the boy's
seemed oddly connected in his mind with the psalms
and other fine old religious poetry with which his
mother had filled his mind long ago.  He was
humbly glad that he had had a share in letting loose
this thing upon the world.  He remembered
always that it was Sylvia who had really opened the
door.  Beauty--Kindness--Happiness--Love--all
these things had been slipping almost beyond
his grasp that December nearly six years ago when
Sylvia and her Christmas family had brought them
back.  It was Sylvia who had given the boy to him,
Sylvia, who had given his music to the world by
making himself who had been blind see.

The concert was over and Herr Bernsdorf, Gus'
old music teacher, had rushed up to the box and was
pumping Mr. McIntosh's hand up and down violently
with inarticulate croonings and mutterings of
delight and congratulation.  "Haf I not told you
that the boy was a genius?  Haf I not said it
hundertmal?  I knew.  I, who was his master, I
knew.  They haf done well by him over there, they
haf done well.  But somebody else, she haf done
more?  Is it you, mein Fraulein?"  He turned his
flashing little black eyes on Sylvia as he asked the
question.

"I!  Oh, no.  I have done nothing," disclaimed Sylvia.

"No?  Maybe it is another, in Berlin or Dresden
or elsewhere.  I know not.  I only know the boy
haf learned to play like that from luf.  Luf haf
taught him.  Only luf learns to play like that.
Ach!  Do I not know?"

And then Gus himself stepped into the box, having
gently but firmly slipped away from the crowd
which would have waylaid him.

"Did you like it, Daddy McIntosh?" he asked
playfully, and the old man coughed and sputtered
and could not speak.  But Gus was satisfied.  Even
as he grasped his sponsor's hand the boy's eyes
went beyond to Sylvia, who had purposely stepped
back.  Though his lips said nothing, his eyes asked
her too, "Did you like it, Sylvia?" and said again
what they had proclaimed from the stage.  "It is
yours.  I give it to you."

And a little shiver went over Sylvia as she read
the boy's eyes, and suddenly she felt very sad and
humble and a little ashamed because she had been
so blind.  She knew he was asking nothing,
probably never would ask anything, but she also knew
he was giving something very precious, something
for which she had nothing to give in exchange.
Mr. McIntosh, absorbed in his emotions, did not
understand, but the old music teacher did.

"I haf said it," he thought triumphantly.  "I
haf had right.  It was luf--luf and no other who
have learned the boy to play like that.  I haf heard
it from his fingers and now I haf seen it in his
eyes.  And by and by he will play efen better, for
luf will also learn him pain, and pain he is the
great master.  He it is who learn the masters
themselves.  Haf I not seen it?"

Only for a moment Gus had let his eyes betray
him, so brief an interval indeed that Sylvia
thought afterward she must have imagined it
so naturally did she and the young man find
themselves chatting over the details of the concert.

But later, after she was home in Greendale and
curled comfortably in bed, that eloquent look from
those dark eyes came back and would not let her
sleep.

"Oh, dear," she thought.  "Who would ever
have thought it of Gus, of all people?  I thought
he was just wrapped up in his music.  Why won't
they stay friends?  It is so discouraging and
uncomfortable.  There is no end to the trouble it
makes when they begin to want to be lovers.  Jack
is likely to come any minute and tell me what a
good boy he is and demand the plums out of the
Christmas pie.  I don't want to marry any of them.
I don't.  I don't.  So there."

But even as she snuggled down among the pillows
she heard a wee distinct little voice inside her
somewhere say something quite different.

"Oh, yes, you do," it said.  "You want to marry
Phil, by and by, way off in the future, a thousand
years from now.  Only he doesn't want to marry
you, and that is what makes you so restless and
discontented and horrid.  That's why you've been
flirting with Jack and--yes, Gus, too, in a demure,
artistic sort of way, not thinking it would do any
harm to anybody.  And even Doctor Tom looked
funny at you the other night.  And--but then
it is all Phil's fault--so you needn't worry."

And then Sylvia put her hands over her ears, for
she didn't want to hear any more of that kind of talk.

"You are quite mistaken," she retorted to the
disagreeable little voice.  "I haven't been flirting
with anybody.  Jack and Gus are both good friends
and I can't help being nice to them.  And Doctor
Tom is safe and married, so he doesn't count.  But,
anyway, I'll be careful after this and I don't want
to marry anybody--not anybody."

And down in the near-by city the young violinist
who had scored such a success that the papers were
already writing up flattering notices about him sat
in his room, furiously scribbling poetry, at least
that is what he would probably have called it,
poetry whose theme was mostly borrowed from
another young lover, and had in it a lot about the
"desire of the moth for the star" or some such
rubbish.  Gus was very young yet if he was a
master violinist and Love was beginning to teach him
other things than how to make his violin sing.  But
the poetry was not so good as his music and presently
he pushed aside his scribblings in disgust and
went and stood by the window looking out into the
night.

It had been raining and the pavements glistened
in the light reflected from the arc-lamps.  And
suddenly the twinkling lights called up to the boy the
memory of a Christmas eve when he had followed
Angus McIntosh into a brilliantly lighted room with
a wonderful Christmas tree in the center, such a
Christmas tree as he had never dreamed of in his
wildest dreams.  And then he forgot the tree and
remembered Sylvia smiling kindly at him, saying,
"Christmas Family, here are Mr. McIntosh and
Gus Nichols.  Isn't it nice they could get here
to-night?"

He knew now that the desire of the moth for the
star had been born then and there, only it wasn't
even a desire, it was just a worship.

And in the Oriole Inn, at the foot of Sylvia's
Hill, Hope Williams lay asleep with Stephen
Kinnard's four weeks' old letter under her pillow, and
a smile on her lips, for she was dreaming she was
back in the garden with Stephen sketching her
among the wistaria vines.  But Stephen Kinnard
was having a very amusing and profitable time
sketching a wild, little beauty of a half breed on
an Arizona desert these days and had all but
forgotten such a person as Hope existed.  But never
once in all his wanderings did he forget to mail a
weekly letter to Felicia Emory, who had rejected
him "with reasons."

So things go in this piquant world of ours.  And
there is much truth hidden for the wise in the depths
of the "Grecian Urn."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE CITY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE CITY

.. vspace:: 2

By November Barbara had become so accustomed
to the city that she no longer jumped at its noises
or shrank physically from its crowds.  She learned
to ignore the thunder of the El and to regard the
Subway as a necessary evil, the traffic policeman
a very present help in time of trouble.  She
even learned to zigzag deftly, alone and
unprotected, in and out among the automobiles, and to
calculate on the chance that a Fifth Avenue Bus
driver would probably prefer not to run her down,
other things being equal.

But she never quite made friends with the big,
strange city--the Step-Mother city--as some one
has called it.  Always it seemed to hold her at a
distance, perfectly amicable and perfectly
impersonal.  It seemed to say to her "What are you to
me?  There are hundreds---yes, thousands, like
you in my gigantic household.  Can I be expected
to care for you each as individuals?  Watch the
motes dancing in the sunshine.  As the motes to
you so you to me.  Go look at the sands shining on
the beach at Coney.  As the grains to you so you to
me.  Let your eyes follow the ripples of my big
river.  As the ripples to you so you and all the
rest of the human eddies which make up my great tide to me."

Yet there were moments when Barb felt as if
she had almost surprised the city's secret, caught
it unaware, as it were, and half ashamed, slipping
into its holy of holies.  Once coming over on the
ferry from Jersey City she had scanned the great
towers and buildings, set with twinkling lights as
with many jewels, and beheld the huge bridges,
across which an endless stream of traffic passed and
repassed, like human life itself in its unending
succession.  And then she had seemed to see for a
moment what the city really meant.  Sordid, material,
menacing, heartless as it was in many of its aspects
did it not after all cherish a big vision?  Were not
those very towers and bridges the symbol of its
restless aspiration?

Suddenly above it all had risen a pale lackadaisical
looking moon, slipping quietly from behind a smoke
bank to look down at the seething tumultuous life of
the great city.  To Barb the moon had seemed
almost to smile, a world-weary, somewhat cynical
smile as one who should say "Go on.  Keep it up.
Burrow and build, crush and create, scream and
scuffle.  What will it matter a million years hence?
You will have learned by then to be cold and calm
like me."

But the bridges and towers had mocked the moon
and defied it.  "We are wood and stone and steel,"
they said.  "We may crumble and fall but what
we stand for will neither crumble nor fall.  For
we are the symbol of man, aspirant, conquering--a
spirit which shall not grow cold or calm while
there is anything in life to which to aspire, anything
left to conquer.  We are nothing.  That we grant
you, Moon.  But the spirit of man is everything,
yes, even God himself, God passioning, agonizing,
ultimately victorious."

So the vision came to little Barb, and after that
she was not afraid of the city.  She had the clew
as to what it was all about.  It whirred and
rumbled and rushed and screeched like its own busses
but it had a method in its madness.  Like the busses,
it had a destination.  It was going somewhere
whether it knew it or not.

As for Barb's own little life, caught in the whirl
of the city's, it was full and breathless and on the
whole incredibly agreeable.  She typed her Aunt's
eloquent pro-suffrage pamphlets and articles and
listened with rapt eyes and eager ears to her Aunt's
glowing speeches and all the while in her busy brain
the meaning of this, too, was gradually dawning.
At first it had been like a confused, jumbled picture
puzzle, but little by little she was able to put the
pieces together into their proper places.  She was
beginning to see that though one talked a great deal
about the woman question and listened to a great
deal about the woman question, there was really,
after all, no woman question, just the human
question--the human questions.

How could every man and woman and child in
America--in the world--be assured enough to
eat and to wear, enough and not too much?  How
could each have leisure to play, also just enough,
neither too much, nor too little?  How was each to
find his own work, neither too much nor too little,
but the right work, the work he could do with all
his heart, not for the payment, though that must be
adequate, but for the zest of the doing itself, that
special, personal service which every human being
should be God endowed and man fitted to perform?
Above all, how could every man, woman and child be
sure of happiness?  Since she had come to the city
happiness had come to seem a very fundamental
thing, perhaps because she herself was so happy,
partly also because she was so sorry for the rest
who were not happy.  And so few of them seemed
to be happy.  They looked complacent, or smug, or
well-fed, or blatantly successful, some of them, but
almost none looked happy, and most of them, it
seemed to Barb, looked downright miserable,
haunted and hunted, which was very sad.

Barb herself was happy, as has been said.  In
her ignorance and innocence she supposed her
happiness had its roots in the fact that she was young
and healthy and busy and useful and interested in
her work.  She had no idea that her happiness was
at all bound up in the other fact that few days
passed that she did not either see or talk over the
telephone with a certain rather grave but very
friendly young doctor from the near-by clinic,
who was also interested in getting at the
secret of the city, especially in trying to pluck
out the heart of its physical miseries, fighting the
seemingly futile battle with filth and disease and
ignorance and vice and their sad consequences,
attacking the Augean stables of the city with the
energy of a Hercules, though there was no magic
stream to turn to his aid except the magic stream
of youth and courage and determination and faith,
which was, after all, a fairly efficient substitute.

And if sometimes when there was a silence
between the two young people and Barb's heart was
almost overbrimming with a wistful, half-conscious
joy in things as they were, she did not know that
the grim set to Phil's mouth and the tired look in
his eyes was due to the fact that his Faraway
Princess was looking particularly far off just then
and that he was all but oblivious of the presence of
the contented little Beggar-Maid quite within
hailing distance.  So much for Fools' Paradises where
Youth lives from preference and for Nature
going quietly about her business in the background!

The city had its way with Suzanne, too, and
though she loved it better than Barb, it treated her
less genially.  Suzanne worked hard and hopefully.
The click of her typewriter resounded faithfully
by night and day.  But, somehow, her plays and
stories did not sell.  The arrival of the mails with
the persistently returning long envelopes was a
daily agony.  She got to know all the hateful
platitudinous variations of the printed slip "Does not
necessarily imply lack of merit," "Not exactly
suited to the needs of the magazine," and so on.
How she detested the smug, smooth, complacency
of those printed formulæ!  How she hugged to her
heart the occasional kindly, personal notes of the
compassionate editors who salved the pain of
rejection by a brief word or two of encouragement
or advice.  But, alas, these favors were as few as
they were precious!

The plays fared no better.  The managers smiled
unctuously upon her prettiness when Suzanne
bearded them in their dens.  Some of them even
patted her on the shoulder and told her her work
was "promising," and advised her by all means to
keep at it.  But there was always some thoroughly
excellent reason why they could not take the
particular play or sketch she had to offer and she had
eventually to retreat from the dens, one after the
other, sore, indignant, but more doggedly
determined than ever to storm the citadel.

In the meanwhile Aunt Sarah's little legacy
dwindled until it became a mere shadow of itself.
It had never been very portly at the best of times,
and living in the Village is deceptively expensive.
By the first of December Suzanne moved, taking
with her her "Factory re-built," which skipped a
few letters for variety's sake now and then, but was,
on the whole, very dependable.  Certainly it could
be depended upon to turn out manuscript which
would return with automatic precision after the
briefest allotment of days.  Suzanne informed
Barb about this time over the telephone that it was
incomparably more picturesque to be living over a
fruit vender's shop in the Alley than it was to
inhabit a mere studio.  It gave you loads of
"copy."  Miss Murray looked meditative when her niece
reported this new viewpoint on Suzanne's part and
suggested that that young lady be invited to take
supper with them at an early date, to which Barbara
joyfully acquiesced.  She felt that she had seen too
little of Suzanne of late.  Suzanne accepted and
Barb looked at her very critically and accused her
of working herself to death and getting great dark
circles under her eyes.

But Suzanne only shrugged and asserted that
work agreed with her and sent up her plate for more
salad, apologizing for her appetite on the score of
having been so busy at lunch time she had forgotten
to eat any.

"Oh, you genii!" laughed Barb reproachfully, but
Miss Josephine Murray vouchsafed her guest a keen
scrutiny which Suzanne perceiving, straightway
rattled off a lot of voluble enthusiasm about the
delights of the "Dutch Oven" and other Bohemian
eating-places.

Later, Phil Lorrimer dropped in and took the
girls to a show.  He, too, looked rather hard at
Suzanne later when they were having innocuous
sandwiches and beer at a little German restaurant.
Phil and Barb escorted Suzanne home to her alley
but she would not let them come in, protesting that
it was too late and she didn't want to ruin her
reputation with Giovanni and Pepita downstairs, who
were very proper people.

On the Bus Phil turned to Barb to ask a rather
odd question.

"Roger Minot been in town lately?"

"I don't think so.  Suzanne wouldn't let him
see her if he did come.  Why?"

"I just wondered.  Suzanne is looking a little
peaked, don't you think?"

"Dreadful," sighed Barb.  "Suzanne is such a
fiend for work.  She owned up to forgetting to eat
any luncheon to-day she was so interested in what
she was doing.  I'm afraid she forgets rather
often."

"Shouldn't wonder," agreed Phil.  He had seen
more than one young man and young woman, too,
for that matter, who had developed that convenient
kind of memory about food in the city when pockets
were empty.  He shrewdly suspected that Suzanne
was "up against it" in his own parlance.  He had
made a fair diagnosis of her case in the garish
lights of the German restaurant.  "Overwork,
underfeeding, devilish desperation.  Something sure
to snap soon."  Thus he summed the matter up
mentally, for he had not thought it necessary to alarm
Barb about her friend's situation, since she was so
obviously unsuspecting.  He knew Suzanne would
brook no help nor pity.  "Proud as Lucifer, of
course," he thought.  But he made up his mind to
keep his eye on Suzanne, as he put it.

To that end he made his way to the Village a
few evenings later, found from Giovanni that
Suzanne was out and discovered her, for himself
shortly, sitting in a bench on the Square, looking
pinched and blue about the lips.  Phil Lorrimer was
a very direct person and usually went straight for
any goal he had in sight.  He finally succeeded in
wringing the truth out of Suzanne.  She had not
sold a story since she came to New York or
"landed" a play.  Her money was all but gone and
she had been living on one meal a day for a week past.

"And the worst of it is, I'm a rotten failure.
That's what I can't stand."  And Suzanne had
clenched her fist in her shabby little glove and set
her white teeth together sharply.  "I won't give
up.  I tell you I won't.  I won't go home and I
won't ask 'em for a cent.  I won't let 'em say, 'I
told you so.'  I won't.  I won't.  Phil Lorrimer, if
you dare to hint one word of what I've told you
to-night to Rog--er--to my people, I'll borrow
a stiletto of Giovanni and ram it clean through you.
What did you ever make me tell you for, anyway?
You hadn't any business to.  I hate you!"  And
with an ejaculation somewhere between a snarl and
a sob, Suzanne had turned and fled away from him
into the night.

But it had not taken Phil's long legs many seconds
to be up with her again.

"See here, Suzanne," he urged.  "Don't take
it like that.  My knowing doesn't count.  Doctors
and priests are dumb as the grave.  I won't peach,
but do let me help you over the bad spot.  I haven't
much myself, as you know, but I'd be glad to ease
you along a bit if you'll let me, man to man."

Suzanne smiled an April smile at him.

"Man to man, you are a darling, Phil Lorrimer.
I'd let you help me if I'd let any one but I won't.
My pride's all I have left, and I'm going to hang on
to that like grim death.  Don't you worry.  I know
what I can do and I'm going to do it."

"What?"  Phil was somewhat dubious about
the sudden flush on Suzanne's cheeks, the sparkle in
her eyes.

She shook her head, mischief written in every line
of her thin, pretty, piquant face.

   |  "'Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
   |  Till you applaud the deed,'"

she quoted gayly.  "It is much better you shouldn't
know.  I'm not even going to tell Barb.  She will
only be informed that I am out of town with friends.
My esteemed parents and dear Roger will hear the
same.  Your job is to sit tight and know nothing.
You won't be responsible.  Your skirts--I mean
your coat-tails---will be entirely clear."

"Suzanne, I've half a mind to telegraph your
father this minute--or Roger.  Maybe it would be
better to summon Roger."  He eyed her sternly.

Suzanne giggled wickedly.

"You will do nothing of the sort, dear Dumb
as the Grave.  I have your sacred oath not to
peach."

"Let me off, Suzanne," he begged.  "Honest,
I'm worried about you.  You look wild."

But Suzanne only laughed again, and assured him
she was saner than the statue of Liberty.

"Let you off nothing, dear sir," she added for
good measure.  "But please don't fret.  I assure
you I am not going to do a thing either desperate or
immoral.  I'm going on a lark, that is all.  You
can't down Suzanne.  Like Ivory Soap--it floats.
Here we are at my alley.  My fruit stand's just
beyond.  Shake hands like a good boy and wish me
luck.  Don't frown like that.  It spoils your leonine
beauty.  Good night--and good-by."  And, before
he could speak, Suzanne had darted into her own
doorway leaving Phil staring rather ruefully after her.

"Now what in time or eternity is she up to?" he
pondered.  "She isn't the kind to play the fool to
any great extent.  Got too much head and too little
heart.  I may as well let her gang her own gait.
She's bound to anyway.  Poor old Roger!  She is
certainly leading him a trail.  Wouldn't he curse me
for letting her make a getaway like this if he knew?
Out of town with friends!" he muttered as he
descended into the depths of the subway.  "I'd like
to see the friends.  And if I were Rod Minot, I
would too, or know the reason why."

Thus satisfactorily can one young man sum up
the whole duty of another in a recreant courtship
though remaining as helpless and inefficient as a
new-born infant in the management of his own.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MARGINS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   MARGINS

.. vspace:: 2

"Hello, Jack!  I had no idea you were home."  Sylvia,
rosy and blown from a spin behind Doctor
Tom's frolicsome black mare, entered the living-room
at Arden Hall, bringing with her a whiff of
fresh outdoor air.  She threw down her muff and
held out a welcoming hand to her guest who had
been waiting her return.

"Bad penny, you know."  Jack captured both
hands instead of the one vouchsafed as he spoke.
"Can't leave business very long, you see."  His eyes
twinkled mischievously as he looked down at
Sylvia, making shameless bid for her favor.  Sylvia
laughed, but she withdrew her hands and shook her
head at him.

"You are a dreadful fraud, Jack.  You don't
really care such a lot about the business all at once.
You know you don't."

"Not a tinker's dam," he shrugged.  "Whatever
that may be."

"Then why--" began Sylvia and stopped.

"There is only one why, young lady, and you
know it."

Sylvia frowned and jabbing out her hatpins a
little irritably, tossed her black velvet toque on the
table.  She had already removed her coat and furs
and stood, trim and tailored, in her simple blue
serge dress; a simplicity which was exceedingly
becoming and likewise extremely expensive as Jack's
approving gaze, sweeping the lithe young curves of
her figure, knew very well.

"I wish you wouldn't, Jack."

"Wouldn't what?" blandly.

"Wouldn't work--just because I want you to.
It is so horribly like a bribe."

"It is a bribe."

"Then I don't like it.  I told you I didn't promise
anything."

"And I told you I didn't expect anything.  You
can't blame a fellow for putting all the eggs he can
find into his basket."

"Put all the eggs you like into the basket, only
don't blame me if they get smashed.  Sometimes,
Jack, I think you don't really want to marry
me at all--you just want the fun of pursuing me."

"Maybe so," agreed Jack so amicably that Sylvia
lifted her eyebrows at him.  "I was brought up
never to contradict a lady."

Sylvia laughed at that and sat down, running her
hand over her hair, to brush back its turbulent
ripple, a gesture Jack loved because it was so
interwoven with his mental pictures of her.

"Let's not discuss ourselves," she added.  "Tell
me the news.  Did you see Barb and Suzanne?"

"I saw Barb.  Suzanne has fled the coop."

"What?"

"The report is she is out of town, traveling with
friends.  Barb looks worried and Phil looks wise
but neither has much to say."

"Does Phil know where she is?"

"He says not, but he knows something, or I
miss my guess.  Not that the old oyster would open
up his shell a fraction of an inch even to oblige
yours truly.  I pried like a good one but to no
purpose.  Talk about your professional secrecy!
Phil's got it down to the finish.  The old chap is
different somehow, older and solemn as a fish.
Horrible example of what work will do to a
fellow!" he grinned.

Sylvia stooped to pick up the tongs and stir the
fire, which was smoldering a little sulkily on the
hearth.  Out of the tail of his eye Jack watched
her.

"He and Barb seem to be remarkably good pals,"
he continued.  "The Aunt orders him about like
a member of the family.  Don't wonder he obeys.
That woman is a general.  I wouldn't be surprised
if she took the vote away from the men and gave
it to the women any day, if she took the notion.
Lucky she and Napoleon didn't hitch their wagons
to the same star in the same generation.  The star
would have dragged Aunt Josephine and ditched
the emperor, that's certain."

"Do stop talking nonsense, Jack, and tell me more
about Suzanne."

Sylvia's voice had a faint edge of sharpness to
it as if a little of the grim December wind outside
had gotten into it.

"I don't know any more.  I've told you all that
is generally published.  Even Norton, Pa., gropes
in middle darkness.  She didn't even write to
Roger it seems.  He is in bad.  Had the temerity
to propose to her again just after she had emerged
with a bundle of manuscripts from a manager's
office, which wasn't a tactful moment, I gather.  She
consigned him to the devil or some feminine equivalent
thereof, apparently.  Pa and Ma knows she's
traveling.  Had cards from Buffalo and Cleveland,
I understand.  Pa's excited and Ma's took to her
bed.  Looks as if they feared the worst."

"Jack!"

"Sorry.  I was only joking, of course.  Trust
Suzanne to take care of herself.  She is all right.
Roger is having a fit or two though, and no wonder."

"Serves him right.  Why didn't he go and marry
her and not let her go off on a tangent like that?"

"Why, indeed?" murmured Jack.  "It is so
hanged easy to marry a girl when she won't have
you!  Give me the good old cave days.  You could
knock your bride down with a club if she objected.
Then, when she came to, she would get up and grin
at her noble master and string some red berries
round her neck, or stick a ring in her nose, to
enhance her charms, and everything would be entirely
agreeable."

"Jack, you are perfectly horrid to-day.  I wish
you had stayed in New York.  How is Jeanette?"  Sylvia
changed the subject severely.

"Going the pace, as usual.  Good Lord, Sylvia,
what do you suppose a woman wants to live the
kind of life she's elected for?  I like a good time
myself.  It's a family trait.  But she goes as if all
the devils of Hell were loose and after her.  Maybe
they are, after a fashion.  See here, Sylvia, aren't
you going up to see her soon?"

"After Christmas.  Why?"

"Nothing especial.  I thought a dose of you
might be good for her, that is all."

And that was all the explanation that Sylvia
extracted on that subject, though she guessed that there
was more than Jack admitted behind his rather
enigmatic remarks.  Jack was incredibly clear-sighted
about some things, and it was evident he saw
cause to worry about his sister Jeanette, even to the
extent of hurrying Sylvia to New York where he
himself could not follow unless he turned back the
page of the virtuous new leaf of his devotion to
business.  There was a puzzle behind it somewhere,
Sylvia knew.  She also knew she was going to be
left to discover the exact nature of the puzzle for herself.

So December went its way.  Suzanne continued
mysteriously "traveling with friends."  Barb and
Phil kept hard at work in the city and managed to see
a good deal of each other in their off hours.  Sylvia
and Phil had almost ceased to write to each other,
though there was no open break in their friendship.
It was rather that a wall, intangible but unsurmountable,
had risen between them, as perhaps it had, for
pride is a mightier barrier than a mountain peak
sometimes.  Gus went his quiet, successful way on
his concert tour, refusing politely but conclusively to
be made a lion of, keeping rather to himself in his
leisure hours, living on his unspoken dreams and
managing to get a great deal of pure happiness out
of his star worship.  To Sylvia's delight, and
almost to Felicia's consternation, the latter's designs
for a mural relief, which Stephen Kinnard had fairly
bullied her into submitting in a competition, had been
accepted and she was hard at work on the actual
modeling these brief winter days, though she found
time, Felicia fashion, to be an excellent
"Home-keeper" and Mother along with the other task.

Early in November Lois Daly had rather
astonishingly announced her intention of "doing some
writing" as she put it rather vaguely.  Lois was
always reticent, especially about her literary work, and
even her husband asked no questions, realizing it
suited her better to be let alone to work out her
purpose for herself.  She was far too conscientious
about her other duties to neglect any of them and it
was consequently the long evenings when the children
were in bed and the household affairs quiescent
that she found most profitable for her new work.
This arrangement was admirable in all but two
respects.  It made Lois' working day an almost
impossibly long one and left her a little too weary for
restful sleep when she did finally creep into bed.  It
also curtailed almost to a minimum the moments
which she had to spare for her husband's society,
which had been all too few even before the advent of
this new era.  Doctor Tom made no protest as to
this.  He was always over-sensitive to the sacrifice
of her work which Lois had made for him and his,
but he did beg her at times not to "bother" so much
about the house and the children and himself.

But Lois always shook her head at his pleas and
explained quietly that he and the house and the
children were her real job and she could not neglect
them for the other.  And if Tom Daly found it in
his heart to wonder sometimes if his wife's "real
job" did not include a little closer companionship
with himself he never voiced his wondering.  He
was no "martyr," as he had once long ago
protested to Sylvia.

But human relations are never static and while
Lois shut herself in her den and wrote feverishly,
night after night, her husband, being only human,
easily drifted into the habit of finding elsewhere
than at his own home the companionship and
sympathy which even the strongest and most independent
of men half-consciously crave.  Arden Hall and
Sylvia were close at hand and it was almost inevitable
that he should find his way to the two rather often.
Sylvia was intensely interested in all his schemes for
the hospital and other altruistic visions which made
up a very large part of his wide, busy career.  Often
they talked eagerly for hours, either with or without
Felicia's presence.  Oftener still Tom Daly would
sit and smoke in contented silence while Sylvia
played soft music or read aloud out of some magazine
stories which let his mind rest instead of wrestle.

It was all the most natural, even inevitable
development.  The two were old friends.  Tom Daly
was thirty-eight and happily married.  Sylvia Arden
was twenty-two questing for experience innocently
enough.  There was no one to question or warn, or
indeed, anything to question or warn against.  Yet
there sat Nature spinning away at her web all the
time and Tom Daly and Sylvia were near to being
caught in the mesh, without even knowing there was
any mesh.  And the danger for Tom Daly as it
happened was considerably greater than for Sylvia just
because he was a man.  Man is the so-called reasoning
sex, but, as has been more than once noted, sex
is the one subject upon which he will not reason.
And so things slipped easily and pleasantly along up
to Christmas time.

It was Jack Amidon who involuntarily opened
Sylvia's eyes by uttering an unusually sharp protest
that she went nowhere any more, either with him or
any one else, but just sat in the chimney corner and
played Joan to Tom Daly's Darby.  "And soon
there'll be the deuce to pay whether you know it or
not," he had added darkly.

Of course Sylvia had flared out in quick anger at
his implications.

"What do you mean, Jack Amidon, by saying such
horrid things?" she had stormed.  "It is perfectly
ridiculous.  Doctor Tom is years and years older
than I am.  He is just like a brother."

Jack had seen the brother dodge worked before
and said so somewhat caustically, whereupon Sylvia
lost what little temper she had left, and having
delivered a volley of violent wrath upon her guest's
imprudent head, shot out of the room, leaving him
to enjoy the hospitality of the Hall in solitude or beat
a retreat as pleased him best.

Meanwhile, upstairs in her own room, Sylvia
threw herself on the bed, and, first of all, woman
fashion, relieved her feelings by indulging in a good
old-fashioned "weep," her anger dissipating with
her tears.  Presently she sat up and began to take
stock of the situation and herself, and found to her
consternation that things as they actually were, were
about as safe as a child with a box of matches in a
haymow.

She was a perfectly clear-eyed and sophisticated
young woman and when her attention was called,
however brutally, to the fact that you cannot see a
man, night after night, week after week, as she had
been seeing Tom Daly, without there being at least
the possibility of the "deuce to pay," as Jack had
bluntly expressed it, she was willing to acknowledge
the fact to herself at least.  She carefully analyzed
her own mental processes for the past few weeks and
discovered to her surprise and some chagrin that
she had been ruthlessly cutting out engagements in
which Tom Daly did not figure, and eagerly making
those in which he did figure, that she had deliberately
plunged into everything that interested him,
Red Cross work, the new hospital, the needs of some
of his poorer patients; everything, in short, that he
cared about heartily.  She even had to admit to
herself that she had been a little complacent and self
righteous in her genuine interest and sympathy with
these things because she resented Lois Daly's apathy
in the matter and felt profoundly sorry for Doctor
Tom.  She discovered that it is not prudent in the
world as it is lived to be too sorry for another
woman's husband.  That way danger lies, and a
signboard to that effect is in order.  Beyond this,
however, Sylvia knew she had little for which to
blame herself.  She was not a deliberate coquette.
She had acted in all simplicity and naturalness, but
there had been a risk to the experiment for all that
and she was a bit ashamed of her hitherto state of
blindness.

Being a very honest young person, Sylvia sat
down, as soon as she had threshed the whole matter
out to the satisfaction of her clear, fair mind, and
wrote a very artistically penitent note to Jack,
retracting some of the unwarrantable things she had
said in her wrath and admitting rather hazily that
there was a faint possibility that he might have been
in the right about certain matters, implying that she
was magnanimously willing even to ignore his
objectionable rightness if he so desired.

And her note crossed one from Jack, begging her
to forgive his "darned impertinence" and adding
that he had behaved like a jackass and a dog in the
manger and Heaven knows how many other kinds
of animals, but if she would be good enough to
overlook his misdemeanors he would be eternally grateful.

And the next evening Sylvia appeared under
Jack's escort at the Honeycutt ball, wearing a
marvelous new gown and looking extraordinarily pretty
after her temporary estrangement from Vanity Fair.
And from that time on during all the mad gayeties
of Christmas week Jack was constantly in attendance,
obviously the favored knight.  Life is mostly made
up of reactions.  The pendulum having swung so
far to the left, swings back an equal distance to the
right.  Sylvia was the kinder to Jack because of her
deflection away from him in an entirely opposite
direction.  And he, with the wisdom born of considerable
experience of the feminine sex in general, and
Sylvia Arden in particular, made no comment
though he perfectly understood what had happened,
but sunned himself agreeably in his lady's rather
uncertain grace and bided his time.

And the night of the Honeycutt ball for the first
time in several weeks Tom Daly sat and smoked
before his own fireside and not once did he think of
the new hospital.





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.. _`"SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS"`:

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   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   "SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS"

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"Phil?  That you, my boy?  Come up and take
dinner with us to-night, won't you?  I have a
proposition to make to you."

Thus the smooth voice of Justin Huntley over
the telephone.  Justin Huntley was a famous nerve
specialist, a classmate and lifelong friend of Phil
Lorrimer's father, who had kept a friendly eye on
the young man ever since he had come to the city.

Phil accepted the invitation, and later, as he left
the Subway and strolled down Seventy-second Street
toward the river, he speculated vaguely as to what
the proposition might be likely to be.  Doctor
Huntley was quite capable of initiating any kind of
a suggestion, from proposing a marriage to an
heiress to the use of a new serum.  Consequently Phil
had little to go upon in his speculations.

It was an agreeable dinner.  Dinner at the
Huntleys' always was agreeable, moving by pleasant
stages to a perfect end, gastronomically speaking.
There were no other guests to-night and presently,
Mrs. Huntley, a frail tired looking little lady who
always seemed to be deprecating the weight of her
silks and the brilliancy of her jewels, rose and left
the two men together.

"Any curiosity about the proposition I baited my
hook with to get you here to-night?"  Dr. Huntley
surveyed his guest a little quizzically as he launched
the question.

"I didn't need any bait," said Phil.  "But I
admit the curiosity."

The older man leaned forward and deliberately lit
his cigarette from a candle that stood close at hand.

"You don't smoke?" he remarked irrelevantly.

"No," admitted Phil.  "At least, not often.
Bad for the operating table."

"Bad!  It's the devil.  You have a deal of sense,
young man.  How would you like to be my
partner?"  The question was put as casually as if he
were offering a fellow traveler, caught in the rain,
a share of his umbrella, but his shrewd eyes took full
account of the face of the young man.  Phil flushed
and his mouth opened slightly.  It was a proposition
to make any ambitious young man drop his jaw.
Justin Huntley had one of the largest and most
remunerative practices in the city.  It was a dazzling
prospect to open suddenly before the eyes of a
small-salaried worker in a free clinic.  It meant
success, money--Sylvia, something to offer her, at last.

"Well?"

"It is a wonderful chance," said Phil steadily,
"but I should like to think it over, if you don't
mind."

"Eh?"  It was Dr. Huntley's jaw that dropped
this time.  He had scarcely expected a young man
in Phil Lorrimer's position to need to think over
an offer such as he had just made.  Most young
men would have jumped at it quickly as a trout leaps
at a shining fly lest the fascinating thing disappear
from view before it could be apprehended.  "What
did you say?"

"I said I should have to think it over," repeated
Phil.  "Your kind of practice isn't the kind I am
interested in, to speak frankly."

"Interested!  Good Lord!  Who expects to be
interested in anything nowadays?  A lot of damn
women with nothing on earth the matter with them
except fool notions, and having nothing on earth
or in Heaven to occupy themselves with, dyspeptics,
neurasthenics, hypochondriacs, dope fiends,
gentlemen drunkards and worse!  That is my kind of
practice, boy.  Pah!  Interesting!  Of course, they
aren't interesting.  They are fools.  But they pay.
Lord, how they pay!  They wouldn't be sick if they
didn't have so much money.  You would open your
eyes if you saw my books.  But I've had 'most
enough of 'em.  I want somebody to take the brunt
of their damn foolnesses off of me.  That is what
I want a partner for.  Some day I'll be telling 'em
what I really think of 'em and it wouldn't do--it
wouldn't do.  I've got to have an understudy.
You've a close mouth and a good head and you'd like
the money.  Don't tell me you wouldn't like it,"
querulously.  "Everybody wants money these days.
The whole world's after it."

"Oh, I want it all right," said Phil Lorrimer
honestly.  "I happen to want it like the devil just at
present.  But I am not sure I want it--that bad.
That is what I have to think over."

He took a hasty swallow of water from the glass
beside his plate, then rose and made a few quick,
nervous turns, up and down the room.  Finally he
came to a halt opposite his host.

"I don't know whether I can make you understand,
Dr. Huntley, but it is like this," he said.  "I
have a drop or so of missionary blood in me.  My
father is in China now.  My mother would be, if
she could stand the climate.  My sister is teaching
in a missionary school in Turkey.  I chose the kind
of work I am doing here in New York partly
because it interested me, but I believe it was a little
bit too because of the missionary strain.  Anyway,
it seems to me a worth-while job.  But this thing
you are offering me--  Pardon me if I sound rude.
I don't mean to disparage your work.  It is fine--some
of it, but well, the truth of it is, it doesn't look
to me to measure up to what we are doing in the
clinic and what some other doctors and surgeons are
doing in other places.  The finest man I know--doing
the finest work I know--is in Greendale, a
little place just outside Baltimore.  He has always
been a sort of standard for me--he and my father.
If I went in with you, it would be not because my
heart was in it, but because the money was in it, and
wanted the money worse than I wanted to hang
onto my dreams.  That is about the whole story."

Justin Huntley smoked in silence during this, for
Phil, rather long speech.  Phil was not much given
to eloquence.

"Well," he said.  "Even so.  Put it as baldly as
that, if you like.  It is up to you.  A man can't
afford to sentimentalize much in this day and
generation.  Let me remind you, the money is not to be
despised.  It buys a good deal."

Phil's eyes were lowered.  Well he knew, or
thought he knew, what it could buy for him.  Not
Sylvia, of course, Sylvia could not be bought, but
the right to go in and try to win her against Jack,
against the world, yes, against even his own ideals.
The last thought crowded in, an unbidden guest.
Suddenly he loathed his father's friend, loathed his
smug success, his cynical sureness that he himself
could be bought.  For it was buying, and Phil knew
it.  If he took this offer, he sold out, to the highest
bidder, his own high ideals.  Was it worth it?  Was
even Sylvia worth it?  Had he the right to win her
that way?  Could he do it?

"Don't give your final answer to-night."  Justin
Huntley's bland voice interrupted the boy's
reflections.  "There is no hurry.  Take a week.
Two--three--if you like."

Phil pulled himself together.

"Thank you.  I will, if you don't object--a few
days, anyway.  Please don't think I am ungrateful,
or don't appreciate the compliment you have paid
me--or rather the kindness, for, of course, I know I'm
not experienced enough to be much of a partner at
present.  I--"

But Huntley waved the words aside.

"It's not kindness--nothing but selfishness.  I
happen to want you.  Come on in if you will.
Anyway think it over.  The madame is alone.  Shall
we go to her?"

Phil fancied there was an odd, wistful inquiry in
Mrs. Huntley's pale eyes as she turned to meet the
men as they entered the room.  It was almost as if
she were making some kind of plea.  Whether she
wanted him to accept or refuse her husband's offer
was not at all clear to Phil.  He made his adieus as
early as he politely could on the score of a previous
engagement and passed out into the night trying to
adjust as best he could the confused bundle of
thoughts and emotions he carried.

"Wonder if old Mephisto had any qualms," muttered
Justin Huntley as the door had closed upon the
tall young doctor.

"Did you speak, dear?" inquired his wife.  "I
didn't understand."

"No, I didn't say anything--worth repeating."

"How like Philip is to his father, isn't he?"

"Very like," somewhat dryly.  "Did you say
there was a girl?"

"A girl?"  Mrs. Huntley always dealt in mild
interrogatives as if to disclaim the responsibility of
assertion.  "Oh, yes.  His mother told us he was
devoted to Sylvia Arden--wasn't it?  That lovely
young girl we met once--in Baltimore, I think?
She is a great heiress, isn't she?"

"H-mm.  Maybe he will be back, after all,"
remarked her husband irrelevantly.

Phil's restlessness gave him no peace, and though
the engagement had been fiction he decided to run
around and see Barb a few moments before he turned
in for the night.  He had gotten in the habit of
using Barb as an anæsthetic of late, though he had
no idea he was doing it.  To-night he found her
alone, curled up like a sleepy kitten before the fire.
She rose with a happy little exclamation of surprise
as Phil came in.

For once the flood gates of his reserve were down
for Phil.  In five minutes he had poured out the
whole story of his evening's experience, omitting
nothing except the mention of Sylvia.  In fact, he,
hardly thought it necessary to mention Sylvia.  She
so fully possessed his own mind he had no
conception that Barbara did not fully understand how
inextricably Sylvia was woven in with the whole
matter.

"But Phil," wondered Barb, "it isn't the kind of
work you like, is it?  I can't imagine you dealing
with that kind of patients exclusively."  Barb's eyes
blinked and crinkled, Barb-like, as she made the
statement.

"Nor I.  I should be all too likely to tell 'em to
go plum to thunder."  He grinned a little as he
made the admission.

"Then why?  Phil, it can't be the money that
appeals to you?"  Barb's voice was startled,
incredulous.

Phil had been on his feet, marching to and fro in
the little room, as was his custom when excited.
But suddenly he dropped into a chair before the
hearth.

"Listen, Barbie.  Listen hard," he said.  "Suppose
a chap wanted to marry a girl and he didn't
have any money, at least not as much as he thought
he ought to have, not to look like a fool and a knave,
asking for her, and then suppose that, right out of a
clear sky, the chap saw a chance to make a big
income, perfectly respectably, if not, well, we'll say
exhilaratingly, wouldn't he just naturally grab at the
chance?"

Phil was not looking at Barb.  He was staring
into the gas log with all his might, but in any case
it didn't matter much.  Wherever he looked Phil
saw only Sylvia that night.  Barb's cheeks were
pink and her breath came a little more quickly than
usual.  She couldn't help wondering if Phil could
hear the "Blop!  Blop!  Blop!" her heart was
making.  It seemed as if he must hear, it was such a
queer, loud sound, but he did not appear to notice.
He did not even turn toward her.

"He might grab, but I think he would put his
hand down quick again as soon as he realized the
girl wouldn't want him--that way.  She wouldn't
want to be bought at a price--like that."  Barb
managed to keep her voice steady in spite of the
queer thing her heart was doing.

"Maybe not," said Phil.  "Somehow I thought
that is what you would say, Barbie.  Thank you."  And
suddenly Phil was on his feet.  "'Night, Barb.
I've got to telephone a man before it gets any later."

And before Barb caught her breath he was gone.
It did not matter any more now how her heart
behaved, but somehow, oddly enough it stopped
"blopping" and seemed suddenly to be very, very
tired and heavy, as if it were going to sink straight
down into her stomach which, of course, was no
place for a heart to be located.

Yet it was all perfectly natural and like Phil not
to have said anything more at the moment.  He had
to get the taint of barter off his hands before he
came to her.  "Suppose a chap wanted to marry a
girl."  "Suppose a chap wanted to marry a girl."  The
clock on the mantel seemed to be ticking out the
words very distinctly.  And suddenly Barb felt very
happy and contented and curled up in her chair again
like a kitten.  Here her aunt found her a half hour
later.

"Asleep, Kiddie?" she asked, and Barbara looked
up with a shy, radiant little smile.

"No, just dreaming," she said.





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.. _`INTO HAVEN`:

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   CHAPTER XIII


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   INTO HAVEN

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Christmas was over, and Sylvia had hardly
breathed for a week so engrossed had she been in
all kinds of festivities.  Even now she was preparing
to depart on the morrow for an even gayer round,
on the long promised visit to Jeanette Latham, Jack's
sister.  Perhaps it was to keep the "Booing" questions
at a distance that Sylvia chose to fly from one
mad whirl to another that winter.

"I almost wish you weren't going to New York,
just now, Sylvia.  You look tired to death and your
nerves are 'jumpy,' as Doctor Tom says."

Thus Felicia addressed Sylvia at breakfast the
morning of the twenty-sixth, after the children had
scampered off to the delights of yesterday's new
harvest of toys.

"It is nothing but the day-after feeling," said
Sylvia.  "I've danced until morning for four nights
running.  I'll be all right as soon as I can get some
sleep."

"I don't know," Felicia looked dubious.  "If
you were seventeen instead of twenty-two, I believe
I should order you to stay at home."

"Isn't it lucky, I'm not?" smiled Sylvia.  "Felicia,
dear, you never did really boss me in all the
years you might have done it.  Are you going to begin now?"

"I am afraid it wouldn't be much use at this late
date," sighed Felicia.  "Sometimes I wonder why
you aren't more spoiled than you are.  Seriously,
child, you have gotten a little of your shining
splendor rubbed off.  Anything the matter?"

"Nothing in the world, except maybe I wish I
knew whether I were going to marry Jack or not.
It is a little distracting not to know.  You don't
happen to possess any inside information on the
subject, do you?"  Sylvia's smile was whimsical but
her eyes were tired.  It was true.  She had lost a
little of her "shining splendor," as Felicia described
it, in the past few weeks.

"I do not.  But I should on the whole say you
were not going to marry him.  You have seen too
much of him lately.  You need to get away and get
a perspective."

"Well, who wanted to order me to stay away
from New York, just now?"

"I retract.  Go ahead with my blessing.  I hope
you will meet a hundred young men and let Jack
Amidon get put in his place."

"That is just it.  What *is* his place?"

"Sylvia!"  Felicia's tone was faintly exasperated.
"You are no more in love with Jack Amidon
than I am.  Some day you will wake up and find it out."

"Will I?  Sometimes, Felicia, I have a horrible
suspicion I am just a taster--like tea tasters, you know.
Only I like to go round tasting experience.  I never
thought I was a bit of a flirt until lately.  But I'm
just finding out there are ways and ways of flirting,
having 'adventures in personality' as Suzanne calls
it.  Jack says my 'Damnable sympathetic ways' are
vicious.  Maybe they are.  I think I must be a sort
of chameleon--all things to all men, you know.  I
shouldn't wonder if I couldn't really love
anybody--*grand style*."

"You goose!  When the right man comes along
you will know the difference."

"I wonder."  And suddenly Sylvia remembered
how she had felt that night on Lover's Leap, when
she and Philip Lorrimer had been the only two
individuals in a whole spacious, shining universe.  It
seemed now as if she had heard a kind of Hallelujah
chorus, or was it that the silence had been a strange
kind of music itself?

And then on the heels of this blinding sweet memory
had come another, bringing with it a bitter taste,
a memory of those long days after Phil had gone
back to the city and she had watched the mails and
pretended to ignore them.

And then she remembered Gus and Jack and Doctor
Tom.  Had they all been just understudies for
somebody else she really wanted in her heart of
hearts?  How many other understudies would there
be?  And would she marry one of them sooner or later?

"Women are rather like cats, after all, aren't they,
Felicia?  They will pat their mice and keep putting
their paws on them, even if they don't want to eat
them."

Felicia laughed.

"What a traveler you are!  Have you been half
round the world since you spoke last?  Shall we ask
Tom and Lois over to dinner to-night?  We haven't
seen either of them for an age."

"Yes," said Sylvia.  "You telephone, Felicia.  I
have to pack."

Sylvia had seen practically nothing of Doctor
Tom for the past few weeks.  Never once in that
time had she been alone with him.  Twice Doctor
Tom had been over when she was in, which was
not often during those full holiday evenings, and
she had taken pains to be sure Felicia was present on
those two occasions.  Once he had called to her to
come for a drive but she had had a genuine engagement
with Jack to plead.  She felt silly enough placing
any sort of a barrier between herself and Doctor
Tom but she was afraid for her own part it would
be some time before she could meet him quite
naturally again.  Sometimes she wished Jack had kept
his "darned impertinence" to himself and other
times she owned it was safer this way.  Better that
children should not play with matches at all, since
matches did sometimes ignite.  At any rate, she did
not mean to see her neighbor alone again until after
she got back from New York.

But Fate ruled otherwise.  That very afternoon,
after her breakfast table philosophizing, she had
gone downtown to attend to a few last errands and
the delicious, crisp frostiness of the day tempted her
to walk instead of having the car out.  She had
hardly finished her tasks and started homeward when
she heard Doctor Tom's familiar whistle, and,
turning, saw him reigning in black Bess by the curb.

"Game for a spin?" he asked.  "I have to go a
few miles out in the country and was looking for
company."

His tone was so natural that Sylvia herself lost
her self-consciousness and was so thankful for the
loss that she was very gay and talkative.  If only he
needn't find out that it had not been accidental that
he had seen so little of herself of late all would be
well.

"Seems to me you are turning into a regular
society Miss after all," he teased.  "Bet you've been
cutting Red Cross and everything else since this
dance mania set in."

"I am afraid I have.  I've been an awful backslider
in pretty much everything lately," she told him
soberly.

He flashed one of his quick, shrewd glances at her.

"What's this, Miss Christmas?  Your own special
season here and you in the dumps without even
a solitary star sparkle?"

"You are as bad as Felicia," said Sylvia a little
crossly.  "Do you all expect me to grin like a
Cheshire cat every minute?"

He chuckled.

"Sylvia touchy!  What next?  Indigestion or
bad conscience?"

"Neither--well, maybe a bit of the latter,"
admitted Sylvia.  "Anyway, I am not at all pleased
with myself lately.  I'm getting to be a selfish pig,
and that's the ungarnished truth."

"Indeed!  I hadn't noticed it.  The McGuires
had a powerful good dinner yesterday and--"

"Do hush.  It is nothing to send dinners to
McGuire's.  It doesn't cost me anything--not even
much thought.  You needn't try to smooth it over.
I know.  I haven't been thinking about a single soul
in the world lately except Sylvia Arden.  I set Jack
to work and I've just diddled round myself doing
next to nothing.  I haven't even learned to cook as
I said I was going to, and since Gus went I haven't
practiced and--"

"And since three weeks ago Thursday you haven't
even played me a psalm tune," he jested.

Then suddenly he stared.  For out of the corner
of his eye he perceived that Sylvia was unmistakably
blushing, blushing, of course, the more hotly
because she was so furiously angry at herself for so
doing.

"So it isn't my imagination.  There has been
some kind of fool talk somewhere.  Confound me
for an idiot!  Poor kid!  We'll settle that."  So
thought Tom Daly.  Then aloud, "See here, Sylvia,
may I say a little speech?  You needn't look at
me.  I was a manger dog all right, a few weeks ago,
without meaning to be.  I had no business to be
keeping the young chaps away from you.  I didn't
even see I was doing it.  I was down and out for a
while, and you, bless your kind heart, saw it and
came to the rescue, like the Christmas girl you are.
I shan't forget what you did for me.  If you pulled
me out of a rut--and you did--maybe we both
came somewhere near being pulled into a bigger one.
So far as I know, no man is ever old enough to be
sure he's passed the fool limit, and maybe I was
nearer the edge than I knew.  Anyway, you were a
trump as usual.  The blame, if there is any, is mine.
All right, little sister?"  Then, at last, he turned to
face Sylvia.

And suddenly and disconcertingly her eyes filled
with tears.  She was very tired and her nerves were
unstrung by too much gayety and mental uneasiness.

"Of course it is all right.  There never was
anything much wrong, only--well, I thought I was
beginning to plume myself and get complacent
because I was the only one who patted you and
smoothed your fur the right way and maybe I'd
better stop before--Doctor Tom, I hate things to be
as they are."

"Meaning?"

"Lots of things, but mostly why can't people--men
and women--just be friends and not have anything
else snarled up with it?"

"They can."  Tom Daly's steady voice was like
oil to the troubled waters of Sylvia's soul.

Nor did she guess that it cost him something of
an effort to throw precisely the right amount of
big-brotherness into his words.  As he admitted, no man
could safely boast that he had passed the fool limit,
but he could and would be man enough himself to be
sure no girl like Sylvia was going to be bothered by
the folly.

"*We* can anyway," he smiled down at Sylvia to
add in the old friendly way, a friendliness whose
very familiarity was steadying.

She smiled back mistily.

"Of course we can.  I'm a silly idiot to-day.
Ghosts seem to walk even in the sunniest, most
everyday places.  Thank you, Doctor Tom.  I don't
know why I wept.  My spirit isn't weepy.  It was
just my eyes.  My spirit feels like singing 'Yankee
Doodle' this minute."

"Let her go," he approved gayly, and directed the
conversation through the rest of the ride so skillfully
to safe and sane and neutral matters that long before
they reached the Hill Sylvia had lost the last vestige
of self-consciousness, and was her old, merry,
natural self, with a good many of the "star sparkles"
back in their places.

This process was so salutary that later when Tom
and Lois were at the Hall to dinner it hardly seemed
possible to Sylvia that she had had any queer
feelings at all about the matter and teased and joked
with the doctor in precisely her old merry, audacious
way, exactly as she had been accustomed to doing
since she was a naughty little schoolgirl at St. Anne's.
When they were walking home together in the
starlight Lois turned to her husband with a curious
question.

"Tom, don't you ever wish you had waited for
Sylvia?  She is so lovely and full of life.  She is
much more your kind than I am."

Tom Daly shook his head, and added with all
honesty that there never had been but one girl he had
wanted to marry and he had been lucky enough to
get her.  And Lois, suddenly lifting her face to his,
gave him one of her rare love looks; a look which he
would have crossed the very fires of Hell to gain.

As they entered the house she turned to him again.

"Tom, I am cold and indifferent and I don't
always care about the things you care so much for
but I do care--about you.  I wish you would try
to remember that, even when I hurt you.  Do you
mind kissing me?"

Tom Daly had not "minded."  But it was not
until they were upstairs in their own room that the
whole of Lois' slow speech evolved.  She turned
from the mirror before which she had been letting
down her long, ash blond hair.

"Tom," she said.

"Yes, Lois."

"Do you know I have been having a feeling
for a long time that you and Sylvia were beginning
to care for each other?  It began that night she was
here and played to you all the evening while I wrote
out checks.  I went out to cover the flowers and I
saw you on her steps, with her hands in yours looking
so exactly like lovers something just froze in me.
I hate jealous women and I wouldn't say it or hardly
think it, but that is why I have been holding you so
far off.  If you could love Sylvia, I didn't want to
keep you.  I wouldn't fight for anything--even
love.  But to-night I saw it had all been just my
imagination.  I have hurt myself and you just for
nothing.  I might have known Sylvia wasn't that
kind.  Oh, Tom!"

But even as he drew Lois into his arms Tom
Daly knew that it is sometimes a woman's business to
fight for love.  Humbly he admitted that it had been
Sylvia and not himself nor Lois who had saved
the day.  As honest a man as ever lived was Tom
Daly, but neither then nor at any other time did he
tell his wife how narrowly her fears had escaped
realization.  Nor did Sylvia Arden ever guess how
slight an impetus would have set herself and the
fine man she knew as neighbor and brother drifting
into perilous seas, instead of being as they now were,
anchored safely in the haven of old friendship.
That was Tom Daly's secret, and he was used to
keeping secrets, even his own.





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.. _`"AND HAVING EYES"`:

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   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   "AND HAVING EYES"

.. vspace:: 2

After the night when Phil Lorrimer played with
opportunity a minute, then set it aside as not for his
taking, things began to be different.  Human
relations have a way of shifting into new combinations
of form and color like a kaleidoscope just when
you think they have become as fixed as the stars in
their courses.

That night brought a reaction with Phil.  He
was actuated by a fierce and relentless energy which
only work could appease.  Hence he came less often
to Miss Josephine Murray's pleasant apartment, but
kept burrowing deeper and deeper like a mole into
the professional soil, working like a demon by day,
and studying, reading, experimenting doggedly by
night, trying his best to fill his mind so full that the
thought of Sylvia could not find a cranny in which
to creep and grow.  But the less vacuum he left in
his mind the bigger seemed the emptiness of his
heart, or rather its fullness, for was it not full to
overflowing with love for Sylvia?  Like a mole, too,
in his blindness, it did not occur to Phil that his
stubborn silence might be hurting Sylvia.  Still less
in his humble unselfconsciousness did it occur to him
that he might also be hurting Barbara Day.  He had
supposed always she understood.  His love for
Sylvia seemed as obvious and inevitable as rain and sun.
It was incredible that any one should be unaware
of it.  So he would perhaps have reasoned, if it had
seemed necessary to reason at all on the subject,
which it did not.

And while Phil burrowed and blundered Barbara
grew up.  Her cheeks shed their soft childlike
curves.  Her eyes lost their dewy morning-glory
look.  They seemed not to wonder any more, but to
know.  The city had set its seal upon her, fed her
youth to its strange gods.  But the city was not all to
blame.  What had happened to Barb might have
happened anywhere.  The little drama in which she
was playing out her part might have been staged in
any other place quite as well.  Nor was it at all an
original drama.  Its plot is curiously old though it
has infinite variations.

It came to Barb that winter that, after all,
happiness wasn't the essential thing she had believed.
One could, it seemed, go on eating and sleeping and
walking and talking and typing and even laughing,
just the same, even if one did feel a little like an
empty goblet, turned bowl down, with all its
sparkling contents spilled out.  It was queer, but it was so.

Yet way down in the bottom of Barb's heart there
still nestled a little winged creature called Hope,
just as there had been in the bottom of Pandora's
box.  Maybe things were not as strange as they
seemed.  Maybe it was just that people were very
busy about Christmas time.  Possibly after New
Year's it would be different again.

But before New Year's Barb discovered that
things would never be different, and the way she
found out was very simple.

On the second evening of her visit to Jeanette,
Sylvia had run away from the stately "Duplex on
the Drive" to take supper with Barb, and Miss
Murray, for purposes of her own, had asked Doctor
Lorrimer to join them also.  He had been a little late
in arriving and as the others had already gone into
the dining-room Barb opened the door for him.  He
greeted her with the old friendly terrible grip which
crushed Barb's ring into her finger and set the blood
singing through her.  He started to make a remark
about the weather but his opinion of that commodity
was never completed for suddenly from the room
beyond Sylvia's laughter rippled out.

Did you ever happen to be engaged in decorous
conversation with a man and suddenly see a change
sweep over his face, and an arrested, listening,
illuminated look take possession of it, just because
somewhere in the distance he had heard a step, a
voice, a laugh, belonging to somebody who was not
yourself?  That was what Barbara Day saw, and
the little winged creature used her wings then and
there and never came back.  Barb heard the clock
tick out as before, "Suppose a chap wants to marry
a girl," but she knew now, once and for all, that the
clock had never been talking about Barbie Day.  It
had always meant Sylvia Arden from the beginning.

But Barb's fathers had been fighting men and she
herself was game to her little brown fingertips.

"Hurry!" she said gayly, just a shade *too* gayly,
perhaps, only Phil did not notice.  "Sylvia's here
and soup's served."  And as she pushed aside the
curtains into the dining-room she announced with a
gallant flourish, "Doctor Lorrimer, ladies."

But while Phil and Sylvia shook hands she did not
look at them, busying herself instead with rearranging
the scarlet carnations which stood in the center
of the table, complaining to her aunt as she did so
that the flowers looked "stiff" and "old-maidish"
and needed a "touch."

It was Barb who was the blithest of them all that
night at the little supper party, bestowing to it the
"touch" just as she had to the carnations.  Sylvia
and Phil were both slightly self-conscious and not
very conversational.  Miss Josephine Murray was
somewhat silent too, watching the young people with
eyes that saw all there was to see and understanding
things at which she had been able only to guess hitherto.

That night after Sylvia and Phil had gone, Barb
slipped quickly away to bed, a little afraid of what
her aunt's keen gaze might have discovered, and
longing, in any case, to be alone with the dark and
the Thing she had been dodging all the evening, the
Thing which sooner or later had to be faced and
grappled with.

Later Miss Murray found her wide awake and
stooped to kiss her with unwonted tenderness.

"Good night, Barbie.  Anything I can do to--put
you to sleep?"

Barb shook her head with a tired little smile.
Then suddenly she sat up.

"If you don't mind, I think I'd like you to put
your arms around me and hold me tight for a
minute.  Mother used to hold me that way when I
felt--achey."

Miss Josephine's arms went around the girl, holding
her very "tight" indeed for a few moments of
silence.

"Do you feel very achey, Barbie?" she asked
presently.

"Oh, no," lied Barb.  "I just wanted to be petted
a little weeny mite, that was all.  I'm all right.
Thank you, Aunt Jo.  Don't bother.  Do go to bed.
I know you are tired."

That was the nearest the two ever came to speaking
of the Thing but neither fell asleep until dawn,
and when Barb awoke from her brief, heavy slumber
she was entirely grown up.

Out in the crisp chill of the December night, after
leaving Miss Murray and Barb, Phil and Sylvia had
found their tongues.  All the hurt and estrangement
of the past months seemed magically to have
shed itself, leaving only the old happy intimacy with
perhaps a touch of something new and even more
exhilarating about it.

As they walked along the river front they talked
of many things, of Phil's work, of Jack's unprecedented
diligence, of Gus Nichols' success on the road,
of Felicia's designs, and Lois Daly's novel, of
"Hester house" and Phil's mother, of Barb's services to
the Cause, and Suzanne's mysterious journeyings;
of everything indeed, it seemed, except the subject
which was nearest the surface, their own selves.

When they reached the Lathams' apartment they
were still as far from having said the really
important things that trembled on their lips as they had
been at the beginning.  Sylvia knew perfectly well
what she wanted to say but being a woman could not
say it.  Phil also knew perfectly well what he wanted
to say but being a man set his lips and did not say it.
It was only as Sylvia paused in the doorway and
held out her hand to Phil that the thing came near
to getting said in spite of them both.

"Sylvia!"  Phil's voice had a quick little catch in
it very unlike his usual rather deliberate speech.  "If
I don't see much of you while you are here you will
understand, won't you?  It won't be because I don't
want to but because I--don't dare."  And his frank
blue eyes implored her to understand and forgive.

"Are you sure--there is anything--to be afraid
of?" Sylvia's words had jerked a little, too, and
as she drew her hand away to press the bell her eyes
expressed more even than her tongue had said.

"Sylvia!"  Phil took a swift step nearer but before
he could say any more a solemn liveried person
had appeared in the doorway and stood at blinking
attention while Sylvia shot one dazzling glance at
the young doctor and vanished into the dim spaces
of the hall, whence it seemed to Phil, though he
could not be sure, she kissed her hand to him behind
the liveried person's back, before she was lost in
the elevator.  Phil stared after her a moment in
dazed silence then went out into the night.

The next day, when he came in from the clinic, he
found a little note from Sylvia inviting him to take
tea with her the following afternoon.  "Of course
it is all nonsense about your not seeing much of me
while I am here," the note had added.  "Phil, can't
you understand there isn't anything to be afraid
of?"  The last was underscored.  And then the
writer subscribed herself conventionally his as ever.

Phil read the note hungrily several times and
puzzled more than a little over its contents, which he
perceived were open to more than one interpretation,
especially the underscored portion.  And then
he had sat down and written an answer which he
dispatched by special messenger.  The answer
expressed thanks and polite regret that the writer had
a previous engagement.

Sylvia had run away into her own room to read
the note and grew first a little rosy, then a little white
as she read.  Then she tore the missive into bits, and
going to the window, deliberately let the fragments
flutter away in the December blast outside.

"I might as well have proposed and done with it,"
she thought hotly.  "Phil Lorrimer needn't worry.
I won't endanger his precious peace of mind again
while I'm here.  Previous engagement, indeed!
He's afraid of my money and he makes me tired."

As a matter of fact she did Phil injustice in one
particular at least.  The previous engagement had
been perfectly authentic.  The Washington Square
Players were giving that afternoon a first performance
of a play which had been translated from the
Russian by a friend of Phil's and he had promised
to be present and had long ago invited Barb to go
with him.  And Barb being fully determined that
Phil should never guess how things were had kept
her engagement and succeeded in behaving so
comradely and sisterly, which was precisely the way she
had been behaving all along only more so, that her
escort was allowed to continue in his state of
innocence and ignorance as to things better left unknown,
which was quite according to code.

But it was one of those odd coincidences that
sometimes occur that Sylvia and Jeanette should
have been whirling swiftly toward the park on their
way home from the matinée just at the moment
when Phil and Barb were transferring to the
Subway at the Circle.  Very much absorbed the latter
appeared to be in each other's society, so much so
that neither saw the limousine pass them, but Sylvia
had not been so blind, and Jeanette also had taken
in the scene.

"Wasn't that your little friend with Phil
Lorrimer?" the latter had asked.  "Somebody was
telling me he goes everywhere with her.  I shouldn't
wonder if they were engaged, should you?  They
certainly looked devoted enough."  So Jeanette had
rattled on and never noticed that Sylvia had not
answered.

That night Sylvia had gone to a big ball and worn
a wonderful, sophisticated Paquin gown of sea green
satin and pearls.  She looked very young and lovely.
The men flocked around her and she managed them
all like a seasoned coquette and had three proposals
during the course of the evening.  Of course it was
perfectly well known that she was an heiress as well
as a beauty, so the proposers was not so romantically
rash as might have been thought.

And from that time on Sylvia "went the pace"
as madly as Jeanette herself, without pause or rest.
After that one supper party Barb was never able to
capture her friend again, her engagements piled up
so fast and high.  It looked as if Suzanne's prophecy
about the "labyrinth" were being fulfilled.  As
for Phil, never once was he able to see her again.
She was always out when he called or telephoned and
always had previous engagements when he tried to
get her for the theater or a concert.  She was as
invisible, so far as he was concerned, as if some fairy's
wand had drawn a magic circle about her, a fact
which made him burrow deeper than ever in his work
and made him look a little older and grimmer than
his twenty-five years warranted.





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.. _`THE CITY AND SYLVIA`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE CITY AND SYLVIA

.. vspace:: 2

Sylvia had supposed herself sufficiently grown up
and wise and modern when she came to the city but
she had not been there a week before she knew
that she had been a veritable innocent, an infant in
swaddling clothes, so to speak.  Here was life, of a
sort, with a vengeance.

In Jeanette's circle, Sylvia saw Mammon worship
executed on so prodigious a scale and with such
sacrificial ardor it fairly took her breath away.
Everything was of the superlative degree.  Sheer
wealth, sheer elaboration, sheer success, sheer
bigness, sheer speed, were all that counted it seemed.
And in the mêlée the old-fashioned virtues, spiritual
values, ideals, were somehow either dimmed beyond
recognition or totally extinguished.  Love showed
itself chiefly in the guise of passion, often frankly
illicit, and in lust frequently but thinly veiled.  The
motley throng of young-old men and old-young men
who paid court to herself were obviously actuated
by one of two motives or a combination of the two,
the impulse of passion, or the impulse of avarice.
Both points of view Sylvia loathed and thought
degrading to herself as well as the men who held them.
Nearly all of the group of more or less importunate
suitors who thronged about her she frankly despised.
The men she might have liked and respected did not
come near her, much less enter the lists.  No doubt
they classed her with the other women with whom
she appeared, women butterfly clad, butterfly souled,
obviously unfit for the serious purposes of life.
Sylvia did not wonder that the real men kept
away.  They showed their realness by so doing she
thought.

Once, at a dinner, fate and her hostess allotted a
different kind of companion, a grim looking person
with very broad shoulders and very clear blue eyes,
who let her severely alone during three courses and
then when she was getting desperately bored by the
over-assiduous attentions of the receding-chinned,
narrow-browed scion of wealth who sat at her other
elbow had suddenly turned to explode a question in
her direction.

"What the devil do you see in all this?"

Sylvia had retorted that she didn't know what she
saw but was trying to find out.

"When the pumpkin coach arrives I shall skip
back home and think it over," she had added
whimsically with a Sylvia smile.

Her neighbor had grunted a little at that and eyed
her sharply from under his heavy brows.

"I thought as much," he said.  "You don't belong."

"Don't I?" Sylvia had inquired dubiously.
"Isn't my gown all right?"  She was wearing a
New York creation this time, of white tulle and
gold tissue, a frock which Jeanette had pronounced
a "dream," so her anxiety was not very deep-seated.
"Or is it my hair?  Ears are out just now, aren't
they.  They told me they were."

"Oh, you are protectively colored all right.  It
isn't that.  Superficially you might be any one of
this sea of ninnies that surround us.  But, my dear
young lady, your eyes betray you.  You have a brain."

"Dear me!" sighed Sylvia, looking around her
apprehensively.  "Is it so bad as that?  I hope
nobody else suspects."

"No danger.  They aren't looking for brains.
Bodies content 'em.  I hope you don't think this
Punch and Judy show is the real New York?  You
are a stranger, I take it?"

"A pilgrim and a stranger.  Where is the real
New York?"

"Downtown, a good deal of it.  Some of it is in
the universities, especially in the night classes.
Some of it is in the laboratories where they are
fighting disease and achieving chemical miracles.
Some of it is in the little back bedrooms where the
chap from the up-state village has come down to
peddle his dreams in the market place.  The real
New York--the real America--is made up of just
two things--the dream and the deed.  Those that
make dreams their masters fail and go to pieces and
that is a tragedy.  Those that build without the
vision will see the work of their hands filter to dust.
And that's a worse tragedy.  But those who can
dream and transmute the dream to human gain, in
tangible form--they are the real thing.  These
people here haven't the decency to dream nor the
energy to do.  They are the scum on the surface.
They are punk--most of 'em.  Rotten."

Sylvia had looked around her a little startled.
The scene had looked brilliant and appealing to her
a moment ago.  Somehow now she saw it through
this brutal stranger's eyes a "Punch and Judy
show.".  She shivered slightly.  Suddenly she felt
a bit like a little girl at a party, grown homesick,
all at once, ready to be taken home quick.  For she
could not help believing her neighbor was right.
Underneath the glamour and the beauty and the
poise and the breeding around her there was a
good deal that was more or less "rotten."  She had
seen it in men's eyes and heard it in their voices, yes,
in the women's, too.  She was filled with a great
disgust and with some shame as well.  For in her
zest for experience had she not let her own shield
get a little dented and tarnished?  She turned
back to her companion, her new knowledge in her eyes.

"Why did you tell me?" she reproached.

"Why, indeed?  You knew it without my telling
you.  See here, girl, I'm going to Alaska myself
to-morrow.  I can't stand much of this sort of thing.
I'd like to think you were going to pull out, too,
before the taint gets you.  I said your eyes
betrayed you.  They did.  But it isn't only that you
have brains.  The brains are there but there is
something else too.  You have faith.  You've lived
in a decent sort of world where people are straight
and kind and honest and simple.  Better go back
to it while there is still time."

Sylvia drew a long breath.

"Thank you," she said.  "I believe I will."

Later Jeanette asked her what she had found to
say to Archibald Grant.

"He's the Arctic Explorer Grant, you know.
Quite the biggest toad in the puddle there, to-night."

"Was he?"  Sylvia had looked thoughtful.  "I
didn't know who he was but we had rather an
interesting talk.  Jeanette, I've got to go home."

"Go home!  Why, Sylvia, you haven't been here
two weeks yet!"

"I know.  But I'm incurably a home person.
I've had a wonderful time but I want to see Arden
Hall and Felicia and--"

"Jack?" teased Jack's sister languidly.

Sylvia flushed a little.  At the moment it did seem
as if she would be very glad, indeed, to see Jack.
Jack was so clean and young and joyous and
wholesome.  He seemed to her to belong to a different
world from that which his sister inhabited.  But,
after all, at Jeanette's insistence, Sylvia agreed to
stay another week.

Jeanette herself was almost feverish in her gayety
these days.  It seemed, indeed, as if she could not
stop if she tried, as if "all the devils of Hell were
loose and after her" as Jack had said.  She was a
puzzle to Sylvia.  That she was not happy was
apparent, but she was always gay, talkative, full of
quick laughter and brilliant plans for new pleasures,
something fresh every hour.  There were always
many men in her wake.  Usually they were men of
brains, men "who did things," as the phrase goes,
musicians, writers, artists and the like.  Jeanette
did not affect fools, as she had said curtly to Sylvia
once.  She had brains herself and used them.  She
was rather famous and rather feared for her
somewhat satirical wit.  Her husband was a quiet,
scholarly aristocrat, who spent most of his time reading
memoirs of somebody or other, or bringing out
elegant "privately printed" monographs.  In
Jeanette's scheme of things he seemed scarcely to count
at all, beyond the essential facts of having provided
her with an extravagant income and an assured place
in New York society.  To do her justice, however,
Jeanette was by no means dependent upon her
husband for these things.  She made her own circle
wherever she went.  She did not need either the
Latham money or name to assure her leadership.
She was a born queen.  These factors were merely
contributing circumstances.

Among Jeanette's varied and numerous retinue
was one young man whom Sylvia found less easy
than the others to place.  This was an artist,
Charlton Haynes by name, a newcomer in the city who had
been for some time engaged in "doing" Jeanette's
portrait.  Wherever Jeanette was, the young
portrait painter appeared to be also by some magic
process.  The two had little to say to each other in
public but Sylvia had noticed more than once how
the painter's rather gloomy face lit up when
Jeanette approached, giving an effect much like a sudden
sunshine after a passing cloud.  More than once,
too, Sylvia had seen a flash of some quick, wordless
communication pass between them.  They spent long
hours together mornings in the great ball-room
where he worked in the north light.  When Sylvia
was with them, as she sometimes was, the artist
was rather silent and absorbed in his work and Sylvia
thought if he were always so quiet he must be rather
dull company.

One morning she suffered an abrupt enlightenment
as to the relations between her hostess and the artist.
Jeanette had been detained and had asked Sylvia to
go to the ballroom and explain to Mr. Haynes that
she would be with him as soon as possible.  As
Sylvia opened the door he had turned with outstretched
arms and an impulsive "Sweetheart, you are
dreadfully late."  And then his hands had fallen and a
shamed, hang-dog, caught-in-the-act expression
banished the eager look of expectant joy on his face as
he met Sylvia's eyes and saw her quick flush.

He shrugged and tried to make the best of the
situation by a hasty "Beg pardon, Miss Sylvia.  I
didn't see it was you."

"So I judged," said Sylvia and delivered her
message gravely and departed.  She wondered if this
was what Jack had guessed and if that was why he
had wanted her to go to Jeanette.  Had he thought
she could save her?  Poor Jeanette!  Could any one
save her but herself?

Two hours later Jeanette came to Sylvia, writing
letters in her own room at the little teakwood desk.

"Sylvia."

"Yes?"  Sylvia had turned, wondering what
Jeanette would say, wondering almost more what
she herself was going to say.

"Charlton says he gave himself away awhile ago,
did he?"

"Rather."

"I'm sorry.  I didn't mean you to know for
fear it might bother you.  Otherwise, of course, I
don't mind your knowing.  We have been in love
for some time.  There doesn't seem to be anything
to do about it at present."

Jeanette's tone was impersonal.  She might as
easily have been discussing the relation between the
moon and the tides as the relation between herself
and Charlton Haynes.  The facts existed.  That
was all apparently.  At least all Jeanette cared to
admit.

"Couldn't he go away?" asked Sylvia, equally
matter of fact.

"He could, but it would make talk if he went
before the portrait was done.  Besides, I don't want
him to go.  He offered to.  It is I who am keeping
him.  I hope you are not too much shocked, Sylvia."

"I'm not shocked at all, but I am sorry.  Does
Jack know?"

"Jack!"  For the first time, Jeanette showed a
quaver of emotion in her voice.  "Jack!  Good
gracious, no!  Why should he?  I wouldn't have
Jack know for anything.  What made you ask that?"

"Jack tried to warn me something about you
before I came.  He seemed to think you needed me."

And suddenly Jeanette's calm broke.  She flung
herself face down among the silken cushions of the
couch.  Sylvia came and knelt beside her putting
both arms around her.  In a moment Jeanette sat
up, flushed but tearless.  Sylvia slipped back upon
the floor, her hands clasped around her knees, her
eyes pitiful.

"I do need you.  I need somebody.  Sylvia, listen
to me.  It is a dreadful thing for a girl to marry
if she isn't in love.  Fate is sure to strike back at
her sooner or later.  That is what happened to me.
I married Francis because I thought he could give
me the things I wanted--the things I thought I
wanted.  And he has, but it isn't what I really
wanted at all.  I am just beginning to understand
what I do want--what life might mean, if one
deserved to have it mean anything.  I hate this house
and the servants and the hideous kind of existence
we live--the kind I elected to live.  It wasn't
Francis' choice.  It was mine.  But I hate it all
now.  I'd like to leave it this minute.  But I can't.
I'm bound, hand and foot, by conventions and fears
and selfishness.  I couldn't live now without luxury,
I've had it so long.  I couldn't stand poverty or
shame or sacrifice or honesty of any kind.  I'm a
sham.  I love Charlton.  But I shan't try to get a
divorce and I shan't run off with him because I'm
not big enough.  I'm just big enough to squirm and
suffer and hate myself for being such a pitiful little
coward.  I'm not even big enough to send him away.
I'm not worth his wrecking his life and ideals for,
but I don't tell him that.  I tell him I love him and
that is enough to keep him here like a lap dog.
Pah!  He isn't very big either or he would make
me go with him or leave me outright."

"But, Jeanette, it is all such a tangle.  If you
really care, why don't you go to Francis and tell him
the truth?  Surely nothing can be so bad as
going on like this."

"You don't know what you are talking about,
Sylvia.  I'd die before I would go to Francis and
I'd die if he found out, but I'm going on risking
everything until something happens.  I don't know
what."

And in the face of such reasoning or non-reasoning,
Sylvia had no answer to make.  She was
beginning to hate the city heartily.  It seemed to be
weaving nothing but misery for everybody.  Was
there any happiness in it?  Surely she herself had
found none.  She desired more than anything else
in the world to run away from it all, to get back
to Felicia and, yes, to Jack.  They two seemed the
only refuge in a heaving sea of trouble.





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.. _`AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED`:

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   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED

.. vspace:: 2

It seemed as if Sylvia's cup of disenchantment
were destined to brim over before the city was
done with her.  She tried to view Jeanette's affair
with the portrait painter with an open mind and
tolerant attitude.  She saw that there was no real
evil in it as yet--probably never would be for
Jeanette was likely to "play safe" having much at
stake.  But somehow it all disheartened the younger
girl.  She thought she could have forgiven both the
transgressors more easily if they had dared a little
more, or cared a little more for each other and less
for themselves.  If they had eloped she would have
been shocked and troubled but she would have
understood their conduct.  It was the amazing bad
taste and effrontery of carrying on so half-hearted
a liaison in Francis Latham's own house and under
his very eyes which was to Sylvia the least excusable
phase of the matter.  Deceit of any sort was
obnoxious to her straightforward soul.  She herself
could never have kept on living a daily lie such
as Jeanette was living.  Something would have
snapped.  And somehow Sylvia found herself seeing
things all around her blacker, no doubt, than they
were, because of her too much recently acquired
knowledge, and often she remembered the explorer's
terse verdict that these people were "punk."  It
was all very disillusioning and made one sick at heart.

But Sylvia had other cause to feel that happiness
was eluding her these days in early January.  The
wound to her pride that Phil Lorrimer had dealt,
though seared over, was by no means healed.  She
tried to be perfectly fair and sane, to admit that if
Jeanette's supposition were correct, Barb would
doubtless make Phil a better wife than she herself
would have done, to acknowledge that it was
entirely natural and appropriate that Phil and Barb
should have learned to care for each other during the
intimate months past when she herself had deliberately
neglected Phil.  Even so, Phil need not have
looked at her as he had that night on Jeanette's
doorstep.  He needn't have let her all but propose to
him.  That was the deepest rankling thorn of all.
She had almost offered herself to him on Jeanette's
threshold.  If he had really cared as his eyes had
said wouldn't he have understood what she was
trying to tell him that the money was nothing at all,
that it didn't matter in the least, that there was,
indeed, nothing to be afraid of, as she had twice taken
the pains to reassure him?

If he had really cared would he not have found
means to see her during her weeks with Jeanette
in spite of her mantle of invisibility?  It was all
too evident that he didn't care, that it was Barb
who could give him what he wanted, or rather let
him give everything as his pride demanded.  Sylvia
knew perfectly well that she had wanted Phil
Lorrimer to ask her to marry him, knew too, that she
had meant to say yes if he did ask her, but she also
knew that though her pride was offended, her heart
was far from being broken.  Indeed, love in its
entirety, in its heights and depths, its glory and its
mortal agony, its madness and its abiding joy, she
had scarcely as yet conceived.

She was still questing experience, tasting life, and
even the bitter flavor of this last new-gained
knowledge was interesting because bitterness was new
to Sylvia Arden.  Youth drinks its gall and wormwood
with almost as supreme satisfaction as it does
its nectar and ambrosia.

Not that Sylvia understood all this or consciously
analyzed her mental processes.  She did nothing of
the sort.  She only knew she had been hurt, and
found it a rather fascinating game to hide the hurt
from herself and the rest of the world.

Perhaps her zest for the hiding game made her
play a little more recklessly with the men who
dogged her footsteps than was entirely wise or kind.
Certainly it made her eyes a little starrier, her cheeks
a little deeper carmine, her laugh a little more
tantalizing.  Men saw and smiled and said the little
Maryland "Deb" was a queen, a beauty, and a wit
as well as an heiress, an unbelievably lucky combination.

"Knows how to hold her own too," they agreed.
"She'll lead you on to the limit and then when
you think you have her--she isn't there.  Got the
elusive game to perfection, wherever she learned it."

But the last night of her stay in the city Sylvia
came near playing her game an inch too far.  There
had been a theater party and supper afterward at
the Astor and when at last they started for home
she chanced to get separated from Jeanette who,
supposing her guest was with her husband, had gone
on in another car.

"Why!" exclaimed Sylvia, from the curbing.
"I do believe they have all deserted me.  There
goes Jeanette, and Francis went with the Homers."

"Well, here am I!" challenged Porter Robinson,
at her elbow.  Porter Robinson was the most
daring and insistent of all the swarmers about the
most popular new rose.  "Whither thou goest I will
go!  Here, Cabby," and his uplifted finger
summoned a taxicab in which he and Sylvia were in a
moment ensconced.

It was a wonderful night.  Brilliant stars studded
the heavens and the trees in the park were laden
with a fleecy burden of new-fallen snow.  The little
girl still in Sylvia who loved snow storms and had
too little of them in Maryland cried out in ecstasy
at the sight.

"Oh-h!  Couldn't we drive in there a little and
see it?  It's so lovely after the lights and the
crowd--like a different world!"

Naturally Porter Robinson had no objections to
driving at midnight in a closed cab through the
park with the prettiest, liveliest, most piquant girl
he had met in many a season.

But a half hour later Sylvia flashed into the
library at the Lathams with wrath and shame in her
heart and ran square into Jack standing with his
back to the fireplace.

"Ugh!  I hate men," she greeted him stormily.

"You do!  What's up?  Where is Jeanette?
You look like a Valkyr or an avenging fury."

"I don't know where Jeanette is.  Porter Robinson
brought me home."

"Oh," comprehended Jack.  "So that is the
rumpus.  Didn't Porter behave like a perfect gentleman?"

"He did not."  Sylvia threw off her cloak with
a wrathful gesture, leaving her slim, rounded young
loveliness, clad in the white tulle and gold "dream,"
suddenly revealed to Jack's eyes.  "He tried to kiss
me, if you must know."

"And what did you expect at this time of night
when you had shed your lawful chaperones?"
inquired Jack blandly.  "Especially after you had
been flirting like the mischief with him all the
evening!"

Sylvia slipped into a chair and stared up at Jack.
"How did you know?" she asked with astonished meekness.

Jack laughed.

"Didn't.  I just guessed.  So you did flirt with
him like the mischief?"

"I--shouldn't wonder," admitted Sylvia with a
grimace.  "He's a beast, but then maybe I was a
little to blame.  I suppose I shouldn't have asked
him to take me riding in the park at this time of
night."

"Possibly not," agreed Jack.

"You wouldn't have taken advantage of a situation
like that, Jack.  You know you wouldn't."

"H-m-m?" interrogated Jack dubiously.  "That
so?  If you looked one half as pretty in the cab as
you do this minute, I'm morally or immorally
certain I should not only have tried to kiss you but
have succeeded."

"Jack!"

"Like this!"  And suddenly, to Sylvia's utter
surprise, he had stooped and kissed her full on one
crimson, excited cheek.  "Game's up, sweetheart.
My turn.  You've had your fling, and I guess from
all Jeanette writes it has been a pretty lively one.
Honest Injun, Sylvia, aren't you sick of it all, ready
to try it out on a different line with me?  No, don't
speak just yet.  I'm not quite through.  I promised
I would get busy and show you I could hold down
a man's job if necessary.  Well, I've done it.  I'm
not boasting, but you can ask Dad if I haven't made
good and kept my promise to the letter.  That is all
on that subject.  Secondly, I don't pretend to be a
saint, but thanks to you and the Christmas Family
setting me straight some years ago I'm a fairly
decent specimen as men go.  I believe I'd show up
moderately well by comparison with the Porter
Robinsons and the rest.  That is all of that.
Thirdly, I love you.  There isn't any other girl,
never has been, and, so far as I can see, never will
be.  Now--did you mind very much having me
kiss you?"

Sylvia's eyes were demurely downcast, her cheeks
flushed, but a quiver of a smile appeared around the
corners of her mouth.

"Not much.  I rather think I--I liked it--a
little," she admitted.

That was enough for Jack, and five minutes later
when Jeanette came in she found him on the arm
of Sylvia's chair, her tulle and gold rather crushed
and mussed but with her eyes looking very starry.

He sprang up with alacrity as his sister entered
and went to give her a brotherly kiss.

"'Lo, Jeannie.  Sylvia and I have just got
engaged.  Hope you don't mind?"

Jeanette shot a straight, questioning, dubious
look at Sylvia then remarked she was delighted, of
course, and if they would excuse her she would go
to bed as she was very tired.  Sylvia had vaguely
realized at the moment that Jeanette was white, but
it was not until the next day that she understood.
Charlton Haynes had left suddenly for California on
the midnight train and he and Jeanette had
apparently parted for all time.  Of what lay behind
Sylvia could not even surmise and Jeanette kept her
own counsel.  At any rate, Sylvia was able to
perceive that under the circumstances the other woman
had little enthusiasm left over for the love affairs
of even her sole and beloved brother.

And that next afternoon Sylvia and Jack went
South together, and the Minotaur did not get Sylvia
after all.  But whether she had not stepped blithely
into a deeper labyrinth than the one she had evaded
was another question.





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.. _`BARB DIAGNOSES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   BARB DIAGNOSES

.. vspace:: 2

The evening that culminated in Sylvia's engagement
to Jack, Phil had spent with Barbara.  Barb
had discovered that it was neither impossible nor
very difficult to slip back into the beaten way of
friendship with the young doctor, especially as he
himself had never left that safe and sane path and
had no faintest conception of the mad little, sad
little detour the girl had accomplished beneath his
very eyes.  Barb was a very wise and brave little
lady and having realized that she had been reaching
for the moon withdrew her hand and made the most
she could out of every day sunbeams.  Phil never
guessed that his occasional visits to Miss Murray's
apartment were rather bittersweet occasions to Barb,
nor did he notice that she was quieter, graver, not
quite so responsive as he had hitherto found her.
As a matter of fact, Phil wasn't seeing much of
anything these days except his own stolidly endured
misery.  It had been bad enough to know Sylvia was
in Greendale where he couldn't see her at all, but to
know she was within easy reach and yet farther
from him to all intents and purposes than if an
ocean or a desert separated them was incomparably
worse.

He hated Jeanette Latham's kind of life, hated to
have Sylvia's fresh radiance tarnished by its contact,
hated to think of her, night after night, in the society,
even in the arms of the Porter Robinsons of Jeanette's
circle, jealous of it all because it kept Sylvia
from him, hurt that she would give up none of her
gayeties for his sake, blindly conscious that he had
offended her, though only half guessing how and to
what extent.

One night he had been at the opera, way up in
the upper tiers, as was his custom, and between the
acts he had wandered about in the galleries and
seen Sylvia in a box below, surrounded by a swarm
of devoted male attendants, and he had watched her
with mingled gloom and avidity.  She was so lovely
in her chiffons and furs and her exquisite youthfulness
and grace, her face uplifted, her hair shining
in the light like burnished copper, her lips parted
with laughter.  She seemed so eminently a part of
the picture to fit into the brilliant scene as a
diamond sparkles appropriately in its hoop of gold that
Phil's heart sank heavier than ever.  Well, it only
proved he had been right.  What had he to offer
Sylvia in exchange for all this?  She belonged to
it and it to her, as a bird belongs to the air.

Perhaps it was the intensity of his gaze that had
made Sylvia look up.  At any rate she raised her
eyes and met his, staring hungrily down at her.  The
exciting, haunting music of Tristan and Isolde had
stirred strange deeps in Sylvia, begotten an élan of
flesh and soul which flared like a pure flame in her
eyes at the moment.  The man at her side, Porter
Robinson, as it happened, saw the look and followed
her gaze with curiosity to see what had lit the flame.
But in all that sea of faces he had no means of
distinguishing the one which stood out for the girl as if
it had been the one face in the world.  In a second
she had turned away and lowered her eyes.

"What was it?" asked her companion.  "Did
you see a vision?"

"Maybe," said Sylvia.  "Hush!  The music is
beginning."

All the rest of the evening she half hoped Phil
would seek her out in the box but he had not come.
And the next night had been the one when she had
discovered Porter Robinson was a beast and an hour
later had found herself rather unexpectedly
engaged to Jack Amidon.

As for Phil, his will tugged at its moorings that
night.  He, too, had been moved by the music, and
even more by the challenge of Sylvia's eyes.  He
had telephoned her the next day to try to make an
engagement with her for the evening but Sylvia was
submerged with engagements, had a tea, a dinner, a
theater party, and so forth, already on hand, and
her voice over the telephone was as cool and remote
as a mountain stream.  She even forgot to tell him
she was leaving the city the next day.  Sylvia's pride
in its way matched Phil's own.

And so instead of spending the evening with
Sylvia, Phil had dropped in to see Barbara, which is
where this chapter really began.

He was certainly anything but good company that
night.  He sat somberly looking into the fire,
answering Barb's casual chatter with brief
absent-minded monosyllables.  Barb, watching out of the
corner of her eye, and with the sure intuition that
love teaches, guessed the source of his gloom.  She
forgot all about her own hurt in sorrow for his
and longed with all the mother in her to comfort
him.  Suddenly the silence which had fallen became
intolerable, the weight of the unspoken thing too
heavy to be endured another minute.  So out of a
clear sky Barb dropped a bomb.

"Phil, why don't you ask Sylvia to marry you?"

Phil jumped and stared and frowned.

"Reason's sufficiently obvious I should say.  The
gown and the furs and the pearls she had on last
night probably cost more than my year's income."

"What of it?  Gowns and furs and pearls aren't
important.  There are things that Sylvia cares much
more about."

"What?"

"You," was on the tip of Barb's tongue, but she
did not say it.  After all, that was for Sylvia to say.
She had no means of knowing how Sylvia felt except
that vivid memory of the way the other girl's eyes
had looked that night on Lover's Leap.

"Happiness, for one thing," she substituted.
"Phil Lorrimer, don't you know Sylvia Arden well
enough to know the things that money buys are not
the real things--the things she cares for.  She is
willing to play with them while she is waiting.  Who
wouldn't?  I would myself, if I had the chance.
But Sylvia never mixes things up.  She knows what
counts and what doesn't count as well as anybody
I know.  If you think her having money and your
not having it makes the slightest difference to her,
you're even stupider than I gave you credit for."  Barb
had warmed to her subject and did not care if
the lash of her tongue did sting a little.  She rather
thought Phil Lorrimer needed a sting or two.  She
had forgotten for the moment she had ever been in
love with this young man herself.  She remembered
only she was a woman speaking for her sex in plain
round terms.

"You mean Sylvia wants me to ask her to marry her?"

Barb made an impatient gesture.

"I don't know anything about that.  That is
between you two.  What I do know, and what I am
trying to tell you, is that the modern woman despises
a man just as much for not wanting to ask her to
marry him because she has money as she does for
wanting to ask her to marry him because she has it.
That kind of idea is ancient and exploded and idiotic
and disgusting."

Phil threw out his hand in half humorous, half
serious protest.

"My word!  What an avalanche!  So you think
it is thoroughly contemptible in me to care whether
the woman I marry has a million dollars or not when
I haven't a red cent?"

"I do," asserted Barb stoutly.  "The money
isn't any of your affair, any more than the kind of
knife you use on the operating table is hers, or
the color of your hair or eyes, for that matter.  It
just hasn't anything to do with it."

"What is my affair?  What is the male end of
the bargain, according to the latest approved
feministic standards?"

"It's the male end of the bargain, if you choose
to put it that way, to give a woman love and
respect and comradeship, a clean, strong, healthy
body and mind and soul, to be the kind of man
she would like the father of her children to be.
I believe that is about all.  Read Beatrice
Forbes-Robinson Hale's chapter on the 'New Man' and
you'll understand why Sylvia's money has nothing
to do with the case and why your pride is stupid
and conceited and old-fashioned, a relic of the time
when man expected to be the sole provider and
expected his wife to be the chief parasite of the family,
when he gloried in his high and mighty superiority
and expected her to be meekly grateful and appreciative
of said superiority.  Now, do you understand?"

"A little," said Phil Lorrimer slowly.  "Thank
you, Barb.  Maybe I have been an idiot, as you say.
It takes you to clear away the rubbish in a fellow's
mind.  Jack tried to tell me the same thing and, well,
I guess Sylvia tried, too, only she didn't put it as
violently visibly as you have, and I threw the words
back in her face like the donkey I am.  Barb, do you
believe there is any chance she'll forgive me?" he
begged anxiously.

"I don't know how much she has to forgive,"
retorted Barb shortly.  "But you had better be
about it before her forgiveness is all she has left to
give.  You can't expect a girl like Sylvia to sit down
and wait for a man to get his eyes open like a
Maltese kitten.  I suppose you know Jack is hot on the
trail, and no doubt there are plenty of others here
in New York."

"Lord!  Don't I know it?"  Phil got to his feet.
"You needn't rub it in, Barb.  I'm scared enough
on that score already and jealous as the old one.
I'd have liked to drop asphyxiating gas on the
moon-faced calf I saw with her last night at the opera,
looking as if he owned her.  Gee!  I've got to get
out and let the air circulate through my brains a
little.  I feel as if I had a hot box up there."  He
gave his tawny head a thump.  "Honest, Barb, I'm
much obliged to you for your efficiently brutal
treatment.  You are some doctor, all right."

And in his genuine gratitude Phil started to seize
both Barb's small hands in his, but she backed away,
fearful perhaps lest he see more than she wanted,
now that his eyes were unsealed in other respects.
In a moment he was gone and Barb walked
deliberately over to the mirror and surveyed her
flushed face and big, excited eyes.

"They say a critic is a man who can't write.  I
begin to think a reformer--at least, a woman
reformer--is a woman who can't have what she
wants.  Maybe I can get the sacred fire after all.
Wonder if Aunt Jo got it--my way."

Barb laughed a little tremulously and then picked
up a volume of Ellen Key and sat down to read as
hard as she could.

Her brain was very clear that night it seemed.
She felt as if she could have written a book about
woman herself.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE CAUSE AND THE CAREER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE CAUSE AND THE CAREER

.. vspace:: 2

For two weeks after that Barb saw nothing of
Phil, a fact for which she was exceedingly grateful.
The news of Sylvia's engagement had come up
from Greendale, and Barb had no wish to see the
look which she knew would be in Phil's blue eyes, if
he too, had heard, as no doubt he had.  Neither had
she any desire to say "I told you so," though it was
her right.  Her warning, though late, had been
justified.  No one could expect Sylvia Arden to sit
down and wait "for a man to get his eyes open
like a Maltese kitten."  Sylvia had not waited, and
Phil's eyes were open at least twenty-four hours
too late.

The next time Phil and Barb met was at a public
meeting.  Miss Murray had been scheduled to
speak but at the last moment had succumbed to
laryngitis, and Barbara, dismayed and protesting,
had been haled into the breach.

It was the first time Barb had ever spoken in
public, though she had more than once sat on platforms
with her aunt, striving to look dignified and
impressive and generally worthy of the "mantle."  She
was desperately frightened now and when she
finally rose to face the audience, which was made
up mostly of women of the working-class, her knees
shook and her throat felt as if she were trying to
swallow the whole Sahara Desert.  The upturned
faces paralyzed her forces.  She wished an
earthquake would come and dispose of the audience and
bury herself in eternal oblivion.  And then
suddenly behind those weary-eyed, apathetic faces in the
foreground, she saw Phil Lorrimer's friendly,
encouraging eyes and some tension within her snapped.
She began to talk slowly at first, and then more
swiftly, borne along on the current of her own
surging thought and emotion.  She never knew
afterward quite what she said.  She seemed to have
talked more about happiness than about enfranchisement.
Perhaps the women who listened were more
interested in happiness than they were in the vote
anyway.  At all events, they listened respectfully,
even eagerly, as Barbara Day painted for them her
crystal clear vision of a world where women were
to be neither drudges nor toys, but honored
co-workers, laboring in joyous self-expression, side by
side with men, a world where motherhood should
be respected and supported by the nation, where
education should be open not to the favored few but to
the many, a world where war and brutality and
slavery, of soul and body, and all blood guiltiness
should be impossible, a world enlightened, free,
strong, glad.  And this millennium, the women of
America were to help to bring about, *must* help if
they were to save themselves and their sisters--so
Barbara Day told them.  "We have to work together.
Whatever we are, the one thing we cannot
be is indifferent--you and I--we must be
awake--wide awake."

And with that Barb had slipped shyly back into
her seat amid the applause which greeted her little
speech, terribly frightened again now it was all
over and wondering if it had not been intolerably
presumptuous in her to have spoken at all, much
less present so portentous a plea.

There were other speeches but Barb scarcely heard
them.  She fell into a revery, in which she carried
the vision she had shared with these women on and
on until it became almost as the new Jerusalem in
its transcendent splendor.

And in her vision she seemed to see why it had
been given her to desire and to have no fruition of
desire, to know the flare of happiness and to know
happiness gone out like a wind blown candle, to
understand what it was to be acquainted with
heartache and loneliness.  For all these things would
teach her how other women yearned and suffered
and were denied.  If she herself had found her
heart's desire in a good man's protecting love, in
the warm glow of her own hearth fires, with her
own children in her arms, would she have desired
so poignantly to help these others to find life more
abundant?  By the measure of what she had lost,
had she not gained?

"Happiness left us content with happiness but
sorrow bids us rise up and seek something divine,"
says some one, and Barbara Day had come to
understand this with many other things.  As the old
music teacher had said: "Love is the great Master."

The hint of the "Something divine" was still in
Barb's eyes when she took Phil's outstretched hand
in the doorway where he waited.  He had meant
to congratulate her on her speech but somehow the
words evaporated before the look on her face as she
lifted it to him.  He saw she had been in some far,
high place where he could not follow and the spell
was still upon her.

"How did you know I was here?" she asked
presently, as they made their way to the Subway
together in silence.

"Your aunt sent me word.  I am tremendously
grateful.  I wouldn't have missed it for anything.
Barb, you made me understand a whole lot of
things."

She flashed him a quick, startled glance.  She did
not wish him to understand too much.  But she need
not have feared.  Phil was as blind as ever so far
as she was concerned.

"You are a wonder, Barbie.  I'm a little scared
of you all at once.  I am afraid I haven't been quite
appreciating what an angel I was entertaining--or
rather letting entertain me."

"Don't.  If you mean that silly speech, you
needn't talk.  I feel as humble as--that puddle,"
groping for a simile she happened to let her gaze
fall upon a pool which a recent shower had left in
the gutter.

Phil smiled.

"There's a star reflected in the puddle," he said
gently, then dropped the subject as she obviously
desired.

As they stood in the crowded Subway later there
was little chance for conversation, but Barb
noticed that Phil looked worn and tired, almost
haggard.  Her heart was very tender for him.  It
didn't matter how much she was hurt.  Barb sensed
intuitively that women were meant to be hurt.  But
that Phil should suffer was all but intolerable.  She
almost hated Sylvia who had brought that look to
his eyes.  Alas!  What a jumble things were!
How changed everything was since that happy
September week with Sylvia at Arden Hall!  She
remembered how Suzanne had rallied Sylvia on her
fitness for matrimony and charged herself in jest
with having designs on Phil Lorrimer.  Funny
Suzanne!  Poor Suzanne!  What was she doing?

It happened at the moment Suzanne was sitting
by the fire in Miss Murray's apartment, doing
absolutely nothing for the first time in many strenuous
weeks.  There Barbara and Phil found her a few
moments later, to their unbounded astonishment.

"Well, aren't you going to greet the returning
prodigal?" asked Suzanne, getting up.

Whereupon Barb recovered sufficiently to throw
her arms around her friend with a series of little
rapturous, inarticulate, affectionate gurgles such
as women occasionally indulge in.

When she had finished it was Phil's turn, and
though his greeting was more decorous, it was no
less hearty.

"Where have I been?  I know that is what you
are bursting to ask.  Sit down all and let me tell you.
Dearly beloved, I have been on the road.  No, not
selling petticoats like the immortal Emma, but in
the chorus of 'The Prettiest Princess,' and it's been
worth a fortune to me."

"In the chorus!  Oh, Suzanne!  What did your
father and mother say?"

"They haven't said anything up to present speaking,
for the very good reason that they don't know
what I've been up to.  I told them I was traveling.
I was.  Gee!  How I've traveled!  I also told
them I had been visiting Aunt Selina in Salt Lake
City.  I did visit Aunt Selina.  I spent a week
with her while the 'Prettiest Princess' and her
retinue delighted the enthusiastic Mormon gentlemen.
For Heaven's sake, don't stare so, Barb!  I
assure you both my virtue and my looks are
unimpaired.  You can see the latter for yourself."

Suzanne whirled round to the mirror as if to
assure herself that her statement was true.  Certainly
the others could see for themselves that Suzanne
had never looked prettier in her life.

Little by little the story came out, delivered
with much glee and gusto by the irrepressible
Suzanne.  That night Phil had found her in the Square
she had come to the end of her resources and knew
something had to be done at once if she were going
to avoid an ignominious return to Norton, Pa., or
the sacrifice of her pride to ask for an advance of
money.  A manager had refused her latest play that
day but even as he had done so he had offered her
a place in the third company of the musical
comedy he was just starting on the road.  Suzanne had
asked for a night to consider and she had been
considering when Phil had interrupted her meditations.
In his society, too, she had decided to take the offer.
The next day she had become a member of the third
company and the next was "on the road."

"Why did you come home?  Show bust?"

"Indeed, no.  The 'Prettiest Princess' goes on
as cheerfully as may be lacking its most charming
first row right chorus girl."

"Fired?" still further inquired Phil.

"Nope.  Resigned.  Came into a fortune and
flew back to the Great White Way instanter."

"What kind of a fortune?  Anybody died?"

"Thank goodness no.  On the contrary.  An
editor came to life.  I've sold a series of stories to
the Ultra Urban, two hundred plunks per.  'Melissa
on the Road' is the general title, Melissa being, of
course, Suzanne, thinly disguised.  I thought I
might as well make copy out of myself and I did.
I've given things so close to the way they really
were that every one will swear they are fiction of the
most romancy order."

"Are they coming out under your own name?"
Barb found breath to ask.

"No.  I thought they might begin to appear
before I had a chance to explain things, so it seemed
better to break the shock, as it were.  They are
anonymous, which will make them more spicy."

"Good for you!" chuckled Phil.  "I'll bet they
are spicy all right."

"But the best isn't told.  I've written a play--a
real play that is going to make the managers sit up
on their haunches and beg prettily.  And I've got a
Star in my crown--I mean in my circle of friends--who
wants to play the lead.  What do you think
of that?  Let Broadway stop, look, and listen.
Suzanne is coming, Hurray!  Hurray!" she chanted.
"I'll cause more of a sensation than my predecessor
at the bath.  Now, tell me the news."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`OH, SUZANNE!`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   OH, SUZANNE!

.. vspace:: 2

It was not until Phil had gone and Barb and
Suzanne were reduced to the intimate kimono and
pigtail state that Barb got the full force of the
stream of Suzanne's confidences.

"When I think what a fool I was only just last
September I could weep, if only it weren't so
killingly funny."  Suzanne sat up in bed to announce.
"I thought because I had a pretty knack of juggling
words and a little mother wit I could just walk right
in and conquer the literary and dramatic world as
easy as anything.  The trouble with college is it
gives you an over-dose of fine spun theories about
life and doesn't teach you a thing about being up
against the real article.  Maybe it couldn't.  I guess
we all have to knock that lesson out of the bed rock
itself with a chisel or a pick axe.  I've tried both
ways.  I don't know all there is to know yet by a
long shot but I know a whole heap more than I did,
which is something to be thankful for."  And the
speaker thumped the pillow with her doubled fist
rather as she had thumped Sylvia's hammock
cushions the preceding September.

Barb, listening, sighed a little as she wondered if
this knowledge of life were as desirable as Suzanne
seemed to think.  It left one a little tired, she
thought, this knowing things.

"I don't know whether you ever guessed," Suzanne
rattled on, "how near I was to the end of my
rope last November.  Phil knew, but he kept my
secret, like the good dear he is.  By the way, what
is the matter with Phil?  He looks awfully seedy
and sober.  Don't know but you do, too, come to
think of it.  City got on your nerves?"

Suzanne's keen eyes sought her friend's face with
an intentness that made the latter turn under
pretense of switching off the light.

"Nothing the matter with me," she said cheerfully.
"With Phil, of course, it is Sylvia."

"H'm, I suppose so.  He certainly looked as jolly
as a tombstone when we were talking about her
engagement a while ago.  Well, why didn't he go in
and get her himself?  He could have last September
easily enough.  Anybody could have seen that
with half an eye.  Gets me why he didn't clinch it
that night at Lover's Leap."

Barb made no reply.  Even with Suzanne she
could not discuss Phil's mischance, especially as
Suzanne would be sure to say it served him
right.  Barb was very pitiful for Phil.  She did
not want to hear anybody say sharp things about him.

"Go on about yourself," she suggested, getting
into bed.  "Do you mean you were really hard up,
last November?"

"Hard up!" chuckled Suzanne.  "My dear, I
was not merely badly bent.  I was broke.  That
night I was up here to supper I was as hungry as
a wolf.  I hadn't been eating much of anything for
days."

"Oh, Suzanne!  And you never told me!"

"Naturally not.  I had made my own bed and
I intended to lie on it even if it was a bit rocky.  Of
course they would have sent me money from home,
or Sylvia or any of you would have lent me some.
But I wouldn't ask anybody.  I set myself to work
out my own salvation and I meant to finish up the job."

"You are a wonder, Suzanne!  But wasn't the
show work dreadful?"

"Not so dreadful as you might think.  You have
to work like everything, and there is a good deal
naturally that you have to shut your eyes and ears
to, but it was Life with a capital letter, which was
what I was looking for.  Heaven knows I got it!
Sometimes more than I bargained for."  There was
a catch in Suzanne's voice which made Barb come
a little nearer and put out her hand until it touched
her friend's.

"Barbie!"  Suzanne's voice was lowered.

"Yes."

"Did you ever think goodness was a sort of
relative thing?  That some girls are good just
negatively because they never have any temptation or
opportunity to be anything else?"

"Yes," said Barbara again.

"You don't know what you are really like inside
until you suddenly come up against the sharp edges
of things.  Do you remember when Sylvia said she
wanted to get acquainted with herself and I said I
knew all about myself.  Well, I didn't, that's all.  I
found out."

"Suzanne!"  Barb's voice had a motherly croon to it.

"Don't be scared.  I'm all right.  I did get
scorched a little, and I know fire now when I see it.
Who do you suppose came to my rescue when I was
singeing?"  And Suzanne mentioned the name of a
"Star" all America knows and loves--a Star of
the first magnitude.

"There was a big snow storm and we were blocked
for a day this side of Kansas City.  Her company
happened to be on the same train ours was.  I dug
her Chow out of a snow bank for her and we got
acquainted.  I guess she saw where I was drifting.
Anyway, she pulled me back just in season.  Never
mind who the man was.  He doesn't count any more.
He never counted very much.  I was just dizzy with
life.  It all frothed and bubbled and sparkled like
champagne, and I was a little drunk with it all
maybe.  She made me see things.  She'd been there.
She knew."

Barb nestled closer, but did not speak.  Did she
not understand?  Had life not frothed and bubbled
and sparkled for her, too?  Did she not know how
nearly anything could happen when you felt like
that?  Especially if the man cared or pretended to
care.  It had been at once her own safety and
torture that in her case the man had not cared.

"I saw her again at Denver," continued Suzanne,
"and she told me the kind of a play she wanted.
And Barb, just like a flash of lightning it came so
quick, I knew I was going to try to write a play for
her and I did.  And she's seen it and she likes it and
she wants me to take it to ----.  He's her manager--just
as soon as I can and tell him she liked it.
And I'm going to, to-morrow.  Oh, Barbie!  If he
should like it.  But he won't.  I mustn't think
he's going to.  I'd die if I were sure, I'd be so
happy."

And to-morrow Suzanne had taken the play to the
great manager and had sent in the Star's card
bearing the magic caption, "Introducing Miss
Morrison."  The caption had worked like a charm,
swung open doors and fore-shortened delays.  It
was an incredibly brief space of time before
Suzanne found herself in the most inner of all the
offices with a pair of shrewd kindly eyes fixed
inquiringly upon her.

The manager had glanced over her manuscript
with a swift apprising gaze, then glanced over
Suzanne in something of the same manner.

"I'll read this, this afternoon," he promised.  "I
have the greatest confidence in the judgment of that
lady," with a nod at the card which lay among the
litter on his desk.  "If she says this is good, I have
no doubt it is.  At any rate, we will hope for the
best.  Lord knows we are looking for something
good.  I'll telephone you to-morrow if you will
leave me your number and address.  By the way--"
he frowned a little.  "Haven't I seen you before
somewhere, Miss Morrison?"

Suzanne twinkled.

"I've brought you three plays--all impossible,"
she said.

"Indeed!  Let us hope this one--" he glanced
at the manuscript--"will be at least--probable."

"It is more than that," said Suzanne.  "It is a
dead sure thing.  Read it.  You will see."  And
with that parting shot Suzanne withdrew, leaving
the manager grinning at her effrontery.

But the next day when the great manager sought
to communicate with Suzanne over the telephone,
Suzanne, white and silent, was packing to take the
next train for Norton, Pa.

A telegram had been sent to Salt Lake City in her
aunt's care and followed her back to New York.
The telegram had said: "Mother very sick.  Come
home at once."

"It is Mr. ----" said Miss Murray from the
telephone.  "Will you speak to him, Suzanne?"

"No," said Suzanne curtly.  "Tell him I'm out
of town.  Tell him anything.  I don't care."

Thus did the Nemesis of Suzanne's joyous tilting
with the universe overtake her.  At the moment
when victory seemed well within her hands life had
struck back.  Like the star of the seer's vision, the
star of her ambition fell burning into the waters.

"*And the name of the star is called wormwood;
and the third part of the waters became wormwood
and many died of the waters because they were made
bitter.*"

At the station in Norton, Roger Minot waited
with his car to meet Suzanne--a crushed anguished
Suzanne, her pertness and her prettiness equally in
eclipse.  She could only put out her hand to him
with a little moan and gasp "Mother?"

"She is holding her own.  There is hope--at
least a little," he told her.  "When did you start?"

"From New York?"

"From Salt Lake City?"

"I haven't been in Salt Lake City for days.  I
got to New York yesterday.  I didn't know.  I
didn't know.  Oh, Roger, it's dreadful!  I've been
so selfish--so everything that is horrid."

Roger Minot looked straight ahead of him and
said nothing.  Perhaps he knew it was for the good
of Suzanne's soul to taste the whole acrid cup of her
remorse.

But as they neared the parsonage his heart was
smitten with pity.  Suzanne looked so wan and
grief-stricken and subdued, so utterly unlike the
Suzanne he knew, all sparkles and ripples and
laughter, like a little shallow stream running along
through sunshine.  The hand which was not busy
at the wheel closed over Suzanne's.

"Don't give up, little girl.  Maybe it will come
out right, after all.  Anyway, remember I'm right
here if you need me."

Suzanne uttered a sound which was a little bit like
a sob.  When, indeed, had Roger not been right
there when she needed him? though she had treated
him as the very dust beneath her feet.  Dear Roger!
And with an impulse of penitent tenderness she gave
back the pressure of his hand.

And then in a moment they were at home, where
the chairs still stood stiff and angular against the
wall, though up there in a quiet room above the hand
that had put them in their places lay very still and
white.  Suzanne's mother was very sick indeed.  It
was she, after all, and not her willful little daughter
that had pulled the family out of its comfortable
rut and cast a sad spell of differentness upon the
household.  Suzanne had stayed away but sickness
had come in and another darker guest waited outside
the door, his shadow already on the threshold.  Poor
Suzanne!  The waters were made bitter, indeed, at
the falling of her star.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SYLVIA AND LIFE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX


.. class:: center medium bold

   SYLVIA AND LIFE

.. vspace:: 2

In the meanwhile Sylvia, home at Arden Hall
again, slipped back very easily and naturally into
the old ways and almost as easily and naturally into
the new one of being engaged.

"It is really quite a comfortable state," she told
Felicia.  "You don't have to wonder about every
new man you meet when you are all satisfactorily
accounted for and checked off yourself.  You can
even enjoy flirting more," she added wickedly with
a Sylvia twinkle, "since everybody knows you don't
mean anything by it.  Anyway, I'm so used to having
Jack around that it isn't much different being
engaged to him from not being engaged to him.  I am
afraid I am a hopelessly unromantic person, Felicia.
I always supposed when people got engaged it was
a fearsome, sublimated sort of experience like being
on top of an Alp or something of the sort.  But I
don't feel any different from what I did before,
except for the comfortable settled feeling I have
already mentioned.  And I'm not going to get married
for a long time.  I am going to make the most of
the privileges and immunities of my present blissful
state."

But as was perhaps natural Jack did not share his
fiancée's leisurely attitude.  In fact the two came
more than once near to quarreling on the subject of
the date of their marriage.  But Sylvia's will was
stronger and Sylvia would not be married for
another year.  That was a flat and unequivocable
dictum and Jack had to put up with it as best he could.
He dared not hurry his perverse lady love for it
must be confessed he sometimes experienced doubts
whether he had won her at all, so slight seemed the
bond between them.  The very tranquillizing effect
of the engagement upon Sylvia was disturbing to
Jack.  That she could take so placidly what was the
biggest thing in the universe to him was alarming
and a little exasperating.  Sometimes he would
accuse her of not caring for him at all and then she
would still further disconcert him by looking very
directly and questioningly at him as if she, too, had
some doubts on the subject.

Sylvia knew she had floated into the engagement
from the crest of one wave of emotion to another.
Her estrangement from Phil Lorrimer, her
disillusionment about Jeanette's married life, the
panic-stricken horror and shame with which her own affair
with Porter Robinson had filled her, her generally
overwrought, hysterical, nervous condition had all
contributed to throw her into Jack's arms that night.
He had seemed an oasis on a desert, a spar to the
drowning.  She had awakened soon enough to the
realization that it was by no means a grand passion,
a life and death affair, this placid, even affection she
felt for Jack.  She loved him sufficiently.  She
knew she could be fairly happy with him and make
him happy, perhaps could even let her affection
deepen into something approaching a great love in
due time.  They were ideal comrades already, and
Sylvia had a theory that comradeship was a better
basis than stormy passion for happy wedlock.  Yet
perhaps down in her heart there was a fear that
something was lacking in it all, something that kept
her stubbornly insistent on postponing the wedding
for a year.  Impulsively she had yielded the first
redoubt.  She intended to be sure of herself before
she surrendered the fortress for good and all.  She
meant to do it in the end without reservation, for
better for worse.  There should be no shilly-shallying
like Jeanette's in her life.  That she was
determined upon.

Part of the steadying effect of her engagement
expressed itself in a sincere desire to stop the
unsatisfactory flitting from flower to flower process,
sipping honey here and there, into which she had drifted
during the restless winter months past.  She had
had enough tasting of experience and honestly
sought serious employment for her energies.

Luckily there was always plenty to occupy her on
the Hill.  More and more the Byrd sisters came to
depend on her, especially as Julietta was now away
getting acquainted with her grandson, Gloria's boy,
recently arrived upon this planet.  The girls at
"Hester house," and Hope and Martha, also came
in for a generous share of her attention.  The old
buoyant, radiant Sylvia seemed to have come back to
them, ready to cheer and comfort and command at
need.  Never was her genius for happiness more in
demand or more in evidence than it was that February.
It seemed as if everything had been awry and
sad and bad while she had been away in the city
and that now she was home it must all just naturally
straighten itself out.

She took up her music again with rigorous hours
of practice.  She fulfilled her long made threat of
learning to cook, much to Aunt Mandy's pride and
delight in her role as chief professor of the culinary
arts.  She went in, seriously, this time, into Red
Cross work, organizing a unit which she kept sternly
to its task of rolling bandages and all the rest of the
necessary if rather prosaic labor.  She also got
under way a class in first aid instruction under the
tuition of a young doctor whom Tom Daly had
recommended, too busy himself to take on any new duties.

Doctor Tom and Sylvia saw a great deal of each
other off and on but always in the comfortable,
wholesome, brother and sister relation which their
November interlude had interrupted but not
destroyed.  Sylvia was often at the cottage playing
with the babies whom she adored and kept out of
Lois' way as often as possible so that the latter might
have time for the typing of her book which was
almost ready for the publisher's hands.  Marianna
and Donald, too, came in for a large share of
Sylvia's time.  For them she spun rare tales old and
new and rendered Kim and the Water Babies, the
Immortal Alice and other beloved favorites of the
realms of gold until she knew them nearly by heart.
With the children Sylvia was happiest of all.
Living in their world she almost forgot her own, which
in spite of her boasted contentment did not wholly
satisfy her.  She had learned that the busier she was,
the better life seemed, leaving fewer crannies and
nooks for doubts and wonders to seep in.

Of course there was plenty of gayety both in
Greendale and in the near-by city, but she steadily
refused to go in for an excess of this kind of thing,
though here, too, she and Jack came near to dissension.
It must be admitted Jack was scarcely so assiduous
a devotee of business now that he felt his
assiduity no longer essential to the winning of his
liege lady.  He was ready now to enjoy the fruits of
his labor and have a thoroughly frivolous holiday
with Sylvia as mistress of the revels.  But just as
he wanted to cut loose Sylvia wanted to go sedately.
He complained that he saw infinitely less of her now
he was engaged to her than he had when he was not,
and resented somewhat sharply the thousand and
one claims and duties which Sylvia acknowledged.
Yet the two never really quarreled.  Jack was too
sunny-tempered and Sylvia too tactful, and on the
whole they were very happy together, Sylvia, oddly
enough, happier than Jack.

Meanwhile the war went on overseas and men
began to shake their heads and prophesy that we
would be in it soon.  But that was still nineteen
hundred and fifteen and we kept out.  About this
time came a letter from Hilda, the first in many
months.  The chief item told simply and with
scarcely any comment was that Bertram had been
killed early in October.  "I can hardly realize it or
feel it," wrote Hilda.  "It is getting to be an old
story over here.  Women see their lovers and their
sons and their husbands go and they don't come
back, or if they do, they come maimed and crippled,
only the shadow of the men that went forth.  In
the meanwhile we try to heal as many as we can,
though it is discouraging to heal them and send
them back to be killed outright perhaps next time."

The letter and its sad news had haunted Sylvia
for a long time.  What a strange romance Hilda's
had been--so brief it must almost have seemed a
dream!  She had known Bertram only a few weeks
in August.  By the first of September they had
become engaged.  A week later he had gone to the
front.  In October he had been overtaken by death.
And that was the end.  What a waste there was
to it all!

Half consciously all that month Sylvia expected
to hear that Barb and Phil were engaged.  She had
long since made up her mind that that particular
consummation was natural, even desirable.  She,
herself, was far too sane a person to spend many
moments prying among ashes to see if any sparks
remained.  Nor would she permit herself to regret
that which had perhaps never been more than
moonshine and dream stuff.  She was able to persuade
herself quite easily that since she was able to be so
placidly happy without Phil she had never needed
him overmuch.  That miracle moment on Lover's
Leap and that other music intoxicated moment in
December came to seem to her mere magic casements
through which she had looked for the briefest
interval of time into another world, essentially unreal,
fantastic, a sort of mirage of the soul.  And mirages
were not in Sylvia's line, so she did not often
let herself remember those irrevocable moments.

Once in her desultory reading she came across
a little poem called "Remembrance," one stanza of
which particularly haunted her.

.. vspace:: 2

..

   |    *Not unto the forest--not unto the forest, O my lover!*
   |    *Take me from the silence of the forest!*
   |  I will love you by the light and the beat of drums at night
   |  And echoing of laughter in my ears,
   |        *But here in the forest*
   |  I am still, remembering a forgotten, useless thing,
   |  And my eyelids are locked down for fear of tears--
   |    *There is memory in the forest.*
   |

She had gone to a dance with Jack that night and
every now and then the music had taken words.

.. vspace:: 2

..

   |  I will love you by the light and the beat of drums at night
   |  And echoing of laughter in my ears.
   |

But, afterward, in her own room, she had sat a
long time by the window looking out into the white
night where snows lay on her rose bushes.  And
perhaps she remembered a "forgotten useless thing"
and her eyelids, too, were "locked down for fear
of tears."  And a new fear awakened in Sylvia's
heart that night, a fear of Love.  She, too, needed
to be delivered from the memory of the forest.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A CHAPTER OF REVELATIONS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXI


.. class:: center medium bold

   A CHAPTER OF REVELATIONS

.. vspace:: 2

February passed and March came in, rough and
blustering, with "noise of wind and of many
waters" blowing its silver trumpets to life long
dormant under winter snows.  There came a few
warm days and the crocuses began to run gay little
races through the grass in Sylvia's garden and the
jocund company of daffodils appeared.  One morning
a bluebird flashed out in the magnolia and the
cardinals called "Pretty!  Pretty!  Pretty!"
ecstatically all day long.

But then came frost and the frivolous crocuses in
their parti-colored gowns lay flat and desolate like
little dead dreams.  The daffodils blackened and
their stalks snapped, brittle as icicles.  The bluebird
disappeared, nobody knew where, and the cardinal's
joy was muted.  And it was all a symbol of life as
it was in the world that spring of nineteen hundred
and fifteen.  Men had dreamed of peace and good
will, of strong nations hailing each other with a
"God speed" across the waters, a world of quickened
life and promise and progress.  And suddenly,
out of a clear sky, as it seemed, had come blackening,
devastating war.  Men who had smiled like friendly
gods snarled and hissed and rolled each other in
the dust like brute beasts.  Hymns of hate replaced
the song of the morning stars, and the Prince of
Peace was again crucified.

And still America looked on, dismayed, awed,
shaking herself like a great dog, but not yet ready
to leap at the throat of the enemy of democracy, not
yet ready to believe such an enemy could really live
and move and have his mighty being in this day and
generation of enlightenment.  Not yet was Beowulf
dedicated to Heorot's cause, not yet did he fully
realize the hatefulness of Grendel, who bore God's
wrath.  Aloof from it all, America's great pulse
beat on almost steadily.  Men and women loved and
sinned and suffered and bartered and sacrificed as
they had been doing from the beginning, more or
less unmindful of the whirlwind sowing not so far
off, with only an ocean between it and themselves.
And what is an ocean nowadays?

In the stuffy little town of Norton, Pa., Suzanne
took a deep draught of life that March; a deeper
draught, indeed, than New York, or for that matter
all the cities of America could have held to her lips.
Day by day, as she sat by her mother's bed, she
learned lessons no college could have taught her.
Suzanne's spirit had been "stabb'd broad awake."  She
saw the Suzanne of the past, blind, arrogant,
selfish, deeming herself wise and self-sufficient, yet
really knowing neither life nor herself.  Here in
the quiet room where the angels of life and death
wrestled she saw things very clearly and was made
humble.

But it was willed that she be spared the last drops
of the cup of sorrow and remorse.  In those early
March days her mother drifted back slowly from
the Hinterland.  It was almost as if Suzanne's need
and Suzanne's prayer and Suzanne's love had
brought her back.  Little by little, as the mother
grew better, she and her daughter came into the
grace of mutual understanding and sympathy and
forgiveness, knowing at last the whole story of
Suzanne's light-hearted vagabondage.  Mrs. Morrison
was able to smile and sigh over "Melissa on the
Road," the first installment of which appeared in the
April issue of the magazine whose editor had "come
to life" in season to recognize a live human
document when it came into his hands.

As for the play, Suzanne received a letter in
March from the great manager informing her he
had kept in touch with her affairs through Miss
Murray, congratulating her on her mother's
recovery and begging for an interview at her earliest
convenience.  His confidence in the Star's
judgment had, it seemed, been justified.  The play
was as good as Suzanne had promised, so he
admitted.

Accordingly, one day, when her mother was able
to spare her, Suzanne went up to New York to sign
contracts and discuss royalties with a glibness which
scarcely betrayed her recent complete inexperience
of such pleasing commodities.  The play was to
be tried out in early September and if it was
successful would be given a chance on Broadway
later.

"Of course, that is on the knees of the gods," the
manager had warned.  "You can't tell what the
public will do.  The public is a spoiled child.  The
thing may go.  It may not.  The whole thing's a
devilish lottery, you understand."

Oh, yes, Suzanne understood.  All life was pretty
much of a devilish lottery she thought, but that made
it more rather than less interesting.  Long ago she
had taken for her motto, "Believe and venture, as
for pledges the gods give none."  It was enough
for her at the time that the play was to be given a
trial.  More would have slain her with joy she
thought.

Of course she ran straight to Barb with this
bucketful of delightful certainties and enchanting
possibilities.  And Barb was as happy as Suzanne
over it all.  She was an artist at rejoicing with those
that rejoice as well as mourning with those that
mourned.  Sometimes she seemed to herself to be
nothing at all but an agglomeration of sympathies
for the rest of the world.  Her own selfhood
seemed drowned in the sea of humanity.  She was
not unhappy.  Indeed she was quietly, humbly
content.  To some women to love itself is the main
thing.  In such the waters of affection returning
back to their springs, fill them indeed full of
refreshment.  There was no bitterness in Barb.
Gladly and freely she had broken her alabaster box
of precious ointment not counting the cost, nor
deeming the performance any sort of waste, rather a
privilege.

As for the Cause, her dedication to it held no more
scruples.  Suzanne had been right in her prophecy.
She was "white hot" in her faith, in her mission,
the whiter-hot, perhaps, because she had managed to
get "martyrized" along the way.

In March Lois Daly's book was accepted by the
publishers, with hearty congratulations on her
return to the field of literature after her sojourn
elsewhere.  The terms of her contract were generous
and Lois smiled, well pleased.  She took the letter
at once to her husband, and when he had expressed
his delight and pride in her success she had explained
why she had done the thing.

"I didn't want to write a bit, Tom," she said.  "I
dreaded to go into it again.  Of course when I once
got in it I loved it just as I always have.  It is
exhilarating--soul-possessing.  But I was happy
without it, perfectly happy.  I don't know whether
you understand that, Tom.  I was afraid sometimes
it worried you that I had given it up.  It needn't
have.  You and the home and the children were
enough to fill every need."

"Then why did you do it?"  He surveyed her,
puzzled.  It occurred to him as no doubt it occurs to
many wise men at times how little he knew his wife.
Do men ever really know their wives?  Tom Daly
thought of that little episode with Sylvia and
wondered if it had had anything to do with sending Lois
back to her writing.

"Why?  Because I wanted to make some money--quite
a lot of money--and that was the only
way I knew of doing it--my only wage earning
asset," she smiled.

But Tom still looked bewildered.  Just why
should Lois have suddenly acquired her zeal for
money?  She had never been luxurious in her tastes,
turning always preferably to simplicity of living, as
those of the aristocracy of brains usually do.
Therefore he awaited enlightenment.  It was twilight and
they were sitting together in the dusk, but he could
see her eyes shining with a sort of wistful
tenderness as they lifted themselves to his.

"You don't ask why I wanted the money?  Is it
because you know that I wanted it to give to you?"  She
pushed the publisher's letter across the table to
him.  "It is yours, dear,--my gift to the hospital.
I haven't been able to show I cared for what you
were working for.  Perhaps I haven't really cared,
though I think I have learned a little about it this
winter, while I've been working myself.  I've had
a little light--a crack of it, anyway."  She smiled
at him in the grayness.  "But I've always cared for
you, Tom, even when maybe I haven't shown it, and
I want to give this--piece of me to your hospital
because I do love you and your big vision.  Will you
take it?  It isn't much, but it comes straight from
my heart."

"Not much!" cried Tom Daly.  "Lois, it is everything."

And in a moment his arms were around her and
there was nothing else in all the world but they two,
mystically one in the fullness of their love each for
the other.

So Spring brought with it quickened life and love
to Tom Daly and Lois as it had done to Suzanne
Morrison and her mother.

Spring, too, brought back Gus Nichols from his
concert tour, a little thinner and tired looking as
if the fire of his music had burned rather deep but
with a new poise and dignity and manhood, along
with his old boyish charm.

Mr. McIntosh was as happy as a child with a new
toy at having the boy back, or rather as a child with
an old toy, beloved and rediscovered.  It was
pleasant to see the two together, old man and lad, so
different racially and temperamentally, yet so bound
together by the ties of affection.

"Best job you ever did in your life, Sylvia
Arden," Mr. McIntosh had observed one Sunday
when he and Gus were taking dinner at the Hall.
"Best job you ever did, when you persuaded me
to adopt the boy.  I can see you now, impertinent
little witch that you were, sitting up and giving me
advice like a grandmother.  But it was good advice.
I grant you that.  You knew what you were talking
about and talked to some purpose.  See here,
Sylvia--"  The old man lowered his voice a little, though
the others--Gus and Felicia and Doctor Daly--were
engaged in conversation and could not hear,
"do you think there is anything the matter with the
lad?  He doesn't look just happy to me.  You
don't think there can be a girl or any nonsense like
that?"

Romance had always seemed more or less
nonsense to Angus McIntosh, probably would unto the
end, though years and affection had somewhat
tempered his aversion for sentiment.

Sylvia looked up a little startled, remembering
suddenly what she had almost forgotten--that
unspoken thing she had read in the boy's eyes that
night after his first concert.  Gus, too, looked up at
the moment, and as their gaze met Sylvia saw that
the boy's had the fire and dew of a Galahad in
them, the look of one who sees the Grail afar off.
Her own eyes fell.  She could not bear that
shining, reverent look.  It blinded her, shook her,
quickened her, filled her with humility and
compassion and envy.  She perceived that Gus had
found this thing which she herself seemed forever
seeking with vain quest.  In giving he had gained,
in losing he had found.

"Well?" challenged Angus McIntosh at her side.

Sylvia shook her head.

"No, Gus looks to me--very happy," she said.

"I'm glad you think so."  The old man's tone
was relieved, as if a burden had been lifted from
his mind.  He had the greatest respect for Sylvia's
judgment and understanding.  "Glad you think so.
He seems all right, but I wasn't sure.  Thought I'd
see what you thought, that's all."

Later Sylvia played accompaniments for her
guest's violin.  And if his eyes had not already
conveyed the truth to her, his violin would have done
so.  Sylvia could hardly keep the tears out of her
eyes as she played.  Not that the music was sad.  It
was jubilant, at times almost triumphant.  It
throbbed and welled and exulted.  It disdained pity
as a crowned monarch might have disclaimed it.  It
proclaimed itself inviolate, consecrate, perfected.
"I rejoice!  I conquer!  I love!" it sang.

As Sylvia rose from the piano she almost feared
to meet the gaze of the listeners.  She thought they
must all have heard the message of the violin as she
had heard it.  But no one seemed to have done so.
They had felt the power and the beauty of the thing,
but its soul had been concealed from them all except
Sylvia herself.

And then Sylvia saw that Jack was in the room.
He had come in while they had been playing and
stood silent, waiting until the violin ceased.  She
went to him, her eyes still full of the music, and
noticed that he was a little white and very grave,
with something of his boyishness stricken out of him.

"I didn't know you were back from New York,"
she said, though that wasn't at all what she seemed
to care about saying.  The ordinary, conventional
words rise to our lips when the real things hide
unsaid.

"Let's get out of here a moment," he whispered,
under cover of greeting, "I've something to tell you."

Sylvia stepped out into the hall and he followed.

"Sylvia, there's been an accident.  Phil's
hurt--dying, maybe."

He put out his arm quickly, for Sylvia swayed
toward him with eyes that told him what perhaps he
had known in his heart all the time.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`UNTO THE FOREST`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium bold

   UNTO THE FOREST

.. vspace:: 2

Sylvia did not faint.  Indeed it seemed to her as
if she had never in all her life been so quick in every
fiber as she was at the moment she heard Jack's voice
saying those fearful illuminating words, "Phil--dying,
they think."  It was as if a great clean wave
swept over her leaving her purged of misunderstanding
and doubt and weakness and compromise.  With
one blinding flash of light she saw clear.  She drew
away from Jack's arms.

"Tell me about it.  No, I am all right.  Tell me."

There was little to tell.  A crowded street, a
heedless chauffeur, a toddling Italian baby escaped from
its mother's fruit stand.  These were the details.
There was nothing unusual about them.  Such
accidents happen daily in great cities.  One scarcely
hears of them they are so frequent of occurrence.
The wonder is there are not more of them when
human life teems so thick and is held so cheap.  But,
unfortunately, clear-witted, quick-moving,
strong-limbed young ex-football heroes are not always at
hand as in this case.  The baby was happily
unhurt, but Phil Lorrimer lay in the hospital at the
point of death.

Instead of keeping a luncheon engagement with
his friend, Jack Amidon had been called upon to
take charge of a grave situation.  Finally, there
being nothing left to do, he had come back to
Greendale to tell Mrs. Lorrimer--Mrs. Lorrimer and
Sylvia.

"I thought it would be better to tell his mother
myself," he said to Sylvia.  "Telegrams knock you
out so.  She is a wonder, though.  Not a whimper.
She's going up on the five o'clock from Baltimore.
I'm taking her in, in the car."

"I am going, too," said Sylvia.

For a moment the two stared at each other, then
Jack understood and acquiesced.

"All right.  That is for you to say," he responded
quietly.  "Go and get ready.  I'll tell the rest."

Even in her distress, Sylvia smiled wanly at Jack.
It was so like him to understand, to spare her, to see
at a flash the helpful, kindly thing to do.  Jack was
always so "dear."  She tried to express her gratitude
but he cut her short by stooping to kiss her, not
on the lips as usual, but on the forehead.

"Don't bother about me, sweetheart.  I don't
count," and he strode away from her toward the
living-room where he had promised to "tell the rest."

Sylvia ran up the stairs to her own room, dazed
and dry-eyed, with a strange lightness about her, as
if she had suddenly shed her body and become all
spirit.  In a few moments Felicia joined her, quiet,
helpful, unquestioning.  There was never any need
of explaining things to Felicia.  She did not ask
why Sylvia, engaged to one man, should be rushing
with anguish-stricken eyes to the sick-bed of
another.  Perhaps she understood that better than
she had understood the engagement in the first
place.

It was a strange journey--first, the swift almost
silent automobile ride to the city; Jack's stern, white
face as he kissed her good-by so unlike the sunny
lover she was used to, whom she had loved "by the
light and beat of drums," a look so different it had
haunted her all the way to New York; beside her
the quiet countenance and grief-filled eyes of Phil's
mother.  Feeling scarcely worthy to dwell in the
sanctuary of her own grief, Sylvia's heart went out
to the older woman in her silent agony.  Perhaps
never in her life before had the girl realized what it
meant to be a mother--how mothers gave and gave
and gave, and suffered and suffered and suffered,
and loved and loved and loved, unto the end.  What
was going on in the mind and heart of the other
woman she could only conjecture.  Dimly she
perceived that the mother loved the son for the baby
he had been, the boy and youth he had been, the man
he was, the man he was to be--all in one.  How
could she bear it? Sylvia wondered.

Then the vision widened.  How could all those
women over in Europe bear it?  To give up their
sons--the very fruit of their bodies, those for
whom they had undergone the agonies of death!  It
was horrible.  Phil was only one, and he had
offered life for life.  That was natural.  But those
other strong young men, over there--they were
giving life for more death.  That was the unthinkable,
hideous part of it.  The sorrows of all the
world seemed pressing down upon her, crystallized,
made real by her own poignant, personal grief.  Phil
became the mangled young life of the world.

Suddenly Sylvia felt she could bear it no longer
alone.  She put out her hand and let it rest upon
the hand of Phil's mother.  Mrs. Lorrimer turned
with a faint little smile.

"Pray, Sylvia, pray," she said softly.  "Try to
help me say 'Thy will be done.'  I am trying to say
it.  But it is hard--so very hard."

"I can't," Sylvia's young voice flung back, hard,
almost fierce, in its hurt.  "I can only keep saying,
'Don't take him.  Don't take him.  I can't bear it.'"

But Mrs. Lorrimer shook her head and pressed
the girl's hand.

"We can bear anything, Sylvia--anything.  We
are never asked to bear too much."

"I am," cried Sylvia passionately.  "I can't bear
his dying--without knowing.  He must know."

"He will know, dear."

Sylvia took comfort from the quiet assurance.
She believed Mrs. Lorrimer meant she felt sure that
Phil was still living, would live.  She did not know
the mother meant that her son might already be
where there could be no misunderstanding, no longer
any seeing as through a glass darkly, but face to face
with infinite realities.  Alice Lorrimer was not
young like Sylvia.  She knew from sad experience
how many paths of human life lead straight to the
Garden of Gethsemane.'

Presently Sylvia spoke again.

"Mrs. Lorrimer, how do you suppose I could
have been so blind--not to know--I cared--this
way?"  Sylvia's phrases came out in quick, uneven
gasps, as if every word hurt.  "I didn't know--I
never knew until Jack told me just now--about
Phil.  I didn't know," she moaned.

"Maybe Phil was blind too, dear.  I think he was.
He put an unreal thing ahead of a real one, I am
afraid, just because he cared so much.  You needn't
look surprised, child.  Mothers know so much more
than any one ever tells them.  Of course I don't
know what happened in New York, but I have
always suspected my boy hurt you, and it was the hurt
which made you shut your eyes so tight."

"It was something like that," admitted Sylvia.
"It is so horribly easy to get all muddled and twisted
up in life."

"It is," agreed Mrs. Lorrimer.  "Sometimes it
takes a great grief to remove the bandages from our
eyes."

"I know.  When Jack told me--first everything
went black and then it was all white and shining.  I
felt as if I had never really seen clear in all my life
before, except maybe just once, last September out
in the woods at sunset.  I think Phil and I both
knew then.  Oh, Mrs. Lorrimer, why didn't he
speak?  What difference could my money possibly
make?  Money and love haven't anything to do with
each other.  They are in different kingdoms like
animal, vegetable, mineral, only there must be a
fourth kingdom--the love kingdom."  Sylvia's
eyes smiled a little, like stars through mist.

"Men do not always understand, little daughter.
Perhaps they never understand quite.  You must
not blame Philip too much."

"Blame!  Oh, I don't.  The blame was mine.  I
shouldn't have rushed like a mad thing into the fire
to save my pride.  I wasn't true to love or Phil or
myself or Jack.  Maybe I was untruest of all to
Jack.  He will never tell me, but I know I have
hurt him dreadfully.  Sometimes I think women
are the cruellest things in the world.  We don't
mean to be but we are."

"I am afraid we are sometimes."

"I didn't mean to be cruel.  I've always wanted
to be kind.  Maybe that is the trouble.  I've been
too kind.  I let myself believe I loved Jack because
it pleased me to make him happy.  And I haven't
made him happy.  That is the worst of it.  I believe
he has been miserable all along because he knew I
was giving him counterfeit gold instead of the real
thing.  It was only I who did not know, and even I
suspected, sometimes.  That was why I wanted to
keep so dreadfully busy all the time, so I wouldn't
have time to think.  Mother Lorrimer," in sudden
contrition, "you are so tired and I have chattered
and chattered until I almost feel better because I've
talked.  As if I mattered--beside you."

Mrs. Lorrimer pressed the girl's hand again.

"Nothing matters very much just now," she said,
"except God."

"But God is so far off."

"Oh, no, He isn't, Sylvia.

   |  "'Closer is He than breathing
   |  And nearer than hands and feet.'

Haven't you ever felt how near He is?"

"Yes," said Sylvia, remembering again that night
when she and Phil and the "shadowy third" had
been so close to each other that there had not been
a breath between them.  And then she fell silent,
led at last unto the forest where she had not dared
to go for many months.  And in the forest Sylvia
sought God.

It seemed an endless time before they reached the
great station in New York but at last they did
arrive.  There was no one to meet them.  It was a
very different arrival from the one Sylvia remembered
in December.  Jeanette had been there then to
greet her and Barb and Phil.  She had been
breathless, exhilarated with happiness.  She remembered
how almost intoxicated with sheer delight of living
she had felt when Phil had helped her into the
limousine and recalled also what a queer, deserted,
almost lonely feeling she had experienced, immediately
after, when she leaned out of the car to wave
good-by to Barb and Phil on the curb.

The thought of Barb brought a new current of
reflection.  For all she knew it was Barb and not
herself who had the right to be with Phil now.  How
did she know but he might have learned to care for
Barb in all those months?  Wasn't it probable,
natural, that he should have done so?  Why should she
expect him to keep on caring for her while she had
given herself to Jack?  A panic seized her.  All the
way to the hospital even Phil's desperate illness,
which she had never seemed able to sense, loomed
less important than this new specter which had
arisen.  What if Barb should be there with him?
What if they should say "Who is this young
person?  The woman he loves is there already with
him.  There is no room for another."

But when they reached the hospital no such
questions were raised.  Mrs. Lorrimer swept
everything aside with her quiet dignity.  "I am his
mother," she had said.  "And this is Miss Arden,"
quite as if the authorities knew and understood why
Miss Arden must be admitted.  Perhaps they did
understand.  The doctor who challenged them shot
a quick questioning look at Sylvia and bowed
acquiescence.  Possibly Sylvia's eyes were the password.
The doctor was used to reading human faces.  He
had admitted many another white-cheeked, tortured-eyed
young woman into the chamber of the Shadow
ere this.  He was gravely sympathetic.  He did not
expect the young man in there to live twenty-four
hours.  It would be a miracle, he thought, if he got
well.

And so the mother and the girl who loved Philip
Lorrimer sat beside him all that still night though
he did not know them.  Sylvia lived a thousand lives
and died a thousand deaths before the gray dawn
came to the quiet room.  And who knows what new
agonies the mother who bore the lad suffered during
those long silent hours?  To Sylvia at least, there
was something beautiful even in the unspeakable
anguish of it all.  Even in death Phil would be hers
and she his.  Love had crowned her as it had
crowned Gus.  She no longer envied the young
musician his Grail ecstasy.  She, too, had been
anointed.

Sylvia never knew whether she consciously prayed
that night.  It was rather that she talked with God
and He in His beneficence let her share some of His
eternal secrets.

And underneath it all she was crying out to Phil,
"Don't die.  Don't die.  Don't die.  I love you.
I love you.  Come back.  Come back."  And she
did not seem to be saying it to the inert form on the
high, narrow bed.  That was not Phil at all.  Phil
was all strength and energy and vitality.  That was
a mere husk of something--what, she did not care.
It had nothing to do with Phil or with herself.  She
was sending out her cry, not from her body to his,
but from her spirit to his, wherever the latter was
faring.  She knew that wherever he was he would
hear and almost she knew he would come back.

The strange part of it was he did come back, as if
Sylvia's voice had arrested him and brought him
back from those far fields to which he had been
journeying.  Perhaps not so strange, after all.  The
wisest men of all the ages have not been able to mark
the metes and bounds of the power of love.  At any
rate, whether Sylvia's call had anything to do with
it or not, Phil Lorrimer came back.  The miracle
was achieved.

It was early morning when Phil opened his eyes,
blue as ever, though dark-circled and heavy, and the
first thing he saw was Sylvia, who had just turned
from the window where she had been watching the
dawn come up over the city with strange unearthly
light and shadow.  Something of the same light was
on Phil's face as he recognized Sylvia.  With one
swift light step she was beside him, her face bent
over his, her heart in her eyes.

"Sylvia."  The voice was faint as if the speaker
had come back from other worlds, but distinct,
wondering, happy.

"Phil!"  And as he felt Sylvia's kiss on his
cheek, Phil closed his eyes again as if there were now
no other bliss to attain in this world or the next.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AFTERMATH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   AFTERMATH

.. vspace:: 2

Three weeks later and April had surprised even
the city and taken it by storm.  Buds were beginning
to burst in the trees in the park, hyacinths
rainbowed here and there, the fountains were released
from their winter bondage.  The river took on a
bluer hue to match the sky, or was it at the hint of
the bird who arrived just before Easter giving
advance notice of the latest colors in Nature's fashion
house, bearing samples on his own back?

In Miss Josephine Murray's little apartment
Suzanne and Barb and Sylvia were assembled, one blue
and gold afternoon, with tongues flying fast as of
old.

"When is Phil going to be able to be moved?"
Suzanne was demanding of Sylvia.  "And where
is he going to move to?"

"Next week, we hope.  And he is coming to
Arden Hall."

"Bless us! how modern!" teased Suzanne.

Sylvia flushed and shook her head.

"It isn't so specially modern.  It is just natural.
The doctors say he has to get out of the city.  His
mother thinks she has to get back to the girls, and
she also thinks there is no doctor in the world equal
to Doctor Tom and wants him to set his eye on Phil.
Of course, he can't go to 'Hester house.'  That
would be too absurd and he'd hate it anyway--with
all those sympathetic females in attendance.  There
is always plenty of room at the Hall, and it is lovely
there in April.  So he's coming," she concluded.

"Reasons as plenty as blackberries," jeered
Suzanne.  "Perfectly well explained.  What do you
happen to be doing with your fiancé in the meantime?"

Sylvia looked up at that, meeting Suzanne's eyes
squarely.

"I haven't any," she announced quietly.  "Jack
has known for three weeks I wasn't going to marry
him.  In fact, he suggested it himself."

"More and more modern," approved Suzanne.
"It is indeed well to be off with the old love before
you are on with the new.  When are you going to
announce your next engagement?"

"Maybe never," said Sylvia so soberly that Suzanne
relented and obligingly turned the fire on herself.

"Speaking of being off with the old love, it seems
to be the one thing I can't manage.  Roger and I
have decided we miss quarreling so much when we
are separated that it's simpler and more agreeable to
get married and quarrel in peace."

At which last Suzannesque paradox Sylvia and
Barb laughed and proffered congratulations.

"Better offer Roger condolences instead," advised
Suzanne.  "I shall lead him a life."

"Is he coming to New York to live?" inquired
Barb, remembering her friend's urban preferences.

"He is not.  He is having far too much fun
stirring things up in Norton, Pa.  We are going in
for politics.  I think I shall let him run for mayor.
There will be a lovely row, for all the crocks are
afraid of him now, and it isn't a circumstance to
what they'll be if they suspect he wants to raise that
particular tempest in their cozy, grafty
teapot."  Suzanne chuckled, scenting battle afar off.  A
"scrap" was as the elixir of life to her.  "I don't
want to live in New York, anyway," she continued.
"I couldn't bear to be very far off from mother, and
it's much more distinguished to draw my royalties
and breath on some sacred Parnassian Hill in Norton,
Pa.  Likewise it is less expensive.  I shall come
up often, however, if only to see that they do not
murder my precious play.  Vengeance is mine
if they touch one hair--that is, one line--of
its blessed substance.  Remember my prophecy,
sweet friends?  I-did-write-a-play."  And, lacking
a cushion, Suzanne thumped the tea table with her
fist until the cups rattled ominously.

"You did," agreed Sylvia.  "And here is Barbie
here, an ornament to the Cause.  Wait until you
see her marching in the parade next fall!  Wait till
you know what she did to the legislators when she
bearded them at Albany!  She is so modest she will
hide her light under a bushel, but I'm all the time
hearing things about her.  Phil says she's a
wonderful speechifier.  To the victor--in her own
colors!"  And Sylvia dropped the yellow jonquils she
was wearing in her friend's lap and bent over her to
press a butterfly kiss on her forehead.

Sylvia and Barb had come very close to each other
during the latter's recent stay in the city.  Phil
Lorrimer's accident had been a fiery ordeal for Barbara
as well as Sylvia, and Sylvia, guessing this, felt very
tender toward the other girl.  Never once did they
reach the point of putting things into words.  But
words were not essential to mutual understanding.
Barb and Sylvia knew all there was to know, each
about the other, without communication on the
subject and their love was the stronger for knowing.
Perhaps the closest Barbara ever came to a
confession was when she said to Sylvia once that she
didn't believe there was a single woman who was a
really inspired worker in the Cause who hadn't a
hurt of her own somewhere underneath to make her
pitiful of scars other women carried.  "I guess
maybe they are even thankful for their hurts when
they have healed a little," she had added with
Barb-like naïveté.  "It makes them understand so much
more.  You've got to understand to care."

And Sylvia had understood and cared so much for
Barbara's hurt that she would not offer her the last
spear thrust--the word of spoken compassion.
And, after all, Sylvia could hardly help seeing that
Barb scarcely needed compassion.  She, too, had
her Grail fire to follow and it took her to high places.

"Oh, Barb is some little wonder!" Suzanne had
agreed.  "Isn't it funny how much we've all been
through since September and yet we aren't any of us
so cock-sure about things as we were then?  I was
the worst--the most Sophomoric of the three--and
maybe I've come the worst croppers just because
I had to have the cock-sureness forcibly if not
painlessly extracted.  Anyway, I don't want to go back
and be the Suzanne of September, nineteen hundred
and fourteen again.  What about the rest of you?
Would you like old Time to turn back in his flight?"

"No," said Sylvia and Barb in emphatic chorus.
Then they all laughed and grew sober.

"It is a vote," declared Suzanne.

When Sylvia got back to her hotel she found a
message from Jeanette Latham inviting her to dinner.
A little reluctantly she telephoned acceptance.
She was not very anxious to see Jeanette, not only
because she had rather distasteful memories of her
recent visit but because she dreaded meeting any of
Jack's people just now.  It seemed to her they must
dislike and despise her for her treatment of Jack.
Not that she blamed them for that.  No one could
judge her more harshly than she judged herself on
that score.

Arrived at the great house on the drive, Sylvia
was informed that Mrs. Latham was in her own
room and begged that Miss Arden would come up.
The two kissed and then drew back each surveying
the other woman fashion, out of the tail of her eye.

Jeanette was a little pale, Sylvia thought, but
somehow prettier than she had been in December,
her rich brunette glow softened and subdued a little.
She was wearing an exquisite rose-colored robe
above which her lovely full throat gleamed white and
her eyes looked darker and more brilliant than ever.

"Sylvia, it is good to see you," she murmured.
"Take off your wraps.  We are going to have
dinner up here if you don't mind.  Francis is dining
out.  We can have a cozy gossip all to ourselves."

As the dainty little dinner was being served the
two talked about everything in general and nothing
in particular, taking pains to avoid anything that
could possibly interest either.  It was only after
the meal was cleared away and the maid banished
that they came to the really important things.

"Sylvia, I know you think I am going to be
disagreeable about Jack.  I'm not.  I'm glad.  No,
don't speak yet.  I want to tell you why I am glad.
I knew you didn't care for Jack, at least not enough.
You sort of half way cared just as I did for Francis.
You thought it would be suitable and agreeable and
easy and please everybody all round especially Jack.
And you thought that the rest would come in time,
didn't you?"

Sylvia nodded in shamed silence.

"On the whole, your reasons for getting engaged
were quite as creditable as mine for getting engaged
to Francis, certainly more so than Isabel's for
getting engaged to her miserable count.  But, even so,
they weren't good enough.  There is only one
reason for getting engaged to a man, anyway, only one
for marrying him, and that is just plain old-fashioned
love.  I found that out in a very expensive
course of lessons.  You didn't love Jack.  I knew it
that night.  I had just sent Charlton away and I
knew the real thing--what it was.  I care more
for Jack than almost anybody in the world and I
didn't want him to be unhappy any more than you
did, but he is going to be more unhappy now than if
you had said no last December."

Sylvia winced at that.

"I know it, Jeanette.  I am as sorry about that
as you can possibly be."

"I know.  I didn't mean to reproach you.  I just
wanted to tell you I know it was better this way,
hard as it is for Jack.  He'll get over it now.  At
least, I hope he will, but if you had married him he
wouldn't have gotten over it.  He would have been
like Francis.  Francis knows I don't care.  At least
he knows I didn't use to care.  It has hurt him pretty
badly sometimes, I'm afraid.  Maybe now he'll
understand.  I'm not so bad as I might have been.
I--Sylvia, do you know why I sent Charlton away?"

Sylvia shook her head.

"I had just found out--something--about
myself.  I am not much good but I couldn't go on with
that kind of thing when I knew--  Sylvia, please
understand.  It is harder to say than I thought."

And suddenly Sylvia did understand, and came
and put her arms around the other woman with real
joy and affection.

"If it will only be a boy," sighed Jeanette.  "It
is dreadful to be a woman in this world, and Dad
would like it so, and so would Francis."

When she returned to the hotel again there was a
letter from Jack waiting for Sylvia, the second only
since she had come to New York.  The first had
been in response to her telegram announcing that
Phil was surely out of danger.  It had been a very
brief letter, expressing his relief and pleasure at the
good news of Phil's recovery.  "And Sylvia,
Belovedest," it had added, "don't forget I meant just
what I said that day.  Don't bother about me.
I don't count.  Nothing counts except your being
happy.  I believe I have always known it was Phil
you really cared for.  Anyway, I know it now.
You have always been an angel of goodness to me
and I am grateful.  It has been just Jack and Jill
going up the hill.  Jack fell down and broke his
crown all right, but there is no reason in the world
why Jill should come tumbling after.  And in order
to prevent such a disaster the best thing Jack can
say is good-by."

Sylvia had written back a long, affectionate and
remorseful letter blaming herself wholly and severely
and accepting his proffered release from their
engagement.  She had not heard from him again until
now.  Consequently she tore open the letter with
some trepidation.

.. vspace:: 2

"Dear Sylvia,"--So it ran--

"I am sailing to-morrow to join the American
Ambulance Field Service in France.  It isn't a new
notion.  It has been in the back of my brain a long
time.  I should have gone in December if you had
refused me then.  I am not much good at anything
but driving a car.  I stuck to the business because
you wanted me to but my heart wasn't in it.  Dad
understands, and is perfectly willing I should go.
Don't misunderstand me, please, sweetheart.  I am
not doing this for gallery play or to work on your
feelings.  And I'm not going to talk any tommyrot
about my life being spoiled and wanting to
throw it away.  I don't want to throw it away.  I
want to find it if I can over there.  It seems to me
France ought to drive whip and spur into any chap
and make a man of him.  Anyway, I'm going to
have a try at it.  Of course there is a little
danger--not much.  You must not worry.  Danger
agrees with me, and I'm a lucky chap in everything
but love.  Best wishes to old Phil.  Remember that
means in *everything*.

"I would have come to say good-by in person,
but it took a little more nerve than I have just now.
It was easier for both of us for me to make a quiet
getaway.  Wish me luck, Sylvia.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   "Yours, as always,
       "JACK."

.. vspace:: 2

Sylvia read the letter, dazed, troubled but by no
means surprised.  It was like Jack to do the gallant,
generous, splendid, impulsive thing.  As she
finished she made a rapid calculation.  "I sail
to-morrow."  That must mean to-day.  He was already
gone.  Somewhere out beyond the harbor his ship
was plowing its way toward France.  The tears
came into her eyes.  Jack was very dear to her.
Why, oh why had she driven him to this unnecessary
danger, this fearful carnage field overseas?
And yet was he not right?  Would he not find
something worth the risk in the stern realities of that
glorious and tragic country he went to aid?  That
he had not gone into it lightly she saw.  He had
counted the possible cost as any man who was not a
fool must count it.  But he had not gone in bravado
or in bitterness.  He had taken pains to show her
that.  He had gone simply, in quiet earnest to prove
himself, not to throw away his life recklessly but to
find it as he said.  Dear Jack!  No wonder Sylvia's
eyes were wet as she folded his letter and put it back
in its envelope.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HIGH TIDE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   HIGH TIDE

.. vspace:: 2

For weeks after his injury Phil Lorrimer had
been too sick to care very much about anything
except the agreeable fact that his mother and Sylvia
hovered over him like seraphim as he assured them
later.  It had mattered very little to him where he
was nor how he got there so long as Sylvia was
there too.  It might be Heaven for all he knew.
For a while it had seemed quite probable it was
Heaven, for he remembered quite distinctly that
Sylvia had kissed him and she had never done that
on earth he was quite certain.

But presently his mind had cleared and things had
been explained.  He heard how he had been hurt
and how his mother had come at once.  Neither of
these things seemed hard to grasp.  But why was
Sylvia here?  Sylvia was engaged to Jack.  Why
was she here spending long hours by his bedside?
Sylvia was always kind.  It must have been sheer
kindness that brought her he concluded.  But
somehow there appeared to be more than kindness in
Sylvia's eyes, though after that heavenly dream she
had not kissed him again.

It was not until he was almost able to travel that
Sylvia told him that she and Jack were no longer
engaged, that they had decided it had all been a
mistake and that Jack had gone to France.  Phil
took the news in silence and sobriety.  He had very
little to say on that subject or any other for the
rest of the day.  And Sylvia, suddenly self-conscious,
had kept away from the hospital on the next
day.  But on the next, the day before the cavalcade
was to start for Greendale, she came.  Phil was
sitting by the window looking somewhat like his old
self though gaunt and lean as a wintered wolf.

"You weren't here yesterday," he accused sternly.

"No.  What a spoiled invalid you are getting to
be!  You don't expect to see me every day, do you?
Those carnations need fresh water.  I'll get
some."  Sylvia turned, flowers in hand, but Phil had waxed
suddenly, unexpectedly imperious.

"Put 'em down," he ordered so stentoriously that
Sylvia obeyed without really intending to.

"Come here," he still further ordered.  Sylvia did
not come nearer but she did stand perfectly still
looking at him.

"I missed you like the devil yesterday," he observed.

"You flatter me," said Sylvia.

He ignored her irony.

"I say, are you really not engaged any more?"

Sylvia admitted that she really was not.

"Why did you end it?"

"I told you.  We decided that it was a mistake."

"When?"

"A few weeks ago."

"Precisely when?"

"The night I knew you were hurt."  Sylvia
faced him steadily now.  If he wanted facts he
should have them.

"Was that why you broke it off?"

"I didn't break it off.  Jack did."

"You mean he didn't like your coming here to me?"

"No.  It wasn't that.  He just knew--well, he
knew I couldn't marry him.  Jack is a dear.  He
always sees things without being told."

"And I don't see things until they are rammed
into my darn fool eyes.  Is that it?"

Sylvia acknowledged that that seemed to be a
fair statement of the case.

"You tried to show me a thing or two last winter?"

"Yes."

"And when I wouldn't look, you cut me good
and proper as I deserved and got engaged to Jack?"

Sylvia nodded.

"Sylvia!"

"Well?"

"Barb opened my eyes as to what an idiot I'd
been about the money business.  She did it one
night, too late though.  I rushed out to see you the
next day, first minute I had, and Jeanette told me
you were engaged to Jack and had gone home.
That cooked my goose, all right."

"Well, the silly fowl ought to have been
cooked."  There was a faint twinkle in Sylvia's eyes.

"Granted," agreed Phil heartily.  "See here,
Sylvia, I've a whole lot of things to say to you but a
man in a bath robe doesn't cut a very impressive
figure saying the things I've got to say and--"

"Don't say them then.  I insist on being impressed.
Besides, it is time you went back to bed.
I'm going, anyway."

"Sylvia!"

Sylvia paused in the doorway.

"Did you kiss me that night or did I dream it?"

"The idea!"  But Sylvia's cheeks were less ambiguous
in their answer than her lips as she fled into
the corridor.

"Bless her!" grunted Phil.  "Just wait until I
get on my feet.  I wouldn't care if she were Miss
Midas herself, I'd run off with her.  I wish she'd
kiss me again."

But it was May now and Sylvia had not kissed
him again.  Though she took very good care of her
guest that particular attention did not seem to be
included in the list.  Up to this time, too, Phil had
not been sufficiently "on his feet" either to run off
with his hostess or even to have the presumption to
ask her to marry him.

May in Maryland!  Is there anything lovelier
the world over?  Roses in the gardens, wistaria
dripping purple trails from the balconies, waxen,
fragrant magnolia bloom!  Red bud and dogwood
on the hills!  Green fire everywhere!

In Sylvia's garden Phil Lorrimer lay stretched at
ease in a canopied hammock watching a pair of red
birds carry on a lively courtship in the magnolia
tree.  He was getting on famously it was declared.
Certainly he felt too much energy to be willing to
stay recumbent much longer.  He was beginning to
be restless.  It was a wonder he had not begun
before.  It was not so long ago that if any one had
told him he would stay contentedly for nearly two
months away from his beloved clinic he would have
thought them mad and no doubt told them so.  But
sickness is a powerful leveller and Phil had other
things on his mind beside medicine and surgery
these May days.

"Enter egg nogg," announced Sylvia suddenly
arriving, Hebe like, with a tray and a tall glass of
foaming yellow deliciousness.

Phil sat up.

"Gee!  What business has a great hulking idiot
like me to loaf around and let an angel like you
wait on him hand and foot?"

"Angels aren't conspicuous for their hands and
feet.  They are all wings like that mosquito there.
Don't let him bite.  He'll disfigure your beauty.
And don't stop to concoct highfaluting speeches.
Your business is to drink."

"All right I will, if you'll sit down too."  He
patted the hammock beside him and Sylvia accepted
the invitation.

When he had disposed of the egg nogg he set the
empty glass on the tray on the grass where Sylvia
had deposited it.  Then he turned to look at his
companion.  Sylvia was well worth looking at these
days.  Her old rose bloom and "moonshininess"
were back again.  She had returned close to the
"jubilant springs" from which she had journeyed
afar during the troublous winter past, though
perhaps the little girl Sylvia had disappeared forever in
the course of her devious wayfaring.  At any rate,
the new womanliness was very becoming.

"Is this a good time to propose?" demanded Phil
so suddenly that Sylvia blushed like a schoolgirl
and drooped her head, but her lips twitched roguishly
as she averred that it was as good a time as any.

"Very well.  Remember I'm scared to death.  I
never proposed to a girl before in my life and I'm
never going to do it again.  One, two, three!
Sylvia, will you marry me?"

Sylvia lifted her head then and her eyes met
Phil's straight and brave with the fine surrender of
a proud woman.

"Yes," she said quietly.

"Thank the Lord!"  Phil mopped his perspiring
brow.  "If you don't mind kissing me again I'd feel
a little more as if it were real.  I've lived a
dreadfully long time on that heavenly kiss.  I'd like an
earth one, please."

An hour later they were still in the hammock as
blissful and mutually self-absorbed as the redbirds.

"Sylvia, do you realize that I haven't any money,
thanks to this heavenly-infernal smash up of mine,
that even my job is knocked galley westward by all
this business?  If I weren't too jolly happy to think
at all I should think I was an idiot and an ass if
nothing worse to ask a girl to marry me under the
circumstances."

"Don't think," said Sylvia.  "What is the use?
You will get caught up quick enough when you are
well again.  Don't talk about money.  It leaves a
bad taste in your mouth."

"All right, I won't.  But, Sylvia, there is another
thing."  Phil's eyes strayed over the beautiful
May sweet garden, on to the great red brick house
whose open doors suggested hospitality and affluence
and home happiness on a bountiful scale.  "Have
you thought you will have to give this up and come
and live in a little airtight compartment in New
York?"

For a moment Sylvia was startled out of her new
content.  Her eyes, too, followed Phil's.  Never
had Arden Hall seemed so dear, so infinitely
desirable as now in the ripe hour of her happiness.
Somehow she had never thought of that particular
complication though it was obvious enough.  To
lose the Hall now that she had just come into the
very heart of it, or to have it again for brief
holidays only, snatched "on the wing" as she had said
once before!  A redbird flashed like a flame before
her in the sunshine.  The redbirds would soon be
nesting.  Mechanically the thought crossed her
mind.  Nesting!  That was it.  She, too, would be
nesting in the heart of the man she loved.  She
looked back to Phil who was watching her with
troubled eyes.

"I shan't care, if I have you," she said.

And it was true, would always be true for Sylvia
Arden.  She had been like the empty marshes,
waiting for the tide to come in.  The tide had come,
full flood, sweeping every inlet and lagoon.  There
were no vacant places in her whole being.  Love
filled it all.  Nothing mattered any more except this
big, strange, beautiful, engulfing thing which had
come to her and taken possession.  Felicia's prophecy
had come true.  Sylvia had found the real thing
at last, and knew the difference between it and the
specious substitute with which she had striven to be
content.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WARP AND WOOF`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXV


.. class:: center medium bold

   WARP AND WOOF

.. vspace:: 2

Early in June, Sylvia and her little circle were
shocked and saddened by the sudden death of
Angus McIntosh.  He had gone to the office as usual
but had come in early in the afternoon, and in the
dusk Gus had found him sitting in the big chair
beneath his mother's picture looking as serene as if he
had just fallen asleep.  It seemed there had been for
quite a while past the probability that the very thing
which had happened would happen.  This Gus had
known and had been in a measure prepared, though
we are never fully armed against such loss.  When
our dear ones leave us there is always a sad surprise
about it.  We can never quite believe they can really
go, however we think our minds are fortified.

Silent in his grief as in his love, Gus went quietly
about the grave duties which his foster-father's
death imposed upon him, but no one could have seen
the lad and not known he was suffering acutely.  To
Sylvia alone he seemed able to voice the grief that
possessed him and to her he turned with natural
impulse to seek solace from one who knew what the
dead man had meant to the lonely boy.  Sylvia
gave him all the comfort and friending she could
in his hour of need.  She felt very pitiful for him
not only because of this sorrow but because she
knew he had another scarcely healed hurt, though
this new grief had driven it into the background.

When the old man's will was read many were
surprised to learn that aside from some bequests to
servants and old friends and a small annuity to "my
beloved son, Augustus Nichols," the bulk of Angus
McIntosh's hard earned and considerable property
was left to Thomas Daly in trusteeship to found a
hospital for Greendale.  When people tried to
commiserate Gus on his rather meager sharings he had
rejected their condolences.  It appeared he had for
some time known of the disposition Angus McIntosh
had made of his estate.  It had, indeed, been by the
lad's own wish that he was not burdened by the
management and responsibility of a great property.

"What would I want with all that money?" he
asked Sylvia.  "I should have hated it.  I don't
want money.  I've never wanted it.  I've had more
than my share already in my musical training.
Thanks to his generosity, my violin will bring me all
the income I can stand.  I couldn't tend to a big
property and keep on playing.  I've got to play.  It
is all I'm fit for.  He understood.  We talked it
over so often.  And he didn't want to fritter away
his money in little driblets in small charities.  He
wanted to leave it in a lump sum where it would
really do some good.  The hospital seemed to be the
best.  His mother died because she didn't have
proper medical care.  It always hurt him to think
about it.  He wants a room named after her.  Oh,
he knew exactly what he was doing.  I wish people
would stop sympathizing with me.  I don't want
their sympathy."

So surprisingly it came about that Tom Daly's
castle in the air suddenly appeared convertible to
brick and mortar.  And the beauty of having it so
minutely and perfectly planned in advance was that
there need not be the slightest delay in getting the
substance of things hoped for under way.  Thanks
to Doctor Tom's unflagging effort other bequests to
the hospital were already forthcoming, including
Lois Daly's gift of love, but the big unhampered
lump sum provided by Angus McIntosh's will made
it possible to carry out the doctor's dreams on a
scale which he had hardly dared hope to
contemplate hitherto.

One day Phil Lorrimer, up in New York, had a
letter from Tom Daly.  The latter had for some
time been considering the advisability, even the
necessity, of taking to himself a professional partner.
His hands had been already full before the hospital
project had matured.  Now they were overflowing.
All of which was preliminary to asking the younger
man if he would consider moving to Greendale to
become Tom Daly's associate.

Phil's breath came hard as he read.  It was of all
things the one he would have liked best if he had
chosen.  Tom Daly had long been a boyish idol of
his, and since the boy had attained his own manhood
he had seen even more clearly the bigness of the
other man's vision, the scope of the service he was
rendering Greendale.  Nothing could have pleased
or flattered the young doctor more than that Tom
Daly should consider him worthy of the proffered post.

Moreover, Phil's sickness had taken heavy toll
even of his abundant young vitality.  It would be
a year at least before he would be perfectly strong
again, and he had been warned since he had been
back that it was extremely doubtful whether he
would be able to stand the city work and city life.
Here was his release in dignified, desirable form.

There were other considerations, too.  It was no
small inducement that he could be near his mother
in Greendale.  He had realized more than ever of
late how hard it was for her to have her loved ones
so scattered.  His father was in China, his sister in
Constantinople, he himself might just as well be at
the uttermost parts of the earth for all she saw of
him under normal conditions.  And his going to
Greendale would put an end to that source of regret
and anxiety.

But, chief of all naturally, was the knowledge that
the arrangement would bring joy to Sylvia.  In
spite of her sincere willingness to go anywhere with
him he knew it was hard for her to leave the
beloved home of her heart.  And now there would be
no need of such a sacrifice.  The cottage and the
Hall were but a stone throw apart, an admirable
proximity so far as the professional partnership was
concerned.

So Phil wired, "Accept gladly, if Sylvia approves,"
and had hardly sent the message before an
enthusiastic letter arrived from Sylvia imploring
him to say yes to Doctor Tom's proposition if it were
not in any way contrary to his wishes and ambitions.

"Of course it is just too heavenly to think of our
living at Arden Hall," she had written, "but, Phil,
don't let any thought of me influence your decision.
Whatever you want, I want.  You know I'd be
happy going to sea in a sieve with you if you elected
to be a sieve pilot.  But, oh Phil, I can't help hoping
you will want to come to Greendale."

All of which made Sylvia's approval fairly evident.

Soon after this Phil went to call on the Huntleys,
who had been kindness itself to him and to his
mother during the latter's stay in the city.  The
doctor was not at home but Mrs. Huntley was delighted
to see him and hovered over him with tea and
sandwiches and cakes as a fond female bird hovers over
its offspring with juicy worms.

When Phil came to revealing his future plans he
did so a little warily remembering how he had
refused Justin Huntley's generous offer.  But
Mrs. Huntley seemed genuinely pleased.

"How lovely for you!  Now you can marry that
sweet girl and everything will be quite all right,
will it not?"

Phil explained that everything would have been
quite all right in any case since the "sweet girl" had
been willing to come to him if he had not been able
to come to her.

"Quite as it should be," Mrs. Huntley had
declared approvingly.  "But I am glad it has come
out as it has just the same.  Do you know, Philip,
I've always been a little glad you didn't take Justin's
offer, dearly as I should have loved to have you
with us."

Phil hesitated to speak, not being quite certain of
his hostess' course of reasoning.  But she soon
enlightened him.

"It isn't the kind of work for a young man," she
went on.  "It is too disillusioning.  Don't you
think so?  It might have made you a little--just
a little--cynical, you know.  Mightn't it?  It is
hard to keep your faith in human nature when you
have a practice like Justin's."  She paused a
moment then continued with unusual affirmatives.
"Justin was a country practitioner in a little town
once.  He took his father's place.  Wonderful old
man--Justin's father!  As much of a priest as a
doctor Justin used to say.  He lived among kind,
simple, hard-working people and they loved him
like a father.  You should have seen them flocking
in from the farms and mountains to his funeral.
There was a kind of personal relation you don't get
in cities."

"No," agreed Phil.  "Anyway, you don't get it
in Dr. Huntley's kind of practice.  I get some few
chunks of personality at the clinic."

"Sometimes I've wished Justin had stayed in the
country and followed his father's steps.  But I
suppose it had to be this way.  Justin wasn't satisfied
until he had worked his way to the top, though
sometimes one wonders what the top really is," she sighed.
"But, anyway, I am glad your father's son is going
to have a different outlook.  Justin will be glad, too.
He liked your refusal, though it disappointed him.
He understood."

"He has been very good to me, and you, too,"
said Phil, warmly.  "I hope you don't think I don't
appreciate his kindness and was ungrateful.  It was
a big thing to offer a young man.  But I couldn't
take it.  I had to hold tight for my kind of a
job.  And, thanks to luck and Doctor Daly, I have it."

Watching the fine, earnest, young face, with its
clear, honest, blue eyes, and that firm, strong chin,
Mrs. Huntley thought Phil Lorrimer owed his
opportunity chiefly to his own intrinsic worth, clear
head, and fine ideals, which was true.  But perhaps
almost more was he beholden to a big-souled
missionary out in China who had set him a standard of
manhood to follow and a gentle, low-voiced woman
who lived at the foot of Sylvia's Hill and had a gift
for mothering.

July brought Stephen Kinnard back to Greendale
after much wandering, from Alaska to Mexico, from
Mexico to Quebec, and finally to Maryland.  He had
written charming desultory letters from time to time
to Felicia and had been especially rejoiced over her
having won the competition as he had prophesied.
But never in any of the letters had he pressed again
the question he had asked in September.  Among
other arts Stephen Kinnard possessed the art of long
patience and the power of biding his time.

Occasionally jolly, friendly, brotherly epistles had
come for Hope, too.  At first Hope had blushed
delightfully over them and read and reread them until
she fairly knew them by heart.  But as the letters
came less frequently she gradually ceased to watch
for them.  Youth needs something more substantial
than a chimera to feed upon.  Moreover, in
June, a young architect had come to Greendale to
build Doctor Tom's hospital, a rather clever young
man with some Beaux Arts letters after his name
and a good eye for a pretty girl.  Passing up the
Hill and down it as he did frequently in his
interviews with the Doctor, he had occasion to go by the
Oriole Inn and it took him remarkably little time to
discover that it was agreeable to drop in afternoons
for a cup of tea in the quaint dining-room or out
under the trees which the orioles still haunted.
Perhaps not the least of the charms of the place was
the presence of the fair-haired, slender lily of a girl
who hovered about with a pleasing anxiety that he
be well served and often took the task of ministration
upon herself in her zeal.

Out of the corner of her eye Martha watched this
too, even as she had watched Hope and Stephen the
previous summer.  It had for some time been
evident to Martha's astute vision that so long as Hope
remained unclaimed there would always be honey
seekers about her sweet rose.  Much as she dreaded
to have Hope marry she thought she would prefer
the sad certainty of such a contingency to the
eternal worrying lest Hope be somehow hurt and her
white flower-likeness be made to droop in the dust.
The young architect apparently meant business.  By
July he was spending most of his free hours in
Hope's society.  Martha had almost settled down to
acquiesce in the idea of Hope's surrender when she
heard that Stephen Kinnard was back in Greendale,
news which brought the anxious pucker back to her forehead.

But she need not have worried.  Hope was
pleased to see Stephen as a younger sister might have
been glad to welcome back a long absent brother.
She had all but forgotten she had ever had any
dreams about him.  The real love which was daily
more engrossing made the pale little phantom love
so insignificant as to be scarcely a thing to be
recalled.  It had been love and not the lover that Hope
had hungered for from the first.

As for Stephen himself, Hope had never dwelt
except upon the outer margins of his consciousness.
He had admired her as the artist in him always paid
tribute to beauty wherever he found it.  He had a
fatal gift of kindness always and gave careless
largess easily to lovely women whenever they had the
luck to cross his path.  That Hope had invested him,
even temporarily, with the glamour of her sweet, shy,
little dreams he had no manner of idea.  He had,
from the beginning, paid homage to a higher court.

Shrewdly perceiving that the chief obstacle to his
suit was Sylvia, Stephen did not blunder into a
premature insistence.  Sylvia's wedding was set for
early September.  He could afford to wait a little,
though he took pains to make himself very useful
and desirable in little ways to the household on the
Hill while he waited.

During the summer Sylvia had a few brief letters
from Jack.  He was well, intensely thrilled by the
experience he was undergoing, rejoicing endlessly,
apparently, in his luck at having at last found a
genuine task which he could pursue with all the zest
of play.  Physical courage had always been an
inherent characteristic with him.  Danger agreed with
him as he had said to Sylvia.  In deeds of daring
he had always delighted, simply, with no fuss about
it.  Jack was never spectacular.  It was merely
that being a good gambler he liked hazards.  This
game of life and death made an excellent substitute
for the game of love in which he had gallantly lost.
In fact it seemed he found even greater satisfaction
in it.  At any rate, he was in it, as he had been in
love, with all his might and main and with all his
heart.

Sylvia's engagement, expected as it had been, had
appeared to disturb little less than the surface of
his exultant, new found joy of service.  Perhaps
the larger issues swallowed up his private grief
even as they had swallowed Hilda Jensen's.
Certainly he had little time for thought or brooding.
Life crowded thick around him.  He was in the
same unit with John Armstrong and that in itself
was a satisfaction, for the two had long been
staunch friends.  Hilda, also, he saw occasionally as
she was working in the hospital at Neuilly, not far
from the front.

It was Hilda who wrote in August that Jack had
been wounded and was in the hospital in her care.
The injury, though painful, was not serious and
Jack made light of it as well he might, for he had
been "cité" for "distinguished service under fire"
and won the Croix de Guerre.

"The men all say he has a charmed life," wrote
Hilda.  "The Poilus are quite superstitious about
him.  He goes anywhere, everywhere with his car,
in the most unheard of, impossible places with the
utmost disregard of it and himself.  John says he
never saw anything like him.  He keeps them all,
French and American alike, in an uproar of mirth,
too.  Even in the hospital it is the same.  He tells
his funniest stories and makes his absurdest jokes
and has everybody in a good humor without trying.
He is the sunniest fellow I ever knew.  You can't
down him.  You needn't worry about him as far
as you are concerned, Sylvia.  I don't mean he
doesn't care.  He does care tremendously.  He
deserves the Croix de Guerre, in love, too.  He has
been under fire.  You can see that.  But what I
mean is, he is so thoroughly wholesome and
happy-hearted he will come out all right.  He can't help
it.  John says it is making a man of him over here,
and I believe it is true, though I think you started
that process.

"But, oh, Sylvia, it is dreadful!  If ever it ends
I shall fly back to safe, peaceful, happy America
and try to forget all the agonies I've seen and lived
over here.  We all hope America will manage to
keep out of war, but it seems as if she could not
long do so with safety and honor.  It is hard to
forget the *Lusitania*, and for us it is almost harder
to forget Belgium.  Americans at home will never
fully understand Belgium.  For us it has been
stamped with red hot irons upon our minds and
memories.  We cannot forget."

As Sylvia eagerly read this letter she couldn't
help hoping that somehow or other this terrible
experience Hilda and Jack were going through
together might, in time, bring them still nearer.
Women are incorrigible matchmakers where their
old lovers are concerned, and Jack and Hilda had
long been good friends.  They were both too
essentially sane and too young to let their lives be
wrecked by the hapless experiences with which they
had started out.  If only they might find consolation
and happiness in each other Sylvia thought she
would have nothing left to wish for.

And so summer days came and went, with their
joys and their sorrows, their dreams and their
despairs, their losses and their gains, woven all into
the common web of life.  And finally again came
September.





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.. _`THE END AND THE BEGINNING`:

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   CHAPTER XXVI


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   THE END AND THE BEGINNING

.. vspace:: 2

Cloudless September afternoon!  The same
blue space of sky beyond the shining-leaved
magnolia; the same pink and white riot of cosmos; the
same dial dedicating itself to none but sunny hours!
And again Barb and Suzanne and Sylvia on the
porch at Arden Hall.  Externally everything was
much as it had been a twelve month ago.  But the
year had brought its changes and left its traces as
years will.  As the shell's growth is marked by its
increasing number of circles so spiritual development
stamps its impress upon human faces and even
more on human souls.  Barb and Suzanne and
Sylvia were less unchanged than the outer world.  All
three had grown in the grace of wisdom, each
according to her way and measure.

Barb was still quiet and humble of heart, but the
year had given her the poise which comes from
increasing self dependence and even more from
depths and widths of experience.  Barbara was
learning to base life broad on the roots of things and
faced the world serenely content if a little gravely,
going the "softlier all her days for the dream's
sake" as so many women do.

Suzanne was, on the surface, the least changed.
She still flashed out conversational audacities and
delighted in "taking a shot at the idols" as she
put it.  But underneath the jewel-like hardness and
brilliance of the exterior there was a difference.
Her theories of life were not so polished and
compact and perfected.  She had undergone more than
one seismic upheaval of emotion during the year
and her "cock-sureness" was shattered if not
annihilated.  But the greatest difference lay in her
deepened power of human sympathy and understanding.
The success of "Melissa on the Road"
had not been mere accident but a logical outgrowth
of its author's surer insight into life, and the play
was an even more certain indication that Suzanne
in finding herself had found something universal at
the same time.

As for Sylvia--but let Sylvia speak for herself.
Suzanne, lolling as before in Sylvia's hammock,
again pronounced judgment.

"I never knew a person for whom the whole
universe seemed to be working the way it does for
you, Sylvia Arden.  Now, if I had wanted to live
in a certain place Roger would have been called to
Kamchatka or Kalamazoo or some other God
forgotten spot.  But just because you had your heart
set on living at Arden Hall the fates come galloping
up to present Phil a choice professional opening
on a charger."

"Do you know whether a charger is a horse or a
platter?" laughed Sylvia.  "I should never know
from your phrasing."

"It is both, of course.  Don't criticize my diction.
Diction is my business.  And don't crab.  Honest,
Sylvia, don't you think your luck is altogether out of
proportion to your deserts?"

"'In the course of justice which of us should
see salvation?'" quoted Sylvia.  "Oh, I know,
Suzanne.  It is almost too good to be true that Phil
can find the right kind of work in Greendale and we
can live here at Arden Hall.  But you are
mistaken about my having set my heart on living here.
I love it better than any place on earth but I would
have gone anywhere with Phil.  Even the Hall
wanes in comparison with him."  And Sylvia
blushed charmingly as she made the admission.

"Of course you think so.  Quite the proper
sentiment to express twenty-four hours before your
wedding.  May the Lord give me grace to feel the
same next December when I follow your lead to the
altar.  But, Sylvia, you don't really know what
you are talking about.  I can't imagine you in a
little apartment.  You're too--spacious."

Sylvia smiled.

"Oh, I believe I could have adjusted my spaciousness
if necessary.  But I'm rather glad I don't have
to.  I'd rather--spread."

"You *will* spread, too," put in Barb.  "You and
Phil will have a wonderful opportunity to really live
here, more than you could ever have done in the city."

"I hope so."  Sylvia's eyes were thoughtful as
she looked out across the lawn, past the magnolia to
the blue sky, just as she had a year ago.  She
looked as if she saw visions.  Perhaps she did.
The "home trust" which she and Felicia had
formed years ago was still an integral part of her
scheme of things.  She meant her home to be a
home in the truest sense, not just a house beneath
whose roof she could shelter herself and her loved
ones.  She wanted her doors to stand open wide to
the world--especially the lonely people.  "The
lonely people" were always very close to Sylvia's
heart perhaps because her own lonely girlhood had
given her the clew to the yearning that nearly all
the world knows at times.

"You are going to keep on being viciously
contented," accused Suzanne.

"I hope so," said Sylvia again.  "I feel that way
at present, anyway.  I am afraid I'll never do
anything very big, Suzanne.  You and Barb are
going to leave me way behind, I know.  I haven't any
special ambition except to be happy myself and to
make other people within my range happy, too."

"You are a genius at that.  Remember what
Mr. Kinnard said.  Don't let Suzanne tease you, Sylvia.
You have the secret of living.  If all the people in
the world wanted to be happy themselves and tried
to see that other people near them were happy,
why--"

"The millennium would have come," finished
Suzanne.  "You are blooming sentimentalists both
of you, though I don't deny there is a little solid
sense behind your sentiment.  Anyway, I have a
sneaking notion I shall have a sort of satisfaction
knowing that down here on your Hill things
are going to be a little more the way they ought
to be than is customary in this cranky old
world."

"Why, Suzanne!  That is just what I was
thinking," cried Barb.  "I see so much sin and
sordidness and misery and things so snarled and
twisted that it seems as if they never would smooth
out.  I'm going to see even more this year if I
go in for the probation work.  And it is wonderful
to me to be able to think that it is all clean and sweet
and happy and kind in Sylvia's world.  It is
kindness somehow that is important.  If we would all
be kind the way Christ taught us there wouldn't
be any war and hate and competition and oppression.
We'd all be just brothers and sisters."

"Maybe that is what we are growing into," said
Sylvia soberly.  "Thank you, Barb.  I like
that--what you said just now.  Remember, if you want
to send anybody down to my--*our* garden--  It is
Phil's, too--we shall be glad to take her--or
him--in.  We want to help."

"We want to help."  That is the keynote of the
new democracy.  And Barb and Suzanne and Sylvia,
each in her own way, had enlisted in the shining
army which is none other than the army of love.

And indoors, while the three girls were thus
philosophizing about the universe at large, Felicia
and Stephen had suddenly concentrated upon themselves.

"Felicia," Stephen was saying, "I have waited
very patiently.  Haven't you a different answer for
me this time?  I am not going to pretend I shall
go away broken-hearted if it is no.  My heart is a
little too old to break, but if you could make it yes
it will make all the difference in the world.
Couldn't you say it, dear?  Sylvia won't need you
after to-morrow.  And you know the kiddies won't
be the losers.  We'll see to that.  Those reasons of
yours aren't operative any more, you know."

"But there is still Sydney," she reminded him
gravely, her face averted.

"There is," he admitted.  "Ah, but, Felicia, you
can't live all your days on a memory--even so vital
a one.  I don't expect to take Syd's place.  I don't
even want to.  But, Felicia, look at me.  Haven't
I somewhere a place all my own in your heart?"

And then Felicia lifted her eyes, still forget-me-not
blue like Marianna's.

"Yes, Stephen, I believe you have--a big place.
If you want me as I am, the best of me gone, the
rest is all yours."

.. vspace:: 2

Night and stillness of night on Arden Hall and
Sylvia's garden!  Suddenly out of the darkness
Sylvia stole down the broad staircase, candle in hand,
like a vestal virgin, in her white silk robe, her dark
hair unbound, lying loose upon her shoulders.

On the wall, near the foot of the stairs hung two
portraits; one, of a dark-eyed young man, the other
a lovely young girl, looking out with wistful,
wondering gaze upon the world.

Straight to the portraits went Sylvia, holding her
candle high.  For a moment she stood there with
uplifted face and rapt gaze, trying to speak to these
two, to bespeak their blessing this night on the
daughter who was to follow in their footsteps
to-morrow in giving herself in marriage to the mate
she loved.

"If only you were here," she sighed.  "I do
want you so, Father!  Mother!  Please try to
know and be glad I am so happy.  Please be glad.
I want you to be glad."

In the flickering light of the uplifted candle it
seemed to Sylvia as if her father's dark eyes smiled
down into hers as if he understood and was glad
as she desired.

"The truest and the kindest," she whispered.
"That was what Doctor Tom said, and I know you
must have been.  Phil is like that, too, Father.  I'm
glad you know.  Good night."

Then she turned to the fair girl whom it had
always been a little hard to think of as a mother,
she was so tiny and sweet and girlish herself and
her eyes looked so incredibly young and innocent.

"Little Mother!" crooned Sylvia.  "Little,
little Mother!  I wonder if you were afraid at all.
Did you ever feel like running away even from him?
This marrying is such a big, solemn business.
Didn't you feel a teeny little bit scared about it
all?  It isn't that you are afraid of him.  It is
rather yourself you don't trust, as if you weren't
quite tall enough to reach up to marriage.
Marriage is so high, so dreadfully high.  But it is all
right, isn't it, little Mother?  You just have to trust
love, don't you?  Good night, little Mother.  Please
love me up there where you are."

This rite over, Sylvia turned to go back upstairs.
But the moonlight fell in bright patines across the
floor from the latticed windows, beside the front
door, and Sylvia had never been able to resist
moonlight.  Hastily she set down her candle and snatched
up a black velvet cloak from the rack and throwing
it about her shoulders, covering her thin silken
draperies, she unbolted the rear door which led out into
the garden and ran down the steps into the
enchanted world outside.

Even as she reached the path she uttered a half
startled exclamation.  A tall form was pacing up
and down under the willow-trees, silhouetted against
the whiteness of the garden space.  She did not
retreat however but stood motionless as a statue with
the moonlight full upon her.  In a moment the
silhouetted figure turned and came swiftly toward
her.

"Sylvia!"

"Phil!"

For a second she was swept into Phil's arms, his
kiss on her lips.  Then they stood apart, looking
at each other as if all at once they had discovered
some new, sacred thing which all their love up to
now had not taught them.

"Phil, I'm glad--glad it is you," breathed
Sylvia.  "Glad I'm going to be yours."

"Forever and ever, amen," said Phil Lorrimer, as
solemnly as if he were pronouncing his own wedding
service.

The actual ceremony took place the next day in
the gray stone Gothic church where Sylvia's father
and mother had been made man and wife.  But to
Sylvia, and perhaps to Phil, too, it always seemed as
if the real wedding had been the night before in the
white moonlight of Sylvia's own garden.  There
it was at least that Sylvia lost forever her fear of
not being able to reach up to marriage however
high it was.  Love, she knew, would show her the
way.

.. vspace:: 3

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   THE END

.. vspace:: 3

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WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, By Jean Webster.

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One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been
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This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate children
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Additional episodes in the girlhood of this delightful heroine that
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This author possesses the rare gift of portraying all the grotesque
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Emmy Lou is irresistibly lovable, because she is so absolutely real.
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This book has a fairy-story touch, counterbalanced by
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Out on the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely,
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SEVENTEEN.

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No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed
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Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains
some remarkable phases of real boyhood and some of the best
stories of juvenile prankishness that have ever been written.

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THE TURMOIL.

Illustrated by C. E. Chambers.

Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts
against his father's plans for him to be a servitor of
big business.  The love of a fine girl turns Bibb's life from
failure to success.

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THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA.

Frontispiece.

A story of love and politics,--more especially a picture of
a country editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book
lies in the love interest.

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THE FLIRT.

Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.

The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's
engagement, drives one man to suicide, causes the murder
of another, leads another to lose his fortune, and in the end
marries a stupid and unpromising suitor, leaving the really
worthy one to marry her sister.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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   THE NOVELS OF
   MARY ROBERTS RINEHART

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   May be had wherever books are sold.  Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

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\K.

Illustrated

K. LeMoyne, famous surgeon, drops out of the world that
has known him, and goes to live in a little town where
beautiful Sidney Page lives.  She is in training to become a
nurse.  The joys and troubles of their young love are told
with that keen and sympathetic appreciation which has
made the author famous.

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THE MAN IN LOWER TEN.

Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.

An absorbing detective story woven around the
mysterious death of the "Man in Lower Ten."  The strongest
elements of Mrs. Rinehart's success are found in this book.

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WHEN A MAN MARRIES.

Illustrated by Harrison Fisher and Mayo Bunker.

A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him,
finds that his aunt is soon to visit him.  The aunt, who
contributes to the family income and who has never seen
the wife, knows nothing of the domestic upheaval.  How
the young man met the situation is humorously and most
entertainingly told.

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THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE.

Illus. by Lester Ralph.

The summer occupants of "Sunnyside" find the dead
body of Arnold Armstrong, the son of the owner, on the
circular stair-case.  Following the murder a bank failure is
announced.  Around these two events is woven a plot of
absorbing interest.

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THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS.

Illustrated (Photo Play Edition.)

Harmony Wells, studying in Vienna to be a great violinist,
suddenly realizes that her money is almost gone.  She
meets a young ambitious doctor who offers her chivalry and
sympathy, and together with world-worn Dr. Anna and
Jimmie, the waif, they share their love and slender means.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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   STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY
   GENE STRATTON-PORTER

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   May be had wherever books are sold.  Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

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MICHAEL O'HALLORAN.

Illustrated by Frances Rogers.

Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern
Indiana.  He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple.  He also
assumes the responsibility of leading the entire rural community
upward and onward.

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LADDIE.

Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.

This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana.  The
story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family,
but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love
affairs of older members of the family.  Chief among them is that
of Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in
the neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery.

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THE HARVESTER.

Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.

"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the
book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would
be notable.  But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods,"
there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality.

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FRECKLES.

Illustrated.

Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in
which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the
great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets
him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his
love-story with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment.

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A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST.

Illustrated.

The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable
type of the self-reliant American.  Her philosophy is one of love and
kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed.  And by
the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from
barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.

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AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.

Illustrations in colors.

The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana,
The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing
love.  The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of
nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.

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THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL.

Profusely illustrated.

A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy
and humor.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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   THE NOVELS OF
   CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM

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   May be had wherever books are sold.  Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

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JEWEL: A Chapter in Her Life.

Illustrated by Maude and Genevieve Cowles.

A story breathing the doctrine of love and patience as
exemplified in the life of a child.
Jewel will never grow old because
of the immortality of her love.

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JEWEL'S STORY BOOK.

Illustrated by Albert Schmitt.

A sequel to "Jewel," in which the same characteristics of
love and cheerfulness touch and uplift the reader.

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THE INNER FLAME.

Frontispiece in color.

A young mining engineer, whose chief ambition is to become
an artist, but who has no friends with whom to realize his hopes,
has a way opened to him to try his powers, and, of course, he
is successful.

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THE RIGHT PRINCESS

At a fashionable Long Island resort, a stately English woman
employs a forcible New England housekeeper to serve in her
interesting home.  Many humorous situations result.  A
delightful love affair runs through it all.

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THE OPENED SHUTTERS.

Illustrated with Scenes from the Photo Play.

A beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to realize,
by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul
to the blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside self love.

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THE RIGHT TRACK.

Frontispiece in color by Greene Blumenschien.

A story of a young girl who marries for money so that she can
enjoy things intellectual.  Neglect of her husband and of her
two step-children makes an unhappy home till a friend brings a
new philosophy of happiness into the household.

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CLEVER BETSY.  Illustrated by Rose O'Neill.

The "Clever Betsy" was a boat--named for the unyielding
spinster whom the captain hoped to marry.  Through the two
Betsy's a delightful group of people are introduced.

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Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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   THE SYLVIA ARDEN BOOKS

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   By MARGARET R. PIPER

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   Each one volume, cloth decorative,
   Illustrated.  $1.50

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Sylvia's Experiment: The Cheerful Book (Trade Mark)

.. vspace:: 1

Sylvia of the Hill Top: The Second Cheerful Book (Trade Mark)

.. vspace:: 1

Sylvia Arden Decides: The Third Cheerful Book (Trade Mark)

.. vspace:: 2

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   OTHER STORIES

.. class:: center medium bold

   By MARGARET R. PIPER

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   The Princess and the Clan, $1.50
   The House on the Hill, $1.50

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   THE PAGE COMPANY
   53 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS.

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.. pgfooter::