A week before Christmas Mrs. William Holton gave a sleigh-ride and skating-party for a niece from Memphis, and Phil was invited. She mentioned the matter to her father, and asked him what she should do about it.
He had come back from Indianapolis in good spirits, and told her that the affairs of the traction company had been adjusted and that he hoped there would be no more trouble. He seemed infinitely relieved by the outcome, and his satisfaction expressed itself to her observing eyes in many ways. The confidence reposed in him by his old friend, the counsel of the Desbrosses Trust & Guaranty Company, had not only pleased him, but the success that had attended his efforts to adjust the traction company's difficulties without resorting to the courts had strengthened his waning self-confidence. He even appeared in a new suit of clothes, and with his beard cut shorter than he usually wore it,—changes that evoked the raillery in which Phil liked to indulge herself. He was promised the care of certain other Western interests of the Trust Company, and he had been offered a partnership in Indianapolis by one of the best lawyers in the state.
"Things are looking up, Phil. If another year had gone by in the old way, I should have been ready for the scrap heap. But I miss the cooking our poverty introduced me to; and I shan't have any more time for fooling with excursions into Picardy with the Gray Knight. By the way, I found some strange manuscript on my desk at the office to-day. If you've take up the literary life you'll have to be careful how you leave your vestigia in lawyers' offices. It was page eighteen of something that I took the liberty of reading, and I thirsted for more."
She had not told him about "The Dogs of Main Street," wishing to wait until she could put the magazine containing it into his hands. Under the stimulus of the acceptance of her sketch she had been scratching vigorously in her spare moments. Having begun with dogs she meditated an attack upon man, and the incriminating page she had left behind in her father's office was a part of a story she was writing based upon an incident that had occurred at a reunion of Captain Wilson's regiment that fall in Montgomery. A man who had been drummed out of the regiment for cowardice suddenly reappeared among his old comrades with an explanation that restored him to honored fellowship. Phil had elaborated the real incident as Captain Wilson described it, and invested it with the element of "suspense," which she had read somewhere was essential to the short story.
Phil was living just now in a state of exaltation. She began a notebook after the manner of Hawthorne's, and was astonished at the ease with which she filled its pages. Now that her interest was aroused she saw "material" everywhere. The high school had given her German and French, and having heard her father say that the French were the great masters of fiction, she addressed herself to Balzac and Hugo. The personalities of favorite contemporaneous writers interested her tremendously, and she sought old files of literary periodicals that she might inform herself as to their methods of work. She kept Lamb and Stevenson on the stand by her bed and read them religiously every night. There had never been any fun like this! Her enjoyment of this secret inner life was so satisfying that she wished no one might ever know of it. She wrote and rewrote sentences and paragraphs, thrust them away into the drawers of the long table in her room to mellow—she had got this phrase from Nan,—and then dug them out in despair that they seemed so lifeless. She planned no end of books and confidently set down titles for these unborn masterpieces. Nan and Rose marked the change in her. At times she sat with her chinin her hand staring into vacancy. The two women speculated about this and wondered whether her young soul was not in the throes of a first love affair.
Now that fortune smiled upon her father Phil's happiness marked new attitudes, with no cloud to darken the misty-blue horizons of her dreams. She meant to be very good to her father. And as to his marrying Nan, she was giving much time to plots for furthering their romance.
"Fred Holton was looking for you the other day. I suppose you haven't seen him."
"Yes; he came to Indianapolis and saw me at the hotel. I remember that he was at your party, but I don't recall how you got acquainted with him?"
Phil laughed.
"Oh, that last night we camped at Turkey Run I wandered off by myself and met him in the funniest fashion, over by the Holton barn. They were having a dance—Charlie and Ethel, and Fred was watching the revel from afar, and saw me dancing like an idiot round the corn-shocks. And I talked to him across the fence and watched the dance in the barn until you blew the horn. I didn't tell you about it because it seemed so silly—and then I thought you wouldn't like my striking up acquaintances with those people. But Fred is nice, I think."
"He seems to be a very earnest young person. He came to me on a business matter in a spirit that is to his credit."
Phil had decided, in view of Nan's unlooked-for arraignment, to give her father another chance to express himself as to her further social relations with the Holtons.
"Daddy dear, I want you to tell me honestly whether you have any feeling about those people," she said when they were established at the fireside for the evening. "Of course, you know that one's aunts were responsible for asking them to Amy's party; it wasn't Amy's doings; but if you want me to keep clear of them I'll do it. Please tell me the truth—just how you feel about it."
"Phil," said Kirkwood, meeting her eyes steadily, "thoseaunts of yours are silly women—with vain, foolish, absurd ideals. They didn't consult me about asking the Holtons because I'm a stupid old frump, and it didn't make any difference whether I'd like it or not. But I'm eternally grateful that they did it; and I'm glad that other man came back just as he did. For all those things showed me that the years have blotted out any feeling I had against them. I haven't a bit, Phil. Maybe I ought to have; but however that may be there's no bitterness in my soul. And I'm glad I've discovered that; it's a greater relief to me than I can describe."
His smile, the light touch he gave her hands, carried conviction. The discussion seemed to afford him relief.
"So far as the Holtons concern me, there's peace between our houses. It's perfectly easy for a man to shoot another who has done him a wrong; but it doesn't help any, for,"—and he smiled the smile that Phil loved in him—"for the man being dead can't know how much his enemy enjoys his taking off! Murder, as a fine art, Phil, falls short right there."
He had not mentioned her mother; and Phil wondered whether she too shared this amnesty. It was inconceivable that he should have forgiven the man if he still harbored hatred of the woman.
With a sudden impulse she rose and caught his face in her hands.
"Why don't you marry Nan, daddy?"
She saw the color deepen in his cheeks and a startled look came into his eyes.
"What madness is this, Phil?" he asked, with an effort at lightness.
"It means that I think it would be nice—nice for you and Nan and nice for me. I can see her here, sitting right there in that chair that she always sits in when she comes. I think it would be fun—lots of fun for her to be here all the time, so we wouldn't always be trailing over there."
He laughed; she felt that he was not sorry that she had spoken of Nan.
"Are we always trailing over there? I suppose they really are our best friends. But there is Rose, you know. Wouldn't she look just as much at home in her particular chair as Nan?"
"Well, Rose is fine, too, but Rose is different."
"Oh, you think there's a difference, do you?"
He picked up a book, turned over the leaves idly, and when he spoke again it was not of Nan.
"If you want to go to Mrs. Holton's party it's all right, Phil. I suppose most of the young people will be there."
"Yes; it's a large party."
"Then go and have a good time. And Phil—"
"Yes, daddy."
"Be careful what foolish notions you get into your head."
Mrs. William Holton undeniably did things with an air. It may have been an expression of her relief at having disposed of Jack Holton so quickly and effectively—he had vanished immediately after his interview with William in the bank—that her sleigh-ride and skating-party as originally planned grew into a function that well-nigh obscured Phil's "coming-out." It began with a buffet luncheon at home, followed by the ride countryward in half a dozen bob-sleds and sleighs of all descriptions. It was limited to the young people, and Phil found that all her friends were included. Ethel and Charles Holton had come over from Indianapolis to assist their aunt in her entertainment.
"Mighty nice to find you here!" said Charles to Phil as he stood beside her on the sidewalk waiting for their appointed "bob." "And you may be sure I'm glad to get a day off. I tell you this business life is a grind. It's what General Sherman said war is. I suppose your father told you what a time we've been having straightening out the traction tangle. Scandal—most outrageous lying—butthat father of yours is a master negotiator. He ought to be in the diplomatic service."
He looked at her guardedly with a quick narrowing of the eyes.
"Oh, I suppose it wasn't really so serious," said Phil indifferently. "Father never brings business home with him and I only know that I don't like having him away so much."
"Yes," said Holton, "I don't doubt that you miss him. But Montgomery is getting gay. Over in Indianapolis there's more doing, of course, and bigger parties; but they don't have the good old home flavor. It's these informal gatherings of boys and girls who have known each other all their lives that count."
It was the brightest of winter days, with six inches of snow, and cold enough to set young blood tingling. They set off with a merry jingling of bells and drove through town to advertise their gayety before turning countryward. The destination was Turkey Run, that fantastic anomaly of the Hoosier landscape, where Montgomery did much of its picnicking.
A scout sent ahead the day before had chosen a stretch of ice where the creek broadened serenely after its bewilderingly tumultuous course through the gorge. There the ice was even and solid and the snow had been scraped away. In the defile, sheltered by its high rocky banks, bonfires were roaring. The party quickly divided itself into twos—why is it that parties always effect that subdivision with any sort of opportunity?—and the skaters were off.
Phil loved skating as she loved all sports that gave free play to her strong young limbs. The hero of the Thanksgiving football game had attached himself to her, but Phil, resenting his airs of proprietorship, deserted him after one turn.
As her blood warmed, her spirits rose. The exercise and the keen air sent her pulses bounding. It was among the realizations of her new inner life that physical exercisestimulated her mental processes. To-day lines, verses, couplets—her own or fragments of her reading—tumbled madly over each other in her head. No one ranged the ice more swiftly or daringly. She had put aside her coat and donned her sweater—not the old relic of the basketball team, but a new one from her fall outfit, which included also the prettiest of fur toques. The color was bright in her cheeks and the light shone in her eyes as she moved up and down the course with long, even strides or let herself fly at the boundaries, or turned in graceful curves. Skating was almost as much fun as swimming, and even better fun than paddling a canoe.
She kept free of companions for nearly an hour, taunting those who tried to intercept her, and racing away from several cavaliers who combined in an effort to corner her. Then having gained the heights of her imaginings, she was ready to be a social being once more.
Charles Holton, who had viewed her flights with admiration as he helped the timid and awkward tyros of the company, swung into step with her.
"It's wonderful how you do it? Please be kind to me a mere mortal!"
He caught her pace and they moved along together at ease. Her mood had changed and she let him talk all he liked and as he liked. They had met twice at parties since she had snubbed him at Amzi's the night of her presentation, and he had made it plain that he admired her. He contrasted advantageously with the young gentlemen of Montgomery. He was less afraid of being polite, or his politeness was less self-conscious and showed a higher polish. He had twice sent her roses and once a new novel, and these remembrances had not been without their effect. It was imaginable that his tolerance of the simple sociabilities of Montgomery was attributable to an interest in Phil, who dreamed a great deal these days; and there was space enough in the ivory tower of her fancy to enshrine lovers innumerable. Charles was a personable young man, impressionableand emotional, and not without imagination of his own. Her humor, and the healthy common-sense philosophy that flowered from it, were the girl's only protection from her own emotionalism and susceptibility. Even in the larger world of the capital there was no girl as pretty as Phil, Charles assured himself; she was not only agreeable to look at, but she piqued him by her indifference to his advances. His usual cajoleries only provoked retorts that left him blinking, not certain whether they were intended to humble him or to stimulate him to more daring efforts.
"You're the only girl in the bunch who skates as though she loved it. You do everything as though it was your last hour on earth and you meant to make the most of it. I like that. It's the way I feel about things myself. If I had your spirit I'd conquer the world."
"Well, the world is here to be conquered," said Phil. "What peak have you picked to plant your flag on?"
"Oh, I want money first—you've got to have it these days to do things with; and then I think I'd like power. I'd go in for politics—the governor's chair or the senate. If father hadn't died he could have got the governorship easy; he was entitled to it and it would have come along just in the course of things. What would you like to do best of all?"
"If I told you, you wouldn't believe it. I don't want a thing I haven't got—not a single thing. On a day like this everything is mine—that long piece of woods over there—black against the blue sky—and the creek underfoot—I couldn't ask for a single other thing!"
"But there must be a goal you want to reach—everybody has that."
"Oh, you're talking about to-morrow! and this is to-day. And sufficient unto the day is the joy thereof. If I ever told anybody what I mean to do to-morrow, it would be spoiled. I'm full of dark secrets that I never tell any one."
"But you might tell me—I'm the best possible person to tell secrets to."
"I can't be sure of that, when I hardly know you at all."
"That's mighty cruel, you know, when I feel as though I had known you always."
He tried to throw feeling into this, but the time and place and her vigorous strides over the ice did not encourage sentiment.
"You oughtn't to tell girls that you feel you have known them always. It isn't complimentary. You ought to express sorrow that they are so difficult to know and play the card that you hope by great humility and perseverance one day to know them. That is the line I should take if I were a man."
He laughed at this. There were undoubted fastnesses in her nature that were not easily attainable. She seemed to him amazingly mature in certain ways, and in others she was astonishingly childlike.
"They say you're a genius; that you're going to do wonderful things," he said.
"Who says it?" asked Phil practically, but not without interest.
"Oh, my aunt says it; she says other people say it."
"Well, my aunts haven't said it," remarked Phil. "According to them my only genius is for doing the wrong thing."
"We needn't any of us expect to be appreciated in our own families. That's always the way. You read a lot, don't you?"
"I like to read; but you can read a lot without being a genius. Geniuses don't have to read—they know it all without reading. So there's that."
"I'll wager you write, too;—confess now that you do!"
"Letters to my father when he's away from home—one every night. But he isn't away very much."
"But stories and things like that. Yes; don't deny it: you mean to be a writer! I'm sure you can succeed at that. Lots of women do; some of the best writers are women. You will write novels like—like—George Eliot."
Phil laughed her derision of the idea.
"She knew a lot; more than I could ever know if I studied all my life. But there's only one George Eliot; I'm hardly likely—just Phil Kirkwood in Montgomery, Indiana,—to be number two."
The direction of the talk was grateful to her. It was pleasant to feel the warmth of his interest in her new secret aims without having to acknowledge them. It was flattering that he surmised the line of her interests, and spoke of them so kindly and sympathetically.
"I try to do some reading all the time," he went on; "but a business man hasn't much chance. Still, I usually keep something worth while on the center table, and when I travel I carry some good book with me. I like pictures, too, and music; and those things you miss in a town like Montgomery."
"Well, Montgomery is interesting just the same," said Phil defensively. "The people are all so nice and folksy."
He hastened to disavow any intention of slurring the town. He should always feel that it was home, no matter how far he might wander. He explained, in the confidence that seemed to be establishing itself between them, that there was a remote possibility that he might return to Montgomery and go into the bank with his uncle, who needed assistance. It was desirable, he explained, to keep the management of the bank in the hands of the family.
"You know," he went on, "they printed outrageous stories about all of us in the 'Advertiser.' They were the meanest sort of lies, but I'd like you to know that we met the issue squarely. I've turned over to your father as trustee all the property they claimed we had come by dishonestly. The world will never know this, for your father shut up the newspapers—it was quite wonderful the way he managed it all;—and, of course, it doesn't make any difference what the world thinks. This was my affair, the honor of my family, and a matter of my own conscience."
Her knowledge of the traction muddle was sufficient to afford a background of plausibility for this highmindedrenunciation. There was something likable in Charles Holton. His volubility, which had prejudiced her against him in the beginning, seemed now to speak for a frankness that appealed to her. There was no reason for his telling her these things unless he cared for her good opinion; and it was not disagreeable to find that this man, who was ten years her senior and possessed of what struck her as an ample experience of life, should be at pains to entrench himself in her regard.
As she made no reply other than to meet his eyes in a look of sympathetic comprehension, he went on:—
"You won't mind my saying that we were all terribly cut up over Uncle Jack's coming back here; but I guess we've disposed of him. I don't think he's likely to trouble Montgomery very much. Uncle Will had it out with him the day after he showed up so disgracefully at your party; and, of course, Uncle Jack would never have done that if he had been himself. He went to Indianapolis and tried to make a lot of trouble for all of us, but that was where your father showed himself the fine man he is. I guess it isn't easy to put anything over on that father of yours; he's got the brains and character to meet any difficulty squarely."
Phil murmured her appreciation. They had paused in the middle of the course and were idly cutting figures, keeping within easy conversational range.
"Your initials are hard to do," said Holton, backing into line beside her and indicating the letters his skates had traced on the surface. The "P. K." was neatly done. Phil without comment etched a huge "C" and then cut an "H" within its long loop.
"Splendid! You are the best skater I ever saw! I'd like to cut that out and keep it in cold storage as a souvenir."
This did not please her so much as his references to her hidden ambitions, and seeing that she failed to respond, and fearing one of her taunts, he led the way toward the gorge. It was four o'clock, and already shadows were darkening the deep vale where most of the skaters had now gatheredabout the bonfires. Phil's popularity was attested by the tone in which the company greeted her. She sat down on a log and entered into their give-and-take light-heartedly, while Holton unfastened her skates. He had found her coat and thrown it round her shoulders. He was very thoughtful and attentive, and his interest in her had not gone unremarked.
"We were just wondering," said one of the girls, "whether anybody here was sport enough to scale that wall in the winter? We've saved that for you, Phil."
Phil lifted her head and scanned the steep slope. She had scaled it often; in fact one of her earliest remembered adventures had been an inglorious tumble into the creek as the reward of her temerity. That was in her sixth year when she had clambered up the cliff a few yards in pursuit of a chipmunk.
"I haven't done that for several moons; but I have done it, children. There wouldn't be any point in doing it, of course, if anybody else had done it—I mean to-day, with ice all over the side."
"You mustn't think of it, Phil," said Mrs. Holton, glancing up anxiously.
"I shan't think of it, Mrs. Holton, unless somebody says it can't be done. I'm not going to take a dare."
"Just for that," said Charles, "I'm going to do it myself."
"Better not tackle it," said one of the college boys, eyeing the cliff critically. "I've done it in summer, and it's hard enough then; but you can see how the ice and snow cover all the footholds. You'd have to do it with ropes the way they climb the Alps."
Holton looked at Phil as she sat huddled in her coat. It was in her eyes that she did not think he would attempt it, and he resented her lack of faith in his courage.
"I don't think," she remarked, helping herself to a sandwich, "that anybody's going to be cruel enough to make me do it."
"If I do it," said Holton, "no one else will ever have totry it again in winter. It will be like discovering the North Pole—there's nothing in it for the second man."
"You're not going to try it! Please don't!" cried Mrs. Holton. "If you got hurt it would spoil the party for everybody."
"Don't worry, Aunt Nellie. It's as easy as walking home."
He was already throwing off his overcoat, measuring the height and choosing a place for his ascent.
Amid a chorus of protests and taunts he began climbing rapidly. Phil rose and watched him with sophisticated eyes as he began mounting. She saw at once that he had chosen the least fortunate place in the whole face of the declivity for an ascent. There were two or three faintly scratched paths, by which the adventurous sometimes struggled to the top, and she had herself experimented with all of them; but Holton had essayed the most precipitous and hazardous point for his attempt.
At the start he sprang agilely up the limestone which for a distance thrust out rough shelves with ladder-like regularity; and when this failed, he caught at the wild tangle of frozen shrubbery and clutched the saplings that had hopefully taken root wherever patches of earth gave the slightest promise of succor. As his difficulties increased a hush fell upon the spectators.
He accomplished half the ascent, and paused to rest, clinging with one hand to a slender maple. He turned and waved his cap, and was greeted with a cheer.
"Better let it go at that!" called one of the young men. "Come on back."
Charles flung down a contemptuous answer and addressed himself to the more difficult task beyond. Particles of ice and frozen earth detached by his upward scramble clattered down noisily. Withered leaves, shaken free from niches where the winds had gathered them, showered fitfully into the valley. He began drawing himself along by shrubs and young trees that covered a long outward curve in the face of the cliff.Those below heard the crackle of frozen twigs, and the swish of released boughs that marked his progress. Phil stood watching him with an absorbed interest in which fear became dominant. Better than the others Phil knew the perils of the cliff, the scant footholds offered by even the least formidable points in the rough surface.
He was rounding the bulging crag with its sparse vegetation when, as he seemed to have cleared it safely, a sapling that he had grasped for a moment yielded, and he tumbled backward.
Those below could see his frantic struggles to check his descent as his body shot downward with lightning-like swiftness. A short clump of bushes caught and held him for an instant, then gave way, and they saw him struggling for another hold. Then a shelf of rock caught him. He lay flat for a moment afraid to move, and those below could not see him. Then he sat up and waved his cap, and shouted that he was safe.
The awe-struck crowd hardly knew what Phil was doing until she had crossed the ice and begun to climb. While Charles was still crashing downward, she had run to a favorable point her quick eyes had marked and was climbing up a well-remembered trail. The snow and ice had increased its hazards, and an ominous crackling and snapping of twigs attended her flight.
"Come back! Come back!" they called to her. Half a dozen young men plunged after her; but already well advanced, she cried to them not to follow.
"Tell him to stay where he is," she called; and was again nimbly creeping upward. There was no way to arrest or help her, and she had clearly set forth with a definite purpose and could not be brought back. Cries of horror marked every sound as her white sweater became the target of anxious eyes.
The white sweater paused, hung for tremulous instants, was lost and discernible again. A frozen clod, loosened as she clutched at the projecting roots of a young beech,ricocheted behind her. Her course, paralleling that taken by Holton, was about ten yards to the left of it. To those below it seemed that her ascent was only doubling the hour's peril. Charles, perched on the rock that had seemingly flung out its arm to save him, was measuring his chances of escape without knowing that Phil was climbing toward him.
As she drew nearer he heard the sounds of her ascent, and peering over saw the sweater dangling like a white ball from the cliff-side.
"Go down, Phil! You can't make it; nobody can do it! Tell the boys to get a rope," he shouted. "Please go back!"
Already messengers had run for assistance, but the little cañon in its pocket-like isolation was so shut in that it was a mile to the nearest house.
Along the tiny thread of a trail, transformed by sleet and snow until it was scarcely recognizable, Phil pressed on steadily. Charles, seeing that she would not go back, ceased his entreaties, fearing to confuse or alarm her. Her hands caught strong boughs with certainty; the tiny twigs slapped her face spitefully. Here and there she flung herself flat against the rocky surface and crept guardedly; then she was up dancing from one vantage-point to another, until finally she paused, clinging to a sapling slightly above Holton. When she had got her breath she called an "All right!" that echoed and reëchoed through the valley.
"You thought you could do it, didn't you?" she said mockingly; "and now I've had to spoil my clothes to get you off that shelf."
"For God's sake, stay where you are! There's nothing you can do for me. The boys have gone round to bring a rope, and until they come you must stay right there!"
Phil, still panting, laughed derisively.
"You're perfectly ridiculous—pinned to a rock like Prometheus—Simeon on his pillar! But it wouldn't be dignified for you to let the boys haul you up by a rope. You'd never live that down. They'll be years getting arope; and it would be far from comfortable to sit there all night."
While she chaffed she was measuring distances and calculating chances. The shelf which had caught him was the broader part of a long edge of outcrop. Phil beat among the bushes to determine how much was exposed, but the ledge was too narrow for a foothold.
"Please stop there and don't move!" Holton pleaded. "If you break your neck, I'd never forgive myself, and I'd never be forgiven."
Phil laughed her scorn of his fears and began creeping upward again. The situation appealed to her both by reason of its danger and its humor; there was nothing funnier than the idea of Charlie Holton immured on a rock, waiting to be hauled up from the top of the cliff. She meant to extricate him from his difficulties: she had set herself the task; it was like a dare. Her quick eyes searching the rough slope noted a tree between her and the shelf where Holton clung, watching her and continuing his entreaties not to heed him, but to look out for her own safety. Its roots were well planted in an earthy cleft and its substantial air inspired confidence. It had been off the line of his precipitous descent and he had already tried to reach it; but in the cautious tiptoeing to which his efforts were limited by the slight margin of safety afforded by the rock he could not touch it.
"If I swing down from that tree and reach as far as I can, you ought to be able to catch my hand; and if you can I'll pull, and you can make your feet walk pitty-pat up the side."
Her face, aglow from the climb, hung just above him. She had thrown off her hat when she began the ascent and her hair was in disorder. Her eyes were bright with excitement and fun. It was immensely to her liking—this situation: her blood sang with the joy of it. She addressed him with mocking composure.
"It's so easy it isn't right to take the money."
He protested that it was a foolish risk when he wouldcertainly be rescued in a short time. She, too, must remain where she was until the ropes were brought.
"They never do that way in books," said Phil. "If I'd taken that tumble, some man would have rescued me; and now that you're there, it's only fair that I should pull you off. If I hadn't as good as told you you couldn't, you wouldn't be there. That's the simple philosophy of that. All ready! Here goes!"
Clinging to the tree with her knees to get a better grip she swung herself down as far as possible. The sapling bent, but held stoutly. Holton ceased protesting, held up his arms to catch her if she fell; then as she repeated her "ready," he tiptoed, but barely touched her finger-tips. She drew back slowly to gather strength for another effort. It was the most foolhardy of undertakings. Only the tree, with its questionable hold upon the cliff-side, held her above the gorge. She strained her arms to the utmost; their finger-tips touched and she clasped his hand. There was a tense moment; then her aid making it possible, he dug his feet into the little crevices of the rocky surface and began creeping up.
Once begun there was no letting go. The maple under their combined weight curved like a bow. Phil set her teeth hard; her arms strained until it seemed they would break. Then, as Holton began to aid himself with his free hand, his weight diminished, and in one of these seconds of relief, Phil braced herself for a supreme effort and drew him toward her until he clutched the tree. He dragged himself up, and flung himself down beside her. Neither spoke for several minutes. Those of the party who remained below were now calling wildly to know what had happened.
"Trumpet the tidings that we are safe," said Phil when she had got her breath.
"That was awful; horrible! What did you do it for? It was so absurd—so unnecessary!" he cried, relief and anger mingling in his tone. "The horror of it—I'll never get over it as long as I live."
"Forget it," said Phil. "It was just a lark. But now thatit's over, I'll confess that I thought for about half a second—just before you began edging up a little—that I'd have to let go. But don't you ever tell anybody I said so; that's marked confidential."
The note was obviously forced. Her heart still pounded hard and weariness was written plainly in her face. Now that the stress of the half-hour had passed, she was not without regret for what she had done. Her father would not be pleased; her uncle would rebuke her sharply; her aunts would shudder as much at the publicity her wild adventure was sure to bring her as at the hazard itself. She was conscious of the admiration in Holton's eyes; conscious, indeed, of something more than that.
"I want to know that you did that for me: I must think so!" he said hoarsely.
His lips trembled and his hands shook. Her foolhardiness had placed both their lives in jeopardy. It pleased him to think that she had saved his life—whereas in strictest truth she had only added to his peril.
"I didn't do it for you: I did it for fun," she replied shortly; and yet deep down in her heart she did not dislike his words or the intense manner in which he spoke them. Her dallyings with boys of her own age, with only now and then a discreet flirtation with one of the college seniors, comprised her personal experiences of romance.
"You are beautiful—wonderful! Yours is the bravest soul in the world. I loved you the day I first saw you in your father's office. Phil—"
For a moment his hand lay upon hers that was trembling still from its grip of the tree.
"We must climb to the top; the joke will be spoiled if we let them help us," she cried, springing to her feet. "Come! The way will be easier along the old path."
Across the vale some one hallooed to them. Her white sweater was clearly printed against the cliff and a man on the edge of the farther side stood with the light of the declining sun playing round him. The ravine narrowedhere and the distance across was not more than a hundred yards.
Phil fluttered her handkerchief.
"It's Fred!" she said. "See! There by the big sycamore."
Fred waved his cap, then dropped his arm to his side and stood, a sentinel-like figure, at the edge of his acres, etched in heroic outline against the winter sky. His trousers were thrust into his boots; the collar of the mackinaw coat he wore at his work was turned up about his throat. He leaned upon an axe with which he had been cutting the coarser brush in the fence corners. The wind ruffled his hair as he stood thus, in the fading light. He had been busy all afternoon and quite unmindful of his aunt's party, to which, for reasons sufficient to that lady, he had not been bidden.
A sense of his rugged simplicity and manliness seemed to be borne to Phil across the ravine. Something in Fred Holton touched her with a kind of pathos—there was in him something of her father's patience, and something of his capacity for suffering. As she looked he swung the axe upon his shoulders and struck off homeward across the fields.
Charles sprang ahead of her and began the remainder of the ascent. It was he who was now impatient.
"We must hurry unless you want the crowd to carry us up."
"Let me go ahead," she answered, ignoring the hand he reached down to her, and eager to finish the undertaking. "There's nothing hard about the rest of it and I know every inch of the path."
A lady stepped from the westbound train at Montgomery just at nightfall on the day before Christmas. The porter of the parlor car pulled down more luggage than travellers usually bring to Montgomery, and its surfaces were plastered with steamship and hotel labels. Amzi Montgomery, who had been lurking in the shadow of the baggage-room for some time, advanced and shook hands hurriedly.
"Well, Lois!"
"Well, Amzi!"
In the electric-lighted shed the lady might have been seen to smile at the brevity and colorlessness of this exchange, or possibly at the haste with which Amzi was crossing the platform to the hack-stand.
"Here are my checks, please, Amzi. Don't be discouraged—there are only six of them!" she said cheerfully; her remarks being punctuated by the thump of her trunks as they were tumbled out of the baggage-car. She stood glancing about with careless interest while Amzi shouted for the transfer man. She trailed her umbrella composedly as she idled about the platform, refreshing herself with deep inhalations of the crisp December air, while Amzi ordered the trunks delivered to his own house.
Her brother's perturbation was in no wise reflected in Mrs. Holton's manner. To all appearances she was at peace with the world, and evidently the world had treated her kindly. Her handsome sables spoke for prosperity, her hat for excellent taste; she was neatly gloved and booted. She gave an impression of smoothness and finish. In her right hand she carried a tiny purse, which she loosened carelesslyfrom time to time, letting it swing by its chain, and catching it again with a graceful gesture.
"The town may have changed," she remarked, when Amzi came back and put her into the dingy carriage, "but the hacks haven't. I recall the faint bouquet of old times. That must be the court-house clock," she continued, peeping from the window. "They were building the new courthouse about the time I left. I miss something; it must be the old familiar jiggle of the streets. Asphalt? Really! I suppose the good citizens have screamed and protested at the improvements, as good citizens always do. It's stuffy in here. If you don't mind, Amzi, we'll have some air."
She gave the strap a jerk and the window dropped with a bang.
"How's your asthma these days? You never speak of yourself in your letters, and when I saw you in Chicago I didn't like your wheeze."
"Thunder! I haven't got the asthma. I'm as fit as a fiddle. Doctors tell me to watch my blood pressure and cut off my toddies. Remember? I used to like 'em pretty well."
"Verily you did!"—and she laughed merrily. "You used to mix a toddy about once a month as near as I can remember. Frightful dissipation! Unless you've changed mightily, you're a model, Amzi; a figure to point young men and maidens to. Whee!" she exclaimed as the hack rattled across the interurban track in Main Street, "behold the lights! Not so different from Paris after all. What did I see there—Hastings's Theater? Didn't that use to be the Grand Opera House? What a fall, my countrymen! That must be where our illustrious brother-in-law holds forth in royal splendor. What's his first name, Amzi?"
"Lawrince," he replied, and she saw him grin broadly as the light from an overhead lamp shone upon them. "That's what Phil calls him."
"Phil's at home, of course?"
This was her first reference to Phil, and she had spokenof her daughter carelessly, casually. Amzi shuffled his feet on the hack floor.
"I guess Phil's back; she's been in Indianapolis. Phil's all right. There's nothing the matter with Phil."
He was so used to declaring Phil's all-rightness to his other sisters that the defensive attitude was second nature. His tone was not lost upon Lois and she replied quickly:—
"Of course, Phil's all right; I just wondered whether she were at home."
"She's with Tom," Amzi added; and as the hack had reached his house he clambered out and bade the driver carry in the bags.
She paused midway of the walk that led in from the street and surveyed the near landscape. This had been her father's house, and there within a stone's throw stood the cottage in which she had begun her married life. The street lights outlined it dimly, and her gaze passed on to the other houses upon the Montgomery acres, in which her sisters lived. These had not been there when she left, and the change they effected interested her, though, it seemed, not deeply.
The door was opened by a white-jacketed Negro.
"This is my sister, Mrs. Holton, Jerry. You can take her things right up to the front room."
"Yes, sah. Good-evenin', ma'am; good-evenin'. Mighty fine weather we're havin'; yes, ma'am, it shore is cole."
He helped her deftly, grinning with the joy of his hospitable race in "company," and pleased with the richness of the coat he was hanging carefully on the old rack in the hall.
"Tell Sarah we'll have supper right away. Want to go to your room now, Lois?"
"Thanks, no; I'm hungry and the thought of food interests me. You don't dress for dinner, do you, Amzi?"
"Thunder, no! I'll put on my slippers and change my collar. Back in a minute."
As he climbed the stairs she gave herself an instant's inspection in the oblong gilt-framed mirror over the drawing-room mantel, touching her hair lightly with her fingers,and then moved through the rooms humming softly. When Amzi came down she met him in the hall.
"Well, old fellow, it's wonderful how you don't change! You're no fatter than you were twenty years ago, but your hair has gone back on you scandalously. Kiss me!"
She put her arm round his neck and when the kiss had been administered, patted his cheeks with her small delicate hands. Supper was announced immediately and she put her arm through his as they walked to the dining-room.
"It's a dear old house, just as it always was; and it's like your sentimental old soul to hang on to it. Sentiment counts, after all, Amzi. Too bad you had to be a banker, when I distinctly remember how you used to drive us all crazy with your flute; and you did spout Byron—you know you did! You ought to travel; there's nothing like it—a sentimental pilgrimage would brighten you up. If I couldn't move around I'd die. But I always was a restless animal. Dear me! If this isn't the same old dinner service father bought when we were youngsters. It's wonderful that you've kept it; but I don't miss a thing. You've even hung on to the old double-barreled pickle thing and the revolving castor."
She tasted her soup with satisfaction.
"I can see that you are not averse to the fleshpots. I dare say your bachelor establishment is a model. Don't the neighbors try to break in and steal the help? As I remember Fanny she always took the easiest way round. Which is Kate's house, the one beyond the next, or the third?"
"The second; she came next. There's nothing in between your old house and Kate's place."
Amzi met his sister's eyes with a scrutiny that expressed mild surprise that she should thus make necessary a reference to her former domicile, and with somewhat less interest than she had taken in the ancestral china. To Amzi her return was a fact of importance, and since receiving her telegram from New York announcing her visit to Montgomery he had been in the air as to its meaning. JackHolton's appearance only a few weeks earlier still agitated the gossips. He assumed that Lois knew nothing of this, as, indeed, she did not; but there was nothing in his knowledge of his sister to encourage the belief that she would have cared if she had known. His old love for her warmed his heart as he watched her across the table. In the one interview he had had with her after her flight,—an hour's talk in Chicago,—he had not so fully realized as now, in this domestic setting, how gracefully she bore her years and her griefs! It was this that puzzled him. Sorrow was not written in her still youthful face, nor was it published in her fine brown eyes. They were singularly lovely eyes—retaining something of their girlish roguishness. His masculine eye saw no hint of gray in her brown hair. She was astonishingly young, not only in appearance but in manner, and her vivacity—her quick smile, her agreeable murmurous laughter—deepened his sense of her charm. She had not only been his favorite sister in old times; but through all these years he had carried her in his heart. And though his restraint yielded before her good humor he was appalled by the situations—no end of them!—created by her return.
Not a soul knew of her coming. As he reflected that his sisters were even then dining tranquilly in their several domiciles, quite oblivious of the erring Lois's proximity, he inwardly chuckled. They had for years been "poor-Loising" Lois, and Jack Holton's re-appearance had strengthened their belief that she was in straitened circumstances, a pensioner on Amzi; and they deplored any drain upon resources to which they believed themselves or their children after them justly entitled. They would be outraged to learn that the prodigal had reëntered by the front door of her father's house, followed by a wagonload of trunks, presumably filled with fine raiment.
Amzi did not know what had brought her back, nor did he care, now that he saw her across his table, enjoying tearlessly her fricassee chicken, and sipping the claret healways produced for a guest. The penitential husks which her sisters would have thought proper in the circumstances were not for Lois. He could not imagine her, no matter how grievously she might sin, as meekly repenting in sackcloth and ashes. He wondered just what she meant to do now that she had come back; he wondered what her sisters and the rest of Montgomery would do! The situation interested him impersonally. It sufficed for the moment that she was there, handsome, cheerful, amusing, for he had been seriously troubled about her of late. He was aware that a lone woman, with her history, and blessed or cursed with her undeniable charm, is beset by perils, and it was a comfort to see her under his roof, with no visible traces of the rust of time.
She smiled into his eyes and lifted her glass.
"To the old house, Amzi!"
He saw her lips quiver and her eyes fill. There was sincere feeling in her voice, but the shadow upon her spirit was a fleeting one.
"I'm going to run up and change my shoes," she said as they left the table, and in a few moments he heard the click of her heels as she came down.
"This is much cozier," she remarked, resting her smart pumps on the fender beside his worn leathern slippers. "Now tell me about the girls; how do they get on?"
He sketched for her briefly the recent history of the family, replying to her constant interruptions with the frankness she demanded. Waterman she remembered; she had never seen Fosdick or Hastings. Amzi's description of Hastings amused her, and she laughed gayly at her brother's account of the former actor's efforts to lift the local dramatic standard.
"So that's what Kate did, is it? Well, I suppose she has had some fun spending her money on him. Alec Waterman was always an absurd person, but from what you say I judge Josie has held on to her money better than the others. Alec never had sense enough to be a big spender."
"Thunder!" Amzi ejaculated. "Josie's broke like the rest of 'em. Alec has a weakness for gold mines. That's cost a heap, and he doesn't earn enough practicing law to pay for the ice in Josie's ice-box. Fosdick lives up in the air—away up, clean out of sight. I figure that as a floorwalker in a department store Hastings would be worth about twelve dollars a week; and Fosdick might succeed as barker for a five-legged calf in a side-show; but Alec's place in the divine economy is something I have never placed, and I defy any man to place it!"
Amzi was enjoying himself. It was with real zest that he hit off his brothers-in-law to this sister, who afforded him an outlet for long-stifled emotions. He had been honestly loyal to the three homekeeping sisters and to their husbands also for that matter; and the fact that he could at last let himself go deepened his sense of the sympathy and the understanding that had always existed between him and Lois. He hated fuss; and his other sisters were tiresomely fussy and maddeningly disingenuous. In half an hour Lois had learned all she cared to know of the family history. She merely dipped into the bin, brought up a handful of wheat, blew away the chaff, eyed the remaining kernels with a sophisticated eye, and tossed them over her shoulder.
"As near as I can make out they're all broke; is that about it?"
"Just about," Amzi replied. "They haven't mortgaged their homes yet, but if Mrs. Bill Holton turns up with a new automobile next spring or gets some specially dazzling rags, I expect to see three nice fresh mortgages on those homes out there."
"Ah! Mrs. William sets the pace, does she? It's a good thing father died before he saw the Montgomerys trying to keep up with the Holtons. William prospers?"
"Judged by Mrs. Bill's doings he does. By the way, Jack has been back here."
Amzi turned to see what effect the mention of Jack Holton would have upon her; but in no wiseembarrassed, with only a slight lifting of the brows, she said quickly:—
"I thought it likely. I suppose William ran to meet him—general love-feast and all that?"
They were approaching delicate ground; but it seemed as well to go on and be done with it. He told her, more fully than he had recounted any other incident of the sixteen years, of Phil's party; of the insistence of her sisters upon a reconciliation with the William Holtons, and of Jack's appearance on the threshold. His indignation waxed hot; the enormity of the offense was intensified by the fact that he was describing it to Lois; it seemed even more flagrantly directed against her, now that he thought of it, than to Phil or Phil's father. He rose and stood with his back to the fire as he dilated upon it. Lois frowned once or twice, but at the end she laughed, her light little laugh, saying:—
"And William has got rid of him, of course."
"Oh, they had it out the next day at the bank, but Jack's not far away. He's been in Indianapolis making trouble. He resented being kicked out of the bank—which is about what it came to. And Bill bounced him with reason. He's in trouble. In spite of automobiles and the fine front they put up generally, Bill and the First National are not so all-fired prosperous. Tom's been trying to fix things up for them."
"Tom Kirkwood?" She frowned again at the mention of her first husband, but appeared interested, listening attentively as he described the Sycamore Traction difficulties.
"Samuel always was a bad case. So it's come to this, that Tom is trying to keep William out of jail? It's rather a pretty situation, as you think of it," she murmured. "Just how does Tom get on?"
"Tom didn't get on at all for a long time; but whenever he was pushed into a case he burnt himself up on it. Tom was always that kind of a fellow—if the drums beat hard enough he would put on his war paint and go out and winthe fight. There's a dreamy streak in Tom; I guess he never boiled out all the college professor he had in him; but he's to the front now. They think a lot of him over at Indianapolis; he's had a chance to go into one of the best law firms there. He's got brains in his head—and if—"
His jaws shut with a snap, as he remembered that his auditor was a woman who had weighed Tom Kirkwood in the balance and found him wanting. Lois noted his abrupt silence. She had clasped her knees and bent forward, staring musingly into the fire, as he began speaking of Kirkwood. Amzi's cheeks filled with the breath that had nearly voiced that "if."
"If he hadn't married a woman who didn't appreciate him and who wrecked his life for him, there's no telling what he might have done."
She finished his sentence dispassionately, and sat back in her chair; and as he blinked in his fear of wounding her by anything he might say, she took matters in her own hands.
"I was a fool, Amzi. There you have it all tied up in a package and labeled in red ink; and we needn't ever speak of it again. It's on the shelf—the top one, behind the door, as far as I'm concerned. I haven't come back to cry over spilt milk, like a naughty dairymaid who trips and falls on the cellar steps. I ought to; I ought to put on mourning for myself and crawl into Center Church on my knees and ask the Lord's forgiveness before the whole congregation. But I'm not going to do anything of the kind. One reason is that it wouldn't do me any good; and the other is that I'd never get out of the church alive. They'd tear me to pieces! It's this way, Amzi, that if we were all made in the same mould you could work out a philosophy from experience that would apply to everybody; but the trouble is that we're all different. I'm different; it was because I was different that I shook Tom and went off with Jack. Of course, the other man is a worthless cur and loafer; that's where fate flew up and struck at me—a deserved blow. But when I saw that I had made a bad break, I didn't sit down and sob; I merelytried to put a little starch into my self-respect and keep from going clear downhill. Tom's probably forgotten me by this time; he never was much of a hater and I guess that's what made me get tired of him. He always had the other cheek ready, and when I annoyed him he used to take refuge in the Greek poets, who didn't mean anything to me."
She smiled as though the recollection of the Greek poets amused her and ran on in her low, musical voice:—
"When I saw I'd drawn a blank in Jack Holton, it really didn't bother me so much as you might think. Of course, I was worried and humiliated at times; and there were days when I went into the telegraph office and went through the motions of sending for you to come and fish me out of my troubles. I tore up half a dozen of those messages, so you never heard me squeal; and then I began playing my own game in my own way. I hung a smile on the door, so to speak, and did my suffering inside. For ten years Jack never knew anything about me—the real me. For a long time I couldn't quite come to the point of shaking him, and he couldn't shake me,—he couldn't without starving"; and she smiled the ghost of a grim little smile. "I suppose I wasn't exactly in a position to insist on a husband's fidelity, but when he began to be a filthy nuisance I got rid of him. Just before I went abroad this last time I divorced him, and gave him enough to keep him running for a while. My story in a nutshell is this," and she touched her fingers lightly as she epitomized her personal history: "married at eighteen, to a gentleman; a mother at twenty; at twenty-three, ran off with a blackguard; married him in due course to satisfy theconvenances. Not forty yet and divorced twice! And here I am, tolerably cheerful and not so much the worse for wear."
She waited for him to say something; but there appeared to be little for Amzi to say.
"I guess we all do the best we can, Lois. You don't have to talk to me about those things. I'm glad you're back; that's all."
He showed his embarrassment, shifting from one foot to the other, and rubbing his hand nervously across his head.
"Amzi, you're the best man in the world, and I didn't come back here to be a nuisance to you. I can sleep here and run off on the early train—I looked it up before I came. But I thought I'd like to see the house—and you in it—once more. It's a big world, and there are plenty of places to go. There's a lot of Europe I haven't seen yet, and I like it over there. I have some good friends in Dresden, and I promised them to come back. So don't feel that I'm on your hands. I'm not! I can clear out in the morning and nobody need know that I've been here."
He walked up to her and laid his hands on her shoulders. He gasped at her suggestion of immediate flight. He had not known how much she meant to him; and oh, she was so like Phil! It was Phil who had danced in his mind while she summarized her life; it was the Phil she did not know—had never known—and for whom, astonishingly, she had not asked beyond her casual inquiry as to the girl's whereabouts. Nothing was clear in his mind save that Lois must see and know Phil.
"I want you to stay, Lois; you've got to stay. And everything's going to be all right."
"Please be square with me, Amzi. This is a small town and a woman can't coolly break all the commandments and then come back and expect to be met with a brass band. You and I understand each other; but you've got to think of the rest of the family; my coming will doubtless outrage our sisters' delicate moral natures—I know that—and there's Tom—it's hardly fair to him to come trailing back. And the town's too small for me to hide in—it was always a gossipy hole."
He clasped her wrists tightly. The working of his face showed his deep feeling. Not often in his life had he been so touched, so moved. Two big tears rolled down his ruddy cheeks.
"You've got to stay because of Phil! I tell you there's nobody to think about but Phil!"
Suddenly she threw her arms about his neck and burst into tears.
"Oh, I couldn't speak of her! You don't understand that it's because of Phil I ought to go! You thought I was heartless about it, but it's not that I don't care. I'm afraid to see Phil! I'm afraid!"
"Don't you worry about Phil," he answered, digging the tears out of his eyes with his knuckles. "Phil's all right," he concluded.
He crossed the hall and when he returned, carrying a bulky photograph album, she had regained her composure, and stood holding her hands to the fire.
"Sit here and look at Phil: I've got all her pictures from the time she was a baby. I guess you remember these first ones."
She sat down by the center table and he turned up the gas in the blue-shaded lamp. She passed the baby pictures quickly, but looked closely at those that showed her daughter at school age. Under each photograph Amzi had written the date, so that as a record the collection was complete. There were half a dozen disclosures of Phil in her M.H.S. sweater. Amzi called attention to these with a chuckle.
"Nearly killed the girls; Phil chasing round town in that thing! And here she's trigged out in her graduating clothes. I guess you'd have been proud of her that night. Her piece was about tramp dogs; funniest thing you ever heard! And here she is—let me see—yes, that was last summer. Those other things are just little snapshots; and here's a group showing Phil with her class. Phil in front—she was the head of her class all right!" he ended proudly.
Whatever emotions may have been aroused by this pictorial review of her child's life, Lois outwardly made no sign. She murmured her pleasure at one and another of the pictures, looked closely at the latest in point of time, sighed and closed the book.
"She looks like me, I suppose. Is she taller?"
"The least bit, maybe; but you're as like as two peas," answered Amzi; and then added, with the diffidence of a man unused to graceful speeches, "I guess you'd almost pass for sisters. By George, Lois, you're a wonder! You ain't a year older!"
"That's no compliment, Amzi! I ought to have changed," she replied soberly. "But there's gray in my hair if you know where to look, and the wrinkles are getting busy."
"The more I think of it, the more remarkable the resemblance gets," he persisted, ignoring her confessions.
"That doesn't make it any easier, Amzi; please don't speak of that again."
She tossed the book on the table, as though dismissing a disagreeable subject.
"Well," she said, "about going?"
"You're not going," he replied with decision. "I won't let you go. I don't know how we're going to work it all out, but it won't be so bad. The girls have got to take it."
She caught a gleam of humor in his eye. The displeasure of his other sisters at her return clearly had no terrors for him. It may have been that she herself shared his pleasure in the thought of their discomfiture. She crossed the hall, wandering aimlessly about, while he waited and wondered. When she returned she said with the brisk manner of one given to quick decisions:—
"I'm going to stay, Amzi. But let us understand now that if I'm a trouble to you, or the rest of them make you uncomfortable, I'll clear out and go to the hotel, or set up a house of my own. So don't be silly about it. I'm a practical person and can take care of myself. I'm not on your hands, you know, financially speaking or any other way."
"Thunder! No!"
This was the first time she had touched upon money matters. While she turned the leaves of the album, the clumsy baggage-men had pounded laboriously up the back stairs with her trunks, emphasizing the prosperity of whichher visible apparel spoke. He was not without an acute curiosity as to the state of her fortunes. Lois had always been a luxurious person, but she was, unaccountably, the only one of his sisters who had never asked him for money. He had made what they called "advances" to all of them and these had increased as their fortunes dwindled. There was something bafflingly mysterious here. It was a fair assumption that Jack Holton had spent Lois's money long ago, and the fact that she had floated home with her flags flying and had just announced her ability to set up an establishment for herself was disquieting rather than reassuring. He was ashamed of his fears, but it was against reason that she should have escaped the clutches of a worthless blackguard like Jack Holton with any of her patrimony.
Now that she had announced her determination to remain her spirits rose buoyantly. The thought of meeting Phil had shaken her; and yet that had been but a moment's fleeting shadow, as from a stray cloud wandering across a summer sky. When she referred to Phil again, it was with a detachment at which he marveled. If he had not loved her so deeply and if his happiness at her return had been less complete, he should have thought her heartless. She had called herself "different"; and she was, indeed, different in ways that defied his poor powers of analysis. She was a mystifying creature. Her assurance, her indifference toward the world in general, the cool fashion in which she had touched off on her pretty fingers the chief incidents of her life did not stagger him so much as they fascinated him. She was of his own blood, and yet it was almost another language that she spoke.
She had brought down a box of bon-bons which she now remembered and urged him to try, moving fitfully about the room and poking at the box from time to time absently, while he volunteered information touching old friends. Her interest in local history was apparently the slightest: he might have been talking of the Gauls in the time of Cæsar for all the interest she manifested in her contemporaries andtheir fortunes. He finally mentioned with dogged daring the Bartletts whom she had known well; they had been exceedingly kind to Phil, he said. Her manner was so provokingly indifferent that he was at the point of bringing Kirkwood into the picture in a last effort to shatter her unconcern. She bit a bon-bon in two, made a grimace of dissatisfaction, and tossed the remaining half into the fire.
"Oh, the Bartlett girls! Let me see, which was the musical one—Rose or Nan?"
"Rose. Nan's literary. They're fine women, and they've been a mighty big help to Phil," he persisted.
"Very nice of them, I'm sure," she said, yawning.
The yawn reminded her that she was sleepy, and without prelude she kissed him, asked the breakfast hour, and went up to bed.
He followed to make sure that she had what she needed, surveyed the trunks that loomed in the hall like a mountain range, and went below to commune with the fire.
As he reviewed the situation, to the accompaniment of her quick, light patter on the guest-room floor, he was unable to key himself to a note of tragedy. The comedy of life had never been wasted on him, and it was, after all, a stupendous joke that Lois should have come back almost as tranquilly as though she had been away for a week's visit. The longer he brooded the more it tickled him. She either was incapable of comprehending the problems involved in her return or meant to face them with the jauntiness which her troubled years had increased rather than diminished.
Life with her, he mused, was not a permanent book of record, but a flimsy memorandum, from which she tore the leaves when they displeased her and crumpled them into the wastebasket of oblivion. It was a new idea; but it had, he reflected, its merits. He went to the front door, as was his habit, to survey the heavens before retiring. The winter stars shone gloriously, and the night was still. The town clock boomed twelve, ushering in Christmas. He walkeda little way down the path as he counted the strokes, glanced up at Lois's window, then across the hedges to the homes of the other daughters of the house of Montgomery, chuckled, said "Thunder!" so loudly that his own voice startled him, and went hurriedly in and bolted the door.