Phil, on her way to a tea, reached Main Street shortly before three o'clock. Her forehandedness was due to the fact that her hostess (the wife of the college president) had asked her to perform divers and sundry preliminary offices pertaining to refreshments, and it had occurred to Phil that it would be as well to drop in at the Bartletts' to see whether Rose had sent the cakes she had contracted to bake for the function, as the sophomore who delivered Rose's creations was probably amusing himself at the try-out of baseball material on Mill's Field.
Shopkeepers restlessly pacing the sidewalk before the doors of their neglected stores informed Phil of the meeting at the court-room, and of the panicky rumors. No good reason occurred to Phil for absenting herself from a mass meeting at which her Uncle Alec was to speak. Phil liked meetings. From the crest of a stack of chicken crates near the freight depot she had heard Albert Jeremiah Beveridge speak when that statesman had vouchsafed ten minutes to the people of Montgomery the preceding autumn. She had heard such redoubtable orators as William Jennings Bryan, Charles Warren Fairbanks, and "Tom" Marshall, and when a Socialist had spoken from the court-house steps on a rainy evening, Phil, then in her last year in high school, had been the sole representative of her sex in the audience.
Waterman was laboriously approaching his peroration when she reached the packed court-room. Men were wedged tightly into the space reserved for the court officials and the bar, and a number stood on the clerk's desk. She climbed upon a chair at the back of the room, the better to see and hear. There were other women and girlspresent—employees of the furniture factory—but it must be confessed that even without their support Phil would not have been embarrassed.
Waterman was in fine fettle, and cheers and applause punctuated his discourse.
"I am not here to arouse class hatred, or to set one man against another. We of Montgomery are all friends and neighbors. Many of you have lived here, just as I have, throughout your lives. It is for us to help each other in a neighborly spirit. Factories may close their doors, banks may fail, and credit be shaken, but so long as we may appeal to each other in the old terms of neighborliness and comradeship, nothing can seriously disturb our peace and prosperity.
"It grieves me, however, to be obliged to confess that there are men among us who have not felt the responsibility imposed upon them as trustees for the less fortunate. I have already touched on the immediate plight of those of you who are thrown out of employment, with your just labor claims unpaid. There are others—and some of them are perhaps in this room—who entrusted their savings to the Sycamore Traction Company, and who are now at the mercy of the malevolent powers that invariably control and manipulate such corporations. I shall not be personal; I have no feelings against any of those men. But I say to you, men and women of Montgomery, that when I heard this morning from the lips of an industrious and frugal German mechanic that a certain financier of this town had bought from him a traction bond that represented twenty years of savings—then my blood boiled with righteous indignation.
"My friends, a curious situation exists here. Why is it—why is it, I repeat, while one of our fellow-citizens pretends to be trying to safeguard by legal means all the local interests involved in that traction company, another person who stands close to him is buying the bonds of laborers and mechanics, widows and orphans, at little more than fifty per cent of their face value? My friends, when you find a corruptlawyer and a rapacious banker in collusion, what chance have the people against them?"
Apparently the people had no chance whatever, in the opinion of the intent auditors. The applause at this point was long continued, and Waterman, feeling that he had struck the right chord, hurried on.
"Who are these men who have plundered their own people, thrust their hands into the pockets of their fellow-citizens, and filched from them the savings of years? Who are they, I say? My friends, in a community like this, where we are all so closely knit together,—where on the Sabbath day we meet in the church porch after rendering thanks unto God for his mercies,—where in the midweek prayer-meeting we renew and strengthen ourselves for the battle of life,—it is a serious matter to stand in a forum of the people before the tabernacle the law has given us for the defense of our liberties, and impugn the motives of our fellows. I shall not—"
"Name them!" chorused a dozen voices.
Waterman's histrionic sense responded to the demand. With arm uplifted, he deliberated, turning slowly from side to side. He was a master of the niceties of insinuation. Innuendo he had always found more effective than direct statement. He shook his head deprecatingly, reluctant to yield to the clamor for the names of the human vultures he had been arraigning.
"Name them! Tell who they are!"
He indulged these cries with a smile of resignation. They had a right to know; but it was left for him, in his superior wisdom, to pass upon their demands.
"Hit 'em, Alec! Go for 'em!" yelled a man in the front row.
"Why," the orator resumed, "why," he asked, "should I name names that are in every mind in this intelligent audience?" There was absolute quiet as they waited for the names, which he had not the slightest intention of giving.
"Why—"
"Coward!"
The carrying power of Phil's voice had been deplored from her earliest youth by her aunts. Her single word, flung across the heads of the auditors, splashed upon the tense silence like a stone dropped suddenly into a quiet pond.
"Put him out!" yelled some one who attributed this impiety to the usual obstreperous boy. A number of young fellows in Phil's neighborhood, who knew the source of the ejaculation, broke into laughter and jeers. Alexander Waterman knew that voice; he had seen Phil across the room, but had assumed that her presence was due to her vulgar curiosity, on which his wife had waxed wroth these many years. In his cogitations Phil was always an unaccountable and irresponsible being: it had not occurred to him that she might resent his veiled charges against her father and Amzi. Waterman, by reason of his long experience as a stump speaker, knew how to deal with interruptions. He caught up instantly the challenge Phil had flung at him.
"Coward?" he repeated. "I should like to ask you, my fellow-citizens, who is the coward in this crisis? Is it I, who face you to-day clothed in my constitutional guaranty of free and untrammeled speech, to speak upon the issues of this grave crisis; or is it the conspirators who meet in dark rooms to plot and plunder?"
Applause and cheers greeted this reply. Men looked at each other and grinned, as much as to say, "Alec knows his business." In Phil's immediate vicinity a number of young men, lost in admiration of her temerity, and not without chivalrous instincts, jeered the orator's reply. In the middle of the room Fred Holton, who had gone to the meeting with some of his farmer neighbors that he met in Main Street, turned at the sound of Phil's voice. Before Waterman, luxuriating in his applause, could resume, Fred was on his feet.
"As this was called as a meeting of citizens, I have a right to be here. We have listened for nearly an hour to a speech that has made nothing any clearer—that has, in fact, goneall round the pump without finding the handle. It's time we knew what it is the speaker wants done; it's time he came to the point and named these men who have robbed their friends and neighbors. Let's have the names right now before we go any further."
"Who's that talking? Put him out!"
The meeting was in disorder, and a dozen men were trying to talk. Waterman, smiling patiently, rapped with the official gavel that Judge Walters wielded when counsel, in the heat of argument, transcended the bounds of propriety.
"It's Fred Holton," bellowed some one.
Waterman smiled in quiet scorn. He had recognized Fred Holton and was ready with his answer. One of his friends who had pushed through the crowd whispered in his ear.
"My friends," he began, in the indulgent tone of a grieved parent, "the gentleman who spoke a moment ago was quite right in remarking that this is a meeting of citizens. No one denies his right to speak or to interrupt other speakers if such be his idea of courtesy. But he will pardon me for suggesting that it is remarkable that he of all men should interrupt our friendly conference here and demand that names be mentioned, when, prompted by a sense of delicacy, I have refrained from mentioning his own name in this unpleasant connection. It's a name that has been identified far too closely with the affairs of this town. I should like to know how a member of the Holton family dare come to this meeting, when the suspension of one of our chief industries and the embarrassments of the Sycamore Traction Company are directly attributable to the family of which this young gentleman is a member. And while we sit here in conference, there are grave rumors afloat that we are threatened with even more serious difficulties. Within a few minutes word has reached me that a run is in progress upon certain of our banks." (There was a commotion throughout the room, and those near the doors were already pushing toward the street.)
"I beg of you, be not hasty; the hour calls for wise counsel—"
The shuffling of feet and overturning of chairs deadened the remainder of his speech.
Phil escaped quickly from the court-house, and seeing the throng in Main Street began a detour to reach Montgomery's Bank. Fred caught up with her and begged her to go home.
"There's going to be a row, Phil, and you'd better keep out of the way."
"If there's a row, that silly Waterman is responsible," Phil replied. "I'm going to the bank to see Amy."
People were flocking to Main Street from all directions, and finding that she persisted in going on, Fred kept close beside her.
"He'll scold you if you do; you'd better go home," Fred urged as they reached Franklin Street, a block south of Main, and saw the packed streets at the First National corner.
They debated a moment; then Phil was seized with an idea.
"Fred, run over to the college and bring all the boys you can find at Mill's Field. Bring them up Main Street singing, and send a flying wedge through the mob;—that will smash it. Beat it, before the boys hear the row and mix in!"
Fred was off for the athletic field before she had finished speaking, and Phil sought the side door of Montgomery's Bank.
The throng at the intersection of Franklin Street and Main faced the First National. When the court-house clock boomed three the clerks inside made an effort to close the doors, and this had provoked a sharp encounter with the waiting depositors on the bank steps. The crowd yelled as it surged in sympathy with the effort to hold the doors open. Some one threw a stone that struck the window in the middle of "National" in the sign, and this caused an outbreak of derisive cheers. An intoxicated man on the steps turned round with difficulty and waved his hat.
"Come on, boys; we'll bust the safe and find out whether they've got any money or not."
Some of those who had gained entrance to the bank came out by the side door, and this served to divert attention to Franklin Street for a moment. There were cries that a woman who had received her money had been robbed, and this increased the uproar.
When Amzi took a last survey from his bank steps at three o'clock, some one yelled, "Hello, Amzi!" A piece of brick flung with an aim worthy of a nobler cause whizzed past his head and struck the door-frame with a sharp thwack and blur of dust. Amzi looked down at the missile with pained surprise and kicked it aside. His clerks besought him to come in out of harm's way; and yet no man in Montgomery had established a better right than he to stand exactly where he stood and view contemporaneous history in the making.
Howls and cat-calls followed the casting of the brick. Amzi lifted his hand to stay the tumult, but in his seersucker coat and straw hat his appearance was calculated to provoke merriment.
"Shoot the hat! Where's your earmuffs?" they jeered.
He could not make himself heard, and even if his voice had been equal to the occasion no one was in humor to listen to him. Bankers were unpopular in Montgomery that afternoon. No one had ever believed before that Amzi was capable of taking unfair advantage of his fellow-men; and yet Waterman's hearers were circulating the report in Main Street that Amzi had been buying Sycamore bonds at an infamously low price.
He flourished his cigar toward the First National, and then pointed it at his own door, but this bit of pantomime only renewed the mirth of the assemblage. It seemed to be the impression that he was trying to advertise his bank, in the fashion of a "demonstrator" in a shop-window. The disorder increased. Some one yelled:—
"What are you paying for Sycamore bonds?"
This was followed by an ominous turning and shifting. Amzi withdrew, closed and locked the bank doors, andshowed his scorn of his calumniators by reversing with deliberation the tin card so that it announced "Bank Shut."
Amzi, his dignity ruffled by the reception accorded him, had retired to his private room when a familiar knock sounded on the Franklin Street door and he turned the latch to admit Phil.
"You—! what you doing down here? What right have you to be running the streets on a day like this?" he blurted, his eyes bulging wrathfully.
"Oh, chuck it, Amy! This is the best show we've had since the calliope blew up and killed the elephant in the circus when I was seven years old. I've been to the meeting. The Honorable Alec delivered a noble oration; he told them that everybody, including you and daddy, is crooked; he's the only honest man. It was the supreme and ultimate limite!"
"Want to burn me in effigy? Call me a horned plutocrat?"
"Oh, he didn't mention you, or daddy either, by name; just hinted that you were both trying to rob the Sycamore bondholders."
Amzi put his feet on a chair, settled his hat comfortably on the back of his head, and chewed his cigar meditatively.
"Thunder! You'd better keep away from indignation meetings where Alec's going to speak. You're likely to get shot."
"Not I, sir. I called him a coward, right there in the meeting. A most unladylike proceeding; indeed, it was, Amy.
"When rose the maid upon a chair,Some called her false: none named her fair:Nathless she saw nor sneer nor frown,But 'C-o-w-a-r-d' flung her challenge down."
Amzi ignored her couplets—Phil's impromptu verses always embarrassed him—and demanded the particulars. He chuckled as she described the meeting. He cross-examined her to be sure that she omitted nothing. Herreport of his brother-in-law's tirade gave him the greatest delight. As they talked, they heard plainly the commotion in the streets.
"I like the way you take things," said Phil. "The town's gone crazy, and there's a mob in front of your little toy bank, but you're not even peevish."
"Some old schoolmate threw a brick at me awhile ago when I went out for air and that annoyed me," Amzi admitted. "If those fellows out there who haven't any money in any bank, and never will have any, would only go home, I'd do something to relieve the pressure. I hanker for a chance to cross the street, but they won't let me. I called the mayor on the telephone and demanded that he send over the fire department and sprinkle 'em, but he said he couldn't unless I'd turn in an alarm—had the nerve to tell me it would be against the city ordinances! What do you think of that, Phil? Guess the police force is under the bed at home. But I can wait. There's nothing like waiting. Take it from me that you'd better trot along to your tea. You're rather cute in that hat. I suppose it burnt a hole in a ten-dollar-bill."
"Twenty-five, Amy."
"No wonder there's a panic! Go out and show yourself, so they can see what a plutocrat looks like. I guess that would cause 'em to break windows all right."
"Ungrateful old man! Main Street will be opened for traffic in a few minutes, thanks to the head under the hat you feign to despise. I sent Fred over to the college to bring the boys down to clean things up. They're about due, methinks."
"Fred in town?"
"Why ask? It's Saturday and he's a farmer."
"Your thinker thinks, Phil. Would that I loved prayer-meeting as much as you love trouble! As trustee of Madison, I wish you'd left the boys at play. That last Washington's Birthday row almost broke up the college."
Phil jumped down from the table suddenly and flung thedoor open. Above the murmur of the restless shuffling crowd rose the sound of singing.
The sunny afternoon had brought to Mill's Field budding baseballists and candidates for track teams and a gallery of critics of their performances. Fred Holton's name was written high in the athletic records of Madison, and a few words bawled from the bleachers served to assemble all the students in sight.
"There's an ugly mob downtown, boys; and it may do mischief if it hangs together until dark. If we can pry 'em apart, they'll go home and forget it."
Fifty students immediately formed in line. "No clubs or sticks, boys. We'll march down Main Street in good order and see what a peaceful demonstration will do. Forward! March!"
As they crossed the campus at double-quick, students poured out of the library and joined the battalion. Others came tumbling out of the fraternity houses in Buckeye Lane, anxious to join in the lark. Before entering Main Street, Fred gave his last orders, which were accepted without question from an alumnus whom they had all learned to know of late as a sympathetic and stimulating visitor to the Gym, and the adviser for the Thanksgiving football game in which they had scored a victory over the hosts of Purdue.
Two blocks from the bank they re-formed in four lines, extending from curb to curb, and went forward to the strains of "Old Madison":—
"What shall we do for Madison, for Madison, for Madison?What shall we do for Madison, our college and her men?"
To the familiar strains of the college song, Montgomery had frequently wept not without reason, for the young Madisonians had been much given in recent years to ebullitions of college spirit. The timid mayor heard it now, looked out upon the lines of marching students, and pulled downhis office blinds to avoid witnessing the inevitable collision between town and gown.
As the students approached, women and timorous men began trying to escape. Fred signaled to the yell leader, who began beating time, and the street rang with the college cheer. They gave it over and over again; they cheered the college and every bank in town, and between cheers Fred moved the lines forward. The mechanics and farmers, who, alarmed for the security of their savings, had formed the nucleus of the crowd, began to disperse before the advance of the students, but the sidewalks filled with those who expected an encounter and wished to view it in safety. Merchants closed and barred their doors against possible invasion. The rougher element, that had attached itself to the throng and given it the semblance of a mob, now organized hastily for a counter-demonstration.
"Smash the college dudes!" bawled a big fellow, throwing himself forward as leader. There was a rush and a sharp struggle. The collegians stood fast. The town phalanx withdrew to Franklin Street, and, considerably increased, rushed again upon the collegians. A lively fist-fight now engaged the vanguard for a minute, to the delight of the spectators. Hard blows were struck on both sides. While this was in progress, Fred withdrew the rear ranks of his army, massed them compactly, and led them in a gallant charge through the shattered line of their comrades, against the enemy. The students wavered at the moment of collision; there was sharp tackling and the line broke, closed again, and swept on, beyond Franklin Street and for half a block further; then effected a quick about-face in readiness for another charge but found the field clear. Some one on the packed sidewalk proposed a cheer for the college, and it was given with a will, and the collegians resumed their cheering. A few missiles flung by the vanquished town men rained upon them, but the war was over. Fred's lines were flung across the intersecting streets like pickets, and, impressed by their quiet order, the belligerent town men began tomingle peacefully with the lingering crowd on the pavements.
Mr. Amzi Montgomery appeared on the steps of his bank, and glanced up and down the street, and at the courthouse clock, like a pigeon emerging from its cote after a shower. Phil, having been warned to remain inside, naturally joined him an instant later. Amzi was saluted with a cheer in recognition of his dignity as treasurer of Madison's board of trustees,—a greeting he acknowledged by puffing his cheeks and guardedly lifting his hat. And all these things pleased Main Street. An attack on the First National had been averted; the students had made amends for many affronts to municipal dignity; and it was in the air that other and equally interesting incidents would add further to the day's entertainment.
The jubilant yell leader, seeing Phil beside Amzi, decided that she, too, was deserving of attention.
"For the girl on the bank steps—all together!"
While this rah-rahing was in progress, Amzi left the steps and started across the street. Now, while Amzi Montgomery had been seen of all men in all years and at all seasons, standing on the steps of his bank in the old straw hat, with his seersucker coat buttoned tightly round his sturdy figure, he had never before been known to descend into Main Street in that garb. The crowd immediately began closing in upon him and Fred detached a squad of his brawniest men to act as the banker's bodyguard.
Amzi moved with great serenity towards the First National Bank, and appeared to be examining the sunburst the hostile stone had stamped upon the plate-glass window. Amzi never hurried, and he appeared to be in no haste now. Main Street was pleased that he deliberated. The longer the entertainment lasted the better. The door of the First National had been closed with little difficulty during the diversion afforded by the arrival of the college men, but the steps and sidewalk were filled. Amzi looked over the crowd musingly, and beckoned to Fred.
"Get me a box to stand on and a piece of soap—laundry soap. I want to—"
He waved his cigar toward the window in vague explanation, and Fred dived into a grocery and came back with the articles demanded. Main Street's curiosity had never been so whetted and teased. If it had been any one but Amzi; but it was so unmistakably Amzi! Amzi placed the box under the window and stood upon it. Then with characteristic nonchalance he removed the wrapper from the cake of soap, while the crowd surged and shuffled, filling the street again in its anxiety to miss nothing. Amzi broke the bar of soap in two, and calmly trimmed half of it to serve as a crayon. As he began to write upon the glass, his guards were hard-pressed to hold back the throng that seemed bent upon pushing the banker through his rival's window. To ease the tension the boys struck up—
"The pirates of the Wabash,A jolly crowd are they."
Amzi wrote slowly, in a large round hand, beginning immediately under the "First National Bank" lettering. The faint tracings of the soap were legible only a few yards away and the yell-leader began reading for the benefit of the crowd. And this was Amzi's announcement:—
I hereby guarantee all deposits in this bank.Interest on Sycamore Traction bonds will be paid here April 1. Persons from whom I have bought such bonds may redeem same at price I paid for them, without discount.A. Montgomery.
I hereby guarantee all deposits in this bank.
Interest on Sycamore Traction bonds will be paid here April 1. Persons from whom I have bought such bonds may redeem same at price I paid for them, without discount.
A. Montgomery.
When he had completed his first sentence, he paused to inspect it. Murmurs of astonishment gave way to shouts of approval, and then the street grew silent as the remainder was read word by word.
"Let her go now, for A. Montgomeree!" cried the yell-leader, and while necks craned and men jostled and pushed,the students cheered. When Amzi had written, "at the price I paid for them," he made a period, and then, after a moment's reflection, drew out his handkerchief and erased it to add—"without discount."
He threw away the soap and began to retrace his steps, but the whole town seemed now to have massed itself in the intersecting streets. The nearest students flung themselves together as an escort, and amid cheers Amzi returned to his own bank, where Phil opened the door and demanded to know what he had been doing to be cheered as only a football hero is cheered when his name is read at commencement.
"Thunder!" said Amzi. "I just wanted to take the gas out of Alec's speech. What are those fools doing now?"
Phil, Fred, and Amzi, with several of the students who had acted as the banker's bodyguard, gathered at the front window. Amzi's announcement that the Sycamore interest would be paid had brought Kirkwood into the minds of many who knew of his efforts to save the company. His name shouted here and there in the street directed attention to his office windows. As a former member of the faculty of Madison, Kirkwood appeared usually on the platform at commencement, and now that he was mentioned the students improvised a cheer for him that Kirkwood's building flung back at Montgomery's Bank. The demonstration continued with increased volume, until finally Kirkwood opened a window and looked down. A shout rose as he appeared. The tears sprang to Phil's eyes as she saw her father's tall figure, his stoop accentuated as he bent under the window. He had really achieved at last! She only vaguely grasped the import of what Amzi had told her in a few abrupt sentences after his return to the bank, but her heart beat fast at the thought that her father shared in the day's honors. He had been of real service to his fellow-townsmen and they were now demanding a speech. He bowed and vanished; but when the cheering was renewed and long continued, he came back, and when silence fell upon the crowd (Phil wondered if they, too, feltthe pathos in him that had always touched her, and which just then brought the tears to her eyes!) he spoke slowly and clearly.
"My friends, this is the best town and its people are the best and kindest people in the world. If I have done anything to win your praise I am glad. This community is bound to prosper, for it is founded, not upon industry and thrift alone, but upon faith and honor and helpfulness; and these, my good friends, are the things that endure forever."
"I couldn't hear that," said Amzi to Phil, as her father disappeared into his office amid the loudest cheers of the day, "but I reckon Tom said about the right thing."
"I'm sure he did," replied Phil, drying her eyes, "and it's all true, too!"
It's pleasant, on the whole, to do something worth doing; to make grass grow where it has never grown before; to put the last touch to a canoe-paddle of exactly the right weight and balance; to bring to something approximating one's ideal of a sound sentence the last stubborn, maddening clutter of words in a manuscript that has grown from a pen-scratch on the back of an envelope into a potential book. And Tom Kirkwood was not without his sense of satisfaction. He had without litigation straightened the Sycamore Company's financial tangles. Its physical deficiencies were being remedied and its service brought to standard. He had never in his life felt so conscious of his powers. He was out of debt—having paid back two thousand dollars Amzi had loaned him in the fall, after Phil had raised the red flag of danger in their affairs. The load was off his back; men spoke to him in the street with a new cordiality; the "Evening Star," in an excess of emotion following the taking-over of the First National Bank by Amzi and all the moving incidents connected with the drama of Main Street's greatest day,—the "Evening Star" had without the slightest provocation, declared that the Honorable Thomas Kirkwood was just the man for governor. The Desbrosses Trust & Guaranty Company had not only paid him handsomely, but was entrusting him with the rehabilitation of a traction company in Illinois that was not earning dividends.
He came back to Montgomery to try some cases at the April term of court and sent his trunk to the Morton House.
"It isn't square, daddy," said Phil, breaking in upon him at his office on the day of his arrival. "We were to open thehouse again when you had finished at Indianapolis. And here you are, not even telling me you were coming."
The office was dingier and dustier than ever. She abused him for not at least giving her a chance to clean it against his coming.
"I have to be off again in a week; it didn't seem worth while to put you to the trouble of opening the house just for that," he replied evasively. His own affairs again occupied his mind, and the sight of Phil gave a keen edge to his curiosity as to her life at Amzi's.
"Your new suit is certainly some clothes, and a glimpse of that four-in-hand makes the world a nobler and better place to live in! If the Indianapolis boulevards can do that for you, it's too bad I didn't know it long ago. I have an idea"—and she paused pensively in the act of dusting a chair—"I'm a good deal worried by the idea that you ought to be mussed!"
He pleaded mockingly for mercy, calling attention to her inconsistency in admiring his raiment while at the same time threatening it with destruction.
"You seem to have been to the dressmaker yourself. How's your bank account, Phil? I suppose your uncle will have to be more careful about overdrafts now that he has a national bank."
"Oh, I'm not broke. And"—suddenly serious—"I must tell you something, daddy. I've been waiting for a chance to ask you if you cared; it didn't seem right not to ask you; and, of course, if you mind, Iwon't."
He smiled at her earnestness, her unusual indirection. She was immensely grown up; there were new manifestations of her otherwiseness. He noted little sophisticated tricks of manner that reminded him vaguely of some one else.
"Amy says it's all right for me to do it, but that I must ask you; and mamma says that, too."
Her preluding roused apprehensions. What might not have happened in these weeks that Phil had spent withLois? He observed his daughter with a new intentness. She drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and touched it lightly, with an un-Phil-like gesture to her nose; and an instant later, with an almost imperceptible movement of her head, resettled her hat. She had acquired—quite unconsciously he did not question—a new air. She was his old Phil, but the portrait had been retouched here and there, and was reminiscent in unaccountable ways of some one else very like and very different.
"Yes, Phil, come out with it," he said, finding her eyes upon him in a wide, unseeing gaze—and that, too, he now remembered. She had taken on, as young girls do, the superficial graces and innocent affectations of an older person. Such perfectly natural and pardonable imitation is induced by admiration; and Lois had been a woman of fascinations in old times! He had no reason for believing that she had changed; and it had been clear to him that first day of Lois's return that she had laid strong hold upon Phil's imagination.
"Mamma wants to give me some money: she has already done some nice things for me. She bought this hat and suit; but she wants to do more."
Kirkwood frowned. Lois had no right to come back and steal Phil away from him. He was at once jealous, suspicious. He, too, had assumed that Lois's return had not been voluntary; that she had come back of necessity and flung herself upon Amzi's charity. It would be quite like her to try to tempt Phil with a handful of trinkets.
"It isn't likely that she has much to give you; but before you accept anything of importance you should be sure that it's a proper gift for her to offer, that she can afford to do it."
"There doesn't seem to be any question about that, daddy. What she wants to do is to give me a whole lot of money—enough to make me really rich. She wants to put one hundred thousand dollars in a trusteeship for me."
There was consternation in his quick glance. Nothing in his knowledge of Lois justified a belief that she would ever,by any proper and reputable means, command any such sum.
"You must be mistaken, Phil. You must have got the figures wrong. It's more likely a thousand. You know mathematics was never a strong point with you!"
"It's this way, you see, daddy. She made a lot of money—in lucky investments—mines, real estate, and things like that. She told me a little about it; as though it were a great joke. But she is very clever; she did it all by herself—and no one knows it, except just Amy; and she told me I might tell you, so you'd understand. She even said to say to you—" and Phil paused, knitting her brows. To be repeating as from a stranger a message from her mother to her father was a fresh phase of the unreal situation created by her mother's return. "She said to tell you she came by it honestly; that it wasn't tainted money!"
And Phil laughed nervously, not knowing how her father would take this. He seemed depressed, in the old familiar fashion; and she could not know the reason of it, or that the magnitude of his former wife's resources and her wish to divide with her daughter rallied all manner of suspicions round his jealousy.
"She said that either Amy could manage it for me, or that if you liked she would be perfectly willing to turn it over to you. She was very kind about it, daddy; really she was."
"I'm not questioning that, Phil. It's a little staggering, that's all."
"But, of course," she ran on eagerly, "it wouldn't make any difference between you and me. I know you have done everything for me. Please don't ever think I forget that, daddy. And if you have any feeling about it, please say no. I don't want money, just to be having it. We've always agreed that money isn't the main thing in life."
"It's rather necessary, though, as we've found by experience," he replied, with a rueful smile. "I've done pretty badly, Phil; but things are brighter. I'm able now to begin putting some money away for you myself, and I shall do it,of course, just the same. But as to your mother's offer, you must accept it; it's a large sum, far more than I could ever command. It makes you independent; it changes the future for you, puts things within your reach that have been clear out of the question. And it's very generous on her part to tell you to refer the matter to me. I assume," he added, "that she's keeping enough for herself; there might be some difficulty later on if she didn't do that."
"Oh," said Phil, with an unconscious note of pride that did not escape him, "she has plenty; she's richer, I suppose, than almost anybody around here. She didn't ask me not to tell you anything—she's not like that—so you may as well know that she gave Amy a lot of money to help him set up the new bank. It's so funny that I can't help laughing. The whole family—one's aunts, I mean—think she came back to sponge off of Amy, and they don't know she's going to own almost as much as he does in the new Montgomery National. I get to giggling when I see those women strutting by the house with their chins up, but mamma doesn't pay the least attention. I don't believe she thinks about them at all; she's had the house fixed over—pitched a lot of Amy's old furniture into the alley—and is having the garden done by a landscape gardener she imported from Chicago. And those poor women are fretting themselves to death, thinking it's Amy's money she's spending. Yesterday she ordered a seven thousand dollar automobile by telegraph,—just like that!—and when it anchors in front of Amy's gate there'll be some deaths from heart failure in that neighborhood."
Kirkwood's sometime sisters-in-law had been three sharp thorns in his side; and Phil's joy at the prospect of their discomfiture when they beheld their sister rolling about in an expensive motor was not without justification. Lois's prosperity was, however, deeply mystifying. It flashed upon him suddenly that he did not in the least know this Lois of whom Phil had been speaking: she was certainly not the young woman, scarcely out of her girlhood, who had soshamelessly abandoned him. And over this thought stumbled another: he had never known her! As he reflected, his eyes roamed to a large calendar on the wall over Phil's head. This was the 12th of April, his wedding-day. The date interested him only passively; it had long ago ceased to affect him emotionally.
He meant to speak to Nan before he left town and endeavor once more to persuade her that Lois's return had made no difference. As he swung idly in his chair he sought to analyze his feelings. Those little tricks of manner that Phil imitated so unconsciously kept recurring and he tried to visualize the Lois of the present as she must be;—clever, impulsive in her generosities, heedless, indifferent. In all his conjecturing since Christmas he had experienced no longing to have her back; nothing beyond a mild impersonal curiosity as to how time had dealt with her.
The success that had attended his labors had strengthened all the fibers of his will; he was the master of himself, a man again. He had demonstrated to his own surprise and satisfaction that he could devise a plan and put it through; that he could bring an iron hand to his dealings with men. And buoyed up by this fresh knowledge he was impatient at the frustration of any of his plans and hopes. Lois had shaken down the pillars of his life once; but she could not repeat that injury. He had built himself a new argosy and found a new companion for his voyaging. Nan should marry him; if she liked they would remove to Indianapolis to escape gossipy tongues; but he had definitely determined that the marriage should not be delayed. He was a free man and he meant to exercise and enjoy his freedom. He had taken soundings where he had gone down on that first venture and touched nowhere any trace of the wreck; the waters of oblivion rippled listlessly over those unmarked shoals.
He swung round with an uncomfortable sense that Phil had been watching him as she bent forward, her elbow resting on the arm of one of the old office chairs, her hand against her cheek. That had been one of Lois's ways andPhil's brown eyes were very like Lois's! He did not want Phil to attribute his long reverie to retrospective regrets or present longings.
"Well, Phil; I've got to go to the court-house to see Judge Walters. About that money, it's perfectly right for you to accept it; but I think it best that your Uncle Amzi should have the care of it. It's a considerable responsibility, however, and you must let him know that you appreciate his doing it; and I'll speak to him about it myself. If you're going home you can walk as far as the court-house with me."
He had spoken briskly, to emphasize his own indifference to Lois and her money.
While Kirkwood was collecting some papers, Phil, after moving restlessly about and glancing down at Amzi—he happened just then to be standing on the bank steps talking to an agent of the Comptroller's office who had been dispatched from Washington to observe the metamorphosis of the First National into the Montgomery National,—Phil, with an embarrassment that was new to her relations with her father, asked diffidently,—
"Shall I say anything to mamma—I mean about the money?"
This was not at all what she had meant to say. She had hoped that he would send some message to her mother. It was incredible that the wires should be so utterly broken between them as to make all communication impossible. They were both so much to her liking; in her own heart admiration and love enfolded them both so completely that her spirit chafed at the thought of standing first with one and then with the other on the respective sides of the barricade that had risen between them. Her father replied brusquely:—
"No; that's all, I believe, Phil."
As they walked toward the court-house, Lois passed on the opposite sidewalk. It is not against Montgomery conventions to nod to friends across Main Street or even to pause and converse across that thoroughfare if one is so disposed. Phil nodded to her mother. She was unable to tellwhether her father was conscious that his former wife was so near; he lifted his hat absently, seeing that Phil was speaking to some one.
"By the way, Phil, have you been in the house lately—the old place, I mean? Amzi's carpenter tells me the wind has torn off the water-spouts and that the veranda posts have rotted badly."
He had so rarely mentioned the long-abandoned house that she was startled. He did not care! This was the most conclusive proof possible that he no longer cared; and the thought of it did not make her happy. Clearly Love was not, after all, a limitless dominion, without other bounds than those set by the farthest stars, but a narrow, dark, and unstable realm. That these two should dwell in the same town, walk the same street, at the same hour, without any desire to see and speak to each other, was the strangest of phenomena.
"Drop in to-morrow and have luncheon with me at the hotel. I want to see all of you I can while I'm here," he remarked when they reached the court-house.
"Very well, daddy."
That evening, after he had eaten the hotel supper with a printed brief for company, Kirkwood went to the Bartletts', but no one answered his summons and he turned away disappointed. Thinking they were probably at some neighbor's house he decided to walk about and return later. His idle roaming led him past Center Church. It was prayer-meeting night, and through the open windows floated a hymn sung waveringly by the small gathering of the faithful. It was here, on just such an April night, that he and Lois had sworn to love and cherish each other to the end of their days. He had been profoundly moved that night, standing before the reverend president of the college in the crowded church and repeating his vows after the kindly, lovable old man. And he remembered how, as they left the church, the assembled students had shown their good-will in ringing cheers. But these memories had lost their poignancy. Verily, he did not care!
Finding himself presently before Amzi's house, he remembered without emotion that Lois was established there. It was an ironic fling of the dice that had brought her back prosperous and presumably happy to lure Phil away from him! He walked slowly; the proximity of his recreant wife gave him neither pang nor thrill. He loitered that the test might be the more complete.
A man had been walking toward him from the farther side of the Montgomery place, and something furtive in his movements caused Kirkwood to pause. Then, after halting uncertainly and fumbling at the chain that held the Kirkwood gate together, the man retraced his steps, and guardedly let himself into the Fosdicks' yard. Kirkwood listened, and hearing no further sounds dismissed the matter. It now occurred to him to visit his own property, whose decrepitude Amzi had brought to his attention, and finding that he had matches and the house key, he lifted the chain from the rickety gate and passed into the garden. Kirkwood was preoccupied with the idea of putting the house and lot in order and selling it. Now that he was confident that it no longer held any associations for him, he was in haste to be rid of it. He would sell the place and invest the proceeds for Phil. He smiled ironically as he remembered the disparity between his own fortunes and those of his former wife. He did not resent her prosperity; he did not understand it; but if it was the way of the gods to visit fortune upon the unrighteous, so much the worse for the gods.
A brick walk curved round the house, and as he was about to step from it to the veranda he heard voices that came seemingly from the jutting corner of a wing that had been his library. He had no wish to be found there. Very likely the yard was visited frequently by prowlers; and there was a beaten path across the rear which had been for years a short cut between Amzi's and his sisters' houses. He was in no mood for a meeting with any intruder who might be there at this hour, and he was about to steal back the way he hadcome when a man's voice rose suddenly in anger. A woman replied, evidently counseling a lower tone.
"Here in Tom's graveyard is a fitting place to talk over our affairs. You needn't be in such a hurry to go. We may as well fix this thing up now and be done with it. I'm broke; I haven't got a cent, and it's tough, I can tell you. But it's some satisfaction to know that Will's broke, too. I took care that he got his, all right. The Holtons are all down and out. Will's as poor as I am, and my gay nephew Charlie's busy dodging the sheriff. Not much left for Will now but to go out and rustle for life insurance—the common fate of inglorious failure."
The woman's voice rose crisp and assured on the tender spring air.
"Your note said it was something of importance. I can't stay here all night. I haven't any money for you and your family troubles don't interest me. And let me say, once and for all, that I don't propose to have you following me round. This is a big world and there's room in it for both of us."
Kirkwood could not see them, though he heard perfectly every word that had been spoken, and he could not escape without attracting their attention.
"See here, Lois, I've just heard a whisper from Seattle that you cleaned up a lot of money out there. Good joke on me, wasn't it? I thought you were pretty thick with the Barkleys, but I didn't know he had let you into his deals. I want my share; if it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have known Seattle was on the map. It's only fair; I'll call it fifty thousand and let it go at that."
"Nothing; absolutely not a penny! I advise you to make yourself scarce. And if you attempt to annoy me while I'm here, I'll do something very unpleasant about it. I agreed to meet you to-night merely to tell you that."
Kirkwood heard her step on the walk, and drew back. The light of the moon was full upon her. She was bareheaded and wrapped in a long coat. It was thus that he saw her again, in the shadow of the house where together they hadkindled their hearth,—in the garden plot whose disorder and ruin were eloquent of her broken faith.
She was moving away swiftly, with the light step he remembered. Holton gained her side in a long leap.
"No, you don't! Not by a damned sight, you don't!"
Kirkwood saw them both clearly in their attitude of antagonism—the wife who had wronged him, the friend who had betrayed him.
"You don't shake me so easily. I want my share of the profits. It was a low trick—getting rid of me so you could spend your money on yourself; humiliating me by showing me up as a drunkard in the divorce court. I owe you a good one for that!"
"Not a cent!" she repeated, lifting her head in mockery of his clumsy attempt to becloud the real issue.
Her taunting tone maddened him; without warning he gripped her throat roughly. His tightening clasp stifled her cry as she struggled to free herself.
Kirkwood stood suddenly beside them, caught Holton by the collar, and flung him back. Holton's arm was up instantly to ward off an expected blow. He turned guardedly, and his arm fell as he recognized Kirkwood.
"So that's the ticket! It was a trap, was it?" And then his anger mounting, he flung round at Lois. "So this is what brought you back! Well, it doesn't lower my price any! He can have you and be damned to him, but I double my price!"
"This is my property," said Kirkwood coldly; "if you don't leave instantly, I'll turn you over to the police."
"She's come back to you, has she! Well, you needn't be so set up about it. She's anybody's woman for the asking; you ought to have learned that—"
Kirkwood's stick fell with a sharp swish across his shoulders.
"Leave these grounds at once or I'll send you to the lockup!"
Holton looked coweringly from one to the other. The strangeness of the encounter was in the mind of each: thatthe years had slipped away and that Kirkwood was defending her from the man for whom she had abandoned him. An unearthly quiet lay upon the garden. Children's voices rose faintly on the silvery April night from the grounds beyond. Far away, beyond the station, a locomotive puffed slowly on a steep grade. The noises of the town seemed eerily blurred and distant.
"Clear out! Your business here is finished. And don't come back," said Kirkwood firmly.
"She asked me to meet her here;—you must have known it; it was a damned vile trick—" Holton broke out violently; but Kirkwood touched him with the end of his stick, pointed toward the gate, and repeated his order more sharply. Holton whirled on his heel, found an opening in the hedge, and left them, the boughs snapping behind him.
Kirkwood was the first to speak.
"He's gone, I think. I'll watch until you get safely back to Amzi's."
He lifted his hat; his tone was one of dismissal and she turned as though to leave, hesitated and drew a step nearer.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to speak to you a moment. I shouldn't have thought of seeking you, of course, but this makes it possible."
He made no reply, but waited, leaning on his stick. Her foot tapped the walk nervously; as she readjusted the cloak it exhaled the faint scent of orris that reached him as though wafted down some dim aisle of memory.
"I want to speak about Phil. It was to see Phil that I came back. I want you to know that I wouldn't take her away from you if I could. There must be no misunderstanding about this. Whatever I am or have been or may be, I am not base enough for that."
He was silent for a moment.
"That is something that is not in your hands or mine," he answered. "Phil is the mistress of her own affairs. I was perfectly willing that she should go to Amzi's to be withyou; it's for her to decide whether she ever comes back to me."
"That is—generous; very generous," she replied, as though, after hesitating before using the word, her second thought confirmed the choice.
"And about the money; she told me she spoke to you about that to-day. I appreciate your attitude. I want you to understand that I'm not trying to bribe her. I'm glad of a chance to say that I would do nothing to spoil her loyalty to you. You deserve that; and I have no illusions about myself. If I thought my coming would injure her—or you—in any way, I should go at once and never come back. But I had to see her, and it has all happened fortunately—Amzi's kindness, and hers—and your own! Phil is so dear—so lovable!"
Her last words broke in a sob, but she quickly regained her self-control.
"I'm glad," he replied, "if you are not disappointed in her. We have been very close—comrades and friends; but she has gone beyond me; and that was inevitable. She's an independent spirit—quite capable of managing her own affairs."
"I don't think she will ever go beyond you," Lois answered. "She has told me all the story—and I have read a good deal into it that she didn't tell me. And I am very grateful. She didn't have to tell me that you had not embittered her against me; her way of meeting me was reassuring as to that. It was fine of you; it wasn't what I expected or deserved."
Unconsciously they had begun walking back and forth in the path, and once, as they turned, they looked at each other fixedly for the first time. It was the deliberate frank scrutiny of old acquaintances who seek affirmation of fading memories after long absence.
"As to the money, I want to protect her, as far as money can do it, from hardship and need hereafter. I don't want you to think I offer it as restitution—or—penance. I have plenty for myself; I'm giving up nothing in doing it."
He tried to phrase carefully his disavowal of any thought that her gift was a penitential act. He confessed that he had been concerned for Phil's future; and that so far he had not been able to provide for her in case of his death. This brought him to Amzi, whose devotion to Phil he praised warmly. They met immediately upon the safe ground of Amzi's nobility. Then they recurred to Phil. Presently as they passed the veranda, she sat down on the steps and after a moment he seated himself beside her. They had sat thus, looking out upon the newly planned garden, when the mystery and wonder of Phil's coming filled their hearts and minds.
"I've thought," she said, bending forward with her arms folded upon her knees, "that Phil ought to travel—that I might take her away for a little while." She waited for his assent; but when he was silent, she hurried on to set herself right in this. "But I don't believe that would be best. Not with me. Trotting around with me over there wouldn't do her any good. It might spoil her point of view, which is—just right—sound and healthy. The child's a genius. She wants to write—of course you know that."
He did not know it. Jealousy pricked him at this sudden revelation of something in Phil that he had not with all his opportunity realized.
"She's very clever," he responded tamely.
"It's more than that! She has a trunkful of stuff she's written—some of it rubbish; some of it amazingly good."
He resented these appraisements of Phil's literary experiments. It was disagreeable to hear from Phil's mother things which he should have learned for himself. His trained analytical faculties were disturbed; he had regarded the theory of the superior keenness of maternal perception as rather fantastic. Phil had never confided her ambitions to him; in fact, it was now clear that she had concealed them, perhaps fearing his criticisms.
"She's so droll!"—and Lois laughed at some recollection. "She has a delicious humor—her own special flavor.All these people in Montgomery are story-book people to her. She's a deep one—that little Phil! She has written pages about them—and the drollest of all about those women over there."
She indicated with a gesture the domiciles of her sisters. The fact that Phil had utilized her aunts as literary material amused Lois profoundly. But finding that the burden of the talk lay with her she asked, "What would you think of college for Phil? Or is it too late?"
"She didn't seem a good subject when the time came; and besides," he added bluntly, "I couldn't afford it."
"Oh, she didn't speak of it regretfully; she didn't complain because you hadn't sent her!"
"No, of course not; that wouldn't be like Phil. I'm not sure college would be a good thing for her now; she's read prodigiously—away ahead of most girls, ahead of most people! There wouldn't be so much that college could do for her. And if she really has the creative faculty, it's better not to curb or check it. Not in her case. She led her class in high school without working at it. Whatever she wants to know she will get without tying herself up in a college course."
Lois nodded. He was an educated man who had himself been a teacher, and his testimony was entitled to respect. She was far more comfortable than he as they continued the discussion. The breadth of her understanding of Phil piqued him. In these few weeks Lois had learned much about Phil that had been a sealed book to him. His position was absurd; it was preposterous for him to be learning about Phil from Phil's mother, when it was he who had shaped the course of Phil's life. He wondered whether Lois knew that her disclosures hurt his pride, shattered his vanity.
"The dear child seems to be the sole prop of most of the paupers in the bottoms. I went with her to look at one of her families yesterday, and I could see where her spare change has been going. She's set up a piano in the box factory so the girls can amuse themselves at noontime and you maybe sure they're all crazy about her. Everybody seems to be!"
The remembrance of Phil's generosities amused her. She mentioned a number of them with murmurous glee and unmistakable admiration. Phil had never confided these things to him, and he reflected ruefully that her indulgence in pianos for working-girls probably accounted for deficiencies in her own wardrobe that had not at times escaped his masculine eye. He had mildly wondered what became of the money he gave Phil for shoes! It argued an unresponsiveness in his own nature that Phil had concealed her adventures as Lady Bountiful from him—and he had thought she told him everything!
He was learning about Phil from the last person in the world who had any right to know Phil. He had seen in her precociousness, her healthy delight in books, nothing astonishing, and he had known nothing of her scribbling. His irritation grew. He was impatient to escape from this garden that Holton had spoken of as Kirkwood's graveyard; from this cheerful ghost beside him, with her low, musical voice and her murmurous laughter. His thoughts flew to Nan, to whom he now meant to go with his last appeal.
It flashed upon him that he might assure his victory over Nan's qualms by carrying to her the definite knowledge that there was absolutely no hope, as he fancied Nan believed there was, that he and Lois might bridge the wide chasm that had separated them for so many years and renew the old tie. If he could go from Lois to Nan with that news, he believed his case would be invincible. He would make the offer to Lois now, on this spot whose associations might be supposed to create an atmosphere of sentiment favorable to its serious consideration. The interview had run into a dead wall. Quite imaginably his proximity had begun to bore Lois. He idled with his stick, pondering. She rose suddenly.
"I must go back; Phil won't know what's become of me."
"Perhaps it would be as well to tell her that we've met," he said. "In fact, I think she should know."
"I prefer not," she answered with decision. "It might trouble her; she might think—she thinks of everything!"
"Lois, there are ways—important ones—in which it would be best for her, make her happier, if we could—try again!"
She raised her hand with one of her quick gestures, and it rested for an instant on his arm. As she lifted her face he saw the tears bright in her eyes.
"Don't say it; don't think of it!" she whispered brokenly.
"For Phil's sake we ought to do it if we can," he persisted, surprised to find how unmoved he was.
"For Phil's sake we wouldn't if we could!" Their gaze met searchingly. "It would be doing Phil a terrible wrong!"
"I don't understand; I can't follow that," he answered.
And still unmoved, untouched, he saw grief and fear in her eyes, her face twitching with the pain of inner conflict.
"No; you don't understand!" she cried softly. "But if you meant it—if we either of us cared any more, don't you see that it wouldn't do! Don't you know how unjust—how horribly unjust it would be to her, to—to lead her to think that Love could be like that; something to be taken on and put off? It would be an unholy thing! It would be a sacrilege! No one would be deceived by it; and Phil would know we both lied!"
"But we might work it out some way; with her to help it might not go badly. I would do my best! I promise you that," he said, more sincere than he had meant to be.
She was greatly moved and he wondered where emotion might lead her. He was alertly watchful for any quick thrust that might find him off guard. She went on hurriedly.
"Tom," she said gently, "Phil had thought of it; she spoke of it. But nothing worse could happen to her. It would spoil the dear illusions she has about me; and in the end she would think less of you. For you don't mean it; it's only for Phil's sake you suggest it."
"And for your own sake, too; to protect you from—from just such occurrences as—"
His eyes turned away from her to the point in the hedge through which Holton had vanished.
She shivered as though a cold wind had touched her and drew the cloak closer about her shoulders.
"I don't need any one's protection. That poor beast won't bother me. I must say now all I shall ever have to say to you. We won't lie to each other; we need not! There is no real soul in me. If there had been, this house would not have been standing here empty all these years. And yet you see that I haven't changed much; it hasn't really made a great deal of difference in me. I have had my hours of shame, and I have suffered—a little. I believe I am incapable of deep feeling: I was born that way. If I appealed to your mercy now, I should be lying. And for a long time I have lived the truth the best I could. I believe I understand the value of truth and honor, too; I believe I realize the value of such things now. I'm only a little dancing shadow on the big screen; but I mean to do no more mischief; not if I can help it, and I think that at last I have mastered myself. You see," and quite composed she laughed again, "I'm almost a fool, but not quite."
He murmured something as she paused, but she did not heed him, nor ask what he had said. He was not so relieved as he had expected to be by her prompt refusal of his offer, whose fine quixotism he felt had been wasted upon her. He was nothing to her; and never could have been; and this rejection was not the less disagreeable because he had expected it. It is difficult to imagine any circumstances in which a man will accept without resentment the idea that he is a negligible figure in a woman's life. The finer his nature the greater his astonishment at finding that she is able to complete her reckoning without including him as a factor in her calculations. And in Kirkwood's case the woman had put him in the wrong when all the right was so incontrovertibly on his side. She had taken high ground for her refusal, and he could not immediately accommodate himself to the air of this new altitude, which he had never expected tobreathe in her company. Her thistledown nature might be the prey of the winds, but even so they might bear her high and far.
"I must go on and finish, for there will never be another chance. You deserve the best life can give you. I'm glad to know things have been going well with you; and Amzi says it's only the beginning. With all my heart I'm glad. It makes it easier for me—don't you see! And I know about Nan Bartlett; not from Phil, but from Mrs. King. I hope you will marry Nan; and if my coming has made any difference, don't let that trouble you! In a little while I shall be gone; but Phil mustn't know that. And I shall never come back here—you may rely on that; but I hope to have Phil come to me now and then. I want to keep in touch with her,—have some part in her life. And you needn't fear that I shan't be—quite a proper person for Phil to visit! You will believe that, won't you?"
"Yes, Lois," he said wonderingly; for he was touched by the wistfulness of her plea that he should not fear her influence upon Phil. "You wouldn't have come back to Phil unless you felt you had a right to; I'm sure of that," he said with warmth.
"No; I should not have been base enough for that," she replied, with a little forlorn sigh.
"And as for your going away, it must not be on my account. It isn't necessary for you to go."
He did not speak of Nan; nor did she refer to her again.
"I'm glad this has happened this way. I think we understand a little better. Good-night, Tom!"
"Good-night, Lois!"
Their hands touched. He saw the flutter of her cloak as she passed round the house, seeking the path to Amzi's. The garden was very still when she had gone.