When Francis King told Mr. Avery that she could and would leave her father's home and live upon the money she earned, and had heretofore looked upon as merely a resource to save her pride, she did not take into consideration certain very important facts, not the least of which was, perhaps, that her presence at the store was not wholly a pleasant thing for the cashier to contemplate under existing circumstances.
Francis King was not a diplomat. The cashier was not a martyr. These two facts, added to the girl's scornful eyes, rendered the position in the trimming department far less secure than she had grown to believe.
So when she came to the little room which Gertrude Foster had provided as a temporary home for Ettie Berton, she felt that she came as a help and protector and not at all as a possible encumbrance.
"I've had a terrible blow-out with pa," she said, bitterly. "I can't go home any more if I wanted to—and I don't want to. I told him what I thought of him, and of your—and of the kind of men that make mean laws they are ashamed to have their own folks know about and live by. He was awful mad. He said laws was none o' my business, and he guessed men knew best what was right an' good for women."
"Of course they do," said Ettie with her ever ready acquiescence. "I reckon you didn't want t' denythat,did you Fan? You 'n your pa must a' shook hands for once anyhow," she laughed. "How'd it feel? Didn't you like agreein' with him once?" Francis looked at the child—this pitiful illustration of the theory of yielding acquiescence; this legitimate blossom of the tree of ignorance and soft-hearted dependence; this poor little dwarf of individuality; this helpless echo of masculine measures, methods, and morals—and wondered vaguely why it was that the more helpless the victim, the more complete her disaster, the more certain was she to accept, believe in, and support the very cause and root of her undoing.
Francis King's own mental processes were too disjointed and ill-formulated to enable her to express the half-formed thoughts that came to her. Her heart ached for her little friend to whom to-day was always welcome, and to whom to-morrow never appeared a possibility other than that it would be sunshiny, and warm, and comfortable.
Francis saw a certain to-morrow which should come to Ettie, far more clearly than did the child herself, and seeing, sighed. Her impulse was to argue the case hotly with Ettie, as she had done with her father; but she looked at her face again, and then, as a sort of safety-valve for her own emotion, succinctly said: "Ettie Berton, you are the biggest fool I ever saw."
Ettie clapped her hands.
"Right you are, says Moses!" she exclaimed, laughing gleefully, "and you like me for it. Folks with sense like fools. Sense makes people so awful uncomfortable. Say, where'd you get that bird on your hat? Out 'o stock? Did that old mean thing make you pay full price? Goodness! how I do wish I could go back t' store!"
"Ettie, how'd you like for me to come here an live with you? Do you 'spose Miss Gertrude would care?"
"Hurrah for Cleveland!" exclaimed Ettie, springing to her feet and throwing her arms about Francis. "Hurrah for Grant! Gracious, but I'm glad! I'm just so lonesome I had to make my teeth ache for company," she rattled on. "Miss Gertrude 'll be glad, too. She said she wisht I had somebody 't take care of me. But, gracious! I don't need that. They ain't nothing to do but just set still n' wait. It's the waitin' now that makes me so lonesome. I want t' hurry 'n get back t' the store, 'n—"
She noticed Francis's look of surprise, not unmixed with frank scorn; but she did not rightly interpret it.
"My place ain't gone is it, Fan?" she asked, in real alarm. "He said he'd keep it for me."
"Ettie Berton, you are the biggest fool I ever saw," said Francis, again, this time with a touch of hopelessness and pathos in her voice, and at that moment there was a rap at the door. It was one of the cash girls from the store. She handed Francis a note, and while Ettie and the visitor talked gaily of the store, Francis read and covered her pale face with her trembling hands. She was discharged "owing to certain necessary changes to be made in the trimming department." She went and stood by the window with her back to the two girls. She understood the matter perfectly, and she did not dare trust herself to speak. It could not be helped, she thought, and why let Ettie know that she had brought this disaster upon her friend, also. Francis was trying to think. She was raging within herself. Then it came to her that she had boldly asserted that she would help protect and support Ettie. Now she was penniless, helpless, and homeless herself. There were but two faces that stood out before her as the faces of those to whom she could go for help and counsel, and she was afraid to go to even these. She was ashamed, humiliated, uncertain.
She supposed that Gertrude Foster could help her if she would. She had that vague miscomprehension of facts which makes the less fortunate look upon the daughters of wealth and luxury and love as possessed of a magic wand which they need but stretch forth to compass any end. She did not dream that at that very moment Gertrude Foster was revolving exactly the same problem in her own mind, and reaching out vainly for a solution. "What shall I do? what ought I to do? what can I do?" were questions as real and immediate to Gertrude, in the new phase of life and thought which had come to her, as they were to Francis in her extremity. It is true that the greater part of the problem in Francis's mind dealt with the physical needs of herself and her little friend, and with her own proud and fierce anger toward her father and the cashier. It is also true that these features touched Gertrude but lightly; but the highest ideals, beliefs, aspirations, and love of her soul were in conflict within her, and the basis of the conflict was the same with both girls. Each had, in following the best that was within herself, come into violent contact with established prejudice and prerogative, and each was beating her wings, the one against the bars of a gilded cage draped lovingly in silken threads, and the other was feeling her helplessness where iron and wrath unite to hold their prey.
The other face that arose before Francis brought the blood back to her face. She had not seen him since she had kissed his hand that night, and she wondered what he thought of her. She felt ashamed to go to him for help. She had talked so confidently to him that night of her own powers, and of her determination that Ettie should not again live under the same roof, and be subject to the will of the father whom she insisted was a disgrace to the child. "I reckonhecould get me another place to work—in a store," she thought. "But—" She shook her head, and a fierce light came into her eyes. She had learned enough to know that a girl who had left home under the wrath of her father, would best not appeal for a situation under the protection and recommendation of a young gentleman not of her own caste or condition in life. She thought of all this and of what it implied, and it seemed to her that her heart would burst with shame and rage.
Was she not a human being? Were there not more reasons than one why another human unit should be kind to her and help her? If she were a boy all this shame would be lifted from her shoulders, all these suspicions and repression and artificial barriers would be gone. She wondered if she could not get a suit of men's clothes, and so solve the whole trouble. No one would then question her own right of individual and independent action or thought. No one would then think it commendable for her to be a useless atom, subordinating her whole individuality to one man, to whose mental and moral tone she must bend her own, until such time as he should turn her over to some other human entity, whereupon she would be required to readjust all her mental and moral belongings to accommodate the new master. How comfortable it would be, she thought, to go right on year after year, growing into and out of herself. Expanding her own nature, and finding the woman of to-morrow the outcome of the girl of yesterday. She had once heard a teacher explain about the chameleon with its capacity to adjust itself to and take on the color of other objects. It floated into her mind that girls were expected to be like chameleons. Instead of being John King's daughter, with, of course, John King's ideas, status and aspirations, or William Jones's wife—now metamorphosed into a tepid reflex of William Jones himself—she thought how pleasant it would be to continue to be Francis King, and not feel afraid to say so. The idea fascinated her. Yes, she would get a suit of men's clothes, and henceforth have and feel the dignity of individual responsibility and development. She slipped out of the room and into the street. She thought she would order the clothes as if "for a brother just my size." She could pay for a cheap suit. She paused in front of a shop window, and the sight of her own face in a glass startled her. She groaned aloud. She knew as she looked that she was too handsome to pass for a man. It was a woman's face. Then, too, how could she live with and care for Ettie? "No,I'llhave to go tothemfor help," she said, desperately to herself, and turning, faced Selden Avery coming across the street. The color flew into her face, but she saw at a glance that he did not think of their last meeting—or, at least, not of its ending. "I was just wishing I could see you and Miss Gertrude," she said, bluntly, her courage coming back when he paused, recognizing that she wished to speak further with him than a mere greeting.
"Were you?" he said, smiling. "Our thoughts were half-way the same then, for I was wishing to see her, too."
She thought how pleasant and soft his voice was, and she tried to modify the tones of her own.
"I was goin't' ask you—her—what to do about—about something," she said, falteringly.
"So was I," he smiled back, showing his perfect teeth. "She will have to be very, very wise to advise us both, will she not? Shall we go to her now? And together? Perhaps our united wisdom may solve both your problem and mine. Three people ought to be three times as wise as one, oughtn't they?"
When Gertrude came forward to meet Selden Avery and Francis King, she felt the disapproving eyes of her father fixed upon her. It was a new and a painful sensation. It made her greeting less free and frank than usual, and both Avery and Francis felt without being able to analyze it.
"She don't like me to be with him," thought Francis, and felt humiliated and hurt.
"Surely Gertrude cannot doubt me," was Avery's mental comment, and a sore spot in his heart, left by a comment made at the club touching Gertrude's friendship for this same tall, fiery girl at his side, made itself felt again. John Martin exchanged glances with Gertrude's father. Avery saw, and seeing, resented what he believed to be its meaning.
The three men bowed rather stiffly to each other. Francis felt that she was, somehow, to blame. She wished that she had not come. She longed to go, but did not know what to say nor how to start. The situation was awkward for all. Gertrude wished for and yet dreaded the entrance of her mother.
Avery felt ashamed to explain, but he began as if speaking to Gertrude and ended with a look of challenge at the two men facing him. "I chanced to meet Miss King in the street and as both of us stood in need of advice from you," he was trying to smile unconcernedly, "we came up the avenue together."
There was a distinct look of displeasure and disapproval upon Mr. Foster's face, while John Martin took scant pains to conceal his disgust. He, also, had heard, and repeated, the club gossip to Gertrude's father.
"If good advice is what you want particularly," said Mr. Foster, slowly, "I don't know but that I might accommodate you. I hardly think Gertrude is in a position to—to—"
The bell rang sharply and in an instant the little cash girl from the store rushed in gasping for breath.
"Come quick! quick! Ettie is killed! She fell down stairs and then—oh, somethingawfulhappened! I don't know what it was. The doctor is there. He sent me here, 'cause Ettie cried and called for you!" She was looking at Gertrude, who started toward the door.
"Go back and tell the doctor that Miss Foster cannot come," said her father, rising.
"Certainly not, I should hope," remarked John Martin under his breath; "the most preposterous idea!" Gertrude paused. She was looking at her father with appeal in her face. Then her eyes fell upon the tense lips and piercing gaze of Francis King who, half way to the street door, had turned and was looking first from one to the other.
"Papa," said Gertrude, "don't say that. I must go. It is right that I should, and I must." Then with outstretched hands, "I want to go, papa! I need to. Don't—"
"You will do nothing of the kind, Gertrude. It is outrageous. What business have you got with that kind of girls? Iaskedyou to stop having them come here, and I told you to let them alone. I am perfectly disgusted with Avery, here, for—" He had thought Francis was gone. The drapery where she had turned to hear what Gertrude would say hid her from him. "With that kind of girls!" was ringing in her ears. "I hope when you are marriedthatis not the sort of society he is going to surround you with. It—" Avery saw for the first time what the trouble was. He stepped quickly to Gertrude's side and slipped one arm about her. Then he took the hand she still held toward her father.
"My wife shall have her own choice. She is as capable as I to choose. I shall not interfere. She shall not find me a master, but a comrade. Gertrude is her own judge and my adviser. That is all I ask, and it is all I assume for myself as her husband—when that time comes," he added, with her hand to his lips.
Mrs. Foster entered attired for the street. The unhappy face of Francis King with wide eyes staring at Gertrude met her gaze. She had heard what went before. "Get your hat, Gertrude," she said. "I will go with you. It might take too long to get a carriage. Francis, come with me; Gertrude will follow us. Come with her, my son," she said, to Selden Avery, and a spasm of happiness swept over his face. She had never called him that before. He stooped and kissed her, and there were tears in the young man's eyes as Mrs. Foster led Francis King away.
"I suppose it was all my fault to begin with," said John Martin, when the door had closed behind them. "It all started from that visit to the Spillinis. The only way to keep the girls of this age in—" he was going to say "in their place," but he changed to 'where they belong,' "is not to let them find out the facts of life. Charity and religion did well enough to appease the consciences of women before they had colleges, and all that. I didn't tell you so at the time, but I always did think it was a mistake to send Gertrude to a college where she could measure her wits with men. She'll never give it up. She don't know where to stop."
Mr. Foster lighted a cigar—a thing he seldom did in the drawing-room. He handed one to John Martin.
"I guess you're right, John," he said, slowly. "She can't seem to see that graduation day ended all that. It was Katherine's idea, sending her there, though. I wanted her to go to Vassar or some girl's school like that. I don't know what to make of Katherine lately; when I come to think of it, I don't know what to make of her all along. She seems to have laid this plan from the first, college and all; but I never saw it. Sometimes I'm afraid—sometimes I almost think—" He tapped his forehead and shook his head, and John Martin nodded contemplatively, and said: "I shouldn't wonder if you are right, Fred. Too much study is a dangerous thing for women. The structure of their brains won't stand it. It is sad, very sad;" and they smoked in sympathetic silence, while James had hastened below stairs to assure Susan that he thought he'd catch himself allowing his sweetheart or wife to demean herself and disgrace him by having anything to do with a person in the position of Ettie Berton. And Susan had little doubt that James was quite right, albeit Susan felt moderately sure that in a contest of wits—after the happy day—she could be depended upon to get her own way by hook or by crook, and Susan had no vast fund of scruple to allay as to method or motive. Deception was not wholly out of Susan's line. Its necessity did not disturb her slumbers.
Some one had sent for Ettie's father. They told him that she was dying, and he had come at once. Mr. King had gone with him. The latter gentleman did not much approve of his colleague's soft-heartedness in going. He did not know where his own daughter was, and he did not care. She had faced him in her fiery way, and angered him beyond endurance the morning after she had learned of the awful bill which he had not really originated, but which he had induced Mr. Berton to present, at the earnest behest of a social lion whose wont it was to roar mightily in the interest of virtue, but who was at the present moment engaged in lobbying vigorously in the interest of vice.
When Francis entered the sick-room with Mrs. Foster, and found the two men there, she gave one glance at the pallid, unconscious figure on the bed, and then demanded, fiercely: "Where is the cashier? Why didn't you bring him and—and the rest of you who help make laws to keep him where he is, an'—an' to put Ettie where she is? Why didn't y' bringallof your kind that helped along the job?"
Mrs. Foster had been bending over the child on the bed. She turned.
"Don't, Francis," she said, trying to draw the girl away. She was standing before the two men, who were near the window. "Don't, Francis. That can do no good. They did not intend—" "No'm," began Berton, awkwardly; "no'm, I didn't once think o'mygirl, n—" He glanced uneasily at his colleague and then at the face on the bed.
"Or you would never have wanted such a law passed, I am sure," said Katherine.
"No'm, I wouldn't," he said, doggedly, not looking at his colleague.
"Don't tell me!" exclaimed Francis. "You don't none of you care for her. He only cares because it is his girl an' disgraceshim. What did he do? Care for her? No, he drove her off. That shows who he's a-carin' for. He ain't sorry because it hurts or murders her. He never tried to make it easy for her an' say he was a lot more to blame an'—an'—a big sight worse every way than she was. He's a-howling now about bein' sorry; but he's only sorry for himself. He'd a let her starve—an' so'dhe," she said, pointing to her father. She was trembling with rage and excitement. "I hope there is a hell! I jest hope there is! I'll be willin' to go to it myself jest t' see—"
The door opened softly and Gertrude entered, and behind her stood Selden Avery.
"That kind of girls" floated anew into Francis's brain, and the sting of the words she had heard Gertrude's father utter drove her on. "I wish to God, every man that ever lived could be torn to pieces an'—an' put under Ettie's feet. They wouldn't be fit for her to walk on—none of 'em! She never did no harm on purpose ner when she understood; an' men—men jest love to be mean!"
She felt the utter inadequacy of her words, and a great wave of feeling and a sense of baffled resentment swept over her, and she burst into tears. Gertrude tried to draw her out of the room. At the door she sobbed: "Evenherfather's jest like the rest, only—only he says it easier. He—"
"Francis, Francis," said Gertrude, almost sternly, when they were outside the sickroom. "You must not act so. It does no good, and—and you are partly wrong, besides. If—"
"I didn't meanhim," said the girl, with her handkerchief to her eyes. "I didn't meanhim.I know what he thinks about it. I heard him talk one night at the club. He talked square, an' I reckon he is square. ButIwouldn't take no chances. I wouldn't marry the Angel Gabriel an' give him a chance to lord it over me!"
Gertrude smiled in spite of herself, and glanced within through the open door. There was a movement towards where the sick girl lay. "If you go in, you must be quiet," she said to Francis, and entered. Ettie had been stirring uneasily. She opened her great blue eyes, and when she saw the faces about her, began to sob aloud.
"Don't let pa scold me. I'll do his way. I'll do—anything anybody wants. I like to. The store—" She gave a great shriek of agony. She had tried to move and fell back in a convulsion. She was only partly conscious of her suffering, but the sight was terrible enough to sympathetic hearts, and there was but one pair of dry eyes in the room. The same beady, stern, hard glitter held its place in the eyes of Mr. King.
"Serves her right," he was thinking. "And a mighty good lesson. Bringin' disgrace on a good man's name!"
The tenacity with which Mr. King adhered to the belief in, and solicitude for, a good name, would have been touching had it not been noticeable to the least observant that his theory was, that the custody of that desirable belonging was vested entirely in the female members of a family. Nothing short of the most austere morals could preserve the family 'scutcheon if he was contemplating one side. Nothing short of a long-continued, open, varied, and obtrusive dishonesty and profligacy of a male member could even dull its lustre. It was a comfortable code for a part of its adherents.
Had his poor, colorless, inane wife ever dared to deviate from the beaten path of social observance, Mr. King would have talked about and felt that "his honor" was tarnished. Were he to follow far less strictly the code, he would not only be sure that his own honor was intact, but if any one were to suggest to him the contrary, or that he was compromising her honor, he would have looked upon that person as lacking in what he was pleased to call "common horse-sense." He was in no manner a hypocrite. His sincerity was undoubted. He followed the beaten track. Was it not the masculine reason and logic of the ages, and was not that final? Was not all other reason and logic merely a spurious emotionalism? morbid? unwholesome? irrational?
No one would gainsay that unless it were a lunatic or a woman, which was much the same thing—and since the opinion of neither of these was valuable, why discuss or waste time with them? That was Mr. King's point of view, and he was of the opinion that he had a pretty good voting majority with him, and a voting majority was the measure of value and ethics with Representative King—when the voting majority was on his side.
When the last awful agony came to poor little Ettie Berton, and she yielded up, in pathetic terror and reluctant despair, the life which had been moulded for her with such a result almost as inevitable as the death itself, a wave of tenderness and remorse swept over her father. He buried his face in the pillow beside the poor, pretty, weak, white face that would win favor and praise by its cheerful ready acquiescence no more, and wept aloud. This impressed Representative King as reasonable enough, under all the circumstances, but when Ettie's father intimated later to Francis that he had been to blame, and that, perhaps, after all, Ettiewasonly the legitimate result of her training and the social and legal conditions which he had helped to make and sustain, Representative King curled his lip scornfully and remarked that in his opinion Tom Berton never could be relied on to be anything but a damned fool? In the long run. He was a splendid "starter." Always opened up well in any line; but unless someone else held the reins after that the devil would be to pay and no mistake.
Francis heard; and, hearing, shut tight her lips and with her tear-swollen eyes upon the face of her dead friend, swore anew that to be disgraced by the presence of a father like that was more than she could bear. She could work or she could die; but there was nothing on this earth, she felt, that would be so impossible, so disgraceful, as for her to ever again acknowledge his authority as her guide.
"Come home with me to-night, Francis," said Mrs. Foster. "We will think of a plan—"
"I'm goin' to stay right here," said the girl, with a sob and a shiver; for she had all the horror and fear of the dead that is common to her type and her inexperience. "I'm goin' to stay right here. I can't go home, an' I'm discharged at the store. Ettie told me her rent was paid for this month. I'll take her place here an'—an' try to find another place to work."
Mrs. Foster realized that to stay in that room would fill the girl with terror, but she felt, too, that she understood why Francis would not go home with her. "That kind of girls" from Mr. Foster's lips had stung this fierce, sensitive creature to the quick. A week ago she would have been glad indeed to accept Katherine Foster's offer. Now she would prefer even this chamber of death, where the odors made her ill, and the thoughts and imaginings would insure to her sleepless nights of unreasoning fear. Her father did not ask her to go home. Representative King believed in representing. Was not his family a unit? And was he not the figure which stood for it? It had never been his custom to ask the members of his household to do things. He told them that he wanted certain lines of action fallowed. That was enough. The thought and the will of that ideal unit, "the family," vested in the person of Mr. King and he proposed to represent it in all things.
If by any perverse and unaccountable mental process there was developed a personality other than and different from his own, Representative King did not propose to be disturbed in his home-life—as he persisted in calling the portion of his existence where he was able to hold the iron hand of power ever upon the throat of submission—to the extent of having such unseemly personality near him.
In her present mood he did not want Francis at home. Representative King was a staunch advocate of harmony and unity in the family life. He was of opinion that where timidity and dependence say "yes" to all that power suggests, that there dwelt unity and harmony. That is to say, he held to this idea where it touched the sexes and their relation to each other in what he designated an ideal domestic life. In all other relations he held far otherwise—unless he chanced to be on the side of power and had a fair voting majority. Representative King was an enthusiastic admirer of submission—for other people. He thought that there was nothing like self-denial to develop the character and beauty of a nature. It is true that his scorn was deep when he contemplated the fact that John Berton "had no head of his own," but then, John Berton was a man, and a man ought to have some self-respect. He ought to develop his powers and come to something definite. A definite woman was a horror. Her attractiveness depended upon her vagueness, so Representative King thought; and if a large voting majority was not with him in open expression, he felt reasonably sure that he could depend upon them in secret session, so to speak. Representative King was not a linguist, but he could read between the social and legal lines very cleverly indeed, and finer lines of thought than these were not for Representative King.
And so he did not ask Francis to go home. "When she gets ready to go my way and says so, she can come," he thought.
"When that dress gets shabby and she's a little hungry, she'll conclude that my way is good enough for her." He smiled at the vision of the future "unity and harmony" which should thus be ushered into his home by means of a little judiciously applied discipline, and Francis took her dead friend's place as a lodger and tried to think, between her spasms of loneliness and fears, what she should do on the morrow.
Francis told me once at the Guild that she can make delicious bread and pastry," said Gertrude, as they drove home. "I wonder if we could not start her in a little shop of her own. She has the energy and vim to build herself a business. I doubt if she will every marry—with her experience one can hardly wonder—and there is a long life before her. Her salvation will be work; a career, success."
"A career in a pastry shop seems droll enough," smiled her mother, "but—"
"I think I might influence the club to take a good deal of her stuff. We've a miserable pastry cook now," said Avery. "That would help her to get a start, and the start is always the hard part, I suppose, in a thing like that."
"That would be a splendid chance. If the members liked her things, perhaps they would get their wives to patronize her, too," said Gertrude, gaily. "I'm so glad you thought of that, but then you always think of the right thing," she added, tenderly. They all three laughed a little, and Avery slipped his arm about her.
"Do I?" he asked in a voice tremulous with happiness. "Do I, Darling? I'm so glad you said that, for I've just been thinking that—that I don't want to go back to Albany without you, and—and the new session begins in ten weeks. Darling, will you go with me? May she, my mother?" he asked, catching Mrs. Foster's hand in his own. The two young people were facing her. She sat alone on the back seat of the closed carriage. The street lights were beginning to blossom and flicker. The rays fell upon the mother's face as they drove. Her eyes were closed, and tears were on her cheeks.
"Forgive me, mother," said Avery, tenderly. "Forgive me! You have gone through so much to-day. I should have waited; but—but I love her so. I need her so—I need her to help me think right. Can you understand?"
Mrs. Foster moved to one side and held out both arms to her daughter.
"Sit by me," she said, huskily, and Gertrude gathered her in her young, strong arms.
"Can I understand?" half sobbed Katherine from her daughter's shoulder. "Can I understand? Oh, I do! I do! and I am so happy for you both; but she—she ismydaughter, and it is so hard to let her go—even to you! It is so hard!"
Gertrude could not speak. She tried to look at her lover, but tears filled her eyes. She was holding her mother's hand to her lips.
"Dear little mamma," she whispered; "dear little mamma, I shall never go if it makes you unhappy—never, if it breaks my heart. But mamma, I love you more because I love him; and—"
"I know, I know," said Katherine, trying to struggle out of her heartache which held back and beyond itself a tender joy for these two. "But love is so selfish. Iamglad. I am glad for you both—but—oh, my daughter, I love you,Ilove you!" she said, and choked down a sob to smile in the girl's eyes.
Mr. Foster was waiting for them in the library. They were late. He had been thinking.
"Well, I'm tremendously glad you're back," he said brightly, kissing his wife, and then he took Gertrude in his arms. "Sweetheart," he said, smiling down into her eyes, "if I seemed harsh to-day, I'm sorry. I only did it because I thought it was for your own good. You know that."
"Why, papa," she said, with her cheek against his own; "of course I know. Of course I understand. We all did. You don't mind if we did not see your way? You—"
"The girl is dead, dear," said Mrs. Foster, touching her husband's arm, "and—let us not talk of that now, to—to these, our children. They want your—they want to ask—they are going to be married in ten weeks?"
"The dickens!" exclaimed her father, and held Gertrude at arm's length. "Is that so, Sweetheart?" There was a twinkle in his eyes, and he lifted her chin with one finger and then kissed her. "The dickens! Well, all I've got to say is, I'm sorry for old Martin and the rest of us," and he grasped Selden Avery's hand. "I hope you'll give up that legislative foolishness pretty soon and come back to town and live with civilized people in a civilized way. It'll be horribly lonely in New York without Gertrude, but—oh, well, its nature's way. We're all a lot of robbers. I stole this little woman away from her father, and I'm an unrepentent thief yet, am I not?" and he kissed his wife with the air of a man who feels that life is well worth living, no matter what its penalties, so long as she might be not the least of them.