She looked so timid and demure, with the blue straw bonnet which framed her sweet face, the red band lettered in gold, "Salvation Army."
Eyes, lifted slowly, of deep, dark blue, and the level brows laid over them for a foil. Beautiful eyes, we male observers say in our rough, generic fashion, but the finer perception of our sisters discriminates more closely. Not the iris alone makes the beauty of eyes. Lashes long and thick, lids of bewitching droop, brows penciled in the bow curve, any of these may be the true feature that starts our exclamation of delight. But in Miss Serena Lamb (as the girl gave her name) nearly all these marks were blended, and they overhung a feature which used to be fashionable and is still, when perfect, divine—the rosebud mouth.
She might well be timid in those surroundings—revolvers and handcuffs to right of her, medals and canes to left; shutter-cutters, winches, chisels, diamond drills, skeleton keys, wax molds, jimmies, screws, in the glass case in front—an elaborate outfit of burglar's tools, the trophies of McCausland's hunting expeditions, for the inspector's specialty was burglary. On one side the portrait of the true Bill Dobbs looked out from the center of a congenial group, and a tiny plush case kept the file made from a watch-spring with which the famous Barney Pease had cut his way to liberty. All this was formidable enough in itself, to say nothing of the huge bloodhound that lay half-asleep, with his jowl on the hearthstone.
"I thought I ought to tell you," said Miss Lamb, modestly, "although it may not be of importance."
"And yet it may," said the inspector, politely. "We often work from the merest trifles."
"It concerns the fire in Prof. Arnold's house."
"Ah!"
"You know our labors often bring sinners back to the fold and many of them insist on unburdening their past misdeeds to us. It is very distressing to hear, but it seems to ease their consciences."
McCausland mentally registered a great broad mark in her favor. She had not begun by asking for the reward.
"One day a young convert of ours came to my house and spent an hour with me. We sung hymns and conversed, and I truly believe he has heard the word. Hosanna! Alleluia!"
McCausland fidgeted a little at these transports, but the sweet face in the blue bonnet kept him respectful.
"I am young," she hardly looked 18, "but I strove earnestly with him that night. Moved by the spirit, he told me a guilty story, which I put aside until reading about your case stirred my memory, and I felt in duty bound to relate it. Alleluia!"
"Proceed, Miss Lamb."
"The young convert had been in his early days a locksmith and a great sinner before the world. One day a stranger proposed to him a reward if he should enter a certain room and open a safe which it contained. The temptation was great and he yielded, for he was poor in the riches of earth, and knew not then of the treasures of heaven. Alleluia! Praise!
"Weakly he consented to accompany the stranger, and on a certain Sunday, during the early hours of evening, suffered himself to be led into the room, where he found himself alone with the stranger. It was the name of this man and the description he gave me of the room which led me afterward to think that his action might have a connection with your case."
"What name?"
"Robert Floyd."
McCausland took a cigar from his pocket and bit off the end.
"And how did he describe the room?"
"A library, he said, with a bird cage before one window and a desk in the corner."
"And the safe?"
"He could not open it at first, but tried again and again. Something alarmed them, however, or so I gathered. For you must know his accent was very hard to follow and—and"—(Serena blushed)—"he was very much agitated while he told me. But I gathered that they were interrupted and put off their wicked work."
"I must see this young convert. He may have sinned to good purpose that time."
"There comes the strange part of it. Since he made the confession I have not seen him again. He has not come to our meetings, as he used. Perhaps he has fallen back into the evil ways of the worldly minded. Perhaps the wicked ones have punished him."
"The description is certainly similar," said McCausland, shutting his right eye, so as to fix more keenly on his visitor's face the other, which was the one reputed microscopic in its powers.
"So it seemed to me, reading the papers, which are full of profane sayings, alas! But where sin is there must be the workers in the vineyard."
"I am glad you read them and you did well to come. But—do you know the convert's name? Without some clew, I fear——"
The young girl hesitated awhile, then answered:
"Aronson!"
McCausland started. It was not a common name.
"A young man, you say? And spoke with an accent?"
"Yes, slightly."
"Can it be Shagarach's man?" said McCausland to himself, reaching for the city directory. "There was something shady about his record." Then he rung a bell.
"Have the criminal docket looked up about four years ago for a case against one Aronson—larceny of an overcoat, I believe," he said to the mulatto officer.
"That was all," said Miss Lamb, arising to go.
"One moment," said McCausland, running his forefinger up the directory page. "Was his first name Saul?"
"I don't remember. I remember very little about him."
"'Saul Aronson, law student.' Let's look farther back," said McCausland, restoring the 1895 volume to the shelf; "'94, '93, '92, '91," he drew out the last. "It would be queer," he said to himself, "if Floyd's junior counsel should turn out to be an accomplice."
"Aronson," he read aloud. "Isaac, Jacob, Marks—Saul! 'Saul Aronson, locksmith'!"
This was how Aronson made the acquaintance of Serena Lamb. One day there resounded through the Ghetto (where Aronson lived) the pounding of a violent drum. Tum, tum, tum! Tum, tum, tum! Tumtyty, Tumtyty! Tum, tum, tum! And every now and then its bass companion marked the ictuses with a cavernous "Boom!" Then Moses and Samuel ceased their buying and selling for a few moments and the coats, vests and trousers which draped their window-fronts swung idly in the wind. And the little Samuels swarmed from their hiding-places till both curbstones were fringed two deep with humanity, eying the musical invaders. For the notes of the bugle burst out after this percussion prelude and a mixed choir of voices lifted a strange refrain.
Motley singers they were! Shabbily dressed men, with exaltation in their faces, and women of all ages and types, uniform only in their costumes. Raising the song, they clapped their hands together, like bacchants or chorybantes dashing cymbal on cymbal in the ecstasy of the dance. But such bacchants! Bacchants in blue bonnets, like grandmother's sundown! Bacchants with pure faces of undefiled girlhood! Bacchants with crone-faces all wrinkled and yellow! And away at the rear, chanting with might and main, though bent nearly double under the bass-drum which rested on his back, proudly marched Pineapple Jupiter.
Frowns gathered on the foreheads of Moses and Samuel when the import of this procession became clear, and many a portly Rachel clucked warningly to her brood. But youth is frivolous and inquisitive even in Israel; so the square was jammed with onlookers when the army set up its standard in the very heart of the Ghetto. True, not all these were children of the tribe. The slurred consonants of the Italian, vainly trying to smooth and liquefy our rugged tongue, were heard; the muffled nasals of the Portuguese; the virile drawl of the Celt; and a youthful accent which seemed to be a resultant of all this polyglot mixture. And to these others also the army was an abomination even as to Samuel and Moses.
Therefore, when the music ceased and the army formed in a wide ring with hands joined sisterly and brotherly, a great pandemonium took up and prolonged the last note of the dying bugle. The cock crew, the cat called and the bulldog barked at these devoted soldiers. But they only blessed their enemies and danced round and round as if rejoicing at persecution. Whereat the multitude fringing their circle danced with them, too, and staid Saul Aronson, who was passing, found himself whirled perforce in a maelstrom of larking boys, full-grown hoodlums and petticoated hobbledehoys.
When the first sister stepped forth to give her "testimony" the face beneath her bonnet compelled silence. Her voice was gentle, her figure petite. Her eyebrows lay across her forehead straight and dark, and she spoke from a rosebud mouth. No wonder the nearest onlookers leaned forward and the idlers on the outskirts inclined their heads to one side and hollowed their hands at their ears so as to catch the utterance which promised so fairly to their eyes.
To Saul Aronson it was a vision of paradise. The lashes of her modestly drooped eyes lay in dark half-moons on her cheek, but once when she lifted them a blue light seemed to flash down into his very heart; and that organ, amorphous before, grew suddenly crystal—a great blood-red ruby which he longed to lay at her feet. This was what she said, this lily of the morass:
"I give thanks to the Lord,"—her utterance was slow, her shrill voice pierced the stillness, "that He has led me away from my sins."
"Alleluia!" murmured the chorus.
"That He has poured into my heart the grace of His love and made manifest the wonder of His works. Are ye weary, sinners, weary of the way ye tread? Oh, come to the true way, where ye shall find life and light and joy and peace, as I have found it."
"Bress de name ob de Lord!" said Pineapple Jupiter, loudly. Whereat several tittered and a discreet sister whispered "Hush!"
"It is not to-day for which we live or the things of to-day—not for bread, or for gold, or for fame, which are perishable things. Not for to-day nor for to-morrow should we strive, but for eternity! Not for the approval of men, but of Him who is the just Judge everlasting. Holy! Holy! Holy!"
"Alleluia!" murmured the chorus.
"It is written in the word, which cannot lie, that the keys of the kingdom are given to Peter. Therefore, when ye go forth to the labor of your days, ask yourselves not what will men say, but what will Peter say when I knock at the golden door for admittance. Will he welcome me as a true child or will he spurn me to the outer darkness? Ask yourselves this, oh, sinners, each and all. What will Peter say, Joseph? What will Peter say, John? What will Peter say, Christian soul?"
This conclusion seemed to be the refrain of a hymn which the circle took up:
"What will Peter say, Christian soul,When the last great trumpet sounds?"
"What will Peter say, Christian soul,When the last great trumpet sounds?"
The trombone here drew forth a sepulchral note, representing, no doubt, the trump of doom, and Saul Aronson could almost feel its vibrations in the earth beneath him. He could have pummeled the irreverent knot of gamins who mimicked it grotesquely. Such courage, such loveliness, such sincerity, imposed reverence even for opposite opinions. Never before had he seen their performance in such a light as now. For performance it was. One after another of the brethren stepped into the circle and recited "testimony" to the jeering crowd around. Each testimony was followed by a hymn, in regular alternation. Not even the curiosity about the different sisters and brothers could prevent this evangel from becoming monotonous. So the captain varied it with more and more ecstatic exhibitions.
"Volunteers to clap hands!" he would call and four or five brothers jumped into the middle, clapping hands to the verses of a simple hymn, repeated ten or fifteen times. Brisker and brisker the tempo became, till the captain and his volunteers found themselves galloping around the ring, with sweet bonneted faces eagerly chanting their accompaniment. Aronson marveled but he did not sneer. For his gaze was on the rosebud mouth, whose "Alleluias" (adapted from his own liturgy, he knew) seemed to him the sweetest music mortal throat ever gave forth, the distilled honey of sound.
After more than an hour of such missionary effort, the captain called for a show of converts. "Hands up, all that have the love of the Lord in their hearts!"
Two seafaring men and a darky had the courage to show their palms, and they were standing very near the circle.
"How many souls love Jesus who died on the cross?"
Aronson, still at his post, felt a traitorous gladness when a dozen more of the crowd gave the signal of assent. This meager harvest of souls was the result of their labors. Then Pineapple Jupiter again bent his back under the heavy bass-drum, and the army reformed. Tumtyty, tum! Tumtyty, tum! Tumtyty, tumtyty, boom! The ringing bugle revived the languishing interest of the mob. One Jew of the Jews followed the music for nearly a mile. When he finally fell to the rear the rosebud mouth was still singing:
"What will Peter say, Christian soul?"
"What will Peter say, Christian soul?"
and he felt as if a great light had come to him and then vanished again, leaving a deeper darkness than ever.
Next morning he awoke with a rapid pulse. "What will Peter say, Aronson?" he asked as he drew on his garments, and when he sat down to copy a brief for Shagarach, "What will Peter say, Aronson?" the question again recurred. Strangely enough, it always took the clear, shrill accent of the girl. "What will Peter say, Aronson?" was the prayer for success he offered, when a week later, he mustered up courage to cross the mission threshold and ask Jupiter her name.
From that day Saul Aronson was an altered youth. The least beat of a drum in the Ghetto found him ready to quit dinner or company or work and fly out of the house with a hasty snatch at his hat in the entry.
Sometimes he returned with a rueful look and then his mother knew it was only the Garibaldi guard parading. But at other times it was a subject of remark how long he stayed and how moody he returned.
There was a family living in the rear of the Aronsons, with a divine little 8-year-old girl. Saul knew she was divine, although he had never seen anything but the back of her head. For at noontime when he came to dinner, or in the evening when he returned from work, she would be sitting in the swing her father had built for her, with her back toward him—swinging, singing, in blissful ignorance of the eyes that doted on her through the slats of Saul Aronson's blinds. She had one song of "the Savior" which she delighted to croon. Her voice was like that of a fledgling lark and her carols were made sweet with little improvised turns which often threatened to fail but always came out true—so sure was the child-singer's instinct, feeling the way before her. Nothing reminded him of Serena so much as this earthly angel, and he loved her for the image she called up.
Serena always looked at him. That is to say, her blue eyes pierced him through, accused him, reproved him, every time they were lifted toward the onlookers. But it was not until the day he raised his hand among the converts that she noted down his face for remembrance. He knew its features were not fascinating, especially the red mustache that bristled out horizontally from his lips, with the ends trimmed off as clean as a scrubbing-brush. But no one else, he felt sure, could worship her with such reverent adoration; and now she had deigned to notice him. What if Simon Rabofsky scowled at his raising his hand? Not "What will Simon Rabofsky say?" but "What will Peter say, Aronson?" was the question of questions. But I fear Peter was confused somewhat oddly in Saul's mind with the possessor of a certain rosebud mouth.
One night Aronson dreamed of Serena Lamb as his bride and the next morning announced his conversion to Pineapple Jupiter, at the same time asking for an introduction to blue eyes.
Saul Aronson was not the only person who found pleasure in the company of Miss Lamb. There were others, with eyes not glamoured by any golden mist of love, who would have found it hard to select an adjective strong enough to express their approbation of the petite devotee. About a year before she had come down from the country to be a companion to her aunt, Mrs. Wolfe, who had just lost her husband.
Mrs. Wolfe (according to neighbors' gossip) had been no more than a moderately loving wife, but she made a devoted widow. She had the waist of a wasp and a temper to match it. Her frame was angular, and her disposition, too, revealed shoulder blades and elbows. If she loved anything in this world it was her marbled cat, which was hated by every boarder in the house, and a pariah among its tribe. From constant visiting of her husband's grave her manners had assumed a cast which would have been appropriate to a cemetery, but was most depressing in everyday converse. Even her smile had something acrid about it, like a shopworn lemon, and the acidity of her scowl would have reddened blue litmus paper.
People wondered why her niece, such a tender little body, should be doomed to the martyrdom of waiting upon "Old Tabby Wolfe and her boarders." Mrs. Gubbins, who was the landlady's most intimate crony—probably because among her other virtues she had a keen sense of the doleful—spread the report that Serena would inherit her aunt's property, and that her own mother, Mrs. Wolfe's sister, had had an eye to this when she parted with the eldest of her household. However that might be, the girl put up patiently with all the widow's quirks and oddities; entered into religious work enthusiastically, and in six months had rubbed off the slight rusticity with which eighteen years of choring on a farm, before she came down to the city, had touched her accent and manner.
There were hardly any traces of kinship between aunt and niece. To be sure, Serena had the slenderest slip of a waist that nature ever fashioned, and just the least suggestion of cheek bones, too, which were not at all disagreeable, however. When occasion demanded, she could give a sharp order, much as she may have rebuked Spot and Bossy for switching when she milked them in the cowshed at home. But to the boarders these bursts of impatience only gave their sweet waitress a piquancy like the tartness of the full-ripe strawberry.
With them she was a general favorite. They used to declare that she put yeast in their beds, for they were like pans of dough, feathery and white, when she made them of a morning; and Serena, spinning the pie-plates round, scalloping the edges of the crust with a four-tined fork, or knitting in the sitting-room from a ball of pink yarn that danced on the carpet as she unraveled it, was a spectacle of domesticity at which they never tired of gazing. Yet her dignity, which was far beyond her years, prevented their making her a plaything. Though cordial, she was very reserved. Young ladies called her set; young men, seraphic but cold.
You may imagine how Aronson's heart hopped in his bosom when Jupiter presented him to this goddess.
"I have seen you at our meetings, Mr. Aronson," she graciously observed. She had noticed him, then. He knew it before, but the assurance from her lips gave him measureless joy. But this joy swelled to rapture inexpressible, such as only the saints in the ninth heaven and happy lovers on earth are privileged to know, when she invited him to call upon her and pressed his hand a second time on bidding him adieu. The thrill of her fingertips did not die out all that day; but it was a week again (for Aronson was a bashful youth) before he presumed to accept her invitation.
His mother marveled why Saul furbished himself up so carefully that evening. He had risen from the supper table prematurely and spent exactly fifty-five minutes smoothing his hair, tidying his cravat and drawing on his new pair of gloves. When he went out, instead of soliciting admiration for this array, he seemed to avoid it.
As he drew toward the mansion whose door-plate still bore the name of the departed Ephraim Wolfe, an unwelcome surprise met Aronson. There in the doorway, silhouetted against the hall lamp, was the form which he knew to be Serena's. She was admitting a visitor—a youth. The door quickly closed and a rosy light came through the tinted curtains behind. But Aronson's spirits had sunk, his resolution departed. Instead of crossing the street, as he had planned to, and ringing the bell, with a little speech of greeting all prepared, he walked on to the next corner and irresolutely turned back.
This time a shadow fell on the white curtain of the front room. It was Serena rocking herself placidly in the rocking-chair. Every forward inclination brought her sweet profile into view, every backward one removed it. Her lips moved. She was conversing, doubtless, with the youth whose stolid shadow occupied the center of the opposite curtain. Eight times Saul Aronson passed and repassed that house-front before he could tear himself away and return home to divest himself downheartedly of all his finery.
Two days later, however, he saw Serena again; and she renewed the invitation. This time, when he approached, there was no hostile youth at the door. Serena herself admitted him to the portals of the paradise which she inhabited in common with Mrs. Wolfe and the seven boarders, and 10 o'clock had long ceased striking when, incoherent with ecstasy, Saul Aronson uttered his last lingering doorstep adieu and promised to return.
He never returned. As she informed Inspector McCausland, Serena had never looked on that lovelorn visage again.
This was how he came to break his promise: One Sunday afternoon a messenger came to the Aronson door with a request from Simon Rabofsky that Saul should favor him with a visit. The young man had misgivings, but he dared not disobey.
Up a squalid flight, into a dingy back room, Aronson took his way reluctantly. The clamor of voices died when he crossed the threshold and six pairs of inimical eyes, he thought, were lifted to his face. At a table in the midst sat Rabofsky, his yellowish earlocks dangling beneath his skull-cap and a great book spread open before him.
"Peace be with you, Saul Aronson," he said in the jargon.
"The angel Dumah spare you, Simon Rabofsky," answered Aronson.
"I rejoice to see that you have not forgotten the holy salutations."
The twelve eyes sharpened their glances at Aronson and he knew the ordeal was come. They were six of the strictest in the congregation, from old Silberstein, who sat on the left of the ark and led the recitation of the eighteen psalms of a morning, to young Cohen, the Jewish butcher, a zealot of zealots, than whom none more devoutly beat his bosom in prayer or observed the allotted holy days.
"Brother Silberstein was just proposing that your place in the synagogue be disposed of. It is a pity to see a seat vacant, when so many must stand. But I bade him not be hasty, for perhaps you had been ill of late."
"Why play the innocent, Simon Rabofsky," broke in Cohen, "when you know as well as we that he has been consorting with the gentiles?"
"It is because I am loath to believe it," answered Rabofsky, in a sorrowful tone, as if rebuking Cohen. "I am loath to believe one of Isaac Aronson's household would turn away to bow before the idols of Babylon."
"Is it forbidden to search for wisdom?" said Aronson.
"You do not search for it in the book where it is found," said Rabofsky, laying his finger on the book before him. It was printed in Semitic characters, but the language was the jargon, for Rabofsky was no master of Hebrew and Aramaic, "the divine talmud, which our fathers have preserved through their hundred persecutions."
"But its wisdom is obscure," answered Aronson.
"Are there not doctors to explain those parts which are dark?" rejoined Rabofsky. "And behold, in this edition, which a Hebrew so enlightened as Saul Aronson should possess, are not all the lengthy passages shortened and the unnecessary omitted by the labors of that light of Israel, born at Cordova, Moses ben Maimon, whom the gentiles miscall Maimonides?"
"Why plead with the apostate?" cried Silberstein, angrily. "He is no longer a Jew. He toileth on the Sabbath. He goeth not down to the waterside to lament."
"It is false," said Aronson, hotly.
"I said so," nodded Rabofsky.
"Who are you to reprove me, Simon Rabofsky," continued Aronson, "because I cannot lie idle two days in the week? Do you rest from your money-getting on the Sabbath? I think your wife, Rebecca, could answer me that. Did I not see her selling jewels to a Christian on the seventh day of this very week?"
"It is written," answered Rabofsky, his steel-blue eyes contracting, "that the high priests in the hour of necessity made food of the bread of the tabernacle. So saith the holy book," he laid his finger again on the page, "which Jehovah hath covered with the wings of His protection so that torches could not destroy it. Behold it has arisen from a thousand burnings uncharred!"
All the Hebrews plucked their garments and with bowed heads muttered a prayer, in which Aronson found himself joining.
"Too many of our youth are beguiled by the flatteries of the gentiles," continued Rabofsky, not unwilling to divert the conversation.
"But such are only the lax ones, who worship no God," said Cohen. "Few grovel before idols, like this one."
"And hath Saul Aronson done this?" asked Rabofsky, as if in surprise.
"Did you not see him yourself at the gentile ceremony raising his hands?"
"You wrong the Christians," protested Aronson. "They are not all cruel and there is much sweetness of love in their doctrine."
"Not cruel!" rejoined Cohen. "How have they not poured out our blood in the ages!"
"Jehovah hath stored it up," added a gentler voice, piteously. It was Abraham Barentzen, the patriarch of the colony, who had not spoken before, but kept looking at the backslider kindly, as if more in sorrow than bitterness.
"Sweetness of love!" cried Silberstein. "Love indeed and enough. How they love each other! Sect embracing sect! Pah!"
"They hate us; they mock us, and our children court them," droned another in a minor key.
"They call us cheats and usurers," cried Cohen, "because we make wealth out of the waste they cast away."
"Psh!" said old Barentzen, raising his hands. "Be just. Those are only the few."
"Perhaps it is some gentle girl that is tempting Saul Aronson, even as the Philistine women of old weakened the faith of Samson," said Rabofsky, keenly.
"Are there not black-eyed daughters of Israel," cried old Barentzen, mild-voiced and reproving, "who will make him a home? If he wants a wife comely, buxom, well-dowered, modest, a good housekeeper and free from tittle-tattle, are there not such by scores in the neighborhood?"
"I fear it is Meyer Shagarach's doing," murmured Silberstein.
"Not so," spoke Cohen, sharply. Though young, he seemed a leader. "Shagarach is lost to the fold of Israel, but does he chant with cracked voice out of a tattered hymn-book? Pretty soon we shall see Saul Aronson shivering in the waters of baptism, and then he will change his name to Paul, like that other traitor, the fire-brand of Tarsus?"
"Traitor yourself!" cried Aronson, stung by Cohen's irony.
The word has terrible force in Israel. The whole past of the race is vivid in the minds of the wanderers, and recollection of its sorrows makes a bond so strong that no temptation can break it. Aronson paused to think. The dim traditions, all tears and fire and blood—the exodus from Egypt, the Babylonian captivity, the burning of Jerusalem, the dispersion, the persecutions without number—could he forget all those, snapping ties so sacred?
"After all, I think Saul Aronson's heart is not with the gentiles," said old Barentzen, in a soothing voice. "Would he rather be buried when he dies under some idolatrous mound stuck with the symbol of him whom Judas righteously delivered——"
"There never was such a Nazarene," broke in Cohen impetuously. "It is all a fable and the text in Josephus was written in by the gentiles."
"I say the Christ was real and rightly condemned as a creator of sedition," said Rabofsky, with authoritative pomp. Like the misers of every race, he was both devotee and formalist.
"He is not mentioned in the talmud," argued Cohen. "Nor elsewhere, until the history of our race crosses the history of the pagans. It is all an invention."
Thereupon the two zealots wrangled and jangled till Aronson's ears ached. But his mind was dwelling upon old Barentzen's saying and sadly acknowledging its truth. His heart was not really with the Christians. What did he know of their teachings? He had been given a bible, but it was locked in his office drawer, unread. Besides, these were deep questions. Who was he to dispute the great doctors, like Moses ben Maimon?
"So be it, obstinate youth," said Rabofsky at last, waving his hands to end the discussion.
"I had begun to ask Saul Aronson a question," resumed Barentzen, in a tone of rebuke. "Would you not rather lie like your fathers with the shards on your eyelids and a handful of earth from the land of Israel thrown over your resting-place?"
Aronson hung his head.
"Enough of this pleading and coaxing," snarled Cohen. "He is stiff-necked, I see. I will put his name with the other traitors. There are twenty in all. They shall be published in the next issue."
"Stay," said Aronson.
"On the first page," said Silberstein. "And the first page shall be hung outward in my store window."
"That the very children may know them for apostates and greedy hypocrites," added Rabofsky, to clinch the threat.
"Hold," cried Aronson. He foresaw the fatal result of his misstep. He could hear the storm rising around him; the clamor of children on the streets, the pointed fingers of men and women, the ironical comments from the doorstep groups when he passed, the sly digs at the supper table, the estranged glances of his mother. "It is all wrong," he cried.
"Then, why do you haunt the gentile mountebanks?" asked Cohen, seizing his sleeve.
"Fangled like a fop!" said Silberstein, catching his lapel.
"And shun the blessed synagogue?" added another, fumbling at his vest buttons.
"Are you a gentile or a Jew?" questioned Rabofsky, as chief inquisitor.
"I am a Jew!" cried Aronson, in honest wrath, tousled and clapperclawed until his patience had given away. Then he rushed from the room.
The list of "traitors" appeared in the Jewish Messenger without Saul Aronson's name. The old, old conflict between love and honor had ended with another defeat for the imperious boy-god. But it is no discredit to Serena Lamb that her influence yielded to a passion which is hardly second to any in the world for intensity—the Israelite's devotion to his race. All that she retained of the young convert from whom so much had been expected was a confused memory of the conversation in her sitting-room. What had Aronson told her in his agitation during that confidential interview? It would seem that he had been too frank. At least, for several weeks after Serena's visit to McCausland, he was strangely conscious that some one was dogging his footsteps, both at home and about the office. Naturally, he ascribed this espionage to the sacred brotherhood, whose power is great in Israel, and, fearing their vigilance, redoubled his evening invocations and waxed regular in his attendance at the synagogue.
Walter Riley, Thomas J. Fenton and Arthur Watts had a separate trial from the other members of the "club," which resorted to Lanty Lonergan's back kitchen. There was only one charge against them—to wit, the larceny of three bicycles and their sale to one Timothy Bagley, aforesaid, dealer in junk.
The government had little difficulty in proving its case. First, one of the owners of the bicycles testified to having recognized his wheel, cunningly repainted, in a stranger's possession, to following up its rider and tracing it finally to an auction sale at which he had purchased it cheap. From the auctioneer to Bagley, from Bagley to the "club," was easy work for the officer detailed to investigate the theft. Walter's unsold wheel was confiscated, together with all the other stolen property on the premises, and no fewer than seven of the boys placed under arrest. But the only charge against Riley, Fenton and Watts was the theft of the bicycles.
Bagley, the junkman, who was involved in the affair, had made a singular confession, candid enough in most particulars but with great hiatuses here and there concerning the disposal of certain articles, principally articles of value—a watch, a meerschaum pipe and the third of the bicycles. No threats or promises in private had been able to wring from him a confession concerning these points. But at the mention of a pipe Shagarach had raised his head and, crossing over to the prosecuting attorney, secured a description of the missing object.
"You admit, then, that you offered Riley $10 for the bicycle which he had ridden?" asked Shagarach of Bagley on cross-examination.
"Yes, sir."
"How often did you repeat this offer?"
"Several times—about four or five times."
"And the boy each time refused?"
"Yes, sir."
"What language did he use?"
"He said the wheel wasn't his."
"Which you knew very well, didn't you, without being told?"
"Yes, sir."
"And when you proposed that Fenton should ride the bicycle over to your shop, what was Riley's conduct then?"
"I don't know of my own knowledge. But they told me that he wouldn't have it."
"He threatened them, then?"
"Yes, sir, you might call it threatening."
"Then Riley would appear to have put forward some claim upon the bicycle, although he denied that it was his. Would you not say that he seemed to regard himself as its custodian rather than its proprietor? That he was storing it in Lonergan's kitchen until the occasion should arise when it might be returned to its owner?"
"Well, the boys said he was sorry for taking the wheel and that he never meant to steal it."
"That is all—all on that point, I mean." Bagley had started to leave the stand. "There is another matter, however, with regard to the third bicycle—the one which has not been recovered"—Bagley shifted uneasily to the opposite foot. "How does it happen that you, the sole repository of the secrets of these young law-breakers, can tell us nothing of that?"
"I know nothing about it."
"And about the gold watch stolen from Mr. Merchant's window?"
"I don't know, sir."
"And the meerschaum pipe—of rare coloring, according to the connoisseur who testified in the previous trial?"
"I know nothing about the watch and the pipe, sir. They are not in my line. I couldn't dispose of such articles."
"Ah! But you might be acquainted with somebody who could, might you not?"
"I suppose I might——"
"Some second-hand dealer, let us say?"
Bagley's eye dropped and he looked pale.
"Have you been visited, Bagley, by any one, since you were let out on bail?"
"Only by my bondsman."
"What is your bondsman's name?"
Bagley hesitated so long that the judge finally had to order him to answer.
"Mr. Rabofsky," he stammered.
"Kindly subpoena Mr. Simon Rabofsky," said Shagarach to Aronson. "It is that gentleman just starting to leave the room. He will remain for a few moments."
The writ was made out and handed by the awe-stricken Aronson to the money-lender, who glared at him furiously. But he could not escape.
"Mr. Rabofsky is a second-hand dealer, I believe?" continued Shagarach.
"I think so."
"Of a higher class than yourself?"
"Oh, yes sir. Mr. Rabofsky's reputation is first class."
"How much money did Simon Rabofsky offer you to keep him out of this scrape?" was the next question. The witness looked over at the money-lender in terror; then back at Shagarach, and his terror was intensified.
"No money," he finally gasped.
"Would you be willing to swear that if Mr. Henderson, the owner of that pipe, should call to-day at 84 Salem street and request Mrs. Rebecca Rabofsky to sell him the colored meerschaum which her husband was showing to a customer yesterday, when Mr. Shagarach called, he would be told that no such article was in the store?"
Either the length of the question or its import confused the witness.
"No, sir," he answered.
"You would not be willing——"
"Yes, sir, I mean—that is—how do I know?"
"Mr. Henderson," said Shagarach, turning to a gentleman present, "will doubtless be interested enough to try. He could be back in half an hour. That will do, Bagley."
During the half-hour Shagarach put on, as witnesses for the defense, Walter's schoolmaster, who told an anecdote of his truthfulness and another of his generosity, which were better than the warmest words of general commendation; and Emily Barlow, whose story of the theft accorded exactly with Walter's own, which was honestly told, with a correctness of language that his former master did not fail to notice.
"Only I never meant to steal it," he said finally. "We all clung together and I was sorry before I got home. I read the papers to see if the owners' names were given, but they lived too far out of town. If I knew whose it was I would have ridden it out to him again."
To all this the judge listened coldly. He was a new appointee, fearful lest the balance of Libra on his unpracticed fingertip should incline too much one way or the other. Just as Walter concluded, Mr. Henderson returned and Simon Rabofsky was summoned to the stand. He muttered in his beard and flashed a glance of hatred at Shagarach.
"What do you know of this case?" asked the lawyer.
"Nothing."
He looked furtively at Mr. Henderson.
"That will do for the present. Mr. Henderson, will you kindly testify as to the result of your search?"
Mr. Henderson's testimony was brief and pointed. He had visited 84 Salem street, stating that he came from Mr. Rabofsky and desired to see a colored meerschaum pipe. The lady had shown him his own pipe. He had priced it. Twenty-five dollars. She had procured it, she said——
"One moment," interrupted Shagarach. "Will you kindly remain awhile, Mr. Henderson? Mr. Rabofsky again."
Rabofsky returned.
"You have heard Mr. Henderson's testimony?"
"I have heard it. If you had sense enough to ask me, I could have told you that without sending him off on a wild-goose chase."
Shagarach knew that Rabofsky was excited, because his accent came out so strongly.
"Go on," he said, giving him the rope to hang himself by.
"I know nothing about this case. That pipe I took from a woman who wanted money. I lent her $25 and she never came back. All I ask is what I paid for it, no more, no less, and so I wash my hands of all of you."
"Not yet," said Shagarach. "You are required by law to record the names of persons who pawn articles. If we should send an officer down to your shop would he find the woman's name in your book?"
"She would not give me her name."
"But you loaned her the money?"
"She cried and was so poor I took pity——"
"Enough," said Shagarach in temper. "Mr. Henderson!"
Mr. Henderson replaced Rabofsky a second time.
"You were about to say that you inquired of Mrs. Rabofsky where her husband obtained the pipe, were you not?"
"Yes, sir, I asked her that."
"What was her answer?"
"That it was his own pipe he had smoked for eleven years."
This statement produced a visible effect on the spectators. It concluded the defense for Walter Riley. After the prosecuting attorneys had pleaded for sentence, Shagarach briefly addressed the judge.
"The real criminals in this case, your honor, are the last two witnesses—adults of responsible years, and one of them, at least, enjoying a reputable position. They were the receivers of the stolen goods and the encouragers of the crimes. Were I prosecuting attorney, I should suspend the cases against the young defendants until justice had been done to both of these maturer thieves.
"I cannot look upon the deed committed on the lonely roadside at Hillsborough as a serious offense, for which our code provides a penalty. It was a prank, played in the ebullient spirit of mischief, but given an ambiguous color by Miss Barlow's well-meant outcry of warning. Evil resides in the intentions of the mind. Not until Fenton and Watts disposed of the property which was not theirs was their misdemeanor consummated and an unhappy practical jest warped into a legal theft.
"Even then, I might recommend clemency to all three offenders, on account of their youth and the restitution of the property. For I have no doubt that the missing bicycle will be found installed beside the meerschaum pipe in Simon Rabofsky's back room. But, considering the evil associations which these boys have formed, and their unfortunate homes, Fenton having no mother and Watts an intemperate one, I believe that a short period of retirement, under the regular discipline of the reformatory, would be of advantage to them.
"But the case of Riley is different. His character is better than that of the others. He is fortunate in possessing an excellent mother, who depends upon him in part for support. Moreover, the refusal on his part to dispose of the bicycle, against a pressure few boys of his age could resist, shows a moral courage which is exceedingly rare in my experience, and which only needs fostering to develop its possessor into an admirable man. I, therefore, respectfully suggest that Riley be placed on probation."
If the judge were not so new to the bench he would have known that Shagarach's addresses were always brief. But, knowing the great lawyer only by reputation, he judged that the brevity of his plea denoted a perfunctory interest in the case. The sentencing was deferred until 4 o'clock, when a whole batch of prisoners filed into the "cage," one after another, to receive their punishments.
"Ochone!" cried a maundering old woman after every sentence, and even the court officers whispered to each other:
"Perkins is having a picnic to-day."
But there was little severity in the sentence accorded to the white-faced youth who came just before the three gamins. Emily recognized in amazement Mr. Arthur Kennedy Foxhall.
"In consideration of your social standing," said the judge, "of your promise to reform and of the fact that your weakness is one which injures only yourself, I will mitigate the penalty."
Then the clerk read out a fine of $20 and costs. The opium parlors of Hi Wong King had recently been raided. That is to say, four tall, youngish men had entered one evening and called for dinner. For Hi Wong King's restaurant was open to all. Chicken wings had been served them and an aromatic salad. Jelly pats had been dropped over their heads into dainty plates, on which droll baboons scratched their heads and tigers grimaced fiercely. Such is the art of the orient. Tea leaves newly steeped in a bowl had taught them their first lesson in the needlessness of sugar and milk; and they had practiced with the merry chopsticks, a pair in each hand. Then, by way of diversion, they broke through the painted screens into Hi Wong King's rear parlors and arrested eight opium smokers, Mongol and Caucasian, of both sexes; among these one who was dreaming over a peculiarly elegant pipe proved to be Emily's admirer.
"Riley, Fenton and Watts, stand up," said the clerk. Walter's cheeks were burning red, as he stood between his companions. They seemed to feel the disgrace less keenly and looked at the clerk with sheepish and cunning glances.
"Fenton and Watts, you are sentenced to the reform school during your minority, and Riley for the space of one year!"
"Ochone!" broke out the maundering old woman and a chill fell on Emily's heart. Then the voice of Shagarach was heard in wrath. The building seemed to quake with its power. It was such a voice as that Roman tribune may have owned who could make himself heard from end to end of the forum.
"Sir, you have just imposed a nominal fine on a mature man, who has not only, as you speciously alleged, ruined himself by a degrading vice, but done what example could to spread its contagion. Immediately after you sentence three poor children to long terms of imprisonment. Are you ignorant that four in seven of all who enter those institutions return to them sooner or later? Do you see no possible spark of reform in the natures of these boys, no means of tiding over the danger period of youth, the formative years, the sowing season? Or do you think to scatter seeds inside a jail and reap some other crop than crime? Sir, it is not my sense of justice that social standing should condone offenses and social obscurity magnify them."
The ticking of the clock could be heard when Shagarach paused. Officer looked at officer, as if they expected immediately to be called upon to execute a sentence of contempt on the audacious lawyer. But Shagarach's reputation was great, and Judge Perkins could not afford to inaugurate his session in the Criminal Court by a conflict with such a man. He only stroked his chin nervously and pulled at his severe legal whiskers.
"I do not know which is the more deserving of censure," continued Shagarach, "the dangerous laxity of the one judgment, which virtually acquits a convicted lawbreaker, or the atrocious severity of the other, which condemns to a year's whole punishment the innocent act, already more than atoned for, of a boy for whose uprightness I would pledge my personal word."
"Oh, if you are willing to vouch for the boy's good behavior," said the judge, "I will put him on probation and reconsider the other sentences."
"I will accept the charge," said Shagarach.
Emily's heart leaped for joy, and Mrs. Riley could not be restrained from rushing forward and embracing Walter in rapture. But the most touching moment came when Walter walked over to Shagarach and, with tears in his eyes, but a stanch voice, said: "I want to show you I am grateful."
"Here is the substitute I promised you, Rosalie. Miss March—Count L'Alienado."
There was a vacant seat in the barouche that stood before the Marches' villa. It had been destined for Tristram, but even behind the black glasses he wore the August sunshine dazzled his eyes, so he was compelled at the last moment to excuse himself.
"Mme. Violet—his lordship, the Earl of Marmouth."
Count L'Alienado was thus informally presented to his other two riding companions. There was just a suggestion of Spanish reserve in his obeisance, and he bowed a graceful adieu to Tristram before mounting to his seat.
It was curious that Tristram should have been the first to break the count's incognito. He had arrived at Lenox a few days before, attended by a single valet, and registered at the hotel as M. L. L'Alienado, Valencia. Though not imposing in stature, he exhibited a head of rare distinction—the black beard trimmed to an exquisite point at the chin and the curled mustaches setting off a pair of glowing eyes which riveted the beholder from the moment he met their gaze.
As the artist spoke Spanish, they had become friends in an afternoon.
"We have flattered ourselves that the coaching party is something purely American," said Rosalie, who sat beside him, to the stranger.
"I am glad of it for the color. That is an element I have observed to be generally a little lacking in your life."
"Color and lordliness," sighed Mme. Violet. "Ah, there are no troubadours, no spurred cavaliers, no mailed knights in this busy America—not even scarlet soldiers parading. You men are so dingy, dingy in your black propriety. Why be so funereal? My heart goes out sometimes to a very mountebank, all spangled and jingling like a tambourine when he moves. Color! Give me color. Ah, it is not we who have taste, it is the canaille! It is Victorine, my lady's maid, with her bonnet-ribbons flaunting all the colors of the rainbow."
A silk banner lay outspread in Rosalie's lap, throwing warm blushes against her throat. It was the prize for the gentlemen's steeplechase, which was to close the programme of the afternoon.
"Scarlet, sea-blue and gold," she cried, stroking the tasseled fringe which justified the last addition. "Are not these the primary hues, the major chord of color, and the white their perfect blending?"
The Violet laughed. When addressing her directly or referring to her in her own presence, people carefully called her Mme. Violet. But to the world, out of earshot, she was simply the Violet, just as Cleopatra is Cleopatra. It was taken for granted that her blood was French, but Count L'Alienado, noting her fawn-brown eyes and the strong black hair, which made Rosalie's fluff appear like carded golden silk—thought he detected the marks of the Romany. Yet the full mouth hinted at a Spanish cross. She was not very young, or, at first sight, very beautiful, but she possessed a diablerie stronger than girlhood or beauty, and gossip said the Earl of Marmouth was succumbing to its spell.
"The signal!" cried Rosalie, as the notes of a hunting-horn pealed, faint and mellow, from a distant quarter. "It is time to start."
For several minutes the occupants of the barouche lay back, reveling in the luxury of the cushions and in the changing view which the drive afforded. Other equipages swept into the main road here and there, from cottage and mansion and by-path, each freighted with its cargo of flower-raimented beauty. Marshals in velvet hunting garb galloped up and down, with low salutes to the passengers and brusque orders to the coachmen. On the top of a little hill there came a pause while the procession was arranging itself, and the conversation rippled out again.
"The color is overdone," said the Earl of Marmouth. "It smacks of Latin degeneracy."
"Such as appears in the canvases of Titian?" asked Count L'Alienado quietly.
The Violet, sitting opposite him, caressed her bronze-eyed spaniel to her cheek, so that she might survey the newcomer more closely. His lordship, at her side, alone of the party had sat upright during the ride.
"You are Spanish, not Italian, I am told," he said, much in the tone of a hotel clerk demanding the settlement of an overdue bill. The Violet's eyes met the count's interrogatively.
"Question me in Castilian," he smiled.
"Where are your estates?"
"In Valencia."
"I was there last autumn. I seem to have overlooked the L'Alienados."
"Our estates are in dispute with another branch of the family."
Marmouth grunted.
"The title is very old?" asked Rosalie, to blunt the edge of his impertinence.
"Not very old," answered Count L'Alienado, gently, but looking full at Marmouth. "Before Columbus set out from Palos my ancestor was knighted by Ferdinand the Great—for honorable services."
"We are moving at last," growled the earl, as if personally grieved at the delay. His own title was less than 200 years old and the services for which it was granted, by the second Charles, though historic, could not possibly be called honorable.
"Ah, this is joyous!" cried the Violet, as the sensuous pleasure of the ride stole over her. A quick-step, taken from the start, gave the party a gentle jolting, just sufficiently softened by the padded carriage upholstery. Up hill and down dale, through the riches of midsummer, the route chosen wound. Forest and meadow sailed leisurely by them. Handkerchiefs waved from piazza and window wherever they passed a dwelling house, and at every cross-road stood a group of the fresh-faced country-folk to give them greeting. At the end of an hour the road recurved on itself along a hillside overlooking the valley of the racing park and the pageant bent its length into the form of a letter S, so that without the delay of a formal review each carriage was permitted to inspect the others.
Count L'Alienado saw barges filled with maidens, like living flowers, four-in-hand tally-hos, crowded with sportive collegians, odd jaunting-cars and donkey-carts got up by the wags, staid family coaches with footmen faced rearward to enjoy the retrospect, and open drags like his own without number, all brilliant with lovely womanhood.
The Violet stood apart from the others, sensuous and exotic—like an orange lily in a garden of snowdrops. But, supreme over all, like a bright light, enhanced by reflectors, shone the loveliness of Rosalie March—pure, placid and faultlessly costumed as ever. The jockeys whispered to one another when her vehicle entered the racing park. An eager look at that moment chased away the slight hauteur of her expression—not unbecoming in one so clearly removed from the common order, and far from approaching disdain. She turned her head toward the stables expectantly.
"Paradise," said the Violet, when they had entered and the carriages circled around the great oval.
"This is something like England," said the earl.
"None the worse for that," smiled Rosalie.
"No. Most of the good things I have seen here are derived from the mother country."
"Do you agree, Count L'Alienado?" asked Rosalie, appealing to the stranger.
"Candor is too sharp a sword to carry about unsheathed," answered Count L'Alienado.
Mme. Violet smiled archly, bringing her Gainsborough brim close to the earl's great face and caressing her spaniel with provoking abandon.
Rosalie's little abstraction since they passed through the gate might easily be understood, for Harry Arnold was entered in the steeplechase for gentlemen riders.
"There they come!" she cried, but it was only a group of motley jockeys for the ring race. This passed off quietly enough.
"Now for the steeplechase," cried Rosalie. "There's Harry!" She instinctively plucked the Violet's hand. Then, remembering they were not alone, she colored. Harry led the group of riders who came from the stables, mounted on strong-limbed steeplechasers. His uniform was of the bulrush brown velvet he liked, and his horse a bright chestnut, which pranced as if proud to carry such a master. Even at a distance his splendid seat gave presage of victory.
"Mr. Arnold is the favorite," said Count L'Alienado.
"Although he gives away forty pounds to Leroy," added Rosalie, the technical terms of the track coming strangely from her lips. It was fortunate for her peace of mind Tristram was not there to hear them.
"Now they start!" she cried, alive with interest; but it was only Harry Arnold who spurted his curvetting chestnut across the turf, then reined him up on his haunches with a sudden jerk, as you may have seen an old cavalry sergeant perform the trick. But Leroy, who, as Rosalie said, weighed nearly half a hundred less, wisely reserved his white horse's strength.
"Now!" repeated Rosalie, unconsciously clasping the flag, as if eager to bestow it. The horses, six in number, had started in a bunch and kept together easily till the pistol flash. Then each bounded as if cut with a whip, and rider and horse bent forward.
"Hurrah!" shouted the ring of onlookers about the inclosure, as all six took the first low wall together. The course led straightway across the oval, up a hill at one end, then out of sight for a circuit of a mile, and back by another route, over ditch and mound. Harry Arnold's chestnut and Leroy's white could be seen a length in the lead of the others and neck and neck, as they struggled up the hill and sunk to view on the other side.
"How glorious! How delightful!" cried the Violet, in the interim of suspense. "It is better than the wild Indians that rode in the coliseum last year. Your full-blooded racers, they are too lean, like grasshoppers. Oh, the steeplechase is better. I believe, after all, you owe something to old England, which bequeathed you this legacy."
"You remember the horse-race in 'Anna Karenina?'" asked his lordship, much mollified. "One of the most ethical of books, in the broader sense of the word."
His question seemed addressed to Count L'Alienado.
"I have not read the Russians," he answered.
"You are behind the world, senor. And where may your diversions lie?"
"My favorites," he answered, "are the Persian poets."
Rosalie desisted for a moment from scanning the black crest of the distant hill with her great eyes full of eagerness. Then she recovered herself suddenly, and cried out, in a piercing voice:
"They are coming!"
"Who is ahead?"
"The chestnut and the white are even," said the count.
"Oh, I hope he will win!" prayed Rosalie, clutching the prizes she was to award. Down the slope they strained, heading toward the goal. Only a close side view could have disclosed the advantage in favor of either.
"Harry Arnold will win," said Count L'Alienado. "Leroy is whipping his horse."
The count's judgment proved correct. Almost immediately the chestnut began drawing away from the white. A nose, a neck, half a length, and the clear ground intervened. Harry did not touch whip or spur to the sides of his mount, until the last leap, when a high wall and a long ditch had to be taken together. On the very rise of the jump he switched his chestnut's flanks, and just as the conductor's baton seems a wand visibly producing the swell of the orchestra, so this light motion seemed to give the impulse to the horse's spring. The clatter of his feet on the hard turf beyond announced him the winner amid cheers. Leroy's white took the ditch gallantly, too, but the blood showed red in its nostrils.
Instead of reining up at the goal, Harry executed a characteristic caprice. The fence surrounding the race-track was nearly five feet high. Careering on at full gallop, the victor urged his animal toward this obstacle. A great shout greeted him as he cleared it, the chestnut's hind hoofs grazing the boards. Then, swiftly turning to the right, he cantered up to Rosalie's carriage, gracefully backed his horse and saluted. Leroy joined him through the gate, and stood at his side, while the losers straggled in, haphazard and blown.
"That was for you, Rosalie," said Harry in her ear as she laid the flagstaff in his hand. It was meant for a whisper, but others heard it, and on the morrow the news had spread all over Lenox that Harry Arnold and the beautiful Rosalie March were definitely betrothed. When it reached Mrs. Arnold in Hillsborough, as though by special messenger, she retired at once to her room.
The coaching party paraded out and dispersed amid merrymakings freer than before. Mme. Violet was bewitching during the journey home, making up by a double stream of effortless prattle for Rosalie's unwonted silence.
"But Poe," protested the girl, as if waking suddenly, when the earl, who had got back to book talk again, inveighed against the poverty of our literature.
"Ting-a-ling," said his noble lordship. The carriage had just stopped to leave Count L'Alienado at his hotel.