Pritchard, trim and neat, a New Yorker from the careful arrangement of his tie to the tips of his patent boots, gazed with something like amazement at the man whom he had come to meet at the Grand Central Station. Tavernake looked, indeed, like some splendid bushman whose life has been spent in the kingdom of the winds and the sun and the rain. He was inches broader round the chest, and carried himself with a new freedom. His face was bronzed right down to the neck. His beard was fullgrown, his clothes travel-stained and worn. He seemed like a breath of real life in the great New York depot, surrounded by streams of black-coated, pale-cheeked men.
Pritchard laughed softly as he passed his arm through his friend's.
“Come, my Briton,” he said, “my primitive man, I have rooms for you in a hotel close here. A bath and a mint julep, then I'll take you to a tailor's. What about the big country? It's better than your salt marshes, eh? Better than your little fishing village? Better than building boats?”
“You know it,” Tavernake answered. “I feel as though I'd been drawing in life for month after month. Have I got to wear boots like yours—patent?”
“Got to be done,” Pritchard declared.
“And the hat—oh, my Heavens!” Tavernake groaned. “I'll never become civilized again.”
“We'll see,” Pritchard laughed. “Say, Tavernake, it was a great trip of ours. Everything's turning out marvelously. The oil and the copper are big, man—big, I tell you. I reckon your five thousand dollars will be well on the way to half a million. I'm pretty near there myself.”
It was not until later on, when he was alone, that Tavernake realized with how little interest he listened to his companion's talk of their success. It was so short a time ago since the building up of a fortune had been the one aim upon which every nerve of his body was centered. Curiously enough, now he seemed to take it as a matter of course.
“On second thoughts, I'll send a tailor round to the hotel,” Pritchard declared. “I've rooms myself next yours. We can go out and buy boots and the other things afterwards.”
By nightfall, Tavernake's wardrobe was complete. Even Pritchard regarded him with a certain surprise. He seemed, somehow, to have gained a new dignity.
“Say, but you look great!” he exclaimed. “They won't believe it at the meeting to-morrow that you are the man who crossed the Yolite Mountains and swam the Peraneek River. That's a wonderful country you were in, Tavernake, after you left the tracks.”
They were in Broadway, with the roar of the city in their ears, and Tavernake, lifting his face starwards, suddenly seemed to feel the silence once more, the perfume of the pine woods, the scent of nature herself, freed through all these generations of any presence of man.
“I'll never keep away from it,” he said, softly. “I'll have to go back.”
Pritchard smiled.
“When your report's in shape and the dollars are being scooped in, they'll send you back fast enough—that is, if you still want to go,” he remarked. “I tell you, Leonard Tavernake, our city men here are out for the dollars. Over on your side, a man makes a million or so and he's had enough. One fortune here only seems to whet the appetite of a New Yorker. By the way,” he added, after a moment's hesitation, “does it interest you to know that an old friend of yours is in New York?”
Tavernake's head went round swiftly.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Mrs. Wenham Gardner.”
Tavernake set his teeth.
“No,” he said, slowly, “I don't know that that interests me.”
“Glad of it,” Pritchard went on. “I can tell you I don't think things have been going extra well with the lady. She's spent most of what she got from the Gardner family, and she doesn't seem to have had the best of luck with it, either. I came across her by accident. She is staying at a flashy hotel, but it's in the wrong quarter—second-rate—quite second-rate.”
“I wonder whether we shall see anything of her,” Tavernake remarked.
“Do you want to?” Pritchard asked. “She'll probably be at Martin's for lunch, at the Plaza for tea, and Rector's for supper. She's not exactly the lady to remain hidden, you know.”
“We'll avoid those places, then, if you are taking me around,” Tavernake said.
“You're cured, are you?” Pritchard inquired.
“Yes, I am cured,” Tavernake answered, “cured of that and a great many other things, thanks to you. You found me the right tonic.”
“Tonic,” Pritchard repeated, meditatively. “That reminds me. This way for the best cocktail in New York.”...
The night was not to pass, however, without its own especial thrill for Tavernake. The two men dined together at Delmonico's and went afterwards to a roof garden, a new form of entertainment for Tavernake, and one which interested him vastly. They secured one of the outside tables near the parapets, and below them New York stretched, a flaming phantasmagoria of lights and crude buildings. Down the broad avenues with their towering blocks, their street cars striking fire all the time like toys below, the people streamed like insects away to the Hudson, where the great ferry boats, ablaze with lights, went screaming across the dark waters. Tavernake leaned over and forgot. There was so much that was amazing in this marvelous city for a man who had only just begun to find himself.
The orchestra, stationed within a few yards of him, commenced to play a popular waltz, and Pritchard to talk. Tavernake turned his fascinated eyes from the prospect below.
“My young friend,” Pritchard said, “you are up against it to-night. Take a drink of your wine and then brace yourself.”
Tavernake did as he was told.
“What is this danger?” he asked. “What's wrong, anyway?”
Pritchard had no need to answer. As Tavernake set his glass down, his eyes fell upon the little party who had just taken the table almost next to theirs. There were Walter Crease, Major Post, two men whom he had never seen before in his life—heavy of cheek, both, dull-eyed, but dressed with a rigid observance of the fashion of the city, in short dinner coats and black ties. And between them was Elizabeth. Tavernake gripped the sides of his chair and looked. Yes, she had altered. Her eyebrows were a trifle made up, there was a tinge in her hair which he did not recognize, a touch of color in her cheeks which he doubted. Yet her figure and her wonderful presence remained, that art of wearing her clothes as no other woman could. She was easily the most noticeable-looking of her sex among all the people there. Tavernake heard the sound of her voice and once more the thrill came and passed. She was the same Elizabeth. Thank God, he thought, that he was not the same Tavernake!
“Do you wish to go?” Pritchard asked.
Tavernake shook his head.
“Not I!” he answered. “This place is far too fascinating. Can't we have some more wine? This is my treat. And, Pritchard, why do you look at me like that? You are not supposing for a moment that I am capable of making an ass of myself again?”
Pritchard smiled in a relieved fashion.
“My young friend,” he said, “I have lived in the world so long and seen so many strange things, especially between men and women, that I am never surprised at anything. I thought you'd shed your follies as your grip upon life had tightened, but one is never sure.”
Tavernake sighed.
“Oh, I have shed the worst of my follies!” he answered. “I only wish—”
He never finished his sentence. Elizabeth had suddenly seen him. For a moment she leaned forward as though to assure herself that she was not mistaken. Then she half sprang to her feet and sat down again. Her lips were parted—she was once more bewilderingly beautiful.
“Mr. Tavernake,” she cried, “come and speak to me at once.”
Tavernake rose without hesitation, and walked firmly across the few yards which separated them. She held out both her hands.
“This is wonderful!” she exclaimed. “You in New York! And I have wondered so often what became of you.”
Tavernake smiled.
“It is my first night here,” he said. “For two years I have been prospecting in the far west.”
“Then I saw your name in the papers,” she declared. “It was for the Manhattan Syndicate, wasn't it?”
Tavernake nodded, and one of the men of the party leaned forward with interest.
“You're going to make millions and millions,” she assured him. “You always knew you would, didn't you?”
“I am afraid that I was almost too confident,” he answered. “But certainly we have been quite fortunate.”
One of Elizabeth's companions intervened—he was the one who had pricked up his ears at the mention of the Manhattan Syndicate.
“Say, Elizabeth,” he remarked, “I'd like to meet your friend.”
Elizabeth, with a frown, performed the introduction.
“Mr. Anthony Cruxhall—Mr. Tavernake!”
Mr. Cruxhall held out a fat white hand, on the little finger of which glittered a big diamond ring.
“Say, are you the Mr. Tavernake that was surveyor to the prospecting party sent out by the Manhattan Syndicate?” he inquired.
“I was,” Tavernake admitted, briefly. “I still am, I hope.”
“Then you're just the man I was hoping to meet,” Mr. Cruxhall declared. “Won't you sit down with us right here? I'd like to talk some about that trip. I'm interested in the Syndicate.”
Tavernake shook his head.
“I've had enough of work for a time,” he said. “Besides, I couldn't talk about it till after my report to the meeting to-morrow.”
“Just a few words,” Mr. Cruxhall persisted. “We'll have a bottle of champagne, eh?”
“You will excuse me, I am sure,” Tavernake replied, “when I tell you that it would not be correct on my part to discuss my trip until after I have handed in my report to the company. I am very glad to have seen you again, Mrs. Gardner.”
“But you are not going!” she exclaimed, in dismay.
“I have left Mr. Pritchard alone,” Tavernake answered.
Elizabeth smiled, and waved her hand to the solitary figure.
“Our friend Mr. Pritchard again,” she remarked. “Well, it is really a curious meeting, isn't it? I wonder,”—she lifted her head to his and her eyes called him closer to hers—“have you forgotten everything?”
He pointed over the roofs of the houses. His back was to the river and he pointed westward.
“I have been in a country where one forgets,” he answered. “I think that I have thrown the knapsack of my follies away. I think that it is buried. There are some things which I do not forget, but they are scarcely to be spoken of.”
“You are a strange young man,” she said. “Was I wrong, or were you not once in love with me?”
“I was terribly in love with you,” Tavernake confessed.
“Yet you tore up my cheque and flung yourself away when you found out that my standard of morals was not quite what you had expected,” she murmured. “Haven't you got over that quixoticism a little, Leonard?”
He drew a deep sigh.
“I am thankful to say,” he declared, earnestly, “that I have not got over it, that, if anything, my prejudices are stronger than ever.”
She sat for a moment quite still, and her face had become hard and expressionless. She was looking past him, past the line of lights, out into the blue darkness.
“Somehow,” she said, softly, “I always prayed that you might remember. You were the one true thing I had ever met, you were in earnest. It is past, then?”
“It is past,” Tavernake answered, bravely.
The music of a Hungarian waltz came floating down to them. She half closed her eyes. Her head moved slowly with the melody. Tavernake looked away.
“Will you come and see me just once?” she asked, suddenly. “I am staying at the Delvedere, in Forty-Second Street.”
“Thank you very much,” Tavernake replied. “I do not know how long I shall be in New York. If I am here for a few days, I shall take my chance at finding you at home.”
He bowed, and returned to Pritchard, who welcomed him with a quiet smile.
“You're wise, Tavernake,” he said, softly. “I could hear no words, but I know that you have been wise. Between you and me,” he added, in a lower tone, “she is going downhill. She is in with the wrong lot here. She can't seem to keep away from them. They are on the very fringe of Bohemia, a great deal nearer the arm of the law than makes for respectable society. The man to whom I saw you introduced is a millionaire one day and a thief the next. They're none of them any good. Did you notice, too, that she is wearing sham jewelry? That always looks bad.”
“No, I didn't notice,” Tavernake answered.
He was silent for a moment. Then he leaned a little forward.
“I wonder,” he asked, “do you know anything about her sister?”
Pritchard finished his wine and knocked the ash from his cigar.
“Not much,” he replied. “I believe she had a very hard time. She took on the father, you know, the old professor, and did her best to keep him straight. He died about a year ago and Miss Beatrice tried to get back into the theatre, but she'd missed her chance. Theatrical business has been shocking in London. I heard she'd come out here. Wherever she is, she keeps right away from that sort of set,” he wound up, moving his head towards Elizabeth's friends.
“I wonder if she is in New York,” Tavernake said, with a strange thrill at his heart.
Pritchard made no reply. His eyes were fixed upon the little group at the next table. Elizabeth was leaning back in her chair. She seemed to have abandoned the conversation. Her eyes were always seeking Tavernake's. Pritchard rose to his feet abruptly.
“It's time we were in bed,” he declared. “Remember the meeting to-morrow.”
Tavernake rose to his feet. As they passed the next table, Elizabeth leaned over to him. Her eyes pleaded with his almost passionately.
“Dear Leonard,” she whispered, “you must—you must come and see me. I shall stay in between four and six every evening this week. The Delvedere, remember.”
“Thank you very much,” Tavernake answered. “I shall not forget.”
Once again it seemed to Beatrice that history was repeating itself. The dingy, oblong dining-room, with its mosquito netting, stained tablecloth, and hard cane chairs, expanded until she fancied herself in the drawing-room of Blenheim House. Between the landladies there was little enough to choose. Mrs. Raithby Lawrence, notwithstanding her caustic tongue and suspicious nature, had at least made some pretense at gentility. The woman who faced her now—hard-featured, with narrow, suspicious eyes and a mass of florid hair—was unmistakably and brutally vulgar.
“What's the good of your keeping on saying you hope to get an engagement next week?” she demanded, with a sneer. “Who's likely to engage you? Why, you've lost your color and your looks and your weight since you came to stay here. They don't want such as you in the chorus. And for the rest, you're too high and mighty, that's my opinion of you. Take what you can get, and how you can get it, and be thankful,—that's my motto. Day after day you tramp about the streets with your head in the air, and won't take this and won't take that, and meanwhile my bill gets bigger and bigger. Now where have you been to this morning, I should like to know?”
Beatrice, who was faint and tired, shaking in every limb, tried to pass out of the room, but her questioner barred the way.
“I have been up town,” she answered, nervously.
“Hear of anything?”
Beatrice shook her head.
“Not yet. Please let me go upstairs and lie down. I am tired and I need to rest.”
“And I need my money,” Mrs. Selina P. Watkins declared, without quitting her position, “and it's no good your going up to your room because the door's locked.”
“What do you mean?” Beatrice faltered.
“I mean that I've done with you,” the lodging-house keeper announced. “Your room's locked up and the key's in my pocket, and the sooner you get out of this, the better I shall be pleased.”
“But my box—my clothes,” Beatrice cried.
“I'll keep 'em a week for you,” the woman answered. “Bring me the money by then and you shall have them. If I don't hear anything of you, they'll go to the auction mart.”
Something of her old spirit fired the girl for a moment. She was angry, and she forgot that her knees were trembling with fatigue, that she was weak and aching with hunger.
“How dare you talk like that!” she exclaimed. “You shall have your money shortly, but I must have my clothes. I cannot go anywhere without them.”
The woman laughed harshly.
“Look here, my young lady,” she said, “you'll see your box again when I see the color of your money, and not before. And now out you go, please,—out you go! If you're going to make any trouble, Solly will have to show you the way down the steps.”
The woman had opened the door, and a colored servant, half dressed, with a broom in her hand, came slouching down the passage. Beatrice turned and fled out of the greasy, noisome atmosphere, down the wooden, uneven steps, out into the ugly street. She turned toward the nearest elevated as though by instinct, but when she came to the bottom of the stairs she stopped short with a little groan. She knew very well that she had not a nickel to pay the fare. Her pockets were empty. All day she had eaten nothing, and her last coin had gone for the car which had brought her back from Broadway. And here she was on the other side of New York, in the region of low-class lodging houses, with the Bowery between her and Broadway. She had neither the strength nor the courage to walk. With a half-stifled sob she took off her one remaining ornament, a cheap enameled brooch, and entered a pawnbroker's shop close to where she had been standing.
“Will you give me something on this, please?” she asked, desperately.
A man who seemed to be sorting a pile of ready-made coats, paused in his task for a moment, took the ornament into his hand, and threw it contemptuously upon the counter.
“Not worth anything,” he answered.
“But it must be worth something,” Beatrice protested. “I only want a very little.”
Something in her voice compelled the man's attention. He looked at her white face.
“What's the trouble?” he inquired.
“I must get up to Fifth Avenue somehow,” she declared. “I can't walk and I haven't a nickel.”
He pushed the brooch back to her and threw a dime upon the counter.
“Well,” he said, “you don't look fit to walk, and that's a fact, but the brooch isn't worth entering up. There's a dime for you. Now git, please, I'm busy.”
Beatrice clutched the coin and, almost forgetting to thank him, found her way up the iron stairs on to the platform of the elevated. Soon she was seated in the train, rattling and shaking on its way through the slums into the heart of the wonderful city. There was only one thing left for her to try, a thing which she had had in her mind for days. Yet she found herself, even now she was committed to it, thinking of what lay before her with something like black horror. It was her last resource, indeed. Strong though she was, she knew by many small signs that her strength was almost at an end. The days and weeks of disappointments, the long fruitless trudges from office to office, the heart-sickness of constant refusals, poor food, the long fasts, had all told their tale. She was attractive enough still. Her pallor seemed to have given her a wonderful delicacy. The curve of her lips and the soft light in her gray eyes, were still as potent as ever. When she thought, though, what a poor asset her appearance had been, the color flamed in her cheeks.
In Broadway she made her way to a very magnificent block of buildings, and passing inside took the lift to the seventh floor. Here she got out and knocked timidly at a glass-paneled door, on which was inscribed the name of Mr. Anthony Cruxhall. A very superior young man bade her enter and inquired her business.
“I wish to see Mr. Cruxhall for a moment, privately,” she said. “I shall not detain him for more than a minute. My name is Franklin—Miss Beatrice Franklin.”
The young man's lips seemed about to shape themselves into a whistle, but something in the girl's face made him change his mind.
“I guess the boss is in,” he admitted. “He's just got back from a big meeting, but I am not sure about his seeing any one to-day. However, I'll tell him that you're here.”
He disappeared into an inner room. Presently he came out again and held the door open.
“Will you walk right in, Miss Franklin?” he invited.
Beatrice went in bravely enough, but her knees began to tremble when she found herself in the presence of the man she had come to visit. Mr. Anthony Cruxhall was not a pleasant-looking person. His cheeks were fat and puffy, he wore a diamond ring upon the finger of his too-white hand, and a diamond pin in his somewhat flashily arranged necktie. He was smoking a black cigar, which he omitted to remove from between his teeth as he welcomed his visitor.
“So you've come to see me at last, little Miss Beatrice!” he said, with a particularly unpleasant smile. “Come and sit down here by the side of me. That's right, eh? Now what can I do for you?”
Beatrice was trembling all over. The man's eyes were hateful, his smile was hideous.
“I have not a cent in the world, Mr. Cruxhall,” she faltered, “I cannot get an engagement, I have been turned out of my rooms, and I am hungry. My father always told me that you would be a friend if at any time it happened that I needed help. I am very sorry to have to come and beg, yet that is what I am doing. Will you lend or give me ten or twenty dollars, so that I can go on for a little longer? Or will you help me to get a place among some of your theatrical people?”
Mr. Cruxhall puffed steadily at his cigar for a moment, and leaning back in his chair thrust his hand into his trousers' pocket.
“So bad as that, is it?” he remarked. “So bad as that, eh?”
“It is very bad indeed,” she answered, looking at him quietly, “or you know that I should not have come to you.”
Mr. Cruxhall smiled.
“I remember the last time we talked together,” he said, “we didn't get on very well. Too high and mighty in those days, weren't you, Miss Beatrice? Wouldn't have anything to say to a bad lot like Anthony Cruxhall. You're having to come to it, eh?”
She began to tremble again, but she held herself in.
“I must live,” she murmured. “Give me a little money and let me go away.”
He laughed.
“Oh, I'll do better than that for you,” he answered, thrusting his hand into his waistcoat pocket and drawing out a pile of dollar bills. “Let's look at you. Gee whiz! Yes, you're shabby, aren't you? Take this,” he went on, slamming some notes down before her. “Go and get yourself a new frock and a hat fit to wear, and meet me at the Madison Square roof garden at eight o'clock. We'll have some dinner and I guess we can fix matters up.”
Then he smiled at her again, and Beatrice, whose hand was already upon the bills, suddenly felt her knees shake. A great black horror was upon her. She turned and fled out of the room, past the astonished clerk, into the lift, and was downstairs on the main floor before she remembered where she was, what she had done. The clerk, after gazing at her retreating form, hurried into the inner office.
“Young woman hasn't bolted with anything, eh?” he asked.
Mr. Cruxhall smiled wickedly.
“Why, no,” he replied, “I guess she'll come back!”
Tavernake left the meeting on that same afternoon with his future practically assured for life. He had been appointed surveyor to the company at a salary of ten thousand dollars a year, and the mine in which his savings were invested was likely to return him his small capital a hundredfold. Very kind things had been said of him and to him.
Pritchard and he had left the place together. When they had reached the street, they paused for a moment.
“I am going to make a call near here,” Pritchard said. “Don't forget that we are dining together, unless you find something better to do, and in the meantime”—he took a card from his pocket and handed it to Tavernake—“I don't know whether I am a fool or not to give you this,” he added. “However, there it is. Do as you choose about it.”
He walked away a little abruptly. Tavernake glanced at the address upon the card: 1134, East Third Street. For a moment he was puzzled. Then the light broke in upon him suddenly. His heart gave a leap. He turned back into the place to ask for some directions and once more stopped short. Down the stone corridor, like one who flies from some hideous fate, came a slim black figure, with white face and set, horrified stare. Tavernake held out his hands and she came to him with a great wondering sob.
“Leonard!” she cried. “Leonard!”
“There's no doubt about me,” he answered, quickly. “Am I such a very terrifying object?”
She stood quite still and struggled hard. By and by the giddiness passed.
“Leonard,” she murmured, “I am ill.”
Then she began to smile.
“It is too absurd,” she faltered, “but you've got to do it all over again.”'
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Get me something to eat at once,” she begged. “I am starving. Somewhere where it's cool. Leonard, how wonderful! I never even knew that you were in New York.”
He called a carriage and took her off to a roof garden. There, as it was early, they got a seat near the parapet. Tavernake talked clumsily about himself most of the time. There was a lump in his throat. He felt all the while that tragedy was very near. By degrees, though, as she ate and drank, the color came back to her cheeks, the fear of a breakdown seemed to pass away. She became even cheerful.
“We are really the most amazing people, Leonard,” she declared. “You stumbled into my life once before when I was on the point of being turned out of my rooms. You've come into it again and you find me once more homeless. Don't spend too much money upon our dinner, for I warn you that I am going to borrow from you.”
He laughed.
“That's good news,” he remarked, “but I'm not sure that I'm going to lend anything.”
He leaned across the table. Their dinner had taken long in preparing and the dusk was falling now. Over them were the stars, the band was playing soft music, the hubbub of the streets lay far below. Almost they were in a little world by themselves.
“Dear Beatrice,” he said, “three times I asked you to marry me and you would not, and I asked you because I was a selfish brute, and because I knew that it was good for me and that it would save me from things of which I was afraid. And now I am asking you the same thing again, but I have a bigger reason, Beatrice. I have been alone most of the last two years, I have lived the sort of life which brings a man face to face with the truth, helps him to know himself and others, and I have found out something.”
“Yes?” she faltered. “Tell me, Leonard.”
“I found out that it was you I cared for always,” he continued, “and that is why I am asking you to marry me now, Beatrice, only this time I ask you because I love you, and because no one else in the world could ever take your place or be anything at all to me.”
“Leonard!” she murmured.
“You are not sorry that I have said this?” he begged.
She opened her eyes again.
“I always prayed that I might hear you say it,” she answered, “but it seems—oh, it seems so one-sided! Here am I starving and penniless, and you—you, I suppose, are well on the way towards the success you worshiped.”
“I am well on the way,” he said, earnestly, “towards something greater, Beatrice. I am well on the way towards understanding what success really is, what things count and what don't. I have even found out,” he whispered, “the thing which counts for more than anything else in the world, and now that I have found it out, I shall never let it go again.”
He pressed her hand and she looked across the table at him with swimming eyes. The waiter, who had been approaching, turned discreetly away. The band started to play a fresh tune. From down in the streets came the clanging of the cars. A curious, cosmopolitan murmur of sounds, but between those two there was the wonderful silence.