CHAPTER VIIIAfter a delicious night I woke in a room which gave the same shock to my fastidiousness as the first glimpse of my cabin on board ship. I woke cheerfully, however, knowing that I was in New York and that not many days could pass before some happy chance encounter would give me the clue of which I was in search. Cheerfully I dressed and breakfasted; cheerfully I sat down in the dingy hall to scan the morning's news.It was the first paper I had opened since landing. It was the first I had looked at since...I had no recollection of when I had read a newspaper last. It must have been long ago; so long ago that the history of my immediate time had lapsed into formlessness, like that of the ancient world. I knew there was a world; I knew there were countries and governments; I knew, as I have said, that there was a war. Of the causes of that war I retained about the same degree of information as of the origin of the Wars of the Roses.Bewilderment was my first reaction now; the second was amazement. Reading the papers with no preparation from the day before, or from the day before that—with no preparation at all but the vague memory of horrors from which my mind retreated the minute they were suggested—reading the papers thus, the world seemed to me to have been turned upside down. Hindus were in France, Canadians in Belgium, the French in the Dobrudja, the Australians in Turkey, the British and Germans in East Africa, and New-Zealanders on the peninsula of Sinai. What madness was this? How had the race of men got into such a tragi-comic topsy-turvydom? A long crooked line slashed all across Europe showed the main body of the opponents locked in a mutual death embrace.I had hardly grasped the meaning of it when, looking up, I saw a figure of light standing in the lobby before me. It was all in white serge, with a green sash about the waist, and the head wreathed in a white motor veil."Hello, kid!" The husky, comic, Third Avenue laugh was Lydia Blair's. I had just time to rehearse the series of irritations I knew I should feel at being tracked down, and to regret my folly for having gone back to Drinkwater on the previous evening. Then I saw the heavenly eyes surveying me with an air of approval. "Well, you look like a nice tailor's dummy at last. Takes me back to Seattle or Boston or Salt Lake City—and the lady." As she rattled on, a pair of dark eyes began to flash on me from the air. "We haven't gotherto-day, but there's some one else who perhaps will fill the bill. Come on out."Wondering what she could mean, and whether or not the longed-for clue might not be at hand, I suffered myself to be led by the arm to the door of the hotel.At first I saw nothing but a large and handsome touring-car drawn up against the curb. Then I saw Drinkwater snuggled in a corner—and then a brown veil. I couldn't help crossing the pavement, since Lydia did the same, and the brown veil seemed to expect me."Miss Blair thought you might like a drive, Mr. Soames, so we came round to see if we could find you.""Come on in, Jasper," Drinkwater urged; "the water's fine.""Come on. Don't be silly," Miss Blair insisted, as I began to make excuses.Before I knew what I was doing I had stumbled into the seat opposite Miss Averill. She sat in the right-hand corner, Drinkwater in the left, Miss Blair between the two. I occupied one of the small folding armchairs, going backward. In another minute we were on our way through one of the cross-streets to Fifth Avenue.Having grasped the situation, I was annoyed. Miss Averill was taking the less fortunate of her acquaintance for an airing. Though I could do justice to her kindliness, I resented being forced again into a position from which I was trying to struggle out.Then I saw something that diverted my attention even from my wrongs. The pavements in Fifth Avenue were thronged with a slowly moving crowd of men and women, but mostly men, that made progress up or down impossible. Looking closely, I saw that they were all of the nations which people like myself are apt to consider most alien to the average American. Of true Caucasian blood there was hardly a streak among them. Dark, stunted, oddly hatted, oddly dressed, abject and yet eager, submissive and yet hostile, they poured up and up and up from all the side-streets, as runlets from a mountain-side into a great stream. For the pedestrian, the shopper, theflâneur, there was not an inch of foot room. These surging multitudes monopolized everything. From Fourteenth Street to Forty-second Street, a distance of more than a mile along the most extravagantly showy thoroughfare in the world, these two dense lines of humanity took absolute possession, driving clerks back into their shops and customers from trade by the sheer weight of numbers."Good heavens! What's up?" I cried, in amazement.Miss Averill, who was doubtless used to the phenomenon, looked mildly surprised."Why, it's always this way!" she smiled. "It's their lunch-hour. They come from shops and workshops in the side-streets to see the sights and get the air.""But is it like this every day?""Sure it is!" laughed Miss Blair. "Did you never see the Avenue before?""I've never seen this before. I'm sure they didn't do it a few years ago."Miss Averill agreed to this. It was a new manifestation, due to the changes this part of New York had undergone in recent years."But how do the people get in and out of the shops?"Miss Blair explained that they couldn't, which was the reason why so many businesses were being driven up-town. There was an hour in the day when everything was at a standstill."And if during that hour this inflammable stuff were to be set ablaze—"Miss Averill's comment did not make the situation better. "Oh, the same thing goes on in every city in the country, only you don't see it. New York is unfortunate in having only one street. Any other street is just a byway. Here the whole city, for every purpose of its life, has to pour itself into Fifth Avenue, so that if anything is going on you get it there."We did not continue the subject, for none of us really wanted to talk of it. In its way it went beyond whatever we were prepared to say. It was disquieting; it might be menacing. We preferred to watch, to study, to wonder, as, in the press of vehicles, we slowly made our way between these banks of outlandish faces, every one of which was like a slumbering fire. If our American civilization were ever to be blown violently from one basis to another, as I had sometimes thought might happen, the social TNT was concentrated here.But we were soon in the Park. Soon after that we were running along the river-bank. Soon after that we came to an inn by a stream in a dimple of a dell, and here Miss Averill had ordered lunch by telephone. It was a nice little lunch, in a sort of rude pavilion that simulated eating in the open air. I noticed that all the arrangements had been made with as much foresight as if we had been people of distinction.So I began to examine my hostess with more attention than I had ever given her, coming to the conclusion that she belonged to the new variety of rich American whom I had somewhere had occasion to observe.Sensible and sympathetic were the first words you applied to her, and you could see she was of the type to seek nothing for herself. Brown was her color, as it so often is that of self-renouncing characters—the brown of woodland brooks in her eyes, the brown of nuts in her hair, and all about her an air of conscientiousness that left no place for coquetry.Conscientiousness was her aura, and among the shades of conscientiousness that in spending money easily came first. I was sure she had studied the whole question of financial inequality from books, and as much as she could from observation. Zeal to make the best use of her income had probably held her back from marriage and dictated her occupations. It had drawn her to working-girls like Lydia Blair, to struggling men like Harry Drinkwater, and now indirectly to me. It had suggested the drive of this morning, and had bidden her gather us round her table as if we were her equals. She knew we were not her equals, but she was doing her best to forget the fact, and to have us forget it, too. With Harry and Lydia I think she was successful. But with me...She herself knew she was not successful with me, and when, after the coffee, the working-girl had taken the blind man and strayed with him for a few hundred yards into the woods, Miss Averill grew embarrassed. The more she tried to keep me from seeing it the more she betrayed it—not in words, or glances, or any trick of color, but in inner hesitations which only mind-reading could detect.As we still sat at the table, but each a little away from it, she gathered all her resources together to be the lady in authority."I'm glad of a word alone with you because—" Apparently she could get no farther in this direction, and so took another line. "I think you said your business was with carpets, didn't you?""Somebody may have said it for me—especially after our little talk about the rug—but it didn't come from me."Her hazel eyes rested on me frankly. "And it's not?""No, it's not.""Oh, then—" Her tone was slightly that of disappointment."Did you want it to be?" I smiled."It isn't that; but my brother thought it was—""I'm sure I don't know why—except for the rug. But one can know about rugs and not have to sell them, can't one?""It's not a usual branch of knowledge, except among connoisseurs and artists—""Oh, well!""So my brother thought if you were in that kind of work he'd give you a note to a friend of his—-at the head of one of the big carpet establishments in New York—""It's awfully kind of him," I broke in, as she drew a letter from the bag she carried, "and if I needed it I'd take it; but—but I don't need it. It—it wouldn't be any good to me. I thank him none the less sincerely—and you, too, Miss Averill—"She looked at the ground, her long black lashes almost resting on her cheek."I must seem to you very officious, but—""Not in the slightest. I'm extremely grateful. If I required help there's nobody—""You don't live in New York?""I'm going to stay here for—for the present.""But not—not to work?""That I shall have to see.""I suppose you're a—a writer—or one of those things.""No, I'm not any of those things," I said, gravely; and at that we laughed.CHAPTER IXWe got back to New York in time for me to begin the parade of the hotels. Taking this task seriously, I selected the biggest and made myself conspicuous by keeping on my feet.For three days nothing happened except within myself. This focusing of men and women into vast assemblies from four to seven every afternoon began to strike me as the counterpart of the gatherings I was watching each day between twelve and one on the pavements of Fifth Avenue. Though the activities were different, the same obscure set of motives seemed to lie behind both. In both there was the impulse to crowd densely together, as if promiscuity was a source of excitement. In both there was a vacuity that was not purposeless. In both there was a suggestion of the sleeping wild beast. While in the one case the accompaniment was the inchoate uproar of the streets, in the other it was an orchestra that jazzed with the monotonous incitement of Oriental tom-toms, nagging, teasing, tormenting the wild beast to get up and show his wildness. Across tea-rooms or between arcades one could see couples dancing in a languorous semi-paralysis of which the fascination lay in a hint of barbaric shamelessness. Barbaric shamelessness marked the huge shaven faces of most of the men and the kilts of most of the women. I mention these details only to point out that to me, after my mysterious absence, they indicated a socially new America.It was the fourth afternoon when, drifting with the crowd through a corridor lined with tables at which small parties were having tea, I felt the long-expected tap on my shoulder.In the interval too brief to reckon before turning round two possibilities were clear in my mind. The unknown crime from which I was running away might have found me out—or some friend had come to my deliverance. Either event would be welcome, for even if it were arrest I should learn my name and history."Hello, old chap! Come and have some tea."I was disappointed. It was only Boyd Averill. Behind him his wife and sister were seated at one of the little tables. It was the sort of invitation one couldn't refuse, especially as they saw I was strolling without purpose.It was Mrs. Averill who talked, in the boredvoix traînanteof one who has everything the world can give, except what she wants most. I had seen before that she was a beautiful woman, but never so plainly as now—a woman all softness and dimpling curves, with the same suggestions of the honeyed and melting and fatigued in her glances that you got from the inflection of her sentences.She explained that they had come from a song recital in the great hall up-stairs. It was given at this unusual time of the year by a well-known singer who was passing through New York on her way to Australia. With this interruption she continued the criticism she had been making when I sat down, and which dealt with certain phrases in a song—Goethe's "Ueber allen Gipfeln.""The Schubert setting?" I asked, after informing Miss Averill as to how I should have my tea."No, the Hugo Wolff."I began to hum in an undertone: "'Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh; in allem Wipfeln hörest du kaum einen Hauch.' Is that the one?"The ladies exchanged glances; Averill kept his eyes on my face."Yes, that's the one," Mrs. Averill said, as if nothing unusual had happened. "So you sing.""No; I—I just know the song. I've—I've heard a good deal of music at one time and another.""Abroad?""Yes—abroad—and here.""Where especially here?""Oh, New York—Boston—Chicago—different places." I did my best to be vague.I noticed for the first time then a shade of wistfulness in Mildred Averill's brown eyes as she said:"You seem to have moved about a good deal.""Oh yes. I wanted—I wanted to see what was happening.""And you saw it?"Averill asked me that, his gaze still fixed on me thoughtfully."Enough for the present."There was a pause of some seconds during which I could hear the unuttered question of all three, "Why don't you tell us who you are?" It was a kindly question, with nothing but sympathy behind it. It was, in fact, a tacit offer of friendship, if I would only take it up. More plainly than they could have expressed themselves in words, it said: "We like you. We are ready to be your friends. Only give us the least little bit of encouragement. Link yourself up with something we know. Don't be such a mystery, because mystery breeds suspicion."When I let it go by Mildred Averill began to talk somewhat at random. She didn't want that significant silence to be repeated. I had had my chance and I hadn't taken it. Very well, my reasons would be respected, but I couldn't keep people from wondering. That was what I knew she was saying, though her actual words referred to our expedition of a few days previously.And of that she spoke with an intonation that associated me with herself. She and I had taken two nice young people of the working-classes for an outing. Let me hasten to say that there was no condescension in what she said; condescension wasn't in her; there was only the implication that whatever the ground she stood on, I stood on that ground, too. She threw out a hint that as New York in these September days was barely waking from its summer lethargy, and there was little to fill time, we might all four do the same again.In this she was reserved, nunlike, yet—what shall I say? What is there to say when a woman betrays what very few people perceive and one isn't supposed to know to be there? There is a decoration on certain old Chinese porcelains which you can only see in special lights. A vase or a bowl may be of, let us say, a rich green monochrome. You may look at the thing a thousand times and nothing but the monochrome will be visible. Then one day the sun will strike it at a special angle, or the light may otherwise be what the artist did his work for, and beneath the green you will discern dragons or chrysanthemums in gold. Somewhat in that way the real Mildred Averill came out and withdrew, withdrew and came out, not so much according to changes in her as according to changes in the person observing her. When you saw her from one point of view she was diffident, demure, not colorless, but all of one color like a rare piece of monochrome. When you looked at her from another you saw the golden dragons and chrysanthemums. You might not have understood what they symbolized, but this much at least you would have known—that the gold was the gold of fire, all the more dangerous, perhaps, because it was banked down.That in this company, with its batteries of tacit inquiry turned on me all the while I took my tea, I was uneasy will go without saying, and so I took the earliest possible opportunity to get up and slip away. I did not slip away, however, before Mrs. Averill had asked me to lunch on the following Sunday, and I had been forced into accepting the invitation. I had been forced because she wouldn't take no for an answer. She wanted to talk about music; she wanted to sing to me; in reality, as I guessed then, and soon came to know, she was determined to wring from me, out of sheer curiosity, the facts I wouldn't confide of my own accord.But having accepted the invitation, I saw that there were advantages in doing so. Once back in the current to which I belonged, I should have more chances of the recognition for which I was working. The social life of any country runs in streams like those we see pictured on isothermal charts. The same kind of people move in the same kind of medium from north to south, and from east to west. If you know one man there you will soon know another, till you have a chain of acquaintances, all socially similar, right across the continent. That I had such a chain I didn't doubt for an instant; my only difficulty was to get in touch with it. As soon as I did that each name would bring up a kindred name, till I found myself swimming in my native channel, wherever it was, like a fish in the Gulf Stream, whether off the coast of Norway or off that of Mexico.So I came to the conclusion that I had done right in ceding to Mrs. Averill's insistence, though it occurred to me on second thoughts that I should need another suit of clothes. That I had was well enough for knockabout purposes, especially when carried off with some amount of bluff; but the poverty of its origin would become too evident if worn on all occasions. I had seen at the emporium that by spending more money and putting on only a slightly enhanced swagger I could make a much better appearance in the eyes of those who didn't examine me too closely. I decided that the gain would warrant the extravagance.Within ten days of my landing, therefore, my nearly four hundred dollars had come down to nearly two, though I had the consolation of knowing that my chances of soon getting at my bank-account were better. At any minute now my promenades in the hotels might be rewarded, while conversation with the Averills would sooner or later bring up names with which I should have associations.It was disconcerting then, on the following Sunday, to be received with some constraint. It was the more disconcerting in that the coldness came from Averill himself. He strolled into the hall while I was putting down my hat and stick, shaking hands with the peculiar listlessness of a man who disapproves of what is happening. As hitherto I had found him interested and cordial, I couldn't help being struck by the change."You see how we are," he observed, pointing to an open packing-case. "Not up to the point of having guests; but Mrs. Averill—""Mrs. Averill was too kind to me to think of inconveniences to herself.""Just come up to the library, will you, and I'll tell her you're here."It was a way of getting rid of me till his wife could come and assume her own responsibilities.So long a time had passed since I had seen the interior of an American house of this order that I took notes as I made my way up-stairs. Out of the unsuspected resources of my being came the capacity to do it. Most people on entering a house see nothing but its size. A background more or less elaborately furnished may be in their minds, but they have not the knowledge to enable them to seize details. The careful arrangement of taste is all one to them with some nondescript, haphazard jumble.In this dwelling, in one of the streets off Fifth Avenue, on the eastern side of Central Park, I found the typical home of the average wealthy American. Money had been spent on it, but with a kind of helplessness. Helplessness had designed the house, as it had planned, or hadn't planned, the street outside.A square hall contained a few monumental pieces of furniture because they were monumental. A dining-room behind it was full of high-backed Italian chairs because they were high-backed and Italian. The stairs were built as they were because the architect had not been able to avoid a dark spot in the middle of the house and the stairs filled it. On the floor above a glacial drawing-room in white and gold, with the furniture still in bags, ran the width of the back of the house, while across the front was the library into which I was shown, spacious, cheerful, with plenty of books, magazines, and easy-chairs. In the way of pictures there were but two—modern portraits of a man and a woman, whom I had no difficulty in setting down as the father and mother of Averill. Of the mother I knew nothing except that she had been a school-teacher; of the father Miss Blair had given me the detailed history as told inMen Who Have Made New Jersey.Hubbard Averill was the son of a shoemaker in Elizabeth. On leaving school at fifteen he had the choice of going into a grocery store as clerk or as office-boy into a bank. He chose the bank. Ten years later he was teller. Five years after that he was cashier. Five years after that he had the same position in a bank of importance in Jersey City. Five years after that he was recognized as one of the able young financiers in the neighborhood of New York. Before he was fifty his name was honored by those who count in Wall Street. It was the history of most of the successful American bankers I had ever heard of.There was no packing-case in the library, but a number of objects recently unpacked stood round about on tables, waiting to be disposed of. There was a little Irish glass, with much old porcelain and pottery, both Chinese and European. I had not the time to appraise the things with the eye before Miss Averill slipped in.She wore a hat, and, dressed in what I suppose was tan-colored linens, she seemed just to have come in from the street."My sister will be down in a minute. She's generally late on Sunday. I've been good and have been to church."We sat down together on a window-seat, with some self-consciousness on both sides. I noticed again that, though her hair was brown, her eyebrows and long curving lashes were black, striking the same discreet yet obscurely dangerous note as the rest of her personality. In the topaz of her eyes there were little specks of gold like those in her chain of amber beads.After a little introductory talk she began telling me of the help Miss Blair was giving Drinkwater. She had begun to teach him what she called "big stenography." Shorthand and the touch system were included in it, as well as the knack of transcribing from the dictaphone. Boyd had bought a machine on purpose for them to practise with, looking forward to the day when Harry should resume his old job connected with laboratory work."And what's to become of Miss Blair?"My companion lowered her fine lashes, speaking with the seeming shyness that was her charm."I'm thinking of asking her to come and live with me. You see, if I take a house of my own I shall need some one; and she suits me. She understands the kind of people I like to work among—""Oh, then you're not going to keep on living here.""I've lived with my brother and sister ever since my father died; but one comes to a time when one needs a home of one's own. Don't you think so?""Oh, of course!""A man—like you, for instance—can be so free; but a woman has to live within exact limitations. The only way she can get any liberty at all is within her own home. Not that my brother and sister aren't angelic to me. They are, of course; but you know what I mean." The glance that stole under her lashes was half daring and half apologetic. "It must be wonderful to do as one likes—to experiment with different sorts of life—and get to know things at first hand."So that was her summing up concerning me. I was one of those moderns with so keen a thirst for life that I was testing it at all its springs. She didn't know my ultimate intention, but she could sympathize with my methods and admire my courage and thoroughness. Almost in so many words she said if she had not been timid and hedged in by conventions it was what she would have liked herself.Before any one came to disturb us there seeped through her conversation, too, the reason of Averill's coldness. They had discussed me a good deal, and while he had nothing to accuse me of, he considered that the burden of the proof of my innocence lay with me. I might be all right—and then I might not be. So long as there was any question as to my probity I was a person to watch with readiness to help, but not one to ask to luncheon. He would not have invited me to tea a few days before, and had allowed me to pass and repass before ceding to his wife's persistence. He had consequently been the more annoyed when she carried her curiosity to the point of bringing me there that day.Miss Averill did not, of course, say these things; she would have been amazed to know that I inferred them. I shouldn't have inferred them had I not seen her brother and partially read his mind.But my hostess came trailing in—the verb is the only one I can find to express her gracefully lymphatic movements—and I was obliged to submit to a welcome which was overemphasized for the benefit of the husband who entered behind her."We're really not equipped for having any one come to us," she apologized. "We're scarcely unpacked. We're going to move from this house anyhow when we can find another. It's so poky. If we're to entertain again—" She turned to her sister: "Mildred dear,couldn'tsome one have cleared these things away?" Waving her hand toward the array of potteries and porcelains, she continued to me: "One buys such a lot during two or three years abroad, doesn't one? I'm sure Mrs. Soames must feel the way I do, that she doesn't know where to put the things when she's got them home."I knew the reason for the reference which others were as quick to catch as I, and, in the idiom of the moment, tried to "side-step" it by saying:"That's a good thing—that Rouensaladier. You don't often pick up one of that shape nowadays.""I saw it in an old shop at Dreux," Mrs. Averill informed me, in her melting tone. "I got this pair of Ming vases there, too. At least, they said they were Ming; but I don't suppose they are. One is so taken in. But I liked them, whatever they are, and so—"She lifted one up and brought it to me—a dead-white jar, decorated with green foliage, violet-blue flowers, and tiny specks of red fruit.Something in me leaped. I took the vase in my hand as if it had been a child of my flesh and blood. I was far from thinking of my hearers as I said:"It's not Ming; but it's very good K'ang-hsi.'"I had thrown another little bomb into their camp, but it surprised them no more than it did me. A trance medium who hears himself speaking in a hitherto unknown tongue could not have been more amazed at his own utterance. I went on talking, not to give them information, but to listen for what I should say next.They had all three drawn near me. "How can you tell?" Miss Averill asked, partly in awe at my knowledge, and partly to give me the chance to display it."Oh, very much as you can tell the difference between a hat you wear this year and one you wore five years ago. The styles are quite different. Ming corresponds roughly to the Tudor period in English history, and K'ang-hsi to the earlier Stuarts—with much the same distinction as we get between the output of those two epochs. Ming is older, bolder, stronger, rougher, with a kind of primitive force in it; K'ang-hsi is the product of a more refined civilization. It has less of the instinctive and more deliberate selection. It is more finished—more self-conscious." I picked up the Rouen salad-dish and a Sèvres cup and saucer, putting them side by side. "It's something like the difference between these—strength and color and dash in the one, and in the other a more elaborately perfected art. You couldn't be in any doubt, once you'd been in the habit of seeing them."Mrs. Averill's question was as natural and spontaneous as laughter."Where have you seen them so much, Mr. Soames?""Oh, a little everywhere," I managed to reply, just as we were summoned to luncheon.At table we talked of the pleasures of making "finds" in old European cities. I had evidently done a lot of it, for I could deal with it in general quite fluently. When they pinned me down with a question as to details I was obliged to hedge. I could talk of The Hague and Florence and Strasbourg and Madrid as backgrounds, but I could never picture myself to myself as walking in their streets.That, however, was not evident to my companions, and as Mrs. Averill's interests lay along the line of ceramic art I was able to bring out much in the way of connoisseurship which did not betray me. With Averill himself I scored a point; with Mildred Averill I scored many. With Mrs. Averill, beneath a seeming ennui that grew more languorous, I quickened curiosity to the fever-point."What a lot of things you must have, Mr. Soames."My refuge being always in the negative, I said, casually: "Oh no! One doesn't have to own things just because one admires them.""But you say yourself that you've picked them up—"As she had nearly caught me here I was obliged to wriggle out. "Oh, to give away—and that kind of thing."Averill's eyes were resting on me thoughtfully. "Sell?""No; I've never sold anything like that.""But what's the use," Mrs. Averill asked, "of caring about things when you can't have them? I should hate it.""Only that there's nothing you can't have.""Do you hear that, Boyd?" I caught the impulse of the purring, velvety thing to vary the monotony of life by scratching. "Mr. Soames says there's nothing I can't have. Much he knows, doesn't he?""There's nothing you can't have—within reason, dear.""Ah, but I don't want things within reason. I want them out of reason. I want to be like Mr. Soames—free—free—""You can't be free and be a married woman.""You can when you have a vocation, can't you, Mr. Soames? I suppose Mr. Soames is a married man—and look at him." She hurried beyond this point, to add: "And look at Sydna, whom we heard the other afternoon! She's a married woman and her husband lives in London. He lets her sing. He lets her travel. He leads his life and lets her ... Mr. Soames, what do you think?"I said, tactfully, "I shall be able to judge better when you've sung to me."Miss Averill, taking up the thread of the conversation here, we got through the rest of the luncheon without treading in difficult places, and presently I was alone with Averill, who was passing the cigars.The constraint which had partially lifted during the conversation at luncheon fell again with the departure of the ladies. I had mystified them more than ever; and mystery does not make for easy give and take in hospitality. To Averill himself his hospitality was sacred. To entertain at his own board a man with no credentials but those which an adventurer might present was the source of a discomfort that amounted to unhappiness. He couldn't conceal it; he didn't care to conceal it. While fulfilling all that courtesy required of a host, he was willing to let me see it. I saw it, and could say nothing, since he might easily be right; and an adventurer I might be.As, with his back to the open doorway into the hall, he sat down with his own cigar, I felt that he was saying to himself, "I wish to God you were not in this house!" I myself was responding silently by wishing the same thing.It was the obvious minute at which to tell him everything. I saw that as plainly as you do. Had I made a clean breast of it I should have become one of the most interesting cases of his experience. Such instances of shell-shock were just beginning to be talked about. The term was finding its way into the newspapers and garnishing common speech. Though I knew of no connection between my misfortunes and the Great War, I could have made shift to furnish an illustration of this new phase among its tragedies.During a pause in our stilted speech I screwed myself up to the point. "There's something—" But his attention was distracted for the moment, and when it came back to me I couldn't begin again. No! I could fight the thing through on my own; but that would be my utmost. A confession of breakdown was impossible.Then, all at once, I got a glimpse of what was in the back of his mind, though something else happened simultaneously, of which I must tell you first. Into the open space between the portieres behind him there glided a little figure clad in amber-colored linen, the monochrome with the sun-spots beneath it. She didn't speak, for the reason that Averill spoke first."You're—" He struck a match nervously to relight his cigar—"you're a—a married man?"Once more negation had to be my refuge. If I admitted that I was he might ask me whom I had married, and when, and where. I spoke with an emphasis that sprang not from eagerness of denial, but from anxiety that the topic shouldn't be discussed."No."The question and answer followed so swiftly on Mildred Averill's arrival on the threshold that she caught them both. Little sparks of gold shone in the brown pools of her eyes, and her smile took on a new shade of vitality."Boyd, Lulu wants you to bring your cigars up-stairs. The coffee is there, and she'd like to talk to Mr. Soames about the old Chinese things before she begins to sing."He jumped to his feet. He was not less constrained, but some of his uneasiness had passed. I could read what was in his mind. If the worst came to the worst I was at least a single man; and the worst might not come to the worst. There might be ways of getting rid of me before his sister...He led the way up-stairs. I followed with Miss Averill, saying I have forgotten what. I have forgotten it because, as we crossed the low-ceiled hall with its monumental bits of furniture, two gleaming eyes stood over me like sentinels in the air.CHAPTER XWithin a fortnight my nearly two hundred dollars had come down to nearly one, and this in spite of my self-denials.Self-denials were new to me. I knew that by my difficulties in beginning to practise them. Such economics as staying at the Barcelona instead of a more luxurious hotel, or as buying ready-made clothes instead of waiting for the custom-made, I do not speak of as self-denials, since they were no more than concessions to a temporary lack of cash. But the first time I made my breakfast on one egg instead of two; the first time I suppressed the eggs altogether; the first time I lunched on a cup of chocolate taken at a counter; the first time I went without a midday meal of any kind—these were occasions when the saving of pennies struck me as akin to humiliation. I had formed no habits to prepare me for it. The possibility that it might continue began at last to frighten me.For none of my artful methods had been successful. I frequented the hotels; I hung about the entrances to theaters; I tramped the streets till a new pair of boots became a necessity; but no one ever hailed me as an old acquaintance. Once only, standing in the doorway of a great restaurant, did I recognize a face; but it was that of Lydia Blair, dining with a man. He was a big, round-backed, silver-haired man, with an air of opulence which suggested that Miss Blair might be taking the career of adventuress more seriously than I had supposed. Whether or not she saw me I couldn't tell, for, to avoid embarrassment both for herself and me, I withdrew to another stamping-ground. What the young lady chose to do with herself was no affair of mine. Since a pretty girl of facile temperament would have evident opportunities, it was not for me to interfere with her. Had she belonged to my own rank in life I might have been shocked or sorry; but every one knew that a beautiful working-girl...As to my own rank in life a sense of going under false pretenses added to my anxieties, though it was through no fault of my own. Miss Averill persisted in giving me the rôle of romantic seeker for the hard facts of existence. She did it only by assumption; but she did it."There's nothing like seeing for oneself, is there? It's feeling for oneself, too, which is more important. I'm so terribly cut off from it all. I'm like a bird in a cage trying to help those whose nests are being robbed."This was said during the second of the excursions for which Miss Blair captured me from the lobby of the Barcelona. Her procedure was exactly the same as on the first occasion, except that she came about the middle of the afternoon. Nothing but an unusual chance found me sitting there, idle but preoccupied, as I meditated on my situation while smoking a cigar. My first impulse to refuse Miss Averill's invitation point-blank was counteracted by the thought of escape from that daily promenade up and down the halls of hotels which had begun to be disheartening and irksome.Of this the novelty had passed. The expectations that during the first week or two had made each minute a living thing had simmered away in a sense of futility. No old friend having recognized me yet, I was working round to the conviction that no old friend ever would. If I kept up the tramp it was because I could see nothing else to do.But on this particular afternoon for the first time I revolted. The effect was physical, in that my feet seemed to be too heavy to be dragged along. They were refusing their job, while my mind was planning it.Thus in the end I found myself sharing the outing given nominally for the blind boy, but really planned from a complication of motives which to Miss Averill were obscure. It did not help to make them clearer that her wistful, unuttered appeals to me to solve the mystery surrounding my personality passed by without result.The high bank of an autumn wood, the Hudson with a steamer headed southward, more autumn woods covering the hills beyond, a tea-basket, tea—this was the decoration. We had alighted from the motor somewhere in the neighborhood of Tarrytown. Tea being over, Miss Blair and Drinkwater, with chaff and laughter, were clearing up the things and fitting them back into the basket."She's very clever with him," Miss Averill explained, as she led the way to a fallen log, on which she seated herself, indicating that I might sit beside her. "She seizes on anything that will teach him the use of his fingers, and makes a game of it. He's very quick, too. The next time he'll be able to take the things out of the tea-basket and put them back all by himself."So we had dropped into her favorite theme, the duty of helping the helpless.She was in brown, as usual, a brown-green, that might have been a Scotch or Irish homespun, which blended with the wine shades and russets all about us with the effect of protective coloration. The day was as still as death, so breathless that the leaves had scarcely the energy to fall. In the heavy, too-sweet scents there was suggestion and incitement—suggestion that chances were passing and incitement to seize them before they were gone.I wish there were words in which to convey the peculiar overtones in Miss Averill's comparison of herself with a bird in a cage. There was goodness in them, and amusement, as well as something baffled and enraged. She had been so subdued when I had seen her hitherto that I was hardly prepared for this half-smothered outburst of fierceness."If you're like a bird in a cage," I said, "you're like the one that sings to the worker and cheers him up."Her pleasure was expressed not in a change of color or a drooping of the lids, but in a quiet suffusion that might most easily be described as atmospheric."Oh, as for cheering people up—I don't know. I've tried such a lot of it, only to find that they got along well enough without me. A woman wants more than anything else in the world to feel that she's needed; and when she discovers she isn't—"The sense of my own apparent superfluity in life prompted me to say:"Oh, it isn't only women who discover that."Her glance traveled down the steep wooded bank and over the river, to rest on the wine-colored hills on the other side."Did you—did you ever?"—she corrected herself quickly—"I mean—do men?""Some men do. It's—it's possible.""Isn't it," she asked, tackling the subject in her sensible way, "primarily a question of money? If you have enough of it not to have to earn a living—and no particular duties—don't you find yourself edged out of the current of life? After all, what the world wants is producers; and the minute one doesn't produce—""What do you mean by producers?"She reflected. "I suppose I mean all who contribute, either directly or indirectly, either mentally or physically, to the sum total of our needs in living. Wouldn't that cover it?"I admitted that it might."And those who don't do that, who merely live on what others produce, seem to be excluded from the privilege of helpfulness.""I can't see that. They help with their money.""Money can't help, except indirectly. It's the great mistake of our philanthropies to think it can. We make a great many mistakes; but we can make more in our philanthropies than anywhere else. We've never taken the pains to study the psychology of help. We think money the panacea for every kind of need, when as a matter of fact it's only the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. If you haven't got the grace the sign rings false, like an imitation coin.""Well, what is the grace?""Oh, it's a good many things—a blend—of which, I suppose, the main ingredient is love." She gave me a wistful half-smile, as she added: "Love is a very queer thing—I mean this kind of big love for—just for people. You can always tell whether it's true or false; and the less sophisticated the people the more instinctively they know. If it's true they'll accept you; if it's only pumped up, they'll shut you out.""I'm sure you ought to know.""I do know. I've had a lot of experience—in being shut out.""You?"She nodded toward Drinkwater and Miss Blair. "They don't let me in. In spite of all I try to do for them, they're only polite to me. They'll accept this kind of thing; but I'm as far outside their confidence—outside their hearts—as a bird in a cage, as I've called myself, is outside a flock of nest-builders.""And assuming that that is so—though I do not assume it—how do you account for it?"Oh, easily enough! I'm not the real thing. I never was—not at the Settlement—not now—not anywhere or at any time.""But how would you describe the real thing?""I can't describe it. All I know is that I'm not it. I'm not working for them, but for myself.""For yourself—how?""To fill in an empty life. When you've no real life you seek an artificial one. As every one rejects the artificial, you get rejected. That's all.""What would you call a real life—for yourself?"The fierceness with which she had been speaking became intensified, even when tempered with her diffident half-smile."A life in which there was something I was absolutely obliged to do. I begin to wonder if parents know how much of the zest of living they're taking away from their children by leaving them, as we say, well provided for. When there's nothing within reason you can't have and nothing within reason you can't do—well, then, you're out of the running.""Is that the way you look at yourself—as out of the running?""That's the way Iam.""And is there no means of getting into the running?""There might be if I wasn't such a coward.""If you weren't such a coward what would you do?""Oh, there are things. You've—you've found them. I would do like you.""And do you know what I'm doing?""I can guess.""And you guess—what?""It's only a guess—of course.""But what is it?"She rose with a weary gesture. "What's the good of talking about it? A knight in disguise remains in disguise till he chooses to throw off his incognito.""And when he has thrown it off—what does he become then?""He may become something else—but he's—he's none the less—a knight."We stood looking at each other, in one of those impulses of mutual frankness that are not without danger."And if there was a knight who—who couldn't throw off his incognito?"She shrugged her shoulders. "Then I suppose he'd always be a knight in disguise—something like Lohengrin.""And what would Elsa think of that?"Seeing the implication in this indiscreet question even before she did, I felt myself flush hotly.I admired the more, therefore, the ease with which she carried the difficult moment off. Moving a few steps toward Drinkwater and Miss Blair, who were shutting up the tea-basket, she threw over her shoulder:"If there was an Elsa I suppose she'd make up her mind when the time came."She was still moving forward when I overtook her to say:"I wish I could speak plainly."She stopped to glance up at me. "And can't you?""Were you ever in a situation which you felt you had to swing alone? You know you could get help; you know you could count on sympathy; but whenever you're impelled to appeal for either something holds you back.""I never was in such a situation, but I can imagine what it's like. May I ask one question?"I felt obliged to grant the permission."Is it of the nature of what is generally called trouble?""It's of the nature of what is generally called misfortune.""And I suppose I mustn't say so much as that I'm sorry.""You could say that much," I smiled, "if you didn't say any more."She repeated the weary gesture of a few minutes earlier, a slight tossing outward of both hands, with a heavy drop against the sides."What a life!"As she began to move on once more I spoke as I walked beside her."What's the matter with life?"Again she paused to confront me. In her eyes gold lights gleamed in the brown depths of the irises."What sense is there in a civilization that cuts us all off from each other? We're like prisoners in solitary confinement—you in one cell and Boyd in another and Lulu in another and I in another, and everybody else in his own or her own and no communication or exchange of help between us. It's—it's monstrous."The half-choked passion of her words took me the more by surprise for the reason that she treated me as if the defects of our civilization were my fault. Joining Lydia Blair and taking her by the arm, she led the way back to the motor, while I was left to pilot Drinkwater, who carried the tea-basket. During the drive back to town our hostess scarcely spoke, and not once to me directly.
CHAPTER VIII
After a delicious night I woke in a room which gave the same shock to my fastidiousness as the first glimpse of my cabin on board ship. I woke cheerfully, however, knowing that I was in New York and that not many days could pass before some happy chance encounter would give me the clue of which I was in search. Cheerfully I dressed and breakfasted; cheerfully I sat down in the dingy hall to scan the morning's news.
It was the first paper I had opened since landing. It was the first I had looked at since...
I had no recollection of when I had read a newspaper last. It must have been long ago; so long ago that the history of my immediate time had lapsed into formlessness, like that of the ancient world. I knew there was a world; I knew there were countries and governments; I knew, as I have said, that there was a war. Of the causes of that war I retained about the same degree of information as of the origin of the Wars of the Roses.
Bewilderment was my first reaction now; the second was amazement. Reading the papers with no preparation from the day before, or from the day before that—with no preparation at all but the vague memory of horrors from which my mind retreated the minute they were suggested—reading the papers thus, the world seemed to me to have been turned upside down. Hindus were in France, Canadians in Belgium, the French in the Dobrudja, the Australians in Turkey, the British and Germans in East Africa, and New-Zealanders on the peninsula of Sinai. What madness was this? How had the race of men got into such a tragi-comic topsy-turvydom? A long crooked line slashed all across Europe showed the main body of the opponents locked in a mutual death embrace.
I had hardly grasped the meaning of it when, looking up, I saw a figure of light standing in the lobby before me. It was all in white serge, with a green sash about the waist, and the head wreathed in a white motor veil.
"Hello, kid!" The husky, comic, Third Avenue laugh was Lydia Blair's. I had just time to rehearse the series of irritations I knew I should feel at being tracked down, and to regret my folly for having gone back to Drinkwater on the previous evening. Then I saw the heavenly eyes surveying me with an air of approval. "Well, you look like a nice tailor's dummy at last. Takes me back to Seattle or Boston or Salt Lake City—and the lady." As she rattled on, a pair of dark eyes began to flash on me from the air. "We haven't gotherto-day, but there's some one else who perhaps will fill the bill. Come on out."
Wondering what she could mean, and whether or not the longed-for clue might not be at hand, I suffered myself to be led by the arm to the door of the hotel.
At first I saw nothing but a large and handsome touring-car drawn up against the curb. Then I saw Drinkwater snuggled in a corner—and then a brown veil. I couldn't help crossing the pavement, since Lydia did the same, and the brown veil seemed to expect me.
"Miss Blair thought you might like a drive, Mr. Soames, so we came round to see if we could find you."
"Come on in, Jasper," Drinkwater urged; "the water's fine."
"Come on. Don't be silly," Miss Blair insisted, as I began to make excuses.
Before I knew what I was doing I had stumbled into the seat opposite Miss Averill. She sat in the right-hand corner, Drinkwater in the left, Miss Blair between the two. I occupied one of the small folding armchairs, going backward. In another minute we were on our way through one of the cross-streets to Fifth Avenue.
Having grasped the situation, I was annoyed. Miss Averill was taking the less fortunate of her acquaintance for an airing. Though I could do justice to her kindliness, I resented being forced again into a position from which I was trying to struggle out.
Then I saw something that diverted my attention even from my wrongs. The pavements in Fifth Avenue were thronged with a slowly moving crowd of men and women, but mostly men, that made progress up or down impossible. Looking closely, I saw that they were all of the nations which people like myself are apt to consider most alien to the average American. Of true Caucasian blood there was hardly a streak among them. Dark, stunted, oddly hatted, oddly dressed, abject and yet eager, submissive and yet hostile, they poured up and up and up from all the side-streets, as runlets from a mountain-side into a great stream. For the pedestrian, the shopper, theflâneur, there was not an inch of foot room. These surging multitudes monopolized everything. From Fourteenth Street to Forty-second Street, a distance of more than a mile along the most extravagantly showy thoroughfare in the world, these two dense lines of humanity took absolute possession, driving clerks back into their shops and customers from trade by the sheer weight of numbers.
"Good heavens! What's up?" I cried, in amazement.
Miss Averill, who was doubtless used to the phenomenon, looked mildly surprised.
"Why, it's always this way!" she smiled. "It's their lunch-hour. They come from shops and workshops in the side-streets to see the sights and get the air."
"But is it like this every day?"
"Sure it is!" laughed Miss Blair. "Did you never see the Avenue before?"
"I've never seen this before. I'm sure they didn't do it a few years ago."
Miss Averill agreed to this. It was a new manifestation, due to the changes this part of New York had undergone in recent years.
"But how do the people get in and out of the shops?"
Miss Blair explained that they couldn't, which was the reason why so many businesses were being driven up-town. There was an hour in the day when everything was at a standstill.
"And if during that hour this inflammable stuff were to be set ablaze—"
Miss Averill's comment did not make the situation better. "Oh, the same thing goes on in every city in the country, only you don't see it. New York is unfortunate in having only one street. Any other street is just a byway. Here the whole city, for every purpose of its life, has to pour itself into Fifth Avenue, so that if anything is going on you get it there."
We did not continue the subject, for none of us really wanted to talk of it. In its way it went beyond whatever we were prepared to say. It was disquieting; it might be menacing. We preferred to watch, to study, to wonder, as, in the press of vehicles, we slowly made our way between these banks of outlandish faces, every one of which was like a slumbering fire. If our American civilization were ever to be blown violently from one basis to another, as I had sometimes thought might happen, the social TNT was concentrated here.
But we were soon in the Park. Soon after that we were running along the river-bank. Soon after that we came to an inn by a stream in a dimple of a dell, and here Miss Averill had ordered lunch by telephone. It was a nice little lunch, in a sort of rude pavilion that simulated eating in the open air. I noticed that all the arrangements had been made with as much foresight as if we had been people of distinction.
So I began to examine my hostess with more attention than I had ever given her, coming to the conclusion that she belonged to the new variety of rich American whom I had somewhere had occasion to observe.
Sensible and sympathetic were the first words you applied to her, and you could see she was of the type to seek nothing for herself. Brown was her color, as it so often is that of self-renouncing characters—the brown of woodland brooks in her eyes, the brown of nuts in her hair, and all about her an air of conscientiousness that left no place for coquetry.
Conscientiousness was her aura, and among the shades of conscientiousness that in spending money easily came first. I was sure she had studied the whole question of financial inequality from books, and as much as she could from observation. Zeal to make the best use of her income had probably held her back from marriage and dictated her occupations. It had drawn her to working-girls like Lydia Blair, to struggling men like Harry Drinkwater, and now indirectly to me. It had suggested the drive of this morning, and had bidden her gather us round her table as if we were her equals. She knew we were not her equals, but she was doing her best to forget the fact, and to have us forget it, too. With Harry and Lydia I think she was successful. But with me...
She herself knew she was not successful with me, and when, after the coffee, the working-girl had taken the blind man and strayed with him for a few hundred yards into the woods, Miss Averill grew embarrassed. The more she tried to keep me from seeing it the more she betrayed it—not in words, or glances, or any trick of color, but in inner hesitations which only mind-reading could detect.
As we still sat at the table, but each a little away from it, she gathered all her resources together to be the lady in authority.
"I'm glad of a word alone with you because—" Apparently she could get no farther in this direction, and so took another line. "I think you said your business was with carpets, didn't you?"
"Somebody may have said it for me—especially after our little talk about the rug—but it didn't come from me."
Her hazel eyes rested on me frankly. "And it's not?"
"No, it's not."
"Oh, then—" Her tone was slightly that of disappointment.
"Did you want it to be?" I smiled.
"It isn't that; but my brother thought it was—"
"I'm sure I don't know why—except for the rug. But one can know about rugs and not have to sell them, can't one?"
"It's not a usual branch of knowledge, except among connoisseurs and artists—"
"Oh, well!"
"So my brother thought if you were in that kind of work he'd give you a note to a friend of his—-at the head of one of the big carpet establishments in New York—"
"It's awfully kind of him," I broke in, as she drew a letter from the bag she carried, "and if I needed it I'd take it; but—but I don't need it. It—it wouldn't be any good to me. I thank him none the less sincerely—and you, too, Miss Averill—"
She looked at the ground, her long black lashes almost resting on her cheek.
"I must seem to you very officious, but—"
"Not in the slightest. I'm extremely grateful. If I required help there's nobody—"
"You don't live in New York?"
"I'm going to stay here for—for the present."
"But not—not to work?"
"That I shall have to see."
"I suppose you're a—a writer—or one of those things."
"No, I'm not any of those things," I said, gravely; and at that we laughed.
CHAPTER IX
We got back to New York in time for me to begin the parade of the hotels. Taking this task seriously, I selected the biggest and made myself conspicuous by keeping on my feet.
For three days nothing happened except within myself. This focusing of men and women into vast assemblies from four to seven every afternoon began to strike me as the counterpart of the gatherings I was watching each day between twelve and one on the pavements of Fifth Avenue. Though the activities were different, the same obscure set of motives seemed to lie behind both. In both there was the impulse to crowd densely together, as if promiscuity was a source of excitement. In both there was a vacuity that was not purposeless. In both there was a suggestion of the sleeping wild beast. While in the one case the accompaniment was the inchoate uproar of the streets, in the other it was an orchestra that jazzed with the monotonous incitement of Oriental tom-toms, nagging, teasing, tormenting the wild beast to get up and show his wildness. Across tea-rooms or between arcades one could see couples dancing in a languorous semi-paralysis of which the fascination lay in a hint of barbaric shamelessness. Barbaric shamelessness marked the huge shaven faces of most of the men and the kilts of most of the women. I mention these details only to point out that to me, after my mysterious absence, they indicated a socially new America.
It was the fourth afternoon when, drifting with the crowd through a corridor lined with tables at which small parties were having tea, I felt the long-expected tap on my shoulder.
In the interval too brief to reckon before turning round two possibilities were clear in my mind. The unknown crime from which I was running away might have found me out—or some friend had come to my deliverance. Either event would be welcome, for even if it were arrest I should learn my name and history.
"Hello, old chap! Come and have some tea."
I was disappointed. It was only Boyd Averill. Behind him his wife and sister were seated at one of the little tables. It was the sort of invitation one couldn't refuse, especially as they saw I was strolling without purpose.
It was Mrs. Averill who talked, in the boredvoix traînanteof one who has everything the world can give, except what she wants most. I had seen before that she was a beautiful woman, but never so plainly as now—a woman all softness and dimpling curves, with the same suggestions of the honeyed and melting and fatigued in her glances that you got from the inflection of her sentences.
She explained that they had come from a song recital in the great hall up-stairs. It was given at this unusual time of the year by a well-known singer who was passing through New York on her way to Australia. With this interruption she continued the criticism she had been making when I sat down, and which dealt with certain phrases in a song—Goethe's "Ueber allen Gipfeln."
"The Schubert setting?" I asked, after informing Miss Averill as to how I should have my tea.
"No, the Hugo Wolff."
I began to hum in an undertone: "'Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh; in allem Wipfeln hörest du kaum einen Hauch.' Is that the one?"
The ladies exchanged glances; Averill kept his eyes on my face.
"Yes, that's the one," Mrs. Averill said, as if nothing unusual had happened. "So you sing."
"No; I—I just know the song. I've—I've heard a good deal of music at one time and another."
"Abroad?"
"Yes—abroad—and here."
"Where especially here?"
"Oh, New York—Boston—Chicago—different places." I did my best to be vague.
I noticed for the first time then a shade of wistfulness in Mildred Averill's brown eyes as she said:
"You seem to have moved about a good deal."
"Oh yes. I wanted—I wanted to see what was happening."
"And you saw it?"
Averill asked me that, his gaze still fixed on me thoughtfully.
"Enough for the present."
There was a pause of some seconds during which I could hear the unuttered question of all three, "Why don't you tell us who you are?" It was a kindly question, with nothing but sympathy behind it. It was, in fact, a tacit offer of friendship, if I would only take it up. More plainly than they could have expressed themselves in words, it said: "We like you. We are ready to be your friends. Only give us the least little bit of encouragement. Link yourself up with something we know. Don't be such a mystery, because mystery breeds suspicion."
When I let it go by Mildred Averill began to talk somewhat at random. She didn't want that significant silence to be repeated. I had had my chance and I hadn't taken it. Very well, my reasons would be respected, but I couldn't keep people from wondering. That was what I knew she was saying, though her actual words referred to our expedition of a few days previously.
And of that she spoke with an intonation that associated me with herself. She and I had taken two nice young people of the working-classes for an outing. Let me hasten to say that there was no condescension in what she said; condescension wasn't in her; there was only the implication that whatever the ground she stood on, I stood on that ground, too. She threw out a hint that as New York in these September days was barely waking from its summer lethargy, and there was little to fill time, we might all four do the same again.
In this she was reserved, nunlike, yet—what shall I say? What is there to say when a woman betrays what very few people perceive and one isn't supposed to know to be there? There is a decoration on certain old Chinese porcelains which you can only see in special lights. A vase or a bowl may be of, let us say, a rich green monochrome. You may look at the thing a thousand times and nothing but the monochrome will be visible. Then one day the sun will strike it at a special angle, or the light may otherwise be what the artist did his work for, and beneath the green you will discern dragons or chrysanthemums in gold. Somewhat in that way the real Mildred Averill came out and withdrew, withdrew and came out, not so much according to changes in her as according to changes in the person observing her. When you saw her from one point of view she was diffident, demure, not colorless, but all of one color like a rare piece of monochrome. When you looked at her from another you saw the golden dragons and chrysanthemums. You might not have understood what they symbolized, but this much at least you would have known—that the gold was the gold of fire, all the more dangerous, perhaps, because it was banked down.
That in this company, with its batteries of tacit inquiry turned on me all the while I took my tea, I was uneasy will go without saying, and so I took the earliest possible opportunity to get up and slip away. I did not slip away, however, before Mrs. Averill had asked me to lunch on the following Sunday, and I had been forced into accepting the invitation. I had been forced because she wouldn't take no for an answer. She wanted to talk about music; she wanted to sing to me; in reality, as I guessed then, and soon came to know, she was determined to wring from me, out of sheer curiosity, the facts I wouldn't confide of my own accord.
But having accepted the invitation, I saw that there were advantages in doing so. Once back in the current to which I belonged, I should have more chances of the recognition for which I was working. The social life of any country runs in streams like those we see pictured on isothermal charts. The same kind of people move in the same kind of medium from north to south, and from east to west. If you know one man there you will soon know another, till you have a chain of acquaintances, all socially similar, right across the continent. That I had such a chain I didn't doubt for an instant; my only difficulty was to get in touch with it. As soon as I did that each name would bring up a kindred name, till I found myself swimming in my native channel, wherever it was, like a fish in the Gulf Stream, whether off the coast of Norway or off that of Mexico.
So I came to the conclusion that I had done right in ceding to Mrs. Averill's insistence, though it occurred to me on second thoughts that I should need another suit of clothes. That I had was well enough for knockabout purposes, especially when carried off with some amount of bluff; but the poverty of its origin would become too evident if worn on all occasions. I had seen at the emporium that by spending more money and putting on only a slightly enhanced swagger I could make a much better appearance in the eyes of those who didn't examine me too closely. I decided that the gain would warrant the extravagance.
Within ten days of my landing, therefore, my nearly four hundred dollars had come down to nearly two, though I had the consolation of knowing that my chances of soon getting at my bank-account were better. At any minute now my promenades in the hotels might be rewarded, while conversation with the Averills would sooner or later bring up names with which I should have associations.
It was disconcerting then, on the following Sunday, to be received with some constraint. It was the more disconcerting in that the coldness came from Averill himself. He strolled into the hall while I was putting down my hat and stick, shaking hands with the peculiar listlessness of a man who disapproves of what is happening. As hitherto I had found him interested and cordial, I couldn't help being struck by the change.
"You see how we are," he observed, pointing to an open packing-case. "Not up to the point of having guests; but Mrs. Averill—"
"Mrs. Averill was too kind to me to think of inconveniences to herself."
"Just come up to the library, will you, and I'll tell her you're here."
It was a way of getting rid of me till his wife could come and assume her own responsibilities.
So long a time had passed since I had seen the interior of an American house of this order that I took notes as I made my way up-stairs. Out of the unsuspected resources of my being came the capacity to do it. Most people on entering a house see nothing but its size. A background more or less elaborately furnished may be in their minds, but they have not the knowledge to enable them to seize details. The careful arrangement of taste is all one to them with some nondescript, haphazard jumble.
In this dwelling, in one of the streets off Fifth Avenue, on the eastern side of Central Park, I found the typical home of the average wealthy American. Money had been spent on it, but with a kind of helplessness. Helplessness had designed the house, as it had planned, or hadn't planned, the street outside.
A square hall contained a few monumental pieces of furniture because they were monumental. A dining-room behind it was full of high-backed Italian chairs because they were high-backed and Italian. The stairs were built as they were because the architect had not been able to avoid a dark spot in the middle of the house and the stairs filled it. On the floor above a glacial drawing-room in white and gold, with the furniture still in bags, ran the width of the back of the house, while across the front was the library into which I was shown, spacious, cheerful, with plenty of books, magazines, and easy-chairs. In the way of pictures there were but two—modern portraits of a man and a woman, whom I had no difficulty in setting down as the father and mother of Averill. Of the mother I knew nothing except that she had been a school-teacher; of the father Miss Blair had given me the detailed history as told inMen Who Have Made New Jersey.
Hubbard Averill was the son of a shoemaker in Elizabeth. On leaving school at fifteen he had the choice of going into a grocery store as clerk or as office-boy into a bank. He chose the bank. Ten years later he was teller. Five years after that he was cashier. Five years after that he had the same position in a bank of importance in Jersey City. Five years after that he was recognized as one of the able young financiers in the neighborhood of New York. Before he was fifty his name was honored by those who count in Wall Street. It was the history of most of the successful American bankers I had ever heard of.
There was no packing-case in the library, but a number of objects recently unpacked stood round about on tables, waiting to be disposed of. There was a little Irish glass, with much old porcelain and pottery, both Chinese and European. I had not the time to appraise the things with the eye before Miss Averill slipped in.
She wore a hat, and, dressed in what I suppose was tan-colored linens, she seemed just to have come in from the street.
"My sister will be down in a minute. She's generally late on Sunday. I've been good and have been to church."
We sat down together on a window-seat, with some self-consciousness on both sides. I noticed again that, though her hair was brown, her eyebrows and long curving lashes were black, striking the same discreet yet obscurely dangerous note as the rest of her personality. In the topaz of her eyes there were little specks of gold like those in her chain of amber beads.
After a little introductory talk she began telling me of the help Miss Blair was giving Drinkwater. She had begun to teach him what she called "big stenography." Shorthand and the touch system were included in it, as well as the knack of transcribing from the dictaphone. Boyd had bought a machine on purpose for them to practise with, looking forward to the day when Harry should resume his old job connected with laboratory work.
"And what's to become of Miss Blair?"
My companion lowered her fine lashes, speaking with the seeming shyness that was her charm.
"I'm thinking of asking her to come and live with me. You see, if I take a house of my own I shall need some one; and she suits me. She understands the kind of people I like to work among—"
"Oh, then you're not going to keep on living here."
"I've lived with my brother and sister ever since my father died; but one comes to a time when one needs a home of one's own. Don't you think so?"
"Oh, of course!"
"A man—like you, for instance—can be so free; but a woman has to live within exact limitations. The only way she can get any liberty at all is within her own home. Not that my brother and sister aren't angelic to me. They are, of course; but you know what I mean." The glance that stole under her lashes was half daring and half apologetic. "It must be wonderful to do as one likes—to experiment with different sorts of life—and get to know things at first hand."
So that was her summing up concerning me. I was one of those moderns with so keen a thirst for life that I was testing it at all its springs. She didn't know my ultimate intention, but she could sympathize with my methods and admire my courage and thoroughness. Almost in so many words she said if she had not been timid and hedged in by conventions it was what she would have liked herself.
Before any one came to disturb us there seeped through her conversation, too, the reason of Averill's coldness. They had discussed me a good deal, and while he had nothing to accuse me of, he considered that the burden of the proof of my innocence lay with me. I might be all right—and then I might not be. So long as there was any question as to my probity I was a person to watch with readiness to help, but not one to ask to luncheon. He would not have invited me to tea a few days before, and had allowed me to pass and repass before ceding to his wife's persistence. He had consequently been the more annoyed when she carried her curiosity to the point of bringing me there that day.
Miss Averill did not, of course, say these things; she would have been amazed to know that I inferred them. I shouldn't have inferred them had I not seen her brother and partially read his mind.
But my hostess came trailing in—the verb is the only one I can find to express her gracefully lymphatic movements—and I was obliged to submit to a welcome which was overemphasized for the benefit of the husband who entered behind her.
"We're really not equipped for having any one come to us," she apologized. "We're scarcely unpacked. We're going to move from this house anyhow when we can find another. It's so poky. If we're to entertain again—" She turned to her sister: "Mildred dear,couldn'tsome one have cleared these things away?" Waving her hand toward the array of potteries and porcelains, she continued to me: "One buys such a lot during two or three years abroad, doesn't one? I'm sure Mrs. Soames must feel the way I do, that she doesn't know where to put the things when she's got them home."
I knew the reason for the reference which others were as quick to catch as I, and, in the idiom of the moment, tried to "side-step" it by saying:
"That's a good thing—that Rouensaladier. You don't often pick up one of that shape nowadays."
"I saw it in an old shop at Dreux," Mrs. Averill informed me, in her melting tone. "I got this pair of Ming vases there, too. At least, they said they were Ming; but I don't suppose they are. One is so taken in. But I liked them, whatever they are, and so—"
She lifted one up and brought it to me—a dead-white jar, decorated with green foliage, violet-blue flowers, and tiny specks of red fruit.
Something in me leaped. I took the vase in my hand as if it had been a child of my flesh and blood. I was far from thinking of my hearers as I said:
"It's not Ming; but it's very good K'ang-hsi.'"
I had thrown another little bomb into their camp, but it surprised them no more than it did me. A trance medium who hears himself speaking in a hitherto unknown tongue could not have been more amazed at his own utterance. I went on talking, not to give them information, but to listen for what I should say next.
They had all three drawn near me. "How can you tell?" Miss Averill asked, partly in awe at my knowledge, and partly to give me the chance to display it.
"Oh, very much as you can tell the difference between a hat you wear this year and one you wore five years ago. The styles are quite different. Ming corresponds roughly to the Tudor period in English history, and K'ang-hsi to the earlier Stuarts—with much the same distinction as we get between the output of those two epochs. Ming is older, bolder, stronger, rougher, with a kind of primitive force in it; K'ang-hsi is the product of a more refined civilization. It has less of the instinctive and more deliberate selection. It is more finished—more self-conscious." I picked up the Rouen salad-dish and a Sèvres cup and saucer, putting them side by side. "It's something like the difference between these—strength and color and dash in the one, and in the other a more elaborately perfected art. You couldn't be in any doubt, once you'd been in the habit of seeing them."
Mrs. Averill's question was as natural and spontaneous as laughter.
"Where have you seen them so much, Mr. Soames?"
"Oh, a little everywhere," I managed to reply, just as we were summoned to luncheon.
At table we talked of the pleasures of making "finds" in old European cities. I had evidently done a lot of it, for I could deal with it in general quite fluently. When they pinned me down with a question as to details I was obliged to hedge. I could talk of The Hague and Florence and Strasbourg and Madrid as backgrounds, but I could never picture myself to myself as walking in their streets.
That, however, was not evident to my companions, and as Mrs. Averill's interests lay along the line of ceramic art I was able to bring out much in the way of connoisseurship which did not betray me. With Averill himself I scored a point; with Mildred Averill I scored many. With Mrs. Averill, beneath a seeming ennui that grew more languorous, I quickened curiosity to the fever-point.
"What a lot of things you must have, Mr. Soames."
My refuge being always in the negative, I said, casually: "Oh no! One doesn't have to own things just because one admires them."
"But you say yourself that you've picked them up—"
As she had nearly caught me here I was obliged to wriggle out. "Oh, to give away—and that kind of thing."
Averill's eyes were resting on me thoughtfully. "Sell?"
"No; I've never sold anything like that."
"But what's the use," Mrs. Averill asked, "of caring about things when you can't have them? I should hate it."
"Only that there's nothing you can't have."
"Do you hear that, Boyd?" I caught the impulse of the purring, velvety thing to vary the monotony of life by scratching. "Mr. Soames says there's nothing I can't have. Much he knows, doesn't he?"
"There's nothing you can't have—within reason, dear."
"Ah, but I don't want things within reason. I want them out of reason. I want to be like Mr. Soames—free—free—"
"You can't be free and be a married woman."
"You can when you have a vocation, can't you, Mr. Soames? I suppose Mr. Soames is a married man—and look at him." She hurried beyond this point, to add: "And look at Sydna, whom we heard the other afternoon! She's a married woman and her husband lives in London. He lets her sing. He lets her travel. He leads his life and lets her ... Mr. Soames, what do you think?"
I said, tactfully, "I shall be able to judge better when you've sung to me."
Miss Averill, taking up the thread of the conversation here, we got through the rest of the luncheon without treading in difficult places, and presently I was alone with Averill, who was passing the cigars.
The constraint which had partially lifted during the conversation at luncheon fell again with the departure of the ladies. I had mystified them more than ever; and mystery does not make for easy give and take in hospitality. To Averill himself his hospitality was sacred. To entertain at his own board a man with no credentials but those which an adventurer might present was the source of a discomfort that amounted to unhappiness. He couldn't conceal it; he didn't care to conceal it. While fulfilling all that courtesy required of a host, he was willing to let me see it. I saw it, and could say nothing, since he might easily be right; and an adventurer I might be.
As, with his back to the open doorway into the hall, he sat down with his own cigar, I felt that he was saying to himself, "I wish to God you were not in this house!" I myself was responding silently by wishing the same thing.
It was the obvious minute at which to tell him everything. I saw that as plainly as you do. Had I made a clean breast of it I should have become one of the most interesting cases of his experience. Such instances of shell-shock were just beginning to be talked about. The term was finding its way into the newspapers and garnishing common speech. Though I knew of no connection between my misfortunes and the Great War, I could have made shift to furnish an illustration of this new phase among its tragedies.
During a pause in our stilted speech I screwed myself up to the point. "There's something—" But his attention was distracted for the moment, and when it came back to me I couldn't begin again. No! I could fight the thing through on my own; but that would be my utmost. A confession of breakdown was impossible.
Then, all at once, I got a glimpse of what was in the back of his mind, though something else happened simultaneously, of which I must tell you first. Into the open space between the portieres behind him there glided a little figure clad in amber-colored linen, the monochrome with the sun-spots beneath it. She didn't speak, for the reason that Averill spoke first.
"You're—" He struck a match nervously to relight his cigar—"you're a—a married man?"
Once more negation had to be my refuge. If I admitted that I was he might ask me whom I had married, and when, and where. I spoke with an emphasis that sprang not from eagerness of denial, but from anxiety that the topic shouldn't be discussed.
"No."
The question and answer followed so swiftly on Mildred Averill's arrival on the threshold that she caught them both. Little sparks of gold shone in the brown pools of her eyes, and her smile took on a new shade of vitality.
"Boyd, Lulu wants you to bring your cigars up-stairs. The coffee is there, and she'd like to talk to Mr. Soames about the old Chinese things before she begins to sing."
He jumped to his feet. He was not less constrained, but some of his uneasiness had passed. I could read what was in his mind. If the worst came to the worst I was at least a single man; and the worst might not come to the worst. There might be ways of getting rid of me before his sister...
He led the way up-stairs. I followed with Miss Averill, saying I have forgotten what. I have forgotten it because, as we crossed the low-ceiled hall with its monumental bits of furniture, two gleaming eyes stood over me like sentinels in the air.
CHAPTER X
Within a fortnight my nearly two hundred dollars had come down to nearly one, and this in spite of my self-denials.
Self-denials were new to me. I knew that by my difficulties in beginning to practise them. Such economics as staying at the Barcelona instead of a more luxurious hotel, or as buying ready-made clothes instead of waiting for the custom-made, I do not speak of as self-denials, since they were no more than concessions to a temporary lack of cash. But the first time I made my breakfast on one egg instead of two; the first time I suppressed the eggs altogether; the first time I lunched on a cup of chocolate taken at a counter; the first time I went without a midday meal of any kind—these were occasions when the saving of pennies struck me as akin to humiliation. I had formed no habits to prepare me for it. The possibility that it might continue began at last to frighten me.
For none of my artful methods had been successful. I frequented the hotels; I hung about the entrances to theaters; I tramped the streets till a new pair of boots became a necessity; but no one ever hailed me as an old acquaintance. Once only, standing in the doorway of a great restaurant, did I recognize a face; but it was that of Lydia Blair, dining with a man. He was a big, round-backed, silver-haired man, with an air of opulence which suggested that Miss Blair might be taking the career of adventuress more seriously than I had supposed. Whether or not she saw me I couldn't tell, for, to avoid embarrassment both for herself and me, I withdrew to another stamping-ground. What the young lady chose to do with herself was no affair of mine. Since a pretty girl of facile temperament would have evident opportunities, it was not for me to interfere with her. Had she belonged to my own rank in life I might have been shocked or sorry; but every one knew that a beautiful working-girl...
As to my own rank in life a sense of going under false pretenses added to my anxieties, though it was through no fault of my own. Miss Averill persisted in giving me the rôle of romantic seeker for the hard facts of existence. She did it only by assumption; but she did it.
"There's nothing like seeing for oneself, is there? It's feeling for oneself, too, which is more important. I'm so terribly cut off from it all. I'm like a bird in a cage trying to help those whose nests are being robbed."
This was said during the second of the excursions for which Miss Blair captured me from the lobby of the Barcelona. Her procedure was exactly the same as on the first occasion, except that she came about the middle of the afternoon. Nothing but an unusual chance found me sitting there, idle but preoccupied, as I meditated on my situation while smoking a cigar. My first impulse to refuse Miss Averill's invitation point-blank was counteracted by the thought of escape from that daily promenade up and down the halls of hotels which had begun to be disheartening and irksome.
Of this the novelty had passed. The expectations that during the first week or two had made each minute a living thing had simmered away in a sense of futility. No old friend having recognized me yet, I was working round to the conviction that no old friend ever would. If I kept up the tramp it was because I could see nothing else to do.
But on this particular afternoon for the first time I revolted. The effect was physical, in that my feet seemed to be too heavy to be dragged along. They were refusing their job, while my mind was planning it.
Thus in the end I found myself sharing the outing given nominally for the blind boy, but really planned from a complication of motives which to Miss Averill were obscure. It did not help to make them clearer that her wistful, unuttered appeals to me to solve the mystery surrounding my personality passed by without result.
The high bank of an autumn wood, the Hudson with a steamer headed southward, more autumn woods covering the hills beyond, a tea-basket, tea—this was the decoration. We had alighted from the motor somewhere in the neighborhood of Tarrytown. Tea being over, Miss Blair and Drinkwater, with chaff and laughter, were clearing up the things and fitting them back into the basket.
"She's very clever with him," Miss Averill explained, as she led the way to a fallen log, on which she seated herself, indicating that I might sit beside her. "She seizes on anything that will teach him the use of his fingers, and makes a game of it. He's very quick, too. The next time he'll be able to take the things out of the tea-basket and put them back all by himself."
So we had dropped into her favorite theme, the duty of helping the helpless.
She was in brown, as usual, a brown-green, that might have been a Scotch or Irish homespun, which blended with the wine shades and russets all about us with the effect of protective coloration. The day was as still as death, so breathless that the leaves had scarcely the energy to fall. In the heavy, too-sweet scents there was suggestion and incitement—suggestion that chances were passing and incitement to seize them before they were gone.
I wish there were words in which to convey the peculiar overtones in Miss Averill's comparison of herself with a bird in a cage. There was goodness in them, and amusement, as well as something baffled and enraged. She had been so subdued when I had seen her hitherto that I was hardly prepared for this half-smothered outburst of fierceness.
"If you're like a bird in a cage," I said, "you're like the one that sings to the worker and cheers him up."
Her pleasure was expressed not in a change of color or a drooping of the lids, but in a quiet suffusion that might most easily be described as atmospheric.
"Oh, as for cheering people up—I don't know. I've tried such a lot of it, only to find that they got along well enough without me. A woman wants more than anything else in the world to feel that she's needed; and when she discovers she isn't—"
The sense of my own apparent superfluity in life prompted me to say:
"Oh, it isn't only women who discover that."
Her glance traveled down the steep wooded bank and over the river, to rest on the wine-colored hills on the other side.
"Did you—did you ever?"—she corrected herself quickly—"I mean—do men?"
"Some men do. It's—it's possible."
"Isn't it," she asked, tackling the subject in her sensible way, "primarily a question of money? If you have enough of it not to have to earn a living—and no particular duties—don't you find yourself edged out of the current of life? After all, what the world wants is producers; and the minute one doesn't produce—"
"What do you mean by producers?"
She reflected. "I suppose I mean all who contribute, either directly or indirectly, either mentally or physically, to the sum total of our needs in living. Wouldn't that cover it?"
I admitted that it might.
"And those who don't do that, who merely live on what others produce, seem to be excluded from the privilege of helpfulness."
"I can't see that. They help with their money."
"Money can't help, except indirectly. It's the great mistake of our philanthropies to think it can. We make a great many mistakes; but we can make more in our philanthropies than anywhere else. We've never taken the pains to study the psychology of help. We think money the panacea for every kind of need, when as a matter of fact it's only the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. If you haven't got the grace the sign rings false, like an imitation coin."
"Well, what is the grace?"
"Oh, it's a good many things—a blend—of which, I suppose, the main ingredient is love." She gave me a wistful half-smile, as she added: "Love is a very queer thing—I mean this kind of big love for—just for people. You can always tell whether it's true or false; and the less sophisticated the people the more instinctively they know. If it's true they'll accept you; if it's only pumped up, they'll shut you out."
"I'm sure you ought to know."
"I do know. I've had a lot of experience—in being shut out."
"You?"
She nodded toward Drinkwater and Miss Blair. "They don't let me in. In spite of all I try to do for them, they're only polite to me. They'll accept this kind of thing; but I'm as far outside their confidence—outside their hearts—as a bird in a cage, as I've called myself, is outside a flock of nest-builders."
"And assuming that that is so—though I do not assume it—how do you account for it?
"Oh, easily enough! I'm not the real thing. I never was—not at the Settlement—not now—not anywhere or at any time."
"But how would you describe the real thing?"
"I can't describe it. All I know is that I'm not it. I'm not working for them, but for myself."
"For yourself—how?"
"To fill in an empty life. When you've no real life you seek an artificial one. As every one rejects the artificial, you get rejected. That's all."
"What would you call a real life—for yourself?"
The fierceness with which she had been speaking became intensified, even when tempered with her diffident half-smile.
"A life in which there was something I was absolutely obliged to do. I begin to wonder if parents know how much of the zest of living they're taking away from their children by leaving them, as we say, well provided for. When there's nothing within reason you can't have and nothing within reason you can't do—well, then, you're out of the running."
"Is that the way you look at yourself—as out of the running?"
"That's the way Iam."
"And is there no means of getting into the running?"
"There might be if I wasn't such a coward."
"If you weren't such a coward what would you do?"
"Oh, there are things. You've—you've found them. I would do like you."
"And do you know what I'm doing?"
"I can guess."
"And you guess—what?"
"It's only a guess—of course."
"But what is it?"
She rose with a weary gesture. "What's the good of talking about it? A knight in disguise remains in disguise till he chooses to throw off his incognito."
"And when he has thrown it off—what does he become then?"
"He may become something else—but he's—he's none the less—a knight."
We stood looking at each other, in one of those impulses of mutual frankness that are not without danger.
"And if there was a knight who—who couldn't throw off his incognito?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Then I suppose he'd always be a knight in disguise—something like Lohengrin."
"And what would Elsa think of that?"
Seeing the implication in this indiscreet question even before she did, I felt myself flush hotly.
I admired the more, therefore, the ease with which she carried the difficult moment off. Moving a few steps toward Drinkwater and Miss Blair, who were shutting up the tea-basket, she threw over her shoulder:
"If there was an Elsa I suppose she'd make up her mind when the time came."
She was still moving forward when I overtook her to say:
"I wish I could speak plainly."
She stopped to glance up at me. "And can't you?"
"Were you ever in a situation which you felt you had to swing alone? You know you could get help; you know you could count on sympathy; but whenever you're impelled to appeal for either something holds you back."
"I never was in such a situation, but I can imagine what it's like. May I ask one question?"
I felt obliged to grant the permission.
"Is it of the nature of what is generally called trouble?"
"It's of the nature of what is generally called misfortune."
"And I suppose I mustn't say so much as that I'm sorry."
"You could say that much," I smiled, "if you didn't say any more."
She repeated the weary gesture of a few minutes earlier, a slight tossing outward of both hands, with a heavy drop against the sides.
"What a life!"
As she began to move on once more I spoke as I walked beside her.
"What's the matter with life?"
Again she paused to confront me. In her eyes gold lights gleamed in the brown depths of the irises.
"What sense is there in a civilization that cuts us all off from each other? We're like prisoners in solitary confinement—you in one cell and Boyd in another and Lulu in another and I in another, and everybody else in his own or her own and no communication or exchange of help between us. It's—it's monstrous."
The half-choked passion of her words took me the more by surprise for the reason that she treated me as if the defects of our civilization were my fault. Joining Lydia Blair and taking her by the arm, she led the way back to the motor, while I was left to pilot Drinkwater, who carried the tea-basket. During the drive back to town our hostess scarcely spoke, and not once to me directly.