All right.James.Its curt, businesslike goodwill and the promptness of its arrival comforted him somewhat. He wisely determined to keep away from his brother for the present and let time exert what healing effect it could. When they did meet again, after some ten days' interval, no reference was made to the episode. James was cordial, very cordial. Far, far too cordial...."Trotty," said Harry mournfully that evening; "I don't think you'd better room with me again next year. You can't afford to, Trotty. I'm a pariah, an outcast. Half the decent people in the class don't speak to me any more. You simply can't afford to know me. It'll ruin your chances.""I wish you'd shut up," said Trotwood. "I'm trying to study.""I mean it, Trotty. Don't pretend you don't hear, or understand. I'm giving you warning.""Rot," said Trotty, beginning to blush. "Damned, infernal rot."Harry sighed. "You're a good soul, Trotty. But it's true. You'll be known as the only man in the class that speaks to me, if you keep it up.""Will you shut up, you infernal idiot?""No. I tell you, I'm going straight to the devil."Trotty rose from his chair and went to where Harry stood. He gently pushed him back to the wall, and pinning him to it looked him straight in the eyes. Harry was surprised to see that his face was set and serious."Now," said Trotwood, "I'm going to talk about thisbusiness this once, and if you ever mention the subject again I'll break your damned head open. I'm going to room with you next year. I'm going to room with you the year after that, if you'll have me. If we ever split up, it'll have to be because you're tired of me—not afraid I'm tired of you, but actually tired of me. You're not going to the devil. If you do, I don't give a damn. What does friendship mean, anyway? Answer me that, damn you!—damn you!—damn you—" His voice failed, but his eyes still spoke."All right, Trotty, we won't say any more about it, if you feel like that." Harry smiled as he spoke the words, but he felt more like crying.CHAPTER XIAUNT SELINA'S BEAUX YEUXAs Harry had anticipated, an issue arose between himself and the powers in the track world concerning the Easter vacation. The edict went forth that members of the 'varsity squad were to remain in New Haven, in strict training, through the holidays, and it was assumed that he was to be of their number. None of the powers asked him what he was going to do, and he did not think it worth while to inform them of his plans.One day, about a week before the vacation began, he did mention the subject casually to Judy Dimmock, the captain, as they walked in from practice together. Dimmock's consternation, as Harry said afterward, was pitiful to see."But do you think you can get Macgrath's permission?" he asked, stupefied."Why in the world should I bother about asking Macgrath's permission?" answered Harry. "Of course he wouldn't give it to me.""Do you mean to say that you're going without it?""Of course I'm going without it."Dimmock was bewildered rather than irritated, though Harry's course of action defied his authority quite as much as the coach's. "You'll have to be dropped from the squad, then, I'm afraid.""So I supposed.""Harry, do you mean to say this work means no more to you than that?" stammered Dimmock, all his convictions seething in his brain. "Haven't you got any more respect for your college and traditions than that? Don't you see what good discipline it is to buckle down to work and keep at it, whether you like it or not?"Harry waited a moment before replying, wondering how he could silence Dimmock without angering him."That would all sound very well, if it were the dean and not the track captain that said it," he ventured."I'm afraid I don't understand you, Harry." There was such a complete absence of anger in the other's tone that Harry felt a momentary outburst of sympathy for this honest, good-tempered creature."I'm sorry, Judy," he said. "The fact is, you take track deadly seriously, and I don't. That's all there is to it. So we're bound to disagree."So Harry went to the North Carolina mountains and shot quail and rode horseback and played bridge and carried on generally with James and Beatrice and Trotty and eight or ten others of his age. When he returned to New Haven he went out to the track field and jumped and ran about as before, but nobody paid any attention to him. Nor was he asked to rejoin the training table."It'll do him good to let his heels cool for a while," observed Dimmock to Macgrath."That's all very well, but you'd better not let them cool too long, if you want to get a place in the hurdles with Harvard," granted the coach."I was afraid all along we'd have to take him on again," said the other. "He gets better and better on the track all the time, and queerer and queerer every other way. I don't trust him.""He's a second Popham," said Macgrath.About a week before the Harvard meet Dimmock approached the second Popham and with very commendable absence of anything like false pride asked him if he would please put himself under Macgrath's orders for the next few days and run in the meet. Harry graciously consented. He hurdled abominably badly for a week, showing neither form nor speed; then he hurdled against Harvard and beat their best men by a safe margin. He won a first place, and his Y.But that did not make him any more popular in the track world.Later in the spring Beatrice came on for a visit, anxious to see the university that Harry had preferred to Oxford. She and Lady Fletcher stayed with Aunt Selina; presently Aunt Miriam went on and left Beatrice alone there. She and Aunt Selina struck up one of those unaccountable intimacies that occasionally arise between people of widely different ages."I do like your relations," she once told Harry; "Ilike your country and your university and your friends well enough, but I like your people even better. I like your Uncle James, though I'm scared to death of him, and Aunt Cecilia of course is a dear; but I like Aunt Selina best. I never saw such a person! I didn't know you had her type in America. She makes Aunt Miriam look like a vulgar, blatant little upstart!""I know," said Harry, laughing. "Did you tell Aunt Miriam that?""Something to that effect, yes. She laughed, and said that she had always felt that way in her presence, too.—There's more about Aunt Selina than that, though; there's something wonderfully human about her, at bottom. I have an idea she could get nearer to me, if she wanted to, than almost any one else, just because her true self is so rare and remote."Both Harry and James saw a good deal of Beatrice during her visit. Harry was supposed to be in training again, and it was his interesting custom to dine discreetly at the training table at six o'clock and then dash out to his aunt's and eat another and much more sumptuous meal at seven. James was scandalized when he heard of this proceeding, but he carefully refrained from saying anything to Harry about it; he merely smiled non-committally when Harry, with a desire of drawing him out, rather flauntingly referred to it."A few weeks ago he would have cursed me out," he thought; "lectured me up and down about it. Now he won't say anything because he's afraid it would bring on another scrap." The thought made him feel lonely and miserable.James was greatly taken with Beatrice; that was quite clear from the first. He was attracted by her beauty, and still more by her apparent indifference to it. He found her more frank and sensible than American girls, whose débutante conventionalities and mannerisms bored and irritated him. He could not conceive of Beatrice "guying" or "kidding him along" on slight acquaintance, as most of his American friends did, or of Beatrice openly dazzling him with her beauty, or using her prerogative of sex by making him "stand around" before other people.One evening after dinner Beatrice, accompanied by both the brothers, was walking down one drive and up the other,as the family were in the habit of doing on warm spring evenings."Are you both prepared to hear something funny?" she asked."Fire away," they answered, and she continued:"Well, I'm probably going to come back here next winter and live with Aunt Selina!"Harry gave a long whistle."This from you! Are you actually going to turn Yankee, too?""I'm going to give the Yankees a chance, at any rate! You see, there are reasons why life for me wouldn't be particularly pleasant at home next year.... I'm going back with Aunt Miriam after Commencement, as we had planned, to try to patch it up with Mama, and then, if all parties are agreeable, as I'm pretty sure they will be, I shall come back in the autumn. The idea is for me to keep house for Aunt Selina and be her companion generally. I shall receive a stipend for my valuable services, so that I shall have the comfortable feeling of earning something. Aunt Miriam thinks it's a fine plan. What do you think about it?""I think it's simply top-hole, to use the expression of your native land. But won't you find New Haven a trifle dull, after London, and all that?""I rather think I shall, but in a different way. I shall be quite busy, and I thought I'd go to some lectures and things in the university and learn something.—Why don't you say something, James?""I think it's a wonderful idea." James had been thinking so hard he had forgotten to speak. Did he perhaps regret his lately-made decision not to come back and coach the football team, but to take advantage of a business opening in the Middle West? At any rate, he was startled to observe what a leap his heart gave when Beatrice said she was coming back. Was it possible, he asked himself, that he was really going to care for this girl, with her dark brown eyes and her aloof, aristocratic, unchallenging ways?...But he was undeniably glad she was coming back, and found occasion to tell her so more fully another time, when they were alone."I'm particularly glad," he added, "on Harry's account.He needs some one to keep an eye on him; do you think you can do it?""I've done that for some years," said Beatrice, smiling. "I've been more of a brother to him than you have, really. Why on earth did you never come over and see him all that time, James?""Heaven knows.... I was lazy; I got in a rut. I wish I had, now.""Why, nothing's going wrong, I hope?""Oh, damnably!—I beg your pardon. When he first came back he did certain things that used to get on my nerves, and I, like a fool, let it go on that way, thinking that he was all wrong and I was all right. It's only lately that I've come to see better ... and now, when he particularly needs some steadying influence, I can't give it to him. You see, he gets on other people's nerves, too; he and his ideas—""Ideas?""Yes; fool notions he got about the way things are done in England—""Isn't that a trifle hard?""Oh, the ideas may be all right, but not the way he applies them.... At any rate, they, or something else, are playing the deuce with his college course. He's getting in Dutch, all around—""In Dutch," murmured Beatrice. "Oh, I do like that!" But James did not notice the interruption."And while I see all this going on I have to stand aside and let it go on, because when I say anything it doesn't do any good, but only irritates him and makes him worse.""I see. Well, I'm always willing to do what I can for Harry, but I'm afraid I haven't any real influence over him, either.""Oh, yes, you have. He has the greatest respect for you.""Not nearly as much as you think." Her usually calm expression was clouded; she seemed disturbed about something. Why did James feel a momentary sinking of the heart when he noticed the seriousness of her face and manner? It was nothing, though; gone again in a second. Beatrice continued, in a more optimistic tone:"But I honestly don't think, James, that there's much to worry about. I don't mean that he mayn't get intoscrapes, but I don't think that there's anything seriously wrong.... I have always had the greatest faith in him—not only in his intellect, but in his character. So has Uncle G.; he expects great things of him, says he has just that combination of intellect and balance that results in statues in public places.""The genius in the family is all confined to him; I'm glad you realize that!" James could not help being a little rasped by her harping on the good qualities of his brother, nor could he help showing it a little. He immediately felt rather ashamed of himself, however, for Beatrice replied, in a gently startled tone:"Why, James, how bitter! You don't expect me to fling bouquets at your very face, surely! I throw them at you when I'm talking to Harry!""You must throw a good lot of them, then, for you see him alone often enough," was the somewhat gruff reply. Beatrice must have considered it rather a foolish remark, for she paid no attention to it.Harry's attitude toward her decision, as expressed in his nexttête-à-têtewith her, was rather different from that of his brother."Beatrice," said he, "of course I'm pleased as Punch about your coming here next year, both on my own account and on Aunt Selina's, and all that sort of thing; but I hope you won't think it rude of me if I ask why on earth you're doing it. Of course, I know there are family unpleasantnesses, and that you aren't particularly interested in London balls, but that doesn't explain to me why, when you really do occupy an enviable position over there, get asked everywhere worth going, in season and out, and all that, you should choose to be the paid companion of an old woman in a small New England town. And I don't believe it's Aunt Selina'sbeaux yeux!""No!" said Beatrice, laughing; "I don't believe it's quite all that, either!""What will people think about it over there?" went on Harry. "What'll your mother say?""I'm afraid Mama will be perfectly delighted, even if she doesn't say so," replied Beatrice, serious again. "The truth is, Harry, poor Mama and I don't gee very well, somehow.... Jane is a great comfort to her—a perfect daughter—she came out this year, you know.""Is she as much of a social success as you?" asked Harrywith that frankness that was characteristic of their relation."Much more so—in a way. She uses her gifts to much more effect.""She's not nearly as good-looking as you," persisted Harry.It was a remark thoroughly in keeping with the spirit of their comradeship, the kind of remark, expressive of a plain truth, nothing more, that they prided themselves on making and taking between themselves without the least affectation or self-consciousness. Yet Beatrice simply could not keep pleasure from sounding in her voice as she replied:"Well, no; I suppose not. It's the only thing in which I have the better of her, though. I'm very—"She began her reply in the old spirit, but could not keep it up. She had started to say, "I'm very glad you think that," then stopped herself, then wished she had gone on. It would have been perfectly consistent with their old "man-to-man" attitude, if she could have said it in the right way!Harry noticed her halting, and looked up at her quickly. He saw that she was blushing. "Good Heavens!" he thought; "I hope Beatrice doesn't think I'm paying her compliments!" The incident was slight, but it brought a new and disturbing element into their relation. Indeed, in that one little moment they ceased to remain boy and girl in their attitude toward one another, and became man and woman. They met often enough on the old terms of frankness and intimacy, but sex interest and suspicion always lurked in the background, ready to burst out and break up things at any moment.The spring wore on; Commencement arrived; James was graduated. Aunt Miriam, the James Wimbournes and numerous youthful James Wimbournes came to stay with Aunt Selina and see him graduate. Beatrice was also there and Harry was of course on hand. He took little part in the graduation festivities and amused himself chiefly by showing his two eldest male cousins, Oswald and Jack, the sights of the university and incidentally making them look forward with a healthy dread to the day when as freshmen first they would come to Yale."This is the swimming-pool," he would tell them; "itdoesn't look very big now, does it? Perhaps not! But itseemspretty big, I can tell you, when the sophomores dump you in there, in the pitch dark, and tell you it's half a mile to shore and you've got to swim! And you have to scramble out as best you can.Theywon't help you!""They don't do that toeveryfreshman, though, do they?" hopefully inquired Oswald, a nice, plump, yellow-haired, wide-eyed youth of fourteen or so, the image of his mother."Yes, Muffins, indeed they do, every one, whether they can swim or not," replied Harry seriously. (Oswald was called Muffins because he was considered by his playmates to look like one. This reason usually did not satisfy older people, but after all, they did not know him as well as those of his own age, and had no kick coming, at all.)"I say, Harry, it's awfully decent of you to tell us all these things beforehand, so that we shall be warned when the time comes!" This from Jack, who was twelve and dark and looked like his father."Harold Wimbourne, what on earth have you been telling those children about Yale College?" was Aunt Cecilia's indignant comment on his powers of fiction. "Neither of them slept a wink last night, for thinking about what the sophomores would do to them; and Jack asked me quite seriously if he thought his father would mind much if he went to Harvard instead, because he didn't think he could ever swim well enough to live through his freshman year! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"Harry laughed unfeelingly, and refused to abate one jot of the horrors of hazing. He even wished it were all true, that these innocent and happy boys might have to go through with it all, that some one would ever be miserable in college beside himself. He scarcely spoke to James during the last few days, though James remained cordial and cheery enough toward him. But he was unnaturally cordial and forbearing, and that drove Harry into despair, especially as there was copious reason why James, under normal conditions, should be neither cordial nor forbearing. Harry had, a fortnight or so before Commencement, just after training was broken up, taken part in one of those engagements with the forces of law and order with which undergraduates are wont to relieve the monotony of their humdrumexistence. First there had been strong drink, and plenty of it, after which came a period of vague but delightful irresponsibility, culminating in much broken glass, a clash with policemen and two or three arrests.Harry had escaped this latter ignominy, but as his name enjoyed equal publicity with those of the more unfortunate revelers, it did him little good. Nothing could possibly be less to the liking of such a person as James, as Harry realized perfectly at the time. He participated in the affair neither because he liked strong drink nor because he disliked policemen, but chiefly with a sort of desperate desire to force James' hand, to make his brother take him severely to task and end their mutual coolness in one rousing scene of recrimination and forgiveness.But no such thing happened; James did not make the slightest reference to the business! Harry also remained silent on the subject, at first because of his amazement, then out of obstinacy, and finally because he was genuinely hurt. If James preferred that they should be strangers to each other, strangers they should be. Meanwhile James remained silent, of course, not because he did not take enough interest in his brother, but because he took too much. He refrained from mentioning the row because he was afraid that a discussion of it would merely bring on another quarrel, which he wished of all things to avoid.So the two brothers bade good-by to each other for the summer in misunderstanding and mistrust, though their outward behavior was cordial and brotherly enough. James, who was starting almost immediately for the West, smiled as he shook the hand of his brother, who was going abroad for the holidays and said, "Well, so long; look out for yourself and don't take any wooden money." Harry, also smiling, replied in the same vein; but the smile died on his lips and the words turned to gall in his mouth as he thought what a bitter travesty this was of former partings, when their gaiety was either natural or intended to hide the sorrow of parting, and not, as now, wholly forced and affected to conceal the relief that each could not but feel in being far from the other.CHAPTER XIIAN ACT OF GODIt was five o'clock in the afternoon and five degrees above zero. It was also very windy, which made it seem colder to everybody except the thermometer; and as the thermometer alone exhibited signs of being able to stand a temperature of twenty or thirty or even forty degrees colder without suffering disagreeable consequences, that seemed rather unfair. For the wind, which was blowing not in hysterical gusts but in the calm, relentless, all-day-and-all-night, forty-to sixty-mile gale that you only get west of the Great Lakes,didmake it colder; there was no doubt about that. Else why did every one keep out of it as much as possible; walk on the protected side of the street, seek shelter in doorways while waiting for trolley cars, and so forth? Of course the wind made you colder; so much colder that when you were sheltered from it, if only for a moment, you felt comparatively warm, though it was still five degrees above zero. Unless, that is, you happened to be standing over one of those grated openings in the sidewalk that belched forth their welcome though inexplicable gusts of warm air into the outer world; if you could get a place over one of those—gee, but you were the lucky guy!That was the way you phrased it, at any rate, if you happened to be twelve years old and a newsboy with an income of—well, say thirty dollars a year, if that sounds sufficiently insufficient to provide anything approaching decent clothes, decent food and a decent place to live. If not, make it as little as you like. The point is that the annual income of a certain ten-year-old newsboy, by name of Stodger McClintock, was preeminently, magnificently insufficient to provide any of those commodities. As a consequence of which, Stodger was cold. As another consequence of which Stodger, the gay, the debonair, the unemotional, the anything but tearfully inclined, was very nearly in tears. People do actually suffer from the cold occasionally, even in this effete and over-protected age,and Stodger was suffering. The volcanic opening was all very well, but he could not stay there long. And the prospects for the night were bad, and bad even for supper....There were tears in James' eyes also as he hurried along from work, but they were entirely due to the wind. As soon as he perceived Stodger, however, who dashed out at him with the customary "Here's yer paper, mister!" at an unexpected place in the side street instead of at the corner as per custom, he realized that his (Stodger's) tears were not entirely due to the wind."Well, Stodger! What are you doing down here?" he cried cheerfully."Trine t' git woim." Stodger's diction at best was imperfect and it was now further impeded by a certain nasal fluency, the joint result of the cold and contemplation of domestic imperfections. But James understood, perfectly well."Well, Stodger, it is cold, I'll have to grant you that!" he rejoined, and instituted fumbling operations into the pocket where he kept his loose silver. "Give me aStarand aSunand aMercury, too, will you? This is no time for economy; the announcement of the all-American football team is out to-night. Give me one of every paper you have!"Pecuniary transaction ensued, parallel with conversation."And how doyoulike this weather, Stodger?""Me? Oh,Idon't mind.""Don't you? Well, I do, I'm afraid. This is just a little too cold for my pleasure. But then I'm not a husk, like you.""Well—" there was concession in Stodger's voice—"it's loike this. Some guys minds it, 'n' then they don't like t' unbutton their coats 'n' fork out a penny fer a paper. 'N' that makes bum bizniss. See?" Print is miserably inadequate to give an idea of Stodger's consonants."I see. Stodger, did you ever hear of an act of God?""Huh?""Well, never mind. A cold snap like this is an act of God. Some natural cataclysm, something that can't be prevented or even foreseen. Well, sir, opposed as I am to indiscriminate giving, I'm going to break a rule this time. All bets are off when an act of God comes along. Here'shalf a dollar. Can you get something to eat and keep yourself warm over night with that?""Sure I kin." Stodger grinned broadly for a second or two; then his face clouded. "Aw, naw. Not off you. I couldn't take that off you." He meant that only fools gave away money, and he did not want to put James in that category."Why not?" James' smile, his unruffled good-humor, had their effect. Surely a god that smiled and looked like that could not be quite a fool, even if he gave away money. "Now stop your guff; take the cash and cut along. So long!... That was my trolley, dash it; you and your confounded scruples have made me miss my car, Stodger!... Well, let's take a look at the all-American football team. Stoddard of Harvard, Brown of the Army, Steele of Michigan...." He ran his eye down the list till interrupted by a sharp exclamation from his friend."Gee, but he's a bum choice!""Who?""Steele.""Steele? Oh, I'm not so sure. He's death on running back punts....""Aw, heisnot! I tell yer, he couldn't hang onto a punt if 'twas handed to him on flypaper by a dago in a dress suit, let alone run with it! My ole gran'mudder c'n run better'n him, any day!" Domestic troubles being for the nonce in abeyance Stodger was in a mood to let his tongue run free on a favorite topic."Well, we'll have to put your grandmother in at all-America left half next year." Stodger knew as well as anybody when he was being laughed at, and held his peace. "I didn't know you were such a football fan, Stodger.""Aw, yes. I'm some fan." This without enthusiasm, in the bored tone in which one agrees to the statement of a self-evident fact."Well, I wonder. Stodger, do you think you could recognize any all-America player if you saw him on the street, in ordinary togs?""Sure I could.""How many years back?""T'ree years ... oh, more; four, five years, mebbe!""Well, I'm afraid you lose, Stodger!""Aw, gwawn! Try me an' see!""You've lost already, I tell you. You've been talking to an all-America player for the last ten minutes and never knew it!""Aw, wotcha trine t' hand me! Run along 'n' tell it to the cop on the corner! Tell it to me gran'mudder, if you like;she'll believe yer! You can't slip one like that onme, I tell yer!" Stodger's contempt was magnificent, but he rather marred the effect of it by adding suspiciously "Wotcheer?" which amounted to a confession that he might be wrong, after all."Two years ago. Take a good look now, Stodger; see if you can't recognize me." James turned so that the sunset glow fell more strongly on his face. Stodger looked with all his eyes, but remained unconvinced."Line, er back?" he inquired."Back.""I gotcha now! Wimboine! Wimboine! Right half! Yale!" But experience had taught him that such dreams usually fade, and he went on, disappointed: "Aw, naw. Can't slipthaton me. You're not that Wimboine. You look a little bit like him, but you're notthatWimboine. Brudder, p'raps.You'reno football player.""Why not?""Too thin.Youc'd never tear through the line th' waythatfeller did.""Oh, rot; we'll end this, here and now." James fumbled at length beneath his fur coat and produced the end of a watch-chain on which dangled a little gold football with his name, that of his college and the date of his achievement on it. Stodger, convinced, simply stared. It was as though Jupiter had stepped right down from Olympus. James, with a smile at his consternation, resumed his paper for the last minute or two before his car arrived."Say, mister! Mister Wimboine! You got my tail twisted that time, all right! I'm a goat, I'm a simp, I'm a boob! You got my number! Call me wotch like!""All right, Stodger, I will." James spoke and smiled through his reading. He had almost ceased to think of Stodger, who was more entertaining when incredulous, and was reading merely to kill time till his car arrived. Stodger's tongue was still wagging:—"Say, dey was a guy useter live down Chicago calledSchmidt—Slugger Schmidt, that was a cracker jack—middle-weight—ever hear of him? I knew him, oncet ... he had a little practise bout wid Riley th' other night—you know, Hurrican Riley?—and laid him out in t'ree roun's.... Say, mister, there goes yer car! That's the Poik Street car went!""What? Oh, did it? Never mind; I'm going to walk." James was off; off almost before the words were out of his mouth, and Stodger, struck by the sudden curtness of his tone was afraid he had outraged the feelings of the god. Mister Wimboine had clearly been deeply displeased about something, and Stodger was sure it must have been something more than the all-America football team.Of course Stodger was not really responsible for James' displeasure and his sudden determination to walk the three miles that lay between him and his club and dinner, any more than was the composition of the all-America football team. It was something much more serious; something that made bodily exercise imperative lest cerebration around and around one little particular point should make him dizzy. For it was a very small thing that cerebration was busy on, even if it did represent a great deal to James; only a tiny paragraph at the bottom of the first page of one of the evening papers. The single headline had first caught his eye:—"Rates Heartache at $40,000," and then with unbelieving eyes he read on: "New Haven, Conn., Dec. 8. Myrtle Mowbray, a manicure living in this city, has filed a suit of breach of promise of marriage for $40,000 in the Superior Court here against Harold Wimbourne, a student in Yale University. Mr. Wimbourne is a member of an old and prominent New Haven family. He is a senior in the academic department."A sort of mental and emotional nausea overcame James as the meaning of those lines sank into his brain. The vulgar, degrading cynicism of the headline! Breach of promise, scandal, newspaper publicity—that was the sort of thing that happened to other people, not to one's self. Such things simply did not occur in families one knew, much less in families by the name of Wimbourne. James had always thought of that name as apart, aloof from such things, exempt from all undesirable publicity. His family pride was none the less strong for being so unconscious, so dormant; now that it was outraged it flamed forth in a scorching blaze.So loathing gave way to anger, and anger lasted a full mile and a half. It would have lasted longer if it had been concentrated on one person or thing, instead of directed against several persons, several things, several sets of circumstances, the order of things in general. For James was not angry at Harry alone; even he realized that before the mile and a half were up. He was angry at him at first, but that soon passed off somewhat; his anger seemed even to be seeking other objects, unconsciously—the Mowbray woman, Uncle James, himself, Yale University, the whole nature of man.But cerebration had a chance to get in a good deal of its fell work during those three miles. As he swung open the front door of the club and passed into the main lobby, with its teeming confusion of electric lights and bellboys, he was conscious of nothing but a quiet, deep, corroding disgust that seemed to be as old as all time. It seemed as if he had known of this disgrace for years; had almost had time to outlive it, in fact. His first impulse was to go into the bar and annex himself to one of the cheerful groups that would be congregating there at this hour, and turn his mind to something else. But almost immediately he remembered that practically every one there would also have read the evening paper, and he shuddered at the thought of their pitying glances.Automatically following his daily custom he cheeked his coat and hat at the cloak room and collected his mail from his post-box. Then he went straight to the one room in the club where he thought he was likely to be alone; a small reading-room usually popular in the afternoon but deserted by early evening. He found it empty, as he had expected. With a sigh of relief he turned out all the electric lights and threw himself on a couch in front of the open wood fire—a graceful though unnecessary compliment on the part of the club management to meteorological conditions.But unluckily his glance fell on the unopened letters he still held in his hand, and immediately his trouble was on him again. One of them he recognized as coming from his Uncle James and the other, bearing the post-mark of New Haven, was from Beatrice. With a slight groan of combined resignation and disgust he tore open his uncle's letter and read it by the flickering light of the fire.Dear James:Your young brother has made more of a mess of it than we hoped would be the case. The Mowbray woman has brought suit for $40,000, and is likely to get it, or a good part of it, according to Raynham, whom I saw about the business yesterday. She has letters and a spoken promise in the presence of witnesses. We have nothing except the knowledge that Harry was drunk when he wrote the letters and drunk when he spoke the words, which is not much comfort. Still, Raynham thinks she can be made to settle out of court, especially if we take our time. We have got to show her first that the world will not come to an end because a Wimbourne has been mixed up with a woman—which it won't. It will be a matter, Raynham thinks, of $15,000 at least; probably more."What is going to become of the boy? Have you any influence over him? If not, who has? It is about time somebody exerted some on him, other than bad. He has much to fight against.Your aunt sends her love. Your affect. uncle,James Wimbourne.In spite of his fatigue and his disgust, James smiled as he finished the letter. It was so characteristic of Uncle James; the most conventional sentences, the ones that seemed to mean least, really meant the most. "Your aunt sends her love"; only a person who knew Uncle James could appreciate the consciously suppressed humor of that phrase. As if Aunt Cecilia were not in such a vortex of conflicting emotions over the affair that such a conventional message would not be as far from her as Bagdad! "He has much to fight against"; Harry had much to fight against; Uncle James knew what, and he knew that James also knew. Connotative meanings like these more than atoned for the unflinching frankness of certain other phrases.On the whole, James felt better for having read the letter, and opened Beatrice's with a lighter heart.Dear James; (he read)Jack Trotwood has just been here and told me that that unspeakable woman is actually going to sue Harry for breach of promise. I tried to get him to tell more, but hesaid that that was all he had been able to get out of Harry. It's too awful! You can imagine what a time I've been through, seeing him at least once a week and not being able to say a word about the whole business. I've had to depend on Jack Trotwood for all my information, and naturally he hasn't wanted to say much. Do you mean to say Harry hasn't written you all this term? I cannot understand it at all.Aunt Selina seems quite cut up about it, and wishes you were here. 'Tell James to come,' she said when I told her I would write you. I must confess, though, that I don't see what good you could do—now. Of course, terrible as this suit is, it does relieve things in one way, at least. Once we're quite sure it's merely money she's after, it doesn't seem quite so bad. I even think it is better now than it was early in the autumn, when we thought he was actually fond of her.There is no other news to give you; as you can imagine, we have not been thinking of much else. Poor Harry, how sorry I am for him! How much I wish I could help him, and how little I can do!As ever yours,Beatrice.This letter was less comforting than the other. Beatrice's words seemed to James to carry a veiled reproach with them; to implicate him much more closely in Harry's disgrace than he had as yet thought of implicating himself. "I don't see what good you could do—now;" "better now than it was in the early autumn—" such sentences could not but have their sting for the sensitive mind, and James was sensitive when Harry was concerned, and even more so when Beatrice was.Had he been negligent in regard to Harry? Oh, yes, he was perfectly willing to admit that he had, now that he came to think it over, though he would rather have had anybody other than Beatrice point out the fact to him—and that, doubtless, was because a comment from Beatrice would have twice the force of the same comment uttered by any one else. He had never really put himself out for Harry in any way, since the days when England seemed too far for him to venture to discover what the years weremaking of him. In the critical period of his senior and Harry's sophomore year he had shown himself entirely incapable of giving the friendship and sympathy and guidance that were needed. Jack Trotwood, and not he himself, had been Harry's best friend, in every sense of the phrase, for three years and more. And after graduation, he had come to Minneapolis.Then this degrading affair with the manicure. James had heard of that first through Beatrice, for Harry's letters, which had arrived at regular, though rather long, intervals, had ceased abruptly in September, at the beginning of the college year. That had been almost a relief to James. Harry's letters had been calculated to widen rather than bridge the gulf between them. They had been amusing and always cleverly written. A letter written on the previous Tap Day, dated conspicuously "Thursday, May 18, 7P.M." (two hours after Harry had failed to receive an election to any senior society) had been a perfect masterpiece of omission. It ran pleasantly along on the weather, the outward appearance of the university, sundry little incidents of no importance or interest, the economic condition of the country—everything except Tap Day, himself, anything that would interest James. This letter had irritated James beyond all expression, yet at the same time he admired it for what it was worth, and hated himself for admiring it.And so, as he was obliged to learn from other sources of Harry's missing a senior society, so he was dependent on others for all his informationin reMyrtle Mowbray. In October Beatrice had written him that Harry had been seen much in the society of the woman, who conducted her business in connection with a barber shop situated conveniently for the patronage of the student body. Jack Trotwood had also written, somewhat timidly, to the same effect, evidently much perplexed about where his truest duty to Harry lay. Apparently there had been motor parties to neighboring country inns, more or less conspicuous carryings-on in restaurants about town, and so forth. Such tidings became more and more acute for a month, and then ceased. There was reason for hoping that the nonsense was all over. Then the thunderbolt of to-day.James had not really been much worried, before to-day. He had caught a glimpse of "the Mowbray woman," as he always thought of her, one day in the previous June, while in New Haven for Commencement. He had been strolling along Chapel Street with a group of classmates, and one of them called his attention to a female form emerging from a shop door, giving in a discreet undertone a brief explanation of her celebrity, ending with a vivid word of commendation—"Some fluff." James looked, and saw a pretty face. It had been but a fraction of a second, and the face was turned away from him; but it was enough to leave quite a lasting impression on his mind—an impression that had not been without its effect on his reception of the news of Harry's infatuation. A pretty face! Well, when all was said and done, Harry had not been the first man of his acquaintance to become enamored of a pretty face—and get over it. He did not approve of the alleged infatuation; the thought of it gave him considerable uneasiness. But, helped out by the impression, his optimistic temperament had battled with the uneasiness and in the end overcome it; prevented it, certainly, from growing into anything like anxiety, anything that would necessitate drastic and disturbing measures, such as pulling up stakes, for instance, and hurrying New Haven-ward.... Oh, how loathsomely lazy and indifferent he had been, now that he looked back on it all!A pretty face! The memory of it was still sharply out-lined on the back of James' brain and drove introspection and self-recrimination into momentary abeyance. A clear, slightly olive complexion, rising to a faint pink on the cheeks—artificial? Not as he remembered it; there was no suggestion of the chorus-girl—sharply-drawn eyebrows and dark hair. Above, a hat of some sort; below, a suit, preferably of dark blue serge. The impression had been recurrent in James' mind during these past months; not soon after it was received, in the summer; since then. There was something irritating and tantalizing about this circumstance; it was as though the impression had been strengthened by a second view. Where had he seen that face again, if at all? Yes, he had seen it, somewhere; he was almost certain of it. He was absolutely certain of it; he could remember everything—except the time and place. Which after all were important adjuncts to definite recollection—!No, he would not laugh himself out of it; he was sure. He would remember all about it some time when he least expected it.He left it at that, and listlessly lay at full length watching the fire and allowing his thoughts to wander from the all-absorbing topic and its octopus-like ramifications. The fire was fascinating to watch; he loved open fires and wished they would have one in this room every evening. It would be almost like a home to come back to, after work. It was particularly pleasant to watch, like this, in an otherwise dark room, as it cast its intermittent flare on the walls and furniture. It brought out the rich warm tones in the brown leather of the chairs and the oak of the wainscot, and picked out small particles of gilt here and there in the ceiling decoration, and set them twinkling back in a cheerful, drowsy way. From the dim outside world beyond the open door came occasional sounds of club life; the distant clatter of crockery, the swish of a passing elevator, a voice finding fault with a club servant. James listened to them at first, in a half-amused, idle sort of way; then gradually they faded from his consciousness and he was aware of nothing but the fire and its flickering yellow light.He watched the fire intently, absorbedly, with the lazy concentration with which a tired brain often fastens itself on some physical object, as though to crowd out other thoughts clamoring for admittance. The fire was beginning to burn low now, with flames that never rose more than a few inches above the logs. Every few moments a small quantity of half-burnt wood dropped off and fell to the glowing bed of coals beneath, and the flames broke out afresh in the place it fell from. James watched this process with a growing sense of expectancy; he seemed to be always waiting, waiting for the next fall; yet when the next fall came he was still waiting.... Was it only the fall of the coals that he was waiting for? It must be something else, something that had nothing to do with the fire at all; something much more important; something that he longed not to have come, yet, and at the same time wished were over.... He seemed now not to be lying at full length, but sitting on the broad arm of a chair. The fire-light's glow fell no longer on leather and oak, but on old flowered chintz and mahogany.... Now he wassitting no longer; he was bending over—bending low over something white; turning his ear so as to catch certain words that some one was uttering in a whisper; words that were indelibly burnt on his brain; words that were as inseparable from his being as life....Then in an instant the room, the fire, everything vanished; and in their place, filling his whole consciousness—that face! He knew it perfectly now, exactly when, where, all about it; no room for mistake or doubt any more! He started upright on the couch; his whole world seemed suddenly illumined by a blinding flash of light. In another instant he was aware that somebody had turned on the electric light, and of a face staring quizzically into his. He heard a voice."Hello, you all alone in here, Wimbourne? You must be fond of the dark!—What are you looking so all-fired pleased about, I wonder?""Oh—Laffan! How are you?... Nothing much; I just thought of something, that's all.""Congratulations on your thoughts. I'm looking for some one to dine with; I suppose you've eaten? It's late—""Whew—nearly eight! No, I've not eaten; shall we go up together?"They started to leave the room, but James stopped abruptly in the doorway, suddenly practical, master of himself, of the whole situation."I say, Laffan, you're a lawyer, aren't you?""I attempt to be.""Well, I want to consult you, professionally, if you'll let me. Consider me a client! Now, what I want to know is this; suppose a—""Oh, rot, man—not on an empty stomach! Come along upstairs; you can tell me all about it while you eat!"CHAPTER XIIISARDOUAbout a week later James went to the head of his firm, the classmate's father who had offered him his position, and asked for a few days' leave of absence."Why didn't you go to Smith?" said his employer, naming the head of the department in which James was working."I didn't think he'd let me off without your leave, sir.""Hm.... You must go, must you?""I'm afraid I must. Indeed, I'm bound to say, sir, that I shall go, leave or no leave.""Hm. Well, you can go; but if you take more than half a week it'll have to come off your annual vacation.""Thank you, sir, I shan't need more than that," said James and the interview was closed. No word was spoken of the reason for James' departure. Jonathan McClellan, founder and owner of the McClellan Automobile Company, knew a thing or two beside how to run an automobile business. He also read the papers.That was on a Thursday. In the course of the evening James conducted an interview with his friend Laffan and at midnight or thereabouts he took train for Chicago. He proceeded next day to New York, and thence, on Saturday, to New Haven, arriving there early in the afternoon.He went straight from the station to the law offices of Messrs. Raynham and Rummidge and remained there upwards of half an hour. Every sign of satisfaction was visible on his face as he emerged, but Raynham, who escorted him to the outer door, seemed not nearly so well pleased."I wish you'd change your mind, even now, and leave it to us," he said, just loud enough for the stenographer in the outer office not to hear."Plain enough sailing, now," replied James, smiling encouragingly. "I don't think you need to worry.""Well, if you get into trouble, don't lose your head oryour temper, or try to bluff. Just say you'll leave the rest to your lawyers, and get out!"James proceeded up Chapel Street in excellent spirits. A light snow was falling, melting on the pavements but covering the grassy expanse of the Green with a soft white blanket, and bringing each gaunt black branch of the elm trees into strong relief. James walked on the Green side of the street, so as to avoid the greetings of possible acquaintances, and kept his eyes on the broad square. He noticed that some elm trees had been clipped and others felled since he had last been in town; he was sorry to see them go and wished the authorities could find some way of preserving them better....He walked unhesitatingly into the shop and, disregarding the obsequious gestures of the line of barbers, went straight to the very end, where he knew he would find her, with her glass-topped table and her instruments and her disgusting little basin.... She was there, but a broad black back obtruded itself in front of her."One moment," she said, looking up and smiling.James retreated a few steps to a row of chairs placed there for the use of the expectant. He sat down, and cursed himself for a fool. What business had he here? Why hadn't he left it all to Raynham, like a sensible person? He knew he would mess it all now, in spite of everything; he remembered stories of commanders who had been ousted out of impregnable positions by the mere confident attitude of their opponents. It was her appearance, her manner, her faultless smile, that unnerved him. It was, as he mentally phrased it to himself, because she looked "so damned refined." Never had he dreamed it would be as bad as this.The black back shuffled inchoately out of his vision; his moment had come. He walked forward."You are Miss Mowbray, are you not?" he asked, speaking slowly and steadying his voice with difficulty."Yes?""My name is Wimbourne. I think you know my brother.... I would like to talk to you, if I might. When will you be at liberty?""Why shouldn't we talk right here?" she said cheerfully. "If you'll sit down there.... You had better let me tend to your nails—they need it.""Very well." James sat down. He felt his courage returning;her self-possession stimulated him. Not one shadow of a change of expression had passed over her face when he told her he was Harry's brother; her manner remained the perfection of professional cordiality. Well, if she could show nerve, he could, too.She filled her bowl with warm water and arranged her instruments with perfect composure. When she was ready James surrendered his right hand."Miss Mowbray," he began at length, "as I understand the matter, you are suing my brother for breach of promise. Is that right?""It is.""Well, I'm sorry. It's a bad business. Bad for you as well as for him, because you can't possibly win. Now, Miss Mowbray, I will be frank with you. You are not going to get that forty thousand dollars—your suit will not even get into court. I know that, but I don't want to have to go into the reasons why. I don't want scenes, I hate them; I want to make this interview as easy and as short as possible, so I will open it with an offer. I will give you five hundred dollars if you will agree to withdraw your suit and clear out of town, within a week. Do you accept?""I do not." Her smile was more than cordial now, there was pity in it. "Why do you suppose I took the trouble to sue for forty thousand dollars, if I would be content with five hundred, Mr. Wimbourne?""Oh, must we go into arguments? Why can't you simply take my word for it that your suit is impossible, and close with me? Five hundred dollars—think what it means! It would pay all your costs and leave you enough to start in with somewhere else.""The sum is just eighty times too small.""You won't, then? Think it over a little! I'll leave the offer open for five minutes; you needn't answer definitely till then."James was thoroughly sure of himself and at ease now; he smiled to himself with a certain grim pleasure at his little touch of melodrama, reminiscent of—what? Sardou? A common trick, of course, but never without its effect. He ceased thinking about it, and watched the clock. Presently he was aware that his companion, always busy with her scraping and cleaning and rubbing, was speaking in a low, calm voice."No, Mr. Wimbourne, I am not quite the fool you take me for, I'm afraid. You may not know it, but your brother has treated me very badly. He deserves to be punished. A man cannot make a fool of a woman, as he has of me, and get off scot free. There is such a thing as law and justice for those that are abused, and I have been abused. I should be very silly now if I did not go on and take all that is coming to me. I shall only be taking my right, Mr. Wimbourne; remember that. Fun is all very well if it is innocent fun; but when it hurts other people it has to be paid for.""The five minutes are up," said James; "but I will willingly extend the time if there is any chance of your reconsidering. What do you think?"No answer. James watched her calm face, with its pleasing and well-chiseled features, enlivened now by only the merest suggestion of a smile that was not really there, but still seemed latent, ready for instant use if called upon. About the mouth hung a shade of impatience, of obstinacy; anything else? No, assuredly no, search as he would. She was extraordinary!"Oh, dear," he said with a gentle sigh, "you will go in for all the unpleasantness, I'm afraid.... Miss Mowbray, you have no right to sue my brother for breach of promise. You have been acting under false pretenses to him from the first. You were married to a man called Edward Jennings, in the city of Minneapolis, on the 3rd of last September.""You have proofs, no doubt?" The tone was sharp and defiant, the smile scornful and satirical, but she did blench—no doubt of it. James' heart leaped within him."Oh, yes—lots, right here in my breast pocket. Tiresome things, but lawyers love them. If you will release my right hand for a moment—" He chose to smile ingratiatingly at her, and it gave him a little thrill of revenge to observe how obviously forced her answering smile was. She was not proof against her own weapons. But his triumph faded almost immediately, and pity took its place. Poor thing, what a ridiculous game she had been playing! How could it possibly succeed? Could she not have known that some one who knew of her marriage would be sure to turn up at the wrong moment and spoil the whole affair? She looked so small, so defenseless, so crumpled as she sat there, waiting for him to produce his proofs; surely she was nevermade for this sort of a career! Then her smiles of a little while ago came back to him, and he reflected that perhaps she was, after all."First, here is a little history of your career. You were born in Minneapolis, June 16, 188-. At the age of sixteen you went to New York City, where you entered the theatrical profession. For some years you were on the vaudeville stage, playing occasionally in New York, but mostly on the road. Your stage name was Rosa Montagu. You left the profession about three years ago, and have been engaged in this place as manicure for a little less than two years. You resumed the name of Myrtle Mowbray, which as far as I can make out is your own, on leaving the stage, but you were married, last September, under your stage name. Here is a copy of your marriage lines, sworn to by the Minneapolis License Bureau. Here is a photograph of you as Rosa Montagu...." "Suppose you let me finish manicuring your hands, Mr. Wimbourne." James replaced the papers in his pocket and his hand on the glass-topped table, and professional duties were resumed. They continued in silence for some time; neither party really had much to say now. It occurred to James that even now she might be trying to take him in by her indifference, to "bluff" him; but a careful study of her face dispelled the idea. He admired her nerve now no less than before."Are you satisfied, Miss Mowbray?" he asked at length."No. I'm beaten, though." James liked the reply immensely; liked, also, the manner in which it was given—hardly betraying anything more than good-humored disgust."When can I see you again to-day or to-morrow?" he asked again after a short pause. "There will be papers to sign, and that sort of thing.""Is it possible that Mr. Raynham sent you out without a written statement for me to sign in your pocket?" she rejoined, looking fearlessly up at him."No—that is—yes, he did." Of course he had not, but James was already planning a littlecoupof his own not included in Mr. Raynham's arrangements."Well, could you come back here this evening? Toward ten? We close then, on Saturdays.""Very well."Both were silent for some time. At last, when the manicuring was almost completed, James said with a sudden burst of friendly curiosity:"Honestly, Miss Mowbray, why did you do it? Get married to him first, I mean."She looked coldly up at him. "I really don't see why I should answer that question, Mr. Wimbourne.""Of course not. There's not the slightest reason why you should answer it, if you don't want to."She was not proof against his candor or his smile. She smiled back, in spite of herself, without rancor or affectation."I have an idea that you are quite an unusual young man, Mr. Wimbourne. You are, without doubt, the worst enemy I have in the world, and yet you give me the impression of being a friend. I think I like you better than your brother."James made no reply to this, but only reddened slightly, and she went on:"I married him because I lacked the courage not to. I was afraid to burn my bridges behind me. He had been wanting me to for a long time, and at the last he became very impatient.... It was the only way I could keep him, and I dared not let him go. Things had not been going well here.... So I went back and married him, on condition that it was to be kept an absolute secret. I was determined to come out here and try my luck for one more year.... Of course I was very sorry that I did it, this fall. But I determined to go through with ... the business, for there was a big prize at stake.""And you never knew he had a brother in Minneapolis?""No—he simply told me he had an elder brother in the West. I had no suspicion of anything; it seemed perfectly safe. How did you find out, anyway, if I may ask?""I happened to see you—perhaps a minute after you were married, coming out of the marriage license office, with a man. Compromising! You had been pointed out to me before, here, so I knew what you looked like. But what made you so keen to go through with—with the business? You don't look like that kind, somehow...."She gave the last finishing touch to his hand and started to gather up her belongings before replying. "You don't know what it is not to have plenty of money, Mr. Wimbourne,or you would not ask that question. You don't know what it is to watch other people sailing by in sixty horsepower limousines and realize that you would look every bit as well there as any of them, and better than most, and to realize, above all, that you could make so much more out of your wealth than most of them. I am under no delusions about myself; I know perfectly well that I'm not a manicure type. I have brains, I have good looks, I have social possibilities. Only, I happened to be born without money or social position, and the handicap is too great.... Well, it's all up now. There's no hope for anything better now."The tone in which she spoke these words was so perfectly quiet and resigned, so utterly lacking in vulgar desire to advertise her woes, that James felt deeply moved. He could not think of anything to say to reassure or encourage her. Presently he blurted out, desperately:"You've got a good husband in Edward Jennings, anyway. He's a good chap, according to all accounts...."She smiled, deprecatorily. "He's a nice boy. But he'll never make any money."James made up an excuse to consult Mr. Raynham again, and after that walked the snow-covered streets till dinner time. His first impulse was to look up Harry, but he discarded the idea; he would not see him, Aunt Selina, any one, till his task was done, every detail completed. He dined alone in an obscure restaurant and with some difficulty succeeded in frittering away the time till ten o'clock, at which hour he returned to the barber shop on Chapel Street.He proceeded at once to business, taking out two papers which he gave to Miss Mowbray to sign. She read and signed without comment. When she had finished he said: "Would you mind delivering this for me?" and handed her an unsealed envelope bearing the simple superscription "Mr. Edward Jennings."Miss Mowbray fingered the envelope indecisively a moment; then she opened it and took out the contents.She rose from her seat and glanced apprehensively at James. "I can't—we—thank you, but I simply can't accept this," she whispered."Nobody asked you to do anything, except deliver the letter," replied James cheerfully. "I'd like to know whatbusiness you have opening other people's letters, anyway. It isn't nice.—Wedding present, you know," he went on, with a change of voice; "I'm rather hoping to have the honor of giving you your first. Please try to make him accept it from me, won't you? Good-by!"He shook her hand quickly and was actually off before she had time to offer another word of objection.He made his way straight across the snowy street to Harry's rooms in Vanderbilt Hall. There was no answer to his knock, but the door yielded to a turn of the knob—how like Harry to leave it unlocked! The room was dark and empty, but he went in and found the embers of a fire dying on the hearth. He threw off his hat and overcoat, struck a light and looked about for materials with which to rebuild the fire.In a few minutes the logs were blazing merrily before him. He turned out the gas, drew up an armchair and sat down in front of the fire to wait for Harry.
All right.James.
All right.James.
Its curt, businesslike goodwill and the promptness of its arrival comforted him somewhat. He wisely determined to keep away from his brother for the present and let time exert what healing effect it could. When they did meet again, after some ten days' interval, no reference was made to the episode. James was cordial, very cordial. Far, far too cordial....
"Trotty," said Harry mournfully that evening; "I don't think you'd better room with me again next year. You can't afford to, Trotty. I'm a pariah, an outcast. Half the decent people in the class don't speak to me any more. You simply can't afford to know me. It'll ruin your chances."
"I wish you'd shut up," said Trotwood. "I'm trying to study."
"I mean it, Trotty. Don't pretend you don't hear, or understand. I'm giving you warning."
"Rot," said Trotty, beginning to blush. "Damned, infernal rot."
Harry sighed. "You're a good soul, Trotty. But it's true. You'll be known as the only man in the class that speaks to me, if you keep it up."
"Will you shut up, you infernal idiot?"
"No. I tell you, I'm going straight to the devil."
Trotty rose from his chair and went to where Harry stood. He gently pushed him back to the wall, and pinning him to it looked him straight in the eyes. Harry was surprised to see that his face was set and serious.
"Now," said Trotwood, "I'm going to talk about thisbusiness this once, and if you ever mention the subject again I'll break your damned head open. I'm going to room with you next year. I'm going to room with you the year after that, if you'll have me. If we ever split up, it'll have to be because you're tired of me—not afraid I'm tired of you, but actually tired of me. You're not going to the devil. If you do, I don't give a damn. What does friendship mean, anyway? Answer me that, damn you!—damn you!—damn you—" His voice failed, but his eyes still spoke.
"All right, Trotty, we won't say any more about it, if you feel like that." Harry smiled as he spoke the words, but he felt more like crying.
AUNT SELINA'S BEAUX YEUX
As Harry had anticipated, an issue arose between himself and the powers in the track world concerning the Easter vacation. The edict went forth that members of the 'varsity squad were to remain in New Haven, in strict training, through the holidays, and it was assumed that he was to be of their number. None of the powers asked him what he was going to do, and he did not think it worth while to inform them of his plans.
One day, about a week before the vacation began, he did mention the subject casually to Judy Dimmock, the captain, as they walked in from practice together. Dimmock's consternation, as Harry said afterward, was pitiful to see.
"But do you think you can get Macgrath's permission?" he asked, stupefied.
"Why in the world should I bother about asking Macgrath's permission?" answered Harry. "Of course he wouldn't give it to me."
"Do you mean to say that you're going without it?"
"Of course I'm going without it."
Dimmock was bewildered rather than irritated, though Harry's course of action defied his authority quite as much as the coach's. "You'll have to be dropped from the squad, then, I'm afraid."
"So I supposed."
"Harry, do you mean to say this work means no more to you than that?" stammered Dimmock, all his convictions seething in his brain. "Haven't you got any more respect for your college and traditions than that? Don't you see what good discipline it is to buckle down to work and keep at it, whether you like it or not?"
Harry waited a moment before replying, wondering how he could silence Dimmock without angering him.
"That would all sound very well, if it were the dean and not the track captain that said it," he ventured.
"I'm afraid I don't understand you, Harry." There was such a complete absence of anger in the other's tone that Harry felt a momentary outburst of sympathy for this honest, good-tempered creature.
"I'm sorry, Judy," he said. "The fact is, you take track deadly seriously, and I don't. That's all there is to it. So we're bound to disagree."
So Harry went to the North Carolina mountains and shot quail and rode horseback and played bridge and carried on generally with James and Beatrice and Trotty and eight or ten others of his age. When he returned to New Haven he went out to the track field and jumped and ran about as before, but nobody paid any attention to him. Nor was he asked to rejoin the training table.
"It'll do him good to let his heels cool for a while," observed Dimmock to Macgrath.
"That's all very well, but you'd better not let them cool too long, if you want to get a place in the hurdles with Harvard," granted the coach.
"I was afraid all along we'd have to take him on again," said the other. "He gets better and better on the track all the time, and queerer and queerer every other way. I don't trust him."
"He's a second Popham," said Macgrath.
About a week before the Harvard meet Dimmock approached the second Popham and with very commendable absence of anything like false pride asked him if he would please put himself under Macgrath's orders for the next few days and run in the meet. Harry graciously consented. He hurdled abominably badly for a week, showing neither form nor speed; then he hurdled against Harvard and beat their best men by a safe margin. He won a first place, and his Y.
But that did not make him any more popular in the track world.
Later in the spring Beatrice came on for a visit, anxious to see the university that Harry had preferred to Oxford. She and Lady Fletcher stayed with Aunt Selina; presently Aunt Miriam went on and left Beatrice alone there. She and Aunt Selina struck up one of those unaccountable intimacies that occasionally arise between people of widely different ages.
"I do like your relations," she once told Harry; "Ilike your country and your university and your friends well enough, but I like your people even better. I like your Uncle James, though I'm scared to death of him, and Aunt Cecilia of course is a dear; but I like Aunt Selina best. I never saw such a person! I didn't know you had her type in America. She makes Aunt Miriam look like a vulgar, blatant little upstart!"
"I know," said Harry, laughing. "Did you tell Aunt Miriam that?"
"Something to that effect, yes. She laughed, and said that she had always felt that way in her presence, too.—There's more about Aunt Selina than that, though; there's something wonderfully human about her, at bottom. I have an idea she could get nearer to me, if she wanted to, than almost any one else, just because her true self is so rare and remote."
Both Harry and James saw a good deal of Beatrice during her visit. Harry was supposed to be in training again, and it was his interesting custom to dine discreetly at the training table at six o'clock and then dash out to his aunt's and eat another and much more sumptuous meal at seven. James was scandalized when he heard of this proceeding, but he carefully refrained from saying anything to Harry about it; he merely smiled non-committally when Harry, with a desire of drawing him out, rather flauntingly referred to it.
"A few weeks ago he would have cursed me out," he thought; "lectured me up and down about it. Now he won't say anything because he's afraid it would bring on another scrap." The thought made him feel lonely and miserable.
James was greatly taken with Beatrice; that was quite clear from the first. He was attracted by her beauty, and still more by her apparent indifference to it. He found her more frank and sensible than American girls, whose débutante conventionalities and mannerisms bored and irritated him. He could not conceive of Beatrice "guying" or "kidding him along" on slight acquaintance, as most of his American friends did, or of Beatrice openly dazzling him with her beauty, or using her prerogative of sex by making him "stand around" before other people.
One evening after dinner Beatrice, accompanied by both the brothers, was walking down one drive and up the other,as the family were in the habit of doing on warm spring evenings.
"Are you both prepared to hear something funny?" she asked.
"Fire away," they answered, and she continued:
"Well, I'm probably going to come back here next winter and live with Aunt Selina!"
Harry gave a long whistle.
"This from you! Are you actually going to turn Yankee, too?"
"I'm going to give the Yankees a chance, at any rate! You see, there are reasons why life for me wouldn't be particularly pleasant at home next year.... I'm going back with Aunt Miriam after Commencement, as we had planned, to try to patch it up with Mama, and then, if all parties are agreeable, as I'm pretty sure they will be, I shall come back in the autumn. The idea is for me to keep house for Aunt Selina and be her companion generally. I shall receive a stipend for my valuable services, so that I shall have the comfortable feeling of earning something. Aunt Miriam thinks it's a fine plan. What do you think about it?"
"I think it's simply top-hole, to use the expression of your native land. But won't you find New Haven a trifle dull, after London, and all that?"
"I rather think I shall, but in a different way. I shall be quite busy, and I thought I'd go to some lectures and things in the university and learn something.—Why don't you say something, James?"
"I think it's a wonderful idea." James had been thinking so hard he had forgotten to speak. Did he perhaps regret his lately-made decision not to come back and coach the football team, but to take advantage of a business opening in the Middle West? At any rate, he was startled to observe what a leap his heart gave when Beatrice said she was coming back. Was it possible, he asked himself, that he was really going to care for this girl, with her dark brown eyes and her aloof, aristocratic, unchallenging ways?...
But he was undeniably glad she was coming back, and found occasion to tell her so more fully another time, when they were alone.
"I'm particularly glad," he added, "on Harry's account.He needs some one to keep an eye on him; do you think you can do it?"
"I've done that for some years," said Beatrice, smiling. "I've been more of a brother to him than you have, really. Why on earth did you never come over and see him all that time, James?"
"Heaven knows.... I was lazy; I got in a rut. I wish I had, now."
"Why, nothing's going wrong, I hope?"
"Oh, damnably!—I beg your pardon. When he first came back he did certain things that used to get on my nerves, and I, like a fool, let it go on that way, thinking that he was all wrong and I was all right. It's only lately that I've come to see better ... and now, when he particularly needs some steadying influence, I can't give it to him. You see, he gets on other people's nerves, too; he and his ideas—"
"Ideas?"
"Yes; fool notions he got about the way things are done in England—"
"Isn't that a trifle hard?"
"Oh, the ideas may be all right, but not the way he applies them.... At any rate, they, or something else, are playing the deuce with his college course. He's getting in Dutch, all around—"
"In Dutch," murmured Beatrice. "Oh, I do like that!" But James did not notice the interruption.
"And while I see all this going on I have to stand aside and let it go on, because when I say anything it doesn't do any good, but only irritates him and makes him worse."
"I see. Well, I'm always willing to do what I can for Harry, but I'm afraid I haven't any real influence over him, either."
"Oh, yes, you have. He has the greatest respect for you."
"Not nearly as much as you think." Her usually calm expression was clouded; she seemed disturbed about something. Why did James feel a momentary sinking of the heart when he noticed the seriousness of her face and manner? It was nothing, though; gone again in a second. Beatrice continued, in a more optimistic tone:
"But I honestly don't think, James, that there's much to worry about. I don't mean that he mayn't get intoscrapes, but I don't think that there's anything seriously wrong.... I have always had the greatest faith in him—not only in his intellect, but in his character. So has Uncle G.; he expects great things of him, says he has just that combination of intellect and balance that results in statues in public places."
"The genius in the family is all confined to him; I'm glad you realize that!" James could not help being a little rasped by her harping on the good qualities of his brother, nor could he help showing it a little. He immediately felt rather ashamed of himself, however, for Beatrice replied, in a gently startled tone:
"Why, James, how bitter! You don't expect me to fling bouquets at your very face, surely! I throw them at you when I'm talking to Harry!"
"You must throw a good lot of them, then, for you see him alone often enough," was the somewhat gruff reply. Beatrice must have considered it rather a foolish remark, for she paid no attention to it.
Harry's attitude toward her decision, as expressed in his nexttête-à-têtewith her, was rather different from that of his brother.
"Beatrice," said he, "of course I'm pleased as Punch about your coming here next year, both on my own account and on Aunt Selina's, and all that sort of thing; but I hope you won't think it rude of me if I ask why on earth you're doing it. Of course, I know there are family unpleasantnesses, and that you aren't particularly interested in London balls, but that doesn't explain to me why, when you really do occupy an enviable position over there, get asked everywhere worth going, in season and out, and all that, you should choose to be the paid companion of an old woman in a small New England town. And I don't believe it's Aunt Selina'sbeaux yeux!"
"No!" said Beatrice, laughing; "I don't believe it's quite all that, either!"
"What will people think about it over there?" went on Harry. "What'll your mother say?"
"I'm afraid Mama will be perfectly delighted, even if she doesn't say so," replied Beatrice, serious again. "The truth is, Harry, poor Mama and I don't gee very well, somehow.... Jane is a great comfort to her—a perfect daughter—she came out this year, you know."
"Is she as much of a social success as you?" asked Harrywith that frankness that was characteristic of their relation.
"Much more so—in a way. She uses her gifts to much more effect."
"She's not nearly as good-looking as you," persisted Harry.
It was a remark thoroughly in keeping with the spirit of their comradeship, the kind of remark, expressive of a plain truth, nothing more, that they prided themselves on making and taking between themselves without the least affectation or self-consciousness. Yet Beatrice simply could not keep pleasure from sounding in her voice as she replied:
"Well, no; I suppose not. It's the only thing in which I have the better of her, though. I'm very—"
She began her reply in the old spirit, but could not keep it up. She had started to say, "I'm very glad you think that," then stopped herself, then wished she had gone on. It would have been perfectly consistent with their old "man-to-man" attitude, if she could have said it in the right way!
Harry noticed her halting, and looked up at her quickly. He saw that she was blushing. "Good Heavens!" he thought; "I hope Beatrice doesn't think I'm paying her compliments!" The incident was slight, but it brought a new and disturbing element into their relation. Indeed, in that one little moment they ceased to remain boy and girl in their attitude toward one another, and became man and woman. They met often enough on the old terms of frankness and intimacy, but sex interest and suspicion always lurked in the background, ready to burst out and break up things at any moment.
The spring wore on; Commencement arrived; James was graduated. Aunt Miriam, the James Wimbournes and numerous youthful James Wimbournes came to stay with Aunt Selina and see him graduate. Beatrice was also there and Harry was of course on hand. He took little part in the graduation festivities and amused himself chiefly by showing his two eldest male cousins, Oswald and Jack, the sights of the university and incidentally making them look forward with a healthy dread to the day when as freshmen first they would come to Yale.
"This is the swimming-pool," he would tell them; "itdoesn't look very big now, does it? Perhaps not! But itseemspretty big, I can tell you, when the sophomores dump you in there, in the pitch dark, and tell you it's half a mile to shore and you've got to swim! And you have to scramble out as best you can.Theywon't help you!"
"They don't do that toeveryfreshman, though, do they?" hopefully inquired Oswald, a nice, plump, yellow-haired, wide-eyed youth of fourteen or so, the image of his mother.
"Yes, Muffins, indeed they do, every one, whether they can swim or not," replied Harry seriously. (Oswald was called Muffins because he was considered by his playmates to look like one. This reason usually did not satisfy older people, but after all, they did not know him as well as those of his own age, and had no kick coming, at all.)
"I say, Harry, it's awfully decent of you to tell us all these things beforehand, so that we shall be warned when the time comes!" This from Jack, who was twelve and dark and looked like his father.
"Harold Wimbourne, what on earth have you been telling those children about Yale College?" was Aunt Cecilia's indignant comment on his powers of fiction. "Neither of them slept a wink last night, for thinking about what the sophomores would do to them; and Jack asked me quite seriously if he thought his father would mind much if he went to Harvard instead, because he didn't think he could ever swim well enough to live through his freshman year! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
Harry laughed unfeelingly, and refused to abate one jot of the horrors of hazing. He even wished it were all true, that these innocent and happy boys might have to go through with it all, that some one would ever be miserable in college beside himself. He scarcely spoke to James during the last few days, though James remained cordial and cheery enough toward him. But he was unnaturally cordial and forbearing, and that drove Harry into despair, especially as there was copious reason why James, under normal conditions, should be neither cordial nor forbearing. Harry had, a fortnight or so before Commencement, just after training was broken up, taken part in one of those engagements with the forces of law and order with which undergraduates are wont to relieve the monotony of their humdrumexistence. First there had been strong drink, and plenty of it, after which came a period of vague but delightful irresponsibility, culminating in much broken glass, a clash with policemen and two or three arrests.
Harry had escaped this latter ignominy, but as his name enjoyed equal publicity with those of the more unfortunate revelers, it did him little good. Nothing could possibly be less to the liking of such a person as James, as Harry realized perfectly at the time. He participated in the affair neither because he liked strong drink nor because he disliked policemen, but chiefly with a sort of desperate desire to force James' hand, to make his brother take him severely to task and end their mutual coolness in one rousing scene of recrimination and forgiveness.
But no such thing happened; James did not make the slightest reference to the business! Harry also remained silent on the subject, at first because of his amazement, then out of obstinacy, and finally because he was genuinely hurt. If James preferred that they should be strangers to each other, strangers they should be. Meanwhile James remained silent, of course, not because he did not take enough interest in his brother, but because he took too much. He refrained from mentioning the row because he was afraid that a discussion of it would merely bring on another quarrel, which he wished of all things to avoid.
So the two brothers bade good-by to each other for the summer in misunderstanding and mistrust, though their outward behavior was cordial and brotherly enough. James, who was starting almost immediately for the West, smiled as he shook the hand of his brother, who was going abroad for the holidays and said, "Well, so long; look out for yourself and don't take any wooden money." Harry, also smiling, replied in the same vein; but the smile died on his lips and the words turned to gall in his mouth as he thought what a bitter travesty this was of former partings, when their gaiety was either natural or intended to hide the sorrow of parting, and not, as now, wholly forced and affected to conceal the relief that each could not but feel in being far from the other.
AN ACT OF GOD
It was five o'clock in the afternoon and five degrees above zero. It was also very windy, which made it seem colder to everybody except the thermometer; and as the thermometer alone exhibited signs of being able to stand a temperature of twenty or thirty or even forty degrees colder without suffering disagreeable consequences, that seemed rather unfair. For the wind, which was blowing not in hysterical gusts but in the calm, relentless, all-day-and-all-night, forty-to sixty-mile gale that you only get west of the Great Lakes,didmake it colder; there was no doubt about that. Else why did every one keep out of it as much as possible; walk on the protected side of the street, seek shelter in doorways while waiting for trolley cars, and so forth? Of course the wind made you colder; so much colder that when you were sheltered from it, if only for a moment, you felt comparatively warm, though it was still five degrees above zero. Unless, that is, you happened to be standing over one of those grated openings in the sidewalk that belched forth their welcome though inexplicable gusts of warm air into the outer world; if you could get a place over one of those—gee, but you were the lucky guy!
That was the way you phrased it, at any rate, if you happened to be twelve years old and a newsboy with an income of—well, say thirty dollars a year, if that sounds sufficiently insufficient to provide anything approaching decent clothes, decent food and a decent place to live. If not, make it as little as you like. The point is that the annual income of a certain ten-year-old newsboy, by name of Stodger McClintock, was preeminently, magnificently insufficient to provide any of those commodities. As a consequence of which, Stodger was cold. As another consequence of which Stodger, the gay, the debonair, the unemotional, the anything but tearfully inclined, was very nearly in tears. People do actually suffer from the cold occasionally, even in this effete and over-protected age,and Stodger was suffering. The volcanic opening was all very well, but he could not stay there long. And the prospects for the night were bad, and bad even for supper....
There were tears in James' eyes also as he hurried along from work, but they were entirely due to the wind. As soon as he perceived Stodger, however, who dashed out at him with the customary "Here's yer paper, mister!" at an unexpected place in the side street instead of at the corner as per custom, he realized that his (Stodger's) tears were not entirely due to the wind.
"Well, Stodger! What are you doing down here?" he cried cheerfully.
"Trine t' git woim." Stodger's diction at best was imperfect and it was now further impeded by a certain nasal fluency, the joint result of the cold and contemplation of domestic imperfections. But James understood, perfectly well.
"Well, Stodger, it is cold, I'll have to grant you that!" he rejoined, and instituted fumbling operations into the pocket where he kept his loose silver. "Give me aStarand aSunand aMercury, too, will you? This is no time for economy; the announcement of the all-American football team is out to-night. Give me one of every paper you have!"
Pecuniary transaction ensued, parallel with conversation.
"And how doyoulike this weather, Stodger?"
"Me? Oh,Idon't mind."
"Don't you? Well, I do, I'm afraid. This is just a little too cold for my pleasure. But then I'm not a husk, like you."
"Well—" there was concession in Stodger's voice—"it's loike this. Some guys minds it, 'n' then they don't like t' unbutton their coats 'n' fork out a penny fer a paper. 'N' that makes bum bizniss. See?" Print is miserably inadequate to give an idea of Stodger's consonants.
"I see. Stodger, did you ever hear of an act of God?"
"Huh?"
"Well, never mind. A cold snap like this is an act of God. Some natural cataclysm, something that can't be prevented or even foreseen. Well, sir, opposed as I am to indiscriminate giving, I'm going to break a rule this time. All bets are off when an act of God comes along. Here'shalf a dollar. Can you get something to eat and keep yourself warm over night with that?"
"Sure I kin." Stodger grinned broadly for a second or two; then his face clouded. "Aw, naw. Not off you. I couldn't take that off you." He meant that only fools gave away money, and he did not want to put James in that category.
"Why not?" James' smile, his unruffled good-humor, had their effect. Surely a god that smiled and looked like that could not be quite a fool, even if he gave away money. "Now stop your guff; take the cash and cut along. So long!... That was my trolley, dash it; you and your confounded scruples have made me miss my car, Stodger!... Well, let's take a look at the all-American football team. Stoddard of Harvard, Brown of the Army, Steele of Michigan...." He ran his eye down the list till interrupted by a sharp exclamation from his friend.
"Gee, but he's a bum choice!"
"Who?"
"Steele."
"Steele? Oh, I'm not so sure. He's death on running back punts...."
"Aw, heisnot! I tell yer, he couldn't hang onto a punt if 'twas handed to him on flypaper by a dago in a dress suit, let alone run with it! My ole gran'mudder c'n run better'n him, any day!" Domestic troubles being for the nonce in abeyance Stodger was in a mood to let his tongue run free on a favorite topic.
"Well, we'll have to put your grandmother in at all-America left half next year." Stodger knew as well as anybody when he was being laughed at, and held his peace. "I didn't know you were such a football fan, Stodger."
"Aw, yes. I'm some fan." This without enthusiasm, in the bored tone in which one agrees to the statement of a self-evident fact.
"Well, I wonder. Stodger, do you think you could recognize any all-America player if you saw him on the street, in ordinary togs?"
"Sure I could."
"How many years back?"
"T'ree years ... oh, more; four, five years, mebbe!"
"Well, I'm afraid you lose, Stodger!"
"Aw, gwawn! Try me an' see!"
"You've lost already, I tell you. You've been talking to an all-America player for the last ten minutes and never knew it!"
"Aw, wotcha trine t' hand me! Run along 'n' tell it to the cop on the corner! Tell it to me gran'mudder, if you like;she'll believe yer! You can't slip one like that onme, I tell yer!" Stodger's contempt was magnificent, but he rather marred the effect of it by adding suspiciously "Wotcheer?" which amounted to a confession that he might be wrong, after all.
"Two years ago. Take a good look now, Stodger; see if you can't recognize me." James turned so that the sunset glow fell more strongly on his face. Stodger looked with all his eyes, but remained unconvinced.
"Line, er back?" he inquired.
"Back."
"I gotcha now! Wimboine! Wimboine! Right half! Yale!" But experience had taught him that such dreams usually fade, and he went on, disappointed: "Aw, naw. Can't slipthaton me. You're not that Wimboine. You look a little bit like him, but you're notthatWimboine. Brudder, p'raps.You'reno football player."
"Why not?"
"Too thin.Youc'd never tear through the line th' waythatfeller did."
"Oh, rot; we'll end this, here and now." James fumbled at length beneath his fur coat and produced the end of a watch-chain on which dangled a little gold football with his name, that of his college and the date of his achievement on it. Stodger, convinced, simply stared. It was as though Jupiter had stepped right down from Olympus. James, with a smile at his consternation, resumed his paper for the last minute or two before his car arrived.
"Say, mister! Mister Wimboine! You got my tail twisted that time, all right! I'm a goat, I'm a simp, I'm a boob! You got my number! Call me wotch like!"
"All right, Stodger, I will." James spoke and smiled through his reading. He had almost ceased to think of Stodger, who was more entertaining when incredulous, and was reading merely to kill time till his car arrived. Stodger's tongue was still wagging:—
"Say, dey was a guy useter live down Chicago calledSchmidt—Slugger Schmidt, that was a cracker jack—middle-weight—ever hear of him? I knew him, oncet ... he had a little practise bout wid Riley th' other night—you know, Hurrican Riley?—and laid him out in t'ree roun's.... Say, mister, there goes yer car! That's the Poik Street car went!"
"What? Oh, did it? Never mind; I'm going to walk." James was off; off almost before the words were out of his mouth, and Stodger, struck by the sudden curtness of his tone was afraid he had outraged the feelings of the god. Mister Wimboine had clearly been deeply displeased about something, and Stodger was sure it must have been something more than the all-America football team.
Of course Stodger was not really responsible for James' displeasure and his sudden determination to walk the three miles that lay between him and his club and dinner, any more than was the composition of the all-America football team. It was something much more serious; something that made bodily exercise imperative lest cerebration around and around one little particular point should make him dizzy. For it was a very small thing that cerebration was busy on, even if it did represent a great deal to James; only a tiny paragraph at the bottom of the first page of one of the evening papers. The single headline had first caught his eye:—"Rates Heartache at $40,000," and then with unbelieving eyes he read on: "New Haven, Conn., Dec. 8. Myrtle Mowbray, a manicure living in this city, has filed a suit of breach of promise of marriage for $40,000 in the Superior Court here against Harold Wimbourne, a student in Yale University. Mr. Wimbourne is a member of an old and prominent New Haven family. He is a senior in the academic department."
A sort of mental and emotional nausea overcame James as the meaning of those lines sank into his brain. The vulgar, degrading cynicism of the headline! Breach of promise, scandal, newspaper publicity—that was the sort of thing that happened to other people, not to one's self. Such things simply did not occur in families one knew, much less in families by the name of Wimbourne. James had always thought of that name as apart, aloof from such things, exempt from all undesirable publicity. His family pride was none the less strong for being so unconscious, so dormant; now that it was outraged it flamed forth in a scorching blaze.
So loathing gave way to anger, and anger lasted a full mile and a half. It would have lasted longer if it had been concentrated on one person or thing, instead of directed against several persons, several things, several sets of circumstances, the order of things in general. For James was not angry at Harry alone; even he realized that before the mile and a half were up. He was angry at him at first, but that soon passed off somewhat; his anger seemed even to be seeking other objects, unconsciously—the Mowbray woman, Uncle James, himself, Yale University, the whole nature of man.
But cerebration had a chance to get in a good deal of its fell work during those three miles. As he swung open the front door of the club and passed into the main lobby, with its teeming confusion of electric lights and bellboys, he was conscious of nothing but a quiet, deep, corroding disgust that seemed to be as old as all time. It seemed as if he had known of this disgrace for years; had almost had time to outlive it, in fact. His first impulse was to go into the bar and annex himself to one of the cheerful groups that would be congregating there at this hour, and turn his mind to something else. But almost immediately he remembered that practically every one there would also have read the evening paper, and he shuddered at the thought of their pitying glances.
Automatically following his daily custom he cheeked his coat and hat at the cloak room and collected his mail from his post-box. Then he went straight to the one room in the club where he thought he was likely to be alone; a small reading-room usually popular in the afternoon but deserted by early evening. He found it empty, as he had expected. With a sigh of relief he turned out all the electric lights and threw himself on a couch in front of the open wood fire—a graceful though unnecessary compliment on the part of the club management to meteorological conditions.
But unluckily his glance fell on the unopened letters he still held in his hand, and immediately his trouble was on him again. One of them he recognized as coming from his Uncle James and the other, bearing the post-mark of New Haven, was from Beatrice. With a slight groan of combined resignation and disgust he tore open his uncle's letter and read it by the flickering light of the fire.
Dear James:Your young brother has made more of a mess of it than we hoped would be the case. The Mowbray woman has brought suit for $40,000, and is likely to get it, or a good part of it, according to Raynham, whom I saw about the business yesterday. She has letters and a spoken promise in the presence of witnesses. We have nothing except the knowledge that Harry was drunk when he wrote the letters and drunk when he spoke the words, which is not much comfort. Still, Raynham thinks she can be made to settle out of court, especially if we take our time. We have got to show her first that the world will not come to an end because a Wimbourne has been mixed up with a woman—which it won't. It will be a matter, Raynham thinks, of $15,000 at least; probably more."What is going to become of the boy? Have you any influence over him? If not, who has? It is about time somebody exerted some on him, other than bad. He has much to fight against.Your aunt sends her love. Your affect. uncle,James Wimbourne.
Dear James:Your young brother has made more of a mess of it than we hoped would be the case. The Mowbray woman has brought suit for $40,000, and is likely to get it, or a good part of it, according to Raynham, whom I saw about the business yesterday. She has letters and a spoken promise in the presence of witnesses. We have nothing except the knowledge that Harry was drunk when he wrote the letters and drunk when he spoke the words, which is not much comfort. Still, Raynham thinks she can be made to settle out of court, especially if we take our time. We have got to show her first that the world will not come to an end because a Wimbourne has been mixed up with a woman—which it won't. It will be a matter, Raynham thinks, of $15,000 at least; probably more.
"What is going to become of the boy? Have you any influence over him? If not, who has? It is about time somebody exerted some on him, other than bad. He has much to fight against.
Your aunt sends her love. Your affect. uncle,
James Wimbourne.
In spite of his fatigue and his disgust, James smiled as he finished the letter. It was so characteristic of Uncle James; the most conventional sentences, the ones that seemed to mean least, really meant the most. "Your aunt sends her love"; only a person who knew Uncle James could appreciate the consciously suppressed humor of that phrase. As if Aunt Cecilia were not in such a vortex of conflicting emotions over the affair that such a conventional message would not be as far from her as Bagdad! "He has much to fight against"; Harry had much to fight against; Uncle James knew what, and he knew that James also knew. Connotative meanings like these more than atoned for the unflinching frankness of certain other phrases.
On the whole, James felt better for having read the letter, and opened Beatrice's with a lighter heart.
Dear James; (he read)Jack Trotwood has just been here and told me that that unspeakable woman is actually going to sue Harry for breach of promise. I tried to get him to tell more, but hesaid that that was all he had been able to get out of Harry. It's too awful! You can imagine what a time I've been through, seeing him at least once a week and not being able to say a word about the whole business. I've had to depend on Jack Trotwood for all my information, and naturally he hasn't wanted to say much. Do you mean to say Harry hasn't written you all this term? I cannot understand it at all.Aunt Selina seems quite cut up about it, and wishes you were here. 'Tell James to come,' she said when I told her I would write you. I must confess, though, that I don't see what good you could do—now. Of course, terrible as this suit is, it does relieve things in one way, at least. Once we're quite sure it's merely money she's after, it doesn't seem quite so bad. I even think it is better now than it was early in the autumn, when we thought he was actually fond of her.There is no other news to give you; as you can imagine, we have not been thinking of much else. Poor Harry, how sorry I am for him! How much I wish I could help him, and how little I can do!As ever yours,Beatrice.
Dear James; (he read)
Jack Trotwood has just been here and told me that that unspeakable woman is actually going to sue Harry for breach of promise. I tried to get him to tell more, but hesaid that that was all he had been able to get out of Harry. It's too awful! You can imagine what a time I've been through, seeing him at least once a week and not being able to say a word about the whole business. I've had to depend on Jack Trotwood for all my information, and naturally he hasn't wanted to say much. Do you mean to say Harry hasn't written you all this term? I cannot understand it at all.
Aunt Selina seems quite cut up about it, and wishes you were here. 'Tell James to come,' she said when I told her I would write you. I must confess, though, that I don't see what good you could do—now. Of course, terrible as this suit is, it does relieve things in one way, at least. Once we're quite sure it's merely money she's after, it doesn't seem quite so bad. I even think it is better now than it was early in the autumn, when we thought he was actually fond of her.
There is no other news to give you; as you can imagine, we have not been thinking of much else. Poor Harry, how sorry I am for him! How much I wish I could help him, and how little I can do!
As ever yours,
Beatrice.
This letter was less comforting than the other. Beatrice's words seemed to James to carry a veiled reproach with them; to implicate him much more closely in Harry's disgrace than he had as yet thought of implicating himself. "I don't see what good you could do—now;" "better now than it was in the early autumn—" such sentences could not but have their sting for the sensitive mind, and James was sensitive when Harry was concerned, and even more so when Beatrice was.
Had he been negligent in regard to Harry? Oh, yes, he was perfectly willing to admit that he had, now that he came to think it over, though he would rather have had anybody other than Beatrice point out the fact to him—and that, doubtless, was because a comment from Beatrice would have twice the force of the same comment uttered by any one else. He had never really put himself out for Harry in any way, since the days when England seemed too far for him to venture to discover what the years weremaking of him. In the critical period of his senior and Harry's sophomore year he had shown himself entirely incapable of giving the friendship and sympathy and guidance that were needed. Jack Trotwood, and not he himself, had been Harry's best friend, in every sense of the phrase, for three years and more. And after graduation, he had come to Minneapolis.
Then this degrading affair with the manicure. James had heard of that first through Beatrice, for Harry's letters, which had arrived at regular, though rather long, intervals, had ceased abruptly in September, at the beginning of the college year. That had been almost a relief to James. Harry's letters had been calculated to widen rather than bridge the gulf between them. They had been amusing and always cleverly written. A letter written on the previous Tap Day, dated conspicuously "Thursday, May 18, 7P.M." (two hours after Harry had failed to receive an election to any senior society) had been a perfect masterpiece of omission. It ran pleasantly along on the weather, the outward appearance of the university, sundry little incidents of no importance or interest, the economic condition of the country—everything except Tap Day, himself, anything that would interest James. This letter had irritated James beyond all expression, yet at the same time he admired it for what it was worth, and hated himself for admiring it.
And so, as he was obliged to learn from other sources of Harry's missing a senior society, so he was dependent on others for all his informationin reMyrtle Mowbray. In October Beatrice had written him that Harry had been seen much in the society of the woman, who conducted her business in connection with a barber shop situated conveniently for the patronage of the student body. Jack Trotwood had also written, somewhat timidly, to the same effect, evidently much perplexed about where his truest duty to Harry lay. Apparently there had been motor parties to neighboring country inns, more or less conspicuous carryings-on in restaurants about town, and so forth. Such tidings became more and more acute for a month, and then ceased. There was reason for hoping that the nonsense was all over. Then the thunderbolt of to-day.
James had not really been much worried, before to-day. He had caught a glimpse of "the Mowbray woman," as he always thought of her, one day in the previous June, while in New Haven for Commencement. He had been strolling along Chapel Street with a group of classmates, and one of them called his attention to a female form emerging from a shop door, giving in a discreet undertone a brief explanation of her celebrity, ending with a vivid word of commendation—"Some fluff." James looked, and saw a pretty face. It had been but a fraction of a second, and the face was turned away from him; but it was enough to leave quite a lasting impression on his mind—an impression that had not been without its effect on his reception of the news of Harry's infatuation. A pretty face! Well, when all was said and done, Harry had not been the first man of his acquaintance to become enamored of a pretty face—and get over it. He did not approve of the alleged infatuation; the thought of it gave him considerable uneasiness. But, helped out by the impression, his optimistic temperament had battled with the uneasiness and in the end overcome it; prevented it, certainly, from growing into anything like anxiety, anything that would necessitate drastic and disturbing measures, such as pulling up stakes, for instance, and hurrying New Haven-ward.... Oh, how loathsomely lazy and indifferent he had been, now that he looked back on it all!
A pretty face! The memory of it was still sharply out-lined on the back of James' brain and drove introspection and self-recrimination into momentary abeyance. A clear, slightly olive complexion, rising to a faint pink on the cheeks—artificial? Not as he remembered it; there was no suggestion of the chorus-girl—sharply-drawn eyebrows and dark hair. Above, a hat of some sort; below, a suit, preferably of dark blue serge. The impression had been recurrent in James' mind during these past months; not soon after it was received, in the summer; since then. There was something irritating and tantalizing about this circumstance; it was as though the impression had been strengthened by a second view. Where had he seen that face again, if at all? Yes, he had seen it, somewhere; he was almost certain of it. He was absolutely certain of it; he could remember everything—except the time and place. Which after all were important adjuncts to definite recollection—!No, he would not laugh himself out of it; he was sure. He would remember all about it some time when he least expected it.
He left it at that, and listlessly lay at full length watching the fire and allowing his thoughts to wander from the all-absorbing topic and its octopus-like ramifications. The fire was fascinating to watch; he loved open fires and wished they would have one in this room every evening. It would be almost like a home to come back to, after work. It was particularly pleasant to watch, like this, in an otherwise dark room, as it cast its intermittent flare on the walls and furniture. It brought out the rich warm tones in the brown leather of the chairs and the oak of the wainscot, and picked out small particles of gilt here and there in the ceiling decoration, and set them twinkling back in a cheerful, drowsy way. From the dim outside world beyond the open door came occasional sounds of club life; the distant clatter of crockery, the swish of a passing elevator, a voice finding fault with a club servant. James listened to them at first, in a half-amused, idle sort of way; then gradually they faded from his consciousness and he was aware of nothing but the fire and its flickering yellow light.
He watched the fire intently, absorbedly, with the lazy concentration with which a tired brain often fastens itself on some physical object, as though to crowd out other thoughts clamoring for admittance. The fire was beginning to burn low now, with flames that never rose more than a few inches above the logs. Every few moments a small quantity of half-burnt wood dropped off and fell to the glowing bed of coals beneath, and the flames broke out afresh in the place it fell from. James watched this process with a growing sense of expectancy; he seemed to be always waiting, waiting for the next fall; yet when the next fall came he was still waiting.... Was it only the fall of the coals that he was waiting for? It must be something else, something that had nothing to do with the fire at all; something much more important; something that he longed not to have come, yet, and at the same time wished were over.... He seemed now not to be lying at full length, but sitting on the broad arm of a chair. The fire-light's glow fell no longer on leather and oak, but on old flowered chintz and mahogany.... Now he wassitting no longer; he was bending over—bending low over something white; turning his ear so as to catch certain words that some one was uttering in a whisper; words that were indelibly burnt on his brain; words that were as inseparable from his being as life....
Then in an instant the room, the fire, everything vanished; and in their place, filling his whole consciousness—that face! He knew it perfectly now, exactly when, where, all about it; no room for mistake or doubt any more! He started upright on the couch; his whole world seemed suddenly illumined by a blinding flash of light. In another instant he was aware that somebody had turned on the electric light, and of a face staring quizzically into his. He heard a voice.
"Hello, you all alone in here, Wimbourne? You must be fond of the dark!—What are you looking so all-fired pleased about, I wonder?"
"Oh—Laffan! How are you?... Nothing much; I just thought of something, that's all."
"Congratulations on your thoughts. I'm looking for some one to dine with; I suppose you've eaten? It's late—"
"Whew—nearly eight! No, I've not eaten; shall we go up together?"
They started to leave the room, but James stopped abruptly in the doorway, suddenly practical, master of himself, of the whole situation.
"I say, Laffan, you're a lawyer, aren't you?"
"I attempt to be."
"Well, I want to consult you, professionally, if you'll let me. Consider me a client! Now, what I want to know is this; suppose a—"
"Oh, rot, man—not on an empty stomach! Come along upstairs; you can tell me all about it while you eat!"
SARDOU
About a week later James went to the head of his firm, the classmate's father who had offered him his position, and asked for a few days' leave of absence.
"Why didn't you go to Smith?" said his employer, naming the head of the department in which James was working.
"I didn't think he'd let me off without your leave, sir."
"Hm.... You must go, must you?"
"I'm afraid I must. Indeed, I'm bound to say, sir, that I shall go, leave or no leave."
"Hm. Well, you can go; but if you take more than half a week it'll have to come off your annual vacation."
"Thank you, sir, I shan't need more than that," said James and the interview was closed. No word was spoken of the reason for James' departure. Jonathan McClellan, founder and owner of the McClellan Automobile Company, knew a thing or two beside how to run an automobile business. He also read the papers.
That was on a Thursday. In the course of the evening James conducted an interview with his friend Laffan and at midnight or thereabouts he took train for Chicago. He proceeded next day to New York, and thence, on Saturday, to New Haven, arriving there early in the afternoon.
He went straight from the station to the law offices of Messrs. Raynham and Rummidge and remained there upwards of half an hour. Every sign of satisfaction was visible on his face as he emerged, but Raynham, who escorted him to the outer door, seemed not nearly so well pleased.
"I wish you'd change your mind, even now, and leave it to us," he said, just loud enough for the stenographer in the outer office not to hear.
"Plain enough sailing, now," replied James, smiling encouragingly. "I don't think you need to worry."
"Well, if you get into trouble, don't lose your head oryour temper, or try to bluff. Just say you'll leave the rest to your lawyers, and get out!"
James proceeded up Chapel Street in excellent spirits. A light snow was falling, melting on the pavements but covering the grassy expanse of the Green with a soft white blanket, and bringing each gaunt black branch of the elm trees into strong relief. James walked on the Green side of the street, so as to avoid the greetings of possible acquaintances, and kept his eyes on the broad square. He noticed that some elm trees had been clipped and others felled since he had last been in town; he was sorry to see them go and wished the authorities could find some way of preserving them better....
He walked unhesitatingly into the shop and, disregarding the obsequious gestures of the line of barbers, went straight to the very end, where he knew he would find her, with her glass-topped table and her instruments and her disgusting little basin.... She was there, but a broad black back obtruded itself in front of her.
"One moment," she said, looking up and smiling.
James retreated a few steps to a row of chairs placed there for the use of the expectant. He sat down, and cursed himself for a fool. What business had he here? Why hadn't he left it all to Raynham, like a sensible person? He knew he would mess it all now, in spite of everything; he remembered stories of commanders who had been ousted out of impregnable positions by the mere confident attitude of their opponents. It was her appearance, her manner, her faultless smile, that unnerved him. It was, as he mentally phrased it to himself, because she looked "so damned refined." Never had he dreamed it would be as bad as this.
The black back shuffled inchoately out of his vision; his moment had come. He walked forward.
"You are Miss Mowbray, are you not?" he asked, speaking slowly and steadying his voice with difficulty.
"Yes?"
"My name is Wimbourne. I think you know my brother.... I would like to talk to you, if I might. When will you be at liberty?"
"Why shouldn't we talk right here?" she said cheerfully. "If you'll sit down there.... You had better let me tend to your nails—they need it."
"Very well." James sat down. He felt his courage returning;her self-possession stimulated him. Not one shadow of a change of expression had passed over her face when he told her he was Harry's brother; her manner remained the perfection of professional cordiality. Well, if she could show nerve, he could, too.
She filled her bowl with warm water and arranged her instruments with perfect composure. When she was ready James surrendered his right hand.
"Miss Mowbray," he began at length, "as I understand the matter, you are suing my brother for breach of promise. Is that right?"
"It is."
"Well, I'm sorry. It's a bad business. Bad for you as well as for him, because you can't possibly win. Now, Miss Mowbray, I will be frank with you. You are not going to get that forty thousand dollars—your suit will not even get into court. I know that, but I don't want to have to go into the reasons why. I don't want scenes, I hate them; I want to make this interview as easy and as short as possible, so I will open it with an offer. I will give you five hundred dollars if you will agree to withdraw your suit and clear out of town, within a week. Do you accept?"
"I do not." Her smile was more than cordial now, there was pity in it. "Why do you suppose I took the trouble to sue for forty thousand dollars, if I would be content with five hundred, Mr. Wimbourne?"
"Oh, must we go into arguments? Why can't you simply take my word for it that your suit is impossible, and close with me? Five hundred dollars—think what it means! It would pay all your costs and leave you enough to start in with somewhere else."
"The sum is just eighty times too small."
"You won't, then? Think it over a little! I'll leave the offer open for five minutes; you needn't answer definitely till then."
James was thoroughly sure of himself and at ease now; he smiled to himself with a certain grim pleasure at his little touch of melodrama, reminiscent of—what? Sardou? A common trick, of course, but never without its effect. He ceased thinking about it, and watched the clock. Presently he was aware that his companion, always busy with her scraping and cleaning and rubbing, was speaking in a low, calm voice.
"No, Mr. Wimbourne, I am not quite the fool you take me for, I'm afraid. You may not know it, but your brother has treated me very badly. He deserves to be punished. A man cannot make a fool of a woman, as he has of me, and get off scot free. There is such a thing as law and justice for those that are abused, and I have been abused. I should be very silly now if I did not go on and take all that is coming to me. I shall only be taking my right, Mr. Wimbourne; remember that. Fun is all very well if it is innocent fun; but when it hurts other people it has to be paid for."
"The five minutes are up," said James; "but I will willingly extend the time if there is any chance of your reconsidering. What do you think?"
No answer. James watched her calm face, with its pleasing and well-chiseled features, enlivened now by only the merest suggestion of a smile that was not really there, but still seemed latent, ready for instant use if called upon. About the mouth hung a shade of impatience, of obstinacy; anything else? No, assuredly no, search as he would. She was extraordinary!
"Oh, dear," he said with a gentle sigh, "you will go in for all the unpleasantness, I'm afraid.... Miss Mowbray, you have no right to sue my brother for breach of promise. You have been acting under false pretenses to him from the first. You were married to a man called Edward Jennings, in the city of Minneapolis, on the 3rd of last September."
"You have proofs, no doubt?" The tone was sharp and defiant, the smile scornful and satirical, but she did blench—no doubt of it. James' heart leaped within him.
"Oh, yes—lots, right here in my breast pocket. Tiresome things, but lawyers love them. If you will release my right hand for a moment—" He chose to smile ingratiatingly at her, and it gave him a little thrill of revenge to observe how obviously forced her answering smile was. She was not proof against her own weapons. But his triumph faded almost immediately, and pity took its place. Poor thing, what a ridiculous game she had been playing! How could it possibly succeed? Could she not have known that some one who knew of her marriage would be sure to turn up at the wrong moment and spoil the whole affair? She looked so small, so defenseless, so crumpled as she sat there, waiting for him to produce his proofs; surely she was nevermade for this sort of a career! Then her smiles of a little while ago came back to him, and he reflected that perhaps she was, after all.
"First, here is a little history of your career. You were born in Minneapolis, June 16, 188-. At the age of sixteen you went to New York City, where you entered the theatrical profession. For some years you were on the vaudeville stage, playing occasionally in New York, but mostly on the road. Your stage name was Rosa Montagu. You left the profession about three years ago, and have been engaged in this place as manicure for a little less than two years. You resumed the name of Myrtle Mowbray, which as far as I can make out is your own, on leaving the stage, but you were married, last September, under your stage name. Here is a copy of your marriage lines, sworn to by the Minneapolis License Bureau. Here is a photograph of you as Rosa Montagu...." "Suppose you let me finish manicuring your hands, Mr. Wimbourne." James replaced the papers in his pocket and his hand on the glass-topped table, and professional duties were resumed. They continued in silence for some time; neither party really had much to say now. It occurred to James that even now she might be trying to take him in by her indifference, to "bluff" him; but a careful study of her face dispelled the idea. He admired her nerve now no less than before.
"Are you satisfied, Miss Mowbray?" he asked at length.
"No. I'm beaten, though." James liked the reply immensely; liked, also, the manner in which it was given—hardly betraying anything more than good-humored disgust.
"When can I see you again to-day or to-morrow?" he asked again after a short pause. "There will be papers to sign, and that sort of thing."
"Is it possible that Mr. Raynham sent you out without a written statement for me to sign in your pocket?" she rejoined, looking fearlessly up at him.
"No—that is—yes, he did." Of course he had not, but James was already planning a littlecoupof his own not included in Mr. Raynham's arrangements.
"Well, could you come back here this evening? Toward ten? We close then, on Saturdays."
"Very well."
Both were silent for some time. At last, when the manicuring was almost completed, James said with a sudden burst of friendly curiosity:
"Honestly, Miss Mowbray, why did you do it? Get married to him first, I mean."
She looked coldly up at him. "I really don't see why I should answer that question, Mr. Wimbourne."
"Of course not. There's not the slightest reason why you should answer it, if you don't want to."
She was not proof against his candor or his smile. She smiled back, in spite of herself, without rancor or affectation.
"I have an idea that you are quite an unusual young man, Mr. Wimbourne. You are, without doubt, the worst enemy I have in the world, and yet you give me the impression of being a friend. I think I like you better than your brother."
James made no reply to this, but only reddened slightly, and she went on:
"I married him because I lacked the courage not to. I was afraid to burn my bridges behind me. He had been wanting me to for a long time, and at the last he became very impatient.... It was the only way I could keep him, and I dared not let him go. Things had not been going well here.... So I went back and married him, on condition that it was to be kept an absolute secret. I was determined to come out here and try my luck for one more year.... Of course I was very sorry that I did it, this fall. But I determined to go through with ... the business, for there was a big prize at stake."
"And you never knew he had a brother in Minneapolis?"
"No—he simply told me he had an elder brother in the West. I had no suspicion of anything; it seemed perfectly safe. How did you find out, anyway, if I may ask?"
"I happened to see you—perhaps a minute after you were married, coming out of the marriage license office, with a man. Compromising! You had been pointed out to me before, here, so I knew what you looked like. But what made you so keen to go through with—with the business? You don't look like that kind, somehow...."
She gave the last finishing touch to his hand and started to gather up her belongings before replying. "You don't know what it is not to have plenty of money, Mr. Wimbourne,or you would not ask that question. You don't know what it is to watch other people sailing by in sixty horsepower limousines and realize that you would look every bit as well there as any of them, and better than most, and to realize, above all, that you could make so much more out of your wealth than most of them. I am under no delusions about myself; I know perfectly well that I'm not a manicure type. I have brains, I have good looks, I have social possibilities. Only, I happened to be born without money or social position, and the handicap is too great.... Well, it's all up now. There's no hope for anything better now."
The tone in which she spoke these words was so perfectly quiet and resigned, so utterly lacking in vulgar desire to advertise her woes, that James felt deeply moved. He could not think of anything to say to reassure or encourage her. Presently he blurted out, desperately:
"You've got a good husband in Edward Jennings, anyway. He's a good chap, according to all accounts...."
She smiled, deprecatorily. "He's a nice boy. But he'll never make any money."
James made up an excuse to consult Mr. Raynham again, and after that walked the snow-covered streets till dinner time. His first impulse was to look up Harry, but he discarded the idea; he would not see him, Aunt Selina, any one, till his task was done, every detail completed. He dined alone in an obscure restaurant and with some difficulty succeeded in frittering away the time till ten o'clock, at which hour he returned to the barber shop on Chapel Street.
He proceeded at once to business, taking out two papers which he gave to Miss Mowbray to sign. She read and signed without comment. When she had finished he said: "Would you mind delivering this for me?" and handed her an unsealed envelope bearing the simple superscription "Mr. Edward Jennings."
Miss Mowbray fingered the envelope indecisively a moment; then she opened it and took out the contents.
She rose from her seat and glanced apprehensively at James. "I can't—we—thank you, but I simply can't accept this," she whispered.
"Nobody asked you to do anything, except deliver the letter," replied James cheerfully. "I'd like to know whatbusiness you have opening other people's letters, anyway. It isn't nice.—Wedding present, you know," he went on, with a change of voice; "I'm rather hoping to have the honor of giving you your first. Please try to make him accept it from me, won't you? Good-by!"
He shook her hand quickly and was actually off before she had time to offer another word of objection.
He made his way straight across the snowy street to Harry's rooms in Vanderbilt Hall. There was no answer to his knock, but the door yielded to a turn of the knob—how like Harry to leave it unlocked! The room was dark and empty, but he went in and found the embers of a fire dying on the hearth. He threw off his hat and overcoat, struck a light and looked about for materials with which to rebuild the fire.
In a few minutes the logs were blazing merrily before him. He turned out the gas, drew up an armchair and sat down in front of the fire to wait for Harry.