VI

My dear Emily:I should be very pleased if you would dine with us this evening at half past seven.Most sincerely yours,Maude Lanier.

My dear Emily:

I should be very pleased if you would dine with us this evening at half past seven.

Most sincerely yours,Maude Lanier.

“But that’s the old note!” she cried.

Jumping up, she looked in the desk to see if the other was missing. There it was, and, taking it out, she compared the two. Except for the date, they were exactly alike, word for word. That made her laugh, and laughter gave her courage.

“I shan’t go!” she thought. “I’m tired, and I don’twantto go! I don’t have to rush off every time I’m sent for!”

She reached out for the telephone at the bedside and, with admirable poise, asked for and obtained the hotel where the elder Mrs. Lanier was living. It seemed somehow an audacious, almost an arrogant thing, to telephone to that majestic creature while lying in bed with her hair down. And to refuse her invitation! It was an adventure—it was thrilling!

But when Mrs. Lanier’s voice came to her over the wire, all Emily’s exultation fled.

“You can’t come?” said Denis’s mother. “That’s most unfortunate!”

There was more than chilly indifference in her tone. There was actual hostility, and something very like a threat.

“You see,” Emily explained, “I’m awfully tired, and—”

“If you will be at home, we shall call after dinner,” said Mrs. Lanier. “Will you be alone?”

“Yes, of course,” Emily answered, with as much cordiality as she could manage.

After she had hung up the receiver, the odd intonation of that word “alone” still sounded in her ears. Wasn’t she always alone? Ever since Denis had gone she had had no visitor, except one of the girls from the office where she had formerly been employed. She had seen no one.

Not that she cared for that. This new life, this new dignity, the delights of buying new books to read and new clothes to wear, of eating in the restaurant downstairs, of going to a matinée now and then, and, above all, of writing immense letters to Denis every evening, had filled her time in the most satisfactory fashion.

“Who did she imagine would be here?” she thought, puzzled. “Some of my awful friends that she couldn’t bear to see? I just wish Nina would drop in again this evening!”

That wasn’t likely, however. In all probability she would have to entertain her difficult guests alone, and, as it couldn’t be avoided, she resolved to make the best of it. Her sitting room was far inferior to theirs, but it was bright with flowers, books and magazines lay about on the table, and it was warm!

“I’ll see if I can’t make them thaw out,” she decided. “Denis would be so pleased!”

No, the warm, bright room couldn’t thaw them. On the contrary, Mrs. Lanier seemed to bring in her own frigid atmosphere. She entered, followed dutifully by her daughter and her son, and, without so much as a smile, bade Emily good evening.

“It’s so nice of you to come to see me!” said Emily. “Isn’t this a cozy little room?”

“It seems to me quite unbearably hot. However—”

A chill silence fell. Cecil broke it by asking if he might smoke a cigarette. Emily was about to say “Please do,” when Mrs. Lanier interposed:

“Pray don’t, Cecil—not in this close room!”

With a trace of sulkiness, Emily got up and opened a window. A gust of cold air blew into her face, stirring her bright hair. For an instant she looked down into the street below—the hurrying taxicabs, the hurrying people, all bent on their own concerns, all going somewhere. If she were only out there with Denis!

“I think,” said Mrs. Lanier, “that you had better come to live at my hotel, Emily.”

“Oh, thanks!” said Emily, alarmed. “But I’m very comfortable here. Anyhow, I couldn’t afford it.”

“I am willing to defray all your expenses myself.”

“Thank you ever so much! But—”

“I think it advisable,” said Mrs. Lanier.

“Advisable?” Emily repeated, a little puzzled. “I don’t—”

“You ought not to be here alone. You should be with your husband’s family. I’m sure Denis would agree with me.”

“He picked out this place himself. He said—”

“In the circumstances, Denis would agree with me.[Pg 166]”

“In what circumstances?” Emily demanded, beginning to grow angry.

“We called yesterday afternoon, and the clerk informed us that you had gone out with a young man. I really don’t think Denis would—”

That was too much!

“Upon my word!” cried Emily. “Didn’t you know—”

“I say!” interrupted Cecil, in haste. “Not our affair, is it? I mean—hardly the thing, is it, to bother Emily like this? I mean to say—”

His pleasant, well bred voice trailed off into silence, and Emily, after one amazed glance at his face, was silent too.

So he hadn’t told them, and his eyes implored her not to tell! She sat very still. All the heat of anger had died in her, leaving only bitterness and scorn. She could not endure to look at any of them—not at Cecil, with his contemptible faith in her good nature, not at the hostile and suspicious Mrs. Lanier, not at the utterly indifferent Cynthia.

“I strongly advise you to come to us,” said Mrs. Lanier.

“No,” replied Emily quietly. “I’m going to stay here.”

Mrs. Lanier rose.

“Then I shall feel it my duty to write to Denis,” she said, “and explain this unfortunate situation to him. I wish him to know that I have done my best.”

“By all means write to him,” said Emily, as calmly as she could.

“Come!” said Mrs. Lanier to her children, in a freezing tone.

After ceremonious farewells they all left, Cecil last. He turned in the doorway, but Emily was not looking at him. She was already absorbed in the letter she was going to write to Denis.

As soon as the door closed after them, she sat down at the desk, to put down on paper all her burning indignation and resentment. She wrote seven pages at lightning speed. Then she began to read over what she had written, and suddenly she broke into tears.

“No, I can’t!” she sobbed. “Poor Denis! They’re his own people. I can’t say all that to him. Oh, poor Denis!”

So in the end, after her fit of weeping had subsided, she wrote another letter—a cheerful, airy little letter. Part of it was:

Your mother seems to think I’m a flighty young thing. She wants me to come and live in the hotel with her—so that she can keep an eye on me, I suppose; but I’m going to stay here, in the place you and I picked out together. I don’t imagine you’ll bemuchworried by any tales of my awfulness, will you, Denny?

And then, moved by an honest and generous impulse to make her Denis happy, she added:

The trouble is that your mother doesn’t quite understand my barbarous American ways yet. Perhaps I don’t understand her very well, either; but we shall in time, I’m sure, Denny. Don’t worry about it!

She went to bed happier after that. As for her husband being in the least troubled by any tales of her going out with young men, that was simply absurd. He trusted her just as she trusted him.

Emily was not surprised at receiving a visit from Cecil the next day, and not at all displeased. She wanted to see him—once more.

He was waiting for her, and came toward her as she came out of the lift. It was a relief that he did not smile. He was as grave as she was.

“Emily!” he said. “I’m sorry!”

“I am, too, Cecil.”

“I can’t expect you to understand,” he went on. “I shouldn’t like you so well if you could understand that sort of thing. No use trying to explain; but I had to come and thank you for being so decent to me. Besides, I wanted to tell you that I would set the thing right—tell them I was the man, you know—before I go away.”

“When are you going?” she asked coldly.

“There’s a ship sailing on Saturday. I’ll try to get a passage on her. Anyhow, I’ll go as soon as I can, Emily, so that I can clear up this thing.”

“You mean that you have to run away because you came to see me?” she cried, with a sort of sorrowful scorn.

“Yes,” he answered. “You see, Emily, I haven’t a penny of my own—nothing but an allowance from mother. She’s a bit—difficult, at times. If she hears that I’ve come to see you, she’ll call it disloyal, d’you see? Fact! She’ll make it too hot for me, so I’d better run home and—”

“Oh, don’t go on!” said Emily.

It was intolerable to hear him so frankly, almost carelessly, admitting his shameful humiliation; and a little while ago she[Pg 167]had thought him a fine and gallant figure, so insouciant, so independent!

“No!” she went on headlong. “Don’t tell your mother! I don’t care, no, not one little bit, what any one thinks! Denis would—”

She stopped, struggling with a sob that rose in her throat.

“It simply doesn’t matter,” she added more calmly. “You needn’t tell any one. You needn’t—run away; only please don’t talk about it any more.”

He stood before her, not shamefaced, but simply unhappy.

“I’m sorry, Emily!” he said again.

And so was she—terribly sorry, remembering what an endearing companion he had been, how considerate, how kindly. She was still grateful for those poor little kindnesses. She saw much that was good in Cecil, no malice, no harshness, only that pitiable lack of manly pride and honor, that degradation of which he was not even aware.

With a smile not very steady, she held out her hand.

“Never mind, Cecil!” she said. “It’s all over now, and forgotten. Let’s just say good-by and—”

“Does it have to be good-by, Emily?” he asked wistfully. “Look here! Suppose I tell mother, and simply face the row? Suppose I write and explain to old Denis? Then why couldn’t you and I go on being friends?”

She shook her head.

“Nothing has to be explained to Denis,” she said. “I’ll just tell him, if he asks me; and—I’m sorry, Cecil, but it does have to be good-by. I wouldn’t make any trouble in the family for anything in the world!”

He submitted to her decision, as he was inclined to submit to anything definite, and off he went, with one last miserable look. Emily watched him with misty eyes.

“Poor Cecil!” she thought. “Poor fellow! But how terribly his mother must hate me, if it’s disloyal for him even to come to see me!”

Pain and dismay seized her at that thought. Ill will was a new thing in her life, something which she had never felt in her own heart or in the air about her. A most potent and subtle poison!

She waited for a letter from Denis with a new feeling of resentment. He ought to have written at once, to assure her that he only laughed at other people’s tales—or, better still, that he was angry. Much better if he would be angry. Emily found herself hoping for that with a bitter delight that half frightened her. She wanted that! She wanted her complete triumph, wanted to stand beside Denis while he humbled her enemies. It was an ignoble hope, she knew, and yet it was beyond measure precious to her.

On the third day his letter came, and she tore it open eagerly. It was unusually brief:

My dear Emily:I think you had better go to mother’s hotel until I come back. It seems advisable to me for several reasons. Only time for these few lines, but I’ll write more fully later. Take care of yourself.Yours,Denis.

My dear Emily:

I think you had better go to mother’s hotel until I come back. It seems advisable to me for several reasons. Only time for these few lines, but I’ll write more fully later. Take care of yourself.

Yours,Denis.

That was how he vindicated her! So he believed what other people told him! He wanted her to go where his mother could watch her! This was his faith, his pride, his love! This was her triumph!

“I’ll give him just one more day,” Emily declared in a tremulous voice. “Then I’ll go home!”

She knew, even while she spoke, the pitiable folly of her words. One more day, when she had long ago given Denis all the days she ever could live! And to talk of going home, when she had no home in all the wide world!

Her father’s house wasn’t her home now. If she went there, she would be a visitor, welcomed and beloved, but always a visitor. She didn’t belong there any more. The words of the old proverb came into her mind—“Home is where the heart is.” Once upon a time she had thought that a fanciful idea, but now she knew it to be true; and her heart, alas, was wandering homeless.

She had written Denis a very prompt reply to his letter. She had told him that his people had treated her shamefully, that she was done with them, and that he must take his choice. “Either them or me,” she had said. “Please let me know when you have made up your mind.”

She hadn’t thought that he would take so long about making up his mind, or that her just anger would prove so feeble a flame. It was anger that had warmed and strengthened her, anger that was her justification; and it was flickering dimly now,[Pg 168]leaving her defenseless against the cold wind of doubt and bitter regret.

If only she had had patience, if only she had waited until Denis came back! They could have talked it over together; but instead of that, she had forced upon him a decision that would inevitably cause him untold pain.

It was cruel! Hecouldn’tchoose between her and his venerated people; and he couldn’t compromise—he was too downright for that. He would take what she said seriously. Well, suppose he didn’t choose her?

She thought that if Denis never came back to her, or if he came back changed, she could not bear to live.

It was half past five—time to put on her hat and go out to meet Nina at the littletable d’hôtewhere they were to have dinner together. She slipped her arms into her fur coat—the coat Denis had bought for her—and pulled on a little hat without troubling to look in the mirror. Who cared how she looked, anyhow? A whole week, and he hadn’t written. Seven days, utterly shut off from him!

“Perhaps there’ll be a letter for me downstairs,” she thought, knowing very well that if there had been, it would have been sent up to her.

There was no letter, but there was Denis himself. At first she couldn’t possibly believe it. She saw some one come through the revolving door—some one like Denis, only it couldn’t be he. He was in New Orleans, and very busy there. The man she saw was very much like Denis—the same sort of well knit, stalwart figure, the same sort of dark, serious face.

“It’s not you, is it?” she asked in a queer little voice.

“Yes,” said he.

His voice gave her no clew, nor did his keen, quiet face. She wasn’t going to be silly. If he could be as cool as this, then so could she.

“I was just going out to dinner with Nina Holley,” she told him.

“I see!” said Denis.

He stood aside for her to go out of the door. Then he followed her out, and they walked down the street side by side, turned a corner, and went down another street, without a single word. This was by no means what Emily wanted.

“Would you like to come with me?” she asked, with punctilious politeness.

“Iamcoming with you,” replied Denis.

Again they went on in silence, as long as Emily could endure it.

“Haven’t you anything to say?” she cried at last. “Haven’t—”

“I’ve a good deal to say,” he interrupted; “but not here.”

That was too much for Emily. They were at a crisis in their lives. She was waiting in desperate anxiety for what he would say, and he couldn’t speak, because they were in the street, and some one might possibly hear! He couldn’t for an instant forget his stiff Lanier propriety.

“You’re angry,” she said. “I can see that. Well, it’s no use. I said you’d have to choose, and I meant it. There’s not a bit of use in your coming to quarrel with me. If you’re disgusted with me, go back to your—”

“Look here!” said Denis. “Are you trying to be funny?”

Emily was very much taken aback at this question.

“Funny?” she repeated.

His hand closed suddenly on her arm.

“Look here, old girl!” he said. “I’m—you’ll have to make allowances, you know. It’s been a bit hard. I dare say it doesn’t seem much of a job to you, but after all, you know, they’re my own people, and it’s been a bit hard.”

Emily stopped short in the street.

“Denis!” she cried. “What do you mean?”

“I went to see mother, but they were all out. I left a note. I think I made it pretty clear.”

“Oh, Denis! Denis! You mean you choseme?”

“Don’t do that!” he said in alarm, pulling out a great handkerchief and hastily dabbing at Emily’s eyes. “Youarea silly kid, and no mistake! Of course it’s you, always. I thought you knew that well enough.”

“I can’t possibly stop crying,” said Emily. “You’d better get a taxi.”

He did so. Once they were in the cab, Denis Lanier took his wife in his arms and kissed her in his own earnest and resolute fashion.

“But how could you come, Denis?”

“How could I not come? It seemed to me I was rather badly needed. Dont’t cry, dear girl, please! I’m going back to-morrow, and I’ll take you with me. I’ll not leave you again. But I say, Emily, exactly[Pg 169]what was there in my letter that upset you so? I couldn’t—”

“You wanted me to go to your mother’s hotel!”

“I know; but that wasn’t so bad, was it? She wanted you to come, and I thought that if you did, you know—if she saw more of you, there’d be—well, more harmony.”

He was smiling down at her, as her head lay on his shoulder, but in his eyes there was a pain that he could not hide or stifle. She sat up suddenly.

“There will be, Denis!” she said vehemently. “There will be harmony, my dear, darling old Denis! I’ve been selfish and horrible!” He tried to stop her, but she would go on. “I knew all the time that I was. Oh, Denis, forgive me, and let me have another chance! Let’s go now to your mother, and—”

“Not much!” said Denis. “Not after the note I left!”

“It’s early. Perhaps she hasn’t come home yet. Oh, do tell the man to hurry! Denis, let me have my chance!”

There Denis sat, as much at home in that icy room as a frog in water. To be sure, he had offered to close the window, but Emily had declined, preferring to wear her fur coat. His very voice had changed. All the warmth had gone out of it, and his face wore a look she had not seen before—a bored and disdainful look.

Yet she knew that he was really happy. All the talk about old friends and old days, from which she was so entirely shut out, interested and pleased him. She knew that he thought Cecil amusing and Cynthia a beautiful and distinguished girl, and that he profoundly admired his mother’s frosty calm. He was among his own people, and immeasurably glad to be there.

And Emily herself was quite happy, quite content to sit in silence. She had two supreme consolations. One was the look in Denis’s eyes each time he turned toward her, and that was often. He wasn’t good at expressing himself in words, but his glance was eloquent enough, and it spoke only to her. His own people were entirely shut out from their secret happiness. They might ignore her if they liked; she didn’t care in the least. They were the real outsiders.

And the other compensation was a bit of paper tucked inside her blouse—Denis’s note to his mother, which Mrs. Lanier was never to see. Emily could well afford to be generous, for her triumph was complete and magnificent.[Pg 170]

MUNSEY’SMAGAZINE

AUGUST, 1924Vol. LXXXIINUMBER 3

[Pg 171]

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

THE up train stopped, a porter sprang down the steps with two heavy bags, assisted a lady to descend, climbed on board again, and he and the train went off, leaving the lady and the bags there. The platform was deserted, shining like a treacherous sheet of water beneath the dim lamps. The rain fell steadily. It was the blackest and most dismal night that ever was.

For some time the lady stood just where she had been left, with an annoyed, affronted expression upon her face, as if she was waiting for some one to come and remove this unpleasant weather. Nobody came, nothing stirred, and she herself was strangely inactive.

Did she look like a submissive or helpless creature? On the contrary, she was a portly, white-haired lady, dressed in black of a somewhat majestic style, and not only her face, but the set of her plump shoulders and even the jet ornament on her toque, seemed to be alive with energy and resolution.

Yet she did not move. She turned her head to the north—rain and darkness were there. She turned it to the south—the same thing. Behind her she knew there was nothing but the railway track; so, with a sigh, she picked up the bags and went on toward the waiting room.

Then, had there been any one there to see, the secret of her reluctance to move would have been revealed. This imposing and dignified lady, whose very glance was a rebuke to frivolity, had nevertheless one outrageous vanity—shewouldwear shoes that were too small for her.

Setting down the bags, she turned the handle of the door, and it was locked. Through the glass she could see into the dimly lit room, where there were plenty of benches upon which a sufferer might rest. Exasperated, she rattled the knob and rapped upon the glass, but all in vain. Picking up the bags again, she made her way painfully to the end of the platform, to see what she could see.

The town of Binnersville, however, was one of those illogical towns which are almost invisible from their own proper railway stations. There lay before her a forlorn and lifeless street lined with small shops, all tight shut, and not a human being in sight.

Her sharp eyes, however, caught sight of something very welcome. At the end of the street, standing before a faintly illuminated drug store, there was a real, civilized taxi. With all the speed possible to her she went toward it, to seize it before it could vanish.

The street was slippery, the bags were heavy, and the portly lady in her little high-heeled shoes made a dangerous progress. Nevertheless, she got there. Seeing no driver where a driver should have been, and being a woman of enterprise and resource, she set down her bags, leaned across the seat, and blew the horn three or four times—great, loud squawks that resounded startlingly through the night.

At once the door of the drug store opened, and a young man appeared on the threshold.

“Kindly take me to No. 93 Sloan Street,” said the portly, white-haired lady.

“But I’m not the driver,” said the young man.[Pg 172]

“Then kindly call the driver!” said she.

Opening the door of the cab, she managed, with considerable effort, to shove one of her bags inside. The young man was there to help her with the other.

“The driver’s in the shop,” he explained, “getting something taken out of his eye; but—”

“Be good enough to tell him I am waiting,” said she.

“He’ll be along in a minute, and then he can take us both to—”

“Pardon me!” said the portly lady, in a perfectly awful voice.

The young man seemed a little taken aback. She was now settled inside the cab, and he was standing outside in the rain. It was very dark, and they could not see each other; but so expressive was her voice that he fancied he knew how she looked.

“I shall instruct the driver to return here for you, if you wish,” said she.

“But, you see,” said the young man, quite good-humoredly, “I had engaged this cab. It’s late, and the weather’s bad, and I’m going in your direction. We can—”

“Pardon me! I cannot consent to that.”

“What?” persisted the young man. “Why not?”

“It is not my custom to encourage chance acquaintances,” replied she. “If you insist upon getting in, I shall get out.”

“But look here!” protested the young man. “I—”

She was already struggling with the handle of the door.

“Very well!” he said curtly. “I’ll go!”

As he turned, he saw the driver coming out of the shop, holding a handkerchief to his eye.

“This lady wants to go to No. 93 Sloan Street,” said he. “Oh, never mind me!”

And he set off on foot up the hilly street, in the pelting rain. The portly, white-haired lady watched him go.

“I cannot,” she said, half aloud, “encourage chance acquaintances—especially on Lynn’s account.”

For years the house at 93 Sloan Street had displayed a sign announcing that it was “to let or for sale,” and these words might as well have been followed by “take it or leave it,” for that was the owner’s attitude.

It was a hopeless house, dark, damp, and badly arranged, standing in a garden where enormous old trees cast so dense a shade over the front lawn that not even grass would thrive. As for the back garden, only the queerest, most obstinate, ancient shrubs were there, huddled against the side fence, because anything less tenacious was inevitably carried away by the river in its annual spring flood.

Just now the river was low, dolloping along dejectedly between its brown and uninteresting banks. Everything was brown—the water, the bare trees, the fields, the road in front, and No. 93 itself. Altogether the breath of life had gone out of Sloan Street, and to any one coming down from the sunny, breezy hilltop it seemed a sorry spectacle.

Some one had come down from the hilltop this morning—a brisk, neat little red-haired lady. She came smartly along the road to No. 93, pushed open the gate, and walked up the garden path. She saw the portly, white-haired lady standing on the veranda, looking down the road.

“Good morning!” said the visitor. “I’m your neighbor, Mrs. Aldrich.”

She waited at the foot of the steps, because she thought she would not go up on the veranda until she was invited. Well, she never was invited.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked, with honest and neighborly good will.

The portly lady looked down at her as if doubtful whether such a creature could really exist.

“Thank you, there is not,” she said.

Mrs. Aldrich was greatly taken aback.

“I thought perhaps—” she began, in a tone not quite so neighborly, but the other interrupted.

“Very good of you, I’m sure; but I shall do very well, thank you.”

That last “thank you” seemed capable of lifting Mrs. Aldrich out of the garden all by itself.

“I wouldn’t set foot in that place again,” she declared, “if she begged me on her knees!”

This declaration was addressed to her nephew, Jerry Sargent. She had made it before, to her husband and to a neighbor or so, but she found special pleasure in telling things to Jerry, for the strange reason that he never agreed with her. She was a shrewd, sensible, rather peppery little woman. She had been his guardian when he was younger, and she still interfered[Pg 173]pretty considerably in his affairs—which he good-humoredly permitted.

“If you could have seen the way she looked at me!” she went on. “As if I were a—a toad!”

“I know,” replied Jerry. “I didn’t see her, but I heard her, and I know the sort of look that would go with that tone. ‘Who is that impossible person?’ She told me she didn’t encourage chance acquaintances, and it looks as if she meant it!”

“I should have made her get out of that taxi and walk—in the rain!” cried Mrs. Aldrich, who had been informed of the episode of the previous night.

“Of course you would,” her nephew agreed, with a grin. “I know you! And you’d have called her names out of the window as you passed her, wouldn’t you? But I’m much milder. I was ashamed of being a chance acquaintance, anyhow. It didn’t seem respectable.”

“I wish you wouldn’t take everything so lightly!” complained Mrs. Aldrich, but she didn’t mean it. The thing she loved best in her nephew was his careless and generous good humor, his utter lack of malice or resentment. “You ought to have more pride, Gerald, than to allow yourself to be trampled on.”

He rose to his feet, and stood looking down at her with an expression of great severity; and though his aunt knew it to be assumed, she thought it very becoming to his face. A big, handsome fellow he was, with the gray eyes and black hair and all the wit and charm and grace of his blessed mother, and all the energy and practical good sense of his father. A good man of business he was, but into the dullest matter of routine, into the most trifling details of everyday life, he brought his own sort of laughing romance.

“Very well, madam!” said he. “You’re disappointed in me because I’ve let myself be trampled on. Now you’ll see what I can do when my pride is roused!”

“Jerry, you ridiculous boy! Where are you going?”

“Down to No. 93,” said he. “The turning worm! Good-by!”

And off he went, down the hill, whistling as he walked.

Without the slightest hesitation Jerry opened the garden gate, went up the path and up the steps, and rang the bell. At least, he imagined that he rang the bell, but as a matter of fact he did nothing except turn a handle which was connected with nothing. After two or three attempts he began to suspect this, and knocked instead, which soon brought some one running along the hall to open the door.

He was astounded—not because it was a girl, and not because she was pretty. He had seen pretty girls before, and knew that they were likely to crop up anywhere; but this girl had exactly the sort of prettiness he had been looking for and waiting for so long that he had almost given up hope of finding it.

She was tall, slender, dark-browed, so gracious and serene, with lovely, fragile hands; and her eyes! They were black eyes, so clear, so quiet, so luminous and untroubled! It didn’t make the least difference that she was wearing a gingham apron and carried a rolling pin under her arm. She was matchless, she was incomparable, in her was personified all the romance left in the world.

“Did you—” she began, and hesitated. “Are you—”

“I thought—” he answered, still a little dazzled. “That is, I thought maybe—”

It was this tremendously important and significant conversation that the portly, white-haired lady interrupted. She appeared suddenly in the background, and regarded them with severe astonishment.

“Are you the plumber?” she inquired of Jerry, raising her eyebrows. “Run away, Lynn!”

“I don’t think so,” he answered absently, because he was watching Lynn “run away” as slowly as any healthy human being could well move.

“Indeed!” said she. “The plumber should be here.”

The inference evidently was that Jerry Sargent should have been the plumber.

“No,” he added, with a smothered sigh. “I just stopped in to see if there was anything you wanted done.”

“There are several things that I want done,” she replied; “but I trust I shall be able to find the proper workmen to do them. I need a plumber and a carpenter. Are you a carpenter?”

Now Jerry knew very well that she knew he wasn’t a carpenter, and that she simply wished to be obnoxious. On the spur of the moment, looking steadily at her, he answered:[Pg 174]

“Yes, I am. Any little odd jobs you’d like done?”

She returned his glance with one quite as steady.

“There are,” she said.

With that, he promptly took off his coat, and she, equally determined to see the thing through, led him into the dismal front room.

“I want shelves put up,” said she. “Three rows—on this wall. There are boards in the cellar for that purpose.”

Fortunately Jerry was by nature “handy,” and in his younger days had had much experience in building chicken houses and rabbit hutches and such things. With the calmest air in the world he set to work, wondering for what possible reason she could want a triple row of enormous shelves. For some time the portly lady watched him, but that didn’t worry him, for he felt sure that she knew even less than he did about putting up shelves; and at last she went away.

When he was alone, he couldn’t help laughing. It might have ended that way, with Jerry thinking the whole thing a rather idiotic joke, in which he was getting somewhat the worst of it, if something had not happened to change the aspect of the situation.

He was hammering away at a bracket which would—he hoped—support one end of one of those monster shelves, when he heard a light footstep behind him. He turned and saw the incomparable girl.

She smiled in her serious way, and Jerry tried to look equally serious, but did not succeed very well. In the first place, it wasn’t natural to him to be serious, and, in the second place, he was extraordinarily pleased to see the incomparable girl again. He couldn’t help fancying that she shared at least a little in his delight.

Anyhow, she was very friendly toward this strange carpenter. She asked him if he needed anything else for his work. He thanked her earnestly and said that he did not. Then she advanced a little farther into the room, and laid one of her slender little hands on the boards standing against the wall.

“Is the work very hard?” she asked.

“No,” said Sargent. “I like it—very much!”

There was a long silence. She was still standing beside the boards, running her delicate fingers along the edges, with her eyes thoughtfully downcast. The shifting sunshine, filtering through the leafy branches outside, threw a wondrous light upon her gleaming dark hair and her pale, clear features. Somehow it hurt Jerry to look at her. There was something about her, some intangible shadow over her young face, which made him feel sure that she had endured much, and had endured it with fortitude and courage.

“The poor little thing!” he thought. “Shut up here in this dismal hole, with that dragon! Oh, the poor, poor little thing!”

He suddenly realized that he was in his shirt sleeves. With a hasty apology, he put on his coat.

“You know,” he said, “I’m not really a carpenter.”

“I knew you weren’t,” said she. “I knew you were—well, I mean, I knew you weren’t.”

Another silence.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked. “I’d be—oh!”

“What’s the matter?” cried Jerry.

“Nothing,” she answered, but he saw her pull a handkerchief out of her pocket and wrap her hand in it.

“Let me see!” he commanded.

“Really it’s nothing,” she protested; “only a splinter from those boards. I should have known better.”

Well, splinters ought to be taken out, lest they fester; and it was the most natural thing in the world for Jerry to insist upon performing the operation. She fetched a needle, and he burned the point in the flame of a match, and grasped her injured hand firmly.

He hadn’t realized what it would mean. The splinter was long and deeply embedded, and he could not help hurting her. She winced and bit her lip. When at last the heartbreaking job was done, his face was quite pale. He still held her hand, and was looking at her with the most miserable contrition; but she smiled.

“You mustn’t be so silly!” she said. “It’s really—”

“Lynn!” said an awful voice.

Lynn, suddenly growing very red, escaped at once, and Jerry saw her no more that day.

He would perfectly well endure being called a plumber, a carpenter, and a chance acquaintance, but he could not endure this. He no longer wished to laugh, he no longer[Pg 175]saw this thing as a joke. On the contrary, he was immeasurably offended by the suspicious and scornful glare he got from the portly, white-haired lady.

Next morning the postman delivered a letter at No. 93, addressed to Mrs. Nathaniel Journay, who was none other than the portly lady.

Dear Madam:In order to avoid a misunderstanding which has often been a cause for dissatisfaction in our tenants, we beg to call your attention to that clause in your lease which restrains the tenant from driving any nails into the walls, or in any way defacing or marring the walls or woodwork of the premises.Trusting that you find the house entirely as represented,Very truly yours,Cooper & Cooper, Agents.

Dear Madam:

In order to avoid a misunderstanding which has often been a cause for dissatisfaction in our tenants, we beg to call your attention to that clause in your lease which restrains the tenant from driving any nails into the walls, or in any way defacing or marring the walls or woodwork of the premises.

Trusting that you find the house entirely as represented,

Very truly yours,Cooper & Cooper, Agents.

“Humph!” said she, very much taken aback.

Lynn looked up from her breakfast.

“What is it, auntie?” she asked.

“Nothing,” said the other calmly. “Simply one of the necessary annoyances of a business career.”

She was prepared to say a good deal more than that to a certain person. She was by no means stupid. She put two and two together, and chalked up a mighty black four against that fraudulent carpenter. He was the talebearer. Very well—only wait until he presented himself again!

In the meantime the indomitable woman finished the carpentering herself. The noise of the hammering made her very nervous, but she made up her mind to defy Cooper & Cooper if they should appear. She had to have those shelves, and she would have them.

That afternoon a man came by, asking for work. He said he was a gardener; and after Mrs. Journay had cross-examined him until he was reduced to an abject condition, and she felt sure he was no spy, she set him to work.

The next morning she had another letter from Cooper & Cooper, pointing out to her that it was strictly prohibited to tenants to remove shrubs in the garden, to lop off branches from trees, or in any way to mar or deface the garden.

This time she wrote a tart answer, remarking that the garden was in a lamentable condition which no one could deface or mar, that the branches lopped away had been those which shut off light from the house, and that she would really be justified in sending the landlord a bill for this work. Nevertheless, she did not employ the gardener again.

For a few days she and her niece were invisibly busy within the house, but at last, one bright morning, they came out with a ladder, which Mrs. Journay held while Lynn climbed up it and hung out a glittering gilt signboard, lettered in black:

YE OLDE NEW ENGLAND BOX SHOPPE

The sign shone in the sun like a warrior’s shield. The two women regarded it with pride and pleasure.

“I believe the customers will begin coming to-morrow,” said the elder.

But the first thing to come the next day was a letter from Cooper & Cooper.

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