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A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike

by Charles King · English · Gutenberg #23927 · 377,485 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike

Author: Charles King


        
Release date: December 20, 2007 [eBook #23927]

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Bryan Ness, Graeme Mackreth and the Online
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TAME SURRENDER, A STORY OF THE CHICAGO STRIKE ***




Produced by Bryan Ness, Graeme Mackreth and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)







[Illustration: In her dainty bathing-dress, Miss Allison's wings were
discarded.
Page 8.]




A
TAME SURRENDER


_A STORY OF THE CHICAGO STRIKE_

By

CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.


AUTHOR OF "THE COLONEL'S DAUGHTER," "MARION'S
FAITH," "CAPTAIN BLAKE," "A SOLDIER'S
SECRET," "SERGEANT CROESUS,"
"CAPTAIN CLOSE," ETC.


_ILLUSTRATED_


PHILADELPHIA

J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

1896




COPYRIGHT, 1895 AND 1896,
BY
J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.


PRINTED BY J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.




ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                             PAGE

In her dainty bathing-dress, Miss Allison's wings
were discarded                                _Frontispiece_.

"May I trouble you for those despatches, Mr.
Elmendorf?"                                                  176

"All that space in there will be needed in five
minutes from this time."                                     207

"Is it potent--only at Christmas?"                           277




[Illustration]




A TAME SURRENDER.




CHAPTER I.


She had met him the previous summer on the Rhine, and now "if they
aren't engaged they might as well be," said her friends, "for he is her
shadow wherever she goes." There was something characteristically
inaccurate about that statement, for Miss Allison was rather undersized
in one way and oversized in another; at least that, too, is what her
friends said. She was not more than five feet in height nor less than
five feet in breadth "measured from tip to tip of her wings," as her
brother said. Miss Allison had wings, not because she was an angel, but
because it was the fashion,--wings that sprouted at her fair, plump,
shapely shoulders and billowed out like balloons. Her brother Cary,
above referred to, a sixteen-year-old specimen of Young American
impudence and independence, said further of her, in the spring of '94,
that if Floy's sleeves were only inflated with gas she could float on
air as easily as she did on water, and on water Miss Allison was
buoyancy personified. On water, too, and in her dainty bathing-dress,
Miss Allison's wings were discarded and her true proportions more
accurately defined. She was anything but slender. She was simply
deliciously, exquisitely rounded _now_; but the question which so
disturbed her feminine friends as to call for perennial repetition was,
What _would_ she be a few years hence? This, however, was a matter that
seemed to give the lady in question no uneasiness whatever. Certainly it
resulted in no loss of flesh. Perhaps it might have been better for her
future figure if it had. With her perfect health, digestion, and
disposition, there was absolutely no way of worrying off a pound or two
a week. She was the soul of good nature and content. She had an
indulgent father, a luxurious home, abundant wealth, an unimpeachable
complexion, character, and social position. She had a swarm of enviously
devoted girl friends on the one hand and selfishly devoted male admirers
on the other, or on both if she chose. She was absolutely without a mean
or unkind thought of anybody. She was full of every generous impulse.
She was lazy and energetic by turns, had been a romping idler in her
earlier school-days, and had been polished off and finished in an
expensive Eastern establishment without finishing anything herself. She
had lived an almost unshadowed life, had laughed off a dozen lovers
when she went abroad in '93, and had then fallen in with her fate across
the water.

There was really no excuse for her falling in love with Mr. Floyd
Forrest. An utter dissimilarity to her other admirers, a romantic and
somewhat absurd adventure, and, above all, proximity, were what did it.
He must have been over ten years her senior; she was barely twenty when
they met. He was tall, slender, and strong, with deep burning brown eyes
and heavy brows and lashes. She was short and plump and distractingly
fair and fresh and blue-eyed,--big melting blue eyes, too, they were.
His lips were well-nigh hidden by a heavy moustache; hers were well-nigh
faultless in their sweet, warm, rosy curves, faultless as the white,
even teeth that gleamed in her merry laughter. He was reserved and
taciturn, even gloomy at times, facts which, through no fault or
connivance of hers, were presently explained and only served to heighten
the interest she had begun to feel in him. She was frankness, almost
loquacity itself,--a girl who could no more keep a secret than she could
harbor a grudge. He was studious, thoughtful, forever reading. She loved
air, sunshine, action, travel, tennis, dancing, music (of the waltz
variety), and, beyond her Bible and her Baedeker, read nothing at all,
and not too much of them! She was with her aunt and some American
friends when first she met him. It was the morning they hove in sight
of England, and the steamer was pitching through a head sea. Her party
were wretchedly ill; she was aggressively well. She had risen early and
gone up to the promenade deck in hopes of getting the first glimpse of
Bishop's Rock, and found the spray dashing high over the bows, drenching
her accustomed perch on the forward deck and keeping people
within-doors.

It was too early for those who had been her beaux and gallants on the
swift spring run; a late session in the smoking-room the night before
had kept them below. Only one man was visible at the rail under the
bridge,--the tall, dark, military-looking American who seemed to divide
his time between reading and tramping on the promenade deck, pacing the
planks with long, swinging stride and never seeming to care for other
society than his own thoughts. He was on deck and keenly enjoying the
strong, salt wind and its whistling load of spray; and, clinging to the
stanchions at the saloon door, wistfully did Miss Allison regard him,
but only as the means to an end. She wanted to get there, and did not
see a way without a helping hand, and just here old Neptune seemed to
tender it. A huge, foam-crested billow came sweeping straight from the
invisible shores of Albion, burst in magnificent deluge upon the port
bow, lifted high in air one instant the heaving black mass of the stem,
then let it down with stomach-stirring swish deep into the hollow
beyond,--deep, deep into the green mountain that followed, careening
the laboring steamer far over to starboard, and shooting Miss Allison,
as plump and pleasing a projectile as was ever catapulted, straight from
the brass-bound door-way, across the slippery deck and into the
stranger's welcoming arms. Springing suddenly back from under the bridge
to avoid the coming torrent, Mr. Forrest was spun along the rail until
nearly opposite the companion-way, and just in the nick of time.

"I think I'd have gone overboard if it hadn't been for you," said Miss
Allison, all smiles and salt water, as she clung to the rail a moment
later, while Mr. Forrest's steamer-cap, bumped off in the collision,
rode helplessly astern on the crest of the hissing wave. "But I couldn't
swim like your cap. Do take my Tam," she cried, tearing off her knitted
head-gear and letting her soft, fair curls whip out into so many briny
strings.

"I'll use this," he shouted, turning up the capote of his ulster, while
the cape thrashed furiously in the wind. "Will you pardon my saying you
are a trifle venturesome?"

"Oh, I love the ocean and the wind and the sea," she cried,
enthusiastically. "Don't you pity people who are too ill or too lazy to
get up and see this?" And she stretched forward one white, dimpled,
dainty hand over the seething waters. "Dare we get over on the other
side?"

"You couldn't stand there," he said, briefly, "and would be drenched if
you could. Best stay here."

And stay they did until breakfast, by which time she had told him a
great deal about herself and learned next to nothing about him.

"Remember," she said, "you are to give me your address, and I'm to send
you a new steamer-cap to replace the one I knocked overboard." And he
merely smiled, thanked her, said it was entirely unnecessary, but did
not present the expected card at all. "Perhaps he hadn't any," suggested
Aunt Lawrence, after they got into sheltered waters off the Start Point.
"He doesn't look like a society man. There are so many of these
commercial people travelling now."

"Oh, he didn't talk at all like a drummer," said Miss Allison in prompt
defence of her new protector. "In fact, I don't think he talked at all."

"Not if you had first innings, Flo," drawled Master Cary, from the
shelter of his steamer-rug. "He ain't a drummer, but like's not he's
been one. He's an army officer. Hubbard said so." Hubbard was one of the
belated admirers.

Whether soldier or not, however, Mr. Forrest did not prosecute the
chance acquaintance. He lifted the successor to the shipwrecked cap on
passing Miss Allison's party later in the day, but never approached them
nearer, never seemed to see the invitation in Miss Allison's shining
blue eyes. "Really, Cary," said she, as they neared Southampton, "you
must go and get his address and the size of the steamer-cap." But Cary
was the type of the traditional younger brother, a spoiled one at that,
and Cary wouldn't. It was Mr. Hubbard who went on the mission and came
back with the man.

"Pray don't think of getting me a cap," said Mr. Forrest, bowing and
smiling rather gravely. "I'd much rather you did not. Indeed, it
wouldn't find me, as I make no stay in England at all. I--I wish you a
very pleasant sojourn," he finished, somewhat abruptly, and with a
comprehensive bow to the party backed away.

But just two months later they ran upon him on the Rhine. The express
steamer had picked them up at Bonn and paddled them up the crowded
stream to Coblentz, and there at the dock, chatting with two immensely
swell Prussian officers, was Mr. Forrest.

"Here's your drummer again, Flo," said Cary, turning disdainfully from
the contemplation of the battlements of Ehrenbreitstein. "Just catch on
to the cut of those Dutch trousers, will you?" indicating by a nod of
his sapient head the tight-fitting, creaseless garments in which were
encased the martial lower limbs visible below the long, voluminous
skirts of their double-breasted frock-coats. Flo gazed with frank
animation in her eyes, but Forrest never saw her until after he had
waved adieu to his German friends, standing in statuesque and superb
precision at the salute beyond the foaming wake of the Deutscher Kaiser.

"I knew we'd see you again," said Miss Allison, smiling sunshine up into
his face, "and I've brought your cap. It's in one of those trunks now,"
she concluded, indicating the pile of luggage on the deck abaft the
wheel. Hubbard and other admirers, who had besieged her on the steamer,
were no longer in attendance. In their stead was a well-groomed, sedate,
prosperous-looking man referred to as "my father" when Mr. Forrest was
presented a moment later, and with him, conversing eagerly and fluently
in a high-pitched, querulous voice, was a younger man whose English was
as pure as his accent was foreign. "Mr. Elmendorf," said Miss Allison,
but she did not explain, as perhaps she might have done, "Cary's tutor."
Forrest bowed civilly to both, but looked hard at the latter, and Miss
Allison presently went on to explain. "Father joined us nearly a week
ago. He couldn't come before. I wish I could have stayed to see the
World's Fair, but auntie was so miserable the doctor said she must get
away from Chicago at once, and so we had to come. Then Cary's a perfect
hoodlum at home,--one scrape after another as fast as he can get in and
father can get him out. They sent him with us," she continued, in the
flow of her boundless confidences.

"Herr Max is a very highly educated young man, but I don't think he's
doing Cary any good."

That night at Mainz there was an episode. Mr. Allison senior, fatigued,
had gone to bed as soon as they reached their hotel. Mrs.
Lawrence,--"auntie," that is,--Miss Allison, and their maid were
billeted in very comfortable rooms under Herr Schnorr's hospitable roof.
Elmendorf stepped in to write letters, and Cary sneaked out for a smoke.
It was after ten. The shops were closed. Cigarettes had been strictly
forbidden, and the boy's small stock of contraband had been discovered
and seized that morning at Bonn. Herr Max wrote _currente calamo_, and
as he turned off page after page he lost all thought of his charge.
Among Cary's treasured possessions was a calibre 32 Smith & Wesson, and
with this pellet-propeller in his hip-pocket the boy fancied himself as
dangerous as an anarchist. Twice had it been captured by paterfamilias
and twice recovered, the last time at Cologne. Carrying concealed
weapons was as much against the law in Cologne as it is in Chicago, and
much more of an offence, but nothing had there occurred to impel him to
draw it. The boat-landing was not five hundred yards away. There under
the arching lights of its beautiful bridge, sparkling with the
reflection of myriad stars, silently flowed the Rhine, and there lay the
Deutscher Kaiser, with her well-stocked larder and wine-room. Thither
went the boy in quest of forbidden fruit. A waiter to whom he had
confided his desire had promised to have the cigarettes on hand, and
kept his promise. For one small package he demanded a four-mark
piece,--a silver coin of about the size and rather more than the value
of the American dollar. Cary responded with "What you giving us?" which
the Teutonic kellner couldn't understand. The boy proffered a mark, the
German equivalent for the American quarter, and sought vainly through
the misty memories of his lessons for the German equivalent of "Size me
up for a chump?" The waiter had friends and fellow-conspirators, the boy
had none, and when a grab was made for his portemonnaie he backed
against the stone wall and whipped out his pygmy six-shooter. Miss
Allison, looking out from her casement over the moonlit beauty of the
scene before her, had recognized her brother's form and later his
uplifted voice. She knew there was trouble, and felt that worse would
follow unless prompt measures were taken. She was not dressed for
promenade, being already in _peignoir_, slippers, and dishevelled hair;
but the sudden sound of a shot and a scream banished her scruples. She
darted into the corridor and on towards the head of the stairs just in
time to collide once again with her Atlantic protector, but was not
received with open arms. Forrest bade her run back to her room while he
sped on to the boy. German police are slow, if sure, but the waiter's
associates were quick enough. They had scattered before the police could
converge, and Forrest was first at the scene. Just as he supposed, the
boy had peppered himself.

It was only a flesh-wound, something to scare and distress and confine
Young America to his bed for ten days, and so to be bragged about
prodigiously later on. But the injury to German institutions, the
affront to the majesty of German law, was not so slight. It took some
days of consular and diplomatic correspondence and a week of official
espionage to satisfy the local authorities that no deep-rooted
conspiracy was at the bottom of this discovery of murderous weapons in
the hands of the Amerikaner. In the care of the patient and in all the
formalities attendant upon the case, Mr. Forrest proved of infinitely
more value than the accomplished tutor. The former, an officer reared
with deep regard for established law and order, accepted the situation
as a fact, the laws as incontrovertible, and considered himself and
friends, although involuntarily, as the offenders. The German-American
scholar, on the contrary, spent fruitless hours in striving to argue the
officials out of their stand and in preaching a crusade against the laws
they were sworn to obey. Forrest won their regard and Elmendorf their
distrust, if not disgust, and from the moment Forrest reappeared bearing
the limp and lamenting Cary in his arms, Miss Allison had chosen to
look upon him as in some sense the family's good angel. They were much
together for a week about young Cary's bedside, and the boy swore that
if he had "a feller like him for a toot" he wouldn't mind trying to
obey. Then, when Forrest had to go his way, she found that she missed
him as she never before had missed mortal man. It was the first shadow
on her life since her mother's death, five years before.

In September, most unexpectedly, they met him again at Geneva. Cary had
been feeding the swans in the blue waters about the little isle of J.J.
Rousseau, and was figuring how much he'd have to pay in costs and fines
if he yielded to his consuming desire to "drop a donick" on the head of
one of them that had spit at him, when Flo suddenly gasped, "Oh!
there's----" and stopped short. Loungers and passers-by looked up and
shrugged their Gallic shoulders and exchanged glances of commiseration
at sight of a sixteen-year-old boy rushing yelling after a cab. But the
boy was fleet, despite his recent flesh-wound, and presently reappeared,
dragging a man by the arm, who bared his brown head and bowed low over a
frankly extended hand. He looked a trifle dusty and travel-stained to
Cary's critical eye, and the boy meant to comment on the foreign cut of
his Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, provided a chance were afforded
him to enter a remark edgewise, but Florence, with glowing cheeks and
sparkling eyes, was pouring forth a volume of welcome and explanation
all in one. Forrest was on his way to the station _en route_ to
Montreux.

"Oh, don't go by rail! Wait and take the boat with us; it's so much
lovelier!"

Over at the quay lay moored the Major Davel, and thither Forrest bade
the cabman take his luggage. It was indeed lovelier,--the evening voyage
up that beautiful Alp-locked lake,--and while auntie, fatigued with her
day's shopping and sight-seeing, snoozed placidly in the salon, and
Cary, on honor not to smoke cigarettes again until his next birthday,
was puffing a Swiss "penny-grab" at the bow, Mr. Forrest and this fair,
joyous girl sat and talked while the sun went down over the Jura and
turned to purple and gold and crimson the dazzling summits of Mont Blanc
and the far-away peaks up the valley of the Rhone. Elmendorf was
enjoying a week's leave, Mr. Allison was sampling the waters at
Carlsbad, and auntie and Florence had Cary on their hands. The boy
adored Forrest by this time. Couldn't Forrest spend a day or two? They
would take him to Chillon and up to the Rochers de Naye. _There_ was a
view worth seeing! "I can stand on that point up yonder," said Cary, "a
mile and a quarter high, and fire a stone down the chimney of the hotel
at Territet." And they did take him, for Forrest remained four days. Mr.
Elmendorf wrote that, on the advice of his physician, he had asked for
a week more to spend in quiet at his home in the shades of his alma
mater in a placid old German town. Stopping at Berne a few hours after
leaving his friends on Lac Leman, Mr. Forrest found the quaint old
capital crowded. A congress of Socialists had been called, and from all
over Europe the exponents of the Order were gathered, and almost the
first voice to catch his ear as Forrest strolled through the throng in
the open platz near the station was high-pitched, querulous, and oddly
familiar. Turning sharply the officer came face to face with Mr.
Elmendorf, still presumably recuperating in the shades of the university
at Jena; and that night Mr. Elmendorf called upon him at his hotel.

"I found myself so much better," said he, "that I decided to push ahead,
and, still availing myself of my leave, to stop and see some of these
most interesting old Helvetic cities. My coming here to-day was
fortuitous, yet possibly unfortunate. Mr. Allison has a deep-rooted
prejudice against anything of this kind,--against anything, I may say,
that has a tendency to improve the condition of the laboring man,--and,
while I have nothing to shrink from in the matter, I prefer not to
offend the sensibilities, whether right or wrong, of my employer, and
therefore should, on his account, ask that you make no mention, should
you write, of having seen me here." And Elmendorf waited a moment.

"I shall not be apt to write," said Forrest, coldly, after a pause.

"Well--in case you--you see any of the family again. If it's all the
same to you----"

"I shall not volunteer any information, Mr. Elmendorf; but should I ever
be asked the direct question, since you have nothing to shrink from in
the matter, there need be, I presume, no hesitancy in my saying that I
saw you here."

"Oh, not at all,--not at all," was the answer, though in tone by no means
cheery or confident; and Elmendorf departed with the conviction that
Forrest did not like him,--which was simply a case of reciprocity.

There was yet another meeting, as unexpected as its predecessors,
between the Allisons and Mr. Forrest, and this was of all perhaps the
most decisive. Forrest's leave was soon to expire. He was returning from
Vienna to Paris, and met Allison senior at Basle. The Bohemian waters,
or the rest and regimen, or both combined, had greatly benefited the
merchant. His manner was brisk and buoyant, his face shone with health
and content. He was cordiality itself to the man whom he had greeted
with but cool civility on the Rhine. "I feel ready for anything," said
he, "and am going back at once. Cary and Elmendorf go with me, but Flo
and her aunt want to stay awhile in Paris. Look them up, will you, if
you go there?--Hôtel Lafond." Forrest promised. He was going to Metz
and Luxembourg on the way, and purposed spending only a few days in the
capital. He found the ladies packing and almost ready to start. Once
again he crossed the Atlantic in Miss Allison's company, and this time,
though there might have been Hubbards and other gallants aboard, she had
no use for them. It was Mr. Forrest's figure her eye sought the moment
she came on deck, Forrest's arm on which she leaned in the joyous,
exhilarating tramps on the breezy promenade. Every woman on board except
Aunt Lawrence believed her engaged to him before they were half-way
over, and would have sworn to it at Sandy Hook. Anything more blissful,
gladsome, confident than her manner at first could hardly be described,
but when it presently began to give way to something half shy, half
appealing, almost tender,--when long silences and down-drooping lashes
replaced the ceaseless prattle and frankly uplifted eyes,--then there
was little room for doubt in Aunt Lawrence's mind that Flo had flung
herself away.

"Well, I wash my hands of it," said the pious lady. "It was Fate and her
father. He deliberately threw them together again after my warning. Now
I suppose he'll have to do something for him, for if Flo loves the man
she'll marry him if he hasn't a penny beyond his pay,--which he probably
hasn't. There ought to be a law against such things."

But never a confession or confidence did Flo have to offer. The ladies
spent a week in New York before going West. Mr. Forrest went on about
his business. It was when he met them at Chicago and calmly escorted
them from their state-room on the Limited to their waiting carriage that
Aunt Lawrence felt the time had come for her to speak; and speak she did
the moment Mr. Forrest had closed the carriage door, raised his hat, and
was left behind.

"Has that young man asked you to marry him, Florence?"

And Florence burst into tears.

From having been a bitter opponent of the possibility, Mrs. Lawrence
from this moment veered squarely around. A month agone she would have
resented his daring to speak of such a thing. Now she raged at his
daring not to. Here they were home again at Chicago with all Florence's
friends crowding about and rejoicing in her return, and here, said Aunt
Lawrence, was this extraordinary young man detained on some mysterious
duty on the staff of the general commanding, working in his office at
the Pullman building by day and meeting Flo at dinners, dances,
theatres, and operas by night, coming occasionally to the house,
welcomed by her brother, the millionaire, with whom the young man often
sat now and had long talks about the questions of the hour, welcomed
shyly but unmistakably by Florence, adored by Cary, who took to paying
long visits to the lieutenant's workshop and meeting those swells his
brother officers, and looked upon with distrust only by Elmendorf and
herself. Never before had the lady fancied the tutor or shown a
disposition to listen to his dissertations, which were long. Now she
rejoiced his soul by encouraging him. It was an easy step to discreet
confidences with Forrest as the subject. Mr. Elmendorf became a seeker
for truth. Other officers whom Florence met in society came to the house
to call, and presently to dine. Mr. Elmendorf and his pupil were seldom
absent from the table, and Mr. Elmendorf made martial acquaintances
which, as a member of the Allison household, he was welcome to
cultivate. One day he came in big with news, and that evening, after a
long conference with Elmendorf, Mrs. Lawrence decided on another warning
talk with her charming niece.

"Florence," she said, finally, "I am the last woman on earth to pry into
any one else's affairs" (a conviction with regard to herself which is
cherished by almost every woman), "but I have felt it my duty to learn
something about Mr. Forrest's past life. I own I did object to him as a
possible suitor, but better that than a man insincere in his intentions.
What would you say were I to tell you what I have heard recently?"

Miss Allison turned and faced her aunt unflinchingly, "That he was
engaged to Miss Hosmer,--now Mrs. Stuyvesant,--that she broke it off,
and that he has never cared for any one since? I know all about it,
auntie,--mainly from his own lips."

"Then all I've got to say is, you are the most extraordinary persons I
ever met,--_both_ of you."

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




CHAPTER II.


There are many excellent people in this bright world who, like Mrs.
Lawrence, are prone to assert that all they've got to say on a given
subject is so and so, and then to stultify themselves by proceeding to
talk a whole torrent. Mrs. Lawrence said a great deal in the course of
this initial interview, and followed it up with a very great deal more.
She considered Mr. Forrest's conduct worse than incomprehensible. What
business had he to tell a girl his heart was buried in the past and pay
her all lover-like attentions in the present? "He hasn't," said Miss
Allison, promptly and flatly. "He has simply been kind and friendly. He
would have been discourteous, un-American, had he done anything less."
It wasn't he who told her he never had cared or would care for any one
after Miss Hosmer; Kate Lenox told her that, and so did other girls
here. When, then, did Mr. Forrest inform her of his broken engagement?
asked Aunt Lawrence. "On the steamer coming home," said Florence. "He
couldn't help himself. I met Mrs. Stuyvesant in Washington last
winter,--such a lovely woman,--and some one said she was once engaged to
an army officer and it was broken off; she found she didn't love him
enough to leave her luxurious home to live on the frontier among
Indians. I don't know how her name came up, or what prompted me to talk
as I did. I was saying that I thought her cruel, heartless, and that she
should have considered all that before ever she engaged herself to him;
and then he simply put up his hand, saying, 'Do not speak of it, Miss
Allison: I was the man.' It fairly took my breath away," said
Florence,--which her aunt could hardly believe,--"and I didn't know what
to say; and then he went on quietly to speak of her in the most
beautiful way, and assured me there were other and graver reasons which
led to her decision, some of which, at least, he could not gainsay, and
Mr. Stuyvesant's wealth and social position had very little to do with
the fact of her finally marrying him, as she did, and not until several
years after the engagement was broken."

Indeed, Miss Allison waxed tearfully eloquent in defence of Mr. Forrest,
whom she declared high-minded and honorable and manly. He wasn't in love
with her, nor she with him,--not a bit; but she honored him and
respected him and liked him better than any man she knew, and papa
thought him such a superior man, and Cary was devoted to him, and he
had been of infinite service to them abroad, and was welcome now and
should be welcome any time--any time--to their doors, and if Aunt
Lawrence or anybody spoke ill of him to her she'd defend him to the
bitter end, and as for hinting or insinuating that he was trifling with
her, it was simply outrageous--outrageous, and if Aunt Lawrence dared to
let him suppose it was his duty to propose to her now she'd never
forgive her,--never. And so Aunt Lawrence discovered that her blithe,
merry, joyous niece of the years gone by had developed a fine temper of
her own and a capacity for independent thought and action that was
simply appalling.

Florence went dancing down into the parlor with flushed cheeks and
briny, indignant eyes and the mien of an offended five-foot goddess,
leaving Aunt Lawrence to the contemplation of the field of her
disastrous defeat and the card of the unworthy object of their
discussion:

[Illustration: _Mr. Benton Floyd Forrest,_ --th Regiment of Infantry,
U.S.A.]

"What on earth brings him here at this time of day?" quoth she, irate
and ruffled. "For a man who is neither lover nor fiancé, he assumes the
airs and, for aught I know, the rights of both. The girl is as
ill-balanced as her mother." And not all women, it must be owned, think
too well of an only brother's wife. "The manners of these army men are
simply uncouth. Who ever heard of calls at ten A.M.?"

It was but a few minutes before Miss Allison returned. In fact, she did
not return to the scene of the late struggle,--a lovely boudoir
overlooking the flashing blue waters of the lake from high over the
intervening boulevard. Miss Allison went direct to her own rooms on the
opposite side of the broad hall-way, and not until evening was Mrs.
Lawrence favored with explanation.

"Why are you not dressed?" she somewhat caustically inquired, as her
niece came down arrayed for dinner.

For answer Miss Allison contemplated her pretty white arms, and took a
backward and downward glance at the fall of the trailing skirt of heavy
silk, then--must it be recorded?--she calmly asked, "What's the matter
with this?"

"This," said Aunt Lawrence, with marked emphasis, "may do for home
dinners, but won't for an opera-party. Here it is seven. You can't
change your dress before eight, and you simply can't go to the
Langdons' box in that."

"I'm not going to the Langdons' box."

"You were, and Mr. Forrest was to dine here and take you."

"Mr. Forrest left for the West on sudden orders at noon, and came at ten
to tell me."

Mrs. Lawrence's hands and eyes went up in mad dismay. "You don't mean to
tell me you've given up going because that man's ordered off? Child,
child, you are simply bent on ruining yourself socially. I don't wonder
people say you're daft about him."

"Who says I'm daft about him?" queried Miss Allison, flushing instantly,
but looking dangerous.

"Well, not just that, perhaps," returned Mrs. Lawrence. "But that's what
they will say now. Surely Mrs. Langdon could ask somebody in his place
who could have escorted you,--or else I could."

"Mrs. Langdon did invite somebody else,--two somebody elses, in fact, as
my letter urged her to do. Fanny Tracy was wild to go, and Captain
Farwell wild to take her. I did a charitable thing in suggesting them."

"Then the result of that piece of charity will be that all Chicago will
say you are so much in love with that man you couldn't go 'Faust' when
he went away."

"Chicago has too many other things to think of, and---- Where's papa?"
said Miss Allison, turning abruptly from her aunt and moving with
quick, impetuous step towards the heavy portière that hung between the
parlor and Mr. Allison's library. But she stopped short at the
threshold, for there, just within the rich folds of the hanging barrier,
apparently searching for some particular book among the shelves nearest
the parlor and farthest from the library lights, and humming musically
to himself as he did so, was Cary's tutor.

"I did not know you were here, Mr. Elmendorf," said Miss Allison,
coldly. "I supposed you were in the study with my brother."

"I was until a moment ago. We needed a book, and I came down for it."

Mr. Allison's easy-chair and reading-lamp with the evening papers were
all arranged as usual, awaiting, at the other end of the room, the
coming of the master of the house. It was his custom to read there some
hours each evening, and the library was the one room in which he reigned
supreme. His books, papers, desks, and tables were sacred to his use,
and might not at any time be disturbed by other hands. Even Mrs.
Lawrence, who had her own books in her own little snuggery up-stairs,
rarely ventured to touch her brother's library shelves. As for Florence,
she never cared to. It was well known that Mr. Elmendorf had more than
once been sharply rebuked for having helped himself without first
seeking the owner's permission. Yet here he was again. The odd thing
about it was that this end of the library was dark. The books on these
shelves were huge folios, the size of some Brobdingnagian atlas, any one
of which required all Mr. Elmendorf's strength to lift from its place.
Miss Allison was not over-shrewd. She was frankness, guilelessness
itself. She rarely saw through the meanness of man or the duplicity of
woman. This, however, was not the first, but the second or third time
that Mr. Elmendorf had been revealed behind those curtains when she was
in conversation in the parlor, and it dawned upon her at last that
Cary's tutor was as good a listener as talker, and there were times when
Mr. Elmendorf was fluency itself. He was a shrewd fellow, too, and he
read his sentence in her face.

"Miss Allison," said he, quitting his search and stepping boldly
forward, "it would be idle in me to disguise, that I have unwittingly
heard a portion of the conversation between your aunt and yourself; and,
as your brother's friend and tutor, your father's trusted adviser in
many a way, both professional and personal,--indeed, if I may say so
without offence, as one who would gladly be your friend,--I feel bound
to support Mrs. Lawrence in the view she takes of this--pardon
me--unfortunate matter."

"Mr. Elmendorf!" interrupted Miss Allison, with eyes and cheeks aflame.

"Bear with me one moment," persisted Mr. Elmendorf, with deprecatory
gesture. "I am aware that I have not possessed your friendship in the
past; indeed, I may say I have been conscious of a distinctly hostile
influence; but my devotion to your father and your brother and the
interests of the family and all that may affect its good name make it
mandatory upon me to speak. I appeal to Mrs. Lawrence to support me in
my assertion that I am prompted only by the worthiest motives in thus
apparently intrusively, officiously if you will, claiming your
attention." Mrs. Lawrence bowed grave assent. She had many a time
expressed her disapprobation of Mr. Elmendorf's propensity to interfere
in domestic matters wherein he had no concern, but here was a case where
unlooked-for support was accorded her side of an unfinished argument.
Mrs. Lawrence considered all comment of Mr. Elmendorf on her affairs as
utterly unwarrantable, but poor Flo really laid herself open to
criticism.

It was Miss Allison who brought matters to a climax. "I refuse to
listen," said she, with something very like a stamp of her plump little
foot. "Mr. Elmendorf forgets himself entirely when he attempts to--to
criticise my conduct."

"Pardon me, Miss Allison, it is not your conduct, it is, on the
contrary, Mr. Forrest's, that I consider deserving criticism,--more than
criticism. It is of him, not of yourself, that I feel it my duty to
speak. I should be disloyal to my employer, to my friends, to my own
sense of honor and propriety, were I to keep silence. I know whereof I
speak when I say that he is unfit to step within these doors, to presume
to address you even as an acquaintance; and if you will but listen----"

"But I won't listen. I forbid your ever daring to speak to me in any
such way or on any such subject again." And, so saying, Miss Allison
swept angrily from the room.

Elmendorf shrugged his shoulders. "You see," he said, in the
high-pitched, querulous tone that so closely resembled a whine, "you see
the hopelessness of arguing with a woman in love. I have only succeeded
in making another enemy, and my position here will become all the more
embarrassing."

"In so far as I can uphold you, Mr. Elmendorf," said Mrs. Lawrence,
promptly, "you may count upon me. Flo is stubborn and hot-headed. She
looks upon Mr. Forrest as a hero, whereas he is really a detriment to
her social future. I rejoice in his being ordered West, and hope the
duty will keep him a long time away from Chicago."

"Ah! did he say he was ordered away on any special duty?" asked Mr.
Elmendorf.

"I certainly so understood Florence."

Mr. Elmendorf elevated his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders anew.
"That is very unlike the story that was told me at head-quarters," said
he, significantly.

"What was that?" asked Mrs. Lawrence, with prompt and pardonable
curiosity.

"That he was ordered away--under a cloud--in order to put an end to
probable scandal."

"Gambling?" asked Mrs. Lawrence, whose own first-born left college
prematurely because of fatal propensities in that line.

"W-e-l-l," answered Elmendorf, pursing up his lips, "I won't say there
may not have been something of that kind, but the main trouble is more
serious. I speak from excellent authority in saying that the general
gave him just sixteen hours in which to pack and start, fixing the noon
train to-day as the limit,--very probably to prevent his seeing
the--er--woman in the case again."

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




CHAPTER III.


Miss Allison declined to come down to dinner that night, and Mrs.
Lawrence had no power to compel her attendance. What she hoped was that
when Mr. Allison came in he would send his mandate; but Mr. Allison did
not come. Instead there was a messenger from the club. Mr. Allison was
unexpectedly detained by an important meeting of a board of directors,
and might not be home until late. The butler made the announcement with
his usual impassive face, and Mrs. Lawrence directed dinner served
without further delay. When told to summon Master Cary, a servant
presently returned with the information that that young gentleman had
stepped out. "Slipped out," muttered Elmendorf between his teeth, for no
sooner did Cary discover that "dad" was not to be home than he
tobogganed down the baluster rail and shot forth into the surrounding
darkness, and was blocks away among cronies of his own before his
absence was discovered. "My brother is far too lax in his discipline
with Cary," said Mrs. Lawrence, in that profound disapprobation which
most people have of other people's methods, especially when their own
system, or lack of it, has proved conspicuous failure.

"Mr. Allison," said Elmendorf, diplomatically, "is somewhat wedded to
his theory, but that may not stand the test of practice. I had flattered
myself that the few months of my tuition were beginning to bear good
fruit, and that Cary was steadying, so to speak; but ever since the boy
began to get this West Point idea into his head I have found him
becoming more and more difficult to guide and control. Indeed, while I
do not wish to be considered as complaining, I feel bound to say, since
you have done me the honor to open the subject, that the influence of
Mr. Forrest upon both your nephew and your brother has been detrimental
to my usefulness in this household, so much so, in fact, as to prove at
times a serious embarrassment."

Now, Mrs. Lawrence had by no means "opened the subject," as intimated by
Mr. Elmendorf, but he was adroit in the manipulation of language. He
noted unerringly the cloud of dissent in her face, and knew it would
find verbal expression provided opportunity were afforded. To head off
disclaimer, therefore, he resorted to the time-honored feminine
expedient of talking down the other side and giving it no chance to be
heard,--an easy matter with him, for when Elmendorf got to talking
there was no telling when he would stop or what he might say. He was a
man who loved talk for talk's sake, who had an almost maternal fondness
for the sound of his own voice, and who petted and cajoled and patted
and moulded his phrases and sentences as an indulgent mother might humor
a child or a school-girl dress and adorn a doll. Before he had been two
months an inmate of the household, old Allison had come to wish he had
not begun by prescribing that Cary and his tutor should regularly appear
at the family table. Once established there, Elmendorf speedily became
dominant. If friends of Miss Allison dropped in to luncheon and the chat
was of social matters or other girls, if Allison brought home
fellow-magnates to take pot-luck at his hospitable board, if Mrs.
Lawrence and her especial cronies discoursed on that never-ending
problem, the servants, if Forrest and his army friends came informally,
no matter what the subject or who the speakers, Elmendorf speedily
"chipped in," as Cary expressed it, and once in could not be driven out.
His pet theme was the wrongs of the wage-workers, his pet theory the
doctrine of incessant change. His watchword seemed to be "Whatever is is
wrong," for against the existing order of things in state, society, or
home he was ever ready to wage determined war. Armed with propensities
such as these, a profound conviction of his own sense and sagacity and
consummate distrust in those of everybody else, it is easy to see that
once encouraged to break the ice and join in the current of conversation
he could not readily be eliminated. A man of good education was
Elmendorf, and during the European trip he had not been so much in the
way, but once home again, more and more as the winter wore on did the
head of the household find himself wishing he had never set eyes on the
man. He heard of him presently as addressing socialistic meetings and
appearing prominently at the sessions of the labor unions. Then in the
columns of papers of marked anarchistic tendencies, that had been under
the ban ever since the riots of '86, long articles began to appear over
his initials, and both in his speeches and in his contributions
Elmendorf was emphatic in his condemnation of capital, and in his
demands that labor should unite, unite everywhere, and by concerted and
persistent effort wring from the congested coffers of capital--Elmendorf
loved alliteration--a large share of its hoarded wealth. The hands that
wrought the fabric, said he, should share and share alike in every
profit. The man who riveted the bolt or swung the hammer deserved equal
wage with him whose brain evolved the plan, or whose fortune built the
mammoth plant and purchased the costly machinery.

"What I employed him for," said Allison, "was to prepare Cary for
college, and to keep him out of mischief; but the boy's running wilder
than before. Elmendorf's welcome to his theories, but not to the time
they take from the education of my son." It presently transpired that
many an evening when they were supposed to be in the study or at the
library or the theatre, Elmendorf was off at some meeting of the
laboring men, largely attended by loafers who labored not at all, and no
one knew just where Cary had gone unless he chose to tell. Elmendorf had
long since offended Miss Allison and her friends by intrusion in their
talk; he had offended Mrs. Lawrence by comment and criticism on
household affairs that were none of his business; he had annoyed Allison
by persistence in taking part in the discussion when his business or
professional friends happened in. He had time and again thrown down the
gauntlet, so to speak, when Forrest or his comrades were present, and
challenged the army men to debate as to whether there was the faintest
excuse for the existence of even so small a force as ours in a land so
great and free; but Forrest coolly--even courteously--refused to be
drawn into controversy, and, though treating the tutor with scrupulous
politeness, insisted on holding him at a distance. Naturally, therefore,
Elmendorf hated the lieutenant and all who trained with him. None the
less did he continue making frequent visits to the officers at
head-quarters, and there the officers who met him on equal footing at
Mr. Allison's table could not snub him. They grew suspicious of him,
however, especially after reading his speeches, etc., which as the
spring came on grew more and more significant, and so they shut up like
so many clams on all professional topics whenever Elmendorf appeared.

For it was well known in the great community that "the regulars" were
keeping close watch on the changing phases of what the papers termed
"the situation." Twice or thrice before in the history of the city had
its mobs overpowered the municipal authority and defied that of the
State. Right or wrong, the majority among the prominent citizens
believed that in greater force and fury than ever before the turbulent
element among the people, taking advantage of some convenient strike,
would break bounds once more, and nothing short of disciplined military
force would down them. The State troops, vastly improved by the
experiences of the past, had won their way to increased confidence and
respect, but all the same people took comfort in the thought that only
an hour's railway ride away there was posted a compact little body of
regulars, and, despite the jealousy aroused in the heart of a free
people through the existence of a standing army, it is marvellous to see
how much comfort its proximity brings to law-abiding men.

Now, one of Elmendorf's theories, and one upon which he descanted by the
hour, was that in the very nature of things it was impossible for
people well to do in the world to sympathize with or understand the
needs of those who were not so favored. Divine writ, said he, was with
him. Just as impossible as for a camel to pass through the needle's eye
or for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven was it that the wealthy
could feel for the poor. Opulence and indigence were no more sympathetic
than oil and vinegar. The poor must ever have a champion, a savior, a
mediator, or they are ground beneath a relentless heel. It was
Elmendorf's belief that no manufacturer, employer, landlord, capitalist,
or manager could by any possible chance deal justly with the employed.
It was a conviction equally profound that manifest destiny had chosen
him to be the modern Moses who was to lead his millions out of the house
of bondage. It was astonishing that with purpose so high and aim so
lofty he could find time and inclination to meddle with matters so far
beneath him; but the trouble with Elmendorf was that he was a born
meddler, and, no matter what the occasion, from a national convention to
a servants' squabble, he was ever eager to serve as adviser or
arbitrator. It was his proclivities in this line that brought on the
first clash with Mrs. Lawrence, for in a difference between the lady of
the house and the belle of the kitchen, which was, as usual, none of his
affair, Elmendorf took sides with the cook. In the light of his conduct
on this occasion, Mrs. Lawrence declared him a pest, and she only
recanted when thus unexpectedly he arrayed himself under her own banner
against her recreant niece.

And so this evening they sat alone in the stately dining-room, and
Elmendorf found in Mrs. Lawrence an eager and even sympathetic listener,
for just so soon as the services of the butler could be dispensed with
the tutor opened fire on Forrest and his alleged iniquities, and from
this as entering wedge he found it easy to favor the aunt with his views
as to what should be done towards reclaiming the niece, so lamentably
and notoriously infatuated.

Mrs. Lawrence winced. It is all very well for a woman to say such things
herself in the heat of argument and to the object of her wrath, but
quite another matter to hear them applied by somebody else, and that
somebody a dependent, so to speak, in the household. Mrs. Lawrence, it
may be remembered, was indignant at Forrest first because she thought he
meant to offer himself to Florence, and then because she thought he
didn't. She did not want Florence to marry him, but still less did she
want that he should not want her. That was unbearable. She upbraided
Florence for seeing so much of Forrest, because it made people think her
in love with him, and she raged at the people who dared to think as she
said they did. Mrs. Lawrence, therefore, may with safety be set down as
somewhat inconsistent.

"I do not think my niece is at all infatuated with Mr. Forrest, Mr.
Elmendorf," said she, somewhat severely. "She admires him greatly, and
there happens to be no one else to occupy her thoughts just now. I beg
you, therefore, to dismiss that idea at once and for all time."

"I should be glad to do so, Mrs. Lawrence," replied the tutor, with much
gravity, "and could do so, perhaps, were it not that you yourself gave
me, in the conversation I was so unfortunate as accidentally to
overhear, the confirmation. Would it not be better now, instead of
working at cross-purposes in this matter, if you were to trust me more
fully and enable me to act in harmony with your plans and wishes? I
shrink from intruding unasked, but, believe me, I too have heard such
talk as convinces me that it is high time Miss Allison's friends took
counsel together to protect her good name."

Indignant, as most women would be, at being reminded of her own
responsibility for a false impression, Mrs. Lawrence could have found it
easy to put an end to the conference then and there, but for Elmendorf's
adroit reference to "other talk." That piqued her curiosity and held
her.

"What talk? Where?" she asked.

"I do not like to mention names, Mrs. Lawrence. My acquaintance among
the officials at head-quarters has become extensive, and much is said in
confidence to me that perhaps wouldn't be heard in their chat with
others. Indeed, I may say that some among the more thoughtful and
broad-minded of their number--there are a few such--have sought my views
upon important questions of the day and have favored me with their
opinions."

"And do you mean that Florence has been discussed there, among all those
men,--those officers?" interrupted Mrs. Lawrence, with justifiable
wrath.

Elmendorf shrugged his shoulders. "Of course I ought not to betray my
hosts or give away their secrets, but do you suppose that there, any
more than among the loungers of the clubs, a woman's name is never
discussed?"

"I thought they prided themselves on being gentlemen," said Mrs.
Lawrence, wrathfully; "and gentlemen would never permit it."

"Ah, my dear madam, there's the trouble. A man is not necessarily a
gentleman because wealth and social position impel him to membership in
one of these forcing-houses of luxurious iniquity we call clubs, or
because four years in a West-Point monkey-jacket win him a commission as
a genteel loafer. A woman's name is held far less in reverence among
them than it is among the humblest of our masses. Oh, yes, I anticipate
your question," said he, at this juncture, with deprecatory gesture and
faint, significant smile. "True, I am not personally a member of any of
those clubs, nor do I wish to be, but I know men and mingle with them
elsewhere,--everywhere else, in fact. The roof of the club-house cloaks
their misdeeds, and worse things are said and done beneath it than
outside. As for officers, the only reason why there is apt to be a
stronger percentage of common decency among them is that they are chosen
from the masses of the people and sent to the Point simply to be
moulded, not reformed. Mr. Forrest is an example of the so-called
blue-blooded stock. His people are 'swells,' so to speak,--people whose
heads are held very high and their morals correspondingly low,--people
who think it condescension on their part to notice wage-workers except
as menials. Hence I am in no wise surprised to hear of him as I do, even
among those who are--well, of his own cloth."

"Surely, Mr. Elmendorf, the officers who have so often dined here do not
entertain ill opinions of Mr. Forrest. Such men as Colonel Kenyon,
Captain Waring, Major Cranston,--they have known him long and well, and
they speak of him, to us at least, most highly."

Again the significant shrug of Elmendorf's shoulders and the sneer in
his tone. "Oh, certainly," said he. "_Noblesse oblige_, or honor among
thieves, whichever maxim you choose. I doubt not that in his younger
days each of the eminently respectable trio you mention was no more a
model of morality than is Mr. Forrest. I have, indeed, heard as much of
Captain Waring; but one has only once to penetrate beyond the veil of
that professional reserve which they assume, and the details of one
another's lives are not such guarded secrets, after all."

"And you really mean that from them--among them you have learned
these--these----"

"These particulars of Mr. Forrest's sudden orders to leave the city?"
said Elmendorf, dryly, with another shrug. "From where else? Even to the
name and station of the lady in the case."

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




CHAPTER IV.


Not half a mile away from the Allisons' costly residence was the home of
Major Cranston, an officer of some thirty years' experience in the
cavalry. It was an unpretentious, old-fashioned frame house, that had
escaped the deluge of fire that swept the city in '71, and that looked
oddly out of place now in the midst of towering apartment blocks or
handsome edifices of brick and stone. But Cranston loved the old place,
and preferred to keep it intact and as left to him at the death of his
father until such time as he should retire from active service. Then he
might see fit to rebuild. The property was now of infinitely more value
than the house. "You could move that old barrack out to the suburbs, cut
down them trees, and cut up the place into buildin'-lots and sell any
one of them for enough to build a dozen better houses," said a neighbor
who had prospered, as had the Cranstons, by holding on to the paternal
estate. But Cranston smilingly said he preferred not to cut up or cut
down. "Them" trees and he had grown up together. They were saplings
when he was a boy, and had grown to sturdy oakhood when his own
youngsters, plains-bred little cavaliers, used to gather their Chicago
friends about them under the whispering leaves and thrill their juvenile
souls with stirring tales of their doings "out in the Indian county."
Louis Cranston was believed to have participated with his father's troop
in many a pitched battle with the savage foe before his tenth birthday,
and "Patchie," the younger, was known to be so called not because of his
mother's having sprung from the distinguished family in which George
Patchen was a patron saint, but because he had been born in the Arizona
mountains and rocked in a Tonto cradle. Those two boys were now stalwart
men, cattle-growers in the Far West, whose principal interest in Chicago
was as a market for their branded steers. They had their own vines and
fig-trees, their own wives and olive-branches, and after the death of
the venerable grandparents the homestead on the shores of Lake Michigan
was for some years untenanted.

But therein were stored the old furniture and the old books and
pictures, all carefully guarded by one of Cranston's veteran sergeants,
who, disabled by wounds and infirmities, was glad to accept his
commander's offer to give to him and his a home and suitable pension in
return for scrupulous care of the old place. At long intervals the
master had come in on leave, and the neighbors always knew when to
expect him, for the snow-shovel or the lawn-mower, holly wreaths or
honeysuckles, seemed to pervade the premises, and old McGrath's neatest
uniform was hung out to sun and air on the back piazza. Mac was a
bibulous veteran at times, a circumstance of which place-hunters were
not slow to take advantage on those rare occasions of the owner's
home-coming, and many a time did the major receive confidential
intimation from the Sheehans, Morriseys, and Meiswinkles in service in
the neighborhood that McGrath was neglectful of his patron's premises
and over-given to the flowing bowl; but in Mrs. McGrath's stanch
protectorate, as in McGrath's own fidelity, Cranston had easy
confidence. Twenty years of close communion all over the frontier give
fair inkling as to one's characteristics, and Cranston had known Mac and
his helpmeet even longer. "Dhrink, yer honor? Faith an' I do, as
regularly as iver I drunk the captain's health and prosperity in the
ould regiment; and I'd perhaps be doin' it too often, out of excessive
ghratitude, but for Molly yonder. She convinces me wid me own crutch,
sorr." And Molly confirmed the statement: "I let him have no more than
is good for him, major, barrin' Patrick's Day and the First of April,
that's Five Forks,--when he always dhrinks as many fingers at a time.
Then he's in arrest till Appomattox, nine days close,--and then I let
him out for a bit again. Never fear, major, I'm the dishbursin' officer
of the family, an' the grocer has his orders." Mac had his other
anniversaries, be it understood, on all of which occasions he repaired
to Donnelly's Shades on a famous thoroughfare two blocks west of the
Cranstons' back gate, and entertained all comers with tales of dragoon
days that began in the 50's and spread all over the century. Shrewd
historians of the neighborhood made it a point to look up the dates of
Brandy Station and Beverly Ford, of Aldie, Winchester, and Waynesboro',
of Yellow Tavern and Five Forks, as well as to keep tab on subsequent
events of which history makes no mention, but which troopers know well,
for Summit Springs, Superstition Mountain, Sunset Pass, and Slim
Buttes--a daring succession of sibilant tongue-tacklers--were names of
Indian actions from Dakota to the Gila the old soldier loved to dwell
upon, even if Donnelly's whiskey had not put clogs on his tongue. Two
things was Mac always sure of at the Shades,--good listeners and bad
liquor; but the trooper who has tasted every tipple, from "pine-top" to
mescal, will forgive the latter if sure of the former. Donnelly had his
"ordhers," as Mrs. Mac said. The sergeant was to be accorded all respect
and credit, and a hack to fetch him home when his legs got as twisted as
his tongue: Mrs. McGrath would be around within forty-eight hours to
audit and pay the accounts. Donnelly sought to swindle the shrewd old
laundress at the start, and thereby lost Mac's valuable custom for six
long and anniversary-laden months. Then he came to terms, and didn't try
it again for nearly two years, which was remarkable in a saloon-man.
This time Donnelly was forgiven only upon restitution of the amount
involved and the presentation to Mrs. McGrath of a very ornate brooch in
emeralds and brilliants--or something imitative thereof--representing
the harp of Erin. From this time on things had gone smoothly.

A wonderful woman was Mrs. Mac, as her husband never failed to admit.
She had slaved and saved for him in a score of garrisons. They had their
little hoard carefully invested. They hired a young relative and
countryman to do the hard work about the premises, and they guarded
every item of the major's property with a fidelity and care that knew no
lapse, for Mrs. Mac was never so scrupulous as when her lord was in his
cups. "No," said Cranston, when a neighbor once asked him if he wasn't
afraid of serious losses through Mac's occasional inebriety. "The more
he drinks the stricter her vigilance, and she's the smarter of the two."

But there came a time when the major found it necessary to caution Mrs.
Mac, and that was when it was brought to his ears that McGrath's nephew,
the young Irish helper above referred to, was a frequent attendant at
certain turbulent meetings held over on the west side, where he had
been seen drunk on two occasions. "It's one thing to allow an old
soldier like Mac his occasional indulgence," said Cranston; "he was
started that way, and he never becomes riotous or ugly; but there is no
excuse for the boy. Those meetings alleged to be held in the interests
of the workingmen are attended mainly by tramps and loafers, fellows who
couldn't be hired to do a day's honest work, and are addressed by
professional demagogues who have no end but mischief in view. You saw
what resulted here when you first came in, seven years ago. I don't want
to hurt Mac's feelings by saying he's a bad example to his nephew, and I
don't want to let him know where the boy has been spending his evenings.
He'd break every bone in the youngster's skin if he thought he was
consorting with anarchists and rioters; and I tell you because you
couldn't have heard of it or you yourself would have taken the boy in
hand."

"Taken him in hand, sorr? I'd 'a' broke the snow-shovel over the
scandalous back av him if I'd heerd a worrd av it. He's aff to-day
sparkin' the girls in the block beyant, but I'll wait for him to-night.
Thank ye, sorr, for not tellin' Mac. It's his own poor sister's boy, an'
like his own that was tuk from us at Apache, but Mac would kill him
before he'd have him trainin' wid them Dutchmen and daygoes." (Mrs.
McGrath did not share Mulvany's views that "There are Oirish and
Oirish." Even Phoenix Park had failed to shake her view that anarchy
and assassination belonged only to "foreigners." No Irishman, said she,
was in the bloody bomb business of '86; and as for Dr. Cronin, that was
a family matther entirely.) "But if Tim's been goin' to meetin' wid the
like av them, he's been misguided by them as knows betther. Savin' your
presence, major, what would the gentleman be doin' wid him that was here
last week?"

Cranston looked at his housekeeper in surprise. "The gentleman who came
to look over my books?--Mr. Elmendorf?"

"The same, sorr. He came three times while the major was away, and Tim
was forever sayin' what a fine, smart man he was for a foreigner, and
how he was for helpin' the poor man."

Cranston gave vent to a long whistle of surprise and sudden
enlightenment. "When was Mr. Elmendorf last there?" he presently
inquired.

"All last week, sorr; three times at least I let him into the library as
usual, but he only stayed there awhile. He was talkin' outside wid Tim
an hour."

The major turned away in deep thought. Only two months before, ordered
from the Far West to take station at the new post near the city, he had
met Elmendorf when dining at the Allisons'. The next morning he found
him at head-quarters, chatting affably with the aides-de-camp, and
later he encountered him at Brentano's. Just how it came about Cranston
could not now remember, but he had invited Elmendorf to step in and look
over some old books of his father's, and as the tutor became
enthusiastic he was bidden to come again. Out at the post the major
established his modest soldier home, much missing the companionship of
his devoted wife, who was in Europe at the time with their only
daughter. Every week, perhaps, he would run in for half a day to look
over his possessions, but meantime he had given Elmendorf authority to
make a complete catalogue of the books, as well as to make himself at
home in the library, a room which Mrs. McGrath kept in apple-pie order.
But the fame of Elmendorf had spread from the city to the garrison, and
Cranston had already begun to wish he had been less impulsive in his
invitation, when Mrs. Mac told him of the missionary work being done
among his retainers by this stranger within his gates. The question now
was, what action could be justifiably taken?

Entering the old dimly-lighted study, long sacred to his father's use
and now sacred to his memory, the major found on every hand evidences
that Elmendorf had indeed been at work. Out from their accustomed places
on the shelves the books had been dragged, and were now stacked up about
the room in perplexing disarray. Some lay open upon the table, others
on the desk near the north window, his father's favorite seat, and here
some of the rarest of the collection were now piled ten and fifteen
deep. On the table in loose sheets were some pencilled memoranda on
names, authors, and dates of publication. On the desk were several pads
or blocks of the paper much used by writers for the press, and, face
upward, among them, held by an old-fashioned glass paper-weight, were a
dozen leaves closely pencilled in Elmendorf's bold hand. Cranston raised
the weight, expecting to find some more memoranda concerning his
precious books, but was not entirely surprised to read, in glaring
head-lines, "The Wage-Worker's Weapon," followed by some vehement lines
denunciatory of capital, monopoly, "pampered palates in palatial homes,
boodle-burdened, beer-bloated legislators," etc., the sort of
alliterative and inflammatory composition which, distributed in the
columns of the papers of the _Alarm_ and _Arbeiter Zeitung_ stamp, was
read aloud over the evening pipes and beer to knots of applauding men,
mostly tramps and idlers, in a thousand groggeries throughout the
bustling city. Cranston lifted the file from the desk as though to read
beyond the first sheet, but on second thought replaced it. Something
about the "threatening bayonets of Federal hirelings" at the foot of the
first page promised lively developments farther on, and recalled vividly
the editorials in similar strain that had been brought to the attention
of the officials at head-quarters, more than one of whom had expressed
the belief that they could spot the author on sight. Cranston turned
from it in some disgust, and resumed the contemplation of the work
already done. All he expected--all he had stipulated for--was a
catalogue of the books,--something he himself had not had time to make,
and a "job" which, to a man of scholarly tastes and education upon whose
hands time was apparently hanging heavily and that equivalent of time,
money, hanging not at all, would prove agreeable and acceptable.
Cranston's father loved those books, and had grouped them on his shelves
according to their subjects, history, art, science, the drama, the
classics, standard fiction, and modern literature having received each
its allotted space, and not for a heavy reward would the son have
changed them; but here already were more than half these prized
possessions tumbled promiscuously all over the room, and the soldier
could have sworn in hearty trooper fashion over the disarray, but for
the silent presence of his mother's portrait above the mantel facing the
father's desk. He had heard only recently of the tutor's avowed
proclivities for tearing down and stirring up the existing order of
things, and here was conclusive evidence that the gifted Elmendorf
proposed the complete rebuilding on his own lines of the fabric that
was the revered father's happiest work, even while incidentally devoting
some hours each day to stirring up a similar overturning in society.
That Elmendorf was not destitute of practical business views, however,
may be made apparent from the fact that when Cranston had intimated a
desire to have him name the sum he would consider a fair compensation
for the work, intending then to add a liberal percentage to the
estimate, the scholar replied that it would have to depend upon the
number of days and hours it took from other avocations, and it was now
evident that a long engagement was in contemplation.

Closing the door after him and bidding Mrs. McGrath allow no one to
enter the study until his return unless Mr. Elmendorf should come in,
Major Cranston went in search of him. It was barely noon, up to which
hour he was supposed to be closeted with his pupil at the Allisons'
home. Then after a light luncheon it was his wont to sally forth on a
tramp, Cary starting, but rarely returning, with him. When Cranston was
at head-quarters a fortnight previous, the officers were speaking of the
almost daily appearance about two o'clock of Mr. Elmendorf, who was
possessed with a desire to get into the general's office and impress
that magnate with his views concerning the impending crisis. The
general, however, being forearmed, was always too busy to accord the
interview, one experience having proved more than enough. Everybody was
beginning to give Elmendorf the cold shoulder there, and by this time,
reasoned Cranston, he must have had sense enough to discontinue his
visits. Here, however, he underrated Elmendorf's devotion to his
principles, for such was the tutor's conviction of their absolute wisdom
and such his sense of duty to humanity that he was ready to encounter
any snub rather than be balked in his determination to right the
existing wrongs. Cranston did not want to go to the Allisons' and ask
for Elmendorf. He had that to say which could not be altogether pleasant
and was altogether personal, and he had no right to carry possible
discord into a fellow-citizen's home. The Lambert Library, a noble
bequest, stood within easy range of Allison's house and his own, a sort
of neutral ground, and from there did Cranston despatch a special
messenger with a note.

"Will Mr. Elmendorf kindly drop in at the Lambert Library when he has
finished luncheon? I have to take the three P.M. train back to Sheridan,
and desire five minutes' conversation relative to affairs at the study
as I found them this morning," was all the major wrote, but it was
nearly half-past one before that boy returned with the answer. There was
no telephone at the Allisons', for the millionaire had long since
ordered it out, finding his home peace broken up by incessant summonses
from all manner of people. Cranston waited impatiently, and meant to
upbraid the boy. "It wasn't my fault, sir: the gentleman was at lunch
and wouldn't write until he had finished," was the explanation. Cranston
tore open the unexpected reply:

"Mr. Elmendorf deeply regrets that an important engagement in a distant
quarter of the city will render it impossible to meet Major Cranston as
proposed. If the major will kindly write his suggestions they will
receive all consideration and prompt acknowledgment."

"And it had taken Elmendorf," said Cranston, wrathfully, "at least
three-quarters of an hour to concoct that palpable dodge."

The railway station was a mile away, and he had several matters to
attend to. It was one of his weaknesses that when he had a thing to say
and meant to say it, delay was a torment. The librarian was a man whom
he knew well. "Mr. Wells, I've got to write quite a letter and do it
quick," said he, entering the office. "Can I impose upon your good
nature here?"

"Why, certainly, major. Miss Wallen will type it for you as fast as you
can talk it," said the librarian, rising and indicating a slender girl
who was bending busily over her typewriter.

"Oh, I didn't mean that," the major began; "and yet I don't know, I've
sometimes had to dictate reports. The only thing is, I shouldn't care to
hurt a man's feelings by letting him see that somebody else knew of the
matter; yet I'll want to keep a copy, for I've got to give him a
rasping."

"Miss Wallen can write a dozen copies at once, if you wish," said Wells;
"and as for hurting anybody's feelings, nobody could extract a word from
her on the subject."

"Then if the young lady will be so kind," said Cranston, bowing
courteously, "I should be most glad to avail myself." Making no reply,
the girl deftly fitted the sheets to the roller and waited expectant.
"Don't go, Mr. Wells. I assure you there is no need," said Cranston, as
the librarian started to leave the room.

"I've got to; it's my dinner-hour. Miss Wallen goes at twelve, and I
after her return. If there's anything the office can do for you, don't
hesitate to ask." And with that he was gone.

Miss Wallen's slim white hands were poised in readiness. "Chicago,
June--, 1894," began the major. There was an instant of swift-clicking
keys and a pause for more. "June--, 1894," repeated Cranston.

"Yes, sir, I have that."

"Already? I didn't suppose it could be done so fast. Do I give you the
address now?"

"If you please."

"Mr. Max Elmendorf," he began. "Shall I spell it for you?"

The swift fingers faltered. Some strange sudden cloud overshadowed the
bright intelligent face. The girl turned abruptly away a moment, then
suddenly arose and hastened to the water-cooler under the great window
across the room. Keeping her back resolutely towards the visitor, she
swallowed half a glass of water, then presently resumed her seat.
"Excuse me," she said. "I am ready now."

"You found the heat very trying, I fear," said the major. "Pray do not
attempt this if you are tired after your walk. It can wait as well as
not."

"It is something that doesn't have to be done to-day?" she asked,
looking quickly up.

"Certainly not, if the sun has been too much for you. Has it?"

No answer for a moment. "It isn't the sun," finally replied Miss Wallen,
"but I--should rather not take this."

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




CHAPTER V.


That evening as Major Cranston was getting into uniform again and
pondering not a little over the odd behavior of Mr. Wells's
stenographer, the young lady in question, her day's library duties at an
end, was walking thoughtfully homeward. She chose a route that carried
her close to the dancing waters of the lake. It was a longer way, but
she loved it and the fresh, cool wind sweeping inland from the seemingly
boundless sheet of blue. She was a slender girl, rather above the medium
height, a girl with dark earnest eyes and heavy coils of brown, lustrous
hair, and a grave, sweet face, whereon already there were traced
indelibly lines that told of responsibility and work and care. She
dressed simply, inexpensively, yet with a certain style that well became
the willowy grace of her figure. She moved swiftly, but without apparent
effort. She walked well, bore herself well, and sped along on her
homeward way as though absorbed in her thoughts, except when
occasionally glancing out over the sparkling expanse to her right. Other
women, and nurse-maids with romping children, dawdled about the sunny
foot-path along the breakwater; Miss Wallen alone seemed walking with
definite purpose. Nearly opposite the Grant Memorial the roadway swept
close by the path, and here it became necessary for her to cross to the
western side. Carriages were rolling almost ceaselessly by, and, seeing
her waiting an opportunity, a Park policeman signalled to the drivers of
those nearest at hand and beckoned to the girl to come on. She obeyed,
somewhat timidly glancing about her. One carriage, drawn by spirited
bays, had too much headway, and was well upon the crossing before the
coachman could help it. It brought her almost face to face with the
occupants, and for an instant hid her from the sight of the friendly
policeman. When she disappeared, her eyes were downcast, her features
placid, even a little pale; when, an instant later, he again caught
sight of her, Miss Wallen's eyes were flashing and her soft cheeks
aflame. A man in the carriage sitting opposite two ladies, one of middle
age and dignified bearing, the other young and divinely fair, had seemed
suddenly to recognize her and whipped off his hat in somewhat careless
fashion. Taking no notice whatever of the salutation beyond coloring
vividly, Miss Wallen passed quickly behind the carriage and was speedily
over the crossing.

"A friend of yours, Mr. Elmendorf?" asked the elder lady, languidly.

"A friend of--Mr. Forrest's, rather," was the significant reply, and
both ladies started, the younger turning to see who it could be, the
elder staring one instant after her, then suddenly confronting Elmendorf
again. One swift glance at her niece, and Mrs. Lawrence, with uplifted
eyebrows, framed her question with sensitive, speechless lips. Elmendorf
nodded sapiently. Then Miss Allison turned around.

"What's her name? Who is she?"

"Her name is Wallen. She is employed at the Lambert Library."

"Oh, indeed!" exclaimed Miss Allison, in quick and lively interest.
"I've heard Mr. Forrest speak of her. I do wish we could see her again."
Whereupon Mrs. Lawrence and Mr. Elmendorf exchanged glances of
commiseration.

A quarter of a mile farther up the drive Mr. Elmendorf checked the
driver. "If you will excuse me now, ladies, I have a call to make near
here, and will leave you. Should Cary return before I do, kindly ask him
not to go out again until I see him."

Mrs. Lawrence suggested driving him to his destination, but Elmendorf
declined. Two minutes more, and he had disappeared from their view among
the shrubbery, and in ten was rapidly walking southward along a busy
thoroughfare. Just as he expected, coming up the opposite side of the
street, moving swiftly and with downcast eyes, was Miss Wallen.
Springily he crossed, and the next instant was lifting his hat in more
respectful fashion than when in the park, half confronting, half turning
as though to join her. Barely noticing him at all, Miss Wallen moved
determinedly on, and Elmendorf, following, placed himself at her side.

"I could not but note your manner to me yesterday in the library, Miss
Wallen, and indeed on several previous occasions, and in spite of it I
venture to ask you to listen patiently to me for a moment. My object is
such as to entitle my words to your respect, not resentment. It is for
your own sake, your mother's, your name, that I brave your indignation
again."

"If it is to repeat what you intimated the other day, Mr. Elmendorf,"
said the girl, in low, firm tone, "I refuse to listen. You have no right
to speak in such a way."

"I have the right to try and save a poor girl from fatal error. I have
devoted the best years of my life to the cause of the poor as against
the rich, the down-trodden against the purse-proud. I should not have
presumed to speak to you on such a subject had I not heard your name
lightly, slightingly used among these very satraps whom Mr. Forrest
hails as companions,--comrades. It is to protect you from the
misjudgment, the censure of others that I strive to warn you. Pardon me
if I recall to you that it was partially, at least, on my
recommendation that you were given the position at the library, and that
now my name as your endorser is measurably involved. Of course if after
what I have to say you persist in receiving Mr. Forrest's--attentions,
as we will call them, you must do so at your own risk."

"Mr. Elmendorf, I have told you that there is no truth whatever in these
reports."

"I do not say there is. It is to warn you of the scandalous, outrageous
things these people in so-called high society say of people who are in
humbler walks of life that I ventured to relate what I'd heard. It is to
obviate the possibility of them in future."

"I have told you, Mr. Elmendorf, that I need no such warning, that I
will listen to no such affront. I refuse to believe that any gentleman
of Mr. Forrest's set has spoken ill of me. I know none of them, they
know nothing of me."

"Knew nothing, perhaps, until your name became linked with his,--how,"
said he, with significant shrug of his shoulders, "I know not, unless he
himself has boyishly boasted of----"

But here Miss Wallen stopped short and faced him. "I will hear no more
of this, either now or hereafter," she said, with blazing eyes, then
turned abruptly, and entered the hall-way of an apartment-house close at
hand and shut the door in his face. It was not her home, as Elmendorf
knew very well, but possibly friends lived there who would give her
refuge and welcome. At all events, he had received his _congé_, and
there was nothing for it but to go; and go he did, in high dudgeon. Not
until Miss Wallen, watching from an upper window in the room of a friend
and fellow-worker, had seen him board a car and disappear with it far
down the street, did she resume her homeward walk; and now her eyes were
wet with indignant tears.

That Mr. Elmendorf should have asserted that it was through his
influence, "partially, at least," Miss Wallen had received her
appointment in the library was characteristic of Mr. Elmendorf. Coming
to the city himself a stranger, only the year previous, he had spent
some hours there each day in reading and writing and study, and had
early made acquaintance with Mr. Wells, the librarian, greatly
impressing that gentleman at first with the fluency of his chat and the
extent of his travel, information, and culture. John Allison,
millionaire and manager, was one of the trustees of the Lambert bequest,
and when Cary came home from boarding-school in April--a premature
appearance which the superintendent's letter fully explained--Allison
didn't know what to do with him. "I wish I knew the right sort of tutor
to take him in hand," said he to Wells, and Elmendorf, apparently deep
in a volume across the office, heard, and promptly acted upon the
hearing. He asked Wells for a letter of introduction and
recommendation. Wells, having known the applicant less than a fortnight,
was pleased with him and said what he could. Allison was impressed by
the applicant's fluency and apparent frankness, and in less than a week
the erudite Elmendorf found himself in halcyon waters. Then came the
foreign trip, another thing to rejoice in; but before he sailed
Elmendorf had had an opportunity of doing good to his kind, as he
conceived it. Seeking an inexpensive lodging on his arrival in Chicago,
he had found a neat, cheerful home under the roof of an elderly widow, a
Mrs. Wallen, in a little house on the north side. She lived alone with
her daughter, who, it presently transpired, was her main support. There
was a son, a stalwart fellow, too, who, being only twenty-four and a man
of some education and ability, should have been the mother's prop and
stay in her declining years, and so he would have been, very possibly,
but for the fact that he had provided himself with encumbrances of his
own in the shape of a wife, two children, and numerous debts. He was
provident in no other way. "Martin," as the mother fondly said, "would
have made a mark in the world if he'd only been started right," but as
Mart started himself he started wrong. So long as the father lived, both
brother and sister had been well educated and gently reared, for Mr.
Wallen was a man of scholarly tastes, but a poor man slaving on a poor
man's salary. He had little to leave his children beyond his blessing
and the care of their aging mother. Martin was already pledged to a girl
schoolmate when the father died, and Jeannette, his sister, who seemed
to be the only practical member of the household, promptly withdrew from
school, invested her savings in a typewriter, spent her days in the care
of her mother and the little house, two rooms in which were presently
advertised as to let furnished, went to evening school at a business
school, practised stenography and typewriting when not doing housework,
washing dishes, or making clothes for her mother and herself, and
patiently, pluckily, cheerily looked forward to the time when Mart could
help. Mart spent six months "hunting for something to suit," and found
nothing he liked so much as making love to his pretty, penniless
neighbor. The clerkships he was offered didn't pay twenty dollars a
week, which was the least he thought a man of his ability and education
should accept. Jeannette told him the proper way was to take ten if he
could get it, and work his way up; but Mart disapproved of women's
interference in his affairs. It ended in his finally getting a
bottom-of-the-list berth in the freight dépôt of a big railway, and a
wife forthwith. Jeannette said nothing. She had taken Mart's measure and
saw this coming. "If I do not soon have to take care of Mart's wife and
babies, I'll be in luck," was the thought that possibly occurred to
her; but she was a silent little body, much given to shrewd and
common-sense observation of the world in which she lived. She was a
sunny-natured, merry-hearted child in the old days, and even as she grew
older and more burdened with care the little home still echoed to the
sound of her blithe song as she flitted from room to room about her
work, ever brave, hopeful, uncomplaining. "If I only had Jenny's
spirits," said the widow to her one lodger, "I might do something, too,"
but, as she hadn't Jenny's spirits or disposition, by a good deal, the
bereaved lady thought it unnecessary to try. It was Jenny who bore the
burden of every detail, Jenny who did their humble marketing, Jenny who
made the hard bargains with landlord and coal-merchant, Jenny who taught
and supervised the one clumsy damsel who was brought in as cook,
scullion, laundress, and maid-of-all-work, and Jenny who, after all, did
more than she taught. It was Jenny who cut and fashioned almost every
garment worn by either her mother or herself, who made and trimmed the
modest little hats or bonnets, who watched the bargain-counters at the
great retail shops and wished that women didn't have to wear gloves and
buttoned boots; Jenny who had to follow up their flitting
lodgers,--young men who folded their tents like the Arabs they were, and
as silently stole away out of the house, leaving sometimes a big
lodging-bill and little luggage; Jenny who presently had to nurse Mart's
wife and baby, just as she expected, for Mart lost that job, and the
house he had rented, and the furniture he hadn't paid for and that was
seized just when most needed. So baby Number One first saw the light
under the roof that Jenny's hard work paid for,--a lodger having
opportunely "skipped." And all the while she managed to keep up her
study and practice, and to do little odd jobs in copying, sitting far
into the dawn sometimes with aching arms and wrists and burning eyes and
whirling brain. There was no yielding to "beauty sleep" for poor Jenny.
Dark circles often settled underneath the brave, steadfast eyes, and
big, blinding tears sometimes welled up from unseen depths when no one
was near to spy upon her woman's weakness, and the very people she
slaved for were often querulous and complaining, and Mart's wife had
about as much helpfulness as a consumptive old cow. Jenny had to tell
Mart he must find work and pay their board, or some portion of it, and
Mart got another berth at another railway dépôt, and, without paying
anything whatever for the months he and his had lived under the mother's
roof, or much for the new furniture, moved into another house, where the
family circle was presently reinforced by the coming of another baby.
Meantime, however, Jenny's skill, quickness, and accuracy had been
steadily bringing her work into favor. A girl friend and fellow-student
had a good position in a down-town office, where lawyers and
business-men brought many a long paper demanding immediate copies, and
thither Jenny moved her typewriter, shrewdly calculating that the money
she could earn would more than offset the expense of a good servant at
home. As for car-fare, she meant to walk: she needed exercise. As for
luncheon, she'd carry it with her in her little basket. The plan worked
well. There were some days and weeks in which she was given as much as
she could possibly finish, but there were others--alack! many
others--when nothing came. There was a winter when she wore old clothes,
a winter through which other young women in the great hive of a business
block were blooming in gowns and garments that were of latest mode and
material. It was, so far as work was concerned, either a feast or a
famine with her, and she longed for just such a position as that held by
an older scholar, who was stenographer and typewriter on salary in the
office of a great law firm and yet was enabled to take frequent
transcribing or copying from outside; but for a billet of this kind she
looked in vain. Then came another winter. How it affected Miss Wallen
can best be told through this simple fact, that she was no longer able
to ride home even in the dark wet evenings. Mart had again been turned
out of house and home, and came with his ailing wife and wailing babies
to the doting mother's door, and again was Jenny burdened with their
maintenance. Mart had struck. There had been a scaling down of wages for
all hands. Most of them, realizing that these were hard times and that
other and better were coming, stood by the company. Mart was a leader at
the meetings of the employees, and a brilliant orator. With all the
eloquence of which he was capable he urged his fellows to stand together
and strike. He was one of a committee of five sent to see the local
manager. The manager showed the facts, and the other men were satisfied
that things were about as he showed. They had been long in his employ,
and Mart but a short time. The manager addressed himself to the old men,
rather ignoring the new, and Mart's tongue and temper got away with him.
He said he'd strike anyhow, and he did. He struck his own name off the
company's books.

And so during these dark, dreary winter evenings, sometimes wet and raw,
sometimes bitterly cold, quitting when she could her desk at five
o'clock, yet often kept pegging away until later, Miss Jeannette Wallen
walked those crowded blocks below the State Street bridge and all the
many, many squares that interposed between her and her little home. As
the days began to lengthen and the cold to strengthen, she sometimes
reached there well-nigh frozen and exhausted, to be welcomed and
regaled not so much with hot tea and loving words as by wailing infants
and complaining women,--Mart being, as usual, away at some soul-stirring
meeting, where much was said about the wrongs of the workingman, but
nothing thought of those of the workingwoman.

And then came an adventure. Many a time had she been accosted by street
prowlers, and sometimes followed, but her rule had been to make no
reply, simply to walk straight on, and look neither to the right nor to
the left. One dark evening in early January she had been working late,
and it was nearly seven as she passed the river. A few blocks farther
north she overtook a man whose unsteady gait did not prevent his
quickening speed and striving in turn to overtake her. Finding him at
her heels and his detaining hand actually on her arm, her nerve gave
way, and she took to flight, her pursuer following. Half a block ahead
and around a corner was the apartment-house where she had acquaintances,
and into the hall-way Jenny bolted, hoping to turn and slam the door
into the blackguard's face, but, to her horror, the heavy portal refused
to swing. Despairingly she touched the electric button, then turned
pluckily to face her pursuer and warn him off. But the fellow was daft
with drink, and, with maudlin exultation, he sprang after her and strove
to seize her in his arms, laughing at her frantic blows. Then the inner
door suddenly opened and tumbled them both into the hall and into the
arms of a tall, dark, heavily-moustached man who looked amazed one
second and enlightened the next, for he seated the half-fainting girl in
a chair, kicked the intruder into the gutter, and then sprang back into
the hall in time to catch her as she was almost toppling over on the
tiled floor. This brought her the second time within the clasp of a
muscular arm, and then she gasped an inquiry for her friends, and he
sent the staring hall-boy to ask if they were in, and stepped into his
own room and brought forth a glass of wine, which he calmly ordered her
to sip, and then, seeing her heart was fluttering like a terrified
bird's, he spoke gently and soothingly, and little by little she had
regained some composure when the boy came down from the fourth floor to
say the ladies were out.

Then she would have gone, and she strove to go, but her knees shook, and
he sent the boy with a message and made her wait, seated in the hall
chair, and came forth again from his room in a fur overcoat and cap, and
a moment later a cab was at the door. She recoiled and said she could go
in a car; but the cars were two blocks away. "Kindly permit me to see
you safely home," he said. "You have had a terrible fright, and are in
no condition to walk." At all events, she was in no condition to rebel,
and was glad to sink back into the cushioned corner of the hansom. "I'll
have to trouble you for the street and number," said he,
apologetically, as he stepped calmly in beside her.

"Oh, indeed I mustn't trouble you to come. The driver can----" And then,
alas! she remembered that she had but ten cents about her.

"The driver can, perhaps, but in this case he won't," was the grave,
half-smiling answer. "Number what? Which street, if you please?"

Helplessly she gave them. Commandingly he repeated them to cabby peeping
down through his pygmy man-trap in the roof, and away went the
two-wheeler. Her home was but six blocks distant. "You must let me pay
the cabman," she faltered, not well knowing how she was going to do so.

"I would, if it would comfort you," said he, calmly, "but he's already
engaged to me by the hour for the evening."

"Then my share of it, at least," she persisted.

"That I estimate to be possibly fifteen cents," said he, as the vehicle
drew up at the curb; "and I think I owe you ten times the amount for the
pleasure of kicking such an arrant cur as that specimen. Has he ever
annoyed you before? Do you know him?"

"By sight only," said she, the color at last reappearing in her face.
"He is often on that street corner below the Beaulieu, but I do not know
his name."

"He will be there less frequently in future. And now is there nothing I
can do? Are you sure you have everything you need at home?"

"More than I need,"--very much more, she could have added to herself,
thinking of her many unbidden lodgers,--"but you haven't given me your
name, and I owe you so much--besides the fifteen cents." She was trying
to smile now.

"You owe me nothing, unless----" he was turning away, but something in
her sweet, earnest face drew him back,--"unless it be permission to call
and ask how you are after all this excitement."

Miss Wallen's face clouded. Where could she receive him? Were not every
nook and corner of the house except her own little room given over to
the use of occupants in whom this distinguished-looking gentleman could
be expected to feel no interest whatever? He saw the hesitation, and
spoke at once.

"I beg your pardon," said he, frankly and heartily. "I had no right
whatever to be intrusive. Good-night, and--better luck next time." With
that he was into the cab and off in a trice.

Two days afterwards Miss Wallen called at the Beaulieu on her way down
town, clambered to the fourth floor, and asked her friends the name of
the gentleman who occupied the left front room, ground-floor. They said
he was a Mr. Forrest, but he'd gone away--he was often away; from which
she decided him to be one of the knights errant of the commercial
world, but vastly unlike in tone and manner those who usually accosted
her. Two weeks afterwards, as she was seated at her desk in the big
office building, while her friend Miss Bonner was clicking away at the
opposite window, the door opened, and in came an elderly lawyer for whom
she had done many a page of accurate work. "Miss Wallen," said he, "can
you do some quick copying for a friend of mine? Let me present
Lieutenant Forrest, of the regular army."

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




CHAPTER VI.


That Miss Wallen was no more surprised than her new customer was
apparent at a glance, but there was no time wasted in remarks on
previous meetings or present weather. It seemed that the gentleman in
question needed three typewritten copies of a long essay he had written,
and needed them at once. It was now four P.M. on Tuesday. He came for
the work at five o'clock Wednesday afternoon, and, although she had
wrought hard and faithfully, it lacked completion by just a page. "It
will be ready in ten minutes, sir, if you can wait," said Miss Wallen,
rising.

"Pray be in no hurry," said Mr. Forrest. "I have nothing to do to-night
but read it over." He took a vacant chair and produced the evening
paper, but through its pages he had already glanced while at the club;
over its pages he was glancing now at the slender, fragile-looking girl
with those busy, flying fingers and the intent gaze in her tired eyes.
He saw how wan, even sallow, she looked. The lines of care were on her
forehead and already settling about the corners of the soft, sensitive
mouth. He did not know that all alone she had returned to the office the
previous evening and worked until midnight, then hied her homeward fast
as cable-car could bear her, only, with racking nerves and aching limbs,
to toss through almost sleepless hours until the pallid dawn. He did not
know that in order that he might have this work on time she had never
left the building since eight A.M. that day. Silently she finished the
last page, counted and arranged the sheets, shaking out the intervening
carbons, quickly bound each set with heavier cover, and then stood
before him with her work. The pale yellow gleam of the wintry twilight
was streaming through the west window, the most unbecoming and trying
ever girl had to face, and she faced it unflinchingly. Forrest quickly
arose.

"I fear this has been heavy work, Miss Wallen," he said, regretfully.
"You must make allowance for my inexperience. I have to leave town
to-morrow, and needed this before going. Mr. Langston--an old
friend--brought me in to you. I--I hope you will let me pay you--all I
think it worth."

"I could have got along faster if the manuscript had been a little
clearer," said the girl, smiling slightly. "Some of it was hard to
decipher, and the technical terms were new to me. If you will look it
over and let me know how nearly correct it is, I will then make out my
bill accordingly."

"There won't be any time for that," said he, "and Mr. Langston says you
are never inaccurate. He tells me, furthermore, that you brought my
scrawl to him three times to-day for words he himself could hardly make
out. It is over eighteen thousand words, according to my count. I know
what such work is worth in New York,"--and now he held forth three crisp
ten-dollar bills,--"but this had to be done so rapidly. Will thirty
dollars be--anywhere near right?" he asked.

Miss Wallen consulted a memorandum on her desk, gravely searched through
her portemonnaie, found some small coin and a two-dollar bill, then as
gravely took two of the bills and handed him the ten, the two, and the
small change. "More than sufficient by just twelve dollars and fifteen
cents," she quietly said, "provided it be understood that you are to
send me a memorandum of any and all errors detected, and I shall be here
early to-morrow morning and will be glad to rewrite the pages in which
they occur."

But Forrest protested. "I gave twenty-five dollars in New York for work
much shorter and done leisurely," said he, "and you have worked long
hours. I feel under very great obligation."

"You needn't," said she. "I have made more in the last twenty-four hours
than in the previous week. I was only too glad to get the work."

Down the iron stairs clerks and office-boys were clattering. From the
crowded pavement a hundred feet below, the thunder of hoofs and wheels
and thronging traffic rose on the frosty air. Over the roofs,
wind-driven, came the screech of a hundred whistles from foundry,
factory, and mill on the wide-spreading west side. Toil-worn men by
thousands were laying down their tools and turning eagerly, wearily
homeward. The gongs of the cable-cars hammered mad alarums, and swarms
of people squeezed upon the platforms. In adjacent office blocks the
electric lights were beginning to gleam, and the pallid hues of dying
day were fading from the wintry sky. Forrest's business was done, and he
had no excuse to linger. She stood there facing him, evidently expecting
him to go. Never before in his life had he encountered anything of this
description. He had read and heard that many a girl delicately reared
was now employed as book-keeper, typewriter, and stenographer, in
offices all over the land, and here was one, plainly--even poorly--clad,
yet proud, independent, self-reliant, and in every word and look and
act, no matter how humble her lot, as unmistakably a "lady" as his own
sister. He wanted to stay, wanted to impress upon her his appreciation
of the service she had done him, wanted to persuade her to accept what
he felt she sorely needed,--the remaining ten dollars of the sum
Langston had told him would be about what she would probably
charge,--but, after a moment's irresolute pause, he turned abruptly and
went to the door.

"I shall be back in a month with more such work, and I shall be
fortunate if I can get you to do it for me. Good-night, Miss Wallen,
and--thank you."

"Good-night, sir, and thank you."

Forrest went discontentedly over to the Union League. He felt somehow
that he hadn't treated that girl right. One or two men from the fort
were there,--Waring of the light battery and little "Chip" Sanders of
the cavalry. These jovial captains hailed him and besought him in
cordial soldier fashion to stay and dine, especially in view of the long
trip ahead of him on the morrow, but he begged off. He had an evening's
work ahead, and must get home betimes, said he. He compromised, however,
on a modest tipple, and, not caring to fight his way through the crowd
in either car or street, summoned a cab and was soon comfortably
trundling to the north side. One block beyond the river, under the
electric lights, he caught sight of a slender, girlish form, swiftly
threading a way along the pavement, and recognized at a glance the
heroine of the adventure of a fortnight gone, the transcriber of those
fruitful pages on the seat by his side, and the object of his thoughts.

"Hold up under those lights yonder," he cried to cabby through the trap
in the roof, and cabby, seeing no bar in close proximity, marvelled as
he obeyed. Forrest sprang out, turned back, and in another moment was
raising his hat to the girl, who glanced up with nervous start and
repellent mien that only slowly changed to recognition. Even then there
was womanly reserve, and much of it, in her manner.

"Pardon me, Miss Wallen, I never dreamed of such a thing as your walking
all the way home, and after such a long day's work. My cab is right
here; please let me drive you the rest of the way."

"Thank you, no," she answered, quietly. "I always walk after a long
day's work. It is exercise and pleasure both."

"But surely you are very late, and--forgive my reminding you of your
recent unpleasant experience."

"No one else ever chased me," she said, "and I don't think even he would
had he not been drinking. You seem to have scared him away, for not once
have I set eyes on him since."

"But you will ride, won't you? It would be a pleasure--some comfort to
my conscience--if I might send you home, after the lot that you have
done and the little you would take." They had reached the cab now, and
he stopped invitingly, but she never faltered, and only turned towards
him and slackened her steps sufficiently to repeat her thanks and a
courteous refusal.

"Upon my word, you make me ashamed of my own laziness," said Forrest. "I
used to be a good tramper on the Plains, but have been getting out of
the way of it. At least I may walk a little way with you, may I not?"

And this she could not well see how to decline. Cabby was dismissed with
a _douceur_, and Forrest hastened after his new acquaintance. She
carried some bundles in her arms, and he offered to take them. He had
his own, however, and she declined. He shifted his packet of triplicates
under the right arm and tendered her, with courteous bow, the left, and
she "preferred to trudge along without it, thank you," yet in so
pleasant a way he could not find fault. He walked all the way to her
little home, and bade her good-night with the promise that when he
returned in February he would be glad to have another eighteen thousand
words transcribed in triplicate for seventeen dollars and odd cents.

"You can't," said she, with her same quiet smile. "It will cost eighteen
at least. Your fifteen cents change to-day was for my share of the cab."

He was on duty in the judge-advocate's office of the department, as has
been said, and had been ordered off on a court-martial. He was back in
two weeks, and more work went through that typewriter, and then came
days which he spent in study at the Lambert Library, and pages of
memoranda and notes which he read to her at her office, which were
faithfully stenographed and promptly, accurately typewritten, and there
were soon some evening walks home,--several of them,--and Forrest found
the way curiously short as compared with the original estimate. He was
deeply interested in his work at head-quarters, but the detail was only
to last a month or two longer, for then the regular incumbent would have
returned from the long leave of absence granted him on account of ill
health, and then Forrest himself purposed spending some months abroad,
all arrangements for his leave having been already consummated.

One afternoon at the library Mr. Wells came and seated himself by the
lieutenant's side. They had had many a long chat together, and were fast
friends.

"I'm out of luck," said Wells. "I've seen it coming for months, and
ought to have been prepared. My typewriter has given me warning."

"Going to be married, I suppose?"

"Yes, and within six weeks. She's a girl I simply can't replace."

"Why not?"

"Because in my work only a well-educated and highly intelligent girl
will answer. I have to dictate sometimes fifty letters a day filled with
strange names and technicalities and foreignisms, and there's no time to
consult dictionaries and the like,--no leisure, half the time, to read
over the letters submitted for my signature. I must trust to my
typewriter; and girls educated up to that standard come too high for our
salary. I gradually taught Miss Stockton what she knows, so she was
content with sixty dollars a month, but I can't get one who can do as
well for a hundred, which is more by forty than the directors will allow
me."

Forrest was silent a moment. "It is work that demands all a girl's time,
I suppose?" he ventured.

"Yes, every bit of it from nine to five, and often to six. She has her
evenings at home, however, unless some of our library assistants are
sick; then she would have to help at the shelves."

"If you are in no great hurry, will you hold the offer open one week? I
know a g--a lady, I should say, who is intelligence and accuracy
combined, and who might take it. She has done much work for me, and I
know her worth."

"Would she come for sixty dollars, do you suppose?"

"I will ask her," said Forrest, guardedly. He well knew how glad his
hard-working typewriter would be to have so permanent and pleasant a
station. He more than suspected that many men who came to the busy
office in the heart of the city were far from respectful. He remembered
how his blood boiled one afternoon when he found a bulky fellow, his
hat on the back of his head, his legs outstretched, and a vile cigar
tiptilted in his mouth, sitting leering beside her desk.

"You shouldn't permit it," he said to her, later.

"Ah, but I must not quarrel with my bread and butter," was her reply,
half mournful, half whimsical. "Not one man in ten thinks of taking off
his hat or dropping his cigar when he enters our 'shop.' No, Mr.
Forrest, we are wage-workers who can't afford to draw the line at the
manners of our customers."

"But--are there not some who--who become impertinent--familiar--if not
checked at the start?" he found himself constrained to ask, and the
flame that shot into her cheeks told him his suspicion was correct.

"Not often," she answered, presently, "and never more than once. We
simply try not to notice small impertinences, Miss Bonner and I, and
generally, you know, we are together here."

This was mid-April. The vacancy was to occur at the end of the month.
Forrest himself brought Miss Wallen to the library and presented her to
Mr. Wells. A gentleman was seated in the librarian's room at the
time,--an industrious fellow who had recently appeared, who spent some
hours turning over many books, and whom Wells described as a most
interesting and travelled man, a graduate of Jena, etc.; but at sight
of him Miss Wallen showed slight though unmistakable signs of
embarrassment, almost annoyance. He pretended to busy himself with his
books, but was evidently listening to what was going on, and Miss Wallen
was decidedly constrained. Presently he arose and came forward, saying,
with much suavity of manner, "You must pardon my intrusion. I could not
but catch something of this conversation, and had I known before that
Mr. Wells was contemplating a change here I should have eagerly availed
myself of the privilege our friendship gives to recommend this young
lady, of whose character and qualifications--we being inmates of the
same household--I can speak _ex cathedra_, as it were, and can hardly
speak too highly." He went on to say more, taking the floor, as was his
custom, to the exclusion of everybody else, and Mr. Forrest withdrew to
a distant part of the room. Miss Wallen presently bade Mr. Wells
good-night and asked when she might come to see him again, and Wells,
looking a trifle vexed, asked for her address and said he would write.

And then Mr. Elmendorf announced that it would give him much pleasure to
see Miss Wallen home, and what could she do? Forrest had said nothing
about going further. Elmendorf had certainly been most flattering in his
commendation. She had taken a decided dislike to him during the few
weeks he had occupied the lodger's room, and had avoided him as much as
possible, but it might well be that he was a man of influence in library
matters. She had no reason for rebuffing, but good reason for showing
gratitude. Forrest gravely bade her good-evening and good luck, and Miss
Wallen walked away with her lodger in close attendance. All the way home
he descanted on his influence with Wells and the trustees. He was
already, he said, contemplating taking a position in the household of
Mr. Allison, the millionaire magnate. He took it, in truth, within the
week, and wrote Miss Wallen that it had given him much pleasure to urge
warmly her claim for the position soon to become vacant. He found they
had several other applications, and some who had strong influence, but
he would not cease to urge her appointment and keep her well-being in
mind. But meantime one day Mr. Wells gladdened the girl's heart by a
brief note saying that he had been so favorably impressed with the work
she had done for Mr. Forrest that he had determined to tender her the
place.

Two days later Forrest came to congratulate her and to bid her adieu, as
he would sail for Europe within the week. She tried to thank him, but
could not frame the words. She did not lack for language, however, when
her mother read to her that night the charming note she had just
received from Mr. Elmendorf, felicitating her upon the promotion of her
devoted and dutiful daughter, and himself upon the fact that this good
fortune was probably due to his determined and persistent presentation
of her daughter's claims before the trustees, whom he had frequent
opportunity of meeting at Mr. Allison's house. Doubtless Elmendorf
considered this presentation equivalent in full for the three weeks'
arrears of room rent, a cheque for which he had said should be
forthcoming as soon as Mr. Allison paid in advance his first quarter's
salary, but which never came at all.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




CHAPTER VII.


When Mr. Forrest returned from Europe in the late autumn of '93, he
expected to go forthwith to the station of his regiment and devote his
energies to those ceaseless, engrossing, yet somewhat narrowing duties
that keep a man of mature years, capable of much better things,
attending roll-calls, drilling two sets of fours addressed by courtesy
as "company," grilling on the rifle-range, and consuming hours of
valuable time in work allotted in older services to sergeants. Calling
at the War Department on his way, he was asked about the autumn
manoeuvres and if he had seen any of them. He had seen a great deal,
the interest of friends in both the German and Austrian services having
enabled him to follow the armies assembled about Metz and Güns to
excellent advantage. Returning to his billet after each long day in the
saddle, he had spent some hours before retiring in recording his
impressions and observations, the result being several big note-books
crammed with data of deep interest to the professional soldier. The
adjutant-general took Forrest in to the Secretary of War, and there was
some significant talk, the result of which was the intimation that he
should again be assigned to temporary duty at department head-quarters
in Chicago in order to give him opportunity to write out his notes. Long
before this, Forrest's essays on grand tactics and certain papers on
military history had won much favor among the studious men in the army,
and it was with pride and pleasure that he entered on the allotted task.
He wrote, as did Zachary Taylor, a hand that looked much as though a
ramrod rather than a pen had been used, and naturally his first thought
was to find his transcriber of the previous winter. There she was at her
desk in the library, and looking far younger, happier, and better than
when he saw her last, and the frank pleasure in her face was good to see
as she welcomed him more in manner than in words.

"Certainly," said Miss Wallen; "I shall be glad to give as many evenings
to the work as may be necessary. I am too busy here by day." And so as
the autumn wore out and the winter wore on, her slender white fingers
danced over the keys, and page after page, in neatly typed duplicates,
his voluminous notes on the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary were
faithfully transcribed. Home was not so far away now, and her brisk
walks led her no longer through sections she had learned to dread.
Accustomed for some years to far longer and lonelier tramps in the
wintry evenings, she thought nothing of tripping to and fro between the
Lambert and the rather crowded little house in which she dwelt. Mart and
his wife and babies still sojourned there, and the babies waxed strong
and loud and lusty on Aunt Jenny's bounty, never caring whose fingers
earned the porridge, so long as their share was ample and frequent. Mart
was out of work, and correspondingly out of elbows and temper. Mart had
taken to continual meetings and to such drink as he could get treated to
or credit for, and still the mother condoned, the wife complained, and
Jenny carried the family load. Mart loved to tread the rostrum boards
and portray himself as a typical victim of corporation perfidy and
capitalistic greed. The railway company from which he had seceded
refused to take him back, and other companies, edified by the reports of
his speeches in _The Switch Light_, _The Danger Signal_, and other
publications avowedly devoted to the interest of the down-trodden
operatives of the railway and manufacturing companies, thought that in a
winter when many poor fellows were out of work through no fault of their
own, beyond having exercised the right of suffrage the wrong way, the
few vacancies should be given to men more likely to render faithful
service. Mart's wife, impressed with the idea that she must do
something, took in sewing, and took the sewing to ask Jenny to show her
how, which in nine cases out of ten Jenny did practically. If the
little money thus earned had gone to pay for the babies' milk or Mart's
whiskey bills, Jenny would have been grateful; but even these shillings,
earned with her numbed and weary fingers, somehow found their way to
Mart's broad palm and thence to the dram-shop, though not to that which
had claims for goods already delivered. And then followed scenes that
covered the poor girl with shame and indignation. To her office at the
library one winter evening, when Wells was reading the late mail, and
Mr. Forrest, seated at a neighboring desk with a big atlas before him
was far away among the glinting _pickelhaubes_ on the banks of the
Moselle, a man came with an account which he wished Miss Wallen to
settle. It was Martin Wallen's bar bill for the autumn months at
Donnelly's Shades, and the girl flushed with mortification. "This is
something with which I have nothing to do," said she. "I would not pay
it if I had the money."

"I was told to come to you," said the man. "It's your brother's account,
and he said you'd promised him the money time and again. If it ain't
paid we'll send for the furniture." And then he wanted to show it to
Wells, who waved him off in annoyance; and then he looked as though he
would like to interest the other occupant of the room in the matter, but
something about that gentleman's face as he arose and came forward
proved unsympathetic. "I'll send this bill in again on the 31st," said
Mr. Donnelly, "and if it ain't paid then----"

But the tall, brown-eyed, brown-moustached man was walking straight at
him, looking him through and through, and there would have been a
collision in the office had not Donnelly backed promptly out through the
door-way. This merely transferred the scene of it and involved a third
party, for there, just outside the ground-glass partition, ostensibly
hunting for a book in the revolving case and humming a lively tune, was
Elmendorf. Recoiling to avoid contact with the advancing Forrest, the
bill-collector backed into the listening tutor and bumped him up against
a table.

"Oh, beg pardon," said Elmendorf, as though in no wise aware who his
bumper might be, and then edged off towards the corridor beyond,
apparently desirous of escaping further connection with the affair. But
Forrest, even in the dim light of the anteroom, recognized him at a
glance. More and more, ever since the return from Europe, had he grown
to dislike and distrust the man. More than once had he seen an
expression on Miss Wallen's face when Wells happened to mention
Elmendorf that gave ground for the belief that she, too, had no pleasant
recollection of her erstwhile lodger; but never had she opened her lips
upon the subject. Indeed, bright and intelligent as was the girl when
she chose to talk, both Wells and Forrest had found that when she
preferred to be silent it was useless to question. But here, skulking in
the anteroom, where reading was out of the question, where, however, one
might easily hear what was going on in the private office, here was
Elmendorf again, and though Donnelly's foot-falls were audible to all as
he came pounding up the stairway and turned from the corridor into the
office rooms, not a sound of others had been heard. The main
stairway--that which led to the great reading-rooms of the library
proper--was on the southern front. Only those having business with the
head librarian or the trustees were supposed to come this way. Forrest
often read, wrote, and studied here, because the more valuable atlases
and books of reference were near at hand, and whenever not writing for
Wells Miss Wallen was at work on his notes. It flashed upon Forrest that
the tutor had some object other than book-hunting in that noiseless
visit, and he called him back. "Would you mind waiting a moment, Mr.
Elmendorf?" said he. "I should like to speak with you after I've said a
word to this--gentleman." Then, coolly pushing beyond both, he closed
the corridor door and turned on the electric light.

"Mr. Donnelly," said he, facing the now nervous-looking Irishman, "you
know as well as I that no woman on earth is liable for the liquor bills
of any man, even a relative. What brought you here?"

"Me legs, I s'pose, an' me own affairs. What's it to you, anyhow?" But
Donnelly was shifting rather unsteadily on those same legs and twisting
his bill in his hands.

"This, to begin with," said Forrest, very coolly, though his blood was
boiling, and the impulse to floor the fellow was strong within him. "An
old fellow campaigner of mine, Sergeant McGrath, has told me----" but
there was no need to go further. Donnelly's tone and manner underwent
instant change.

"Is this Lieutenant Forrest?"

"It is Lieutenant Forrest; and I have this to say to you here and now.
You came here to bring shame and distress on an honest girl,--you, an
old soldier and an Irishman,--the first soldier and the first Irishman I
ever knew to be guilty of so low and contemptible a piece of
persecution. When I write to Major Cranston of this, and when I tell
McGrath----"

"Don't be hard on me, lieutenant. I meant no harm to the lady at all.
Sure the bill's been unpaid ever since October. I tuk it to the house--I
thought mebbe she could inflooence Mart, but I'd never have come here
wid it at all, sorr, but--but----" And his troubled gaze wandered now to
where Elmendorf stood biting his nails and watching a chance to speak.

"But what, Donnelly? Who put you up to such a dirty piece of business?"

"Permit me. Nothing dirty was intended for a minute, if I may be allowed
to speak," said Elmendorf, as he came forward. "As a friend of all
parties concerned, for I know Mr. Wallen well and have remarked his
bibulous propensities with distress, I merely suggested to Mr. Donnelly
that perhaps if he could get Miss Wallen's ear he might possibly induce
her to exercise a restraining influence upon her brother. I thought it
best that she should know how and where he was spending so much money
_in esse_ as well as money _in posse_. That Mr. Donnelly should have
misconstrued my well-meant words into----"

"Oh, sure ye told me to show this bill when everybody could see it,
sorr, and that would take the starch out av her."

"Settle it between you, gentlemen," said Mr. Forrest, turning
contemptuously away. "I have heard more than enough."

"I will see you about this later this evening," said Elmendorf, as the
lieutenant disappeared within the sanctum, slamming the door after him
and vouchsafing no answer.

That evening Wells's letters seemed interminable. It was nearly
half-past six when he finished dictating, and with aching heart and
burning face Miss Wallen closed her desk and silently went for her cloak
and overshoes. For over half an hour Mr. Forrest had stood to his guns
across the room, making much pretence of being busy with the atlas and
his notes, but time and again his eyes wandered, following his thoughts,
to the other two,--Wells rapidly dictating, his stenographer with bowed
head, determinedly wielding her pencil. When Wells finally started, the
lieutenant arose and strolled out with him, closing the door behind
them. "I shall see Miss Wallen home," said he, in low tone. "She's had
more than enough indignity for one day."

"I'd do it if you couldn't, Mr. Forrest, even though they're waiting for
me at home. That girl's a lady, by Jupiter! You've no idea how she's
studied and developed ever since she's been here; and it's a damned
outrage that such fellows should be allowed to annoy her."

"Such fellows won't, another time," said Forrest, quietly. "Elmendorf
was back of this, for some reason that I mean to fathom."

"That's all very well as far as the Irishman's concerned, Mr.
Forrest,--he's had his fill,--but look out for that other. I'm no judge
of character, now, if he isn't a snake."

When Forrest re-entered the room Miss Wallen had turned out the electric
lights over her desk and was standing by the window, her face bowed in
her thin white hands. Forrest's overcoat and hat always hung in the
closet without. He had gone with Wells, closing the door. She was, as
she supposed, at last alone, and the reaction had come. All the weary
months of work, work, work, all the patient slaving to provide for the
improvident, all the brave, cheery, hopeful, uncomplaining days of
honest toil and honest effort, only to end in such a scene of shame and
mortification as this! What could Mr. Wells think of his secretary,
chased to her desk with the liquor-bills of her kindred! What would not
Mr. Forrest think! A weaker woman would have found refuge and comfort in
a passion of tears, but her eyes seemed burning. Leaning against the
open casement, she stood there fairly quivering with wrath and the sense
of indignity and wrong. She, too, had recognized Elmendorf's nasal whine
in the anteroom, and felt well assured that he was in some way
responsible for Donnelly's action. Mart had had much to say of late of
the foreigner's convincing logic and thrillingly eloquent appeals to the
workingman. _There_ was the man to wring the neck of capital and bring
the bloated bond-holders to terms, said he. Mart never missed a meeting
where Elmendorf was to speak, and had more than once been brought home,
fuddled, in the cab which conveyed the agitator back to the scene of his
labors in the Allison homestead. The cab was paid for by the Union, and
Elmendorf didn't mind having it wait outside while he assisted Mart
within and stopped to condole with Mrs. Wallen the elder, or Mrs. Wallen
junior, and to inquire significantly, if he did not see her, where Miss
Wallen was; he always supposed the library closed at nine o'clock, and
was not aware, he said, that anybody except the janitor was permitted to
remain there later. He knew very well that the librarian was sometimes
there until nearly midnight. He knew well that it was there and in the
evenings, mainly, that Miss Wallen worked at the transcript of
Forrest's reports. "At least," as he said to himself, and suggested to
others, "that is the _ostensible_ purpose of her frequently prolonged
visits." He often walked by the lighted windows of the sanctum and
occasionally slipped into the dark hall-way, so the watchman later said.
The same irrepressible propensity to meddle in the affairs of everybody
in the household where he was employed, in the councils of the various
labor unions, in the meetings of political associations, in the official
duties or off-hand chats of the men at military head-quarters, in the
management of the Lambert Library, seemed to follow him in his casual
intercourse with this obscure little household. One night when towards
ten o'clock Miss Wallen came blithely down the corridor stairs, she was
surprised to find the tutor awaiting her. "As I know Mr. Forrest to be
otherwise engaged to-night, Miss Wallen, I have ventured to offer my
services as escort," said he, and though she shrank from and could not
bear him, there was no reason at that time for denying him; but when he
presently began talking of Forrest in his suggestive, insinuating way,
and excusing his references to the lieutenant on the ground of his
extreme regard for her widowed mother, her impoverished but amiable
relatives, and her own refined, intellectual, and accomplished self, she
shrank still more and strove to silence him,--a difficult matter. She
had, however, a trait that proved simply exasperating to a man of
Elmendorf's calibre,--a faculty of listening in absolute silence where
she did not desire to confirm or approve,--and when he had spent much
breath and nearly half an hour in descanting upon his impressions of the
demoralizing tendencies of military associations in general and of idle
officers in particular, it rasped him to find that she did not seem to
consider his views worthy the faintest comment; nor would she nor did
she invite him in. When her mother reproved her for this, Miss Wallen
smiled, and said, "Next time I will, and then you might ask him for the
three weeks' lodging he hasn't paid," and Mart said she ought to be
ashamed of speaking so of a man who had done everything for her. She'd
never have got that library place at all if it hadn't been for
Elmendorf, no matter what her fine friends might have told her. Oh, Mart
knew all about it; needn't try to pull the wool over his eyes! Another
time had Elmendorf come, and again had he talked more of what he had
done for her and the rights it gave him to tender her counsel, and this
time his references to Forrest took a graver form and became offensive.
It was then, indignant, she refused to hear more of it, and that night
Elmendorf went away gritting his teeth, and now had come this
contemptible essay to humiliate her before her employer. Oh, it was
cowardly! shameful! She threw up her arms, clinching her little white
hands and stamping as slender a foot as ever walked in a machine-made
shoe, and then, ejaculating, as women will, in moments of supreme
exasperation, "If I were only a man!" whirled about and beheld one.

"In your present mood," said Mr. Forrest, quietly, "I am rather glad you
are not, especially as what I have to say refers to you rather in your
capacity as 'the clever woman of the family.' Did you ever read an
English book of that title?" And then in the most matter-of-fact way in
the world he proceeded to assist her into the heavy winter cloak he had
lifted from its accustomed peg. "No, of course you haven't," he went on,
chatting unconcernedly, and well knowing she was too overwrought to talk
at all; "a girl who works from morning till late at night has little
chance to read anything beyond stenographic notes and hideous
hieroglyphics--mine, for instance. Now, this sensible head-gear, if you
please---- How can a woman wear a hat in winter? Yes, it's on quite
straight,--quite as straight as though you had a glass in front of you.
Now the overshoes. No, pardon me, Miss Wallen, you're not going to put
them on yourself. Sit down, if you please, or stand, if you don't." And
down he dropped on one knee and in a trice had stowed away the thin,
worn little boots, with their frayed button-holes, within the warm yet
clumsy Arctics. "You are sensible to wear such things as these," he
said. "The snow is falling heavily, and I mean to walk you home
to-night. Now the gloves.--Yes, you may have your own way there, as I
shouldn't know how." And, so saying, he seemed calmly to have taken
possession of the hitherto self-willed and independent young woman, who
for the first time in her life began to realize how much sweetness there
was, after all, in having some one to do something for one, instead of
being expected to do everything for every one else. She submitted
silently to be led forth into the cool, fresh evening air, and then when
he as calmly took her hand and placed it within his arm she made no move
to withdraw it, neither did she seem to know how by means of it to lean
upon his strength. Passively she let it lie, and, walking by his side,
turned her face to the drifting snowflakes and cared not that the night
was raw and chill, the lake wind blustering.

For a moment more Forrest did not speak. He glanced keenly up the dim
avenue, holding his head very high, as was his way, and himself very
erect. Already the sting and shame of her recent experience seemed
fading in Jenny's past. There was something so new, strange, sweet, in
this masterful assumption on his part of all control and command, there
was something so complete in her faith in him, something so like girlish
admiration if not hero-worship surging up in the throbbing little heart
beneath that worn old winter cloak, that much of her old bright,
buoyant, merry self came back to her. "If I can't be a man," said she
to herself, "I'm the next thing to one, if there ever was one," and then
was amazed at her own impulse to peer up into his grave, soldierly face
and aghast to find herself drawing closer to his side. In the suddenness
and alarm of this revelation she nearly jumped beyond arm's length, and
he felt constrained to retake her hand and draw it farther through his
arm.

"You will find it easier if you will let me bear a little of the weight
to-night," said he, gravely, "and that is why I have made it my business
to intrude upon your time and attention. Miss Wallen, will you kindly
tell me what claim your brother has upon you?"

"He _is_ my brother and out of work," she answered, simply.

"Can't he get work?"

"He says he can't."

"What can he do?"

"He writes well, and he had a clerkship, but Mart was--unsteady, and he
lost it. Then he got a place in the freight-yards, but there was a
strike, and he went out. They wouldn't take him back then because he was
so foolish in his talk; and they can't take him now, for hundreds of
better men, steadier men, old employees, have been laid off. Ever since
the World's Fair business has been falling away."

"And you have had not only that house and your mother to care for, but
an able-bodied brother?"

Jenny dropped her head. Able-bodied brother, indeed!--with wife, babies,
debts, duns, and all! She had borne the weight of the whole
establishment upon her fragile shoulders; but that wasn't a thing to
speak of to him,--to anybody. Her silence touched him.

"Do you mean that out of your little salary you have paid that
house-rent and all the expenses and your mother's and his too?"

No answer.

"I wish you would tell me," he said, in such grave, courteous tones that
they went to her heart. "I beg you not to think me intrusive. I have
never heard of such a case before. Why, Miss Wallen, I'm appalled when I
see how thoughtless I have been. You simply cannot afford the time to
work for me at the price you fixed."

"It pays better than mending Mart's clothes, etc., at home," said she,
whimsically; "very much better than anything I can get to do up town."

"Good heavens! cannot your mother mend Mart's clothes? Can't he mend
them himself? My--my--poor little friend, I had no idea matters were as
bad as this!"

He had no idea even now how bad matters were, nor did she care to edify
him. "Why, Mr. Forrest," said she, "when I look around me this winter
and see all the want and suffering on every side--the absolute
destitution in places--I think my fortune regal. I only wish all the
girls I know of were half as well-to-do."

Forrest drew a long breath. "Well, of all the incarnations of pluck and
cheerfulness I ever heard of, commend me to this," thought he. They were
within two squares of home, and at the corner was a large family grocery
store. She faltered now. "I'm very much obliged to you for coming with
me so far, and--I have to stop here."

"But only to make some purchases. You are going on to tea, and I have
something I want to say."

"I may have to wait, and you have your engagements."

"Nothing in the world but to dine, _solus_, at the Virginia, and my
appetite's about gone. I mean to wait, Miss Wallen."

Miss Wallen flushed, but made no further remonstrance. Entering the
store, she gave her orders. Some little packages of tea and sugar were
speedily ready. In the window were some pyramids of Florida oranges,
rich and luscious fruit. Watching her with uncontrollable interest, he
saw her eyes glancing towards them, saw and knew the question framed by
her soft lips, saw and realized what was passing as the salesman
answered and she shook her head. Turning to another clerk, he pencilled
a number on a card he handed him and gave some orders of his own.
Presently she stored her change in the little portemonnaie and picked
up her bundles. Promptly he relieved her of them, and again as they came
forth he tendered his arm. The side street into which they turned was
darker than the broad avenue. The houses were poor and cheap, the
gas-lamps few and far between. Silently now they walked rapidly along,
for he was deep in thought. He longed to find some way of opening the
subject uppermost in his mind, but knew not how. At last he spoke:

"Miss Wallen, where and how can I see your brother? I've an idea of a
place he might fill. He is unmarried, I presume?"

Silence a moment. "No, Mart has a wife."

"A wife? Where is she? What does she do?"

"She isn't strong, and can't do much of anything."

"Not even mend his clothes, or stop---- How about children?"

"You know the old adage," said she, with a quiet smile, "and Mart is a
poor man."

"And they, too, are your care--you their support--and--this has been
going on since last year?"

"Oh, no; Mart gets odd jobs now and then."

"The proceeds of which he spends in---- But I entreat your pardon,
my--my friend. This is beyond anything I ever dreamed of; and--don't
come to the library to-night, please. There's no hurry about those
pages; to-morrow night will be better."

They were at the little gateway now, and he released her arm.
Over-against them on the opposite side of the street two men, skulking
back in the shadows of a dark entrance-way, edged a little farther
forward, watched him as he restored the bundles, watched him as he took
again her hand, then lifted his hat and bowed over it as he might have
done reverence to a queen, watched her as she tripped within-doors, and
then Forrest again as he slowly turned and walked thoughtfully away.

"That's the man, then?" asked, in cautious, querulous tone, the shorter,
slighter of the two.

"That's him--damn him! I can feel his kick to this day."

"And it was with him--in his room--she took refuge? you could swear to
it?"

"'Course I could, on a stack of Bibles."

And this was early in the week of Mr. Elmendorf's conversation with Aunt
Lawrence, only forty-eight hours prior to the sudden orders which
prevented Mr. Forrest's dining at the Allisons' and escorting Miss
Florence to the opera, and which hurried him miles away on a mission
whereof only two other men at head-quarters knew the purport,--the
general and his chief of staff. There was good reason for the
aides-de-camp an "understrappers," as Elmendorf referred to them, being
even more mysterious than usual.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER VIII.


There was a month or more during the late winter in which Mr. Elmendorf,
cold-shouldered out of official society at department head-quarters,
became quite the managing director of the Allison mansion. John Allison,
with a party of fellow-magnates, was on a long tour of inspection over
the southernmost of the transcontinental lines, and, finding home life a
trifle uncongenial just now, owing to some discussions with Aunt
Lawrence, finding, too, that the wives and daughters of other magnates
were to accompany them on the trip, sojourning days at a time in many of
the charming resorts among the mountains or along the Pacific seaboard,
Miss Allison eagerly accepted their invitation to be one of the party.
Mrs. Lawrence was to remain in charge at home, and was permitted to send
for and receive under her wing her own graceless duckling, with the
distinct understanding that he was in no wise to be allowed to interfere
with Cary's studies or duties. Allison "had no use," as he expressed it,
for his nephew Lawrence. He had helped pull the cub through many a
scrape, but had tired of it, and having secured him a place in an
Eastern office where he had enough to live on and little to do, desired
to wash his hands of him in future; but mother-love watches over even
the renegades from the home circle, and Mrs. Lawrence persuaded Brother
John that Herbert's health was failing and that he sorely needed change
and rest and coddling. The brother growled out something cynical about
Chicago as a winter resort, but told her to go ahead. The party left in
early February, and about the last thing before going Allison had
another conference with Elmendorf. The latter had received warning that,
unless he gave more time to the instruction of his pupil and less to
that of the populace, the engagement would terminate. Elmendorf argued,
and Allison cut him short. "I have listened to this for over eight
months, and am further from conviction than ever, Mr. Elmendorf," said
he. "So waste no more eloquence on me. Take your choice between serving
me on salary or writing 'screamers' and speeches for nothing. You've
done no great harm outside as yet, but there is a growing tendency to
disorder that such counsels as yours will only serve to stimulate." A
blunt man was Allison, and furnished excellent text for Elmendorf's
article on The Brutality of Capital, which presently appeared, but over
a very different _nom de plume_, in the columns of the socialistic
press. Elmendorf agreed that of course, as his employer took such
extreme views of the case, he must perforce acquiesce in the decision.
He agreed not to appear on the platform or write any more leaders so
long as he should remain in John Allison's employ, and then, when
Allison was well beyond range, interpreted the agreement to suit
himself.

As a means of increasing his influence over the mother, Elmendorf made
himself useful and agreeable to young Lawrence when he came. The lessons
went on with fair regularity, Cary and his tutor occupying their study
each day until luncheon-time, and again, occasionally, later in the
afternoon or evening. But, while he no longer appeared on the stage or
rostrum as one of the leading speakers of the evening, the eloquent
gentleman was pretty sure to be heard from the body of the house or the
midst of the audience at the various meetings held from time to time in
what were referred to as "the disturbed districts." There was a familiar
ring about many of the articles that appeared in the papers, but they
were no longer fulminated over his name or initials. For several weeks
no more dinner-parties were given at the Allisons', and few officers
called there. Then the general commanding went off on a tour of
inspection, taking a brace of aides with him, and these were Forrest's
friends and associates and the men who least liked the tutor. But while
Elmendorf had ceased to spend some time each afternoon in the offices
adjoining the general's sanctum, picking up all stray items of military
news and haranguing such men as would listen, his was by no means an
unfamiliar figure about the great building. True to his policy, he had
made acquaintance among the clerks, messengers, etc., first appearing
among them as an associate and friend of their superior officers,
thereby commanding, as it were, their respectful attention, and then,
after studying their personal characteristics, little by little
establishing confidential relations. Simple-minded, straightforward
fellows, as a rule, were these soldier clerks, men who lived in a groove
and knew little of the wiles of the outer world. A few there were of the
decayed gentleman stamp, and other few of the bibulous. Through their
hands passed much of the correspondence, in their keeping were many of
the secrets, of the official life of the far-spreading department, and
Elmendorf saw his opportunity. It was no difficult matter to assert in
his confidential chats, conducted only when and where their superiors
could get no wind of them, that he had been told by his friend the
adjutant-general or by Captain and Aide-de-Camp So-and-so all about the
matter in question, and all he asked was some little item of
corroborative detail. Now, there were days, as the winter wore away,
when sundry things had happened within the limits of the general's
command which the news-gatherers of the Chicago press, always
sensational, were eager to exploit, not so much, perhaps, as they
actually occurred, but as the management and direction of each paper
desired to make it appear they had. The reporters sounded many a
possible source of information without avail, for the chief of staff had
cautioned his clerks and subordinates. Great were his surprise and
disgust, therefore, to find the columns suddenly blossoming out with
glowing particulars of matters he had supposed discreetly hidden. The
reports were by no means truthful,--they were even more than customarily
colored and exaggerated,--but there was the foundation of fact in more
than one. Next it began to be noted that Elmendorf, hitherto a
contributor only to papers of the socialistic stamp, was frequently to
be seen hobnobbing with the reporters of the prominent journals. Now,
these gentlemen, as a rule, are shrewd judges of human nature and quick
to determine between the gold and the glitter, between the actual
possessor of important news and the mere pretender; but there was
another period of a month or six weeks in which Elmendorf was sought and
followed almost as eagerly as the adjutant-general himself. Never,
perhaps, in his varied life had the graduate of Jena rolled in sweeter
clover than during the months of the late winter and early spring of
'94. An oracle at the table in a luxurious home, with no one to dispute
his sway and no one actually to disapprove, unless it were his much
disgusted but helpless pupil, with access to public offices and public
libraries, with occasional touch with officials who might and did
dislike but could not actually snub him, with occasional driblets of
information to supply foundation and a vivid imagination to do the rest,
he found himself an object of interest to the men of all others whom he
most desired to influence,--the reporters of the daily press. Elmendorf
was never in higher feather. He was even able to neglect for a time the
clamors of his erstwhile hearers, his suffering brethren among the sons
of toil.

And he had been managing matters at home with rare diplomacy, too. Mrs.
Lawrence was mad to find out just exactly what peccadillo had brought
about Mr. Floyd Forrest's sudden relief from duty at Chicago and orders
to proceed to the frontier; but this was a subject on which the tutor
was now decidedly coy. He had given Mrs. Lawrence to understand that
because of some scandal and to prevent further talk the officer had been
summarily sent away. Finding that none of the officers knew what had
brought about the order, he worked among the clerks,--who knew nothing
at all. One of these latter lived not far from the Lambert Library, was
a tippler at times, and had a grievance. Forrest had twice come upon him
when he was boisterously drunk, and, recognizing him, had given him
warning, Forrest was only a "casual" at head-quarters, said the clerk,
and when a fellow was off duty what he did "was none of Forrest's damned
business." Elmendorf found he didn't know what had brought about
Forrest's relief, and so proceeded to ask him if he'd ever heard this
and that,--which the man had not, but was glad to hear now. Later,
Elmendorf made him acquainted, one cold evening, at a comfortable
groggery not too far from the Allison house, with a young fellow who
could and did tell how he had followed a girl whom he suspected and saw
her go to Forrest's lodgings. That he made no mention of certain
concomitant facts, such as his being kicked into the gutter by the
lieutenant and the girl's being a total stranger to that officer at that
time, was due perhaps to native modesty and possibly to Elmendorf's
editorial skill. What Elmendorf wanted to create at head-quarters was
the belief that it was for some such indiscretion that Forrest was
exiled, well reasoning that then the entire establishment would suddenly
bethink itself of all manner of suspicious circumstances that it had
thought nothing of before.

He planned equally well at home. Miss Allison knew only that Forrest was
ordered away on duty for an indefinite time, and speedily went away
herself on the jaunt to the Pacific. Mrs. Lawrence, who longed to say
something to her niece upon the subject, was cautioned by Elmendorf to
say nothing at all until he could place her in possession of all the
facts, which he promised shortly to do. He felt somehow that if Allison
ever consulted Forrest as to the propriety of further employing him, the
days of tutorship and ease were ended; but Forrest was gone, with a stab
in the back, and gone probably not to return. Allison's stay promised to
be prolonged until mid-April, possibly May. Miss Wallen, bending over
her task at the Lambert Library, mutely avoided, and Wells openly
scowled at, Elmendorf whenever he sauntered into the rooms where once he
was welcome. So again he took an interest in Mart and his meanderings.
Mart had steadied a bit, had a job over among the lumber-yards on the
north branch, and had been keeping away from the meetings on the west
side; but it wasn't a fortnight before Mart was staying out late at
night again and coming home without his wits or wages Sunday mornings
and denouncing his employers as scoundrels and some new men as scabs.
The next thing poor Jenny knew, Mart's unpaid bills were coming to her
again, and the brother had lost his situation a third time. There was no
extra work now to add to her earnings, no strong, manly, courteous,
thoughtful fellow to help her into her cloak and out of her troubles.
The days lengthened, and so did the faces at home; so would the bills
have done had she ever yielded to the importunities of her
Mrs.-Nickleby-like mother or Mart's weakling of a wife; but Jenny was
Spartan in self-denial; what she couldn't pay for on the spot she
wouldn't have.

More and more, however, she recognized in Elmendorf the evil genius of
the family, and implored Mart to have no more to do with him, whereat
Mart laughed wildly. "Just you wait a bit, missy," he declaimed. "The
day is coming when capitalists and corporations will bow down to him as
they have to the Goulds and Vanderbilts in the past. I tell you, in less
than two months, if they don't come to our terms, if they refuse to
listen to our dictation not one wheel will turn from one end of this
country to the other. We'll tie up the business of the whole United
States, by God! That's what'll happen to capital."

"And then what will happen to us, Mart,--to you, your wife and
babies,--to your mother and to me? Where will the money come from?"

"Oh, there's money enough--more than enough--millions more than
enough--to feed and clothe and keep us all in luxury--tied up in the
coffers of those bond-holders, and when the men whose hands have made it
get their hands once more on it----"

"Mart, Mart, your head is crazed with whiskey," laughed Jenny, sadly.
"No wonder capital is being withdrawn from us; no wonder the gold is
going back to Europe. People who have it dare not invest in communities
where the employees are allowed to talk as they are here. If I had a
million to invest, do you think I'd venture it where the workmen openly
threatened they'd stop every wheel throughout the land? You are killing
your own prospects, Mart, simply to cripple theirs."

"I don't care. What do you know of such things, anyhow? I don't mean to
stand by and see my brothers starving and swindled day by day down there
at Pullman."

"Who have the greater claims, Mart, those whom you call your brothers
down there at Pullman, or your wife and children here at home? I feel
for those people just as much as you do,--more probably,--but your duty
lies here."

"Oh, that's right. Stand by your swell friends, and toss it into my
teeth that I and mine are sponging on you for a living, and you want
your money. Make a man more desperate than he is by your nagging and
fault-finding. Drive a fellow to striking one minute and then torment
him with accusations the next. I tell you if it comes to riot and
bloodshed here, it's--it's just women like you--that'll--that'll have
brought it all about."

But this was a statement so absurd that Jenny turned away in speechless
indignation. What was the use of logic or argument with one of her
brother's mental make-up? Leaving Mart to go on with his harangue and
confirm the mother and his wife in their view of her utter lack of
appreciation of her brother's noble nature, the girl walked wearily
away to her desk at the library. It was barely eight o'clock, and her
duties began only at nine, but she was an early bird, this New World
Little Dorrit, and loved to be promptly at her work, and the janitor and
scrub-women often listened to her cheery song as she plied the duster
among the shelves and desks of the sanctum. Wells, perhaps, never
noticed how much neater everything looked since Miss Wallen took charge,
but she was a dainty creature, in whose eyes dusty books and littered
desks were abominations. Mrs. Wells, however, was not so blind.

"That girl's worth two of Miss Stockton," was the lady's verdict, and
then, noting with self-comforting criticism the inexpensive material of
Jenny's gown, the absence of all attempt at ornamentation, as well,
alas! as of her predecessor's brilliancy of color and clearness of skin,
she added conclusively, "and she isn't pretty."

And these raw blustering days of late winter and early spring--or
something--had left their mark upon poor Jenny's grave and gentle face.
The circles seemed purpler and deeper under the soft dark eyes. There
was even less of color in the pallid skin. There was something languid,
almost droopy, in her carriage now. She had fought her fight without
repining or complaint all the long months through, and knew, alas! that
she was only losing ground. A year agone she looked forward with joy to
this position, and now she was loaded with even heavier cares and
burdens. She had found some outside work, but everything she made was
rapidly swallowed up by her home cormorants. "It would be just the same,
perhaps, if I had five hundred dollars a month," said Jenny. She was
blue, disheartened, and discouraged,--perhaps a little weak,--as she
walked rapidly on. She thought a sight of the foam-crested waves might
stir her sluggish blood, and so sped eastward a block or two and out
upon the lake front. Passing the Allison homestead south of the Park,
she saw the family carriage just rolling away,--not the open barouche
that had once so nearly run her down, but the heavy, closed carriage.
She knew the coachman and the handsome bays at a glance. A few blocks
farther south she again turned westward to resume her way to the
library, and came suddenly upon two men standing in close conversation.
One was haranguing the other, speaking in nasal, querulous, unmistakable
tones and the speaker's back was towards her. Overcome by a sudden sense
of repulsion, she hesitated, stopped, and was about to turn back and
cross the street, when the listening party glanced up, saw the girl as
she halted and seemed to be watching them, and, all in an instant,
turned and sneaked, or rather lurched, up the street. Miss Wallen knew
that gait in an instant. There was the ruffian who had chased her and
seized her that never-to-be-forgotten night.

And here, turning about now and facing her, was Elmendorf.

For an instant the tutor's _aplomb_ was gone. He stammered as he raised
his hat and bade her good-morning. "I was just giving some advice to a
poor devil who accosted me for alms, Miss Wallen," he said, lamely, "but
I seem to have driven him off. My speeches are not universally well
received, as you probably know." But Jennie was in no mood for
conversation. With but scant recognition, she pushed rapidly on, and
Elmendorf followed.

"There is a matter I much desire to speak about," said he, placing
himself at her side. "I'm aware I have not the good fortune to stand
well in Miss Wallen's opinion," he added, with a half-sneer, "and a man
more vindictive and less devoted to principle would have felt like
resenting the--the slights you have seen fit to put upon me. I shall
observe your prohibition with regard to the--alleged officer and
gentleman of whom I had occasion to speak to you, since his superiors
have taken that responsibility off my hands by summarily sending him
away, and as it is not likely that he will ever cross your path in this
neighborhood again,--a matter in which I find sincere cause for
rejoicing, for of all men I have ever met he seemed to me the least
worthy of such confidence as you placed in him----"

"Is this observing my prohibition, Mr. Elmendorf?" said Jenny, stopping
and facing him.

"Oh, well, possibly not."

"Then you will kindly say at once what your business is. I have told you
I will not listen to anything you say about Mr. Forrest."

"I am detaining you here," he said, evasively. "Let us walk on."

"No, I will not walk on. Mr. Elmendorf, I have learned to look upon you
as anything but a friend to me or mine, and I mean to be perfectly frank
with you here and now. You have slandered my friend, you have tricked
and misled my brother, you have deceived my mother, and I know well you
have sought to injure me with my employer----"

"Oh, only so far as was justifiable in the protection of my own name. As
your recommender and endorser for the position you hold, I had a right,
when you showed yourself heedless of my counsel and defiant of my
injunctions, to say to your immediate superior that he should be
cautious about allowing your intimacy with Mr. Forrest to be prosecuted
within the shelter of his sanctum and practically under his own nose.
I----"

"That's quite enough, Mr. Elmendorf. You have added insult to injury.
Once and for all, let there be an end of this. I decline any and all
communication with you from this time on." And with cheeks that lacked
no color now, and eyes all ablaze with wrath, Miss Wallen turned and
left him. But Elmendorf pursued. He had one arrow left, and meant to
send it home.

"At least I may accompany you to the corner, only twenty yards away, and
there, as you suggest, our paths shall separate. You decline to believe
my estimate of Mr. Forrest, and hold him up as something knightly and
chivalric, forsooth. My deluded friend, all the time he was making you
the object of those charming little attentions he was pressing his suit
under my own eyes at home, and, in spite of all her father, her aunt, or
her friends could do, I regret to say that Miss Florence Allison became
so infatuated as to follow that young man to his exile, and should he
ever return here it will doubtless be as her husband. Good-morning, Miss
Wallen."

She had turned from him in renewed anger and disgust as they reached the
corner, had hastened along with flaming eyes and cheeks and loudly
throbbing heart. She was furious at him for daring to speak of such
things, daring to couple Forrest's name with hers, with--anybody's. She
was ready to cry out against the man for such malignity--mendacity; and
then her cooler judgment and common sense began to reassert themselves.
Why shouldn't it be true? Why shouldn't he seek the hand of one so--so
lovely and wealthy as Miss Allison? What more natural than that Miss
Allison should learn to love him? Why shouldn't she--she, Jenny
Wallen--rejoice with her whole heart that her friend and protector could
look forward to such happiness? He had never been anything but kind,
thoughtful, courteous, to her. Other men had taken advantage of her
defenceless post to accost her with low gallantries, with _bourgeois_
flattery, with ridiculous attempts at flirtation or love-making, and she
had laughed or stormed them off; but Forrest had shown her from the
first the high-bred courtesy he would have accorded the proudest lady in
the land, had never presumed upon a look, a word, a touch, that was not
marked by respect and deference. He was a gentleman, she said; any girl
might be proud of such a lover; and if it was true that he and Florence
Allison were engaged, she would congratulate him and her with all her
heart and rejoice with them and for them, and pray that their lives
might be happy,--happy as her own was desolate,--and then the day became
dark and dull and hopeless despite a brilliant sun, for just as the
Lambert towers loomed in sight, the Allison carriage came spinning up
the avenue, a radiant, happy, lovely face beaming upon her from the
window, then turning to look up into the dark, soldierly features of the
man at her side. Florence Allison was home, then, from her wanderings,
bringing her beloved with her.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER IX.


Elmendorf was an astonished man. He had confidently told Mrs. Lawrence
that the objectionable lieutenant had been ordered off under a cloud of
official censure and forbidden to return. He really believed it. It was
one of his peculiarities that he invariably attached a sinister
explanation to every action of his fellow men and women whose social
station, at least, was superior to his own, when other explanation was
withheld. He had sneeringly told Miss Wallen that unless the gentleman
resigned from the army and returned to be the husband of Miss Allison,
he would not return at all. He believed this too. He was so constituted
mentally that he believed Forrest guilty of anything that could be
alleged against him, believed that Miss Allison was interested in him to
a certain extent, but would probably lose her interest when once the
gallant himself was well out of the way, believed that he could even
convince her, as he had convinced her aunt, that Forrest was totally
unworthy her regard, provided Forrest himself did not return; and, lo
and behold! Forrest had returned, and returned with Miss Allison
herself, brought back on their train,--in their carriage, as he learned
from Aunt Lawrence,--and apparently more influential with the father and
daughter than ever before. Not until luncheon-time that day did he know
of this, and the news came like a dash of ice-water on shivering skin.
It was plain that Mrs. Lawrence looked to him to defend his statement
and name his authorities then and there; for Miss Allison did not come
down to luncheon, Cary was speedily excused and permitted to go about
his own affairs, and then Mrs. Lawrence whirled upon the tutor with the
tidings that not only was Mr. Forrest back, but that Florence had
brought him back; that Mr. Allison, so far from objecting, had
approved--had invited him to lunch with his fellow-magnates at the club
and to dine _en famille_ in the evening. As for Mr. Forrest being under
the ban of official censure, Mrs. Lawrence declared she couldn't
understand it, in view of the fact that he was with the general and his
staff when the party encountered them at Wichita, and that the general
himself had authorized his return to Chicago. "Authorized!" said
Elmendorf, with his ready sneer; "_ordered_, very probably, with the
view of having him tried by court-martial here where the witnesses are
ready; and Mr. Forrest has had the effrontery to saddle himself on
respectable company by way of establishing high connection to start
with. I have heard of just such expedients before. My informants are
men who thoroughly know the ins and outs of military affairs in the
department, and they are not likely to be mistaken." All the same the
tutor was glad to get away and to go post-haste to the Pullman building,
hoping to catch his one intimate in the clerical force and to dodge the
officials with whom he stood in evil odor. Luck often follows audacity.
In the elevator he met two officers to whom he had been presented during
the earlier days of his tutorship, when he was still cordially received.
These gentlemen had been away on duty in the interim, and, knowing
nothing of his lapse from grace, greeted him as pleasantly as ever,
invited him into the aide-de-camps' offices, and there made him at home
in the absence of the usual occupants. They knew nothing of Forrest's
movements beyond the fact that he had not been with his regiment at all.
One of the two was Major Cranston; the other was Lieutenant-Colonel
Kenyon, of Forrest's own regiment. "I suppose you know he--left here
under very sudden--rather summary, orders some two months ago,"
suggested Elmendorf; "and it created, as you can readily imagine, some
little comment in society." No, Kenyon hadn't heard, and he eyed the
speaker sharply from under his bushy, overhanging brows. Cranston,
however, promptly replied that there was nothing in the least remarkable
in it. Officers were frequently hurried off on sudden orders, and there
was no reason why society should be exercised over it. Elmendorf
promptly disavowed any intention of casting the faintest aspersion on
Mr. Forrest, whom he at least had found to be certainly quite the equal
of his comrades in most things pertaining to the officer and gentleman,
although there were some things, perhaps, which to a humble civilian
like himself might call for explanation. He was merely stating a fact,
one which he regretted, of course, as he did all the idle talk that
circulated in superficial circles of society. He was glad to find
officers of such prominence as Kenyon and Cranston so ready to stand up
for Forrest, as some men--he preferred not to mention names--had been
less outspoken, at least, in his behalf. And then Kenyon impatiently
arose and went out, Cranston met a brace of cavalrymen going back to
their regiment after a leave, and Elmendorf drifted away in search of
his clerk and found him.

A glance at the register showed that Forrest had already been in to
report his arrival, had given his old rooms as his present address, and
"verbal instructions of Dept. Comdr." as the explanation of his return.
The adjutant-general, seated in his own office, had seen Forrest, and
had further instructions to communicate, evidently, for they had been
closeted together nearly half an hour, but what passed between them the
clerk could not say, and Elmendorf was left to his own vivid
imagination. Forrest certainly had not rejoined his regiment, and
Elmendorf had chosen to think that that was what he was ordered to do
when leaving Chicago. Thinking of it so much, he had come to believe it
a fact; but Forrest was now back here in Chicago, as suddenly and
mysteriously as he went. He was not, however, back in his old office,
was not then restored to his functions at head-quarters. What more was
needed, therefore, to warrant the belief that he was picked up by the
general in his wanderings in the Indian Territory and sent in for trial
on charges of disobedience of orders and absence without leave? At all
events, it was a working theory in the absence of any other. Elmendorf
strolled away discontentedly, and was presently overhauling books on
Brentano's counters, and there Cranston found him, and, when books were
the theme, found him more to his liking. They walked up to Cranston's
old home that afternoon together, and Elmendorf, as previously detailed,
made his first appearance before Mrs. Sergeant McGrath.

Later he strolled up to the Lambert Memorial, revolving many things in
his mind. With all the discomfort and uneasiness and foreboding
Forrest's sudden reappearance cost him, with all the embarrassment
likely to follow, one reflection had given him joy. There at least
within those walls was a proud and wilful girl whose spirit he had
longed to tame, whose distrust and defiance he had smarted under, but
who now would have to admit the truth of some of the most salient of his
accusations and prophecies with regard to Forrest. There was still
abundant opportunity for him to rejoice in that triumph. Wells did not
like him, but what of that? Wells was probably gone by this time, and
she would be there all alone, bending as usual over her typewriter. She
couldn't order him out or refuse him admittance, since Wells had never
yet done so. She would have to listen, and he would go and break to her
the news of Forrest's return,--of Forrest's return with Florence
Allison, of his luncheon with the magnates at the club to-day, of his
coming to dinner informally, like one of the family, at the Allisons'
to-night. It would be comfort to watch her sensitive face, thought
Elmendorf, and he meant to make the successive announcements as humorous
and lingering as his command of rhetoric would permit. His step was
light, his smile significant, his bearing quite debonair, as he turned
into the private hall-way and encountered the janitor at the first turn.
The janitor was Irish. "Misther Wells is gone--if it's him ye want,
sorr," said he, with scant civility, for the Celt had become imbued with
distaste for the Teuton.

"Then I'll see his secretary," answered Elmendorf, with his usual shrug,
and without a stop.

"Ye wouldn't, bedad, if I saw her first," said honest Maloney, as he
looked after the agitator. "Maneness goes wid the loikes of him, and
mischief and trouble wherever he sets his fut."

Springily did Elmendorf go up the echoing stairway, and then, reaching
the second floor, he saw fit to saunter, and that, too, with noiseless
footfall. He approached the familiar door-way, and the anteroom--the
scene of his discomfiture when Donnelly presented Mart's
liquor-bill--stood invitingly open. But the door to the private office
beyond was closed, and it was barely five o'clock. She was there; he
felt assured of that. He could hear the busy clicking of the typewriter.
She was probably alone, too. Hitherto he had entered unannounced, but
then the door stood open. Why should he knock now? He would not. He
decided to enter as hitherto, and so, quietly, turned the knob and
pushed.

But the door resisted. Evidently it was latched from within. Twice he
made the trial, noiselessly as possible, and then paused to consider.
This was something new. Miss Wallen had locked herself in, or possibly
had locked him out. If not at her desk, she might easily have seen him
sauntering leisurely up the street, might have seen him cross, and,
divining that his object was to see her and perhaps renew his offensive
talk, have taken prompt measures to resist. Well, even if lettered
"Private Office" on the door, it was a public office in point of fact;
and that public office was not for personal use or benefit he had the
authority, in one sententious form or other, of many an Executive, from
Jefferson down. So Elmendorf rapped, and rapped loudly. The clicking
presently ceased, a light footstep was heard, then the voice of the
official stenographer:

"What is wanted?"

"Open the door, please."

"Whom do you wish to see."

"I desire to speak with Miss Wallen."

"Miss Wallen declines."

"I have business to transact."

"Mr. Wells is not here, and Miss Wallen is not empowered to act for him.
You will have to wait and see him to-morrow."

"Miss Wallen, you are barring me out of an office I have a perfect right
to enter, and that I mean to enter here and now, or make formal
complaint to the trustees. If this door is not opened in twenty seconds
I warn you there will be trouble."

To this remark no answer whatever was vouchsafed. Miss Wallen quietly
returned to her typewriter, and the only sound from within was the
clicking of that ingenious machine. Elmendorf had sense enough not to
shout his news, but he had not sense enough to abandon the attempt to
tell her. There was another way of reaching the sanctum, provided he
moved with promptness and decision. It was through the library itself.
Turning away, muttering angrily, he returned through the darkening
corridor, down the stairs, and around to the main entrance. Another
moment, and he was at the lattice that separated the reading-room from
the library proper. There, beyond, were the long aisles and rows of
crowded shelves. Here was the customary throng of patrons, returning or
taking out books. There were the busy attendants bustling to and fro,
and beyond them and beyond those vaults and dim recesses was the passage
leading to the sanctum of the head librarian. A young girl, standing
within the lattice, was noting the numbers of some books upon a slip of
card-board, and, with quick decision, Elmendorf addressed her. "Pardon
me," said he, "I have to go into Mr. Wells's office at once. Miss Wallen
has accidentally locked the door, and can't open it. Will you kindly let
me through this way?"

The girl hesitated an instant. It was against orders, but she had often
seen the gentleman in the library and in the sanctum itself with the
librarian. "I suppose it will be all right," said she, doubtfully.

"Oh, certainly," said Elmendorf. "Pardon my haste; I have left some
papers there that I need at once. Ah, thank you." And slipping through
the wicket, he hastened on his way before any one else could interpose,
and in another moment stood within the sanctum and closed the door
behind him.

Nor was he much surprised to find Miss Wallen no longer at her
instrument, but leaning wearily against the casement, apparently gazing
out into the street. "You see," he began, with cold, sarcastic emphasis,
"the power to lock one door does not make a woman the mistress of an
entire situation. It would have been better had you accepted what was
meant for your good and spared me the necessity of forcing it upon you,
as it were; but I have had my own sisters to protect in the past, and
knew what was best for you. Nor am I to be balked in what I consider my
duty by the obstinacy of a moonstruck, passion-blinded girl."

She had turned her back upon him as he began to speak. Now she turned
and faced him. He half expected fierce denunciation, but, to his
surprise, her manner was as contemptuously cool as his was sardonically
cold.

"You have succeeded in getting in here on the plea of business, Mr.
Elmendorf; but this is insolence."

"It is my business, and has ever been and shall ever be, to stand
between the helplessness of the poor and the oppression of the rich. My
business is to see that you and yours suffer no wrong at the hands of
those who consider such as you their natural prey. I see the ghost of a
smile flickering about your lips, Miss Wallen, and am aware you regard
my mission with disfavor, but you cannot and shall not treat it with
contempt."

She was smiling, poor girl, and it was but the ghost of a wintry smile,
too, for, even in her exasperation and distress, the whimsical,
humorous side of her nature--its helpful, sunny side--was asserting
itself at the moment. For the life of her she could not feel the
indignation he deserved just then, for the contrast between the
grandiloquence of his sentiments and the pettiness of that unpaid
lodging-bill almost forced her to laugh outright.

"I am here," he went on, "because you would not believe my statements
regarding Mr. Forrest, because I feel it my duty to open your eyes as to
his character and intentions. You refused to believe what I said
concerning him and you, and that only confirms my fears. I am powerless
to contend against the logic of a woman's love, but when I spoke of him
and her whom I may be pardoned for referring to as your rival, I spoke
the truth."

Now she was smiling in contemptuous amusement again, as though she
actually considered it beneath her to answer. How amazed would Miss
Allison be at the idea of her being placed on the same plane with a
working-girl!

Her silence and self-control maddened Elmendorf. "Have you no reason, no
sense?" he demanded. "I told you this very day that she had gone to
follow and bring him back, did I not?"

A cool nod of assent.

"I told you he would reappear here, if at all, only as her husband, or
possibly her affianced, did I not?"

Another nod as cool as the first.

"And you turned away in contemptuous unbelief, did you not?"

"Contempt certainly, but unbelief--not entirely."

Elmendorf was fairly trembling with wrath by this time. The idea that
this simple, unlettered, friendless "girl of the people" should so
coolly brave him--him on whose words enraptured ears were wont to hang,
at whose eloquence enthusiastic hundreds burst into applause! It stung
him to the very marrow of his conceit. Something must be said or done to
bring her to her knees, and, believing that she loved and dearly loved
the man in question, he prepared his final _coup_.

"Well, it may modify your contempt to know that my words have come
true."

"That Mr. Forrest was ordered away in disgrace?" she calmly asked.

"Not so much that, as that he has returned, brought back, as I said, by
Miss Allison."

"Why, but that is no news at all. I knew he was coming, and I saw them
together this morning."

"You--saw them--and you knew he was coming?" faltered the tutor. "You
mean to--you mean he writes to you,--that you correspond with him?"

"I mean nothing whatsoever beyond what I said, Mr. Elmendorf,--that I
knew Mr. Forrest would be here this week, that I saw them this morning;
and, as it is his work that lies here unfinished, interrupted by this
visitation, I may now, I presume, return to my business--and you to
yours."

"Then he has been here, too?"

"Yes, and will be again,--another reason, perhaps, why you would better
not linger. I will open the door now,--since it is to let you out."

"Yes, and to let him in, I suppose, and see him behind locked doors, as
you doubtless have before, Miss Wallen----"

"The door is both unlocked and open, Mr. Elmendorf," said she, throwing
it wide, but now in her turn the girl was quivering with indignation.
"Furthermore, one touch on this button brings our janitor here--Mr.
Wells speaks of him as 'our bouncer.'" And her white hand poised not six
inches from the button.

Elmendorf took a long breath. "You may consider this a moral victory,
Miss Wallen," said he, backing to the portal, "but you will do well to
remember this. As I have said before, I have a duty to perform that I
owe to society,--to my employers on the one hand, to the people on the
other. Rest you well assured that whatever may have been his successes,
so called, in the past, there are two schemes of your paragon, Mr.
Forrest, that shall fail, even if I have to fight him through the public
press. In one or other, separately, he may be too much for my efforts,
but at one and the same time that accomplished _roué_ shall never win a
wife in that household and a mistress here."

And immediately thereafter a gentleman coming up the dim corridor
without heard a sound that resembled the loud crack of a toy torpedo,
followed by the reverberant bang of a door, and, a moment later,
encountered an oddly familiar figure hurrying out and hanging on to its
left jowl as though afflicted with a violent attack of _tic douloureux_.

"Why, I believe that's Mr. Elmendorf!" remarked the new-comer, and then
was surprised to find the inner door locked,--to find that he had to
knock thrice before it was opened, and by that time it seemed quite
dark.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




CHAPTER X.


The dinner at Allison's the night of his return from the long journey
was not a success. It was to be an entirely informal affair,--no guests
present but a high official of the road in which the host was so heavily
interested, and Mr. Forrest, whom Miss Allison had invited on her own
account. The brother magnate came, and Mr. Forrest did not. True, his
acceptance had been conditioned on his being able to finish certain
papers, which, so he told both Florence and her father, would be
required at the office early the next day. Mr. Elmendorf came hurrying
in and went up to his room about half-past six, and fifteen minutes
later came a messenger with a note which was taken at once to Miss
Allison's room. She was dressed for dinner and ready to come down, but
she took it and read it hurriedly, uttered an exclamation of
disappointment, and sharply closed her door. Not until Mr. Allison sent
for her with the information that dinner was on the table did she
appear. Elmendorf eyed her covertly, and Aunt Lawrence sharply. There
were unmistakable traces of tears. "Did he say why he couldn't come?"
asked Mrs. Lawrence, presently.

"Yes--no--at least--he had told me before that he thought it might be
impossible," answered Florence, in embarrassment and annoyance. Her
father was laying down the law on Interstate Commerce to his guest at
the moment, and it was a subject on which he never tired. Even while
listening intently, watching for his chance to "chip in," as Cary said,
Elmendorf caught Miss Allison's every word. What he had not yet been
enlightened upon was the explanation of Forrest's return with the party.
All he knew was that early on the previous day the general, with two of
his aides and Mr. Forrest, boarded the train in Southern Kansas. Allison
invited them all into the private car and proposed making them his
guests on the homeward run. The chief declined for himself and staff,
saying that they had other matters to detain them, but it transpired
that Mr. Forrest was to go right on. He had his berth engaged in an
adjoining sleeper, but spent several hours with the railway party, and
on their arrival in Chicago the Allisons had insisted on his taking a
seat in their carriage. Allison himself was dropped at his club,
Florence in turn left Mr. Forrest at his lodgings, and then was driven
home. This was actually all Elmendorf had been able to learn.

But here was basis enough for all manner of theory and conjecture, none
of them to Forrest's advantage, and Elmendorf felt that the more he
could make of them the better for his own cause and the worse for
Forrest. There had been an intangible something in Allison's manner to
warn the tutor that just so soon as the guests were out of the way he
might look out for squalls. Allison had greeted him with utter absence
of cordiality, and Elmendorf felt that his employer was even more
displeased with him than when he went away. Under such circumstances a
wise man would have avoided saying or doing anything to augment the
feeling against him, but Elmendorf, except in his own conceit, was far
from wise, and his propensity for putting his foot in it was phenomenal.
Allison loved his post-prandial cigar,--it agreed with him,--and so did
his guest. The ladies withdrew quite early, Cary slipped away, and
Elmendorf should have slipped after him, but here were two great men of
the railway world, the natural oppressors of the masses, the very type
of the creatures he delighted in describing upon the platform as
"bloated bond-holders;" their conversation could hardly fail to be of
interest to him, and he remained. Warming up to their work, they were
discussing the situation at Pullman and its probable effect upon the
employees of the roads centring in Chicago. That their views should be
radically opposed to those of their absorbed listener was of course to
be expected, and Elmendorf was fidgeting furiously upon his chair,
every now and then striving to interject a sentence and claim the floor,
but Allison knew his man, and knew that once started, Elmendorf could
not well be suppressed. Every attempt on the part of the tutor to
interpose, therefore, was met by uplifted and warning hand and prompt
"Permit me" or "Permit Mr. Sloan to finish, if you please," which was
galling in the last degree. Elmendorf had planned to have a conciliatory
word or two with Miss Allison, with whom he knew himself to have been in
grave disfavor ever since the occasion of his presuming to tender advice
and remonstrance on the score of Mr. Forrest, but she had escaped to her
own room again immediately after quitting the table. Her manner towards
him showed that she had neither forgiven nor forgotten the impertinence,
and that was additional reason why he should have done nothing more, in
that household at least, to add to the array of his offences. But
presently the opportunity came, and he could not resist. The Interstate
Commerce Law was again under discussion. Allison had always fiercely
opposed it, declaring it to be an utterly unconstitutional and
unwarrantable interference with the rights of corporations and
individuals. Mr. Sloan was rather more conservative. He was contending
that, despite its restrictions upon certain railway companies, the
appointment of the Commission had resulted in much that was beneficial
to most parties concerned.

Allison burst forth impetuously: "Why, Sloan, look at the thing! It is
direct and absolute usurpation on the part of the general government of
the functions of the State. Here's a road running from Chicago to Cairo,
for instance. Its traffic is entirely within the State; its offices,
road-bed, and rolling-stock--everything concerning it, in fact--within
the limits of the State; and yet, just because it delivers freight and
passengers over on the Kentucky shore, here comes the general government
formulating laws for its control, which should be the province of the
State and of the State only. If we've got to be trammelled by
legislation, let it be at the hands of our own legislators---- Eh,
what?" he asked, breaking suddenly off to acknowledge the presence of
the butler standing solemnly beside him with a card on the salver.
Allison took the card mechanically, glanced at the name, and, even as he
was saying, "Oh, show him in here. Send this up to Miss Florence,"
Elmendorf had seized his opportunity and "chipped in."

"Yes, but, my dear sir," he began, in his eager, nerve-racking, whining
tone, "is there not inconsistency here? Can you deny that when the
legislature, not only of this, but of neighboring States, essayed to
enact laws on these very subjects, your attorneys were promptly on the
ground to argue against it and to declare that only Congress had the
power under the Constitution to regulate commerce between the States?
Can you deny that at the meeting of managers and business-men here one
of the most prominent of your number declared that you objected to any
and all legislation? Can you deny that when Congress did take the matter
up your attorneys were just as promptly in Washington, proclaiming that
any attempt to legislate in your affairs was a violation of the rights
of the sovereign States? Can you deny, in fine, that when the whole
subject was under discussion here a second time, one of your most
eminent _confrères_ put himself on record as saying that, while he was
opposed to any legislation, of two evils he preferred to choose the less,
and if any legislators were to meddle with the affairs of the roads, better
let it be the State Solons, who were far more--well--approachable and ready
to listen to--let us say--reason? Can you deny that----" But here Elmendorf
found himself without listeners. The odd point in it all was that very much
that he said was true; and Allison was reddening with wrath, and Sloan
chuckling with suppressed merriment, when the entrance of a tall,
brown-eyed, brown-moustached man in evening dress gave both opportunity
to escape the deluge.

"Forrest at last!" exclaimed the host, turning and seizing his hand. "So
sorry you were detained, lad; but sit you down, sit you down, and let me
ring for some dinner for you. No? Had a bite? All right. Take a chair
and some wine. Sloan and I were whacking away at the old bone."

"Yes, Allison, and here's a Federal officer who won't agree with you for
a moment."

With a dissatisfied shake of his head, Elmendorf had arisen as though to
pull his chair nearer the end of the table and resume his attack, but
Allison had purposely turned his back squarely upon him and was drawing
Forrest to the very place the tutor had hoped to occupy. Sloan arose and
cordially shook hands with the new-comer, who then for the first time,
apparently, caught sight of Elmendorf. The latter had started as though
to come forward, but something in Forrest's eyes restrained him. The
lieutenant simply bowed, and said, very coldly, "Good-evening," but did
not even mention the tutor by name.

"Now, Mr. Forrest," began Mr. Sloan, with much heartiness of manner, "I
want you to say to Allison here just what you said to me. He's a trifle
hot-headed to-night. He thinks the government has been paternalizing at
our expense, and that only harm will come from it."

Forrest looked from one to the other a moment, a quiet smile upon his
lips. All the previous afternoon as they trundled along in the cosy
private car had these gentlemen been disputing over the same thing, and
late in the evening, as Mr. Sloan and Forrest were enjoying a cigar
together, they, too, had had a chat upon the subject, and Sloan had
turned and looked upon the officer in some surprise. In common with
most of his class, the man of wealth and worldly wisdom had regarded the
_genus_ regular officer as a something impressive, possibly, on parade,
useful probably on the frontier, but out of place anywhere else. That he
should have read or studied anything beyond drill and dime novels was
not to be expected. The magnates had even had their modest game of draw
poker at a late hour and laughingly referred some mooted question to
Forrest as a probable expert, and were astonished to hear that he had
never played, not so much because he disapproved of it as because he had
never had time. Allison had already found out that Forrest was a student
and a thinker, but up to that evening he was the only man of the party
who believed that the average officer had any other use for time than to
kill it. Whatever it was that Mr. Forrest might have said to Mr. Sloan,
it was evident he did not care to repeat it now.

"I would rather not reopen the matter," said he. "Possibly I had no
right to forecast the action of the government, even speculatively, in a
contingency that may not arise."

Elmendorf planted his chair and lighted a cigarette, throwing himself
down with an air as much as to say, "Well, I've got to be bored and must
be resigned to it, since they won't listen to a man of intelligence;"
and Allison, with blacker gloom in his eyes, looked squarely at him as
he began to speak:

"Sloan, you're not even sipping your wine; Forrest, you never seem to
indulge. Suppose we three adjourn to my den, where the books are right
at hand. Mr. Elmendorf has his duties and will excuse us."

If he had struck him, the master of the house could not more have stung
his employee. Even Forrest, who by this time had many reasons of his own
for bringing Elmendorf to book, tingled with something like sympathy at
a slight so marked. There were so many other and better ways of letting
Elmendorf know that in the coming conference his presence could be
dispensed with, that Sloan spoke of it the moment they reached the
library; but Allison was imperious and positive. "You don't begin to
know the man," said he. "Anything less than unmistakable prohibition he
would consider as invitation, and he'd turn our talk into a lecture on
the relations of capital to labor. You saw how he got in the instant I
stopped a moment, Sloan."

"Faith and I did," said Sloan, laughing, "and he hit you fellows in the
ribs. Why, where'd he find it all out?"

"I'm blessed if I know, unless it was from the newspaper men. They get
hold of almost everything,--wrong side foremost, as a rule, but they get
it. Now I heard something of your talk last night. Brooks was speaking
of it. He looks upon the Interstate Bill just as I do. What do you mean
by saying it might prove our salvation?" he asked, abruptly, turning to
Forrest.

"I was simply supposing a case," said Forrest, calmly. "Say that the
Granger element in one State, the Populists in another, the Socialists
in a third, were to obtain control of the legislature and elect their
own governor. You say they are utterly antagonistic to the railways;
that in the event of a general strike, mob violence, etc., they would
refuse you help or protection; that as common carriers you would be
powerless to carry out your contracts, and that not only passenger and
freight traffic would be blocked, but the government mails. Now, prior
to February, '87, the general government, as I understand it, had left
the management of the railways to the States. It had neither formulated
laws for their control nor adopted measures for their protection. In the
great railway riots of '77, when the police and militia were whipped and
cowed by the mobs, such States as Pennsylvania and Illinois begged for
government aid and got it. Our troops were called in from the Rocky
Mountains to Chicago, and from Louisiana to Pittsburg. In the riots at
Buffalo, three years ago, New York's fine National Guard, and in those
at Homestead the Pennsylvania division, were sufficient to put an end to
the mischief, and neither State had to ask for help; but here lies
within your limits far greater possibility for riot and bloodshed than
can be found elsewhere in the Union, and suppose that to pander to the
masses here, as he has done in pardoning the Anarchists, your governor
should deny you protection and permit assault, riot, and violence
whenever you attempted to move engines or trains. It is my belief that
you can now look where you could not before the passage of that
Interstate Commerce Bill in '870 for the protection denied you at home.
When the Congress of the United States enacted that 'every common
carrier should, according to their respective powers, afford all
reasonable, proper, and equal facilities for the interchange of traffic
between their respective lines,'--I am quoting now,--'and for receiving,
forwarding, and delivery of passengers and property to and from their
several lines,' the supreme power of the land asserted its right to
assume control over all roads except those doing business exclusively
within the limits of some one State; and when the general government
says to a common carrier that it must do this or must not do that, it
means that the general government will back it in carrying out its
orders; and whether it be mails, passengers, live stock, perishable
goods, time freight or construction trains, the railway companies can
now look to the United States for protection, whether any individual
State likes it or not. You have abused that law as a menace to your
rights as a business-man, Mr. Allison. You may live to bless it as all
that stood between you and anarchy."

Forrest had spoken in a quiet, conversational tone, noting that Allison
had closely eyed the heavy folds of the portière, and once, stepping
quickly thither, had drawn it aside and glanced about him; but the tutor
had vanished, if that was what he was looking for. When Forrest stopped,
Sloan turned to his friend with a merry twinkle in his eyes. "How's that
for Federalist doctrine as opposed to States' rights, Allison? I expect
to hear you saying, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Federalist,'
before Forrest is done with you."

"Well, I certainly never looked for such an interpretation of the law.
It has only been a bother, a nuisance, a senseless trammel upon us thus
far, interfering with all our business, breaking up our long-haul and
short-haul tariffs, requiring us to account practically to the
government for every penny we charge and almost every one we expend. Do
you mean this is the way the law is looked upon at head-quarters?" he
asked, glancing keenly at the soldier.

"I have no means of knowing how the general understands it," said Mr.
Forrest, simply. "The matter may be tested before we think possible. I
understand that the condition of these poor people at Pullman is getting
worse every day, and that there is wide-spread sympathy for them among
the wage-workers everywhere; and I don't wonder at it."

"Why, they've only themselves to blame, Forrest. They seem to have done
no laying up for a rainy day. They had good homes and good wages so
long as business boomed, and they have spent just as freely as they got
the money. Now there's no business for the company, no orders for cars,
not enough to keep them going. No man can expect a company to run its
business at a loss; and yet these people kick because they can't have
the same wages they were getting when work was brisk."

"Well, now, is that strictly so, Mr. Allison? I have talked with these
people. I have been told by them, quiet, conservative, well-informed
Pullman men, that they concede that the wages must come down, and that
all hands will have to retrench awhile until better times. They are
willing to do that and stand by their company. But, on the other hand,
they think, and I think, the company owes something to them. Here are
honest, capable, intelligent fellows who have served the company fifteen
and twenty years, have reared families within its walls, occupied its
houses, and paid its rents. They may not have saved, I admit, but they
have _served_ faithfully and long and well. They have never failed in
their obligation to the company, and prompt payment of wages is not the
only duty of a corporation to its people. The company is wealthy. It is
even declaring a dividend. None of its salaries have been cut down as a
consequence of the business depression. It has simply said to its
wage-workers, 'You alone are the ones to suffer. You and your families
and your cares and troubles are nothing to us. Here's the difference
between your last month's wages and your last month's rent. Next month
there'll be no wages to speak of, but we'll expect the rent all the
same.' In my opinion, that company is losing the chance of winning the
love and gratitude of thousands of men and women whose affection is
worth a good deal more than all the money they'll ever save this way. It
would have been an easy thing to say, 'We'll bear our share of the
burden. These are hard times, and we've had to cut down your wages until
the dawning of a better day; we'll cut the rents down, too."

"Forrest, that's Utopia," said Mr. Allison.

"I admit it, but I know something of these people, Mr. Allison. The past
year perhaps has done more to open my eyes than all those which have
preceded. I have seen something of the struggles, the self-denial, the
charity, the patience, the helpfulness, of the working classes. I have
learned a feeling of respect and sympathy for those who are the workers
that is exceeded only by the contempt I feel for the drones and for
those whom they hail as their advisers."

"Like our----, for instance," said Allison, uplifting his eyes as though
to include the study aloft.

"Well, I know less of him or his speeches, perhaps, except by vague
report, than of others who are prominent. They are preaching a doctrine
that can only make matters worse for the laborer. They counsel strike,
and forcible, riotous resistance to the employment of others. It can
lead only to tumult, to rioting that brings out the criminal and the
desperate classes; outrage results, and the sympathy they might have
received goes against them. Their very worst enemies are these men who
are posing as strike-leaders."

"Well, what do you think of the prospect? Does it look like an
outbreak?" asked Mr. Sloan.

"To me, yes, for every day makes the suffering worse at Pullman, and the
company refuses to hear of arbitration. From a purely business point of
view I cannot deny their right to do so, but the very attitude assumed
by the corp

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