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Thirty

by Howard Vincent O'Brien · English · Gutenberg #33117 · 422,880 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Thirty

Author: Howard Vincent O'Brien

Illustrator: Robert Wesley Amick


        
Release date: July 8, 2010 [eBook #33117]
                Most recently updated: January 22, 2013

Language: English

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THIRTY

by

HOWARD VINCENT O'BRIEN

Author of "New Men for Old."

Illustrated by Robert W. Amick







New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1915

Copyright. 1915
By Dodd Mead & Company




                     TO
                 MY MOTHER
    WHO SOUGHT ALWAYS TO MAKE ME LOVE THE
     TRUTH, THOUGH KNOWING THAT MY TRUTH
         WOULD NOT, IN THE NATURE OF
             THINGS, BE HERS.




[Illustration: "What right have you to put such impudent questions to
us, anyway?" he demanded hotly]




CONTENTS


       I AN UNINVITED GUEST

      II A BLOW--AND A RESOLUTION

     III "YOU DON'T KNOW MR. IMRIE"

      IV OIL AND WATER

       V A SLEEPER WAKES

      VI DEAD IDOLS

     VII "IF PEOPLE ONLY _KNEW_!"

    VIII THE GREATEST GAME IN THE WORLD

      IX BURNED BRIDGES

       X A BLUFF CALLED

      XI "TEARS ... AND THEN ICE"

     XII ONLY A WOMAN

    XIII THE PILOT GOES OVERBOARD

     XIV A SECRET REVEALED

      XV "THIRTY"--AND ANOTHER STORY




ILLUSTRATIONS


"What right have you to put such impudent questions to us, anyway?" he
demanded hotly.

It was hard to refuse Imrie--a million times harder than all the rest

"I say, you know," he said between puffs, "business is
the--greatest--game--in the world"

The air was surcharged with expectancy




THIRTY




CHAPTER I

AN UNINVITED GUEST


Roger Wynrod was the first down to breakfast, and he was feeling far
from well. But a glass of bitters, followed by half a grapefruit and a
large cup of coffee, made him more nearly his usual cheerful self. He
had a word and a smile for each one of the houseparty, as they straggled
in, albeit the memory of last night's disastrous game haunted him
uncomfortably. The fact was that once again he faced the necessity of
appealing to his sister for further funds, and he had his doubts as to
how she would take it.

The meal lacked something of the cheer usually characteristic of Judith
Wynrod's gatherings. Perhaps it was due to the lateness of the hour and
the feverishly high stakes of the night before, or perhaps it was only
the sultriness of the morning. At any rate, a certain constraint was in
evidence, and no one showed any desire to linger longer than was
necessary. As one by one her guests withdrew, with more or less
perfunctory excuses, Judith remained sprightliness itself, laughingly
protesting at the desertion of Faxon, suddenly called to town on private
business, and threatening dire things to vivacious little Mrs. Baker if
her dentist detained her too long to catch the late afternoon train. But
when they were all gone, little lines of weariness crept into her face,
and she arose irresolutely and stood for a while watching her brother
who, deeply sunk in the columns of baseball news, was unconscious of her
scrutiny.

She studied him thoughtfully, the corners of her mouth drooping. It was
that feature which modified her otherwise complete resemblance to her
brother. She had the same undulant black hair, the same oval face and
olive complexion, the same snapping eyes. But where his mouth was merely
handsome, or, perhaps, better, affectionate, hers was firm and
determined. One might say, in comparing the two, that if Roger wanted
anything he would ask for it, whereas Judith would demand it.

She herself was not conscious of anything approaching such masterfulness
or determination in her character. She had never experienced the
sensation of breaking down opposition. But that was merely because there
had never been any opposition offered her. Orphaned when scarce out of
childhood, with an incredible fortune and no near relatives, she, like
her brother, had had only to ask; it had never been necessary to demand.
But of the latent strength of her will there were not lacking evidences.

Be that as it may, her time for action had not yet come. How deeply
worried she had grown about Roger, no one guessed, least of all the boy
himself. There was no escaping the knowledge that she was in a sense
responsible for him; the terms of their father's will had made her
trustee of her brother's half until he should reach the age of thirty.
Of course, she ought to do something, she had often told herself,
something radical and decisive; but she was too indolent, too definitely
in a groove, too bored with herself and her surroundings, to take that
keen interest essential to decisive action. So, with another sigh, she
passed through the long window opening on the piazza, and thence to the
lawn beyond.

Roger awoke just a minute too late to the fact that they had been alone
together and that he had missed the opportunity he had been waiting for.
He always preferred to approach Judith on money matters casually, and
not as though the occasion were of his own seeking. It certainly was
absurd for a man of his years and income to be kept in leading-strings
by his own sister. However, there was no help for it, and Judith had
always been a good sort, he would say that for her. He needed a cheque,
and he might as well get it over with at once.

He found her in the garden, examining some flowers which had just been
set out. Flowers were her one hobby, and he knew that a resort to them
usually indicated a certain degree of boredom with those around her.
But he went straight to the point.

"Say, sis, I'm running into town presently. Can you come in and draw me
a cheque? Better make it five hundred this time, to keep me going a
while."

"You lost again last night, Roger?"

"Lost?" He laughed mirthlessly. "Lord! Yes, I lost all right. The family
resources can stand it, can't they?"

"How much?"

"Oh, don't ask me to figure now. My head's like a ship in a storm this
morning. I don't know--lots."

"How much, Roger?"

"Oh, come on, sis, I'm in a hurry. Draw the cheque like a good
girl ... let's talk about it to-morrow." Suddenly he caught the
expression on his sister's face. It was an expression he seldom saw;
one that he did not like. "Well, if you have got to have the horrible
truth," he snapped petulantly, "I'm cleaned out ... absolute bust ... I
still owe a few hundred to Faxon," he added reluctantly.

She sighed. "Again."

"Nothing's broken right for me. Absolutely nothing. You saw yourself the
way the cards treated me last night."

Her eyes flashed. "You've got to be fairly sober to play a decent game
of cards, Roger."

He looked aggrieved. "I was sober--almost. Sober enough, anyway. It was
luck, I tell you--just the beastly rotten luck I always have. I never
did have any luck, from the day I was born. Why, any other chap, with my
chances ..."

"Roger," interrupted his sister shortly, as if she had not heard him at
all. "Why do you find it necessary to throw away every cent you get?
What's your idea?"

"My idea?"

"Yes. What's in your head about the future? What are you going to do
with yourself? What do you think about--about--oh, things in general?"

He looked his bewilderment. "I'm afraid I don't quite connect, sis ..."

"I want to know if you've--well--I'd like to know ... just how you stand
with yourself."

Her brother eyed her curiously. "What's struck you anyway?" he demanded.
"What's happened to make you take on like this all of a sudden?"

"Nothing. It's not sudden. I've wanted to have this talk with you for a
long time--not that it does any good ... we'll probably drag along the
same old way." She sat thoughtfully silent for a moment. "I'll draw you
a cheque, of course," she added listlessly. "You must pay up your debts
at once. But you do worry me ..."

"Miss Wynrod?"

"What is it, Huldah?"

Roger stopped his discourse and the maid advanced with a card. Judith
took it and knitted her brows as she read.

"Who is it, sis?"

"'Brent Good,'" she read, "_'The Workman's World'_"

"Well, he has got nerve," cried Roger. "That's that Socialist sheet,
isn't it? Why, they take a crack at us once a week regular. And now
they've got the gall to send a man out here. Tell him to go to the
devil."

Judith turned to the maid. "Tell him that I am not at home, please,
Huldah."

"I thought that would be the message," said a cheerful voice beyond the
hedge, "so I didn't wait for it." A moment later a tall figure of a man
emerged and took off his hat with an awkward bow.

"Good morning, Miss Wynrod." His bronzed, angular face, with its
deep-set eyes and wide mouth, softened in a smile which was undeniably
pleasing.

Judith surveyed his shabby figure, compounded of all manner of curious
depressions and protuberances, and half smiled herself. His cheerfulness
was infectious. Also, his appearance was almost comic, which was
paradoxical in a representative of so savage an organ as _The Workman's
World_. Then she recalled the circumstances of his intrusion, and when
she spoke her voice was chill.

"I believe you heard my message."

"Clearly. But if you had known that I had come all the way out from the
city on a very hot morning, merely to do you a favour, I don't think you
would have given it." He surveyed her reproachfully. Then his lips
parted again in a smile. "Won't you give me five minutes, Miss
Wynrod--please."

Judith was no exception to the rule that curiosity is a dominant motive
in human conduct. Besides, she had already succumbed to the curious
stranger's magnetic geniality.

She hesitated. "Well ..." He took it to be acquiescence.

"Thanks very much. Now could I have this five minutes with you--alone?"

Roger frowned at the request, and winked at his sister.

"This is my brother. Anything that concerns me will concern him."

The stranger's demeanour was unruffled.

"I see. And I am very glad. What I have to say does concern your brother
quite as much as it concerns yourself."

"Fire away!" interrupted Roger. Curiosity is by no means a distinctively
feminine weakness.

The occupant of the shabby brown suit removed his almost equally brown
straw hat and laid it on the grass.

"It's hot, isn't it," he smiled. It was difficult to resist that smile.
Judith invited him to be seated. And although she herself remained
standing, he accepted the invitation with alacrity. She marked that
against him, although his next remark appeased her somewhat.

"It's a long walk up from the station," he said, carefully removing the
abundant perspiration from his craggy forehead. "Pretty road, though,"
he added.

Judith was content to let him take his own time. But Roger was more
impatient.

"You have something to say to us?"

"Yes," he admitted, "I have."

"Well...?"

Mr. Good looked from brother to sister. An expression of half-humorous
dismay crossed his face, an expression which both of them caught, but
neither understood. Then he drew a long breath and carefully folded his
handkerchief. One long, lean forefinger shot out suddenly toward Judith,
and the quizzical little smile vanished from his lips.

"You know, Miss Wynrod, of the terrible situation down in the Algoma
mines. You know of the bloodshed, the pitched battles between strikers
and mine-guards. And worst of all,"--With a rapid gesture, contrasting
strongly with the languorous slowness of his movements before, he drew a
folded newspaper from one of his bulging pockets--"You must have read
this morning of the burning to death of twenty-two women and
children--the families of the striking miners."

Judith had read the story. That is, she had glanced at the headlines,
and realising the horror of their import, and at the same time feeling
that there was no particular interest for her, had passed on to closer
and less unpleasant interests. She remained silent before the tall
stranger's accusing finger. Her curiosity was more piqued than ever. But
Roger was angered.

"Well--and what of it?" he demanded with ill-concealed truculence.

The tall man turned his serious gaze on Roger.

"I suppose you are familiar with this terrible situation, too," he said,
half interrogatively.

"Suppose I am. What of it. I say?" Roger knew nothing whatever about it,
of course, and from the other man's sudden, half-veiled smile, it was
perfectly obvious that he knew that he did not. He turned suddenly from
Roger with a faint gesture of his long hand that seemed to sweep that
young man totally out of the discussion.

Then Judith, offended, although Roger himself was hardly conscious of
the rebuff, spoke for him.

"Yes," she said with deliberate coldness. "We know all about it. But
what of it?"

"Simply this, Miss Wynrod," said Good crisply, and with a hint of
hostility in his manner. "You are a large stockholder in several of the
Algoma mines. The blood of those murdered miners is on your head--and
those innocent women and children burned to death by your hirelings.
Whether you know it or not, you have a responsibility for the situation,
and I have come here to-day to find out what you are going to do about
it all?"

"Do about it?" cried Judith, amazed by the suddenness of his attack.
"I'm afraid I don't understand."

The stranger's mood softened and his voice became quieter.

"I want to find out what you think about things--things in general--what
you are going to do with the great wealth which is yours, what part you
are going to play in the changing world. This business at Algoma--that's
only a part of the whole. I want to find out what--well--what you really
_are_?"

Judith could have laughed aloud at the irony of the question which this
uncouth stranger was putting to her. It was, almost to the words, the
same question she had put to her brother not half an hour before. What
did she think about things? Why were people suddenly so interested in
what other people thought?

But the similarity was not apparent to Roger. The question caused him no
introspection: only anger.

"What right have you to put such impudent questions to us, anyway," he
demanded hotly. "Who the devil are you to intrude on us in this fashion?
You'd best get out before I have you put out."

The tall man made no move to rise from his chair as Roger stood
threateningly above him. He merely turned his hands up in a quaint
gesture of deprecation.

"Bless your heart, young chap, _I'm_ not putting any questions. If
you'll glance at my card, you'll notice that my business comes before my
name. I'm simply the spokesman of a newspaper ..."

"Newspaper!" sneered Roger. "Do you call that anarchist rag a
newspaper?"

But the other man refused to be interrupted. He proceeded equably. "And
that newspaper, in turn, is simply the spokesman of the public. It's the
public that wants to know _who_ you are--and _what_ you are--not I.
Personally, to be quite candid, I don't care a farthing. But ..."

"Well, and what right has the public to come prying into our private
affairs?" interrupted Roger again. "It's none of their business. This is
supposed to be a free country. Why don't you give law-abiding private
citizens a little freedom and privacy? You force your way in where you
aren't wanted and insult us and then say it's because the public wants
to know. What business is it of the public's what we do and what we
think?"

The stranger smiled benignly.

"My dear young man," he said calmly, as he folded up his newspaper and
fitted it into his pocket. "That's old, old stuff. You're 'way behind
the times. That rode into the discard on the tumbrels of the Revolution.
As an individual, nobody cares a rap about you. As the possessor of a
great fortune, the public is very keenly interested in your lightest
thought. But I'm not going to attempt to give you a lesson in elementary
history. Your sister can, I am sure, do that for me."

He turned to her with the same galling indifference that had so offended
Roger before. She could not but admire the assurance of his manner in
the face of such open hostility.

"Miss Wynrod," he went on calmly, "I do hope you will talk to me
frankly. Won't you tell me what you honestly think of your relations,
first to this business at Algoma, and then ..."

"Don't say a word," interrupted Roger. "Remember the sheet he
represents."

Judith did remember, and the recollection made her angry. She smarted
still at the cartoons and denunciatory editorials in which she had so
frequently been singled out for attack.

"Don't you think it's just a little curious, Mr. Good," she asked
quietly, "that you should come to me in this way when you must know how
your own paper has treated me?"

A pained expression crossed his eyes.

"It is a little queer," he admitted. "And honestly I don't like the
roasts they give you any better than you do. But don't you see that in a
way you're responsible for them? You never come back. You just hide.
People don't know what you think. All they see is the results--what you
do--or what they think you do ... and that amounts to the same thing,
doesn't it? Now if you'd just discuss the Algoma situation, and give me
some idea of what you think its causes are, and what part you think you
ought to play in making things better, it'll go a long way toward making
the public understand you better and sympathise with you. They think
that life's a rose garden to you, you know. They never dream that you
have troubles, too. You never tell them. All you show is the contented
side of your life, the luxury, the pleasure, the idleness. Why not take
them into your confidence?"

Of the shabby stranger's earnestness there could be no doubt. His long
arms waved and the perspiration welled out on his cheeks as he strove to
present his arguments. At intervals Roger sneered audibly, though Judith
listened attentively. But when he paused for breath, she shook her head.

"I sympathise with your point of view," she said with an effort at
finality. "But I have nothing to say."

But he refused to be put off. "But Miss Wynrod, can't you see what an
opportunity I'm giving? Here's a chance for you to set yourself right
with the people. They think you live for nothing but money. They think
you could fix everything up into an imitation of Heaven if you only
weren't greedy. Why don't you show them that you are doing all you can,
that you're thinking about things, that you're not the heartless,
selfish, narrow, stupid creature they think you are. This is an
opportunity to make yourself loved instead of hated. Why, Miss Wynrod,
if you'll make a statement, I'll bring the proofs to you to correct. I
won't put a comma in that you don't want. Wouldn't that be better than
to go back and write a story and say that when I asked you what you
thought about the burning to death of twenty-two women and children in
one of your own mines, by your own hirelings, you replied that you had
nothing to say?"

Roger was speechless with wrath at this torrent of what he thought was
abuse, failing to distinguish between the general and the specific. It
was only by an effort of will that he restrained himself from laying
violent hands on this threadbare creature with the eloquent tongue, who,
it appeared to him, was deliberately insulting his sister. But Judith
herself felt no rancour. Indeed she felt the magnetism of the reporter
more strongly with each word, and it never occurred to impugn the
sincerity of his outburst--nor its justice. Her face struggled painfully
in an effort to be cold and impassive as she barely whispered again her
refusal to speak.

Good studied her for a moment. Then he smiled, quite cheerfully. All his
hot tensity vanished suddenly.

"I think I understand," he said quietly. "It isn't that you won't talk
to me--but you can't. You can't tell me what you think about these
things--because you haven't thought about them. But you're going to,
Miss Wynrod, you're going to. Some day I shall come back, and then you
will talk to me. Perhaps you will even ask me to come back."

Roger laughed at that, but Judith was silent. She had a curious and not
at all pleasant sense that this curious, contradictory, talkative
stranger, with his grotesque form and clothes, and bad manners, not to
say impudence, knew her better than she knew herself. He was perfectly
right. She tried to tell herself that her refusal to talk to him was
dictated by a finely conscious dignity. But she knew very well that such
was not the case. He had indeed spoken truly when he said that she could
not talk because she had not thought. She had not. And she was not at
all incredulous at his prophecy that she might one day call him back.
She would think more about these matters--she had begun, perforce but
none the less certainly, to think about them already.

The reporter, still studying her quizzically, and so intently as to make
her consciously uncomfortable, rose slowly.

"I'm sorry, Miss Wynrod. I've had a wasted trip--and yet I haven't.
You're beginning to think. Some day you will talk. Perhaps I shall be
present. I am glad we have become friends--you, too, Mr. Wynrod. Good
morning."

In spite of his awkwardness, his movements were rapid. It seemed almost
like a fairy disappearance, so quickly was he out of sight behind the
hedge. Only his dilapidated straw hat could be seen bobbing rhythmically
out of view.

"Well, of all cranks," laughed Roger. "And the nerve of him. Did you
hear his calm assumption that we have now become fast friends? Can you
beat it?"

But Judith said: "It's a long road to the station. I should have sent
the car." And then, suddenly feeling an unaccountable distaste for her
brother's society, she went thoughtfully into the house.

In the hall she encountered Faxon, in search of her. He had to make the
10.46, and had none too much time to get to the station.

"Joris will take you down," she said mechanically, when he had
explained.

"He's taken Alder and some of the others up to the golf club."

"And Picard?"

"He's off somewhere, too."

"How stupid. Well, I'll take you down myself. Let's see. Oh, we can make
it easily. It's only a quarter past now. I'll have the electric around
in a moment."

While she waited for the car to be brought around, she found herself
responding perfunctorily to Mr. Faxon's running comment on all sorts of
things in general, conscious that for the first time he was rather
tiresome. She had never taken his attentions to herself seriously. She
knew that he had a certain interest in pretty Della Baker rather warmer
than was permissible in the case of a married woman, and she shut her
eyes to the fact that her house gave them opportunities to meet that
they would not otherwise have had. Yet she believed there was no real
harm in Della, and as for Faxon,--well, he had flirted with so many
women in his time that she could not take him altogether seriously
either with herself or with others. And he usually succeeded in being
amusing. But to-day she had no desire to be amused. She was thinking
earnestly for perhaps the first time in her life ... wondering what she
really did think about things in general.

As she seated herself in the car and Faxon climbed in beside her,
she grew more silent, and her thoughts strayed very far away from
Braeburn. In spite of a very considerable reluctance on her part,
they persisted in wandering to an ugly little collection of shanties,
piled helter-skelter in the midst of lowering hills, where men went
down into the earth and came up--something less than men--where
twenty-two ... over and over again that wretched phrase persisted in
repeating itself, until she wanted to scream. Why had she ever allowed
that disagreeable stranger to spoil her day?

Suddenly, as if to punctuate her thoughts, she caught sight of a
familiar figure marching jerkily along the dusty road in front of her.
He was even more grotesque from behind, but there was something pathetic
in the weary droop of his shoulders. She felt acutely conscious of the
comfort of her vehicle.

Two or three times as she neared the angular pedestrian, she rang her
bell. But he either did not hear it or he did not notice it; for he
kept on in his uneven stride, with his head bent well forward, and his
bedraggled straw almost over his ears.

She was almost upon him, and the narrowness of the road showed little
clearance between him and the machine, when she rang again. The sound
seemed to startle and confuse him. His head rose with a jerk and he
stopped short. Then he stepped, with the utmost deliberateness, directly
in the path of the approaching car.

With all the power in her lithe body, Judith jammed on both brakes. But
it was too late. There was a crash of glass as Faxon's cane went through
the window. On her knees where she had been thrown by the suddenness of
the stop she heard his "damned ass!" gritted through his teeth. She
remembered afterward that she had wondered whether the epithet was for
herself or for the stranger in the road. But at the time she heard only
the horrible crunch of steel against flesh, the muffled snap as of a
broken twig, and a low groan, twice repeated.

Faxon was out of the car in an instant, and standing in the road, his
face white as chalk, frantically motioning to her to reverse. In a daze
she put on the power, and when she had moved back a few feet, followed
him outside.

But her daze was only momentary. For just an instant she stood stupidly
watching Faxon struggle with a dreadfully inanimate brown mass. Then she
became herself.

"Here," she cried. "In the car--quick." And when Faxon seemed
indecisive, she laid hold of the unconscious figure herself and helped
to lift it into the machine.

As she climbed in after it, Faxon made as if to follow her. But she
waved him off.

"You can make that train if you hurry," she said sharply. "It's only a
little way to the station." And with that she tossed his cane to him,
and all but kicked his bag after it.

Faxon expostulated, but she was too occupied in turning her car around
to heed him. The sudden sharp hum of the motor as she jumped from speed
to speed made him realise the futility of his protests, and so,
philosophically, but not a little shaken by the suddenness of it all, he
picked up his bag and stick and made for the station.

Judith, as she sped homeward, did not trust herself to glance at the
crumpled figure on the floor beside her. And over and over again, as she
urged the car to its utmost, she kept repeating an almost wordless
prayer--

"I mustn't faint ... I mustn't faint ... I mustn't...."

She was almost home when the brown bundle stirred faintly, and she
caught a weak groan. Still she dared not look. It was only when she was
forced to, that she turned her eyes in answer to a weakly whispered
question.

"What's up?"

"Oh, I'm so glad!" she breathed, more to herself than to him, "so
glad ... I thought...." Then, a little louder--"Where are you hurt?"

"My leg, I think," said the injured man, in a voice that was a pitiful
travesty of the one that had talked to her so earnestly in her garden,
only a few minutes before. "It--it hurts like the dickens."

She rang her bell frantically all the way up the drive to the house, and
there were half a dozen excited people to meet her. She was far calmer
than they and she superintended the removal of Good from the car with
perfect impassiveness. But he had lost consciousness again, and the
sight of his bloodless face, deathly pallid save for the crimson splash
on one cheek, almost unnerved her.

"Take him to the grey room, Portis," she said quietly. "And tell
somebody to get Dr. Ruetter. He's staying at Mrs. Craven's. Please
hurry." It was very hard to keep her voice calm, but she managed to
accomplish it.

Finally, when she could think of nothing else to do, and to the very
great amazement of everyone, she suddenly collapsed in a dead faint.

When she came to herself again, Dr. Ruetter was standing over her.

"Well, young lady," he said cheerfully. "You've made quite a morning of
it."

Her first thought was of Good.

"Tell me," she cried anxiously. "How is he? Is he very badly hurt? Will
he die?"

"Unquestionably," smiled the Doctor. But when she sank back with a
groan, he added, "just like we all will."

"Oh. Then he isn't fatally hurt?"

"Bless you, no! Broken leg, that's all. Bad break, I'll admit--compound
fracture--but nothing to cause alarm."

"But he's got to go to a hospital," spoke up Roger, whom she had not
noticed before.

"The hospital? Who said so?"

"The Doctor. He says ..."

"Oh, by all means," said the Doctor, quite as if the prospect gave him
personal pleasure. "This isn't a bruised finger, you know. That chap
won't be up and around for three weeks or a month at least. The
hospital's the place for him."

"What hospital?" asked Judith thoughtfully.

"Judging by his clothes, I should say the County."

Judith sat bolt upright at that.

"He will not go to the County Hospital," she said with finality. "He
won't go to any hospital."

"Don't get excited, sis," said Roger with soothing intent. But his words
had the opposite effect.

"He's going to stay right where he is," she continued. "It's the least I
can do, after nearly killing him."

"That's very kind and good, of course," said the Doctor in obedience to
a glance from Roger. "But I'm afraid you don't quite understand. He'll
be laid up for a long time--six weeks, perhaps. And really, he'd be
better off in a hospital."

"Don't talk nonsense," said Judith sharply. "Is he going to need
treatment?"

"Well, no," admitted the Doctor in some confusion.

"It's purely a matter of convalescence. He'll be far more comfortable
here. He'll stay here. Now please go away and let me alone. I'm all
fagged out."

The Doctor pleaded and cajoled, even, in obedience to further glances
from Roger, ventured to order. But Judith merely closed her eyes and
refused to listen to him at all. Finally, being something of a
philosopher, he wished her a very pleasant good morning, and went on his
way.

Roger continued to storm, though quite ineffectually.

"Why, confound it, sis," he cried in exasperation, "what's the sense in
playing lady bountiful to a fellow who'll make use of his first day of
health to enter a whopping big suit for damages against you?"

"Does he strike you as that sort of a chap?" she asked mildly.

"You know how he feels toward people like us. He told you, himself. He'd
think it a sin to let a chance go by to soak us. He'd probably feel
justified by the way we treated him this morning."

"We weren't very cordial, were we?"

"Cordial! I told him to get out before I threw him out. Why, he's as
full of grievances as a cat is fleas. Mark my words, the only gratitude
you'll get will be a good fat damage suit. And you know how much of a
chance you'd have against him."

"Well, he'd deserve something, wouldn't he?" asked Judith. "He'll
probably lose his position if he's going to be laid up for six weeks."

Roger looked at her in amazement.

"Say, are you going daffy?" Then he reflected for a moment. "That's not
a bad idea, sis. I might give him a couple of hundred in exchange for a
quit claim. That's what the railroads do in their accidents. A hundred
or two will look bigger to him right now than a thousand next year. I'll
get him before any shyster lawyer does. I'll fix it up, all right. Don't
you worry, sis. That crazy anarchist won't trouble you ..."

But Judith was not worrying. Her eyes had closed again in a perfectly
obvious simulation of sleep. For a moment Roger looked a little hurt by
this indifferent reception of his idea. Then he tiptoed quietly out of
the room.

Full of his plan, he hastened to the grey room, where the tall stranger
lay, all his cheerful smile lost in the twisted grin of pain.

But he managed somehow to smile, after a fashion at least, when Roger
came in.

"Hello," he said, with something of his characteristic buoyancy.

"Hello," said Roger, trying to be casual. "How you feeling?"

"Ever see a hog skinned?" grinned the tall man. "That's how."

Roger's sympathies were stirred. He was really a very tender-hearted
lad. But he was not to be swerved from his purpose. He had a duty to
perform.

"Bad business," he said seriously, seating himself beside the bed. Then
he nodded to the maid, who had been detailed to act as nurse, to leave
the room. When she had closed the door, he turned confidentially to
Good.

"I say, old man," he said with something of embarrassment in his manner,
"you're going to be laid up for a good stretch, you know, and you may
lose your job and all that--"

"Tweedledee," said the tall man. "You can't lose what you haven't got."

Roger was at a loss just how to answer that sally, so he decided to
overlook it.

"You're bound to be considerably put out," he went on.

"Considerably is right," chuckled Good.

Roger found it very difficult, much more so than he had expected, to
talk to this curious creature. But he was persistent.

"Well, we don't intend that you shall lose anything," he said in as
friendly a way as he could. But it was a little too friendly. It was the
tone with which one offers a tip. "I'll give you a cheque for two
hundred dollars--all the doctor's bills paid--and--" He drew a cheque
book from his pocket and unscrewed his fountain pen. "How shall I make
it out?"

Good raised his hand. "Cut that," he said shortly.

Roger misconstrued the gesture. It irritated him.

"Don't you think it's--enough?" he asked bluntly.

But the tall man only smiled.

"Oh, forget it," he said. "Why should you give me any money. You can pay
the bills if you want to. Guess you'll have to if the medico's going to
get anything. That'll call it square, I guess."

"How about the six weeks' lay-up?"

"I'll get a good rest and plenty to eat--at the county's expense. Why
should I worry?" smiled Good.

"Then you refuse to accept a cheque?" demanded Roger.

"Of course."

Roger was so full of his own suspicions that it never occurred to him to
question their justice. And the blithe and offhand way in which this
ragamuffin declined his cheque only seemed to confirm his belief that he
was playing for higher stakes. He lost his patience entirely.

"You'd rather wait till you can get some quack lawyer," he sneered, "and
then try to bleed us for a big wad, eh?"

The man on the bed opened his eyes in amazement.

"Good Lord," he cried, "what kind of people have you been brought up
with?"

"Well, just let me tell you, my friend," went on Roger hotly, "that you
won't get a cent by that game. My sister has a witness to prove that the
accident was all your own fault...."

"Well," interrupted the stranger, a little wearily, "that's right. What
are you fussing about?"

It was Roger's turn to open his eyes in amazement.

"You mean--you admit--it was your fault?" he stammered.

"Of course. I was thinking about--something else--usually am--when your
sister rang her bell. I didn't hear it, at first. When I did, I--well--I
don't know--guess I just stepped the wrong way. It's my own fault for
getting chewed up. Don't worry, my boy, there won't be any damage suit.
I haven't any claim--besides I'm a good sight more afraid of lawyers
than you are."

Roger stared in silent astonishment. "You are a queer one," he
ejaculated finally.

The injured man smiled, a little sadly.

"You're awfully young to be so suspicious of your fellow man," he said
almost to himself. Then, more briskly and cheerfully, he addressed
himself to the very surprised and humiliated Roger.

"Now that we've got that settled, let's tackle the next question. When
are you going to ship me into town?"

"We're not going to ship you in," answered Roger, very chastened.

Good lifted his eyebrows. "Not going to? What's the answer?"

"My sister intends to have you stay where you are." Then he added in a
more friendly tone, "It's the least we can do for you, you know."

"Well, well!" Good's face was illumined with smiles. "I say, that's
fine," he cried. "Most extraordinary, too," he added, under his breath.
Then he surveyed the neatness and harmonious quiet of the room. His
eyes, with a little gleam in them, roamed comfortably into every corner.
"It's worth being laid up to get a taste of this," he cried naïvely.
"You see, I've never seen anything just like this," he added, almost
apologetically, with the little deprecatory lift of his hands that had
already fastened itself upon Roger as characteristic. "It's too good to
be true!"

For a moment Roger was silent at this display of ingenuousness. Then he
spoke as he would have expected to be spoken to, had their positions
been reversed.

"I'll send in for your clothes--and things--if you'll give me your
address...."

The tall man's expression of content faded. It was succeeded by a look
of what might be taken for pain, or embarrassment,--or both.

"They're all here," he said quietly. "It wouldn't be worth while to send
after a toothbrush and a comb, would it. That's all there is--home."

"Oh--I beg your pardon," said Roger, reddening. Then he cursed himself
for the tactlessness of the apology.

"Nothing to blush at, my boy," cried Good. "Lend me a suit of pajamas,
instead."

Roger rose hastily. He welcomed the opportunity to escape from this
curious creature, who said such curious things, and who possessed but
one suit of clothes. As very rarely happened, he found himself at a loss
for words.

"Can I do anything else?" he asked from the doorway.

"Yes--you can thank your sister--from the bottom of my heart--for having
introduced me to her motor-car ... and _this_--" he waved his hand
around comprehensively, and smiled.

"Anything else?"

"Well, you might call up _The World_ and tell them that I won't be down
to-morrow. You might add that I fell down on the Wynrod story ... that
I'm in the camps of the Persians."

Then, when Roger looked puzzled, he yawned luxuriously and stretched his
arms over his head. And after another yawn, he closed his eyes.

"That's all, thanks. Tell 'em not to wake me--for a week...."




CHAPTER II

A BLOW--AND A RESOLUTION



I

It was after ten o'clock on the evening of the same day. Judith was
thankful when a change at one of the tables gave her an opportunity to
steal away. It was the same old routine, the same interminable bridge,
the same familiar group, even including Faxon and Della Baker who, by a
coincidence that had called forth little veiled ironies, had returned by
the same late afternoon train. Judith wondered at herself. The life she
led, the people she called her friends, had never seemed quite so
shallow before. She stole upstairs and listened for a moment at the door
of her patient's room. All was quite soundless. Returning to the floor
below, she stepped out into the grateful coolness of the evening,
seeking that part of the piazza at the opposite end of the house from
the parlours. Pausing outside the smoking-room, she heard voices and the
tinkle of ice. She looked through the glass door; there were two men in
the room, Della Baker's husband and Faxon. The latter was stirring his
high-ball thoughtfully. His words arrested her as she was on the point
of turning back.

"If Roger keeps on at his present gait he'll make a neat little hole
even in the Wynrod pile."

Baker lighted a fresh cigar. "Yes?" His tone was noncommittal.

"Got any for himself, d'ye think--or does Judith hold the bag?" Such
imprudent garrulity was not characteristic of Faxon, but more whisky
than was good for him had dulled discretion and loosened his tongue.

"It's hard to say." Baker leaned back and blew smoke rings toward the
ceiling. He was an extraordinarily taciturn man, even for a lawyer.

"The old man had a lot of confidence in her." Faxon gave the impression
of soliloquy. "Shouldn't wonder if she kept the kid on an allowance.
He's strapped pretty tight sometimes. Queer girl, Judith."

"Think so?"

"Yes. Sometimes I don't just know how to take her."

"So?"

"Charming, fine character and all that--but difficult. Don't you think
so?"

"Um--well...."

"Roger's different."

"Is he?"

"Oh, my, yes. I don't mean when he's carrying a package--I want to dodge
then--but when he's sober, he's a nice kid. Awfully young and simple, of
course. Still...."

"Alarums without--and enter the king!" came a thick voice from the
doorway, a voice that arrested Judith a second time and held her
spellbound. She was already tingling with mortification. How dared her
friends calmly analyse her and Roger in their own house, speculate on
their private money matters, condescendingly, almost sneeringly foot up
their account of good and bad? Then, even in the dark, she felt her
cheeks grow hot. Was she herself much better than they, playing the
eavesdropper on her own guests? Somehow, oddly, the thought flashed upon
her that the quiet man upstairs would not have done so, that his code of
ethics was a cleaner one than hers and that of her friends. But when she
heard her brother's voice, with that telltale thickening in it, sheer
dread of what he might do banished all thought of social niceties. Roger
was not often like this, but when he was it meant trouble.

"Hello, Roger." Faxon's manner underwent a subtle change. "Thought you
were playin' bridge with the crowd."

"Bridge? Me? Not on your life! I've cut that out. I'm sick of givin' the
whole party, I am. I'm sick of bein' a Christmas-tree for blind babies.
Put your han's in my pockets, boys. Ev'body's doin' it! No, sir, I've
quit f' good. Where's the Scotch?"

"Really, Roger," protested Baker somewhat anxiously, "don't you think
you'd better...."

"Jus' one toast," insisted Roger obstinately, "jus' one." He drew
himself unsteadily erect. "I wanta drink--I wanta drink--to the mos'
beautiful, mos' 'ttractive, mos' heartless...." As he raised the glass
with a flourish, it slipped from his fingers and crashed on the table,
its golden contents trickling over Baker's knees.

There was momentary silence; then a single short laugh. It sobered
Wynrod like a dash of cold water. "You think I'm funny?" he demanded.

Faxon reddened. "Oh, come now, Roger, why so peevish? You've got things
to be thankful about. I hear that Vera is leaving you, without even the
threat of a breach of promise suit--"

The blood surged up into Roger's cheeks and his features sharpened. When
he finally spoke it was very slowly.

"I'll thank you to keep your mouth shut on matters that don't concern
you," he said icily.

Faxon's eyes gleamed angrily, and his lips parted; but he did not speak.
He passed his hand across his mouth and laughed nervously.

Baker put his hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Let's see how the
cards are going, Roger...."

But Wynrod shook him off. "Would you mind beating it, John--just a
moment. I want to talk to Faxon--there's a good fellow--"

Baker surveyed the pair--and hesitated. Then, with a cold and meaning
glance at Faxon, he shrugged his shoulders and went out.

When the curtains had closed, Wynrod turned to Faxon. He drew in his
breath and his teeth clicked sharply.

"I may run the risk of breach of promise suits," he said, after a long
pause, "but I stay away from married women."

"Well, that's noble of you to be sure, but--what of it?"

"You don't."

Faxon's features tightened. "I'm afraid I don't understand...."

"That's a lie," said Wynrod in an ugly, deliberate way.

"Now see here...." Faxon tried to bluster, but it was patently forced.

"Either you or the Bakers have got to get out of this house." The words
were said quietly enough, but the determination behind them was plain.
Faxon realised that, and tried equivocation.

"Why?"

"Because I won't have this sort of thing going on in my house."

"Your house?" There was just the faintest suggestion of an emphasis upon
the pronoun.

"My house," repeated Roger coldly. "I saw you and Della last night. And
I know you met in town to-day. If she wants to make that kind of an ass
of herself outside, that's her business. But she can't do it here. John
Baker's my friend."

For an instant Faxon's jaw was set with curled lips, and his eyes
blazed. Then the whole expression changed, and he shrugged his shoulders
and laughed--though not very easily.

"Why, Roger old boy, you're all wrong. You're quite mistaken about Della
Baker. She and I are good friends--nothing more. She's an unhappy little
woman, that's all. She--oh well, she's taken my friendship for something
more. She...."

"Let's not discuss her."

"As you like. But you've got to get things straight. Just because I was
decent to her when her husband wasn't, and she fancied me in love with
her, doesn't make me the sort of chap you seem to think me, does it?"

Roger was silent. Faxon assumed that the silence meant an acceptance of
his explanation, and his apparent success made him careless. His voice
softened and his manner became almost feline. He put his hand on the
other's shoulder.

"You've got it all dead wrong, my boy. Della's spoiled the party for me.
She's stuck to me like a barnacle. I didn't come out here for her. I
wanted to see Judith. Why...."

Roger seemed suddenly to grow a head taller. His eyes flamed like banked
fires, and his nostrils dilated. His fists clenched fiercely. "Cut
that--cut it, I tell you," he ground thickly through his set teeth.
"Don't you ever speak of my sister like that. By God, I won't stand it,
you hear." His voice was low but clear and vibrant with suppressed
passion.

Faxon recoiled, and his suavity left him. "Your sister is of age, I
believe," he said with a steely evenness. "She needs no protector."

"You keep away, I tell you. You keep away." Roger's breath came shortly,
and his fists clenched and unclenched themselves spasmodically.

"If I'm not good enough to look at your sister, how about you--and Molly
Wolcott? I can't see that little Vera's any better than Della Baker."

"Cut it, Faxon. You're going too far!"

"Is that so?" sneered the older man harshly. "Well, what if I go
farther. I won't take much nonsense from you, my cock."

"You'll get out of this house and stay out...." Roger's eyes were ablaze
and his features worked convulsively. The other, much larger of frame,
glared down at him with a gaze as hot as his own. The atmosphere was
tense.

Then, almost simultaneously the curtains parted and the two sections of
the piazza window swung inward. Baker who had left the two men very
reluctantly, and had returned as soon as he decently could, was present
at the climax. He jumped forward as he saw the two men facing each other
over the narrow table, and comprehended the situation. But he was too
late. He caught an ugly word from Wynrod. Then, with a savage oath,
Faxon's arm shot out.

There was the dull crunch of flesh against flesh, and the younger man
staggered back from the impact; then blind with rage, he sprang forward
again; a crash of shattered glass followed, as the mis-aimed whisky
bottle splintered against the sideboard. Then, simultaneously the three
men became aware of Judith standing white and statuesque in the window,
her eyes ablaze with scorn and repulsion.

Of what was said she had no clear memory afterwards. Roger, belligerent
still, attempted a hot defence, but she silenced him with a cutting
word. Faxon for the first time on record, found his suavity forsake him.
He had been caught by his hostess in a disorderly broil, and his
dapperness was marred with spattered liquor. His rhetoric quite broke
down and he was conscious of making the most awkward exit of his career.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was fully an hour later, when the house was quiet for the night, that
Judith found Roger nursing a slight but smarting cut on his cheek, where
Faxon's seal ring had grazed it.

"Roger," she said, "that's enough 'first aid,' isn't it? I want to talk
with you."

"Oh, cut it out, Judith. Go to bed. I've had all a fellow can stand for
one evening, without being lectured by you!"

"It can't wait, Roger. I have some things that I must say to you now,
to-night, and you have got to listen. I couldn't sleep if I didn't. I
have waited too long already. If I hadn't, this wretched, vulgar thing
wouldn't have happened.... And with one of your own guests, too."

He straightened at that and lost his sheepish look. "One of my guests?
Not by a million! I wouldn't have that damned bounder in my kennels.
Why, hang it all, Judith, I can't see what you have the chap around for
at all. He...."

"You know perfectly well why I have him. He's here so that Della Baker
can have a good time--poor girl."

"Poor girl! Rats! Just because her husband doesn't play tag with her all
day, she's 'poor girl.' Instead of behaving like a halfway decent sort,
she's making several different kinds of a fool of herself over Joe
Faxon. 'Poor girl?'--don't make me laugh!"

"Oh, I heard what you said to Mr. Faxon. But it doesn't follow, Roger,
just because you have a nasty mind that everybody is as horrid as you
choose to think. Maybe there are some sides of a man's life that I'm not
supposed to know about. But just escaping a breach of promise suit,--oh,
Roger, shame on you!"

For a moment the young man lost some of his assurance. "You aren't
fair," he protested aggrievedly. "You're bound to put me in the wrong
every time. Admitted that I have made all sorts of a fool of myself,--a
fellow has to learn somehow, hasn't he? But you'll believe the worst of
me any time, and you won't believe anything against your precious
friends. You're biased, that's what you are, biased."

Judith sighed and took a cigarette from the table and lighted it. She
smoked thoughtfully for a moment.

"Roger, I'm sure I don't know what to do with you. It's just one scrape
after another. It won't be long before this one will be out. But I don't
mean to be unfair. If as you say, you have been all kinds of a fool, it
isn't any more your fault than it is mine. I had no right to make it
possible for you to be all kinds of a fool. And as a matter of fact, you
are not a bit ashamed of yourself, Roger. On the contrary, you're
altogether too satisfied with yourself."

Her brother smiled uneasily. "I don't know that I'm really in need of
condolence," he rejoined with an attempt at sarcasm.

"That's just the trouble," she said earnestly. "You've been feeling
altogether too well--with altogether too little reason." She tossed her
cigarette in the fireplace, and then turned and faced him with lips
compressed. "I overheard some people discussing you the other night,
Roger. One called you 'no account,' the other, 'a bad egg,' and both
agreed that the cause was 'too much money.'"

His eyes flashed. "Who were they?" he demanded belligerently.

"That makes no difference."

"Why doesn't it?"

"Because what they said is true."

Roger was silent at that, but Judith went on relentlessly.

"You _are_ no account, Roger. By the standards of men who do things in
the world, you're good for nothing. You're a good dancer. You can drive
a motor car. You know enough about horses to play polo. And when you
put your mind to it, you play a good game of cards. Beyond that, what
can you do--what _are_ you?"

He eyed her narrowly, and a faint flush rose in his cheeks.

"What do you want me to do--give a catalogue of virtues?" he inquired
sarcastically. "What's all this leading to, anyway. Granted that I'm all
kinds of a waster, what's the answer?"

Judith was thoughtfully silent for a little while after his question,
and when she spoke it was to answer it with another question.

"Have you ever done a single stroke of useful work in your life?"

"Probably not." His tone was a little flippant.

"Why not?"

"Never had to." The flippancy was quite obvious.

"No, you never had to--never _had_ to do anything." There was another
long silence, broken only by the nervous drumming of Roger's finger-tips
on the edge of his chair. When Judith spoke again, her tone was tender,
but with a vibrant note of determination which communicated itself fully
even to her brother's apathetic faculties.

"Well, from now on, you're going to play the man. You're going to take
care of yourself. You're going to _have_ to do things."

"What do you mean?" All Roger's flippancy had vanished, and in its place
was an almost comic anxiety.

"Just what I said, Roger lad. I shall support you no longer."

"You mean ... you're going to stop my allowance?" He was aghast at the
possibility, and he made no effort to conceal his feelings. "Surely you
can't be thinking of anything so--so--outrageous?" he demanded.

"But I am!" She tossed her head with a suggestion of defiance, and
smiled. "You've done as you pleased for all your twenty-four years.
Well, you can go on doing as you please--only you'll do it on your own
money."

"But this money--my allowance--it isn't yours, you know," he
expostulated, almost tearfully. "It's merely an idiotic will that gives
you the disposal of it. What right have you got to get on your high
horse and tell me what I must and mustn't do? Answer me that."

"No _right_, Roger," she said sadly. "Half of what we have is yours of
course. But it's not yours till you're thirty--you know that. I couldn't
give it to you now even if I wanted to. I'm not even obliged to give you
an allowance. The two thousand, of course, you'll continue to get. I
can't control that. But beyond...."

"Two thousand! What good will that do me? Do you think I can live on
that?"

"Some people do," she murmured faintly. Judith was not without a certain
quiet irony when she chose to employ it.

"Don't be silly, Judith. You know mighty well I can't get along on that.
Why, good heavens, I can't possibly do it!" His voice rose shrilly as
the enormity of the thought struck him with all its force. But Judith
refused to be troubled.

"Perhaps you'll know more about it after you've tried," she said gently.

Roger jumped to his feet and paced rapidly to and fro for a moment. Then
he faced his sister, and his eyes blazed like those of an angry cat.

"Do you really mean that you're going to play this rotten trick on me?"
he demanded hotly. "Are you going to take advantage of a perfectly
insane will and cheat me out of what's honestly mine? Or are you kidding
me? If you are, I've had about enough of it."

"I mean every word," she returned, with not a little asperity. "And I'm
not cheating you. You've made a mess of your life, left to yourself. Now
I'm going to help you. I'm tired of suffering for your sins!" Suddenly
the quality of her voice changed completely and her eyes glistened
suggestively. "Oh, Roger lad, can't you understand? Can't you see
that I do so want you to make something of yourself? You're the only
thing I have in the world. Can't you see how it hurts me to have
people feel a contempt for you? I'm the only mother you've ever had.
I know I haven't done a millionth part of what I should have done
for you. I've failed--miserably. I know that. All your weaknesses
are due to me. You aren't to blame. This is my last chance. You're
slipping, Roger--slipping down. This is my last chance to catch
you--before--before ... it's too late. Judge Wolcott agrees: I talked it
over with him. Oh, I'm sorry, lad. You haven't an idea how sorry! It
breaks my heart to be cruel to you this way--but I've got to be, Roger.
I've got to be--can't you understand? Please say you do." She put her
arms around his neck and laid her cheek against his. But he shook her
off roughly.

"That's all very fine talk," he snapped savagely, "but it doesn't mean
anything. Who the devil is old Wolcott to worry about my morals...?"

"As Molly's father he...."

"Molly can take care of herself. But that isn't the point. What I want
to know is where Wolcott gets the right to monkey with my affairs. And
as for you--if you're going to cheat me out of what's mine--for the
love of heaven, do it, but don't make it worse with all this high and
mighty talk. It makes me tired."

"Please, Roger...." The tears in her eyes were plain now.

"Maybe I am all the pleasant things you say I am. Maybe I haven't got
sense enough to take care of my own money. But what are you? I never
noticed any wings on your shoulders."

"You don't understand. I...."

"Understand? Of course I don't understand. That's why I'm asking the
question. If I'm what you say I am--what are you? Where'd you get your
preaching card?"

"What difference does it make what I am?"

"It makes a lot of difference. If you're so hot on reforming me, why
don't you take a crack at yourself? I don't see that you're so almighty
angelic. What have _you_ ever done in the world? You can play the piano
after a fashion and sing, and talk a little French, and play cards and
smoke cigarettes and drink cocktails and ... well, what else can you do?
You spend twice as much money as I do, and I'll be hanged if I can see
that you spend it to much better advantage. If I'm a waster and no
account and a bad egg, you're one too. The only difference is that you
wear skirts and I don't. Well--why don't you answer me?"

He towered over her, white with his rising rage.

"I say, why don't you answer me?" he repeated hotly.

"You don't need to be rude," she answered, her voice trembling.

"I'm not rude. I'm simply putting the same question to you that you put
to me. You held the mirror up to me. You can't squeal if I do the same
by you. You wanted to know what I had ahead, what I thought about
things, where I stood, and all that. Well, what do _you_ think about
things? Where do you stand? What are you? Turn about's fair, isn't it?"

Judith sought shelter in dignity. She raised her head coldly. "I think
there is nothing more to be said. I think you had better go to bed."

"No," he sneered bitterly; "there isn't anything more. You're dealing
the cards. But it's a darned rotten deal, just the same. If you've got a
clear conscience you've got a devil of a lot more than I'd have if I was
in your shoes."

With which bit of self-depreciation Roger stalked dignifiedly, if a
trifle unsteadily, out of the room.

Judith remained as he left her, with her chin in her hand, staring into
the empty fireplace. Once or twice she brought her handkerchief to her
eyes. Her brother's angry words had stung her far more cruelly than she
was willing to admit. His counter arraignment of her had struck home.
What was she, what did she think about things? In her zeal for him, had
she not overlooked herself?

She cast her eyes around the room, reeking with the sweet sickliness of
dead cigarettes. She thought of the high stakes that had passed at her
tables, she saw again the wan, tired, hard faces of the players, their
feverish, greedy fingers; and she heard, as in an echo, their blithe
cruelties, their empty blandishments. And these people, she reflected
bitterly, were her friends--the only ones she had.

Roger had put the question to her squarely. What was she? The words
struck her like a blow in the face. And what did she think--about
anything? And the weight of the question was none the lighter for being
asked for the second time in the same day. Roger the immature boy over
whom she had allowed herself to stand in judgment, and Brent Good, the
pitiful vagabond, had both weighed her in the balance and found her
wanting.

She shuddered at the arid uselessness of what she called her mind. The
grotesque procession of her daily thoughts passed before her in review.
She tried to close her eyes and shut the ghastly picture out, but could
not.

Riches, health, intelligence of a sort--these things were hers. What had
she done with them? The answer hurt, almost physically. Emptiness,
idleness, futility ... was there anything else in herself, her friends,
her whole life? Had she justified existence?

Suddenly she realised that it was cold. She shivered, and turned out the
light.


II

Roger awoke the following morning in a repentant mood. Slowly and
painfully he marshalled the facts of the preceding evening, dim and hazy
some of them, while others stood out with humiliating and alarming
distinctness. And the more he analysed them, the more unpleasantly he
became aware that Judith had been in deadly earnest. In his first
hopelessness, he caught illogically at one faint chance. His sister's
great fear seemed to be that this latest escapade might leak out. The
fight had been the starting point of all her amazing change of front.
Well, he could prevent it from leaking out, by swallowing his pride.
Perhaps after all he had been over-hasty.

Accordingly, acting on this new resolution, Roger caught Faxon's eye as
they were rising from table, and nodded.

The latter waited. Roger reddened slightly, and was silent until the
others were out of earshot. Then he held out his hand.

"I'm sorry, Joe," he said manfully. "I'm a damn fool when I've got a
load. I hope you'll forget anything I may have said or done."

Faxon took the extended hand a little surprisedly.

"Surest thing you know, Roger. And I'm sorry too. I struck at a sober
man--you understand, don't you? I was too hasty. One forgets. He hears
things--and acts before he thinks. Bad business--but it's over and we'll
bury it."

"That's particularly what I want," said Wynrod, with what seemed to
Faxon rather unnecessary earnestness. "Absolutely buried. I don't want
it to get out at all. I can depend upon Baker...."

"And you can depend upon me," said Faxon heartily. "I won't breathe a
whisper."

"Thanks." They shook hands gravely, and after an embarrassed little
pause, Roger excused himself and went to hunt up his sister.

"About that stuff last night--are you still in earnest?" he asked
doggedly, but not unpleasantly.

She looked at him with a curiously tender expression in her eyes, but
with her jaw firmly set.

"Absolutely, Roger," she said quietly.

But the outburst she expected did not come. Instead, he looked at her
quizzically and smiled.

"Well, sister, maybe there's something in what you say. I've been
thinking about it. But you've set me up against an almighty hard
proposition. I'm willing--but what on earth can I do?"

Judith was tremendously surprised, although she should not have been,
knowing her brother's customary acquiescence in whatever she dictated.
But she concealed her amazement and answered him in as matter-of-fact a
way as she could muster. And Judith was by no means an inferior actress.

"Why don't you see Judge Wolcott?"

"He's a lawyer."

"I know. But he's interested in all sorts of business matters. And
before he went on the bench he was a corporation lawyer. At least he
could tell you who to see."

"The idea is not without merit, sister. I think I'll see the Judge on
Monday. And then watch little Roger proceed to climb the dizzy heights
of industry. I'll show you a thing or two about him you never guessed."

Judith's eyes filled with tears and she threw her arms about his neck.
"Oh, Roger--you're fine. And I _am_ cruel to you. I haven't any business
to treat you this way. You're so much bigger than I am. You'll make a
success--a great success. I know you will. And I will be so proud of
you!"

The possibility was a novel one. Roger considered it carefully, for a
moment. "By Jove, you will!" he cried finally. "I'll be hanged if you
won't," he added with enthusiasm. He wondered why the tears seemed to
well the faster in his sister's eyes.




CHAPTER III

"YOU DON'T KNOW MR. IMRIE"


The news of Judith's "mad whim" spread rapidly through Braeburn, and
various were the comments it evoked. For the most part they savoured of
condolence, although there was some sentimental approbation for what was
characterised by one enthusiast as the "nobility" of her course. This
had its effect upon Roger, and in time, he also came to feel admiration
for her, and then, as a natural consequence of his own participation in
the affair, he came to feel an admiration for himself. From out and out
hostility to the idea, therefore, he changed insensibly to ardent and
voluble sympathy.

At first Judith had admitted to herself quite frankly that the situation
bore possibilities of annoyance. Aside from her guest's potentially
dangerous familiarity with her daily life, she sensed in him a certain
lack of knowledge--or at least of observance--of those social amenities
upon which her training, more than her instinct, led her to place
considerable emphasis. It was with this feeling of an unbridgeable gulf
between them, that she approached their first meeting after the
accident. And it was with no little embarrassment, therefore, that she
entered his room.

The lines of pain had disappeared from his face, and the removal of the
stubble which had covered his chin when they had had their first
encounter, together with his rest, and--though she did not suspect
that--several meals much more bounteous than those to which he was
accustomed, had improved his appearance surprisingly. He greeted her
unaffectedly.

"Hello," he said. "I've been waiting to see you. I can't begin to tell
you how grateful I am for--all this."

"And I," she cried, "can't begin to tell you how sorry I am that it all
happened. I...."

"Well, then," he said with a smile which revealed two rows of strong,
even and very white teeth, "let's not either of us try."

That seemed to break the ice, and because he appeared to feel no
embarrassment, she found that hers had quite left her. Before she
realised it, the morning was well advanced, and when she left him it was
with a curious feeling that they had known each other for years and
years ... very well.

And that was only the beginning of the very odd, but very
real, friendship which sprang up between them. It would have
surprised--perhaps shocked--her friends to know how much time she spent
with him; but it would have shocked them still more to know the topics
of the conversations between them. She herself was amazed every time she
left him; not at the range and depth of his interests and his
knowledge--but at her own. He seemed to evoke ideas and words that she
had never dreamed were there. It struck her as little short of sorcery.

But the situation was not wholly pleasant. There were little rifts to
mar the lute. The first came after several weeks. It was Roger who
introduced it.

"Say, Judith," he said suddenly, one night at dinner, "Good's going to
be up and around pretty soon. You can't keep him cooped up there
forever, you know. When are you going to have him down to meals?"

He voiced a question which had been occurring with troublesome frequency
in her own mind. She was silent for a moment, as she struggled with a
decision she could no longer evade. It was a curious predicament in
which events had placed her--not easy to understand readily. It was
indisputable that Good was ignorant of either the theory or practice of
those conventions of the table upon which, against her will, she set
much store. It was equally certain that he was quite conscious of his
deficiencies in that respect. Were she in his place, she told herself,
she would prefer not to suffer the embarrassments which the contrasts
between themselves and him must entail. But on the other hand, did she
not perhaps over-emphasise his sensitiveness, and was it not more than
probable that to his sense of proportion her conception of the _manner_
of human intercourse was absurd, if not pitiful? She found herself in a
situation where, in an effort to be kind, she might be cruel. And what
was to her merely tact, might be to him pure snobbishness. That settled
the problem. She could not risk even the appearance of pettiness. The
decision made her realise, as nothing else had, how much his judgments
had come to mean to her.

"You're right, Roger," she said finally; "we'll have him down
to-morrow."

Roger looked at her quizzically.

"Where?" he asked.

"Where?" She affected bewilderment.

"Yes. Here ... or alone ... or...?"

She struggled momentarily.

"Why, here--of course--with us," she said firmly. Then very quickly, and
with finality, she changed the subject. It was a trifling incident; but
had she settled all later problems as she settled that one, the course
of her life would have been changed completely.

These were agreeable days, on the whole, for Judith and her guest, but
not for Roger. Pursuant to his sister's ultimatum and his own high
resolution taken thereon, he had fared forth, paladin-like, to conquer
that mysterious world wherein men bought and sold all manner of things,
not excluding themselves. But it had proven anything but the high road
to glory that he had secretly anticipated; he shivered lances daily with
an intangible enemy which neither showed its face nor gave its name, but
before which he seemed quite powerless.

He had gone first, as he said he would, to Judge Wolcott, and had, with
perhaps less humility than he himself thought he was displaying, but
with more than might naturally have been expected, announced his
readiness to consider any satisfactory (emphasised) "position" to which
he might be directed.

To his resentment, not to say surprise, the Judge had first laughed
unrestrainedly. But on realising the offence he was giving, which Roger
was at no pains to conceal, he had become quite serious, and had
directed the young man to a number of gentlemen, whose names he wrote
out on a bit of cardboard.

These gentlemen, however, had proved to have their habitat behind corps
of more or less impertinent menials. It had required very explicit
answers to what he considered a great number of entirely unnecessary
questions before he earned even the privilege of having his card
presented.

Once in the inner sancta, however, he had been treated most courteously,
the objects of his calls being impressed with the name of Wynrod no less
than with that of Wolcott. But after the exchange of sundry pleasantries
and compliments, he had invariably been shunted, though with exquisite
tact and delicacy, on to someone else.

He had found this process of education in the ways of the business world
excessively tiresome; but there was in his character a powerful, if
inconspicuous, vein of obstinacy, and he stuck grimly to the task in
hand. But he was nothing if not human, and his constant failure
gradually wore down his courage. To advance slowly would be hard enough,
he told himself; but not to move at all was altogether disheartening.

The natural consequence of it all was that he went into town later and
later, and came out earlier and earlier. There even came days when he
did not go in at all.

And the consequence of that was that he saw more and more of Good, with
the result that he fell under the stranger's spell even more completely
than his sister had.

In that fact, curiously enough, Judith found something to reconcile her
with the lad's failure to consummate the task she had set for him. He
might spend his time with worse men, she told herself, than with Brent
Good. But she saw to it that the latter's hours were not wholly spent
with Roger.

As the stranger grew in strength, she procured him a pair of crutches,
and with their aid, and that of the motor-car, they were able to take
little jaunts off into the surrounding country-side. On these trips it
almost brought the tears to her eyes to perceive the exquisite pleasure
the sight and the smell of growing things seemed to give him.

"I've never known anyone who enjoyed the country as much as you do," she
said one day, after he had waxed particularly enthusiastic over a view
from one of the near-by hills.

"I've never seen anything but city," he answered. Then he added very
simply: "I was pretty nearly a man before I saw my first cow." His brow
clouded reminiscently, and although she ached to draw him out on his
past, his evident unwillingness to speak of it further made her
hesitate.

Only once did he make any other reference to his childhood. She had been
saying how difficult it was to make people spell her name correctly.

"You don't have any difficulty there," she added.

"Not much," he admitted. "Queer name, isn't it," he said after a pause.
"Queer the way I got it, too. Like to hear about that?"

She smiled at the innocence of the query, but forced herself merely to
nod her head.

He smiled, and a curious expression of tenderness came into his eyes.

"You see, I was born without a name. That is, I never had any
parents--or never knew who they were, which amounts to the same thing. I
was just one of those nameless little scraps of a city's flotsam that
get found on people's doorsteps every now and then. That is, I think I
was. I guess I was about five when I began to be conscious of self. As
far back as I can remember, I was selling chewing gum and getting food
by begging from restaurants at night and sleeping in doorways and
packing-boxes. Then I sold newspapers, and got prosperous, and when I
was about ten--I guess it was ten--you see, I don't really know even how
old I am--I got into the hands, somehow or other, of an old Jew
rags-old-iron man." He was silent for a moment, and the expression of
tenderness spread over his whole face. "He was a good sort--that old
kike. He fed me as well as he could--which wasn't very well--and taught
me to write and figure and read--good books too. I knew the Public
Library better than you know your own house. He didn't just make me read
books--he made me like them. He'd come from Russia where he couldn't get
them, and he knew what books were. What your Church and brother and
friends and home are to you, books were to old Zbysko. He taught me to
love them, too. He did lots of things for me when doing things wasn't
easy. And he gave me the only name I ever had."

"Your name? I don't understand."

"Yes, the old chap was a great believer in patent medicines. He honestly
thought the men who made them were philanthropists. He gave me the name
of one of them." He laughed reminiscently. "I suppose I have one of the
best known names in the world! I see it everywhere."

"And the old man...?"

"They didn't _call_ it starvation--doctors never do name things right. I
think I was about thirteen then. They tried to send me to an
institution, but I ran away. I've shifted for myself since."

He lapsed into silence, and Judith could get no more out of him that
day. He was too obviously busy with his memories.

One Sunday morning, about a month or so after the accident, Judith was
struck by a whimsical idea. She broached it to her guest immediately.

"Mr. Good," she said at breakfast, "I have a favour to ask of you...."

"It's granted already," he said gallantly.

"Wait--it may not prove so easy. I know you don't care for church-going,
but I want you to go with me--this morning."

He looked dejected. "I should be delighted--honestly. But look--" He
indicated his old brown suit, which in spite of the constant and earnest
endeavours of Roger's valet, still looked indisputably shabby.

"No matter. We'll go late and sit in the back and nobody will see us.
But here's the real favour. There's to be a clergyman out from the
city, this morning, who is a friend of mine. Arnold Imrie is to preach,
and ..."

"Is Arnold coming?" broke in Roger. "By George, I'll go myself. He's a
wonder."

"That's what I wanted to find out," said Judith. "That is, I want to
find out if _you_ think so, Mr. Good. The people here think just that.
I want to get your opinion."

"That's hardly fair, is it, Miss Wynrod? He's a personal friend of
yours, and you know already what I think of church--yet you want my
opinion of both."

"No--not both; just the man."

Good shook his head. "I doubt if they can be separated," he said
dubiously.

"Well, we'll worry about that later. It's settled that you'll come?"

"Of course, but--"

"Thank you. I'll be ready in a minute."

All the way to the church Good protested that she was taking an unfair
advantage of him. But Judith refused to heed his protests.

They paused for a moment on the low rise overlooking the church, to
survey it. Judith was very fond of its weathered grey stones, almost
buried in the luxuriant ivy. She had been christened and confirmed in
it, and the stained glass windows at opposite ends of the
transept--masterpieces they were, too--were gifts of hers, in memory of
her long-dead father and mother. It was an exquisite little edifice, a
genuine bit of Tudor, without a particle of "adaptation," looking as if
it had been transplanted bodily from some English vale, together with
the soil upon which it stood, and the well trimmed trees which
surrounded it. She felt a little catch in her throat, as the memories
clustered before her.

"Pretty, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Good slowly. "It's pretty...."

She did not like the hesitant qualification implied in his tone.

"Is there a reservation?"

"Well,"--he cocked his head on one side, and knitted his brows. "Yes.
It's too beautiful. It's beauty in the wrong place. The people out here
have beauty enough without it. I'd like it better if it was in the
city--in the heart of the city--with its trees and its vines and its
grass. It's needed more there." Then he laughed. "Oh, Miss Wynrod, you
must be careful what you ask me. I'm a queer fellow. Most of the things
you think are all right, I think are all wrong. You'd have to have lived
my life to see things the way I see them."

She was vaguely disappointed and hurt, and she made no attempt to reply.
Every now and then he did bewilder her by flights of thought which she
found herself incapable of following. Usually she tried to argue, but
the little church was too intimate a thing for that. She said nothing,
and silently they went on into it.

She had timed their arrival carefully so as to get there just before the
sermon, and unobtrusively they slipped into one of the side pews in the
rear. But the building was so small that they had a very good view of
the Reverend Arnold Imrie, sometime stroke of the Yale crew, Fellow of
Oxford, and one of the strongest heads that ever succumbed to a
Heidelberg _kneipe_.

He was a well-built, good-looking young man, with close cropped curly
blonde hair, and a clear skin and eyes. His complexion was ruddy, but
bronzed, as if he were still not unused to out-of-doors. Yet there were
two lines between his eyes, and a stoop to his shoulders that seemed to
betoken an equal familiarity with the study. Indeed his whole manner and
appearance gave the same paradoxical impression. It seemed to Good, as
he studied him, that Doctor Imrie was the product of a victory of the
mind over the body. He was the conscious ascetic, triumphing over the
instinctive sensualist. It was not hard to imagine that the clergyman
was very fond of the good things of the world, however much he might
neglect them in favour of the things of the spirit.

And in that estimate he was substantially correct. Imrie had gone into
the ministry, not really from choice, but from a painfully acute sense
of duty inherited from his Knoxian forbears. Contradicting an abounding
vitality was an overwhelming consciousness of sin, based, it must be
confessed, on a fair modicum of actuality, impelling him, irresistibly,
toward a fear and a hatred of the flesh. Some men enter the Church
positively, out of love for their God and their fellow men: but Imrie
had entered it negatively, from a fear and a distrust of the devil in
himself. Of his fellow men, in the mass, at least, he never thought at
all.

All these things Good sensed very clearly. But, he thought to himself,
Imrie was a young man, whose life had progressed in one channel ... and
there were a great many channels in the world. If anything should ever
occur to move him from his channel, a great many things might happen.
There were more Imries than the congregation, gazing respectfully with
tranquil eyes, saw.

It was quite characteristic of Imrie's neglect for the human equation in
life, that he should choose for his text that morning, the Evils of
Idleness--when fully two-thirds of his auditors represented the very
apotheosis of idleness. But it was equally explanatory of his popularity
among them. He had the faculty, wholly unconscious though it was, of
being able to castigate them eloquently for their sins, but in such an
abstract and impersonal fashion as to leave them quite untroubled at its
close.

His words, now, uttered with unquestioned sincerity, were hot and
forceful, his logic clear, his conclusions inescapable. He spoke
eloquently, his manner was impressive, and his delivery beyond
criticism. His hearers gave him their closest attention. Many of them
heard so well that later they would recall graphic bits, to quote, and
to use as explanation of their admiration of him. But not a brow
clouded. Not a soul was pained. He never perturbed his congregation.
Judge Wolcott expressed its feelings when he said, "I like to hear
Arnold preach because it brightens the day for me." Imrie was hardly a
Savonarola.

They had had disagreeable preachers at Braeburn, once or twice. One was
a particular disappointment. He was a missionary bishop from somewhere
in Africa, and the renown of his exploits had filled every seat. But he
proved to be an unattractive little man, with a falsetto voice and
shabby clothes, who not only spoke very badly, but who said some very
unnecessary and unpleasant things. Arnold Imrie was different. He spoke
their language, and they understood him. He was one of them. He had
grown up in their midst. Many of them called him by his first name. He
was perhaps a trifle too serious to people who found life rather more
amusing than otherwise, but on the whole they thought him more than
satisfactory. He was a gentleman. He was good. He was sincere. He was
orthodox. He never failed to point out the error of their ways--but he
never failed to do it with subtlety. And in a day when so many clergymen
were allowing themselves to wander into undesirable, if not absolutely
forbidden fields, he stuck to religion, where he belonged. And he was
not only delightful in the pulpit, but one could ask him to dine, with
perfect confidence in the result. As Good listened he turned to survey
the congregation. There was unqualified approval on every face. He
listened for a moment or two longer. Then he smiled faintly, as one
might at a play he has seen several times, and fell to counting the
ticking of his watch, wondering how much longer the sermon would last.

Nor was his impatience lost on Judith.

But Imrie never preached long sermons. In a very few minutes he had
wound up with his usual stirring peroration, and left the pulpit. Good
had an almost irresistible impulse to clap, not as expressing
approbation, but admiration for a difficult task well done. He
smiled--not wholly pleasantly--at the look of devout complacency on the
faces of all the well dressed men and women about him. Not one, he
reflected, who had listened so attentively to this stirring denunciation
of idleness, knew what real _toil_ was--or had any desire to know. He
wanted to rush to the pulpit himself--and tell them what it was. But he
followed Judith out quietly enough.

She had planned their exit so as to be well in advance of the crowd, but
she could not miss them all. She was irritated at the curious glances
flung at her and her companion, though she tried not to notice them. It
was only when a bow was quite unavoidable that she acknowledged it. She
was angry with herself for her self-consciousness. But when she glanced
at her companion, with his spotted, weather-beaten, shapeless suit, and
his antiquated, sun-burned hat, not to speak of his lean and angular
figure; and then at her own trim presence, she had to smile. They did
present a curious spectacle, and the covert smiles were justified.
Still--she was honest enough to admit it--it would please her more to
see Good somewhat better dressed. It did not occur to her that it would
please him too.

They walked along slowly for a little while, in silence. Good was the
first to speak.

"The inside was beautiful, too. That carved oak was fine. Just enough
carving. Not too much. Usually there is. And the windows--the sunlight
filtering in through that one on the left was like the organ when the
vox humana pedal is on--all shimmering. It was very beautiful. So
restful. All churches should be like that. The Catholics have the right
idea. It...."

"And the sermon?" she broke in quizzically.

He stopped short and looked at her narrowly. Her faint smile was not
lost on him.

"Now, Miss Wynrod--that isn't fair," he expostulated. "I told you not to
do that. Really...."

"But that's what I brought you for," she said. "Of course you like the
church. Anyone would. But I want to know about the rest of it. You
promised, you know."

He studied her thoughtfully. "Well," he said finally, "let's wait till
we get to that bosky dell up there. Then we can sit down and have it
out."

When they were seated, Good fell to toying with a stick, and making
little circles in the sand. She waited patiently for him to begin.
Finally he raised his head and looked at her half timorously from under
his bushy eyebrows.

"You won't be angry or disgusted if I tell you what's on my mind?" he
inquired.

"Have I ever been?"

"No--you've been quite remarkable in that respect," he admitted. "But
this is different."

"Go on--don't excuse yourself any more."

"Well, his text ... they nearly lynched a priest out in Colorado for
that. You see, he was preaching to strikers, and when he told them that
idleness was the root of all evil ... you couldn't hardly blame them,
now could you?"

She laughed at that. "But there aren't any strikers here," she
persisted.

"No, but to talk about idleness is almost as pointless here as there.
Why didn't he say something that would get under their hides? Look at
them coming up the street. Do they look as if they had been filled with
a fear of the Lord?"

"Do you think people go to church to be frightened?"

"I'm sure I don't know why they go," he said cheerfully. "I never could.
I'd rather do almost anything. Church-going always irritates me. The
preachers are so spineless--like this Mr. Imrie. He had a good theme.
But he didn't carry it out. Maybe he didn't know how. Maybe he didn't
dare...."

"You don't know Mr. Imrie," she said. "He'd dare--anything."

"All right. But that doesn't change what would happen if he did dare, or
did know. I've read the Bible quite a bit. Suppose Jesus came back and
got up in the pulpit and lit into his congregation the way he lit into
the money changers--'vipers' and all that? Why, the vestry would have
his scalp before the sun set, wouldn't they?"

"You seem to be rather hostile to religion, Mr. Good," said Judith,
vaguely offended.

He shrugged his shoulders in a manner indicative of helpless annoyance.

"Oh, Miss Wynrod--I didn't expect that of you. That's what they all say.
Roast the established Church and they call you an atheist or worse. I'm
not opposed to religion--why should I be? I can't say I dislike the air
I breathe, can I? But I haven't much use for an organisation that
doesn't live up to its confession of faith. Here are your Christian
Churches, founded on a rebellion against hypocrisy and privilege and
materialism, deliberately encouraging complacency and selfishness and
peace and quiet and oh--everything that its founder got crucified for.
I've come to know Jesus pretty well. I like him. He's the kind of leader
men want to follow. If he was alive to-day I'd be one of his lesser
disciples. And I'll bet a dollar that all your eloquent, dogmatic,
spiritual, irrelevant Imries would be running to the local Pilate to
have us jugged!"

"What makes you think you know Jesus better than--our Imries?" she asked
softly.

"I don't," he answered earnestly. "Knowing people is a subjective
affair. I know you as one person. Your brother knows you as another. You
may know yourself as very different from either of the two. It's the
same way with Jesus. We both made his acquaintance in the same way, so
we are both entitled to our opinion. But look here. You think Imrie's
nearer to Jesus than I am, don't you?"

"Why, really, I...." she stammered and coloured slightly.

"Of course you do. Well, I ask you this. Do you honestly think that
Imrie's Jesus--the Jesus he serves up to you on Sundays,--the cold,
logical, snobbish abstraction--would ever have gotten anybody so sore
that they'd crucify him? Of course you don't. Well what do you think
that congregation would do to me if I got up in the pulpit and gave _my_
Jesus--the fiery, human, uninspired, blood-red revolutionary that I
conceive him to be? You know without my telling you. Why, they'd have me
arrested if I used his own thoughts expressed in modern language--yes,
if I used his actual words--and _applied_ them. Suppose Imrie took that
stuff about the millstone, and applied it to Corey's cash girls and
delivery boys. Do you think the old man would be anxious to hear Imrie
again?"

"You seem to have thought a great deal about Jesus," said Judith, with a
faintly veiled sarcasm. But he did not sense that.

"Yes," he said naïvely. "Haven't you?"

She was silent at the unconscious rebuke, profoundly stirred by the
paradoxicality of the situation. She wanted to answer him in the
affirmative, wanted to very, very much. But she knew that she could not.
Jesus was not the living, breathing companion of every day that he
seemed to be to this irreverent infidel. He was far more sacred to her,
but far less a vital factor in the commonplaces of existence. She was
honest enough to admit it. But he appeared not to notice her tacit
confession.

"You see," he went on patiently, as if expounding a very simple problem
to a rather young and stupid child, "your stained-glass faith isn't
founded on Jesus at all. You're a Paulist. Like him, you're a Roman
citizen, an aristocrat, a mystic. Jesus wasn't any of those things. He
was the next thing to a slave, a man of the common people, and for all
purposes of comparison, a thorough-going materialist. He had no dogma
to preach, other than that the kingdom of the earth should belong to the
dwellers therein. But Paul was a different sort of chap. He changed the
propaganda so that it read 'kingdom of heaven,' which was a very
different thing, and much more comfortable for the shaking seats of the
mighty. Then the Greek philosophers got interested in that strange
abortion called Christianity, added Eleusinian mysteries and what not,
devised the doctrine of the immaculate conception to cover the
illegitimacy of Jesus, adapted the idea of the trinity from Egyptian
theology and...."

"You must study a great deal, too?" she asked, breaking in on the fluent
rush of his words.

"Yes," he said, almost apologetically; "it's great stuff. I like it."

Again she was silenced by the ingenuousness of his reply. She was
puzzled. She had thought she possessed a religion of conviction, but she
realised, in a sudden panic, that she had not. She had been born to her
faith as she had been born to her wealth and her position in society.
She did not dodge the consequent thought--it could be taken from her as
easily as the other things. This vagabond before her had been born with
nothing--not even a name--but what he had was his own. His very
impudence before sacred matters, the freedom with which he disregarded
the eminence of people and ideas, betokened his superiority to her. She
wanted to be disdainful, angry, displeased with him. She could not be.
She was humbled before the power of his faith, as she had never in her
life been humbled before the faith of Imrie. Though Good did not suspect
it, she was, in a way, at a crisis.

She was silent for a little while. Then she rose with a smile.

"Well, Mr. Good, I'm not a match for you in these matters, but Mr. Imrie
is coming to supper to-night and you can have it out with him face to
face."

"I'd be glad to," said Good as he scrambled to his feet, very awkwardly.
"But it wouldn't be any use. That's another reason for my dislike of
clergymen. You can't argue with them. The major premise, though it isn't
expressed of course, when you start off, is that they are right and you
are wrong. They are trying to convince you--always--never to learn. They
can go back to supernatural inspiration and I can't--so the argument
stops before it starts. You can't do much, you know, with a man who's
absolutely convinced that he's got a pipe line direct to eternity. But
I'll be polite to him. I'll try to forget that he's a parson and only
remember that he's your friend."

Judith smiled furtively at this magnanimous offer. It was so
characteristic of the man. If there was a drop of sycophantic blood in
his veins, he had yet to reveal it. And it was this sublime confidence
in himself which formed one of his most potent charms for her. From
birth she had been waited upon, with varying degrees of servility,
depending upon the station and the hopes of those who waited. There were
servants. There were young men, of varying degrees of attractiveness,
station, and impecuniousness, who wanted to marry her. There were
beggars, of varying degrees of honesty, who wanted her to aid them.
There were the proponents of various charitable schemes, with varying
degrees of sincerity and intelligence, who wanted her to sign the
cheques. And in addition to those who merely wanted money, were the
great swarm of both sexes, who sought the smile of her social favour,
who delighted to be seen with her, to have her accept their attentions,
to be invited to her functions. There had been very few people in
her life who were there with a wholly disinterested purpose. And
even the individuals who were disinterested--or whom she thought
disinterested--had relatives who were not. In spite of her temperament,
the circumstances of her birth and wealth had forced her to surround
herself with a well-defined armour of suspicion. In Good's lack of
reverence, of tact, of taste, of manners, of anything approaching the
conventions which made up her life, she found what she had craved. Of
his utter clarity of soul there could be no doubt. She never once even
suspected that he had a thought which he considered worth uttering,
which, from motives of expediency, he did not utter. She had given him
food and lodging. He had given her--all he had to give--his open heart.
It was clear that he thought they were quits. And she was glad that he
did. It was her first experience of such an exchange.

She smiled again as she recalled his promise not to enter into debate
with Imrie. He would treat Imrie kindly--for her sake. How Arnold would
fume if he knew of such forbearance. And if Good only knew what he was
saying ... well, she reflected, he would doubtless say it just the same!

At supper, true to his promise, Good was extremely taciturn. He appeared
respectfully interested in all that Imrie had to say, joked pleasantly
with Roger, was politely intimate with Judith, and to her very great
astonishment, even went so far as to tell several very entertaining
anecdotes of his experiences in the diamond mines of South Africa.

"Why," she cried, "I never knew you had been there."

"No," he said, with a twinkle in his eye and a dry little twist to his
lips, "I never told you."

But after that he relapsed into comparative silence, and shortly after
the meal, excused himself rather deftly, though none the less certainly,
and went to his room.

Roger, as usual, had an engagement elsewhere, and presently he, too,
departed. Judith and Imrie were left alone.

"That was a splendid sermon, Arnold," she said, with an effort at
enthusiasm, and a subconscious question as to whether she really meant
what she said.

Imrie was thoughtful. "I did my best. The congregation seemed to like
it. But it could be done much better."

"So could most things."

"Perfection is no trifle, is it," he smiled. "But let's not talk of such
dreadful things as sermons. I haven't seen you for ages...."

"Six weeks, to be exact," she interrupted.

"Exactly!" he thanked her with his eyes for the implication, and
woman-like, she took away his pleasure deliberately.

"The accident happened the day after you left."

"Oh." He was silent for a moment. "That was a splendid thing,
Judith--your taking that fellow in. Just like you. But hasn't he been
something of a--well, a care?"

"On the contrary. I've enjoyed him intensely."

"But don't you find him--a little uncouth?" he persisted.

"Yes--very. But a little roughness is a relief after too much polish,
isn't it?"

"Yes, of course," he admitted. "But you wouldn't confess even if you
had been put out. And that's like you, too." He looked at her with an
expression in his eyes, the meaning of which there could be no doubt.

"Let's go out on the porch," she said abruptly. "It's so stuffy in
here."

The moon was full and it shone over a picture of loveliness. Below them,
as they sat on the stone balustrade of the terrace, stretched Judith's
immaculate gardens, redolent with the soft perfume of sweet pea and
mignonette. As the breeze faintly stirred the leaves, the shadows danced
fantastically on the sod. Over in the velvet depths of the sunken tennis
courts, the fireflies flashed their lanterns incessantly. Somewhere in
the distance a guitar sounded now and again, and a woman's voice rose
and fell softly. It was very peaceful and pleasant, and Imrie, thinking
of the hot city and the morrow, drew a deep sigh. No power on earth
could prevent him from going back--but he did not pretend to think that
he wanted to go.

"Don't you ever wonder what those crickets are saying?" asked Judith,
conscious instinctively that her companion's eyes still burned with the
same light. "Just listen to them."

"I'd rather have you listen to me," said Imrie in a choking voice, as if
struggling to control himself. Suddenly his hand shot out and caught
hers in a grip like iron. "I want to tell you how much I love you!" he
whispered passionately.

She looked at him for a long time without replying, and he could see by
the movement of the shadows on her face, that her lip quivered. Her eyes
glistened, too. Then, very slowly and thoughtfully, she withdrew her
hand.

"It isn't fair, it isn't fair," she repeated dully. "You promised not
to."

"I know, I know--but I can't help it, my darling. I love you so much.
Nothing else matters. I can't help telling you. I looked for you in
church this morning and when I couldn't find you, it was so hard to go
on. I didn't care, after that. It's that way always. With you beside
me--it would be so different. Can't you ... don't you feel ... any
different?"

She shook her head sadly. It was hard to refuse Imrie--a million times
harder than all the rest. That he loved her truly, there was no doubt in
her mind. Of the others, she was not so sure. But she did not love him,
and it hurt tremendously to tell him so. She could not tell why. He
always begged her to give a reason, and she never could. He was a good
man, and an attractive man. There was nothing lacking. As candid old
Mrs. Waring had told her, "Don't be a silly, my dear. You could not
possibly do better." She believed that, too. Imrie was as near her
ideal as she had ever ventured to formulate one. And yet....

[Illustration: It was hard to refuse Imrie--a million times harder than
all the rest]

"But I thought ... the last time ..." he was saying. "It seemed as
if ... there was more hope. And now ... it seems as if there was less.
Why, my dearest? Have you changed? What have I done? What haven't I
done? You seem further away from me now than ever ... won't you ever
come to me ... is it always to be 'the desire of the moth for the
star' ... please speak to me, darling ... please...."

His voice broke under the stress of his emotion. Never had she seen him
so moved. She marvelled at it. She had a turbulent wish to ask him why
he never lost himself like that in his pulpit--and immediately
afterwards wondered where such an outrageous, irreverent thought could
have come from. That was not like her. But she knew very well who it was
like.

"Is there--someone else?"

The question made her start guiltily. She was glad that her face was in
shadow.

"Was there?" she asked herself. Then the absurdity of the thought made
her smile to herself.

"No," she said firmly. "There is no one else."

"Then perhaps...?" His voice trailed off.

"Yes," she said mechanically, as one who answered a question without
hearing it, "perhaps."

They were silent, then, for a long time. Finally Imrie held out his
hand. His face, clear in the moonlight, was drawn and seemed pallid. He
was visibly affected.

"I'm sorry, Judith," he said, with a perceptible tremor in his voice,
"but I can't help it. Sometime--perhaps...."

"Yes." Her eyes filled with tears again, and she dared not trust herself
to speak. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and comfort him.
But she would do it as she would comfort Roger--and he would know that.
So she held out her hand.

"I'm sorry, too, Arnold. But let us be the good friends we have always
been, anyway."

She regretted that, as she saw him wince. It was not friendship that he
wanted. But she forced herself to finish in that key. It was safest.

"I hope the plans for the new church are getting on famously?"

"Yes," he said apathetically. "It's doing very well."

"You must bring out the sketches and let me see them. I'm tremendously
interested."

"I will--mail them to you," he said heavily. Slowly, as if reluctant, he
took her hand again, held it just a moment, and then, with a suddenness
that overwhelmed her, seized her in his arms and kissed her hotly on the
lips. Then, like a shadow, he fled.

For a long time after he had gone Judith sat on the balustrade,
listening to the myriad noises of the night, and pondering on what had
befallen her. It had been a very eventful day. She smiled as she
pondered on its contrasts. But she sobered as she thought of Imrie. She
felt her cheek grow warm as she recalled his kiss. Then a faint smile
widened her lips at the impetuosity of it. It was so unlike him. He had
never shown such--she knew he would call it disrespect--but that was not
the word she would use. She hoped he would not apologise. That would
spoil it all. Perhaps--if he were a little less respectful....

She could love Imrie the man, she reflected, as she walked slowly into
the house. But Imrie the clergyman--she knew for a certainty that that
was impossible.




CHAPTER IV

OIL AND WATER


I

"You see, Miss Wynrod, I'm as sound as a nut. I can gambol like a lamb.
I am ready again to dance to the world's piping."

It was just six weeks to a day after his introduction to her that Good
made this announcement, and executed a lumbering step of his own
devising, to prove its truth.

"It's now the season of the sere and yellow leaf. There's work to be
done. I must be about it," he added more seriously.

"If you work as you gambol, I shouldn't think you'd be much in demand,"
laughed Judith.

"Quite so," admitted Good, blithely. "But if my feet are clumsy my wits
are nimble. I guess I can find someone to hire them at twelve dollars
per week."

"Twelve dollars a week! You don't mean to say...."

Good raised his eyebrows. "Why, surely. Does that surprise you? Of
course," he added half apologetically, "that doesn't represent my own
valuation, by any means. But _The World_ is a poor paper for poor
people. It couldn't pay much."

"That's all very well," she cried, "but why did you work for it?"

"It needed me," he said simply, and she was silenced. There were
stranger things in this man revealed at every conversation. She had
never known anyone before who toiled because someone "needed" him. She
was shamed by her own amazement.

"I guess I'll go on the 10.46," he said.

"No," she cried. "You won't."

He looked up at her in some surprise.

"That is, you won't," she added more mildly, "if you care to do me a
favour."

"What an absurd 'if.' Give your orders."

"Well, I have some people coming to dinner on Wednesday. I--I--want them
to know you."

"What a treat!" he said sarcastically.

"I want you to know them, too. You see, they're all rich people. And
you've hated them without knowing what very ordinary human beings they
really are. I think you owe it to your own sense of fairness to see some
of the oppressors of the poor in the flesh."

"It's quite impossible," he declared firmly.

She chose to ignore the finality of his tone.

"It isn't quite just, is it, to write articles about the feelings and
the motives of people you don't really know?"

He strove to divert the argument. "There's something in perspective, you
know."

"Before chance threw us together you thought me distinctly wicked. You
don't think that now, do you?"

"I told the paper I was in the camps of the Persians," he said
sententiously. "They fired me then. Why tarry with the flesh-pots
further?"

"I've often heard you say that men couldn't preach heaven until they
knew life."

He threw up his hands in exasperation. "It isn't fair for a woman to be
logical--it takes a man unawares."

"Then you admit I am logical?"

"Even if I wanted to stay, I couldn't."

"Why not?"

His head drooped and a faint colour showed under the bronze of his skin.
But he remained silent.

"What's lacking?"

His discomfort was apparent. "I'd like to fix up a bit--get a
hair-cut--and things," he stammered.

"Well, why don't you? You've got two whole days."

Suddenly he straightened, and a smile broke over his reddened features,
"There's no use being silly about it, I guess. The fact is--I'm broke."

"Oh, is that all. Well, that's easily fixed. Why didn't you say so
before?" she said with a smile. "You ought to take lessons from my
brother."

"I don't need all this," he stammered, fingering the bill she held out
to him.

"It's the smallest I have. But why didn't you tell me?"

"One doesn't like to beg."

"You're hardly consistent, are you?"

"No, I'm too human."

"Will you be human enough to forsake your principles and come to my
party?"

"I'd rather not."

"That's understood. It makes the favour greater. But you will come?"

"If I must."

"I'll be very grateful."

"Then I will." The words came from him with such obvious reluctance that
she could not resist a smile.

"Do be back in plenty of time."

"I'd rather break my leg again," he said gloomily. Then declining her
offer of the motor-car to take him to the station, he left her.

"You're stealing my class-consciousness from me," he called from the
gate way.

She laughed, not quite understanding what he meant, and watched his
ungainly figure until it was out of sight. Would he return? Or had she
seen the last of Brent Good? Finally she shrugged her shoulders and
tried to dismiss him from her mind.

But when Wednesday came, and no Good, nor word from him, she was more
keenly disappointed than she cared to admit. The two o'clock train
brought a party which had arranged for some golf with Roger.

"Anyone come out with you?" she asked, as if the question were of no
consequence.

"Only Joe Faxon," said one of the men. "He was bound for the Warings'."

At three Molly Wolcott came, only to disappear promptly in the direction
of the golf course. At five-thirty all had arrived with the exception of
Della Baker, her taciturn husband,--and Good. But on the next train,
which was the last, the first two came. She greeted them as gaily as she
could, with studied carelessness inquiring if anyone had been left at
the station, and when they assured her that no one had, she abandoned
hope definitely.

"You have the darkest, lonesomest woods out here I ever saw," cried
Della. "I had all sorts of thrills. Every time I saw a man my heart came
up in my mouth!"

"That," said her husband cryptically, "is quite as usual."

But Judith heard him only vaguely. She had caught sight of a familiarly
angular figure striding briskly up the drive way, looming grotesquely
tall in the dusk. She did not follow the others as they went into the
house. She remained on the porch, a prey to conflicting emotions. It was
with some difficulty that she restrained the laugh which sprang to her
lips as Good came into the light from the hall. His hair had been
trimmed, his face was newly shaven, and his finger-nails, she noted, as
he held out his hand, were cleaner than she had ever seen them. That was
enough to amaze her. But when he flung back his long rain-coat, worn in
spite of the continued drought of days, and revealed evening dress--her
head swam. He was quite conscious of the effect he had made. Indeed,
though she made a strong effort, she could not possibly conceal it. But
it did not appear to displease him. He smiled like a child, and turned
around twice for her inspection.

"Some rags, eh?" he cried, smoothing out the wrinkles. "Sorry the coat
doesn't match, but it was the best I could get."

Almost tearfully she joined in his enthusiasm. She shut her eyes to the
antiquated cut of the garment, its unmistakable shininess at the elbows,
and what must have been apparent even to himself, the fact that it
fitted him only, as one might say, intermittently. But he was too
pleased to care, if he had noticed such trifles.

"That's really what I needed the money for," he explained. "I wanted to
bloom like a green bay tree before your friends. Pretty cute, eh?" He
turned around again, and catching sight of himself in the mirror, stood
preening like a peacock. "Makes me feel half dressed, though," he
admitted somewhat ruefully. "This open-work front ... I've been trying
to hook it together all the way out--but there aren't any hooks! First
time I ever wore one of these. Look at the buttons on the vest. Ever
seen anything glitter so? I tell you, Solomon in all his glory had
nothing on me!"

She had not dressed Roger for nothing, and her keen eye did not miss the
numerous minute lapses from perfection in Good's attire. The general
effect just missed being what it should be. But his naïve pride was
contagious. She found herself forgetting the essential absurdity of his
costume in his own unqualified delight.

His collar was prodigiously high, and being so much taller than she, it
was impossible for their eyes to meet. He looked for all the world like
some grotesque bird, fitted with a more or less painful and wholly
unaccustomed harness.

She dropped her handkerchief and as he stooped to pick it up a subdued
groan came from him.

"I wonder what maniac ever devised such a shirt," he grumbled. "It's
correct--the man told me so--showed me pictures to prove it ... but it
proves that civilisation isn't civilised. Catch a savage in a straight
jacket like this--I guess not."

There was a dreadful pause as she entered the library with Good. For a
fleeting instant which seemed minutes to her, everyone stared at the
newcomer. Then breeding reasserted itself and Judith was able to go
through the introductions without further embarrassment. Good stumbled
cheerfully over ladies' trains, shook hands vigorously, was uniformly
"pleased to meet" everyone, and appeared quite unconscious of the
interested, not to say amused gazes which followed him. But Judith could
see plainly that he was not sorry when the process of acquainting him
with the other guests was over and he could slip out of the
conversational maelstrom into the quiet backwaters formed by the space
between the piano and the wall, to stand alone in a contemplative and
awkward silence. She was relieved, too, when dinner was announced.

She had been in doubt as to just where to place him at the table, but
had finally decided on Molly Wolcott. She was a very animated girl, if
the companion and the topic interested her, and extraordinarily taciturn
if they did not. Her range of interests was not large, being chiefly
concerned with the various ramifications of sport. She had once been
known to turn with deliberation from a distinguished British novelist,
to a callow youth whose sole claim to distinction lay in having kicked a
winning goal.

Judith felt confident that Good would prove quite without attraction for
her. But she would, for that very reason, leave him severely alone, and
she could, herself, take care of him. With that in view, she had left
her own avenues open, by seating at her left a young man whose concerns
were almost exclusively gastronomic.

But, as usual, Good surprised her. Molly began, as was to be expected,
by giving her partner a cursory examination, and then plunging
unceremoniously into a heated discussion of the afternoon's golf, with
Roger who sat across the table.

"That was the most inexcusable putt I ever hope to see," she declared.

"I was afraid of it," confessed Roger dejectedly. "That hole looked like
the eye of a needle."

"You can't hole short putts without confidence," observed Ned Alder, who
was a notoriously bad golfer. "Now I always...."

"Why don't you take a course of lessons in confidence?" asked Molly
rudely.

"Putting," began Good interrogatively, when the laugh at the allusion to
the extent and fruitlessness of Alder's golf education had subsided,
"is...."

"The act of putting the ball in the hole," said Molly with a mixture of
surprise and impatience in her tone. A sudden silence fell around the
board as the entire company listened. The tall stranger, such an object
of curiosity to all of them, had spoken for the first time.

"And you call that 'holing,' I believe?" he went on imperturbably.

"Yes," said Roger, sympathetic with Good's isolation.

"And you have to have confidence to do it successfully?"

"Lord, yes," said Alder, under his breath.

"Golf must be a very ancient game," mused Good seriously. The painful
silence continued. Judith ached to say something that would rescue him
from the clumsy predicament into which he had thrust himself, and she
wanted to slap Molly for the expression of supercilious disdain on her
face. But no words came for the one and she was not quite atavistic
enough for the other.

"Yes, it's mentioned in Scripture," continued Good finally,
when the pause had become almost unbearable. "You recall the
injunction--something like this--'have faith and it will make
thee--hole'?"

The atrocious pun was uttered amid a silence which needed only a little
less tact on the part of those present to make it derisive, and with the
speaker looking down at his plate, seemingly oblivious to all his
surroundings. For a moment even the quiet noises of service seemed to be
stilled. Then, with first a half-intimated gasp of amazement, there was
a burst of almost hysteric laughter.

It was a gay and intimate gathering, and Good's contribution to the wit
of the evening, served to make him, temporarily at least, part of it.
Molly Wolcott's coolness quite deserted her, and with characteristic
animation she turned her attention to this curious-looking individual
who had the audacity to make bad jokes.

Nor was it a temporary interest. With increasing frequency she laughed
aloud. The man on her right joined her. Judith was amazed. She studied
Good constantly, not overlooking the fact that his cocktail was
untasted. She strained her ears to catch something of what he was
saying, but his voice was low, and he seemed to be talking to Molly
almost confidentially. Finally, at a particularly uproarious bit of
hilarity, she gave way to her curiosity.

"What on earth are you talking about?" she demanded, when a lull in the
conversation enabled her to be heard.

"Oh," he said, "I was just telling Miss Wolcott about a ball game I
pitched in the Philippines. We were playing the 17th Infantry and they
got me full of _nepal_. I did some curious things," he added
reflectively.

"Were you ever in the army?" she asked in amazement.

"Seven years," he answered. "Enough to be a corporal."

Then he turned back to Molly, and Judith was silent. Would she ever get
to the end of his life and the things into which it had led him? She
wanted to ask him more, but he was too obviously engrossed in his
companion, and as the duties of her own position required attention, she
had no further conversation with him.

But as the meal progressed, and the sherry followed the cocktails, and
the claret followed the sherry, and the champagne followed the claret,
the conversation began to centre more and more around Good. It became
almost a monologue, as he talked and they listened.

Judith was mostly silent, in sheer amazement, although occasionally she
could not resist a smile at his drolleries. And when he told stories,
she laughed with the rest. He possessed a remarkable faculty for
imitation, and the characters in his stories required no "he said" to
identify them. His voice and manner changed for each one.

Once, in a pause, she interrupted him.

"You ought to be on the stage," she cried admiringly.

"Never again," he said shortly, leaving her once more in dumfounded
silence.

Never had she sensed this social side to her strange guest. Her interest
in him had been primarily intellectual. He had seemed all serious. She
had never forgotten the guise in which he had first appeared to her. But
this was so utterly different. She found it impossible to understand.

As she scanned the laughing faces about the board, another curious thing
struck her. The array of glasses in front of Good was quite untouched.
But the same phenomenon was to be observed in front of her brother. It
was the first time she had ever seen that, and as she rejoiced, she
marvelled.

It was an unusually effective party, she reflected, as they rose,
leaving the men to their cigars and coffee, and the cause of its success
was plain. She smiled to herself at the fears with which she had decided
upon his presence. She wondered if he guessed how surprised she was.

But later, when the gathering began to disintegrate into little groups
of two's and three's, Good became strangely silent. The sparkle had gone
out of his eyes, she thought, and with it, the sparkle from his mind.
The bursts of laughter became less frequent, and finally ceased
altogether. The lines of his face appeared to droop, as she had rarely
seen them, and he stood to one side, rather moodily, as if in
contemplation of his companions. His behaviour was singular. But the
others appeared to notice nothing untoward. Indeed, many of them had
ceased to notice him at all. He was a novelty, and like all novelties
and new sensations, with them, he had begun to pall. If he was acting
deliberately, she reflected, he was acting not unwisely. He was
withdrawing at the apex of his hour.

Very quickly conversation flagged, as she knew it inevitably must. These
friends of hers had little to say, she knew, nor said that little long.
Bridge was proposed and accepted. Tables were quickly formed, and in a
very few moments everyone was engrossed in the play. That is, every one
but Della Baker, who had disappeared, pleading a headache, and her
silent husband, who loathed cards; and Good, who did not play. Judith
saw the two men stroll silently together out onto the terrace; and then,
a moment later, through a door on the other side of the room, Molly
Wolcott and Roger.

It must be something momentous she reflected, that could entice Molly
Wolcott from a game of any sort--particularly if the stakes were likely
to be high. And it was.

The momentum in this case was furnished by Roger with his determined
insistence that she have a word with him.

They strolled silently through the garden until they came to one of the
stone benches by the tennis courts. Roger made a gallant pretence of
dusting it off with his handkerchief. Then he sat down beside her.

"Well," she said, after waiting for him to speak. "What do you want to
tell me about?"

Roger lit a cigarette and threw the match away with a truculent gesture.

"You don't need to be so cold-blooded about it," he said irritably.

"About what?" she asked calmly.

"Oh, you know."

"I haven't an idea," she said artlessly.

"Oh, about everything," he stumbled helplessly.

"Everything?" There was an excellent imitation of astonishment in her
voice. It brought him sharply to his feet, and he thrust his hands into
his pockets with a snort of impatience.

"Yes, of course, my loving you--and all that."

"Oh...." Her noncommittal intonation was perfectly calculated.

"Well, I want an answer," he demanded belligerently. "You haven't any
right to keep me dangling this way."

"But I gave you an answer."

"Not a definite one."

"I don't know how to make it any more definite. I told you I ... liked
you better than anybody else, and some day, perhaps--"

"Well, that's not definite. Why don't you like me well enough to marry
me?"

"Oh, but I do," she insisted warmly.

"You do...?" He was nonplussed by that example of logic.

"Yes, indeed I do."

"Well, why don't you?" There was more than a hint of exasperation in his
voice. He was fast losing his temper.

"Because...."

"Because why? For goodness' sake, can't you give me a real
reason ... something I can use my teeth on?"

He was striding rapidly up and down in front of her, and his growing
wrath was so ill concealed under a very obvious effort at patience, that
she could not resist a faint chuckle. He caught it and stopped short.

"You're laughing at me?" he declared, half interrogatively.

"Oh, Roger," she cried, "how could you think that."

"You were ... I heard you."

"I wasn't."

"Now what's the use of saying that?" he demanded.

"Don't you dare talk to me like that!" She was bolt upright herself, and
wrath flamed in her own eyes. "Don't you ever dare use that tone to me,
Roger Wynrod."

"I'm sorry," he said humbly, as if he really had committed a crime of
incredible enormity. Then with one last gasp of justification, he added
a timid "But you did...."

She would not allow him to finish. Quite illogically, but quite
completely, she had changed the positions. From being the defence she
had managed to make herself the prosecution, and Roger, being thoroughly
masculine, was utterly dumfounded at the shift. And she, being as
equally feminine, took up her new position with renewed vigour. Her
voice was full of a most righteous scorn when she spoke.

"I didn't laugh at you. But suppose I did. I'd be justified. Why should
I want to marry you? You're not even a man yet. You're just a boy.
You've never done anything a man should. You even let that kid Jenkins
beat you this afternoon. You're just a good-for-nothing lazybones,
that's what you are, and you want me to marry you."

Roger tried unsuccessfully to interrupt her, each time she paused for
breath, but it only seemed to intensify the flow of her condemnation.
He grew more and more uncomfortable, because part, at least, of what she
said, he knew to be true.

"I didn't mean to start anything like this," he put in mournfully. "I
don't know how it ever started."

She did not know either, but she managed to convey to him the conviction
that it was most deliberate. And that, as she knew it would, only made
him more mournful still. It was in a very chastened voice and manner
that he acquiesced in her suggestion that they return to the house.

He would have been astonished, as they walked silently in, had he known
the very intense desire that consumed her, to kiss him.

From the funereal aspect of Roger's countenance, and the contented
cheerfulness of Molly's, as they entered the room, Judith was able to
surmise very shrewdly something of what had taken place. She ached to
tell her doleful brother what, with true masculine obtuseness, he never
in the world would guess.

Indoors, the evening dragged along, uneventful to the point of
stupidity. There was a little excitement, not unmixed with acerbity,
when Ned Alder, contrary to his usual habit, proved clever enough with
the cards to add a not inconsiderable sum to his already swollen
fortune. But his amazed joy was more than offset by Roger's patent
depression and Molly's inexplicable apathy. Altogether it was not as
successful a party, as it had given promise of being, and it broke up
early.

As the adieus were being said, Judith realised that Good was missing. In
the early part of the evening, he had wandered in and out, now watching
the play, now chatting momentarily with someone who was free; but had
finally disappeared. She could not believe that his unceremonious
absence was permanent, although she knew that that was not impossible.
So as soon as she could, after attending to the comfort of those who
were to spend the night with her, she went in search of him.


II

But while she dallied, Tragedy was stalking in the Wynrod gardens, where
only Comedy was meant to play.

Good, after those restless efforts to behave as a gentleman should
behave, which Judith had noted, had betaken himself with his musings to
the peaceful solitude of the garden. What was a commonplace to the
others still bore a singular charm for him. He was content to smoke and
dream and watch the shadows at their endless dance. He was vaguely
tired, and it was very quiet.

But his peace was short. The sound of whispering voices came to him
through the trees. At first he thought it only the rustling of the
leaves. Then the sudden, strangled cry of a woman brought him to his
feet, his heart pounding. For a moment he stood listening, every muscle
in a tremble. The voices could be heard more clearly now, and they
seemed to come from a small summer-house just behind him. He moved
slowly toward it.

"I think we'll end this right here." He recognised the voice as Baker's,
though unbelievably changed. The words seemed to come through clenched
teeth. Another voice--a man's--made some reply, but the chatter of the
crickets and the plashing of a fountain prevented him from catching what
it was. He relaxed and was about to turn around, when that same agonised
choking call smote his ears again. He hesitated no longer.

As he plunged into the little building a branch swayed in the breeze and
the moonlight broke through. It revealed two men facing each other. One
was Baker. His fist was raised and clenched. The other he could not
place for a moment. Then it flashed upon him. He had seen him once
before. It was Faxon.

"Now then--" Good's lean wrist shot forward. "Wait a bit." Baker
struggled momentarily but futilely. Good was a powerful man when he
chose to exert himself.

"Fine business, this," said Good as coolly as if he were inspecting a
company on dress parade. "What's the excitement?" As he spoke he was
conscious that there was a third person in the shelter, beside the two
men--a woman. Then a gleam of light entered momentarily and he realised
that it was Baker's wife. With a low whistle he turned to Faxon.

"I guess you'd better scoot," he said calmly, more as an order than as a
suggestion. With a not very successful effort at nonchalance Faxon
shrugged his shoulders and went out. As he passed Baker the latter moved
convulsively, but Good's hand tightened on his arm. When Faxon had gone
and was out of earshot, Good released his hold and sat down. Baker stood
staring stonily at the figure disappearing in the hydrangeas. His wife,
looking very frail and pitiful, had collapsed on the bench, her face
buried in her arms. There was complete silence, save for her slow,
painful sobbing.

"Well--" began Good hesitatingly. The other man turned sharply at the
sound, his face a curious compound of wrath and weariness.

"Right on the job, aren't you?" he said, quietly enough, though his
manner was coldly insulting. And when Good made no reply, he added, with
a brutal sneer, "You ought to make a hit with this. Scandal in high
life--with all the details. I suppose it'll be what you call a 'scoop,'
won't it?"

"You think I'm that sort, do you?"

"Why shouldn't you? It's your business. I suppose you'd like my
photograph and a signed statement?"

"Let it go at that," sighed Good. "That's my business. But to-night I'm
off duty. I'm one of your fellow guests. I'm playing gentleman. Give me
credit for being a good actor. I'll stay in the part."

"Have you anything else to say?" The question was put icily.

"Oh, cut the tragedy," said Good with a wave of his long hand. "I'm told
you're a scrapper, my friend. Well, you're not going to show the yellow
now, are you? It looks to me as if you had a first-class scrap on your
hands now. What are you going to do--snivel--or get sore--or lie
down--or ... what?"

When Baker made no answer, Good rose and stood looking thoughtfully at
the pair, almost obliterated in the shadows, only the high-lights
showing.

"I guess I'll go now," he said quietly. "This doesn't seem to be my
party."

Then he laughed cheerfully. "Lucky my being here, wasn't it? You were
staging great drama when I came in."

He turned from the doorway and looked back. A smile crept over his
craggy features, tender, a little wistful. With a shrug he straightened
his shoulders, and he was whistling as he walked away, his jerky
movements casting grotesque shadows on the grass.


III

Judith did not press her search for Good very rapidly. The night, with
the soft and pungent haze of Indian summer filling the air, and the
drowsy moon bathing the gardens in argent mystery, cast their spell
about her, and she lingered frequently. The crickets chirped like mad,
snatches of distant music came faintly to her ears, and the gentle
fragrance of the flowers filled her nostrils. It was on such a night,
she reflected, that Imrie....

She found Good finally, more by accident than design, in a distant
corner of the garden. He was hunched forward in his seat, and his head
was on his chest. At first she thought him asleep. Then she heard him
scratch a match. The momentary glow showed his brows drawn close
together. It was a way he had, she knew, when his thoughts were
troublesome.

"It's late, Mr. Good," she said.

"Hello," he cried, with a start. Then he recognised her. "Oh--everybody
gone?"

"Yes--and sorry to miss you."

"Poppycock," he said succinctly.

"Don't you believe they were?"

His only reply was a short laugh--not pleasant. She changed the subject
quickly.

"I never dreamed you could be so entertaining. You were the life of the
party."

"A parakeet could do as well," he snapped. "This is a rather old
pipe--mind it?"

"Of course not." His abrupt manner, so different from his former
amiability, kept her silent. Nor did he make any effort to speak. He
managed to make her feel that she was intruding. He seemed to want to be
alone. That annoyed her.

"Mr. Good," she said sharply. "Just what is the matter with you?"

He made no attempt to deny or evade. That was not like him. But his
reply was a little disconcerting, none the less.

"There's nothing the matter with me," he said slowly. "It's you--and
they--and the whole darned system of things."

"I don't understand."

"I didn't think you would," he said ungraciously. "If you did you
wouldn't wonder why I was out here with my old pipe."

"Won't you explain it to me then?" she asked gently. She realised that
he was greatly perturbed about something. His very ungraciousness--so
unlike him--betrayed him.

"I can't explain it. I don't think anybody can."

"Won't you try ... please?"

He smoked furiously for a moment, without replying. Then, with a sudden
gesture, he emptied the ashes, with a sharp knock on his heel.

"Oh, don't bother about me, Miss Wynrod," he said, more softly. "I'm
just sore because I ... oh, I should never have come out to-night."

"But you were so clever--you made such a hit...." She tried hard to
follow him, but found it difficult.

"That isn't the point. You see, I didn't fit in. I was an outsider. I
thought I was a picture when I left the city in--this." She noticed for
the first time that his collar was unbuttoned, and his waistcoat thrown
open. "But when I saw myself beside those other fellows... And then, the
things at table. I was scared to death--all the time. You people can eat
with a dozen forks and enjoy it. I can't. I'm not used to it. I...."

"But those things aren't important. You've told me so yourself."

"That's just it," he cried hotly. "They're not. But you--"

"I?"

"Oh, I don't mean you, personally--you--your class, your friends--make
me feel as if they were important. Why should such little things make
such a part of life? You and I are miles apart because of trifles. The
big things, the real things, where are they? I'm your inferior
because--because--I can't use an oyster fork. And yet I'm your equal in
things that matter. I'm beneath--those--emptyheads, your friends. I used
words they couldn't understand ... but I'm 'common.' They made me hate
them--those nice people--hate the ground they tread...."

She was amazed at the intensity with which he spoke. She wanted to say
something to calm him, but there seemed nothing to say. He sucked
moodily for a moment on his empty pipe. Then his voice softened again.

"I oughtn't to talk this way about your friends--but it's hard for me
not to be candid ... with you," he said quietly. "I've said my mind to
you so uniformly, you know."

"Please do--always," she said seriously.

"I don't want you to feel that I'm bitter against these people
personally--it's all for what they signify. Why should they be handsome
and strong and well dressed and--have good manners ... and I have none
of those things? They've had everything, and I--usually I'm a
philosopher ... funny, isn't it, that a perfectly sound philosophy
should get drowned in such a little thing as a finger-bowl."

"Why _should_ we have all those things?" she asked thoughtfully, more to
herself than to him. He turned around at that, and studied her.

"I've often wondered if you'd ever say that?" he said.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I've said it often--lately."

"And what is the answer?"

"I don't know."

"And that's the right one. Nobody does."

"It _is_ unjust and wrong. I can't get away from that. But what to do--I
don't know that."

"Go sell what thou hast ... and come follow me," said Good slowly, as if
merely repeating a formula, and not caring whether she heard or not. It
struck her as curious that that should have been the text of the first
sermon she had ever heard Imrie preach.

"Suppose I did--give up all?" she asked.

He refilled and lighted his pipe before he replied.

"I've never wondered much about the young man who went away sad because
he had great possessions," he said gently. "But I've wondered a lot what
he did--afterwards. The book doesn't tell us that."

"I don't understand."

"It isn't being rich that counts, Miss Wynrod," he said with a
passionate earnestness that she seldom saw in him, "it's what you do
with your riches. That's the question you've got to ask yourself."

"Don't most rich people do that?" she asked.

"Some--yes. Most? Umm--I'm inclined to think--not."

"You think even those that do, get the wrong answer, don't you?"

"Mostly--yes."

His assurance vaguely irritated her. She put her question rather
sharply.

"Mr. Good, if you were wealthy--oh, very wealthy--what would you do?"

"You think I've never thought of that?" he asked quizzically.

"Have you?"

"Indeed, yes. All my life, I guess. But am I suddenly made rich--or born
with it?"

"Suddenly? No. You've had it always--and your father had it before you."

"Then I'd build fine homes and have many servants. I'd have automobiles
and yachts and pictures and first editions. I'd contribute to political
campaign funds, and give scholarships to my college, and build libraries
and hospitals, and install rest rooms and gymnasiums and summer camps in
my stores and factories. I'd be generous and upright, and when I died I
would be very much respected and not a little loved."

There was an indefinable feeling of banter in his tone, which she found
hard to explain. But she went on, hoping that he would explain it
himself.

"And if it came to you suddenly?"

"I wouldn't give a cent to charity nor to hospitals nor libraries. And
I'd lose all my friends, and probably be shot like a mad dog."

She was stunned with the vehemence of his curious words. But before she
could speak he added suddenly, even more fervently.

"I'd live and die hated by those closest to me. But I'd buy the greatest
jewel in the world, and I'd leave it to those who wouldn't possibly
appreciate it."

"And what is that?" she asked in amazement.

"The truth," he said simply.

For a little while he sat smoking moodily, gazing off into space, busy
with his dream. She sensed that she had struck the major chord in his
heart, and she was silent too, out of a curious feeling of awe, as if
she were in some innermost sanctuary. It was a moment vibrant with
emotion. Then, with a rush, but in a tone that was very firm and
business-like, he began to pour out his soul to her.

"What the world needs, Miss Wynrod, is not charity, not the kind of
altruism that polishes off effects, but a force that will remove and
eliminate causes. Money causes most of the evil in the world. Money can
cure it. But it won't do to fill stomachs or even heads. When they die
the job has to be done all over again. We've got to sweep the old world
off the boards, and build a new one in its place. And the new world must
be for _all_. The people must rule and be ruled. There are lots of
panaceas on the market. There's the single tax--giving the land back to
its owners--the people. That will help. But it's not enough. Then
there's Socialism. I worked for a Socialist paper, but I wasn't a
Socialist. Socialism isn't enough. It's too narrow, too material, too
bigoted. It isn't spiritual enough. It isn't elastic enough. We don't
want dogma, we want light. We don't want to stop exploitation. We want
to tell the people _how_ they're exploited. They'll stop it for
themselves, when they know--when they know their own power. They've got
to know what is going on in the world. Germs can't live in sunlight and
oxygen. And the germs that cause poverty and disease and misery of all
kinds can't live in the sunlight and the oxygen of publicity.
Publicity, publicity, what magic would it wreak!" There was almost
ecstasy in his voice, in the flicker of his eyes, fixed in space.

"But don't we have publicity--now?" she asked timidly, not wholly
grasping the significance of his talk.

"Of a sort, yes," he admitted, "but not the kind I mean. Most of the
avenues of publicity are the avenues for special pleaders. The owners of
newspapers and magazines have axes to grind, they have policies--some
good, some bad--always policies. They present what happens so as to
bolster up some preconceived theory. That's not truth--it's propaganda."

"Is the press all dishonest?" she asked in surprise, somewhat tinged
with irritation at what seemed like a crude generality.

"Not dishonest, no. The average newspaper would rather be honest than
not. And those who wouldn't, find that honesty pays better than
dishonesty. But they're honest about things that don't matter and silent
about those that do."

"For instance--"

"Well, you remember our first meeting--how I came to interview you about
the Algoma mine trouble?"

"I'm not likely to forget it," she said a little sadly.

"Well, what do you know about the situation there?"

"There was a little in the papers a month or so ago."

"And--"

"And?"

"Yes, isn't there something else?"

"Oh, you mean the letters from the directors?"

"Exactly. Your sources of information are first from those interested
only in a 'story,' without much regard for getting to the disagreeable
bottom, and second from those interested in getting a verdict for their
own side."

"Is there any other source?"

"There is. Congress sent a special investigating committee out there--"

"What did it find?"

"The question proves my point. The findings of that committee are buried
away in bulky volumes that nobody sees, while the world is fed half on
fiction and half on lies."

"Why don't the newspapers tell us what's in those bulky volumes?"

"Because," he said, with ineffable dejection, as if trying to answer a
question that he knew he could not answer, "it wouldn't be
interesting--and it wouldn't pay."

"Must everything in a newspaper _pay_?" she demanded.

"That's what newspapers are run for," he said sadly. "They've got to
pay--pay--always to pay...."

His voice trailed off into a whisper, and he sat silent. She tried to
win him back to the theme upon which he had talked so earnestly, and
which had stirred her more than she realised. But as if fearful that he
had not been understood, he proved obdurate. Finally he rose and held
out his hand.

"I must say good night and good-bye, Miss Wynrod. I will not see you in
the morning. I must take the early train. It was good of you to ask me
out to-night. I'm sorry I couldn't seem more--more--appreciative."

A thought flashed across her mind as they walked slowly back to the
house.

"You will come and see me--occasionally?" she asked, as they stood on
the terrace.

"Why should you want me to?" he said quizzically, looking at her in a
curiously searching way.

"Because--because--well...." she floundered, unable to put in words
precisely what she felt.

"Because I tell you things?" he put in for her. That clarified her
answer.

"No," she said thoughtfully. "Because you say things I've only thought.
You see, I've read more than most people give me credit for," she added
somewhat irrelevantly.

He studied her from beneath his heavy eyebrows.

"Keep on, my friend," he said very slowly. "Keep on thinking. And
then ... act. There are great deeds before you--noble, shining
deeds ... if you'll only do them. Yes, some day I shall come again, and
we shall talk further upon these matters ... and then--perhaps--who
knows what may come of it?" He finished dreamily.

As he took her hand and held it, she sensed a tender smile upon his
lips, and a half uttered question in his eyes. But he said no word. He
was almost out of sight in the darkness when a thought flashed across
her mind. She called him back.

"Mr. Good ... why didn't Roger drink anything to-night? Have you any
idea?"

"Yes," he said simply. "I told him ... what it did to me."




CHAPTER V

A SLEEPER WAKES


With the first frost Judith closed her house at Braeburn and returned to
the city. For a little while she rested quietly, recovering from the
strenuous gaieties of the summer. Her friends--particularly the
men--smiled when she said that she never had a vacation: but that was
literally true. The demands upon her time were far more rigorous than
were those of any business man of her acquaintance. In the conventional
significance of the word her life was hardly toilsome, but it was none
the less most arduously occupied.

There was the management of her huge house--in itself a task of no mean
proportions. There were the board meetings of the various civic,
religious and charitable organisations, to which she devoted a very
conscientious interest. There were the inescapable appointments with her
hairdresser, her manicurist, her masseuse, and the small army of
personal attendants who joined their efforts in the conservation and
embellishment of her body beautiful. There were the "courses" she must
take, the books that must be read, and the plays that must be seen. And
finally, as an end or as a cause--she never could determine which--were
the luncheons, the receptions, the dinners, the calls, and the balls,
which followed one another in never ending course and in never ending
monotony.

After a few weeks of what was as near to inaction as she ever attained,
Judith plunged anew into the rapid course she had swum since childhood.
But for the first time in her life, she was consciously dissatisfied.
For the first time she knew, and admitted that she knew, that her
multifarious activities were not enough. There was something lacking. It
was in such a mood that Imrie found her when he came up to see her one
evening. For the first time in the years he had known her, there were
little lines of discontent and ennui about her mouth. Her usual
vivacity, her cheerful wit, seemed to have vanished, and in their place
was a seriousness that was almost sullen, a conversational reserve that
was almost hostile.

But he was not wholly sorry that he found her so. He had come on a
mission of business, and he was rather glad that her attitude seemed to
preclude anything savouring of the personal. He still felt somewhat
sensitive at the recollection of the circumstances of their last
meeting. He broached his topic quickly.

"I've brought the plans," he said briskly, "and some sketches. They are
wonderful, I think. McKee has spent a lot of time on them. It won't be a
Westminster, of course, but there will be nothing in this part of the
country to compare with it."

He spread the prints out before her with a curious mixture of pride and
enthusiasm and complacency; pride in this long-cherished darling of his
heart, a St. Viateur's which should rival the most splendid temples of
the old world; enthusiasm for the co-operation accorded by architects
and designers; complacency for the magnitude of his own achievement. He
was not aggressively self-satisfied: but he was far from insensible to
the fact that he was extraordinarily young to be the rector of as rich
and powerful a congregation as that of St. Viateur's. And a chance
remark, overheard one day in the University Club, spoken by his bishop
to one of his vestrymen, sounded not unreasonably in his ears--"He will
go far--young Imrie."

But he was disappointed at Judith's reception. She fingered the drawings
listlessly, and admired them without enthusiasm. His own eagerness
cooled before her unexpressed indifference. He had come fired with his
dream. Before her it paled and died to grey ashes. Its beauty faded,
leaving only a question and dull pain. It was very dear to him. It
represented achievement, success, glory--and all three won in the
service of man and to the greater honour and glory of God: but Judith
was dearer still. For her not to rejoice with him was to take all joy
out of it. He sat wounded and silent, unable to go on, almost not
caring.

"It will cost ... a great deal...." she said, more meditatively than
interrogatively. He nodded, wondering at her tone.

"Do you think it's the best way to spend that much money?" she shot at
him suddenly, her brows knitted. It surprised him, but he answered
promptly:

"I know of none better."

She stared at him and through him for a moment. Then her mood seemed to
change. She laughed metallically, and reaching lazily toward a silver
box at her elbow, selected a cigarette and lighted it. It was a
deliberate thrust. Always hitherto she had refrained from such
indulgence before him.

"Come, Arnold," she said cruelly. "You don't honestly believe that, do
you?"

The insolence of her pose, one knee over the other, the cigarette in her
hand, the challenging note in her voice, hurt him more than her previous
indifference.

"I don't think I can discuss that," he said, rather loftily.

Her smile faded. "Well, you ought to discuss it. You've got to defend
it. You've got to prove it. Don't be absurd, Arnold."

He was dumfounded. It was so unlike her. He had never seen her in such a
mood. But he ascribed it to the incomprehensible nature of womankind. He
knew from the fiction he had read that women do very irrational things,
frequently, if not as a general rule, saying the precise opposite of
their meaning. He tried to change the subject. But to his surprise she
refused to change with him.

"Don't people make you defend your position?" she persisted.

"No one has."

She was silent momentarily. Then she returned to the attack, almost
doggedly.

"Well, then, let me be the first. This church will cost...."

"Six hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars," he supplied coldly. He
regretted that circumstances had forced him into what was beyond dispute
a refined form of beggary. But he had realised from the start that
success of this sort was quite essential to eminence in the clergy, and
he had resolutely fought down his distaste. But it angered him to be so
brutally reminded of his status, particularly by a creature whom he
sedulously deified. She seemed deliberately intent upon leaving the
pedestal he had constructed for her.

Again she was silent, surveying him with a smile that he thought was
unpleasantly cynical. It seemed also that there was a noticeable
admixture of contempt for him. His anger gave way to pain. He racked his
brain for an explanation of her attitude.

"That's a great deal of money," she said unpleasantly. "And with it
you're going to build a marble palace on our finest street. Do you know
what I think, Arnold?" she added, not unkindly. "I think you've gotten
art and religion mixed."

He shrugged his shoulders at that, not knowing how to reply, and she
went on, her tone changing imperceptibly, as she spoke, from a scarcely
concealed bitterness, to one that was almost argumentative.

"In theory, of course, the Church is for the lame and the halt and
blind, the poor and the sick and the friendless, isn't it?"

He nodded, feeling curiously uncomfortable. He did not like to have his
mission in life subjected to such matter-of-fact analysis, and besides,
it filled him with a vague interrogation.

"Well, what will this wonderful church do for the poor and the...."

"We are to have a gymnasium and a library and...."

"What nonsense," she snapped. "You're going to have them all miles from
the nearest poor. That's an absurd answer."

"Judith, what _is_ the matter?" he pleaded. "You were never like this
before."

She ignored the question.

"Why aren't you honest?" she countered. "Why don't you admit that it's
all for the Wynrods, and the Wolcotts and the Warings and the ... why
don't you admit that it's just a monument to pride, pure and simple?"

He was aghast. Also he was offended, to the depths of his soul. She had
trampled deliberately on what was dear to him, and subtly, but no less
certainly, she had made an implication which roused in him all the
resentment of which he was capable. But the very thought of resentment
brought with it the recollection of all his professional training.
Arnold Imrie was perilously close to a very human display of temper, but
the Reverend Arnold saved him.

"For some reason," he said slowly, in a manner that to her savoured of
the pulpit, "you seem unwilling to discuss this matter reasonably. I
don't think you are fair to it--or to me--which is unlike you. Some
other time, when you are in a different mood, we will perhaps talk about
it again." He rolled up his plans and rose. "I will bid you good
evening, Judith."

"Very properly rebuked," laughed Judith insolently. "I admire your
self control. But you're so proper, Arnold. If you were only a little
more ... oh, well--but I haven't been condemning _you_--entirely.
It's what you stand for. It isn't that you're a snob--but you're
being--doing--oh, I'd like to put things as clearly as you can. I'd make
you understand me, if I only knew how to. But I...."

"I think I understand very well," he interrupted sharply. A thought, a
half-formulated suspicion, had flitted across his mind.

"No, you don't. You think I'm poking fun at you--just to be nasty. It
isn't that. I'm serious--really. Only somehow--you don't impress me as
much as you used to. You--your ideas--what you stand for--oh, they don't
seem to very much matter. Your kind of religion seems to me--I've
thought it more and more--it seems to me a sort of hobby. It's just for
Sundays."

He stared at her aghast, seeming to waver between grief and righteous
anger. But he said nothing. She went on coolly.

"I guess the trouble with you, Arnold, is that you're too much of a
clergyman--not enough of an ordinary sinful man."

He wavered no longer. His suspicion crystallised into certainty. His
words came through his teeth as if shot from a cannon. The Reverend
Arnold Imrie, for the first time in years, lost his temper, and lost it
with a completeness and animation that was magnificent. He turned
suddenly and glared at Judith, his face pale. Then he shot a trembling
finger at her.

"So," he snapped. "Six weeks of this--this--anarchist--can shatter the
faith of a lifetime. Such a faith. A Wynrod, too.... It is--I dare not
say what it is."

But he did dare. He launched into a passionate diatribe, which to
Judith, listening patiently, sounded very much like a funeral oration
over the body of a notorious scoundrel, so compounded it was of scorn
and pity and utter certainty of ultimate damnation and complacent
self-satisfaction that he was not as such. It was accompanied by
familiar pulpit gesticulations, used so long that they had become
unconscious. As he talked he paced back and forth, pausing now and again
to emphasise a point with a resounding thump on his hand. It was
excellent--oratory. But all through she had the feeling that it was only
a sermon, that the recital of her iniquities, so vividly phrased, was
only academic. And as he made his peroration, more from a lack of breath
than a lack of ideas, she laughed--mirthfully, unrestrainedly.

He stopped as if shot. He stared at her as if he could not believe his
ears.

"Very wonderful, Arnold," said Judith lazily, "but very absurd."

Flouted to the depths of his soul, Imrie gathered up his papers anew. It
was as if a priest, praying passionately to his idols, had suddenly
raised his eyes to find them with their thumbs to their noses. It was a
ghastly dream. He was like a ship that has dragged its anchor. He was
drifting in uncharted waters. The most dependable of his flock, the
dearest of his friends, the star of the best that was in him, had
deliberately, thoroughly, and without any effort at concealment, held up
all that he held sacred, to ridicule. His chagrin showed in his face,
and Judith was a little appalled by what she had done. But she would not
have recalled a word or a glance. She was sorry to see his pain, but for
all its harshness, she felt that he would emerge better for the
treatment. The mind needs an occasional physic, no less than the body.
She had rocked the ponderous bulk of the Reverend Arnold Imrie on its
foundations. If it settled back into its original place, none the worse
for the rocking, so much the better for the foundations. If it did
not, ... well, the new position could not be less satisfying than the
old. And there was a possibility that it might be better.

She smiled back at his frigid bow with the feeling of a mother who has
spanked an obstreperous child.

"For the good of your soul, Arnold," she whispered under her breath,
"and the greater honour and glory of God."

For a long time after Imrie had left, she pondered, trying to put in a
phrase the exact idea she had meant to give him. Finally it came to her,
in a single word--honesty. And then, as an inevitable corollary, came
the thought of the man who exemplified honesty as did no one else she
knew. She thought of that deprecating little lift of his hands--so
characteristic, so significant. With a smile that was not without tears,
she picked up a book and made an effort to read.

The next day was Sunday. As she dressed she tried to decide whether she
would go to church or not, and concluded that she would not. There were
a number of books, she thought rebelliously, which would prove more
profitable than Arnold's sermon. So, after breakfast, she made herself
comfortable by the window in the library, and began one--one of the
many, incidentally, which Good had sent to her. She saw him
infrequently, but his books came constantly, and she often wondered if
he appreciated the subtle compliment he paid her with each one of what
she knew must be a slender treasure. They came spasmodically, as if he
rushed them to her when some fancy was hot in his mind. There would be a
poem, with characteristic comment all around the margins of the page,
and an injunction on the fly leaf to "skip the rest"; or a ponderous
volume of economics, with the information that it was poppycock, save
for a paragraph on page 266. Sometimes it would be only a pencilled
scrap of paper, with an amusing anecdote thereon, or just an
illuminating epigram. He seemed to wish to share with her the pleasures
of his mind. No one had ever shown that wish to her before.

The volume in her hand had come from him only a day or two before. It
was thick and heavy and very austerely bound. It surprised her to see
that it was new. He seldom sent her new books. She glanced idly through
the pages before she happened to note the title. Then her whole manner
changed. It was as if someone had spoken to her sharply. The words
burned themselves into her consciousness. The small gilt letters shouted
like live things. "Proceedings of the Congressional Committee of Inquiry
into the Conditions Obtaining in the Algoma Mine Fields."

As she went on from the title to the contents, her indolent apathy
changed rapidly to intent immersion. Occasionally her fingers clinched
involuntarily and her eyebrows knitted. Once she even dropped the book
and covered her eyes with her hands. It was a terrible narrative which
unfolded itself before her, made more terrible by the emotionless
dispassion of the telling. It was a story of bribery and corruption, of
murder begetting murder, with the stupid folly of more murder as its
cure, of the weakest and most helpless paying the price, of race hatred,
of greed,--the whole nauseous catalogue of human frailties was laid
before her, with less feeling than the Homeric catalogue of ships.

As her imagination took fire, it seemed to her that the poison of
selfishness, festering in a far-away hole in the ground, had oozed out
and over the land, marking its slimy trail in legislatures, in churches,
in the homes of the highest, until, finally, it had reached her own
library. She grew sick and faint as the pestilential tale expanded, and
horror was piled upon horror.

The indictment made one thing clear. Algoma was not a mere morbid
growth, to be extirpated by force, but an evidence of disease: and a
disease, not of individuals or of classes, but of a civilisation. The
roots of that disease were not, as a circular from a mine manager had
said, in the "tyrannous labour unions." They went far deeper than that.
They were in her own heart and brain. They were in the hearts and brains
of every man and woman in the world.

It was the explanation of the mine owners, she knew, that they fought
for "the right of the American workman to work for whom, what and when
he pleased." It was the defence of the miners that they fought for the
power of organisation.

Both quarrels were just, she felt with a terrible sense of hopelessness:
both demanded the right to rule. Both would fight to the death for that
right. It was folly to hope for an equal division of power. The line was
too fine, too fluctuating. One or the other must lose. Talk of
concessions, of improvement of conditions, only obscured the issue. She
put herself momentarily in the place of the employers, the men of her
class, the men she knew: and her jaw hardened. Freedom was the essence
of American life. She would never permit those who took her bread to
dictate what and how she should give it. She would fight to the end for
her freedom.

Then, resolutely, she put herself in the place of those who demanded
that she yield that freedom. Unconsciously her fingers clenched. She saw
quite clearly that "freedom" took on a different meaning then. It became
"tyranny." These creatures who came up out of the earth to burn and
destroy, who flouted law and the rights of property, were but fragments
of mankind's never-ending fight for liberty. Though, in their groping
progress toward the goal, they wallowed in blood and folly, destroying
the good with the bad, murdering the saints with the sinners, none the
less were they a part of the blundering march of democracy.

Algoma was but an outpost of a struggle that was universal. The crust of
convention and pretence had burst through momentarily, and the seething
cauldron, full of the molten future, was exposed to frightened eyes.

As the hours passed, a new point of view took form in Judith's mind, and
things which had always been quite clear now seemed not clear at all.
She had never been more thoroughly muddled in her life, but she realised
with a sense of satisfaction that the very confusion of her mind
indicated the wiping away of those specious answers to all questions
which had been an absolute preventive against any real speculation. Her
slate was blank. There was room for new writing.

But over and over again recurred the question, "Why don't people think
about these things?" She wanted to rush out and wipe the slates of her
friends clear of their comfortable sophistries. She wanted to make them
understand that because a man preached change he was not as dangerous as
the man who preached inaction when there was a volcano under their feet.
Why must they always destroy their Cassandras?

She was at a pitch of exaltation which she had seldom attained before
when John Baker, the most phlegmatic person she knew, was announced.

He greeted her seriously, as he greeted everyone, and accomplished the
conversational preliminaries in the fewest possible words. Then he made
clear the purpose of his visit.

"I have bad news for you," he said calmly.

"Yes?" Judith's manner was as placid as his own, though a thousand
questions flashed across her mind.

He cleared his throat. "It is a fact that even the shrewdest men make
bad investments--indefensible investments," he said profoundly, as if
the discovery were his own.

"Oh...." Her fears vanished. He was the harbinger only of financial
trouble.

"Your father," he went on without haste, "was an extraordinarily shrewd
man. But even he...."

"... made bad investments?"

"Exactly."

"Well ... tell me the worst--I am brave," she laughed.

"For some reason, impossible to explain, he became possessed of a
majority of the bonds of _The Dispatch_. It is a curious thing. He must
have known that a newspaper presents the worst possible field for
inactive investment. No property changes more rapidly in transition from
a going condition to a forced sale."

"What about the bonds?"

"That is my bad news. _The Dispatch_ has not been financially successful
for years. The present owners have resolved to give up the losing
struggle."

"I see. But where does that affect me?"

"You hold their bonds. They intend to default on the payment of further
interest--and, of course, principal as well."

"Oh...." Judith felt that she should evidence dismay at least sufficient
to match Baker's gravity. But there were too many unpleasant things in
the world for her to furrow her brow over the loss of a few thousands
from her annual income. An admission of that, she knew, however, would
shock him: so she contented herself with a noncommittal monosyllable.

"You will lose heavily," he continued. "The bonds constitute a first
lien on the property, to be sure, but most of the property consists of
good-will, which is not very good, so I'm told. Really all you can hope
for is the proceeds from the sale of the machinery and furniture.
They'll sell for only a fraction of their value, too. Really, it's quite
too bad." The genuine regret in his voice almost made her smile. It was
so incongruous that he, who lost nothing, should be so much more
affected than she, who lost everything.

"What will become of the paper?" she asked.

"Following foreclosure proceedings a receiver will be appointed, and in
the course of time it will be sold at auction--that is, a sale will be
held."

"But you don't think anyone will buy it?"

"It is hardly likely."

"Then the paper will be on my hands?"

"Yes--on yours and on those of the other bondholders," he admitted
regretfully.

"A nice white elephant!" she cried.

His face brightened ever so slightly. "There's just a bare possibility
that we can sell it. Even if we got only a fraction of its worth it
would be better than nothing at all."

"Of course," she agreed. Her manner seemed to indicate that her thoughts
were far away.

"There is a group of men," he continued, "wealthy men, who have talked
more or less seriously of purchasing a newspaper that would give voice
to the conservative element. They feel that they would be doing a public
service in offsetting the demagoguery and sensationalism of most of the
popular press. I don't know how serious they are, or how much they are
prepared to spend. It's just a possibility. Still...."

"Who are these men?" asked Judith sharply.

"Well, there's Parker Ralston, and Anderson LeGore, and Henry Waring
and...."

"I see." There was a curious note in Judith's voice which Baker was
unable to explain, and she seemed to stare at something beyond and
behind him. The suggestion of someone else in the room was so strong
that he turned around. But all he saw was a pile of books on a chair.
They were too far away for him to note that one of them was severely
labelled "Proceedings of the Congressional Committee of Inquiry into the
Conditions Obtaining in the Algoma Mine Fields."

"If I was unwilling to sell out to those men," she said suddenly, "what
then?"

"You couldn't refuse. The sale would be held by the receiver, for the
benefit of the other bondholders as well as yourself. Besides, why
should you refuse even two cents on the dollar, when refusal would mean
nothing?"

She ignored his question. "Suppose I wanted to get possession of the
paper myself?"

"What in the world would you want it for?"

"Well, just for fun, let's suppose I did want it. How could I get it?"

"You could purchase the other bonds, and at the termination of the
receivership the paper would revert to you, unless you chose to sell."

"How long would that take?"

"About eighteen months."

"And if I wanted it immediately?"

"What are you talking about, my dear child?"

"Never mind that," she cried impatiently, "we're just supposing, you
know. The point is, how could I get it right away?"

"Well, you might purchase the paper from the present owners for a
nominal sum--merely assume their obligations. That would mean that if
you wanted to keep it you'd have to meet the interest on the bonds and
ultimately, the principal too."

She was thoughtful for a moment, her chin on her hand. Then her question
came sharply. "What would that cost?"

"The bonds?"

"No, immediate possession."

"That depends. It's hard to say, offhand."

"Well, approximately?"

"Oh, comparatively little. Just a nominal sum. It's really nothing more
than a consideration to make the transaction legal. The expense wouldn't
come until later. But why, my dear girl...."

"This is all just supposing, you know," she interrupted with a smile.

"Very well, just supposing--but why should you even suppose such a plan?
Why should you want to take over a proposition which has been
demonstrably unprofitable, even in skilled hands?"

"How about Mr. Waring, and this man Ralston, and Anderson LeGore?"

"But they're very wealthy."

"Yes, but so am I wealthy," she said ingenuously.

He was momentarily nonplussed. "But they would manage it for a purpose,
rather than for profit," he cried.

"Well, suppose I wanted to manage it for a purpose rather than for
profit?"

Baker rose and put his hand on her shoulder, as a suspicion took form in
his mind. "Judith--you're not ... serious?"

She tossed her head and smiled enigmatically. "And if I were?"

He had no reply ready for that elfish question, so obviously, it seemed
to him, designed for the purpose of arousing him to argument. And when
he was silent, that guess seemed to be confirmed, for Judith's momentary
animation faded. She put her question quite indifferently.

"I suppose there's nothing for me to do, is there?"

"Oh, no. I just dropped in to prepare you for anything you might read
and wonder about. Things will take their course. Just don't worry."

Judith concealed a smile as she assured him that she would not. "When
will they officially default?" she asked.

"Oh, in a week or two."

"Well, let's hope for the best."

"Yes, I have great hopes of this Waring-LeGore-Ralston combination. It
is quite possible that something may come of it. But don't be too
sanguine," he added, as if fearful that he had raised her hopes unduly.

Judith wandered about restlessly after he left her. John Baker would
have been shocked indeed had he known the thoughts coursing in her
brain. But she was not permitted even to muse for very long.

In a few moments Roger came in, looking very tired and depressed. But at
her solicitous inquiries he was noncommittal. He picked up a newspaper
and read for a moment, listlessly. Then he threw it down.

"Where were you last night?" she inquired, with a suspicion born of long
experience.

"Molly's," he replied shortly.

"That all?"

"Yes."

"Why so solemn, then?"

He lit a cigarette and flicked the match deftly into the fireplace. "Oh,
we had it out, and she--said things."

"What things?"

"The same line you get off. About my not doing anything--and all that."

"About not working, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Well--you have been a little slow at getting started, haven't you?"

He fired up hotly at that.

"And what if I have? It hasn't been for lack of trying, let me tell you.
I've been doing my best to get a job ever since I said I would."

"And you can't get one?" Judith smiled incredulously.

"No. Oh, of course there's plenty of chance to invest some money and be
treasurer and all that, but I mean a regular job. I've tried
everywhere." He hung his head dejectedly.

"What seems to be the trouble?"

"Those who know me know me too well. And those who don't know me--don't
know me," he answered cryptically. "And I don't know anything, myself."

"I'm so sorry," she said helplessly.

"How do you suppose." He switched the topic suddenly. "How do you
suppose a chap without any pull or any friends--a fellow like Good, for
instance--gets jobs?"

Before the echo of Roger's words had died from the air, a maid stood in
the doorway, announcing the presence of Good himself.

"Why not ask him?" said Judith obviously. And when the tall man came in,
still dressed in his familiarly shabby brown suit, Roger put the
question.

"How did I get my first job," he repeated slowly, with a twinkle in his
eye. "Well--I asked for one--and I kept on asking for one until I got
it."

"But that's just what I've done," protested Roger.

"Perhaps you're more particular than I was."

"I'm not a bit particular," cried the younger man earnestly. "I'd do
anything. I've gotten over being particular."

"No, my boy, you haven't," smiled Good. Then a faint shadow crossed his
face, and he added softly, "You've never been hungry."

Judith hoped that he would amplify the intimation. But as so often
happened, he began a theme only to dismiss it. His tone changed and he
turned briskly to her.

"Well, Miss Wynrod, why don't you do something to help the lad?"

"Me?" she echoed in surprise. "What can I do?"

"Would you be willing to spend some money--quite a large sum, too, as
such things go? Not very large for you, though," he added with the
reflective candour that never failed to astonish and delight her.
"Would you invest something--to see him well started in an enterprise of
the utmost--value?"

Roger's curiosity was plain on his face. But Good seemed only to watch
Judith narrowly. She looked wonderingly up at him, as he stood,
half-smiling, before her.

"Have you a definite opening?"

"Perhaps," he said quizzically.

"On what does it depend?" she asked, fencing with him.

"On you!"

"Oh, please don't be absurd," she cried, as her interest got the better
of her. "Do tell me what this is all about."

"And where do I figure?" asked Roger, with a touch of annoyance in his
voice. "As far as I can see you're talking to Judith. Where do I get
off?"

"It concerns her as much as it does you," said Good shortly, his smile
fading and the vertical lines deepening between his eyes, a plain sign
to Judith that he was far from badinage. "In fact," he added seriously,
"I think it concerns her even more."

"Then perhaps my absence would be preferable to my company?" demanded
Roger with considerable asperity. Good's reply surprised both him and
his sister.

"Yes," he said, "I think it would. If you'll leave us for a bit, I'll
tell your sister what's on my mind. Then, if she likes, she can tell
you."

Roger jumped to his feet. "Well," he cried, "it strikes me that you're
disposing of me pretty easily. I'm of age, you know."

"If you say much more," said Good mildly, "I'll be tempted to clear out
and try an interview with your sister some other time. Now--if you
please."

As soon as the sound of Roger's grumbling had died away, Good burst
abruptly into speech.

"Miss Wynrod," he said curtly, "before I put my proposition to you, I
want to know whether you are prepared to spend some money for that boy's
future--not to speak of your own?"

"How much money?" she asked, principally to regain the poise that his
inexplicable earnestness had driven from her.

"A good deal."

She smiled faintly. Would she spend "a good deal" for Roger? The thought
almost made her laugh aloud. But she controlled herself, and her reply
was almost indifferent in tone.

"Yes--if I thought the plan promised well."

"I knew it, of course," cried Good. Then he drew his chair closer to
hers, and emphasising his points with his long forefinger against the
palm of his hand, began.

"To begin with, Miss Wynrod, you know how I feel toward the press.
We've talked it over often. You know I believe that to turn this old
world over and set it on its feet where it belongs, all clean and sound
and sweet, the first thing we've got to have is truth--truth, truth,
always truth and more truth--nothing whatever but truth, nothing evaded
or concealed. In a word, we've got to have a free and a candid press.
You understand all that, don't you?"

His eyes clouded and a look of anxiety came into them. But it was
dispelled at her answer.

"I'm not deaf, Mr. Good."

"Well...." He stopped and scratched his head as if something eluded him.
"I'm so full of it all--all the time--that I don't know where to begin.
It's my great dream. Every dreamer has one particular dream. This is
mine. I've been on the hunt for my chance. Now when it seems to be here
I don't know how to seize it. I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing and
spoiling it all. For years I've been looking for a millionaire--some one
to endow my dream. You're the one I've picked. You understand, I think.
I don't seem so crazy to you. And you've got the stuff in you to stand
the gaff when things go hard. It's not so hard to get money, but
sympathy ... faith ... people stop when the light goes out. You're
different. You'd go on. You ... do you follow me?"

He stopped and surveyed her anxiously. The deep creases over his nose,
his short sentences, the sharp nervous movements of his hands, all
betrayed the stress under which he spoke. It would disappoint him,
perhaps stop him altogether, if she said that she did not follow. But as
she assured him that she did, she wondered how much of his meaning she
really missed. Nevertheless her manner seemed to satisfy him.

"If I went to you and asked for money to build a hospital or a school,
or a church--"

She looked up sharply at that. But it was plain that there was no covert
meaning in his words. He went on intently.

"You'd think that understandable enough. You'd probably hand it over.
But, Miss Wynrod, I want your money for something of greater value to
society than all the churches and hospitals put together. I want you to
put your money to work clearing up this muddled old world of ours by
bringing sunshine and oxygen and hope and understanding into men's
minds. I want you--how can I possibly make clear to you how much I want
it--I want you to--to--buy ... a _newspaper_!"

He stopped and waited for her to speak. But she could only echo the word
stupidly. Then she managed to convey to him that she wanted him to go
on. He did, but his voice seemed to have lost something of its
intensity, and his words came with more confidence.

"Yes. I've told you so indirectly many times. But I never made it
personal, partly because I hated to put my hopes to the test, partly
because there seemed no opening. Now I have the opening. The divinity
that shapes our ends is doing its best for me, it seems. I learned
yesterday that _The Dispatch_ would sell out at a ridiculous figure.
That made me screw my courage up to the testing point. I came up this
morning to tell you about it. Then your brother--why, it couldn't have
worked out better for me! The opportunity his future offers as a lever
to move you ... well, Miss Wynrod, what do you think?"

She laughed unaffectedly at that.

"What do I think? Heavens. How _can_ I think. You fire an entirely novel
idea at me and expect me to answer at once. You've stunned me."

"But it's not new," cried Good. "We've talked the idea of this over a
hundred times."

"The oldest thing in the world is new when it's applied to one's self
for the first time," said Judith sententiously.

"Still, it isn't really new, is it?" he persisted.

"Well--not entirely," she admitted.

"Of course not. It's Roger's part in it that's new. That bewilders you,
of course."

"What _is_ his part?" she interrupted.

"Running a newspaper is exactly like running any other kind of a
business--only harder. He'd be the manager--with assistance of
course--with a chance to make all out of himself that he can. He'd be
your representative."

"I see," she said thoughtfully. "That seems to dispose of him. Now where
does Brent Good fit into the scheme of things?"

"Wherever he fits. Give him $15 a week and he'd fit anywhere. That would
be enough of a raise over his present honorarium to justify him in
changing."

"You're joking," she cried.

"About the salary? Not a bit. It's enough. Besides, it leaves room for
promotion. As a matter of fact I've been told by potential employers
that it was too much."

Good was silent then, and Judith also, each waiting for the other to
speak. But it happened that the silence was finally broken by Roger,
whose impatience had become too much to bear any longer.

"Well," he said from the doorway, with a most elaborate attempt at
casuality. "Is the great mystery about to be revealed?"

Good looked inquiringly at Judith, and she motioned to Roger.

"Sit down, Roger," she said quietly. "Mr. Good has a plan to offer."
Then she hesitated momentarily. "If the idea appeals to you--I am
prepared to back you."

Good turned a startled but grateful gaze upon her. But she affected not
to see him. He turned quickly to Roger. Eloquently and passionately he
described the opportunity he offered. Judith, entranced in spite of
herself, followed him intently, while Roger, from derision, went
successively into interest, to close attention, and finally to unbounded
enthusiasm. Judith divined the subtle flattery with which Good concealed
his profounder motives: to the young man he was only opening up an
alluring vista of personal glory.

"Well, Roger," said Good finally, "what's your verdict?"

Roger turned to his sister, his eyes shining. "It's great!" he
whispered. "Will you go through with it, sis?"

Judith heard him only vaguely. Her thoughts, strangely enough, were with
Imrie and his church. But she nodded affirmatively. She seemed only to
be granting another of the endless string of permissions that had marked
her maternal care of him through the years. And the way in which he ran
to her and threw his arms about her and hugged her, was very familiar.
His part in it all seemed curiously unreal. But Good's calm voice
brought home to her the magnitude of the step upon which she was so
blithely deciding.

"One thing, Miss Wynrod. _The Dispatch_ can be bought for very little.
But the kind of paper you are going to make out of it won't make much
money--not for a while. It may cost--quite a little. Do you understand?"
he added sharply, his eyes seeming to speak to her alone.

She caught their message. "Yes," she said calmly; "I understand
perfectly."

Good rose, and pulled a pair of well-worn gloves from his pocket.

"You'll have to act quickly."

"Why?"

"There's a syndicate of reactionaries ready to take it, I'm told. Talk
it over, you two--discuss the bad parts mostly. I'll call you up in the
morning. Then, if you want to go through it, get your lawyer and we'll
settle it up. Good-bye."

"Oh, wait," cried Roger. "There's a million questions I want to ask
you."

"No. You two talk it over. I'm out of it--till to-morrow." And with that
he seized his hat, and in a moment was striding down the avenue. Judith
watched him from the window until he was out of sight. Then she turned
to Roger.

"Does it really appeal to you, lad?" she asked wistfully.

"It certainly does," he cried with enthusiasm. "And besides I don't see
how I'll ever get into business unless I buy my way in. This is a chance
in a million. There's money in newspapers. Look at _The Press_. Why, you
couldn't buy its stock--not at any price."

Tears forced themselves into Judith's eyes. She wondered if she ought to
let Roger deceive himself. She knew all too clearly that Good's
ambitions lay not along the route of money. She wondered fearfully if he
could transform Roger's ideals from the conventional worship of
profit-taking to something less substantial and less understood. But as
she thought what he had already accomplished with the boy, her fears
vanished, giving place to a feeling of awe. What was the secret of this
man's fascination, that he could force her to yield implicit faith to
his lightest word? What caused him to be able, not merely to convert her
to the most amazing ideas, but actually to make her join him in the
propaganda? She had a premonition of what John Baker would say when she
told him her decision. Then the recollection of the salary which Good
had proposed for himself came to her, and she smiled.

All that day and until far into the night, she and Roger discussed the
great idea. Or rather, Roger talked and planned and dreamed, and she
listened. And as she listened to his enthusiasm, the first of his life
over anything really worth while, her resolution crystallised. If she
could give money toward the building of a church in which her interest
was undeniably decreasing, she could give money toward the building of
her brother into manhood. And she was far from overlooking the
opportunity for herself. She had never heard of a woman going into the
publishing of newspapers, but Good's enthusiasm for the high ends to be
attained had fired her more than she realised, and as the hours passed,
she flamed higher with real enthusiasm for what had, at first thought,
seemed the wildest of wild projects. Before she retired, her mind was
quite made up. She, idler and parasite, would play a part in the world
of affairs.

The next morning, calm but determined, and speaking her thoughts in few
words, she was in John Baker's office. Briefly and clearly, she made
known to him the resolution she had taken. His jaw dropped as he
listened, and his usual immobility of countenance quite deserted him. He
tried to smile.

"So you want to buy it, eh?" To conceal his amazement, he walked to the
window. "Why don't you throw your money out here?" he asked. "You can
lose it that way with less trouble."

Judith had no answering smile. Her eyes narrowed and her lips formed a
little straighter line.

"Will you draw up the papers for me, John? I've phoned Mr. Good, and he
will be here any minute."

"Mr. Good, eh? You have a good deal of faith in him, haven't you? So
he's the nigger in the pile, is he?"

"Have _you_ any reason not to have faith in him?" Baker was silent, and
a curious expression, which she could not fathom, formed on his face.

"No," he murmured finally, with what seemed like an effort, "I have
not."

"Personally I have the utmost confidence in him," said Judith with a
shortness which brooked no further discussion of the topic. Baker looked
at her thoughtfully for a moment. Then he pressed a button on his desk.

"It's your funeral, Judith. I never thought you were a fool...."

"Before?" she interrupted, with her first smile.

It was significant that he made no reply.

In due course Good arrived, accompanied by another lawyer, a tall, thin
man, with a prodigious moustache, who said absolutely nothing that was
intelligible to her. While he and Baker were conferring, Good drew her
into an ante-room and closed the door.

He was greatly agitated, and the perspiration kept coming out on his
forehead in spite of his constant efforts to wipe it away. He presented
a curious contrast to her perfect calm.

"Miss Wynrod--before we go into this thing--you must know what it
means--absolutely. I mustn't hide anything."

"Don't I know all?" She lifted her eyebrows. She smiled inwardly as she
thought how much more she knew about it than Good did.

He paced nervously in front of her. "I hope so. I don't know. But you
must."

"What is lacking?"

"It's going to cost--more than the purchase price--"

"I know that."

"It's going to cost more than you guess--incalculably more."

"I don't understand."

"I know--but you must. We're going to dedicate this paper to one
thing--the truth. Sometimes the truth isn't easy to tell. The telling
of it may bring you--it may--oh, don't you see--those closest to
you--dearest to you--they may be the least able to stand the
truth. You don't know what it means. You can't. Are you ready to
forsake--all? ... I mean that literally, Miss Wynrod." She had never seen
him so utterly excited, so moved to the depths. "Are you ready to give up
everything that has been dear to you in the days that are gone, for this
crazy ideal? For if you are not," he finished with a solemnity that
brought a queer lump to her throat, "I had much rather that you stopped
before you began."

She rose and faced him, and her eyes looked steadily into his. They
gleamed dull grey, like the hulls of battleships on the fighting line,
and her chin was grimly firm. The stock from which she sprang had been a
pioneering stock, and none who bore the name of Wynrod, in days when
life was simple but hard, had turned back when once their hands were on
the plough. Their sturdy courage was in her blood, and the echo of that
Hugh Wynrod who had defied his King and left all that life had held dear
for him, to seek a new life in a new world, for the sake of an ideal,
sounded in her vibrant voice.

"I understand, Mr. Good. I am ready--for anything."

"It means--fight--always," he said softly.

"I have played always. I _want_--fight."

"Then shake," he cried. "We'll go through--to the end!"

"To the end," she echoed, as she seized his outstretched hand. Then the
tension snapped suddenly.

"How absurd," she laughed. "We're behaving like pirates in a melodrama.
Let's go in the other room and be rational people."

But Good did not even attempt to smile.




CHAPTER VI

DEAD IDOLS


Arnold Imrie was of clear Scotch descent. And among his forebears had
been those grim Covenanters to whom compromise was anathema. He had a
strong body and a strong intellect, but stronger than both combined was
the resistless overlord he called his conscience. Sydney Smith's
aspersions upon the impenetrability of the Scotch skull are well known,
though their justice may be questioned. But it is indisputable that
nothing short of the heroic measures he recommended would suffice to
separate Imrie from a resolve, once firmly made. Being human, he saw
many things dimly, and some quite falsely. But as he saw he lived, and
there was no power in the earth or out of it to make him evade or
equivocate. Sometimes this sturdy candour made him noble: sometimes it
made him tiresome: and once in a way it merely made him ridiculous. But
though for long periods it might remain dormant, it was none the less
the prime impetus in his life.

Judith's derision, her more or less obvious contempt, had wounded him
more than he would have believed possible; and her touch, though light,
had found spots that were sorer than he had suspected. Her calm disdain
was like an acid, dissolving away the crust of unimportant occupation
and meticulous conformity which had protected his ideals from the
corruptive action of reality. He shivered, figuratively, at the
revelation.

One of her mordant phrases was poignantly clear. Again and again it
recurred to him, always with a question attached. He tried to dismiss
it, and could not. She had called him "too much of a clergyman--not
enough of a man." As he walked home, he analysed its meaning, and tried
to disguise it in sophistries. But the intellectual honesty which was
his at base, forbade. The meaning was far too manifest. And at intervals
through the week, he strove to force his thoughts into an effective
answer. But always there was failure at the end.

Of course such charges as she had made to him were not new. The
literature of the day was full of them. But hitherto he had been able to
keep his defences intact. When his own logic failed him, there was
always the logic of his schooling and of his contemporaries upon which
to fall back. But for such heresies to spring from Judith--that was
treachery within the gates. He resented it bitterly, and he was appalled
as the weapons so strong in the past now crumpled in his hands.

A whisper grew louder and louder in his soul, a question sounded more
and more relentlessly. And when it would brook no more delay,
reluctantly, sick at heart, and filled with fear at the outcome, he
hauled down his flag of truce and gave the devil battle.

It was well after midnight of Saturday when the last gun was fired, and
the struggle was over. With lips compressed, and brow furrowed, and with
his tongue parched by the pipes he had smoked, Imrie capitulated.

On the morrow he would put his life to the test.

But when he stood in the pulpit and faced his congregation, awaiting him
with courteous expectancy, as it had waited so often, his heart
well-nigh failed him. Slowly he let his eyes rove over the throng,
brilliant in costume, exuding the indefinable aroma of power and luxury.
These men and women of St. Viateur's were the cream of the community. It
was no small thing to be the shepherd of such a flock. The silence grew
oppressive, while he hesitated. He seemed to look for someone. Finally
he found what he sought. His face hardened and his teeth clicked so
sharply that those in the pews near at hand could almost hear the sound.
Judith was in a seat well back in the church. Good was beside her.
Imrie's task had suddenly become far harder, yet even more imperative.
He hesitated no longer.

He cleared his throat and his eyes wandered, raptly, as of old, into
the dim vastness of the rafters. "_Think not that I am come to send
peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword_," he said
impressively. "Text taken from the Gospel according to St. Matthew,
tenth chapter, thirty-fourth verse."

He paused at that point, as he had paused Sundays without end, and the
congregation, as if at a signal, seemed to settle back and make itself
resignedly comfortable against the duty it faced. There was a subdued
but general coughing, and the whispering rustle of silks: then a calm
hush.

But the preacher had not uttered a dozen words before the expectant
quiet changed sensibly. It was not his words which caused the change,
but his tone. And it was not that his tone was dramatic, but that it was
not. The very fact that he spoke with a complete freedom from anything
histrionic presented a contrast which amazed.

But as the significance of the lesson he was drawing from the text
became clear to them, astonishment gave place to an almost ominous,
certainly an unsympathetic, attention.

Never in his career had he had more heedful listeners. As if magically,
the news seemed to have percolated to the most obtuse intelligences that
grave matters were transpiring. Once or twice there was a sibilant
inrush of breath from some auditor too dumfounded for control. But for
the rest there was utter silence. There was not a rustle nor a cough.
The congregation of St. Viateur's had changed its character. It was
playing a different rôle. It was as if an epicure had bitten caviar and
tasted quinine. It waited.

Meanwhile, the Reverend Arnold Imrie was recording his new-found belief
that the peace of Christ was not a complacent acceptance of earthly
misery, but a dynamic struggle against the few who dispossessed--or
would dispossess--the many; that the Man of Sorrows was a rebel,
seeking, not to bring men to heaven, but heaven to men; that he brought
a sword, sharp-pointed for the blood of injustice, for which, injustice,
terrified, crucified him; and he was asking, very simply but very
clearly, whether the charge of heretics that time had brought about a
change between preaching Christ and preaching dogma, was true.

He went calmly on, opening, though they never suspected it, the
innermost chambers of his heart to them, taking them into his confidence
as he had never before taken even himself. For the first time, he did
not preach: it was rather a mutual inventory before the God they
worshipped, a dispassionate analysis of the institutions they revered,
to see if, since they had become idols, they had deteriorated or no.

Only once did his emotionless manner desert him. Then without euphemism,
he lashed them for their luxuries, for the repletion of their bellies,
for the ideals of the spirit that they had allowed to die of starvation.
For a few minutes he waxed eloquent and bitter and cruel. With a crash
of his fist on the pulpit rail he repeated the words, "_let him take up
his cross and follow me_," and hammered home to them, with brutal logic
and remorseless clarity, what they meant.

It was a new Jesus which he painted for them, in bold sharp strokes. The
Lamb of God, the doe-eyed martyr to vicarious atonement, vanished, and
in his place stood a virile battler for human rights.

The strongest sentiment in the minds of the listeners was one of
bewilderment. They watched, with something approaching admiration, the
portrait as it grew more vivid before their eyes, and a few even
admitted in it a specious fidelity. But none could comprehend at all
clearly the reason for their rector's complete and sudden estrangement
from the conceptions which he had worshipped hitherto with an orthodoxy
beyond suspicion.

And yet the explanation was profoundly simple. In the first place he had
come away from his talk with Judith to study Scripture with new eyes. In
words so familiar that he could quote them he had found new meaning. He
had realised, with a shock, that always until then he had given a
superficial acceptance to the interpretations of others, and in natural
consequence he had set himself to the business of interpretation
assisted by nothing but his own powers of logic and analysis. Once the
new keystone was placed, the change in the entire arch was inevitable
and immediate. He had only to secure a new postulate: the rest of the
syllogism followed as a matter of course.

The second part of the explanation was simpler still. From the time that
man emerged from his female origin, man has been doing things, both
sublime and foolish, to win the regard of woman. In the little boy who
jumps off a high place because a little girl "dared" him to jump, may be
found the key to Imrie's puzzling transformation. Judith had dared him
to be more man than clergyman. His eyes were fixed on her as he jumped.

There can be no doubt that he went further than he had intended when he
entered the pulpit. But as speech clarifies thought, the very course of
maintaining his new argument strengthened him in it, and his fears and
hesitancies vanished. He left no doubt in other minds, as to his
meaning, as he cleared away the doubts in his own.

Judith, listening in amazement with the rest, realised, as did few, how
characteristic of him it all was. She felt that she could almost trace
the steps which had brought him to this point. Her own attitude had
played a large share, she felt certain. Her doubts had set up doubts in
him. He had tried to dissipate them, and had failed. So far he was quite
like other men. But then he had resolved to tell his congregation that
he had failed. In that he was different. Other men would have waited
longer, have hesitated and put off and pondered, some to the end of
their lives. Not so with Imrie. A resolution once made was turned into
action without delay, be the consequences what they might. The one
outstanding distinction of his nature was his unfailing courage.

The whole procedure, involved and incomprehensible and distressing as
she knew it must appear to most minds, was perfectly clear to her. She
had put questions to him that he could not answer. So he had resolved to
put them, without equivocation or delay, to his congregation. That to
them these questions did not betoken honest doubt, but downright heresy,
was no concern of his. They had to hear, and having heard, they had to
decide what their significance was for him and for them, and for the
relations between them. That he realised quite clearly that he was
jeopardising his professional future, she did not for a moment doubt.
But that realisation, she knew very well, would only confirm him the
more strongly in his purpose.

Suddenly she realised that he was bringing his remarkable sermon to a
close. His voice sank, becoming almost conversational, though it
penetrated to the furthest corner of the church.

It was the closing plea of a lawyer before a jury of his peers. He had
shown what he believed to be the fallacies in their relations to the
Lord Jesus, and the fallacies in his own; he had shown the failure of
the Church, which meant them as well as himself, to live up to its
social significance; he had demonstrated with vivid brutality, the
inconsistency between their professions of faith and their daily lives;
he had humbled himself before his ideals and sought to make them do
likewise; and now, very gently, he was asking for the verdict.

He paused for a moment before his last words, and swept the congregation
with his eyes. They saw far more than was there to see. They saw his
seminary days, when the world looked so simple and so enticing. They saw
the early days of his charge of St. Viateur's, when the knowledge of
actual achievement was not troubled by spiritual doubts. They saw the
Sundays, innumerable, when his words, received by the great ones of the
community with admiration and approval, had been followed by the little
flatteries to which no human heart is immune. Then a lump rose in his
throat, and his gaze came nearer. Something like tears came into his
eyes as he surveyed these friends whom he was deliberately transforming
into something perilously like enemies--for no reason save that he must.
They would never understand--never. And yet he must go on--to the end if
need be. That was his destiny.

Quietly he put his last question to them, "What are you going to do
about it?" Then he closed his eyes for a moment, opened them to stare
unseeing at judge and jury, sighed softly, and abruptly left the pulpit.

The answer was not long in coming. He knew that it would not be, and he
dallied in the vestry, purposely. Judge Wolcott, kindly and genial,
approached him with outstretched hand.

"Arnold, it was magnificent," he said, with a paternal clap on his
shoulder, adding, in an undertone, though no one was 

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