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The Sins of the Children: A Novel

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Title: The Sins of the Children: A Novel

Author: Cosmo Hamilton


        
Release date: October 7, 2011 [eBook #37664]
                Most recently updated: January 8, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN: A NOVEL ***




Produced by Roger Frank, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net









THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN


    [Illustration: And over them both ... hung the moon and stars.]




    THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN

    _A NOVEL_

    BY
    COSMO HAMILTON


    WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
    GEORGE O. BAKER

    [Illustration]

    BOSTON
    LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
    1916


    _Copyright, 1916_,
    BY COSMO HAMILTON.

    _All rights reserved_


    Published, October, 1916


    THE COLONIAL PRESS
    C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.


    To

    MY WIFE




    CONTENTS


    PART ONE--YOUTH

    PART TWO--THE CITY

    PART THREE--LIFE




PART ONE

YOUTH


THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN


I

When Peter Guthrie laughed the rooks stirred on the old trees behind the
Bodleian and the bored cab-drivers who lolled in uncomfortable attitudes
on their cabs in St. Giles perked up their heads.

He threw open his door one morning and leaving one of these laughs of
his rolling round the quad of St. John's College found the recumbent
form of Nicholas Kenyon all among his cushions as usual, and as usual
smoking his cigarettes and reading his magazines. The words "as usual"
seemed to be stamped on his forehead.

"What d'you think?" cried Peter, filling the room like a thirty-mile
gale.

"You ought to know that I don't think. It's a form of exercise that I
never indulge in." Kenyon lit a fresh cigarette from the one which he
had half-smoked and with peculiar expertness flicked the end out of the
window into St. Giles Street, which ran past the great gates of the
college. He hoped that it might have fallen on somebody's head, but he
didn't get up to see.

"Well," said Peter, "I was coming down the High just now and an awful
pretty girl passed with a Univ. man. She looked at me--thereby very
nearly laying me flat on my face--and I heard her ask, 'Who's that?' It
was the man's answer that makes me laugh. He said: 'Oh, he's only a
Rhodes scholar!'" And off he went again.

Nicholas Kenyon raised his immaculate person a few inches and looked
round at his friend. The Harvard man, with his six-foot-one of excellent
muscles and sinews, his square shoulders and deep chest, and his fine,
honest, alert and healthy face, made most people ask who he was. "If I'd
been you," said Kenyon, "I should have made a mental note of that Univ.
blighter in order to land him one the next time you saw him, that he
wouldn't easily forget."

"Why? I liked it, from a man of his type. I've been 'only a damned
Rhodes scholar' to all the little pussy purr-purrs ever since I first
walked the High in my American-made clothes. I owe that fellow no
grudge; and if I meet that girl again--which I shall make a point of
doing--I bet you anything you like that his scoffing remark will lend a
touch of romance to me which will be worth a lot."

"Was she something out of the ordinary?"

"Quite," said Peter.

He hung his straw hat on the electric bulb, threw off his coat, rolled
up his sleeves and started to tidy up his rooms with more energy and
deftness than is possessed by the average housemaid. He flicked the
little pile of cigarette ash, which Kenyon had dropped on the floor,
into a corner. He gathered the weekly illustrated papers which Kenyon
had flung aside and put them on a back shelf, and then he picked up the
man Kenyon in his arms, deposited him in a wide arm-chair in front of
the fireplace and started punching all the cushions.

Kenyon looked ineffably bored. "Good God!" he said. "What's all this
energy? You shatter my nervous system."

"My dear chap," said Peter, "you seem to forget that this is Commem. and
that my people have come three thousand miles to see their little Peter
in his little rooms. I'm therefore polishing up the knocker of the big
front door. My mother has a tidy mind and I want my father to gain the
impression that I'm methodical and responsible. He has a quick eye. They
wired me from London last night to say that they'll be here at five
o'clock to tea. I dashed round to the Randolph early this morning to
book rooms for them. Gee, it's a big party, too! I can't make out why
they want so many rooms. It'll be like my sister to have brought over
one of her school friends. I guess I shall be darned glad to see them,
anyway."

There was a touch of excitement in the boy's voice, and his sun-tanned,
excellent face showed the delight that he felt. He had not seen his
mother, brother and sister for two years, having spent his vacations in
England.

Nicholas Kenyon got up slowly. He did everything slowly. "Well," he
said, "I thank God that my people don't bother me on these festive
occasions. To my way of thinking the influx of fathers and mothers into
Oxford makes the whole place provincial. However, I can understand your
childish glee. You are pretty badly dipped, I understand, and with the
true psychology of the rasping undergraduate you are first going to
throw the glamour of the city of spires over your untravelled parent and
then touch him for a fairly considerable cheque."

Peter gave a sort of laugh. "Touch my father!" he said. "Not much. I
shall put my case up to my mother. She's the one who does these little
things."

Kenyon was faintly interested. Being perennially impecunious himself and
unable to raise money even from the loan sharks, he looked to the advent
of Peter's parents to bring him at least fifty pounds. He always
borrowed from Peter.

"Oh, I see," he said. "It's the old lady who carries the money-bags, is
it?"

"No, it isn't," said Peter; "but as a matter of fact I never have gone
to my father for anything and I don't think I ever shall. I don't know
why it is, but none of us have ever been able to screw up courage to say
more than 'Good-morning' and 'Good-night' to the Governor, although of
course we all think he is a very wonderful person."

Kenyon yawned. "I see," he said. "Bad luck. I should hate to have such a
disagreeable devil for a father--one of the martinet type, who says
_don't_ all the time when he ought to say _do_, and makes home a sort of
pocket-hell for everybody."

Peter twisted round and spoke quickly and rather warmly. "So should I,"
he said, "but luckily I haven't. I didn't want to suggest that my father
was that type of man. He's one of the very best--one of the men who
count for something in my country. He's worked like a dog to give us a
chance in life and his generosity makes me personally sometimes feel
almost indecent. I mean that I feel that I have taken advantage of
him,--but--but, somehow or other,--oh, I don't know,--we don't seem to
know each other--that's all. He hasn't the knack of winning our
confidence--or something. So it comes to this: when we want anything we
ask mother and she gets it for us. That's all there's to it. And look
here, Nick, I want you to be frightfully nice to the Governor. Get out
of your ice-box and warm up to the old man. I can't, you see; but as he
has come all this way to look me up I want somebody to show some
appreciation."

With his eyes to the small relief which the visit of Dr. Hunter Guthrie,
of New York City, might bring him, Nicholas Kenyon nodded. "Rely on me,"
he said. "Butter shan't melt in my mouth; and before your father leaves
Oxford I'll make him feel that he's been created a Baronet and appointed
Physician in Ordinary to His Majesty the King. Well, so long, Peter! I'm
lunching with Lascelles at the House this morning. I'll drop in to tea
and hand cakes round to your beloved family."

"Right-o," said Peter. "That'll be great!" And when the door closed and
he found himself alone he arranged a certain number of silver cups which
he had won in athletics all along his mantel-piece, for his father to
see, gazed at them for a moment with a half-smile of rather
self-conscious pride, finished tidying his room, gazed affectionately
for a few moments at the familiar sight of Pusey House through the
leaf-crowded trees that lined the sunny street, and then sat down to his
piano and played a rag-time with all that perfect excellence and sense
of rhythm which had opened the most insular doors to him during his
first days as a fresher.


II

This fine big fellow, Peter Murray Guthrie, who had done immensely well
at Harvard in athletics and was by no means a fool intellectually, could
afford to be amused at the fact that he had been scoffingly referred to
as "only a Rhodes scholar." He had been born under a lucky star and he
had that wonderful gymnastic faculty of always falling on his feet. If
with all his suspicions aroused he had gone up to Oxford in the same
rather timid, self-conscious, on-the-defensive manner of the average
Rhodes scholar who expected to be treated as a creature quite different
from the English undergraduate, he would have found his way to the
American Club and stayed there more or less permanently, taking very
little part in the glorious multitudinous life of the freshmen of his
college, and remained a sort of pariah of his own making. Freshmen
themselves, the Lord knows, are forlorn enough. Everything is strange to
them, too,--society, rules, customs, unwritten laws and faces. They are
solitary creatures in the midst of a bustling crowd. If they do not come
from one of the great public schools and meet again the men they knew
there their chance of making friends is small and for many dull
disappointing weeks they must mope and look-on and envy and find their
feet alone, suffering, poor devils, from a hideous sheepishness and
wondering, with a sort of morbid self-consciousness, what others are
thinking of them. But Peter was unafraid. He stalked into Oxford
prepared to find it the finest place on earth--with his imagination
stirred at the sight of those old colleges whose quadrangles echoed with
the feet of the great dead and rang with those of the younger generation
to whom life was a great adventure and who might spring from those old
stones into everlasting fame. He strode through the gate of St. John's
with his chin high, prepared to serve her with all his strength and all
the best of his youth and leave her finally unsullied by his name. He
didn't give a single whoop for all this talk about the snobbishness and
insularity of English undergraduates. He didn't believe that he would
find a college divided and sub-divided into sets; and if the statement
proved to be true--well, he intended to break all the barriers down.

Therefore, with such a spirit added to his fine frank, manly
personality, irresistible laugh, great big friendly hand and the rumours
that came with him of his bull-like rushes on the football field, he
became at once a marked man. Second-year and even third-year men nudged
each other when he passed. "By Jove!" they said. "That's a useful
looking cove! We must get him down to the river." Or, "I wonder if that
American can be taught to play cricket?" As for the freshers--all as
frightened as a lot of rabbits far away from their warren--they gazed
with shy admiration and respect at Peter, who, expecting no rebuffs,
received none.

Finding that he could not live in college until he was a second-year
man, Peter had looked about him among the freshers for a likely person
with whom to share rooms. He had come up in the train with Nicholas
Kenyon, whose shell he had insisted upon opening. He, too, was entered
at St. John's and was very ready--being impecunious--to share lodgings
with the American whose allowance he might share and whose personality
was distinctly unusual. These two then gravitated to Beaumont Street,
captured a large sitting-room and two bed-rooms on the ground floor, and
from the first evening of their arrival were perfectly at home. Peter at
once hired a piano from a music shop in the High which he quickly
discovered, bought several bottles of whiskey and a thousand cigarettes,
besides several pounds of pipe tobacco, threw open his window, and as
soon as dinner was over started playing rag-times.

Kenyon had been interested and amused. He had not expected to find
himself "herding," as he put it, with a damned Rhodes scholar. He took
it for granted that these "foreigners" would live apart from the
ordinary undergraduate, as uncouth people should. He had been quick to
notice, however,--psychology being his principal stock in trade,--that
Peter had made an instant impression; and as he sat on the window-sill
listening with what he had to confess to himself was keen pleasure to
Peter's masterly manipulation of the piano and saw all the windows
within near range of their house open and heads poke out to listen, he
was able--without any propheticism--to say that Peter would quickly be
the centre of a set. He would certainly not be sulking in the American
Club.

Very quickly P. M. Guthrie, of St. John's, became "Peter" to the whole
college--and stroke in the freshers' boat. The other Rhodes scholars
owed everything that was good to him. He stood by them loyally, made his
rooms their headquarters, and all who wanted to know him were obliged to
know them. He introduced swipes at the first freshers' concert in the
Hall, with enormous success, selecting Forbes Nicholl, of Brasenose;
Watson Frick, of Wadham; Baldwin Colgate, of Worcester; and Madison
Smith, of Merton, all good Americans, for the purpose. Even Dons stayed
to listen on that epoch-making occasion and the fame of their curious
and delightful method of singing spread all over the university. It was
easy. There was nothing else like it.

Quite unconsciously Peter was for a little while the whole topic of
conversation at Dons' dinners. These hide-bound professors were really
quite surprised at the remarkable way in which, at one fell swoop, this
man Peter Guthrie had managed to weld together the English and American
undergraduates for the first time in their knowledge. Some of them put
it all down to his piano playing--and were very nearly right. Others
conceived his great laugh to be mainly responsible--and were not far
short of the mark. But it was Nicholas Kenyon, the psychologist, who put
his finger on the whole truth of this swift and unbelievable success. He
said that it was Peter's humanity which had conquered Oxford, and in so
doing proved--impecunious only son of an absolutely broke peer as he
was--that he would be able to make a very fair living in the future on
his wits. It may be said that he never intended to work.

It was part of Peter's honesty and simplicity to remain American. He
made no effort to ape the Oxford manner of speech. He would see himself
shot before he got into the rather effeminate clothes affected by the
Oxford man. He continued to be natural, to remain himself, and not to
take on the colors chameleon-wise of those about him. His Stetson hat
was the standing joke of St. John's. Nevertheless, there was not one man
in the college who would not have hit hard if any derogatory remarks had
been thrown at the head inside it. His padded shoulders, upholstered
ties and narrow belt were all frequently caricatured, but the sound of
Peter's laugh gathered men together like the music of the Pied Piper of
Hamelin. It was just that this man Peter Guthrie was a _man_ that made
him not only accepted in a place seething with quaint and foolish
habits, out-of-date shibboleths and curious unwritten laws, but loved
and respected. Here was one to whom merely to live was a joy. To the
despondent he came therefore as a tonic. He exuded breeziness filled
with ozone. His continuous high spirits infected even those foolish
boys who were encrusted with affectation and stuccoed with the petty
side and insolence of Eton. He worked hard and played hard and slept
like a dog, ate hearty and drank like a thirsty plant. Also he smoked
like a factory chimney. He had no crankish views--no tolerance for
"isms," and was not ashamed to stride into chapel and say his prayers
like a simple boy. In short, "unashamed" was his watchword, and he had
been endowed with the rare gift of saying "No," and sticking to it. And
to Nicholas Kenyon, who frequented the rooms of the so-called
intellectuals--those "little dreadful clever people" who parroted and
perverted other men's thoughts and possessed no originality of their
own--it was a stroke of genius on Peter's part to have nothing but the
photographs of his family all over his rooms. He must be a big man,
Nicholas said to himself, who could afford, among the very young, to
dispense with the female form divine in his frames--the nudes so
generally placed in them--in order to convey the impression of being
devilish wise and bad. Also it showed, according to this human merchant,
a peculiar strength of character on Peter's part to bolt his door
regularly one evening a week so that he might sit down uninterrupted and
write a tremendous screed to his mother. However, that was Peter the
man-boy--Peter the Rhodes scholar--Peter the Oxford man--who always
wound up his musical evenings with the "Star Spangled Banner." And there
was just one other side to this big, simple fellow's character which
puzzled and annoyed the bloodless, clever parasite who lived with him
and upon him,--women.

Now, Nicholas Kenyon--the Honourable Nicholas Augustus Fitzhugh
Kenyon--was a patron of the drama. That is to say, he had the right
somehow to enter the stage door of the Theatre Royal at all times, and
did so whenever the theatre was visited by a musical comedy company. He
was known to innumerable chorus girls as "Boy-dear," and made a point of
entertaining them at luncheon and supper during their visits to the
university town. He brought choice specimens of this breed to Beaumont
Street for tea and tittle-tattle and introduced them to Peter, who liked
them very much and would have staked his life upon their being angels.
But when it came to driving out to small unnoticeable inns, Peter
squared his shoulders and stayed at home.

"The devil take it!" said Nicholas one night, with frightful frankness
which was devoid of any intentional insolence. "What's this cursed
provincialism that hangs to you? I suppose it comes from the fact that
you were born in a shack to the tinkle of the trolley-car!"

Peter's howl of laughter made the piano play an immaculate tune.
"Wrong," he said. "Gee! but you're absolutely wrong. The whole thing
comes to this, Nick: One of these fine days I'm going to be married. The
girl I marry is going to be clean. I believe in fairness. _I'm_ going to
be clean. That's all there is to it."

So that, one way and another, Dr. Hunter G. Guthrie, of New York, as
well as St. John's College, Oxford, had several reasons to be rather
proud of this man Peter.


III

One o'clock that afternoon found Peter still hammering on his piano, not
only to the intense delight of three snub-nosed tradesmen's boys who
delayed delivery of mutton-chops and soles, which were only plaice, but
also of five people who had come quietly into the room. They stood
together watching and listening and waiting for him suddenly to discover
that he was not alone. One was a tall, rather angular, clean-shaven,
noticeably intellectual man whose thin hair was grey and who wore very
large glasses with tortoise-shell frames, through which he looked with
pale, short-sighted eyes. He held a grey hat in his thin hand and stood
watching the boy--who made his piano do the work of a full band--with a
smile of infinite pride on his lips. Another was a little lady, all soft
and sweet, with a bird-like face and a curious bird-like appearance. All
about her there was a sort of perennial youthfulness, and the goodness
of her kind heart gleamed so openly in her eyes that they asked beggars
and cripples, itinerant musicians, ragamuffins, street dogs and all
humbugs to come and be helped. At that moment they were full of tears,
although little lines of laughter were all about them. Another was a
slight, exceedingly good-looking young man whose hair went into a series
of small waves and was brushed away from his forehead. He was grinning
like a Cheshire cat and showing two rows of teeth which would make a
dentist both envious and annoyed. There was a slight air of precocity
about his clothes. Two girls made up the rest of the party. Both were
young and slim and of average height. Both were unmistakably American in
their fearless independence and cleanness of cut. One was dark, with
almost black eyebrows which just failed to meet in the middle. Her eyes
were amazing and as full of danger as a maxim,--large and blue--the most
astonishing blueness. They were framed with long, thick, black lashes.
Her lips were rather full and red, and her skin white. She might have
been an Italian or a Spaniard. The other girl was blonde and slim, with
large grey eyes set widely apart, a small patrician nose and a lovely
little mouth turning up at the corners.

How long all these people would have stayed watching and listening no
man can say. Suddenly, in the middle of a bar, Peter sprang up and
turned round. His cry of joy and the way in which he plunged forward and
picked up the little bird-like woman in his arms was very good to see.

"Mother!" he cried. "Mother! Oh, Gee! This is great!" and he kissed her
cheeks and her hands, and then her cheeks again, all the while making
strange, small, fond noises like a little boy who comes back home after
the holidays.

"Oh, dear, dear Peter!" said the little woman, between tears and
laughter. "How splendidly rough you are! You shake me to pieces! Where
_shall_ I be able to tidy my hair?"

Then, with a rather constrained air and a touch of nervous cordiality,
Peter turned to his father and took his hand. "How are you, father?" he
asked. "You look fine."

Dr. Hunter Guthrie swallowed something and gave a murmur which remained
incoherent. Before he could pull himself together, Peter was hugging his
sister, who squealed like a pig from the tightness of this man's mighty
grasp. And then the brother came in for it and winced with pain and
pleasure as his hand was taken in a vise-like grip.

"Hello, Graham!"

"Hello, Peter!"

And then everybody except Peter burst out laughing. He stood in front of
the fair girl, with his mouth wide open, and held out his hand and said:
"I was going to hunt the whole place for you,--I beg your pardon." It
was when he drew back, with his face and neck the color of a beet root,
that the laughter reached its climax.

Belle Guthrie was the first to find her voice. "Well, Peter," she said,
"that's going some. Is an introduction superfluous in Oxford? Where did
you meet Betty Townsend?"

"I haven't met her," said Peter. "I saw her this morning in the High for
a second--" He ran his finger round his collar and moved from one foot
to the other and shifted his great shoulders. No man on this earth had
ever looked so uncomfortable.

And then, with consummate coolness, Betty Townsend came to the rescue.
"Just after we arrived this morning," she said, "and you were all buying
picture post-cards, I passed Mr. Guthrie when I was walking along the
High Street with Graham's friend. I recognized him from the photographs
that you have at home, and I think he must have heard me ask, 'Who's
that?' I naturally gave him a friendly look. That's all."

"I didn't catch the friendly look," said Peter. But he did catch the
friendly tone and stored it up among his treasures. Then he suddenly
stirred himself, being host, picked up his mother and placed her on his
elaborate sofa; gave his best arm-chair to his father; waved his sister
into the window-seat with her friend, and tilted Graham into a deck
chair.

Standing in the middle of the room, beaming with pride, he said: "How in
thunder did you get here so soon? Your wire said that you were coming to
tea, and I was going to meet the train leaving Paddington at
three-thirty. Gee! This is the best thing that ever happened! Will you
lunch here?"

"Oh, no, dear!" said Mrs. Guthrie. "So many of us will worry your
landlady."

Then out came one of Peter's huge laughs. "Worry my landlady? One look
at Mrs. Brownstack would show you that she got over being worried before
the great wind. Why she's kept lodgings for undergraduates for twenty
years. It's the same thing as saying that she's spent the greater part
of her life sitting on the top of Vesuvius. I can give you beer, beef,
pickles, biscuits, cake, swipes they call coffee, some corking Nougat
and three brands of cigarettes."

"I think," said Dr. Guthrie, with a suggestion of haste, "it might be
better if you lunched with us at the hotel." Like all doctors, his first
thoughts were of digestion.

"Right-o!" said Peter, and he dived into his bedroom for a more
respectable coat. His brother followed him in and the two stood facing
each other for a moment, eye to eye. They had not met for two years.
Instinctively they grasped hands again and the minds of both were filled
with most affectionate things--a very flood of words--but one said "Old
man!" and the other "Peter!" And while Graham brushed his kinky hair
with a temporary suggestion of throatiness, Peter hauled out his best
coat and whistled to show how utterly unmoved he was.

They returned to the sitting-room together. Dr. Guthrie was examining
the conglomeration of books that loaded the shelves. The plays of
Bernard Shaw rubbed shoulders with "Masterton on Land Taxes."
Stevenson's "Treasure Island" leaned up against Webster's Dictionary.
"Tono-Bungay" had for a companion a slushy novel by Garvice--and on them
all was dust.

The little mother, all a-flutter like a thrush, was at the window
looking through the trees at the warm old buildings opposite. The two
girls were peering into a cupboard as into the "Blue Room," where they
found nothing but a few whiskey bottles, several packs of cards, a box
of chess-men, a couple of mortar-boards with all their corners gone,
and a large collection of white shoes in all grades of dilapidation.

"Are you all ready?" asked Dr. Guthrie, with a curious gayety. Among all
this youth even he felt young.

"Rather," said Peter. "I could eat an ox."

He opened the door, touched his mother's soft cheek with his finger as
she passed, tweaked his sister's hair, refrained from catching Betty
Townsend's eyes, winked at his brother and drew back for his father.

Once in the quad Mrs. Guthrie whispered to Graham and went quickly out
into St. Giles, beckoning to the two girls to follow. She was very
anxious that Peter should walk with his father, and this--rather pleased
with himself--Peter did. He would have taken his father's arm if he had
dared, he was so mighty glad to see him. Several times the Doctor seemed
about to do the same thing, but his hand hesitated and dropped. And so
these two fell in step and walked silently along towards the Randolph
Hotel, passed by men in twos or threes, many of whom, to the Doctor's
inward delight, cried out, "Hullo, Peter!" with tremendous cordiality.
It was not until they turned the corner that the Doctor spoke.

"It gives me real pleasure to see you again, Peter," he said, with a
quick self-conscious glance at the young giant at his elbow.

"Thank you, father," said Peter, looking straight ahead and getting as
red as a peony.


IV

Nicholas Kenyon more than lived up to his promise. In clothes into which
he seemed to have been poured in liquid form, he handed hot toast and
cakes to Peter's family at tea-time with that air of deferential
impertinence which was his peculiar property. He had the same effect on
the Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie and the two girls as he had on Peter when he
first saw him on the train. His complete self-control, his indolent
assurance, his greyhound look of thoroughbredness and the decorative way
in which he phrased his sentences all charmed and amused them. For
Peter's sake he came right out of his shell at once and behaved like a
man who had been a favorite in that family circle for years. In the most
subtle manner he implied to the Doctor that his fame as a bacteriologist
had spread all over Oxford, and even England. He refused to believe that
Mrs. Guthrie was the mother of her children and not her own eldest
daughter. He asked Graham almost at once to do him the favor of giving
him the name of his tailor, and told Betty that he had shot with her
father, Lord Townsend, many times, well-knowing that he was a portrait
painter in New York. With consummate ease and tact he put everybody on
the best of terms with one another and themselves, thereby winning still
more of Peter's admiration and liking. With great pleasure he accepted
the Doctor's invitation to dine at the Randolph Hotel, and in return
invited all present to be his guests at the Open Air Performance of
"Twelfth Night," later in the week, by the O.U.D.S., in the beautiful
gardens of Worcester. In a word, he played with these people as a cat
plays with a mouse and as he had always played with Peter. He used all
his brain not only to win their confidence and friendship but to make an
impression which might afterwards be of use to himself.

Nicholas Kenyon was one of those men who are born and not made. He
opened his eyes to find himself in an atmosphere of aristocratic
roguery. The beautiful old house in which his father lived was mortgaged
to the very tops of the chimneys. It was maintained on money borrowed
from the loan sharks at an exorbitant interest. It was filled with men
and women who, like his own parents, were clever and intellectual enough
to work for their livelihood, but who preferred to live on their wits
and cling to society by the skin of their teeth. In this
atmosphere of expert parasites--an atmosphere as false as it was
light-hearted--Nicholas was brought up. He was a complete man of the
world at fourteen. Even at that age he gambled, raced and borrowed
money; and in order to provide himself with the necessities of life he
ran a roulette table in secret at Eton and made a book for the racing
bets of the little boys of his own kidney. Highly gifted and endowed
with a most likable personality, with the art of eluding punishment for
misdeeds brought to a masterly completeness, he could have been shaped,
under different circumstances, into a man whose name would stand high in
his country. With the proper training and discipline and the right
sense of duty which is given to those lucky lads whose parents are
responsible and honorable he had it in his power to become a famous
diplomat. As it was, he entered Oxford as a parasite and would leave the
university for the world in the same capacity. He was entirely
unscrupulous. He had no code of honor. He quietly used the men about him
to provide him with amusement, money, hospitality, and to insure him
against having to work. He turned his personality into a sort of
business asset--a kind of limited liability company--which brought him
in regular dividends. His breeding and good form, his well-known name
and his inherent ability to slide comfortably into any set or society,
made him wholly irresistible. No one suspected him, because his
frankness disarmed suspicion. His knowledge of human nature told him
that the paradox of his being poor lent him a sort of romance, and he
always began by telling new acquaintances that he was broke to the wide.
In this way he struck the honest note of the men who disdain to convey
false impressions. He was poor, but proud, and made himself so
attractive and companionable that men were delighted to be put to great
expense in order to entertain him,--and he wanted everything of the very
best. His clothes were immaculate. His cigarettes were freshly rolled.
When he drove a car it had to be of the best known make. He was a most
fastidious reader and had once read a paper on modern poetry which had
startled the Dons of his college. He contributed short satirical
articles to the Isis from time to time which tickled the intellect of
the more discriminating; and as a fresher had given a performance of
Puck in one of the productions of the O.U.D.S., over which undergraduate
critics went raving mad. Even in his dealings with his friends, the
chorus girls, there was a certain touch of humour which made it
impossible even for the most straightlaced to say hard things of him.

In a word, Nicholas Kenyon was a very dangerous man. His influence was
as subtly bad and pernicious as a beautifully made cigarette heavily
charged with dope; and he would at any time if necessary have stolen his
mother's toilet set in order to provide himself with caviar, plover's
eggs and a small bottle of champagne.

And this was the man who had shared rooms with Peter Guthrie during his
terms at Oxford, and of whom the Doctor spoke that first night of his
stay at the Randolph Hotel as an unusually charming person whom it was a
pleasure to meet.

In fact, he was the sole topic of conversation in all the bedrooms of
Peter's family party before the lights were turned out. Mrs. Guthrie
said, as she sat in front of the dressing-table combing her hair: "How
lucky it is, dear, that Peter has found such a wonderful friend here! He
is so English and so refined--in every sense of the word a gentleman."
The Doctor thoroughly agreed with her and made a mental note to invite
Kenyon to his house in New York in the autumn.

Belle Guthrie took her brushes into Betty's room, which was next to her
own, and looking extremely attractive in a pale pink kimono, with her
dark hair all about her shoulders and her naked feet in pink, heel-less
slippers, gave a ripple of excited laughter and confided to her friend
that she was going to have a more bully time even than she had hoped. "I
love St. John's College," she said, "and these wonderful old streets and
all the church bells which strike so frequently--but I'm perfectly crazy
about Nicholas Kenyon. He is so,--so different--so witty--says such
perfectly wonderful things--and oh, my dear! _did_ you see the way he
looked at me when he said 'good-night'?"

Betty shook her head--her little golden head--her rather wise little
head. "I didn't look," she said. "The light was shining on Peter's face,
and that was good enough for me."

What Graham thought of Kenyon came out in Peter's rooms, to which he had
gone back with his brother when the family were left at the hotel after
their return from a jaunt on the river in the moonlight after
dinner,--the quiet, soothing, narrow stream on which they had floated in
punts all among cushions and listened with keen appreciation to the
throbbing song of the nightingale and the deep voice of an undergraduate
singing "Annie Laurie" in the back water to the thrumming accompaniment
of a mandolin.

Kenyon himself had gone round to the rooms of some friends of his to
play bridge, so the two brothers were able to talk undisturbed. The
night was deliciously warm and Peter's old windows, with their numerous
leaded panes, were wide open. It was eleven o'clock and the life of the
town had almost ceased, although from time to time little parties of
undergraduates passed along St. Giles and their high-spirited laughter
drifted up.

After having put cigarettes in front of his brother, Peter flung himself
full stretch upon his sofa, with a pipe between his teeth. "Now for your
news, old man!" he said. "I'm glad you like Nick. He certainly is one of
the best. What seems perfectly amazing to me is that while I'm still a
sort of schoolboy, rowing and reading, you're a full-blown man earning
your living. I'd give something to see you buzzing about Wall Street
with your head full of stocks and shares and the rise and fall of
prices. How do you do it?"

Graham ran his hand rather nervously over his mouth. "It's great!" he
said excitedly. "That's what I call life. Gee! You've no idea how
fascinating it is to gamble on the tape and get a thrill every time you
hear it tick. It's like living among earthquakes. I love it!"

"Gamble!" Peter echoed the word with a touch of fright. "Good Lord; but
you don't gamble surely? I thought you were a broker and looked after
other people's concerns!"

Graham shot out a short laugh. "Other people's concerns? Why, yes; but
we're not in Wall Street for other people. I've had the luck of the
devil lately though,--everything I've touched has gone wrong. However,
don't let's talk about that. I'm here for a holiday and a rest, and I
need 'em. I believe I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown before I
came away. When I get back I shall have to straighten things out. At the
present moment I'm out about twenty thousand dollars."

It was his young brother who said these things--the boy who two years
ago was only just out of Harvard. Peter sat up--in two senses. "You?
Twenty thousand dollars! Have you told father?"

"My God, no!" said Graham. "I shall get it all back of course;
otherwise,--Phut! As to telling father,--well--well, do you ever tell
father anything? I'd rather face electrocution than go into father's
room with such a tale. Once before--about six months ago--when I had to
meet a bill for five thousand dollars, I had a little talk with mother,
and after she had a fit she gave me a handful of her jewels to pawn. She
was afraid of father, too. Within two months I got them out again. Steel
did me very well that time; and mother,--bless her dear heart!--called
me a very clever boy, and said: 'What a brain you have, darling, but
please don't do it again!' Oh, my God, Peter! You don't know what Wall
Street means. It's hell! It's marvellous! It's life! One of these days
when a real good chance comes I'll go some plunge, and then you'll see
me living quietly in the country breeding ponies or dogs or chickens or
something, and I'll marry and settle down."

Peter got up, re-loaded his pipe, and said: "Just think of it! You're
two years younger than I am. I've not begun to live and you're in the
whirl of money and risk. In the meantime there's father so busy
experimenting with microbes that he hasn't one idea of what his boys
are doing, or are likely to do--absolutely content to let them find
their feet unaided! Well, I suppose he knows what he's doing,--but what
you've just told me makes me wonder whether it wouldn't be wise for him
to experiment a little bit with us for a change. What d'you think?"

Graham shrugged his shoulders. With the light on his face he looked
older than his brother, and there was something in his eyes which showed
that he had already gazed at life very much more closely than the big
healthy fellow who was his host. "Oh, well," he said--pouring himself
out a rather stiff whiskey--"we've never known quite what it was to have
a father,--I mean except as a sort of aloof institution, a vague person
who educated us and placed us out. I should resent his butting in now.
There's someone coming up your stairs, isn't there?"

There was. It was Kenyon, who rattled money in his trousers pocket with
a little smile at the corners of his sophisticated mouth.


V

Peter put in the time of his life during the next few days, and like the
great big simple fellow that he was, revelled in being the little hero
of his family.

From morning until night he kept them on the move, taking them to all
his favorite haunts in the town and out in the country, introducing to
them whole flocks of his friends, with whom they had tea and lunch;
guiding them into the strange quiet chapels that were filled with the
aroma of dead years like a bowl of dry rose-leaves; going with them into
the sweet, quiet, sacred, stately seclusion of New College Garden and
into the echoing cloisters of Magdalen. They were good days, memorable
days, giving them all mental pictures that even time would not blur nor
age rub out. To Peter the best of all the afternoons was the one when he
looked up at the St. John's barge as he paddled out into the river in
the College Eight and caught the eager and excited eyes of all the
people who meant so much to him, and especially those of Betty. He rowed
that afternoon as he had never rowed before, carrying with him all along
the stream the raucous shouts of the members of his college who tore
along the tow-path almost demented with enthusiasm, firing pistols,
turning rattles and screaming "St. John's! St. John's! Give her ten!
Give her ten! Up! Up!" And finally, when he staggered out of the boat
almost sick from exertion, his knees shaking under him, the thought that
came to him as he heard the incessant cries of "Good old Peter!" was
"Thank God for this! The Governor will get something back for all he has
done for me." He just waved his hand to his people, felt his way into
the barge, laid himself flat on the floor and underwent the soothing
process of being rubbed and sponged down--and all the while he smiled
and was very happy.

He didn't catch the look of maternal agony in his mother's eyes nor her
remarks--which was perhaps just as well. Seeing her great big boy
crumpled up over his oar before he was assisted out of the boat, seeing
him stand rocking like a drunken man with his great chest heaving and
his face the color of a green apple, she leaned over the rail and cried
out: "Oh, my dear, what _have_ they done to you? Oh, Hunter, you must
_not_ let him do these things, he'll kill himself! Oh, Peter, Peter!"

As a matter of fact, no one heard her. There was too much good solid
roar going on. Every lusty-throated St. John's man was shouting at the
full capacity of his lungs. Oh, but it was a good scene! And for the
quiet, studious Doctor who had sat day after day for the greater part of
his life watching bacteriological experiments, with the most intense
interest, it was one that caused his blood to move almost dangerously
through his veins and make him shout for the first time in his life.

It had a different effect upon temperamental Belle, who danced with
excitement and kept on saying, in a sort of refrain, "Oh, I'm crazy
about all this--simply crazy!" As for Graham, even the thrill of Wall
Street seemed poor to him in comparison with this stirring scene,--the
wild rush of men, the rhythmetic plunge of oars, the glorious muscular
effort and the frenzied outburst.

Betty merely smiled, clasped her hands together and held her breath. It
seemed to her that in Peter all the heroes of her youth,--Brian de Bois
Guilbert, Ivanhoe and the rest,--were epitomized in the form, the
splendid young giant form of her fellow-countryman. Above all things in
the world she wanted to lean over and put a wreath of laurels on the man
who stroked the St. John's boat to victory. As it was, she cried a
little, quietly and simply, not caring who saw her tears; and in her
heart, for a reason which she herself found unexplainable, she sang "My
Country 'tis of Thee." She had never in her life been so deeply stirred,
and who can wonder at that? There is indeed something full of
inspiration about these undergraduates' struggles on the water and the
fervent partisanship of the colleges. It is unique and splendid and
sends young men out into the world with good and beautiful memories and
with the love and loyalty for their alma mater which makes them better
able to serve the women who need them and the country to which they
belong.

And when, having changed his shorts and got once more into his flannels,
Peter went up to the roof of the barge, stinging with health and glowing
with very natural pride and satisfaction, it was the Doctor whose hand
he first took, and the Doctor who said: "My son, my dear son!" It was an
extraordinary moment for Peter, who had never in his life before felt
the indescribable barrier which existed between his father and himself
so near to crumbling.

That night, while his father and mother and Graham were taken to the
theatre by three of his fellow Rhodes scholars, to see a performance of
one of Gilbert and Sullivan's plays, Peter and Nicholas Kenyon took
Betty and Belle to the Worcester Ball, the two girls being under the
wing of the wife of one of the Dons.

It was one of those warm, clear, silver nights which the fickle climate
of England sometimes produces apparently to show what it can do when it
likes. The moon was full and the sky was bespattered with stars. The
trees on the smooth lawn round the old college flung their shadows as
though in sunlight and it was to a seat under one of these that Peter
led Betty just before midnight, having very nearly danced her off her
feet. They sat down panting a little, and laughing for no reason, and
listened for a moment to the strains of the band which drifted through
the open windows of the hall.

It was not in Peter to do anything by halves. He worked and played like
a Trojan and put his back into everything that he took up. He knew by
this time, short as it was, that he was wholly and completely in love
with the little girl, the first sight of whom had made him catch his
breath. With a peculiar kind of grimness he had made up his mind that
she was for him if he could win her, and all the previous night he had
dreamed of her as his future wife, as the girl who would stand by his
side, helpmate and everlasting lover, and for whom he would work well
and live well and carry her with him rung by rung to the top of the
ladder. He told himself when he awoke that he was a presumptuous ass
even to dream that she would care for him. What was there in him for
such a girl to care about? All the same, he set his teeth and from that
moment laid all his future plans and his hopes and ambitions and all the
best of his nature, at her little feet--and knew perfectly well that if
Betty could not love him eventually he would walk alone through life.

Odd, romantic or foolish as it may seem, when youth falls in and out of
love so easily, this was true. Peter had, with a sort of unrealized
solemnity, kept his heart free and pure. He was no trifler--he had never
philandered. Like the boy who, perhaps unduly imaginative, believes that
he will find the place where the rainbow ends, Peter said to himself:
"One day I shall find my girl. I want to go to her heart-whole and
complete."

There was nothing of sentimentality about this. It was simply the
outcome of the effect of the mother-influence upon the boy which had
become a very concrete thing. Somehow, ever since he was old enough to
remember and to think, he had looked upon his mother as his sweetheart,
and when she bent over his cot at night and asked God to bless him and
left the touch of her soft lips upon his forehead she had impressed upon
him the unconscious ambition to make another such woman the centre of
his own home. The numerous tender services, the exquisite maternal
thoughtfulness of this little mother-woman, had been built up by him
into a protection and a lode-star. Betty came--a girl in whom he
recognized at once another mother--and she just touched his heart with
her finger and walked straight in, fitting into the place which had been
kept for her like a diamond into its setting.

Poor dear old Peter! No one would have thought, who looked at him
sitting there in his big awkwardness and incoherence, that he was a man
in love, although a psychologist or even an ordinarily observant girl
could very easily have told how Betty felt.

"Topping, isn't it?" he said.

"Simply wonderful," she replied.

"Tired?"

"Not a bit."

"Pretty good floor, eh?"

"Perfectly splendid."

"Gee! I shall miss this place."

"Why, of course you will."

"All the same, I shall be mighty keen to get at things,--and begin."

"Yes, of course you will."

"How do you know?"

"Oh, that's easy."

"Is it? How?"

"Well, don't I know you?"

"Do you? I wish you did."

Up in the branches something stirred. It may have been Cupid--probably
it was.

But silence followed this conversational effort--a silence broken by a
great heaving sigh, mostly of excitement, and the strains of the band
which drifted out of the windows of the College Hall.

And over them both, as over all other men and women, young and old, at
the beginning and at the end, hung the moon and the stars.

How good it is to be young and in love!


VI

Unnoticed by Mrs. Guthrie and her two boys, there was something more
than a little pathetic in the Doctor's eager, wistful attitude toward
the rather thoughtless, high-spirited, seething youth in the middle of
which he found himself for the first time.

This man had never been young. The atmosphere of the farm on which he
had been born killed youth as foul air kills a caged bird. Poverty,
sordidness and the grim, constant struggle to live made his childhood
and early days utterly devoid of the good sweet things. His mother, worn
out and dispirited, died in giving him birth, and his father, bitter,
lonely and filled with the irony that comes from a long and unprofitable
hand-to-hand fight with mother-earth, let him bring himself up. He was
turned out to work at a time when most lads are sent to school. He had
to trudge daily into the straggling, one-eyed town, at an early hour, to
report at the chemist's store where he obtained employment as an errand
boy. Most of the small wages he earned were required by his father. From
almost the very beginning life was to him a sort of whirling stream into
which he had been flung before having been taught to swim. Mere
self-preservation demanded that he should keep himself afloat. He picked
up education as a stray dog picks up an occasional bone. There was,
however, great grit in this boy and deep down in his soul an ambition to
become something better than his father, whose daily wrestle with
nature--the most relentless of task-mistresses--had warped his character
and stultified his soul. Young Hunter shuddered at the thought of living
always on the farm, of grubbing in the earth, of planting and hoeing and
reaping, of facing the almost inevitable tragedy of spoiled crops and
ruined hopes, and the yearly set-backs of advancing freights and higher
wages. He looked with growing horror and detestation at the farm
implements among which his father spent his life; and while he ran his
errands, carrying medicines and soda syphons, he nursed a dream in his
little cold heart, which grew out of the smell of medicines and the talk
of illness that was all about him in the chemist store. It was to become
a doctor and tend the needs of humanity and, if it was in his power, to
save to other children the mothers who brought them into being.

No wonder Dr. Hunter Guthrie wore strong glasses over his short-sighted
eyes. At all times, with a sort of greed and an almost terrible
eagerness, he read every medical book on which he could lay his
hands,--in bed by the light of one candle, in the cubby-hole at the back
of the store under the glare of the unshaded electric bulb, in
trolley-cars and trains, and on the stoop of the shabby farmhouse so
long as the light lasted. Later, after his day's work, he attended night
classes, and even as he walked from the farm to the town he read.
Spending sleepless nights and living laborious days he followed the
example of many other brave and determined boys whose names gleam like
beacons in the history of their country. He worked his way through the
necessary stages until finally, after a struggle so relentless that it
nearly broke his health, he became a qualified doctor. In order to earn
the money for his courses he was at different times bell-boy in a
country hotel, an advertisement writer in a manufacturer's office, a
clerk for a real-estate man and a traveling salesman for safety razors.
His vacations were more arduous than his terms, and during these he
earned the money with which to pay his college expenses. Every step up
the ladder of innumerable rungs--which sometimes seemed to him
impossible to climb--was painful and difficult. So much concentration
was needed from the very beginning--so much condensed determination and
energy required--that at the age of twenty-five he seemed to have lived
twice that number of years. No wonder then that the all-conquering
youthfulness of all the undergraduates amongst whom he found himself at
Oxford awoke a sort of envy in his heart and startled him who had never
been young. There was no meanness, jealousy or sense of martyrism in his
feelings as he watched the kaleidoscopic picture of university
life--only a sort of wonder and amazement that there were men in the
world so lucky--so indescribably fortunate as to be able to carry
boyhood and all its joys forward to an age when he had forgotten that
such a period existed. Many times during those interesting and stirring
days he stopped suddenly and thanked his God that he had been able to do
for his own boys those things which no one had ever done for him, and
give them such a chance in life as he had never had. Actually to see
Peter, his eldest boy, proving his muscular strength and his mental
ability and moving among his fellows with such splendid popularity,
filled him with pride and gladness. Here indeed was a very concrete
evidence of his reward for that long, arduous struggle.

Like most men who have concentrated upon one thing, Dr. Guthrie was a
child when it came to others. Athleticism, of which he knew nothing,
filled him with admiration. The knack of conversation amazed him. Even
to his wife he found it difficult to talk. To force himself to confide
was almost impossible--it was like blasting a rock. One afternoon
however he got nearer to an intimate expression of his feelings than
ever before--perhaps because he was still under the influence of the
intoxication of the youthfulness all about him.

Kenyon had driven them out after tea to Shotover Hill. All the young
people had gone on to Cuddesden, leaving the doctor and his wife to sit
and look down into the valley far below in which nestled the town and
all its colleges and spires. It had been a golden day and the sun was
setting with all the dignity and pomp of early summer, making the thin
line of the Thames shine like a winding silver ribbon. There was
something of exultation over the earth that evening and of
untranslatable beauty, and the evening song of the birds was like that
of choristers in a great cathedral.

Unusual words seethed in the doctor's head. He was moved and thrilled.
The rest and the relief of leaving his work, all the bustle and stir of
the new life in which he was a temporary figure, seemed to take him
back to his own early days when, with the little woman who sat by his
side, he had stood with her in their first house, newly married.

He took his hat off, put his arm round the shoulders of that faithful
woman and kissed her cheek with a touch of passion and gratitude. "My
darling," he said, "I wish I could say properly some of the things that
I feel about you and my children and the goodness of God. There are
tears in my heart, and strange feelings. I feel oddly young and strong.
I want to laugh and cry. I'd like to pick wild flowers and make a little
crown for your head. Don't laugh at me--please don't laugh."

The little woman took his thin hand and pressed it to her cheek. "I
laugh because that is how I feel, too," she said,--"young and glad and
very happy to see my big Peter doing such wonderful things, and still a
boy. Dear old man, we have much to be thankful for! I know how you've
worked and striven,--and how fine it is to see some of the results of
it. I was a little afraid before we came here that we might find Peter
different--altered--perhaps older--but he's just the same. He's exactly
like you."

The Doctor shook his head and a sudden pain twisted his thin, studious
face. "Oh no, no," he said, "I was never like that. I wish to God I had
been. But it was to make Peter what he is that I've worked night and
day. He's my idea of a man. He's doing all the things that I'd like to
have done. He's me as I might have been if I'd had any luck--any sort
of a chance. Do I regret it? Am I jealous? No; because if I hadn't
lived such an opposite life I mightn't have desired to give my boy all
this." He waved his hand towards the spires that rose in all their
significance out of the town away below. And then, with intense
eagerness and a ring of wistfulness in his voice that brought tears to
his wife's eyes, he bent towards her. "Do you think he realizes this,
Mary? Does Graham ever stop to think how hard I've worked to put him in
Wall Street? Does Belle ever wonder what it's cost me in youth and
health to give her so much more than she needs? I'm--I'm a queer,
wordless, foolishly shy man. Old since the time they all three began to
think and use their eyes,--necessarily concentrated and aloof away in
that laboratory of mine, and--and sometimes I wonder whether my children
know me and understand and make allowances. Do they, Mary, my dear one?
Do they?"

"Yes, my man, my brave and splendid man," she replied, "they do, they
do!" And in saying this she deliberately lied,--out of her great and
steadfast love for this man of hers she lied.

No one knew so well as she did that the father of her children might
almost as well be a mere distant relation who lived in their home for
reasons of convenience and allotted money to their requirements at the
proper time. No one knew so well as she did that Hunter Guthrie's tragic
lack of childhood had dried out of his nature the power of understanding
children. Never having been a child in any sense of the word--never
having known the inexpressible joy of a mother's love--remembering
nothing but a father who was either working hard or tired out--he was
unable to conceive what his own children needed in addition to all that
they got hourly from his wife and from his own work. It had always
seemed to him that in the possession of a mother they had everything
good that God could give them. It seemed to him that his own part was
performed by providing for their needs. No man desired to be the father
of sons and daughters more than he did. No man was prouder in the
possession of them than he was and had always been. To hear the patter
of their little feet about his house sent him to his work with that
sense of religion of which Carlyle wrote. To watch them shaping from
childhood into youth was the most satisfactory and beautiful thing in
his life. To be able, year after year, to do better and still better for
them was his best and biggest reward--far greater and more glorious than
the distinction he earned for himself and the international reputation
that increased with each of his discoveries. And when, six months after
Peter had left home to go to Oxford with a Rhodes scholarship, he found
himself unexpectedly endowed to the extent of over three million dollars
under the will of a late wealthy patient, so that he might, in the old
man's own words, "devote himself, without the fret and fever of earning
a livelihood as a practitioner, to the noble and limitless work of a
bacteriologist for the benefit of suffering humanity all over the
world," it was for the sake of his children that he offered up thanks.
With what immense pride he notified the authorities at Harvard that his
son was independent of the scholarship, which was free to send another
man to Oxford. With what keen pleasure he was able to buy Graham a seat
on the Stock Exchange, bring Belle out as a debutante and send his
little Ethel to the best possible school. These things he could do, and
did, but he could not and had never been able to do for them a better
thing than all these,--win their confidence, their deep affection and
their friendship. That gift had been killed in him. It could not be
acquired, taught or purchased, and he had always been as much out of
touch with his boys and girls as though he were divided from them by a
great stone wall. It had always been with them, "Look out! Here's
father!" instead of "Hello! Here's Dad!" His entrance into their
playroom was the signal for silence. The sight of his studious face and
short-sighted eyes and distrait, shy manner chilled them and reduced
them to quietude and self-consciousness and suspicion. If he had treated
them always as human beings, played with them, sat on the floor and
built houses with their bricks, thrown open the door of his study to
them, if only for half an hour every day, so that there might be no
possibility of its becoming a Blue Room; if he had, as they grew into
the habit of thinking and observing and remembering, told them about
himself and his own boyhood and in this way inculcated a mutual
interest, a desire to respond and open out; if, before the two boys had
gone to college he had had the courage to act on the earnest advice of a
friend and speak to them on the vital question of sex, give them the
truth as he so well knew it and warn them bravely and rightly of the
inevitable pitfalls that lined their youthful path, no brick wall would
have existed and he would have been their pal as well as their
father,--a combination altogether irresistible.

As it was Hunter Guthrie's wife, who loved him deeply and devotedly and
recognized in him a great man as well as a most unselfish father, was
obliged to lie in reply to his questions. She would rather have died,
then and there, than hurt him and bring down his house about his ears.
The sad and tragic part of it all was that she knew utterly that no
good, no change could be brought about by telling the truth. It was too
late.


VII

Belle had told Betty that she was "crazy" about Nicholas Kenyon. There
is usually a wildness of exaggeration about this expression which
renders it almost harmless. The exuberant type of girl who uses it
applies it with equal thoughtlessness to a new hat, a new play or a new
set of furs. She will be crazy about a tenor and a pomeranian, a
so-called joke in a comic paper and the sermon of a fashionable
preacher. In regard to Kenyon, however, Belle was really and truly crazy
in its most accurate dictionary sense. After the Worcester Ball, during
which she gave him nearly every dance,--to the flustered concern of the
Don's wife who was her chaperon,--she went to no trouble to conceal from
Kenyon the fact that she found him vastly attractive. Kenyon was not
surprised. Already he was a complete expert in the art of making himself
loved by women. He knew exactly what they liked him to say and he said
it with a touch of insolence which took their breath away and a
following touch of deference which gave them back their self-respect.
Belle was very much to his liking. Her rather Latin beauty, which was
rendered unexplainable by the sight of her parents--her incessant high
spirits and love of life--her naive assumption that she was the mistress
of all the secrets of this world, amused, interested and tickled his
fancy. Her beauty, freshness and youth pleased him as an epicure, and he
went out of his way to be with her as much as he could. He had no
intention whatever of falling in love with her,--first of all because it
was all against his creed to fall in love with anyone but himself;
secondly, because his way of living demanded that he should have no
partner in his business,--all that he could win by his wits he would
need. Nevertheless, he was quite as ready as usual to take everything
that was given to him, and give nothing in return except flattery,
well-rounded sentences and a good deal of his personal attention.

During the week that passed so quickly he had only been able to see
Belle with her people, and when he found that this bored her as much as
it bored him, he set his brain to work to devise some plan by which he
could escape with her from the party for a few hours. Needless to say he
succeeded.

On the night before the party were to leave Oxford he arranged another
evening trip on the river, maneuvered Peter into one punt with his
father and mother, Graham and Betty, and got into another with Belle.
For some little time he poled along closely behind them, but as the
river was full of similar parties he found it easy to drop behind and
dodge deftly into a back water. Here he tied up to a branch, set himself
down on the cushions at Belle's side and lit a cigarette.

"How's that?" he asked.

Belle laughed a little excitedly. "Very clever," she said. "I wondered
how you were going to do it."

He didn't find it necessary to tell her that he had performed a similar
trick a hundred times. "Under the right sort of inspiration," he said,
"even I can develop genius. Tell me something about New York, and what
you find to do there."

"I should have to talk from now until to-morrow morning even to begin to
tell you," she said. "I only came out last winter, but the history of it
would fill a book. New York is some town and I guess a girl has a better
time there than anywhere else in the world. Why don't you come and see
something of it for yourself?"

Kenyon leaned lightly against the girl's soft shoulder. "That's
precisely what I'm going to do," he said. "Your father has given me a
cordial invitation to stay at his house, and I shall go over with Peter
in October."

"Oh, isn't that fine!" cried Belle. "You'll love the place--it's so
different."

"I'm not worrying about the place," said Kenyon. "I'm simply going for
the chance of dancing with you to the band which really does know how to
play rag-time. It'll be worth crossing three thousand miles of
unnecessary water to achieve that alone."

"I don't believe you," said Belle; but all her teeth gleamed in the
moonlight and her heart pumped a little. How wonderful it would be to
become the wife of the Honourable Nicholas Kenyon, who seemed to her to
be everything that was desirable.

Kenyon picked up her hand and just touched it with his lips. "You don't
believe it? Well, we'll see." He knew very well that if he had chosen to
do so he could have kissed her lips, but his policy was to go slow. His
epicurianism was so complete that he liked to take his enjoyment in sips
and not empty his glass at a gulp. This girl whose imagined worldliness
was so childlike was well worth all his attention. He looked forward
with absolute certainty to the hour when he should place her on his
little list of achievements; but like all collectors and connoisseurs he
added to his pleasure by winning his point gradually, step by step, with
a sort of cold-blooded passion.

Belle was accustomed to men who were a little crude in their naturalness
and who immediately voiced their admiration and their liking with boyish
spontaneity. She had strings of beaux of all ages who immediately sent
her flowers and presents and dogged her heels from dance to dance and
rang her up constantly on the telephone and generally showed their
eagerness with that lack of control which was characteristic of a
nation which had deliberately placed women in the position of queens.

Perhaps it was because this man's methods were so different that she
found him so attractive. He fed her vanity and piqued it at the same
time. He said more by saying nothing than any man had ever ventured to
do, and he retired so quickly after an amazing advance that he left her
assuming more than if he had never advanced at all. It was perfectly
natural, although she had already dipped into the fastest New York set,
that she should believe that at the end of every man's intention there
was a marriage and a sort of throne in his house. She little knew
Nicholas Kenyon. She had had the good fortune to meet men in New York,
and not collectors.

"What are your father's plans when he leaves Oxford?" asked Kenyon,
leaning a little more closely against the girl's soft shoulder.

"Why, we're going to Shakespeare's country, to the English lakes and
then to Scotland, where father's ancestors lived; and then in August we
shall go to London for a week, and go home on the _Olympic_. Why don't
you go over with us?"

"I should like nothing better," said Kenyon, "but as a matter of fact I
shall wait until Peter has got through his various engagements. He rows
at Henley in July, you know,--the boat is entered for the Lady's
Plate,--and then he comes home with me. He wants to shoot my father's
birds in August and see a little of English country life before he
settles down to his law work in America."

Belle was silent for a few moments. She wished that this wonderful week
could be extended over the whole of her holidays. She knew, and was
really a little frightened at knowing, that when she left Oxford the
next day she would leave behind her a heart that had hitherto been quite
untouched. She was amazed and even a little annoyed to find that a mere
week had brought about such a revolution in all her feelings and in her
whole outlook on life. She had meant to have a perfectly wonderful time
before falling in love.

"I suppose," she said, "that we shan't hear anything of you until we see
you again, unless,--unless you write sometimes to mother and tell her
how you are and what Peter is doing."

Kenyon didn't even smile. "Peter will write to your mother once a week,
as usual--he's very consistent--and I'll get him to put in a postscript
about me, if you like. I shall have some difficulty in preventing myself
from writing to you from time to time, although I'm a child in the art
of letter-writing."

"Why should you prevent it? I should simply love to have your letters."

"But isn't your mother a little old-fashioned?"

"Maybe," said Belle, "but does that matter? You've not met any American
girls before--that's easy to see. We do just what we like, and if our
mothers don't agree they don't dare to say so. Shall I tell you why?
Because it wouldn't make any difference if they did."

"Then I shall write," said Kenyon, "and give you brief but eloquent
descriptions of English weather, English politics and the condition of
my liver,--that is to say, the three inevitable topics of this country."

Belle laughed. "Then it will be perfectly safe for me to leave your
letters about," she said.

"Perfectly,--always supposing that you censor the postscripts."

"I'm crazy about you!" said Belle; and this time her laugh awoke the
echoes of the river and filled a nightingale near by with a pathetic
ambition to emulate its music.

And then they heard Peter's great voice shouting, "N-i-c-k!" Whereupon
Kenyon gathered himself together, not unpleased at being disturbed,
stood up gracefully and pulled back into the main stream. "The call of
duty," he said--"such is life." It was consistent with his policy to
conduct this most pleasant affair by instalments.

When he saw the other punt he asked Peter, with a touch of beautiful
petulance, why he had deliberately lost them, and turned a deaf ear to
Graham's idiotic chuckle.

The landing stage was in the shadow, which was just as well. When Kenyon
gave his hand to Belle to help her out of the punt, he drew her close
against him and with a touch of passion as unexpected as the sudden
flash of a searchlight across a dark sky left a kiss on her lips that
took her breath away.

All the way back to the hotel she hung on Peter's arm and dared not
trust herself to speak. For the first time in her young life she had
caught a glimpse of its meaning. It left her strangely moved and
thrilled.

Little Mrs. Guthrie walked back with Kenyon, very proud of the fact that
he was Peter's friend.

Poor little mother!


VIII

On the steps of the Randolph Hotel, Mrs. Guthrie turned to Kenyon and
asked him, with one of her most motherly smiles, to have some supper
with them. Telegraphing quickly to Peter and Graham that they were not
to accept the invitation, Kenyon said: "Nothing would give me greater
pleasure--absolutely nothing. Unfortunately Peter and I have already
accepted an invitation from two of our Dons and we cannot possibly get
out of this dull but profitable hour."

"How very disappointing!" said Mrs. Guthrie.

"How silly!" said Belle.

Betty merely said, "Oh!" but the rest of her sentence was condensed into
one quick look at Peter.

Peter, utterly without guile, turned round to Nicholas Kenyon in blank
amazement. "It's the first I've heard of it," he said. "What on earth do
you mean? Two of the Dons? Who are they?"

But Kenyon was an artist and a strategist, and therefore a liar. "My
dear old boy! What would you do without me? I'm your diary, your
secretary, your guide, philosopher and friend. If you've forgotten the
engagement I certainly haven't." And he shot at Peter a swift and
subtle wink, in which he included Graham.

Scenting adventure and gathering that the two Dons were in all
probability coming from the chorus of "The Pirates of Penzance," Graham
joined in quickly. "I suppose I can't come and listen humbly to the
learned conversation of these two professors?"

"But why not?" said Kenyon. "No doubt you can tell them more about Wall
Street in five minutes than they would ever learn in their lives.
Therefore, dear Mrs. Guthrie, I'm afraid we must all say 'good-night.'
We'll rejoin you in the morning for breakfast as arranged, and wind up
what's been the pleasantest week of my life, by driving out to Woodstock
for lunch."

It was all done in the most masterly manner, and when the three men left
the hotel arm in arm they were not guided by Kenyon toward St. Giles,
but to the theatre, where the curtain was just about to fall with the
last act.

"What's all this?" asked Peter, impatiently. "Mother had set her heart
upon having us to supper."

"Mother has had us all day," replied Kenyon. "Bear in mind the fact that
there are other women in the world to whom we owe a little gallantry.
You and Graham are going to eat Welsh Rabbit at the somewhat humble
rooms of my little friends, Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour."

"I'll see you damned first!" said Peter. "I've no use for these people.
Come on, Graham, let's go back."

Kenyon's face was wreathed in smiles. "It can't be done, dear lad," he
said. "Your mother would be the last person on earth to permit you to be
discourteous to our two distinguished Dons, and by this time in all
human probability Betty will be preparing for bed."

Peter had been building all his hopes on another hour with Betty. She
was leaving Oxford with his people the next afternoon and he wanted
above all things, however incoherently, to let her know something of the
state of his feelings. He had never been so angry with Kenyon before.
"Curse you!" he said. "You've spoiled everything. If you must play about
with these chorus girls why can't you do it alone? Why drag me in?"

Kenyon's eyes narrowed. "Only the angels die young, Peter, my friend,"
he said. "As I've been obliged to tell you before, you stand a pretty
good chance of an early demise. Have you ever heard the word 'priggish'?
For a whole week I've played the game by you and devoted myself, lock,
stock and barrel, to your family. Mere sportsmanship demands that you
make some slight return to me by joining my little party to-night. Don't
you agree with me, Graham?"

Graham's vanity was vastly appealed to by the fact that this perfect man
of the world had taken him into his intimacy. Hitherto he hadn't met
English chorus girls. He rather liked the idea. "Why," he said, "I can't
see why we shouldn't go. I'm with you, anyway. Come on, Peter. Be a
sport."

But Peter held his ground. He had all the more reason for so doing
because he had met Betty. "All right!" he said. "You two can do what you
jolly well like. Cut me out of it. I shall turn in. If that's being
priggish--fine. Good-night!"

He wheeled round and marched off, and as he passed beneath the windows
of the Randolph Hotel he drew up short for a moment and with a touch of
knightliness which was quite unself-conscious he bared his head beneath
the window of the room in which he believed that Betty was to sleep, but
which, as a matter of fact, harboured a short, fat, wheezy Anglo-Indian
with a head as bald as a billiard ball.

Kenyon disguised his annoyance under an air of characteristic
imperturbability. "Well, that's our Peter to the life," he said, taking
Graham's eager arm. "He's a sort of Don Quixote--a very pure and perfect
person. One of these days he's likely to come an unholy cropper, and
that's to my way of thinking what he most needs. I don't agree with a
man's being a total abstainer in anything. It narrows him and makes him
provincial. Then, too, a man who fancies himself as better than his
fellows is apt to wear a halo under his hat, and that disgusting trick
ruins friendship and leads to a hasty and ill-considered marriage with
the first good actress who catches him on the hop and makes use of his
lamentable ignorance. Come along, brother, we'll see life together."

"Fine!" said Graham. "Me for life all the time."

So these two,--the one curiously old and the other dangerously
young,--made their way to the stage door of the Theatre Royal and
waited among the little crowd of undergraduates for the moment when the
ladies of the chorus should have retouched their make-up and be ready
for further theatricalisms.

Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour were the first out. The latter's
greeting was exuberant. "What-ho, Nick! Where's the blooming giant you
said you were going to bring?"

"Otherwise engaged, dear Billy; but permit me to introduce to you a
financial magnate from the golden city of New York."

Billy was young and slim and so tight-skirted that her walk was almost
like that of a Chinese Princess. Even under the modest light of the
stage door-keeper's box her lips gleamed crimsonly and her long
eyelashes stuck out separately in black surprise. Her small round face
was plastered thickly with powder. She was very alluring to the very
young. Her friend had come from an exactly similar mould and might have
been a twin but for her manner, which was that of the violet--the modest
violet--on a river's brim.

Kenyon hailed a cab, gave the man the address in Wellington Square and
sat himself between the two girls, with an arm round each.

Billy Seymour had taken in Graham with one expert glance of minute
examination. "Graham Guthrie, eh?" she said. "It smacks of Caledonia,
bag-pipes and the braes and banks o' bonnie Doon. I take it your
ancestors went over on the S. S. Mayflower, of the White Star Line--that
gigantic vessel which followed the beckoning finger of Columbus--and
started the race which invented sky-scrapers and the cuspidors."

Graham let out a howl of laughter and told himself that he was in for a
good evening, especially as the ladies' knees were very friendly.

Lottie Lawrence placed her head on Kenyon's shoulder, sighed a little
and said: "Oh, I'm so tired and so hungry; and I've a thirst I wouldn't
sell for a tenner."

Kenyon tightened his hold. "All those things shall be remedied, little
one," he said. "Have no fear."

The first things which met their eyes when they entered the sitting-room
of the sordid little house in which a series of theatricals had lodged
from time immemorial, were a half-dozen bottles of champagne--sent in by
Nick's order. The two girls showed their appreciation for his
tactfulness in different ways. Billy fell upon one of the bottles as
though it were her long-lost sister, pressed it to her bosom and placed
a passionate kiss upon its label; while Lottie, with an eloquent
gesture, immediately handed Graham a rather battered corkscrew. "Help me
to the bubbly, boy," she said. "My throat is like a limekiln."

       *       *       *       *       *

All the clocks of the City of Spires were striking three as Kenyon and
Graham supported each other out into the quiet and deserted street.
There was much powder on Graham's coat and a patch of crimson on
Kenyon's left cheek.

"Life with a big L, Graham, my boy," said Kenyon a little thickly.

"A hell of a big L," said Graham, with a very much too loud laugh at his
feeble joke. "You certainly do know your way about."

"And most of the short cuts," said Kenyon dryly. "Presently I shall
scale the wall of St. John's, climb through the window of one of our
fellows who's about to take holy orders, and wind up the night in the
hospitable arms of Morpheus." This eventually Graham watched him do,
with infinite delight, and was still wearing a smile of
self-congratulation as he passed the door of his mother's bedroom in the
hotel and entered his own.

His father heard the heavy footsteps as they went along the passage, but
imagined that they were those of the night watchman on his rounds.

Fate is the master of irony.


IX

The following morning at eight o'clock Peter, as fit as a fiddle,
stalked into Kenyon's bedroom and flung up the blind. The sun poured in
through the open window. Innumerable sparrows twittered among the trees
in the gardens and scouts were moving energetically about the quad. From
the other windows the sounds of renewed life were coming. The great
beehive of a college was about to begin a new and strenuous day.

Kenyon was sleeping heavily with a blanket drawn about his ears. His
clothes were all over the floor and a tumbler one-fourth filled with
whiskey stood on the dressing-table among a large collection of
ivory-backed brushes, links, studs, tie-pins and other paraphernalia
which belong to men of Kenyon's type,--the bloods of Oxford. With a
chuckle, Peter dipped a large sponge in the water of the hip-bath which
had been placed ready on the floor, and throwing back the blanket
squeezed its contents all over Kenyon's well-cut face.

The effect was instantaneous. The sleeper awoke, and cursed. Peter's
howl of laughter at the sight of this pale blinking man with his
delicate blue silk pajamas all wet round the neck advertised the fact to
the whole college that he was up and about.

Kenyon got slowly out of bed. "There are fools--damned fools--and Peter
Guthrie," he said quietly. "What's the time?"

"Time for you to get up, shave and bathe, if you want to breakfast at
the Randolph. How late were you last night?"

"Haven't a notion," said Kenyon. "The first faint touch of dawn was
coming over the horizon, so far as I remember, when your little brother
watched me climb through the window of the man Rivers, upon whose
'tummie' I planted my foot. For a man who's about to enter the Church he
has an astounding vocabulary of gutter English. You look abominably fit,
old boy--the simple life, eh? Heigh-ho!--Manipulate this machine for me
while I'm doing my hair." He picked up the small black case of his
safety-razor and threw it at Peter, who caught it. Then he got into a
very beautiful silk dressing-gown, stuck his feet into a pair of
heelless red morocco slippers, and with infinite pains and accuracy made
a centre parting in his fair hair, in which there was a slight natural
curl.

From his comfortable position on the foot of the bed Peter watched his
friend shave,--a performance through which he went with characteristic
neatness. It was a very different performance from the one through which
Peter was in the habit of going. Soap flew all round this untidy man,
giving the scout much extra work in his cleaning-up process.

Kenyon didn't intend to enter into any details as to the orgy of the
night before. He knew from previous experience that Peter's sympathy was
not with him. For many reasons he desired to stand well with his friend,
especially looking to the fact that he needed an immediate loan. One or
two of his numerous creditors were pressing for part payment. So he let
the matter drop and took the opportunity to talk like a father to Peter
on another point which had grown out of the visit of his people. "Tell
me," he said, "what is precisely the state of your feelings in regard to
your sister's friend? It seems to me that you're getting a bit sloppy in
that direction. Am I right?"

"No," said Peter, "'sloppy' isn't the word."

"Oh! Well, then, what is the word? I may be able to advise you."

"I don't want your advice," said Peter. "My mind is made up."

Kenyon turned round. "Is that so? Quick work."

Peter nodded. "It's always quick when it's inevitable."

"Oho! What have we here--romance?"

"Yes; I think so," said Peter quietly.

"Who'd have thought it? Our friend Peter has met his soul-mate! Out of
the great crowd he has chosen the mother of his children. It is to
laugh!"

"Think so?" said Peter. "I don't."

Kenyon put down his razor and stood in front of the man with whom he had
lived for several years and who had now apparently come up against a big
moment in his life. It didn't suit him that Peter should be seriously in
love yet. He looked to his friend to provide him with a certain amount
of leisure in the future. His plans would all go wrong if he had to
share him with someone else. He had imagined that his friend was only
temporarily gone on this little girl whose brief entry into Oxford had
helped to make Eight's week very pleasant. It was his duty to find out
exactly how Peter stood.

"Do you mean to tell me," he asked, "that you've proposed to Betty
Townsend?"

"Not yet," said Peter, "but I'm going to this morning--that is if I have
the pluck."

"My dear fellow," said Kenyon, with a genuine earnestness, "don't do it.
I've no doubt she'll jump at you, being under the influence of this
place and seeing you as a small hero here; but take the advice of a man
who knows and bring caution to your rescue. What'll happen if you tie
yourself up to this girl? After all, you can't possibly be in love with
her--that's silly. You're under the influence of a few silver nights,
and that most dangerous of all things--propinquity. Dally with her of
course, kiss her and write her letters in which you quote the soft stuff
of the poets. That'll provide you with much quiet amusement and assist
you in the acquisition of a literary style; but, for God's sake, don't
be serious. You're too young. You've not sown your wild oats. What's the
use of taking a load of responsibility on your shoulders before you're
obliged to do so? I'm talking to you like a father, old man, and I've
the right."

"Oh yes," said Peter, "you've the right--no man better--but you and I
look at things differently. I want the responsibility of this girl. I
want someone to work for,--an impetus--an ultimate end. It may seem
idiotic to you that I know the right girl directly I see her, but all
the same it's a fact. You see my undergraduate days are almost over.
When I go home in the fall I shall start earning my living. What am I
going to work for? A home, of course, and a wife and all that that
means. If that's what you call romance, thank you, it's exactly what I
want. Do you get me?"

Kenyon shrugged his shoulders. "Then I don't see that there's anything
more to be said. Does all this mean that you're going to chuck me?
Supposing Betty accepts you? Are you going to dog her footsteps for the
rest of the summer and leave me in the cart?"

"Oh Lord, no!" said Peter.

"Thank God for small mercies! And now if you'll give me a little
elbow-room I'll have my bath."

"Right-o!" said Peter. "Buck up! Breakfast at nine o'clock."

He went out, not singing as usual but with a curious quietness and a
strange light dancing in his eyes.

Kenyon was left the sole master of that little bedroom. As he finished
dressing he marshalled his thoughts and into them entered the figure of
a certain very beautiful person who lived in a cottage on the borders of
his father's estate. Before now she had twisted young men, quite as
romantic as Peter, out of their engagements to simple little girls. He
would see that she worked her wiles on Peter. He didn't intend that his
friend should devote himself to any person except Nicholas Kenyon so
long as he could prevent it.


X

It was a rather curious meal,--this final breakfast at the Randolph
Hotel. There were several under-currents of feeling which seemed to
disturb the atmosphere like cross winds. The Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie
were genuinely sorry that the week had come to an end. It was one which
would be filled with memories. Graham would very willingly have remained
at Oxford as long as Kenyon did. He had fallen a complete victim to the
attractions of this master of psychology. He regarded him as the very
last word in expert worldliness. He paid him the highest tribute that he
considered it was possible for one man to pay another, by calling him "a
good sport," and he looked forward with enormous pleasure to the time
when he would be able to show Kenyon the night side of New York, with
which he had himself begun to be well acquainted.

As to the two girls, wonderful things had happened to both of them
during that emotional, stirring, picturesque and altogether "different"
week. It seemed almost incredible to them they had been in that old town
for so short a time, during which, however, their little plans--their
girlish point of view--had undergone absolute revolution. The
high-spirited Belle, who had hitherto gone through life with a
consistent exuberance and rather thoughtless joy, was rendered
uncharacteristically serious at the knowledge that she would not see
Nicholas Kenyon again for some months. Not for a moment did she regret
the fact that she had fallen badly in love with him. It was a new
sensation for her, and young as she was, it was the new thing that
counted. Her mind was filled with dreams. In imagination she walked from
one series of pictures into another and all were touched with
excitement, exhilaration and a sense of having won something, the
possession of which all her friends would envy her.

In going over in her mind all that Kenyon had said to her, she could
not put her finger on any actual declaration on his part; but his subtle
assumption of possession, the way in which he touched her hand and
looked at her over other people's heads with eyes which seemed to
embrace her, seemed to her to be far more satisfactory than any
conventional set of words ordinary under such circumstances. Then, too,
there was that wonderful and sudden kiss on the landing stage in the
shadow. Why, there was no doubt about it. She had, like Caesar, come and
seen and conquered. She was to be the Hon. Mrs. Nicholas Kenyon,
daughter-in-law of Lord Shropshire, of Thrapstone-Wynyates. What a
delightful surprise for father and mother, and how proud they would be
of her!

Betty knew that Peter intended to make her his wife. She knew it and was
happy. His very incoherence had been more eloquent to her than the
well-rounded sentences of all the heroes of her favorite novels, and if
he never said another word before she left, she would be satisfied. In
her heart there was the sensation of one who had come to the end of a
long road and now stood in a great wide open space on which the sun fell
warmly and with great beauty.

Not much was said by anyone, and the question of the afternoon train
which was to leave at four-thirty was consistently avoided by them all.

Breakfast over, the whole party followed Kenyon into the street, where
two cars were waiting for the trip to Woodstock. They were to lunch at
the old inn which stood beneath the gnarled branches of the oaks that
had sheltered the Round Heads and Royalists. The first car was Kenyon's
roadster, in which he placed Mrs. Guthrie, the Doctor and Graham. He had
intended that Betty should sit by his side as he drove, and that Peter
should take Belle in his two-seater. But Master Peter was too quick for
him this time. He had touched Betty on the arm and said: "You're coming
with me." And before Kenyon could frame a sentence to break up this
arrangement these two were off together with the complete disregard for
speed limits which was peculiar to the Oxford undergraduate. Kenyon had
the honesty to say about this to himself that it was well done, but all
the same he was immensely annoyed. As he drove off with Belle on the
front seat he was not, for at least a mile, a very talkative companion.
Belle put his silence down to the fact that she was going away that
afternoon.

Along St. Giles, past the burial ground, the Roman Catholic Church,
Somerville, and into the Woodstock road as far as the Radcliffe
Infirmary, Peter kept the lead, and then the big car overtook him and
left him behind. Graham waved his hand and shouted something which Peter
didn't catch. It was probably facetious. As far as Wolvercote Peter kept
in touch with the car in front, when he began to fall gradually behind.
He had a plan in the back of his head.

The morning seemed to suit all that he had to say, if he found himself
able to say it. The earth was warm with the sun. The hedges and trees
were still in the first fresh vigor of early summer. Everywhere birds
sang and were busy with their young.

Peter pulled up short at the edge of a spinney. "Let's get out of
here," he said, "I want to show you a corking little bit of country."
And Betty obeyed without a word. She rather liked being ordered about by
this big square-shouldered person.

They didn't go far,--hardly, in fact, fifty yards from the car,--and
when they came to a small opening among the beeches where bracken grew
and "bread and cheese" covered the soft turf with their little yellow
heads, Peter said: "Sit down; I want to speak to you."

And again Betty obeyed without a word. It was coming--she knew that it
was coming--and the only thing she was afraid about was that Peter would
hear the quick beat of her heart.

He laid himself full stretch at her feet, threw off his cap and ran his
fingers through his hair. "You know this place," he said.

"I? No, I've never been here before."

"Yes, you have. You've been here with your friends. They come out every
night from the first of May until the first of October. Can't you see
the marks their feet have made as they danced here in the ring? It's
awfully queer. This is the first place I came to after I got to
Oxford--all the leaves were red--and I sat here one afternoon alone and
wondered how long it would be before I should look up and see you. I've
often come here since, winter and summer, and listened for sticks to
crackle as you came along through the trees to find me. Why don't you
laugh?"

"Why should I?"

"I knew you wouldn't. If you had it wouldn't have been you."

He turned himself round on to his elbows and looked up at her, and
remained looking and looking. And Betty looked back. Her heart was
beating so loudly that it seemed to her that someone was whacking a
carpet somewhere with a stick. She wondered whether she would be able to
hear Peter when he spoke again,--if ever he did.

And Peter said: "I'm going to begin to be a man exactly five months from
to-day. That is to say, I'm going into a law office in New York to make
a beginning. I'm going to work like the dickens. Do you know why?"

Betty shook her head and then nodded. He was a long time coming to the
point. If he wasn't quick she'd simply have to scream. Her heart was up
in her throat--it was most uncomfortable.

Peter went on. Somehow words came easy to him. The earth was so friendly
and so motherly and so very kind, and after all this was his spot and
she was there at last. "I forget the number of the house," he said, "but
up on the eighth floor of it, facing south, there's a most corking
apartment. The rooms are large and can be filled with big furniture and
enormous book-cases. I'm going to work to get that. I don't know how
long it'll take, but I'm going to ask you to help me to get it. Will
you?"

Betty nodded again. Someone was beating the carpet in a most violent
manner.

Peter, without another word, sprang up, put two large strong hands
under Betty's elbows and set her on her feet. She came up to the top
button of his coat and he held her there tight and it hurt her cheek.
But oh, how fine and broad the chest was behind it and how good it was
to nestle there. She heard him say much that she forgot then, but
remembered afterwards--simple boyish things expressed with deep
sincerity and a sort of throb--outpourings of pent-up feelings--not in
the very least incoherent, but all definite and very good. And there
they stayed for what appeared to be a long time. The man with the carpet
had gone away, but without looking up Betty knew that there were
hundreds of little people dancing around them in the ring and the little
clearing full of the yellow heads of wild flowers seemed to have become
that great open space and out of it, between an avenue of old trees,
stretched the wide road which led to,--the word was the only one in the
song that filled her brain,--motherhood! Motherhood!

A rabbit ran past them frightened, and Betty sprang away. "Peter! What
will the others say?"

Peter shook himself and his great laugh awoke the echoes of the woods.
"I don't care what anybody says," he answered. "Do you?"

"Yes. Let's go. We shall be late for lunch."

And Peter picked her up, carried her to the car, kissed her, put her in,
and drove away.


XI

Peter and Kenyon left the station arm in arm. They had watched the train
round the corner and disappear. Many hands had waved to the crowd of
undergraduates who had come to see their people and friends off. Peter
had stood bareheaded with his hand still tingling with the touch of
Betty's.

They walked slowly back to college, each busy with his thoughts.
Exultation filled Peter's mind. Kenyon was wondering how much he could
touch Peter for. In the procession of returning undergraduates they made
their way under the railway bridge and along the sun-bathed but rather
slummy cobblestone road over which the tram-cars ran. They passed the
row of little red brick houses--most of which were shops--and the
factory, stammering smoke, and turned into the back way which led by a
short cut to Worcester.

Oxford had resumed her normal atmosphere. Fathers and mothers, uncles,
guardians, brothers, sisters and cousins, who had all descended upon the
town, had departed. No longer were the old winding streets set alight by
the many colored frocks of pretty girls, nor were they any longer
stirred into a temporary bustle by the great influx of motor-cars.
Undergraduates held possession once more and with their peculiar
adaptability were making hasty preparations for the long vacation.

Peter led the way to his sitter, loaded his inevitable pipe, and sat in
the sun on the sill of the open window. With fastidious care Kenyon
stuck a cigarette into a long meerschaum holder and laid himself down on
the settee. He had worked very hard during the week and had very much
more than carried out his promise to Peter to make himself pleasant. The
moment had come when he might certainly lead the way up to his reward.

Peter took the words out of his friend's mouth. "What d'you think?" he
said. "When I was saying good-bye to the Governor on the platform he
took me aside and gave me a cheque. He did it in his curious apologetic
way which always makes me feel that he's someone else's father, and
said: 'I think this will see you through for a month or two.' Gee! It's
some cheque, Nick! I don't think I shall have to touch the old man down
for another bob until I have to book my passage. His generosity leaves
me wordless. I wish to God I'd been able to say something nice. As it
was, I had to tell mother to thank him for me." He went over to his
desk, fished out a cheque-book, sat down and made one out in his large
round boyish handwriting.

Kenyon watched him intently. He hoped that it might be for himself and
for fifty sovereigns. That amount, carefully split up, would keep some
of his more pressing tradesmen quiet for a short time.

"Is this any good to you, old man?" said Peter. He dropped the cheque on
to Kenyon's immaculate waistcoat. It was for a hundred pounds.

The master parasite was taken by surprise almost for the first time in
his life and he was sincerely touched by this generosity. "My dear old
Peter! This is really devilish kind of you! I'm exceedingly grateful. My
exit from Oxford can now be made with a certain amount of dignity. I'll
add this amount to your other advances, and you must trust in God and my
luck at cards to get it back."

"Oh, that's all right," said Peter. "You'd have done the same for me.
What's the good of friendship anyway if a man can't share his bonuses
with a pal? Well, well! There goes another Commem:--the last of them for
us. Everything seems awfully flat here without,--without my people. What
d'you think of the Governor?"

Kenyon folded the cheque neatly and slipped it into a small leather case
upon which his crest was embossed in gold. It was one of the numerous
nice things for which he owed. "Your father," he said, "is a very
considerable man. I made a careful study of him and I've come to the
conclusion that all he needs from you and Graham is human treatment. If
he were my father I should buy a metaphorical chisel and an easily
manipulated hammer and chip off all his shyness bit by bit as though it
were concrete. Properly managed there's enough in Dr. Guthrie to keep
you in comfort for the rest of your life without doing a stroke of work.
What age is he--somewhere about fifty-three I suppose? In all human
probability he is good--barring accidents--for another fifteen years or
so. Then, duly mourned, and, I take it, considerably paragraphed in your
newspapers, he will go to his long rest and you will come into your
own. With even quite ordinary diplomacy you can use those fifteen years
to considerable advantage to yourself,--dallying gently with life and
adding considerably to your experience, making your headquarters at his
house. You can do the semblance of work in order to satisfy his rather
puritanical notion,--but I can't see that there'll be any need for you
to sweat. For instance, become a poet--that's easy. There are stacks of
sonneteers whom you could imitate. Or you could call yourself a literary
man and do nothing more than establish a sanctum-sanctorum in which to
keep a neat pile of well-bound manuscript books and acquire a library.
If I were you I should adopt the latter course--it sounds well. It'll
satisfy the old man and all the while you're not writing the great book
he'll pat himself on the back and congratulate himself on having had you
properly educated. During all this time you can draw from him a very
nice yearly income, and then make your splash when nature has laid her
relentless hand upon the old man's shoulder."

There was a moment's pause, during which Peter looked very curiously at
the graceful indolent man who lay upon his settee. "If I didn't know
that you were talking for effect," he said, "I should take you by the
scruff of your neck and the seat of your breeches and hurl you
down-stairs. I know you better than to believe that you are the
cold-blooded brute that you make yourself out to be. Anyhow, we'll not
discuss the matter. The one useful thing you have said--and on which I
shall try to act--is that Graham and I must try to be more human with
the Governor. He deserves it. What's the program?"

"For me," said Kenyon, "dinner with Lascelles and bridge to the early
hours. With good cards and a fairly good partner I shall hope to make a
bit. What are you going to do?"

"I shall dine in Hall," said Peter, "and then go out for a walk."

"I see." Kenyon got up, filled his cigarette case from Peter's box and
stood with his back to the mantel-piece. "You proposed to Betty to-day,
didn't you?"

"How the deuce did you know that?"

Kenyon laughed. "My dear fellow," he said, "everybody knows that. You
exuded romance when you arrived late at the Inn. The very waiter guessed
it, and was so stirred, being Swiss, that he very nearly poured the soup
down your mother's neck. And when your mother looked at you I saw
something come into her eyes which showed me that she knew she had lost
you. I wouldn't be a mother if you paid me!" And then he held out his
hand with that charm of which he was past-master. "'Friend that sticketh
closer than a brother,' three years; dashed bit of a slip of a girl, one
week,--and where's your friend? Well, good luck, Peter! She's a nice
little thing. Dream your dreams, old boy, but don't altogether forget
the man who's been through Oxford with you."

Peter grasped the hand warmly. "Don't be an ass!" he said. "Go and brush
your back hair. It's all sticking up."

And when he was alone, except for a golden patch of evening sun which
had found its way through his window and had spilt itself on his carpet,
Peter pulled out a little white glove from his pocket and kissed it.

"O God!" he said. "Help me to become a man."


XII

No one knew, because no one was told, of the many hours of grief which
little Mrs. Guthrie endured after she left Oxford. There were two
reasons for this grief. One, the inevitable realization that the time
had come for some other woman to take her place with her son. She
remained his mother, but she was no longer first. The other, that Peter
had not told her about Betty at once and had left it for her to find
out, as the others did. And this hurt badly. He had always been in the
habit of telling her everything,--first at her knee, then as he stood on
a level with her, and finally when he looked down upon her from his
great height. Every one of his numerous letters written while he was so
far away from home contained the outpourings of his soul--his troubles,
difficulties, triumphs, wonderings and short incoherent cries for help.
As Kenyon said, she had only to look at him once when he marched into
the Old Inn at Woodstock with Betty to know that she had lost him. She
waited for him that afternoon to tell her,--but he never spoke. Even as
he put her into the train she hoped that he would remember, but he
didn't. That wasn't like her Peter, she told herself again and again.
What was she to think but that it only needed one short week and a very
pretty face to make him forget all the long years of her love and
tenderness. It was very, very hard.

It is true that for the remainder of their holiday, during which, with
her husband, Graham, Belle, and Betty, Mrs. Guthrie went from one
charming place to another, seeing shrines and looking down from famous
heights on garden-like valleys of English country, Peter's letters came
as regularly as usual. They were no shorter and no less intimate; and in
the first one that she received, the day after leaving Oxford, he told
her his great news,--but he hadn't spoken of it--he hadn't come to her
at once, and she felt with a great shock of pain that she was deposed.
Also she was well aware of the fact that the same posts which brought
her letters brought letters to Betty--and she was jealous.

Uttering no word of complaint, even to the Doctor, little Mrs. Guthrie
nursed her sorrow and went out of her way to be very nice to Betty. Her
mother-instinct told her that she must win this girl; otherwise there
was a chance that she might in the future see very little of Peter. In
all this she had one small triumph, of which she made the most. Her
letters from Peter contained more news than those written to Betty, and
thus she was able to score a little over the girl. With an air of great
superiority, very natural under the circumstances, she told Betty and
the others the manner in which Peter had gone down from Oxford; of the
dinner that was given to him by the American Club,--a great evening,
during which he was presented with a silver cigarette box covered with
signatures,--of the farewell luncheon with his professors and the
delightful things that they said to him there; of his strenuous doings
at Henley, the stern training, the race itself in which his boat was
beaten; of the wild night on the Vanderbilt barge; of the few cheery
days spent in London with a bunch of the Rhodesmen; and finally his
preparations for his visit to Thrapstone-Wynyates, in Shropshire, the
famous old Tudor House of Kenyon's father.

Three times during these pleasant weeks Peter ran down to see,--not her,
but Betty, and went out with her with his face alight and then hurried
back to his engagements, having given her, his mother, who loved him so,
several hugs and a few incoherent words. It was the way of life, youth
to youth, but it was very hard.

On the afternoon of the fifth of August, when the party crossed the
gangplank at Southampton to go aboard the _Olympic_, little Mrs. Guthrie
told herself that in a few minutes she would see Peter's great form
elbowing through the crowd, although he had not said that he would be
there to say good-bye. She almost hoped that something might prevent him
from being in time, because she knew that he would not come solely to
hold her in his arms, but for another reason. Nothing, however, did
prevent him. He followed them almost instantly on board; and although he
never left her side, he surreptitiously held Betty's hand all the time.

A smile of unusual bitterness crept all about the little woman's heart.
It was very hard. He was her boy--her son--her first-born and the apple
of her eye. She had come up for the first time to one of the rudest
awakenings that a mother can ever know. And presently when the cry, "All
ashore that's going ashore!" went up and Peter put both his big arms
about her and said, "Good-bye, mummie, darling, I shall come home soon,"
she broke into such a fit of weeping and kissed him with a passion so
great that the boy was startled and a little frightened. There was no
time to think or ask questions. There was his father's hand to shake,
and Graham's, and Belle to kiss. There was also Betty, and she was
suddenly hugged before them all.

As the big liner sent out its raucous note of departure and moved away
from the dock the little mother was unable to see the bare head of her
boy above the heads of the great crowd. Her eyes were blinded. "He
doesn't understand," she said to herself. "He doesn't understand."

Poor little mother! It was very hard.


XIII

The cottage on the borders of Lord Shropshire's park was just as pretty
and just as small as the little lady who lived there. It was
appropriately called "The Nest," although there was no male bird in it
and it was devoid of young ones; but Mrs. Randolph Lennox was so like a
bird, with her trilly soprano voice, her quick dartings here and there
and the peculiar way she had of getting all a-flutter when people
called, that the name of her charming little place--first given by
Kenyon--stuck, and was generally used.

It was perched up on high ground overlooking the gardens of the old
Tudor House,--those wonderful Italian gardens in which Charles II had
dallied with his mistresses on his return from his long, heart-breaking
and hungry exile. It was tree-surrounded and creepers grew up its old
walls to its thickly thatched roof. For many years it had been occupied
by the agent of the estate, until--so it was said--it was won by Mrs.
Lennox from the present Lord Shropshire as the result of a bet.

No one had ever seen Randolph Lennox and many people didn't believe that
he was anything more than a myth; but the little woman gave herself out
as the widow of this man and was accepted as such. Her income was small,
but not so small as to preclude her from playing bridge for fairly large
stakes, dressing exquisitely, riding to the hounds and keeping an
extremely efficient menage, consisting of two maid servants and an
elderly gardener. It enabled her also to spend May and June in London
yearly at a little hotel in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, from which
utterly correct little house she was taken nightly to dinner and to the
theatre by one or other of the numerous young men who formed her
entourage. Never taken actually into the heart of London society, she
managed with quiet skill to attach herself to its rather long limbs,
and her name was frequently to be found in the columns of society papers
as having been seen in a creation by Paquin or Macinka at Ranalagh or
Hurlingham, the opera, or lunching at the Ritz.

At one time the tongue of rumor had been very busy about Mrs. Randolph
Lennox,--"Baby" Lennox as she was commonly called. It was said that she
had been lifted out of the chorus of the Gaiety at the age of nineteen
by His Serene Highness, the Prince of Booch-Kehah; that she had passed
under the control of Captain Harry Waterloo, and eventually, before
disappearing for a time, figured in the Divorce Court as a
correspondent. The tongue of rumor is, however, in the mouth of Ananias,
and as Baby Lennox never spoke of herself except, a little sadly, as a
woman whose brief married life was an unfortunate memory, her past
remained a mystery and people were obliged to accept her for her present
and her future. She was so small--so golden-haired--so large eyed--so
fresh and young and dainty--so consistently charming and birdlike--that
she was the Mecca of very young men. With the beautiful trustfulness of
the male young they believed in her, and over and over again she could
have changed her name to others which were equally euphonious and which,
unlike her own, could be discovered in the Red Book. But as there was no
money attached to them she continued to remain a young and interesting
widow and to live in the little cottage on the hill and to pop in and
out of the Shropshire house as the most popular member of its
kaleidoscopic parties.

Whether there was any truth in the story that the present Lord
Shropshire was related to her in a fatherly way no one will ever know,
except perhaps Nicholas Kenyon, who in his treatment of her was
uncharacteristically brotherly. These two, at any rate, had no secrets
from each other and both regarded life from the same peculiar angle. As
parasites they had everything in common and they assisted each other and
played into each other's hands with a loyalty that was praiseworthy even
under these circumstances.

Nicholas Kenyon's mother--a very large, handsome woman with brilliant
teeth and amazing good-nature, who, even when in the best of health,
never finished dressing till four o'clock in the afternoon and then
never put much on--was undergoing a rest-cure in the west wing of
Thrapstone-Wynyates when the boys arrived for the shooting. For nearly a
year she had been playing auction every night until the very small hours
and had, while in a nervous condition, stumbled across an emotional
pamphlet written by a Welsh revivalist, which sent her straight to bed.
She was really greatly shaken by it and perhaps a little bit frightened.
It did not mince words about the future of women of her type, and she
was shocked. Heaven seemed to her to be a place into which she had the
same inherited right to walk as the Royal Enclosure at Ascot; but this
vehement little book put a widely different point of view before her.
Therefore it happened that the first woman to whom Peter was introduced
was the little widow, "Baby" Lennox, who was acting as hostess.

Two evenings before she met Peter she had received a letter from Kenyon,
which ran as follows:

    Carlton Hotel,
    Dear Old Girl:
     I shall turn up at home on Thursday in time for tea. I hear
     that mother is enjoying herself in the throes of some very
     pleasant imaginary complaint of sorts and has retired to the
     solitude of the west wing. After a busy season she no doubt
     wishes to read Wells' new novel of socialism and seduction and
     the latest Masefield poems, which always remind me of the
     ramblings of rum-soaked sailors in a Portsmouth pub. I, for
     one, shall miss her florid and inaccurate presence and the
     deliciously flagrant way in which she cheats at Bridge; but if
     father has gathered round him an August house-party on his
     usual lines, I look forward to a cheery time,--dog eating dog,
     if I may put it like that. I am bringing with me the man with
     whom I have shared rooms at Oxford,--Peter Guthrie. He's the
     American of whom I have spoken to you before. I am especially
     anxious for him to meet you, because, while under the hypnotic
     influence of Oxford in all the beauty of late spring, he has
     been fool enough to get himself engaged. Now, not only is
     Guthrie very useful to me, having a wealthy father and being
     himself a generous soul, but I am going to New York with him in
     October to see if that city can be made to render up some of
     its unlimited dollars, and I don't want him to be hanging,
     booby-eyed, at the heels of a girl until such time as I have
     found my feet. You have a wonderful way with the very young and
     unsophisticated and I shall really be enormously obliged if you
     will work your never-failing wiles on my most useful friend and
     draw his at present infatuated mind away from the nice,
     harmless little girl who has just sailed. Fasten on him, my
     dear, and make him attach himself to you for the remainder of
     our holiday. Go as far as you dare or care,--the farther the
     better for my sake and eventually for his own. He is one of
     those admirable, simple, big, virgin men to whom women are a
     wonderful mystery. At present he has refused even to look
     through a glass, darkly, at that pleasant and compensating side
     of life, and he needs to be brought down from his self-made
     pedestal. It will do him good and me a service. Honestly, I
     find it more than a little trying to be in such close
     association with an Archangel. Turn your innocent blue eyes on
     him, Baby dear, and teach him things and, above all, get him
     out of this silly, sentimental tangle of his. Incidentally, he
     has money and can procure more and I feel sure that you will
     not find him a waste of your good efforts. He is a splendid
     specimen of what my particular Don was wont to call 'young
     manhood,' and when he plays ragtime he puts the Savoy, or, for
     the matter of that, any other English orchestra into a little
     round hole.
                                                 Yours ever,
                                                           N. K.

Quite unconscious of this scheme, Peter fell into the light-heartedness
of this beautiful old house with his usual gusto. To his unsuspicious
eyes Baby Lennox was quite the most charming woman he had ever met.

He was delighted, a little surprised and even a little jealous at the
relations which existed between Kenyon and his father. He was quick to
notice that they treated each other more like pals or brothers, than
father and son, were entirely open and frank with each other, walked
about arm in arm, played tennis and billiards together and often spent
hours in each other's society, laughing and talking. He noticed, too,
that Kenyon always called his father "Tops," a name which had grown into
daily use from the time when, as a tiny lad just able to talk, the
things that most caught his fancy were Lord Shropshire's riding-boots,
in which he seemed to live, being mostly on horseback. "Nicko" was what
his father called Kenyon,--that and old man or old boy. He wished most
deeply that he and his own father were on such good terms.

If Peter had heard the sort of things these two talked about and
confided to each other, his surprise would have elaborated into
amazement. The elder man took infinite pleasure in telling the one who
was so complete a chip off the same block the most minute details of his
love affairs during the time that he was at Sandhurst for his army
training, while he was in a crack Cavalry regiment and while he knocked
about London and Paris and Vienna before and after his marriage. Also he
revelled in relating his racing and gambling experiences, describing the
more shady episodes with witty phrases and a touch of satire that was
highly entertaining to the younger man. They both agreed, with a
paradoxical sort of honesty, deliberately and inherently, that they were
not straight and accepted each other as such, and the father used
frequently to speculate from which of his dull, responsible and worthy
ancestors he acquired the tendency. It was certainly not from the late
Lord Shropshire, whose brilliant work as a Cabinet Minister in several
Governments and as one of the most valued advisers of Queen Victoria
had placed his name permanently in the annals of his country. "We get it
from one of the women of the family, I suspect, Nicko," he had a way of
saying, after a more than usually excellent dinner. "A dear, pretty
creature who lived a double life with delightful finesse--the great lady
and the human woman by turns. What d'you think, old boy? At any rate,
you and I make no pretences and, 'pon my soul! I don't know which of us
is the better exponent in the delicate and difficult art of sleight of
hand. I wish I were going to America with you. I fancy that we should
make in double harness enough to enable us to retire from the game and
live like little gentlemen. As it is, you'll do very well, I've no
doubt. From what I hear, the country reeks with wealthy young men
waiting to be touched by an expert such as you are. Do some good work,
old fellow, and when you come back you shall lend me a portion of your
earnings, eh?"

They were a strange couple, these two, capable, outwardly charming and
cut out for a very different way of life but for the regrettable
possession of a kink which caused them to become harpies and turn the
weaknesses of unsuspicion of human nature to their own advantage. Some
psychologists might have gone out of their way to find excuses for these
men and endeavor to prove that they would both have run straight but for
the fact that they were always pushed for money. They would, however,
have been wrong. Just as some men are born orators, some with mechanical
and creative genius and some with the gift of leadership, these two men
were born crooked, and under no conditions, even the most favorable,
could they have played any game according to the rules.

The men of the party were all excellent sportsmen and good fellows, and
the women more than usually delightful representatives of English
society. As a matter of fact, the men were all,--like Kenyon's
father,--living on their wits and just avoiding criminal prosecution by
the eighth of an inch. They called themselves racing men, which,
translated into cold English, means that they were people of no
ostensible means of livelihood, who attended every race meeting and
backed horses on credit, taking their winnings and owing their losses
until chased by crook solicitors. They all bore names well known in
English history. They had all passed through the best schools and either
Oxford, Cambridge or Sandhurst. One or two of them were still in the
army. One had been requested to resign from the navy, the King having no
further use for his services, and one was a Member of Parliament, having
previously been hammered in the other house,--that is to say the Stock
Exchange. The women of the party were either wives of these men or not,
as the case may be. At any rate they were good to look at, amusing to
talk to, and apparently without a care in the world. And if Lord
Shropshire, in welcoming Peter to his famous house, had said, like the
spider to the fly, "Come into my parlor so that whatever you have about
you may be sucked dry by us," he would have been strictly truthful.
Several other such men as Peter had gone into that web sound and whole,
but they had come out again with many things to regret and forget.

Who could say whether Peter would escape?


XIV

Peter had, as he duly reported to his mother and to Betty, a corking
time at Thrapstone-Wynyates.

Although an open-air man, an athlete, whose reading had always been
confined to those books only that were necessary to his work,--dry law
books for the most part,--Peter was far from being insensible to the
mellow beauty of the house, and his imagination, uncultivated so far as
any training in art or architecture went, was subconsciously stirred by
the knowledge that its floors and stone walks and galleries were worn by
the feet of a long line of men and women whose loves and passions and
hatreds had been worked out there and whose ghostly forms in all the
picturesque trappings of several centuries haunted its echoing Hall and
looked down from its walls, from their places in gold frames, upon its
present occupants.

The atmosphere of Oxford, and especially of his own college, had often
spun his thoughts from rowing and other strenuous, splendid, vital
things, to the great silent army of dead men whose shouts had rung
through the quad and whose rushing feet had gone under the old gate. But
this house, standing bravely and with an indescribable sense of
responsibility as one of the few rear-guards of those great days of
chivalry and gallant fighting for heroic causes, moved him differently.
Here women had been and their perfume seemed to hang to the tapestries,
and the influence of their hands that could no longer touch was
everywhere apparent. Often Peter drew up short, on his way up the wide
staircase, to listen for the click of high heels, the tinkle of a spinet
and the rattle of dice. Everywhere he went he had a queer but not
unpleasant sense of never being alone, just as most men have who walk
along the cloisters of a cathedral whose vast array of empty prie-dieus
have felt the knees of many generations and in whose lofty roof there is
collected the voices of an unnumberable choir.

Up early enough to find the dew still wet on flowers and turf he enjoyed
a swim every morning in the Italian bathing pool beneath the Cedar trees
with Baby Lennox. Then he either went for a gallop, before breakfast, on
one of Lord Shropshire's ponies--again with Baby Lennox--or had a round
of golf with her on the workmanlike nine-hole course which had been laid
out in the park. She played a neat game, driving straight, approaching
deftly and putting like a book,--frequently beating him.

The picture of this very pretty little person as she stood on the edge
of the bathing pool that first morning was, as she intended it to be,
indescribably attractive. She came from her room in a white kimono
worked with the beautiful designs which only the Chinese can achieve.
Her golden hair was closely covered by a tight-fitting bathing cap of
geranium red, most becoming to her white skin. "Mr. Peter!" she called
out. "I can't swim a bit, so you must look after me like--like a
brother." And then, as though to show how silly that word was, she flung
off the wrap and stood, all slim and sweet, in blue silk tights cut low
at the neck and high above her little round white knees. Peter thought,
with a kind of boyish gasp, that she looked like a most alluring drawing
on the cover of a magazine. With an irresistible simplicity and utter
lack of self-consciousness she stood, balanced on the edge of the pool,
with the sun embracing her, in a diving attitude, in no hurry to take
her dip. And when Peter, suddenly seized with the notion that he might
be looking at her too intently, dived in, she gave a little cry of joy
and dismay and jumped in after him. "You must hold me, you must hold me,
or I shall go under!" she cried, and he swam with her to the steps. In
reality she swam like a frog, but her beautiful assumption of inability
and her pluck in jumping into deep water again and again to be taken
possession of by him, filled him with admiration at her courage. With
her tights wet and clinging and the water glistening on her white flesh
she assured herself that she deserved admiration, having carefully
calculated her effect. Practice makes perfect, and the very young are
always alike.

The first morning on which she appeared in riding kit she again made a
charming picture. She always rode astride, but few women would have
ventured to wear such thin and such close-fitting white breeches. Her
coat, cut like a man's, was of white drill. Her stock was white and her
hat, with a wide flat brim was of white straw, but her boots were as
black and shiny as the back of a crow. "Your hand, Mr. Peter," she said,
raising her little foot for the spring,--it was "Mr. Peter"
still,--"what a gorgeous morning for a gallop." And for a moment she
leaned warmly against his shoulder. Yes, she was quite pleased with the
effect. Peter's face was flushed as they started off together.

When they golfed she had a delightful way of making her conversation
from green to green into a sort of serial. With her head hatless, her
short Irish homespun skirt displaying much blue stocking which exactly
matched her silk sweater and her large befringed eyes, she made a
fascinating opponent and companion. "No wonder you loved Oxford and all
that it gave you. Quite a little tee, please. Thanks. To a man with any
imagination--" A settle, a swing, a nice straight ball and silence while
Peter beat his ball pressing for all he was worth; the picking up of the
two bags and on side by side. "A man with any imagination must feel the
beauty and underlying meaning of that inspiring atmosphere,--as of
course you did. You, I can see, are highly susceptible to everything
that is beautiful. You, I think, of all men, you who have managed to
remain,--I'm sure I don't know how!--so unspoiled, will always remember
and feel the influence of your college. A cleek, I think, don't you? No?
A brassie? Just as you say." And so she would continue chatting merrily
away all round, but always keen on her game and doing her best to do it
credit, letting out nice little bits of flattery with so naive an air
and with such frankly appreciative glances, that poor old Peter's
vanity, hitherto absolutely dormant, began to bud, like new leaves in
April.

It must be remembered that Peter was a rowing man. Always, except when
out with the guns, he was with Baby Lennox. They were inseparable from
the first day of his visit. Even in the evening they hunted in couples,
because she was sick of Bridge, she said, and he gave out that he knew
nothing at all about any card games and had no desire to learn. After
being frequently pressed to cut in by Courthope, Pulsford, Fountain and
the other men who could not bear to see him with an unscathed
cheque-book, and tempted again and again by their well-groomed and
delightfully friendly wives to try a hand, Peter was left alone. They
were annoyed and irritated but they found that when Peter said "No" he
didn't mean "Yes," like so many of the other young men whose weakness
formed the greater part of these people's income; and so they very
quickly gave him up to Baby Lennox, were obliged to be satisfied with
his jovial piano-playing and make up for lost time with the inevitable
members of the _nouveau riches_ who lived near by and were only too glad
to pay for the privilege of dining at Thrapstone-Wynyates in the odour
of titles.

The nights being warm and windless, Peter sat out on the moon-bathed
terrace with Baby Lennox listening to her girlish prattle and thinking
how particularly charming she looked with the soft light on her golden
hair and white arms and dainty foot. Sometimes, suddenly, her merry
words would give place to sad ones, and Peter's simple, honest heart
would be touched by her artistic and mythical glimpses of the unhappy
side of her life.

"Oh, Peter, Peter!" she said one night, unconsciously showing almost a
yard of leg in a black lace stocking patterned with butterflies. "I
wish, oh, how I wish that I'd been born like you, under a lucky star!
I've always been in a smart and rather careless set and I've never
really had time to see visions and walk in the garden of my soul." She
spoke in capital letters. "If I'd met you when I was a little young
thing you might have become my gardener to pluck the weeds out of my
paths, and train the flowers of my mind. You might have planted seeds so
sweet that in my best and most devout hours their blooms would have
filled my thoughts with scent. Oh dear me, the might have beens,--how
sad they are! But, in one thing at least I can take joy,--I'm all the
better for knowing you, dear big Peter."

But these graver interludes never lasted long. Mrs. Lennox was far too
clever for that. She would break the monotony of conversation by walking
with her little hand on the boy's strong arm, or by dancing with him to
the music of a gramophone placed in the open window of the morning room.
How close she clung to him then and how sweet she was to hold!

And then, she would say, with a wonderful throb in her voice. "Oh,
Peter, Peter! Isn't life wonderful--isn't it just the most wonderful and
thrilling thing that is given to us? Listen to the stars--there's love
in their song! Listen to the nightingale--love, all love! Listen to the
whisper of the breeze! Can't you hear it tell us to love and touch and
taste all the sweets that are given us to enjoy? Oh, Peter, Peter!
Listen, listen,--and live!"

In her picturesque and slangy way she announced to Kenyon, as soon as
three days after the commencement of the house-party, that she "had got
Peter well hooked." It was not, however, an accurate statement. It is
true that Peter's vanity had been appealed to. Whose wouldn't have been?
This attractive young thing was hostess. She was far and away prettier,
younger, more alluring and more complex than any other woman in the
party. And yet she had made a favorite of Peter at once and showed a
frank pleasure in being with him at all possible times. He had hardly
spoken for longer than an hour with her before she had said, in the
middle of his description of the Henley week, "I _must_ call you Mr.
Peter, I _must_. May I?" She sent him little notes, too, charming,
spontaneous little notes, to say "Good-night," and how greatly she had
enjoyed the evening, or the swim, or the round of golf, beginning "Dear
Big Man" and ending,--at first without a signature, and eventually with
"Baby." At the beginning they were brought in by the man, or placed on
the dressing-table against a bowl of flowers. Then they were thrust
under his door by her after he had gone up to his room, or thrown
through his open window from the narrow balcony that ran round the
house. Her room was next to his. She had seen to that. In a hundred
unexpected and appealing ways she had set out to prove to him that they
were indeed, as she had said they were, "very, very close friends."

Now, Peter had never been a woman's man. To him women and their ways
were new and wonderful. He suspected nothing. Why should he? He accepted
Mrs. Randolph Lennox on her face value, which was priceless, as so many
other excellent and unsophisticated young men had done. He believed in
her and her stories and was very sorry that she had been unhappy. He
believed that she was sincere and good and clean and that she liked him
and was his friend.

Kenyon, who watched all this, called Peter an easy mark. He was. What
else could he be in the expert and cunning hands of such a woman?

As for Mrs. Lennox, her performance,--it was rather in the nature of a
performance,--was all the more brilliant and effective because Peter
appealed to her more than any man she had ever met. His height and
strength and squareness, his fearless honesty, his unself-conscious
pride and boyish love of life,--she liked them all. She liked his
clean-cut healthy face and thick hair and amazing laugh. But, above
everything, she liked him for being untilled soil, virgin earth. It was
this that piqued her seriously and set alight in her a desire which grew
and grew, to test her charms upon him, to taste him, to stir him into a
first great passion. And this was the real reason that she gave him so
much of her time and company. The gratification of this desire was the
thing for which she was working, upon which she had set her mind. Hers
was not a record of failures. Peter stood a very poor chance of getting
out whole.


XV

Nicholas Kenyon has promised himself that, one of these days, when
abject poverty forces him to work, he will write a whole book about
Peter and Baby Lennox, and call it "Another Temptation of St. Anthony."

Not only did Kenyon watch this, to him, rather extraordinary incident,
with keen interest, but so also did the members of his father's
house-party, who came to regard Peter as a kind of freak. They all
knew,--because they were all psychologists,--that Mrs. Lennox was badly
smitten, as they put it, on this young American. They all knew,--because
one of the women made it her business to spy,--that their temporary
hostess was going through all the tricks of her trade to seduce this
unconscious boy.

The incident provided Lord Shropshire and his friends with endless
amusement, and bets were made as to how long Peter would hold out. Every
morning something new was reported to them by the lady who had appointed
herself to watch. One day it was that Baby had taken Peter to see her
cottage after dinner and had had a little fainting fit in her bedroom
while showing him the view from the window. Another that she had twisted
her ankle on the eighth hole and had been obliged to ask to be carried
back to the house. There was, however, no evidence, not even of a
circumstantial nature, to prove that Baby had succeeded. It was
presently agreed that either Peter was a fool or an angel.

There was one incident, however, which escaped unnoticed,--one of which
even Kenyon knew nothing. It took place three nights before the party
broke up.

After a gorgeous day of hard exercise and splendid fresh air, an hour at
the piano after dinner and his usual talk to Baby under the moon, Peter
went up to bed at eleven o'clock. He was very sleepy and meant to be up
earlier than ever in the morning. He didn't say good-night to Kenyon or
his satirical father. They were, like the others, very seriously at work
making what money they could. There had been a fairly large dinner-party
drawn from the surrounding houses, and there were eight bridge tables
occupied in the large drawing-room. He left Mrs. Lennox in the hall
looking more delicious than ever and went up to his room to smoke a
final pipe and look over an illustrated paper before turning in.

His room was large and square and wainscotted, with dull grilled
ceiling, and an oak floor so old that here and there it slanted badly.
His bed was a four-poster, deeply carved at the back with the Kenyon
arms, the motto underneath rather sarcastically being "For God and
Honour." In front of the fireplace, with its sprawling iron dogs and oak
setting, there was a long, narrow sofa filled with cushions, and at its
side a small writing-table on which stood two tall silver candlesticks.
These gave the room its only light and added to the Rembrandtesque
atmosphere of it. It was a room which reeked with history and episodes
of historical romance, love and sudden death. The windows which led to
the balcony were open and the warm air of a wonderful night puffed in,
causing the candle flames to move with a gentle rhythmic dignity to and
fro.

Peter read and smoked for half an hour in his dressing-gown, while
Quixotic moths flung themselves passionately into the candle-light one
after another to die for some unexplainable ideal. From the drawing-room
below a woman's throbbing voice drifted up, singing an Indian love song,
and when it ceased the whole night was set a quiver by a nightingale's
outburst of appeal. These things, and the silver wonder of the moon and
stars, the touch of Mrs. Lennox's soft hand on his lips and the feeling
and almost psychic undercurrent of strange emotion in that room in which
so much had taken place, all stirred and thrilled the boy and sent his
blood racing in his veins.

He stayed up longer than he intended, listening and wondering and
wishing, for the first time in his life, that he had read poetry, so
that he could fit some immortal lines to his mood and his surroundings.
It was this, to him, curious thought which set him laughing and broke
some of the spell. "Gee!" he said to himself, "can you see me spouting
Shakespeare or mouthing Byron?" He shied his dressing-gown into the
sofa, put both flames out with one huge blow and leaped into bed.

Almost instantly he heard his name urgently called. He sat up. Was he
dreaming? Who should call at that time of night? Could it be Baby? He
heard the call again. It was nearer. A little shadow fell suddenly upon
the floor of his room. And then, in the window, with the shaft of
moonlight all about her, stood Mrs. Lennox.

Peter caught his breath and clambered out of his bed. "What is it?" he
asked. "What's the matter?"

The woman ran in with a glad cry. "Oh, Peter! I thought you had gone out
of your room," she whispered, "and I didn't know what to do. I saw a
hideous figure walk through my wall just after I had put out my light,
and when it came towards me with long, bony fingers, I rushed out and
came to you. Oh, hold me, Peter, hold me! I'm terrified and as cold as a
frog!"

She slipped into his arms, all young and sweet and incoherent, trembling
like a little bird in a thunder-storm. It was a most calculated piece of
perfect acting.

Peter's heart seemed to jump into his mouth. The flowing hair of the
little head that lay on his chest was full of the most intoxicating
scent.

"I'll--I'll go and see what it is," he said abruptly.

"No, no! Don't go. I can't let you go, Peter. Stay with me!"

"But, if there's a man in your room----"

"It wasn't a man. It was the ghost that belongs to the family. It always
comes before some dreadful accident. Oh, darling, stay with me! Take
care of me! I'm terrified!"

She clung to him in a very ecstasy of fright and the closeness and
warmth of her body sent Peter's brain whirling. He tried to speak, to
think of something to say, but all his thoughts were in the swirl of a
mill-stream, and he held her tighter and put his face against her hair,
while his heart pumped and every preconceived idea, every
hard-fought-for ideal went crash.

"I love you. I love you, Peter. My Peter!" she whispered. "Who but you
should shelter me and hold me and keep me in your arms! Keep me with you
always, night and day. Look into my eyes and see how much you mean to
me, my man."

She raised her head and stood on tiptoe. The jealous moon had laid its
light upon her face and her eyes were shining and her lips were parted,
and the slight silk covering had fallen from her shoulder. The whiteness
of it dazzled.

"Oh, my God!" said Peter, but as he bent to kiss her mouth, momentarily
drunk with the touch and scent of her, someone shouted his name and
thumped on his door, and Mrs. Lennox tore herself away and ran through
the window like a moon-woman.

The door was flung open. Fountain came in, his voice a little thick. "I
say, Guthrie, are you getting up early in the morning? 'Cause, if so,
I'll take you on for nine holes before breakfast. What d'yer say? Goin'
to get healthy, d'yer see? What?"

Peter found his voice. "All right!" he said.

"Will you? Good man. Give me a call at six, will you? We'll bathe in the
pool before coming in. So long then." And out he went again, lurching a
little and banging the door behind him.

For several queer minutes Peter stood swaying, with his breath nearly
gone as though he had been rowing, and one big hand on his throbbing
head. And as he stood there the posts of the bed seemed to turn into
trees and its cover into soft grass all alive with the yellow heads of
"bread and cheese," and among them sat Betty, with her eyes full of
love, confidence and implicit faith,--Betty, for whom he had saved
himself.

And then he started walking about the room. Up and down he went--up and
down--cursing himself and his weakness which had nearly smashed his
dream and put his loyalty into the dust.

And when,--she also had cursed,--Mrs. Lennox stole back, as sweet and
alluring as ever, and even more determined, she found that Peter had
re-lit his candles, got into his dressing-gown again and was sitting at
the table writing.

"Peter! Peter!" she called.

But he didn't hear.

"Peter!" she whispered, and went nearer and nearer until her body rested
against his shoulder.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said, rising. "Is it all right now? That's
fine. It's just a touch cold. Don't you think you'd better be in bed?"

Baby Lennox had seen the beginning of the letter, "My own Betty." She
nodded, drew back her upper lip in a queer smile and turned and went.
She was clever enough to know that she had lost.

And then Peter bent again over his letter, and in writing to the little
girl whom he adored with all his heart, he was safe.




PART TWO

THE CITY


I

"Mother took the car to Lord & Taylor's," said Belle, looking herself
over in the long glass with a scrutiny that was eventually entirely
favorable. "I guess it'll do us good to walk."

"I'd simply love to," said Betty. "But I must just run in and tell
father I'm going to have dinner with you. I won't be a minute."

"All right, my dear. Time's cheap. Don't hurry on my account."

Belle went over to the dressing-table. She had only recently powdered
her nose from the elaborate apparatus from which she rarely permitted
herself to be separated, but a little more would do no harm. She burst
into involuntary song as she performed a trick which she might so well
have afforded to leave to those ladies of doubtful summers to whose Anno
Domini complexions the thick disguise of powder may perhaps be useful.
Tucked into her blouse there was a letter from Kenyon which had come a
week ago. It was only a matter of days before she was to see him again.

And Betty ran out of her bedroom and along a passage which led to the
studio. A stretch of cloudless sky could be seen through a recess
window, and the far-below flat roofs of the old buildings on the corner
of Gramercy Park. She knocked and waited. There was a grunt, and she
went in.

Into the large lofty room--a cross between a barn and an attic--a hard
north light was falling with cruel accuracy. It showed up stacks of
unframed canvasses with their faces turned to the dark wall and the
imperfections of several massive pieces of oak, the worn appearance of
the stained floor, the age of the Persian rugs and of a florid woman who
sat with studied grace and an anxious expression of pleasant thought on
the dais, with one indecently beringed hand resting with strained
nonchalance on the arm of her chair and the other about an ineffably
bored Pekingese.

Ranken Townsend, the successful portrait painter, had backed away from
his almost life-size canvas, and with his fine untidy head on one side
and irritation in his red-grey beard was glaring at it with savage
antagonism.

The lady on the dais had crow's-feet round her made-up eyes, and a chin
that could not be made anything but double however high she held it.
Also--as the north light seemed to take a hideous delight in
proving--her figure was irreclaimably dumpy and plump. The lady on the
canvas, however,--such is Art that runs an expensive studio, good wines
and well-preserved Coronas,--was slight and lovely and patrician, and
should she stand up, at least six feet tall. No wonder Townsend grunted
and glared at the commercial fraud in front of him, at which, in his
good, idealistic, hungry Paris days he would have slung wet brushes and
the honest curses of the Place Pigalle. He was selling his gift once
more for five thousand dollars. His wife dressed at Bendels.

Anger and irritation went out of the painter's eyes when he saw the
sweet face that peeked in. "Hello, sweetheart!" he sang out. "Come in
and bring a touch of sun. Mrs. Vandervelde, I'd like you to meet my
little girl."

Without turning her head or breaking a pose that she considered to have
become, after many serious attempts, extremely effective, the
much-paragraphed lady, whose lizard-covered mansion in Fifth Avenue was
always one of the objects touched upon by the megaphone men in
rubber-neck wagons, murmured a few words. "How d'you do, child? How well
you look."

Betty smothered a laugh. Mrs. Vandervelde had acquired the habit of
looking through her ears. "I'm going home with Belle, father, and I
shall stay to dinner. But I'll be back before ten."

"Will you? All right." He tilted up her face and kissed it. "I'm dining
at the National Arts Club to-night, and I guess I shall be late." He
pointed his brush at the canvas and made the grimace of a man who's
obliged to swallow a big dose of evil-smelling physic. So Betty, who
understood and was sorry, put his hand to her lips, bowed to the
indifferent lady and slipped away. The room was perceptibly colder when
she left. The picture was already four thousand two hundred dollars
toward completion, and Betty was just as much relieved as her father,
who returned angrily to work to paint in the diamonds. He was sick of
that smile.

While waiting for the elevator, Belle gave a rather self-conscious
laugh and lifted her tight skirt quickly. "Seen the latest, Betty?" She
showed a tiny square watch edged with diamonds worn as a garter.
"Cunning, isn't it?"

"Why, I should just think it was! Where did you buy it?"

"Buy it? My dear, can you see me paying three hundred dollars for
something that doesn't show? Harry Spearman gave it to me last night,
and put it on in his car on the way to the Pierrot Club."

"Put it on?"

Belle threw back her beautiful head and burst out laughing. "You said
that just like the Quaker girl in the play at the Hudson. Why shouldn't
he put it on? It amused him and didn't hurt me. He's a sculptor, and
like the bus-conductor, 'legs is no treat to him,' anyway."

They entered the elevator, dropped nine floors to the wide foyer of the
palatial apartment house, and went out into the street. It was a typical
New York October afternoon--the sky blue and clear, the sun warm and the
air alive with that pinch of ozone of which no other city in the world
can boast. The girls instinctively made their way towards Fifth Avenue,
warily dodging the amazing traffic, the struggling wagons and plunging
horses going in and out of buildings in course of ear-splitting
construction, and coal-chutes in the middle of the sidewalks.

"But you were not at the opening of the Pierrot Club last night," said
Betty. "I heard you tell Mrs. Guthrie that you were dining with the
Delanos and going to their theatre party."

"I know. But Harry Spearman sent round a note in the afternoon asking me
to have dinner with him at Delmonico's and go on to the Club to dance. I
had such a severe headache that I rang up Mrs. Delano and reluctantly
begged to be excused. To quote Nicholas, theatre parties with elderly
people bore me stiff. As it was, I had a perfectly corking time till one
o'clock and danced every dance."

"Did you tell Mrs. Guthrie?"

"For Heaven's sake, Betty, what _do_ you take me for? Mother isn't my
school-teacher and I don't have to ask her for permission to live. I
have my latch-key and dear little mother is perfectly happy. As she
never knows what I do she never has to worry about me; and, as she
always says, I can only be young once." A curious little smile played
round her very red lips. "It's true that Harry Spearman is rather
unmanageable when he gets one alone in a car after several hours of
champagne and ragtime, but--oh, well, I guess I can take care of myself.
Do you know, I don't think the Pierrot Club's going to be as good this
winter. It's a year old, you see. Everybody's going to the new room at
the Plaza--that is, everybody back from the country. It's rather a pity,
I think. I like the Club, but the motto of New York is 'Follow the
Crowd' and so the Plaza's for me."

Betty's admiration for her school-fellow and closest friend was
invincible and her loyalty very true. It made her therefore a little
uneasy to notice about her a growing artificiality which was neither
attractive nor characteristic. She knew better than anyone that Belle
was a remarkable girl. She had a kind heart. She possessed that rarest
of gifts, a sense of gratitude, and if her talent for writing had been
properly developed she might eventually have made her mark. She had a
quick perception--sympathy and imagination not often found in so young a
girl--an uncanny ear for the right word--and if she chose to exercise
it, quite an unusual power of concentration. It seemed to Betty to be
such a pity that, just at the moment when Belle left school with her
mind filled with ideals and the ambition to make something of herself
and do things, the Doctor found himself a rich man. The incentive to
work which the constant need for economy had awakened in her went out
like a snuffed candle. From having before been in the habit of saying,
with eager enthusiasm, "I'm _going_ to do such and such a thing,
whatever the odds," she immediately began to say: "Oh, my dear, what's
the use?" Everything for which she had intended to work became now hers
for the asking. Her father gave her a free hand in the matter of
entertaining her young friends. She could order what books she wished to
read from Brentano's, and she had a generous allowance on which to
dress. Like a chameleon she quickly changed the rather dull colors of
her former surroundings for those bright ones which the sudden accession
to wealth made it easy to acquire. Her outlook was no longer that of the
daughter of an overworked general practitioner whose income had to be
carefully managed in order to live not too far up-town and educate a
family of four, but of a debutante whose parents entertained
distinguished men and women in a fashionable street and whose friends
were equally well off. Her inherited and cultivated energy was, of
course, obliged to find vent in some direction, since it was not
employed in the development of her talent; and it was now burnt up in a
restless search of enjoyment, a constant series of engagements to lunch
and dine, and do the theatre and dance,--especially dance. The ordinary
healthy, high-spirited young man, who had not much to say for himself,
quickly bored her. Her wits required to be kept sharp, her latent
intelligence needed something on which to feed. It was therefore natural
that she should throw her smiles at men much older and far more
experienced than herself and who, from the fact that they did not intend
to give anything for nothing, exercised her ingenuity and native wit to
keep them in order. In a word, she found that playing with fire and
avoiding being burned kept that side of her in good condition which, in
her old circumstances, would have been devoted to work. And so with a
sort of conscious superficiality she had allowed herself to flit from
one unmeaning incident to another and entered into a series of
artificial flirtations with men who had no scruples and one passion
simply in order to kill time. Her carelessness led her into episodes,
the merest hint of which would have thrown dear little Mrs. Guthrie into
a panic, and her coolness permitted her to escape from them with perhaps
more ingenuity than dignity. Even upon her return from England with her
heart full of Nicholas Kenyon, and with a desire to see him again that
kept her awake at night, she frittered away her superfluous energy with
this Harry Spearman, whom no woman with any respect for her daughter
would willingly allow within a mile of her, even if properly chaperoned.

Betty, being one of those girls who had never been suspected of any
talent, but who nevertheless had it in her to perform a far more womanly
and beautiful thing than to write books or plays--to be in fact a good
wife to the man she loved and a good mother to his children--looked at
Belle's way of living with growing anxiety. She was not a prude or a
prig. She had not been allowed out in the world with eyes all curious to
see the truth of things through a veil of false modesty. Her father, a
wise and humane man, had seen to that. She delighted in enjoyment, went
to the theatre whenever she had the opportunity and danced herself out
of shoes. But, not being ambitious to shine, she was content to apply
her energy to the ordinary work that came to her to do,--the practical,
everyday, undramatic, domestic things that cropped up hourly in the
strange house where the father was an artist and the mother suffered
from individualism and was a leader of new movements. Leaving school to
find a home in a constant state of chaos, her father rarely out of his
studio, her mother always in the throes of committee meetings and
speech-making,--she knuckled down to set it in order, to clear out an
extravagant cook with an appetite for hysterics, and a sloppy Irish
waitress whose hairpins fell everywhere and whose loose hand dropped
things of value almost before it touched them. This done she found
others and appointed herself housekeeper, and the duties of this
position kept her both busy and happy,--the one being hyphenated to the
other. But even if her father had been, like Dr. Guthrie, a rich man
instead of one who lived up to every penny that he earned and generally
several thousand dollars beyond, she had nothing in her character that,
however little she was occupied, would have allowed her to look at life
from the modern standpoint of Belle and her other friends. She was--and
rejoiced in the fact--old-fashioned. Most of her ideas were what is now
scoffingly called "early Victorian," because they were not loose and
careless, and the many things that Belle and others found "fearfully
amusing" were, to her, impossible. She didn't, for instance, leave her
petticoat in the cloak-room when she went to dances, so that her
partners might find her better fun. She didn't go to tea alone with mere
acquaintances in bachelor apartments, or for taxi rides with her partner
between dances. She never made herself cheap, and went out of her way to
avoid men whose eyes ran calculatingly over her figure. These things and
many others merely appealed to her as the perquisite of those girls who
did not place a very high value upon self-respect.

The Guthries lived at 55 East Fifty-second Street. It was the house
which the man whom Dr. Guthrie called his benefactor had built for
himself and left to the doctor whom he was proud to endow. The architect
who had been employed had been given a free hand. He had not been
required to mix his styles or perform extraordinary architectural
gymnastics of any kind. The result of his efforts was good. It was a
house such as one sees in one of the numerous old London squares within
sound of the mellow clock of St. James's Palace. Addison might have
lived in it, or Walpole or Pepys. Its face was scrupulously plain and
its doorway was modelled on those of the Adams period. Standing between
two very florid examples of modern architecture it made one think of the
portrait of a charming early Victorian gentle-woman between the
photographs of two present-day chorus ladies in hoopskirts and a cloud
of chiffon. The rooms were large and lofty and were all furnished with
great simplicity and taste. There was nothing in them except old
furniture which had been collected in England by its late owner, piece
by piece, and its oak chests, armoires and secretaries, china closets,
corner pieces and Chippendale chairs were very good to look at and live
with. So also were the pictures,--Cattermoles, Bartalozzi engravings,
colored prints and a half-dozen priceless oil paintings by old
masters,--which made the small, cunning, unscrupulous, eager mouths of
the numerous art collectors of New York water with desire. The library,
too, out of which led the Doctor's laboratory, was almost unique, and
contained first editions and specimens of rare and beautiful
book-binding which filled the Doctor's heart with constant pleasure and
delight. It was nearly a year before the man who had struggled so hard
to lift himself out of his father's small farm could believe that he
wasn't walking in his sleep when he passed through these beautiful
rooms, and often he was obliged to pinch himself to make sure that he
was not dreaming.

There was however one room in this house which would have given its late
owner many shudders to enter. This was the little mother's own
particular room, the windows of which looked out upon that row of small,
red, bandbox-like houses opposite which had managed to remain standing
in spite of the rapacious hands of reconstruction companies which are
never so happy as when destroying old landmarks and tearing down old
buildings. Into this room Mrs. Guthrie had placed all the furniture of
her first sitting-room,--cheap, late Victorian stuff of which she had
been so inordinately and properly proud when she started housekeeping
with the young doctor. From these things Mrs. Guthrie could not be
parted. They were all redolent with good and tender memories and were to
her mind far more valuable and more beautiful than all the priceless old
oak pieces put together.

Curiously enough--or perhaps not curiously at all--this was Peter's
favorite room, too, and he never entered it without renewing his vows to
climb to the top of his own tree, as his father had done. Belle, Graham
and Ethel all laughed at the little mother for clinging to this
"rubbish," as they called it, which was so out of keeping with the rest
of the house. But Peter sympathized with her and never failed while
sitting there in the evening, in close and intimate conversation with
the dear little woman who meant so much to him, to get from it a new
desire to emulate his father and make his own way in the same brave
spirit.

When Belle and Betty arrived at East Fifty-second Street--a little tired
after their walk--they found Graham in the hall. "Oh, hello!" said he.
"Been shopping?"

"No," answered Belle, "nothing tempted us. We've walked all the way home
from Gramercy Park,--some walk! Everything I've got on is sticking to
me. Aren't you home early, Graham?"

Graham nodded. "Nothing doing," he said. "Besides, I'm dining early." He
turned to Belle with a rather curious smile. "I thought you were to be
with the Delanos last night."

Belle tilted her chin. "I was. I dined there, went to the Winter Garden
and then danced at Bustanoby's."

"I caught sight of you in Spearman's car somewhere about one o'clock in
the morning. Did he drive you home?"

"I guess he did, dear boy," said Belle, blandly, "and by the way, we saw
you, going in to supper somewhere with a girl with a Vogue face and an
open-air back!"

Graham laughed. "That's different," he said. "Spearman isn't the sort of
man I care to see my sister going about with alone. I advise you to be a
little more fastidious."

"Thank you, Graham darling," said Belle, quite un-moved, "but I'm old
enough to choose my own friends without your butting in. Just for fun,
would you tell me what _you_ know about the word fastidious?"

"That's different," said Graham again. And he went up-stairs to his own
room with rather heavy feet.

Belle looked at Betty and a little smile curled up the corners of her
beautiful red mouth. "I don't see anything wrong with Harry Spearman,
and he's an old friend of the Delanos. My word, but isn't Graham a good
sport?"

Presently when they went into the drawing-room they found little Mrs.
Guthrie sitting in front of the table with a more than usually happy
smile, and Ethel lying on the sofa looking the very epitome of an
interesting invalid. With a slightly critical frown on her pretty face
she was reading Wells's latest novel,--a full-blooded effort well
calculated to improve the condition of a girl of fifteen who had not
gone back to school on account of anaemia.

With quick intuition, and one glance at her mother's face, Belle knew
she had heard from Peter. "Any news?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes, darling,--the very best of news. A Marconi from my boy," said Mrs.
Guthrie.

"What does he say?"

"Oh, what does he say?" asked Betty. But the question was asked
mentally, because little Mrs. Guthrie was happy and must not be made
jealous.

Putting on her glasses with great deliberation, Mrs. Guthrie picked up a
book, and with a smile of pride and excitement hunted through its pages
and eventually produced the cable form, which she had used as a marker.

"_Do_ hurry, mother, _dear_!" cried Belle. News from Peter meant news
from Nicholas.

"Now please don't fluster me, Belle. Of course I would unfold it the
wrong side up, wouldn't I? Well, this is what he says: 'Expect to dock
day after to-morrow, dearest Mum. All my love.'"

"Is that all he says? Is there nothing about his--his friend?"

Ethel gave a quiet chuckle, of which Belle coldly took no notice.

"There are a few more words," replied Mrs. Guthrie, "and I expect they
were very expensive."

"Oh, mother, darling; _do_ go on!"

"Let me see, now. Oh, yes. 'And to Betty.'"

"Oh, thank you," said Betty. "Oh, Peter, my Peter!" she cried in her
heart.

This time Ethel laughed. But no one noticed it. It was rather
disappointing.

"At last I shall see Nicholas again," thought Belle,--"at last!"

And the little mother folded up the cable very carefully and slipped it
back into the book. Peter had sent it to her,--to her.

And then Belle turned her attention to her little sister, who not only
looked most interesting, but knew that she did. "I think you
condescended to be amused, Grandmamma," she said, in the most
good-natured spirit of chaff. Like everybody else in the family she was
really rather proud of this very finished production of an ultra-modern
and fashionable school.

"I seem to have missed a lot of fun by not going to Europe," replied
Ethel. "It would have been very entertaining to watch you and Betty fall
in love."

"I guess so," said Belle. "The only thing is that you would have been
very much odd man out. They draw the line at little school-girls at
Oxford."

"Now don't begin to quarrel, girls," said Mrs. Guthrie. "I'm very sorry
Ethel wasn't with us. The trip would have widened her view and given her
much to think about. But never mind. She shall go with us next time."

Ethel stifled a yawn. "Thank you, mamma, dear. But when I go to England
I may elect to stay there. I think it's very probable that I shall marry
an Englishman and settle down to country life, doing London in the
season."

Belle's laugh rang out. "That's the sort of thing we have to put up
with, Betty," she said. "You're going to marry a Duke, aren't you, Baby,
and be a Lady in Waiting at Court, with a full-page photograph every
week in the _Tatler_? When Peter comes home he'll find you a constant
source of joy. My descriptions of the way in which you've come on while
he's been away always made him laugh."

Ethel rose languidly from the sofa, at the side of which a little
nourishment had been served. Mrs. Guthrie, who had been busily at work
knitting a scarf for Graham--a thing that he would certainly never
wear--went quickly to give her a hand. "Are you going to your room now,
darling?" she asked.

Ethel caught Belle's rather sceptical eye and, with exquisite coolness,
entirely ignored its suggestion that she was shamming. "Yes, mamma,
dear. I shall go to bed almost at once. There's nothing like sleep for
anaemia. Of course I shall have to read for a little while, because
insomnia goes with my complaint, but I shall fall off as soon as I can.
Please don't come in to-night, in case you disturb me. I'll tell Ellen
to put my hot milk in a thermos."

Belle burst into another laugh. "You beat the band," she said. "Any one
would think that your school was for the daughters of royalty. I know
exactly what Nicholas Kenyon will call you."

Ethel turned towards her sister with raised eyebrows. With her rather
retrousse nose, fine, wide-apart eyes and soft round chin she looked
very pretty and amazingly self-composed. Her poise was that of a woman
who had been a leader of society for years. "Yes? And what will that
be?"

"The queen of the Flappers," said Belle.

Ethel picked up her book, carefully placing the marker. "Oxford slang
leaves me cold," she said, loftily.

"I certainly hope that he'll call her nothing of the sort," said Mrs.
Guthrie. "'Flapper.' What a terrible word! What does it mean?"

"It means girls under seventeen who have discovered all the secrets of
life, the value of a pair of pretty ankles and exactly how to get
everybody else to do things for them. It's the best word I heard in
England."

"Nicholas Kenyon sounds to me rather a precocious boy," said Ethel.

"Boy! Nicholas Kenyon a boy--! Well!" Belle acknowledged herself beaten.
She could find no other words.

The little mother put her arm, with great affection, around the
shoulders of her youngest child, of whom she was extremely proud and a
little frightened. "Never mind, darling," she said. "Belle doesn't mean
anything. It's only her fun."

"Oh, that's all right, mamma. I make full allowance for Belle. She's a
little crude yet, but she'll improve in time."

Belle gave a scream of joy. Her sense of the ridiculous, always
extremely keen, made her delight in her little sister and the perfectly
placid way in which she sailed through existence with the lofty
superiority of her type--a type that is the peculiar result of
supercivilization and the deferential treatment of fashionable
schoolmistresses who bow to wealth as before a god.

"Run in and say good-night to father. He won't mind being disturbed for
a moment by you."

"I don't think I will," said Ethel. "The sight of his laboratory may
give me a nightmare. I really must be careful about myself just now.
Good night, mamma dear. Don't sit up too late. Good night, Belle. I
should advise you to go to bed at once. Your complexion is beginning to
show the effects of late hours already."

"Oh, you funny little thing," said Belle. "You give me a pain. Trot off
to bed; and instead of reading Wells, Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw, try
a course of Louisa Alcott and a dose of Swiss Family Robinson. That'll
do you much more good and make you a little more human."

But even this plain sisterly speaking had no apparent effect. Ethel gave
Betty, who had been watching and listening to the little bout with the
surprise of an only child, a small peck on the cheek. "Good night, dear
Betty," she said. "I'm glad that you're going to be my sister-in-law.
Unless Peter has changed very much since he's been away he'll make a
good husband."

And then, with quiet grace, she left the room. No one, not even Belle,
whose high spirits and love of life had led her into many perfectly
harmless adventures when she was the same age, suspected that Ethel was
up to anything. They were wrong. The self-constituted invalid had
invented anaemia for two very good reasons. First, because she was not
going to be deprived of welcoming her big brother when he returned home
for good, school or no school, and second because she had struck up a
surreptitious acquaintance with the good-looking boy next door. At
present it had gone no further than the daily exchange of letters and
telephone calls. The adventure was in the course, however, of speedy
development. The boy was going to pay her a visit that evening, by way
of the roof. No wonder Ethel didn't want to be disturbed.

With an unwonted burst of extravagance Betty took a taxi home as soon
after dinner as she could get away. "Is there a letter for me? Is there
a letter for me?" she asked the moon and all the stars in the clear sky
as her rackety cab bowled swiftly downtown.

She let herself in and the first thing that caught her eyes was the
welcome sight of a thick envelope addressed in Peter's big round,
honest, unaffected hand.

"Peter, oh, my Peter!" she whispered, pressing the letter to her lips.

Within five minutes she was sitting on her bed, in the seclusion of her
own room, and what Peter had to say for himself was this:

    Carlton Hotel, London,
    September 28, 1913.

    My dearest Betty:
     Gee! but I was mighty glad to find a letter from you this
     afternoon when I got in, so glad that I dashed out of this
     Hotel, went across the street to the White Star offices and
     asked them to exchange my bookings to a boat sailing a week
     earlier, because I just can't stand being away from you any
     longer. I don't know what Nick will say, and don't much care.
     He's at Newmarket staying with a man who trains horses. I've
     just sent him a telegram to say what I've done, and as he's
     very keen to see New York and is only killing time, I don't
     think he'll kick up a row. I would have sailed on the
     _Olympic_, which left the day after I said good-bye to
     Thrapstone-Wynyates, if I hadn't promised father to go up to
     Scotland and see the place where his ancestors lived. I
     couldn't back out of that, especially as goodness only knows
     when I shall come to Europe again,--perhaps not until I bring
     you over on a honeymoon, my baby, and we go back to Oxford
     together to see how the fairy ring is getting on. We must do
     that some day. You don't know how I love that little open space
     where the trees haven't grown so that the moon may spill itself
     in a big patch for all our friends to dance in on fine nights.
     I've read your letter a dozen times and know it by heart, like
     all the others you've written to me. You write the most
     wonderful letters, darling. I wish I knew how to send you
     something worth reading, though I'm quite sure you don't mind
     my clumsy way of putting things down, because you know how much
     I love you and because everything I say comes straight out of
     my heart.

     My last letter was written in Scotland, Cupar Fife. I shall
     always remember that quiet little place where the red-headed
     Guthries,--they must have been red-headed from eating so much
     porridge,--tilled the earth and brought up sheep in the way
     they should go. The village seems as much cut off from the rest
     of the world as though it were surrounded by sea, and every
     small thing that happens excites it. The man who kept the Inn
     that I stayed in (feeling frightfully lonely, though really
     very much interested) had words with his good woman one night
     and the rights and wrongs of the perfectly private matter have
     since divided all the inhabitants. Best friends don't speak and
     the minister is going to preach about the affair next Sunday. I
     saw the house the old Guthries lived in and was taken all over
     it by a kind old soul to whom father gave more money than
     she thought existed when he was there. Gee! but my
     great-grandfather must have had precious little ambition to
     live his whole life in a little hole like that. In most of the
     rooms the beds were in small alcoves and needed climbing up to
     like bunks. Mrs. McAlister, who lives there now with her
     married daughter and her seven children, sleeps in one of these
     fug-holes in the kitchen. Think of it! And she said that the
     floor swarms with beetles--she can hear them crackling about in
     the night. All the same, by Jove! this primitive living makes
     men. I can see from whom father got his grit and determination.

     I was glad to find myself in London. I've only been here for a
     night or two at various times and it's a wilderness to me. I
     lose myself every time I go out and have to ask Bobbies how to
     get back. Topping chaps, these Bobbies. They mostly look like
     gentlemen and are awfully glad to get a laugh. To hear them
     talk about the 'Aymarket, Piccadilly Surcuss, Wart'loo Plaice
     and Westminister Habbey first of all puzzles one and then fills
     one with joy. As to the Abbey,--oh, Gee! but isn't it away
     beyond words! I spent a whole day wandering about among the
     graves of its mighty dead, and finally when I got to the end of
     the cloister and came upon that small, square, open space where
     the grass grows so green and sparrows play about, I was glad
     there was nobody to see me except the maid-servant of one of
     the minor Canons who was taking in the milk for afternoon tea.
     There are one or two vacant niches among the shrines of men who
     have done things and moved things on, in which I should like to
     stand (not looking a bit like myself in stone) when I have done
     my job, and if I were an Englishman I should work for it. As it
     is, I shall work for you and all you mean to me, my baby, and
     that's even a higher privilege.

     I went to a theatre last night,--Wyndham's. I thought the play
     was corking, but the leading actor--an ugly good-looking
     fellow--wasn't trying a yard, and let it away down every time
     he was on. Also he spent his time making jokes under his breath
     to the other people to dry them up. No wonder the theatres are
     in a bad way in London. There's no snap and ginger about the
     shows except the ones of the variety theatres, where they
     really do take off their coats for business. It's fine to hear
     rag-times at these places, although they're as stale on our
     side as if they had been played away back before the great
     wind. By the way, I'm a bit anxious about Graham. His letters
     have a queer undercurrent in them.

     I'm going to the National Gallery, the British Museum and South
     Kensington to-morrow, and in the evening I'm dining at the
     Trocadero with eight men who were up at St. John's with me.
     They're all working in London and hate it, after Oxford. It
     seems odd to me not to be there myself and I miss it mighty
     badly sometimes. All the same it's great to feel that one's a
     man at last, with real work to do and that apartment waiting
     for us to win. This is the last mail that I can catch before
     sailing and so I just have to tell you once again, in case you
     forget it, that I adore you and that if I don't see you on the
     landing in little old New York among the crowd I shall sink
     away like an India-rubber balloon with a pin in it. So long, my
     dearest girl. All, all my love, now and forever.
                                                      PETER.

     P. S. Do you think your father can be brought to like me
     somehow or other?

     Kiss this exact spot.


II

A good sport! Oh, yes, Graham answered admirably to that
description,--according to its present-day use. Graham, like Belle, was
suffering from the fact that everything was too easy. His father's
so-called benefactor had taken all the sting of life for that boy.
Fundamentally he had inherited a considerable amount of his father's
grit. He needed the impetus of struggle to use up that sense of
adventure which was deep-rooted in his nature. He was a throw-back. He
had all the stuff in him that was in his ancestors,--those early
pioneers who were momentarily up against the grim facts of life. He was
not cut out for civilization. He needed action, the physical strain and
stress of hunting for his food among primeval surroundings and the
constant exercise of his strength in dangerous positions. He would have
made a fine sailor, a reckless soldier or an excellent flying man. He
was as much out of his element in Wall Street as a sporting dog which is
doomed to pass away its life sitting beside a chauffeur in an elaborate
motor-car. The daring recklessness which would have been an asset to him
as a hunter of big game or a man who attached himself to dangerous
expeditions, found vent, in the heart of civilization, in gambling and
running wild. It was a pity to see such a lad so utterly misplaced and
going to the devil with an alacrity that alarmed even some of his very
loose friends. If his father had continued to be a hard-working doctor
whose income was barely large enough to cover his yearly expenses,
Graham could have used up his superabundant energies in climbing, rung
by rung, any ladder at the bottom of which he had been placed. As it
was, he found himself, through his father's sudden accession to wealth,
beginning where most men leave off, with nothing to fight for--nothing
to put his teeth into--nothing for which to take off his coat. It was
all wrong. He made money and lost it with equal ease--although he lost
more than he won. He was surrounded with luxuries when he should have
been faced daily with the splendid difficulties which go to form
character and mental strength. Somehow or other his innate desire for
adventure had to be used up. With no one to exercise any discipline over
him, with no steady hand to guide him and control, he flung himself
headlong into the vortex of the night life of the great city and was an
easy prey for its rastaquores. At the age of twenty-four he already knew
what it was to be haunted by money-lenders. Already he was up to the
innumerable dodges of the men who borrow from Peter to pay Paul. He was
a well-known figure in gambling clubs and the houses in the red-light
district, and he numbered among his friends men and women who made a
specialty of dealing with boys of his type and who laid their nets with
consummate knowledge of humanity and with the most dastardly
callousness. He was indeed, in the usual inaccurate conception of the
word, a good "sport," and stood every chance of paying for the privilege
with his health, his self-respect and the whole of his future life.

To have seen the nervous way in which he dressed for dinner the next
evening, throwing tie after tie away with irritable cursing, would have
convinced the most casual observer of the fact that he stood in need of
a strong hand. His very appearance,--the dark lines round his eyes, the
unsteadiness of his hand,--denoted plainly enough the sort of life that
he was leading, but the short-sighted eyes of the Doctor in whose house
he lived missed all this, and there was no one except the little mother
to cry "halt" to this poor lad and, in her experience, of what avail was
she?

He drove--after having dined with three other Wall Street men at
Sherry's--to an apartment house on West Fortieth Street, little
imagining that fate had determined to put him to the test. Kenyon had
recommended him to try it. He had heard of it from Captain Fountain's
brother, who had called it "very hot stuff" in one of his letters,--the
headquarters of a so-called "Bohemian" set in which Art and gambling
were combined. It was run by a woman whose name was Russian, whose
instincts were cosmopolitan, and who had been shifted out of most of the
great European cities by the police. "The Papowsky," as she was called,
spoke several languages equally fluently. She was something of a judge
of art. She had an uncanny way of being able to predict success or
failure to new plays. She knew musicians when she saw them and only had
to smell a book to know whether it had excellence or not. Her short,
thin body and yellow skin, her black hair cut in a fringe over her eyes
and short all round like that of a Shakesperian page, her long, dark,
Oriental eyes and her long artistic hands were in themselves far from
attractive. It was her wit and sarcasm however and the brilliant way in
which she summed up people and things which made her the leader of those
odd people--to be found in every great city--who delight in being
unconventional and find excitement in a game of chance.

The apartment in which she held her "receptions" and entertainments was
unique. The principal room was a large and lofty studio, arranged like a
grotto with rocks and curious lights and secluded places where there
were divans. Here there was a dais, at the back of which there was an
organ, and a grand piano stood upon it in a French frame all over
cupids, and it was here that the most extraordinary exhibitions of
dancing were given by the Papowsky hand-maidens and others.

The other people who lived in this apartment house had already begun to
talk about it in whispers, and its reputation had gone out into the
city. One or two feeble complaints had been made to the police, but
without any avail. At the moment when Graham had first entered it, it
was in its second year and was flourishing like the proverbial Bay Tree.
The magnets which drew him to this house of Arabian Nights were the
roulette table in a secluded room at the end of the passage, and one of
the hand-maidens of the Papowsky, whose large, gazelle-like eyes and
soft caressing hands drew him from other haunts, and followed him into
his dreams.


III

Graham's hat and coat were taken by a Japanese servant, whose little
eyes twinkled a welcome.

The long, brilliantly lighted passage which led to the studio was hung
with nudes, some of them painted in oils with a sure touch, some highly
finished in black-and-white, and the rest dashed off in chalks,--rough
impressionist things which might have been drawn by art students under
the influence of drink. Between them in narrow black frames there was a
collection of diabolically clever caricatures of well-known singers,
actors, authors, painters and politicians, each one bringing out the
weaknesses of the victims with peculiar impishness and insight. The
floor of the passage was covered with a thick black pile carpet, which
smothered all noise.

As Graham entered the studio several strange minor chords were struck on
the piano and a woman's deep contralto voice filled the large studio
like winter wind moaning through an old chimney.

The Papowsky, who was giving an evening for young artists, and was
half-covered in a more than usually grotesque garment, slid out of the
shadow and gave Graham her left hand, murmuring a welcome. Exuding a
curious pungent aroma, she placed a long finger on her red, thin lips
and slipped away again. For some minutes Graham remained where she left
him, trying to accustom his eyes to the dim--though far from
religious--light. He made out men in dress clothes sitting here and
there and the glint of nymph-like forms passing from place to place,
springily. The scent of cigarette smoke mixed with that of some queer
intoxicating perfume. The sound of water plashing from a fountain came
to his ears.

On his way to find a seat, Graham's arm was suddenly seized, he was
pulled into a corner and found himself, gladly enough, alone with the
girl who called herself Ita Strabosck. There was one blue light in this
alcove and by it he could see that the girl was dressed like an Apache
in black suit with trousers which belled out over her little ankles and
fitted her tightly everywhere else. She retained her close grip and
began to whisper eagerly to him. Her foreign accent was more marked than
usual, owing to the emotion under which she obviously labored. Her heart
hammered against his arm.

"You have come to zee me?"

Graham whispered back. "Don't I always come to see you?"

"You like me?"

Graham bent forward and kissed her mouth.

"You love me?"

The boy laughed.

"S-s-s-h! Eef you love me, eef you really and truly love me, I vill
to-night ask you to prove eet."

"I've been waiting," said Graham, with a sudden touch of passion.

"Zen take me avay from this 'ell. I 'ave a soul. Eet ees killing me. I
'ave a longing for God's air. Take me back to eet. The Papowsky ees a
vile woman. She lure me 'ere and I am a prisoner. You do not know the
'orrors of zis place. I am young. I am almost a child. I was good and I
can be good again. At once, when you come 'ere, I saw in you one who
might rescue me from zis. I love you. You say you love me. I beseech you
to take me away."

Graham was stirred by this emotional appeal whispered in his ear, by the
young arms that were flung round his neck, and by the little body that
was all soft against him. His sense of chivalry and his innate desire
for adventure were instantly set ablaze. At the same time, what could he
do with this strange little girl? Where could he put her?

He began to whisper back something of his inability to help, but a hand
was quickly placed over his mouth.

"Eef you believe in God, take me away. I do not care what you do with
me. I do not care eef you make me work for my bread. You are not like ze
rest. You too are young and you are a man, and I love you. I will be
your servant--your slave. I will kiss your feet. I will give you myself.
I will wait on you 'and and foot. Give me a little room near ze sky and
see me once a day, but take me out of this evil place--I am being
poisoned. Vill you do zis? Vill you?" She slipped down on her knees and
clasped her hands together.

In the faint blue light Graham could see the large eyes of the girl
looking up at him through tears, as though to a saviour. Her whole
attitude was one of great appeal. Her young, slim body trembled and the
throbbing of her voice with its curious foreign accent moved him to an
overwhelming pity. Here then was something that he could do--was a way
in which he could exercise his bottled up sense of adventure which had
hitherto only been kept in some sort of control by gambling and running
risks.

"Do you mean that you're forced to remain here,--that you can't get out
if you want to?"

"Yes, yes, yes! I tell you I was caught like a wild bird and zis ees my
cage. Ze door ees guarded."

A great excitement seized the boy. He lifted Ita up and put his mouth to
her ear. "You've come to the right man. I'll get you out of this. I
always loathed to see you here,--but how's it to be done? She has eyes
in the back of her head, and those damned Japanese servants are
everywhere."

"Eeet ees for you to sink," said the girl. "You are a man."

"I see," said Graham. "Right. Leave it to me."

He liked being made responsible. He liked the utter trust which this
girl placed in him. He liked the feeling of danger. The whole episode
and its uncanny romance caught hold of him. It was not every day that in
the middle of civilization the chance came to do something which smacked
of mediaevalism--which had in it something of the high adventure of
Ivanhoe.

He said: "Get away quick and put your clothes on. Don't pack
anything--just dress. There won't be any one in the roulette room until
after twelve. Go in there and hide behind the curtains and wait for me.
Quick, now!"

Once more the girl flung her arms about him and put her lips to his
mouth.

For several minutes Graham remained alone in the alcove, with his blood
running swiftly through his veins--his brain hard at work. The woman on
the dais was still singing. In the vague, uncertain light he could see
the Papowsky curled up on a divan near by, smoking a cigarette. Other
people had come in and made groups among the foolish rockery. Then he
got up quietly, went out into the passage and looked about. He had never
before explored the place, he only knew the studio and the roulette
room. It dawned upon him that this apartment was just beneath the roof
of the building. Somewhere or other there was likely to be an outlet to
the fire-escape. That was the idea. He had it. The girl had said that it
would be impossible to take her away by the main door. Those Japanese
servants were evidently watch-dogs. Even as he stood there, wondering,
he saw that he was eyed by a small, square-shouldered Japanese whose
head seemed to be too large for his body and whose oily deferential grin
was not to be trusted. He lit a cigarette, and putting on what he
considered to be an air of extreme nonchalance, strolled along until he
came to the roulette room. No one was there. The candelabra were only
partially alight. He darted quickly to the window and flung it up. The
iron steps of the fire-escape ran past it to the roof. "Fine!" he said
to himself. "Now I know what to do."

He shut the window quickly and turned round just as the man who had been
watching him came in. "Say!" he said. "Just go and get me a high-ball.
Bring it here." He followed the man to the door and into the passage and
watched him waddle away. He had not been there more than a moment when
the door opposite opened bit by bit, and the girl's face, with large
frightened eyes, peeped round the corner. In a little black hat and a
plain frock with a very tight skirt she looked younger and prettier and
more in need of help than ever. Without a word, Graham caught hold of
her hand, drew her into the passage, shut her door, ran her into the
roulette room and placed her behind the curtains, making sure that her
feet were hidden. Whistling softly to himself he sat down and waited.
The man seemed to have been gone half an hour. It was really only a few
minutes before he waddled back on his heels. Graham took the drink. "How
soon do you think they'll begin to play to-night?" he asked, keeping his
voice steady with a huge effort.

The Japanese shrugged his shoulders. "As usual, sir," he said, smiling
from ear to ear and rubbing his hands together as though he were washing
them. "Any time after twelve, sir--any time, sir."

"All right!" said Graham. "I shall wait here."

He kept up the air of boredom until he imagined that the small,
black-haired, olive-tinted man had had time to get well away. Then he
sprang to the door, saw that the passage was empty, darted back into
the room and over to the window.

"Come on!" he said. "Quick's the word!" and climbed out, giving the girl
his hand. For a moment they stood together on the ledge of the
fire-escape, the stairs of which seemed to run endlessly down. With a
chuckle of triumph Graham shut the window, as the girl gave a little cry
of dismay.

She had called that place hell, but from the height on which they stood
it seemed as though they were climbing down from the sky.


IV

"Uptown," said Graham to the taxi driver. "I'll tell you where when I
know myself."

A knowing and sympathetic grin covered the big Irish face and a raucous
yell came from the hard-used engine, and the taxi went forward with a
huge jerk.

The little girl turned her large eyes on Graham. "You do not know vhere
you take me?" she asked.

"No, by thunder, I don't. I can't drive you like this to a hotel, you've
got no baggage. Most of my friends live in bachelor apartments, and the
women I know,--well, I would like to see their faces if I turned up with
you--and _this_ story."

The girl's foreign gesture was eloquent of despair. She heaved a deep
sigh and drew into the corner of the cab. The passing lights shone
intermittently on her little white face. How small and pitiful and
helpless she looked.

The sight of her set Graham's brain working again. In getting her out of
the Papowsky's poisonous place and leading her step by step down the
winding fire-escape and, when it ceased abruptly in mid-air, into the
window of a restaurant, he had been brought to the end of one line of
thought,--that of getting the girl safely out of her prison. He now
started on another, while the cab rocked along the trolley lines beneath
the elevated railway, sometimes swerving dangerously out and round the
iron supports.

Suddenly Graham was seized with an idea. He put his head out of the cab
window and shouted to the driver: "Fifty-five East Fifty-second Street."

The girl turned to him hopefully. "What ees zat?" she asked.

"My home."

"Your 'ome? You take me to your 'ome?"

"Why no, not exactly. I'm going in to get a bag for you. It won't have
much in it except a brush and comb and a pair of my pajamas, but with
them we can drive to any quiet hotel and I'll get a room for you. In the
morning I'll find a little furnished apartment and you can go out and
buy some clothes and the other things that you need. How's that?"

Ita caught up his hand and held it against her heart. "But you are not
going to leave me?"

"Yes, I must," said Graham. "I shall have to register you as my sister.
You've just come off the train and I've met you at the station. Oh,
don't cry! It's the best I can do. It's only just for one night. I'll
fix things to-morrow and you'll be very happy in a little apartment of
your own, won't you? I'll see you every day there."

With a sudden and almost painfully touching abandon of gratitude the
girl flung herself on the floor of the cab and put her head on Graham's
knees, calling on God to bless him. Something came into the boy's
throat.

The taxi crossed Fifth Avenue behind a motor-car that was also going
towards Madison Avenue. It looked very familiar to Graham. Supposing it
was his father returning from one of his medical meetings! He put his
head out again, sharply: "Stop at the first house on East Fifty-second
Street!" he shouted. Almost before the cab had stopped he leaped out.
"Wait for me here," he added.

"Sure an' I will." The driver threw a glance at his taxi-meter. Not for
him to care how long he waited.

Graham darted along the street and up the steps of Number fifty-five,
and just as he had the key in the door he heard his father's voice.

"No, no. Let my car take you home. Yes, a wonderful evening. Most
inspiring. Good night! Let's meet again soon!"

Graham made up his mind what to do. He held the door open for the Doctor
and stood waiting for him, with the bored look of one who has had a
rather dull evening. "Oh, thank you, Graham," said Dr. Guthrie. "Have
you just got back?"

"Yes; I thought I'd get to bed early to-night."

"You look as though you needed sleep," said the Doctor. "But--but don't
go up at once. Please come and have a cigarette in my room. I've--I've
been speaking at the Academy of Medicine,--explaining a new discovery. A
great triumph, Graham, a great triumph. I would like to tell one of my
sons about it. Won't you come?"

There was an unwonted look of excitement on his father's thin face and a
ring in his voice which made it almost youthful. It was the first time
that Graham had ever received such an invitation. He was surprised, and
if he had not been so desperately anxious to slip up-stairs, lay quick
hands on the bag and get away again he would have accepted it gladly.
For a reason that he could not explain he felt at that instant an almost
unbearable desire to find his father, to get in touch with him, to give
something and receive something that he seemed to yearn for and need
more urgently than at any other moment in his life. As it was, he was
obliged to back out. "I'm frightfully tired to-night," he said, yawning.

"Oh, are you? I'm sorry," said the Doctor apologetically. "Some other
night perhaps--some other night."

The two men stood facing each other uncomfortably. Exhilaration had for
a moment broken down the Doctor's shyness. It all came back to him when
he found his son's eyes upon him like those of a stranger. He took off
his coat and hat, said "Good-night" nervously and went quickly across
the hall and into his library.

He was deeply hurt. He stood among those priceless books with a curious
pain running through his veins. "What's the matter with me?" he asked
himself. "Why do I chill my children and make them draw back?"

Graham shut the door, and then as quickly as an eel ran up-stairs to his
bedroom, turned on the light, opened the door of the closet and pulled
out a large suit-case. Then he began to hunt among the drawers of his
wardrobe for some pajamas. He threw these in. From his bathroom he
caught up a brush and comb and some bedroom slippers. These followed the
pajamas. Then he shut the case, picked it up, crept quietly down-stairs,
across the hall and out into the street, shutting the door softly behind
him. He gave the taxi-driver the name of a small hotel frequented by
actors, and jumped into the cab.

Ita Strabosck welcomed him as though he had been gone a week. "'Ow good
you are to me!" she cried. "Eef you never do anysing else een your life,
zis that you 'ave done for me vill be written down by zee angels een
your book."

Graham laughed. "The angels--I wonder."

All the same he was a little proud of himself. Not many men would have
perfected the rescue of this little girl so neatly from a house in which
her body and soul were in jeopardy. It had been an episode 

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