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The Barrier: A Novel

by Allen French · English · Gutenberg #41890 · 506,360 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Barrier: A Novel

Author: Allen French


        
Release date: January 6, 2013 [eBook #41890]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BARRIER: A NOVEL ***

Note: Images of the original pages are available through
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THE BARRIER

A Novel

by

ALLEN FRENCH

Author of "The Colonials"







[Illustration]

New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1904

Copyright, 1904, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
Published, May, 1904




  To
  C. E. S. AND S. P. S.




CONTENTS


   CHAPTER                                        PAGE

       I. The Statement of the Case                  3

      II. Which Enlarges the Stage                  10

     III. Sets the Ball to Rolling                  21

      IV. An Understanding                          26

       V. Various Points of View                    32

      VI. Introducing an Eccentric                  41

     VII. Chebasset                                 52

    VIII. The Progress of Acquaintance              65

      IX. New Ideas                                 75

       X. Drawn Both Ways                           83

      XI. An Incident at the Mill                   92

     XII. Forwards Various Affairs                 102

    XIII. Which Is in Some Respects Unsatisfactory 114

     XIV. Mr. Pease Intrudes Upon a Secret         123

      XV. Which Develops the Colonel's Financial
            Strategy                               130

     XVI. Something New                            145

    XVII. Which Deals with Several of Our
            Personages                             155

   XVIII. Judith Buys a Typewriter                 163

     XIX. "Put Money in Thy Purse"                 175

      XX. The Power of Suggestion                  182

     XXI. Ellis Takes His Last Step but One        194

    XXII. Haroun Al Raschid                        206

   XXIII. Plain Language                           218

    XXIV. Bringing About an Understanding          224

     XXV. The Colonel Gives Up His Luxuries        235

    XXVI. In which Judge Harmon Enters the Story   242

   XXVII. In which Judge Harmon Leaves the Story   250

  XXVIII. Judith Binds Herself                     255

    XXIX. Knowledge of New Things                  263

     XXX. Time Begins His Revenges                 275

    XXXI. Brings About Two New Combinations        286

   XXXII. Which Is in Some Respects Satisfactory   295

  XXXIII. Contains Another Proposal of Marriage,
            and Settles an Old Score               307




LIST OF CHARACTERS

_IN THE ORDER OF THEIR MENTION_


STEPHEN F. ELLIS, promoter and political boss.

GEORGE MATHER, a young business man.

JUDITH BLANCHARD, of the social set.

MRS. HARMON, who has risen by her marriage.

JUDGE ABIEL HARMON, advanced in years.

COLONEL BLANCHARD, Judith's father.

BETH, his remaining daughter.

MR. PRICE, the fashionable jeweller.

MR. FENNO, head of one of the old families.

MR. PEASE, a banker.

JIM WAYNE, of the social set.

MR. DAGGETT, a supporter of Ellis.

MISS JENKS, Mather's stenographer.

STOCK, a labor agitator.




THE BARRIER



CHAPTER I

THE STATEMENT OF THE CASE


There is a certain circle so well-to-do that it is occupied chiefly in
guarding its property and maintaining its exclusiveness. There is a city
so small, politically, that it is buttoned in one man's pocket. The
second of these is the direct consequence of the first. Leading families
lead little except the cotillion, parvenus crowd in, and things are done
at which no gentleman will soil his gloves.

In the course of time, such a community might develop a strong active
class and a superb set of figureheads, if only the two sorts would let
each other alone. But the one will envy and the other sneer; the one
will long for ornament and the other will meddle. A desire to sparkle
meets the desire to appear to do, or at times encounters the genuine
longing to do. Dirty hands will wish to be clean; clean hands must have
a little honest dirt.

The city of Stirling lies in New England; it is one among those which
look to Boston for supplies and to New York for fashions. Its history
goes back to colonial times: hence those beautiful estates in the
residential section and the air of pride in the scions of the old
families. These said scions collect much rent and control much
water-power, yet an inquirer imbued with the modern spirit might ask
them to give an account of themselves. Their forefathers settled the
country, fought in the Revolution, and helped to build the nation and
the State, but now people whisper of degeneration. In the old city
modern men have risen to power, control the franchises, manage the local
government, and are large in the public eye.

Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that one man does this. Ellis the
promoter, Stephen F. Ellis, has grown from nothing to everything, has
consolidated businesses, mastered the city affairs, holds all the reins,
pulls all the wires. The reform politicians have never harmed him. The
fashionable people, according to their wont, for years have avoided
publicity and let things go. The man among them who, in a generation,
alone has ventured into the field of thoroughly modern enterprise, has
failed signally, though most gallantly, and in the prime of his youth
stands amid the ruins of a career. The very honour which was his
inheritance brought him low.

He had been a contrast to Ellis in the openness of his methods and the
rapidity of his success. To organise all the street-railways of his
city, to force his personality upon the stockholders of three lines, and
to weld the old clumsy systems into one efficient whole--that was George
Mather's achievement. To be head and shoulders above all others of his
years as the street-railway president, yes, and as the man in whom the
reform politicians built their best hopes--that was his pride, and his
class was proud of him. But his strength was his weakness, for he used
no trickery and he kept his word. Therefore by a business stroke
undertaken against him in the face of an agreement, a method not so
analogous to a stab in the back as to the adroit administering of poison
in a loving-cup, Mather was upon a certain spring morning, at a certain
stock-holders' meeting, by a small but neat majority voted out of
office, and stood robbed of the best fruits of his labours.

Those who saw him that afternoon upon the golf-course marvelled as he
played his match with the precision of a machine. Had the man no nerves?
But though thus he proved--to others, not to himself--that he could bear
misfortune without flinching, it was with unspeakable relief that at
last he slipped away into an empty corner of the club-house, whence he
could hear only the buzz of the Saturday crowd on the grounds outside.
The tension of the last few hours relaxed suddenly, and now that he was
freed from the gaze of others he gave way almost to despair.

The silver cup which he had won he tossed upon the table, and dropping
his clubs upon the floor he threw himself into a chair. Beaten! To have
stood so high in the little city, to fall so suddenly, and to lose so
much! True, he had made money; he had gained the support of the rich men
of his class, who had assured him that they would wait their chance to
set him again in his place. But it was Ellis who had seized that place:
when had Ellis ever given up anything which he had gained? Yet it was
not Mather's fall, nor the hurt to his pride, nor even the loss of the
chance to carry out his plans, which shook him most, but the danger to
still dearer hopes. And the young man, almost groaning, dropped his head
upon his breast.

A girl entered the room suddenly, and stood startled at the sight of
him, but she was not heard. She wished to withdraw, yet feared to rouse
him, and his deep frown fascinated her. Staring downward, scowling with
his thoughts, his face had at first expressed anger, but now showed
pain. Judith, too, he was thinking--had she changed to him? When he
hurried to her after this morning's meeting, so soon as he could free
himself from his friends, already she had heard the news. She had not
let him speak with her alone, but though she must have known his wish
she kept her father in the room. If with her ambitions she felt
disappointed in him, if she rejected him--well, he could bear even that!
The girl who was watching saw his expression change to determination,
and then suddenly he roused himself. No one should find him brooding. As
he raised his eyes from the carpet she turned to escape, but he saw her
and sprang to his feet.

"Judith!" She stopped; perceiving her desire he added: "Don't let me
keep you."

Then she came to him directly. "I thought you were outdoors. Every one
was congratulating you; the club has never seen such golf. It was
splendid!"

He smiled, indifferent to the praise, and picking up the cup from the
table, looked at it carelessly. "Only for that."

"And Jim Wayne would give his head for it," she said.

Disdainfully, he shifted the cup into his palm, and with a single effort
crushed it out of shape. "See," and he meant to personify himself, "it
is only silver; it lacks strength."

"Ah," she answered, "don't be bitter. Come, forget the street-railroad,
forget you ever were its president, forget everything except your
friends."

"Judith," he returned with meaning, "can _you_ forget what I have lost?"

She drew back, flushing. "George!"

"Oh," he cried, "I know I am rude! But to-day when I came to see you,
you knew what had happened to me. If ever I needed comfort it was then,
and you knew it. There was only one consolation that would help me, and
you knew that, but you denied me. Judith, have I lost my chance with
you?"

She flushed, as if conscience drove home a rebuke. "I did not mean to be
unkind." But then she looked about uneasily, at the door at her back,
and at the curtains which shut off the adjoining room. "I--I think I
must go."

"No," he protested. "Let us have it out; no one is near. Give me my
sentence, Judith. You know I've loved you for years. It was for you I
built up the railroad; you are the impelling cause of all my work. This
winter I thought I had pleased you. Is there any hope for me?"

He spoke without a tremor of the voice, but he clenched his hands as he
waited for her answer, and his eyes were eager. Before them she dropped
her own. "Not now," she answered.

"Tell me," he asked almost gently, "why you have changed."

She stood silent, with her eyes still downcast, but her mouth grew
harder.

"No, don't explain," he said quickly. "I understand. I understood when I
left your house to-day. Judith, don't you know that I have learned to
read you? This morning I was beaten, and you require of a man that he
shall succeed."

Her eyes flashed up at him. "Well," she demanded, "and if I do? Can I be
different from what I am?"

"We make ourselves," he replied.

Her defiance was brief, and she asked earnestly: "Why have you let me
plague you so? Choose again, some softer woman."

"My choice is fixed," he answered simply.

"Then at least," she said, "we will remain friends?"

His face cleared, and he smiled. "So far as you permit."

"But without enthusiasm," she reproached him.

"Ah, Judith," he answered, "you know you don't require it."

"And we won't speak of this again?" she asked.

"Just these last words," he said. "Remember that this defeat is not the
end of me; I shall yet give an account of myself." She saw how resolute
were his eyes, but then his look again became gentle as he added: "And
this, too. The world fascinates you. But Judith, it is very big, and
strong, and merciless!"

Was it not a beaten man who spoke? She answered, "I do not fear it," and
studied him to find his meaning.

But with a steadiness which allowed no further show of feeling he
replied: "If ever you do, then turn to me."

They finished without words of parting; she quitted him abruptly, he
took up the caddy-bag and stuffed the ruined cup in among the clubs.
Though she paused an instant at the door, there was nothing more to be
said. Regretfully he watched her go: bright, fearless, and inquisitive
as she was, where was her nature leading her? He knew her restless
energy, and at the moment feared for her more than for himself.

As for her, he had pricked her deeply by his warning. The world would
never be too much for her. Let it be however big and strong, she admired
it, must learn about it! She would never cry for mercy. The thought did
not cross her mind that he knew the world better than she, that although
defeated he was more its master. At twenty-three one is confident.

And as for his charge that she thought less of him, she told herself
that it was not his disaster that separated them. Rather it was the
quality which the disaster had but emphasised in him--the
self-confidence, real or counterfeit, with which he had always assumed
that he could go his own way in making a home in which to take care of
her. How he mistook her! She did not ask for safety from the world; it
was the key to her whole character that she wished to be more than a
mere comfort to a man. Should she ever accept a husband, she must be an
active rather than a passive element in his strength, counselling,
inspiring, almost leading him. Between herself and Mather there was an
unremitting conflict of will. She left the club-house, and went out upon
the lawn with her cheeks a little redder than usual, her black eye
brighter, her head held still more high.

Men came instantly about her--young men eager to please. But with her
thoughts still busy, she measured them and found them lacking; they had
never done anything--they had not yet arrived. The most masterly of them
all she had left in the club-house, and he, after climbing to high
place, had fallen. Was it possible that the only men of power were older
still? Then she progressed to a still more searching question. Could
this vapid and ambitionless assembly produce real men?




CHAPTER II

WHICH ENLARGES THE STAGE


On the day which brought to Mather his two crushing defeats, the cause
of them, Ellis, that type of modern success, openly embarked upon his
latest and his strangest venture. Not satisfied with his achievements,
and burning with the desire for recognition, he, whose power was
complete in every part of the city save one, turned to that quarter
where alone he had met indifference, and began his campaign against the
citadel of fashion. The guests at the golf-club tea were somewhat
startled when, at the side of their latest parvenue, whose bold beauty
and free ways they had not yet learned to tolerate, they perceived the
man whose characteristics--a short figure and large head, thinly
bearded, with sharp features and keen eyes--were known to all students
of contemporary caricature. Ellis was received with the coolness which
his companion had foreseen.

"They won't like it, Stephen," she had said when he proposed the
undertaking to her. "So soon after this morning, I mean; you know Mr.
Mather is very popular."

"I'll take the risk," he answered.

"I don't see why you bother," she went on. "It's been easy enough for
me, marrying the Judge, to go where I please--and yet it's a continual
struggle, after all. It isn't such fun as you'd think, from outside."

He scowled a partial acquiescence. Living near the social leaders, it
had been an earlier hope that to be their neighbour would open to him
their doors. He had built himself that imposing edifice upon the main
street of fashion, so that where the simple Georgian mansion of the
Waynes had stood the Gothic gorgeousness of a French château forced
attention. But in spite of the money he lavished there, it had not taken
Ellis long to discover that the widow Wayne, who was his neighbour still
(having refused to part with the original homestead of the family), had
more honour in her little clapboarded cottage than he in his granite
pile. The widow's son, who nodded so carelessly to Ellis when they met,
and yet was but a broker's clerk, had with his youth and grace a more
valuable possession still--his name.

Sometimes Ellis felt it almost too exasperating to live among these
people and be ignored by them, yet he gritted his teeth and stayed,
thinking that perseverance must win in the end, and perceiving that from
the midst of his enemies he might best plan his campaign. He spun his
webs with unconquerable patience, studying the social news with the same
keenness which he brought to the stock-market reports, and looking ahead
to a possible combination which would give him the opportunity he
desired. And now he believed that at last he actually saw his chance,
and his hopes were rising.

"Maybe I'm a fool," he said, "but by Gad I'll at least have one look
inside, and see what others find there. I notice that you worked hard
enough to get in, and now you work to stay. But, Lydia, if you want to
keep these people to yourself----"

"The idea!" she cried. "You are welcome to them."

"Or if you think I shall hurt your position----" He paused for a second
disclaimer, but none came; his directness had confused her, and he knew
he had struck near the truth. "Anyhow," he finished, "you promised me
this long ago, and I'll keep you to the bargain."

Now she, the maker of this promise to Ellis, was the wife of Judge Abiel
Harmon, whose ancient family, high position, and fine character were
everywhere honoured. Nevertheless, Ellis was able to regard her as his
entering wedge, for they had been boy and girl together in the same
little town. While yet in his teens he went to try his chances in the
city; years afterward, when her ripe charms had captivated the old
Judge, she found her fortune and followed. When she met Ellis again
their social positions were widely different, but interest drew the two
together, and though the Judge had no liking for Ellis, he did not
inquire what Mrs. Harmon did with her leisure; therefore she maintained
with the promoter an intimacy which to them both promised profit. To him
the first advantage was this visit to the golf club, but while on
inspection of the crowd he knew he could buy up any member of it at a
fair valuation, they did not appear to like him the better for that, and
their groups melted marvellously before him. As a relief, Mrs. Harmon
took him to the club-house, but the dreary promenade through its rooms,
where her vocabulary was exhausted and her enthusiasm lapsed, became at
last an evident failure. When she had said all that she could of the
conveniences of the lower floor she led him to the stairs.

"If you care to go up," she suggested, "the bedrooms might interest
you."

But she looked out on the lawn through the open door, and longed to be
there. The chattering groups called to every instinct of her nature; she
wished to get rid of this encumbrance--to hand him over to any one and
take her pleasure as she was used. And Ellis, too, looked out through
the doorway.

"Up-stairs is more likely to be stupid," he said bluntly. "Let's go
outdoors again."

In Mrs. Harmon's relief, she did not notice the characteristic which he
displayed in this answer. Ellis was a fighter; power was all very well,
but the winning of it was better. Just now he was like Alexander before
India--looking upon a domain which must be his, and eager for the
struggle. These people, and they alone, could put the capstone to the
pyramid of his successes, and could lend glamour, if not give glory, to
that wholly material structure. He would force them to it! Watching
society disport itself, he regarded it as his natural prey. That
assemblage was characterised by a suavity which deceived him; as he
viewed the throng it seemed all mildness, all amiability. He did not
appreciate the power of resistance of the apparently soft people.

And yet he had learned that money was not the effective weapon he had
once supposed it. The arrogance of possession was against him, and
though he did not understand the subtle reasons for his exclusion, he
was sure that something besides a golden key was needed to open those
doors.

It was not in Ellis to remake himself, nor did he try to change his
ways. As when he faced the difficulty of buying the city government, he
merely studied human weaknesses. The former experience had taught him
that men are easier bribed without money than with, and that there are
some passions, some ambitions, which do not include financial ease.
Moreover, he had formed his plan; it was time to make the attempt.

"Miss Judith Blanchard--she is here?" he asked.

Mrs. Harmon looked at him in surprise. Did he wish to meet a girl? So
far she had conducted the enterprise, and since their entrance on the
grounds had tried to help him by introductions to the older people. But
the experiment had failed, and he had no intention of repeating it.

"Why, she is here," she answered in doubt.

"Then introduce me to her," he directed brusquely.

Oh, if he wished! Mrs. Harmon was not pleased to be so ordered; she was
not at all satisfied with her day. It was very troublesome, this trying
to introduce Ellis. The manner of Mrs. Watson had been more distant than
ever, while as for Mrs. William Fenno, her behaviour had been arctic.
Mrs. Harmon cared for no further snubs, but if Ellis wished to run the
risk of the meeting--well, Judith would fix him! Not pausing to watch
the process, Mrs. Harmon presented Ellis to the young lady and escaped
to her own enjoyments.

Ellis was where he had many times imagined himself, standing before
Judith Blanchard, while the young men fell away on either side. He was
meeting her glance, he was seeing for himself the "queenly form," the
"regal head" (_vide_ the social columns of the _Herald_), and he was
experiencing at close hand the influence of her personality. It was
magnetic even to him, for on hearing his name she turned quickly, looked
him straight in the eye, and offered him her hand almost as a man would
have done. When she spoke her voice had not the artificial tones of the
women he had so far met; it had a genuine ring.

"So you are Mr. Ellis?"

"You know of me, then?" he asked.

"Every one has heard of you, even girls," she replied. Any one might
have said this, but not with her look, not with that bright glance. She
asked another question, which showed to those who listened her interest
in the man. "You have settled the water-works affair?"

John Trask turned and strolled away; Will Mayne bowed to Miss Blanchard
and silently betook himself elsewhere; Ripley Fenno mumbled a request to
be excused, and left Miss Blanchard alone with her new acquaintance.
Within five minutes, five times as many people were watching the pair
curiously, but absorbed in a new interest, they did not notice.

"What do you know," he asked her, "about the water-works?"

But she pursued her own inquiries. "Or does the street-railway not take
up your time? Or perhaps," she added boldly, "the court-house has no
need of the services of its contractor."

Now the boldness of this last remark consisted in the reminder of a
certain scandal, public-minded citizens (of whom the chief was Judge
Harmon) claiming that there had been boodlery in the recent repairs of
the court-house. It was more than hinted that Ellis had backed the
contractors, and that he had shared the profits. His face changed,
therefore, as she spoke, and she saw in his eyes a sudden gleam--of
anger?

"Or," she asked quickly, "have I misread the papers, and you are not the
contractor, after all?"

He was himself again, although looking--staring, almost--with deeper
interest. At first he said no more than "I am not the contractor," but
to himself he was crying: Success! He believed she had provoked him
deliberately; he saw that she had studied his doings, for the
court-house affair was almost a year old, the water-works deal occurred
months ago, and the street-railway _coup_ was of this very day.

"How much you know of matters!" he cried.

"I read the newspapers," she explained, "and with an object."

"An object?" he asked.

"I want to know what is going on," she explained. "I want to have to do
with real things. I am interested in the doings of _men_, Mr. Ellis."
And she made him a little bow, which he, still staring, made no attempt
to answer. Then she turned, and walked toward a more open space where
people could not, as they were beginning to do, press around them. "Will
you not come and see the grounds?" she asked. In great satisfaction he
kept at her side.

So this was Judith Blanchard! He had not believed it, had laughed at
himself for hoping it, but she was what he had imagined her. Months of
study had gone to make up his opinion of her; he had read of her, heard
of her, watched her. Quick, impetuous, somewhat impatient of
conventions--that was Judith.

"Do you know," she asked suddenly, "that we have met before? In a
street-car, not a fortnight ago, we rode facing each other for quite a
while. I remember meeting your eye."

He had recalled it many times. "I hope I didn't look too much at you,"
he said. "You must be used to having people watch you."

"Oh, please don't compliment," she interrupted, "or you will spoil my
idea of you. I imagine you a man who thinks to the point, and speaks so,
too. Yes, people do watch me wherever I go; they give me flattery, and
think I love it. But if you and I are to be friends----"

"Friends!" he exclaimed involuntarily.

"Are you not willing?"

"Willing!" he repeated. "Miss Blanchard, you offer what I had not dared
to hope one person here would think of in connection with me. I----" He
looked at her searchingly. "You are not teasing me?"

"I used a strong word," she said.

"Then you did not mean it?"

"Why," she endeavoured to explain, "I spoke hastily. I have few
friends."

"Few friends? You?"

"Yes, I," she answered. "Among the men, I mean. Those of my age are
so"--and she smiled--"so young! I am not posing, Mr. Ellis."

Nor was she. Her interest in the great world was genuine, even if
ill-balanced. Ruled by it, she looked into men and discovered, not how
much there was in them, but how little they had for her. The good, the
amiable, the well-intentioned, had none of them enough backbone to suit
her; it was power that she wished to find. Always among respectable
people, she was often impatient at their mediocrity; always among young
people, she was tired by their immaturity. This day she had for the
first time questioned if older people of another class had not more for
her; she had been repeating the question at the moment when Ellis was
presented. And now, without pose, she scrutinised him with frank
question: Was he one who could bring an interest into her life and let
her see the workings of the world?

And he knew she was not posing. "It is sometimes troublesome to be
friends with people," he said. "To be bound to them, to have
considerations of them prevent free action--that is what friends mean in
business."

"And you have few, as well?"

"I have dependents."

He spoke wisely, for the term struck her. Dependents! She had felt
isolation, but it was that of the looker-on. There was something regal
in this man's loneliness, for that he was lonely she divined.

"People need you," she said with approval. "They cannot get along
without you. Oh!" she exclaimed, "I have sometimes thought what power is
in the hands of such men as you. You can mould a whole community; you
can set your mark on a city so that it will tell of you forever." Behind
a steady face he concealed astonishment and question. "You can do so
much good!" she finished.

"Much good--yes," he returned uncertainly. Such enthusiasm was new to
him, especially when applied to what the opposition newspapers bluntly
called "jobs." He perceived that where he saw only money in his
enterprises, Judith saw great opportunities. "Yes, much good--if we can
only do it. Where there is power there is also responsibility. How can a
man know whether he is doing the right thing, especially"--and he
smiled--"when all the newspapers say he is doing wrong?"

"A man must follow his conscience," she replied, so gravely that he was
uncomfortable, for, thus innocently spoken, her words carried a sting.
He tried to finish the subject, and by his usual method--by meeting it
directly.

"A man works as he can," he said, "doing what seems best. He has to
think of the present, but as you seem to know, he works for the future
too. It is an interesting life and a busy one."

"Interesting?" she echoed. "Oh, it must be! Why should it not be
all-sufficient? Why should you come here?" He stared at her again, and
she asked: "What have we that can interest you?"

He answered with a simplicity that was almost great, an acknowledgment
of his desires which was unparalleled in his career, but which meant
that without hesitation he put himself in her hands, to betray if she
wished, but perhaps to save. He waved his hand toward the groups behind
him.

"I want to get in," he said.

"To get in?" She smiled, and he doubted. "To get in, when I sometimes
wish to get out? In here it's so dull!"

"I don't care for that," he replied.

"Sit down, then," she directed. "Let us talk it over."

Seated on a bench, half-facing, each had a moment to consider. She did
not take it; he did, for he was beginning to recover himself and to
study her. Beauty and grace, with that direct glance and genuine voice,
were her chief outward characteristics. Of her inward motives, most
prominent appeared her desire for something new; more strong, perhaps,
was her interest in matters beyond her sphere. This interest of hers was
to him a gift of fortune; it might bring him anywhere. But to Judith
this situation was new; therefore she enjoyed it. She paused no longer
than to consider what she should ask him next, and then pursued the
subject.

"How have you meant to go about it?" she inquired.

"Why," he hesitated, "my friends----"

"What friends?"

He acknowledged frankly: "I have but one--Mrs. Harmon."

"Oh, only Mrs. Harmon?"

Only! The tone and the word struck him. Was Mrs. Harmon, then, not fully
in? His mind reached forward blankly: who else could help him?

"But you must know some of our men," she suggested.

"Business acquaintances, yes," he said. "Yet they take care that I shall
remain a business acquaintance merely. No, I must reach the men through
the women."

"And the women?" she asked. "How will you reach them? Mrs. Fenno, for
instance, knows only one kind; she is iron against innovation. How will
you get on her list, or Mrs. Watson's, or Mrs. Branderson's?"

He did not answer. She saw that he was biting on the problem, and that
it did not please him. She made a positive statement.

"No. It is the men you must rely on."

And he, weighing the facts, believed her, though it went against his
former notions. The women--this day he had first seen them at close
quarters, and had felt them to be formidable creatures. The severe
majesty of Mrs. Fenno--how could he impress it? And Mrs. Branderson had,
beneath the good humour of her reception of him, the skill to chat
easily, and then to turn her back without excuse. He bit his
mustache--the women!

She was watching him with a half-smile. "Do you not agree?"

"But which men, then?" he inquired.

"Have you no influence over a single one?"

"There is young Mather," he said thoughtfully.

Her manner changed; she drew a little more within herself, and he noted
the difference in her tone as she asked: "You have some connection with
him?"

"None," he said. "But I can help him."

"How?"

"He is out of work," Ellis explained. "He will be fretting his heart out
for something to do. I could offer him some position."

"Do!" she said. "He is right here.--George!" she called.




CHAPTER III

SETS THE BALL TO ROLLING


No young man can bear to sit down idly under misfortune; but though the
chief results of Mather's work were lost to him, and his great
plans--his subway--swept away, and though his defeat rankled, he had not
suspected personal feeling in Ellis's action. The promoter had merely
stretched out his hand and taken, repudiating the pledges of those who
spoke in his name.

Therefore, in spite of the little shock which Mather felt when he saw
Ellis with Judith, he came forward and greeted politely. It was a
chance, of course, to "get back"; it would have been easy to express
surprise at the promoter's presence, and to ask how he liked the club
now that he really was there. Mather felt the temptation, but there was
too much behind his relations with Ellis for the younger man to be rude,
and he presently found himself saying: "I don't suppose you play golf,
Mr. Ellis?"

"No," Ellis answered. This was the first man who had greeted him freely
that day, and yet the one who most might feel resentment. While his
manner showed that he was about to speak again, Ellis looked the other
over with a smile which concealed deliberation. It was not weakness that
made Mather mild, in spite of Mrs. Harmon's belief, to which she clung
the more because the Judge rejected it. "I knew his father," her husband
had told her. "They are bulldogs in that stock." Ellis took much the
same view; once, at the beginning of his career, he had encountered
Mather's father, and had found him a bulldog indeed. The son seemed the
same in so many respects that Ellis wondered if he had thought quite
long enough in seizing this morning's opportunity. He knew well that
Mather would be stronger when next he entered the arena; besides, the
reform politicians, those bees who buzzed continually and occasionally
stung, had been after the young man, who, with the leisure to enter
politics, might be formidable. Thus Ellis, hesitating, ran over the
whole subject in his mind; and then, as he knew how to do, plunged at
his object.

"Mr. Mather, I am sorry for what happened this morning."

"Fortune of war," returned the other.

The young man certainly had a right to be bitter if he chose, judging,
at least, by the usual conduct of victims. Mather's peculiarity in this
did not escape Ellis, who spoke again with some hope of forgiveness. "I
trust that you and I may some day work together."

"I scarcely expect it," was the answer.

"Don't say that." Ellis was not sure what tone to adopt, but did his
best. "This is not the place to speak of it, perhaps, but there is
surely something I can do for you."

"Now that you have nothing to do, you know," said Judith.

Mather turned to her; he saw how she had put herself on Ellis's side;
how her interest in this offer was due to Ellis, not to himself. And the
reminder of his defeat was most unwelcome.

"Since this morning," he said, "I have been offered three positions."

"Oh!" cried Judith. The involuntary note of surprise showed how she had
underrated him, and Mather bit his lip.

Ellis spoke. "If you will take a position on the street-railroad----"

"Nothing subordinate there!" cut in Mather very positively.

"Then," said Ellis, "if you care to be the head of the water
company----"

"Oh!" Judith exclaimed before Ellis had completed his offer. "Such an
opportunity!"

Mather himself looked at Ellis in surprise. It was an opening which,
coming from any other source, he would have accepted eagerly, as a task
in which he could give free play to all his powers. Did Ellis really
mean it? But the promoter, having swiftly asked himself the same
question, was sure of his own wisdom. The place needed a man: here was
one. Besides, Ellis would have given much to tie Mather to him.

"I mean it," he said positively.

"You must accept," added Judith.

It was too much for Mather to bear. His defeat by Ellis and his loss of
Judith--both of these he could sustain as separate calamities. But when
he saw her thus siding with his victor, Mather forgot himself, forgot
that Ellis was not a man to defy lightly, and spoke the impolitic truth.

"I could not work with Mr. Ellis under any circumstances!"

"George!" cried Judith hotly.

Then there was silence as the men looked at each other. Had Judith been
the woman that in her weaker moments she was pleased to think herself,
she would have studied the two. But she was neither cool nor impartial;
she had put her feelings on Ellis's side, and looked at Mather with
indignation. She missed, therefore, the pose of his head and the fire
of his eye. She missed as well the narrowing of Ellis's eyes, the
forward stretch of his thin neck--snaky actions which expressed his
perfect self-possession, and his threat. Neither of them spoke, but
Judith did as she turned away.

"You are very rude," she said coldly. "Come, Mr. Ellis, let us walk
again." Ellis followed her; Mather stood and watched them walk away.

"It was shameful of him," said Judith when she and Ellis were out of
hearing.

"He is young," remarked the other. He was watching her now, as he had
watched Mather, out of narrow eyes. Mather's words meant a declaration
of interest in Judith, confirming gossip. She was supposed to have
refused him, and yet she was biting her lip--would she be quite so moved
if Mather had not the power to do it? Ellis promised himself that he
would remember this.

"He will know better some day," he said. "But at least he is out of the
question. Can you not suggest some one else?"

"There is Mr. Pease," she answered.

Pease and himself--oil and water! How little she knew! and he almost
laughed. But he answered meditatively: "He is very--set."

"I see my father is coming for me," she said.

"Let me ask you this, then," he begged quickly. "May I come to see
you--at your house?"

"I am afraid not--yet," she answered. She was not ungracious, and
continued with much interest: "But Mr. Ellis, I shall be so anxious to
hear how it all goes. I am sorry I cannot help you with the men, but the
principle is [she thought of Mather] choose the weak ones, not the
strong. Here is my father. Father, this is Mr. Ellis."

Colonel Blanchard was affable. "How de do?" he said breezily. "Fine day
for the match, Mr. Ellis."

"A very fine day," answered Ellis, pleased by the way in which the
Colonel looked at him; Blanchard seemed interested, like his daughter.
But Judith thought that the conversation had best end there.

"The carriage has come?" she asked.

"Yes," answered the Colonel. "Beth is in it, waiting for us. You know
she goes out to dinner." He begged Ellis to excuse them, and so carried
his daughter away.

Ellis looked after them; these two, at least, had treated him well. The
Colonel had stared with almost bourgeois interest, as if impressible by
wealth and power. Ellis mused over the possibility of such a thing.

"The weak," he said, repeating Judith's words. "The weak, not the
strong."

Then Mrs. Harmon swooped down on him. "Here you are," she said
petulantly. "Everybody's going. Let us go too."




CHAPTER IV

AN UNDERSTANDING


Mrs. Harmon was very petulant; indeed, her aspect in one of lower
station would have been deemed sulky. Reviewing the afternoon, she was
convinced that to have brought Ellis there was a great mistake. Why
should she take up with him, anyway? He could give her nothing
but--trinkets; the old acquaintance was not so close that she was bound
to help him. It had been condescension on her part; she might as well
stop it now; yes, she might as well.

Yet she thought with some uneasiness of those trinkets. To accept them
had not bound her to him, had it? Their money value was nothing to him.
She could break from him gradually--that would be simple enough--and she
could make a beginning on the drive home, for silence could show her
feelings.

Ellis understood her after one glance, which expressed not only his
impatience with her instability, but also a sudden new repulsion. The
afternoon had opened his eyes to what the finer women were. How could he
have supposed that Mrs. Harmon was really in the inner circle? How she
contrasted with Judith! She seemed so flat beside the girl; she was his
own kind, while Judith was better. He wished that he might drop the
woman and pin his hopes to the girl.

But he could not spare Mrs. Harmon, and he had no fear that she would
drop him, for he knew all her weaknesses. She was ambitious to a certain
degree, but after that, lazy; she was fond of comfort, fond
of--trinkets, with a healthy indifference to ways and means. In fact,
although Ellis did not so phrase it, there was a barbaric strain in her,
a yearning for flesh-pots and show, in which her husband's tastes and
means did not permit her to indulge herself. Ellis knew that he could
manage her.

"Lydia," he said, "I want to thank you for the afternoon. It must have
been a great bother to you. I'm afraid I spoiled your fun."

She could but respond. "Oh, not much."

"Look here," he went on. "You know me, I think; we understand each other
pretty well. These people," and he waved his hand to include the whole
golf club, "are not to be too much for us. Do you mind my saying a few
words about myself?"

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed with involuntary interest; for he seldom spoke
his thoughts.

"That girl, Miss Blanchard," he said, "was very good to me."

"She was?" Mrs. Harmon could not subdue an accent of surprise, but
hastened to explain. "I've sometimes found her haughty."

"I shan't forget you introduced me to her," said Ellis. "I mean to
follow up my acquaintance there."

"No girl," suggested Mrs. Harmon, "has much influence. No unmarried
woman, I mean."

"But when Miss Blanchard marries she will have it then?"

"Yes," answered Mrs. Harmon thoughtfully, and then very positively:
"Yes, I think she would be a leader of the younger set."

"I am sure she would." Ellis nodded confidently. Judith had faults,
notably rashness, but under wise guidance she could develop masterly
qualities.

"But why----" began Mrs. Harmon in some perplexity. Then she caught
sight of her companion's expression. "What! you don't mean to say that
you--you would?"

"Why not?" asked Ellis. "Is it so very strange?"

"You are over forty!" cried Mrs. Harmon.

"Nothing to do with the case," he replied shortly.

"N-no," agreed Mrs. Harmon slowly. "No, I believe not--not with Judith."
She looked at her companion with sudden respect. "I believe you've hit
upon it! I didn't know you thought of anything of the kind."

"I need you, just the same," said Ellis. "You will help me?"

"Yes, yes," she replied. She felt a nervous inclination to giggle. "It's
a big affair."

"All the more credit if you engineer it," he answered, and shrewdly, for
she felt stimulated. If _she_ could engineer it! Then she could plume
herself in the face of Mrs. Fenno, and would always have a strong ally
in Judith.

"Yes," she cried eagerly, "it will mean a great deal to--to everybody if
it happens. Why, I could----"

But Ellis would not let her run on. "Do you know her well?" he
interrupted.

"I will know her better soon," she stated.

"Not too quick," he warned, fearing that she might blunder. "You know
yourself that she is not a girl to be hurried. Tell me, now, what men
are there of her family?"

"Only her father."

"And what sort of man is he?"

Mrs. Harmon's vocabulary was not wide. "Why, spreading," she explained.
"Jaunty, you know."

"And his circumstances?"

"He is well off," she answered. "Keeps a carriage and spends freely.
There was money in the family, and his wife had some too. You know how
those old fortunes grow."

Or disappear, thought Ellis; he had been investigating the Colonel's
standing. "Miss Blanchard has no cousins?" he asked aloud. "No other men
attached to her?"

"Attached in one sense," she replied, "but not connected."

"Much obliged," he said. "Now, Lydia, if we stand by each other----"

Mrs. Harmon had forgotten her earlier thoughts. "Of course!" she cried.
"Oh, it will be so interesting!"

Ellis added the finishing touch, abruptly changing the subject. "You
have been to Price's recently?"

Now Price was the fashionable jeweller, and few women were indifferent
to his name. Mrs. Harmon, recollecting the cause of her recent visit
there, saw fit to be coy.

"Oh, yes," she said, turning her head away. "He keeps asking me to
come."

"He's always picking up pretty things," said Ellis approvingly. "Did he
have anything special this time?"

"Something of Orsini's," replied Mrs. Harmon, struggling to appear
indifferent. For they had been lovely, those baroque pearls so
gracefully set in dusky gold. Price had made her try the necklace on,
and she had sighed before the glass. "I wish he wouldn't pester me so,"
she said irritably. "He knows I can't afford them."

"He knows you have taste," Ellis said warmly. "He calls it a great
pleasure to show things to you."

"I know," she replied, mollified. "I think he means to flatter me. But,
Stephen, it's getting late, and I must dress for the Fennos' ball this
evening."

"Then," responded Ellis, "I will stop at Price's on my way down-town."

"Naughty! naughty!" she answered, but she radiated smiles.

Ellis, after he had left Mrs. Harmon at her door, went, as he had
promised, to the establishment of the pushing Mr. Price, and asked for
the proprietor.

"Got anything to show me?" Ellis demanded.

From his safe the jeweller brought out a leather case, and looked at
Ellis impressively before opening it.

"Pretty small," commented Ellis.

"Ah, but----" replied the other, and opened the case. "Look--Orsini's
make!"

"I don't know anything about that," Ellis said as he poked the jewels
with his finger. "Look strange to me. The fashion, however?"

"The very latest," Price assured him. "Trust me, Mr. Ellis."

It was one secret of Ellis's success that he knew where to trust. He had
ventured twice that day, with women at that, and the thought of it was
to trouble him before he slept. But he could trust Price in matters of
taste, and as to secrecy, the man was bound to him. Price had been in
politics at the time when Ellis was getting "influence" in the city
government; for the jeweller those days were past, but this store and
certain blocks of stock were the result. Besides, he was adroit. Ellis
gave the chains and pendants a final push with his finger.

"Send it, then," he said. "The usual place. By the way, how much? Whew!
some things come dear, don't they? But send it, just the same, and at
once. She's going out to some affair."

Thus it happened that Mrs. Harmon wore "the very latest" at her throat
that night.




CHAPTER V

VARIOUS POINTS OF VIEW


The Blanchards' equipage was a perfect expression of quiet
respectability, for the carriage was sober in colour, was drawn by a
strong and glossy horse, and was driven by a coachman wearing a modest
livery and a discontented countenance. As it drove away from the golf
club the carriage held the three members of the family, in front the
younger daughter, Beth, and on the rear seat the others: Judith erect
and cheerful, the Colonel cheerful also, but lounging in his corner with
the air of one who took the world without care. Blanchard was
fifty-eight, military as to voice and hair, for his tones were sonorous
and his white whiskers fierce. Yet these outward signs by no means
indicated his nature, and his manner, though bluff, appertained less to
military life than to the game of poker. Not that the Colonel played
cards; moreover, he drank merely in moderation, swore simply to maintain
his character, betrayed only by the tint of the left side of his
mustache that he liked a good cigar, and was extravagant in neither
dress nor table. He kept his carriage, of course, liked the best wines
at home and at the club, and in a small way was a collector of curios.
Yet the Blanchards, but for the brilliance of Judith, were quiet people;
he was proud to be a quiet man.

Dullness is often the penalty of indolence; the Colonel was lazy and he
had small wit. Perceiving that Judith came away from the tea stimulated
and even excited, he rallied her about her new acquaintance. "An
interesting man, hey?" he asked for the third time.

"Yes," answered Judith absently. "Father, what is there against Mr.
Ellis?"

"Only that he is a pusher. He jars." Blanchard aimed to be tolerant.

"Isn't there more?" asked little Beth.

The Colonel, as always, turned his eyes on her with pleasure. She was
dark and quiet and sweet, yet her brown eyes revealed a power of
examining questions for their moral aspects. "Nothing much," he said
indulgently. "You don't know business, Beth. He's beaten his opponents
always, and the beaten always squeal, but I doubt if he's as black as
he's painted."

"I'm glad to hear you stand up for him, father," said Judith.

"He'll be looking for a wife among us," went on the Colonel with vast
shrewdness and considerable delicacy. "How would he suit you, Judith?"

"Oh, father!" Beth protested. But Judith, with fire in her eyes,
answered: "He's at least a man. You can't say that of every one."

Her answer made him turn toward her with a soberer thought and a new
interest. His manner changed from the natural to the pompous as he set
forth his views. "Money is almost the best thing one can have."

"Father, dear!" protested Beth again.

"I mean," he explained, again softening his manner, "from a father's
standpoint. If I could see you two girls married with plenty of money, I
could die happy." But evidently the Colonel was in the best of health,
so that his words lacked impressiveness. It was one of the misfortunes
of their family life that Judith was able to perceive the incongruity
between her father's Delphic utterances and his actual feelings, and
that the Colonel knew she found him out.

"I wasn't thinking of Mr. Ellis's money," she said at this point.

"I was," retorted the Colonel. As he was struggling with a real thought,
his tones became a little less sonorous and more genuine. "In sickness
riches give everything. In health there are enough troubles without
money cares. I mean it, Judith."

She took his hand and caressed it. "Forgive me, father!"

"My dear--my dear!" he responded cordially.

So this, the type of their little jars, the sole disturbers of family
peace, passed as usual, rapidly and completely, and Ellis was spoken of
no more. Beth, with customary adroitness, came in to shift the subject,
and when the three descended at their door none of them shared the
coachman's air of gloom.

He, however, detained the Colonel while the girls went up the steps.
"Beg pardon, sir, but could you give me a little of my wages?"

"James," returned his master with his most military air, "why will you
choose such inconvenient times? Here is all I have with me." He gave
some money. "Twenty dollars."

"Yessir," replied the man, not overmuch relieved. "And the rest of it,
sir? There's a hundred more owing."

"Not to-day," returned the Colonel with vexation. But he was an
optimist. Though at the bottom of the steps he muttered to himself
something about "discharge," by the time he reached the top he was
absorbed in cheerful contemplation of the vast resources which, should
Judith ever chance to marry Ellis, would be at her disposal.

Five minds were, that evening, dominated by the occurrences of the
afternoon. One was the Colonel's, still entertaining a dream which
should properly be repugnant to one of his station. This he recognised,
but he reminded himself that as a parent his daughter's good should be
his care. Another mind was Mather's, disturbed by the jealousy and dread
which the manliest of lovers cannot master. And one was Mrs. Harmon's;
she, like Ellis, had learned much that afternoon, and meant in future to
apply her knowledge.

As that evening she went to the Fennos' ball Mrs. Harmon recalled the
snubs of the afternoon, and saw how insecure her footing was among these
people. Sometimes she had wondered if it were worth while, this struggle
to be "in"; the life was dull, lacking all natural excitements; there
was no friendship possible with any of the blue-bloods. Yet she hated to
knuckle to them; if she could engineer this match between Judith and
Ellis, then----! And Mrs. Harmon, with the hope of coming triumph, felt
fully equal to meeting Mrs. Fenno on her own ground. Mrs. Harmon wore
Ellis's jewels on her breast, she had his brain to back her, she
believed she knew Judith's weaknesses, and she saw before her a bright
future.

Judith Blanchard made at that ball a searching review of her world,
dominated as she still was by the thoughts which Ellis aroused. For he,
the strongest personality in the city, had done more than to excite her
curiosity: with his deference to her opinion and his appeal for her help
he had succeeded--as Mather never--in wakening her sympathy. Questioning
why fashion should reject him, stirred to a new comparison of reality
with sham, she looked keenly about her at the ball. She was in one of
the inner sanctuaries, where society bowed down and worshiped itself.
Judith sniffed the incense, listened to the chants, and weighed the
words of officiating priests and priestesses. She found everything to
delight the eye, except the idols; everything to charm the senses,
except sense.

In the ball-room there was dancing, pagan rites to what purpose? This
usually unrhythmic swaying, skipping, sliding, seemed a profitless way
to pass the hours when workers were in bed. Girls more or less innocent
danced with men more or less _roué_; this procedure, indefinitely
continued, gave occasion for jealousies among the girls and selfish
scheming among the men. In other rooms the older people played cards,
intent at bridge or whist upon their stakes. Near the buffet thronged
bachelors old or young, with not a few married men, busied in acquiring
an agreeable exhilaration. Their occupation was no worse than the
passionate gambling of the old women. And the house in which all this
went on was beautifully classic in design and furnishings. Beside that
quiet elegance, how vacant was the chatter! As Judith thought thus,
slowly the spirit of revolt came to her.

The master of the house approached her; he was leonine, massive,
somewhat lame from rheumatism. She saw him, as he came, speaking among
his guests; his smile was cynical. It lighted upon her father, and the
Colonel, his character somehow exposed by that smile, seemed shallow. It
turned to the men at the sideboard, and their interests seemed less than
the froth in their glasses. The smile turned on Judith, and she felt
called to give an account of herself.

But he merely asked her: "Where is Beth?"

"Gone with Miss Pease to a meeting of the Charity Board," Judith
answered.

Mr. Fenno grunted, looking at her sidewise. "Better employed than we!"

Then he rambled away, neither knowing nor caring what encouragement he
had given to her mood. He missed Beth, for his rheumatism was sharp, the
company inane, and Beth was almost the only person who could make him
contented with himself. But Judith felt the reflection of his cynicism
and was stirred still deeper. What was there to interest her here?

Among all the women Mrs. Harmon alone was in disaccord. No dressmaker
could conceal her natural style; the eye and carriage of the Judge's
wife were bolder than those of the women about her. A free humour
attracted some of the men; the women avoided her, the more delicate from
instinct, the stronger with a frank dislike. This antipathy Judith had
often felt and expressed, yet to-night she reviewed and rejected it.
Mrs. Harmon belonged to the class of the rising Americans; in that class
Judith felt interest, questioning if its vigour and freshness should not
outweigh external faults. She went to Mrs. Harmon and began to talk with
her.

She tried to find, within the exterior, the solid qualities of the
middle class. But thought and purpose seemed lacking; in Mrs. Harmon the
vulgarity lay deeper than the surface. She was frivolous; she liked the
sparkle and the show, the wine, the dancing, and the gaiety. Promising
herself an intimacy with Judith, she talked willingly, but it was only
upon the subject of Ellis that she became interesting.

She told Judith much about him. He had always been persevering and
ambitious; he had left his town as a boy because even then he found it
too little. Ellis had begun small; now he was big. Some day, said Mrs
Harmon significantly, people would recognise him.

Why not, thought Judith as she looked about her, admit Ellis here? What
was an aristocracy for but to reward success? How could it remain sound
but by the infusion of new blood? Ellis had proved his quality by the
things he had done; he had beaten Mather; yet these halls which to
Mather were open were closed to Ellis. It was unfair to refuse to
recognise him! What were the abilities of these men here, compared with
his?

Thus Judith, tolerant in her broad Americanism, admiring the forces
which to-day are accomplishing such marvellous results, thought of her
world. At the same time Ellis also was thinking of it. His was the fifth
mind moved by that afternoon's occurrence, but moved the most deeply of
them all. On leaving Judith first, like a man smitten by a slender blade
he had spoken, acted, thought as before. Then the inward bleeding began,
and the pain. He had gone away from her thinking of her as something to
be won, but no more distant, no less a commodity, than a public
franchise or a seat in the legislature. Thus he had discussed her with
Mrs. Harmon, but before night his thought of the girl had changed. Her
refinement was new to him; he recalled her in imagination and dwelt on
her features and her voice. Yet, equally with her delicacy, her spirit
charmed him with its frankness and its admiration of great things. There
was a subtle flattery in her interest in him; he had never thought of
himself as she did; he saw himself magnified in her eyes, which seemed
to refine the baseness from his employments and purposes. She gave him a
new idea of himself, and held before him vague new aims.

He had entertained some of his henchmen that evening at his table, had
tasted while they ate, sipped while they drank, listened while they
spoke of politics. He sat at the head of the table, like the Sphinx
after which he was familiarly called, indifferent to their uncouthness
and their little thoughts; then at the end he suddenly called them into
executive session, asked a few keen questions, gave some brief
directions, and dismissed them. Thus he had always ruled them, from
outside, commanding respect by his decision, almost awe by his silence.
Though his purposes were not clear, the men went to obey him, having
learned to support him blindly, for he never failed. Such was Ellis
among his subordinates, the "old man" of whom they never asked
questions, with whom they never attempted familiarity. They praised him
as they went, proud of their connection with him. But he put out the
lights as soon as the men were gone, and sat at the window, looking at
Fenno's house.

There was the temporary focus of social life; he saw the lights; had he
opened his window he might have heard the music. Carriages drove up,
people entered the house, and on the curtains of the ball-room he saw
moving shadows. In that house were what he wanted--recognition, a new
life, Judith. But she was guarded by the powers of a whole order, was
infinitely remote.

His talk with Judith had doubled his determination to enter the upper
world, and yet changed his regard for it. It became Judith's world,
seeming to-night like a house which she inhabited, more precious by her
presence. And because she was so much finer than he had imagined the
women of her class, her sphere looked farther away, and his
determination to enter it was tempered by the fear of failure.

As he took the first step in his new venture, he had been half ashamed
of his desire to "better himself," quite unable to justify himself by
appeal to the natural American wish to obtain the highest indorsement of
his community. So long as there had been anything left for him to win,
he had turned instinctively toward it. Now he suddenly realised that he
faced his greatest fight. He had often said that he liked fighting; he
had struggled for many years with all the power of nerve and mind.
To-night his brain seemed weary, bruised and scarred as a body might be.
Watching the house where Judith was, contemplating her image, a softness
came over Ellis, new to him; resolution became a wish, and then turned
to yearning. It was with difficulty that he roused himself, surprise
mingling with his contempt of the unrecognised sensation. He was in for
it now, he told himself almost roughly; the game was worth the candle,
and he would see it through.




CHAPTER VI

INTRODUCING AN ECCENTRIC


Mr. Peveril Pease had finished his week's work, and feeling no
obligation to attend the golf club tea, went home and settled himself in
his snuggery among his books. When his feet were once in slippers, his
velvet jacket was on, and he held a well-marked volume in his hand, he
felt he had more true comfort than all the golf clubs in the world could
give. So thorough was his satisfaction that rather than read he gave
himself up to the enjoyment of his well-being. Gazing about the room,
Mr. Pease permitted himself a brief retrospection of his career.

Few men in the town could with so much right compliment themselves. He
had begun life with nothing but ancestral debts and encumbered property,
and now he was nearly as rich as Ellis, who had started with the
traditional dollar in his pocket. Pease's credit was firm as a rock; the
stock of his bank was quoted--no, it was hoarded. The widow, the orphan,
the struggling clerks who had their money in Pease's hands could sleep
at ease, and the respect in which he was held by the business men of the
city--but he wasn't thinking of that.

No, this little house was his thought, and this room, and that array of
books. He had been thirteen years of age when his grandfather died, and
within the month he had refused the trustees his permission to sell a
foot of the real estate. Judge Harmon never tired of telling of the
visit of the boy, swelling with rage and resolution. "Cynthia may be
willing, but grandfather never would sell, and I won't have it!" he had
declared, and so strong was the lad's feeling that the trustees, divided
in opinion, had yielded to him, backing the debts of the estate with
their own credit. At eighteen he was practically their adviser and his
own trustee; at twenty he had redeemed the homestead with his earnings;
at twenty-five he had sold a single lot of the down-town property for
what the entire estate would not have brought twelve years before. So
much for determination and a long head.

Fifteen years more had passed, and still his life had not made him hard
nor calculating. When he left his office he left his business; he went
"home," to the house in which he was born. The little shingled building,
so quaint, had been in the family for six generations; a Percival Pease
founded it, a Pembroke Pease finished it, a Peveril Pease owned it now.
It had never been rebuilt; the wainscot was still the same, the floors
sagged, the stairs were queer, the ceilings low. It corresponded the
least in the world with his riches and his great interests. But Pease
had the heart of a boy and the affections of a woman. The house was his
paradise, the room his bower, the books his especial delight. All his
spare time he spent among them, giving himself to "mental improvement."

Many people thought him odd; some called him "poor Mr. Pease," with such
pity as is given to the struggling artist or the ambitious novelist, for
Pease had never been even to the high-school, and it seemed foolish for
him to try to cultivate his mind. They did not consider that the grace
of humility was not denied him, with just a touch of that saving
quality, humour. He knew himself fairly well, he guarded himself
successfully, only one person really knew his heart, and for the
opinion of the rest he had a smile. Let them laugh or pity, they had
nothing so fine as he, they were not so happy as he, and his kind of a
fool was not the worst.

And so we must acknowledge that he was thoroughly complacent. None of
Judith Blanchard's discontent stirred him, none of Mather's anger at the
world, and none of Ellis's desire to advance. This little room gave him
all that he wanted: intellectual improvement, the feeling of progress,
mental satisfaction. Pease went beyond cherishing an ideal of happiness;
he believed that he was happy, and that no one could take his happiness
from him.

And thinking so at this minute, his eye rested fondly on a motto on the
wall.

It was from Goethe; it was lettered in old German characters, framed in
passe-partout, and hung above the mantel. Pease had dug it out of
"Faust"; it embodied so completely his notion of existence that he
resolved to keep it before him always. No mere translation could do it
justice; "Gray, dear friend, is all theory, and green the golden tree of
life"--that was too tame. No; the sonorous German could best express it:

    "Grau, theurer Freund, ist aller Theorie,
    Und Gruen des Lebens goldner Baum."

Pease whispered the words to himself. Gray indeed were the lives of all
others; he alone dwelt beneath life's green tree and ate its golden
fruit. This house, this room, these books--ah, Paradise!

There came a knock at the door. "Peveril?"

"Yes, Cynthia."

"Don't forget, little Miss Blanchard is coming to dinner."

"No, Cynthia."

She was not requesting him to "dress." He always did. She was not asking
him to be on time; he always was. Being on the safe side of the door,
however, his cousin meant to remind him of her hardihood in inviting to
his table some one young and pretty.

Not, Miss Cynthia sighed, that it would make any difference to him. When
her visitor arrived a little early, and sat chatting in the parlour,
Miss Pease reflected that Peveril, upstairs, was dressing no more
carefully for this charming girl than he would have done for old Mrs.
Brown. Charming--but he knew nothing of the real, the true, the living
best!

Thus we may briefly record that Miss Cynthia Pease, who was the one
person that understood her cousin, was not wholly in sympathy with his
pursuits. Not that she would have acknowledged it to him, nor to anyone
else, not even to "little Miss Blanchard," Judith's sister Beth, who was
questioning her in a spirit of fun.

"I'm so afraid of dining with your cousin!" Beth exclaimed.

"No, you're not!" contradicted Miss Cynthia grimly.

"If I should make some slip in statement, or spot the table-cloth! He is
so accurate, they all say."

"You may depend on him to be polite under all circumstances," responded
Miss Cynthia, glaring.

"But I should know what he would think," persisted the young lady.

Miss Cynthia advanced to fury, scarcely repressed. "No, you wouldn't!"
she denied emphatically. "I won't have you laugh at him."

"Why, you laugh at him yourself," said Beth. "You know you do."

"And if I do?" retorted Miss Pease. "Let me tell you he's the dearest,
kindest man that ever--"

"Why, Miss Cynthia," cried the other, "don't I know?"

"Nobody knows," was the response.

Now all grades of opposition, from caustic irony to smothered
denunciation, were habitual in Miss Pease's manner, but as she said
"Nobody knows," lo! there were tears in her voice, if not in her eyes.

"Miss Cynthia!" cried Beth.

Miss Pease was gaunt and grewsome, so that her manner fitted her
perfectly, but now as she sat winking her eyes and twisting her face she
became pathetic. The girl rose quickly and came to her side.

"Have I hurt you?" she inquired anxiously.

"No, child, no," answered Miss Pease, recovering herself. "You didn't
know what a sentimental old fool I am, did you? There, sit down again.
You see," (she hesitated before committing herself further) "I was
thinking, just before you came, of what Peveril has been to me. Your
talk roused me again."

"He has done a great deal for you?" asked Beth with sympathy.

"Everything in the world!" answered Miss Cynthia warmly, not having
resumed her manner. "Since our grandfather died Peveril has been my
protector, though he is two years younger. You know we were very poor at
first."

"Very poor?"

"We had nothing but debts," stated Miss Cynthia. "We lived in
boarding-houses for seven years before Peveril could buy the homestead
and get the strangers out of it. It was a proud day when he brought me
here, and told me this was mine to live in until the end of my life. And
yet for two years more I went daily to my work--I was in Benjamin's
great dry-goods store, my dear--until when they asked me to be the head
of the linen department Peveril said I should work no more, and
insisted on my staying at home."

"I never heard of that," cried Beth. "That you were ever in Benjamin's!"

"And a very good saleswoman I was," said Miss Cynthia. "But after that
the money began to come in to us, and Peveril sold the land where the
Security Building now is. I have not done a piece of work since then,
except for Peveril or for charity. I am a rich woman, my dear."

"But you do so much for charity!" exclaimed Beth with enthusiasm.

When it came to praise, Miss Pease became grim at once. "I've got to
keep busy with something," she snapped.

"But tell me more," begged Beth.

"There is nothing more," declared Miss Cynthia. "And now I hear him
coming, five minutes before the hour, just as he always does. Don't be
afraid of him; he has the softest heart in the world, as you ought to
discover, since you had the skill to find mine."

Beth had only the time to squeeze her friend's hand as the two stood up
together. She had discovered Miss Pease's heart; it was an unconscious
specialty of Beth's to find the weak points in the armour of forbidding
persons, and she had on her list of friends more of the lonely and
unknown than had many a worker in organised charity. She was, in fact, a
worker in her own special field, the well-to-do, bringing them the
sympathy and affection which they needed as much as do the poor. She had
neither shrewdness nor experience; what she did was quite unconscious,
but her value was unique. Mr. William Fenno, who had no love for his
wife's pleasures and whose daughters took after their mother, loved to
have the girl with him. Judge Harmon, not quite at home by his own
gas-log, felt more comfortable if Beth were spending the evening with
him--for she made no pretense of coming to see his wife. Quite
unconsciously, a similar bond had been growing up between Beth and Miss
Pease, and took open recognition on that day when Miss Cynthia, allowing
her eyes to be pleased by the girl's freshness, blurted her feeling and
said: "I like you. You are so unlike your sister."

But now Mr. Pease entered the room, and stood bowing while his cousin
repeated the formula: "Peveril, here is Miss Elizabeth Blanchard. Beth,
you remember my cousin, Mr. Peveril Pease?"

Beth thought he was "funny," meaning he was peculiar. He was short and
rotund, he was immaculate and formal. His eyes met hers soberly, as if
he had little of his cousin's wit, however much less savage. Talk opened
with the golf club tea, and before the subject was exhausted he led the
conversation dexterously to the weather. Dinner was announced while the
beauty of the spring was yet under discussion, and at table, for a
while, Beth was still repeating to herself that he was a "funny" little
man.

Curiously, Pease was in an entirely new situation. Never had he been so
placed that he must give an hour's undivided attention to a girl. He had
never learned that girls have individuality; he avoided them as a rule,
and at dinners there was always one at his left hand to relieve the
other at his right, so that he never spoke to either of them long.
Besides, not being regarded as a marrying man, Pease was invariably
given the "sticks" to entertain. Girls had been to him, therefore,
undeveloped creatures, displaying similar characteristics, being usually
unacquainted with serious topics, and (quite as usually) devoid of
personal attractions. Beth Blanchard, however, was something different.
Without dwelling on her charms, it is enough to say that she was
pretty; and without entering upon her mental acquirements, let us
believe that she knew what was going on. She was quite used, moreover,
to the society of older persons, and could meet Pease on many grounds,
although it happened that the subject chosen was Europe.

"You have been there?" asked Pease quickly when Germany was mentioned.

"We spent some time there," Beth replied.

"Of course you have seen Weimar, then," Pease assumed. He happened to be
right.

"Oh, yes," she answered, quite as if Weimar were still a focus of
travel. "We spent a month there; mamma was quite ill. You know"--and
here she addressed Miss Cynthia--"that she died over there, and then we
came home."

Mr. Pease, in conjunction with his cousin, murmured his condolences, and
Miss Blanchard, not to make the evening doleful, turned again to speak
of Weimar.

"We lived quite near to Goethe's house," she said.

Then she beheld Mr. Pease glow with admiration. "You are very
fortunate," he cried. "The inspiration must have been great."

"I am no writer, Mr. Pease," returned Beth.

"But," he explained, "it must have permanently bettered and improved
you."

"Do you think I needed it?" she flashed.

Miss Cynthia, at her end of the table, was biting her lip. Pease, not
perceiving that he was being rallied, fell to apologising. "Oh, no," he
gasped. "I meant----"

She spared him. "I was not serious," she laughed. "You must pardon me."
It was no new matter with her to relieve the embarrassed. Then she led
him once more to the topic.

"You like Weimar, Mr. Pease?"

"Oh, I only like Goethe, you know, and Schiller. I've never been from
America."

"And yet you read German?"

"Not very well. You see, I----"

And then he spoke of himself. Miss Cynthia sat amazed. Here was Peveril,
who was always silent regarding his hobby, speaking from his heart. Beth
coaxed a little; he hung back a bit, but he yielded. It was as if a
miser were giving up his gold, yet the gold came. For all that she had
invited Beth there, wishing to stir her cousin from his rut, Miss
Cynthia presently became enraged. Peveril was telling more than he had
ever told her. This chit of a girl, what charm had she?

But Pease himself, as he told the unaccustomed tale in halting
sentences, felt comfort. It had been a long time repressed within him;
he had seldom touched on it with Cynthia, and though he had not known
it, the loneliness of it had been wearing on him all these years. It was
sympathy that now brought it out, that quality in Beth which could
pierce the armour of such a cynic as Miss Cynthia, or warm so cold a
heart as William Fenno's. Pease yielded to it as frost to the sun. So he
told of himself and his studies, and the impulse of all these years he
confessed at the last.

"You see," he said, flushing painfully, "it's poetry that I love."

And he sat, the man of business, with his fair skin pink as a girl's.
Then, lest she should mistake, he explained.

"You mustn't think," he said eagerly, "that I really suppose I
understand. I know I lose much--I--I'm not very deep, you know. There
are so many subtle things and such beautiful ones that pass me by.
Only, you see [more hesitation], I got such pleasure from the English
poets that I--tried the German. With a dictionary, you know, and a
grammar. And all this is so much to me that I--I don't care for anything
else. Can you understand?"

Then he was swept by doubt and fear. Would she laugh? Not she! Beth made
him understand she appreciated his feelings, and presently Miss Cynthia
found herself listening to a discussion of Shakespeare. Her lip
curled--how foolish of Peveril! What real interest could Beth take in
his ideas?

He asked himself the same question, with a sudden start, for Beth
laughed merrily. What had he said that was laughable? She held up a
finger. "Mr. Pease, I am going to accuse you of something. Will you
promise to tell me the truth?"

This, he dimly felt, was a species of banter. "I promise," he said
uncomfortably.

"Then, sir, do you memorise?"

"Why, yes," he confessed.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed. "Miss Cynthia, are you not ashamed of him? I
know nobody that memorises now, Mr. Pease, except you and--me!"

He was relieved, and they fell to speaking eagerly. For the next few
minutes Miss Cynthia felt the outrage of hearing poetry quoted at her
table. Wordsworth, Scott, Burns, and then--for Pease was truly
patriotic--Lanier and Longfellow. And so they came to discuss the
meaning of a passage, and took up the subject of "Life." Next,
"Happiness." At all this sentiment Miss Cynthia ground her teeth.

Beth was of the opinion that environment makes happiness. Pease
maintained that we make our own environment. "Impossible!" said Beth,
thinking of Mr. Fenno and the Judge.

"Easily done!" declared Pease, thinking of himself.

Then they spoke of "Ideals of Conduct"--Which of them make most for
Happiness? By little and little they came to the point where Pease felt
impelled to open his breast again. He spoke of his motto, quoting it
clumsily with his self-taught accent, so that a smile almost came to her
lips. She drew from him that he believed he knew the gray of life, and
the green.

"But, Mr. Pease," Beth objected, "how can you say you know so much of
life when you live so much alone?"

"We are late--we are late!" cried Miss Cynthia suddenly. "We shall miss
our engagement if we sit so long here."

And so the two ladies presently went away, refusing all escort. Standing
at the open door, Pease watched them with a strange regret. The thought
of returning to his books was astonishingly unwelcome; they seemed to be
but leather, ink, and paper. He looked up at the heavens. Something was
stinging in his veins: what a lovely world! For the first time he
recognised the beauty of the moon.

His thoughts were interrupted by a footstep, and there stood Mather.
"Mr. Pease," said he, "this is an unusual hour for business. But the
kind offer which you made me to-day----" He hesitated.

"The position had only possibilities," answered Pease. "You would be
your own master, because I should leave everything to you, but it would
be like beginning at the bottom again. I knew you would refuse me."

"You mistake," returned Mather with energy. "I like the chance, and will
build up your venture for you. I am ready to take your instructions
to-night, and go to work Monday morning."

"Come inside," said Mr. Pease.




CHAPTER VII

CHEBASSET


At the conference between Mather and Pease various matters were
discussed which are not to the direct purpose of this story. Such were,
for instance, the electrical and mechanical devices by which a metal was
to be produced from its ore, either in sheets, pure, or plated on iron.
Pease had bought the patent; the plan commended itself to Mather
immediately; there was "good money" in it. But before anything else
could be done a plant must be secured, a work which Pease expected would
take much time. He watched to see how Mather would propose to go about
it.

"We must have a good water-supply for the vats," mused Mather. "A
harbour-front will be needed for the coal and ore; that means a suburban
location, which calls again for railroad facilities."

"Of course there is no mill ready-made?"

"There is! The old Dye Company's plant at Chebasset."

"Impossible!" answered Pease at once.

"Because rich people have summer places thereabouts, and wouldn't like a
mill as neighbour?"

"Those rich people are our friends," reminded Pease.

"Mr. Pease," said Mather positively, "I know all the mills of this
neighbourhood. There is no other suitable. To use this plant will save
us a year's time, as well as great expense. The buildings are in good
condition; the vats are large. The harbour is deep; all we need is to
enlarge the wharf and put in new engines. What more could one ask?"

"Nothing," admitted Pease.

"Then why not buy? Colonel Blanchard has been trying to sell these ten
years; he lost much money there. The price is so low that Fenno or
Branderson could easily have protected themselves."

Pease still hesitated.

"One thing more," said Mather. "I have visited in Chebasset, for short
periods; I know the place fairly well. The mill is in the remotest
corner of the town, and the dirtiest; there are poor houses there,
wretched sanitation, and a saloon on mill property. It's a good place
gone to seed. I'd like to clean it out."

Mr. Pease thought he saw a way. "Let this settle it. If the Colonel is
willing to sell, there will be no reason why we should not buy."

"I may go ahead on that understanding?"

"You may."

Mather rose. "The Colonel will be willing to sell. If you put this in my
hands, and will not appear, I can get the place cheap. People are ready
to see me start on another fool's errand at any time."

"Go ahead, then; you know how much I am willing to spend. Attend to
everything and spare me the details. But," added Pease kindly, "I am
sorry to see you quite so bitter. Your friends will yet put you back in
Ellis's place."

"When he has a clear majority of fifty votes in our small issue of
stock? Ah, let me go my own way, Mr. Pease. I see here a chance to do a
good thing; I need a wrestle with business. After I have been a month at
this you will find me a different man."

They parted, each with a little envy of the other. Mather envied Pease
his accomplishments, the work that stood in his name; Pease coveted the
other's youth. But each was glad that they were working together. Pease
found that the purchase was accomplished within a fortnight, and that
men were soon at work on alterations in the mills. Those were matters in
which he did not concern himself; the scheme was bound to succeed; he
had little money in it (as money went with him), and he was interested
to see what Mather would make of the business. Trouble in the form of
criticism was bound to come.

When it came the ladies took an active hand in it. Mrs. Fenno complained
that the sky-line of her view would be broken by the new chimney; Mrs.
Branderson had no relish for the aspect of the projected coal-wharf.
Young people believed that the river would be spoiled for canoeing, and
all agreed that the village would be no longer bearable, with the
families of fifty imported workmen to make it noisy and dirty. Moreover,
if the villagers themselves should give up their old occupations of
fishing, clam-digging, and market-gardening, for the steadier work in
the mill, then where would the cottagers look for their lobsters, their
stews, and their fresh vegetables? But the plan was put through. The
chimney went up, the wharf was enlarged, coal and ore barges appeared in
the little harbour, and in a surprisingly short time the old Dye
Company's mill was ready for work. Pease saw his returns promised a year
before he had expected, but George Mather was no longer popular. Mrs.
Fenno frowned at him, Mrs. Branderson scolded, and though their husbands
laughed at the young man and said he had been clever, many people
clamoured, and among them Judith Blanchard.

This move of Mather's had taken her by surprise; at a step he had gained
a new position. No offers from the rich men moved him to sell; he
replied that he meant to carry out his plans. So a whole section of the
town was put in order for the families of the new workmen. Judith,
hearing of all this, complained to Mather when she met him.

"And yet," he responded, "the mill is a mile from the nearest estate;
the whole town lies between. As for what clearing up I've done, I value
picturesqueness, Judith, but the place is now ten times healthier. And
we are putting in smoke-consumers."

"Yet from most of our houses we can see your chimney."

"Judith, for that one eyesore which I put up I will remove ten from the
town."

"But who asked you to do it? You never lived here; you have no love for
the place."

"I have lived," he replied, "in other New England towns, equally
degenerate."

"I am not speaking of the townspeople," she said. "I mean the summer
residents."

"Wasn't it your father's matter to think of them?"

Judith had felt the discussion to be going against her. Therefore she
answered with some warmth: "That is another question entirely!"

"I beg your pardon, Judith," he said. "But mayn't I describe my plans?"

"No," she answered; "I don't think it is necessary."

"Very well," he returned, and made no attempt to say more. Hurt, he fell
into a mood of dogged endurance. "Very well," he repeated, and let the
matter drop. Then Judith's interest was roused too late; he might really
have had something to say. She knew that dirt was unhealthy; she
remembered that in Chebasset drunkards on the street were more plentiful
than in Stirling. Yet her generosity did not quite extend to recalling
her words--partly because of natural pride, partly because she knew his
interest in her and would not encourage it, partly again because she
still resented his words to Ellis in her presence. And so the breach
between them remained.

Yet he had already impressed her, by his manly readiness to begin life
again, and by his steadiness under her fire. Confidence was, to Judith,
almost a virtue. And the idea of reform always appealed to her: had the
place been really so bad?

One by one the households had been moving down to Chebasset, and Beth
had already opened the Blanchard cottage. On the evening after Judith
had spoken with Mather she asked if Beth had noticed the changes in
Chebasset.

"George's? At his mill?" asked Beth. "I think it's much improved. Those
horrid tumble-down shanties are gone, and there are new houses there
now--shingled and stained they are to be--with new fences."

"Father," asked Judith, "why didn't you do that?"

"My dear child," was his response, "how could I afford it?" The Colonel
was always nervous when the subject of the new mill was broached, and
quitted it as soon as possible. But Judith pursued him.

"I asked George if he had not treated us unfairly--the property owners,
I mean. He seemed to think that was your affair."

Beth was up in arms at once. "For that chimney? He laid the blame on
papa?"

The Colonel wiped his flowing mustache, and looked at Judith; Beth's
outraged cry did not interest him so much as his elder daughter's stand.
"What did you say to him?" he asked.

"I said that was another question."

"So it is," agreed the Colonel. "Entirely different." He looked at Beth
to see if she were satisfied; she rose and came behind his chair, where
she began smoothing his hair.

"Poor papa," she purred.

Blanchard swelled his chest. "Thank you, Beth," he said, but his
thoughts went back to Judith. People took different stands on this
matter; he was anxious to have Judith on his side. Fenno had told the
Colonel that he, Fenno, ought to have been informed of the proposed
sale; Branderson, less bluntly, had intimated the same. It was possible
that Judith might take a similar view.

"I had others beside myself to consider," he said. "Dear papa!" murmured
Beth. But Judith took it differently.

"I don't want to profit by the sale," she stated.

The Colonel offered no explanation. At the time of the sale he had not
been thinking of his daughters, but of certain pressing creditors. So
the money had been welcome and was already partly gone. He answered with
grim knowledge of a hidden meaning.

"I'll take care you shall not profit by the transaction, Judith. But I
am sorry that the mill is sold. I hate a disturbance."

"Don't you be sorry, papa!" exhorted Beth. But Judith delivered a shot
which hit her parent between wind and water. It was one of those
impromptus which come too quickly to be checked.

"Perhaps Mr. Fenno would have given more."

"Judith!" shouted her father, bouncing in his chair.

"I beg your pardon, papa," she said humbly.

When Judith was humble she was charming; the Colonel accepted her kiss
and pardoned her. As for herself, she felt her spirit lightened, as by
an electric discharge, and began to look at the whole question of
Mather's mill more temperately. Why should she grudge him his success?
It was so much less than Ellis's. When next she met Mather she was
gracious to him, and was ready to hear a full account of all his plans,
if only he would open the subject. He avoided it.

Then the Blanchards moved to Chebasset, and Judith saw the mill and
chimney with her own eyes. People had stopped scolding about them; she
found them not so bad as had been reported, and the chimney, though
certainly tall, gave off but the slightest film of smoke. So thorough
were Mather's improvements that they forced Judith's admiration. When
she first went to the grocer's and, after making her purchases, inquired
of the changes in the town, she heard a torrent of praise of Mather.

"It's a bad place he's cleaned out," the grocer said, coming very close
and speaking confidentially. "Many young fellows were led wrong there,
but the biggest saloon's gone now, and some of the worst men have left
the town, and a man can feel that his own children have a chance of
growing up decent. It's two boys I have, Miss Blanchard, that I was
worrying about till Mr. Mather came."

"I am glad things are so much better," Judith said.

"They'll be better yet," the grocer responded. "Gross, the other
saloon-keeper, has got to look after himself now. Mr. Mather had him in
court only the other day--look, there they are now."

On the sidewalk outside stood a large man, gross as was his name; across
the street Mather was unconcernedly walking. The saloon-keeper raised a
fist and shouted at Mather, who paused and looked over at him
inquiringly.

"I'll be even with you!" shouted Gross again.

"Wait a bit," answered Mather cheerfully, "I'll come over." He crossed
the street and stepped directly to the saloon-keeper. "You'll be even
with me for what, Mr. Gross?"

"For that fine," answered the other. "I'll have you in court yet, see if
I don't."

"You'll have me in court," rejoined Mather, "when you catch me selling
whisky to minors, not before, Mr. Gross. And while we're on this subject
I may as well say that I've just sworn out a second warrant against
you."

The saloon-keeper backed away from the very cool young man. "What yer
goin' ter do?" he asked.

"I'm going to see," Mather answered, "that you observe the liquor laws.
And when your license comes before the selectmen for renewal, I shall be
at the hearing."

On Gross's face appeared blotches of white. "We'll see!" he blustered.

"We'll see," agreed Mather, and turned away.

The grocer spoke in Judith's ear. "That's the stuff! That's what, Miss
Blanchard!" Waiting till Mather was gone, Judith left the shop and went
home very thoughtful. So George was working, on however small a scale,
for reform and progress. She could not fail to see that for his coming
the whole town had a brisker, brighter look. Chebasset streets had been
dull, sleepy, unpainted. Now fences were repaired, houses were
freshened, and the townspeople looked better dressed, because the men
were earning more money at the mill, or the women were gaining livings
by boarding and lodging the new-comers. The town was changed, and Mather
was the cause.

Then she learned more of him. He was domesticating himself there, kept a
cat-boat, and had even bought a cottage. Beth pointed out the little
house, a good example of provincial architecture.

"You didn't tell us you were going to buy," Judith reproached him when
he came to call.

"Oh," he answered indirectly, "I fell in love with the place, and the
family mahogany fits in there exactly. Did you notice my roses?"

Then he spoke of gardening, and gave Judith no chance to tell him what
she thought about his work. Had he done so, she might even have let him
know that she had overheard his talk with Gross, and that his action
pleased her. But he avoided the subject; his call was brief, and after
he had gone he did not return for a number of days. Chebasset was not
lively that summer; Judith grew lonesome, and more than once thought of
Mather. His conduct piqued and puzzled her. Now was his chance, as he
ought to know. What had become of the lover who used to bring to her his
hopes and fears?

As for that lover, he had less time at his disposal than Judith
supposed. All day he was at the mill, or else went to Stirling on
necessary business; at night he was very tired. Yet though he knew he
was leaving Judith to her own devices, he did it deliberately. Until she
was tired of freedom, until she had satisfied her interest in the great
world, she would come to no man's call. Perhaps his conclusion was wise,
perhaps it was not, for while at a distance he watched Judith and
weighed his chances, Ellis was doing the same.

To the outsider, Mather's path seemed clear; he lived in the same town
with Judith, might see her every day, and, worst of all, was prospering.
"I'll touch him up," said Ellis grimly to himself. "He'll buy a house,
will he?" And from that time he kept well informed of Mather's business
acts, watching for a chance to trip him. Ellis knew all the ways of
those three great forces: politics, capital, and labour; he could pull
so many wires that he counted on acting unobserved.

Minor annoyances met Mather in his business, traceable to no particular
source. There was evident discrimination in railroad rates, and yet so
small was the increase that proof was difficult. Freight was mislaid and
mishandled; it was frequently very vexing. But the real attempt to
cripple the new business came toward the middle of the summer, when
Ellis, weary of the weak attempts of his subordinates at annoyance, took
a hand himself, and looked for some vital flaw in the safeguards of the
Electrolytic Company. He believed he found it, and various legal notices
came to Mather, all of which remained unanswered. Finally an important
official came in person to the office. He introduced himself as Mr.
Daggett of the harbour commission.

"I have written you several times," he complained.

"So you have," answered Mather. "Miss Jenks, may Mr. Daggett and I have
the office to ourselves for a while? I take it," he added, when the door
closed behind the stenographer, "that we are going to be rude to each
other. Have a cigar?"

"Thanks," said Daggett, "but I don't see why ye didn't answer."

"I was too busy. Besides, I wanted to get you down here, so as to settle
the matter once for all. Will you state the matter plainly; your letters
were vague? That is the wharf out there."

Mr. Daggett viewed it through the window. "Yes, it's surely a long
wharf. Twenty feet beyond the harbour line. Ye'll have to take it down."

"Or else?" demanded Mather.

"Show a permit."

"Come, there's one other choice."

"Pay a fine," grinned Daggett. "We've set a pretty large sum. The
board's irritated, ye see, because ye've paid so little attention to
us."

"The board never fails to answer letters, does it?" inquired Mather.

"What do you mean?"

"You're too busy, I suppose. And you don't appear to remember seeing me
before, Mr. Daggett."

"Have I?" asked the commissioner.

"You don't recollect that I wrote about this matter two months ago? I
had to go to the office to get an answer. You were deep in affairs, Mr.
Daggett. I found you and two others playing cards."

"Was I?" asked Daggett.

"When was this harbour line established, anyway? Wasn't it about two
weeks ago?"

"Certainly," Mr. Daggett answered. "That has nothing to do with it. But
what did we tell you at the office--I can't remember your coming."

"I wasn't there long enough to make much impression," said Mather. "One
of your friends told me that all fools knew there was no harbour line
here, and I didn't need your permission."

"Hm!" remarked Daggett doubtfully. Then he brightened. "Did we give you
that in writing?"

"I didn't ask you for it. You seemed so anxious to go on with your game
that I didn't trouble you further."

"Then you have no permission," stated Daggett. "And now that there is a
harbour line, what will you do about it?"

"I learned all I wanted of you," said Mather. He had not yet risen from
his desk, but now he did so, and going over to his safe, he threw it
open. "I asked nothing further because, there being no harbour line, a
permit wouldn't have been worth the paper it was written on. I wrote to
the Secretary of the Navy." Mather drew a document from a drawer of the
safe. "Do you care to see his answer?"

"Whew!" whistled Daggett. "Well, I suppose I might as well."

Mather gave him the paper. "You will see that I have permission to build
ten feet farther if I want to, and fifteen broader. I may also build
another wharf if I wish, lower down. Are you satisfied?" He touched the
bell. "You may come in now, Miss Jenks. Thank you for taking it so
easily, Mr. Daggett. I won't keep you from your game any longer.
Good-day."

--"And before I left the office he was hard at work again, Mr. Ellis,"
reported Daggett. "Save me, but he's taken pretty good care of himself,
and that's a fact."

Ellis had no comments to make; he did his growling to himself. Seeing
nothing further to do, he left Mather alone.

Thus time passed by till that midsummer day when Ellis took the trolley
to Chebasset and, once there, strolled among its streets. He viewed the
mill from a distance and gritted his teeth at the sight. Mather was well
ensconced; it seemed altogether too likely that he might win a wife,
among his other successes. Then the promoter left the town and climbed
above it on the winding road, viewing the estates of the summer
residents as one by one he passed their gates. Should he enter at the
Judge's?

A light step sounded on the road as he hesitated at the gate. Someone
spoke his name, and there stood Judith Blanchard.

"Here, and in business hours?" she asked.

"My day's work was done," he answered. "Besides, it was not all pleasure
that brought me."

Judith's eyes brightened. "Tell me," she suggested.

"Why should I tell you?" he asked bluntly. But the brusqueness only
pleased her; he was a man of secrets.

"No reason at all," she answered.

"And yet," he said, "your advice would be valuable, if you will not
tell."

"I! I tell?" she asked. "You do not know me."

"Then," he said, "I came to look at land here."

"To look at land here?" she repeated, questioning. "Can you buy here?"

"There is land," he said. "The price would be doubled if it were known I
am after it. I have the refusal of it, through agents."

"Where does it lie?" she asked.

"Farther up the road."

"You must not be seen going to it," she declared. "People would take
alarm----" She stopped, embarrassed.

"I do not mind," he said, and yet she felt his bitterness. "I am not
considered a good neighbour."

"It is wrong of people," she declared earnestly.

"I should not be welcome on any one of these piazzas," he said,
indicating the villas beyond them. "The Judge doesn't like me--your own
father has no use for me."

"Will you come and try?" she cried. "I should like to see if my father
will be rude to my guest."

"You are very kind," he said, "but do you consider----?"

"I have invited you," she interrupted. "Will you come?"

"With pleasure," he answered. They went up the hill together.




CHAPTER VIII

THE PROGRESS OF ACQUAINTANCE


Judith, before she met Ellis for this second time, had been bored.
Chebasset was so dull that it was dreary; in the country-houses were
given little teas, slow whist-parties, or stupid luncheons. Of the young
people of her age some had married, others had gone into business, and
the self-content of the first of these was not to be disturbed, nor the
fatigue of the others to be increased, for the sake of giving Judith a
good time. She became a little impatient with her surroundings,
therefore, and as the sizzling summer brought physical discomfort, she
was inclined to lay the blame where it could scarcely with justice be
said to belong. Yet while her acquaintances were not responsible for the
heat, Judith, with her abundant energies unused, was right in feeling
that society was sunk in sloth, and that instead of giving itself to
petty diversions it had better do something worth while. She was
discontented with herself, her idleness, her uselessness; she felt that
she would rather face even the heat of the city, and be doing, than stay
longer on her piazza and keep cool. Therefore she had sought the dusty
road as a sort of penance, and meeting Ellis, had been reminded of what
he stood for: the world of working men and women.

She had thought of him many times since their first meeting, making his
achievements a standard to which only Pease and Fenno approximated, and
of which Mather fell far short. She had continued to read of Ellis in
the newspapers, to watch his slow course of uninterrupted success, and
had come to accept the popular idea of his irresistible genius. Feeling
this natural admiration of his immense energy and skill, in her heart
she made little of the two obstacles which were said to lie in his path.
For it was claimed, first, that some day the street-railway would prove
too much for him, bringing him as it did in contact with the organised
mass of labourers, and with the public which Mather had accustomed to an
excellent standard of service. Could Ellis always maintain the present
delicate balance between dividends, wages, and efficiency? Again it was
said that some day he would come in conflict with Judith's own class,
which, when it chose to exert its power, would rise and hurl him down.
Judith put no belief in either of these prophesies, considering Ellis
able to avoid all difficulties, her caste too flabby to oppose him. So
she thought of him as destined always to conquer; he would win his way
even among the elect, and might become a friend of hers. For she could
help him; they were alike in their loneliness, and their outlook upon
life was the same. Therefore when she met him she welcomed him.

A fillip to the wheel of her fate was given as she and Ellis went up the
hill. They met Miss Fenno coming down. Now Miss Fenno was the extreme
type of the society-bred person, knowing nothing but the one thing. Her
interests were so small that they included less than the proverbial
four-hundred people; her prejudices were so large that they formed a
sort of Chinese wall to exclude any real humanity of soul. And all she
did at this juncture was to gaze very superciliously at Ellis, and then
to give the coldest of nods to Judith as she passed.

"The Fenno manner," grumbled Ellis to himself.

But Judith flamed with resentment. She brought Ellis up to her own
piazza, a few minutes later, with that in her bearing which her father
recognised as her panoply of war: quietness, erectness, something of
hauteur. The Colonel rose hastily.

"I have brought Mr. Ellis," she said.

"Glad to see him!" exclaimed the Colonel as if he had been spurred. "Mr.
Ellis is a stranger in Chebasset."

Ellis had the wisdom to attempt no manner. "I come here seldom," he
responded. "You are very kind to welcome me, Colonel."

He wondered if the use of the title were proper in the upper circle, and
if he should have answered differently. Moments such as this made the
game seem scarcely worth the candle; the nerve and fiber used up were
more than a day of business would require. But his qualities asserted
themselves. Here he was where he most wanted to be; he meant to win the
right to come again.

"What do you think of our view?" the Colonel asked, leading his guest to
the edge of the piazza. The hill fell away steeply, the town lay below,
and scattered on the farther hillsides were the villas of the
well-to-do. The Colonel began pointing out the residences. "Alfred Fenno
over there--Alfred, not William, you know; richer than his brother, but
not so prominent. And down there is Branderson; he overlooks the river,
but he also sees the new chimney, which we miss." The Colonel added, "A
good deal of money he has spent there."

"I should think so," agreed Ellis.

"The Dents are over there," Blanchard proceeded. "Rather pretentious the
house is, in my opinion, like--" his voice faded away; he had had in
mind Ellis's own house in the city. "----Er, gingerbready, don't you
think?"

"The elms don't let me see it very well," Ellis was glad to answer. For
what was gingerbready? Sticky?

"But much money in it," said the Colonel. "Dent has made a good thing of
his mills."

"Very good thing," murmured Ellis. He was interested to hear these
comments of an insider.

"Kingston's place is over there," continued the Colonel. "Now, I like,
do you know, Mr. Ellis, what Kingston has done with that house. Small,
but a gem, sir--a gem! Money has not been spared--and there's lots of
money there!" quoth the Colonel, wagging his head.

Ellis began to perceive the monotony of these descriptions. Money,
riches; riches, money. And there was an unction to each utterance which
might betray the inner man. Judith perceived this also.

"Let us have tea," she said, and going where the tea-table stood, she
rang for the maid. But the Colonel continued:

"And William Fenno is over there--a fine house, Mr. Ellis; pure
Georgian, a hundred years old if it's a day. A very old family, and a
very old family fortune. The West India trade did it, before our
shipping declined."

"Long ago," murmured Ellis. He knew very little of those old days. The
present and the immediate future concerned him, and as for the causes of
industrial changes, he was one himself.

"Come," insisted Judith, "come and sit down, and let us leave off
talking of people's possessions."

"Judith! My dear!" remonstrated the Colonel. But the maid was bringing
out the steaming kettle, and he took his seat by the table. "My
daughter," he said to Ellis, half playfully, "does not concern herself
with things which you and I must consider."

Judith raised her eyebrows. "Do you take sugar, Mr. Ellis?" she asked.

"Sugar, if you please," he answered. He was divided in his interest as
he sat there, for he had taken from the chair, and now held in his hand,
the newspaper which the Colonel had been reading as they arrived. Ellis
saw pencillings beside the stock-exchange reports, but though he wished
to read them he did not dare, and so laid the paper aside to watch
Judith make the tea. This was new to him. Mrs. Harmon had never taken
the trouble to offer him tea, though the gaudy outfit stood always in
her parlour. He knew that the "proper thing" was his at last, in this
detail, but how to take the cup, how hold it, drink from it? Confound
the schoolboy feeling!

"It was hot in the city to-day?" asked the Colonel.

"Uncomfortable," answered Ellis. "You are fortunate, Miss Blanchard, not
to have to go to the city every day, as some girls do."

"I'm not so sure," she responded. "It's dull here, doing nothing. I
sometimes wish I were a stenographer."

"Judith!" exclaimed her father.

"To earn your own living?" asked Ellis.

"I should not be afraid to try," she replied.

"You'd make a good stenographer, I do believe," he exclaimed.

"Thank you," she answered.

His enthusiasm mounted. "I have a situation open!" he cried.

"You wouldn't find her spelling perfect," commented the Colonel grimly.
He laughed with immense enjoyment at his joke, and at the moment Beth
Blanchard came out of the house and joined them.

Ellis did not see her at first; he was watching the Colonel, and divined
that no great barrier separated him from the aristocrat; there had been
in Blanchard's manner nothing that expressed repulsion--nothing like
Fenno's coolness, for instance, or the constant scrutiny which was so
uncomfortable. Blanchard had seemed willing to fill up his idle hours by
speech with any one; he was a new specimen, therefore, and Ellis was
studying him, when of a sudden he heard Judith speak his name, and
looked up to meet the gaze of a pair of quiet eyes. With a little start
he scrambled to his feet.

"My sister," Judith was saying.

He bowed and endeavoured to speak, but he felt that the beginning was
wrong. Beth was in turn dissecting him; she was something entirely
different from Judith, more thoughtful, less headstrong. The idea that
here was an adverse influence came into his mind, as he stammered that
he was pleased to meet her.

"Thank you, Mr. Ellis," she answered. Judith noticed that Beth on her
part expressed no pleasure. The little sister had individuality, with a
persistence in her own opinion which sometimes contrasted strongly with
her usual softness. But the incident was brief, for Beth's eye lighted
as she saw a visitor at the corner of the piazza, hesitating with hat in
hand.

"Mr. Pease!" she exclaimed.

The little conventionalities of this new welcome also passed. Mr. Pease
had met Mr. Ellis; he was delighted to find the family at home; the
others were equally pleased that he had come. But when the pause came it
was awkward, for Judith and Ellis were clearly uncongenial with Beth and
Pease; it required the Colonel's intervention to prevent a hopeless
attempt at general conversation. He drew Ellis away; Judith followed,
and Beth sat down to serve Pease with tea.

Then the Colonel himself withdrew, on pretext of the need to catch the
mail. He went into the library to write, and Judith turned to Ellis.

"Can we go from here to see the land you spoke of?"

"The old Welton place," he said. "Do you know the way?"

"Certainly," answered Judith. They excused themselves to the others.

As they prepared to go, the Colonel looked at them from his desk; then
turned his eyes on Beth and Pease. A thrill of wonder, then a sense of
exultation seized him. Attractive girls they both were, and the men were
the two richest in the city.

Judith conducted Ellis through shrubbery and across fields, up the
hillside to a spot where little trees were growing in an old cellar,
while charred timbers lying half buried spoke of the catastrophe which
had destroyed the house. "I remember the fire," Judith said. "I was a
child then, but I stood at the window in the night, mother holding me,
and watched the house burn down. Mr. Welton would neither build again
nor sell. But the place is on the market now?"

"He's to marry again, I understand," answered Ellis. They both accepted
the fact as explaining any and all departures from previous lines of
conduct.

"Would you build on this spot?" she asked him.

"What would you advise?" he returned. She swept the situation with her
gaze.

"There are sites higher up, or lower down," she said. "Lower is too low.
Higher--you might see the chimney."

Ellis noted with satisfaction the prejudice against Mather's landmark,
but he passed the remark by. "Don't you like," he said, "a house placed
at the highest possible point? It is so striking."

"Couldn't it be too much so?" she inquired.

He turned his sharp look on her, willing to take a lesson and at the
same time make it evident that he welcomed the instruction. "That is a
new idea," he said. "It explains why that chimney, for instance, is
unpleasant."

"It is so tall and--stupid," explained Judith; "and you never can get
rid of it."

"I understand," he said. "Then perhaps this is the best place to build.
I could get it roofed in before winter, easily, and have the whole thing
ready by next summer. Stables where the barn stands, I suppose. My
architect could get out the plans in a fortnight."

"The same architect," queried Judith, "that built your city house?"
There was that in her voice which seized Ellis's attention.

"You don't like his work?" he demanded.

"Why," she hesitated, caught, "I--you wouldn't put a city house here,
would you?"

"I like the kind," he said. "Stone, you know; turrets, carvings, imps,
and that sort of thing. All hand-work, but they get them out quickly.
Kind of a tall house. Wouldn't that do here?"

"No, no, Mr. Ellis," she answered quickly, almost shuddering at his
description. "Think how out of place--here. On a hill a low house, but a
long one if you need it, is proper."

"Oh," he said slowly, thinking. "Seems reasonable. But tall is the kind
Smithson always builds."

"I know," answered Judith. Smithson was responsible for a good deal, in
the city.

Again Ellis searched her face. "You don't care for my city house?"

She had to tell the truth. "For my taste," she acknowledged, "it's a
little--ornate."

"That's ornamental?" he asked. "But that's what I like about it. Don't
the rest of my neighbours care for it any more than you do?"

"Some do not," she admitted.

"I guess that most of you don't, then," he decided. "Well, well, how a
fellow makes mistakes! One of those quiet buildings with columns, now,
such as I tore down, I suppose would have been just the thing?"

"Yes," she said. "But Mr. Ellis, you mustn't think----"

He smiled. "Never mind, Miss Blanchard. You would say something nice,
I'm sure, but the mischief's done; the building's there, ain't it?"

"I wish----" she began.

"And really I'm obliged to you," he went on. "Because I might have built
a house here just like the other. Now we'll have it right--if I decide
to build here at all."

"Then you've not made up your mind?"

"Almost," he said. "The bargain's all but closed. Only it seems so
useless, for a bachelor." He looked at her a moment. "Give me your
advice," he begged. "Sometimes I think I'm doing the foolish thing."

"Why, Mr. Ellis, what can I--and it's not my affair."

"Make it your affair!" he urged. "This is very important to me. I don't
want to sicken these people by crowding in; you saw what Miss Fenno
thought of me this afternoon. But if there is any chance for me--what do
you say?"

It was the mention of Miss Fenno that did it. She sprang up in Judith's
consciousness, clothed in her armour of correctness--proper, prim, and
stupid. And in Judith was roused wrath against this type of her life,
against her class and its narrowness. She obeyed her impulse, and turned
a quickening glance on him.

"Would you turn back now?" she asked.

"That is enough!" he cried, with sudden vehemence.

For a while they stood and said no more. Judith saw that he looked
around him on the level space where his house was to stand; then he cast
his glance down toward those estates which he would overlook. His eye
almost flashed--was there more of the hawk or the eagle in his gaze?
Judith thought it was the eagle; she knew she had stirred him anew to
the struggle, and was exhilarated. Unmarked at the moment, she had taken
a step important to them both. She had swayed him to an important
decision, and had become in a sense an adviser.

Yet aside from that, she had stimulated him strangely. Her enthusiasm
was communicable--not through its loftiness, for from that he shrank
with mistrust, but through its energy and daring. She drew him in spite
of her ignorance and misconceptions: dangerous as these might be to him
if she should come to learn the truth about his practices, he thought
that in her love of action lay an offset to them, while her restlessness
and curiosity were two strong motives in his favour. She was fearless,
even bold, and that high spirit of hers had more charm for him than all
her beauty. He did not see, and it was long before he understood, that
something entirely new in him had been roused by contact with her; the
most that he felt was that he was satisfied as never before, that she
had strengthened his impulse to work and to achieve, and that with her
to help him he would be irresistible. Yes, he had chosen well!




CHAPTER IX

NEW IDEAS


A parting shot in conversation sometimes rankles like the Parthian's
arrow. So it had been with Pease. Beth had said to him: "How can you
think you know life, when you live so much alone?"--words to that
effect. He had had no chance to defend himself to her, and in
consequence had been defending himself to himself ever since. Truly a
serious mind is a heavy burden.

Finally he had come down to Chebasset to get the matter off his mind; at
least, such was his real purpose. He coloured it with the intention of
"looking in at the mill," and gave Mather a few words at the office.
Mather had been working at his desk, as Mr. Daggett, the Harbour
Commissioner, had found and left him. Orders, Mather said, were piling
in too fast.

Pease smiled. "Enlarge, then."

"Delay in profits," warned Mather. "No dividend this quarter."

"Go ahead just the same," said Pease. "I hoped for this."

Mather began writing. "Come, leave work," invited Pease. "I'm going up
to the Blanchards'. Come with me."

"I'm ordering coal and material," said Mather. "We have plenty of ore,
but the new work must begin soon."

Pease struck his hand upon the desk. "Do you mean," he demanded, "that
you are writing about the enlargements already?"

"Plans were made long ago," answered Mather.

"What do you do for exercise?" cried Pease. "How do you keep well? I'll
not be responsible, mind, for your breakdown when it comes."

But he made no impression and went away alone, climbed the hill, and
found the Blanchards on their piazza. Ellis was more than he had
bargained for, and the Colonel had never been exactly to Pease's taste,
but they departed, leaving him alone with Beth. She presently noticed
the signs that he was endeavouring to bring the conversation to a
particular subject, as one becomes aware of a heavy vessel trying to get
under way. So she gave him the chance to speak.

"Miss Blanchard," he said, when he found that he might forge ahead, "you
said something the other day--other evening--against which I must defend
myself. That I live much alone."

She remembered at once, flashed back in her mind to that whole
conversation, and was ready to tease him. Tease him she did as he began
his explanation; she refused to be persuaded that he did not live alone.
He might enumerate dinners, might point to his pursuits, might speak of
the hundred people of all classes with whom he came in close daily
contact: she would not acknowledge that she had been wrong.

"You are your mind," she declared, "and your mind is aloof."

He would have grieved, but that he felt again, dimly as before, that she
was rallying him. And he was pleased that she did not fear him, nor call
him Sir--that title which causes such a painful feeling of seniority.
She gave him a feeling of confidence, of youthfulness, which had not
been his even in boyhood. He had been "Old Pease" then; he was "Old
Pease" to many people still. The respect in which young and old held him
was a natural, if very formal atmosphere. This defiance of Beth's came
upon him like a fresh breeze, bringing younger life. He threw off his
earnestness at last and laughed with her at himself.

"Upon my word!" thought the Colonel, on whose ears such laughter had a
new sound. He looked out of the window; Pease was actually merry.
"Second childhood," grinned the Colonel, as he returned to his writing.

Beth discovered that Pease was no fossil, and began to enjoy herself
less at his expense but more for other reasons. He could never lose the
flavour of originality, for his odd manner's sake. Even as he sat and
laughed he was upright and precise, though the twinkle was genuine and
the noise was hearty. Then she rose from the tea-table, and they went to
the piazza's edge together. There they discovered Judith returning with
Ellis.

"Come away," said Beth quickly; "there are places where we can go. They
have not seen us; take your hat."

This was wonderful, slipping with a girl away from other people, and
Pease felt the delight of it. Fleeing by passages he had never seen, in
a house he had never before entered, smacked of the youthful and
romantic. Beth brought him out behind the house, and thirty seconds put
them in shrubbery. She led the way, not suspecting that his mental
vision was dazzled by new vistas.

For Pease would have faced Ellis and Judith as a duty, borne with their
conversation, and returned home without a sigh for the wasted hour. Such
was his conception of life--to take what was sent, nor avoid the
unpleasant. It had gone so far that in some matters he did not consult
his own feelings at all, but gave his time to others, recognising
himself as a trustee for their benefit. The good which can be done in
such a way is enormous, in business or professional matters merely; but
Pease had carried the habit into his social scheme, and was therefore
the sufferer from his own good nature, the victim of every bore. It was
a revelation that one could exercise choice, and could flee (losing
dignity, but gaining in romance) from the unpleasant. So that boyish
thrill came over him, with a manly one besides as he felt the compliment
Beth paid him. It put them on a closer footing when, laughing and out of
breath, she sat in a garden seat and motioned him to take the place
beside her.

"Do you think me foolish?" she asked.

"Not at all!" he answered eagerly.

"But perhaps you wished to stay and meet Mr. Ellis?"

"Not for anything!" he averred.

Then she looked at him soberly. "What do you think of him?" She posed
him, for polite vagueness was his desire, and he could not find the
words.

"He is----" he hesitated, "very--er, pleasant, of course. Not my--kind,
perhaps."

"And you really do not like him," she stated, so simply and confidently
that in all innocence he answered "Yes," and then could have bitten his
tongue off.

"Neither do I," she acknowledged.

And so those two took the same important step which Judith and Ellis had
already taken--of showing true feeling to each other, and breaking rules
thereby. For Beth, while not reserved, chose her confidants carefully,
after long trial; and Pease's habit had been never to acknowledge
personal feeling against any one, least of all a business rival.

"Judith has encouraged him before," said Beth. "People talked of her
when she met him; they will do so the more now that she has asked him
here. Not that she will care for that, Mr. Pease, but I shall not enjoy
it."

"Of course you will not," he agreed.

They hovered on the verge of confidences for a moment, then Beth took
the plunge. She looked at Pease with a little distress in her eyes.
"Judith is headstrong," she said. "She is discontented, but does not
know what she wants. I have sometimes thought that George Mather, if he
only knew how, might----"

"Yes," said Pease, filling the pause. "I wish he did. He is not happy
himself, poor fellow. They have been intimate?"

"Till within a little while. But they are both too masterful. And yet I
sometimes think she has him always in mind, but as if defying him, do
you understand?"

"Indeed?" he murmured.

"I hope," said Beth, "that this acquaintance of hers with Mr. Ellis is
just a phase of that. If it is not, and if she should--Judith cares so
little for people's opinions, you know."

"It would be very--painful," murmured Pease. "But it has not come to
anything of that sort yet?"

"No, but I know Judith so well that I don't know what she'll do." And
Beth concluded her confidences in order to draw some from Pease. The
sort of man Ellis was: could he be called dishonest? He was not of
course a gentleman? Pease cast off restraint and answered frankly; she
found he had considerable power of defining his thoughts, saying that
Ellis had never been proved dishonest, but that his conscience seemed no
bar to questionable actions; that he was unrefined, good-natured when he
had conquered, rough in breaking his way. What his personal charms might
be Pease had never had the chance to determine. Mrs. Harmon seemed to
like him--but one must not judge by that, because--and silence fell for
a moment, as they looked at each other with understanding.

It seems simple and so commonplace, but this was one of the talks which
_accomplish_, bringing the speakers together as nothing else can do.
Such talks build human ties; Pease and Beth formed one now. By the time
they saw Ellis going away they had new feelings toward each other,
differing in degree and result--for Beth knew friendship well, but to
Pease it was altogether astonishing and momentous. When Ellis was well
away Pease also took his leave and followed down the winding road.

"Tell Mr. Mather to come," were Beth's last words to him.

So Pease went again to the mill, where Mather was still in the office.
Pease had little finesse, and went about his errand directly.

"Miss Jenks," he said, and the stenographer vanished.

"Anything?" asked Mather.

Pease put his hand on his shoulder. "Just a message," he answered. "Miss
Elizabeth Blanchard----"

"Oh, Beth, you mean," said Mather.

"Yes," replied Pease. "She told me to tell you to come and see them."

"Indeed?" asked Mather.

"She was particular about it," Pease urged. "She meant something by it."

"Thanks," was all Mather said. "Now these enlargements, Mr. Pease. You
meant what you said?"

"Yes, yes," answered Pease impatiently, and closed his hand on the
other's shoulder. "And I mean this: Take Miss Blanchard's advice. Good
day." He went to the door, and turned. "Ellis was up there this
afternoon."

On his way home he did little thinking, but he felt. He had touched
people's lives in a new way; he felt the breath of Mather's romance, and
warmed at the trust which Beth reposed in him. Odd quivers ran through
him, strange little impulses toward his kind, calling him to a youth
which his life had earlier denied him. It was not possible for him to
understand their meaning, but they were pleasurable.

In like manner Mather gave that evening to musings concerning persons
rather than things. To follow his new line of conduct with Judith, or
(now that Ellis had appeared again) to turn once more and earnestly
pursue her--which? Clearly he saw that Judith would go her own way,
would play with fire, would even burn her fingers for all that he could
do. He must wait, be her friend, and having once said his say, must
never again bother her with his warnings.

And Ellis, that evening, also mused upon the Blanchards, though his
thoughts were very definite. On leaving the house he had borrowed the
newspaper; the Colonel had asked him to post some letters in the city.
When in the train, Ellis turned the newspaper to the stock-market
reports and studied the Colonel's pencillings. Blanchard had underlined
the names of certain stocks usually considered skittish rather than
safe, and had made multiplications in the margin. When Ellis came to
post the letters, very deliberately he read the addresses. Some were
meaningless to him, but one bore the address of a broker whose
reputation was quite as uncertain as the value of the stocks he chiefly
dealt in. Ellis did not cast off thought until he reached his house.

Then he looked up at the Gothic building and scanned its various
projections. "Ornate?" he murmured. "Well, wait till the inside is
properly beautified!"

He spoke lightly, but when he entered the house his feeling changed. The
great hall was dim and shadowy; seldom aired, it seemed cold. In front
of him wound the huge staircase; to left and right were dusky apartments
which echoed his steps. Since he first built the place it had satisfied
him, but fresh from the influence of Judith, suddenly he saw the house
as it was. Empty, gloomy, it was but a vast artificial cave, without
life or warmth. For the second time a wistfulness, misunderstood, almost
bewildering, came over him, and he wondered if anybody--somebody!--would
ever brighten the house for him, and make it a home.




CHAPTER X

DRAWN BOTH WAYS


Those youthful promptings which so stirred Pease, far beyond his own
comprehension, kept working in him through the summer weeks. The joy of
living, which he supposed he had mastered, appeared to him an altered
thing, so that its object no longer reposed on shelves in his study, but
moved serenely in a cottage above the harbour at Chebasset. Pease
accepted the change with the innocence which was particularly his, and
followed his new chase with but slight idea that he was varying from his
usual course. For being a man of social preciseness, he was given to
making calls, and made no distinction between the kind to which he was
habituated, the so-named duty call, and the new visit which was made for
pleasure. Mather wondered, after a few unusual appearances of Pease at
the mill, if the banker was overseeing his work; but as on each occasion
Pease went farther up the hill Mather put the visits down to the right
cause.

As most people are gifted with that kind of insight which the manager
thus exercised, others as well came to note Pease's actions, and their
cause, before the banker did himself. Miss Cynthia, who spent summer as
well as winter in the city (for since her poor people could not get
away, neither would she), came early to know what seed she had planted
in her cousin's breast. For he was open as the day, and without thought
of concealment told her where he was going or where he had been. Miss
Cynthia set her mouth at each mention of Chebasset, but as they came
oftener she began to consider if she should not have to give up her
chamber, the best in the house, and take the one in the rear. Or perhaps
it might be best to live elsewhere altogether. But looking at her cousin
one day, all his goodness seemed lost in his homeliness and lack of
charm. So she smiled the grim smile of pity, and set about making him
more comfortable at home than ever.

Mather also had occasion to smile thus, when one day he allowed Beth
Blanchard's word of advice to move him at last. He had seen Ellis more
than once in Chebasset, and felt uneasy; Pease looked in one afternoon
and asked him to go up to the Blanchards'. As usual, Mather refused, but
after an hour he started up the hill, to be passed by Pease coming down.
They were on different ways, for Mather had just left the high road for
a path which would save distance, when looking back he saw Pease going
down the hill. Pease wore a flower which he had not had before; he was
smiling cheerfully, with a retrospective air, and Mather smiled also,
grimly as Miss Cynthia had done, at the thought of the late plant of
love springing in the barren soil of middle-age.

He went on to the Blanchards' house; Judith was not there. But Beth
welcomed him and sat him down, gave him tea, and talked to him as he sat
half-silent.

"People do not see much of you nowadays," she said with a tone of
reproach. "You are much too busy, George."

"Oh, well----!" he shrugged inattentively, and Beth might interpret as
she pleased. She looked at him as he sat, with his chair against the
piazza railing, his arm across it, and his face turned to look out upon
the bay. He was neither gloomy nor resigned, but bore the look of a
strong man waiting. Time was not of account to him.

"You do not worry much," she said.

"Not I," he answered, but he turned to her. "Is there anything to worry
about, little Beth?"

"Sometimes I think so," she replied. "I think that now you'd better stay
to dinner."

"Thank you," he said, looking at her more carefully. "I suppose you know
best," he added.

There had never been anything between these two except undefined
good-feeling, expressed only by the inattentive conversation of those
who have often met in the same house with different interests. There had
existed, besides, that consciousness of a difference in age which makes
a few years seem almost a generation, so that with boys and girls "sets"
are separated by a bar of habit which prevents an older from seeing
anything in a younger, even after the passage of years has brought them
both to maturity. Thus, to Mather, Beth had always been a little girl,
until just now her quiet, assured carriage, as she interfered in his
affairs, opened his eyes. For she answered his last remark with
confidence.

"Yes, I know best." And he believed her.

"Talk to me," he said, turning still more toward her. "I have seen no
one for a long time. Who is doing? What is doing?" So Beth talked to
him.

This was her mission in life--to talk people into cheerfulness and bring
them nearer the rest of the world. She enjoyed it always, but it was
especially pleasant to her as she spoke with Mather. For he was real, he
was big, he was not baulked by conditions which might have been too much
for him. Estrangement from Judith was not, she was glad to see, making
him melancholy. He seemed in good physical condition; though he had not
gone much with people of late, she had seen him from her window, early
in the morning, sailing on the bay before he went to his work. It was
not Judith alone, therefore, but work also, that kept him from going
about. All this she felt, or guessed, as she told him of little matters.

"It is too bad," she said after a while. "You should have a mother, or a
sister, to tell you all this."

"That Esther Fenno is away yachting, or that John Watson is attentive to
Mary Carr?" He laughed. "But, Beth, you shall be my sister of mercy, and
I will come here oftener."

"Come, then," she said. "Some day there will be better or more important
items, and you may be glad of the bargain. Or if you happen to call on
Judith when Mr. Ellis does, you may talk with me."

"Couldn't he do that?" He maintained the appearance of jesting, but she
said seriously:

"I don't like him."

Then he put out his hand to her; she took it, and Judith came upon them
thus.

A pang shot through him as he rose and greeted her; she was quiet in her
manner--his coming could not move her in the least. He wished he might
feel that there had been a flash of inquiry in her first glance at him
and Beth, but her face had not really changed. She welcomed him kindly
enough. "He is going to stay to dinner," said Beth. Judith answered with
a conventional "Good!" Then the Colonel appeared; he had brought the
mail.

"A letter for you, Judith," he said. "A thick package, rather."

Thoughtlessly, she opened it. Ellis had promised to send her his
house-plans, and for the purpose had had a set made, much reduced in
size. He had mailed them to her himself; but for carelessness she would
have recognised his hand. The Colonel, always inquisitive, craned his
neck as Judith drew the plans from the envelope.

"Plans!" he exclaimed. "Are you going into building, Judith?"

She looked at the upper plan, carelessly as before, though the red came
into her cheek. Then she put them all back into the paper. "No, I'm not
going to build," she said.

"This reminds me," said the Colonel. "They say Ellis has bought the
Welton place."

"Indeed!" cried Beth. Her glance sought Mather's; his responded,
cynically humorous. That he should be there when the news was given! But
he turned to the Colonel.

"That must be very recent, sir."

"It may not be so," replied he, "but Kingston is hopping for fury, and
Dent for fright, because they'll be his neighbours. Judith, do you
happen to know if the news is true?"

In spite of herself, she looked at the floor. "Yes, it is true."

"Aha!" cried the Colonel. "Then those plans----" She looked up now, and
flashed him into silence.

"I think," said Judith, "that I will go and dress for dinner." She went,
and Beth went also, casting a glance of sympathy at Mather.

"Will you come in?" asked the Colonel nervously of his guest.

"I'll stay here, thank you. Don't let me keep you, sir."

"Thanks. I think I will fix up."

Mather smiled scornfully at the relief the Colonel showed. Alone, he
leaned against a pillar and looked out over the bay. So this was what
he had come to learn! And being here, he must stay and put the matter
through.

It was a miserable meal. Judith was furious with her father; Beth was
appalled at the length to which matters appeared to have gone. Mather
and the Colonel struggled manfully, and spoke of matters in the business
world. The Colonel inclined toward the subject of stocks.

"Consolidated," he suggested. "Don't you think it a good investment?"

"I am leaving silver alone," responded Mather. "I consider all those
stocks very unsafe just now, sir."

So with that radical difference of opinion between them, which really
concerned the Colonel more than he would show, conversation languished
even between the gentlemen. Out upon the piazza, after dinner, matters
went more smoothly, but Mather concluded that it was wiser to "eat and
run" than to stay where constraint hung in the air like a fog. So,
pleading the habit of early sleep, he took his leave.

Then Judith, fearing that he had been suffering, roused herself. "I will
go with you to the gate," she said, as he offered his hand for good-by.
They left the piazza together, but Beth, catching his eye to signal
satisfaction, saw him shake his head. Judith's condescension could no
longer thrill him. Beth felt that his attitude, for one who was so
concerned, was strangely like that of an observer.

And Judith felt it, too. He had passed through the stage of eager
homage, a favour could no longer enrapture him; she wondered if he had
even noticed the incident of the house-plans--whether, after all, he had
been hurt, so steadily he had borne himself. When they were alone
together, walking toward the gate, he turned to her a gaze almost
quizzical.

"Have you forgiven me my chimney, Judith?"

Thus he drew a smile from her; then, for the first time, he spoke of
his mill, but left her no burden of answering. The walk was short,
and he filled it with tales of his men, their weaknesses, their
characteristics, the troubles which some of them had confided to him.
But he said nothing of his difficulties or of his growing success,
though as he talked she thought of them.

"Does it not please you," she asked, "that people speak well of what you
are doing?"

"Do they?" was all he answered. "By the way----"

"And the work of organisation?" she asked him.

"It was fun," he said, "and not difficult at all."

"I can't believe you!" she cried.

"Nothing, nothing!" he answered.

"And is all smooth sailing now?"

"One of the men is getting up a strike," he answered. "That is all."

"A strike!" she exclaimed.

"So the older men tell me. A little one."

"How can you take it so easily?" she asked.

He smiled. "I think I can meet it. Well, here we are at the gate. Thank
you for coming, Judith. Good-by." He started away briskly, then turned
back. She was looking at him seriously.

"Here is Jim Wayne coming up the road," he said. "He comes to see Beth?"

"Yes."

"And what of my employer?"

"Poor Mr. Pease!"

"_Mr._ Pease," repeated Mather. "There it all is in a nutshell. Jim is
Jim, twenty-three. Pease is Mr. Pease, forty-five. The young to the
young, as Salvation Yeo said. Poor Pease! Good-night again, Judith."

And this time he was off for good, not turning again. Judith returned
thoughtfully to the house. He had interested her--turned her back a
little toward her real self, her old self. No small part of the effect
he had made was caused by his cheerful self-command. Did he love her
still? She thought of what he had done for Chebasset. He was very much
of a man.

On the way down the hill Mather passed Wayne. This was that broker's
clerk who always nodded to Ellis so carelessly, whose mother Ellis had
bought out, and whose name the promoter envied. Handsome, thought Mather
as they greeted; on second thought he added, a bit weak. But Mrs.
Harmon, looking from her garden as they passed on the road below,
thought that Wayne was handsome without qualification. Thus those two,
both of whom were to influence Wayne's fate, thought of him as he went
on to see Beth. Mrs. Harmon followed him with her eyes until he entered
the Blanchards' gate; with her thoughts, still longer. Mather forgot him
in grieving for Pease, the poor dreamer who would wake too late.

"Beth," asked Judith, returning to the house, "where was it we read
about Salvation Yeo?"

"In Kingsley's 'Westward Ho,'" answered Beth. After Wayne had come and
gone, she noticed that Judith was reading the book.

"Do you like it?" asked Beth.

"Romance--love," said Judith. "It seems unnatural." She laid the book
aside. "A pleasant evening, Beth?"

"Very," Beth answered.

"And Mr. Pease?" asked Judith.

She saw with surprise that Beth's eyes filled with tears. "What can I
do?" asked the younger sister; but expecting no answer, she went away.

Judith took up her book again, yet held it without opening it. Romance
and love had come to Beth; why not to herself? Judith had had suitors;
and true love might win her yet. Was it to be found? Such lasting love,
she meant, as it was certain Pease would give. No wonder Beth grieved;
any woman's heart would be touched by such devotion. Yet as Judith
thought of her old suitors she could name half a dozen now married,
having forgotten their griefs. But it was Mather who was most in her
mind, who ever since his rejection had been so strangely independent,
and this evening most of all. He had shown no surprise, no dismay, at
the sight of Ellis's house-plans. At the thought Judith started up with
pique, resentment--it would have been hard to define her feeling at the
thought that Mather needed no one to sorrow for him.




CHAPTER XI

AN INCIDENT AT THE MILL


On a morning when Beth took her turn at marketing she met Mather on the
street. "It's four days since you were at the house," she reminded him.

"Is there really any advantage in my coming often?" he asked her.

"I don't know," she answered plaintively. "But Judith has very little to
do. You might ask her to visit the mill."

"Come any time. Both of you," he responded.

"I'll bring her this morning," she said quickly.

But when Mather had been another hour at the mill he forgot the
engagement thus made. For in going about he noticed that the quiet in
the place was different from the bustle of ordinary days; the men seemed
expectant. Then as he passed near one of the older workmen the man spoke
to him under his voice.

"Look out this morning, sir."

"The strike is coming, Ferguson?" Mather asked, at once alert.

"Yes, sir."

Mather returned to his desk in the office. He believed that the strike,
if it came so soon, would be ill-planned. The day was warm; all doors
and windows were open to admit the harbour breeze; as he looked through
the screen-door into the mill he watched one man in particular. Though
the fellow's station was at a window, he seemed hotter than his
neighbours: his face was flushed; he wiped his brow and moved nervously.

The stenographer rose from her desk and silently laid a slip of paper
before Mather. On it was scrawled in pencil: "Wee will stand by you,
Mister Mather. Old Hands." Mather smiled; he had but twelve out of
seventy workmen who knew what strikes and lockouts meant. Most of the
men he had picked up where he could, training them himself; he had no
idea how far he could trust them. Instead of giving him confidence, the
note suddenly showed how weak his backing was.

"Where did you get this, Miss Jenks?" he asked.

"I found it just now, sir, slipped in among my papers."

"Thank you," he answered, and she went back to her desk, pale and
frightened.

The workman whom Mather had been watching kept looking at the clock. It
began to strike eleven; at once all eyes were turned on him; all work
was suspended during the slow striking. When this ceased, the workman
left his place and went to the door of the office; all glances followed
him, and the men who were more distant left their stations and crowded
to watch. Conscious of the stir he made, the fellow walked with a
swagger, but a change came in his manner when, through the screen-door,
he saw the quiet manager also eyeing him. He knocked on the door.

"Come in, Stock," said Mather.

Now the main entrance to the office was from outside, through a short
passage. At the moment when the workman entered from the mill, Judith
and Beth came into the passage; seeing Mather in apparent conference
with an employee, they waited until he should be finished. He had
wheeled in his chair, and his back was turned to them. "Well, Stock?" he
said.

The spokesman of the employees was a lean man, somewhat wolfish, with
an eye that moved too much. He seemed a talker rather than a doer, with
something of the actor showing as he stood by the door and folded his
arms. He spoke with an important air; no voice, Judith thought, can be
impressive if it is not clear.

"I've come to say, sir, that we're dissatisfied."

"That means," asked Mather, quietly and without rising, "that _you_ are
dissatisfied?"

The man cleared his throat, but still a characteristic huskiness
remained. "Yes, sir, I am."

"Very well," was the response, and the manager turned to the
stenographer. "Miss Jenks, make out a bill of this man's time."

Beth clutched Judith by the sleeve and sought to draw her away. Judith
stood still; not for anything would she have lost the sight of those two
men as they watched each other.

"You discharge me?" cried the workman with excitement.

"You discharged yourself," answered Mather steadily. "I can't have a man
here who is dissatisfied."

"My grievances----" began the other.

Mather cut him short. "Grievance is a word that doesn't apply. You knew
the conditions of work when you came; I have changed none of them."

"Then," cried Stock, "let me tell you from the men----"

"Stop!" ordered Mather; "no one speaks for my men who is not in my
employ."

"Just the same----" began Stock, anxiety peering from his eyes. Mather
interrupted him again.

"That will do. How much, Miss Jenks? Thanks." He took the money from his
pocket and handed it to the workman. "That is correct, I think. Good
day, Stock."

The workman was visibly troubled at the turn of events. "This is most
improper treatment," he complained. As he turned to the door at his back
he ventured a threat. "You shall see!"

"Not that door," said Mather quickly. "Remember that you are no longer a
workman here. The other way leads out of doors."

"I must get my hat," the man said, his eye now truly shifty and alarmed.
For a second it met Judith's, and she felt that he glared like a trapped
rat. Nevertheless, under Mather's glance he moved away from the mill
door.

"I will send for your hat," said Mather. He rose and opened the door
himself. "Jamison, Stock is leaving us. Will you bring his hat?"

He stood at the open door and waited. Judith looked beyond him into the
mill, where machinery rumbled, and in great vats huge cylinders
revolved. The men stood and stared at each other, or looked at the door
and the manager standing there. Some of the men were shamefaced, some
uneasy, some were smiling--and these were the older hands. The man who
had gone for the hat had reached the door on his return before any sound
rose above the rumble of the machinery.

Then Judith heard a voice, high-pitched and harsh. It needed a look at
Stock to make sure his husky tones could become so sharp. He was craning
toward the door, sending his voice toward those farthest away.

"Now is the time," he cried, "to assert your manhood!"

Mather took out his watch. "Yes," he said, and though he did not raise
his voice Judith noted its splendid carrying power. "Now is your time,
boys. Any one dissatisfied, like Stock here, can go with him. I give you
three minutes."

One of the older men laughed aloud, and standing above a vat began
raking in it, apparently, with a hooked pole. Others turned to their
work, yet they all kept their attention on those of the younger men who
stood still. Judith felt her hands grow cold, and knew her heart was
beating faster, for half of the men had not moved. Then fingers as cold
as her own took her hand, and Beth pressed up to her side. The older men
stopped work again, the man above the vat stood with pole suspended, and
Stock gave a little dramatic laugh.

"One minute!" said Mather clearly.

The men's eyes were on him, Judith's eyes also. He was calm and
perfectly confident; he had no word to say, but he seemed massive as his
own chimney, and as hard to move. His eye roved among the men, then
turned to the office, and for an instant met those of the frightened
stenographer. He gave a smile of confidence, looked at his watch, then
turned again to his men.

"A minute and a half!"

His voice seemed to ring out a challenge. Before it the men broke. One
who stood nearest the door, smiling feebly, turned and shuffled toward
his place. He gave the signal to the others. One by one they went to
work, but this time the older men last, until the man by the vat, with a
disdainful sniff, plunged his pole again into the liquid. Then Stock,
reaching for his hat, snatched it and almost ran from the office. In the
passage he fairly crowded Judith and Beth against the wall. Mather,
turning to look after him, saw the sisters.

At once he closed the solid door into the mill, cutting out the sounds
and bringing quiet. "Come in," he said to Judith. "How long have you
been there?"

"About three minutes," she answered, entering. She looked him in the
eye; he saw that she was excited, and flushed under the admiration
which showed in her glance.

"I am sorry you ran into this," he said. "I had not expected it for a
fortnight."

"I am glad," she returned. "What a peaceful spot this will be for a
while. You will show us over the mill?"

"Not when this has just happened," he answered. "It would be too much
like showing off the animals I had tamed. Will you excuse me?"

"I must see the office, then," she said. "Open your safe: pretend I am a
bank inspector, do!"

He laughed and introduced the sisters to Miss Jenks, laid out his books,
opened the safe, and challenged their criticism. Judith had never been
in an office before: the excitement of what she had just seen still
dominated her. To the stenographer's eyes she was dazzling, enchanting;
even Mather, though he told himself that the interest would pass, was
deeply pleased. He showed the store-room with its stock of sheet metal,
the yard, the wharf, the coal-pockets. Returning to the mill, the three
entered the office again.

"It is almost twelve," said Beth, looking at the clock.

A new interest took Judith, and she did not hear. Miss Jenks was at work
at her typewriter; she realised that Judith was watching
her--critically, of course. The magnificent Miss Blanchard must be above
such a thing as typewriting.

But Judith was interested rather than critical as she watched the clever
fingers at their work. It did not seem hard, and it fascinated her as at
each stroke a long type-arm sprang up, reached over, and struck upon the
paper. Letters grew to words, words to lines--and a faint glow spread
over the stenographer's face as Miss Blanchard moved forward to her
side and looked down at her work.

"You don't mind, do you?" asked Judith.

Miss Jenks did mind; she was nervous and almost frightened, but she
stuck to her task. Judith bent lower over the machine, knitting her brow
as she studied its working. The regular movement of the carriage, the
flashing type-arms, the flying fingers, and the result in violet print,
took strong hold of her.

"There," said Miss Jenks at last, flushing deeply, "the letter is ready
for Mr. Mather's signature." She drew it from the machine and handed it
to Judith.

"Is it so very hard?" asked Judith, glancing at the letter for but a
moment, then fixing the stenographer with an earnest eye. "Did you have
to study long?"

"At the typewriting?" asked Miss Jenks. "No, I picked that up quickly.
But shorthand is not easy at all." She took from the desk a note-book
and offered it to Judith. "Those are my notes of what Mr. Mather
dictated."

The pothooks on the paper meant nothing to Judith, but she saw that they
were very few. "Is this whole letter in these signs?" she asked.
"Indeed! It must be hard to learn." She looked still harder at the
stenographer, who blushed again under the intense scrutiny. Judith was
thinking that if this little, anæmic girl could learn shorthand, surely
she could do so herself.

"But Judith," said Beth, interposing, "you are keeping her from her
work."

"The letters are all finished," murmured Miss Jenks, glad to turn her
embarrassed eyes elsewhere.

Judith moved to the typewriter and looked down at it. Until this morning
she had never seen one except in an advertisement; its shiny
complications grew more attractive. She said nothing, but Beth smiled
at Mather mischievously.

"Try it," she suggested to Judith.

"Oh, if you will!" exclaimed Miss Jenks. She slipped a sheet of paper
into place and placed the chair for Judith. "Will you not?" she invited.
Judith took the seat.

"You can begin," suggested Miss Jenks, "by striking the letters one by
one. You press this key----"

"For capitals; yes, I saw," Judith replied. "No, I will try to write
without practising. To whom, Beth?"

"Tell Mr. Pease," Beth suggested, "that you approve of his manager."

So Judith wrote, dating, addressing, and beginning to explain that she
liked the mill. It--she bit her lip--was not quite so easy as it might
be, nor--as she finished a line without mistake, and released her lip
again--so very hard after all. She became interested, forgot the others,
and talked to herself.

"R--where's R? Oh, thanks. That was not hard enough; it scarcely
printed. Now Y--here! Now the end of the line; how easily this runs.
Beth, how do you spell----?"

Then they laughed at her, and she rose. "Judith, it's almost twelve,"
said Beth again. "Let's get away before the workmen do."

"George," Judith said to Mather, "let me look into the mill once more."

He opened the door again. The cylinders were still turning; the men were
busy--they even looked cheerful. And but for Mather's firm hand the mill
might at this moment be empty and idle! She gave him a glance of frank
approval as she turned to say good-bye. On the way home she was so
silent that Beth wondered if she were moved by what she had seen.

In fact, Judith was deeply moved. Never before had she seen such a sight
as that in the office, and the qualities displayed by Mather had
impressed her. Thus to stand up against a danger, thus to handle men--it
seemed to Judith as if he had done something almost great. His coolness
and success were heroic; for the rest of the day he occupied her mind;
she sat on the piazza, even at the table, with thoughts visibly
abstracted, and Beth at last became so impressed that she sought the
telephone when Judith was out of hearing, meaning to give Mather a piece
of advice. But he was no longer at the office; Miss Jenks said he had
gone to the city.

"I am very sorry," said Beth.

"So am I," sympathised Miss Jenks.

"I wanted to ask him to come up here this evening," said Beth. "You are
sure I cannot get him at his hotel?"

"Very sure," replied Miss Jenks. So Beth, much disappointed, left the
telephone.

Miss Jenks could have told Beth more. When the sisters had gone from the
mill, the stenographer found in the typewriter a sheet which she took
out and laid silently before her employer. He looked at it for a while,
then--tore it up. He had passed beyond the stage of treasuring reminders
of his lady. Only the day before he had found and destroyed a little
hoard of mementos which seemed to reproach him with his lack of success.
Judith, he told himself with that grimness which was a feature of his
self-control, did not exactly inspire poetic dreaming. So he destroyed
the letter, but when his day's work was over he turned reluctantly from
going to see her.

Miss Jenks saw his hesitation as, after putting on his hat, he stood at
the door and visibly asked himself: "Which way?" To the right led up
the hill and to Judith; to the left would bring him to his cottage;
straight ahead stood a trolley-car ready to start back to the city. The
little stenographer would have been wise enough to send him where, at
that moment, Judith was thinking of him. But like a man he blundered.

"Hang it!" he thought, "she doesn't want to see me all the time." He
counted up that he had seen her twice in one week; Sunday was the
earliest that he could go again. Also he remembered Ellis's house-plans.
So Miss Jenks, with a sense of disappointment which was both personal
and unselfish, saw him board the car.

At her house Beth scratched a note to Mather; it contained only the
words: "Follow it up!" She would send it in the morning. But after
dinner Judith received a telephone message from Mrs. Harmon, asking her
if she would not come over for the evening. Judith consented; it would
be neighbourly to go.

"Will you come?" she asked of Beth.

"Is the Judge there?" Beth inquired.

"He is in the city."

"Then I think I'll stay at home," decided Beth. She forecasted events
exactly. Judith went, stayed most of the evening, and was escorted home
by--Ellis. "He came down," Judith vouchsafed, "after I arrived there."

Since morning Judith had been softer, gentler than usual; but now she
was lofty again, with her old manner underlaid by excitement. Beth went
sadly to her room and tore up her note to Mather.




CHAPTER XII

FORWARDS VARIOUS AFFAIRS


As time passed on, Colonel Blanchard watched with interest, mixed with
solicitude, the love-matters of his daughters. Judith's affairs were
going to his satisfaction, for though Mather came occasionally to the
house, Ellis came oftener. Ellis's land had been bought, his house was
going up, and at times he came to discuss his plans with Judith. So far
so good, but in another quarter the Colonel was not quite so well
pleased, since the visits of Jim Wayne to Beth were becoming very
frequent.

Beth was twenty, Jim was twenty-one. He found the way to Chebasset easy
to follow, even though he left his mother at home alone--for the Wayne
estate was low in the world, and summer-resorts were not for the widow.
She, desolate soul, counted her dollars carefully, and encouraged her
son's belief that by selling the house and land to Ellis she had made
herself comfortable for life. "It was only for that," he explained to
Beth, "I allowed her to sell. And now she doesn't need my earnings, so I
use them for myself. She likes me to dress well; she says I'm so like my
father that she can't bear to have me look shabby. And it's a mark of a
gentleman, don't you think, Beth, to look well?"

It was so sweet of Jim to admire his father, that Beth could not bear to
say how the elder Wayne was popularly regarded.

"Why," snorted Mr. Fenno, "what he spent on clothes, cigars, and wines,
would have provided enough insurance to keep his family handsomely."

Fenno, when on the subject, had intended to make it clear to Beth that
Jim was too much like his father. Innuendo, however, had failed with
Beth--not that she was unable to perceive that Jim had his weaknesses,
but she had the habit of championing her favourites against her own
judgment. Thus she was sorry for the Judge who had chosen his wife
unwisely and could not make her love him, and pitied old Fenno himself,
who realised the hollowness of the world only after he had drummed on it
for a good many years. She was fond of such men because they were weak,
weak though they knew it not themselves, though the world called them
strong. And so it was not unnatural that Beth should take into her
innermost heart something still weaker to cherish, because she was so
strong herself; something with faults, she had so few herself; something
which would get into trouble, for she was so used to getting people out.
She did not realise that the young fall far deeper into trouble than the
old, and that she could not give backbone to a man who had none.

All this is but saying that Beth, wise in the affairs of others, with
her own was not so gifted, and was so mistaken as to take Wayne at very
nearly his own valuation. For Jim had a dashing air, and dressing in the
fashion was the mark of many a girlish eye. He went smooth-shaven; his
face had a slightly petulant expression, as if complaining of the world,
yet at times he lighted with the fire of optimism, when he told Beth of
the things he meant to do. And thus he approached her on two undefended
sides, for never had she turned a deaf ear to a call for sympathy, and
nothing in a man did she admire so much as aspiration.

Thus their affinity declared itself to them, for Jim liked to be purred
over and strengthened. He enjoyed telling, to an attentive ear, the
misfortunes of his family. "That we should have to sell our house to
that fellow Ellis!" he said to Beth. "It seems too hard, doesn't it? And
to think that in a few years I shall be earning enough to support the
old house, if I had it still! But when a fellow's just starting, you've
no idea how little they pay. The business world! Ah, Beth, you're lucky
to be a girl, so that you don't have to rub up against life!"

He spoke as if life in its hardest form were to be met with only on
exchange, and shook his handsome head so convincingly that Beth believed
him. She enjoyed believing him; it gave her pleasure to think Jim a man
of the world. In fact, he carried himself very well, with none of those
mannerisms which so often betray inexperience. Little allusions to
dissipation are very common, but Jim was not given to these, and in
consequence seemed more manly than those of his set whom she met. Of
course Jim took wine when her father offered it; believing in her father
as she did, she thought it no sign of dissipation when he or others
drank at his table. It was a pleasure to Beth that Jim and the Colonel
were congenial, with more than one topic in common. For example, Wayne
had a nice taste in wines, fostered by his lamented parent, and could
discuss with Blanchard the merits of his '68 and '72. Jim liked the
Colonel's tobacco, also, and never failed to commend it. But most of all
the two enjoyed speaking of the stock-market and all which to it
pertained. The Colonel always asked Jim for the "news of the street,"
which the two discussed with as much seriousness as if Jim were not
young and the Colonel flighty. To these talks Judith and Beth always
listened silently--Judith because she knew there would be no use to say
anything, Beth because she did not suppose that anything was to be said.

Thus when the Colonel led the talk to Consolidated one evening, Judith
remembered, but Beth forgot, that Mather had advised against all silver
stocks until they should become settled. To Beth stocks were mere names,
unembodied nothings without power either to wreck lives or to make
people happy.

"Great possibilities," said Jim, wagging his head.

"Must go up soon, I think," commented her father, with deliberation.

"Sure!" Jim assented heartily.

Such incomplete sentences and bits of slang meant wisdom to Beth, and
when Judith rose from the table, the younger sister still remained
sitting to hear what further Delphic utterances might be made.

"Always said Argent would slump," stated the Colonel.

"I got out of that some time ago," declared Jim.

"Wise!" Blanchard said approvingly, not knowing that Jim's single share
had been sold under pressure of necessity, when his mother, in one of
the few decisive moments of her life, declared that Jim himself must buy
the new carpet for his room, since she thought the old one still good
enough for a couple of years' wear. Jim had at first meant to have a
good carpet, then he decided on a rug, and a large part of his Argent
went into something Turkish, while a little of what was left was devoted
to adorning his person. One small share of Consolidated remained as an
investment, and Jim was now looking for that to rise again to the point
at which he had bought it.

Jim was an optimist with the instinct of self-approval, and being "in"
Consolidated he had picked up the expressions which had fallen in his
hearing, justifying him in his wisdom in buying and his hopefulness in
waiting. He told the Colonel what Baxter said, and what Winster said,
and especially what Bullfinch had declared in regard to the stock. Now,
Bullfinch was that broker with whom the Colonel had his dealings.

"He said 'Hang on'?" asked Blanchard with pleasure.

"Yes," said Jim. "And I heard him giving Baxter a tip, sir, which I will
pass on to you, if you're interested. He said: 'Watch Poulton Mining and
Milling.'"

"Indeed?" murmured the Colonel.

"Now, you wouldn't think that, would you, sir?" asked Jim. "It's down,
way down; why, it's been down for a couple of years! I had forgotten
about it, almost. But now I'm watching it myself. It has moved a little
lately, up a point and down again. Looks as if some one were interesting
himself in it, don't you think?"

"May be," assented the Colonel judicially.

"If Consolidated rises, I'm thinking of taking my money out and putting
it into Poulton. What should you say to that, Colonel?"

"Where is Poulton now?" asked Blanchard.

"Twelve and a half," answered Jim.

"Well," explained the Colonel, "the way I have always looked at these
things is this. If your money is in a low-priced stock, and it rises a
dozen points, then perhaps you double. But if your money is in something
high-priced, then on the rise you only make twelve per cent."

"If only," said Jim, "one could be sure which stock will rise!"

"You can make sure by watching," asserted the Colonel.

Once Ellis came in as one of these conversations was in progress; he
stood listening while the two amateurs finished their duologue.

"Don't you think so?" they had appealed to him at the end.

"Ah, well," replied the master of finance, "you seem to have got hold of
something there." Then he went out on the piazza with Judith, leaving
the enthusiasts still more cheerful.

"Your father doesn't act on those ideas of his?" he asked of Judith.

"I hope not--I think not," she answered. "He just likes to talk with
Jim."

"Dabbler!" was Ellis's characterization of the young man. Meanwhile the
dabblers still babbled within the house, in high good humour with
themselves.

It will be noticed that the summer had brought progress to Ellis, in
fact almost intimacy with Judith. Their closer acquaintance, begun over
his house-plans, had been materially forwarded by Mrs. Harmon, when she
invited Judith to her house on the evening of Mather's strike.

Previously, she had been very curious to know how he had got on with
Judith. That the girl had supplanted her as chief adviser she became
aware, and was in the beginning a little piqued thereat. When she first
saw a sketch of the new house, her face fell.

"Oh, _that_ kind of a house!" she exclaimed. "Why, that's all very well
for a man with an income like my husband's, but for you it seems too
simple."

"I like it," he replied without explanation.

"But no carvings," she persisted. "No turrets, or anything of that
sort."

"No, no," he said; "this is the only thing."

"But really, change it!" she urged. "Why, it doesn't represent you. It
might be anybody's house!"

"The object isn't to attract attention," Ellis replied. "Quiet and
dignity are more genteel." He quoted Judith so exactly (all but for the
one word) that Mrs. Harmon perceived it.

"Oh," she exclaimed with some chagrin. "I see, it's Judith makes you do
this. Of course, if you want to!"

"Now," he said with a rough tolerance, "think it over. She's right,
you'll find. A city house down here won't fit. The girl has lived
abroad, remember; she ought to know."

Mrs. Harmon had reflected and acquiesced. Common sense was fundamental
to both her and Ellis, and combined with more frankness than was usual
in the Judge's circle kept them on good terms. Ellis had laid his hand
on her shoulder while he urged her to consider; she had not resented the
sign of their understanding.

"Well," she said, "Judith knows a good deal, and perhaps I am wrong."
Right or wrong, she did not intend that she and Ellis should fall out.
Life was dull for her sometimes; she liked to have him dropping in. And
then those trinkets. She turned the bracelet on her wrist.

"This is very attractive," she said.

He grunted indifferently.

"It's odd," she said further, "and bracelets aren't worn very much. It
attracts attention."

"That's what Price expected," he responded. She never thanked him for
his gifts more than by such commendations; he did not expect more.

But she was on each occasion interested to know how he got on with
Judith. He knew she kept account of his visits there. "Go oftener," she
urged him once. He was wiser, and refused. "You don't follow it up very
quickly," she repeatedly said, but "all in good time" was the most she
could get out of him.

"What do you talk about with her?" she asked.

"The doings in the city," he answered. "The big things going on
anywhere."

"Does that get you very far with her?" she asked in surprise.

"As far as I can get," he replied.

She thought to advise him. "You don't understand girls, Stephen. The
talk you give her isn't what she wants. A girl of her age
needs--flattery, you know, and nice little things said."

"You'd make me into a Jim Wayne," he retorted. "A monkey in a Panama,
saying foolish things." Mrs. Harmon drew herself up, but he did not
perceive. "Pretty fool I'd be, saying the things he does. I heard a talk
of his and Beth's, and this is the sort of thing he said--." But Ellis
misrepresented Jim entirely, having looked at him from a strictly
personal point of view. The conversation, harmless as it was, is best
taken at first hand.

"How swell you look to-night!" Jim had begun. "Gad, that rose in your
hair--trust a girl to know what's nifty!"

"Don't be silly," Beth replied.

"Straight!" Jim protested. "Never saw you look so stunning. This
moonlight brings it all out, you know. Poetic, Beth, on my word! I say,
let's go down on the beach, and you can recite me that thing of
Tennyson's."

"Shelley's," Beth corrected him.

"Just as good," said Jim cheerfully. "Come on, do!"

Such is the literal report of a conversation which Beth thought highly
delightful, but which Ellis delivered with some distortion of manner and
word, calculated to throw discredit on Wayne's attractions. "Flat and
silly," he characterised it. "Now if you suppose that a man of my age
can say that sort of thing to a girl like Judith Blanchard, you're
wrong, Lyddy--Lydia, I mean."

She seized her chance to show a little of her true feeling; long ago she
had asked him not to use the old nickname. She answered coldly: "Of
course, you know your affairs best. And equally of course, you can't do
things which Mr. Wayne can."

"Don't be hard on me," he said. "Wayne's all right in his way, but I'm
no boy, nor is Judith like her sister. If Wayne's a friend of yours, I'm
sorry." For he divined that something more than his use of her name had
caused her coldness.

"I scarcely know him," she responded. "But let me tell you that a woman
had sometimes rather a man would make a fool of himself by calling her
handsome, than be too wise in his talk."

Ellis had no answer ready, and the subject dropped, but before he left
he made an attempt at conciliation. "You see, really sometimes I don't
understand myself, even, or the girl. I'll try to remember what you say.
Keep me in her mind, you know, Lydia."

It was a truth that he spoke: he did not understand the girl, nor
himself. He still prized her fire and dreaded her theories, with each
meeting he admired her more than ever, but he was finding in her a
baffling reserve which taught him that he must go slow. He could not win
her out of hand; some spring of action in her there was yet to find,
some ideal which he must satisfy. Might it not be too high!--and there
lay the new uncertainty in himself, that he was not sure of conquering
her, while conquer her he must! For she was growing indispensable to
him, all thought of her as a commodity had fled, and he was now familiar
with that longing for her while still he found no name for it. The
emotions which he understood were his own ambition and others' greed, he
had no knowledge of the finer desires which can be roused in man. So,
somewhat puzzled, he laboured to please Judith by the only means he
knew, with far more success than might have been expected.

Then came that evening when Mrs. Harmon invited Judith to her house,
where Ellis had arrived at almost the same time. It irritated the girl
at first to be so evidently brought in his way, and with Mather's
achievement in her mind she was for some time cool and quiet, until Mrs.
Harmon, with great self-control, took herself out of the room. Then
Ellis brought the conversation at once to familiar ground. He told
Judith that he had for some time been working to bring about a
combination of the cotton manufacturers. "We can control the whole
section, and can do much toward setting prices, if this can only be
managed."

"You mean to make it a trust?" asked Judith, interested.

"Yes," he said. "But some of the operators are shy, the contracts and
the sharing are so intricate. They--I--they don't know what I'm really
at."

Judith failed to understand that his reputation stood in the way of
complete confidence. "Can't they see that the combination will benefit
them?"

"Yes," he answered, "but the scheme scares them. It's big."

"I have heard of a lawyer," she said, "a New Yorker, who gives his whole
time to nothing but framing agreements for trusts, and meeting the
corporation laws. If you could call him in, couldn't he perhaps make it
clear to the others? The advantages, I mean, and the safety?"

"Where did you hear of him?" asked Ellis.

"I read of him," she answered, "in a magazine."

"I never read magazines," he said thoughtfully. "It mightn't be a bad
idea. By Gad," he went on, warming, "I think it might be just the thing.
A stranger to us all, he'd be able to give confidence, I do believe. And
there's so much in it!" He turned to Judith with energy. "Could you find
me that magazine?"

"Yes," she answered, all her coldness gone in the rush of interest, as
she saw herself influencing affairs. "It is at home."

"Let me walk back with you, then, when you go."

Mrs. Harmon entered, having heard the last part of their talk, having
listened, in fact. "Is that the sort of thing she really cares about?"
she asked herself in surprise.

It was, indeed, the sort of thing which attracted Judith; no wonder that
there was a new light in her eyes when she came home with Ellis. No
wonder that Beth tore up her letter to Mather. Judith had gained an
interest in the future which put quite out of her mind the memory of the
trifling strike at the mill. Ellis promised to tell her if he used her
idea; she was eager to know if it bore results. He let her know, before
long, that he was working on it; he would tell her if anything happened.
Judith scanned daily the reports of industrial affairs, to see if the
combination took shape.

Thus that invitation of Mrs. Harmon's was of great value to Ellis, but
when the other tried to draw nearer to the girl it proved a different
undertaking. Mrs. Harmon was lonely; she wanted companionship; it
irritated her that Judith and Beth had cavaliers, while she had none.
One day she asked Judith out to drive, and for a while the two sat in
the victoria glum and stupid. They were too widely different in their
natures ever to be intimate.

But Mrs. Harmon made the attempt. "Mr. Ellis," she said, choosing the
most promising topic, "is a most interesting man, Judith--you will let
me call you Judith, won't you?"

"Certainly," was the answer.

"Thank you. And don't forget that my name is Lydia; Mr. Ellis calls me
by it at times. Doesn't he fascinate you with what he does?"

That was something which Judith was not prepared to admit. "He is
certainly very active in many matters," she replied, wary of what she
said, for fear of her companion's tongue.

"He controls so much; he plans and carries out such great things!" went
on Mrs. Harmon. "Ah, he is a keen man, my dear. Don't you think so?"

Judith thought so.

"He has a great future before him," prophesied Mrs. Harmon, but she
perceived that she roused no answering spasm in Judith's breast.
Therefore Mrs. Harmon's artificial palpitation presently subsided, with
some suddenness, and she had the feeling that perhaps the young lady was
overmuch for her. Before the end of the drive Mrs. Harmon found herself
obliged to say, in self-defence:

"Driving makes one so contemplative, don't you think? Sometimes I could
drive for hours, just so, perfectly content but saying nothing."

Judith confessed to the same sensation. When Mrs. Harmon was alone, she
concluded that the experiment had been fully tried. Later, Judith asked
her over to tea, but the situation was so much relieved when other
people dropped in that Mrs. Harmon lost hope of a real friendship in
that quarter.




CHAPTER XIII

WHICH IS IN SOME RESPECTS UNSATISFACTORY


Jim Wayne had been going so frequently to Chebasset that people were
beginning to talk of it. All foresaw the consummation of his courtship,
and some gloomy shakes of the head were given to the subject.

Beth, the older people said, was just such another as Jim's mother: a
soft woman, without the power either to restrain a man or to improve
him. Such unhappiness as the widow Wayne's was, therefore, reserved to
Beth--while Jim should be alive. As Jim was weaker in character than his
father, and therefore less dissipated, he promised to live longer. Poor
Beth!

Not for these reasons, however, was it that Colonel Blanchard took
serious counsel concerning the possibility of interference. For when the
inclination of the two young people was unmistakable Blanchard began to
consider the side on which it affected him, regretting the hope which
seemed about to vanish, that Beth should marry Pease. If only something
might be done! The Colonel sought Judith as the person who alone could
advise him, though until he opened the subject he had forgotten how
seldom they agreed in their views. The Colonel was often conscious that
his calibre was different from that of his daughter.

"Judith," he said, "you've been noticing what is going on between Beth
and young Wayne? You think there's something in it?"

"If there isn't," she replied, "there will be very soon."

The Colonel took a few fretful paces up and down the room. Then he
stopped before her. "What do you think of it?" he demanded.

For a moment Judith considered her answer; it is unpleasant to say
things which may be remembered later when one has a brother-in-law.
Nevertheless, as usual she spoke the truth. "I wish Beth wouldn't."

"When Pease is ready, too!" complained the Colonel. "Do you suppose he
seems too old to her?"

"Beth likes older people," returned Judith. "And she'd be so safe with
him."

"Yes," returned the Colonel, accepting all suggestions eagerly. "Yes, of
course. Now, isn't there something we can do?"

"For instance?" challenged Judith; seeing that the Colonel had nothing
to offer, she went on, "I never knew how to interfere in anything of
that sort. Of course, you, as her father----"

"Do you think I could?" asked the Colonel hopefully.

"It's not often done," Judith replied.

The Colonel considered the possibility and shrank from it. Never had he
denied anything either to himself or to his daughters; the most he had
ever ventured toward his offspring was a petulant remonstrance. This
tone, as he saw himself helpless, he took now toward Judith in default
of Beth. "It seems hard," he complained. "I've brought her up--you don't
know how much thought I've given you two girls. And now she turns back
on me!"

"Why father," asked Judith in surprise, "how can it affect you so?"

The Colonel's thoughts rapidly skirted the pit which he had opened for
himself. It is a long way from the hope of a rich son-in-law to the
consideration of a daughter's happiness, but the Colonel presently
covered it. "Her comfort," he demanded. "Have I nothing at stake
there?"

But this was obviously so artificial that he felt Judith could not fail
to perceive it. She sat silent, and the Colonel, after changing the
subject, presently got himself out of the house. Perhaps he was to be
pitied, if to be good-natured, weak, indulgent, deserves a better reward
than a vigorous daughter's too-keen comprehension. Besides, the gentle
one was turning against him. He nursed his grievance against Beth for a
while, then at last found comfort in Judith after all. She at any rate
would marry money. If she would only be quick about it!

And the Colonel, free from observation, sat down in the shrubbery to
study the newspaper which he had brought with him, in the hope of
drawing from its columns of figures information which should tell him
where to lay his bet. He was gambling from week to week, quite as if he
were laying on the red or black, although the means of his ventures were
Consolidated, and (following the hint Jim Wayne had given) Poulton
Mining and Milling, besides (a little discovery he had made for himself)
Tilly Valley Oil. They were all up a point or two, but the Colonel was
not entirely relieved as he studied the figures, because more than a few
points were needed in order to make up for the slump of last week.

A man puzzles long at these things, sometimes; the Colonel's time was on
him now, making him very peevish. It was hard, hard indeed, that both
the market and Beth should go against him.

As regards Beth, the signs of her feeling were unmistakable. The eye of
blissful brooding which she now always showed, the loving consideration
with which she fulfilled all duties, bespoke the thoughts which
mastered her. She and Jim had been drawing nearer through the weeks, a
graded progress of lingering, slow-mounting ecstasy. And on one night,
one starlight night, Beth and her lover came to a complete
understanding.

Jim begged her to go with him to the beach. He was trembling a little
himself, being genuinely inspired with a feeling above his own capacity
to retain long; she felt the tremor in his voice as he asked the favour.
"Let's get away from here," he said. "I want to speak with you."

So they went down to the beach, silent, so absorbed by what was coming
that the touch of each other as they jostled in the darkness was enough
to make them start. Jim had chosen where the proposal should be made, a
nook beneath a bank where they had often sat by moonlight; but this was
starlight, and no one was to see.

They sat beneath the bank; the dry sand made a soft seat, the breath of
the salt-water quickened their spirits, the lapping of little waves
spoke to them with a murmur of far away things. Their two hearts beat
like four; Beth felt that she was breathless, Jim knew that he was
wordless, and a long pause followed their arrival. At last Jim found
that he could speak.

"How quiet it is!"

"And how lovely!"

He felt that this was mere temporising. "We've sat here a good many
times," he began again. "Haven't we, Beth?"

"Yes," she murmured, feeling that it was coming.

"I--it's been great fun to see so much of you," he went on, "but it's
got to come to an end before long."

"Really?" asked Beth weakly, all natural power of response completely
lost.

"It's too much to stand, you know," asserted Jim. "I've--you've made me
greedy, Beth. Either I want it all, or none at all."

She answered nothing, though he listened. Ah, it was a mistake to
propose in the dark, for he lost the sight of her sweet face.

"Either to come, I mean," he went on again, "whenever I want, or never
again, Beth."

"Jim!" she murmured.

"Shall I go away?" he asked. "Or shall we just go on meeting--every
day--forever--till death do us part?" he concluded, satisfied that he
had expressed the immutability of his sentiments. Getting no answer, he
reached for Beth's hands in the darkness, and found the little
fluttering things just coming toward him. Then he enfolded her and drew
her to him, and what was said after that was too broken to be set down
in type.

Thus was accomplished, and very creditably to Jim, the understanding
which had been long in coming, and Beth whispered to him the wonderful
words, "I love you!" Her little cup was more than full; her happiness
overflowed her heart and found a somewhat larger receptacle waiting for
it, namely her mind, in which it seemed somewhat thin. Even as she
yielded herself to Wayne's embrace Beth's two natures declared
themselves not in accord, now when the test was applied. Kisses were
strangely fleshly things; Beth shrank beneath Jim's eagerness; poetry
vanished before the fierceness of his embrace. This was not a communion
of spirit with spirit; Jim did not speak with fervour of his relief from
his trials and his fears. The tremolo of praise which her heart was
prepared to utter found no response in his; the deeper thoughts were
hers alone. She had thought admission to the treasures of Jim's mind
would mean so much, and now his exultation oppressed her, while she
winced beneath his physical delight.

Thus Beth, who had thought to sit hand in hand in deep communion,
discovered that there was in Jim as man what was lacking in her as
woman, and before long she led him home. Jim went with reluctance; it
was too sweet to hold and kiss her; she was a morsel far finer than had
yet come to him, and he failed to understand her purity, as the farmer's
boy cannot comprehend the rebellion of a peach at being eaten.

Nor did Jim quite fall in with Beth's ideas, which she detailed to him
as she neared the house. Tell her father and sister, of course, and
after that, why not tell everybody else? Beth wished for a month or two
of Jim to herself, and to rush into the world flaunting her happiness as
if it were an achievement was not in her nature, so she begged of Jim
this respite.

"It won't be news to any one by that time," he grumbled.

"But to oblige me, Jim? And really, never again can we have ourselves
quite to ourselves." In their walk up the hill Beth had found time to
tell herself that she was wrong to be so timid in Jim's embrace; that
perhaps it was natural, but that every other girl felt so at first, and
the feeling would pass. Thus she meant what she said about having him to
herself; and Jim, turning and catching her, declared that there never
was a sweeter little thing, that he must have a kiss, and that he would
agree.

The Colonel and Judith had been sitting quite stolidly, back to back
beside the lamp. But while the Colonel was oblivious to what was going
on, Judith had been keenly alive to it. She had recognised the tremor in
Jim's voice as he begged for the interview; how many such requests had
been made of her! Yet having always gone to a proposal as a surgeon to
an operation, to remove painfully yet kindly the cause of a disease,
Judith knew how different her sensations had been from those of Beth, as
she went, shrinking, to meet her happiness. During the half-hour that
they were away, Judith imagined the bliss of those other two, and knew
that however simple it was, it was enviable. Then when Beth returned,
Judith started for very joy at the sight of her radiant face.

Very prettily Beth went and kissed her father, and stammered that there
was something to tell him, for she and Jim now understood each other. It
seemed to Beth natural that Judith should speak slowly, apparently
choosing her words--but that the Colonel should wait until Judith had
finished speaking, and then should burst out with more than Beth had
expected him to say, as if to cover up less than she had expected him to
feel, struck cold to Beth's warm little heart, and oppressed much of the
remainder of the evening. She had scarcely recovered from it when
train-time came, and with it Jim's good-by, almost violent--and the
evening was over.

Poor little Beth, kneeling at your bedside, praying for one who, instead
of hastening home to tell his mother, stays at the club till after
midnight--poor little Beth, a white figure in the pale light of the
late-rising moon, go to bed and dream the dreams of yesterday. It would
be happier so.

But sleep avoided her. So many thoughts passed through her mind, of the
reality which had come to her--a reality like others, hard in
places--that Beth lay wakeful. She heard the clock strike eleven, heard
her father and Judith come upstairs and say good-night, heard the two go
to their rooms. They had said so little to her, so little, and she was
so lonesome! But in a few minutes a door opened, footsteps approached,
and Judith stood by her sister's side. Beth stretched up her arms and
drew her down.

"Talk to me," Judith murmured. "Tell me about it, about him."

Ah, this was sisterly and sweet! Beth had sometimes thought her sister
cold; never would she do so again. She told her happy thoughts, not
those vague suggestions of a difficult future or imperfect
understanding. Her Jim was such a man! Her own words gave her
confidence; clasped in Judith's arms, Beth poured out her hopes; more
yet, she spoke of her fears in order to smile them away. She would face
hardships, would bear what griefs the world might send, secure in her
great love. And Judith, listening, murmured her agreement, her sympathy,
her joy.

Then when Judith said good-night, she was held still closer for a
moment. "I wish you the same good fortune, dear!" Beth kissed her, and
released her.

Beth slept at last; it was Judith who was wakeful. The same good
fortune?

Judith mused upon love. It was love which so blinded Beth's eyes and
brought this ineffable happiness. Poor Beth! Yet Judith did not even
smile with pity, for her nature told her that this love of Beth's,
should it but last, would be more of a help, a guide and strength, than
all of Judith's own knowledge. And repeating Beth's words, "the same
good fortune," Judith wished for that happiness to come to her. To love
a man, to believe in him, give herself to him: that would solve the
problem of a future which often seemed too cold.

She recognised perfectly the drift of her feelings toward Ellis. Yet her
enthusiasm for him was an impulse of the head rather than the heart; it
was not a passion, but a state of mind. How much finer was Beth's
perfect self-forgetfulness! And fearing that Ellis could never rouse her
to a greater height than this intellectual approval, Judith's thoughts
turned regretfully toward Mather. In all the years of their
acquaintance, why had he never _made_ her love him? Well, that was past!
But Judith, softened by this contact with Beth's happiness, and
perceiving that the fascination of Ellis's personality was slowly
growing on her, looked with regret upon the prospect of a merely
rational union.




CHAPTER XIV

MR. PEASE INTRUDES UPON A SECRET


The summer passed; through October the city gathered its own to itself
again. The stay-at-homes, such as Miss Cynthia and Mrs. Wayne, saw with
relief shutters go down and blinds open, saw awnings spread over
southern windows and children playing on lawns. Poor Mrs. Wayne,
threatened with the loss of her treasure, could call less formally upon
her daughter-in-law-to-be, yet could not quite reconcile herself with
matters as they stood. But that is the way of mothers. Jim began to urge
that the engagement be announced, but Beth put him off for another
little while.

And now Pease found comfort in the thought of Beth's return, since it
would give him his innocent pleasure without journeys or the neglect of
business. His winter clothes were chosen with unusual care, nor did he
this time repel the tailor's semi-annual attempt to give him a more
youthful appearance. At his home Pease became a new man, and Miss
Cynthia sneered as she fastened the charge upon him.

"More colour in your neckties!" she sniffed disdainfully.

He smiled, untroubled. "Yes; they tell me it's to be quite proper, this
fall."

Astonishment prevented her from speaking; never before had he deserted
the middle ground of fashion. Thus the lighter shade of his new overcoat
was a sign, his wearing of tan shoes a portent. And his very carriage
was different, as of a man who has at last found the spring of youth and
drinks of it daily. His mannerisms were softening, he took more interest
in social news, and an undercurrent of thought always swayed his mind in
the direction where knowledge or imagination placed Beth Blanchard.

There was stupidity in Pease, for he did not find the meaning of the
existence of Jim Wayne. But very slowly he discovered the reason for his
own sensations. He met Beth first in April; by the middle of the summer
he knew that she attracted him extremely; a month later he acknowledged
that he was going to Chebasset for the sake of seeing her; upon her
return to Stirling he felt continual odd thoracic sensations which
seemed to make him a living compass, pointing always to Beth. After a
fortnight of this sort of thing he waked one day from a reverie of her,
to realise that he loved her. The discovery affected him with vertigo;
he had to seek the air and think the matter over. In about a week he
became familiar with the situation and accepted it. He paused one
evening before his motto from Goethe, and smiled to think that he had
once considered the end of happiness to be mere culture.

Loving Beth, he did not at first include her in his hopes. There was
such delight in contemplating a definite image in absence, such
satisfaction in watching Beth herself when present, that for some time
he went no further. He made it clear to Beth that he was always willing
to attempt anything she desired, and then from time to time looked in on
her and adored. Yet the humanising process eventually proceeded. Gazing
at his idol until its every perfection was known to him, at last there
came the question: Why not possess it? And this worked on him so that in
the end he became extremely determined.

So gentle was the increase of his attentions that Beth did not at first
take the alarm. At home, no abstraction betrayed him to Miss Cynthia,
who thought that he had resigned himself. He was more lively, normal
than ever before, and only Mather suspected in him the determination to
do or die. The change of the scene of operations from Chebasset to the
city, however, gave Mather no chance to keep abreast of the march of
events, since the manager still spent most of his days and nights at the
seaside. Thus no one enlightened Pease until it became Beth's task to do
so herself.

He dressed himself with unusual care one afternoon; had it been the
evening Miss Cynthia would never have suspected. But his newest suit,
his freshest gloves, the box of violets in his hand, and (more than all)
the single pink in his lapel--all these for a moment made her suspect
the truth as she watched him leave the house. "Whatever is the man----?"
But he was gone, and there was nothing to be done.

He found Beth at home, and gave her the box of violets. She thanked him
with such prettiness as always charmed him, such warmth as always made
him glow. The poor man tried now to say words of love, he who had never
practised them even to himself. It was a long way round, through the
weather, the news, the latest invitation, to the deepest emotion of the
human heart. But he pointed straight to it at last, and Beth understood.

So she sprang to head him off in the kindest, surest way. "I----" she
hesitated with heightened colour, "I have something to tell you, Mr.
Pease. Almost nobody knows it [almost everybody was nearer the truth, as
Jim weekly complained], but you have been such a good friend that I
think I should like you to know."

"You are very kind," he answered, much pleased, and opening his bosom to
the fatal dart. "I will tell no one without your permission."

"I should like you to tell your cousin," she said. "I--I----" Her face
became scarlet. "Mr. Pease, I am engaged to marry Mr. Wayne."

Down fell his house of cards; it seemed as if the chambers of his brain
resounded, and for a moment his head bowed low. Then he raised it again
and looked at her, and for the merest instant she saw a face of misery.

"Oh, Mr. Pease," she cried, "I am so sorry!"

There was a moment of stupid silence. "I--I regret," he said at length,
"to distress you, by letting you know."

"How can I help knowing?" she answered simply. He sat dumb while she,
twisting her fingers in and out, sought for further words. "If I," she
said at last with tears in her eyes, "if I have hurt you, I hope that
you will blame me, and forget me."

"Blame?" he cried. "And forget? No, no!" She saw his face light nobly.
"Miss Blanchard, you have given me new ideals--humanised me. Blame and
forget? Why, my life was small and narrow; you have led me out of
myself! Everything is better through knowing you. Therefore, I may say
with a cheerful heart:

    "Tis better to have loved and lost
    Than never to have loved at all!"

He sat upright and smiled, but tears stood in her eyes; she could make
no response. After a moment he asked her: "You are to be married soon?"

"No," she answered, and gained command of herself. "We must wait a
while--and you know it is very slow, rising in Mr. Wayne's business."

"Yes." Then he rose and held out his hand; she gave him hers at once. "I
will go," he said. "Do not reproach yourself, and--God bless you
always!" He bent and kissed her hand, smiled again, and then was gone.

She sat down, miserable. Not his brave cheerfulness, nor his almost
comic quoting of the old-fashioned couplet, could drive from her the
knowledge that his heart was bleeding. Slowly the tears welled out upon
her cheeks.

Then Wayne entered joyously. "I passed old Pease on the steps, and he
didn't see me. What's wrong with him?"

She ran to him. "Oh, Jim!" she cried, and clung to him, weeping.

"Oho! Indeed?" he exclaimed, and horrified her by loud laughter.

Pease had not noticed whom he passed upon the steps. For a moment after
leaving the house he had stood in the vestibule, looking at the setting
sun. One would have said that its splendour passed into his face and
illumined it; indeed, a glory entered him at that moment, an ecstacy of
self-forgetfulness. The sunset faded quickly, but the inner light still
shone on his face as he went homeward.

Miss Cynthia saw it when he entered the parlour where she was sitting.
Her cousin had never appeared so to her before, and for a moment she
mistook. "Is it possible?" she asked herself.

"Cynthia," he said quietly, "Miss Beth Blanchard asked me to tell you
that she is to marry Mr. Wayne."

"No!" she cried, angry at once, her love for her cousin blazing in her
eyes. "She mustn't!" Then she was ashamed, for he answered gently:

"It seems to me a very happy fortune."

But he could say no more, for a single dry sob burst from her. Fearing
to lose his own self-command, he went up to his room.

From that minute Miss Cynthia's admiration of her cousin, which for some
time had been passive, recommenced to grow, expanding far beyond its
former boundaries as she found what further depths there were in his
character. Never, even in their early days of struggle, had he been so
considerate, kind, and wise. Indeed, on the very day after his great
disappointment he proved his manliness.

Pease travelled down to Chebasset and found Mather in the office as
usual. The manager greeted him with an inward pity, for in the morning's
mail he had received a letter from Beth, informing her dear George, whom
she had always regarded as one of her best friends, that she and Mr.
Wayne--etcetera, etcetera. With sorrow for Pease, therefore, Mather
greeted him, to be surprised by the banker's smile. When his errand was
announced Mather was surprised the more.

"You have been saying, haven't you,

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