Chapter XVIII (3)

He was silent, and after a pause they started slowly down the hill.

Two days passed since she had told him that Mrs. Fraser was in love with him. They had been much together, but never alone until now, and she knew that he was furious with himself for letting the minutes slip unmarked by. Suddenly he burst out: "Will you wear that gray frock you wore the first night, to-night? And the low diamond thing in your hair?"

"Why?"

"Because--I want to see you again as I saw you then. I--I have lost my bearings. I can't remember how you looked, and I--want----"

"I looked like a well-preserved, middle-aged lady. Please don't begin to think me young, Teddy."

Under her broad hat brim her eyes gleamed maliciously.

"You _are_ young! I was an idiotic----"

She raised her head.

"Oh, don't! Don't fall in love with me; it would bore us both to death; be my nice adopted son."

"Dear Lady Harden," he returned, flushing, "I assure you that I have not the slightest idea of falling in love with you."

"Thank Heaven! I adore boys, but a boy in love is really _too_ appalling."

He caught her hand and looked down at her, something suddenly dominating in his eyes.

"That is nonsense," he said, shortly. "I am young, but I am not a child, and if I fell in love with you----"

"Well?"

"It would not be as a child loves. That is all."

He released her hand, and they walked on in silence.

* * * * *

The extraordinary delight that most charming women take in playing with fire had ever been Dagny Harden's, for the reason that she had never, in all her experiences, been in the slightest danger of burning her delicate fingers. Purely cerebral flirt that she was, her unawakened heart dozed placidly in the shadow of her husband's strong affection for her.

Once or twice when the suffering she inflicted was plainly written on the face of her victim, her mind shrank fastidiously away from closer examination of pain she had caused, and the disappearance of the man was a relief to her.

As she descended the stairs that evening, in the gray frock and the diamond circlet, she smiled the little smile that meant pleased anticipation.

Teddy was a dear boy, and he had grown older in the last day or two. After dinner she would play on her fiddle and--watch the dear boy. Then there would be a rather picturesque good-by, for he was leaving at dawn, and--that would be all.

Fate, grinning in his monk's sleeve, had settled things otherwise.

There was no music, and at half-past ten Lady Harden found herself in a little boat on the lake, one of several parties, alone with Teddy Cleeve. In the shadow of some willows he pulled in his oars.

His face was very white, his mouth fixed.

"Why have you done this?" he asked, abruptly.

She hesitated, and then, the obvious banality refusing to be uttered, answered, slowly: "It isn't really done, Teddy, you only think it is."

"That is--a damned lie."

The woman never lived who did not enjoy being sworn at by the right man, in the right way.

"Teddy!"

"Oh, yes, 'Teddy'! It _is_ a lie. Why tell it?"

"I mean that--if it hadn't been me it would have been--some one else. Your time had come," she returned, nervously.

From across the lake came singing--some "coon song" anglicized into quaint incomprehensibility. Cleeve folded his arms.

"Don't--look like that, Teddy."

"I look as I feel. I am not--you."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you looked at me at dinner as if----"

"Hush! Don't say horrid things."

"You looked at me as though you loved me. And if truth is better than lying, it was worse to look like that--without feeling it, than it would have been to really feel it."

"You are talking nonsense. I am very nearsighted, and----"

He laughed harshly. "Can't you play the game even for five minutes? I understood that it amused you to make a fool of me, but it didn't end with that. You have made me really love you. Really love you, do you understand?"

As he spoke, they heard peals of distant laughter, and saw six or seven of the people who had been boating scampering across the moonlit lawn toward the nearest park gates.

"They must be going over to the Westerleighs'--we must go, too," said Lady Harden. "Will you row in?"

Cleeve did not answer; he did not appear to have heard her remark.

After a pause he said, slowly: "You have made me really love you. I don't know why you did it, for I surely had not hurt you in any way. However, you did it, and you must have had some reason. You found me a boy; you have made me a man. Well--you must love me, too."

The boat had begun to drift, and was alone on the burnished water.

Lady Harden clasped her hands nervously.

"I must love you! What _rot_! Come, row to the landing, please. I am going back to the house, and you must go on to the Westerleighs'."

"Dagny--I say, you must love me, too."

"You are crazy."

"I am not."

"Well, I do not love you, and I never shall. Now let us end this melodrama."

Cleeve took up the oars and rowed rapidly to the landing place. Then, as she stepped onto the platform, he took her into his arms.

"You _must_," he said, looking down at her. "It's all your own fault. You did it willfully. Now you must love me."

His dogged persistency puzzled her and routed all her usual array of graceful phrases.

"Am I being invited to--elope with you?" she asked, laughing a little shrilly.

He flushed. "No. I--love you. But--you must feel something of this that is hurting me. Hurting? Why, it's _hell_."

"Hell! I am sorry--indeed I am----"

"Oh, _that_ does no good. Words can't help. You have got to suffer, too," he returned, still holding her round the shoulders.

It was, in spite of the thrill of the unusual that she distinctly felt, absurd. It ought to be laughed at. So she laughed.

"How can you make me suffer, you baby?" she asked.

"Well, I can. Woman have their weapons, and men have theirs. You've made a man of me. I know a lot of things I didn't know last week. Among others, I know that you couldn't have been as you have been unless I had attracted you pretty strongly. You are"--he went on, with the green coolness that sat so oddly on his tense young face--"pretty near to loving me at this moment."

"That is not true."

"Oh, yes, it is, Lady Harden. It's because I am young, and big, and--good looking. These things count for you as well as for us. And you are thirty. I read a book the other day about a woman of thirty. Thirty is young enough, but thirty-five isn't, and--thirty-five is coming."

Her eyes closed for an instant. "You are brutal."

"Yes, I am very brutal. You were brutal, too. You see, I remembered that novel while I was dressing for dinner, and it taught me a lot. You and _it_ have made me rather wise between you. Well, I love you," he went on, suddenly fierce, "and you must love me. _Dagny!_"

Bending, he kissed her.

She herself had killed his boyish shyness, his youthful hesitation, all the boy's natural fear of repulsion.

He was the man, she the woman. He dominated, she submitted; he was strong, she was weak; he was big, she was small.

"Oh, why----" she stammered, as he released her.

"Because--it is the only way. You could always have beaten me at talking----"

"You had no right to kiss me."

"I think I had. If a woman has a right to torment a man as you tormented me, he surely has a right to take whatever means he can of--getting even. Women are so brutal----"

He had found, she felt, the solution to the Eternal riddle.

Her heart was beating furiously, but her voice, as she went on, was cool enough.

"Look here, Teddy, I will tell you the truth about all this. Will you believe me?"

After a second's hesitation he answered, curtly: "Yes."

"Well--you are right. I mean your--method is right. It never occurred to me before that--well, that turn about is fair play. Women are brutes--particularly, perhaps, the good ones who flirt."

Cleeve laughed. "'The good ones who flirt.' Go on!"

"And I suppose you were, in a way, entitled to use against me the only weapons you had. You see, I am quite frank. Only--you used them too soon. I don't love you. Probably, if we had been together a week longer, I should have, but--I do _not_ love you at this minute."

"Wait till I'm gone," he observed, with his horrible young wisdom.

She frowned. "That has nothing to do with it. You leave here to-morrow morning, and on Friday you sail. And I do not love you. I am sorry for having hurt you. Believe this."

"I don't believe it. I'm not sorry, and I don't believe you are. Listen--the others are coming. Run back to the house, and I'll go and meet them. And first--let me kiss you again."

The voices, still afar seemed discordant in the white stillness.

Cleeve opened his arms. "Come. Then I shall believe you." Lady Harden took a step forward, and held her face bravely to his.

Then, just as he bent his head, she turned and hid her face on his arm. "I cannot," she whispered.

The Boy-Man's lips were set hard, his brows drawn down.

"Ah, Dagny, dearest," he whispered, "and I must go to-morrow."

She looked up. "You have won; I have lost; thank God you go to-morrow!" she answered.

A moment later she was speeding through the shadows toward the house, and Cleeve, lighting a cigarette, lounged down to the drive toward the laughing groups of returning frolickers.

A PRESENT-DAY CREED

What matters down here in the darkness?
'Tis only the rat that squeals,
Crushed down under the iron hoof.
'Tis only the fool that feels.

'Tis only the child that weeps and sorrows
For the death of a love or a rose;
While grim in its grinding, soulless mask,
Iron, the iron world goes.

God is an artist, mind is the all,
Only the art survives.
Just for a curve, a tint, a fancy,
Millions on millions of lives!

If this be your creed, O late-world poet,
Pass, with your puerile pose;
For I am the fool, the child that suffers,
That weeps and sleeps with the rose.

W. WILFRED CAMPBELL.

BETWEEN THE LINES

By M. H. VORSE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE--MISS PAYSLEY, _twenty-one, small, with a dignified carriage, when she remembers it, otherwise she is as impulsive as a little girl. She is pale, blond, blushes easily and has a way of looking at one with a straight, honest, gaze._

MR. JARVIS, _thirty, tall, well built. Has an easy-going, tolerant manner that is sometimes almost indifferent._

SCENE--_A lamplit piazza. The subdued light throws curious shadows on the thick growth of vines which screen the place from the street. Here and there where the vines are broken one may look out into the velvety blackness of the night. The piazza is furnished in the usual way. Rugs, wicker chairs, wicker tables. On the table a carafe with liquor and glasses. Litter of books, smoking things, etc._

_Enter_ MISS PAYSLEY _and_ MR. JARVIS.

MISS PAYSLEY (_pulling aside the vines_)--What a sense of space darkness gives one! I feel as if I were looking into eternity!

MR. JARVIS (_aside_)---That sounds like Millicent. (_Aloud._) Aren't you going to keep your promise?

MISS PAYSLEY--Don't you feel the greatness of space around you in a night like this?

Mr. Jarvis (_reproachfully_)--And I thought you were a woman of your word. I didn't bring you out here to look into limitless space. I brought you out here to look into my hand.

MISS PAYSLEY (_bringing her eyes to his, as if with effort, and blushing_)--You know I warned you! I'm awfully in earnest, and sometimes I say--well, things.

MR. JARVIS--I want the truth, you know. (_Shakes up the pillow in the hammock._)

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--He brought me out here to get me to hold his hand half an hour! None in mine, thanks! I'll show him! (_Aloud._) No, here, please, _quite_ under the light.

MR. JARVIS--You'll be ever so much more comfortable in the hammock.

MISS PAYSLEY (_with a malicious smile_)--You're so thoughtful! But light I _must_ have. Now the table. (_Moves the table between them._) Please let both your hands lie quite naturally on it.

MR. JARVIS (_disappointed_)--On the table? Oh! (_Aside._) At this rate palmistry won't be popular any more.

MISS PAYSLEY (_bends over his hand, then raises her eyes suddenly to Jarvis_)--You know it makes me almost nervous to read your hand. I feel, with some people, as if I were listening at the door and hearing secrets I oughtn't to. (_Aside._) I wouldn't do it for any one but Millicent. But I can't stand by and see that Orton woman---- How I hate engaged flirts!

MR. JARVIS--I'm not afraid; if I had been, why should I have asked you?

MISS PAYSLEY (_raising her eyes suddenly again_)--You may have had--your reasons.

MR. JARVIS (_aside_)--That's a fetching way she has of raising her eyes. Wonder what she meant by that just now. (_Aloud._) How becoming the pale green of the leaves is to your hair.

MISS PAYSLEY--Turn your hands over, please. Now put your right one directly under the light. Oh!

MR. JARVIS--What do you see?

MISS PAYSLEY--What _strange, strange nails_. I've read about it, but I've never seen it before. Not so marked! It's the perfect type!

MR. JARVIS (_interested in spite of himself_)--What does it mean?

MISS PAYSLEY (_embarrassed, hesitating_)--It isn't pleasant.

MR. JARVIS (_looking at her_)--Go on!

MISS PAYSLEY (_reluctantly_)--Well, they mean--consumption! (_Aside._) They'll make him serious--besides, it _is_ the type.

MR. JARVIS (_rising to the bait_)--Why, I haven't a consumptive relative. (_Aside._) She is honest. And I was expecting the old Girdle of Venus gag. (_Aloud._) What does this line mean, and why are the veins of my hands so red?

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--You don't catch this child this way. No compliments about your impressible temperaments from me. (_Aloud, meditatingly, slowly._) Those red lines--sometimes--they mean insanity--but in your case----

MR. JARVIS (_with sarcasm_)--Would you mind telling me at what age I am going to lose my teeth, or if I am in danger of breaking a leg? I had no idea palmistry was so pathological.

MISS PAYSLEY (_undisturbed_)--Hold your fingers up to the light.

MR. JARVIS (_aside_)--Now for the old "you let money slip through your fingers."

MISS PAYSLEY--You don't know how to hold on to your fortune; you let the best thing in your life slip through your fingers.

MR. JARVIS (_aside_)--Rather a good variant. (_Aloud._) What do you mean?

MISS PAYSLEY (_with impatience_)--How should I know what I mean? I'm telling you what I see. I don't know enough about you to have the answer to the riddle of your hand. Remember, we've only met twice.

MR. JARVIS--Three times.

MISS PAYSLEY--Twice, three times, half a dozen--it doesn't signify.

MR. JARVIS--It does to me.

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--I'm sorry for you, Millicent. (_Aloud._) You ought to know what I mean. Have you never been in danger of losing through your own carelessness--I mean, something you are fond of? (_Aside._) That's pretty pointed. I hope Millicent won't give me away.

MR. JARVIS--Have you ever heard about the expulsive power of a new--interest.

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--The pill. (_With reflection._) I've heard of changing one's mind.

MR. JARVIS (_holding up his hand, which is large and powerful_)--And my hand shows indecision of character?

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--He's jesting. They're all alike--men. Keen for praise. (_Aloud._) I didn't say indecisive. You know what you want, but you often don't value what you have. You are ready to pay for a thing of lesser value with the one of greater.

MR. JARVIS--So few things have a fixed value; it's what they seem worth to you. You can only measure the worth of any given thing by the pleasure it gives you.

MISS PAYSLEY--The selfish man's creed. (_Glancing at his hand._) You are abominably selfish, you know--selfish and self-indulgent! You will sacrifice anything to attain something you want, except your own comfort!

MR. JARVIS (_with a fine air of impartiality_)--I don't think that's altogether true.

MISS PAYSLEY (_studying his hand intently_)--Yes, and you will sacrifice not only anything but anybody!

MR. JARVIS (_modestly_)--That is what has always endeared me so to my friends. I'm a sort of modern Moloch!

MISS PAYSLEY (_raising her eyes suddenly_)--Don't joke about it. It may be true. (_There is a strained eagerness in her manner that is quite convincing._)

MR. JARVIS (_aside_)--Hanged if I don't think she believes this rot.

MISS PAYSLEY--Please hold up your hands with the first fingers touching. I thought so.

MR. JARVIS--What?

MISS PAYSLEY (_with conviction_)--Your best impulses you never follow to the end, either in your life or your work. For instance, I imagine your studio is full of half-finished canvases, the best work you have done, but unfinished. The work you expose, your finished stuff, is what has let itself be finished easily!

MR. JARVIS (_suspiciously_)--You guessed that from such of my work as you've seen.

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--That was a dead steal from Millicent! (_Aloud, coolly._) I haven't the pleasure of knowing much of your work, Mr. Jarvis. Please put your right hand under the light. (_Aside._) I'd better put him in good temper again. Queer how a man loves a chance of talking uninterruptedly about himself. (_Aloud._) You have an exaggerated worship of strength in yourself and others.

MR. JARVIS--Where do you see that?

MISS PAYSLEY--In the whole character of your hand. (_Aside._) Millicent said "strength and the admiration of strength is his keynote." (_Aloud._) You must see for yourself that your hand isn't a weak one, and see how the lines are cut--as if with a chisel. (_Aside._) He's purring already like a Cheshire cat.

MR. JARVIS--What do you mean by an exaggerated worship of strength?

MISS PAYSLEY--I mean you underscore strength too much among the other virtues.

MR. JARVIS--Can one? A man, I mean?

MISS PAYSLEY--And with that as the foundation of your character, it's astonishing what weak-minded things you do!

MR. JARVIS--How graceful!

MISS PAYSLEY--What else do you call all those unfinished canvases? The line of least resistance isn't strength.

MR. JARVIS (_with pathos_)--One would think I were your Sunday-school class.

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--It's time to give him more toffey. (_Aloud._) Your popularity has been one of the reasons of your not always following your creed of strength.

MR. JARVIS (_modestly_)--Yes, my fatal beauty has always stood in the way of my living up to my ideals!

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--Oh, you may sneer, but you know you like it. Else you wouldn't be here. (_Aloud._) There is something here I don't understand.

MR. JARVIS (_aside_)--I was waiting for that to come. (_Aloud._) Go on!

MISS PAYSLEY--Please let your hand drop over from the wrist. How unusual!

MR. JARVIS (_interested_)--I've never seen that done before.

MISS PAYSLEY (_tranquilly_)--You have your fortune told early and often?

MR. JARVIS (_undisturbed_)--As often as possible!

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--Of course you never lose a chance of talking about yourself! (_Aloud._) You've a very unusual hand. You're two or three people, one at the top of the other.

MR. JARVIS (_plaintively_)--One would think I were a ham sandwich.

MISS PAYSLEY (_calmly_)--A layer cake, I should put it.

MR. JARVIS (_aside_)--You can't feaze her. She's really prettier than Mrs. Orton. (_Aloud._) What are my many characters? It's interesting. (_Aside._) Now for the "You know the higher but follow the lower."

MISS PAYSLEY--Fundamentally, beside your love of strength, you are simple, kindly, unaffected. You would be happy married to a girl kindly and unaffected like yourself. (_Aside._) I mustn't give too pointed a description of Millicent.

MR. JARVIS--The country---- Milking time? Love in a cottage? Baby's first step?

MISS PAYSLEY--Laugh, if you like, but that's really what you like, and what would make you happy! That's the sort of atmosphere you do your best work in. You need for a wife some one not too self-assertive, and who believes in you. You need a certain sort of appreciation to work well--and wanting appreciation, you put up with flattery.

MR. JARVIS--I just live on flattery.

MISS PAYSLEY (_with conviction_)--You drink it in by the pailful! You don't mind if it's put on with a butter knife!

MR. JARVIS (_who has gotten more and more interested_)--What becomes of my strength then?

MISS PAYSLEY--Oh, you only live on flattery when you are starved for legitimate appreciation. (_Aside._) I think I got out of that rather neatly. (_Aloud._) You are really idealistic, with a good deal of sentiment, and, selfish as you are, you have a heart.

MR. JARVIS (_gratefully_)--Thank you for the heart.

MISS PAYSLEY--You like to have people think you are cynical and light-minded. You only show your real self to a few people.

MR. JARVIS--He sounds to me like a prig and a bore.

MISS PAYSLEY (_with more warmth than she has shown yet_)--He's a charming and delightful person. It's the man of the world with the-smile-that-won't-come-off that's the bore!

MR. JARVIS--Have you found me so?

MISS PAYSLEY (_steadily_)--Not when I've read between the lines.

MR. JARVIS (_looking at Miss Paysley searchingly_)---I really think you're honest.

MISS PAYSLEY (_returning his look_)--What did you think I came out here for?

MR. JARVIS (_still looking into Miss Paysley's eyes_)--Apparently to give me your unvarnished opinion of me. Please go on.

MISS PAYSLEY--I've described the first and second layers of the cake.

MR. JARVIS--Isn't there any frosting?

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--They simply are insatiable for praise. (_Aloud._) The frosting doesn't count. I've been eating the frosting ever since I met you.

MR. JARVIS (_meekly_)--I hope you liked it.

MISS PAYSLEY (_harking back to the last remark but one_)--This superimposed you has different tastes, likes different women--and is more easily taken in.

MR. JARVIS--How more easily taken in?

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--I thought I'd get a rise. Now for the plunge. (_Aloud._) I mean that in your own world, among the people who think as you do, you can tell the real ones from those who are only shams.

MR. JARVIS (_quickly_)--Whereas, in the world represented by what we have agreed to call the upper layer of the cake, I don't know a lump of flour from a raisin?

MISS PAYSLEY--Exactly.

MR. JARVIS--May I ask if you are a real raisin--as I've given you the credit of being?

MISS PAYSLEY--Oh! you should know what I am. I don't belong to the upper layer--the highly spiced one.

MR. JARVIS--Would you mind telling me if there is any particular lump of flour now passing itself off on me as a raisin?

MISS PAYSLEY (_with dignity_)--My good man, this is palmistry, not a life saving expedition! (_Aside._) He's a little too quick.

MR. JARVIS--It seemed to me to have something to do with the art of portrait painting.

MISS PAYSLEY--I'm not responsible, am I, for the lines in your hand?

MR. JARVIS--No, nor for your opinion of me.

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--You can't get a rise out of me that way. (_Aloud._) No, nor for that, either.

MR. JARVIS--Let's sift down the evidence. I'm in danger of losing something that is precious to me, or, rather, I'm in danger of paying with my gold piece for a brazen image. I don't follow my best impulses to the end. I'm a layer cake with a substantial piece of home-made cake for my under layer and an inferior article on top. Miss Paysley, would you kindly tell me if this cross in my left hand is a warning to avoid widows with pale, gold hair?

MISS PAYSLEY--I wish you would tell me if you came out here with the honest intention of having your fortune told?

MR. JARVIS (_aside._)--She can give Mrs. Orton cards and spades. (_Aloud._) Did you come out here with the intention of telling my fortune?

MISS PAYSLEY (_slowly_)--I've done what I came out for!

MR. JARVIS--And that was?

MISS PAYSLEY (_rising and turning away_)--Something I foolishly thought I ought to do.

MR. JARVIS--Foolishly? I think it was too lovely of you to take any interest in my affairs at all.

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--I've never seen anyone so insupportable, and he looks--nice! (_Aloud, with wide-open eyes._) _Your_ affairs! You don't suppose it's for _you?_

MR. JARVIS--Eh?

MISS PAYSLEY--I suppose you think that there is no such thing as real loyalty or friendship between girls?

MR. JARVIS--Oh! (_They both are silent a moment, each measuring the other._)

MR. JARVIS (_steadily_)--Have you happened to hear of Millicent Holt's engagement?

MISS PAYSLEY (_throwing down her hand_)--You oughtn't to ask her best friend that!

MR. JARVIS (_calmly_)--To Bob Burke, I mean.

MISS PAYSLEY (_entirely taken aback_)--To Bob Burke! She never did! Not Millicent! I could have sworn to Millicent!

MR. JARVIS (_still calmly_)--So could I. So I did.

MISS PAYSLEY (_with horror-struck eyes_)--But I don't understand!

MR. JARVIS--I didn't, at first, either. It seems Bobby Burke's soul and hers are twins, or something of that kind. So where do I come in?

MISS PAYSLEY--But when we were abroad together----

MR. JARVIS--Please don't! I know I take a "lump of dough for a raisin," but----

MISS PAYSLEY (_impulsively_)--Please forgive me. I thought----

MR. JARVIS--That I was "doing your friend dirt," for the sake of a brazen image.

MISS PAYSLEY (_bravely_)--What else was I to think?

MR. JARVIS (_gravely_)--And for the sake of your friend you told me what you thought of me. (_Aside._) I believe you at least do tell the truth.

MISS PAYSLEY (_impulsively_)--I didn't tell you _all_ the truth. I only told you the horrid part.

MR. JARVIS--And why wouldn't you tell me the rest?

MISS PAYSLEY (_in a humble little voice_)--Because I was fool enough to think you were spoiled enough already! (_Aside._) How could Millicent--Bobby Burke--that purple ass. Think of throwing _him_ over for Bobby Burke!

MR. JARVIS (_aside_)--How pretty she is. (_Aloud._) Life hasn't exactly spoiled me lately. (_Aside._) And I've been wasting time on Mrs. Orton.

MISS PAYSLEY (_impulsively_)--And now if I had your hand to tell over again, I would tell you all--the other things first.

MR. JARVIS--It's not too late.

MISS PAYSLEY--And I wasn't honest about another thing. We've met four times--I remember them all. (_Aside._) I've been a beast to him. Mrs. Orton shan't have him to hurt. And Millicent---- All women are cats!

MR. JARVIS--So do I. The first time you were nice to me, and the second time you were nice----

MISS PAYSLEY--Because of Millicent.

MR. JARVIS--And the third time--you snubbed me. I suppose that was because of Millicent, too.

MISS PAYSLEY (_aside_)--It was because of Mrs. Orton. (_Aloud, with conviction and blushing._) And to-night I've been--simply horrid.

MR. JARVIS--To-night you've told me more of my fortune than you've any idea. (_Aside._) She's adorable when she blushes!

MISS PAYSLEY (_still red_)--I've been an impertinent, meddling thing!

MR. JARVIS--You've taught me a great deal. I'm going to follow my good impulses to the end--beginning now. So please look quickly in your own hand and tell me if a man with a character like a layer cake has a great influence on your life?

MISS PAYSLEY--I told you you followed the line of least resistance.

THE BABY'S CURLS

By MARGARET HOUSTON

A little skein of tangled floss they lie,
(You always said they should have been a girl's.)
The tears will come--you cannot quite tell why--
They fall unheeded on that mass--his curls.
Poor little silken skein, so dear to you.
"'Twere better short," the wiser father said,
"He's getting older now."--Alas, how true!
And yet you wonder where the years have fled.

"'Twere better short----" the while your fond heart yearned
To keep them still, reluctant standing by,
You saw your little angel, earthward turned,
Yet all unknowing, lay his halo by.
Soft little threads! They held you with such strength!
You knew the way each wanton ringlet fell,
You knew each shining tendril's golden length,
How oft they've tangled, only you can tell.

In dusky twilight shadows, oh, how oft
You've seen their light along your shoulder lie.
You leaned your cheek to touch the masses soft,
The while you crooned some drowsy lullaby.
How often when the sun was dawning red
You bent above him in the early ray,
And from that glory round the baby head
You drew your light for all the weary day.

And now--you start--the front door gives a slam--
The hall resounds with little, hurrying feet,
He climbs upon your knee--the wee, shorn lamb,--
And dries your tears with kisses, warm and sweet.
You fold your sorrow from his happy eyes--
(You always said they should have been a girl's.)
Half of his Eden sunlight buried lies
Amid the meshes of those baby curls.

BROWN BETTY

By GRACE S. RICHMOND

"It's all right, Joe," said Miss Farnsworth, rapidly drawing on a pair of heavy white gloves. "You needn't be in the least afraid to trust me with the colts. And the station agent can find somebody to help him load the wagon for me."

She sprang in and took her seat at the front of the big farm wagon--a most unusual and dainty figure there, in her crisp white linen. She gathered the reins deftly, said gayly to the people on the farmhouse porch: "When I come back I'll show you unpatriotic persons how to keep Fourth of July in the country," and would have driven off with a flourish but for one unforeseen and effective hindrance. Joe remained stolidly at the heads of the two restless black colts.

"You may give them their heads now, Joe," said the girl, decisively.

"In jest a minute, miss."

"Now. I'm in a hurry."

But Joe remained stationary. He turned his head and eyed uneasily a window above the porch, murmuring: "Jest a minute, now----"

Miss Farnsworth waited half the designated period, then she said, imperatively: "Joe, be so kind as to let go of those horses."

Joe pretended to have found something wrong with the bridle of the off horse. Miss Farnsworth watched him skeptically. And an instant later Stuart Jarvis appeared upon the porch, hat in hand, smiling at the driver of the farm wagon.

"May I go with you?" he asked, easily, coming up.

There was no reason why she should refuse, particularly with three middle-aged women, two elderly gentlemen, and four girls observing with interest from the porch. Neither was there good reason for refusing to allow Mr. Jarvis to take the reins, since he leaped up at the right side of the wagon, and held out his hand for them as a matter of course. But the moment they were around the first bend in the road Agnes Farnsworth attempted to adjust affairs to her original intentions.

"Would you mind letting me drive?" she asked. The words, though spoken with a silver tongue, had rather the effect of a notification than of an interrogation.

"Not in the least," returned Jarvis, making no motion, however, to resign the reins, "provided you can prove that I am authorized to give up my charge."

She looked at him as if she doubted whether she had heard aright. "You know perfectly well that I am accustomed to horses," she declared, moving as if she intended to change places with him.

He looked full down at her, smiling, but he still drove with the air of one who intends to continue in his present occupation. The black colts were going at a spanking trot, making nothing of the decided upward trend of the road. Their shining coats gleamed in the sun; alertness and power showed in every line of them. They were alive from the tips of their forward-pointing satin ears to the ends of their handsome uncropped tails, and they felt their life quiveringly.

"There is no reason in the world why I shouldn't drive," said Miss Farnsworth, with the pleasantly determined air of a girl who intends ultimately to have her own way. "If you had not appeared just at the moment you did, I should have come alone."

"Do you really think you would?" asked Jarvis, studying the left ear of the nigh horse.

"Certainly. Why not?"

"Because I told Joe not to let you go without me."

She colored under her summer's tan.

"May I ask," she inquired, somewhat stiffly, "why you didn't suggest to me an hour ago that you wished to get to the station?"

Jarvis smiled at this way of putting it. "Joe was intending to go with you," he explained.

She looked puzzled.

"Five minutes before you left, Joe came and told me that an accident had happened to one of his men, and that he couldn't go. He said he didn't think the colts were safe for you. I've been here only three days--I don't know anything about them. Joe does."

"Oh--nonsense!" said the girl. "I'm not afraid of them."

"They ran away day before yesterday."

"That makes no difference."

"They are crazily afraid of everything in the shape of a conveyance run by its own motive power, from a threshing machine to an automobile."

"That makes no difference, either," declared the young person beside him with energy. "Not the least in the world."

"Possibly not--to you. It makes an immense difference to me."

She looked away, although the words were said in a matter-of-fact tone hardly calculated to convey their full importance.

"Since you are here to take the reins away from me when I scream," she said, with a curling lip, "it is perfect nonsense to refuse to let me drive. Mr. Jarvis----"

"Put it politely," he warned her, smiling.

"Please change places with me." She said it imperiously.

He looked steadfastly down into her eyes for an instant, until her glance fell. Then he asked, lightly:

"Have you driven them before?"

"No."

"I wonder why," he mused.

She was silent, but her cheeks burned with displeasure.

"I'm glad we're to have a Fourth of July celebration," said he, driving steadily on. His tone became casual, with a pleasant inflection, quite as if there had been no controversy. "It will do the natives good--stir them up. I took the liberty, after you had sent your order, of wiring the dealer to add rather a good lot of explosives on my own account. They will come along with yours. It's lucky the wagon is big--we shall need it for all the stuff."

But the girl would not talk about the Fourth of July. She sat erect, with her very charming head in the air, and let the miles roll by in silence.

Upon the platform of the small freight house at the junction stood several boxes, a long roll and two trunks--all due at the farmhouse. As the wagon drew up to it, the freight agent came leisurely out to attend to business. His eyes fell at once upon the black team.

"Pretty likely pair," said he, with an approving pat upon the nearest shining flank. "Joe Hempstead's, ain't they? I heard he set considerable store by 'em. Well, they're all right--or will be, when they're a little older. I've got a mare now that I cal'late could show 'em a clean pair o' heels. She's round behind the station. I'll bring her out."

"Of course--that's what we came to see," observed Jarvis, as the man disappeared. "Getting our load is a secondary matter."

"Other matters are always secondary to the sight of a good horse," retorted his companion. She was leaning forward and Jarvis did not miss the opportunity to look at her. He gazed intently at a certain conjunction of curves at the back of her neck--a spot which always tempted him tremendously whenever he saw it.

The freight agent appeared round the corner of the station, leading an animal the sight of which made Jarvis' eyes light with pleasure. Agnes Farnsworth caught her breath softly and leaned still further forward.

The brown mare was led back and forth before them, the colts requiring a strong hand upon the reins as she caracoled in front of their exasperated eyes. Jarvis was obliged to give them his whole attention. But the girl slipped down from the wagon. She went up to the mare and laid a coaxing, caressing hand upon the velvet nose--a hand so gentle that the animal did not resent it. She spoke softly to her; inquired her name, and called her by it in a voice of music--Betty. Presently she asked for the halter, and the freight agent, somewhat doubtful, but too full of admiration for the near presence of beauty to refuse, gave it to her. Then, indeed, did Miss Farnsworth prove the truth of her assertion that she was accustomed to horses. In five minutes she had made love to the mare so effectively that the shy and hitherto somewhat disdainful creature was following her with a slack halter and an entreating nose. Incidentally Betty had allowed the slender fingers to open her mouth.

"Of course you are not selling her," remarked Miss Farnsworth, carelessly, as she walked away to examine her freight.

"Well--had an offer of two hundred and fifty for her last week."

She looked around with an astonished face. "And wouldn't take it?"

"Why--no. She's wu'th three hundred if she's wu'th a cent."

"You won't get three hundred for her," said the girl.

"She's as sound as a nut," declared the freight agent, with indignation. Miss Farnsworth laughed.

"She's a pretty creature," said she, "but I have eyes. How did she hurt her left hind ankle?"

The freight agent stared. "Her left hind ankle! Why--there ain't a sign of a limp in it. And her knee action's perfect."

"She was lame two weeks ago," said the girl, and looked at him. Jarvis had brought his colts to a temporary stand-still, and was observing the little scene with amusement.

"Why--she got a stone in that left hind foot," admitted the freight agent, walking the mare toward the corner of the building. "Any horse'll do that. She ain't lame now--wa'n't then to amount to anything. But I'd like to know how you guessed it."

She was still laughing. "I suppose you would let her go for two hundred and twenty-five, now, wouldn't you?"

The freight agent led his mare away without deigning to reply, except by a shake of the head. He came back and loaded the freight into the wagon, leaving the trunks till the last. As he was shouldering the first of these, Agnes stopped him.

"Will you take two hundred and fifty for Betty?" she asked, with perfect coolness, except for a certain gleam in her eyes.

"You ain't buyin' horses yourself?"

"I asked you a question."

"She ain't no lady's horse."

"I asked you if you would sell her for two hundred and fifty dollars," repeated the girl, and prepared to step up into the wagon. Jarvis was not getting down to assist her. The black pair were too restless for that.

"Why--I'd ought to have three hundred for her," the man hesitated.

Miss Farnsworth set her foot upon the step and drew herself up beside Jarvis. She did not look toward the freight agent. Just as the horses began to swing about, the man upon the platform said, haltingly:

"Well--if you mean it, and can pay me cash----"

She looked at him once more, quite indifferently. "I s'pose you can have her. But she's wu'th more."

"Mr. Jarvis," said the horse buyer, "can we lead her home?"

He shook his head. "Not behind the colts."

She gave him one glance of scorn--the last of any sort he received from her for some time to come. "Have you a saddle?" she asked of the agent.

"Yes, ma'am. Not a very good one, but such as 'tis."

"Will you ride her home for me?" she asked, over a cool shoulder, of the man beside her.

"Not while you drive the colts," he answered, with a keen glance at her, in which she might have read several things if she had taken the trouble.

"Have you a side-saddle?" she demanded of the freight agent.

"Well--if you'll wait five minutes--I 'low I can get one."

As the man disappeared, Miss Farnsworth jumped down from the wagon once more. She produced a letter, and, from the letter a key. With this she opened one of the trunks, which yet stood upon the platform, lifted a tray, dived among sundry garments, and drew out with an air of triumph something made of dark green cloth and folded carefully. With this she walked away into the empty, country freight house.

When, after two minutes' absence, she emerged again, she was holding up the skirt of a riding habit and carrying a bundle of something which she took to the trunk and hastily stowed away. She said nothing whatever to Jarvis, but stood awaiting the return of the freight agent with an averted cheek.

When the mare reappeared upon the scene she wore an old side-saddle of ancient pattern, and was clumsily bridled with headgear too large for her. Jarvis gave her one glance, and spoke with decision.

"If you will hold these horses a minute, I'll look that affair over," he said.

The other man grinned. "All the same to me," he returned, amicably. "Like enough you're more used to this sort of business than I be."

Jarvis went at the big bridle, rearranging straps, getting out his knife and cutting an extra hole or two, tightening it and bringing it more nearly to fit the sleek, small head of the mare. Miss Farnsworth looked on silently. If she appreciated this care for her safety, she did not make it apparent. Only, as Jarvis finished a very careful examination and testing of the side-saddle and stood erect with a smile at her, she said: "Thank you"--quite as if she had no mind to say it. With which he was obliged to be content.

He silently put her upon the mare, held the animal quiet while he looked for the space of one slow breath gravely up into the girl's face, meeting only lowered lashes and a scornful mouth, and let go the bits. An instant later brown Betty and her rider were twenty rods down the road.

The two men watched her round the turn. Then Jarvis sprang to his place.

"Load the rest of the stuff in--quick," he said, and the other obeyed.

"Gee!" remarked the station agent to himself, watching the cloud of dust in which the wagon was disappearing. "Looks like he'd got left. He can't catch the mare--not with that load. Say, but her and Betty made a picture--that's right."

* * * * *

The road from Crofton Junction to the Hempstead Farms lay, for the most part, down hill. The black pair appreciated this fact. They had been trained in double harness from the beginning, and their ideas of life and its purposes were identical. They now joined forces to take the freight home in the shortest and most impracticable space of time.

Jarvis kept them well in hand. If he had had them in front of a light vehicle of some sort, unencumbered with a miscellaneous and unstowable lot of freight, he would have enjoyed letting them have their will. As it was, he was obliged to consider several conflicting elements in the situation and restrain the colts accordingly. His pace, therefore, was not sufficiently fast to allow him to gain upon the fleet-footed mare and her rider, and the winding road gave him no hint of their whereabouts. He did not belong to the household of boarders at the Hempstead Farms; his presence there just now was a matter of business with one of the elderly gentlemen who were taking their vacation upon the farmhouse porch--that and a certain willingness to attend carefully and unhurriedly to business which had brought him within sight of a certain girl.

It was a bit dull driving back alone. He was not familiar with the road; it was not the one by which he had come. Miss Farnsworth had not planned this outcome of the trip from the beginning--he gave her credit for that; neither could he expect a girl who had fallen in love with, and purchased, a saddle horse within the short space of fifteen minutes, to wait for it to be sent leisurely home. But it occurred to him that she might have been willing to let the mare trot lightly along the road just ahead of the blacks, where Betty's nearness might least disconcert Tim and Tom, and where she might now and then exchange a word with their driver over her shoulder--even that cool shoulder of hers.

All at once he caught sight of the brown mare. As he approached a fork in the road, Miss Farnsworth and Betty came galloping up the east split of the fork--the one which did not lead toward Hempstead Farms. He laughed to himself, for he perceived at once that she had taken the wrong road and was spurring to get back to the fork before he should have passed.

But in this she did not succeed. Jarvis reached the corner before her. He drew up a little to let her in ahead of him, for the road was narrow. But as she neared him she motioned him ahead, and to humor her when he could he went on, though he doubted the wisdom of letting the blacks hear Betty's sharp-ringing little hoofs at their heels.

"How do you like her?" he called, as he passed, managing a shift of the reins and an uplifted hat. He smiled at her quite as if he had nothing in the world against her, though he was feeling at the moment that the brute creation are not the only things which need a certain amount of taming.

"Oh, she's a dear," answered Miss Farnsworth, in a voice as sweet as a flute. "Isn't she the prettiest thing? She's a perfect saddle-horse--except for the tricks I haven't found out yet."

She was smiling back at him, all traces of petulance smoothed quite out of her face. Her cheeks were brilliantly pink, her hair blown by the breeze. She carried her wide-brimmed straw hat on the pommel of her saddle; evidently it had not proved satisfactory as a riding hat. Altogether, in the brief chance he had for observation, Jarvis was of the notion that there might be two opinions as to what creature was the prettiest thing on the Crofton road that day.

There was not much talk possible. There could be no question that Tim and Tom heard Betty coming on behind them, and were exercised thereby. The mare's stride was shorter than that of the colts; her hoofbeats reached them in quicker rhythm than their own. As a small clock ticking beside a big one seems to say to the latter, "Hurry up--hurry up"---so Betty's rapid trot behind stirred up the young pair in front to greater valor.

If Betty's rider, being avowedly an expert horsewoman, recognized this, it did not appear in any pains she took to avoid it. Betty danced behind faster and faster; and faster and faster did the blacks strain to draw away from her.

There came at length a moment when Jarvis could not have boasted that he still had them in hand. About the most that he could do was to keep them in the road and on their feet. Two minutes before Miss Agnes Farnsworth appeared at the fork of the road the driver of the blacks could at any moment have pulled them with a powerful hand back upon their haunches and brought them to a quick-breathing standstill. Two minutes afterward neither he nor any other man could have done it.

And yet Jarvis did not make so much as a turn of the head to suggest to Betty's rider that she call off the race. This, of course, was what he should have done; it was obviously the only common-sense thing to do. Plainly, since he would not do it, there was still one more mettlesome spirit upon the Crofton road to be reckoned with that morning.