Chapter IV: Part 4

“Why, Lucy, I don’t see how you can twist my words so. I didn’t mean there was anything between you.” Lucy gasped.

“Who said you did?” she ejaculated, articulating with difficulty. “I only meant that you were unjust to Jim.”

Mrs. Merwent continued to regard her daughter reproachfully.

“You don’t know him, Mamma. He’s the very best kind of a man,” Lucy went on more gently.

“Yes! I suppose I am incapable of appreciating him. Well, _you_ seem to at any rate,” Nannie taunted.

Lucy paused ominously.

“Well, Mamma, if you don’t like him, I can’t help it,” she resumed at last in an odd strained voice. “He’s our friend, but I’m not responsible for him or his opinions. You’ll just have to like him or dislike him for yourself.”

“I never said I disliked him,” retorted Nannie. “I said he disliked me. Any one would think to hear you talk that he was----”

“Suppose we don’t discuss it any longer, Mamma,” Lucy interrupted shortly.

“Oh, very well. If I had known you couldn’t bear to have the slightest hint of criticism of him I’d have kept still.”

Lucy said no more.

XII

The friendship between John and Jim was of the sort that has its roots deep in the past. They had been playmates and chums since early childhood.

Jim was two years the elder and one of his first memories was of wishing he had a mother like John’s. His own mother had died when he was an infant and Mrs. Winter gave the lonely child many a happy hour mothering him along with her own child.

Jim’s father, a dry minded man who owned a hardware store, was mystified by the boy’s quaint fancies.

“Are the flowers lonesome at night?” the child asked Mr. Sprague one day. And once when it was raining he said, “The sky is crying and the trees are sorry,” as the latter bent in the wind.

His father always laughed at such speeches and advised him not to be a fool. At first Jim would slip from the room and weep, but later he learned to conceal his hurt feelings as his father whipped him if he found him crying. So the child gradually acquired the habit of keeping his thoughts to himself.

Though Jim’s faith in things mystical had in early childhood been the most eager and ardent, he was the first of the two boys to become a sceptic. Mr. Sprague in his hardware store had a business which seemed to be an appropriate emblem of his nature, and he had never attempted to meet his imaginative son half way; but it was Jim’s own habit of inquiry regarding the world around him, rather than the fault of his unsympathetic parent, which brought about a change in his childish outlook.

“I don’t believe in Santa Claus any more, John,” he confessed the first Christmas after his faith had forsaken him.

“Well _I_ do!” John answered indignantly. “He’s going to bring me a new sled too. You’re jealous because he’s not going to bring you one.” And John ran away out of earshot of heresy.

Jim went home and threw himself face downward on the bed in the bare room where he and his father slept. While he lay there he admitted to himself that he was jealous of John but that did not alter his painfully won conviction.

Jim loved companionship with animals. A tailless cat, a lame gosling, chickens, and anything else that needed care, shared his affection. If one of these outcasts became ill he ministered to it as though it were a baby. One Sunday he sat for three hours holding a dying puppy in his lap.

Mr. Sprague did not like pets and was often cruel to Jim’s charges, refusing food for them. Then Jim would deny himself and save the food from his plate for his protégés. His father grew angry at this, regarding it as disobedience to the spirit of his commands, and one day ordered Jim to turn the pets loose, in his rage kicking a little puppy. Jim rebelled and, as was usual on such occasions, was whipped. As soon as his father released him Jim gathered up the hurt puppy tenderly. After this he tried to keep his pets out of his father’s sight.

At school John was, as a rule, the head of his class, but Jim always had to help him with his mathematical problems. Jim never obtained more than fair marks except in mental arithmetic, in which study he rapidly became the pride of all his teachers.

Although Jim took the initiative and led in all their games and expeditions it was tacitly understood that John was, in some way, the superior of the two. This tradition dated from their earliest memories. It was not founded solely on the fact that John had a mother, for John’s father, too, was a cultured man and wrote for a religious review, while Jim’s only sold hardware. Even in later years when Jim faced life and weighed values this attitude never quite left him.

During their high school days John fell in love with Gertie Pierce, who had red cheeks and yellow hair. This lifted him still higher in Jim’s opinion. John wrote poetry about Gertie, which he read to Jim. In these poems he called her a “dryad,” explaining to Jim what the word meant, and pointing out how beautifully it rhymed with “sad.”

As a rule Jim paid scant attention to his girl acquaintances and schoolmates. They made him uneasy with their giggling and whispering, and he always imagined that they were talking about him and making fun of him.

After his graduation from high school Jim entered his father’s store. It had been decided that John was to go to college and he left the following autumn. Jim, robbed of the old companionship, felt his isolation more than ever before in his life. He wanted something, he hardly knew what. It seemed to him that life was cheating him, but he looked in vain for understanding from the boys and girls with whom he had grown up. Occasional enthusiastic letters from John in which college life was described to the stay-at-home, not without a note of condescension, added to Jim’s dissatisfaction and unrest.

* * * * *

One day, about a month after John’s departure to attend college, a young widow of the town, Mrs. Johnson, whom Jim had often seen on the street and admired for her brilliant coloring and dashing though somewhat overdressed appearance, came into Mr. Sprague’s hardware store. She wished to order some gas fittings for her house, which was being remodeled. Jim had heard laughing references to her powers as a siren and these remarks were of a nature that reflected rather darkly on her moral conduct, so when he went forward to wait on her it was with some inward trepidation.

He advised her to choose plain square brass brackets which he thought much prettier than the ornate scrolled gilt ones which she seemed to prefer. She hesitated and then looked up at him.

“Well, if _you_ think these are prettier, I’ll take them. Please have them sent around to the house this afternoon, for the plumbers are coming tomorrow.”

Jim, put at his ease by her deference to his taste, promised, and carried over the fixtures himself about three o’clock. Mrs. Johnson met him at the door. Jim, remembering the very stylish street costume she had worn that morning, was somewhat taken back by the sight of her none too clean wrapper, run over slippers, and hair loose down her back.

“Come in,” she invited, smiling and showing extremely pretty teeth. “If I’d known it was you who were coming I’d have fixed myself up. Take a seat,” she continued volubly, laughing as she removed some sewing from a chair. “I’m all alone.”

Jim deposited his hat and bundle on a table in the center of the room and seated himself. She drew another chair for herself very close to his.

“I expect I look the limit!” she exclaimed, leaning her head back and shaking her hair out in a rippling cascade over her shoulders. “I’ve been washing my hair.”

Jim glanced timidly at her wide opened pale blue eyes, smooth fair skin, pink cheeks, and the rounded arm which was displayed to advantage as she modestly held her wrapper together over a salient bosom. The sunlight fell on her blond hair which was really exquisite.

“I think you look beautiful,” said Jim impulsively, turning very red at his own temerity.

“I could almost kiss you for that,” she answered with another laugh. “Wait till I get you some beer to pay you for your compliment,” and she rose and went toward the kitchen, humming a tune as she disappeared.

Jim’s gaze followed her. Delia Johnson made a pleasant picture and Jim had missed the shallowness, indolence, and sensuality in her face and the incipient heaviness in her figure. As her yellow hair was lost to view through the doorway he gave a sigh.

She returned in a few minutes with a bottle of beer and two glasses.

“Good luck,” she chattered, laughing once more as she poured a glass for him and another for herself.

They clinked glasses and drank, Jim, who did not like the taste of beer, being careful not to make a wry face.

“Don’t you smoke, Mr. Sprague?” she asked when they had finished the beer.

Jim did not smoke, but in view of Delia’s eyes and the “Mr.” he answered, “Yes,” adding, “but I haven’t any cigars with me.”

“I’ll get you some cigarettes,” she offered, opening a drawer in the table. “I’ll have one too,” she went on with her inevitable laugh, as she removed a cigarette from the package before handing it to him.

They smoked a moment in silence, Delia inhaling her cigarette with evident pleasure.

“Are you a partner in your father’s business?” she inquired, at length, knocking the ash from her cigarette.

“No,” returned Jim hastily, “I’m only clerking for him. I’ve just finished high school.”

“How much does he pay you?” she pursued.

She was smiling at him bewitchingly and Jim put aside the crudeness of her questions.

“He don’t pay me anything,” he admitted honestly.

“That’s better,” she declared. “It shows that he intends to give you a share in the concern.”

Jim shook his head dubiously.

“I don’t know about that.”

“You’re his only child, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Of course he will,” she affirmed with emphasis, “and in time you’ll have it all. He’s rich, isn’t he?”

“Why, no,” began Jim.

“Pretty well fixed, anyway,” she put in laughing. “Well, there’s many that would like to be in your shoes, Mr. Sprague.”

Jim placed his half finished cigarette on the ash tray.

“Have some more beer?” she queried.

“No, thank you.”

“What’s your given name?” she demanded suddenly.

“James.” He was smiling now.

“Do they call you Jimmie?”

“No, Jim,” he replied, glancing at her hair.

“Then I’m going to call you Jim too.”

“All right, Mrs. Johnson, I’m----”

“You mean thing!” she interrupted. “I don’t believe you like me a bit!” Jim looked surprised.

“Do you?” she insisted.

“Why, yes.” He studied her a moment, then, with increasing emphasis, “Of course I do. I like you fine.”

She reached over and touched his cheek lightly.

“Then you must call me Delia,” she stipulated, and added, “I like you, too, Jim, awfully well.”

He blushed and trembled a little at the caress.

“I--I must go,” he stammered, rising.

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” she pleaded. “Let’s talk a minute.”

Jim hesitated and then reseated himself. Delia moved her chair a little farther from him.

“Wasn’t that awful in the morning’s paper about their killing the strikers in Chicago?” She spoke in a more impersonal tone.

Jim drew a long breath.

“I think it’s terrible!” he exclaimed. “Those men have no other way of protesting against injustice than by striking.”

“The paper says they’re trying to wreck business.”

“They’re not any such thing!” he insisted. “They’re most of them fathers of families and dependent on their wages. It’s nonsense to suggest such things. What they want is enough to live on.”

“You aren’t an anarchist, are you?”

“No,” he disclaimed, “but I hate lies and hypocrisy, and that sheet” (pointing to the paper lying on the floor where Delia had dropped it) “is in the pay of the capitalists, and people read it and swallow any dope they hand out. This country will never progress till labor is represented in the capital at Washington and--and until things are reorganized on a basis of justice and equality,” he concluded rather lamely.

He was flushed and seemed somewhat startled by his own outburst.

“My, but you think a lot!” Delia applauded admiringly.

“It’s time men began to think,” resumed Jim, encouraged. “It’s the duty of citizens to think and act. The good men stay away from the polls and let things slide, and the bad element gets in its dirty work, and the poor suffer. When I’m old enough to vote I’m never going to miss----”

“Why, aren’t you twenty-one yet?” put in Delia.

Jim was abashed.

“I’m only seventeen past,” he admitted reluctantly.

“You look at least twenty-two or three,” she insisted.

Jim was pleased and grateful.

“And you understand things so well. I like to hear you explain them, but I can’t talk--only about women’s things.” Delia looked demure.

Jim, who as a rule talked little on any subject, was uncomfortable over having expressed himself so freely. Delia changed the subject again.

“Have you seen Will Bennett since his wife died?” she inquired.

“No,” replied Jim, relieved.

“I saw him yesterday on the street,” said she. “Did you go to the funeral?”

“No,” answered Jim again.

“He looked as chipper as a sparrow. That’s the way men are. The funeral was beautiful,” and Delia launched into a minute description of the obsequies, Jim listening attentively.

“I really must go,” he declared, at last, rising once more as she concluded, and extending his hand.

“Well, you must drop in again to see me,” she invited, holding his hand as she spoke. “I’ve enjoyed it immensely.”

“Thank you. So have I,” returned Jim.

She released him as he took his hat from the table, and followed him to the door.

“Don’t forget,” she smiled.

“I’ll not forget,” he smiled back.

When Jim returned to the store Mr. Sprague looked up from his ledger.

“It took you a long time to deliver those fixtures,” he grumbled.

“I--I didn’t come right back,” stammered Jim.

Mr. Sprague scrutinized his son’s flushed face.

“I should think you didn’t. Well, next time you come right back! Do you hear?” Jim passed behind the counter without replying.

Jim remembered his promise to Delia. He thought of her almost constantly during his waking hours. The day following his visit he walked past her house. The plumbers were laying gas pipe from the street through the yard. He did not see Delia and went on.

“It’s too soon yet,” he said to himself.

The next day he passed the house again. The window shutters were all closed and he did not ring the bell, telling himself that Delia was not at home. He continued to pass the house once or twice every day, without asking for admittance, wondering each time if she were there, or if some one else were with her, or if she really meant that she wanted him to come again. He was amazed that such a beautiful woman had remained without remarrying. He had decided that the slurs cast on her reputation were unjust. She was too innocent-hearted and Bohemian. The narrow minded people who made up the population of the town could not understand her. Jim found her like the heroine of a French novel he had been reading. He dreamed about her at night.

* * * * *

About three o’clock in the afternoon, a week after his first visit, he passed her house as usual and saw no sign of life. He proceeded down the street and walked a block or two. Then he retraced his steps. As he came by the house again he heard someone call his name. Before he could decide what to do the curtains in a window were parted and Delia’s smiling face confronted him.

“Why don’t you come in, Jim?” she called.

He hesitated.

“Wait, and I’ll unlock the door,” she added, and, with a final smile, left the window.

Jim entered the gate, and had not crossed the small lawn when the door was opened.

“You mean thing! You wouldn’t have come in at all if I hadn’t called to you!” was her greeting.

“I thought you weren’t at home,” he explained.

“Well, let’s not talk about it,” she said, shutting the door. “You’re here anyway. I’ve been wondering what had become of you. I thought you had gone out of town. Sit down and tell me about yourself,” she invited, leading the way to the sitting room he remembered so well. “Here! Give me your hat. You’re at home here.”

Jim was surprised to feel himself suddenly at ease.

Delia chatted volubly, smiling and laughing, without giving him an opportunity to talk about himself. She produced a flattering atmosphere of dependence and admiration that led Jim unconsciously to assume the part of the conquering male.

“You didn’t really forget me, did you?” she asked, her ingratiating manner anticipating his reply.

“Not quite,” Jim told her with new-found assurance.

Delia gazed into his eyes a moment and came over to his chair and, bending down, put her cheek against his.

“You didn’t, did you, Jim?” she repeated in a whisper.

He drew her to him and kissed her on the mouth.

Delia was in a fresh wrapper, with her beautiful hair becomingly arranged, and a scent of violets clung about her. Jim was considerably surprised at his own passion.

“You naughty boy!” she cried, laughing. Then she sat on his knees and pulled his hair. Jim kissed her again.

This was the beginning of frequent visits which soon became daily.

“I see you’re hanging around that Johnson woman,” Jim’s father remarked one evening at supper.

Jim turned pale, then red, and poured himself some more tea without replying.

“You stay away from there. Do you hear?” the elder Sprague went on.

“I hear, but I’ll do as I see fit,” retorted Jim.

“You’ll do as _I_ see fit, or I’ll know the reason why,” snapped his father.

“Father,” began Jim, “I’m old enough to----”

“Old enough be damned!” Mr. Sprague fairly roared. “You’re old enough to do what I tell you until you’re twenty-one years old, and that ain’t all--you’ll _do_ what you’re told, if you expect to stay in _my_ house!”

Jim rose and seized his hat.

“I don’t intend to have you running around with a bitch like that at your age,” continued the older man, as though closing the discussion.

“You have no right to call her that!” Jim’s eyes flamed as he faced his father excitedly.

“How do you know what right I’ve got?” asked Sprague unmoved.

“Be careful what you say,” Jim was pale with anger, his fists clenching.

Mr. Sprague looked at his son with interest. Jim felt very young and at a disadvantage. He turned to go.

“Just see that you remember what I said,” Sprague commanded, as the boy reached the door.

Jim went out without a word. He went straight to Delia’s house.

“Who is it?” a voice demanded, as he knocked, forgetting to ring the bell.

“It’s Jim,” he replied.

The sound of bare feet in the hall was heard, and Delia, unlocking the door, pulled at his sleeve.

“Come in, Jim,” she whispered.

Jim began to explain his errand as soon as they reached the sitting room.

“Delia, we must be married at once,” he announced.

She was yawning, but stopped to gaze at him curiously. Jim returned her regard steadily. He was in deadly earnest. Her eyes avoided him but he continued to observe her hungrily. Her wrapper had fallen open at the neck and the swell of her full white breasts showed. Her hair was in two long braids.

“Why, Jim, what’s the matter? We’re all right as we are.” She yawned again.

“Something has happened, Delia. I owe it--that is, it is best for us to be----” He fell back on his first declaration. “We must be married right away.”

Delia went up to him and put her arms around his neck. Her loose sleeves slid back. As he looked down on her he could see only her white arms and bosom.

“People know. I’ve got you talked about,” he said as she kissed him. Delia laughed.

“I don’t care about that,” she assured him.

Jim was puzzled.

“Come and sit down, dearie,” she added, pushing him into a chair and seating herself on his knees.

“But, Delia----”

“We can’t get married now, Jim,” she said. “You haven’t anything to support us and if I marry I’ll lose all the money Johnson left me.”

Jim’s face showed his revulsion of feeling. Delia saw the change and clung to him.

“Let’s just love each other, Jim, and everything will come out all right.”

“But, Delia, I want to do what’s right and----”

She kissed him passionately. Jim felt a curious sense of drifting.

“Come on, dearie,” she whispered.

It was late when Jim left the house.

* * * * *

Mr. Sprague said nothing more to Jim on the subject of Delia, which circumstance disconcerted and worried the boy more than he was willing to admit to himself.

He tried to consider the matter calmly but his thoughts seemed to dissolve in a mist of beautiful hair, wide opened blue eyes, and white arms and bosom.

“She is right,” he told himself. “We can’t marry now, and we love each other so much that we must be all in all to each other.”

However, his conscience made him very miserable. He felt that one who had no religion should be morally strong. With all this he continued to go to Delia’s house.

He did not understand why she designated certain evenings for his visits and forbade him to come on others. One evening, rather late, feeling very lonely and very much in love, he turned his steps toward her house, notwithstanding the fact that it was a proscribed day.

He had nearly reached the gate when a man emerged from the doorway, and Jim, halting beneath one of the large trees that shaded the sidewalk, recognized his father. His first feeling was of anger that he was being spied upon, but this turned to amazement and cold rage as Delia called Sprague back and, through the half closed door, kissed him, straightening his hat which she had knocked awry, calling, “Good night, dearie,” as he went off.

Jim watched his father disappear, and, after a moment’s hesitation, walked away with rapid strides. He sought his home when it was daybreak.

The old standards by which Jim had measured values were of no more use to him.

XIII

Jim came to look at the world and people with clearer eyes. He saw that his father kept him in the store to save clerk hire and not with any intention of giving him a share in the business. He realized that he had no home or career in his native town. He thought matters out very carefully and fully.

One morning at breakfast, after reading a letter just received from John, the complacent tone of which threw his own forlornness into relief, he announced to his father that he was going away to college.

“You’re going to stay right where you are,” responded Mr. Sprague from his side of the table.

“No, I’m going,” repeated Jim quietly.

“Well, you won’t get a cent from me,” exclaimed his father with the air of saying the last word in an argument. “I suppose this is another of the fool notions you’ve got from that Winter boy.”

“I didn’t expect anything from you,” explained Jim.

Mr. Sprague passed one hand over his stubbly chin and regarded his son with cold curiosity. The elder Sprague was burly and inclined to stoop. He wore reading glasses and now he peered through them with as much detachment as an entomologist who has a mildly interesting insect under the microscope. He was, as usual, in his shirt sleeves, and his deliberate untidiness of dress seemed the aggressively flaunted signal of that coarseness of spirit which was a matter of pride with him.

“Don’t fool yourself into thinkin’ I don’t mean what I say,” he remarked.

A month after this incident Jim informed his father that he was leaving for college.

“Well, remember, you needn’t come back,” Mr. Sprague told him. Jim went to the station alone, carrying a small bundle under his arm, and climbed on the car unnoticed. As the train pulled out of the place he looked back on the little town. This was his last glimpse of his childhood home.

He arrived at college with one suit of clothes, a few extra shirts and other accessories, and three dollars in his pocket, having borrowed the money from Dr. Winter, John’s father, to pay for his ticket. His first act was to hunt up John who received him with his old affection.

“Gee, but I’m glad to see you!” John exclaimed boisterously, slapping Jim on the back.

He insisted that Jim share his room and allowance, but Jim had no intention of being dependent on anyone. He shoveled snow, cared for the furnaces in the college dormitory, sawed wood and split kindling for the families near the campus, and by working early and late managed to remain in the college and even won the scholarship in mathematics. The first money he earned above his living expenses was sent back to pay the debt he had incurred for his journey.

He and John now shared room and funds on equal terms and Jim, by imperceptible degrees, assumed his old responsibility for John’s welfare and progress.

* * * * *

John had never really decided what his profession or occupation should be. Jim brought the question up by declaring that he did not intend to follow a stated college course but planned to fit himself to be an architect. John believed himself a born artist and talked of studies in Rome and Paris after his course in college was ended. One day he rushed into the room and flung his cap into a corner.

“Jim!” he cried enthusiastically, “I’ve decided to be an architect too!” He went on to talk of the opportunities of the true artist in a profession that had lured the greatest masters from the Greeks to Michelangelo.

“But modern architecture is more of a science than an art,” Jim pointed out. “The calculations of stresses and strength of materials has more to do with it than the ‘visions of a dream in marble’ you are talking about.”

However, John was not to be dissuaded and the two boys were soon entered in the special courses marked in the institution’s catalogue as leading to proficiency in architectural science.

John’s difficulty with mathematics was a handicap in most of these courses, and Jim had to help him in his work as in the days of their early boyhood. Notwithstanding this aid, John (who always took high marks in more general courses) found it hard to keep pace with his fellows, and, after the end of the first semester, decided to abandon their plan. It was only Jim’s initiative and generous giving of time to help him that decided John on the continuation of their design.

John always went home for the holidays and vacations, while Jim stayed on alone in the almost empty dormitory, working and studying.

The characteristics of the two boys became more evident as they approached majority. John conceived confidence in anybody who pleased him, each new acquaintance possessing, for the time being, all the perfections. Jim developed an almost uncanny insight into the motives of those around him, and was slow to form friendships.

“Never mind what people say,” he would tell John. “Fix your attention on finding out why they say it. That’s the way to get at things.”

When they graduated, or rather, completed their courses, for neither received his degree, Jim began work at once in an architect’s office in the college town, and settled down with his customary methodical perseverance to make a place for himself. John returned home for a few months and then persuaded his parents to send him to the Art School in Chicago to study what he felt to be the higher aspects of his profession.

Soon after his entrance into the School of Art he returned to painting, and left designing to study oils and water color work. The former companions were separated but exchanged frequent letters and remained as close friends as ever. John always thought of Jim as “good old Jim.” Jim never quite analyzed his feelings for John, much as he loved to evaluate the motives of others. He had always needed and would always need some one to care for, and John was in his life. He did not go further than this.

A year after their separation, Jim’s employer gave him a share in the small business, and, dying a few months later, left Jim in full charge of his affairs. Jim, whose success and promise had been noticed by many, easily borrowed enough capital to buy the business outright from the heirs, and in a brief period had paid his debt and won the independent opportunity of which he had dreamed for years.

It was not many months after this that John, in one of his letters, interested his friend by announcing that he had fallen in love, and by raving in a school boy fashion over the object of his devotion. Jim for some time had considered the wisdom of transferring his business to Chicago. It seemed to have reached the limit of development in the little college town, and he was anxious for a field that put no restrictions on his ability. John’s letter spurred him to a decision as to the future and he replied with the news that he was coming to the city himself, and asked John to meet him at the station. At their first sight of each other they renewed the old familiar relation.

John discussed everything with all his former frankness and enthusiasm and Jim, listening, felt more than ever that John was his to care for and watch over.

“But what are you going to do to support a wife?” was Jim’s first question.

“Jim, I’m through with experiments. I’m going to work,” replied John earnestly.

“Where?” asked Jim.

“I’ve got a place as a draughtsman with Layard’s, a big building supply firm here,” the younger man explained. “Life is serious now and I’m going to do something.”

Jim said no more.

The following day John took him to call on Lucy Merwent.

* * * * *

The two young men went into partnership a few weeks before John and Lucy were married and it was not many months before it was evident that the business venture was succeeding on a fairly safe basis. Nora Stimpson, the red-haired art student of Miss Storms’ first party, called on Lucy after the wedding. She also came to the office several times to see John, and each time the two talked and laughed like old friends. She smiled on Jim in a most friendly manner. He managed to be in the office whenever she was there but, as his air was far from cordial, she finally ceased visiting them.

The business developed but never became important. John did the draughting and Jim attended to the practical details of specifications and dealt with contractors.

When Lucy’s baby was born it was christened James Sprague Winter. The second year after their marriage John paid a flying visit to his parents; and on one occasion Dr. Winter attended a church convention in Chicago and stayed a week with his son and daughter-in-law. He questioned Lucy regarding her soundness in doctrine and was aghast at her honest replies. Nevertheless he liked her and carried back to Dimmie’s grandmother a favorable report of “John’s wife.”

Jim matured and developed during the years after John’s marriage, but he who had long ago learned to understand others never quite came to understand himself. Lucy did not puzzle him, but it was only after knowing her that he realized the idealism and emotionalism of John. The realization did not cool his affection. He only smiled to himself when his friend allowed enthusiasm to blind discretion, and said, “John has his rose-colored spectacles on again.”

While his old idolatry of John was thus tempered by ripening judgment, it was an incident of brief duration and apparently trivial consequence that caused, as Jim thought, the scales to fall from his eyes and forced him entirely to turn, with a feeling of slight bitterness, to Lucy rather than her husband for the expression of the hidden things in his nature.

The involuntary arbiter of Jim’s spiritual destiny, according to his own interpretation, was a pretty Irish girl, Miss Brennan, whom he and John had employed as their accountant and stenographer. She was a silly, sentimentally-inclined young woman who accepted admiration indiscriminately from all sources. She had troubles, the chief of which were a drunken father and a cross-grained mother. Under the influence of John’s expansive sympathy, which she soon appraised, her secrets were unfolded to him and he, with constant ardency, accepted the rôle of father confessor. She did not like Jim, whose disapproval she felt, and most of her interviews with John were reserved for hours when the two were almost certain not to be interrupted. She was a devout Roman Catholic and John, under her tutelage, began to evince a sudden interest in Catholicism.

“You know that little Miss Brennan, she’s so beautifully simple,” he told Jim one day at luncheon. “I happened to be passing her church when she was going in the other day and just for curiosity I went in with her. Catholicism is the only religion left for an artist anyway. You don’t know how much it affected me when I saw how in earnest she was with her beads and genuflections. The whole thing reminded me of a mediæval picture. It’s about the only naïve thing left in our sophisticated age.”

“Catholics may be naïve but not the Catholic Church,” remarked Jim unsympathetically. He was not thinking of questions of religious feeling however as he studied John’s face. John was irritated by this scrutiny.

“You seem to have lost all your temperamental appreciation of things, Jim,” he observed in a vexed tone.

The first confirmation which Jim’s unadmitted suspicions received came when John insisted on raising Miss Brennan’s salary.

“She’s almost the only dependence of her family, and the things she has to put up with to keep things going are pitiful,” he declared.

“How much do you think we ought to give her?” asked Jim.

John hesitated, and, glancing away as he spoke, named the sum Miss Brennan had suggested, which almost doubled the amount she was receiving.

There was a brief pause.

“We can’t afford to turn the business into a philanthropic enterprise,” Jim answered laconically.

It was the next day that Jim, entering the office at an unanticipated moment, surprised Miss Brennan in tears and John soothing her with unconventional tenderness. Jim passed on into the draughting room, not seeming to observe the confusion of the pair, and it was John himself who, with a guilty air, referred to the subject an hour later when the stenographer was out for luncheon.

“I guess you were surprised when you came in and found Miss Brennan crying like that?” he suggested.

“Not particularly.” Jim looked out the window as he spoke.

“But Miss Brennan--Jim, she’s got the most wonderful lot of grit! It makes a fellow spiritually sick to see a woman young and pretty as she is up against such an awful proposition!” And he launched into a eulogy of Miss Brennan which embraced all of the adjectives which Jim, on other occasions, had heard him apply to Lucy.

The day following Jim waited until John had gone around the corner to Layard’s to get some prices on furnishing lumber, and he and Miss Brennan were the sole occupants of the office.

“Miss Brennan,” he announced, “I want to tell you that your services are not required any longer. Your salary will be paid until the end of the month.”

Miss Brennan opened her lips to speak. She looked into Jim’s eyes. Her small mouth quivered.

“Why I don’t know what you mean! Mr. Winter----” She hesitated, eyeing Jim an instant with fear and bewilderment. Then a confused understanding dawned in her face.

“I was never so insulted in my life, Mr. Sprague!” she exclaimed indignantly, a catch in her voice.

Jim did not answer, and two large tears rolled down her cheeks as she moved away from him.

When John returned to the office Jim was walking up and down the inner draughting room, smoking. His tall shadow, as he paced back and forth, moved across the ground glass partition. Miss Brennan outside had on her hat and coat.

Jim heard John’s exclamation and knew that she was breaking the news to him. In a few moments sobs were audible. John opened the inner door. His face was crimson. He and Jim stared at one another like strangers.

“What the hell does this mean, Jim?” John demanded, his voice shaking with suppressed feeling and his manner almost threatening.

“I think you know about as well as I do, John.”

“The devil I do! I won’t have it, that’s all! It’s a shame!” He seemed ready for battle as he spoke.

“All right, John,” answered Jim quietly.

John went out into the office again, slamming the door behind him.

Miss Brennan was close to the corridor entrance.

“I think I’d better go, Mr. Winter. You are so good to me, but I couldn’t stay in Mr. Sprague’s employ,” she answered, when John insisted on her remaining.

So she went away, and whether she and John met again was a mystery which Jim did not try to solve, but he felt that he had at least kept the affair from reaching a development which would come to Lucy’s ears.

The partners tacitly avoided employing a successor to Miss Brennan, going across the hall of their office building to a public stenographer, when a stenographer was necessary, while Jim posted and cast their accounts in his room each evening after his day’s work.

The incident caused a passing coolness between them. Indeed there were some weeks during which John scarcely spoke to Jim. The clouds were dispelled however. John showed a sudden warmth and simultaneously came an invitation to dinner from Lucy.

Jim did not question the impulse or try to guess whether it had originated with John or his wife. He was too anxious to accept any terms which allowed him to go to the Winter home as before and enjoy the companionship of Lucy who treated him like a good friend and a brother.

* * * * *

John told himself, after the incident of the stenographer, that he was a little disappointed in Jim, who lacked the qualifications for comprehending the finer feelings, but the change in John’s regard did not appear on the surface.

Jim remained the counselor for the family in all practical matters, and was looked upon by the expansive Dimmie as almost the equal of his father. Jim paid frequent visits to the house at Rosedene, often remaining from Saturday until Monday. A bedroom which Lucy had referred to as “Jim’s room” when the house was under construction, was always at his disposal, and when he was present Lucy accepted him with a naturalness and lack of ceremony which he found more flattering than the most exaggerated attention.

After his return from Rosedene on the night of his first _tête-à-tête_ with Mrs. Merwent, who had rather taken his breath away by her display of mingled clumsiness and cunning, he sat and smoked in silence in his room until very late. An amazing new factor had entered his world. As he finally grew sleepy and prepared himself for bed, he decided that his first problem was to help Lucy in her immediate predicament.

“Poor child,” he murmured as he knocked out his last pipe and lay down.

XIV

It was eight o’clock in the morning and Rosedene was looking its best. The late spring weather was perfect and the flower beds and shrubs about the Winters’ home were faintly misted with bloom.

Lucy was weeding a border of violets and Dimmie assisted her. She wore a clean gingham dress and the customary wide apron. An old hat tied on with a black silk ribbon, and worn gloves of John’s completed her costume. There was a light wind and her skirts billowed out as she bent over the flowers and the ribbon under her chin fluttered.

“Don’t sit down in the mud. You’ll take cold, Dimmie,” Lucy admonished, observing the clayey tint on the seat of Dimmie’s rompers as, panting and perspiring with his exertions, he laboriously replanted an uprooted violet.

Nannie came in from the street. She had been seeing John off to his train and was in a simple but charming morning costume.

“I met the postman on the way,” she observed as she stood removing her gloves.

“Were there any letters for us?” Lucy asked.

“None for you. I got one.” Nannie hesitated. “It was from Professor Walsh,” she added, laughing rather uneasily.

“So you’ve read it already, have you?” Lucy smiled as she spoke but did not look up from her work.

“Now, Lucy, you are trying to make game of me!”

“Indeed I’m not, Mamma. I always like to see what’s in a letter as soon as I get one.”

“I didn’t have to think very hard to guess what would be in this one. The poor man is so alone in Russellville. You know yourself how in a small place there are so few really cultured people.” Mrs. Merwent smoothed out the fingers of the gloves she held. “I thought you always stood up for Russellville, Mamma,” Lucy said.

“Now, Lucy, I didn’t mean of course that there were _no_ really well bred people in Russellville. There are few enough here in the North, heaven knows, but Professor Walsh is an unusually well educated man.”

“Yes. There are few enough anywhere,” Lucy continued, ignoring Mrs. Merwent’s last allusion.

“But you and John lead such an isolated life,” Nannie went on. “I don’t see how you can judge. Don’t you know any of your neighbors, Lucy?”

“Well, we haven’t any neighbors in the sense we used to have in Russellville, but there are a few really pleasant people near by. There are the Hamiltons just back of us. She is the one who sent the jellied chicken for our luncheon the day you came. Don’t put so much water on the flowers, dear.” (This last remark was addressed to Dimmie.)

Dimmie began to drum on the tin sprinkler with a trowel.

“Jimmie, for heaven’s sake stop that noise,” exclaimed Nannie. “You’ll split my head. I can’t hear myself talk.”

Dimmie ceased drumming and ran off to swing.

“Of course I know you don’t have neighbors like in small towns,” Nannie pursued, speaking to Lucy again, “but I don’t mean people like the Hamiltons. I meant your social circle. Don’t you know any smart people?”

“I think the Hamiltons are very nice,” said Lucy slowly. “We’re very small potatoes here, Mamma.”

“Well, at home children of the first families move in the best society, even if they are poor.”

“We don’t belong to the first families.” As Lucy talked she was pulling weeds from among some clumps of jonquils.

“Well, _you_ certainly do, and John has told me that his father is a distinguished clergyman, and his mother is one of the Montgomerys of Virginia.”

“We only know a few people and those slightly,” explained Lucy, still intent on her task. “We don’t go out much and when we do we only go to a theatre or concert with Jim.”

“That’s just it, Lucy! You make no attempt to get out into the world. All these years you’ve done nothing at all. If you’d started at once, by now you would be at least on the outskirts of good society, and as fast as John made more money you could get into more select things. It’s a woman’s duty to advance herself all she can.”

“We none of us care for society, Mamma, even if we could afford it.”

“‘We’--who do you mean by ‘we,’ Lucy?”

“Why John and Jim and me, of course,” replied Lucy with some surprise.

“That’s just it, Lucy! It’s Mr. Sprague who doesn’t like to have you go out. John is as fond of society as anyone could be. I’ll tell you candidly, I think you are making a great mistake in letting an outsider----”

Lucy had paused in her weeding.

“I thought we had decided not to discuss Mr. Sprague,” she put in with an approach to irritation.

“Oh, dear me! Now I’ve done it again! I declare, Lucy, you are certainly abnormally sensitive on the subject of Mr. Sprague,” Nannie complained, hastening on to prevent a reply, “but it’s certainly dull never seeing _anybody_ from one day’s end to another. I don’t mean for myself. It makes no difference about me. But for your own sake you ought to go out occasionally, and have a few friends in once in a while.”

Lucy returned to her jonquils.

“I expect it does seem rather quiet to you, Mamma. I’ve gotten so used to it I don’t notice it. We’ll have to take in a theatre some evening this week. I’ll have John get tickets.”

“You needn’t do it on my account, but I really think it would do you good. You are stuck here in the house night and day. Doesn’t anyone besides Mrs. Hamilton ever call on you?”

“Yes. At least a number did call, but I’m not very good at keeping up formal acquaintances, and most of them have stopped. Miss Storms used to come here often, but she’s so busy, and I’ve gotten into the habit of dropping in on her when I go down----”

“Lucy, I should think you’d have at least consideration enough not to mention that woman in my presence!” “Well, Mamma, we won’t discuss her either then,” responded Lucy quietly.

“Well, of course people will call on me, now that I’m here.”

“I doubt if anybody knows it except those in the next houses, and we only know them by sight.”

“You oughtn’t to let yourself be forgotten like this, Lucy. If you don’t push yourself a little nobody will notice you.”

Lucy straightened up from her work. She was thinking.

“I’ll invite a few women acquaintances out to meet you, Mamma. Maybe you’ll like some of them, and it will give you a chance to get out a little afterwards.”

“I don’t like to think of your going to trouble and expense for me.”

“It won’t be much trouble or expense.”

“You could have a little tea, couldn’t you? You make such darling little cakes and sandwiches.”

“Al right, we’ll do it.”

“Now you’re sure it’s not too much for you, Lucy?”

“Quite sure,” affirmed Lucy, smiling.

“I’m sure it’s very nice of you. I’ll help decorate the table. I must look through my trunks and fix up something to wear.”

Lucy bent over her plants.

* * * * *

John that night approved the plan for the tea.

“You can get some things from the caterer’s,” he suggested.

Lucy, however, counting the money on hand, decided to prepare the refreshments herself. She asked two young girls who lived near to help her serve, and the simple affair was conducted without a hitch.

Nannie’s toilette, made by herself, was the admiration of all, and she referred to her home and friends in Russellville in a way that made several of the ladies wish they might see her in such lovely surroundings.

One of the guests was a Miss Powell, a voluptuous and very smartly dressed brunette. She was evidently impressed with Nannie.

“I suppose you will find it hard to stay long away from Russellville, even to be with your daughter,” remarked the new acquaintance. “Oh, I hope to stay a _little_ while yet, Miss Powell,” returned Nannie laughing. “It’s been so long since we could arrange it to be together and we are both enjoying it,” she declared, becoming serious.

When the guests had gone, Lucy bravely attacked the huge pile of dishes in the kitchen sink.

“Are there any sandwiches left, Lucy?” Mrs. Merwent inquired, entering the room where Lucy was in the midst of her work.

Lucy indicated a plate which had been set aside with the idea that it might contribute to the morrow’s luncheon.

“We’ve been in such a rush all day that I’ve hardly had time to eat anything,” Nannie explained as she helped herself to the largest sandwich. “I wish you would leave all those things until I get back. I promised to meet John,” she went on as she selected her second sandwich.

“I must finish up and put dinner on,” Lucy informed her mother somewhat irritably.

Mrs. Merwent halted in the kitchen doorway.

“I hope you aren’t displeased because I promised to meet John,” she challenged resentfully.

“Oh, Mamma, please don’t start any argument now!” Lucy exclaimed.

Nannie gave her daughter a reproachful glance and turned away without speaking, even the set of her shoulders as she left the room expressing offended virtue.

She changed her frock and went to meet John’s train as she had been in the habit of doing. When he alighted from the car it was not yet dusk. Nannie stepped out of the crowd to greet him. They smiled at each other, and a few moments later were walking back to the house together, their arms linked.

“Keep step, Nannie.” John, amused by the shortness of her stride, admonished her gaily. Mrs. Merwent looked up at him and they both laughed.

“You have to work so hard, yet no matter how tired you are you are so cheerful, John,” she said. “It ought to make Lucy and me ashamed of ourselves.”

“What’s the matter with you and Lucy?” John asked, the cheerful note dying out of his voice. Nannie gave him a quick side look.

“Why, nothing, John, except that Lucy is upset by her day, I suppose. She’s irritable now and then, you know, but I certainly don’t hold it against her.”

There was silence for a moment.

“John,” Nannie continued diffidently, “Lucy misunderstands so many things----I’ve been wanting to ask you a favor and I didn’t dare do it!”

John glanced down at her.

“I’m not afraid of Lucy if you are, Nannie,” he protested, smiling, but with his brows still fretfully corrugated.

“I want you to cash a check for me. It--it--Professor Walsh was the only person I could go to for help, John, and he has been kind enough to take charge of my financial affairs. I know so little of such things. The check is from him,” she finished apologetically.

“I don’t see why you have to depend on Professor Walsh while I’m here!” John answered, dropping her arm.

“But remember, John, I didn’t know until I got here----” She stopped speaking, then added, “it is hard not to treasure it up against Lucy when I think how long her siding with her father against me kept us from knowing each other, John.”

John did not reply at once.

“I understand, Nannie,” he said after a minute.

“Here is the check. It’s already endorsed. I knew you would realize in what a position I was placed--without a person in the world to call on!” Mrs. Merwent’s voice broke.

John took the check and put it in his inside pocket.

“Lucy is not as charitable as she might be, John,” Nannie sighed, taking his arm again.

They walked on in silence.

“I wish Professor Walsh would choke!” John ejaculated in a savage undertone, as they entered the gate at their destination.

Nannie laughed and pressed his arm.

“You are a dear boy, John,” she whispered.

Lucy heard them come in laughing and talking. Dimmie did not run to meet them. “Is dinner ready?” John called as they entered the dining room.

“No,” responded Lucy.

“Whew!” he exclaimed with mock chagrin. “Got a grouch on, Lucy?”

Busied in placing on the table those of the dishes which she had washed to use for the evening meal, she did not reply. Dimmie appeared behind his mother.

“Hello, son! You sore too? Why didn’t you come with Nannie to meet me?” John inquired breezily.

“I did want to,” acknowledged Dimmie, “but Nannie said I couldn’t.”

“Why, Jimmie!” Mrs. Merwent cried. “What an awful story!” She turned to John. “Did you ever see such a child! Lucy had changed his clothes after the ladies left and I only said to him that his mother was too tired to change him again just to go out for a few moments.”

“What do you mean by telling an untruth, Dimmie?” demanded John.