Chapter I: Come Face to Face with the Future (2)

On Christmas eve was to be our dinner and dance at the country club. The country club was situated several miles out of town upon the lake shore. It was a large wooden building of "Colonial" architecture, which means that it had a broad verandah, facing the lake, with high wooden columns in front, walls covered with white shingles, and shutters painted green. You drove out via the west lake road. Its membership was rigidly limited to four hundred, and the dues were absurdly high. Only the financially elite could afford to belong and play upon its tame nine-hole course. It boasted a waiting list of over a hundred names. Sons were put down for it before going away to college, in the hope that they would be elected by the time they had graduated. All the important social functions of Deep Harbor took place there, and some, if gossip were true, not quite so decorous as these.

It was Miss Hershey, the professional chaperone, who had decided upon the country club as the only suitable rostrum from which to announce our engagement. The dinner party was to be a small one, not over twenty couples, and the other young people were to come in later for the dance. The flowers were ordered from Buffalo and the music from Detroit. The chef of the country club was to procure, by means best known to himself, partridges, and a professional caterer was to furnish the ice-cream. All this Miss Hershey was responsible for. She took charge of all arrangements, and Mr. Claybourne, who was a sensible man and hated display, had not a word to say. Least of all were Helen and I allowed to interfere.

At six on the appointed day I reported at the Claybourne residence on Myrtle Boulevard in full regalia, but withal a curious dryness in my throat. Knowlton had dropped in to grin at me while I dressed, and he had completed my nervousness. "To speak your own language," he had said, as I made ready to leave, "what price Deep Harbor, now, old thing?" Knowlton was coming to the dance; Miss Hershey had crossed his name off the dinner list.

"Go to hell, Knowlton," I replied, slamming the door. I could feel his grin following me through the panels all the way downstairs.

At the Claybournes' I found Mrs. Claybourne collapsed in tears upon the sofa, now that she was to face the casting of the die, and Mr. Claybourne bending over her trying to coax her to drink a cocktail which he held in one hand. Still protesting that alcohol always gave her a sick headache, she finally drank it with what I thought rather practised skill. Meanwhile Mr. Claybourne made violent signs at me to efface myself, which I did by retreating to the back of the passage until Helen should come down. Miss Hershey was out at the country club putting the finishing touches to the table.

Helen appeared at last, in a really grown-up evening gown, a bunch of Parma violets pinned to her bodice. My eyes swam a bit as I went forward to meet her, and my legs were most unsteady.

"Lady Grey Eyes," I stammered, and clung to her hand. She was much more composed than I. Save for the bright light that danced and sparkled in her eyes, she might have gone through a hundred such affairs.

"Look, Ted," she whispered. Behind her came Leonidas, new washed and with a small bunch of violets tied by a blue ribbon to his collar. Leonidas sat down and tried to remove the violets with his paws. We both laughed.

"Is he going?" I asked.

"Of course not, you dear idiot," Helen replied. "But I had to dress him up for the occasion."

At that moment a carriage arrived containing Miss Hemphill and her escort, and into this Mr. Claybourne bundled Helen and me. He would follow with Mrs. Claybourne later. The ride out to the country club was cold and long. The roads were partly frozen and partly covered with snow. We bumped in and out of ruts and the horses steamed. Inside, however, we were all giggles and laughter. Miss Hemphill and her young man, a clerk in the Deep Harbor Smelting Company, teased us, until we reached the club, with well meant but rather elephantine wit.

Soon after we got there the whole dinner party arrived, and we sat down in a deafening uproar of shrill conversation and laughter. The crowd was composed entirely, with the exception of Mr. and Mrs. Claybourne, of young friends of Helen's. I was the only non-Deep Harborite present. It seemed a little queer, and once or twice I thought of my father and wondered what he was thinking. Was I really doing the thing he would approve? Then I would look at Helen, and reassurance would return. No one could possibly disapprove of her. The family would be thankful I had been so lucky. Indeed, my luck was a constant source of wonder to me. How on earth was it possible that Helen should love me? It was beyond reasoning out. And as I pondered this miracle, I could feel Helen's hand steal under the tablecloth and give mine a gentle touch. It was true, then. Once we were caught at this, by the young man on the other side of Helen, and a great to-do of laughter and teasing followed. I was horribly embarrassed that I had put Helen in such a predicament, and a little angry, but she didn't seem to mind the noise at all. How they could talk, those young people! The girls seemed to be screaming, so sharp and shrill were their voices; my ears ached. Every one spoke at once, at the topmost pitch, and no one listened for a reply. I have no idea what it was all about, for I was in such a daze I could neither eat nor make out what was being said. Once or twice Helen said: "Steady, Ted. Try to look cheerful," and I would pull myself together with a smile at her and venture a remark.

After dinner the pandemonium increased with the arrival of those invited to the dance. The orchestra played dance music at what I should have thought an incredible speed. I blundered badly in dancing and left bruises, I fear, on more than one dainty instep. I was at home only when I danced with Helen, but Miss Hershey's etiquette forbade that this should be very often. As hostess Helen had to dance with as many of the young men as possible. Sometimes I lurked gloomy in a corner, disliking the public display of Helen that the party implied. Each time Miss Hershey's watchful eye would ferret me out, and I would be handed over to another young creature.

Dancing in Deep Harbor was a skilful art. The young people of the town approved or condemned newcomers according to the measure of their proficiency on the polished floor. Never did any one earn more deservedly a reputation as an execrable dancer than I did that evening. Some of my partners, I could see, frankly pitied Helen. In Deep Harbor, to marry a man who could not dance, or was a bad dancer, was to hang a social old-man-of-the-sea about one's neck. It doomed all "good times" as far as that couple were concerned. Hence the genuine pity which I saw in the eyes of some of Helen's friends.

A respite came when Knowlton appeared. After he had danced with Helen, I took him around and introduced him to as many young ladies as I was able to identify. Miss Hershey helped me out with a few names, although I was supposed to know them all. Knowlton's eyes twinkled, and the crows' feet at their corners were crinkled with restrained amusement as I took him through the ceremonies of introduction. We escaped for a few moments for a cigarette in the sun-parlour, a portion of the verandah enclosed with glass in the winter time.

"Well, Ted," he grinned at his cigarette, "I certainly have to laugh when I think of you doing the social honours for me in Deep Harbor. I have to hand it to you, Ted, and I mean this seriously. Miss Claybourne's the best of the bunch. She's an A-number-one winner, and you are a damned lucky kid."

"Thanks, Knowlton; I agree with you."

Knowlton puffed his cigarette reflectively. "It's great to be a kid," he said at length. "I never was," he added rather unexpectedly. "When I ought to have been, I was selling goods and studying to be an engineer, evenings. I'm not kicking; I guess I had a pretty good time--even when I didn't know where the next meal was coming from."

I was silent, for it was most unusual for Knowlton to wax confidential about himself.

"But now that things are beginning to come my way, I see a little what I've missed. I'm getting grey here over the temples, Ted, and I'm doggoned if I don't envy you," he finished with queer irrelevance. We both smoked in silence. It is a difficult matter for two men to say what is on their minds. I liked Knowlton, and I wanted to tell him I did, but I didn't dare try for the words.

"I guess we are none of us, Ted," he went on, "as practical and hard-headed as we make ourselves out to be. I used to think I had no time to bother with women."

"He travels furthest who travels alone," I murmured, rather startled by such a quotation on such an evening.

"It's a mistake, Ted," Knowlton came back. "It isn't true. The fellow who said that was trying to conceal bankruptcy with a little window-dressing."

"Knowlton," I stammered, making a desperate effort, "I--I--"

He cut in on me. "Thanks, Ted. I like you too. Let's let it go at that," and he threw away his cigarette stub and went in to the ballroom. I sat and wondered at the hint of tragedy the always smiling Knowlton had shown me. "After all," I reflected, "he is still young." "Ah, but he is not a kid, don't you see?" my old annoyer Reason interjected. "That's the point." I lit another cigarette. "I wonder why it is great to be a kid?" I asked. Reason was prompt with a reply, "Because kids enjoy everything without stopping to think."

I looked up, to see Helen in the doorway, surrounded by formally attentive swains.

"Ted," said Helen coming up to me. "This is our dance. How could you?"

It was the first time I had ever been conscious of hurting her, and I was truly contrite. I explained about Knowlton as we danced around the room.

"The poor old dear," said Helen. "You would never guess it from those adorable crow's feet of his."

"Knowlton isn't old," I objected, almost shocked.

"Well," Helen went on, "he's almost middle-aged."

But we soon changed the subject, for we had more important things to talk about.

The dance came to an end at last, since there is a limit to the physical endurance of even the youth of Deep Harbor. I was fagged, and, now the excitement had passed, there were deep circles under Helen's eyes. "Take me home, Ted," she whispered, and with infinite craft and skill, we eluded Miss Hershey and got a carriage to ourselves.

We sat for a long time in silence, as we bounced over the ruts, her hand resting in mine.

"It is Christmas day, dearest," I bent over her and said. She looked into my eyes.

"Our first Christmas together, Ted. How many will there be?" Suddenly there came a little catch in her voice, and she cried against my shoulder, as if frightened. I comforted her, and she again looked up, a smile coming through wet eyes.

"Christmas. We'll never forget, will we Ted?"

We looked out at the arc lamps of Deep Harbor ahead. On the left, the frozen, snow-covered lake looked like some strange continent of the moon in the glowing light. The fields and vineyards were dimly white, with dark patches showing. The snow had been thinned by a thaw. We looked together, now ahead, now left, now right, that we might impress the scene on our memories forevermore. It was very still save for the rattle of the carriage and the occasional voice of the driver speaking to his horses. Far on the other side of the town the flare of a Bessemer steel works suddenly lit up the sky, for its furnaces never rested, day or night.

I kissed her good-night at her door and walked down Myrtle Boulevard, in the dawn, alone. At my rooms I found a letter from my father, together with a generous check. "Buy Helen a Christmas present out of this," was his only comment on sending me the money. I could not sleep, but the factory was to be shut down on Christmas Day, so the loss of sleep did not matter. The future stood before me like an impenetrable wall. I wanted to see the other side. It seemed absurd, preposterous, that one couldn't fathom that mystery. It was not fair to make one face life without knowing what to expect. Of what use were hopes or plans, if out of that void some unforeseen thing struck at one? Yet fear, I knew, was more deadly than any blow that could come from the dark. One must grope ahead, like a child going into a cellar, but if one feared the dark, then the thing would become intolerable. It would add terrors that were not there and deprive one of the power to deal with the things that were.

What was it Helen had asked? How many Christmas days would there be for us? Granting three score and ten as the limit, there should be not less than fifty such days. Fifty times to remember all that today meant to us. "I wonder why most stories stop when they are married?" I asked myself. "Don't they dare tell the rest of it?" Reason refused to make any comment, for Reason, too, was baffled by that mystery of the future.

* * * * *

Christmas dinner was a solemn family function held at three o'clock in the afternoon. Besides Helen, Mrs. Claybourne, Mr. Claybourne, and me, there were Helen's Uncle Peter, from Dayton, Ohio, and his wife. Uncle Peter and Aunt Ethel had come to Deep Harbor with a double motive--to spend Christmas and to inspect the potential nephew-in-law. Uncle Peter was affable and jocose, slightly older than his brother, Mr. Claybourne, but similar in type. He had not quite the same force of character or skill in business, I decided after hearing one of his anecdotes. Anecdotes are a sore betrayer of man's mental make-up. They should be told only by persons who have nothing to fear from self-revelation. Aunt Ethel was a woman of firmness and impregnable self-complacency. "In Dayton we--" was her regular introduction to the simplest statement. She wore gold-bowed invisible glasses and had pastry-coloured hair. Of the two I immediately plumped for Uncle Peter and his anecdotes. They were more reassuring than Aunt Ethel's views upon conduct.

Mrs. Claybourne had marvellously recovered from the day before. She was in a mood as closely approximating the cheerful as one could expect. In fact, I had never before seen her thus close to having a good time. The shortcomings of Jane, the maid, seemed the only flies in her ointment. These were gone over rather thoroughly with Aunt Ethel, but were mostly out of the way by the time we sat down to dinner. According to Helen, Jane was a treasure who survived endless faultfinding and nagging with the patience of a saint; in Mrs. Claybourne's account, she was a wilful conspirator against the tidiness, peace, and happiness of the whole house. The fact that Jane had been with the Claybournes three years seemed to me evidence in favour of Helen's version.

The dinner was truly marvellous. There is no other word to express it. Mr. Pickwick never fared better at Dingley Dell. Such turkeys as America produces do not grow again until heaven is reached. Before a fine specimen of this delectable bird was eaten on this day, Uncle Peter, rather vigorously prompted by Aunt Ethel, said grace. Uncle Peter spoke the kind of grace that one makes up as one goes along, and he landed himself in a sentence from which there was no retreat, either forward or backward. Just as Helen mischievously and irreverently kicked me on the shin under the table, Uncle Peter cut the Gordian knot of his rhetoric by a loud "Amen." My laugh, therefore, did no damage to the proprieties. Helen and I were too light-hearted and hungry to be abashed by any amount of family. Excitement had spoiled our appetites on the day before, but now there was no stopping us. We laughed so loudly at Uncle Peter's anecdotes that he gave himself an encore on several of them, and we clearly were his firm friends. Our plates went back for turkey and cranberry sauce again and again. Mr. Claybourne produced his champagne and ran through all his favourite toasts. Mrs. Claybourne smiled at least three times. Aunt Ethel declined champagne with great firmness, and her eye upon Uncle Peter noticeably reduced the quantity he would have drunk. He had to snatch it in nervous sips when his wife seemed most engaged. He was, therefore, always a glass behind Mr. Claybourne and me. I grew reckless enough, in spite of a severe shin kick from Helen, to propose Aunt Ethel's health. Uncle Peter enthusiastically seconded me, seeing a chance to get down a whole glass, and Mr. Claybourne joined in. Aunt Ethel was compelled to acknowledge the compliment with rather a frigid bow, and I gathered that "we in Dayton" didn't drink many toasts in champagne. After dinner Uncle Peter forced one of his black cigars upon me and imperilled all the structure of good feeling the dinner had built up in me. Deep Harbor gave me many opportunities to curse the proximity of the island of Cuba to the United States. In spite of the cigar, Helen and I skipped away, under a volley of Uncle Peter's winks, and sat down to talk things over.

"Do you feel any more engaged than you did yesterday?" I asked.

Helen smiled and turned over the pages of a book I had given her. "Yesterday," she replied, "the family tolerated us, but really ignored the fact of our engagement. Today they regard it as something that has actually happened--and all because we sat at table with a lot of friends and told them what they knew already."

"The world, it appears to me, is conducted by a series of meaningless ceremonies," I remarked in my wise manner. "It will be the same over our marriage. Nothing could make us mean any more to each other than we do now--but the family will attach great importance to the marriage."

"Don't be silly, Ted," said Helen,--unexpectedly, to me, taking the side of convention. "Of course they will. We have to be married."

"I'm not arguing against it," I said, and Helen gently slapped me. "But I wonder why?"

"My mother," Helen answered simply, "has a genuine belief in the ceremony of the church. To her, marriage is a sacrament."

"And what do you think?" I queried.

Helen looked out of the window thoughtfully. "I don't know, Ted, dear. I felt it was a sacrament when I opened my eyes, after the horse fell with me, and I found you holding me in your arms. I know then that nothing on earth could make us belong any more to each other than we did then. I think that would have been all I should have asked--just to know you loved me."

"That is all I want to know, Helen dear," I said, taking her in my arms. "But of course we shall get married according to the rules."

"You delicious idiot," Helen laughed, "of course we shall. Can you imagine Deep Harbor, if we didn't?"

The prospect was dazzling to the imagination. Miss Hershey and the daily _Eagle_ between them--I laughed at the thought.

"I wouldn't do anything to hurt dad," Helen added softly, and I again held her close.

"I was only moralizing on this question of ceremonies, Helen precious," I whispered. "It has always amazed me that people attach such great value to them. I suppose it is, after all, because ceremonies have to be public, and they are thus a public acknowledgement of assumed obligations."

"If the church means anything to you, then its sanction must be a tremendous comfort," Helen mused. "I sometimes wish I knew what I believed, don't you, Ted?"

"I am trying to find out, but I don't know. Sometimes I think chemistry is the key to the mystery--and then it isn't. Chemistry didn't make your grey eyes, sweetheart. There is a Helen in them that no chemistry made."

"I don't think chemistry made Ted, either," she smiled shyly. "For if it did, he would be more logical."

"There's a nasty knock in that somewhere, young lady," I said in mock anger, "but I'm blest if I know where it is."

"I never know," she came back inconsequentially, "whether I love you more when you don't think, or when you tangle yourself up in whimsies trying to think."

"Neither of us has the faintest idea what truth is"--I began, preparing another disquisition. She cut me short: "No, Ted, we haven't. We begin life with just one certain fact and no more."

"What is that certain fact?" I asked.

"Can you ask, Ted? We love each other--that's all we know."

"It's enough," I said, kissing her mouth. She smiled at me, her face close.

"We'll begin with that, Ted darling."

Chapter Eleven

WE SEEK AND OBTAIN CONSENT

During that winter and early spring the business, under Knowlton's shrewd management, was making good progress. It was clear that, although it would take a much greater investment of capital to turn the factory into a producer of fortunes, nevertheless the plant was now on the way to becoming a steady income-maker for its owners. Knowlton thought it might be possible to get local capital and expand; he exchanged several letters and cables with my father in London on the subject. One day authorization came to him to go ahead.

"That will be one of your jobs, Ted," he remarked to me one evening in my room, as he tossed over my father's cable for me to read.

"What will?" I asked.

"Going around and talking to our local magnates. They are all your social friends out at the country club. Let's see what your friends are worth to you," and he grinned one of his favourite grins.

"H'm," I said, studying the cable. "What have we got to put up to them?"

"Listen to Teddy," shouted Knowlton, chuckling. "Talking like a regular business man! You wouldn't have used that language six months ago."

"I am beginning to pick up a few scraps of the vernacular," I retorted, a little nettled. Knowlton grinned number two grin. He proceeded to lecture me on the present merits and future possibilities of our company. It was all to be put down in black and white for me to study, with what he called "the best talking points" underlined.

"Go after them hard," he advised at the conclusion. "Don't take 'no' for an answer, and don't be afraid of their questions. We are as promising-looking an outfit as there is in town. Why, they ought to swing this thing for us as a matter of local pride. We'll bring money to the place."

"Since we are making a fairly good thing of it as we stand, why not leave well enough alone?" I queried by way of final objection.

"My boy, it can't be done. If you try to stand still, you only slide down hill. It's a law of business. Get on or get out--that's our American jungle law. Besides, it's a question now of obeying the old man's orders."

"You mean my father?" I suggested.

Knowlton grinned: "I beg your pardon. It's our master's voice."

I got up and hunted for my tobacco. "The devil with you, Knowlton, is that every time I begin to imagine everything is all right, you have some infernal new anxiety to thrust under my nose."

"Shove your pipe under it instead and shut up," he laughed. "That's life, my boy. You can't sit it out in a rocking chair. If you try, they take away the front porch from under you when you aren't looking."

I filled my pipe and studied Knowlton's face as I did so. It came to me with a start that I had been taking him for granted for several months now. I no longer analysed him, or tried to, as I had done at first. Suppose Knowlton was not himself on the square and I had been careless? The idea was disturbing. There he sat, characteristically enough, with his legs crossed, the tips of his fingers together, a big cigar in his mouth, and his sharp eyes puckered at the corners with crows' feet. He was oblivious to my scrutiny, for he was turning over the new proposition in his mind. He could day dream in arithmetic as a poet could upon hearing the song of a lark. His face was hard, but there was a rugged honesty in it, a touch of the old Scots' stock from which he sprang, with the superimposed keenness and alertness of the trail-following American. Besides, I remembered his confidences to me that Christmas Eve out at the country club. He too was a sentimentalist--and such as we, who are sentimentalists, are apt to be dishonest only to ourselves or to those we love; the money form of dishonesty is abhorrent to an emotional man. Knowlton was of the common type who masked deep feeling by an outward hard glamour of efficiency. I must have gone on too long staring at him, for he suddenly turned around with a slight narrowing of the eyes.

"Wondering if I am big enough for the job, Ted?" he asked casually, as he tried to remedy the faulty burning of his cigar. "I wondered it about you. It's only fair for you to have your turn," he went on.

"I don't know," I answered. "I don't know whether either of us is. It's a big responsibility we are starting out to face."

"Everything is. It's a responsibility to buy a basketful of hot dogs and sell them at a street corner. It might rain," he countered.

"I know," I laughed. "Hotspur said the same thing."

"Shakespeare again?"

I nodded. He suddenly laid down his cigar. "By God, Ted," he exclaimed, "were you thinking I might not be on the square?"

I hesitated for a second, puzzled. Either he was a very clever man, or--I did not know what to think.

"You once told me to take no one for granted," I fumbled slowly, "if it was a question of business. There were to be no exceptions, you said." I saw the twinkle gathering in the corners of his eyes. "I've known you, Knowlton, nine months, but I don't know very much about you."

He laughed long and loud. "That's having a man's teaching come home and howl on his own doorstep!" he laughed. "Sometimes, Ted, I think you are the biggest damn fool I ever knew, and then you'll do something else, and I say, 'No, cuss it all, the boy has brains after all.'"

"Meaning that now I am in the damn fool stage?" I snorted, rather irritated. He had a way of making one feel as if he held one in his hand.

"It penetrates," he shouted. "The boy is getting intelligent again," and he laughed some more. "Ted," he said, growing instantly serious, "since I earned my first dollar, you are the only man who has ever to my face doubted my honesty." He went off into a laugh again. "And to think," he roared, "that I promised myself that I'd bust the first one who did on the nose."

I pulled at my pipe, waiting for him to finish. I was conscious of an unpleasant glow at the back of my neck.

"Ted, you raised this issue. Let's have it out." I waved my pipe deprecatingly. "No, sir," he went on, "you asked for a dog fight. We'll have one. Have you ever studied the books of the company?"

"No," I muttered. "It wouldn't do me any good if I did. I don't know bookkeeping."

A trace of a grin returned to his face. "Well, you can hire chartered accountants to do it for you," he said. "If ever you do look at them, you will discover that I am a salaried man and haven't one penny interest in this company except the professional one of making good on a job."

I was out of my depth and lacked the technical vocabulary to make a suitable reply.

"Now, Ted, if we do put over this new proposition, all it will mean to me will be a letter of thanks from your father. I mean, legally speaking, I'll have no special claims for anything I do. I have no financial interest at stake except the purely human one of making a good job a better one."

I got up and held out my hand. "I'm sorry, Knowlton."

His old grin returned, as he took my hand. "It's all right, kid," he said. "I'm glad you're learning."

* * * * *

Deep Harbor I suspected to be a difficult spot in which to do new financing. Probably our absentee ownership would be a handicap. I went first to Mr. Claybourne to ask his advice. He received me in his little office, which was upstairs in his own factory. His face grew serious as he listened to me, and I saw him watching a switch-engine through the window.

"I don't know, Ted," he said at length, after my story was done. "I'll be frank with you. This isn't the time to think of you as a future son-in-law. We are talking now about Deep Harbor and business. We don't know much about you. The company is directed from London. We don't like that. On the grounds we have you and Knowlton. Now I dare say you are all right as a chemist, Ted--out in your laboratory. But you don't know any more about American business than a babe unborn."

"That leaves Knowlton," I suggested.

"Yes, that leaves Knowlton," he echoed. "Knowlton is a salaried man. He has no financial interest in your concern. Supposing some one offers him a bigger salary and he ups and leaves you. Where would you be?"

"Knowlton?" I gasped incredulously. "Leave us?"

"It has happened," said Mr. Claybourne drily. "And after all, why not? Why should Knowlton stick with you, if he can make more somewhere else?"

"But--but loyalty," I protested, "good faith--a dozen things make it out of the question!"

Mr. Claybourne shook his head slowly. "Ted, you are going to get some hard knocks some day. The world isn't run the way you think it is. And I don't mean any discredit to Knowlton, either. It would only be sound sense for him to jump at a better offer."

My faith in Knowlton was unshaken, but I turned Mr. Claybourne's words over in my mind. "If that is an objection," I said at last, "I'll cable my father to give Knowlton an interest in the business."

"You ought to have done that long ago," replied Mr. Claybourne. "Well, Ted, I'm sorry I can't encourage you. Coming to dinner tonight?"

From Mr. Claybourne's factory I walked straight to the telegraph-and-cable office. "Do it now, as Knowlton would say," I smiled to myself as I walked along the street. It was quite a different thing for me to walk along Deep Harbor's streets now from what it had been the first few months. It almost seemed as if half the persons I met knew me. "Hello, Ted!" passing men would call with cheery friendliness--from the barber at the Otooska House to the president of the country club, I was "Ted." Young ladies waved friendly hands at me from front porches, or would ask after Helen as I went by. It was a curiously intimate town, where men often fought each other bitterly in business and played golf together afterwards at the country club. We had no secrets from each other, and the young people wandered in and out of each other's homes as into clubs. It was a frightfully public way to live, and yet not unpleasant.

There was a special free masonry among the men. They knew each other's financial standing and bank account down to the last cent. They also knew each other's business capacity and reliability with astounding accuracy. One heard at the club startlingly frank revelations about all that was going on, and nothing that happened remained long unknown or undiscussed. There were some things talked about which did not reach the ears of the women--whom So-and-so visited on his last trip to New York, for example. The men knew and laughed at much that their code kept from their wives. On the whole, Deep Harbor was a reasonably moral place, in spite of much cocktail drinking and free and easy manners. But there were a few notorious exceptions. And others, less notorious, indulged in occasional flings in distant towns. I never heard of any "prominent citizen" who kept a double establishment in Deep Harbor. A double life there meant a train journey. An actual local scandal was a six months' wonder and carried with it almost complete ostracism to boot. We had had a few famous divorces, but none during my time.

I was thinking of all this as I walked to the telegraph office on State Street. The greetings along the way had started me on my train of thought. I was a long time wording my cable to my father and still longer reducing it to a business code. A cable or telegram in plain language was not advisable. Deep Harbor knew everything, even the secrets you sent or received by wire. I had been casually questioned more than once about sending messages in code. One advantage of so thoroughly transparent a glass house was that no one cared particularly about casting stones. The infinite gossip of the men, while frank and outspoken in its opinions, was rarely malicious. It was simply that a naked truth, deprived of the last fig leaf, circulated concerning every one.

"All right, Mr. Jevons," said the telegraph girl, as she took my coded message. "Charge it to the company?"

"No--personal," I answered. Knowlton had a way of making me account for every cable. A company cable had to have a copy filed at the office.

"Shall I 'phone an answer out to the Claybournes'?" she asked, as if it were a perfectly ordinary matter for her to have an intimate knowledge of my evening movements.

"Yes," I said, for one got accustomed to Deep Harbor's ways, "but make certain you give the reply to me in person. Do not leave a message or 'phone it to any one else in the house."

I took the electric car out to the factory to report to Knowlton.

"Claybourne is rather pessimistic," I began.

"He would be," said Knowlton. "He doesn't want to make himself personally responsible for your campaign. If he were first in, it would commit him to us as a venture which he was backing. Almost too bad you are to be his son-in-law. It ties his hands."

I said nothing about Mr. Claybourne's real objections.

* * * * *

Mr. Claybourne left early after dinner, as was his custom, to play bridge at the club. Mrs. Claybourne knitted in the front room, and Helen and I had thus our evening to ourselves. Leonidas curled up on a goatskin rug and snored while we alternately talked and read. Spring was coming on, although April, with its cold winds off the lake, was not very spring-like. But the approach of spring made us look forward more definitely to a possible date for our marriage. So far I had not been able to gain my father's permission either to return to England or to set an actual date for the wedding. He hoped that it could be arranged by mid-summer. Beyond that, he refused to commit himself. Helen thought June, as the most conventional time, would probably please her mother best. Already Mrs. Claybourne was threatening to go to the coast of Maine at the end of June and carry Helen with her. We knew that nothing but a definite date could forestall this plan. We figured that we could almost live upon my salary, but there were practical difficulties in the way of taking temporary quarters, if we were going to England soon afterwards. We were therefore a little reluctant to defy matters and get married at once. At least, so Helen's commonsense concluded. We could not afford to quarrel with either family, and a matter of a few extra weeks seemed hardly worth general displeasure. I agreed with Helen, chiefly because it never occurred to me to disagree with her. We were each so sure of the other's love that we did not pass through those agonies of suspense, petty jealousies, and quarrels that seem to be, according to novels, the stock-in-trade of lovers' conduct. We were simply, insanely, and also calmly happy. We lived in our own world, allowed no one across its threshold, and never dreamed of stepping outside it ourselves. Leonidas alone was privileged to share our bliss.

As we sat and talked in whispers of the days to come, the telephone bell rang. It was a cable from my father, and, like mine, in code. The girl at the other end spelled it out to me while Helen wrote it down. At last we had it all, and it was a fairly long one. I walked into the hall to get my copy of the code book, and discovered that I had left it at the telegraph office. Helen scolded me soundly, for our evening was spoiled. It meant that I had to go back down town after the book, and it would then be too late to return. There was nothing for it but to go.

The girl at the office was quite sorry for me. She had found and kept my book.

"You might have sent it out by messenger," I said reproachfully.

"I thought of it, Mr. Jevons," she said, "but I didn't know if you would want it that bad. A messenger costs thirty cents."

"Yes," I agreed, "but some evenings are priceless."

With this rather flat remark, I left her. I went home to decode the message at my leisure. Another postponement awaited me there, for I found Knowlton ensconced in my study, reading one of my books, his feet upon my table. He came and went as he pleased at my rooms, an arrangement to which I had never objected. But I could not tell him about my father's cable until I knew what answer I had received. If my father refused my suggestion, obviously I could not let Knowlton know anything about it. He sat and talked until well past midnight, while the unread cable burned a hole in my pocket.

"By the way," said Knowlton suddenly, "a cable came through for you this evening. Anything in it?"

"From the family," I replied, mentally damning Deep Harbor's skill in publicity. "But how did you know?"

Knowlton grinned. "I happened to be sending a telegram, and the young lady with the auburn hair mentioned that she had just 'phoned one out to you at the Claybournes'. In code, she said. It was all by way of making conversation, Ted. She thought I'd be interested to know. I'll bet she knows the day I leave off my flannels and put on my summer underwear," Knowlton added, with his trenchant vulgarity. He got upon his feet, stretched himself, and said good-night. I saw him to the door and well on his way to the Otooska House, and then returned to my code book. It was a slow job. Each word in the code stood for either a phrase or a complete sentence. I had to look each one up in the book and then fit the meanings together, bit by bit, like a mosaic. At last the whole was clear. I could hardly believe my eyes. Here is what I saw:

"Good offer received for sale of business. Cancel any subscriptions of local capital. Give K. five per cent bonus net proceeds above salary. Necessary papers follow first mail. T. sail England August first. Bring H."

And all because I was such a blithering, blistering idiot as to leave my code book at the telegraph office, Helen missed hearing the good news that night. Twice my hand reached for the telephone, and twice I paused. I couldn't call Helen up at one-thirty in the morning, not even to tell her she was to be married in July. At least, I couldn't with Mrs. Claybourne in the house. It would have meant an all-night session of hysterics, I felt sure, and I had to spare Helen that. But I could tell Knowlton! I grabbed the telephone and demanded the Otooska House until the central operator must have thought there was a madman at the other end. At last I heard Knowlton's sleepy voice.

"What the hell is it, Ted? Factory on fire or Prospero's ghost haunting you?"

"Neither," I shouted at him. "I'm going to be married."

"Great God, kid, are you drunk?" he came back. "Go to bed and let a man sleep. It's a dirty joke getting me up at this hour."

"It's the cable from father--I've decoded it."

"Hello," his voice came sharper. "I knew darned well you were lying to me earlier in the evening. What is it?"

"The business has been sold," I said, waiting to hear what the effect would be.

There was a moment's pause; then his voice came steady. "I'm glad to hear it, kid. I guess that means your uncle Dudley is out of a job."

"No, it doesn't," I cut in, a little regretful that I had teased him. "I'm instructed to pay you a bonus of five per cent of the net proceeds over and above your salary. Looks as if my father thought enough of you to put you on something else."

There was another pause--so long a one that Central almost cut us off.

"Listen, kid," came Knowlton's voice, when vigorous protests from us both had restored connection again. "What did you cable your father early this afternoon?"

"None of your darned business," I replied. "How did you know I cabled him?"

"The auburn haired little bird whispered it to me when she told me about the reply that came." I could almost feel Knowlton's grin travelling over the wire to me. "What did you say?"

"It's a long story. I'll tell you in the morning."

I heard him laugh. "You won't be at the factory in the morning."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you'll be out on Myrtle Boulevard telling some one the big news."

"Honest?" I said. "I can have the morning off?"

"Say," he came back, "for gosh' sake cut out this me-the-boss stuff. I don't give a darn if you never come out again. Yes, I do; I'll take that back. You'll tell me some time tomorrow what you cabled your father, or I'll sit on the door step at Myrtle Boulevard until I find out. Seriously, kid, one day off, then we get things in shape to turn the works over. No Norwood stunts for us. It'll be a healthy, going concern. August, did you say? That gives us three months clear. Put your back in it and give my love to Helen in the morning," and he hung up the receiver with a crash in my ear.

* * * * *

I thought sleep was going to be impossible that night, but about four o'clock, as my mind seemed in a perfect welter which defied all efforts at reduction to order, I fell into a dreamless slumber. It was after eight when I awoke, with a curse at myself for forgetting to set the alarm. After a hasty shower and omitting breakfast I dashed out Myrtle Boulevard as rapidly as decorum permitted. I arrived a little after nine. Mr. Claybourne had already gone to his office. Mrs. Claybourne was anything but pleased to see me at that hour. Her forehead was still adorned with one or two iron clamps in which her hair was tightly wound. I tried to get past her to call for Helen. Mrs. Claybourne was firm. Helen was assisting Jane with the house work, and I was on no account to disturb her. Besides, I ought to be out at the factory at work, like other sensible men. It was bad enough my calling every night. If I was to be underfoot in the morning, too, things might just as well stop where they were. There was a limit to a mother's patience. She was accustomed to the fact that neither Helen nor I ever showed her the slightest consideration, but there was a bound set up by decency which no one had a right to cross, and that bound she would defend at all costs.

Not for anything would I have told her the object of my call, until Helen had first heard the news, and I was ruefully considering going home and telephoning Helen, when this young lady herself stuck her head over the banisters.

"What in the world, Ted, are you quarrelling with mother for just after breakfast? Come upstairs and be scolded at once."

Mother let out a shocked "Helen! The rooms aren't done!" but I bounded by her and upstairs before Mrs. Claybourne could clutch me. Helen looked adorable in a boudoir cap with little pink roses on it and a Japanese kimono that trailed on the floor.

"Well," she said with mock severity, "what do you mean, sir, by forcing your way into the house in this fashion?"

Belowstairs Mrs. Claybourne was repeatedly ordering me to come down. I wondered how long I dared ignore her.

"Helen," I gasped, "I must see you alone--my father's cable--the best news--urgent."

Helen caught my arm, and the strength of her grasp surprised me. "Ted--you don't mean?--is it true?"

"Yes," I choked, "as soon as we can make all arrangements."

She planted a sudden kiss square on my mouth just as Mrs. Claybourne toiled to the top of the stairs, in breathless and exasperated pursuit.

"Helen, I'm surprised at you--and at Edward. You are not properly dressed--go to your room at once."

By way of reply, Helen did the most surprising thing. She deliberately kicked as high as the rather tight kimono would permit, threw her arms around her mother's neck, and, frantically kissing her, bore Mrs. Claybourne heavily to ground in a sitting posture on top of a cedar clothes chest. I had never seen Helen before in a reckless state of high spirits. Mrs. Claybourne energetically fought off her daughter's embraces.

"Helen Claybourne," she exclaimed, "don't you dare tell me that you and Edward are going to be married. I won't hear it!"

"We are, mother, we are!" cried the excited child, and flung her arms about me, leading me around the hall in a wild and undignified dance. I feebly protested, fearing at least double-woman-power hysterics from Mrs. Claybourne. But "mother" was made of sterner stuff when it came to a pinch. Her lips narrowed to an ominous straight line as she got upon her feet.

"Helen," she commanded in a changed tone of voice. "Go to your room! Your father will deal with you presently. Edward, you will oblige me by leaving my house instantly!"

Helen released me, for we saw that, in the phraseology of Deep Harbor, Mrs. Claybourne "meant business." I bowed and started downstairs. I looked back at Helen from the landing, and over her mother's shoulder I saw her mouth form silently the word "dad." I took the hint, going straight to Mr. Claybourne's office as rapidly as I could get there.

I rather precipitately upset the office boy's theory of etiquette and literally banged into his office. He was talking over the telephone with a serious face. I realized that "mother" had beaten me in reaching him, thanks to the curse of the modern machine.

"Sit down, Edward, and keep quiet," he commanded, adding through the mouthpiece, "Yes. He's here. He has just come."

After what seemed an hour, although it was only a few minutes, he hung up the receiver. Not by a single word had he indicated his own state of mind, but the look upon his face made me most uneasy.

"Ted, you and Helen both show a strange lack of appreciation for a mother's point of view," he began, and I thought, "O Lord, I'm in for a sermon on filial conduct." "I grant you mother is very nervous and difficult to handle, but a little show of affection, a little tact even, would work wonders."

We sat in silence for a moment. I felt rather uncomfortable.

"What possible excuse have you," he went on, "for going out to my house early in the morning and upsetting Helen's mother when I wasn't there?"

"I wished to see Helen. I've had an important cable from my father, and I didn't stop to think of anything else."

He adjusted his glasses carefully. "No," he said, "you and Helen never stop to think of any one but yourselves. Show me your father's cable."

I laid my copy before him. He read it slowly, turning it over once or twice. Then he handed it back to me.

"I suppose it is useless to ask you to wait until Helen is twenty-one," he said, peering at me over his glasses.

"Quite," I answered firmly, for I began to feel it was time we spoke for ourselves and ceased to play children to please the family.

"I suppose you know that in this state a minor has to have the consent of her parents before she can be married?" he said, still looking steadily at me.

"Yes." I spoke rather impudently. "Helen and I looked up the law for ourselves. But there is another state not far away where eighteen is the legal age."

"You will do me a favour if you do not speak in that tone." It was not often that he spoke sharply.

"I beg your pardon," I apologized. "Helen and I intend to get married--that's all I meant to imply."

"Ted"--he relaxed just a little--"when I gave my consent to your engagement, I did so with the understanding that you two children loved each other and intended to marry. I am sorry, more sorry than I can tell you or than either of you would understand, that it has happened when Helen is so young. Only last year she was at school," and he looked out the window at the dusty street. "I want my daughter to be happy--" he paused. "There isn't a great deal of happiness to be found in this world, Ted. I want her to have her share--that's all." Once more he paused. "As for the date of the wedding, you must settle that with Helen's mother. Your father expects you in August?"

"Yes, sir," I replied, getting to my feet.

"I suppose that means it will have to be the end of July. Ted, you are asking a great deal of me--she's all the happiness I have." He looked around at his office. "I've never refused her anything she's asked--if I could give it her. I shan't now," and he held out his hand. I could think, of nothing to say, except silly-sounding words, so I said nothing, but took his hand.

"I think I can trust her to you, Ted--that's all I'll say about you, and I could hardly say more," he added. "I've got to clear up the morning's mail. And Ted, when you come out to dinner tonight--be as nice as you know how to Helen's mother. Tell Helen, too. It will pay."

"Mr. Claybourne--," I stammered, turning at the door.

"Don't try to say it, Ted," he called cheerily from his desk. "I guess I know. I love Helen, too." He pretended to write as if a matter of urgency were before him. I watched him for a moment more, cursing words for their feebleness, and went.