Chapter III: Part 3

“Because the three people concerned in the story that he has furnished a foundation for, are my friends.”

“So they are his,” said Van Cortlandt; “so they are ours. That’s what makes it interesting. What’s the use of friends,” he went on, “if you can’t enjoy their domestic difficulties?”

Mr. Carteret rose. “That is a matter of opinion,” he said stiffly.

“Well,” retorted Van Cortlandt, “there’s nothing one can do about it.”

“Have you ever tried?” said Mr. Carteret.

“Have you?” said Van Cortlandt.

Mr. Carteret made no reply. He turned on his heel and left the room. Half-suppressed laughter followed him into the hall, and he went on to the billiard room to “cool out,” as he expressed it. He was very angry. He paced several times to and fro beside the pool-table; then, with a sudden determination, he walked rapidly out of the club and got into his motor.

“Go to Mr. Palfrey’s,” he said to the chauffeur. “Hurry.” A few blocks up the avenue the car drew up to the curb, and he got out. He crossed the sidewalk, and disappeared into the great apartment house where Palfrey had his rooms. Half an hour later he came out and hurriedly entered the car. He motioned to the chauffeur to change places. “I’ll drive,” he said. “How is your gasolene?”

“The tank’s full, sir,” said the man.

“Good,” he answered.

He started the car, and began to thread his way up the avenue. At 59th street the clock on the dash-board said ten minutes to six.

He turned into the Park and ran through the avenues at a speed which made arrest imminent, yet he escaped. The Park was a miracle of flowering things, of elms feathering into leaf, of blossom fragrances, of robins at their sunset singing; but Mr. Carteret was unaware of it all. At ten minutes past six he was in the open country. Here he opened the throttle and advanced the spark. He called upon the great machine for speed, and the great machine lifted its shrill roar and gave generously. The clock and the trembling finger of the speedometer showed that many of the miles and minutes passed together. At ten minutes of seven he turned into the gateway of a great country-place, and a few moments later came upon its master on the west terrace. Evanston greeted him pleasantly, but was evidently surprised to see him.

“Did you motor down?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Mr. Carteret; “sixty minutes from 59th street.”

Evanston gave a low exclamation.

“It wasn’t difficult,” said Mr. Carteret, “the road’s very good.” An awkward silence followed, which both men felt.

“Lovely view,” said Mr. Carteret, looking off across the lake toward the sunset. Then there was another silence.

Evanston broke it. “Have you still got that horse that you wanted to sell me?”

“I think so,” said Mr. Carteret; “but I’m not trading horses this afternoon.” His voice changed and he looked at Evanston.

“Frank,” he said, “can you keep your temper?”

“I’ve had some practice,” said Evanston. “Why?”

“Because,” said Mr. Carteret, “I’m going to irritate you. I’m going to butt in. I’m going to mix up in a matter that is none of my business. If you want to knock me down, I sha’n’t like it, but I sha’n’t resent it.”

Evanston looked at him suspiciously. “What do you mean?” he said.

“From what I’ve heard,” said Mr. Carteret, “your private affairs are in a tangle.”

“So you’ve heard?” said Evanston.

“Yes, I have heard a good many things which are probably not so. I want to know the facts.”

Somewhat to his surprise, Evanston made no show of resentment. “The facts are simple,” he said. “I’m tired of this thing, and I’m going to put an end to it.”

“I’ve heard that,” said Mr. Carteret; “but if you don’t mind telling me, I’d like to know why. I like you, Frank,” he added; “I like your wife; I like your children--I don’t want to see you bust up.”

“You are very good, Carty,” said Evanston, “but nothing can be done about it. It’s a long story, with rights and wrongs on both sides; but at the beginning it was my fault, and I am ready to pay for it.”

“What do you mean by ‘your fault at the beginning’?” asked Mr. Carteret.

“I married her,” said Evanston.

“Well, didn’t you want to?” asked Mr. Carteret.

“I wanted to too much,” said Evanston; “that was the trouble.”

Mr. Carteret looked puzzled. “I don’t think I understand,” he said. From his somewhat objective point of view the more complex personality of Evanston was baffling.

“It was this way, Carty,” Evanston went on. “Her mother--you know her mother?”

Mr. Carteret nodded. “Always for the stuff,” he observed.

“Exactly,” said Evanston. “Well, to put it bluntly, she made the match.”

“But I thought you were rather keen about her.”

“So I was,” said Evanston; “but Edith wasn’t keen about me. The mother forced her into it, and I was foolish enough to believe that if she married me, she would care for me. The fact was,” he added, “I was walking on air, with my head in a dream.”

“I understand,” said Mr. Carteret.

“Well, we were married,” continued Evanston, “and then suddenly out of a blue sky came the panic and the T. & B. failure, and I was flat broke and a defaulter.”

“Defaulter!” said Mr. Carteret.

“Defaulter as to my side of the matrimonial bargain, which was to provide the establishment,” said Evanston. “The realization of this fact was sudden and painful.”

“Sudden? How do you mean sudden?” asked Mr. Carteret.

“Something happened,” said Evanston, “that opened my eyes.”

“Do you mean the loss of your money?”

“No,” said Evanston, “you know the money end of it came out all right. My uncle died, and I inherited more than I had lost; but I had already learned how much and how little money could do. And so things drifted along, and now the only course open seems to be to call it all off.” Evanston was silent.

“Is that all?” asked Mr. Carteret.

“Yes,” replied the other.

“Frank,” said Mr. Carteret, “you have told me everything but the facts. Don’t interrupt,” he went on, as Evanston made a gesture of protest. “The essence of the matter is this--you think that your wife is in love with Ned Palfrey; you believe Palfrey in love with her, and you are jealous of him.”

“I don’t see the need of going into that,” said Evanston. “There is no scandal. I trust my wife and I trust Palfrey.”

“The need of going into it,” said Mr. Carteret, “is to set you right on two points. First, your wife doesn’t care for Palfrey except as a friend, and if I am any judge of what is going on in a woman’s mind, she cares more about you than you will allow her to show you. Secondly, except as a friend, Palfrey doesn’t care for your wife.”

“Carty,” said Evanston, “you are wasting your time and mine. I know that a man is foolish to be jealous of any other man, and I know that Ned Palfrey is all right. I’m sorry for Palfrey. He has as much cause for resentment against me as I have against him. If it hadn’t been for me he would have married her. If he marries her later on, I shall have no feeling about it. But I can’t stand the situation as it is, and I don’t care to have you tell me there is nothing in it.”

“You have no proof,” said Carteret, “that there is anything in it.”

“No proof?” said Evanston. He smiled bitterly. “Only the proof of my eyes.”

Carteret threw away his cigarette. “The proof of your eyes!” he said.

Evanston nodded. “Perhaps you remember,” he went on, “that just after the crash I disappeared for a week.”

“Yes,” said Carteret; “it was two years ago, just before Christmas.”

“People said that I was hiding from my creditors; that I had gone to Australia; and some that I had killed myself.”

“That was what Edith believed,” said Mr. Carteret. “It nearly killed her.”

Evanston laughed scornfully. “Women don’t die of such things,” he said. “Well, to go on, it happened that the day I disappeared, Palfrey called upon my wife. We were at the house in 70th street then.” He paused uneasily, and Mr. Carteret began to wonder. “I came up-town late in the afternoon,” he continued, “and let myself in with a key. I heard voices in the drawing-room and went down the hall. The curtains in the drawing-room doorway had fallen apart, and I looked in. Palfrey was there. They were standing by the fireplace and had dropped their voices so that I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I saw him take a step toward her, and then he took her hand.” Evanston stopped. “And then,” he added, “the sawdust dropped out of my doll.”

“What happened?” asked Mr. Carteret.

“He kissed her,” said Evanston.

Mr. Carteret started inwardly. Then an illumination came to him. “No,” he said; “she kissed him.”

“As a gentleman,” said Evanston, “I would rather put it the other way.”

“As a gentleman,” said Mr. Carteret, “you must put it the way it was.”

“Does it make any difference?” asked Evanston.

“The difference between right and wrong,” said Mr. Carteret. “Listen to me. You knew, I suppose, that Palfrey wanted to marry Edith’s sister Louise.”

A look of wonder came into Evanston’s face. “No,” he said.

“Well,” said Mr. Carteret, “he did. I know it, and when you saw him at their house and thought he was after Edith, you were barking up the wrong tree.”

Evanston had risen, and was listening apprehensively. His face had grown white.

“What has this to do with the case?” he demanded.

“The afternoon that you speak of,” Mr. Carteret went on, “Louise told Palfrey that she was going to marry Witherbee. With that piece of news he went to your house, to the woman who had been his friend and confidante--your wife. He was a good deal cut up, and when he said good-by--you know he sailed for Europe the next day--I presume she was sorry for him, and, being a generous woman, an impulsive woman, she showed her sympathy; she kissed him as you would kiss a broken-hearted child.”

Evanston made a strange gesture, as if to put away by a physical action the thoughts that were forcing themselves into his mind. “No,” he said huskily; “it isn’t true, it can’t be true.”

“Do you think I would come to you with a lie?” said Mr. Carteret.

“But you weren’t there,” said Evanston. “How do you know?”

“Neither were you,” said Mr. Carteret. “Why didn’t you go in like a man and find out your mistake?”

For a time Evanston made no answer. Then his voice sank to a whisper. “I was afraid,” he said. “If I had gone in I was out of my head.” He dropped into his chair again, and turned his face away. His body shook convulsively, but he made no sound. Carteret stepped awkwardly to the terrace balustrade and stood gazing at the sunset. The silence lasted for several minutes. Then Evanston spoke; his voice was still uncertain. He rose and walked unsteadily toward the balustrade.

“Carty,” he said, “I believe you. What shall I do? It’s awful,” he muttered; “it’s awful.”

“It’s awfully lucky,” said Mr. Carteret, “that we have straightened things out.”

Evanston shook his head wearily. “But we haven’t,” he said; “we can’t. It’s too late.”

“Look here,” said Mr. Carteret, impatiently, “don’t be an ass.”

“But don’t you understand,” said Evanston. “If what you say is true,--and I believe you,--then I have acted--” he stopped and thought for the right words, but they did not come. “I left her that afternoon without a word. A week later, without explanation, I came back, and for two years I have treated her--God knows how I have treated her!” he murmured. “If she did care for me at the first,” he went on, “if she cared for me after the failure, the end of it must have come when I went away and came back as I did. And now to put an obstacle in the way of her freedom, to try to buy her again, would be the act of a blackguard.”

“But suppose she loves you?” said Mr. Carteret.

“That,” said Evanston, “is impossible.”

“It ought to be impossible,” said Mr. Carteret. “If she poisoned you any jury would acquit her; but, fortunately for us, women are not logical.”

“No,” said Evanston again; “it is impossible.”

“That is your view of it,” said Mr. Carteret. “Would anything convince you that you are wrong?”

Evanston was silent a moment. Then he smiled bitterly. “If the thoughts she had about me in those days,” he began,--“in those days after I had come home,--if they could come back like ghosts, and should tell me that all that time she cared for me, in spite of what I was and did--” He paused.

“Then of course it is impossible,” said Mr. Carteret, dryly.

He turned away toward the sunset again and looked at his watch. It was a quarter past seven. In the last twenty-five minutes his hopes had flown high and fallen dead. Evanston’s point of view was beyond his comprehension. He felt that the man was mad, and that he had come upon a fool’s errand.

He turned back toward Evanston. “I must be going,” he said. At that moment a servant came from the house and approached them.

“Mr. Whitehouse is on the telephone, sir,” the man said to Evanston. “He says his cook has been taken suddenly ill, and may he come to dine to-night and bring Professor Blake.”

Evanston looked helplessly at Mr. Carteret. “That’s odd,” he said, “isn’t it?”

“He evidently hasn’t heard,” said Mr. Carteret.

“Evidently,” said Evanston. “But why shouldn’t he come?” he added. He turned to the man. “Tell Mr. Whitehouse that Mrs. Evanston and myself will be glad to have him and Professor Blake.” The man bowed and went back to the house.

“It’s better that way,” continued Evanston. “We’ll have a party. I don’t know who Blake is; but Whittlesea’s coming down, and you’ll stay.”

“I can’t; I have no clothes,” said Mr. Carteret.

“That doesn’t matter,” said Evanston.

“No,” said Mr. Carteret, “I must go. I’m of no use here.”

“Don’t say that,” said Evanston. He held out his hand. “Carty, you are the only human being that understands or wants to understand.”

“Then,” said Mr. Carteret, “I’ll stay.”

It was nine o’clock, and they had finished dinner. From the dining-room the men went to the library to smoke, and Whitehouse’s friend, the Professor, began to talk. He was an Orientalist, and had recently discovered a buried city on the plateau of Iran. Mr. Carteret was not interested in buried cities, so he smoked and occupied himself with his own thoughts. From the distant part of the house came the music of a piano. He knew that it was Edith playing in the drawing-room. It occurred to him that it would be pleasant to go out upon the terrace and listen to the music. He was meditating the execution of this project when he saw Whittlesea slip out; the same idea had occurred to the lawyer.

Mr. Carteret watched him go with chagrin, but he felt that it would be rude for him to follow, so he sat where he was, and bore up under the buried city. The talk went on until suddenly the cathedral clock in the hallway began to strike in muffled arpeggios. Whitehouse started up and looked at his watch.

“It’s half-past nine,” he said to the Professor. “If you really must take the night train, we ought to be starting.”

“I’ll ring,” said Evanston, “and have somebody order your trap.”

“Thank you,” said Whitehouse, “I would rather order it myself; I want to speak to my man. I know where the stable telephone is.” He went out.

“I am sorry you have to go,” said Evanston to the Professor.

“So am I,” the Professor replied. “This has been a most delightful evening.”

Just then Whitehouse put his head in the door. “The stable telephone is out of order,” he said, “I’ll have to ask you to send some one, after all.”

“The telephone’s all right,” replied Evanston; “the trouble is, you don’t know how to use it.” He rose, and joining Whitehouse, left the room.

As he went out, the Professor started to rise, but something held him, and he sat back awkwardly. His sleeve-link had caught in the cord of the cushion on which his arm had been resting. He stooped to disentangle it, and turning the cushion over, his eyes rested on a curious pattern worked in gold. He gave a low exclamation of surprise, and carried the cushion into the lamplight.

“Anything the matter?” inquired Mr. Carteret. To him the Professor was rather curious than human, but he felt that it was civil to show an interest in him.

“There’s a verse,” replied the Professor, “embroidered in Persian characters on this cushion. It’s the work of a poet little known in Europe. It’s very extraordinary to find it here.”

“Really,” said Mr. Carteret, suppressing a yawn.

“I’ll make you a translation of it,” said the Professor.

“I should be pleased,” said Mr. Carteret.

There was a silence, during which the Professor wrote on a stray sheet of paper, and Mr. Carteret speculated on the chance of his horse Balloonist in the Broadway steeplechase. The Professor was handing the slip of paper to Mr. Carteret when Whitehouse and Evanston came hurriedly into the room.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to hurry,” said Whitehouse. “We have very little time.”

“All right,” said the Professor; “but I must say good-by to Mrs. Evanston.” He nodded a good-night to Mr. Carteret, and went out of the room, followed by Evanston and Whitehouse.

Mr. Carteret heard the music stop in the drawing-room, and he knew that the Professor was taking his leave. He heard it begin again, and he knew that the guests had gone.

“I must go myself,” he thought. “Evanston wants to talk with Whittlesea.”

He was about to rise when he glanced idly at the sheet of paper which the Professor had given him. Mr. Carteret was not fond of poetry. He considered it a branch of knowledge which concerned only women and literary persons. But the words of the translation that he held in his hand he read a first time, then a second time, then a third time.

He rose, with a startled sense of being on the brink of discovery, and then Evanston came in.

“You are not going,” said Evanston.

“No,” said Mr. Carteret, vaguely. “Frank,” he went on, “do you know anything about that sofa pillow?”

“What sofa pillow?” asked Evanston.

Mr. Carteret took the cushion with the strange embroidery, and held it in the lamplight.

“That?” said Evanston--“Edith gave me that.”

“When?” asked Mr. Carteret.

“It was a Christmas present,” said Evanston--“the Christmas after the failure.”

“After you came back?”

Evanston nodded.

“Do you know where she got it?” asked Mr. Carteret. “I mean the embroidery.”

“She worked it,” said Evanston.

“But,” said Mr. Carteret, “it’s Persian.”

“Very likely she got the design from her uncle,” said Evanston. “She used to be a great deal with him. You know he was Wyeth, the Orientalist. But what is all this about? Why are you interested in this sofa pillow?”

Mr. Carteret gazed searchingly at Evanston. “The design,” he said, “that is embroidered is a verse.”

Evanston looked at him uncomprehendingly. “Well,” he said, “what of it?”

“I want you to ask Edith what it is,” said Mr. Carteret.

“Why?” said Evanston.

“Don’t ask why. Do it.”

“What use can there be in calling up the past?” said Evanston. “It can only be painful to both of us.”

“Never mind,” said Mr. Carteret; “do it as a favor to me.”

“I think you will have to excuse me, Carty,” said Evanston, somewhat stiffly.

Mr. Carteret moved to the wall and rang the bell. Neither man spoke until the servant appeared. “Please say to Mrs. Evanston,” said Mr. Carteret, “that Mr. Evanston and Mr. Carteret wish very much that she would come to the library.” As the man left the room, Evanston came forward.

“What does this mean?” he demanded.

“My meaning ought to be plain,” said Mr. Carteret. “I intend to have you ask your wife what is on that cushion.” There was something in his tone, in the look in his eyes, which made Evanston’s protest melt away, then transfixed him, then made him whiten and tremble.

Presently they heard the rustle of a woman’s dress in the hallway. “Do you understand?” said Mr. Carteret, quickly. “You must ask her. You must force it out of her. If she refuses to tell you, you must choke it out of her. The ghosts have come back!” Then he hurriedly crossed the room to the French window that opened upon the terrace. As he reached the window, Edith stood in the doorway.

“Do you want me?” she asked.

“Frank wants you,” he answered, and stepped out blindly into the night. He groped his way across the terrace, and from the terrace went on to the lawn. Overhead the stars looked down and studded the lake with innumerable lights. The night insects were singing. The fireflies glimmered in the shrubbery. The perfume from the syringa thicket was heavy on the still air. Ordinarily these things did not appeal strongly to Mr. Carteret; but to-night they thrilled him. A few steps across the grass and he stopped and looked back. The house was silent. From the library windows the lamplight streamed out upon the terrace lawn. He turned away again and stood listening to the night things--the measured chorus of the frogs in the distant marsh, the whippoorwill that was calling in the darkness on the point. Then he resumed his progress across the lawns. Suddenly he came upon a figure in the darkness, and started.

“Has that fellow gone?” It was Whittlesea’s voice.

“Yes,” said Mr. Carteret.

“Then I must go back,” said the lawyer. “Carteret,” he went on, “this is wretched business. One would think that, in a spot like this, on such a night, people ought to be happy.”

“You are right,” said Mr. Carteret. “Whittlesea,” he added, “come along but don’t speak.” He slipped his arm through the lawyer’s and guided their steps back toward the terrace. They mounted it and stealthily approached the library window. From the darkness they could see into the lighted room, and not be seen. The lawyer gave a low exclamation, and drew his arm away.

Evanston and his wife were sitting side by side upon the couch. His arm was about her, and his face was bent close to hers. They made no sound, but her body shook a little, and trembled as if she were weeping silently. The two men parted in the darkness, Mr. Carteret retreating back across the terrace.

The fireflies still were glimmering in the syringa-bushes, the night voices still were chorusing, but Mr. Carteret was unaware of them. He looked vaguely into the heavens. The Milky Way glimmered from horizon to horizon.

“‘Has the singing nightingale a thought of the grainfields?’”

he began to murmur.

“‘If I love you, oh, my beloved, what are poverty or riches?’”

It was the verse upon the cushion.

He stumbled over a croquet ball in the darkness and brought his eyes down from the heavens.

“Carteret, you’re an ass,” he muttered. He fumbled for his pocket handkerchief and blew his nose. Then wandered on across the lawn till he came to the path that led to the stables, where his motor was waiting. Here he stopped and looked back at the house. The lamplight was still streaming from the library windows, and the silence, save for the night things, was still unbroken. For perhaps a minute he stood and gazed; then he turned and went down the pathway.

THE MATTER OF A MASHIE

V

THE MATTER OF A MASHIE

Cutting had been taken into the firm, to the disgust of the junior partners. They agreed that he would never amount to much, being given over to sports and unprofitable ways of life.

It came about as a result of Cutting getting himself engaged. There was no excuse for his getting himself engaged. He was poor, and She was poor, and they both had rich friends and expensive ideas of life. But, as sometimes happens in such cases, Providence was fairly shocked into making unexpected arrangements.

Cutting’s uncle was the head of the firm. Said he: “I am going to give you six months’ trial. If you are not satisfactory you will have to get out. Good morning.”

The elder Cutting was a great lawyer. As a man he was a gruff-spoken old person, a worshiper of discipline, and continuously ashamed of his kind-hearted impulses. For forty-five years he had reached his office at nine o’clock in the morning, and had remained there till six at night. After that he went to the club and took his exercise at a whist-table. He considered the new out-of-door habits of professional men a scandal.

The junior partners had grown up in this school of thought, and as a matter of course they disapproved of Mr. Richard Cutting. It was unfortunate that Mr. Cutting cared little whether they disapproved or not. It was also imprudent; for the junior partners not unnaturally had it in mind to make his connection with the firm end with his six months’ probation.

The previous week a crisis had been reached. Cutting was away two entire days for a Long Island golf tournament. The junior partners conferred with the senior partner, and there was a very complete unpleasantness.

“I shall be forced to terminate our arrangement unless I hear better reports of you from my associates,” said the elder Cutting, in conclusion. He believed it his duty to say this; he was also honestly irritated.

The junior partners were gratified; they considered that they had settled the younger Cutting.

It was a muggy September morning, and the office force was hot and irritable. Something unusual and disturbing was in the air. The junior partners were consulting anxiously in the big general room where most of the clerks worked, and where the younger Cutting had his desk. The younger Cutting had not yet appeared. He came in as the clock was pointing to twelve minutes past ten. The junior partners glanced up at the clock, and went on again in animated undertones.

Cutting opened his desk, sat down, and unfolded his newspaper. He was a beautiful, clean-looking youth with an air of calm and deliberation. He regarded the junior partners with composure, and began to read.

“No,” Mr. Bruce was saying; “it is too late to do anything about it now. The case is on to-day’s calendar, and will be called the first thing after lunch. Our witnesses haven’t been notified or subpœnaed, and the law hasn’t been looked up.”

Smith shook his head sourly. “The old man is getting more absent-minded every year,” he said. “We can’t trust him to look after his business any longer. The managing clerk gave him a week’s notice, and told him about it again yesterday. You think there is no chance of getting more time?”

Bruce looked at his colleague with contempt. “_You_ might,” he said sarcastically; “_I_ can’t.”

“Oh, I’ll take your word for it,” said Smith. “I don’t want to tackle Heminway.”

Bruce laughed dryly. “The case has been put over for us I don’t know how many times already,” he said. “I don’t blame Heminway. He gave us ample notice that he couldn’t do it again.”

“That’s true,” said Smith.

Reed _vs._ Hawkins, the case in question, was a litigation of small financial importance, about which the senior Cutting had formed a novel and ingenious theory of defense. Instead of turning it over to the younger men, he kept it as a legal recreation. But he never got to it. It was his Carcassonne.

The day of trial would come, and he would smile blandly, and remark: “True! That has slipped my mind completely. Bruce, kindly send over to Heminway and ask him to put it over the term. I want to try that case myself. A very interesting point of law, Bruce, very interesting.”

The last time this had happened, the great Mr. Heminway observed that professional etiquette had been overtaxed, and that the Reed case must go on. People who knew Mr. Heminway did not waste their breath urging him to change his mind.

Messrs. Bruce and Smith considered the situation for a time in silence.

“Well,” said Smith, at last, “it’s bad for the firm to let a judgment be taken against us by default, but I don’t see anything else to do.”

At this moment the elder Cutting emerged from his private office with his hat on. Obviously he was in a hurry, but he paused as he came through.

“Have you attended to that Reed matter?” he asked.

“There’s nothing to do but let it go by default,” said Bruce.

Mr. Cutting stopped. “Get more time!” he said sharply.

“I can’t,” said Bruce. “Heminway has put his foot down. No one can make him change his mind now.”

“Stuff!” said Mr. Cutting. “Dick, go over and tell Heminway I want that Reed case put over the term.” And he went out.

Cutting finished the Gravesend races, laid the paper on his desk, scribbled a stipulation, and leisurely departed.

As the door closed, the junior partners looked at each other and smiled. Then said Smith, “I wish I could be there and see it.”

Bruce chuckled. He could imagine the scene tolerably well. “It will do him a lot of good,” he said. Then he added: “Don’t you think I had better write personally to Hawkins and explain matters? Of course we shall have to pay the costs.”

“Yes,” said Smith; “it’s better to explain at once. It’s a piece of bad business.”

The younger Cutting announced himself as Mr. Cutting, of Cutting, Bruce & Smith. That was a name which carried weight, and the office boy jumped up and looked at him curiously, for he took him for _the_ Mr. Cutting. Then he led him down a private passage into the inner and holy place of the great Mr. Heminway.

“He’ll be back in a moment, sir,” said the boy. “He’s stepped into Mr. Anson’s office.” Mr. Anson was the junior partner.

The door into the waiting-room was ajar about an inch. Cutting peeped through it, and saw the people who wished to consult the great lawyer. He knew some of them. There was a banker who had recently thrown Wall street into confusion by buying two railroads in one day. There were others equally well known, and a woman whose income was a theme for the Sunday newspapers. Cutting watched them stewing and fidgeting with an unlovely satisfaction. It was unusual for such persons to wait for anybody.

He discovered that by walking briskly toward the door he could make them start and eye one another suspiciously, like men in a barber-shop at the call of “Next!” When this entertainment palled, he played with his hat. Still the great man did not come, and presently Cutting took a tour of inspection about the room. As he reached the lawyer’s desk, a golf-club caught his eye, and he stopped. It was a strangely weighted, mammoth mashie. He picked it up and swung it.

“What an extraordinary thing!” he muttered. “It weighs a pound.” He looked for the maker’s name, but the steel head had not been stamped.

He put it back on the desk-top, and was turning away when a row of books caught his eye. Half concealed by a pile of papers was the Badminton golf-book, an American book of rules, a score-book, a work entitled “Hints for Beginners,” and a pamphlet of “Golf Don’ts.” In the pigeonhole above lay several deeply scarred balls. Cutting laughed.

Just then he heard a step, and turned hastily around. A tall, imposing figure stood in the private doorway--a man of sixty, with a grim, clean-cut face.

“Well?” said Mr. Heminway, questioningly. He had a blunt, aggressive manner that made Cutting feel as if he were about to ask a great favor.

“Well?” he repeated. “I’m very busy. Please tell me what I can do for you.”

“My name’s Cutting,” the young man began--“Richard Cutting, of Cutting, Bruce & Smith.”

The great lawyer’s face softened, and a friendly light came into his eyes.

“I am glad to know you,” he said. “I knew your father. Your uncle and I were classmates. That was a long time ago. Are you the ‘R.’ Cutting who won the golf tournament down on Long Island last week?”

Cutting nodded.

“Well, well,” he exclaimed, “what a remarkable young man you must be! You see,” he added, “I’ve taken it up in a mild way myself. I’m afraid I shall never be able to get really interested, but it’s an excuse for keeping out of doors. I wish I had begun it at your age. Every afternoon on the links is so much health stored up for after life. Remember that!”

“They say it _is_ wholesome,” said Cutting. “I gathered that you played. I saw a mashie on your desk. If you don’t think me rude, would you tell me where you got that thing? Or is it some sort of advertisement?”

Mr. Heminway looked surprised. “Advertisement?” he repeated. “Oh, no. That’s an idea of my own. You see, I need a heavy club to get distance. I had this made. It weighs fourteen ounces,” he went on. “What do you think of it?” He handed the thing over, and watched Cutting’s face.

“Do you want my honest opinion?” said Cutting.

The lawyer nodded.

“Then give it away, Mr. Heminway,” said the young man, respectfully, “or melt it into rails. You know you can’t play _golf_ with that.”

The lawyer looked puzzled. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“Why, distance isn’t a question of weight!” said Cutting. “It’s a fact that you get the best distance with the lightest clubs. Most professionals use ladies’ cleeks.”

The great lawyer looked thoughtful. “Is that so?” he asked. He was trying to account for this doctrine out of his experience. “It seems absurd,” he added.

“It’s so, though,” said Cutting. He heard the banker in the next room cough ominously. He took up his hat.

“Sit down, sit down!” exclaimed the lawyer. “I want to find out about this. I’ve been doing pretty well, except at the quarry-hole. That beats me. It’s only one hundred and twenty-five yards, so that I’m ashamed to use a driver; and with an iron I go in--I go in too often.”

“Everybody goes in at times,” Cutting remarked encouragingly; “it’s a sort of nerve hazard, you know.”

“I go in more than ‘_at times_,’” said the lawyer. “Last Saturday I lost sixteen balls there--and my self-respect. That’s too much, isn’t it?”

Cutting looked severely away at the portrait of Chief Justice Marshall. “Yes,” he said; “that is rather often.” The idea of Mr. Heminway profanely filling up the hill quarry with golf-balls appealed to him. “Still,” he went on, “you must pardon me, but I don’t think it could have been because your clubs were too light.”

“Well,” demanded the lawyer, “what do I do that’s wrong?”

Cutting looked him over critically. “Of course I’ve never seen you play,” he said. “I should judge, though, that you hit too hard, for one thing.”

“I suppose I do,” said the lawyer. “I get irritated. It appears so simple.”

“You see,” Cutting continued, “there are three things that you ought always to keep in mind--”

There was a rap on the door, and a clerk put his head in.

“Mr. Pendleton,” he began, mentioning the banker’s name.

The lawyer waved him out. “I’m busy,” he said; “tell him I’ll see him directly. Three things?” he repeated, turning to Cutting. “What are they?”

“In the first place,” said the young man, “when you swing, you must keep your arms away, and you mustn’t draw back with your body. Your head mustn’t move from side to side.”

The lawyer looked puzzled.

“Fancy a rod running down your head and spine into the ground. Now that makes your neck a sort of pivot to turn on when you swing. It’s like this.” He took the club and illustrated his idea. “A good way to practise,” he added, “is to stand with your back to the sun and watch your shadow. You can tell then if your head moves.”

“That’s ingenious,” observed Mr. Heminway. He looked about the room as if he expected to find the sun in one of the corners. The awnings were down, and only a subdued light filtered in.

“We might manage with an electric light,” he suggested. He turned on his desk-lamp, and arranged it on the top of the desk so that it cast its glare on the floor. Then he pulled down the window-shade.

“That’s good,” said Cutting, “only it’s rather weak. Watch the shadow of my head.” He began swinging with the mashie.

“I see,” said Mr. Heminway; “that’s very ingenious.”

“It insures an even swing,” said Cutting. “Now, the next thing,” he went on, “is to come back slowly and not too far. That’s the great trick about iron shots especially. You can hardly come back too slowly at first. All the golf-books will tell you that. It’s put very well in McPherson’s ‘Golf Lessons.’”

Mr. Heminway looked over the books on his desk. “I know I bought McPherson,” he said. “I think I lent it to Anson. He’s insane about the game.” He rang his bell, and a boy appeared.

“Tell Mr. Anson that I want McPherson’s ‘Golf Lessons,’” he said.

“You see,” Cutting went on, “you get just as much power and more accuracy.” He illustrated the half-swing several times. “A stroke like that, well carried through, will give you a hundred and twenty-five yards. I have a mashie with which I sometimes get a hundred and fifty.”

The lawyer stretched out his hand for the club. “That looks simple,” he said; “let me try it.”

Just then the boy came back with the book and a note. The note was from the banker. “He told me to be sure and have you read it right off,” said the boy.

“All right,” said Mr. Heminway. He put the note on his desk. “Tell him that I shall be at liberty in a minute.”

“I really ought to be going,” said Cutting; “you are very busy.”

“Sit down,” said the lawyer. “I want to get the hang of this swing. That was a pretty good one,” he said, after a pause. “Did I do anything wrong?”

“No,” said Cutting; “only you came back too fast, and pumped up and down instead of taking it smoothly; and you moved your head. Keep your eyes on your shadow as if it were the golf-ball. That’s better,” he added.

The next instant there was a heavy chug, and the fourteen-ounce mashie bit the nap off a patch of carpet.

There was a commotion in the anteroom, but Mr. Heminway seemed not to hear it.

“I was keeping my eyes on the shadow that time,” he said.

Cutting laughed sympathetically. “I know it’s pretty hard. You have to remember about seven different things at once. It’s bad for the carpet, though. You ought to have a door-mat. A door-mat is a good thing to practise on. The fiber gives very much the same surface as turf.”

Mr. Heminway rang his bell again. “Joseph,” he said, “bring the door-mat here. Tell Mr. Lansing to get a new one for the outer office, and leave this one.” The boy came back with the mat. The lawyer kicked it into position, and began again. “This _is_ better,” he observed. “I’ll keep it here till I learn.”

“That’s the only way to do,” said Cutting. “Go in to win. If you practise every day with a proper club, you’ll get the hang of it in a month or two. But you _must_ use a light club.”

Mr. Heminway stopped. “A month or two?” he asked.

“Why, yes,” said Cutting. “For a large and rather stout man, you are very active. I’ve no doubt, if you give your mind to it, you can show pretty decent form in a couple of months. You ought to practise with your coat off, though; it binds you.”

The lawyer’s mouth became grim, but he took off his coat. There was an office rule against shirt-sleeves.

Here the office boy appeared again, and the great man glared at him.

“Mrs. Carrington,” said Joseph. “She says she’s got to see you about important business, and she can’t wait, and she’s going to sail for Europe to-morrow morning.”

“Tell Mrs. Carrington,” said Mr. Heminway, “that I shall see her as soon as I am at leisure.”

The boy withdrew hastily.

The lawyer took his stance by the door-mat again, and began to swing.

Cutting now settled himself in a chair, and lighted a cigarette.

“That’s better,” he said presently, “much better. You’re getting the trick.”

Mr. Heminway stopped for a minute, and straightened up. He was beginning to puff. “I think I begin to see how that’s done,” he said. “It’s simple when you get the knack of it. Cutting, come down and stop next Sunday with me in the country, and we’ll go over the course. I sha’n’t be able to give you much of a game, but there are some fellows down there who can; and I want you to show me how to get over that quarry-hole.”

“I should like to very much,” said Cutting. He meant this. The girl who was going to be Mrs. Cutting was stopping at the other Heminways’, who had the place next.

“The last time I played that quarry-hole,” the lawyer went on, “I took twenty-seven for it. And it’s all in that swing,” he muttered. He crossed over to the rug, and went to work again. “Criticize me now,” he said. “How’s this?”

Cutting leaned back in his chair.

“Oh, you must carry it through better,” he said. “Let your left arm take it right out. You’re cramped. You’re gripping too tightly. Try it without gripping with your right hand at all. You’ll get the idea of the finish. That’s better. Now right through with it! Oh, Lord!” he gasped.

There was a crash of glass, then a great thump, and a hubbub of screams and masculine exclamations. The heavy club had slipped from the lawyer’s hand and had sailed through the glass door into the middle of the waiting-room.

The great lawyer hurriedly put on his coat. “I suppose I’ll have to straighten things out in there,” he observed. “But that was the idea, wasn’t it--right out!” There was a twinkle in his eye.

He opened the door. In a circle around the fourteen-ounce mashie stood his clients.

“Oh, just a moment,” broke in Cutting. “Can’t that Reed case go over the term? My uncle wanted me to ask for a postponement.”

“Certainly,” said the lawyer. “Tell the managing clerk to sign the stipulation. I’ll meet you Saturday at the three-ten train.” Then he put on his cross-questioning expression. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said calmly, “whom have I the honor of seeing first?”

Who that person was Cutting never knew, because he at once slipped out through the private way, and got his paper signed. Then he went back to his office, crossed over to his desk, and took up the newspaper again. There were the scores of the medal play at Shinnecock, in which he was interested.

Presently Mr. Bruce happened out of his private room, and Mr. Smith coincidently happened out of his.

“By the way, Mr. Cutting,” said Bruce, amiably, “how about that Reed matter?”

“It’s put over the term,” said Cutting, without looking up. “Here’s the stipulation. Hello!” he added, half aloud, “here’s Broadhead winning at Newport, four up and three to play. That’s funny. Did you see that, Bruce? He’s been all off his form, too.”

“No,” said Mr. Bruce.

The junior partners retired with the stipulation, and were closeted together for a long time. It puzzled them. They were impressed, and to each other they admitted it.

Finally Mr. Smith rose and said that he had to go. “Perhaps we have made a mistake,” he observed. “There must be something to this boy. He got this.” He waved the stipulation.

“We had better give him more of a chance,” said Bruce.

And they did. Gradually they began to comprehend him, and then to like him.

As for Cutting, he unbent himself, and got interested in his work. At the end of the six months they spoke well of him, so that he continued on in the firm; and when he was married they sent him a very beautiful etching of “The Angelus.”

THE MEDAL OF HONOR STORY

VI

THE MEDAL OF HONOR STORY

Nature had made Caswell short, swarthy, high cheek-boned, with dark hair and narrow dark eyes, and for ten years he had been sitting at the feet of the Priest of Lake Biwa, dressing as the Japanese dress, leading their life, and thinking as far as an Occidental may their thought. In these ten years the inscrutable expression of the East had begun to dawn in his eyes. His cheek-bones grew more prominent. His nose had begun to flatten. He was a text for those who hold that the soul makes the face. He could also sit upon the floor with his feet tucked under him for indefinite periods, so that it was not strange that among the Japanese he often passed as Nipon Jin (Japanese man).

One May morning he was in the Kin-Ka-Kuji, sitting by the water on the lower balcony of the temple, watching the ancient carp as they slowly wove and interwove among the lily stems, waiting to be fed. He often came to the garden in May because the tourists were apt not to be there then, for they desert Kioto when the summer heat has begun, and it was his habit to come early in the day because the beauty of the place renews itself with each morning’s dew and the fragrance of the new flowers, as if in the first hours of the day a woman should be a girl again.

None of Caswell’s friends knew what the esoterism of Biwa was or was not; whether the venerable one with the shriveled, monkey-like face had a sweeter communion with the eternal than others, or was a deceiver, for the disciple never wrote or spoke of his experience, but it was a fact that he had acquired the calmness of the East and that was much, for he had his reasons for desiring peace. After his decade of meditation he could regard the hurryings of men, the catching of trains, and the yoke of small annoyances to which society bends its neck, as one inside watches the buzzing of unclean flies against the pane without.

He opened a book of verses by a Japanese poet and gazed across the little, many-islanded lake, whose surface was a sisterhood of silver pools, each framed in the new green of the young lotus pads. The bamboos on the opposite bank glistened faintly as the intermittent touch of an unfelt, unsuspected breeze stroked their plumes. The air was sweet with pine and the pungent aroma of maples in new foliage, and with perfumes from unseen gardens.

To Caswell each year of the past ten, “More weary seemed the sea, weary the oar.” Of late the decision had been ripening to shut the door forever upon his old world, and that morning a divine approval of his course seemed to float into his soul upon a tide of peace. He closed his eyes for a time; then he opened them with a fresh thirst for the beauty of the place. Suddenly he started, for he heard a voice. It was a woman’s voice, speaking with a cultivated New England intonation, but literal and unsympathetic. His impulse was to flee.

“The temple is called Kin-Ka-Kuji or Roku-onji,” said the voice, evidently reading from a guide-book, “from Kin-Ka-Ku, meaning golden pavilion. In thirteen ninety-seven Yoshimitsu retired from the shogunate--”

“Auntie,” interrupted another voice, “sha’n’t we shut the guide-book? The garden is lovely enough as a garden.”

This was a woman’s voice, too, but soft and young, with low, resonant tones that brought a thrill to the senses as sometimes comes with the breath of a remembered perfume.

Caswell glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw a party of tourists filing toward the temple on the path along the border of the lake. At the head marched a gray-haired woman with a kind but somewhat aggressive countenance. She carried an open guide-book. At her heels was a fat, squat, shaven-headed Japanese boy, the guide. Behind him there was a girl. He had only an instant’s glimpse of her, but he knew that it was the girl that had spoken; lithe, slender, exquisite in white. He looked across the lake again, but he looked without seeing. The garden was full of the sweetness of blue eyes, the softness of fair hair and the loveliness of a girl’s smile.

For a moment it was as if the priest of Biwa had never been. His pulses throbbed, a choking seized his throat. Then the habit of years asserted itself. With an effort of will his mind grew calm and the vision faded. Again he saw the lake, the bamboos upon the opposite shore, the carp in the water weeds at his feet.

“What has the circumstance, the external, to do with the abiding me, the eternal?” he murmured. Then he looked again from the corner of his eye toward the tourists.

She had stopped and was standing by the water’s edge, gazing across toward the other shore. He saw her mild, wondering eyes animated with the delight of the garden, the broad, low brow above them, the lines of a sweet, firm mouth parted in a smile, the gleam of white teeth, and then behind her, what he had not noticed before, a great-framed youth with tow hair and a frank, kindly face bronzed with a tropical sun. And as the girl gazed across the little lake the youth gazed at the girl.

Caswell brought his eyes back to his book of verses. His philosophy suddenly seemed to have grown more effective. He smiled inwardly, for an Occidental sense of humor slumbered in the ashes of his old self. Then he became grave again. “Am I a thistledown upon the breeze?” he muttered. He repeated one of the mental formulas which the Buddhists of his sect used to compose the mind and open its doors to the all-pervasive soul.

The party of tourists came on and mounted the balcony. They passed him before they noticed him, for he was in the corner at the end. The girl looked at the view and the young man furtively watched the girl, but the older woman spied Caswell sitting on the floor with his feet under him, an open book in his lap, gazing stolidly across the lake. Her curiosity was aroused.

“Who is that?” she said to the fat Japanese boy.

The Japanese boy sucked in his breath and bowed low.

“Yais, sank you,” he said laboriously; “he is, what you say, temple man.”

“Do you mean a priest?” asked his interrogator.

“Sank you, ah, no, not priest,” sucking his breath again. “I sink perhaps priest, some day.”

“Be careful, Auntie,” suggested the girl, in a low tone. “You know so many of them speak English.”

“I haven’t said anything to hurt his feelings,” she answered. “It’s no disgrace to be a priest, for they are not exactly like other heathens. Ask him,” she added to the boy, “if he speaks English.”

The boy had often seen Caswell, but he did not know what he was or whence, except that he was a friend of one of the priests. He put the question. Caswell muttered something in Japanese without looking up.

“He say he spek no English.”

“There,” said the aunt, “I knew he couldn’t understand.”

“_You_ speak very well,” said the girl to the Japanese boy.

The fat boy doubled over in a bow, sucked his breath, and beamed. “Ah, no! Sank you,” he said, “sank you ver’ much.”

“Ah, yes,” said the girl, smilingly. “Where did you learn?”

“At Kioto mission school,” he responded.

“So you are going to be a missionary,” said the aunt. “How interesting! You are a good boy.”

“Sank you,” said the boy, “yais, I am temple man boy; some day, perhaps, priest.”

“Buddhist priest?” repeated the aunt in surprise.

The boy sucked his breath and bowed.

The young man laughed quietly.

“I think this is rather extraordinary,” said the aunt.

“It is rather the rule,” said the young man. “The Japanese appreciate our missionary efforts, only they use them in their own way. It is useful to have a temple boy who speaks a little English.”