Chapter VI: Part 6

Not in her early married life, either; although, at first, Darius was poor and the great wagon manufactory was but a daring experiment. In those days she knew all her husband's hopes and plans as well as his troubles. He used to say, often, that she had a good business head. Those days they lived in a little brown wooden house with a five-foot piazza; and Darius mowed the tiny lawn himself; and she put up her own preserves and made all the children's clothes--pretty clothes they were, too; she was a housewife whose praise was in all the churches. But it does not follow that she had ceased to be a leader, far from it; she was the president of the "Ladies' Sewing Society" of her church; and of the first woman's club, classically named the "Clionian." She was a progressive spirit; she it was who introduced the regular motion into the business meetings; before her reign it having been the artless custom of the societies to talk until the discussion either languished or grew too violent, when some promoter of harmony would call out, "Let us put it to vote," whereupon there would be a few timid ayes and a self-respecting silence instead of no; and the measure would be adopted. Pertaining to this custom was an inevitable sequel of plaintive criticism from all the modest souls who "didn't like to speak," but who were full of foreboding wisdom. Myrtle Hardy was one of the few who could speak; and she was considered to speak very much to the point. Those days, she was keenly interested in all the life of a young, hopeful, bustling little western city. She belonged to a musical society and would rise at five in the morning to practice, and she was one of an anxious band of women who had bought a library and were running an amateur entertainment bureau to support it. Then, Darrie was in home-made knickerbockers; Myrtie was a sweet, little, loving hoyden who was her mother's despair because she would climb trees in her white frocks; Ralph was a baby, and the two little girls that died were their mother's tiny helpers, with the willingest little hands and feet. Sitting there in the crowded and noisy theater, a quiver ran over the mother's face. Her friends had forgotten, the brothers and sisters had forgotten, even Darius seemed to forget; but, day and night, she remembered the eager little faces, lighting so happily at her praise, the shining little heads that used to nestle against her heart. The two died of scarlet fever in one terrible week. In that week, the first gray threads had crept into Myrtle Hardy's beautiful brown hair. She was nurse and comforter and helper, then, to Darius. She felt her eyes cloud with the vision of him, as he flung himself on the babies' little bed, sobbing in the terrible, racking passion of a man's grief. "Not now, dear, not now, not till the others are safe," she had whispered; "we have them still; they need us."

She wondered was it after the babies went that she began to drop out of things. Somehow she was so busy comforting Darius and nursing the others back to health, and crowding back her own ceaseless grief out of sight; and thinking of cheerful things to say and new interests for the others, that the library passed out of corporate existence and into endowed rest with hardly a thought from her. Nearly at the same time, the musical society perished in a cataclysm, due to the sensitive musical temperament, and the literary society died of inanition, after browsing through literature from Milton to Dante; and after each member had written one or two papers, thus sating the natural curiosity of the other members. Myrtle did not lift a hand to save either of the societies. She heard the wrathful accusations of the musical warriors, and put in the unappreciated word for peace, but did not resent its failure. She consoled the literary mourners with the reflection that they could read up about things in the magazines or the books of the new library; and masked her secret listlessness with perfunctory regret. Long after, she came to wonder whether it was not she who went into prison, then; rather than the world that left her on one side. Did she not gently but rigidly exclude the friends who would have called upon her and shut herself apart with her own? Continually, she used to pray for cheerfuless, for patience; but it never occurred to her to pray for interest. When other societies were formed, she did not care to join them; she followed her own advice and read apart by herself. By and by, although so much more of a personage, she was no longer beset with invitations. The younger women organized a new club with new methods; and Myrtle Hardy read her books, peacefully, on her wide piazzas, amid her plants and flowers. When Myrtie came back from college, Darius asked her wasn't she going to help Myrtie by joining the club with her?

"Dear, no," said she, blithely, "they are all so young."

"Why don't you get up a club of your own, then, and take in the other left outs?" said he.

"I don't fancy women's clubs much; you know I did belong to them; they are half-baked things, and they take their own improvement with such deadly seriousness. And it is such a smattering that you get in them. A smattering is always forgotten; unless you know a lot about a thing you forget it all."

"Oh, well, you know best what you like," said Darius, easily; "I only thought you seemed a little dull." He dropped the subject; but she repeated his words, often to herself; he never had thought her dull, before. She noticed that Myrtie did not talk of her club. She was puzzled. Outwardly, Myrtie was a handsome young woman with a highbred repose of manner which she had acquired as a college editor and the protector of new girls; inwardly, she was still shy, desperately in dread of awkwardness, and brimming with enthusiasms. Not until she was about to be married did her mother find a trace of her little girl in this gently haughty young creature. And, then, there remained only Myrtie's last photographs and Myrtie's empty chamber, and the weekly letters for her mother's hungry heart. "I am not sure I know her," she would often muse, those days, "I am only sure she doesn't know me!"

Myrtie lived in Chicago; she had married very well indeed; and had a prosperous husband who was a graduate of Harvard and dallied with reform; and there were two sweet little children who called Mrs. Hardy "Granny"; and Myrtie always consulted her mother when they were ill; she was a devoted daughter. "When my dear mother was alive," said Mrs. Hardy, smiling rather grimly, "grannies were not very nice old cronies who smoked pipes in the chimney corner; and 'Grandma' was good enough for any grandmother; now, 'Grandma' is provincial and _I_ am a granny, myself. It is a little puzzling."

The children were all out of the house, now. Ralph, the youngest, was at college; she was well acquainted with him; she used to write him about the books she read and he wrote her about the boys and football; she knew a great deal about football. She lived in a stately new colonial house with quaint little window-panes wherever they would not obstruct the view, and snowy tiled bath-rooms, such as no colonial ever knew; and terraces decked with pink and blue hydrangeas; and dazzling window gardens. Myrtie had been as kind as possible about the house; and Myrtie's taste was charming; it had been an education in colonial history as well as architecture to have Myrtie help build the house; even the architect was deferential to her. Across the street was Darrie's less costly but no less correctly charming house. Hester had done Myrtie's architectural bidding, also. Darrie was the best of sons. She was proud of him; and his father depended more and more on him. She loved his wife; and his children were her vivid delight. Darrie used to fetch her flowers and new plants for the window gardens; and tell her about the children's funny sayings. Darius, her husband, grew kinder and more generous all the time; he gave her a check-book of her own; she told her old friends that she had the best husband and children in the world; and that she was a grateful woman; she duly remembered her abundant mercies in her prayers; and yet--and yet she began to feel herself retired. A most respectable position, that of a retired officer; but, somehow, generals and admirals do not covet it. Nor did Myrtle Hardy. She had been in the center of her own stage; now she felt herself most gently, most civilly, pushed into the wings. Her daughter-in-law, with all her admiration and her dutiful respect, had interests which she never discussed; had a point of view and ideals which were outside her comprehension. She felt fatigued and puzzled when she heard the younger generation's familiar speech with itself. "I am not in it," she said to herself. Darius, too, no longer consulted her; the old fashion of confidence had somehow slipped away; he had not very much to say when they were alone; and he was beginning to call her "Mother." Myrtle Hardy considered. She thought for weeks and thought hard. She sat in her sewing-room, up-stairs, where were the only two rocking-chairs that Myrtie's impeccable taste had allowed to abide in the house. She sat first in one and then in the other of the chairs, her needlework unheeded in her lap; and watched her little grandson and his sister playing while the nurse made an interminable German lace on the back porch; and just across from her window, Hester, her daughter-in-law, sat amid a heap of books, reading and making notes. "That child has been studying for three months, every spare moment, on her paper about 'Scientific Plumbing in the Modern Mansion.'" Mrs. Hardy muttered, with a frown, "well, I hope she will know something, if she keeps her mind! That was not the way we prepared club papers in my day; we decided on our subjects one meeting and we read our essays on them the next; and two weeks was enough for us; now, they spend a half year making a programme and have it hanging over them a year in advance." She watched her daughter-in-law, smiling grimly; then, suddenly, she rose, with the motion of one who has come to a decision. "At least they are not superficial, nowadays," she said, "and perhaps it is better to take one's self too seriously than not seriously enough. And after all, Hester did find out what was the matter with the laundry faucets."

One day she told her daughter-in-law that she wanted to join a class in parliamentary law.

"But we haven't any," objected Mrs. Darius Hardy, Jr., meekly.

"Then get up one," said the one time president of clubs. "Get all you can to join a class, send for a teacher, and I will make up the deficit, in the subscription list."

A parliamentary teacher of renown came. She was also a teacher of expression--that was her poetical word. Hester caught her breath the first time her mother-in-law rose in the class to "speak to the motion." She embraced her with beaming eyes and the prettiest rose of delight on her cheeks. "Oh, how did you learn it?" she sighed, happily, "you are the best of us all!"

"I took some private lessons in Chicago," said Mrs. Hardy--her quiet manner did not betray an unexpected thrill.

"You're _beautiful_!" cried Hester.

After that, Hester always seconded her mother-in-law's motions; and fought in the mimic debates as valiantly on her side as a natural reticence would let her. It was odd (to Mrs. Hardy) what a different relation grew up between them; a sense of comradeship and the pleasures of partisanship, wherein it is not only the leader who exults in the winning fray, the follower has a simpler and a nobler joy. The first natural consequence of Hester's admiration was that she begged her mother-in-law to join her club. Before the end of the year, Mrs. Hardy was elected president of the club; before the end of the next year, she was burrowing in books and magazines, as absorbed as Hester, in the conduct of Great Britain to her colonies. She found herself suddenly interested in the newspapers; Darrie talked politics with her; and they were no longer unintelligible.

"Whew, isn't mother getting cultivated!" Darius whispered to his boy; and they both grinned.

"She's growing handsomer, too," said Darius the younger.

"I hope she won't go to any of those fakirs in the newspapers who paint you all over, so's you crack when you laugh," commented Darius, anxiously, "and, say, Darrie, there's a way they have, nowadays, of burning off your skin and giving you a new skin--they call it being '_done over_'; it must be frightful torture--I'm not going to have your mother's face sizzled up, that fashion."

"She doesn't need it; mother's skin is lovely," said the loyal son.

"Her not needing it is no reason why she won't want it--being a woman--Darrie. Your mother is the most sensible woman in the world, Darrie; but she's a woman. And I'm not sure whether a woman ought to monkey with her age, the way mother is doing. What do you suppose I saw with my own eyes, yesterday? There was mother, swinging her arms over her head and bowing like a heathen Chinee, until her slender fingers touched the floor; and then she went to kicking over the chairs--high kicks!"

"Oh, that's only Delsarte--they only do that to limber up and make themselves graceful. Hetty can kick the chandelier."

Myrtle caught echoes of this conversation; and was base enough to listen behind her sewing-room curtains, giving no sign. It was true that a change had come over her, and that her mirror reflected smarter toilets, a different carriage, and a fresher charm. For one reason, she looked younger because she was much more cheerful. "I am a child with a new toy," she would say to herself. But there is no question that she found a pungent enjoyment in her new activity. One of the perpetual wonders of life is how small a figure the stake cuts in the game. It is infinitely more exciting to make money, for example, than to have it. To keep our souls in repair they need exercise; and the vicissitudes, the emotions, the excitement of a career, happily do not depend on the size of the stage. The great stake, the large stage, count; but they count less than their claims. What comes to more than the pomp of success (as the vulgar name an intangible thing) is the elation of using all one's powers; nor is there any tawdry applause comparable to the rich and fine content of accomplishment. But often Myrtle caught Darius's pondering eyes and wondered to herself what he was thinking. Really, Darius was experiencing the rather piquant emotions of a man who discovers an entirely new creature in his own wife. By a natural transition his thoughts went back to the days when he was courting Myrtle Danforth, and "couldn't make her out;" by an equally natural process of selection, he fumbled through dim passages in his soul, striving to see the relation between this assured and graceful woman of affairs and the joyous young beauty that he had won, the high-hearted comrade of his poverty and struggles, the tender comforter of his sorrows. A hundred little trivial, affecting incidents rose out of the hazy years to gripe his heart. He felt a novel shyness, however; and the only token of his feelings (outside the check-book) was a habit he had fallen into of watching his wife when she was not looking.

Of course, she was aware of it; she was thinking of it at this moment, while the Massachusetts woman behind her unpacked her conscience on her nearest Indiana neighbor.

"And how does Indiana stand?" said the evangelist, finally.

"Well, if you ask _me_," said the Indianian, wearily, "we have troubles of our own; and we are not thinking much about it!"

At this, her companion (also from Massachusetts, but with a sense of humor), giggled and essayed to cover her indecorum by asking Mrs. Hardy if she had attended the industrial sessions. "I have tried to go to them," she confessed, later, after they had become confidential. "My husband is a manufacturer, and I was anxious to see whether they would try to get light on the questions that they are tackling, or would simply form an opinion beforehand and talk about it."

"Well, how did they strike you?"

"They didn't strike me at all; I went to two of them; but the first one, two southern acquaintances of mine lured me out into a committee-room, to tell me the dreadful things Massachusetts was going to do about the color question--not one of which had entered our heads, by the way--and the other meeting, I sat back in the hall and couldn't hear anything, and a Massachusetts friend came in, very calm but deeply excited, and got me out in the hall to tell me the plots of the Georgia delegation. Between them, I didn't hear a word of the industrial question. I'm told Missouri has been studying preventive legislation in regard to woman and child labor for the last year; what did they decide to recommend?"

"Well," said Mrs. Hardy, drily, "you see they were studying for a _year_; if they had taken the subject for a month or two, no doubt they would have had opinions; but as it was, they didn't recommend anything. But what you say about the sessions made me think. I find that there are two classes of delegates, those who are interested in the meetings and those who simply go to the meetings to get a better chance to pull wires. It makes me more at sea than ever about the object of the federation. What do _you_ think it is?"

The Massachusetts woman meditated. She was a handsome woman, a woman with ancestors, it was evident, for the blue and gold of the Colonial Dames badge, and the enamel star and scarlet ribbon of the Order of Colonial Governors illuminated the white chiffon of her bodice; and there were five bars on the scarlet ribbon. "My idea of the object is simply that it is a clearing-house," said she; "and so far it is democratic, for it brings us all together; and I," said the descendant of governors and warriors, "_I'm_ democratic. Look at us. It is not only that we represent so many different classes, we represent so many sections of the country. In fact, about this color question, I feel that it is more important for the north and the south to get acquainted and friendly, working together, than it is for us to give the opportunities of the federation to a few colored people."

"I don't look at it that way, it is a question of right and wrong"--thus the ardent soul from Massachusetts unfurled her banner to the breeze--"are you going to do what is right or what is expedient?" The smouldering fire which had made the deck hot walking all through the meetings, showed signs of breaking out of cover; everybody in hearing craned her neck; there were murmurs of approval and polite sniffings of dissent to the right and to the left. The Massachusetts woman said "Life is a compromise;" and shrugged her shoulders. Mrs. Hardy put up the white flag in a mild sentence: "Mrs. Lowe is calling us to order, I think."

* * * * *

The convention had passed safely to the ballot. The opposition had sprung its mines; and the regulars had discharged their heavy artillery behind the proper parliamentary subterfuges. The undecided voters had, as usual, asked to take back their ballots, and as usual had been refused. The excitement had risen until it showed in white or flushed faces and strained voices, in clapping, and hisses; but the chairman's inscrutable calm never changed, and through it all she held the convention perfectly in hand.

Two men had safely run the gauntlet of ticket takers, and were seated in the lower gallery. They were a middle-aged man, dark, portly, carefully dressed in silver-gray tweeds, with a silk shirt; and a young man, dark, slender, in a lighter suit, with a stiff white collar on his pink negligee shirt. There was an air of distinction about both men; they looked to be men of importance in their own locality, men accustomed to command and deference; but nothing of gentler modesty and meekness than their demeanor can be imagined. They shrank back in their seats and sat close to each other, as one will observe timid children sitting, who have wandered into a strange house.

"You--you don't suppose they will put us out? eh, Darrie?" said the elder, in a low voice, "not _now_?"

"Of course not," responded Darrie, with simulated lightness; "look there to the left, there's Myrtie. That president is a good presiding officer; you would not guess all this row is over her, she's absolutely impartial--by Jove!"

"What's the matter? Do you see mother anywhere?"

"No, sir; did you catch that, the secretary's explanation of the parliamentary question? Pretty clear, I call it; but they're getting in all their points, I observe, working questions of privilege for all they are worth."

"Very clever, very clever," assented Darius; "there's Hester, mother isn't with _her_; you don't suppose mother would stay away, this afternoon?"

"Never; this is the election afternoon."

"Myrtie said mother was very much admired and sought after, lots of invitations; maybe she has gone out to some tea--"

"They wouldn't have anything this afternoon; don't you see how keyed up they all are?"

"I thought I was monstrous clever planning all this," pursued Darius, with a knitted brow; "your mother forgot this was our anniversary, but I didn't; I have her present in my pocket; and the dinner ordered; and I was expecting to surprise her; but if she isn't here--she couldn't have gone _home_?"

"Of course not--there she is, don't you see her? looking fresh as paint!"

A lady had risen, her voice, mellow and clear, dove through the sonorous buzz of the hall.

"Why it's _mother_!" cried Darius, "and if she isn't taking an appeal from the chair; mother has her nerve with her, to-day."

Darrie grinned; but as he watched his father's face kindle, his own changed; he laid his hand on his father's, nodding, softly: "I tell you, mother's _great_," said he.

"That little dark-eyed lady is speaking on mother's side"--Darius was leaning forward with excited interest--"isn't she a pretty creature, she's little--but, oh my! How clearly she puts it; these southerners have a natural gift of oratory. Don't think much of that woman who's trying to call mother down!"

He was as eager as a boy, the man whose cool head and hard sense had won him a great fortune; his eyes glistened, the color crept into his cheek; and he drew a long sigh when the appeal was withdrawn. "Very pretty, Darrie," he said, "appeal withdrawn, but they have got in their work on the voters; chairman had to decide against her own friends, and did it like a Roman soldier. The extraordinary thing to me, Darrie, is how well they are all keeping their temper. Darrie, didn't you think mother's voice was good when she spoke; how'd she learn to speak so well?"

"Oh, she took lessons," returned Darrie, easily; "Hester got her into them; Hester and mother are great pals."

"I know; Hester's a remarkable girl, Darrie; she has always appreciated your mother. Begun again, have they? Started something else while the ballots are counted. Like a continuous show, isn't it?"

He listened with a slackened zest while the questions of reorganization and details of the duties of chairmen pattered through the hour, the rain after the thunder-storm. Then, unexpectedly, Mrs. Hardy made her little speech. It was an excellent little speech, good-natured, full of sense, and with a dash of humor. At first, she was a little nervous, but she was too interested in her subject to be nervous more than an instant. Had she known of the presence of two auditors in the gallery, perhaps her composure had wavered. There could be no doubt regarding their agitation. They turned pale and clutched each other; then, first on Darrie's, next on his father's features, dawned and spread a light of exceeding confidence; with shameless effrontery--considering their relationship--they stimulated the applause; they beamed over the hits; and at the close they were radiant. Without a word Darius held out his hand to his son, who wrung it. Then, they both took a long, long breath of relief and satisfaction. Darius was the first to speak: "My son," said he, "I have known your mother for forty years and have been her husband for thirty-three, but she can surprise me still!"

"Mother certainly _is_ great," assented Darrie, solemnly; he added his own little feather of marital triumph: "Hetty always told me so," said he.

"Look at those women all around her," said Darius, "patting her on the shoulder and whispering; _they_ know. Darrie, I'll bet you anything, there hasn't been another speech in this convention that has put things as clearly as mother's."

* * * * *

Myrtle started when she saw her husband and son smiling in the doorway. Her daughter-in-law was on one side, her daughter on the other, half a dozen of her delegation radiated complacency in her wake. "Hasn't she covered us with glory?" one of the followers called, gleefully to another. And a little din of compliments fell upon Darius' ears. It is pleasant to reflect that all over the hall similar groups were exulting unselfishly over their own prowess and their own heroines. Little did Darius Hardy concern himself with them. He took his wife under his arm with a proud and blissful smile. He waved a direction at Darrie: "You take the girls, Darrie, you'll find a cab, somewhere; I want your mother to myself. Now, Myrtle, if sated vanity can demand any more, I'll give it to you in the carriage!"

A few minutes later, she was gazing, through a happy mist, at the gems on her heart-shaped locket, murmuring: "And I thought you had forgotten the day. And you planning this lovely, lovely surprise for me. Oh, I am so glad, Dar, I didn't know you were there, I couldn't have said a _word_! Did I--were you--was it _passable_?"

"You're fishing!" chuckled he; and he kissed her hand. But he whispered in her ear; and she blushed like a young girl.

Presently he laughed. "By the way, Myrtle, you haven't told me! Have you discovered what is the object of the federation?"

"Certainly," said she, "I don't know what it is for others, but in my case it is to help me find myself--and my husband!"

THE LITTLE LONELY GIRL

The golf links were picturesque; spreading along the shore or climbing through the heart of the island set in the great river; here and there a vista of the huge bulk of the arsenal-shops; walled over the river by the hills behind opulent, bustling little cities, the fair greens jeweled by the sun and dappled with shadow from trees older than the Louisiana Purchase. A breeze shifted the shadows. Willy Butler felt its touch on his wet forehead.

He half turned to take out his handkerchief. In the act he saw her. It was the same girl who had followed the course yesterday. She was alone, just as she had been alone yesterday.

The gallery was bobbing like the crest of a wave over the brow of the hill; the carriages and machines glittered in slow pomp after the rope, while the favorites and their caddies marched over the slope toward the bunkers. But Willy and Dickson had only this one follower, a little lonely figure, slim and straight and nimble, in white linen, whose brown arms and brown face against her dazzling gown made the effect of a Russian eikon minus the gold-incrusted robe. She halted when Willy halted. With impersonal interest she watched Dickson make a strike. At the clean, beautiful drive she nodded approval. Then her black brows met in a slightly worried frown. Willy, club in hand, was aware of the frown. He was aware--in a sort of subconscious way--that she wanted him to play well; and he was acutely aware that he had not played well this afternoon. Even his direction, which had always been his best ally, had not kept its form. Twice had he gone into the rough, losing a shot each time, despite his really hair-raising recoveries. Now the other man was two up, with only four more holes to play. At best Willy could but halve this hole, at best, with a perfect approach and a long putt. "A duffer at golf, like everything else!" ran his own bitter comment to himself. He didn't know why he looked up; swinging his club for a trial stroke on a leaf. Look he did, however, to catch the dark eyes of the little lonely girl intently watching him. If she had called to him aloud "Brace up!" he couldn't have heard the words more distinctly. He almost thought he did hear them, and gave the child an involuntary, half-starved smile.

With the same smile on his lips he sent a faultless approach into easy putting distance, and he felt absurdly pleased because she clapped her hands. They halved the hole. Dickson, the Harvard champion, looked bored as he sank on the bench by the red water-cooler. He had been Willy's classmate a year ago at college, knowing him as the man who makes all the best societies and "leads the life" may know the recluse who makes none; he was conscious of a certain irritation peppering his cool superiority. To think of the millions that shuffling, cowed-looking, insignificant chap would have, while he, Dickson, had to slave on a salary. A duffer who couldn't even win a golf game that belonged to him, because he was rattled! Dickson felt that the ways of Fate were scandalous.

Willy had limped up. The day before he had blistered his heel somehow, and every step cost a pang. He eased the lame foot by resting his weight on the other. His gray-blue eyes, which only his dead mother had ever found handsome, scanned with a certain wistfulness Dickson's graceful, athletic figure and clean, dark profile. His own profile was irregular and his figure was awkward, with arms too long and shoulders too square for harmony; he stooped in an ungainly fashion, as if he had the habit of musing as he walked; his plain face was deeply freckled. Yet as there was a suggestion of strength in the figure, so there was the same suggestion in the young mouth and chin, and something clear and strangely innocent, for a young man, looked out of his eyes. As he stood, every muscle seemed to sag; he appeared utterly spent; but the instant Dickson had driven he stepped alertly into his place and sent a drive like a bird sailing far beyond Dickson's dot of white on the green. Somehow a new uplift of energy and hope had come to him; bless that kid, he would show her that he could still do something with the sticks! He heard her whispered, unconscious "_Beauty!_" This time he kept his head straight, but when the hole was won, he met her smile frankly with another. The next hole was easy. He had steadied; he had his nerve back; every calculation worked; and when Dickson stymied, it was a simple trick (the like of which he had practiced often) to hop over the ball and roll into the hole, to the artless joy of his caddy. "You're going to be the champeen," this worthy told Willy when they trudged on; "guess that young lady's a mascot."

"I guess she is," said Willy. He was sure of it when at the home hole, guarded by a high hedge, Dickson's ball was sliced into the stubborn net of osage-orange roots. When his own ball sailed cleanly over the wall he made an excuse of tying his shoe in order to get another view of "that kid's" brilliant smile. The girl herself went on to the bench in sight of the blackboard. Here she found herself beside an elderly man with a great head of thick gray hair. He was clapping so vigorously that she took him to be Willy's father, and sent him a glance of sympathy. "You been all 'round with him?" said he. "What sort of a game is he playing?"

"Pretty bad until the fifteenth, and then a wonder," she returned calmly.

"Rattled!" he snorted in disgust, as he chewed his cigar out of shape. "First match game. How are the others? What's his chance?"

"He can beat them all if he will only think so," she returned in the same even tone. Her voice was fuller, with a different and more melodious intonation than those about him; he looked up at her quickly, as if from a passing sense of the difference.

"Yes, he's rattled!" grunted the elderly gentleman. "Gone stale, practicing every minute. Too anxious. Wants to please his father by getting a little silverware."

"Aren't you his father?"

"_Me?_ No. His father could buy me up out of his pocket-money. His father is Hiram G. Butler. I'm only his boss. He's learning the steel business with me. I wish I _was_ his father; he's a genius in his way."

"I suppose his father is awfully proud of him."

"Proud nothing!" exploded the stout gentleman. "His father has bought and sold and fought inventors so long that when he discovered that his son was hatching formulas for open-hearth steel he was disgusted. Then at college Will took honors in chemistry and was a grind; and when his father wanted to load him with money, and told him to go ahead and make all the societies, he sent the money back and said he didn't know any boys in societies; the boys who ran after him were only after his money and the other boys didn't want him. The trouble simply is he is too all-fired shy and modest. Takes his father's word he is a failure because he couldn't make their fool societies. How should a fellow who has spent his life in English schools and traveling about with a tutor, and then is dumped into Harvard, be expected to make a splash among those snippy young swells? Harvard's no violet cold-frame! The other boys did, but they were chips of the old block, hard as nails and hustlers from 'way back. And since his mother died this poor chap has had nobody to chirk him up. Father didn't mind until the other boys died. All three in one year; pretty tough on their father. Pretty tough. Ever lose--ur-r!--any one in your family? Then you know. Now Willy's the only child, and his father wants to make him over in his brothers' image. Wants to give him a wife to help! And Willy so scared of a petticoat he walked two hours up and down before the Somerset Hotel at his first college dance trying to screw up courage to go in--and couldn't. Hiram never will get over that. But Willy, though he won't marry to please his father, is fond of the old dictator just the same. And mighty proud. That's why he has worked so at golf. Trying to show he can do some things like other boys, you see. Well, I see that Harvard dude has got his ball on the green at last. Now it's up to Willy--Didn't I tell you? In all right! Shall--Oh!" It was a singularly small, soft "Oh!" which the elderly man uttered, and it slipped out of his rugged lips when he caught the shy flash from Willy's eyes at the girl. He studied her an infinitesimal space before he spoke, and he turned a chuckle into a cough as he said, "Aren't you Lady Jean Bruce-Hadden and aren't you visiting the Brookes?"

She said that she was, rather indifferently, her gaze still following Willy, who was accepting Dickson's congratulations less awkwardly than was his wont.

"I guess Major Brooke has told you about me, Jabez Rivers--"

But ere he could finish the name, she had held out her hand with a kindling face, crying, "Oh, indeed, yes. I'm ever so glad to meet you, Mr. Rivers."

After this it was only natural to present Willy; but it was a bit of a surprise to have Willy, when presented, say, "This is my mascot, sir. I lost the game and she made me win it."

Willy was astonished at his own fluency; but then he had thought Lady Jean a very young girl, not quite the "kid" that he had styled her, but still hardly a young lady. Then, anyhow, she was different. Oh, _very_ different!

His friend was eying him critically, with queer little grunts, according to his fashion. "You're not fit to walk," he grumbled. "Why _will_ young folks wear shoes that don't fit! Say, you take Lady Jean home while I go over to the club-house with the major. And keep the car if you don't find me. I'll go back with Standish. And--I don't know but you better take her 'round the head of the island and show her that motor mowing-machine--lawn-mower, you know; I want her to see it."

He grinned as the young people obeyed him with grateful docility, speeding away in his electric runabout; and bestowed a look of orphic sagacity upon the officer in white undress uniform who had joined him. The officer was younger than Rivers, although not young.

"That is one of the very finest little ladies in the world," he remarked.

To which Rivers returned dryly, "So you've told me. And that's one of the finest, decentest, cleanest fellows in the world with her."

"As you've told _me_."

Rivers grunted. "Go over that lingo you told me about the girl again--or I'll repeat to see if I've got it straight. She's the fifth daughter of the Earl of Paisley, Scotch earl, and poor as even a Scotch earl can be. He has no sons. Distant cousin heir to title. Countess dead. Oldest daughter married to Baron Fairley; second, widow of a bishop; third, wife of army officer. Bishopess manages family. She has brought Lady Moira and the earl over here to give American millionaires a chance with Lady Moira, who is the family beauty; and little Jean, who is good as gold, and has sense, but isn't showy, was just thrown in because an old-maid aunt offered to pay her expenses. Your wife, who knew them in Scotland, asked her to come here while the Bishopess, in New York, picks out the most eligible of the millionaire admirers. So?"

"Yes. Well?"

"Come on over to the club-house; and while we rest a bit, you telephone over to Mrs. Brooke, who only needs a tip to go straight, to _make_ Willy Butler stay to dinner--"

"Oh, I say--" began the major.

"No, you don't say anything. You don't ask questions. You have confidence in your Uncle Jabez and do what he asks. _Not?_"

"I will," said the major, and he went away smiling.

* * * * *

How astonishing to be taking a girl about alone and not be in torments of embarrassment! But this girl was so nice and simple and boyish; not the least like those snippy Boston buds! And she knew golf to the ground; it seemed the most natural thing in the world to ask her if she was going to watch Cleaves play to-morrow.

"I thought I'd follow you," she said quietly. "Do you want to--fire--isn't that what you call it?--your mascot?"

"Will you? Will you really?" he stammered in his pleasure. "I had a sneaking hope, but I didn't d-dare--I feel if you d-do, I'll beat my man; they say he is easy, and then I'll be Cleaves' runner-up and get a cup."

"Why not beat Cleaves and get the big cup?" said she in the same cool tone. "You can if you will. You know perfectly well you can. Promise me you will."

"Here and now?" said Willy, smiling faintly, but the light in her eyes struck a glint in his own. "Done," he added, holding out his hand. Her clasp was cool and soft, but as firm and frank as a boy's.

"And now," said she, "where's your lawn-mower?"

They had reached the head of the island, where there was a beautifully shaven sweep of lawn, but no vestige of mower; Willy's pulses beat a thought faster, and he felt himself a master of stratagem when he suggested their searching for it in an impossible locality at the farther end if the island. He found that she could talk as well about other things as golf. There was no froth in her talk, but she was very witty; Willy, who passed for an abnormally serious young fellow, laughed several times. He confessed to her that it was more like talking to a boy than to a girl to talk to her. "I've always wanted to be a boy," she laughed. "You can play I am one, if you like."

"But I'm afraid you would miss the pretty speeches, and all that."

"I never had any," she answered, with her flashing smile. "Maybe when I'm presented I shall have if we have enough money next year to have me come out. But I don't believe I shall. If you had four sisters all raving beauties and tremendously fetching, and you couldn't even sing a song, do nothing but ride and play tennis--well, you wouldn't expect pretty speeches!"

"Why not? You are pretty, too. You--"

She stopped him with a raised finger and a shrug of her shoulders. He wondered why he had never noticed before what lovely lines pertain to girls' shoulders and how daintily their little heads are set on their smooth olive throats. "Plain truth, you know," said she; "we're playing being two boys."

To save the situation he went on precipitately, "I dare say I know, though. I never was lucky enough to have a sister, but as I had three brothers who did everything I can't do, I know how it feels to--to be out of it."

"But you understand my sisters are splendid and no end nice to me."

"So were my brothers," said Willy loyally.

She looked at him with a quick sympathy. "I know," she murmured. "Mr. Rivers told me. And all in one year. It must have been dreadful."

"Yes, it was. But it was worse when my mother died."

"Oh, yes. I was sixteen when my mother died. And I miss her so now. Don't you?"

"Yes. I was fifteen."

They were both silent. The weight of their piteous memories was on both young hearts, and yet in each was a sense of companionship, of the sympathy of a common pain. The tears gathered slowly in the girl's eyes; she put her hand up her sleeve, but withdrew it empty, and the young man, taking out his own handkerchief, which had surely seen hard usage, looked disconsolately on it before tendering the freshest corner. "It's pretty mussy, but I lost the others," he apologized.

"And you have pockets, too! I lose handkerchiefs to an appalling extent."

"So do I." It was wonderful how many things they had in common--thoughts, opinions, most delightfully human of all, faults. He felt emboldened to say that it must be a great comfort to have a sister; he had always wanted one.

"They're a good deal of a nuisance, most boys think," said she, "but I don't know why. I know I shouldn't have been a nuisance to my brothers and I should rather like to have had one. We might have been pals."

His eyes sparkled; he felt that he was about to make a proposal as daring as it was original; but he made it, clutching the lever under his hand more firmly in his agitation, yet not hesitating. "If we are going to play things, why not play you are my sister? It would be easier than being two boys. You see I should all the time be afraid of forgetting somehow and saying something unbecoming, or too rough, if we played you were a boy."

She had more sense of humor than he, although she was scarcely less innocent; she laughed, saying, "Most boys are rough enough to their sisters. Besides, I don't know you well enough."

"You know me better than any one in the world does," he answered gravely. Their young eyes met and darted away. He thought how lovely her eyes were. Not so much in color or form, perhaps, but in expression. He wished that he could see them that way again. But she had turned away. He was worried lest he might unwittingly have offended her. He knew (for his French tutor had told him) how easy it is for a man to blunder clumsily into a woman's fine reserves and sensitive modesty; it was a great relief to have her turn swiftly toward him again and smile as she said, "But _you_ don't know _me_!"

"Maybe not; I'm asking you to give me the chance."

"Oh! Is that why? Just to amuse you."

"You know better," said he, "for at least you know _me_."

"That was disagreeable of me," she admitted penitently. "I do know better. Please forgive me!"

"Then you will play it?" he said eagerly. "You know I did what you wanted. I promised to win the cup."

His first gleam of masterful daring did not displease the girl; possibly, it obscurely gratified her. "But you must be good and win," she said, conceding the point in the immemorial feminine fashion which would always march out of a surrendered keep with flags flying.

"I will be good and win," repeated Willy obediently.

There fell a little silence, during which they had glimpses of soft green woods, of distant harvest-fields and of the shimmer of sunlit waves. Vagrant odors of new-mown hay were wafted to them when the breeze stirred. An oriole's note rose out of the dim forest paths, poignantly sweet. Presently the lad spoke, not so much frightened at his own audacity as amazed at his lack of fear. "Since you are playing my sister, do you mind telling me your name? Did he say Buchanan?"

"No; Bruce-Hadden."

His face lighted as he exclaimed boyishly, "I _knew_ I had known you! And I have--at least, I've seen your picture. You are Oswald Graham's cousin Jean."

"Of course; and you--you are his Yankee friend at Eton, the one who fought him because he said things about America!"

"And jolly well licked I was, too," said Willy gaily. "I didn't even know how to put up my hands; he made a gorgeous mess of me. And then he hunted me up and took it all back. Of course we were chums after that. I was going to visit him in the holidays, but--"

"But he was drowned, trying to save a child."

"He did save her. He always did what he set out to do. And if I had only been there--"

"I understand. He said you could swim like a duck."

"It's the only sport I'm not a muff at," said Willy dismally. "It's just my long arms. But he, _he_ could do anything. I don't suppose I'll ever stop missing him. He was the only boy friend I ever had."

"But you have men friends now," she said gently.

"Yes." He sat up more erect in his seat. "You saw Mr. Rivers. He's the best ever."

"I've heard about how good he is and how gruff. That's the kind I like; no nonsense about them. I hate sissy men, don't you?"

Willy assented, but without animation; he was diffidently searching his inner consciousness as to whether he himself had not been accused of being a sissy. "Sometimes a fellow seems a sissy when he isn't," he offered.

"Oh, _often_," she agreed heartily; "but the man they want Moira to marry is a genuine muff, a horrid, languid-affected New Yorker who talks like a guardsman and makes fun of his own country. Moira can't endure him; but he offers to settle half a million on her, and we let Effie marry a captain of the line who had only a thousand a year--"

"That was _you_," interrupted Willy fervently. "You did that. Oswald told me--"

"No, it was dad; he couldn't bear to have Effie so unhappy when I told him how she might go into a decline, she felt so wretched. But you see, having let Effie do that and helping her out, we couldn't afford any more detrimentals, although Jimmy's got his colonelcy and the cross and they are ever so happy. But we can't afford another love match. The bishop is dead and Ellen hasn't very much; and Lord Fairley has a big family; he was a widower with five when Ellen married him, and they have two; and _we_ are so deadly poor. It is really necessary, but it's awful. And I am sure she cares a lot for Reggy Sackville, a kind of cousin of ours who is a barrister, and she is sure he will be a judge, he is so clever; but he couldn't support a wife for years and years. Don't you think it's really and truly awful to have to marry _anybody_?"

"Awful--intolerable," agreed Willy. "I simply will not."

"And _your_ father wants you--" She looked so sympathetic that Willy broke right in:

"Yes. I never seem able to do anything my father wants. I can't manage men and make friends and run the business as my brothers did. Now he wants me to marry a girl he has picked out for me; and I've got to disappoint him again. I wrote him I'd try to meet his wishes every other way--I'd accept dinner invitations; I'd learn the steel business; I could ride and run an automobile, and I had been up in an airship, and I'd try to win a golf cup; and I'm taking bridge lessons, but--the hand of Douglas was his own, you know."

"I think that's splendid!" cried the girl heartily. "_I_ don't want to; but maybe I shall have to, to save Moira."

"Don't you do it!" he exclaimed. "It makes me sick to think of their trying to force you into such a thing." He did look moved.

"Don't get into such a wax. They can't force me--do I look like a person to be forced?--and poor old daddy of all people in the world! If you just knew him; we're the greatest pals in the world. But there's Moira. If I were to marry some one with a lot of money, she could marry poor Reggy; and Moira couldn't stand being unhappy near so well as I can."

"Who's the man?" growled Willy in a tone of mingled gloom and fury.

"I don't know his name," replied the girl sadly. "It was like this: Dad met his father, and they became very chummy, and they got to talking. He talked about his son, who is a 'nice fellow' with elegant tastes and doesn't like business. Oh, I know, a perfectly odious person."

"Odious," Willy agreed morosely; "a downright _sissy_! You'd be _watched_!"

"Yes," sighed Lady Jean; "but Moira would be wretcheder because she would always be thinking of Reggy. And besides"--she grew more cheerful--"men never fancy me; no doubt he'll think I'm too ugly and dowdy, and I'm so shy I shall be hideously awkward."

"You're nothing of the kind!" Willy interrupted; "it--it's the most abominable cold-blooded bargain-and-sale business! And your father told you--"

"Oh, no, he didn't tell me. It was Ellen. She was so pleased; she never had any hopes of _me_, don't you know; and now she says they won't need to sacrifice Moira. But if the young man doesn't want me, _I_ shan't be to blame. Now tell me about your girl!"

"There's nothing to tell. I never saw her. I don't know her name, even. Only she's got a title; and she is very brilliant and charming and modest, and I'll be lucky. It's another case of parents butting in. All he wants, he says, is for me to _see_ her; I told him I should run away if I knew I were in the same town! But never mind me. Don't worry, little girl. _I'll_ think up a way to save you all right, all right."

His face, as he spoke, was stern and dark. She was sure that he must have great latent strength of character.

Abruptly she changed the subject recalling the elusive mowing-machine and the approach of the Brookes' dinner-hour. Willy was sure that Mr. Rivers would want her to see the mower, it was--was--so typically American; and if he would take her directly and swiftly home, wouldn't she go on another search to-morrow?