Chapter IV: Part 4

Arrived at Jim Burke's small store, the customer scanned the place anxiously, and it seemed to him that its supplies had never been so meagre. He succeeded in buying his lettuce, however, and a bottle of salad oil, and, remembering a can of asparagus tips on his own shelves, congratulated himself upon the attainment of his salad. Some eggs which the grocer swore were above reproach, and some small bakery cakes, completed the possibilities of the place for quick consumption. Brown ran back to the house again, his arms full of parcels, his mind struggling with the incredible fact that under his roof was housed, if only for an hour or two, the one being whom he would give all but his soul to keep.

Entering his kitchen by its outer door he stopped short upon the threshold. A figure in a white blouse, blue serge skirt, and little white, beruffled apron, was arranging his table. The table had been drawn into the middle of the room, his simple supplies of linen and silver had been discovered, and the preparations were nearly complete. In the middle of the table in a glass bowl was a huge bunch of violets, come from he could not have guessed where, even if he had given any thought to the attempt.

But he gave no thought to anything but the figure before him. If Helena Forrest, in the silks and laces of her usual evening attire, had been always one of extraordinary charm, in her present dress and setting she was infinitely more enchanting to the man who stood regarding her with his heart leaping into his throat. The whole picture she presented was one of such engaging domesticity that no bachelor who had suffered the loneliness this one had known so many months could fail to appreciate it. He dropped his parcels and came forward. Mrs. Brainard was not in the room, and the door was closed between the kitchen and the living-room--by accident, or intention? The pulses in his temples were suddenly beating hard.

Helena did not turn. She stood by the table, trifling with some little detail of spoon or napkin, and her down-bent profile was presented to Brown's gaze. As he stared at it a sudden vivid wave of colour swept over her cheek, such an evidence of inner feeling as he had seldom observed in her before, who usually had herself so well in hand.

He came close and stood looking down at that rich-hued cheek, the soft waves of her dusky hair drooping toward it.

"What does this mean?" he said, unsteadily and very low. "This can't be just to make me go mad with longing. For that's what I shall do if I look long at you like this, here in my home--_you_ looking as if--as if--you belonged here!"

He saw her hand tremble as it touched the violets in the bowl, arranging them. It was a very beautiful hand, as he well knew, and he saw with fresh wonder that there were no rings upon it, where rare and costly ones were wont to be.

There was silence for an instant before her reply. Then she turned and looked up, full into his face.

"May I belong here?" she said, very gently.

"Do you want to?"

"Yes."

"You are willing to leave it all--for me?"

"Yes."

"Ought I to let you?" His questions had been rapid, breathless, his eyes were searching hers deeply. He was very near, but he had not put out a hand to touch her. Yet no woman, seeing him as he stood there, could feel herself the one who wooed, even though she led him on.

She looked away for an instant, while her lips broke into a little smile of wonder at his control of himself. No need to tell her how she drew him--she knew it with every fibre of her. Then she let him have her eyes again.

"Do you think you can help letting me?" she said, and lifted her face with that adorable, irresistible movement which tells its own story of its own desire.

"No!" His voice shook. "Thank God, I don't have to try any longer."

It was no passive creature he took then into his eager arms, it was one who raised her own with the rush of self-abandonment which made his joy complete. Long as he had loved her he had not dreamed of her as ever giving herself to any lover so splendidly. If he had dreamed--he realized with a strange feeling at the heart--he could never have withstood....

It was to be hoped that Mrs. Brainard, in the other room, had found a book upon the table which interested her or, hungry for food as she had professed herself to be, she must inevitably have found the time pass slowly before she was summoned to her promised supper.

Out in the old, dark, oak-walled kitchen, Brown was still putting questions. He had placed his lady in a chair, and he sat on a little old-fashioned "cricket" before her, one that he had found in the house when he came and had carefully preserved for its oddity. It brought him just where he could look up into her eyes. One of her hands was in both his; he lifted it now and then to his lips as he talked. The packages of eggs and lettuce and bakery cakes stood untouched and forgotten on the table. If Helena remembered to be hungry, it was not worth the spoiling of this hour to demand to be fed.

"Can I possibly make you comfortable here?" was one of his questions.

"Don't you think I look as if I might help you make us both comfortable?" was her answer.

Brown looked at the plain little white blouse, at the simple blue serge skirt, then on down to the foot which showed below the hem of the skirt.

"Is this the sort of shoe that working-women wear?" he inquired skeptically.

Helena laughed. "Neither Mrs. Brainard nor I could bring ourselves to that," she owned. "And since you and I are only to play at being poor--"

"We can afford to keep you in fine shoe feather? Yes, I think we can. But you are going to miss a world of things you are used to, my queen--and not only a world of things--the world itself."

"I know. But--I tried living in my world without you--and I failed."

He made an inarticulate exclamation, expressive of great joy, and followed it with the age-old demand: "Tell me when you became willing to come to mine."

"The night you were in town."

"What? Not at Atchison's dinner?"

"Yes. I would have come with you then. I would have come with you from the singing of that song."

"But you--you let me think you wanted me to come back!"

"I am only human. I wanted you to come back. But--I wanted you to refuse to come! If you hadn't refused--"

"Yes--"

"You wouldn't have towered as high for me as you do now. I might have loved you, but--perhaps--I shouldn't have--adored you!"

The last words came in a whisper, and again the wonderful colour poured itself over her face. Brown, at the sight, bent his head upon her hand, and she put her other hand upon his heavy hair and gently caressed it. When he lifted his head his eyes were wet.

"Oh, but I don't deserve that," he murmured brokenly, and put up his arms and drew her down to him. Soon he spoke with solemnity.

"Darling, you are not making this great sacrifice wholly for me? You love--the One I try to serve? You will be glad to serve Him, too, with me?"

"Yes, Donald. But I love Him, I think, through you. I hope to reach your heights some day, but you will have to lead me there."

They remembered Mrs. Brainard at last, and they remembered that Helena, also, had had nothing at all to eat since the hour for afternoon tea. Brown flung open the door into his living-room, his face aglow, and stood laughing at the sight of Mrs. Brainard's posture in his red rocking-chair. As if exhausted by the tortures of fatigue and starvation she lay back in an attitude of utter abandonment to her fate, and only the gleam of her eyes and the smile on her lips belied the dejection of her pose. "It's a shame!" he cried, coming to her side. "Or would be if--you hadn't aided and abetted it all."

"Are you happy, Donald dear?" asked the lady, sitting up and reaching up both hands to him. "Ah, yes; I only need to look at you!"

"So happy I don't know what I'm doing, you kind, wise friend."

"Wise? I wonder if I am. What will they all say to me, I wonder, when they know the part I've played? Never mind! Is Helena happy, too? I hope so, for the poor girl has been through the depths, bless her!"

"Come and see!" And with his arm about her, Donald led her out into the kitchen.

Helena came forward. "Dearest lady, will you stay and have supper with us?" said she with quite the air of the proud young housewife, and Brown laughed in his delight.

"Had I better stay?" inquired Mrs. Brainard, laughing with the man at her side, while both regarded the figure before them with eyes which missed no note in the appeal of her presence in that place.

"Oh, yes, indeed. We've plenty and to spare. Donald paid a visit to the corner grocery not long ago, and we've new-laid eggs, and radishes and all. Do stay!"

"I think I will." And Mrs. Brainard took the radiant face between her soft, white, ringless hands and kissed it as a mother might.

In no time at all the hour had come for the visitors to go to their train. In spite of their protests Brown would have a cab come for them, though it took him some minutes to get one in a quarter of the city where such luxury was rare.

"Time enough for self-denial," said he as he took his place facing them. "Let me play I'm a man of affluence again--just for to-night."

"I'm afraid, Don, you'll always be tempted to call cabs for your wife," Mrs. Brainard said, and suppressed a bit of a sigh; for, after all, she knew what the future must cost them both, and she herself would miss them sadly from her world.

But it was Helena who silenced her. "When he walks, I'll walk," said she. "Haven't I been in training for a year--even though I didn't know why I was training?"

"I think we've both been in training for the year," said Brown. "Even though we didn't know--God knew--and when He trains--then the end is sure!"

When he had put them in their car, and had taken leave of them with a look which he found it hard to tear away, plain and unpretentious travellers though they were that night, he went striding back through the April midnight to the little old house the Englishman had built so long ago.

As he let himself in, Bim came tearing to meet him. The firelight was still bright upon the hearth, and Brown sat down before it, leaning forward to look into the glowing coals with eyes which saw there splendid things. The dog came close and laid his head on Brown's knee and received the absent-minded but friendly caress he longed for. Also, with the need for speech, Bim's master told him something of what he was thinking.

"The look of her, Bim, boy, in those simple clothes--why, she was never half so beautiful in the most costly things she ever wore. And she's mine--mine! She's coming here--next month, Bim, to be my wife! Can you believe it? I can't--not more than half. And yet, when I remember--remember--

"And it seemed hard to me, Bim--all this year--my life here. I thought I was an exile--I, with this coming to me! _O God--but You are good to me--good_! How I will work--how we will work--_we_--"

He got up, presently, and as he stood on the hearth-rug, about to leave it for his bed, a whimsical, wonderful thought struck him.

"I'll never have to borrow little Norah Kelcey any more, for the want of something to get my arms about. Instead--some day--perhaps--_O God, but You are good_!"

* * * * *

THE TIME OF HIS LIFE

"Dot, do you remember Kirke Waldron?"

Dorothy Broughton, daintily manipulating her breakfast grapefruit, her shapely young arm showing interesting curves through the muslin and lace of her morning gown--made by her own clever fingers--looked up at her brother Julius. He was keeping her company at her late and solitary breakfast, sitting casually on the arm of his brother-in-law's empty chair, his long legs crossed, his arms folded upon his chest. His bright eyes surveyed his sister as he spoke, from the crown of her carefully ordered hair to the tips of her white shoes--he could see them from his position at one side, and he observed that they were as white and as fresh as her gown. That was one of the things Julius heartily approved of in his pretty sister--her fastidiousness in such matters. He was fastidious himself to a degree; nothing more correct in its way than his own morning attire could have been imagined.

"Waldron?" Dorothy repeated. "That tall, solemn boy who used to stumble over himself on his way to the blackboard?"

"And then had the rest of the class looking like a set of dough-heads while he covered the blackboard with neat little figures that always came out right; a perfect shark at 'math.' Yes, he's the one. Five classes ahead of us then--fifteen now. We aren't in it, any of us, with Kirkie Waldron these days."

"I've never heard nor thought of him since then," averred his sister. "Do you mean he's made something of himself? I should never have thought it."

"No, you'd never have thought it, because he stumbled over his own feet when he was a kid. Well, let me tell you it's the only thing he's ever stumbled over. He's just been taken into the office of Haynes and Ardmore, consulting mining engineers, and everybody says that'll mean a partnership some day. And that brings me to my point. He hasn't taken a day's vacation for two years. Day after to-morrow he sails for South America to stay six months, looking after the development of a new mine down there in Colombia. He can take to-morrow for a holiday, and I've asked him out--with Bud's permission. And I want you to help me give him the time of his life."

"Me?" Dorothy opened her brown eyes. "Oh, but I can't give you to-morrow! The bridal party's going on an all-day motor trip."

Julius ran his hand through the crisp, half-curly locks of his black hair. "Cut it out. You don't need to be on every last one of their junketings. Get 'em to let you off for to-morrow."

"I can't possibly. I'm to be maid of honour, you know. Irene would never forgive me, nor--some of the others."

Julius frowned. "See here, you're not letting Ridge Jordan get any headway with you, are you? If you are you'd certainly better make him take a day off while you see what a real man is like. After you've had a good look at Kirke Waldron you'll be ready to let Tom Wendell and Ridge Jordan and the rest of those bridal party men go to thunder. I don't suppose Waldron was ever an usher or best man at a wedding in his life, but I tell you he'll make every one of those little society men look like copper cents, just the same."

Dorothy rose from her chair. Her brown eyes surveyed her brother from between heavy chestnut lashes, and just now they were very haughty eyes. Her curving, crimson lips were scornful. "I find it difficult to believe," she observed, "that a boy whom I particularly detested, one of the most awkward, solemn-faced, uninteresting boys I ever saw in my life, can have blossomed into such a wonder. As for Ridgeway Jordan, I like him very much. He may be a society man--which is no crime, I believe--but he is also making quite as good, in his way, as your friend, Mr. Waldron. And I certainly am not going to throw over an engagement as binding as this one to give anybody 'the time of his life.'"

She walked out of the room, cancelling the effect of her haughtiness by turning to throw back a smile at her brother, as ravishing a smile as if he were no brother at all.

Her sister, Mrs. Jack Elliot, entering in time to glance curiously from Dorothy's smile to Julius's scowl, inquired of Julius what might be the matter.

He shook his head. "I don't like the symptoms. She takes it more and more seriously when I hit Ridge Jordan in any way. I like Ridge myself, but I wouldn't see Dot marry him for a good deal."

"I don't believe there is the least danger," his elder sister replied. She looked a mere girl herself. She was immolating herself just now, as was everybody else in the suburban town, on the altar of the Clifford-Jordan bridal party. That the dinners and dances, drives and luncheons might proceed without hindrance many family schedules were being upset. Mrs. Jack's one anxiety at present was to have her charming sister's bloom remain unworn by fatigue. Thus far Dorothy was holding out better than any of the other bridesmaids. "Her colour was just as good as ever, wasn't it?" Mrs. Jack murmured absently, preparing to remove Dorothy's fruit plate. "I don't believe she ate a thing but fruit," she murmured.

"Best thing she could do. After the stuff she undoubtedly got away with at midnight her only salvation's a light breakfast. As to her colour, I enriched it," he explained grimly, "by mentioning my feeling about Ridge. If I thought, after all the attentions that girl has had, that she'd take Ridge Jordan--with all his money! Dot's no girl to care such a lot about money. It's this crazy bridal-party business that's upset her, I'll go you! The thing's contagious. Lord Harry! I don't know that I could look long at Irene and Harold myself without getting a touch of it."

"A touch! You and Sally?" Mrs. Jack smiled.

"Oh, well; that's different." Her brother thrust his hands into his pockets and walked over to the window. "Entirely different. Sally and I were intended for each other from the beginning; everybody knows that. But now--what in thunder am I going to do with Waldron? Tell me that. I've got him to come down here expressly to meet Dot. Of course I didn't tell him so; he's not that sort. And now she's off for all to-morrow with that confounded bridal party."

"Can't he come some other time?"

"I should say not; certainly not for months. He's off to South America for a long stay--has this one day to himself. You see it wasn't till I met him yesterday that I realized what the fellow had become; and then it came over me all at once what it might mean to have him meet Dot just now. I'm no matchmaker--"

"I should say that is just what you are!"

"No; but--'There is a tide,' you know. And Dot certainly has me worried to death over Ridge Jordan."

"But, Julius"--Mrs. Jack's voice took on a tinge of anxiety--"we've always thought well of Ridge. I don't just see--"

"I know you don't. He's not the man for Dot. I want a real man for her. I've got him. Wait till you see Kirke!"

"You seem to think it's very simple--"

"By George, I think it is! I know how he felt about her when she was a youngster: adored the ground she walked on. She never looked at him. I tell you she'll look at him now; he's worth looking at."

"If he's so fine looking he may be engaged to some other girl."

"He's not. I made sure of that," declared Julius, audacity gleaming in his eyes as usual. "Besides, I tell you, he's not that sort. He's no matinee idol for looks; maybe you wouldn't even call him good looking. I do; he's got the goods in his face, handsome or not. I tell you he's a real man. Dot hasn't seen one yet. I'll make her see Kirke--somehow. You wait."

He marched away, head up, eyes thoughtful, lips pursed in a whistle.

Next morning, when three luxurious motor cars stopped at Mrs. Jack's door, Julius was lounging on the porch. It was his Senior vacation; he could be forgiven for lounging. In his flannels, hands in pockets, he strolled down the steps with his sister to see her off, though Ridgeway Jordan was escorting her devotedly. He surveyed her, as he followed her, with brotherly pride.

"That sister of mine has all the rest of them beaten at the quarter-mile," was his inward reflection. "Not much money to do it on, but she certainly knows how to get herself up to look as if she'd just walked out of a tailor's box and a milliner's bandbox. Made that stunner of a hat herself, I'll wager. Fresh as a peach, her face, too. The others look a bit jaded."

Along with these inner comments he was keeping up a running fire of talk with two of the bridesmaids, whom he knew well. His bright black eyes, however, noted that Dorothy's place in the first car was next that of Ridgeway Jordan, and that the face of that young man was soberer than usual.

"Bad sign," he reflected as he turned away, after a hot-and-heavy exchange of banter with certain of the men as the car prepared to start. "When a chap begins to look solemn, sitting beside a girl you know he's in love with, you can be sure he has it on his mind to have it out with her before the day is over. If I could have just got Kirke to her yesterday! Ridge may do it any time now; I can see it in his eye--and she may take him. I don't know what's got into Dot. A month ago she'd have laughed at the idea of marrying him; but now I can't be sure of her. It's this idiotic bridal hysteria that's got her in its grip. By George, she _shan't_ take him!"

An hour later, in his brother-in-law's trap, Julius drove to the station to meet his guest. Kirke Waldron, descending from the train, found his old schoolmate, younger than himself, but well remembered as the imp of the High School, waiting for him on the station platform.

"Mighty glad to be sure of you," Julius declared, shaking hands. "Until I actually caught sight of you I was still expecting a wire saying you couldn't afford even the one day."

"The coast is clear," Waldron answered, returning the grip with equal vigor. "I closed every account at midnight and have my one day as free as air."

"The question is," Julius lost no time in beginning, as the two walked along the trim, flower-bordered suburban platform toward the waiting trap, "what sort of a day do you want? Outdoors, of course; no question of that in hot weather. But--with people or away from them? I can take you to my sister's for luncheon; to tell the truth, she's counting on that. But afterward I have a little plan to carry you up into the mountains to a place I know for an all-afternoon tramp and a dinner at the best little inn in the country. Back in the late evening, a dash down to our river and a swim by moonlight. How does that programme suit you?"

"It's great," agreed Kirke Waldron decidedly. "Nothing could suit me better. Vacation, to me, means outdoors always. And it's a long time since I've done any tramping in the home State."

"I knew you weren't one of the hammock-and-novel vacation sort," Julius said as he put his new-old friend into the trap. "I'm not myself. Though"--he confessed with honesty--"I have been known to sit with my heels in the air for a longer consecutive period than you've ever done if all your sittings were lumped together."

"What do you know as to where I've kept my heels?"

"On the ground, planting one before the other without rest, day in and day out, ever since I first knew you. That's why you're where you are; it doesn't take a soothsayer to tell that."

Waldron laughed. "You're a flatterer," he said.

Julius shook his head. "Not a bit of it. It's written all over you. If I got caught in the middle of an earthquake anywhere, and the ground stopped shaking and I looked around me to find out what to do next, and my eye fell on you out of hundreds bunched around me, I should simply--follow you out of the mess!"

"That's a great tribute," Waldron admitted, "from a fellow whom I used to know as the cleverest at getting himself out of scrapes of all the boys who were resourceful in getting into them."

"Having exchanged large-sized bouquets," Julius observed with sudden gravity, "we will now drive home. Do you know I'm mighty sorry my sister Dorothy isn't there? You remember her, do you?--or maybe you don't. She was just a 'kid' with a couple of long tails of hair down her back. My second sister, Barbara--we call her 'Bud'--was in your class, I believe. She remembers you all right; says she was tremendously impressed by the way you slew the fractions on the blackboard. Bud married Jack Elliot, as I told you yesterday; and a great old boy he is, too, for a brother-in-law."

Discoursing of his family, with occasional mention of his sister Dorothy, Julius took his friend to the Elliot home. Mrs. Jack, fresh and charming, made them welcome. Jack himself, by some happy chance, had been able to come out for luncheon, and the three men found each other thoroughly congenial.

After luncheon Julius contrived a chance to exchange a brief colloquy with Mrs. Jack on the subject of the guest.

"What do you think of him, Bud? Pretty fine sort to have developed from the grub who did the stunts with fractions, with his freckled face turning lobster colour because you girls were looking at him?"

"I can't believe he's the same," Mrs. Jack whispered, looking through the open window at the figure on the porch outside, its side turned toward her. "I haven't seen a man in a long time with so much character in his face. He's not exactly handsome, but--yes, I certainly do like his face very much. I wish--I really wish Dot were here."

"Oh, no, not at all!" Julius objected. "Dot's satisfied with Ridge Jordan, or thinks she is. So are you."

"I have always liked Ridge," Mrs. Jack insisted; "but--well, Mr. Waldron is quite another type."

"Yes, quite another," Julius murmured, and returned to the porch.

Before the two took the train for the mountains Julius managed to let Waldron see a photograph of Dorothy. As a matter of fact; photographs of Dorothy were all about the house, but in Julius's own room hung one which the brother considered the gem of them all. It showed one of those straight-out-of-the-picture faces which are sometimes so attractive, the eyebrows level above the wonderful eyes, the lips serious and sweet, the head well poised upon the lovely neck, the whole aspect one of youth unconscious of its charm, yet feeling a subtle power of its own.

Waldron, his attention called to the photograph, surveyed it with a quiet comment: "I should have known she would look like this when she grew up"; and turned away without undue lingering. Yet Julius was satisfied that Waldron would know the face again when he saw it, as it was intended that he should.

It was a journey of an hour and a half by rail up into the mountain resort where, by certain artfully veiled investigations, Julius had ascertained that the bridal party would stop for dinner. Scheming joyously, he led his companion from the train at a station several miles from Saxifrage Inn, alighting at a mere flag station in the midst of a semi-wilderness. The promised tramp began without the knowledge of the guest as to where it was to end or hint as to what might be found there.

Coats over their arms, the two young men swung away upon the trail--a wide, much-used trail, which could be followed without difficulty. The warm summer air was fragrant with the scent of balsam, pine, and fern; pine needles carpeted the path; faint forest sounds came to their ears--the call of a loon from a distant lake, the whirr of a partridge, the chatter of a squirrel, the splash of falling water. Waldron took off his straw hat and tucked it under his arm, baring his forehead to the spice-laden breeze that now and then filtered through the forest, stirring languid leaves to motion.

"Ah, but I'd like to be just setting out on a fortnight of this!" he breathed. "Dressed for the part, a pack on my back--or a canoe. When I was a boy I used to go on long canoeing trips, following our river to its mouth. I don't like the tropics as well as I do the temperate zones."

"If you weren't such a tremendous grind you would do it now," Julius offered. "A fellow needs a vacation, now and then, if he's to keep in shape."

Waldron glanced at him, smiling. "So he does. But somehow I've managed to keep in shape. I inherit from my father a fairly tough constitution, and also the love of work, the seeing my job through to the finish without loss of time. I suspect that's what keeps me going."

They fell into talk about Waldron's work.

In answer to Julius's questions Waldron told him a good deal about the work itself--little, as Julius afterward realized, of his own part in it. The miles fell away beneath their steadily marching feet, and in due season, by Julius's management, they emerged from the trail at a certain rocky bluff overlooking the distant country, upon which was perched the small but county-famous inn where they were to have dinner.

A string of automobiles stood along the driveway, and among them Julius readily recognized the three with which he was familiar as those which had been conveying the Clifford-Jordan bridal party to and from its places of entertainment for the last fortnight. No sign of the party itself was to be seen upon the side piazzas which encompassed the inn. But this was easily understood. From some distance away the sounds proceeding from a shrubbery-screened point upon the bluff before the inn betrayed the presence of a company of revellers. This was as it should be. Even Julius Broughton's audacity was not to be carried to the point of forcing himself and his friend, uninvited, upon a set of young people already carefully selected and for the time being rigidly separated from the rest of mankind by metaphorical white ribbons stretched to insure privacy.

Julius left Waldron upon the porch and went into the inn to ascertain, if might be, from the management where the bridal party would be dining. Learning, as he had expected, that a private apartment was devoted to their use, he went to the public dining room and selected a table. Being early he was able to secure one in an alcove, looking out through an open window upon the path along which the bridal party, returning from the bluff, would be sure to approach. To this he presently led Waldron and seated him so that he faced the path outside, the vista of distant countryside beyond. The young people of the Clifford-Jordan party were to dine at eight, and it lacked only a few minutes of this hour when they appeared down the path.

Julius had just given his order and leaned comfortably back in his chair when he caught sight of them. "By George!" he ejaculated. "Well, well! so _this_ is where they've come! Been mighty mysterious about where they meant to spend the day, but we've caught 'em. Started in the opposite direction this morning, too--just for a blind. You see there are a lot of practical jokers among Clifford's friends, and their attentions haven't been confined to the hour of the wedding itself. I say, recognize the girl in the lead with the bride's brother, that light-haired fellow?"

Drawing back so that he was concealed by the curtains of the window Waldron looked out at the approaching bevy of young people. Up the path they came, talking, laughing, shifting like a pattern in a kaleidoscope, gay, handsome, sophisticated, modishly dressed, unconventionally mannered, yet showing, most of them, the traces of that youthful ennui so often betrayed in these modern days by those who of all the world should feel it least.

Julius's brotherly eye rested upon his sister, as it had done that morning, with cool satisfaction. Some of the girls looked in disarray, hair tumbled, frocks rumpled, faces burned. Dorothy's simple white serge suit was unmussed, her hair was trim under her plain white hat with its black velvet band, her colour was even, her dark eyes clear. Although Ridgeway Jordan was bestowing upon her the most devoted attentions, his eyes constantly seeking--but seldom finding--hers, she was showing no consciousness of it beyond the little, curving, half-smile with which she was answering him. In a word, her brother felt, Dot was sweet--strong and sweet and unspoiled--fascinating, too, being a woman and not without guile. Didn't she know--of course she did--that it was just that noncommittal attitude of hers, amused and pleased and interested, but unimpressed by their regard, that drew the men like a magnet?

Behind Dorothy and young Jordan one of the bridesmaids, an extraordinarily pretty girl, was laughing hysterically, clutching at her attendant's sleeve and then pushing him away. He was laughing with her--and at her--and his eyes, all the time, were following Dorothy Broughton. It seemed to Julius, as the party came on, that most of the girls were behaving foolishly--and quite all the men. Perhaps it was because they had all seen so much of each other during these days and nights of merry-making that they had reached the borders of a dangerous familiarity. A little tired of one another most of them had become, it was more than probable. Against this background Dorothy showed easily the most distinction of them all; she looked in her simple attire, contrasted with the elaborate costumes of the other bridesmaids, like a young princess reigning over a too frivolous suite.

Kirke Waldron looked, unperceived, out of his window, and Julius, turning his eyes from the picture before him, observed his friend. Waldron's face was not what might be called an expressive one; it was the face of a man who had learned not to show what he might be feeling. There was no mask there; only cool and balanced control, coupled with the keenest observation. But Julius imagined that Waldron's close-set lips relaxed a little as he stared at Dorothy.

The party came on into the inn; the sound of their voices and laughter died away. Some young people at a table near, who also had been looking out of a window, made various comments to which Julius listened with interest.

"Swell-looking lot. Wonder who they are."

"Must be the bridal party they have here to-night. Dining privately."

"Awfully pretty girls," was one young woman's opinion; "better looking than the men. Why are the men in bridal parties never as good looking as you expect?"

"Bridegroom doesn't want himself cut out. He has no advantage of a veil and train; he has to stand out in his raw black and white and compete with the other men on his own merits."

"I wonder if that was the bride, that prettiest girl in front."

"Don't know. Probably. If she is, the chap's lucky who gets her."

Julius felt a desire to get up and explain that his sister was nobody's bride, and wasn't going to be anybody's until the right man came along. Instead he sat still and stared at his plate. As he had watched his sister coming toward him, with Ridgeway Jordan beside her looking into her face with that look of eager hopefulness, he had experienced a powerful longing to go out and lead Ridge away to some secluded spot and explain to him that he wasn't good enough. It wasn't as if there were anything against young Jordan; there was certainly nothing specific. Julius found himself wishing there were.

Upon the bluff in the cool darkness the two young men spent the following hour, enjoying to the full the refreshing, woods-laden breath of the night air, their pipes sending up clouds of fragrant smoke and keeping them free from the onslaughts of the insects which otherwise at that hour would have been very annoying. From time to time Julius lighted matches and consulted the unrelenting face of his watch. They did not talk much; it was a time for silence and the comradeship of silence.

The station at which the tram would stop was not a dozen rods from the hotel. Until the last minute, therefore, they could linger. But at half after nine Julius sprang up.

"Let's go back to the hotel and wait on the porch," he proposed.

The two paced back to the porch, which hummed with talk. The whole small company of the inn's few permanent guests was gathered there, obviously to see the bridal party when it should appear and take to its motors. There was not much to amuse hotel guests up here in the mountains; they could not afford to miss so interesting a departure.

From not far in the distance suddenly a whistle pierced the night air. "I say, that's too bad!" cried Julius low to his friend. "I hoped they'd come out before you had to go and you could meet Dot. Just our luck!"

"We'd better be off," said Waldron, and he led the way. It was a flag station, as he had learned, and he could not afford to lose the train. It would be after midnight before he could get back to the city as it was, and he was to leave the city at nine in the morning for his long absence.

Someone was waving a lantern as they approached the station. The forest hid the track in both directions, but the roar of the nearing train could now be plainly heard.

Walking fast, a trifle in advance, Waldron suddenly turned and spoke over his shoulder: "I suppose my ears deceive me, but that certainly sounds as if it were coming from the wrong direction."

"Your ears do deceive you, of course," Julius responded. "All sounds are queer in the night. Still--by George! it certainly does seem to come from--"

The train, puffing and panting from its pull up the grade, now showed its headlight through the trees. There was no question about it, it was coming from the wrong direction, and therefore, unquestionably, was going in the wrong direction.

"Must be two trains pass here," cried Julius, and he ran ahead to the hotel hand who was still waving his lantern, although the train was slowing to a standstill. "There's another train to-night?" he questioned.

"No, sir. This one's all the' is to-night."

Julius turned and looked at his friend. "Well, I certainly have got you into a nice scrape," he said solemnly.

"It looks like it," Waldron answered shortly. "The thing is now, how to get out of it. We must hire something and drive back--or to a station somewhere."

They debated the question. They hurried back to the office and interviewed the management, which shook its head dubiously. The little mountain resort was far from stations where trains could be had for the city fifty miles away. The inn had no conveyance to offer except one work team of horses and a wagon, guests invariably coming by train or motor. There were three automobiles out on the driveway, but they belonged to the bridal party. There had been other automobiles, but they had all left soon after dinner, their passengers having come for the dinner only, and proceeding on their way in time to make some other stopping place by bedtime. There seemed to be no way to get Waldron back except to ask a favour of Ridgeway Jordan.

Kirke Waldron knit his brows when Julius made this suggestion as a last resort. "I certainly hate to ask such a favour in the circumstances," he said. "But it's a case of 'must.' I wouldn't miss that ship to-morrow morning for any sum you could name; I can't miss it."

"I'll call Ridge out," said Julius promptly, "or--well, good luck! here he comes."

Wheeling, he advanced to meet a slim young man who was hurrying down the wide staircase to the lobby. Jordan's first glance was one of astonishment, his second of suspicion. The reputation of Julius Broughton for mischief, particularly at times like these, was one not to be lightly overlooked. But Julius's air of earnestness was disarming.

"No joking, Ridge," he said. "Mr. Waldron and I wandered over here on a long tramp. Dot wouldn't tell me where you people were going. We meant to take the train at nine forty-five, but--well, you know timetables. It turned out to be an up train instead of a down train. It was all my fault. It wouldn't matter, but Mr. Waldron will miss a more than important engagement with a ship sailing for South America if he doesn't get back to catch the eleven-fifty to town. You see there isn't a conveyance here--"

But of course there was no need to explain further. Jordan was a gentleman, and even if he had doubted Julius there was no doubting the expression in the eyes of the man to whom Julius now presented him. Young Jordan knew a man of serious affairs when he saw one; unquestionably he saw one now. He promptly offered seats in one of the cars.

Waldron expressed his regret that they should be obliged to force themselves upon a private party, and Jordan assured him that it would be a pleasure to serve them, although he said it with one more appraising glance at Julius. He added that he would take them in his own car, that being the only one which had two seats to spare. As Julius had noted this fact in the morning he was not surprised, only grateful that he had not had to scheme for this distribution of the company.

Jordan went to the desk and gave an order, then returned to his party upstairs.

Julius and Waldron retired to the porch.

Presently the party came trooping out, arrayed for the trip. Dorothy in an enveloping white coat, her hat replaced by a particularly effective little rose-coloured bonnet of her own clever manufacture, found herself confronted upon the lantern-lighted porch, as she was about to step into the car, by her brother with a strange man at his elbow.

She looked straight up at him, as Julius presented him. He looked straight down at her, and for an appreciable period of time the two pairs of eyes continued to dwell upon each other. Until this extraordinarily thorough mutual survey was over neither said a word. The rest of the party, diverting themselves with the usual laughter and badinage--some of it of a recognizably sleepy character--took their places, and only those nearest noted the addition to the list of passengers. The other man and girl of Jordan's car were an engaged pair, absorbed in each other, an astute reason for his selection of them to accompany himself and Dorothy.

The rear seat of the great car easily held four people. Ashworth and Miss Vincent occupied two of the places; during the day Jordan and Dorothy had held the other two. Ashworth had already handed in Miss Vincent. The two chaperons of the party young Jordan had throughout the day thoughtfully bestowed in the other cars.

"Put my friend beside Sis, will you, Ridge?" suggested Julius in his host's ear. "They used to be old schoolmates and haven't met for years. He's off to-morrow for a long stay. It's their only chance to talk over old times."

Jordon nodded; there was nothing else to do. He could joyfully have taken his friend Julius by the scruff of his neck and hurled him out into the night, if by some miracle he could suddenly have become that young man's superior in strength. But social training prevailed over natural brute instinct, and it was with entire politeness that he made this arrangement of his guests.

He then put Julius into the seat beside the chauffeur, and himself took one of the extra folding seats, swinging it about to half face those upon the rear seat. In this manner he was nearly as close to Miss Dorothy Broughton as he would have been beside her--nearly, but not quite! To his notion there was all the difference in the world.

Kirke Waldron, understanding intuitively the position as come-between in which he had been placed in Ridgeway Jordan's big automobile by Julius's misreading of the railway timetable, and, as far as that part of the situation was concerned, wishing himself a hundred miles away, was also keenly alive to that which the gods--and Julius--had given him by seating him beside Dorothy. As the car hummed down the long trail from the inn he played his part with all the discretion of which he was capable; and he had learned many things since the days when he had fallen over his own awkward feet on the way to the blackboard. He talked a little with Dorothy--not too much; he talked considerably more with Ridgeway Jordan--but not more than was necessary; the greater part of the time he was silent with the rest, as was most fitting of all in the summer moonlight and the balmy night air.

Dorothy, sitting beside him, reminded Julius, as from time to time he glanced contentedly back at her from, his place beside the chauffeur, of a particularly demure kitten in the presence of two well-bred but definitely intentioned hunting dogs. She was very quiet, and only now and then he caught a word or two from her or the low sound of her attractive contralto laugh.

Just once, as the car whirled through a brightly lighted square in a small village where a country festival of some sort was in progress, he saw her take advantage of a moment when everybody's attention was caught by the scene, and look suddenly and absorbedly at Kirke Waldron's face in profile. But when Ridge Jordan whirled about upon his folding seat, to call her attention to the antics of a clown in the square, she was ready for him with a smile and a gay word of assent. Julius laughed to himself. There was no question that Kirke's face, even in profile, was one to make Ridge's look insignificant. As for the man himself--

The car, rushing on through the summer night, its powerful searchlights sending ahead a long, clear lane of safety where the road was straight, but making the dark walls on either side resolve into black pockets of mystery where the curves came, approached one of those long, winding descents, followed by a second abrupt turn and a corresponding ascent, which are--or should be--the terror of motorists. All good drivers, at such places, hurling themselves through the darkness, sound warning signals, lest other cars, less cautious, be rushing toward them without sound of their coming.

Jordan's chauffeur, sending his car on down the winding hill with hardly appreciable loss of speed, took this precaution, and the mellow but challenging notes of his horn were winding a long warning when the thing happened which was to happen. No accident, but the horror of one which comes so close that it all but seizes its victims, and leaves them weak and shuddering with what might have been.

Another car dashed around the lower turn, apparently not hearing the warning, or determined to ignore it, that no momentum with which to climb the steep grade coming should be lost. There was an instant in which the two drivers glimpsed each other out of the gloom of the unlighted curve; then quick action upon the part of both--lightning-like swerves to avoid the danger--two great cars rocking each on the brink of disaster, then righting themselves and running on into safety, no pausing to let any look back and ponder upon the closeness of the escape.

It was all over so quickly that it was like the swift passage of a hideous thought, but there had been time for every soul in the car to look death in the face. And in that moment of peril there had been individual action--instantaneous--the action which is instinctive and born of character.

Julius himself had sat absolutely still beside the chauffeur, his muscles tensely bracing themselves for whatever might come. Ashworth had caught Miss Vincent, rigid with fear, into his arms. Waldron, throwing up the arm next to Dorothy to grasp her with it, felt her hand leap toward him, and with his free hand seized it in his own.

Staring straight ahead then they saw a strange thing, yet not so strange when one remembers human nature. Ridgeway Jordan had leaped to his feet and thrown one leg over the side of the car ready to jump, when, before he could complete the movement, the car righted itself and he sank back into his seat.

"Holy smoke!" Julius murmured under his breath, and glanced at the chauffeur.

That nearly imperturbable youth grunted in return. His hands were steady upon the wheel, but he laughed a little shakily.

Then Julius gazed back into the depths of the car. He could not see much, for the trees at this point were heavily overshadowing the road, but he made out that Ridge Jordan was sitting stiffly in his seat, with--strange to observe!--his head turned toward the front of the car. Behind him the other figures were still and silent. Julius guessed that nobody felt like speaking; he did not feel like it himself. It had been a little too near a thing to discuss at first hand.

Dorothy, her heart beating in a queer, throat-choking way, became conscious that her hand was held close and warm in another hand. An arm that had been about her, whose clasp she had not consciously felt but now remembered, had been withdrawn at the moment that the danger had passed. But evidently--for the car had now gone a quarter of a mile beyond the crucial point and was running smoothly along a wider and less dangerous highway--her hand had been imprisoned in this strange grasp for some time.

She made a gentle but decided effort to withdraw it, an effort which secured its release at once but brought a low question in her ear:

"Are you all right?"

"I--think so," she murmured in reply.

It was not only the shock of the just avoided danger which held her in its grip, but the other and even more startling revelations which had come with it. Her head was whirling, her pulses were thrilling with the conflict of new and strange impressions. Since three minutes ago a new Heaven and an old earth had suddenly shown themselves.

The low voice pressed the question: "Not faint--nor frightened?"

She looked up at him then for an instant, although she could barely see the outlines of his face. "Not with you here," she answered breathlessly, with the impulse toward absolute honesty with which such an experience sometimes shakes the spirit out of its conventionalities.

He was like a statue beside her for the space of six of her heartbeats. Then his hand again found hers, pressed it in both of his, and let it go; and his quiet speech, the note deeper than before, came once more in her ear:

"I shall never forget that."

They went on in silence.

After a time Ridge Jordan turned about and made a carefully worded inquiry into the comfort of his guests, which they answered with as careful assurances that they were entirely comfortable and confident.

Ridge's voice was not quite natural. A biting shame was harassing him, whose only alleviation was the possibility that nobody--or at least Dorothy--had noticed in the excitement of the part that he had played. He was saying to himself, wretchedly, that he had not known it of himself, that he could not have believed it of himself. How could he have done it--have had the impulse, even, to leap to safety and leave her behind? Had she seen--had she seen? Yet when, after a time, she leaned forward and spoke to him of her own accord, her voice was so kind, rang with such a golden note, that he felt with sudden relief that she could not have seen.