Chapter IX: Part 9

“I have not tried to deceive you, Geoff. Why should I attempt to? But it is so sad that we should waste our lives, when there are such possibilities within us if we would only consent to make the most of them. We have both lived so untrue to what is best.”

This elicited only a contemptuous shrug from Geoff.

Margaret clasped her hands, while a spot of red burned in each cheek. “Why can't we go back?—back into the past so far we shall forget the wretched years we have wasted so wickedly?”

Geoff was excessively bored.

“I presume you are referring to your marriage.” He retorted angrily: “The utter thanklessness in which you hold that piece of luck amazes me. I should like to know what the devil would become of us if it wasn't for Dennie's money. Of course the old fool tied it up with such nasty restrictions one can just get at the income, but I am pleased to be able to assert that I am not ungrateful. I regard your marriage as the very best thing that could have fallen to your lot, and I consider that I did what was honorable. Therefore—your evident dissatisfaction rather astonishes me. Under the circumstances, I scarcely anticipated it.”

He settled himself in a chair, stretching out his feet toward the fender. His handsome head, fine as to shape and size, was thrown back and the firelight fell upon the beautiful evil face. About the eyes were heavy circles. These were the visible traces dissipation had left. A few gray hairs showed among the profusion of dark curls.

“I don't intend to reproach you,” Margaret said.

“I should think not, when you reflect what I have done for you,” he answered coldly.

“But at what a cost—at what a dreadful cost!” she cried quickly, and her voice vibrated with the intensity of her grief.

Geoff was deeply resentful, but offered no further interruption. She would be more pliable with such treatment. He centered his rather sleepy vision earnestly upon the carpet and endeavored to gain relief in partial abstraction.

Margaret crouched on the floor beside his chair, watching the warm glow turn to ashes as in her own heart the gold had turned to gray. There was nothing left.

“I don't mean to reproach you, Geoff,” she said at last. “I have never even told you how hard and unbearable it has been for me—the horror or the haunting sense of sin and shame. Perhaps you did mean it for the best. I hope you did for your own sake, not for mine; I hope you did!—but I have suffered so.

“There has been such a stain upon my soul since the days of my loveless marriage, it would not wear away, it has only grown less since I came here. I wish to forget—I wish to begin again and there is no one who should be so near as you, no one to whom I can so justly look for protection. Shall we not begin again, Geoff? I am so sure we may be happy if we only will, and the life you lead, dear, is such an awful mistake—it can bring you nothing but pain, and to have you come to me worn and jaded, drags me down more than I can tell. I am constantly fearing that serious trouble may overtake you, I live in continual apprehension about you. Is it right that I, who have so much to make amends for, should support this load, too? Can I not grow back into some measure of innocence, without having sin and evil brought forever to me—Geoff—Geoff!”

She looked up appealingly.

His eyes were closed and his breathing proclaimed him to be half asleep.

With a sudden uncontrollable feeling of repulsion she shrank away from his side; then she stood erect.

Her movement aroused him. With a yawn he opened his eyes and glanced about stupidly as though he could not quite remember where he was.

“Really, I beg your pardon,” he said with lazy politeness. “But the heat made me drowsy. Positively I could not keep my eyes open.”

He thought it about time to bring matters to a crisis. He drew himself together and made ready to terminate the interview.

“How much can you let me have? I am aware that your bankers won't remit for a while yet, but can't you do something for me temporarily? As you see, I am abominably shabby and it's no way for a gentleman to appear.”

“How much do you need?” Margaret asked.

Geoff promptly dropped the whine in which he had previously spoken, becoming suddenly and wonderfully buoyant.

“Oh! a few hundreds. I'll spend them well, and I'll agree not to bother you again until your money gets here. I'll hang about quietly until it comes, then you can fix me up and I will bolt the place. Now I call that fair—and you would better”—he grew strangely sinister—“you would better do as I ask or you may get let in for more than the mere loss of cash.”

“I will go to Russell and learn what can be spared.”

“The old cat!”

Margaret left the room. In the hall she encountered Perkins.

“I was coming to find you,” he said. “It's nearly dinner-time and dark as the deuce. I say,” in surprise, “is anything the matter?”

For Madame Dennie's face was more than unusually pale—more than unusually sad.

“Where are you going, Ballard?”

“Into the library. That is I was going there, but if you don't mind, I'll just go along with you.”

“Instead will you do me a service?”

Perkins instantly made a gesture of assent. “Whatever you ask,” he said eagerly.

“It's very little. Please don't be curious, and don't allow your mother or the servants to enter the library while I am up-stairs.” Perkins seemed mystified and she added: “Some one is there, some one I would rather not have you see.”

At this his face cleared. He made haste to say, “I shall do exactly as you ask. Nobody shall enter the library until you are willing that they should.”

“Thank you so very much.” And she vanished up the stairs.

Perkins glared fixedly at the library door, his freckled features assuming a belligerent expression.

Margaret returned immediately and came down the stairs quite breathless.

“Shall I stay here and keep the rest away until he goes, you know?” he asked.

She gave him a thankful glance, and he added:

“There, don't you worry. No one shall disturb you.”

He held open the door as he spoke and shut it carefully after her, so that no portion of a conversation clearly not for him should find its way to his ears.

Ten minutes later when Geoff had taken his leave Margaret found Perkins still at his post, pacing the hall with dignified step. Something akin to intuition informed him it would be well not to allude to recent happenings, so he remarked:

“I think dinner is waiting for us. Suppose we go see.”

It was after dinner when Margaret was alone with Perkins and his mother that she crept close to the latter saying: “I think I shall have to go away.”

Mrs. Perkins let fall her sewing and gazed at Margaret in blank astonishment.

“My dear, you surely don't mean it!” she cried at last.

Whatever traits Mrs. Perkins had inherited from her military ancestors, to Margaret she had been womanly and loving, and the friendless little wanderer had received from her more motherly care than she had ever before known.

“I think,” she began again timidly, and her voice was perilously near to the point of breaking, “I think it is much better for me to go at once.”

“But do you wish to go—that is—must you?” Mrs. Perkins insisted: “Dear! dear! I had never even thought of your leaving us, and yet it is scarcely probable you will be content to remain here always.”

“I fear it is better for me to leave you, but I do not wish to go—it's not that—believe me it's not!”

“Then, my dear, Ballard and I will never hear to it.”

It was then Margaret broke down entirely, and not knowing what else to do sought refuge in Mrs. Perkins' arms and from that safe vantage told of her brother.

“And he is coming back. I—I had hoped he would not, unkind and ungenerous as it may seem!”

“Very well. He shall come here,” Mrs. Perkins said.

“Oh, no! oh, no! you must know—I must tell you that his actions may be hard to explain. They are often reckless in the extreme. I can not make my burden yours. You would grow to hate me if I did.”

“Indeed we shan't,” Perkins burst out. “I'll look after him when he comes. I can handle him. You have no idea how clever I am. You just turn him over to me—I'll manage him.” And he shook his head knowingly, while under his breath he whispered: “If he cuts up and annoys her I'll punch his damned nose!”—which was very violent language for him.

“I so regret—” Margaret began again, but Mrs. Perkins would hear no more.

“There, my dear, we understand perfectly, so don't distress yourself at all about it. You are going to remain here, whatever happens.”

“Of course you are!” Perkins chimed in. “We want you to feel that this is your home and that you are to stay here as long as ever you wish to. The idea!—the very idea—”

“You are so good,” Madame Dennie murmured gratefully. “So kind! It is beautiful to be so loved.”

“It is more beautiful to have you with us, you know,” Perkins remarked, “and to be permitted to love you.”

“If I remain you must grant me one favor in advance.” And she looked at Perkins, seeing in him a victim for the wily Geoff.

“A million if you like,” he answered rashly.

“You are not to lend my brother money. You must promise me this.”

“I shall be guided wholly by you,” Perkins assured her.

This ended all mention of Geoff, but late in the night when they had all retired, Mrs. Perkins was aroused by Russell rapping on her door and entreating her to come at once to Madame Dennie; who was very ill.

Mrs. Perkins found the poor persecuted one crouching down in her bed frightened and shivering, though her head burned as with a fever.

She had had a dreadful dream, and she could not free herself from the nameless fear.

While his mother was soothing Margaret, young Perkins in a disordered state as to costume, but even more so as to mind, skirmished about the hall demanding half-minute bulletins through the keyhole. He was eventually induced to withdraw when it was announced that his cousin was resting easily, and reluctantly sought his room, while his mother and Russell, sitting by Margaret's bedside, discussed the situation in muffled tones.

“It is nervousness,” the maid said. “When you know her brother you will not wonder in the least why seeing him should so work upon madame.” And needing sympathy herself she proceeded to give Geoff a character that made Mrs. Perkins shudder.

Russell was as sure as her mistress had been that he would come back, arguing that the remittance from Paris would prevent his removing himself to any distance until he had his grasp, “his greedy and rapacious grasp,” as she termed it melodramatically, on the money. She also, warming up to her theme, repeated every disreputable anecdote, every questionable transaction with which his name had ever been associated. These, if properly compiled and edited, would have filled a large book and the contents would have been extremely spicy.

So startling was the narrative that Mrs. Perkins reproached herself because of the fatal promptitude with which she had undertaken his lodgment.

At such times, however, she had but to look at the slight figure tossing restlessly upon the bed to feel that for Margaret's sake she would gladly assume any risk. VI

Philip had the street to himself as he walked up-town from the Perkins', where he had been spending the evening, but as he came to his own gate, he saw a man lounging beside it.

It was Lester Royal.

Since the night when they had met for the first time in months, Philip had not seen him, and he had ceased to command any portion of his thoughts in the pressure of work and newer interests, but the sight of the boy leaning dejectedly against the fence revived the memory of their former interview.

“Why, Lester, it's you, is it?” he said with a marked display of cordiality for he was not averse to a little human intercourse at that particular moment. “Beastly cold, isn't it?” he added.

“I am frozen,” Lester said, and he shivered. “I have been waiting to see you for an hour or more. Take me indoors, will you, where it's warm?”

Philip took his hand. It was like ice. “I should say you are frozen. Come along with me!”

They turned into the yard and Philip with his night-key unlocked the house door and led the way up to his room where a bright fire burned in the grate—his one luxury. He pushed Lester down into a chair before it and said:

“Now what's up?”

He saw that his visitor was pale and worn, with dark haggard lines about his eyes, and the hands he held out toward the blaze were thin and tremulous.

“Have you been ill?” he questioned.

The younger boy shook his head.

“What's wrong then?”

For answer Lester cried hoarsely in a voice choked with emotion and grief, “I am done for, Philip—done for! I am dying by inches—I!—and a year ago I thought I should live forever.”

He buried his face in his hands, sobbing like a child.

The spectacle of a man in tears was not at all soothing to Philip. Perhaps there might have been times when he would have done the same thing, but that was no excuse for Lester.

He had done and probably would continue to do a great many things that he could not pardon in another.

“Come! come! this won't do. Be a man,” he said coldly.

He was really very sorry for the boy, but Lester had no earthly right to make such a violent assault upon his feelings; besides he had a lurking suspicion that he was harrowing up his sensibilities with the sole object of asking for a loan. Whatever his object, Lester paid no heed to him, and Philip, after taking a turn about the room, halted at his side.

“I say what's the matter, anyhow?”

“You think I am a baby as well as a fool!” came in stifled accents from the sufferer.

“Oh, no!” Philip remarked politely, “only it's rather unconventional, you know. Just a bit surprising—not to say startling. I am hardly prepared for it. If you could manage to slow up a little I should be very grateful.”

Lester raised his head and looked up into his friend's face.

The suffering that Philip saw in the face before him caused him to push a chair close to the boy's and seat himself. Then with one hand half clasping Lester's, half resting on the arm of the chair, he said kindly: “Tell me, old fellow, what it is?”

“I can't! I can't! You will know some day. You will find out for yourself when—” He broke off abruptly, leaving the sentence unfinished.

“Very well, don't say more than you wish,” Philip answered. It was too serious for any display of curiosity on his part he felt. He gazed pityingly at Lester who looked pale and wan. Thus for a time they sat, neither speaking. At last Lester said:

“I've got to talk with some one—my brain swims with it—for the one idea whirls and whirls till I am dizzy and blind. I am wretched, Philip, wretched; and there is no help for it. I've brought it all on myself. Do you think it very hard to die?”

“Easy, but not agreeable. Why do you ask such infernally gruesome questions?”

“I've got to die.”

“I can't see where you are an exception to the rule. It's expected of everybody—the nasty act of termination. What a vulgar thing death is!”

Lester stood erect—the firelight flashing over his worn countenance. “It's different with me. I've got to die now—now!” With a groan of anguish he flung himself back into the chair while Philip looked at him in astonishment.

“See here. What morbid fancy has hold of you?” he asked. “I must admit I don't like this sort of talk.”

But Lester's face was buried in his hands, only his dry hard gaspings were audible. He gained a degree of control over himself and again faced his companion, saying: “Don't you know what I mean?”

“No, I don't, and that's a fact.”

Lester was silent. Some sentiment of reserve stood between him and the confession he was seeking to make.

“Have you been drinking lately?” Philip questioned gravely.

“Yes—but not to-day.”

“You shouldn't do it. It's anything but good for you.”

“Do you think I am fool enough not to know that?” Lester replied with almost savage earnestness.

“Then why in the name of sense don't you keep straight?”

“I resolve to, and then go and get drunk against my will. You don't know what it's like.”

Philip regarded him sadly. There was a heavy melancholy in the boy's whole attitude that distressed him—a spirit as of dumb submission to the inevitable. It was only lifted when he indulged in his wild bursts of grief.

“What's the good!” Lester continued. “I can keep up for a day or two, but I go back to it every time.”

Philip shrugged his shoulders, saying with a poor attempt at lightness: “I suppose one should not resist the flesh. Our most virtuous moments are those which come when we have tired the devil out within us and are basking in the splendor of the good resolutions that tread upon the heels of satiety.” He would have given anything to recall the words once they were spoken, for Lester shrank from him.

“I didn't think you would talk to me so—not now,” he said.

There was the dull glint of anger in his lack-luster eyes, but it faded away almost immediately. Once more he became stupidly quiet.

“Forgive me,” Philip ventured penitently. “I didn't mean to wound you.”

“It's all right,” Lester said indifferently. “It's all right. I presume you are thoroughly sick of me.

“No, I am not. I'd like to help you if I knew how, but you don't tell me what your trouble is. It's blind guessing with me. I don't know how to give you a lift.”

“It's too late, I tell you. I'm done for.”

“Do you mind explaining just what you mean?”

“I've squandered what should have lasted me a lifetime. I am a bankrupt in brain, body and purse. My God!”—with a gesture eloquent of despair and misery—“I've ruined myself! There is nothing left for me but death.”

And Philip, understanding something of the other's need, said: “It's not so bad as that. You can pull yourself around, but if it's as you declare it to be, you can't be too quick about it.”

“The doctors say not. It's all up with me according to them.”

“Damn the doctors! What do they know?”

“They say it's too late.”

“Siuff. They lie! It's never too late.”

“There, Philip, don't—don't let's discuss it. I am not afraid, but it's terrible. I have thought I had years and years before me, and they were all wasted in a day.”

To his horror Philip saw that his friend was in a measure reconciled to death. This to a pagan like Philip, was incomprehensible.

Now that he had talked more freely, Lester was calmer and his dejection was not so pronounced as at first. Silence had fallen on them and they sat looking into the fire, each busy with his own thoughts.

“Let's talk about when we were boys,” Lester finally said. “You do the talking just as you did when I saw you last. Do you know if I can't sleep nights—and I can't most of the time—I like to think about it: the past that stops where my folly began. In all the years since I came of age, there is nothing I want to remember—it's all agony to me. Talk about when we were boys, Philip—about what we did in vacation. You were always such a good old chap!”

He put his hand on Philip's arm and let it rest there affectionately while Philip in a low voice began to speak of the past,—and at the telling much that was hard in his own nature grew soft. A strange gentleness came into the hearts of both, as Philip talked of their boyhood. When the winding country roads knew the marks of their bare feet in the dust; when, stripped of clothing and shame, they lay lazily upon the hot sand by the river's brim, and afterward took the long walk for home through the scented dusk. Back to the days when they were dirty and happy—when respectability knew them not at all—Philip carried them. And Lester saw in the fire, the red of the sunshine; in the smoke, the darkness of night,—the warm summer nights that were filled with peace and sleep.

Surely, it was better then—and as he listened his head fell over on his shoulder, his eyes closed, while still as in a dream he heard the murmur of Philip's voice, saw the pictures he drew, and then he slept.

Philip moved noiselessly to the table where the lamp burned. This he blew out so that only the firelight filled the room, the firelight and the colder brightness the moon sent stealing in through the windows.

As the hours wore on, he kept his watch at the sleeper's side, thinking and wondering what it all meant and what the end would be.

It was almost day when Lester woke.

“Better, Lester?” he asked.

“Yes. I wish I were back to it. I wish I were a boy again. I am sick of the present, and the future has nothing for me. You know I can't keep from the very things that are killing me. I try and try and then I fail.”

“You must keep from them if you are ever to be all you were, all you promised to be.”

Lester shook his head.

“It will never be, Philip. It is too late—I am done for.”

“That's absurd, Lester. There! I can tolerate any one except the man who differs from me in his opinions. For him I have the heartiest contempt.”

“It's not all cowardice with me,” Lester said miserably. “Now that the time has gone forever, I want what I have never had. I am desperately sick of myself.”

He looked at Philip wistfully, and the remembrance was torture to Philip long afterward. “Did you ever want to be good? Can you imagine what this desire is in a fellow like me?”

“Why do you stir me up on these lines of sloppy sentiment?” Philip retorted. “No, I never want to be good. My digestion is perfect. Piety does very well for children and invalids.”

Lester made no response to this and his friend added in an injured but more temperate tone: “You talk like a man on his death-bed. I can only give you temporal consolation. I can only tell you what seems to me the wisest course to pursue.”

“Perhaps I am nearer that than you think for—nearer my death-bed,” the boy answered, helplessly, drearily.

“Stuff!” Philip cried hotly.

Lester seemed to take small comfort from his words, but Philip made a last attempt to cheer him up. “As to the doctors,” he said, “you can't depend on them; and that about your dying is rank nonsense. If folly and sin were so fatal, our race would have become extinct long ago. You may be in a very bad way—I don't say you are not, but anything is possible in this world. You are more apt to get well than to die. You made a mistake, though, when you consulted a doctor. As long as a man can remain in ignorance of those operations that are going on inside of him, he is in the enjoyment of a very considerable blessing.”

Lester turned away.

“Well, I shall go home now if you will let me out,” he said drearily.

“Are you going to keep clear of those indulgences that are, as you think, killing you?”

“If I can I shall.”

“If you can—you must!” Lester's glance checked him:—“I'll walk home with you,” he said gently, and as he saw Lester was going to protest, he made haste to add:

“It's no odds to me that it's late.”

And together they left the house.

A week later it occurred to Philip that Lester had not lived up to the assurance he had given him at parting, that he would come around soon and report upon his troubles.

“Now I suppose I should go look him up,” he thought, “and find out why he has dodged the agreement in this fashion. It's just my misfortune to be of an abominably conscientious temperament which causes me to feel morally responsible for his well-being. I really am conscientious,—even stupidity can not be urged in extenuation. In the present instance I know perfectly well what I should do: I should dismiss Lester from my mind. But I am too much of a conscientious ass.”

In support of the truth of this Philip started at once in search of Lester.

First he visited his home, and found that he had not been there in several days, but it occasioned no alarm, as the boy's habits were decidedly those of a vagabond.

This was in the morning. At noon Philip was in such a state of preoccupation that he got through his dinner without an exchange of hostilities with either of his sisters.

In his search that morning he had encountered no one who seemed to remember having seen Lester recently.

He could not free himself from the belief that his disappearance was a serious matter. The recollection of their last meeting oppressed him with an unpleasant distinctness all at once. He roused himself from his abstraction to say to his mother: “Do you know, I am worried about poor Lester Royal.”

Katherine sniffed aloud at this: “Lester Royal, indeed!”

“I've been looking for him all the morning and I can't get track of him,” he continued.

“Perhaps he is too drunk to be seen. It would be no new thing if he were,” said Katherine.

Philip was using such a character as his sister in some work he was doing, and he was interested in examining her capacity for abusive speech when spurred by anger. Here was an opportunity: “Well, if he wants to get drunk it's his privilege.”

“He should be locked up instead of being allowed to disgrace himself and everybody else.”

“Oh, no, Kate—you would be too severe. What you foolishly take to be a religious conviction is simply a woman's prejudice at seeing a man enjoy himself.”

“Of course you call intoxication enjoyment. Your views are so broad.”

“Are they?”

“You think they are, but if I were in your place I should exercise some selection in the choosing of my associates.”

“Would you really? How nice!”

“My friends should be my equals. Neither low Germans nor drunkards.”

“But men are only equal when they are drunk.” From her seat at the head of the table, Mrs. Southard sent him a look of mute entreaty, and it struck him for the thousandth time that the wrangling in which he and Katherine indulged was hard for his mother to bear. He promptly abandoned the attack, finished his dinner in grim silence, and started out again, bent on finding Lester, but grumbling as he went that he should be so weak as to care about the boy.

He devoted an hour or so to investigating the various resorts Lester was known to frequent, and eventually learned that he had been seen very much the worse for drink on the day following the night they had spent together. Since then no one knew what had become of him. The opinion of the loafer who furnished the information was that he had gone off somewhere to sober up.

“The ass!” thought Philip bitterly. “The brainless ass! Here I get into a pretty state over his woes and this is the extent of his reformation. He goes and gets drunk, which is a good reason for his not going home or caring to see me.”

It was a bright fall afternoon—brisk and bracing—with touches of winter in the air. Philip turned his back on the town. It was just the season for a tramp into the country, and since the greater part of the day had been wasted as far as writing was concerned he proposed to amuse himself.

As he strode along thoughts of Lester would come to him, and in the end pity had replaced his momentary bitterness toward him.

“Poor fellow!” he muttered. “Maybe he can't help it, after all. Unless one has ambition or hope there isn't much to keep one up. I wish I knew where he has hidden himself. If I just knew that, I wouldn't bother.”

He crossed from the road he had followed since leaving the town and kept his way by the river's bank. In the gaunt leafless weeds and bushes choking the narrow path he seemed to see flitting on before him Lester's tragic face.

Soon the town was far in the distance behind him, only the smoke rolling up from the factory chimneys could be seen, and still he tramped on and on, going to the many favorite haunts where he fished or swam as a boy. Each turn in the road marked some event especially prominent in his memory.

In spite of the chilliness in the air he strolled slowly forward for a mile or two, when the yelping of a dog attracted his attention, suggesting possibilities of companionship. He went in the direction from which the sound came. The passing of a bend in the river brought the dog into view, a small yellow creature crouching on its haunches on the bank and howling dismally. When it saw Philip this was changed to short jerky barks and it bounded down the bank and began to tug at a dark object that lay in a thin scum of ice formed about it in the still water near the shore.

From where Philip stood, a little farther down the stream, a curve in the line of its flow placed him almost opposite the object.

“It's a bit of old clothing,” he told himself. And he called aloud: “Bring it out, sir! Fetch it here!”

The dog, stimulated by his voice and presence, barked more furiously than ever, while Philip fell to throwing stones at the thing in the water with the double idea of encouraging the dog and cutting the ice that held it.

All at once the dog, as though frightened, put its tail between its legs and ran up the bank, where it squatted on its haunches and resumed its yelping.

“I wonder,” thought Philip, “if it's my duty to go tear the thing loose, for my esteemed acquaintance, the yellow dog.”

He armed himself with a stick. Thus prepared he made a circuit of the shore. The dog testified to its appreciation of his evident intention in a most unmistakable manner.

“Glad of a little help, are you?” said Philip aloud to the yellow dog as he went toward the object in the water.

“It has a funny look,” he thought, “a very funny look.”

With his stick he poked at it.

The object with a light silly motion bobbed up and down in the water. Philip poked more vigorously. “Come loose!” he insisted. “Come loose!”

Then all in an instant the stick slid from his grasp into the water and glided away 'beyond his reach.

The thing had turned—'turned with a ghastly sickening semblance of life, disclosing a blue discolored hand so poised that it was outstretched straight and stiff. As it swept past it touched Philip.

“It's a man!” he cried, shrinking away. “As I live it's a man!”

The object, turning farther, floated free upon its back and lay so, and he saw the bloated, hideously swollen face of Lester Royal. There was no mistaking it.

Philip uncovered his head and leaned back upon the shelving bank. The dog crept to his side, and he caressed it silently.

There was no sound save that of the river where it fretted against its gravelly bed and the call of crows from the deserted corn-fields.

“It's all up with him now,” unconsciously Philip spoke aloud.

He paused and gazed down upon the body of his friend. The dog crept closer and would have licked his face. This roused Philip from his reverie.

There yet remained for him to summon aid,—men and a wagon, and accompanied by the idle throng that gathers at such times, to go back into the town. VII

Geoff spent exactly a week in the East, where the money Margaret gave to him was judiciously used as the basis for certain operations of a shady nature, and he took to himself several large sums on which he had no shadow of a claim, viewed even from the broad latitudes of sport.

With this influx of wealth he had proceeded to enjoy himself, which duty discharged, he did what his sister had feared he would do, he came and overran the Perkins' household. He brought with him a valet, an accomplished rascal meagerly patterned on his master's more splendid dimensions. This, coupled to the many airs he gave himself, sufficed for a local sensation and Geoff's vanity was pleased in the supremest degree. To be stared at and to excite wide-eyed admiration and envy was one of the pinnacles of bliss he liked to scale when luck was with him. When it was not, he was more than content to slink through several grades of shabby genteel ruffianism, attracting just as little notice as possible. There were four people, however, who refused to accept him at the current valuation, and Perkins led the list—Perkins, who watched him as a cat does a mouse, and who fell foul of him innumerable times each day: while Mrs. Perkins, mindful of Russell's revelations, tried hard, but failed miserably, to be hospitable.

Nor did Philip and the prodigal prove congenial. They amused themselves by a frequent interchange of scantily veiled insults, staying perpetually and perilously near downright trouble of the head-breaking sort.

But the most pronounced ill will was felt by Franz.

No man fancies seeing the woman he loves controlled and commanded, with scant appreciation of her rights, by another, even when that other is her brother. This Franz had to witness, and his soul was not particularly prolific in patience either.

Just how often in the course of an evening he would have liked to take Geoff by the throat rose nightly into a handsome aggregate, for the impulse flourished mightily.

As for Geoff, his selfishness was on the alert. His sister had never known young men and here were three, and of the three, one was unmistakably in love with her, and supposing she should marry again. The thought was like a chilly devil. It gave him the shivers. Clearly Margaret must be removed from the Perkins' home and the Perkins' influence.

Fortunately, at this juncture, Madame Dennie's bankers in Paris forwarded a considerable sum of money, and notwithstanding his many resolutions to the contrary he permitted his habits to get the better of his purpose and with the major portion of the remittance in his possession, vanished from the quiet he had threatened to disturb.

Then was experienced a sense of relief by all. They had been happy until he came. Margaret had imparted to their intercourse the charm of refinement—the gentlest of companionship, and this is the best of friendship and the best of love.

It was a night or so after Geoff's departure. Perkins and Franz were in the library waiting for Margaret to join them. The former was worthily engaged in an attempt to improve the passing moments by vitriolic comments upon the morals of the profligate, a singularly congenial theme with him. He had aired his grievance against Geoff, and was basking in the agreeable glow of Franz's approval, when the door opened and Margaret entered the room. On seeing her he cried as if in astonishment:

“Why! What———-”

For Margaret was gowned entirely in some soft white fabric. He had never seen her in anything but black.

“Why!—I say—” It was Perkins who spoke, surveying her with the greatest admiration. “I say, you never looked half so dear or beautiful!”

Perkins was a privileged character, and said a good deal the rest could not but wish they might.

“Now,” he began again plaintively, “I call this rough—very rough, indeed. I've got to go to the Monroes' and say good-by to Bessie's sister and her two young ones... but, I'll be back in three-quarters of an hour. You see, to-night her sister and the two young ones go home and I have rashly agreed to see that they get safely started on their journey. I don't and didn't want to do this, but Bessie's mother said it would be a nice thing for me to do, and she is a woman you can't say no to. One of these days I must tell you about Bessie's mother, as she is the most remarkable lady of my acquaintance. She is always wanting a franchise. When it isn't a franchise it's an amendment and that's something you add to something else to make it different. She is interested in abolishing whatever she disapproves of, which I think myself would be a fine way to get rid of what you don't like. She is a member of more societies than I can recall, and she won't wear song-birds in her hat—you simply couldn't induce her to. I think if she could she would manage everybody's business except her own, which doesn't interest her. It is currently reported that she talked Mr. Monroe, who was a very superior man with a cork leg, straight into his coffin—from all accounts the place for him, because he drank like a fish. I assure you it's with the utmost difficulty that I keep her from calling on you. I don't think I ever mentioned it, but where Bessie and her mother are concerned I am but little better than ripened fruit. Now I must go.”

And before Margaret could reply to his outburst, Perkins was gone.

Franz had seated himself at the piano, idly fingering the keys. Margaret had taken her place beside the fire. She was rather wishing that Mrs. Perkins, who had slipped out an hour before, “to be gone five minutes,” would return.

All at once, Franz turning from the piano, looked at her as if trying to solve some problem.

Was she still absorbed by thoughts of the past, or did the present speak louder to her? Did her change of dress bear any significance... could she possibly forget the social barriers that stood between them? What a fool he was not to know more of woman's ways. All the locked secrets of her heart were hidden from him, he could but guess and wonder.

“Won't you play for me?” Margaret asked.

It was a new experience, that of being left alone with Becker; she was not quite easy in it. Franz turned to the keyboard. “What would you like to have me play?” he asked.

“Whatever you are in the mood for.”

Franz's fingers rested caressingly upon the keys. “I shall improvise for you.”

Then low and soft, as though each note was a love word, he began—his fingers shaping into sound his thoughts. As he played these changed from doubt to certainty and the blood rushed tingling through his veins.

The all but imperceptible rustle of Margaret's dress caused him to look up. The song of doubt, entreaty and of triumph stopped abruptly. She was standing at his side, pale and breathless, as though drawn there by a spell.

Then the red burned upon her cheeks—she would have turned away.

“Don't go! Don't leave me—you must not! Not until I know!”

He caught one of her hands into his own and held it firmly, but she offered no resistance.

“You must tell me now—now,” he said. “I can wait no longer, Margaret!—Margaret!”

“What shall I tell you?” she asked in tones so low he could scarcely hear. It gave him courage as hers seemed to ebb, for she was pale and trembling.

“That you love me!” he cried, “that you love me, Margaret! That you love me and will be my wife.” And he drew her into his arms. “Margaret! Margaret!” repeating her name in an ecstacy of delight. “Is it so? Do you love me, dear?”

She put up her hand appealingly as if she entreated him to say no more.

Slowly he loosed his arms from about her and she sank down into a chair, while Franz regarded her with a troubled brow.

“Let me think!” she gasped. “Oh! let me think!” Then sadly: “I have lost my friend. I am so sorry—so sorry.”

“Yes,” Franz answered steadily, “you must choose now and forever between your friend and your lover.”

On the table beside Margaret's chair lay the book she had been reading that afternoon. A black bordered handkerchief was visible where it rested in the leaves of the half-opened volume marking her place. In their nervous wanderings her eyes fell upon it and their roving glance was instantly arrested.

The memory of what had been fell like a cloud, blotting out the present.

Franz saw the handkerchief, too, saw that she shrank from it. He stretched forth his hand and took up the bit of black and white. He held it in his tightened grasp until it was a crushed and crumpled heap in his broad palm, then it was dropped to be whirled up in momentary brightness by the fire.

Margaret gave a little cry. What it meant he knew, for it was glad, free and bouyant, as if a load had been lifted from her by the single act.

She put out her arms and Franz sank down on his knees before her. A new feeling surged into his heart. He had felt a man's desire for possession—now, when the victory was won, this was changed to infinite tenderness. He looked up into her face and saw what a woman's love was like, and he was well content.

“Margaret,” he said, “Margaret, has it all ended—the past? Has the new day dawned for us—for both of us?”

And Margaret, her hand resting on his shoulder, answered, “Yes.”

How long they were together after that neither of them knew. The happy moments are those that are never counted. Only misery has time to note the flight of time and to curse its slowness, grumbling at the lagging seconds.

But she had space to tell him of the life she had lived, the life that took its place that night with the things to be forgotten.

Perkins, returning from seeing his friends started on their journey, chanced to open the library door quietly and saw something which he subsequently described to Philip as “paralyzing.”

His face grew very red—so red, that the freckles on it looked white and sickly by comparison.

He closed the door softly and tiptoed to the opposite side of the hall where he stood for a long time lost in profound thought. He might have stood there for an indefinite period had he not heard some one come up the steps and fumble around in the outer darkness for the bell.

It was Philip, and before he succeeded in finding what he was searching for, the door was opened by young Perkins who, seizing him by the neck, whispered hoarsely in his ear:

“Don't utter a sound! Don't!—or I shall strangle you on the spot.”

With no further explanation Philip was dragged back through the hall—Perkins executing a wild dance the while—and up to Perkins' apartments. Here he was relinquished from his friend's forceful grasp, becoming once more a free agent.

“What's got into you, Perkins?” he asked, adjusting his collar and cravat.

“It's settled!” Perkins said excitedly; “they have arranged it—and here I figured all along that I should have to do it for them, which just shows what a billy-goat I am. Aren't you glad, old fellow?”

“Look here, Perkins,” Philip remonstrated reproachfully, “why don't you tell me what you are talking about?”

“You fool! Haven't you got any sense?—Franz has gone and done it!”

Whereat, instead of being offended at such unusual language as applied to himself, Philip clutched Perkins much as Perkins had previously clutched him and they danced madly back and forth across the room.

“I pledge you my sacred word of honor,” Perkins managed to gasp in the midst of their careering, “I pledge you my sacred word of honor I felt as though I should faint—actually faint. I was paralyzed.”

“Why, see here!” and Philip came to a stand, struck by an idea he had long cherished but had lost sight of for the moment—“I thought you were in love with her yourself.”

“So I am. I adore her! positively adore her, you know, but what's a fellow to do when he feels himself thoroughly unworthy, like the dust beneath her feet?”

He folded his fat hands resignedly over the central region of his plump person—their favorite resting-place.

“You see, Philip, I could never satisfy her as Franz can and will; besides it's the most monstrous presumption to imagine even that she could care for a badly freckled specimen like myself. Dear old Franz! he will have his opportunity now, for you know she is very rich, has something tremendous a year, and she will gain a defender who will protect her from that blackguard of a brother of hers. Altogether, it is too lovely for words—quite ideal, you know.”

Philip looked at him admiringly. “I declare you are a good little beggar!”

Perkins winced at the adjective “little”. He did not like it applied to himself. He shook his head reflectively.

“My dear fellow, it could never have been me—and, too, there is Bessie. It has become solely a question of ripened fruit between us. Besides”—manfully—“I have from the first considered Margaret as so far above me that I have never wearied in my affection for Bessie—or her mother,” he made haste to add.

Philip laughed.

“Particularly her mother.”

“I simply include Mrs. Monroe, because it is impossible to leave her out. She is so accustomed to mixing in things.”

“I suppose they will live abroad pretty much,” Philip said. “It's the place for Franz.”

“I say,” Perkins burst out blankly, “that's so, isn't it? You know she thinks him a great composer.”

“And so he is,” Philip replied.

Perkins gazed at him mournfully, blinking his eyes, and when he spoke it was in gloomy accents.

“He will take her away, won't he? Having her here forever is all up. Do you know I hadn't thought of that—not till this minute. Really, it very much distresses me, just the mere thought.” Vouching for the truth of what he said, a tear trickled languidly down his nose, and after hanging reluctant upon its very tip as though undecided as to its ultimate course, fell to his clasped hands where it glistened like a dewdrop in May.

“I—this is very overpowering. I had lost sight of the future entirely in my great pleasure at what has taken place. Bless me! I never speculated on the results—never once.”

He raised his glance pathetically to his friend's face. “It's a damn poor showing for cousins, isn't it?”

The round face with its stubby fringe and blinking eyes shaded by their colorless lashes destroyed Philip's gravity.

“Why don't you get them to adopt you?” he said.

“Do you fancy they would?”—with a gleam of hope. Then as he saw the smile playing about the corners of Philip's mouth: “You are jollying. Please don't, old fellow—not now.”

“We shall have to get our comfort from the belief that this is for their great good,” Philip said.

“So we must,” Perkins acquiesced cheerfully. “What a disgusting pig I am to think of myself when they are so happy.”

Later, on going down-stairs, they encountered

Franz and Margaret in the hall, and Philip, glancing at Margaret as she stood just beneath the tempered light falling from the chandelier, decided he had never seen any one so beautiful—except Barbara, who was incomparable. He divined that now to her, life seemed to hold much—to be so fine a gift.

The two young men left the house together. Philip at first tried to talk, but Becker made his replies with such indifference that he soon abandoned the trial as useless.

Franz's elation was scarcely concealed by his silence or his reserve. It spoke in the exultant heaving of his breast, in his quick elastic step, in his every movement. As they came to his door he broke the silence with:

“I shall go on with you, Philip, and see you home.”

“As you like, old fellow,” Philip answered.

No more was said until they bade each other good night.

Franz turned back alone—but not to retrace his steps. Instead he rambled through the streets of the sleeping town—to find himself—he knew not how, a dozen times beneath her window. So he wore out the night, and when at last the day broke, it found him going in the direction of his home. VIII

Philip was looking from his window out upon the street where the first snows of winter lay slowly melting in the sunshine, when a cab rattled up through the mud and slush. It stopped before the house and his interest became active.

“It's the saintly Anson! This is, indeed, penance for my sins.”

Almost with the thought Anson stepped from the cab and was followed by a gentleman who had no small trouble in wriggling through the narrow door.

Philip, with a groan of disgust, recognized the junior member of the firm employing his brother.

“As if Anson were not affliction enough,” he thought, “he brings Mr. Hale to bore us—especially me, by prosy recitals of his own worth.”

He promptly put himself beyond his brother's range of vision, as he wished to avoid the necessity of going down-stairs until the last moment.

He resumed his work, and for an hour or more wrote steadily on, then he threw down his pen and was resting his eyes, his hands before them, when the door opened and his mother entered the room. He knew who it was without looking up, since she was the only one of all the family who ever invaded his privacy.

“What is it, mother?” he asked.

“May I see you, Philip? Are you very busy?”

There was something in her voice that caused him to glance around quickly. “Why, what is it, mother?”

He left his chair and went to her side. He saw that her face was red and swollen as though from much weeping. “What is it, dear?” He put his arms about her. “Does Anson bring bad news of any sort?”

By a sudden gesture she freed herself from his embrace, covering her face with her apron.

“Oh! Philip, it's awful.” And she began to cry softly.

“But what is it—why don't you tell me?”

He tried to draw the apron away that he might see her face again, but she resisted his gentle force.

“What is it, dear? Is it Anson—is he ill?”

“It's worse than that! Oh! a million times worse!”

At her words the desperate sickening feeling begotten of some great and unknown calamity, the forerunner of actual knowledge, came into his heart.

“You must tell me, mother, or how can I ever help you?”

“I shall, only wait a minute until I am calm, for you must know—and you must save him!”

“I save him! What do you mean? What has happened to him?”

“You won't blame him? Promise me you won't be hard, now before I tell you. That you won't say of think unkind things of him? Promise me, promise me, Philip!” For he had hesitated.

“I promise, mother, for your sake.”

“No! no! for his own.”

“For his sake then. It is all one.”

“It is difficult to tell even you, Philip.”

He put his arms about her once more. “There, you don't mind me, you know,” he said tenderly. “Dear little mother, so brave and good, you really can't mean you mind me?”

It was in a hushed strained voice, as though she feared the shameful secret she had to confide would find a listener in the very air, that she told Philip of his brother's fall from grace.