Chapter IV: Part 4

She kissed Cleland Senior, clung to him, caressed him. But for the first time her demonstration ended there; she offered her hand to Jim in flushed and slightly confused silence.

"What's the matter with you, Steve?" demanded the youth, half laughing, half annoyed. "You think you're too big to kiss me? By Jove, you shall kiss me----!"

And he summarily saluted her.

She got away from him immediately with an odd little laugh, and held tightly to Cleland Senior again.

"Dad darling, darling!" she murmured, "I'm glad I'm back. Are _you_? Do you really _want_ me? And I'm going to tell you right now, I don't wish to have you arrange parties and dinners and dances and things for me. All I want is to be with you and go to the theatre every night----"

"Good Lord, Steve! That's no programme for a pretty little girl!"

"I'm _not_! Don't call me that! I've got a mind! But I _have_ got such lots to learn--so many, many things to learn! And only one life to learn them in----"

"Fiddle!" remarked Jim.

"It really isn't fiddle, Jim! I'm just crazy to learn things, and I'm not one bit interested in frivolity and ordinary things and people----"

"You liked people once; you liked to dance----"

"When I was a child, yes," she retorted scornfully. "But I realize, now, how short life is----"

"Fiddle," repeated Jim. "That fool college is spoiling you for fair!"

"Dad! He's a brute! You understand me, darling, don't you? Don't let him plague me."

His arm around her slender shoulder tightened; all three were laughing.

"You don't _have_ to dance, Steve, if you don't want to," he said. "Do you consider it frivolous to dine occasionally? Meacham has just announced the possibility of food."

She nestled close to him as they went out to dinner, all three very gay and loquacious, and the two men keenly conscious of the girl's rapid development, of the serious change in her, the scarcely suppressed exuberance, the sparkling and splendid bodily vitality.

As they entered the dining room:

"Oh, Meacham, I'm glad to see you," she cried impulsively, taking the little withered man's hands into both of hers.

There was no reply, only in the burnt-out eyes a sudden mist--the first since his mistress had passed away.

"Dad, do you mind if I run down a moment to see Lizzie and Janet and Amanda? Dear, I'll be right back----" She was gone, light-footed, eager, down the service stairs--a child again in the twinkling of an eye. The two men, vaguely smiling, remained standing.

When she returned, Meacham seated her. She picked up the blossom beside her plate, saw the other at the unoccupied place opposite, and her eyes suddenly filled.

There was a moment's silence, then she kissed the petals and placed the flower in her hair.

"My idea," she began, cheerfully, "is to waste no time in life! So I think I'd like to go to the theatre all the time----"

The men's laughter checked her and she joined in.

"You _do_ understand, both of you!" she insisted. "You're tormenting me and you know it! _I_ don't go to the theatre to amuse myself. I go to inform myself--to learn, study, improve myself in the art of self-expression--Jim, you are a beast to grin at me!"

"Steve, for Heaven's sake, be a human girl for a few moments and have a good time!"

"_That's_ my way of having a good time. I wish to go to studios and see painters and sculptors at work! I wish to go to plays and concerts----"

"How about seeing a real author at work, Steve?"

"You?" she divined with a dainty sniff.

"Certainly. Come up any morning and watch genius work a lead-pencil. That ought to educate you and leave an evening or two for dancing----"

"Jim, I positively do not care for parties. I don't even desire to waste one minute of my life. Ordinary people bore me, I tell you----"

"Do I?"

"Sometimes," she retorted, with delighted malice. And turning swiftly to Cleland Senior: "As for you, darling, I could spend every minute of my whole existence with you and not be bored for one second!"

The claret in John Cleland's glass--claret forbidden under Dr. Wilmer's regime--glowed like a ruby. But he could not permit Stephanie to return without that old-fashioned formality.

So John Cleland rose, glass in hand, his hair and moustache very white against the ruddy skin.

"Steve, dear, you and Jim have never brought me anything but happiness--anything but honour to my name and to my roof. We welcome you home, dear, to your own place among your own people: Jim--we have the honour--our little Stephanie! Welcome home!"

The young fellow rose, smiling, and bowed gaily to Stephanie.

"Welcome home," he said, "dearest of sisters and most engaging insurgent of your restless sex!"

That night Stephanie seemed possessed of a gay demon of demonstrative mischief. She conversed with Jim so seriously about his authorship that at first he did not realize that he was an object of sarcastic and delighted malice. When he did comprehend that she was secretly laughing at him, he turned so red with surprise and indignation that his father and Stephanie gave way to helpless laughter. Seated there on the sofa, across the room, tense, smiling, triumphantly and delightfully dangerous, she blew an airy kiss at Jim:

"_That_ will teach you to poke fun at me," she said. "You're no longer an object of fear and veneration just because you're writing a book!"

The young fellow laughed.

"I _am_ easy," he admitted. "All authors are without honour in their own families. But wouldn't it surprise you, Steve, if the world took my book respectfully?"

"Not at all. That's one of the reasons _I_ don't. The opinion of ordinary people does not concern me," she said with gay impudence, "and if your book is a best seller it ought to worry you, Jim."

"You don't think," he demanded sadly, "that there's anything in me?"

"Oh, Jim!"--swiftly remorseful--"I was joking, of course." And, seeing by his grin that he was, too, turned up her nose, regretting too late her hasty and warm-hearted remorse.

"How _common_, this fishing for praise and sympathy!" she remarked disdainfully. "Dad, does he bother you to death trying to read his immortal lines to you at inopportune moments?"

Cleland Senior, in his arm-chair, white-haired, deeply ruddy, had been laughing during the bantering passage at arms between the two he loved best on earth.

He seemed the ideal personification of hale and wholesome age, sound as a bell, very handsome, save that the flush on his face seemed rather heavier and deeper than the usual healthy colour.

"Dad," exclaimed the girl, impulsively, "you certainly are the best-looking thing in all New York! I don't think I shall permit you to go walking alone all by yourself any more. Do you hear me?"

She sprang up lightly, went over and seated herself on the arm of his chair, murmuring close to his face gay little jests, odd, quaint endearments, all sorts of nonsense while she smoothed his hair to her satisfaction, re-tied his evening tie, patted his lapels, and finally kissed him lightly between his eyebrows, continuing her murmured nonsense all the while:

"I won't have other women looking sideways at you--the hussies! I'm jealous. I shall hereafter walk out with you. Do you hear what I threaten?--you very flighty and deceitful man! Steve is going to chaperon you everywhere you go."

John Cleland's smile altered subtly:

"Not _everywhere_, Steve."

"Indeed, I shall! Every step you take."

"No, dear."

"Why not?"

"Because--there is one rather necessary trip I shall have to make--some day----"

A moment's silence; then her arms around his neck:

"Dad!" she whispered, in breathless remonstrance.

"Yes, dear?"

"Don't you--_feel_ well?"

"Perfectly."

"Then," fiercely, "don't dare hint such things!"

"About the--journey I spoke of?" he asked, smiling.

"Yes! Don't say such a thing! You are not going!--until I go, too!"

"If I could postpone the trip on your account----"

"_Dad_! Do you want to break my heart and kill me by such jokes?"

"There, Steve, I was merely teasing. Men of my age have a poor way of joking sometimes.... I mean to postpone that trip. Indeed, I do, Steve. You're a handful, and I've got to keep hold of you for a long while yet."

Jim overheard that much:

"A handful? Rubbish!" he remarked. "Send her to bed at nine for the next few years and be careful about her diet and censor her reading matter. That's all Steve needs to become a real grown-up some day."

Stephanie had risen to face the shafts of good-natured sarcasm.

"Suppose," she said, "that I told you I had sent a poem to a certain magazine and that it had been accepted?"

"I'd say very amiably that you are precocious," he replied tormentingly.

"Brute! I _did_! I sent it!"

"They accepted it?"

"I don't know," she admitted, pink with annoyance; "but it won't surprise me very much if they accept it. Really, Jim, do you think nobody else can write anything worth considering? Do you really believe that you embody all the talent in New York? _Do_ you?" And, to Cleland Senior: "Oh, Dad, isn't he the horrid personification of everything irritatingly masculine? And I'll bet his old novel is perfectly commonplace. I think I'll go up to his room and take a critical glance at it----"

"Hold on, Steve!" he exclaimed--for she was already going. She glanced over her shoulder with a defiant smile, and he sprang up to follow and overtake her.

But Stephanie's legs were long and her feet light and swift, and she was upstairs and inside his room before he caught her, reaching for the sacred manuscript.

"Oh, Jim," she coaxed, beguilingly, "do let me have one little peep at it, there's a dear fellow! Just one little----"

"Not yet, Steve. It isn't in any shape. Wait till it's typed----"

"I don't care. I can read your writing easily----"

"It's all scored and cross-written and messed up----"

"_Please_, Jim! I'm simply half dead with curiosity," she admitted. "Be an angel brother and let me sit here and hear you read the first chapter--only one little chapter. Won't you?" she pleaded with melting sweetness.

"I--I'd be--embarrassed----"

"What! To have your own sister hear what you've written?"

There was a short silence. The word "sister" was meant to be reassuring to both. To use it came instinctively to her as an inspiration, partly because she had vaguely felt that some confirmation of such matter-of-fact relationship would put them a little more perfectly at their ease with each other.

For they had not been entirely at their ease. Both were subtly aware of that--she had first betrayed it by her offered hand instead of the friendly and sisterly kiss which had been a matter of course until now.

"Come," she said, gaily, "be a good child and read the pretty story to little sister."

She sat down on the edge of his bed; he, already seated at his desk, frowned at the pile of manuscript before him.

"I'd rather talk," he said.

"About what?"

"Anything. Honestly, Steve, I'll let you see it when it's typed. But I rather hate to show anything until it's done--I don't like to have people see the raw edges and the machinery."

"I'm not 'people.' How horrid. Also, it makes a difference when a girl is not only your sister but also somebody who intends to devote her life to artistic self-expression. You can read your story to that kind of girl, I should hope!"

"Haven't you given that up?"

"Given up what?"

"That mania for self-expression, as you call it."

"Of course not."

"What do you think you want to do?" he asked uneasily.

"Jim, you are entirely too patronizing. I don't 'think' I want to do anything: but I _know_ I desire to find some medium for self-expression and embrace it as a profession."

That rather crushed him for a moment. Then:

"There'll be time enough to start that question when you graduate----"

"It is _not_ a question. I intend to express myself some day. And you might as well reconcile yourself to that idea."

"Suppose you haven't anything worth expressing?"

"Are you teasing?" She flushed slightly.

"Oh, yes, I suppose I am teasing you. But, Steve, neither father nor I want to see you enter any unconventional profession. It's no good for a girl unless she is destined for it by a talent that amounts to genius. If you have that, it ought to show by the time you graduate----"

"You make me simply furious, Jim," she retorted impatiently. "These few months at college have taught me _something_. And, for one thing, I've learned that a girl has exactly as much right as a man to live her own life in her own way, unfettered by worn-out conventions and unhampered by man's critical opinions concerning her behaviour.

"The dickens," he remarked, and whistled softly.

"And, further," she continued warmly, "I am astonished that in this age, when the entire world tacitly admits that woman is man's absolute equal in every respect, that you apparently still harbour old-fashioned, worn-out and silly notions. You are very far out of date, my charming brother."

"What notions?" he demanded.

"Notions that a girl's mission is to go to parties and dance when she doesn't desire to--that a girl had better conform to the uninteresting and stilted laws of the recent past and live her life as an animated clothes-rack, mind her deportment, and do what nice girls do, and marry and become the mother of numerous offspring; which shall be taught to follow in her footsteps and do the same thing all over again, generation after generation--_ad nauseam_!---- Oh, Jim! I'm not going to live out my life that way and be looked after as carefully as a pedigreed Pekinese----"

"For Heaven's sake----"

"For Heaven's sake--yes!--and in God's name, Jim, it is time that a woman's mind was occupied by something beside the question of clothes and husbands and children!"

The boy whistled softly, stared at her, and she looked at him unflinchingly, with her pretty, breathless smile of defiance.

"I want to live my own life in my own way. Can't I?" she asked.

"Of course----"

"You say that. But the instant I venture to express a desire for any outlet--for any chance to be myself, express myself, seek the artistic means for self-utterance, then you tell me I am unconventional!"

He was silent.

"Nobody hampers _you_!" she flashed out. "You are free to choose your profession."

"But why do _you_ want a profession, Steve?"

"Why? Because I feel the need of it. Because just ordinary society does not interest me. I prefer Bohemia."

He said:

"There's a lot of stuff talked about studios and atmosphere and 'urge' and general Bohemian irresponsibility--and a young girl is apt to get a notion that she, also, experiences the 'cosmic urge' and that 'self-expression' is her middle name.... That's all I mean, Steve. You frequently have voiced your desire for a career among the fine arts. Now and then you have condescended to sketch for me your idea of an ideal environment, which appears to be a studio in studio disorder, art produced in large chunks, and 'people worth while' loudly attacking pianos and five o'clock tea----"

"Jim! You are not nice to me.... If I didn't love you with all my heart----"

"It's because I'm fond of you, too," he explained. "I don't want my sister, all over clay or paint, sitting in a Greenwich village studio, smoking cigarettes and frying sausages for lunch! No! Or I don't want her bullied by an ignorant stage director or leered at by an animal who plays 'opposite,' or insulted by a Semitic manager. Is that very astonishing?"

The girl rose, nervous, excited, but laughing:

"You dear old out-of-date thing! We'll continue this discussion another time. Dad's been alone in the library altogether too long." She laughed again, a little hint of tenderness in her gaiety; and extended her hand. He took it.

"Without prejudice," she said. "I adore you, Jim!"

"And with all my heart, Steve. I just want you to do what will be best for you, little sister."

"I know. Thank you, Jim. Now, we'll go and find dad."

They found him. He lay on the thick Oushak rug at the foot of the chair in which he had been seated when they left him.

On his lips lingered a slight smile.

A physician lived across the street. When he arrived his examination was brief and perfunctory. He merely said that the stroke had come like a bolt of lightning, then turned his attention to Stephanie, who seemed to be sorely in need of it.

*CHAPTER XI*

When such a thing happens to young people a certain mental numbness follows the first shock, limiting the capacity for suffering, and creating its own anodyne.

The mental processes resume their functions gradually, chary of arousing sensation.

Grief produces a chemical reaction within the body, poisoning it. But within that daily visitor to the body, the soul, a profound spiritual reaction occurs which either cripples it or ennobles it eternally.

Many people called and left cards, or sent cards and flowers. Some asked for Jim; among others, Chiltern Grismer.

"M-m-m'yes," he murmured, retaining the young man's hand, "--my friend of many years has left us;--m-m-m'yes, my friend of many years. I am very sorry to hear it; yes, very sorry."

Jim remained passive, incurious. Grismer prowled about the darkened room, alternately pursing up and sucking in his dry and slitted lips. Finally he seated himself and gazed owlishly at the young man.

"And our little adopted sister? How does this deplorable affliction affect her? May I hope to offer my condolences to her also?"

"My sister Stephanie is utterly crushed.... Thank you.... She is very grateful to you."

"M-m-m'yes. May I see her?"

"I am sorry. She is scarcely able to see anybody at present. Her aunt, Miss Quest, is with her."

"M-m-m. After all--but let it remain unsaid--m-m-m'yes, unsaid. So her aunt is with her? M-m-m!"

Jim was silent. Grismer sat immovable as a gargoyle, gazing at him out of unwinking eyes.

"M-m-m'yes," he said. "Grief was his due. My friend of many years was worthy of such filial demonstrations. Quite so--even though there is, in point of fact, no blood relationship between my friend of many years and your adopted sister----"

"My sister could not feel her loss more keenly if she and I had been born of the same mother," said the boy in a dull voice.

"Quite so. M-m-m'yes. Or the same father. Quite so."

"I--I simply can't talk about it yet," muttered the young fellow. "If you'll excuse me----"

"_Quite_ so. Far better to talk about other things just at present, m'yes, far wiser. M-m-m--and so the young lady's aunt has arrived? Very suitable, ve-ry suitable and necessary. And doubtless Miss Quest will take up her permanent residence here, in view of the--ah--m-m-m-m'yes!--no doubt of it; no doubt."

"We have not spoken of that."

A moment later Miss Quest entered the room.

"Stephanie is awake and is asking for you," she said. As the young man rose with a murmured excuse. Miss Quest turned and looked at Chiltern Grismer.

"Madame," he began, rising to his gaunt height, "permit me--my name is Grismer----"

"Oh," she interrupted drily, "I've talked you over with the late Mr. Cleland."

"My friend of many years, Madame----"

"We didn't discuss your friendship for each other, Mr. Grismer," she snapped out. "Our subject of conversation concerned money."

"Ma'am?"

"An inheritance, in fact, which, I believe, you allege that you _legally_ converted to your own uses," she added, staring at him.

They sustained each other's gaze in silence for a moment.

Then Grismer's large, dry hand crept up over his lips and began a rhythmical massage of the grim jaw.

"My friend of many years and I came to an understanding in regard to the painful matter which you have mentioned," he said slowly.

"Yes?"

"Absolutely, Madame. Out of his abundance, I was given to understand, he had bountifully provided for your niece--m-m-m'yes, bounteously provided. Further, he gave me to understand that you, Madame, out of the abundant wealth with which our Lord has blessed you, had indicated your resolution to provide for the young lady."

There was an uncanny gleam in Miss Quest's eyes. But she said nothing. Grismer, watching her, softly joined the tips of his horny fingers.

"M-m'yes. Quite so. My friend of many years voluntarily assured me that he did not contemplate reopening the unfortunate matter in question--in point of fact, Madame, he gave me his solemn promise never to initiate any such action in behalf of the young lady."

Miss Quest remained mute.

"And John Cleland was right, Madame," continued Grismer in a gentle, persuasive voice, "because any such litigation must prove not only costly but fruitless of result. The unfortunate and undesirable publicity of such a case, if brought to trial, could not vindicate my own rectitude and the righteousness of my cause while gossip and scandal cruelly destroyed the social position which the young lady at present enjoys."

After another silence:

"Well?" inquired Miss Quest, "is there anything more that worries you, Mr. Grismer?"

"Worries me, Madame? I am not disturbed in the slightest degree."

"Oh, yes you are. You are not disturbed over any possible scandal that might affect my niece, but you are horribly afraid of any disgrace to yourself. And that is why you come into this house of death while your 'friend of many years' is still lying in his coffin! That is why you come prowling to find out whether I am as much a lady in my way as he was a gentleman in his. That's all that disturbs you!"

"Madame----"

"Or, to put it plainer, you want to know whether you have to defend an action, civil perhaps, possibly criminal, charging you with mal-administration and illegal conversion of trust funds. That's all that worries you, isn't it? Well--worry then!" she added venomously.

"Do I understand----"

"No, you _don't_ understand, Mr. Grismer. And that's another thing for you to worry over. You don't know what I'm going to do, or whether I am going to do anything at all. You may find out in a week--you may not find out for years. And it is going to worry you every minute of your life."

She marched to the staircase hall:

"Meacham?"

"Ma'am?"

"Mr. Grismer's hat!"

Jim, seated beside the bed where Stephanie lay in the darkened room, her tear-marred face buried in her pillow, heard the front door close. Then silence reigned again in the twilight of the house of Cleland.

Miss Quest peeped into the room, then withdrew. If the young fellow heard her at all he made no movement, so still, so intent had he been since his father's death in striving to visualize the familiar face. And found to his astonishment and grief that he could not mentally summon his father's image before his eyes--could not flog the shocked brain to evoke the beloved features. The very effort was becoming an agony to him.

It began to rain about four o'clock. It rained hard all night long on the resounding scuttle and roof overhead. Toward dawn the rain ceased and the dark world grew noisy. There was a cat-fight on the back fence. The car wheels on Madison Avenue seemed unusually dissonant. Very far away, foggy river whistles saluted the dawn of another day.

There were a great many people at the funeral. God knows the dead are indifferent to such _attroupements macabre_, but it seems to satisfy some morbid requirement in the living--friends, a priest, and a passing bell.

_Hoc erat in more majorum: hodie tibi; cras mihi_.

The family--Jim, Stephanie and Miss Quest--sat together, as is customary. The church was bathed in tinted sunlight streaming through stained glass and falling over casket and flowers in glowing hues. The dyed splendour painted pew and chancel and stained Stephanie's black veil with crimson. Behind them a discreet but interminable string of many people continued.

When the first creeping note of the organ, ominous and low, grew out of the silence, young Cleland felt Stephanie sway a little and remain resting against his shoulder. After a moment he realized that the girl had lost consciousness; and he quietly passed his arm around her, holding her firmly until she revived and moved again.

As for himself, what was passing before him seemed like a shadow scene enacted behind darkened glass. There was nothing real about it, nothing that seemed to appertain in any way to this dead father who had been a comrade and beloved friend. He looked at the casket, at the massed flowers, at the altar, the surplices. All were foreign to the intensely human father he had loved--nothing here seemed to be in harmony with him--not the crawling vibration of the organ, not the resonant, professional droning of the clergy; not these throngs of unseen people behind his back,--not the black garments he wore; not this slender, sombre, drooping thing of crape seated here close beside him, trembling at intervals, with one black-gloved hand gripping his.

A sullen hatred for it all began to possess him. All this was interrupting him--actually making it harder than ever for him to visualize his father--driving the beloved phantom out from its familiar environment in his heart into unrecognizable surroundings full of caskets, pallid, heavy-scented flowers, surpliced clergymen whose cadenced phrases were accurately timed; whose every move and gesture showed them to be quite perfect in the "business" of the act.

"Hell," he muttered under his breath; and became aware of Stephanie's white face and startled eyes.

"Nothing," he whispered; "only I can't stand this mummery! I want to get back to the library where I can be with father.... He _isn't_ in that black and silver thing over there. He isn't in any orthodox paradise. He's part of the sunlight out doors--and the spring air.... He's an immortal part of everything beautiful that ever was. When these people conclude to let him alone, I'll have a chance with him.... You think I'm crazy, Steve?"

Her pale lips formed "No."

They remained silent after that until the end, their tense fingers interlocked. Miss Quest's head remained bowed in the folds of her crape veil.

The drive from the cemetery began through the level, rosy rays of a declining sun, and ended in soft spring darkness full of the cheery noises of populous streets.

Cleland had dreaded to enter the house as they drew near to it; its prospective emptiness appalled him; but old Meacham had lighted every light all over the house; and it seemed to help, somehow.

Miss Quest went with Stephanie to her room, leaving Jim in the library alone.

Strange, irrelevant thoughts came to the boy's mind to assail him, torment him with their futility: he remembered several things which he had forgotten to tell his father--matters of no consequence which now suddenly assumed agonizing importance.

There in the solitude of the library, he remembered, among other things, that his father would never read his novel, now. Why had he waited, wishing to have it entirely finished before his father should read this first beloved product of his eager pen?

Stephanie found him striding about the library, lips distorted, quivering with swelling grief.

"Oh, Steve," he said, seeing her in the doorway, "I am beginning to realize that I can't talk to him any more! I can't touch him--I can't talk--hear his voice--see----"

"Jim--_don't_----"

"The whole world is no good to me now!" cried the boy, flinging up his arms in helpless resentment toward whatever had done this thing to him.

Whatever had done it offered no excuse.

*CHAPTER XII.*

The reading of John Cleland's will marked the beginning of the end of the old regime for Stephanie Quest and for James Cleland.

Two short letters accompanied the legal document. All the papers were of recent date.

The letter directed to Jim was almost blunt in its brevity:

MY DEAR SON:

I have had what I believe to have been two slight shocks of paralysis. If I am right, and another shock proves fatal, I wish you, after my death, to go abroad and travel and study for the next two years. At the end of that period you ought to know whether or not you really desire to make literature your profession. If you do, come back to your own country and go to work. Europe is a good school, but you should practise your profession in your native land.

Keep straight, fit, and clean. Keep your head in adversity and in success. Find out what business in life you are fitted for, equip yourself for it, and then go into it with all your heart.

I've left you some money and a good name. And my deep, abiding love. My belief is that death is merely an intermission. So your mother and I will rejoin you when the next act begins. Until then, old chap--good luck!

FATHER.

To Stephanie he wrote:

STEVE, DEAR:

You have been wonderful! I'm sorry I couldn't stay to see you a little further along the path of life. I love you dearly.

Your aunt, Miss Quest, understands my wishes. During the two years that Jim is abroad, Miss Quest is to assume the necessary and natural authority over you. I have every confidence in her. Besides, she is legally qualified to act.

It is her desire and mine that you finish college. But if you really find yourself unhappy there after the term is finished, then it is Miss Quest's belief and mine also that you employ the period that otherwise should have spent at Vassar, in acquiring some regular and legitimate profession so that if ever the need comes you shall be able to take care of yourself.

Miss Quest is inclined to think that a course in hospital training under her direct supervision might prove acceptable to you. This you could have in the institution endowed by Miss Quest at Bayport.

Perhaps such a course may appeal to you more than a college education. If so, I shall not be dissatisfied.

But after that if you still feel that your life's work lies in the direction of artistic self-expression, you will be old enough to follow your own bent, and entitled to employ your opportunities toward that end.

I have left you properly provided for: I leave you and Jim all the love that is in my heart.

This is not the end, Steve, dear. There is no end--just a little rest between the acts for such old actors in life's drama as your dad. Later, you and Jim will join us behind the scenes--my wife and I--and we shall see what we shall see!--my little girl!--my darling.

DAD.

The boy and the girl sat up late in the library that night discussing the two letters which so profoundly concerned them.

Indeed, the old order of things was about to pass away before their dismayed and saddened eyes--eyes not yet accustomed to the burning grief which dimmed them--hearts not yet strengthened for the first heavy responsibilities which they had ever borne.

"I can't bear to leave you, Steve," said the boy, striving to steady his voice. "What are you going to do about college?"

"Well--I--I'll go back to college and finish the term. Dad wanted it."

Neither dreamed of disobeying the desires expressed in the two letters.

"Will you finish college?" he asked.

"I don't know. I want to do what dad wished me to do.... I wonder what a course in hospital training is like?"

"Down there at Bayport?"

"Yes.... After all, that is accomplishing something. And I like children, Jim."

"They're defective children down there."

"Poor little lambs! I--I believe I could do some good--accomplish something. But do you know, Jim, it almost frightens me when I remember that you will be away two years----" She began to weep, lying there in her big chair with her black-edged handkerchief pressed against her face.

"I wish I could take you to Europe, Steve," he said huskily.

She dried her eyes leisurely.

"Couldn't you? No, you couldn't, of course. Dad would have said so if it was what he wanted. Well--then I'll finish the term at Vassar. You won't go before Easter?"

"No, I'll be here, Steve. We'll see each other then, anyway.... Do you think you'll get along with your aunt?"

"I don't know," said the girl. "She means to be kind, I suppose. But dad spoiled me. Oh, Jim! I'm--I'm too unhappy to c-care what becomes of me now. I'll finish the term and then I'll go and learn how to nurse sick little defective children while you're away----" her voice broke again.

"I wish you wouldn't cry," said the boy;--"I'm--I can't stand it----"

"Oh, forgive me!" She sprang up and flung herself on the rug beside his chair.

"I'm sorry! I'm selfish. I'll do everything dad wished, cheerfully. You'll go abroad and educate yourself by travel, and I'll learn a profession. And some day I'll find out what I really am fitted to do, and then I'll go abroad and study, too."

"You'll be twenty, then, Steve--just the age to know what you really want to do."

She nodded, listlessly, kneeling there beside his chair, her cheek resting on her clasped hands, her grey eyes fixed on the dying coals.

After a long silence she said:

"Jim, I really don't know what I want to do in life. I am not certain that I want to do anything."

"What? Not the stage?"

"No--I'm not honestly sure. _Everything_ interests me. I have a craving to see everything and learn about everything in the world. I want to know all there is to know; I'm feverishly curious. I want to see everything, experience everything, attempt everything! It's silly--it's crazy, of course. But there's a restless desire for the knowledge of experience in my heart that I can't explain. I love everything--not any one particular thing above another--but everything. To be great in any one thing would not satisfy me--it's a terrible thing to say, isn't it, Jim!--but if I were a great actress I should try to become a great singer, too; and then a great painter and sculptor and architect----"

"For Heaven's sake, Steve!"

"I tell you I want to know it all, be it all--see, do, live everything that is to be seen, done, and lived in the world----!"

She lifted her head and straightened her shoulders, sweeping the tumbled hair from her brow impatiently: and her brilliant grey eyes met his, unsmiling.

"Of course," she said, "this is rot I'm talking. But every hour of my life I'm going to try to learn something new about the wonderful world I live in--try something new and wonderful--live every minute to the full--experience everything.... Do you think I'm a fool, Jim?"

He smiled:

"No, but you make me feel rather unambitious and commonplace, Steve. After all, I merely wish to write a few good novels. That would content me."

"Oh, Jim," she said, "you'll do it, and I'll probably amount to nothing. I'll just be a crazy creature flying about and poking my nose into everything, and stirring it up a little and then fluttering on to the next thing. Like the Bandar-log--that's what I am--just a monkey, enchanted and excited by everything inside my cage and determined to find out what is hidden under every straw."

"Yours is a good mind, Steve," he said, still smiling.

The girl looked up at him wistfully:

"Is it? I wish I knew. I'm going to try to find out. Have I really a good mind? Or is it just a restless one? Anyway, there's no use my trying to be an ordinary girl. I'm either monkey or genius; and I am convinced that the world was made for me to rummage in."

He laughed.

"Anyway," she said, "I've amused you and cheered you up. Good night, Jim dear."

*CHAPTER XIII*

Stephanie, looking very slim and young in her deep mourning, went back to college unreconciled and in tears. Jim drove her to the station. They stood together in the Pullman vestibule for a few minutes before the train departed, and she clung to him, both black-gloved hands holding tightly to his shoulders.

"Everything familiar in life seems to be ending," she said tremulously. "I'm not very old yet, and I didn't really wish to begin living seriously so soon--no matter what nonsense I talked about self-expression. All I want now is to get off this train and go back home with you."

"Poor little Steve," he said under his breath. "But it's better for you to return to college. The house would be too sad for you. Go back to college and study hard and play basket ball and skate----"

"Oh, I will," she said desolately. "I'll see the wretched term through. I was merely telling you what I'd rather do--go home and just live there all alone with you."

"You'd become tired of it pretty soon, Steve. Don't you think so?"

They looked at each other intently for a moment, then an odd expression came into the girl's grey eyes:

"It's you who would tire of it, Jim," she said. "I'm not old enough to amuse you yet. I'm still only a child to you."

"What nonsense----!"

"No. You've been wonderful to me. But you are older. I've bored you sometimes."

He protested; but she shook her head.

"A girl knows," she said. "And a man can't make a comrade of a girl who has no experiences to swap with him, no conclusions to draw, none of life's discoveries to compare with his.... Don't look so guilty and distressed; you have always been a perfect dear. But, oh, if you knew how hard I've tried to catch up with you!--how desperately I try to be old enough for you----"

"Steve, you _are_ an ideal sister! But you know how it is--when a man has such a lot to think about----"

"I _do_ know! And that is exactly what I also am determined to have--a lot to think about!" Her colour was high and her grey eyes brilliant.

"In two years you shall see. I shall be an interesting woman to you when you come back! I vow and declare I shall be interesting enough to be friends with you on equal terms! Wait and see!"

"But, Steve," he protested, smiling, yet bewildered by the sudden fiery animation of the girl, "I never supposed you felt that I condescended--patronized----"

"How could you help it!--a little fool who doesn't know anything!" She was laughing unnaturally, and her nervous fingers tightened and relaxed on his shoulders. "But when you come back after two years' travel, I shall at least be able to take your temperature, and keep you entertained if you're ill----! Oh, Jim, I don't know what I'm saying! I'm just heart-broken at going away from you. You do care a lot for me, don't you?"

"Of course I do."

"And I promise to be a very interesting woman when you come back from abroad.... Oh, dear, the train is moving. Good-bye, Jim dear!" She flung her veil aside and put both slim arms around his neck in a passion of adoration and farewell.

He dropped to the platform from the slowly moving train and walked back toward the station. And he was uneasily conscious, for the first time in his life, of the innocent abandon of this young girl's embrace--embarrassed by the softness of her mouth--impatient of himself for noticing it.

When he arrived at the house Miss Quest's luggage had gone and that capable and determined lady was ready to depart for Bayport in a large, powerful automobile bearing her monogram, which stood in front of the house.

"Mr. Cleland," she said, "before I go, I have several things to say to you. One is that I like you."

He reddened with surprise, but expressed his appreciation pleasantly and without embarrassment.

"Yes," continued Miss Quest, reflectively, "you're much like your father. He and I began our acquaintance by differing: we ended friends. I hope his son and I may continue that friendship."

"I hope so," he said politely.

"Thank you. But the keynote to friendship is frankness. Shall I sound it?"

"Certainly," he replied, smiling.

"Very well: my niece ought to have a woman companion when she returns from college at Easter."

"Why?" he asked, astonished.

"Because she isn't your sister, and she's an attractive girl."

After a silence she went on:

"I know that you and Stephanie regard each other as brother and sister. But you're not. And the world knows it. It's an absurd world, Mr. Cleland."

"It's rather a rotten world if Steve and I can't live here alone together without gossip," he said hotly.

"Let's take it as we find it and be practical. Shall I look up a companion for Stephanie, or shall I return here at Easter?"

He pondered the suggestion, frowning. Miss Quest said pleasantly:

"Please, I don't mean to interfere. You are of age, and over. But the world, if it cares to think, will remember that you and Stephanie are not related. In two years, when you return from Europe, Stephanie will be twenty and you twenty-four. And, laying aside the suggestion that an older woman's presence might be advantageous under the circumstances, who is going to control Stephanie?"

"Control her?"

"Yes, control, guide, steady her through the most critical period of her life?"

The young fellow, plainly unconvinced, looked at Miss Quest out of troubled eyes.

"Come," she said briskly, "let's have a heart-to-heart talk and find out what's ahead of us. Let's be business-like and candid. Shall we?"

"By all means."

"Then we'll begin at the very beginning:

"Stephanie is a dear. But she's very young. And at twenty she will still be very, very young. What traits and talents she may have inherited from a clever, unprincipled father--my own nephew, Mr. Cleland--I don't know. God willing, there's nothing of him in her--no tendencies toward irregularities; no unmoral inclination to drift, nothing spineless and irresponsible.

"As for Stephanie's mother, I know little about her. I think she was merely a healthy young animal without education, submitting to and following instinctively the first man who attracted her. Which happened to be my unhappy nephew."

She shook her head and gazed musingly at the window where the sunshine fell.

"There are the propositions; this is the problem, Mr. Cleland. Now, let us look at the conditions which bear directly on it. Am I boring you?"

"No," he said. "It's very necessary to consider this matter. I'm just beginning to realize that I'm really not fitted to guide and control Stephanie."

She laughed.

"What a confession! But do you know that, all over the world, men are beginning to come to similar conclusions? Conditions absolutely without precedent have arisen within a few brief years. And Stephanie, just emerging into womanhood, is about to face them. The day of the woman has dawned.

"Ours is a restless sex," continued Miss Quest grimly. "And this is the age of our opportunity. I don't know just what it is that animates my enfranchised sex, now that the world has suddenly flung open doors which have confined us through immemorial ages--each woman to her own narrow cell, privileged only to watch freedom through iron bars.

"But there runs a vast restlessness throughout the world; in every woman's heart the seeds of revolution, so long dormant, are germinating. The time has come when she is to have her fling. And she knows it!"

She shrugged her trim shoulders:

"It is the history of all enfranchisement that license and excess are often misconstrued as freedom by liberated prisoners. To find ourselves free to follow the urge of aspiration may unbalance some of us. Small wonder, too."

She sprang to her feet and began to march up and down in front of the fireplace, swinging her reticule trimmed with Krupp steel. Cleland rose, too.

"What was all wrong in our Victorian mothers' days is all right now," she said, smilingly. "We're going to get the vote; that's a detail already discounted. And we've already got about everything else except the right to say how many children we shall bring into the world. That will surely come, too; that, and the single standard of morality for both sexes. Both are bound to come. And then," she smiled again brightly at Cleland, "I have an idea that we shall quiet down and outgrow our restlessness. But I don't know."

"What you say is very interesting," murmured the young fellow.

"Yes, it's interesting. It is significant, too. So is the problem of making something out of defectives. After a while there won't be any defectives when we begin to breed children as carefully as we breed cattle. Sex equality will hasten sensible discussion; discussion will result in laws. A, B and C may have babies; D, E and F may not. And, after a few generations, the entire feminine alphabet can have and may have babies. And if, here and there, a baby is not wanted, there'll be no sniveling sectarian conference to threaten the wrath of Mumbo-Jumbo!"

Miss Quest halted in her hearth-rug promenade:

"The doom of hypocrisy, sham and intolerance is already in sight. Hands off and mind your business are written on the wall. So I suppose Stephanie will think we ought to keep our hands off her and mind our business if she wishes to go on the stage or dawdle before an easel in a Washington Mews studio some day."

Her logic made Cleland anxious again.

"The trouble lies in this intoxicating perfume we call liberty. We women sniff it afar, and it makes us restless and excitable. It's a heady odour. Only a level mind can enjoy it with discretion. Otherwise, it incites to excess. That's all. We're simply not yet used to liberty. And _that_ is what concerns me about Stephanie--with her youth, and her intelligence, her undoubted gifts and--her possible inheritance from a fascinating rascal of a father.

"Well, that is the girl; there are the conditions; this is the problem.... And now I must be going."

She held out her smartly gloved hand; retained his for a moment:

"You won't sail before Stephanie's Easter vacation?"

"No; I'll probably sail about May first."

"In that case, I'll come on from Bayport, and you won't need to find a companion for Stephanie. After you sail, she'll come to me, anyway."

"For hospital training," he nodded.

"For two years of it. It's her choice."

"Yes, I know. She prefers it to college."

Miss Quest said very seriously:

"For a girl like Stephanie, it will be an excellent thing. It will give her a certain steadiness, a foundation in life, to have a profession on which she may rely in case of adversity. To care for and to be responsible for others develops character. She already seems interested."

"She prefers it to graduating from Vassar."

Miss Quest nodded, then looking him directly in the eyes:

"I want to say one thing. May I?"

"Certainly."

"Then, above all, be patient with Stephanie. Will you?"

"Of course!" he replied, surprised.

"I am looking rather far into the future," continued Miss Quest. "You will change vastly in two years. She will, too. Cherish the nice friendship between you. A man's besetting sin is impatience of women. Try to avoid it. Be patient, even when you differ with her. She's going to be a handful--I may as well be frank. I can see that--see it plainly. She's going to be a handful for me--and you must always try to keep her affections.

"It's the only way to influence any woman. I know my sex. You're a typical man, entirely dependent on logic and reason--or think you are. All men think they are. But logic and reason are of no use in dealing with us unless you have our affections, too. Good-bye. I do like you. I'll come again at Easter."

Alone in the quiet house, with his memories for companions, the young fellow tried to face the future;--tried to learn to endure the staggering blow which his father's death had dealt him,--strove resolutely to shake off the stunned indifference, the apathy through which he seemed to see the world as through a fog.

Gradually, as the black winter months passed, and as he took up his work again and pegged away at it, the inevitable necessity for distraction developed, until at last the deadly stillness of the house became unendurable, driving him out once more into the world of living men.

So the winter days dragged, and the young fellow faced them alone in the sad, familiar places where, but yesterday, he had moved and talked with his only and best beloved.

Perhaps it was easier that way. He had his memories to himself, sharing none. But he did not share his sorrow, either. And that is a thing that undermines.

At first he was afraid that it would be even harder for him when Stephanie returned at Easter. The girl arrived in her heavy mourning, and he met her at the station, as his father used to meet him.

She lifted her rather pale face and passively received her kiss, but held tightly to his arm as they turned away together through the hurrying crowds of strangers.

Each one tried very hard to find something cheerful to talk about; but little by little their narratives concerning the intervening days of absence became spiritless and perfunctory.

The car swung into the familiar street and drew up before the house; Stephanie laid one hand on Jim's arm, stepped out to the sidewalk, and ran up the steps, animated for a moment with the natural eagerness for home. But when old Meacham silently opened the door and her gaze met his:

"Oh--Meacham," she faltered, and her grey eyes filled.

However, she felt her obligations toward Jim; and they both made the effort, at dinner, and afterward in the library, fighting to keep up appearances.

But silence, lurking near, crept in upon them, a living intruder whose steady pressure gradually prevailed, leaving them pondering there under the subdued lamplight, motionless in the depths of their respective armchairs, until endurance seemed no longer possible--and speech no longer a refuge from the ghosts of what-had-been. And the girl, in her black gown, rose, came silently over to his chair, seated herself on the arm, and laid her pale face against his. He put one arm around her, meaning to let her weep there; but withdrew it suddenly, and released himself almost roughly with a confused sense of her delicate fragrance clinging to him too closely.

The movement was nervous and involuntary; he shot a perplexed glance at her, still uneasily conscious of the warmth and subtle sweetness which had so suddenly made of this slender girl in black something unfamiliar to his sight and touch.

"Let's try to be cheerful," he muttered, scarcely understanding what he said.

It was the first time he had ever repulsed her or failed to respond to her in their mutual loneliness. And why he did it he himself did not understand.

He left the arm-chair and went and stood by the mantel, resting one elbow on it and looking down into the coals; she slipped into the depths of the chair and lay there looking at him.

For something in the manner of this man toward her had set her thinking; and she lay there in silence, watching his averted face, deeply intent on her own thoughts, coming to no conclusions.

Yet somehow the girl was aware that, in that brief moment of their grief when she had sought comfort in his brotherly caress and he had offered it, then suddenly repulsed her, a profound line of cleavage had opened between him and her; and that the cleft could never be closed.

Neither seemed to be aware that anything had happened. The girl remained silent and thoughtful; and he became talkative after a while, telling her of his plans for travel, and that he had arranged for keeping open the house in case she and Miss Quest wished to spend any time in town.

"I'll write you from time to time and keep you informed of my movements," he said. "Two years pass quickly. By the time I'm back I'll have a profession and so will you."

She nodded.

"Then," he went on, "I suppose Miss Quest had better come here and live with us."

"I'm not coming back here."

"What?"

"I'm going about by myself--as you are going--to to observe and learn."

"You wish to be foot-free?"

"I do. I shall be my own mistress."

"Of course," he said drily, "nobody can stop you."

"Why should anybody wish to? I shall be twenty-one--nearly; I shall have a profession if I choose to practise it; I shall have my income--and all the world before me to investigate."

"And then what?"

"How do I know, Jim? A girl ought to have her chance. She ought to have her fling, too, if she wants it--just as much as any man. It's the only way she can learn anything. And I've concluded," she added, looking curiously at him, "that it's the only way she can ever become really interesting to a man."

"How?" he demanded. "By having what you call her fling?"