Little Journey in the World by Charles Dudley Warner (page 4)

“Yes, dear, but I would not have them think they can blot out by their liberality the condemnation of the means by which many of them make money. That is what they are doing, and the public is getting used to it.”

“Well,” said Margaret, with some warmth, “I don’t know that they are any worse than the stingy saints who have made their money by saving, and act as if they expected to carry it with them.”

“Saints or sinners, it does not make much difference to me,” now put in Mrs. Fletcher, who was evidently considering the question from a practical point of view, “what a man professes, if he founds a hospital for indigent women out of the dividends that I never received.”

Morgan laughed. “Don’t you think, Mrs. Fletcher, that it is a good sign of the times, that so many people who make money rapidly are disposed to use it philanthropically?”

“It may be for them, but it does not console me much just now.”

“But you don’t make allowance enough for the rich. Perhaps they are under a necessity of doing something. I was reading this morning in the diary of old John Ward of Stratford-on-Avon this sentence: ‘It was a saying of Navisson, a lawyer, that no man could be valiant unless he hazarded his body, nor rich unless he hazarded his soul.'”

“Was Navisson a modern lawyer?” I asked.

“No; the diary is dated 1648-1679.”

“I thought so.”

There was a little laugh at this, and the talk drifted off into a consideration of the kind of conscience that enables a professional man to espouse a cause he knows to be wrong as zealously as one he knows to be right; a talk that I should not have remembered at all, except for Margaret’s earnestness in insisting that she did not see how a lawyer could take up the dishonest side.

Before Margaret went to Lenox, Henderson spent a few days with us. He brought with him the amounding cheerfulness, and the air of a prosperous, smiling world, that attended him in all circumstances. And how happy Margaret was! They went over every foot of the ground on which their brief courtship had taken place, and Heaven knows what joy there was to her in reviving all the tenderness and all the fear of it! Busy as Henderson was, pursued by hourly telegrams and letters, we could not but be gratified that his attention to her was that of a lover. How could it be otherwise, when all the promise of the girl was realized in the bloom and the exquisite susceptibility of the woman? Among other things, she dragged him down to her mission in the city, to which he went in a laughing and bantering mood. When he had gone away, Margaret ran over to my wife, bringing in her hand a slip of paper.

“See that!” she cried, her eyes dancing with pleasure. It was a check for a thousand dollars. “That will refurnish the mission from top to bottom,” she said, “and run it for a year.”

“How generous he is!” cried my wife. Margaret did not reply, but she looked at the check, and there were tears in her eyes.

XV

The Arbuser cottage at Lenox was really a magnificent villa. Richardson had built it. At a distance it had the appearance of a mediaeval structure, with its low doorways, picturesque gables, and steep roofs, and in its situation on a gentle swell of green turf backed by native forest-trees it imparted to the landscape an ancestral tone which is much valued in these days. But near to, it was seen to be mediaevalism adapted to the sunny hospitality of our summer climate, with generous verandas and projecting balconies shaded by gay awnings, and within spacious, open to the breezes, and from its broad windows offering views of lawns and flower-beds and ornamental trees, of a great sweep of pastures and forests and miniature lakes, with graceful and reposeful hills on the horizon.

It was, in short, the modern idea of country simplicity. The passion for country life, which has been in decadence for nearly half a century, has again become the fashion. Nature, which, left to itself, is a little ragged, not to say monotonous and tiresome, is discovered to be a valuable ally for aid in passing the time when art is able to make portions of it exclusive. What the Arbusers wanted was a simple home in the country, and in obtaining it they were indulging a sentiment of returning to the primitive life of their father, who had come to the city from a hill farm, and had been too busy all his life to recur to the tastes of his boyhood. At least that was the theory of his daughters; but the old gentleman had a horror of his early life, and could scarcely be dragged away from the city even in the summer. He would no doubt have been astonished at the lofty and substantial stone stables, the long range of greenhouses, and at a farm which produced nothing except lawns and flower-beds, ornamental fields of clover, avenues of trees, lawn- tennis grounds, and a few Alderneys tethered to feed among the trees, where their beauty would heighten the rural and domestic aspect of the scene. The Arbusers liked to come to this place as early as possible to escape the society exactions of the city. That was another theory of theirs. All their set in the city met there for the same purpose.

Margaret was welcomed with open arms.

“We have been counting the days,” said the elder of the sisters. “Your luggage has come, your rooms are all ready, and your coachman, who has been here some days, says that the horses need exercise. Everybody is here, and we need you for a hundred things.”

“You are very kind. It is so charming here. I knew it would be, but I couldn’t bear to shorten my visit in Brandon.”

“Your aunt must miss you very much. Is she well?”

“Perfectly.”

“Wouldn’t she have come with you? I’ve a mind to telegraph.”

“I think not. She is wedded to quiet, and goes away from her little neighborhood with reluctance.”

“So Brandon was a little dull?” said Miss Arbuser, with a shrewd guess at the truth.

“Oh no,” quickly replied Margaret, shrinking a little from what was in her own mind; “it was restful and delightful; but you know that we New England people take life rather seriously, and inquire into the reason of things, and want an object in life.”

“A very good thing to have,” answered this sweet woman of the world, whose object was to go along pleasantly and enjoy it.

“But to have it all the time!” Margaret suggested, lightly, as she ran up-stairs. But even in this suggestion she was conscious of a twinge of disloyalty to her former self. Deep down in her heart, coming to the atmosphere of Lenox was a relief from questionings that a little disturbed her at her old home, and she was indignant at herself that it should be so, and then indignant at the suggestions that put her out of humor with herself. Was it a sin, she said, to be happy and prosperous?

On her dressing-table was a letter from her husband. He was detained in the city by a matter of importance. He scratched only a line, to catch the mail, during a business interview. It was really only a business interview, and had no sort of relation to Lenox or the summer gayety there.

Henderson was in his private office. The clerks in the outer offices, in the neglige of summer costumes, winked to each other as they saw old Jerry Hollowell enter and make his way to the inner room unannounced. Something was in the wind.

“Well, old man,” said Uncle Jerry, in the cheeriest manner, coming in, depositing his hat on the table, and taking a seat opposite Henderson, “we seem to have stirred up the animals.”

“Only a little flurry,” replied Henderson, laying down his pen and folding a note he had just finished; “they’ll come to reason.”

“They’ve got to.” Mr. Hollowell drew out a big bandanna and mopped his heated face. “I’ve just got a letter from Jorkins. There’s the certificates that make up the two-thirds-more than we need, anyway. No flaw about that, is there?”

“No. I’ll put these with the balance in the safe. It’s all right, if Jorkins has been discreet. It may make a newspaper scandal if they get hold of his operations.”

“Oh, Jorkins is close. But he is a little overworked. I don’t know but it would do him good to have a little nervous prostration and go abroad for a while.”

“I guess it would do Jorkins good to take a turn in Europe for a year or so.”

“Well, you write to him. Give him a sort of commission to see the English bondholders, and explain the situation. They will appreciate that half a loaf is better than no bread. What bothers me is the way the American bondholders take it. They kick.”

“Let ’em kick. The public don’t care for a few soreheads and impracticables in an operation that is going to open up the whole Southwest. I’ve an appointment with one of them this morning. He ought to be here now.”

At the moment Henderson’s private secretary entered and laid on the table the card of Mr. John Hopper, who was invited to come in at once. Mr. Hopper was a man of fifty, with iron-gray hair, a heavy mustache, and a smooth-shaven chin that showed resolution. In dress and manner his appearance was that of the shrewd city capitalist–quiet and determined, who is neither to be deceived nor bullied. With a courteous greeting to both the men, whom he knew well, he took a seat and stated his business.

“I have called to see you, Mr. Henderson, about the bonds of the A. and B., and I am glad to find Mr. Hollowell here also.”

“What amount do you represent, Mr. Hopper?” asked Henderson.

“With my own and my friends’, altogether, rising a million. What do you propose?”

“You got our circular?”

“Yes, and we don’t accept the terms.”

“I’m sorry. It is the best that we could do.”

“That is, the best you would do!”

“Pardon me, Mr. Hopper, the best we could do under the circumstances. We gave you your option, to scale down on a fair estimate of the earnings of the short line (the A. and B.), or to surrender your local bonds and take new ones covering the whole consolidation, or, as is of course in your discretion, to hold on and take the chances.”

“Which your operations have practically destroyed.”

“Not at all, Mr. Hopper. We offer you a much better security on the whole system instead of a local road.”

“And you mean to tell me, Mr. Henderson, that it is for our advantage to exchange a seven per cent. bond on a road that has always paid its interest promptly, for a four and a half on a system that is manipulated nobody knows how? I tell you, gentlemen, that it looks to outsiders as if there was crookedness somewhere.”

“That is a rather rough charge, Mr. Hopper,” said Henderson, with a smile.

“But we are to understand that if we do not accept your terms, it’s a freeze-out?”

“You are to understand that we want to make the best arrangement possible for all parties in interest.”

“How some of those interests were acquired may be a question for the courts,” replied Mr. Hopper, resolutely. “When we put our money in good seven per cent. bonds, we propose to inquire into the right of anybody to demand that we shall exchange them for four and a half per cents. on other security.”

“Perfectly right, Mr. Hopper,” said Henderson, with imperturbable good- humor;” the transfer books are open to your inspection.”

“Well, we prefer to hold on to our bonds.”

“And wait for your interest,” interposed Hollowell.

Mr. Hopper turned to the speaker. “And while we are waiting we propose to inquire what has become of the surplus of the A. and B. The bondholders had the first claim on the entire property.”

“And we propose to protect it. See here, Mr. Hopper,” continued Uncle Jerry, with a most benevolent expression, “I needn’t tell you that investments fluctuate–the Lord knows mine do! The A. and B. was a good road. I know that. But it was going to be paralleled. We’d got to parallel it to make our Southwest connections. If we had, you’d have waited till the Gulf of Mexico freezes over before you got any coupons paid. Instead of that, we took it into our system, and it’s being put on a permanent basis. It’s a little inconvenient for holders, and they have got to stand a little shrinkage, but in the long-run it will be better for everybody. The little road couldn’t stand alone, and the day of big interest is about over.”

“That explanation may satisfy you, Mr. Hollowell, but it don’t give us our money, and I notify you that we shall carry the matter into the courts. Good-morning.”

When Mr. Hopper had gone, the two developers looked at each other a moment seriously.

“Hopper ‘ll fight,” Hollowell said at last.

“And we have got the surplus to fight him with,” replied Henderson.

“That’s so,” and Uncle Jerry chuckled to himself. “The rats that are on the inside of the crib are a good deal better off than the rats on the outside.”

“The reporter of The Planet wants five minutes,” announced the secretary, opening the door. Henderson told him to let him in.

The reporter was a spruce young gentleman, in a loud summer suit, with a rose in his button-hole, and the air of assurance which befits the commissioner of the public curiosity.

“I am sent by The Planet,” said the young man, “to show you this and ask you if you have anything to say to it.”

“What is it?” asked Henderson.

“It’s about the A. and B.”

“Very well. There is the president, Mr. Hollowell. Show it to him.”

The reporter produced a long printed slip and handed it to Uncle Jerry, who took it and began to read. As his eye ran down the column he was apparently more and more interested, and he let it be shown on his face that he was surprised, and even a little astonished. When he had finished, he said:

“Well, my young friend, how did you get hold of this?”

“Oh, we have a way,” said the reporter, twirling his straw hat by the elastic, and looking more knowing than old Jerry himself.

“So I see,” replied Jerry, with an admiring smile; “there is nothing that you newspaper folks don’t find out. It beats the devil!”

“Is it true, sir?” said the young gentleman, elated with this recognition of his own shrewdness.

“It is so true that there is no fun in it. I don’t see how the devil you got hold of it.”

“Have you any explanations?”

“No, I guess not,” said Uncle Jerry, musingly. “If it is to come out, I’d rather The Planet would have it than any, other paper. It’s got some sense. No; print it. It’ll be a big beat for your paper. While you are about it–I s’pose you’ll print it anyway?” (the reporter nodded)–“you might as well have the whole story.”

“Certainly. We’d like to have it right. What is wrong about it?”

“Oh, nothing but some details. You have got it substantially. There’s a word or two and a date you are out on, naturally enough, and there are two or three little things that would be exactly true if they were differently stated.”

“Would you mind telling me what they are?”

“No,” said Jerry, with a little reluctance; “might as well have it all out–eh, Henderson?”

And the old man took his pencil and changed some dates and a name or two, and gave to some of the sentences a turn that seemed to the reporter only another way of saying the same thing.

“There, that is all I know. Give my respects to Mr. Goss.”

When the commissioner had withdrawn, Uncle Jerry gave vent to a long whistle. Then he rose suddenly and called to the secretary, “Tell that reporter to come back.” The reporter reappeared.

“I was just thinking, and you can tell Mr. Goss, that now you have got onto this thing, you might as well keep the lead on it. The public is interested in what we are doing in the Southwest, and if you, or some other bright fellow who has got eyes in his head, will go down there, he will see something that will astonish him. I’m going tomorrow in my private car, and if you could go along, I assure you a good time. I want you to see for yourself, and I guess you would. Don’t take my word. I can’t give you any passes, and I know you don’t want any, but you can just get into my private car and no expense to anybody, and see all there is to be seen. Ask Goss, and let me know tonight.”

The young fellow went off feeling several inches higher than when he came in. Such is the power of a good address, and such is the omnipotence of the great organ. Mr. Jerry Hollowell sat down and began to fan himself. It was very hot in the office.

“Seems to me it’s lunch-time. Great Scott! what a lot of time I used to waste fighting the newspapers! That thing would have played the devil as it stood. It will be comparatively harmless now. It will make a little talk, but there is nothing to get hold of. Queer, about the difference of a word or two. Come, old man, I’m thirsty.”

“Uncle Jerry,” said Henderson, taking his arm as they went out, “you ought to be President of the United States.”

“The salary is too small,” said Uncle Jerry.

Of all this there was nothing to write to Margaret, who was passing her time agreeably in the Berkshire hills, a little impatient for her husband’s arrival, postponed from day to day, and full of sympathy for him, condemned to the hot city and the harassment of a business the magnitude of which gave him the obligations and the character of a public man. Henderson sent her instead a column from The Planet devoted to a description of his private library. Mr. Goss, the editor, who was college bred, had been round to talk with Henderson about the Southwest trip, and the conversation drifting into other matters, Henderson had taken from his desk and shown him a rare old book which he had picked up the day before in a second-hand shop. This led to further talk about Henderson’s hobby, and the editor had asked permission to send a reporter down to make a note of Henderson’s collection. It would make a good midsummer item, “The Stock-Broker in Literature,” “The Private Tastes of a Millionaire,” etc. The column got condensed into a portable paragraph, and went the rounds of the press, and changed the opinions of a good many people about the great operator–he wasn’t altogether devoted to vulgar moneymaking. Uncle Jerry himself read the column with appreciation of its value. “It diverts the public mind,” he said. He himself had recently diverted the public mind by the gift of a bell to the Norembega Theological (colored) Institute, and the paragraph announcing the fact conveyed the impression that while Uncle Jerry was a canny old customer, his heart was on the right side. “There are worse men than Uncle Jerry who are not worth a cent,” was one of the humorous paragraphs tacked on to the item.

Margaret was not alone in finding the social atmosphere of Lenox as congenial as its natural beauties. Mrs. Laflamme declared that it was the perfection of existence for a couple of months, one in early summer and another in the golden autumn with its pathetic note of the falling curtain dropping upon the dream of youth. Mrs. Laflamme was not a sentimental person, but she was capable of drifting for a moment into a poetic mood–a great charm in a woman of her vivacity and air of the world. Margaret remembered her very distinctly, although she had only exchanged a word with her at the memorable dinner in New York when Henderson had revealed her feelings to herself. Mrs. Laflamme had the immense advantage–it seemed so to her after five years of widowhood of being a widow on the sunny side of thirty-five. If she had lost some illusions she had gained a great deal of knowledge, and she had no feverish anxiety about what life would bring her. Although she would not put it in this way to herself, she could look about her deliberately, enjoying the prospect, and please herself. Her position had two advantages–experience and opportunity. A young woman unmarried, she said, always has the uneasy sense of the possibility–well, it is impossible to escape slang, and she said it with the merriest laugh–the possibility of being left. A day or two after Margaret’s arrival she had driven around to call in her dog-cart, looking as fresh as a daisy in her sunhat. She held the reins, but her seat was shared by Mr. Fox McNaughton, the most useful man in the village, indispensable indeed; a bachelor, with no intentions, no occupation, no ambition (except to lead the german), who could mix a salad, brew a punch, organize a picnic, and chaperon anything in petticoats with entire propriety, without regard to age. And he had a position of social authority. This eminence Mr. Fox McNaughton had attained by always doing the correct thing. The obligation of society to such men is never enough acknowledged. While they are trusted and used, and worked to death, one is apt to hear them spoken of in a deprecatory tone.

“You hold the reins a moment, please. No, I don’t want any help,” she said, as she jumped down with an elastic spring, and introduced him to Margaret. “I’ve got Mr. McNaughton in training, and am thinking of bringing him out.”

She walked in with Margaret, chatting about the view and the house and the divine weather.

“And your husband has not come yet?”

“He may come any day. I think business might suspend in the summer.”

“So do I. But then, what would become of Lenox? It is rather hard on the men, only I dare say they like it. Don’t you think Mr. Henderson would like a place here?”

“He cannot help being pleased with Lenox.”

“I’m sure he would if you are. I have hardly seen him since that evening at the Stotts’. Can I tell you?–I almost had five minutes of envy that evening. You won’t mind it in such an old woman?”

“I should rather trust your heart than your age, Mrs. Laflamme,” said Margaret, with a laugh.

“Yes, my heart is as old as my face. But I had a feeling, seeing you walk away that evening into the conservatory. I knew what was coming. I think I have discovered a great secret, Mrs. Henderson to be able to live over again in other people. By-the-way, what has become of that quiet Englishman, Mr. Lyon?”

“He has come into his title. He is the Earl of Chisholm.”

“Dear me, how stupid in us not to have taken a sense of that! And the Eschelles–do you know anything of the Eschelles?”

“Yes; they are at their house in Newport.”

“Do you think there was anything between Miss Eschelle and Mr. Lyon? I saw her afterwards several times.”

“Not that I ever heard. Miss Eschelle says that she is thoroughly American in her tastes.”

“Then her tastes are not quite conformed to her style. That girl might be anything–Queen of Spain, or coryphee in the opera ballet. She is clever as clever. One always expects to hear of her as the heroine of an adventure.”

“Didn’t you say you knew her in Europe?”

“No. We heard of her and her mother everywhere. She was very independent. She had the sort of reputation to excite curiosity. But I noticed that the men in New York were a little afraid of her. She is a woman who likes to drive very near the edge.”

Mrs. Laflamme rose. “I must not keep Mr. McNaughton waiting for any more of my gossip. We expect you and the Misses Arbuser this afternoon. I warn you it will be dull. I should like to hear of some summer resort where the men are over sixteen and under sixty.”

Mrs. Laflamme liked to drive near the edge as much as Carmen did, and this piquancy was undeniably an attraction in her case. But there was this difference between the two: there was a confidence that Mrs. Laflamme would never drive over the edge, whereas no one could tell what sheer Carmen might not suddenly take. A woman’s reputation is almost as much affected by the expectation of what she may do as by anything she has done. It was Fox McNaughton who set up the dictum that a woman may do almost anything if it is known that she draws a line somewhere.

The lawn party was not at all dull to Margaret. In the first place, she received a great deal of attention. Henderson’s name was becoming very well known, and it was natural that the splendor of his advancing fortune should be reflected in the person of his young wife, whose loveliness was enhanced by her simple enjoyment of the passing hour. Then the toilets of the women were so fresh and charming, the colors grouped so prettily on the greensward, the figures of the slender girls playing at tennis or lounging on the benches under the trees, recalled scenes from the classic poets. It was all so rich and refined. Nor did she miss the men of military age, whose absence Mrs. Laflamme had deplored, for she thought of her husband. And, besides, she found even the college boys (who are always spoken of as men) amusing, and the elderly gentlemen–upon whom watering-place society throws much responsibility–gallant, facetious, complimentary, and active in whatever was afoot. Their boyishness, indeed, contrasted with–the gravity of the undergraduates, who took themselves very seriously, were civil to the young ladies,–confidential with the married women, and had generally a certain reserve and dignity which belong to persons upon whom such heavy responsibility rests.

There were, to be sure, men who looked bored, and women who were listless, missing the stimulus of any personal interest; but the scene was so animated, the weather so propitious, that, on the whole, a person must be very cynical not to find the occasion delightful.

There was a young novelist present whose first story, “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” had made a hit the last season. It was thought to take a profound hold upon life, because it was a book that could not be read aloud in a mixed company. Margaret was very much interested in him, although Mr. Summers Bass was not her idea of an imaginative writer. He was a stout young gentleman, with very black hair and small black eyes, to which it was difficult to give a melancholy cast even by an habitual frown. Mr. Bass dressed himself scrupulously in the fashion, was very exact in his pronunciation, careful about his manner, and had the air of a little weariness, of the responsibility of one looking at life. It was only at rare moments that his face expressed intensity of feeling.

“It is a very pretty scene. I suppose, Mr. Bass, that you are making studies,” said Margaret, by way of opening a conversation.

“No; hardly that. One must always observe. It gets to be a habit. The thing is to see reality under appearances.”

“Then you would call yourself a realist?”

Mr. Bass smiled. “That is a slang term, Mrs. Henderson. What you want is nature, color, passion–to pierce the artificialities.”

“But you must describe appearance.”

“Certainly, to an extent–form, action, talk as it is, even trivialities –especially the trivialities, for life is made up of the trivial.”

“But suppose that does not interest me?”

“Pardon me, Mrs. Henderson, that is because you are used to the conventional, the selected. Nature is always interesting.”

“I do not find it so.”

“No? Nature has been covered up; it has been idealized. Look yonder,” and Mr. Bass pointed across the lawn. “See that young woman upon whom the sunlight falls standing waiting her turn. See the quivering of the eyelids, the heaving of the chest, the opening lips; note the curve of her waist from the shoulder, and the line rounding into the fall of the folds of the Austrian cashmere. I try to saturate myself with that form, to impress myself with her every attitude and gesture, her color, her movement, and then I shall imagine the form under the influence of passion. Every detail will tell. I do not find unimportant the tie of her shoe. The picture will be life.”

“But suppose, Mr. Bass, when you come to speak with her, you find that she has no ideas, and talks slang.”

“All the better. It shows what we are, what our society is. And besides, Mrs. Henderson, nearly everybody has the capacity of being wicked; that is to say, of expressing emotion.”

“You take a gloomy view, Mr. Bass.”

“I take no view, Mrs. Henderson. My ambition is to record. It will not help matters by pretending that people are better than they are.”

“Well, Mr. Bass, you may be quite right, but I am not going to let you spoil my enjoyment of this lovely scene,” said Margaret, moving away. Mr. Bass watched her until she disappeared, and then entered in his note- book a phrase for future use, “The prosperous propriety of a pretty plutocrat.” He was gathering materials for his forthcoming book, “The Last Sigh of the Prude.”

The whole world knows how delightful Lenox is. It even has a club where the men can take refuge from the exactions of society, as in the city. The town is old enough to have “histories”; there is a romance attached to nearly every estate, a tragedy of beauty, and money, and disappointment; great writers have lived here, families whose names were connected with our early politics and diplomacy; there is a tradition of a society of wit and letters, of women whose charms were enhanced by a spice of adventure, of men whose social brilliancy ended in misanthropy. All this gave a background of distinction to the present gayety, luxury, and adaptation of the unsurpassed loveliness of nature to the refined fashion of the age.

Here, if anywhere, one could be above worry, above the passion of envy; for did not every new “improvement” and every new refinement in living add to the importance of every member of this favored community? For Margaret it was all a pageant of beauty. The Misses Arbuser talked about the quality of the air, the variety of the scenery, the exhilaration of the drives, the freedom from noise and dust, the country quiet. There were the morning calls, the intellectual life of the reading clubs, the tennis parties, the afternoon teas, combined with charming drives from one elegant place to another; the siestas, the idle swinging in hammocks, with the latest magazine from which to get a topic for dinner, the mild excitement of a tete-a-tete which might discover congenial tastes or run on into an interesting attachment. Half the charm of life, says a philosopher, is in these personal experiments.

When Henderson came, as he did several times for a few days, Margaret’s happiness was complete. She basked in the sun of his easy enjoyment of life. She liked to take him about with her, and see the welcome in all companies of a man so handsome, so natural and cordial, as her husband. Especially aid she like the consideration in which he was evidently held at the club, where the members gathered about him to listen to his racy talk and catch points about the market. She liked to think that he was not a woman’s man. He gave her his version of some recent transactions that had been commented on in the newspapers, and she was indignant over the insinuations about him. It was the price, he said, that everybody had to pay for success. Why shouldn’t he, she reflected, make money? Everybody would if they could, and no one knew how generous he was. If she had been told that the family of Jerry Hollowell thought of him in the same way, she would have said that there was a world-wide difference in the two men. Insensibly she was losing the old standards she used to apply to success. Here in Lenox, in this prosperous, agreeable world, there was nothing to remind her of them.

In her enjoyment of this existence without care, I do not suppose it occurred to her to examine if her ideals had been lowered. Sometimes Henderson had a cynical, mocking tone about the world, which she reproved with a caress, but he was always tolerant and good-natured. If he had told her that he acted upon the maxim that every man and woman has his and her price she would have been shocked, but she was getting to make allowances that she would not have made before she learned to look at the world through his eyes. She could see that the Brandon circle was over- scrupulous. Her feeling of this would have been confirmed if she had known that when her aunt read the letter announcing a month’s visit to the Eschelles in Newport, she laid it down with a sigh.

XVI

Uncle Jerry was sitting on the piazza of the Ocean House, absorbed in the stock reports of a New York journal, answering at random the occasional observations of his wife, who filled up one of the spacious chairs near him–a florid woman, with diamonds in her ears, who had the resolute air of enjoying herself. It was an August Newport morning, when there is a salty freshness in the air, but a temperature that discourages exertion. A pony phaeton dashed by containing two ladies. The ponies were cream- colored, with flowing manes and tails, and harness of black and gold; the phaeton had yellow wheels with a black body; the diminutive page with folded arms, on the seat behind, wore a black jacket and yellow breeches. The lady who held the yellow silk reins was a blonde with dark eyes. As they flashed by, the lady on the seat with her bowed, and Mr. Hollowell returned the salute.

“Who’s that?” asked Mrs. Hollowell.

“That’s Mrs. Henderson.”

“And the other one?”

“I don’t know her. She knows how to handle the ribbons, though.”

“I seen her at the Casino the other night, before you come, with that tandem-driving count. I don’t believe he’s any more count than you are.”

“Oh, he’s all right. He’s one of the Spanish legation. This is just the place for counts. I shouldn’t wonder, Maria, if you’d like to be a countess. We can afford it–the Countess Jeremiah, eh?” and Uncle Jerry’s eyes twinkled.

“Don’t be a goose, Mr. Hollowell,” bringing her fat hands round in front of her, so that she could see the sparkle of the diamond rings on them. “She’s as pretty as a picture, that girl, but I should think a good wind would blow her away. I shouldn’t want to have her drive me round.”

“Jorkins has sailed,” said Mr. Hollowell, looking up from his paper. “The Planet reporter tried to interview him, but he played sick, said he was just going over and right back for a change. I guess it will be long enough before they get a chance at him again.”

“I’m glad he’s gone. I hope the papers will mind their own business for a spell.”

The house of the Eschelles was on the sea, looking over a vast sweep of lawn to the cliff and the dimpling blue water of the first beach. It was known as the Yellow Villa. Coming from the elegance of Lenox, Margaret was surprised at the magnificence and luxury of this establishment, the great drawing-rooms, the spacious chambers, the wide verandas, the pictures, the flowers, the charming nooks and recessed windows, with handy book-stands, and tables littered with the freshest and most-talked- of issues from the press of Paris, Madrid, and London. Carmen had taken a hint from Henderson’s bachelor apartment, which she had visited once with her mother, and though she had no literary taste, further than to dip in here and there to what she found toothsome and exciting in various languages, yet she knew the effect of the atmosphere of books, and she had a standing order at a book-shop for whatever was fresh and likely to come into notice.

And Carmen was a delightful hostess, both because her laziness gave an air of repose to the place, and she had the tact never to appear to make any demands upon her guests, and because she knew when to be piquant and exhibit personal interest, and when to show even a little abandon of vivacity. Society flowed through her house without any obstructions. It was scarcely ever too early and never too late for visitors. Those who were intimate used to lounge in and take up a book, or pass an hour on the veranda, even when none of the family were at home. Men had a habit of dropping in for a five o’clock cup of tea, and where the men went the women needed little urging to follow. At first there had been some reluctance about recognizing the Eschelles fully, and there were still houses that exhibited a certain reserve towards them, but the example of going to this house set by the legations, the members of which enjoyed a chat with Miss Eschelle in the freedom of their own tongues and the freedom of her tongue, went far to break down this barrier. They were spoken of occasionally as “those Eschelles,” but almost everybody went there, and perhaps enjoyed it all the more because there had been a shade of doubt about it.

Margaret’s coming was a good card for Carmen. The little legend about her French ancestry in Newport, and the romantic marriage in Rochambeau’s time, had been elaborated in the local newspaper, and when she appeared the ancestral flavor, coupled with the knowledge of Henderson’s accumulating millions, lent an interest and a certain charm to whatever she said and did. The Eschelle house became more attractive than ever before, so much so that Mrs. Eschelle declared that she longed for the quiet of Paris. To her motherly apprehension there was no result in this whirl of gayety, no serious intention discoverable in any of the train that followed Carmen. “You act, child,” she said, “as if youth would last forever.”

Margaret entered into this life as if she had been born to it. Perhaps she was. Perhaps most people never find the career for which they are fitted, and struggle along at cross-purposes with themselves. We all thought that Margaret’s natural bent was for some useful and self- sacrificing work in the world, and never could have imagined that under any circumstances she would develop into a woman of fashion.

“I intend to read a great deal this month,” she said to Carmen on her arrival, as she glanced at the litter of books.

“That was my intention,” replied Carmen; “now we can read together. I’m taking Spanish lessons of Count Crispo. I’ve learned two Spanish poems and a Castilian dance.”

“Is he married?”

“Not now. He told me, when he was teaching me the steps, that his heart was buried in Seville.”

“He seems to be full of sentiment.”

“Perhaps that is because his salary is so small. Mamma says, of all things an impecunious count! But he is amusing.”

“But what do you care for money? “asked Margaret, by way of testing Carmen’s motives.

“Nothing, my dear. But deliver me from a husband who is poor; he would certainly be a tyrant. Besides, if I ever marry, it will be with an American.”

“But suppose you fall in love with a poor man?”

“That would be against my principles. Never fall below your ideals–that is what I heard a speaker say at the Town and Country Club, and that is my notion. There is no safety for you if you lose your principles.”

“That depends upon what they are,” said Margaret, in the same bantering tone.

“That sounds like good Mr. Lyon. I suspect he thought I hadn’t any. Mamma said I tried to shock him; but he shocked me. Do you think you could live with such a man twenty-four hours, even if he had his crown on?”

“I can imagine a great deal worse husbands than the Earl of Chisholm.”

“Well, I haven’t any imagination.”

There was no reading that day nor the next. In the morning there was a drive with the ponies through town, in the afternoon in the carriage by the sea, with a couple of receptions, the five o’clock tea, with its chatter, and in the evening a dinner party for Margaret. One day sufficed to launch her, and there-after Carmen had only admiration for the unflagging spirit which Margaret displayed. “If you were only unmarried,” she said, “what larks we could have!” Margaret looked grave at this, but only for a moment, for she well knew that she could not please her husband better than by enjoying the season to the full. He never criticised her for taking the world as it is; and she confessed to herself that life went very pleasantly in a house where there were never any questions raised about duties. The really serious thought in Carmen’s mind was that perhaps after all a woman had no real freedom until she was married. And she began to be interested in Margaret’s enjoyment of the world.

It was not, after all, a new world, only newly arranged, like another scene in the same play. The actors, who came and went, were for the most part the acquaintances of the Washington winter, and the callers and diners and opera-goers and charity managers of the city. In these days Margaret was quite at home with the old set: the British Minister, the Belgian, the French, the Spanish, the Mexican, the German, and the Italian, with their families and attaches–nothing was wanting, not even the Chinese mandarin, who had rooms at the hotel, going about everywhere in the conscientious discharge of his duties as ambassador to American society, a great favorite on account of his silk apparel, which gave him the appearance of a clumsy woman, and the everlasting, three-thousand- year-old smile on his broad face, punctiliously leaving in every house a big flaring red piece of paper which the ladies pinned up for a decoration; a picture of helpless, childlike enjoyment, and almost independent of the interpreter who followed him about, when he had learned, upon being introduced to a lady, or taking a cup of tea, to say “good-by” as distinctly as an articulating machine; a truly learned man, setting an example of civility and perfect self-possession, but keenly observant of the oddities of the social life to which his missionary government had accredited him. One would like to have heard the comments of the minister and his suite upon our manners; but perhaps they were too polite to make any even in their seclusion. Certain it is that no one ever heard any of the legation express any opinion but the most suave and flattering.

And yet they must have been amazed at the activity of this season of repose, the endurance of American women who rode to the fox meets, were excited spectators of the polo, played lawn-tennis, were incessantly dining and calling, and sat through long dinners served with the formality and dullness and the swarms of liveried attendants of a royal feast. And they could not but admire the young men, who did not care for politics or any business beyond the chances of the stock exchange, but who expended an immense amount of energy in the dangerous polo contests, in riding at fences after the scent-bag, in driving tandems and four-in- hands, and yet had time to dress in the cut and shade demanded by every changing hour.

Formerly the annual chronicle of this summer pageant, in which the same women appeared day after day, and the same things were done over and over again, Margaret used to read with a contempt for the life; but that she enjoyed it, now she was a part of it, shows that the chroniclers for the press were unable to catch the spirit of it, the excitement of the personal encounters that made it new every day. Looking at a ball is quite another thing from dancing.

“Yes, it is lively enough,” said Mr. Ponsonby, one afternoon when they had returned from the polo grounds and were seated on the veranda. Mr. Ponsonby was a middle-aged Englishman, whose diplomatic labors at various courts had worn a bald spot on his crown. Carmen had not yet come, and they were waiting for a cup of tea. “And they ride well; but I think I rather prefer the Wild West Show.”

“You Englishmen,” Margaret retorted, “seem to like the uncivilized. Are you all tired of civilization?”

“Of some kinds. When we get through with the London season, you know, Mrs. Henderson, we like to rough it, as you call it, for some months. But, ‘pon my word, I can’t see much difference between Washington and Newport.”

“We might get up a Wild West Show here, or a prize-fight, for you. Do you know, Mr. Ponsonby, I think it will take full another century for women to really civilize men.”

“How so?”

“Get the cruelty and love of brutal sports out of them.”

“Then you’d cease to like us. Nothing is so insipid, I fancy, to a woman as a man made in her own image.”

“Well, what have you against Newport?”

“Against it? I’m sure nothing could be better than this.” And Mr. Ponsonby allowed his adventurous eyes to rest for a moment upon Margaret’s trim figure, until he saw a flush in her face. “This prospect,” he added, turning to the sea, where a few sails took the slant rays of the sun.

“‘Where every prospect pleases,”‘ quoted Margaret, “‘and only man–‘”

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Henderson; men are not to be considered. The women in Newport would make the place a paradise even if it were a desert.”

“That is another thing I object to in men.”

“What’s that?”

“Flattery. You don’t say such things to each other at the club. What is your objection to Newport?”

“I didn’t say I had any. But if you compel me well, the whole thing seems to be a kind of imitation.”

“How?”

“Oh, the way things go on–the steeple-chasing and fox-hunting, and the carts, and the style of the swell entertainments. Is that ill-natured?”

“Not at all. I like candor, especially English candor. But there is Miss Eschelle.”

Carmen drove up with Count Crispo, threw the reins to the groom, and reached the ground with a touch on the shoulder of the count, who had alighted to help her down.

“Carmen,” said Margaret, “Mr. Ponsonby says that all Newport is just an imitation.”

“Of course it is. We are all imitations, except Count Crispo. I’ll bet a cup of tea against a pair of gloves,” said Carmen, who had facility in picking up information, “that Mr. Ponsonby wasn’t born in England.”

Mr. Ponsonby looked redder than usual, and then laughed, and said, “Well, I was only three years old when I left Halifax.”

“I knew it!” cried Carmen, clapping her hands. “Now come in and have a cup of English breakfast tea. That’s imitation, too.”

“The mistake you made,” said Margaret, “was not being born in Spain.”

“Perhaps it’s not irreparable,” the count interposed, with an air of gallantry.

“No, no,” said Carmen, audaciously; “by this time I should be buried in Seville. No, I should prefer Halifax, for it would have been a pleasure to emigrate from Halifax. Was it not, Mr. Ponsonby?”

“I can’t remember. But it is a pleasure to sojourn in any land with Miss Eschelle.”

“Thank you. Now you shall have two cups. Come.”

The next morning, Mr. Jerry Hollowell, having inquired where Margaret was staying, called to pay his respects, as he phrased it. Carmen, who was with Margaret in the morning-room, received him with her most distinguished manner. “We all know Mr. Hollowell,” she said.

“That’s not always an advantage,” retorted Uncle Jerry, seating himself, and depositing his hat beside his chair. “When do you expect your husband, Mrs. Henderson?”

“Tomorrow. But I don’t mean to tell him that you are here–not at first.”

“No,” said Carmen; “we women want Mr. Henderson a little while to ourselves.”

Why, I’m the idlest man in America. I tell Henderson that he ought to take more time for rest. It’s no good to drive things. I like quiet.”

“And you get it in Newport?” Margaret asked.

“Well, my wife and children get what they call quiet. I guess a month of it would use me up. She says if I had a place here I’d like it. Perhaps so. You are very comfortably fixed, Miss Eschelle.”

“It does very well for us, but something more would be expected of Mr. Hollowell. We are just camping-out here. What Newport needs is a real palace, just to show those foreigners who come here and patronize us. Why is it, Mr. Hollowell, that all you millionaires can’t think of anything better to do with your money than to put up a big hotel or a great elevator or a business block?”

“I suppose,” said Uncle Jerry, blandly, “that is because they are interested in the prosperity of the country, and have simple democratic tastes for themselves. I’m afraid you are not democratic, Miss Eschelle.”

“Oh, I’m anxious about the public also. I’m on your side, Mr. Hollowell; but you don’t go far enough. You just throw in a college now and then to keep us quiet, but you owe it to the country to show the English that a democrat can have as fine a house as anybody.”

“I call that real patriotism. When I get rich, Miss Eschelle, I’ll bear it in mind.”

“Oh, you never will be rich,” said Carmen, sweetly, bound to pursue her whim. “You might come to me for a start to begin the house. I was very lucky last spring in A. and B. bonds.”

“How was that? Are you interested in A. and B.?” asked Uncle Jerry, turning around with a lively interest in this gentle little woman.

“Oh, no; we sold out. We sold when we heard what an interest there was in the road. Mamma said it would never do for two capitalists to have their eggs in the same basket.”

“What do you mean, Carmen?” asked Margaret, startled. “Why, that is the road Mr. Henderson is in.”

“Yes, I know, dear. There were too many in it.”

“Isn’t it safe?” said Margaret, turning to Hollowell.

“A great deal more solid than it was,” he replied. “It is part of a through line. I suppose Miss Eschelle found a better investment.”

“One nearer home,” she admitted, in the most matter-of-fact way.

“Henderson must have given the girl points,” thought Hollowell. He began to feel at home with her. If he had said the truth, it would have been that she was more his kind than Mrs. Henderson, but that he respected the latter more.

“I think we might go in partnership, Miss Eschelle, to mutual advantage– but not in building. Your ideas are too large for me there.”

“I should be a very unreliable partner, Mr. Hollowell; but I could enlarge your ideas, if I had time.”

Hollowell laughed, and said he hadn’t a doubt of that. Margaret inquired for Mrs. Hollowell and the children, and she and Carmen appointed an hour for calling at the Ocean House. The talk went to other topics, and after a half-hour ended in mutual good-feeling.

“What a delightful old party!” said Carmen, after he had gone. “I’ve a mind to adopt him.”

In a week Hollowell and Carmen were the best of friends. She called him “Uncle Jerry,” and buzzed about him, to his great delight. “The beauty of it is,” he said, “you never can tell where she will light.”

Everybody knows what Newport is in August, and we need not dwell on it. To Margaret, with its languidly moving pleasures, its well-bred scenery, the luxury that lulled the senses into oblivion of the vulgar struggle and anxiety which ordinarily attend life, it was little less than paradise. To float along with Carmen, going deeper and deeper into the shifting gayety which made the days fly without thought and with no care for tomorrow, began to seem an admirable way of passing life. What could one do fitter, after all, for a world hopelessly full of suffering and poverty and discontent, than to set an example of cheerfulness and enjoyment, and to contribute, as occasion offered, to the less fortunate? Would it help matters to be personally anxious and miserable? To put a large bill in the plate on Sunday, to open her purse wide for the objects of charity and relief daily presented, was indeed a privilege and a pleasure, and a satisfaction to the conscience which occasionally tripped her in her rapid pace.

“I don’t believe you have a bit of conscience,” said Margaret to Carmen one Sunday, as they walked home from morning service, when Margaret had responded “extravagantly,” as Carmen said, to an appeal for the mission among the city pagans.

“I never said I had, dear. It must be the most troublesome thing you can carry around with you. Of course I am interested in the heathen, but charity–that is where I agree with Uncle Jerry–begins at home, and I don’t happen to know a greater heathen than I am.”

“If you were as bad as you make yourself out, I wouldn’t walk with you another step.”

“Well, you ask mother. She was in such a rage one day when I told Mr. Lyon that he’d better look after Ireland than go pottering round among the neglected children. Not that I care anything about the Irish,” added this candid person.

“I suppose you wanted to make it pleasant for Mr. Lyon?”

“No; for mother. She can’t get over the idea that she is still bringing me up. And Mr. Lyon! Goodness! there was no living with him after his visit to Brandon. Do you know, Margaret, that I think you are just a little bit sly?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Margaret, looking offended.

“Dear, I don’t blame you,” said the impulsive creature, wheeling short round and coming close to Margaret. “I’d kiss you this minute if we were not in the public road.”

When Henderson came, Margaret’s world was full; no desire was ungratified. He experienced a little relief when she did not bother him about his business nor inquire into his operations with Hollowell, and he fancied that she was getting to accept the world as Carmen accepted it. There had been moments since his marriage when he feared that Margaret’s scruples would interfere with his career, but never a moment when he had doubted that her love for him would be superior to any solicitations from others. Carmen, who knew him like a book, would have said that the model wife for Henderson would be a woman devoted to him and to his interests, and not too scrupulous. A wife is a torment, if you can’t feel at ease with her.

“If there were only a French fleet in the harbor, dear,” said Margaret one day,” I should feel that I had quite taken up the life of my great-great-grandmother.”

They were sailing in Hollowell’s yacht, in which Uncle Jerry had brought his family round from New York. He hated the water, but Mrs. Hollowell and the children doted on the sea, he said.

“Wouldn’t the torpedo station make up for it?” Henderson asked.

“Hardly. But it shows the change of a hundred years. Only, isn’t it odd, this personal dropping back into an old situation? I wonder what she was like?”

“The accounts say she was the belle of Newport. I suppose Newport has a belle once in a hundred years. The time has come round. But I confess I don’t miss the French fleet,” replied Henderson, with a look of love that thrilled Margaret through and through.

“But you would have been an officer on the fleet, and I should have fallen in love with you. Ah, well, it is better as it is.”

And it was better. The days went by without a cloud. Even after Henderson had gone, the prosperity of life filled her heart more and more.

“She might have been like me,” Carmen said to herself, “if she had only started right; but it is so hard to get rid of a New England conscience.”

When Margaret stayed in her room, one morning, to write a long-postponed letter to her aunt, she discovered that she had very little to write, at least that she wanted to write, to her aunt. She began, however, resolutely with a little account of her life. But it seemed another thing on paper, addressed to the loving eyes at Brandon. There were too much luxury and idleness and triviality in it, too much Carmen and Count Crispo and flirtation and dissipation in it.

She tore it up, and went to the window and looked out upon the sea. She was indignant with the Brandon people that they should care so little about this charming life. She was indignant at herself that she had torn up the letter. What had she done that anybody should criticise her? Why shouldn’t she live her life, and not be hampered everlastingly by comparisons?

She sat down again, and took up her pen. Was she changing–was she changed? Why was it that she had felt a little relief when her last Brandon visit was at an end, a certain freedom in Lenox and a greater freedom in Newport? The old associations became strong again in her mind, the life in the little neighborhood, the simplicity of it, the high ideals of it, the daily love and tenderness. Her aunt was no doubt wondering now that she did not write, and perhaps grieving that Margaret no more felt at home in Brandon. It was too much. She loved them, she loved them all dearly. She would write that, and speak only generally of her frivolous, happy summer. And she began, but somehow the letter seemed stiff and to lack the old confiding tone.

But why should they disapprove of her? She thought of her husband. If circumstances had altered, was she to blame? Could she always be thinking of what they would think at Brandon? It was an intolerable bondage. They had no right to set themselves up over her. Suppose her aunt didn’t like Carmen. She was not responsible for Carmen. What would they have her do? Be unhappy because Henderson was prosperous, and she could indulge her tastes and not have to drudge in school? Suppose she did look at some things differently from what she used to. She knew more of the world. Must you shut yourself up because you found you couldn’t trust everybody? What was Mr. Morgan always hitting at? Had he any better opinion of men and women than her husband had? Was he any more charitable than Uncle Jerry? She smiled as she thought of Uncle Jerry and his remark–“It’s a very decent world if you don’t huff it.” No; she did like this life, and she was not going to pretend that she didn’t. It would be dreadful to lose the love and esteem of her dear old friends, and she cried a little as this possibility came over her. And then she hardened her heart a little at the thought that she could not help it if they chose to misunderstand her and change.

Carmen was calling from the stairs that it was time to dress for the drive. She dashed off a note. It contained messages of love for everybody, but it was the first one in her life written to her aunt not from her heart.

XVII

Shall we never have done with this carping at people who succeed? Are those who start and don’t arrive any better than those who do arrive? Did not men always make all the money they had an opportunity to make? Must we always have the old slow-coach merchants and planters thrown up to us? Talk of George Washington and the men of this day! Were things any better because they were on a small scale? Wasn’t the thrifty George Washington always adding to his plantations, and squeezing all he could out of his land and his slaves? What are the negro traditions about it? Were they all patriots in the Revolutionary War? Were there no contractors who amassed fortunes then? And how was it in the late war? The public has a great spasm of virtue all of a sudden. But we have got past the day of stage-coaches.

Something like this Henderson was flinging out to Carmen as he paced back and forth in her parlor. It was very unlike him, this outburst, and Carmen knew that he would indulge in it to no one else, not even to Uncle Jerry. She was coiled up in a corner of the sofa, her eyes sparkling with admiration of his indignation and force. I confess that he had been irritated by the comments of the newspapers, and by the prodding of the lawyers in the suit then on trial over the Southwestern consolidation.

“Why, there was old Mansfield saying in his argument that he had had some little experience in life, but he never had known a man to get rich rapidly, barring some piece of luck, except by means that it would make him writhe to have made public. I don’t know but that Uncle Jerry was right, that we made a mistake in not retaining him for the corporation.”

“Not if you win,” said Carmen, softly. “The public won’t care for the remark unless you fail.”

“And he tried to prejudice the Court by quoting the remark attributed to Uncle Jerry, ‘The public be d—d’ as if, said Mansfield, the public has no rights as–against the railroad wreckers. Uncle Jerry laughed, and interrupted: ‘That’s nonsense, reporters’ nonsense. What I said was that if the public thought I was fool enough to make it our enemy, the public might be d—d (begging your honor’s pardon).’ Then everybody laughed. ‘It’s the bond holders, who want big dividends, that stand in the way of the development of the country, that’s what it is,’ said he, as he sat down, to those around him, but loud enough to be heard all over the room. Mansfield asked the protection of the Court against these clap-trap interruptions. The judge said it was altogether irregular, and Uncle Jerry begged pardon. The reporters made this incident the one prominent thing in the case that day.”

“What a delightful Uncle Jerry it is!” said Carmen. “You’d better keep an eye on him, Rodney; he’ll be giving your money to that theological seminary in Alabama.”

“That reminds me,” Henderson said, cooling down, “of a paragraph in The Planet, the other day, about the amount of my gifts unknown to the public. I showed it to Uncle Jerry, and he said, ‘Yes, I mentioned it to the editor; such things don’t do any harm.'”

“I saw it, and wondered who started it,” Carmen replied, wrinkling her brows as if she had been a good deal perplexed about it.

“I thought,” said Henderson, with a smile, “that it ought to be explained to you.”

“No,” she said, reflectively; “you are liberal enough, goodness knows– too liberal–but you are not a flat.”

Henderson was in the habit of dropping in at the Eschelles’ occasionally, when he wanted to talk freely. He had no need to wear a mask with Carmen. Her moral sense was tolerant and elastic, and feminine sympathy of this sort is a grateful cushion. She admired Henderson, without thinking any too well of the world in general, and she admired him for the qualities that were most conformable to his inclination. It was no case of hero-worship, to be sure, nor for tragedy; but then what a satisfaction it must be to sweet Lady Macbeth, coiled up on her sofa, to feel that the thane of Cawdor has some nerve!

The Hendersons had come back to Washington Square late in the autumn. It is a merciful provision that one has an orderly and well-appointed home to return to from the fatigues of the country. Margaret, at any rate, was a little tired with the multiform excitements of her summer, and experienced a feeling of relief when she crossed her own threshold and entered into the freedom and quiet of her home. She was able to shut the door there even against the solicitations of nature and against the weariness of it also. How quiet it was in the square in those late autumn days, and yet not lifeless by any means! Indeed, it seemed all the more a haven because the roar of the great city environed it, and one could feel, without being disturbed by, the active pulsation of human life. And then, if one has sentiment, is there anywhere that it is more ministered to than in the city at the close of the year? The trees in the little park grow red and yellow and brown, the leaves fall and swirl and drift in windrows by the paths, the flower-beds flame forth in the last dying splendor of their color; the children, chasing each other with hoop and ball about the walks, are more subdued than in the spring-time; the old men, seeking now the benches where the sunshine falls, sit in dreamy reminiscence of the days that are gone; the wandering minstrel of Italy turns the crank of his wailing machine, O! bella, bella, as in the spring, but the notes seem to come from far off and to be full of memory rather than of promise; and at early morning, or when the shadows lengthen at evening, the south wind that stirs the trees has a salt smell, and sends a premonitory shiver of change to the fading foliage. But how bright are the squares and the streets, for all this note of melancholy! Life is to begin again.

But the social season opened languidly. It takes some time to recover from the invigoration of the summer gayety–to pick up again the threads and weave them into that brilliant pattern, which scarcely shows all its loveliness of combination and color before the weavers begin to work in the subdued tints of Lent. How delightful it is to see this knitting and unraveling of the social fabric year after year! and how untiring are the senders of the shuttles, the dyers, the hatchelers, the spinners, the ever-busy makers and destroyers of the intricate web we call society! After one campaign, must there not be time given to organize for another? Who has fallen out, who are the new recruits, who are engaged, who will marry, who have separated, who has lost his money? Before we can safely reorganize we must not only examine the hearts but the stock-list. No matter how many brilliant alliances have been arranged, no matter how many husbands and wives have drifted apart in the local whirlpools of the summer’s current, the season will be dull if Wall Street is torpid and discouraged. We cannot any of us, you see, live to ourselves alone. Does not the preacher say that? And do we not all look about us in the pews, when he thus moralizes, to see who has prospered? The B’s have taken a back seat, the C’s have moved up nearer the pulpit. There is a reason for these things, my friends.

I am sorry to say that Margaret was usually obliged to go alone to the little church where she said her prayers; for however restful her life might have been while that season was getting under way, Henderson was involved in the most serious struggle of his life–a shameful kind of conspiracy, Margaret told Carmen, against him. I have hinted at his annoyance in the courts. Ever since September he had been pestered with injunctions, threatened with attachments. And now December had come and Congress was in session; in the very first days an investigation had been ordered into the land grants involved in the Southwestern operations. Uncle Jerry was in Washington to explain matters there, and Henderson, with the ablest counsel in the city, was fighting in the courts. The affair made a tremendous stir. Some of the bondholders of the A. and B. happened to be men of prominence, and able to make a noise about their injury. As several millions were involved in this one branch of the case –the suit of the bondholders–the newspapers treated it with the consideration and dignity it deserved. It was a vast financial operation, some said, scathingly, a “deal,” but the magnitude of it prevented it from falling into the reports of petty swindling that appear in the police-court column. It was a public affair, and not to be judged by one’s private standard. I know that there were remarks made about Henderson that would have pained Margaret if she had heard them, but I never heard that he lost standing in the street. Still, in justice to the street it must be said that it charitably waits for things to be proven, and that if Henderson had failed, he might have had little more lenient judgment in the street than elsewhere.

In fact, those were very trying days for him-days when he needed all the private sympathy he could get, and to be shielded, in his great fight with the conspiracy, from petty private annoyances. It needed all his courage and good-temper and bonhomie to carry him through. That he went through was evidence not only of his adroitness and ability, but it was proof also that he was a good fellow. If there were people who thought otherwise, I never heard that they turned their backs on him, or failed in that civility which he never laid aside in his intercourse with others.

If a man present a smiling front to the world under extreme trial, is not that all that can be expected of him? Shall he not be excused for showing a little irritation at home when things go badly? Henderson was as good-humored a man as I ever knew, and he loved Margaret, he was proud of her, he trusted her. Since when did the truest love prevent a man from being petulant, even to the extent of wounding those he best loves, especially if the loved one shows scruples when sympathy is needed? The reader knows that the present writer has no great confidence in the principle of Carmen; but if she had been married, and her husband had wrecked an insurance company and appropriated all the surplus belonging to the policy-holders, I don’t believe she would have nagged him about it.

And yet Margaret loved Henderson with her whole soul. And in this stage of her progress in the world she showed that she did, though not in the way Carmen would have showed her love, if she had loved, and if she had a soul capable of love.

It may have been inferred from Henderson’s exhibition of temper that his case had gone against him. It is true; an injunction had been granted in the lower court, and public opinion went with the decree, and was in a great measure satisfied by it. But this fight had really only just begun; it would go on in the higher courts, with new resources and infinite devices, which the public would be unable to fathom or follow, until by-and-by it would come out that a compromise had been made, and the easy public would not understand that this compromise gave the looters of the railway substantially all they ever expected to get. The morning after the granting of the injunction Henderson had been silent and very much absorbed at breakfast, hardly polite, Margaret thought, and so inattentive to her remarks that she asked him twice whether they should accept the Brandon invitation to Christmas. “Christmas! I don’t know. I’ve got other things to think of than Christmas,” he said, scarcely looking at her, and rising abruptly and going away to his library.

When the postman brought Margaret’s mail there was a letter in it from her aunt, which she opened leisurely after the other notes had been glanced through, on the principle that a family letter can wait, or from the fancy that some have of keeping the letter likely to be most interesting till the last. But almost the first line enchained her attention, and as she read, her heart beat faster, and her face became scarlet. It was very short, and I am able to print it, because all Margaret’s correspondence ultimately came into possession of her aunt:

“BRANDON, December 17th.

“DEAREST MARGARET,–You do not say whether you will come for Christmas, but we infer from your silence that you will. You know how pained we shall all be if you do not. Yet I fear the day will not be as pleasant as we could wish. In fact, we are in a good deal of trouble. You know, dear, that poor Mrs. Fletcher had nearly every dollar of her little fortune invested in the A. and B. bonds, and for ten months she has not had a cent of income, and no prospect of any. Indeed, Morgan says that she will be lucky if she ultimately saves half her principal. We try to cheer her up, but she is so cast down and mortified to have to live, as she says, on charity. And it does make rather close house-keeping, though I’m sure I couldn’t live alone without her. It does not make so much difference with Mr. Fairchild and Mr. Morgan, for they have plenty of other resources. Mr. Fairchild tells her that she is in very good company, for lots of the bonds are held in Brandon, and she is not the only widow who suffers; but this is poor consolation. We had great hopes, the other day, of the trial, but Morgan says it may be years before any final settlement. I don’t believe Mr. Henderson knows. But there, dearest, I won’t find fault. We are all well, and eager to see you. Do come.

Your affectionate aunt,

“GEORGIAN A.”

Margaret’s hand that held the letter trembled, and the eyes that read these words were hot with indignation; but she controlled herself into an appearance of calmness as she marched away with it straight to the library.

As she entered, Henderson was seated at his desk, with bowed head and perplexed brows, sorting a pile of papers before him, and making notes. He did not look up until she came close to him and stood at the end of his desk. Then, turning his eyes for a moment, and putting out his left hand to her, he said, “Well, what is it, dear?”

“Will you read that?” said Margaret, in a voice that sounded strange in her own ears.

“What?”

“A letter from Aunt Forsythe.”

“Family matter. Can’t it wait?” said Henderson, going on with his figuring.

“If it can, I cannot,” Margaret answered, in a tone that caused him to turn abruptly and look at her. He was so impatient and occupied that even yet he did not comprehend the new expression in her face.

“Don’t you see I am busy, child? I have an engagement in twenty minutes in my office.”

“You can read it in a moment,” said Margaret, still calm.

Henderson took the letter with a gesture of extreme annoyance, ran his eye through it, flung it from him on the table, and turned squarely round in his chair.

“Well, what of it?”

“To ruin poor Mrs. Fletcher and a hundred like her!” cried Margaret, with rising indignation.

“What have I to do with it? Did I make their investments? Do you think I have time to attend to every poor duck? Why don’t people look where they put their money?”

“It’s a shame, a burning shame!” she cried, regarding him steadily.

“Oh, yes; no doubt. I lost a hundred thousand yesterday; did I whine about it? If I want to buy anything in the market, have I got to look into every tuppenny interest concerned in it? If Mrs. Fletcher or anybody else has any complaint against me, the courts are open. I defy the whole pack!” Henderson thundered out, rising and buttoning his coat– “the whole pack!”

“And you have nothing else to say, Rodney?” Margaret persisted, not quailing in the least before his indignation. He had never seen her so before, and he was now too much in a passion to fully heed her.

“Oh, women, women!” he said, taking up his hat, “you have sympathy enough for anybody but your husbands.” He pushed past her, and was gone without another word or look.

Margaret turned to follow him. She would have cried “Stop!” but the word stuck in her throat. She was half beside herself with rage for a moment. But he had gone. She heard the outer door close. Shame and grief overcame her. She sat down in the chair he had just occupied. It was infamous the way Mrs. Fletcher was treated. And her husband–her husband was so regardless of it. If he was not to blame for it, why didn’t he tell her–why didn’t he explain? And he had gone away without looking at her. He had left her for the first time since they were married without kissing her! She put her head down on the desk and sobbed; it seemed as if her heart would break. Perhaps he was angry, and wouldn’t come back, not for ever so long.

How cruel to say that she did not sympathize with her husband! How could he be angry with her for her natural anxiety about her old friend! He was unjust. There must be something wrong in these schemes, these great operations that made so many confiding people suffer. Was everybody grasping and selfish? She got up and walked about the dear room, which recalled to her only the sweetest memories; she wandered aimlessly about the lower part of the house. She was wretchedly unhappy. Was her husband capable of such conduct? Would he cease to love her for what she had done–for what she must do? How lovely this home was! Everything spoke of his care, his tenderness, his quickness to anticipate her slightest wish or whim. It had been all created for her. She looked listlessly at the pictures, the painted ceiling, where the loves garlanded with flowers chased each other; she lifted and let drop wearily the rich hangings. He had said that it was all hers. How pretty was this vista through the luxurious rooms down to the green and sunny conservatory. And she shrank instinctively from it all. Was it hers? No; it was his. And was she only a part of it? Was she his? How cold his look as he went away!

What is this love, this divine passion, of which we hear so much? Is it, then, such a discerner of right and wrong? Is it better than anything else? Does it take the place of duty, of conscience? And yet what an unbearable desert, what a den of wild beasts it would be, this world, without love, the passionate, all-surrendering love of the man and the woman!

In the chambers, in her own apartments, into which she dragged her steps, it was worse than below. Everything here was personal. Mrs. Fairchild had said that it was too rich, too luxurious; but her husband would have it so. Nothing was too costly, too good, for the woman he loved. How happy she had been in this boudoir, this room, her very own, with her books, the souvenirs of all her happy life!

It seemed alien now, external, unsympathetic. Here, least of all places, could she escape from herself, from her hateful thoughts. It was a chilly day, and a bright fire crackled on the hearth. The square was almost deserted, though the sun illuminated it, and showed all the delicate tracery of the branches and twigs. It was a December sun. Her easy-chair was drawn to the fire and her book-stand by it, with the novel turned down that she had been reading the night before. She sat down and took up the book. She had lost her interest in the characters. Fiction! What stuff it was compared to the reality of her own life! No, it was impossible. She must do something. She went to her dressing-room and selected a street dress. She took pleasure in putting on the plainest costume she could find, rejecting every ornament, everything but the necessary and the simple. She wanted to get back to herself. Her maid appeared in response to the bell.

“I am going out, Marie.”

“Will madame have the carriage?”

“No, I will walk; I need exercise. Tell Jackson not to serve lunch.”

Yes, she would walk; for it was his carriage, after all.

It was after mid-day. In the keen air and the bright sunshine the streets were brilliant. Margaret walked on up the avenue. How gay was the city, what a zest of life in the animated scene! The throng increased as she approached Twenty-third Street. In the place where three or four currents meet there was the usual jam of carriages, furniture wagons, carts, cars, and hurried, timid, half-bewildered passengers trying to make their way through it. It was all such a whirl and confusion. A policeman aided Margaret to gain the side of the square. Children were playing there; white-capped maids were pushing about baby-carriages; the sparrows chattered and fought with as much vivacity as if they were natives of the city instead of foreigners in possession. It seemed all so empty and unreal. What was she, one woman with an aching heart, in the midst of it all? What had she done? How could she have acted otherwise? Was he still angry with her? The city was so vast and cruel. On the avenue again there was the same unceasing roar of carts and carriages; business, pleasure, fashion, idleness, the stream always went by. From one and another carriage Margaret received a bow, a cool nod, or a smile of greeting. Perhaps the occupants wondered to see her on foot and alone. What did it matter? How heartless it all was! what an empty pageant! If he was alienated, there was nothing. And yet she was right. For a moment she thought of the Arbusers. She thought of Carmen. She must see somebody. No, she couldn’t talk. She couldn’t trust herself. She must bear it alone.

And how weary it was, walking, walking, with such a burden! House after house, street after street, closed doors, repellant fronts, staring at her. Suppose she were poor and hungry, a woman wandering forlorn, how stony and pitiless these insolent mansions! And was she not burdened and friendless and forlorn! Tired, she reached at last, and with no purpose, the great white cathedral. The door was open. In all this street of churches and palaces there was no other door open. Perhaps here for a moment she could find shelter from the world, a quiet corner where she could rest and think and pray.

She entered. It was almost empty, but down the vista of the great columns hospitable lights gleamed, and here and there a man or a woman– more women than men–was kneeling in the great aisle, before a picture, at the side of a confessional, at the steps of the altar. How hushed and calm and sweet it was! She crept into a pew in a side aisle in the shelter of a pillar; and sat down. Presently, in the far apse, an organ began to play, its notes stealing softly out through the great spaces like a benediction. She fancied that the saints, the glorified martyrs in the painted windows illumined by the sunlight, could feel, could hear, were touched by human sympathy in their beatitude. There was peace here at any rate, and perhaps strength. What a dizzy whirl it all was in which she had been borne along! The tones of the organ rose fuller and fuller, and now at the side entrances came pouring in children, the boys on one side, the girls on another-school children with their books and satchels, the poor children of the parish, long lines of girls and of boys, marshaled by priests and nuns, streaming in–in frolicsome mood, and filling all the pews of the nave at the front. They had their books out, their singing-books; at a signal they all stood up; a young priest with his baton stepped into the centre aisle; he waved his stick, Margaret heard his sweet tenor voice, and then the whole chorus of children’s voices rising and filling all the house with the innocent concord, but always above all the penetrating, soaring notes of the priest-strong, clear, persuading. Was it not almost angelic there at the moment? And how inspired the beautiful face of the singer leading the children!

Ah, me! it is not all of the world worldly, then. I don’t know that the singing was very good: it was not classical, I fear; not a voice, maybe, that priest’s, not a chorus, probably, that, for the Metropolitan. I hear the organ is played better elsewhere. Song after song, chorus after chorus, repeated, stopped, begun again: it was only drilling the little urchins of the parochial schools–little ragamuffins, I dare say, many of them. What was there in this to touch a woman of fashion, sitting there crying in her corner? Was it because they were children’s voices, and innocent? Margaret did not care to check her tears. She was thinking of her old home, of her own childhood, nay, of her girlhood–it was not so long ago–of her ideals then, of her notion of the world and what it would bring her, of the dear, affectionate life, the simple life, the school, the little church, her room in the cottage–the chamber where first the realization of love came to her with the odors of May. Was it gone, that life?–gone or going out of her heart? And–great heavens!– if her husband should be cold to her! Was she very worldly? Would he love her if she were as unworldly as she once was? Why should this childish singing raise these contrasts, and put her at odds so with her own life? For a moment I doubt not this dear girl saw herself as we were beginning to see her. Who says that the rich and the prosperous and the successful do not need pity?

Was this a comforting hour, do you think, for Margaret in the cathedral? Did she get any strength, I wonder? When the singing was over and the organ ceased, and the children had filed out, she stole away also, wearily and humbly enough, and took the stage down the avenue. It was near the dinner-hour, and Henderson, if he came, would be at home any moment. It seemed as if she could not wait–only to see him!

XVIII

Do you suppose that Henderson had never spoken impatiently and sharply to his wife before, that Margaret had never resented it and replied with spirit, and been hurt and grieved, and that there had never been reconciliations? In writing any biography there are some things that are taken for granted with an intelligent public. Are men always gentle and considerate, and women always even-tempered and consistent, simply by virtue of a few words said to the priest?

But this was a more serious affair. Margaret waited in a tumult of emotion. She felt that she would die if she did not see him soon, and she dreaded his coming. A horrible suspicion had entered her mind that respect for her husband, confidence in him, might be lowered, and a more horrible doubt that she might lose his love. That she could not bear. And was Henderson unconscious of all this? I dare say that in the perplexing excitement of the day he did recall for a moment with a keen thrust of regret the scene of the morning-his wife standing there flushed, wounded, indignant. “I might have turned back, and taken her in my arms, and told her it was all right,” he thought. He wished he had done so. But what nonsense it was to think that she could be seriously troubled! Besides, he couldn’t have women interfering with him every moment.

How inconsiderate men are! They drop a word or a phrase–they do not know how cruel it is–or give a look–they do not know how cold it is–and are gone without a second thought about it; but it sinks into the woman’s heart and rankles there. For the instant it is like a mortal blow, it hurts so, and in the brooding spirit it is exaggerated into a hopeless disaster. The wound will heal with a kind word, with kisses. Yes, but never, never without a little scar. But woe to the woman’s love when she becomes insensible to these little stabs!

Henderson hurried home, then, more eagerly than usual, with reparation in his heart, but still with no conception of the seriousness of the breach. Margaret heard the key in the door, heard his hasty step in the hall, heard him call, as he always did on entering, “Margaret! where is Margaret?” and she, sitting there in the deep window looking on the square, longed to run to him, as usual also, and be lifted up in his strong arms; but she could not stir. Only when he found her did she rise up with a wistful look and a faint smile. “Have you had a good day, child?” And he kissed her. But her kiss was on her lips only, for her heart was heavy.

“Dinner will be served as soon as you dress,” she said. What a greeting was this! Who says that a woman cannot be as cruel as a man? The dinner was not very cheerful, though Margaret did her best not to appear constrained, and Henderson rattled on about the events of the day. It had been a deuce of a day, but it was coming right; he felt sure that the upper court would dissolve the injunction; the best counsel said so; and the criminal proceedings–“Had there been criminal proceedings?” asked Margaret, with a stricture at her heart–had broken down completely, hadn’t a leg to stand on, never had, were only begun to bluff the company. It was a purely malicious prosecution. And Henderson did not think it necessary to tell Margaret that only Uncle Jerry’s dexterity had spared both of them the experience of a night in the Ludlow Street jail.

“Come,” said Henderson–” come into the library. I have something to tell you.” He put his arm round her as they walked, and seating himself in his chair by his desk in front of the fire, he tried to draw Margaret to sit on his knee.

“No; I’ll sit here, so that I can see you,” she said, composed and unyielding.

He took out his pocket-book, selected a slip of paper, and laid it on the table before him. “There, that is a check for seven hundred dollars. I looked in the books. That is the interest for a year on the Fletcher bonds. Might as well make it an even year; it will be that soon.”

“Do you mean to say—” asked Margaret, leaning forward.

“Yes; to brighten up the Christmas up there a little.”

“—that you are going to send that to Mrs. Fletcher?” Margaret had risen.

“Oh, no; that wouldn’t do. I cannot send it, nor know anything about it. It would raise the–well, it would–if the other bondholders knew anything about it. But you can change that for your check, and nobody the wiser.”

“Oh, Rodney!” She was on his knee now. He was good, after all. Her head was on his shoulder, and she was crying a little. “I’ve been so unhappy, so unhappy, all day! And I can send that? “She sprang up. “I’ll do it this minute–I’ll run and get my check-book!” But before she reached the door she turned back, and came and stood by him and kissed him again and again, and tumbled up his hair, and looked at him. There is, after all, nothing in the world like a woman.

“Time enough in the morning,” said Henderson, detaining her. “I want to tell you all about it.”

What he told her was, in fact, the case as it had been presented by his lawyers, and it seemed a very large, a constitutional, kind of case. “Of course,” he said, “in the rivalry and competition of business somebody must go to the wall, and in a great scheme of development and reorganization of the transportation of a region as big as an empire some individual interests will suffer. You can’t help these changes. I’m sorry for some of them–very sorry; but nothing would ever be done if we waited to consider every little interest. And that the men who create these great works, and organize these schemes for the benefit of the whole public, shouldn’t make anything by their superior enterprise and courage is all nonsense. The world is not made that way.”

The explanation, I am bound to say, was one that half the world considers valid; it was one that squeezed through the courts. And when it was done, and the whole thing had blown over, who cared? There were some bondholders who said that it was rascally, that they had been boldly swindled. In the clubs, long after, you would hear it said that Hollowell and Henderson were awfully sharp, and hard to beat. It is a very bad business, said the Brandon parliament, and it just shows that the whole country is losing its moral sense, its capacity to judge what is right and what is wrong.

I do not say that this explanation, the nature of which I have only indicated, would have satisfied the clear mind of Margaret a year or two before. But it was made by the man she loved, the man who had brought her out into a world that was full of sunlight and prosperity and satisfied desire; and more and more, day by day, she saw the world through his eyes, and accepted his estimate of the motives of people–and a low estimate I fear it was. Who would not be rich if he could? Do you mean to tell me that a man who is getting fat dividends out of a stock does not regard more leniently the manner in which that stock is manipulated than one who does not own any of it? I dare say, if Carmen had heard that explanation, and seen Margaret’s tearful, happy acceptance of it, she would have shaken her pretty head and said, “They are getting too worldly for me.”

In the morning the letter was despatched to Miss Forsythe, enclosing the check for Mrs. Fletcher–a joyful note, full of affection. “We cannot come,” Margaret wrote. “My husband cannot leave, and he does not want to spare me”–the little hypocrite! he had told her that she could easily go for a day “but we shall think of you dear ones all day, and I do hope that now there will not be the least cloud on your Christmas.”

It seems a great pity, in view of the scientific organization of society, that there are so many sensibilities unclassified and unprovided for in the otherwise perfect machinery. Why should the beggar to whom you toss a silver dollar from your carriage feel a little grudge against you? Perhaps he wouldn’t like to earn the dollar, but if it had been accompanied by a word of sympathy, his sensibility might have been soothed by your recognition of human partnership in the goods of this world. People not paupers are all eager to take what is theirs of right; but anything in the semblance of charity is a bitter pill to swallow until self-respect is a little broken down. Probably the resentment lies in the recognition of the truth that it is much easier to be charitable than to be just. If Margaret had seen the effect produced by her letter she might have thought of this; she might have gone further, and reflected upon what would have been her own state of mind two years earlier if she had received such a letter. Miss Forsythe read it with a very heavy heart. She hesitated about showing it to Mrs. Fletcher, and when she did, and gave her the check, it was with a sense of shame.

“The insolence of the thing!” cried Mrs. Fletcher, as soon as she comprehended it.

“Not insolence,” pleaded Miss Forsythe, softly; “it is out of the kindness of her heart. She would be dreadfully wounded to know that you took it so.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Fletcher, hotly, “I like that kind of sensibility. Does she think I have no feeling? Does she think I would take from her as a charity what her husband knows is mine by right?”

“Perhaps her husband–“

“No,” Mrs. Fletcher interrupted. “Why didn’t he send it, then? why didn’t the company send it? They owe it. I’m not a pauper. And all the other bondholders who need the money as much as I do! I’m not saying that if the company sent it I should refuse it because the others had been treated unjustly; but to take it as a favor, like a beggar!”

“Of course you cannot take it from Margaret,” said Miss Forsythe sadly.

“How dreadful it is!”

Mrs. Fletcher would have shared her last crust with Miss Forsythe, and if her own fortune were absolutely lost, she would not hesitate to accept the shelter of her present home, using her energies to add to their limited income, serving and being served in all love and trust. But this is different from taking a bounty from the rich.

The check had to go back. Even my wife, who saw no insolence in Margaret’s attempt, applauded Mrs. Fletcher’s spirit. She told Miss Forsythe that if things did not mend they might get a few little pupils for Mrs. Fletcher from the neighborhood, and Miss Forsythe knew that she was thinking that her own boy might have been one of them if he had lived. Mr. Morgan was a little satirical, as usual. He thought it would be a pity to check Margaret’s growing notion that there was no wrong that money could not heal a remark that my wife thought unjust to the girl. Mrs. Fletcher was for re-enclosing the check without a word of comment, but that Miss Forsythe would not do.

“My dearest Margaret,” she wrote, “I know the kindness of heart that moved you to do this, and I love you more than ever, and am crying as I think of it. But you must see yourself, when you reflect, that Mrs. Fletcher could not take this from you. Her self-respect would not permit it. Somebody has done a great wrong, and only those who have done it can undo it. I don’t know much about such things, my dear, and I don’t believe all that the newspapers have been saying, but there would be no need for charity if there had not been dishonesty somewhere. I cannot help thinking that. We do not blame you. And you must not take it to heart that I am compelled to send this back. I understand why you sent it, and you must try to understand why it cannot be kept.”

There was more of this sort in the letter. It was full of a kind of sorrowful yearning, as if there was fear that Margaret’s love were slipping away and all the old relations were being broken up, but yet it had in it a certain moral condemnation that the New England spinster could not conceal. Softened as it was by affectionate words, and all the loving messages of the season, it was like a slap in the face to Margaret. She read it in the first place with intense mortification, and then with indignation. This was the way her loving spirit was flung back upon her! They did not blame her! They blamed her husband, then. They condemned him. It was his generosity that was spurned.

Is there a particular moment when we choose our path in life, when we take the right or the left? At this instant, when Margaret arose with the crumpled letter in her hand, and marched towards her husband’s library, did she choose, or had she been choosing for the two years past, and was this only a publication of her election? Why had she secretly been a little relieved from restraint when her Brandon visit ended in the spring? They were against her husband; they disapproved of him, that was clear. Was it not a wife’s duty to stand by her husband? She was indignant with the Brandon scrupulousness; it chafed her.. Was this simply because she loved her husband, or was this indignation a little due also to her liking for the world which so fell in with her inclinations? The motives in life are so mixed that it seems impossible wholly to condemn or wholly to approve. If Margaret’s destiny had been united with such a man as John Lyon, what would have been her discernment in such a case as this? It is such a pity that for most people there is only one chance in life.

She laid the letter and the check upon her husband’s desk. He read it with a slight frown, which changed to a smile of amusement as he looked up and saw Margaret’s excitement.

“Well, it was a miss-go. Those folks up there are too good for this world. You’d better send it to the hospital.”

“But you see that they say they do not blame me,” Margaret said, with warmth.

“Oh, I can stand it. People usually don’t try to hurt my feelings that way. Don’t mind it, child. They will come to their senses, and see what nonsense it all is.”

Yes, it was nonsense. And how generous and kind at heart her husband was! In his skillful making little of it she was very much comforted, and at the same time drawn into more perfect sympathy with him. She was glad she was not going to Brandon for Christmas; she would not submit herself to its censorship. The note of acknowledgment she wrote to her aunt was short and almost formal. She was very sorry they looked at the matter in that way. She thought she was doing right, and they might blame her or not, but her aunt would see that she could not permit any distinction to be set up between her and her husband, etc.

Was this little note a severance of her present from her old life? I do not suppose she regarded it so. If she had fully realized that it was a step in that direction, would she have penned it with so little regret as she felt? Or did she think that circumstances and not her own choice were responsible for her state of feeling? She was mortified, as has been said, but she wrote with more indignation than pain.

A year ago Carmen would have been the last person to whom Margaret would have spoken about a family affair of this kind. Nor would she have done so now, notwithstanding the intimacy established at Newport, if Carmen had not happened in that day, when Margaret was still hurt and excited, and skillfully and most sympathetically extracted from her the cause of the mood she found her in. But even with all these allowances, that Margaret should confide such a matter to Carmen was the most startling sign of the change that had taken place in her.

“Well,” said this wise person, after she had wormed out the whole story, and expressed her profound sympathy, and then fallen into an attitude of deep reflection–“well, I wish I could cast my bread upon the waters in that way. What are you going to do with the money?”

“I’ve sent it to the hospital.”

“What extravagance! And did you tell your aunt that?”

“Of course not.”

“Why not? I couldn’t have resisted such a righteous chance of making her feel bad.”

“But I don’t want to make her feel bad.”

“Just a little? You will never convince people that you are unworldly this way. Even Uncle Jerry wouldn’t do that.”

“You and Uncle Jerry are very much alike,” cried Margaret, laughing in spite of herself–“both of you as bad as you can be.”

“But, dear, we don’t pretend, do we?” asked Carmen, innocently.

To some of us at Brandon, Margaret’s letter was scarcely a surprise, though it emphasized a divergence we had been conscious of. But with Miss Forsythe it was far otherwise. The coolness of Margaret’s tone filled her with alarm; it was the premonition of a future which she did not dare to face.

There was a passage in the letter which she did not show; not that it was unfeeling, she told my wife afterwards, but that it exhibited a worldly- mindedness that she could not have conceived of in Margaret. She could bear separation from the girl on whom she had bestowed her tenderest affection, that she had schooled herself to expect upon her marriage– that, indeed, was only a part of her life of willing self-sacrifice– their paths must lie apart, and she could hope to see little of her. But what she could not bear was the separation in spirit, the wrenching apart of sympathy, the loss of her heart, and the thought of her going farther and farther away into that world whose cynical and materialistic view of life made her shudder. I think there are few tragedies in life comparable to this to a sensitive, trusting soul–not death itself, with its gracious healing and oblivion and pathos. Family quarrels have something sustaining in them, something of a sense of wrong and even indignation to keep up the spirits. There was no family quarrel here, no indignation, just simple, helpless grief and sense of loss. In one sense it seemed to the gentle spinster that her own life was ended, she had lived so in this girl–ever since she came to her a child, in long curls and short frocks, the sweetest, most trustful, mischievous, affectionate thing. These two then never had had any secrets, never any pleasure, never any griefs they did not share. She had seen the child’s mind unfold, the girl’s grace and intelligence, the woman’s character. Oh, Margaret, she cried, to herself, if you only knew what you are to me!

Margaret’s little chamber in the cottage was always kept ready for her, much in the condition she had left it. She might come back at any time, and be a girl again. Here were many of the things which she had cherished; indeed everything in the room spoke of the simple days of her maidenhood. It was here that Miss Forsythe sat in her loneliness the morning after she received the letter, by the window with the muslin curtain, looking out through the shrubbery to the blue hills. She must be here; she could stay nowhere else in the house, for here the little Margaret came back to her. Ah, and when she turned, would she hear the quick steps and see the smiling face, and would she put back the tangled hair and lift her up and kiss her? There in that closet still hung articles of her clothing-dresses that had been laid aside when she became a woman–kept with the sacred sentiment of New England thrift. How each one, as Miss Forsythe took them down, recalled the girl! In the inner closet was a pile of paper boxes. I do not know what impulse it was that led the heavy-hearted woman to take them down one by one, and indulge her grief in the memories enshrined in them. In one was a little bonnet, a spring bonnet; Margaret had worn it on the Easter Sunday when she took her first communion. The little thing was out of fashion now; the ribbons were all faded, but the spray of moss rose-buds on the. side was almost as fresh as ever. How well she remembered it, and the girl’s delight in the nodding roses!

When Mrs. Fletcher had called again and again, with no response, and finally opened the door and peeped in, there the spinster sat by the window, the pitiful little bonnet in her hand, and the tears rolling down her cheeks. God help her!

XIX

The medical faculty are of the opinion that a sprain is often worse than a broken limb; a purely scientific, view of the matter, in which the patient usually does not coincide. Well-bred people shrink from the vulgarity of violence, and avoid the publicity of any open rupture in domestic and social relations. And yet, perhaps, a lively quarrel would be less lamentable than the withering away of friendship while appearances are kept up. Nothing, indeed, is more pitiable than the gradual drifting apart of people who have been dear to each other–a severance produced by change of views and of principle, and the substitution of indifference for sympathy. This disintegration is certain to take the spring and taste out of life, and commonly to habituate one to a lower view of human nature.

There was no rupture between the Hendersons and the Brandon circle, but there was little intercourse of the kind that had existed before. There was with us a profound sense of loss and sorrow, due partly to the growing knowledge, not pleasing to our vanity, that Margaret could get on very well without us, that we were not necessary to her life. Miss Forsythe recovered promptly her cheerful serenity, but not the elasticity of hope; she was irretrievably hurt; it was as if life was now to be